The Lava God's Journey
#1 of The Lava God
Chapter 2
Eljie arrives in the world
The following story contains violence and bad language (on par with an action movie).
Reader discretion is advised
The Lava God's Journey
Book 1
Chapter 1
I drifted through the nothingness for a great long time. I knew that I had come here, that I once was somewhere else and then I was here. I knew not why I had come here, if it had been exile or of my own volition. I knew I was seeking something. What or where it was I did not know. There were many things here. I could feel them in the distance; stars of thought instead of light. Bright shining ideas. But I knew none of them were what I sought.
After many ages and countless miles of drifting in a place where time and distance barely held meaning I found a thing. I did not know what it was or if it was for what I was searching. So I asked it what it was. It told me it was an item of great power, and that if I took it that power would be mine to wield. It did not say this with tone or inflection of a demon offering a blessing with the hint there would be some great price later. Rather, it said this in the manner one might state they were beginning some routine daily chore. It was a statement of fact, no more and no less. I asked if it was what I was searching. It told me it could be, and I knew this was true. There were few true choices ever offered to someone in life, and it had been a great while since I had one. I could take this, end the current journey, and start a new one. Or I could keep drifting, and if I did I knew there would be some other end in the distance. I took the thing.
#
I fell to my knees on a grassy hill. The ground was wet and soaked my knees. Drizzling rain cooled my skin. I blinked my eyes as they adjusted to the light, and as my brain adjusted to the idea of light. It had to process many things it hadn't in a long time. Cold. Rain. Wet. Clouds. Gray. Grass. Hill. Basically everything in my description, including the articles.
Shelter. I reminded myself. One must seek shelter in such weather. I stumbled as my body struggled to remember the concept of walking and how to do it.
I traveled for a time I had no way to measure. That, at least, was familiar to me. I found a road, if it could truly be termed that. A dirt path losing its battle against the grass attempting to reclaim the land. There were faint indents of wagons that traveled through every great while.
I followed that road in a direction I did not choose. It was a mercy that it was not long before I came to a town before the sky darkened for night. The place was a collection of homes and farmland. A barn had a door wide open. I did not know how the locals would treat trespassers. But I was far to cold and tired to care. Inside the barn were various livestock who couldn't be bothered to be perturbed at my arrival. I collapsed into some hay and swiftly found sleep.
#
I woke to the farmer arriving in the morning. The farmer was some sort of cat man. An orange tabby cat head upon a bipedal body. He seemed more wearied by my presence than fearful or angry. When he realized I was awake and watching him back he began to speak to me. I did not know the language. He came to that same realization but continued to talk as he carried out chores in the barn. He likely resigned himself to having to wait to see if I was an ill omen or some form of faerie that would grant boon or bane depending on my treatment. He finished the chores, grabbed a hoe from the wall, and headed out into the fields. I followed.
The sky was blinding blue now, the rain of the previous night far gone. The air carried the chill of a brisk spring morning, and smelled of the earth being tilled by the villagers. My stomach rumbled in hunger. But it was unlikely I would be fed without earning my keep. So I grabbed a hoe and set to work.
The farmer seemed mildly frustrated that the faerie he'd found was helpful but inept. My muscles had to be reminded that they were for doing things. And I felt that I had not had much agricultural experience in whatever my previous life was. But he seemed to take some solace that little help was better than no help.
A feline woman who I presumed to be his wife brought lunch of hard cheese, stale bread, and dried meats. She did not know whether to be in awe of me or afraid of me. But she fed me all the same.
When we had completed the work here I wandered off to assist other villagers with their work. My bones and muscles were tired come that evening, and for many days hence. But this was the lot I assigned to my life now. Helping around town with various chores in exchange for food and lodging. And I was not picky about the quality of either.
I started counting the days again. And then the months. The world had one sun and one moon. And many stars in unrecognized constellations.
The townsfolk come to enjoy and appreciate my presence. They would let their children play small games with me. They told me stories and I started learning the language. Learning to write and read were out, though, as there was little need for those skills in this town. Only two elders possessed the skill. They seemed amicable to teach me, however I was usually put to work with other tasks and had not the time.
I came to enjoy the peaceful comfort of the life. I would be happy to live out the remainder of my days in this village with these hospitable folks doing the day to day work of everything. It would be a strange and anticlimactic way to end my long journey. But I felt alright with that. It was what it was.
#
The reader likely, and rightly, assumes that things do not continue to go well. After all if this story is written down in full it will take volumes, and that would merely my share of it. It is likely bad form to break narrative like this, however I hope you dear reader forgive me taking a bit of time to muse before the end of this far too brief bit of respite before the adventure truly begins.
I wish to muse for a moment on the nature of choice. How many true choices does one get in life? Indeed, one actually gets many choices that one makes without a thought. One frequently has the option to do things best termed 'stupid' but chooses not to do them without a thought. They are choices in so far as a parent asking their child, "Would you like to do the dishes?" is a choice. It is not truly a choice lest one chooses it to be the last choice they make.
Then there was my choice in the void. Was it truly a choice? I had no reason for choosing one way or the other. No way to make an informed decision one way or the other. As such my decision is in some ways no more a choice than had I flipped a coin.
#
One morning as I was helping pluck weeds from the field two of the town women grabbed me from behind. One each arm. These two women, a hyena woman and the first farmer's wife were two women I had a very good rapport with. They were shouting and screaming to the others in the town who were then swiftly heading off to grab. I ran my mind through my actions of the past days and weeks wondering what crime I may have committed inadvertently.
They shoved me into the barn where I spent the night. They closed the door swiftly, only pausing a moment to let a pair of other women shove three children in with me. "Stay. Hide." was all I could get from them. I tried to ask the children. But the children shushed me as well and told me to hide in hushed tones. There was one word in what they said that was extremely unfamiliar from anything I'd heard before. It was some sort of name or term from a different language than what they normally spoke. The term, as one who is familiar with where this story goes may guess, was "Aurus." But I did not understand it at the time.
I snuck up the upper level of the barn to look out the window. The children stared horrified at me as I did so, but they didn't want to risk shouting at me. I took extreme care in looking. A black coach could be seen in the midst of town in the distance. The townsfolk were gathered around it, focused on it, fearing it. Upon its side was an emblem of four orange triangles, three small ones beneath the points of the large in the center. A golden circle sat in the midst of that larger triangles. Three black clad figures exited the coach and began addressing the town. Big black coats, black hats with large feathers in them. They clearly had a tone of superiority in the way they addressed the crowd. I could tell by how they carried themselves.
I backed away from the window before they glanced in my direction. I had seen enough. I knew that sort. The children breathed their relief.
I glanced to the tools on the wall. Hoes, pitchforks, shovels, any one would make an excellent choice to dig into the skulls of them. But no. I didn't know what sort of weaponry they had hidden. And even if I were to somehow best the three, four counting the driver, there were bound to be plenty more where they came from. My only course of action would be to stay here until they left. And then attempt to learn the true nature of this threat. Still, it boiled my blood that they existed at all, let alone me being unable to do anything about them at present.
I dropped down into the hay, my backside managing to find the one rock sticking out amongst the straw. "Yeeergh," I stifled my scream. The children looked at me in horror and then to the door. It had not been loud and the villains distant but the children still feared it be heard. I deferred to their discretion and stared fearfully at the door as well. Nothing came.
Eventually we settled down again, confident I had not betrayed us. I took stock of the offending object. It was a moderate stone, just large enough that I could not close my hand about it. It was of some metal far heavier than any I'd held before. The metal had been worn down to form thirteen faces of various size and shape. I had never seen anything like it hear.
I was slow to realize that that was because I had been the one to bring it here. This was the object from the void. I must have shoved it in my pocket without knowing, and then it fell out that first night.
I remembered its promise of great power. So far I had not been granted any great powers related to field tilling, barn painting, fence mending, sheep shearing, or any of the myriad of tasks assigned me thus far here.
It very well might be a power that was restricted to demolishing a handful of cruel officials and the army that would likely follow. But this would not be the time to test that. For all I knew the extent of this thing's power was an odd ability to trick random void wanderers into sticking it in their pocket.
I stuck it back in my pocket, buried myself half in straw, waited, and mused that this had been the first time since before the void that I agonized over the passage of time.
The farmer from the first night opened the barn. "Safe," he said. The children lept for joy. They chatted and rambled and pointed to me. No doubt they were tattling on my behavior. The farmer looked at me, his look cycling through horror, anger, and unrest. Eventually he settled on gratitude that I caught on quick enough that no harm came. I was grateful for that.
"Who were they?" I tried to ask with what I had learned of their tongue.
"Aurus." He said. I still would not understand the term for quite some time.
I headed toward town with him. I had to revise my earlier thought about no harm being done. A fence board was cracked where it had been kicked. The hyena woman sat on the ground holding her swollen eye; her otter lover with arm wrapped about her. In the midst of the ground a rooster lay impaled on an arrow. I knew the bird. A fox man of the town proudly bred chickens. That one was particularly prized by him. He stared at it from a distance. It would be a long while before he collected it. Perhaps it had not settled in and he felt that not touching it would make the reality not real. Or perhaps he feared a curse had been placed on in by its slayers. I could not say they had not.
I helped fix up the damage that had been done. The immediate physical damage that could be repaired, anyway. There was damage I could not fix, such as the hyena's eye or the rooster's heart. And there was damage that had been being done for far longer than I had been here. Perhaps for longer than I had even spent in that previous world.
The Collectors became an increasingly common sight over the summer months. Tax collectors for the combination government and religion that oppressed. I hesitated to call what they took a tax. A tax was a payment made by the populace to the government so that said government would use it for projects and things that would benefit the society as a whole. This was just taking for taking's sake.
Every time they came they broke things. The constant threat of 'if you don't fall in line and take it, far worse will come,' was their implied refrain. I even started to become mildly complacent in the ritual. Being suddenly shoved off into the corner of some store room or cellar without much notice. The townsfolk rarely hid me or the children in the same places in a row. The Collectors occasionally searched parts of the town hoping to find something that was being hidden from them. Thankfully they never found anything truly. Occasionally they'd claim a piece of fruit that'd fallen into some crack was being hidden and use it as an excuse for some small extra damage. But should I be found it would be truly hell that visited this community.
But they were mostly predictable in their visits where they would search and what they would take. So I learned a fair few of the villagers' tricks for hiding bits of the harvest from them. Sometimes even deliberately dropping said fruit in a place where they'd look was a good way to get them to stop looking before they found worse. The greatest trick, and the true horror of The Collectors, came around the fall equinox. One of the women in town, the fox's wife, had begun to show her pregnancy. All the town was happy and excited. A strange thing changed. A marker was added to the local cemetery. This was strange as no one had died.
The next time The Collectors came, the fox couples' daughter was stowed away with myself and the other children in the barn. She had never been hidden with us before. And my mind began to question why. In fact it questioned why there had been children hidden with me at all. I snuck up to the upper level of the barn again. And again looked out carefully toward The Collectors. It was afternoon, and The Collectors were leaning up against the coach as people brought them their due. The Collectors just waved to hurry it along. I presumed they had worn themselves out terrorizing some other village earlier in the day.
I looked back down to the children. They weren't as worried about me looking out. They'd grown to trust me more about The Collectors. They were huddled up with the fox kit keeping her calm. I looked back out to the town, gears turning in my head.
Quotas. The families were only allowed so many children. Any extra, and, well, my imagination went dark places. So when a newborn was on the way, an older child would have had an unfortunate accident in the field, or there would be a sudden and severe illness, or perhaps wild bears would have gotten them. The mother sobs for the lost youth, the Collectors might smash up a couple extra barrels for the town not taking better care of the future generation of the Collector's targets. And the old child would hide with the rest whenever the Collectors came about again. A brilliant plan, but my heart focused on the number of children these beasts had murdered before that plan was concocted. And that it was even necessary in the first place further damned the black-clad officials in my mind.
But at least for today it seemed to be an easy day of dealing with the monsters.
The fox kit hiccuped. A soft sound. A pillow falling from a bed makes more noise.
The Collectors' heads all snapped in the direction of the barn. I ducked out of the window before they looked up. I crawled to edge of the loft and looked down. The other children were looking to the fox and then to the door and then to me. I motioned to hide. We'd been made.
They did so as quick as could be. I slipped back to the wall beneath the window. The doors opened. Maybe they would have seen the figure dart from the window. Maybe they'd come up here and find me. Maybe that'd be for the best. One weird stranger who stowed away in the barn, instead of years of children being hidden. If they hadn't seen, I could still give myself up before they started searching the straw below.
A choice. And again, one that I ultimately didn't get to make. Hiccups rarely come as just one.
The fox kit screamed. I chanced a look over the loft floor to see one of The Collector's hoisting her by her tail.
I knew enough of the language to understand the phrase, "Hey, look, it's a miracle," as he hauled her out of the barn. She'd be killed. I knew. There'd be some call of "good thing you already marked her grave" and then the arrow or knife or sword. Then the parents' would be ended. And the fox's chickens. And there would be great damage to the town. To the other folks who were in on the ruse.
Below, the children had slipped out of the hay. The barn had a back door, and The Collectors were distracted. The children gestured at me to follow. Only the fox would be found in the barn today. It would be a sickening and dark day for the town. But the town would survive, even if several of its populace did not. The last child slipped out the door.
"Good thing you already marked her grave. Save you some work," the Collector yelled.
No. I told myself. I lept from the loft. I grabbed the hoe off the wall. I twirled it about my head as I ran out of the barn. For the first time I had a glimpse of the three Collectors. A red panda, a snow leopard, and a wolf. The red panda was the leader who held his drawn sword out over the yowling fox kit. I aimed to bring my hoe down on his head.
He shouted an obscenity. He moved faster than I imagined he would. He dodged back and brought his sword up. The blade caught the wood of the hoe. The momentum knocked the sword from his hand, but he was unscathed. A sharp pain hit my side. I'd forgotten about the driver. A terrified otter man had fired his crossbow into me.
The wolf clapped him on the back, "Good work, haha."
"Wow, this town is just full of surprises today," the leopard shouted.
The red panda laughed as he picked his sword up. I couldn't even lift he hoe again.
"That there are," the panda shouted. "And I look forward to tearing this town apart and finding every last one." He drove his sword through my ribs. I coughed. His eyes burned into mind. "What kind of power do you want?" he asked.
"What?" I choked out blood. The strange question momentarily made me forget my dying.
"What kind of power do you want?" he asked. But his lips weren't moving when he asked it. No, it hadn't been he who asked. Who had asked it? No one had. I had just been a thought in my head. But it came from somewhere? My pants? No, the stone.
"What kind of power do you want?" it asked in my head.
"Right now I want the power to not die here and kill these fucks."
#
I woke up on the floor of the barn loft. I blinked and checked myself. I wasn't dead. There was a commotion outside. Had I gone back in time to before I ran out?
"Where did he go?" the panda shouted.
Well, no, apparently not. Still. I jumped down and grabbed the pitchfork. I darted out the door; tines leveled at the wah. "How?" he shouted as he brought his sword up between the tines. I wrenched it out of his hand again.
The otter dropped his bolts as he fumbled to reload his crossbow. Good thing those took forever to work.
I managed to trip the wah. I stood over him prepared to drive the fork down into his neck. The snow leopard brought her sword down across my back.
"Demon," she shouted. She drove the blade through my spine.
#
I lept down. The shovel was my next choice in weapon. I dodged the snow leopard, kicked the wah in his face as he was struggling up. I spun and swung the shovel for the wolf, hoping to catch him off guard. I did not, as he was already ducking under and driving his sword into my belly.
#
"Into the barn!" one of them shouted. Fuck, they were figuring this out.
They entered. I jumped from the loft onto the wolf's back. I pounded the back of his head with my fists as he yelled. A sharp pain stabbed my back. The otter had gotten his crossbow reloaded.
#
Okay, this was just getting annoying now.
"Upstairs!" one shouted.
I needed a way out, quick. I opened the window using the amazing power from the other world. By which I mean I smashed it with the rock in my pocket. I lept out, cutting myself on glass and spraining my ankle. I limped about the building. The otter was the only one out, struggling to pick up his bolts. He shouted and dropped his bow. He ran towards the town. I grabbed the weapon and a bolt from the ground.
I threw the bow in the face of the wolf as he came out. The leopard slipped around him and thrust her sword to stab my chest. I let her.
Burying her blade in me brought her close in. I jammed the crossbow bolt into her neck.
#
One down. "He killed ____" the wolf shouted. I didn't catch what her name was. He stepped back from her writhing frame as I dropped from the loft yet again.
"Watch out!" His panda friend shouted. I had already grabbed the second hoe and was bringing it down. He froze. The sound of the metal cracking through his skull has stuck with me for a long time.
The wah was standing. Staring. "What are you?"
I laughed. The giddiness and unbelief of all that happened in the past few minutes. Briefly, my mind went back to another world. One that I had only visited through a window of fantasy in my past life. A fantasy where moving molten rock about was a thing that one did there. And as such in that fantasy I had given myself a title. So to answer his question, in a language he couldn't understand, I laughed and said, "I'm the Lava God."
I charged him. He killed me with his sword.
#
That didn't matter. I lept out the window and snuck around while he was headed up to the loft to try and figure out what the hell I was doing. He followed my same path. Jumping down and walking about. And while he was doing that I snuck back into the front door and up the loft. I was ready to jump back out for the slowest dogfight ever. But I had had just enough time to accomplish my task. Which had been grabbing up the crossbow and reloading it.
There are legends of skilled warriors of the sword who could cut an arrow down with their blade. The red panda was good, but not that good. The bolt hit him square in the chest. He staggered back, dropping his sword. "You fuck," is a good translation of what he told me. I picked up his sword and ran it through his ribs, same as he'd done to me twice now.
#
The townsfolk gathered back at the barn as I finished piling the three corpses. They had scattered when the fight had begun. Now they returned. And now they knew the nature of the demon that had arrived in their midst that past spring. Even if the demon himself didn't fully understand that.
"Go," the farmer pointed to the road.
I did not take time to gather my things. Not that I had things other than the clothes I'd been given. I just then noted the ones I wore didn't have sword or arrow holes in them. A nice little touch from the mystery stone's power.
#
I later learned that the town hauled the dead Collectors a distance down the road. They executed the driver as well. When the work was done they sent word to the capital that the Collectors had not arrived as expected. It did not take long for the officials to find the overturned stagecoach and the corpses. The townsfolk were not trusted, as of course they were not. The government asked how a band of collectors could be overpowered on the road. Certainly if there were a group of outlaws powerful enough for that someone would be aware? The townsfolk just told a legend of a strange being that'd past through town the night before. A creature whose description matched my own pretty well.
Of course I don't begrudge the folk doing that. They had to protect their own, and that was the way to do it. I even heard the town ended up receiving commendation for being so diligent in reporting the Collectors' absence.
I headed off through the woods, keeping off the road however infrequently used it was. Where I was going and when I would get there I did not know. But I knew something was out there.