Live Like a God

by Taylor Kole

  “No,” he said as he glanced around for Junea. Unable to locate her, he rose, pulled on his leather garment, and went to sit at the table.

  Moments later, the courses arrived. Eggs served over-easy, boiled chicken, a plate of grilled fish, and Reysona’s version of serving bread—a hybrid bread and tortilla shell made from corn.

  His chewing and the clink of utensils were the only sounds in the cavernous room as he ate. Flavor burst with an intensity that surpassed anything he had previously eaten. It was as if bonding with Junea activated new taste buds. Standing before him, Bellora rocked from heel to toe as if on the verge of speaking. A sixth sense told him it had something to do with the glow to his skin, and the scent in the air. To avoid the discussion, he focused on his meal.

  When his cup needed refilling, she skipped in, filled it, and spoke. “Will you need a bath this morning?”

  Yes, but he’d wait for greater privacy. “No, thank you.”

  Stepping closer, she said, “I just want you to know, I can be an excellent number two to Lady Junea.”

  Josh frowned, and cleared his throat. “Where is Junea?”

  “To be understood, what I mean by number two—”

  “I know what you mean. Have you seen Junea?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I will find her.”

  The forceful come-on had paused his eating. While he relaxed, he looked around.

  Two wicker chairs, bent concave and lined with large pillows, were positioned next to the bed, one with a supportive latticework of braces underneath. A stack of the wooden tablets similar to the one Junea had been reading waited between them.

  Josh wondered what she enjoyed reading: law, fiction, history?

  Feeling more controlled, he flipped a chunk of fish into his mouth. The perfectly seasoned filet carried a flavor similar to fresh lake perch served throughout Chicago. Thinking it had been caught in the crystal clear river he previously bathed in led to an appreciation of the flavors. It tasted… authentic.

  Junea entered with Bellora in tow.

  A new red dress dragged on the smooth floor. She had put up her hair with two thin sticks.

  She looked more beautiful than he remembered.

  As if sensing his thought, she smiled.

  He blushed.

  She sat next to him and motioned for Bellora to fill two glasses from a new pitcher. Bellora then stepped back a respectful distance.

  “Are you feeling better, my lord?” Junea asked.

  He tilted of his head as he considered her question. The food helped him feel restored. Junea’s scent and very presence completed him. Testing his injuries, he stretched from one side to the other, and felt only the faintest tenderness.

  “I feel renewed,” he said, before tossing more fish into his mouth. “How is Flavius?”

  Junea laughed. “He is higher than the suns. You can’t force a respite to his speeches.” She shook her head. “Though his smell is becoming unbearable. On your first day we bathed the demon queen’s scent from you.” She pointed to a small jar on his nightstand. “We bottled as much as possible for future travels in that region, but Flavius refuses to wash, and after five days, smells as ripe as a bloated sow.”

  “Five days?” He placed another bite of fish into his mouth and chewed slowly. Could that much time have lapsed? The missing days kept him from smiling at his page’s foolishness.

  “You needed your rest,” Junea said as she traced her hand over his rib. “These wounds should have taken forty nights to heal. It seems as though yours will heal in ten.”

  Junea grabbed a candle to give him more light as Josh inspected himself. There was significant improvement—even from earlier that day—or last night? The scabs looked lighter and smaller. The injury above his ankle had been reduced to a scratch.

  “Take a deep breath for me,” she said as she placed her hands on his ribs.

  He obliged. The bruising was uncomfortable, but it didn’t hurt when he took a deep breath.

  “How did that feel?”

  “Good. Completely healed.”

  She glanced at him sideways, as if she thought he might be exaggerating. Then she eased even closer to the largest wound to inspect it. “The first day, your breathing was labored. I feared festering. But no more.” Leaning up, she drank from her glass and, with sweeping eyes, calculated all he had eaten. Apparently satisfied, she continued, “Flavius has retold your story so many times that I can recite it word for word. Messengers have carried the news to nearby villages. You’ll be the namesake of a dozen Bristalius boys by week’s end.”

  She handed him a glass of wine. Once accepted, she moved her hand to his thigh.

  “Thank you for all you have done. If time allows, I would enjoy hearing your version of the hunt. With Flavius unconscious and waking to find the queen dead, I imagine some important elements are missing.”

  Noticing Josh had abandoned the food, Bellora cleared the table.

  Josh considered visiting Flavius, but the food had him sated, and being near Junea removed the necessity of all other acts.

  “Would you like to hear it now?” he asked.

  “Certainly, let us get comfortable.” She moved to a wicker chair.

  Josh excused himself to go to the restroom. Returning, he plopped into the reinforced chair.

  Starting with the anxiety that followed him out the first gate of Reysona, he told her everything. He had never been much of a storyteller, perhaps because great stories require exceptional imagination and life experience. This, however, involved recapping amazing events that ended in the vanquishing of a sinister beast. It was a task suitable for anyone with a memory.

  During the telling, Bellora and other servants crept in to the room. She and Junea gasped more than once, which engaged Josh in the telling.

  “Was the queen really as big as a tree?” Bellora asked.

  “Much larger. More like a house,” Josh answered. “And she moved faster than a trapper.”

  “How did it feel the moment you killed her?” Junea asked.

  “I thought…” Her question had been innocent enough, but Josh flushed. He’d been thinking of Junea’s safety, of the people of Reysona, and that he’d soon be dead. “About all the things important to me.”

  Junea’s look softened. She inhaled deeply, “Have you done things like this in your world?”

  “Stuff like what?” Josh asked.

  “Laid evil to rest,” Bellora said. “Saved generations of lives with the flick of your sword.”

  Josh had once dived off a dock to save what he thought was a drowning cousin. It turned out the kid was just a bad swimmer, who kicked and flailed.

  “Nothing that impactful,” Josh said.

  “You are too modest, JoshRidley,” Junea said. “I’m certain you leave a mark everywhere you go.”

  Josh did sign his name on a lot of forms. “My world is different from yours.”

  “How so?” Bellora said. “Do the men there not like the flesh of women? Do they not treasure a woman toned, and curved, and pure?” She squeezed her chest together and popped her hip side to side. “Do you not do all you can to ease the suffering and increase the joy of your children? Do you not toil for your food?”

  “There is food everywhere,” Josh said. “It’s on every corner. For sale in every building you enter. It’s cooked for you, served hot or ice cold.”

  “Ice?” Junea said.

  “Cold food?” Bellora said. “How can you make food cold?”

  Josh thought about the enclosure he inhabited and said, “Do you have winters here, cold weather?”

  “I have heard stories of cold weather, and even of ice and snow. We do not have that here. If you travel down to Eludius, nights can grow cold enough to make a person ill, but only after a rain.”

  “That’s one of the better ways to die in that pit of hell,” Bellora said. “Up in Atlantis, the rich are fanned by the poor to stay cool, that’s all the cold I need.”

  The more win
e they drank, the easier the laughs, and the closer Junea got to him.

  He and Karen had talked, but never without an agenda. To this day he didn’t know who her best friend had been growing up, how she lost her virginity, or the worst thing she had done to somebody.

  Everyone said conversation was foreplay, and Josh had believed those people were obsessed with sex. If talk was foreplay, he thought, you might as well label breathing the same, but as he listened to Junea’s sweet voice and carefree laughter, he found himself wanting to be alone with her.

  The touching was indirect at first. A toasting of steins. A brush of the knee. Pulling her chair closer during a laugh.

  When she reached for the mug in his hands after setting hers down, he knew the time had come for a repeat of the previous night, and he licked his lips in anticipation.

  She kissed him gently. Lips connecting, pressing soft. Junea pulled away and dismissed the lingering servants without taking her eyes off of him.

  Josh hardly noticed them extinguishing flames as they went. He did however, notice Bellora had stepped closer.

  Junea saw it as well and shooed her away with the flap of her hand.

  “But m’lady—”

  “Not now, Bellora.”

  She stood a moment, stared at Josh as if about to cry, and then stormed off.

  Ignoring her proved easier than expected, especially as Junea disrobed. Through the kisses, he glanced about the room to make sure Bellora had exited.

  “Don’t concern yourself with her,” Junea whispered.

  He hadn’t been. At that moment, he had no idea anyone in the world existed beyond Junea.

  Thirty minutes later they lay entwined, free of covers. Junea panting. Had love making ever been like that before? Junea’s excitement was evident and overwhelming. The feel of her so intense and constant he felt panic at the first impulses he was climaxing because he didn’t want it to end.

  Now here, nearly sedated, he felt the greatest peace of his life. That was certain.

  Sound drew his attention to Bellora peeking in the doorway at the end of the hall. She pulled back as soon as he glanced in her direction.

  “What’s her deal?”

  Junea bolted upright. “You have formed a deal with her?”

  “No,” he held back, you’re the only one for me, but you. Well, there was Karen, back at the home they shared. Seeing concern in Junea’s eyes, he pushed those thoughts aside. “I meant, what’s the matter with her?”

  With an exhale of relief, Junea said, “Bellora is young. She is infatuated with you. She wants very much to give you your second child, and if that is your choice, I only ask to be informed.”

  Second child?

  Like swimming after a meal, the talk of pregnancy shouldn’t be allowed for at least one hour post-coupling. More off-putting, Josh realized she had said second? Josh had explained to her he would have entertained the notion—had Karen been willing—of having children, but Junea knew he had none.

  “What do you mean, second child?”

  Junea kissed him, climbed from bed, tossed a silk shawl across her shoulders, and moved to the wicker chair. Here, she used a stick and lighted a few extra candles, brightening the area.

  “I am with child, JoshRidley. It is known that gods are superiorly potent. Unless the female is barren, gods impregnate their mates with but a drop of their passion.”

  Josh sat up and scooted until his back rested against the headboard. He started to sweat.

  “Bellora underestimates the dangers of her wish.”

  At the word danger, Josh found his annoyance abating in place of concern for Junea. Regardless of how long they had known each other, or the context of their union, she was only the fourth woman he had been with. The second that he loved. And the first to have a mutual attraction with him. So he voiced his most pressing concern:

  “What dangers?”

  Junea tightened the shawl and retracted her legs. “Being of your lineage, the child will be a half-god. The passing of your weight and strength will decrease drastically with each generation until it is absent by the fourth separation, making that child a common citizen, but the child spawned by a god is of a weight that affects the mother.”

  Clearing his throat, he tried to do the math, and quickly understood the many problems a fifty pound baby could create.

  “Your seed grows in me,” she said innocently; her dark eyes were full of love. “I will give you a strong young man. A boy who will make his people proud—” She smiled nervously. “But if I am to survive the process, I will be bedridden on a floating mattress for the final one-hundred nights.” She swallowed. “They will make incisions to assist with the birth. And even with those precautions, I may not survive.”

  Josh moved his feet over the side of the bed and dragged her, chair and all, closer.

  Placing a hand on her thigh, he drew her even closer and rubbed her leg. Being the cause of her risk rendered him speechless. Yet, somewhere beneath his fear, excitement at passing on his genes—these specific genes—existed.

  Being a man, and not that bright, he blurted, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”

  Another smile that melted him. A dismissive wave of her hand. “This is what I want, JoshRidley. It is what Bellora wants. It is what Bristalius needs to be safe when you return to the heavens.” A shadow crossed her face and she looked away. “The birthing dangers, however, are not the greatest threat.

  “RobertJohnson knows of your visit. He keeps spies near the Hall of the Gods, watching to see if any gods enter Bristalius or Carmanthius, for those are the only levels where gods arrive. He will know when you depart. One hundred nights after that, his golden guards will come in search of pregnant women. He has spies everywhere, which is why I’ve kept our time together out of the public eye. And to survive the birth, I will require no less than two maids, and two male servants, all of whom must disappear without drawing attention.”

  Before he could visualize a golden guard or what they would do to the pregnant women they found, he effortlessly lifted the wicker chair, and gently dumped her onto the bed.

  Smiling, she scooted closer and curled against his shoulder.

  “Do not let this concern you, JoshRidley. The villagers love my father. I will be safe after you return to the heavens. Your namesake will grow old and become as legendary as his father. Bellora would lack such support. If you mothered her or other maidens, their risk would increase.”

  Junea rested her head on his wound, unintentionally reminding him of his mortality, but that did not quell his outrage at someone threatening the life of his child. Positives existed in Josh’s favor, however. If this mad RobertJohnson had been here for over two-hundred years, he had to be getting old. From Josh’s math, at his own age, he could live a minimum of four-hundred healthy years should he return to Betaloome.

  In top shape, perhaps with a dozen half-god offspring, he could topple this tyrant, eradicate the demons, and bring safety to all of Betaloome.

  Of course, the flip side of that coin included his death, for laws existed. No god may return without punishment of death. RobertJohnson gave most of those who returned the chance to defeat him in combat. None had, and each of those gods had to have had more combat training than Josh, who had zero.

  Karen, the woman whom he had built a life with, was a major roadblock as well. He didn’t want to consider what his abrupt disappearance would mean for her. Lastly, there was Apotheosis, a mega-world filled with scores of gods and hundreds of millions of square miles offering extreme appeal. An entirely alternate world, where he could make a claim, rule a people, and live how he chose.

  Junea rubbed her hand across his chest and kissed his shoulder.

  He could not let her be killed because of him. The thought made him want to roar. Conversely, he could not abandon Karen, drowning her in insurmountable debt. Financially, he couldn’t afford to return even if he wanted. Maybe if he saved for two years, but that would mean twenty-
six advancing years in Betaloome.

  “This talk is too heavy, JoshRidley,” Junea said as she snuggled closer. “Tomorrow you shall address the crowd. A few nights after that,” she said in a dying whisper, “we can discuss the hunting party for raiding another mound.”

  Josh appreciated that she hadn’t looked up and saw his concern. Hugging her, he accepted he would leave this woman in great peril.

  Clearing another mound was the least he could do.

  As he felt her drift off to sleep, he thought about his future, RobertJohnson, a golden guard, and the rock and hard place he found himself wedged between.

  XII

  Upon exiting the temple at high noon, Josh discovered dozens of gifts piled on the steps. Drawings; knitted shirts and socks; a throw pillow; a cloth doll in his likeness; even a tethered chicken with a nearby open sack of feed.

  A framed and easel-mounted painting captured his attention. Its life-like realism pulled him closer.

  It depicted him the moment after splitting the spider that killed Nero. Its artistic quality reanimated phantom vibrations from when his blade hit the soil. The front half of the spider, with Nero in its fangs, dipped forward as if the demon now realized its mistake and was attempting to return the seasoned warrior to the ground.

  In the painting, Josh’s head angled away, tilted to give his profile. His blond hair—made masculine by the artist—covered most of his face. Villagers circled the scene, their faces blurred and ghostly.

  Josh smelled the hot innards from that day, tasted the blood in his mouth, and remembered the cocktail of adrenaline, fear, rage, and triumph.

  Karen might find the rendition offensive—with its tumbling entrails and snapshot of violence—but if Josh could figure a way to have it resized, it would hang above their headboard.

  Judging from the world he inhabited, it seemed the resizing process only effected organic material. Too bad, for if this hung over his head every time he viewed this lone memento from a spectacular world, feelings of total conquest would burst forth.

  Seeming to lack the paparazzi culture, the villagers allowed him to roam with a measure of privacy. They followed and watch, some smiled, young girls giggled and fled, young boys stared with slack jaws or mimed themselves in battle as the burly JoshRidley.