by Jamie Hawke
“You’re sure?” Tink called out, wings flapping as she attempted to stabilize herself.
“This was the plan anyway, right?” I pointed to the monster. “Not exactly like this, but to get access, use the stones. Let’s see if our journey to get the core stones was really worth it.”
“You got it,” Eloise said, and turned to the monks. Instead of trying to shout over the roar of the wind, she crossed her arms in the air. They apparently got the message. Each of them following suit and standing shoulder to shoulder, they took up the lead.
As before when they’d created bonds of light, now they created a wall. When they moved forward, the wall sent the wind off to the sides and over, creating an opening where we could move without being blown around.
“Nifty,” Cheri said. We kept close to the monks, an occasional attack attempt made by those allies who had been here and stayed to protect the area.
The colossus took down two fighters, and I cursed.
“We can’t let them take the brunt of the attack,” I said, then turned to Erupa. “Shadow move us right into the eye of the fucker.”
“Its eyes?” She glared at me like I’d lost it.
“Not its eyes, but… like the eye of a hurricane. From where I’m standing, that thing isn’t any different.”
“Worth a shot,” Tink admitted. “But I won’t lie and say I wish I was going with.”
Erupa laughed, shaking her head, but then grabbed hold of me with an arm around my waist. “Hold tight, big guy.”
With a flash of shadow, we were torn from our location and shot through the air to come back into being at the exact spot I had hoped for. Only, it didn’t work out exactly as I had planned. As soon as we were in, we found there was no calm internal eye of this thing, or maybe it was there but we were too large to occupy it without being affected by the storm around it. We were flung about, spun and then pushed away from each other, the colossus shrieking in a way that sounded like scraping shards of glass on bones.
Shadows took Erupa and she was at my side, clinging to me, shouting, “Do something!”
Feeling her hand on my neck as she tried to get a grip, I closed my eyes and focused. Nothing external would work here, no physical power or well-placed bullet. I needed to learn to harness this core stone, to use the power against this being.
It happened like a slow buildup of an opera song. My heartbeat met the warmth of my stone, intensifying like the voice of a singer. A burst of song played in my head and I was one with the wind, feeling it as I felt the stone that controlled it, sensed a connection from that stone to something beyond the gate below.
I severed that connection and pulled at the stone. Or, thought that’s what I was doing. The connection did indeed sort of break, but then a stronger force had it and yanked us away from the upper level, pulled within the colossus back down to the Hermite cave. The colossus slammed the water and sent it everywhere, as a massive hurricane might. We were cast aside, thrown to the water’s edge where my shoulder hit the rock with a thud and promptly started aching. Erupa came up spluttering, eyes glowing red as she braced for an attack.
The gate, a voice said, and Cheshire appeared, leaping down from above, vanishing and then reappearing next to me. See?
I turned my attention to the gate and noticed a stream of light pulsating, moving to the wind colossus and then fading. A power charge? Commands from some greater being within? The Hermites were chanting, bowing to the gate, and even when the wind colossus tore through them, they kept their position of worship.
Fucking insanity.
“We need to ditch this hellhole,” Erupa said, reaching for my hand with the intent, it seemed, of shadow traveling with me back above.
“Actually, I need to get to the gate,” I said.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded, glancing up to see my team making their way down. “We’ve got this.”
The rest of the team joined us at my side when we were halfway to the gate. Cheri was beaming, looking positively thrilled for this, while Tink’s wings were flapping faster than I had ever seen them move, even though she wasn’t flying.
“The time is upon us,” High Glotian said, pushing forward and toward the wind colossus. “You must leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, glancing over to see that the wind colossus had noticed us and was moving through the water in our direction.
“If you won’t leave by your own free will, I’ll—” the Hermite started, but I turned and punched him in the nose, breaking it and knocking him on his ass. The aggression pouring from him made it clear enough where he was going with the sentence. I wasn’t letting him or his religious fanatics stop us.
A look at Cheri showed that she’d cringed, but gave me a nod. She trusted me in this, and that meant a damn lot.
“What’s the plan?” Hinru asked.
“I’m sending it through, then we’ll attempt control with a smaller one like before,” I replied. We had the stones, but this thing wasn’t exactly a guinea pig. Turning to the monster, I shouted, “Do your worst!”
It roared, charging us and swooping in. That’s when I connected again as I’d done above, this time focusing not on severing the bond that held it to the other side but strengthening it so much that it would act like a chain. And when I pulled, the other side yanked—overcompensating, and the beast started to go back through the opening.
Playing with forces you don’t understand is rarely advisable, and in this case a warning would have proved useful. For one, I likely wouldn’t have kept the connection so strong that it pulled me in too, nor then tried to counter the pull by mentally lashing myself to Cheri’s and Erupa’s stones.
In a blink of an eye, the two ladies and I were flying through the air, grasping at nothingness, and pulled in through the rippling blue portal. Then came the swirling wind, tossing us about as it had when I was inside the monster.
A world of red and black spun around us as we were whipped about, and then we were through, the gate closing behind us.
We were in a grassy field, embers floating through the sky over the backdrop of wisps of red clouds. In the distance an arched stone bridge lay half-submerged in a murky lake, the other half broken and leading to nowhere. My fingers gripped the grass to ensure it was real, then rubbed it between my fingers as I pulled some free and put it to my nose, smelling the familiar scent. Grass, sure enough. But warm, pungent… unnatural.
Uneasiness registered behind me. I turned to see Cheri and Erupa, the two stones glowing on their chests as mine likely was under my armor. Apparently, I hadn’t only banished the colossus, but pulled these two women and myself through as well.
Now there was only one problem—figuring out what the hell we were supposed to do here, and how to get back.
19
“What happened?” Cheri asked, staring around. I was still marveling at our surroundings, my eyesight gradually adjusting to the gloom so that I began to see more clearly. I caught a glimpse of some sort of massive tower in the distance. Then the sky shifted, and it was gone from view again. Shadows? Mist? I wasn’t sure, as it all had a somewhat dark, red tint going on.
Thundering sounded and I turned to my left, searching for emotions but finding none. Shadows shifted, and now I saw that we were on a plateau with a cliff face nearby. I inched toward it and peeked over to see the wind colossus we had been fighting, but now the wind was starting to dissipate, and then move out and away from us until it was simply a ball of wind around the stone, nothing more.
“I’m certain we’re in their world,” I finally answered. “But… what does that mean? I have no idea.”
“We could be stuck here,” Erupa stated. She glanced around, arching an eyebrow at that thought.
“Could be with worse company,” Cheri said, and grinned.
I managed a half-strangled laugh, letting it out even though my body fought it. This was too weird. Yet, it helped. I let another laugh escape, and then another. Soon, Che
ri was laughing too, but Erupa shook her head and started walking off.
“Where’re you going?” I called after her, forcing the laughter to subside.
“I’m not falling to madness here, not when we have a whole world to explore and a universe to save back there.”
“He opened the gate to get us here,” Cheri pointed out. “Surely there’s a way to open it and get back out.”
I nodded. “If we can find the right point?”
“Sure. Any idea what that looks like?”
My nose scrunched at the realization that, no, I didn’t. “Just… come on. The wind colossus must have thrown us around a little. We’ll recognize it when we see it.”
“I hope,” Erupa added, voicing the very words I was thinking myself.
We moved along the ledge, very aware of the way our breath came hot and heavy, and the way an occasional ember as large as a fist floated by, and certainly looked like it would hurt us if we touched it. Sometimes they would land on the grass, burst into flames for a moment, then die out. After a bit of walking we found that the way to our right descended, and that we were approaching the tower I had seen earlier—now visible as a distant silhouette in the sky.
“A giant fucking phallus,” Cheri said, indicating it with her sword.
“What?” Erupa asked.
“You know, like a dick. A huge symbol of a cock. There.”
“No, I get what a phallus is. I’m saying there’s no way that tower thing looks like a cock.”
“It’s long and… how do you not see it?”
“Does everything long and sticking up make you think of a cock?”
Cheri pursed her lips, then nodded.
I couldn’t help but agree. “At least I have an excuse,” I argued. “I have this meat package hanging between my legs at all times. Or standing up begging for attention. It’s hard not to think about it when it’s so present, so when I see something that’s in any way similar, yeah, it’s easy for my mind to go there.”
“You thought of that as a phallic symbol, too?” Erupa scoffed. “Come on.”
“Well, in this case I was a bit freaked out by being in this weird world, but… otherwise, I’m sure I would have.”
“Ah, see, Cheri?” Erupa grinned as if she had won an argument. “You’re a freak.”
“And I wear it with pride,” Cheri countered. “Besides, I don’t only think of cock.” She pointed at some hills in the distance. “Those look like big old giant tits.”
Erupa grunted and walked on, ignoring that.
I ducked under one of the large embers, and then grabbed them both, pulling them to the right and into a shallow a dip as something caught my eye.
“The fuck?” Erupa asked, kneeling and glancing around for trouble.
“There,” I said, indicating a spot where the wind had shifted, causing embers to spiral. We waited a moment, then it died off. “Sorry, thought it could be the forming into one of those wind colossuses.”
“Wasn’t, but I appreciate the closeness,” Cheri said. “Which leads me to a realization—I’ve never fucked on an alien world surrounded by floating embers and with the risk of strange stone-powered colossuses killing us at any moment.”
“And we won’t start now,” Erupa growled, pulling me back up but moving with caution.
“What? Maybe just a quick blowjob?” Cheri caught up, slapping my ass. “What’ya say, champ?”
“Champ?” I laughed. “As much as I’d love it, I’m sorry to say I don’t think we have time to spend on such fun here.”
“Party poopers.”
Keeping on, I glanced over at Cheri, watching the way her pigtails bopped as she walked, the slight, alluring sway of her hips, and then swung my gaze to Erupa’s strong, shoulders-back walk. How I had managed to end up with these two women in my life was beyond me, and if I was going to be stuck in some alternate dimension or whatever this place was, it certainly could be worse.
Losing either of them, or any of my lovers, would be the worst scenario I could possibly conceive of, and yet Cheri had lived through that.
“I’m… sorry,” I said. They both glanced back, so I added, “I mean, about what happened, Cheri. The thing with Kabear.”
She gave me a brief nod. “As tragic as that was, it happened to a different Cheri. A Cheri of the past. Current Cheri couldn’t be happier with life.”
“Couldn’t be happier?” Erupa gestured at our surroundings and scoffed. “You’re sure about that?”
“We’ll find our way back, and when we do, we’ll be more powerful than ever.” Cheri beamed. “And as for the present, we’re exploring new worlds, taking pleasant strolls through mountains and whatnot. I mean… it’s like the perfect vacation.”
Erupa and I shared a humored look, then laughed.
“We need to get you a proper vacation,” I said.
“I wouldn’t mind more time spent on the mountains of Xian,” Erupa noted.
“Yeah?”
“When you were doing the trial and all that, I took a little walk. Some of the landscape there is stunning.”
I nodded. “There are other groups there aside from the monks, but mostly the locals. They have this one section of the planet that they keep very private, taking turns with who gets to spend time there, and occasionally let the monks have a turn. Basically, this island with a lagoon and beach with the whitest sand. I never had a chance to go but heard amazing stories about how you could swim with fish of all colors, even some that glow.” There had been an offer for me to go once, but I had declined in favor of trying to go with Eloise—which had never come to fruition. My thought was that such specifics of the story didn’t need to be shared.
“Sounds wonderful,” Erupa said, staring off dreamy-eyed.
“If we were together, sure.” Cheri arched an eyebrow. “But it only sounds fun if we get to roll around on the beach naked, getting it on between napping and feasting.”
“Something tells me you’ve never rolled around naked in the sand.” Erupa shook her head, making a horrified expression. “Trust me, you do not want to do that.”
“Why?”
“Cheri,” I chimed in, “come on. Sand… places it shouldn’t be.”
She scrunched her nose, then shrugged. “Gotta make sacrifices.”
I laughed and turned down an incline that required us to help each other to avoid slipping. At the base we found a rocky area that worked as a path, but Erupa ducked down, motioning for us to do the same.
“Something… there.” She indicated the route ahead, and then I saw it—darkness gathered, circling, taking on a blue hue and then forming like ice. Soon it was a massive ice demon, chest glowing purple and black as it moved up the hill, hand out and waving back and forth with darkness trailing.
“It’s… looking for us!” Erupa proclaimed, hand to her head. “I feel it… it’s connected to me, in some way.”
“No shit?” Cheri glanced my way. “Maybe we let it find us… then tear it apart.”
I shook my head. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with in this world. Their power could be amplified, they could have a thousand more waiting in reserve. Best to stay out of sight until we know what’s what.”
“Agreed,” Erupa added.
“You feel it?” I asked, concerned.
She nodded, that same concern showing in her eyes.
“It has to be connected to the darkness of Theramuse,” I offered.
“Which, we found out, I have a connection to. I think it’s stronger with the stone.” Erupa glanced back, motioning down the hill to where there was a larger drop-off. “Can we make it?”
Moving up to it, and still being careful not to be noticed by the ice monster, I looked over the edge and nodded. “Cher won’t have a problem with her strong bones, and you’re a badass. I think I can manage, thanks to my upgrades.”
“Plus, my buffers,” Cheri pointed out.
“Can’t forget those.”
We all lowered ourselves down,
Cheri first, bodies glowing slightly as “Plus five defense” and other buffers shot up from our screens, and then we were down, hiding against the rock wall.
“I think I’m able to send mixed signals its way,” Erupa noted, nodding back the way we had come. “It’s not like we’re talking, but… somehow there’s that mental connection.”
“It might be similar to what I feel with the power of the core stone.” Looking at the glowing stones on each of them, I cocked my head with a thought. “Could it be the stones work on each of you in a temporary sense? Like you’re also connected to this place in weird way?”
“It’s why we were able to come through,” Cheri replied. “So… that makes sense. Although I don’t feel anything yet.”
“Maybe related to your color—I mean, the color of the stone.”
“But I had the shadow connection before the stones.”
“True. It might be connected, it might not.” I moved out enough to see over the ledge, and noticed that the ice monster had its dark scanner moving our way. “Try not to use your powers, though, for now. He might sense them.”
“She,” Cheri corrected me.
“What?”
“No reason to label the ice monster as a ‘he.’ I don’t see any dangling bits.”
I frowned, nodded rather than waste my time with that discussion, and started moving along the rock wall. Something sort of pushed against me, like walking in water and feeling a slight resistance.
“Hold.” Reaching out mentally, I found that sense I had felt when first connecting with the core stone. It was like a leash of light suddenly connected to the beast, or—more likely—became visible to me. It led down the mountain to our right, through a clump of trees and… not as far as the phallus, or tower, we had seen earlier, but to what I now realized was a mound in the ground, part of it glowing.
“What is it?” Cheri asked, sensing I had noticed something.
“I’m not sure, but… I think this ice monster might be controlled by something down there. Or at least connected in some way.”
“Since we have nothing else to go on, I guess that’s our destination, then.” Erupa glanced back behind us, then said, “Run for it?”
