by Steven Novak
Though not completely convinced of Krystoph’s assessment of the situation, Nestor nodded in agreement, realizing there was really no other choice. Lifting his stubby arm into the air, he subtly motioned for his soldiers to rise as well. In the end, the decision was quite simple. If the group was to get to Aquari, they would need to traverse the doorway at the bottom of the muddy lake, and there was only one way into the lake: forward. Grasping the broad sword attached to his back, he pulled it from its sheath, the sound of metal dragging across leather cutting through the silence. The steel glistened brightly in the light of Fillagrou’s suns; clean and dangerous, it seemed ready to do exactly that for which it was created, honor the name of king and country at any cost.
His face growing sternly serious, Nestor glanced at the group and stated with the confidence of a warrior, “Keep close behind. Keep the formation tight.”
Following Krystoph and Nestor, Tommy did exactly that, pulling his little brother and Staci close to his side. Behind them, forming a protective circle around the children, were the remaining battle-ready Tycarians. With his shirt wrapped tightly in her grasp, Staci’s body was pressed so closely against him that he could feel the movement of her chest on his back. Her breathing was hurried, her eyes wide and her jaw locked tight. Her delicate fingers pulled the fabric of his shirt even more taut, threatening to tear its fibers apart. To his left, Nicky was tucked in just as close to his older brother, the boy’s physical appearance eerily similar to Staci. As the group slowly made its way across the open plain, Tommy wondered once more exactly what they were doing there. This was no place for children, no place for his little brother, no place for Staci and no place for him, for that matter.
He realized that he was slowly beginning to not only dislike Fillagrou, but hate it. As well, he had grown sick of this war, of those engaged in it and the fact that they all seemed to think he needed to be included for some reason. If it ended up hurting any of them, or worse, he didn’t know what he might do, what he might be capable of doing.
Much to the surprise of everyone, the group reached the edge of the massive lake without the slightest hint of resistance. Up close, the water looked even thicker and muddier than it had from afar. Its surface was a grainy-brown soup, disgusting and slimy, covered in a thin sheen of clear stickiness that slightly resembled spit. Occasionally a slightly lighter brown bubble the size of a basketball would rise to the surface and explode with an audible pop, sending miniscule grains of sand flying in every direction.
“All of you, in,” Krystoph muttered hurriedly, scanning the surrounding area intently, still shocked by the lack of even a single Ochan regiment. “We must reach the ship by nightfall if we hope to recover the artifact before the Ochans.”
Upon hearing this, Nicky gazed up from the bubbling glop long enough to mumble, “Ship?”
His enormous flat feet already half submerged in the disgusting liquid, Nestor looked at the boy with an uncharacteristic grin. “Lad, in Aquari, there are no other methods of transportation.”
*
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CHAPTER 34
EARLY AFTERNOON RENDEZVOUS
*
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…how much further is this place?” Donald managed to sputter out despite the fact that he was nearly out of breath and his legs and feet were on fire after hours of non-stop hiking.
“Stop complaining, will ya, kid? In case you’ve forgotten, no one asked you along for the ride. You made your choice, now deal with it,” Roustaf responded with a fair amount of annoyance while running his hand across the perfectly symmetrical lumps along the top of his head.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Donald shot back angrily. “Look, I’m not asking for all that much, just a couple minutes of rest! Gimme ten minutes! Ten stupid little minutes! Wait, wait wait, I’ll tell you what, I’ll even take five—five lousy minutes! I think the mutant ninja turtles back there would appreciate a break too, wouldn’t you, guys?”
Glancing behind him, Donald looked to the pair of Tycarians brining up the rear of the group for confirmation. They stared back sternly, the taller, older of the two rolling his eyes while shaking his massive head.
“Look, slick,” Roustaf interrupted, “We’re not stopping, not while Pleebs and Walcott are locked up in that hell hole. If the roles were reversed and it was the two of us holed up in there, they’d be doing exactly the same. Besides, I’ve got a meeting to keep and I ain’t missing it. If you can keep that yap of yours shut for another twenty minutes or so, you’ll get your break.”
Donald sighed deeply, letting his shoulders droop even further. In his heart he knew the little man was right. Walcott wouldn’t stop. The Tycarian king proved as much once already when he saved Donald’s life. As the memories of that faithful day came rushing back, Donald decided he could last another twenty minutes—or at least attempt to.
“You still haven’t told us who we’re supposed to be meeting out here,” Donald added, trying his best to ignore the fact that his legs were on the brink of turning into wobbly noodles.
Glancing over his winged shoulder, Roustaf cracked a slight smile. “I’ve been told more than once over the years that I’ve got a pretty thick head, but I’m not quite as stupid as I look, kid. Believe it or not, I never planned on going into Ocha without some backup.”
A mere twenty-three minutes later, Roustaf came to a hovering stop in an area of the forest seemingly no different than any the group of weary travelers had encountered to that point.
“Alright, cool your britches for a minute and take a load off. We’re here,” The little man muttered while zooming back and forth among the trees, scanning the forest floor from above and searching for something below.
“Here? Stop here?” Donald yelled back, “Here where? Oh, wait—look at that, great job! You found some trees! Trees in a forest! Nicely done, Sherlock, you’ve cracked another case!”
“Will you please shut your trap, kid, before I come over there and shut it for you?” Roustaf responded without turning to face the boy and twiddling the edge of his beard quizzically, still hovering three feet off the forest floor.
At last the little man came to a stop above a series of large leafy-red bushes surrounded by five smallish trees forming a very rough looking semi-circle. “Exactly where she said it’d be,” He muttered to himself moments before darting headfirst into the leafy foliage and disappearing from view.
From five feet away, Donald and the Tycarians watched with interest as the bush began to jitter wildly, loose leaves being tossed about in every direction like a shaggy dog shaking water from its fur. A moment later, the ground under Donald’s feet started to shake as if an earthquake were somehow localized in the space directly beneath. Moving backward, he leapt from the vibrating ground onto more stable footing between the stone-faced Tycarian soldiers. Sliding backward into itself, the forest floor eventually opened up, exposing a crudely cut pit in the soil.
Lifting into the air from inside the bush, Roustaf came to a hovering stop directly over the pitch-black opening. “Allrighty, everyone inside. Come on, ya schmucks, let’s not stand around scratching ourselves like a bunch of bums with nowhere to go. We ain’t got all day.”
One by one the group lowered themselves into the darkened opening. A moment after the last of them had descended into the blackness, the trapdoor above closed once again, encasing them in a thick, all-encompassing darkness. Moving cautiously and using the walls on either side of the incredibly tight space to guide them, the group began carefully making their way through a series of underground tunnels not too different from those surrounding the city of New Tipoloo. The mud beneath Donald’s feet was thick and sticky—so thick, in fact, that it nearly pulled the shoes from his feet on a number of occasions. The air was stuffy, humid, heavy and suffocating. Donald was finding it difficult to breathe, as it felt almost like he was attempting to snort syrup through his nose and somehow transform it into oxygen.
Quietly he mumbled a few ch
oice four-letter words in Roustaf’s direction.
After another ten minutes of walking the tunnel at last began to open up, a dim, yellowish light growing patiently into focus off in the distance. Eventually the tunnel widened enough for the Tycarian soldiers to stand upright, their backs a bit sore from hunching over for so long. Whoever or whatever originally created the Tycarian form never intended for it to easily maneuver through tight places. Much smaller, darker and somehow more crudely constructed than Tipoloo, the new area reminded Donald of an airplane hangar in some ways. There were no dwellings dug into the walls, no stone doorways or families of weird creatures. Just a few sporadically placed torches stuck into the dirt provided the room with its only source of light. At first glance Donald believed the cavern to be empty, though his visibility beyond twenty feet was admittedly limited. Unsure of their new surroundings, the Tycarians tightened their muscles while keeping their flat paws close to the blades strapped to their sides.
“Relax guys. You won’t be needing those here,” Roustaf added with a grin, motioning to their weapons. “Trust me, this isn’t enemy territory.”
“It took you long enough.”
The voice came from the distance, its speaker hidden somewhere within the shadows. Roustaf turned away from the Tycraians, his tiny grin instantly growing to a full-on smile that curled the edges of his already curly mustache even further. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m right on time, which is a miracle considering all the nonsense I had to go through to get here.”
At last the shadows opened up and from them stepped none other than the Grilgamorph slave-turned-revolutionary, Tahnja. The deep black against the bright, almost neon quality of her pink skin proved a revelation in contrasts. With a smile spread across her thin lips, she sauntered on a pair of long wiry legs toward the group, staring directly at Roustaf the entire time. As she moved toward the little man, he, too, progressed toward her. Opening her hand, she extended it outward in Roustaf’s direction. Fluttering like a red leaf from one of Fillagrou’s trees, the tiny man came to a soft landing on the sleek curves of her pink-skinned palm. The instant his feet were firmly planted, she pulled his little body close to her face and planted a kiss on the whole of his head.
Both touching and more than a little bizarre, Donald tried his best not to chuckle at the sight.
“In any case, I’m glad you finally made it,” Tahnja whispered with an obvious lovelorn expression on her drawn face.
“I always keep my promises, toots—especially to a pretty little dame like yourself,” Roustaf responded while leaning in close once more to plant a kiss on her lips, which were nearly half the size of his entire body.
Looking past the miniscule man standing proudly in the palm of her hand, Tahnja finally took note of Donald and the burly Tycarian soldiers waiting patiently in the shadows of the tunnel.
“I was only expecting you,” She whispered, turning her attention to Roustaf once again and raising the area where her eyebrows would be, if she had any.
“What can I say? Plans change. Is it gonna be a problem?”
“No problem at all,” She answered, her ever present grin remaining a constant. “The more, the merrier. Besides, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
After planting a quick kiss on her nose, Roustaf lifted himself into the air with the aid of his translucent wings. “Is everyone else ready?”
Extending her now empty hand upward, Tahnja motioned toward the thick, unending shadows directly behind. “Ready, willing, and anxious to crack some Ochan heads.”
Donald watched as a group of heavily armored soldiers, each distinctly different in appearance from the last, emerged from the darkness. Their faces sported expressions of readiness and seriousness with just a hint of anxiety. Though each among them belonged to a different race, all had felt the awful sting of war during the course of their lives, and every last one was aching to get their hands on an Ochan, any Ochan. Among those that had survived the horrors of the Dark Army, these were the best of the best, the toughest of the tough, and the hardest of the hard. Though creatures with vastly different backgrounds, they had come together for one reason: the rescue of Pleebo and Walcott.
If a few Ochans happened to get hacked to bits in the process, none among them would likely be upset. For the very first time since following Roustaf into the forest, Donald believed they might actually have a chance.
The foolishness of youth is an astounding thing.
*
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CHAPTER 35
BROKEN PROMISES
*
It had been a little over a month since Megan was diagnosed. In that time, her health had gotten progressively worse. This was a patient disease she found herself grappling with; a disease just now beginning the long process of eating away at her until eventually there would be nothing left. What began as little more than the sniffles and the occasional sleepless night had slowly morphed into something darker and scarier – the kind of something better not spoken of in the company of her two young children. Lately the act of simply pulling herself out of bed in the morning had become a chore for Megan; every movement was a sharp reminder of the dire situation she faced. Seated atop a long wooden bench on the deck, she watched as the sun began its descent, dissolving what had only moments ago been day and turned it into night. She loved the smell of the night air, crisp and deep, with an undeniable, yet so very subtle hint of moisture. The night washed the world clean and left behind its dewy remnants as proof of the transformation. It was the night air, and only the night air, that had proven capable of cooling the ever intensifying fire eating away at her from the inside out. Though the sky hadn’t yet been fully enveloped by the darkness, Megan could already make out the subtle hint of the stars above. Nearly translucent, for the moment they were mere hints, vague ideas of something more bright and beautiful to come later. Before the doctors informed her she had only a few months to live, the moon and the sun and the sky were of little interest to Megan Jarvis. Now though, nose-to-nose with the beginning of the end and realizing a day would soon arrive in which her eyes could never look on such a sight again, the universe seemed an entirely different place. As with everything in the end, it came down to a simple matter of perspective. That which had once been dull and uninteresting had become a revelation.
Unfortunately, as was often the case, it was not until one found themselves faced with the reality of losing something that they learned to appreciate it.
Behind Megan, the front door to the house opened with a squeak, and from it stepped her husband, Chris. The damn squeaky door had bothered her for years and she’d asked him repeatedly to fix it or oil it or whatever he had to do to stop it from making that god-awful noise. Whether due to laziness, forgetfulness or simply because he hadn’t found the time, Chris never got around to it. Hearing it now, Megan was strangely glad he hadn’t. She wanted to remember the squeak. She needed to remember the squeak exactly as it was and had been for so long. The squeak was important.
“How are you feeling?” Chris asked, leaning beside her while wrapping a blanket over her shoulders and pulling her close to his chest.
Megan took note of how warm his chest felt against the side of her head. Though subtle, she could hear his heart beating deep inside. Like the drum in a well-trained orchestra, the amazingly complicated organ thumped in tune with the heaving of his chest and the rumble of his half-empty stomach. These were the sounds Megan loved—the simple, meaningless background she’d loved since she first heard them.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, absorbing his odor and holding it in her lungs for a moment before opting to let it settle comfortably across her insides. “I’m alright,” she answered with a comfortable grin. “Are the boys asleep?”
“I just put them down,” Chris responded, his fingers gently running through her delicate hair and against her scalp.
Pulling the blanket to her neck, Megan leaned in closer to her husband. Opening her eyes ev
er so briefly, she gazed again at the darkening sky in the distance. Summer would end soon, and before she knew it, fall would come rushing in to take its place. Eventually the bitter cold of winter will have taken over completely, making something as simple as sitting on her porch staring at the stars an almost impossible task. She would miss this. She would miss the stars.
“How are they doing?” she asked with a whisper, closing her eyes again.
For a moment, Chris hesitated. He was beginning to sense the worry in his boys, especially Tommy. While he doubted his elder son was entirely sure of what his mother was going through, it was becoming painfully obvious the boy could sense something was amiss. Every day Tommy got quieter. Every day he retreated further into his crayons and his drawings and the more easily manageable fictional worlds in his head. Every day he was backing further and further away from reality. This, however, was not the kind of thing Chris believed his wife should worry herself with—not now, not when she needed every ounce of strength she had. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that he opted instead to lie.
“They’re fine, doing just fine.”
Despite the utilization of his best poker face, Megan could see right through him. The tone of his voice was slightly off kilter. The couple had been married far too long for such a thing to go by unnoticed. Chris was telling her exactly what he thought she needed to hear and nothing more. Over the past few weeks Megan had witnessed firsthand the beginnings of a change in the way her children looked at her, especially her first-born. Tommy knew something was amiss. Much the way one might discern a storm on the horizon simply by the existence of cloud cover, her elder son could sense his mother’s distress in the expressions on her face. Pulling the blanket further over her face, Megan used it to wipe the beginnings of a tear pooling in the corner of her eye.
“Chris…” She asked softly, her voice soulful and faraway with a barely there tremble.
