Beneath The Mantle

by Ahimsa Kerp

“I don’t understand. What?”

  “Get on your moose,” Acan said. “Now.” Never had his voice sounded more authoritative.

  Stuart did not hesitate to obey. He found his moose, where it had stripped most of the bark of an elm tree. The women caught up with them just as Stuart ascended his mount. They did not pause, but carried right on through, splashing through the stream.

  Acan caught up with them. “Ah!” he cried. “They sent the mokoi! Come, we are not far now.”

  As his moose lumbered forward, Stuart looked back and immediately wished he hadn’t. He could see them now, in the air. They were only half-substantial, as though made of mist. They looked like big birds with heads similar to that of a condor. Needle-sharp fangs lined their mouths. Long wings carried their bodies, spanning three meters, like that of a bat or gargoyle. Long jellyfish tendrils hung from their bodies instead of limbs.

  With an involuntary shudder, Stuart turned, and caught up with the others.

  Acan galloped ahead, but as the forest closed in, they found themselves on a small game trail. It was wide enough for the megamoose to fit on, but they had to ride single file. Stuart fell back, putting his body between the two women, and the ghosts. He tried not to picture the vulture faced, ghost like mokoi catching up to them. Twice he thought he felt something on his neck, but it was only leaves.

  Nonetheless, his skin broke out in goose bumps, and he felt his heart beating, all too quickly. There was no doubt from his body that the creatures were close. A slithering sound filled his ears. His mind filled with images of writhing maggots, worms crawling through eyeballs, and leeches swelling with yellow bile.

  “Stuart!” Harper yelled.

  He realized his moose had stopped, and his eyes were closed. All around him were the dreadful mokoi.

  He felt drunk. His body wouldn’t respond to his panicked mind, and his head awkwardly lolled back and forth. Tendrils dripped slime and mucus on him now, as the ghastly spirits descended upon him.

  A shining blue disc came soaring at him. He wanted to duck but still had no control. It hit one of the mokoi, and sparks jumped as the creature dissolved in the air. It left nothing behind save for a patch of bad air that would put anyone who walked through it in the next month into a bad mood.

  The other mokoi rose in the air. A high-pitched screeching indicated some sort of alarm on their part. The disc boomeranged in the air, and flew back to a dark hand.

  It was Erinle, Acan’s companion from Selvage. Behind him were three other Selvagians. They flung their blue discs together, and the missiles sailed over Baruna and Harper, flew just under some low tree branches, and then narrowly went over Stuart’s head.

  He could hear more sizzling, but control of his body was not yet his. Harper rode back to him, grabbing his moose by the antlers. It slowly prodded forward, apparently as affected by the wraiths as its human rider.

  Stuart was only half-conscious as they rode past the warriors of Selvage. He was hallucinating—fever-dreaming—and only a very minimal participant in reality altogether. Images of other worlds mixed with graves and moldering bones. After a small while, however, he began to realize that trees were trees, his moose was a megamoose, and he was Stuart Holmes of Winnipeg, Manitoba. With those linguistic reassurances, he sighed deeply, and became human once more. Acan never did inform him how very close to death he had gotten.

  Behind them, the last of the mokoi were killed or driven away by the plasma discs of the Selvagians. Ahead of them was the forward camp of the Selvagians. It was set high on one of the rounded brown hills and bathed in pure, golden sunlight that descended from the sky. The brightness of an April spring morning, rich and suffused with atmosphere, filled the area.

  Acan meet them, already clad in crystal armor from the waist down. “Good,” he said. “I hoped Erinle and the others could save you in time. Now we must prepare.”

  “Prepare?” Stuart asked. He still felt drugged. “For what?”

  “For war!” Acan said, merrily. “The forces of Omphalos are closing in. Prepare yourselves!”

  Chapter 27

  We don’t have long, and this is probably my last entry. In fact, I’m lucky to get this one, as I was just attacked by spirits who nearly drained my life away. Not much of a story there, apart from what I just said, so moving on.

  We escaped Omphalos only because no one, deity or human, had counted on what a warrior Baruna is. She fought for our freedom, and she utterly destroyed a saber-toothed tiger. No one guessed she had it in her. I mean, she was like nothing I’ve ever seen. Apparently it was a side of her she was trying to leave behind. She didn’t elaborate, but I got the sense that Keshav’s family wasn’t too keen on that practice. She used the word “old-fashioned.” I spoke to her a few moments ago. Told her I was missing Keshav too, and she should feel free to talk to me if she ever needed to. No doubt Harper has done the same, but I think it helped her. She has been withdrawn—which is natural, of course. But I worry that with everything else going on she won’t make the best decisions.

  Everything else going on. A battle looms. I feel a little like Peter and Edmund must have before the White Witch’s army came crashing down on them. This is for real now. There is good news. The crystal power armor that we saw our first time in Selvage? We get some of our own for this battle. It’s still not super clear to me what we’re fighting for. Surely it cannot be simply a patch of sunlight? I guess, on the other hand, we fight over patches of dirt, beds of oil, which gods to worship. It’s sort of bleakly reassuring to know the gods aren’t above scarcity battles.

  I learned a little from Acan as we prepared. This is not the first time the two cities have fought. Selvage broke off from Omphalos not that long ago, as I gather; at least as how gods tell time. There have been battles since then, though whether two or ten, I cannot guess. He hinted that we unbalanced Ra when we killed one of his aspects. That was the reason he left his tower to claim us. Each time, it is for the right to share the sunlight areas, but also to use the disc of Ra. I think. How we got involved is still kind of weird. I feel like if I had time to stop and think about it, I could get some insight, but as it is, there is scarcely time to breathe.

  I should be pumped. The armor should keep us safe, Acan says, but we are going to be fighting gods and monsters. I just feel tired. I mean, it’s good to know that if we win we can go back home. But the upper world feels like it belongs to someone else now. Just thinking about that ship, which in all honesty I know must have sunk into the frozen sea not long after we left, makes me feel nervous.

  I am not a religious man. Well, I guess I do believe in gods now, because, well, how could I not? But I don’t subscribe to any of the major religions. And yet, I keep thinking about what Baruna said when we first got here. What if we all died—out there on the ice?

  And this is just hell?

  Chapter 28

  The crystal armor fit with surprising comfort. On the outside it was all hard angles and jutting crystal nubs, but the inside felt as soft as velvet. Stuart was not sure if it was powered by magic or an unknown technology, but regardless, it felt like it weighed nothing. He could feel the armor respond to sunlight. It purred, like a pleased cat getting a back scratch. Nonetheless, Stuart felt somewhat ridiculous after putting on the helmet. A warrior he was not, and even with the armor and a borrowed laser pistol, he feared the upcoming battle. It seemed like such a pity. The youngest person here, by far in most cases, he felt far too old for this hostility.

  From the top of their sun-drenched hill, the view remained stunning. But the verdant forests, for all their beauty, hid the oncoming army. Several warriors of Selvage were stationed at the bottom of the hill in order to better see. In armor, nearly everyone looked the same. He could only tell Baruna and Harper apart from the green swirls on their armor. He had the same markings on his armor.

  It took only a few moments to find Acan. He was engaged with Erinle and Ninkasi, who was leading the forces of Selvage.

  “Can I
speak to you for a moment?” Stuart asked.

  Acan visibly hid his irritation. “Omphalos is almost here. I must plan.”

  “It will only take a moment.”

  Acan excused himself and joined Stuart.

  “It is okay to be nervous,” he told the Canadian.

  “What was Ra doing on the surface?” Stuart asked.

  “You know about that, do you?”

  “Yes. We heard in Omphalos.”

  “Of course. I do not know. He travels many astral planes, does the Falcon Lord. It is not for us to understand.”

  Stuart was no expert on psychology, but he knew an evasion when he heard one. He also suspected there was no point pressing.

  “I am nervous. You’re not wrong about that. We are fighting gods. Even in this armor, how can we hope to survive?”

  “Now, Omphalos is a much bigger city than Selvage. They are the center of everything here. The denizens are more powerful as well. As such, they won’t be leading the attack themselves. Their army will likely mostly be made of lesser creatures again. Engage them. Kill them. Leave the leaders to us.”

  “Lesser creatures like the Andrewsarchus or terror birds?” Stuart asked, voice rising.

  “More terrible than that. But certainly not as terrible as the gods.”

  “What if they come after us?” Harper asked.

  Acan tilted his head for a moment as he considered. “We marked your armor with green bands. We will try to protect you. Failing that? Run away. Live to fight another day.”

  “Are we going to ride on the megamoose?”

  Acan shook his head. “Doughty though they are, they would die in the upcoming battle. And should we lose, we will need to them fresh to affect our getaway.”

  A shout went up from the guards at the bottom of the hill.

  “Now I must go,” Acan said. “Try not to die. You may be in for a surprise.” He left Stuart and rejoined his companions.

  Stuart glanced about for Harper and Baruna, but the forces of Selvage were flowing down the hill. Not knowing much about battle tactics, Stuart assumed the little he did know went out the window when dealing with forces that could fly and cast magic.

  He took three steps down the hill, pistol clasped in his gloved hand, when the forces of Omphalos broke into sight.

  ***

  The first thing he saw was giant ants. Most were black, but a few bright red ones marched as well; they were three meters long and two meters tall, with dusty and tattered skeleton warriors riding their backs. The ants were big enough that their mandibles could snap through the trees. They cleared the way for the rest of the army. Immediately behind the ants were floating desert ghouls. They bore the shape of emaciated humanoids; pale skinned, with dark clumps of hair, and cadaverous faces. Their arms were long, almost to the ground, and their hands ended in long sharp talons.

  Stuart stopped, horrified by the sight before him. Already the first of the Selvagians were engaging the colossal ants. But now moving into view were six meter long centipedes with horned demonic faces and human arms at their front. Marching with them were shiny, sharp creatures that at Stuart’s best guess were elementals made of glass. They carried no weapons as their entire bodies were razor sharp. Behind the elementals and centipede men were massive wolf spiders; two meters long, and with their long hairy legs, stood high off the ground. Over short distances, these aggressive hunters were some of the fastest creatures in the land. Marching warily next to the spiders were bestial, barking, furry cave men with huge heads, and wearing armor fashioned from cacti. Long dark needles and red flowers adorned their dark green breast plates and rounded helms.

  In the sky overhead, vultures circled lazily. Had he looked closer, Stuart would have seen that instead of stomachs, the vultures had leech-like bellies which could suck all the blood from a human being in under a minute, leaving their body a withered, desiccated piled of bones and skin.

  Such were the forces of Omphalos. Against them, a hundred demigods clad in crystal did not have a chance in hell. And yet the forces of Selvage charged forward. Time and time again, armor kept them safe. Stuart saw one fighter caught in the mighty mandibles of a red ant. It snapped close with boulder shattering force but did not separate the being in the armor. Instead, the warrior calmly raised their laser pistol and shot the ant through both eyes. The eyes burst like ripe papayas, and the skittering creature slumped to the ground.

  Elsewhere Stuart saw a crystal-clad warrior hacked at by a pack of desert ghouls. A spider was eating some of the cactus-clad men that were its nominal allies. Glass elementals were a match for their crystal clad opponents in hand-on-hand, though they did not fare well against the laser blasts. One picked up a fallen gun and started firing at the warriors of Selvage. Men and women dodged and fell, cursing. Meanwhile, vulture bodies variously swooped and fell from the sky, contributing greatly to the hellish chaos.

  Stuart was only halfway down the hill, but he was firmly in the vanguard. A centipede man tore through the two warriors in front of him and reared up. Though it had a humanoid face and arms, it could stand up almost to its very length. One of the hands carried a jagged sword as big as Stuart himself, and it came swinging at him.

  Perhaps the armor would have protected him, but he did not want to take that chance. Stuart leapt back, almost falling over. The sword missed him by centimeters, and Stuart could feel himself sweating with fear. He raised his pistol at the monster, but the sword came whistling at him again.

  The counterstroke was so fast he didn’t even have time to react. He simply sat down reflexively, landing with a thump on his butt. Once again, the sword came uncomfortably close. The centipede man opened his human lips and emitted a terrifying bass chirping. He switched his grip, so that the sword would point downward, and then drove it down.

  Stuart didn’t even aim, simply pointed his pistol, and fired. Lasers shot out and, though none hit his monstrous foe, one caught the sword blade and dissolved it into shrapnel. The centipede man emitted another series of deep insect noises. He then dropped to the ground, going horizontal, and slithered the last meter toward Stuart.

  A lucky shot took an arm off, but then there was a hand on his. The crystal armor protected him from injury and punctured the being’s remaining hand, but the creature did not seem to feel pain. Stuart had the pistol squeezed from his hand. It leered at him. Up close, the demonic face of the man was terrifying. It didn’t look human at all; from the horns on top of the head to the curved teeth in his lipless mouth, it was a face of diabolical woe.

  The centipede man opened his jaws impossibly wide and lowered himself on Stuart.

  A glowing disc tore his insectoid’s head from his twitching body.

  Stuart’s body went limp from relief, but then the ichor and blood coated him as the centipede body fell onto his own. Cursing, he scrambled up with a distinct lack of grace and sought his benefactor. The disc looked like the one that Erinle had used earlier, but there was no one there.

  Did that mean what he hoped it meant?

  Stuart grabbed his pistol. The main battle had left him, had spread farther from the hill. The fighting was now almost twenty meters away. In the middle, the giant ants and their skeleton riders, along with the glass golems and centipede men, were giving ground to the fierce laser fire. On the right, the ghouls and spiders were winning, and there were scattered bodies clad in half-destroyed armor littering the ground. Most of the leech-vultures were dead or dying on the ground, though a few still circled expectantly over the battle.

  On the right, the beastmen had moved as far away from the spiders as they could. They were fierce and canny, and low tech as they were, they were holding their own against the forces of Selvage. He blinked and looked again. Two of the crystal warriors had green bands. Readying his pistol, Stuart jogged over to find his friends.

  ***

  The three of them briefly greeted each other, but there was too much to do. A giant red ant, blind and enraged, but not dead, stormed thro
ugh both sides without caring overly much about whom it hurt. Finally, Baruna sent its smoldering corpse back to the ravaged earth. Sighing in relief, the three humans turned to face their next threat.

  And then the bestial men began to drop dead. Untouched, unharmed; as though someone had unplugged them. Within moments, there were none left. All lay on the ground, still as a winter graveyard. A moment before he began to feel ill, Stuart’s mind grasped the awful reality.

  “What was her name?” he gasped. “The snake woman. The Devil of the Woods.”

  “Ajatar,” Harper said. Her body slumped under her armor, and their foe still was not even visible.

  Ajatar, the mother of plague, slithered into view. The trees beside her withered and died. The ground she covered would never again blossom. She was more awful than Stuart even remembered. He was not the only one to feel fear.

  “Aieeee!” yelled a warrior of Selvage. “We must flee!” He turned and ran back up the cinnamon brown hill.

  Stuart was about to follow him when Baruna stepped forward. The wave of nausea had grown stronger, and it took all of his concentration to even remain standing, but the woman from Wolverhampton slowly strode out to meet Ajatar.

  “What are you doing?” Harper cried.

  “Get back here,” Stuart yelled. His lungs burned; he breathed poison.

  The slithering snake queen stopped and focused on Baruna, with a basilisk glare. Her eyes glittered a putrid yellow, and her black mouth opened, releasing sickly green vapors.

  The Sikh woman, strong as she was, fell to one knee under that baleful gaze. And yet she remained steady, firing off a shot from her laser pistol.

  Her aim was true, and the beam hit the Queen of Disease just below her neck. If it hurt her, however, she did not show it. Instead, she advanced on the nearly prone woman who dared defy her.

  Stuart had to rip off his helmet, and he fell to the ground. He had not eaten much and could not vomit, but his body was wracked by dry heaves.