Book: 4

  Chapter 22

  Holy Diver

  A day in the life of Ghnash Whar’rgh, king of the goblins really needed training wheels, or an escape hatch… maybe a parachute. The unnamed deity wasn’t sure where these intrusive, incomprehensible thoughts were coming from, but he had no power to halt them as they rained down on his mind from all around.

  Snatches of music and hints of aroma, flavor, touch, sight and sound intruded on him, without actually distracting the stressed out, deeply disturbed god’s inextricably tangled senses from what that terrible creature was up to. What he was up to was his neck; all the way to his chin in warm, purring excited goblin girls that had all sorts of creative suggestions and requests.

  “Ladies, slow down… I’m not going to run away!” He gasped, when his lips were free for a precious moment. “Wow, keep that up… Who is that down there?” He asked a moment later, lost deep in the pile of warm, wriggling greenskins. No answer came, just heavy breathing, gasps and less identifiable sounds of pleasure and excitement. A sudden convulsion of ecstasy, somewhere in the writhing pile engulfed the king, submerging him in delight…

  With a slow, wicked, delighted smile, Ghnash woke on a patch of soft, green lawn, lush with new growth. On the distant dream realm’s once barren surface, a few trees, shrubs and a bit of neat, soft turf now spread for a half mile in either direction. Like a golf course, it had ponds and rolling, undulating contours; and like a golf course, it felt sterile and lifeless. He opened his eyes on a vast, midnight sky of endless, crowded stars and chuckled wryly. “Those wicked girls actually put my ass to sleep… They should be ashamed of themselves.”

  “You insufferable ass-hole…” The nameless god gasped, when his senses returned with the arrival of the mortal on his distant, lunar prison. “Do you know what I endured?”

  “Yeah, I do…” He answered with a smirk and wink. “You need to understand us, to know us in a way you never learned to know humanity, back on your old home. You will become a part of us; as you become who you are going to be.”

  “And if I don’t wish to become who you are turning me into?” He barked, struggling with emotions and ideas that refused to shut up and leave him alone.

  “Then I will cut you loose and you will fall into the void, unmoored from reality; a lost soul to be collected by the Devourer and reborn in mortal flesh.” He smiled up at the towering divine. “I’m ok either way. Remember, you had your clerics and cultists murder me… None of us will be shedding any tears if you get pulled into the eternal machine of life and creation, to become just another mortal soul.”

  The goblin’s smile didn’t waver under the angry god’s glare, not by a wrinkle nor a hair. “I’m the only thing holding you here. As we said where I came from; you can get with this, or you can get with that…” He jerked his taloned, green thumb over his shoulder, casually directing the divine gaze to the Devourer of Souls. The swirling, eldritch nebula lingered in the vast, cosmic distance, while somehow feeling perilously near.

  “You wouldn’t…” The divine gasped, as a sudden, paralyzing emotion chilled his essence into a frozen block of radiant ice.

  “I wouldn’t? I assure you I would… with little provocation. I’m not Gary Ward, the silly, harmless Fool, oh weak and nameless god. I’m the goblin king; that’s a whole different animal, buddy boy.”

  “Mortal whelp! I am divine, older than your species by an un-guessable gulf of ages! Primitive goblin filth!” He went on and on for a while, raging and railing against his predicament on the airless moon… now with an odd little patch of greenery.

  Ghnash sat on the lawn and chuckled darkly, until the god finished his tantrum. “I’m your only cultist, your only Contract; that means I’m your high priest… I’m the one who will create the doctrine and give you form. We will not be having a demented, bloodthirsty war-god in our pantheon and even if we were going to, you aren’t the guy for the job… You’ve got priors, pal.”

  “Vile mortal! Ephemeral insect! I am your GOD!” He bellowed, shaking the heavens with his tremendous voice.

  “It’s all in the delivery… you are my god, I can bottle you up here on the moon until I pass on to the next life, taking you with me… Do you understand the kind of power that would give me? My own personal divine slave, shackled to my soul? I could become a god in my own right, just by slowly subsuming your essence into my own Will… Don’t tempt me, pal!”

  “That was your goal all along… despicable mortal swine!” The god gasped and sputtered, furious beyond all reasoning, with blood thundering in his ears and his eyes hazed with rage… That realization shocked him out of his enraged state with sudden and deathly chill.

  “I have a nasty sense of humor.” Ghnash remarked calmly, staring up at the god from the lush, green grass. “All of me does… it’s a family trait. Right now, you are in the simulated body of a mortal, with all the emotions, hormones and weird ass stuff that we living mortals have to deal with every day. Think of this as your first day of early childhood and puberty cram school. First things first, you have a heart, an asshole, blood, tears, spit, bones and all that stuff. Welcome to the moist and meaty world of being incarnate in the flesh… kinda.”

  “Wait, what?” He demanded, with his mind completely blown.

  “Oh, yeah! When I wake up, you are still gonna be here, processing the full rainbow of mortal sensations; hungry, thirsty, horny… you will even piss and shit.” Ghnash waved to indicate the hedge and a narrow passage between them, leading elsewhere.

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  “Wait… I can leave this place?” He asked, struggling with a new emotion, welling up from the complicated soup in his mind; it was subtle and unfamiliar… Hope?

  “I’m giving you parole… you will be free to wander my brother’s home on the Madman’s moon and interact with the other beings you will find there.”

  Ghnash sighed up at the god. “I have a date with Babs. Go visit my brother’s inn and the gods there… Just remember, you will be the weakest of them, by orders of magnitude. I mention it, because you are kinda’ a dick and I’d hate to miss seeing you get your head punched inside out again.”

  “Pitiful mortal! I am a god! I need no one and nothing!” He growled, mostly because his new guts were doing something weird inside him. A low, wet and rumbly noise rose from deep within his robe, startling the divine and drawing a chuckle from the goblin, as he stood and grabbed the god by the hand.

  “I made it so you’ll get hungry, thirsty and all that stuff… because you’re kinda’ a dick and a stubborn asshole, too. You can’t die of hunger or thirst, but you won’t enjoy the sensations, so just go through. Eat, drink, experience a kind of living for once… maybe meet a nice spirit and get closer? I dunno. Go do god stuff.” The goblin scolded and berated the god, all while shoving the much larger being through the gap in the hedges.

  The unnamed being blinked and staggered at the not at all sudden, non lurching lack of sensation, as he transited from one lunar body to another and into a bustling garden party already in progress.

  “Ater, pal… Like I said, I have a date! Have fun!” Ghnash muttered quietly, before he slipped out into the wildlands of his brother’s home between worlds.

  /

  The long, sturdy and unornamented stone stairs led up through a worked granite tunnel, eventually leading to a hidden alcove, above the chamber they’d entered through, several dozen hours before. “How did we not see this?” Harry asked, peering over the ledge at the cave below.

  “It’s a classic video game trope… the exit leads to the entrance, but hidden in a way that’s really obnoxious.” Gary grumbled, as they lowered ropes and descended to the cave floor, just outside the start of the worked stone mine shafts. “Most likely, that ledge didn’t exist until now… reality is kinda goofy out here on the edge of things. Let’s get outside and head home.”

  The setting sun was just kissing the mountain-tops when the team emerged from between two boulders near a clay bank, into a pleasant meadow. The team’s bikes emerged quickly, tumbling from their storage gifts easily, once the open sky welcomed them home.

  “Oh, that’s better!” Larry gasped, as he scrabbled at his gear’s buckles and straps. “I gotta get out of this… Sorry Lindsey!” Armor parts and articles of clothing fell away as music rose; Larry sprinted for the riverbank, to the tune of ‘Yakety Sax’ performed by the lad’s own merciless brothers and father.

  Once freed of his chili pepper coated armor and underlayers, washed and sprawled out on the riverside in fresh shorts, Larry endured a thorough exam and a few sutures with little complaining. That the girl sewing the small punctures closed was cute, helped; that she only had eyes for Barry, didn’t help at all.

  “Can you ride like that?” Harry asked eagerly, once the team had removed their heavy armor plates from their gear harnesses and fitted the light, riding and travel kit.

  “I think you may need to ride in the F.A R.T. but that’s Lindsey’s call.” The lad put a huge amount of wink-wink-nudge-nudge energy into that, which Lindsey couldn’t fail to pick up on…

  “Oh? A fart, you say? I think that sounds very interesting…” Her grey eyes sparkled merrily, while her nose crinkled a little at the familiar scent of good clean mischief.

  “The Folding Artisanal Reconfigurable Trundlebug, or F.A.R.T. allows us to transport injured people securely… as cargo!” Gary piped up, chirping merrily and drowning out Larry’s protests that he was ‘fine’ and ‘totally good to ride’ entirely.

  “It sounds like that will be absolutely vital to Larry’s survival and recovery. In his delicate condition I couldn’t allow him any dignity… I mean any exertion!” Her evil and sweetly cruel smile sealed the poor boy’s fate. “Doctor’s orders…”

  Larry complained and whined through the few minutes needed to assemble the wheeled coffin-chariot thing and load the indignant cargo aboard. Gary took his son in tow, while the team set out down the narrow but well maintained trails of Goblin-home. Sundown caught them on the trail, a few miles from home. Under the rising moons and the absurdly bright starlight, the team wheeled into the familiar garden just around dinnertime… What a happy coincidence!

  /

  “Despicable goblin….” Babs sighed softly and rolled over in the little bower under an apple tree we shared. “I can’t believe you defiled me again!”

  “I’m a monster…” I agreed gently, while my talons carefully traced the more lush and fulsome curves of her back. She’d gained a fair bit of weight and no longer towered over double my height… The giantess stood a bit over six feet… without her prominent hunch. Tall and straight-limbed, she was a human woman in early middle age… skinny in the extreme, but with a blooming glow of health suffusing her from deep within. She still had deep-set, glittering eyes, that cute, long hooked nose and wide, sharp toothed mouth… So sexy!

  “You will be a goddess in your youthful prime, darling; enjoy it to the fullest and revel in our mortality. You’re going to be our goddess of medicine, poisons, childbirth, children and nursing mothers. You should experience as much of our lives as you can, just like I’m forcing our new friend to.”

  “You won’t force me to share your senses, while you rut and fondle yourself stupid on those poor, helpless goblin maidens?” She demanded hotly, her eyes flashing with barely restrained mirth and delight, hidden behind a thin veil of fury.

  “Oh, Baba Yaga… I’ll make you suffer!” I cackled wickedly, leering and looming over the nude goddess, sprawled on the leaves and fallen apple petals in our bower. “You’ll have to witness the awful and lustful antics of your wicked goblin man…” I purred, savoring the shudder of her long, lean body as I menaced her already battered tenders with my wicked, evil, goblin thing.

  I grinned and chuckled when she squirmed against me involuntarily and a soft, hot purr rumbled from deep within her. “Come along, Babs… we have a date with some friends after dinner at my brother’s inn on the hill. Marduk and Eponna are cooking tonight; it should be exciting!”

  “Friends?” She asked unhappily, as I put on my robe, without defiling her again… for the moment. “What friends?”

  “Get dressed, darling. We’re going to a garden party with most of the local divines and a few visitors. You’ll see some familiar faces and meet some new friends too. We’ll be taking a stroll with my brother Ward and Nightingale, the Nurse.”

  “Gale? What would she be hanging around that weird new godling for? A Death god at that!” She scoffed, while admiring her new robes of fine, undyed homespun, embroidered with simple spring flowers at the hem and collar.

  “Don’t be prejudiced… He’s the dryad of Golden Figs too!” I chuckled wryly at my long, lanky and lean date. “We need to firm up our connections to the land of the fae before my brother, Gary takes his family home. They thin the boundary between worlds just by existing.”

  I took a slow and highly skeezy look at the ancient witch, as we stepped out into the summer orchards, under the endless stars. She wore simple robes, lightly embellished in a homely and charming style, sturdy shoes and a crown woven of tiny wild rosebuds in her long, dark hair. “Perfect… you are absolutely perfect, my dear.”

  “Awfull, wicked, lustful creature!” She scolded sharply, when she caught me looking. The shy, cute, sharp-toothed and predatory smile she flashed me from behind her bangs curled my toes and made my spine tingle, just a little.

  /

  “I don’t know…” Hermit muttered unhappily, shifting and twitching nervously, even in his humanoid dream-form. “There’ll be a bunch of gods there…”

  “That’s why we call it a party, my dear one. Come, meet my friends and have a taste of divine existence… just a sample, barely more than a dream.” Thirp cooed softly in his ear, draping her lithe, white furred body around him and invading Hermit’s personal space very pleasantly.

  “It’s the first time we’ve gone out in public together; let me share you with my friends! At least two of your brothers will be there; Ward and that charming goblin, Ghnash.”

  “Really? I could manage, I suppose.” He mumbled shyly, while she caressed and petted him all over with gentle hands, soothing him in the spider way. “Stay close by me… please.”

  “You will need a very formidable broom, if you ever wish to sweep me from your rafters, Hermie…” Thirp purred and chittered warmly.

  “You’ve been living in my attic rent free for a while, lady.” Hermit sighed, relaxing against the pale, white-furred divine with his eyes closed in bliss.

  /