《The Hollow God》
The Hollow God Ch. 1 - The Timeslayer
Respawning in 3, 2, 1... complete.
Kafrim opened his eyes and grinned. He was back, and right where he wanted to be, in the bed in his small room above Master Lukas¡¯ workshop. He¡¯d just been killed by a whole flock of tiny, lightning-quick birds, and had been sent back to a respawn point. All according to plan.
He got out of bed and checked his stats. Full health, full mana, and - crucially, time skills at 300 000, the max. It had been more than enough to deal with the birds, and he¡¯d had a lot of fun with them until he decided it would be easier to reset than to walk back home and recover.
He was a bit miffed that he¡¯d needed to recover, to be honest. There hadn¡¯t been any real need to take any damage, but he¡¯d decided to see if he could level up a bit more. Completely unnecessary, since the only experience he needed from this game now was the time skills, and he¡¯d maxed out on those.
All that was left here now was to double-check himself against the toughest boss and then get going. Kafrim collected his stuff and went down the stairs and into the cold, dark night. He walked briskly through the small town, to a door in the town wall. Old Ned was guarding it, as usual. Kafrim was pretty sure he was a game character rather than a human, since he never seemed to do anything different.
¡°Hullo lad,¡± Ned wheezed and raised his torch. ¡°What brings you out so late?¡±
¡°Gold,¡± Kafrim answered, ¡°gold and adventure.¡± And the greatest theft in all the worlds, but Ned didn''t need to know that.
Ned shook his head. ¡°Back to bed with you,¡± he said. ¡°Ain¡¯t no adventure being outside the wall this night. ¡®S death, for sure.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll take my chances.¡±
¡°I shan¡¯t send you to your death,¡± Ned said, ¡°and lose poor Master Lucas his best apprentice.¡±
¡°Not even for thirty gold?¡± Kafrim said. ¡°And... I hear there¡¯s a princess out there tonight as well, trapped in a dungeon.¡±
¡°A princess?¡± Ned peered at him, suspiciously. The old man was a sucker for romantic tales, but many of the boys in town knew it and tried to prank him with it.
¡°A princess,¡± Kafrim confirmed. ¡°Princess Angelica of Kerendra has been kidnapped and brought to the Dark Lord¡¯s dungeon.¡± Which was true, and formed the backbone of a large and intricate story arc in the game. Kafrim had played it, thrice, but it wasn¡¯t his goal tonight. The poor princess would have to languish in the dark, dank dungeon until Kafrim or someone else came to free her.
¡°You¡¯re not pulling my leg, are you?¡± Ned frowned deeply.
¡°Never,¡± Kafrim insisted. ¡°In fact, I will take her back here to meet you.¡±
¡°Oh!¡± Ned¡¯s jaw dropped and he stared at Kafrim. ¡°Meet a princess...?¡±
¡°Absolutely. If you¡¯ll just let me out the door here, and not say a word to anyone that I left?¡±
Kafrim had brought the princess back to meet Ned, twice, even if he thought old Ned was just a mechanical character. He had a soft spot for romantic tales himself, he knew, and Ned had been so happy to meet a real, live princess. It helped that the princess had been very grateful after being rescued, and had been even happier to be taken on an unchaperoned tour of the kingdom. It had been a very enjoyable trip for Kafrim too. A pity that she was just a game character, she''d been fun company.
¡°Just don¡¯t get into trouble,¡± Ned grumbled, but he took the large iron key and unlocked the door.
¡°Thanks,¡± Kafrim said, ¡°I won¡¯t. I¡¯m really grateful.¡± He cast a quick salute to Ned as he darted through the door and slipped into the dark forest outside.
Kafrim shifted up as soon as he heard the door clang shut behind him. He did see fairly well in the dark - which was a surprisingly difficult skill to acquire, he¡¯d found - but it never hurt to slow down any lurking enemies. He didn¡¯t shift very far, just enough to double or triple his own apparent speed. He stood still for a moment, listening and watching, and when nothing moved, he began walking briskly along the path leading into the forest.
He¡¯d been here before, many times, although he¡¯d rarely gone all the way to the other side of the forest. There was a whole side quest involving dryads in here, which gave in-game experience and useful loot but no really useful skills. The dryads were fun, but he wasn¡¯t in the mood for negotiating with them tonight. Instead, he shifted up further and began jogging.
The forest swept past in a blur, and he peered intently into the shadows. At this speed, even a small branch could be painful or worse, and he relaxed into his intuition and dodged and jumped at everything, whether he was sure or not.
At least it made the soundscape better. Shifting did strange things to sound, and the forest seemed to be filled with deep, low rumbling and moaning. At higher levels it faded away. Just why it didn''t do the same thing to light Kafrim had never been able to understand, even though the Professor had tried to explain it. He wasn''t that interested, to be honest.
Soon, he reached the border of the dryad lands, and passed right beneath their treetop outposts. He doubted they saw him, even with their very sharp eyes - he was moving very fast now, to them. It should look like only a faint shadow, darting past before they were sure they saw anything.
He veered left onto another path, to avoid speeding straight through the dryad habitations. It was longer, and more dangerous with more branches and rocks, but much less risk of causing unnecessary alarm. It didn¡¯t really matter but he liked to act considerately when he could. He sometimes fancied himself somewhat of a gentleman thief.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The night deepened, and Kafrim had to slow down a bit. He stayed up-shifted, but just slipped from jogging to a brisk walk. It was enough, he thought, and safer.
It took him a few hours to get through the forest, and without incident too. Right around midnight, he emerged from the thinning low brush at the other side, and entered the rocky wasteland surrounding the Timeslayer¡¯s keep.
The Timeslayer was the real high boss of the game, even if everyone thought it was the Dark Lord.
The first time Kafrim had encountered it, he¡¯d just been killed without even understanding what had happened. It wasn¡¯t until much later, when he began investigating the time skills, that he realized what the Timeslayer did. He¡¯d been killed a few times more while he figured it out, but this time - he wouldn¡¯t.
Kafrim jogged over the barren land, which was dimly lit by faint moonlight coming through the clouds, and soon the stone fortress rose before him. He stopped by the great wooden doors and shifted down. As the world sped up around him he stretched and did some jumps. He¡¯d learned the hard way to re-attune himself to normal speeds. Not that he planned to stay normal for very long.
It was possible to get into the keep through the main doors, but it led straight into the small army waiting in the courtyard. That wouldn¡¯t be a problem this time, but he wanted to conserve his energy in case the Timeslayer had some surprises up his sleeve. Instead, Kafrim walked along the fortress wall, turning the corner and continuing until he reached the small utility door. He smiled slightly as he took his game lock-pick and easily unbolted the door.
As he went in, closing and locking the door behind him, he reflected that this was one of the good things about this being a game world, he reflected - it didn¡¯t always follow ordinary logic. The contrast between the huge, hulking main doors with several battalions of monsters behind them and this simple, small door with zero guards made no sense, unless you knew it didn¡¯t appear until you¡¯d completed a whole separate side quest helping one of the Timeslayer¡¯s escaped servants.
He passed through the small storage room - garbage room, he thought - and into the corridor. He decided to shift up slightly, to give himself an edge in case he met anyone. If he shifted just a bit, he could still hear more or less decently. Right now, the keep was silent and still. The entire staff was in the courtyard, waiting for the full moon.
He made his way quickly through the corridors and up the stairs, until he reached the level of the Timeslayer¡¯s Grand Hall. He shifted back down as he emerged into the anteroom. Time to get ready.
As far as Kafrim could tell, the Timeslayer had no special skills or weapons apart from its signature one, but he hadn¡¯t been able to make fully sure of that. One of the drawbacks of the time skills was that the stat system didn¡¯t work while he was shifted, so he couldn¡¯t check on his opponents. He was pretty sure, anyway, and there was nothing else he could do, really.
This game didn¡¯t have potions, but in a weird fit of developer humor it had - sandwiches. Kafrim had expended some energy getting here, and so he ate four cheese sandwiches. He checked his stats - yes, energy back to almost full, health and mana at full strength. He had a few more sandwiches in his inventory. They were useful in other worlds too, even if they didn¡¯t have quite the same effects they had here.
With his energy level topped up, Kafrim drew his sword and marched up to the door leading into the Grand Hall. It was unlocked, but he kicked it open anyway. If the choice was between dramatic entrance and boring entrance, always go for the dramatic one, Kafrim thought.
¡°Get ready to fight!¡± he yelled as he ran into the hall. As expected the Timeslayer was sitting on its stone throne, unmoving and silent. Kafrim stopped halfway between the door and the throne, and focused his time sense. It shouldn¡¯t be a problem, this time, unless he allowed himself to be surprised. The Timeslayer just sat there, waiting.... Still waiting.
Until, suddenly, it rose from the throne and leapt down the steps, onto the floor. Kafrim felt the faint tug as his opponent shifted, and grinned as he watched a dark blur moving towards him. Let¡¯s dance, he thought, and shifted up.
He¡¯d only fought a shifted opponent a few times and it was still a bit trial and error. It was crucial to shift enough and not stay too slow. Better to err on the other side.
Suddenly he saw the Timeslayer clearly as it advanced. It was tall and spindly, with long arms and legs, and it brandished long knives in its hands. Kafrim jumped out of its way and realized he¡¯d shifted beyond his foe - it was moving slowly, in slow motion. Kafrim slashed his sword through the Timeslayer¡¯s cloak, and grinned as he saw its head turning towards him, ever so slowly. And then - it shifted up.
Kafrim was ready, and shifted up too, way up. He took a few quick steps back, away from the suddenly immobile Timeslayer, and shifted back down again. He wanted to gauge how fast it was.
He seemed to have matched it fairly well.
The Timeslayer was still, but he could see its eyes darting. They were at the same speed. It seemed to be thinking. Kafrim didn¡¯t know exactly how complex it was - many monsters and characters in the game worlds were fairly mechanical, but some were surprisingly complex and unpredictable. There should be some kind of provisions in the programming for a shift-capable opponent - there was no other good reason in the game for the whole time skill business, as far as Kafrim had discovered.
The Timeslayer smiled, thinly, and then shifted up, and jumped. Kafrim almost missed it - he didn¡¯t shift far enough, and only saw a blur moving to his right. He shifted all the way, as high as he could, and just barely dodged a volley of knives by throwing himself flat on the floor. One of them grazed his shoulder, drawing blood. He winced as he rolled and jumped to his feet, just as the Timeslayer leapt and slashed right where he¡¯d been a moment earlier.
Right, he thought. He was as fast as he could be now, and seemed to match the Timeslayer. It probably also had 300 000 in time skills Now it was just a normal fight, except that the world around them was frozen. They were at the same time level, but the Timeslayer was fast and deadly in itself.
Knives seemed to be its preferred weapon, lots of them. It had long, nasty ones to slash with, and thin, long daggers to throw. Kafrim had to work for it, dodging and parrying and only slowly working his way into the fight with his sword. He wasn¡¯t the greatest fighter, he knew, and he might admit to being a tad lazy since he¡¯d discovered the time skills. Most fights became boringly one-sided when you could shift up and make your opponent freeze in place.
This opponent was anything but frozen, though. Kafrim struggled to keep up, and only managed a few ineffectual rips through the Timeslayer¡¯s cloak while he himself received more and more gashes. Not good. He hadn¡¯t planned to die here, but he might have to let it happen anyway. It was better than getting wounded and having to waste a lot of time healing.
The plan wasn¡¯t to kill the Timeslayer anyway - there were strange but persistent rumors that doing so was a Really Bad Idea, since it would crash the game and nobody knew what would happen then - the plan was to verify his theories about his skill levels, and test shifting while shifted. He needed a moment to focus for that, just a moment...
As he was forced backwards, and was beginning to get tired, he decided he¡¯d have to take his chances. The worst that could happen was that he¡¯d die, and then he¡¯d respawn back in his apprentice room. So, he thought, you won¡¯t expect this, I think...
He swung his sword in a wide arc, forcing the Timeslayer to pull its arms back, and then he took three quick steps, right up to it. He grinned up at it as he reached inside its cloak and found a dagger. Now, he thought, and let his eyes go unfocused. He felt the Timeslayer move as it wrapped its arms around him, and knew a knife would cut into his back any second.
He was faster. Before the knife hit, Kafrim did the peculiar mental twist he¡¯d been given, and shifted out.
The Hollow God Ch. 2 - Killer Robots From The Future
It felt like being hit by a truck. Kafrim doubled over and dropped to his knees, but managed to stay upright. He opened his eyes briefly to check he was in the right place - yes, large, empty, featureless grass plain and a pale yellow sky. He closed them again and pushed the nausea down.
He really hated shifting while shifted, and the higher he¡¯d shifted the worse it was. The Professor claimed it was because he forcibly shifted down to normal time while shifting out, and it was a bit like falling from a tall building. Kafrim wasn¡¯t all that interested, especially since the Professor didn¡¯t have anything useful to say about avoiding it.
After a few minutes he felt calm enough to stand up. Only then did he notice he was still holding the Timeslayer¡¯s dagger in his right hand. He laughed out loud and slashed at the air. It was really a throwing weapon, and he could feel the perfect balance along the length.
Too bad Kafrim wasn¡¯t a throwing kind of guy, but it could still be useful. He stowed it in his backpack and made a mental note to transfer it to his inventory as soon as he got back into a game world.
He stretched and made some experimental jumps. His body ached from the shift, and the Timeslayer¡¯s cuts burned on his arms and shoulders. They weren¡¯t very dangerous, he judged, and he decided he could ignore them until later. There was one more thing he really wanted to try before declaring himself ready to go up against the Hollow God.
This was a book world, so his sandwiches were just sandwiches, but he still ate a couple - time shifting, especially, took a pretty heavy toll on him, which crept up subtly. He needed to stay alert. There should be some water in the backpack - yes, four more bottles. He emptied one of them and then hoisted the backpack again, groaning involuntarily as the straps slid over his cuts.
Right, he decided. Time to dance with those killer robots again. He grinned as he closed his eyes and shifted out of his trusty old retreat world.
He opened his eyes standing high on a cliff, looking out over a wide, slow-moving river. It glittered in the sunshine as it lazily flowed across a reddish plain. There were ravines, creeks and gullies, but very little vegetation. Off to the right a huge arch rose into the sky, spanning the river.
Kafrim didn¡¯t know what it was - he¡¯d never tried to go farther into this world - but he knew that a raft would appear under the portal very soon, with two men and a young woman on it. Just after that, a couple of silvery killer robots would show up and try to kill the people on the raft.
They would be stopped by another robot, a really scary thing - three meters tall and covered with sharp blades and knives. All the robots were from the future - this world¡¯s future, this story¡¯s future - but Kafrim didn¡¯t understand exactly what they were doing. He didn¡¯t care, either.
He disliked book worlds generally and so spent as little time as possible in them. Game worlds were much more comfortable, and more dynamic. Not to mention you could get killed in book worlds, for real. The only reason he was here was those robots, since they could time shift too.
Kafrim left the cliff and jogged down the slope behind it, turning to his right to circle down the hill and down a wide ravine leading towards the river. The world was eerily quiet - the author had never imagined birds or animals here.
Kafrim had actually thought of it, of adding some animal life to a place that didn¡¯t have any, just to see what would happen. It was the boring Professor that had dissuaded him, warning him that such an action could destabilize the world, and maybe even all the worlds.
Kafrim didn¡¯t really believe it, but even he felt a bit squeamish at the thought of disrupting all the known worlds. Being a thief was all right, but destroying the world? That was super-villain territory and it just didn¡¯t feel like Kafrim¡¯s thing at all.
As he reached the river he stopped by the water¡¯s edge. Small waves lapped the shore and made at least some sound. The raft should be appearing about now, under the arch, and Kafrim turned to jog slowly downstream, along the path beside the river.
He readied his time sense - the first robot should be on the path, and it should be in normal time. He hoped. This was only the fourth time he¡¯d gone up against the robots, and so he didn¡¯t really have a good feeling for how they behaved. These ones seemed to be fairly independent, for book world beings.
As he neared a bend, he slowed to a walk. There was the faint, telltale sign of another shifter coming from behind the rock. He stopped, and then jogged backwards, to where the path opened up a bit. Always good with some more space. Not that he was planning to fight the thing.
The killer robot from the future appeared around the bend, loping easily down the path towards Kafrim. It gleamed silvery in the reddish light, tall and slender. That was deceptive - he¡¯d watched one of them fight once, and they were inhumanly strong. And fast. So am I, Kafrim thought, and shifted up.
The robot froze in place as Kafrim walked casually over to the edge of the river and dropped into a ready stance. His time sense tugged at him as the robot shifted. It moved, but sluggishly, and immediately shifted further. Past Kafrim.
He was ready for it, and shifted further too, and ended up about matched with the robot. It stared at him with its red, nasty eyes, and looked perplexed, if a silvery, metallic-looking things without lips and eyebrows can look perplexed. Maybe it was the body language.
Kafrim chuckled and picked up a rock, which he threw towards it. He leapt after it, making sure not to get too close. The robot hissed at it, caught the rock and threw it back at him, hard and fast. Kafrim shifted further, and watched the rock slow down in mid-air.
He walked up to it and tapped at it with a finger. It felt like a light tap to him, but to a normal observer it would look like a mighty blow, that made the rock shoot straight into the sky.
Oops, Kafrim thought as he felt the robot shift. Here we go. He shifted yet further and dodged the robot lightning-fast leaping kick. They were matched again, and Kafrim knew he couldn¡¯t shift much further. The question was - could the robot?
He didn¡¯t think so, but spent a few moments pretending he was about to attack it. Just as it jumped and bounced against the rock wall, stretching its arms towards his neck, he shifted as far as he could, and ran out of the way. He turned and watch the robot somersault easily and land on its feet. It didn¡¯t look perplexed now, it looked furious.
It ran towards him, but still in slow motion. Kafrim toyed with it, moving slowly so it could see him, but dancing out of the way as soon as it got close. It didn¡¯t shift up, which suggested it couldn¡¯t. Otherwise it would, Kafrim reckoned. So it was at its max, and he was faster. Quite a bit faster. He danced and spun around the robot, reaching out to tap and push it.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The poor robot staggered after him, clearly able to see or sense him, but not catch him. Kafrim laughed at the thing as he ran in a circle around it. This was good, he thought, damn good.
This was more his style, not hacking away with a sword or throwing daggers left and right. Just shift up, up and away, and exhaust the enemies until you could push them to the ground with a light, super-speeded tap to the shoulder.
Kafrim was debating with himself whether to do that or just shift out and be happy with the test when his time sense warned him - something was coming, and not just shifting gently like he did. Time warped and buckled around him, and suddenly something else stood on the path behind the silver robot.
The ¨¹ber-robot, the huge one with spikes and blades. It stood motionless, and the other robot spun around to face it. Kafrim hesitated. He¡¯d seen one of those fights, and it had been epic, but he¡¯d been at a safe distance that time. Now he was three meters away.
Suddenly, the thing was here. Just in front of him. He hadn¡¯t seen it move, and hadn¡¯t sensed it shift. Kafrim nearly panicked and had to suppress a scream. Up close, the thing was utterly terrifying, like a thousand painful deaths with legs.
It swayed, and Kafrim saw the other robot landing on its back, but it didn¡¯t react. It looked down on Kafrim with red, gleaming eyes.
Kafrim didn¡¯t think. He was a thief, not a warrior, and so running away wasn¡¯t a problem. He¡¯d honed those reflexes over the years, especially in the book worlds, and so he reached in and did the mental twist before he knew it.
For the second time that day, Kafrim slammed back into normal time on his empty retreat island. This time, he toppled over, landing flat on his face in the grass.
He lay still for a while and let his heart rate and breathing slow. That... hurt. Like a truck, he thought, like he usually did. He knew a fair bit about being hit by trucks, after the months he¡¯d spent trying to master a weird, luck-based game where the main enemies were trucks running around in city streets.
He¡¯d mostly walked around with his neck bent over, staring at a smartphone, and hoping his luck skills were finally high enough to make the trucks go past instead of over him. It had taken several months, and he¡¯d stopped counting after the 500th truck.
Finally, and with the help of a lot of side quests in casinos and high-wire walking between buildings and the like, he¡¯d managed to raise his luck enough to avoid the trucks and get to the final boss. And then he¡¯d promptly found that the luck skills in the game scaled weirdly in all the other worlds he¡¯d been. He was extremely lucky around vehicles, but in other worlds, it was hit or miss with no logic he could discern.
He got unsteadily too his feet and took several deep breaths. Damn, doing this twice in short order was more than twice as tough as doing it once. There was no way he could do it again already tonight, as he¡¯d planned.
Oh well, he thought. Let¡¯s go somewhere and recover a bit instead. The only question is - where?
Kafrim had several standard hangouts, usually in glitzy Art Deco-style games and cities, but he didn¡¯t really feel like dealing with crowds just now. He was too focused on the upcoming raid.
I¡¯ll go see the Professor, he decided. And maybe Hannah. His mood brightened, and he ignored his aching body as he closed his eyes and shifted out.
This time it didn¡¯t hurt. Normal time to normal time - all he felt was the momentary sort-of-sideways lurch. Then he opened his eyes in the middle of a square in a vaguely medieval-looking town. It wasn¡¯t really home, but he¡¯d been here often enough. He stretched and began walking towards a narrow street that disappeared in between timber buildings.
The Professor lived at the edge of the town, and he¡¯d go there later. First, though, he wanted to check The Daft Craftsman, one of the three taverns in town and the main one in the game when it came to picking up quests and missions. It was usually crowded with adventurers, humans or game characters.
It was drawing towards evening and people were returning from the day¡¯s labors in the fields outside the town. There was an unusual amount of humans here, and many of them recognized him. He waved and grinned towards some of them. Others eyed him warily.
Kafrim generally tried to stay well-behaved while he was here, and limited himself to pranks and minor mischief, but some people just lacked humor. He hadn¡¯t actually stolen anything here, but he had made things disappear - and appear again in unexpected locations.
Some people, like grumpy old Rawlin there, thought that was as bad as stealing them. Kafrim gave him an ironic wave in return for his frown, and walked on. Rawlin had no idea just how bad things Kafrim could do. He should be grateful.
At one corner of the square a three-story tall half-timbered house rose against the twilight sky. Kafrim whistled as he opened the door and went in, stooping slightly. The Daft Craftsman was like it always was: noisy, smelly, and warm. People were singing, and eating, and staring morosely into their beer, and arguing, and doing all the other usual things.
In here, most of the guests were regulars, and they greeted Kafrim with shouts and hollers. He grinned and waved, and shot some of them mock-serious salutes. He didn¡¯t stop, thought, but just walked calmly through the din and up to the bar. Right up to Hannah, in fact, who was pouring beer in four jugs.
¡°Oh look,¡± she said when she saw him, ¡°the cat¡¯s been here again!¡±
¡°Better dragged in now and again than stuck here forever,¡± he retorted.
¡°I never heard of anything getting dragged back out by the cat,¡± she said. ¡°Except you.¡±
He shook his head, but grinned at her. ¡°Busy tonight?¡±
¡°Nah, pretty normal. Again, except for you. Weren¡¯t you here just the other day?¡±
He shrugged. ¡°Yeah, but I need to talk to the Professor again.¡±
¡°That hare-brained plan of yours again?¡±
¡°What else?¡± He leaned on the counter and towards her. ¡°Next time I see you, I¡¯ll be the most powerful man among all the worlds. Maybe then you¡¯ll change your mind?¡±
¡°Wait and see, mister. Didn¡¯t you say you¡¯d be all-knowing as well? Next time I see you, you won¡¯t have to ask.¡±
¡°You¡¯re hopeless,¡± he told her.
¡°And you¡¯re hopeful,¡± she shot back, but she smiled over her shoulder as she carried the jugs out to the waiting patrons.
Kafrim waited for her return, tapping his fingers against the counter. Damn, he thought. Hannah was his best friend, and friends was all they¡¯d ever be, as she¡¯d made abundantly clear. On multiple occasions. He couldn¡¯t help flirting with her anyway.
¡°Do you want a beer?¡± she asked when she came.
¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m heading over the Professor, and then early tomorrow, I¡¯m off. To meet my destiny.¡±
Hannah frowned and looked down. ¡°I still think it sounds ludicrous. Heck, even the bumpkins here know about the Hollow God. Do you really think you can steal from him?¡±
In response, Kafrim shifted up. Not very far, just enough to make the tavern slow to a crawl. He walked around the end of the counter and into the bar, stopping a few steps behind Hannah. He shifted back down.
¡°Yes,¡± he said, and then laughed as she jumped and spun around, fists rising in reflex.
¡°Don¡¯t do that,¡± she groaned.
¡°It¡¯s my secret trick. The hollow guy won¡¯t expect it.¡±
¡°You think.¡±
¡°I know,¡± he corrected. ¡°The Professor -¡±
¡°The Professor knows jack shit about the Hollow God,¡± she said, cutting him off. ¡°Look,¡± she said, sighing. ¡°I know you want to do this, and it¡¯s not like I think I can stop you. I just... be careful. Okay?¡±
¡°As always,¡± he said, but she took a quick step and grabbed his arms, digging her nails into his skin.
¡°No. More careful. The Hollow God can eat you alive. You know what they say.¡±
¡°Ow,¡± he said, pulling his arms free. ¡°What¡¯s this, it¡¯s like you care about me suddenly.¡±
¡°Kaf,¡± she said, as quietly as she could in the noisy tavern. ¡°You think you¡¯re immortal, just because you¡¯ve been so lucky for so long.¡±
¡°Trust me, I know I¡¯m not immortal. But I will be. Next time we meet.¡±
¡°You better,¡± she said, scowling at him. ¡°Because if you mess this up and bring the Hollow God down on us, I swear I¡¯m going to kill you myself.¡±
¡°Oh, that¡¯s sweet!¡± he cried happily. ¡°I knew you cared deep inside!¡±
¡°Go talk to the Professor,¡± she said, shaking her head. ¡°But be careful, you hear? Don¡¯t get yourself killed, and don¡¯t get yourself - something even worse.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± he said, but she¡¯d turned away from him and headed over to the other end of the bar where a man was waving to get her attention.
Damn it, he thought again as he made his way out the back of the tavern, into a narrow cobbled alley. He¡¯d managed to coax Hannah along on his adventures a total of three times, and he¡¯d had more fun on those than anything before or after the Event. She¡¯d made him look timid and cautious, but now she preferred to stay here and work in the stupid tavern.
Maybe she would change her mind, if he succeeded. No. When he succeeded. Believe in yourself, his mother had always said, and he¡¯d developed that into an art form over the years. Of course he would succeed.
Kafrim began whistling again as he headed down the alley, towards the Professor¡¯s rickety old house.
The Hollow God Ch. 3 - The Greatest Theft In All The Worlds
The Professor lived in an abandoned well house. Kafrim wasn¡¯t sure what role those wells played in the game¡¯s storyline, except that there seemed to be a total of four scattered around the world. There were more functional ones - eight, last Kafrim heard. Those served as the conduit between the two levels of the game: the fantasy world on the surface and the futuristic high-tech one below. Apparently, the main aim of the game was to somehow bring them into contact, which would then transform both worlds utterly.
Kafrim had never tried to play through the game of this world, and was quite content using it as comfortable home-like spot to rest and recover. So did many others - there was an unusual amount of humans in this world. It was so popular that there were several businesses catering to it, transporting people in and out with the help of the weird little shift bunnies.
Then there was the Professor, who was human but not quite like the others.
Kafrim didn¡¯t know where the Professor had come from, or who he really was, but he didn¡¯t know anyone else who knew as much about the scattered worlds of their post-Event universe. The man was weird but insatiably curious and he knew more about what was going on than anyone else Kafrim had met. Which made him an invaluable ally. If frustrating.
Kafrim stopped in front of the tilting door and gathered himself. There was no telling what might be inside today. The Professor collected beasts and animals and built strange machines, all three of which were often dangerous.
He knocked on the door, his trademark tap-tap-tap-taptap---tap.
¡°Come in!¡± the Professor shouted. ¡°Door¡¯s open!¡±
Well, yes, Kafrim thought, since it couldn¡¯t be closed. Still, he figured it was better to be polite with the Professor. As soon as he stepped in, the Professor called out again.
¡°Mind your head, there¡¯s a knife-copter flying around a bit loosely.¡±
Kafrim ducked quickly and looked around but saw nothing flying near him. He walked into the house in a crouch, listening for any kind of whirring sound. The Professor was in his workroom just beyond the hallway, working on his computer.
¡°What¡¯s a knife-copter?¡± Kafrim said as he stepped inside.
¡°Oh, hi Kafrim,¡± the Professor said. ¡°Are you... no, you¡¯re still just you, right?¡± The Professor cocked his head and peered at him.
¡°Yeah,¡± Kafrim said. ¡°Just me.¡±
¡°Oh. Good. I mean, it¡¯ll be interesting to see how it goes. When are you planning to do it? You haven¡¯t given up, have you?¡±
¡°No,¡± Kafrim said and slowly stood. ¡°What¡¯s a knife-copter, and what can it do to my head?¡±
The Professor tore himself from the computer screen and turned towards him. The man was dressed, as always, in a white lab coat, and his grey-brown hair floated messily about his head.
¡°It¡¯s a test,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s like a small helicopter, but it has knives for blades. I thought of it when you mentioned those birds you¡¯d been having trouble with. A knife-copter should clear them out quite effectively. I haven¡¯t gotten the magic controller fine-tuned yet, so it¡¯s a bit erratic.¡±
¡°Sounds like a good weapon,¡± Kafrim said. ¡°Outdoors, rather than indoors.¡±
¡°Yeah yeah,¡± the Professor said, waving it away. ¡°Why are you here already? I thought you were going off on your raid.¡±
¡°I am. I just want to see if you¡¯ve come up with anything else that could be useful. I can use every scrap of information I can get.¡±
¡°Nooo...¡± the Professor said, furrowing his brow thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯ve told you everything I know. There isn¡¯t very much, you know.¡±
¡°I know,¡± Kafrim said, looking around for a chair. He found one, and sat.
¡°Any sightings?¡±
¡°Not that I¡¯ve heard of. I haven¡¯t really looked. I have other important things to do as well, as you¡¯re very well aware.¡±
¡°Mm.¡± Kafrim wrinkled his nose.
¡°If he¡¯s not there, you¡¯ll just have to wait. You say you can speed up time - it shouldn¡¯t feel like very long however long it is.¡±
¡°Anything more on those black holes?¡±
The Professor shook his head and turned back to the computer. ¡°I¡¯ve read everything I¡¯ve found. There isn¡¯t much about that either.¡± He glanced at Kafrim. ¡°If you succeed, you know what I want you to do.¡±
¡°Oh, I know. Just figure out a way to connect a cable to the old world, so you can access the real Internet.¡± He shrugged. ¡°I have absolutely no idea how that would work, but ¨C sure.¡±
¡°There¡¯s just so much missing in these worlds,¡± the Professor complained. ¡°Those authors and game designers were scatter-brained like chickens. Why couldn¡¯t they put some real effort into world-building?¡±
¡°Actually,¡± Kafrim said, in an attempt to stave off this familiar lecture, ¡°I was wondering if I could crash here tonight. I¡¯ll be gone early tomorrow, I just need to borrow your guest bed.¡±
The Professor squinted at him. ¡°You keep saying you¡¯re such a mighty thief. Don¡¯t you have any other place you could stay? Some empty mansion where you could borrow a bedroom.¡±
¡°Of course I could. But I have a big thing coming up, and I need some quiet and calm to prepare.¡±
¡°Eh,¡± the Professor said. ¡°Suit yourself. But I¡¯ve already had dinner.¡±
¡°No problem. I¡¯ve got some sandwiches. Thanks, prof.¡±
The Professor waved at him and then pointedly turned his attention back to the computer screen. Kafrim rose and headed towards the guest bedroom. He¡¯d probably need to empty the bed of all the junk the Professor kept storing on it. As he exited the room, he heard a soft whirr and ducked quickly, just before the knife-copter glided through the air where his head had been.
He caught a glimpse of it - it was small and light-weight, more suited to battle butterflies than birds, but it could make an interesting pattern of bloody scars on his forehead if it hit him. And worse, if it hit his eyes. He made a mental note to close the door carefully, so the thing didn¡¯t fly in during the night.
The night turned out to be uneventful, and Kafrim got up early. Which for him meant around eight. He felt well rested, and decided to skip breakfast. He made some coffee, and whistled tunelessly to himself as he drank it.
So, this was it. The morning of the great heist. By evening, he¡¯d either be powerful beyond belief, or dead. Or worse than dead, if the myths were true. It was a momentous occasion, but it felt like any old morning.
They always did, Kafrim knew. The world didn¡¯t care about his momentous occasions. It just kept spinning, or whatever the strange post-Event worlds did.
Kafrim downed his coffee, and then got ready to do battle. The Hollow God¡¯s world was a game world, so he¡¯d have his inventory. The only consideration was what he¡¯d do afterwards. His plan was to shift to his familiar retreat place, which was a book world, without inventory. He didn¡¯t really want to carry a backpack, and there wouldn¡¯t be time to put it on in the fight.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
After some deliberation, he decided to wear his combat leather jacket and trousers, along with dark sunglasses. The glasses were mostly for show, although they had +500 protection. The jacket and trousers also had protective powers, and would be fine against most ordinary enemies.
They looked casual, but thanks to the enchantments and all the level-raising he¡¯d done while wearing them, they allowed him to go up against both high-tech soldiers with guns and low-tech knights with swords or bows and arrows.
They probably wouldn¡¯t protect him against a being who could rip him apart by tearing up spacetime itself, if that was really what the Hollow God did. The Professor said so, and Kafrim knew the Hollow God came from a science fiction game - but it still felt like, well, science fiction.
Kafrim stuffed some healing sandwiches and his most powerful potions in the inner pockets of the jacket. The flasks weren¡¯t in the way, but the slight bulge made him look less stylish. Better alive than stylish, though.
He didn¡¯t expect a real serious fight with the Hollow God himself - subterfuge, and the surprise of beating him at his own game would be his main tool, but the god had underlings who might well try to engage him. Some of them might even be competent, so he chose his preferred high-tech weapon - the light saber he¡¯d stolen in one of the Star Wars games.
Thus armed and armored, Kafrim stepped out into the bright morning light, found a nook just around the corner, closed his eyes and shifted.
Kafrim opened his eyes in a dark cave, with the opening as a circle of bright light straight ahead. It was the same place he¡¯d appeared last time he¡¯d shifted in; he suspected it was the game¡¯s starting point. He walked out of the cave and looked out over the flat landscape ahead.
The cave was up on a hill, which sloped down towards a thick jungle, and beyond it he could see the grasslands which faded into desert, and beyond that, as a faint glimmer in the horizon: the tall spire of the Hollow God¡¯s lair.
He hadn¡¯t played this game very much, not with the hollow guy around. It was a game world, and so he should respawn if he got killed - but not if he got eaten by the god. That¡¯s what they said, and he¡¯d had exactly zero interest in testing that theory.
So, now he had to get through a mostly unknown game. At least he had two things going for him, in that he was actively looking for the big boss and not trying to avoid him, and that he could shift up.
He did just that, a little at first, to check that it worked, and then a lot. He began jogging down the hill towards the path leading into the jungle. Just before he plunged beneath the thick canopy, he pulled his light saber and flicked it on. It should be more than enough to deal with anything the game threw at him, at his speed.
The jungle flowed past as a mix of sharp, flickering detail and soft, flowing shadow, and Kafrim kept himself fully alert. Nothing attacked him, though. He was almost disappointed.
The path widened to a road, and he ran past the first branch, which lead to a small town where the game began in a normal run. He ignored it this time, and kept running.
It didn¡¯t take him long to move through the jungle, and he wondered at the lack of opponents. Last time he¡¯d been here there had been a lot of mostly minor jungle animals and monsters, but also natives, and colonists from Earth who had crash landed in a clearing. It had gotten pretty involved for a while. This time, nothing.
He paused for a moment as he reached the grassland and leapt up on a large rock to get an overview. The grass stretched out before him, motionless in his accelerated state, and he saw gray animal backs rising out of it here and there.
And there, on the horizon, the spire glinted in the sunshine. So, onward.
He hadn¡¯t run for more than a minute of his time when something leapt onto the path in front of him. He didn¡¯t stop, he just leapt into the air and swung the light saber. It cut cleanly straight through the head of the monster, or animal - no, monster, he decided, as he saw the bright yellow light in its eyes fade as it crumpled.
He landed on the other side of the carcass and stopped, waiting to see if anything else would happen. The thing had been weirdly quick, to jump out in front of him. Except... he frowned as he looked at it. It had still been in the air when he struck it, and now it was lying in a strange angle.
He turned slowly to scan the tall grass around him. He could just barely make out a dark shape a few meters in - one of the monster¡¯s buddies. Moving as slowly as you¡¯d expect from an in-game creature. Which meant... the one he¡¯d killed hadn¡¯t jumped him on its own.
Kafrim considered this for a moment, then shrugged and began running again. There could be several explanations, and he didn¡¯t really care. He had a mission to complete, not a mystery to solve.
There were other monsters on the path, but even the fastest ones moved like slugs as he approached them. He simply leapt over them. They didn¡¯t even notice he was there until he was gone.
And then, suddenly, his time sense went berserk. He tried to stop, but before he could, a small black sphere appeared right in front of him. It hung there for an instant, and then expanded, impossibly fast, and became a circular window to - a space station?
Not a window, Kafrim realized as he ran straight into it, a hole ¨C a hole in space-time. He very nearly threw up as he found himself tumbling through the air in zero-g, in the middle of a large hall with steel walls.
What the heck, he thought, as he began to shift down, to literally slow himself down. He kept an eye on the far wall, approaching at high speed, but as he slowed down, he began falling towards the floor.
It was a good thing he was reasonably flexible, and another good thing that he managed to remember to turn off the light saber just before he landed on the floor and half-ran, half-stumbled several steps before he could recover. As it was, he hit his leg with the saber, hard, but didn¡¯t cut it off.
As he regained his balance and looked around, he realized where he was. It was indeed a large hall with steel floor, walls and ceiling, and a long red carpet stretching from what looked like hangar doors to a raised dais, with a black throne.
As he watched, the wall behind the throne split down the middle and slid apart, revealing the star-scape beyond. And then the Hollow God stepped out from behind the throne.
¡°Who are you?¡± he said, in a deep, echoing voice. It was probably supposed to be impressive, especially if you played the game with some kind of surround sound, but Kafrim found it annoying. The guy sounded like he was in three different places at the same time.
¡°I¡¯m Kafrim,¡± he said, ¡°the greatest thief in all the worlds.¡±
¡°So I thought,¡± the Hollow God said, and stepped down from the dais with his cloak billowing around him.
The cloak. Kafrim stared at it hungrily. The magical cloak. His cloak. Well, soon, anyway.
¡°I know your plans,¡± the Hollow God went on, and Kafrim raised his eyebrows. ¡°You remember old Rimpley, of course.¡±
Kafrim simply nodded, without speaking. Old Rimpley, yes, one of the regulars at the Daft Craftsman, who usually sat at the end of the bar.
¡°He is in me now,¡± the Hollow God said. ¡°What he knew, I know.¡±
Kafrim nodded again, more slowly. This made sense, in a semi-horrible way. Not really horrible - Rimpley had been a game character, and so it didn¡¯t matter all that much if he¡¯d been eaten by the hungry god, but still. It also confirmed one of the main theories for just why the Hollow God knew so much he shouldn¡¯t.
Unfortunately for Kafrim, it was the theory he disliked the most. Rats, he thought, and then put it aside.
¡°If you know my plans,¡± he said instead, ¡°we don¡¯t have much to talk about. Let¡¯s fight!¡±
He flicked the light saber on, shifted up a bit, and ran towards the Hollow God. Who just stepped to the side - and appeared three meters away. Without going through the space in between, but caused an almighty twist to Kafrim''s time sense.
Kafrim leapt into the air as the Hollow God sent a ripple towards him, and just barely dodged it. He shifted up further, and landed unsteadily as the floor seemed to be swaying beneath him. It wasn¡¯t just the floor, he realized - his time sense was wobbling, making him nauseous. He ignored it.
Ripple on, my friend, Kafrim thought as he regarded his foe. The Hollow God was imposing, at almost three meters tall and clad in all black, except for the stars glittering on his cloak. It was deceptive, he knew - the cloak could make him look like anything.
There was absolutely no good in waiting. Whether or not the guy knew what Kafrim could do, he was way too dangerous on his own. Another one of those ripples, and Kafrim would be shredded into small pieces that the god could consume at his leisure.
Kafrim screamed, more to vent his own excitement than anything else, pressed the extra button the Professor had installed on the light saber, and threw it towards the Hollow God. The guy looked surprised as the saber shot stabs of light in all directions, and as he bent to dodge it, Kafrim shifted up as far as he could, and launched himself at the Hollow God.
He would get one chance, he knew, one chance only. He ignored the Hollow God himself and kept his gaze fixed on the nearest edge of the cloak. The god was still twisting away from the light saber, but Kafrim felt his time sense warping again and realized the guy was getting ready to ripple, or perhaps to step away.
No, Kafrim thought, no - you - won¡¯t!
The Hollow God seemed to realize that, suddenly, and Kafrim grinned to himself as he heard a distant, warped roar. The guy was screaming in rage, and trying to both ripple and step out, but he was too slow. He was too slow - Kafrim was faster!
The cloak swirled behind the Hollow God as Kafrim took the last step and stretched out his fingers. He was ready to shift out, any moment now, and as his fingers touched the cloak, he did.
The Hollow God Ch. 4 - The Greatest Thief In All The Worlds
Kafrim was dead. He was sure of it. Everything was dark, and cold, and quiet. And, he was being pushed hard by something, against something hard.
Typical, he thought. All these afterlives they talk about, and his turned out to be caught between a rock and a hard place, forever.
He shuddered at the thought. That sounded too boring, and too stupid. And - hey, he¡¯d shuddered. So he still had his body.
He tried to sit up. It didn¡¯t work at all, first - he couldn¡¯t move. So he pushed hard, with all his might, and suddenly found himself launched into the air and turning over backwards, until he slammed back into the ground. This time on his back.
It was an improvement, he decided, as he stared up at the yellow sky. Not being dead, and being able to see. Well. He tried to sit up again, but his body felt heavy and leaden and he couldn¡¯t move.
This wasn¡¯t the normal post-shift lethargy. He didn¡¯t feel like he¡¯d been hit by a truck - he felt like he¡¯d been hit by a caravan of steamrollers, one after another, before they all turned back to run him over again. He felt heavy and beaten, and... sticky.
This was stupid, he thought. With a huge effort, he managed to push himself to a sitting position, without launching himself in the air. He looked down at his body. It looked okay. It just felt very, very heavy.
He looked around, but he didn¡¯t see the cloak. His heart sank, but he refused to listen to it. He must have gotten it. He had shifted at exactly the right moment, he was sure of it. So where was it? It should be hanging off his shoulders like it had on the Hollow God, billowing out with its glittering star-scape...
Kafrim started, or tried to, when the cloak suddenly did just that. It appeared from nowhere - one second there was nothing, the next it hung from his shoulders, rippling around him as he moved. It looked just like it should.
He began to laugh, quietly at first and then more and more raucously, as he realized he¡¯d done it. He¡¯d stolen the cloak from the Hollow God, and it was working exactly as the Professor had guessed. It wasn¡¯t the Professor¡¯s fault that Kafrim hadn¡¯t thought it all through.
He stretched out his arms and imagined himself wrapped in dancing flames, and laughed as the cloak morphed, instantly. Too bad nobody could see him, this had to look spectacular. They would see him soon, though.
He itched to shift somewhere else and do something, to try it out, but even he realized he probably needed to test it out a bit first. The Professor had said a lot about the cloak and about what Kafrim could expect, but most of that could wait. There were only three really important things. Kafrim looked around to find a large rock or something else that he couldn¡¯t see around, so he could try the cloak properly.
There wasn¡¯t anything, of course - he¡¯d chosen his retreat world with care, so there would be no risk of crashing into anything. No matter, he shrugged, he¡¯d just have to go somewhere else.
If, that was, he could manage simply to stand up. The thing was heavy.
An hour later, he was getting the hang of it. He was in something called the badlands of Dakota, in a cartoon world. He didn¡¯t really like cartoon worlds, since they made him look stupid and they were usually even sillier than books or games. It had been the first thing to come to mind when he tried to think of a good labyrinthine place, and so here he was.
The cloak was ridiculously easy to use, for something so powerful. All he really had to do was imagine what he wanted to, in something like the same way he did his shift-out twist. Except the cloak twisted space-time directly.
The first thing he¡¯d figured out was how to reduce the crushing weight of the thing. That was just another space-time twist, of course, and after a couple of tries, which sent him a couple of meters into the air, he had a good sense of how it worked. He made a mental note of that ¨C did that mean he could fly now? That could come in handy too at some point.
He¡¯d found a quiet place out of the way of the main action, just at the edge of the cartoonist¡¯s imagination. The place was in two levels, with big mushroom-like rocks with flat tops rising out of a flat, sandy landscape. All he needed was the rocks, and they¡¯d done their job.
It was good he¡¯d practiced, he thought, since the first time he tried to step through a portal he nearly sliced his head off. It was easy enough to bend space and make an opening to look through, and he thought he¡¯d figured out how to make it one-way.
That was hard to tell without someone else to verify it, but he¡¯d made a space-time window looking at a rock to his right, and thrown pebbles until one of them bounced on the rock, and then bounced on the window.
If he made it slightly different, the pebble went straight through. That was the second thing he wanted, and he quickly figured out how to make it small or large as needed. It didn¡¯t even take much effort. It did take some effort to keep it from wobbling at the edges, and that was where he nearly killed himself.
He¡¯d made a portal to step around to the other side of the rock, and just as he took the step, the whole thing wobbled badly and shrunk at the top. He ducked, but felt it graze his head. He pulled his hand up in automatic instinct, and then stared at his glove. The top of the fingers of the glove had been sliced clean off.
Some more experimentation established that the edges of the portal were razor-sharp, or worse - they cut a pebble in two without even slowing it down. The Professor hadn¡¯t mentioned that... but Kafrim decided not to hold it against him. That¡¯s what tests were for - and that was also why tests were better done live and in game worlds, where you could respawn if you managed to get yourself killed.
It wouldn¡¯t do to pull off a stunt like this and then get yourself permanently killed in a forgotten corner of a forgotten world five minutes later. No, if Kafrim were to get himself killed it would be in a more spectacular fashion, and while doing something interesting.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
He looked around and decided he¡¯d spent enough time here. Time to try it out for real. He smiled as he closed his eyes and shifted out.
He opened his eyes right where he¡¯d planned, in one corner of a square. This was Terenze, a vaguely twentieth-century Italian-ish city in an assassin-themed game. He¡¯d played the game through - it was fun and pretty challenging. It even had an impossible task, which wasn¡¯t that common in games. At least, he thought it was impossible. He¡¯d never succeeded, even after he¡¯d started building his time skills. But now, he had the Hollow God¡¯s cloak.
Kafrim shifted up and began jogging along the southern boulevard, towards baron Mancini¡¯s villa. It didn¡¯t take him long, even lightly shifted. The game was more focused on game play than realism, so the distances weren¡¯t too great. Soon enough, he stood inside a large shrub just outside the fence.
This was the obvious hideout, but he¡¯d never been discovered here. He would just have to hope no actual player showed up.
Right. He¡¯d been inside the villa twice, and managed to search most of the first floor and basement before getting caught. There had been no sign of the necklace, and so it had to be on the second floor. Unless it was hidden in the walls or something. That wouldn¡¯t help the baron this time.
Kafrim whistled to himself as he reached out and opened a window into the second floor of the villa. As he¡¯d found in the cartoon badlands, it was trivial to open, but not trivial to make sense of the weird slithering feeling as he searched for where to open it.
He would have to talk to the Professor about that, and about the icky sticky feeling all over his body. It was probably normal. Probably. The Professor had warned him that the cloak would probably feel like a second skin. Maybe this was what his own skin felt like on the inside too, except he was used to it and didn¡¯t feel the wet stickiness.
Anyway. Back to work. He opened a small window, and chortled as he looked straight into the main hallway down the middle of the villa. Somebody turned a corner at the far end and disappeared from view. Good, good. All clear. He opened a portal rather than a window, and stepped into the hallway.
How convenient, he thought, as he moved down the hallway and opened windows into the different rooms. This would make his life ever so much easier. He moved through the rooms at leisure, but found nothing interesting except for a maid dusting paintings in one room and another maid collecting lingerie from the floor in what looked like a large bedroom.
He shook his head at that, and realized he might very well happen to look into somebody¡¯s secret meeting with their lover, if he did this at the wrong time. Then he laughed, as he realized he could probably charge quite a lot of money for that. Good to know, if the thievery stopped paying.
But no necklace. He¡¯d expected that. The baron wouldn¡¯t keep it right out in the open, but he wouldn¡¯t keep it hidden in some completely inaccessible location. In fact, he would probably keep it somewhere very easily accessible... such as near where he took his lovers and mistresses.
Kafrim checked back in the bedroom. The maid was still there, and he grunted in annoyance. And then laughed, again, as he remembered he wasn¡¯t there and didn¡¯t have to stay hidden from her.
He scanned around the room, and saw the huge painting hanging on the wall opposite the bed. Aha, he thought. That¡¯s where he keeps it. He moved his window closer, and saw the carefully hidden hinges on one end of the painting.
Careful now, he thought - the windows were portals too, and he didn¡¯t want to slice a big hole in the painting. He could sense it easily enough, with the slither-sense, and could sense the empty space behind it. And then - yes. He opened a window, and another, and saw the jewelry holders mounted on the wall inside the hidden space. And there it was. The diamond necklace.
Kafrim had seen it in the game, of course, when the baroness rode past him right in the beginning of the game, wearing it. It was a twirling gold chain with a very large, very shiny diamond on it.
It would be worth a fortune, in this and other worlds, but he had another use in mind for it.
The maid was still busy, but he thought he could do it without alerting her. It should be possible to open just a small portal, right behind the painting...
The space was small, with just a few centimeters between the painting and the necklace, but he took it slowly and practiced in front of the armband mounted next to the necklace. Then he opened the real portal... and reached in and simply lifted the necklace from its holder.
He laughed out loud as he pulled it through the portal and closed it. So easy! So very easy! Almost too easy, for a competent master-thief as him. Still, he wouldn¡¯t complain. He grinned from ear to ear as he put the necklace in a pocket, opened a portal, and stepped out of the villa, into the street next to the shrubbery.
He jumped backwards, instantly, as a huge horse-drawn carriage thundered past, exactly in front of him. It had very nearly run him over, and the horses¡¯ hooves would have trampled him to death. His luck with vehicles had saved him again, and he laughed to himself as he closed his eyes and shifted out from right inside the shrubbery.
He opened his eyes again on the square in the faux-medieval town. It was dusk, again. One of the peculiarities of his shifting ability: he couldn¡¯t really control it in either time or space, and usually ended up where and when the world wanted him to appear. Most often that was at the start of the game or book.
No matter. He was where he wanted to be, and began walking purposefully across the square, towards the Daft Craftsman.
As he¡¯d hoped, Hannah was there, behind the bar.
¡°Kaf!¡± she shouted as she saw him. ¡°Come here!¡± She was filling beer mugs, as usual, but she waved frantically.
He grinned at her as he sauntered over to the bar.
¡°Kaf,¡± she said, and gave him a worried smile. ¡°Are you okay? Are you... you?¡±
¡°Yep,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m me, and I am officially the greatest thief in all the worlds.¡±
She squinted at him. ¡°So - you did it?¡±
¡°Of course I did,¡± he said. ¡°I said I would. Have I ever broken my word?¡±
She shook her head and murmured something inaudible. ¡°The Hollow God was here,¡± she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. ¡°Except he looked like you. I thought he was you,¡± she said, her face reddening slightly.
He frowned at her. ¡°He was here? When?¡±
¡°A few hours ago. He came in looking like you and talking to people, and then all of a sudden he was - himself. Right in here. And really, really angry. He demanded to know where you were, and threatened to consume this whole world it we didn¡¯t help him find you.¡±
¡°Okay,¡± Kafrim said slowly. That didn¡¯t sound good. Although he¡¯d sort of expected the Hollow God would be angry. If he survived - the Professor had said there was a real chance he wouldn¡¯t. Kafrim hadn¡¯t believed that. He¡¯d thought the guy would respawn, but hopefully without his cloak. No such luck, apparently.
¡°Okay,¡± he said, more brightly. ¡°I¡¯ll deal with him later. Right now, I want to deal with you.¡±
¡°You want a beer?¡± she said. ¡°That¡¯s six shilling, mister.¡±
¡°Nope. I want to take you out for dinner,¡± he said, and grinned as she gave him an exasperated look.
¡°I¡¯m working, Kaf.¡±
¡°Yeah yeah, but Belonde can do that, can¡¯t she? It doesn¡¯t look too busy anyway.¡± He looked around the pub, which was really rather quiet. ¡°I know this place at the top of a skyscraper in Hamerza, where they have good seafood and where the owner owes me a favor.¡±
A big one, since he¡¯d have been shipped away to a labor camp for dealings with the mafia if Kafrim hadn¡¯t saved him. He had repaid some of it, but Kafrim reckoned one or two more six-course dinners could be wrought out of him.
¡°Belonde¡¯s left. She took off with that guy she met. Said she wanted adventure.¡± Hannah kept one eye on the mugs, but glanced at him.
He shrugged. ¡°I hear some girls are like that.¡±
She snorted. ¡°And some boys. But¡¡± She trailed off, watching the slowly filling mugs.
¡°Cath is over there, and Mari is in the back and will start working soon. They can run the place without me. If you really did it and aren¡¯t just bragging again...¡± She finished pouring the mugs and looked at him, challenging him.
¡°I did,¡± he confirmed. ¡°And I will prove it to you. If you will come with me.¡±
She looked at him for a long time, but when a slow smile spread across her face, he knew she was coming.
The Hollow God Ch. 5 - Immortality Is A Myth
They sat in a quiet corner of the rooftop terrace, with all of Hamerza glittering below them. Dusk was giving way to night, while small ruby-red birds fluttered between the tables, sparkling in blue and gold with each wing beat. Kafrim leaned back in his chair and twirled his glass between his fingers.
Hannah sat across from him, looking happy and content. She regarded him with an ironic smile.
¡°Is this your new life style?¡± she asked. ¡°Dining with the glitterati?¡±
¡°Glitterati?¡± he said. ¡°Have you seen yourself in a mirror?¡±
She picked a crumb from her dessert off her plate, and threw it at his head. One of the small birds darted up and took it, pecking it his head with its sharp beak as it did so.
¡°Ow!¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s cheating. Have you lost your sharp tongue?¡±
¡°Sharp beak, sharp tongue, same difference,¡± she said, but her smile was warmer. ¡°I might have looked less out of place if you¡¯d allowed me to go home and change,¡± she pointed out.
He shrugged. ¡°You look good as you are,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m not very fancy either.¡± He glanced down at his combat trousers, and formed an image in his mind. The trousers vanished, replaced by glittering gold pants.
Hannah laughed. ¡°The cloak suits you better than I thought, Kaf. Stylish and cool to the eye, but rough and worn beneath.¡±
¡°Hey,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m not worn!¡±
She stuck out her tongue at him. ¡°Thanks for taking me here,¡± she said, looking out over the sprawling city around them. ¡°This is a beautiful place.¡±
¡°It is,¡± he said. ¡°And they have really good food.¡±
¡°Some of the best fish I¡¯ve ever had,¡± she said. ¡°And now?¡±
¡°You just can¡¯t sit still for long, can you?¡± he said. ¡°I haven¡¯t made any detailed plans,¡± he lied, ¡°but if you¡¯d like, we could go to a place I know and watch the moon rise over the ocean.¡±
¡°You said this wasn¡¯t a date,¡± she said, but her eyes twinkled. ¡°But... I¡¯m sorry Kaf. I can¡¯t relax that much. I¡¯m worried about the Hollow God.¡± She¡¯d glanced around and lowered her voice.
¡°I said I¡¯ll go see him tomorrow. If he¡¯s running around like you said, he¡¯s not hurt.¡±
¡°Mm,¡± she said.
¡°Okay,¡± Kafrim said. ¡°I¡¯ll take you home then. Is that good?¡±
¡°That¡¯s good,¡± she said softly, and looked away, then back. ¡°Like I said, Belonde moved out.¡±
¡°Yeah, you said that,¡± he began, and then tried to push his eyebrows back down. They¡¯d started climbing as he realized what she was saying.
¡°Two days ago. She left with that guy she¡¯s been seeing, so the other room is empty.¡±
¡°I see,¡± he said, although he didn¡¯t, not quite. ¡°I got you something,¡± he said, and reached down to fish out the necklace.
She gasped when he held it out. ¡°Kafrim! That¡¯s... where did you get that? You didn¡¯t buy it, did you?¡± Her tone was suspicious, but she stared at the necklace with unabashed desire.
¡°If I wanted to buy stuff I¡¯d have stolen the Hollow God¡¯s money machine in his basement,¡± Kafrim said. ¡°Nobody will miss it.¡± The necklace would be replaced by the game at some point. Heck, it might already have been.
She held it up and stared at it, lips parted in delight. He grinned at her. ¡°Put it on,¡± he said.
¡°No,¡± she said and sighed.
¡°What?¡± he said. ¡°Put it on!¡±
¡°No,¡± she said again. ¡°I can¡¯t. I can¡¯t wear something like this.¡± She ran her fingers along the chain and shook her head slightly. ¡°It¡¯s too beautiful.¡±
¡°Then it suits you,¡± he tried, but she shook her head more firmly.
¡°No, Kaf,¡± she said. ¡°Thank you, but... I¡¯m a simple girl. I¡¯m not beautiful, I¡¯m not glamorous, I¡¯m not... this looks like it belongs on a princess. I¡¯d look like someone threw this out the window and it landed on a pile of trash.¡±
He stared at her, open mouthed, but she laughed and held it up again.
¡°No, I can¡¯t wear it,¡± she said, in a tone that brooked no argument. ¡°But I might find some use for it. You¡¯re sure it¡¯s for me?¡±
¡°Of course,¡± he said, completely confused.
¡°Then I¡¯ll keep it,¡± she beamed. ¡°It¡¯s so pretty.¡± She held it up, making lights sparkle from the stone. A small bird flew near to see what was glittering, and she swung the diamond towards it. Then she held it still and peered through it, at Kafrim.
¡°It¡¯s amazing,¡± she said, and trailed off. ¡°Hey.¡± Her tone was suddenly worried. ¡°Why are you blue?¡±
They stood in a dark alley down on the street, and there was no question about it. He was blue. His whole body shone softly, in an eerie, otherworldly blue light.
¡°I have no idea what this is,¡± he said, as he looked at his fingers. The light wasn¡¯t strong to see by, at least not yet.
¡°It can¡¯t be good,¡± Hannah said. She looked scared, which annoyed Kafrim. He wasn¡¯t scared. Sure, this was unexpected and very strange, but - he was a professional thief and adventurer. He ate unexpected and strange, and slightly scary, for breakfast.
¡°It¡¯ll help in dark places,¡± he said, flashing a smile at her. She did not smile back.
¡°Kaf,¡± she said, quietly. ¡°I know this is all very exciting to you, but I¡¯m - I¡¯m scared. You didn¡¯t see the Hollow God. He looked exactly like you.¡± She looked away. ¡°He didn¡¯t walk like you, though. That¡¯s how I recognized you. But - he eats people, you know.¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± he said. ¡°People, and things.¡±
¡°Will you do that to?¡±
¡°Eat people?! No! Ew! Come on, Hannah! I won¡¯t eat anyone.¡±
¡°What if you can¡¯t help it?¡± she said. ¡°What if it¡¯s the cloak? You don¡¯t know how it works,¡± she said. ¡°You didn¡¯t know about this light.¡±
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
¡°No, but... ah, heck. I get it. I¡¯m sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to scare you. I¡¯m not going to hurt you, or anyone else. You know me. I only steal from those who can take it.¡±
She shrugged. ¡°Maybe he started out with high ideals too.¡±
¡°Dammit!¡± he burst out.
¡°It¡¯s just a surprise, that¡¯s all. I¡¯ll figure it out. Come on,¡± he said, holding out his hand. ¡°I¡¯ll take you home. Than I¡¯ll go see the Professor.¡±
She didn¡¯t reply, but she took his hand and stepped in close, and he held her hand firmly as he closed his eyes and shifted them out.
The Professor¡¯s door was almost-closed like usual, and there was light coming from within. Good thing the Professor rarely traveled.
¡°Come in,¡± he shouted from inside.
The man was sitting in his computer room, at his rickety old computer. Kafrim had found it for him, in an old game teaching computer stuff. He found newer, better stuff too, but none of that would work in the magical part of this world. It would probably work down in the high-tech levels, but the Professor wasn¡¯t interested in moving down there.
Therefore he sat with his big old lumbering computer, with a weird old display that flickered green and could just barely run any kind of graphical stuff. The Professor preferred typing commands, he claimed.
¡°Kafrim!¡± the Professor said and looked up. ¡°You¡¯re back! If you are. Are you?¡±
¡°What do you do if I say no?¡± Kafrim said and sat in an old office chair. ¡°But yeah, I am. I¡¯m me. And I got the cloak.¡±
The Professor nodded. ¡°I thought so. I heard the Hollow God was here, and was really angry that you stole his cloak.¡±
¡°I heard that too,¡± Kafrim sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll go talk to him. I need your help first, though. Can you turn off the light?¡±
The Professor looked surprised, but rose and blew out the lamp hanging in the middle of the room. In the darkness, the blue glow coming from Kafrim was clearly visible.
¡°What¡¯s that?¡± the Professor said, his voice fascinated.
¡°I hoped you could tell me that,¡± Kafrim answered.
Unfortunately, the Professor had never heard about anything like this, but he dropped whatever else he was doing for this interesting mystery. He lit the lamp again and got some strange instrument. Then he blew the lamp out and tried to measure whatever the instrument measured.
¡°Huh,¡± he said, lit the lamp, and went to get another instrument. He continued like this until he¡¯d tried five or six things, and finally admitted that he couldn¡¯t detect anything strange about it.
¡°It¡¯s just light,¡± he complained. ¡°How boring.¡±
¡°Not when it¡¯s coming from me,¡± Kafrim retorted. ¡°I wasn¡¯t supposed to turn blue, was I? How can there even be a light from the cloak? You said it was a black hole something, not a light hole!¡±
¡°Event horizon,¡± the Professor corrected. ¡°It¡¯s made from an event horizon, in the game.¡± He pointed to the computer. ¡°I found the manual for the game yesterday,¡± he said happily.
¡°Great,¡± Kafrim said. ¡°Does it say anything about blue light?¡±
¡°No,¡± the Professor said. ¡°It just says some vague and scary stuff about the Hollow God, and mentions his cloak is made from....¡± He trailed off, frowning deeply. ¡°Hmmm,¡± he said. ¡°I wonder...¡± He moved over to the computer and began typing.
Kafrim controlled his irritation and waited. He knew the Professor had to be left alone when he got ideas like this, but it still annoyed him.
¡°Ha,¡± the Professor said after a while. ¡°It¡¯s almost right, but not quite.¡±
¡°What isn¡¯t?¡±
¡°Cherenkov radiation,¡± the Professor said, absentmindedly. He was still scrolling through text on the screen. ¡°The blue color reminded me of that, but that¡¯s from nuclear radiation. Although...¡± He fell silent.
¡°Black holes leak, though,¡± the Professor said after another while. ¡°It¡¯s called Hawking radiation, but it doesn¡¯t say it¡¯s blue.¡± He gestured at the screen.
¡°Leak?¡± Kafrim said. ¡°I thought they absorbed everything.¡±
¡°Well, they do. Kind of. But they leak too. A little, but over time, it seems they evaporate completely. If they don¡¯t get enough stuff to feed on, so to speak.¡±
¡°Evaporate?¡± Kafrim said, alarmed. ¡°What does that mean for me? This cloak - what is it, exactly? Is it a black hole?¡± Am I a wearing black hole? The thought was so ludicrous he nearly laughed out loud.
¡°Kafrim,¡± the Professor said, wagging his finger at him. ¡°You know I don¡¯t know the answer to that. We talked about it.¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± Kafrim said reluctantly. They had talked about it, and the Professor had been very annoyingly clear that all he could do was make best guesses. No certainties.
¡°I really don¡¯t know,¡± the Professor said. ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone does. Except maybe¡¡±
¡°The Hollow God,¡± Kafrim said. The Professor nodded.
Kafrim was in no mood whatsoever to run through the jungle, so once he¡¯d left the Professor¡¯s house he concentrated on the great doors leading into the courtyard at the Hollow God¡¯s keep. He¡¯d been there once, so he could visualize them, and then let his mind slither through space-time, until... there.
He couldn¡¯t describe it, but he folded the world, folded until it was here, and shaped the fold into a round opening. Then he stepped through.
The double doors rose above him, ten meters tall or more. The Hollow God liked big things. Big ego, big things, Kafrim thought sourly. He wasn¡¯t really scared, but he was a bit peeved that his grand triumph had been warped like this. Blue light, really.
He didn¡¯t think he¡¯d get far, and he didn¡¯t. He¡¯d taken two steps and wondered if he would have to find his way inside the keep by using windows and portals, when he felt the world fold, and a portal appeared right in front of him. The Hollow God waited for him on the other side. Kafrim stepped through.
The god didn¡¯t speak. He was sitting on a throne made of something glass-like, which shone faintly with the same kind of blue light. Kafrim walked up to it and looked up at the god.
¡°So,¡± the Hollow God said, ¡°you came back.¡±
¡°I have some questions,¡± Kafrim said. He wasn¡¯t in the mood for small talk.
¡°Which you think I can answer. Or want to, after what you did.¡± The Hollow God leaned forward. His eyes were large and pitch black.
¡°Do you know how much that hurt?¡±
¡°No,¡± Kafrim said. ¡°I thought I was just taking your cloak.¡±
The Hollow God sat back up and snorted. ¡°You¡¯ll find out,¡± he said.
¡°Are you threatening me?¡± Kafrim said.
¡°No,¡± the god said. ¡°You¡¯re safe from me. I will admit I was angry for a while, after I respawned, but it passed. It was actually a very cheeky theft. I like that.¡±
¡°Respawned?¡± Kafrim said. ¡°You died?¡±
¡°Of course I died! You took my skin away!¡±
Kafrim stared. Oh. So that sticky feeling, like the cloak was glued on, wasn¡¯t far wrong...
¡°No matter,¡± the Hollow God continued. ¡°I will say this. I have no idea what happens if we fight. If we both try to rip up space-time at the same time -¡± the god shrugged. ¡°Perhaps we rip up all of it. All the worlds. If we touch each other, do we try to absorb each other, and collapse into nothing? I don¡¯t know.¡±
¡°I see,¡± Kafrim said, slowly. It sounded strange, but good. If it meant he was safe.
¡°I was going to ask about the light.¡± He nodded at the throne, with its faint blue light.
¡°Yes,¡± the Hollow God chuckled. ¡°The blue light.¡±
¡°Yeah. What is it?¡±
¡°It¡¯s you,¡± the god replied. ¡°Leaking away.¡±
¡°What?¡± Kafrim said, despite himself. It couldn¡¯t be true...
¡°The cloak is made from a black hole. That¡¯s what gives it its powers. Black holes leak. So does the cloak. So do you, now.¡±
¡°But¡¡±
¡°It¡¯s slow, but you¡¯ll leak away in about five hundred years. If you don¡¯t consume anything before that.¡± The Hollow God leaned back and regarded him coolly, with those black eyes.
Kafrim stared back at him, thinking furiously. Five hundred years was a long time - but not when you had expected to become immortal.
¡°I had hoped to live forever, actually,¡± he said.
The Hollow God threw his head back and laughed. ¡°Live forever,¡± he said, wiping tears from his eyes. ¡°Immortality is a myth. Boy.¡±
Kafrim almost snapped at him, but stopped himself. ¡°I don¡¯t believe that.¡±
¡°Suit yourself,¡± the god said. ¡°You¡¯ll keep shining at night. It¡¯s very hard to hide, even with the cloak. And you won¡¯t age while you wear it, but you¡¯ll leak.¡± The god leaned forward again, his face intent. ¡°There are only two things you can do about it. One, replenish the black hole. I¡¯m not talking about food. I¡¯m talking about absorbing things. Living things.¡±
Kafrim grimaced, but the god continued. ¡°Two, you might not have to do that. If you can find the right wavelength. Then you can replenish the black hole with light instead.¡± The god rose from his throne and gestured towards it. ¡°If you find the right light, tell me. I¡¯ve been trying for two thousand years. This is close, but not quite.¡±
Kafrim shook his head in dismay. This was... not what he¡¯d wanted. The windows and portals were good, and the illusion-making, but - he couldn¡¯t go around eating people. Or things.
¡°There has to be something else,¡± he said. Although it would make a good research project for the Professor.
¡°Perhaps,¡± the Hollow God said. ¡°If you find something, tell me.¡±
Kafrim frowned deeply. ¡°I have some more questions,¡± he said.
¡°Even after you didn¡¯t like the answer to your first one?¡± The Hollow God shook his head. ¡°Okay, two more. Then - get out.¡±
¡°I was going to ask why you eat people,¡± Kafrim said, ¡°but you told me that. What¡¯s it like when you do? And - are you a game character?¡±
¡°I can¡¯t answer the first,¡± the Hollow God. ¡°You¡¯ll have to try it. I can¡¯t describe it. For the second - I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve been here for a long time. I don¡¯t remember how it started.¡±
¡°But,¡± Kafrim said. The Hollow God cut him off.
¡°Two questions,¡± he said. ¡°Now get out.¡± Kafrim felt a portal open behind him, but he had no desire to be sent somewhere. He needed to go somewhere quiet, to think.
¡°Thanks,¡± he said, closed his eyes, and shifted out.
The Hollow God Ch. 6 - An Apple A Day
Kafrim sat on a hill overlooking an ocean, brooding. He didn¡¯t like what the Hollow God had told him, not one bit. Sure, the main reasons he¡¯d wanted the cloak was to be able to go anywhere and see anything, and those he had, but not at any price. Not at any price at all, honestly - he was a thief, the whole point was that he didn¡¯t pay.
The Professor might be able to do something, of course. Although if the Hollow God with all his powers hadn¡¯t been able to find the right wavelength... He¡¯d ask him, he¡¯d decided. There had to be something else, but so far, it eluded him.
He looked out over the ocean and made a face. So close. He¡¯d almost done it. Just one small problem left to fix.
He¡¯d thought about physics, as as he knew anything about it. It had taken him about five minutes to exhaust the subject - it bored him to tears. Then he¡¯d thought about other people who knew physics. And who knew physics in the post-Event world. That was a very short list. Then he¡¯d thought about eating things. He might be able to stand it if he only fed small, ugly things to the cloak, instead of people or kittens and bunnies. But ¨C yuck.
All this in order to get something he hadn¡¯t been all that keen on anyway. He¡¯d really been after the teleportation ability, and that nifty trick of looking at anything, anywhere. Immortality had seemed like a nice bonus. He snorted.
Immortality is a myth, the Hollow God had said. Kafrim had never really thought about it before - he¡¯d just heard the Hollow God was ancient beyond measure, in some versions, and truly immortal in other.
In one sense everyone was, in a game world where they just respawned when they died. Too bad he didn¡¯t have any real immortal gods to talk to.
The memory returned from wherever forgotten memories go, with such force that he slapped himself on the forehead. Of course! He did know an immortal god. Goddess, rather. He hoped she wasn¡¯t angry with him any more - but come on, it had been more than ten years. And besides, she was a goddess of love. And war, but he decided to ignore that.
Yes, a visit to Valhalla was definitely in order, to see Freya again.
When he opened his eyes he was standing in front of two huge golden doors, in the middle of a wooden palisade stretching as far as his eye could see to either side.
He shuddered at the memory of his last visit to Valhalla, when Freya had dragged him through those doors and into Odin¡¯s hall. All because of a misunderstanding, as he¡¯d explained. The only one who had seemed to understand was Loki, sitting to one side and laughing to himself the whole time.
There should be no need to go there, he knew where she lived. He shifted up, just as the guards noticed him, and began jogging across the flat grassland outside the walls, into the forest beyond. There was no need to speed up for protection here, just to make the journey less tedious, so he kept himself to a comfortable shift factor and watched the scenery as it sped past.
The forest became steadily more pleasant, with huge oak and beech trees ringing meadow glades with buzzing bees and singing birds. That was Freya¡¯s work, according to herself, and Kafrim smiled as he remembered a picnic with the goddess in one such glade. It had been pleasant, and just before the unfortunate misunderstanding.
He plunged down a steep beech-covered slope, and entered Freya¡¯s valley. He turned right and followed the little brook, and very soon he arrived at her deceptively plain-looking house. She¡¯d sighed when he asked her about it, and said it had taken quite a bit of work to get the cartoonist¡¯s ideas to match up with mythology.
The goddess of love and war was standing outside the house, with butterflies and birds surrounding her. She seemed to be talking to a bird, but she glanced towards Kafrim even before he shifted down. He stopped in his tracks and just stared at her. She took his breath away, as always. Like she did with everyone.
It wouldn¡¯t do to forget that despite her beauty she was a goddess, with all that entailed. So start with manners. He shifted down, and was happy he¡¯d stopped just outside the border to her plot.
¡°Kafrim!¡± she called out, with a delighted look that made him weak in the knees. ¡°I¡¯m just talking...¡± she trailed off and her eyes narrowed. Then she murmured something to the bird, which cawed and flew off. A raven, he saw, one of Odin¡¯s birds.
¡°You!¡± she said and drew herself up to her full height. She did not look delighted in the least. Her eyes blazed and she stared at him in fury. ¡°Odin told you not to come back here. I just told him you defied him.¡±
¡°Uh,¡± Kafrim said, confused. ¡°It¡¯s me, Kafrim. Odin never said anything like that. I know we had some misunderstandings, but he said it was none of his business.¡±
She walked slowly towards him, her golden hair streaming behind her, and her hands flexing, like claws. Behind her, large black cats jumped out of the windows of the little house. He noticed that the sky had clouded over and was darkening quickly. He hoped that did not mean what it looked like, that Thor was on the way.
¡°Prove it,¡± she hissed. ¡°If you can. Or we will tear you apart. Here, in our world. Not in yours.¡±
Kafrim found himself backing away, trying to think. What had gotten into her? This was completely crazy. The cats had begun circling him, which vividly brought back an extremely uncomfortable memory from last time.
Freya had decided to put a sick and suffering deer out of its misery, with the help of her cats. It had been quick, and left very little of the deer intact. Even before the cats started feeding.
¡°How do you want me to prove it? What would be good enough for you?¡± he tried, fishing desperately for some hint of who she thought he was.
¡°That¡¯s your problem,¡± she said, her voice still hissing like a cat¡¯s. ¡°If you¡¯ve consumed Kafrim you have his memories, so I won¡¯t trust anything you say about our previous meetings.¡±
She thinks I¡¯m the Hollow God, he realized. But how? Perhaps she could sense the cloak somehow.
¡°Give me a chance to do it at least!¡± he said, trying to track what must be more than a hundred cats spreading out around him. Two hundred. ¡°Don¡¯t attack me!¡±
The cats stopped getting closer, but were still circling him in multiple circles, silently, like shadows of death. The goddess stood a few meters away, her eyes still burning with anger and long, sharp claws arcing out from her fingers. Above her, in the sky, the first faint rumblings of thunder rolled.
¡°I am Kafrim!¡± he said. ¡°I really am. You think I am the Hollow God, right?¡±
She didn¡¯t reply, or move, but he saw a tiny shift in her eyes that took as assent.
¡°I¡¯m not,¡± he continued, ¡°I just have his cloak. I stole it from him.¡± I¡¯m a thief you know, he almost added, but it might not be so smart to remind her of that just now. ¡°You must be able to tell us apart, can¡¯t you? You can see into people¡¯s heart.¡± She¡¯d said so, herself.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Freya smiled in response, a horribly sharp smile with lots of teeth. ¡°So I can,¡± she said. ¡°And you know what happens if you try to absorb me.¡±
¡°I wouldn¡¯t dream of it,¡± he protested, but he couldn¡¯t help wonder. Exactly what was the history between Freya and The Hollow God?
¡°Good,¡± she said and stepped closer, holding out her hands with those terrible claws. ¡°Listen. Thor is here now. You know what he can do, too.¡± Thunder rolled across the sky, from horizon to horizon.
Kafrim gulped as she put her palms on his cheeks. She was so close he could feel her breath, but there was nothing romantic about the situation. Her eyes blazed yellow, like a cat, and he could feel the tension in her body, as if she was poised to rip him apart.
Instead, she sent fire through her hands and into his face. He screamed, before he realized it wasn¡¯t actual fire, it just felt like it. He shut his mouth as he saw the goddess smile again, but with at least a hint of amusement this time.
¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°I can sense your heart. And I recognize it.¡± She let go of his head and took several steps back. Kafrim reached up to touch his cheek, where the skin still burned. He grimaced.
¡°Was that really necessary?¡± he muttered. He had a distinct memory of her looking into his heart with a soft, tender touch.
¡°It wasn¡¯t my intent to hurt you,¡± she said, shrugging. ¡°I think it¡¯s that cloak. It feels really icky.¡±
¡°But you trust that I am me now?¡±
She nodded. Just then a wooden chariot swept down from the sky, drawn by two ferocious-looking goats. The god of thunder stood in back, and looked questioningly at Freya. She shook her head.
¡°It¡¯s just Kafrim,¡± she said. ¡°The mortal that tried to steal my bird cloak some time back.¡±
¡°I remember,¡± Thor rumbled and grinned at Kafrim. ¡°So you dare to come back. With another cloak this time, I take it?¡± This last was directed at Freya, who nodded.
¡°I believe there is a tale to be told here,¡± she said, ¡°but not here and now. I did not think it was possible to steal it from the Hollow God.¡±
¡°It wasn¡¯t, for anyone but me,¡± Kafrim said modestly.
¡°Why did you return?¡± she asked him. ¡°I haven¡¯t forgotten what you did, or tried to do.¡±
¡°I need your help,¡± Kafrim said bluntly. ¡°I stole this cloak, and then I found out it will kill me if I don¡¯t do what the Hollow God does and eat people. Which I won¡¯t do,¡± he added as her face darkened. ¡°I came here because I want to know the secret to your immortality.¡±
¡°Immortality?¡± she said, and glanced at Thor. ¡°We¡¯re not immortal.¡±
¡°What?¡± Kafrim said. ¡°I thought you had eternal youth.¡±
¡°We do, but we¡¯re not immortal. Haven¡¯t you heard of Ragnar?k?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± Kafrim said.
¡°Most of us will die there.¡± She shrugged. ¡°The world itself will die. Everything dies, sooner or later.¡±
He stared at her.
¡°Immortality is a myth,¡± Thor snorted. ¡°A children¡¯s tale, that makes people slow and comfortable.¡±
¡°But...¡± Kafrim said.
¡°Oh Kafrim,¡± Freya said and shook her head. ¡°You have much to learn. But you will need to learn it, if you¡¯re going to be a god now.¡±
¡°If I¡¯m going...¡± His head was spinning. This was even less what he¡¯d wanted. He wasn¡¯t going to be a god, no way.
¡°How quickly does it kill you?¡± Thor said. ¡°We might convince Idun to give you an apple or two if it¡¯s happening quickly.¡±
He almost said no, there were plenty of time. Then he changed his mind.
¡°I would really appreciate that,¡± he said. He had no idea how these apples would work with the cloak, but what if they did?
¡°Let¡¯s go see her,¡± Thor said, and gestured for Kafrim and Freya to follow her up on the chariot. As Freya stepped onboard, she waved her hands, scattering the cats. Her hands were back to normal, Kafrim noticed.
He¡¯d never flown with Thor before, and it was exhilarating and completely insane. The goats couldn¡¯t be more than half goats, he thought, the rest had to be some kind of monster. They tore the chariot from the ground with a thunderous roar, and then careened through the sky like the lightning itself.
Kafrim clung to the side for dear life, until he noticed the others standing calmly and giving him amused looks. He didn¡¯t care what he looked like, he decided, better look silly onboard the chariot than be a flattened corpse on the ground.
Before he knew it, they descended again, braking more or less instantly as they landed in the middle of a large orchard. A woman was standing a few meters away with a basket full of apples.
¡°Hi Idun,¡± Thor said to her. ¡°We have a new guy here who needs an apple.¡±
¡°A new guy?¡± the goddess said and came over.
¡°Not one of us,¡± Thor added.
¡°But we¡¯ve had dealings with him before,¡± Freya said.
¡°You know we don¡¯t hand out apples to everyone,¡± Idun said, but she smiled as she said it.
¡°I know,¡± Thor said. ¡°Just one. To see what happens,¡± he added, with a glance at Kafrim.
So Thor might know more about the cloak than he let on, Kafrim realized. Well, it was more or less what he wanted to.
¡°We can spare one,¡± Idun allowed, and selected one from the basket. ¡°Here you are.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± Kafrim said and took it.
¡°If you will want more, or need more, we will need to make a deal,¡± she said.
¡°Okay,¡± Kafrim said, and bit into the apple.
And stopped, the moment his teeth sank into it. It was utterly delicious. He¡¯d never tasted anything like it. It tasted of spring, of morning and of youth and energy. It tasted like the sun itself rising over the horizon, splashing sunlight over everything.
Idun laughed at his expression. ¡°Don¡¯t eat it too fast. They are very powerful, even for us. Some have died when they eat too fast and can¡¯t handle it.¡±
Kafrim swallowed the piece he was chewing on, and looked around the god and goddesses. He felt dazed, but happy. Very happy.
¡°Wow,¡± he managed.
¡°Is it okay if I touch you?¡± Freya said. ¡°It won¡¯t hurt this time. Not as much, at least.¡±
¡°Yeah yeah, sure!¡± Kafrim felt light-headed, and of course he would let the goddess of love touch him!
She reached out with a finger and touched his forehead, just a light touch. It sent tingles of joy through him and he laughed out loud.
¡°Yes,¡± Freya said. ¡°It is doing good.¡±
¡°Good,¡± Thor said. ¡°Then I need to go. But I want to meet you again later,¡± he said to Kafrim. ¡°Drop by Valhalla some evening.¡±
¡°I will,¡± Kafrim said and waved as the thunder god shot into the air again.
¡°And I want to know what¡¯s going on,¡± Idun said, to Freya.
¡°I¡¯ll tell you,¡± Freya said, ¡°but there is another tale that Kafrim here needs to tell.¡± She reached out and rapped her hand on his shoulder. ¡°Do what Thor said. Come to Valhalla some night, and tell us.¡±
He nodded happily. The effect of the apple was still sinking in, and he felt drunk. Drunk on life.
Freya regarded him with an amused smile. ¡°I think it¡¯s best if you stay here while you eat the apple. Walk around a bit, that¡¯s good for digestion. I¡¯ll fill Idun in on who you are and what I know. Don¡¯t leave, okay?¡±
¡°I won¡¯t!¡± he declared cheerfully and strode off among the apple trees.
Damn, he felt good! Apples of eternal youth, what a brilliant idea! Those would sell like hotcakes in, in all the worlds. But no - he was not even going to think about stealing one. The Aesir would not be happy at all, and he¡¯d had enough of their wrath.
Especially now that he¡¯d tasted some of their camaraderie. They¡¯d treated him almost as one of them. That was unexpectedly pleasant. Perhaps he could get used to being godlike. As long as he could still do some thieving, at least on the side.
Come to think of it, that didn¡¯t seem impossible. He should definitely go back to Valhalla some day, and have a chat with Loki while he was there.
Right now, though, all he wanted to do was munch on the apple. It was absolutely fantastic, and he felt life and vigor flow through his body and sink into his bones with each bite. And - something else. A hunger, that he hadn¡¯t even noticed before.
It wasn¡¯t physical hunger, it was different. It was more like a pull, an urge to pull things towards him and... absorb them. It was the cloak, he realized. It needed nourishment, to make up for the stuff that leaked out, and the natural thing for it was to absorb other things.
The apple seemed to sate it. The urge hadn¡¯t been strong, yet, but now it was gone completely. It would come back, sooner or later, but nothing another apple couldn¡¯t fix.
And so, finally, Kafrim relaxed, and basked in his success and triumph, as he walked beneath Idun¡¯s apple trees and munched on his apple. He sang to himself and thought about Freya and Idun and the other Aesir, and the Hollow God and his light throne.
He¡¯d simply planned on becoming an even greater thief, but now he¡¯d ended up as some sort of demi-god. Granted, he wasn¡¯t immortal, but that was apparently a myth anyway. So it didn¡¯t matter.
Mission completed, he thought happily. I knew this was a good idea, even if certain people said it wasn¡¯t. Speaking of certain people - he suddenly thought of Hannah, and her empty extra room. She hadn¡¯t offered it, not directly, but if that hadn¡¯t been an offer to move in, he was blind and deaf and dumb, too.
And, he thought, he should bring her along to Valhalla. That should be more to her taste. Yes, and then she could listen to the full heroic tale, along with the Aesir and Vanir.
First, though, he had an apple to eat.