by Celeste Raye
Night came. The Fed ship in the air began to retreat, and the ground troops fell until their number was so small that those left surrendered just before dawn. The rebel ships landed in groups as their captains took to the ground for fuel and rest.
The wind had picked up again, and the entire city smoldered. The flames had been mostly quenched, but the fires still burned below the rubble and Tara, completely wiped out, stood on the hill, looking down with tears rolling silently down her face.
A hand fell on her shoulder. Jenny spoke softly. “You need sleep.”
Tara’s hands came up and yanked at the stiff and stinking mass of her hair. “I know.”
Jenny stepped up beside her. Like Tara, she was dirty and tired, her clothes ripped here and there where she had yanked strips of it away to make bandages. “You will be no good to anyone if you don’t rest. Come on.”
“I’m…” She could not say the rest of it. She didn’t have to either because just then, Jenny said, “Hoping to see Blade. I know. I hope to see him too, but for now, you have to be strong enough to care for yourself.”
Jenny’s strong but gentle hands turned her away from the sight of the ruined city. Tara staggered along beside her, her eyes so gritty with fatigue that she could barely see.
Someone had had the foresight to collect barrels of water from the river, and she went to one, dipping a large pitcher’s worth out so she could wash.
Jenny said, “Here, let me help you.”
They moved to a spot where hasty shelters had been made of whatever could be found. Tara got the clothes she wore off and managed to scrub away most of the filth. Jenny helped her to clean her hair. Tara had no hairbrush, so she made due with just running her fingers through the fiery tresses before sinking down on a small section of grass and staring at Jenny.
She said, “I don’t know what to do now.”
Jenny said, “Sleep. Eat. Here, I have some rations.”
She turned away and came back a few minutes later holding a protein and nutrient rich bar. Tara tore into it, but now that she was still, now that she was no longer able to focus her mind solely on helping to save as many as possible, all she could think of was Blade.
The mood of the people around her was slightly jubilant and yet sorrowful. The Federation had retreated, an amazing thing, but the death toll was high, and they all knew it would just get higher with each battle.
This war was far from finished.
Tara finally fell into a fitful doze but full of horrible dreams. Bloody faces and broken bodies flitted through her dreams. The sound of bombs falling and the rapid rattle of weapons fire and the screams of the dying kept jerking her from that restless slumber.
She woke again, sometime after the sun had finally risen along the horizon, to see Talon and Jessica sleeping nearby, their bodies tangled together. The trill of birdsong came from somewhere, and Tara lay there listening to it, confused by the normalcy of such a thing.
She sat up. Her body was beyond stiff. Her muscles sent off low and throbbing aches and her mouth was dry. Hunger rumbled in her tummy, and she managed to stand. She staggered out of the crude shelter and what she saw made her heart contract and then spring loose, sending a dizzying flow of blood into her system that threatened to topple her where she stood.
So many people. So many wounded.
The dead lay beyond the valley there, the bodies already in a hastily dug mass grave, and she could see from where she stood that that grave was already full. Tears streamed down her face, and she whispered, “Is this the price of freedom?”
“Yes.”
The word made her jump, and her head turned to see General Bates, Blade’s father, staring at her from the tree he stood below. She picked her way over to him carefully. Daylight lay on his face, making every line and wrinkle show, and she asked, “Why?”
“Because when you have something as powerful as the Federation, you have to not only wound it: you have to kill it. They have been through battles for power before and always won. They won because those they fought against looked at the losses and decided it was unbearable.”
“It is unbearable,” she looked back at the mass grave, at the lines of sleeping, wounded, and displaced people. “It is entirely unbearable.”
“It is not unbearable. If it means millions more lives will be lost, that too will be bearable. What is unbearable is the Federation and its ways. They can’t be allowed to continue. Even if we all have to die to make sure the Federation is crushed and broken so that those who come behind us can be free.”
Those who would come after. Tara swallowed hard. “Have you heard from Blade?’
General Bates shook his head, and his eyes went back to the dead and dying. “No. I was hoping he would have returned by now.”
He was willing to sacrifice his own son for freedom. Tara’s fingers picked at each other. “I love him, you know.”
“As do I.” Bates’ eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, and his cheeks were hollowed, and there were dark shadows below his eyes. “Do not ever assume that I do not love my son.”
“I know you love him.” The words leaped from her mouth. “You helped him, all those years you helped him but yet you still stood for the Federation. Why? I mean, why play both sides of the game the way that you did? Why not just decide which side you were on and make your stand there?”
“I believed in the Federation. I loved my son. There was no way I could choose, not until I found the truth.” His eyes regarded her face carefully. “I know I was guilty of many crimes against the Federation long before I decided to fight them, but what would you do for a child you loved?”
“Everything. Anything.” She sighed and let her gaze go back to the sky. The sun was rising, and the sky was a faultless blue. Unlike the land below, the sky showed no memories or effects of the battles that had raged there. “I’m scared. That he’s not here yet and so…”
“Don’t.” His hand pressed against her upper arm. “Just do not say that. Until I see his body before me, he is alive. I don’t know where he is, but I do know that until I am faced with his body and can see for myself that he is dead, he is not.”
The words gave her a blast of hope. Blade had not returned the night before or that morning and time was passing quickly, and still, he was not there. That was terrifying. Most of the ground troops had returned, and there had been some news that a few had followed the retreating Fed ground forces in order to try to decimate their ranks even further. Maybe Blade had been among them, and knowing him, that was likely true.
She leaned against the tree. She asked, “After the Federation falls, what then? Nobody seems to have any idea but…but what happens when all of this is over and done?”
Bates said, “It will take a very long time to figure it all out. We do need a coalition of the planets in our universe. We need trade agreements that fit all. We need an end to caste systems and slavery and the rule of those who are born under one mantle or another. We need an end to the starvation on some planets while other planets throw food away because they have so much of it. There needs to be some sort of fairness and equality. There needs to be, more than those things, justice. Because equality and justice are not the same at all, you know.”
They weren’t. Justice was usually blind and what was just in one world was sometimes unjust in another because equality—that was the sticking point—was often mistaken for justice.
She said, “Whatever he’s doing, I wish he’d just get it done and get back here.”
Bates said, “Me too, but…but I need you to hear something right now. The Federation, this isn’t them.”
She blinked. “What?”
Bates turned to her. His skin on his face was gray, and his eyes held small threads of red running through them. He said, “The Federation, the real Federation, is in hiding. They’re on Tralam. I need you to remember that. Say it. Tralam.”
“Tralam,” she repeated dutifully. “I don’t understand.”
Bates
’ head drooped a bit. “I know you don’t. You won’t until you see it for yourself.”
“I’ve never heard of Tralam.”
He shook his head. “Only a few have. The Federation would kill, has killed and for centuries, to keep that place secret. That’s the place you will find the ones who are the Federation. Tell me again where.”
What was wrong with him? Tara paused, her heartbeat speeding up as she looked down and saw that his coat, covered in blood, was not just bloody, but smeared with fresh blood. A gasp came from her mouth. “You’re wounded, and badly! We need to get you help!”
“I didn’t know how badly until just a few minutes ago.” He moved slightly, and more blood stained the torn coat. “I hoped he would come back before…before…I need you to say it. Tralam.”
“Tralam.” She moved forward, horrified and shocked too much to notice she was speaking. Her hands went to his coat, and she parted it to see a vicious wound just above his ribs. She whispered, “Come on, we have to go.”
“I was standing here, thinking I would tell the first person I would see, and you came along first. Ironic. Or maybe fate. Tell my son…tell him that the entrance is the exit way and the only way in is out. Tralam is there, but you won’t see it until you blind yourself.”
Riddles. He was talking in riddles, and those riddles were likely due to delirium from the wound. She said, “Yes, okay, I will, but let me help you…” Her head turned. A scream flew from her lips. “Help! Somebody help, please! Right now!”
Bates toppled to the ground. The fall brought blood pouring from his mouth. His eyes locked on hers, his gaze intense and fading all at once. “Say it. Tell me what I just said to you.”
Sweet gods, the man was dying and clearly losing his grip on his sanity! “Help!” Her scream tore from her throat, leaving it raw and aching.
Bates’ hand found her hair and yanked, hard enough to snap her attention back to him. She whispered the words he had just said. “The entrance is the exit way and the only way in is out. Tralam is there, but you won’t see it until you blind yourself.”
Bates laughed, and the laugh made a bubble of blood form on his lips and then burst. “He’s an assassin,” he said. “At one time that shamed me, but now I know that he alone is the way to break Tralam and the Federation forever. I had hoped that was a myth, but it isn’t. I know it isn’t. I didn’t want to believe, but I do.”
A low cry roared through her head, and she stared with dazed eyes as Blade fell to Bates’ side, his hands going to his father’s face. Tears ran down Blade’s face, and he didn’t bother trying to stem or hide them. Tara, unsure of what to do, put her hands on Blade’s and he stared at her, his tears sparkling as they cut clean channels down his dirty and worn face.
He moaned out, “Goddammit why didn’t I get back sooner?”
Bates’ lifted a blood-encrusted hand. “Tralam,” he croaked. “Tralam.”
Blade blinked. “Father…”
“Your destiny is Tralam,” Bates wheezed.
Blade bent his head. Others ran to the spot where he lay, and Marik approached, then shook his head and stepped back, one long arm sweeping up to hold the others at bay. That alone spoke volumes. That gesture said that General Bates could not be saved. Tara let the tears come. She kept her hands on Blade’s and his body leaned into hers just slightly as Bates’ breath slowed and then slowed again. His eyes began to film over as death took him, and Tara watched, not moving, as Blade finally reached his fingers upward and closed his father’s eyes for the final time.
Silence reigned through the small clearing. The birds had even stopped singing. A small cloud passed over the sun, making Tara shiver.
Blade stood. His eyes held hers. He said, “I’ll be damned if I will put him in that grave. He’ll burn, just like a warrior should.”
Tara nodded and began to gather kindling. There was no other way she could tell him how much she agreed, and would do whatever it took to make sure Blade could burn his father’s body in the way he saw fit to honor the man who had kept his son alive even though it had meant betraying the very thing he loved the most—the Federation.
Chapter 11:
The pyre had burned down; the ashes had scattered on the wind. The mass grave had been set ablaze and still burned. The evening had come in. Wounded had died. The battle-weary troops had set up a temporary camp, and now he sat across from Talon, Renall, Jeval, and Marik and their mates. Tara was at his side, and he could feel the silky spring of her hair against his neck. That comforted him somewhat but his heart was heavy, and regret ate into him with every breath.
So much time wasted, and so many things left unsaid between his father and himself, and now there would never be time to say or do the things he had wanted to say and do with and to his father. Their time in the world had parted ways.
Renall said, “Tralam’s a myth.”
“I don’t even know what the myth is,” Tara said softly. “I have never heard of it.”
“That’s because you are human and young and the humans forgot about it centuries ago. But we Revants are long-lived, as are a few other species, and our memories are long,” Marik stared into the fire lit in the center of the shelter comprised of wreckage and cloth. The shadows danced over his face, highlighting the planes and angles there, and Blade said, “I heard of it once on some planet. There was a singer who sung of it, called it the fearsome Tralam and spoke of the horrors awaiting there.”
Renall chuckled. “That’s how they carried its tale, those who knew of its existence. They turned it into myth on purpose because they knew nobody would believe them, or so the very eldest of the ones who were centuries old when I was but a few years into life said.”
Tara looked at Blade. Her green eyes held so many questions and so much concern, and he knew that that concern was mostly for him. His hand found hers and squeezed gently. She managed a smile, and that made a small smile come upon his mouth too, but it died fast and hard.
Jenny said, “I have never heard of it either. Why don’t you tell it to us?”
Marik looked around at the others gathered there in the shelter. “I don’t know that I could do it as much justice as a singer.”
Blade said, “We do not need a singer to tell us this. My father thought that there was something to it. While it may be simply a tale, perhaps there is some truth to it at its heart. If we can hear it, we could either dismiss his words entirely or consider them.”
Renall spoke quietly. “They do say that every story has some grain of truth within it. I have no idea how much truth is within that particular tale, but if there is any, then it may serve us well.”
Jessica poked an elbow into Talon’s ribs. “Have you ever heard of it?”
Talon nodded his head. “I always disregarded it. I don’t need to know how or why the founding members of the Federation died or the creation of the universe. I did hear that many millennia ago humans worshipped a myth similar to that tale, a tale of creation and self-sacrifice, I mean. But who knows? They have all been dead for centuries, and while it is said that the first Federation founders killed themselves, that might just be a myth too.”
Blade shifted uneasily. The shelter had been built haphazardly, and the ground was near earth and grass. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit, but that was not why he shifted the way he had.
A sudden memory had risen up in his mind, a memory of his father standing over him when he was ten or maybe eleven and saying to him that the root of all that could be found to be evil lay not in the Federation itself but in those who had taken it over. That if the eldest of the Federation, its founding members, could only come back, that they would be able to set right all that had gone wrong in their absence.
At the time he had thought it was merely wistful or wishful thinking, but perhaps his father was truly mourning the loss of the original Federation’s founding members—something that made much more sense now that he knew they had all taken their own lives.
That t
he Federation had gone from being a thing meant to ally the universe and bring it peace to a corrupted system filled with the power- and wealth-hungry was a clear thing, and even the Federation’s most staunch supporters knew that all was not what it should be.
Blade moved his leg so that it pressed more tightly against Tara’s. “I had not heard that the founding members took their own lives.”
Jessica looked at him with a frown forming between her straight brows. She looked over at Jenny and then at Margie. “Nor had I. That’s something I’ve never heard. I heard they died but that we were living their legacy and that we must always honor the thing that they’d created. I never heard they committed suicide.”
Blade’s fingers inscribed a small pattern into the dirt beside his bent knee. “Why on earth would they commit suicide? They had formed the most powerful alliance ever known, and they were in charge of it. Why would they have killed themselves?”
Talon said, “Maybe that’s why they don’t discuss it much. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Why would the beings that had complete control of the entire universe suddenly destroy themselves? I always thought that part of it was strange, but the old tales of the old gods and old civilizations have plenty of deities who gave their lives in order to save the population.”
Blade snorted. “I’d say they fucked up then. If they really did off themselves, all they accomplished was to let their underlings run amok with all the power in the universe, and look what they have done with it through the centuries.”
Tara looked over at him. Her mouth was turned down a bit, and he could see the weariness in her expression. The expression on her face tugged at his heartstrings, and he felt more regret and remorse settling in. He had nearly lost her more than once, and still might. The Federation had been beaten back; they had not been beaten. In order to truly best them, they would have to fight for a lot longer, and many more lives would have to be given.
But, oh God, he did not want hers to be one of them.
Talon said, “Tell the story then, Marik.”
