by Steven Novak
Looking around the cell, Nicky took note of the absence of beds. In fact, there was not anything at all in the tiny cell. Not more than ten feet lengthwise and five feet across, this place seemed less like a cell and more like a large closet. Everything was dark. The only light came from a few dimly lit, sporadically placed, lamps running along the ceiling. Every shadow cast seemed perilously deep, dark and black, obscuring the poor souls hidden within them.
“You’re the youngest I’ve ever seen in here.”
The voice came from a darkened cell on the other side of the hall. Nicky looked toward the sound, but saw only shadows.
“I’ve been locked up down here for weeks…I’m not sure exactly how many. It’s remarkably easy to lose track of time in this place. Most don’t seem to last more than a week, so I guess I should consider myself lucky…if being left alive, only to suffer from starvation and infection due to untreated wounds can in fact be considered lucky. I guess, maybe not.”
Staci gazed wearily in the direction of the voice. Whoever was speaking to them from inside the shadows seemed to be one of the few people in this entire place that did not want to hurt either her or Nicky. Just like the children and the pink woman in the transport, the owner of the voice was a prisoner too.
“I noticed that General Gragor himself led you two down here. We are not generally given the honor of seeing the Prince’s top military advisor. You’re a lot tougher than you look, or you simply made him really, really angry. Either way, you’re okay in my book.” The creature behind the voice stepped slowly out of the shadows and pressed himself against the bars, using them to remain upright. His appearance was very fish-like. The entire, unclothed upper half of his body was covered in greenish-blue scales that looked worn, dirty, and beaten. A large patch of them on his right arm appeared to have been peeled away in a violent, slow and very painful manner. Light green blood seeped from various cuts scattered randomly across his flesh. The front of his face was flat, with two nostrils dug directly into the center. His eyes were pushed off to either side of his head; one of them was welted shut and puffed out at least an inch, as if it had received a heavy blow not too long ago.
Turning his head to the side, the fish man looked at the children with his one good eye. “My name is Fellow by the way…Fellow Undergotten of the city Chintaran.” Fellow waited for a response from either of the children and received none.
No matter how unassuming this new creature seemed, the children were too shell-shocked to make friends with anyone, let alone a strange one-eyed fish prisoner they had met only moments prior.
Sensing that he was not going to get a response, Fellow continued, “It’s okay…you don’t have to answer. Believe me, I know what it’s like…especially when you first find yourself locked up down here. I did not say anything to anyone for at least four days after they threw me into this hole. The creature that had occupied your cell before you…his name was Milosh. Interesting guy…a Horcalax…I think that’s what he called himself. His body was pretty much a pile of living, breathing, gelatinous goop…you know, if a pile of glop could live, breathe, and regale long, drawn out stories of its home world… In any case, he was the one and only of his kind that I had ever met. One day, completely out of the blue…the guards scooped him up, plopped him into a bucket then hauled him away and did God knows what with him after that. I haven’t seen him since. The reason I tell you this is, while I understand your reason for silence, your time down here may be perilously short, my little friends…endeavor to make the best of it while you can.” Fellow’s eyes closed. His sad grin turned into an even sadder frown. “Milosh…I hope that somehow he’s alive…though I doubt it.”
Staci watched the strange fish man intently. He looked beaten and tired, as if the weight of the entire world was resting on his weary shoulders, dragging him down. His every movement was labored; his body was no doubt wracked with indescribable pain. While one part of her felt sad for him, another was struck to the core with the idea that his situation might just be her future.
The guard at the end of the hall angrily turned his head toward Fellow, and for a few moments everything was silent.
When Fellow spoke again, it was in a soft whisper. “I was just a simple builder before this all started. I kept to myself… never bothered anyone…all I ever wanted was a piece of land to call my own…maybe some clear blue waters nearby to swim in. Immediately after the war started, I went from building homes to making weapons. Now, I’m no pacifist mind you, but let me tell you, little ones…making items meant to kill…this was something that never sat well with me.”
The children remained huddled together in the corner, staring at Fellow with a mixture of fear, confusion, and pity in their eyes. They seemed to have no interest in talking and it was because of this that Fellow began to wonder if it might be better to simply leave them alone for the time being and give them time to come to terms with their situation.
“Ah, but I’m bothering you…I’m rambling again. I apologize, children…I’ll leave you be.”
Staci quickly jumped up, moving toward the bars with surprising urgency. It had been too long since she had someone to talk to, and something inside her told her that she could not let the opportunity slip away, “NO! WAIT!”
Fellow turned toward her again, “Yes?”
“Wait, don’t go…I’m sorry…we want to talk…we want to talk…please don’t go. Please don’t go, please. Don’t leave us.” She began to sob slightly; her hands gripped the cell bars so tightly they almost hurt.
Fellow’s voice was soft and comforting. “It’s okay, child, it’s okay…just relax…I’m not going anywhere. There’s no need to cry. Besides…,” he chuckled, “…even if I wanted to go, I’m not sure the rather burley Ochan at the end of the hall, with the sharp weapon strapped to his back, would be willing to go along with the idea.”
Through her tears and shortened breath, Staci laughed a little at his joke. It was badly delivered and came at the most inappropriate time, but it was a joke. It had been so long since she had heard a joke. Fellow took note of her slight amusement and smiled. Walking next to Staci, Nicky meekly wrapped his hands around the bars. Both children stared at the injured, broken-bodied fish man with a renewed warmth and openness in their eyes.
“My God…you’re just children.” Fellow whispered under his breath in disbelief. “What kind of monsters would do this to children?” He sighed deeply and feigned a smile at their tiny, frail forms. He hoped to keep them from crying. His functioning eye focused on the top of Staci’s forehead and almost instantly his smile turned to an open-mouthed look of surprise. Across the top of her head - dried, caked, yet still noticeable - was red blood.
Fellow’s mind traveled back to weeks ago to when he had first been thrown into the dungeon. The cell occupied by the children had been the temporary home of a Fillagrou farmer who often sat awake at night, muttering to himself the story of the Elder, the prophecy, and The Five who would come and save them all. Of course, Fellow had believed that it was little more than an ancient, somewhat corny sounding superstition. It appeared to be the hopeful deluded ramblings of a people who had lost everything and because of that they had created something in their minds to help them through the darkest of days.
Now, though, with a little girl bleeding red right in front of his face, he could not seem to shake the memories of the crazy old creature’s words. Even if it were a mere coincidence, the fact that General Gragor had escorted the children down to the dungeon proved that they had met the Prince himself. If they had been given an audience with the Prince, this implied that on some very tiny level at least, he took something about them very seriously.
Even the slightest amount of fear or discomfort in the Prince’s day brought a mischievous smile to Fellow’s sore face.
Leaning in close to the bars, Fellow said, with just the slightest twinge of happiness in his voice, “Now I see why the Prince has such an interest in you two.”
It see
med that surviving all those weeks in this hellish dungeon really had been a blessing.
*
*
CHAPTER 20
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
*
The crowd of people that filled the small street in the city of Tipoloo was quite immense in size; they stared at Tommy Jarvis with shock on their faces. Packed together tightly, they seemed like one enormous, multi-colored life form, folding and melting and spreading across the city’s streets like water. The chatter emanating from the crowd grew louder with every new body that joined it.
“It’s him.”
“The prophecy is true.”
“The Five to save us all!”
“They’ve arrived!”
“We’re saved!”
The electricity of one, spread to another, and to another until a hurried excitement could be felt moving throughout the entire crowd. Those who had witnessed Tommy’s incredible feat firsthand rushed to wake their neighbors and relate the news. The neighbors rushed to tell their neighbors, those neighbors rushed to tell their neighbors, and so on and so forth. Within a matter of minutes the entire city was alive with excitement, filled with a sense of hope that everyone who called it home had not experienced since the onset of the Great War.
Through it all, Tommy stood in stunned silence, still unsure of what exactly had happened.
The crowd of spectators circled the young boy. Pleebo rushed to his aid, putting himself between the manic horde and the baffled child. “WAIT! WAIT! Everyone quiet down and back away! Give the boy some room!”
As the mass of creatures continued to move forward to get a closer look at Tommy and his amazing powers, Zanell positioned herself at her brother’s side, trying in vain to calm them. When he saw Zanell move, Donald reluctantly did the same. He had no idea what was going on and did not particularly want to get anywhere near Tommy with his glowing fire hand, but he did not want to look like an uncaring jerk in front of Zanell.
Standing beside Tommy, Donald glanced at him and whispered. “How in the hell did you do that, loser?”
Even if he had wanted to, Tommy could not answer. Instead he stared back at Donald with a look of complete confusion spread across his face.
Little Roustaf darted in and out of the crowd, trying to calm their growingly violent excitement. “PIPE DOWN, YA CRAZY MIXED UP BUMS! GIVE THE KID SOME SPACE!”
Annoyed at the crowd’s reaction and fearing for the young boy’s safety, King Walcott Shellamennes pushed his way through the sea of multi-colored alien flesh and fur to come to the boy’s aid.
Reaching beside him, he snatched Owen by the arm, tugging the boy alongside for safety’s sake, “Sally-forth, Owen Little! That young man is in need of assistance!”
Pleebo, Zanell, Donald, Owen, King Walcott and Roustaf formed a protective circle around the boy. Tommy was just beginning to come down from the initial shock of what had just happened. He stared at his hands. He still felt a tingling sensation crackling and popping somewhere under his skin, similar to what he felt when he had slept on them the wrong way.
The inhabitants of Tipoloo were not trying to get their hands on Tommy with bad intentions, in fact quite the opposite. For most of their lives they had lived in squalor, had watched their families die and their worlds burn. The creatures spent more days than they had cared to count hungry, beaten, aching and praying for something to save them.
Until this moment, they had all but given up on life.
They had seen the promise of Tommy’s power with their very own eyes. Instantaneously, they had been filled with hope, with the promise of a new day – with the possibility of a future. Their somewhat overzealous reaction to Tommy’s amazing powers was little more than unbridled, unchecked happiness at its most pure and honest. Unable to fully process the emotions that had been brought to light by the concept of a world without suffering, their emotions were, instead, erupting in an unorganized, dangerous manner.
“PLEASE! EVERYONE! STOP! THIS ISN’T THE WAY TO HANDLE THE SITUATION!” Pleebo screamed, as hands and paws and tentacles attempted to push him aside, hoping to touch the wonderful savior that he and the others encircled protectively.
As determined as the group was to protect Tommy, the crowd was growing larger by the second, and they were only seven. Outnumbered nearly thirty to one, they realized that they would not be able to hold back the mass much longer.
The hairy arm of a large walrus looking creature with two gigantic tusks hanging from his mouth shoved Donald to the side, knocking the boy to the ground violently. Donald landed hard on his rear end. Anger boiled up in the pit of his stomach and traveled to his brain, clouding his better judgment in a red, smoky haze. Gritting his teeth, the furious boy formed his hands into fists, quickly rising to his feet. He grabbed a handful of hair on the creature’s chest and lifted it straight into the air as if it were as light as a feather.
“I’LL TEACH YOU TO SHOVE ME, JERK!” Donald screamed at the enormous, now airborne beast.
Seeing the young boy perform such a feat of impossible strength, and quickly recognizing the intense look of anger on his face, the crowd immediately quieted down. Slowly the great mass of bodies retreated, fearful of what the angry young boy might do next.
An equally stunned Pleebo had noticed the unbridled rage on Donald’s face and realized the situation was getting even more out of hand.
Trying to stay calm, Pleebo moved toward Donald slowly and softly said, “Donald, put him down. He didn’t mean anything. It was an accident. He was just exited…go ahead and put him down.”
“NO! ACCIDENT, MY ASS! He shoved me to the ground! Who the hell does he think he is, shoving me!? No one shoves me!”
The creature dangling in Donald’s grip let out a scared yelp as the boy thrashed him from side to side. Donald was shaking the nearly four hundred pound beast with frightening ease.
Standing behind Donald, Zanell cautiously rested her hand on his shoulder, pleading, “Please put him down, Donald…he didn’t me…”
“NO! HE SHOULDN’T HAVE PUSHED ME! No one pushes me! Who does he think I am!? I didn’t do anything to him! Pushing me like I was not even there! No one ignores me! Not my MOM, not my BROTHERS, NO ONE!”
The anger coursing throughout Donald’s body was growing larger every moment. It was a dark rage that had been brought on as a result of very old, very deep wounds. The day his father walked out on him and the fact that his mother could not possibly care less about him, and the way that his older brothers treated him like dirt on a daily basis, were the things that had directly caused the anger to erupt, like scorching hot magma. Adjusting his grip on the creature’s fur, Donald pulled it back, as if he intended to throw the terrified beast across the city street.
From behind him came the cold assured voice of Tommy Jarvis, “Put him down, Donald!”
“SHUT UP, FREAK! I’M NOT PUTTING ANYONE DOWN!”
“I said…put him down. Donald.”
“OR WHAT, LOSER!?”
Still holding the large creature without a single ounce of strain on his muscles, Donald turned and looked at Tommy. Tommy’s right arm lit up like the sun itself, much as it had before. The unearthly light slowly moved up his arm, over his shoulder and into his ears, lighting up his eyes from the inside like a jack-o-lantern on Halloween.
Every time Tommy’s lips parted, the ominous glow escaped from his mouth.
In a deadly serious tone, Tommy looked at Donald and insisted, “Put…him…down.”
The bizarre and terrifying sight erased the rage boiling up in Donald’s belly and brought him back to reality. He looked up and saw the terrified creature that he held in his hand. Its eyes were shut tightly as it mumbled what sounded like a prayer. Unsure of exactly what he was doing or how he was doing it, Donald lowered the creature gently back onto the dirt and backed away, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Pleebo watched as the glow emanating from Tommy’s arm faded and noticed that Donald was also ca
lming down. The crowd had settled into a hushed silence, and Pleebo afforded himself the luxury of breathing freely again.
Wiping the sweat off his brow, he turned his attention to his shocked sister. “Zanell, go and wake up grandfather. We need to speak to him right now.”
Zanell nodded and pushed her way through the crowd, doing exactly as her brother instructed.
Standing next to King Walcott, Owen Little was shaking like a leaf, still in shock over what he had just seen. In less than twenty-four hours he had gone from doing his science homework and avoiding work on his father’s hot rod, to this – to complete and utter madness.
With a shaky hand he tapped Pleebo on the arm, “Umm…I know I’m going to regret asking this, but who’s your grandfather?”
Pleebo gazed at the scared little boy with the very old looking Tycarian hovering behind him like a protective father. He then glanced at Tommy, Donald and Roustaf, who were now standing next to him. .
He turned his back on the still silent crowd and spoke in a dumbfounded whisper, “All of you…follow me.”
Slowly the crowd parted, letting the group through with expressions of shock and awe sprayed across their faces as they watched the boys pass by. Pleebo led the group back down the street and headed towards the dwelling of the Elder. He let everyone into the small quarters before closing the door behind him.
Zanell was at the other end of the dark room, helping the ancient creature out of bed for the second time that evening. He looked tired and frail and seemed to be in immense pain, having to move again without sufficient time to properly rest his tender joints.
Pleebo moved toward him, aiding his sister in her attempts to sit the old creature upright. “I’m sorry grandfather…I know you wanted to wait until tomorrow, bu…”
