by J. Naomi Ay
“No, Arsan, don’t go!” Tuman called, holding out his arms and beckoning the boy to his side. “Come here, my son. Come back with me to the village.”
Arsan stopped his retreat and hid by a tree, watching Hannah pull young Marik to his feet.
“How can you protect that monster?” She demanded of Tuman. “He nearly killed my son. Despite all we’ve been through together, I can see where your loyalties lie.” With that, she grabbed her bag and pulling Marik, they disappeared into the fog-laden forest. Tuman was left alone to nearly die all by himself.
Unfortunately, because Hannah chose to depart, rather than tend to her injuries quickly, they healed in jagged, ugly lines. Her beauty would forevermore be marred by a hideous and jagged scar, which ran down her face, straight through to her soul.
Tuman was seriously injured. Blood spilt from his wound in his chest, making him woozy and causing his head to spin. In addition, he was having trouble wrapping his head around Hannah’s accusation of disloyalty. Although, they had shared a night of unbridled sex, as far as Tuman could recall, there had been no discussion of a deeper relationship.
“Wait,” Tuman called weakly, as Hannah stormed away.
“You are hurt,” Arsan announced, holding out his hand. He placed it on Tuman's wound as if he might stanch the flow of blood, as the man’s consciousness began to wane.
In fact, the next thing Tuman recalled was the horrific pain which greeted him as he awoke back in the village. How he got from there to here and how his wound was closed and made to heal, he didn’t recall nor did he wish to remember.
“You need some Barkuti,” his father said, sitting by his side. “Nothing like good drugs to make you forget what aches.”
“I need water!” Tuman gasped. “Have you some medicine which I might take?”
“You’ll be fine,” Rekah shrugged, “Soldier through it.”
Somehow, Tuman managed to close his eyes after sipping from the cup from his father’s hand. After which, he returned to sleep, although his dreams were filled with a constant and excruciating throb that began in his chest and echoed throughout his body.
In one dream, Tuman saw that snake who was once again wrapping his thick body about Tuman’s chest. He squeezed until Tuman's ribs cracked and poked through his skin.
In another dream, the Black Eagle was sitting upon his shoulder, his talons drilling into the muscles of his arm. The creature's enormous beak was picking at the wound in Tuman’s chest, and when it grew large enough, he stuck his mouth inside. The eagle rooted around for a moment or two before extracting an enormous worm, which he promptly ate before flying away. Tuman was left quite nauseous, but oddly relieved of the pain.
"What day is it?" he asked, opening his eyes.
"It's the day after yesterday," Rekah replied. "And, the day before tomorrow.”
"I see you are still the same." Tuman propped himself up on his elbows and looked around the room, recognizing it as one in his father's house. "Have I been asleep long? Did I miss the Holiday?"
"Unfortunately, for you," Rekah replied. "You did not. We decided to postpone it on your behalf."
"What?"
"Just kidding. It is tomorrow, and we hope your Imperial Cousins shall attend, so you had best get out of bed and get to work."
Where's Arsan?" Tuman asked, his mind suddenly returning to the boy. "Is he here?"
"No. He left with Seesi a short time ago."
Rekah rose from the chair which had been propped by Tuman's bed and strolled to the window where he gazed out. It was raining heavily again, the wind was howling through the trees, and an occasional clap of thunder broke through the heavy air.
"To where?"
"So many questions you have, Tuman," Rekah replied, turning around. "The question you should be asking is not where but rather why or who, and how did you come to lie here in your childhood bed?"
"You're hurting my head, Father," Tuman scoffed and swung his feet to the familiar scuffed wood floor. He tested his ability to sit and then, to stand.
"The question I really want to know is what am I missing? I have searched the Holy Books through and through and yet, I am still in the dark. Do you think the answers are in the sixth book which I can’t find?”
"They are indeed," Rekah replied, taking his son's arm. Together they slowly descended the stair. "Take my advice, in order to see in the dark, you must first turn on a light."
"That’s very profound,” Tuman remarked drily.
"Isn’t it? Let me tell you something else. The truth isn't always clear even when it sits in front of your nose. Sometimes, the most familiar faces are hidden by a mask."
"You are truly mad." Tuman sighed and shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Are you making this up just to drive me insane, or do you even know of what you speak?"
Rekah laughed as they walked out on to his porch. Then, he guided his son the short distance to his own home across the street and half way down the block.
"Shall I check inside for snakes?" Rekah held open the door.
"No, Father. Go back home and please, leave me alone. Thank you for nursing me back to health. I shall see you tomorrow when the Holiday begins."
Rekah lifted his hand and smiled as he walked away.
When Tuman went inside, he found the fire burning. The house was warm and filled with inviting light. Seesi had left a pot of stew bubbling gently upon the stove, and Arsan was setting plates upon the table.
"Are you all right, my boy?" Tuman asked, collapsing in a chair. This short walk had tired him more than he imagined.
Arsan nodded and placed a cup before the man.
"Seesi said drink lots of milk," the boy replied. "It will help you to heal much faster."
"I will, thank you. You and Seesi have taken good care of me."
"I found something that you were looking for."
Briefly, the boy disappeared into Tuman's bedroom, returning a moment later with the missing, sixth Holy Book. It had been sitting behind Tuman’s nightstand, where it had fallen a long time ago.
"That book wasn't lost after all," Tuman gasped, as the boy set the tome upon the table. "I forgot about it! But, I don't understand. However did you find it?"
"See here," Arsan said, flipping to a page. He pointed at the words. "This is what was lost to you, but now you know. Here is the answer which you seek."
Then, while Tuman read, the boy sat down across from him and devoured his stew.
"This is a time when those of the Heavens fight those of the Hells. And though the Heavens are strong and have goodness and righteousness on their side, the Evil has entranced the people of all the earths. And the people have become weak, and they are given over to the Evil for he has cast his spell upon them and so they become weaker still.
Again, the Holy One shall call upon His Champion and give him the means to awaken the people. He will set him down upon these, His lands, and give him this task to bring the people back to Him and away from the Evil that has claimed them.
Let the people of the earths beware of the false ones who shall come in the Champion’s stead. They shall appear as who the people of the earths wish for them to be. But, they are pretenders. They are Evil hidden behind his mask.
Chapter 22
Puna stepped out of the spaceport on Lumineria III and into the arms of her twin brother, Napu. Immediately, she burst into tears.
"What's wrong, baby sis?" Napu asked, addressing her by the endearment which he had used their entire lives.
Napu had the distinction of being born exactly twenty-one minutes before Puna’s arrival. There had been a third in their litter, another boy who had been delivered in the interim, but didn’t manage to survive. He was never named and spoken about only once that Puna could recall, right before her mother's death, when inexplicably, she had begged for forgiveness.
At the time, neither Puna nor Napu could understand why their mother blamed herself for their brother's demise. Infant deaths during multi-birth deliverie
s were extremely common, especially among the tri-pedal hominids of the Luminerian planets.
"I have given him over," their mother wept. "It was a choice I had to make."
Nothing Puna or Napu could say would change the poor woman’s mind. She gasped her last breath and went over herself, leaving Puna and Napu both consumed with grief and very confused. Ultimately, they chalked up their mother's death bed confession to a delirium brought on by the copious amounts of barbiturates and narcotics used to control her pain.
It was strange and yet, funny, how Puna was reminded of this. With all that was going in her own life, primarily the task of delivering the precious and insidious bottle tucked away in her purse, her thoughts shifted back to her earlier tragedies.
What was that old saying? Puna thought, following her brother through the busy spaceport. Time has to happen in the way it has to happen, or some sort of innocuous drivel like that.
Actually, that was all utter hogwash, or so Puna had thought, for she had assumed her original track had been laid to a house, not unlike her brother's. She was supposed to have a husband, two kids, a dog, and a cat, and spend her days doing some sort of menial job while tending to her family.
Puna had fought that vision for herself, instead jumping off of her preplanned track and landing in the seat of power. It had been heady. It had been financially rewarding. It had made Puna feel in control of not only hers but millions of destinies. Now, as she arrived at Napu's garage which fronted the white clapboard with jovial, nautical blue shutters, Puna realized what a mistake it had all been.
"Was it my fault?" she asked aloud, as she gazed around at the trimmed but slightly, unkempt yard. Two tricycles sat in the middle of a large sandbox, along with a collection of bright plastic toys. A long, snake-like hose slithered across the spotty grass, hissing a tiny stream of water. Surrounding the entire establishment was a white picket fence, which needed a fresh coat of paint and was entangled with a variety of both native and non-indigenous floral species.
Puna's eye was immediately drawn to a rose bush, easily the largest one in the yard. Erupting brilliantly above the fence line was an enormous Grandiflora covered completely in a yellow, orange, and red flower at least three inches across.
"Of course it wasn't your fault," Napu responded, removing Puna's small bag from his speeder's boot. "Spaceflights are never on schedule now. Back in the Emperor's time, they ran like clock-work. Ah, how I long for the good old days when the Emperor was still in charge."
Puna smiled at her brother, but didn’t attempt to disagree. A verbal battle with him was a no-win proposition, as it had been for their entire lives. Frankly, at this point, Puna wasn’t certain she did disagree. That in itself was a strange and confusing thought for a woman who had spent her short lifetime fighting the Imperial Reign.
“I’ll be along shortly,” she said, pushing that odd thought aside and making her way across the garden to snap a few pics of the roses.
Anne, especially, would like them. Roses were her very favorite genus. As a parting gift, Puna would upload this lovely pic of her brother's fence, the rose bush, the yard, and the street. Footbook, doing what it did, stamped the page with the date, as well as the time, and GPS coordinate location. Within seconds, everyone knew exactly where Puna had been, but she was certain no one would connect that to the impending nuclear explosion.
"Goodbye all," she typed, as the pic uploaded and posted. "You were my very best friends, although I never really knew you. For a while, you kept me sane. You made life worth living a little bit more. I love you all. – Kiki."
Puna shut off her cell for the very last time, and went into her brother's house where she spent the evening eating everything in sight. She sat at the dinner table and dutifully listened and smiled as her little niece and nephew regaled her with their stories. Afterward, she thanked her sister-in-law for the meal and then, sat by the fire for a while with her brother, before retiring to the tiny guest bedroom at the back of the house.
That night, Puna lay in bed waiting for the bomb in her purse to explode at precisely the stroke of midnight, just moments away. She thought about what her brother had said again, the argument that they didn’t have. Were times really better when the Emperor was in charge? Had everything she believed, everything she had worked for been totally wrong? Had Puna’s own ignorance and foolishness brought this about?
"People are too stupid," Miltan always said. “They don’t know what is right and what is wrong. They can’t tell down from up, and black always looks like white to them. The peasants really just want to play with toys, and fill their bellies with sugary sweets. They need us smart people to make their decisions for them. So, what’s wrong if we do that, and are paid handsomely for our troubles? We know better how to spend all that money anyway. We’ll make sure they keep a little, just enough to make them work and then, the rest will go to me, and you, and our boss, Rosso.”
So Puna went along for the ride, throwing her hat in Rosso and Miltan’s ring, and never acknowledging that she had become the type of person which she always hated. She had enjoyed those perks and benefits, never realizing what a hypocrite she had become until now, when it was decided that she was expendable.
“Was I wearing a mask all this time?” Puna asked the air. “Was I pretending to be someone who I really wasn’t?”
“Everyone wears masks,” Rosso replied, his voice filling the corners of this tiny room. “No one is ever who you think they are, not even you. Thank you for your service, Puna. You did well. Momentarily, you’ll find your reward down below.”
“Auntie Puna?” A little voice inquired, interrupting Rosso. “May I come in?”
“Goodbye Puna,” Rosso whispered, his voice cold like a bitter wind, leaving Puna to shiver beneath her blankets.
“Auntie Puna? May I sleep next to you?”
“Of course,” Puna replied. It would be better to die in another’s arms than alone. “Come in, darling, and be with me.”
Puna held out her arms and welcomed her niece beneath the warm blankets. They snuggled together for another minute or two until the insidious, white light illuminated the room and a deafening, thunderous wave sucked up all the air.
Chapter 23
As if the Princes didn’t have enough issues on their plate with the Imperial Palace going up in flames, Lord Eberly arrived with yet more hideous news.
“Sirs!” He cried. “You had better switch on the vid. There’s something terrible happening on Lumineria III.”
“Holy smokes!” Rent gasped, while the others sat in stunned silence.
The horrific images were broadcast in full living color from a satellite in space. Although they weren't accompanied by any sound, everyone could almost hear the billions of Luminerians screaming, as their home planet was destroyed with them on it.
“What…what is going on?” Shika murmured, his mind refusing to comprehend the destruction taking place.
Giant mushroom clouds filled up the screen, expanding into rainbows of unnatural colors. When they breached the planet’s thermosphere with their toxic heat, the satellite feed went black, leaving the audience in the dark.
“Did it fry the satellite?” Shika asked, staring up at the ominous blank screen.
“Probably,” Rent shrugged, “With so many bombs going off it had to be massively hot.”
“Kari-fa,” Shika murmured again, before glancing to Lord Eberly for a suggestion as to who to call or what to do.
"The Imperial SpaceNavy Command has sent a message offering condolences to the Luminerian people," Eberly replied, frowning as he read the missive arriving on his tablet.
"Condolences!" Shika shrieked, regaining his full wits and fury. This was really beyond the pale of the Command. "Where in the hell were they when the Luminerians needed their help? They should have stopped this action before it even started!"
"Of all our two operational ships, only one was near the sector, and she is on her way there now, or so they say."
"My company?" Rent replied, rising to his feet and pointing his finger at the elder's chest, as well. "You're the one in charge of the SpaceNavy. It's your commanders who are inept and don't maintain the equipment. It's your government that refuses to pay its bills."
"It's your faulty engineering."
"It's your ridiculous oversight requiring volumes of paperwork when we could be streamlining our production. If it weren’t for your idiotic IAA and every monstrous bureaucratic agency, we could have been developing newer and better starships to replace these old ones."
This argument went on for several more rounds as the ministers cringed and wrung their hands. Eberly nudged Kinar and whispered in his ear.
"What the hell are we going to do with these guys?"
"I haven't a clue," Kinar shook his head, "If only Senya were here, none of this would have ever happened."
It was then that a knock sounded on the doors, although it could barely be heard over the shouting inside. Kinar raced to answer, hoping against hope that it might be Senya. Of course, that would be ridiculous. Senya would never knock, especially on his own office door.
Instead, the door swung open to reveal the Duke of Korelesk.
"Well, I can see we arrived in just the nick of time," Petya declared, strolling into the room and looking around. "Hello Shika. Hello Rent. Let me introduce my associate, Kell."
"What the hell do you want now, Petya?" Shika demanded. "We're very busy. This is not the time or place for a social visit, and I don’t believe you’re needed on this council."
"Oh, it's not social at all," Petya replied. "We're here to inform you of our demands, which if they're not met, you'll soon see another planet die."
"What's going on?" Rent asked, looking first to his brother and then, the cousin he hardly knew, followed by Kell, who he recognized from the SdK cafeteria. "Hey, I've seen you before. Aren’t you in Building 40-48C?"
