Forts Special Edition: Fathers and Sons

by Steven Novak

  As was generally the case with all things, when a plateau had been reached, there was nowhere else to go but down. History had shown that the denizens of fate had little patience for perfection, preferring an existence that could not be so easily classified, quantified or understood. For the Fillagrou people, the end to the perfection that had been their lives came in the form of a King, the evil King Kragamel of the dark war world known as Ocha.

  In the time before King Kragamel had risen to become the tyrant ruler over not only the world of Ocha, but the whole of the universe, he was a simple, unassuming Prince, the son of a King who held sway over a small but powerful piece of land near the vast eastern sea. The control of trade routes across this sea had given the King great power, despite the somewhat diminutive size of his empire. As the only son and single heir to the throne, the life of the young Prince had been harsh. By no means whatsoever had the King treated his son with kid gloves. In fact, it had been his firm belief that the only way to prepare the boy to one day reign over his empire was to take him to his breaking point, and then just a bit further. Cruel, unnecessarily harsh punishments had hardened the boy, teaching him the dark truths about existence that few had ever been able, or willing to recognize. The King had firmly believed that the greatest of rulers were not so much born, as they were bred. The young Prince would be made into a King, whether he liked it or not.

  Not many years later the King would die rather unceremoniously in his bed with only his son at his side. No less than an hour later, the young Prince became the young King. It was by sheer accident that the newly crowned King happened upon a discovery that would change his life from that point forward and allow him to extend the reach of his family’s empire far beyond what his father could ever had imagined.

  During the construction of a massive, elaborately decorated mausoleum meant to house the ashes of his father, the new King had ventured into a newly exposed hidden passageway buried deep in the earth which exited into another world. This was a world unlike anything he had ever seen. It was a world covered almost exclusively by an enormous red forest seemingly without end. Calling the forest home and taking up residence atop the trees were a simple, harmless race of stark white beings known as the Fillagrou. These simple creatures knew nothing of war or hatred, or empires. The young King had recognized that this new world would easily fall under the might of his army.

  An entire world brimming with endless untapped resources was ripe for the picking. Like a helpless flower growing out of the soft grass it waited to be plucked, and pluck it he would.

  King Kragamel had returned to Ocha and immediately ordered that the passageway be widen so that it was large enough for the entire army to pass through. The very moment the digging had finished, the invasion began.

  The actual takeover of Fillagrou had taken little time at all. The Fillagrou people were unaccustomed to violence of any kind and because of this had been completely unprepared to defend their homes. Like cattle, millions had been slaughtered as the King’s armies killed anything and everything within reach of their blades. Enormous sections of the vast forest were reduced to little more than ash, leaving those who had managed to survive the army’s onslaught homeless, forcing them underground. Those unable to escape to the safety of the new world below had been sold into slavery. Some had become the King’s servants, while others had been used for hard labor and were worked to the point of near death.

  Every square inch of the red forest had been laid to waste but in the process the King’s men stumbled onto yet another doorway, leading to yet another world. Soon after that, another had been discovered, after that, another still. Each new world had presented the tyrant King with a new opportunity to further expand his empire. More importantly, each conquered world had provided new slaves, new soldiers, new beasts of burden, new weapons and an endless number of exotic riches. Sooner than you might think possible, the King’s dark army had smothered the whole of reality like a great pestilence, choking it to near extinction and bending it to his will.

  Ninety-nine worlds had been discovered, ninety-nine worlds had been conquered and more dead than numbers dare count.

  Many refugees from the other fallen worlds had fled to Fillagrou, seeking to join its people in the safety of their hidden underground cities. Their existence would be a meager one - harsh, unforgiving and miserable – but it would be existence nonetheless.

  Tired of hiding in haphazardly constructed underground tunnels, and pushed to the point of insanity by the atrocities against his people, a great Fillagrou prophet Elder by the name of Nelvo had ventured into the King’s newly constructed castle in western Fillagrou and demanded an audience. After having first been beaten to within an inch of his life by the guards, he was dragged into King Kragamel’s chambers and tossed at the tyrant’s boots. Despite having more limbs broken than remained unbroken, Nelvo had forced himself to his feet, stared directly into the eyes of the King and made a prophecy though the mass of busted flesh and shattered bone that was his face.

  “When all hope is lost and only one of the one hundred worlds remains to be discovered, five who bleed the color of the forest itself will arrive. The grounds will shake, the clouds will open, and a great war will commence. The Five will lead an army to the fortress walls in the land of darkness and send the evil back to where it belongs. Five will arrive but four will return…The Five to save us all.”

  The enraged King rose from his throne and had strangled the life from Nelvo with his bare hands. At first he had seen no reason to take the Elder’s words as anything other than the ravings of a lunatic, but at the very same time he had never been able to forget them.

  With his vast army at its absolute strongest, King Kragamel left the land of Fillagrou in the hands of his only son, Prince Valkea, and returned to Ocha where his now unstoppable army made short work of each and every remaining family enemy. Had his father lived to see this moment, he would no doubt have been filled with great pride. The tyrant King Kragamel had accomplished more than his father dreamt possible. His family’s name was feared throughout not only Ocha, but ninety-nine other worlds as well. He had accomplished everything he had set out to do and now found himself holding the fate of the universe in the palm of his hand.

  For King Kragamel everything was good and perfect and wonderful, but as fate has shown us time and time again, it has little patience for such things.

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  CHAPTER 15

  THE GREAT KING WALCOTT SHELLAMENNES

  *

  Owen Little grabbed a handful of grass and dirt and used it to tug himself out of the muddy water. Lying on his stomach he took a moment to catch his breath and spit the remaining liquid from his lungs. Still feeling a bit woozy, he was unsure exactly what had happened prior to waking with lungs full of dark, muddy water. In fact, the last thing he could remember was running toward the stream in an attempt to find out what happened to the brown-haired girl who had fallen in only moments ago. After that, nothing. When he next opened his eyes he was underwater and drowning. Common sense told him that he must have slipped, fallen, bonked his head and rolled into the stream. The very idea - while plausible considering his complete lack of coordination - sounded so embarrassing and stupid that he found it difficult to even entertain the possibility.

  With his face smeared against the dirty forest floor, Owen was jolted back to reality after hearing the sound of a girl screaming somewhere off in the distance. Looking toward his left, he noticed the very same brown haired girl that had fallen into the stream. Sitting next to her, wrapped up tightly in her arms was a little boy. The two were pressed up against the leg of a dark gray beast so enormous in size that the top of its body disappeared into the dust clouds high above the trees. The creature’s massive head was only inches from the girl’s screaming face, sniffing at her soaking wet body.

  A sudden jolt of fear traveled to the very tips of Owen’s limbs and he quickly, yet silently lowered himself down into the water. O
nly his eyes were visible as he watched the bizarre situation play out before him. It was like something from a science fiction film rather than reality. The moment the giant creature’s head retreated back into the clouds, Owen got his first good look at the two terrified figures and instantly recognized them both.

  The girl with the brown hair was Staci Andrews. Owen had known Staci since kindergarten, though it was unlikely that she ever noticed him. Staci was pretty and popular, more often than not surrounded by a wealth of friends at school, while Owen could count the people he considered friends with one hand and still have enough fingers left over to hold a pencil. He had never seen Staci with anything but a smile on her face and a hop in her step. She seemed to live the kind of life he quietly envied, though he would vehemently deny it if ever asked. Now, with a torrential rain of tears cascading down her cheeks, she barely resembled the girl Owen had watched with a strange fascination from afar for so long.

  The small boy sitting next to her was Nicky Jarvis. He did not know Nicky quite as well as he knew his older brother Tommy, but he had seen the boy around school several times when they were younger. Nicky Jarvis was known mostly for the fact that he never spoke a word, and was often spotted getting picked on in the schoolyard because of it. Despite being in different grades, and never having been formally introduced, Owen believed he had some things in common with the boy.

  Raising his mouth ever so slightly out of the water to take another breath, he quickly lowered himself back down to avoid being noticed. A large group of armored men floated down from atop the gigantic monster with all the precision of a swat team invading an enemy bunker. Owen was completely submerged when he started to swim.

  None of what he had seen made any sense. Things like this did not exist – things like this could not exist.

  He had to be dreaming or imagining it or something. If he was not dreaming, and everything that he saw was actually happening, he wanted to get as far away as possible. Staci was a pretty girl, but pretty girl or not, she was going to have to fend for herself. His idea was to swim back to where he came from and get the help of someone more capable – which was just about anyone.

  The water was pitch-black. It was nearly impossible to tell in which direction he was swimming. Down quickly became up, and up became down when moving wildly through the murky drink. Left and right were concepts that no longer had meaning. Spotting something resembling light, he kicked his legs with all his might and started swimming toward it. When he lifted his head out of the water again, he realized almost instantly that he was right back where he had started.

  Off in the distance, two beefy armored men held both Nicky and Staci while they attached themselves to cables dangling from the back of the monstrous creature; they quickly disappeared into the sky - taking the screaming children with them. His heart raced and his brain did back flips inside his skull as Owen dove once again into the puddle.

  A moment later his drenched head emerged in the exact same spot.

  The giant creature and the armored solders were gone. Somewhere off in the distance he could hear the thunderous feet of the gigantic monster shattering trees with every step. As he pulled himself out of the water, he struggled to fight back an onslaught of tears. Not only was he stuck in this weird red forest, but he had not done anything to help Staci or Nicky. He was useless, pathetic, alone and ashamed.

  “Now, now, my boy. Don’t get too down on yourself.”

  The voice came from somewhere behind him but Owen was not sure exactly from which direction. Without thinking, he sat up, rolled back toward the water and started to lower himself once again into the puddle - still praying beyond all logic that it might prove a viable means of escape.

  “Wait, wait, where are you running to, boy? There’s no need to be scared.”

  Half-submerged, the terrified boy frantically looked in every direction, but saw nothing.

  “You’re not the only one here who sat idly by and did nothing, my boy.” About fifteen feet away from the puddle, a large green rock began to move; it twisted ever so slightly as two stumpy, three-fingered arms popped out of either side. Once it was standing on its end, a pair of equally stumpy legs extended from its base just as a dirty greenish-brown head popped from the top. Fully erect, the creature resembled a turtle, though it was roughly the size of a grown man. The massive thing seemed to move in slow motion, weighed down by its thick, heavy shell. It moved so slowly that it looked almost painful. The eyes on either side of its wrinkly face opened, staring solemnly at Owen.

  “I remember a time when I would have made every last one of those fiends taste the steely resolve of my blade,” the creature muttered in a slow, almost shameful voice. “But ah…that seems so long ago now.”

  From a very old looking leather belt around its exceptionally wide waistline, the turtle man pulled a small knife out of its sheath. Moving it close to his face, he stared sadly at it. Owen stared at the creature with a look of utter horror on his face, not quite believing what he was seeing.

  Returning the knife to its place, the lumbering turtle man moved in his direction. “Pleased to make your acquaintance boy, I am King Walcott Shellamennes, the son of former King Waldorf Shellamennes, the current King of the Tycarian people, the holder of the sacred cup of Peladrov and the keeper of the great Mud Chalice.” Having finished naming his accomplishments, King Walcott slowly extended his three-fingered paw to Owen, a crooked smile on his wrinkled face. “And who might you be?”

  Owen hesitated as he looked at the flat wide hand dripping with a layer of thick dirty slime.

  “My boy, if you choose not to greet me properly, I will be forced to take it as an insult to the very throne of Tycaria and strike you down where you float.”

  Though Owen believed he could easily outrun the bizarre turtle man if he had to, he figured it best not to tempt fate and carefully shook the creature’s goop-covered paw.

  Half confused, half terrified, he managed to mutter, “Hi, umm…I’m Owen Little…son of …umm…Mack…and the keeper of…I don’t know, books, and stuff…I guess.”

  King Walcott gripped the boy’s hand tightly, shaking it up and down. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Owen. You have a grip worthy of a warrior.”

  “Thanks…I think.” Owen responded, his teeth clattering as he tried to hide his obvious discomfort.

  Grabbing hold of Owen’s hand with both of his, King Walcott pulled the boy’s soaked form from the water. “Here, let me help you out of that puddle, my boy. A dirty old puddle is no place for one with a handshake such as yours. You know, now that I’ve had the opportunity to see you close up, I don’t believe I’ve ever come across one of your race in my travels. Tell me…what world do you call home?”

  Owen shivered as a cold breeze sailed in from above the trees, sending a chill down the back of his neck. He replied with some confusion, “I dunno…Earth, I guess.”

  “Earth, you say? Hmm, never heard of it. Ah well, I suppose it matters not where either of us once called home, Owen Little. We’re all brothers now, are we not? We are all orphans as a result of the evil deeds carried out by the nefarious King Kragamel and his wicked offspring.”

  Owen had no idea what the strange turtle man was babbling about, but it did not matter. He was barely listening anyway. The bizarreness of the situation had pushed him into a state of silent unbelieving. One minute he had witnessed Staci Alexander drown, and the next he was talking to a nearly seven foot tall turtle with something vaguely resembling an English accent.

  Nothing he could say would ever quite do any of it justice.

  Tired of watching the strange pink child stare blankly into space, King Walcott turned to walk away, “I suppose that you’re heading for Tipoloo same as I, Owen Little. You’re quite welcome to join me on the journey. We’ll have to move quickly though, as the Dark Guard’s patrols will no doubt return post-haste. It would be advisable to be far from here when such a thing occurs.”

  King Walcott motioned fo
r Owen to follow him as he broke into an extremely slow, plodding run. It was a full on sprint for him, but little more than a brisk walk for Owen.

  “Tally-ho! I challenge you to keep up with me, Owen Little! Long before I was King of Tycaria, I was a medalist at the Tycarian games!”

  *

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  CHAPTER 16

  THE FORTRESS OF PRINCE VALKEA

  *

  Owen Staci and Nicky were tossed into a ten-foot by ten-foot steel cage on the enormous flat back of the great lumbering beast, alongside fourteen or fifteen strange looking creatures. They spent the next ten hours packed in with the sad, malnourished, incredibly odd-looking things.

  For the vast majority of the trip, Staci had sat quietly with her shirt pulled over her head, trying to catch her breath in between violent fits of tears. She was having incredible difficulty coping with everything that had happened to her since she had decided to follow Tommy and Nicky Jarvis to the tree fort in the woods. The only way she could think to cope at all was to curl up inside and lock the door tight. A scarily thin woman with pink skin and ears growing up the sides of her head, attaching at the top like a pair of earmuffs, noticed her fragile emotional state.

  Sitting beside Staci, the pink skinned woman wrapped the shivering girl in her equally shaking, frail arms.

  Her voice was soft, soothing and understanding. “Its okay, my dear…it’ll be alright,” she repeated over and over in a warm, comforting tone meant not only for Staci, but for herself as well.

  In a strange way Staci reminded the woman of the daughter she had lost years ago when the King’s armies laid waste to her world. When she saw the faraway look in the young girl’s eyes, the pink woman instinctively felt the need to comfort her as she would have comforted her own child.