Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance
Hanging On Like A Yo-yo Ch: 35
Marduk, god of man’s Knowledge, sighed, kicked back on his plush recliner and set his tall glass of mint tea into a cupholder.
The snack tray pivoted into position automagically as he deployed the footrest, bringing his favored supplicant’s latest offering into easy reach. Pistachio and walnut cookies, honeyed fritters drizzled with cinnamon and candied dates wrapped in pastry… all of his favorites! He smiled and settled in for a little light entertainment.
Since he’d learned the trick of displaying Gary’s visual and auditory senses on a screen, the little god found he could peek in and watch the goings on passively… Without feeling the cruel bite of the poor creature’s many, many curses.
He summoned his screen and sat back, idly wondering what his friend was up to. Without warning, the weird, blocky color screen Gary called a ‘test pattern’ appeared, accompanied by an awful, shrill noise that rattled the little deity’s senses; jarring him so badly that he fumbled his first attempt to banish the screen and the terrible sound.
“Bollocks…” Marduk whispered, reaching his senses out for his high priestess. Becky was nowhere to be found; he could feel her bond of faith, her Contract and her soul, somewhere out there in the universe.
“Double doo-doo!” He gasped in alarm as he failed to find Shai and the others in the extended family with whom he’d contracted.
“Ducky, what’s wrong?” Eponna asked from the bath, where she was lounging with her own tea and offerings, among her adoring herd of divine, colorful ponies. “Did something happen?”
“I can’t find any of the Wards, love…” He complained, slipping into the bath with her and the numerous ‘normal’, winged, horned, winged and horned, bright colored ponies in the vast pool.
“You have one of yours bonded with that girl, right? You know, the one who wants Barry’s nuts.”
“Ducky! Such talk!” The equine goddess whinnied at her paramour.
“You mean Lindsey? What of her?” The leggy, elegant mare asked demurely, peeping at the little blonde god from behind her mane of starlight and nebulae.
“Can you see through her familiar’s eyes? Or hers?” He asked softly. “I’m pretty worried.”
“Hmm… Yes, I can sense that one, they are quite closely bonded; let me share her senses with you.”
#
Lindsey sat with Barry and Amy, among the other Wards and their comrades, as the tall, beautiful blonde woman read the cards of that odd, short, stocky man who really looked an awful lot like Gary… if he were blonde, craggy featured and blue eyed.
The blocky man sat, stood, walked and spoke much like Gary did… and held himself distant and apart in much the same way the bard did, when around anyone but his family and close friends.
He emitted much the same air of unnatural and uncanny not-quite-menace, an aura of danger that raised the hairs on her neck and made gooseflesh appear on her arms. It was the unmistakable sense of the gaze of some vicious creature, held at bay by only the thinnest leash.
She shuddered and focused on the two strangers, as the dwarf passed the deck back to the octopus mage, after shuffling the pile of glossy pasteboard images.
With a flourish, Sarah flicked the first card down on the table. “The ten of coins… A work of art or craft drawing to a satisfying conclusion.” She announced firmly, nodding at the stocky fellow with approval.
“This crosses you.” She declared, laying a card above the first with a satisfied clack of her fingernails on the tabletop. The Death card leered up at them from the table top, grimly warning that mortal life is fleeting. “Well, let’s see what’s next…” Sarah sighed, drawing again. “The lovers…” She pressed her fingertips to her breast, over her heart and smiled winsomely.
“Surely not me!” The woman let out a girlish giggle that was absolutely aimed at the little green girl, standing beside the dwarf lad.
She drew another card, when Daisybelle shot her a glare that could have scorched Shai’s window curtains with just a little more effort. “The tower, a disaster approaching.” She hurriedly continued, when the goblin started fidgeting with her sheathed obsidian knife.
“The ace of wands, followed by the aces of swords and coins… change, disruption and violence are coming.” Sarah declared, her voice suddenly a little thick and hoarse, under the goblin’s gaze.
#
“They’re just playing cards?” Marduk demanded hotly. “Why in all the divine realms can’t I contact them?” He paced the waxed pine floorboards of the Strange High House In The Mist, on the little green moon.
“It’s simple, my love.” Eponna whispered, taking her human form to embrace him. “He’s gone somewhere you can’t reach.”
“Impossible…” He sputtered, his feathered serpent slippers’ eyes glowing red, displaying the tiny god’s agitation at the idea. “There’s simply no way!”
“Remember who we are dealing with, Ducky…” The goddess of Equines and Swiftness in Motion whispered, sounding like the wind running through a ripe grainfield.
“My love, they are outside your realm, that is a fact. I, who have wandered so many other domains and so many worlds can see where you cannot, my love.”
She flicked her luminous tresses of endless wonders back from her earlobe, where a strand of glittering pearls dangled; Lindsey’s Contract, caught in her hair as an ornament.
“They have gone where you cannot, yet.” She sighed ecstatic at the prospect of expanding her mate’s reach outside, into the beyond and the limitless possibilities to be found there.
“You need only complete your Contract with that delicious lump of muscle you’ve had your eye on. Gandree, was it? Seal the deal and step outside with me! I ache to show you some of the many wonders of the cosmos!” She pressed her lissome body against his, caressing his ear and whispering in her excitement and delight. “There are so many more worlds, so many mortals… humans and others to see and worlds to explore.”
“I’ll admit it… I’m a little scared to open myself to the wider universe and ether…” He sighed softly. “I need to suck it up! Now or never, it’s time for me to get my feet out of the mud of the Euphrates and step out among the stars.” He gazed up, into the beyond, stretching his divine Will across gulfs of endless non existence, reaching for that bright spark of curiosity and stubbornness.
It chimed like a crystal bell, as he gently touched the soul he sought, gleaming brightly and calling out to him so loudly now.
“I probably should wait until he’s dreaming… Oh well.”
#
Gandree’s numb brain was focused on how many people, how many strangers were focused on him while he fumbled through the deck of colorful pasteboard images. He barely heard what Sarah was saying, as she dealt the cards.
A few of the seers in Dwarfhold had tried to divine his origin; whether with runes, cards, stones or dice, the results were always gibberish and always ended with the same two signs, portents or cards, without fail.
He braced himself as she drew toward the end of the ritual, inexorably drawing one image of doom and evil portent after another. He could feel the subtle pressure building all around, the one nobody else ever felt.
#
“Let’s take a break for some tea…” Sarah suggested, when the little green girl started getting upset.
“Yeah… and somebody crack a window!” Rio complained. “We’re getting mighty haunted here!”
“Shiro is pretty upset about it too.” Amy admitted. “There’s like… a buttload of shades and ghosts pressed up against the house wards right now. A serious buttload.”
“Oh thank the gods…” Gary grumbled from his seat, where he was looking cranky and agitated. “I didn’t want to mess with the vibe, but if we’re taking a break…” He glared at Sarah and shook his head in disgust.
“The spiritual hygiene of this place is absolutely despicable. When was the last time anyone cleansed this island and laid all the ghosts to rest?”
“Since I have no clue what you’re talking about…” Sarah shrugged and went back to stirring honey into her tea, smiling blissfully.
“Ghosts indeed…” She muttered, before raising her teacup. “Ace had no palate, everything tasted like oatmeal…” She sighed at her first sip. “At least Sarah wasn’t a lotus smoker, for all her other failings and sins. Filthy habit!”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I thought you were a necromancer?” Dannyl murmured quietly in the beautiful woman’s perfect ear. “You don’t feel the pressure of all those spirits out there? They’re begging to come in.”
“Nope. I just feel the usual background magic, none of those shades are intact enough to be useful. They’re just mostly decayed trash.” She answered with a smile. “They do seem agitated, I suppose.” The woman gazed abstractedly out the window at the volcano’s cone and sighed.
“Pitiful things, but that’s the fate of all living souls.”
“My god feels otherwise. The core tenant of our faith states that departed souls should be passed through the veil, not left to linger and diminish in this way.” Young lord Singh murmured politely, with a slight bow. “Sasha plans take a fly around, once the sun sets.” Kermal sighed. “She can sense them, but in sunlight she can’t open the way.”
“I would just lower the house wards and let them in…” Gary offered. “They just want into the bath, now that they’ve sensed its presence but there’s no way. Too many.” He yawned mightily and stretched.
“If Sasha can’t manage them all, they can just wait ‘til Dannyl’s trees take root and start doing their job. Let’s finish with the cards, then decide.” He suggested.
Sarah and the two young people watched and listened, wondering what the weirdos were jabbering on about, until Gandree couldn’t take it any more.
“Really? You lot sense all those spirits out there?” He demanded hotly. When the group at large nodded he blew a long, gusty breath out into the room.
“They won’t hurt anyone, they don’t mean any harm…” The dwarf grumbled. “They’re kinda… kinda my friends.” He blushed and shook his head in embarrassment. “Not really, they don’t have real memories or personalities, but if you sit still, they will tell you stories and sing songs…”
“I know, son.” The big, brown haired, unremarkable man whispered in the young dwarf’s ear, where he absolutely had not been, just a moment before. “We won’t hurt them, but it’s well past time they were on to the next thing. We have a few Death cultists in the family.”
“D… Death cultists?” The lad stammered, lurching away from the strange man and his far too intimate whispers.
“Yeah, Ward, the god of Death, Vengeance and dryad of the Golden Fig… He always gets mad if I leave off the figs.” The lunatic piped up happily. “He can’t manifest here yet, but we should be able to whip up a quick funeral service by moon rise.”
“What-rise?” Gandree, Sarah and Daisybelle asked in unison.
“Moon rise, when the moons come up…” Gary insisted, drawing nods from almost the entire contingent.
“Oh, shit! I forgot to mention…” Dannyl called from the bar, smiling sheepishly. “There’s no moons at all out in these worlds. Never.”
“No moons? Weird…” Gary grumbled, seeming personally offended by the revelation. “The gods are really slacking off. Shoddy world building, if you ask me…” He complained.
“Gods… pfft!” Sarah blew a very dignified and elegant raspberry at the goofy man and his talk of fables. “Death cults and gods… utter rubbish.”
“Nuh, uh!” Daisybelle chirped happily. “Gods and goddesses are real! I kissed SmileyFace and SmartyPants wants to kiss us both!” She chattered gleefully, bouncing up and down in excitement.
“There’s a tall man with antlers and so many doggies too! I saw him in my dreams! AntlerMan likes doggies like mine!” She turned on her beau and gripped his massive shoulders in her tiny green hands, as she tried to shake the silent, oddly still fellow.
“Gandree likes SpiderBoobs too! Tell them about goddess SpiderBoobs, boy!”
Gary peered at the young dwarf lad’s all too familiar, but still strange face and smiled. The man was staring, glassy eyed and drooling, lost in some world of his own and completely zonked.
“He’s checked out. Spiritual shock… give him a few minutes. I think someone just sealed a Contract with him. They should have waited ‘til he was dreaming.” He declared confidently.
#
Marduk sucked his teeth in annoyance at being second guessed by a mortal… even if he was completely right.
“Yes, but I wanted to see what was going on, now.” He grumbled, even though none of the people involved could hear his excuses.
The Wards plied Gandree with coffee and a hearty lunch of fresh caught seafood, hooked from the shore by Shai and Gary while the dwarf recovered his senses.
“Oh am I dreaming?” Gandree asked weakly, when the scent of miso soup, hot rice and grilled fish woke him from his daze. “Sea urchin roe? Flying fish and sea bream sashimi? Please tell me you have soy sauce and wasabi…”
“Oh yeah, Gary eats all that weird raw fish stuff.” Becky mused happily, over a bowl of rice and salt grilled pompano. “I’ll take mine cooked, thanks.” She and Daisybelle were sitting together, side by side and sharing a fine meal beside the sofa someone had moved him onto.
The dusky skinned girl with tightly braided black hair smiled down at him and sighed with pleasure. “Welcome to the cult of Knowledge, brother Gandree. Lord Marduk completed your Contract while you were awake, which I will scold him for this evening, you can be sure.” She said with all seriousness.
“I’m your high priestess, now. As the first cult member in this reality, you will be asked to help spread the good word about our blessed lord. I have some pamphlets and tracts for you in my baggage. Now let’s talk tithes, how much money do you have?”
The lad tried to back away, as the vicious little menace closed in, greedily eyeing his clothes and goods, evaluating his wealth and estimating how much she could squeeze from his purse.
“Becks… that’s enough.” Gary said firmly. “You’re picking at some emotional damage that our new friend hasn’t fully dealt with yet.” The big man’s hand landed on Gandree’s shoulder again, warm and comforting, despite being so strange and weirdly familiar.
“Relax, son. She won’t be passing a collection plate.”
“Really?” Sarah grumbled from the bar. “Gods and goddesses… Moons and Death cults… Such nonsense.”
“You haven’t Contracted with a spirit or divine?” Amy asked the elegant older woman. “Are you boycotting the pantheon too?”
“Daisybelle, I don’t know what we’ve sailed into, but your friends are weird.” Sarah announced finally. “Since Gandree is back from… wherever he went, let’s finish up the reading. I’m curious what it’s leading to.”
#
It took a few minutes to get the crowd settled back down and ready. Surprisingly, the ritual picked back up with ease, even after the extended break for idiocy and fanciful tales of moons, gods and goddesses.
She took the deck back in hand, locked eyes with her niece’s boytoy and smiled as she flicked a card onto the table beside the three inauspicious aces.
“The moon…” She complained softly. “It seems to be even more significant than the aces.”
She took a swallow of her tea and grimaced. It was cold and bitter, like unpleasant medicine, even as she tasted the actual tea, still sweet and flavorful, but hidden behind the omen her seer’s gift was giving her. She contemplated the experience and considered the omens, portents and signs, then shrugged. “Screw it.”
Sarah finished the tea and drew the penultimate card with shaking fingers. She paused for a moment, the card held face down, ready to flip, as she spoke. “Oftentimes, a reading can have meaning on both sides of the table, young man. I feel that at least a part of this laying of the cards is intended for both of us.”
She smiled wanly at the young lad and flipped the card. “This is a turning point, an axis on which all pivots… The fool. Blessed by the unseen and protected by fate, even in deadly peril of his own creation; the fool may just find a way. Be wary of the fool, but perhaps he can find a path where others cannot.” She sighed and shook her head, when the entire group of strangers looked at their pet Gary Ward and chuckled together, the moment the fool appeared.
“She has talent for this, methinks!” Shai whispered too loudly, while delivering a playful swat to her weird man’s bottom. “Draw the last, that we might ken this thing fully, sister.”
“It’s the world.” Gandree answered calmly, before Sarah’s hand could draw a card. “It’s always the world.”
Sure enough, she laid the final card in place, revealing a sea turtle, bearing a vast continent on its shell, floating in an endless sea of stars.
“The world indeed.” She muttered crossly. “I can’t make sense of this…”
“That’s because the path hasn’t been decided yet.” Gary said softly, as the woman cleared away her cards. “He will choose before long and it will be the right choice, if he follows his heart. The trick of the whole thing is to walk along with the fool, without actually being the fool.”
“I didn’t see that in the cards!” She grumbled at the man. “If you’re so wise in the art, we can read yours right now.” She slid him the cards with a superior grin on her face. “Shuffle and we shall see.”
“Nah… Why don’t you shuffle and draw for me.” He asked with a silly grin on his bland and unremarkable face. “Humor me, please.”
With a soft huff, Sarah shuffled her cards a few times and laid out the first draw. “The fool…” She huffed again when he just smiled.
“Most people don’t like drawing the fool for their significator.” She grumbled at the man, while drawing another card. She placed it and looked down at the pasteboard chip under her finger.
“The fool?” She blinked a few times and drew again; the fool once more appeared between her fingertips. With a grumble of outrage, she flipped the deck and spread the cards on the table, beside the ones she’d drawn, they were all perfectly ordinary, all the suits and arcana were present and accounted for, with nary an extra fool in sight, save for those already drawn from her deck.
She collected the undealt cards back up and re-shuffled, leaving the suspicious fools on the table, staring at her from behind their blindfolds.
With a crisp tap, she laid a card down… another fool.
“I’m really not doing anything.” Their mad, smiling Gary Ward said sweetly, while she sifted through her cards again, still finding all the faces and images she expected.
With deliberation she pulled the lovers from the deck and laid it on the table face down. A moment later she flipped the card, revealing two fools balanced on a single precipice together, drawn in the same style and colors as her deck. Even the twinned fool’s faces and his… their little guardian dogs were the same in every detail.
“What sorcery is this?” She demanded sharply. “How did you bewitch my cards?”
“Look again, your cards are unchanged. The problem is probability and the effect of so much divine presence, gathered in a closed and damaged world.” He chuckled madly and shook his head.
“At least six deities and fae are peeping in on us right now, probably a few more that are just better at being sneaky, as well. We’re the most popular show in the divine realm.”
“He’s mad, right?” Sarah asked the big red haired man. He seemed the most sensible of the lot, at least he hadn’t done anything odd yet.
“Oh, yeah, he’s nuts, completely insane. Barking mad, a mooncalf, deranged, unhinged, the very definition of a lunatic…” The big man nodded firmly.
“He’s also an expert in divine magic, witchcraft and demon slaying.”
“Aww… Thanks Tallum. That was really nice, except for that whole first part!” Gary arched an eyebrow at the red haired giant and grinned. “Sanity is for babies.”
“I like your papa… Ward boys. He’s a lot like king papa!” Daisybelle declared from Gandree’s lap. She’d resumed her preferred seat as soon as Sarah finished with his reading, since he was still looking frazzled and upset.
“Settle down, lover love. These crazy people are alright.” She murmured warmly in his ear.
“I think I need some fresh air.” The dwarf lad mumbled, as he struggled his way out from under the clingy goblin girl and made his way through the crowd and headed for the door. “I’ll be in the garden.” He whispered in Daisybelle’s ear as he left.
“Let him go, Daze.” Sarah murmured to the green girl. “He has a lot to think about, so do I...”
#
In a dim and murky corner of the endless realm of the divine, amid darkly curling mists, shadowed forests and deep, trackless swamps, an ancient crone sat on her front stoop, carefully sculpting a bauble.
She’d found it drifting in the mists of the dryad’s forest and spirited it away on impulse. A mortal soul, dead but strangely, undying.
It was a troll’s essence; a sad, weak, pitiful thing, barely sentient and hardly worth noticing otherwise, but somehow it remained viable, long after its mortal body had perished beyond all recovery.
She toyed with the malleable and stretchy thing, it had hardly any identity or sense of agency, but it was still nearly alive and almost conscious. “Ticklefoot? What an odd name…” She murmured happily. “Let’s see what we can make from you.”
She glared at the surrounding woods sourly, when her hut began to cluck and squawk, darting around the clearing on its four long chicken legs, jostling the aged witch and bouncing her around.
“Who dares enter my domain?” She demanded, her voice shrill and crackling with fury.
“The one you stole that shiny toy from, Baba Yaga.” Ward whispered angrily, as he stepped from the shadow of her own hut, setting it to scampering around in an undignified manner once more.
“Give it back and perhaps I’ll forget your lapse in judgement. Toying with mortal souls is taboo, as we have been sharply reminded recently.”
“It’s still only a goblin, hardly worth bothering with, even if it has become a troll.” She whined. “I just wanted to pull it apart and find out how it became undying.”
“And if some more potent being decided to pull you apart to see what makes you immortal, would that be acceptable?” He asked gently.
“Piffle!” She snorted. “I’m the eternal witch of the deep woods! Who could pull me apart?”
“Who indeed?” The tall, black clad god asked sweetly. “Return it.”
Despite her bravado and posturing she handed the tiny, glowing orb back without further complaints… at least, none she voiced.
Ward sighed sadly, as he made his way back to the dryad forest, idly toying with the shining soulstuff, spinning it out on a silver thread and reeling it back, whistling gaily as he went along.
“I wonder...” He mused aloud at the gleaming handful of rainbows. “Figgy, darling… I’ll be back. I need to visit the Devourer of Souls for a bit.” He called into the forest.
#