Chapter 226 - Through the Looking Glass III

Carter clasped his hands together and took a deep breath before reciting all the usual lines of worship. It was his morning routine. Each time the plainsrunner awoke, he would situate himself atop his bed, stab a knife into each of his hooves, and offer the gods his blood. Such was his way of paying penance, of seeking freedom from the guilt that still plagued the very depths of his mind. The self-mutilation no longer hurt nearly as much as it had when he first began, and while some may have resorted to a greater degree of punishment, the self-proclaimed missionary saw no purpose in intensifying his suffering. It was not out of fear or selfishness that he refrained, but rather appreciation, for it was the gods that steeled his nerves, just as how it was they that tied the pain of his flesh to the anguish that assailed his mind.

He prayed to Vella, goddess of war, Krebb, god of cylinders, and Altea, goddess of truth, before speaking the longest dedication of the day. His final words were made in worship of none other than the goddess of ears. He did not know her name—no one did—and she had refused to answer his call, but he knew from the very core of his being that he was not mistaken in his label. Her beauty was of the sort that could not be crafted by mortal hands, ethereal and eternal, subtle and obvious, sensual and innocent all in one.

To her, he prayed not only for his own sake, but also that of his employer. Marleena Ortona, the woman that he served, had ears so small that no other centaur, subspecies or otherwise, could possibly find her attractive. He begged the beautiful goddess to bless his companion and provide to her the power to grow them, even if just a little, so that she might finally find herself a husband within the bounds of her race.

It was only after he recited the solemn invocation three times that he removed the blades from his ankles and returned them to their sheathes before bandaging his feet. There was no need to clean either ritual blade; both were completely devoid of blood, even though it was happily leaking from his legs. The gods had taken every last drop, an offering to prove his dedication to reform and repentance.

“Good morning.”

He took a deep breath before tracing the voice to its source. In his bed, he found a girl covered from head to toe in pure white fur poking out from beneath the sheets, her large eyes blinking and her face flushed pink. Even through the layer of fabric, he could tell that her wings were fluttering as quickly as her heart was beating. The same sight that awaited him each time he wrapped up his morning routine.

“Morning,” he said, with a soft smile.

The moth latched onto his torso as soon as he greeted her, nuzzling her cheeks against his exposed abs before slowly floating up to eye level and pecking him on the cheek. She retreated before he could respond in kind, darting back under the covers and hiding her visage in one of the ten-odd pillows that adorned their shared space.

Though her presence had suggested that the pair had spent the night together, they had done little beyond sharing the same bed. They were still in the earlier stages of their relationship, and as a former noble lady, Lova insisted on remaining pure until they committed to tying the knot.

Carter didn’t mind. Even if they had wanted to do the deed, it would have been difficult for them to find the time. Their biorhythms were perfectly opposed; as a nocturnal Kryddarian, Lova slept only while the centaur was off at work and vice versa. Sharing their meals was just as difficult, and their interactions were infrequent outside their room. Still, the moth girl had insisted on pursuing a relationship, and Carter had not been able to bring himself to reject her advances.

He could not deny that he had been reluctant on account of her race. Like every other centaurian male, his interest lay first and foremost in a woman’s ears, of which the moth had none. Her other traits were equally as off-putting; her eyes had countless pupils within them, her wings were much shorter and wider than those of a horse, and her values differed starkly from those that he knew. Her face was all that drove his attraction and first, and even then, it was only if her eyes were closed. Over the past few weeks, however, he had found his tastes changing; the moth girl’s foreign features grew on him, becoming not strange, but exotic and endearing.

That, however, was not to say that he had abandoned the way of the ear. If anything, her lack only grew his interest. He planned to ask the goddess to bless the moth with a pair as soon as she worked her magic on Marleena.

It was with those somewhat rude thoughts that he left the room, hand in hand with the lady that had prompted them. Together, whilst chattering about the girl’s previous shift, they greeted the inn’s owner and headed into the attached tavern. Carter was given a breakfast menu, while his partner had one more suited to dinner. It was already their tenth day in town, and the staff had long grown accustomed to their eccentric behaviours.

The group had decided, upon leaving the library, that they would head to the south. The north would never have welcomed them; Lova had no place in Kryddar given her family’s ruin, and Carter was a wanted criminal in Cadria. Heading westward was just as impossible; hate for centaurs was widespread among those that dwelled in the golden plains, and as such, Marleena’s father had never expanded their business in that direction. The east might have been a valid destination had more of their party’s members been aquatic, but Grell was the only one that truly functioned beneath the waves. Thus, by process of elimination, they headed away from the Lanngbjerns and into the great forest.

They had started their journey in a land called Rjodin, a small country four borders south of the centaurian homeland. Known for welcoming people of all races with open arms, the mercantile kingdom was a prosperous center for trade and fresh ideas. There, they found not only freedom from a certain former serial killer’s warrants, but also a key branch of Marleena’s family business. Her parents were still in jail for harbouring criminals and obstructing the law, but one of her cousins had taken over in the meantime and grown the business down the coast. It spanned a dozen sovereign nations post expansion, stretching all the way from Cadria to Primrose’s holy land.

Marleena, who most of the family had presumed dead, following her mysterious disappearance, was welcomed home with open arms. She quickly reprised her role as an outreach ambassador, and in less than a week, was back to introducing Cadrian goods to locals abroad. Likewise, Carter had also picked up exactly where he had left off. Once again, he was made her guard and tasked with keeping her from making dealings with merchants he judged too shady. The other Llystletein escapees had wanted to stake their claim as craftsmen, but because they were still unskilled, they were taken on as guards instead. Whether they truly qualified was up in the air, but Marleena had insisted, and her cousins had seen no reason to deny the claim after they had gotten her home safe and sound.

Though many were reluctant to see her go again, the mare was eventually allowed to do her job. She set out not only with the friends with which she had escaped the library, but a much more skilled group, handpicked by the business’ temporary owner as well. Together, they peddled luxury Cadrian goods up and down the coast.

Born from the visitations were a number of connections, one of which had eagerly summoned the party to the beautiful trade city of Vel’khagan. The half Ryllian, half Tal’ihirian capital was a prime location for economic development. Its harbours and land routes alike provided the means to enable traders from all over, but matters of governance had crippled its growth. The hostile foreign policies and heavy taxes had dissuaded the many merchants, the Ortona Company included, from exploring the opportunities within. Marleena, however, saw no reason to refrain. The people were wealthy in spite of the faulty statesmen and their eyes were keen for business. Evidence of their entrepreneurial spirit could easily be seen through the persuasive letters delivered straight to their inn of residence.

The most notable was a formal greeting penned by Miss Olga Popov, proprietress of the renowned Silkroad Trading Company. She had proposed a meeting, so they could discuss large volume trades, and it was precisely to make said meeting she requested that Carter hurried his way through breakfast.

After bidding farewell to his lover, who was only halfway through her first course, he bolted from the table, grabbed his equipment, and reported for duty. He was already late; he had been asked to rally at first light, but the sky had already started losing its orange hue by the time he awoke.

Surely enough, everyone else was ready and waiting. The other guards, namely Grell, Fionn, and Jake, were standing by the wagon with their weapons at the ready. His coworkers seemed not to care for his tardiness, but the mistress was practically fuming. Still, even with her teeth grinding and her face red enough to boil, she stayed perfectly silent. The day was young; there were only a few oddballs and early risers out and about. Screaming at him, like she had back in the Llystletein days, would attract unwanted attention and perhaps even undermine the Ortona company’s reputation.

That was why she silently climbed aboard the turberus-drawn carriage as soon as he exited the building, neither bidding him good morning or waiting for him to board before signalling the driver to move. It was a rather petty move, but not one that left him particularly inconvenienced. He caught up with a light jog and hopped into the cart with a thunk.

“Late again, eh? Guessing the little lady wouldn’t let you leave?” Fionn, a centaurian hillrunner that looked to be in his early twenties, spoke as he slapped the fatter guard’s shoulder. There was a wide grin on his bearded face, spanning all the way from one ear to the other.

“Don’t pin it on Lova. It’s his fault, not hers,” Marleena interjected before Carter could answer, her tongue as sharp and bitter as ever.

“I woke up a little late,” said the plainsrunner, with a tired smile. “I was up late again, thanks to the usual business.”

“The usual business? You mean that weird thing you’ve been doing with the trinkets, yeah?” The younger guard made a carving motion with his hands. He didn’t have a knife, or a block of wood for that matter, but he surely would have splintered it if he did.

“They’re not trinkets, they’re charms.” Carter reached into his bag and retrieved a small ball with two massive triangles jutting its sides. His handiwork was crude, but it conveyed to those familiar with his teachings the precise image that he had in mind.

“Same thing,” said Fionn, with a chuckle. “It’s not like they have any power in ‘em either way.”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe not ever either, eh?” Again, the leaner guard met his coworker with a slap on the shoulder. “I know you keep saying it, but there ain’t no way anyone’s gonna have ears that huge. Them’s gotta be wings or something instead.”

“They were ears,” insisted Carter. “Trust me, if you were there, you’d know.”

“Sure, mate, if you say so.” The man cackled as he smacked his buddy again. The third attack was a little harder than its predecessors, containing just enough force to dislodge Carter’s helmet and send it tumbling.

When the plainsrunner reached forward to grab it, he caught a faint glint out of the corner of his eye, one just bright enough to seem unnatural in the jungle of glass and stone. There was no time to draw his glaive, but he was able to lift his head protector and intercept the arrow right before it pierced him. The bolt flew with such force that it knocked him down regardless, nearly sending him off the wagon and onto the brick-paved road.

“Get down! We’re under attack!”

Fionn shouted to the mistress as he sprang to his feet and raised a large metal shield in. The circular implement was made from solid iron, but even its two-inch defenses struggled to stop the jagged missiles from piercing the flesh of his arm.

Grell, the resident jellyfish, rose from his seat and returned fire, but his attacks were nowhere near as effective. His slow-moving blasts were outright destroyed by the wooden arrows. One such projectile went on to break his shield and pierce him through the dome, an injury that was fortunately not as deadly as it looked.

Though not under any pressure to show themselves, the attackers stepped out from behind the buildings with arrows still nocked to their bows. Their faces were difficult to see with the hoods obscuring their figures, but it was clear at a glance that the force was made up of mermaids.

One particularly large individual inched forward, her tail carrying her surprisingly well on land. “Deal with Olga Popov, and you will die. We will not warn you again.” She spoke in a shrill voice that echoed deeply into the centaur’s mind. Her intonation almost struck him as melodic, but at the same time, it was wrong, lacking the regular meter that he expected Marish words to have.

The group dispersed as soon as the declaration was made, vanishing back into the shadows as quickly as it had emerged.

“Of course. It’s always the rival businesses,” Marleena breathed a sigh before glaring at the dazed centaur pushing himself off the floor. “What are you doing, you lazy oaf? Get off your ass and go after them!”

“R-right.” Carter pulled the arrow from his bascinet and planted the helmet back on his head before giving chase.

Fionn joined him in the pursuit, leaving their other two companions to stand guard over the mistress. Carter would have preferred to stay behind—it was more difficult for the satellite party to avoid a violent confrontation—but their formation had remained the same throughout their journey. While certainly tempted to think that Marleena simply wished to harass him, he understood that it was the most effective. He was the only one of the bunch that had a tracking skill, dysfunctional and catgirl-based as it was.

Said skill, however, was unable to help him within the urban jungle. He was lost by the time he made the second turn. The city’s layout was confusing, and the enemy’s abilities to use the watered paths afforded them much greater mobility than the land-locked horse-man.

“Any ideas?” The question was met with a shake of the head.

“None. I lost them before you did,” said the hillrunner.

Carter adjusted his helmet with a grimace. “Do you have any idea who it might have been, at least? Marleena’s sure to chew us out if we head back empty handed.”

“Think the one run by mermaids was supposed to be the Ingrid Company, but I wouldn’t take that as is. Might be someone else trying to throw us off their scent.”

“I don’t know…” The larger stallion stroked the handle of his glaive as he looked around the unfamiliar city. “I doubt they would be able to convince skilled fighters to betray their own kind so easily.”

“Mate, that’s what we call underestimating the power of mone—” He stopped in the middle of his sentence, eyes opening wide as he slowly took half a step back. “The fuck!?”

When Carter followed the other man’s gaze, he found his eyes upon a series of floating wooden pieces. The handmade relics were not meant to have any power—he had no idea how to bless them with the goddess’ might— but there they were, hovering with a will of their own. They laid themselves out in the air, forming an arrow a few feet in front of him. It took a moment for his mind to catch up, but a boyish grin blossomed upon his face when it did.

“It’s the goddess!” He clasped his shaking hands together and fell to his knees. “The goddess of ears smiles upon us with her guidance! Thank you, great goddess! I knew that you had not forsaken me!”

While one of the two centaurs was clearly elated, the other looked on with a confused frown. “Wait, you serious? You better not be trying to pull one over me with some weird trick or something.”

He walked over to the arrow and waved his hands above and below, but there were no strings. When he tried touching it directly, he found himself gently pushed away. There was no pressure on any particular part of his body; it was like the world had decided he was to slide three meters to the right. Fionn couldn’t believe it. He saw and felt it, experienced it for himself, but the warrior refused to see reality for what it was.

Surely, he reasoned, it was just a prank played by some sort of spirit. He had heard that they were invisible and incorporeal, but able to manifest their wills upon the world. There was only one problem. Spirits were supposed to be small and weak, too frail to push a man of his size and weight. It had to be the goddess. She had to be real.

“There’s no way...” Dismissing the possibility with a shake of the head, he readied his weapons and chased after his companion, who had blindly followed the floating shape without confirming its driving force.

The arrow moved alongside the pious plainswalker, showing him the way as they followed the alleys and streets. It rearranged itself into an open hand after roughly a dozen turns, waiting for him to stop before pointing one of its fingers at one of the many buildings on the other side of the road. And then, having fulfilled its duty, the shape suddenly lost its power. The wooden-blocks fell onto the ground, clattering into a lifeless heap.

Thanking the goddess again in his heart and gathering her holy relics, Carter cast his eyes on the building she had marked. Though located outside the city’s commercial district, it bore one of the most beautiful facades he had seen to date. The primary material used in its construction was stained glass; its exterior was a veritable work of art with real corals and grasses laid over their drawn counterparts, both inside the building and out. The ocean meadow that it painted failed to fit with the surrounding landscape, but that was precisely why it held his attention.

“That’s the Ingrid Company’s HQ,” said Fionn, with a grimace.

Carter mirrored the other man’s expression. “Marleena isn’t going to be happy about this.”

“She’ll be even less happy if we don’t get them back in one way or another, but I doubt that’s happening. You see the chick standing outside?” The one guard situated by the door was of the same heritage as the archers that had assailed them. But unlike the others, she had scales of different colours, red, greens, pinks, and blues were all present in both primaries and pastels. “Pretty sure that pattern on her tail means she’s a bluscht, thrice ascended. Probably the Ingrids’ champion in the flesh.”

“Thrice?” The plainsrunner opened his eyes wide.

“Yeah, she’s bad news.” Fionn holstered his axes. “We should head back. We don’t stand a chance without Ignius.”

“Wait.” His partner grabbed his arm before he could flee. “The goddess wouldn’t have shown us here just so we could be killed. There has to be another solution.” His eyes glinted and his hands shook. “Maybe we’ve a chance at talking it out.”

“There you go with that weak ass pacifist shit again.” The hillrunner brought a hand to the bridge of his nose. “You’re a proper Cadrian, goddammit. How about acting like one?”

“I am,” said Carter. “We seek victory, not battle.”

“Where the hell did you pull that nonsense from?”

“It’s a quote. Duke Augustus said it himself.”

“Bah, that’s bullshit. Come on, man, you’re supposed to say that imaginary goddess of yours thinks we’ve got a chance at beating her.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.” He knew that some of the others had called her the goddess of recklessness, but he saw no reason to believe their claims. “She didn’t seem like the belligerent type.”

“How ‘bout, you do another one of them prayers and find out?”

“Fine.” The moderately overweight stallion twisted his lips into a brief frown before sitting down on the ground and clasping his hands in his lap.

“That was supposed to be a joke,” said Fionn, with an awkward scratch of the head.

His remark should have been loud enough for the other man to hear it, but Carter failed to respond. He spoke instead to another, the one watching over their plight. “Great goddess of ears, ruler of beauty, and avatar of transient and eternal in kind. I beg that you guide this foolish mortal in his time of need. I lack the intellect to decipher your intentions, and wish to know how you intend to see this situation resolved.”

Fionn moved to shake his head as he listened to all the extraneous praise, but strangely, found the motion impossible. He couldn’t move his neck, or anything else for that matter. It was almost like something, or perhaps someone, was holding his whole body in place.

“Do I really have to do everything myself?”

That was when he heard her voice. Its tone was harsh, annoyed and fed up even, but its quality was soft and gentle as a warm spring breeze. The combination was unworldly; it tickled his ears in a pleasant way he had never even dreamed.

Had his heart not been frozen, it surely would have raced in anticipation as he felt her draw closer. Step by step, the distance shrank.

And then, after what felt like an eternity, she finally entered his field of view.

His first impression was one of colours. She had a head of silvery blue hair, its length extending halfway down her back. The very same hues could be seen all over her body. Small scales covered bits and pieces of her skin, and an incredibly long tail, too long and thin to be that of a lizard’s, extended from her hips. Her body was covered in a dark armour that could not have possibly been forged by mortal hands. It lacked the seams; there were no gaps between any of the plates, and the material seemed to grow and shrink with her movements. From her chest, a strange horn, made of a translucent material. Its main colour was purple, with bits of blues, reds, golds, and blacks raging within, fighting for dominance.

A fearsome aura radiated off of her body. It was one of absolute power and domination, the very same overbearing energy he felt whenever he stepped before Vella’s altars.

And then, there were her ears. Long and shapely, they could not have been anything but centaurian. But they were two or three times larger than even the most obscene.

For a moment, she looked at him, her slit eyes cold as ice. And from that alone, the warrior knew.

In her eyes, he was a slug.

No matter how hard he fought, how many levels he accrued, he was nothing, nothing but an insignificant mollusc before the truly divine.

Though he couldn’t control them, his eyes remained fixed on her as she exited the alley and walked out onto the street. He realised, as she crossed it, that he was not the only one seemingly frozen in time. The few citizens walking the streets were unmoving, and so too was the guard.

The mermaid perished when the goddess passed her. Her body twisted and turned, warping in all different ways before it was torn to a thousand pieces, ripped to shreds like a piece of paper. It was like the divine had decided that she was not allowed to exist and erased her very being from the world. The very same fate soon befell the rest of the building’s residents.

One by one, they died. Torn to bloody pieces by an almighty, invisible hand.

As he watched the slaughter—the culling of the unfaithful—Fionn steeled his heart and admitted his fault.

Carter was right.

The goddess of ears was real.

And together, they would spread word of her gospel.