by Coral Walker
He stared harder, recalling the dark maze-like layout of the house.
— Are you sure?
“Of course. I used to roam the house with Cici and know every nook and cranny. Except for the West Wing. Lord Shusha’s main residence is there. Cici also has a room, where she spent most of her early childhood. But she never took me there as it was always guarded.”
The gaze shifted upwards, swayed slightly and fastened onto the top level of the wing. Jack saw it. It was the only part of the complex that was fitted with white-framed windows. Behind the double window at the very end, he realized, must be the room where Lizi was.
— I wonder how your sister is getting on.
The thought slipped from his mind.
For a long while, Ornardo made no sound, either audible or through his mind voice. Then all at once he tittered. “How funny that was. Do you remember, Cici,” gleefully he nudged Cici with the elbow, “once we were locked in the cellar and got so thirsty that we drank a lot of the stuff in the barrels and ... and ...”
“And we peed into the barrel,” Cici shrilled before giving in to a fit of giggles.
Ornardo was no longer laughing. Jack felt the soundless sobbing and watched as the tears gathered.
The giggling came to a sharp end. Cici’s face filled the eye frame. “What’s wrong, Ornardo?”
“I am fine.” Ornardo sat up and wiped the eyes dry. “Just the giggles.”
“You looked sad.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? All those days have gone.”
“We can get them back if we try, Ornardo.” She threw her arms around his shoulders and gazed at him with her lustrous eyes.
“Try? Try? After my parents were killed so cruelly. I don’t even know how exactly they were killed. And Lizi, my poor little Lizi is dying over there.” He threw one arm in the direction of the wing.
“Who told you that?” She shrank back, stunned. “Dilea told you, didn’t she?”
“So it’s true. Lizi is dying over there, with all those poor women. What did your father do to them — impregnating those helpless women?”
“She told you too much. No wonder she ran away,” snorted Cici. For a while, she sat rigid with her chest rising and falling rapidly. Then she sighed, and her voice was soft again. “Ornardo, it might sound bad, but think about it. They are either abandoned slaves or mentally disturbed. Don’t you see they are useless, and this is the only way that they can, at least, serve some purpose? They are creating an army, Ornardo, a mighty one with superior soldiers that combine the powers of man and bokwa.”
“What do you mean by combining the powers of man and bokwa? And anyway, aren’t they the Sotans, your father’s crack troops?”
“Sotans are different. They are highly trained but ordinary men. Father calls them bokwa apprentices. They are drilled by grand bokwas in caves. If they stay alive for three moons, they came out as strong and capable soldiers. But father wants more. Sotans, however worthy, are inferior to bokwas. Father wants bokwamen, who can shift at will between the body of a man and the body of a bokwa. They will be the invincible soldiers of the kingdom.”
“Bokwamen are only myths.”
“No, father believes it. He really does.”
“It’s impossible. You can’t impregnate a woman with a bokwa!”
“But father has a way of doing it!”
“How?”
“Well, to be fair, it isn’t father who is capable of doing it, but his Ertharan friends. Father mentioned once that Ertharans can create embryos in the lab that are half-bokwa and half-Taran. I figured that they must somehow implant these embryos into the bodies of those women to impregnate them.”
“So Lizi is going to create a bo ... bokwaman,” muttered Ornardo, swallowing hard. He paused for a while to catch his troubled breath and resumed in a quivering voice, “Any success so far?”
“That’s the problem,” said Cici quickly. “It’s been father’s dream for so long, but so far he hasn’t had any luck. The mother and baby always die during or shortly after the birth. The Ertharans are working hard on it. There might be a change of course ... soon ...” she paused.
“So Lizi will die, like those other women,” moaned Ornardo.
Cici turned, face creased with pity, and touched Ornardo’s cheek with her fingers, “I know how much you care about her, Ornardo. But she is no longer the Lizi you knew. Her mind is all muddled, and she doesn’t even know who she is. She is like nothing.”
“How dare you say Lizi is nothing?” he bellowed all of a sudden, pushing her hand away.
Cici’s face turned pale, and for a while they stared at each other.
“She is, and I’d say it again!” she squealed finally and bounced to her feet. “It’s all about Lizi, isn’t it? The walk, the chat, everything. What about me?” She hit her chest with her palm, and tears started flooding down. “I’m dying too. Ever since you were killed, I have been dying every day. I just want our old days back. I want you back!” With that, she turned, strode up the slope and disappeared beyond the brow of the hill.
+++
Jack lost track of how long Ornardo had been sitting there with his face buried in the hands. He saw his anger and desperation, raging like torrents, and then being suppressed, only to resurface moments later with renewed energy.
A high-pitched scream suddenly pierced through the trees and hedges. It came from the direction Cici had gone in. Before long the scream subsided into broken sobs. Then came another woman’s voice, angry and shrill, before ending abruptly, as if something had suddenly happened to the woman.
Ornardo remained unmoved. It wasn’t until another broken shriek from the second woman rent the air that he sat up, alarmed.
Cici!
At once the body sprang up and lurched into a sprint. Over the slope and down a long flower-edged path it ran until they were face to face with a tall bank verging on a grove of tall trees.
By the foot of the bank two sturdy men jumped out of nowhere and thrust themselves upon him. While Jack focussed solely on the legs, Ornardo ducked down the body and dodged. In a flash, they zigzagged past the men and dashed up the bank. Through the shaking eye frame, Jack caught sight of a woman with a bleeding shoulder and torn clothes leaning against a red-barked tree in the woods below. Whimpering miserably, she clung to her torn garment in a desperate attempt to hold it in place. Following her tearful glance, among the trees he saw two figures tangled together in a desperate struggle. It was only by the scarlet colour of the dress that he could tell straight away that the smaller of the two, who had been thrown to the ground, was Cici. Before she could move, her attacker piled on top of her. What a distinctive physique he had, of no easily recognisable shape, more like a beast in fine cloths than anything he could put a name to.
“Cici!” cried Ornardo, recognizing her at the same time as Jack.
From behind, the two men caught up and seized him by the shoulders. Writhing like a fish, Ornardo set the torso free, and before the men could recover themselves, Jack got the legs under control and leaped.
It would have been a good jump back home, but here it was a magnificent, flying leap.
The problem wasn’t apparent until they were high in the air — Ornardo, who hadn’t anticipated such a high jump, lagged behind with the torso disoriented and arms flailing. Nevertheless, the body flew, or rather hurtled, through the air. It passed the sobbing woman and some trees, missed by an inch a flat-topped rock and smashed heavily onto the ground in a tangled heap.
Ornardo was utterly stunned — if only Jack could see the face. Although the landing was clumsy, they managed to scramble up unharmed, partly because of Ornardo’s timely recovery from his bewilderment.
Seeing their landing, the beast-in-clothing snarled without letting go of his prey. Without delay, they jumped onto him, hands clutching the hunch on his back, pushing and pulling in vain to get him off Cici.
The beast turned, revealing his contorted face.
At once Orna
rdo let loose the grip, much to Jack’s bafflement, and stumbled backwards, shrinking with fear. Slowly the beast-in-clothing rose to his feet, waving his muscular arms in a menacing gesture, and approached them.
— Fight! Fight!
Jack shouted and, to his dismay, felt trapped as if an invisible hand were pinning him down. He couldn’t even move the legs.
The neck was grasped, and the body was lifted off the ground.
— Punch him in the face! Fight, Ornardo!
He screeched, begging.
“It is ... Prince ... Mapolos ... the King’s son. We ... we ... should never fight with a ... King’s ... son.”
Ornardo’s guttural voice was interposed between rushed gasps. As the voice grew weaker, so did the invisible hand that was holding him in place.
“Not my king,” Jack screeched in his mind voice before he gathered all his strength and kicked the beastly prince between his legs. He heard the thunderous howl and felt the tightened squeeze on the neck. The next instant, he was flying headlong towards the flat-topped rock.
There was a dull sound as he crashed into the rock. The head missed it by a couple of inches, but the shoulder smashed into its jagged edge. Ornardo gave a sharp cry, and the body cringed in agony. The pain must have been severe judging from how the body writhed. But Jack felt nothing. It irked him profoundly to see Ornardo suffering from the pain that he should be enduring.
The approach of the two sturdy men was unexpected. Jumping upon him, they showered him with heavy blows. He heard Ornardo’s harrowing groans and Cici’s piercing screams, and tried, to no avail, to kick back, only to be pinned down helplessly on the leaf-carpeted ground.
He gazed at the red sky between the foliage. A loud hollow thump by the ear and the sky turned black.
18
The Soul Eater
Jack was woken suddenly by a commotion next to him. For a moment, he was lost, not sure where he was. The noise drifted in — a girl’s wailing and muttering for mercy; a succession of air-splitting lashes each followed by an anguished yell. He focused on the legs, intending to get them moving, but to no avail. All he managed to achieve was to clink the chains on his ankles.
He was confined by shackles between two wooden posts. He remembered being taken to the cobbled yard, which was busy then with household workers. In the middle of the yard stood a low platform on which were three pairs of wooden posts with chains and shackles. He was chained to the last pair on the left, and the other two were occupied by a young red-faced slave girl and a thin, stooped, blue-skinned male servant.
The platform was called the “Hot Bun Stand”. Ornardo had told him. One of the amusements that Ornardo and Cici had enjoyed in days past was to come here to watch the housemaids been whipped. It was called the “Morning Toast Assembly”, a name matching that of the platform, and the spectacle took place the first thing every morning. All the household workers, including slaves, would be summoned to the yard to watch the “assembly”, and on most occasions, Lord Shusha himself would be present to see the floggings carried out.
Jack sneered when he heard what it was called — the Morning Toast Assembly — too cheerful a name belying its real purpose. In addition to that, for him the word “assembly” was inextricably linked to the Assembly that took place at his school in the early morning of every Thursday, an ordeal made tedious by the headmaster’s prolonged sermon and the dreary, monotonous singing of the choirboys and choirgirls.
At least it wouldn’t be boring, he thought.
So that’s it, the Morning Toast Assembly, which was what the commotion was — they were flogging the slave girl who was, by now, wailing uncontrollably.
The body jerked, and Jack was blinded suddenly by beams of light. Ornardo was waking up, and the eye frame was still blurred. Then the eyes took in the gathered crowd before shifting to the figures in the front row. In large square chairs, Lord Shusha was seated shoulder to shoulder with Prince Mapolos, while Cici, her eyes red and swollen, stood next to Lord Shusha. Still in her bright red dress, she looked as frail as a china doll.
Their eyes met and, startled at the sudden encounter, they looked away awkwardly. Jack could feel the agony burning in Cici’s eyes.
Ornardo’s wandering gaze shifted to the remote horizon momentarily, and an overwhelming feeling of loneliness gripped Jack’s mind. He heard the sound of the next thrashing and the stubborn silence of the stooped man. There was a brief lull before he heard the heavy footfalls of a man striding close and the sound of the whip cracking in the air near his ear. He wriggled uncomfortably and called with the mind voice.
— Ornardo, the man is going to thrash us.
“Are you scared?” came the reply.
— No.
He retorted and would have rolled his eyes up if his mind had had control of them.
— I am not. Why should I be? I won’t feel a trace of pain. It will be you who suffers.
“It’s only for show. He won’t hit me.”
— How do ...
Before he could finish, the blood-stained whip whistled past the eyes and cracked by the left shoulder. The eyes shut, and the body recoiled with a jerk. Before the body had time to recover, the whip headed back and cracked loudly once more by the other shoulder. The body jerked again thrusting the head to its left. The audience laughed as if watching a light drama. The big man stared at his face with a wide grin and took out a rag to wipe the whip.
— How do you know it’s just for show?
“Because Cici is here. She won’t let me get hurt.”
— So that’s it, all part of a drama. All finished.
“No ...” an anguished groan escaped the throat, “Do you see it, the thing Cici is holding to her chest ... It’s ... it’s the ... bug.”
+++
Ornardo had never thought of dying, not even at the moment when he was killed. It’s strange that he should be scared now, long after his death.
The women and men had dispersed to get on with their chores. The big man with the whip left too. The yard became almost deserted. There was only Cici, Lord Shusha, Prince Mapolos and the giant man Putu remaining. Lord Shusha and Prince Mapolos were still absorbed in a cosy conversation. The intimacy between the old man and the young prince was palpable. For as long as he could remember, it had always struck him as odd that Lord Shusha should allow the Prince to roam his residency at will as if he were his own son. When he mentioned this to Cici, she became evasive and irritable, as if the topic was most disagreeable.
“Let’s start, Cici.” Lord Shusha said rising from his chair. He extended an arm, which Cici held onto. She looked pale and delicate, but nevertheless, carried herself with poise and grace — you wouldn’t often see her faltering.
At Lord Shusha’s gesture, Putu strode forward and opened his broad, meaty palms to reveal a shimmering, sharp-edged dagger. Cici shook her head at the sight of it and drew out a small dagger with a jewelled hilt from her inner pocket. The dagger, he recognised, had belonged to her dead mother whom she had never seen.
With the dagger flat on her open hands, she stepped up to the platform and stood a yard away from him, her face tight, her breath shallow. She shot him a fleeting glance before kneeling down. In a conspicuous manner, she laid the dagger on the floor, and next to it, the glass box, in which the large-pincered Ginata was crouching as still as a carved stone. With her head bent low and hands clutched to her chest, she started murmuring. Immediately the murmuring was backed up by rattling sounds from Lord Shusha’s lips. The sound was eerie and incomprehensible, like one might hear from the undergrowth while walking alone in a wood in complete darkness.
Gazing down, he could see her hair glimmering in the crisp morning light and her long, slender neck curved elegantly. For a moment, he seemed to feel it again — the softness of the hair and the smoothness of her skin.
The rattling stopped. Her head lifted, and her eyes lingered on his face, gazing softly. A faint smile curved her lips as she lowered her head again a
nd took up the knife. With a slight flinch, she slashed across a fingertip and watched the blood oozing out. When a sizeable drop of blood had formed, she swiftly flipped open the glass box and dropped the bead of blood into it. Just as quickly the lid was flipped shut.
With a jerk of its pincers the bug woke, responding to the smell of the blood. Right away it crawled over and sucked the blood hungrily. As it did so, a high-pitched squeak sounded from somewhere in its body, and in accompaniment its shell segments fluttered in a waving fashion. When its head rose, it broke into a frantic dance as if the blood were fermenting within its body and its taste awoke an unquenchable thirst for more.
Cici stood up, raising the box over her head. The rattling sound returned to Lord Shusha’s lips.
— Ornardo, Ornardo.
He heard Jack’s mind voice, sounding small and remote.
— I miss a good thrashing.
“Me too,” he answered in silence and gave away to a wry smile.
— I think I should let you know — my name is Jack Goodman. I came from Earth.
“I know that already.”
— If by any chance, you see Brianna Goodman and Bo Goodman, tell them I am sorry ...
There was a pause.
— and ... I love them.
“How about Prince Marcus and Princess Zelda, your parents?”
He felt Jack’s bewilderment — astonished that he knew that as well. Of course he knew, Jack’s mind was never far from thoughts of his parents. So many times, it had lingered on the moment when he had met Prince Marcus in the arena and revived the bitter shock and the profound sense of loss when the realization hit him — his own father could no longer remember him.
“You know,” Ornardo closed the eyes, “if you ever walk out of the front gate of the castle, follow the big path ahead and you will see an unmarked tomb with a narrow yellow path behind. Follow the yellow path, no matter how much the thorny brambles overgrow the path, or how steep or stony the path becomes. Follow it until you see a large house with a pretty garden. At the edge of the garden, there is an old willow tree, near which, is an old well.”
