by Mario Routi
Inside the palace, they continued down the hallways until Turgoth could hear the clanking of a hammer on metal. The noise was consistent and fluid, the sound of a master blacksmith at the peak of his powers, doing his finest work. As they turned the final corner they came upon a huge man with long red hair and a matching beard, his large brown eyes shining in the heat.
“You may leave the blade with God Hephaestus, Turgoth,” Zeus said. “You wielded it well while it was in your hands but the Lomani with the Titans is over for now. We are lucky that the Flame General Varta stole was enough only to release a few of them.”
Turgoth went up to the God and handed him the sword with a respectful bow. Hephaestus examined the blade and then placed it reverently on the table behind him before going back to hammering at something which Turgoth was unable to see.
“And now, come, we must remove Rebecca from the Flame,” Zeus said.
“Please, oh mighty Zeus, please tell me that she will make it.” Turgoth begged as they walked back out of the palace.
“That depends on whether her will is strong enough to combat her evils.”
“Rebecca is an Orizon, what evils could she possibly have?”
“Rebecca is reincarnated and has evils that plague her that even she is unaware of,” Zeus explained. “Her will is strong but if she is left in the Flame too long then she will become part of it... I think.”
Turgoth paused for a moment, shook his head, and then asked, “With all due respect, oh mighty Zeus, what do you mean by you think?”
“No one has ever been directly and completely immersed whole in the Sacred Flame before, King Turgoth. It was a desperate move but I didn’t know what else to do. Thus I don’t know what will happen now - meaning whether she lives or dies.”
They continued in thoughtful silence to the Flame, where God Morpheus stood waiting for them. He stepped forward as they approached, and Zeus nodded towards him. Morpheus placed his huge hand on Turgoth’s head. Turgoth slowly closed his eyes and Morpheus gently lifted him and placed him inside the Flame with Rebecca.
56
In Rebecca’s Mind
She was inside the Flame and the Flame was inside her. Her whole body was burning as it tried to heal. Her mind and soul were churning with long-lost memories, fighting with long buried fears, worries and insecurities.
Turgoth, also in the Flame, could see and hear everything that was going on inside her head. He saw her the way she was thousands of years before, when she was still Haruma. She was kneeling as if praying in a boat which was drenched in rain and rocking wildly on the waves while a thunderstorm clashed loudly in the sky.
“Oh, Turgoth, why have you forsaken me?” she was whispering. “Was I not good enough for you to at least try to steal me away from this man? Did I not love you enough?”
Turgoth heard the sound of a hand smacking skin a moment before he saw the man and heard his voice. He watched the woman he had known thousands of years ago be thrown onto the floor of the ship.
“You dare to speak of another man even while I am here?” the man bellowed.
Turgoth remembered the time when he had watched his love being taken from him by this man for diplomatic purposes. He had always remembered this moment with pain. It was the most ferocious of all his personal demons.
“You!” the Prince yelled to a Bedouin from Haruma’s tribe who was escorting her. “What is she talking about? Who is this Turgoth?”
“I am sorry, my Prince,” the Bedouin said. “I do not know of this love she speaks of.”
“Rebecca,” Turgoth called out, “I loved you then and I love you now more than ever. I wanted to see you live a peaceful life.”
“Dying was better than living a life without you,” she whispered.
Turgoth jumped and turned to find his wife standing beside him. Instantly, the entire scene went up in smoke and a new environment appeared. The landscape now consisted of luscious plants and wildlife. A group of people were sitting around a fire singing. Turgoth knew this place well. It was the night of his marriage in the Kingdom of Beast.
Rebecca lifted her finger to point to a woman sitting at the centre of the celebration. It was his ex- wife. “You got married in the Land of the White Sun!”
“I did not know you would be reincarnated. I thought I had lost you forever. But I never forgot you. I chose to live a life with this woman because you weren’t here. I have loved you since the first day we met.”
Rebecca wiped away the scene and now they were looking at thousands of places where Turgoth had been.
“All of this time, Turgoth, while you wasted away in misery, my soul was suffering, trying to come to you. Why didn’t you bring me into your life sooner? Why did you allow thousands of years to pass?” Rebecca began to cry.
Turgoth had no words to comfort her and her tears made his pain a thousand times worse. He came forward and placed his arms around her, gently stroking her hair.
“There is nothing I can say to make this better. I just didn’t know how. I didn’t even know that it would be possible until I died and went to the Elysian Fields. Destiny was cruel to us. I know this is hard to accept. Even now I can hardly believe how I managed to live without you for so long.” He pulled away from her, wiping the tears from her face. “But now I have found you. At last, we are together. Being with you and having Leylah was worth the wait.”
What were once painful memories of being without him, now transformed into all the moments she had enjoyed with Leylah and Turgoth since they fell back into one another’s arms.
“My love, what happens if our daughter starts to question her own existence?” Rebecca asked softly.
“Rebecca,” he smiled, “Leylah exists for the same reason we do: To enjoy creation!”
She was silent for a moment and then looked up at her husband with fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. “Is it really that simple?”
“Life is only complicated if we make it so. I enjoy your creation. I enjoy Leylah’s creation. I enjoy life’s creation. Happiness is the only thing you can spread in the world that cures sickness rather than causes it. I love you. I never stopped loving you. I will do so for all eternity.”
She buried her head in his chest, sobbing with joy. “Let’s go home,” she said eventually.
The world around them dissolved. Zeus lifted them out of the Sacred Flame as they continued to cling tightly to one another.
57
Utopia
Leylah was beside the Flame, standing in front of the diamond statue that used to be Alexander, when she heard a soft sobbing sound behind her. She turned to find her parents standing there, holding each other tightly.
“Mum... Dad... What happened? And how did you get here?”
“I think it might be because we were thinking about you, Leylah,” Turgoth said, “so the Gods sent us here, to where you were.”
“What happened in Tartarus?” Leylah wanted to know. “Did you get Alexander’s dagger?”
Rebecca took the dagger out of her pocket. “Here it is. But now that we have it, we don’t really know what to do with it. I hope Doctor Afterland will.”
Leylah looked at the dagger for a moment and shrugged. Raising her hand she brought the blade down on the statue in the precise spot where the original stab wound on Alexander’s body had been. Rebecca held her breath, her hand over her mouth, and watched as the diamond began to peel away like dead skin. Soon, Alexander stood before them in all his living glory for a brief moment before passing out on the ground.
“How did you know that was going to work?” Rebecca asked.
Leylah laughed nervously. “I just knew.”
“You are the Oracle!” Turgoth reminded her.
The three of them hugged as Lady Felicia walked towards them, leaning heavily on a cane, with Leiko supporting he
r other arm. She limped her way towards her fallen son. When she saw that he had been restored to life, she burst into tears and hugged Leiko, who also had tears in his eyes as he held his wife close.
“I really didn’t think we would make it out of that battle,” Felicia admitted.
“Rebecca nearly died just to get the dagger here,” Leiko said.
“Zeus saved me,” Rebecca said with a chuckle.
“Zeus threw her into the Flame in the hope of saving her,” Turgoth said. “And I had to pick her up from memory lane.” Turgoth saw the look of confusion on his daughter’s face and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll explain everything while we escort Alexander to hospital.”
***
“So Mum was nearly killed by a Titan?” Leylah asked as they walked out of the hospital room, leaving Alexander with his mother and father.
“It was mostly because of the magic sword,” Turgoth said. “The Titan Slayer! You know how dangerous your mother can be with sharp objects!”
“Honey, I am so proud of you for taking your rightful place as a Princess and for successfully guiding our forces,” Rebecca said. “But there’s something else I want to tell you.”
“Mum, I already know about the second dagger,” Leylah said. “General Varta wasn’t able to make the Flame fully work on me, so he invaded my mind hoping to gain control of my body.”
“What?” both Rebecca and Turgoth asked, their expressions alarmed.
“I guess he can induce my dream state. We were on our way to make a final stand against the Dark Enemy when I passed out into the dream world. Nemesis dragged me out of harm’s way but in the meantime, Varta was trying to crush my spirit so that he could control my body. However, he made the mistake of telling me that we were inside my mind. That’s when I chained him up and put a dagger in him. After that, the enchantment broke and I was able to help everybody make a final charge out of the door with Dad’s invention.”
“Oh?” Turgoth looked surprised. “And how did that work?”
“Once we got past the doorway, we realised that the Lomani was actually over and that we had won, so I didn’t get the chance to use it after all. Now, if it’s all right with you, I think I’m going to stay here until Alexander gets better.”
58
Rebecca was shocked, as they rode back home through the countryside, to see how many houses had been damaged by the fire. She wondered about everything Varta had said and it troubled her to think about how many large scale attacks had occurred simultaneously.
Now that the battle was over, it felt nice to just enjoy the breeze as Turgoth drove the carriage home. Neither of them felt the need to talk, content to simply enjoy their time together, knowing that the worst wasn’t behind them yet.
They had been gone for a day but the house looked as it always did. Larry and Bebi were lying on the porch waiting for them, but as they pulled up, instead of running up to greet them as he would normally have done, Bebi ran back inside the house.
“What’s wrong with him?” Turgoth wondered.
“He’s probably missing Leylah. He’s very sensitive.”
They went inside and Rebecca packed some things for Leylah so that she could stay at the hospital. Turgoth offered to take them to her with Bebi.
“I’ll be back soon. I’ll drop these things off at the hospital and I will then go to see Nemesis and General Hunter. We need to call a meeting to see where we stand. I fear that the worst attacks are yet to come.” He kissed her on the lips as he left.
Rebecca walked back into the house and headed to her room. She noticed mud on the floor.
“Bebi,” she muttered under her breath, “you are definitelly going to be in big trouble when you get back.”
As she closed the door behind her she felt a sharp pain in her right lung. She turned to find herself face to face with Larisa, who was pressing the point of a dagger into her chest. The colour drained from Rebecca’s face.
“Hello, Rebecca,” Larisa hissed menacingly.
“Why...” Rebecca began to ask as she felt her knees give way and she started to sink to the floor with the knife still inside her.
“Why? Because I went through a second lifetime just to kill you,” Larisa said. “I’ve waited for so long to end this puny life of yours as revenge for taking what should have rightfully been mine...”
Rebecca lay as still as she could on the floor while Larisa stepped back and started pacing around the room, venting her pent up anger to her heart’s content, from the depths of her dark soul.
“I had it all planned out. The Titans have been very helpful in getting me to this point. This was all so that I could catch you off guard and finally end your miserable life. Even the dragon, which was supposed to kill Bitho and instead was killed by Bull, was meant as no more than a distraction. The Titans eventually realised that if you want to get to the Flame then you have to take out the key players. General Varta did a wonderful job showing just how weak and pathetic every Orizon truly is. I mean, how fast did he fool you all? And then he just walked away laughing with a portion of the Flame. I hope you all learned a lesson in humility from that.”
“General Varta is dead,” Rebecca said calmly, sliding the knife from her chest with a grimace of pain and keeping it hidden in her hand.
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking,” Larisa said. “So, where was I? Oh, that’s right. You do realise that Varta didn’t need to wait until then to steal the Flame, don’t you? He had loads of time when Bitho took off and he even hid in plain sight! Nope, he decided to show you that he could take everything from you himself. It was a good showing of Titan power. Of course, he did need my help because without me, Alexander could never have been trapped inside the smithy cavern.” She paused for a moment and stared hard at Rebecca, who lay completely still, biding her time. “Do you even know who I am?”
Rebecca said nothing, letting Larisa believe that she had already won, lulling her into a state where she might become overconfident and make a mistake.
Larisa bent down to face Rebecca at eye level. “I’m Claudia!”
Rebecca’s eyes widened involuntarily as she suddenly connected everything that had happened. A surge of realisation washed over her as she looked at the young Amazon, feeling deeply sorry for doubting her daughter when she had insisted that something was wrong with Larisa.
“I’ve been an Amazon in both lives and all I ever wanted was justice.” Larisa was ranting now. “But you had other plans, so I just had to come back to kill you. I was actually given a choice, you know. The funny thing is that you never took your own daughter’s word that I might be Evil. I think someone might be off her game, Princess Rebecca. I mean, wasn’t it obvious? The Sartani always knew where Leylah was. Didn’t you wonder who was informing them? Did you think for even a moment that the Demonic army just happened to be hiding in the forest at the precise moment that the spaceships left for Earth? The switching of Alexander was way too easy. It was such a joy to watch Leylah squirm as she alone spotted a traitor in your midst. The confirmation of just how stupid you are was sublime.
“Do you really think that you can beat the Titans? They unleashed hell upon Earth once and the Orizon forces scattered to the winds. That was simply a distraction for them. What happens if the Titans choose to release all the forces within Tartarus upon you? Will you be ready for that? You had to fight against only one level of that hellish world just to get a dagger and you all nearly died. What will happen when you have to fight everything Tartarus has to spew out? You’ll be demolished. You’re very lucky that I didn’t join in the fight, but at least I made sure the Demonic forces would enter the fortress. I was the one who was directing them in the first place. Who do you think opened that gate? And guess what, Princess - that was also a diversion. There were so many distractions going on at once that you literally lost everything and, if i
t hadn’t been for the cruel graces of General Varta, you would have never have gotten it back. He gave you the dagger, for crying out loud. He didn’t even care if you had it. I mean, we had already nearly won.”
Rebecca felt her wound begin to heal as Larisa continued to gloat and sneer. She remained still and silent as she felt the energy start to fill her. She was already able to breathe normally again.
“And now here we are. After everything you’ve been through, it’s just a simple knife to the chest that kills you. Irony is a glorious thing, isn’t it?”
Rebecca pretended to mumble something.
“What?” Larisa asked.
Rebecca continued to mutter as if having trouble finding the strength to even speak.
Larisa leaned in close. “Speak up, bitch!”
Rebecca grabbed the back of Larisa’s head and pressed the knife underneath her chin without piercing the skin.
“You talk too much,” she said quietly and then pushed her away. “You’ll get your chance in a fair fight. Come on then!”
“That was another mistake, Princess,” Larisa said. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
The Amazon rushed at Rebecca with incredible speed. Rebecca took a step to the side and kicked her in the knee as she passed. Larisa screamed in pain as she felt her leg snap. She tried to punch Rebecca but the Princess grabbed her hand and popped her shoulder out of its socket. Larisa began to fall but Rebecca took a step forward and grabbed her.
“And that is for trying to kill my daughter during training,” Rebecca said as she pressed Larisa’s neck with her fingers employing a deadly technique called the Dim-Mak. Larisa froze, unable to move, or even breathe.
“You used to be a much better fighter than this, Claudia,” Rebecca said as she watched the Amazon die from lack of oxygen before dropping her corpse on the ground and straightening up.
