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

by Quil Carter

  Ben pursed his lips to the side of his mouth and tested the rope. It felt solid, but it was slimy from the rain and bits of fiber shedded off into his hand. “If we have to do it, we have to do it,” he said. However as the words left his lips he saw white scratch marks appear on Teal’s arms as he slid his claws over them.

  “You’ll be fine, Tee.”

  “You know hibrids can’t swim well… right?” Teal said, his voice small.

  Surprisingly Malagant scoffed. “Old crone’s tale; hibrids can swim. We threw Duck and Goose into the lake when they pulled the same shek on us. They swam, they screamed like maidens, but they swam.”

  “And they swallowed half the lake didn’t they?” Teal challenged.

  Malagant paused, before he gave a small chuckle.

  “Yeah, they did actually… oh, it was great.”

  Teal let out a snort of air through his nose. “You just love abusing hibrids, don’t you?”

  “We all have our vices.”

  “Still… if someone falls… I mean, think of the horses?” Teal protested. He sighed and put his hands behind his neck. “I mean… I know I have to do it. I’m not saying I won’t. I just want to complain for a while.”

  “You… you do know we’re catching a ship to Garas, right?”

  “I’ve been quietly dealing with that reality for quite a while now.” Teal’s left eyebrow twitched. “I think I should get the hunting over with soon; it’ll keep my mind off of the Bridge of Death at least.”

  “You’re going hunting after this?” Ben asked.

  Before Teal could reply, Malagant spoke. “I think you both should. The plains have game, but we’re going to have to use bows and arrows. The hibrid way of hunting is more forest reliant. Though with Ben’s pounce ‘n smash we might just be okay. Either way, after the horses are tended and the tent up, you two go off and murder, and I’ll keep an eye on the bridge. Catch as much as you can, we can salt preserve it.”

  “What do you say, Ben? One last hunt in our forest?” Teal asked him as they headed towards a small cluster of trees near the treeline.

  “Fresh meat tonight would be wonderful,” Ben said. “We can roast the apology rabbit and hopefully add a few other family members to the spit.”

  They started clearing off a spot inside the woods for their camp. Malagant was pleased to find a rounded stone bluff for them to camp beside, with their canvas tent behind it facing the woods, and the rock big enough for Malagant to perch on to watch the bridge. The area also had a small dip in it as well which would hide them all the better if they had any visitors. Still, Teal took every precaution and brought out the vial that turned the fire blue to keep the glow and the smoke down to a minimum.

  They set their tent up and the bed rolls and even made themselves a spit for the rabbit. With Malagant crushing up oil, garlic, and rosemary in his mortar and pestle, Ben and Teal unpacked the rest of the supplies they would need for the evening, and started into the woods. Their daggers were strapped to their sides and Ben’s bow and quiver on his back. He didn’t know how to use it well yet, but he was hoping to get practice.

  They silently walked through the woods, Ben’s best friend to his right and the rest of Valewind to his left. The thin trees dotted the darkening woods around them, shooting up from the ground like so many outstretched arms, reaching out towards the full moon as if trying to pull it back down to Elron. The moon was particularly huge that evening, though it always looked big against the black sky; perhaps it was the lack of a forest canopy over his head that made it appear bigger, or maybe it was a blue moon tonight. Ben never paid attention to these things back in his old world, too busy hiding in his apartment. In Alcove it was different though, with so many lonely nights taking watch, the moon, or Luna as Malagant said was the elves’ nickname for it, had become an old friend.

  With patches of pearly light around them, illuminating their way like tiny luma lamps, the two of them walked side by side. To his surprise though, Teal led him closer to the canyon side, out in the plains, where it was even brighter out under the night’s cold glow. Ben was always amazed how vivid the night looked with his hibrid eyes.

  “Beautiful night,” Teal whispered as they walked through the rolling plains. “The way the light hits the grass, especially when there is a breeze and it ripples… always reminded me of a lake. The grass looks so shimmery… almost magical.”

  Teal let out a dry laugh. “I’ll never be a poet that’s for sure.”

  Teal ran his hand over his arm as they made their way down a small hill; the grey rocks in front of them looking like half-capsized ships in the silvery sea.

  Ben looked down at the canyon, trying to see if he could spot any more sculptures; but in the light and shadow of the rocky canyon, everything looked sculpted already.

  “Colorado was beautiful,” Teal suddenly spoke, his voice held an odd tone. “I know… I always talk about your world like it was horrible but… there is something about standing on a mountain side, looking at all those twinkling city lights. So many of them, stretching as far as the eye can see. It holds its own beauty. It took my breath away the first time I saw it.”

  “It did have its charm.” Ben looked at him and smiled. Teal didn’t break his gaze, as Ben looked closer he was startled to see fear in his friend’s eyes.

  Ben’s heart skipped; his hands clenched and the air started to escape from his lungs. He tried to replace the air with a deep breath, his chest shuddering as he did.

  He knew now, tonight would be the night.

  This wasn’t a hunting trip… it probably never had been a hunting trip.

  Ben looked back at the camp, too far away to see now, and silently praised Malagant for his craftiness. He hadn’t suspected a thing.

  “Did you do something to Tav?” Ben asked calmly. Teal tensed, sliding his fully extended claws over his arms. “If you killed him… I will forgive you.”

  Teal looked up at the moon, the corners of his eyes glistened. “I should have told you, as soon as you came to Alcove. I was just… Ben, you were so scared, so unstable… so was I.”

  What felt like a burning hot rod skewered itself into Ben’s chest – Teal had killed Tav.

  But though the request for confirmation sat on Ben’s tongue, badly wanting to be spoken… he let Teal continue.

  “Kelakheva brought me to earth, Ben, and I… I completely went insane. I couldn’t handle it. I was Teal the hibrid; Teal the forest rat. Not Teal the prophecy walker. I was no hero like my father. I was a coward,” he whispered. “A coward and I’m sorry… I’m sorry that it took me well into our journey to stop being a coward.”

  “Tee… you’re… you’re not a coward,” Ben said in the same hushed tone. “An elf in my world? Can you think of anyone who would be able to handle that?”

  They found themselves by a gathering of grey boulders with smooth rounded tops. Ben started to climb up one and when he reached the top he turned around and held his hand out for Teal. Teal took it with clammy and trembling hands and hoisted himself up. They sat and watched the moon hover above the silver-bathed canyon.

  “I refused. I was there for a month and I still refused to come out of that cabin,” Teal said, folding his hands over his lap as if trying to keep himself from fidgeting or destroying his arms further. “The demigod was angry, so angry with me. I hung myself and he was so angry he brought me back.”

  “Fuck, Teal, you tried to kill yourself?” Ben swore, though he faintly did remember Teal mentioning it before.

  Teal let out a dry laugh. “No, I did kill myself, but he dragged me back. It would be the first of several times I would do it. He just… kept bringing me back, more and more angry and frustrated with me each time,” he said. “He was yelling at me one day, when I told him… I was no hero. I wasn’t like the heroes in the books I read, I was a coward. He agreed with me once, in anger. He told me I was nothing like my father who was a brave elf.”

  “Asshole…”

  “He…
he…” Teal seemed to choke on the words. “Ben, he told me I had no choice. What we had to do to you… he said it had to be done. I don’t know why, I thought it was the prophecies but with them taking so long to write I don’t know. All I know is that he told me I had to drive you close to the edge…”

  Ben stared at him. “You mean the whole driving me insane part? He did that didn’t he? The silver-haired man, that poem that kept running through my head slowly making me insane. That was him, you just… well, I met you on a rooftop. You were the one to literally push me over the edge with you.”

  Teal looked over at Ben and smiled sadly at him. A look that held such a heavy silence Ben felt his heart break for him.

  Then Teal put his hand over Ben’s, it was cold and trembling.

  “The first time I saw you… you were wearing a black t-shirt, with a band name on the front, and blue jeans with rips in the legs. You were drunk…” Teal let out a small, awkward laugh but it turned into a whimper. “You – you said to Emett… ‘he… he talks like a foreigner.’”

  Every inch of Ben froze; the world around him suddenly froze. He found himself unable to breathe, unable to blink; all he could do was stare at Teal’s face.

  Then his mind took him to that moment and he was able to draw it up with clarity. It had been one of those defining moments that he never forgot, carved into his mind like the sculptures carved in the canyon in front of him.

  The boy with brown hair and brown eyes sitting on the couch. He was looking at Ben’s shoes, brand-new shoes, with a look of awe that made Ben laugh.

  When Ben had locked eyes with him – the boy had bowed his head, his brown eyes wide and nervous but his smile genuine.

  The realization hit Ben like someone had swung a war hammer at his head – he had seen that scared look and nervous smile before.

  With a shudder that could be heard over Ben’s thrashing heart, Teal looked up at the stars, his hand on his pendant. He grasped it and shut his eyes, the tears that had been collecting on the corners falling down his flushed cheeks. “If I knew who I was meeting; if I knew how much I would grow to love… this… this drunken human who took pity on a homeless idiot from Albania…”

  “Stop… stop talking,” Ben managed to gasp, unable to get enough breath into his lungs. He felt like he was walking the edge; he didn’t know the edge of what – only that he wouldn’t be able to climb out once he fell in. “You – you need to stop – stop talking.”

  Teal’s eyes were on him but Ben couldn’t look back. He didn’t want to see Teal’s face right now, he couldn’t look at him. He knew Teal was analysing him, trying to read him, looking for any reaction he could see, to gauge just how he was taking this news.

  All Ben could do was stare forward, his body frozen where Teal’s words had left it, all except for the continued gasps for breath as he struggled to fill his lungs with enough air.

  But it wasn’t working, Ben started feeling lightheaded and the more he became aware of the emotions rising up inside of him, like a newly active volcano, the more he felt like he had to get away from the thing who had caused it.

  Ben jumped off of the rock, his feet quietly hitting the soft grass underneath. Without a word, or a look back, he started walking into the plains.

  “Ben, please, no!” Teal cried, his own words cracking as they left his mouth. Ben heard him jump off of the rock as well.

  As Ben walked down the silvery plains, the first wave of emotions started to crawl out of the stunned mass that had become his mind. To his surprise, the first one to hit him was embarrassment.

  Teal had seen more of him than Ben had ever thought he had. Teal had seen Ben as a dysfunctional, lowlife human, a person that he was ashamed of now. And what was worse? Ben had been more than happy to introduce the innocent, naive hibrid to his lifestyle – he had taken copious amounts of joy in corrupting him.

  What had Teal thought when he realized he was bringing this drug-addicted, unstable, weak loser back to Elron?

  And worse still – Ben felt his ears go red-hot as he thought this – worse than everything else Teal had witnessed from him. Teal had watched as the moron fell for him, the younger brother of the maniac who had taken over the kingdom he loved. He was probably disgusted the entire time; Ben had probably made him sick.

  Ben felt a hand touch his shoulder. He viciously wrenched it back, the heat that burned his ears now spreading throughout his entire body. It ravaged him without mercy, flooding him with an intense and overpowering humiliation and anger.

  “Get away from me,” Ben snapped. He heard a sob escape from Teal’s lips but he didn’t care. He couldn’t have him near him right now. He was too humiliated, too angry, too –

  – too devastated.

  “Ben…” Teal said through a broken voice full of agony. “I’m sorry.”

  Ben whirled around, his teeth clenched hard. “Bet you were having a big fucking laugh at me the whole time, weren’t you?” Ben screamed at him. “Stupid fucking human falling for the fucking foreigner, not knowing he was some fucking demi-elf from a different world. I bet you thought I was some fucking piece of work too, huh? Living like a lazy piece of shit while you lived in the fucking woods almost dying every winter or getting violated and almost raped. I bet you and the fucking demigod got a kick out of that, eh?”

  “No!” Teal cried. “Never! I was terrified in your world. You… you were the only one that made me happy there, I respected you. I was scared whenever you would leave the house.”

  “Bullshit, you were fine,” Ben snapped turning away from him. “Tav was fine. Tav had a great gods-be-damned time, laughing as the lowborn drug addict fell for him.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Get out of here, I don’t even know you. I don’t know who the fuck you are anymore, so just fuck off. You’re a stranger to me.”

  Ben didn’t mean his words and he knew he didn’t, but the emotion slicing his heart like a knife on a pendulum was too much to bear. He knew he was acting out of hurt and that his accusations of Teal weren’t true – but deep down inside, he wanted to hurt him. He wanted to make Teal feel the agony that he was feeling right now.

  Ben started walking away from Teal, just like he had done by the riverside that night. He didn’t know where he was going; he only knew he had to get away from there, away from Teal. The further he got away from him, the further he could get from the emotions ripping him apart.

  Then suddenly Ben heard a cry, a cry so mournful, so heartbreaking, that it made Ben stop in his tracks.

  He turned around.

  Teal was on his knees, his arms wrapped around his chest. He was staring forward with his teeth clenched, a drawn-out whine escaping from his locked jaw.

  But it was his eyes that made Ben stop. Teal’s eyes were wide and staring but they were not blank; they were staring forward as if witnessing a loved one being tortured right in front of them and they were helpless to stop it from happening. Never in Ben’s life had he seen that look on anyone, and never did he want to see it again.

  Then Teal opened his mouth and let out another heart-shattering wail, his hands gripping his shoulders as he leaned forward.

  ‘So many mournful cries… cries that only sound from someone’s lips when their heart is breaking inside of them,’ Malagant’s words, from that night Ben had woken to him singing, spoke to him.

  ‘Each one I was responsible for.’

  Ben watched as tears fell from Teal’s lowered head. He was hyperventilating now; his shoulders shaking from the weight of their world.

  Automatically, without fully realizing he was doing it, Ben walked over to Teal. When he was in front of him he kneeled down and took Teal into his arms.

  Teal broke down at the realization that Ben had come back. Another strangled cry fell from his trembling lips and it was there that Teal completely fell apart.

  Ben shushed him, his own eyes burning from the emotion his best friend was radiating. Inside of him his mind and emotions were st
ill in free fall, still a jumbled mess that he didn’t even know how to sort through. But in that moment what he was feeling didn’t matter, Teal needed him right now and he loved Teal more than he needed to be angry over what he had done and what he had hidden from him.

  “It’s okay…” Ben whispered, though he wasn’t sure how much Teal could hear him over his heartbreaking wails. “It’s okay. Calm down, baby. Calm down.”

  This only made Teal cry harder; he clung to Ben like he was the only rock in the middle of the rapids and clutched him hard.

  He knew Teal couldn’t talk but at least he was listening. So Ben decided to tell him what he needed to hear. Was it the truth? Ben didn’t know. He had no idea how he would feel after the shock wore off and it had time to sink in – but it was what Teal had to hear, if only for his own sanity.

  “I forgive you,” Ben whispered. “Nothing will change between us, I promise. It’ll go back to normal – it’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

  Teal’s chest shuddered. “R-really?” he managed to stutter.

  “Yes,” Ben whispered back. “I promise you.”

  To Ben’s surprise, Teal pulled away from him. His face was a complete mess and ghostly white, but before Ben could say anything more Teal did something strange.

  He was holding in his hand his emerald pendant and, as Ben watched, he brought the hand up to Ben’s chest and took the sapphire pendant into his grasp.

  Then suddenly everything around him started to spin. He tried to pull away from Teal but found that his body was now floating.

  Floating and floating until his mind’s eye snapped open, and when he did Ben was shocked to find himself inside a small dirty room.

  He was looking into a mirror.

  There he was…

  There was Tav

  Tav looked horrible. His thin face was sickly and pale; his brown hair was unwashed and messy. He was staring into the mirror with his chest heaving up and down; his brown bloodshot eyes looked shockingly dead and vacant.

  The emotions came to Ben like a hammer’s blow. An utter hopelessness that clenched his heart in a way he’d never experienced before, and an anxiety which came in waves. All these emotions sometimes intolerable to the point where he had intense anxiety attacks, and other times pushed down enough that he could function.