Ch: 285 Get Up And Bar The Door

Fixing an unwanted spiritual incursion into reality was delicate work, even when it looked like a shitty construction site.

Gary had a simple ring of braided hemp rope staked out three feet above the soil level, so it stood on a few long, fresh hewn saplings, where the stream had cut away the earth. Down in the muddy cavity where Wicklow had been entombed, Gary was naked and playing with dirt… again.

 

He was cobbling together a roughly humanoid manikin around a foot tall, made of mud, clay grass and sticks. He carefully plastered the entire rude doll with clay and pushed a pinch of coarse red sand into its forehead. He added a few drops of blood squeezed from a small cut he nicked in his own elbow, then propped the dolly on a wooden stake and climbed out of the hole.

He dove into the stream, where it ran clear and deep a few yards away, washing the filth off before emerging from the stream with a warm, fluffy towel in his hands. 

 

“I really hate you kids sometimes…” Larksong muttered, thinking on long, wet, miserable journeys past. The damned fool was dry and changed into fresh clothes without really bestiring himself… it was infuriating. “Feel like I wasted half my life!” She grumbled.

 

The madman grinned at her and sat on a stool under the awning, out of the sun and produced his weird round instrument… the twangy one… the really twangy one… the twangiest of them all.

 

The Foggy Mountain Breakup, Enchanted banjo, Etheric and spiritual enchantments. Rank, copper. Rarity, Unique. 

Effect: That Dang Twang, beings incapable of perceiving sound or for whom the concept of sound is alien will perceive this instrument when played by or near a source of etheric magic.

Effect: Emancipation Vibration, the sonic and magical vibrations, harmony, resonance and dissonance created by this instrument are highly abrasive to invasive spells, compulsions and geas effects. 

Effect: Deliverance, hostile magical and curse effects exposed and damaged by Foggy Mountain Breakup will corrode and degrade while exposed to music from this instrument. Complementary and synergistic effects will increase this process.

 

“This instrument is something I cooked up just for these kinds of situations. It’s highly antagonistic to compulsion effects… unless it’s toe tapping… Or kissing your cousin… it won’t stop either of those.” He grinned madly for a moment, giggling at some personal amusement.

“Even a being without hearing or for whom sound is a foreign concept will be able to hear it. Banjos, baby!”

 

He began to spank, strum, pick and flick his instrument into chaotic and noisy life. “Oooh, ‘Fire On The Mountain’! Good choice lad!” Shai sang with a smile on her face at last. The dismal place had really worn on her nerves while he worked to set up… whatever it was. Now her violin was out and her hips were swinging, breaking the mood with noise and energy.

The others shrugged and fell in with their instruments, as black wasps continued to patrol for skulking shades and husks.

He drew them through a three song set, ending on a lively local number called ‘Berry Pickers Reel’ that felt like summer afternoons in the sunshine, even as clouds began to loom from the west, scudding in on an unexpected wind…

 

He slowed and finally ended the music, slumping onto his stool with a sigh. “Liam, we need to put the awning up over Seahorse before the rain hits…” He gasped.

 

“You just did something with a dark ritual summoning circle that changed the weather… but a wet bottom is your first concern?” Becky asked calmly.

 

“My little clay dolly is completing the missing part of this circle, playing Wicklowe’s role temporarily.” He mumbled, sounding sleepy and looking ready for a nap. “Which should allow this rent to stabilize and then slowly close as the energy slowly bleeds off. I’d rather be warm and dry in the boat.” He yawned. “We can come back tomorrow and check our progress.”

 

“What about any of those dead things?” Larksong asked quietly.

 

“They might still pop out from time to time, until the rift’s fully sealed.” He slowly gathered most of the stuff and stumbled for the boat, where his brothers were just fastening the last ties on the canvas top. 

Shai took her seat at the tiller, with Becky at the bow, watching out ahead in the gathering gloom, by the light of Seahorse’s figurehead’s glowing eyes. Gary sank onto Shai’s feet, in his usual position; resting back against her shins while her free hand toyed with his ears and wandered his scalp.

#

 

A scant hour and a quarter later, moored alongside Moonrise in the sheeting rain and soft rumbling thunder, the crew ducked into the warm, comfy house and into a bit of a party.

Teenage orphans were everywhere, sitting chatting napping, sprawled on every sittable, layable or available surface. Instruments from the displays were scattered all over, making a raucous and unmusical riot of noise that failed to please the ear.

 

As soon as they got inside Rio blasted over and hugged Gary around the knees with a plaintive look on his face. “Rio…” Gary grumbled softly. “We talked about this… these kids have been fighting shades and spirits for a while… they might be jumpy and do something rash…”

 

“But Papa…” He moaned pitifully, as a string quartet almost formed over in the corner, before collapsing into discordant noise. He looked to Shai, who nodded and smiled her approval… Those kids were really awful.

 

“Ok, but take it slow, and let me warn the group first…” He mumbled through half closed eyelids.

“Hey, gang…” He called into the noisy room.

“Hey, Gang!” He barked, making every instrument ring out with his voice, shaking the room. “All right… A guest or two is coming over… they are my friends. They will be taking charge, if you don’t like it or them, the door’s that way.”

He turned back to Rio with a smile and handed him his bongos and Cab’s baton. “Show ‘em what’s up, son.”

Master Calloway’s distinctive scat stylings followed Gary upstairs, as the orphans began to sync up and sound like music. He listened to the sounds of musical tutelage through the open bedroom door as his blankets and pillows engulfed him.  “I’ll check on thee in an hour or two lad…” Shai whispered.

#

 

He lay back in the pool, looking up at his new homeworld, spinning slowly through the starry sky of the mortal realm. Blue and green, it drifted along like a shiny jewel against the black velvet and diamonds of the firmament. This evening it felt different, maybe a hair brighter, a tiny bit closer… or maybe just a little bit cleaner.

“Gary, we have company, she’s insisting on talking to you.” Social Anxiety Notgary mumbled.

 

“All right bro.” He clapped his much improved alter ego on the shoulder with a grin. “I’ll go talk to her, good job.” He left his nervous and anxious self standing there, trying to resist the urge to fidget.

 

“Gary… you should let me back in…” Matron sighed reasonably from the gateway to his soul.

 

“No, I shouldn’t. You burned me once. No second chances when the stakes are this high.” He said firmly. “I thought we had a good working relationship… You made your own decisions.”

 

“We could still do so much more…” Maiden cooed softly, shimmying her pale and bouncy boobs at him from the dubious support of a black silk tubetop.

 

“That’s a no.” He snapped in annoyance. “Not a ‘maybe if you shake your titties at me’. Learn to read the room.” He grumbled. 

 

“You need me, my guidance, my power…” She whispered.

 

“Third time, no. This isn’t like you Morrie… what’s got you…” He stopped cold and locked eyes with the ancient being on his doorstep. “You know something…”

 

She exploded into a cloud of raven feathers, vanishing into the never in an instant, as his glare sharpened. “I see you now, Crow!” He shouted into the void. “I’m shutting you out… your games are over! You fucking tricky parasite!” he shouted into the void, as a faint cackling laugh drifted to his ears on an eldritch breeze…

 

“I’ll get the last laugh…” He growled.

 

“No, Gary, you won’t.” She gloated from nearby, hovering in the void. “Thrice you rejected me, severing your tenuous attachment to me forever. I’ll not fall into your hands, boy. I need only wait for you to perish, to begin my work again.” She sighed happily, just out of reach. 

“I almost had it finished, but you humans are so stubborn… Now my toys are beginning to fail, my cultists are all but spent and few demons remain willing to play a part in my work…” She complained. “Few useful ones anyway. The whole rend the flesh and devour the living contingent remains reliably stupid.”

 

“So this was your game all along…” He growled at the being.

 

“A simple human extinction on one planet should have been utter simplicity…” She grumbled and complained. “Stubborn idiots! I only want this one world to be free of you… is that so much to ask! Beast’s leafy bitches just kept dragging you here, keeping you as pets… see where that got us?” She flapped her wings in annoyance and screeched her frustration at the cosmos.

 

“You…” He muttered as though it were the worst obscenity he had available.

 

“No, you! Bloody humans infest the cosmos, magical, non magical worlds, barren worlds, even the spaces between… you are everywhere that those damn dryads touch… Their favored pet animals... Reeking up my home!” She snarled. “Just one world without you vermin! That’s all I ever wanted!”

 

“So you decided to do all this…” He mumbled in shock. “Driving us from earth and pushing us to the brink here… Because you don’t like us?”

 

“Ohh, I love humans… so feisty and bloodthirsty, violent and insular… You animals are the best thing to infest the kind of hardscrabble, magically barren rocks they bred you to live on…” She snapped. “When this strange fixation of Beast’s handmaidens started binding your world more tightly to this one it was too much! Not in my home! Scuttling about and breeding so fast…”

She turned her baleful and alien gaze on him and preened her feathers with satisfaction. “No matter, you are merely an ephemeral and have attracted the attention of greater beings…” She smiled coldly and cackled again. 

“You will be dealt with soon enough, I’ll simply pluck your soul back out once they have ended you. Then you go back to work for me… Three or four dozen more generations and I should have your species all but cleansed away here.”

 

“Don’t count your Garies til they’re hatched…” He snapped at the immortal fae being. “I’m not finished yet!” 

 

“Yes… boy, yes you are…” She cackled as she flew off into the endless void. “Your own pantheon is plotting your end, ever the useful fools.”

 

“She’s right Gary.” Marduk said softly from behind him. “Since they came here, they’ve learned some new things, and the first lesson you taught them was fear of death. Now they worry who might be next, or even if they have already been ‘gifted’ with your ‘blessing’ of mortality.”

 

“They should have stayed out of my soul then. They broke in and threw me out… I have no responsibility for whatever happened to them.” He snapped at the godling.

 

“That’s what I told them…” He sighed.  “Gods seldom see things the way mortals do. I think it’s because you keep assuming we are infallible. A few of us might have started to believe it.”

 

“So what’s their game?” He demanded.

 

“Well… War considered ordering your death through his cult… just a bit of honest murder. It seems he can no longer compel his cultists as he once did… no few have actually slipped away entirely… much to his consternation.” Marduk reported with a sad grin. “He’s found himself at loggerheads with Order on the issue.”

 

“Uh huh… Not encouraging, Ducky.” He mumbled.

 

“What they have decided to do, is sever you from this place entirely.” He mumbled. “They are closing the aperture you are wedged in, as we speak. I’m sorry Gary.”

 

“Wait, What?” He demanded sharply, as the dream world began to fade.

 

“You will be fine… save that you will have only mortal dreams, my friend.” Marduk called from an ever increasing distance.

#

 

Gary woke in his bed with a jolt, with Ward sitting on a toadstool nearby. “Sorry brother… they sandbagged us with that one.” He grumbled. “Craft figured out a way to clip the mortal threads linking you to that place. He got enough of the gods to agree to it… Now it’s mine… I guess. I’m sorry.” He smiled, a weak and feeble version of his usual expression.

“You can still dream yourself there… I made sure of that, but you won’t have any real control in the dream world anymore, or be able to use your gifts.”

 

“What about Shai and the kids?” He groaned. 

 

“Their connections are different from yours… they are still… I’m sorry, it’s just you they fucked over.”

 

“Gods can move pretty fast when they want to… can’t they…” He grunted, as he levered himself upright.

 

“Frightened beings do stupid things… It’s my fault… I got too up my own ass and ruined everything.” He mumbled, while Gary dressed himself. “I’ll figure out a way to fix this…”

 

“We… will figure it out, together. If Morrigan comes sniffing around… Well, I’d like to get my hands on her again, but not at the cost of letting her in.” He growled. “She’s at least a big part of the problem, if not all of it.”

 

“You know I would never have…” Ward muttered softly. “I wouldn’t, couldn’t… They can’t make me keep you out… even though they screamed and yelled…” He sobbed into Gary’s shoulder, soaking his fresh shirt.

“Most of the gods won’t come back in…” He gasped, when he had more control of himself. “They don’t trust you, after killing so many of them… of us, I guess. They won’t come back in as long as you’re free to come and go.”

 

“How many are still around?” He asked his brother gently.

 

“Ducky and Eponna, Thirp of course, Chilly, the llama guy… and a few others. All the dryads, Beast and the spirits are here; they’ve been watching all along and are less frightened.” He mumbled. “I guess a lot of deities are chickenshit.”

 

“Chickenshit or not, I need those assholes to play ball.” He grumbled. Go ahead and lock me out if that’ll keep them hanging around. I don’t think most of them really understand my plot yet, if they’ll come back…” The musician murmured urgently.

 

“I don’t understand…” Ward murmured unhappily.

 

“The moonlight, filtered through my soul and spilling over the globe is filled with divine and radiant energies… that’s the whole ballgame. In a few more weeks, it won’t matter, but right now I need them hanging out and goofing across my… I guess now they’re your forests and meadows.” Gary sighed and shook his head to clear the lingering fog.

 

“That’s the reason? I mean you said it before… they all thought you were just being weird…” Ward whispered softly.

 

“Nope, that’s it. My vibe energizes the Animus and aura of sentient mortals by bombarding them with harmless magical radiation… just like music does. That tightens up every sentient’s natural resistance to outside interference and compulsions.” He sighed with bone deep exhaustion. “That’s what’s got War, Craft and especially Order, so upset with me. The gods don’t really understand what’s going on, because their worshipers don’t really understand.”

 

“I think Joy gets it… she’s been quietly stalling and delaying them.” He murmured. “Are you really… ok with this?”

 

“Fuck no…” The musician grumbed. “I’ll figure out a way to… No, I probably won’t.” He sagged a little, sitting on the edge of the bed.

The sound of the door opening heralded Shai and the kids, tumbling in on them in a mad jumble. Ward stood awkwardly nearby and tried to be unobtrusive, while Gary hugged and kissed his way around his little family.

“Go downstairs kids, I would speak wi Gary an Ward a mite.” Shai shooed them away, and sat on the bed beside her sagging and exhausted husband. The tykes whined and complained a bit, until she got firm with them.

“Run along now little ruffians, we hae grownup discussions.” Shai scolded their brood, as she chased them back downstairs. 

 

Once the three were alone she turned on the two nearly identical and very different men.

“What did ye fools do?” She demanded ungently. “I felt ye get cut off frae our other place again… though I kin still feel thee… in me breast, lad.”

 

“That’s the gods, changing the rules, because they’re weak little shits. Oh, and Morrigan is a traitor and the cause of all this bullshit.” He grumbled, sour and angry once again, now that the kids had fled downstairs.

 

“Technically, the rest of the pantheon is saying that Joy, Beast, Myself and the others are taking unfair advantage of a vulnerable mortal… so they are limiting our ability to touch your soul directly. For your ‘protection’.”

 

“Uhh huh… but they won’t mess with Shai or the kids… cause they can’t do what I do.” He growled. “They get to come down and play mortal, experience a taste of the real world… like my ass is a theme park and they have vip passes.”

 

“Lad… we hae the power tae eject them frae thee… mayhap, an we close the gates…” Shai began.

 

“Ohh, no… I need them to come play… put up a carousel, waterslides, bumpercars…” He whispered angrily. “Let them romp in the meadows and eat the fruit grown in my garden…”

 

“It’s unjust an I dinnae like it… save that they hae not severed thee from me as last time.” She grumbled, hugging her man close and glaring at the demigod in the corner with diffuse and undirected anger.

 

“They’re skirting their own laws and pushing against their very natures to do this thing…” Ward grumbled unhappily. “The deities on his side, like me, Beast, Thirp, the dryads and Ducky are pushing back, but fear is a powerful drug and they just got their first real taste of it.”

 

“Ward.” Gary interrupted gently. “Don’t make too many waves… stall, delay, whatever… and lock me out. Let them all back in… with a few exceptions.”

 

“Gary, it’s not right…” He muttered unhappily.

 

“Right and wrong never really mattered to them, or to me really. I’ve gotten the shaft so many times it feels like old times. I can take one more for the team.” He mumbled tiredly. “As long as Craft, Order and War are on the outside looking in, I don’t care if those cowards play in my garden.”

 

“Go downstairs, lad. I would speak wi Ward.” She mumbled, sending him to the door with a kiss and a swat on his rump.

 

“I’m not sure this is a good idea… Shai…” He muttered awkwardly. “You make my… divine essence… flare up pretty badly.” He turned away unable to meet her gaze, now that they were alone together for the first time.

 

“Aye, tis his emotions an mine, an the similarities between thee…” She whispered softly. “When ye ‘appeared’ I did worry that we would hae an eternal tag along, peering frae his shadow, even durin’ private times.” She sighed, while patting the bed beside her. 

“Come, sit wi me. I would nae shout across the room.”

 

He complied, when she struck him with a withering stare. He settled into the cloudlike bedding beside her and she took his hand in hers. “It were uncharitable feelings I had fer thee, those first days, an fer some time after… when ye did appear in his other home wi such… vigor an command of the place.”

 

“Shai…” He mumbled, even more uncomfortably.

 

“Silence. Ye listen an ye listen well tae what be in me heart.” She scolded him gently, with a finger to his lips.

“I’ll be trusting ye, that ye will mind his interests… an trusting him, that ye both know what ye are about…” She whispered in his ear. 

“But he be MINE an none will change that. Not by a single hair, nor fingernail trimming. Gods be damned! Aye, an the great fae too… an they contest wi sweet Shai. Know this. Know it well.”

She kissed the confused and agitated demigod on his cheek and left him there… pondering things.

#

 

“The moon feels… weird, tonight.” Kelli sighed, laying on her favorite patch of lawn under the stars. “It’s not as warm as it was… Like it’s not really Gary, anymore.”

 

“I don’t feel a difference. Perhaps you’re just tired.” Elli whispered. “You’ve been working so hard.”

 

“Kelli is correct.” Plumeria whispered, as she stepped into the garden. “I feel the change on my leaves, he is no longer up there. Fear not, he lives… This is a scheme by the gods to prevent him from approaching them. He is now bound to this mortal plane in ways he was not before.”

 

“How disappointing.” The shadow being muttered.

 

“Fear not, Elli. He remains dangerously and infectiously mortal… that part of their plot failed miserably. The question remains, as to whether the rest will unfold as the gods desire.” The tiny, purple and gold robed dryad murmured happily.

“You should go to bed, Kelli. Sunrise comes early and you don’t want to miss this one, either of you.” She slipped closer and kissed the reclining woman on the forehead, before vanishing out the arden gate with a wave.

“I have others to visit… remember, sunrise will be an exciting show!”

#

 

Maisie and Abel Knubbel were up early, as all dairy folks must be. That meant little Franklin was up too, swaddled at his mother’s breast on the porch, enjoying his breakfast, while his proud parents enjoyed theirs. When a small, brown skinned, brown haired woman slipped out of the willow tree in their yard and approached, they were surprised, but not concerned… She was beautiful… and nude.

“Abel! Stop gawping and fetch this lass a blanket or something!” Maisie scolded her slack jawed man. “Are you shipwrecked, or lost, child?” She asked gently.

 

“Neither, mistress Knubbel… nor need your husband stir himself. I am Willow, dryad of the willow grove… and a friend of your son’s godmother, Plumeria.” She gave a graceful bow that took Abel’s breath away… and Maisie’s as well… the woman was exquisite!

“She asks that you please have little Frankie up, out and about, to witness this morning’s very special sunrise…” She sighed gently. “I feel him, even now… though he’s still so small.” The woman stepped onto the low porch with a shy smile.

“May I hold him? Just for a moment? This precious one?”

 

Maisie considered for a moment, until Frankie stirred and reached out his pink, pudgy hands to the tiny woman, with a soft grunt of happiness and a bubbling giggle.

She gently handed the being her son… and smiled, as a wave of absolute blissful warmth spread from the two small people standing on the humble farmhouse porch by the sea. 

 

“Oh, my!” Willow, Maisie and Abel gasped together, as the sun slowly rose among the hills to the east, flooding the sky with a rosy, golden glow and a silent, thundering sound… like the chime of a vast and terrible bell, ringing the hour of doom.

#

 

Gabbie had become quite fond of her golden throne… She pressed her bare bottom down firmly and wriggled with soft gasps of delight as  Jockomo wrapped his muscular, golden arms around her from behind. It was only fair, she had parts of him wrapped firmly up in her at the moment too… 

Making love in the throne room before dawn was a sneaky and sexy treat just for the young empress and her Left Hand. This morning exploded over them, as dawn and their moment of mutual climax met together, atop an ancient artifact linked into their very souls… All over the far flung empire, hundreds of voices called out in bliss, delight and absolute mind expanding pleasure and Joy in a single voice.

“Oh Wow!” 

#

 

If you're curious about the chapter title... it's also a clue.

Get Up And Bar The Door author unknown