by J. Naomi Ay
“He can’t go,” I replied definitively. “He just has to realize it. Where has he been anyway? He knows he can’t go to Rozari and that’s why he hasn’t been there for ten years.”
“He mentally checked out of here years ago,” Berk mumbled. “What he wants is not always rational, nor something we are able to provide. But I’m not going to be the one to tell him he can’t go. I still have a wife and kids to support.”
“I need to find out why he thinks he needs to go there.” I decided, taking the last donut and getting up.
“You’re going to ask him?”
“Hell no! I’m going to ask Sorkan and Rekah.”
“Hey Taner,” Berkan called after me. “We’ve got another problem, and maybe you can bring it up with them as well?”
I turned around and waited.
“Shika.” Berkan rolled his eyes.
I nodded. Shika was indeed a problem.
Berkan looked at the empty plate and tried to pick up bits of frosting by wetting his finger. “If the Evil Emperor finds out about it, he’s liable to do to Shika what was done to him. I don’t think that’s the best way to handle the situation.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “We can ship him off to Karupatani where his behavior will not only be condoned but encouraged.”
Berkan laughed. “Well the worst that can happen to you there is you get drunk or stoned and fall off your horse.”
Chapter 20
Rekah
“Lord Taner,” I said and took his hand. We had not met since the MaKennah’s great accident several years past.
“Your Royal Highness,” he replied and we both laughed.
“I am just plain Rekah.” I showed him the steps down to the village.
“Then, I am just plain Taner,” he said and told me how much like my father I was. “That was the first thing your father said to me when I met him years and years ago.”
“I did not know my father.” I pointed at the path we were to follow. “My father left when I was only four years and my sister was an infant. I have no memory of him.” I remembered my father’s brother Pedah only because it was I who ran to his body and I who looked upon his face without life. I remembered how his blood splashed on my legs and how I screamed because it was warm and sticky. My father’s brother Pedah had haunted my nights from that day to this. Sometimes, even now I awake with his blood on my legs and my hands and I scream.
“Your father was a good man,” Taner said. “Perhaps he still is.”
“Yes, I know.” I showed Taner to my porch. “The MaKennah believes he is still alive.”
“Do you?”
We sat in the chairs on my porch and a woman brought us some sweet tea on ice. It was a warm day, and Taner was dressed for the Mishnese Court and in far too many clothes. I was dressed in only leggings and a loose skin vest. The woman serving the tea appreciated how I looked. I had bedded her before. Perhaps I would again when Taner departed.
My porch, this porch was my grandfather Merakoma’s, and from here I gazed upon the village, the Blue Mountains and the bay. It was here we would gather for announcements and ceremonies. It was here I did stand when the MaKennah came with his woman and from that first moment, I looked down upon her and wanted her. I wanted to touch her golden hair and kiss her sea blue eyes as they gazed back at me. I loved the strength of her, the warrior in her, how different she was from the dark meek women that were mine. Now I mourned her loss too, and I dreamed of her for it was only in my dreams that I might ever touch her.
“Do I believe my father is still alive?” I repeated the question and drank my sweet tea. “If the MaKennah believes my father is alive than most certainly my father is so. Where he walks, where he sleeps, I cannot say but surely it is not on this Rehnor.”
“Actually, Rekah,” Taner sighed and leaned forward, “I have two pressing matters which I must speak with you about today.” He paused for a moment and watched the people of our village go about their business. There were boys in the field practicing with their horses and we could hear their happy yells. Several old men passed by my porch, the smoke from their pipes billowed fragrant around us. I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair, letting the sun warm my face and my chest. Somewhere in my house a baby cried, and one of my wives ran to attend it.
Were Taner not here I would sleep for a while for I was tired from listening to too many infant wails in the night. After my nap, I would enjoy the serving woman who leaned over me now to refill my tea and offer me a cake.
“It is about young Shika,” Taner continued. “Might I please send him here to you?”
“Of course,” I replied without hesitation. “We will be honored to care for him. He is fifteen years now, yes?”
“Yes,” Taner said, “and a bit troublesome. Of course, he is nothing like his father was. I don’t believe that Shika has ever climbed on the roof of the Palace or killed anyone, but he is enjoying himself a little too much these days and requires some discipline.”
“And what does the MaKennah think of this?”
“We have not told him. I don’t believe he’s even given audience to the boy in half a dozen years. We can move him here tomorrow, and I’m sure HIM would not even notice.”
“Fine,” I agreed. “Bring him here tomorrow. I have a new colt for him to adopt, a great, grand son of the original Tirikla.”
“I don’t think Prince Shika will do well with that. He is very pampered and very spoiled.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “We will change that quickly. What else is on your mind?”
Taner’s eyes drifted back to the village. He cleared his throat.
“HIM is demanding that we get him passage to Rozari. He wants to go to the Holy Temple there.”
“Ah!”
“Did you know of this?”
“I did not,” I said. “But I am not surprised. He has said some things to me as of late that would explain it.”
“Explain what?” My Uncle Sorkan emerged from his own doorway next door. He joined us on my porch. Taner rose to his feet. I waved to a woman to bring Uncle a chair and more tea.
“Sir,” Taner said and bowed very low.
“Oh, get up, Taner,” Uncle scoffed and grabbed a cake off the woman’s tray.
“We are bringing young Shika to live with us tomorrow,” I told Uncle.
“Really?” Uncle smiled brightly. “I look forward to that. I should like to go to Mishnah and fetch him myself.”
“Of course, Uncle.”
Taner looked at me warily. “Shika has a bit of a substance problem, we have discovered.”
“It seems to run in the family, does it not?” Uncle replied. “Fear not, Lord Taner. I am now ten years sober and will teach the lad the value of that.”
“Thank you, sir,” Taner replied. “Were your own son of a rational mind or even interested, I am certain he would appreciate your efforts.”
Uncle laughed heartily. “He is very nervous, is he not? He cannot sit nor stand for more than a few moments at a time. Did he speak with you at all this past week, Rekah?”
“Only briefly, Uncle. He had calmed a bit after the bleeding but not very much.”
“He has been like this for a while. I suggested he come to you last weekend just for this reason,” Taner said. “Our meetings are very disruptive now. He sits down, he jumps up, he goes outside, and he comes back in. He paces and paces and paces because it pains him more to sit.”
“He is mad.” Uncle shook his head. “But you all know that. Do continue from where I interrupted. Of what were you speaking?”
“HIM is insisting upon traveling to Rozari,” Taner repeated for Uncle’s benefit. “He wants to go to the Holy Temple there and do what, I cannot say.”
“He said this to me after the ceremony on Saturday last,” I said. “He said the Holy One is angry with him and will not speak to him anymore.”
Uncle raised his eyebrows curiously.
“Did your god speak to him before?�
�� Taner exclaimed.
I shrugged and looked to Uncle who shrugged, as well.
“We are simple men, Rekah and I,” Uncle replied. “We know not of these things.”
“So then, could it be he wants to go to Rozari because he thinks your god will speak to him in that Temple?”
“It is the Holiest of the Temples,” I replied.
“I don’t think the Holy One is so particular about which real estate he is listening to at any given moment,” my uncle remarked.
“Too bad your god does not text or tweet or send emails to his cell,” Taner muttered.
“Ach, let him come here,” Uncle scoffed. “He may spend a month lying on the floor of our Temple as easily as he could there.”
“I cannot suggest it to him,” Taner said. “He does not listen to me or anyone. We do not know how to get him to Rozari. They will not allow him entry onto that planet. Unless we attack the planet and take it over, we cannot resolve this. Perhaps there is something you may do here that will eliminate his need to go there?”
My uncle gazed off at the mountains. “Let’s take a walk,” he suggested. “Come let us see how high the wheat has grown this day.” We rose from our seats and stepped down the porch, heading across the village and to the farm lands.
“Any news of the lady, Lord Taner?” Uncle asked.
“None, sir, although we are always hopeful.”
“He said, he hears her,” I said. The words slipped easily from my tongue, and I feared spoke volumes about my Great Cousin’s madness.
“Come now, Rekah,” my uncle said, picking a stalk of wheat as high as my waist. He studied it, pleased by the length of the grains. “It will be a good harvest this year. Did he really say that?”
“Yes, Uncle. Right after he said the Holy One does not speak to him.”
“What does she say to him?” Taner asked, looking at me as if I had imagined it.
“She is calling to him.”
Uncle snorted and tossed the wheat stalk on the ground. “Better she should call and tell him her address. Shall we walk now to the river and see how she runs today?” We headed across the fields and down to shore where the river flowed wildly, swollen thick from our recent rains.
“Did I ever tell you of the day that her ship crashed?” Taner asked as Uncle waved to his friend, Old Man Torim who stood fishing on the bridge.
“Tell us,” I said. We walked onto the bridge to greet Torim and admired his catch of three large salmon. Uncle and Torim found great interest in the fish, so I turned my attention back to Lord Taner who now leaned on the rail and studied the river.
“Do you recall the great temblor that struck Mishnah eight years ago?” he asked. “And the great tidal wave that followed moments later?
“I do,” I said for though it was Mishnah that suffered the quake, I was thrown from my bed by the shocks that came after.
“It was mid morning and it was about this time of year,” Taner recalled, tossing a stone in the river which quickly swallowed it and so he tossed more. “It was warm, and the sky was clear and beautiful. We were in HIM’s office of course, where we always are, and Berkan and I were setting up for a meeting of the Council of Ministers. We had nearly everyone there. About forty were sitting around the conference table and four more were remote on the overhanging vids. We were just about ready to start the meeting, and so I approached HIM and asked him to join us at the table. He finished whatever it was he had been doing at his desk and then rose and began to walk across the room. All of a sudden, he stopped and I saw his eyes grow very bright and then roll back in his head and I knew he was going to have a seizure. Berkan, from across the room, saw this as well and yelled to me but there was nothing I could do. Senya toppled to the floor and started to convulse and Berkan and I threw ourselves on top of him and tried to hold him down though he was flapping about like those fish.” Both Uncle and Old Man Torim stopped their conversing and looked at the fish to which Lord Taner pointed.
“Does this happen often?” Uncle asked. “These seizures like fish?”
“Not often,” Taner replied, now tossing some sticks to the river which the currents bore away. “But sometimes, and it is never good. This one, that day, was the worst I have known. The room began to quake, and we were all thrown about. Things were flying off the walls and tables, and the vids were crashing down. Even the great conference table went flying in the air. It was only because the Palace is made so solidly of stone that it did not crumble beneath us. I know that it lasted less than a minute, but for me it seemed as if it took place in slow motion. I was thrown against the wall while others went tumbling. The table fell upon two Lords of the Council. It has been eight years but I see it as clearly as if it were yesterday.” Taner stared at the river seeing it all there before him.
“And my son?”
“He was thrown against the wall and when the room stopped shaking he laid there crumpled but no longer convulsing. Berkan broke his arm in three places and I hurt my back, but we managed to crawl across the room to HIM. The men pinned beneath the table were screaming and some were able to rise and try to lift the table but it was far too heavy. We had used a crane to put it in the office originally.”
“I asked Senya if he was alright, but he didn’t answer. He was conscious for he looked up and pointed at the table and it flew off the men and crashed against the wall.
And then, we heard the roar. The trembler had caused a giant wave and the calm ocean had suddenly come upon us and swallowed us whole. It flooded through our room and broke down the doors and swamped the outer offices. From there it poured into the central courtyard and down the hills into Old Mishnah. By the time it reached the city it was not larger than a foot but when it hit us, it was more than thirty feet high.
We were tossed again and some were carried out the doors. We were buried under water for a few moments and then it began to drain. When I could see again, Senya was convulsing which was the only time he has ever done it twice in such a short period.
Berkan, as soon as he could rise, ran out to find the little boys and his wife even with his arm broken. Others ran about shouting for help, and I could hear sirens and ambulances coming from New Mishnah. I crawled to Senya and held onto his arm, which was all I could do because my back had given out. His eyes were bright and I called his name but he didn’t answer. Then the medics came and I was taken away and did not see or speak with him again until my back had healed several weeks later. Berkan told me later that when the floods had ended, Senya had declared that the lady was alive and on Derius II. A few days later, the Alliance announced that her spaceplane had exploded and crashed into the ocean of that planet.
“If the plane exploded,” I asked. “How could the lady have survived?”
“The plane was being attacked by pirates,” Taner continued. “The pilot was very good, but they must have taken a shot to their heat shields and spiralled into the atmosphere of Derius II. When the heat shields in the underbelly of the hull began to burn, the plane cracked into three sections. The center section, the passenger compartment burned up entirely as nothing was found of it nor the remains of the lady’s Andorian servants. The tail section was recovered in the sea and parts of the cockpit including pilot seats, and displays were also recovered from a depth of about fifty feet. They found the lady’s wedding band there as it had a tracking chip in it and they were kind enough to return it to us along with their ransom demands. If the lady had been in the cockpit at the time of entry and during the crash into the sea, it would have been possible for her to have survived as the Alliance claimed.”
“Why would she have been in the cockpit?” I said.
“She was a very skilled pilot as well.” Taner turned his back to the river now, gazing instead at the Blue Mountains. “It would have been her nature to assist in avoiding the pirates.”
“And this all happened at the moment that my son did seize and cause a trembler and a tidal wave?” my Uncle asked.
“We don�
�t know,” Taner replied. “He’s usually more into lightning and tornadoes.”
“Sorry?”
“When he awoke, he declared her alive and named the planet upon which she had crashed without knowledge from anyone,” my Uncle’s friend Torim inquired.
“Yes,” Taner nodded.
“After that, the Alliance announced they held her hostage and demanded all sorts of impossible concessions?” Torim continued, baiting a hook and casting his line.
“Yes,” Taner said again. “That is what happened.”
“I wonder,” Uncle mused, winking at me, for more than one hook had been baited. “If one were to crash a ship into the ocean and the ocean were to rise up into a giant wave, could it sweep one upon its currents and deposit one safely upon a beach?”
“What?” Taner asked.
“I assume that the Palace was repaired after that, and there was not too much injury or loss of life?”
“Yes,” Taner replied with furrowed brow. Did he mean to imply that my cousin the Great Emperor made the seas rise on both Rehnor and Derius to safely bring his wife to the shore?
“You have given me much to think about,” Taner said and frowned at his thoughts.
“Indeed,” my Uncle replied.
“Who has benefited from the lady’s absence?” Old Man Torim inquired, casting his line once again in the river.
“The Alliance,” I declared.
“But, what have they gained? Nothing. They have held her hostage for many years and have received nothing in return. In fact, they have lost half of their members. Who has gained?” Torim looked to me as if I should solve this riddle.
“Not Senya,” Taner said. “He’s a ghost of who he was.”
“Who Uncle?” I cried. “Torim?”
“Why the Empire of course.” My uncle waved his arms to encompass the world. “Would it have grown as it has had she been here?”
“Oh, no,” Taner replied. “She was against taking on even Talas at the time.”
