For a moment, everything was a blaze of light and whirling shapes, colour and matter, before it settled and re-asserted itself into the new land they had arrived in. Colours faded to viewable levels and shapes and matter became solid objects. Finally, the two deities landed on solid ground. Small, prickly grass tickled at their ankles and they blinked a few times before looking around. As with the previous land, they had arrived on the summit of a small mountain. There was a plateau a short distance below, also covered with grass, and then a path to the island itself. The villagers were mainly standing around and admiring their new home, but a few were already building up two small settlements on the plateau. Piles of grain, meat and wooden planks were dotted around the plain, and the majority of humans who had landed there began to gather them together and head for the plateau settlements that were being thrown together.
"Morning" Saitaku's voice sounded tired or strained. Toku turned and smiled, dusting off his pure white robes and getting up. Saitaku smiled at him, eyes heavy like they are when you wake up in the morning but don't want to get up yet.
"I'll get down and help our villagers build the town: you oversee the temple building." Toku said, straight to business. Saitaku was about to say something about chilling out, but remembered that they were in an enemy land. There was no telling what awaited them out there.
"Sure" she said "I'll just check around first."
Toku nodded, in a vague way, before heading down to the town. Saitaku wandered over to the edge of the cliff and pushed off; flying up into the blue, cloudless sky.
The island was a small affair. It was in the shape of a crescent moon, with two temples on a large cliff at the very top point, and their little mountain on the southern side. On the tip of 'their' point, a third mountain wound up like a coiled snake, with a small, humble house on the summit. On the northern part of the mountain, two temples rose ominously from the cliffs. They were covered in long, serrated spikes and resembled a pair of demonic hedgehogs. Saitaku guessed they belonged to Lethys and either Nemesis or Lola. Either way, their situation was starting to look less appealing. Glancing over her shoulder, Saitaku saw the basic scaffolding for the temples was coming together nicely. Deciding they didn't need any help, she headed for the clifftop to their right and landed in front of the hut.
As she touched down, hand curling cautiously about her katana, Saitaku saw the door of the hut creak open. A man in his sixties strolled out, wearing a robe and a pair of sandals.
"Greetings…" his voice was soft, yet tough. He stroked his white goatee, thoughtfully.
"Who the hell are you?" Saitaku snapped, angry at the man's apparent disrespect for her authority.
"I am but a simple Yogi, living as a hermit on this mountain" his voice was amused.
"Why not live in the towns?" asked Saitaku, suspiciously. The man walked to the edge of the cliff and gazed across the brightly coloured plains below.
"Many years ago, the god known as Lethys killed my mother, father and sister. I ran from him and have lived here ever since."
Despite her evil persona, she felt a small hint of sympathy for the man.
"But I must go for my daily meditation at…my secret shrine…" he smiled, warmly and walked off. She guessed he wanted her to follow him; as some kind of test perhaps, and decided she might as well take the hint. As he jogged off down the mountain, she followed. Every now and then, he would stop and look around, but she simply concealed herself behind mossy boulders or ivy-coated trees.
--
Meanwhile, Toku was back in one of the small villages on the plateau. He stood back and admired his handiwork: both village totems were built and the village stores were up. There were also two houses in each village and more being built. He set about filling the stores with food and wood, when he saw the figure on the horizon.
"Greetings…" Lethys hissed, swooping low to land in the village.
"Oh great, my day was going fine until you showed up…" Toku grumbled, summoning his Polearm.
"I'm not here to fight: just to show you something…" the evil god smirked. He took off and beckoned Toku to follow him. Toku did; not letting go of the Polearm.
They flew high and Toku saw that, including the two villages they were building, there were six towns on the island: their capitals, Lethys' capital and three villages at intervals along the crescent moon shaped plains. They arrived at the foot of the mountain that supported Lethys' temple, and touched down on a ledge halfway up.
"Oh no…" Toku breathed when he saw what was up there, knuckles turning white as he gripped the Polearm with shock.
--
"Finally…" muttered Saitaku. She was used to flying or leaping to get to places, so walking stealthily was not one of her strong points. She had said 'finally' because the old Yogi had stopped at a stone platform, raised around a foot from the ground and set between two mossy, cracked pillars. He sat, cross-legged on the plinth and closed his eyes. To the astonishment of Saitaku, he began to hover, almost half a metre from the platform.
"How the hell do you do that?" asked the goddess, stepping out into the little clearing that the shrine was situated in. Below them, woodland stretched on to the bottom of the mountain, and this flowery space was the only one until the very foot of the cliff.
"Channelling energy; quite easy really…" he said, without opening his eyes.
"And why was this place so secret?" She asked, hand on hip.
"It wasn't. I was simply testing your abilities as a goddess." The Yogi said. He opened his eyes now and Saitaku noticed the power beneath them: not as powerful as a deity but something that came with decades of devotion and practise. "You passed…" he added.
"Why do you want to test my power?" she asked, cautious all of a sudden.
"To see whether you are able to defeat the god known as Lethys. He and his new ally have something of yours…"
"Our creatures?!"
"Exactly"
The man stood up, normally, and suddenly, they were standing on the summit of the mountain again. The Yogi pointed at the mountain which was the site of the evil temples. Halfway up, two large figures were standing as still as statues. No, Saitaku decided, they were statues. She growled ominously when she realised what they were: Vir and Letalis were encased in stone. Three rune-engraved pillars surrounded them, and out of these flowed a strange, silvery light. It was this light that seemed to be holding them in the stone forms. The leopard which belonged to Lola was standing beside the incarcerated creatures. Saitaku watched with a mixture of rage and horror as the enemy creature raised its paws and hurled a fireball at the statues.
"Mistress!" screamed Letalis' voice, inside her head again. "It's so dark! I cannot see… I cannot move!"
"Hold on! I'll get you free!" she told her creature, telepathically. Her only reply was a howl of pain as the fireball heated the rock to red hot for a moment. Saitaku ran and was about to take off towards them, when the Yogi stopped her.
"Wait! Do not be foolish!" he cried.
"Do not call me foolish or I will butcher you, old man!" snarled Saitaku, drawing her blade with a hiss of steel on leather.
"You cannot simply attack their temples or the pillars!" the Yogi snapped, interrupting her "Both are shielded."
"How do you know this?" the goddess asked, with more anger than intended. The man sighed and stared out at the pillars of which he spoke.
"My family were famous stonemasons. We built the pillars and enchanted them ourselves. Lethys destroyed us (or so he thought) because he did not want anyone to know the weakness in his 'torture pen'. I have waited many years to pass on this information to another god or goddess." He sighed, wistfully.
"What is this weakness of which you speak?" Saitaku's voice was gentle now. She had to hand it to the man; living in wait on a mountain for nigh-on eighty years is not a nice thing to have to do.
"The power of the people's belief is what keeps the pillars intact. If you take those three villages on the island itself, the spell binding your creatures will be broken, and if you capture the capital of Lethys; the shield on his temple will also fall." The man was excited now: sensing that his information could finish the god he so hated.
"And Lola?" asked Saitaku
"She shares the power of Lethys whilst in his homeland. She will also be unprotected if their capital falls."
Saitaku nodded her thanks to the old Yogi and leaped into the air; swooping down towards their temples. Both were now almost complete; with the final stones being slotted into place. A couple of villagers were standing away from the rest of the group, talking and swigging from a bottle of alcohol. Saitaku, who was already 'pissed-off' at the prospect of her creature being in pain, felt her blood boil, and she landed beside them.
"What do you think you are doing!?" She snarled. The first man bowed down to her, murmuring apologies, but the second one had drunk substantially more than his companion and squared up to her: grinning.
"Well I figured that seeing as how we've worked so hard in the hot sun" he gestured to the sun "and how you are such a beautiful, kind goddess, you'd let us have a break…"
Saitaku was so angry; she could not speak for a moment. She had never had a mortal stand up to her like this before, and this was making her vision turn red with rage. She had only one answer to this problem:
Her katana was still sheathed and she didn't bother drawing it: she simply swiped at the man with her bare hands. The blow tore of the entire right side of his face, and blood sprayed the lush grass beneath them. She ran to the dying man and proceeded to tear off his legs and arms', drawing yet more screams from him. After a minute, the screaming stopped and he died: toga stained brown with blood. His companion was still kneeling, whimpering with fear at the death of his friend, and Saitaku rounded on him.
"Please…forgive me…." He sobbed, arms covering his head. Saitaku smiled a grin so evil, the watching Greek villagers ran for cover behind the almost-finished temple. She lifted the man, who could not have been older than seventeen, by the scruff of his neck and hissed in his face:
"I do not forgive; merely tolerate your existence. That existence is about to end."
With that, she hurled him bodily into the side of her temple, impaling the unfortunate worker on one of the smaller spikes above the main doorway. For a moment, she gazed at her hands, which were slick with blood up to the elbows. She smiled at her evil and realised that her strength was growing with every evil deed she committed.
"Back to work or you all die and I find some new mortals to work for me…" she hissed to the terrified villagers behind her. Saitaku yawned and realised that she was rather tired. Not unusual for a goddess after a long Vortex journey. She wandered over to her temple as the final stone was slid into place and through the studded oak doors.
Toku touched down outside his own finished temple and gazed, longingly at his creature as the enemy tortured him with lightning and fire. There was nothing he could do: he had unleashed a furious attack on the pillars and the enemy creature but Lethys had fought him off and he had retreated back to the temple. Over his mental connection, Vir screeched again as an increased lightning bolt fizzled off his torso. Toku stumbled into his temple and felt a tear roll down his cheek at the treatment of his creature. Although his creature's pain was not shared to his master, it was certainly painful to watch the big ape suffering. Toku got to his bedchamber and found it to be identical to the one he had lived in on the previous island: Four-poster Bed, Drinking fountain and comfortable writing desk. He fell onto the bed and slept.
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Well? How was it for the first chapter of my sequel to Order and Chaos? I hope it was okay, and I will be updating soon…
(poor creatures!)