Tomarkus and the Betrayed Planet

by Vishal Ved

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, child.’ Griex entered the room quietly, making Ariet jump. He continued, ‘But if you don’t know the complete truth then reading from that casket is of no use.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do anything then, instead of merely writing it all down,’ Ariet demanded. He glared at Griex, but saw only sympathy in the latter’s eyes. The sato looked away. He didn’t want anything to distract him from his mission of destroying MOX.

  ‘You’re mistaken, child. My life is as miserable as yours,’ said Griex, his mature voice filled with pain and sorrow. ‘They treat me no better than you, and sometimes even worse. No respect, ugly looks... I’ve had enough.’

  A tremendous blast shook Calamus, and in no time screams and petrified voices filled the underground storeys. Cenoy’s troop had broken into the underground stories, after killing the section of the Calamus army that had remained above the ground.

  Griex turned to Ariet and pleaded, ‘We don’t have much time. They will kill everyone. Please stop it if you can, else this race will face another extinction soon.’

  ‘What extinction?’ Ariet asked with his wide-open eyes. Griex’s talk seemed crazy, but Ariet instinctively felt that Griex was a well-wisher of the Hydus slaves.

  ‘Didn’t you read till the story of the disappeared child?’ asked Griex, impatiently.

  ‘What story?’

  The screams were getting louder with every passing moment.

  ‘The disappeared child,’ Griex repeated, angrily.

  It was clear by this point that it wouldn’t take long for Calamus to fall. Ariet’s heart raced. Should he listen to Griex and ask Cenoy to stop? Would she even listen to such a request, furious as she was over the previous defeat followed by the attack on Mesek?

  Ariet and Griex hid behind the pod as a black soldier stepped inside the room. They held their breath and waited till he gave the room a cursory scan and left.

  ‘Let me try,’ Ariet muttered.

  He crept to the door and saw more than a hundred Calamus soldiers lying dead on the ground while many were still running to lower storeys in a bid to save their lives. Suddenly Ariet caught sight of Cenoy. Before his awestruck eyes, she jumped three storeys down in a magnificent leap. There was no way she was going to listen to what Ariet wanted to tell her.

  Griex came from behind and asked, ‘Can you stop them?’

  ‘Yes I can, let me think something,’ replied Ariet, looking at Cenoy who was killing blue soldiers at lightning speed, her setek the deadliest weapon in Calamus, because the defending Calamus soldiers were only left with partially charged seteks. Sparks from Cenoy’s setek scooped flesh out of blue soldiers in seconds.

  Suddenly Ariet had an idea. He picked up an odium from the ground and asked Griex to hold it against his chest. The sato led Griex to balcony and called out loudly to Cenoy. Somehow, over the noise of the fighting, she heard his voice and looked up. She froze when she saw a weird-looking fugit holding an odium against Ariet’s chest.

  ‘EVACUATE CALAMUS RIGHT NOW, OR I’LL KILL YOUR SPY,’ Griex roared so loudly that it even shook Ariet to his bones. Everybody stopped and stared at them like in a still frame. Blue soldiers’ jaws dropped to see that the ugly Griex whom everyone hated was standing up for them. On the other hand, black soldiers stared at Cenoy, waiting for her order to finish this fight.

  ‘OUT! OUT! OUT! Everyone. No one will touch another MOX soldier,’ shrieked Cenoy. They stared at her in surprise, but then rushed to obey. The black soldiers sped up to the top storey, picked up their injured soldiers and started moving out of Calamus.

  Silence fell over Calamus as Cenoy approached Griex menacingly.

  ‘One scratch on that sato, and I’ll blow up the whole of Calamus.’

  ‘He will not be hurt,’ said Griex, in a soft, calm voice, ‘I’ll send him to Marcamaayu as soon as your army reaches there.’

  The relief was palpable in Calamus as Cenoy retreated through the gateway chamber behind her troops. Every Calamus soldier stared at Ariet angrily; they had understood it was he who had blocked the duct and given their enemies information about the underground storeys. There was no way the traitor was leaving Calamus alive, no matter what happened to them afterwards. As it was, Calamus was left with no hope, with almost two-thirds of the Calamus army dead.

  ‘I know what you all are thinking,’ said Griex, and everybody looked up at the fugit who had saved their lives.

  ‘He is a spy but he is the one who saved our lives.’ There was a collective gasp as Griex handed the odium back to Ariet, but the sato cast it away without fear. Everyone looked at him, bewildered and confused.

  ‘Why would he save us?’ The question that was on everyone’s mind shot up from the crowd.

  ‘He is from Hydus and he has realized that he has been tricked to fight,’ Griex voice echoed through Calamus. ‘He doesn’t want to die in a fight which doesn’t profit him in any way. He just wants to go back to his life in Hydus and leave MOX and Mesek to resolve this fight between themselves.’

  ‘And in return for the great loss which he has caused to MOX, he has promised to betray his haeres Mesek.’ Griex looked at Ariet as he spoke, and Ariet made no move to refute him, knowing they wouldn’t let a spy go free without anything in return.

  Calamus soldiers took Ariet into custody, and he spent the night sobbing as he heard the kiros wailing over their dead children and shattered families.

  32.

  Drowning In Blood

  Cenoy stood in Mesek’s chamber, surrounded by Mesek, Hak and Xena, hanging her head in shame.

  ‘Why didn’t you finish everyone of them when you had the opportunity?’ demanded Mesek, almost out of his senses in fury. ‘TELL ME WHAT WAS THE REASON!’ His outburst made it clear how badly he wanted his enemies dead.

  Gathering her courage, Cenoy raised her head, and looked Mesek in the eye as she spoke, ‘Haeres, the fight was about to get over, but then I heard Ariet screaming from the top storey where a fat, old fugit had held him captive. He threatened to kill Ariet unless we left immediately.’

  ‘Does his life matter to you more than the lives of thousands of other prisoners?’ raged Mesek; Cenoy noticed a scar on his face for the first time, which turned a deeper violet with his anger.

  ‘Forgive me haeres, but he’s my friend and I couldn’t let him die,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Friendship should never sway the mind of a leader from doing what is right.’ Mesek glared at her, but it was clear from her face that she didn’t agree with Mesek, at least in this case.

  ‘I want you to attack Calamus again as soon as possible and kill them all,’ Mesek ordered, and strode into the next chamber, followed by Xena who hadn’t said anything, but looked disappointed with Cenoy too.

  ‘Cenoy.’ Hak came up to the kiro. ‘I know it’s hard for you to believe but that’s the reality. He doesn’t care about Ariet and he has done this with me numerous times.’ There was sorrow in his voice.

  Cenoy was shocked. ‘I can’t believe that! Mesek is the one who saved Ariet’s life in the first place. Whatever happened between you and him must be just a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Think whatever you want, but the reality won’t change,’ said Hak, shaking his head, as he left the chamber.

  Cenoy wondered why he was acting so strangely. They were all under a lot of stress, she reasoned to herself. She had tried calling Ariet several times, but he hadn’t responded to her call.

  Cenoy came out of Mesek’s chamber and took the path which lead to Hak’s. The door was already open and when she stepped in she was shocked—the room was in complete shambles, his bed broken, shattered sculptures on the ground; it looked as though someone had robbed it.

  Cenoy was baffled and worried. Had the spy tried to kill Hak? She heard footsteps coming towards the chamber, and she hid behind an old canister from where she could see the entrance. Hak came in, looked around, but he did not look very surprised. It appeared he already knew about the state of
his room... Had this all happened the previous day when she had been fighting in Calamus?

  She was about to come out, but suddenly Hak disappeared into a dark corner of his chamber. His footsteps receded fast as though there was a hidden passage behind his chamber, but then they stopped and the kiro heard somebody else coming back with him, rather fast. Cenoy’s heart skipped a beat and she retreated further behind the trunk. Hak came out with another black soldier who had a setek in his hand, and they hurried out of the chamber.

  Who was that soldier and why was Hak hiding him? Cenoy could no longer hide her suspicion that Hak was either the spy himself, or he was helping the spy.

  The kiro crept to the door and peeped into the corridor. Hak was still in sight, but the black soldier had disappeared. Cenoy quietly followed Hak down the corridor, hoping to catch him dirty-handed, but as soon as Hak turned the corner he started running. Baffled, Cenoy dashed after him, her heart racing as she heard Hak’s screams from Mesek’s chamber.

  Hak was banging his head against the door and howling as soldiers came running from every direction. Cenoy pushed her way through shouting “Mesek, Mesek !!!” but it was too late; Mesek’s body, drowning in blood, was lying in the corner. The kiro didn’t dare go close.

  The one who freed so many prisoners and Cenoy herself from Carcerem was dead. Her soul wilted and she knew who was going to die next.

  33.

  The Civil War

  There was blood all over the floor. Losing control over her anger, Cenoy leapt on Hak and kicked him hard in the face; Hak’s head snapped back and hit the door hard. A slightly harder kick would have broken his skull. Before Hak could react, she punched him again and a fountain of blood shot from his mouth. It was not the time to talk. Hak’s hand moved to his setek, but before he could do anything odium-bearing soldiers jumped on him from behind and snatched his setek.

  The soldiers in the corridor were in complete disarray, murmuring nervously in confusion. Hearing the sound of familiar footsteps, Cenoy looked up and tried to look past the crowd. Then, her jaw dropped. Mesek stood in front of her, looking shocked.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ questioned Mesek, not even noticing Hak who was struggling in the hands of soldiers.

  ‘Haeres, you are alive! Then who has been murdered?’ shouted Cenoy, running inside the chamber, followed by Mesek.

  No! This can’t be true,’ cried Mesek, seeing the spilled blood on the floor.

  Cenoy activated her setek as she approached the body and its light lit the dark chamber. It was Xena on the floor, with a big hole in her chest as though somebody had pierced it with a burning rod.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ Mesek wept, picking the dead body up and carrying it gently in his arms to the pod.

  ‘It was Hak,’ said Cenoy, sobbing. ‘I witnessed him planning this murder with a setek soldier, but I didn’t expect their target to be Xena.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have gone to the surface leaving Xena here alone,’ wailed Mesek. Suddenly, he rose and yelled, ‘WHERE IS HE?’

  ‘He’s outside, haeres,’ replied the kiro.

  Broken and devastated, Mesek tightened his grip on his setek and strode out of the room where he found Hak struggling in the hands of the soldiers, who released him as soon as Mesek reached them. Mesek punched him hard and he fell on the ground. Mesek raised his setek, but before he could blow Hak’s head off, somebody from the back of the crowd shouted, ‘Stop haeres, we know Hak would never do something like this. If you kill him everybody present here will have to bear the consequences.’ As soon as he finished, all the setek-bearing soldiers of Marcamaayu raised their seteks together.

  The odium-bearing soldiers looked furiously at those setek soldiers as though they were their enemies.

  ‘How dare you say that,’ growled Mesek, boiling in anger.

  ‘We know that you don’t like Hak, but he has devoted his whole life to you and—’ Before the setek soldier could complete his sentence Hak howled in pain, as an odium pierced his chest. The anger of the setek-bearing soldiers boiled over, and soon Marcamaayu turned into the Calamus of the day before. Blood flowed in every direction, as odium fought setek.

  Neither Mesek nor Cenoy had killed Hak. They were both clueless about who had attacked him in the confusion, but they both knew they had to kill their most precious soldiers, the setek soldiers. By the time the pace of the fighting slackened, every setek soldier lay dead, along with over two hundred odium soldiers.

  34.

  The Truth about the Lost Child

  ‘Kibesu has been killed! Kibesu has been killed!’ The call went around the corridors, and the sleeping fugits nearly fell from their pods. They ran outside, and everyone looked at each other on confusion as they stood leaning against parapet wall; their last hope was gone.

  Ariet also came out, as the guard outside his chamber dashed out leaving him free in his chamber. And Ariet sighted Griex who looked calm near the parapet wall, but the sato could not hide his curiosity. Who was Kibesu?

  An elder Calamus member came forward and addressed everyone from the top storey. ‘First, let me correct everyone here. Kibesu hasn’t been killed, he sacrificed himself by taking his own life to provoke a civil war in Marcamaayu. He had been planting the seeds of it in the setek soldiers’ brains for very long. And on the top of that before his death he took the life of Mesek’s beloved, Xena, with the help of our other brave soldier Moug.’

  Xena was dead? Ariet’s jaw dropped at the news.

  ‘The war between the troops killed nearly two hundred soldiers, and all the setek operators have also been killed including four of our setek soldiers—Gizen, Ksit, Norek, Moug who fueled the war.’ He raised his hands high in the air. ‘Their sacrifice will always be remembered!’

  ‘Their sacrifice will always be remembered!’ everybody chanted in unison.

  Suddenly, a kiro in the crowd pointed a finger at Ariet and shouted, ‘It is this sato because of whom we all are suffering today; we lost our families and now we lost our brave soldiers, including Kibesu.’

  Ariet stared back at her without fear. Deep inside his heart, he did not really feel guilty for the carnage in Calamus, because he felt it was only right for the way the fugits of Hydus had been treated all these years.

  ‘It’s not his fault, He didn’t know the reality. He was just doing his duty like most of you with full devotion and with the ultimate aim to destroy who he perceived to be the enemy,’ Griex spoke loudly, and everybody fell silent.

  Another elder council member from the middle storey cleared his throat and began, ‘His reasons may be as you say Griex, but we will not leave him alive.’

  ‘Try to understand folks, the only way to keep Calamus safe is to use him, not to kill him.’

  ‘So, aren’t we releasing him?’

  ‘No, we’ll keep him in custody and manipulate the enemy’s captain, the kiro Cenoy,’ replied Griex.

  Ariet looked at Griex with bewildered eyes, feeling betrayed, but didn’t say anything. This was not the plan. Was Griex actually going to use him for saving Calamus?

  The sato was imprisoned in Griex’s room, because everybody else considered it no less than torture to live in that narrow, cramped space. They shifted Griex’s caskets to another room, but when they came to remove the zeng from Ariet’s neck, Griex stopped them, saying that it would be useful to send deceptive messages to the enemy. Ariet, sitting in a corner, could smell the washed blood from the corridors, and it constantly reminded him of the massacre which could have been worse if he hadn’t agreed to Griex’s plan.

  Griex came to visit him shortly, after showing the permission stamp from the council members to the guards patrolling outside.

  ‘Why did you betray me?’ Ariet demanded.

  ‘I didn’t betray you, and I never will. We’re always with Hydus and I believe the sole purpose of our family, for which we waited thousands of years in the hope that someday a miracle would happen, is about to be realised.’

 
Looking into Griex’s eyes, Ariet could feel the old fugit’s pain and desperation to free Hydus’ slaves. ‘How did you know that I was from Hydus, though I never really came out of my room much?’ asked the sato.

  ‘Maintaining history teaches you to observe every little thing which others miss. Like your feet. Look at them and you’ll know.’ Ariet looked at his feet and realized that there was new shiny skin on them that contrasted with the rest of his body; the new skin had formed after the sato had burnt his feet in the desert.

  ‘I know you’ve a lot of other questions as well, so let me clear them one by one. Some twenty years ago a fugit researcher Dodus came to the council and showed them his amazing discovery. He had discovered a new planet which was smaller than Tomarkus, but which he claimed had far more natural resources than Tomarkus. He desired to move the entire race to the new planet, but the council laughed off his plan as it would take forever for them to build a new life there, whereas they were already enjoying a prosperous life on Tomarkus, employing Hydus as a slave city.

  Dodus kept sending his proposals to the council and they kept rejecting them without even looking at them, until one year when a drastic drop in dueso level was reported to council. It was a drop of 1% in overall dueso level and it was devastating.

  MOX searched for the reason but they couldn’t pinpoint it. Dueso levels kept falling year on year and there was no solution in sight. The situation got so bad that MOX started killing all gigantic dueso breathing species. The disastrous massacre brought with it more complications and soon Tomarkus started becoming a cage for council families. Many beautiful places lacked dueso and hence the council had to abandon them all, leaving only Fetoildaan as their permanent base.