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

by Quil Carter

  “Holy crap!” Ben exclaimed after he had jumped down from the tree they had camped in. The incident with the jare cats the previous night hadn’t been forgotten, it had seemed to have slipped his mind that they were right underneath their hammocks. Ben had landed only a foot away from one of them and upon seeing it had sprung up in the air like a surprised cat.

  Ben quickly looked around for his sword. He found it leaning up against the tree and when he had it in his hand he did what any man (or elf rather) would do when faced with a fascinating dead thing.

  Ben poked the creature in the side with the end of his sword, then poked it again.

  “What a fucked-up-looking… fucking hell.” Ben shook his head as he prodded the animal again. He thought that seeing his first dark accalite was horrific but this cat was something else. He had seen how terrifying it was from up above but it had been dark and the grey monotones of his hibrid eyesight had been limited.

  The closest thing Ben could relate the jare cat to was, as he had deduced previously, a jaguar. It was sleek with thin black fur that covered its entire body. It had a small muzzle with thick black whiskers and oddly silver eyes that stared unseeing into oblivion.

  What was the strangest thing of all however, were the two tentacles that Ben had seen the previous evening, erupting from the creatures shoulder blades. At the base they were as thick as Ben’s forearm, though as they extended off of the body they got narrower until they fanned out again to accommodate a pad of skin in the shape of a spade that held pointed, needle-like spikes on the inside.

  Ben poked the end of one of the tentacles with his sword and drew it over the needle spikes. He shuddered, thinking back to how fast the jare cat had moved, the tentacles moved around and snapped like they were twin whips.

  Teal landed behind him with a soft thunk, and dropped his backpack beside him. He dusted his hands off and walked over with a glass bottle in his hand.

  “The female ones have tails like a scorpion’s,” Teal said as he helped Ben sheath his sword. Ben was still having trouble getting the angle right, “and they’re deadly poisonous. The needles the males have hurt like all hell, but they’re not poisonous; these two were probably brothers.” Then Teal reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pair of forceps. He pressed his foot down on one of the tentacles and started prying off the bigger needles embedded in the pads of the jare’s tentacles. “I can sell each of these needles for four kips. This is the main ingredient in…” Teal’s face reddened and he dropped that sentence; he started placing the needles into a glass bottle.

  “Main ingredient in…?” Ben’s voice trailed. He already knew the answer, it was obvious from how his shy friend was acting, but he still felt like making him say it, just to torment him a little bit. If he and Teal were going to be friends he had to get used to Ben’s love for light teasing. It was just his way.

  “You know –” Teal’s cheeks brightened further. “– for help when things… don’t feel like working.”

  “You mean it helps erections?”

  Teal’s eyes widened and Ben burst out laughing. Teal immediately put the cork on the glass bottle and tossed it into his backpack, before quickly walking past Ben. The tips of his pointed ears now a brilliant shade of red.

  Ben, still laughing, followed his friend towards the dirt road. “I can’t believe you’re such a shy little prude. Oh, you shouldn’t have made me aware of this, I’m going to have so much fun.”

  “I’m not a prude!” Teal turned around and said in sharp but conservative voice. “I just… well… it’s not like I talk about those types of things. You know I’ve been alone since I was little.”

  Ben thought for a minute as he followed Teal, the two of them hopped over one of the gnarled tree roots. “So you’ve never had a boyfriend before then?” Ben thought back to when he had first woken up from detoxing. “Or a girlfriend?” He thought for a moment and remembered that he had asked Teal if he was gay back when he thought he was in his world, and that Teal had kidnapped him to make him his boyfriend.

  “No, I’m chayle,” Teal mumbled, then paused. “We don't even have the word gay here. It’s chayle for those elf and ladyelves who like the same gender, and chedni for those who like the opposite.”

  “And it’s accepted here?”

  It was Teal’s turn to chuckle, but then the laugh turned into a frown. “It’s awful how they treat chayle-borns in your world, just awful. In Elron you have a fifty percent chance of being born chayle or chedni. It has never been an issue, the only time it’s an issue is when a House wants to marry into another House to join their families for strength or power and the available sons or daughters are the wrong preference, besides that… we love who we love.” His scowl deepened. “How can a world punish you for loving someone?”

  “Don’t ask me…” Ben said with a shrug. “Erick was… chayle, as well as I. I bet we would’ve gotten disowned if we had family that cared. I guess it isn’t that bad staying here, huh?”

  The scowl on Teal’s face started to disappear. “There are a lot of bad things in Elron, just like in your world… but at least you can love whomever you wish. You can even have children with them if you want. I’ll read you that passage in the Anean Prophecies when we get a copy in Lelan Hold. Anea granted the ability way back in the first age when he saw that it was unfair that chayle-borns couldn’t produce heirs. It’s rather complicated but the easiest way to explain it is surrogacy. So, you know, we don’t need to touch them.” Teal made a face that made Ben laugh.

  “So I gather you’ve never had a boyfriend before?” Ben asked.

  Teal shook his head. “No, I meant it when I said I’ve never even had a friend. I stayed by myself, it was safer… if I kept everyone at arm’s length it meant they wouldn’t hurt me, and it seemed everyone wanted to hurt me.”

  Yes, the elf that had the cabin Teal stayed in during a winter. Ben was smart enough not to bring that up. “I never really had one either,” Ben said, then shrugged. “I thought Tav was going to be my boyfriend and maybe once I go home I might ask him – but who knows. Depending on how long this takes, he might be back in Albania and I’ll never see him again.”

  Teal didn’t answer back, and with that the conversation seemed to die. Ben didn’t mind, as usual the mention of Tav left his heart heavy and his chest tight. This time however he didn’t banish Tav’s image from his mind, instead he brought up his face and tried to go over every detail of it.

  It was hazy now, more distorted than Ben was comfortable with. So, with determination, Ben pushed Tav’s face to the front of his mind and tried to commit it to memory; and as the two of them walking in silence, he tried to paint the parts of Tav he had forgotten back onto his face.

  Eventually they reached the dirt road, only the sounds of the forest around them. By then Ben was debating how Tav’s eyes looked and how large his nose was. He wished he’d had a picture of Tav.

  Then he remembered he had one in his wallet.

  “Teal… do you have my wallet?” Ben asked. The silence had now gone on for what felt like hours. It was enough time for Teal to have made several trips back into the dark forest to fetch more apothecary ingredients.

  Teal, who was stuffing a plant into another glass bottle looked up at him before immediately diverting his eyes and putting the bottle back into his backpack. “No,” he replied simply, before walking ahead of Ben

  “W-what happened to it?” Ben said, feeling a swell of disappointment.

  “Demigod took it,” Teal mumbled. His hands brushed against the wool shirt he was wearing over top of his dark blue tunic, then his claws extended and he started scratching his skin again. “He took everything of yours.”

  Teal picked up his pace, Ben did as well even though his feet were starting to ache again.

  “Give me your backpack then,” Ben called to him before resting his hands on his hips.

  Teal turned around, his eyebrow twitched. He opened his mouth as if to say something before h
e shut it again; instead he turned and glanced to his side… and ran back into the forest.

  Ben sighed, the back of his mind telling him that was the last he would ever see his friend.

  “Well, we’re on our own now,” Ben said out loud. He looked ahead at the winding road, the trees standing in front of him like sentries; he could almost see their eyes on him as he walked past.

  Teal emerged eventually, holding nothing in his hands obviously. He looked at Ben, a frown on his face. “I have your wallet,” he said slowly, avoiding eye contact.

  “Obviously…” Ben said in a flat tone.

  Teal nodded and kicked a stray rock. It bounced on ahead before knocking against another rock, that rock skidded out of sight. “I just don’t think it would be… a good idea for you to look at your earth things. You – you’ve been doing so good here.” As they approached the rock Teal picked it up and started lightly tossing it up in the air and catching it.

  “I just want to see my picture of Tav…” Ben said with a half-hearted shrug. “I’m starting to forget what he looks like. I don’t know what that demigod did but my memories of my previous life are all washed out and distorted, like a faded painting. I don’t like it.” He looked ahead then all around him; Ben always got the distinct feeling that this forest was looking back at him. “Or maybe I want to see it because – as the days go on it seems like my old life is one I never belonged in.”

  Ben looked around him, the light of the morning seeping through the canopy above him. It brought with its light a crispness that would eventually get consumed by the stuffy recycled air of the forest. Though not even the cold reprieve from the claustrophobic forest could stop the seemingly multiplying jolts of apprehension.

  “I can go through the entire day and not think of that life, Teal,” Ben said as he watched the beams of light shine down from above him. They landed on the forest floor and lit up the dark patches, showing Ben the dark greens and light browns that were all black where the sun didn’t touch. Like a lot of things in Alcove the darkness of the Forest of Jare was deceptive, once the sun found the ground you could see that there were colours all around them. “But when I do… I surprise myself–” His eyes travelled down to his hands and he flexed his claws in and out of their sheaths. “–with just how quickly I am letting this new world consume me and my former identity.”

  Ben turned his hands so his palms were facing down. He could see the scars on his hands he had gotten from his old world. A silver scar from a cigarette ember, given to him by Erick when they were fighting; a cut on his finger from when he was cutting a piece of wire with a bread knife. Ben traced his long, narrow fingers over them, and felt his breathing start to shorten. “I’m forgetting Tav already. I can’t do that – I can’t just leave him behind. I need to go home to him and–” Ben sucked in a shuddering breath, his entire body going cold. “This just seems so unreal, this world.”

  Suddenly Ben felt a sharp pain as something small and hard hit him on top of his head. He looked to his side to see Teal staring back at him, the rock he had been holding gone from his hand.

  “I’m – I’m sorry… you – you were starting to remind me of when you had a panic attack in Malla. I… thought I’d snap you out of it,” he stammered, looking extremely uncomfortable.

  Ben stared at him. Then, without thinking, he bent down and picked up the fallen rock.

  And flung it back at Teal.

  Unluckily for Teal, Ben’s aim was horrible. As Teal tried to dodge where the rock should have been coming from, he ended up jumping right into its actual path. The rock smacked Teal on the side of the head, knocking him off-balance. He lost his footing and fell on his side.

  Ben let out a surprised laugh as Teal fell. He took a few quick leaps into the forest and hid behind a tree.

  “Oh, you better hide, human!” Teal called with a laugh. “You’ll wish it was the jare that won last night.”

  Ben stifled a laugh. He knew exactly what Teal was doing and it was working. The tightness in his chest had dissipated and though he wasn’t sure if it was really healthy, his old world faded back into the darkness.

  Teal ran towards him, Ben turned around to spring away from him when his foot got caught on one of the many tree roots in Jare. With a yelp and a loud curse word, Ben fell down and landed flat on his face. Immediately he sucked in a breath out of reflex and with that came a mouthful of mossy dirt. As he hacked and coughed Teal howled with laughter behind him.

  “Are you okay?” Teal said through his laughter. Ben felt him grab onto his fur cloak and pull him up off of the ground.

  Ben coughed and banged on his chest. “I think I swallowed a stick,” he rasped, “or a bug at least.”

  Teal picked a stick out of Ben’s hair. “We can call it even.” Then he drew his sword and started walking back to the road. “Want to start learning a few drills with that sword? We might as well get you started on how to use it or else all you’re doing is adding extra weight to your back. Come on, I’d love to be your teacher.”

  It was obvious that Teal was trying to prevent Ben’s mind from wandering, and Ben didn’t mind at all. It was what he needed right now. So without protest, Ben unsheathed his sword from its scabbard and smiled at Teal.

  “I’d love that.”

  The rest of the day was spent with Teal teaching Ben how to properly wield his sword, and eventually, the beginning drills. Nothing too complicated just different ways to swing it and how to position his feet to brace for the blows of his enemies. By the time evening set in and they were both in their hammocks Ben’s wrists were aching just as much as his feet were. Teal was nice enough to give Ben a salve to rub on his wrists while Teal tightly bound his feet to help the open blisters that still hadn’t started healing. Then after a meal of half-stale oat bread, the salted ham, and a hard yellow cheese they went to sleep.

  There were no jare cats waking them up this night, Ben slept soundly for the most part. Though he did wake up in the middle of the night to a new noise: Teal whimpering in his sleep and mumbling. Ben didn’t wake him though, with what little he knew of his friend’s past it wouldn’t surprise him if he had nightmares. Ben felt his heart pull for his friend but he didn’t embarrass Teal by waking him up. Instead he closed his eyes and fell asleep to the orchestra of insects chirping and singing around them as the silver moon shone through the branches of the trees. It was peaceful tonight and warm too, being up high was comforting though until sleep took him again his ears were always peeled for any sort of animal that wanted to make a meal out of them.

  Morning came and soon the two of them were on the road again practicing more sword fighting. Ben’s wrist was still protesting and throbbing but he pushed through the pain and as morning turned to afternoon the sound of steel rang out through the forest.

  “There, your grip is getting a lot better!” Teal praised, slowly swinging his sword towards Ben. Ben bent his arm so his sword could meet Teal’s and stopped his attack. “Once we get to Lelan I’ll bring you to Korvago’s Field. They have sword fighting dummies there and since I’ll be making some good silver for those jare needles maybe I’ll hire a swords-elf to give you a few lessons.”

  “How many towns are in the Lelan Hold?” Ben asked. He did an upwards swing of his sword, Teal easily blocked it of course.

  “One, a large town that is below Lelan Castle where King Korivander resides. It’s called Little Lelan,” Teal said. “We’ll be staying there and once we have the Anean Prophecies we’ll be able to read what our next destination will be.” Then he smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing my first passage. Can you imagine, a passage especially for us written by the gods!? Well, I suppose it would be the demigod. Unless they came back without us knowing, the gods are still gone from Elron.”

  “I’m just looking forward to having four walls around me again,” Ben said with a shrug. He did one last side swing of his sword before sheathing it. He needed a break, they had been practicing all morning. “I miss having a
fire.”

  Teal, who was also sheathing his sword behind his back, looked up at Ben with a shy smile. “Well…” he said and Ben’s surprise his green eyes looked into the woods to their left, then flickered back to Ben. “I was going to just lead you into the forest until you asked where we were going but… I have a surprise for you.”

  This piqued Ben’s interest; he looked to where Teal’s eyes had wandered as if expecting a giant mansion to be just visible through the thick black trees, but, of course, all he could see were the gnarled limbs and roots of trees and twisted brush, some of the roots bowing up so high off of the ground that at first glance you could mistake them for bending trees.

  Ben gave Teal a questioned look and, with a smile, Teal started walking into the forest, Ben followed.

  “Well, as you know I spent years here on and off,” Teal began. “We’re close to a small cabin with a loft. I used to live in it whenever I spent time here. I was going to bypass it to make better time to Alé but I have been smelling rain all morning and I think we might get poured on tonight,” he said and continued, “I have the canvas for rain, but we’re too close to proper shelter for me to just pass it by.”

  The thought of staying in an actual cabin made Ben’s heart leap for joy. “I would love that. Oh god, would I ever love that.” Automatically Ben picked up his pace, Teal also started walking faster. Thankfully Teal knew where to go because the trees in front of Ben looked all the same to him.

  Teal smiled. “I think you need a night of warmth and rest, and a hot meal. Good food, a fire, a warm bed in a tall loft. I loved it there and it saved my life many times.”

  Ben grinned, even though his feet ached, he felt like running. “A bed and a fire?”

  “And I can even outdo that,” Teal said. He ducked under one of the tree roots and waited for Ben as he did the same. “The shack is about a five minute walk to a river which will be filled with salmon this time of year. No stale oat bread for us tonight or salted ham. We can have salmon steaks. Want to learn how to fish?”