by Ted Striker
“And this is why you are talking to me instead of whacking away with your mallet,” said Bryan.
Perkins slashed dismissively with the hammer, suddenly impatient. A shower of sparks arced around them like water droplets. “Fool! Do you truly think that you will be able to stand against one who has destroyed armies? Even if you do prevail, what then? Will you take my place among the rulers of this dimension? They sought to destroy me, such that I must flee across the Dark Curtain to your abode, and return, not as myself, but in the guise of a mortal man, in order to gain time to prepare more fully my battle. Will you defy these evils in my stead?”
“I wouldn’t have to defy you or them if you hadn’t tried to take my body,” retorted Bryan. “You want to steal my very future — well, if you want it, come and take it! Just don’t expect me to lie down and fade away, because you are in for a world of disappointment and pain!”
Perkunas’ attack was so swift that if Bryan had needed to think, he would have been gone. But sword – no sword, the muscle memory cultivated by years of work on dojo mats, in streets, jungles and deserts around the world saved him. The hammer blow was an overhand strike, designed to crush his skull. Bryan responded with koshinage, slipping to the side as he guided the blow past him. He bent over, using his hip as a fulcrum, and guided the arm and hammer down, down and around. Perkins, carried by the power of his hammer strike, flipped summarily over Bryan’s back and slammed into the ground. Bryan wrenched the hammer away from his stunned opponent and brought it around in a short twisting stroke against Perkins’ jaw.
Chapter 7
Being slammed into the ground and literally hammered should have finished Perkins. Any normal man in a real-world fight would have been breathless and broken-jawed. As it was, here in Bryan’s dream world, the God Perkunas’ eyes crossed for an instant. Then they focused again, and his hand shot up to grasp the hammer’s haft. Sparks surrounded them, spitting and crackling as the two wrestled for control. Bryan began to feel an enormous web of power envelope them as Perkins exerted a different kind of force. Bryan resisted in kind, bending his mind to the task of resisting the irresistible. Now the battle was will against will, and whoever was the most stubborn, contrary son-of-a-bitch was going to win. Bryan intended that it should be he, even as blackness appeared at the edges of his vision. He could see the veins stand out on Perkins’ neck as he increased his own force. Now the encroaching darkness began to expand behind Bryan’s eyes, and he thought that his head might explode.
“Enough!” The contralto command cut through the combatants’ combined concentration like a sword. The hammer vanished as if it had never been. Both men disengaged and came to their feet, staring in shock at the golden-haired apparition confronting them.
“Mebd!?” exclaimed Perkins. “I thought that I had heard you!” A thunderous frown furrowed his brow and his hammer re-appeared.
“Nancy?” Bryan stared at the woman in confusion. He was almost sure this was the woman he had been with in that basement room. It seemed so long ago now. Cut that wild mane of hair into a short bob . . . the face was a perfect match. “So your voice was really inside my head!” he said. “We really . . . I thought it was just a dream.”
Mebd/Nancy spared Bryan a wry smile. “Aye, it was merely myself hitching a ride, as it were. In a much more pleasant manner than some, I might add.” The glance she threw Perkins was withering. When she spoke again, her voice reminded Bryan of a drill sergeant he’d known. “You are a worthless pair of idiots, you two! Could you not feel the danger? Especially you, Perkunas! This child has no experience to warn him of the disaster about to befall all of us! We are all tied to his body, and we’ll all suffer the same death if it dies. Or had you forgotten that little fact in your rush to overpower your son?”
“That blackness I saw closing in on us?” said Bryan. “I thought that was another attack.” He looked at Perkins.
Mebd nodded. “Exactly. Did you not notice, Perkunas?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “No! Because you, in your pig-headed arrogance, expected to take this body without a fight.”
“And I would have, if you hadn’t interfered!” Perkins was red-faced with fury. “If you hadn’t been strengthening the boy, he would have crumpled like an aluminum can.” He clenched his huge fists around the haft of the hammer. “I should have seen your hand in this! How long have you been hiding here?”
Mebd’s mocking laughter cut bell-like through Perkins’ rant. “Strengthening!” she said, “Hiding! Dear heart, I only took action just now, to stop you two before the boy’s body burns up like a pine cone in a forest fire and kills us all.” She tossed her head. “Bryan has held you off by himself, by the power you gave him! Although, now that you mention it, perhaps I had some small part in your defeat.”
Perkunas snarled, “I knew that you were sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong! There has been no defeat! And when he and I are matched without your interference, it will be him that is overcome.”
“No, dear, thick Thunder God. I interfered, as you accuse, some twenty-eight years ago, once I understood your foolish plan to create a vessel for your spirit.”
“Wait a damned minute!” Bryan interrupted. “You knew what Perkins was doing?”
“Aye, although it took me some time to unravel the knot he was weaving,” purred Mebd slyly. “He’s been creeping around from century to century, strengthening his bloodline, until he got a descendant that was strong enough to endure the onslaught of his essence, and that descendant, my love, is you.”
She shot a shrewd look at Perkins. “But you didn’t count with me, did you, Perkunas? No, you didn’t even know that it was me you seduced into your bed instead of that sweet girl.”
Perkins stared. “Moira?” He looked closely into Mebd’s face. “Ah! I see it now. You took her place?”
“That lovely dark-haired thing?” Mebd smiled triumphantly. “It took no great effort to impersonate her while you were in that state and completely oblivious to all but one thing. So you created an entire bloodline of godlike women only to end up fathering your son with me.” Her mocking laugh rang through Bryan’s mind.
“Then, when I conceived, dear Perkunas, I could feel this one’s life force humming like a dynamo in my womb. Ten months you grew inside me, Bryan, and when you came forth, you were as beautiful as the moon in the heavens, the scion of two pantheons. I knew then that I could never let you be the pawn in this one’s plans.”
“You dare meddle in my affairs?” Perkins half-raised his sparking hammer threateningly.
“You’re my MOTHER?” Bryan was dumbfounded.
“When those grand affairs are as ill-conceived as your hare-brained plan to sneak back across the Veil disguised as your descendant, yes!” shot back Mebd, ignoring Bryan’s outburst. She continued, whimsically, “And, as I recall it, you were the one doing all the meddling.”
“I’m right here, people,” said Bryan loudly. “And you have no idea how weird or uncomfortable it is for me to hear you talk about that.”
Mebd smiled at him, and Bryan’s body, imaginary or not, reacted immediately. Eww. Seriously, he told himself. The woman was his mother! His thoughts whirled in a frenzy of confusion and his head ached as if it would split. He focused on the pain to keep the approaching insanity at bay.
Mebd touched his forehead. “Ah, love of my heart, don’t blame yourself if you can’t control those feelings; am I not the goddess of sex and war? Besides, the genetic foibles that gave rise to the mortal’s prohibition against incest do not affect our kind.”
Bryan shook his head as his dizziness increased. “But you’re my MOTHER!” he almost yelled. “Bloody hell, I’ve gone insane,” he said, half to himself. “No normal person could even invent this stuff.”
“You are anything but normal, my son. And what we did was necessary, or I would not be here to save us all.” She smiled in what might have been meant as a reassuring gesture.
Bryan stumbled back, raising his hands to his p
ounding temples. “No!” he shouted. “No!” That whirlpool of confusion was suddenly bigger and closer.
Mebd’s smile faded. “Perkunas!” she snapped. “Stop your exertion of will! Did you not hear me, or are you completely stupid? This battle must cease! Even now, the strain of it is destroying his body and mind! He is on the verge of madness, and if he goes mad, both of us will be trapped here with him until we all die!”
Perkins hesitated.
“You already sacrificed one son, Perkunas! Will you sacrifice this one as well?”
The Defender recoiled as if slapped in the face. Bryan could feel the pain slack off a little, a huge relief that came too late. His strength was gone. He fell to his knees, the whirlpool of insanity beginning to swirl around him.
“Hurry, you fool! Before it’s too late!” Mebd’s words came to Bryan from a great distance. Then he felt Perkunas’ big hands on either side of his face and a gentle transfer of strength from the God.
Perkunas poured his essence into his son, saw the panic and turmoil fade from the blue-green eyes. Peace and wonder appeared in their depths and Perkunas felt something he had blocked for almost thirty years: the connection between himself and his son. Strange, he had never noticed how much the boy looked like him. He suddenly shuddered at the thought of what he had almost done. “I am so sorry!” he whispered as Bryan closed his eyes.
He sniffed loudly and turned to the Celtic Goddess. “Our son is safe from me, at least,” he said. “Now, if my scheme is so ill-conceived and hare-brained, what shall we do to protect these two worlds from the coming calamity?”
Mebd’s wicked smile flashed like summer lightning. “Why, we’ll go with my own plan, of course!”
Chapter 8
“Tamoth! Come quickly!” The centaur responded instantly, starting out of sleep and galloping into the tent, battle axe ready. In the ruddy glow of lamplight he saw Jwilla kneeling beside Bryan. Tamoth scanned the dim corners of the tent for intruders, saw none, and focused again on his partner. “What do you need, Jwilla?” he rumbled, letting the unneeded axe slide down to rest head-first on the tent floor.
“He stirred! Lord Perkunas lives! He is returning! Yet he burns with fever!”
Tamoth nodded, touched the human’s form. Indeed, the man was burning up. Centaurs ran just a little hotter than humans or horses, and Bryan’s skin felt as if it had been recently in a fire. Bending down, Tamoth seized Bryan and galloped out of the tent, through the woods and down to the narrow stream coursing along its rocky path below the campsite. He ran right into the creek and plunged Bryan neck-deep into the ice-cold water.
“What are you doing, you four-footed clod?” demanded Jwilla as she slid down the slope behind him. She hadn’t bothered to clothe herself.
Tamoth held Bryan’s head above the water, but that was all. “Such a fever as this is a fire that will burn him from the inside out,” he said by way of explanation. “My cousin had such a fever, brought on by a battle wound. They were late treating him, and now he eats only food ground to mush and needs to be kept in a quiet paddock under constant care lest he hurt himself or others. Whatever our Lord is doing inside the boy is causing a fever that would have killed this body if left unchecked. We should have learned more about this process before attempting it,” he concluded heavily.
“Do you not think that Lord Perkunas considered all of the ramifications?” snapped Jwilla.
“I do not,” Tamoth replied bluntly. “The Gods may have known at one time the art of jumping from one body to another, but I do not think that Lord Perkunas knew exactly what dangers he would face, or even the effects of using the Soul Sword to transfer his essence to the body of another.” He lifted Bryan’s body from the water, touched the human’s forehead to his lips, using the extreme sensitivity of those to gauge the fever. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “It is reduced to nearly normal. I detect some heat, but he is out of danger. Now we must wait until he awakens to see whether he suffered any brain damage.”
“Since I’m waking up here with you two,” said Bryan, “I guess that the fever left me insane. Were you kissing me on the forehead just now?”
Tamoth started and nearly dropped the human. “My Lord!” he said. He waded to the bank, where he set Bryan on his feet. Bryan swayed and would have fallen, but the Centaur’s thick fingers caught his shoulder and supported him until he could sit down.
“Thanks,” said Bryan gratefully. “And thanks for reducing my fever, as well. I would have been a goner if you hadn’t done that. The energy generated by the battle was cooking me alive.”
Jwilla dropped to one knee. “My Lord Perkunas,” she murmured.
“Perkunas? Perkins?” Bryan looked at the centaur and then at Jwilla, then back to . . . Tamoth? It was the same broad, craggy beetle-browed face he remembered. A centaur! Well, the guy had been a little too huge to be human. “No, sorry, I’m Bryan.”
After a disbelieving silence Jwilla said flatly, “So you defeated Lord Perkunas. Perkunas, the Defender. Perkunas the Thunder God.”
“The big blonde guy with the electric hammer? AKA Thor? Yeah, I know him well; we’re like father and son.” He saw by Jwilla’s narrowed eyes that he had scored a point. The centaur was more of a poker player; he remained deadpan except for a little eyebrow twitch that spoke to his sense of humor. The big guy must have liked that he had scored on Jwilla. But Bryan could tell that both of them had known about his familial relationship with the Thunder God. “Let’s just say we reached an accommodation,” he said. “We fought each other to a standstill and, when we saw that we were actually killing my body, we called a truce.” Bryan wasn’t ready to share the fact that there were two ‘gods’ living inside his head. These two already knew that Perkunas was there, but they didn’t need to know anything else.
{A wise decision, a thaisce} Mebd chimed.
“He agreed to leave me in charge and I agreed to deliver him to the Temple of Mebd in Answar.”
“A likely story,” Jwilla snorted. She folded her arms beneath her naked breasts defiantly.
Bryan smiled. Jwilla looked really good that way.
{Careful,} warned Perkunas. {That’s my Priestess you’re ogling.}
{Yes, and she’s well worth the ogle,} thought Bryan back. {Besides, you’re not here, I am. Er. . . you know what I mean.}
{I do. We agreed to a draw, remember. You didn’t win.}
“No,” Bryan snapped, as much to Perkunas as to Jwilla, “It’s such an unlikely story that even I don’t want to believe it. Listen,” he said, “The last remotely sane thing that happened to me was when Kramer’s goons were about to waterboard me. If I had come to just now, wearing ruby slippers instead of being kissed by a Centaur, it wouldn’t be crazier. In fact, it would be better, because if I had ruby slippers, I could just click my heels three times and go home.”
“You seem merry for one who has fought a God,” remarked Tamoth. He had decided to back his partner, Bryan saw. Good for him.
“Fought a God and won,” he said with an impudent grin. “Reason enough to be happy, I think.”
Jwilla sneered her contempt. “Declared a truce, I thought you said.”
“True. But any fight you can walk away from. . .” Bryan’s stomach rumbled insistently and he suddenly realized how famished he was. “Listen, guys, feed me and let me get a little rest, and I’ll tell you everything that happened between me and Perkunas.”
“Lord Perkunas,” corrected Jwilla.
A belly full of dunbuck and tubers and several leather cups of ale later, Bryan burped. “. . . So Perkunas and I were wrest—”
“Lord Perkunas,” interjected Jwilla.
“– Lord Perkunas and I wrestled over the hammer until we noticed that my body was being destroyed because we were so evenly matched that the battle was generating too much energy for a mortal body to contain. And, well, the rest you know.”
{A wonderful tale, a thaisce,} said Mebd. {Being merely a humble Goddess, I am not offended that you made no ment
ion of my small contribution.}
{Indeed,} added Perkunas with a snort. {Evenly matched!}
Jwilla narrowed her glare to a laser focus on Bryan’s eyes. “I don’t think you’re telling us everything.”
Bryan returned her sullen look with one of bland innocence. “You people are the ones who kidnapped me,” he reminded her. “I’ve no need to lie about anything.”
“Jwilla is simply upset that Lord Perkunas did not easily prevail,” explained Tamoth. “In fact, I told him that you should be recruited and asked to submit voluntarily.”
Bryan gaped at that. “Yeah, well, that wasn’t going to happen. Even if I had believed this whole insane story, which I wouldn’t have, why should I give up my life, my future, everything, for a father who abandoned me?”
Jwilla started, “You ungrateful –”
Tamoth erupted in a fit of loud coughing. Jwilla got the message and shut her mouth with a snap! She crossed her arms in annoyance and jumped up. “You sleep outside!” she said as she stormed into the tent. “And you, too, you four-legged apologist!”
“I always sleep outside!” Tamoth snorted horsily.
Bryan thought about centaur physiology. Did Tamoth have lungs and a heart in his humanoid parts or were they all in the equine parts? Did he have redundant organs? Could he get enough air when he ran? Tamoth’s nostrils were fairly large, but not even close to the size of a horse’s. He was on the verge of asking when the Centaur spoke.
“As I remember,” he said suddenly, “Answar was a city of palaces for merchant princes, far in the south of Norland, on the coast of the Barbary Sea. It was a beautiful place, bordered by groves and gardens watered by the valley's never-failing spring. Its people gloried in rearing great temples dedicated to their gods, buildings that stood among the marvels of the world. Caravans flocked to the city throughout the year, carrying all that was most precious, useful, or beautiful from the world over to be sold in Answar’s bazaars.”
