“Hold on,” the man said, and she barely had enough time to grab the chariot’s front bar before the man snapped his whip against the ruby horse’s back and they shot forward, the air rushing past Terra’s ears and tossing her hair around as they moved forward.
It was surprisingly fun, traveling down this freeway in such a unique way, and Terra forgot her worries for a few minutes, just enjoying the feel of the wind and the view of the beautiful horses and chariots traveling in the lanes to their left and right.
“My name is Hephastae, and what is yours?” He turned his head and looked at her, and she gasped as his features began to change. He’d started out looking very masculine, but his face was becoming delicate as she watched, feminine, and soon Hephastae was no longer a man, but a woman instead. She also had a shaved head, and the same large, orange eyes, but Hephastae’s lips were fuller, and she now had a smaller nose and, as Terra glanced down, breasts. Really nice ones, it looked like, but not as lovely as the ones she had waiting back at home.
“Ah, you have noticed me changing. We are all Homofemme, or Femmehomo, if you prefer. I do not care which you use, but you may prefer to have ‘femme’ come first, as you seem to qualify for that word.”
“Actually, I’m more butch than femme,” she joked. Hephastae looked confused. “Never mind. I’m Terra, and the cat in my satchel is Onyx. Nice to meet you. We’re on a quest right now.”
“A quest, you say? Ah, I know just where to take you, in that case. It is only a few miles from here. You must be looking for Zeus’s goblet.”
“How the hell do you know about his goblet?” Terra fought the strong urge to cross her arms over her chest.
“Each and every being is on a quest, young woman, and I can see yours floating behind your eyes and glowing in your heart. Yours is a quest of love, I am guessing.”
“Yeah, it is. It really, really is.” Terra sighed and started to relax again. “So, you can help me?”
“I cannot find your goblet for you, dear girl, but I can show you the right path. It’s up to you to follow it to its end. And to yours perhaps, too.”
Terra grew tense and cold as soon as she heard the Femmehomo say this. “What does that mean? My end? Am I going to die?”
“Oh, I have said too much. Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t. I do not know. Really, I don’t.”
It looked to Terra like she most definitely did know, but she could tell she wouldn’t get another word out of the charioteer. And soon Hephastae was no longer “her” but becoming “him” again, her nose growing, her breasts disappearing, and her lips turning thin once more. The last change was a cleft developing in Hephastae’s chin, and then Terra noticed that they were pulling off of the freeway and traveling along a smaller road.
Well, if Hephastae wouldn’t tell her anything else about her possibly impending doom, she wouldn’t speak again, either. She rode next to him in angry silence, only glancing in his direction when he changed and shrank back into a female once more.
“We’re here,” she said to Terra, and the horse slowed and came to a stop.
She got down from the chariot and helped Onyx out of her bag. He shook his head back and forth and stretched, first forward and then backward. “Oh, my, does it ever feel good to be out of that horrible, horrible bag. Remind me to never travel by chariot again.”
“Hey, at least you aren’t possibly headed straight toward death, little guy.”
“Oh.” Apparently Onyx hadn’t heard Hephastae when she had said this.
“I guess I should thank you, despite your refusal to fill me in on certain…pertinent matters. Like whether I’m going to die or not.” Now Terra did cross her arms, and Onyx huffed indignantly at her feet.
“He didn’t fill you in?” Onyx looked up at Hephastae then, who was now seemingly a man.
“Never mind, Onyx, let’s just get going. Thanks, Hephastae, I suppose.”
“You are welcome, young woman, and I do indeed wish you luck. I always wish the pure of heart luck when I come across them.”
“‘Pure of heart?’” Terra mumbled as she walked away from Hephastae, Onyx at her side. “Yeah, freaking right. Hephastae obviously hasn’t seen what I’ve been up to with Athene these last few days.”
“Neither have I, thank all that’s holy.”
Terra grinned when he said this. She may have been walking straight toward death, but she was going to do it with good posture, so she straightened her back and kept the smile on her face as she started down the cliff and in the direction of whatever might happen to be awaiting her at its bottom.
*
Eros had just arrived at the castle when he felt his father calling out to him. “Of all the times to bother me, just when I’m about to finish the quest,” he muttered to himself. But his father was always to be obeyed, as he had always possessed more power than Eros—much, much more.
“Yes, Father?” He shut his eyes and held out his hand, muttering a phrase, and when he opened his eyes once more, an image of his father, a muscular, bald man in his late fifties, appeared right above his hand.
“Have you almost completed the quest?” No hello, no how are you doing…Not that Eros minded, really, after all of these years. All his father cared about was power and money…no, not about his one and only son—a son who happened to now be well on his way to acquiring much, much more of his father’s two favorite things.
Eros fought his urge to scowl, then answered, frowning slightly despite himself. “Yes, Father, I’m almost finished. I’m at the castle where I’ve learned the goblet is housed, and it’s only a matter of time before it’s in my hands and the Werths’ power is in yours.” He left out the fact that in order to finish the quest, he’d have to kill the wizard who had the power of water, the wizard who had read as female when he’d tried to kill him, and when he’d appeared before him in the desert as Zeus. Things were always hazy when you were projecting yourself somewhere other than where your body lay. And in the woods, he had been too busy fighting the forest varmints to pay much attention to the attack he’d sent inside their home. He didn’t even really know how such things worked, but after all this was taken care of, he wouldn’t have to spend his weekly allowance on other Magic Ones’ over-priced, magic trinkets.
His father’s voice brought him out of his thoughts of vengeance. “Good, good. And the powers I’ve lent to you have been of some help?”
“Yes, your power of persuasion and your gift of fire have been incredibly helpful,” he told his father. He really didn’t like thanking him, but his father had trained him to do so over years of punishments, each one dealt out when he wasn’t properly appreciative. “I couldn’t have done it without them,” he added, trying to keep all signs of sullenness out of his voice, but likely failing to do so.
“I am glad that you sound grateful. I will be quite relieved to have them back. And you have the other ring made by my witch jeweler? The one that will steal the power from the Werths’ entire line? The power, and the life?” he added with a cold smile. “Oh, that Cer, she will be sorry she ever chose Zeus over me.”
“What do you mean, Father?” Eros asked. This was something he had never heard before. Had his father courted Cer Werth in the past?
“Silence, you idiot!” The smile quickly left his father’s face, replaced by the look Eros had learned to fear at a very young age—the look that said he had screwed up and disappointed his father, and he would pay for his mistake very, very soon. He felt a lick of his father’s power, the painful heat that came with his fire—and with his anger.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Father. Really, I am. I should go, though. Two of the competitors have been close behind me all along, and so I have to hurry. I can sense someone who is almost to the castle, not too far behind me. But they’ll have to get past the next of the giants first. As though anyone could do that very easily without the help of your ring.”
“Get on with it then, boy! Don’t let someone else win. We must best everyone!” Wi
th that, his father snapped out of view.
“‘We,’ Father? Really?” He’d barely had to lift a hand, Eros thought as he used magic to open the castle’s large wood doors. I’m the one who had to scare the competition off.
Why on earth someone was still following him, he didn’t know. Nor did he know why, when he’d tried to kill Saturn, he had failed, or, even more surprisingly, why Saturn almost seemed more woman than man when he’d attacked him two nights before. It was also inexplicable that Saturn suddenly possessed what seemed to be a fountain of power. He could feel it touching his back as he entered the castle, like a fine, cool mist, a sensation that urged him on, toward the goblet, and toward the power that would soon be his and his alone. Once he had the Werths’ power, once they had all dissolved into dust and left him with all their magic, there was no goddamn way in hell he’d share the power with his father.
That was the reason he’d come on this quest. That was what had kept him going throughout all of these trials. That was what pushed him through the palace’s doors and onto the final part of the quest. Just vengeance. Revenge. Hatred.
Certainly not love.
Chapter Twenty-two
When Terra reached the bottom of the cliff, she felt a strong pull—a pull she was hesitant to follow. It was a pull she didn’t especially like, because the slight tug against her skin was joined with a feeling of threat, threat that felt hot and intense and…and like cool rock, too?
Maybe they’re separate things, she thought, as she rounded the corner of a huge boulder, ducking between it and another of equal size. And then a loud rumbling came from all around her. She watched, eyes wide open and mouth agape, as the rocks slowly began to move. It turned out they weren’t rocks, not exactly, but a creature made out of stone—a fucking giant creature.
She turned to Onyx and, in a quiet voice, ordered him to run and hide. He dashed back the way they had come. At least he would survive this next threat, even if she didn’t. She turned back to face the giant and began to assess her potential foe—and her potential doom, if he wasn’t a friendly giant. Based on his facial expression, he didn’t really look like one.
The giant had masculine features, and his face almost looked like it had been carved into the stone by a skilled artisan, because he was absolutely beautiful. But beautiful features aside, he also must have been at least thirty feet tall. A deep, menacing growl from him quickly distracted Terra from his gorgeous face. Besides, she wasn’t a rockosexual, nor was she into giant men.
“My brother is dead. My brother Orthus is dead, woman! Are you here to kill me as well? You must be!” His voice sounded like rocks rubbing together, or perhaps large stones tumbling against one another. It was a lovely, soothing sound, but his words were terrifying, not soothing in the least. How on earth was she supposed to get past this gigantic monster?
And then she remembered the dagger, the one she’d killed the Wolfran with. If it could kill a Wolfran, perhaps it had a chance against this creature, too. She closed her eyes (a large risk around a beast like this creature, admittedly) and stretched out her hand. She thought of the coolness of metal and wrapped her hand around the dagger’s handle in her mind. When she opened her eyes, there it was, floating in front of her hand. She wrapped her fingers around the real handle as tight as she could and placed her other hand over the one already gripping the dagger.
She felt herself drifting up off the ground now. Was the dagger doing that, or was she? Soon she was as high as the giant’s waist, and then she ducked, shooting back down a few feet, so quickly her stomach lurched a little. The giant had pulled back one of his humongous hands and swung it straight at her. Instead of connecting with her body and smacking the life right out of her, it slammed into the cliff behind her. Flecks of stone and dirt flew in her direction, and again, she shot away from them, only a few dirt clods hitting her back and legs.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she told him, “I just want to get past you!”
But the giant shouted, “Lies! Just like the beast before you, with the flaming horns, all lies! You witches and monsters all just want to kill me and my brothers!” His other fist flew at her, and again, she moved up a few feet, his punch missing her by a sizeable amount, this time just connecting with air.
The dagger moved back then, the dagger with a mind of its own, and her legs flew out in front of her, and before she could complete her next thought, Terra’s feet slammed into the giant’s upper chest and knocked him back a few feet.
“No!” he shouted, but he was falling, falling fast, and with a very loud crash, he had completely lost his footing, and he landed—hard—on his back. Terra flew down then, and the dagger swung down, too, coming to rest a hair’s breadth away from his neck.
“Let me say it again—I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to get past you, Giant. I am sorry your brother was killed, I really am.” And then a thought entered Terra’s head—possibly a very good one. She held up her left hand, stopping herself right before she raised her middle finger. It might have been the one with the ring on it, but she didn’t want to risk making the giant any angrier than he already was. “I have something that might be able to help you. This ring is supposed to be able to bring people back to life. I don’t know if it’ll work on him, but it’s worth a try, right?”
“I suppose so. Please let me get up, and I will lead you to him.”
This time she moved through the air with her own intent, and she lowered the dagger, staring down at it. “Go on, you. Go back to wherever you belong.” The dagger began to fade, and then it was gone. Now she was defenseless against this still very scary creature. Had she made the right decision?
“Follow me.” He rose from the ground, and Terra backed up from him as he stood up, finally able to concentrate on the joy that came from flying. Then, still in the air, she followed the giant to a large opening in the cliff—a cave with one of the biggest mouths she’d ever seen. “He’s in here, what’s left of him.”
“What’s your name?” she asked as they entered the cave.
“Baryus. But you can call me Bar, if you manage to bring Orthus back to life. After all, if you succeed, you will forever be my friend.”
“I hope we can be friends, then.”
They continued into the cave, through a huge tunnel high and wide enough to accommodate a creature of Baryus’s size. Then they came to a huge room, where a rock giant slightly smaller than Baryus lay. Two other giants sat beside him, and dark pebbles were slowly sliding down their cheeks. Were those tears?
“Okay,” she said, landing softly on the deceased giant’s chest. “Let’s see if this works.”
She laid her hands on his chest and visualized him coming back to life, but nothing was happening. How was she supposed to make the ring work? But then the ring grew warm, and her body began to grow colder just as quickly as the ring’s heat grew. Her own temperature continued to fall, until she was shivering a little, the cold spreading throughout her body. Soon, she was so cold she was shaking, her breath coming out heavy and cool. She opened her eyes and watched as small puffs of sparking red clouds flowed from her mouth and onto the giant’s chest.
His body heaved beneath her—once, twice—and then the heat returned to her body all at once. She turned her head and looked at Orthus’s chest as it had begun to rise and fall, and the sound of the giant gasping for air came from slightly beyond where Terra stood.
“Am I…am I alive once more?” he said, his voice heaving along with his chest.
Terra rose up into the air again, flying a ways to his left and landing with a small thud on the ground near his shoulders. The two seated giants rose to their feet and walked over to their revived brother. Both shared looks of relief and were soon smiling—smiles that were gentle and slightly cautious—as they helped him into an upright position.
“It worked! It worked!” Baryus’s wide grin held not even a glimmer of caution as he knelt, kissing his brother on each cheek as dozens of dark pebbles
flowed down his face and hit his brother, each small rock coming with a quiet thunking sound as it made contact.
“It did, didn’t it?” Terra looked down at the ring, but it was black now, instead of silver, and when she flexed her middle finger, it broke into tiny, ash-like pieces and floated to the cave’s floor. “Well, guess I won’t be saving any more lives with that, then.”
“You may pass, young witch,” Baryus told her now, “and if you ever need anything, call out my name, and I will be there as fast as an avalanche can tumble down a mountain.”
Terra guessed that he couldn’t really move that fast, but she still appreciated the offer, so she thanked him. She found herself feeling a little teary as she watched the three brothers helping Orthus slowly rise to his feet.
“You may call me Bar, by the way, friend.” Baryus reached down and patted her on the head. Surprisingly, it was a gentle enough pat that she knew it wouldn’t result in a concussion, or even a slight headache.
“Thanks, Bar. I have to get going, now, though. I have a goblet to find and a girl to marry.”
“Watch out for the horned man,” one of the brothers said. “He—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone seems to be telling me that. I promise I will,” she told the giants, and then she turned away from them and toward the cave’s exit.
Onyx was waiting at the cave’s entrance, and he ran up to her and placed his paws on her knees. “Terra, I was so worried about you! I didn’t know…I didn’t know if you were going to make it!” He was crying, his little face wet with tears, and Terra scooped him up into her arms and hugged him tight.
“I’m fine, kitty. But I think you should head back with me to your home. I don’t know if it’s going to be safe when I get to where I’m going.” Where the horned man probably is…where he’s waiting for me.
Under Her Spell Page 17