God of Magic 4

by Logan Jacobs

  “So you're going to sleep in there, then?” Lavinia challenged.

  Dehn looked surprised and started to fiddle with the straps of his armor. “I didn't say-- that is, I'm not going to leave the group behind.” He tossed his head. “You all wouldn't make it through the night without me.”

  “Uh-huh.” The ladona ranger rolled her eyes and turned to me. “You're the boss, what's your vote?”

  I didn't find the prospect of spending the night in that creepy old house any more appealing than the rest of my guild. At the very least, we'd be up sneezing all night from the dust, and Maruk made a good point about tetanus. The place wasn't exactly up to code. The grounds were a better spot for camping than the side of the road, though, it wasn't as though we had to sleep in the house itself.

  “Let's pitch our tents around here.” I gestured to the overgrown lawn just beyond the gate. “We'll be off the road, at least.”

  “You got it,” Lavinia replied, and she swung gracefully off her horse and began to unpack the canvas and tent poles.

  The rest of us dismounted as well and led our horses through the gate. The animals still seemed nervous, but they followed us with some coaxing from Yvaine and Lena.

  “I can start a fire,” Emeline offered.

  “Oh, that would be marvelous,” Yvaine gushed. “My fingers are beginning to get stiff with cold.”

  “As are mine,” Maruk groaned. “And I'm just dying for a cup of tea.”

  While the orc and the noblewoman commiserated, I unwrapped the last of our bundle of firewood. There was hardly any left.

  “We need more wood,” I reported. “I'll go search for some.” There would be more than enough kindling up by the house, between those dried out creeping vines and the twisted, naked old tree next to the tower.

  “I'll go with you.” Emeline smiled as she looped her arm around mine. “You'll need a light.”

  “And I'll stay here,” Dehn announced suddenly, “and guard the camp.”

  Lavinia, Aerin, Maruk, Lena, and Yvaine all frowned at the halfling, but he didn't seem to notice their looks of scorn as he puffed out his chest proudly.

  “You do that, Dehn,” I replied with an amused smirk. “We'll be right back with the firewood.”

  The halfling gave me a salute as Emeline and I turned away and started up the gravel driveway toward the house. The driveway was close to half a mile long, which I imagined had to get tedious at some point, and the feeling that we were reenacting a cheesy horror movie returned as the chatter of the group faded behind us, and it was just me and Emeline and that enormous old mansion.

  The mage woman conjured a little ball of fire to hover in front of us and light the way, and it bobbed almost cheerfully in the air above our heads. Emeline twined her fingers in mine and bumped her shoulder against me.

  “This is kind of fun,” she said with a little grin when I turned to face her. “It's too bad we can't explore more. I bet Lena's right, there's probably all sorts of neat stuff in there.” She looked longingly up at the dark stone face of the house as we approached. “I wonder who did live here and why they left. Do you think they had to leave because it was haunted?”

  “Maybe,” I confessed. I had always been a skeptic about that sort of thing, even as a kid. I mean, sure, I loved listening to my grandpa tell ghost stories, but I never actually believed they were real. Then I came to this world and the first thing I did was fight the undead guardian of an old castle and well, seeing was believing. Since then, I'd faced down a necromancer's zombies, spontaneously resurrected revenants, and just about everything in between. Why shouldn't there be ghosts floating through those halls?

  “Let's grab some of these old vines,” I suggested, and I led Emeline up past the fountain to the front of the house. As we passed the old fountain, I caught a glimpse inside and realized in its state of neglect it had turned into a cesspool of muddy water, old leaves, and anything else unfortunate enough to fall in. Moonlight shone over the perfectly still surface of the water and the broken sections of the statue of a woman that had once stood at the center. The legs had been cut off at the knee, and the statue's stone torso and arms were scattered in the pool around the base. The head leaned against the side of the fountain nearest to us, and one ear was broken off.

  I frowned as I noticed the statue's face. The expression was so profoundly human, stretched in a look of pure terror. Who would want a statue of a screaming woman in their driveway?

  Then the skin on the back of my neck prickled suddenly, and I shot a glance to the dusty stained-glass windows of the upper stories. I couldn't explain it, but I half-expected to see someone looking out. Of course, there was no one there. Maybe it was all that talk of the place being haunted or just my weary nerves, but all at once I had the acute feeling that we weren't alone, or that the house wasn't quite as abandoned as it appeared.

  I gave myself a little shake as I took out my dagger and summoned the mana blade to cut the dry, tangled vines from the wall, and Emeline held out her arms to catch them.

  “Are you alright?” the panthera woman asked with a curious look. “You look a little pale.” Her expression became mischievous. “You're not scared because I said this house might be haunted, are you? Should I ask Dehn to come protect us?”

  I laughed off her teasing. “It's nothing, I just got a chill.”

  “I think it would be fun to visit a haunted house,” Emeline said as she rocked back on her feet as she stared up at the crumbling stone facade. “Or a haunted cemetery. Anywhere haunted, I guess.”

  “The bandits and lobster-monsters aren't exciting enough for you?” I asked with a grin.

  “Well, I've seen them,” Emeline replied. “I've never seen a real ghost before.”

  “I have,” I told her. “Well, it was a wraith, technically.”

  “Really?” The mage's eyes went wide. “Did you have to avenge its honor? Help it complete some business it had when it was still alive?”

  “Uh, no.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I punched it in the ribcage and then we looted its crypt. It was my first mission with the guild, actually.”

  “You punched it?”

  “I hadn't really gotten the hang of my magic yet,” I explained.

  “Still, that's pretty amazing,” Emeline said. “Forget being a manipulator, you could just be a ghost-puncher.”

  “I don't think so.” I laughed. “It was gross. Its skin was all leathery, and it smelled terrible.”

  Emeline almost had more vines than she could carry, so I resheathed my dagger and took some of them from her. It was at that moment that I felt another prickle down my spine, and I turned and looked around at the empty yard around us.

  “Everything alright, Gabriel?” Emeline asked. Her teasing tone was slightly more concerned.

  “Yeah, I thought I heard something,” I lied. “Must have been the wind. Let's grab some of those fallen branches from that tree, too.”

  I hadn't even taken a step toward the old tree, however, when a distinctly human shape registered out of the corner of my eye, and I whirled to face it. Just around the corner of the house was a man. He stood stock-still as I faced him, and his hands were held up to ward off any hostility. He said nothing, and it took me a moment to realize that he wasn't a man at all, but another statue.

  I walked up to him, and Emeline followed with her light.

  “Okay, this is sort of weird,” the panthera mage said in a sing-song voice as we stopped before the statue. He was dressed like any reasonably wealthy person on the streets of Ovrista, in robes and a short hat of the latest fashion. The sculptor had even carved a pair of delicate stone spectacles over his long nose. That was all a little strange, maybe, given that this house seemed to have been abandoned ages ago, but I knew that wasn't what Emeline was talking about. Like the figure in the fountain, this statue's face was carved in a terrified expression that was disturbingly lifelike. His mouth was pulled down as though he was screaming, and his eyes bulged and seemed to loo
k right at you.

  It made me uneasy.

  “We should get back with the firewood,” I said. “The others will be waiting.” That was true enough, but if I was being honest, I was really just eager to get out of sight of these creepy statues.

  “Right behind you,” Emeline replied, her voice tinged with fear. It would seem that even the panthera mage's inexhaustible curiosity couldn't hold up to how incredibly unsettling that statue was.

  Arms full with tangles of dried vines, we turned back toward the driveway, and that was when I heard it, a heavy, dragging sound, like something large was being pulled across the gravel. It was coming from behind the house. Only then did it finally click. Those statues, just a little too human, with those uncanny expressions of terror. They were the victims of a gorgon.

  Emeline yelped as I grabbed her and clasped a protective hand over her eyes.

  “Gabriel, what--” she started, but I cut her off.

  “Keep your eyes closed!” I insisted. “No matter what, keep them closed, and get rid of that light. There's a gorgon.”

  “What?” the mage demanded. “But gorgons aren't even native to this continent!” She must have heard it herself, then, because she breathed out in a nervous whimper and the little fireball that had provided light for our wood-gathering blinked out. “What do we do, Gabriel?”

  My heart hammered wildly as I stood frozen with Emeline in my arms, and I strained to listen for the sound of the gorgon. It had stopped moving. Had it heard us? Was it listening now? According to the books I studied, Gorgons were known to have remarkably poor hearing, but we hadn't been exactly quiet. I knew, at least, that it had to still be behind the house because if it had seen us, we'd be mincemeat right about now.

  I imagined the creature I'd only ever seen before in books, a long, serpentine body covered in scales, but where the snake's head would be, instead there was a vaguely humanoid torso. The lower half of a gorgon was like a giant snake, but the top half had long, sinewy arms that ended in vicious claws, a face that resembled a person, and hundreds of venomous snakes growing out of its head instead of hair.

  There were hundreds of stories of travelers in the deserts across the sea who had come across what they thought to be a lone woman out among the dunes and sought to offer her aid, only to be turned to stone for their mistake. That was to say, if they weren't clawed to death and eaten first, because for all that they might resemble humans at a glance, gorgons weren't people, not like the elves or orcs or ladonae of this land. They were monsters, maneaters, like the trolls and ogres.

  That heavy slithering sound came again. I realized it was moving away from us, and I let out the breath I had been holding.

  “Go, run,” I urged to Emeline as I finally took my hand from her eyes and dared to open my own eyes again. “We have to warn the others.” I didn't bother to pick up the vines I'd dropped when I'd grabbed Emeline, and the mage needed no more encouragement than that and took off at a sprint, her hand still clenched like a vise around mine. I prayed that the gorgon wouldn't hear us and follow, but if it hadn't heard us talking before I figured we were safe. The others stopped what they were doing when they saw us coming, and Lavinia pulled her bow from her shoulder and nocked an arrow to it before Emeline and I had even stopped before them.

  “What's wrong?” Aerin asked, her brow furrowed in a look of concern.

  “There's a gorgon,” I panted. “Up by the house.”

  “What?” Maruk gasped. “Did it see you?”

  “Obviously not,” Lavinia snapped.

  “We should leave,” Aerin said. “Come on, before it does notice that we're here.” She started to pack up again, but Lavinia grabbed the healer by the wrist.

  “What the hell are you doing?” the ranger demanded. “Since when do we run away?”

  “Since this isn't a bounty,” Aerin shot back. “We have a job already, and one that'll pay well if we deliver. That's not going to happen if we all get turned into statues chasing after a gorgon.”

  “Well, we can't just leave it here,” Maruk said. “Who knows who could stumble across it?”

  “Are you sure it's a gorgon?” Dehn asked. The halfling was still lounging in the grass, apparently thoroughly unimpressed by the news we'd brought. “Don't those only live in Gyb?”

  “We saw the statues ourselves,” Emeline retorted. “And we heard it... slithering around.”

  That got Dehn's interest, and he sat up. “Huh, a real gorgon.” A smile spread across the halfling's face. “The boys back at the station would shit themselves if they found out I took down a gorgon.”

  Aerin looked annoyed, but I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder before she could snap at the guard.

  “Maruk's right,” I said gently. “I know it's dangerous, but we can't just walk away.”

  “Alright.” The redheaded elf's expression softened slightly. “Bet we could get something for its head, anyway.”

  “The venom has a few alchemical uses,” Lena supplied helpfully. “We could sell it on the black market.”

  “You know, I believe an artisan in Petiri just released a line of accessories made with gorgon hide,” Yvaine added. “The pieces were all limited edition, naturally, and incredibly expensive.”

  “Great, we can make boots,” Lavinia said, “but first we have to kill the thing.”

  “We can't look it in the eye, so we'll need blindfolds,” I said, “or something reflective to look at it through.”

  “I have a compact mirror.” Yvaine retrieved a small, silver handheld mirror from a pouch on her belt and smiled proudly.

  “That's good,” I said with a nod. “What else do we have?”

  “My shields are reflective,” Maruk said.

  “Lavinia, can you work with Maruk and use his shields to aim?” I asked the archer.

  “Please, that's for amateurs,” the ladona woman replied. “I'll take a blindfold, I don't need to see to hit my target.”

  “I do,” Lena piped up.

  “Okay, Lena, you stick with Maruk and use his shields,” I said.

  “I don't need to see, either,” Dehn grunted, not to be upstaged by Lavinia. I'd see the wild abandon with which the halfling fought, and I had no trouble believing his claim.

  “Take a blindfold, then,” I told him. “We don't want to cart you back to the guards as a statue.”

  Lavinia had already gotten her own blindfold, and she passed another to the halfling.

  That left Emeline and me. I could see the gorgon's mana even with my eyes closed, so I was covered, but we didn't have any other mirrors for the pyromancer to use. Fortunately, it seemed Emeline had already thought of an alternative.

  “You remember those broken windows?” she asked me. “I could take a shard of the glass and look at the reflection through that.”

  “Good idea,” I said, and I took a breath. “Alright, that's it. Let's go kill a gorgon.”

  Chapter 11

  Just to be safe, I took a blindfold as well, and with mirrors, shields, and various weaponry in hand, we made our way back up the driveway toward the house and the gorgon. Yvaine's mirror had the least distortion, so the noblewoman led the way as she looked at the reflection of what lay ahead in her little silver compact mirror.

  My gut twisted in anticipation as we reached the house for the second time, and I pulled my blindfold down. It was a comfort to see the others' mana shining all around me, and even better that I didn't have to see those statues again. There were cures, but they were rare and expensive, and they could only reverse the gorgon's petrification. I thought of the statue that lay broken in the fountain. There were no potions that could heal her now, no magic that could put her back together. I gritted my teeth.

  We would make sure this monster couldn't hurt anyone else ever again.

  Since I could see its mana, it would be up to me to call out the gorgon's position to Lavinia and Dehn, and so I took point as we edged around the house toward the back. I went slowly and trailed my hand a
long the wall of the house for guidance as I listened intently for the grating of the gorgon's scales against the gravel walkway. I felt the air change as my hand reached the end of the wall, and then, maybe forty feet away, I saw the bright red point of light that was the gorgon's mana.

  “It's ahead,” I whispered back to the others. “Eleven o'clock, about forty feet out.”

  I felt Lavinia move by my shoulder as she stepped up next to me, then I heard the soft sliding of her arrow across her bow's riser as she drew back the string. There was a moment of silence. The gorgon had yet to notice us, but Lavinia's arrow would change that.

  Lavinia breathed out, and her bowstring twanged, and then in the distance a terrible shriek pierced the night. As always, the ladona ranger's aim had been true.

  The little speck of red light quickly became larger, and with it was that terrible dragging sound as the gorgon slithered for us at top speed, eager for revenge. I could hear its furious hissing even from here.

  Dehn gave a battle cry of his own in response, and I saw his mana dart past my knees and out at the gorgon with surprising accuracy given that he was blindfolded and couldn't even gauge the monster's position by its mana as I could.

  There was another shriek from the creature as the halfling warrior threw himself at it, and I could only guess at what was happening as the red light of the gorgon's mana, and the pale yellow light of Dehn's mana bobbed around in the darkness in front of me. The halfling must have managed to hit something important in his frenzy, though, because the gorgon cried out again and there was a fleshy thwack as it smacked the halfling aside.

  Yvaine moved forward then with careful, measured steps. Part of me wanted to call her back, to assure her that the rest of us could handle this, but I would only be distracting her. She knew what she was doing, and I had to trust her now. Her mana was almost silver, bright and steady as she approached the monster, and it flared as she performed some sort of attack. I wished I could see it, but I was at least rewarded by the gorgon's roar of pain and relieved when I heard Yvaine back up again out of the monster's reach.