Inferno (Play to Live: Book # 4) (6 page)

Basically, our talks had gone nowhere. The dwarves were quite understandably wary of being ripped off while trying to push their own agenda. Me, I stubbornly stood my ground. Luckily, the Fallen One arrived to my rescue in the most sinister of his guises, appearing to the dwarves as a dark void swirling under the empty hood of his night-sky cloak. The apparition inquired coldly if a guarantee from a High God would suffice.

While the dumbstruck dwarves shook their beards in agreement, I surreptitiously added a few more items to the contract, namely the restoration of the two forts that protected the access to the main gates as well as some improvements to the castle defenses. I'd done my bit of fortification studies by then so I couldn't speak in terms of something as dumb as "a very high wall" any more. All those
escarpments, bastions
and
ravelins
were pouring out of me right onto paper, generously covering the blueprints of the castle's forthcoming upgrade.

Once I had their signatures, I gave the Fallen One an inconspicuous thumbs-up:
well done, bro!
His glacial glare pinned me to the ground, freezing my spine solid.

In the end, I was the last of all to come round. I wheezed, wiped off the streak of saliva dripping from the corner of my once-grinning mouth, and clicked my neck back into place. Oh well. I shouldn't go too far humanizing the Fallen One, forgetting his status as a Dark God. The dwarves were muttering between themselves, casting reverential glances my way with just a tad of sympathy. No one said that being a First Priest was easy. Okay, it was time to wrap up this show. Everyone had agreed on the terms. I really needed a break.

The gold had dropped into my account later on that day; the promised craftsmen had arrived via a cargo portal early next morning. They had immediately proceeded to restore one of the dilapidated castle wings, to ensure comfortable lodgings for themselves. Those midgets loved their creature comforts! Amazingly, no sooner than the first wheelbarrowfuls of rubble got moving, a makeshift tavern was set up next to the construction site. You couldn't hide anywhere from the aromas of grilled sausages and fresh beer anymore. How was one supposed to work when a whiff of barbecue called your name through an open window?

Once they settled down and stuffed their bellies, the dwarves set off to work.

They scaled the collapsed fortifications, tapping the ancient stones with prospecting hammers. Soon they pronounced their diagnosis and decided on the course of treatment. A gray-haired architect — a Famed Master, no less — attacked the task with an ardor uncharacteristic for his age. He would, wouldn't he? Restoring an uncategorized castle could bring him a few precious points. There were not so many jobs of this caliber left in this world, and even fewer individuals eager to pay for them.

Having said that, his professional rivals weren't too jealous. They were also busy. There were two more ambitious construction projects under way in the Valley of Fear.

The first one was the building of the new temple grounds. Understandably wary of the forces of Light destroying Aulë's new Altar, the dwarves asked us to allocate them a plot of land right in the heart of the valley. Once their ancient priests had realized the nature of the divine artifact I had shown them, they buried themselves in their underground libraries, poring over crumbling manuscripts.

Waving some ancient diagram in the air — splattered with some suspicious-looking brown spots — they presented me with the fact,

"This is exactly what the temple should look like!"

I glanced at the scheme of a squat building shaped like the Mercedes' three-pointed star. I shrugged. "Be my guests. Just don't forget to make a service niche under the altar. This is where I'm going to store an incredible treasure — let's call it my gift to the temple: twelve hundred pounds of mithril!"

Casting respectful glances at me, the priests discussed my offer and agreed, seeing no objections. Gifts to the gods were always welcome, especially those of noble metals such as gold and mithril.

This is how it happened that I got the legal right to bury, under Aulë's altar of gleaming amber, my trump card — the heavy GP bomb. A remnant of the long past war. Its one bang would change the hall's design, adorning its meticulously laid tiles with a 15-feet crater in the middle.

As it turned out, the temple, built in record time, was supposed to be some kind of a divine dormitory. Each of its three wings had its own altar, situated closer to the center of the star. My inner greedy pig wept as it signed the invoices for two more precious bombs. Still, the memory of the cunning Lloth and her tricks made me want to err on the safe side.

A week later, one of the wings was more or less finished. Even though the interior design works hadn't yet been completed — heavily-guarded caravans were still arriving, loaded with precious stones, granite and marble — the dwarves demanded I summon the god ASAP. They weren't happy, you see: they'd invested a shitload of money working around the clock, but they hadn't yet seen any results.

I didn't play hard to get. So far, the dwarves had stuck to their part of the bargain.

The same day the whole clan was formed up in a parade square within the north star-point of the new Temple. All buffed up to their ears as if going to war, they were wearing anything other than their dress uniforms, their bag slots bulging with vials. Even Vertebra, having for just this once succumbed to my pleas, was soaring high in the sky keeping an eye on the unfolding show. Most likely, it was simply because the Valley of Fear was her zone of responsibility. You'd be hard put to drag her out anywhere else, not with her independent character — and besides, she wouldn't leave her two chicks unsupervised, despite the fact that they'd both already ballooned to the size of a minibus with all the free mithril they'd consumed.

I had my reasons to employ such dire security measures. Aulë was a hundred percent a creature of Light. He'd made fighting evil his priority. And now he was summoned to join the forces of the Dark.

It's true that in AlterWorld, the boundaries of light and dark were blurred somewhat. But how were we supposed to explain this to the Arch Father of the Dwarven race?

The Heart of the Temple fragment pulsated in my hands as I walked through the thousand-strong formation. Seven clans, each clad in its own colors, in order of seniority: Longbeards, Firebeards, Broadbeams, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks and Stonefoots.

I lay the artifact on the Altar, waited for the two to synchronize, then confirmed their merging. In a flash of blinding light, the celestial spheres trembled. The world had just created a brand-new temple ready to welcome its new god.

I blinked the light from my eyes and pointed the virtual cursor at the Altar, activating its service menu. Minutes seemed to drag as I scrolled through the long list with its numerous dropdown lists, submenus and sub interfaces. Damn those Indian outsourcers! All the while, the dwarves were craning their necks striving to see the invisible, their hands closing around the handles of family axes and hammers as they watched me, a rather unpopular Immortal. This could be my last opportunity to rip them off by summoning a spawn of the Dark.

Sensing the edgy atmosphere, the Hell Hounds rustled their armor plates shut, forming a defense circle. They just didn't feel comfortable within the emotional crowd.

Gotcha. Aulë the Smith, the Vala who'd wanted children so badly that he'd made his own against the High God's explicit orders. Out of mountain rock he'd fashioned the seven dwarves, the arch fathers of his mountain folk. Actually, once his deeds had been discovered, he'd been the first to disown them and quite willingly raised his hammer over their heads, preparing to crush his firstborn to dust. But that's a whole other story altogether. Light isn't that pure and homogenous, either, and who knows what shadows lurk in its cloudy depths.

I caught a suspicious glance of a gray-bearded Dwarven patriarch. A complex combination of intrigue and internal games between the seven houses had raised him to the top as the most suitable figure for the part of the new temple's Chief Priest. I could see he was nervous: even though he didn't twitch a muscle, a bead of sweat ran down his forehead, betraying his inner struggle.

I gave him a reassuring nod and took a good hold of a conveniently positioned, fancily carved thingy while pointing the cursor at the name.
Badaboom!

AlterWorld shuddered. The Universe quaked. The ceilings showered us with bits of decorative molding. The warped marble tiles exploded with what sounded like gunfire, unable to support the pressure. The heavens creaked their rusty storerooms open, shaking a long-forsaken god figure free of mothballs.

Pantheon alert! A new force has entered the world! Aulë the Smith, the god of earth and metals, has joined the Pantheon of the Fallen One.

"Oh," the crowd gasped with a thousand beer guts.

Steel rattled across the temple as the dwarves dropped to their knees as one, greeting their god.

"Great Father..." a thousand-strong whisper echoed under the vaulted ceiling.

The colorful lights stopped their whirling dance around the altar, revealing to us a big shaggy fellow of very un-dwarven proportions. Think Schwarzenegger meets Bigfoot. An enormous hammer looked like a toy in his powerful scarred arms.

He surveilled the bowing dwarves, nodding slightly in synch with their sincere prayers as he gained strength before our very eyes. He glanced over at the temple and frowned. He sniffed the air and furrowed his massive brow. His eyes glazed over. I'll be damned if he wasn't checking his interface!

Then we were deafened by an angry god's bellowing,

"The
Dark
? What kind of joke is that? Tell me, in the name of Eru the One!"

That probably wasn't the best moment to stick my neck out but I wanted it over and done with. I cleared my throat. "Sir Aulë, welcome to AlterWorld! Actually, the Fallen One happens to be the Chief God here."

Okay, so I'd tweaked the truth a little. We had the Pantheon of Light here as well. But we'd have to cross that bridge when we came to it.

His heavy glare pinned me to the ground. "A Firstborn worshipping the Dark — in my Temple? Who do you think you are?"

I gulped. These gods knew how to apply pressure. Never mind. I still had my shield — and a lot of god networking practice, thanks to the Fallen One. "I am the First Priest of the Dark Pantheon. I am the one who procured the artifact of divine power, summoning you back to life in this world!"

A scowl curved Aulë's lips. There I was, a lightning rod for his divine fury. "We don't need priests like you! To your knees, maggot!"

Well, stuff that! I'd never been known to accommodate the Fallen One even, definitely not this half-forgotten petty Middle-Earth god!

His godly will, even though considerably reduced by my Divine Immunity, still weighed down on me like a slab of concrete. My joints crunched, my spine creaked. The sensitive hounds writhed on the floor like flattened spots of ink. You really shouldn't have done that, sir.

Scowling, I repeated slowly, "I am the First Priest. I am the first authority here after the Fallen One."

"You what?" Aulë bellowed, losing all control. With a heavy arc of his practiced hand, the massive hammer landed on my head.

Oops.

Clank!
A cascade of colorful sparks highlighted the scene as the tank barrel in Snowie's hands stopped the hammer's fall midway. Aulë growled like a wounded beast. Raising his hefty weapon, he began pounding the troll into the ground. Snowie didn't have time to counter his blows. All he could do was parry them with his mithril barrel reinforced by the joint efforts of Macaria and the Fallen One.

The Fallen One, where are you! It looked like the show had taken the worst possible turn. Pointless trying to spare the freaked-out deity's feelings. Time to engage our main caliber.

The Fallen One must have watched the whole scene through some astral peephole as he appeared straight away without any of those stupid visual effects like portal popping and such. His powerful frame exuded strength. Macaria followed him confidently, looking healthy and strong from all the torrents of energy exuded by the hundreds of thousands of her followers who sacrificed themselves every second. I even thought I'd noticed a spider lurking in a dark corner, smirking as it watched this divine lineup.

"Enough!" the powerful voice bounced across the Temple, its destroying force seeking and taking out the weakest.

Dozens of hearts missed a beat and stopped. Here and there, distorted faces gasped, struggling for air, glazed-over stares pointing at brain paralysis. Macaria behind her boss' back only shook her head, her waggling fingers sending waves of healing green across the hall.

Seeing a new and more powerful opponent from the hated camp, Aulë who'd already hammered the troll knee deep into the marble floor left him alone and went for the Fallen One. Snowie pulled his legs free from the stone debris and stumbled after him, frowning, eager to wreak his revenge.

In an adrenaline rush, Aulë darted forward, accelerating, his shape blurring. The air whooshed its protest, sliced by the light-blue tracer of the hammer rising and falling.

Frozen like a statue, the Fallen One threw his hand up to meet the blow.
Bang!
In a flash, diamond shrapnel burst every which way, mopping up the nearest ranks of the stunned observers. Temperature, pressure and the magic tension of the impact had been such that they even changed atomic structures, turning gas into prickly crystals.