Gathering of the Chosen

by Timothy L. Cerepaka

  Chapter Nine

  “Foolish girl,” said Alira, shortly after Raya left the Stadium lobby. “She is foolishness incarnate.”

  For once, Carmaz agreed with Alira. While he had somewhat empathized with Raya's anger at Alira's decisions (even though he found her reasoning for it incredibly selfish and immature), he still thought it was stupid for Raya to march out of the lobby like that without telling anyone where she was going. At the very least, it was immature, though Carmaz thought that calling Princess Raya immature was also redundant.

  As for the other godlings, none of them seemed to want to acknowledge Raya's tantrum, or perhaps they simply didn't know what to do. Carmaz couldn't see Saia or Braim, due to the fact that they were at the back of the crowd, but he doubted that either of them had gone after Raya, either.

  Alira sighed and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Carmaz, can you go and find Raya? We cannot begin the Tournament unless all godlings are present and accounted for.”

  Carmaz looked up at Alira and frowned. “Why me? Can't you send a katabans to find her?”

  “Because I think it is a suitable punishment for your disrespect for my judgment,” said Alira. Then she added, under her breath, “Besides, the katabans never listen to me anyway. They only ever listen to the gods.”

  Carmaz sighed, but nodded and said, “All right. I'll track her down as quickly as I can.”

  Depositing his card into the front right pocket of his pants, Carmaz made his way through the crowd of godlings to the back of the lobby. Here he found Braim and Saia standing awkwardly together, but he said nothing to them. He just nodded at Saia, indicating that he should follow him, and his friend understood and walked behind him to the lobby's exit.

  The two emerged onto the street just outside of the Stadium. Much to Carmaz's consternation, it was starting to rain. He always hated the rain, even though it rained fairly frequently on Ruwa. Thankfully, his clothes had a hood, so he pulled it up over his head to keep his head dry.

  So did Saia, who was now looking at Carmaz from under his own hood. “Where do you think Raya went?”

  Carmaz frowned and looked down the street both ways. “I have no idea. Maybe we won't have to find her at all. She struck me as the kind of girl to come running back as soon as she gets a little wet. Maybe she'll return when the rain really picks up.”

  Saia looked down at the street and pointed at something. “Hey, is that Raya's card?”

  Saia quickly bent over, picked up the card, and showed it to Carmaz. Carmaz still couldn't read it. He figured that it had to be Raya's, seeing as all of the other godlings were still in the Stadium lobby and still had their cards with them.

  “She must have dropped her card while going in this direction,” said Saia, pointing down the street. “Let's see if we can find anyone who might have seen where she went.”

  Carmaz nodded and the two walked down the street even as the rain began to increase in intensity. It wasn't quite as heavy as the torrential downfalls of Ruwa, but it was still loud and wet enough to shut off all potential conversation between the two friends as they walked quickly down the street, keeping their eyes open for any sign of Raya.

  Even though Carmaz tried his best to keep his mind focused on the task at hand, he still couldn't help but feel a little annoyed at this recent turn of events. He had wanted to be the God of Martir, not the Human God. He didn't see any reason or logic in Alira's decision or in the decision of whichever god had recommended this position for him to Alira in the first place.

  But maybe it won't be all bad, Carmaz thought as the rain beat against his head and shoulders, soaking through his hood and making him feel more miserable than ever. I would still be a god. Not as powerful as whoever becomes the God of Martir, maybe, but I will still have far more power and influence than I do now. Maybe I will even be able to help my people somehow.

  The problem was, of course, that Carmaz had no idea what being the God of Humans even meant. He certainly had not heard of the Human God until recently. Did it mean that he had control over all of the humans on Martir? Did it mean that all humans were dependent upon his power and rule? It was all too vague for his tastes. Perhaps he'd find out more about what the position actually entailed during the Tournament itself.

  Taking his mind off the Tournament, Carmaz tried to focus on the present. He looked everywhere as he and Saia walked, but he didn't see any sign of Raya at all. He didn't even see any katabans, though that made sense, seeing as the rain was falling hard now and any katabans with sense in their heads were undoubtedly inside their homes keeping warm and dry.

  One thing Carmaz did notice about the street was how it did not get very slick despite the rain. The odd white stone that made up the street upon which he and Saia walked felt as dry as ever, as if the stone was somehow absorbing the rain. Carmaz was no mason, but he found that to be more than a little odd, though he dismissed it as being the work of the gods' magic, which he found even less comprehensible than mortal magic.

  Then, over the roar of thunder and the thundering rain, just as Carmaz was beginning to wonder if it might be wiser to head back and wait until the rain let up before continuing, a high-pitched, girlish shriek shot through the air.

  It was so loud that both Carmaz and Saia stopped and looked at each other in surprise.

  “Was that Raya?” Saia shouted over the rain, his words barely comprehensible to Carmaz.

  “I think it was!” Carmaz shouted back. “But where did—”

  His question was interrupted by another loud shriek. This time, Carmaz knew where it came from: On the other side of one of the smaller buildings on the other side of the street.

  “There!” Carmaz shouted, pointing toward that building. “I heard her over there!”

  Without hesitation, Carmaz and Saia dashed across the street, through the alleyway between the smaller building Carmaz had noticed and the taller one to its right, and into a back street on the other side.

  Carmaz saw Raya walking backwards, away from a large, hulking figure that seemed to wear darkness like a cloak. It had four arms, each carrying a sword, and it wore a mask like a baba raga, but that was all Carmaz could make out of the strange figure. In addition to the darkness around it, the heavy rain made it hard to see clearly, but Carmaz didn't need to see the assassin perfectly to understand that it was trying to kill Raya.

  “What the hell is that?” said Saia, his eyes widening under his hood. “A katabans?”

  “No idea,” said Carmaz. “But we have to stop it before it kills her.”

  Saia looked at Carmaz in alarm. “How? You and I are unarmed, you know.”

  “Then we rescue Raya and run away from it,” said Carmaz. “But we need to distract it first.”

  “Great idea,” said Saia. “So how do we do that?”

  Carmaz bent over and picked up a rock on the street. He then handed it to Saia and said, “You throw the rock at the creature. Insult it and then run once it starts chasing you. I'll grab Raya and all three of us will make a break for the Stadium, where we will be safe.”

  “Hold it,” said Saia, looking up from the rock Carmaz had given him. “When did I volunteer to be the bait?”

  “You're a better runner than I am and you have better aim, so the creature is less likely to capture you than me and you will be far more likely to hit it with this rock,” Carmaz said. “So it is unlikely that it will kill you.”

  “Unlikely?” said Saia. “How 'unlikely'? Are we talking 'the gods actually giving a damn about Ruwa' unlikely or 'Tinkar appearing out of nowhere to save us from the crustaceans' unlikely?”

  Carmaz just patted Saia on the shoulder and said, “Just do it. I promise you'll be safe. The creature clearly wants Raya anyway, so it will probably give up chasing you when it realizes it's been tricked.”

  Without waiting for Saia to answer, Carmaz ran back into the alleyway between the buildings and made his way through the other alleys until he found himself watching the creatur
e stomping toward Raya from behind her. The creature didn't seem to have noticed either Carmaz or Saia just yet, but then the rock that Carmaz had given Saia from earlier flew through the air and struck the creature in the side of the head.

  But the creature didn't even look at Saia as it walked. It continued stomping toward Raya with single-minded obsession, as if it hadn't even felt the rock hit its head.

  Plan B, then, Carmaz thought.

  He dashed out from the alley as fast as he was able. The creature was upon Raya now and raised its swords again. Raya looked too afraid to move. She just stared up at the blades through the hair plastered to her head as though she were facing an executioner about to behead her.

  Desperate, Carmaz jumped the last few feet and tackled Raya to the ground. The two rolled across the pavement until they stopped and Carmaz found himself on top of Raya, way too close for comfort.

  But then Carmaz heard the sound of the street cracking and looked up to see that the creature had brought all four of its blades down on the street. The street was now cracked and broken, which was an impressive feat, because Carmaz had not seen any cracks or wear in the streets of World's End since he got here. He had been under the assumption that the streets were made of some kind of unbreakable stone, but if this thing could crack the streets, then Carmaz was pretty much certain that there was no way any of them could beat it in a fair fight.

  Carmaz scrambled off Raya and hauled her to her feet. She practically collapsed against him, shivering and cowering. It seemed like the creature's attack on her had traumatized her, making her even more useless than ever, though Carmaz found that he oddly liked the way she clutched him so.

  Then Saia ran up to them and said, “Sorry the rock didn't work! I threw it as hard as I could, but—”

  “Doesn't matter,” Carmaz cut him off. “Just help me get Raya out of here. We can't beat the monster, but I think we can outrun it if we try.”

  Saia nodded and without another word grabbed Raya's other arm. The two hauled her between them as fast as they could, but it was slow-going. Raya could hardly stand on her own and could walk even less well, perhaps only walking every two or three steps. The rest of the time Carmaz and Saia had to drag her and, while she was not a particularly big or heavy woman, it still felt like dragging a large bag of rocks between them anyway. That it was raining, thus making their clothes heavy and obscuring their vision, only made everything worse.

  Just when they were halfway to the alley from which they had emerged, Carmaz heard a whistling in his ears and the monster was in front of them. Raya screamed when she saw it, while Carmaz and Saia looked up at it with pure fear. It raised its swords again and then swung them as ferociously as a swamp tiger swiping with its claws.

  All three of them dropped to the street, narrowly avoiding getting their heads cut off by the monster's blades, which whistled by over head. Then Carmaz, seeing an opening, stood up and punched the creature in the stomach as hard as he could.

  But it was like punching solid brick. As soon as he hit its stomach, the pain in his hand exploded, causing him to cry out and fall back down next to Raya and Saia. His hand felt broken, though he had no way of healing it at the moment.

  The monster grunted, as though amused by Carmaz's pathetic attack, and raised its blades again. This time, Carmaz was absolutely certain that it was not going to just kill Raya, but him and Saia as well, but he wasn't going to let that happen.

  As fast as he could, Carmaz grabbed Raya and then kicked Saia with his foot. The blow sent Saia rolling across the wet street away from them with a cry of shock, while Carmaz and Raya slid across the slick stone street underneath them.

  None of them slid or rolled very far, but it was enough to put them out of the reach of the creature. Only this time, the creature seemed to realize that they had escaped, because it stopped itself from smashing its swords down on the street and turned to face Carmaz and Raya, completely ignoring Saia, who was now cowering on the street behind it.

  Carmaz got to his feet, ignoring his broken hand and using his good hand to haul Raya back up to her feet. He tried to pull her along, to make her run away with him, but she was so traumatized by the monster's attack that she just stood there as frozen as a statue. Raya seemed to have lost all will to live, which almost made Carmaz want to just leave her and run.

  But he didn't. He stood by her, pushing her behind him, as the monster stomped toward them again. This time, even Carmaz could tell that the monster was losing its patience, as if this attack was taking far longer than it had planned.

  Then, out of nowhere, a burst of light hurtled through the air and struck the monster in the side. The monster let out a yelp, the first sound it had made so far, while a familiar voice nearby shouted, “Hey, ugly, long time no see!”

  Carmaz and Raya looked in the direction from which the light had come. Braim stood in the alleyway from which Carmaz and Saia had emerged, wand in hand, soaking wet from the rain but clearly ready to fight. He tossed his wand from hand to hand, his large, confident grin visible from under his hood even through the thick rain.

  “What, did you miss me?” said Braim. “Because I didn't miss you, you know, since you tried to murder me the last time we met and all.”

  Much to Carmaz's surprise, the monster turned away from him and Raya and began making its way toward Braim. Almost as soon as it did so, however, Carmaz felt the wind whistle by him and then heard the sound of metal tearing through flesh and the monster actually screamed.

  A second later, Carmaz saw an aquarian man, with a shark-like head, standing to the right of the monster. The aquarian man—who Carmaz had never seen before—carried a sword of his own, but it was a strange one, resembling the fin of a shark more than anything, though it glowed with energy, which meant that it was probably not an ordinary sword.

  The monster staggered forward, strange gold blood leaking out of a wound on its side where the aquarian's sword had cut through its skin. The gold blood melted through the stone underfoot, hissing and sending steam into the air.

  As for the aquarian, he stood up and turned around, holding his blade in both hands. The monster also turned to face its assailant, making growling noises as it did so, but it didn't even get another two steps before Carmaz saw motion out of the corner of his eye. Something small landed on the monster's back and stabbed it with two short swords.

  Again, the monster cried out in pain, only this time it tried reaching for whatever had landed on its back. The small thing, however, jumped off before the monster's four arms could reach it, and landed next to Carmaz and Raya.

  Now Carmaz saw that the 'thing' was a person, a very short, middle-aged woman, who carried twin short swords that glowed like the aquarian's sword. She wore a tunic similar to theirs, except gray. She stood up to her full—albeit not very considerable—height and looked up at Carmaz and Raya with a concerned, almost motherly look on her face.

  “How are you two, my dears?” asked the woman, as if she had not just stabbed a strange shadow beast in the back with her two swords. “Did that monster hurt you at all?”

  Carmaz and Raya—both utterly speechless at this sudden turn of events—shook their heads in response.

  “Oh, how wonderful,” said the woman with a kind smile. “I was worried that I'd have to tear that thing apart with my swords if it hurt a handsome man and beautiful woman like you two. Though that thing is a lot tougher than I thought.”

  The woman was right. The monster, despite now having two small but rapidly bleeding holes in its back to go along with the sword cut in its gut, whirled around to face them again. It now looked finished with this entire situation, but it still stepped toward them again anyway, as if it was not yet ready to give up.

  Not that it got very far before a chunk of the street rose up in front of its feet. The creature tripped over the protruding bit of street and fell flat on its face, causing more of that strange gold blood to leak from its wounds and melt the street beneath it.

 
A sudden laugh caused Carmaz to look to the right. He saw yet another godling—this one a young man who didn't look much older than Raya, perhaps even younger due to his baby fat—pointing a wand at the monster, clearly trying (and failing) to hold in his laughter. He waved at them with a large, rather mischievous grin on his face, as if he was sharing a great joke with them.

  “Hey, wasn't that funny?” the young guy shouted. “First he tried to kill you, but then he tripped and fell over himself. All thanks to little old me.”

  “This is not the time for joking, young man,” the aquarian swordsman shouted over the rain, the irritation in his voice obvious. “This is the time to kill this monster before it can kill any of us.”

  The young man looked offended by the aquarian's admonishment, but before he could respond, the monster rose back to its feet. Only this time, Carmaz noticed that it struggled to rise, no doubt due to the pain caused by the immense amount of blood it had lost already. That it could still stand at all was an impressive feat, though Carmaz doubted it would be standing up much longer.

  “Let's stop playing around, guys,” Braim shouted, causing the three newcomers to look in his direction. “Let's finish this off so we can get the Tournament started already.”

  “At least someone around here is taking the threat seriously,” said the aquarian swordsman loud enough for the young mage to hear him, who only scowled in response.

  Then Braim fired another burst of light from his wand tip, while the young mage waved his own wand and caused two stone chains to rise up from the street and wrap around the monster's waist. The light blast struck the monster in the back, right where the motherly woman from before had stabbed it, causing the monster to howl in pain again.

  Then the aquarian swordsman and the motherly woman jumped toward it with their blades above their heads. The monster struggled to escape the stone chains holding it down, but the blood loss must have weakened it considerably, because the chains didn't even budge under the stress it was no doubt putting on them.

  But just as the swordsman and the woman came within stabbing reach of the monster, it melted into a puddle of shadow, leaving the stone chains still standing where it had been moments before. The swordsman and the woman landed on top of the stone chains and then looked around rapidly, as if trying to find the monster.

  Carmaz also looked around while Raya clutched him as if she was afraid that he, too, would melt into shadow like the monster. The rain was letting up now, making it easier to see the street around them, but Carmaz saw no sign of the monster anywhere, save for the melted parts of the street where its blood had been.

  Before Carmaz knew it, all four of their saviors—Braim, the young mage, the aquarian swordsman, and the motherly woman—were gathered around them. Saia, too, was with them, but he looked rather intimidated by all of the godlings and seemed hardly able to speak in their presence.

  “You two okay?” said Braim. “How about Raya? Is she all right?”

  Carmaz looked at the quivering Raya at his side. He didn't see any wounds on her, so he nodded and said, “I think so. She just got scared is all.”

  Then Carmaz's hand—the one he had used to punch the monster—flared with pain, causing him to grunt. But the motherly woman then touched his painful hand with one of her swords and the pain vanished instantly.

  “There you go, dear,” said the woman. “Just a tiny bit of panamancy to make your hand all better.”

  “Uh, thank you, er …” Carmaz trailed off uncertainly, because he did not know her name.

  “Malya,” the woman said as she sheathed her short swords. “I'm a godling just like you. I'm from Friana and I am also in the Avian Goddess Bracket, in case you were interested.”

  “My name is Tashir,” said the aquarian swordsman, who unlike Malya kept his sword unsheathed. “Spider Goddess Bracket. I come from the country of East Yudra in the Undersea. Graduate of the Undersea Institute.”

  “And I'm Yoji,” the young mage said. He puffed out his chest. “Student from the Itrijan School of Magic. Graduated top of my class, since I'm a child prodigy. Also in the Hollech Bracket.”

  “I see,” said Carmaz. “But how did you four find us? Why did you even come search for us?”

  “Because you three were gone for too long and Alira was getting impatient,” Braim said. “Said that the start of the Tournament is going to have to be put off until tomorrow thanks to Raya storming off like that. As for how we found you, Yoji here knows some topomancy, so it was easy to locate you guys that way.”

  “It was really hard, though,” said Yoji. “It was like you guys just disappeared off the face of the earth. And when we did locate you, I thought it was a fluke, but I guess I'm just that awesome.”

  “Disappeared?” Carmaz said. “What does that mean?”

  “No one could locate you,” said Tashir. “It was like something was blocking our magic. Perhaps that monster had something to do with it.”

  Yoji looked toward the stone chains that still stood where he had summoned them, a frown on his face. “Just what was that thing, anyway? I've never seen anything like it in my life.”

  “I've seen it before,” said Braim. “First night on World's End, the thing tried to kill me in my sleep. I just barely survived thanks to some help from a friend of mine. I haven't seen it at all since then. Thought it had decided to leave and not bother anyone anymore.”

  “Was it a katabans?” said Carmaz. “Because it certainly didn't look human, or aquarian for that matter.”

  “Who knows?” said Braim with a shrug. “The gods are supposed to be investigating this to find out who he is and what he's trying to do, though I have no idea how well that investigation is coming along.”

  “Find out what he's trying to do?” Saia repeated in disbelief. He brushed back some of his wet hair and pointed at himself and Carmaz. “You mean the fact that he tried to murder us doesn't imply that maybe he's just a psycho murderer who likes to kill people?”

  “There has to be a deeper reason as to why he's only targeting us godlings, though,” said Braim. “As far as I know, he hasn't targeted any katabans or gods. Just us godlings.”

  “There likely is,” said Tashir, nodding. He looked around the area briefly, like he thought that the monster might still be around. “But I think we should return to the Stadium now. I dislike being out in the open like this, especially in a place where that monster just tried to kill us.”

  Before anyone could respond to that, a loud voice shouted, “Halt!”

  The loud voice caused Raya to start and clutch Carmaz so tightly that she actually hurt him. Nonetheless, Carmaz looked in the direction that the voice had come from, as did the other godlings, to see who had shouted at them.

  It was a katabans wearing the crystalline armor of the Soldiers of the Gods. But he wasn't alone. Six other Soldiers walked behind him, each one clad in armor similar to his, carrying swords and spears by their sides. Despite the rain, none of the Soldiers looked even the slightest bit wet, as if they had been inside until just recently.

  The lead Soldier—who must have been their Captain—was rather thin and scrawny under the armor, but he walked with far more confidence than Carmaz thought someone like him should have. The leader Soldier gestured at his underlings, who walked out from behind him and started examining the scene of the battle using strange tools that looked like magnifying glasses made of gold, though what they actually were, Carmaz had no idea.

  As for the lead Soldier himself, he walked up to the group of godlings and stopped. He didn't salute them. Instead, he said, “Which of you godlings was attacked by the mysterious assassin?”

  “Raya was,” said Carmaz, nodding at the princess who still clutched him as if her life depended on it. “And you are?”

  “Captain Garvan, Captain of the Soldiers of the Gods,” the Soldier said, tapping a star on his right shoulder that must have proved his position in the Soldiers. “When we heard about the attack from reports we received from kataban
s living in the area, we came as soon as we could. Was anyone hurt or killed in the attack?”

  “Hurt, yes, but not killed,” said Carmaz. “Thankfully.”

  Garvan frowned, as if he was actually disappointed that the monster had failed to claim any lives. But then his frown vanished and he said, “Where is the assassin now? Is he still in the area?”

  “No,” said Braim. He pointed at the stone chains that Yoji had made, which some of the other Soldiers were now inspecting with those strange magnifying glasses. “Bastard ran off after it became clear that he couldn't beat us. Just melted into shadow and vanished.”

  Garvan looked even more disappointed now, but then he shook his head and put on a more professional expression. “Well, we shall use all available methods to us to track him down, then. Once we do, we will make sure to let you know.”

  “Right,” said Carmaz, who wasn't very impressed by the slowness of the Soldiers in arriving to fight the assassin. “Tell me again why it took you guys so long to actually get here?”

  Garvan either ignored or had not heard Carmaz's question, because he then asked, “Did you learn anything about the assassin during his assault?”

  “Yes,” said Tashir. He held up his sword, which was still glowing with energy. “The beast can be harmed with a sword channeling magical energy. It also bleeds gold blood, similar to what the gods are said to bleed, and the blood melts anything it touches that is not protected by the gods' divine energy.”

  “Gold blood?” Garvan said. “How odd. Are you certain of that?”

  “As certain that the sky is blue and the Undersea is deep,” said Tashir.

  Garvan stroked his chin. A worried look appeared on his somewhat human features, a look which told Carmaz that Garvan was not sure what to make of this new bit of information.

  Finally, Garvan ceased stroking his chin and said, “Well, if that is all, then I will have some of my Soldiers escort you all back to the Stadium. We certainly do not want any of you to be assaulted on the way there by our assassin, who I sincerely doubt has given up trying to kill you yet.”

  “It probably bled to death,” said Yoji with a chuckle. “You should have seen all the blood it lost. Crazy.”

  “Even so, you still need as much protection as you can get,” said Garvan. “I will assign to you the best Soldiers in the squad to protect you.”

  “As long as they don't escort us after we head back to the Stadium, that sounds good to me,” said Carmaz.

  The way Garvan glared at Carmaz told him that he was probably Garvan's least favorite godling at the moment. Not that Carmaz really cared. He had a rather low opinion of katabans in general, so whether one liked him or not was of no concern to him.

  Then Garvan shook his head again and said, “Your escort should be here shortly. Once they arrive, it will be safe for all of you to return to the Stadium where you belong.”

  ***