Protector Read online

  I scrabbled up a rise, small rocks crumbling under the weight of my feet and hands, and then looked out over the rest of the canyon, which I could see clearly now. There was an empty space covering the next hundred feet or so. Well, not entirely empty—just free of the large boulders. Instead, the area was filled with pots of various sizes. Gravity pulled me down the small hill, and I peeked inside one of the pots, immediately recognizing the viscous fluid. Primordial ooze. Shit, I thought, that’s a lot of goddess spittle. I was surprised to discover the supply was so plentiful. Then again, the goddesses had a lot of spare time on their hands, and the number of Warriors had been dwindling for a long time. I tried to picture the Three sitting around a pot, hocking loogies from the backs of their throats. I’d seen a few different sides of the goddesses—angry, playful, sexy—but I couldn’t picture them in such a raw and uncouth manner. Regardless, it was good to know we were covered for a while.

  I slalomed through the field of ooze pots to the other end. This time there was no climbing necessary to move forward—a narrow walkway split a pair of towering boulders on either side. The boulders were carved into the likenesses of the Three goddesses. Minertha and Persepheus were on one side, the statues remarkably accurate, capturing their beauty and power as they loomed over me. The opposite boulder was all Airiel, her wings arcing over her porcelain face. I’d never seen them like this—so strong and confident—and I wondered if the sculptor had known them before they’d had their hearts ripped from their chests.

  I passed between the statues, a shiver running down my spine. There was so much I didn’t know. Knowledge that could change our approach to everything. Just like back on Earth, I felt an insatiable need to understand the world around me. If only I had my smart phone so I could watch the YouTube video on The History of Tor.

  The narrow path spilled into another wide clearing. The ground was no longer hard, bouncing beneath my feet as I trampled on piled layers of the cocoonlike material used during the Leveling up process. There must be thousands of square feet of the stuff, I thought, reaching down to touch the fabric. Eve had explained that the cocoons were spun by Airiel whenever she had the strength. This supply must’ve been created over years, maybe even decades. Again, it was comforting to know there was plenty. If my plans for growing the Warrior army were realized, we’d need a lot of cocoons, not only to level up Outcasts to Warriors, but hopefully to one day begin further leveling up more Protectors and, eventually, Seekers.

  I shook my head because I was getting way ahead of myself. Our ward shields were making their last stand and the Three were the weakest they’d ever been. Training the newbs was a crucial goal, but Beat had agreed to take the lead on that and I trusted her implicitly. Which meant my main task was number two on my list: Repair the ward shields. Or create new ones. Or reinforce them. I didn’t know how the magical defenses worked, but I was determined to find out.

  I crossed the bouncy terrain, marveling at the raw cocoon material piled up on all sides like the wares of a rug factory.

  The other side of the space was blocked by a sheer wall of rock. There were no glowing vines on either side to use to scale past the barrier. There was, however, the slowly moving stream that flowed from the pond in the main area. It moved along the wall, slipping past the stone barrier toward whatever was beyond.

  There was nothing for it. I jumped in, not even bothering to remove my shoes or clothes. Oh wait, I didn’t have shoes or clothes. My loincloth would dry eventually.

  The water was wonderful, the perfect temperature for swimming. I wondered why I hadn’t tried it out earlier. Eve certainly liked to swim in it. I treaded water to prevent my bulky body from sinking, letting the gentle current carry me forward. Soon, however, the small stream picked up speed as it narrowed further, the water rushing together to funnel through a tight squeeze between rocks.

  Oops. Somehow I’d managed to go whitewater rafting without a raft.

  I tucked my arms together against my chest and used my feet to protect the rest of me from getting slammed into the bone-shattering rocks.

  My breath was sucked from my lungs as I was propelled forward into the bubbling froth. It was like being part of a stampede, jostled on all sides. I was rushed into a smooth stone chute, almost like a water slide, which ended far too quickly at a sheer drop off.

  “Oh fu—” I said, but the end of my curse was cut off as water spilled around me and I fell. As I tumbled, I imagined shallow water at the bottom, sharp rocks poking up to crush my body. No one would find me to administer the ooze. I would die broken and alone.

  I landed in a deep pool of water with a monumental splash that would’ve earned scores of zero had I been a competitor in the Olympic high dive event. My feet never reached bottom, however, and I kicked hard to resurface, coming up spluttering.

  Still kicking, I wiped water from my eyes, clearing my vision. Whoa. That single thought was a major understatement as I took in this final space. On all sides were waterfalls, spilling from holes in the cliffs, defying the laws of physics, thousands of teardrops shimmering beneath the silver sun, before tumbling into the pool.

  It was breathtaking. It was also confounding. This was the end of the line, so where were the goddesses?

  That’s when I noticed how some parts of the waterfalls looked different than others. Some had soft brown colors mixed in with the water, earthy and rich, while others were darker, almost shadowy. There are caves behind the darker ones, I realized. Which made a lot of sense, and also explained why I’d only seen Airiel once. She was hidden away most of the time. Because she’s the weakest of the Three, I remembered. A slice of fear cut through me. If the other two goddesses had joined her in the caves, what did that mean? Were they so weak now that they needed to hide themselves too?

  Did I really care? I wasn’t sure. They were basically the architects of multiple abductions resulting in the deaths of numerous people from all different planets. But…if they died it could embolden the monsters and make everything worse for the rest of us. For the Warriors I was trying to save. If protecting the Three meant saving those under my umbrella of responsibility, I would do it.

  I swam toward one of the darker portions of the waterfall, pushing the water to either side and behind me. When I reached the waterfall, I stuck my hand through slowly, in case I had been wrong.

  I wasn’t wrong. My hand went right through the cascading water and into the empty space behind.

  Taking a deep breath, I plunged through, shoving my hands onto the ledge I found for leverage, drawing my bulk behind me like a fat kid trying to get out of the swimming pool without using the ladder.

  Behind the waterfall, I blinked. Very little natural light made it past the sheet of water, but I could still see because of the demontorches planted on the walls. Dozens of stalactites and stalagmites descended from the ceiling and rose up from the ground, many having met in the middle, forming stone columns that took a large space and broke it up into smaller compartments, not unlike a colony of bees’ honeycomb.

  I made my way around a particularly large column, seeing evidence of habitation. There was a bed made of large white feathers and several empty bronze chalices. Shelves cut into one wall contained ancient-looking books with dusty covers that couldn’t have been touched in years. I moved along the bookshelf, inspecting the titles. Artifacts of the First Decade, Artifacts of the Second Decade, etc. The volumes became thinner as they got closer to the present. I flipped the last one open, which only had a few pages filled in, the rest of the book empty. I scanned the items listed, an inventory of sorts. Armor of Ages, was the first item I read. Beside it was what appeared to be a date that made little sense to me, followed by the status—stolen. In parentheses was a name.

  Vrill.

  EIGHT

  TOR HISTORY

  My heart pounded in my chest as I realized Vrill was the last Seeker. Since then, no one had ascended to Level 4, or if they had, they’d been unsuccessful in locating any artifact befo
re being killed. I knew this because there was only one additional artifact listed after Vrill’s armor.

  Boomerang of Drith. The status was Inactive.

  I flipped back through the few pages in the book, noting the word Active crossed out for each item and replaced with Inactive.

  What the hell? What did that even mean?

  I slotted the book back into place and grabbed another. Same thing. Dozens of items listed, things like Spear of Destiny and Gorrumund’s Revenge and Meteor Storm. All were notated as Inactive without explanation.

  Frustrated, I slammed the book back into place, a plume of dust rising from the impact. I stormed into the next room and froze, my jaw dropping open. It was the motherload, the result of decades of Seeking, a weapons cache so large it could outfit an entire army of Warriors. Swords of many types—long, broad, two-handed, one-handed, dual-edged, sabers and scimitars and katanas and everything in between—hung from scabbards dangling from hooks. There were barrels filled with bows and arrows, blocks set with knives of all shapes and sizes. Within glass cases, there were finer-looking weapons, some of them glowing slightly, some inlaid with brilliant multi-faceted gemstones, others etched with strange rune-like markings. There was armor and shields too.

  Anger rose within me. Because we wore loincloths and wielded old, chipped weapons that looked ready for retirement. We fought monsters with not much better than hand-me-down weapons and equipment while the Three sat on a vast supply. This is what Vrill had warned me about. She’d told me this, but I hadn’t really understood. She’d said the Three kept the supply as a last resort in the event they were overrun. Which, at the time, had made sense, but only when I thought the supply was a few weapons and magical knick-knacks. Not this.

  I spotted the boomerang I’d found when Beat and I destroyed the pit of dark magic that was lengthening the Black. I took a step toward it, but then stopped when a voice spoke from behind me.

  “You should not have come here.”

  I turned to find Persepheus standing in the room’s entrance, her seaweedy hair spilling over her shoulders and covering all but the edges of her breasts. A rough, lichen bikini bottom was the extent of her clothing, her shimmering blue-green skin changing colors as she breathed.

  “Why?” I said, unable to hide the sharpness from my tone. “So I would be blind like everyone else? Serving you and your sisters while you serve none but yourselves?”

  “Let me talk to him,” another voice said. Minertha. Of all the Three, I trusted her the most. She seemed the most human, as real and flawed as anyone I’d ever met. Then again, based on what I’d just seen, all of the Three were flawed. And liars.

  “No,” a third voice said. “This is my responsibility.” The airy voice could be none other than the enigmatic third sister, Airiel, the sky goddess herself.

  “Sister, you should be resting,” Persepheus said, but she stepped aside anyway, clearing my view to find Minertha peeking around the corner. A light appeared, growing brighter as Airiel danced into view, her every movement as graceful as a ballerina. Her pale skin shone as if it was illuminated from within. She wore a sheer silk shift, which left her arms and legs bare. The fabric was slightly thicker around her hips and chest, hiding all but a hint of what lay beneath, while the thin material at her abdomen revealed her flat stomach and bellybutton. I couldn’t see her wings, which meant, presumably, she’d tucked them behind her.

  The aura she gave off was that of an ethereal being not of this world or any other. For the first time I realized something I should’ve known from the beginning:

  She was the leader, the eldest. Maybe she was the weakest of the Three, but that wasn’t why she remained hidden, spending her days spinning the material for the cocoons. No, her sisters were protecting her, the last line of defense. She was more important than they were.

  I knew it because of the way they deferred to her now, stepping aside as she passed.

  “Leave us,” she said, and they obeyed, moving beyond the pillars.

  Despite the fact that I was completely and utterly enthralled with the creature standing before me, I was determined not to let her dictate whatever happened next. I owed that much to the other Warriors, especially the newbs, who already seemed to trust me the way I’d once trusted Protector Kloop. I owed it to Vrill.

  “I want answers,” I said. “I want the truth.”

  “And you’ll get it,” she said, her voice soft and powerful all at the same time. “Do you mind if I sit?” she asked, gesturing to another of the beds constructed of soft-looking white feathers.

  Was she seriously asking for my permission? “Please,” I said. Though her very presence seemed to command my attention, I could see the weakness in her body as she slowly lowered herself to the bed.

  When she was situated, she said, “These weapons cannot be wielded by your Warriors.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they choose who can use them. Otherwise, they will curse the wielder, leading to a swifter death.”

  It didn’t sound like a lie, and yet… “I used the boomerang. The Boomerang of Dirk, or whatever it’s called. It saved me when I faced the Morgoss.”

  “The Boomerang of Drith,” Airiel said, her tone full of what sounded like weight. The weight of memory.

  “Who’s Drith?”

  Airiel shook her head, her sunshine-blond hair shifting ever so slightly. “It’s not important.”

  After coming face to face with a dragon being ridden by the first person on this planet who showed me any degree of kindness, I was feeling bold. “It is important. Everything about these artifacts is important. You and your sisters made me Protector for a reason. I have plans. Screw the status quo. Screw playing defense. We need to grow our numbers and take the fight to the Morgoss. But to do that, we need weapons. From where I’m sitting you’ve got plenty. So who is Drith and why does he have a boomerang named after him?”

  Airiel’s sky-blue eyes met mine, and they were so piercing I was forced to look away despite my previous confidence. They were limned with kohl and as clear as a warm, summer’s day. “Drith was a demigod,” she said.

  “Meaning…”

  “The product of a god and another species—in this case a human.”

  “Wait…what? I don’t understand.” My eyes roamed back to her to find her sheer shift had drifted upward toward her hips, revealing almost the entirety of her smooth, porcelain legs. For once, however, my addled mind wasn’t due to her goddess beauty.

  “You see, when a god or goddess loves a woman or man…”

  Despite myself, I laughed. Mostly because I didn’t expect the airy third sister to have a sense of humor. “No, I mean—I didn’t realize there were humans here even before your kingdom was overthrown.”

  “There were always humans here,” Airiel said. “Come. Sit. I will tell you the story of Drith.” She patted the featherbed beside her.

  Jesus Christ. How was I supposed to concentrate sitting next to her? I walked over, turned around to face away, and slumped down unceremoniously onto the bed, my weight sinking deep into its softness.

  Airiel laughed and, my gods, I swear it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. I would make a fool of myself a thousand times if it meant I could keep hearing that laugh. She placed a soft hand on my leg, just above my knee, and I shivered. “You are a good man, Sam Ryder,” she said. “I am sorry for the position we have put you in.”

  I was shocked. It was the first time any of the Three had apologized for bringing me—or any of us, for that matter—to this place of horror and violence. “Thanks for saying that,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” Airiel said. Thankfully, she removed her hand from my knee and combed it through her long, silky hair. “This place has always been filled by a mixture of gods, goddesses and citizens of the Eight planets, including Earth.”

  “How did they get here?” I asked. As far as I knew, this planet hadn’t even been discovered by humans, and other than unmanned probes,
long-distance space travel was only a thing in popular science fiction.

  “We brought them. Just like now, my people sought out the down-trodden in other civilizations. Those who were ready to give up. We brought them here.”

  Holy shit. I wondered how many of the “crazy” people who told stories of alien abductions or UFO sightings were really crazy. I almost slapped my head. All of them, I thought. These goddesses didn’t require spaceships. Not when their own Finder could travel through space and time with nothing but a thought and a bit of rest. “Go on,” I said.

  “Most of my people loved the other races. We intermingled with them, mated with them, filling this world with our offspring—the demigods. Drith was one.”

  She paused, taking a deep breath. I could sense the weariness in her, and I hated it. She was dying day by day, the life sucked out of her by the empty space in her chest where her heart should be. I longed to fill that space. I fought off the thought, because I needed to take this one baby step at a time. Follow my list. The priorities were weapons and the ward shields.

  “Where did he get his boomerang?” I asked.

  “Drith was a great warrior,” Airiel continued. She leaned to the side, away from me, propping her head on one hand and settling the other hand on her hip. Even without trying, she was completely and utterly distracting. I trained my eyes on the boomerang, which was resting on its mount within the glass case. “Even back then, this world was plagued with monsters. Despite all the power at our disposal, evil continued to pop up. Your Warrior predecessors hunted them from the Land of Shadows to the Black Forest, killing thousands. For a while, there was peace. At the time, Drith was the Protector. As a reward for his great victory over the monsters, he was given that boomerang, which was infused with my mother’s tears as it was carved.”