Guardian's Rise

by Matthew Renard

  In better light, I could see that it was grey, and mottled, with twisted, gnarled flesh.

  ‘Are you okay?’ One of the armed men asked me, looking at me in concern. I nodded, and despite not needing to, pretended to be out of breath. Collapsing down, I sucked air in, and was surprised to find myself shaking. ‘You had a close call, brother.’ He continued. I merely nodded, unwilling to speak. He helped me to my feet, and dusted me down. ‘I’m Brother Jacob. Welcome to the Pits. First time?’

  ‘I... yeah.’

  ‘Oh! You’re En-ger-lish.’ I tried to prevent the scowl from forming on my face and managed a deadpan nod. ‘Far out, I didn’t know we had anyone over there yet. That’s cool. Here to see the Gates?’

  ‘I’m here to...’ I tried to regulate my breathing better. ‘Sorry. I’m here to cast off the new flesh and embrace the old.’

  Jacob laughed at that. ‘Aren’t we all, brother?’ He looked around. ‘Come. Lord Dakari is going to cast off the new flesh of the unwilling.’

  I followed Jacob to the centre of the masses, where a man in a brown hooded robe, not unlike a monk’s cassock, and massive golden chain around the outside with a gleaming ruby in the centre of a fist-sized gold plate, was looking out at the edge of what I first thought was a cliff, but us being so low down seemed more like the edge of the world. It looked like a sheer rock face, until I realised we were still in the middle of Tarkenden Forest - the edge of the world was in actuality a giant pit. At his feet were some piles of what looked like dirty rags, and I had the sudden mental flash that “the new flesh” meant clothes, and I’d stumbled on a cult of militant nudists.

  ‘Brothers!’ his booming voice echoed over the heads of the assembly, and everyone was instantly silent; staring, waiting attentively to hear what this hooded man had to say.

  ‘For years, brothers, we have waited. We have moved in the shadows, taking the lifeblood of those who would keep us down, rejecting the Old Flesh.’

  ‘Cast off the new flesh.’ Everyone around me chanted in eerie unison.

  ‘We are the true! We are the faithful. We are the devoted. We cast off the new flesh.’

  ‘And embrace the old.’ The crowd murmured.

  ‘But...’ The man’s hood moved, as if he were looking around, ‘some of us here, brothers, do not wish to embrace the old. They are heretics, brothers. They do not belong amongst the faithful. They are of the new flesh!’

  ‘Cast off the new flesh.’ Everyone intoned.

  ‘Who here does not belong?’ The man’s head shifted, and I had an unsettling feeling in my stomach that he was looking at me. I tried to look as innocent and cult-like as possible. ‘Traitor to the Old Flesh, you will be sought out.’

  He reached down to the nearest bundle of rags and hoisted it up.

  It wasn’t a bundle of rags.

  It was Pukalski.

  ‘Go to hell, Dakari.’ She spat out some blood from her mouth.

  ‘This woman, brothers, trespassed on our sacred lands! She wanted to stop us from opening the Gates.’

  ‘I was...’ Her voice cracked but she pushed on regardless. ‘I was looking for a little girl.’

  ‘You trespassed and assisted one of the abominations in doing so!’

  The crowd jeered her. She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know what you mean.’

  ‘The one called Fire Guardian. He is an abomination to what our Dark Masters intended.’

  Umm...I’m a what?

  ‘As penance, you shall be offered up to sate the Gatekeeper. However, you shall not have a merciful release.’ Dakari raised his voice again. ‘This woman shall watch her comrades be cast into the pit first!’

  ‘No!’ Pukalski screamed as the other officers were hauled up from their prone positions, and unceremoniously thrown off the ground and into the blackness below.

  There was a rumbling from the pit, then, and the ground began to shake. Dakari’s triumphant laughter mixed with the cheers of the assembled crowd and the terrified screams of Pukalski.

  ‘The Gates of Disorder have been opened, and it has arisen!’

  I turned on my low light vision and stared into the pit. Something massive and dark moved, creeping ever closer to the lip of the pit, and to me.

  Chapter 18

  Dark As The Pit, From Pole To Pole

  ‘What the hell is that?’ I heard Pukalski gasp. I leaned forwards more, to try to get a better look.

  ‘It is the Gatekeeper!’ Dakari shouted, raising his arms in triumph. ‘It has awoken! Soon the Gates of Disorder shall open, and we shall cast off the new flesh.’

  ‘Cast off the new flesh,’ the crowd chanted as one, ‘and embrace the old.’

  The ‘old flesh’, if it were the thing in the pit, didn’t look like it wanted to be embraced. The shadowy movement was slowly reaching the light, revealing itself to be huge, thick tentacles, brown and scaly, with dark green mottled patches. I was, for a second, convinced I was looking at a group of large snakes, until I saw the sheer size of the tentacles. The tips looked to be about the size of a basketball, and as it came out of the shadows I saw the thicker parts were the height of a tall man. As they slithered up, gripping onto the edge of the pit, the ground shook as whatever this gatekeeper was, it began to pull itself up out of the darkness.

  ‘Yes!’ Dakari crowed, over the slow rhythmic chanting of his cult. He turned to Pukalski, and slowly pointed at her. ‘Now throw her in, so that the Beast may devour her too!’ Men rushed either side and, although she tried to fight them off, she was too weak from whatever they had done to her beforehand. They dragged Pukalski, screaming and sobbing, towards the pit.

  ‘Please!’ She shouted, looking around. ‘Stop this! I’m a police officer. I have a family...’ She looked directly at me, eyes pleading. ‘Don’t let them do this...’ she turned to look at others. ‘Please...someone help me!’ Others grabbed fire torches and surrounded her in a perverse sort of honour guard as she was led, foot by foot, and whilst she screamed and spat at them, I knew it would do her no good.

  I am not a hero. I’ve never really claimed otherwise. I was only there to find out what the hell was happening to my best friend and see if I could stop it. However, something in that moment broke me, and I knew I had to do whatever it took to protect that police officer. She was only there to look for a missing kid. Her version of “serve and protect” didn’t include being fed to a monster...

  But I’m not a hero. As such, I paused fractionally too long, and was frozen in place as the madmen lifted her up, high over their heads, and pitched her down into the pit below.

  ‘No!’ I shouted, a moment too late, and before I knew it I had barged past them, and leapt in after her, grasping desperately for her hand.

  There was silence from above.

  There was a strange, ominous hissing somewhere in the fathomless dark.

  There was a pulling sensation at my shoulder.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Pukalski shrieked.

  ‘I’m trying to save your life.’ I hissed. ‘Now please be quiet for a second and stop rocking! I’m trying to see what’s down there.’

  ‘Why aren’t we falling?’ Pukalski asked, but much quieter than before. Her training must have kicked in, I reasoned, letting her override her fear and putting her into an investigation frame of mind. ‘And how can you see what’s beneath us?’

  ‘Because,’ I tried to sound reasonable, ‘I can see in thermal vision.’

  ‘Oh.’ She said. Then, ‘Oh!’ in recognition. ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I tried to sound casual as I peered into the darkness. Thermal vision did very little for me. I switched to night vision. There was some sort of reflective surface below us, glinting and reflecting a nearly totally bisected circle, cut in a triangle shape, about the size of a car.‘ We really need to stop bumping into each other.’

  ‘That’s very cute.’ She murmured. ‘So... wait. You’re British?’

  I didn’t answer her. Not because I was too stunned
that she was the first person to not say “En-ger-lish”. I didn’t answer because I had realised what the reflective surface was. I was too busy staring into a singular, evil eye that filled almost my entire vision.

  ‘Officer Pukalski?’

  ‘Janine.’ She looked up. ‘You can call me Janine.’

  ‘Okay, so Janine? I’m going to fly us up really fast, okay? And this next bit might seem a little weird.’ Using my free hand, I slapped the activation disc on my belt. As Sami enveloped me in the hologram, her voice rang out. ‘Warning: I cannot complete the force field if you continue to hold the officer.’

  I looked down at my arms, which were both half covered. ‘How long do you need to cover me completely?’

  ‘1.3 seconds at maximum efficiency.’

  I thought about it, still staring at the eye, which was rising up towards us faster and faster, followed by a rumbling growl from further down below. ‘Okay.’ I looked back at Pukalski. ‘Hey, Janine?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Before she could respond, I heaved her as hard as I could into the air. ‘Now, Sami!’ I flew up as she completed the transformation, catching Pukalski just as my costume was complete, and flew her up, out of the hole, dodging and diving under and around the thick tentacles which lumbered around us, swatting towards me almost casually.

  ‘I can’t believe you did that.’ She growled. I shrugged.

  ‘Hey, it saved your life.’

  ‘Your accent’s changed again!’ She pointed out as we rose high above the throng. The silent masses of the AwaTen cult glared at me in horrified anger.

  ‘You!’ Dakari screamed. ‘Abomination!’

  I looked down. Sami had changed me back into my normal costume. ‘Uhh, yeah. Hi.’ I really need to work on my witty repartee. ‘Hey, look. I’m going to drop off the officer here and let her radio for back-up, and I’ll be right back, okay?’

  ‘Do not leave, Abomination!’ He shrieked. ‘The Gates of Disorder demand their sacrifice! The lifeblood of the masses has been channelled but the Gatekeeper demands flesh!’

  ‘Uhm... yeah. Sounds good. As I said, I’ll be right back, though. And then we’ll talk about your sacrifice thing.’

  ‘Jeez.’ I heard Pukalski mutter to me. ‘You’re new to this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Shush.’ I whispered back. ‘I’m still saving your life, here.’

  ‘Slowly.’

  ‘Hey!’ I protested, a little louder than I’d intended.

  ‘Are... are you two having a conversation when you should be dying?’ Dakari yelled up at us, incredulously. ‘Do you not understand the awesome purpose with which we intend you to serve? Not you, Abomination,’ he dismissed me with a wave. ‘But you, female. You serve glorious pur-’

  ‘Excuse me?!’ Pukalski yelled down. ‘Put me down this instant.’ She hissed at me.

  ‘But... that crowd... the monster...’

  ‘This instant!’ She repeated, her face twisted in rage, and I was too stunned to do anything but lower her to the ground. As soon as her feet touched the dirt, she pushed herself free of my grip and stalked up to Dakari.

  ‘How dare you?’ She growled at him. ‘“Female”?’ She jabbed her finger into his chest, above the gold plate of his necklace.

  ‘You dare touch-’ Dakari began. He didn’t get a chance to finish. Nor did he see the right fist of the extremely annoyed cop. As his men tried to intervene I swooped in, and stood, back to back with Pukalski. Igniting my Flame Foil, I waved it at the cultists, who stopped, unsure whether they should risk defending their leader.

  ‘My name is Officer Janine Pukalski.’ She shouted at the downed figure. ‘Not Honey. Not Baby. Not Doll, or Cupcake or Sweetie. And it is definitely,’ she kicked him in the ribs, ‘not’, she kicked again, ‘Female!’

  Dakari moaned in pain at her feet.

  ‘Now,’ she continued. ‘You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.’ She began, hoisting him to his feet. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and Sami highlighted it in red. High Danger flashed in my vision, and without thinking, I ducked, reaching out and snagging Pukalski with me as I hit the deck.

  ‘What the hell-’ She started, but stopped as an enormous brown tentacle flew over our heads, and slapped heavily into Dakari, knocking him off his feet and flying backwards, screaming, into his cult. The first few took the brunt and collapsed, with Dakari on top of them. As the pile moaned gently and the others backed away, I stood to face the pit, and the immense writhing tentacles of the Gatekeeper.

  The Gatekeeper that was beginning to emerge from the pit.

  Vaguely conical, with a single eye the size of a double decker bus that glared evilly with a red iris, the Gatekeeper continued its brown and dark green colours.

  ‘Where’s its mouth?’ Pukalski whispered, notes of fear creeping in.

  ‘No idea. It doesn’t look like it has one...’

  ‘It ate my friends.’ She pointed out, her voice starting to shake. ‘It must have a mouth somewhere.’

  Can’t argue with that logic, Jay. ‘Yeah, well, let’s not find out where it is, okay?’

  From where-ever the mouth was, it let out a horrifying shriek which chilled me completely to the core. I looked at Pukalski, who looked similarly shaken, but resolute. I then turned to look at the cultists, who seemed as if they wanted to throw up, run, or just sacrifice themselves to the monster just make the terror stop. The high pitched, keening wail sounded as if multiple voices were screaming, raising in pitch and volume until I thought it would go on forever.

  Then it stopped.

  Glaring around expectantly, the hideous Gatekeeper slammed down a tentacle furiously, crushing a couple of cultists beneath it. The monster didn’t even seem to notice what it had done, although when the tentacle came back up, the mound of bloody pulp and stained clothing beneath showed how strong it was.

  ‘How the hell do we fight that thing?’ Pukalski murmured.

  ‘I fight it.’ I flexed my right fingers. ‘You run.’

  I held my fingers in position, locking them back in the way McMannus had shown me to emit a fireball, which I flung directly at the monster. It sailed past, the Gatekeeper not even noticing I had done anything.

  ‘Yeah.’ Pukalski nodded. ‘Definitely new to this.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. It’s a new hand, and I’m a leftie.’ I threw another fireball, and another, until I had the attention of the beast.

  ‘Okay. It’s noticed you.’ Pukalski chided me. ‘What now, genius?’

  ‘I fly. Watch your back!’ I shot into the air, still throwing fireballs. The monster howled, and the tentacles shot after me with surprising speed. Dodging them as best as I could, I arced over one that shot out directly towards me, bending my body backwards and flying in a circle, throwing a fireball straight down into its eye. I felt a flash of achievement as it howled, but then it flailed it’s limbs indiscriminately upwards, and I felt a huge rush of pain in my back as it slapped me high into the air.

  ‘Jesus!’ I shouted as I careened upwards, out of control.

  ‘Recommend not getting struck like that again.’ Sami chided me. ‘That was disadvantageous and caused minor damage.’

  ‘You think? Damn, that hurt.’ I got myself back under control and looked down at the creature. It’s eye glared in hatred and seemed to recognise it had injured me. The rumbling that came from it took on a different tone, and it heaved out several short noises.

  ‘Is it... laughing?’

  ‘Statistical probability is that you are applying anthropomorphism to an animal. It does not seem capable of higher thinking.’

  It struck out at me again, and as I dodged, slammed into me with another tentacle.

  ‘I am,’ Sami informed me coldly, ‘revising my opinion.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘I am uncertain. I believe I have sustained some damage to my logic processor. Highest probability of survival suggests we retreat. However...’

/>   I spun out of the way of another tentacle attack, pirouetting neatly to safety, before backflipping past another strike. ‘However?’

  ‘However... I am feeling a desire to demand retribution.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ I muttered sarcastically as I continued to dodge. ‘My AI’s decided it wants to destroy things. What’s next, are you going to start demanding I bring you Sarah Connor?’

  ‘I do not understand the reference.’ Sami complained. ‘Nor do I care to.’ She highlighted the monster, red outline flashing at me. ‘Scanning for weaknesses. Please keep it occupied until I have assessed it.’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ I batted at a tentacle with my Flame Foil, twisting and performing a cartwheel in mid-air as I dodged and swung, trying to get a handle on the monster and how it was attacking. I glanced below at Pukalski, but couldn’t see her through the mass of heaving tentacles that were shooting up towards me. Boosting myself away, up and out of the prison it was trying to form for me, I inverted and dove towards it, as fast as I could, swinging my sword and throwing fire as rapidly as I could, hitting it everywhere I could possibly reach.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I wasn’t powerful enough.

  I couldn’t defeat it.

  I couldn’t defeat it, and it seemed to realise that fact, because it laughed again and leaned back, eye staring up at me in evil, deranged glee, and I caught a glimpse, underneath, of what appeared to be a tongue. Pushing myself backwards, I moved into another angle of attack, to see if I was right.

  ‘Sami, is that its mouth?’

  ‘Calculating... most likely.’

  ‘What if we attacked it there?’

  ‘We will not know unless we try.’

  I thought about it. ‘How do we get close enough?’

  ‘I have a possibility, but it will not be a favourable one.’

  I groaned. ‘You’re going to let it eat us, aren’t you?’

  ‘Correction. I am going to let it attempt to eat us.’