by Aaron Hubble
Gazing to the west, he saw the glow of his home city. It wasn’t the normal soft blue glow of street lights and lit up homes. No, this was the angry red and yellow of fires raging through the city, the effects of an unprovoked attack. Emotions swirled through his mind. Anger, fear, and hopelessness threatened to consume him.
He’d lived on the razor’s edge of emotion once before. It seemed like a lifetime ago the last time he’d felt that a small breeze could blow him over one edge and he would be lost forever, caught in a swirling eddy of desperation and despair. He shuddered to think about what he could become if he allowed himself to wallow in any one of these.
Or what could become of his people.
Maltoki broke the silence, directing a question at Berit. “So, do you know how far from your village we might be?”
Berit took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “We’re close now. When I was younger I would come out this far on my umbaku and spend the day painting the landscape.” She laughed softly. “My mother would get so mad at me because I wouldn’t return until after dark. I was waiting to capture the perfect color just as the sun set.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “Have you ever witnessed a sunset on the plains?”
Maltoki nodded. “Last summer, during an excavation.”
“Breathtaking, isn’t it? It’s as if…” She paused, searching for the right words, and then opened her arms wide. “As if the whole of Aereas, the land, the trees, the grass and the water, all stop for a brief moment and recognize the day has ended. It acknowledges time has been marked and Aereas itself exhales. I always tried to capture that one moment in time with my painting, but it always seemed to come up just short.”
“Did you come to the university for art?” asked Calier.
Berit nodded. “Yes. I’ve been done with my formal studies for several years now. The only reason I stayed in the city was because I met Winnet.” Her voice caught in her throat for a second and then she somehow managed to press on. “I was able to find enough commissioned work to stay in the city. My parents would have liked me to be home, but then there would have been too much distance between Winnet and me.”
Turning her head quickly, she swiped her hand across her face, catching the tears that had come again.
She paused, lost in the memory for just a brief second and then shook herself loose of the past. “Anyway, yes, we should reach the village before sunrise if we don’t stop too often.” She pushed herself off the ground and looked down at Calier and Maltoki.
“Well,” Berit said, placing her hands on her hips. “We won’t make it sitting on the ground thinking about the past, will we?” She turned and began walking into the darkness.
Maltoki shook his head and glanced sideways at the professor. “I think I’ve learned two things about her.”
“What’s that?”
“Number one, she’s a lot tougher than she looks.”
“And number two?”
Maltoki looked the way Berit had gone. “If it comes down to a fight, I think I would rather have the painter at my side instead of the history professor.”
He slapped Calier on the shoulder and jogged after Berit. Calier stood and hoped with everything in him it wouldn’t come down to a fight.
But was there really any other way?
****
The sun had crested the eastern horizon, setting the sky ablaze. The previous night’s drizzle had ended with the arrival of the morning star. Uncountable droplets of water hung suspended from the tips of emerald grass, glistening across the Aerean plain.
Not that they really cared how beautiful the sky looked. The light was their enemy, their revealer. Calier knew they were taking a chance continuing to walk in the daylight, but the desire to reach some sort of shelter trumped their desire for safety. His eyes nervously scanned the sky looking for any visual signs of aircraft his ears might not pick up first.
The thought of a roof over their heads, hiding them from eyes in the sky, seemed like the greatest thing in all of Aereas right now. This walk through the light was showing Calier just how stressful these last few days had been for all of them. His nerves were a frayed bundle of rope being stretched and pulled to its uttermost limits. Every little sound sent his eyes to the sky, looking for the ominous black shape meaning death was close behind. Twice he had dashed for cover when a large bird passed overhead.
For Calier, this walk could end anytime.
All three of them were exhausted. No one had spoken this morning. The lack of sleep and food was clearly taking its toll. Glancing at Berit, Calier thought the young woman looked paler than yesterday. He truly feared for her very life. With the rain and the mud and the lack of any clean running water, she had been unable to keep her wound clean. If infection set in, they had no way of stopping its progress. He prayed the village would have some sort of functioning medical facility where she could find help. Berit hung on his arm now. He had no idea how she continued to place one foot in front of the other. He was having a hard time himself, and he hadn’t suffered the trauma she had.
There was a soft tap on his shoulder. Turning, he saw Maltoki pointing straight ahead of them. His heart dropped as he saw smoke rising from the grassland. Looking back at Maltoki, he nodded knowingly, but then shrugged as if to say, “We’ll see.” What would they do if this village had suffered the same fate as Gadol City? What would happen to Berit? How would she take another blow?
Cresting a small hill, they were able to look down into what was left of Berit’s village. Her hands went to her mouth, as silent sobs shook her fragile shoulders. Calier wrapped her in a fatherly embrace.
Most of the buildings had been flattened. Smoke rose from the charred remains. Wall studs jutted out of piles of stone at odd angles like blackened bones. On the edge of the town, several structures still stood, but were heavily damaged. Calier looked at Maltoki, who stood with his hands on his hips, taking in the destruction of yet another Aerean town.
“Let’s go down and see if there is someplace to take shelter, maybe scavenge for supplies. Hopefully there are some survivors as well.”
Releasing Berit, he looked into her eyes. “We’ll find your parents, okay?”
She nodded. “But what if…”
“We’ll save the ‘what ifs’ until another time.”
Putting on a brave face, Calier looked at the village and then back at the woman. “Right now our priority has to be getting under shelter and finding food and water. There will be plenty of time to worry about the other things.”
He must have done a decent job with his face because Berit nodded her head, set her shoulders and turned toward her hometown. “Let’s go,” she whispered.
Scanning the sky one more time, Calier offered his arm to Berit and the trio descended the hill.
They entered the village on what must have been the main road, but it was difficult to determine with the destruction. Several bodies lay in the middle of the street. Berit turned her head away a they moved quickly past. To Calier’s eyes, it was Gadol City all over again, just on a smaller scale. It was hard to tell where individual buildings had been, the piles of rubble blending into each other. Releasing her hold on Calier’s arm, Berit reached down and picked up a charred book.
“This was where the library stood. I spent so much time here they eventually made me part of the staff.” She absently flipped through the pages and then gently set the book down on top of a stone.
Berit turned in a circle and whispered, “Everything is gone. Everything. What about all the people?”
“I don’t know,” said Calier. “Let’s keep walking. There are a few buildings on the opposite end of the village still standing. Maybe we can take shelter there, give ourselves some time to think this through.”
He didn’t really want to let the other two know, but he was at a complete loss. What do you do when the only plan you have, the only option given you, runs into an immovable obstacle? Inside of him a war raged between the part of him that needed to keep pu
shing on and the part that wanted to give up, sit down in the middle of this street and quit trying so hard.
Maltoki kicked a piece of stone down the cratered road. “The odds of sleeping in a bed tonight are not looking stellar.”
They continued through the ruined town, picking their way through debris. The going was slow, but the town was not large and they were able to traverse the village in thirty minutes.
“Once we find a place to stay, we should come back to some of these buildings to scavenge. Maybe we can find something useful,” Maltoki noted.
Calier agreed, but the trick would be finding someplace to lay their heads in the meantime. The buildings still standing canted at dangerous angles or had holes punched through their sides. What would be the point of setting a roof over your head if it was just going to collapse upon you?
Berit had stopped in the middle of the street. “We need to find someplace to hide.”
Calier agreed. “We will…”
She cut him off. “No, now. They’re coming, I can hear the aircraft.”
Startled, Calier froze and heard the distinctive high-pitched whine of the invaders’ ship. He frantically scanned the area trying to find someplace to hide when he heard Maltoki yell.
“Professor, over here, hurry!” The young man ran toward a house that was almost completely destroyed; very little of it remained standing.
What was he thinking?
Then, to Calier’s amazement, he saw the top half of a man rising out of the ground, beckoning them over. Recovering from his shock, he began to run and then looked around for Berit. She was limping along behind him. He slowed and grabbed her hand and half dragged the young woman toward the waving man.
Reaching him in several long strides, Calier saw he stood in some sort of underground cellar, holding the door open. Calier pushed Berit into the opening and then all but dove through the door himself. The door banged behind him and the room went as dark as a tomb.
No one breathed as they waited. Several seconds after the door had shut, the sound of several ships screamed overhead, shaking what was left of the house above them. Dust and dirt loosened by the vibration sifted down on Calier’s head. The noise faded into the distance and silence returned once again.
For several minutes the room was quiet. Calier held his breath, straining his ears to pick up any sound indicating the ships had seen them and were turning around. It was useless; the pounding of his own heart echoed in his ears, drowning out all other sounds.
In front of him a soft blue light flared. It illuminated the face of the man holding it. He walked toward the middle of the room and hung the glowing orb from a hook fixed to the low ceiling.
Calier took a deep breath and stepped forward. “My thanks, brother. We would surely have been seen. That was quite a risk you took for strangers.”
The man stepped toward Calier and grasped his hand, “It’s not a risk when those you help are your family, right? In a time like this we’re all family.”
“Truer words may never have been spoken. I’m Calier”
“I’m Ibris, and this is my wife Rohab.” The stout, balding man gestured toward the far corner of the cellar where a woman wearing a soiled handkerchief over her red hair sat protectively hugging two small boys. She nodded, but Calier noticed how she pulled the boys closer to herself. Who could blame her, he thought, after what had happened?
Berit stepped out of the shadows. “Ibris? Rohab? It’s me, Berit, Ganjge and Issae’s daughter!”
“Berit! Oh, Berit, my girl!” Rohab was on her feet and running across the cellar to wrap Berit in a tight embrace. She stepped back and kept her hands on Berit’s shoulders to look at her more closely.
“Oh, darling, your face! What happened?” Rohab gently reached up and placed her hand on the dirty bandages covering one side of Berit’s face and her left ear.
Berit’s laid her hand upon Rohab’s. “It happened during the attack, right when it first started. I was hit by some debris. Winnet was trying to pull me through the park, but then…” Her voice trailed off as she covered her mouth and her shoulders began to shake, consumed once more with her grief.
Robab pulled her into another embrace, providing her with the comfort only a mother could. Over Berit’s shoulder she gave Calier a questioning look. He shook his head no, responding to her silent question about Winnet. Rohab held her for another minute and then released her and placed both of her hands upon Berit’s cheeks and looked into her eyes.
“Oh, child, my heart aches for you. Nothing I can say will make this any easier for you. I want you to know my shoulder is always available for you to cry on. Come, sit down and let me look at your face.” The woman spoke with a distinctive accent. A northerly brogue, thought Calier.
He watched them move back into the corner and was grateful for Rohab and her motherly touch. While he tried, he was not the most nurturing of people.
Ibris motioned toward Maltoki. “And who do we have here?”
“My apologies. This is Maltoki.” The two men shook hands and then Ibris led them toward the middle of the cellar where several overturned buckets sat on the floor providing impromptu seats.
“How do you know Berit?” asked Maltoki.
Rubbing his chin, Ibris said, “Berit’s parents were the first to welcome Rohab and me when we moved to this town fifteen years ago. They had us over for dinner often. Gangje, Berit’s father, and I both dabble in woodworking so it was a natural friendship.” Ibris smiled. “Back then Berit was pretty young. She was always painting and drawing and my Rohab took a particular interest in her art.” Ibris was silent for a moment, lost in the memories of the past. “Great family.”
“Do they still live?” asked Calier.
Ibris shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure. When I have ventured out, I’ve stayed close to the house. Or what is left of the house. They live outside of town.”
Calier nodded and thought of the grim search that might lay ahead of them at Berit’s family home.
And the heartache.
“You said you came from the city,” Ibris continued. “What’s it like there? There’s no communication coming from anywhere.”
Maltoki and Calier looked at each other and then Calier took the lead. “Take the level of destruction in your village and multiply it by a thousand. Whoever is doing this did the same thing to Gadol City. Before we escaped, the bombardment had ceased, but the occupying force was moving in.”
Ibris groaned and shook his head. “Who’s doing this?”
Maltoki spoke. “We don’t know, but they bombed the city and are taking prisoners. We do have a theory about them, but it’s a little hard to believe. You mentioned you were unable to get communication from any city, and that’s because all of the satellites are down. They all quit working at the same time.”
Maltoki paused as if to see if Ibris understood, but the man only returned a quizzical look.
“The only way all of the communication goes down at the same time,” Maltoki explained, “is if the satellites are destroyed at the same time. The network went down before the attack began. So if you put two and two together, the satellites were destroyed from something orbiting the planet.”
A sarcastic laugh escaped Ibris. “Ha, you expect me to believe that nonsense?”
Calier smiled. “Not really. Actually I’m not sure I believe it completely. The other piece of evidence is I have seen the invaders unmasked, as it were. They look very similar to us, but there are differences. The man I saw had very light colored skin and no color streaks in his hair. I also heard their language and it was unlike anything I have ever heard before.”
He let that sink in for a minute and then added, “We also must ask ourselves, why would another of the great cities attack Gadol City? Can you think of any reason that would happen? Why would all the communication be shut down if it was another Aerean city perpetrating this atrocity? I believe in my fellow Aereans. Maybe in the past we could do something like this, but there’s
five hundred years of peace and growth behind us saying the Am’Segid are now incapable of genocide.”
Silence settled among the men. Calier glanced toward Berit and Rohab and noticed Berit lay covered with a blanket, her head pillowed on Rohab’s lap. The red-haired woman gently stroked Berit’s hair. Clean white bandages covered the young woman’s wounds.
Ibris broke the silence. “Well, that’s certainly something to think about.” He ran his hand through what was left of his hair and then looked at Calier. “You’ll stay with us. I can’t offer you much in the way of amenities, but from the look of you, amenities are something you’ve lacked for a while.”
Calier grinned. “There was no room at the inn, so we kept walking.” His countenance sobered. “Truly, thank you for your hospitality. I’m grateful.” He gestured toward Berit. “I’m not sure how long she would’ve been able to keep going.”
“Good.” Ibris slapped his knees, sending a puff of dust toward the ceiling. “In the evening we will venture out and look through the town. I know of a few other survivors who are hiding. Maybe we can find more. I’m sure Berit wants to see her family’s place and see if anyone is still there. But first we should eat and then get some rest.”
“I don’t suppose you have a nice bed available with feather pillows?” Maltoki quipped.
CHAPTER THREE
Calier counted heads and came up with twenty people crowded into Ibris and Rohab’s cellar. Heat and the aroma of unwashed bodies filled the small room. Sweat slid down his forehead and trickled into the corner of his eye. He blinked through the sting and saw the faces of those gathered around him. They all wore the same expression he was sure was on his own face, the look of shock, fear and uncertainty.
The people had been scattered throughout the village, hiding in half-standing buildings. Calier had gone out the previous night with Ibris and Maltoki to look through the debris for survivors. Ibris knew where most of them were hiding. The three of them had moved from hiding spot to hiding spot, knocking on splintered door jambs and poking their heads into broken windows introducing themselves, and letting the survivors know they wanted to meet at Ibris’ house.
