The Mask of Omegon (Gwen Farris Book 6)

Gwen Farris:

The
Mask of Omegon

P.S.
Power

Orange
Cat Publishing

Copyright
2016

The cave was dark and terrifying.
There was no way that a place like that wouldn’t be to Gwen. Not now, after
coming so close to seeing the return of the Elder Gods like she had. A sense
that one of the beings was going to reach through a tear in space from behind
her lingered. Constantly. Now she felt like death was always right there for
her, every time the lights went low. To be honest about it, the sense barely
went away
in
the light.

Worse, being underground like they
had been when the spell had been cast that nearly destroyed the world,
ripped
at her. It wasn’t simply a personal weakness either. Each and every person that
had been there at the time, including the few surviving bad guys, had reported
the same thing. A sense that they were about to die. Eternally hovering just
outside of their ability to see or comprehend.

On the great side, she was used to
that sort of thing now. More or less. Fear was her constant companion, but it
didn’t really get worse than what she lived with most of the time. At least
that was what she told herself at the moment.

It really
didn’t
help that
she was standing there alone, facing what had to be the scene of a magical ritual.
In fact, she could see some of the different elements of the thing right in
front of her. She’d brought a light with her, so it was pretty much plain as
day.

“One altar. Made of stone.
Familiar, but not exactly all that new. They
all
do that when they want
to sacrifice people. Though this one is kind of small for that. About four
feet. So for little kids, or possibly animals?” She wasn’t speaking to anyone,
but her own voice, the only familiar thing in the very dim space which was lit
only by the magical device she held out in front of her, a glow lamp, soothed
her on some level. Making it feel like she wasn’t standing there on her own.

Given that the only other people
that would have been there would be the bad ones, that was probably not that
great of a thing to relish. She
was
though. Even having a single human
being with her would be better than being on her own. Even if they were trying
to kill her. They could wrestle. It would be fun.

So she decided to keep talking to
herself, thinking out loud. It felt better and that was enough of a reason that
day.

“There’s only one ceremonial blade.
One chalice. That isn’t unheard of, but the whole thing feels off. Like… There
was only one magician involved. No
body
either. Then the reports didn’t
speak about anyone going missing or bodies being found. No animals though…
or
signs of blood. Just vast amounts of power being raised.” Which wasn’t normally
going to be doable without a lot of death being involved.

Not unless the practitioner was
incredibly
powerful, as far as magic went.

Gwen actually did all right that
way, for some reason. The body that she was in now, in this strange steam-punk-magic
world, had been born into a lot of ability as far as that went. Then, once
she’d learned a bit about how the powers there worked, she’d managed to build
up to a few useful tricks. Power blasts, flying and even precognition. Other
nifty things too. Like teleportation. Not all that she needed to be able to do,
but enough to start with.

Enough that King Ferdinand had asked
her to go, on her own, to investigate the scene of the crime there.
If
it was one at all. After all, if a magician had just been raising power without
death, to say, make some cash or even make himself more attractive to women,
that wasn’t something to send
her
in for. It was, more or less,
make-work in that case. A thing to keep her busy, while her buddy Bethany
Westmorland sat around being pampered.

She was the first one of the super
soldiers to have the government mandated sterilization reversed and get
pregnant, after all. That meant there were several thousand people who
really
wanted to take care of her suddenly. It was a good thing, naturally. Even a
brilliant one. An idea that Gwen had never thought would be honestly allowed.

She, Beth Westmorland, was actually
moving on and getting to have a life. A real one. Complete with husband and
soon a child. Like everyone else got a shot at. Most people, at any rate. The
regular ones that worked in factories, who weren’t from other realities.

Soon, the rest of her family, the
super soldier slaves of the Western Kingdom, would be doing the same thing.
Leaving her, the woman from another world, far behind. Like they
should
.

The space around her was slightly
damp feeling, which made sense, being a cave. It wasn’t large either. The mouth
of the hole had been covered, but easy to find really. A fake bush that was
half left off of the thing. Making the opening visible as she’d walked along
the path. Even in the twilight.

“So, my magician friend,
what
were you getting up to? If not bringing in Elder Gods or killing young women
for fun. Which I have to admit this set up wouldn’t allow, then what in the
world are you getting up to?”

She was speaking to the air, facing
the altar still, which was at the back of the small cave. About ten or fifteen
feet inside of the thing. It probably would have been light enough to see if it
had been daylight out. Being insane like she was, Gwen had gone out from her
hotel as night fell. That was when the energy had been causing some notice in
the nearby city, so it was when she’d needed to come to find the place. At
least to her own way of thinking, since she was there to take out the evil
magicians that were killing all those non-existent girls and children for their
life force. It clearly wasn’t the case, so now she felt a bit foolish, if she
were going to be honest about it.

From behind her there was a voice.
It sounded youthful, but caused her to jump anyway. A bit muffled, which she
understood when she spun in place to see who was there.

“I’m trying to fix what went
wrong.” The words were spoken like a line from a movie. Possibly a play, given
the world she was in at the moment. They didn’t exactly have television after
all. It was a failing, as far as Gwen was concerned.

Light came from her hand-lamp,
which was what the shined copper tube, a thing that was essentially a
flashlight, had been named in this world. It was powered by a crystal pack in
the handle, which would only give her about a day’s worth of light. Then, if it
ran out of power, she could top it back up in a few minutes, using her mind and
a bit of focus. It was useful, being able to do things like that.

Gwen didn’t scream at the human
like form. Instead she froze, her voice clamping down first thing, as she made
out what seemed to be a blue headed
thing
. It had tentacles hanging down
over its mouth. That was a bit
too
familiar, though the last ones had
been pink and flesh colored. Standing there in almost the right place to be one
of the Elder Gods coming through the rip in space that always felt like death
and terror.

At first she wanted to run away,
but that would mean fighting her way past the monster headed man. Then, before
Gwen did anything, she noticed something off about the would be attacker. The
person wasn’t huge for one thing, being about five-ten or so. They seemed male,
and looked a little thin. Not like
she
still was, which had gotten to a
dangerously low state, after being kept prisoner for several years. Still, for
a normal man, he was on the small side. Slender. His clothing was nice enough.
Not rich seeming, but well cared for. A button up gray shirt that seemed to
have been ironed. Black trousers that had that same look to them. With dingy
brown boots that needed to be polished. Those didn’t fit the scene in
particular. Then,
none
of it did with the blue squid head.

Then she saw that it wasn’t just a
mask, but was a knit thing. Like a pull over ski-mask with a strange face on
it. As in what might have been made by somebody’s bored grandmother.
If
she were a psychopath that mainlined horror movies, between bouts of psychosis.
A thing made of yarn. With holes in it for eyes. If it hadn’t been so freaky
and Cthulu-esque, it would have been cool.

It probably
was
, if you were
a bit of a nerd. Which, to be fair, Gwen always kind of had been. Really, she
was mainly reacting to the part where they were alone. Also the fact that it
linked a bit too well to her personal history, as far as things to be scared of
went.

“Hello! You startled me a bit. So,
you’re
the one that’s been raising all the power around here? I don’t see any blood,
so… This
probably
isn’t illegal. What’s gone wrong? If you don’t mind me
asking, that is.” She was thinking that it would be about death. Something dark
perhaps… At least the man trying to control some poor woman’s mind to force her
to love him.

The boy and Gwen was almost certain
this wasn’t a grown man, sighed.

“Nothing
too
dire, to be
truthful. Not that exciting either. I’ve been trying to make certain that the
forest here keeps growing. There’s been a beetle blight. Have you seen the oak
trees on the southern side? So, I come a few times a week and do a little
ceremony to try and save them.” He paused, then placed his hands on his hips,
one foot forward. It was contrived as all hell, but seemed practiced and like
it was meant to be a thing.

“I’m Omegon, by the way. Protector
of the light! Bane of those who would do my world harm!” First his fists went
to his hips. Followed by a rather geeky pose. Like a cosplayer at a convention
might have done.
If
they weren’t planning on getting any sex that
weekend. Gwen had seen several of them online, back in the day. Before being
kidnapped to a different world where computers weren’t a thing at all.

Then the knit monster mask was
pulled off, showing that she’d been about right in her assumptions about the
fellow. The guy was about seventeen, at a raw guess. Not that she was great at
working out things like that. So he might be older, or even years younger than
that. Playing monster hero in the woods kind of spoke to the second idea to her
mind. He had dark brown hair and eyes that showed nearly black colored irises.
Probably
a deep brown, as shown in the shadowed light of her hand-lamp. It was hard to
tell, but the guy was better looking than average. Even if he did have strange
hobbies. Not that magic was
that
weird where they were at the moment.

A bit nervously he cleared his
throat.

“You can call me Tomas, if you’d
rather? Tom Moore.”

She smiled then, smoothing her
dress with her right hand. It wasn’t that she loved being all girly, as much as
the fact that she wasn’t on
official
duty at the moment. Being out in
public in trousers and a jacket was doable for a woman, but going alone that
way would have marked her as being a magician. With a buddy along for the ride,
people would have simply assumed she was a lesbian. A tribad, as they called
them there. At least she thought that was the way it went. People might have
actually been a bit more forgiving than that. The point was, if she wanted to
blend, it had to be done in a dress. Just like she had to have at least a bit
of makeup on. It was odd enough for her to be out alone like she was that some
had already noticed.

In fact, most people there would
have
freaked
at the moment, her being in a cave alone with Omegon. That
pretty much meant they were having sex to most people in that world. The Western
Kingdom at any rate. Other places had different rules that way, or so she’d
heard. Not that she was against that kind of thing, personally. It just wasn’t
the sort of issue that really came up for her in life. Which left her feeling a
tiny bit sad, at the moment. No one really wanted to have relations with the
traitor. Not in any world she could imagine at least.

In Europa no one would have
condemned either of them for being there actually
doing
that kind of
thing. Not as long as they were both adults. In Marduk it wouldn’t be a huge
deal either. She didn’t think. It would depend on how her husband thought about
things like that, most likely. Not that she had one of those. It was just that
there she
would
have. She thought. It wasn’t like she was an expert on
that land. Any of them, to be honest. Including the one she was standing in.

“I’m Gwen. Gwen Farris.” It was
true enough, but the boy seemed puzzled at the name. Really, the look he gave
her spoke of more than that. Disbelief was part of it. Disdain was in there
too. At least she figured that was the case.

“From the telesar? That… Seems
unlikely. Not that I’m saying you
can’t
be her, if you wish, but this is
a bit out of the way, isn’t it? I can’t imagine that I’d often run into Gwen
Farris while playing my little hero games. No, you seem more like a Beth to me…
An intrepid investigator, perhaps? You need a partner for that however, so that
no one will think the wrong thing, being out and about alone. Though if you
are
being Gwen, that
might
not be the incorrect idea?”

The young man, Omegon, suddenly
seemed a bit uneasy.

Gwen didn’t get it since she wasn’t
insane, but tilted her head. After all, it wasn’t how her mind normally ran,
but it
could
be that her sexy, sexy body was distracting him. That, or
her relative fame. She had that in the Western Kingdom. Not in a good way
either. It was bad enough that pretending to be Beth was suddenly kind of
appealing.