by Yronwode
“Rook to Search base,” Rook said, not sure if his message would be received.
“We have spotted one escape pod. Relaying coordinates. Let’s land, Jordy.”
“Isn’t anyone going to thank me,” Caliph pouted.
“Thank you, Caliph,” Rook told her.
The escape pod had landed at the bottom of an ancient, long-dehydrated riverbed, shielded by sheer rock outcroppings on either side. Rook and Jordan gingerly set down on an open area a short walk away, and disengaged their jet packs.
Rook shook the sand from his sungoggles. His Tactical suit was supposed to be sealed against contamination, but sand still somehow seemed to be working its way into his clothing. And every time he removed the heavy sungoggles, he had to wipe a fresh crust of sand from his brow.
“This sucks certain things,” Jordan spat, shaking sand from his face.
Caliph signaled: guys, behind that rock
formation 26 meters nnw.
“Got it, Caliph,” Rook told her. He and Jordan checked the pulse guns on their forearms as a precaution, and slowly approached the location of pod. The pod was a lozenge shaped craft about three meters long and large enough for one person… two if they were of light build and wanted to get to know each other better. It had come to rest upside down in what had been the middle of the riverbed.
Rook and Jordan applied their amplified strength, rolled the escape pod over on its side, and pried the hatch open.
It was empty.
Yronwode – Xiyyon - Emissarial Complex of the Starcross Trajan Lear was surprised to Eddie Roebuck in his new regalia, a red silk robe embroidered with gold lions and sigils in silver and black. He also wore a tall red conical hat with the Starcross emblem in gold across the front and a large purple tassel hanging in back. (The tassel was Eddie’s idea.)
They met in the reception room of Roebuck’s Chambers, on the sixth floor of the Emissarial Temple of the Starcross Holy Empire.
“Where’s Captain Sky-Pilot?” Roebuck demanded, rising from his plush silver, pink, and purple couch.
“He’s in the Saintist Temple, atoning for his sins,” Trajan informed him, and he got back the same look he’d gotten from Alkema, more or less.
“For his sins?” Roebuck stammered incredulously. “Like, what, not putting his socks in the right drawer?”
Trajan did not answer him. Trajan had never really understood Driver’s relationship with Roebuck, much less why he should be dragged into it. He knew Eliza Jane Change was involved, but he did not much like her either.
Roebuck turned to the two tawny, underdressed babes who were attending him.
“Send a message to the Saintist Temple, and tell them to send me Captain Driver.”
“Your Holiness has no authority over the Saintist Temple,” one of the underdressed babes informed him.
Your Holiness? Trajan wondered.
“But I am the Pontifex!” Roebuck insisted.
“You are not yet the Pontifex,” said the other tawny, underdressed babe. “And, in any case, you only hold sway over those within the Holy Realm. The Christian Saints are outside.”
Roebuck sighed. “All right then, Begone, my wenches.” Roebuck came down off his throne. The women began to slink out through the side door. “But!” Eddie added, raising an authoritative finger. “Keep yourselves handy.”
“Holiness?” Lear asked Roebuck when the babes had gone and they were alone.
“His Holiness, Proto-Pontifex of the Starcross Holy Empire on Yronwode,” Roebuck permitted himself a bow.
“Look Technician Roebuck,” Trajan interrupted. “I’m tired. I just ran a six-hour search pattern and then spent another ten hours running and hiding from dragons, and then I crash-landed Captain Driver’s ship. I really just want to cleanse myself, remain unconscious for an hour or two, then go out and do it all again until we locate Commander Keeler. So, with all respect to new your faith and your tall pointy hat, what in hell does this have to do with me?”
Roebuck sighed in disappointment. “You see, that attitude is exactly why I wanted Sky Captain instead of you.” Eddie glanced around to make sure there was no one else in the room, and then whispered frantically. “I need you to get me the Hell off this planet before they make me the furking Pontifex of the Starcross Holy Empire on Yronwode.”
“I’m sorry Eddie, but I can’t do …”
“These people are nuts!” Roebuck interrupted urgently. “They want to make me their leader! They think humans from Earth colonized another planet 10,000 years ago!
They believe that Jesus H. Christ and the Holy Twins visited the colony. They believe the colony was wiped out by giant space broccoli!”
“I don’t really know you very well,” Trajan told him, patiently disconnecting Eddie’s hands from his lapel. “But leading a crazy religion that gives you scantily-clad handmaidens and let’s you dress like that… seems like a sweet deal.”
“They also think I have magical powers,” Roebuck gesticulated wildly. “What happens when religious crazies find out I have no powers.”
“I don’t know, I don’t care, and I never will,” Lear answered.
“You have to get me out of here!” Roebuck insisted.
“I can’t,” Lear repeated.
“Don’t worry about the guards,” Roebuck told him. “I’ll disguise myself as a woman and sneak out the back entrance by the kitchen. They’ll never know”
“I can’t get you off the planet,” Lear told him. “I can’t get anyone off the planet!”
“And why not?”
“Because our ships would be destroyed by fire-breathing dragons,” Lear saw the look on Eddie’s face, and wondered if he himself had reacted to “Giant Space Broccoli” the same way. Lear explained further, “It’s part of a containment system designed to stop anyone from leaving the planet. The commander’s ship was destroyed and I just barely made it back to base with Prudence. ” Roebuck seemed to be left completely forsaken by the news. “You mean, there’s no way off this planet.”
“Both Aves are crashed beyond repair, and even if we could fly them, we’d still get taken out by the dragons, so as of now, that’s right, we are stranded on this planet.”
Roebuck looked like he was almost crashed beyond repair himself, “How are we going to get off?”
“I don’t know, Technician Roebuck, try praying. Maybe being supreme pontifex gives you an in with the Allbeing.”
Roebuck seemed to give up at this pronouncement. “All right, you get back to your ship and your normality. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to jump a motorcycle over a giant sea-kraken!”
CHAPTER: 08
Yronwode – The Wilderness of Howling Zeal.
First, last, and always, there was the pain, the deep crimson agonious throbbing that pounded against the sides of Commander Keeler’s skull like an ape in a cage. The pain persisted throughout the whole he lay in that semi-comatose state called the healing trance that Sapphireans retreated into to direct their body’s energy into mending its injuries, which in his case had been quite severe and mostly internal. In the immediate aftermath of the impact of his escape pod into the desert hardpan, it had been all he could do to stop himself from hemorrhaging to death.
He had no memory of the crash, and no memory of being removed from the lifepod, or of being transported to where he was. He had, after all, been in a coma most the time. He had a sense that someone had helped him, or at least tried to; that he had been cut open and the blood drained from his abdomen and crudely sewn up. But all this had while he had been deeply in his trance.
Days went by, or years, he could not tell, but at some time in the recent past, he had begun to hear voices, faint and distant.
He is not Kariad.
He is not Midian.
No man could survive such wounds.
We should kill him and send his head.
No, not until…
And then they would fade again.
He had dreams – perhaps they w
ere dreams – of someone shoving some kind of salty mush into his mouth, which he nonetheless swallowed eagerly because his stomach was long empty. This would be followed by a drink of acidic water and a lapse back into the great painful throbbing emptiness where he dwelled.
After a long time, he became aware of a stink, an acrid smell of smoke, urine, and body funk. It penetrated to the depths of his coma and gave him unpleasant dreams of sewers and locker rooms. The return of his senses meant his body had healed itself, and it was time to wake up now. As he lapsed back into consciousness, more senses came on-line. He found it was dark, and hard to breathe. Also, his face itched.
Eventually, he realized the reason it was itchy, dark and hard to breathe was because there was a dark burlap hood over his face, secured with rope wrapped around his neck. His arms were bound behind his back with wire that cut into his wrists. He took this as a bad sign, and went back into unconsciousness.
When he woke up the next time, he found himself lying in a bed without the hood. He groaned and opened his eyes just a little, as far as he could while keeping the pain bearable, and blearily took in a cracked concrete ceiling supported by a crumbling concrete wall. Whatever shelter he was in was hot and dry as a furnace.
As he registered this, water suddenly splashed across his face, and he was disappointed there was no booze in it. “What the Hell?” he coughed out.
The face of a wild woman loomed into view. Her hair looked like a nest of spider’s legs, her eyes and her lips were outlined in some kind of black facepaint. Her movements were jittery and a fiery madness burned in her eyes.
“Aunt June?” Keeler whispered, not knowing why. “Is that you?”
“Who are you, stranger?” she demanded.
“Who are you?” Keeler asked right back at her.
“Are you Kariad?” she demaned.
The word jangled something loose in his memory. Keeler tried hard to fix on it, but it just clattered to the floor of his mind like a falling pan.
“Are you Kariad?” she repeated.
“Maybe,” Keeler answered her. “Who is Kariad?”
“Have you traveled to this world from the stars.”
“That sounds about right,” Keeler answered. “Now, who are you?”
“I am called Bang.”
When Keeler tried to think of a snappy comeback, it made his brain hurt.
“Bang?” he simply repeated.
Her insane eyes danced with excitement. “Bang is the sound of revolution. Bang is the sound of oppressed people’s rising up against their oppressors.”
“Bang is the sound of a loud woman talking over your hangover,” Keeler thought.
“What is your designation?” she asked him.
“My wha…?”
“Designation, what is your designation. By what designation shall we call you.
The other Kariad were known by designations, Ajax the Interlocutor, Sammo the Peacebringer, Durka the Holder of the Fire. By what designation are you known?” Keeler squinted. The room was dim, but dust stung his eyes if he opened them too much. “I’ll need some time to work on that one.” Her dark eyes narrowed beneath an angrily-knitted thick and wild monobrow.
“You do not know?”
Keeler slowly shook his head, which resulted in a disproportionately huge amount of pain.
“Then, you do not know,” She seemed to consider this thoughtfully, though with her eyes unable to focus, it was hard to tell. “You had a head injury when we brought you here. We were almost certain you were going to die from it.”
“How did I get here?” Keeler asked. “Did my friends get me drunk and dump me in the countryside as a joke?”
“You fell from the sky.”
“That doesn’t completely rule out my theory,” Keeler was quick to point out.
“How long have I been here?”
“You have been in Izzan for three days,” the woman answered.
“Where the Hell am I?”
“Izzan-Al-Izzan, a city in The Wilderness of Howling Zeal,” she told him. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Is that like a National Park or something?” He tried to sit up, and noticed his arms and legs were shackled. He squirmed on the bed to make himself more comfortable. “So, getting back to the part where I fell from the sky…”
“Six days ago, we saw a skycraft break-up and plunge from the sky. Some of the wreckage landed in the Badlands beyond the Fifty-Third Valley of Death. We found you in the wreckage along the bed of the River of Scorch. As I said, we did not expect you to survive. Your speedful healing was amazing.”
She leaned in close to him. Her breath stank of smoke. “Do you remember where you came from before the crash?”
Keeler closed his eyes again and concentrated, but everything before he regained consciousness in this dark, hot, smelly little cell was a blank black wall. “Neg. I don’t remember anything.”
“Seven days ago, our guardians along the Gulf of Oppression observed two skycraft unlike any we had seen before landing in the Theocratic Entity. The next morning, one ship was observed leaving. We took it down with our missiles. You were the only survivor. What was your business with the Theocrats?”
“The Theocrats?”
“The Midians,” she shouted. “What was your business with them?”
“I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember any of it.” She slapped him hard across the face. “You would do well to remember something. You would do well to remember everything.”
“Ow!” said Keeler.
“If you are Kariad, you would do well to remember that,” she hissed.
“But I don’t remember anything.”
She pinched his face in her hands, which were dirty and rough. “I am willing to believe you are Kariad. But the others in the Phalange have their doubts, and they would as soon kill you anyway. We are grateful for what the Kariad have done for our people. But they will kill you if they suspect you of collaborating with the Theocrats.”
“But they definitely won’t kill me if I am a Kariad?” Keeler sought clarification.
“If you are Kariad and can give them a reason to keep you alive, they will not kill you.”
Keeler sighed, “Well, we Kariad have a saying, ‘Always give people a reason to keep you alive.’”
She smiled, and when she did so, her face lit up with a creepy glow that scared him more than her regular madness, “And have the Kariad thus returned to finish the Ferkaktata?”
“What answer results in me not dying?” Keeler asked.
“You do not remember our last visit to this place?” she asked.
“Last visit?”
Before Keeler had even finished, she launched into an excited explanation of the Kariad’s earlier visit. “The Kariad saw the injustice and oppression the Theocrats subject the Xirong to, and did something about it. The Kariad drove the Theocrats off the lands of the Xirong, and confined them to the Land of Midian. Their backs are against the sea. We only need push them into it.” Bang raised her arms as though in exultation. “The Ferkaktata will be our final battle against the Theocrats, the finishing blow. Tell Che the Interrogator when he arrives, that you have returned, and this time…
you will lead us to crush the Theocrats, for all times.” She kissed his cheek and left the room. He heard her secure a lock and chain when she reached the door.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” Keeler asked aloud, and then added,
“…whoever you are.”
He was alone for several hours after that. He would have preferred to pass out, but, unfortunately, his body was finished resting and he remained conscious throughout. The hours dragged by. He was hot. He thirsted, but had no water, and after a while his lips cracked painfully and the salty taste of his own blood nearly choked him.
He was bored, but he had nothing to look at but the bareness of his cell. A small, filthy window set high on one wall let in a gauzy light, but there was nothing to be seen other than the dirty
gray and structurally suspect walls.
He tried to remember who he was, but it was like there was a dark curtain in his brain, and the knowledge of who he was and where he had come from was sealed off behind it. He tried to trace the knowledge Bang had given him – that he had been in an air crash and, prior to that, some place called Midian, and he was possibly part of some group called ‘Kariad,’ – to see if it led through the curtain to a place where he could remember more, but everything about him seemed to dead end at the point where he woke up in this very cell. He could not even remember what the world looked like outside.
The door opened again about the time the light had begun to fail and night was falling. A wave of body odor wafted into the room followed by a huge, muscled, scarred man in filthy gray coveralls. His black hair was drawn into a ragged ponytail. Something about the ponytail and the shape of his eyes reminded Keeler of someone else, someone with a woman’s face, but it was all behind the curtain.
The man set down a heavy pack, turned to Keeler, and thumped himself chest.
“Good day my fine fellow, what is your name?” Keeler asked him.
The man hit him hard across the face with the back of his hand, which was enclosed in a spiked metal glove.
“Questions are gonna come from me. Answers are gonna come from you. And if I don’t like the answers, the hurt’s gonna go from me to you? Get me?” the man said with an absolutely level tone of voice.
“You’ll hurt me if I don’t answer your questions,” Keeler said by way of communicating his understanding.
The man squatted by the bed and put his face right into Keeler’s. “You almost got it exact enough, but more exactly, I am gonna hurt, maim, paralyze, burn, electrocute, and, if the question be important enough, kill you. Get me, Hostage-man?”
“I get,” Keeler told him. “Also, you are a very handsome man. Has anyone ever told you that?”
The man looked at him with dead black eyes. “Gimme your name, Hostage-man.”
“I don’t remember my name,” Keeler told him. “But, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
