Ch: 287 Maneater
“It’s the unnecessary malevolence that gets me. I can see how being an all consuming hunger made manifest would come across negatively, but you went the extra mile, buddy.” He said casually to the pulsating sphere of genitals, teeth and skin, gyrating ravenously a few inches away from him.
“All this… it’s just completely over the top. That’s why I’m not cutting you any slack. No, that’s not a circumcision joke.”
He turned his back on the detestable cluster of private parts and sharp fangs. “It’s Ok, Jules. Go ahead.”
“So, when you asked for a little space in my garden for a ritual… you were planning to summon this thing?” The duke asked, uncomfortably.
“This? Ohh no, this isn’t Slyugutheryointhias, the demon of mortal flesh… This is just the tip.” He said with a mad smile. “Dannyl has the estimated scrotal acreage figures… Don’t worry, I’m gonna give him the worst case of the creeping mortals ever. No eldritch free clinic will be able to help this guy.”
“I think I’m going to faint…” Phillip muttered.
“The pantheon pulled down my pants and paddled my behind… now they expect me to fall in and toe their line. Well, I’m incorrigible and won’t be a good boy… unless Shai asks.” He grumbled at the sky. “This guy just happens to be the right balance between ‘fucked around’ and ‘about to find out’.”
Does that thing even understand what’s going on?” Count Jagdeep Singh asked in disgust.
“Yeah, he’s playing ‘inscrutable alien thing’… pretending he has no language or sentience.” Gary told his small audience of people who were largely regretting the choices that had brought them there.
“I read your intent in the veins of your ballsack, creature. You stick your cock in random worlds, eventually something is going to bite it off!”
“Dear gods…” Phillip moaned.
“That’s ok, Phil. You don’t have to stay. My goddess insists that executions be done before an audience of respected elders and witnesses, so I thought of you.” Gary smiled warmly at the second person he’d ever thrown out of his house, and the only one he’d ever let back in.
“That’s kind of sweet, thank you… but I’m out.” Phillip mumbled, as he fled the garden.
“Now, Penitent Penis… I’m not going to give you a Prince Albert… But I won’t go out of my way to make this easy on you. Just because I don’t like you very much.” He said with a feral smile.
“Gary… you said Ipet had to surrender Vengeance in order to become Justice…” Tawny whispered harshly from the cheap seats, which had become extraordinarily popular.
“She did… She made the responsible choice and dropped Vengeance cold. My brother picked it up and is keeping it warm.” He pulled a long wand of hawthorn, with a single curved thorn at the tip. “The squeamish may not want to watch this.”
#
When the loathsome thing faded from the garden and he collected the stanchions his ritual cords had dangled from, no trace of the obscene entity remained. The vile clay dingus and its single idiotically long pube were dust, swept up and stowed in the thrifty musician’s strange Pockets!.
“I’m pretty upset at you, Gary… What if that thing got loose?” Julius insisted.
“It couldn’t. Even if someone stupid breached my circles, it would be like slamming your balls in the front door… Highly unproductive. It takes the ritual sacrifice of at least six human souls and their flesh to conjure that thing into a physical reality… or it would. Not any more… He has a hot date with the Devourer and I need to get home and wash up for dinner… Beans and franks.” He said dryly.
“My wife has a sense of humor, or so I’m told.”
#
In the crater, beside War’s Freudian monument of pink marble, four figures were gathered, standing on the two massive granite boulders of Ballsack Island.
“You need only compel this new godling, Ward… to let me back inside… or compel one of the children to.” Morrigan whispered to Craft, War and Order, in the shadow of the girthy, pink marble column on the little crater island.
“Easier said than done…” Order grumbled. “...and why are we meeting in this horrid place? It holds few attractions!”
“Because here, we are unobserved and even mortals must speak true… this effect is useful, when dealing with mortal problems like this creature.” Morrigan replied confidently. “We are private and secure here, this place is a small gap in… whatever this is.”
“Whatever it is, it’s a problem!” Craft moaned pitifully. “Damned Marduk is taking over my entire cult, one step at a time!”
“I’m losing Contracts… They are abandoning me.” War whispered desperately. “How is that even possible?”
“All the more reason to use every resource you have to end this abomination.” Morrigan cawed at them, perched on a pine bough. “There is some plot afoot…” She declared with absolute honesty.
“This mortal is or was in league with whatever is imperiling this world… I sense that the author of this trouble has been in his soul before many times and has even entered the mortal world through his aid!” Her self-satisfied beak click at the end of that entirely accurate statement went completely unnoticed.
“One of mine has a legitimate parental claim on one of those…” Order shuddered with revulsion inside his robes and veil. “...children. Once he has seized parental rights, a Contract with myself, War and Craft will allow us enough control to do what needs to be done…”
#
Two hours after dinner, he stumbled off to bed early tucking in the kids, then himself, in an exhausted stupor.
Gary watched with a little jealousy, as his kids went off to the dreamworld he’d once played in with them.
He sighed as he drifted off into normal, troubled sleep. ‘Life gets harder to deal with when you can’t consult wise old friends in your dreams.’ He thought as the world drifted off.
#
“Gary Ward, Mortal aberration, you stand accused of the wanton and callous murder of several immortals.” Order pronounced from the high bench of a gleaming marble cathedral courtroom.
Alone in the prisoner’s dock on the wide stone floor, he was naked, chained to a ring set in the flagstones, under an alien sky of winking red and orange stars.
The rest of the pantheon was gathered around on the mezzanine looking down on him and whispering among themselves.
“Is this about the meat hacky-sack I just wafflestomped down the drain?” He demanded of the veiled figure.
Order turned and consulted extensively with a small group of robed beings behind him and finally turned back. “Yes, that.”
“Oh, well, fuck you and your buddies too. Come on down here and I’ll slap the taste of mother’s milk into your mouth… the hard way. You won’t even know what happened to you, until the midwife spanks your mortal ass.” He grinned up at them. “Life is tough, then you die… and that’s just the start!”
“Gary…” Ducky’s voice drifted down from somewhere. “Not helping!”
“Yeah, well I don’t acknowledge that you guys have any authority over me at all. If Joy, Ipet, Beast, Ward or Brigid have anything to say to me… I’m listening, otherwise, I can’t hear you.”
“You will submit.” Order commanded. “You will take no further actions against any immortal or their agents, nor will you interfere with the plans of the pantheon.”
“You’re pretty cocky, Order… are you certain my brother didn’t get any traces of you on him, when he was kicking your ass? I do notice War is conspicuously absent.” His voice dripped with mockery and disdain as he shouted up to the distant entity.
“Why don’t you come down here, so we can talk, fist to face? I mean face to fist…” He tried to utter a lie, even a transparently false one and failed hard.
“Bravado and bluster will avail you nothing, mortal! We are the gods of this world and will guide its development, not a…” Order barked authoritatively. “Mortal, what are you doing?”
While the god was speaking, Gary pulled the collar of silvery metal from his neck, stretching it like warm taffy until it parted with a wet sound. A moment later, he was scrambling up the ornate marble judge’s bench, swinging from delicately sculpted trees and vines, as he clambered like a monkey up to the high desk.
He looked up at Order, with raw, hungry malice in his mad eyes… Still naked, he continued climbing the elaborate stone wall.
“Stop! Someone stop him!” Craft shrieked, as he fled the scene, his golden robes flapping and a trail of moisture behind him.
The grinning, scratched and scuffed mortal climbed onto the platform, into a rapidly growing empty space. He licked his lips hungrily, eyes fixed on the tall gray clad figure among the press of immortals. “Oooorder… I’ve come up to plaa-aay!” He sang sweetly, as the god vanished into the mob of deities and spirits.
“I thought you wanted me to submit… Come accept my humble submission…” He shouted into the crowd.
“Gary…” Marduk shoved to the front and strode over to face his naked, angry and deranged friend. “This is not helping your case…”
“I don’t have a case… These cunts are afraid of me and are too weak to sack up and deal with it. There won’t be any justice, law or fair play… just a bunch of frightened animals doing whatever they think they can get away with.”
He raked a glare over the gathered beings.
“I could have snuffed any of you at any time over the last weeks, while you’ve been playing in my garden… yet you were safe, as guests in my home. How did you thank me for my hospitality?” Silence was his answer.
“Ducky knows what I can do better than any of you, but he’s right here beside me. Joy holds a Contract with me, she seems unafraid...”
“Gary, please stop, let me return you to natural sleep. You are frightening them more.” Thirp sang, as she struggled her way through the press.
“These goons can’t deal with their own fuckups and are too stupid to let a professional do his job.” He grumbled at the immortals on the wall. “I’ve been too patient with you clowns.”
Thirp and Ducky closed with him, taking his hands in theirs and leading him away from the swarm of divinities and spirits. “Calm yourself, please… These matters are still in flux... The divine councils of the pantheon are still discussing what steps to take…” Ducky soothed and cooed at the angry musician.
“One of your own did all this shit!” He shouted at the gods and goddesses arrayed against the far side of the courtroom. “She tried to murder Ducky here, tried to cause the extinction of humanity on this world… Morrigan has been playing you all for saps all this time.”
A quiet murmur swept the crowd, followed by a raucous screech from high above. Three ravens circled in the open sky above, shrieking in outrage. “Mortal fabrications! Such perfidy! It never was so!”
“A great lady of the fae who has learnt to lie…” Gary murmured in wonder. “No wonder you’ve gotten away with it so long…”
“Gary, Please. Let me return you to natural sleep.” Thirp whispered. “Trust us. Trust me, Marduk and your friends.”
“If they snatch me up again…” He growled at the two gods. “...my patience and goodwill have run out.”
A moment later he was awake and very angry.
#
When the family awoke, Gary had breakfast ready, all the gear stowed, the orphan’s dunnage unloaded and the ship ready to sail with, or without the tide.
“Gary, did something happen last night?” Liam asked gently.
“Yeah, I was given an ultimatum and commanded to submit to Order and the pantheon.” He growled.
“How badly did that go?” His friend asked softly.
“You still have all your gods and goddesses…” He smiled, technically; it was a cold and brittle thing with little to recommend it.
“I’m going to harvest those plum trees that we missed out on and go home. I have real work to do.”
“Gary, are ye going ‘on strike’ again?” Shai demanded. “Ducky did say ye were cross wi the pantheon fer some slight…”
“Well Ducky probably didn’t tell you that they chained me naked in a courtroom and ordered me to submit to their authority.” He snapped angrily. “Guess how that went. I’ll be working till we’re ready to sail.”
He stomped off into the workshop and vanished into the depths, steaming with fury.
“I think… Maybe he’s a better cook when he’s angry. These fritters are amazing!” Tallum muttered awkwardly, through a mouth full of fried dough.
#
He reappeared, much calmer at third bell… outwardly at least. He still had a hard edge to his smile and a tightness around his eyes.
“I could sting you, just a little. You seem really agitated…” Kree buzzed in his ear.
“Honeybee… keep your venom to yourself. I nearly blissed out last time.” He murmured fondly to the little bug.
“My mom says that’s ‘cause you have a weird body and a broken soul… that’s why my venom makes you silly.” She buzzed and chirped. “Mom says I’m only allowed to sting you… and mean people.”
“Me and mean people… Thanks…” He gasped, as Wilf barreled into his tummy with a tacklehug. Amy and Rio climbed him a moment later, clambering up to his shoulders and perching there.
“We’re sailin’ soon!” Amy sang. “Shai says I can steer! …once we’re in open water… if the waves aren’t too high.”
“Sweetie, I’m behind you all the way… as long as your mom says it’s ok.” He giggled, the frost finally melting from his aura.
#
For two long days they sailed, past Port Fallon and up the estuary, finally mooring beside the silted up canal of the former Geenwall hamlet, near a cluster of tents and a crudely fashioned cabin, knocked together of loose stones and green timber.
A few women and children were moving among the tents, while other people worked in the ruined town, cutting trees and clearing out rubble clogged streets. A large stack of fresh timber stood near the waterside, awaiting a barge most likely.
Liam hopped out onto the rude pier someone had cobbled up and trotted into the camp to find the people in charge. “Stay wi me lad, ye are too prickly tae meet new folks now.” Shai murmured in his ear. “Liam will make our introductions.”
He returned a few minutes later looking satisfied. “We can moor here for a day or two. Our contract gives us the lumber rights for that section… They were planning on clearing that orchard and replanting it, so we’ve got no problems there.”
Together they secured the ship and marched off into the ruined town, past wide eyed workmen and woodcutters.
“They’re refugees and displaced people, so they are all a little skittish around armed people.” Tawny whispered to the group at large, as two bands of well equipped Adventurers trooped off into the scrublands, through their slowly forming town.
They brought the house into being in the sawmill configuration they’d used before, but this time without a fast moving stream to use as a millrace. It was going to be people powered…
“You guys have been slacking on your Mana training…” Ivy sang happily, as she distributed small, elegantly and intricately carved river stones to each member of the household, including the Sparrowhawks.
“Keep these on your persons and they will tap your Mana, slowly but steadily. If you get tired, meditate, or eat, or both, but keep the stone with you.”
It took most of a day to get set up and start lumberjacking in the grove of ancient plum trees. Felling the damaged specimens first, then culling the oldest and most crowded thickets netted a large number of small to medium sized logs and a bounty of slender saplings.
The sweet, sappy scent of green plum wood being rough sawed filled the house and garden with its pleasant vibe, as Gary worked himself into a sweating, exhausted mess.
As midday became afternoon, the wide orchard plot was nearly bare.
Only a few splendid examples of the plum varieties in the abandoned orchard remained standing, alone among the herbs and undergrowth.
They marched together, back down the trail to Moonrise and sailed out; while afternoon was still firmly in charge and evening was knocking on the door.
#
“Has anyone seen Irdall?” Melanie, the forewoman asked at dinner in the work camp.
“He was looking twitchy when those Adventurers showed up yesterday…” Bob offered. “Didn’t see him after that.”
A quick check of the missing man’s tent found his personal effects gone, apparently packed in haste. “Huh! He ran off…” The forewoman muttered sourly.
#
Eighth bell had long since rung, when the ship nudged her usual spot, on the pier beside the Belen River bridge. The kids barely twitched as they were carried inside and put to bed by sleepy grownups, who put themselves to bed shortly thereafter.
“Gary… ye seem… less energetic, my love. Are ye well?”
“Yeah, I’m just…I never realized how much energy I was drawing from the void… Being cut off from the rest of me is tough.” He mumbled. “Even soaking in the pool doesn’t help much.”
“I’ll ask Ducky an Thirp tonight love…” She whispered, as she tucked him in with a kiss.
Gary woke late, with the sun streaming in through the windows, about a half hour after dawn. He staggered downstairs on a mindless, feral hunt for coffee, tracking his prey by scent. He has on his second steaming mug when he realized old man Otho was speaking to him.
“...has instigated legal proceedings in an attempt to gain parental rights over Rio. He will not succeed, despite whatever assurances the cult of Order is giving him. Duke Belen has already ruled on the matter once and will silence it again when he returns from Port Fallon.” The green robed geezer spoke reassuringly and followed it up with: “So you have nothing to worry about, please don’t exacerbate the problem with any… ill considered actions.”
“Ali?” Gary snarled from behind his mug. “I wonder if he’s hired new bodyguards…”
“Gary, if you murder him, you will lose your children.” Otho whispered gently. “Please don’t do anything we will all grieve for.”
He placed a slim hand on the young man’s shoulder, gnarled and brown as an old root, but the warmth spreading from the old man’s touch sent the musician sagging into the old man’s arms, gasping with huge sobs.
“Is this what I’m trying to protect?” He whispered. “Corrupt nobles and shitty priests of cowardly gods?”
“No, young fool, the children are everything… none of the rest of it matters, never did.” He whispered. “Always the children, otherwise… what is there that is worth anything?”
“Right.” He gulped and sneezed a few times and mumbled softly. “I’ll wash your robe for you… sorry.”
“Excellent…” Otho mumbled awkwardly. “I was hoping I might take lodgings with you… Naiomi is insufferable about you since Healer… Well you know. She’s been generally angry at me for a week now.” He smiled shyly.
“I’ve been staying at the orphanage, but perhaps I could spend some time with Becky and the little ones?”
Gary grinned, when he’d finished wiping his face with a damp cloth. “All those kids at the compound, but you wanna hang out with mine? I knew they were the best ones! Of course you’re welcome.”
“Boy, I still have to resist the urge to hug and kiss duke Belen; as I did when he was a tiny, skinny lad of six, who skinned his knees regularly.” The old man chortled proudly. “I almost pinched Mickkel’s cheek yesterday, when he showed me his latest work. The poor boy is a hundred and twenty years old and I’d swear I still see him skipping about on two legs!” He shook his silver haired head softly.
“He is… I gave him a custom prosthetic a couple weeks ago…” Gary yawned deeply and poured the last of the coffee into himself.
“Really… I was beginning to worry. At my age some people might start to lose a step.” He chuckled happily and got up to brew another pot of java for the sleepy youngster.
“Shai and the children are at the orphanage for the day, Liam is exercising his new… familiar? In that haunted grove of yours.”
“So you’re babysitting me?” He demanded, sounding a little annoyed.
“No, I’m minding your house. What you get up to is your own.” He answered confidently. “Lady Joy is very upset by the ‘stunts’ a few of her peers have been getting up to lately. There seems to have been some kerfuffle with Order and Craft recently… She wouldn’t elaborate on the matter, but I was instructed to: ‘Let him do something mad and upsetting.’...”
“So, you’re ‘letting me’ do something ‘mad and upsetting’... like I’m an attack dog?” He demanded.
“No, I’m begging you to refrain from violence or anything… horrible. If you want to spend the next week in your workshop, making a set of those marvelous drums for brother Mustafa I would be delighted.” The old priest grinned at his young charge and shook his head.
“I think we both know you will almost certainly… Where are you going?”
“I gotta go find Elli.” He grumbled. “I need to murder another immortal.”
#
“When you rebuffed my request and then left town I wondered…” Elli said softly. “I sensed no reluctance on your part, but you are difficult to read… all the chaos, you see.”
“I just wanted you to be certain. I can’t undo… what I do. The rest was things just taking off, as usual.” He murmured softly, to avoid disturbing the others.
Kelli was having tea with Angie and Celeste in the parlor, while the two odd beings discussed matters in a shadowy corner of the room.
“I am certain… eternity wears at my essence with every passing… Well, time truly has no meaning where I usually dwell. Tiresome is far too weak a word. This place, these people, this woman are my home now.” She sighed breathily. “Kelli has tried to explain the concept of pain to me… will it hurt?”
“Not at all. When I’m taking a being’s immortality I have to be aggressive and do… unpleasant things. It’s a killing in those cases, nothing more or less.” He said grimly.
“If you willingly accept my gift, your immortality will wash away, like a fresh breeze through an open window.”
“Is it difficult?” She whispered. “Being mortal?”
“Yeah, but it’s worth it too… if you do it right. If you’re certain we can do it right here. The others won’t even notice. Just take my hand.” A shadowed tendril of dark stuff slowly reached out and wrapped around the young man’s fingers, entwining between the calloused digits.
“That’s it.” He whispered, as a subtle thrill of sensations and strange emotions ran through her shadowy form.
“Oh! Now I see it! You really are a bit spooky!” She whispered excitedly, as she peered around the room. “The colors… is that… scent? How delightful!”
“That’s what happens when you take up residency in a freakin’ magical world of wonders…” He mumbled with satisfaction.
#
More than a mile away, at Gary and Shai’s house, Otho, the beloved of Joy smiled, as his patron goddess began giggling with exuberant happiness and… Joy.
“Predictable as the tides… steady as a waterclock, that boy.”
His musings were interrupted by a knock at the front door. The priest opened it to find two strange people, in even stranger armor standing outside.
A tall thin woman in black and red armor fashioned after a hideous scorpion and her equally odd companion. A burly man in overlapping plates of heavy steel, lacquered a deep gray-brown color with a pillbug motif held a steel box, stoutly padlocked in his hands.
“I am Isopod, this is Scorpion, we have a delivery for the master and mistress of this house.” He said softly, through a harsh and clipped imperial common accent.
“Well… I’m certain they will be home soon… Tea?” He asked mildly.
#
