Tarous

by Jeremy W Eason

  Out in the front of the shop I heard the ringing of a bell as a new customer came in. I walked out of the kitchen to the front counter to take the customer’s order. The god that walked in wore a dark suit with shiny silver cufflinks, a silver tie clip, an expensive looking silver watch, and even a few rings. All of those metallic looking items were powerful artifacts. I could feel the power radiating off of them. More than a few of the gods that lived here were extremely powerful.

  He looked me in the eye and held my gaze for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes were without any spark of life. As the God of Death, trust me when I say he had a dead eyed stare. He didn’t blink. He just stared right into my eyes, and it was more than a little creepy.

  Then he also smiled. Not in a ‘hi, how are you doing?’ way, but in a way that showed he could make the muscles in his face move in what resembled a smile, but he had no understanding of the emotion behind it. Creepy as hell.

  “Hello,” I said, “How can I help you today?”

  With his creepy emotionless eyes and fake smile, he had the face of a killer, I thought to myself.

  “I would like a pulled pork sandwich.”

  At Zan’s we had no menu. Whatever food you wanted and whatever drink you wanted, he could make it and it would be the best dish you’d ever had. You could even order a plain ham sandwich and it would be so delicious it would make a grown man cry.

  Zan made the food and I brought it out to Captain Smiley Face. No way in hell was I going to call him that to his face though. I placed the food on the counter and he picked it up. He was still creeping me out. I just knew he had killed more than a few people while wearing that same creepy smile on his face.

  He turned and walked away, then sat down at the nearest table facing me. His eyes never left me for a moment. He continued to smile as he ate. That guy was not normal. Even for a god who was working at a restaurant in the City of the Gods, I knew what weird was and that guy was on an entirely different level above weird. A shiver went down my spine and I had to keep reminding myself that I was the God of Death, and other gods couldn’t hurt me here in the city.

  As he continued to watch me, he pulled out a long knife. It was the kind of knife people used for filleting fish, and he used it to cut up his food into even smaller pieces. Not even for one second did he take his eyes off of me. He finished his meal and walked towards me. Reaching into his pocket he removed a gold coin and he placed it on the counter.

  “The food was delicious. This is a special gift just for you.” His creepy smile grew even larger.

  I hesitantly picked up the coin. It had a picture of a blade on both sides.

  “This isn’t any normal coin, my friend. It has a little bit of my power in it.”

  With those words he swirled around and marched out of the restaurant. That guy gave off a vibe of pure craziness.

  I took the coin and placed it in my pocket. It was a gold coin, after all.

  So many gods came and went at the restaurant, some of whom had unimaginable power. When I had first arrived I had considered going back and hiding out in the monster world instead.

  I actually missed it there, especially now that I was strong enough to hold my own. At one point Edward had even told me that some of the female monsters had found me rather attractive. Although later he revealed that it was the female goblins that had found me attractive. I wasn’t sure how to take that.

  He had told me that they liked my face. I had to wonder what was so wrong with my face to make female goblins become attracted to me. Am I… Dare I say it… Ugly?

  I went to the bathroom and looked closely at my face. Well… At least Nyxra loved me. Or hopefully she still did. If I could ever get back to her and explain what happened before she turned me into a salamander, she might still love me.

  It had gotten dark and I was busy wiping down tables when I felt a powerful presence approaching the restaurant. Gods never sleep, but we did have night and day here. The sun and the moon in the sky were fake, created by the ancient gods, but they looked real.

  The approaching presence somehow felt familiar. It was the power of a god, but this one was unnaturally strong. Being surrounded by gods all the time, I had developed the skill to sense them and their power. It was an extremely common ability here.

  As a god in white robes walked closer to the restaurant my jaw dropped.

  “Cronus!” I yelled. The power swirling around him was overwhelming. He had only been a god when I last met him, but now he was an Elder God. From the feel of his power, an incredibly powerful Elder God.

  The glass doors of the shop exploded, glass flying everywhere, and then it all stopped. The glass froze in mid-air. Cronus walked through where the doors once had been and then the explosion reversed. The broken glass reversed its path and the glass doors reformed themselves.

  “Showoff.” Zan commented with a friendly wave from the kitchen door he was leaning against.

  “How? What?” I was so lost. Cronus shouldn’t be so strong, but power radiated from him. He was far stronger than me and pretty much all of the other gods I had sensed over the past few weeks.

  “I have some bad news. My friend, the God of Space, died. We were ambushed by some of Hephaestus’s faction and he sustained horrendous injuries. I thought I was also going to die. As Space passed away, he gifted me his powers.”

  I listened intently, hanging on his every word.

  “I’ve never told anyone this, but throughout my time as the God of Time, I have killed over twelve other gods. Despite that, I was unable to become an Elder God like the others. With the power of Space everything has changed. I was transformed into the Elder God of SpaceTime.”

  SpaceTime… Hadn’t Einstein or someone mentioned that before…?

  I thought absorbing the power of five other gods was the only way of becoming an Elder God. I had never heard of a different method to becoming an Elder God, though in all fairness I was rather new to the whole god gig.

  “I do have a gift.”

  In his hands he suddenly held a glass orb with a forest green mist swirling inside of it.

  “This is the power of the God of Nature. He was one of the gods who ambushed us. I killed him, but his power is useless to me now, so I have put it in this orb.”

  The glass orb floated over to me and I carefully grabbed it. I instinctively took the orb and held it up to my nose. I took a deep breath and breathed in the flickering green mist. It smelled like freshly mowed grass. The power of nature was invigorating as it flowed through my body. A black leaf tattoo appeared on my ankle near the snowflake.

  I appreciated Cronus’s thoughtfulness. With all of the other gods having the advantage of centuries of training, I needed all of the raw power that I could get. I was now even closer to becoming an Elder God.

  I tried to imagine how it would feel to become even stronger than I already was. The strength in my body right now was amazing, but an Elder God was far more powerful. I was excited by the thought, and I wanted even more power. If I could kill just one more God, I would finally be able to transform into an Elder God.

  “Cronus, what was it like becoming an Elder God?” I asked eagerly.

  Cronus carefully considered the question.

  “Well… That is a rather personal question.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “The topic is kind of like asking someone what it was like going through puberty. “ He looked directly at me. “It is considered taboo among Elder Gods to talk about the experience. The truth is, though, that it is different for each god and the experience is determined by a combination of thousands of factors.”

  I thought that was a rather strange answer, but I decided for the sake of our friendship to let the matter drop. I hadn’t really received a clear answer to my question and it made me even more curious. I guess the only option was to wait and experience it for myself.

  “I actually have a message from a friend of yours that was sent through Nyxra. Bob apparently came across an old document detailing
an ancient temple on another planet called Elfin. Nyxra and the witch council reached out to us and let us know about this discovery and requested our help. The academy helped them fund an expedition, and with our help the expedition team was sent to the planet. Just as the document said, the temple does exist, but we have been unable to enter it. Above what appears to be the main entrance are symbols and after translating those symbols we discovered it was the title for the temple. We believed you would be interested in the temple’s name.”

  “Why?” I knew nothing about the temple so why would I be interested in its name?

  “The title above the door was,” he paused for dramatic effect, “‘Temple of the God of Death’.”

  I blinked twice. That was not the answer I was expecting. Though in truth I hadn’t managed to think of anything at all.

  Cronus smiled at my surprised look.

  “I went over to Elfin and checked it out myself. With my powers I can tell that the temple is old. Like billions and billions of years old. I think this was a temple to the first God of Death, and it might even have been built by the first God of Death himself. We really have no clue at this point since we are unable to get into the temple. We tried to see if we could find any clues nearby, but so far no luck. If you want, I could take you to the planet, unobserved. No one would know you left the safety of the city. You don’t have to answer now. The other reason I came here was to get some of Zan’s legendary mammoth steak and candied Ansault pears.”

  I considered his offer while he went back into the kitchen to talk with Zan. We could probably go to the planet Elfin and be back before anyone noticed. Yes, leaving the city would be a risk, but since no one knew I was gone I should be completely safe.

  I wanted to learn more about the previous Gods of Death, so I decided to go with Cronus. During my stay in the City of the Gods, I had managed to gleam scraps of information from some of the older gods in the city, but none of them knew much about the previous Gods of Death. The previous Gods of Death, despite the rather larger than life title, were all really low key. Unlike the God of Wine, who had an entire wing of the city library dedicated to him, the God of Death tended to shun social gatherings.

  “Let’s check this temple out, already.” I told Cronus after he had finished his meal and rested while chatting with Zan and me.

  Taking a deep breath, I stood up and followed Cronus as he began to walk out of the restaurant. As we walked through the doors, Cronus swept us up in his power and delivered us to Elfin. It didn’t take long, only the time it takes to blink your eye, and we were there. With Cronus being the Elder God of SpaceTime, emphasis on space, we were able to instantly travel across the universe to the planet of Elfin.

  Elfin was covered in lush green plant life. Unlike on earth, the vegetation was a little more aggressive. Cronus told me that no mammals had managed to evolve on the planet. I suspected the reason was that the vegetation had eaten them. More than a few plants, with teeth, latched onto me.

  Cronus snapped his fingers and several vines that had started wrapping around my legs instantly aged into dust. None of the vines had bothered Cronus.

  “You have to show them who’s boss or they get uppity,” said Cronus while tilting his head towards the vegetation. He smiled at the vegetation and I swear I saw them shiver in fear.

  He snapped his fingers again and all the vegetation in every direction for a mile turned to dust. In the middle of a solid green plant filled planet, I could see a large grey circle of dust. Not even a single seed remained alive.

  Just on the other side of the circle of dust, to the south, was the Temple of Death. When we arrived, I had expected to see a group of archeologists digging in the dirt. What I found was something different.

  Cronus noticed my surprise and a smile inched across his face.

  “Once we confirmed what Bob was telling us was true, we sent in several large teams of people. Even gods are interested in information on the God of Death. Especially lost information that predates the City of the Gods. We have a team of logistic specialists, guards, administrative people, managers, accountants, carpenters, and so on. In total, we have around two hundred people here. The ones that originally found the temple have found themselves with more money than they could possibly spend in several lifetimes.”

  I looked at Cronus and let everything sink in. Cronus had been around for a very long time. The amount of wealth he could acquire would truly be a staggering number.

  Crews of people were running back and forth everywhere I looked. Multiple small shacks and even a decent sized building had been built in the weeks since the discovery of the temple. There was even a tiny store settled among the makeshift town.

  Three large men, each with muscles on top of muscles, hurried towards us, but Cronus waved them away. One of them still gave me a strong glare as if to warn me to behave. He had obviously never met me before or he would have known that was impossible for me.

  “This way to the entrance,” said Cronus as he started off again.

  I followed him until we reached the central structure, which was a large angular building made of some kind of dark gray stone with an intricately designed entrance cut away into the building. The temple reminded me of a Mayan pyramid, which made me suspect that most of the temple was still buried underground.

  Words were carved into the stone all around the entrance to the temple. I couldn’t read the language, but each piece felt profound, like if someone could completely understand the true meaning of the symbols they would truly understand this temple. The symbols were wavy and when I turned my head and viewed them from the corner of my eye they almost appeared to be moving. I knew they named this temple as belonging to the God of Death, but I could sense they meant more.

  The writing was strange and the temple itself gave me a strange feeling. Like the feeling I had felt when I had meditated in the graveyard. I had the feeling of peace, but also of death. I studied the writing and felt the cold intent of death radiating from the words. I also felt very strongly that this temple was connected to me.

  I realized one other thing as I examined the temple. Mayan temples could also double as a tomb and a place to worship, and this was the temple of the God of Death. Could a past God of Death be buried inside? Or even the first God of Death?

  Bob had received word of our arrival and met us at the temple entrance. I had been too entranced by the symbols to greet him properly. They captivated me, hypnotized me, and spoke to me all at once. I noticed Bob as he glanced at the watch he wore on his wrist and then at us and finally back to his watch. Apparently we were late arriving.

  Cronus snorted and made a face as if to say that the Elder God of SpaceTime was never late, he was always right on time.

  “There is a zombie behind you, Bob,” I said without taking my eyes from the symbols around the temple entrance.

  Bob screamed and turned to run away. While looking back over his shoulder as he started to run he discovered there were no zombies behind him. He instantly came to a stop and glared at me. I ignored him. New ideas for necromancer spells were popping into my mind. Looking at the symbols was beneficial to me in some strange way.

  Bob stamped his feet and I snickered without looking at him. That would teach him to get all high and mighty on us. I managed to wrench my eyes away from the temple. People were rushing around us, and everyone was in a hurry to be somewhere. I felt a little bit in the way as I stood still and looked around. The workers reminded me of an ant colony.

  I saw that Cronus had moved a few feet away and was talking to several people at once, receiving reports, and issuing orders. He seemed in his element. I briefly thought of him as the queen of an ant colony and laughed to myself.

  Bob stood not too far from me. He had remained silent since we got here. He seemed to have a lot on his mind. When Cronus was finished with his ‘royal’ business he walked back over to us.

  “Has anyone learned anything about the temple?” I asked the air, hoping either
Cronus or Bob would answer my question.

  Bob spoke up. “The only solid information we have gathered is that this is the Temple of Death and anyone that tries to enter is turned into dust at the entrance. Which is probably why it’s called the Temple of Death.”

  Thinking about the strange connection I had to the temple, I seriously doubted that was the only reason for its name.

  I looked down at my feet. Someone had spray-painted a red line in the sand around the front of the temple. Of course if that wasn’t clear enough, the dark splotches in the sand were also a strong warning as well. I wondered how many people had died for them to figure out where to draw that red line.

  “I know this seems obvious, but don’t cross that red line. On the other side is the kill zone,” said Cronus while pointing his finger at the red line. I felt this was rather obvious, but I simply nodded my head.

  A grin formed on my face as I turned to look at Bob. “He might be lying Bob. Cross it. See what happens.”

  Bob glared at me, but Cronus let out a deep chuckle.

  I felt connected to the temple. I didn’t fear it. I respected it. It also felt familiar, like I knew it. Could inside be my own world, like how Cupid had his own world? I really hoped my world wasn’t filled with hearts. Being the God of Death, if it was filled with hearts they might actually be real hearts.

  I turned towards the temple and took a step forward across the line. I wasn’t afraid. I stepped across the line with ease and I was not struck down. My special skill seemed to be escaping death. I wondered how many spare lives I had. Maybe I was a cat in a past life.