“Why don’t Obawok live on the surface?” Roger asked and was promptly greeted with silence. Like the last time, all eyes moved to Firturro as if waiting for him to explain the situation to the poor, stupid little human.
“When the ancients discovered our ability to watch humans, they forbid most Obawok from going to the surface for anything more than information gathering and testing situations because the surface environment is too unstable to properly watch people. After living in the dark corridors for so long, our eyes are incapable of handling the sunshine. We can only go up for limited amounts of time, even with our special blinders.”
“So, who’s going to administer this test if you’re stuck down here?” Roger asked.
“When the ancients moved underground, they selected a small group of healthy patrollers to keep an eye on the surface. They have lived there since, and their vision functions perfectly in the light. They will be there to watch over you, and once during the test you may request for either Tigaffo or me to assist you, as long as it isn’t to receive an answer.”
Roger drew in a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. Kiperro looked at Roger and immediately renewed his lecture before Roger could say anything else. While Kiperro droned on and on about the landscape, Roger found himself once again studying the room, lost in his own thoughts. In a glass chamber one cage over was a variety of brightly colored plants that drew his attention.
Yesterday, Kiperro had briefly pointed at the display case and announced that the plants inside were separated and labeled according to how poisonous they were, but he had neglected to delve into these plant’s method of poison.
One thing he’d noticed was that those things labeled as the most poisonous were the brightest. One plant even had bright purple veins running through a bundle of Day-Glo yellow leaves whose tips turned into a deep blood red. In the center of the bush-like plant was a beautiful purple flower that matched its purple veins.
How was a plant that beautiful poisonous? He wanted to know what it did, and for a moment, he was compelled to break through the glass wall and set it free, liberate it. It didn’t deserve to be down in this dusty hell. He would take it back up to the surface and plant it in the bright sunlight where it belonged. Roger could almost see the leaves blowing in the wind right now.
Wait.
The leaves were swaying as if pushed by a gentle fall breeze, but there wasn’t any air circulating through the room.
Roger looked around the room but none of the others were acting like they noticed. Kiperro was still droning on about subtle environmental differences.
He listened long enough to gather the basics. The surface’s environment was a lot like Earth’s: sometimes it was windy, sometimes it wasn’t. It didn’t rain too often during this time of year, and there was no chance of snow. Roger nearly laughed out loud at the mental picture of a demented weather forecast with Kiperro as the meteorologist.
Roger glanced back at the plant, and he was struck with the realization that the yellow bushy leaves reminded him of a stupid cartoon clown poster he had owned as a small boy with the caption “Something evil lurks here.” The clown had been hiding behind a Day-Glo bush with a smile so demented it might have given the Obawok President a run for his money.
The memory of the poster faded, and there was nothing but waves of yellow and purple; then, the hard, cold touch of glass against his skin as he ran headfirst into the glass wall.
“Roger, are you okay?” Firturro’s asked.
“Umm, yeah…yeah, I’m okay. I just got a little distracted. The leaves, they were moving, swaying.” He a quick look at the other’s faces told him that he’d not imagined anything. “What kind of plant is it? Why does it look like its moving?’’
Once again they all looked to Firturro.
“That’s what that particular plant does. It lures people and animals to it by moving its limbs in a way that hypnotizes its subjects. We call it the Harpus Bush. Its methods are very sophisticated, and it will be one of your greatest obstacles. You don’t always have to be looking straight at the plant for its trick to work. If you sense the movement out of the corner of your vision, it can still trap you.”
“If it’s going to be one of my biggest obstacles, why wasn’t I told about it before?”
None of them would look directly at Roger.
The second guide cleared his throat. “Umm, I believe that was on the lesson plan for later this afternoon, wasn’t it, Kiperro?”
“Yes, yes, of course it was, you just didn’t wait long enough to find out. We would have discussed it later.”
“Well, it looks like we’re discussing it now. So, tell me, what would a plant this size do to something as big as me?” Roger demanded as he stared them down individually, trying to force one of them to look him in the eyes.
“They don’t necessarily do anything to you. But they shoot small poisonous, hallucinogenic quills when the victim gets close enough. A large enough amount might kill you, but one or two quills just make you so weary and unfocused that it would be easy for any number of animals to kill you.”
“How do I avoid it then?”
“They live in the middle of the desert. Their tropical appearances will be the only vegetation you might see for miles around. So, when you make your way through the desert, you have to force yourself to be on the lookout for patches of plant life and detour around them.” A small, unified gasp issued from the rest of the room as Firturro spoke, making it obvious that this was something they had not intended to tell him.
Roger turned toward the two guides, his eyes narrowing into two tiny slits. “So, this is something I’m going to have to make a continual effort to deal with, and you weren’t going to mention its existence to me until today? I’m supposed to go up to the surface tomorrow, and we’ve sat in here for at least three days going over the same old shit, and I want to know why. I want to spend more time on these plants, what is dangerous and what isn’t. I want to know more than what I can eat and what I can’t. Can we do that, or is it forbidden by some stupid Obawok law I don’t know about?”
The orange tinted room was perfectly quiet. They were determined not to give him any more information than he needed, and now that he was demanding they do something about it, they were at a loss. Everyone except Firturro looked around, confused and temporarily wounded.
Kiperro raised his eyes to look directly into Roger’s, and as soon as their gazes locked, Roger knew this was a contest for control. There was a bright, glowing flare of anger and frustration mixing in Kiperro’s dark purple irises, and Roger felt the urge to meet that stare with one of his own.
As their eyes remained locked, Roger began to feel the icy grip of the Obawok’s collective fear. They didn’t believe he was anything like the others that had come before him. They may not have admitted it to themselves, but he could sense that they were terrified of him, and their fear gave him a resurgence of power he’d believed lost.
But their fear wasn’t the only thing clutching at his psychic sense. Its invigorating presence was swiftly followed by a steaming hot kiss of hatred, breathing against his collar and flushing his suntanned face, demanding to be noticed.
The rest of the room had fallen into another dimension, and for all Roger cared it might have even ceased to exist. Their fear and hatred was being funneled into a sharp electric charge, fueling his feelings of rebellion. A ball of intense anger had been gaining power inside him, and he could feel the monster rising out of that voltage, threatening to spill over.
“I don’t see why not,” Firturro’s voice broke into the blackness that Roger had thrust himself into. “After all, we’re supposed to be teaching you about the surface. It seems right that we should be doing some hands-on teaching.”
“Well, it’s not on the schedule that the President accepted, and I don’t think it would be appropriate to deviate from his original plan,” Kiperro piped up, sliding his gaze off of Roger and focusing on Firturro instead.
&nbs
p; “Oh, I see,” Firturro began. “So we’re just supposed to send Roger out into the untamed surface with only a basic, and book taught, amount of knowledge? Aren’t we supposed to be making sure he is adequately prepared?”
No one answered him directly, but Roger felt the hostility in the room increase. Firturro stood as tall as his aging posture would allow and leaned on the cane in front of him with both hands, daring one of them to contradict him.
For the rest of the day, Firturro led Roger through the greenhouse explaining each plant and flower. He made sure to give advice on how to avoid the dangerous ones and which parts of some of those harmful plants were edible in emergency situations. Roger assimilated the information with ease. It wasn’t hard to learn, he’d just needed someone to go through and explain it to him in an interactive setting.
By the end of the day, Roger knew that if he got in a jam and needed water, he could break off a pod on a Fryken Tree, which was only lethal if you ingested the leaves. He also knew how to avoid the more dangerous plants and what flowers he could not eat, no matter how hungry he got.
That night Roger sat in the orange chair, his elbows on his knees, staring at the hole under the bed, lost in thought. The rush of energy he’d felt earlier in the day had faded in the dark, and potentially haunted, room.
In an effort to forget about the horrible night before, he’d been thinking about Tigaffo. Earlier, when Firturro had stopped the planned lecture, Roger noticed the dark brown aura surrounding the apprentice had sunk in, turning his flesh a deep, corroded black.
While Roger couldn’t be sure, he even thought that he was starting to smell the sickly sweet smell of rot. It wasn’t as bad as the stench emanating from the President, but it was a sign of something important, and not a very good one. If Tigaffo wasn’t careful, this strange manifestation would consume him, turning him into a creature only capable of experiencing hatred.
The air whistled between Roger’s teeth in a heavy sigh as he lifted his head and looked at the bed longingly, but he knew that there would be little, or no, sleep tonight.
In a similar room down the hall, Trey sat in a beat up lazy boy, his legs crossed in front of him, and tried to picture the perfect surfing day. Last night he’d awoken in a panic, a harsh sweat coating every inch of his body.
Trey wasn’t used to fear. Most of his life had been dedicated to the theory that he could duck and weave when it was needed and just keep on moving when it wasn’t. But last night had shaken him more than he’d thought possible. He’d been stuck in a desert, unable to move as sand filtered in through his eyes, nose, and mouth. It moved into him as if his body were a black hole that sucked every particle of sand into its vortex. His skin began to be coated in its grainy texture, and eventually, there was nothing left of himself. He had become one with the sand, forever trapped there to stare at the two blazing suns overhead.
He woke up in a panic, his hands flying across his face and chest as he tried to brush the imaginary sand from his body. Instead of the grainy particles, he’d been confronted with an ice cold sweat. It had been the most vivid dream he’d ever had, and it had taken him two hours just to calm down.
When he’d first woken up in this strange place, he’d been disturbed, but this simple dream had brought him to an entirely new level of fear. This planet, reality, whatever, was manageable. He knew about things like Roswell and UFO sightings, but he’d never given it too much thought. When he’d first been pulled through the mirror in the small, beachside bathroom, he’d just gone with the flow. He could deal with ugly little troll-like aliens trying to impose their will on him because he knew that no matter what they did to him, he was still Trey.
However, part of the reason the dream had frightened him so much was because he hadn’t simply died, but had been turned into something else, absorbed into a sea of sand. Trey sighed and shook his head, determined not to let this dream get its wedge of panic into his psyche permanently. Turning his mind away from all thoughts of caves, Obawok, and puke green sand, Trey thought only of the steady rise and fall of the surf.
Before long, he could almost have believed he was back on earth, riding the perfect wave and focusing only on the moment.
207
Nine
He had eyes that could make blood run cold.
In his own room Firturro paced the floor with deliberate slowness, a cup of Kalika untouched and long cold sitting on the table near the chair. He stopped and stared at the wall. Earlier that day, he’d ran into Councilman Garette, and it had been one of the most unusual conversations Firturro could remember. It had started out normally enough. Garette had approached him and asked him how the preparation was coming along.
“Well enough, I suppose,” Firturro answered, his body tensing up. Some of the other council members passed by with nothing more than sneers, but those he was used to. Garette’s openness had startled him.
“I was looking over some of the incoming reports, and it would appear that your human is particularly willful.”
“It probably appears that way because he is not afraid to ask questions and assert himself.” Garette took a step back from Firturro, but Firturro pressed on. “But is that truly so strange? Wouldn’t you be assertive and concerned if it were your life?”
Garette opened his mouth and looked around to make sure that no one was listening to them before answering. “Sure, I guess so. I hadn’t ever thought about what I’d do in their situation because they’re lower than us. They wouldn’t be in this position if they weren’t lower beings.”
“Oh, so you don’t think that lower beings have the ability to perceive danger and protect themselves?” Firturro leaned forward until his face was only inches away from Garette’s. “And have you ever truly gone over the ancient texts and wondered what makes them so inferior to us? I mean, we’ve seen that they are capable of great works of art, compassion, love, and acceptance that seem completely outside our limited realm of experiences. But somehow, they’re beneath us.”
207
Kristi Brooks
Firturro reached out and placed a hand against Garette’s elbow, pulling himself even closer to the councilman before he could stop himself. Throwing away the caution he knew had kept him safe from the President and his supporters, he whispered into Garette’s ear, “I think the prophecies were written at different times. I think that we’re not allowed to question them because questions always lead to deeper thought. But most importantly I believe we might be meddling were we shouldn’t.” Firturro had suddenly been unable to keep his suspicions to himself. Things could not change if others refused to think about the texts. If everyone took them for truth, there would be no room for change or discussion.
Garette had nearly fallen over his own feet as he stumbled backward and flung himself down the corridor, but there had been a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes that let Firturro know he’d hit a nerve.
Now, Firturro sat in his small room and wondered exactly what it was he was gambling with. He’d become far too reckless to insure his own safety, but what right did he have in hoping Roger would instigate changes through the use of his life if he wasn’t willing to risk his own?
Firturro had always known that when the Obawok brought someone in, that was the end, but he was reluctant to sign off on Roger. Something was happening, changing, and he wasn’t sure how, but he knew they were both caught in its tide.
And it terrified him.
On the other side of the complex, Tigaffo and the President were deep in conversation. The President’s penetrating stare made Tigaffo twitch in his seat. He had just told him of Firturro’s demand that they teach the human what he wanted to know.
“Damn Firturro!” President Darelle slammed his fist on the mahogany desk as he spoke.
“Should I stop him?” Tigaffo asked, his head ducked slightly.
“Is he actually telling him anything forbidden?”
“No.”
“No, of course he isn’t. Firturro wouldn’t do an
ything to jeopardize his position as the primary watcher. It’s too important to him. He needs to be there so he can watch over the poor human, protect him while he can. That’s the goal for all watchers, but Firturro takes it as an all-consuming job. I don’t know how we’re going to get him away from this particular human, but it’s necessary.”
“If you say so.”
“Can’t you see what’s going on? He wants to uproot our whole system. Kill our way of life, and he’s using the human to do it. We can’t let him. It’ll change everything. And you don’t want change, do you?” The President leaned forward, his foul breath spilling across the ornate desk in an invisible wave, and Tigaffo flinched.
“N…No, I don’t guess so.”
“Oh, you don’t guess so, do you? Don’t you see change is exactly what people like you and me have to fight? We can’t allow disruption. It would desecrate the memory of our ancestors and ruin everything they established.” The President stood up, forcing his chair back so abruptly that it fell over with a loud thud that made Tigaffo jump out of his own chair. The only sound in the room was the President’s harsh breathing. “I need to know that you stand behind me and the council. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Tigaffo replied without hesitating
“Good.” The President picked up his chair, sat back down, and leaned across the desk again in one swift movement. Tigaffo perched himself on the edge of the chair, all of his muscles tense. “I need you to watch Firturro. If he makes even one mistake, I want to know about it before anyone else. Do you think you could handle turning him over if you had to?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Darelle waved his hand dismissively and leaned back over the paperwork on his desk.
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