Rod of the Heart

by Cebelius

  In the mottled dark, he couldn't make out any details, and didn't see any eyes.

  Thing must be asleep.

  Tentacles hung down from under the central mass like a mess of tubing, all drooping lifelessly with their ends dragging on the ground.

  Euryale looked at him, then leaned in and kissed him, murmuring, "Don't worry, Master. Truly, there is nothing save the old gods themselves that could resist Athena's curse. That bitch was thorough. This will all be over in a few moments. Close your eyes."

  He did so, and she pressed the mask into his hands. He put it on his face, and opened his eyes to find Euryale already halfway to the clearing, walking boldly forward.

  "Behemoth!" she cried. "I have come for you!"

  The thing in the clearing didn't even twitch. Euryale paused, her head tilting slightly, then she strode forward past the last of the trees as she shouted, "I will carve the price of your disrespect into your hide, beast."

  She came within reach of one of the tree-trunk thick legs and sank her claws into it, to no effect. Without pausing, she began to climb.

  Is it a fake?

  Terry shook his head, confused as he watched. Unless the thing was deaf and had no sense of touch, there was no way it couldn't be aware of her. The only thing he could think was that it was a decoy.

  He opened his mouth to say as much when he noticed one of the tentacles stir.

  "Euryale! Watch out!" he shouted, bursting into a run. There were still too many trees in the way for him to try a leap, and he could only watch as the tentacle whipped around, wrapped her up, and jerked her into the air. It slammed her to the earth as one of the heavy legs lifted, and with a thunderous boom that shook the ground, it crushed the upper half of Euryale's body under its foot.

  The entire maneuver took perhaps three seconds.

  "No!"

  Terry skidded to a halt as an eyelid opened, revealing a triad of eyes in a massive eyeball swiveling around a central axis before coming to rest. All three focused on him as a sensual mouth opened and licked thick lips.

  "Ahh, there you are," the thing said, its voice soft, urbane, and friendly. "Terrence Mack, I have longed to meet you. We should talk."

  "Let her go!" Terry cried, swinging his ax up to grip it cross-body with both hands.

  "I think not, Mr. Mack. Fun fact about the gorgon sisters," it said, smiling broadly. "While their power is virtually irresistible under certain circumstances, Stheno and Euryale are both quite stupid, and easy to fool."

  22

  The Way Home

  "Before you rant," the behemoth continued, "or make demands, consider this. Right now the only person in danger here is you. I have nothing to fear from your puny ax, your blood familiar, or your enhanced yet insufficient strength. I have known you were coming since you encountered my minions in the crypt. It was my intention that you come here; that is why you were allowed to approach me unmolested. There are things you should know, and I was dispatched to take custody of you, to ensure you learned. Now that your companions are no doubt fleeing — per your own instructions no less — we have time to talk."

  Terry could see Euryale's lower body struggling, but the behemoth ignored her, and it was obvious at a glance she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. His eyes lifted again to meet the gigantic pupils floating in the eyeball above him and said, "Is this the part where you make your recruitment pitch?"

  The eyes above him separated, rotated, and an orange iris wound up on top as all three refocused on him.

  "After a fashion," it said. "First though, I should ask what you think of this planet, so far?"

  Terry said, "It's fucked. And you people are the ones fucking it."

  Several voices rose in laughter from points around the circumference of the creature as the behemoth chuckled. Then the mouth facing him smiled and said, "You certainly don't mince words. As a matter of fact the world of Celestine is not fucked. It's doing quite well, and the means of its prosperity is the theft and consumption of heroic souls. Care to guess where those souls are coming from?"

  "Souls can't be destroyed," Terry said, shaking his head. "A soul is indestructible."

  "Perhaps where you are from," the behemoth pleasantly agreed. "Here though, things work a little differently. You're in terrible danger, Mr. Mack. Your soul is being torn apart. The process has already begun. You started to give yourself away the moment you, aheh, enjoyed a woman's company here."

  He opened his mouth, but then closed it again, watching the behemoth intently as he chewed over what the beast had said.

  That actually makes sense. Why is the bad guy making sense?

  "Or did you really think that the powers you've inherited from your bonds were your just due for simple pleasure? You're smarter than that, Mr. Mack. You know that the devil doesn't give away free samples."

  "On the contrary," Terry said, "everyone knows the first one is always free."

  He spoke flippantly, trying to bolster himself against the growing uncertainty gnawing at his insides.

  "Hmph. I'll not dignify that, Mr. Mack. Suffice it to say I think you already know what I'm telling you is the truth. You never believed in magic, and you've been struggling ever since you got here to wake up from the dream. You think the Twilight Zone is evil, and its creatures are to be stopped, but have you considered what would happen if the Dust Lord succeeds in destroying this world? No more souls would be siphoned away. People like you — dying in a state of grace — would go on to the rewards you should have had, instead of trading away your humanity bit by bit for pleasure and power, until the only thing left of you is a shell filled with hollow memories and regret."

  The triplicate eye bore down on Terry and he found he couldn't look at it any longer. He turned his face away and scowled.

  "This is not your home, Mr. Mack. You know you don't belong here. Fortunately for you, I found you before it is too late."

  "Yeah?" Terry asked, defiance flaring in his guts as he glared up at the creature, armoring himself in anger. "And what are you gonna do? Send me home?"

  A pair of tentacles distinguished themselves from the mass beneath the beast and curled up, then began slapping together in a mockery of applause as the broad mouth above him opened in a grin. "Why, Mr. Mack! You got it in one guess!"

  'He is lying.'

  You can't know that!

  Prada didn't answer him, and the behemoth licked its lips, wetting them before continuing. As it spoke, its tentacles began to weave in a mesmerizing circle.

  "You are through the looking glass, Mr. Mack. Up is down, left is right, evil is beautiful and the truly good are hideous. But you are not alone. The Dust Lord is just like you. He was stolen away some two thousand years ago, but he resolved to fight this place. Celestine is a monster, Mr. Mack. And right now, as we speak, it is nibbling away at your immortal soul. If I send you home now, the power you have accrued here will go to the Twilight Zone, and it will expand. When it covers all of this world, your world will know peace. Your world ... will be free. You can help make that happen. You'll be returned to your world, all of your own spirit will be yours again to safeguard, and you'll have a chance to live a full life among your own people. Leave this land of monsters and nightmare behind, Mr. Mack. Let me send you home."

  Lightning crackled as the circle of power the tentacles wove abruptly connected in a flare of blood red energy and light flooded through the growing oval, rippling like water. On the other side, Terry could see sunlight on dingy buildings. He was looking at the storefront of one of the dojo's he'd attended throughout most of his young life. Every so often, a car passed through the scene.

  "Step through the portal, Mr. Mack," the behemoth said with a smile, "and all this will be over. You'll even have a second chance to right whatever wrong ended your life, should you choose to pursue it. Regardless, the nightmare you've lived these last few weeks will end. All you have to do, is step forward."

  The portal was ten feet in front of him, and the image blurre
d as his eyes teared up. He blinked hard and shook his head as he took a step forward.

  'Master, I'm warning you: this is a trap. The behemoth CANNOT send you home!'

  Yeah, well it sure as hell looks like he CAN. What do YOU know about these things, REALLY?

  'I know of no possible way to send you home, Master. Volai's library of magic is quite extensive. Nothing was ever mentioned of any plane that looks like what you see.'

  You don't know shit then. That's where I grew up. I practically LIVED in that dojo for YEARS. All you know is what Volai knew, and what I know. Well, here's a reality check for you, Prada, SOMEONE brought me here. If I GOT here, I can GO HOME.

  'What about your women? What about the people HERE who depend on you?'

  Terry took another step, then stopped. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it was trying to break through his ribcage. Sweat was beading on his brow. At war within him were two ideas. The first was how he saw himself, and the second was the possibility that everything the behemoth had told him was true. It felt true. It made perfect sense.

  What if the powers he'd gotten were evidence that he was doing a deal with the real devil? What if he was signing his soul away, piece by piece?

  Cecaelia's voice came back to him then, and he remembered her words with surreal precision: 'You're the right kind of hero for Celestine ...'

  Shy spoke next. 'You died, Terry. Your family will have to learn to make do without you. You're here now, and I need you to stay.'

  Laina's voice. 'Eyes front, Boss. You're about to kiss the wagon.'

  He blinked, and realized that while he'd stopped about six feet away from the portal, it was now a mere two feet in front of him. The behemoth was moving it closer. As he realized it, he heard Euryale in his thoughts.

  '... my bond and your burden to bear: from now until the day you die, you are my master.'

  Prada?

  'Yes, Master?'

  I leave my life in your hands.

  'I don't have hands, Master.'

  You know what I mean!

  Terry hopped back to gain a few feet of distance, then launched himself. He didn't scream, or roar a challenge. He simply focused on his target. His 'new' legs didn't disappoint. He cleared the portal easily and was hurtling toward the now widening eye and its three whirling pupils.

  Baring his teeth in a silent snarl, he brought his ax around with all his might.

  It cut through the eyeball with spectacular, if not altogether welcome results. The orb literally exploded outward, showering him with viscous fluid that filled his ears and gummed up his nostrils. The force of the mess hitting him checked his flight and knocked the upper half of his body backward so violently that he wound up spinning ass over teakettle on his way back to the ground.

  He couldn't see a thing and he was covered in goop. There was no way for him to recover in time, and he felt certain as his head spun earthward that he was about to break his fool neck.

  Prada caught him.

  She also engulfed his head for a second, and when she left him his face was clean and clear. Unfortunately, that only left him with the firm conviction that he was about to die.

  All four of the behemoth's mouths began howling. It was a drawn-out, droning cacophony of anguish that split the night with all the sonic force of a weather-alert siren.

  He'd landed amid a veritable forest of tentacles and without any sense of where he was going, he found his feet and began hacking his way free. Tendrils came at him from all directions and he saw a blur of red all around him as Prada lashed out, deflecting, impaling, or outright stopping the blows coming at him from every direction.

  He hacked and slashed with every ounce of strength he had, and where his ax connected, pieces of the beast flew away trailing thick blood that was black even in the moonlight.

  "So be it, TEMPLATE!" the behemoth bellowed. "I will take your life for the zone, and you will be damned!"

  Terry never saw it coming. He was hit from behind with so much force that he simply left the earth and tumbled through the air. The ground didn't so much stop his tumble as change its trajectory, and it wasn't until he slammed against a tree that his forward progress was halted.

  Terry knew he should be dead. He'd been flying, had struck the tree face-first, and yet he not only wasn't dead, he didn't even feel like anything was broken.

  The red wash of Prada's body faded away to reveal the tree in front of him, showing him an area of perfectly compressed bark that should have contained his face, but was instead only head-shaped.

  'You're welcome, now turn around and fight!'

  Hard to do without a weapon.

  Even if he somehow HAD managed to keep his ax through all of that, there was a better than even chance it would have wound up embedded in him somewhere. Taken all together he was just glad to be alive as he whirled to face the raging behemoth behind him.

  'Who loves you?'

  One of Prada's pseudopods lifted into view, and it was wrapped around the haft of his ax.

  Certainly not you. You said as much, but I'll take that, thanks.

  'Hmph. There is no pleasing you.'

  It occurred to Terry at that point to wonder why he hadn't yet been turned into a pasty smear, electrocuted, or incinerated yet, and he realized that the behemoth was still fighting.

  It just wasn't fighting him.

  One of its legs — the one pinning Euryale to the ground — had been completely engulfed in a tree trunk, and it was jerking spasmodically to free itself as its tentacles lashed. Several of them were weaving behind glowing balls of energy as yet more slammed against Marcus' shield while Laina worked to hew through one of its other legs, taking tremendous chunks out of the beast with every swing. Meanwhile, Yuri danced through the forest of tentacles as though guided by divine providence, striking at the tendrils attempting to cast spells, disrupting them before they could finish.

  Terry leapt into a run and when he was ten feet out he leapt, soaring through the night air to land somewhat gracelessly on top of the creature. He didn't hesitate, but raised his ax and slammed it down.

  The hard scales protecting the top of the creature shivered and cracked, but did not break. The shock of the blow almost numbed his hands, but he swung his ax up and with a wild yell brought it down again, and a thick scale shot out and away into the dark as the behemoth bellowed again with that wordless, impossibly loud droning call.

  If that's not bringing every single zone beast in the whole fucking world down on us, I don't know what will.

  'Astute, Master. Too bad you didn't ask for my offensive capabilities. I might be able to turn the tide for you here. But, of course, you don't need an assassin.'

  Almost as though their conversation had summoned it, a tentacle lashed out for Terry's head and Prada blocked it, then another, then a third as he continued to hew at the space he'd made, each ax strike sending blood geysering into the air.

  'Yeah, real shame I didn't send you away from me to go attack. I'd be missing you right about now.'

  Prada chose not to reply, and it was at about that time that things really went sideways.

  Laina was the first to fall, or rather, fly out of combat as the behemoth lifted one of its tree-trunk thick legs and kicked her away like a soccer ball. The behemoth shifted violently in doing so and Terry lost his balance. The only reason he didn't fall off entirely was because he was able to bury his ax in the flesh he'd exposed and hang on. Getting up after that though was out of the question as tentacles curled up around the bulk of the beast and struck at him from every direction. Prada was managing to deflect them, but it was obvious even to Terry that doing so was consuming all her attention.

  A high-pitched scream sent fear through Terry's heart as a bolt of lightning struck out from underneath the behemoth. It hit Mila's shimmering green shield and the latter shattered in a shower of energy that didn't entirely dissipate the assault. The tiger woman fell to her knees and face-planted, her staff landing across her unmovin
g body as its light flickered out. At best she was unconscious, at worst, dead.

  "Mila!"

  Yuri's voice was an agony of concern, and a few moments later he too was flung from under the beast to land in a tangle of unmoving arms and legs some twenty feet from the towering beast.

  Marcus appeared, leaping backward as tentacles shot out one after another to batter at his shield, which was already splintered and broken. He took a knee next to Mila, and used his ever dwindling coverage to protect her.

  A ball of fire struck him a moment later, and turned his shield into a blazing torch, forcing him to fling it away.

  "Your friends are defeated, template!" the behemoth roared, pain obvious in all its myriad voices. "Surrender yourself! Your only remaining choice is whether I eat you and your friends head or feet first!"

  The tentacles pulled back, hovering as more and more joined them. Several of them were moving through arcane gestures, and soon Terry was lit by a surreal light show. Lightning, fire, and the piercing glitter of ice that glowed from within surrounded him on all sides as the behemoth readied its spells.

  'It should go without saying that I cannot protect you from all of that, Master. I have done my best. The rest is up to you.'

  Yeah ... thanks, Prada. You came through for me.

  Terry jerked the ax out of the behemoth and stood, turning a slow circle as he looked at the death hovering all around him. As near as he could figure, the only reason he hadn't already been blasted was because the behemoth didn't want to hit itself with all that mess.

  As he gazed around, something caught his attention and he blinked, then squinted. Then smiled.

  "Hey, can I ask you one last question before you eat me?" he asked as what he saw began pouring out of the forest on the behemoth's blinded side.

  "Ask, and be damned, template. I gave you every chance to go home. You should have taken my offer."

  "Are you afraid of spiders?"

  The behemoth shifted under his feet, and one of its voices asked, "What?"