As Zak stooped into his line of vision a frown crossed over the haggard face. For a moment, his gaze shifted to Zak, but he wasn’t really looking at him—rather, through him.
“Zon?” Zak’s voice was husky.
Other than a flinch, the old man did not register the comment.
“Zon?” Aimee whispered, crouching down alongside Zak.
“My father’s name.”
“Oh.” It dismayed her that there was no reaction to the word. Perhaps this was a stranger. Maybe a family friend.
She reached into her belt to extract the vial.
“What’s that?”
Aimee saw Gordy’s shadow just before he spoke.
“It is a serum to counter the effects of the solar ray.”
“Wow. I didn’t know you had that on you.”
The accusation in his voice waned as he leaned in with interest.
Zak extended a clay mug towards her, mouthing, “Just a little.”
She swiveled the vial and felt the suction release. The liquid was odorless, yet it produced the impact of smelling salts when she held it beneath her nose. Tears welled in her eyes as blood surged into her head. Pinpricks of sensation assaulted her scalp and heat flushed her cheeks....all from the scent of an odorless liquid.
“That packs a punch.” She backed the vial away.
“Packs a punch—” Zak repeated and shook his head, holding the cup up to her.
She reached over and tipped the capsule so guardedly, that only a drop or two slipped out. Simultaneously, they glanced into the base of the cup, their heads colliding.
“Okay,” Zak smiled, “maybe a little bit more.”
The equivalent of half of a shot glass was poured. Zak offered the cup to the man. He stared at it, his eyes narrowing. Perhaps he wasn’t that far gone. Looking to Zak for affirmation, Zak nodded his encouragement.
Tremulous hands reached around the cup as Aimee noticed scars scoring the fingers. As all watched in expectation, he lifted the clay mug to his lips, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. There was a slight jerk of his shoulders. His eyes widened enough that a white halo eclipsed the dark pupils, and then his expression fell back into submission as he shook the cup and held it up, looking for more.
“Must be good stuff,” Gordy inserted.
Poised in anticipation, Aimee watched as the man blinked like he had a hair caught in his eye. Rocking in place, he hugged his knees up tight against his chest.
“I don’t think it’s working,” she said, dismayed.
Zak stepped back. “I think we need to give the poor man some room.”
Gordy took a step away.
“No, I mean, we need to leave him alone. We’re crowding him. When Raja was first tinkering with this serum she too thought that it didn’t work, but the patient took a—” he hesitated, recalling the translation, “—a day before signs were exhibited.”
“Oh,” Aimee backed up. Well, what had she expected, instant recognition? A dramatic reunion of father and son?
As she looked at this bedraggled man, could she even detect any correlation in lineage? His dark brown hair, albeit infused with gray, was similar to Zak’s, but then again, everyone in this land possessed dark hair of some variety. This man’s eyes, speckled with cataracts from the solar ray were chocolate in color, whereas Zak’s were—well, Zak’s were like looking into the two suns of Ziratak. Gold. Bright. Beautiful. The facial structure might be similar, but many men had strong jawlines and high cheekbones. This man had not smiled. If he had exhibited that same cleft under his cheek, then she would have felt more confident.
Sluggish, she trailed after Zak, but kept glancing over her shoulder at the stranger. He had stopped rocking, and now seemed fascinated with his hands as he held them up and wiggled them like newfound toys.
Work! Raja will be so upset if it doesn’t.
“Aimee,” Zak’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Time will tell. For now, you and Gordy need to eat.”
Oh no. Local cuisine. It had taken her forever to get used to the food aboard the Horus. What did Ziratak have in store for her?
* * *
“This one is too skinny,” Zuttah boomed, waving his hand at Aimee.
Zak followed his glance and tended to agree. Aimee’s legs looked long and sleek in the shimmering blue pants. The pants were a new design for the Horus, a contemporary take on the outfit Aimee had initially boarded the ship with.
“What is that?” Aimee leaned towards the fire and wrinkled her nose at the pot of Zull milk suspended across the flame.
What would be her translation?
“Pudding,” Zak decided.
“Did we skip dinner and go straight to dessert?”
“We’re going out to the desert?” Gordy’s head popped up from his cross-legged squat on the floor. “It’s dark out.”
“Dessert.” Aimee enunciated. “It is the meal that comes after dinner—or the meal that comes after sumpum and crup.”
“Bah,” Zuttah scoffed, “we used to have crup when we had fields, but those walking stacks of boulders killed the river, and the fields dried up. So now—” he nodded at the metal bowl, “—you get—pudding.”
Aimee leaned in, sniffing. “For the record, I like pudding.”
“Let us all rejoice.” Zuttah laughed. “It is good to see smiling faces around my fire. I am so used to this sour man.” He tipped his nose at Zak.
Zak grinned.
“You show up, Aimee—” Zuttah ladled some of the viscous liquid into a smaller bowl, “—and Zak is smiling again. That makes me happy.”
In the firelight, Aimee’s hair glowed. Her profile beamed. She reached for the small bowl, and slipped a spoonful of pudding between her lips, her head bobbing as she gushed, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
Zuttah beamed, his fuzzy beard looking like a pair of wings stuck to his face.
So attuned with Aimee’s every move, Zak noticed when she grew alert. An animal of prey, her head elevated slightly and her eyes slid to scan her periphery. She caught his glance and gave a slight nod.
Behind him.
Zak curled his fingers around a handful of dirt before chancing a look over his shoulder.
The old man was on his feet, staggering towards them. He appeared disoriented, but that made him no less dangerous. A mad man bore the strength of ten civil men.
Zak’s muscles tensed. He swiveled and rose, making sure Aimee was behind him.
With the dirt still cupped in his fist, he addressed the rebel.
“Are you okay? Are you hungry?”
In the reflection of the flames Zak swore he saw a glimpse of clarity in the shadowed eyes. It jolted him. Something about that look...
Standing immobile, the man drew himself up from his slouched posture. He stared hard at Zak and asked with hoarse sincerity, “Do I know you?”
That grasp for reality tore at Zak. This was someone perched on a precipice. Insanity and damnation lay on one side, while enlightenment beckoned on the other.
“No. I am Zak. I am here to help you. To help all of us.” He extended his arm to the curious stares of others who sat huddled in groups along the cave walls.
“Zak.” The man tested the word. He blinked and swayed slightly before righting himself.
“What name do you go by?” Zak asked.
Dry lips parted and then clamped shut. Dark eyebrows dipped together as the man stared at the floor before lifting his head.
Zak realized in that second that he was staring into lucid eyes.
“Zon.”
A man who bore the name of his father.
“My name is Zon.” He spoke in the native language. This time the voice was stronger and his shoulders were drawn back in challenge. There was a flicker in his gaze, the talons of doubt and insecurity attempting to haul him back to the land of the damned. But the man blinked hard to abate them.
“You—” he searched Zak’s face, “—your name is Zak, you say?”
Zak fel
t Aimee’s hand against the small of his back, a silent signal that she was there for him. It pained him how much that tender gesture meant.
“Yes,” his voice was husky. He cleared his throat.
The man studied him a moment. “I had a son named Zak.”
Strength fled Zak’s knees, but he focused on the soft touch on his back.
“That’s not a common name on Ziratak,” he mentioned. “Where is he—your son?”
Pain lanced the dark eyes. “Dead.” He shook his head and then raised his hand to it as if the pain of a thousand swords assaulted him. “My family—the Korons—”
Zak nodded in sympathy, but did not reach for him.
“How did you come by your name?” Zon asked with another frown, lowering his arm.
“My father gave it to me. He told me—” Zak swallowed, “—he told me that it was the name of a monarch in a story his mother used to read to him.”
Zon’s eyes turned red as water pooled in them. “That’s impossible,” he rasped. “My mother read me the tale of the great monarch, Zak, who lived high on the mountaintops in a temple—”
“—made from the color of the suns,” Zak injected. “The suns, Zot and Zor once connected, and a shower of fire fell onto the mountaintop and Zak was born—”
“—in his temple made of stars, where he tried to lure the beautiful snow goddess—”
“Zari,” Zak barely voiced the word.
In that moment, Zak was acutely aware of the silence. Even the flames seemed to suspend in anticipation.
“It cannot be,” Zon took a tentative step forward, his hand outstretched—not necessarily to connect, but almost to ward off, as if Zak was a demon.
“When I was five rotations,” Zak recited, his voice now void of emotion, “my parents told me and my sister to stay down in the cellar because a dust storm was coming. They told us not to open the latch unless we recognized their voices.”
Zon’s body trembled. A tear spilled onto his cheek, drawing a path in the dust caked there. He parted his lips to speak, but shook his head in frustration at the inability to do so.
Zak continued. “Someone came to the latch and Zari lifted it. She was—” such beautiful, sparkling dust, “—disintegrated on impact.”
Plunging to his knees, Zon dipped his face into his hands.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Zak proceeded, trying to remain indifferent. “So, I listened to her last command. She instructed me to hide under the table against the back wall.”
“My workbench,” Zon croaked, his voice muffled. “I was building you a model terra duster to ride around in.”
That news rattled Zak, but he continued. “I stayed under there for several days I am told...until the Horus showed up and attacked the Korons. They said that I was the only life-form to register on their sensors. How can that be?” his voice cracked. “How did they not find the others? You survived. I know others survived. Did my—mother—?”
Zon dropped his hands and stared up with bloodshot eyes. “We had very little warning about the attack. It was speculation more than anything,” he hesitated, “They called an emergency meeting in the town hall.”
Zak vaguely recalled the grand building with pillars and wide steps stacked high along the river. He had seen a theatre presentation there once. A performance with puppets.
The hall was gone now—reduced to rubble—just like everything else.
“Though they didn’t believe the attack was imminent, I was not going to leave my children’s welfare to chance. I wanted to make sure they stayed underground and safe until we returned. With them secured, Zonda and I hurried to the town hall to hear the latest news. We had not even made it to the grand steps when the first ship struck. I watched as the couple before us were charred into black shadows on the staircase—permanent ashen stamps of their existence. Another beam immediately spiked the ground beside me.”
He paused, rubbing his eyes. Zak could not bring himself to offer solace. Paralyzed by confusion, he stood and waited.
In time, Zon looked up into the fire and continued in a hollow tone. “I put my arm around Zonda to shield her, and to encourage her up the steps. If we could just make it into the hall we would be safe—” He faded for a moment. “A ray struck from above, knocking both of us to our knees. At that moment, over the chaos in the sky, I could hear the march of the Korons. They emerged from behind the rotunda, flanking it on both sides. They just began firing at anything that moved.”
Zon shook his head. “I—I grabbed Zonda and dragged her up the stairs and into the Great Hall. It was pandemonium in there. People screaming, crying, bleeding. It was complete madness. Yet, we had a goal. If we could make it behind the altar, there was an underground passage concealed there.”
There was?
Zak frowned trying to recall the wreckage of the Great Hall. He had sifted through the debris once, but it had been in an attempt to locate life. There was no life in that pile. Just as there was no life in all the mounds dotting the shores of the Zargoll.
“Finally, we reached the altar and started down the ladder just as the Korons blasted through the front doors. Not many of us made it to the tunnel. Most were still outside. We had to—” he swallowed, “—we had to close the hatch—and there was no way for the others to open it from the altar. Even the Korons tried to blast their way through it, but our architects had fabricated the door of an impenetrable composite, similar to the composite used in our very own hatch at home.”
The very same hatch Zari had innocently opened, expecting to find their parents.
“Adrenaline kept me moving,” Zon explained, now sounding very lucid. “I was so focused on getting us deeper into that tunnel—distancing ourselves from danger—getting us back to our children.”
A new crop of tears filled the man’s eyes. “That was when I realized that I was dragging my wife. At first, I thought she was leaning on me for support, but at some point she had stopped leaning and her feet failed her. I was so consumed with moving—” his fist curled up, “—I didn’t even notice. I stopped and eased her down onto the ground, against the tunnel wall. It was dark down there, with only sporadic lighting. We were in a thick patch of shadows, so I couldn’t see her wounds. I looked up—searching for anyone to help, but they had all charged on ahead. Behind us lie darkness and the portent of danger.”
Zon looked directly into Zak’s eyes and Zak felt a tug of recollection. Yes. Those eyes had gazed down upon him before. He remembered them now…but they were never filled with this angst that tore at his soul. In his heart, he knew the conclusion to this tale.
“Zak—” Tears spilled, dripping down onto dry lips. “Your mother died right there—in those shadows—with no one around. She deserved so much better. She deserved to watch her children grow old.”
Zon sat back on his heels. “I carried her out of that tunnel. I wanted to bring her back home. I wanted our family to be together again—but I emerged to a wasteland. Our home was gone. I tried to get back to it, but I was blocked by the Koron troops. I had to—” The composure he had struggled so hard for now collapsed, and his voice cracked. “I carried Zonda all the way to the foothills. I did not want to bury her in the desert. The desert had become their land. Zonda always liked the foothills. She liked the brush of grass against her bare feet, and the sound of the wind through the trees…”
His words faded.
Zak envisioned the foothills, where the heat of the desert collided with the chill of the mountains to produce a lush perimeter, an area that was seasonally beautiful, but where the winds could crop up and shear exposed flesh. That was Ziratak now. A dramatic land of paradox.
“The Korons had moved further down the Zargoll,” Zon broke into Zak’s thoughts, “and I finally made it back to what was left of our house.”
There was nothing left of their villa. Even as he was being pulled from that cellar hatch as a child, Zak saw what remained above-ground. Once a two-story manor with impressive pillars sus
pending a grand wrap-around balcony, all that endured was a chunk of a Doric-styled column.
“It was all gone,” Zon confirmed. “I found the hatch, but my children—you, were gone. Can you tell me?” he pleaded. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Zak glanced around. Every set of eyes he met jerked away. Silence prevailed, a milieu of curiosity and sympathy amplifying the snap of the fire. Its heat warmed his back as did the small hand still resting there.
Stepping up to the man stooped on the dirt, Zak cupped his shoulder, feeling the protrusion of bone. He squeezed. “Come,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter Eleven
Perched high on the precipice overlooking the thin scar of the Zargoll, Zak sat with his hand folded over his eyes. The suns were rising and their illuminated fingers pointed at him as if to alert the Korons, here he is. Pain from their persistent digits stabbed him. He closed his eyes and listened to the cry of the wind as it scurried around the mountain in a vicious chase of its own tail. Over its wicked peal, he heard the tread approach. This was not the lumbering gait of the rock creatures. This was the light, but confident march of a female. A female who had curled up against him in slumber for the past few hours. He could still feel the warm imprint of her body.
Zak’s lip hefted into a quick grin. In Aimee’s usual obstinate manner, she had refused to leave his side, and could care less what others thought if she lay next to him. Holding her had been absolute divinity, and for as troubled as his thoughts were, for those few hours he slept the best he had in half a ren. He wanted more of her, though. More than just that slumberous embrace. Yes, he wanted what came with bonding, the testimony her people referred to as marriage. It was a lifetime commitment. Would she want that with a damaged man?
The brush of boot against rock, followed by patient silence inspired him to look up. Fiery hair, aglow from the rising suns cast that shower of diamonds upon him again. This was how he had seen her. Now he wondered if all this time it was his failing eyesight...or a prophecy.
“Good morning,” she whispered in deference to the silence.
Beyond : Series Bundle (9781311505637) Page 35
