The Giants of Shattered Swamp

by Eddie Patin

  Striding past the leopardwere, the giant glowed with blue fury with his fiery eyes intent on a particular cube hanging in the air a distance away from Gliath's. When the giant reached the cube, he stood—elemental fire scorching all over his form as the black maelstrom whirled angrily around him—then reached up to the cube and crushed it into oblivion with one massive hand.

  Then, without looking back, the giant continued, silently stomping away to the courtyard's far exit, where he disappeared into the changing castle. The trees that he passed glowed with the blue of his skin and the pulsating red of his chest.

  A few minutes later, the black storm had faded.

  The cube—along with whatever was in it—was gone.

  Gliath imagined his own cube at some point in the future, with him dead and rotting in his armor sprawled inside, crushed into nothing the same way whenever the giant's mad mind deemed that it was time.

  "Did you guys see that?" Morgana Soloster suddenly said in the radio.

  "That crazy fruking giant squeezed that cube into nothing," Ranaja added.

  Gliath picked up the radio from the transparent floor near his leg. He didn't realize when he'd dropped it.

  "He ... he does that," Callam Malax said.

  "But why?!" the human female replied.

  "Cause he's fruking crazy," Ranaja said. "What's that red thing on his chest? It only glows during the black storms."

  "That's an interesting ... fucking observation," Callam Malax replied, breathing quickly between words. "That red thing is my team's Riftgate." He slipped into a gasping fit. "God—my fucking head. I just ... I can't keep going like this..." The dying human started coughing then stopped his transmission.

  There was quiet for a time.

  "What's a Riftgate?" Morgana Soloster asked.

  "It's their tech that they use for rifting," Ranaja replied. "They do things a bit differently than we do with Jason."

  "What ... don't you ... have a Riftgate, too?" Callam Malax asked.

  "Did you," Ranaja started, then paused. "Did you say that it was broken? Back when your team was attacked by the ettins?"

  "Yeah," Callam Malax replied, keeping his transmission going while he gasped and wheezed. It sounded like he was choking. "The fucking ettins smashed it and it went ... on the fritz. Became ... unstable. Our Wayfinder tried to ... but he got killed."

  "But why's the big guy wearing it?" Ranaja asked.

  They were all quiet for a moment. Gliath tried to breathe slowly and evenly.

  "Well," Morgana Soloster said, her voice crackling over the radio. "It does make kind of a pretty necklace for a giant..."

  No one spoke for a time. The dying mercenary came in again, gasping and wheezing before he spoke any real words.

  "So is anybody ... ya got headaches, yeah? Breathing fast yet?"

  Gliath was still fine.

  "Yep," Ranaja answered. "I've got a headache. Not breathing faster than normal, though."

  "I've got a headache," Morgana Soloster added. "It's pretty bad, actually. I guess I'm breathing a little faster. The air is getting ... well ... thick and heavy...?"

  Callam Malax replied gasping. "Just you wait," he said. Gliath could detect a smile in his rough, wheezy voice. "It'll get worse. A lot fucking worse."

  Gliath didn't understand the strange human; why he was intent on sharing his misery with the Reality Rifters. He should be keeping his pain to himself, then dying with dignity.

  They were all quiet for a while.

  "We're gonna get out of here," the human female said.

  "I think so too, yeah," Ranaja said. "Jason's surprised me quite a few times in the shet we've been through so far. He'll come through."

  "Bullshit," Callam Malax said. "We're all gonna fucking die."

  "He'll come through," Morgana Soloster repeated.

  Gliath put his head back on the smooth wall. He contemplated shifting into his primal form. Maybe he'd use less air if he was smaller.

  Either way, he was trapped, for better or for worse.

  The leopardwere liked the way the new Reality Rifters team was shaping up. He hoped that this wasn't the end; dying in a cube up in an insane giant's castle.

  Gliath closed his eyes, focused on his breathing, and settled in to wait for rescue ... or wait for death.

  Chapter 28

  "Where the fuck are they?!" Jason shouted.

  He was in his computer room, digging around in the many bins and boxes full of pieces of electronics, old video cards, LAN cards, saved motherboard components, over a dozen keyboards, very old disc drives and hard drives that he'd never bothered to throw away; pulling box after box onto his desk and searching through the crap within.

  He threw a wad of Molex power cables down and frowned, then scooped up more cords and adaptors and quickly shoved it all back into the closet.

  Jason was sure that he'd put the extra focus key blanks around here somewhere. He'd stashed some gold in here; where the hell were the focus keys?!

  Or had Riley kept them?

  He'd already been through the garage and his bedroom, so was now sacking his crafting room, but there was nothing related to his recent monster hunting adventures other than his stashes of one-ounce gold tabs from the Bounty Boards and the remainder of the electronics he'd bought in Denver for making his infinity charger prototype.

  He could definitely remember back when Riley had first told him about the blanks. The cyborg had given him one to make his 'home key', and ... they stashed the pile of unused ones ... where?

  Riley must still have them, Jason thought.

  He growled and kicked an old box full of computer parts.

  "So much for that idea..." he muttered.

  Ever since getting home and fretting and working himself up into a wrecking ball of despair, Jason had been stalking around the house reaching for any ideas—anything at all—that could help him get back to the giant's castle and free his friends.

  The only half-decent idea he'd come up with involved those extra focus key blanks. Over several seconds of mulling over it, he'd planned to take a blank, rift back up to the castle, get past the harpies, find his way into the courtyard, then break and drop half of a blank focus key somewhere in the orchard before the giant managed to capture him. Hell—even if Jason was captured, he could probably just rift out of that glass cube and go home, right?

  Well, Jason wanted to drop off half of a blank in that weird courtyard so that he could spy on the castle from home until the giant left to wander the swamp during another storm. Then, he'd rift there and somehow get his friends out of their cubes. Maybe he could guesstimate coordinates into their prisons to let them escape, one by one, just like he did back when he brought them through the necromancer's high-tech door on Morgana's world.

  Jason's powers gave him the master keys to the entire Omniverse.

  It was a pretty good idea. But he needed those damned blanks.

  With a sigh, Jason stomped back to the garage. He stood for a moment, staring at the submerged case with the troll's head in his big stainless steel sink. It didn't seem to be growing underwater; at least, as far as he could see.

  "That's it," he said. "I've gotta go back to Dave's."

  After buying a shit-ton of blank focus keys from Riley's old friend in the Market, he'd get back to his plan. Jason couldn't waste any more time. His friends were trapped. They were alive the last time he was up there in the courtyard, but that could change at any moment...

  Jason decided right then and there that he'd always have a large supply of blank focus keys on hand. He'd keep some in his backpack whenever they were on adventures. It would be like having semi-permanent bookmarks that he could rift to without the OCS; like leaving breadcrumbs through a dark forest.

  That was an odd thought, Jason pondered with a smirk. Besides—the birds always eat the breadcrumbs in the old fairytales...

  So, he'd keep some with him and store the others ... in the tool cabinet. Jason's eyes fell on the tool cabi
net fixed on his garage wall. He'd keep them in a separate cabinet than the locked drawer where he kept his home key's... other half...

  Jason stared at the locked drawer.

  The other half of his home key was in there. And so was ... Riley's...

  "Backup," Riley had said with a smirk. That was back just before they'd gone on their minotaur bounty. Jason stared at the shelf and remembered the soldier sticking the other half of his into a belt pouch. "Now, let’s stash these ‘home’ pieces somewhere in this garage where they won’t walk away..." he'd said.

  "Oh my God!" Jason shouted. "Riley!"

  Jason scrambled for the tool cabinet. That was the answer! He didn't have to go and buy more focus keys to get to Riley! He didn't have to go on that recon mission to drop off a blank in the courtyard and return later to guesstimate the coordinates to free his friends. He already had a focus key ... to Riley, himself!

  Almost attacking the locked cabinet drawer, Jason pulled mindlessly on the handle for an instant before his brain reminded him that he'd need the key.

  Then, he rushed across the garage, reached up to the old oil filter box on a shelf in which he kept his key hidden, and tore it open. He grabbed the key, ran across the garage again, opened the drawer, and stared at the two focus key blank halves sitting within.

  They were rather unremarkable, but they both had the word 'HOME' written on each side with a Sharpie marker.

  "Yes!" Jason exclaimed, grabbing the first one.

  He held it up.

  "Which one?" he asked, looking at them both. Was he holding his, or Riley's?

  There was only one way to find out...

  Jason turned to the open section of the garage where he made his rifts, flexed that part inside him while clenching the focus key half and feeling his way through the ninth dimension, then opened a portal with a flutter and a snap. The gateway flared to life, roaring and blazing orange, whirling clockwise and throwing sparks all over the garage.

  When the center of the spinning, sparking disc cleared, Jason was left looking at an extremely weird repeating, infinite image of himself from behind looking through a bright and spinning portal in his garage. That other self was looking at himself from behind who looked through a blazing rift, looking at himself from behind as he was peering through a wildly spinning portal, watching himself looking through another whirling rift, where—

  Jason looked away. Each other version of himself did the same in the corner of his eye before he turned his back to the wacky spectacle. It made him dizzy. Each consecutive portal spun in the same direction, and the deeper and deeper he peered into the optical madness, time seemed to distort and become ... strange. It was an infinite pit of bright, spinning orange fire, Jason after Jason, and it went on for as far as he cared to see with his naked human eye.

  "Holy shit," Jason shouted above the roar. "Wrong one."

  He released the portal without looking back. When it popped and the blazing light vanished from the room, Jason returned to the tool cabinet.

  Putting the other half of his 'home key' back in its spot, he grabbed the other blank, almost giddy with the excitement that he was about to rescue Riley. This was going to work!

  Turning back to the rifting spot, Jason checked all of his gear. He tightened down the slings of his AK-47 and OCS, straightened his minotaur-hide jacket under the many straps, and prepared himself for the real thing.

  He took a quick drink of cool water from his CamelBak's bite valve on his shoulder, then clenched Riley's focus key and rifted through space-time.

  After a quick reach across multiverses, Jason found his way and opened the portal with a flutter and a loud snap. The small orange fireball that appeared in mid-air spun madly then immediately unfurled into a wide, vertical disc that cast sparks from its edges as it roared. When the center cleared, Jason smiled.

  He saw Riley on the other side; right on the other side. His cyborg friend was sitting in that 'too cool for school' way that only Riley could manage while waiting to die, arms on his knees, the back of his head resting against the clear glass-like wall.

  Riley was shiny—like he was sweating—and his eyes were clenched shut. His mouth was pressed into a tight, grim line.

  Jason grinned. He'd done it. Moving to leap forward into the other world—into Riley's cube with him—Jason suddenly froze in place as Riley lifted his head with a start and stared at something out of view.

  Stopping just short of breaking the surface of the roaring rift, Jason watched Riley's dark eyes tracked something passing by just below him.

  The giant? Jason thought. It had to be the giant! What else would it be?

  As much as it pained him, Jason waited for a minute. It turned out to be a good call. Just before he was about to move forward and let himself into Riley's cube, Jason saw a blue glow appear in darkness beyond his friend. Then, Vorealus passed by, pausing to stare up at Riley's form with his glowing yellow eyes. The giant's face was firm and grim. He considered Riley as if scrutinizing a reading on a meter.

  Riley glared back at the giant and kept the monster's gaze until Vorealus moved on.

  As hard as it was to make out fine details through the roaring rift—the orange fire rippling around its spinning rim made quite a glare—Jason could see that the air outside of the cube behind his friend was black.

  He waited for a while longer, and, sure enough, the background behind Riley and the cyborg's transparent walls brightened.

  Was the giant gone? Or just resting?

  It didn't matter. One way or the other, Jason could get in, spring Riley from his cube, then rescue Morgana and Gliath however he could. If the giant wasn't there, then maybe Jason could guesstimate new coordinates from within Riley's cube. If Vorealus was still there, he'd have to come back after bringing Riley home.

  Jason took a deep breath, strengthened his resolve, then stepped through.

  The instant he passed into the Shattered Swamp—into Riley's glass-like cube—the tight, enclosed space was suddenly filled with the jet-engine-like roar of the portal, along with orange fire, sparks, and all of the other chaos.

  Riley jumped to his feet with his dark eyes just about as big as golf balls, immediately drawing his blaster as if he'd done it a thousand times in his sleep. The wind of the rift made Riley's duster coattails whip around his legs. It took only a moment for the cyborg to figure out what was happening.

  With a massive grin, Riley holstered his laser pistol and spread out his arms as if he was going to give Jason a huge hug.

  "Jason!" Riley shouted over the rift's noise, which was considerable in the eight-by-eight-by-eight cube. "Holy shet, Jason! You're here!"

  "Riley!" Jason shouted back, smiling just as broadly. His heart was pounding again, but it was filled to the brim with relief and joy. "Your focus key, Riley!" Jason exclaimed. He still couldn't believe it. The answer had been under his nose the entire time. "I realized that I could use your home key to go the other direction!"

  "Zappo!" his friend replied, rushing forward and seizing Jason by the shoulders. "I knew you'd come through!"

  "Where are the others?" Jason asked, reaching to his side and touching the inner wall of Riley's cube. The orange rift-fire swirling around him from behind was reflecting on all of the walls, and he couldn't see outside into the courtyard. "Where's Morgana? Is Gliath okay?"

  "They're both in their own cubes!" Riley shouted back over the roar of the portal. "I can see them both from up here. Morgana's down low close to the treetops. Gliath's kind of in the middle. They're both alive. Morgana's in the worst shape. We need to get them out of there!"

  "No shit!" Jason replied. "You've been talking on the radios?"

  "Yeah, man!" Riley yelled then peered through the glaring walls. "I talked to them ... maybe an hour ago? Oh, shet! Let's get outta—"

  "Okay! I'm gonna close this rift so we can—"

  "Don't!" Riley replied, looking frantically back at Jason. His dark eyes were wide and reflected the swirling oran
ge fire. "We've got to get out now! Let's get out and come back! The giant's coming back—I can see him! He can just crush a cube into nothing with his hands!"

  Jason hesitated. He couldn't see shit. A small part of him thought that Riley was just saying whatever he had to get the hell out of there right now. Then, Jason squished that little voice. Riley was his friend. He was a good man.

  "Are you sure?" Jason shouted. "How are we gonna—?"

  "I have an idea!" Riley shouted. "Now, let's go before we get zapped!"

  With that, Jason and Riley rushed back into the garage, leaving the cube behind. He hated leaving Morgana and Gliath back there. And now, with Riley there with him, his shortcut into the courtyard was gone.

  But he had Riley.

  He was no longer alone, and if there was one of his Reality Rifter friends he'd choose over the others to help him fight or get past the giant, it was Riley by a long shot.

  Jason touched down on concrete with Riley right behind him, grinning like he'd just looked death in the face and flicked it on the nose. He had just evaded certain death, after all.

  Then, his mind raced with what to do next...

  Chapter 29

  "Your gun's on my chair in the living room," Jason said after releasing the rift.

  Being back in the garage with Riley felt a little surreal. It was hard to imagine that Jason had been through so much already to get his friends back, and now, Riley was here. After the various jaunts of time travel, Jason felt a weird disconnection with how much time had really passed. There were also the few days he'd spent healing up in the Wilderlands that had been effectively erased from time because of going back to the temporal coordinates outside of the troll's cave.

  It was strange to think that Gliath and Morgana were still trapped in the giant's floating castle.

  Jason also felt a little like he had traded Gliath for Riley.

  He really needed a beer.

  Riley had immediately blown past him into the house and was loudly gathering supplies inside. Jason walked over to his stainless steel sink—still full of water—and looked at the troll's head case. It was still there. There weren't any tentacles climbing out of the sink or anything.