Live and Let Lie

by F. A. Bentley

  The dull roar of anger and disbelief became a raging vortex of calls for my head. Trial by mob. My favorite.

  “So, you want my head more than you want to save your master? Fine. Come and get it then.”

  They did, however the life of a Chort wasn’t exactly an easy one considering the bad hand fate dealt them. It only got worse if the guy they want to kill happened to already know all their weaknesses.

  I shot a ball of light into the sky, and a snap of my fingers gave birth to a glaring floodlight amid the dark woods. Heedlessly, confident in their numbers if not their home field advantage, the Chorts charged. Crawling out of the thickets they sent salvos of fireballs my way.

  Lesser reflections flickering, wand sword swinging, Chort blood spilled and limbs were detached from bodies. Still they kept pouring out of the woods at me in a limitless horde. At this rate they really were going to overwhelm me. I underestimated their courage. They must not have anywhere else left to run to.

  The brawl came to a sudden halt when the ground began trembling. An earthquake? Here? The Chorts stopped too, gibbering and wailing. Seizing the moment, I slipped through the trees in search of a more defensible position. I found it. A grand hill top leading to a sheer stone cliff. At least I won’t get backstabbed with my back to sheer rock. That’s when another rumbling came, and with it words.

  “Who are you?” a deep echoing voice demanded.

  The sudden question, and sinister tone of the voice nearly made my heart shoot out my throat. Casting my gaze past the dark trees, I tried to get a lock onto whatever just spoke.

  “I’m just a lost soul looking for an all expense paid trip to St. Petersburg,” I replied.

  The ground trembled. The voice rumbled. “Have you not aeroplanes or automobiles? Other such contraptions?”

  Annoyance and mild interest mixed together to form the deep and terrible voice. Damn. If this was the guy making the ground tremble, Nikita Gogol might just end up being the least of my worries.

  “Anything for a bargain,” I replied cheekily.

  “Insolence. I expected as much from a Human.”

  My eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Again I could make out the eyes of Chorts lingering a respectable distance away from the bald hill. Why weren’t they attacking?

  “Avenge us.”

  “Please please, he deserve to die.”

  “Filthy human. Kill him.”

  “Help us. Help us father.”

  My eyebrows furrowed. Father?

  The hilltop shifted. The boulders atop it moved.

  No, not exactly. The boulder was in fact a balled fist. That fist fit into a massive arm that could easily be mistaken for a ledge. The arm fit into a body that closely resembled a sheer rock surface, and that ended in a immense horned head that looked the spitting image of a mountain’s summit. Eyes bigger than me, opened wide, regarded me with monstrous intensity.

  I think I could be forgiven for mistaking this thing for a mountain.

  “I will ask you one more time, Human,” the demonic giant spoke. “Who are you? Speak.”

  Chapter 60

  “Uh,” I said, hesitating, “Charles Locke. I’m an agent of Nine Towers. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  I didn’t want to show it, but I was sweating bullets. The Father of Chorts, a monster of immense size and terrible power, could only be one thing. A half forgotten God of the old pantheon.

  Absolutely terrifying.

  Teeth the size of stalagmites crowded its cavernous mouth. Clawed hands and thick arms as wide as four lane highways shuffled and settled. He looked like he could bench press Mount Everest if he wanted to really impress a girl.

  “Charles Locke,” the mountaintop God said, slowly churning my name in its mouth. “Why are you in my domain?”

  “I need to get to St. Petersburg. Nikita Gogol, the Familiar Lord is about to be attacked by a Nine Towers strike team.”

  “If this is true,” the mountain top demon spoke. “Then why would you help the Familiar Lord? You said you are from Nine Towers. His enemy.”

  “Because I think I can talk him down. And I think I can talk Nine Towers out of this.”

  “Why?” the monster boomed.

  “Because I don’t think Gogol is the traitor Nine Towers believes him to be.”

  The monster contemplated my words. A massive clawed hand stroking his enormous chin. At the gesture, the tiny voices of the Chorts around me cried out in dismay.

  “Don’t heed him, he’s a Human!” cried one out.

  “He’ll betray the Familiar Lord,” said another.

  “Murderer. How many of us has he killed?” and another.

  The last one’s words seemed to reach the mountain’s ears, “How many indeed,” the God spoke. “See there.”

  Cinderblock sized boulders crumbled and fell as he extended a massive hand down to some of the Chorts I’d cut down. Pools of blood, squeals of pain and crippled limbs, but they were all alive.

  Just as I had left them.

  I was certain that the gigantic mountain turned gym rat before me was going to quash me like a bug, but seeing him call out the Chorts like that? Realization hit me like an avalanche.

  The Chorts were gross squat and secretive, but largely misunderstood. They’ve been mistaken for Devils that fell out of an ugly tree, but their appearance was just a coincidence. Their hatred of me was born of centuries of being hunted by people like the Order who had assumed that looking evil was the same as being evil.

  Could it be that their creator, despite looking like Lis’ ex-boyfriend from high school, was actually a reasonable being?

  I only had one chance, I threw myself to my knees, my head bowed down to face the snow.

  “Mountaintop God. Father of Chorts, I beg of you, show me the way through these black woods so that I can go half the world around and save a shitty old man’s life.”

  He was a God after all. You don’t just ask for help from them, especially not the more old school ones. You pray for them to grant you favor. But even this was a shot in the dark. The chances he’d even spare me was worse than one in a milli--

  “Sure,” it said without hesitation.

  Howls of dismay rose up from the Chorts. Some tore at the snow in rage while others struck themselves over the head in despair. Their antics were flatly ignored. It seems the Father of Chorts was used to his kids throwing tantrums.

  Massive bat wings billowed out from the horned God’s back, and before I knew it, I had been scooped up in the palm of his hand and was soaring through the air. The flight lasted all of about two terrifying minutes.

  The Father of Chorts landed hard on the ground. Everything rumbled and then went still again. He put me down gently.

  “This is the place. St. Petersburg is on the other side. I liked it better when it was swampland,” the God grumbled.

  “Thank you. I might actually have a chance now. I owe you, but I have to ask,” I said.

  The horned God crossed his arms over his chest awaiting my question.

  “Why exactly did you help me? And so easily.”

  The God’s voice rumbled. “It’s been a while, a very long while, since I’ve been prayed to as one of the Good Gods. I was moved, Charles Locke. Now leave.”

  Massive powers shifted behind the horned God like the tectonic plates the continents sat on. The black woods around me shattered, and once more a feeling of falling came over me. I landed on my back amid snow and fallen leaves. The sound of busy roads reached my ears, and a sign saying ‘St. Petersburg Summer Gardens’ greeted my senses.

  Rising to my feet, I came face to face with a decorative pedestal. It seemed lonely, half forgotten there among the crowded trees. Crowned with a baleful gargoyle, the plaque was worn and illegible. The graffiti on it was not. Among the haphazard Russian letters I could make out a single phrase in English.

  We remember Chernobog.

  The sudden throb of the homing beacon, almost unnoticeable before, suddenly f
lashed like the pang of a headache. Zophie was near. And so was Gogol.

  I got to running.

  Chapter 61

  The clock was ticking. Hard and fast. Against all odds I found myself within spitting distance of the finish line. And my heart soared when I saw the name of the building that neighbored the Summer Gardens.

  He’s in St. Petersburg in some Church, I remember Fran saying. Savior on something something.

  The Church of the Savior on Blood. Currently closed for renovations.

  I jumped the fence like a high school hooligan, and made tracks through the snow. My eyes widened as I cut across to the front door. Recognition ignited in me as I laid eyes on them.

  They were wearing hard hats and orange safety jackets. They were carrying clipboards and measuring sticks. They weren’t fooling anyone. This was them. The Nine Towers demolition squad in plain clothes.

  The team had just arrived to lay siege. Gogol was in for a nasty surprise. Two nasty surprises, if I had anything to say about it. I doubled back the way I came, seeing a boarded up double door leading into the ground.

  Wand drawn, I slashed the boards neatly in half and kicked them in, “Sorry church.”

  Clearing past folded up tables and way more scattered papers than a church had any right owning, I made it to a wooden staircase leading up, That’s when the first one hit.

  It sounded like thunder, but in reality it was probably a big fat fireball. Bad form. They should have been shot in a crisp volley. The only thing a lone fireball was going to do to a church this big was wake Gogol up.

  Right on schedule, the air grew thick with magic. There was a sudden outpouring of sorcery and then calm. That could only mean one thing. The Lord Illusionist just cast a countermeasure. Evokers could creates walls of ice or fire around buildings. Conjurers could summon specially prepared fortification, towers, or even whole castles to their location. Illusionists were more creative.

  Gogol might have cast a spell on the besiegers that convinced them they were blowing the crap out of the Church, despite a lesser barrier blocking all their shots just behind the illusion. He could have created a disorienting mist that made everyone but the one affected by it look like monsters ready to kill. Hell, he might even have not bothered casting anything at all, and just laughed his ass off as the besiegers advance on the church at a crawl, desperately trying to figure out what ‘illusion’ had been cast on them.

  I opened the door to the chapel. A muffled cry came from my left.

  It was Zophie. Tied and gagged.

  “Very tempted to leave the gag,” I murmured, drawing it off her face.

  “Charles. You came to save me,” Zophie whispered.

  “Remember to underline this part when you’re writing the report,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “I’m busy,” spoke Nikita Gogol.

  I turned to see the Lord Illusionist himself in the center of a vast ritual circle, arms straining as billowing wisps of magic rose from his palms and seeped into the church roof. He was pouring a massive amount of magic into shielding this church. I wondered if he was weakened enough by casting such a spell that I might be an actual threat to him.

  “Charles, be careful,” Zophie said.

  “I must say Locke. For an insufferable thorn in my arthritic side you never cease to impress. The fact that you’re here at all is quite staggering.”

  “The Rusalka made it sound like you half expected me to make it here anyways, you shitty old fogey,” I shot back.

  “That was just one of two possibilities. You either get eaten or you come here. I had a feeling it’d be the latter though judging by your reply. Back when you chose to sacrifice yourself instead of Nuhl.”

  “So that really was a test,” I said.

  Gogol shook his head, chuckling under the magical strain of the ritual. “It was just a jumble of words meant to give a worthless worm like you the illusion that I was a mustache twirling villain. I’ve been doing this for decades. The answer you gave me wasn’t what I expected. That’s all.

  Light burst from his palms, beams blurring and evaporating into thick mist that rose up and past the roof. “Your presence here means you more or less have pulled off all my masks. You needed the Chorts to get here. And to get to the Chorts an irredeemable no talent like you probably needed the talisman I gave the Rusalka. Which means, you should have all the pieces to start figuring out the truth about me.”

  “I have a few theories,” I said.

  Gogol grinned, a ripple of gold twinkling in his eyes. “So, what are you waiting for, Charles Locke?”

  “You’re preoccupied,” I replied. “You look spent.”

  The Lord Illusionist grunted, cutting off the flow of magic pouring out of him with enough force to set the pages of scattered Bibles flipping.

  “Spent? I’ve killed more would be assassins than you can count. I’ve more magic in my rear end than a hundred of you in all your bodies. Wearing complex illusions that give the impression of touch, sound, smell and whatever other senses you care to name is no more difficult for me than it would be for you to put on clothes in the morning.”

  “Not impressed. You have no more Familiars left to do the heavy lifting. You can’t kill me with light shows, Gogol, no matter how impressive they are. In fact, I don’t even want to fight you,” I said.

  Nikita Gogol laughed, a flash of white rippling over his chest as his illusion magics resettled upon him. Gripping a thin rod between gnarled hands, Gogol’s image blurred, doubling and quadrupling in the blink of an eye.

  A crowd of Nikita Gogols spread out before me. I could not tell one from the other, and there were more of them than you could shake a retirement brochure at. In a single unified motion, every last illusion reached into its robes and withdrew an armory of identical curved daggers.

  “Too bad Charles Locke, assassin of Nine Towers,” they said in perfect unison. “Because I want to fight you.”

  Chapter 62

  Fighting Illusionists was a quick and easy way to win a ‘most surreal fight’ contest. And Nikita Gogol certainly did not disappoint.

  A retirement village worth of old men advanced on me daggers drawn. Each one of them looked just like the original. Each of them made footsteps, chuckled as they slowly surrounded me, and even smelled of dust and old forest. The fact that this was happening in an abandoned church with a team of sorcerers disguised as construction workers outside prepping to join in was just bonus points for absurdity.

  I dug Cho out of my pocket and held him up. If all went well this’d be over in an instant. “Cho, I need your help.”

  “That’s a lot of old men,” Cho replied.

  “Cho which one’s the real one?”

  “What do you mean?” the keychain asked. “They’re all real.”

  My heart fell. Of course. Gogol was there in person when I showed Cho off to him and Zophie in the archive fort. A pro like him would have known I’d look to Cho at the first sign of trouble. Which meant every last one of these illusions perfectly imitated the real Gogol.

  “Damn,” I cursed, stuffing Cho back into my pocket.

  My wand flashed to life as the first Gogol threw himself at me heedlessly. I ran him through easily enough, and the illusion dissipated. Then came another. A slash to clumsy legs saw him toppled. Illusion dispelled. Then more came, and more. Daggers flashed, daggers stabbed, but every direct hit went right through me until a sharp pain suddenly shot through my back.

  I felt blood trick down my undershirt. The Gogols snorted with contempt.

  “You’re not the only one in the world that ought not be underestimated, boy,” they said.

  The real one cut me. And as I looked around me, I began to realize the danger I was in. There was no way of telling one from the other. Out of a hundred illusions, far too many for me to defend myself against, there was one real dagger with one real Lord Illusionist.

  “Crap.”

  “It doesn’t help that you’re completely lacking in a
rea of effect magics. Not even any grenades or other Mundane contraptions on hand. A hefty disadvantage, wouldn’t you say?” the Gogols taunted.

  Crowding around me, the Illusionists all raised their index fingers. Baleful green light shone upon the tips. Dozens of illusions perfectly imitating a deadly blast of magical thorns. Miss me with that druid shit. I threw myself with all my might to the side as the geezers unloaded their spells at me.

  Three blasts of magical thorns passed through me. The fourth, quite real, glanced my side.

  I stifled a cry of pain, rolling to my feet and neatly decapitating the three nearest Gogols. Swing and a miss. My wounds were mounting up. I had to think up a plan. But what?

  “I thought I told you, Gogol,” I shouted. “I don’t want to fight you.”

  “Would you say the same thing if I were the one bloodied and beaten? If I’d cast a spell to make it seem as though Miss Nuhl had been brutally killed by me? I think not,” came the reply. “I’ve heard it all before. Stop wasting your breath and hit me with your best shot.”

  No talking him down. He won’t even consider it. But he tried to argue me to his side earlier. So then why would he--

  “This is another test,” I suddenly called out. “You want to see if I’ll actually walk the talk when it’s life or death.”

  The Gogols shook their heads. “I am simply trying to kill you, that’s all. Your answer to this violence however might end up being something I’m not expecting. I doubt it though.”

  I readied my wand.

  The scuffing of feet on chapel floor echoed as the illusions flung themselves at me. There was a trick to this. There had to be. He wasn’t tiring despite this preposterous magical tour de force. Summoning a hundred identical illusions is one thing, but making the sounds of footsteps whenever one of them took a sideways shuffle? Their grunts and voices?

  This was meant to be intimidating. The Lord Illusionist was playing mind games with me. There had to be some way to find the real one. But how?