The Ancients and the Angels: Celestials

The Ancients and the Angels: Celestials Page 13

by M.C. O'Neill

  “Love is the law. Love under will.”

  -Aleister Crowley: The Book of the Law (1904).

  “If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up. “

  -Abraham Maslow

  Upside-Down Five-Pointed All-stars

  Blackish goop dripped down from the sigil the chubby demon had scratched into the flesh of the inner walls of the vessel. He had just finished the final symbol from an array of ten assigned to him. This one was an inverted pentagram set inside a circle and he thought they all looked good enough to get the job done. The size and dimensions were to specification and that was fine by him. He grabbed the hollowed horned skull from off the floor and tried to gather as much of the viscous substance as possible.

  He trudged like a boorish hog up the massive steps and through the narrow halls to the goetics’ quarters to report his completion of duty to the boss. If all worked out well, he could go back to his cubby and take a pointless nap. Storming into the Adversary’s Realm right from under the noses of the angelics was lots of fun, but being cooped up in this sweaty ark for days was pure tedium. Other than some slothful sleep, he wanted the next phase of the operation to start and that meant the sooner he could get back home.

  “High President, I have completed your command,” he bellowed like a dutiful dog into his supervisor’s quarters. In the past few days, many official formalities had been forgotten in the boredom and wonder of what was happening on the outside.

  Glasya Labolas was lying on the spacious bed with her comrade Bastet, playing a game of imp chess and snickering away like a couple of maidens at a sleepover. Her subordinate broke her concentration and mirth with her best friend by his announcement.

  “Buboe, you don’t have to shout,” she sang. To that, Bastet giggled and traded her friend a knowing glance and stuck out her sharp tongue to suggest a sensation of mocking disgust.

  “Uh, sorry, Boss,” he bowed with a quick half of a heart. He hated being stuck alone in the same room with the High President, and it was always worse when she was with Bastet. Her majordomo gave him the creeps as it stood, but she only brought out the worst in his superior when they got together. He wanted out of that room like a cat in a bag.

  As he turned away to lumber down to his cell, the High President called to him without turning her brassy-maned head. “Eh, Buboe! Don’t leave so soon!” Bastet looked at her comrade with a knowing, devilish glee. The pair hoped they could break the boredom by having some fun with him.

  “Uh, yeah, Boss,” the former cherub stood to nervous attention. Whatever was coming, he prayed it would be quick and he would leave the episode somewhat unscathed.

  “You did remember to collect the thelema from the wall’s wounds, yes?” Glasya wasn’t all that interested in her own question. She knew the little demon did as he was ordered, but she wanted to assert some authority with him because he had been acting mouthy as of late. It was no wonder as everyone was waiting for the arks to power up again and the atmosphere was becoming claustrophobic and tense. Nevertheless, pulling rank was not to be tolerated, especially by a fat little footsoldier such as Buboe.

  “Yeah, Boss. I put the stuff in a skull, just like the alchemical ritual calls for,” he added such a disclaimer just so he could be away from those two as soon as possible. The vile Bastet had already branded him three times for no reason that he could figure ever since arriving to Earth. For some unknown perversity, she had it in for him as if it were an obsession.

  Glasya was all right for a superior, but he would have rather been assigned to a goetic like Stolas. All the demons who served under him more or less liked the elder lord because he was kind and wise. It was reported he never beat or maimed any of his wards, well, at least not without reason. Now, Dantalion’s vessel would have been an awesome assignment. Buboe figured everyone in her ark was partying and having a good time. Things could be worse, he supposed. He could have been stuck in Asmodai’s division and, most likely, would not survive such a dreadful post.

  “Fine Buboe. Now shoo,” she ordered still not turning to acknowledge him.

  He fought the terrible urge to flash his boss a rude gesture behind her back, but Bastet would have seen such a transgression and would have beat the senses out of him if he deigned to do such a thing. The impulse still lingered in his steely middle claw.

  “Buboe sucks,” the assassin confided in her commander with a youthful chuckle. Her nails had been wrapped around the head of the little imp on the chessboard for what seemed like an eternity, and the six-inch-tall infernal was all but suffocating from her hesitation. He would have much rather died on his next maneuver in battle than snuff out from her crushing his head.

  “That he does, Bass. That he does. Are you going to move already?” Glasya was becoming as impatient as the little imp with her opponent.

  “Hmmm… Legionnaire to cherub six,” Bastet decided after a prolonged and deliberate wait as the imp-knight moved in to destroy the unarmored living chess piece the instant upon release.

  “Archangel takes Legionnaire,” Glasya countered without hesitation. Her regally-dressed imp hopped his movement and thrust a tiny iron trident into Bastet’s miniature demonic puppet. It was choking its last gasps of life as Bastet pulled her squirming piece off the checkered board while its body dripped with black infernal blood.

  “YOU FOUL BEAST! I SAID MOOOOVE-UH!” she screamed to its limp, dying form as it dangled between her sharp nails. Within seconds of its death, it had discorporated back to the Inferno with a stygian poof. The majordomo thrust her blue-black bobbed hair behind her pointed ears in frustration.

  “Now, now, Bastet. Don’t smack all the pieces off the board this time. Imps don’t grow on trees up here,” she reminded her comrade with a condescending tone. The demonic assassin assigned to her ark had something of a short fuse, but Bastet was also a dear friend from the old days in the Adversary’s Realm before the Fall. At first, Glasya was ecstatic to hear that Lucifer had ascribed her as an assistant, but the cabin fever of being sequestered in the stifling ark was beginning to wear on both of their nerves.

  “I’m just edgy,” she retorted with a short, spoiled whine. “When is the next phase of this operation going to get under way? I was always made for action! This is awful!”

  Bastet had been an erelim-class angelic, just like Sammian, but she had rebelled eons before her. Now she was known as an erinyes, which was much like her infernal equivalent. Combat and infiltration were her specialties and she was not one for waiting around. Ever since the Fall, her patience had worn thinner than ever.

  “Just try to exert a little tolerance. Sammian is taking care of everything out there,” Glasya attempted to defuse her anger with something of an uncertainty. Since the power was shut down upon arriving to Earth, there had been no contact from the Inferno or any of the other arks, but, with time, that would all change.

  “Heh, I seriously doubt it, Glazz,” Bastet was not fond of her old coworker. During the Great Rebellion, Bastet had been locked into legendary battle with Sammian as she had been instrumental in wreaking chaos up in the inner circles of Paradise. Both of the erelim were in charge of the internal affairs of the Realm and when Bastet was compromised by Lucifer’s schemes, all hell had literally broken loose up there.

  “Have some faith, Bass,” Glasya rolled over on her back like a lazy cat; her dark wings folded underneath. “Lucifer wouldn’t idly recruit her if he didn’t think she was a viable commodity. Besides, the little fiend loves him, which means she will try all the harder for this not to fail.”

  “We shall see,” Bastet said with distrust as she too turned supine and met the top of her friend’s coppery head with her own.

  To answer their questions of wonder and exasperation of the past few days, Buboe rushed into their chamber again moments later in an excited mood. “Boss! The scrying pool is working again! Lucifer is calling for you!
”

  “What?” Her golden eyes lit up with happiness and shock. It was hard to believe as her sense of time on Earth seemed so slow and palpable that she could feel it drag on and on just like any of its native elven denizens. At last something had broken and the big guy was on the horn.

  Down in the Central Chamber of the cavernous ark, Glasya knelt before a large blue pool that occupied the center of the room. The scrying pool was a communications device that could be used to contact others through space, time and even other dimensions. Almost twenty feet deep by twenty feet wide, the structure was ringed by a well lined with holy symbols designed by the Creator. These symbols were once again pulsing with bright yellow life as the pool projected a gigantic image of Lucifer’s giant body above it, reaching the full twenty feet.

  Glasya loved her brother and she was one of the most instrumental of the demons to spark the Great Rebellion with him. Although some of the others in the Inferno were rather jealous of him and resented the fact that he had claimed all the credit for the revolt, Glasya was not fazed by it as she understood his immense ego and the dangers that could arise from sharing too much of the pie.

  Lucifer’s face was beautiful in its simplicity. The only way to describe it was gold upon gold filled with silver and more gold. All the females in the Inferno wished to be in his heart and many of them had revolted from the old Realm just for the opportunity to be able to voice as well as consummate their lurid affections for him. Glasya, being his sister, was the object of much resentment amongst her unholy sorority, but she too had devised her own safeguards against their envious plots. Many times she had survived assassination attempts by these covetous witches, but she, Bastet, or even Lucifer himself had thwarted such efforts.

  “Glasya, I am finally able to see you again,” he began in his usual gentle way.

  “Greetings, brother,” she remained knelt and peered once again into his beautiful eyes. They were so plain, yet full and shining.

  “I am certain that you are fit to jump out of your skin as you are kenneled like a rabbit in there, yes?” his concern for her was genuine. She didn’t mind her turtled situation as much as Bastet, nor did she expect her brother’s sympathy as this was all a means toward a much greater end. It was good to learn at last that they weren’t stuck in some sort of pocket dimension from which there was no escape either by accident or by the Adversary’s devious traps.

  “Can you tell me the meaning for your delay?” Lucifer continued.

  “Yes, brother. After Sammian let us through the portal, we effortlessly expropriated the crafts, and then we arrived on Earth without a hitch.” Glasya was choosing her words with some care, but only so she could report the plan thus far with accuracy. Unlike most of the other demons, she did not fear her brother’s wrath as much, because she found he was unable to subject her to such a violent display.

  “Go on, my love,” he prodded like a dull stick.

  “As soon as we arrived here, however, the crafts were immovable; absolutely unresponsive to any of our efforts. The walls were still pulsing and swirling with their colors, so we knew they were still alive, but nothing at all worked. Our scrying pools, the thelemic motor, even the main portals wouldn’t unfold. Thus far, your contact is the first real sign of activity that we have seen in nearly a week since recorporation.”

  “Yes, Sammian did inform me that you were completely unavailable as she received no message from you through these ark’s walls,” he confirmed with his sister. “Why do you think that is? I was beginning to worry. The very moment I saw that I had throughput to your communications, I called immediately.”

  Lucifer had kept an open channel to his sister’s ark since he trusted only her. Although Sammian had summoned him days ago, she wasn’t a true member of the fallen yet, and would not have been made privy to any treacherous devices that any or all of the other devils may have been orchestrating behind his back. They were now, in truth, free for the first time since falling into the Inferno and it was quite possible that one of his own may have had his own rebellion in mind. Such a concept didn’t evade his brilliant thoughts and, being honest with himself, such a worry was at the forefront of them.

  “To simply put it, brother; the Adversary must have taken away our pilot’s license.” She shrugged her tough shoulders in a charade of defeat. “Although we could leave Paradise with the arks, none of devilhood could fire them up once outside of It. Our angelsong doesn’t work now.” This was Glasya’s only guess as she had checked and rechecked the thelemic motor for any damages or breaks. There were no such blemishes. The engine all but refused to respond to her demands. “I suppose once you leave, you don’t come back.”

  “So, what you are telling me is you are now stuck there?” Lucifer’s dark side was beginning to break through his calm veneer. Glasya couldn’t stand when he flew off into dramatics, and she knew she had better have a good solution on the double or she would have to endure his baneful posturing. He would never hurt her, she knew this quite well, but she didn’t want to see him so fretful.

  “No! Not at all. It’s just that we had to develop a plan B to get them powered again,” she tried her best to give her master an answer.

  “How? Explain,” he was not so much intrigued as he was doubtful of her shaky report. She feared that he assumed the entirety of the goetia was planning to betray him and he had caught them in the act. Suspicion was one of Lucifer’s lesser traits and he theorized that it took a traitor to root one out. Glasya could see that his temper was ever shortening.

  “Well, when we tried to helm the bridge of this thing, we found that the motor was unresponsive to our song, unlike it used to be. So, as commander of this operation, I elected to find an alternate power source. A source that was strong enough to restart the motor. The only element of that power level on Earth is mana, so I devised a massive incantation to summon and siphon this element from the earth’s atmosphere and into the arks’ motors. It really took a lot out of me, however. I was weakened for two full days.” She tried her best to play on her brother’s sympathy to help assuage his nerves and potential anger.

  “So, I see. What then, Glasya?” his giant blue head leaned in closer. In comparison, her 7’1” frame looked positively diminutive.

  “It’s working! But rather slowly, I confess. Slower than I had expected. Although mana is thus far the most powerful element known here, these arks require so much power that even a large surge of the stuff barely charges them. My spell has been steadily rerouting the power into these suckers. It will just take some time. ” She stood proud of herself as she twirled the curly bronze hair which framed her perfect, blunt bangs. She and Bastet had been experimenting with each other’s looks during the tedium of the wait for the arks to repower. The High President was a bit dismayed to see that Lucifer took no notice of her brilliant new hairdo, but he did have more pressing matters than flattery to attend to at that moment.

  “And this spell is charging all of the arks?” Lucifer interrogated. “How can the others know to do this if you can’t contact them?”

  “Oh, I did indeed cast the spell for all of the arks. It should be working for them too, but I will have to confirm this with the other lords now that the scrying pool is operational again,” she hoped that this report would at least garner some appreciation from her brother. “Seriously, this spell took a lot out of me.”

  “I’m sure,” the dark master said with a languid sigh. “Very well. When we are through here, I will personally contact the other lords and check to see if they are experiencing any other problems. We need every one of these vessels to perform optimally.”

  “Of course, my lord,” she adopted an obedient tone. Appreciation just wasn’t on her brother’s menu for that day.

  “Since we are using a power source native only to this planet, we need to be thorough,” Glasya began to warn. “This is going to be a one-way trip.”

  Buboe trundled into the scrying chamber, almost knocking over one of the numerou
s decanters set on the floor. The interior of the arks were rather lavish, as they were a reflection of the opulence of their Adversary’s Realm.

  “High President, I have just made contact with the other arks in the area. I can scry that report for you, Madame,” the squat demon announced, rather pleased with himself.

  “Ah, yes Buboe!” Lucifer answered for his sister as his large holographic image swung over to the rebel cherub. “I too would love to see the status of the vessels, if you will.”

  “Absolutely!” Buboe had only rare opportunities to ever speak with the big boss and seeing his enthusiasm to his report was such a blessed treat. At least Lucifer appreciated his duties unlike Glasya, and, of course, unlike the foul Bastet. “Activating that now, my lord.”

  In a rectangular recess of the swirling-hued wall from across from the scrying pool, a three-dimensional map of the arks’ placements appeared before the trio’s eyes. Once again, the systems of the vessel were going online one by one as the stolen mana coursed through the living monoliths.

  The shining image hosted the names of all the arks involved in Lucifer’s operation. The dark lord was having some difficulty seeing the results from the pool as it was transmitted from another dimension relative to his. He was attempting to double-check Sammian’s allegations from the barn. “Buboe, I now see that you aren’t the only ones to arrive there. Excellent. Tell me, how many of these arks have successfully made it to Earth?”

  The cherub strained his piggy little eyes at the glowing white map in the wall. “Eh, let’s see…” he began deep in concentration. “It looks like six hundred and, eh…sixty-six, worldwide. That’s all of them!” He too was thrilled to see this. “They all made it!”

  “Fantastic, Buboe. Most excellent.” The gargantuan image of his head slunk back with repose. “Glasya, when checked against the population of the planet’s elves, do you think that will be enough to accommodate them all?”

  “Yes, Lucifer. Stolas had studied the logistics of how many of the monoliths it would take to perform this operation and that was the number he had figured. Even though there are over a billion or so elves on the planet, these arks are huge enough to hold well over two million each. After all, they aren’t going to be traveling first class in these,” she chuckled at her own sinister joke as she hoped to lift her brother’s spirits. He still seemed a bit annoyed by the delay in plans.

  “No, Glasya, that they won’t,” a small smile cocked on his beatific face. “Buboe, I would like to see the readout of the arks in the local area of Corosa. There should be eleven there, if I am correct.”

  The glowing image in the wall zoomed into Corosa City and its general surroundings. The graphic map morphed into a fluid spreadsheet which featured the eleven vessels in that area. All of the arks carried strange and inoffensive codenames that the goetics had assumed may sound pleasant to the elven ears:

  Ark Number

  Commander

  Codename

  Location

  001

  Glasya Labolas

  Morning Star

  Corosa Environs

  002

  Stolas Voll’gig

  Sweetlight

  Corosa Environs

  003

  Dantalion Mouff

  Cool Arms

  Corosa Environs

  004

  Murmur Hazram

  Tea Green

  Corosa Environs

  005

  Amy De’berenzen

  Heavy Mint

  S. Central Atlantis

  006

  Balam Ly’myth

  Deep Summer

  S. Central Atlantis

  007

  Lucifuge Rofocale

  Super Goose

  S. Central Atlantis

  008

  Melek Taus

  Gold Core

  S. Central Atlantis

  009

  Vinea Klautha

  Honest Apple

  S. Central Atlantis

  010

  Krokus Maggro

  Sugarsack

  S. Central Atlantis

  011

  Byakko Ro

  Reliant Tiger

  S. East Atlantis

  Glasya’s was the prime ark in the whole operation and it bore her brother’s namesake. Not all of the earth’s arks were captained by goetics as there were only seventy-two demons holding that elite rank, but many lesser demonic commanders carried the task of overseeing the operations of the vessels who were deemed competent enough to carry out the plan to fruition.

  “Where is Mammon?” Glasya wondered as she gleaned the local readout.

  “Ha! He ticked me off, so I assigned his ark to the Vrillian wastes of Thuless’in. He’s stuck in a northern city by the name of Dim’borgir.” Lucifer was pleased with his little punishment to the greed lord who had tried to sneak extra winnings from a game of imp chess the two had played awhile back. Her brother never forgot a slight.

  “Serves him right,” Glasya twirled her curls again. “He was probably expecting his assignment in some wealth-laden city in Xo’chi or Gonduanna.”

  “No. I did, however, give Asmodai Dorado City in Xo’chi.” Lucifer was preparing to get an earful from his sister as he winced with a grimace full of mirth. She and the wrath demon were always at wits with each other and she would be quite envious of him receiving such an exotic locale. Lucifer could detect some carnal tensions between the two and he assumed their bickering was the prelude to a genuine romance one day.

  “Hey! Why does he get all the sun and fun while I get boring old Corosa City?” she pled while flashing her brother doe eyes.

  Lucifer jumped on that. “Ah, but boring old Corosa City is the crossroads of the world, as the elves say. I assigned you to the most populous cultural center on the planet. So you should be flattered that I entrusted you with such lofty responsibilities.”

  “Well, I suppose we aren’t here to sightsee,” Glasya mumbled as she soaked in the data on the wall. “By the way, did Sammian contact you yet? Any word on her assignment?”

  “There has been a bit of a complication, but a fortuitous one,” Lucifer informed her, then looked away as if to dismiss the point.

  “So…that means…,” her brother was trying her patience on purpose at that moment. One thing after another was diverting from the original plan and she didn’t want to take the horrid blame for it which was quite possible. If the situation here revolted any more, she could always devise a way to have Bastet take the fall.

  “The elven assassin failed the kill,” he explained. “So we are going to use a different ploy to convince elfdom to keep away from Mars.”

  “What should I do? Are we still not going to use the excuse of an alien invasion?” Glasya was now more intrigued although she had only prepared herself for the original plan. Adaptation wasn’t as strong a suit for her as it was for her brother.

  “We will. Really, nothing changes for you, but Sammian’s plans will have to be a bit more…drastic to convince the populace,” the dark lord explained with an air of reassurance. “Sammian is now to stage a massacre up on the elves’ Martian colony and blame it on the orcs.”

  “What!” Glasya let out a shrill and feminine laugh. “I never pegged you the one for so much drama, dear brother. This is going to be good!”

  “Well, fun and good for you, but also messier and a bit more chaotic,” Lucifer reasoned. ”With such a terrible and quick display of carnage, you can expect a flood of elves fighting on top of one another to get a seat on these arks. So, that is a challenge you must make arrangements for. Do you see my point?”

  “Oh…” Glasya was not the most patient of demons and having to handle over a million warm bodies and souls all at once was not an idea she relished. “Will the potions we are making still help alleviate this possible earthly stampede?”

  “That may be a key element in this new plan,” the giant image agreed. “This we will play by ear after we see the elves’ reaction.
Oddly enough, once our arks appeared, the general populace took it all rather graciously, so Sammian tells me. Perhaps they will be calmer about it all than I suspect, but we can’t allow them to become too complacent or they’ll forget about this so-called crisis and never get on board! They are a fickle lot, these elves. That is why I initially wanted a slower, but steadier influx by using the drama of the assassination and a power vacuum. Well, they aren’t just fickle, they too are fallible.”

  “We could just destroy their godsrail and prevent them from going to Mars that way,” Glasya suggested with a cocky shrug. “We can have Sammian do it.”

  “Absolutely not!” Lucifer couldn’t hide his smile at her brutal proposal. “They cherish that thing as it is their greatest achievement in their minds. We are here to be heroes, not vandals. They’d hate us and never get aboard the arks and then we would need to round them up by force. That could take forever. We need their unwavering trust.

  “It would have been so much easier if we had that boob Travius in control of the throne for us,” he sneered. “We would have had the government, the infrastructure, and most notably, the military and the media under our control. A slower burn, yes, but more efficient.”

  “So what is next, then, brother?” Glasya looked over to Buboe who was adjusting the map of their area.

  “Wait some more, I am afraid,” Lucifer could see his sister wince at the suggestion. She felt as if she were becoming trapped in that ark as she could feel the slow crawl of the earth’s time-sense. “Then, when Sammian has completed her rather grisly task, I need for you to open the gates of the ark once you have accumulated the power to do it. All the arks must open simultaneously to make the event all the more monumental for their tiny elven minds, so coordinate that with the other commanders. It’s all in the display of power. You will lead elfdom’s so-called relief effort and you will be their salvation from the dreaded slaughter that these alleged orcs would certainly deliver upon them.”

  “Of course,” she continued for him with a toothy grin. “Then once they are all inside the vessels, we dope them with the thelemic potion and deliver them all to the Inferno. Body and soul.”

  The amended plan was more brutal, quicker and simpler. Too much so for Lucifer’s taste, but he was still in the running and no angelics were in pursuit as far as any reports had surfaced. The sigils he had ordered scratched into the walls of the ark would repel any of their ten holy choirs, so they would no longer be able to enter any of them regardless. His forces had compromised the Adversary’s vehicles even though they couldn’t yet activate them to full operation. As it stood, both Paradise and the Inferno were at a tragic stalemate, but he was sure to turn those tables because he still held some of the initiative.

  “Body and soul, my dear sister.”

  Satellite of Hate

  Olympus Mons Traffic Control to Cydonia Base, please respond,” Mia Bha’vaal called into the comm as she checked the bank of glowing scanners with diligence against the flashing bright streak of light screaming across the ever-murky night sky beyond the panoramic window splashed before her. “Olympus Mon…”

  “Yeah, Mia. I hear you just fine and you don’t need the formalities here,” Commander Lok’nath Pravaal reminded his subordinate with a lazy huff in their native Kumarian.

  “I know, Commander, but it sounds so capital! Just like in the movie Bug Hunter. Besides, I am only practicing for when we get some real traffic up here,” the overzealous young communications officer reasoned. Nothing much dissuaded Mia as she took her youthful appearance and playful demeanor too far sometimes, even with her superiors.

  Commander Pravaal wasn’t exactly the sternest of bosses; much of the crew thought he was something of a pushover, so it was rare that she hid her chipper posture with him on this assignment. Most of the crew stationed on the expedition appreciated her fresh attitude through the usual slow and uneventful claustrophobia, but when events got stressful, as they would from time to time, the maiden could get kind of annoying.

  “That won’t be for a long time, Mia. Right now, all you ever need to worry about in regards to contact is base and expedition control.” Mia could tell her commander was rolling his eyes with a smirk as he informed her. No matter how persistent her grating antics were, she knew he held a soft spot for her.

  “Okay, but what about with supply ships?” Mia offered as she tucked a long black bang of her hair behind her tall ear.

  “Grrr!” the commander let loose a bold groan on the comm. “Very well! Be as official as you want with supply!” Pravaal could hear the comm officer’s grin beaming to the edges of her flawless face over the open channel at his shortness. He wished for the same manascreen communicators as had expedition control so he could see her monkey shines with his own eyes, but budgets were budgets. “Ahem…Anyway, what’s the crisis now?” he inquired with tired sarcasm.

  “Scanners have detected a foreign contact at 10 degrees north, 42 west, Commander,” she informed in her dutiful tone. “It just collided with the surface a minute ago.”

  “So, what do you want us to do about it?” Pravaal wanted to get back to his heated card game with the base’s golem handler as this banter with the maiden was becoming exasperating.

  “We should immediately send a bus to check it out,” she suggested without skipping a beat. Mia had been reminded to show more initiative upon her most recent term review, so her people-pleasing behaviors were in full swing as of late.

  “Eh… Look, it’s probably just another meteoroid or something. The atmosphere is thinner here. Don’t worry about it.” He was about to cut the flow from the comm until Mia quipped back.

  “Perhaps, but what if it is in relation to the pyramids on Earth?” Mia waited in stolid silence for a response over the flow.

  “We have no pyramids up here, thank the gods,” Pravaal rolled his eyes again with much impatience.

  “This is true,” Mia began. “But what if it is from them? What if they are trying to contact us as well?”

  “I don’t know, Mia,” Pravaal gave her suggestion some honest thought. He didn’t want to miss out on what could prove to be an eventful discovery, but the base’s power supply was a bit short. “That could be hard on the mana and we don’t get another shipment for four months.”

  “It isn’t that far,” she reminded her boss. “It’s only over on the edge of Adalia Beach. That’s just a tankful for you there and back.”

  After much pause, the Commander did some impromptu logistical arithmetic in his head and saw that Mia was correct. The land there was pretty flat and that would make for a smooth and quick mission. Sometimes the monotony of milling back and forth on this all but desolate world numbed the senses and made one slow. Every day drained into the next. “Very well, I’ll put a bus together and we’ll check it out,” he ended the thoughtful silence.

  “You found us a bogie, huh?” Lieutenant Ly’sann Ild’ryss asked his partner as he scanned the surface map shining on one of the many screens before him. “Maybe it’s an alien that’s come to eat us this time. It sure would help alleviate the boredom, I’ll tell ya.”

  Ly’sann was much more jaded than his contemporary and joined the Atlantean Air Guard so he could fly limmers, but his immense height prevented such a dream from becoming reality. At the onset of his training, he was quite the accomplished flyboy at the Academy, but after a freakish and latent growth spurt in his twenties, he no longer qualified for the position of pilot. At a lanky 7’6” height, it was all but impossible for him to squeeze his long legs into the cramped cockpit anymore. Limmerjocks were known for being more-or-less petite and he had lost such a quality years before. Due to his aptitude for manatech, he switched over to communications with much reluctance. It was the most depressing period of his life as he had always thrived in high-activity situations to the point that he needed to be in constant motion or he felt like he would implode. He missed the early days of the Academy with all his heart when he would barnstorm and flit-hop the veh
icles in mid-air at the fastest of speeds with daring skill. Now, he felt like a crippled person for the simple fact that he had grown six inches over the course of one month long ago. Banks and arrays of screens and scanners were his life now, and the sessile nature of communications put him into a deeper funk that he remedied with large amounts of mead and wine. Ly’sann, to be blunt, was a drunk.

  “Yes! Perhaps we will make contact with an agent from the pyramids back home!” Mia’s enthusiasm was grating on Ly’sann as well, but in a bittersweet way. He liked the tech maiden with a genuine honesty and saw a ghost of the person he used to be in her, except for the fact that she actually enjoyed being a comm officer.

  “Well, you know what I think?” He slugged another deep drink of “fortified” coffee from his thermos. “I think it’s a big ol’ dragon from outer space that has come to incinerate every last one of us. At least I hope so.”

  “We should be serious about this!” Mia switched to Ly’sann’s Atlantean tongue. He too could speak her Kumarian, all members of the mission were required some degree of fluency, but he never quite mastered its rolling accent so she met his communicative needs with his native language. “We just don’t know what this planet really has to offer!”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re right,” he responded with some sincerity. “You have to understand how antsy I get on these night shifts. I gotta admit, I would much rather be playing cards with the boss right now. No offense.”

  “None taken. I just wish more of us would experience this wonderful opportunity to be in an entirely new world.”

  Mia wasn’t the only member of the mission to have such interest about the planet, but so many on their roster were somehow broken and that overbearing sepulchral mood made it difficult for her to enjoy the mysteries of the mission to their fullest. Ly’sann was a cynical boozer and the Commander was a little long in the tooth. This was Pravaal’s final supervision before retirement, and Mia felt he was only passing the time before he hit the bungalows on the beaches of Lank’aa back home. Pashaa Utillo, the golem handler, was an exception who was quite busy from day to day with maintenance and construction duties, but she was such a tough and surly individual that Mia tried to avoid contact with her as much as possible.

  “I do, Mia, it’s just that I cannot always be on fire when I’m sequestered in this tower for eight hours every day.” The elf looked out the gigantic viewport for a moment and imagined speeding over the plains and tremendous mountain ranges of the strange planet in a limmer that was armored with the finest of ivory. As he knew such a fantasy was hopeless to ever experience again, his wishful daydreams were becoming less frequent and this made him feel downright empty. He turned away from his coworker and closed his eyes, hoping to look busy from her vantage point. It was only a few minutes before he dozed off into a light nap.

  Half an hour later, Ly’sann was awoken by the emergency alarm screaming on the control console. His dreamless slumber was so pleasant that it felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest upon hearing the wailing assault to his large ears. The jolted sleep sobered him up in an instant.

  “Control, this is Bus One! We need assistance! Help!” It was the crackling voice of Be’lann Hinter, the base’s bus pilot. Mia intercepted the communication meant for Cydonia Base and listened with her full attention. Even Ly’sann was reorienting himself from the precious sleep he snuck from under his partner’s nose and was aware enough to detect the gravity in the pilot’s transmission.

  “What in the Nine Hells is going on?” Ly’sann whispered over to Mia as he harvested the crusty sleep from his eyes.

  “Shh!” she cut him off. “I need to hear this. Let’s let Cydonia take this comm. We can’t do anything from this far away.”

  It was all so frustrating to the young comm officer. Traffic Control was hundreds of miles from the main base, as it was positioned on the highest elevation of the planet in order to get the best communication range for the day when traffic to and from Earth would be bustling. As it stood, many godswheels and their launch sites were in the works to be mass-produced back on Earth so those magnificent travels could be possible to anyone who could afford such a trip. In a few short years, Olympus Mons would prove be a rather busy operation.

  “Gods! She’s ripping the back hatch open!” Be’lann screamed through the comm as it squelched from the high frequency of his terrified shriek. In the transmission’s background, the two comm officers could hear the angry thuds and clanks of cured wood being beaten by what sounded like a rhinoceros’ charge.

  “Just tell us where you are and we’ll send Bus Two over.” It was Commander Pravaal. His voice was in a total panic, which was unlike him. The old Kumari Air Guard officer had never experienced any real battles during his career so his combat time amounted to not much more than simulations and trainings. Kumari was a peaceful collection of kingdoms, for the most part, and large scale military campaigns were all but unheard of, unlike places such as Thuless’in or Tel’lemuria. Either way, he was not used to such real drama.

  “Yeah, Commander, I can’t seem to…,” the pilot’s response was broken by the sound of a terrible explosion from the bus’s hull. “Gods! She’s in! I’m…” The sound of a red mana discharge was followed by another of Be’lann’s screams. The drawn-out cry of terror gave way to a squeal of pain and then wet gurgling. Neither of the comm officers were sure, but it sounded like a female’s cackle was sounding in the background.

  “Be’lann!” Pravaal shouted over the comm. “Can you read me? Be’lann!” His pleas were answered with an ominous laugh of unknown origin. “Who is that? Who’s there?”

  Mia couldn’t hold back her concern any longer. That scream was serious and she knew that Be’lann was no longer in trouble, but dead. Those final noises of his yelling were sucking and so…organic. “We have to contact Base. Maybe we should take our own bus over there.”

  “Why?” Ly’sann’s sleep-reddened eyes lit up with a new-found attention. He was scared, but he just couldn’t grasp how their arrival to that scene would be of any assistance to the situation at hand. “That’s hundreds of miles away. We’ll never make it in time. What I mean, is they’ll have everything under control by the time we get there. Let’s just keep to our jobs here.”

  “Fine, but we need to let relief downstairs know what’s going on,” Mia agreed after some thought about Ly’sann’s point. “I’ll sound the station’s alarm.”

  The pulsing wail of the alarm was causing Ly’sann’s hung over head to ring in tandem with the klaxons. The darkness of the tower’s control hub was now flashing with the warning of frightened red danger. This all was making him a bit dizzy in his self-induced headache.

  Moments later, Yar’za Sarma and Ronak Ohm filled the main door of the tower. The looks on their faces were locked into panicked surprise. The two were the relief for Mia and Ly’sann and both had only been off duty for four hours before the maiden hit the alarms.

  “What’s happening?” Yar’za exclaimed. He had never heard the true sounds of the alarms go off before as the communications tower did not hold emergency drills in an effort to save mana.

  “There has been a situation with Be’lann in Bus One over on the Adalia Beach,” Mia explained with much anxiety. She was as enthusiastic about danger as she was with wonder and this was helping in no way to assuage the pair’s nerves.

  “Eh, what kind of a situation, exactly?” Ronak asked a bit annoyed by Mia’s cryptic exposition. Aside from Ly’sann, everyone was speaking their native Kumarian.

  “I have no reports, but I seriously think something, or maybe someone, just hurt him,” Mia cut from her formally-delivered uncertainty.

  She was, to be sure, quite spooked and some terrible notions crossed her mind. What if whatever force that was certain to have killed Be’lann made it over to Cydonia and would then kill everyone there as well? She and her comrades would have to ration a meager existence in the cramped communications center that only consisted of t
he tower, a small garage, tiny living quarters for four and a power shed which held the manatanks. By the time a relief vessel came to rescue them, they might all be dead from starvation or exposure. That is, if Expedition Control even bothered to send relief to four lonely members. Lord Centeo Mitlan who funded the bulk of the project was always going on about the budget, the budget, the budget. The stately financial warden was never against cutting costs and corners and she feared that their lowly lives may be construed as such needless expenditures.

  “Hurt?” Ronak was in confused disbelief. “Surely that isn’t true. How could he be hurt? Was there some kind of accident?”

  “Well, that’s just the strange thing of it all,” Ly’sann interjected in his broken Kumarian. “Be’lann kept screaming, and I mean he was shrieking about something tearing its way into the bus.” The lieutenant adjusted his round cap as it fell askew on his head during his nap. “After a horrible ruckus, the comm was silent and then I could swear I thought I heard laughter. Like a young female’s laughter.”

  “What is even stranger,” Mia added to her comrade’s tale, “is that Be’lann was investigating a contact site that I identified about a half hour beforehand. Something fell into the atmosphere and I suggested Base to go and check it out.” Guilt crawled up the maiden’s spine and settled in the back of her mind. “Frankly, I feel somehow responsible for it all,” she said as her dark eyes began to water by sad reflex. “I should have just ignored it.”

  “What good would that have done?” Yar’za butted in as he took off his uniform poncho and threw it on a ratty sofa nearby. “This isn’t over yet and whatever that thing is that may have killed Be’lann isn’t finished. I’ll bet you a million brens it’s headed duly toward the base.”

  Yar’za was never too fond of Mia as he took her to be something of a prima donna. He knew that she was from a rather pampered home and he felt that the maiden was just slumming it by joining the Air Guard. He also suspected that her eagerness and naiveté were both just acts she employed to disarm people whom she thought of as lesser in secret. The elf was always short with his teammate and often downright rude to her. At a time of potential crisis such as this, he predicted that she would blunder or break down in a panic and her tears were confirming his suspicions. Yar’za loved being right.

  “You are correct, Yar’za!” Mia stifled her encroaching sobs with a slight sniff. “That’s what I was trying to say in the first place! Well, I was thinking it, anyway. I had better get on the horn with Cydonia and tell them to prepare for full alert.”

  Yar’za raised a somewhat surprised bushy eyebrow at that. The little tech whelp was indeed showing some initiative. Whether or not the maiden had any real guts would remain to be seen if and when this thing somehow wandered over to the comm station.

  ”Cydonia Base, this is Olymp…eh, it’s Mia,” she corrected herself as she remembered her earlier banter with the Commander.

  “Yes, Mia, I read you,” Pravaal’s haggard voice sang over the comm. “What do you have for me?”

  “We have intercepted your convo with Be’lann. Is he all right?” The maiden didn’t want to know the grim answer.

  “We don’t know yet, as we have lost transmission with him.” Pravaal was becoming exasperated again with her. “I am sending over Bus Two to investigate.”

  “No!” Mia couldn’t contain herself. Despite her sour relations with the surly Yar’za, he was most likely correct that their mysterious adversary was on its way to the base. “Sir! If I may be so bold to speak freely,” she corrected herself.

  “Proceed,” the Commander replied with growing impatience.

  “We at control believe that whatever attacked Be’lann’s bus is en route to the base,” she mustered her inner strength to pull rank and elect to make a suggestion to her superior. The maiden figured it wouldn’t be too terrible of a reprimand if she did so as the situation had become rather informal up on Mars, besides, the fate of keeping mum could be much worse. “I suggest that base be placed on full alert and lockdown.”

  “Mia! We have to get Be’lann back dead or alive! I cannot abide by your suggestion,” Pravaal sounded almost like a father in his rebuke. Yar’za overheard his familial tone towards Mia over the comm and rolled his eyes. He knew he would never receive such easy treatment if he were ever to be noncompliant.

  This negative reply wasn’t going to settle with Mia and she refused to back down. “Sir, that thing out there is going to pick us off one by one if we keep sending sorties. I understand I am being insubordinate, but I would rather have a brig to come back to than a tomb.”

  Pravaal left the comm’s flow open but silent. Yar’za looked over at his contemporary with a respect she had never seen out of him since the beginning of their assignment up there. He was impressed in all sincerity by her ability and display of bravery to pull rank when it was needed. Yar’za, in contrast, lost much faith in the Commander not long after arriving to the base and considered him a softy who viewed this outback job just as a final order for an unassuming and rather nameless officer in the Guard.

  “Very well,” Pravaal relented after the pregnant pause. “I’ll recall the bus and hit the alarms. Remember, you will not be able to enter the base until this situation is secured.”

  “Sir! Understood,” Mia barked in a subordinate cheer. The smile on her lips stretched across her face as she believed she had just done her best to save the entire base.

  “And Mia,” the Commander added.

  “Yes sir!” she again barked.

  “Three days in the brig when this is over.”

  “Yes sir! Absolutely!” she continued with her official rank, still pleased with herself. It would prove to be a sad fact that Mia would never experience the foul rations served to the insubordinates housed in the brig.

  “Keep an open channel to base, and if things get out of hand, put the tower on lockdown as well,” the Commander’s voice was uncertain and a bit grave. This made Mia feel small, as her boss’s tone almost sounded defeated before the game even started. She prayed in silence to the gods that the small cadre on the base could hold it all together and no more elves would get hurt. You must follow evacuation contingencies with Passionvale if we lose it here.”

  “Yes sir!” A small tear rolled out of her right eye. This was not shed out of joyous pride or grief from the apparent loss of Be’lann, but rather the sinking wonder of false hope. Such a feeling was so foreign to her usually optimistic self.

  The massacre of Cydonia Base was overheard by the four in the tower a mere five minutes later. Whoever or whatever was assaulting their operations was fast. Very fast. Be’lann’s last transmission was almost one hundred miles away from the base and the interloper closed that distance in such a short amount of time. None of the four could believe it the moment they heard the muffled din of the violent banging against the bases ‘main door which was hewn from half of a foot of cured mahogany. Disbelief gave way to an unearthly sickness in the pits of their stomachs when they heard the behemoth portal crash through as the security team screeched “Breach!” over the comm. Volleys of caster howls followed only to be silenced seconds later.

  “Commander!” Mia took the comm again but halfway didn’t believe she would receive an answer from the elder elf.

  “Mia, not now!” he screamed in immediate response. “It’s in here!”

  “I know! We can hear it!” Her heart was beating faster than it had even during her first limmer drop.

  “Gods! I don’t know what to do!” Pravaal cried like a heartbroken maiden. “She’s cutting us down from room to room! With her bare hands!”

  She is? A female cackle, Mia remembered. What was this thing and how could a maiden get to Mars? Was this intruder some native remnant of the planet? So many questions rifled through her mind. “What do you see, Commander? On the security screens?”

  “Eh, she’s…like a young maiden,” he began, almost trancelike. The description of this thing fell into an uncanny valley
of earthly familiarity, but otherworldly mystery. “She’s kind of tall though and she has wings. Big wings that resemble a moth’s! Oh dear gods!”

  “How tall is it?” Mia couldn’t bring herself to call this fiend a “she” as her frantic actions and forceful abilities were against the very nature of elfdom.

  “Over seven feet as far as I can tell,” he answered, shaken. “It doesn’t matter. She’s tearing everyone apart with her bare hands! Oh gods!” he cried again as if those gods would chariot down from the heavens like magic and put this foul abomination out of commission. Even if they did arrive to their rescue, could even they best her, he wondered? “There’s so much blood! She’s ripping through our security’s armor!”

  It was most certain Pravaal’s useless prayers would not be answered any time soon, but Mia surmised that the base did indeed have a force that was the next best thing to a god. “Commander! Summon Pashaa! We can use the golem against her! It should be strong enough to take her down.” Considering that the monster bashed though six inches of airtight, cured mahogany, this solution, too, would prove to be all but ineffective, but the enemy seemed to be immune to red mana bolts.

  “Yes! Amazing idea, Mia!” The Commander switched channels in a frenzy to give the orders to the golem master. Seconds after she had given him the affirmative, Pashaa was decapitated by the mothlike menace’s steely fingers.

  Mia’s heart sank when the Commander informed her that Pashaa had been compromised. Her spirit soon followed her heart when Pravaal screamed that he could see the fiend through the command center’s window.

  “She’s covered in blood! It’s like she’s wearing a suit made of my soldiers’ blood! It’s everywhere!” Pravaal was no longer only crying, but wailing in the immense pain that he would soon experience when Sammian broke through the command center and swung his body about like a rag doll. After killing his other two officers in the room with little effort, Sammian took the comm. The Cydonia Base massacre was complete and the elves of Olympus Mons were the last four in existence on the planet Mars.

  “Hi!” the demon chirped like a happy maiden over the comm in perfect Kumarian. “Is anyone there? I sure had lots of fun!” she giggled with childlike menace. Throughout the comm tower, the elves were frozen solid by her banal echo which was much like a bratty teenager’s. Ronak soiled his uniform upon hearing it reverberate through the air.

  “Fine! Be like that!” Sammian responded to the terrified elves’ silence. “I guess I’ll just have to party with you losers now! Be there in a jiff!” she ended her playful banter of murder with a shrieking cackle.

  “Gods, get the casters!” Ronak screamed seconds later when the numbing terror subsided and the adrenaline kicked in. Ly’sann opted to chug the remains of his boozy coffee as the other three bungled their way to the small weapons locker over in a corner of the tower. All three of them were crying like elflings despite the military training they had endured years ago. Every one of them knew death was certain against this opponent as it was unlike any battle maneuver they had studied at the Academy.

  The liquored comm officer was scanning the pulsing screens with weary haste as he tracked their harbinger of death’s velocity and trajectory. It was faster than any living being on Earth. He too was weeping, but he was also in total acceptance of his fate. He tried to calm himself down with the stupefying vapors of his coffee and wondered if he would be allowed to fly again when he met the gods. Maybe he wouldn’t even need a limmer in the afterlife. “Bogie inbound at T-minus one minute,” he announced with a dejected groan.

  Unlike Ly’sann, the quivering trio of elves clutching their casters still held the fire of life within their bodies and they wanted every last second of it. “She’s coming!” Yar’za screamed. “Train the casters on the door! Gods!”

  “T-minus thirty seconds,” Ly’sann managed out of the side of his mouth. She was so fast that the drunken elf envied her for a second. To have such an extreme ability as zooming through the sky, unaided by nothing other than the wings on your back at speeds of over three thousand miles an hour just had to be the ultimate experience.

  Mia’s eyes were gushing tears so that she couldn’t quite see the bulky door that was her target. The jerks with which her sobs shook her body bobbed the point of the caster up and down. Even if this thing could have stopped the monster, she would never have hit her mark under such frantic conditions. All three chanted the cast to bring their weapons to enraged life.

  “In ten…,”Ly’sann began the grim countdown with a tired sigh.

  Ronak held the notion for a brief moment that death by his own caster may be preferable to the damage this thing would do to his body. He couldn’t decide if he should aim its point at the door or up in his mouth. Suicide was a terrible infraction for the elves and he at least wanted a noble death, which he was soon to experience. He stuck with the door.

  Yar’za was losing his mind too, but in a different way. He didn’t really know if he was aware of what was happening at that moment as the fear of his death broke his will. His fits of wide-eyed laughter would not stop in contrast to Mia’s tears. “Whoo-hoo! We got it all, Mia! She’s gonna hit!”

  “3-2-1. Engage…”

  Kibbles of safety glass from the shattered giant viewport window, along with the grue from Ly’sann’s body, exploded with tornadic force. Sammian had completed Lucifer’s directives with precision a mere twenty seconds after hitting the tower. Now it was time to make things really ghastly, just like the boss had ordered. The door that the elves had expected to be pummeled by her demonic fury remained unscathed as was Ly’sann’s empty thermos.

  Chocolate Milk and Manalite

  Back on planet Earth, another alarm screamed through On’dinn Jak’sin’s bedroom warning him that he would be late for his first day back at school. Sleep was so deep and hazy that he had blown off the entirety of Sunday and realized it was now Moonday morning. It was the second full day that he had lost after Sammian beat him and he wondered if his chronic slumber wasn’t somehow the result of an ignored concussion or even supernatural in origin.

  What in the Nine Hells happened, he questioned as he stared at the clock’s glowing face which promised him it was now 6:00 a.m. Perhaps it was indeed all a result of the thrashing Sammian gave his head the other night, but maybe it was the stress of being arrested. Perhaps it was a combination of both factors, but, for the first time in days, he felt awake; more so than ever.

  He peeped out from his room and saw that his father was no longer passed out on their tattered sofa; although he was sure to be unconscious somewhere else in the house, and that was almost always a given. As he scanned the dingy front room, he debated in his head about where to begin looking for Minn’dre today.

  Despite the rare encounter with a bully such as Hyrax Arcovis and certain professors who held antique or outmoded views, On’dinn rather liked going to school. Many of the students respected him and he was eager to hear some of the juicy gossip that transpired after that odd party in Sig’ryn’s treehouse. Of course, always being the skeptic, On’dinn would refute at least sixty percent of those rumors, but he did see with his own eyes the social destruction Venn’lith had sustained. Today, the impromptu vacation would need to be extended, however. He had to find his friend and know that she was alive and well. He cursed himself under his breath for sleeping the entirety of yesterday away, but perhaps his constitution needed it. He had been through a lot.

  Glancing at the cracked mirror in the bathroom, he was shocked to see a frightful stranger until he remembered cutting his hair for the party. How ridiculous, he thought. It was freakishly short enough as to where it was going to turn some heads. He supposed that he would have to wear a hoodiecloak today to hide the strange ‘do. The last thing he needed while hooking school was the general populace ogling the anachronistic wonder atop his head. Such attention might very well make it to the truancy warden and then he would indeed spend time in a juvenile dungeon; even if only for the day. If th
at were so, he could only hope Sammian wouldn’t “rescue” him again as he cared for no more beatings about his head.

  He rushed out the door and figured that the Sea and Shell would be the best place to start for any kind of info. In the back of his mind, he hoped that he would see his young maiden-friend serving orders to her customers like on any other morning and then he could chide himself for being paranoid. Such a relief, he predicted, would not be forthcoming. That female was out of the loop; she had to be. If she wasn’t back in the clutches of the civil wardens, she was in Sammian’s. Something horrible had happened to her as he could see there were no messages left from her in his inbox.

  Scanning the contents of that folder on his tablet, he was happy to see that Tam’laa had left him a message wanting to know if they could look for Minn’dre. Of course, that was dated yesterday, and he missed it altogether as he was away from the world in his deep slumber. With no more time to waste, he ran to a nearby bench at a jam-packed tram stop and tapped out an apology to his friend.

  He liked Tam’laa quite a lot. She was very intelligent and her foreign flavor intrigued him as she was the closest he could get to another land. On’dinn could barely afford to travel across Corosa Bay much less over the ocean to Gonduanna. He wanted more than anything to know more about her homeland, and one day hoped he’d be able to visit the luxurious and exotic locale which was home to the gold elves. Only on academic scrolls and the manascreen was he aware of the wonders of those kingdoms. Sure, he had visited their pavilion at the cultural exchange in the Royal Arena, but that was under the cold grey skies of Corosa City and not the hot, tropical sun of their continent. The experience just wasn’t the same as being there in person. The lands of Gonduanna were dark and mysterious, even for its locals. The cities were immense and the design and décor was beyond anything the eyes could see in his rather vanilla kingdom. Even the birds and beasts of Atlantis were brown and grey mixed with tan, while the life of Gonduanna was painted in bright fluorescent hues that treated the eyes to fantastic beauty and wonder. It was as if the Creator had put all of His artistic efforts into Gonduanna only to become bored with it all by the time He had made Atlantis. So many of his wealthier classmates had summered there on their bright white beaches and he too wanted to be the visitor for once, he had admitted with some envy.

  On a weekday morning, the Sea and Shell was bustling with adult elves that needed a desperate caffeinated jolt before being able to function at work. It wasn’t as crowded by any means as the last time he had visited, but everybody’s schedules had returned to normal and nobody was lolling about on idle holiday time. On’dinn poked his hooded head above the crowd of commuters in order to see if Minn’dre was working the counter. Much to his expectations and fear, she was nowhere to be found. One of the baristas was new and that fact made his heart sink. What if this alien waitress was Minn’dre’s permanent replacement? Something bad must have happened to her as his sixth sense was nagging at him with its usual pessimistic alarm and he figured it was serious.

  Minn’dre’s best friend Shae’gin was on schedule that morning and he was happy to at least see a familiar face. Before laying eyes on her, he felt like he was dumped into an alternate reality warp where everything was the same, all but for a few important details.

  As she was swabbing a table down with a wet rag, On’dinn snuck up behind her and poked her in the back. The playful gesture sent her into a fright and she almost spilled her water bucket with a shocked yelp.

  “On’dinn Jak’sin! Grrr!” She was not amused by the early morning prank. “I could have knocked this water all over the place, you little jerk!”

  “Hey, I’m just here to keep you on your toes,” he cocked half of his face into a dashing smile from under his hood.

  “What’s up with the dark-and-brooding look, there, big guy? You joined the Black Hood or something? I hear they’re looking for new members,” she jibed as she was in the dark of his actual affiliation with them.

  That innocent banter seriously made him skip a beat. “Eh…no!” he reacted in immediate defense. “No. I mean I just want to see if Minn’dre is working today,” he tried to retain his lost casual mood.

  “Oh, yeah…,” Shae’gin’s playful anger melted into genuine concern. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” On’dinn’s eyes were lit up like a manastation’s scanners. “What happened?”

  Shae’gin looked off in careful thought as she tried to best compose the bad news to the lad. She knew very well that he carried a crush for her coworker and it was difficult to choose the right words that wouldn’t throw him into dramatics. “Well…”

  On’dinn wasn’t sure if she was stalling on purpose, but he was impatient to receive the ill report as he was sure it would be. “Just tell me. I can handle it.”

  “Well, she was here early Sunday morning and she got kinda sick,” the maiden tried to explain.

  “What?” His wide eyes almost glowed from within the dim recesses of his hoodie. “Sick how?”

  “Okay, she was acting really strange when she arrived for her shift and she had been missing orders and was just wandering around really slow, like,” Shae’gin bit her bottom lip trying to remember more details. “We weren’t crowded or anything because it was the redeye shift. But she was just plodding along like she didn’t know where she was. Some of the customers not only complained about her not getting their order, but they also claimed that she was unfriendly and acted like she was on drugs or something.”

  “Then what happened!” On’dinn figured she was at least abducted by Sammian, but seeing as how she had bothered to report for work after all of this odd drama presented a sincere puzzle.

  “Then she tried to place her final order. By this time she was really acting like she was in a trance and then she just collapsed. She collapsed face first on the floor.” The gravity of the situation hit Shae’gin and her concern turned to sorrow and worry for her comrade. “Oh, On’dinn, I’m so sorry. I’m so scared for her!” she said as her golden eyes began to develop tears.

  “Any idea where she is now?” On’dinn wanted to remain in control as best as possible, but the barista’s watering eyes were becoming infectious. With a furtive sniff, he looked the other way and focused on the wonderful aromas in the café so it would help change the emotional subject in his heart.

  “She must still be at the hospital, I figure,” she began. “Like I said, this was only Sunday morning, so she may still be there.”

  “Which hospital?” he prodded.

  “The big one. Eh, Corosa Health Circle.” She grabbed her tiny bucket and plopped the rag back into the soapy water. “Look On’dinn, I gotta get back to the shift or I’ll hear it from the boss. But yeah, try Corosa Health Circle. Good luck.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been running short of that lately.”

  The young elf looked out the large window towards the towering hospital beyond. The sky was still a slate grey and he figured the gloomy weather was a holdover from Sunday’s storms. Late spring was the rainy season in Corosa and he was one of the few who felt thankful for it, especially on days he perceived as stressful. The blanket of overcast skies provided a security that invigorated him. Big, blue clear weather on his bad days seemed so ominous, as if the gods themselves could reach down from the heavens and pluck him off the earth so that they could torment him and only him for their whimsical amusement. Today was a good day to hide from their odious gifts of misfortune.

  Armored civil wardens flanked the main entrance to the health circle nearby. On’dinn was growing weary of the stentorian display of force around the city ever since those blasted pyramids arrived the more he saw them. Not just because he was almost incarcerated by them, but because they were causing people a general sense of undue stress. Sure, they needed to be there if, or more so when, the doors on those hulks opened and whatever was inside of them spilled out, but he somehow felt that the burly wardens were watching the people instead of watching ove
r them.

  He was thankful to enter the hospital unmolested by the bulls and mulled over for a moment that he was committing the offense of ditching class. It seemed his hooded getup was enough to hide his youthful age since nobody had bothered him at that point. This thought made him worry that the medic at the front desk might get wise to him playing hooky when she heard his young voice. He wondered if he should speak to her in a deeper tone, but that was stupid and unnatural. Such a contrivance would be sure to raise some pointed ears.

  The gigantic lobby was rather crowded as a fair amount of elves were still hospitalized from the quakes of last week, as well as the minor backlash from the light looting and fighting that had erupted along with their aftershocks. Corosa’s civil wardens had restored order within a couple of days and the desk medic was a bit surprised by the lighter-than-expected turnout. Such a disaster could have caused terrible chaos if the city hadn’t handled that ominous event better, and chaos equaled a crammed hospital.

  “Eh, here to visit Minn’dre Harvatt,” On’dinn delivered his request in the most natural tone he could manage. He opted not to ask if she was there, because that would just make him sound juvenile and uncertain. This was a situation where a strong assumption was the best policy as being assertive was a very adult quality.

  After some silent perusal of the circle’s records, the medic found the maiden’s bed. “Yes, she is in circle A-B, ward 7/A. May I ask who is requesting this visit?” The desk medic was rather pleasant, so his stretch of better luck may have been returning.

  “On’dinn Jak’sin,” he stated with a casual look off to the side.

  “Relation?” she inquired without looking up from her scheduling tablet.

  “Just a friend. Eh, her novion,” he lied, but he loved that lie.

  “Okay, ‘sweetie,’ I’ll send an orderly to escort you up in a few minutes,” the desk medic rolled her eyes with a sarcastic smirk. “Have a seat if you can find one.”

  Waiting was not the thing On’dinn wanted to do at that moment. As he sat there, grim thoughts and worries crept into his mind about Minn’dre. What did Sammian do to her to cause a hospitalization? Sure, she conked their heads pretty hard and perhaps Minn’dre got the worse of it, but it was nothing that some minor painkillers and lots of sleep couldn’t remedy. No, On’dinn figured his friend was abducted and during that abduction, that freakish lady really hurt her somehow. Was it drugs or a potion? Or was it some sick and perverted ritual that he didn’t want his imagination to visit? So many foul possibilities and all of them ended up with Minn’dre passing out at work. Then there was the aspect of her trance-like state as Shae’gin had reported. What was up with that? Yes, it was definite that it had to be some sort of drugging, On’dinn figured.

  He waited for almost forty-five minutes in worry and wonder before the escort arrived to take him to Minn’dre’s ward. He was a big and quite surly-looking elf. Probably hired in the event a lunatic got out of hand in the mental ward and his muscle was needed to defuse any violent situations. As On’dinn saw the fresh patch on his left arm, this escort must have been engaged in such recent violence.

  “All right, On’dinn Jak’sin for Minn’dre Harvatt,” the escort bellowed out to the waiting room with some vitriol that On’dinn could detect with ease.

  “Eh, Jak’sin, here!” the young elf raised his hand in a quick shoot skyward and thought of it as a juvenile gesture the second after doing so.

  “Whew! That one gave me a run for my money yesterday, let me tell you,” the orderly shook his bald head as if he was trying to slough out a bad memory. On’dinn noticed that one of the points on his ears was missing and scarred. Most likely due to a scuffle from long ago.

  “Huh?” On’dinn was becoming even more confused. “A run for your money?”

  “Yeah, Lord Jak’sin, that’s what I said!” he was irritated without a doubt. On’dinn found it kind of funny that he was referred to by a title he wouldn’t receive until adulthood, but he had to pretend he wasn’t of school age or he’d get the truancy warden on his tail. “A run for my money. How do you think I got this?” he exclaimed as he flashed On’dinn the nasty manapatch. “I must say, you need to tell that lady of yours to lose the nails. It’s going to sting until tomorrow at least!”

  “Erm…sorry about that,” he apologized for his friend’s feral actions even though he still was in the dark as to what they were. “What exactly happened? I can assure you, Minnie isn’t the violent type.”

  “Heh, could have fooled me!” he intoned with a gruff blurt as they entered the lift en route to the second layer of the circle. “It took four of us just to get her off of me. I can assure you, before you run off to any Circle of Law, that I didn’t do anything out of hand. I just tried to take the maiden’s blood pressure, like common procedure, and the next thing I know, she’s mauling me like a rabid badger. So, please, forgive me if I sound a little short today. It isn’t even lunchtime yet and I already need another manasalve.”

  The red doors to the lift opened with the musical announcement, “Welcome to ward A-B: Mental and Neurological Treatment.”

  On’dinn was shocked beyond belief. They put Minn’dre in the loony bin. Sammian had, without a doubt, drugged her and screwed up her mind, and this confirmed his suspicions. Minn’dre was rather fit, but there was no way anyone of her stature could take down a large escort such as this one and still need four more for assistance. The maiden had to have been amped with chemicals, On’dinn surmised at last. This Sammian was becoming a bigger enigma than ever.

  As they walked without a word though the winding corridors of the mental ward, On’dinn had so many questions to ask of his escort, but he could see by the resentful and dour look on his face that he wasn’t feeling very chatty. The escort broke the uncomfortable silence as they rounded a corner into her section.

  “What kind of hoodoo is she into anyway?” he maintained his irritation with the young elf.

  “What do you mean?” On’dinn asked, as he was even more confused by this.

  “What I mean is that strange wound on her back. Right above her bum. I tell you, elf, on second thought, I don’t wanna know what you guys are into,” he said with a shrug as they rounded another curve of the sterile hallway.

  “Eh…I dunno. I never knew about any marks on her.” On’dinn wouldn’t have known either as Minn’dre had never revealed that portion of her anatomy to him, even though he admitted to himself that he had daydreamed about it now and then. Such knowledge now spurned a suspicion in his mind about his Black Hood superior. Perhaps she was caught up in something more profound than he had ever known about and this made him feel very naïve. What if she and this Sammian were somehow in cahoots? After all, he couldn’t know everything that Minn’dre did at all-times, and keeping secrets played an important part of being in the Black Hood.

  “Well, either way, here we are. Room 7/A,” the escort grumbled. “She’s under sedation and restrained, but if she wakes up, she could get pretty randy, so whatever you do, don’t cross the yellow line around her bed. She’s dangerous.”

  Dangerous. Minn’dre. It was too much for the lad to process. She was always so in control of a situation no matter what the Black Hood did. Her ability to calm herself as well as others without compromising the fire of her beliefs was enviable and a great quality On’dinn wanted to hone in himself one day. He just couldn’t believe that such behavior had erupted out of her.

  “Yeah but...” The escort had already about-faced and lumbered off in the other direction without a further word. It was best not to bother the orderly considering his sour mood. Despite his large stature, he may have been a bit scared to revisit her room, the more On’dinn thought about it.

  The young elf entered 7/A and saw that the atmosphere was more like a morgue than a health ward. All of the lights were dimmed and the cloudy day turned the room a dull blue. The only true bright lights were those emanating from the banks of manapumps and other medical gadgets which
were singing their songs of operation with a soft hum. In the center of the room against a gloomy wall, Minn’dre was strapped to her hospital bed with some nasty-looking leather tethers. Across from his secured object of affection, stood a bespectacled mental warden and another large escort whom On’dinn supposed was there for security should the need arise.

  “You must be On’dinn Jak’sin,” the mental warden greeted in a clinical tone which seemed rehearsed. “I am Doctor Lo’grann and I am charged with your friend’s care for now. I must say she is an interesting puzzle.”

  “Eh, hello, Doctor,” On’dinn began. “I too am puzzled. What’s going on with her?”

  “Well,” the doctor brushed back his grey hair which stood over his scalp in a high poof; not uncommon on elves of his stature. “From what we have gathered from her employer, she had arrived to work for the late shift Sunday morning and during that time, she was moving as if in a stupor. After a short time on her shift, she had fallen down and was rendered unconscious. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt in the fall, but she didn’t wake up for a few hours after she had passed out.”

  “What happened then?” On’dinn wished for a more official account of his friend’s behavior than what the agitated escort had given him.

  “Her escort was running her through routine tests and when he strapped the belt around her arm to take her blood pressure, Minn’dre immediately woke up and attacked him. She was out of her senses and a hideous strength surged through her. It can happen sometimes when people suddenly wake up from a coma. It happens all the time with epileptics. We sedated her with Manalite and, unfortunately, we had to secure her in this bed. At least until we see that she has retained emotional equilibrium.” Lo’grann studied her without much sympathy from behind his spectacles which flashed blue in the light.

  “What about her folks?” On’dinn asked. This doctor was so calm and in control, if not a touch phony. He seemed almost a bit menacing in his soothing, yet clinical delivery. The young elf couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was thankful he didn’t know this doctor very well.

  “We have made a call to them, but they are at work right now and they couldn’t be reached yesterday. She’s certain to get a visit from one or both of them soon,” he stated in the same antiseptic formality.

  “On’dinn,” he continued with contrived gravity. “I am concerned. There is a rather fresh incision on her lower back that looks a bit like this.” He drew a hasty circle surrounding a triangle on the screen of his medical tablet and showed it to the young elf. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Eh, no. I’ve never seen that marking before.” He wondered if it had anything to do with the Black Hood, but he was well versed with their symbols and sigils and he never recalled such a configuration amongst them. Perhaps it had something to do with Sammian.

  “Right,” he sounded unsatisfied. “We have applied a manapatch over it, but it’s not responding to it very well.”

  On’dinn looked across the grim room at her again and saw that she was stirring in her doped slumber. He hoped that she would wake up soon so he could at least hear her voice. With that creepy doctor there, it would not be a very good idea to talk about personal matters such as the Black Hood or Sammian. On’dinn didn’t need that guy getting involved in their political drama and he knew Minn’dre wouldn’t allow for it either.

  “Was she on something?” he asked the doctor. “Like drugs or anything?”

  “Well, yes, we assumed that at first,” he answered in a haughty manner, “but upon screening her blood, we found it to be squeaky clean. Not even any cholesterol. Physically, she’s fit as a dire wolf.”

  “On’dinn Jak’sin!” a hellish growl broke from behind him. Minn’dre had woken up.

  “Get out of here, you little whelp!” She was sitting up stick-straight, as if she had the most perfect posture. It was so unnerving to see her like this compared to her deep stupor just seconds before.

  “Now, Minn’dre, we don’t want to be forced to sedate you again,” the doctor interjected with condescending authority.

  “Shut up, scrollworm!” she hissed at Doctor Lo’grann. “You should be more concerned about your wife. She’s cheating on you.” That news hit an apparent chord with the good doctor as his eyes popped wide while he bit at one of his spindly fingers in a nervous flurry. How could a random patient know such personal information, he fretted?

  “All of you!” Minn’dre jerked with terrible might on her wicked restraints for their attention. “Here is wisdom - Later this week, the doors to your doom will open wide! So saith Lucifer!”

  The young female cackled like a true lunatic. Her laughter segued into youthful giggles as if her maturity was regressing toward elflinghood. To accompany the horrific display of childishness, she thrust out her tongue and hummed a tune of infantile challenge, “Nanny-Nanny-Doo-Doo!” Within seconds, rivulets of blood oozed out of her nose as she continued to hum. The sight was chilling On’dinn with an almost supernatural feeling that he couldn’t quite identify, and this sensation was overriding any emotional concern he had for Minn’dre’s well-being. What made her behavior all the more frightening were her eyes. Under her normal moods, they were icy blue, but they were now black, as if her pupils overtook the entirety of her irises.

  “Summon more orderlies!” Lo’grann barked to his assistant with obvious fear. “I need a hematologist as well, and ten cc’s of Manalite.” He rushed over to On’dinn and all but shoved the young elf out of the door. “You have to leave. I’m sorry, but she’s acting up again and I don’t want to be responsible for what could happen to you if you remain here.”

  On’dinn felt like he was going to be ill as he made his way down the winding hall. He bent over with a slight stoop and contained his intestinal urges as the feeling subsided in an even meter the further he was away from Minn’dre’s presence. An odd fact he had noticed was that the temperature was becoming warmer the farther away he walked from the ward’s door.

  Later, he sat down in the hospital’s crowded cafeteria as he looked out at the stormy midday. The brackish coffee before him was watery and tasteless and he had no appetite, especially for anything served in a hospital. After having the question of what had happened to Minn’dre answered, terrible new ones assaulted his mind. Who or what was this Lucifer? What doors was she speaking of? Did she mean the ones on the pyramids? What was this strange mark of a circle surrounding a square? His friend was into something deeper than he could bear that he wanted nothing more to associate with while he considered reevaluating his entire relationship with her. No matter how beautiful he thought she was, the escort was correct: she was dangerous. Whether or not he would, or even could continue his investigation needed some serious thought.

  At a round table across from the young lad, a little elfling was sipping from a small carton of chocolate milk. On’dinn waved to the tiny child who responded by puffing his cheeks out and blowing bubbles into the drink, making loud, gurgling noises from a striped straw. He noticed he was wearing a light-blue t-shirt which announced, “It’s not a Milk Belly! It’s a Fuel Tank for a Poo-poo Machine!” Seconds later, his mother sat down with him and On’dinn smiled as he watched them eat lunch from out of the corner of his eye. For just a moment, he imagined that he was little again.

  Passionvale, We Have a Problem

  Seabreeze Grand Adept School had established the mentor program which allowed students to participate as interns in a prospective career field of their choice for class credit. Tam’laa Na’rundi was enrolled in this program, much to her father’s insistence, at the Circle of Climate and Environment where he worked as a military attaché. Such an arrangement was rather fortuitous in the end as Tam’laa aspired to become a marine biologist, and this was the best opportunity for her to thrust her foot in the door at such an early age for a business which was almost impossible to secure decent employment.

  For a first day back at classes, Tam’laa was rather disappointed that Moonday was her mentor’s a
ssignment as she was dying to find out all the latest news and gossip amongst her friends at the school but, most of all, what had transpired after they left the party. She figured that Venn’lith Mitlan would be much too embarrassed to show up today, if ever again, considering her thorough trashing.

  The young gold elf thought she deserved it. Not only would Venn’lith shoot dirty looks to Tam’laa on a regular basis, but upon the sun elf’s first week of arrival from Xo’chi, she tried to start a vicious rumor that Tam’laa was an illegal alien. There was, of course, no such grounding to her accusation, but it still gave her a needless headache and she was even confronted by one of the professors (a rather nationalistic boor) regarding her immigration status.

  It all stemmed from stock jealousy, Tam’laa figured. She was much better looking than the Xochian and that maiden had most likely been coveting her peacock overshawl which she had received from her Nanna back home in Gonduanna. It was true that Venn’lith was quite the fashionista, but Tam’laa always made sure to look her best too. The gold elf remembered the reflexive widening of Venn’lith’s black eyes when she saw the shawl. It read as a combination of happy awe and green envy. You can’t have everything, Tam’laa knew well, but she was sure that her sun elf rival held no such rational philosophy.

  Another reason she wanted to be back in the halls of the school was to see On’dinn Jak’sin again. She had such an amazing time at Sig’ryn’s party the other night and he was beginning to grow on her. He always had excellent points to prove and made Literature class quite an adventure when he would debate hidden points the featured authors were trying to communicate. Most of the time, the dated professor would dispute his claims with vehemence as conspiracy, but the young elf had managed to win her over on a few occasions. That took some talent.

  Her mind kept drifting back to the time they had shared in her coach at the end of that evening. He looked rather silly in that daring hairdo he opted to style just for the party, but it also suited him well, that was if it were five hundred years ago. This Minn’dre seemed to be a big concern for him and she knew that his heart was settled on the maiden, but perhaps such attentions could be swayed over to her if she tried hard enough. Tam’laa had, without a doubt, detected a strong spark between herself and him, although she was rather nonplussed that he blew her off yesterday when they had agreed to go look for his crush. At least he was considerate enough to send her an apology in her tablet’s inbox.

  Since he was alleged to be in the Black Hood, or at least infiltrating it, as he claimed, she fretted that he may be something of a danger, especially since her father was in the military. Stranger things have happened, she considered, as it was possible the lad and her father might get along regardless. Such fret was also coupled with fascination as she was impressed to the depth of her inner core that he would go through such lengths for a journalism class.

  The giant cylindrical terrarium which spun before her simulated a Martian prairie with its local flora, atmosphere, and even gravity which was a third less powerful than that of the earth. She hummed the Gonduanna Princes’ song Wish There Were Ten of You as for some strange reason, none of their tunes showed up on her headphones. Perhaps they were downloading an update to all their fans and their flow was down for the time being, she reasoned.

  In the terrarium, the tiny Kamdenite hamsters burrowed and played in the little slice of Mars that the biologists at the Circle had recreated for them. Tam’laa was busy calculating their ecological niche as her hum turned to a whistle while she compared the volley of readouts against an earthly environment. The work was fun for the most part, but she wished she had the opportunity to study the dolphin tank instead of these goofy little rodents.

  Lord Banda Na’rundi rushed with a brusque stride into the simulation room and tapped his daughter on the shoulder. By pure reflex, she gasped in surprise as the ivory cornrows in her rich black hair clacked with her speed.

  “Sorry, Tam. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” her father grimaced with a bit of guilt.

  “Yeah! You scared me!” she broke into an immediate smile. “I gathered all that info you wanted with these hamsters. It’s uploading to the central flow right now.”

  “Good! That’s fine,” her father glanced behind her at two of the animals which were jumping in squeaking merriment off a large rock in their alien gravity. “I need you to come to the communications room. We have another transmission coming in from Olympus.”

  “Capital,” she said without any real glee. Her mind was consumed in part with her project and the other half was wondering about her friends, and On’dinn was on the top of that list. “What do you think they want?”

  “Probably nothing but another shipment of supplies,” he paused upon his statement. “But the odd thing about that is they aren’t due for another four months. Why do you think that might be? Either way, I would like for you to see what a supply request is like and then you can observe the process. You see, the biologists need to discern what kinds of requests are most in demand so they will know what items to procure for the expedition.”

  “Let me guess. It’s probably mana, mana, and… some more mana,” Tam’laa surmised with a subdued smirk.

  “That’s probably true,” her father agreed with a slight chuckle. “After all, mana makes the world go ‘round. Even on Mars. That is when you would fill an order to Consolidated Power and Light and they would put together a shuttle package to be shipped to Mars. Regardless, they may need more food or specimens, then that is where you would directly come in.”

  The communications center was bustling with comm officers as well as assorted technicians from the Circle of Climate and Environment. Tam’laa spotted Quen’die’s father down the curve of the domed room hunched over the main manascreen. She thought Lord Reyliss was such a nice elf, if not a little nervous. How Quen’die didn’t walk all over her father mystified her as she found him to be a touch too easy-going. Tam’laa sometimes wished that her own father wasn’t as stern as he was, but she figured that was due to his years in the military. She guessed Quen’die’s mother held the disciplinary reins in the home as she seemed much more serious than Lord Reyliss. Perhaps even a bit icy, and that may have been why Lord Reyliss was kind of skittish after years of living with her, she guessed.

  “Ferd’inn,” Lord Na’rundi called as he and his daughter stood by. “Do you mind if Tam’laa observes an Olympus transmission today?” Her father noticed that Lord Reyliss was chewing on his nails as his eyes were transfixed to the adjustment of the screen before them. In a field of bright blue, the words “INCOMING TRANSMISSION” were advertised.

  “Huh? Oh, yes, that’s fine,” Lord Reyliss tore his eyes from the message on the monitor. “Hi, Tam’laa. Scrunch on in. We have been getting a signal now for the last twelve minutes, but the actual image still needs to transmit.”

  “What’s taking it so long?” Tam’laa asked as she craned her long neck over the heads of the seated comm officers to see the upcoming message.

  “Mars is very, very far away,” Lord Reyliss scooted over to allow the new arrivals. “According to the servers, this message entered the flow over eight hours ago and it’s now just getting here. Our mana can only work so fast across space and since all the mana on Mars is imported, the communications relays aren’t as reliant as the network on Earth. It takes a lot of energy from their reserves to transmit the video and audio, so they can only contact us sparingly.” The elf began to bite his nails again to the point that it was becoming absentminded regularity. “I hope it isn’t an emergency. They aren’t due for a shipment request for quite a while.”

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering, Ferd’inn,” Lord Na’rundi broke in with a grave grunt. “They really shouldn’t waste energy on the comm if they don’t need it. Whatever this message is, it isn’t a Mother’s Day greeting and it had better not be a Fool’s Day joke.” To that, Lord Reyliss looked over at his stolid friend and chewed his nails with an even more ravenous fervor.<
br />
  “Heh. Well, not to worry. I’m sure it’s all a routine matter. Perhaps we miscalculated the last shipment of something and they need us to pick up the slack.” Ferd’inn was not able to continue his charade of optimism with any amount of ease. He was scared.

  “Sir! We have throughput to visual,” the comm officer announced as he toggled the console’s controls. “Transmission in 3-2-Mark!”

  On the screen, the blue field was replaced by an image of the usual communications room up on Olympus Mons which these elves at expedition control had viewed many times. It took a few moments for them to realize that something wasn’t quite right. It was almost as if something was missing from the picture, or perhaps, it was that something new was added.

  All that could be heard throughout the cavernous control room were the beeps and quips of the communications devices and the steady purr of the air conditioning. All the elves, including Tam’laa, were holding their breaths by instinct at the apparent routine display before them. Something horrible was happening, and they all could feel it.

  “Throughput to audio incoming,” the comm officer broke their rapt attention.

  A form of an elf crawled up from the bottom of the screen as if it were propping itself upright after falling on the floor. Upon righting itself, every elf at the communications console shrunk back in shock as they saw that the person on the other end looked like he, she, or it was covered in blood. Not one member of the crowd at expedition control could tell what the gender of the form on the screen was through the veil of gore covering it.

  A female voice with a thick Kumarian accent blurted out in the bloody mess before them. “Passionvale, this is Olympus Mons Traffic Control.” She was attempting to sit in the seat at the console but was having immense difficulty as she was in the stupor of obvious terrible pain. Whatever it was that had happened, their Martian comm officer was hurt and the damage looked mortal.

  “Gods! What do we do?” Tam’laa tried to control her shocked cry. “Talk to them! Help them!” She didn’t really know what else to say as her confused mind wasn’t processing everything before her with any amount of accuracy.

  “We can’t,” her father answered while retaining his usual stoicism. “Like Lord Reyliss said, this message is many hours old.”

  Tam’laa knew this, but her plaintive reaction was pure reflex. She had never seen anything so gruesome in her life. On the manascreen shows, gore and blood was all but a daily occurrence, but this was the real deal and it looked so different from the stuff the production studios tried to replicate. It was almost as if she could not only see the pain of the grievous wounds, but she could feel them as well.

  “Banda, we should get Tam’laa out of here,” Lord Reyliss swung around with wide, terrified eyes. “She doesn’t need to see this stuff.”

  Tam’laa’s father placed a beefy arm on his daughter’s shoulder. “No, Ferd’inn, I think she does need to see this. Accidents and damage control are all a part of an expedition.”

  Ferd’inn was too worried for his own good sometimes, thought Lord Na’rundi. Before his infant son had died, he was a sensitive type who was, by nature, well suited for a nurturing career as a biologist, but as of late, he was downright tense as if he had just seen a wraith around every corner. Na’rundi could even tell that his wife was not pleased with his general demeanor and the two seemed more and more distant from each other.

  “This is not an accident,” the lady on the comm warned. “We have been compromised. Eh… Oh, gods, it hurts so much!” she grabbed what seemed to be a wounded arm. “I don’t know what they are, but they’re everywhere and they are trashing the whole place and killing anyone they see!”

  “We must have disturbed the natives,” Lord Na’rundi rubbed his broad chin in contemplation. Being his daughter for sixteen years, Tam’laa knew that this posture indicated nervousness and worry. His dark brow furrowed deeper and deeper as the transmission flowed.

  “They look kind of like elves, but they are a bit bigger. And they’re strong! Enough of them can bash in a cured door.” The comm officer slipped for a moment and righted herself again. “They’ve got the Commander and the golem master. Honestly, I think I am the only one left. One of them nearly tore me apart with its claws. Most of this is my own blood!”

  “Look like us?” Ferd’inn chirped in fear. “What do you think they are?” He fumbled with his wiry glasses which was one of his many collected nervous tics. Unlike Tam’laa’s father, he wasn’t holding up so well.

  “Martians I presume, Ferd’inn,” Lord Na’rundi answered him with a snap. He noticed how well his daughter was taking this terrible display and, when compared to Ferd’inn, he figured that he should be the one to leave the room. “The real deal.”

  “Do not attempt to rescue me. I will be dead soon, especially when they find me. Gods! They’re all over the place,” the comm officer would slip into Kumarian every now and again. This was all due to her reeling senses and fear. Her mind was regressing as her life spilled out.

  “I think this is curtains for the expedition,” Lord Na’rundi intoned with his deep voice of concern. His blunt utterance triggered Ferd’inn to pop his head up from the comm like a Gonduannian meerkat. Tonight there will be a horrible fight with Glynna, he just knew. One of the many they’ve had in the last couple of months. In the back of his mind, he was already making arrangements for the children to stay at their nanna’s.

  “They keep drawing these symbols and this word all over the walls. Much of the time in elven blood! To anyone at Expedition Control, decipher this word: ‘KRO-TO-AN.’ It’s everywhere!” The comm officer held up a bloody tablet displaying the strange word. Without a wasted instant, her earthly counterparts transcribed it to their own devices.

  The elves at the consoles moved in closer to survey the control tower on the screen. It was filthy with dripping gore and blood and, upon closer inspection, the mysterious word the comm officer had mentioned was indeed displayed on a far wall.

  “We’ll have to get Glynna to translate this. It probably isn’t in the library banks, however,” Na’rundi reasoned as he too had never heard of the word. It wasn’t Atlantean or his native Gonduannian, as far as he knew. He noticed that one of the comm officers seated before them, Praditch Go’mar, was Kumarian.

  “Officer Go’mar, is this word Kumarian?” the military attaché looked down at him with an air of authority.

  “Not that I know of, Colonel,” he answered in dutiful response. “Unless it’s obscure. It could be ancient and never used anymore. Most likely, it is a word only these locals use, thereby making it genuinely Martian.”

  “Mitlan is going to give birth to bear cubs when he hears this,” Ferd’inn whined with a mousy wail. Centeo Mitlan was all about the bottom line when it came to finances, and Lord Reyliss figured this event tore that vital line out from under this expedition. He rummaged through his mind as to what he was going to tell the children tonight. Perhaps he should leave that to Glynna. Either way, Mitlan was going to be in his office in a short time and everyone was sure to get an angry earful.

  “You can say that again. I’ll be back to checking casters in the supply lines by this time next week,” Lord Na’rundi huffed in utter disappointment. “Even the old elf Mitlan is going to take one in the chops with this, and when he suffers, everyone under him suffers tenfold.” At that, Banda rubbed his chin again as Ferd’inn readjusted his glasses.

  “Take this word and stay away from Mars. I don’t know if they have the means to come to Earth, but if they do; gods bless us all. Even our casters are no use against them,” her bloodied face revealed wide amber eyes and everyone viewing the transmission could see that she was slipping away. “Again, stay away from Mars and gods bless. Communications Officer Mia Bha’vaal, signing off. Final Transmission.” With that, the screen flashed black and turned back to its banal blue homescreen as if it had never hosted the gruesome scene. On it, the stark words “Transmission Severed” stood in innocent wh
ite.

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