Portals of Infinity: Book Two: The God Game

by John Van Stry

  He came at me more slowly then and we engaged. He was actually fairly strong and he was rather good. He was having problems with my left-handed style because when we were toe to toe my power side was not to his shield, which was making it hard for him to bring the shield to bear against me in the fight. This was good for me because it had short spikes sticking out of it and a wicked sharp edge on the right side for the purpose of trying to maim my sword hand whenever we got in close.

  If I had been fighting right handed that is.

  I started off slow and easy, blocking his sword with the shortsword and punishing him with hits from the bastard sword whenever I could. I was using the edge on it; I didn’t want him to know I could be a point fighter too, especially as all the edge strikes on his armor weren’t even denting it. I’d have to get him at the joints, plain and simple, like one of those Filipino fighters who used to do a number on the Spanish.

  “Ha! You cannot hurt me, popinjay!” He said to me as I continued to lead him to the left so I could keep attacking his open side.

  “Says the slow man in the can,” I laughed back at him. “Do you win fights by boring your opponent to death?”

  “I will piss on your grave!” He growled and I suddenly saw my opening. I let go of the shortsword and grabbed the bastard sword with both hands switching to a right hand grip as I did so. I had been winding up for another hit to his side but with the change in grip and stance I spun the sword in a wide arc and came down hard on his elbow.

  He screamed in pain when I did that. Amazingly the armor’s joint held, but his elbow inside did not and I could tell I had shattered the joint as his arm came down and the shield fell out of position. I did two spinning attacks to his head with the sword putting my strength into it while he was disorientated. The first hit his helmet and he gave another cry of pain, but he blocked the second one and tried to drop the shield. I knocked his sword to the side and put the bottom of my foot against his chest and shoved, he back peddled.

  I did it again; he gave ground again still trying to lose the shield. I guess his hand wasn’t working right. I did it two more times until he was up against the wall. When he hit the wall his sword arm went wide and I switched grips again and drove the sword in point first putting all my weight behind it. For a brief moment I thought his armor was going to hold, but then it slid home, through his body and stopped when it hit the back piece.

  He tried to hit me with his sword then, I ducked under the first strike and grabbed his wrist with both hands and bent it back forcing him to drop the sword to the floor. Taking a step back, I put my foot on the pommel of my sword and put all my weight into driving it through the back piece and pinning him to the wall.

  Turning I walked back to my shortsword and picked it up. He was cursing and swearing at me the whole time, blood was leaking out of his armor at this point rather copiously.

  I undid the catches on his helmet, pulled it off, and took him under the chin with the sword, driving it up into the brain and killing him instantly so he wouldn’t suffer any longer. I’m not sure which the applauding guests would have appreciated more, but the idea of letting him suffer didn’t sit at all well with me.

  I turned and walked halfway to the king, bowed to him, and then returned to Jocelyn who was very happy to see me and started whispering in my ear that her rooms weren’t that far from here.

  Looking up, I saw the king and Stephanie were departin, arms entwined, and all of the guests had paired up and left, except for one of the princes who was rather energetically pairing with his wife who obviously was not the shy type at all.

  I let Jocelyn lead me off to her room then while listening to her gush about what a brave, talented, and strong barbarian I was.

  “So does the king do that often?” I asked her much later as we lay in her bed, which I had to say, was the most comfortable thing I’d ever laid down on in my life. Someone could make a fortune selling these back home.

  “Most barbarians that come through here are a pretty rough crowd. The king would use Harker to take them down a notch when he killed their champion. You’re the first group that ever showed up to dinner dressed in suits! I thought you were going to die for sure.” Jocelyn started running her hands up and down my body again. I guess she had quite the fascination for barbarians. I thought about telling her I wasn’t one, but she wouldn’t believe me anyway I was sure.

  “He won’t be mad at me, will he?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll have Harker replaced within a week. I’ve heard this does happen every so often.”

  “Does he often sleep with barbarian women?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “Only if they remember to bring him an attractive one!” She giggled. “Of course, I think everyone was surprised that your leader was a woman. Normally, women don’t hold much sway in barbarian societies.”

  I let my fingers do a little exploring of my own; she really did have a lovely body. “Not all barbarian societies are the same. Why I’ll even demonstrate by allowing you to be on top this time!” I laughed.

  Of course I had to spend the rest of the night upholding the reputation of barbarians everywhere. Or at least that was the excuse I gave the rest of the group when I caught up with them late the next day in the hotel.

  “So where is Stephanie?” I asked yawning when I looked at all of the other tired faces gathered around the table.

  “Still with the king I gather.” Dezba said, “These people sure are a lusty lot.”

  “This from the woman who took two of them to bed?” Cenewyg teased.

  “What can I say? I miss my husbands,” she replied without a trace of embarrassment.

  “How many do you have now?” Cenewyg asked.

  “Three.”

  “Joseph, where’s Aoe?” I asked looking at him.

  “Passed out in my bed,” he said preening. “I rocked her world all night and into the morning.”

  “Well, let’s order some room service, I’m famished.”

  “Order a lot for me too,” Stephanie said opening the door and entering the room.

  “What, he didn’t even buy you breakfast?” I laughed.

  “That was hours ago. We worked up a healthy appetite since then, I tell you that man in insatiable. Nice job there, Will. You didn’t make it look too easy and impressed the king. He’ll have a ship ready for us to borrow a few weeks from now.”

  “Thanks, and I think any of us probably could have taken him. I didn’t even have to use anything special, just the basics.”

  “I noticed. That’s why I’m impressed.”

  “Why is it going to take them so long to get us a ship?” Joseph asked. “This place is like crawling with them.”

  “He’s having one specially built. The gate we need to go through leads to another water world like this one. Their boats won’t work there, so he’s building us one that not only will, but that we can use.”

  “Wow, that’s really nice of him,” Dezba said. “How many times did you have to get laid to get him to give us that?”

  “I told him that if he wanted to get you in bed, he’d need to give us something really special.” Stephanie said sitting down and putting her feet up.

  “Really?” Dezba sat up eyes wide and looking excited, “Oh when, when, I can’t wait!”

  “You’re a lousy liar,” Cenewyg said picking up the phone to order room service.

  “Oh? What gave me away?”

  “The fact that you’re still here.”

  “There is that. So what’s the real reason?”

  “He figures that if he helps us, when we get home and tell of his good deeds with promises of help and support that our armies will move on Ithaca, take the city, and open trading back up.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “Guess he’s king for a reason,” I added.

  “Too bad for him it probably won’t happen,” Joseph added softly.

  “Don’t be too sure about that,” Stephanie replied, “The right word in the ri
ght ear and it’ll happen. That city back there is ripe for the picking; someone just needs a little incentive.”

  “Sounds like something for Aryanna to worry about.”

  “Exactly. Now where is that food? I’m famished. The king is taking me out later for a few days on his private yacht.”

  “Well, have fun with that,” Cenewyg grumbled.

  “Oh please, I know you spent the night entertaining his wife.”

  “You’d never know she’s had five kids. Medical science is pretty advanced here.” He smirked.

  “Anything else we need to know?” Dezba asked.

  “Not really, party all you want, but don’t get too out of hand. Expect to get a lot of propositions to spend the night. Oh, and, Will.”

  “I know, I know,” I raised my hand, “keep it in my pants.”

  Stephanie laughed, “Wrong! You’re a big hero now. Custom has it that any woman who wants to bear your child is free to without any shame or dishonor. So don’t be surprised if one of the princesses shows up in your bed.”

  I sat up and blinked. “I can breed any gal I want?”

  “If she’s willing, yup.”

  The other’s all looked at me.

  “What?” I said looking back. “I like having kids. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You’re such an idiot,” Dezba sighed and shook her head.

  I grinned back at her. Part of me wanted to tell Dezba how I liked having kids because I liked to dote on them. But I remembered what Stephanie had said, so I just let them think the worse.

  The next two weeks were definitely different. The princess who was single was the first to make a move on me. Then one of her sisters and after that the floodgates broke open. I ended up staying at the palace living in Jocelyn’s room. As far as I was concerned, she had me first, so she had priority. She had no qualms about admitting she was trying to get my child in her. The whole reason she had been seated next to me at the table was because her time was right.

  Stephanie's little comment about thinking with my dick however was still in the back of my head, even though it had been almost a year ago. While the occasional romp in the sack with someone else was always fun, after a few days here I started to feel at times like a breeding stud and not much more.

  When we set out on the sea, I knew for sure that Jocelyn, one princess, and one other woman had my child in them. And I felt guilty as hell about having to leave them behind.

  “That’s why you’re an idiot,” Dezba told me our last night there as we rode the king’s ship to the portal and I looked back at the island feeling somewhat dejected. “Aryanna would never have picked a guy who could walk away from his kids that easily.”

  It took a full day’s sailing to get us where we needed to be, it was quite the distance away. They lowered our boat to the water; it was a rather nice one, a trimaran with rather large hulls. Made more for stability than speed.

  We all boarded, pushed off, and headed for the portal. We could all feel it at this point.

  “So where are we headed now? Thrinacia?” Joseph asked.

  “No, Ogygia.” Stephanie said. “I thought Ogygia was an island here and Thrinacia was the next sphere. But I was wrong. We have to pass through the sphere that Qgygia is in, then we get to Thrinacia.”

  “So what do we have to deal with in this next one?”

  “I’m not too sure, but I have some information. The king’s scribes had some maps that I copied; in the spring and in the fall, they meet several times to trade with the fishermen from here for food. So they have gathered quite a bit of information over the millennia. I gather at one time these spheres were all linked a lot closer than they are today.”

  “Does that mean you know where we’re going next?” Cenewyg asked.

  “I have a pretty good idea; we pass within sight of the island Ogygia and then head due west. But....”

  “But?”

  “I’m not sure we need to go by Thrinacia.”

  We passed through the portal at that point and I was surprised to see that we all changed rather drastically. Stephanie and Dezba had both become rather attractive to put it mildly, and began to shed their clothes immediately. Joseph, Cenewyg, and myself also changed, we all had pointed beards, long hair, balding heads, long pointed ears and horses’ tails. I found the desire to have sex with Steph and Dezba completely overwhelming and shed my clothes as fast as the rest.

  I’m not sure how long the orgy lasted, and it seriously was an orgy. Cenewyg was the first to gain some semblance of control and shifted into his champion form. That pretty much triggered all the rest of us to do the same and we all literally fell to the deck and passed out from exhaustion.

  “What the hell was that?” I groaned when I awoke some time later as the sun came up, the light in my eyes waking me as I lay on the deck. I was sore in a number of places, but the worst case was my crotch.

  “We were turned into satyrs,” Cenewyg told me as he slowly gathered himself up and crawled towards the galley. “Steph and Dez were turned into nymphs, who are pretty much the sexual prey of satyrs, and often fairly willing ones at that I would now suspect.”

  “I thought satyrs were half goat?” I groaned and rolled to my hands and knees and followed him. I noticed the other three were stirring and doing the same.

  “That’s the Roman ones, not the original Greek ones.”

  “Damn, how long did that go on?” Joseph grumbled.

  “Not nearly long enough!” Dezba laughed and Stephanie took a weak swing at her.

  “I myself do not approve of suddenly being turned into a wanton slut whose only interested is getting laid.” Stephanie grumbled.

  “Well if I remember my ancient classical history well enough,” Cenewyg said getting to his feet and opening one of the cupboards to pull out a box of food. “Satyrs and nymphs only tend to act this way when they’re in the company of each other.”

  “So then we just need to make sure that we stay in our champion forms,” I said opening the box Cenewyg handed me and digging into the cereal inside. I didn’t care what kind of food it was, I just needed food. And lots of it.

  “Any mixed crew sailing into this place would probably starve to death,” Stephanie said starting in on her own box.

  “Still, it was fun,” Dezba sighed and smiled.

  “And you talk about me!” I grumbled at Stephanie who started to giggle loudly between mouthfuls of food.

  We discovered later that our little unexpected party had lasted almost three days. The worst part about it however was that it really hadn’t been all that enjoyable. Oh it had been kind of fun at first, but after a while it was more of just an instinctual response. Something those forms were conditioned to do. Being as we were all on a boat in the middle of the ocean, it wasn’t even possible for us to have gotten away from each other. I suspect that normally the nymphs run off while the satyrs are lying on the ground exhausted.

  At least we were pointed in the right direction and had passed the isle of Ogygia during our little sojourn. But we hadn’t passed it by that much, as most of the sails were down. So we got the rest run up and were on our way after a decent meal and a nap.

  Stephanie and Cenewyg spent quite a bit of time apart from the others talking about something while Joseph and I rigged the sails and Dezba steered the boat. Much later, after the sun had set I cornered Stephanie myself.

  “What were you and Cen going on about earlier?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure that’s any of your business, Will,” she said looking a little cross.

  I threw up my hands, “Steph, it’s a small boat and I have exceptionally good hearing like this,” I gestured to my felinoid form. “I’m sorry if I’m out of bounds, but I can’t help being curious. You can just tell me to drop a subject; you don’t have to get snippy with me.”

  “Would you?” She asked, “Drop it?”

  I nodded, “You’re the boss.”

  “You know while we were changed you went after me quite
a bit more than Dezba. More than the others even did.”

  “Yeah well, I like Dezba, but I was in love with you. Still am, I guess.” I shrugged and sat down on the deck. My feline form had almost two feet in height on her more human champion form. “Sorry if it bothered you.”

  “Actually I think it bothered Cen.” She sighed and sat down next to me.

  “What?” I looked over at her shocked, “You bunk with him far more than you do with me.”

  “Well, apparently he thinks I preferred you over him during that little episode.”

  I stopped and stared at her a moment, Stephanie looked up at me and blushed.

  “You do prefer me, don’t you?” I whispered surprised.

  Stephanie blushed even deeper.

  “Okay, I’m lost.” I admitted.

  “Cenewyg has a pretty good idea where we are going.”

  “Oh?”

  “He figured it out from adding up what has happened so far. Apparently it is in your ancient literature.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “It might be, I don’t know.”

  “Can I ask why it might be a bad thing?”

  “Sorry, Will, I can’t tell you.” Stephanie sighed. “I don’t even remember everything about this mission. Ary has blocked out parts of it I don’t need to know until I need to know it.”

  “That just sounds weird.”

  She shrugged, “I agreed to it actually. If it’s blocked by Ary then another god can’t pull it out of my mind, even if I’m dead and in his domain.”

  “I see, so the fear is that if Cenewyg dies, the destination could get pulled out of his mind, and then the mission might be compromised.”

  “Something like that.”

  I sighed. “In that case if at any point it looks like he’s going to buy it, I’ll put myself in the way.”

  Stephanie smiled a little wanly, “Thanks, Will.”

  “Eh, dying sucks but at least for us it’s not permanent. Besides, I know this is important to Aryanna, so I’ll do what I have to do.”