God of the Abyss

by Rain Oxford

  Dylan scowled at the god as if he would deny it. “You said we destroyed you.”

  “You did. You also freed me from a bit of a parasite. I was the one who taught my brothers how to create life. Why shouldn’t I have a go at it?”

  “Why did you go to Sammy when he was a baby? Why are you going after my son now?” he asked.

  The god smirked. “Now, Dylan, I had gathered that you were intelligent. Can you really not figure it out? Besides, I think you have a more important question to ask,” Vretial said. Dylan hesitated, not sure if it was the time to push or not.

  “Are you the one who’s attacking the Guardians?” I asked for him.

  “No. I am afraid you have an enemy worse than me. In this case, we share the same nemesis.”

  “The griffins?” Dylan asked.

  “They are not your enemy.”

  “Why did you call us here?” he pressed. The god raised his eyebrow. “I love getting straight answers and I seem to be on a roll,” Dylan said.

  “I called you here to make sure you wouldn’t stand in my way again. It occurred to me that if my siblings told you to stop me, you would obey them. I wanted to see for myself what kind of man you are, since I didn’t really get chance before.”

  “So you didn’t bring me here to kill me?”

  The god scoffed. “If I killed everyone who defied me or tried to destroy me, I would be knee-deep in bodies. It would be counterproductive to kill you, because you are still of use to me.”

  “With the gates?”

  “Yes.” He held the card for Dylan to take. When Dylan took it, the god held up his other hand with the actual fruit. I needed to watch his hands more closely. “Did Tiamat ever tell you that apples were not her idea?” he asked.

  Before Dylan could answer, the space filled with bright light. When reality returned, we were standing on the deck of a large wooden ship in the middle of the sea. It was daylight and there were a few men standing around us, gaping. The gravity was heavier than Duran’s, but only slightly so.

  “Where are we?” I asked, inhaling the air. I didn’t recognize it by smell.

  Dylan stuck his tongue out to taste the air. “Kahún,” he answered.

  “You can’t really taste what world we’re on, can you?” I asked.

  He smirked and one man emerged from the crowd. While unimpressive in appearance, with young age and forgettable, average features, his aura was unmistakable.

  Wizards come in all levels of magic and are easy to spot. Most people of Duran actively practice magic, and the few who don’t, have at one time or will in their future. People who rarely used it, and even those who were just unsuccessful with it, were not considered wizards by the rest of the population. Edward explained to me the title actually described a genetic disposition that descendants of Guardians had in the art. He then tracked my family history to find that I was a direct, though distant, descendant of him.

  While the line between wizard and meager practitioner was vague and insignificant to me, there was a huge distinction between even the most powerful wizard and a Guardian. It wasn’t the age gap, since Dylan was younger than most the wizards I knew. It wasn’t even the instinct that the Guardians had to protect. Something about every one of them suggested they were more than people.

  Having met many of the Guardians, I recognized this man for what he was. Without hesitating, Dylan reached for me, sharing his energy to give me the ability to understand other languages. It was a habit he developed immediately after learning the power himself. After all, I was his adviser as far as anyone else was concerned, so I had to know what people were saying.

  “Welcome to Kahún, Dylan,” the man said, holding out his hand. Dylan glanced at me before shaking his hand.

  “He smells friendly enough, but I thought all of the Guardians are older than dirt,” I said.

  “As far as I know, all of the gods took a Guardian between fifteen hundred and two thousand years ago, soon after Vretial took Avoli’s world.”

  “It’s difficult to tell because he is immortal and extremely powerful, but this man is no more than three hundred.”

  “Nice to meet you, Rasik. I have heard a lot about you.”

  “Not from Ghidorah, I hope. Unfortunately, I am a little behind on the gossip. I heard Ronez was killed and you destroyed Vretial, then became the new Guardian. Kiro mentioned you the last time I saw him. In fact, he made quite the deal about you.”

  “Yeah, he’s proud of me.” And Dylan couldn’t have been happier about it. Since he spent his entire life being rejected by the people that were supposed to love him, Edward’s love and approval meant a lot to him. “Actually, it was Tiamat who destroyed Vretial. I just helped a little… as a distraction and… then a siphon. So, how did you become a Guardian?” Rasik blinked at him. “What caused you to be become a Guardian so recently?”

  My friend is so tactful.

  “How did you know that?” he asked, startled. “I was born a Guardian, I just wasn’t the original Guardian of Kahún. I am, in fact, the third. Azenoth was unsatisfied with my predecessors.”

  “Are you the only Guardian… that is like you? I mean, I know plenty about Kiro and my father, but other than Nano, I have barely met the rest. Seven years as a Guardian and this is the first time we’re meeting.”

  “It is understandable. We usually go many years between seeing each other. Most of us actually know little about the gods. The last contact I had with anyone was Shiloh talking about a council a few months ago. Before that, it was Kiro helping me get my book back. Nano checks in on me every few years, mostly to make sure Azenoth has not killed me.”

  “Shiloh is trying to change that with his council. He wants everyone to be in contact in case the gods suspect us of something. He is under the impression the Guardians need to stick together,” Dylan said, watching for Rasik’s response carefully.

  Rasik frowned. “Does Ghidorah know? Oh, does Emrys know that Shiloh wants him and Samorde to work together? I know that the others see me as young, but I am not. I tried to learn from them when my future was first decided. Maybe that is why I am a child in their eyes, but they are all different and not one of them would ever turn to each other for help. I know I can go to Kiro or Nano for support, but we are not a team. To call anyone for assistance, I might as well ask them to take over for me.”

  “So you disagree with Shiloh? He thinks all of us can work together.”

  “No, he wants all of us to work together. I doubt he believes it could happen. He even told me that it would only work if he could find the right person to lead it.”

  Normally at this point, I would smell some sort of manipulation. I shook my head when Dylan looked at me. “He has no hidden meaning. Shiloh probably never told him that he wanted you to lead the council,” I told him. “Who is the right person?” I asked aloud.

  “Someone who could get all of us to work together. Or maybe just someone who could keep Emrys from killing Samorde.”

  “Emrys is a decent guy unless Samorde is in the same room. What happened between them?” Dylan asked.

  “It is really not polite for me to say. Samorde will explain it to you if you asked.”

  “I’ll do that. Anyway, we came here to ask you to come with us back to Duran. Vretial is back and something is attacking Guardians.”

  “You mean, ‘Vretial is back and attacking Guardians,’ yes?”

  “No, I think the two events are a little more complicated than that. I think something else is attacking Guardians.”

  “Why do you think the dark god is back?”

  “We saw him,” I said.

  Rasik’s eyes widened and he swallowed nervously. He had read the same stories that everyone else had. “Then you are lucky to be alive. Why do you think he is not the one attacking the Guardians?”

  “Vretial said so,” Dylan said with a little wince.

  Rasik opened his mouth to speak, then shut it on his words. After a moment of thought, he opened his mouth a
gain. “And how do you know the Guardians are being attacked?”

  “Well, the gods wanted me to investigate them for treason because of a lapse in communication and because several of us have gone missing. Kiro was attacked, Shiloh was attacked, and then me. Nano was missing, now he’s back and Emrys is missing.”

  “The gods? More than your own god spoke with you?”

  “Can we get to Duran and fill you in there? Your shipmates are staring and Rojan doesn’t like it. Better yet, we can drop you off and Kiro can explain it. I would prefer to spend as little time as possible with Ghidorah.”

  Rasik nodded. “I can understand that; Ghidorah’s miserable attitude is contagious. However, I can travel to Duran without assistance.”

  “Actually, it would be better if you didn’t. If this thing is attacking Guardians specifically, we probably shouldn’t do anything related strictly to being a Guardian. Flashing you there would be better.”

  His jaw dropped in shock, but the space was filled with bright white light. It was a testament to how powerful my friend had become that he could simultaneously flash Rasik to Duran and us to another world.

  We landed in the middle of a creek. I glared at Dylan before I recognized the particular creek we were in. “Sorry,” Dylan said, wading through the water. “It’s difficult to concentrate on two places and two people besides myself at the same time, and this creek was a stronger memory. I just figured one jump would be safer than two.”

  Once out of the water, I shivered, letting my fire rise to the surface. “Don’t worry about it. At least we’re not being eaten by a fish-person.” My fire was warm as it covered my body, not hot enough to burn, but it mostly dried out my clothes. I grabbed Dylan’s arm to let my fire dry his as well. Just because I was more sensitive to the cold, didn’t mean my friend wouldn’t get sick from wet clothes in winter.

  I hesitated. While it was summer on Duran, the smell of dead leaves and the sharp bite of dry, cold air told me it was certainly winter on Malta. That struck me as odd. “What damage could the gates being opened cause? The ripples from Vretial’s death caused things to get mixed up in time and space. Why are the gods so afraid of the gates being opened?”

  “Other than the demons getting out and Earth becoming a dead wasteland, I have no idea. We can’t ignore the dream. I have no idea if Guardian dreams are accurate, but they are definitely important.”

  “But Earth being obliterated… it could have just been a normal nightmare. You didn’t have a problem breathing like you did when Vretial was after your book.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Seeing my world while floating randomly in space seems weird, but damn, that’s not something we can take a chance on. And Vretial acted like something was coming. He also said it was his fault. Was he referring to the gates opening?” he asked. I sat down on a log and he sat beside me.

  “We’re not stuck. We can figure anything out,” I said. Well, Dylan could, but I helped.

  “There’s too much information coming in, and we don’t know what’s connected. I want to piece every event together, but it doesn’t fit. I think we’re working on more than one puzzle.”

  “But that’s what you do; connect patterns.”

  “Is that it? Hardly something to put on the resume. We keep learning new things, but it’s mostly about the Guardians. How well the Guardians get along should be far down the list of priorities, but it keeps popping back up. So what is attacking us? Is it alive, or a thing? Who or what is our enemy?”

  “If it’s a thing, it’s probably being controlled by someone, because it’s specifically going after a group of people.”

  “Maybe we are actually dealing with a traitor. Maybe it’s somebody’s magic. It feels wrong, though, like I’m saying something that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Most of the time you don’t make any sense,” I said. He punched me in the arm, but was thinking too hard to put any force behind it. He acted like I was so much stronger because I was full-blooded sago and had dragon blood, but Guardians were stronger than average people. Really, he just subconsciously kept his strength in check. “Don’t worry about it; you’ll suddenly realize something devastatingly life-changing when we get attacked. Why are we here?”

  “I chose Malta so that I could half-heartedly pretend to look for Emrys while really trying to get my head straight. There are too many people at home that aren’t family and that makes me feel anxious.”

  “In other words, you can’t think with people putting thoughts in your head. You know if you go home that a bunch of strangers who are ancient and supposed to know everything will be telling you Vretial is a monster and giving you all their ideas and opinions.”

  He stared at the ground for a few minutes before looking at me. “Vretial is back,” he said, no despair of any kind in his tone.

  I opened my mouth to respond and was interrupted by a slight crack in the pressure of the air around us. A man appeared in front of us, which was happening far too often recently. Of course, it was rare to meet a man with silver-red hair and eyes that were gray and gold.

  “Rilryn. You escaped that place?”

  Before I could even scent him, he attacked. He had a sword in hand and took a swing at Dylan, completely ignoring me. Thankfully, he missed my friend. I inhaled as I drew my fire. Instantly I smelled wet dust and agitated nominal energy and knew he was a Guardian. Like with all other Guardians and powerful wizards, the energy around him gravitated towards him, eager to be used. There were too many Guardians.

  I shot a ball of fire at him, hot enough to burn a person, but not nearly as hot as I could have made it. My fire caught his clothes and burned through before I could pull it back, since extinguishing fire was ten times more difficult than setting something on fire. However, my strike was only meant as a warning shot and I didn’t want to kill the Guardian. Not yet anyway.

  “Explain yourself,” I demanded in Sudo. I really didn’t care if he didn’t speak the language. If he didn’t immediately surrender his attack on Dylan, he would get to see what an angry dragon could do.

  He looked around me as if calculating the quickest way past the obstacle he faced. I was about to send out another shot when Dylan put his hand on my arm. “He didn’t fight back. He didn’t even react to your fire as his clothes burned.”

  “I don’t care if he’s suicidal, I’ll burn him to ash if he moves another muscle.” And then he did. He tried to dive around me to strike Dylan, not even bothering to protect himself. As he struck, he left his chest wide open. Instantly my claws were shifted and tearing through his skin and muscle, which held as strong as wet paper to my claws. It was at the same time that my eyes shifted.

  Everyone had an aura, even Ronez, even the gods, even the animals… except for this Guardian. Instead, there was an ominous absence. Another quick sniff confirmed it. Forcing my claws to retract, I turned to push Dylan further away from the man.

  Dylan’s scratched arm angered me, but I gained us a moment by the amount of damage the older Guardian had taken. He took another step towards Dylan, still with the sword, and fell to his knees. Dylan had a slight cut; his attacker was spilling his precious blood across the grass for his error. The reasonable side of me, (the son of a king) felt regret for attacking a man who was clearly under duress. The more primal side of me, (the dragon) felt pride for defending my clutch.

  Dragons had four categories for any person or animal: family, friend, foe, and food. Dylan was my family and friend, and anyone who attacked him was foe and food. My friend was the one who came up with the plans to save the day and had the infinite magic to back them up, but I was a dragon; I would protect what was mine even if he didn’t need protection.

  Dylan raised his hand, indicating he was fixing to strike with some form of magic, and I pushed it down gently. He looked at me with confusion. “Something’s wrong with him. He’s---” My words were drowned by a too-familiar screech. “Those griffins are getting to be a real pest.”

  I had to tak
e back my unfair words when the griffin appeared only to go after Rilryn. The Guardian was still on his knees, completely unprepared to be attacked from behind. Landing behind him, the creature reared up and sunk his talons into the man’s flesh. Bright, empty, wicked light burst from the Guardian and I instinctively shoved Dylan away from it. I knew the torture of the abyss and would recognize its malevolence anywhere; that was void light.

  When the light died, it was quiet. The griffin was gone again and the Guardian was unconscious on the ground, bleeding out. Dylan moved to help him, but I held my friend back. I let my eyes shift and saw his soul this time. I could smell little over the heavy scent of his blood, but I could see him. He was old, nearly as old as Edward, but still young. He was wise, though a little reckless. There was a deep past behind him and possibly a monumental future ahead of him, and there was little for him to regret. Overall, he was a good person who made a few mistakes.

  I let Dylan go and nodded. Dylan didn’t hesitate to go to his side and start healing, despite the fact that the stranger had attacked us. Deep gashes stitched together in a matter of minutes and Dylan had to hold what was left of the torn shirt away from the wounds to keep the burnt cloth from getting wedged in the lacerations.

  Rilryn woke with a hard gasp and clutched his chest in shock. Still breathing hard after a few moments, he looked at Dylan. “What happened?”

  I opened my mouth to scathe, but Dylan held up his hand. Although I knew that he meant no offense, it was extremely annoying. My friend got diplomacy stuck in his head sometimes and expected me to predict his every thought and never take offense.

  “What do you remember?” Dylan asked.

  “I was in the forest. You healed me and left and I… lost track of time. It got dark too soon. It was cold and dark. Then I woke up and…” He looked down at his mostly-healed wounds and the sword lying to his side. “Have I been in a fight?”