Portals of Infinity
Book Two
The God Game
Published by John Van Stry
Copyright 2014 John Van Stry
Copyright John Van Stry 2014
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One
The ways of the gods are subtle, well at least that’s what people (and even the gods) often say. The fact is, gods have a really poor sense of time, especially the older they get. Fel was a new god, he’d been doing it about three or four hundred years – so time still meant something to him, which was good for his people.
Aryanna had been a god for several thousand years from what I gathered, and while immediately to her was now, soon could be anywhere from a month to a decade. I got to see my son born, which was nice. Rachel was very happy with my being there. The priestess bore me a daughter, which I was also there for, and which was also nice. The priestess’s full name, I finally discovered, was Narasamman and she named our daughter Tirumalamman. I was considerably happier with Rachel naming our son Baron.
I also spent a lot of time with Darlene, who apparently had a bad dream while I was gone. I suspected it was about the time I had been killed by Stephanie. As I felt it was Stephanie’s fault, I asked her to ask Aryanna if she could do something to keep my wife from having nightmares after we left.
And leave we finally did, six months later. There were five of us, Stephanie was in charge of course, and was the oldest and most experienced. Conversely, I was the youngest and least experienced. The other three were Joseph, Cenewyg, and Dezba.
Dezba and Cenewyg were actually from the same Earth as I, Dezba was a Navajo Indian and she’d been recruited in the eighteen hundreds, I wasn’t sure when, my knowledge of history wasn’t the best sadly. Cenewyg, or Cen, was from England, the early nineteen hundreds, 1919 to be exact. He had been in the war and was apparently not happy with life afterwards. He was quite fond of being a champion and told me so. More than once.
Joseph was well, Joseph. The sphere he came from was technologically advanced well past that of my own; I gathered that he came from the same place as Stephanie had, just much more recently. He was the second newest after me; he’d been doing this job for less than a decade.
“So, where are we off to?” I asked Stephanie. We were on earth of all places, riding in an airliner on our way to Athens. I’d never been to Athens, though I had the feeling I wasn’t going to get any time to do any sightseeing.
“Ithaca.”
“Ithaca? What’s in Ithaca?” At least I knew there was an Ithaca in Greece, and not just the one in upstate New York I’d visited.
“You’ll find out when we get there,” she said scowling.
“What’d I do?” I asked looking around at the others. We were all sitting in first class on a British Airways flight. I guess Stephanie had some connection or something in London that got us all the paperwork we needed rather easily. After she parted with the proper amount of gold I’m sure.
“This is neither the place nor the time to discuss this matter,” She said.
I looked at the others, Cenewyg smiled and shrugged, “Don’t look at me, I just work here!” He laughed. “Though it is possible that our fearless leader here doesn’t yet know herself.”
Stephanie scowled at Cenewyg then, and he just smiled more.
“We need to rent a car and drive to the coast. Once there, we should be able to find a fishing vessel or a ferry or something to take us to the island. That’s all I can tell you right now.” She said.
“Do we need any weapons?” Dezba asked softly.
“Probably.”
“What kinds?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“So,” Cenewyg said looking at me, “any idea where we can get a sword in Greece these days?”
I looked back at them, “Hell, I don’t know where to get a sword back in London. Why didn’t we bring any gear with us?”
“Aryanna said we wouldn’t need it. So I didn’t.”
“I don’t know about that,” Joseph muttered.
“Trust me, airline security has gotten a lot worse in the last decade,” I told them. “I’m sure it would have complicated things.”
I looked back at Stephanie; I’d known the others for less than a day. We had all been introduced a little while before getting on the flight. “I guess we’ll find out when we find out.”
She nodded and I lay back in the seat and tried to do my best to just relax and enjoy the flight. At least things were easy.
The drive from Athens to Patra was anything but. Apparently, only two people knew how to drive a car, and Stephanie I knew from experience didn’t care much for doing it. Joseph was game to try, but he was used to something so radically different that he almost put us in a ditch when he drove. Obviously, some skills just did not transfer well from sphere to sphere and driving was one of them. So I drove the whole trip and the quality of the roads and the other drivers wasn’t anything I was used to.
At least we were able to find a boat to take us to the port on Ithaca. It wasn’t till we were well out to sea that Stephanie gathered us up on the bow of the boat out range of the prying ears of others. Not that they probably would have understood us, we weren’t speaking any local language, but I guess she wanted to be safe.
“We’re looking for a gate,” she said. “It used to be down near the shore, by the port. It could be anywhere now; the last reference to it was from three thousand years ago.”
“Where does it lead?” Cen asked.
“Ithaca.”
“I thought we were going to Ithaca?”
“The city of Ithaca was named after the sphere of Ithaca, and founded by a gate to it. Over the ages, the gate fell into disuse Aryanna guesses. Maybe the line of kings that used it died out or something. Whatever it was, Ithaca is the sphere where we need to start, and this is the only way into it she knows into it. So this is what we do, we get into town, we find some rooms, and we spend however long it takes combing the area until we find that gate.”
“What if there is more than one gate?” Dezba asked.
“Then we examine each one. But Aryanna is fairly certain that it will be obvious once we have found it.”
“Where is Aryanna getting her information from?” I asked.
Stephanie scowled at me.
“If you don’t know, just say so,” I sighed. “Look, I’m here for the duration; I gave my word on that. I’m not here just because Fel told me to be.”
“Aryanna is only telling me what I need to know, when I need to know,” Stephanie said.
“Why’s that?” Cen asked.
“Yeah, doesn’t she trust you?” Joseph added.
Stephanie, Dezba, and I all gave him a dirty look for that. Cen just looked amused.
“She gave me her reasons, which I’m not going to share, and I agreed with them. Th
at’s all you need to know.”
“So let’s go find a hotel for the night and we can go start looking in the morning,” I said and pointed towards the dock that was coming into view. “Not like its going anywhere on us.”
Everyone agreed and we broke up to wait for the boat to dock.
It took about an hour for us to get off the boat and find a place to stay. It was a quaint little hotel, and by quaint I mean run down and kind of shoddy. It wasn’t half as nice as my place back in Riverhead was and I mentioned as much to Stephanie.
“I thought you were from around here?” Joseph said, overhearing.
“I am.”
“Then why do you have an inn on her plane?”
“Because I do.” I didn’t really want to share my private life with these people, they were still strangers to me, and Stephanie’s little lesson was still fresh in my mind.
“He started building a nice little financial empire before Aryanna got around to recruiting him,” Stephanie said, rescuing me. “He twigged on quite the moneymaking idea and was doing rather well with it.”
“Inns huh?” Joseph said shrugging. “Sounds kind of boring if you ask me.”
“Sometimes, boring is good,” I replied. “I’m going to go for a walk, get the lay of the land. Meet you all back here later.”
They nodded and I walked out. I was a bit surprised when Dezba caught up with me a few minutes later.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“We will be traveling together for some time. I think it would be better if we got to know each other.”
“So why pick me first?”
“Well Steph and Cen have gone off together and I know enough about Joseph to know I do not care for his company tonight.”
“Stephanie and Cen went off together?” I repeated a bit surprised. And probably a bit jealous too. I wanted to spend some quality time with Stephanie now that I knew she had once been Jennifer, that whole trick with the knife not withstanding. So this came as a bit of a surprise.
“Yes,” she looked at me, “upset?”
I looked at her and shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know. Yeah, there once was a little something between us. But I’ve been told I think with my dick too much, so maybe this is better.”
Dezba started laughing at that and I tried not to blush too red. “So, you would sleep with me then?” She asked between giggles, which on her looked kind of strange as she was more of the ‘wonder woman’ athletic build, than Stephanie’s slender one.
I stopped and looked at her, she was smaller, by about three inches, had a figure that was athletic but definitely female. Her Navajo features made her look exotic, but her eyes and her general overall demeanor made it clear that this was a woman not to be taken lightly, that she would kick your ass if you weren’t careful.
“Is that a proposition?” I asked. I hadn’t considered her in that light before.
“What, do you think only men get lonely for companionship?” She said and laughed again.
“Yes, I would definitely sleep with you; you’re a very lovely woman. Is that what this was all about?”
Dezba shook her head still smiling, “No. Or not originally. I figured I’d set my little trap for you when we got back, if you did not pick up on any of my hints. However your candidness about your dick problem made me decide to be honest instead.”
I blinked, that was a mouthful. “And why was that?”
“Because, Will, people who think with their ‘dicks’ are the kind of people who seem to end up being champions!” And she giggled some more.
I shook my head and we both started walking again. “So what do you think we’re after?” I asked.
“Not an idea. But I’m sure it will be difficult.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m a very accomplished warrior. So I know is Cenewyg. I’m guessing that you?” She turned to look at me and I nodded.
“Stephanie is also, so it’s not as if we are here to solely escort.”
“What about our gods being in debt to Aryanna?”
“Oh, I’m sure that is important as well. But whatever it is, it does not matter.”
“Why?” I asked surprised.
“Because we’re going to do it. It will be interesting, and an exciting memory to add to our stories. I’d rather be surprised at the end than to know.”
“I guess I’d prefer to be surprised as well,” I said and grinned.
“I guess we will see then,” she smiled.
We talked some more as we walked. Mostly about our home spheres. She found my feline one to be rather interesting. Hers was more human, but the society was different, a nomadic herder society with hyper intelligent working ‘pets’ which they controlled via telepathy.
I didn’t feel so peculiar anymore, after hearing all of that.
We did eventually make it back to the hotel and I did spend the night in her room. It was enjoyable, and it was different. She didn’t cuddle well however, she was more the type to do it than receive it.
The next morning Joe looked a little put out, but I felt that was his problem. Stephanie looked a bit surprised, but I just looked at Cen, then back at her, and she had the good graces to blush.
It took us a week to find it, we had to split up and search the isle, but Dezba found it halfway up the mountain, not very far from a road either. There were some temple ruins on the location that made it fairly obvious that this was what we were looking for.
“So, let’s see what Ithaca looks like,” Cenewyg said as we all stood there looking at the gate. It was early morning; Stephanie thought it would be best to start then.
“I still think we should have brought weapons,” Joseph said.
“Eh, no one sells anything around here. Maybe we’ll find a shop there.” I said while I was studying the gate and trying to get a feel for it. This was only the fifth one I’d encountered and something about it agitated me. I couldn’t place it.
We stepped through then.
And we were slaughtered. It happened all so fast that even with my time adjusted senses it was over before it began. There were at least a hundred soldiers, who charged the moment we appeared. Behind them were archers, who let arrows fly and didn’t stop. I know I shifted into high gear, but I only killed a couple before I died. I had no idea how the others fared.
And then it got worse.
I spent the next three days in the worst hell you can imagine. The pain started the instant I got there, and it never ceased. There was taunting, there were voices, there were insanities. I kept trying to focus on making the time go faster, trying to keep my sanity, trying to keep my mind together. I could be destroyed here, and I knew it, and that knowledge fed my fears.
What ended up on the floor of Fel’s metaphysical bar three days later was a quivering mass of fear and insanity.
“Well, that didn’t go well.” Fel said as he put me back together.
When I could finally make a coherent enough thought to talk I asked him what happened.
“You were ambushed. All of you. Dezba lasted the longest, but only because she walked through last. There was a huge force apparently waiting for you.”
“What about, that, that torture?” I asked and shivered in fear of a remembered pain so great that it actually still hurt if you even just thought about it.
“The first time is always the worst, and whoever it was you fell afoul of, they were particularly bad. The key is to concentrate on me, and here, and who you are. Next time it won’t seem so bad.”
“Next time!” I wailed. “You can’t be serious!”
Fel looked at me and nodded. “Yes, I am serious. But not right away, you need to heal more. Walk with me a while.”
I staggered to my feet and followed him out of the bar.
We were in the mountains, same as the last time I had been here, but it was different this time. It was the highland valley, only there were no buildings, beyond the bar, and a hut where the castle now stood.
“This
is what it was like when my people first came to the valley. The hut was the first thing they built.”
He talked about the evolution of the city, and as he talked I watched it grow before my eyes, I saw it all, slowly, moment after moment, day after day. When it was finally finished, I realized I wanted to see Rachel; I wanted to see her very badly. I looked at Fel and he smiled.
“You’ve been here two weeks. You still have some healing to do yet, but I think it’s safe to let you go home.”
“Two weeks? I thought it only took three days?”
“Three days is the soonest. I’m a god Will, your god. I can keep you here as long as I want. Or as long as you need. Go.”
I went.
I spent the next month in Rachel’s arms. She knew something bad had happened, but didn’t ask any questions. The second month I spent riding the mountains and rounding up brigands and taking care of other similar problems. It might have been below a champion’s station, but I felt I needed to do it. I was still scared and I had to get over my fears. Another month and I was feeling better, so I kissed Rachel good bye and went to see Darlene.
The ride home there was nice and uneventful. She cried out my name in delight when I walked in the front door, and we disappeared to the private rooms for the rest of the day.
The next day I walked down to the temple, and walked into smaller sacristy in the back and put a silver coin on the altar. I don’t know if I needed to, I still wasn’t up on all the rules, but I knew it couldn’t hurt.
“How is Stephanie?” I asked.
“She is fine, my adopted son. Joseph and you had it the worst.”
“I need a while still,” I said softly. A priest walked in and looked at me surprised. He started to say something, suddenly stopped and quickly turned and left.
“I can give you a while. Joseph is being difficult as well.”
“I’m not being ‘difficult,’” I protested softly while staring at my feet. “I’ll do it, I promised. I just need a little while.”
Portals of Infinity: Book Two: The God Game Page 1