Portals of Infinity: Book Three: Of Temples and Trials

by John Van Stry

  “Do any of the others know who was helping them?”

  “Which others?”

  “Dezba, Aryanna’s new champion, Joseph?”

  Fel shook his head. “No, they don’t know any of the people who were there.”

  “Does Ramert know?”

  “No, he is up at the Castle now with his men however, making sure it is secure.”

  “Can I talk to the men who died?”

  Fel nodded, “Of course, just go outside.” He nodded to the door that led to the alternate version of Hiland where the recently dead stayed until they passed on to their reward.

  I got up and walked out of the bar. When I was in Fel’s realm waiting to be put back together and resurrected this was just like the real world to me. When I’m visiting it in a dream, it’s not quite as real. It’s clearer than a dream normally would be, but there is still a slight dream like quality to it.

  Diament was outside the door, almost as if he was waiting for me.

  “Ah! There you are! Fel told me you would probably visit before I moved on.”

  I revised my thoughts.

  “Diament, do you know who did this?”

  He nodded, “Of course I do, though I didn’t know until the last minute, that slimy little worm! Oh I wish I could have made him pay! To try and kill a child! Barbaric!”

  “Diament, who was it?” I growled.

  “Wreth, that little bastard Wreth. He sold us out and has gone over to Barassa’s side. I’d bet he even has a shrine to Tantrus in his house now!”

  I nodded, “Thank you Diament, thank you for that, and thank you for your sacrifice. I sorry you’re dead, I honestly wanted to see you build that dam. It was a great idea.”

  Diament smiled at me, “And now that I’m dead I can see that you really were impressed by my work. I’m sorry we were at odds there William. I guess I was too much my father’s son.”

  I nodded and we clasped arms. It felt a little strange, being in a dream state.

  “One last thing,” he said as I turned to go.

  “Anything,” I said looking back at him.

  “Talk to my Son, tell him I want him to build the dam, all of the drawings, all of the formulas, everything, is written in a couple of books in the false bottom of the bottom drawer of the dresser in my office.”

  I nodded, “I’ll do that.”

  “And please, make sure he understands that I did this willingly, for my Queen, and my Country. It was a sacrifice that had to be made. Better to die a man than to live a coward.”

  “I will see to it myself Diament. I will make sure that your house is honored.”

  Diament bowed to me, “I know you are a man of your word. Thank you Champion.”

  I went back inside with Fel.

  “Thanks Fel, now when can I expect the others to show up?”

  “Aryanna’s champion, and Dezba, along with Fordessa’s champion should all be there by morning. Get your rest, there is nothing you can do right now.”

  “Do you know... wait, strike that. Can you tell me if Tantrus’ agents are going to attack us on the way back to Hiland?”

  “I don’t know Will. I can’t track priests, and not all of that is in my sphere of influence. I would advise caution.”

  I nodded, “Tell Aryanna thank you, for watching Baron. When can we get him back?”

  “Joseph will bring him back to the Castle as soon as you or Rachel are back there.”

  I nodded and fell back asleep.

  Thirteen

  (Saladin – Erlis)

  I woke Rachel up an hour before dawn. I had alerted the guards to tell all of our troops to get ready, I’d even sent out a runner to the troops on the border to inform them of the change in our plans.

  “Is it still dark out?” she grumbled and looked at me.

  “Yes, I’ve asked someone to wake up Charles. He told me last night he would sign the Banns with you this morning, we need to get them signed and we need to get you out of here.”

  Rachel’s expression became deadly serious, “What happened?”

  “Baron is safe.” I held up a hand to stop her interrupting me, “The Castle was attacked last night by Tantrus’ minions with the help of Wreth. Some friends of mine showed up and one of them took Baron to my other wife and is staying with him to protect him.”

  “Friends?” She asked carefully.

  “Champions, like me. Feliogustus has allies, some are fairly powerful too. Three of them should be showing up rather soon.”

  “So why do we need to get up early? It’s still a long trip to get home.”

  “Because I’m afraid they’ll come after you next, that’s why.”

  “I guess they found out about the proposed marriage and really don’t like the idea,” she sighed.

  I nodded.

  “So what are you going to do about it hon?” she said looking at me.

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet,” I confessed.

  “I’m going to get dressed, go find your friends. After I sign the Marriage Banns with King Charles we will all sit down and plot our revenge.”

  “Our revenge?” I said smiling.

  “I want them to hurt; I want their god to hurt!” She growled. “Now, go, I have things to do.”

  I felt them before I saw them; they were all smiling at me as I came around the corner, three women, armed to the teeth and ready for war. And I actually knew all of them. The interesting part was even though they weren’t human, that they were all now felinoids like me, I still recognized them immediately.

  “Dezba!” I said sweeping her up into a hug that surprised her. “Thank you for saving my son!”

  “Anytime Will, anytime.”

  I went over to the one that had Fordessa’s symbol on her breastplate. “Jane,” I smiled, “I must say I am surprised to see you here. I thought you were being recruited for someone else.”

  Jane just stood and starred at me a moment, “You’re Feliogustus’ Champion?” she said looking up at me, “And when did you get so damn tall?”

  “Fel did it to me. Actually I kind of like it.” I gave her a hug, “Welcome to the family. Fordessa seems like a nice Goddess, I hope you’ll be happy.”

  I turned to my sister then, “I should never have introduced you to Aryanna, should I?” I sighed.

  Nikki laughed, “Hell no! She started telling me about the job the same day you left! She knew you’d be pissed, but she told me she wanted me for her Champion the moment you took me to her temple.”

  I shook my head, “Well, welcome to my world, I’ll introduce you all to my wife in a few minutes. She wants to talk about what we’re going to do about this.”

  “Really?” Dezba said surprised.

  “She’s a Queen Dez, a Queen of a bunch of tough buggers who live up in the mountains. Trust me, she’s a bloodthirsty little minx. You and Nikki will just love her. Hell Jane will probably like her too.”

  I led them inside, where we found Rachel sitting in our room at the table; she was rolling up a document and putting it inside a carrier.

  She looked up at me, “You just missed King Charles; he said he was going back to bed and he understood that if there were issues back home, that of course we had to leave early.”

  She looked at the other women and sighed, shaking her head while smiling. “It figures. Okay, introductions please dear?”

  I smiled back, “This is Dezba, you’ve heard me talk of her before. Dezba, this is my wife, Queen Rachel of the Hilands.”

  Dezba came up and touched hands, “It’s nice to meet you Queen Rachel, but how he got to marry someone like you however is still a mystery to me,” Dezba said with a laugh.

  “He conquered an entire country for me and destroyed their god; do you think I’d be dumb enough to let that go?” Rachel said with a smirk.

  They all looked at me and my ears went flat as I blushed, my tail curling and facial fur puffing out.

  Nikki laughed, “He didn’t!”

  “They do
n’t call him William the Godslayer without reason. And you would be?”

  I jumped back in, “This is my sister Nikki, Nikki Queen Rachel, ruler of all she tells me to go out and get for her.”

  Nikki giggled and touched hands. “Pleasure to meet you sis!”

  “I had idea your sister was a champion Will, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Cause he just found out,” Nikki said still giggling.

  “And last of all,” I said, “This is Jane, she is Fordessa’s Champion here.”

  “And where do you know Will from?” Rachel asked as they touched fingers.

  “Apparently he was sent to evaluate me for this job by another Goddess,” Jane said turning to glare at me.

  “Well you can yell at him later,” Rachel said, “Right now we have to decide just what we’re going to do about this attack.”

  “Well what can we do?” Dezba asked.

  “Take the fight to them!” Nikki said.

  “Exactly,” Rachel agreed nodding, “Let’s be proactive instead of reactive.”

  “Well we can’t go to Barassa, Tantrus is too powerful, and Barassa’s army is too big.” I replied.

  “Doesn’t Tantrus have a temple in Marland?”

  “Ohhh,” I said smiling, “Yeah that would be perfect.”

  “What?” Jane asked.

  “Taking out a major temple like that would hit Tantrus with a pretty serious backlash, it would mess him up for weeks.”

  “Jane?” Rachel said.

  “Yes your majesty?”

  “Rachel will work just fine in private dear,” Rachel said and smiled sweetly. “Now, could you talk to your priests around here, see if any of them know if there is a church to Tantrus in this kingdom as well?”

  Jane nodded, “Sure, if someone can tell me where my Goddesses’ local temple is.”

  “Just relax and open up your senses,” I told her, “You’ll feel it.”

  Jane blinked, “Really? Oh wait, yeah, there it is. That’s something!”

  “You get used to it,” Dezba said. “I’ll go with you,” and getting up she followed Jane out of the room.

  “So now we have some targets, how do we get there?” Nikki asked looking at me.

  “Oh you’re gonna love this,” I laughed, “The horse analog here is a wolf like animal.”

  Nikki looked surprised, “Really?”

  I nodded.

  Rachel sighed, “I’d ask what you’re talking about, but I don’t think I want to know.”

  I nodded and went over to sit by Rachel.

  “Do you think your sister and Jane will be able to do much? From the sound of it they’re both new to being champions,” Rachel said to me softly.

  “Well my sister was a sergeant in the military back home, and she was a pretty good one, she knows how to fight. As for Jane, well she was in what we call a ‘street gang’ which basically means she ran with a group of thugs as a child, and spent her childhood years beating up other thugs.”

  “Well she’s certainly going to be beating up a bunch more before today is through,” Rachel growled.

  I nodded, “The only thing that worries me right now is Tantrus’s champion, I’d love to know where he is right now.”

  “Oh I wouldn’t be worrying about him,” Nikki laughed.

  “Why not?” Rachel asked.

  “I killed him!” Nikki said grinning. “Unfortunately we didn’t get there soon enough to save everyone, a few people did die.”

  “Who died?” Rachel asked.

  “Diament died defending Baron,” I told her.

  Rachel sighed, “I guess he really did change his ways.”

  I nodded, “I talked to him last night, and I made a few promises.”

  “You talked to him?” Rachel asked surprised.

  I nodded, “As Fel’s Champion I can talk to the recently deceased before they pass on to the next world. I promised to make sure his son didn’t make the same mistakes he had, and to build his dam.”

  Rachel nodded. “So with their champion dead, how long until he comes back?”

  “Three days,” I said. “Which is a huge advantage.”

  “But we now have four champions.”

  “Taking out that temple will be tough. And if it takes us more than three days to get there, odds are we’ll be facing their champion as well.”

  “Well, once Jane gets back with some information, we can make our plans.

  # # # #

  We were sitting on our wolats just outside of Erich, a rather large town that was a few hours ride from the Capitol. I had put Rachel on one, and brought her with us. I would leave fifty of our riders with her here, to protect her, as we rode in to attack. I’d also brought one of Fel’s priests, and Jane had brought one of Fordessa’s, who was showing us the way.

  “Okay, real simple,” I said to those going with the four of us. “We ride into the church, right in through the doors, Dezba will attack the altar, everyone else kill clerics and anyone that looks like they might be one. As soon as the altar is destroyed, kill everyone and anyone that isn’t one of us in the room, set the place on fire, then we leave. Okay?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Let’s ride!”

  We raced into town, and as soon as we saw the church, we all drew our weapons and just rode up the stairs and into the building, making straight for the main hall. It was a fairly large building, big enough that we got forty of the wolats we were riding inside and the carnage began immediately.

  We had forgotten, or at least I had forgotten, that the wolats had claws and a nice set of canines that they weren’t afraid to use. As soon as we attacked, I guess the ‘pack’ instinct kicked in, because they attacked just as hard as we did. Even after we jumped off our mounts and started to slaughter everyone in the building, the wolats didn’t relent.

  Dezba attacked the altar with a large sledgehammer that we had brought, while Jane and Nikki protect her, and I went after the one remaining priest that hadn’t been killed in the initial clash.

  I don’t think we were in there five minutes when I heard the altar break and felt the affect as Tantrus’ power suddenly broke and receded. You could see the fight go out of them right away and we cleaned up the rest in very short order.

  Both of our priests blessed the remains of the altar as we herded the wolats out, and then set fire to the place. I was amazed that we hadn’t lost anyone, though several of our soldiers and a couple of our wolats were injured.

  When we linked back up with our forces in the woods, we turned and rode to join our bivouacked forces, getting there just as the troops returning from Erlis arrived.

  “First Samuels,” I said as we rode up, I could see he had the men ready to move, from the message I had sent that morning. “Strip down everything to only what you need to make a best time run to Hiland. Stop for nothing, if attacked leave a force to delay the attackers, but keep going until the Queen is safe.”

  “Yes Champion,” he nodded, “We can leave immediately, I anticipated that you would want to make a hasty return.”

  I smiled, Samuels was obviously a First for a good reason.

  “Leave us some rations; I’ll be taking the cavalry off on another task.”

  “We’ll be leaving one of the stores wagons, help yourself Sir.”

  I nodded and walked Rachel over to one of the small wagons that were going to be pulled by a team of soldiers, so it would make far better time than the oxen could.

  “You behave,” I said and kissed her, “Make straight for home, and don’t let anyone mislead you.”

  Rachel nodded and gave me a hug. “I don’t think I’ll run into any troubles, they are sure to realize you’re going after Tantrus’s temple in Marland next. He’ll be pulling everyone back to defend it that they can muster.”

  “I hope so.”

  “So you be careful love.”

  I smiled, “I will. Now go!”

  She hugged me and jumped up into the cart, along with one of her maids
and the entire column took off rather quickly. They left one company behind to deal with the slower wagons and those retainers and others who couldn’t keep up. Though I did notice with approval that they took all of the priests but one.

  I walked over to the others who were getting what provisions they could.

  “How long a ride is it from here to Marland?” Nikki asked.

  “Depends on how hard we can push our mounts, thought I really want to arrive with them in fighting shape.”

  “How many days is it walking?” Dezba asked.

  “About seven.”

  She nodded, “Leave it to me, I’ll make sure we arrive in good time, with healthy mounts ready to fight.”

  I looked at her, “You can do that?”

  Dezba laughed, “I’m an Indian Will, I know all about dealing with mounts on long rides.”

  “But these aren’t horses,” Nikki said.

  “That’s less of an issue then you realize,” Dezba said smiling.

  # # # #

  I looked around, I was in Fel’s bar of course. Only this time Jane was sitting next to me and Fordessa was there as well. Jane and I looked at each other in surprise, then back at our respective Gods. Four days of hard riding had gone by; we were now just outside Marland City, the Capitol of Marland.

  “We thought it would be easier this way,” Fel said to me.

  “I have instructed all of my clerics in the town to converge on the temple at sunrise,” Fordessa said to us. “They will bring as many of the faithful as they can. They will not enter the temple, but they will make things difficult for any followers of Tantrus who show up.”

  “I have also instructed my clerics to do the same,” Fel said.

  “We have clerics here?” I asked surprised.

  Fel nodded, “I started sending missionaries in last year. While Fordessa has a few shrines and her main temple, I had nothing. Now that we are joined together, I can make use of her temples and she mine.

  “As I said before, we had been planning this awhile now, this attack on Tantrus’s temple here is sooner than we had planned, but Queen Rachel is right to strike now.”