by Eddie Patin
Chapter 22
It was still dim and foggy, so it was hard to tell exactly where they'd end up, but Jason could see that the rift was above the ground—not in it—and not too high in the air either.
The three Reality Rifters and Morgana Soloster ran through the blazing, roaring portal, Jason in the lead. When he hurried through, Jason fell a little farther than he expected to—the rift was one or two feet too high in the air—but he touched down onto the grassy ground without stumbling. Riley and Gliath followed, nimbly landing with the skill of planeswalkers who'd done this many times. Morgana appeared behind them with frightful eyes and uncertain footing.
"Oh, good God!" she shouted over the sputtering noise of the portal as she landed on the ground, looking back behind her at the blazing orange fire swirling around a vision of the village's courtyard.
Jason released the rift and it collapsed in on itself with a pop.
He looked north to where they came from and saw the village of New Bozeman standing far away, blocky and grey in the faint light of the coming dawn. The world was still dark. Jason turned on his night vision in his right eye and saw the sky brightening quickly once the image intensification kicked in. The sun would appear at any moment. They were all standing in the plains to the south of the village—exactly where Jason had haphazardly programmed the OCS to place them—with the fog rolling away from them toward the pitch-black mountains in the distance.
It was like they were chasing the mist.
Jason quickly checked his compass and peered to the south. He saw the roiling, receding fog—goddamn that's creepy, he thought—and stared at the distant mountain range. He couldn't see the gargoyles anymore, even with his night vision. The man pulled up his OCS and checked his maps of Earth from u934, comparing the layout of the land to here. He had to close his right eye because the display was too bright with his image intensifier on. The nearest mountain ahead of them to the south was Mount Ellis. They were heading right for it, actually. It had a smaller peak up the mountain—perhaps something like a false summit—by the name of Little Ellis.
Was the necromancer's tower somewhere up on that mountain?
"I can't see them anymore," Jason said, lowering his OCS after turning its screen off. "Even with night vision."
"I can see them," Riley said. "They're still visible in the UV spectrum, flying south."
"UV?"
"Ultraviolet. Their stone bodies show up as a totally different color against the mist and the trees. I can't see 'em against the sky though. It's a good thing they're flying low."
Jason smiled and shook his head. Maybe he should have gone with a bionic processor and fully cybernetic eyes. Nah, he thought. For some reason, Jason just couldn't imagine parting with his perfectly-good natural eyes.
"What's the grass and trees look like in UV?" he asked.
"It's all white, like every bit of it is coated with snow," Riley said. "Now, shall we move on?" he added with a smirk and a flourish, brimming with sarcasm, gesturing patiently to the fleeing gargoyles that Jason couldn't see.
"So ... rift again?"
"Yeah," Riley replied. "Let's do that again and again."
Pulling up his OCS, Jason plugged in the same coordinates as their current position, but three hundred more yards to the south. He could have gone farther, of course, but figured that it might be good to stay a good distance behind the gargoyles. It would also be best to stay just outside of the retreating fog. If the beasts were going somewhere to hide during the day, they wouldn't want to engage them now and possibly not find out their destination.
Focusing on the new coordinates, Jason opened another rift. A heavy fluttering sound ripped through the air over the grass and an orange fireball appeared with a loud crack. Morgana startled. She might have never heard anything like gunfire before the Reality Rifters came to town, especially if the Corsairs of the Astral Sea had only used laser weapons before.
The brilliant light of the rift flooded Jason's image intensifier and he felt a burning stab in the back of his right eye.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, immediately looking away and turning his night vision off. "Damn it."
A swirling black spot stayed in the vision of his right eye for a long time.
"Careful with that night vision, Jason," Riley said.
"I won't make that mistake again," he replied, hoping that he was telling the truth.
Dazzled, Jason blinked several times and looked back at the opening gateway. The rift unfurled while spinning madly, spitting sparks out all over harmlessly in the field, then stabilized into a swirling orange disc of fire that eventually smoothed into a window revealing more grass up ahead. The mist was still close to the new destination.
Jason couldn't quite be sure, but it looked like he was too high; perhaps by ten feet or so. Peering to the south around his origin portal, he broke the surface of the rift with one finger, causing the destination portal to appear and unfurl loudly three hundred yards away.
The spinning orange rift closer to the mountains was indeed too high.
Jason released it, causing both rifts to collapse into somewhere in between space-time, then adjusted his coordinates to lower elevation.
Trying again, Jason opened another loud and startling rift that illuminated the dim morning with flashing orange light and bright, flying sparks. It roared in Jason's ears and he smiled, gracious that his new eardrums had been resisting all of the gunshots and loud noises so far without an iota of pain.
"Looks good," Riley said, then stepped through. Gliath followed.
"Ready?" Jason asked Morgana, looking back at her with a smile that made him feel like a dork.
The woman eyed the spinning rift with its orange light playing all over her anxious face, then she met his gaze with the barest form of a smile. She gripped Dawnbringer.
"Yes."
Jason was tempted to hold his hand out to the girl to walk her through, but felt that he might be trying Riley's patience, so merely led the way.
When everyone was on the other side, three hundred yards further south, Jason released the rift and it closed loudly, leaving the four of them in darkness and the silence of the valley again.
The mist was just ahead of them once more, rolling away like a monstrous undead thing recoiling from holy ground. Jason checked the map again and saw that they still had about a couple of miles to go before hitting the tree line.
"I guess I should wait a bit," he said to Riley.
"I reckon so," the soldier replied, making sure that his Marlin was full of ammo. He dug into a belt pouch and started filling up his chest bandolier again with .45-70 rounds. "Ammo check, Gliath."
The leopardwere did the same, putting Jason's AK-47 down and filling his crisscrossed bandoliers with shotgun slugs from a big dump pouch on one hip that hung heavy with extra ammo.
They repeated the process, following the fog—not too quickly—rifting three hundred yards at a time and waiting a minute or two in between. Sometimes, Jason had to take two or three tries to get good placement for his destination portal, but it was easy enough to look before leaping. If only he'd figured that out before they'd had their final confrontation with Ghrag and the Nothrix Reapers back on Maze World. Then, Riley might not have been gored, Nargog the alpha minotaur might not have ever made it to u934, and Jason 1241 would have never committed suicide. Hell—he would have never even met him.
"Tell me about your other brothers," Jason said to Morgana at one point as they waited, watching the eastern sky grow blue ahead of the sun. "Damien, right? And Edward."
The young woman sighed, playing with her long hair. Two Dim Door jumps before the request, she had somehow put Dawnbringer away. Hell—Morgana had made the sword outright vanish. No one asked her about it. Jason figured that he'd ask later. Now, Morgana stood near him in the dark and breezy grass fields as Riley watched the fleeing gargoyles with his super-vision and Gliath stared stoically around with his feline eyes. Her hair tumbled every once in a while in th
e wind.
"Damien was my middle brother," she said, looking down at a length of hair as she stroked it. "He was younger than Owen, but older than Edward and me. Damien took over New Bozeman when my father was killed the night the necromancer attacked, back when Owen..." She trailed off, looking up at the sky. "Damien did what he could and kept the town going as the Darkness came every night. When the Golden Lady's Communion surfaced a month later, it was a surprise to some people, but a lot of the town was already behind Estren when he performed a coup. He had the Chosen kill Damien after telling everyone that the Soloster family doomed New Bozeman to death by the Darkness. My mother..." Morgana quieted down again. Jason saw her eyes glistening in the blue haze of the coming morning.
"Let's go, Jason," Riley said suddenly.
They all rifted again.
"What happened to your mother?" he asked when they touched down.
"When Estren took power and killed my brother with his soldiers, he had my mother seized. They built the Crossroads that week and ... she was the first sacrifice." Morgana's voice wavered and she paused before going on. "That fat bastard cut her throat after smearing her with fucking ... menstrual blood that those Oracle bitches gave him, then declared her a sacrifice to the Golden Lady." She now spoke with words dripping with impotent rage and hatred. "He said that my mother was the old matron of the village and that by offering her to their goddess, they would be opening their hearts to the Golden Lady and her protection."
Jason felt a twinge of sadness pass through him. Menstrual blood?! he thought. Fucking terrible.
The poor girl. He didn't know what to say.
"Fruk..." Riley muttered, watching Morgana tell her story. "Hey, let's move again."
They rifted once more.
"That's goddamn terrible," Jason said finally after releasing the next portal and plunging them into gloomy silence again. "And there was nothing you could do...?"
"Estren's Chosen are like a small army," Morgana replied. A sliver of brilliant sun emerged from the mountainous horizon to the east, which lit up her green eyes. "They disbanded the town guard after that. When he killed Damien and sacrificed my mother, Estren had Edward and me locked up under the church. We were stuck down there for almost two years."
"Holy shit..."
"When they finally let us out, it was because Lillian had agreed to keep me under house arrest and Edward was forced to join the Chosen."
Jason sighed. "But aren't all of the Chosen eunuchs? Did they ... uh ... make Edward a eunuch, too?"
Morgana sighed and looked away from the rising sun. She eyed the mist to the south as it withdrew farther and farther away.
They rifted again.
"I don't know," Morgana finally said after.
"Don't know what?"
"If they made Edward into a eunuch. He visited me sometimes, and he never talked about it, so I never asked. But he started acting differently over time. Edward used to be so full of fire. In time, he became more ... passive ... and stopped caring."
"Is he still in the Chosen now? Maybe we can ... uh ... liberate him?" Jason said.
That drew an annoyed look from Riley. Jason suddenly felt a little embarrassed.
"Edward died about three months ago," Morgana replied. "He was killed at night by a gargoyle that attacked a patrol."
"Damn," Jason said, looking down.
Morgana's story was a very sorrowful tale. Very depressing.
When Jason looked up at the young woman again, he took in her sad beauty: her smooth, tan skin and slender, toned form dressed in earth-colored medieval clothes. So far, he'd only ever seen her long, dark-brunette hair down and flowing naturally; she never put it up or in a ponytail. Morgana's hair was wild, and so were her emerald green eyes. There was a softness in her face behind a forced hard exterior built by pain and suffering. Jason really wanted to see that softness; to see her relax. He could almost imagine her in jeans and, say, a tight purple shirt that showed off her figure. Morgana had a great figure—he remembered from when she was nearly naked on the cross. Just thinking about that moment made Jason feel warm again. Blood stirred in his pelvis. His thoughts went back to her living in his modern world. What a better world it would be for such an amazing woman...
Riley suddenly spoke up.
"I see something," he said, and Jason realized that he had been staring at the woman. He felt his cheeks and neck turn hot. Hopefully, he didn't have a stupid smile on his face after she had told him something so terrible and serious.
Jason looked at where Riley was pointing.
They were close to the foothills of Mount Ellis. The rays of the morning sun were cutting across the valley, and the fog had nearly completely retreated into the mountainous woods. The forested hills climbed up and up into the mountain range, which was still a dark blob in the slanted light of the morning. In the distance, the silhouette of the mountain was stark against the dark blue sky.
"What?" Jason asked.
"I can see one of those frukers just inside the tree line," Riley said. "It's just ... sitting there. Quick, Jason—open a rift right in front of it if you can."
Jason looked, squinting, trying to make out a distant gargoyle with his night vision, but couldn't see shit.
"Where?"
"Try four hundred and fifty yards to the south," the soldier said slowly, his eyes darting all over the dark forest in the distance, "and ... thirty yards to the west."
"Okay."
Jason plugged in the coordinates and turned off his night vision. He opened the rift, which snapped and roared and lit up all of their faces like a bright orange bonfire in the dim field. As the window to the destination portal shimmered and smoothed out, Jason squinted against the fuzzy scene and looked into the shadows of tall pine trees and choppy ground full of deadfall and boulders.
He extended his finger to break the surface...
"Wait—don't!" Riley exclaimed. "Don't reveal the rift. Not yet."
"I don't see a gargoyle," Jason replied. "Is that where you wanted to go?"
"It's there," the soldier replied, pointing at the scene in the spinning, roaring rift. The rim of orange fire spun madly and cast sparks out from all around it into the grass. Jason tried to follow Riley's direction and scrutinized a boulder behind a fallen tree just inside the shadows of the forest...
Then he realized that the boulder wasn't a boulder. It was a gargoyle, sitting and curled up like a freaking gothic statue.
It was just like in the cartoon! It was in stasis for the day.
"Holy shit!" he said. "It's frozen! They turn to stone during the day!"
"Now, don't beat the horse," Riley replied. "It might be sitting there like some kind of fruking guard. We need to be careful and ready to zap it."
Beat the horse? Jason thought. Jump the gun?
"Okay." Jason extended his hand to Gliath, who handed him his AK, then he let his OCS fall to his side. "Can we shoot it through the portal?" He took a drink of water from the bite valve on his shoulder, pulled out the last little bit of moisture in there, then frowned when Jason found that his CamelBak's bladder was completely empty.
"We can shoot through the rift, yeah," Riley said. "But let's not. Let's test your theory about gargoyles during the day, Jason. Just be ready."
The three Reality Rifters moved up close to the sputtering portal with their weapons shouldered, ready to rock. Morgana hovered behind them.
"Tell me when you're through, Morgana, so I can close the rift," Jason said.
"Okay."
As a unit, they rushed through—weapons trained on the beast—and spread out to take it down from multiple angles. Jason tried his best to keep his front sight on the monster as he moved through the grass while also trying to keep the rift open behind them.
"I'm through!" the young woman shouted over the roar of the portal, and Jason released it.
The rift collapsed with a pop behind them and the glaring orange light on the tree trunks illuminating the murky pine forest dis
appeared.
"It's not moving!" Jason exclaimed as he, Riley, and Gliath all steadily crept into the woods with their weapons trained on the dormant gargoyle.
After watching it for a few more seconds, Riley smiled and lowered his rifle's muzzle. Jason figured that it would still take the cyborg just a moment to snap his weapon up again if he needed to.
"Fantastic!" Riley exclaimed. "Let's finish the job!" He glanced around the forest. "I can see another over there, farther in."
Riley was pointing mostly south into the trees. Jason couldn't see anything over there other than lots of thick forest, dead trees blocking their path, and a variety of boulders and rocks.
The four of them approached the statue-like beast.
Seeing it up close, Jason was equally awestruck and terrified. He'd seen quite a few gargoyles up close by now, but never holding still without being blown to hell and broken up into pieces. He now saw finer detail in the creature's body, like the way its claws separated from its fingers with curved grooves like cuticles, or the way its horns and head spikes had faint striations and lines carved in them as if the beast was crafted by a serious artist. The gargoyle's wings were folded in against its back. It sat squatting on its hind legs with its arms and tail wrapped around it, looking ahead with no expression. Its eyes were closed, covered with stony eyelids.
"Let's get another heart," Riley said, raising his lever action and aiming at the monster's pondering face.
"Hold it!" Jason exclaimed, putting a hand up. "Let's not make a lot of noise. The rifts are noisy enough. Morgana," he said, turning to the young woman who watched. Her eyes smoldered as she glared at the beast. "Can you use your sword?"
"Gladly," she replied with a grim smile.
Dawnbringer suddenly appeared in her right hand again out of thin air. One second, her hand was empty, and the next—as if closing it around in invisible sword—the hilt of her magical blade was in her fist. The sword's edge gleamed like shining silver and a golden glow like the dawn outside the forest lit up the surrounding area.
"Magic," Riley said with a smile. "I love magic shet."
The three Reality Rifters parted as Morgana stalked up, stepping over a dead tree. She stood next to the dormant gargoyle for a moment, staring at it, then lopped off its head with ease. The monster's stony head full of malice, horns, and spikes landed in the underbrush like a big, heavy rock.