[Healing] increased to level 10.
The message appeared in Liam’s mind, bringing more annoyance than joy. Oh sure, now you level up, right when I’m about to finish! Where were you a few days ago! What does greater mana efficiency do for me now?! Thought Liam, chanting the incantation of healing one last time.
Mana flowed easily, crossing from Liam’s tiny palms into the gorgon’s stomach, flowing up her torso and through her head before finally reaching its destination in the nest of a hundred vipers. This last spell regrew their venom glands, rearming the gorgon’s hair, though it would take time for the venom glands to refill, time they lacked.
“Alright Quetz, tell her I need one of her sisters or moms to chat up the duke, someone with authority to treat with him on equal footing.”
‘She knows just the sister to call upon, though we’ll have to exit the city and summon her from Argos.’ Answered Quetz.
Summon her from the Argos. The floating island was a den of vipers, but they were no longer faceless or unknown. It was a gorgon city.
Liam swallowed, trying to work saliva back into his mouth. Phaedra had only parlayed with him in Greenwood because he’d had an army and she was alone. Gorgons did not seem to eat an amount of food that would support their physical mass, in fact, they generally ate the same amount as a human male. With the Argos’ landmass there could be hundreds, maybe thousands of adult gorgons living there, assuming they hadn’t maximized farmland with multileveled agriculture, similar to terraces, but each level overlapped, supported by stilts or a platform or earthworks to increase the arable land. Kheresh had just fought a war, to try and fight another…
They’ll be slaughtered by the hundreds. We can’t fight, the Duke MUST negotiate.
“Guys, I’m not even four years old! I can’t just walk into the desert.” Began Liam, patting the scales of the gorgon he was already sitting on. She was rather comfortable, though something in his brain was screaming in terror, for some unguessable reason. “Look, if Maya and I can ride on Sisiphys’ back, then sure… Let’s go.”
‘Her name is ssyssipphhussssy’ Corrected Quetz.
Words passed between Quetz and the gorgon daughter, with the end result being a tail that scooped Maya onto her back, lifting the teen like you might scoop up a housecat and depositing her just behind Liam. Several feet behind her trunk and well out of range of her snakelocks. In seconds they were sliding through town, carving a path through the crowd with mythical efficiency. Though the werewolf and two paladins following behind them certainly lent credence to their flight.
Kharmite veterans, who might have intercepted them, turned tail at the sight of Maya’s yellow dress and desert veil, distinct with two cat ears protruding from the flowing yellow fog. The custom garb was a gift from Archbishop Judas, a name that did not bear the connotations it did within christianity. Yellow fabric seemed to replace the fulminonimbus’ iconic gold, some sort of gesture to represent the faithful, and humble. Except Maya’s dress was tailored by the duke’s household servants to fit her, fitting her curves, tail, and ears with elegant stitching. It served as the second sign of Lightning Lord Tufan Biliam Alhusam. For the first sign was Quetzalcoatl, swimming through the desert winds ahead of him.
In an hour they had halted beneath an unyielding sun, the vast desert stretched to the horizon, its golden sands shifting like a restless sea beneath a heat mirage. In the heart of this desolate expanse, a curious sight unfolded. Perched upon the broad, serpentine back of a medusan gorgon, a toddler with tiny –but determined– hands. His bright eyes clinging to the dorsal scales, eyelids narrowed against the impossibly fine sands of Kheresh. Behind him, poised with all the feline grace of a wet cucumber, sat Maya. Perturbed by being in such close proximity to a lethal gorgon, slayer of armies.
The gorgon, a creature of myth and legend, moved with a fluidity that belied her size, each slither was imbued with a silent power that resonated through the sandy dunes, as if the sand wished to aid her travel. Like the wind wishes to move a sailing ship, and on more than one occasion she reached into her satchel, touching two heartscales retrieved from her dead sisters. Liam winced, hoping the heartscales held some moral significance that would consol the gorgon’s matriarch. If not, then the trio of oddly incongruous people would become impromptu ambassadors for their various races. Wind pushed Maya back, and she clung to Liam with her claws. Nearly ripping into his skin.
He reached up and caught her hands, holding them in his. “It’s just the wind. Don’t murder me please.”
She clenched harder, yet retracted the claws, “Sorry.” She whispered. The horizon began to shift, revealing a marvel that seemed to defy the laws of nature itself, laughing alongside whatever power had set gravity to ‘optional’. Suspended in the cloudless azure sky, a floating island cast shadows upon the sands below. It hung there, a bastion of solid granite in an already baffling world. Liam’s heart raced with excitement, while Maya’s sharp eyes narrowed, scanning the skies as if Taloc might use smoke signals to explain this world’s impossible machinery.
Now I’ve seen this island from every angle, but it never gets less insane. It must be miles long, roughly spherical, and with a natural rock wall around the edge that keeps us from seeing what actually lives on top of it. It kinda looks like a snowcone that someone ate the very top of, then tunneled into it with their spoon, eating the center but leaving the overall spherical shape intact. Thought Liam, trying to grasp the intangible.
How do they get down? Or up? Are there tunnel networks? Or is there a flying rock dingey? Like an inflatable raft that boats use, except more magical, and rocky.
The shadow of the island cooled the desert’s relentless heat, providing a momentary respite for the travelers. Yet, as they ventured further under its penumbra, the air around them grew thick with an uncanny energy, causing the gorgon to halt and remove the strip of fabric that covered her petrifying eyes.
“Maya, close your eyes.” Ordered Liam, understanding that gorgons showed their eyes to two factions, their families –who were immune– and enemies they wished to slay.
[abbrieviated cast] activated, and a shadowshield covered Liam’s body. An irascible Quetz slithered out of his tunic, acting as a white periscope, or a fiber optic noodle.
From the shimmering sands, other gorgons began to emerge, their scales glinting in laughter despite the overhanging mountain. Many bore old scars, and all carried bows or blades, swords, daggers, even a spear or two. They were guardians, protecting the island’s base and only appeared to greet their daughter’s call.
Liam gazed in amazement at the gathering of these mythical women, and was more surprised to see several slightly green men. They were marginally larger than a human, standing eight feet tall, but frail of limb. Like serpents that had been squished and reshaped, or like squished play-doh sculpted into human beings, complete with two legs and human eyes. Though they possessed an inhuman quality. Black pupils and round human irises beheld Liam, but instead of white, the sclera was a brilliant shade of green, or black, or purple, or red.
Male gorgons.
Weird, I didn’t expect male gorgons to be quite so dramatically sexually-dimorphic. Eh, I guess that makes sense, Medusa’s curse was originally cast on three sisters, Medusa, Euryale, and Stheno. Wait… If it affected those three… Is Medusa the same Medusa from my world? That would make her at least two thousand years old right? No, that’s Christ’s age… And by Christ’s time the Roman empire had already conquered Jerusalem… So it would be during Greece’s golden age. Oh man, never thought a history of myths would be so important. Maybe, like, three thousand years old…. Is that right? Wow… What the hell. Medusa could be three thousand years old? Whoa… Thought Liam, mentally noting differences in morphology between male and female gorgons.
Maya, kept one hand on Liam’s shoulder, her tail flicking with curious terror, as she scented dozens of vipers and heard sand abraid their scales.
They were coming closer.
“Maya, help me down.” Said Liam, waiting patiently as the slightly older catgirl set him on the sand.
“Paladins, kneel, do not meet their eyes. Or I’ll let the desert keep your corpses.” Called Liam.
The paladins and werewolf hadn’t needed the warning, but Liam really didn’t want them to die pointlessly.
The gorgon –whose name Quetz once again insisted was sssisssyphusssy, which Liam refused to use due to the obvious pronunciation issues– spoke to her gathering sisters, becoming lost in the scintillating diamond patterns of a dozen rattlesnakes and the island’s shadow.
They spoke quickly, with many darting glances from their snakelocks towards the black-fishbowl headed toddler, yellow cloud catgirl, and two shining paladins.
“Are we welcome here?” Asked Maya, ears twitching to follow the different speakers.
“Probably not. Duke Kheresh counted more than nineteen slain gorgons. There will be hell to pay.”
“At least we brought sissy back.” Said Maya.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Liam gave her a pinched eyebrow. Mentally assessing her. She was young, immature, yet on the cusp of maturity, it was an unpleasant experience, seeing a child’s naivety in a teen, not unworkable, but ugly.
“Khereshetal has slain many of their sisters, returning a single daughter cannot amend a massacre. I just hope their vengeance can be… assuaged.” Said Liam.
One of the larger gorgons raised her hand, casting a bolt of light skyward, passing through shadow and into the floating island. A second later mana began to coalesce, not simple mana, or any singular affinity, but a rainbow of every conceivable energy. Its form was simple, a river of flowing rainbows, yet the nexus of energy gathering in front of Liam’s eyes titillated his extra mana senses. Somehow feeling like snorting cotton candy while chugging mountain dew, a painful mingling of lights and colors and tastes and textures.
From the depths of the rainbow a figure began to emerge, a gorgon, but unlike any they had seen before. Ancient and wise, her scales bore the patina of countless centuries, and her eyes, deep and knowing, held the secrets of the ages. Entirely foreign to his mind, yet her magic whispered of familiarity, as if their mana had interacted before, in a shared spell or mystical battle before. Her graceful undulations casting sparkles across the world, tickling Liam’s eyeballs with joy.
“We should run away! How can we trust someone without ears!” Hissed Maya, hands-a-tremble at the elder gorgon’s power.
“If she meant us harm, you would already be dead and I would be kid-napped. Still your quaking heart Maya.” Answered Liam, reaching up and squeezing her finger, since his hands were still too small to encompass hers.
The elder gorgon’s descent through the portal was slow and deliberate, a lightshow of grace and power that mesmerized all who beheld it. Calypso, archmage of the gorgons, had set foot in Kheresh. Or maybe set foot was the wrong term, considering the lengths of her coils. Again Liam felt a strange kinship with this ancient being, as though some invisible thread connected them across time and space. Calypso approached with a gentleness that belied her formidable appearance, scales, coils, and prismatic eyes melted away as her body shifted, altering from the tailed woman into a seven foot tall woman with two slender legs. Complete with a sheer tie-dyed dress that hung on her like a Victoria's Secret model.
Liam tried not to laugh at the thought of a were-gorgon, then realized exactly how pant-shittingly terrifying that concept was. Just in time for gorgeous Calypso to reach him, lowering her head to meet the boy’s gaze. In that moment, the desert fell silent, and time itself seemed to pause. Her snakelocks moved as one, swimming backwards into a pony-tail of vipers as two serpents coiled around the rest, forming a sort of venomous hair tie. Or the most lethal ponytail ever to exist.
With a voice that resonated like the sweet sound of songbirds, Calypso spoke. “Young one, you are brave to journey here. The sands whispered of Hecate’s return, and the winds sing the name of her reborn, this time a Lightning Lord, Tufan Biliam Alhusam. Strange, I feel as if we are old friends, yet I would remember meeting an elf child, and I've never seen you before.” She said –in perfect Khereshi- reaching one of her fingers through his shadowshield to touch the point of his ears.
He knew who this gorgon was, and had indirectly met her previously. More than that, they had shared a spell. When he –as Baron Green– charged Phaedra’s return orb and portaled her youngest daughters home. A return ticket made possible by Calypso.
“Your magic is uniquely colorful, may I presume that you are Calypso? Archmagi of the Gorgons?” Asked Liam.
Calypso smiled, “Indeed I am. Have we met?”
Liam swallowed, not wanting to reveal his dual lives to anyone other than Nyota. “My Lady Calypso, your reputation precedes you. It is an honour to meet you.” Said Liam, lifting Maya’s hands from his shoulders and bowing deeply.
Calypso curtsied to him, lifting the edges of her flowing sundress in the proper fashion of northern nobles. Though the dress would be the height of scandal within Duke Kheresh’s court.
Do I really want to cause another uproar like I did in King Aldric’s court?
Eh,
Fuckit. Mom’s murderers will receive no mercy from me. Thought Liam.
“Encountering your daughter was a coincidence, she was sentenced to death at the same gallows as my own mother– ahem. I’ve returned her to you, in accordance with the treaty struck by Phaedra and Lightning Lord Liam Green.”
Her eyes softened as she regarded the small boy and his feline companion. “Oh my, you are a marvelous drop of elven silver amidst the sea of glass.”
Calypso tapped her lips, looking pensively at the two paladins and lone werewolf standing a hundred yards back, their eyes averted. “Paladins, felinids, and elves, hmm. We had not anticipated splinter factions within Khereshetal. We will honour the treaty… in part. For only a portion of Kheresh has slain our daughters.” Said Calypso, her hand going to the sissyphussies’ satchel of heartscales. We’ll have to alter Euryale’s plans… No matter. Thank you for returning our daughter. You will be spared, as will your house, but Kheresh has done us great evil, so great an evil that Hades cries out for the city’s blood.” Said Calypso.
Liam, though only three years old, felt a deep attraction towards Calypso, reaching towards her as if to ask a mother to pick him up. Her daughters had been staked, butchered, and abused, yet she did not rage or scream, somehow managing to possess the capacity for forgiveness. It was enthralling, the sort of compassion that created a black hole, a form of charismatic gravity that asked his heart, [do you want Calypso to adopt you?]
What a strange question. Thought Liam, quickly asking one of his own.
“Do you have kids?”
“Depending on the century, yes and no. If you count the total, then I have many.” Answered Calypso.
Count the century? What does she mean by that? Wait, Calypso was a contemporary of Odysseus… and the Odyssey or the Iliad is considered to be four to five thousand years old.
Whoa… Thought Liam, his mind expanding at the dizzying revelation.
Are all gorgons immortal? Hold the phone, and its snake! Taloc crossed the ‘ocean’ with cat people, snakemen, lizardmen, werewolves and more, are the gorgons the ‘snakemen’ of the legend? Wow… Uhm… talk about misleading. Although snakewomen sounds a bit strange. Did the Fulminonimbus rewrite Taloc’s legend over time? Liam’s mind raced, revelatory concepts clicking into place as neural pathways were created within his brain. His hands covered his eyes, pressing tightly to shut out all visual stimulus as he tried to apply order to chaos.
Taloc must have collected or engineered the races to win his war. That’s why the felinids mature so quickly, and have litters of kids. Kinda gross that they’re immortal though, talk about creating a population problem–
But if they were altered to be that way, then it can be undone. Taloc can fix them. He could genetically engineer a peace. If he could be freed from Tartarus, and if he could touch everyone’s scrotum… Weird, man I feel like everything a god touches eventually turns to shit and has to be touched again.
A memory from Taloc’s chained Tartarus slapped Liam’s cerebrum.
His work was never finished, he meant to –change them back– OH! That makes way more sense, he meant to alter them back into beings that could co-exist with humans…
Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got so much work to do. And no allies I truly trust. Calypso, you know where Phaedra is, and hopefully where Greenwood and Lady Nyota Green are, can you portal me home?” Asked Liam.
She didn’t hesitate. “No, I cannot.”
“Whu- Why not?” Snapped Liam, baffled at the refusal since she had portalled to him only seconds earlier!
“All of the north is under siege, as is my homeland and sisters. Even Stheno, the Naga Queen, had to swim up the Yrendel river. Portals are attacked on sight, and often forcefully destroyed by magi. There is no shortcut I will risk, not even for an elven ally of a thousand years. Let alone a newborn half elf. And most importantly, Kheresh has slain my daughters. I haven’t the mana to spare. We must burn their homes and tear down their walls, make them feel our wrath by taking a dozen sons for every daughter lost.” Answered Calypso.
He nodded solemnly, ancient Calypso could not be moved here and now. There needed to be time for her to calm, and blood spilt to appease the Hades. Although, didn’t Taloc murder Hades a super long time ago? Mused Liam.
No matter, one gorgon was saved, that’s enough of an olive branch to plant the seed of peace. Sorry Khereshetal, but you’ll have to water the tree of life with the blood of innocents. Thought Liam, feeling no remorse.
They had slain his mother, he would not aid them directly, nor would he fight for them.
Rather than strive futily, he elected to forfeit this particular bout of words, and extended his tiny hand, reaching out to touch the elder gorgon’s cheeks. Motion made Maya tense, placing both paws on Liam to keep him safe, though that was only a reflex, no amount of hands would stop an archmage of a gorgon.
“I hold no love for Kheresh, but my mother is buried in the duke’s house, please do not let your wrath run rampant and consume her memory.”
Calypso gave him a sad half smile, “The dead should rest easily. One building may be left untouched amongst the rubble, a monument for humanities’ sons to remember. You may stay at our side if you wish, or return to Khereshetal, since our preparations will take time to complete. No more than a week, if you wish to flee, do so within that time.” Answered Calypso.
In that fleeting moment, beneath the floating island, a bond of mutual understanding was forged anew. No old treaties would be honoured, and Khereshetal was due to reap what they had sown. The treaty had broken, torn asunder on human rashness. Exactly what had claimed Sirin’s life.
Khereshetal never learned.
“Thank you Calypso. I have no intention of fleeing, but I will prepare a house for you to visit. Call me a naive child, but I will never give up on the hope of peace.” Said Liam, bowing at the waist.
Calypso nodded, then began channeling mana to open another one of her prismatic portals. Only for Liam to stop her.
“I have much to ponder. Thank you, but I will walk. Or have the furrball carry me.” Said Liam, jerking a thumb towards the werewolf.
She nodded, and all parties departed, the gorgons vanishing into sand dunes and the humans trudging back through the desert, a wall of Liam’s dark mana overhead in a mystical umbrella.
Am I being unfair to Kheresh? Do they deserve being utterly annihilated? Thought Liam, peace in this world was difficult, yet it had been attained in Greenwood, so there had to be a way to accomplish it here…
–‘Oh, Sssisssyphusssy says thank you, she isn’t normally into younger guys, but if you’re still single in a century or two she’d like to meet you again.’ Said Quetz, tucking himself into Liam’s tunic.
“Quetz, your timing is worse than your pronunciation.” Snapped Liam, entirely displeased by the proposal.
Nyota is the one I want, not some random serpent. His hands ran over his ears, a few centuries… Oh man, Nyota, it's only been a few years since my death, how are you pregnant again? You should have delivered years ago and stopped. Thought Liam, lamenting their ill fortunes as they trudged through the glass sea, back to the city.
His plans for bioengineering the paladins and felinids would have to wait.
It was time to meet the duke.