Portals of Infinity: Book Two: The God Game

by John Van Stry

  “It’s important to me too.” Stephanie said and reached over to take my hand. “Let’s go to bed.”

  I smiled, “Okay.”

  I was a bit surprised at Stephanie that night, she showed me quite a bit of passion and affection in bed.

  “I’ll still be spending a lot of time with Cen and Joe,” Stephanie told me the next morning, giving me a rather contented look as she lay on my stomach.

  “I’m surprised you agreed to have sex with me, seeing as I’m not in a human form,” I said while purring at her.

  “To be honest, it was kind of fun, especially with the fur and the purring.”

  “Well, it’s just nice to know that you care.”

  “Of course I care, and no I won’t marry you!” She teased.

  “Trust me; I’m not looking for a third wife.” I grinned back at her. “I don’t mind if you want to spend time with the others. I’m just happy we had last night, I hope we get to do it again.”

  “You make it sound like I haven’t slept with you since we started this,” She said eyeing me.

  “Last night we didn’t sleep together, we made love. We haven’t done that since we broke up. There’s a difference.” I purred.

  “Oh really now?” She said looking at me slightly askance.

  “Take it from the man who has two wives,” I said with a wink. “I know the difference.”

  Stephanie blushed again, then getting up she gathered up her things and left for her cabin. But not before giving me a kiss on the nose.

  “So, have fun?”

  It was much later on the deck and Cenewyg had come up to me as I took my turn at the helm.

  “Yes, of course,” I said and smiled at him. “I like Stephanie.”

  “I’m sort of surprised she’d sleep with you like that,” he said gesturing to my still feline body. We’d all decided to stay in our champion forms, it was safer that way. All the others were pretty much human looking, so I definitely stood out.

  I shrugged at him; he seemed a little edgy for some reason so I felt a little misdirection might be interesting. “I think she was being nice to me because she had just told me that your living to the end is more important than me.”

  Cenewyg’s eyes opened a little wider in surprise, “How’s that?”

  “Simple,” I said checking our course, “if it looks like something is gonna kill you, I get to step in front of you and take the hit.”

  “She tell you why?” He asked sounding a little suspicious.

  “Nope.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?” He said sounding genuinely curious.

  “Cause then I get to go home and play with my toys,” I said and gave him a wink.

  Cenewyg looked startled for an instant, but only for a very brief one. I almost missed seeing it. He then smiled and laughed. “Ah yes, I believe I heard you have a couple of hot women waiting for you back home.”

  “Yup, certainly would be a lot more fun hanging out back there then being here. But well I promised, so here I am.”

  Cenewyg nodded. “Indeed.” Then as I watched, he went and found Stephanie and gave her a hug, then started talking to her. I couldn’t really make out much of what they were saying, but he did sound both rather smug and contrite at the same time. When Stephanie glanced at me over Cenewyg’s shoulder, I winked at her and went back to steering the boat.

  “So where are we off to now?” Dezba asked coming up to me.

  “Not sure exactly. Thrinacia I guess. Stephanie told me she was hoping to bypass it, but after what happened she’s not willing to stop at Ogygia and ask for information.”

  “Can’t say I blame her. Do we know anything about Thrinacia?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do we know where the gate is?”

  “Supposed to be in that general direction about a week from here.” I said pointing to the northwest.

  “What comes after that?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “What’s up with Cen anyway?”

  I looked up from the compass at her, “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been acting a little funny all day.”

  “How so?”

  “Well first he wanted to sleep alone last night. He’s never done that before.”

  I thought about that, was he jealous? “And?”

  “He kept to himself pretty much all morning. He only started talking to anyone when he came up to you, though now he is talking with Steph.”

  “I’m wondering if he’s a little jealous of me.” I shrugged.

  “Of you?” Dezba laughed. “Why would he be jealous?”

  “No idea. But Steph kind of dropped a hint he might be. Maybe it’s because I’m the new guy? I haven’t really been doing this much more than a year now.”

  “I heard about the job you did, pretty impressive. I don’t see... oh wait. Maybe I do.” Dezba said stopping and thinking.

  “Where did you hear about it?” I asked surprised.

  “My god told me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cen’s god told him as well.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “From what I gather, all of our gods and goddesses keep in touch. Aryanna apparently has quite the little circle of friends.”

  “I still don’t understand that. Well if they were in the same sphere I would understand. But my Fel’s sphere and Ary’s sphere aren’t even close.”

  Dezba shrugged again and dropped into one of the seats by the controls putting her feet up on the console. “They’re not human, or whatever you are this week,” she added the last laughing. “So don’t even begin to try and understand everything they do. I gather it’s some kind of a game they all play amongst themselves. This is above and beyond their cut throat battles within their own spheres of course.”

  I shook my head. “So anyway, I don’t know what’s up with Cen, or why. Not even sure I want to know. Hopefully we’ll be done with this in a few more weeks and I won’t have to deal with him ever again.”

  “Oh, don’t be too sure about that.”

  “Now what?”

  “This isn’t the first time some of us have had to get together to take care of some sort of task for Aryanna or one of her friends. This is just the largest one.”

  I sighed, “I thought you all seemed a little too friendly with each other.”

  “Oh this is only the second time I’ve met Joe, but I’ve had to do things with Cen or Steph a number of times. Plus Steph and I do like to visit each other. After a while, it’s kind of hard to relate with the norms. They just don’t live as long as you do, but other champions?”

  “I guess that makes a certain amount of sense.” I thought a moment, “How many champions do you know, by the way?”

  “I’ve met about fifty or so. I only know about twenty of them well and I’d say I’m probably on good terms with maybe a dozen of them.”

  I had a moment of inspiration then. “Is Cen in that dozen?”

  Dezba scowled a little bit. “Not anymore.”

  “When did that change?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said looking over at where Cen and Steph were still chatting. “I just know that I don’t exactly like him anymore. I think it started after Steph had you fight the Phaeacians champion instead of him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cen’s supposed to be the better fighter.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but he almost always fights in his champion form which isn’t much different than what he looks like normally in most spheres being as he’s a champion in a human sphere. You took that guy on in a base form. I was impressed.”

  “Why thank you,” I said flicking my ears in embarrassment.

  “You know, you look good like that,” she said turning back to me and smiling.

  “I know,” I said with a smirk.

  “Hey, this a private conversation?” Joseph asked coming over.

  Nope, pull up a piece of rail and join in.”
>
  “So, Cen getting over his snit fit?”

  “Wow, even you noticed!” Dezba laughed.

  Joseph shrugged, “Cen’s barely polite to me to start with. So yeah, I notice when he’s really feeling pissy; ‘cause he tries to take it out on me.

  “So where are we off to now?”

  “Thrinacia,” I said.

  “Any idea what we’re going to do there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Would be nice to know how much longer this is going to go on.”

  “Well, don’t look at me, I don’t have a clue.”

  Dezba shook her head, “Don’t ask me.”

  “I bet Cen knows,” Joseph said.

  “Really?” Dezba said surprised. My own ears perked up at that.

  “He’s got that smug ‘I know something that you don’t know’ look on his face. Seen it on my sisters’ faces while growing up a thousand times. And look at how he’s playing up to Stephanie now.” Joseph shook his head. “I’m sure he’ll rub it all in when we finish this, you know how he likes proving he’s superior to the rest of us.”

  “There is that,” Dezba said nodding and looking back over at me.

  From the look Dez gave me I started to suspect that Cen and I were going to have a confrontation at some point in the future, over what, or why, I didn't know. But the feeling was there all the same.

  Four

  The atmosphere on the boat subtly shifted after that, Cenewyg would only sleep with Stephanie from that point on, though I suspected that might have been more Dezba’s refusing him than the other way around. Dezba and I did get together a few times but oddly enough she was spending more time with Joseph. I myself was spending more time with Stephanie then I had been which was nice, even if it did make Cenewyg a bit surly at times.

  But even I could tell that Cenewyg had withdrawn from us, well not from Stephanie, just the rest of us. If he wasn’t spending time with Stephanie he might try to chat one of the rest of us up, either trying to find out what we might know about what was going on, or asking questions about our pasts, but he didn’t take part in any of the group conversations anymore.

  I remembered Stephanie’s rule number two however and was not only careful in what I told him, but lied quite a bit as well.

  It took us two weeks to find the next portal, once we got to the general area Stephanie was told it was in, it took a week of sailing around the area until we actually located it. It was near one of the islands thankfully, or we’d probably never have found it. Finding things on the open sea seemed almost impossible.

  We turned back to humans, natural humans, when we went through the next portal. I think I was happiest about it, because I did not want to stand out if we should run into anyone.

  “Well, which way?” Dezba asked Stephanie.

  “East,” she said pointing.

  “Is that a beach I see?” Joseph asked.

  "Yes, we need to find some fresh water and refill our tanks."

  "So we really can sail through to the next portal then?" Cenewyg asked in a voice that suddenly made me believe that he did know something I didn’t.

  I noticed Stephanie stopped and looked at him a moment. "I'm not sure."

  Cenewyg shrugged and said nothing more and Stephanie glanced my way a moment. "We'll anchor off the beach," She looked up at the position of the sun in the sky, "And in the morning we'll go ashore and look for a source of water."

  We all set to work then and Joseph turned the boat to head to the part of the beach that looked easiest to land on. He got us to about a hundred feel of the shore before it was too shallow for the boat to get any closer, so I set out the anchors and reefed all the sails.

  Joseph got the small dingy unlashed from atop the main cabin and set in the water while I checked the anchors.

  “Might as well do a quick check of the beach while we still have some daylight left,” he told Stephanie. “Mind if I take Will?”

  “No, just don’t go too far.”

  “Sure thing. Will?” He turned to me and I nodded.

  “Why me?” I asked as I climbed over the side and got into the small boat with him.

  “I figure we’re the only two who really know how to row a boat and I don’t feeling like teaching anyone else tonight,” he laughed.

  I grinned at him and took the oars while he took the small tiller. Not that it really mattered on a boat this small. It only took a couple of minutes and we were grounded on the beach. Climbing out, we pulled the boat up past the waves.

  “And what’s the real reason?” I asked Joseph as we started to walk up the small hill behind the beach to take a look around.

  “Just wanted to get away from Cen for a while. Guy is driving me nuts.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked curious.

  “He seems to think I’m some sort of faggot or something,” Joseph sighed.

  “Wait, what?” I asked and laughed, “With all the times you’ve slept with one of the girls, how can he say that?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Joseph said looking confused.

  I stopped and thought a moment, “Where I come from that means you prefer partners of the same sex.”

  “And people care about that?” He still looked confused.

  “Well, what does it mean to you?”

  “Where I come from it means you’re a man who wants a woman who will treat you like a baby and protect you.”

  I tried to wrap my head around that. “I don’t think I understand.”

  “Women are the ones who run things, who are in charge where I grew up.”

  I nodded; Stephanie had told me he came from a rather matriarchal society.

  “Well, it’s the job of the men to protect the women and children, do all the work, gather the food, fight the wars, enforce the laws that the women give us. Calling someone a faggot is a huge insult, it implies that you’re not man enough to do your part for society, that you’re less than a man, that no woman would want you.”

  “So has he called you that? I think to a Brit like him a faggot is a small piece of wood or something.” I said remembering something I once heard.

  “Oh, he hasn’t said anything directly, but he was getting on my case a little about my being reluctant to come back after we got killed that first time.”

  I shrugged, “You weren’t the only one. That was a first time for me and it took me a while too.”

  “Still, he’s really been bugging me the last week. Just wanted to get away from him.”

  We got to the top of the hill and looked around.

  I pointed to the north, “That look like a stream to you?”

  Joseph shaded his eyes a bit. “Yup. Probably a half-hour walk from here. Doesn’t look too hard to get to either.”

  I nodded. “So what do you think we’re doing?”

  He shrugged, “Really don’t care. My god and Aryanna want it done, that’s good enough for me, why?”

  Now it was my turn to shrug, “This is my first time doing something like this. I know so little about this larger...” I paused lost for words a moment and waved my arms at the world around us, “Hell I don’t even know what to call all of this we’re involved in! I just feel so lost at times, the others maybe understand it, but I sure don’t.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that. I’m still coming to terms with all of this myself. Stephanie told me that it gets easier with time.”

  “I just wonder at times what could a goddess want that we have to go and get it.”

  Joseph laughed, “Ask Cen, he sure acts like he knows!”

  “You think so?”

  “Maybe, he can be a pretty smug ass at times, but he’s rarely wrong. Course knowing him, he probably wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Really? I’d think he’d want to rub it in when he was proven right.”

  Joseph shook his head, “He’s the type to just enjoy lording over you that he knows and you don’t. Haven’t you noticed that he’s been teasing Steph about it?”


  I had, but I didn’t say so. “Not really.”

  “Well, he is. Let’s get back to the boat; the sun is starting to get pretty low.”

  I nodded and followed him back. It was funny, when we first started out I thought I had Joseph pegged as a whiner and Cen as a straight up guy. Now I was starting to realize that Joseph was the straight up guy, but Cen, well I was no longer sure about him at all.

  When we had started this whole job, I really didn’t care that much about what it was, I pretty much felt like Joseph did; Ary and Fel asked me to do it, so that was good enough for me. But now that it seemed that Cen was starting to get an idea of what we were up to, his attitude was changing, and Stephanie was worried about what he might know.

  So not only might he have guessed where we were going, but he had suspicions as to why we were going, and that was apparently a bad thing. But if it was because Stephanie and Ary were worried about some god or goddess picking it out of his mind if he was killed, or some other deeper and darker reason, I had no idea. It just bothered me, because it bothered Stephanie.

  Because I still loved her.

  I sighed as I thought about that, I had two wives, both of whom I loved quite a bit, and I still had a thing for yet another woman. Stephanie was right, I really did think with my dick.

  I made sure to sleep alone that night, and told Fel I wanted to dream about Darlene and Rachel before I went to sleep. Apparently he was listening because I did, and I had to admit it was wonderful seeing them again, if only in my dreams.

  The next morning we got an early start. Joseph suggested that we move the boat to where the stream came to the sea, to make it easier to get the water loaded, so we weighed anchor and did just that. As it turned out, we were able to sail into the mouth of the stream, and just waited for the tide to change so we could get fresh water instead of brackish. Then a few cantrips to purify it and we were ready to go when high tide returned.

  “I think I’m going to take a walk and stretch my legs,” Dezba said after we got things squared away.

  “Mind if I come along?” Cenewyg asked. “I could stand to get off this boat for a while too.”