Forts: Endings and Beginnings

by Steven Novak

  Arthur lifted his tingly finger to his face and grinned. “Now what?”

  Slowly the sphere of light holding the pair began to hover forward. Passing through the mouth of the cave, it moved quickly into the sunlight while floating atop the choppy waters. In no time at all, the sphere had picked up speed, and within a matter of seconds it was moving so fast across the surface that a spray of water rose ten feet into the air along the sides. The single darkened cave in the middle of the largest sea the universe had ever known was rapidly disappearing.

  “Now we keep moving forward,” Tommy stated assuredly, his eyes glowing the same as the circle of energy surrounding him, “until we can’t see land.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 15

  PLEADING FOR ASSISTANCE

  *

  “Your assistance is required above.”

  Staring up at the bony-transparent form of Asop, Nestor Rockshell’s face remained stern and serious as he spoke the words. For years, the Tycarian had heard wild fables about a race of intelligent beings living on the floor of the water world known as Aquari, and for years he dismissed them as little more than the hopeful nonsense of those with no hope of which to speak. Those stories, however, were suddenly proven true. They did exist. They were intelligent and powerful, and resided miles beyond the point at which the water turned too dark and cold for most living above to tread. Now that Nestor knew they existed, he believed they could also help.

  Gazing down at the scarred face of the Tycarian warrior with his head cocked questioningly to the side, Asop’s response was simple and straightforward. “Don’t be foolish.”

  Immediately Nestor’s blood began to boil. His response, however, remained tempered. “I can assure you that I ask this with not an ounce of foolishness, sir. You are aware of the war above, yes?”

  Asop studied the Tycarian’s face for a moment, scanning his stone-serious expression while attempting to settle on an appropriate response. “The Nasdi are well aware of the ensuing violence.”

  “And yet you do nothing?” Nestor shot back with a snarl, struggling to keep his temper in check.

  The previously transparent room having transformed again to its original form, the group of survivors moved closer together and huddled near Nestor. Reginald Stoneback positioned himself behind little Nicky Jarvis and placed his massive paws on the shivering shoulders of the boy. Asop’s barely there eyes drifted over the tattered and beaten group momentarily before returning dreamily to Nestor.

  His response came without a hint of emotion. “It is not our place, nor is it our war. The problems of those residing above have always been, and shall forever remain exactly that. War is the cross the unenlightened are forced to bear. We have moved past it. We can not become involved.”

  The breath from Nestor’s nostrils was hot and angry and frustrated. As he exhaled, it shot forward, cascading across and warming the spongy flesh of the lanky alien standing mere feet away.

  “War is the cross of the unenlightened?” Nestor muttered half to himself and half to Asop. “I feel myself obligated to inform you that inaction remains the refuge of the damned.”

  For the briefest of instances, Asop’s expression changed. The gesture was barely noticeable, hardly even there. To blink would have meant to miss it. It did, however, exist; there was no denying this for the briefest of moments anyway.

  “Do you seriously believe the Ochans will leave you to your underwater paradise forever?” Nestor asked sternly, taking a single step in Asop’s direction. “As a member of the unenlightened, believe me when I tell you they will not. I have come to know them quite well, and I assure you they cannot. It is not in their nature. When there is nothing left to conquer, boredom shall win the day, and it is boredom that will lead them directly to you.”

  Though Asop did not respond, his silence said far more than his words could ever have hoped.

  Lifting the tightly coiled fist from his side, Nestor pointed a thick green finger in the direction of Nicky Jarvis. “That child of light, the one whose life you hold in such high regard. That child will die, and his light will be extinguished. You have to see that. You can’t be so foolish as to not. There are others just like him, others with powers and light…a whole world of them, possibly. They too will die. They will die at the hands of butchers for reasons so pointless they are hardly worth mention. They will die because of your nonchalance and self-importance. They will die because you chose to do nothing!”

  Again Asop’s gaze drifted to the child tucked against the shell of the huge Tycarian behind Nestor. With his hands clasped tightly in front of him and his fingers dancing anxiously, Nicky looked terrified and entirely confused. The starkness of Nestor’s words sent a chill across the ridges of the boy’s spine and caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand at attention like frightened soldiers moments from their first taste of war. The mass of dark brown hair on his head was a tattered and clumped mess. His clothes were ripped and worn, and filthy. Behind the ribs in his chest, Nicky’s heart quickly picked up its pace. It was now thumping in an awkward crescendo to his uneasy breath. Despite it all, he continued to glow. The boy was glowing so very bright, in fact, that Asop could scarcely bring himself to look away. It was remarkable, so achingly beautiful that it succeeded in nearly coaxing forth emotions the gangly creature had long since forgotten. Emotions, after all, were careless and unpredictable.

  Emotions caused problems.

  Generations of evolution had taught his race – rather painfully – that they should avoid them at all costs. And for generations they succeeded at doing exactly that. Logic and emotion could never walk hand in hand. One had to be left behind. In this moment, however, it was the tiniest twinge of something Asop had long since believed he’d forgotten that began peeking into the delicate folds of his brain. It was the thought of the child: of the boy’s light dimming, fading, and evaporating into the nothingness. It was an awful thought. The thought stirred his previously dormant feelings. The thought caused him to experience something as close to emotionally driven pain as he was capable of expressing. What a shame it would be to extinguish something so beautiful. What a shame it would be to let something so absolutely wondrous go to waste.

  His gaze drifted away from the boy and to Nestor once again. “It is not my decision to make.”

  “Whose decision is it?”

  “Others older than myself, far older and wiser: the council.”

  Reaching out, Nestor placed his paw on Asop’s bony arm. “We must convince them, my friend. We must at least try. Everything depends on it.”

  Confused by the odd gesture but not entirely disgusted, Asop pulled away and stared at the part of his arm Nestor touched, as if it were a foreign invader creeping along his clammy flesh.

  Understanding all too well that time was short, Nestor ignored the odd reaction and continued to press his agenda. “Where is this council? Can we speak to them? Can we at least make them aware of the situation?”

  “There is no need for that,” Asop responded, now rubbing at his arm like a scientist examining a specimen. “They have heard our entire conversation. They are quite aware of what you desire and they have already begun to discuss the possibility of giving it to you.”

  Stepping away from Asop, Nestor studied the swirling, smooth-walled room around him for a window or listening device, or anything at all that might indicate the presence of others listening in on the conversation. He found nothing, because there was nothing to find.

  Asop grinned in an odd half-grin sort of way that could easily have been mistaken for something else entirely. “I assure you they are not in the room with us.”

  Nestor returned his gaze to the transparent alien, “Then how?¬”

  “They see what I see. They are my eyes, just as I am theirs.”

  “Wait just a cotton pickin’ minute, ya tall drink of water!” Pressing past his crew, Captain Jacques Fluuffytail came to a stop alongside Nicky and placed his hands on his
furry hips. “Are ya tryin’ to tell us that they’re talkin’ to ya right now? Right at this moment? Scuse me if I sound impolite, but that don’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.¬”

  Asop raised his hand and pointed his palm in the direction of the little dusty pirate bunny, essentially motioning for him to cut with the chatter. With his head cocked just slightly to the side he closed his tiny eyes. He was listening to something only he could hear.

  Annoyed at essentially being told to shut up, Fluuffytail pulled his tiny paws into fists, huffed deeply and began stomping in the direction of the massive rail thin alien. Nestor snagged the pirate captain by his belt and held him in place.

  A moment later Asop’s eyes opened again and he gazed once more at the filthy survivors set against the otherwise immaculate backdrop of the swirling room. Standing like a beacon in the night among them was little Nicky Jarvis.

  Such an exceptional creature, he remarked to himself and the rest of his race silently. Such a beautiful glow.

  Again Asop’s words came without even an ounce of emotion. “We have already begun to organize.”

  Nestor paused for a moment. “Organize…what?”

  “Our forces, of course. It has been some time since we engaged another race in battle. Such things however, can unfortunately never truly be forgotten. We believe the necessary skills will return to us when the moment arrives.”

  Again Nestor paused, still confused with what exactly the creature seemed to be implying and the ease with which he was implying it. “So…you will help?”

  For the first time since he laid eyes upon the pale, transparent Nasdi, Nestor watched as Asop’s face displayed a noticeable, undeniably recognizable emotion: anger.

  “We leave at dawn.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 16

  TEMAZCAL

  *

  The heat was sweltering. The summer had been particularly rough and dry, and altogether uncomfortable. This was an angry heat, tailor-made for the suffering of those forced to live through it. In the backyard of the Jarvis family, tucked safely beneath the shade of a thick-trunked Oak Tree, sat the house of the family dog, Mr. Button. Built when Button was a pup, the years were noticeably rough on the modest dwelling. The rain had warped its walls and rusted the nails holding them perilously in place. Once a crisp, almost blinding shade of white, the paint had been peeling away for quite some time, exposing the worn and damaged wood beneath in softball sized clumps of pure ugly. The roof was little more than ragged jumble of partially rotted materials, and the likelihood of the structure’s collapse grew substantially with every passing day. So pathetic was this shell of a once proud doghouse that Mr. Button had taken to lying outside rather than in. Even he was capable of understanding it was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Despite the heat and the ever-present fear of being buried beneath a heap of rotted wood, jagged sheet metal and copper colored nail chips, eight year old Tommy Jarvis had been sitting cross-legged inside the funky-smelling piece of construction for hours. His hair was soaked with perspiration, his clothes drenched so thoroughly they could literally be ringed out. The dirt beneath him transformed into a moist, muddy-wet stew of yellow-tinted sweat and soil that smelled as bad as it looked. His throat was dry and his lips cracked to the point that that act of running his tongue across their surface no longer accomplished anything at all.

  Despite his aching bones, and the fact that his vision had begun to blur, young Tommy had no intentions of leaving.

  He was determined to remain exactly where he was. He wanted to sit there, and stay there, and keep himself angry, because anger was what he was feeling, and because it was all he wanted to feel. Would it have been possible, Tommy might have sat in that exact spot forever, until his skin peeled away, caught the breeze and fluttered off, until his bones turned to dust and became indiscernible from the ground beneath.

  That would teach them: his mom and his dad, that annoying jerk Donald Rondage. That would teach them all.

  From just outside the doorway, on the wobbly roof of the modest doghouse, came a series of knocks that gently rattled the warped timber of the surrounding walls. Tommy didn’t look up. Instead, he pulled his knees close to his chest, folded his arms around his shins, and buried his head against the dusty-moist denim of his pants.

  “Tommy? Come on out, bud.”

  It was his father’s voice. His father was the last person he wanted to talk to. His father would try to calm him down, try to make him forget how angry he was. He wanted his father to go away.

  “Come on Tommy. You can’t stay in there all day. I know you think you can, and I bet you want to, but you can’t.”

  “Yes I can.” Tommy mumbled into his drawn legs defiantly. And he believed it.

  He would have stayed there all day, and all of the next day and the day after that. He would have done anything to prove his father wrong.

  Then they’d see. Then they’d all understand.

  Outside the doghouse that Mr. Button previously resided and was now home to his son, Chris Jarvis wiped a puddle of sweat from his forehead and glanced briefly into the sky. The heat was unbearable, and he was overdressed. He wanted a cool drink. He wanted to go inside, to sit just below the vent on the ceiling in the living room and let the air conditioning chill his troubles away. As hot as it was outside, he imagined it was doubly bad for his son. Though the doghouse was in the shade, it was small, and the metallic roof was undoubtedly absorbing the heat and locking it within, essentially transforming it into a stinky, dog-smelling hot-box. According to his wife, Tommy had been sulking inside Mr. Button’s humble abode for hours, ever since he got home from school. Chris needed to get his son out. His day at work had been extra-long and more frustrating than normal, but his son was his priority. Rest could come later.

  “Well, if you won’t come out, I’m just going to have to come in.”

  Dropping to his knees, Chris managed to wedge the top half of his body through the tiny doorway before realizing it was as far as he could go. The heat inside was absolutely blistering. Less than a second after jamming himself in the doorway, he began to feel lightheaded. A moment after that, breathing became noticeably more difficult. A few feet away with his back to the rear wall and his knees pulled tightly to his chest, Chris spotted his eldest son. Though the boy’s face was buried in the folds of his light blue jeans, Chris could tell Tommy had been crying. This information didn’t make things any simpler: quite the opposite, in fact.

  “So you want to tell me what happened, bud?” Chris asked calmly while digging his elbows into the dirt and propping himself up.

  Tommy chose to remain mum.

  With the top of the doorway slicing into his back and resulting in considerable discomfort, Chris took a moment to reposition himself before continuing. “Come on. I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”

  Again his son remained stoic, his stringy blond hair dripping with perspiration created by the immense heat.

  “You know, this isn’t how we handle problems in our family, Tommy. We don’t run away from them. We don’t hide away and avoid them, and we don’t pout. Things don’t ever change unless you change them yourself. I know that kind of sucks, but that’s just the way it is.” Reaching forward, Chris gently placed his hand on his son’s sweaty head and massaged the clumps of damp hair. “Tell me what happened and we’ll take care of it together. That’s another thing we don’t do in this family; we don’t handle things alone. Your mom and I are here to help you whenever you need it. Whatever happened, we can fix it. I promise.”

  Tommy could feel the palm of his father’s hand on his head, feel it mashing against his skull, feel his fingers moving reassuringly across the tender skin of his scalp. Despite his anger and in spite of his frustration, the boy could not deny the fact that the simple gesture almost instantly caused him to feel better. His father always had the ability to fix him when he was broken, and with very little effort. It came so naturally. As m
uch as any young boy of eight possibly could, he trusted his father. His father meant everything to him.

  Chris smiled subtly as his son lifted his head from between his knees and glanced through watery-red eyes in his direction. The fact that Tommy even bothered to look up meant that he was listening, and if he was listening, maybe, just maybe he was hearing.

  Stretching himself forward, Chris put his hand on his son’s shoulder and patted gently. “You want to come inside and we’ll talk about it?”

  Tommy forced himself not to respond. He was still a bit too mad, and he wanted to remain that way. The fact that his father was attempting to coax him into the exact opposite was only making him madder. He was sick of getting picked on at school, sick of Donald Rondage shoving him in the mud and calling him names, sick of being the wall against which the ball was bounced. He wanted to be the ball for once in his life. He wanted to do the bouncing.

  Though Chris had no idea exactly what happened at school to put his son in such a state, he believed he had a general idea. Tommy had been having problems with a boy named Donald for some time. His wife had talked with his teacher about it, but his teacher could only be expected to do so much, and apparently what she’d done wasn’t nearly enough. As Tommy buried his head into his jeans once again, Chris Jarvis was momentarily bought back to his own youth, to the fourth grade and to a smarmy little jerk of a kid by the name of Ricky Emerson. He hated Ricky. He hated him so much. For years Ricky made a habit of pointing out little Christopher Jarvis’s every mistake. The kid seemed to relish doing it, and the reaction it garnered from the other children. After an unfortunate accident in the second grade, Ricky even gave Chris a nickname: Christopher Pisstopher. The name stuck and followed Chris all the way through middle school before finally fading away.