Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2)

by Justin DePaoli

  Staggering down the steps at a brutally sluggish pace, Lavery rounded a bend that opened into an excavated cavern, its walls a hundred feet apart, its ceiling vaulted and looming.

  Those sights weren’t the cause of grave concern on his face, though.

  Three cylindrical monstrosities of iron from which flames roared through grates sat at the end of the cavern. Before them, in long steel troughs, lay three women. Their flesh… they didn’t have any. Not from what Lavery could tell. It’d been seared off, and only tendons and fat and muscle the color of hot embers remained.

  The women groaned, but they didn’t move.

  “Gods,” Lavery muttered. He wasn’t even sure if he believed in gods, but this seemed as good a time as any for the expression.

  He ran down the steps, which flattened out into a busted ramp of rock. If the women noticed him, or heard him, they didn’t show it.

  An obliterating heat smothered Lavery. It burned his eyes, and he was certain his brows would either combust into flame or possibly melt off instead. He reached the troughs and stared at a sight that was so much worse than it was from far away.

  The women did have flesh, but it was shiny and tight, blistery and abscessed. Skin had melted over their eyes; it reminded Lavery of cheese that’d been cooked too long.

  How were they possibly living? If this was sorcery, Lavery thought, then maybe the Twin Sisters were right—maybe it was a sin, and maybe it did need to be purged.

  “Hello,” Lavery said, putting his hands on the warm iron rim of the closest trough. He lacked a better greeting. “I’m Lavery. Are you… are you alive?”

  The woman there, with no hair on her head and no nails on her fingers, jerked her hand toward Lavery’s. The edge of her palm touched his, and he reeled back, hissing.

  “Ah!” he cried, clutching his hand. It felt like he’d reached inside a lively fire pit.

  “So—rry,” the woman croaked. She sounded like death if death could talk. “H…elp us… will”—she gasped—“will you?”

  “Yes, of course I’ll help you.” Lavery looked around feverishly. He fiddled with his fingers. “I’m, um, just not sure how.”

  “For—forceps,” another woman uttered.

  “I see them,” Lavery said, hurrying to a wall against which sat a pair of charcoal-gray forceps, the tips radiating heat. He grasped the leather-wrapped handles and opened the forceps’ jaws and snapped them closed. It then dawned on him that he had no idea what exactly these were for.

  The forges roared, and Lavery shielded his face from a surge of heat.

  “Free them,” one of the women said, lifting a shaky, ulcered finger at the forges. “Please… free them.”

  Lavery looked at the iron-grated doors on the face of each forge. He felt sick. A volley of flames shot out of the grates, then receded. With a deep breath in and a heavy breath out, Lavery advanced on the first forge, coughing as the heat felt like it was boiling his lungs.

  He closed the forceps around the door handle and pulled, revealing what looked like an unkempt garden of flames with hot, glowing embers as the soil. Also, there was a trough, identical to the troughs behind him.

  Don’t think, Lavery told himself. Thinking is the antithesis to action, and he desperately needed to act, because the trough wasn’t empty. A few visible and writhing toes told him that.

  He leaned in dangerously close to the flames and got a nice, secure hold on the lip of the trough with his forceps. With a heave and a grunt, followed by lots of little grunts, he managed to drag the trough out of the forge. The fire within simmered like a pot of boiling water after being removed from above a hearth.

  Lavery’s lip trembled as he looked at the body of a woman in the trough. Her flesh flared with tiny, licking flames. It was red, the color of strong wine. A blister the size of a fist bubbled lively on her belly, then ruptured, spewing pus and wetness into Lavery’s face.

  He stumbled back, smacking at his cheeks and nose. He sealed his lips so as to not taste the woman’s bodily fluids.

  “H—urry,” came a voice from behind him. “They’re… coming.”

  Lavery suddenly didn’t much care what he tasted or if he was covered in blister residue—he found himself standing straight as a board and just as rigid. “How do you—”

  “Listen,” croaked a woman.

  He listened. At first, he heard nothing. But then there was a noise. A thump. And another, and four more. It sounded like very large men making very heavy footsteps.

  “Is there a way out?” Lavery asked. “Another way, I mean. There has to be something here. A hole, or I… I… I don’t know.”

  He was answered with a sickly cough.

  They’re going to cook me alive. This is it. I’m going to die.

  The thumps grew louder. Lavery could hear the crunching of stone now, previously held-together steps falling apart. He chewed his knuckles and regarded the forceps with renewed interest. When he had seen the big, burly men exit the cottage, they didn’t seem to be carrying weapons. Sure, they were huge and muscular, but even the largest of foes take a nice nap when smacked in the head with iron.

  He’d have to be quick, though. There were six of them and only one of him. But if he hid… if he concealed himself somewhere—wait! That was it. Of course!

  “I’m a Wraith Walker,” he told the women. “I can walk into the past. I know that might sound crazy, but I really can. Do you know of a time when there were weapons down here? Swords, axes? A pike would be very helpful.”

  As sturdy and blunt as forceps were, something sharp and with a bit of reach would serve him far better.

  “A prayer,” wheezed a woman. “I… told… you. I said—I said one would come.”

  “One thousand and twenty-two years ago,” said another. “The first”—she coughed—“day of winter. Go to that time.” Another barking cough that led into a fit of them.

  There was a grunt, and it did not come from the women. Lavery looked to the ramp and saw shadows. “Hurry!”

  “A bag,” said the woman, making as little effort as she could to speak. Or perhaps all the effort she could. “Needles. Biggest. Nine of them. Stab with Vullun… and they die.”

  “Vullun?”

  “Vullun.”

  Lavery didn’t have an inkling of what that meant, but he hoped it’d become clear soon enough. He gave an affirming nod, which seemed silly in retrospect, since the women couldn’t see.

  He raced behind a pillar of rock, hopeful the brutes wouldn’t see him. He closed his eyes, cleared his thoughts—which he’d gotten quite good at—and went for a not-so-nice, not-so-relaxing Walk.

  One thousand and twenty-two years ago, first day of winter. That was the exact day he’d Walked into before, when he had seen the brutes hauling in the wheelbarrows. The women had looked so different then; he wondered if they would ever look like that again.

  The Madness of Departure approached, but Lavery shrugged it off as a mere inconvenience. Nothing could crack his determined demeanor right now. The past was his to Walk, and Time would do nothing about it.

  One thousand and twenty-two years ago, the first day of winter. He arrived there once more, except he vomited upon this return. The fatigue and general malaise of Walking was very real. He’d never Walked twice in such close succession. After wiping partially digested bits of apples and pears from his mouth, he doubted he would again.

  He stood in the same cavern beneath the earth, behind the same rock pillar that stood in the present. He peeked out and surveyed the scene, hopeful there was one to be surveyed.

  Several torches served as guideposts down the ramp, illuminating the room with a soft orange glow. The three forges were in place, but their frames were silver and shiny, not the color of burnt lead.

  There were troughs too, but they were empty. Lavery guessed they wouldn’t be for long, though; six women were lined up against a wall, each of them facing an ogre of a man. He heard scratchy voices and booming ones, too, but he didn’t p
ay attention to what they said. He was too focused on the bulging sack lying before the forges.

  That’s the bag, he thought. Sneaking up to it and rummaging around for nine big needles seemed easy enough. Doing so without the brutes noticing him, though? That would be unlikely. But he was a fast runner. All he needed to do was grab it and end his Walk. He could search for the needles in the present.

  Removing something from the past didn’t actually affect its place in the past. Baern had told him that while he could take objects from the past into the present and vice versa, the items essentially made copies of themselves; their place of origination was never truly altered.

  All right, he told himself. You can do this. You’re not scared. You don’t feel fear.

  He was scared, and he did feel fear. But he could do this. He counted to three, then dashed with the speed and finesse of a spooked deer.

  Halfway there, a big, ugly mug turned and spotted him. Then five more big, ugly mugs turned. Then six big, ugly mugs were hurtling toward him.

  He leaped onto the bag, hugged it tightly, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was sitting behind a rock pillar, fingers against burlap cloth. He’d returned to the present, and the bag lay in his lap.

  “’Ey!” roared one of the men. He and the others stampeded through the cavern, to the troughs.

  Lavery tried to swallow, then gave up on it. He was more parched than desert sand.

  “Sorcery is afoot here,” said a brute. “You little ladies holdin’ sorcery there in your palms? Goddesses of fire not good enough for youse?”

  Lavery dumped out the contents of the bag into his lap. That made more noise than he cared for, but it didn’t seem to draw any attention his way. Syringes tipped with needles of all sizes were scattered about, capped with chunks of cork, along with sundry glass vials filled with fluids. Letters were embossed on each vial, spelling out foreign words such as Eshoul, Raeth, E’les, Bophaen, and Vullun.

  Lavery finally understood. Or at least he hoped he did.

  He uncorked the largest needle, six of them, and then uncorked the Vullun vial.

  “Maybe we gots ourselves a sneak,” suggested a scratchy-voiced brute.

  Lavery worked faster now, dipping the needles into the Vullun vial and filling the syringes.

  “You smell somethin’?”

  “Nothing. I think it’s sorcery. Did you little ladies think we’d not notice? It got mighty cold, and we were wond’rin’ why.”

  “So we came down here, and—” The brute flung his arms up and cried as a needle the size of a finger plunged into his spine.

  Lavery pricked two more men, jamming the needles into their ribs as they wheeled around.

  “You little urchin!”

  “I want his head!”

  “No, I got his brains. You can have his toes.”

  “I don’t want his toes. I’ll take that nice, juicy heart, though.”

  The ogres formed a curved wall that closed in on Lavery. The men he stuck showed no ill effects. Had the women been wrong? Had he chosen the wrong needles?

  “Now, you hand those over,” said the man in the middle. His shoulders reminded Lavery of sculpted rock. “Maybe if you cooperate, we won’t eat your eyeballs first.” The man laughed at that. Or rather, he tried. What came out was a stifled chuckle. His eyes bulged and he clutched at his throat.

  The others didn’t seem to notice, until the other two Lavery had stabbed fell to their knees, shaking the ground.

  “Ruman, what’re you—Pratch, Broal, what’s wrong with you?” The man turned his fat, ugly mug to Lavery, scowling. “What did you do to them?”

  Clenching two needles, one in each hand, he said, “I made them go to sleep. I think it’s forever.” He lunged at the man and thrust the needle into his thigh. Lavery caught an unforgiving knee to his face. His head snapped back, and he staggered, holding his nose.

  “I’ll rip his cock off!”

  Lavery cocked his left hand. The three men—and then two, as the third collapsed without so much as a whimper—bore down on him. They were fast. And nimble. He didn’t expect such swiftness as a fist came at his face.

  He raised a hand to protect himself. It didn’t do much good. Five knuckles, hard as stone, slammed into his jaw.

  Lavery heard things crunch, and he was fairly certain those things were inside his face. He also heard a yip and a yowl as he fell to the ground. When Lavery had raised his hand, he had done so with the needle pointed outward. The stupid brute punched right through the tip, sealing his fate.

  That left only one stupid brute to deal with.

  “I’m gonna enjoy this,” the brute said. He had a zigzagging scar that ran from his forehead to his nose, slicing through his brow. “Little urchin’s all out of his sorceries, isn’t he?”

  Lavery didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure if he could speak. It felt like a knife was being shoved through his jaw and out the other side. He rocked, hissing through barely open lips. The pain was immense, worse than anything he’d ever felt.

  “Where’d you come from, urchin?” the man said, looming over Lavery. He crouched and leaned in, his rotten breath like a festering wound that Lavery’s nose was pressed against.

  “F…rom—” Lavery winced. He massaged his jaw, but that worsened the pain. He could speak if he moved only his tongue, not his mouth.

  The brute brushed his fat finger over Lavery’s jaw. “From where, boy?”

  “From your nightmares,” Lavery said.

  The man had himself a good, hearty laugh. “I don’t have nightmares. Not anymore. See, I got myself a piece of land that those ladies over there”—he pointed to the women in the troughs—“are going to keep warm forever. Been over a thousand years, now, and I’ll keep ’em burning for another ten thousand. Their warmth grew me a garden, grew me a tree that bore me some apples. Mm! Sorcery is a great thing, huh?”

  He winked at Lavery. His lips twisted into a sadistic smile, mirrored by his baleful eyes.

  “You won’t—” He hissed, pain coming with every word. “You… won’t… live forever.” He deftly shifted his hand, moved it subtly to the pocket of his pants.

  “Maybe you’re right,” the brute said. “Maybe I’ll get tired of living the perfect life.” He put on a contemplative face. “You could be my slave boy, little urchin. Would you like that?”

  “No,” Lavery said, hand now in his pocket.

  “No? Then I’ll kill you.”

  Lavery thrust his hand forward and sunk a needle into the man’s breast.

  The man squirmed wildly. He wrenched the needle from his flesh, turned it around and aimed it at Lavery.

  Everything up until that point had mostly gone according to plan, shattered jaw notwithstanding. This, however, was not in Lavery’s plans. At least not those that ended with his survival.

  Lavery pushed as firmly and as strongly as he could into the ground and kicked at the brute’s gut. His attempted blow was slapped aside, and so was his second.

  Foamy spit dribbling out of his mouth, the man drove the needle downward like he was swinging a hammer. Lavery grasped his thick wrist, slowing the man’s momentum. But Lavery wasn’t strong enough. He wasn’t big enough.

  Or maybe he was. The needle lowered toward his throat not with a rapid approach but one that was waning, petering.

  Lavery soon realized this had nothing to do with strength. The man, quite simply, was going to sleep.

  And sleep he did, right on top of Lavery.

  Lavery wriggled and wiggled and floundered under the immense weight—dead weight—of the brute. “Get… off… of… me!” He managed to get an arm free, and then a leg. Eventually all limbs and body parts were accounted for, and he got to his feet and ran to the women in the troughs.

  “They’re all—” He covered his mouth and doubled over. It felt like his jaw had fallen away from his face.

  “There is a vial that will heal you,” said one of the women. “It is called Amelorris. Go, take
it, then come back to us.”

  This vial sounded promising, but Lavery was hesitant to inject himself with a foreign substance. “Are there any—” He reeled back, unable to say another word. The pain was too immense, too sharp.

  “Unfortunate effects?” the woman asked. “Yes. Your bones will grow weaker, and your tolerance for pain will lessen. But you will not notice such changes with only one injection. It would take… many.”

  Lavery nodded. Even if he did notice those changes, they were worth it. He couldn’t keep going with a shattered jaw. Traveling through the Ancient Lands had proven difficult enough with good health and intact parts.

  Lavery returned to the pillar of rock, where he’d left the bag of vials. He sorted through them, till he came across one with Amelorris etched into its surface.

  “Any needle will do,” one of the women called out. “And you may inject it anywhere. I suggest your thigh. Use only a small amount of Amelorris.”

  If any needle will do, he thought, then I’m choosing the smallest one. He sifted through the capped needles until he found one no longer than his thumbnail. He stuck the needle inside the vial, pulled the plunger up. That looks like a small amount. Here goes nothing.

  His hand hovered above his thigh for a moment. The needle trembled. Okay. Just… don’t think about it. Don’t—he stabbed his thigh, and yipped. It wasn’t particularly painful. No worse than the many beestings he’d gotten during his barefooted walks in the Graw Woods.

  Within seconds, the repeated knifelike jabs shooting through his jaw relented. He waited a few more moments, then attempted to speak. “I hope this doesn’t hurt.” He regarded the Amelorris vial with a deep, furrowed brow. “Hmm. Well, that’s—” He felt his jaw. It seemed perfectly well off. “That’s amazing.”

  “It’s a mutation,” said one of the women. “Come here, and leave that vial behind.”

  “This could come in handy,” Lavery said, keeping hold of it.

  “It will destroy you. Your bones will become so brittle, they will fracture with the flick of your toe.”