Part 2

Chapter 4

Stepping between worlds proved to be more difficult than I expected. My feet met resistance like I was pushing through a heavy, invisible curtain, but I made progress. Then I tried to pull the rainbow colored sword through. It refused. The hilt would not penetrate the curtain at all, so I stepped back through the curtain and tried to push the blade in point first.

I seemed to be making progress until I realized that the sword was getting shorter. Fully half of it had disappeared.

I tried to pull it back in an insane attempt at stretching the sword but it stuck solid as a spike in oak. There was only one way to go and that was in.

Holding the hilt tightly, I shoved the blade into the resisting curtain. A small curved piece colored like the sword winked at me from the Heaven side, as if testing the air for me. Another strong lunge forward pushed the hilt through, but as the resistance died out I found myself thrown through the gateway onto the gray colored stone walkway.

Although exhausted by the effort to pass the gateway, I couldn't wait to get my first good look at Heaven. I rolled onto my back and sat up. The gray pavement was rough against my bare palms.

Bare?

I stared aghast at my bare hands. The God's Gloves were gone and the Rainbow sword was no where to be found either! The area around me was empty except for a small coin like thing. Perhaps this is what passes as money in their realm. I picked it up and it flashed in the light of the sun. All the colors of the rainbow shined up at me.

Also missing was the gateway that had brought me here. No sign of any swirling mist anywhere.

I had nothing to return for anyway.

The loss of the Rainbow sword was a huge setback in my plans. All my other weapons were back in my pack in the Wilderness. I lacked even a belt knife

"I guess I will have to kill the Gods with my bare hands," I resolved and began climbing to my feet.

"Kill... kill... kill?" A soft voice spoke to me.

"Who said that?" I spun around, but seemed to be alone. "Show yourself, Rogue!"

"Rogue... rogue? No, Mage," I heard the voice again, getting stronger, still barely above a whisper.

I tried my locator trick, but my weak heal spell refused to even target. In fact, it felt like no magic at all worked here.

I laughed at that idea.

"No magic in Heaven? Ludicrous!" An impossible thought. All magic must originate in Heaven.

"Heaven? This is Heaven?" The voice was much more clear and sounded feminine, but didn't seem to be either coming from the left or right. "Then I am dead."

A ghost? Well, that explained a few things.

"That doesn't necessarily follow," I reconsidered. "After all, I am here in Heaven, and I am alive. Perhaps, I am a special case, though, for I am here to teach the Gods pain."

"That is horrible!" The voice continued to strengthen now I could hear it without much effort. "Why would you want to do something like that?"

"I hold the Gods responsible for the actions of the Immortal Rabsha," I explained. "He killed PteriDae, my wife."

"Gareth?" I voice gasped. "Is that you?"

"Yes..." I said hesitatingly. "Who are you?"

"You sound so different... so far away," the voice whispered. "It's Pteri."

"PteriDae? Impossible. She died Revoked and her soul is no more," I started to get angry at this ghostly jest, though I admit it had begun to feel good to have someone to talk to and share my pain.

"I know who I am, Gareth," the voice seemed a bit upset, too. "When I died, were you holding the Spirit sword?"

"Yes, but I saw Pteri's spirit fade from the realm."

"Did the sword do anything then?" The voice certainly had Pteri's patience. It sounded exactly like my wife explaining something to a confused student.

"Well, yes... It brightened a bit," I remembered the glow the sword gave off.

"Spellblaster used the sword to transfer spirits into Zibongs, but there wasn't a Zibong available, so I guess it stuck me into you."

"What?" This is impossible!

"No, it's not impossible, because I am here." The voice was really getting ticked now, "besides, if I weren't stuck here in you, how could I hear what you are thinking?"

She has a point, I thought.

"Of course I have a point, but that isn't important," the voice, which must have been my dead wife, calmed down a bit. "What is important is that if my spirit is still alive, what reason do you have for your vendetta against the Gods?"

I thought about this a while.

"Without the Spirit sword, I guess it was more of a suicide mission, anyway," I admitted.

"How sweet! You didn't want to live without me." Her voice seemed to almost glow, then it flared, "Never do that again! If I die, you keep right on living! Thick headed idiot!"

Yes, that was PteriDae, all right. I smiled and let her rant at me.

"So, what are your plans, now?" she asked, when she ran out of synonyms for 'stupid'.

"Reasonable question," I pondered, "perhaps this has turned into a Quest after all."

"What will you call it?"

"Um, 'The Quest to get my dead wife a body and return to the kingdom?" I suggested.

"It needs work."

I walked along the gray roadway, chatting with my wife's spirit, trying to get her to see through my eyes, until we came to a building surrounded by trees. There were flowers and ivy, too, and of all the places I had seen so far in Heaven, this reminded me the most of home.

I sat on an ornamental walkway made of small stones cemented into place and considered the two story building. Nothing like it could ever be made in Buya, I decided. We lacked proper materials.

"Hello," a woman's voice startled me out of my reverie. I rose to my feet.

"Good evening." I bowed. The lady was quite young and quite wealthy, if I could judge by the animal print gown she had on.

"You look fabulous!" she exclaimed and walked quickly around me, examining my armor. "You MUST be here for a photo shoot or something. Well, don't wait here; go on in, through the double doors, and make a right. The office at the top of the stairs."

I wanted to ask her some questions, but she was already gone, down the walkway and out of sight around the building.

"I guess we go in," I told Pteri, and pushed open the doors. There was indeed a stairs to the right. At the top was another door. I climbed the stairs and quietly opened the door. Although I hadn't seen anything dangerous, yet, I remained cautious.

The room was unoccupied, but a faint scent of perfume showed it was only recently vacated. There were two desks, one neat and tidy; the other strewn with papers.

"Any luck seeing through my eyes, yet?" I asked Pteri, who was trying to tap into my senses as she had the Zibong for so many years.

"Yes, some," she sounded optimistic, "but Zibongs just stare ahead. You try to see everything at once. You're making me dizzy."

"Too many years of being ambushed by everything from a rabbit to a dragon!" I chuckled.

There had been no signs of any Immortals, in fact the only thing Immortal orange was a small vase of flowers on the neat desk. However, my attention was drawn to the other desk. Sitting in the middle of the clutter was a large clear cup filled with a quietly bubbling brown liquid.

"Is that ice floating in that?" Pteri asked.

"Only the Gods are rich enough to bring ice down from the mountain tops... then just leave it to melt." We stared at the tiny bubbles popping around the floating chips of ice, until the distinct sound of footsteps called us back to our situation.

A tall, slender dark-haired man, dressed in what appeared to be simple peasant clothes stepped into the room. He froze when he saw me.

"Hello," I said, then bowed slightly. "Are you a God?"

He studied me with dark eyes for a moment, and then walked around behind the desk. He set a large light bag filled with what appeared to be bright orange curled puffed worms. Perhaps it was the food of the Gods, as it was immortal orange.

"I don't mean to be rude," I said, as he sat down and took a long drink of the bubbling liquid, "but you didn't answer. Are you a God?"

"Yes, I believe I am," he answered calmly, "but a better question is are you REAL?"

"Of course I'm real!" I barked, then remembered who I was addressing. "Sorry. I apologize; it has been a bad day. What, with the War ending, Rabsha dying... and of course finding out I am being pleasantly haunted by my wife's spirit."

The God absent-mindedly tore open the bag of curly worms and began to munch. The aroma of cheese wafted up to my nose and my stomach reminded me how long it had been since I had eaten. Even cheese worms made my mouth water.

"This all a bit of a shock, I'm afraid," the God held out the bag for me and without thinking, I snatched a handful and shoved them in my mouth. There was a brief burst of flavor, but oddly very little substance. "You said Rabsha is dead? Isn't that impossible? He is Immortal. Who could kill him?"

I swallowed the cheese-flavored sawdust, cleared my throat noisily, and then admitted, "That was me. Sorry, he left me no choice."

The God produced no lightning bolts. In fact, my confession seemed to make him even more distracted. He stared at my armor, seemingly fascinated by the emblem on my chest.

"If you don't mind my asking," he took another long drink, not noticing his glass was empty, "Why did you choose that particular combination? Tiger and Sun? There is no such thing as Sun tiger mail." He paused and shook his head before continuing. "I was beginning to doubt my sanity, but now I see you just must be a harmless nut."

A nut? Harmless? Not long ago I intended to slay the lot of them. All the Gods, dead by my sword, and he thinks I'm harmless? I was offended.

"This armor was a gift from the Gods," I fumed a little, but Pteri's quiet whispering reminded me that this being was likely my only way home. "You should know, being a God, and all. It appeared magically after I helped save the kingdom from Spellblaster and the Spirit sword." I paused, realizing he was clueless. "It had to come from the Gods. Where else?"

"The spirit sword? Spellblaster?" he seemed really confused now, so I quickly told him the story of the Quest for the King's Magic. It didn't seem to help.

"When did you say this all happened?"

I tried to add the years spent mourning my wife, first by myself, then in the company of a bottle of wine. Then all the time since that blessed day when Blaster chose me to head the King's quest. Whether he truly still had confidence in me, or merely took pity on an old drunk, he would never say.

"I think it started ten years ago."

This seemed to shock the God. I guess I have that effect on Immortals.

"It would seem it is my turn to be the story teller." The God offered me some more cheese worms. I politely declined. "Time is different here in this world, what is a decade for you is less than a year here. It was about a year ago that we hired a particularly brilliant young programmer named Duncan Morgan."

"Morgan?" Pteri whispered in my mind.

My eyes widened.

"Did you say Morgan?" I asked, remembering the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Princess Lasahn and his takeover plans for the kingdom of Buya.

"Yes, Morgan. Brilliant, as I said, but unstable," the God explained. "He was working on a code editor project. What a dream that was! A program that would hide itself inside a server and edit it however we wanted without ever having to shut it off!"