by Eric Vall
I instructed each of the clones to think anything loudly and to shout it in their heads, and as I concentrated on their minds, I could hear the individual conversations between each one. Even if my minions thought now, the god wouldn’t be able to listen to it or pick it out of the crowd of my clones screaming mentally at the top of their voices. The disk below our feet was no longer small enough only for my minions and me, but had become a platform that floated down the hall above the empty cavern the god had created below.
I moved the dark platform down the hall, and soon enough, the ground appeared again just as it had disappeared, but I didn’t trust it enough to test it out in case it happened to fall away again. I could feel the god’s presence clearly now, and the closer we floated, the angrier he became. He wasn’t able to hear any of our thoughts because of the clones I had created, and soon, the walls of the tunnel began to vibrate violently. The walls and ceiling began to close in on us, and I realized he was attempting to squash us with the very material his dungeon was made of.
As the ceiling brushed the hairs at the top of my head, I pulled the God Slayer from my void pocket and slammed it down against the hard surface of the disk to keep us aloft. The blades of the great polearm sprang to life, and I stabbed upward at the ceiling with all my might. A loud scream vibrated through not only the hall but through our heads, and if there were any doubts left that he was inside our minds, it was absolutely certain now.
I stabbed out once more, and this time, it dug the blades of God Slayer deep into the dirt. Surprisingly, red blood began to seep through the hole the blades had created. I stared up at it as I wrenched the weapon free, and dirt fell along with the drops of blood. It was very strange, but I should have suspected it. This god was not only trapped inside of his dungeon but also had become part of the dungeon during the time that he had spent here.
The insides of the dungeon looked practically untouched, and I assumed that many people who decided to conquer this one hadn’t made it very far. I kept the wall of clones up as we moved closer to the deity hidden away in the dirt, and I smiled to myself as Rana pulled out her elven daggers and swiped at the walls. As when I had stabbed at the ceiling, the god cried out in pain and the very same blood as before seeped out from every slash of her daggers. I nodded to my first wife, and she pulled out Bloodscale and the unnamed sword and started hacking at the walls as they passed by. Within moments, not only were all of my minions attacking the walls but I made the clones join in too with their own versions of the God Slayer.
Each time one of our weapons connected with the wall, the god shrieked and screamed but couldn’t retaliate because of all the thoughts and words bouncing around my clones minds. This went on for several minutes, and each time more blood spilled, I laughed out loudly enough for the deity to hear me. Just as I had suspected, he was weak in comparison to me, but his power was still that of a god. What I would gain from him was immense, and I was eager to reach his nexus and take it from him. My minions, my clones, and I came around a wide turn and faced a massive, crudely made archway, and I knew we were finally at our destination though I didn’t send my clones away in this moment. I could see the god as he rested on a throne made entirely of rotted wood and roots, but he barely raised his head to us as the entire troop floated in. Finally, when we were before him, he lifted his head to us, and I saw that his eyes were wholly clouded with blindness.
Unlike most gods I knew in the heavenly realm and the ones we had seen in previous dungeons, this god looked entirely different from the rest. Instead of a heavenly body or an essence, it seemed as if his godly soul was trapped within a human’s body, and as he moved to stand from the chair, he stumbled and nearly fell to the floor. Human bodies are much different from holy ones, and when a god’s soul is placed within one, it was like a living hell. The shells of humans were not suited for gods and would kill themselves from the inside out to free the vast essence trapped inside, and that was happening here.
“Nergal,” I whispered, and the decrepit and decomposing face of the man split into a smile as he searched for the owner of the voice.
“I haven’t heard that name for thousands of years,” the god spoke through the human, and I could hear the wheeze coming from his lungs as he struggled to take in a breath. “But yes, I am Nergal.”
“The man who gave birth to pestilence on the earth,” I uttered softly to my minions.
Nergal tilted his head to me. The thin colorless hair on his head shifted with the scuttle of lice and fleas, and Rana drew back as she gagged in disgust.
“I see,” The god smiled to reveal rotted brown and green teeth as he stroked his chin with blackened fingers. “You’ve met my daughter then?”
“What? What does that mean?” Annalise whispered to me. I shook my head dismissively but knew full well I would have to explain his hidden meaning later after we had killed the god before us.
“I assume you are here to take my powers?” Nergal asked as he stroked the moldy wood of his throne, his milky white eyes pointed in my direction.
“Of course, we are.” I chuckled as I moved my clones forward. We stepped as one off the disk, but Nergal didn’t move at all. He only laughed loudly to himself.
“That’s the problem, Unum Tenebris,” Nergal tittered, and I glared down at him, though I was thankful he called my name in the god’s language and didn’t speak it directly to my minions. “All these mortals come to take my powers and don’t even get past the front door, some of them too scared to even come over the closest hill, but here all of you are, trespassing upon an old man who could kick all of your asses one-on-one.”
“Yeah, old man?” Rana shouted as she stepped forward and pointed a finger at the seated god. “You and what army, huh? Here we are, come and try!”
Nergal chuckled again, and I smelled what Rana had earlier. The rotting smell wasn’t coming from the dungeon but Nergal himself as his human shell rotted away around him. The old man’s head turned as he looked in the direction that the fox’s voice had come from, and he laughed even louder this time as the eyes moved as if reading something in front of him.
“Rana Elouise Martin,” Nergal said, and the redhead’s blue eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open as he spoke her full name. “You’ve come a long way from stealing loaves of bread and pickpocketing, haven’t you, my sweet little street rat?”
“Wha-what?” the fox woman stuttered in disbelief as she stumbled backward. I caught her by the shoulders and held her safely in place.
“Yes, I know your name just like I know the rest of your party’s names,” Nergal snarled through a wide grin. “I know where you’ve been and what you’ve done. I know every inch of your souls as if it were my own, especially yours, Unum Tenebris. I may have been cast out, but I still hear the words coming down from the heavenly realm as if I’m still there. What a bastard you are.”
“You dare--” I growled as I gripped the God Slayer and took a step towards the decaying old man, but he lifted his boney black hands into the air to stop me with a deep chuckle.
“They speak of you, more often than you would think. Do you really think that the gods in heaven are going to turn a blind eye to what you are doing on earth?” Nergal snorted as he rubbed at his face, and I watched in disgust as the flesh peeled back in parts to reveal the putrefying meat underneath.
“You’re lying,” I barked at him, but he shook his head, and his colorless hair pooled around his sunken-in shoulders.
“You can believe my words, or you can choose not to, but your name falls from your mother’s lips with sorrow and sadness just as it does from your father’s,” Nergal uttered as he folded his bony hands in his lap.
“Now that I know is a lie,” I snapped as I lifted the God Slayer and prepared to strike the old man down.
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, that is up to you to choose. What use would it be for me to lie? However, I can tell you that the gods aren’t the only ones watching you. I hear other voices that speak your na
me.” Nergal smirked, and the smell hit me once more, but I didn’t draw back or come forward with the God Slayer drawn. My curiosity was now piqued.
“What do you mean?” I questioned with furrowed brows, and the god trapped in a human body smiled even wider. The milky white eyes moved over the space where I stood, and I heard his long, black nails click together as he thought to himself.
“You really think that you’ve spent all of this time traipsing around the earth, killing and conquering dungeons, and no one would notice?” the blind man asked as he leaned back in his throne without care.
“Spit it out, old man,” I shouted as the rage in my belly boiled over.
“Long ago, before you and I were trapped in these holes, we roamed where ever we pleased and did whatever we wanted despite being cast out, quite like what you do now,” Nergel started, and one of his weak hands reached up and scratched at his infested hair with a sickening sound. “Some of us, like myself and you, were locked away from all humanity. Do you really think the people who painstakingly sealed you away were just going to allow you to trollop around the green earth without repercussions? You’ve had a run-in with them before, High Elf Morrigan, haven’t you?”
“You mean…?” the elven woman said as she took a tentative step forward to glare at the revolting deity before us.
“But, of course, who else could I mean?” Nergal giggled to himself in a wheeze, and then his glowing white eyes snapped directly to me as his lips pulled back against his mossy teeth, “The Holy Band of Mages is paying close attention to the god that somehow was able to escape his prison. In fact, one might say they’re hunting you down at this very moment.”
Chapter Eight
“I’d heard they were busy dealing with a particular spryly sorcerer, you may know him by the name of Tuzakeur, but his tracks intertwined with someone they hadn’t forgotten, though they had hoped to,” Nergal informed us.
I stared him down, and though he couldn’t see me, he glared back with a wicked smile.
“What do the Holy Band of Mages want with me?” I asked as I squinted down at the decaying old man.
“What else would they want?” He stroked his wrinkly chin thoughtfully as he kept his milky eyes on my form. “You escaped your dungeon. They either want you dead, or they want to put you back where you belong.” Nergal cackled through his moldy brown and green teeth.
“They can’t kill me,” I told him confidently as I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m too powerful of a god for them to even touch. I would wipe them out in a manner of seconds.”
“Yes, you could…” Nergal drew out slyly, and I narrowed my eyes on him harder. “But do you think that the Holy Band of Mages would come for you without protection? At least, some sort of collateral to keep you in check.”
“What are you talking about?” I growled as I took a menacing step forward.
“Let’s call it... an echo of a relic from your past, though I won’t tell you any more because, honestly, I like the way your mind squirms.” Nergal giggled, and I watched in disgust as the sickly old man struggled to stand.
As Nergal did so, the throne made from gnarled trees and roots shifted and produced a long walking stick, and the sickly man grabbed it easily with one hand and used it to stumble towards us. My minions took quick steps back in fear and disgust while my clones stayed in place around me like guards.
The staff that Nergal carried, unlike the throne and everything else in his dungeon, was expertly crafted and the wood was smoothed to perfection. The top of the wooden staff bent and swirled in a circle, and long strings of feathers hung down and brushed against his fist. Nergal chuckled softly as he used the staff to hobble forward, and strange noises came from his mouth. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he turned his head and listened as the sound vibrated back against the cavern’s walls.
I recognized it immediately as echolocation, the same type of technique that bats used to maneuver their way around caves. The god trapped in a human body was trying to feel out where all of us were standing, and though my clones took up space and appeared to be solid, they were no more solid than a thick fog. It was one of the shortcomings of that magic, but soon, I would learn how to create more that were more substantial, but for now, it was clear that Nergal used his superior senses to figure out which was real and which was merely a clone.
Nergal found his way to me and stood directly in front of my avatar. I nearly pulled away when he reached out one blackened hand towards my face, but I stood my ground and allowed him to touch my face. His entire being stunk like Rana had described earlier, and I could hear my minions shift uncomfortably from behind me as the rotting god probed my face for answers that he couldn’t find inside of my emptied mind.
“You know why I’m here, don’t you?” Nergal asked in a whisper as he gestured towards the whole of the nexus with his staff.
“No, I do not,” I answered back as I studied his face carefully.
I had never seen him, not on earth and not in the heavenly realm, I only knew tales of him. He must have been cast out long before I was born. From the state of the human body he was trapped in, he must have been here for some time.
“You know the god’s rules as do I. Recite them for me, son.” Nergal smiled, and the smell of his breath hit me, but I kept a straight face as his hand stopped and rested two fingers against my forehead.
“Thou shalt never attempt to take the life from another god,” I repeated the first rule of the heavens, and Nergal nodded keenly and pressed his two fingers harder into the bone of my forehead. “Thou shalt not attempt to seize a domain under another god’s control.”
“Very good, and the last?” Nergal urged me on, and I tightened my hands into fists unknowingly as I was once again reminded of the reason I was cast out.
“Thou shalt never lay with a human or creatures alike as thou do with heavenly beings,” I growled as I recited the third godly rule.
Nergal laughed heartily at that. “Isolda was a pretty one, wasn’t she?” he taunted as he pressed harder into my forehead.
I snarled but refused to take a step back in this game of wills that we were playing. “And?” I scoffed angrily.
“To me, that’s the most asinine of reasons to fall from the heavens, don’t you think?” the rotting god mocked. I saw in the milky whites of his eyes that he was attempting to rile me, but it wouldn’t work, I would win this. “To throw away everything for a human? What is the point? They die so easily that it's almost embarrassing. Look at this body that I’m caged in! Every six months I have to replace it because it simply rots away like it’s made from nothing. Not only that, but have you seen the goddesses in the god’s realm? Are you blind? You threw away your life for nothing, and it disgusts me.”
“For nothing?” I asked, my voice much calmer than before as I took in hus words. “That’s where you’re very wrong. Finding love and a partner in the god’s realm would have been unbelievably easy. I would tell you to look at my face but, you can’t.”
I snickered as I took a jab at him, but the disgusting man didn’t react at all to my spurring. “The gods made those rules, then would marry themselves off to people they didn’t care about. The heavenly realm was rampant with affairs and orgies, and that, Nergal, is what disgusts me. What I had with Isolda was something special, a bond between a human and a god that no one, not even the gods could break apart. Even now, as I stand with my minions, not even the gods or the Holy Band of Mages will tear them from me as they did with my first love.”
“How can you talk like that?” Rana shouted as she came forward, one of her elven dagger drawn, not that Nergal could see it. “You have a daughter! You must have been cast out for fraternizing with a human!”
“You think…?” Nergal burst out laughing, and I raised my eyebrows as the festering man bent over and guffawed loudly. “No, you are very wrong. My daughter, Ruituri, was born from the goddess of earth, Cybele. Don’t you want to know why I was thrown from
the heavens, Dark One? I can feel the vibrating curiosity burning in your brain.”
“If you want to tell us so much, then do so,” I stated plainly as I took a step forward. Nergal scurried back then as I forced him to break contact with my flesh for a second.
“There is one thing I can commend you for, the lust and greed for all things to be under your control,” Nergal stated, and I could physically feel his power probing through my mind though I wasn’t sure what he was looking for.
“So, you were cast out for attempting to take the domain of another god?” I questioned through narrowed eyes.
“Yes, but it was more than that.” Nergal sighed, and from the tone of his voice, it seemed like he was happy about what he had done. “You may not remember him, your parents would, but the lightning god, Raijin, was the one I stole from. You might have seen carvings of him while you were still there in the heavens. A real brute, he was. Looked more suited for the pits of hell than the heavenly realm.”
I did remember this Raijin from carvings and texts. His blood red skin as if he had been dipped down into fire, the horns that protruded from his rippling black locks, and the fangs that hung from his thick lips like the tusks of elephants. Like Nergal had said, he had been a brute who ravaged and terrorized the god’s realm for thousands of years, but I had never met him there. Most of the carvings I had seen of him were of him sitting among the clouds surrounded by floating tomoe, strange circle-shaped sigils with four knife-like spines that swirled out from the middle which represented the god himself. Raijin was a vengeful god and, despite having many wives and mistresses, was unsatisfied and beat his women viciously.