Plane of the Godless Read online

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  He stepped out of the gate into the darkest night, with the stars overhead obscured by the canopy of trees around him, and felt himself lose his balance for a moment as the world swooped around him like a drunkard. Almost as quickly as it came over him, the feeling ended, and he stopped where he was to make sure his balance would not betray him again, wondering briefly if it was from being in need of rest. Then he stayed stock still, listening cautiously to the sounds the night air brought to him. He clearly heard the sound of the gate just behind him; almost like water pouring quietly over rock, but somehow unnaturally so. He looked around as well, the special vision both his parents had bequeathed to him making everything seem almost as bright as day. Harsh experience had taught its lessons well: be aware of your surroundings before you act. He left the gate open behind him, in case he had to return through it and ready some weapon or some other thing he might need. The crossbow in his hands was cocked and loaded - ready if needed. Not wanting to expend the energy needed to make himself not seen, he simply waited a moment.

  It was good he had, he realized, as the sounds of laughter came to him. Those voices spoke in a language he didn’t immediately recognize, which was not really surprising. But not recognizing the words spoken was not the same thing as not recognizing the tone in which they were said, and his mouth tightened. The pulling feeling inside started up again, gaining in strength, and he knew what it demanded. His patron called for him again. He sighed as he realized that this place would not let him rest, either. He would make payment to his debt again, he knew.

  The low, strangely watery sound from the gate behind him faded away to nothingness as he ended the spell that created it. Then he did spend the effort to make himself unseen; an old, well-practiced task he accomplished almost without concentration, even as the effort took its small toll on him, further consuming that strength he drew upon for magic.

  He checked his weapons, loosening the sword in its sheath, expecting it would be needed soon. He considered leaving the pack behind, but didn’t know if he would need something out of it in a hurry or not, and decided to keep it on him. But he opened the cloak, securing it back with the cord sewn into it across the inside of the back, and checked the pouches and their contents at his waist in old familiar habit.

  He stepped off then, walking silently through the night, and moved towards the noises the people made. As he got closer, he could hear another sound under it all – the hoarse, rasping breath of someone near death, and wondered what he would find. Closer now, as the lights they had drew him cautiously forward. He identified four humans from the different voices, and a fifth was slowly expiring. He had little faith in mankind, and expected nothing better of them than what he could picture was happening close at hand: four had taken another out to a place where they could do their work, and not be interrupted.

  Closer now, he went around one last tree, silent as the night and invisible as a breeze, and what he saw made his stomach turn over. The four men were dressed strangely, and all held some kind of black metal tube that made some strange light out of a flared end. The lights were all directed down to the ground, at a person they were gathered around. Anger flared inside himself as he realized that the fifth person was a human woman; naked, beaten almost to the point you could not tell her gender, and badly injured with blood coming from her face, her eyes, and many other places on her body; hands and feet tied, she had been the object of their entertainment for quite some time this night.

  His eyes wandered around the small encampment, taking in the strange things he saw there. His gaze moved to the things the men held, looking for weapons they might use against him. One had some kind of knife that had blood on it– that he could identify easily enough. In the hand of another, he saw some kind of thing made of shiny yet dark metal that protruded out of the top of his closed fist, but he could not perceive what it might be. The one who held it seemed to treat it carefully, pointing it low and to the side, so it might be some kind of weapon. He would make sure that it was no threat to him, even if he didn’t recognize it.

  The pull inside welled up stronger within his chest now, and he had no qualms about what it called him to do, even as he realized that the woman had ceased breathing and crossed over to the other side. No matter; he would deal with that in a moment. First, though…

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  “Ok, she’s gone. Let’s make it look good. Pick up what we don’t want left behind, and then we get out of here.” Jack, the one she had recognized as being in charge, spoke in a focused tone of voice, directing the group with concise, simple commands. Another job completed, another big payday coming. He had just turned to his portion of the work, when a solid low thwonk and a hoarse gasp behind him caused his head to snap around, along with the light from the flashlight in his hand.

  Bill had dropped his flashlight and his pistol, and was pinned against the tree behind where he had stood by what looked like the feathered end of a homemade arrow shaft sticking out of the upper right part of his chest, holding him against the thick pine trunk behind him even as blood oozed out around the gruesome injury. He coughed and wheezed. From the arrow’s position on his chest, Jack knew it was through Bill’s lung. Jack finished turning, and reached inside his jacket, drawing the handgun from the shoulder holster. The specialist standing over the body stared blankly at Bill, shocked into a frozen silence at the sudden violence visited on one of his current business partners out of the black woods with no warning.

  Aaron took one look at Bill, and whipped out his own handgun. He quickly calculated where the arrow could have come from, and turned the flashlight in that direction. A former Army Ranger and combat veteran, he was the least shocked and paralyzed by what had happened, falling into a combat crouch with a grip on both the pistol and the flashlight with the speed and ease of long training and practice.

  It didn’t matter. The specialist made a sound, and Aaron turned that way just in time to see a knife of some kind flash across the specialist’s throat, the arm reaching from behind him. He went down holding the spurting wound, and Aaron still couldn’t see who killed him. But he suddenly did see a silvery-red flash of metal as that same now-bloody knife was thrown impossibly fast towards him. Then everything went black as awareness fled and the world crashed down on him.

  Everything seemed to slow down as Jack watched. The knife that had slashed open the specialist’s throat seemed to flash out of the darkness, thrown so hard it appeared in Aaron’s left eye as if by magic, burying the blade completely up to the handle. As Jack’s horror grew, Aaron seemed to stiffen, and fell backwards like a rock, hitting the ground like a dead weight. Pinned to the tree, Bill seemed to gasp one last time, then sagged, snapping off the arrow in the tree as he fell to the ground, obviously dead as well.

  Jack looked wildly around, seeing a ruined throat and the bloody mess the specialist became in death, trying to see where the knife thrower was, and suddenly took a hurried step backwards as someone appeared out of thin air right in front of him. The uneven ground betrayed him, and he dropped his gun and flashlight as his arms flailed for balance. The man in front of him reached out with his right hand and grabbed a fistful of Jack’s coat, preventing him from falling. Two eyes looked him over contemptuously as Jack reached up instinctively and grabbed the wrist holding him. He tried to break the grip, but the man’s strength was enormous. He felt himself lifted off the ground easily, which terrified him. The shorter, slender man in front of him should not have been able to lift his entire 200 plus pounds with both hands, let alone just one. Holding the wrist with both hands desperately, Jack wondering who the hell this man was, and where he had been when the sounds the woman had made had silenced the noises of the deep woods around them in the hours before her death.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but the man didn’t give him any time for questions. Instead, he held up his left hand, fingers straight up, with the back of his fingers towards Jack. Then, with a quiet, curious sound, his fin
gers seemed to ripple, and suddenly there were bone-white claws extending from his fingers and thumb, each a good 6 inches long. His mouth fell open as rational thought left him to hyperventilate, his fear spiking to an impossible level that overwhelmed his mind, and he turned back to the man’s face in front of him.

  The man showed his teeth in a ghastly caricature of a grin that conveyed mostly disgust, tilted his head to one side, and Jack swayed as the man extended his right arm to full extension out from his body without Jack’s feet touching the ground. Before he could wonder about that, the clawed left hand disappeared back behind the man and out of Jack’s sight, and he was pulled suddenly back in. A huge pain blossomed, and he realized that the clawed hand had stabbed deeply into his chest. His breath froze as the pain in his chest burned hotter than the sun and his lungs suddenly stopped working. The world spun crazily as the pain roared completely over him. His last sight was the contempt for him in the grey man’s expression as his vision grew dim, and then the world went away.

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  The simple mind-spell he had cast shielded him from the gore of the man’s death at his hand, and that which had sprayed and splattered and splashed on it fell to the ground. Giltreas dropped the dead body contemptuously, stooping to carefully wipe the blood off his hands on the man’s strange clothing. Then he retracted his father’s legacy, hiding the claws from sight as if they didn’t exist. The front of the man’s chest was torn out, as if a huge creature had ripped him open. He reached down and picked up the black metal tube that the light emanated from, and looked it over curiously. It was the length of his forearm, but thinner than his wrist, well made, smooth and perfectly round with a texture engraved in the metal making it easier to grip. The end the light came from flared wider slightly, another piece of the strange metal. The light itself, shown through a clear material, was brighter than he should safely look directly at. But then the tugging inside reminded him that his work was not done. The pull was stronger now, and he let it lead him over to the dead woman. He went down on his knees, cutting the ropes that bound her with a small knife from behind his back, and looking at her wounds wearily. He knew then that she was the reason he had been… pulled here. This would take a lot of him. Sending a silent plea inside to his patron for assistance, he sighed as the pull pulsed inside him again, confirming and insistent.

  He pulled off his pack now, then his cloak as well, setting them aside for the moment. Then he went around and gathered up the metal light rods and placed them on the ground to light up the still form in front of him, instead of spending more strength to call up his own light. That complete, he knelt on the forest floor next to her and took a deep breath, centering himself. Reaching inside himself, he summoned the arcane arts that he knew so well, calling forth his Physicker Sight to see the extent of her injuries.

  There was almost no part of her skin that was unwounded. Old scars covered parts of her face and neck, and more of the same covered her from stomach to almost above her knees. Internally, she had much scarring, and very low on her stomach, voids showed where parts of her guts had been removed under still more scars, possibly by intent. She had suffered much in her life, and it seemed no one had been able to find a healer they could afford or they could barter with to ease that suffering.

  He reached into a pouch at his hip, and drew out a small bottle. Unstopping it, he poured the entire contents into her mouth, and it disappeared into her tongue and the tissue of her mouth as if absorbed. He replaced it in the pouch, and poured yet another into her mouth. His Sight told him that no more was needed on that front. He paused a moment to put the now empty bottles back into the pouch, then closed his eyes.

  He began the healing meditation of mind magic, hoping that on this plane the healing arts would come easy. Some planes he had visited were very hard places indeed to do such things. He opened his eyes, and watched as a glow, white at first, then, as his concentration built and his focus sharpened, a brilliant pure emerald green, emanated from his hands. A part of his thoughts were pleased that the mind magic worked so easily here. At first dim, the green light grew very quickly grew to glowing brilliance as he drew more energy from the plane around him. Then he lowered his hands over the dead woman on the ground in front of him. As the green glow came in contact with her, it flared intensely, so bright that it was almost hard to see through, and bright enough to cast light upon the woods around him. As he slowly swept his hands above her silent, not-breathing form, the green glow reached into her, healing broken bones, closing wounds and torn tissue, erasing scars, and healing bruises, eliminating any physical trace of what had happened to her before in her life.

  Her body began to change with gathering speed as his drawing pulled more energy in to him to pass to her. The green glow emanating from his hands seemed to penetrate completely through her to the ground below, where the plants and grasses seemed to become brighter and stronger and grow a little bit as well. The pull inside him began to pulse in time with the healing green light from his hands, and he was drawn further and deeper into the work as it demanded more from him to heal this woman he had never met, and he felt his patron’s approval of his efforts. His eyes closed once more, and the trance took over, moving his hands now without conscious thought. The power grew, coming from the earth and sky and everywhere around, until her entire body was obscured from sight by the intense, brilliant emerald light that now seemed to be coming from her as well, accompanied by a roaring sound a waterfall or a high wind might have made. Then suddenly the moment passed, the need ended, the light and sound disappeared, and it was over.

  He opened his eyes and looked down, wondering who she was, and what made her so important to his patron, or anyone else who could request such a boon from his patron, as he paused to catch his breath after his work. The skin was whole. The story of what happened to her before he arrived, written in her blood and wounds, had been erased as if it never occurred. All that remained to tell the tale was the bloodstains left beneath her. Many times past had he performed the healing mind magic, but never on one so grievously wounded such as she, and he doubted that it could all be done away with. Seems that such thoughts had no roots.

  His Sight told him that one small thing remained before the last, and he reached into another pouch at his hip by feel alone, taking out and unstopping a small bottle with an almost clear liquid in it. Gently pulling up each of her eyelids, he carefully poured some of the liquid into each, and watched as the cloudiness and haze of those now-healed eyes quickly disappeared. The bottle was stoppered and then disappeared back into the pouch whence it came from.

  Now for the hardest part.

  He closed his eyes, his lips moving in murmured, reverent prayer to his patron. Then he called forth his strength in another way. Soon he felt the response to his calling as a rushing sound filled his ears and a red glow tinted everything he saw in front of him. Very quickly again, the strength grew in his grasp until he felt it flowing through him like a roaring flame, pulsing in time to his heartbeat. He felt his patron’s will join with his, augmenting and directing it, raising it to a level he had never attempted to achieve on his own. It was time. He opened his eyes, and reached out to lower one hand over her heart, and another to almost touch her forehead. Then he took a deep breath and released the red energy, letting it course out of him and into her, directing it deep inside the dead woman in front of him as it sought out that part of her that no longer held life.

  A quiet gasp rewarded him as the dead body began to breathe again. The call to his patron worked. That intangible thing that was the difference between a dead body and a living creature sprang into existence, and she lived again. He was exhausted by the efforts he had put out to call the gate, conceal himself, fight, then heal and call the woman on the ground in front of him back across the veil. Never having been granted the time to recover from his last adventure before being drawn to this wood, he paused to catch his breath for a moment. He carefully watched her breathe, then took up his cloa
k and spread it carefully over her now perfect form to grant her some modesty, pulling the hood over one shoulder and under her head to cushion her gently. Then he sat back and waited, feeling the red pulse inside himself recede rapidly away to nothingness as his patron’s will depart. He should have felt satisfaction knowing that his latest task was completed so quickly, but it was overshadowed by the aching exhaustion he felt. Now he could simply rest, and wait for her to awaken.

  Chapter 2

  Awareness came to her slowly. She felt strange. She wasn’t sure where she was, and for the moment, had no memory of how she got wherever she was. But it was completely dark and - oh, her eyes were closed. She opened them, expecting not to be able to see without either glasses or contacts, but her breath caught in her throat as everything snapped into clear, sharp, perfect focus: the trees, even the stars above, and much brighter than she would have expected, too...

  She heard the soft sigh of a breath let out, and her head snapped to the side. She started when she saw him. She was lying on the ground, a small circle of stones surrounding a low fire on the ground between them. And he was like no one she had ever seen. His skin was greyish white, as was his long, braided hair, lying over one shoulder to lay down the side of his chest. When he turned to look at her, his eyes in the firelight seemed to be an amber color she had never seen nor even heard of before. His face was long and lean, but elegant and handsome. He was clean-shaven and clean, and dressed in strange clothing. He looked tired, but he smiled at her.

  Her mind spun as thoughts rushed through her head. Who was he? Had he saved her? What happened to… she lifted herself slightly, turning her head, and she choked as she saw one lying in front of a tree with an arrow sticking out of his chest. Another was on the ground staring vacantly up into the night sky, with his throat slashed open. A third lay on his back with a gruesome wound to his eye. And the fourth, the leader of these animals, with his chest torn and ripped open, laying haphazardly like he was thrown there by a careless child. She gasped as fear washed over her. She tried to sit up, but the world spun, and a gentle hand gripped her shoulder, steadying her. Confusion warred with fear inside of her, but obviously he meant her no harm, or he would have killed her when she was unconscious. The fear subsided as rational thought returned somewhat. It was obvious he had killed her four attackers. More confusion welled up again.