God Stones: Books 1 - 3

by Otto Schafer

  “My human has informed me of the population among other things,” King Ogliosh said.

  The king thought of Gabi in that moment, and she froze, gasping sharply. She grabbed the girl’s shirt in fistfuls and shook her desperately. “Get up, get up, get up, Breanne!”

  Breanne sat up, blinking. “Where am I, and who are you?”

  “I’m Gabi. We’ve got to go. Can you walk?”

  “Gabi? Sarah’s Gabi? I… I think so.”

  Gabi nodded. “Come on!”

  “I know what Azazel will be doing and where she and hers will gather. I have known for a long time. When the time comes, all you need to do is make sure the door is open and stable,” Apep said confidently. “Azazel will want to go home to her people as much as we do. I will go to her. I have a proposition she won’t be able to refuse. This is all coming together so much easier than last time. You should have allowed me to assemble the stones in the first place.”

  Gabi pulled on Breanne’s arm in a frantic jerk. “We need to hurry, Bre!” she begged. Then as she tried to speak again, a sudden smugness washed over her. “Get in the Jeep, stupid girl, or do you want to die?” She gasped at her own words, covering her mouth in shock.

  In that same moment Ogliosh spoke with a smug finality. “Even with the Sound Eye, you can’t control dragons.”

  Breanne, still clearly disoriented, turned to look at her with furrowed brows. “What? No! Of course I don’t want to die!”

  “I’m sorry! I wasn’t … I didn’t mean…” Gabi pleaded as she led her to the Jeep and yanked open the door.

  Apep’s voice screeched in her mind, and she felt this new agitation rake down her spine. She balled her fist. “María Purísima, please!”

  Apep snapped back at the giant. “I don’t need to control them, I just need Azazel to follow orders!”

  “You have no idea what assembling the Sound Eye is doing to this world. You have put us on a timeline, Apep. This tiny world wasn’t made for the power of the Sound Eye. In time it will destroy itself, but before it does the creatures of this world – humans and others, the ones that are capable – they will feed on the Sentheye! What do you think will happen when those creatures find out you wish to open the portal home and take the power from this world? Do you think they will want to give up the Sentheye after they have tasted it? There is an awakening happening, and they will all want what you have.”

  “Then you better get to work, King Ogliosh. Now I suggest you stop! Stop trying to get into my head!” Apep said.

  The Sound Eye began to glow.

  “I’m not in your head! Wait! What is this!?”

  Gabi tried to slam the door of her mind, but it wouldn’t close. “Seat belt, Breanne!” she yelled, pulling the emergency brake.

  Breanne pulled on her belt, clasping it into place with a click. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “No!” Gabi yelled, as the Jeep rolled forward toward the edge of the ledge.

  “Gabi!” the giant yelled in her mind.

  “The human!?” Apep said.

  Pressure pushed against her mind, and a door slammed with a sharp pain. Apep was gone. Now she could only hear Ogliosh. “You should not have been listening, human girl.”

  The voice was not her father, it was the ugly voice of betrayal. The ground shook as an angry roar filled the tunnel. Gabi gripped the wheel of the Jeep for dear life. She looked in the side mirror in time to see Ogliosh appear behind them, coming fast.

  “What the hell is that?!” Breanne yelled as the Jeep tipped over the edge of the platform and down onto the mountain.

  Both girls screamed.

  51

  Feast and Grow!

  Wednesday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4

  Rural Chiapas State, Mexico

  Apep and Ogliosh arrived at the edge of the ledge just in time to see the Jeep bounce across the uneven terrain, crash through the camp near the base of the mountain, and vanish into the gorge below.

  Apep laughed. “You fool. You’ve let them escape.”

  “Careful, Apep,” King Ogliosh said, tightening his eye, “I don’t bow before you. You aspire to be a king, but you forget I am already a king.”

  Apep spun on him, staring skyward, trying to meet the giant’s eye. “It is you who should be careful – I possess the Sound Eye,” he snapped.

  “You possess nothing, you only hold it.”

  Apep frowned. “Either way – hold it, possess it. The point is, Ogliosh, I could smite you with its power.”

  The giant stared back, his one eye unblinking. “The humans are of no matter,” he said flatly. “There will be more, many more, to harvest.”

  Apep hated giants – not as much as humans, but still he hated them. They were big and dangerous, worthless if not for their size and impossibly long lives. The truth was he didn’t know how long they lived – perhaps forever. And they never seemed to forget anything. While humans were cursed with incredibly short lives and were too stupid to remember yesterday, nephilbock remembered it all. The dökkálfars were the perfect race, and he was the perfect dökkálfar. Perhaps he would take the dökkálfar goddess Ereshkigal as his own wife when this was over. Yes, she would make the perfect queen.

  Apep shook away the thought. All in due time. Everything that was owed would be paid. “You will be vulnerable to humans and their weapons should they find out about you and send armed forces. Two birds, one stone. I will clean up this mess with these two escapees and provide you with some protection while I am gone!” And show this nephilbock why he should fear me in the process, Apep thought, as he began to chant words and the Sound Eye began to glow. Blue-grey ribbons the color of Apep’s skin poured forth in thick bands. The elf stepped to the edge of the ledge.

  King Ogliosh backed away from Apep toward the mouth of the pyramid.

  Apep opened his palms to the sky and gazed out from the ledge, down the mountain to the jungle beyond. The ribbons of power dissipated into a fog, flowing down over the mountain, following Apep’s gaze as it spread across everything in sight. He chanted more words and the Sentheye obeyed, moving with a purpose, his purpose. He was one with the Sentheye, seeing through it.

  The jungle floor teemed with life. Just in his span of reach were thousands of insects – mosquitoes, ants, flies, and larger bugs too. There were scorpions, spiders, and some sort of strange giant beetle nearly as big as Apep’s hand. Then he detected even more substantial life. Iguanas sunned themselves on the warm rock shelves while others fought amongst themselves over females and territory. Further down the steep slope he sensed a lynx and her young. She was nursing a litter under the shade of a rock outcropping. He reached even further and deeper, groping with the Sentheye, finding even more creatures – poisonous vipers, wild dogs, something like a racoon but not a racoon. What a strange thing. The Sentheye led him to dozens of small black monkeys. There were so many of them, the trees seemed full of them.

  “What are you doing, Apep!?” Ogliosh asked, his massive brow wrinkling.

  Ignoring the giant, Apep cocked his head to the side. Yes, I see you, I see all of you. He sucked in a deep breath and extended his hands outward, splaying his fingers. How strange he must look, dressed in human clothes, boots, and a long duster with his magical crown slightly askew atop his midnight hair. He supposed he looked almost comical, but what came next no one would find amusing – except him of course.

  He chanted the words over and over, shouting them as loud as he could shout. “Flah oz zaeshi ff mue, flah oz zaeshi! Flah oz zaeshi!” More Sentheye poured from his hands as dense as smoke from burning car tires. The Sentheye supercharged the liquid grey fog until it too became impossibly thick, heavy like liquid given shape, given purpose. But this was not smoke, nor shadow, nor liquid. No, this was power – magic – Sentheye.

  “Now eat! Feast upon the Sentheye and grow!” Apep shouted triumphantly.

  The Sentheye found its way to all the creatures, and as the creatures fed on the Sentheye, the Senthe
ye consumed them, then changed them. From the thick smoke a giant snake slithered, iguanas lifted their heads above the fog, a jaguar roared, trees swayed and bowed under the weight of giant monkeys. Wasps, mosquitoes, and even biting gnats could be seen from a distance.

  Apep dropped his hands to his side, his vision becoming narrow as he swayed on his feet. Just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. He blinked back the darkness, surprised at the exhaustion he felt.

  “What have you done?” the king demanded as he leaned his great girth over the mountainside for a better look.

  “I am cleaning up your mess. If the human females lived through that little stunt they pulled, these creatures will ensure they don’t for long. You will be vulnerable while you work. If word gets out about you being here, they could send military. My new pets will take care of them,” Apep said, brushing his hands together in satisfaction. He turned back to the giant. “You’re welcome.”

  Below, giant insects buzzed around noisily. A few iguanas darted off – the rest, about a dozen or so, were all easily visible due to their newly acquired monstrous size. They were seemingly unaware of how they had grown as they went back to sunning themselves or fighting one another for space. “You can command them?” Ogliosh asked skeptically, pointing down the mountain at a viper easily forty feet in length as it slithered through base camp.

  Apep didn’t answer; instead he focused his mind on imposing his will, compelling the animals and insects to obey him. Excitement consumed him. All these new creatures to command. I can add to my army with the sorry creatures of this planet! Make them into the fierce monsters they should have been if a real god had created them… a dökkálfar god. Yes, of course, it will be perfect, he thought, as the huge snake worked its way across the rocks and between vehicles. Yes! Come to me, my children. Come to me and obey!

  The giant snake paused briefly, turning its head toward them.

  “That’s right. Yes, come to me.” Apep beckoned with his hand. The Sound Eye crown atop his head began to glow once again. “Come to me!”

  The viper stretched upward several feet off the ground, its long tongue flicking at the air. What followed was a defiant hiss that could be heard all the way up the mountain.

  Apep frowned. Despite all his focus the creatures did not obey. Not even one of the biting gnats and certainly not the snake. They were not his creatures. He had seen his own daughter grow and command rats but he couldn’t bend a bug to his will? He, with more power than anyone in the universe. He, with more power than the gods themselves – couldn’t make them obey? He could use the Sound Eye to physically change them, but he couldn’t do what a pathetic half-breed could do with a few rats!

  “What’s wrong?” Ogliosh asked.

  “C’est la vie.” Apep sighed.

  Ogliosh laughed and then he laughed even harder, holding his massive belly as it shook. “Of course, you can’t command them, can you?”

  “What do you mean ‘of course’?” Apep asked, feeling blood flush to his face as anger built inside him.

  “It isn’t in your nature to control creatures. The Sound Eye hasn’t changed that. It will only enhance your attributes, mage, not give you new ones.”

  In the distance, one of the raccoon things tried to scurry up a tree, but the tree wouldn’t hold, cracking with a loud pop under the beast’s newfound weight. The beast startled and took off like a shot, running wildly into the jungle, wrecking foliage and toppling trees as it went.

  Apep raised a long finger toward the giant. “Just prepare, Ogliosh. If humans come snooping, they will be in for a surprise.”

  “As will my nephilbock, when they arrive,” he said disapprovingly.

  “Oh, come now, I don’t think a few giant monkeys and some overgrown mosquitos are anything your nephilbock can’t handle,” Apep said. “Now, if you excuse me, I’ve a dragon queen to see.”

  “Perhaps you should stay and rest. The Sound Eye is taking its toll on you,” Ogliosh said as he backed away, never taking his ostrich egg–sized eye off Apep.

  “Nonsense. I have never felt better in my life!” He closed his eyes and pictured the place he wanted to go. The place he knew Azazel would be. It had been many years, but the memory was solid. The Sound Eye glowed bright, so bright it swallowed him in its light. Then he was gone.

  52

  Old Guilt

  Saturday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4

  Rural Chiapas State, Mexico

  Somehow the Jeep managed to stay upright as it careened down the mountain and through base camp. Breanne screamed, one hand gripping the dashboard handle, and the other clinging for dear life to the handle above the door. As her body locked up, horrible memories flashed through her mind of the last car accident she was in, the one that stole her mother, the one that she caused. Now this girl, this strange girl, trying to save her was going to die! She needed to stay present. She had to stay here… now.

  The girl in the driver’s seat was squeezing the steering wheel, her eyes wider than she thought possible. When the Jeep hit the edge of the gorge, Breanne felt a weightlessness as everything smoothed out. They were flying. The ground beneath them was gone, and the only sound remaining were their screams. A moment later they hit the ground hard. Even belted in, it was all she could do to keep her head from slamming into the roof of the Jeep. The other girl, Gabi, wasn’t so lucky. Breanne saw her hit her head and her body go slack, but before she could grab the wheel the Jeep turned abruptly and flipped onto the driver’s side. Breanne watched in horror as Gabi fell limp toward the ground the Jeep was sliding along. She lunged for the girl, trying to pull her back. The Jeep slid for what seemed like forever, ripping through foliage and small trees before finally stopping abruptly against a large tree.

  The girl opened her eyes. “Mamá, my head,” she moaned.

  “Gabi? Are you okay?” Breanne asked.

  The girl lay there for a long moment as if listening for something. “Yes, I think so. I don’t hear them anymore.”

  “Hear who?” Breanne asked, bracing her feet against the dash. She unclipped her seat belt and lowered herself to straddle the girl.

  “Ogliosh and Apep. I’m not in their heads anymore.” Gabi shook her head side to side.

  “Listen, Gabi, I am going to assume Ogi—”

  “King Ogliosh, the giant.”

  “Right, Ogliosh. I’m going to assume he is going to try and kill us, and I for sure know Apep will. Can you get up?” Breanne extended her hand to the girl. Gabi’s hand was small but strong. Breanne took it and pulled the girl to her feet. They climbed up and out of the passenger side window.

  Breanne jumped down, the dry foliage crunching under her feet as she landed. “Is your head okay? I think you were knocked out there for a second.”

  Gabi swung her leg over the side of the Jeep door. “Hurts a little. But I am getting used to it.”

  The girl jumped down next to her, and for the first time Breanne had a chance to really look at her. She was about a foot shorter than Breanne, with long jet-black hair parted down the middle and braided into two matching pigtails. Her clothes were torn and filthy. She looked really young, but something was off. It was in her eyes. Something horrible had happened to her. And after the way she had screamed at Breanne on the mountain and talked about being in their heads, she wondered if the poor thing wasn’t broken. “Where is Sarah, Gabi?” she asked softly.

  “I… I don’t know. I think she’s dead,” Gabi whispered.

  Breanne’s heart sank into her stomach. Memories came in a rush, flashing through her mind of a time when she was even younger than Gabi, squatting down over a shallow hole on a dig site, brushing strata away from objects buried centuries earlier, talking girl stuff with Sarah and laughing. “Are you sure?” she tried to ask, her voice cracking.

  “What?” Gabi said distantly.

  “Gabi, are you sure? You said you think. Are you sure!”

  “No. But I think the giant killed her, maybe even ate her.”
>
  “But you’re not—”

  Above them something crashed through the trees.

  Breanne looked up just as a large black mass scrambled down the gorge not thirty yards away. She grabbed Gabi by the arm and pulled her back against the bottom of the overturned Jeep, pressing her own back into it. She squatted down and peered beneath the protruding tire of the Jeep.

  The monkey howled so loud Breanne had to cover her ears. She grabbed Gabi and pulled her down into a squat. The monkey stood facing away from them, swaying on its feet.

  “That’s a howler monkey,” Gabi said.

  Breanne knew what it was, but this monkey was way, way too big to be a monkey at all. Yet there it was, with its long tail reaching high up over its head as if searching for something. Then, as Breanne watched, the man-sized monkey grew another three feet.

  Breanne looked back up the wall of the steep gorge where the monkey had come from and gasped. “Gabi, can you run?”

  “Sure, I can run,” Gabi said flatly.

  Blue-grey fog spilled over the top of the gorge from above.

  The monkey staggered forward, taking several steps away from them.

  Breanne pulled Gabi up by the hand, fearful the girl was in some kind of shock. “Okay, we have to make a run for it, Gabi.”

  Breanne pointed further down into the gorge away from the monkey. As they prepared to run, something clacked off the Jeep above them. Then again, again, and again. Maybe some kind of landslide from above? Then a fire ant landed in front of them. It was the size of a football. “Run, Gabi!”

  Gabi bolted forward as if a starting gun had gone off.

  Ants were landing all around them. Breanne leapt over one as she gave chase. Gabi wasn’t kidding – she could run. Breanne pushed hard to keep up, her body dehydrated and threatening to cramp. Two minutes later and a good distance away, she yelled for Gabi to stop. Sweat soaked her shirt, pasting it to her back. She gasped for breath. “Gabi, do you know how to get out of here? How to get to a road or, better yet, a town? And where is everyone else from the dig?” She hesitated before asking but then said, “Your parents? Where are they?”