Sebastian of Mars

by Al Sarrantonio

  I put my boot on the first step, and my heart began to pound.

  I hesitated, and then stepped back down.

  “I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  There was silence for a moment, and then the too-perfect voice said, “We need to talk, King Sebastian.”

  “Why do they call you One?”

  There was another hesitation.

  “Because there is only one of me.”

  Now I detected the faintest hint of humor in the voice.

  I saw what looked like a hand shrouded in darkness reach out toward me.

  “Please come close. I want to see you. Please.” The hint of humor was gone, replaced almost by pleading.

  I turned around, and my companion was gone.

  I put my boot on the first step, and then went all the way to the top of the pedestal.

  There was a faint electrical odor, like ozone after a storm.

  The vaguest of lights moved in the shadow form, where a face would be.

  Two eyes made of light stared out at me.

  I saw what looked like a teardrop, made of light, trail down the shadow face.

  “The technology of the Old Ones made me possible.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There is too much you don’t understand. That is why I sent for you. You are more important to this planet than you or others realize, King Sebastian. If you do not succeed in this war against Frane, no one will be left alive on Mars within ten years.”

  “Because we’re losing our atmosphere?”

  Another, longer pause. “Yes. I see you already know this. If Frane is allowed to win, she will destroy everything to do with the Old Ones that doesn’t have to do with weapons, including the oxygenation stations to renew the atmosphere. It would be a death sentence for Mars. Frane only cares about destruction. She will get her wish in more ways than she realizes, if she triumphs. That is why you must go on a quest, Sebastian. I know something of the weapon she will use on Olympus Mons, and I know how to disable it. And I believe you are the one who must do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are King, and because until you show your strength the people will not be completely behind you.”

  “You speak of my physical weakness?” I said, becoming angry.

  The lit eyes momentarily grew brighter, and One leaned forward toward me, a purple shape in the darkness, before settling back again.

  “Yes,” One said, simply, the artificial voice completely flat. “Even now, there are sections of Mars that are leaning toward Frane, because they see in her a strength that they think you don’t possess. If this happens, Frane will win. And if she reaches Olympus Mons with her weapon, she will win. But you can stop her. There are others who opposed this course of action, and that is why I brought you here.”

  “Why should I listen to you?” I asked.

  “Because it must be done!” the mechanical voice shouted, and I trembled. “Because there is no other way to save Mars!”

  Silence stretched between us. The vague light that was her face receded, and I thought that she was sleeping, or had turned herself off. But then the eyes flared back on with greater intensity – two eyeballs staring at me out of a dark and empty face.

  “You must go on this quest,” she said. “Will you do it?”

  I tried to look proud. “I am my mother’s son. I will go.”

  “Well said. But it will take more than pride to do what you must do. You will need every ounce of your courage, and you must draw from yourself a stamina that you do not as yet possess. You must become a man, Sebastian of Argyre. Do you think you can accomplish these things?”

  “Yes.”

  The eyes dimmed, and when they re-lit, they were not as bright, and the voice was weaker. “I do not have much time. My powers need to be regenerated. Listen, and listen well . . .”

  She told me what I must do.

  Fourteen

  In the days that followed, I learned just how arduous my task would be. Quiff helped me prepare, and I was happy to learn that he would accompany me. There were others of his kind, some of whom I met, including one who I took to be his spouse. They were indeed an unknown clan, who spent most of their time underground. There were two young kits, even stranger looking than the grownups, with eyes that looked startlingly large in their little faces. But I must have appeared strange to them, too, and one of them took to following me around and staring at me with a curiosity that bordered on obsession. Finally this kit tugged at my tunic and asked, “Are you a fffffreak?”

  Composing as solemn a look as I could muster, I picked the goggle-eyed youngster up, looked straight into its huge eyes and said, “Yes!”

  Then we both laughed.

  This little friend was with me for the next few days while Quiff and I prepared.

  As One had explained to me, Quiff and I would travel underground and emerge somewhere behind Frane’s army. This was not as easy as it sounded. On the maps Quiff showed me there were vast areas that no one had explored for centuries, and others, marked in bright red, that were considered nothing less than dangerous. There were allies along the way, clans akin to Quiff’s own underground people, but there were others of unknown disposition.

  I spent nearly two days roaming amongst the marvelous machines in the great hall, nearly all of which would, unfortunately, be useless for our purposes, because, though the Old Ones had built them, their workings were now unknown to us. Which led me to ask Quiff a question:

  “Who is One?”

  He gave me an excruciatingly slow blink and then answered: “SSSShe iss One. That is all.”

  “Where did she come from?”

  He shrugged.

  I learned that she had been discovered by Quiff, which put him in an exalted position in his clan.

  Which both startled, and frightened me.

  One summoned Quiff and I before her one more time before we left. She was much diminished in energy, I could tell. Her voice, though still sharp, was faded, as if a volume control had been turned down. Her eyes were barely visible in the hooded purple blackness of her face.

  “I must tell you this before you go,” she said. I stepped closer, to hear her better, and again smelled that ozone odor. There was a faint crackling sound.

  She reached out a faint glowing finger and set it gently on my paw, which startled me. The crackling turned to a hiss, and I felt a run of electric shock faintly up my arm.

  “You may not see me again,” she said. “I am weak now, and must go. But I want you to remember me, and what I have told you. Mars was once great, and can be great again.”

  Her eyes once more glowed, and I was astonished to feel a real tear on my paw. I looked deeply into her fading eyes in her amorphous face. For a moment it almost became solid, but then it turned to a ghostly image once more.

  “Take care,” she said, her voice fading away, “and be strong.”

  And then she was gone.

  The purple lights in the room came up, showing an empty pedestal.

  “Is there anything we can do for her?” I asked Quiff, whose own huge eyes were filled with tears.

  He shrugged helplessly.

  “Nothing that I knowwww,” he said.

  After a few moments of helplessness, I left the podium, my fists clenched in anger, and stalked from the room. I felt impotent and useless.

  “We must go, Quiff,” I said, and I looked back as I reached the entry to see him still facing the empty podium, his huge hands covering his huge eyes, and weeping.

  We left the following morning.

  My little friend, Quiff’s kit, said goodbye in the only way she knew. She climbed up my tunic, using her huge paws and extended claws, and kissed me on the cheek. I clutched her briefly, and returned the kiss.

  “Your father will return safely to you,” I promised, though I wondered if I would be able to fulfill the vow.

  Quiff took leave of his family, and then we departed. He clutched the
first of his maps, and led the way. We had three horses, laden with supplies, one of them drawing a cart which was outfitted for our riding. As we passed into the darkness of the first tunnel opening, I felt my stomach clench, and a hard knot of worry form.

  Did I know what I was doing?

  Did I have any chance of success?

  Why had I listened to One? Why was I so sure that she was right?

  The darkness ahead of me only added to my unease.

  Fifteen

  Four days later, I turned to Quiff and rasped, “I can’t go on.”

  I had struggled the last two days, keeping up with his pace, which was a sturdy one. And, for the most part, I had been successful in hiding my pain. But now it was too much for me, and I could hide it no longer. My lungs ached, my legs were plagued with cramps, my shoulders were shot with pain from the pack I carried. I wanted to quit, but wanted to die before I would admit it.

  And I was very close to that point.

  “You wishhhh to rest?” Quiff asked, blinking his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  And then I collapsed, and fainted into blackness.

  I awoke with a cool cloth draped across my brow. There was a breeze in the tunnel, which I had not noticed before. It felt like an autumn night in Wells City.

  I heard the gurgle of nearby water, and rose up on my elbows to spy a creek nearby, and a cooked fish, its steamy odor rising to my nostrils, next to me.

  “Quiff?” I called, and then my companion appeared, walking down from the nearby bank to greet me. Two fishing poles fashioned from long sticks guarded the spot he abandoned.

  “Do you feeeel wellll?” he inquired.

  “Yes, much better, thanks. Where are we?”

  He produced his map and pointed to a spot that meant nothing to me.

  “Making our wayyyy,” he said.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “Hourssss.”

  “And you watched over me?”

  He shrugged, and left me to attend to the horses, which were agitated.

  He returned in a minute and said, “We musssst go now.”

  “Why?” And then I suddenly had another question, as a rank odor, rising from both myself and my companion, overcame me.

  “What is that smell?” I said, making a disgusted face. I noted now that my arms and face had apparently been slathered with an odious substance which smelled like rotting fish.

  In answer, Quiff pulled a jar from his pack and unscrewed the top, offering it to me.

  The odor coming from it was even worse than what I had already sampled. I drew back in disgust.

  “Why?” I asked.

  He carefully re-closed the jar and put it away.

  “Protecccction,” he answered.

  “From what?”

  All he would say was, “Musssst go.”

  “I still don’t–”

  He pointed to the horses and said nothing.

  I felt dizzy, and then, taking a deep breath, felt stronger. I mounted the horse cart, and we made our way out of that cool spot, and into a stifling and close cave with no light. My companion lit a torch, and the walls, I saw, were covered with a greenish slime.

  I heard a noise behind us.

  “They commmmme,” Quiff said in a hushed tone.

  “Who?”

  In answer, there was an explosion nearby, and the horse drawing our cart was blown to bits.

  The cart itself turned violently to the left, and turned over. Quiff was thrown on top of me. For a moment he was inert, and then he pulled me desperately to my feet.

  “Hurrrrt?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Go thennnn! Followww!”

  He ran, and I ran after him.

  Our other two horses, burdened as they were with our supplies, had only made it fifty yards ahead of us. Their eyes were dilated with fear. I took the reins of one, and Quiff took the other. They were frozen in place, but then Quiff whispered something in their ears, each horse in turn, and they seemed to unfreeze and followed us.

  Behind, there was commotion, and the sound of hissing which grew closer. I glanced back and saw the walls of the tunnel bathed in flickering, glowing light which grew in intensity.

  The hissing grew even louder.

  I turned to speak to Quiff, but he was gone, along with the horses.

  Panic coursed through me as the lights behind drew closer–

  “Heeeere!” Quiff’s voice whispered fiercely, close by me, but I could see nothing but rock wall.

  His hand drew out of the dimness and grabbed my arm, yanking me fiercely into a near-invisible slit in the wall, barely wide enough for a horse to fit.

  I opened my mouth but Quiff’s paw covered it and he snapped into my ear: “Look!”

  I looked out into the tunnel we had vacated as a horde of horrid creatures passed by, sniffing and hissing, holding torches before them as if they were blind. They were vaguely feline, but their heads were naked and gray, elongated, the ears pressed back tightly against the skull. Their bodies were hunched forward and their paws trailed just off the ground, touching now and again in a bobbing motion, as if they could not keep their balance.

  Behind us one of the horses snorted, and the nearest creature swivelled his head in our direction, sniffing, his whiskers twitching. His eyes were as large as soup bowls and flat dead black, without pupil or iris.

  We stood still as statues, and the thing sniffed once more and then went on.

  In a few moments we were alone again.

  Quiff pushed past me and left our hiding spot, and I followed. The horses came along behind us.

  “Who were they?”

  “Cousins,” he said, and then added, “Balllldie cousins.”

  “Those were baldies?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “Worse. And morrre bad ahead.”

  I said nothing, but followed his lead.

  The next three days were uneventful, to the point where I became bored. The steady pace helped strengthen me, and I found that when I arose in the morning I did so with lessening fatigue and more willingness to forge ahead. Quiff promised many strange things to see, and I was eager to get to them.

  Quiff, on the other hand, grew more and more cautious, which should have been a sign to me. But in my eagerness to get to anywhere that wasn’t an underground tunnel I overlooked his hesitancy.

  Which, naturally, almost got me killed.

  On the morning of the third day after our encounter with the Baldy cousins, we broke out into a strange cavern suffused with light. A vague, sulphur smell had assaulted my nostrils for some time, and Quiff insisted that we stop to cover ourselves in the noxious unguent he carried. Between the smell of dead fish and rotting eggs, I was dizzy with nausea when we stumbled out of a cave opening into the cavern.

  I was nearly blinded. It was as if daylight shone in that place – and, indeed, when I looked up I saw, far above, a small round opening that looked to be the sky!

  I turned to Quiff, whose eyes had narrowed. He was studying the edges of the space we were in.

  “Bessst we go,” he said.

  As my eyes grew used to the unaccustomed brightness, I saw that the yellow walls of sulphur cave we were in rose impossibly high to the opening far above us. I saw a pink patch of sky and a scudding cloud.

  It had been real daylight shining down into this place.

  “Where are we, Quiff?”

  “Wassss . . . volcano,” he answered.

  I stared in wonder at that faraway patch of sky, the first I had seen in more than a week.

  I wanted to climb up those sulphur walls and get to it.

  Quiff tugged at my arm as I stood staring upward.

  “Go,” he said.

  Reluctantly, I followed.

  When we reached the far wall of the cavern, and an opening there, Quiff stood stock still, and urged me to do the same.

  “Waitttt,” he whispered, and then he disappeared into the dark opening.

  He was
gone so long that I bent my ear to listen for him. I heard nothing. I took a tentative step into the dark opening.

  “Quiff?” I called out, in a whisper.

  No sound.

  Then: a far-off patter, like someone running.

  I was nearly bowled over by Quiff, who raced out of the darkness past me, his feet carrying him as fast as they could.

  “Runnnnn!” he shouted at me,

  I now saw why: a sea of bullet heads and huge dark eyes swarming toward me from the cave.

  I turned and ran – but as I followed Quiff over the sulphur plain of the cavern, dodging yellow boulders and slippery stretches of sulphur sand, I now saw that the opposite cave opening, from which we had originally emerged, was now filled with swarming underground Baldy bodies.

  Quiff came to a halt, and I beside him.

  “Now what?” I shouted, above the growing din of hissing creatures fanning out behind and before us to encircle us.

  Quiff’s face was blank with fear.

  “Quiff!” I shouted. “Tell me what to do!”

  “Hhhhhope!” he shouted, his head back, looking up.

  I thought he had lost his mind, and all I could do was watch helplessly as the ring of Baldies closed around us.

  “What will they do with us?” I asked.

  “Eeeeeeat!” Quiff answered, still staring upward.

  The hissing creatures drew in.

  And then – I looked up, too, because above us it grew brighter.

  “Yesssss!” Quiff exulted.

  A sudden blinding flash filled the cavern, washing it in brilliant light.

  “Ssssssun!” Quiff shouted, grabbing me. “Runnnn again!”

  I blinked against the blinding light of the sun, which had filled the ancient volcano opening above us, and saw that our attackers had dropped to the ground, covering their eyes and moaning in pain. Following Quiff, we tore through them even as the brilliance behind us began to fade. We reached the far cave opening where our horses waited, and ran into it as the light seemed to blink out behind us.

  The sun, the glorious sun, had moved on – but only after saving us.

  Or almost, I should say. For once again Quiff pulled me into a small opening in the side of the main tunnel, and we watched as the defeated, hissing horde of Baldies, rubbing their eyes and snarling their disappointment in our escape, trooped past us.