by Noah Layton
‘It has been destroyed,’ Elena said, examining the locket. ‘The dimension within has collapsed. The force of their emergence must have broken it completely.’
‘Well, can’t we just destroy the gemstone too? Wouldn’t that kill the embris?’
‘Destroying one of the objectified dimensions obliterates the location within, but not the beings within it. If we were to somehow smash it open, the embris would appear here. Such a thing would be very problematic.’
James held the gemstone up to the light, observing it between his thumb and forefinger.
‘An entire world, compressed into this thing… It’s crazy.’
‘It is a very small world – it has walls.’
‘Walls?’
‘An edge, the dimension is only a few miles across. Once you reach the edge it is like walking into an impenetrable black wall.’
‘Jeez… And what about your world? The netherworld, that’s what you called it. What even is it?’
‘My dimension is… Interesting. I may be one of the goddesses, but my particular kind are demons. We get up to all sorts of mischief, you might say. If we survive all of this, you and I should visit my world. Castles, palaces, mountains… It is a dark, strange wonder.’
‘Considering you’re a demon I imagined it being like hell.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing like that. The stories about demons that you humans have come up with are terribly foolish. True, we do get up to a lot of mischief, but nobody wants to live in the place that your kind refers to as hell.’
‘So you’re a demon and a goddess… A Demon-goddess… What about all of the others? Do all the goddesses have different traits?’
‘Of course. We all come from different worlds, and we all possess different features. I may be a demon-goddess, but there are a myriad of others – wolf-goddesses, cat-goddesses, dragon-goddesses…’
‘Dragons?’ James repeated. ‘Seriously?’
‘Very,’ Elena smiled. ‘But that’s a story for another time.’
‘Right…’ James said slowly, trying to comprehend the magnitude of everything he had been told so far. ‘So… What is this baptism of fire that you were talking about?’
She patted James’s arm lightly, her soft touch putting his hairs on end despite the searing heat of his body.
‘Like my own cage, each of the cages that the goddesses are trapped within are small dimensions of their own, each taking a different form. In order to hone your abilities we must, and I can’t believe that I’m saying this… But we must enter the cage once more and vanquish the embris that I was trapped with. Are you ready?’
‘Now?’
‘We do not know where Ascevious may be. If we wish to have any hope of stopping him then we must begin promptly.’
James nodded to himself, biting his lip.
‘How do we do that?’
‘Kiss me.’
‘… What?’
‘That’s how it must be done.’
James found himself hesitating for some reason, but Elena raised a finger beneath his chin and turned his head, licking her lips slightly.
Their lips met suddenly, and in seconds she was sat atop him, his hands sliding across her perfect curvaceous body as they kissed each other passionately. Forgetting completely about the emerald, he ran his lips down to her neck, taking in the perfumed scents that seemed to naturally emanate from her body in the most intoxicating of ways.
Elena brought her lips to James’s ear. Being an actual goddess he expected her to say something ridiculously dirty, but instead she spoke sounds that he had never heard before.
‘Aragni vash dothrassi.’
A high, whistling sound rang in James’s ears, and suddenly his mind seemed to separate completely from his body as the world fell away, and he was floating in dark nothingness.
Chapter Ten
Embris
As quickly as the apartment had dropped away from view, James’s surroundings returned – but he wasn’t back in the apartment. Instead he found himself standing in what seemed to be a small library – small for a library but still pretty huge compared to his apartment.
There wasn’t much time to take it in though. No sooner had he arrived than he found himself bent over, on the verge of throwing up from a sudden wave of nausea.
Inhaling deeply and regaining control over himself, James stood to find himself face to face with Elena.
How freaking embarrassing.
‘Sorry, that wasn’t because of you,’ James said quickly. ‘I don’t know what happened.’
‘Don’t concern yourself with it,’ she said casually, looking him in the eyes. ‘It happens to every human the first time they do it.’
‘So you’ve teleported people here before?’
‘Not here… It’s a long story. Several actually, but that can wait.’
Dragging his gaze away from her enticing, dark eyes, James took a better look at the large room. Upon closer inspection it wasn’t a library, although there was a myriad of books stacked up against the walls, lining them haphazardly like crumbling brickwork. What little he could see of the walls behind them were a mixture of gold and red, their colors seeming to swim in the light of the variety of lanterns that were scattered about in random places.
Across the room, past Elena’s shoulders, was a huge lounge area, the kind of thing that you would expect to see in a billionaire sultan’s bed chambers. A huge, comfy-looking bedspread with silken sheets was laden with pillows, surrounded by mounds of cushions and carpets that looked deep enough to sink into.
All of this paled in comparison to what hovered on the far side of the room; a white scar of light, suspended and unmoving, just big enough for a person to slide through.
‘What is that?’ James asked, peering over at the crack.
‘A dimensional opening. It’s the tear in the gemstone that you created when you stood on it. That’s how we get in and out of here.’
‘Which means we’re…?’ James asked, turning back to her.
‘I told you, my cage. This is the domain in which I have lived for the past 80 years.’
‘You stayed in this room for 80 years? At least you had plenty to read while you were here…’
‘Well, not only this room,’ she continued, taking his hand and leading James towards a door opposite them.
Despite the fact that he had just made out with this ridiculously hot demon-goddess and had her straddling him on the living room couch, as well as the fact that she was still wearing nothing but this lacy red underwear that accentuated her exaggerated curves like a real-life photoshop-edit walking around, James still couldn’t help but find himself coming back to that one little word.
Goddess.
‘What’s past that door?’ James asked, looking over her shoulder worriedly.
Is this just some elaborate ploy to trick me here in order to trap me in this dimension or something? She’s not just a goddess, she’s a demon-goddess. I’ve done some bad shit in my life… I still feel bad about the time I pushed over Karen Baites in the playground when I was in the Third Grade…
‘The rest of my home,’ Elena said casually.
I’m definitely going to hell.
Before James had a chance to pull away from her soft touch she placed her hand on the handle, a glimpse of which he caught; it was shaped like a claw, turning 90 degrees anticlockwise as Elena wrapped her hand around it in a handshake and cleared their way, swinging the door wide.
James readied himself for the fire that laid ahead, wincing… But that wasn’t what he was confronted with at all. Instead they were heading down a corridor lit by more lanterns, the shadows of dusty marble statues and a nearby staircase bannister moving rhythmically along the walls like so many trapped demons… Which they may have been, for all he knew.
‘How big is this place…?’ James asked, just as they turned the corner and he got his answer.
‘Pretty big for a cage.’
They were standing in the huge
reception hall of a mansion, a broad staircase straight ahead descending to a large pair of red, oakwood doors with similar door handles to the one that Elena had just grasped. Statues covered in sheets were scattered about below, frozen in space like spectres waiting in the darkness. More lanterns lit the place up, the shadows of the statues clawing their way over the walls.
Elena led James down the staircase, her chest bouncing with every step forward that she took, before bringing them to a stop at the bottom of them.
‘What do you think?’
‘Of this place? I think it’s pretty fucking amazing. What the hell have you been doing here for the past 80 years?’
‘Reading, mostly… And relaxing. Although I’ve really missed the taste of food… And some other things, too…’
Elena moved into James again, pressing her soft, firm body against his. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and looked up into his eyes, biting her lip sensuously.
James could hardly stop himself from becoming hard as a rock.
‘Well, somebody’s excited…’ She smiled, James’s cheeks running red with an embarrassment beyond the heat that was dwelling within his body.
‘Can you really blame me?’ He said, trying to hold his own.
Can I even trust her? ‘Fuck no’ is the obvious answer to that, but right now, considering what’s happening to me and the fact that I’m in another dimension, I have to rely on her… Besides, if she wanted me dead she could have done it already.
They moved to the huge wooden doors at the front of the house before Elena heaved them open effortlessly.
‘This isn’t so bad as cages go…’ James said, laughing to himself. ‘You could be stuck in a cell and instead you get a gigantic freaking mansion… Woah…’
He had still been absently staring around at the mansion’s reception hall as she led James out through the doors, and he was all of a sudden confronted by an even grander sight.
The grounds of the gardens stretched out ahead for around twenty yards, where a tall metal fence coated with spikes that looked like they would cut at the touch resided. Looking closer he saw what looked like dried blood stained upon the tips of the spikes.
Beyond the fence was a dense, dark forest, with a treeline so thick it was impossible to see more than a couple of feet into the shrubbery.
But that wasn’t the most terrifying part of the place. Looking up at the sky, James realised that there wasn’t one.
He had only seen the clarity of the night sky as a young man when he had lived outside of the city, far away from the blinding, obscuring lights that dwelled there. It used to be the case that looking up at the night sky in a remote place would lead to a beautiful view of stars, of the milky way towering overhead magnanimously.
But now, looking up, James found himself gazing into a complete, carbon black abyss.
Nothing. It was like standing in a warehouse movie set. There wasn’t even any wind to speak of, only an unchanging room temperature climate.
‘I’m guessing that’s where the embris is?’
‘Indeed.’
‘And we’re gonna go in there and kill it?’
‘Precisely… Or rather you are.’
‘What?’
‘To prove yourself, this is a fight that you must take up on your own.’
‘Why? You’re a goddess, surely the powers of both of us would do a lot more than just me.’
‘That monster is in there for the precise reason that I am who I am; it is one of the most dangerous beings from my world, and therefore one that I would struggle in defeating. In fact, it would likely result in the end of my existence.’
‘And I’m supposed to be safe against this freaking thing?’
‘You have the souls of the gods within you. The powers they possess, and the powers that you can now channel through the axe of Xudon, are more than enough to defeat it.’
James raised the axe, looking it up and down.
‘What am I supposed to do? Have faith or something? That’s usually what people who put stock in a god or multiple gods do, right?’
‘Faith… If you want. But the most important thing you can do right now is choose. Choose to fight, or choose to walk away. If you choose the latter then your skills may not be up to the challenge when we must confront something much more dangerous. If you choose to go into the forest then you have a further choice; fight, or die.’
‘I can choose to die? That’s freaking news to me.’
‘You can choose to do anything, as long as you have the means.’
James turned and looked back out into the wilderness. He felt the continued sensation of fire, a pleasant burn, dwelling within him. Any other day he would have turned on his heels and sprinted for the dimensional crack that would take him back to the safety of his apartment, back to the safety of the real world…
But from everything he had seen so far, it seemed true. His world would eventually be encroached upon by Ascevious.
And contrary to the usually backstabbing persona that James had come to know so far, Elena wasn’t slamming the gates in his face. She stood between them confidently, finally having the opportunity to stretch her wings out, standing there in her unashamed, busty, naked form.
James nodded wordlessly and turned to the woods, setting off through the darkness and past the treeline.
He had walked no more than twenty yards through the forest when he turned to look back at Elena and was met with nothing but darkness. She would still be there somewhere, waiting for him, but the forest was so dense and thick that he couldn’t make her figure out at all.
The forest was a strange, haunting place. Not only was there a total absence of wind against his arms, but beyond his feet brushing through what little undergrowth existed, beyond the sounds of his bated breath as he listened frightfully for any sign of movement, there wasn’t a sound. No animals, no rustling of branches… It was as if this tiny dimension had been frozen in time, escaping the brutality of the elements and of aging.
That timelessness also gave off a sensation of something much worse, though… A feeling of death and lifelessness that hung amongst the trees.
Crunch.
James halted sharply, looking about in the darkness, searching for the source of the sound. He had definitely heard it. It was too distant to be from something he himself had stood on, and too sharp to be far off.
The embris was near.
Remaining still and listening for the creature, James found something; but not what he was expecting.
It was a cooing sound, the whimpering of something that was in pain. Had something survived out here for that long with the creature? Was there more than one being alive in the artificial forest that surrounded the house?
Moving forward, getting closer and closer to the sound, James spotted a flickering green light. It wasn’t difficult; it was the only source of light that existed.
Approaching the light he found himself at the edge of a clearing where the trees suddenly thinned out and halted entirely. The ground was black and charred, bringing an even greater tinge of lifelessness to this deadened dimension.
In the centre of the clearing a creature was hunched over, it’s back bent forward. It stood only around four feet high, almost balled up with its arms surrounding its body. The green light stemmed from the centre of its torso, which was completely hollowed out – that small, flickering flame sat in the centre. In a sharp contrast to this fire, its body seemed to be made of tree bark, pieces of wood splintering out from itself at odd angles in every direction.
There’s no way, James thought to himself, shaking his head. How is something else is out here? And in the open…
Weighing the situation and searching around himself for any sign of movement, James found nothing. He took a single step forward into the clearing, his foot making the slightest of pats against the charcoal black ground.
Crunch.
The creature suddenly moved, its head raising up like a robot program
med to do so. Its arms unwrapped, and in bringing itself to its full stature it was like watching a broken, twisted body that was somehow still alive unfold. Reaching its final height, the creature stood at well above eight feet tall.
‘Oh, shit…’
It turned to face James, revealing its face and head to him. There may have been something almost human to it at one point, but any semblance of that was long gone; instead he found himself staring down a gaunt, horrific thing with holes in its face where a mouth and a pair of eyes should have been. It looked to be made of clay, but where the nose should have been the face distorted into a horrifying, brutal mess.
For a moment it did nothing but stare James down, but quickly its body began shaking as if it was hyperventilating, its torso pumping up and down like a piston.
Its hand, two huge husks that expanded out like the branches of trees, promptly filled with green light. Suddenly raising them up, it fired the spirals of green flame in his direction.
James’s eyes went wide as he dodged, the flames engulfing a tree behind him and turning it into nothing but ash, just another part of the clearing that the creature lived in.
It hadn’t been some hapless being that had survived; this was the embris.
James pushed himself up from the ground, scrambling for the axe, he and it both scattered with ashes. It fired the other jolt of green fire, which James failed to dodge entirely; the edge of it cut through his shirt like a blade, sending a brutal, searing pain through him.
This guy isn’t that bad, James had time to think. I’m not dead yet…
The embris suddenly broke into a gallop towards him, dropping to all fours and stampeding forwards. A terrible screech broke from its mouth, sending a ringing through his ears.
It would be on him in seconds.
Okay, maybe he is that bad.