Godling (Kairenz Jistora Book 1)

by Dusks, Rydre

  "...No, I'm not scared," he replied after a few seconds of thought.

  "You shouldn't be, Rook the Lucky. I'm surprised you haven't won the lottery by now."

  "That isn't real luck, blackie. Luck comes from recovering from an accident, or escaping a prison camp. My luck isn't a form of personal gain--it's a form of survival."

  "Then you should be well prepared for something like this."

  "I'm not one-hundred-percent confident all the time. I'm never going to be better off. Just worse, and barely scraping by for the rest of my life."

  I sighed. "You've survived multiple executions, a break from prison, a pack of savage robot dogs, a MetalArt attack, and I'm sure several other things by now that I'm not aware of yet. Why do you suddenly have your tail between your legs?"

  I'd rendered him silent.

  "Rook, do I need to drop you off or not?"

  "No," he answered quickly. "Velzae told me I had to stop running. I need to join in the fight too. Besides, Crane's pain tricks don't work on me."

  We'd left the hills now, headed over a forest riddled with wiry, towering trees. "I'm assuming that's because you're lucky."

  "Probably."

  We were quiet after that. I felt Rook's dread thick like an aura around us as the grey-purple skies of Iason drew closer. That color stemmed solely from the waste. I'd only seen it a couple of times when I was younger. And I couldn't help but agree with Rook's feelings that it was an ominous warning to us both about the danger ahead. Not only did it rain often in the south, which was an issue since we were flying a furnace-powered dragon, but any contact with the land below would make our rate for survival plummet. I understood Rook's worry--his luck may not have given him radiation protection.

  "So... we're just gonna fly right over everything, right? No pit stops?" Rook asked with hope.

  "Right," I replied. "Sorry, but no bathroom breaks on this ride."

  He gave me a nervous chuckle.

  The ground below us darkened considerably. Dead brush was visible in sprouts and clumps here and there after we passed over the Ifearor-Iason border. The air tasted like decay--humid and tangy with a growing hint of fungi. Every now and then the sun would peek out from behind an ugly cloud to shine rays against the barren earth, but I had a feeling there was rarely enough light in this place for any new shoots to spring up from the ground. Off to the far right in the distance was a blur of rainclouds. I was glad we weren't headed that way.

  Twenty more minutes in and the ground changed again. This time some strange, green-tipped plants that carried a reminiscence of seaweed were abundant. In patches here and there were wet spots of ground that held an ethereal glow of multiple colors, looking like neon oil slicks. The further in we flew, the colder the air became, and those seaweed-like plants got thicker and bigger. Soon it looked like a swamp with the water below full of radiance and swirling spectrums. It was mesmerizing.

  "This is oddly beautiful," I uttered as I stared.

  "Yeah, nature's prettiest things are normally the deadliest," Rook mumbled as he accompanied my gaze. "Why do you think I haven't found a girlfriend yet?"

  I would have chuckled at his joke, but I was too fixated on the illumination and color. This wasn't what I'd pictured southern Iason to look like at all.

  "I didn't realize it was a marsh," I stated.

  "Blackie, you realize that isn’t a natural marsh, right?"

  I tore my eyes away, remembering it was true. I'd been too caught up in the glamour to remember how lethal Iason's infamous toxic waste was. Seeing plant life in the mess of pollution had confused me.

  "My question is how plants survive in all of this," Rook stated, thinking the same thing I was.

  I only shook my head in bewilderment.

  Without warning, Siivash veered to the left violently enough to nearly throw us off his back. I jerked, and if it weren't for my foot hooked solidly in the stirrup I would have tumbled right over the side.

  "Siivash!" I shouted after Rook and I righted ourselves. I had a feeling it had jerked toward a different direction due to rain clouds ahead of us. I opened my mouth to continue chastising the robot but caught sight of something moving underneath the waste. Ripples drifted across the colorful surface and shook the plants, and my chastisement was stillborn. As Rook and I watched, an entire line of vegetation danced across the liquid in a serpentine wave. It had to be at least a hundred yards long.

  "What--?" Rook started, but I hushed him and watched closely. Once the plants stopped moving I turned my attention back to the front, and Rook lowered his voice. "Are the plants mobile or something?"

  "No... I don't think it's the plants themselves," I uttered.

  I felt his eyes on the back of my head in bewilderment.

  There was nothing in AbujruJenza quite that size that lived, save only one kind of colossal creature.

  A sudden loud roar sounded from in front of us, and was quick to coast completely over our heads. A shower dropped heavily against Siivash's metal exterior, and the robot let out a mechanical howl as the rain entered its heated system through its plates, hissing as it struck its inner workings. The robot dipped to the side, and my left foot slipped from the stirrup.

  "Crow!" Rook shouted, scrambling to catch me as Siivash wobbled. I reached as I dropped off to the side but missed his hand, and I found myself dangling with one set of fingers struggling to hold tightly onto Siivash's reins. "Crow, reach!" Rook called as I flailed, but there wasn't enough time to.

  The moment I swung to grab Rook, Siivash's head dipped downward from my weight on its neck, and the entire machine folded in its wings and flipped upside down. Rook and I were thrown.

  I spiraled in the air for a moment in a stunned panic as Rook screamed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Siivash crash into the landscape several yards from me, Rook following with a burst of mud from his drop. I didn't hit the ground. My back struck the liquid, and I sank underneath after the splash. Desperately I tried to hold my breath and keep my eyes squeezed shut. The waste was hot and slimy, and it tingled along my skin uncomfortably. I fought for the surface and broke through with a gasp for breath. The air cooled my skin off, and I heard Rook's voice again. He shouted my name from the bank. Grateful Rook was alright, I rubbed glowing liquid from my eyes and tried swimming toward his voice. The slushy consistency of the substance made movement slow and rather unproductive.

  "Crow! Crow, get out! Get out! Get out!"

  "I-I'm--" I gasped, finding it hard to breathe from the heat. "I'm t-trying!"

  My boot caught on something, keeping me from progressing. As I jerked my foot it cinched tighter, and something slipped up underneath my coat and over my ribs. I felt for what it was and found it slimy and tough, shaped like a vine. Twisting, I attempted to snap it off me, but then caught sight of where it came from.

  Behind me was the source of the moving plants from earlier. A sun snake. Monolith in size, the creature was close to the appearance of an Earthan cobra, but its human-like eyes gleamed with radiation. Its scales and skin had gone leathery and blackish over years of being submerged in harmful fluid, and it had been completely taken over by a parasite from the swamp. Sprouting from the dead sun snake's broken and exploded throat was a bevy of writhing tentacles. They emerged from its mouth as well as any torn area of skin and scale. Its body had been overgrown with hundreds of the seaweed-like plants. And... I was just above the end of its tail.

  The parasitic creature of Iason had latched onto me. Letting out my fright in a shout, I twisted harder and broke the tentacles off so I could continue swimming for the shore. I made it after several long seconds and scrambled onto the bank, panting hard. The monster flailed for a moment, its tentacles searching the waste for me, but soon disappeared back underneath the liquid.

  Rook rushed up to meet me. Unscathed--as I figured he would be--but covered in mud, he was about to pull me into a hug but then stopped shortly and backed up. "Oh man... You look like a rainbow and smell like fungus. A-Are
you okay?"

  Still trying to catch my breath, I rushed past him to kneel next to Siivash. The dragon's eyes had gone out, and it was as still as death. I tapped its head but knew it wouldn't do any good. We were going to have to wait for the rain to let up and get him dry again.

  "Crow..."

  I looked up at Rook who stopped next to me. "What?"

  "You just fell into toxic waste. Are you gonna be okay?"

  I hadn't wanted to think about that. For the most part I felt fine, but that didn't necessarily mean much. As often as it was repeated to me that I was a god incarnate, it didn't stop me from thinking that I'd just ended up in a situation that I wouldn't get out of alive. Any normal human being would have probably dissolved after falling into the waste like I had. This was only more proof that my resilience was god-given, but it didn’t stop my fretting.

  "I don't know, Rook. And right now I don't care. We just need to get out of here."

  Waste splashed across the bank, and Rook and I jumped out of the way as several of the sun snake's tentacles broke the surface again, searching for prey once more. With an answer to my prayers, the rain eased up before ceasing completely. It would take a while for it to evaporate from Siivash's inner workings though.

  "We'll have to go on foot," Rook spoke up. "We're not safe this close to that thing. Siivash will meet up with us along the way, right?"

  I straightened and nodded. "Let's go then."

  We made slow progress across the marsh, our feet trapping in mud. Rook kept watching me closely and with concern. I ignored it until the fifth time he shot me a glance.

  "What is it?"

  "You're still glowing."

  "Oh hell, Rook. If it bothers you that much, then stop looking at me," I snapped. "I'm well aware that I'm probably in deep shit."

  He raised his hands defensively. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just worried about you."

  "Do I look like I'm dying to you?"

  He scanned me up and down for a second. "No."

  "Then there you go."

  For most of the time the marshes were quiet. Every once in a while small patches of rain struck the earth, but they let up quickly, and it was enough to wash what was left of the waste from my clothing and body. I was sure the rain wasn't much cleaner, but it didn't glow, so that was a good sign. Our casual trudging stopped, though, when I caught sight of something that Rook had nearly walked around blindly.

  "Rook!" I hissed from behind him.

  He paused and glanced back at me as I motioned to the edge of the lake he stood beside. To his right was the head of another sun snake. With mucky green scales, it had been hard to notice at first. The thing had the typical look of the creature, but not a healthy one. Its head, which was usually eerily human-like, was sunken and overgrown with plants. The face was also about as large as Rook was tall. How Rook had missed this was beyond me, but perhaps his eyes had been on the ground and not on his surroundings.

  He leapt back and sunk his foot in mud, falling heavily. I came closer as the creature was splattered with earth, but it didn't react. No tentacles were visible from its mouth or any other open areas, so I wondered if it was completely dead.

  "What are you doing?" Rook breathed as I kicked it in the jaw.

  "Making sure it's dead," I answered. "Wouldn't want to get five yards away and have this thing grab one of us out of the blue."

  "So why is that one dead, and the other one that looked exactly like this one wanted you dead?" he wondered, inspecting the creature from a safe distance.

  "Technically all the sun snakes are dead. They died out after Era dusted southern Iason with fatal toxins, trying to kill off the original residents of Iason in an attempt to take over the country. The sun snakes were caught in the mayhem and all perished. Only a handful of them exist now, and they aren't really... alive. Just reanimated from the parasites that live in them," I explained.

  Rook stood back up. "What happened to the old Iasona? They die, too?"

  I nodded. "Everything in AbujruJenza was covered by the toxins and the waste. They were known as the Cosiri, or the sun people. When Earth invaded, their name went from Cosiri to Sunu, which is a variant of 'sun.' Iason wasn't Iason until Era came along. It was a peaceful place called the Cosiri Territory."

  "This country really has gone to hell."

  He turned and continued walking while wiping mud off his backside. "I was just thinking of something. When we get to GreyCross... How are you going to get inside?"

  I turned my attention away from the creature and followed him. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I can smell the chemicals on you. Era's minions aren't gonna let you enter. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they shot you on sight."

  "Ah, because I'm a walking plague waiting to happen."

  "Well, for lack of a better term, yeah," Rook said matter-of-factly. "Who knows what kinds of little parasites you could be carrying from this place?"

  "Thanks for that, Rook," I muttered. "You're at risk, too. And you know, I didn't plan on us getting thrown off Siivash and having to walk."

  I trudged beside him now, keeping a close eye on the banks this time. He glanced at me. "Who, exactly, told you to head up this way anyway? Everyone I spoke with said they planned on you coming from Souloroh."

  I ignored his question. "Who is 'everyone?’"

  He shrugged. "Velzae, Rovan, Blank--"

  "You spoke to Blank? When?" I demanded, stopping and turning to fully face him.

  He blinked. "Some time ago. A couple months maybe? She's been in GreyCross for most of the time. Velzae's been contacting her. Said she was special to this whole thing, too."

  "Velzae's been busy," I sighed. "Where is she now?"

  Rook shrugged, then shook his head. "I don't know. Like I said it's been a bit since I spoke to her. I'm assuming still in the city. Funny though, because she was more excited to ask for news about you than she was knowing I was safe."

  "Of course," I replied. "You're lucky, so I'm sure she didn't worry much about you." What I wouldn't give to see her face...

  My breath caught in my lungs for a moment, distracting me from my thoughts of Blank. My head rushed as I placed a hand to my temple, then immediately bent over as the contents of my stomach rushed back up my throat. I crouched to vomit.

  "Crow?" Rook wondered.

  I gasped, trying to draw in heavy breaths to relax after finishing.

  "Oh man, blackie, don't pass out on me again. I don't have a robotic dog to put you on this time."

  I raised my free hand, telling him to wait a moment while I tried to regain control of myself. For a minute I didn't think the nausea would go away, but gradually the discomfort stopped and my head cleared.

  "Don't die," Rook ordered.

  "I'm okay, Rook. Stop worrying." I straightened and continued my walk, but Rook stayed in place. I looked back at him. "You coming?"

  His large eyes didn't leave me. "Crow, I'm crazy worried about you."

  "Don't," I started with a point of my finger. "Just don't. Worry about something else. Like making it across here without any more incidents. The longer we dally around in this place, the more likely we're both going to get sick and die an early age."

  Rook frowned with concern as his eyes rested on something behind me. "Uh... blackie... You're certain all the Iasona died out?"

  "What are you talking about?" I turned my attention to whatever it was Rook looked so panicked about, and felt an icy sensation settle in my chest.

  Standing just a few yards in the way of our path were two human figures. They were hunched and limp, with swarms of writhing appendages bursting from their necks and backs. Their features were skeletal and distinct, withered by many years of preservation underneath AbujruJenza's mud and muck. The black, slimy tentacles sprouting from the two forms were the same parasites that possessed the sun snakes.

  I would have been more frightened if it weren't that the two dead Iasona moved only by shambling inch by inch.

&
nbsp; "Okay," I started, glancing back at Rook. He looked gaunt with revulsion. "I'll shoot them down, and you run ahead when there's an opening."

  "And you?" Rook wondered.

  "I'll think of something. Maybe I'll take another swim around them."

  "Don't be stupid," he snapped. "You'll kill yourself."

  "I'm perfectly fine, Rook. Now let me shoot them before they get any closer."

  "You're not fine, blackie." Rook's eyes were large and penetrating. "You're bleeding out the face."

  I raised one eyebrow in confusion, touching my lips. I didn't know why I hadn't noticed the coppery taste in my mouth before now, but it wasn't coming from the back of my throat. Drawing my hand away, there really was blood. Not a lot of it, but enough to have streaked from my nose and under my eyes. I tasted it on my gums, too.

  "But I don't feel..." I started.

  Rook leaned in toward me for emphasis. "Now you get my worry?"

  I took a few more deep breaths, wiping the blood from my face. "I've made it through other nearly impossible things without help. We can do this, Rook."

  "This is different, blackie. Do I need to remind you of where we are? This is Hell on Kairenz! Nobody who goes through here survives!"

  I raised my arms and laughed a little. It wasn't a happy or free laugh, but more of a chiding one. "We're gods, Rook! Watch." I turned from the approaching Iasona and headed back toward the dead sun snake behind us to give myself some space away from the danger.

  I raised my arms and closed my eyes. "I am IkioElle, God of Justice. What has received consequence has been unjustified."

  I'd attempted to cleanse myself of the radiation, but to my surprise it was the dead creature beside me that was affected.

  The sun snake's ugly, lumpy figure smoothed out to a gleaming golden face and body, lying halfway in the waste. The plants on it shriveled and fell off. It was now the brightest thing around. The cowl of the snake showed up more visibly, displaying a radiating white circle with two arrow-like points above and below the design, and with two dots on either side. That design had been declared the sacred mark of SolTansra. The snakes had been appropriately titled the sacred pets of Sol himself, which was why they were named after the sun.