by Eddie Patin
Damn it! Jason thought darkly. Estren did put her up on the cross again. She should have waited for them. If he ever saw that man again, he'd put a bullet right between his eyes for sure.
"Hang on, Morgana!" Jason shouted. "Be right there!" He turned to Gliath, swapped magazines for a full one in a jacket pocket, then shouted, "Come on!"
Jason and the leopardwere rushed down the stairs. At the ground floor, he kept his rifle shouldered. He ignored the pleading and wailing of the townsfolk and Communion people hanging from the walls. He watched for gargoyles. There were at least two more down here still. Looking across the room, Jason saw two huge windows open to the night sky. He saw another one of the flying, stone monsters suddenly enter from there.
Shit.
Now, three...
The deep moaning was vibrating Jason's teeth and making his stomach hurt. There was a strong, sharp pain starting up from a filling in one tooth. What the fuck was that?! Jason started across the floor toward the green fire machine and—
He paused when a skeleton appeared in front of him, hard to see in the glare of the green fire in his night vision. Jason leapt back, bringing up the butt of his rifle, but Gliath's huge, black form rushed past and—after a clattering smash—the skeleton was gone.
Jason ran to Morgana. There was a stone table with a bloody human heart and a metal skull on it, as well as an adjacent, large tool cabinet like one of the red garage storage chests from his own world. The tool cabinet was almost as tall as he was. Jason took several careful steps toward Morgana. She hung completely vulnerable from the shackles that rose all the way to a scaffold of some kind around the rotating chrome-like ball above. When Jason looked her over—stopping with a hurting heart when he saw her wide, green eyes and darkened, filthy face full of fear—Jason felt afraid for her. He was scared of making the wrong move and causing the contraption to kill her. Green fire flared. He could see now that there was a ring-shaped gap in the floor going all the way around Morgana and the pedestal she hung over, and deep down inside—in with the green fire that dazzled his right eye—there was a boiling, churning substance like liquid metal or molten iron. The green emanations were like a blazing fire, but no heat radiated from the ring in front of him.
"Just unhook me!" she screamed. "The chains!"
Jason looked up at the shackles around Morgana's wrists then looked back at Gliath. The leopardwere stayed close, his shotgun shouldered, aiming at the darker corners of the chamber.
"Watch my back, Gliath!" Jason shouted, then slung his rifle. Just then, he heard more Gauss rifle fire from somewhere else in the huge room.
With his heart beating madly in his chest—afraid more for Morgana than himself—Jason carefully stepped over the blazing gap of molten something and drew in close to Morgana's desperate and nearly-nude form. He reached up to the shackle holding her right wrist and felt her chest heaving against him. Jason heard—and felt—her panicked breathing in his ear, which lit a fire in his blood.
The shackle was held with a thick pin that was easy to unhook from Jason's position. He freed Morgana's wrist, then she grasped onto him as he freed the other. When both of Morgana's hands were free, Jason wrapped one arm around her naked waist and helped her over the gap. The young woman seized him, wild and bare, which made Jason burn and his loins stir. As they touched down on solid ground again, surrounded by the crackling green fire with the deep moan buzzing in his bones and between his eyes, they separated and Jason suddenly felt achingly alone.
"Are you okay?" Jason asked.
Morgana looked at him like he was crazy. "Are you kidding?!" she exclaimed. "I killed the spy! Lillian was the spy! Estren was—"
"Are you wounded?"
"Not ... not really!"
"Come on!" Jason exclaimed. "The necromancer is still here somewhere. Stay close to me! What the fuck is that sound?!"
"That thing!" Morgana exclaimed. She grimaced and pointed at the gleaming, steel skull sitting on the table next to the bloody heart. "He started that thing when you came down!"
Gliath suddenly opened fire with three quick booms from his shotgun. Jason spun to help, unslinging his rifle. A gargoyle was rushing in at him. He saw its neck and the bottom half of its head shatter as it drew in close. It lost its balance and crashed to a halt on the floor, the top half of its stone skull skittering past Jason's feet. He felt Morgana slide behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, which felt good.
Jason turned to the table and approached the skull. It seemed to be watching him with its steely face and as he approached, the moaning grew louder. Jason's splitting headache intensified. The skull was making the noise—emitting a constant, loud and low moan that was grinding against Jason's very being. All of the prisoners on the walls wailed and screeched, unable to block out the sound. Jason's eardrums vibrated annoyingly. It was a good thing that he didn't still have his original membranes. He couldn't imagine what Morgana's and the other prisoners' ears must feel like under that aural assault.
Reaching into his shirt, Jason felt at the two focus keys around his neck. He found the home key first. No, he thought. Wrapping his fingers around the smooth acrylic focus key on the other necklace, Jason opened a rift to Cloudworld next to the table. Jason quickly closed his night vision eye as the rift flared open with a snap. The bright, friendly white world of clouds and strange, pink trees shimmered into view.
Picking up the heavy metal skull from the table—it vibrated Jason's hand so hard that his fingers instantly became numb—he threw it into Cloudworld like a really dense softball then released the rift. The portal collapsed with a pop.
Back in relative darkness again aside from the green fire, Jason was relieved that the moan was gone. In its place, he heard the sobbing of prisoners and the loud crackling and chugging of the necromancer's machine.
Riley suddenly ran up, quickly looking Morgana up and down with a smirk.
"He's not here!" the soldier said. "Must have gone into a secret room or something."
"Uh ... your ring!" Jason exclaimed to Morgana, slinging his rifle and pulling the smuggler's ring off of his right hand. He gave it to her.
The young woman's filthy face—caked with dried blood?—lit up at that, and Jason's heart was warmed to see her smile. Her eyes were suddenly filled with fire as she slipped the ring on and manifested her family sword from thin air. Morgana smiled in the face of the brilliant golden glow like a sliver of sun on the morning horizon. Dawnbringer's silver edge gleamed in the murky air, seeming to draw in the light of the green fire near them. The brilliant blade lit up the young woman's body, highlighting the curves of her breasts, tight stomach, and flexed thighs, starkly reminding Jason that she was nearly nude once again. Morgana looked like a topless warrior woman from one of those old Sword and Sorcery book covers; her long hair wild and her green eyes almost blazing...
Morgana looked into Jason's eyes and reached out to touch his arm. She smiled warmly.
"Thank you, Jason," she said.
Jason felt a warm shock fly through his system from his heart and groin out to his fingertips.
"Hey," Riley said. "As much as I'd like you to keep fighting like you're fighting," he said with a smirk, "I saw some robes and shet over on that shelf there..."
Jason chuckled nervously and looked away from Morgana's naked body—he didn't realize that he'd been staring at it again—then glanced away to the prisoners.
Morgana began striding toward the shelves on bare feet, her glowing sword in hand.
"Hey, I was going to tell you!" she said. "I saw where—"
She was interrupted by a loud crash as another gargoyle landed between her and the wall. Jason spun and put his front sight on the monster, immediately noticing a strange, stone crown carved into its horned head. He opened fire, his AK-47 booming as he struck the beast twice in one shoulder while the others—
"Stop!" Morgana shouted. "Don't kill it!"
"What?!" Jason exclaimed. He stopped. "Why?"
"Estre
n!" the young woman bellowed, facing off against the gargoyle with her shining blade. "I told you that I would kill you with this sword, you bastard!"
Estren?! Jason thought.
The monster was Josiah Estren?!
The gargoyle quickly recovered from the impact of Jason's rifle rounds and crouched, dashing in to rip Morgana to pieces as if mindless. If that thing used to be Estren, it certainly didn't resemble the old eunuch anymore. The young woman dodged to one side as the monster lunged at her. She swept the silvery edge of the sword up to protect herself from being struck. As the crowned gargoyle lashed out with another claw, Dawnbringer intercepted the attack at its wrist, and the brutish, stone hand went flying away to the floor.
Screaming without a sound, the beast glared at Morgana. Its eyes flared with red light as it flexed its stone jaws, baring its stone teeth and tongue.
The Estren-gargoyle rushed in again, leading with the spearhead-like barb on the tip of its long, thin tail—which Morgana blocked with the flat of her blade—then it swung its remaining front claw at her. She danced to the side and lopped off the monster's arm, her blade slicing through the stone as if it was soap.
The crowned gargoyle spun and raged, now missing one arm and one hand, then Morgana rushed in herself, winding back for a strong swing. She lashed out with the glowing blade and cut off the monster's head and the top of one wing with a mighty blow. The heavy pieces fell to the ground.
What was left of Estren's gargoyle-form collapsed, dead.
Morgana stood still for a few seconds, naked and deadly, glaring at the body of the monster. Eventually, she turned, found the head, and spit on it.
All three Reality Rifters watched her.
Jason thought that she was damned amazing.
Was that really Estren? he wondered.
The Magister had been turned into a gargoyle?! That night?
"Was ... uh...?" Jason started, but then they were all interrupted by a tremendous sound coming from one wall.
There was a heavy grinding of stone on stone and objects clattering and smashing along a wall where Jason had seen only shelves and covered equipment before. At first, he thought that an actual machine was starting up. Then, Jason thought that a huge stone door or wall was moving.
They all gasped in awe as a sheet lazily slid off of a huge stone form approaching from the far end of the tower's main chamber. It was a giant stone statue that looked like a mix between a stone rendering of a thick-limbed killer machine from the old Terminator movies and an ancient Greek statue of a man. It wasn't just stone, either. When Jason lit up the behemoth with his IR Illuminator, he saw the reflected light of many steel blades fixed into the stone here and there of its fists, shoulders, knees, around its waist. The lumbering thing was like a 12-foot-tall war machine, composed mainly of solid stone! As it awoke and began moving toward them with a heavy grinding sound—the vast, canvass sheets sliding off of its form entirely—Jason saw two green lights like LED's flare to life in its carved eye sockets.
"Holy shet!" Riley muttered, casually swapping his rifles and bringing up his Marlin 1895SBL.
"Oh, God! What is it?" Morgana asked. The monster began its approach with booming steps that shook the shelves along the walls and made dust fall from the ceiling.
"It's..." Jason said, thinking back to his DnD lore. "It's like a golem! A huge stone golem!"
"Leave now, planeswalkers!" the monster suddenly shouted with a booming mechanical voice that shook Jason's chest. The prisoners on the walls screamed and sobbed. "You will not kill me again!"
It was the necromancer. The necromancer was controlling the golem.
Riley exchanged gazes with Jason. "Yep. Secret room," he said with a smirk. With that, the soldier raised his lever gun and fired.
Gliath joined in, and a moment later, Jason raised his AK-47 and aimed at the creature's face. He aimed carefully at the glowing green eyes, hoping that hitting one of them might make a difference, then squeezed the trigger as the room erupted in gunfire. All three Reality Rifters fanned out and moved away from the huge golem.
It wasn't long before Jason realized that their guns weren't doing shit. He could see all of their various slugs impacting the golem's huge stone and steel form—throwing off chips of rock here and there and sparks whenever hitting metal—but the monstrous golem chugged on, unconcerned. The war machine caught up to Riley first, swinging down to smash the cyborg with its deadly, bladed fists. Riley dodged with ease, dancing around to try shooting it in the back.
Morgana suddenly let out an aggressive cry and charged at it herself, making them all hold their fire as she attacked the back of one of the golem's legs with Dawnbringer. Her blade bit into the stone leg easily, but it didn't go far. The creature was so thick! In response, the golem let out a booming laugh and spun at the waist to strike her down. The young woman parried the huge fist swinging down at her—protecting herself with the flat of her magical sword—but the momentum knocked her through the air and away. Morgana crashed into a shelf and fell to the floor.
Jason felt a flood of anger.
Aiming up, he emptied the rest of his mag into the golem's face. His AK-47 boomed again and again, spitting bright fire from its muzzle. Jason saw the sparks fly as his rounds struck it about the face and skull—he even heard a few pings of bullets ricocheting—but it was useless.
"Get out of my tower, planeswalkers!" the golem bellowed. "Get out or I will kill you all!"
Jason slung his AK-47 and pulled up his OCS. As the golem raged and moved on Gliath—who backed away deftly and fired hit shotgun repeatedly—Jason ran up behind the monstrous construct, inputted some coordinates for a thousand feet up and a hundred feet to the north, then oriented his mind to open a horizontal rift under the column-like stone feet...
Below the golem's thumping steps, there was a sudden flutter and a snap, and the blazing orange fire of an opening rift lit up the room with a roar. The massive construct suddenly plummeted through the floor without another sound!
"Stay back!" Jason shouted as his friends ran up.
As the center of the swirling, sputtering portal cleared up, Jason looked down through its fiery center and saw the mountains from far above as if looking at the satellite image of a map at night.
An instant later, there was a monstrous crash, followed by the creaking sighs and further calamity of pine trees breaking and falling to the ground.
Jason released the rift with a grin on his face.
Everyone was smiling at him.
"Let's go see!" Riley exclaimed suddenly.
They all ran for the stairs.
After climbing over the corpses of several gargoyles in their haste to get to the roof, all four of them were looking down from the tower's crenulations to the north. It was pretty dark out still, but with his image intensification, Jason could see the shattered body of the giant stone golem lying in a crater, surrounded by shattered trees.
"Holy shit!" Jason exclaimed, smiling broadly. He felt Riley clap his shoulder twice.
Morgana gasped. Everyone looked at her. "The necromancer!" she exclaimed with a look of alarm. Jason looked at her and was immediately embarrassed when he found himself staring at her breasts, which were covered in gooseflesh from the cold wind. He looked up at her face. "I saw where he went!" she said. "Come on!"
They all ran down to the main chamber and followed Morgana to a wall next to a tall shelf.
"Where?" Riley asked. "Oh—there's a secret door."
"Where's a secret door?" Jason asked, peering at the stone wall. Once he looked closer, it became obvious. There was a standard-sized door built into the cobblestone wall—it looked like metal—crudely painted by hand to match the surrounding stone motif. Jason touched it.
Yep—metal.
There wasn't a knob or any other obvious way to get inside.
"Electronic signature behind..." Riley muttered then yanked a crate off of the shelf next to the door. Behind the crate was a smooth, black glass panel built
into the wall. "It's a bio-scanner," Riley said.
"What's that?" Morgana asked.
"Don't worry. I can get around it," Jason said, pulling up his OCS again. He took a reading of where he was standing in front of the door, looked at the device's digital compass, then adjusted the coordinates to create a destination rift just on the other side of the door.
Jason reached down to the web of his left hand and turned his night vision off.
Flexing the rifting part of his mind, Jason opened another portal, trying to bypass the barrier. The rift roared to life, brilliant and sputtering with sparks and bright as hell in Jason's right eye. When the vision to the other side cleared, there was a well-lit, modern-looking room through the portal; a long and deep room with various high-tech pieces of equipment along the back wall. There was a bed inside and shelves full of books.
"Good job, Jason," Riley said with a grin. "You're catching on."
Jason smiled back at the cyborg for a moment then looked into the rift again. "Looks safe. We won't come out in a wall."
"Let's go kill a necromancer," Riley said, swapping for his Gauss rifle again.
With their weapons ready, the Reality Rifters and Morgana stepped through.
Chapter 30
Riley went into the room first. Jason appeared behind him, immediately taking in the bright, modern-looking room with his AK-47 shouldered and his heart pounding. When Gliath and Morgana came in after him, his racing mind immediately asked the question:
Close the rift and cut off escape for the necromancer? Or leave it open so that they could escape, themselves?
I can open another one if we need it, Jason thought then released his hold.
As the roaring, swirling portal crumpled in on its spinning self and imploded with a pop, Jason heard the clang of Morgana putting her sword down on a table next to the impenetrable high-tech door. He turned to look at her—catching sight of her lean, almost-naked form again—and watched her grab for a thick, black modern bath-robe hanging from the wall. The young woman quickly plunged her arms through the sleeves and covered her body, tying the robe closed at the waist with a thick, plush belt. There was a large, embroidered white "M" on the left breast.