Piper barely had time to grab her bag before Runa made it out the door. She ran to catch up, pausing only when Cyrillus called after her.

  “Good Luck, Piper. You’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks,” she said, even though she didn’t feel very thankful for this. In theory, suddenly finding yourself young again and presented with a chance to live another life sounded like a good deal. In practice, Piper had found this life to be somewhat sucky so far.

  Ahead, Runa turned a corner and disappeared. Piper groaned and ran faster, each thudding step sending another jab of pain into her temples. She amended her last thought— super sucky.

  Piper turned the corner and found herself at the bottom of a wide set of stairs that spiraled upward. The echo of footsteps drifted down from above. “Slow down. I’m going to get lost if you get any farther ahead of me.” Piper yelled up the stairwell.

  “There’s a map of the route in your Adventure Journal if you can’t keep up,” she yelled back from somewhere above.

  Of course, why hadn’t she thought of that? She called up the Journal while simultaneously thinking of the map in question. The journal came into view, already fluttering its pages to the map. This proved to be a bad idea as another flare of migraine pain stabbed into her temples.

  Was this going to happen every time she accessed this stupid journal? Ugh. She closed it without even getting a good look at the map. If she needed it, then she’d check again, but she’d rather spend the rest of the day running after Runa than dealing with a. Worsening headache.

  With that, she started taking the steps two at a time. Aside from the ache in her head, her new body handled the stairs easily, which was good because they went on for what seemed like the equivalent of five floors— round and round with no exit until she arrived at the top at the end of another long hallway, with Runa already halfway to the end.

  She caught up just as Runa arrived at the end of the hall and pushed a set of impressive carved wooden doors open. Beyond the doors lay a large circular room with a domed ceiling. Marble statues lined the curved walls, all larger than life, and each one different not just in subject but in style. Egyptian, Greek… or maybe Roman, European and possibly others all shared the space.

  “The Hall of Gods.” Runa announced, sweeping into the room, the skirts of her dress fluttering behind her.

  Piper followed. She scanned the statues as they walked the length of the hall toward another set of doors, a perfect match of the set they had arrived through. She saw no name plates, plaques or any other way to tell who the subject of these statues were.

  “Our Pantheon consists of twenty-four Gods. Each has a role in our world, a sphere of influence, if you will. While you will only ever have one Patron God at a time, that doesn’t mean you can safely ignore the others. I always recommend new adventurers familiarize themselves with the entire Pantheon to avoid any missteps.”

  Twenty-four? She was supposed to be familiar with twenty-four gods? “That’s a lot of gods to learn about.”

  “It is not a lot. It is exactly the right number. You’ll manage. Everyone does.”

  Runa had not once turned to look at Piper since entering the room. Her gaze remained fixed on the statues at the very end of the hall.

  As if she knew exactly where Piper was looking, Runa spoke again. “Janus and Neith stand above the others. Janus who conceived of Novalis and opened the way. Neith who wove the substance of Novalis and gave it shape and form.”

  The Statue of Janus drew her attention first, but she found it disturbing and couldn’t bear to keep her eyes on it. The man had two faces. Not two heads, but one face on either side of the same head. The realistic detail of the carving unsettled her. One face looked to the left, an older face with a full beard, a nose that dipped down a little farther, lines at his eyes and at the creases of his mouth. The other, facing right, had a youthful appearance, clean shaven and with thick, tousled hair.

  The artist had artfully arranged beard and hair so that only one ear peaked out from beneath the curls of the youthful aspect. Below the heads, a thickened neck emerged from a bare-chested body that seemed neither old nor young, but somewhere in the middle. Judging by his toga-like garment, that draped over one shoulder and around his hips, Janus appeared to be either Greek or Roman. She really wasn’t sure how to tell one from the other.

  She suppressed a shudder of repulsion. Freaky, two-faced mutant.

  “So this is like the head of all the gods?

  “He not ‘this’.” She gave Piper a reproachful look. “And you’re saying God with a lowercase g not a capital G. It’s disrespectful.”

  “I didn’t mean to be… wait, how would you even know the difference?”

  “Oh, you can tell the difference if you listen close enough. Maybe you were not a religious person in the Before, and that is fine. There are plenty of souls running around Realms that didn’t believe when they were alive, but they do now. You need to get it into your head from the start that the Gods are quite real here. They play a direct role in the lives of everyone in Novalis. You can’t pretend they don’t matter. Our entire world depends on their existence, and the strength and tenor of our belief, our devotion and our respect support their existence. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Despite all the talk about gods… Gods, she mentally corrected herself, from the two Harvesters, Piper hadn’t considered that it might impact her own life, that it might mean changing her own beliefs. It was a lot to process. She remembered what she had thought a moment ago about Janus and his two faces…

  “Umm… the Gods can’t hear what I’m thinking, can they?

  “Of course not. It takes a lot more than a random thought to reach the Gods. Could you imagine the bother if they had to listen to everyone’s thoughts all day? It’s absurd. They have better things to do.”

  Piper sighed in relief. Thank goodness… or maybe she should thank the Gods.

  “Now, to continue with your education.” She gestured to the statue across on the other side of the double doors. “This is Neith. Janus, Neith, Seshat, and Turmis hold a higher position in the Pantheon. They tend to follow where Janus leads, though, so he’s the head of the Pantheon in that respect.

  Across the hallway from Janus, Neith stood ramrod straight. In one hand she held a bow and arrow, in the other an ankh. On her head a headdress like a pharaoh would wear. Piper had no doubt of Neith’s Egyptian origins.

  Next to Janus stood a statue of another Egyptian woman. This one carried a long staff in one hand and what might be a pen in the other. She had an odd headdress that rose like palm tree from the top of her head. A rod topped with some sort of rayed star, or deeply segmented leaf.

  “Seshat,” Runa nodded at the Egyptian statue. “God of records, writing, wisdom and knowledge.”

  “Across from her is Turmis, God of… well, of a lot of things we don’t have time to cover right now. The most important thing to remember is that he’s a Trickster God. Like Loki, Anansi, Eris, Lugh, Enki, Set and so many others across all the pantheons that ever were. Always be extra careful with a trickster. They have a way of turning things around on you.

  Runa sighed, glanced one more time at the statue of Janus and then pushed open the doors in front of them. She continued at her breakneck pace. “I would prefer to introduce you to all of our Gods, but we are behind schedule, do keep up.”

  Piper sighed too and jogged after her. This was not helping her headache at all.

  “Why are the Gods from different pantheons and cultures?” She asked as she fell into stride, matching Runa’s pace. She must have very long legs under that skirt, she thought.

  “Why shouldn’t they be? Our world is full of different people, from different places, cultures, periods. Something for everyone.

  Another hallway, another turn and another set of doors later, they stood before yet another set of large doors, though not as grand as those that led into the Hall of Gods.

  “The Hall of Heroes.” Runa announced as she pushed open the doors. This time it really was a hall, not like the rotunda the Hall of Gods occupied.

  The hall spanned about twice width as the actual hallways, which were impressively wide to begin with, and it extend into the distance, farther than Piper would have imagined possible. There were statues here too, but not the larger life than massive marbles of the gods.

  Despite the size of the room, it had a cozier feel than the Hall of the Gods. Instead of stark marble, wooden floors and wainscoting lent a warm richness to the space. A forest of pedestals lined the walls, statuettes, busts, painted urns, carved crystals, golden trophies and more displayed atop them. Above the pedestals, filling nearly every inch of the upper walls, hung paintings and engraved plaques and mosaics and more.

  “Our greatest Arena competitors and Eikosiad Champions.” Runa gestured toward both walls like a flight attendant pointing out where to find the exit doors, as she continued along without slowing. When she stopped, Piper didn’t expect it and bumped into her.

  “Sorry.”

  “Hmm, I see how you got that eleven in reflexes,” she said under her breath, as if Piper wasn’t standing right there to hear her. “I harvested many of these myself.” She reached out and straightened a portrait that hung slightly askew. “One of mine.” She said.

  The young man in the portrait was blond, green-eyed, and very good looking. He wore an outfit that gave him a sort a roguish Robin Hood look, though he didn’t wear green tights or sport one of those odd hats with a feather in it either. Maybe it was the bow and quiver he carried that made Piper think that— or maybe it was that he bore a resemblance to Cary Elwes in that old movie parody of Robin Hood. Piper loved old movies. She wondered if she would ever get to see one again. She had a feeling that life here didn’t include long wasted hours binging movies and old sitcoms. Of all the memories to still have. It would not help her in the slightest here.

  “So, what’s an Eikosiad?” Getting back on track with what Runa had been talking about.

  “The Eikosiad,” she corrected. “The most prestigious contest of the realms. They’re held every twenty years. Only the best compete, and only the very best make it to the finals. I have more grand-champions than any other Harvester. I expect you’ll go far if you play our cards right.”

  “Twenty years? Won’t I be a little old by the time that rolls around?”

  Runa laughed, “No, for one thing, the next one will in a little less than ten years, but I don’t expect you will be ready to compete effectively by then, but the one after that? With the right team? Maybe.”

  “I’ll be fifty-five.”

  “You’ll have been in the Realms that long, but there is no need to grow old here if you don’t want to.” Runa shrugged. “I harvested Cyrillus myself over sixty-seven years ago, if that helps put age into perspective here.”

  If Cyrillus had been brought back like her at age twenty-five, then that would make him ninety-two years old now. She would have guessed him to be around his mid-thirties, tops.

  And Runa? Well, Piper couldn’t get a proper sense of her age at all, but she certainly didn’t look any older than Cyrillus. If she had actually harvested him, then she must be even older.

  “So we don’t grow old here?”

  Runa gave a little laugh. “Oh no, you’ll grow old. If you choose to age, then you just have to avoid getting killed.”

  “That’s usually the way things work. What’s different about that here?”

  “If you should die here, as long as you have an active Indulgence with your Patron, you’ll be resurrected, and you’ll be twenty-five again.” She turned and continued on her way, but then paused and looked back. “Just to be clear, you won’t lose any of your levels or skills, or even memories of that death. Only your body reverts to its starting state.”

  “So, you just live forever, then?”

  “If you choose to. There are circumstances where you could die permanently without intending to, but for the most part, all those who return to the Well have done so by choice.” She got a faraway look in her eye. “Not even the Gods last forever. Once forgotten, they cease to exist.” She had a troubled look on her face as she turned and went on her way again.