Little gods, p.1
Little Gods, page 1
Little Gods
By Jay Mendell
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2022 Jay Mendell
ISBN 9781685501952
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Little Gods
By Jay Mendell
Stone grinded above his head, dragging him into waking, the sound seeming to reverberate through his very skull.
Khroma groaned, unintelligible syllables spilling out of his mouth as he struggled toward awareness.
“Wha—What happened?” he slurred out, body strangely heavy and his mouth tasting about as dry as the Paideia deserts.
He heard a gasp, and a flurry of words from somewhere above his head, but for some reason, he couldn’t make out what the person was saying.
With great effort, Khroma pried open his eyes, blinking away the sleep-dust that had accumulated. He squinted through the light that flooded his senses, and even that single motion seemed to exhaust him to the very core.
He was dizzy, disoriented, and fighting off a killer headache. In light of all that, Khroma thought he could be forgiven for what happened next.
Upon seeing a strange, green face leaning over him, he lashed out, shoving the stranger away and struggling to his feet. The creature went down with a cry, a hiss of sound that registered as words, somehow, though he couldn’t understand them.
Khroma tumbled out of the—box? Had he been captured?—prison, and fell to his knees on the floor, his armor clashing loudly against the stone.
He knew he had to get up, that he had to move—who knew how long he had been kept here? His squad, the rest of the Ankhisteia, must be waiting for him. They had to be, because the only other explanation, the reason they weren’t by his side now and there was some stranger instead, was because they were all—
The creature, the person, held up one arm in a gesture of surrender, the other covering the tender mark on their face from where Khroma had struck them.
“I—sorry,” he said, because he did have some manners, no matter what his companions had accused him of. “But I have to go, they need me—”
He trailed off, the sight in front of him finally catching up with his brain.
The stranger was tall, with dark green skin, draped in rough clothing that Khroma could imagine no Paladin wearing. Their hair—was it hair?—consisted of thick, ribbed tendrils that almost reminded him of seaweed in their texture and color. It was long, held back by a cloth bandana that exposed their pointed ears. While their face appeared almost human, the outline of the bones in their face was stark, and framed their skull in such a way that gave them a prominent brow ridge—which, he noticed almost absently, had no eyebrows. Their eyes were small and dark, with tiny pupils, and the hand they held up to their face had only four fingers.
That was strange enough on its own, but it was hardly his only concern. Because, as Khroma glanced over the area he’d found himself in, he realized that he recognized it.
This was a Temple of Xiphais, the imagery carved onto the stone pillars the same as he had known all his life. Except there was dust everywhere, and moss creeping along the walls. No Paladin would ever allow their temple to become so ill-kept.
Something was wrong.
An uneasy feeling crept up his spine like a snake, poised and waiting to strike. Though he loathed to turn his back on a possible enemy, Khroma couldn’t help but look back at the prison he had stumbled out of.
It was a large coffin.
The sight made Khroma’s heart pound in his chest, and he squeezed his hands together to try and release some of that tension.
The coffin was made of stone, and weathered with age like the rest of the temple. That didn’t bode well for how long he had been trapped here, but Khroma was trying very hard not to think of that.
He could see faint lettering etched into the trim of the coffin’s lid, which had been pushed aside—probably due to the stranger who had awoken him from his slumber. He leaned in, pressing his hand against the raised dais the coffin was resting on as he tried to get a better look at the engraving.
Beloved hero—sleep now, until the day we shall have need of you once more.
Khroma let out a shaky breath, eyes blurring. What could that possibly mean? Surely, it wasn’t referring to him…?
He almost jumped upon hearing that same peculiar language as before, and shifted to look back at the strange person in front of him, who had now gotten to their feet. Khroma followed, with significant effort, as his knees did not seem willing to comply, but he propped himself up as best he could, unwilling to appear too weak in this uncertain situation.
They looked at him, expression almost hopeful, as if waiting for a reply to their words.
“I don’t understand you,” Khroma said, and immediately felt foolish. If he couldn’t understand them, of course they wouldn’t be able to understand him either.
Sure enough, his only reply was more of that strange, garbled language, unlike anything he had ever heard before. Khroma wouldn’t dare to presume that he knew everything of the world, but this was something completely different.
This was…otherworldly. Like something out of a story told around the evening fire, about demons and ferocious beasts, and creatures that lurked in the dark.
Not that this stranger was scary, per se. They seemed more exasperated than anything, at the moment, and Khroma watched as they dug through a small pouch at their hip, searching for something.
They muttered crossly under their breath, and Khroma felt the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips. Despite the exhaustion that pulled at him, he could recognize an expletive in any language.
Finally, they pulled a small, oblong-shaped object out of the pouch and began affixing it to their ear, grumbling all the while. Khroma watched, still somewhat stunned, as the device made a strange clicking noise, and then there was a burst of sound that made them both hiss, recoiling.
It was like the buzzing of a horde of insects, and Khroma was unpleasantly reminded of long nights spent camping in the forests, miserable and cold, only to wake the next morning to find that one of his idiot squadmates had dumped a fistfull of beetles inside his tent.
But the stranger only winced, before reaching up and adjusting something with the device. Once they had it to their satisfaction, they looked to Khroma and cleared their throat.
“How about now?” the person said, tone remarkably patient for what Khroma could only imagine was a huge inconvenience on their part. He noted, absently, that their sharp canines flashed in the light as they spoke.
But still, he brightened when he recognized the words, sitting up a bit straighter. It wasn’t perfect—there was a strange curl to the vowels spoken, unlike any accent Khroma had ever heard before, but it was certainly better than nothing.
“Yes, I understand now!” he said, enthusiasm driving away a bit of his exhaustion. He bowed his head to the stranger, knocking his fist against his chest plate in a salute. “I am Paladin Khroma, of the Ankhisteia. It seems I may be in your debt, stranger, if you have freed me from this strange prison.”
“There…is no debt.” The words were nearly strangled in their tone, but the voice was still pleasant. Calm, for how strange this situation must be for them both. Now that Khroma had some time to process what was happening, he could see that his new companion was a man after all.
“I’m Nahan,” he said, voice a touch deeper, somehow. Gruffer. “Would you…mind telling me what year it is?”
Khroma blinked. It felt like his thoughts were dipped in honey, sticking to the corners of his mind rather than moving as they ought to. “What calendar? Hesukhin? Or Skopaes?”
Hopefully he wasn’t asking for the Epialos calendar. While it wouldn’t necessarily mean the man was an enemy, the war made everything more complicated.
Instead of answering, however, Nahan only stared at him. Then he sighed, and put a four-fingered hand to his face as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I cannot believe this is happening to me.”
Khroma frowned, and wondered if he should feel offended. But before he could even consider a response, Nahan dropped his hand and gave Khroma a serious look.
“It seems like we have a lot to discuss. Sir, you’ve been asleep for a long time. This planet is completel y uninhabited now. I’m from a different world entirely. An alien, in other words.”
Khroma stared blankly, the words simply not registering in his mind. “…I’m sorry?”
Nahan grimaced. “Yeah, I didn’t think it would be that easy.”
Khroma’s head spun, and he found himself tilting dangerously forward, until Nahan reached out, catching him by the chest.
For a moment, all he could feel was the steady weight against his chest plate, those broad hands pressed against the shining steel of his armor. Then he sucked in a deep breath, planting one hand on the ground as he tried to regain his balance.
He expected Nahan to pull away, now that he seemed to no longer be in danger of fainting, but the man only shifted his grip, holding him by the shoulders and herding him back against the cool stone of his coffin.
“You’re alright,” Nahan said, and the deep rumble of his voice was about the only thing Khroma could concentrate on. “Just breathe. I’m here with you, it’s alright.”
Khroma’s chest rose and fell with every breath, and when he weakly reached up to clasp a hand around Nahan’s wrist, the man stayed steady.
“Just breathe.”
For what felt like the first time in many, many years, Khroma breathed.
* * * *
Nahan did let him go a short while later, once Khroma no longer felt like his lungs were twisting into knots in his chest.
He dropped his head into his hands for a moment, allowing himself just that one last second of weakness, before he looked back up, catching Nahan’s eye with a rueful smile.
“Please forgive me,” he said, embarrassment sticking to the roof of his mouth. “I’m alright now. Thank you for your kindness, truly.”
Nahan only shook his head, looking rather unnerved at the words.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he insisted, standing back up. He put his hands in his pockets as he shifted on his feet, a sign of nerves that made Khroma feel a bit better about his own issues. “But, uh, we should probably get out of here, huh?”
Khroma grimaced, slowly getting to his feet. Indeed, he felt little desire to remain in this damp basement, especially considering how long he must have been down here (though he was trying not to think about that). The problem was whether his body was equally up to the task.
Well, no better time to find out.
“Lead the way, please,” Khroma said, gesturing toward the stairs he could see at the end of the room.
Nahan eyed him up and down for a moment, likely taking in the way his armor was rattling at the knees, faintly, with the effort it took to remain upright.
“We can take more time if you need it, sir,” he said, voice purposefully neutral. “It’s not a bother.”
Khroma knew the man was trying to spare his pride, and though he appreciated the gesture, it only served to remind him of his current incapability.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he waved a hand dismissively, already making his way toward the stairs. “Come on then, or I’ll leave you behind!”
There was a moment of silence—nearly judgmental in nature, though the alien thankfully kept any of his contrary thoughts to himself—before Nahan followed after him, boots making new tracks in the thick layers of dust that had collected on the temple floor.
Walking up the dizzying number of steps to get back to the surface, Khroma had to pause—multiple times, embarrassingly enough—in order to catch his breath, head throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
Nahan stayed hovering by his side, twitching every time Khroma so much as breathed heavily, as if he was afraid that Khroma was some kind of helpless invalid that was about to trip and slide all the way back down into the basement.
It was not, admittedly, a completely inaccurate fear at this time. He could admit that much, seeing as he had to keep one hand on the wall just to prop himself upright. The slippery moss that had grown up through the stone was no help either, but Khroma wasn’t quite ready to subject himself to the indignity of asking to be carried just yet.
And not to disparage his companion, of course, but he had some doubts on whether the alien would be able to carry him at all, especially in full plate armor. At least he wasn’t wearing his helmet.
It was a struggle, but Khroma eventually managed to climb his way to the top, and when his gaze swept over the courtyard that greeted him, his grim suspicion was confirmed.
This was a Temple of Xiphais, there was no doubt about it. He even recognized which one. Though partially collapsed and weathered with age, he could pick out the exact spot where he and the rest of the Ankhisteia had been camping like it was yesterday.
To him, it practically was.
But now, the open yard that’d held their tents had been reclaimed by the earth, wildflowers pushing up stubbornly through the thick grass.
Oh, the trainers would hate that, sprang to Khroma’s mind suddenly, as he stared, listless, into the distance. But the apprentices would love it.
There were no trainers or apprentices here. Only silence, oppressive and heavy against the constant rush and excitement that existed in his memory.
His headache spiked, and he felt himself tilting sideways, only to land squarely in Nahan’s waiting hands as the alien panicked.
“Woah, hey! Are you alright? I mean, what hurts?”
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Khroma said faintly, and then his stomach heaved, and he did exactly that.
* * * *
Though he had no memory of closing his eyes, when he stirred awake after succumbing to his illness, he was met with Nahan’s worried face yet again.
Thankfully, he managed to avoid punching the man in the face this time, though he did jolt upon seeing the alien’s dark, expressive eyes so close to his own.
Some small piece of hope sank in his chest at the reminder of his changed circumstances. It was not, perhaps, that he’d thought the whole encounter to be a dream, but confronting this meant acknowledging that everything was gone…
The temple where he’d grown up, the tiny garden he’d been tending in his spare time, the rest of the Ankhisteia…It was all gone.
As he stared up at Nahan blankly, not quite awake, all he could think was; Enosaa still owes me for covering his drink at the tavern.
It was hardly his most important concern at the moment, but somehow, it was the thing his mind kept coming back to. The way his friend had laughed and teased him as he drunkenly stumbled over his words, coaxing him into buying the next round of ale. Khroma had woken up the next morning with an empty wallet and a killer hangover—he’d vowed that he would get revenge, even if it was the last thing he ever did.
Now, he would never get that chance.
“Good, you’re awake,” Nahan said, sounding whole-heartedly relieved at the knowledge. Khroma snapped back into the present, and slowly began to leverage himself up.
“Considering I have no idea why you were in that place to begin with, I was a bit worried that you were about to fall into a coma again.”
“And thank all the little gods I didn’t,” Khroma said ruefully. This may not have been exactly the reality he was hoping to wake up to, but it was certainly better than not waking up at all.
Nahan snorted, holding out a hand. “No kidding. I think if someone this famous died on my watch, I would be in serious trouble.”
Khroma took his hand, noting absently that Nahan had bundled up his jacket to allow Khroma to use it as a pillow. They were resting somewhere close to where he had fallen, though on the other side of the courtyard—far enough away that Khroma could spot the entrance to the basement, but not have to worry about a sudden fall sending him right back down.
Then, the alien’s words registered. Him? Famous? But hadn’t Nahan said that the planet was empty? And with how much the landscape had decayed, Khroma doubted that it had been a short process.
“I’m well-known?” Khroma said, surprise coating his words. It was hard to imagine that his name would have been able to persist for what could be thousands of years. Even with his accomplishments, he had only done what all of the Ankhisteia were trying to do.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Nahan snorted. “The Paladin Khroma is a legendary figure in Gazanian mythology. Even in just the preliminary research I did, your name came up time and time again.”
