by Ted Striker
Perkins paused, checking for vital signs, no doubt. Seeing that Bryan’s eyes hadn’t completely glazed over, he said, “With the Veil now so thin, I have been able to prevail upon the Duergar, by dint of much persuasion and at further cost, to bring Tamoth and Jwilla over here with the Soul Sword, as well as to take us back through to the other side now that you have joined us. I will mask my aura with yours and gain time to acclimate, as it were, to grow in my power and then surprise my foes. Once I am victorious, I will be able to resume my duties as the Defender of the combined worlds. So you see, my son, you are providing a great and needed service, not only to me, your father and ancestor, but also to both our worlds.”
Bryan laughed harshly. The laugh sounded like the bravado of a terrified man in his ears. And he was terrified. True or not, the fact that Perkins believed this tale was enough to scare the shit out of anyone.
“When people talk about noble sacrifices, it is always someone else’s sacrifice,” he said with a dry throat. “Is this story even real? It sounds like a legend of King Arthur rendered by Picasso. Maybe I’ve gone insane under torture back in that little basement room. Maybe there’s not even a basement room. That could be part of my delusion. Or maybe you’re the crazy one.” Bryan frantically applied all his force and managed to barely shake the frame that held him. “Maybe what you’ve told me is the truth. It doesn’t much matter, does it, Perkins? Whatever you’re going to do, do it now. Get it over with!”
“As you say,” answered the older man. “Enough talk, it is time for action. Tamoth, hold him until it is done.” Bryan felt the giant’s hand, encased in a rune-inscribed metal gauntlet, close over his, forcing him to clench his hand even tighter on the sword’s black hilt. Only then did Tamoth cut the bindings of Bryan’s sword hand with a slash of the dagger in his other hand. He lowered the sword so that it was pointed right at Perkins, the black tip almost touching Perkin’s now bare chest. A distant part of Bryan’s brain admired the chiseled muscles of the older man’s body. Not bad for a guy working on his twentieth thousand years, he thought randomly. That was the shock talking. From the back of his brain another voice whispered, {Do not fear, I will protect you, peata!}
Nancy?
With a fierce cry, Perkins hurled himself onto the sword. As his perfect body slid onto the black blade, it began to shrivel and turn gray, looking like nothing so much as a huge cicada shell. The mighty war-cry faded to a whimper.
A tsunami of power flooded into Bryan. It was as if he had shot ten miles straight up into an oxygen-deprived stratosphere. His brain felt as if it would explode through his forehead. Through it all, he felt a huge sense of shock from Perkins and a warm, protective, familiar reassurance. He heard her words in his inner ear as he faded: {Hello, dear Perkunas! ‘tis been ages, has it not?} Her merry, terrifying laughter ushered them all into the maelstrom.
Chapter 5
Tamoth cut Bryan’s unconscious form from the frame and laid it onto a mattress on the floor. Only then did he carefully clean the black sword and place it, in its black sheath, into a long guitar case. “Quickly,” he called to Jwilla. “We’re cutting it close. It won’t be long before the Duergar close the Portal.” He glanced from Jwilla to Perkins’ withered corpse. “Are you just going to leave that lying around?” he asked.
“Why not?” she shot back. “Perkunas is there—” she pointed with her chin at Bryan. “The husk isn’t needed, and it will give the police,” she filled the word with scorn, “something to ponder.”
Tamoth shrugged and picked Bryan up again. The Duergar Portal was a shimmering oval on the concrete wall behind the scaffold. He moved through it, feeling a flash of intense heat or cold – he couldn’t say which – wash over/through him, and he was himself again, his four good hooves planted on his own green earth beyond the Veil. He lay Bryan on the soft grass and exulted in the change that had come over him. “Ai-yah!” he cried. “So much better than tottering around on two legs! Now I am whole!” The Centaur took a few cantering steps forward, then wheeled and thundered back. The Portal’s glowing oval had disappeared back into the Duergar’s hidden realm. He reared, tossing his big head around so that his heavy chestnut braids whipped back and forth. “Now, where’s that cache? I want my weapons and gear!”
“Like a child,” taunted Jwilla. “The cache is over here.” She was already at the far side of the small meadow. Her pile of clothing from the Other Side was just beginning to smoke in the places where modern synthetics had been used. The clothing was made mostly from cotton and other natural fibers, but there were still enough man-made fibers releasing excess energy that the pile of clothes soon burst into flame. She laid dry sticks on the flaming clothing to make a campfire, then donned her own travelling clothes from an iron-bound trunk, a green and brown tunic and trousers together with supple leather boots. “Night will fall soon. When you finish your cavorting, set up the tent for Lord Perkunas. He told me that overpowering the other’s psyche shouldn’t take long, but we should be prepared for him to be weak. I will find us some food.” She pulled a bow and quiver of arrows out of the trunk, strung it and was gone like smoke between the trees.
“Overpowering,” muttered the centaur darkly. “Who could imagine the Defender ravaging a soul? And that of his own son!” Centaurs held parenthood in high regard, and Tamoth did not care for these tactics from his Deity, even under the extreme circumstances facing them. He set up the tent, moving the heavy fabric and poles easily. It took only a few minutes before he had the base laid out; in a few more he had the thing lifted up and secured. The entrance was tall enough that he only had to duck a bit to get in, and then he could lay the floor and cushions without getting a crick in his neck. He moved the unconscious Bryan/Perkunas onto the soft elevated pillows and retreated to tend the cook fire. It had burned down to coals, and he set a few more logs at one side to keep the fire going. Then he cut several green withes to make a frame and spits to hold the meat Jwilla would bring.
Jwilla returned, a small dunbuck back draped over her shoulders. Its blood dripped down her back and chest. “I got the thing, I dressed it. You butcher it and get it cooked.” She dropped the carcass on the ground. “I’m going to wash up in the stream.”
By the time Jwilla returned, Tamoth had cut steaks and roasts from the buck and had them cooking over the flames. She hung her dripping clothes over a tent line and went into the tent to don fresh clothing. Tamoth watched her idly. He had no sexual interest in Jwilla or any Two-legged, although centaurs had been known to mate with them, generally in the heat of battle. He recognized that she was a comely thing from the hips up. More important to him was the fact that she was swift death on two legs with any weapon, but especially with her long spear; and unswervingly loyal. Glancing into the tent, he saw her prostrate herself atop Bryan. Tamoth snorted in amusement and turned his attention to his own preferred melee weapon, a long-hafted axe. He examined the already keen edge, and then began to whet it again with a fine grit stone.
Jwilla knelt beside Bryan’s unconscious body. They had stripped him of his clothing on the other side and there was no need to dress him now; when Perkunas awoke, he would choose his attire. Jwilla knew that it would be simple woodsman’s clothing, since they still needed to keep a low profile, but the time would come when he would be dressed as the God he was, the Defender. “Lord,” she whispered, “awaken swiftly. There is much we must do to prepare for your triumphant return.” Then she lay atop him, grinding against him in hope of stimulating some reaction.
Nothing. Only slightly disappointed, she pulled on her tunic and hose, stamped into her boots, and went out into the gathering dusk. Lack of a breeze allowed the cook fire’s smoke to curl lazily about the camp, making her think of a dragon’s lair. This smoke was heavy with the rich smell of dunbuck meat, and her stomach, rumbling, reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since early morning. “Is that ready?” she asked Tamoth. “I could eat it all by myself.”
“Hunh.” Tamoth swung his axe at a
dead tree limb. The thick limb parted as if it were pulled apart by springs and the axe head rang like a bell, and he added the pieces to the woodpile. “The steaks are probably ready, but the roast will bleed all over you. Although maybe you need it that rare.” With a few more powerful strokes, he finished cutting firewood.
The inflection in her friend’s voice made Jwilla turn back, her eyes narrowing. “Just what is that supposed to mean, you cabbage-headed rhinoceros?”
A glint came into Tamoth’s eye as well, and the red-headed Elf winced inwardly. For all the myth that centaurs kept their wise counsel to themselves, her companion loved verbal sparring and was not shy about sharing his sharp observations with her. “Am I blind?” he asked. “Did I not see you lying with our unconscious young friend in there? After your exertions, I would think that you needed—”
“I was not –” Jwilla spluttered. “It was –” She turned red. “He should be awake by now!” she finally blurted.
Tamoth nodded. “I know,” he said, softening his tone. The banter, the bickering, that was meant to be fun between comrades, not to inflict undue pain. “This Bryan, he is both descendant and son to Lord Perkunas, no? So his mettle will be strong. He will resist, if he is anything like our Lord. A pity that Lord Perkunas did not see fit to enlist him in our cause. It is always better to have a sacrifice offered than taken.”
“Yet Lord Perkunas was sure that he could take possession of this body so easily!” Jwilla’s voice was cracked with her anguish. Her love of Perkunas went far beyond that of a devoted follower.
“He underestimated Bryan before,” pointed out the centaur bluntly, then went on hastily, “Not to say that Lord Perkunas will not come out the victor. On the Other Side, I only advocated that Bryan be convinced to offer himself to Lord Perkunas in order to make this process an amicable one instead of a fight to destroy an innocent soul in order that our Lord’s may live.” Tamoth sighed gustily. “I am merely a simple warrior. You are the studied priestess. Your knowledge of this will be much greater than my own.”
“One will dominate,” said Jwilla softly. “The other spirit will be first thrust aside, then absorbed to add to the power of the winner. Perkunas said that his experience and power would assure him that victory.”
Tamoth narrowed his eyes as he watched her turn away. Jwilla had only quoted their Lord, not made her own affirmation. He breathed softly, carefully, until he was sure she was out of earshot, and then loosed another gusty sigh.
Chapter 6
Bryan swirled inside his own head, a mote trapped in a whirlpool of emotional chaos. Suddenly the swirling stopped and he was standing on solid ground. The horizon was marked by a zigzag of blue and white mountains against a glowing golden sky, either sunrise or sunset. Perkins popped into existence before him, dressed in a belted tunic of some silk-like material over comfortable pants. By contrast, Bryan was naked. Even as he wished for clothing it appeared on him, jeans and a t-shirt that read, “Hell was full… so I came back.”
“Amazing,” Perkins said, half to himself. Then, raising his voice, he called, “Yield, my son. It is only right. This is the purpose for which you were conceived and born, to give me rebirth so that I could come again to my own and take possession of my domain from those that expelled me so long ago. Your destiny is to become my vessel.” Suddenly a great bow appeared in his hand, arrow nocked. The arrow shimmered, full of energy.
“Bullshit,” Bryan answered. “I am my own vessel. What right do you have to come in here and take over?”
Perkins’ only answer was to raise the bow and loose the arrow. It struck Bryan in the chest with a lightning Cra-ack! that blasted him to the ground, stunned. He put his hand to his chest. No wound, yet it hurt like hell.
Bryan got up again, registered the shock on Perkins’ face. “What, old man?” he taunted. “Was that supposed to put me down for good?”
Perkins didn’t reply, just loosed three more arrows. Bryan got the nagging feeling that not only had his opponent expected that first arrow to end him, he hadn’t even thought it would be necessary. Bryan jumped and rolled out of the path of the arrows, moving smoothly and precisely as the missiles sizzled by him. The terrain here was as flat as Oklahoma; there was nowhere to hide. Shit! He needed to get out of range. And just like that, he was five hundred yards from Perkins and his lightning-shooting bow.
Suddenly the bow and arrow was gone, replaced by a huge war hammer that glowed and crackled with electricity. Perkins threw the hammer. It rocketed out in a huge parabola, right for Bryan’s head.
Bryan rolled his shoulder back, and the hammer flashed by him with a snap of air. As he was recovering from the move, he saw the damned thing turn and plummet back toward him. “Sonofabitch!” he snarled, jumping out of the way again. The hammer thwacked! into Perkins’ gauntleted hand.
Damn! This is crazy! thought Bryan. It was like a nightmare. He realized that everything Perkins had said back in that little room was happening now. The crazy bastard was really inside his head! If he thinks I’m just going to lie down and let him take over, he’d better think again.
So Perkins could call up his electric Thor-hammer or bow and arrow at will? Well, if Bryan could dream up clothes, he could do weapons, too. He frowned in concentration. As soon as he thought of it, he was holding a Carl-Gustav M3. “Try this out, old man!” he called, raising the rocket launcher to his shoulder and pulling the trigger.
Perkins’ head jerked at the sight of the antitank weapon. With only a moment’s hesitation, he threw himself to the side, scrambling to get out of the flight path of the missile. The explosion still tossed him into the air like a rag doll, even as a boulder grew out of the heretofore formless floor to deflect the blast.
This time Bryan was shocked to see Perkins roll over and get to his knees, then to his feet. The old man was grinning as he dusted himself off. “By the balls of all the Gods of the universe, youngster, I knew you were the one! What a great mind, to grasp so quickly the laws of consciousness! After I subdue you, your essence will make me invincible!” The hammer appeared again in Perkins’ hand. He whirled it around on its leather thong and flung it once more.
A soft voice whispered breathily into his ear, “Stretch your hand and take the hammer, a thaisce.”
Instantly, Bryan turned toward the hurtling weapon and held up his open hand. The thing rotated upright and snapped against his palm with a stinging slap! that, strangely, felt like a handshake. Bryan hardly heard Perkins’ shocked shout through his own disbelief. Then anger boiled through him at being taken, manipulated, and violated by this man’s arrogance. He caught the leather loop at the bottom of the haft as he’d seen Perkins do, spun the weapon around his head and threw, while still gripping the thong tightly. The hammer jerked him into the air, just as he’d read in comic books throughout his youth. He clutched the loop with all his might, guiding the hammer into a trajectory that ended at his enemy’s head. Just as the weapon was swinging down with skull-crushing force, it disappeared. Bryan, carried by momentum, continued his plunge. Perkins must have unimagined the weapon, he realized, so he imagined his own hammer in his hand, complete with lightning. He grinned savagely as he slammed the thing down.
Perkins raised his hand as if to block the blow, and a silver buckler appeared over his fist. The hammer struck the buckler with a thunderous crash of electricity, and Bryan was pitched backwards. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Perkins flying in the opposite direction. As he hit the ground rolling, Bryan frantically tried to conjure a weapon, but he was so shaken that nothing came to mind.
Nothing. No mind. No sword.
Bryan had trained for a time in Musashi’s sword fighting style, when he had worked with a Japanese Intelligence officer on a three-years-long pursuit of a Korean terrorist. The first day they had met, Kishikawa-san had said to him with a sly smile, “Since we have some time, why not learn Kendo?” He had then proceeded to beat the shit out of the kendo-challenged Bryan.
Their second matc
h, Bryan had surprised the Japanese, managing to block a few of the attacks before Kishikawa had nailed him again. Intrigued at the Westerner’s tenacity in the face of continuing humiliation and pain, as well as Bryan’s uncanny ability to absorb and apply the Nihen-ichi style of swordplay developed by Musashi, Kishikawa-san had begun a rigorous training regimen for him in their considerable free time. First Bryan soaked up simple Kendo, then the complex yet simple philosophies and kata of the master, Musashi.
“Impressive,” Kishikawa had told him. “One would not suspect a gaijin of such depth of understanding. Your lack, of course, is your follow-through.”
Their final match had been on the sands of Nha Trang. Kishikawa beat him for the last time. That night their target ambushed them. Kishikawa drew fire, sacrificing himself so his partner could escape.
Bryan hadn’t followed through on the escape, either. Instead he circled around and caught up to the North Korean and his cell as they boarded their boat. The ship was carrying explosives, which came in handy when Bryan made the bomb that took them all out.
“Arigatougozaimasu, Kishikawa-san” Bryan said now. He stood up, hands empty, facing Perkins, who was approaching at a slow walk, his hammer in his hand.
“You are truly a wonder of a man, Bryan West,” said Perkins warmly. “To have such an opponent as you is an honor. But you are merely a man, after all, no matter how much of my blood rushes through your veins. I am a God.”
“Thor, I’d guess,” Bryan gestured at the hammer, which crawled with incandescent electric trails like a Jacob’s ladder.
Perkins’ teeth flashed in a tight smile. “I was called that, yes, by the Germans and the Norse. Didn’t you believe me when I told you? But Perkunas is the name my mother gave me, as you might say. I have existed for thousands and thousands of your years, gaining power and experience over all this time. You have battled fiercely, a great credit to yourself and to my genetics, but you have no chance to defeat me. Surrender now, with honor.”