The Gods' Games Volume 1 & 2: Graphic Edition (The Gods' Games Series)

by Quil Carter

  When he was finished Ben picked up the dagger and examined it. It was beautiful; the crossguards were made out of steel with black engravings that reminded Ben of Celtic designs. Like Ben’s sword the hilt was black leather and the pommel was silver, but Malagant’s had a red jewel embedded in it.

  “This doesn’t have a black blade though,” Ben said curiously, absentmindedly practicing several drills Teal had been teaching him. He noticed that the blade had an odd sheen to it; it shone like it was coated in crystal.

  “The blade is coated in melted seeve, it makes the seeve I have last longer,” Malagant explained. “In order to get it to stick properly it’s mixed with a rare substance called crystal lis. An old friend of mine, Thierry, figured that one out.”

  “That’s clever,” Teal said as he took the dagger from Ben to examine it as well. Malagant was now placing the cauldron directly onto the white-hot fire. “No wonder seeve is banned in Alcove now. I didn’t know it could break magical barriers.”

  “It is extremely banned. So it’s really expensive and really rare,” Malagant went on to explain. “I salvage it as much as I can. You two should coat your swords in the liquid while it’s available. No doubt we’ll be having to rescue our own asses before all of this is done.”

  Ben looked at Teal. “Do you think we should?” It was Teal’s family’s sword after all.

  “Definitely,” Teal said. He brought out a triangle-shaped crystal vial from his bag; Ben assumed it was the crystal lis Malagant had talked about.

  “And it won’t hurt them, the original colour won’t change at all. The colour of seeve is transparent when it is melted down. It turns black when it cools, but on yours it will stay transparent.”

  “Why?” Ben asked.

  “Don’t know really. Maybe the steel does it, maybe the lis does it?” Malagant said, lining up his arrow moulds. The fire had started to turn back to an off-yellow colour. “Actually what you may find most fascinating is…”

  Malagant reached over to the now completely melted breastplate and reached his hand into it.

  “What are you doing!?” Ben exclaimed, but Malagant only smiled. He took his hand out and in the palm of his hand was a mound of transparent liquid. It kept its shape in his hand like mercury.

  “It’s not hot at all,” Malagant said. He placed the thick liquid into one of his moulds. “No one knows why – it’s an amazing thing.”

  “Wow,” Ben said, and although his instincts were telling him not to, he stuck his hand into the cauldron.

  Malagant was right, the seeve wasn’t hot or cold, it didn’t feel like it had a temperature at all actually.

  Ben lifted his hand out of the cauldron. “Why doesn’t it get hot?” Ben asked in amazement.

  “Another thing I don’t know,” Malagant chuckled, filling up the rest of his moulds. “Well, whatever the cause, it’s convenient.”

  Malagant placed the moulds down and grabbed a cloth.

  “Here,” he said, throwing it to Ben, “dip that into the cauldron, cup it in your hand so it doesn’t drip off. Teal, dash a few drops of the lis on it and wipe it on your sword, and that should do it.”

  Ben picked up his sword that was lying next to him. He dipped the cloth into the seeve and after Teal had mixed the clear crystal lis into it, he started wiping it onto his sword. After it was fully coated he handed the cloth to Teal.

  Ben moved the sword blade from side to side, watching the sun reflect off of it. He could see the same sheen on it that Malagant’s dagger had.

  “Now you can do some damage,” Malagant said. He took the sword from Ben and did several stances, finishing off with an embellished twirl. When he handed it back to Ben he had a smile on his face that almost looked wistful.

  “You seem rather good – why don’t you have a sword?” Ben asked.

  “I gave mine to a friend… I never got it back,” Malagant said quietly; the wistful look turned sombre, and Ben felt a pang of guilt for asking a question that was obviously loaded.

  But no sooner than the sad look had appeared, it disappeared. Malagant clapped his hands together before rubbing them, his natural expression: a friendly smile, came back. “Alright, I’m going to get those moulds. Teal, I can smell that salmon smoking from here. Be a good little maiden and make us some food.”

  Malagant grinned as Teal gave him a flat look, then with a roll of his eyes he started back to the cabin. “I’m missing the silence I’d been enjoying with Ben already,” he called behind his back.

  Malagant chuckled and shook his head. “Getting him adjusted to having friends is going to be wonderful.

  Castle Alcove

  The air around him was heavy and damp, so humid inside of this dank cell that if he didn’t eat the hard crackers they had been feeding him the food would turn to a pasty mush within the hour.

  Tseer had been imprisoned in worse cells and for worse crimes though. The Pyre’s prisons were no holiday in Darancove, don’t get him wrong, but it was a far cry from the flooded cells of Castle Azreus in Urchin Keep, or, worst of all of them, the Locus Cave that he had been thrown into during an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the future queen of Evercove.

  Lady Eve of House Cian eventually did become Queen Eve Jecht, Tseer thought to himself as he stared at the putrid water dripping down from the rough brick. The maiden with her eye on King Saven is probably still livid I failed at that task – I still owe Gamascus a favour for breaking me out of that horrid cave.

  I am one of the most talented bounty hunters in all of Alcove, with hundreds of successful contracts fulfilled – and yet it is the several I failed that follow me around like a dog with mange.

  Tseer sighed and leaned his head back, his back and front aching from the infected wounds courtesy of King Erick’s dagger. He was unable to practice any kind of malkah magic inside of his prison. The barrier was strong and the mages living in the castle unfortunately were malkah like him – they knew Tseer’s power and they knew how to muffle it.

  Then the silence around him was broken. Tseer craned his ears and heard the faint footsteps coming from the end of the long hallway. This puzzled him, the guard had been by to feed him only hours previous and he wouldn’t be back until what Tseer had assumed was morning. They’d had their time with his body today already as well, so they couldn’t be back for that.

  I have no concept of time in this forsaken place, there are no windows, the air is as dead as the spirits who haunt these hallways. For all I know they feed me at midnight, that is usually when they ravage me so perhaps they try and make it late at night when the Keeper of Cells won’t hear them.

  And at this thought, Tseer’s backside gave a painful throb, which he ignored out of pride.

  The footsteps came closer and with each echoing step Tseer expected them to stop. To open an empty cell to throw in some poor fool who had pissed off the castle guard or, dire still, the king himself.

  But the footsteps kept approaching, and when Tseer saw a faint blue glow start to paint the brick and the barred wooden door of his cell, he realized why.

  “Leave us,” a deep voice said, the blue glow brightening until Tseer could see the faint outline of a shoulder, seemingly half in this world and half in another.

  “I’ll be in the main room, High Priest Nyte,” the Keeper of Cells, Tarjen Grayfalc, stammered. Then after a flurry of quickened steps there was a slam of the door.

  The malkah lifted his head up, hiding the wince as the pain ripped through his body. He squinted under the brightened aura of Nyte before finally he had to shield his eyes. “Is it time to rape my brain, kessiik?” Tseer rasped, his voice dry and weak.

  The wraith stared him down, his ethereal face cold and serious. “Your brain seems to be the only thing that hasn’t been raped in this prison, malkah.”

  Tseer’s lips pursed, his eyes, purple embers under the haunting blue glow of the priest, narrowed. “Come to taunt me? Weaken my mind for your infiltration? I’ve prepared my mind for years a
gainst your kind, kessiik. You’ll not get the information you need without a price. I know the moment you get what you want King Erick will be fucking my decapitated head.”

  Tseer coughed into his hand, his face twisting in pain as he did. With the light now illuminating his body it was obvious that the malkah was in rough shape. The slashes on his chest wept pus and his copper skin looked like a two-day-old corpse.

  “It is not you who I want,” Nyte answered in a low tone. “I have discovered much sweeter prey.”

  The door to the cell opened and Nyte stepped in, coating the small cell in so much light it was like he’d brought in a luma lamp.

  He walked up to Tseer and crouched down with a smirk on his face.

  Tseer stared back unblinking, though his eyes seared him from the overpowering light of the wraith priest.

  “You want the hibrids?” Tseer said back as their eyes continued to lock. “They interest you – and not just because they have the jewel. Why?”

  The corner of Nyte’s mouth rose. “I sensed it as soon as you came into the throne room. If only you knew what secrets were in their heads.” He touched his fingers to Tseer’s forehead in a deceptively tender way. “Let me into your head, to find the path to the hibrids and I will give you your freedom.”

  Tseer tried to pull his forehead away from Nyte’s cold fingers but the wraith refused to break the contact.

  “Erick will kill me anyway,” Tseer said bitterly, jerking his head back.

  Nyte slowly shook his head, two long fingers gently stroking the malkah’s pale and sweaty skin. “No, Krafter and Stolas have plans for you still,” Nyte replied. “And you can fulfil those plans if you open your mind to me. Or else I will tell Erick to kill you now.”

  Tseer continued to stare back at Nyte, unsure. Underneath his visible surface a thousand questions started to struggle from their cocoons of dormancy. “What use do the priests have for me?”

  “Let me into your mind Tseer Amaus.”

  Tseer’s teeth gritted and though he wished to push his request further he knew enough of kessiik’s to know that he would get no answer. A kessiik was a mage unlike any other; one who had devoted several lifetimes to shadowmagic, a mind-controlling magic that was unmatched by any other craft and one of the hardest to learn. It wasn’t until your second life that you could even start parasiting and your third before you even got the title of kessiik.

  And as such Tseer knew he would receive no answers from the tempered mage.

  “What choice do I have then? Tseer said in a distasteful tone. “Very well, make it quick and be clean about it.”

  “I know no other way,” Nyte said with a cold smile. The kessiik priest brought his second hand up to Tseer’s forehead, and as he touched the malkah’s skin, Tseer closed his eyes.

  “Oh, if only you knew, Tseer Amaus,” Nyte whispered as he grasped the malkah’s head. “If only you knew what I saw in that hibrid’s mind – the places he has been, the world he has seen.”

  “I care nothing for them, I only wish to save my–” Tseer gasped and his eyes snapped open, his eyes suddenly turning from dark red to a glowing blue like Nyte’s.

  And at this the kessiik priest smiled, before a blinding blue light suddenly flooded the dark cell.

  Then everything went back to black.

  16

  Ben opened his eyes. In front of him he saw his hammock, a monotone grey from the sun just starting to make its way through the thick branches of the Forest of Jare. He closed them again and yawned, it was still too early to wake up and he wanted as much sleep as he could. They had left the cabin the morning previous after three more days of rest, and he knew that today was going to be a long day of walking.

  He shut his eyes again and welcomed sleep when he heard a whimper beside him followed by a small cry.

  Ben opened his eyes and peaked over the top of his hammock. His heart wrenched when he saw Teal. His face was creased and scowling and his hands, as usual tucked up under his chin, were twitching.

  Teal let out another whimper before mumbling a small no. Then his legs stretched out before scrunching up to his stomach, another cry sounding not too soon after.

  Another nightmare, it seemed to be happening more often now. Though Ben had never asked Teal if he remembered these terrible dreams he knew he was having; it seemed like too personal of a question to ask his new friend.

  Perhaps it was because Ben was half-asleep, or maybe it was because as the days had gone on his friendship with Teal had strengthened, but Ben found himself reaching a hand out of his green blanket and gently resting it on Teal’s head. Their hammocks were right next to each other’s. Teal’s on the left and Malagant’s beside Ben’s on the right.

  Teal’s whimpering stopped under the touch. Ben sighed at this and gently stroked Teal’s hair in a caring manner. Then he withdrew his hand and tucked it back under his blankets, wondering to himself just what nightmares were tormenting his friend.

  The next time Ben woke up it was fully daylight and the brief moment of wakefulness several hours previous was nothing but a faint memory in his mind.

  Ben yawned and, careful not to aggravate his still healing wounds, he stretched before pulling his blanket closer to his body, making promises to himself that he would get up… in five more minutes.

  “Alright, we’ll split Ben’s duck eggs, one each. We’ll break his share of bread in half,” Ben heard Malagant say loudly below him.

  “To hell with that,” Teal said just as loud. “I say we eat his breakfast and start picking away at his share of salmon for lunch.”

  Ben opened his eyes and rolled them, his friends bursting into snickers below.

  “Why don’t we find ourselves a big stick and start poking him right in the backside from below, the first elf to get him to squawk wins his silverwine,” Malagant said amused.

  “Or I could come down there and beat you both with sticks,” Ben said. And as the drowsiness left him and his other senses returned he could hear the crackling of a small fire and the distinct aroma of water that had been boiling eggs.

  “Oh, he lives!” Malagant called. “I thought I was going to have to send the hibrid up to untie your hammock.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben mumbled and sleepily rose from his hammock. As he untied the binds he looked down to see Teal and Malagant sitting beside a small fire, a still steaming copper pot beside them with two speckled duck eggs. The two were eating their breakfast, egg in one hand and a generous piece of brown bread in the other. They seemed in good spirits at least.

  After he untied the hammock he joined the two and dug into his food. He’d never had duck eggs in his world but he was quickly developing a taste for them.

  “I’m going to miss sleeping in hammocks once we get out of the forest,” Teal said as he finished off the last bite of his crust of bread. “After Lelan the forest is going to be different, more what you’re used to back home, Ben. We’ll be sleeping in the canvas tent on the ground.”

  Ben hadn’t minded sleeping inside the canvas tent. The ground was harder but Teal had a sleeping mat that would at least cover any rocks they’d planted the tent on top of, and if it was going to get colder having a cover over their heads would be useful.

  “Just wait until we get to Lelan Castle.” Malagant rose and started spreading the coals on the fire, then he kicked some dirt onto it with his leather boot. “They have fluffy beds full of goose down and blankets you could drown in.” His eyes adopted a dreamy look. “And the food. Oh, the food. The food is the best you’ve ever had.”

  Ben scoffed and waved a hand. He rose with his half-eaten duck egg and put on his scabbard. It looked like it was time to get back on the trail. “It’s nothing compared to the stuff I have in my world my friend. Teal, you tried hamburgers, right? I bet we can make those here. I got my favourite red stapler in exchange for a quarter pounder…” Ben’s voice trailed as he noticed Malagant’s brilliant dark blue eyes staring at him with intrigued. Ben knew what was coming
next.

  “What’s a stay-puller?” Malagant asked in wonder, chewing on a piece of bread.

  “It’s – it’s a rock that sings,” Ben said, burying his face into his hands. It was much too early to start explaining the complicated mechanics of a stapler to the curious elf; he was still rather groggy.

  “Really!” Malagant bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet, his eyes sparking with transfixed awe. As the three of them started walking towards the dirt road, about a half-mile from their campsite, Malagant walked backwards so he could face Ben.

  “What does it play?” he pressed, glancing behind his back to make sure he wasn’t about to tumble down a ravine. “Flute? Mandolin?”

  Teal started to laugh, shaking his head, but Ben only rubbed his temple exasperated.

  “Malagant…” Ben began. “How about when this is all over, I’ll take you to my world and you can see it for yourself. I’ll answer all your questions then.”

  “Really?” Malagant spat out the bread he had been chewing on. “With arrow plains? And basketball?”

  “Sure, why not,” Ben said, knowing that the chances of that ever happening was slim to nothing. “You can come visit me whenever you like.”

  Malagant’s brow furrowed; he turned around and started walking normally. “You’re going home after this? I suppose that makes sense, I never really thought of it.”

  Beside Ben, Teal’s throat made a funny noise, but Ben, completely oblivious, thought nothing of it. Instead of realizing his friend’s head was hanging low he instead kept talking to Malagant.

  “I had a boy I really liked back in my world…” Ben’s voice trailed.

  “Ohh,” Malagant said with a knowing nod. “You had to leave your chaylen behind?”