“Apologies, my King. I am just a humble swordsman and think like a swordsman.”
“Ahhh…the legendary Agamemnon, master of the sword and feared throughout Tarlath as the finest duelist in the kingdom is reduced to nothing more than a humble swordsman. Let me tell you something, sword-master. You, like I, live by your reputation. When a challenger touches swords with you they know even before their blade has even struck one blow that they have lost. You can see the defeat in their eyes and you can almost smell it. But you are just someone who is better and quicker than others. All it would take is for someone to hide in the shadows. One thrust, one cut and you would be dead and the legend of the mighty Agamemnon would be consigned to ashes. I have enemies home and abroad and my enemies are your enemies yet I still stand strong. I agree with you, it was not a fight well fought but the message it sends out will be clear. Power perceived is power achieved, remember that!”
Agamemnon bowed deeply and smiled.
“As ever, my King, your wisdom far outweighs my naivety.”
The expression on King Gomorrah’s face softened and he relaxed.
“I know your loyalty swordsman and it is without question. You don’t like my pets, do you? I see it in your face every time one is in your presence.”
“Those…creatures are an abomination of nature, my King. Even your own men are scared of them.” said Agamemnon grimly.
“But such power and ferocity, don’t you think? I have close to thirty now.”
“There is no skill with what they do, my King.”
“Tell me, could you defeat one of my pets, sword-master?”
“No.” replied Agamemnon honestly.
“There is power in royal blood. That is what Mordechai said and he was right. It is Old magic, a mixture of humans and animals. Can you imagine an army of those creatures? I would never taste defeat and would repay my enemies a thousand-fold.”
Agamemnon shuddered at the thought and the King laughed out loud.
“Come, Agamemnon. You are mellowing in your years. Let us get a flagon of the finest ale and let us settle down to the serious business of getting drunk together and talking of big-breasted women instead.”
Agamemnon stared down at the patch of drying blood near to the King’s feet and realized he'd never wanted a drink more and one flagon wouldn’t be enough.
Chapter Three
The mountains of Pirash
East of the capital city of Tarlath
When he heard the sound of his chamber door open Lord Montagu didn’t look around. Instead he remained stood facing the open balcony, eyes closed with a gentle mountain breeze caressing his skin and reveling in the soft coolness on his face.
“My lord, your guest has arrived.” called out the warbled voice of his old servant, Frederic.
“Send him in.” he replied quietly without turning around.
“Yes my lord.”
There was a long pause and he could sense the agitation in his servant’s voice.
“Something else, Frederic?” asked Lord Montagu.
“Forgive me my lord, but your…guest is rather rude.”
“He will be travel-stained and weary. It’s been a long ride from Besalu. Prepare some food for our guest and a room.”
“Yes my lord.”
The chamber door closed quietly and Lord Montagu opened his piercing blue eyes and stared out at the vast green-blue jagged mountains in the distance. His gaze raked over their summits then at the expanse of cloudless blue sky as far as the eyes could see and he sighed heavily. Suddenly he heard raised voices approaching from the hallway and his face grew hard.
“I…I didn’t mean to offend, my lord.” stammered the voice of his servant from outside his chamber.
“Touch me again and I’ll cut that hand from your arm then beat you to death with the wet end, you old cretin.” snapped the voice of his guest irritably.
The door to the room opened and Lord Montagu turned around and faced Frederic who was stood there looking flustered, his cheeks blazing. Behind him with his face twisted in revulsion was Lord Tyrion. The man was tall and thin, his face clean-shaven with a high forehead, prominent cheek-bones, deep-set eyes and a cleft chin. He was dressed in a cloak made of fine silk which was fastened at the left shoulder with a cloak pin, an immaculately pressed laced white shirt with billowed sleeves, trousers, a scabbarded short sword and leather riding boots.
“I offered to take his cloak, my lord. That is all!” cried Frederic.
Lord Montagu stared at his guest, his face stern as he stepped into the chamber looking furtively around the room.
“That will be all, Frederic.” he said.
“My lord.” muttered his servant bowing and leaving the room.
“Don't let the door hit you on the way out, old bastard.” yelled Lord Tyrion over his shoulder.
The door closed silently and his guest pulled out a silk kerchief and began rubbing it against his hands vigorously for a few seconds. Feeling the tension in the air he pocketed the cloth and gave an exaggerated bow.
“My lord, I have come as you have requested.” he said mockingly.
“Did my servant offend you?” asked Lord Montagu.
“He’s very invasive, don’t you think? Very hands on.”
“Servants generally are, Lord Tyrion. He is a loyal man and has been in my service for many years and I rely on him greatly. But if he offended you I will be forced to punish him accordingly.”
“His very existence offends me, so yes, punish him.”
“After all these years you still show distaste for people.” said Lord Montagu chuckling with good humor.
“True, I carry no sentiment to them. I don’t like people and I especially dislike you,” snapped Lord Tyrion. “People should be in a segregated society where they can wallow in their own feces and spread their diseases amongst their own vermin kind.”
“I can see why people don't like being around you.”
“I have found that avoiding people you don't like is generally a successful tactic. Tell me, does the room have ears?” asked Lord Tyrion lowering his voice.
“You are free to talk, Hephaestus.”
“Then let us dispel with the appellations, Magdalenian. Do you have wine? My throat feels like I’ve been sucking on cursed mountain dust the entire journey.”
Magdalenian nodded his head and pointed to an oak table and two chairs in the corner of the chamber where a couple of silver goblets were set and a flagon. Without a word of thanks Hephaestus strode over to the table and took off his cloak, folded it and placed it gently onto the table surface then set his sword next to it. Then he pulled out his silk kerchief and wiped the goblet, peered at it closely then poured himself a healthy measure of wine.
“That must be the most inappropriate riding attire that I have ever seen.” commented Magdalenian.
“I dress like every day is a celebration of my tedious life,” grunted Hephaestus before taking a long drink of the wine and nodding his head in approval. “It has an aftertaste of goats piss but it quenches the thirst.”
With a quick dap at his mouth with his cloth he placed the goblet back onto the table and pulled out one of the chairs, bent over and brushed the seat a few times then sat down with his hands behind his head staring at Magdalenian. He was an average sized man but radiated authority which made him seem taller than he actually was. His brown hair was short-cropped and thinning on top with startlingly bright blue eyes, thin narrow lips, a strong jawline covered in fine grey stubble and a hawk-like nose curved downward like the beak of a bird giving him an air of alertness. He wore a plain linen shirt, a heavy woven tufted gown belted at the waist and woolen leggings.
“Why did you call me here, Magdalenian?”
Without answering him Magdalenian turned and faced the open balcony and stared out over the mountains once again.
“I have climbed that mountain,” he said distantly. “The tallest one that looks back at me right now. It made me feel humble, lik
e them somehow.”
“Humble!” snorted Hephaestus shaking his head. “You know what I like about mountains? They don’t speak or procreate.”
“In truth, I am smitten with the view, truly I am,” said Magdalenian softly. “We were here before the mountains were shaped, before there were hills and we were there to see their birth at the beginning.”
“Hearing you talk like that gives me the overwhelming urge to become a mountain goat in my next form.”
“How are the waters of Besalu?”
“Wet and annoyingly salty.” answered Hephaestus dryly.
A smile ghosted about the face of Magdalenian and with one final glance he walked over to the table and poured himself some wine before sitting down on the other chair next to his friend.
“Why did you call me here, Magdalenian?” he repeated.
“It is time to reveal ourselves again, time for me to leave the mountains and for you to leave the seas behind.” he replied staring at his distorted reflection looking back at him from the surface of the silver goblet.
“Time!” snapped Hephaestus. “Time is inconsequential. We have all the time this world has to offer or had that slipped your mind?”
“The world in which we live now is changing Hephaestus and a great darkness looms on the horizon, an all-encompassing darkness that has no challengers.”
“We need not interfere with man. We existed before them and we will continue to exist after them. Why would you want to leave what you have here? You are a Lord, you are rich and you have many servants and no doubt you bathe in water perfumed by flowers.”
“The darkness is coming, Hephaestus. All this will not matter if we allow it to destroy all what we know and all what we love. It is already on its way and man will suffer greatly. We should walk with them, suffer with them once again.”
“We have suffered with them as we have since the beginning, so do not preach to me about suffering!” yelled Hephaestus slamming his hand down onto the table angrily and rattling his goblet. “I was there too remember, as was Akkadian and that ruthless brute of a being, Dar Thadian. We were there when they were nothing more than simpletons scratching their arses around in the mud eating termites. When they first grunted and developed the ability to walk on two legs. We witnessed them make their tools, make their crude weapons and become scavengers and hunter-gatherers wielding their clubs with the cranial capacity of a rock. I call that the quiet period. We watched when they enjoyed their first solitude and harmonious feel of a hollowed out cave and when they first interbred with their neighbors. We were there to see the first domestication of animal and marvel at the first crops from the first arable land that was farmed and despaired with them when the first swarm of locusts destroyed the crop. Later, when the climate changed and the temperatures plummeted during the glaciation period man died in their scores yet still survived and rose once again as other archaic species died off. When the earth warmed we saw them leave their homeland and explore, becoming the first pioneers roaming the land in nomadic groups and spreading the population far and wide becoming nations which gave rise to learning and lawmaking. With migration we saw the ancestry of man change to adapt to various climates and races by region was created. We saw the first King rise and the first King fall and watched on as modern man built great cities before destroying them in fire, hate and destructive chaos. We have watched man achieve and flourish, conquer land, sea and each other and watched nations advance and watched nations topple and man love and hate in equal measure. Yet despite it all do you know the one thing what hasn’t changed at all since the dawn of man, the one thing that has remained constant and unchanged since the very, very beginning?”
Magdalenian didn't interrupt and he didn't argue, instead he just shook his head silently allowing Hephaestus to finish his rant.
“The only thing that has remained constant is that they still copulate like rats,” he said grimacing. “They build, they fight, they die they rise once again and rut like animals and thus we drift through time observing them.”
“I see time alone by the seas has not made you any less loquacious or dulled your wit, Hephaestus.”
“I like my time alone. I am nowhere near my best self unless I have had sufficient time by myself. Let us remain that way and not interfere with man once again. We were the first and we will be the last and it will be that way forever because we are Gods to them.”
“We are not Gods,” said Magdalenian softly. “We merely outlive them.”
“You are wrong, old friend. When man defined us as Gods and worshipped us as Gods we became objects of faith. Where there is belief, and someone willing to share that belief we will always exist in one form or another.”
“Yet in the absence of faith will we cease to exist?” asked Magdalenian. “King Gomorrah is killing those that preach our name and won’t stop until there is no-one left remaining.”
“King’s and rulers are like the very mountains you admire from your balcony, cold, hard and unforgiving. Gomorrah is not the first tyrant in history and certainly won’t be the last. You have seen the wicked in great power, it spreads like a disease. We all saw the influence it had on Dar Thadian. Tyrants grow like weeds and there will be others in another city, another land. People have died for us before so let him have his way. Soon he will be nothing more than a footnote in history and we will still be here.”
Hephaestus drained the last of his wine with a long swallow then peered at Magdalenian curiously.
“But that is not it, is it? There is something else you are not telling me, what is it?”
Magdalenian sighed heavily and lifted the goblet tentatively to his lips and took a sip. It tasted like ash in his throat.
“When I say the darkness is coming, Hephaestus, I speak the truth. There is great unrest in the four cardinal directions. They fear King Gomorrah. In the East the weak divided tribes of the Ruined Lands are beginning to unite and they will form a strong, unified single nation. Those that were once enemies will be allies and become one of the largest most ferocious armies ever seen by the eyes of man.”
“No-one can unite the tribes,” spat Hephaestus in disbelief. “They are too consumed with inter-tribal warfare and blood feuds to worry about what goes on in the North. There’s a reason why they’re called the divided tribes.”
“One man can unite them and soon they will be whole because they all share a common goal.”
“Which is?”
“Survival,” answered Magdalenian. “In the west the Nakaloo are constructing siege engines and enormous timber war machines capable of leveling buildings and have already sent emissaries to the Piathaleas who control the ports across the waters. They are readying for war, a world war.”
“What do they fear from a ruler in another land? He is just one man.”
“He has awakened the Old magic.”
Hephaestus hissed between his teeth and his eyes narrowed.
“You are sure, Magdalenian?” he whispered.
Magdalenian nodded his head, staring off into the distance thoughtfully. After a long pause he stood up from his chair and walked over to the balcony once again and gazed out at the horizon. For a long while he didn’t speak but when he did his voice was tinged with sadness.
“He calls them Meldlings. They are creatures of unimaginable power and strength born from the same magic as us. At first the King used them as spectacular public entertainment, nothing more than arena animals fighting wild boar, bulls or prisoners who were sentenced to death and willing to fight for their life. Colossal in size and with unparalleled strength, nothing can stand in their way and now he has near thirty Meldlings to do his bidding. If King Gomorrah has struck fear into his own populace as well as the divided tribes, the Nakaloo and the Piathaleas with just thirty of these terrible creatures, then just imagine what he will do with an army of them. How can you not fear something that doesn’t fear death itself? There will not be a single piece of land he will not conquer and there will be great suffer
ing of unimaginable proportions. Then ask yourself Hephaestus, if we allow this to happen then what sort of world will we be observing? Will you truly be able to enjoy your solitude in lands ruled by terror?”
“The King has an enchanter to create these creatures?” called out Hephaestus thinking about pouring himself another goblet of wine but then changing his mind.
“He does, a man of great evil and power.”
Hephaestus muttered under his breath, stood up and wandered over to the balcony alongside Magdalenian and gazed across at the mountains with loathing.
“I knew this cursed journey to the mountains would bear ill news.” he muttered.
“Will you help me, old friend?” asked Magdalenian.
“You know Old magic can kill us.”
“I do.”
“My, today you really are a blanket of sunshine and happiness on my dreary miserable self,” snapped Hephaestus. “You are asking me to risk everything!”
“No, I am asking you to help me save everything.” replied Magdalenian.
“Can we stand against these…creatures?”
“Not alone.”
Hephaestus heard the edge in Magdalenian’s voice and looked across at him, searching his face but before he could say anything his friend spoke again.
Four Gods Page 3