by S. D. Stuart
She headed for the door when he grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him. “How could you do this to us?”
She met his stare. “There is no us. There is you, and there is the rest of the colony.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Unlike you, we like the Southern Marshal. She has given back to the hybrids everything that humans took away from us. When you first arrived, I thought the colony was complete. You were supposed to usher in a new era for the hybrids. “
“What was your reward for turning me in?”
She broke free from his grasp. “There was no reward. I didn’t turn you in. You got caught outside the fence all on your own. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
She spoke so quietly with her head lowered, he missed what she said.
“What?”
This time she screamed it. “I’m here, we are all here, to watch you be crowned king. The council decided that, the biggest reason you are resisting your duties, is that there was no formal ceremony. We came here to make official what everyone has already accepted. And you don’t deserve it!”
This was certainly news to him.
“What are you talking about? I’m not being crowned king.”
“Yes, you are. I am here to help you get ready and to convince you it is the right thing to do. Even if I don’t believe it myself.”
This was getting all too surreal. “I don’t deserve to be king.”
“That is something we can both agree on. But it has already been decided. It is out of our hands.”
“I can refuse.”
She grew somber and spoke in a monotone as if she had practiced the same sentence over and over again.
“Then you will be executed for violating the rules of the colony. You only have two choices. Become the king or have your head chopped off by a Woodsman. I’m sure you can guess which one I prefer.”
This was the first time Zee had ever been hostile toward him. This was not like her at all.
“What’s the matter with you Zee?”
“There’s nothing the matter with me. You’re the problem. We finally have a place we can call our own and all you want to do is leave. You spent so much time away from your people, you don’t even identify with them anymore.”
“It has nothing to do with that, Zee. I have to find my friend.”
She laughed. “That’s right. Your little friend Dorothy. What can she offer you that none of us, who are your own people, can offer you?”
“It’s not that. I made a promise to her.”
“Yeah, well, your ancestors made a promise to my ancestors. And blood is thicker than water.”
“What are you talking about? There are no ancestors. We are second-generation hybrids. Our parents were created in a lab.”
Zee frowned. “Where did you hear nonsense like that?”
“It’s not nonsense. It’s the truth.”
“You don’t know anything about our history.”
“That’s because there is no history. We were deemed abominations of science and sent here to OZ to die.”
She studied the ceiling for a moment before settling her eyes on his.
“I don’t know what you were told, but our history has nothing to do with science. Hybrids have been around for a very long time. We were the gods of long ago. Worshiped by the humans. Until they stole the Brahmastra, a weapon of immense power that could destroy anything you pointed it at. The humans used the Brahmastra to destroy the capital city of the hybrids. When they believed they had destroyed every one of us, they turned that weapon on each other. A few of our people survived and moved to a place where the humans could never reach them. Their plan was to wait for the humans to destroy themselves, and then we would be free to roam the world again. But with each passing century, humans didn’t die out. Instead, the expanded into every corner of the world. It was getting harder and harder to stay hidden.”
What she was telling him was absolutely unbelievable. Meaning, he did not believe a single word of it and wasn’t about to listen to her spin fables from her childhood.
“Listen, Zee…”
She raised her hand and cut him off.
“Let me finish. Despite remaining hidden, we kept an eye on human advancements, and the evolution of their society. Fear and superstition had given way to logic and reason. All the ancient writings and depictions of our people were seen as fanciful attempts of prehistoric man trying to make sense of the world around him. My parents remember the day when the humans found us again. To explain why we looked part animal and part human, we said that we were test subjects in a genetics project. We felt that they would believe that more than if we told them we were the gods of their ancestors. And they did believe us. But the human’s reaction was to outlaw genetic manipulation and send the hybrids here. My mother was pregnant with me when she was relocated to OZ. She told me these stories and made me promise to never forget them. Never forget the true history of our people.”
Caleb thought her parents must’ve wanted to instill in her a sense of worth to offset the treatment of the hybrids by the humans in OZ. It’s a shame they had manufactured an entire mythology, stretching back thousands of years, instead of having to explain that science had only recently created them. He could tell by the conviction set deep in her eyes that nobody would be able to convince her that what she just told him was anything but the truth.
“So, this is what you believe?”
“This is what we all believe, Caleb. Everybody but you.”
“Then how come this is the first I’ve heard of it?”
“It’s a rather hard pill to swallow if you’ve been fed the lie for as long as you have. We had hoped to tell you when you were ready. And we’d hoped you would be ready once you were crowned king.”
“Why is it so important to everyone that I am the one crowned king?”
A new voice interrupted from the doorway. “I believe I can answer that one.”
The Southern Marshal strode into the room. “Thank you, Zee. Why don’t you go out and make sure everything is ready for the pre-coronation feast?”
Zee bowed low as she backed out of the room. Caleb noted how she did not stand up as long as she was still in view of the Southern Marshal. He assumed that as soon as she disappeared around the corner of the doorway, she stood up and went on her way.
“Still on that same old question are we?”
“You never gave me a straight answer before.”
“I want you to be the king for the very same reasons they want you to be the king. “
“And what is that?”
“Because they will listen to you.”
“That still doesn’t answer why you want me to the king over the hybrids. What’s in it for you?”
She studied him for a long time, her eyes darting back and forth in rapid succession as she waged a battle within her head. Finally she reached a hand into her mouth and pulled her teeth out.
With her false teeth removed, he could see the razor-sharp fangs that protruded longer than her shorter, but just as sharp, front teeth.
“Because I am one of you.”
Chapter 7
The Southern Marshal replaced her false teeth back into her mouth. She shifted them with a twinge of her cheeks and once again looked entirely human. She examined him up and down with her eyes, appraising him.
“You look more like your mother than your father.”
“You knew my parents?”
“Not very well. Being almost indistinguishable from human, I did not have much of a chance to speak with the king and queen. Prejudice is not strictly a human trait.”
“Why have you kept that you are a hybrid a secret? By your reasoning, wouldn’t they be more prejudiced against you thinking you’re human?”
“There’s no way I would’ve become the Southern Marshal if the humans knew what I was. I was not worried about being accepted by the hybrids as much as I nee
ded to be accepted by the humans. Even before the humans found our hidden colony, there were still a select few we maintained contact with who were willing to trade with us without asking too many questions. I was passed off as human. Through me, the humans felt they could trust the hybrids, and since they believed I was a human myself, they did not kill me. Unfortunately, there is no one left who knows who I really am.”
“If this is such a big secret, then why did you show me?”
“Because you have to know that we are all in this together. I’m not forcing you to do anything that I wouldn’t gladly do myself. But I am not the sole living heir to the throne, you are. And I showed you because I wanted you to know that I have no ulterior motives toward the hybrids.”
He didn’t know how many more shocking revelations he could take in one day. He had finally received word that Dorothy might still be alive. He had seen the shadow of an airship that was invisible in the sky, and was now talking directly to the one person, who could not only give him Dorothy, but who had just revealed to him that she was a hybrid.
“Are there any more secrets you’re keeping from me?”
“Just one.”
“And what is it? I can take it.”
“I’ll leave it to someone else to tell you that secret. Come with me and I will take you to him.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
“I think it’s better if you hear it from him. If anybody can convince you to follow the destiny of your birthright, he can.”
Caleb didn’t know how much more he could take in the trust department. There were too many secrets everywhere.
“Who are you taking me to?”
“If I told you that, you wouldn’t meet with him.”
“And how do you know that?”
She smiled. Her false teeth looked completely natural and completed the picture that she was fully human. “Because as much as you would like to think you have secrets too, Caleb. I can read you like an open book.”
He opened his mouth to say something back, but drew a blank.
Her cloak flowed outward as she spiraled away from him and headed out the door. He glanced around at the bare walls and the single chain connected to the beam. He would not find any answers in here.
He followed her out of the airship and into her castle. They took several turns until she entered a small room. The room was dimly lit and a curtain filled one wall. She stood in the center room.
“He glanced around, but the room was empty except for the two of them. The walls were bare and there was no furniture. The only thing different about the room was the curtain that filled the entire wall. The Southern Marshal stood facing the curtain as if anticipating it to open at any moment and reveal some great truth.
They stood there in silence until he couldn’t take it any longer. “Are we waiting for the person I am to meet?”
“Not quite. There’s something I would like to show you first. It might make you a little more motivated to hear what he has to say. Go ahead, pull back the curtain.”
He looked at the large curtain and then back to the Southern Marshall. “What am I going to see?”
“You will see exactly what you want to see.”
He barked out a laugh. “What? Is there some kind of magic mirror behind the curtain?”
“Pull it back and see.”
He hesitated with his hand on the edge of the curtain.
The Southern Marshal stood silently waiting for him to make a decision. He let go of the edge of the curtain.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you will never know how close you came to getting what you want.”
What he wanted was to get Dorothy back.
He looked at the big curtain that covered the entire wall. He had to take action to see what was on the other side. Nobody else would do it for him. He had to decide for himself if he felt ready for the unknown.
In a single action, he grabbed the curtain and yanked it back. His mouth gaped in surprise and his heart fluttered wildly.
Sitting in the room on the other side of the glass wall, which had previously been hidden by the curtain, was Dorothy.
She sat with her head bowed at a small table in the center of the room, her hands folded in her lap.
He ran up and banged on the glass wall with his fists. “Dorothy! Dorothy it’s Caleb!”
Dorothy ignored him completely and kept her head half bowed.
He banged harder on the wall until his hands felt bruised. “Dorothy!”
The Southern Marshal was at his side. “She cannot hear you.”
He pressed his forehead against the glass and watched Dorothy sitting peacefully on the other side. “Why have you shown me this?”
“I wanted you know that she is safe. And I want you to listen to what we have to say.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not me. You have to hear it from someone else.”
She swept out of the room. The heels of her boots echoed back to him as she walked swiftly down the hall.
He took one last look at Dorothy and followed the Southern Marshal before she got too far. She held all the cards and she knew it. If he had any hope of getting Dorothy back, he would have to play along for a little while longer.
He followed her silently as they continued through her castle. They took so many turns, dark stairwells, both up and down, and went through several secret panel doors, he had no idea where he was anymore. He wasn’t sure if they were even still inside the castle, or if they had traversed through underground caverns away from the castle grounds.
He hadn’t seen a window, or any opening, to the outside for some time. They could have traveled a great distance or could, just as easily, be several feet from where they started.
She stopped at a small wooden door with no markings or decorations on it, save for a single brass handle.
“Beyond this door is the truth. Are you ready for it?”
The door was made from simple wooden planks and, except for the ornately carved brass handle, it was nondescript in every way. It’s most important feature, Caleb noted, was the lack of a lock. At least, he could decide to leave anytime he wanted if he didn’t like what he found on the other side of that door.
“Is the truth going to set me free?”
She grasped the handle. “I suspect it will do exactly the opposite.”
She pushed the door open and motioned for him to step down into the dimly lit chamber. With each step he took down into the chamber, the temperature felt like it dropped several degrees. By the time he made it to the bottom step, it was at least twenty degrees cooler than when he first entered.
Back up the stairs, the Southern Marshal smiled down at him as she shut the door, plunging him into semi-darkness.
His feline eyes pierced the darkness and used the minimal light from strategically placed candles to resolve the room that stretched out before him.
A flare of light off to one side illuminated the face of the one man who always had a knack for showing up when he was least wanted. It was ironic that, deep down in this underground room, the only available light was born from fire. Much like the man before him had been reborn from fire.
Nero held the torch aloft in front of him as he walked past Caleb and used his torch to ignite others along one wall. He said nothing as he walked along the wall, lighting torches up one after the other.
Caleb could not bear the silence any longer.
“Let me guess. You’re a hybrid too?”
Nero said nothing as he circled the room and ignited the last of the wall hanging torches. He had come full circle and stood in the same spot Caleb had seen him ignite the first torch. He placed the torch into the empty holder on the wall.
The front of the room was now brightly lit from both sides and Caleb could see that it was a large storage room. The floor was lined with a multitude of statues stretching off into the darkness, ancient looking scrolls were piled in neat stacks on wooden tables, and broke
n pieces of ornate carvings leaned against the walls. The room was filled with countless artifacts and treasures that blended into the darkness at the other end of the massive underground chamber.
Nero spread his arms, as if to encompass the entire room in his embrace.
“All those times that I traveled on extended business trips were actually spent here, sorting and cataloging all the artifacts we uncovered in OZ.”
Nero lifted one of the scrolls off the table. “Nearly all the world’s lost knowledge and history can be rediscovered in these scrolls here. All you need to do is learn a language that has been dead for thousands of years.”
He neatly replaced the scroll at the top of the pile. “The answer to your question is no.”
Caleb had been standing there silently listening to Nero. He didn’t remember asking any question.
Nero noticed the look of confusion on his face and did his best to smile through the deep scars on his face.
“You asked if I was a hybrid. The answer is no. I was, however, born and raised among hybrids.”
“That’s not possible; the hybrids were created less than twenty years ago.”
“Did you not listen to anything Zee told you?”
“Zee told me stories…”
Nero slammed his fist down on the table. “And every one of them true.”
Caleb tugged at the hair of his mane in frustration. It seemed that lately, every time he turned around, somebody was spinning him a tale that conflicted with what he knew to be true his entire life.
“I’m sick of the lies.”
The flickering of the torches made the shadows on Nero’s scarred face dance, his face shimmering as if it had a life of its own.
“I agree, Caleb. No more lies. You have to know the truth because OZ, if not the entire world, depends on what you do next. And you can’t make the right decision if you don’t know the whole truth.”
“And you expect me to believe that you will tell me the truth?”
“As much as I would like to, I can’t force you to believe me. But I hope that for your sake, for all our sakes, you do.”
“And why should I believe anything you say?”
