Forts: Endings and Beginnings

by Steven Novak

  She was gone.

  Arthur gave what remained of his wife to the mercy of the waves, watching through watery eyes until the landscape swallowed her frail body and she disappeared from view. From somewhere behind him, hidden among the shadows of the cave and its simple glass container, he believed for a moment that he could hear the particle sob along with him. He quickly reminded himself that such a thing was impossible.

  As a scientist—the greatest mind Mangellia had to offer—Arthur Crumbee knew better than to believe in such foolishness.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 10

  THE TALL TURNED SMALL

  *

  “Now you listen here, ya useless bucket a chum! Ain’t goin’ nowhere until I gets me some answers!”

  Shoving his way past Nestor and Nicky, the beyond-words-annoyed Captain Fluuffytail came to a stop alongside the ten-foot tall creature standing near the newly formed door at the opposite end of the room and pointed a single furry finger into its gummy-skinned torso. From a distance, the disparity of their heights proved more than a little comical. With the crest of his head nearly five feet above the tip of the captain’s filthy gray ears, the translucent alien craned its neck downward and gazed back questionably.

  “First off, I’ll be needin’ to know exactly who you are, and just where in the world you’ve got us locked up!” Jacques stated sternly, poking the tip of his finger again into the spongy flesh of the rail thin alien. It was at this moment he realized the texture was not too dissimilar from the bizarre room around them. “The moment yer done fillin’ me in on those pesky lil’ details, Stretch, I’ll be needin’ my weapons back as well!”

  Nestor moved between the pair, hoping to diffuse the mounting tension of the situation.

  Placing his flat paw on Fluffytail’s shoulder, he turned to the enraged bunny and said, “Captain, perhaps we should not be so hast—”

  Almost instantly Jacques swiped it away. “Ya better be careful where ya be placin’ yer hands, Tycarian! One minute I’m watchin’ as my lovely lady Briar is torn to shreds by the damn Ochans before she sinks to the briny-blue, and the next I’m held against my will in an oversized sponge! Ya might think me insane, and that be yer prerogative, but I gots an itchin’ feelin’ this tall drink of water here knows more than he’s lettin’ on!”

  Angrily turning from Nestor, the little captain again poked at the pliable belly of the still stoic alien. Again the creature seemed more confused than anything.

  “Well? What’ve you to say fer yerself? Unless yer’ anxious to absorb a beatin’ the likes of which ya can scarcely imagine, I’d suggest you get them gummy lips of yers squawkin’ hightower!”

  Snatching the little captain with both hands, Nestor pulled him away from the creature and held him firmly in place. He’d seen enough. Though he was as confused as anyone in the group, the Tycarian soldier understood all too well that Fluuffytail’s anger would succeed only in making matters worse. They had no weapons; neither did they have any idea where they were. To fight an enemy you must first understand an enemy. For the moment, they understood nothing.

  “Get yer hands off me! Ya damn green-skins are all alike!” Jacques screamed in frustration, his limbs flailing wildly while his oversized feet dangled just above the uneven floor.

  Seeing their captain in a precarious position, the remainder of Fluuffytail’s crew moved instantly to his aid.

  Reginald Stoneback, however, stepped into their path with his hands coiled into fists. “Easy, lads. It would be wise of you to keep your distance.”

  Watching motionless from his stationary position near the doorway, the translucent alien shook its head and mumbled with an exasperated sigh, “So violent. So very, very violent.”

  Upon hearing its voice, Jacques immediately stopped squirming, his legs now hanging loose and his arms crossed tight.

  “It was a mistake to bring you here,” The spongy alien continued. “However unavoidable it might have been, it remains a mistake. Behavior such as this has no place within these walls.”

  As one might expect, the statement immediately riled the ire of the little pirate captain, “Oh, now we’re not good enough to step foot in your Goo Room? Is that what yer sayin’, ya damn walkin’ stick? Yer just achin’ to taste the end of my blade, ain’t ya? If’n we’re so awful, why’d ya decide to pull us from the drink in the first place?”

  The lanky creature paused for a moment to consider the little rabbit’s query, almost as if he found it so absurd it hardly warranted a response. Slowly his tiny eyes moved from Nestor and the snarling gray-furred captain to little Nicky Jarvis. “I assure you, filthy one, our decision to intervene had little to do with you or your crew.”

  Nestor took note of the movement of the creature’s eyes. It made him uneasy. Releasing Jacques from his grip, Nestor stepped alongside Nicky and wrapped his arm protectively over the boy’s shoulder. Unsure of what to make of the situation, Nicky moved closer still to the massive turtle man, pressing the whole of his body against Nestor’s muscled thigh. Since returning to Fillagrou, the boy had grown progressively closer to the Tycarian. With barely a second thought or the briefest of hesitation, on more than one occasion Nestor had put his life on the line for him. Through it all, the steely-faced Tycarian had been there, at his side, ready to fight for him, and ready to die for him, no matter the cost.

  The hardly noticeable mouth of the bony alien in the doorway curled slowly into something resembling a smile, or, at the very least, as close a facsimile as it was capable of producing. “Fear not little one. We wish you no harm. Though you might not believe it, we harbor no ill will toward any of you. In fact, I dare say there is no safer place for you in all the universe than here in Nasdi.”

  Despite the creature’s assurances and the air of undeniable honesty in its voice, Nestor remained unwilling to let Nicky slip from his grip. Though he swore to his king that he would do everything within his power to ensure the boy’s safety, at this point his feelings for Nicky ran far deeper than simply a promise. As a pair, they had been through a great deal, and despite their numerous, obvious and quite incredible differences, he could see a good deal of himself in the child’s eyes. Nestor Shellamennes was not always the scar-faced, gruff-toned, battle-hardened Nestor Shellamennes that Nicky had come to know. No Tycarian child was born a Tycarian warrior. There was a time when even Nestor was innocent, when he saw the world not through the eyes of a jaded and war weary soldier, but a child on the brink of discovery. There was a time when possibility remained an option and hope seemed so close he could utilize it whenever he desired. Though it now seemed so distant it had become barely a memory, there was a time when Nestor was capable of not only finding the good in the world, but appreciating it when discovered. A substantial part of him still pined for those days. Often he wished he could have them back.

  His massive flat paw still hugging Nicky’s shoulder, Nestor stepped between the boy and the gangly, grinning creature standing at the foot of the recently formed doorway. “If it is true you have no desire to harm us, why have you brought us here? Why are we being held captive in a room without exit?”

  The creature’s eyes moved lazily from Nicky to the stoic Tycarian. “You are being held nowhere. In fact, we are requesting that you now leave. We desired only to save the child. The child is important, and the child required our assistance.”

  “Who is we, and what do you know of this boy?” Nestor responded bluntly, feeling Nicky’s shiver beneath his paw at the mention of his name.

  “I have been designated Asop, and we are the Narye. We are as we have been for eons, a race of watchers. Though it has long been our custom to remain neutral in the affairs of outsiders, allowing the child to die was simply not an option. We were forced to intervene.”

  “What do you know of the boy? Are you mystics?”

  Again Asop smiled awkwardly. “Mystics? How crude. No, of course not. There is no such thing as magic. The very idea is absurd. You see,
the Narye live extraordinarily long lives; in fact, we will likely outlive even our sun. When it takes its final breath, so shall we. When one lives for so very long, one is given the luxury of seeing things others might never grow privy. The child is important. He has always been important. The important glow very brightly. Strength resonates from their every pore. Even the waves could not douse the luster of this child. Like a beacon on the horizon, it was his energy that led us to him. We cherish the beautiful, and the important, and the different, and for that reason his fate could not simply be left to chance.”

  Turning his attention again to Nicky, Asop smiled brightly and extended a single bony finger in the boy’s direction. “Look, even now he shines as bright as the stars themselves. Beauty such as this should never be extinguished.”

  Peering past Nestor, Captain Fluuffytail turned his eyes upon Nicky. The boy was covered in filth. His hair was a wild, stiffly matted, untamed and disgusting mess. His skin looked like a splotchy muddle of pinks, reds, and purples occasionally freckled with festering white-tipped pimples. He was not glowing, not even a little bit. In fact, for the lack of a better world, he looked like absolute crap, no more “glowing” than the captain himself, or any of his gnarly, foul-smelling crew.

  With a confused sigh, Jacques rolled his eyes, elbowed Nestor in the thigh and whispered: “Psst. Between you ‘n me, Shellhead, I think our see-through friend over there is only working wit’ half a bottle.”

  Ignoring the statement, Nestor stepped directly in front of Nicky, coming to a stop less than a foot from Asop and the swirling wall of colors forming the doorway directly behind. Reginald quickly took his place alongside the boy. Nestor was tired of the creature’s cryptic responses. Like the growling three-foot tall rabbit standing beside him, he wanted his questions answered with something other than more questions.

  Up close, Asop’s skin seemed even more bizarre than it did from a few feet away. The outer surface was almost completely transparent. Now, face to face with the creature’s chest, Nestor could clearly make out the bones underneath, and beyond that the subtle hints of a heart, and lungs, and some other organs he didn’t recognize. Behind the holes holding his marble-sized eyes very clearly rested something vaguely resembling a brain.

  His face a shroud of seriousness, Nestor stated sternly, “No more games. Where are we? What of the Ochan ships attacking us? What of the boy’s brother, or the girl?”

  Taken aback by Nestor’s forwardness, Asop did his best to respond to this new query. “If there were, in fact, others like the child, they were most likely obliterated by whatever the awful force was that wiped your enemies from existence.”

  Now it was Nestor’s turn to look surprised. “What force? Explain yourself.”

  “Your enemies and their primitive vessels have been destroyed.”

  Nestor’s mind immediately flashed back to the armada of Ochan warships, hundreds of them, possibly thousands, so many that they blackened the whole of the Aquari Sea. Even considering the combined powers of the children and young Tommy Jarvis in particular, the idea that they had all been destroyed was utter madness.

  “Impossible.” He muttered in response, unable to come to terms with Asop’s claim.

  “I assure you I would not have stated it as fact were it the case. As a race, we are incapable of false truths.” Asop answered back. “If my words are not enough, I imagine you might trust your eyes?”

  Lifting one impossibly long arm above his head, Asop gestured with two fingers toward the spongy ceiling. A second later, the dull white surface began to fade away, quickly becoming as transparent as his skin. Once the whiteness was wiped from existence, Nestor, Nicky, Captain Fluuffytail and the remainder of the group found themselves surrounded by a sea of dark blue.

  Momentarily, Nestor stopped breathing.

  They were on the ocean floor. They had reached the center of Aquari.

  Lit by enormous plants resembling roses at least forty feet tall with glowing bulbs on the end, nearly every detail of the sandy sea bottom was plainly exposed. Rising sporadically from the grayish soil was the awful, burnt and torn remains of the Ochan armada. Extending for miles outward before eventually being obscured and swallowed by the foggy sea bottom, there seemed no end to the field of debris. A thousand ships, maybe more, sunken and destroyed. More Ochans dead than he dare count.

  Nestor swallowed deep.

  It was true. The Ochans had been annihilated, every last one of them. As Fluuffytail and his equally dumbfounded crew moved slowly toward the transparent walls for a closer look, Nestor turned his attention to the still motionless form of Asop. In this instance the tall tales of the race of intelligent beings living on the floor of the water world known as Aquari didn’t seem so very tall at all. In fact, small would be a more appropriate term: small and very, very real, almost too real.

  This changed everything.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 11

  FALSE PROPHET

  *

  The group of creatures had been waiting patiently outside the awkwardly constructed doorway to Zanell’s dwelling for quite some time, waiting patiently for words of assurance that had not come. High above them, the Fillagrou forest continued to rumble, trampled by a continually amassing legion of Ochan soldiers, slaves, and long-necked digging monsters so large they dwarfed the age-old trees. Those below did not require or ask much of Zanell; even the briefest of appearances would have sufficed. Even a few meager words of hope would have done wonders toward quelling the fear slowly spreading across the interior of the bellies and into their worried minds. From the very instant she inherited the sight of elders from her grandfather, Zanell had become a spiritual leader to many. When the children of the prophecy freed a huge number of slaves from the castle of Prince Valkea, her influence spread further. Those living in the hastily dug tunnels of New Tipoloo looked to her for guidance, hope, and a reminder that everything would work out exactly as it should. For the most part, she had given them exactly that—until recently. After the children returned briefly, only to set out into the forest with the former Ochan general calling himself Krystoph soon afterward, everything changed. Zanell had grown distant. When they knocked at her door she refused answer. When they peeked cautiously inside, she would wave them away and ask them to return later. She had changed into something far away and distant—into a dead-faced, empty-eyed shadow of what she once was, and what they hoped she might be. She had changed when they needed her most, and she had let them down. Though many among the hundreds camped outside her doorway still believed in the truth behind her words, they had begun to slowly lose faith in the creature that spoke to them.

  “Why won’t she come out? What’s the hold-up?”

  The half-mumbled voice emanated from somewhere among the crowd and was followed immediately by a heavy sigh. This in turn led directly into yet more disappointed chatter from somewhere among the multicolored mass camped around Zanell’s dwelling. “She needs to say something. She needs to say something right now. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sick of this.”

  Ten or so feet from the dusty, hastily-built doorway a mother, Huerzo Snub, threw a tattered blanket over the coiled and sleeping forms of her three children, and patted them each gently before gazing across the disenchanted crowd with worried eyes. Reaching back with one of her tiny arms, Lenore Guzarea gently massaged one of the wispy-thin wings attached to her roundish, ladybug-like body. She could clearly sense the unease of the crowd; everyone could. It had been growing for some time. It was thick, and palpable, and frighteningly obvious. Turning away from the crowd, she looked in the direction of Zanell’s dwelling once again and wondered why exactly the newly appointed elder continued to ignore the swelling unease. It made no sense. She was playing with fire. She was asking for trouble.

  “One of us should go in there.”

  The voice came from somewhere further down the darkening city street of New Tipoloo. Though Lenore immediately looked in its
direction, at barely three feet tall when standing in the dirt, seeing for any significant distance was almost impossible for her.

  “Yeah, one of use should go in there and find out what’s going on. We have a right to know.”

  Mere whispers at first, the grumbled voices were slowly rising in volume. Frustrated, Lenore glanced down at her trio of sleeping children momentarily before her tiny wings began to flutter and lifted her into the air. She needed a better vantage point. She needed to see who was speaking, and what if anything they planned on doing. Though Lenore was admittedly frustrated with Zanell’s inaction, she had lost no hope, nor would she allow herself to. The Fillagrou female with the sight beyond sight, the children, and the prophecy had quite literally saved the lives of her and her family. For the first time since the death of her mate some years ago, Lenore had rediscovered a belief in the idea of possibility. The future was no longer written and no longer black. It had transformed into an unknown, and was suddenly vague and open in a way it hadn’t been in a very long time. She no longer feared the future. She needed to speak up. She needed to remind those among the crowd with short memories, those who had already forgotten. She needed to put a stop to this before it got out of hand.

  Hovering just under ten feet in the air, Lenore rotated her oval-shaped body and scanned the mass of alien flesh carefully. To her left she spotted a group of five or so very young and very headstrong Fork-Tailed Telengrots along with a few other species slowly pushing their way through the sleepy crowd and making their way toward Zanell’s dwelling. Lenore shook her head solemnly: the hotheadedness of youth, so very frustrating. Breathing deeply, she mustered up a bit of courage, buzzed past a family of Ricardians, and came to a stop between the annoyed group of youngsters and the rickety door.