Halcyon Rising_Bastion of Hope

by Stone Thomas

  “Yep,” I said, “I definitely have a skillmeistering fetish. Thank you for understanding.” I opened Cindra’s menu. Her Constitution was lower than mine, leaving her remaining HP lower as well. I raised her Resolve a few points, slowing the rate of the room’s damage. I watched a sense of self-control come back into her eyes.

  When I opened Mamba’s menu, I was shocked to see how low her HP was, and she didn’t have enough XP for even one more point of Resolve. I threw her over my shoulder and ran toward the room’s doorway. Cindra followed after.

  “But,” Mamba said, “I still want you. I need to… I mean, I have to…” I watched the magic that permeated that room lose its grip on her once we were past its exit.

  “Hold that thought,” I said. “When we get back to Halcyon, let’s pick up where we left off. But for now, we have to keep going. And we don’t eat or drink anything here until we’re through.”

  The girls nodded. I re-buttoned my fly, working hard to stuff myself back inside my tight leather pants. Cindra fixed her dress and tossed her hair back over her shoulder.

  “It would have been a nice break though,” Cindra said, “if it weren’t for gradually dying.”

  +25

  As we wound through the temple’s bottom floor, our map was no use. The shifting walls and twists and turns were unmappable, no doubt thanks to the strange magic this building ran on.

  We peered into the rooms we passed one by one. There was a room with a small pool full of fish, that I was pretty sure were deadly. Another had a single rose growing from a crack in the floor, also probably deadly. Yet another had a statue of a man with six arms holding swords, which likely would have come to life if we set foot in there. So, in other words, deadly.

  Some of the rooms had exit doorways on the other sides, but I just couldn’t trust that we’d live long enough to walk through them. Then I caught sight of another creature at the end of the hallway.

  “Come on!” I yelled. I wasn’t sure if it was a cretin, but if it had survived the temple for this long, it was worth chasing it. Either we’d kill it, or follow it to freedom.

  Our footfalls echoed down stone corridors as the path split in a million different ways. I had the feeling we had been here before, once if not ten times on our trek through the pyramid’s base level. Yet, it also felt new, as if the walls themselves were constantly changing.

  The thing about fun houses: they’re never any actual fun.

  Around a tight corner, I saw it again. It was no cretin, it was one of the minotaurs that protected the temple. “That’s it,” I yelled, reflecting back on know-it-all Nola’s earlier advice. “If you’re ever lost in a maze, follow a minotaur!”

  Thank you, Nola, you beautiful nerd!

  With each twist and turn, we got closer to catching the stampeding creature. At one point, it ran through a stone wall and vanished, which almost stopped me dead in my tracks. I trusted Nola’s advice and continued after the creature, passing through the wall and into another hallway. It had been an illusion.

  We ran through rooms with spiked ceilings that didn’t crash down on us, and menacing skeletons that took no notice. Some of these rooms were tricks but not traps, and only that minotaur seemed to know which was which.

  Finally, I reached forward and grabbed it by one of the long curved horns that stuck out from its head.

  “Enough!” I yelled. I held Razortooth’s curved blade to its throat. “Take me to the deity! This temple is under attack and there’s no time to waste.”

  “Release him,” came a low, serious voice. I looked up and saw a man with long red hair and a short-cropped beard to match. He held a staff in one hand, with a dark green jewel atop it.

  Mamba and Cindra came up behind me as I stood and let the minotaur get back to his feet. I was still panting, just now catching my breath after a relentless chase.

  “Head priest?” I asked. The man gave a slight nod, but his eyes were still narrowed at us. “Duul is attacking. There are cretins here searching you out.”

  “No there aren’t,” he said.

  “I saw them,” I said.

  “They have been dealt with,” he replied. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this temple is full of deadly ends.”

  “Is that it then,” I asked, “you serve the goddess of dead ends? Because I must say, I would have preferred cul-de-sacs.”

  “Joke all you want, scofflaw,” the man said, tilting his staff toward my forearms. “A small army of temple guides approaches. Your time to laugh will soon run short.”

  Sure enough, the sound of magically conjured hooves hitting the stone floor of the temple started to grow in the distance.

  I glanced at the blue tint on my forearms and sighed. “I am Arden Hochbright, head priest of Nola, goddess of clever insight and premonition, leader of Halcyon in the human lands. This,” I said, holding my arms out further, “is the result of a misunderstanding with an overly enthusiastic lawmonger. He doesn’t think there’s a war, and doesn’t really believe that the Great Mother needs my help.”

  “Your help?” the man said. “That’s a bold assertion.”

  “It’s no assertion,” I said. “She told me herself. Whatever Sajia told her is a mystery to me, but the Great Mother believes Nola is the key to stopping Duul. We’ve had cretins attack us, like the ones you apparently already ‘dealt with,’ and we couldn’t just walk away when we saw more charge into your pyramid.”

  A regiment of dark green creatures filed into the room behind this orange-haired man. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “However, the goddess seems to. I am Torin. Come with me.”

  As Torin led the way, the hallways realigned themselves. The stone walls moved with no sound, parting for the head priest and leading to the large, six-armed statue we had spotted earlier. Torin approached it, then twisted one of the statue’s wrists until the sword pointed directly up.

  “So that’s all we had to do?” I asked, stepping closer to the statue. Its face had a devious smile to it.

  “Yes,” Torin said before reaching for my vest and pulling me backward several feet. “And also dodge.”

  Six blades shaped from green magic light fell from the ceiling and landed near the statue, each blade slicing into the stone floor and sinking a foot deep before vanishing again.

  “And,” Torin continued, “wield this staff. So no, you could not have done this yourself.” He waved Mamba and Cindra over, and the four of us approached the statue. Torin glanced toward the ceiling, and then we were off.

  The statue was on an enchanted platform that elevated us floor by floor up the center of the pyramid. Each floor looked like the one below, a confusing warren of forking hallways. Finally, we reached the top.

  My eyes struggled to adjust to the sunlight. When they did, a woman with green skin much darker than her minotaur guides stood from a stone seat. Long braids of hair fell down her back.

  “Avelle,” she said. “Goddess of safe passage. I’m pleased to hear that Nola yet lives.”

  “Safe passage?” I asked. “Your temple is like a game of deadman’s roulette, where every chamber is loaded.”

  “Much like the world itself,” she said. “So many paths ahead lead to danger, and for every danger we turn away from, we turn only toward the next. Yet, there is a route through the temple that avoids all harm. I guide those who visit with good intentions, and I leave the rest to wander.”

  “What better intentions are there than rushing into the temple to stop Duul’s minions from slaying you?” I asked. “You nearly killed us with your ‘Hospitality’ suite. What were we supposed to do, sex ourselves to death? I mean, I’ve never had a problem getting… stiff. I just don’t want to end up a stiff.”

  “The builder that helped create my temple was overly imaginative,” Avelle said. “Some of the higher floors are particularly sadistic. In one room, the walls are greased with something highly flammable. The door closes behind a person, with only one way out: find a secret word written on the walls b
y the light of a single candle without setting the entire room ablaze.

  “The man who created these traps was a real puzzle, full of the craziest ideas.”

  “A builder with crazy ideas,” I said. “Checks out. But why not ask what our intentions were before sending us into a deadly labyrinth?”

  “I don’t take kindly to lawbreakers,” Avelle said. “I doubt many of the gods would, save those that have changed their allegiances and serve Duul now. When you approached with a scofflaw’s curse I did what I had to, to keep my people safe.”

  “I thought the minotaurs were your creation,” I said.

  “They are,” she replied. “But the farmers that work this land in peace are not. I offered them protection, though I wonder now how to keep that promise when Duul’s familiars continue to prowl the land. Eventually, he will create stronger warriors that are not so easily fooled by the boons that keep my people safe.

  “I should have kept my head down,” she continued, “for their sake. Instead I got involved in this war and angered Duul even more.”

  “Avelle,” Torin said, “governs the portal network that provides humans, elves, and beastkin with safe passage between cities. The cities charge for their use, of course, another tax that benefits the empire. Duul began sending his familiars through — you called them cretins, I believe. Avelle closed the portals to prevent the world from being overrun so quickly.”

  “So you’re the reason we have adventurers marooned in our settlement,” I said, “but I guess that’s a small price to pay. Your actions likely saved Nola’s life, and many others. We couldn’t have withstood another wave of Duul’s attackers again on the heels of his last attempt on Halcyon.”

  “Though how many gods will die because of me?” Avelle asked. “There can be no reinforcement of the cities and their temples now. Each is isolated by the great distance between populations.”

  “There are other ways to travel though,” I said. “When we fought with Kāya, she conjured a creature that exploded and transported everyone near it to another location.”

  “I only govern safe passage,” Avelle said. “If what you say is true, Kāya has unlocked the power of chaos. Hers is an unpredictable and dangerous power that I have no responsibility over.”

  She looked at Torin. For a long moment, they stared at each other in silence. I knew the look on their faces. They were speaking mind to mind now, communicating thoughts before our eyes.

  “You came into the temple to chase after cretins when you could have gone on your way,” Avelle said. “Why?”

  “Duul grows with every deity he strikes down,” I said. “People suffer at his hand. The gods suffer. Nola suffers. I can’t let him keep doing this. I promised Nola that I would protect her, but that also means protecting the people he wants to subjugate and the gods he seeks to kill.”

  “Too much weight for one man’s shoulders,” Avelle said.

  “Show me another way,” I said.

  “I cannot,” she replied.

  Behind Avelle, something stirred. Then it began to cry. It was a baby, but one without the harsh, high-pitched voice of a shrieking newborn.

  “A son or a daughter?” Cindra asked.

  “Daughter,” Avelle said. She lifted the young goddess from a small crib behind Avelle’s throne that only became visible when Avelle stood to walk toward it. “You may hold her.”

  Cindra put a hand to her chest for a moment and smiled. “It would be an honor.”

  Her face beamed as she took the baby goddess in her arms. The child was green like Avelle. Though she was darker than Cindra by far, I imagined her holding her own child one day. A slimy little boy or a girl, it wouldn’t matter, just to see her that happy.

  “Do you know what her gifts are yet?” Mamba asked.

  “Not yet,” Avelle said. As I listened, I heard the sound of angels yawning and the faint but unmistakable sound of a harp plucking from nowhere. I suspected that Laranj’s powers had found a new deity to reside within.

  “She’s beautiful,” Cindra said.

  “You have a warm soul,” Avelle said to Cindra, fussing with the baby in the slime woman’s arms. “Tell Mercifer I’m glad he brought you back.”

  Cindra’s back stiffened. Mamba stepped forward and took the baby from Cindra, likely sensing the slime woman’s alarm.

  “I don’t understand,” Cindra said. “Mercifer is the elf that created me. He brought me to life by creating slime from the ether. How do you know him?”

  “As a young goddess,” Avelle said, “my powers were limited. Mostly I helped adventurers get past the trolls that lurked under the world’s bridges. As I grew out of my bridge-and-tunnel phase, I helped guard roads from highwaymen and chase harpies from the skies.

  “Safe passage is not limited to the physical world,” she continued. “I also ferry souls between the realms of the living and the dead. Few have asked me for help in that respect aside from the occasional man asking his dead wife if he can marry her sister. The answer, by the way, is almost always no.

  “I did help an elf once, Mercifer, who wanted to draw the departed soul of his daughter back to this life. I sense his magic at work in you, Cindra.”

  “Mercifer’s daughter?” Cindra asked. “Why would he abandon me so quickly if that were the case? And why don’t I have memories of a childhood under his care?”

  “I can only speak to what I learned from his visit here,” Avelle said. “He paid a lot of gold for my assistance, a sum that suggests he missed his daughter a great deal.”

  A screeching sound echoed from the ground far below the temple. I peered into the distance. “More cretins,” I said. “Dozens of them.”

  “They’re coming through the Bog of Enduring Stench,” Torin said.

  “I just had to get creative,” Avelle said, “didn’t I? Of course they’d come that way, they won’t smell any of it themselves.”

  “But they’ll arrive reeking like an unwashed teenager, a scent they will emit for weeks,” Torin said. “Thank the gods it’s only enduring stench and not eternal.”

  “You made a big smelly bog?” I asked.

  “To keep the ill-intentioned away,” she said. “I also enchanted the Great Mirage to the west, and the trees to the north, which the gypsies affectionately call the Wall-o’-Woods.”

  “It’s not with affection,” Mamba said. “It’s where we banish the folks who don’t live by the gypsies’ rules.”

  “Which includes good men and women unwilling to hurt others on command,” Avelle said. “I have guided many of them here, where they happily remained as farmers.”

  “If Duul won’t relent,” I said, “you can’t stay here. Especially not with a child. Come to Halcyon, both of you. We can protect you.”

  “No,” she said. “This is my home. The temple was crafted to withstand any attack. I trust it will do that well. I cannot, however, trust that my people can remain here. They are vulnerable in their fields, and cannot grow the food they will need if they retreat inside the temple. I have food stored here that will last one man a long time, but cannot sustain 30 through the end of a war.”

  “I didn’t see any farmers,” I said.

  “No,” Avelle said, “you wouldn’t, not until you grow much stronger than you are now.” She looked at Torin again.

  “Will you offer them a new home?” he asked. “Few have any experience in combat. They will need shelter, and protection.”

  “Of course,” I said. I wasn’t sure how I would get 30 farmers back to Halcyon, but leaving them in harm’s way was no option. Plus, if they were willing to work the stubborn fields around Nola’s temple, they might just save all of our lives.

  “You undertake this burden for me,” Avelle said. “What do you ask in exchange?”

  “Nothing,” I said. The second the word left my mouth I wondered: Am I a complete idiot? Avelle and Torin likely had gold, and enchanted items, and a barrel of dark red wine that ignites insatiable libidos.

  But no
, I was here to do some good. That was all. “I came here to stop Duul from inflicting more harm. I’m just grateful you’ll allow me to do that.”

  “Nola did well to choose you,” Avelle said. “You have earned my respect, Arden Hochbright. Take this.” She handed me a dark green statuette, carved in her own likeness.

  “Some of the farmers are portal mages who had helped me maintain the portal network,” Avelle explained. “Give this idol to one of them and they will create a portal in Halcyon that connects to all the others.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Is there a way to use a portal to return to Halcyon now?”

  “No,” she said, “not while the network is down.” She stepped toward me, her eyes focused on my chest. When she slipped a hand inside my vest, I didn’t protest, but I did feel a little odd. I, for one, didn’t go around sticking my hands inside other people’s shirts.

  When the skin in the middle of my chest began to burn beneath her palm, I still didn’t protest, but I sure wanted to.

  “It is done,” she said.

  Whew.

  “The portals were open to everyone that paid to use them,” Avelle said. “I will reopen the portals, but only to those who possess this mark. Speak the name of your destination, and the portal arch will open onto the place you name. With this you have access to something that even Duul will not.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “This will make a tremendous difference.”

  “I hope it will,” Avelle said. She walked toward the edge of the pyramid’s lofty platform and reached into the vines that grew from the structure’s edge. She returned with something cupped in her hands.

  “A portal network is no easy thing to maintain. It will take some tinkering to make those changes. I don’t know when it will be operational. In the meantime, these portalbella mushrooms will transport you safely.” She handed three large mushrooms to Mamba. “And lastly, a boon of safe passage for each of you.”

  “You have so many tricks up your sleeve,” I said.

  “I have been at this a while,” she said.