Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

try to hide it, just stared at me, deadpan. “You’ll be swallowed up.”

“Fuck. Thanks.”

Pucky cleared her throat. I turned to see what she had to say, but instead of talking she threw her arms around me. “Kick their asses.” She kissed my cheek, then added, “When you get back, I’ll be waiting. And I want to see your skills at work.”

“I—I’m not sure if you’re talking sexually or—”

She hit me, playfully, chuckling as Nivian watched. “No, no, of course not that way.”

“You all just had an orgy,” Nivian said. “Don’t try to pretend you’re not a sex-obsessed pack of horndogs.”

Pucky blushed, glanced away, and shrugged. “Fine, that too. I’ll be looking forward to it all.”

I grinned, then turned to Arthur. “So how do I find you, if—you know. When I’m done.”

“Or about to piss your pants in fright?” He laughed. “As long as you hold Excalibur here, we’re bonded, in a sense. I’m like your spirit guide. Hold up the sword and say, ‘By the power of gra—’” He couldn’t finish, instead laughing heartily. “See, I know pop culture.”

I frowned, really having no idea what he had tried to reference.

“He Man,” Pucky explained, seeing my confusion.

“Oh, before my time,” I replied.

Arthur frowned. “Don’t pretend to be so all-knowing in the future, then. Seriously, though, if you concentrate, the sword will guide you to me.”

“Oh, like the Princess Bride!” I said, holding the sword out, closing my eyes and pretending to stumble around like Inigo Montaya when he was looking for the Man in Black. “Yeah?”

He shook his head. “No. I made my one cultural reference for the day. Just… do what I said, it’ll guide you.”

“Ah, okay.” I turned back to the mists, really wanting to delay it longer, but also eager to get my stats up so we could return to Earth and fight the gods and Legends. “I guess this is it, then.”

“Good luck,” Pucky said.

“Kick ass,” Nivian added.

Arthur simply waved, then added, “Have fun storming the castle,” and winked.

He might have been locked up here, but at least he knew his eighties culture. I’d have to ask him about that—maybe a little stint on Earth during that time?—but it could wait until I returned.

For now, I had some grinding to do.

50

Stepping into the mists had the exact feeling I’d expected it to—bone chilling unease, mixed with a thrill for the fighting to come. After what Pucky had thrown at me, I wasn’t super worried about some old Shades. So I drew Excalibur and walked on, anticipating the fight with tense muscles, breathing heavier than it needed to be.

But nothing came.

At first I was on edge, thinking they were all waiting just out of sight, about to strike at any minute. Some sort of massive Shade ambush, and that I’d been led astray by Arthur. Soon, I stopped caring, more enthralled by the sights of this place. While mostly it was hard to see anything other than the mist, at times it would give way to reveal tall hills, and—when I was lucky—even taller statues. Grand, monstrous carvings of what was at one minute marble, at another gold. They would actually change before my eyes, too, not just from one statue to the next. The perfect reminder that this wasn’t my world, and that my understanding of how the world worked meant nothing here.

I passed under one statue that showed a woman’s upper half but a snake’s sinuous body lower down, the tail wrapping around a hill full of trees. Another stood over me, so that as I passed beneath, I looked up to see its massive stone cock aimed down my way. That was disturbing, to say the least, and I had to think how horrible it would be to stand there in the rain, water cascading off of it as if the giant were peeing on you. How anyone could’ve ever carved something of this magnitude was beyond me, but then I realized they didn’t have to. This was a land of magic, after all.

For a while I walked on, finally sheathing my sword to give my arm some rest. The ground was uneven, in places giving way to small drop offs, so that I had to be careful where I was going. Another statue appeared as the mist gave way, this one like an ancient guardian looking out over the direction I was heading in. Maybe toward something in particular, but the mist didn’t allow me to see. Walking past, the mist started to cover him again, but I stared up in awe. He looked like a great king, actually, more than a guard, now that I was at an angle to make out a shape on his head that could’ve been a crown.

And when I’d walked far enough, I saw what he was actually looking at. Kneeling over a river, wings spread out behind her, was a glass sculpture of a fairy queen. I could almost imagine the light hitting her wings and sending colors cascading through, if any light ever reached this place. A thought that raised the question—had this place once been free of the mists? Arthur spoke of the mists as something to use, a training ground of sorts.

But that didn’t mean the land was better with them there, or that once this hadn’t been the most beautiful place to ever exist. It was while I was staring at the beauty of this sculpture that I felt the gust of wind that blew the mists to cover her, then the chill.

In a matter of seconds, the mist was so dense around me that I could barely see my hand when outstretched. As I looked at it, something moved out there. Darting. Fast.

“What do we have here,” a voice asked. “Walking among us?”

I spun, drawing my sword, and that’s when the first attack came. While on Earth and when visiting the spirit realm before the Shades had been mostly nebulous, formless creatures of dark, but that wasn’t the case with these