“Hey you!” Jack shouted at the creature. Before it had even finished turning its head his way, Jack spun around and swung his club through what should have been empty space behind him.

The wyvern-bone club slammed into the second creature's stomach the moment it appeared, air blasting out of its lungs as it was thrown backwards.

Jack didn’t relent in his assault. He was hardly an expert with a club, but where military training left off, sandlot baseball took over, and that was something he’d played a lot of in his youth. Even still, he knew he wasn’t a match for the creature, especially with two of them.

But Jack was pretty sure he'd worked out their secret.

“…four…five…six…” he counted out loud. Soon the other creature joined the fight, but Jack made sure to keep an eye on the original one that had tried to jump him.

“…nine…ten… I’ll bet you have a limit, don’t you?” he said to the one that had appeared on the ground. “…thirteen…fourteen… go on, head back. I’ll be waiting… eighteen…nineteen…”

Maybe the creature’s face was too alien for Jack to read its expression, but its body language left no doubt: It understood what Jack was saying, and it wasn’t happy about it.

With a flash of well-choreographed precision, the pair of creatures executed a coordinated attack that concluded with the one who had appeared behind Jack disengaging and sprinting away while the other one pressed even harder.

Jack wasn’t fooled. Rather than engage, he sprinted after the creature that was trying to escape, confident that the other one wouldn’t—couldn’t—attack him from behind. That suspicion was confirmed when all sounds of pursuit disappeared, and confirmed even further when the creature in front of him vanished with another tck tck sound.

Immediately, he started counting in the other direction. “…twenty-five…twenty-four…twenty-three…” He strolled over to where the creature had disappeared. He didn’t hurry. He didn’t have to.

If Jack hadn’t watched so much Quantum Leap in the early ’90s, there was no chance he would have worked out what in the hell was going on. Fortunately, he’d watched every episode at least twice—damned networks never should have cancelled it—and the secret was that there weren’t two creatures at all. There was one, and it wasn’t teleporting. It was skipping back in time. All it had to do was spot Jack and then direct its future self to appear in the most advantageous position. The two could then tag team their enemy, but the original creature would eventually have to get in position for its jump back in time to play the other role. When it did so, the “future” version of itself disappeared for as long as it took to make up the time debt, then came back in the same spot.

Which was why Jack had been counting.

“…ten…nine…eight…”

He stepped forward and tapped the club on the ground, like he was stepping up to the plate.

“…five…four…three…”

He glanced at the head of the club, making sure the flat side was facing forward. Then he lowered into a crouch.

“…two…one…zero. Gotcha.”

Jack was already driving off his back leg as the tck tck noise sounded, his club carving an arc through the air as the creature appeared in front of him, its heavily-armoured head no match for a wyvern-bone club smashing into its skull at full swing.

A burst of strange black shadow surrounded the clubhead at the moment of impact, but Jack was too distracted to think much about it. Apparently, momentum carried through the time jump. It wasn’t something he’d considered, and the result was that instead of Jack hitting the creature like he was standing on solid ground, it was more like he’d hit the thing with an iron bar while riding on the back of a motorcycle.

The result was beyond impressive and bordering on the theatrical. Not only did Jack’s follow-through cause the creature’s head to whip back, but it also simultaneously did nothing to slow down the thing’s lower body. As a result, the creature’s legs flew up wildly as its body went into a three-quarter pinwheel, going almost wholly level before dropping to the ground like a sack of organ meat. It looked like a goddamned Looney Tunes cartoon.

“Aw, crap,” Jack said, looking down at the corpse. At least he assumed it was a corpse. Even with the thing’s helmet-like cranium, he couldn’t envision a world where he hadn’t just killed the creature. So much for that promise to himself.

Wait a sec.

Jack knelt next to the body. He put a hand on the thing’s neck where its carotid would be and was shocked to discover a pulse. Even more surprising, there wasn’t a single mark on its head from the blow. Instead, there was simply a pale blue light in the area Jack had hit.

Just how tough is this thing?

A voice spoke up behind him. “And here I was, thinking you were a pacifist.”

Jack spun around, jumping to his feet and readying his club. “Who the hell are you…” he started, expecting to see some sort of forest-dwelling humanoid, possibly with hunting gear or armour. What he hadn’t expected was a human wearing a crazy, multi-coloured coat with rainbow stripes on the sleeves and a cubic diamond pattern on the front, surrounded by psychedelic rainbow-coloured arrows.

“…and why the hell are you wearing the jacket from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat?” he finished.

“You like it?” the figure said brightly. “I’ve always been fond of it. Normally, Death is depicted as such a dour entity. I feel this is about as far as I can get from your stereotypical ‘black cloak and scythe’ imagery.”

Jack squinted at the man. For some reason, his hands and face were blurry. Like on Star Trek, where they’d stick a gel on the lens whenever a pretty lady was on screen. He could still make out the guy’s expression just fine, though, which was pretty weird.

Then there was the matter of who the guy had said he was.

“You’re telling me you’re Death?” Jack asked. “As in, the god of Death?”

“In the flesh,” the figure said. “Well, what passes for flesh, for someone like me. But please, Death is merely my office. My name is Nochd.”

“Death is a musical theatre fan?”

The god frowned. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Well, you’ll have to make do,” Nochd said. “Anyhoo… what do we have here?” He gestured to the creature lying on the ground.

Jack grimaced. “I was just hoping to knock the guy out. Didn’t factor in that he’d still be moving when he showed up. Thank god he didn’t get killed.”

“You’re welcome.”

It took a moment for Jack to process the words. “Wait, you stopped him from getting killed?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Nochd said. He pointed at Jack’s club. “Recall that your friend Sextus was rather oblique in his description of the flat side of your mace. Oh, that reminds me. Please don’t call that a club? Whoever heard of a god blessing a club? What am I, some amateur?”

“What the heck are you talking about?” Jack said, holding up the weapon. “This is just some hunk of bone with a bit of sentimental meaning.”

“Oh dear, no,” Nochd said. “I enchanted it to only deliver non-fatal damage when using the flat portion of the striking head.” He pondered the sky for a moment. “Dear me, that was quite some time ago. Sextus thought it was lunacy, but he’s not a god, is he?”

Jack hefted the club and gave it a considering look. “You know Sextus?”

“Everyone knows me eventually,” Nochd pointed out. “The Chian’dir are special, though. They’re one of the few who drop by and say hello before dying properly. Sextus managed it differently, mind you, so I’m rather fond of him.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m losing my mind,” he muttered. Then he looked down at the comatose creature at his feet and scowled. “Is this thing gonna get eaten if I leave it here?”

“I imagine they will take care of it,” Nochd said, gesturing in a vague circle around them. Jack was about to ask who “they” were when six creatures blinked into appearance in the space the god had just indicated. They all had yellow markings that matched the one Jack had taken down, but four of the six also possessed additional colouring, with one so laden with extra colours that he looked like he’d borrowed Nochd’s coat.

Jack glanced down at the sparse colouring on the one he’d beaten. Young’un. Explains how I beat the thing so easily.

The creature with the most colouring looked at Nochd and then at Jack. As Jack made eye contact, he could feel the intelligence behind that wide compound eye, and something pushed itself into Jack’s mind. Not so much words, but an impression of thanks for not killing their youth.

Bowing towards Jack and the god, the creatures bent and picked up their unconscious fellow and handed the body to one of their members who slung it over their shoulder. Without a word, the group turned and sprinted into the woods.

“Huh,” Jack said, watching as the strange creatures disappeared. “Well, guess that’s that. See you later, Death.”

Clapping the dirt off his hands, Jack found his rucksack and resumed his hike through the woods. As he left, he glanced back and saw that Nochd hadn’t moved, even as the “past” versions of the creatures appeared from the woods. They raised a claw in farewell to Jack, then gathered in a circle and disappeared to live out their future selves’ lives that had happened in the past, or something like that. It was damned confusing.

After some consideration, Jack decided it was time to follow the shallow creek. He’d gone far enough west by then that the threat of the river monster at the base of the waterfalls should be over, and the creekbed would hopefully be quicker and guarantee that he was heading for the river proper.

Nochd appeared, walking on top of the creek. “You’re just going to leave? Aren’t you curious why I’m here?”

Jack raised a bushy eyebrow at the god. “I’m 95-years-old. Figured you’d show up eventually.”

“Yet you think you can simply walk away from Death when he comes calling, is that it?”

“Of course not. Death is everywhere. It doesn’t matter if I’m walking or standing still; you’ll be right there. I might as well put some distance under my feet if yer gonna yammer in my ear.”

“Oh really?” Nochd said. A menacing aura emanated from him, blackening the forest around them. “Some gods might take offence at your presumption, Jack. Do you really wish to invite my wrath?”

“Bah,” Jack said, waving in annoyance at the god’s malevolent aura. “I’m a ‘when your time comes, your time comes’ kinda guy. If it’s my time, you just go ahead and let me know.”

“Good!” Nochd said brightly, the dour aura disappearing immediately. If anything, his technicolour coat got brighter. “I appreciate a light dusting of fatalism in a person. Are you interested in my offer though? I’m sure you want to hear it.”

“Nope.”

“I’m going to tell you anyway!”

A drumroll sounded, and the god hovered in front of Jack, floating backwards as Jack walked. “I want you to be…” a fanfare sounded, “…my cleric!”

Jack kept walking, forcing the god to keep floating backwards. “Why the hell would I want to be your cleric?”

Nochd dropped to the ground, frowning. “Not the reaction I expected. I didn’t even prepare a sales pitch.” He vanished and reappeared beside Jack. “You do realize you’d have all sorts of powers, right?”

“Never needed them before,” Jack noted. “Besides, you’re Death. Can’t say the idea of worshipping Death is up my alley, even if you’re from a different planet.”

“Technically, I’m not from a different planet.”

That caught Jack’s interest. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. I’m one of the four Eternal deities—Death, Time, Force, and Magic. We’re called Eternals because we were born at the beginning of the universe, and we’ll die when it ends. We’re everywhere, always! Isn’t that neat? It’s very different from the Terrestrial deities, who are bound to the world they govern. Those are deities like Nature, War, Forge… you get the picture.”

Jack thought about it for a moment. “Makes sense. Ecosystems and rules of war would change from planet to planet, but everything dies, everything ages. That about right?”

“Well done!”

“So why the hell are you one of these ‘Eternals,’ then?” Jack said. “It’s not like there were any living things when the universe started.”

“Oh, Jack. Such a biocentric view of the world. Not everything that dies was ‘alive’ in the conventional sense. I was there during the antimatter genocide, and I’ll be there when the last star burns out. One day, I will even preside over the death of the universe itself.”

“Huh,” Jack muttered. “So who presides over your death, then?”

“I don’t know! But it’s nice to have surprises. You know, you really are asking some insightful questions. Why isn’t your Intelligence score higher?”

“You really think I have an answer to that?”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Nochd said. “Oh well… the system has always been skewed towards book learners. There’s never been much acknowledgment of an individual’s ability to connect disparate ideas. Ridiculous, in my view. But I didn’t create the Tomes, so that’s hardly something I concern myself with.”

“If not you, then who did?”

“Does it really matter?” he asked. The god started jumping from stone to stone on the creek, occasionally wobbling when he happened to land on a rock that shifted under his feet. “What matters is that cleric class. You in?”

“Nope,” Jack said. “You seem at least moderately insane. I’m good.”

“Paladin? Monk? Templar?”

“Still not interested.”

“Well, we’ll work something out,” the god responded. “See you around, Jack.”

Nochd made one more jump, slipped on the stone, and splashed into the water. Despite it only being a few centimetres deep, he sank beneath the surface and disappeared, burbling and spluttering the whole way.

Jack stopped and shook his head. “What the hell is wrong with this place?”