Hunter Brown and the Eye of Ends

by Chris Miller

“Go away, will you!” Trista yelled.

  “Krauk,” it taunted back.

  “I don’t think it can hurt us; it’s just curious that’s all,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t care,” Trista answered. “If I see it again I’m going to shoot it right between the eyes.”

  “Krauk,” the sand thing replied.

  Furious, Trista readied her bow for the next sign of movement. There was a flash of blue and Trista’s bow was yanked from her hands, disappearing into a hole in the sand.

  “Did you see that?” Trista screamed. “That thing just ate my bow! Do you think its friendly now?”

  “Not so much,” I conceded.

  With sword ignited I awaited the creature’s next appearance. The sand in front of me shuffled as two eyes rose from the ground well within striking distance. With a clean swing, I severed one of the orbs, which fell to the sand, winking and rolling around chaotically. A sinister moan rattled the ground.

  “I don’t think it liked that,” Hope observed.

  “Good, it wasn’t supposed to,” I answered. “Maybe now it will leave us alooooooooo…whoa….”

  My last word went unfinished as the sand beneath my feet gave way, caving into a newly formed hole. I leapt to the side to avoid getting sucked under the sand, but a long blue sticky tongue shot out, grabbing me by the foot.

  “Help!” I called out, trying my best to swing my sword at the creature’s tongue before it could pull me in. It was no use, I couldn’t reach it. Turning on my belly, I jammed my Veritas blade into the ground like a stake and hung on for my life. The blade held firm in the ground, but my grip was weakening. The strength of the sticky blue tongue was winning out.

  “I can’t…hold on…much longer,” I grunted, turning my head to where Trista and Hope stood. “Do something!”

  Surprisingly, Hope didn’t seem to be paying attention at all. Her hands were clasped together, her eyes closed. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was holding on for dear life, and she was taking some kind of nap.

  “Hope, please!” I shouted.

  Her eyes opened again, only this time a piercing fire replaced the once gentle brown. Throwing her hand forward, a stream of fire burst out of her palm toward the creature’s tongue. With a whimper the tongue released its grip on my foot and slipped back into the sand, dropping me face first on the ground. The fire disappeared from Hope’s eyes and she gasped for breath, as if she had not breathed the entire time she was saving my life.

  “How did you do that?” I asked, spitting sand from my mouth.

  “A girl’s gotta have some secrets,” she replied.

  A second groan from the sand caused me to jump to my feet. Before I could retrieve my sword from the ground, it was gobbled up by another blue tongue.

  The sand shuffled on all sides. A single yellow eye rose in front of us, then a second pair to its right, a third pair behind us and even more to our right. We were being surrounded.

  “Gather close everyone,” Hope said. “This could get ugly.”

  Ugly was right. The one-eyed creature poked its whole head out of the ground, showing itself for the first time. It looked mostly like a frog, only much, much bigger and lumpier. It hissed at us, clearly unhappy to have lost an eye and scorched its tongue.

  The frog opened its mouth, revealing a dozen razor-sharp teeth around its lips. Just then, a dozen light-tipped spears fell from the sky, showering the ground like rain. Three of the spears hit true to their mark, piercing the creature’s skin and causing the other sand frogs to shuffle away in fear. The one-eyed frog let a low desperate groan slip out of its mouth as it breathed its last.

  “Plausee, plausee,” a riotous shout erupted from the desert foliage around us. A dozen powder-white-skinned natives stepped out of hiding, several of them riding on the back of two-legged reptilian raptors. The natives’ skin blended perfectly into the white sands and made even me look tan in comparison. For the most part they were human in appearance—shirtless warriors painted in the most intricate neon colors and designs imaginable. Each of the warriors had a different color of hair, brightly painted in neon hues to complement their skin design. Their necks were long—twice, perhaps even three times longer than mine.

  “The Noctu,” Hope explained in a whisper as they approached. “They speak in the Old Language. You better let me do the talking.”

  Retrieving their spears, the warriors celebrated the kill and pulled the remainder of the sand frog from the ground. The creature was larger than I had expected. Its body was easily twice the size of the largest walrus I’d ever seen and equally as wrinkled and awkward looking. Its tail stretched out a good six feet from its rump. The mouth was wide and bulging. The skin was spotted with orange and brown. In some ways, it seemed more like an enormous slug than a frog, but either way—it wasn’t a pleasant-looking creature.

  The tallest of the twelve Noctu approached us with the severed eye of the frog, handing it to me as a gift. His eyes were a brilliant blue and big.

  “Thank you,” I said as they pulled their spears from the creature.

  The man made a motion with his hand as if to suggest that I eat the eye.

  “He’s kidding, right?” I asked, looking to Hope for advice.

  “I don’t think so,” she said solemnly.

  The man pounded his chest with a fist and pointed again to the eye, raising a hand to his mouth.

  I shook my head and raised a hand. Hoping the gesture would be received as “Thanks, but no thanks.” Instead, the man stiffened, becoming almost indignant that I didn’t eat the eye.

  “I think you’d better eat it, Hunter,” Hope said, looking a little frightened. “We don’t want to offend them.”

  “Seriously, why me?” I asked, looking at the gooey yellow ball in my hand.

  “It must be a guy thing,” Trista said, trying to be helpful. “You know, male bonding. Pretend it’s a hard boiled egg or something.”

  “Does this look like an egg to you?” I replied, holding the yellow eyeball out toward her. Trista turned away, too grossed out to look. “Besides, I hate eggs, especially hard-boiled ones. They’re all squishy and…juicy…and….” I shuddered at the thought.

  The other Noctu gathered around, their eyes wide with eager anticipation of my first bite. There was no way I was going to get out of it now. I had to suck it up and be a man.

  Just hurry up and get it over with, I told myself.

  “Oh gross, he’s actually going to do it!” Trista squealed, looking away as I lifted the eye to my mouth. The oldest Noctu nodded his encouragement and clinched his teeth. What the natives knew, and I didn’t, was that the center of the eye was loaded with a gooey yolk-like paint. The very moment I bit down, the eye exploded like a water balloon, splattering the neon yellow substance all over my mouth, chin and clothes.

  The Noctu laughed and cheered at the sight. It was a primitive joke and I was apparently the punch line. The tallest Noctu slapped me on the back in good-natured reconciliation as I spat the yellow paint into the sand. Surprisingly, it didn’t taste half bad, almost like a tomato, only sweeter.

  “Hunter, you look like a Cheshire cat,” Trista giggled, pointing to my mouth. The tips of my fingers were coated with the phosphorous goop, and I could only imagine what my teeth and lips looked like.

  The Noctu warrior took what remained of the sand frog’s eye from my hand and gathered some goo onto his fingertip. Using his finger as a paintbrush, he drew a series of lines and dots on my forehead. The man finished his art and after a little thought said, “Novitiatus.”

  “What is that? What did he just say?” I asked Hope.

  “He just named you into their tribe. It is their custom to name newcomers. Novitiatus is your new name,” she answered.

  “That sounds cool; what does it mean?”

  “It means Newbie,” she said straight-faced.


  My excitement faded as Trista stifled a chuckle at my expense. Next, the Noctu leader motioned for Trista to step forward. He reached out to mark her forehead with the neon eye-juice as well. Trista was reluctant at first, but when Hope explained it was part of their tradition, she allowed the man to draw on her forehead, grimacing the whole time. When he finished, the Noctu warrior stooped eye-level with Trista and gazed at her for a long awkward moment. A broad smile lit his face as he gave her a name, “Dit See.”

  Trista’s expression soured as she looked anxiously to Hope for an interpretation. “Please tell me he didn’t just call me Ditzy.”

  “Dit See, actually,” Hope answered, disguising a smile behind her hand. “It means Golden One.”

  It was my turn to laugh.

  “Zip it,” Trista said, shooting a look of death my way. I zipped.

  At last, the Noctu warrior approached Hope; only this time his introduction took a decidedly different tone. “Igni Sola, is good again so to see you,” he said in a cheerful voice. The two embraced. Clearly, they knew each other better than Hope had let on.

  “Deco oris me,” Hope replied. “It is an honor to be with you too, Alti.”

  “Always you are welcome,” Alti replied. “Come and be food with us.”

  Be food with us? I thought, hoping for our sake it was merely a slip of the tongue. Hope graciously corrected the man in her acceptance of his offer.

  “We would be grateful to eat with you; there is much to discuss. I come with a message of great importance from Aviad, a message of healing for one who has fallen.”

  At the mention of this, the man’s eyes lit up, quite literally.

  “Yes, yes! The man I know. Fallen from sky. We hurry,” the man said. “We must!”

  He barked a few commands to the other tribesmen who scurried about to prepare their recent kill for transport. With tribal greetings complete, the Noctu led us toward their desert encampment, dragging the skewered carcass of the sand frog behind.

  “So nice of you to tell us that you knew them,” I whispered to Hope, replaying the whole encounter in my mind. “You could have spared me the humiliation of the eye thing, you know.”

  “Yes, but what would have been the fun in that?” Hope answered smugly. “Besides, it’s better this way.”

  “Better how?”

  “Better because the Noctu enjoy a good laugh. You’ll be one of their favorite people now. A regular celebrity, you might say.”

  In an hour’s time we reached the edge of the village. The rustic cluster of domed huts were scattered beneath a field of giant teal mushrooms. The mushrooms were unlike anything I had ever seen, spiraling up overhead like trees and glowing with a natural light all their own. Despite the late hours, the Noctu village was buzzing with activity. For the Noctu, the coolness of night was day, a necessary lifestyle to avoid the unbearable desert heat. Children ran out to meet us in anticipation of the hunting warriors’ return. When they spotted my glowing smile, the children began to laugh and gather around me, pointing at my mouth and pulling on my hand.

  It was just as Hope had said; the Noctu were a vibrant people in more ways than one. Boisterous and cheerful people by nature, they radiated a joyful love of life that hardly seemed to match their humble existence. The entire tribe decorated their snow-white skin in colorful and artistic patterns with the glowing paint. The women extended the artwork down their right shoulders, which remained uncovered by the dark blue wool they wrapped around themselves as clothing. The men were shirtless, but wore similar wraps around their waists.

  After cleaning up from the journey, we joined the other Noctu warriors and children around a bonfire at the center of the village. The women were already busy preparing the night’s supper. A small Noctu child tugged on my shirtsleeve and offered Trista and me our weapons, which apparently had been recovered from the belly of the slain sand frog.

  Moments later, Alti returned to the bonfire, leading a man he believed to be the reason for Hope’s visit. As he approached, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. It had to be a trick. The man before us was none other than Xaul…the heartless slayer of the Codebearers, a man who was supposed to be dead.

  Chapter 17

  From the Ashes

  Gone were the white hooded uniform and waist-wide belt identifying him as a fierce Xin warrior. No longer did he stretch out his seven-foot frame to tower over me intimidatingly. His silvery eyes were no longer piercing.

  Xaul wore a simple Noctu-style tunic now. His broad shoulders were stooped and his head bowed humbly. When his eyes passed over me, they were dull, clouded and lifeless—the helpless eyes of a blind man. Though Xaul may have changed physically, he was still a murderer to me.

  I had seen him kill Petrov. I had to watch helplessly as he plunged his sword through Hope. And Xaul would have killed me as well had not the Author intervened and destroyed him in the Consuming Fire. That was the awful end he had deserved. That was the justice I’d witnessed this murderer receive—or so I had thought.

  For the Fire to have spared him so that I could share a dinner and friendly conversation with him tonight was inconceivable… but that’s exactly what was happening before my eyes.

  Led on the arm of a Noctu guide, Xaul took his seat opposite the fire from where I stood. I watched him with silent contempt through the flames, wishing this fire could finish him for good. Trista didn’t look much happier with the arrangement, remembering all the harm he’d caused her and our friends as well. As for Hope, she looked surprised, but not upset. That was perhaps the greatest mystery of them all. Yes, the Author had rewritten her; she had a new and greater life now, but how could she look past the evil Xaul had done to her and not hate him?

  “Is it true?” Xaul’s strained, whispery voice spoke into the night, his ashen eyes wandering aimlessly. “Are you the one sent from the Author?”

  “Yes,” Hope replied with a steady voice, “I am Hope. I have come to heal you.”

  The crackling fire sparked suddenly brighter for a moment, as if marking the statement with an exclamation point. Xaul nodded his head in silent acceptance, breathing an emotion-filled sigh of both fear and relief. It was a confrontation he had both longed for and dreaded.

  “May it be as the Author has said,” Xaul answered. Surprisingly, his tone was a defeated, surrendered one. No longer was he the great Xin warrior. Hope began to stand up, but I grabbed her arm, holding her back.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “You’ll see,” she said confidently, her own eyes spilling over with emotion as she slid my hand from her arm.

  I watched in disbelief as she took a step forward and walked untouched through the flames that separated us from Xaul. He inclined his head towards his tender messenger as she knelt and gently gathered both of his charred hands together. Turning them palm up, she curled them to form shallow cups.

  “I have come to fulfill the Author’s purpose for you,” Hope said compassionately, “to raise you up from the ashes.”

  Having said this, she reached back into the fire and scooped up a pile of hot ash, patiently letting it cool in her hands before pouring the warm, silvery dust into his waiting hands.

  “Boojum,” Hope called out, “it’s time.”

  “Uh-uh,” refused the squeaky voice from somewhere just beyond the firelight’s reach. “Light bad.”

  Hope rolled her eyes, but submitted to his request, passing her hand over the flames till they had lowered to mere embers. “That better?” she asked.

  Content with the arrangement, Boojum scampered over and climbed up onto Hope’s shoulder, peering curiously down into Xaul’s hands.

  “Boojum here?” he asked.

  Hope nodded the okay. “Just let ’er flow.”

  Boojum started sucking and snorting, his face twisting and twitching as he forced a thick, wet, gargling sound from the
back of his throat. It was disgustingly loud for such a small creature. Children of the Noctu tribe came running over to watch. Hope tried her best to look away.

  Unable to see what was transpiring in front of him, Xaul reluctantly asked, “Is it going to…?”

  Yes, Boojum was. And Boojum did.

  The gooey discharge erupted from his mouth, splattering unceremoniously on top of the gathered ash in Xaul’s hand. For a moment all was still except for the slow drip of surplus spittle, oozing through Xaul’s fingers. I tried not to laugh, but the absurdity of the situation was too good to be true.

  “Boojum good?” the snark’s excited blue eyes danced proudly from his handiwork back to Hope.

  “Yeah,” Hope said feigning a smile, “you did really well, buddy.”

  Speaking to Xaul now, she did her best to explain. “So, just mash that together till it’s a nice paste and then…” she hated to say it, “rub it over your eyes.”

  Xaul, having willingly gone along with Hope’s instructions up to now, stopped to consider the humiliating and unhealthy step he was being asked to take. I could tell he was worried it could be a joke.

  “You want me to rub this…glop…on my eyes?” Xaul questioned with a disgusted look on his face.

  “Yup,” Hope said. “That’s the plan.”

  “What good will that do?” he asked.

  “It is the Author’s will.”

  If it were a prank, Hope had planned it perfectly. By now the Noctu parents and elders had gathered with their children to see what their adopted tribesman would do. Resigned to his fate, Xaul shrugged and slathered the sticky mud over his eyelids. I wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the man looked, his eyes smeared with Boojum’s spit. I was still gloating at the man’s humiliation when he began to shout.

  “My eyes…I can see again. I can see!”

  I was completely caught offguard. I hadn’t expected the prank to actually work. I thought Hope was getting back at the man, not truly healing him. It was a real letdown.

  Almost immediately, the Noctu tribe erupted in a spontaneous celebration that was more colorful than their neon paint. Xaul’s sight had been restored! That was the message on everyone’s lips and the reason for every smile. With dancing, singing, feasting and laughter, everyone in the Noctu camp was buzzing with excitement over the miraculous event they’d witnessed from the Author’s hand. In recognition of the miracle, their chief held a special ceremony in which they gave Xaul the new name of Xias (it meant “Xin of ash” according to Hope’s translation).