by Sam Ryder
“Wicked,” I said. Though it was only the fourth planet I’d traveled to, it was cool seeing how each was similar in many ways and yet so different to Earth.
Vrill sucked in a breath just as I let one out. We’d landed. It was dark, but after the blackness of the wormhole, this dark felt much brighter, my eyes having adjusted. It probably helped that my eyesight was also upgraded to Demigod level. The ground beneath us was spongy, and I looked down to find a layer of dark moss growing across the rocky terrain. I was still holding both women’s hands, though they had immediately dropped each other’s as soon as we’d reached landfall.
Vrill was hard to make out in the darkness, her ebony skin blending with both the ground and the constant night, especially when she closed her eyes for a long blink. That explained her dark skin tone. Just as on Earth people who originated from warmer climates tended to have darker skin to offer greater protection from the sun’s harshness, the Lri Ay could blend in with their surroundings here, offering greater safety from predators. Which, of course, begged the question: What kinds of predators did they have here?
My eyes flitted about, concerned that Eve and my lighter toned skin would make us sitting ducks. But, of course, Eve would’ve been prepared for that considering she’d been here on Finding missions numerous times, including when she’d taken Vrill back to Tor.
“Don’t worry,” Vrill said. “The Viss only hunt at night.”
I laughed because I thought she was making a joke. She wasn’t. “Umm, and how can you tell ‘night’ from ‘day’?”
“It’s lighter out,” Vrill said, deadpan.
Eve, to my surprise, laughed. Vrill glared at her. Eve said, “Let’s go. Our timing wasn’t great. Nightfall isn’t far off. We need to seek shelter.” I was cool with that. Though I hadn’t a clue what or who the ‘Viss’ were, I wasn’t keen to learn more about their night hunting habits. Especially if we were the ones they were hunting.
“Follow me,” Vrill said.
“You know where we are?” I asked.
“Yes. We are near where I grew up.”
“What?”
Eve, rather than Vrill, explained. “It’s not unusual for a Finder visiting their own planet to subconsciously return to area they are most familiar with.”
That made me think—if I were a Finder and I traveled to Earth, would I appear in my old crappy apartment and surprise the hell out of whatever loser now rented it? Or, worse, would I appear in my old cubicle at work, my computer already on and ready for me to perform some mindless (and pointless) job that would have no impact on the world whatsoever. The thought could easily give me nightmares. Hell, it made fighting monsters on a nightly basis seem like a vacation.
We followed Vrill across the uneven terrain, the moss spongy beneath our feet. Vrill walked with certainty, seeming to know exactly where she was going, though I couldn’t discern any obvious landmarks. Except…there! In the distance, I spotted a portion of the land that was lower than the rest, like a depression or a crater. The land just dropped away, vanishing into a massive hole that could’ve been made by an asteroid millions of years ago.
As we made our way toward the crater, I looked up to find a sky full of stars. The edge of a greenish-colored moon peeked through a layer of dark clouds. It looked like it might rain, except—
They weren’t clouds. “Is that…smoke?” I asked.
“From the mountain gods. The nine brothers,” Vrill said, as if that clarified anything. “They are breathing a lot tonight.”
Eve released a scoffing breath.
“Something amusing?” Vrill growled.
“On Tor you refuse to worship three goddesses of flesh and blood with real power, and yet here you recognize deities made of rock?”
“Technically Minertha’s made of rock too,” I said, helpfully.
Vrill said, “Our stone gods hold more power in their pinky fingers than your Three have in their entire soulless bodies. And, unlike the so-called goddesses you serve, the nine brothers are fair. They do not choose who to kill. They mete out their justice in equal measure.”
“Uh, maybe it would be better if the deities didn’t kill at all,” I said. Both women turned their glares on me now. “I’m just sayin’…”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” Eve said. This statement seemed to surprise the hell out of Vrill. I could understand why. Eve didn’t usually back down from an argument, especially one that involved the Tor power dynamic. Then again, this was the all new Eve, back from the grave.
“I guess so,” Vrill said.
“Stupid question…” I said as we continued to walk. I was glad the argument had fizzled out so quickly, but my million-questions-a-minute brain was still seeking the knowledge it so desperately craved. “Are the nine brothers volcanoes?”
“Yes,” Eve said at the same moment as Vrill asked, “What’s a volcano?”
Eve looked at me and then waved for me to explain. “It’s like a break in the surface, or crust, of a planet that allows lava, ash and gases to escape from deep within the earth. We have them on Earth, too.”
“Are they gods?” This was an aspect of Vrill I had always loved, her doe-eyed interest in learning more about Earth culture.
“I must admit, various groups have worshipped volcanoes over the years, some even performing human sacrifices on their slopes to appease the gods. I think animals might still be sacrificed to volcanic gods in some places, but I’m not sure. But I would hazard to say that the vast majority of people just believe volcanoes to be naturally occurring and without supernatural origins.”
“In other words, you think my people are foolish for believing in the nine brothers.” I could hear the disappointment in Vrill’s tone.
“I didn’t say that. But I’m not the type of person to just believe something. I’m not religious. Science and technology are my religions. I believe what I can see, feel, prove.”
“Faith doesn’t require proof,” Vrill said.
It sounded like something a proselytizer might say. I wasn’t a fan of blind faith, but I could also understand it. People needed something to hold onto in the dark times. Times of tragedy, of loss, of suffering. I wouldn’t judge anyone, especially Vrill, for having faith. It just wasn’t for me. I had faith in my brain, and now, my physical ability. “I’d love to learn more about your faith,” I said to Vrill. “Back on Tor. Once this mission is over.” I didn’t want the distraction. Not right now. We needed to focus on the task at hand.
We walked on, several miles of the spongy black-moss-covered terrain passing behind us. When we’d almost reached the lip of the massive crater, Vrill said, “Night is upon us.”
At first I couldn’t tell the difference, but then, degree by degree, there was a slight darkening of the landscape as the greenish moon fell away. Their night was apparently the space between moons. “How long will it last?” I asked.
“In Earth hours,” Vrill said, cocking her head to consider the question. “Approximately four hours. Maybe five at the most.”
“And these Viss characters…they’re going to start hunting now?”
“Soon,” was her only response. “We should hurry.”
We picked up the pace and reached the edge of the crater a few minutes later, when the darkness was as deep as it would get. It was like swimming through ink, and yet not quite as black as, well, the Black back on Tor. Still, identifying Vrill was almost impossible, except when she was turned in my direction with her eyes wide open, the whites gleaming like twin moons.
I could see Eve, barely, her whiter skin a ghostly outline in the gloom.
“There’s no time to locate the steps,” Vrill announced. “Be careful, Sam, hold my hand.” She offered no warning or assistance to Eve, but as Vrill grabbed my hand I grabbed Eve’s. Once more, I was caught between two of the strongest women I’d ever met.
The initial descent into the crater was harrowing, the ground steep and brittle, rocks skittering away beneath our feet. Though I
was a powerhouse now, much of the agility and balance I’d enjoyed as a Seeker had been lost in my upgrade to Demigod, but thankfully both Vrill and Eve had those skills in spades and kept me from taking a nosedive on more than one occasion. After ten seconds that felt like ten minutes, the ground began to level out somewhat though it continued to descend toward the center, where I could see something unidentifiable protruding from the ground. It certainly wasn’t what I expected to find. I thought Vrill was leading us toward her city, but this was far from the bustling Lri Ay metropolis I’d expected.
Somewhere in the distance, a sound arose that brought gooseflesh bristling on the back of my neck. It was like a drumbeat, but higher pitched, a repetitive keening cry—ee-ee, ee-ee, ee-ee!
“What. The. Fuck. Is. That?” I said. The sound made me want to pull my hair out—if I had any hair, that is. The goddesses’ primordial ooze had taken care of any manscaping issues long ago.
“The Viss,” was Vrill’s only response. “They are onto our scent.”
It wasn’t the most comforting statement, but it was certainly a motivator for me to pick up the pace. The keening drumbeat grew closer, but we were almost upon the object in the center of the crater, which I assumed was our objective.
It was. When we reached it, Vrill stopped. The object, as it turned out, was a metal box the size of a UPS truck. A ladder was affixed to the sheer metal side. I followed behind Vrill, while Eve climbed up right on my heels. I counted the rungs as I went—four, five, six…ten, eleven, twelve—and then we spilled onto the flat top. Set into the surface was a round portal, like a hatch. Except there was no discernible handle or latch. Just a slightly raised circle, smooth and solid like a manhole cover.
The keening reached a crescendo and all three of us turned to peer into the darkness. Bright lights danced in the darkness at a height well above us on the crater’s rim. Not just in one direction, but in all directions, swarming from all sides. One by one at first, but then in bunches, they dropped into the crater.
“Those lights…” I said. “Are those…”
“Their eyes,” Vrill said, confirming my suspicions. The Viss had creepy glow-in-the-dark eyes to go along with their hair-raising hunting call.
“You sure you can get us inside Dahl Mar?” Eve asked.
“Our rights don’t expire with time,” Vrill said, which I hoped meant ‘yes’ considering those thousands of pairs of glowing eyes were skittering closer and closer, moving at a rate of speed far faster than what we had achieved. While Vrill turned back to the portal, I stared at the approaching eyes. Wait… I had assumed based on Earthly standards that there were pairs of eyes approaching, meaning two per creature. Now I reconsidered that assumption. It seemed there were entire groups of eyes—perhaps ten or more—moving together. Which meant one creature might have ten fucking eyes, spiderlike. I’d dealt with massive spiders before back on Tor, and it was no picnic. I was guessing these creatures weren’t spiders, but just the fact that they had ten eyes was enough to make me want to teleport the fuck out of here and abort mission. The only saving grace was that it cut the number of enemies I’d calculated by about eighty percent, making the number less than one hundred but more than ten. Not the best odds, but that was becoming the story of my life and I was still alive so far.
I turned back to where Eve was watching Vrill work on the portal. First Vrill placed both hands on the portal’s surface. Each point where the pads of her fingers touched the surface, a blue dot appeared. The dots were linked by thin blue lines and then flared brightly. A larger dot appeared and Vrill bent down and kissed it. There was a hydraulic hissing sound and then a powerful whoosh of air as the portal popped up and slid to the side, moved by a metal arm, revealing a tunnel lit on either side by a line of small blue lights.
“Go!” Vrill shouted, ushering us inside.
Eve didn’t hesitate, moving inside just as I heard a tinging sound as the first of the Viss hunters reached the metal platform and ladder. “You first!” I said to Vrill, but she was already grabbing me and trying to push my immoveable body inside. Not this time, I thought. I wouldn’t lose her again while I walked free like when the Morgoss first trapped her in their magic mirror.
I grabbed her arm, twisting her until her back faced me, and pushed. Pushing someone, particularly someone I cared deeply about, wasn’t something I would normally do, but desperate times called for desperate actions. Plus, she was incredibly adept at landing on her feet, almost as good as Lace.
I was about to dive in after her, but movement on the edge of my vision caught my attention. I half-turned to the right, freezing when I locked in on what had leapt with ease over the edge of the platform, landing on both feet. It had two back-bent legs and T-rex-like foreclaws that ended in hooked blades. Its skin wasn’t black but pure white, something that would give Vrill’s people the smallest of advantages considering their ability to hide in the dark. Then again, Vrill had said the Viss had picked up our scent which meant they had super-tuned senses. Its face was long and narrow, almost beaklike, those bright glowing eyes extending from end to end. The “beak” opened to reveal a white tongue and parallel rows of dagger-sharp teeth.
The Viss chomped those teeth together and the strange keening sound arose from a pair of twin slits set between its eyes, which I assumed was how it breathed. There was the briefest moment of hesitation as we locked eyes, sort of. I mean half of its eyes locked on one of my eyes and the other half locked on my other eye. In that short second, I could sense it was analyzing me, trying to figure out what I was, this pale-faced humanoid creature that had showed up like an alien landing in a flying saucer.
That short second of hesitation didn’t last.
It charged, the keening sound hitting new heights and assaulting my ears. The speed with which it moved was breathtaking, and I didn’t even have time to slip inside the portal before it was upon me. When we’d first seen the Viss hunters pouring over the crater’s edge I’d at least had the good sense to draw my hammer, gripping it in my fist. I swung it now, but the creature ducked under my would-be blow, snapping at my midsection. Its jaws clamped on my armor breastplate and I could feel several of its teeth pierce the metal and enter my skin several centimeters. The armor had saved my life, but it wouldn’t hold back this monster much longer, especially when its friends were likely to arrive any second.
Now that the creature was in tight, I didn’t have much room to swing my hammer, but I didn’t need much considering my four-times-upgraded strength. I drew the hammer back as far as I could and slammed it onto the Viss’s head, feeling a satisfying crack. The animal released a keening screech and pulled back just enough for me to slip the head of the hammer between us and use it like a battering ram to shove the creature further away.
I thought the distance would provide me with just the advantage I needed, but it moved like the wind, once more easily dodging my blow and snapping at me with full force again.
This time I was ready.
Because my swing was a feint.
Ha.
As the creature jabbed inward, I was already bringing the hammer back the other way, crashing the glowing metal head into its skull and bashing it hard to the side. That’s when I realized that neither of the blows I’d landed resulted in a blast of light and power. Here, away from Tor and the goddesses’ influence, my hammer was just a hammer.
Still, it did the job on the Viss, which stumbled, its legs losing strength as it toppled over, not nearly as quick as before. The only problem was that about six more of the nasty things leapt up to take its place.
This was a fight I couldn’t win. So I did the smart thing.
I turned tail and ran, diving inside the portal, which slammed shut behind me because Vrill had been ready to jam the heel of her hand down on a button.
Easy peasy. Riiiiiight.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Took you long enough,” Vrill said.
“What? I can’t have a little fun while I’m here? I
was just trying to get to know the locals.”
Vrill’s ability to use and detect sarcasm was getting better by the day, because she didn’t even question my statement, just rolled her eyes and shook her head. I grinned at her and said, “Are you going to show us around your old home or what?”
Vrill’s expression changed in an instant when she was reminded of where we were. I understood why. It must’ve been extremely weird for her to return here after more than three years. It was probably like returning to one’s childhood house only to find strangers living in it with the furniture all changed, a wall knocked down to widen the space, and a fence now surrounding the previously open backyard.
“Follow me,” she said, brushing past Eve, who’d been waiting patiently.
“What’s with her?” Eve asked.
“You wouldn’t understand.” Maybe it wasn’t the fairest thing to say, but she really wouldn’t. Eve had lived her entire life on Tor. Yes, she’d traveled to the Eight to Find, but she’d never been away from her home planet for an extended period of time.
The old Eve would’ve gotten pissed off at me for making a statement like that, probably told me to fuck off, but she wasn’t that rageful woman anymore. No, the new reformed Eve said, “Try me.”
I blinked. The passage descended at a steady but gradual slope between two walls of smooth rock fitted with those small blue lights. “Uh, well, Vrill was taken from her home three years ago and this is her first time back so she’s nervous and a little excited and worried she won’t know how to act around her people.” That pretty much summed it up.
Eve grabbed my hand and said, “That makes sense. If we ever win this war against the Morgoss and the Three’s kingdom is restored and there is peace on Tor…I don’t know what I will do. I’ve fought so long and so hard for just that scenario, and yet the uncertainty of what my life will look like if we ever get there scares the hell out of me. Is that stupid?”
I blinked again. Eve had changed in a lot of ways, but this was by far the most vulnerable she’d ever been with me. It was like a window had appeared in her chest, giving me a glimpse of her heart and soul. “That is not stupid,” I said. “That is normal. That is real. None of us really know what to expect after we’re victorious. That’s the big unknown. I don’t think even the Three know what happens. Do we all go home to our planets? Do we stay and become part of the goddesses’ court? Do we form our own town and build houses and shit?”