The Gift of Volkeye

by Marque Strickland

  Phyllamon, caring nothing about the goings on of his establishments and not even knowing what his stores sold, now merely returned once in a while to take his ninety-nine percent shares of the profits. In fact, he would’ve had no clue that Nyp’s store was coming up short on product if Nyp hadn’t feared him so much that he mentioned it, trying to show his master that he was a good employee.

  After a few minutes, Phyllamon let go of the mishap, knowing that getting Zynathian’s location out of Nyp was a dream too good to be true anyway.

  “Come, lads, back to the castle,” he said.

  Phyllamon summoned his hover from the ground with a mechanism on his wrist. It rose with a strong gust of wind, blowing snow in their faces. The three of them got inside and sped off.

  Meanwhile, within the cave, news had quickly spread of Nyp’s murder. The others who were employed to Phyllamon began panicking. Among those terrified souls was a man, shouting…

  3

  “STOP, THIEF! SHE STOLE MY ORANGES! SOMEONE GRAB THE LITTLE BRAT!” an obese man growled, as the five-year-old girl made away from his booth with the canvas sack of oranges.

  It was winter season for the Mune Ju Market. On weekends, the majority of Mashyuvah, one of the largest cities in the world, did its shopping at the cave. Due to the cold weather, it was pertinent that all selling be done indoors.

  Although the cave was a minuscule portion of Mune Ju, the largest mountain in all the world of Elum, it was still big enough to contain a market that ran for about three miles in every direction. Hence, it was an understatement to say that it would be difficult to catch an extremely nimble, thirty-pound, five-year-old amongst such a mass of people.

  “Come back with my oranges!”

  Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have risked a heart attack, giving chase like this, but he was petrified of meeting the same fate as his acquaintance, Nyp. He’d received the news about Nyp’s meeting with their master only a half hour before.

  “Stop her!” he cried to no avail. Once he realized that no one could hear his pleas for help, he began to elbow his way through the crowd.

  The girl, now panicking, slid under people’s legs and knocked their groceries and other knickknacks from their arms. Suddenly she dove under a woman’s dress, because it was easier than running around her enormous legs.

  “Whoo, my heavens!” the hefty woman screeched, throwing all of her fruit in the air. The girl’s fluffy ponytail had tickled her parts, startling her.

  “Sorry, mam!” she yelled, seeing the woman bent over, holding her crotch.

  “You owe me five stones for those oranges, girl!” the fat man yelled, shoving aside a young boy.

  The boy was in tears because the fat man had caused him to drop all of his licorice. No “excuse me” or “I’m sorry.” Nothing. He’d used all his stones for that bag of licorice, and he wouldn’t get anymore for at least another month of allowances. He cried, as his pride and joy of every fourth week had gone to a smashed, dirty mess on the floor of the cave.

  The boy’s father hadn’t been paying attention, because he was busy purchasing a new straw wood laundry basket. (He’d burned up his previous one, the weekend before, while falling asleep with his pipe still lit.) Seeing his son crying, he asked about the matter. The child pointed to a long row of people and groceries lying on the ground in a path, which seemed to have been plowed through the crowd.

  “You fat, slovenly, son of a nasty hog! Don’t ever touch my son!”

  The licorice boy’s father took off running after the fat man. (Being so dumbfounded with anger, he absentmindedly sat his new basket atop of a table full of candles, some of which were on display. Oh, how vibrantly they burned!)

  The obese man, who was making new enemies with each passing moment, was one of many people with weight problems who’d frequent the Mune Ju market. It was another such person (that was busy munching on an over-salted pork sandwich with three layers of cheese and bread that had been glazed in a sugary, honey-like sauce) who got knocked over by the fat man. Although her sandwich lay flat on the dirt ground, she considered finishing it anyway. No sooner than the thought entering her mind did a boy slip upon it, landing atop of her. He smashed the piece of chocolate cake he was holding onto her pretty red dress that she liked to wear on weekends. Highly miffed, she laid there panting.

  Another victim was a clown on stilts, juggling. He was standing on twenty-foot long legs when the fat man shoved the two sticks out of his way without observing if there was anything on top of them! The stilt juggler landed in a pile of moist feces that was being sold for the nourishment of indoor, crop growing grass. He would’ve been in a heated pursuit of the fat man as well if the potent odour of fresh shit hadn’t already knocked him unconscious.

  The obese clerk’s third enemy was the Mune Ju market security guard, who approached to inspect the madness and had his face cuffed and was thrown ten feet backwards. There were other victims as well, but none quite so persistent and rash as the licorice boy’s father.

  Meanwhile, the thief was now regretting her actions, thinking the fat man might kill her when he caught up. But what was she supposed to do? She was hungry and had been without anyone to look after her ever since a strong gust of wind took her mother off the edge of the mountain. For over eleven months, the girl had been eating mice and dead birds outside of the instances when she was able to make a successful theft. She never usually had trouble on weekends, as the market was far too crowded for people to notice one small as she.

  However, due to circumstances that she was unaware of this time, it was fated that when approaching the oranges, the fat man wouldn’t take his eyes off her—not even to help his own customers. She paced, trying to pretend she was just a child waiting for her guardian to finish shopping, but each time she turned around she found the man looking at her.

  So what if he sees me, I’m sure he can’t catch me! He weighs about six-and-a-half billion pounds, and his clothes are too tight. I’d be way too fast for him!

  Not having eaten in over a day, she was losing patience. In an overwhelming instant of bravery, she grabbed the oranges right in front of the fat man. Now, moments later, she was sorry.

  While dashing here and there through the overcrowded maze of shoppers, she tripped and fell, scraping her knee. Although she quickly recovered, this alarmed the person on the second floor balcony, who’d been watching her since the chaos first began. He was frightened she might be trampled to death by oblivious shoppers trying to get out of the way of the severely overweight clerk who’d just gone mad.

  The shoppers didn’t know that a thief was being chased, because they couldn’t see the girl. She was too small. He was even having a hard time keeping track of her, and in doubt that the clerk pursuing the girl could see her at all! The orange man must have been merely following the sight of jumpy people that she brushed up against.

  Deciding that her life wasn’t worth her hunger, the girl finally dropped the oranges, attempting to return them to their owner. Of course civilians instantly smashed them, and their potent, tangy aroma floated into the air, right into the orange man’s nose!

  By the gods, I’m dead! he thought, knowing that the bald man with the unibrow would notice the shortage of oranges. His fear was channeled into anger, and the fat man’s thunderous voice ripped through the atmosphere like a bolt of lighting, scolding her.

  “Stop and pay me for the oranges, and I promise not to have you banned from the market!”

  However, to a five-year-old with an active imagination these words sounded like:

  “Don’t let me catch you, young one! As payment for the oranges, I’m going to slice you open and dine on your innards! Hah hah hah hah haaaaah!”

  After maneuvering her way through the crowd by stepping on feet and tickling belly buttons, she finally reached…a rock wall. Exhausted more from fear than physical exertion, she looked to the wall and cringed, seeing a huge shadow cover her own.

  It was a horned c
reature with large flapping wings and was the size of about ten adult people. A hole opened in the shadow’s head. It must have been the mouth, because hundreds of tiny, sharp spears appeared. Teeth! They bore themselves to rip into her, and she turned to face the beast. It spoke with an angry, snakelike hiss.

  “You lost my oranges you little, raggedy snot! Hand over my money, now!”

  Again, her mind processed something completely different. What she heard was:

  “You silly girl, did you really think that no one saw you steal those muffins last week, or the cheese bread yesterday? Fool! Your deeds have doomed you to an early retirement, and I’m here to collect your soul! So, young one, make your peace with god!”

  She wailed in terror and then fainted as the Grim Reaper reached out for her. However, the Angel of Death was unpleasantly surprised, as he was yanked around to face a small man who was extremely strong for his size.

  “So ya’ like to push around lil’ twelve year old boys, do ya’?”

  The licorice boy’s father cocked back his tiny fist and burst the orange man’s lips. However, he gave himself a wound of his own, digging his knuckles deep into the teeth.

  The orange man shook off his injury rather quickly and grabbed the licorice boy’s father, giving him a crushing blow between the nose and upper right cheekbone. Normally that would’ve been enough to knock a person unconscious, but now the adrenaline was flowing too well for either of them to stop. A bloody nose and busted lips were ignored, and the two crazed men embraced in an all out war.

  “Tear him apart—he made me drop my sandwich! …And I got chocolate all over my dress! Die, fat ass!” the angry, obese woman shrilled, as she ignored her own weight problems and rooted for the licorice boy’s father.

  The market security guard showed up intending to only put shackles on one person, but now there were two involved! While trying to intervene, he only wound up getting sandwiched and smacked around. After several people, who were standing too close to the brawl, got hit, the fight became contagious. Within minutes the entire cave was trying to kill itself.

  As the girl lay on the ground unconscious, two pale white, rough and calloused hands scooped her up. A happy and rugged, forty-seven-year old face gazed upon the rascal who squirmed about in his arms. Her black skin was a dusty brown, being so tainted with dirt, and though she was malnourished and odourous from living like a vagabond, the girl exuded a radiance that he hadn’t encountered since the first day that he met his wife.

  He cradled her in his arms, shielding her from the brawl that was rapidly spreading around them. At that moment, he was truly her father. The bastard that had impregnated her mother and left her to raise a child alone almost six years prior till now could never have measured up to this man, who was a complete stranger. As strange as he was, however, he protected the girl as if she was someone he’d known forever…as he swore to do for the rest of his life.

  4

  Lyn Sha glared at her father with accusatory green eyes. She then commenced with her quintessential behaviour, exhibiting an intelligent, cheeky, and slightly arrogant manner, all of which she’d adopted from Zynathian in the last five years.

  “You dare stand before me without bowing? I am Lyn Sha, ‘the Magnificently Brilliant, Green-Eyed Queen of the Library!’ Assume the position and worship me as I am meant to be!” she demanded.

  Lyn Sha, to most, seemed an old soul and was incredibly smart for her age. She loved to read, and the library that she referred to was her very own, not a hundred feet away on this level of the complex. Zynathian had built it as a gift, one year previous, for her ninth birthday.

  He knelt. “Forgive me, my Queen. I’d forgotten myself for a moment.”

  “Alas, the follies of having seen fifty-two winters! Perhaps even a mind like yours is not immune to such great passage of time. I worry for you, Papa,” Lyn Sha remarked with perfect articulation, using words and phrases she’d learned from her favourite fantasy stories.

  “I beg your pardon, missy, I am not that old!”

  “Yes, you are, look at that big ole’ salt and pepper beard!” she said, abandoning her role as queen. Lyn Sha rushed her father, tackling him and smothering his bearded cheeks with kisses.

  “I learned something new from my books, Daddy.”

  “Really? …And what is that?”

  “When we breathe, our bodies take in the oxygen and convert it to carbon dioxide!”

  “Wow. Tell me more,” Zynathian said, lifting her in his arms. He was proud to hear Lyn speak intelligently on topics that would’ve put most kids her age to sleep. Zynathian could listen to her talk like this all day long, no matter how rudimentary the information was to him.

  “Carbon dioxide is poison…but,” she said, frowning in confusion, “if it’s poison, how come you ain’t dead from me breathing on you, Daddy?”

  “Well, first of all, ‘ain’t’ is improper speech, you know that,” he said, tickling her at the armpit.

  She giggled.

  “And, second, the concentration of carbon dioxide has to be extremely high before it becomes dangerous. For instance, we’re not in danger, because we have plenty of oxygen around us, and oxygen absolutely must be replenished as it is consumed. What happens when someone is trapped in closed quarters with no fresh air coming in? I’ll tell you—they’re increasing the carbon dioxide in the air every time they exhale, and therefore the atmosphere becomes all the more dangerous. Remember, they’re breathing in that poison now.”

  “Ooooh,” Lyn Sha remarked with wonder, grasping the ideas. “So when people suffocate, they’re choking to death on their own poison?”

  “Precisely,” he said, smiling.

  “And that’s why people can die in fires even if they’re not burned. Fire kills oxygen!”

  Zynathian’s eyes lit up, as Lyn Sha ceased to amaze him with the versatility of her mind. One moment, she’d be child-like, enjoying fairy tales and other things of that nature. But the next…

  “See, Daddy, I told you I’m gonna’ be smarter than you someday!”

  “Bah!” he mocked, refuting such an impossibility.

  “Oh, yes I am!”

  Lyn mashed her face into his cheek and began kissing him again. Then she stopped abruptly, realizing that something was wrong. It was obvious to her that Khyeryn wasn’t in the house, because his bed was made up, and his window had been open. Also, Jalum, their bird, wasn’t squawking. It was late afternoon, and he was always awake and raising all kinds of hell by now, but she could hear nothing.

  “Daddy, I thought you said we couldn’t go down by ourselves?”

  Zynathian frowned in anger. Lyn Sha had distracted him, and therefore he hadn’t realized that Khye had gone below without her. As young as they were, he wanted them together at all times when outside the quarters of their home—especially with Phyllamon Xyecah in the world! Knowing that Jalum would take good care of Khyeryn put him more at ease, but that still wasn’t the point. It was forbidden to go below without the other. Khyeryn had disobeyed the most important house rule.

  “That’s exactly what I said, sweets, and Khyeryn will hear about this! It may seem that I’m being overprotective, but there are good reasons for me wanting you both to stick together. Do you remember the bad man that Daddy is always talking about?” Zynathian asked, suddenly shocked as he realized how long it had been since checking on Phyllamon and his behaviour—fifteen years, more or less. Though he wasn’t sure of the exact amount of time, it had been an age, nonetheless!

  “Yes.”

  “What does Daddy say?”

  “Beware the bald man with the unibrow!” Lyn Sha quickly recited.

  Zynathian kissed his obedient daughter on the forehead. Khyeryn, however, seemed to not care about the house rules!

  Someone is due for a nice long punishment, yes sir, he thought.

  As Zynathian paced about with Lyn in his arms, he heard a huge thump and then scratching at the landing dock shield below. Due to the amount o
f cold air that was allowed in, Zynathian never liked to open that shield, unless he was landing a ship indoors rather than attaching it to the bottom of the complex. Now he was even angrier, because he’d trained Jalum to enter the house by way of his nest from the deck, outback. Yet here he was flying to the front door again! Khye also knew that Zynathian hated that. More disobedience!

  Now he’s really gonna’ get it!

  Zynathian, still carrying Lyn Sha, ran briskly downstairs to the front entrance. It was an immense metallic substance of his design, standing forty feet high and one hundred feet wide. He shoved with all his might on the large metal lever to the left of the door and ran to take cover from the cold wind.

  As the door slid upward, an enormous bird swayed to and fro in the air. Except for the white ring of feathers circling both of its eyes, yellow legs and feet, and a large tan beak, the bird was completely black. The wings, which spanned about eighty feet, flapped vigorously.

  Jalum entered, carrying something. He gently released the object from his claws and landed, lowering his head in sadness.

  They approached.

  Only a moment ago, Zynathian had been contemplating punishments for his son. Now, all irrelevant matters had left his mind, and he was seized with horror. He let Lyn to the floor, and they held hands as they ran closer, wailing.

  III

  The Surgery

  “Khyeryn!” Zynathian ran to his son.

  Jalum sat in a nearby corner with his head slumped to the floor, while Lyn stood beside her father with her hands clasped over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Khyeryn lay still on the cold stone floor, staring blankly at the ceiling, unresponsive to the vigorous shaking.

  Along with blood dripping from the open wound where his right arm used to be, Khyeryn’s chest had been ripped open. His clothes were so saturated with blood that what was once a two-piece set of bright red was now black. However, the majority of the bleeding had stopped, because he was nearly drained. Khyeryn was now living by will alone.