Rogan's Monsters 3: Temple, page 2
It seemed that the healing potion was nearly all gone. But the others still seemed close to full. “What are the others?” I asked.
She shrugged, almost dismissively. “The shrinking potion. And its opposite, the one that would have allowed me to return the wagons to their full size. And the one that, when painted on objects, causes them to glow. And that is it.”
“Can you make more?” Zera asked her, and I knew what Gamma would say even before the question was finished.
“Over time, I could, if I had access to the ingredients.” She gestured casually around the plateau and then continued in a tone that was almost self-mocking. “Of course, it’s not like I can pop out to the market, or even forage for the ingredients I need. Not here, at any rate.”
“Then we will have to make do,” Camille said, and I sensed the agreement all around.
Ash shifted her weight where she sat. “The potion that makes things big. We are no longer within the confines of the caverns. It would help me to rest easier if I were to resume my earlier size. The better to defend us in the event of an attack.”
Everyone thought this was a good idea. Ash was a more than capable warrior, full of strength even in her smaller size. As a giant, trollish creature, she was a match for me with all my chi skills and training. Between the two of us, we had kept entire armies at bay.
Yet Gamma hesitated. “You know that your transformation wasn’t as straightforward as enlarging the wagons,” she said to the big woman. “To thicken your skin and flesh to the point where it is as rock again… it will take more than a simple application of the potion.”
Interesting, I thought. When I’d first met Ash, I had taken her to be some sort of rock troll, and not very human at all. Yet in her smaller form, she lacked the harshest of her features. She still had her tusks, and her skin retained its greyish shade, but she now looked considerably more feminine than she had done.
My AC lens had shown her DNA to be mixed with that of a rhino and crocodile, among other things. It seemed that it was Gamma’s power that had brought this aspect of her to the fore.
“The toughened skin and flesh is useful. But perhaps, for now, size will be sufficient, if you are able to manage it?”
Gamma studied her protector. In times past, the princess might have resorted to her veneer of haughtiness, the training she’d hidden behind for so long. But we had journeyed far together, all of us, and it seemed that Gamma no longer had the energy for playing that sort of game. At least, not with Ash.
It remained to be seen if she would do the same with me.
“I have chi enough for that,” she said. “And maybe a little more besides.” With that, she plucked the vial in question and stood in a smooth, fluid movement. Ash stayed as she was, sitting cross-legged, facing the fire, as Gamma sprinkled just a few drops of the potion over her head. Lady Gamma muttered a few words under her breath, a chant that sounded better to the tongue, and I felt the pressure of her chi as she reached out with it to the woman who had been with her since they had both been young.
At once, Ash began to grow. It was as if she was drawing substance in toward herself, expanding along every dimension, but remaining true to the original proportions. In a way, it was unspectacular. There were no explosions, no twisting, or even apparent pain. Nothing like the grotesque transformations Hollywood executives might have imagined when thinking about werewolves or suchlike. At the same time, it was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen, and in the past couple of weeks, I had seen rather a lot.
In a matter of minutes, Ash became a giant, similar to the one she had been when I met her, but different. Her skin was still smooth, still recognizably feminine, as was the rest of her. Instead of becoming a monster, she—and her clothing, armor, and even her club—simply grew to a colossal version of herself.
It must have taken a staggering amount of energy. Perhaps Ash’s own chi enabled it somewhat, but for the most part, it seemed as if Gamma’s was doing the bulk of the work.
When it was done, when Ash’s head would have topped mine by some inches even though she was still sitting down, Gamma seemed to deflate a little. She took a step back and studied the giant she had created with a critical eye.
“You have your size and your strength back,” the smaller woman said. “And as much of your durability as I could give you. However, please refrain from blocking swords with your forearms, or with anything other than your buckler, or club. I am running short of healing potion.”
I couldn’t believe it. It sounded almost sounded as if Gamma had cracked a joke.
Ash responded with her customary half smile. “Thank you, my lady.” Then her expression grew concerned. “Although, it seems to have taken much from you this time,” she said. “Are you all right?”
Lady Gamma nodded. “Before we embarked on this quest, I spent considerable time shoring up my reserves for your conversion. And, if you remember, I had to use several potions to achieve the end result. Without that preparation, bending this one potion to my will has left me drained.”
I wasn’t the only one who had been watching with interest. The others had as well, including Ecco, who had a suggestion.
“Rogan can help with that,” she said. “Why don’t you ask him if he could help to boost your chi back to where it should be?”
Even though it was getting dark, I could see the color appear on Gamma’s cheeks. Yet she didn’t shy away from the suggestion. “I might just do that,” she said, looking at me. “Although, perhaps, we should eat first.”
I wasn’t sure what I thought about effectively being used as a power charger. Not that the process itself wasn’t enjoyable. It was just that I hoped sex with Gamma, or any of the others for that matter, would be more meaningful.
Then again, we were on a quest that had taken us deep into the most hostile of environments. We had lost most of the supplies, and had to make do with our wits, whatever we could scrounge, and each other. From a purely pragmatic perspective, it made sense for me to share my strength with the others, none of whom seemed to be able to power up in quite the way I could.
And all of whom seemed to run low on chi from time to time.
Except for Ash. The gigantic woman seemed largely indomitable, and if she ever found herself at a low ebb as far as her chi was concerned, she never spoke about it.
As we shared the meager fair provided by the lizard Camille had killed, I wondered what I might do if Ash ever did require a chi boost. I held nothing but admiration for her in all respects, and would never have considered holding myself back. But with her having resumed her gigantic stature, there were logistic issues to consider.
I found myself idly staring at the huge woman, realizing only after a while that she had noticed and was studying me in return, her expression neutral.
I switched my gaze to Gamma and saw that she had been looking at me as well. But unlike Ash, she turned away almost shyly, and I knew she was thinking about what Ecco had suggested, even as her Edda took an aggressive stance and chattered angrily as if I had leveled some sort of insult.
Gamma’s combination of reticence and interest told me that it was unlikely she would lower herself to make the first move, and I was pondering my options given that it was unlikely we would find a moment to ourselves anytime soon when the quiet of the evening was broken by a distant shriek.
The noise was enough to send a shiver down my spine. Like the rending of metal. Or the roar of dinosaurs from so long ago. Without hesitation, I stood and turned back the way we had come, my oversized bastard sword in my hands before I finished the movement.
But there was no immediate danger. No monster on the verge of attack. The noise we had all heard had come from some miles away, carried by the light breeze in the air.
“What was that?” Zera asked, the anxiety clear in her voice.
“It sounded like…” Ecco began, but she hadn’t finished what she was saying before the cry repeated.
The beautiful fox woman recognized the sound, just as I did, just as Gamma and the others seemed to as well. Nevertheless, I sent a whisper of chi into my AC lens and switched to distance vision, just to make sure.
By then, much of the floating dust around the collapsed caverns had started to disperse, leaving me with a clear view of something I didn’t wish to see.
“Fuck,” I said. “It’s that monster we couldn’t kill—the thing that couldn’t be burned and that reabsorbed any part of it itself that I cut off. It has survived the collapse, and worked its way to the surface.”
There was silence all around. “Wonder what else has survived?” Camille asked, her question mirroring my own thoughts.
“I can’t see that far,” Gamma said. “Not in this gloom. What is it doing?”
I caught Gamma’s concern. And it was justified.
“It is extruding itself from the collapse,” I said.
“Has it seen us?” the princess asked.
I watched the monster as closely as I could. It didn’t seem to have any real characteristics beyond a series of teeth set at one end. It could have climbed out of the caverns facing any direction. And yet…
“I can’t tell if it has seen us, but it is facing our way.”
Again, my companion lapsed into silence. Finally, it was Zera who asked the important question.
“What do we do?”
I looked around at my companions. Ash was hefting her club in an unconscious gesture of threat. She would battle the worm monster all by herself if need be, of that I was certain. Camille had her hands on the hilts of two of her knives, her expression hard and unyielding. She was the fiercest of us, and would doubtless fight as well if need be. I’d long ago stopped expecting her to run off and hide.
But without Gamma’s most potent weapons, it would be largely up to me to blast this creature with my chi. And I already knew that this rubbery monster could shrug off such a blast without apparent injury.
That said, it was several miles behind us, and there was no guarantee that it would come after us at all. I turned to Gamma.
“Do you know which direction the Temple is from here?” I asked, being careful with my tone so as not to remind her of her failure in that regard in the caves.
“Give me a moment,” she said. With that, she settled herself down on the ground in the same way I usually did when opening myself up to the energy of the heavens. I could sense her doing something similar, and yet different at the same time, and within just a few seconds, she opened her eyes once again.
“It is closer than I expected,” she said, her voice full of surprise. “That way.”
It was good enough for me. The direction she had indicated would take us away from the monster.
“In that case, I suggest we go for a walk. Your potion that creates the glow—I think we are going to need it.”
3
The multicolored aurora overhead conspired with the moon and the brighter stars to keep it from being a dark night. Combined with Gamma’s potion and my AC lens, we could navigate among the rocks and tree skeletons with relative impunity. In her oversized form, Ash was surefooted, and Camille could have scrambled up a sheer cliff-face without any problems. Gamma was less surefooted, and Ecco, despite being able to navigate through her caverns with ease, was struggling a little more out in this broken and unstable world.
Yet the occasional cry from the monster behind us was motivation enough to keep going. I offered both women a hand whenever it seemed they needed my help, and we made reasonable time.
The only one of us who couldn’t travel as easily as usual was Zera. Without the full light of day, she was uncomfortable flitting about on her wings, instead spending much of her time scrabbling about, hurrying to catch up with Camille and Ash before dropping back to spend time with those of us who were slower.
In a way, it was good that we were moving, although I would have welcomed the chance for a decent rest. It was colder outside of the caverns than it had been within. More exposed. And the breeze that carried the monster’s cries to our ears also seemed to cut through my robes without any effort, chilling my flesh beneath them. At the same time, it didn’t seem strong enough to discourage the mist that formed in pockets close to the ground.
That mist seemed to concentrate the cold, and I wondered if it was in some way an indication of altitude. Without knowing for sure, I would have guessed we were a good thousand feet higher than we had been in the Wastes, and every step took us higher still.
I thought the chill in the air might have been why Zera scurried back and forth. While Camille, Ecco, and even Ash were at least as scantily clad, the butterfly girl seemed to feel the chill more than the others. Or perhaps she just liked to check up on everyone, chattering a little about nothing in particular before moving away once again.
Either way, her simple presence was enough to lighten the atmosphere, and perhaps to make us forget the dangers we had faced for a while.
It was also enough to encourage Ecco to start asking questions.
“Where are we heading?” the fox woman asked. “Rogan spoke of a Temple. What is it? Why do you seek it?”
Zera was happy enough to respond, giving Ecco a more detailed answer than I had gained up until then.
“The Temple—I don’t know firsthand because I’ve never been there before. But everyone knows what it is, or at least, they know the stories. It is a place beyond the Wastes, beyond the barren lands we currently travel, a place of magic and hope. There are many who seek it, and few who survive the seeking, and yet, if nobody at all made it back, then how would anyone know about it at all?”
The butterfly girl’s speech pattern matched the way she flitted about, darting from one place to another with ease. It seemed she had either forgotten Ecco’s question, or thought she had answered it, but the fox girl was far from giving up.
“But what is it? Why do people go there? Why are you aiming to find it?”
“As to what it is, I couldn’t say. The stories I’ve heard talk about a priestess and her acolytes. People who have lived at the Temple for hundreds of years. It is said that the priestess is a Seer and can answer your questions.” Zera offered a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “They say she can do other things as well. Change an outcome, or put things together in a way that hadn’t been done before. But it is her vision I am hoping she will share with me.”
I had asked both Camille and Ash in the past what their specific quests were, and had even tried to ferret out Gamma’s as well. All I had learned was that each pilgrim’s purpose was their own, and that Gamma had shouldered the responsibility of her people. But I didn’t know any real details.
Ecco didn’t know of the private nature of each of my companions’ quests. “And what is it that you wish to find out?” she asked.
Zera’s expression became uncharacteristically somber. “It is a difficult world we live in,” she began. “Where I come from—I can’t say if it is harsher there than other places, or if it is not. I like to think there are havens still in the world, places where crops don’t fail every other year, and where it isn’t so much of a struggle just to live.” She sounded almost wistful as she spoke, and Ecco picked up on it.
“Is that the purpose of your quest? To ask this priestess, this Seer, if such a place exists, and where it might be?”
The delicate butterfly girl offered Ecco a smile, but it was far from her normal expression of simple pleasure at being alive. “I thought it was, a long time ago. That’s how it started. When my mother died, I left my home to look for such a place. So that others might not have to suffer so. There was a group of us, some like me, with wings, but others without.” She offered a sigh. “As far as I know, I’m the only one left. This world—it has proved itself too harsh by far.”
She looked at the fox girl, and the sadness in her eyes was unmistakable. “I would still like to know if there is some sort of haven out in the world. But really, I just want to know if the people I have left behind—I want to know that they’re still there. So that maybe I can return.”
Zera’s expression became wistful, then she smiled as if to chase the gloom away and continued to pick her way through the rocks. I was acutely aware that the butterfly girl had shared something personal, and that while Ecco had asked the question, Zera hadn’t hesitated in answering even though both Gamma and I were within easy hearing distance. I caught an expression of sympathy on Gamma’s face, but the princess didn’t say anything. Just kept picking her way along.
As for me, I had very little that I could say. I realized then that I didn’t really know much about the world I was in. My experience was limited to the Wastes, the caverns, and now this barren place of rocks and hills. I wondered how much truth there was in Zera’s words. If the whole world was as empty and hostile as the parts I had seen.
Instinctively, I turned to Gamma. “What about you, if I can ask?” I said.
At the start of the journey, the question alone would have been enough to make Gamma bristle. Her monkey symbiote would have thrown stones at me as she chittered away in anger. But much had changed in the caverns, and I was beginning to like this more thoughtful version of Gamma who had emerged. She had seldom resorted to the mask she had worn for so long, either literally or figuratively.
Of course, she now lacked the tools with which to make up her face, having lost them with the wagons in the caverns. But I was immensely grateful that she had stepped down from her high horse as well.
“You are asking about my quest?” she asked.
I thought about it. “In part, yes. But also of the place you come from. Surely, it is a city, a civilized place? Is it the haven that Zera is looking for?”
At this, the butterfly girl perked up, and both she and Ecco listened with interest.
But Gamma’s first instinct was to shake her head. “It is a city, that much is true. And while my own life has been one of comparative privilege, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t see what it was like for others.” The princess gestured toward Ash, who had opened a short gap between us. “There is a reason for Ash’s loyalty that goes beyond any binding. If it weren’t for my father, she would likely have starved, along with the rest of her family. Life is difficult all over. And that is why I am on this quest.”
