The Gods' Games Volume 1 & 2: Graphic Edition (The Gods' Games Series)

by Quil Carter

  When he was ready, Teal stepped back and looked him up and down. Then he gave Ben an almost shy smile. “You look wonderful, hibrid. A real Alcovian – it’s so… bizarre seeing you look like this.”

  Ben looked down at himself and shrugged. “You didn’t see me that much before I came here. Unless the demigod had turned you into that burly asshole who beat me up.” The two of them started walking down the dark road, leaving the grey walls of Malla behind. Ben stuffed his hands into his pockets, the morning chill was making them cold.

  Surprisingly Teal shifted nervously and started running his clawed fingers up and down his arms, even going as far as to reach into the sleeves of the wool shirt he had on underneath his tunic to get at his skin. “No,” Teal said with a shake of his head. “Kelakheva hired him as protection since we knew you were rather rough around the edges.” Teal looked down at the ground, the topic obviously making him uncomfortable. “I didn’t see that much of you. I didn’t like going out so I stayed in the cabin. When he needed me he summoned me.”

  Ben nodded, looking down the road to see thick trees up ahead. Around Malla it had been logged and cleared, probably to protect the village, but it wasn’t long before the trees became thick again. It was a rather haunting thing to look at since the hibrid night vision made everything steely and grey, but it was still more welcoming than the town they had left behind, even if Teal was insisting that the malkah was dead.

  “Where is the demigod now?” Ben asked, glancing behind him again as the wall faded into the darkness. “Why isn’t he here to guide us? Did he just give you the Jewel of Elron and leave and now he occasionally makes the jewel work for you?”

  “Kind of,” Teal said. He handed Ben something from his backpack and Ben realized it was a pair of fur-rimmed leather gloves. “He guided me when I was in your world but after I brought you here he gave me the jewel, said it was vital for our journey and the Anean Prophecies. He stayed for a night after you first arrived and then he was gone. He speaks to me in my head now.”

  Anean prophecies… as Ben put the gloves onto his cold hands he remembered Teal referring to them. A book that was full of stories and old legends, but once it started writing everyone had to take notice, including him apparently. However it didn’t look like Teal had a copy of that book and if so, he hadn’t brought it out yet.

  “I don’t have a copy – Kelakheva didn’t say much only that we had to join the Jewel of Elron with the shard of the jewel in King Calin’s ring,” Teal explained when Ben had asked him where this special book was supposed to be. “Kelakheva is rather cryptic, it is their nature, all of the gods. It’s best not to ask questions. He tells us what we need to know and we just have to do as he says. You can never get more information out of a demigod or a god. They tell you what they believe you need to know. It is the nature of the gods’ games.”

  Ben sighed at this. This world was taking a lot of getting used to, he had a feeling he was in for a lot of frustration if that was how their deities acted. He decided to change the subject.

  “Why didn’t I fall on my ass back there?” Ben asked, motioning behind him. “You threw me out of a three-storey window, and I fell right on my feet.”

  Teal took Ben’s change in topic with a smile. He could practically see his friend switching into his teaching mode. “We’re demi-elves and we have different abilities than regular elves. We can withstand rather high falls and land on our feet. We also have strong bones too.”

  “What’s the difference between a demi-elf and a regular elf?” Ben asked. He was not only happy for the turn in conversation, he was also happy to just be distracting himself from the terrifying incident that had previously taken place. If they had walked in silence he knew his mind would undoubtedly wander and the last thing he wanted was to scare himself further.

  “A demi-elf varies from each kingdom,” Teal explained. “For the most part the elf-race of the kingdom looks the same, though most have slightly different builds and features, not as vast as the demi-elf however. For example, we as the demi-elf race of Alcove are about a half-foot shorter on average than regular Alcovian elves. We have the retractable claws, stronger bones, agility, and a climbing ability. Plus, if we inherit the trait, we have different colours streaked in our hair.” Teal pulled on one of his red streaks. “But some hibrids only have one colour. So we look like this whereas the demi-elf species of, say, Darancove, looks completely different. The Daraphin are tall, slender elves with small fins on their arms and gills on their necks to supplement their lungs so they can breathe for a long time underwater; most have blond hair tinged with blue and all have webbed hands and toes,” Teal said, then continued, “You’ll be interested in this race: the malkah, the demi-elves of Dashavia, your brother is one of them.”

  Ben’s eyes suddenly widened as his mind brought him to the nightmare he had been plagued with in his old world; puzzle pieces started to click together. “Red eyes, pointed tongues, needle-sharp teeth with two pointed fangs like a damn vampire.” Ben touched his teeth; his own pointed teeth were much different. He still had biting incisors and didn’t have two pointed fangs, unlike his brother. “Right?”

  Teal looked shocked, and Ben quickly explained to him the dream that had been terrorizing him in his world.

  His friend nodded grimly. “I’ve never met Erick but I have met malkah before, your dream was correct. Dashavia has always been the outcast kingdom of Al’Anea, which is the continent we’re on. Dashavia’s god is Darsheive, his identical twin brother Xalis is god of the continent Xal’Crith. The Anean Prophecies have a story where Xalis and Darsheive once shared the continent of Xal’Crith though back then it was called Crithos and it was much larger. The demi-elf races and the elf races got along like brothers and sisters and everything was wonderful,” Teal explained, then Ben saw his ears redden for reasons that soon became clear. “Then one day Anea comes to visit his sons and finds the two brothers having sex. This enraged Anea since obviously brothers shouldn’t be doing such a thing, and in his rage he splits up Crithos, and I mean splits up. He cuts Crithos in two and attaches one half to Al’Anea which originally only had Alcove, Evercove, and Darancove, and leaves the other as a large continent out in the north-western ocean. Xalis and Darsheive were split up and it broke their hearts since not only were they brothers but secret lovers as well.”

  Ben stared at Teal and blinked. “Your gods seem kinda fucked.”

  Teal hissed and raised his hands in the air in a be quiet motion.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “It’s not like they can hear us, Teal.” But then his eyes narrowed and he looked at the sky. “–can they?”

  Teal shook his head. “No, after the humans were banished, Anea left Elron to grieve, and eventually he summoned his sons as well since the gods were still young and he didn’t want them alone in Elron without him watching over them, especially with their tendencies towards the gods’ games. He didn’t want his sons pitting their worshippers against another brother’s worshippers for fun.”

  Ben’s brow knitted. “The gods’ games?” he asked as he hopped over a puddle in the middle of the road. Above him he could see the first signs of daybreak start to come through the clear sky above them. Luckily, it looked to have been near morning when the malkah had interrupted them.

  “That’s right,” Teal said. “It’s another word for when the Anean Prophecies start writing; since essentially that’s all it is. The book starts writing riddles, short passages for the ones chosen to take part in that prophecy to decipher. The chosen few have to break the codes and riddles and do as the book says. It is said that the gods write it to send their worshippers on errands and journeys so the gods can entertain themselves for a while.”

  Ben scoffed at this. “Bored gods using us as pawns to entertain themselves. I’m not surprised. I suppose if I was immortal and thousands of years old I’d do the same thing.”

  “And it keeps life interesting, I guess,” Teal said with a shrug. “They say that if you comp
lete the prophecy and do everything right your god will come down and grant you one request. I guess since they’re gone it would be Kelakheva.”

  This piqued Ben’s interest, he thought of it for a moment before smiling at Teal. “I think I’d ask him to bring Tav here.” But like he was brushing one of the raw blisters on his foot he immediately retracted his mind from his thoughts of Tav. He mentally chastised himself for subjecting himself to such masochisms and started picking up his pace. “Let’s stop talking for a while and try and put some distance between us and Malla,” Ben said hurriedly, hating how his heart was sinking further as he spoke. “No doubt they’ll be finding a dead malkah in our room. I can only imagine what Aleeka is going to think of you now.”

  “The Forest of Jare,” Teal announced, an expression on his face of a hibrid who had stepped foot in his home after a long absence.

  Ben didn’t share Teal’s feelings when it came to the rather terrifying-looking image in front of him. He had been seeing this nightmare-inducing forest come closer as the morning turned into afternoon and he had been waiting for Teal to announce they were going around it.

  The twisted old-growth trees, most with thick black bark, seemed to sprout up out of nowhere, like the forest had just been dropped out of the sky in the middle of the woods. Before the forest started Ben had been seeing normal-looking trees, and the occasional silverwood, all growing from rich brown dirt and surrounded by emerald green shrubs and grass. Then all of a sudden there it was, a dense forest that seemed thousands of years old. Its trees reaching so high they weaved their own canopy, condemning everything that dwelled inside to a strangled darkness. The trees themselves even seemed to have an air of desperation. The limbs were crooked, with many knots and burls; they twisted and weaved in and out of each other, like they were forever locked in a battle for sunlight.

  It was as different as night and day compared to the Silverwoods they had left behind in Malla. If the woods were a family the Silverwoods would be the well-adjusted sibling, and the Forest of Jare would be the insane brother they kept locked in the cellar.

  “Well, good luck in there,” Ben said with a cross of his arms. “I’ll be waiting right here when you give King Calin that jewel. I had fun with you though… bye.”

  Teal laughed and pulled on Ben’s arm. “I know the forest looks scary but believe me, by the time this journey is over this forest will look safe in comparison.”

  Ben gave him a flat look. “You’re not doing a good job convincing me.” He groaned as Teal continued to pull on his arm. “I’m not going in there. You really expect me to step foot inside that horror of a forest? You’re the type of person who would run into the basement when the murderer was chasing you, aren’t you?”

  His friend let go of his arm, but his reassuring smile remained. “This is the best time for us to go through it, a lot of the animals are hibernating now since we’re close to winter. And since the canopy is so thick it’ll actually be warmer in there than outside. It keeps the heat inside so the plants grow year-round.”

  Ben stepped past Teal and walked towards a large twisted tree. He looked past it at the dirt road they had been following and sighed when he saw it quickly get swallowed up by darkness. It looked haunted this forest, everything was dark inside of it, corrupted almost. The trees and plants inside seemed to weave so tightly together it was as if the forest was trying to keep something from escaping.

  “Elves… go through this forest?” Ben asked slowly, looking up and shielding his eyes as the sun stung them. The last time he would probably see the sun in a while.

  “Merchants have no choice, the forest is hundreds of leagues wide,” Teal explained. “They stick to the road. Serpents as well, and with our hearing we’ll be able to hear them coming. The Lelanders live in there too and they’re friendly for the most part and, even better, there is a cleared oasis inside of the forest and in that clearing is Alé, a friendly town. We can get more supplies there and sleep in a bed. The only thing we really need to be careful for is the jare cats and they can’t even climb trees.”

  Another sigh fell from Ben’s lips. “Tell me what jare cats are…” he said in a defeated tone. He took one last look at the sun and started walking inside of the black forest. Soon the sound of pattering feet were behind him as Teal followed.

  “Um…” Teal paused, taking a few steps until he was walking side by side with Ben. “They’re like giant kittens – the danger is your heart exploding just from the sheer cuteness of them, just mind melting cuteness.”

  Ben gave him a flat look, Teal reciprocated with a wide grin.

  “What are they really?” Ben said.

  Teal’s eyes drifted to the covered sky. “Just imagine them as kittens, my friend. And if we see one while crossing this forest… I’ll tell you then.”

  For the sake of his own overactive imagination Ben didn’t press Teal for more information. Instead the two of them carried on down the twisted dirt road. The welcoming sunlight of the sparse forest they had just left slowly became swallowed up by the darkness, before disappearing entirely.

  Inside, the forest was as solemn and dark as it had looked upon entry, and to top it off a thin mist had crept onto the forest floor, coating the surface like a thin carpet. It was rather claustrophobic with the ceiling canopy above them, even though, as Teal had said, the forest stretched out for leagues in all directions.

  Even the birds weren’t stupid enough to be inside of this forest, there were no bird songs around them but there were the low tones of insects buzzing and chirping. At least if anyone was coming they would be able to hear them.

  As the day wore on, Ben stayed on the dirt road at a steady pace, it was slower going than when they were out of the woods due to Teal running in and out of the forest to collect ingredients. His new friend would see something that interested him and, without a word, scamper off into the woods. After several minutes he would emerge holding mushrooms, roots, plants, even berries a few times and then would chat happily with Ben over what they were and what he could make with them.

  It was around evening time that Ben found himself still walking but also reading an apothecary book Teal had given him to scan through after talking all day about apothecary. Apparently his friend was rather knowledgeable when it came to making serums, tonics, and powders which is why he carried such a large supply of them in his canvas bag.

  “There are a lot of ingredients in these woods that can’t be found anywhere else in Elron,” Teal explained as he put a brown root into a glass bottle; he corked the bottle and put it back into his backpack. By now his hands were caked with dirt from digging through the forest and he had several twigs stuck in his hair. “I lived off of gathering ingredients and selling them in Alé and Malla. When I wasn’t, you know, robbing elves.” Teal chuckled.

  “How long did you live in here for?” Ben asked as he closed the book. It was small writing complete with illustrations, none of which made sense to Ben. He put it back into the bag.

  “Oh, on and off for years,” Teal said and his lips pursed, the smile seemed to disappear from his face. “I had some of good times in this forest – but most of them were not so great.”

  Ben hesitated for a moment as the two of them continued down the winding dirt road. He hadn’t known Teal long at all, but the short time they had spent together had been more personal than the time he had spent with most of his friends back in his world, so he decided to ask his first personal question. “What happened to your family, Teal?”

  Teal’s already pursed lips disappeared into his mouth. He stared down at his leather boots and an awkward silence descended on them.

  “I’m – I’m sorry,” Ben said after a solid minute of silence had passed. “I won’t–”

  Teal held up his hand for silence, his brow furrowing like he was concentrating on something. Ben looked ahead, confused, when suddenly Teal grabbed his arm. “Get into the bushes,” he hissed, the colour draining from his face.

  They
both ran into the dark woods, stepping over spindly bushes with dry twigs that would sell out their position in a second and heading towards a thatch of erupted roots that sunk in and out of the ground. Teal, with Ben’s cloak in his hand, pulled Ben down and the two of them hid behind one of the roots, as thick as a normal elf’s torso.

  Ben peeked out from underneath the root, seeing a distorted view of the road they had left behind. He felt cautiously safe with the brush and foliage breaking up their silhouettes, whenever he looked into the dark forest he couldn’t see anything but shadows. They should be out of sight.

  As Ben settled down, trying to steady his breathing, he finally heard what Teal had heard minutes ago. It was hooves stepping on the compacted dirt, and the distinct sound of murmuring voices. The sounds got louder as they walked down the road and soon Ben could see their images through the trees and shrubs.

  Then he saw it, a creature so menacing and intimidating Ben felt his mind on the verge of failing to comprehend it. It was like nothing Ben had ever seen before or even wanted to fathom existed in this new world.

  Walking beside two Serpent knights and an armor-clad horse, was a giant creature with a short silver coat that seemed to illuminate every muscle in its body. It looked like a wolf more than anything but its build and the way it walked was strange. It had two muscular legs with paws the size of dinner plates, and two arms that were indeed arms and not upper legs. It walked more like a bear, and with the size and shape of its paws Ben was sure it used its arms for fighting and mauling like a bear did as well. He even thought he could see thumbs.

  And its head… the horrendous beast had bright yellow eyes and a thick muzzle on a wide face. Its silver ears were small and pressed back on its gigantic forehead and its shoulder blades rose and fell like that of a cougars.