Outside Influences

Bel tapped her feet with irritation and angrily tugged at one of her snakes.

“Whoah, calm down sis. You’ll tear that thing off.”

Bel rolled her remaining eye at her brother. Her snakes hissed with mild rebuke. “This is so stupid,” she complained.

“What is?”

Bel gestured to the open air sculpture garden. “It’s going to take us another hour to leave because of this.”

James shrugged. “It’s traditional to offer prayers to your gods before you go. Just be thankful that the augurs are letting you go today rather than waiting for the seventh day of the seventh week of the month or some nonsense like that.”

One of Bel’s snakes hissed at the thought.

James shrugged. “Hey, they even built new masks for your moms. That’s not so bad, right?”

He gestured towards a corner of the room where Kjar and Lempo had been placed.

Bel sighed as she wandered over to them. Her lips twisted with disapproval when she got a closer look. Each pedestal in the room had an actor on actress on it, dressed up like a deity. Their costumes were completed with comically large clay masks of the deity, ruining any semblance of dignity. This was apparently the tradition of the Golden Plains, taking the place of the statues in Satrap.

Bel thought of the rough power of Kjar and found the whole thing insulting.

Kjar’s actress wasn’t nearly muscular enough, and her robes looked cheap in comparison to the real goddess. Also, her eyes didn’t glow.

“I can’t pray to some stranger,” Bel whispered in English.

“Just play along,” he whispered back. “People everywhere take their beliefs too seriously, and you don’t want to insult them.”

Bel stifled a grimace as she walked up to the person dressed as Kjar. “Hi auntie,” Bel said cheerfully, “I’m gonna go kill Technis, now. Wish me luck!” The actor almost sputtered when Bel glibly popped a thumbs-up gesture in her direction.

Bel snickered quietly as she moved to the Lempo pedestal, which was…

“What’s this supposed to be?”

Bel looked between the formless lump of clay and the distraught actress standing next to it. Her scaled hands were moving frantically over the mess, attempting to shove it back together. She looked up at Bel and froze, horror painted clearly across her shimmering face.

Her long tongue snaked out as she flicked the air nervously and she started hyperventilating.

“I…it…it just slipped…” She hiccuped, clearly close to tears. Well, Bel didn’t know if she was capable of tears, but she looked like she was in bad shape.

James looked at the bits of clay that had once been a mask of Lempo. He put an arm around the clearly distraught girl and led her away. “You know,” he started, “my sister has met the goddess in person, so she probably doesn’t actually need the acting, you know?”

“B–but…”

Bel ignored the girl as her brother lead her away. She felt bad, but she’d learned that she was absolutely terrible at comforting people. It didn’t help that a lot of people in the Golden Plains were scared of her after what happened with the Dark Ravager.

Bel sighed. “Well, mom, I’m off to do that stuff. I hope I’m fast enough.”

Bel glanced down at the broken mask and was surprised to see that it had reformed into a small statue of Lempo. Well, Lempo in the shape of a fanged, tentacled thing. It was still Lempo though – Bel could just tell.

“Oh, so you’re paying attention? Thanks.”

Bel stared at the currently unmoving statue. “Well, I uh, I guess you aren’t going to say anything. Your last plan worked out okay, so hopefully this one will as well. Just, um, give me enough time to finish it.”

Bel glanced at her brother. “You know, don’t get impatient and start destroying the planet. You’ll probably do whatever you want, but maybe it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Bel tilted her head. She actually had a lot that she wanted to ask her goddess-mother, but she doubted that she would get a response from the puddle of clay.

“Well, I guess that’s it. I’ll go kill Technis.”

The clay wriggled and morphed into an expressionless version of the blond woman that Ventas had kept on his desk. Her gaze was even more disconcerting than the tentacled creature. Bel gave Lempo the same thumbs up that she’d given Kjar. The goddess slowly morphed to return the gesture, but with her thumb facing down. Bel backed away slowly.

“I think I calmed her down,” James said. He stopped when he saw the statue. “What the heck is that?”

Bel glanced back and forth between her brother and the statue, afraid to look away from it for too long. “It’s Lempo,” she explained. “Her eyes are giving me the chills, and she’s pointing her thumb in the wrong direction.”

“Oh,” James started. Bel immediately recognized his lecturing mode. “You see, the thumbs up and thumbs down gestures are from ancient Rome. When someone lost a fight the emperor would hold his thumb up to spare someone, or hold it down to tell the winner to kill them.”

Bel looked at the small Lempo statue. It’s thumb was pointing straight down.

“I guess my mom doesn’t like Technis.”

With the ceremony out of the way, Bel and her group descended a long, dark shaft that stabbed through the ground and into the Labyrinth. The route was wide enough for them to use riding lizards, and their way was regularly patrolled so Bel wasn’t expecting much excitement.

Instead, Bel turned to the new faces for entertainment. She couldn’t actually speak with Pelagius, the fish, Simon, the snake, or Johan, the bird, so she smiled at Cleisthenes and cleared her throat.

“So Cleis, what do–”

“Quiet,” he snapped. “Silence is imperative to our safety in the Labyrinth.”

Bel looked around them. The passageway was barren but well lit by ever-burning candles placed on stands every ten strides or so. Bel turned in her saddle to look at Flann, but the fox just shrugged.

Bel looked behind them to see Beth’s group, with James surrounded in a protective circle. She could see her brother gesticulating as he talked even from their hundred-stride distance. She sighed.

I can’t believe that I’m missing my brother’s rambling. She cast an annoyed side-eye at the warrior hippo who had rebuffed her attempt at conversation.

Well, maybe Cleis is just nervous. I’ll have to try to get to know him better once we break for camp.

They rode in an uncomfortable silence for the rest of the day before arriving at their forward operations encampment. The soldiers had crafted three sets of circular walls about the camp. Most of them were peering suspiciously into the darkness, but a small group of younger members came and brought food for the riding lizards as Bel’s group entered the camp’s center. The group felt a little low energy to her, but it was probably late in the evening, although she couldn’t be sure without any natural light.

She grunted as she slid down from the saddle and rubbed at her sore rump. She held out a helping hand for Flann as he slid down from his own mount. He immediately began, twisted and stretching until his back popped.

“How close are we to the jumping point?”

“Beats me. I’m more worried about how close we are to a warm meal,” the old fox replied.

Bel rolled her eyes. “Hey, Cleis,” she called out.

“My apologies, Miss Bel, but I must see to our supplies. Please see to our resting area.”

Bel’s cheeks puffed in irritation as the large hippo spun away and stomped off to another part of the camp. “What’s his problem?” she asked.

Flann patted her on the elbow. “Seems like a new military boy straight outta the academy to me. Someone’s spoiled brat rather than the properly trained warrior that should be out here. I think Hanti just didn’t want to give too much authority to your sister.”

The fox turned to the other newcomers and clicked a quick pattern onto a nearby rock. The others joined in, and soon they were engaged in what looked and sounded to Bel like a bizarre, percussive concert.

Orseis drifted next to her, her features hidden behind her cloak and veil. Her curved pupils glared at Cleis’ retreating back. “Yeah, they’re all fresh. The plump fish went through training with the hippo, so don’t expect any support from her.”

Bel glanced at her tentacled companion and wondered if she had dreams of eating their other party members. Hopefully not, although Orseis joked about eating different ocean people with an uncomfortable frequency.

“Well, I guess that I’d better go make sure we’ve got lodging,” Bel muttered, “whatever lodging means in the middle of a cave.”

Cleis didn’t return until it was time to eat, and immediately after that he insisted that it was time to sleep.

“Beth’s group isn’t getting ready to sleep,” Bel said, pointing at her sister’s group.

Cleis snorted. “That is because your brother is busy setting up the communication stone that serves as a relay that will connect the forward encampment with our base of operations. They will be following after us tomorrow.”

“We’re planning to leave them behind? That wasn’t part of the plan.”

The hippo thumped his stomach with a powerful slap of his arm. “We will merely be preparing the way for the second group to follow. Now, I know that our pace has been difficult for a non-military person such as yourself. We will set forth in a few brief hours, so I suggest that you get your rest.”

Ugh, it’s not even worth talking to him.

Bel stomped over to her bedroll and flopped onto the hard stones. It kind of hurt, but she was annoyed enough to blame Cleis for that was well. She angrily thunked her head into her pillow and pulled her blanket over her face.

What a jerk, she thought. He just doesn’t like me for some reason, he doesn’t treat his fighters like this. She could even hear a couple of the others communicating, quietly tapping to one another.

The next day was much the same. They woke up, ate food, and then Cleis tried to rush them onto their riding lizards.

“At least let me see my siblings off,” she complained.

Cleis stomped one of his thick feet against the ground. “They have things to do – and so do we. War isn’t some fun trip, I’ll have you know. Hanti warned me that you lot may not be good at following orders, and she’s already given me leave to replace you if that’s the case.”

Bel’s eyes narrowed at Cleis’ words. Politics, she realized. I hate politics.

Bel grumpily jumped onto her riding lizard and stared daggers into the Cleis’ back as they rode away. When he turned around to begin briefing them on whatever nonsense he wanted to speak on, Bel made sure to brush her teeth at the same time. She’d noticed that the hippo seemed to be disgusted by the foaming goop that her brother had concocted.

After he was done talking about scrattes – for an entire ten minutes! – he rode back alongside her.

“I find your habits to be very disrespectful gorgon.”

Bel replied in English. “And I find your face ugly. You’re also an idiot.”

He frowned at her, his large, wide face pulling together like a mushy pumpkin. “It is rude to speak in a language that others cannot understand.”

Bel gestured at the rest of the group, the ones who didn’t speak any tongue with which she could converse, and pinched her eyebrows with annoyance. “It’s rude? They don’t seem to think so.”

“It is only natural that you should speak their tongue. Under the water your air-based language is simply impossible. Ask any aquatic and you will get the same answer.”

“Oh, language is overrated,” Orseis butted in. “And that’s some big talk for someone who only swims in freshwater. The real aquatics swim in the ocean.”

Orseis puffed herself up and her skin turned a threatening crimson. “Anyway, air-based languages work great – ever heard of a whale?”

Cleis sputtered indignantly and began a barrage of angry complaints that Bel could scarcely follow. Orseis returned in kind and they spent the next couple of hours on the way to the forward encampment and their jumping point.

Once they were there Bel would find out if all of her practice with the parachute was worth it.