Gemini Warrior

by J D Cowan

  “What did you do, Pollux? You were to bring that seed to the Queen.”

  “In case you still haven’t figured it out, I don’t like being told what to do by your kind. It was never her seed.”

  “You’ve lost me my reward feast. Fool! You know nothing about what you are trifling with. I will not say it again. Throw down your arms.”

  Jason brought forth his sword and shield, the latter heavily dented. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I will do to you what the Great Sorcerer King has done to this town.”

  “You’re going to need more than a weak lizard transformation to beat me, Rantan. You couldn’t even take down Matthew one on one, and he didn’t have Pollux. You’ve got nothing.”

  The earth rumbled, shaking them off balance. To his right, upturned dirt moved like a sentient earthquake in a beeline of broken stone and ash towards them.

  Rantan smiled. “My sister’s pet returns.”

  Out of the ground burst a looming figure, a hulking brute with overlong, wide arms and giant feet. Its bulky frame made of the earth itself formed into a distorted giant facsimile of a human being. Where its eyes should be were two empty sockets of black ash. The golem howled mindlessly toward him.

  This was the work of the woman who created the tunnels back at the tunnel. Matthew called her Camille.

  Rantan clapped. “Camille left her pets to guard the way from intruders, but I never thought we would have to resort to the golem.”

  “Your whole family is disturbed. I’m going to enjoy using Pollux to stop you.”

  “Stop me? You’re just another slab of meat for the tray, boy.”

  The large man placed one large palm on the giant and closed his eyes. His bones bent and warped and his height grew in a sudden spurt. Rantan’s body stretched and shot up twenty feet and his skin thickened and darkened to dirt. He had become the golem, and now two stood before Jason.

  The behemoth beside Rantan slammed a Buick-sized fist down. Jason leaped as it dropped and landed on the limb. He slashed it, but to no effect. Only small pebbles dislodged from the arm.

  The second limb swiped out. Jason guarded with the shield, and the attack knocked his feet loose with the impact. He bounced against the earth with a crunch and rolled to his feet. The monster dove upon him again.

  Jason raised the shield and heard it crack. The blow lifted him from the ground, and the shield broke apart with the strike. Rantan elbowed him in the back. A sharp pain ran along the boy’s spine. Jason coughed up saliva.

  The two were much too fast and strong for their size. Jason’s measured strikes with his sword did little, and his shield had been shattered. If he wanted to survive this, he needed a distraction.

  “Whatever is the matter?” the Rantan beast roared. “Surely you have not given up so soon!”

  “Not yet. I’ve got a good one coming your way.”

  They exchanged blows, but Jason couldn’t get a good cut in on either of them. Pollux did not have an unlimited supply of power. Jason sheathed his blade and readied his fists.

  Howls cut through the heat of battle. Across the torn up road tumbled a pack of stone wolves towards him. A bead of sweat ran down his neck. Where was Matthew?

  As if answering his question, Rantan let out a shout. A man leaped on his back and brought down his sword with the force of a sledgehammer. Matthew had arrived. The second golem made a run for him, giving Jason his opportunity.

  Jason’s thunderous steps shook the very forest around them. The enemy golem turned to meet him just as he jumped. Jason threw his fist forward, punching through stone and flying through the open wound. The golem whined as its stomach burst open. Earth crumbled, and the monster shattered. Jason’s muscles seized as he landed.

  Matthew rolled in the dirt beside him.

  “Looks like you didn’t need me on that one,” Matthew said.

  “I take it you got the Cutter. Why are the wolves here?”

  “I can’t kill everything.”

  The pack of wolves fell in beside Rantan, leading to a veritable wall of enemies. With the tree behind the two warriors, they had no way out. Jason’s muscles burned, and Matthew coughed up a storm. Rantan swore at the two of them.

  “Where is my brother, Castor?”

  Matthew wiped his bloodied mouth. “Hell.”

  The giant screeched so terribly that Jason believed he might smash the sound barrier. The wolves encroached on the trapped pair. The battle would soon be over.

  Bark crunched behind the pair. Jason turned around first.

  “Who is that?” Matthew asked.

  Jason’s mouth fell open. “That girl!”

  Out of the tree emerged a girl bathed in golden light. She walked from the trunk, crossing an invisible threshold into the tangible plane. Dark brown eyes as hard as the earth itself watched him. She wore a simple white robe with curled hair and stepped with a graceful glide that almost made him forget they were in a battle. This was that girl he saw in the dream back in the abbey. Did she lead him here?

  She placed a hand against his cheek, and the growing heat in his body died off. She was over a foot shorter than he was, but a strange sense of intimidation permeated her existence. He knew her. And now she had the Kharis Seed.

  “She’s Zelana,” he said to Matthew. “She was the girl in my dream.”

  The older warrior cleared his throat. “Shaula’s daughter was in that tree? You’ve met before?”

  “We have,” she answered with her eyes still on Jason. A beatific smile shone from her fading light. “I’m not like my mother.”

  “She’s on our side, Matthew. Trust me.”

  “You little idiot. How do you know she’s not screwing with you like Shaula did?”

  “You saved me,” she interrupted. “Why would I betray your graciousness?”

  “No, I—” Jason began. She pressed two fingers against his lips, and the golden light shining off her skin faded with it. All his exhaustion vanished completely. He felt as if he could crack the sky itself. “I’m better?”

  She giggled lightly. “The seed told me you needed it. Will this prove my loyalty to you?”

  “You!” Rantan boomed behind him. Jason had almost forgotten that he was still there. “Were you hiding in the Blackwood? Who are you, girl?”

  “Me?” Zelana asked. “I am no one. Just know that I owe these two my life.”

  “All three of you are about to lose them.”

  The pack of wolves sprinted across the broken field. Matthew had his weapons ready, and the girl stood back. The beasts would be upon them in seconds.

  “Matthew, watch her. I’m ending this now.”

  Before Matthew could argue, Jason kicked off in a run. Pollux burned hard with a heat stronger than any he ever grasped before. Wind split around his boots and the earth itself trembled. He was back to full strength.

  Rantan bounded in his direction. The false golem’s hoarse cry could cut through glass.

  They both punched. Rantan’s large fist and Jason’s collided, and the earth shook. Jason pushed back and swung with his left into the golem’s punching arm. Rantan’s stone limb crunched and crumbled. Before the enemy could make a reprisal, Jason jabbed again and again. Rantan’s right arm broke with the impact, scattering dust and pebbles to the wind.

  The body broke off pieces as each strike landed. Rantan wailed and dove on him. Jason put everything into Pollux and jumped upward.

  His fists crashed through the golem’s head. Earth and stone shattered. Rantan crumbled.

  Just like the first golem, the enemy shook apart until nothing remained. Rantan cried out as his remains blew away.

  Behind him, Matthew ran his sword through the last stone wolf. Ruined earth and pebbles ruled the battlefield now.

  “That was crazy,” Jason said to the girl. “How did you supercharge Pollux like that?”

  She blanched before looking down at her feet. “That was the seed. Not me.”

  “That can’t be true.”
A twinge of pain split into his head. It vanished just as soon as it arrived. “You’re Shaula’s daughter. Don’t you have magic of your own? You have to know about her magic, right?”

  “Ease up,” Matthew said. “You’re scaring her.”

  “Scaring her? She just walked out of that tree like a ghost and gave me the power to finally stop that bastard. Now isn’t the time to be scared of me!”

  “Oh, shut up, stupid. You said her name was Zelana. How did you even know that? That’s something you could have told me earlier.”

  “It only came to me later. I didn’t hide anything. I only saw her there in the dream, nothing else happened. Besides, she saved us. She’s gotta be on our side, right?”

  “And that leads me to my next question. Why did Shaula leave her there? If you saw this girl in your empty head, then it had to have meant something.”

  Jason didn’t have an answer. Why would the seed choose to bring him here to the daughter of their enemy? The teenage girl even had trouble meeting his eyes. There was always the chance that she knew more about him than she let on.

  “Could you not stand so close?” the girl asked.

  A blush ran over him, and he backed up. Despite Matthew’s laughing, he kept his tone level.

  “Sorry, I know we haven’t met before, and you did help us out of that jam, but I still don’t know about dealing with Shaula’s daughter.”

  “I don’t really know myself,” she nearly whispered. “A long time ago they put me in that tree and left me there. It’s been . . . I think it has been decades. At least that is what the seed told me.”

  “It spoke to you?” Matthew groaned. “One of you needs to explain what this Kharis Seed is, but we need to find Ordopha first. Rantan was with that Camille woman earlier—”

  Earth bubbled and formed into a dozen figures that pushed out of the dirt like swimmers from a lake. The wolves were coming back.

  “Run!” Matthew shouted.

  He directed the boy forward past the tree and bolted. Jason clasped Zelana’s wrist and followed.

  They whipped through brush and tall grass, the howling and snapping of rock teeth growing louder. Would these beasts ever stop?

  Green sickness shot through Jason’s bloodstream. He narrowly avoided falling and kept pace. Up ahead Matthew was doing the same, although he was tough to see in the haze. Jason growled and dragged Zelana forward. She screamed about the wolves getting closer.

  Jason called to the man in front. “Where are we going, Matthew?”

  “Shut up!” he shouted. “I can’t think straight. My sixth sense is telling me this way, but I just don’t know.”

  A thin shaft whizzed past Jason’s shoulder, sinking into a wolf. It whined and crumbled. A cavalcade of arrows sunk into the ground mere feet behind the trio. Archers emerged from the fog and brush around them. Men with spears and swords appeared, leaping at the beasts. Jason, Zelana, and Matthew stopped.

  The attackers all wore heavy vermillion cloaks over their armor and strange looking face-coverings that reminded Jason of old kabuki masks. They were not dissimilar from the Vultures.

  Before Jason could say anything, Matthew slumped to the ground. He lay still in the fog, and he couldn’t see if he was still breathing. Jason took a step and found himself also falling to his knees. His headache screeched, causing his stomach to flip. The sickness had caught up with them.

  The last thing Jason saw was a stocky man with bulging muscles at the front of the group. He held an axe in both hands but kept them steady by his sides. The leader. His mask blocked his eyes and expression.

  Jason opened his mouth to speak, but the fog enclosed on him, and he knew no more.

  Chapter 18

  Last Village

  Consciousness splashed over Matthew like cold water. He sat up and wiped the wet cloth from his forehead, tossing it to the stone floor. The wooden pew he sat in dug into his spine. He had been brought into a church.

  “Jason!” he whispered roughly. He stood up, and his leg muscles cried out. “Jason?”

  The boy’s head shot up from the pew in front of his. A cloth also fell from his forehead. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re in a church. How did we get here?”

  Jason jumped up. “I lost consciousness after you. I don’t know who brought us here.”

  “Kydil did,” a man said.

  A priest crossed over from the rear of the church and Matthew could see familiar sights. It reminded him of the monastery. The size was at least half of the other location but remained packed with pews and candles perched precariously about. The priest wore black robes and was totally alone. He sat beside Matthew on the bench.

  “Please sit,” he said. “You are not yet well.”

  “Where is Zelana?” Jason asked.

  Matthew nodded. “We also have a friend in the forest we need to find. We have no time for this.”

  “The girl is well, Jason. Yes, she told me your names. Do not worry, you are safe here. But you mustn’t stand so readily. The fog is still in your system. Zelana is currently washing herself clean of its influence.”

  Matthew swayed and slumped into the pew. “Its influence? Is that what was messing with us?”

  “It poisons the mind and floods the soul. I am surprised you weathered so well inside of it. Your dedication, and your bracelets, truly proves you are Castor and Pollux.”

  Jason dropped back into his seat facing forward. He rubbed his brow. “I don’t think the fog can explain what I did.”

  “You mean Rantan?” Matthew flatly asked. “It had to be done. We need to get out of here and find Ord. We can’t sit and mope about this sort of thing.”

  “I still killed him without thinking about it.”

  Matthew blinked. The boy had to get beyond this fast. Regrets were luxuries they could not afford. “How did you think that was going to end, Jason?”

  “I know, I know. There wasn’t another choice. But I felt nothing when I did it. It was like punching cardboard. I didn’t even realize what I had done until . . . just now. I woke up ready to move onto the next thing. What is wrong with me?”

  “Well . . .” Matthew stopped short of being honest. The boy became too thoughtful when he did anything other than jump into a fight. This was no different, but they were no longer the same ignorant saps Shaula had tricked into coming here. Jason had changed, though he didn’t realize it. “This is just how it works here. Maybe it works like this back home, too. I don’t know. Good people are threatened, and you move to save them. You do what you need to, and that doesn’t mean holding back. Rantan was a vicious scumbag who reveled in death and destruction.”

  “But shouldn’t I feel something? Anything?”

  “No,” the priest said. “I apologize for interrupting your conversation, but I can’t sit still.”

  “Yes,” Jason paused on his words. “Do I call you Father here?”

  He cocked his head. “My title is Hodegeo. I am Hodegeo Himmello.”

  Jason had learned little from the Abbot, though Matthew expected it. The kid didn’t make any attempt to learn anything since they came to Tyndarus. He wanted to put this world out of his thoughts. His desperation to return home was obvious. Did he care that much about the bomb in Matthew or was something else there waiting for him?

  “That aside, you must understand how the Deeper Woods functions, young man. The fog warps and distorts the mind, and it causes one to lose control of their baser impulses. Those inside do not often think twice about their decisions.”

  “You said something like that before,” Matthew said. “Do you mean it made Jason do what he did?” He did not find that thought as relieving as the priest probably expected it to be.

  “No, young one. The fog heightens and twists thoughts, but only with prolonged exposure, and only through months or years will one truly lose their way. With less than a day, all one can do is forfeit control of urges they already bore. That fierceness was inside of him, though he would have normally
kept such violence at bay.”

  Jason shivered and gripped his arms.

  There was nothing further to discuss, as far as Matthew believed. Jason did what he had to in order to save others and survive. But Matthew wasn’t Jason, and he wasn’t a teenage boy. Killing could never be a pleasant thing, but it would be necessary here. Even if they got back to Serenity City, he might have had to make a similar choice against a villain someday. Jason was simply lucky to make it here first. But Matthew didn’t mention those thoughts. They would have to wait. The pair still had someone to rescue.

  “Do those masks block the fog?” he asked the priest. “The ones the men who found us wore?”

  “It is not so much the masks, but the water. The river in Fortuna runs deep under the earth and splits the village in two. But it offers protection when any material is soaked in it—even when dried. Poisons and the elements will not pierce or bend the target. The benefit lasts half a day, enough for hunting, but that’s all we need. Hunters return here for Intactilis before any permanent damage can be done to them. You two shall wash in the water to clean yourself of any of the fog’s influence when we are finished here. You require it.”

  “So why not stock up and leave this village? Staying here looks like a deathtrap.”

  “The benefits wear away the further one walks from the stream, and lasts no longer than half a day. That is why it is used for hunting. It also keeps invaders out.”

  “I don’t get why you would form a village in here in the first place. These woods are a horror show. It can’t be worth it just to hide from Shaula’s goons.”

  “We were an outpost for travelers long, long ago. The village’s old location might be familiar to you as the sight of that garish blackwood tree. Our ancestors were chased out when the fog fell and nearly drove them mad. Many left the Deeper Woods in time, and some formed Fortuna out of the fog’s reach. Those of us that stay here choose it.”