Portals of Infinity: Kaiju Page 24

  Loomis laughed, "Or what? Your paltry band of men will attack? We will turn over the device when we think the time is right, and not a moment before."

  Several priests stumbled out as he talked. They were putting on their vestments, still getting organized.

  "So, is this what your word, your god's word was all along? A lie?" I drew my swords slowly and prepared myself mentally to attack. I was going to enjoying cutting that smirking bastard down.

  "Evean, what is this treachery?" I called looking at her. "To stand with this pissant and his treacherous religion!"

  "Treachery?" Evean laughed looking at me, from where she was standing besides Loomis. "You think that was treachery?"

  She grabbed her sword then and pulling it out of its sheath and in a smooth motion she swung the blade wide and around, neatly decapitating a very surprised looking Loomis, and then turned to attack the priests that had been standing behind him.

  "Now this, THIS is treachery!" She screamed, laughing loudly.

  "Attack!" I yelled and led my men forward through the gap to attack the men behind the barricade as Evean cut into the soldiers defending Quzelatin's temple, her men joining her in the attack.

  "For Roden!" She cried out, "Down with the betrayers!"

  I bulled my way past the first group of guards, killing two of them as I passed, leaving the rest for those following me and ran up besides her, joining with her in the fight. Being on holy ground I knew that this fight was not going to be easily won.

  "Where's his high priest?" I asked Evean.

  "What, no 'thank you, Evean? I am in your debt, Evean? May I kiss your feet, Evean?'" Evean said and then lunged forward with a grunt killing another defender.

  "Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get Rachel to let me have another wife," I said and kicked the one in front of me in the balls, and then cut his head off as he bent forward, grunting in pain.

  Evean laughed and made a kiss at me. "You really know how to charm a gal, don't you, Will?"

  "What can I say?" I ducked an attack and moved forward to engage another defender, "You just bring out the best in me. So, where is their high priest?"

  "Oh, he's passed out in my bed," Evean gave me a nasty grin, "with a couple of my priestesses. I suspect they'll be making short work of him any moment now."

  I actually felt it then, when Quzelatin's high priest died, and I could feel Fel urging me onward.

  "Into the breech!" I yelled and charged through the front doors, with Jane and Evean hot on my heels as my band of warrior-priests followed, along with Evean's guards.

  I got zapped three times in quick succession by some sort of bolt of power, and had used up all of my heal spells after the second one, but the warrior-priests following behind me were casting on me, Jane, and even Evean as we charged down the aisle. I noticed, as we got closer that there were half a dozen dead priests and priestesses around the altar. The priestesses were all wearing Roden's colors.

  After the next round of bolts zapped us, they stopped and started concentrating on the people behind us. I think Quzelatin realized he had to change tactics and take out my warrior-priests first.

  At that point Evean took out something that looked like a hand grenade and threw it at the altar. When it hit, it broke open and a foul smell filled the room, causing a slowing of the bolts that were raining down on us.

  "What was that?" Jane said, as she slid to a stop before the altar and pulling that big hammer of hers off of her back, she started in on the altar.

  "It's only temporary, so you better work fast!" Evean said and started setting things on fire while I pulled the sledgehammer I'd brought along off of my back and started in on the altar along with Jane.

  It was just like the altar in Marland of Tantrus's that we'd destroyed all those years ago, every time we hit it, screams filled the room, except if anything, these were louder and more painful.

  When the altar started to crack, we both moved around to the sides this time and raising up our hammers we brought them down together, breaking the altar in two and causing an explosion that picked us each up and tossed us both back a dozen feet. The majority of the explosion was focused towards the front doors of the temple however, which were blown off by the force of the it.

  I picked myself back up and shook my head, I was covered in blood, and way too much of it was my own. A dozen of my men came running inside then, running up to me and Jane and healing us both.

  "Help Evean," I said and motioned over to where she was still moaning on the floor.

  "Yes, Will."

  "Then help her set fire to the place."

  "Yes, Will."

  "And get someone to dig up some of the ward stones," Evean moaned from where she was laying on the floor.

  "We're already working on that, Champion," one of my warrior-priests, said.

  Getting up, I made my way to the front doors, looking outside, I could see there was fighting going on in the streets, I guess the more devout of Quzelatin's followers were here to try and save the temple.

  The wolats, having recovered some of their strength, were tearing them to shreds. It wasn't pretty and I wasn't even going to bother trying to stop it.

  There were two teams of about eight of my warrior-priests prying up flagstones and digging into the ground. Once one of those wards was gone, with all of the other destruction that had been done, this place was finished.

  I turned back and looked into the nave of the temple. The curtains on the walls were starting to catch, I saw Evean duck into one of the back rooms, with a torch in her hands, Jane hot on her heels with a torch of her own, and six of my warrior-priests in tow.

  I looked around the floor then, there were a lot of dead, I counted twenty of my own before I gave up, and at least ten of Evean's. Of those of us who had charged originally, only we three champions had survived.

  I felt it then, they must have found one of the wards as the ground suddenly de-sanctified and the temple was no longer holy.

  I could also feel that Fel wanted me to get that device and return home immediately.

  "Is Hess still with us?" I called out to the men outside.

  "No, Will, he was leading the men behind you," one of the men said as they started on a third stone.

  "Find out which of you is in charge, once this place is burning, gather everyone up and either find a place to lie low, or go home. Pray to Fel for guidance, I have to leave."

  "Yes, Will!"

  "Oh, and make sure everyone knows, that I'm proud of you, I'm proud of you all, and so is Fel."

  "Thank you, Champion Will," he said and all of the men turned to me and gave me a quick salute and went back to whatever it was they were doing.

  "Roden is pretty damn proud of his people too," Evean sighed, coming up to me with the Okishijen Desootoria in her hand, which she presented to me.

  "Sadly I don't think any of the priestesses and guards I brought with me survived the fight."

  "Why did you bring them?" I asked. Jane was jogging up to join us now.

  "Because I knew when Loomis pulled this little stunt of his that Quzelatin had sold us out. So I just played along until you showed up. That idiot Loomis thought I was on his side, even after the warnings I'd given you both. Hell, I think even Quzelatin thought I was on his side and that Roden would be won over. So they thought I was bringing people to help defend against you."

  Evean sighed and shook her head, "Between what happened at Barassa, Marland, and Riverbend, Roden lost over ten thousand followers. Roden wants that gojira dead and will not side with anyone who delays that death for any reason."

  I nodded, and turned to one of my warrior-priests, "Do you have any kind of recharging spell you can cast on me? I need to open a portal to the temple and I'm rather drained right now."

  "Of course, Will." He said and called over the others that were still inside with us and they started in on some sort of coordinated spell. I really had no idea what most of the cleric spells were, as I really
couldn't use them anyway.

  Five minutes later and I opened a portal and stepped through with my wolat Tom, Jane, her wolat, and even Evean followed us through.

  We all bowed to the altar and of course Jane and I perked right up, being refreshed just by being in one of Fel's temples. Me, because I was his champion, Jane because she was the champion of Fordessa, who was in his pantheon. Sadly Evean didn't get the benefit of that.

  "I'm surprised you came," I said looking at her.

  "Roden wants me to see this through to the end, no matter what the cost," she sighed, and then smiled, "Hello, Feliogustus," She said and gave a rather seductive sway of her hips.

  "Another time and I would be impressed, Evean," Fel's voice said. "But lookouts have spotted a cresting wave in the distance headed this way."

  I swore and jumping up on Tom's back I kicked him into a gallop, startling the guards by the doors who barely pushed them open in time for me as I rode out into the streets and headed for the docks.

  I made it to the docks and turned Tom downstream, riding along the side of the river, I could see the wave crest coming towards us now and I was pretty sure it was the monster, but I wasn't going to waste our only device without being damn sure after all of the trouble we went through to get it.

  I reined Tom in, then jumping off of his back and diving into the water I started to swim towards the monster, holding the weapon in my muzzle as I did so, my fangs on either side of two of the long bars linking the ends on one side.

  When he came into view, it was quite the shock, he was big alright and this was the first time I'd ever seen him this close. The water at least was clear enough that I saw him a couple of hundred feet away, so I pulled the device out of my muzzle and held down the trigger.

  The instructions had been clear; pressing once started a ten-minute countdown. Holding it down would cause it to activate in twenty seconds.

  And that was when I got my biggest shock of the day, the monster saw me, and suddenly its eyes narrowed and I could see its pupils shrink and then widen, almost as if in fear. I got the distinct impression that it knew just what it was I was holding.

  "Son of a bitch," I swore to myself as it turned to dive to the bottom of the river, because damn it all if a portal hadn't just appeared there! It was a champion!

  I let go of the trigger and started swimming for the portal, there was no way in hell I was going to let this bastard get away from me after everything I'd gone through to get this damn bomb!

  It took him a minute to get through the portal, and for once his size worked against him as I grabbed his tail as it went by and just hung on and triggering the 'eyes and ears' ability so Fel would know what was happening after I passed through the portal.

  When I came out of the other side, I was dizzy for a moment, but I had the bomb in a death grip by now.

  I started to cast cure spells on myself, to make up for not having any air to breathe and I grabbed the trigger as I looked around.

  I was in a temple, a gigantic underwater temple, and apparently the monster had just realized that I wasn't supposed to be there. It turned and swam at me with its mouth open; I guess it was hoping to chew me up before the weapon would detonate.

  Meanwhile I was getting zapped by the god whose temple this was, again and again. I could see the twenty-second timer running down, and it was probably the longest twenty seconds of my life. I ran out of cure spells, I was running out of breath, and I was in a tremendous amount of pain as I curled around the bomb to protect it, as the monster's jaws started to clamp down on me.

  I felt the device start to activate then, and my last conscious action was to flip them all off as I felt my body being crushed.

  Twenty-two

  Hell

  The pain, was tremendous.

  There was a lot of screaming, the typical insanities, and for the first time in a decade I actually thanked that nameless god from years ago who had torn me to pieces so badly that it had taken Fel months to put me back together.

  Because I not only knew how to survive this, but I knew I would survive this.

  'DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!' thundered through my spirit-being as I was tortured.

  'Yeah,' I thought to myself, 'I killed your ass.'

  'YOU HAVE KILLED THOUSANDS, TENS OF THOUSANDS, HUNDREDS, MILLIONS!'

  All I could do was feel awesome about that and think of Feliogustus, Fel, home, the people I had saved, not only on my world, but maybe countless others as well.

  'MURDERER!'

  And damn proud of it too.

  'YOU WILL NEVER RETURN HOME! YOU WILL BE TRAPPED HERE FOREVER!'

  I wished I had hands so I could flip him off again. I just bared the pain, bared the attempts to destroy me, to tear my soul apart. They could make it seem as long as they wanted to, but I knew it would pass, it would pass, it would pass....

  Eventually it did pass, and for a time, I have no idea how long a time, I wasn't aware of anything. But after a while, again I have no idea how long it was, I realized I was alone, in a void, and every so often I would be pulled to another void.

  I lost count of how many times I went through this, but I had the vague feeling that I was just a lost soul, bouncing around, trying to find its way home. I knew that connections between the negative planes and the plane on which the spheres I lived in were far and few between. And probably most of those were blocked in one manner or another.

  Eventually something happened, and I suddenly found myself in a different sort of void. This one had gods in it, none of which I recognized, but as I continued to move from one to the next, I could tell they were there. Some examined me, but none really bothered me, I guess to them I was just another soul on its way home. Still, I had no idea how long I was gone. I didn't know if days were passing, years, centuries, nothing. But I could feel the pull of Fel now, and it seemed as if I was actually picking up speed as I drew closer and closer.

  And then I was sitting in Fel's bar, with Fel. I couldn't help myself, I got up and ran to him and hugged him tight.

  "I missed you too, William." He said and patted my head.

  "How long was I gone? Should I have quit so you could hire another?"

  "No, I was able to get by without you. When the other gods discovered that the monster was actually another god's champion, and that he was trying to invade our sphere, there was a power shift among us.

  "And when I showed them what you had done, once you had gotten there. Well, they all fell into one of two camps: 'Thankful' or 'Afraid.'"

  "I really did mess that god up back there, didn't I?" I laughed.

  "Yes, you killed everything in his temple and within a hundred miles of his temple. Which due to the rather interesting topography of that dimension, was all of his followers, all of his priests, and a fair number of other beings."

  "So what was all of that bouncing around I felt?" I asked.

  "Just as you thought, your soul was bouncing from sphere to sphere on the negative planes, trying to find a point to cross back over. The number of connections are few, and often temporary, so it took a while before you finally made it through.

  "But you'd gone through so many by that point you were spending very little time in each of them. So when you finally made it back to the positive plane, you got here very quickly, for all that you were several hundred spheres away."

  I nodded, hugged him again, and then sat down to drink my beer. After I don't know how long of nothingness, it tasted great.

  "So, break it to me Fel. How long?"

  "Two years."

  I winced, "Two years? Exactly?"

  "One year, ten months, twenty eight days," Fel shrugged and smiled, "And you have three more to go before I can reincarnate you."

  I sighed heavily and nodded, "Well, at least I'm home now, and I'll be able to see everyone soon enough. I really wished I could have thanked Hess and the others for what they did. I know compared to you, my thanks probably doesn't mean all that much, but I could
never have done it without them."

  "Oh, they know. But I will pass on your sentiments on the other side."

  "Thanks. So where did they come from anyway? I hadn't heard anything about them, and I hadn't seen them training at any of the other temples."

  Fel smiled at me, "They came from the Champion's Temple. That is where their order is based."

  I sat back, surprised, I had almost forgotten about that place.

  "Which is how I wanted it. It's a secret. Only members of that order, you, and Narasamman know about it."

  "How many did I lose in the attack?"

  "We," Fel said emphasizing the 'we', "lost forty-eight in the fight, only twenty-five survived. Ten of them came home; the other fifteen immediately set up three different temples in Bronsard and started converting people. Between Fordessa's priests and musicians, the story of what Quzelatin had done, and what you then did to him, with the help of Jane and Evean, quickly made the rounds. Even Roden's priests made sure the story was spread."

  "And his followers dumped him for that?"

  "Well, no one likes a loser, and everybody loves a winner!" Fel laughed and hoisted his mug in salute.

  I hoisted mine in return and took a long pull off of it.

  "There have been a few changes around here, William, I must warn you."

  "Oh? What?"

  Fel just smiled at me, "I don't want to spoil the surprise. So I'm not going to tell you."

  "And make me worry for the next three days!" I shook my head. "Better warn the recently departed not to spill the beans then," I said and stood up.

  A thought occurred to me, "How come I'm still all in one piece after all of that? I was thinking I was going to show up here another basket case."

  "Most of what was done to you healed itself, in the time you spent bouncing around," Fel shrugged then, "Truth is, you showed up five days ago, I just didn't restore your full awareness until I had you all fixed up."