Sliding Into Antar
The Black Bog
Chapter 9
IX
“These children… our children… are the ones who created all those illusions… the storms…the fireballs… the crashing meteor?” Max repeated in wonder, as they walked along the path following the children to wherever it was the children were leading them. “I’m impressed!”
“Me, too,” Michael agreed. “And the way they tested us… They’re no fools. They know how to survive. I like that!”
“I feel so sorry for them, though,” Liz said sadly. “All they’ve been through… losing their parents… seeing them killed… then having to learn to survive on their own and having to chase Kivar and the shadowshifters away without any help. It’s so sad!”
Maria sniffed and nodded. “I feel bad about scaring them now… when we were invisible.”
Michael smiled. “I thought that was kind of funny.”
Maria whacked Michael on the arm.
“Well, it was,” Michael insisted. “Besides, they’ve already gotten over that… and anyway, they scared the crap out of us first. I almost peed my pants when I looked up and saw that meteor coming! And don’t forget, we’re here now, so we can help them.”
Maria nodded… “Yeah, we can! That’s right!” Then she thought about it and smiled… “I guess it was kind of funny… a little bit… when you think about it.” She looked at the children leading them down the pathway through the woods… “I wonder where they’re taking us.”
“To feed us to the pawgors… for scaring them, probably,” Rayylar said with a grin.
Jim laughed.
For the next two hours, the children led everyone on a long trek deeper into the Antarian wilderness.
“I’ve never seen these trails before,” Michael said. “Where do they go?”
“I don’t know,” Max admitted. “I’ve never seen them either. Maybe the children made them.”
Michael nodded. “Yeah! That’s probably it.”
As they walked on, everyone began to notice that the woods around them had become denser and denser; and in the last mile or so, everything had become quite jungle-like. In fact, except for the path the children were on, the woods were downright impassible in most places now.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say we were in the Nan-Torel,” Max said in a hushed tone.
Jim nodded, looking around. “I’ve got news for you, Max. We ARE in the Nan-Torel.”
“How do you know?”
“Those guma bushes back there… that’s a species that I’ve only seen inside the Nan-Torel. The variety outside the Nan-Torel is different… and far less toxic.”
If there had been any doubt in anyone’s mind before, the sudden scream of a distant wild pawgor removed it definitively.
“They ARE going to feed us to the pawgors,” Rayylar whispered, this time swallowing instead of laughing.
At that moment, Zorel held up his hand, and everyone stopped. Max immediately saw why. Directly in front of them was a large bog or marsh of very thick, soupy black water. It didn’t look as thick as quicksand, or as hard to see, but it was considerably thicker than any water he had ever seen. And it had an eerie sort of luminescence. The whole place made Max shudder. Behind him, Liz and Maria and the others had already begun backing up.
Alex, however, walked up to the edge of the bog and peered into the water cautiously. As he leaned over to look, Zorel gave him a shove, and Alex fell into the bog, disappearing from view beneath the black waters almost immediately. Liz gasped loudly, and Isabel ran to the edge of the bog. She never stopped running. Maya gave her a shove, and Isabel kept going, right into the black waters. Immediately, she sank out of sight.
In total shock at what was happening, Max and Michael both put their palms up facing Zorel and Maya in order to protect everyone else if they needed to. But without a word, Maya stepped into the bog and disappeared beneath the water. Then Zorel leapt in and disappeared behind her.
“What the f*** is going on here!” Michael screamed, forgetting that he was among children, and at the moment not much caring. “Max…? Can we get them back? I’ll jump in if you tie a line to me. There’s plenty of vines around here we can use. Maybe this bog isn’t too deep… we can find them.”
“It’s deep,” Danyy said. “You won’t find them. Come with me.”
Danyy took Jim Valenti, his dad’s double, by the arm and jumped, but Jim lifted his arm up high, leaving Danyy hanging over the black waters, his feet swinging back and forth. Then quickly, Jim snatched Danyy back with his other hand and held him there…
“Now you’re going to tell me what is going on here, Danyy! I am NOT going to just jump into that bog with you… or be pushed in, either… and I’m not letting you or any more of the children jump in.”
Jim’s voice was stern and convincing, but his words were hollow, because there was little he could do and hold Danyy down at the same time. Even as he spoke, three more children nonchalantly jumped into the bog and disappeared. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Tess walked up and looked into the water… then she jumped in and disappeared, too, with only a shrug.
“What is this… a suicide mindwarp thing?” Max yelled, spinning around to face the most likely source of any mindwarp that might be going on, Jiba. But Jiba just shook her head and jumped into the water, disappearing into the bog’s depths.
Max and Michael rushed to push everyone else back away from the bog as far as they could.
“Something is going on here,” Max said. “I’m going to find out what it is. Michael, tie a line around me. I’m going in.”
“No way, Max,” Michael said emphatically, tying the vine around himself. “They need you on Antar more than me. You’re the king. Hold this!”
Michael handed Max the end of the vine and jumped in, not waiting for any possible objections. Immediately, he disappeared beneath the waters. Max felt the line playing out. It was a long vine, probably fifty feet at least, but it reached its end very quickly. Max held on till it reached the end then began pulling the line back up again. He noticed that it didn’t have much resistance anymore. Then he saw why. When the end of the rope came out of the water, Michael was nowhere to be seen. In shock, Max yelled Michael’s name, but he didn’t expect an answer.
Immediately, Max spun around and grabbed the first child still standing there, which happened to be little Jayyd.
“Tell me what happened to Michael! Tell me what happened to the others! Where are they? How can I get them back?”
Jayyd shook her head. “They’re okay. They’re in the healing place.”
Max stammered momentarily then released Jayyd… “The healing place? What’s that?”
Jayyd turned and pointed with a little finger at the bog. “That’s the healing place. It’s where the pawgors go when they’re hurt… to get well.”
Max looked at Liz and Maria silently… then at Jim. Everyone was in shock.
“They call this the healing place?” Max asked again. Jayyd nodded.
“Does it make you better if you get hurt,” Max asked. Jayyd nodded.
“How do you get back out?”
Jayyd pointed a little finger at the far side of the bog. “It’s shallow on that side. You can walk out over there.”
“But… but…” Max stammered, losing himself in a sudden flurry of thoughts and questions… “Why don’t they drown?”
Little Jayyd shrugged.
“Have you ever been in there,” Max asked. Jayyd nodded.
“Why didn’t you drown?”
“There’s air on the bottom.”
Max looked at the others then at Jim… “I’m going in.”
“Let me go,” Jim said, “Michael’s right. You’re needed on Antar to run things. If they’re down there, I can tell them how to get out.”
Jim turned to jump, but before he could, someone began emerging from the water on the other side of the bog. It was Michael… and he smiled.
“Come on in, Max. You won’t believe this.”
Max hesitated for a moment; then, remembering that Jiba had already jumped in, he decided that Michael was real and not an illusion. He looked at Jim and shrugged, then both jumped in.
**********
For a moment, Max felt vaguely wet… but it wasn’t a cold wetness. In fact, there was an odd “warmth” to it that seemed to radiate all through his body, making every nerve tingle in a surprising way. Max had a feeling of sinking, but it lasted no more than a few brief seconds, then he hit the bottom. Whatever this “water” was, one sure sank fast in it! Max doubted that it would be possible to stay afloat or swim in it even if one tried.
As Max hit the bottom, a hand reached out from somewhere and grabbed him by the arm.
Max wiped his face and eyes and looked around. It was dark… mostly. There was a very dim light that was probably being produced by something in the water above him. But then the area suddenly lit up. Max saw that Zorel was holding his hand up in the air, and it was glowing brightly.
“Why didn’t I ever think of that,” Max mused, shaking his head.
“Come with me,” Zorel ordered, turning and walking away without saying anything more. Max followed. The ground, if that’s what it was, beneath his feet felt squishy… not “wet” squishy, more like “soft” squishy. It looked like it was composed of a thick layer of some kind of mossy growth… or perhaps algae.
Max had gone no more than ten steps when he heard someone calling him from behind. He turned around and looked. It was Liz and Maria, and right behind them were all the others.
“You weren’t going to leave us out there, were you,” Liz asked, taking Max by the arm. “I’ve followed you everywhere else, Max… across galaxies… through dimensions… I guess I’ll follow you into the bowels of the earth… or Antar… or wherever you go, even if it’s into a black bog… But we go together.” Max nodded and smiled then put his arm around Liz, and they turned and followed Zorel.
“Aren’t we going the wrong direction to get to the other side,” Varec asked.
Max looked around and shrugged. “I’ve lost all sense of direction. Everything looks the same in here, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“We are,” Varec said definitively.
“We’re not going to the other side,” Zorel said, motioning toward a rise just ahead of them. “That’s where we’re going.” Zorel led the group to the rise and climbed up onto it, then he turned around and offered Max a hand, but Max was already on it. So was Jim; and very soon, so were the others. Zorel led them on into the crevasse that lay beyond the rise. Then, about a hundred feet in, he stopped and held his hand up, brightening the entire “room” with the glow from his palm. Max immediately noticed that Michael was there. So were Alex, Isabel, and all the other children who had jumped into the bog before them. The children moved to one side so that Max and the others could see, and Max gasped.
“Oh my God!” Liz and Maria both said at exactly the same time, sounding strangely stereophonic.
Max walked over to the hand-fashioned beds made of the soft algae-like growth and stared into the faces of the bodies that lay there… the faces of their doubles, the children’s parents.
“We brought them here after Kivar attacked,” Zorel said. “The shadowshifters caught us all by surprise. The shadowshifters can make themselves look like part of the wall, and when you walk by, they just come out of the wall and stab you or use their xenon-disrupting rays to blast your brain apart inside your head. You can’t see the shadowshifters, then they just pop out and they’re there. That’s how they got our parents. We hoped the bog would bring them back and make them well again… but…”
“Are they dead,” Maria asked.
Max shook his head. “They appear to be… but… they haven’t turned into dust. They should have by now if they were dead. How long have they been this way, Zorel?”
“Two seasons… and three days.”
“About seven months.” Max nodded.
“They’re not breathing,” Michael said. “I already checked.”
Max felt for a pulse in Liz’s double. There was none. “They’re dead… as we know it. But they’re not… somehow… The bog or something in here must be preserving them.”
“Can you heal them, Max,” Isabel asked.
Max put his hands over Liz’s double, trying to sense where the injury was.
“They shot her in the head,” Andya said. “I saw it.”
Tears brimmed up in Liz’s eyes, and she hugged Andya to her. Then Andya began to cry. It was the first time they had seen any of the children cry, and it brought tears to everyone’s eyes.
Max placed both hands over Liz’s double’s head and concentrated, closing his eyes tightly and exerting every ounce of energy that his body had in it… but it was more than he could accomplish.
“Her brain has been severely damaged. I… I can’t fix it.”
“But she’s still here,” Maria said… “I mean… she hasn’t turned into dust. You said that yourself, Max. There must be SOME hope.”
Max shook his head. “Liz is human, Maria… mostly. Anyway, she wouldn’t turn into dust.”
“Oh… yeah… that’s right,” Maria agreed dejectedly… “But the others haven’t turned into dust either, Max.”
Max thought then turned to Kryys. “Kryys… I know you’ve done the swirly atom thing before… you told me so… or somebody did. Have you ever tried to heal anybody?”
“Me?” Kryys asked, surprised. “I’m not a healer.”
“Neither is my Kryys at home,” Max said, “Not in the traditional sense as we know it… But he can heal people that I could never hope to heal.”
“How?” Kryys asked.
Max sighed. “I really don’t know how he does it. He just turns into millions of swirling atoms and passes through the person over and over. As he does, he repairs the cells in their body one at a time. I can’t tell you how he does it, but HE doesn’t know how he does it either. He only knows that, when he’s in that form, he has a connection with the river of time and its eternal knowledge.”
Kryys looked at Max, and his eyes grew wide. Then he dissolved into a billion glowing, swirling atoms. For a moment, the “room” took on the brightness of a summer day, then the atoms swirled into Liz’s body like a billion little atomic stars, passing through her head repeatedly. This continued for slightly over five minutes; then, suddenly, Liz’s chest rose.
“She’s breathing!” Maria exclaimed excitedly. “She’s alive!”
Andya, Maya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx all rushed to her side, and Andya picked her mother’s hand up in her own hands and held it next to her face, as tears rolled down her cheeks.
When Kryys had finished with Liz, he moved to Max’s double, and the atoms began swirling through his head. Meanwhile, Max discovered that some of the victims had been stabbed, among them, both Alex and Isabel. Max placed his hands over the wound just below Isabel’s left breast and concentrated. The wound began to close; and inside Isabel, the tear in her heart closed up. Max concentrated harder, and he felt blood begin to flow and new blood begin to form, replacing the blood that had been lost, as her heart began to pump again. Max took a deep breath and looked at his hands. He didn’t know HOW he had been able to jumpstart the creation of new blood… or why the blood still there in her body was still as fresh as the day she had died. The only thing he could imagine was that this “room…” something in this room… or in the strange black water…
Max moved to Alex and pressed his hands to Alex’s chest. Alex had been relatively lucky… if one can be “dead” and still be considered lucky. The knife had missed his heart. But it had collapsed his lungs, causing suffocation. This was easy for Max to repair, comparatively.
Kryys repaired the damage done to his parents, Michael and Maria, who had been shot in the head like Max and Liz, and Max “healed” Kyle, Jeliya, Tess, and Rayylar. Kryys repaired the damage to Jim, Kathleen, Varec, and Amy.
It took a total of a little over thirty minutes of continuous effort, but working together, Max and Kryys repaired the damage that had been done to every one of the parents. Now, they only had to wait. The swirling atoms coalesced back into the form of a little boy, and Kryys immediately collapsed onto the soft ground.
“What’s wrong with him,” Zorel asked, alarmed and deeply concerned for his younger brother.
Max picked Kryys up and handed him to Maria, Kryys and Zorel’s mom’s double, to hold. “He’s fine,” he said to Zorel, “Our Kryys went to sleep right after he finished healing someone the first time, too. It takes a lot out of him; he’s still very young. He’ll get stronger with time.”
With nothing more to do but wait, the children sat down on the soft ground to rest, but soon, most of them had dozed off. Shortly after that, most of the group from the New Granolith had dozed off, too.
Then all was silent and still in the underwater room…
Zorel woke up to the soft touch of a hand on his cheek. He looked up into Maria’s eyes, and she smiled. Somehow he knew instinctively that this was not the double who had come on the ship from another dimension. A grin spread rapidly across Zorel’s face like a wildfire racing through a dry field… Then he saw Michael standing behind her, smiling.
“MOM! DAD!”
It may have been Zorel’s exuberance… or it may have just been the moment… but Liz opened her eyes and looked around her to find her children all asleep holding onto her hands and arms. Andya had Liz’s right hand in her hands pressed against her cheek. Liz smiled and kissed Andya on the cheek as she reclaimed her hand. That woke Andya up, and then the others all woke up.
“MOM!” Andya shouted, throwing her arms around Liz’s neck and hugging her. Soon, all four of her children had her in their embrace.
“Where’s your Dad?” Liz asked. Andya pointed to Max, who had not yet awakened. Liz leaned over to Max and kissed him on the lips. Then she lifted her head and looked at his face. Max smiled.
“He’ll be up soon,” Liz said.
Within minutes, the entire room was buzzing with joy and celebration as, one after the other, the parents woke up. The rest of the children and the group from the New Granolith had already awakened at the first exuberant screams from Zorel and Andya.
“Dad, these are our friends,” Zorel said, indicating the group that had come in the New Granolith.
Michael nodded. “I know.”
“You do?” Zorel asked, surprised.
Michael nodded then smiled. “I think I dreamed that they had come to help us.”
tbc
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Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
The Beasts And The Children
Chapter 10
X
“Lord Kivar, we are six veskits from Antar. We will be arriving soon.”
“Good… Very good.” Kivar waved his hand dismissively at the captain of his shadow shifters. “You may go, Bezto.”
Bezto turned to leave but then paused and turned to face Kivar again… “Sire… are you quite certain of your information?”
Kivar lifted his head and stared at Bezto with an intensity that made Bezto tremble inside, though it was hardly noticeable in that dark, shadowy form. Then, for some reason that Bezto did not begin to understand, Kivar threw back his head and roared with laughter…
“Bezto! I do believe you’re jealous of Dunjin!”
Bezto’s head writhed in the strange, serpentine, ritualistic motion of denial that was customary of the shadow shifters.
“Yes! You are!” Kivar insisted. “But don’t worry, Bezto… it’s one of your better qualities.”
Kivar laughed again.
“Sire, I am not jealous… especially not of a Torvon shapeshifter. The Torvons are vastly inferior to the shadow shifters. I do not understand why you bother with them at all.”
“They got me information,” Kivar said. “Information that eluded your shadow shifters.” Kivar’s smile disappeared again. “I never intended to allow those brats to inherit Antar, Bezto. You assured me that they would all starve to death or die in the strange storms that have been bedeviling our attempts to return and reclaim the planet. Now I find out that not only are the children still alive but the storms have all been mere illusions… CREATED BY ONE OF THE CHILDREN!”
“You are taking the word of Dunjin, Sire… He is of an inferior race… Do not forget that, my lord. His information cannot be trusted… at least without checking it out.”
“And that is exactly what you are going to do, Bezto… CHECK IT OUT! Do you think you can handle that?”
Bezto’s head bobbed up and down oddly, looking for all the world like a flickering shadow cast on the wall by dying candlelight.
“Good. Now get out of my sight. Let me know when we are two veskits from Antar. I’m looking forward to removing the last traces of Zan’s existence from my planet.”
**********
At the same time, in the strange “room” at the bottom of the black bog, on Antar, questions were flying faster than the remnants of a supernova, as the newly-awakened parents struggled to learn what had happened to them, where they were, and just about everything about the last seven months.
“We should go back to the palace and discuss all of this,” the newly awakened Max said, taking a deep refreshing breath and letting it out with an audible sigh. “We have to make immediate plans to defend the planet if Kivar tries to return again.”
“I agree,” Michael said, “But let’s do it right now… right here. If there ARE enemies among us, we’re in the safest possible place right here where we are. Kivar thinks we’re dead. I think we should stay that way… at least until we have a plan. If we go back to the palace and our enemies see us, we will have tipped our hand.”
Max nodded.
“Maya… what did you say this place is,” Liz asked, turning to her daughter.
“It’s called ‘the healing place,’ Mom.”
“The healing place…” Liz looked around at the children with a baffled look on her face. “Who named it that?”
Zorel shrugged… “The pawgors did, I think.”
“Pawgors can’t talk… the last time I heard,” Liz said.
“Danyy hears them sometimes… when they’re thinking,” Liz-Jolee said.
“Pawgors?” Liz asked.
Danyy nodded. “The pawgors know that this is a place that makes them well. I learned it from them.”
“When were you ever near a pawgor,” Liz asked.
“Well… I never was,” Danyy admitted. “I don’t ever see them. I just hear their thoughts sometimes.”
“All the way at your house?”
“No, not that far away, Aunt Liz. Only when I’m here.”
“And where would ‘here’ be,” Kathleen asked her son.
Danyy smiled almost sheepishly… “The Nan-Torel?”
Kathleen’s jaw dropped… “The Nan-Torel? You’ve been in the Nan-Torel? Alone?”
“No. All of us have, Mom.”
“Oh my God,” Kathleen exclaimed, looking at the children.
“We’re in the Nan-Torel now,” Danyy said.
Kathleen looked at her son aghast. “This place… the… the ‘healing place…’ is in the Nan-Torel?”
“It’s kind of poetic, isn’t it,” Jim said, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “The most dangerous place on all of Antar… the place that everyone knows as a place of certain death… is also a place that gives life. I like it!”
“You’ve never been in the Nan-Torel before?” Jim from the New Granolith asked his double. The local Jim shook his head.
“Then you don’t have a pet pawgor?”
The local Jim shook his head again and smiled at the utter outrageousness of that thought. So did Danyy.
“You can’t make a pet out of a pawgor,” Danyy said. “That’s silly.”
“Couldn’t you talk to them and make them understand that you wanted to be their friend?” Maria from the New Granolith asked.
Danyy laughed. “No way! Pawgors don’t want to be your friend. I hear their thoughts. They aren’t friendly.”
“Oh, Danyy!” Liz said, “Have we got a surprise for you on our ship!”
Maria laughed and nodded.
“Well…” Jim said, “In all fairness to Danyy here… and to my double… most pawgors aren’t tamable. At least, I don’t think grown ones would be. Jung-Jo was young, and the circumstances were unusual. And we didn’t tame his mate… Jung-Jo sort of did that himself. And their babies grew up knowing us, but they’re all grown up now. I haven’t seen them since they went out on their own.”
“Well, there IS one benefit to our being in the Nan-Torel, the local Michael said. “No enemy who doesn’t have a death wish is going to come in here looking for us… not even a shadow shifter. We can talk freely here without worrying that any enemy will hear us. Our only problem is, can we get back out of here ourselves without getting killed now by a pawgor or by any of the other wild or poisonous creatures that live in here?”
“We do it all the time,” Zorel said proudly, indicating the other children and himself. “Danyy knows when something dangerous is close, so we can avoid it.”
“You HOPE you can avoid it,” the local Kyle corrected.
“Well, for now, we’re here,” Max said. “And Michael is right… we can talk freely here. Let’s make the most of it and make some plans while we can.”
“Do you have any ideas, Max,” Jim asked.
Max shook his head. “I’m thinking. I don’t think very quickly after seven-month naps usually.”
Maya and Andya giggled, and Liz smiled.
Michael turned and looked at Jiba… “You’ve been scaring ships away with your illusions… your mind warps… ever since we were… we were… injured?” Michael couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “killed,” but in his mind, he knew that they had been… in every conventionally-known meaning of the word.
Jiba nodded. “We thought we should try to keep them from coming back.”
“Sounds like excellent logic to me!” Kyle said.
Michael nodded. “It was a great idea. It still is. For now, at least, do you think you could keep doing that, Jiba? Only maybe check with me or Max to make sure it’s a ship that we WANT to chase away.”
Jiba nodded and smiled.
“How did you know when a ship was coming,” Isabel asked.
Jiba grinned… “Maya can sense the people on the ship before they ever get here… and sometimes she can hear their thoughts if she tries.”
“That’s right,” Liz said. “Maya can do that.”
Michael nodded then turned to Tess… “You can help Jiba… if Kivar or his shapeshifters try to come back, right, Tess?”
Tess nodded enthusiastically. “With the show Jiba and I can give them, they’ll never come back again.”
Michael smiled. “I wish that were true. But I kind of doubt that Kivar will just go away and stay away. He’s not stupid. Eventually, he’ll figure out what’s going on, and we’ll need to have another plan in place before that happens.”
“I agree,” Max said. “Zorel… was anyone else killed… besides us?”
“I don’t know,” Zorel said, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”
The crew from the New Granolith listened to that statement with a puzzled reaction…
“We didn’t see anyone at all except the children when we got here in our ship,” Max said. “We assumed… naturally… that Kivar had killed everyone… or at least that he had killed a lot of the people.”
“No, he didn’t,” Zorel said, shaking his head and grinning. “That was one of Jiba’s mind warps. After they attacked our parents, she made everyone else disappear so the shadow shifters couldn’t find them.”
“Well, actually,” Jiba said, correcting Zorel humbly, “I didn’t make everyone disappear… That would be too hard for me. I just made Kivar and the shadow shifters… and you… not see them.”
Kyle laughed. “She’s reached enlightenment! Genuine humility is a virtue. It’s one of the ten sacred qualities outlined by Avalokite Bodhisattva, the Buddha of Compassion… along with the four noble states of mind: love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.”
“It’s gotta be a Kyle thing in every dimension,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.
“Well, if I made everyone disappear,” Jiba said, “Even if I could, then they wouldn’t be able to see each other or even see themselves. But if I put a mind warp on people that I don’t want to see them, then only those people can’t see them.”
“She’s got a point,” Isabel said with a grin.
“Seems like you’ve got everything all figured out… Are you sure you guys need us,” Kyle asked jokingly.”
“YEAH, WE DO,” every one of the children exclaimed at the same time, sounding like a chorus.
Maria and Liz looked at each other and started laughing. “I’d like to have that recorded so I could play it back from time to time,” Liz said, hugging her children. Maria nodded and wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye, as she and all the other parents hugged their children, too.
Rayyn and Taz put their arms around Kyle’s waist and held onto him. “We need you, Dad. Don’t ever let something bad happen to you again.”
Kyle started to laugh, but somehow it caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He bent down and put both arms around his children and nodded. “I’ll try real hard not to. I promise.”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Max said, after everyone had found their voices again, “Jiba and Tess will do their thing if Kivar and the shadow shifters try to come back again. If that fails… and eventually, I have to agree with Michael, Kivar is bound to catch on to us… then Jiba and Tess will make everyone invisible, including themselves… and us. That will at least give us an equal fighting chance with the shadow shifters, because for all practical purposes, they can become invisible by melting into walls and popping out as we go by. I think we can take them. We just need to have a fighting chance.”
Michael nodded. “We can take Kivar. And we can take all his shadow shifters, too. They won’t have an insurmountable advantage anymore.”
Max looked around the room. There were nods from all of the parents.
“Then it’s settled,” Max said. “Let’s go home.”
“We can stay and help you,” Max from the other dimension said.
His double shook his head. “Thanks… but you’ve done more than we could ever ask you to do for us already. Besides, it’s not your fight… and we don’t know when they’ll come back… or how long Jiba and Tess’ mind warps will keep them fooled. You could be here for a very long time.”
Max swallowed and nodded. As much as he wanted to help their doubles here, this Max was right. Nobody knew how long it would be before Kivar would come back… or when he would finally catch on to the fake storms and attack them. It could be weeks, months… or even years.
“I do hope that you’ll stay with us for a few days, though, at least,” Max said, “So that we can thank you properly and get to know you better.”
“Yes… absolutely!” Liz agreed.
“Well… I don’t know,” Max said, looking at his own Liz and at the other crew members. He knew that they were all dying to get home. “Maybe we might stay one more day… two at the most.”
Max smiled. “Welcome to Antar, friends.” Then he turned to Zorel… “How do we get out of here?”
“Follow me,” Zorel said, with a big grin.
Zorel and the other children led the adults over the soft, spongy ground a distance of about three hundred feet then pointed to a gently sloping rise ahead of them…
“Walk up that hill. It takes you out of the bog.”
Max nodded and looked around to make sure that everyone was with him, then he started walking up the rise behind Zorel and the children. The others followed. As they walked up the slope, Max noticed that something did not seem right… water was appearing under their feet. In fact, the further up the rise they went, the deeper the water became, until finally, it was above their knees.
Max stopped Zorel… “Zorel, I know I’ve been asleep for seven months, and maybe I’m still a little confused, but if we’re going UP, shouldn’t the water be getting shallower, not deeper? Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”
“We’re in a room under the water,” Zorel reminded Max.
“Yeah, I understand that,” Max said… “I do. I thought we would have to go into the water… or through the water… or something… but it should be above us. We should have to go through it… above us… but the water seems to be rising from beneath us instead. How can it be rising from below us if we’re going up… through it? Does that make any sense?”
“We didn’t try to figure it out,” Maya said. “We just did it… because the pawgors can do it.”
“The faith of a child,” Alex said, smiling. “It takes the faith of a child to get out of here.”
“Or a pawgor,” Jim said.
Kyle nodded. “Bless the beasts and the children.”
The others looked at Kyle, and he smiled…
“The beasts and the children… It’s something I heard somewhere… in a song I think.”
tbc
The Beasts And The Children
Chapter 10
X
“Lord Kivar, we are six veskits from Antar. We will be arriving soon.”
“Good… Very good.” Kivar waved his hand dismissively at the captain of his shadow shifters. “You may go, Bezto.”
Bezto turned to leave but then paused and turned to face Kivar again… “Sire… are you quite certain of your information?”
Kivar lifted his head and stared at Bezto with an intensity that made Bezto tremble inside, though it was hardly noticeable in that dark, shadowy form. Then, for some reason that Bezto did not begin to understand, Kivar threw back his head and roared with laughter…
“Bezto! I do believe you’re jealous of Dunjin!”
Bezto’s head writhed in the strange, serpentine, ritualistic motion of denial that was customary of the shadow shifters.
“Yes! You are!” Kivar insisted. “But don’t worry, Bezto… it’s one of your better qualities.”
Kivar laughed again.
“Sire, I am not jealous… especially not of a Torvon shapeshifter. The Torvons are vastly inferior to the shadow shifters. I do not understand why you bother with them at all.”
“They got me information,” Kivar said. “Information that eluded your shadow shifters.” Kivar’s smile disappeared again. “I never intended to allow those brats to inherit Antar, Bezto. You assured me that they would all starve to death or die in the strange storms that have been bedeviling our attempts to return and reclaim the planet. Now I find out that not only are the children still alive but the storms have all been mere illusions… CREATED BY ONE OF THE CHILDREN!”
“You are taking the word of Dunjin, Sire… He is of an inferior race… Do not forget that, my lord. His information cannot be trusted… at least without checking it out.”
“And that is exactly what you are going to do, Bezto… CHECK IT OUT! Do you think you can handle that?”
Bezto’s head bobbed up and down oddly, looking for all the world like a flickering shadow cast on the wall by dying candlelight.
“Good. Now get out of my sight. Let me know when we are two veskits from Antar. I’m looking forward to removing the last traces of Zan’s existence from my planet.”
**********
At the same time, in the strange “room” at the bottom of the black bog, on Antar, questions were flying faster than the remnants of a supernova, as the newly-awakened parents struggled to learn what had happened to them, where they were, and just about everything about the last seven months.
“We should go back to the palace and discuss all of this,” the newly awakened Max said, taking a deep refreshing breath and letting it out with an audible sigh. “We have to make immediate plans to defend the planet if Kivar tries to return again.”
“I agree,” Michael said, “But let’s do it right now… right here. If there ARE enemies among us, we’re in the safest possible place right here where we are. Kivar thinks we’re dead. I think we should stay that way… at least until we have a plan. If we go back to the palace and our enemies see us, we will have tipped our hand.”
Max nodded.
“Maya… what did you say this place is,” Liz asked, turning to her daughter.
“It’s called ‘the healing place,’ Mom.”
“The healing place…” Liz looked around at the children with a baffled look on her face. “Who named it that?”
Zorel shrugged… “The pawgors did, I think.”
“Pawgors can’t talk… the last time I heard,” Liz said.
“Danyy hears them sometimes… when they’re thinking,” Liz-Jolee said.
“Pawgors?” Liz asked.
Danyy nodded. “The pawgors know that this is a place that makes them well. I learned it from them.”
“When were you ever near a pawgor,” Liz asked.
“Well… I never was,” Danyy admitted. “I don’t ever see them. I just hear their thoughts sometimes.”
“All the way at your house?”
“No, not that far away, Aunt Liz. Only when I’m here.”
“And where would ‘here’ be,” Kathleen asked her son.
Danyy smiled almost sheepishly… “The Nan-Torel?”
Kathleen’s jaw dropped… “The Nan-Torel? You’ve been in the Nan-Torel? Alone?”
“No. All of us have, Mom.”
“Oh my God,” Kathleen exclaimed, looking at the children.
“We’re in the Nan-Torel now,” Danyy said.
Kathleen looked at her son aghast. “This place… the… the ‘healing place…’ is in the Nan-Torel?”
“It’s kind of poetic, isn’t it,” Jim said, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “The most dangerous place on all of Antar… the place that everyone knows as a place of certain death… is also a place that gives life. I like it!”
“You’ve never been in the Nan-Torel before?” Jim from the New Granolith asked his double. The local Jim shook his head.
“Then you don’t have a pet pawgor?”
The local Jim shook his head again and smiled at the utter outrageousness of that thought. So did Danyy.
“You can’t make a pet out of a pawgor,” Danyy said. “That’s silly.”
“Couldn’t you talk to them and make them understand that you wanted to be their friend?” Maria from the New Granolith asked.
Danyy laughed. “No way! Pawgors don’t want to be your friend. I hear their thoughts. They aren’t friendly.”
“Oh, Danyy!” Liz said, “Have we got a surprise for you on our ship!”
Maria laughed and nodded.
“Well…” Jim said, “In all fairness to Danyy here… and to my double… most pawgors aren’t tamable. At least, I don’t think grown ones would be. Jung-Jo was young, and the circumstances were unusual. And we didn’t tame his mate… Jung-Jo sort of did that himself. And their babies grew up knowing us, but they’re all grown up now. I haven’t seen them since they went out on their own.”
“Well, there IS one benefit to our being in the Nan-Torel, the local Michael said. “No enemy who doesn’t have a death wish is going to come in here looking for us… not even a shadow shifter. We can talk freely here without worrying that any enemy will hear us. Our only problem is, can we get back out of here ourselves without getting killed now by a pawgor or by any of the other wild or poisonous creatures that live in here?”
“We do it all the time,” Zorel said proudly, indicating the other children and himself. “Danyy knows when something dangerous is close, so we can avoid it.”
“You HOPE you can avoid it,” the local Kyle corrected.
“Well, for now, we’re here,” Max said. “And Michael is right… we can talk freely here. Let’s make the most of it and make some plans while we can.”
“Do you have any ideas, Max,” Jim asked.
Max shook his head. “I’m thinking. I don’t think very quickly after seven-month naps usually.”
Maya and Andya giggled, and Liz smiled.
Michael turned and looked at Jiba… “You’ve been scaring ships away with your illusions… your mind warps… ever since we were… we were… injured?” Michael couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “killed,” but in his mind, he knew that they had been… in every conventionally-known meaning of the word.
Jiba nodded. “We thought we should try to keep them from coming back.”
“Sounds like excellent logic to me!” Kyle said.
Michael nodded. “It was a great idea. It still is. For now, at least, do you think you could keep doing that, Jiba? Only maybe check with me or Max to make sure it’s a ship that we WANT to chase away.”
Jiba nodded and smiled.
“How did you know when a ship was coming,” Isabel asked.
Jiba grinned… “Maya can sense the people on the ship before they ever get here… and sometimes she can hear their thoughts if she tries.”
“That’s right,” Liz said. “Maya can do that.”
Michael nodded then turned to Tess… “You can help Jiba… if Kivar or his shapeshifters try to come back, right, Tess?”
Tess nodded enthusiastically. “With the show Jiba and I can give them, they’ll never come back again.”
Michael smiled. “I wish that were true. But I kind of doubt that Kivar will just go away and stay away. He’s not stupid. Eventually, he’ll figure out what’s going on, and we’ll need to have another plan in place before that happens.”
“I agree,” Max said. “Zorel… was anyone else killed… besides us?”
“I don’t know,” Zorel said, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”
The crew from the New Granolith listened to that statement with a puzzled reaction…
“We didn’t see anyone at all except the children when we got here in our ship,” Max said. “We assumed… naturally… that Kivar had killed everyone… or at least that he had killed a lot of the people.”
“No, he didn’t,” Zorel said, shaking his head and grinning. “That was one of Jiba’s mind warps. After they attacked our parents, she made everyone else disappear so the shadow shifters couldn’t find them.”
“Well, actually,” Jiba said, correcting Zorel humbly, “I didn’t make everyone disappear… That would be too hard for me. I just made Kivar and the shadow shifters… and you… not see them.”
Kyle laughed. “She’s reached enlightenment! Genuine humility is a virtue. It’s one of the ten sacred qualities outlined by Avalokite Bodhisattva, the Buddha of Compassion… along with the four noble states of mind: love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.”
“It’s gotta be a Kyle thing in every dimension,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.
“Well, if I made everyone disappear,” Jiba said, “Even if I could, then they wouldn’t be able to see each other or even see themselves. But if I put a mind warp on people that I don’t want to see them, then only those people can’t see them.”
“She’s got a point,” Isabel said with a grin.
“Seems like you’ve got everything all figured out… Are you sure you guys need us,” Kyle asked jokingly.”
“YEAH, WE DO,” every one of the children exclaimed at the same time, sounding like a chorus.
Maria and Liz looked at each other and started laughing. “I’d like to have that recorded so I could play it back from time to time,” Liz said, hugging her children. Maria nodded and wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye, as she and all the other parents hugged their children, too.
Rayyn and Taz put their arms around Kyle’s waist and held onto him. “We need you, Dad. Don’t ever let something bad happen to you again.”
Kyle started to laugh, but somehow it caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He bent down and put both arms around his children and nodded. “I’ll try real hard not to. I promise.”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Max said, after everyone had found their voices again, “Jiba and Tess will do their thing if Kivar and the shadow shifters try to come back again. If that fails… and eventually, I have to agree with Michael, Kivar is bound to catch on to us… then Jiba and Tess will make everyone invisible, including themselves… and us. That will at least give us an equal fighting chance with the shadow shifters, because for all practical purposes, they can become invisible by melting into walls and popping out as we go by. I think we can take them. We just need to have a fighting chance.”
Michael nodded. “We can take Kivar. And we can take all his shadow shifters, too. They won’t have an insurmountable advantage anymore.”
Max looked around the room. There were nods from all of the parents.
“Then it’s settled,” Max said. “Let’s go home.”
“We can stay and help you,” Max from the other dimension said.
His double shook his head. “Thanks… but you’ve done more than we could ever ask you to do for us already. Besides, it’s not your fight… and we don’t know when they’ll come back… or how long Jiba and Tess’ mind warps will keep them fooled. You could be here for a very long time.”
Max swallowed and nodded. As much as he wanted to help their doubles here, this Max was right. Nobody knew how long it would be before Kivar would come back… or when he would finally catch on to the fake storms and attack them. It could be weeks, months… or even years.
“I do hope that you’ll stay with us for a few days, though, at least,” Max said, “So that we can thank you properly and get to know you better.”
“Yes… absolutely!” Liz agreed.
“Well… I don’t know,” Max said, looking at his own Liz and at the other crew members. He knew that they were all dying to get home. “Maybe we might stay one more day… two at the most.”
Max smiled. “Welcome to Antar, friends.” Then he turned to Zorel… “How do we get out of here?”
“Follow me,” Zorel said, with a big grin.
Zorel and the other children led the adults over the soft, spongy ground a distance of about three hundred feet then pointed to a gently sloping rise ahead of them…
“Walk up that hill. It takes you out of the bog.”
Max nodded and looked around to make sure that everyone was with him, then he started walking up the rise behind Zorel and the children. The others followed. As they walked up the slope, Max noticed that something did not seem right… water was appearing under their feet. In fact, the further up the rise they went, the deeper the water became, until finally, it was above their knees.
Max stopped Zorel… “Zorel, I know I’ve been asleep for seven months, and maybe I’m still a little confused, but if we’re going UP, shouldn’t the water be getting shallower, not deeper? Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”
“We’re in a room under the water,” Zorel reminded Max.
“Yeah, I understand that,” Max said… “I do. I thought we would have to go into the water… or through the water… or something… but it should be above us. We should have to go through it… above us… but the water seems to be rising from beneath us instead. How can it be rising from below us if we’re going up… through it? Does that make any sense?”
“We didn’t try to figure it out,” Maya said. “We just did it… because the pawgors can do it.”
“The faith of a child,” Alex said, smiling. “It takes the faith of a child to get out of here.”
“Or a pawgor,” Jim said.
Kyle nodded. “Bless the beasts and the children.”
The others looked at Kyle, and he smiled…
“The beasts and the children… It’s something I heard somewhere… in a song I think.”
tbc
-
Island Breeze
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Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
Kivar’s Final Vengeance
Chapter 11
XI
Zorel led the group upward along the cushiony path… further and further toward the surface of the bog… but the water only got deeper and deeper as they ascended. Max knew that logically this was not what should be happening. If they were in an air-filled chamber beneath the waters of the bog, then they needed to go through the water to reach the surface. But the water should be above them, not rising beneath them. Kyle had been right. Whatever the secret of the bog was, it took the unassuming innocence of a child… or an animal like the pawgor… to get out.
The water was already up to Max’s chest, and he glanced back and saw that several of the shorter individuals were barely able to still walk and keep their heads above water anymore. Max stopped and called out to Zorel, who was in front of him and was swimming now.
“Zorel… what’s going on? Are we going to have to swim to get out?”
Zorel laughed and turned toward Max, while treading water. “You don’t have to swim. Just duck your head under the water.”
“Duck…? Okay… and then what?”
“Just duck your head under the water.”
Max held his breath and ducked under the water, but as quickly as his head went under, it popped right back to the surface. Max opened his eyes and wiped the water off of his face then looked around for Zorel. That’s when he realized that he was no longer in the underwater chamber. He was on the top… on the real surface… and all around him was the dense, jungle-like Nan-Torel.
But where was everyone else?
For a moment, Max panicked and began reaching into the dark waters all around him for a hand, an arm, any sign of the others who had been with him. He found nothing but water. Alarmed, Max dove head first into the bog…
Ouch! For water that he had sunk straight to the bottom in earlier, it was pretty danged hard on this side of the bog. It felt like it shoved Max right back to the surface. He started to dive again, but a hand touched him…
“Max? Where were you? You disappeared for several moments there,” Liz said, with concern evident in her voice. Max looked around. He was once again in the chamber under the bog, up to his chest in water. It didn’t make any sense at all.
Michael laughed. “Don’t try to figure it out, Max. Like Zorel said, you just have to trust in some things.”
“I’m not a blindly trusting person,” Max said, wiping the water off his face. “I like to know what I’m trusting in and why I’m trusting in it.”
“Yeah, I know. Me, too,” Michael confided. “But I think this is challenging my conceptions.”
Max nodded. “Yeah.”
“What did you see,” Liz asked.
“The surface… the trees,” Max replied. “If you duck under the water, you pop up on the surface. Don’t ask me how. It’s gonna drive me crazy for a long time trying to figure it out.”
Liz ducked her head under the water… then Maria ducked under. After them, the others, one by one, ducked under, too; and as each one did, he or she disappeared beneath the water and did not return. Finally, only Max and Michael were left.
Max shrugged. “Shall we?”
Michael ducked under the water, and Max followed. When he popped up, he was on the surface again, but this time everyone else was there as well. They were still standing in chest deep water, but instead of being in the underwater chamber, they… or at least their heads… were above the surface.
“I’m assuming that if we walk toward the shore now, we’ll walk out of the water?” Max asked Zorel. Zorel nodded, still treading water.
Max started walking toward the shore, and the others followed. As they went, the water got shallower and shallower… until they literally simply walked out of the bog.
“Woo hoo! Land!” Alex yelled, doing a little dance on the shore, with a huge grin on his face.
Max looked around. “I hate to ask what is probably a stupid question… but how are we going to get back to the south side of the bog again? The jungle growth to the east and west looks impassable to me… We can’t go around to get back to the path…”
“Wait… Don’t tell me! You kids fly! Right?” Max said, smiling at what he clearly intended as a joke.
“No, that’s silly,” Liz-Jolee said. “We can’t fly.”
Max chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know… I think.”
Zorel looked at the surface of the bog for a moment then carefully put one foot on it… Then he put the other foot behind the first one. Then he took another step out onto the water and turned around and smiled.
Max threw up his hands. “Of course! You walk on water! Why didn’t I know that?”
The children laughed.
“No, silly,” little Jayyd said, taking Max’s hand and leading him to the edge where Zorel had stepped off. “There are stepping stones under the water. You just have to look for them.”
Max knelt down on one knee and placed his hand on the water. Sure enough… just below the water… not even a quarter of an inch below the surface… there was something hard. It appeared to be about two and a half feet wide and equally as long, but try as Max might, he could not see it. It was black in a black water bog, and it looked exactly like the water. For all practical purposes, it was invisible.
“Do these… stepping stones… go all the way across,” Max asked. Jayyd smiled and nodded.
“Come on,” Maya said, taking Liz by the hand, “We’ll lead you across.”
“How do you know where to step,” Liz asked, straining to see anything at all in the black water, with no more success than Max had had.
“You can’t see the stepping stones,” Jayyd replied, “You just have to feel them with your feet.”
“And if you miss one?” Maria asked.
Jayyd smiled. “You go to the bottom and start over again.”
“Don’t miss one,” Taz said with a grin.
Liz nodded and looked at Maria, and both of them stepped onto the first stone with Maya. As they proceeded, stepping onto the second stone, Andya and JoLeesa followed them. Then, one by one, the others walked out onto the water, too, most of them being guided by their children. Max and Zorel, meanwhile, were just reaching the other side, and Max stepped onto the ground and turned around to see how everyone else was coming. Slowly, the parents and children inched along followed by the group from the New Granolith… in all, some 40 adults and children. Kyle reached the other side and turned around and looked back, then shook his head in disbelief as he watched the rest of the group cross the bog, each person appearing for all the world to be walking on the water…
“Incredible…”
Soon, everyone was on the south side of the bog, where they had first gone into the water. With everyone safely on the shore, Max turned to look for the path that led back out of the Nan-Torel, but as he walked away from the bog, he froze suddenly in his tracks. Michael moved to the side a couple of steps to see what had made Max stop, and he froze, too.
“Don’t anyone move,” Michael whispered, standing as still as a Nan-Torel rock tortoise. Not twenty feet in front of him and Max, on the path, was a full-grown male pawgor, saber teeth and all. It stood there, almost chest high to Max and Michael, motionless, its eyes burning into Max and Michael’s eyes with a searing heat and intensity.
Despite the discomfort, which was probably psychological, Michael stared directly into the huge cat’s eyes, not daring to look away or even to blink. So did Max. The pawgor NEVER blinked, a fact that was disconcerting to both Max and Michael, who wanted badly to blink but couldn’t. Their eyes seemed to burn and quickly began to water, but neither dared to move. Both Max and Michael were prepared to raise their hands quickly and blast the pawgor if it moved toward anyone. But what happened next was totally unexpected. Without warning, the pawgor averted its eyes… then it slowly walked forward, dragging its left rear leg, which appeared, now that they saw it, to have been grievously wounded. The pawgor might have been in a fight with another pawgor… or it might have been wounded by a falling tree or attacked by flesh-eating rob-jetta bats as it slept… or any of a million other things that could befall even the mightiest creatures of the always-dangerous Nan-Torel. But today, this pawgor clearly did not intend to fight unless it was provoked. And Max and Michael had no desire to provoke it.
The pawgor walked to the edge of the bog and, without ever looking back, simply laid down and rolled into the water, sinking immediately out of sight in the dark bog. It looked like some kind of strange suicide, but Max and Michael knew better.
“Zorel…” Max called. Zorel came running.
“How long will it take that pawgor to heal… till it comes back out?”
Zorel shrugged. “A few hours, at least… maybe a whole day… I think.”
“Good. Let’s be gone before it comes back out all fixed up like new and hungry again, okay?”
Everyone was nodding.
“Lead the way,” Max said to Zorel. “You kids are the ones who know how to get back out of here.” Zorel smiled and hurried off down the trail, and Max and the others followed, leaving the black bog and its mysteries behind them.
They had walked for almost an hour along the trail when Maya suddenly stopped and let out a small cry. Liz immediately rushed to her daughter’s side…
“Maya? What’s wrong, Honey? Did something happen?”
Maya shook her head. “They’re coming back.”
“Who’s coming back,” Liz asked, as Max and Michael gathered around them with the others.
“Kivar… and the shadow shifters. They’re coming back.”
Liz gasped and looked up at the sky, but the ship was still too far away to see… wherever it was.
“Can I do the mind warp,” Jiba asked.
Max looked at the sky and thought about it, but only for a brief moment. Then he nodded to Jiba. “Do it. Let me know if they go away or if they keep coming.”
“They always go away,” Zorel said. “Jiba scares them.”
Max nodded. “I know, but I just have a bad feeling about it this time. Kivar is evil, but he’s not stupid. He will figure out that the illusions are only a mind warp eventually… and when he does, he won’t go away.”
**********
As Max spoke, half a light year away, in space, a different conversation was taking place…
“Lord Kivar, we are two veskits from Antar. You requested that I let you know when we had reached this point.”
“Very good, Bezto.”
Kivar waved his hand dismissively at the captain of his shadow shifter minions then walked to the fore window of his ship and stood there, gazing into space, with his hands behind his back. Exactly three minutes later, as expected, Antar came into sight. At the speed the ship was traveling, it took only another two and a half minutes to reach the atmosphere. Kivar nodded and smiled.
“They’ve begun. They know we’re coming, Bezto. Look at my planet… enveloped in dark clouds and electrical storms that would scare off the most fearless of travelers. Actually, I kind of like it, you know, in a way. I wish I could keep the one who is doing this. Her illusions could be… useful.”
“You can do that,” Bezto said frankly. “I am still not convinced that Dunjin has given you correct information, but if one of the children is creating these… manifestations… why not just take the child and train it as your own. My army and I will eliminate the others.”
Kivar sighed. “If it were only so easy, Bezto. These children are not just any children. They’re the offspring of Zan and Rath… and the other royals. They will fight together… and die together. I am under no illusions that one can be willingly separated from the others.”
“I didn’t say that it would have to be willingly, Lord Kivar. Simply take the child. I know you have very effective methods for altering the minds and thoughts of your enemies. I am certain that in no time the child will be calling you father and doing your bidding… quite happily.”
“Perhaps,” Kivar said, mulling the thought over in his mind. “But it is also possible that she will become a useless shell, her brain burned out by the… methods I use.”
“I don’t see a problem,” Bezto said. “In that case, you simply discard her. You will be no worse off for having tried.”
Kivar was silent. Clearly, Bezto’s words had caused him to consider the possibility, though he still considered the success of such a gambit a long shot.
“Very well, Bezto. Find the girl. Bring her to me and kill the rest. Dispose of them as you see fit. Some of them are hybridized and may not disintegrate properly.”
Bezto nodded and smiled. “It will be as you wish, my lord.”
“Take the air skimmer and leave now… Take two… no, three… of your shadow shifters with you. That should be enough to capture one little girl.” Kivar stared at Bezto defiantly, as though daring him to contradict him, but Bezto only nodded and smiled. He had no doubt whatsoever that with three of his shadow shifters or alone, he would have no problem at all capturing Jiba and terminating the others. They were, after all, mere children… and an inferior race. To the shadow shifters, all other races were inferior, including Kivar himself, but some exceptions had to be tolerated for expediency.
Bezto left Kivar’s presence and immediately departed from the ship with two of his shadow shifters. Two would be more than enough. Of this, he was quite certain. Kivar, meanwhile, remained in front of the window, admiring the fury of Jiba’s storms, which increased mightily the closer the ship came to Antar.
“It’s about time for some fireworks,” Kivar mused aloud, “A few fireballs and maybe some crashing meteors…” As if on cue, several meteors appeared at once, all heading in the direction of Kivar’s ship.
“So predictable,” Kivar sighed. “I don’t know how I was ever fooled by these childish tricks. Where are the fireballs?”
As he looked, fireballs broke off from the meteors and sped toward the ship. But this time, instead of taking evasive action and fleeing as in the past, Kivar stood his ground and smiled. Kor’Voyl, the sub-captain of the shadow shifters, who had just appeared on the bridge, watched, too, somewhat more nervously, and several other shadow shifters standing near the door watched very nervously. Suddenly three of the fireballs struck the ship, causing near panic among the shadow shifters at the door and causing Kor’Voyl to swallow and close his eyes momentarily, but Kivar only smiled. The fireballs passed right through the ship without causing any damage…
“You see, Kor’Voyl? Dunjin was right. It’s all illusions. None of it can harm us.
The shadow shifter sub-captain smiled… in the strange way that shadow shifters smiled… but he did smile. At that moment, the first of the three meteors crashed head on into the ship… and disappeared into nothingness. Again, much to Kivar’s pleasure, the ship was untouched.
There was nothing that pleased Kivar more than always being right… unless it was always getting his way, but that was almost a given. Always being right was harder.
Within moments, the other two meteors crashed into the ship, too… with the same result… nothing. For a few brief moments, Kivar was almost giddy with the knowledge that he would soon have complete control of Antar, finally and decisively, and the children who had been a thorn in his side for so long would be gone… dealt with… equally finally and decisively.
“Lord Kivar, another meteor is coming,” Kor’Voyl said, pointing into the distance. “It’s bigger than the other three.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Kivar replied, grinning with anticipation. “An illusion is an illusion, whether it’s the size of a fireball, a meteor, or a planet… Ignore it.”
Kor’Voyl watched nervously as the meteor grew larger… and closer…
“This one looks different…”
“Of course it looks different! You don’t think she would try the same illusions again, do you? Even a child has more brains than you, Kor’Voyl! She’s varying her arsenal. It doesn’t matter. Illusions are illusions.”
Kor’Voyl shook his head. “This one looks different, Lord Kivar!”
Kivar sighed. “How?”
Kor’Voyl shook his head… “I… I’m not sure. The others increased in size at irregular intervals… They seemed to suddenly get a little larger every few seconds or so… but this one is increasing in size with regularity.”
Kivar nodded and smiled. “She’s learning! Bravo! She may be more useful to me than I thought… I hope she survives the brain purges.”
Kivar and Kor’Voyl watched, as the meteor tumbled through the sky toward the ship, growing larger and larger. It was traveling fast… incredibly fast… and now they could see that it was easily three times the size of the ship. As the meteor reached them, Kivar thought, for the briefest of moments, that he could feel heat radiating outward in front of it.
**********
Near the edge of the Nan-Torel below, a small group of individuals looked upward, watching the fireworks. When Kivar’s ship had appeared in the sky, far in the distance, a couple of minutes earlier, Jiba had begun throwing her illusions at it.
“Ooh, look at that one!” little Jayyd yelled, pointing at the large meteor when it appeared in the distant sky.”
“I like that one,” Zorel said, patting Jiba on the back. “It tumbles. It’s awesome!”
Jiba shook her head. “I didn’t make that one.”
Everyone turned to look at Jiba. “What do you mean, you didn’t make that one,” Michael asked.
“I didn’t make it. It’s real, I think.”
“I think I made it,” Andya said, looking sheepish.
The others turned to Andya. “I didn’t know you could make illusions,” Zorel said, surprised.
“I can’t,” Andya said.
“But she can create real animals… well, almost real,” Liz said.
“Yeah, she does that good!” Zorel agreed.
Max looked at the meteor. It was moving incredibly fast. It would collide with Kivar’s ship in twenty seconds or less, Max estimated… if Kivar didn’t move his ship fast.
“Is that meteor solid,” Max asked Andya. “I mean, will it be like the illusions or will it… you know…?”
“It’s solid, I think,” Andya said. “I never created an inanimate object before, so I’m not sure.”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “Well, for an inanimate object, that one is pretty animated. It’s really trucking!” Michael started to count down, and everyone held their breath…
“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
“Ooh, this is gonna be big!” Zorel said.
“Three, two, one…”
The sky lit up in a huge fireball, and there was a blinding light that forced everyone to cover their eyes, as the meteor struck the ship head on. Michael could picture Kivar standing there, staring at the huge rock, as it literally rolled over him.
But when they looked up again, the sky was clearing already. The flames and blinding light were dissipating, and the remnants of the huge meteor winked out and disappeared just like all the illusions had before.
“Where’s the ship,” Liz asked.
“I don’t see it,” Max said.
“I don’t think we’re going to,” Michael mused.
“But the meteor vanished,” Kyle said. “It wasn’t real.”
Michael nodded. “It was real enough… when it rolled over Kivar. Andya got rid of what was left of it after it broke up from the explosion of the ship.”
“I didn’t want the pieces to hit Antar,” Andya said.
Max smiled. “That was very good thinking, Andya. Excellent thinking! I’m going to have to make you my special defense minister… of inanimate and animate creations.”
Andya smiled.
“And you,” Max said to Jiba. “I’m going to have to make you my special defense minister of most awesome illusions.”
“What about me?” Zorel asked.
Max nodded and grinned. “You can be the protector of the black bog and royal Nan-Torel guide.”
“Awesome!” Zorel exclaimed.
Max turned to Danyy… “And since you heard the pawgors’ thoughts and found out about the black bog in the first place, you will be my new minister of pawgor communications and black bog therapy.”
Danyy grinned. “Awesome!”
“Don’t start any HMO’s,” Alex joked.
Danyy looked puzzled.
“Never mind,” Alex said with a grin. “It was a joke.”
tbc
Coming up: Lest we forget about Bezto…
Kivar’s Final Vengeance
Chapter 11
XI
Zorel led the group upward along the cushiony path… further and further toward the surface of the bog… but the water only got deeper and deeper as they ascended. Max knew that logically this was not what should be happening. If they were in an air-filled chamber beneath the waters of the bog, then they needed to go through the water to reach the surface. But the water should be above them, not rising beneath them. Kyle had been right. Whatever the secret of the bog was, it took the unassuming innocence of a child… or an animal like the pawgor… to get out.
The water was already up to Max’s chest, and he glanced back and saw that several of the shorter individuals were barely able to still walk and keep their heads above water anymore. Max stopped and called out to Zorel, who was in front of him and was swimming now.
“Zorel… what’s going on? Are we going to have to swim to get out?”
Zorel laughed and turned toward Max, while treading water. “You don’t have to swim. Just duck your head under the water.”
“Duck…? Okay… and then what?”
“Just duck your head under the water.”
Max held his breath and ducked under the water, but as quickly as his head went under, it popped right back to the surface. Max opened his eyes and wiped the water off of his face then looked around for Zorel. That’s when he realized that he was no longer in the underwater chamber. He was on the top… on the real surface… and all around him was the dense, jungle-like Nan-Torel.
But where was everyone else?
For a moment, Max panicked and began reaching into the dark waters all around him for a hand, an arm, any sign of the others who had been with him. He found nothing but water. Alarmed, Max dove head first into the bog…
Ouch! For water that he had sunk straight to the bottom in earlier, it was pretty danged hard on this side of the bog. It felt like it shoved Max right back to the surface. He started to dive again, but a hand touched him…
“Max? Where were you? You disappeared for several moments there,” Liz said, with concern evident in her voice. Max looked around. He was once again in the chamber under the bog, up to his chest in water. It didn’t make any sense at all.
Michael laughed. “Don’t try to figure it out, Max. Like Zorel said, you just have to trust in some things.”
“I’m not a blindly trusting person,” Max said, wiping the water off his face. “I like to know what I’m trusting in and why I’m trusting in it.”
“Yeah, I know. Me, too,” Michael confided. “But I think this is challenging my conceptions.”
Max nodded. “Yeah.”
“What did you see,” Liz asked.
“The surface… the trees,” Max replied. “If you duck under the water, you pop up on the surface. Don’t ask me how. It’s gonna drive me crazy for a long time trying to figure it out.”
Liz ducked her head under the water… then Maria ducked under. After them, the others, one by one, ducked under, too; and as each one did, he or she disappeared beneath the water and did not return. Finally, only Max and Michael were left.
Max shrugged. “Shall we?”
Michael ducked under the water, and Max followed. When he popped up, he was on the surface again, but this time everyone else was there as well. They were still standing in chest deep water, but instead of being in the underwater chamber, they… or at least their heads… were above the surface.
“I’m assuming that if we walk toward the shore now, we’ll walk out of the water?” Max asked Zorel. Zorel nodded, still treading water.
Max started walking toward the shore, and the others followed. As they went, the water got shallower and shallower… until they literally simply walked out of the bog.
“Woo hoo! Land!” Alex yelled, doing a little dance on the shore, with a huge grin on his face.
Max looked around. “I hate to ask what is probably a stupid question… but how are we going to get back to the south side of the bog again? The jungle growth to the east and west looks impassable to me… We can’t go around to get back to the path…”
“Wait… Don’t tell me! You kids fly! Right?” Max said, smiling at what he clearly intended as a joke.
“No, that’s silly,” Liz-Jolee said. “We can’t fly.”
Max chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know… I think.”
Zorel looked at the surface of the bog for a moment then carefully put one foot on it… Then he put the other foot behind the first one. Then he took another step out onto the water and turned around and smiled.
Max threw up his hands. “Of course! You walk on water! Why didn’t I know that?”
The children laughed.
“No, silly,” little Jayyd said, taking Max’s hand and leading him to the edge where Zorel had stepped off. “There are stepping stones under the water. You just have to look for them.”
Max knelt down on one knee and placed his hand on the water. Sure enough… just below the water… not even a quarter of an inch below the surface… there was something hard. It appeared to be about two and a half feet wide and equally as long, but try as Max might, he could not see it. It was black in a black water bog, and it looked exactly like the water. For all practical purposes, it was invisible.
“Do these… stepping stones… go all the way across,” Max asked. Jayyd smiled and nodded.
“Come on,” Maya said, taking Liz by the hand, “We’ll lead you across.”
“How do you know where to step,” Liz asked, straining to see anything at all in the black water, with no more success than Max had had.
“You can’t see the stepping stones,” Jayyd replied, “You just have to feel them with your feet.”
“And if you miss one?” Maria asked.
Jayyd smiled. “You go to the bottom and start over again.”
“Don’t miss one,” Taz said with a grin.
Liz nodded and looked at Maria, and both of them stepped onto the first stone with Maya. As they proceeded, stepping onto the second stone, Andya and JoLeesa followed them. Then, one by one, the others walked out onto the water, too, most of them being guided by their children. Max and Zorel, meanwhile, were just reaching the other side, and Max stepped onto the ground and turned around to see how everyone else was coming. Slowly, the parents and children inched along followed by the group from the New Granolith… in all, some 40 adults and children. Kyle reached the other side and turned around and looked back, then shook his head in disbelief as he watched the rest of the group cross the bog, each person appearing for all the world to be walking on the water…
“Incredible…”
Soon, everyone was on the south side of the bog, where they had first gone into the water. With everyone safely on the shore, Max turned to look for the path that led back out of the Nan-Torel, but as he walked away from the bog, he froze suddenly in his tracks. Michael moved to the side a couple of steps to see what had made Max stop, and he froze, too.
“Don’t anyone move,” Michael whispered, standing as still as a Nan-Torel rock tortoise. Not twenty feet in front of him and Max, on the path, was a full-grown male pawgor, saber teeth and all. It stood there, almost chest high to Max and Michael, motionless, its eyes burning into Max and Michael’s eyes with a searing heat and intensity.
Despite the discomfort, which was probably psychological, Michael stared directly into the huge cat’s eyes, not daring to look away or even to blink. So did Max. The pawgor NEVER blinked, a fact that was disconcerting to both Max and Michael, who wanted badly to blink but couldn’t. Their eyes seemed to burn and quickly began to water, but neither dared to move. Both Max and Michael were prepared to raise their hands quickly and blast the pawgor if it moved toward anyone. But what happened next was totally unexpected. Without warning, the pawgor averted its eyes… then it slowly walked forward, dragging its left rear leg, which appeared, now that they saw it, to have been grievously wounded. The pawgor might have been in a fight with another pawgor… or it might have been wounded by a falling tree or attacked by flesh-eating rob-jetta bats as it slept… or any of a million other things that could befall even the mightiest creatures of the always-dangerous Nan-Torel. But today, this pawgor clearly did not intend to fight unless it was provoked. And Max and Michael had no desire to provoke it.
The pawgor walked to the edge of the bog and, without ever looking back, simply laid down and rolled into the water, sinking immediately out of sight in the dark bog. It looked like some kind of strange suicide, but Max and Michael knew better.
“Zorel…” Max called. Zorel came running.
“How long will it take that pawgor to heal… till it comes back out?”
Zorel shrugged. “A few hours, at least… maybe a whole day… I think.”
“Good. Let’s be gone before it comes back out all fixed up like new and hungry again, okay?”
Everyone was nodding.
“Lead the way,” Max said to Zorel. “You kids are the ones who know how to get back out of here.” Zorel smiled and hurried off down the trail, and Max and the others followed, leaving the black bog and its mysteries behind them.
They had walked for almost an hour along the trail when Maya suddenly stopped and let out a small cry. Liz immediately rushed to her daughter’s side…
“Maya? What’s wrong, Honey? Did something happen?”
Maya shook her head. “They’re coming back.”
“Who’s coming back,” Liz asked, as Max and Michael gathered around them with the others.
“Kivar… and the shadow shifters. They’re coming back.”
Liz gasped and looked up at the sky, but the ship was still too far away to see… wherever it was.
“Can I do the mind warp,” Jiba asked.
Max looked at the sky and thought about it, but only for a brief moment. Then he nodded to Jiba. “Do it. Let me know if they go away or if they keep coming.”
“They always go away,” Zorel said. “Jiba scares them.”
Max nodded. “I know, but I just have a bad feeling about it this time. Kivar is evil, but he’s not stupid. He will figure out that the illusions are only a mind warp eventually… and when he does, he won’t go away.”
**********
As Max spoke, half a light year away, in space, a different conversation was taking place…
“Lord Kivar, we are two veskits from Antar. You requested that I let you know when we had reached this point.”
“Very good, Bezto.”
Kivar waved his hand dismissively at the captain of his shadow shifter minions then walked to the fore window of his ship and stood there, gazing into space, with his hands behind his back. Exactly three minutes later, as expected, Antar came into sight. At the speed the ship was traveling, it took only another two and a half minutes to reach the atmosphere. Kivar nodded and smiled.
“They’ve begun. They know we’re coming, Bezto. Look at my planet… enveloped in dark clouds and electrical storms that would scare off the most fearless of travelers. Actually, I kind of like it, you know, in a way. I wish I could keep the one who is doing this. Her illusions could be… useful.”
“You can do that,” Bezto said frankly. “I am still not convinced that Dunjin has given you correct information, but if one of the children is creating these… manifestations… why not just take the child and train it as your own. My army and I will eliminate the others.”
Kivar sighed. “If it were only so easy, Bezto. These children are not just any children. They’re the offspring of Zan and Rath… and the other royals. They will fight together… and die together. I am under no illusions that one can be willingly separated from the others.”
“I didn’t say that it would have to be willingly, Lord Kivar. Simply take the child. I know you have very effective methods for altering the minds and thoughts of your enemies. I am certain that in no time the child will be calling you father and doing your bidding… quite happily.”
“Perhaps,” Kivar said, mulling the thought over in his mind. “But it is also possible that she will become a useless shell, her brain burned out by the… methods I use.”
“I don’t see a problem,” Bezto said. “In that case, you simply discard her. You will be no worse off for having tried.”
Kivar was silent. Clearly, Bezto’s words had caused him to consider the possibility, though he still considered the success of such a gambit a long shot.
“Very well, Bezto. Find the girl. Bring her to me and kill the rest. Dispose of them as you see fit. Some of them are hybridized and may not disintegrate properly.”
Bezto nodded and smiled. “It will be as you wish, my lord.”
“Take the air skimmer and leave now… Take two… no, three… of your shadow shifters with you. That should be enough to capture one little girl.” Kivar stared at Bezto defiantly, as though daring him to contradict him, but Bezto only nodded and smiled. He had no doubt whatsoever that with three of his shadow shifters or alone, he would have no problem at all capturing Jiba and terminating the others. They were, after all, mere children… and an inferior race. To the shadow shifters, all other races were inferior, including Kivar himself, but some exceptions had to be tolerated for expediency.
Bezto left Kivar’s presence and immediately departed from the ship with two of his shadow shifters. Two would be more than enough. Of this, he was quite certain. Kivar, meanwhile, remained in front of the window, admiring the fury of Jiba’s storms, which increased mightily the closer the ship came to Antar.
“It’s about time for some fireworks,” Kivar mused aloud, “A few fireballs and maybe some crashing meteors…” As if on cue, several meteors appeared at once, all heading in the direction of Kivar’s ship.
“So predictable,” Kivar sighed. “I don’t know how I was ever fooled by these childish tricks. Where are the fireballs?”
As he looked, fireballs broke off from the meteors and sped toward the ship. But this time, instead of taking evasive action and fleeing as in the past, Kivar stood his ground and smiled. Kor’Voyl, the sub-captain of the shadow shifters, who had just appeared on the bridge, watched, too, somewhat more nervously, and several other shadow shifters standing near the door watched very nervously. Suddenly three of the fireballs struck the ship, causing near panic among the shadow shifters at the door and causing Kor’Voyl to swallow and close his eyes momentarily, but Kivar only smiled. The fireballs passed right through the ship without causing any damage…
“You see, Kor’Voyl? Dunjin was right. It’s all illusions. None of it can harm us.
The shadow shifter sub-captain smiled… in the strange way that shadow shifters smiled… but he did smile. At that moment, the first of the three meteors crashed head on into the ship… and disappeared into nothingness. Again, much to Kivar’s pleasure, the ship was untouched.
There was nothing that pleased Kivar more than always being right… unless it was always getting his way, but that was almost a given. Always being right was harder.
Within moments, the other two meteors crashed into the ship, too… with the same result… nothing. For a few brief moments, Kivar was almost giddy with the knowledge that he would soon have complete control of Antar, finally and decisively, and the children who had been a thorn in his side for so long would be gone… dealt with… equally finally and decisively.
“Lord Kivar, another meteor is coming,” Kor’Voyl said, pointing into the distance. “It’s bigger than the other three.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Kivar replied, grinning with anticipation. “An illusion is an illusion, whether it’s the size of a fireball, a meteor, or a planet… Ignore it.”
Kor’Voyl watched nervously as the meteor grew larger… and closer…
“This one looks different…”
“Of course it looks different! You don’t think she would try the same illusions again, do you? Even a child has more brains than you, Kor’Voyl! She’s varying her arsenal. It doesn’t matter. Illusions are illusions.”
Kor’Voyl shook his head. “This one looks different, Lord Kivar!”
Kivar sighed. “How?”
Kor’Voyl shook his head… “I… I’m not sure. The others increased in size at irregular intervals… They seemed to suddenly get a little larger every few seconds or so… but this one is increasing in size with regularity.”
Kivar nodded and smiled. “She’s learning! Bravo! She may be more useful to me than I thought… I hope she survives the brain purges.”
Kivar and Kor’Voyl watched, as the meteor tumbled through the sky toward the ship, growing larger and larger. It was traveling fast… incredibly fast… and now they could see that it was easily three times the size of the ship. As the meteor reached them, Kivar thought, for the briefest of moments, that he could feel heat radiating outward in front of it.
**********
Near the edge of the Nan-Torel below, a small group of individuals looked upward, watching the fireworks. When Kivar’s ship had appeared in the sky, far in the distance, a couple of minutes earlier, Jiba had begun throwing her illusions at it.
“Ooh, look at that one!” little Jayyd yelled, pointing at the large meteor when it appeared in the distant sky.”
“I like that one,” Zorel said, patting Jiba on the back. “It tumbles. It’s awesome!”
Jiba shook her head. “I didn’t make that one.”
Everyone turned to look at Jiba. “What do you mean, you didn’t make that one,” Michael asked.
“I didn’t make it. It’s real, I think.”
“I think I made it,” Andya said, looking sheepish.
The others turned to Andya. “I didn’t know you could make illusions,” Zorel said, surprised.
“I can’t,” Andya said.
“But she can create real animals… well, almost real,” Liz said.
“Yeah, she does that good!” Zorel agreed.
Max looked at the meteor. It was moving incredibly fast. It would collide with Kivar’s ship in twenty seconds or less, Max estimated… if Kivar didn’t move his ship fast.
“Is that meteor solid,” Max asked Andya. “I mean, will it be like the illusions or will it… you know…?”
“It’s solid, I think,” Andya said. “I never created an inanimate object before, so I’m not sure.”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “Well, for an inanimate object, that one is pretty animated. It’s really trucking!” Michael started to count down, and everyone held their breath…
“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
“Ooh, this is gonna be big!” Zorel said.
“Three, two, one…”
The sky lit up in a huge fireball, and there was a blinding light that forced everyone to cover their eyes, as the meteor struck the ship head on. Michael could picture Kivar standing there, staring at the huge rock, as it literally rolled over him.
But when they looked up again, the sky was clearing already. The flames and blinding light were dissipating, and the remnants of the huge meteor winked out and disappeared just like all the illusions had before.
“Where’s the ship,” Liz asked.
“I don’t see it,” Max said.
“I don’t think we’re going to,” Michael mused.
“But the meteor vanished,” Kyle said. “It wasn’t real.”
Michael nodded. “It was real enough… when it rolled over Kivar. Andya got rid of what was left of it after it broke up from the explosion of the ship.”
“I didn’t want the pieces to hit Antar,” Andya said.
Max smiled. “That was very good thinking, Andya. Excellent thinking! I’m going to have to make you my special defense minister… of inanimate and animate creations.”
Andya smiled.
“And you,” Max said to Jiba. “I’m going to have to make you my special defense minister of most awesome illusions.”
“What about me?” Zorel asked.
Max nodded and grinned. “You can be the protector of the black bog and royal Nan-Torel guide.”
“Awesome!” Zorel exclaimed.
Max turned to Danyy… “And since you heard the pawgors’ thoughts and found out about the black bog in the first place, you will be my new minister of pawgor communications and black bog therapy.”
Danyy grinned. “Awesome!”
“Don’t start any HMO’s,” Alex joked.
Danyy looked puzzled.
“Never mind,” Alex said with a grin. “It was a joke.”
tbc
Coming up: Lest we forget about Bezto…
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Island Breeze
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Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
The Shadow
Chapter 12
XII
“Zorel, as my new royal Nan-Torel guide, I’m giving you a job… Lead us home.”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Max! I mean… yes, sir… King… Zan… sir…”
Max smiled. “Uncle Max will be fine, Zorel… for you and all the children.”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Max!”
Zorel turned and walked down the path. “We’re almost out of the Nan-Torel now, Uncle Max. It’s only a few more minutes.”
“Good,” Max said. “I’m looking forward to getting back to the palace. I have this odd feeling like I’ve been gone for a long time.”
Liz smiled and nodded, taking Max’s arm in hers and holding on to it. Everyone knew what Max was feeling… They felt it, too. It was eerie waking up as though it were only the next day, yet somehow knowing… and feeling… deep inside… that a considerable amount of time had actually passed while they “slept.” Of course, the feeling had been confirmed by the children and the group from the New Granolith.
“Max… is there something strange about the shadows in the Nan-Torel,” Isabel asked nervously. “I keep seeing shadows in the trees where there shouldn’t be shadows… I think.”
Max looked around, clearly concerned. His mind still retained memories of his killer…
Max had walked right up to the wall and touched it, thinking that there was a light stain on the wall that would need to be cleaned. He had never even suspected that anything sinister was afoot. Max had been the first one killed. The shadow shifter had simply emerged from the wall like a shadow and fired a type of pulse beam into Max’s head at point blank range before Max realized what was happening. Max felt a sharp pain, as part of his brain exploded inside his head, then nothing… until he woke up… nothing, at least, that he remembered now. Only feelings.
“I saw a shadow on that tree over there just a moment ago,” Alex said, pointing the tree out for Max. Max nodded and glanced at Michael. Michael nodded back. Then both of them raised their hands and fired two blasts into the tree. The tree slowly fell over and crashed to the ground… but the shadow remained standing.
Not for long.
Lending their doubles a hand… literally… Max and Michael from the New Granolith both fired blasts directly into the stunned shadow, and it caught fire and began to burn like an oily rag, which, in a strange way, it somewhat resembled.
Now, there was no longer any doubt. The shadow shifters were back… and they were among them. Max had no way of knowing… no idea at all… how many of them there might be. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Not after what the shadow shifters had already proven themselves capable of… not with the lives of all the children and his entire circle of friends in his hands and in jeopardy. Michael seemed to have the same thought as Max. Both of them turned to the group…
“Go back! Go back into the Nan-Torel, everybody!”
“I don’t think they’ll follow us in very far,” Max said, “Most beings have a deathly fear of the Nan-Torel.”
Michael nodded. “I’m surprised they came in this far.”
Together, Max and Michael rushed everyone back down the trail in the direction of the bog. For fifteen minutes, they saw no more shadows that looked out of place, but then Zorel spotted something high in a tree. It looked like a rob-jetta bat, swooping from one tree to another, but Zorel had never seen a rob-jetta in this sector of the Nan-Torel…
“Dad,” Zorel said, tugging on Michael’s arm and pointing into the tree. Michael saw it and nodded. A moment later, a blast from the palm of Michael’s hand sent the “rob-jetta” tumbling and spiraling to the ground. Two Maxes, two Michaels, and two Jim Valentis were immediately on top of the black form, which writhed eerily on the ground for several moments before turning back into its natural form, something between an oily rag and an oily humanoid.
The shadow shifter must have thought he was seeing double as he opened his eyes, though it is possible that he had already figured out that there were two of each of them, since he had been following them for some time already in the tree tops.
“Kivar is dead,” Michael said emphatically, in case the shadow shifter had not seen what happened. “You don’t have a master anymore. What do you want with us?”
The shadow shifter writhed again, momentarily attempting… unsuccessfully… to change its shape, before answering in defeat, but still with the false pride and superior attitude typical of his species… “Kivar is not my master.”
“You serve him blindly… You do his bidding,” Michael said, “That makes him your master.”
“Convenience,” the shadow shifter mumbled, “Kivar has power. We want it.”
“Not now he doesn’t,” Jim said. “He’s splattered all over the front of an asteroid… along with his ship. I don’t think you want to be like him.”
“We saw what happened,” the shadow shifter muttered, “But we did not need Kivar. He needed us.”
“Symbiotic parasites,” Kyle said, “That’s what you both are… or were… symbiotic parasites. You fed off of each other… But you don’t have Kivar anymore.”
“How many of you are there here on Antar right now,” Jim asked.
The shadow shifter did not reply.
“Oh well,” Michael said, raising his palm and aiming it at the dark form on the ground. “I guess you saw what happened to your companion back there. What are you guys made of… oil and gas?”
The shadow shifter writhed on the ground, clearly appearing to be distressed. He attempted yet again to shift but apparently still could not change his form. Michael’s power blast had stunned and addled him too deeply.
“There are fifty-three of us,” the shadow shifter replied. It was a half-truth. There had been fifty-three, but fifty of them were on the ship when it was demolished. One more had burned up after being hit by Max and Michael’s power blast. There was only this one left now… and one other one that was still at large. But Max and Michael had no way of knowing this.
“Fifty-three!” Kyle exclaimed. “What are we going to do, Max? We’ll be out here forever.”
“As long as it takes,” Michael said with determination. “If there are fifty-three, then we stay as long as it takes… till all of them are dead. We get them one at a time if we have to.” Michael raised his hand again. “We can make that fifty-two right now.”
“No!” the shadow shifter yelled, cringing. “No… I can give you information… information you need.”
“What information would you have that we would care about,” Michael asked, pretending disinterest.
“How many of us there are… still alive… and who it is.”
Michael lowered his hand, and the glow in his palm ebbed… “Alright… tell me… but make it convincing. I’m getting tired of discharging like this. I need to blast something. It’s frustrating getting all up and then having to hold it.”
A smile tugged at the corner of Max’s mouth, but he struggled to maintain his stern look.
“There is only me left… and Bezto,” the shadow shifter said, “The others were all… on the ship.”
“Well, that’s better odds,” Kyle said. “Maybe we won’t have to be out here forever after all.”
“But can we trust him,” Alex asked, “I know I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Max said, “But I have a gut feeling that he’s telling us the truth. I don’t know why.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the shape shifter said, “Bezto will kill all of you. You will not be able to find Bezto… or defeat him. He will be there when you least expect it. He will come from nowhere. He will be unseen… until it is too late.”
“We’ll see,” Michael said. “We’ll see.”
Michael had barely spoken when the ground rose up at his feet, and his own shadow lunged at him, grabbing him around the throat. There was a knife in its left hand. Michael saw it coming but didn’t have time to react. The knife came up and passed across Michael’s throat with a speed that was unexpected. Fortunately, Max saw it coming, too, and from where he was standing, he WAS able to react in time. A blast of power sheared off a small portion of the attacking shadow and sent it scurrying into the trees. It had left Michael bleeding from a serious, but not fatal, gash that Max was able to quickly heal, even as Michael protested that he deserved it. Michael was furious with himself for not getting the creature, and Max was annoyed at himself for not making a direct hit, but he had been concerned that he might hit Michael by accident. He was, after all, trying to kill Michael’s shadow, as weird as that seemed.
Even worse, Michael looked around and discovered that the other shadow shifter had disappeared while they had been distracted by Bezto. That fact, on top of everything else, probably would have elicited some interesting word choices from Michael’s occasionally interesting vocabulary; but before that could happen, he got a glimpse of something shadowy flying through the trees. Unexpectedly, it turned and headed straight for him. This time Michael WAS ready, and he spun toward the attacker and blasted it. It was a perfect, dead center shot. A huge hole opened up in the center of the oily creature and began to burn, quickly consuming the shadowy mass, which Max and Michael could now see was the one they had had on the ground and not Bezto.
“Wow, that felt so good,” Michael said, looking relieved.
Max smiled. “Would you like a cigarette?”
Michael gave Max a strange look. “Max, you’re losing it.”
“Just checking,” Max said.
“Do you still believe him,” Alex asked Max. “Do you think that Bezto is the last one left?”
“I don’t know,” Max said honestly. “These shadow shifters have pursued us deep into the Nan-Torel. There’s almost nothing that will come in here… even them, usually. I just don’t know what they’re capable of anymore.”
Max turned to Michael… “Let’s get everybody back to the bog. If someone does get hurt, you’ll be able to do something about it… if something happens to me.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Liz retorted.
“Reality check,” Max said, sighing. Then he put his arm around Liz. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but reality can be harsh, Liz. I have to face the fact that something could happen to me… and make contingency plans for the safety of the group.”
Liz put two fingers on Max’s lips… “I know… but I don’t have to like it.”
Max smiled and kissed her. “No… you don’t have to like it. But I don’t intend to just roll over, Liz. They’ll have to drag me down fighting if they get me again. I promise you that.”
As the group walked on toward the bog, the conversation dwelt on the eerie way the shadow shifter had simply replaced Michael’s shadow. It unnerved them all, and more than once, each one found himself or herself staring suspiciously at his or her own shadow. The children seemed especially concerned about their shadows, occasionally jumping on them or kicking them… Liz and Max’s son, Alyyx, pelted his shadow with rocks from time to time… just to be sure.
They all knew that, somewhere out there, Bezto was watching and waiting for just the right moment to strike again. It wasn’t a question of “if” but of “when.”
“I don’t understand what Bezto has to gain from killing us now,” Alex said. “Kivar’s dead, so what’s his motivation, anyway?”
“I think Bezto has this pride thing,” Michael said. “He can’t let go until the job is done.”
“That’s probably true,” Jim agreed, “But I think there’s more to it than just that.”
Max nodded… “Well, the other shadow shifter did say that they wanted the power for themselves… and that they didn’t need Kivar, he needed them.”
“You think the shadow shifters want to take over Antar?” Isabel asked.
“I think that’s a very real possibility,” Max said. “At least, I think Bezto wants to take over Antar.”
Michael nodded. “I have to agree. Bezto wants something, and it has to be big. He doesn’t bother with small potatoes. If he wants something on Antar, it’s probably Antar.”
“So he’ll keep trying to kill us… and Max, especially,” Maria surmised thoughtfully.
“I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet,” Jim agreed. “We have to get Bezto before he gets any of us. If we get Bezto, now that his army’s gone, too, there won’t be any more shadow shifters left here… and I don’t think the ones back on their planet will bother coming here again.”
“Unless another Kivar or Bezto comes along someday,” Alex said.
Max nodded. “But Jim’s right. If we get Bezto, we’ll probably have peace on Antar, now that Kivar is gone.”
“Peace… without Kivar… without shadow shifters…” Isabel mused longingly. “Can it possibly be true? I’ve dreamed of that.”
“On our Antar in our dimension, Alex from the New Granolith said, “we have had peace ever since Kivar was killed. There have been other problems, especially from the Ghors, but basically, our planet has been at peace… And largely because of Michael, we have over three hundred new allied planets now. The strength of our peace has never been greater than it is today.”
Max from the present dimension turned and looked at Alex. “I long for the day when I can say that. We have had relative peace here since Kivar was sent packing, but he’s made other attempts to return. The threat has always been at our doorstep, and then, of course… this happened.” Max was referring to their murders at the hands of the shadow shifters. “Maybe now that Kivar is gone, finally, we can have a real and lasting peace.”
As Max spoke, Varec and Amy’s daughter, Liz-Jolee, began jumping on her shadow.
“I thought I saw it move.”
“Were you moving when you saw it move?” Varec asked with a smile.
Liz-Jolee nodded.
“It’s all right,” Amy said, picking Liz-Jolee up, “We’re all a little spooked by everything right now.
Alyyx looked around for several stones that were just the right size and threw them at Liz-Jolee and Amy’s shadow, but they were only shadows. He noticed another large stone and picked it up to throw it, too, but this one failed to fly out of his hand. Instead, Alyyx Evans found himself in the clutches of Bezto, who had been lying on the path waiting, in the form of a stone… the precise type and size of stone that the boy had been picking up and throwing at shadows as he walked. Bezto had been watching and plotting. And now he had his bait.
Bezto did not wait to be hit by another power blast from Max or Michael. Holding the child close to him to dissuade them from firing at him, he quickly leapt behind a large boulder with his hostage. Max and Michael both knew that they could easily blast the boulder apart, but that might kill Alyyx.
“Give us the boy,” Michael yelled. “He’s not the one you want. Take me.”
Maria gasped and held tightly onto Michael’s arm, but she didn’t say anything.
“The boy is mine,” Bezto said from behind the boulder. “I will kill him at my leisure.”
“No! Don’t!” Max yelled, swallowing hard, as Liz held his arm and cried, terrified for her son’s safety.
“I could be convinced to let him go… if you were to take his place, Zan.”
“I’ll take his place,” Liz cried. “Take me and let him go.”
Max shook his head at Liz and hugged her, then he released her and walked toward the boulder himself. At the same time, he looked at Michael, and Michael nodded, understanding.
Bezto smiled to himself, seeing his plan coming together. What Bezto did not notice was Max and Michael’s signals… He also did not notice two children whispering to each other.
Danyy smiled and nodded at Andya, and Andya closed her eyes and concentrated. Then Danyy concentrated, too.
Suddenly, a 14-foot-long red snake with a light mint-green belly, an electric blue zigzag pattern on its sides, and small, brightly glowing luminescent greenish spots all over fell out of the tree behind Bezto, landing right on his unsuspecting shoulders. The snake immediately slid down over Bezto’s arms, pinning them to his sides.
Bezto struggled unsuccessfully to get free, and in his struggling, he accidentally managed to cause the tip of the snake’s tail to touch its head, forming a complete circuit. As soon as this happened, the entire snake lit up like an atom bomb that had just exploded, throwing a roaring sheet of flames high into the air… a sheet of flames so intense that it went right through both Bezto and Alyyx’s bodies, allowing everyone to actually see Alyyx’s skeleton and Bezto’s odd interior physiology in a sort of X-ray effect… and making it momentarily appear that both had been vaporized. This elicited gasps from most of the group…
Slowly, both Alyyx and Bezto returned to their normal opaque state, and the radiation-like glow all over their bodies started to subside. Completely freaked out by what had just happened, Bezto shapeshifted into a small bat, slipped out of the snake’s noose, and flew off, disappearing before Max or Michael could hit him with a power blast.
“Damn!” Michael exclaimed, throwing a blast that incinerated the top of the tree that Bezto had just flown over, but missing Bezto. Max, meanwhile, ran to check Alyyx out. Liz was already at Alyyx’s side, and both were sure that Alyyx was going to need Max’s medical attention in a very big way after what had just happened. To their shock and amazement, Alyyx was fine… and the snake had mysteriously disappeared.
“I don’t understand,” Liz said, looking their son over, “He’s not burned or hurt at all… not that I can see.” Max shook his head, speechless.
“I think I can explain it,” the other Max, from the New Granolith, said, “What you just saw was an Antarian Nan-Torel green-spotted fire snake. Jim can tell you about them. He had one on his TV program, ‘Jungle Jim,’ that’s been running on our Antar for a while now.”
Jim nodded… “The flash of fire the fire snake gives off is actually not fire but a massive burst of radiation coupled with a sensory boost produced by a small organ in the snake’s brain that allows it to intensify the visual effect of its display in susceptible brains… like ours… and apparently, Bezto’s. When the fire snake gives off its flash of radiation, it sends out a powerful signal from its brain at the same time that causes a predator to see the radiation flash as flames. The flash is real, but it wouldn’t be visible, or certainly not as impressive, without the sensory boost from the snake’s mind. If the flames were real fire, the fire snakes would burn the Nan-Torel down.”
Jim was trying to explain the mechanism of the snake’s awesome display but was drawing blank stares from most of those there, who had never seen his show in their dimension.
“It can be lethal to smaller animals and to some larger animals with susceptible nervous systems,” Jim continued, “But it’s not lethal to humans or Antarians… as long as we’re in Antar’s atmosphere, which counteracts much of the radiation’s effects. On Earth, this amount of radiation would probably have killed them.”
“Are there a lot of these snakes around here,” Max asked Zorel.
Zorel smiled. “We’ve only seen two or three. Andya made this one with her mind… and Danyy told it what to do.”
Max turned to Andya and Danyy… “You did that?”
“Was it okay, Dad,” Andya asked sheepishly.
Max looked at her sternly then smiled. “Well, Michael and I did have a plan to get Bezto, but it was risky. Someone might have got hurt. You got Alyyx away from him without Alyyx or anyone else getting hurt. Thank you! You guys are pretty awesome!”
Andya and Danyy both grinned from ear to ear.
“We can make more fire snakes whenever you want them,” Andya said.
Max shook his head. “I’ve had enough fire snake excitement for today, AnDasniya… but thanks. I’ll keep it in mind in case I need one anytime.”
“Max, do you think we got rid of Bezto,” Tess asked, “I mean, do you think he’ll come back again?”
“No and yes… in that order,” Max replied solemnly. “He’ll try again. We can count on it. Until we get him, we will never be safe, I’m sorry to say. Bezto is like a Gorvian chogo. When a chogo clamps its jaws down on you, the only way to get it loose is to remove the jaws from the chogo and pry them apart… after the chogo is dead. That’s Bezto. He won’t let go… ever.”
Nobody seemed happy to hear Max say this, but it was what all of them either knew or suspected already.
The group walked on toward the bog for another thirty minutes, with everyone on hyper alert for any sign at all of Bezto’s presence, but no one saw any trace of him.
“There’s the bog,” Zorel said, pointing ahead about a hundred feet. Max nodded and walked to the edge of the bog. Then he stood there, looking at the black waters, and thinking.
“What are we going to do if we don’t find Bezto,” Alex asked.
Max shook his head silently.
“We won’t find him,” Michael said, “He’ll find us. We just have to be ready.”
“Jiba, can you make us all invisible now,” Max asked, “So that Bezto can’t see us?”
Jiba nodded enthusiastically and concentrated momentarily, then she opened her eyes. “It’s done.”
“I still see everybody,” Max said.
Jiba nodded. “We can see each other, but anybody else won’t be able to see us.”
Max walked over to the spot where they had crossed the water and bent down to feel the stepping stone just beneath the surface.
“Do you think he could be masquerading as one of the stepping stones,” Kyle asked.
Max nodded. “Bezto could be anything. We won’t know what he is or where he is until he pops out.” Max poked at the stepping stone with a stick. It appeared to be only a stone, though he couldn’t see it. In any case, there was no reaction when Max poked it, so he proceeded to step onto the second stone and poke it, too. Again, he got no reaction. Max stepped onto the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stones, poking each one as he went, with no reaction. He looked back at the others, from the center of the bog, and shrugged.
“Max, look!” Michael yelled, pointing across the bog toward the other side. Max turned around and looked where Michael had pointed. It was the pawgor that had gone into the bog earlier that day, the one with the injured leg, coming out of the bog, and its leg looked totally healthy now. So, unfortunately, did its appetite. Standing in the middle of the bog, Max froze, as the pawgor sniffed the air. He was unsure whether the pawgor could see through Jiba’s mind warp or not, but he suspected that a major movement might be perceived by the cat, even if only by dispersing his smell into the wind for the cat to pick up.
“Oh oh,” Michael whispered, “It’s hungry. It’s looking for food. Stay very, very still, Max.”
Max couldn’t hear what Michael said; Michael didn’t expect him to. It was merely a thought… expressed out loud… if only in a whisper.
Sniffing the air, then the ground, the pawgor found an inoffensive wiffer, a large armored turtle-like creature that hides underground, just beneath the surface, in the Nan-Torel. The saber-toothed cat dug the wiffer out of its hiding place then nudged it, turning it upside down in an effort to get at the animal inside the armored shell. Crushing the shell would not be a problem for the pawgor. With its two huge front teeth and vice-like jaws, it could make short work of the wiffer’s shell, and it would if it was unable to get at the animal any easier way.
The pawgor was patient, but it was also hungry. It managed to get a hold of the wiffer’s front leg and pull it out of the shell, but the wiffer quickly reclaimed its leg and pulled it back into the shell. The pawgor had waited long enough for its meal. It stretched out on the ground, held the wiffer between its front paws, and used its huge front teeth to literally pry the top part of the shell from the bottom part. The shell burst open, exposing the pawgor’s meal… but it was not the meal that the pawgor had expected. The succulent white meat of this wiffer was neither succulent nor white, but dark and oily… and the creature mutated rapidly, suddenly rising up and becoming a man-sized object. The pawgor grabbed it with sharp claws, ripping the dark, oily creature almost in half, as the creature tried unsuccessfully to escape…
Already injured, and unable to shift his entire body to another form again, Bezto tried to run. That in itself was a major mistake, as Jim could have told him had he asked. Jim had once said that anything running was pawgor food.
Bezto tried to fight back, quickly producing a large knife by shapeshifting --It was actually a part of his arm-- but it was no match for the pawgor. A shrill scream pierced the air of the Nan-Torel, as the pawgor grabbed Bezto and shook him violently, shredding him into small pieces that floated on the wind and came to rest on the ground all around the huge cat.
The pawgor sniffed at the shreds of what had once been the prince of the shadow shifters. It didn’t seem too impressed by the smell, but it was hungry, so it ate some of the pieces anyway. They didn’t stay down long. Hacking like a cat with a hairball, the pawgor ejected the shredded pieces, along with its other meager stomach contents.
Across the bog, Alex watched and smiled sympathetically… “Yeah, I know! Hospital food sucks, doesn’t it!”
tbc
The Shadow
Chapter 12
XII
“Zorel, as my new royal Nan-Torel guide, I’m giving you a job… Lead us home.”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Max! I mean… yes, sir… King… Zan… sir…”
Max smiled. “Uncle Max will be fine, Zorel… for you and all the children.”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Max!”
Zorel turned and walked down the path. “We’re almost out of the Nan-Torel now, Uncle Max. It’s only a few more minutes.”
“Good,” Max said. “I’m looking forward to getting back to the palace. I have this odd feeling like I’ve been gone for a long time.”
Liz smiled and nodded, taking Max’s arm in hers and holding on to it. Everyone knew what Max was feeling… They felt it, too. It was eerie waking up as though it were only the next day, yet somehow knowing… and feeling… deep inside… that a considerable amount of time had actually passed while they “slept.” Of course, the feeling had been confirmed by the children and the group from the New Granolith.
“Max… is there something strange about the shadows in the Nan-Torel,” Isabel asked nervously. “I keep seeing shadows in the trees where there shouldn’t be shadows… I think.”
Max looked around, clearly concerned. His mind still retained memories of his killer…
Max had walked right up to the wall and touched it, thinking that there was a light stain on the wall that would need to be cleaned. He had never even suspected that anything sinister was afoot. Max had been the first one killed. The shadow shifter had simply emerged from the wall like a shadow and fired a type of pulse beam into Max’s head at point blank range before Max realized what was happening. Max felt a sharp pain, as part of his brain exploded inside his head, then nothing… until he woke up… nothing, at least, that he remembered now. Only feelings.
“I saw a shadow on that tree over there just a moment ago,” Alex said, pointing the tree out for Max. Max nodded and glanced at Michael. Michael nodded back. Then both of them raised their hands and fired two blasts into the tree. The tree slowly fell over and crashed to the ground… but the shadow remained standing.
Not for long.
Lending their doubles a hand… literally… Max and Michael from the New Granolith both fired blasts directly into the stunned shadow, and it caught fire and began to burn like an oily rag, which, in a strange way, it somewhat resembled.
Now, there was no longer any doubt. The shadow shifters were back… and they were among them. Max had no way of knowing… no idea at all… how many of them there might be. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Not after what the shadow shifters had already proven themselves capable of… not with the lives of all the children and his entire circle of friends in his hands and in jeopardy. Michael seemed to have the same thought as Max. Both of them turned to the group…
“Go back! Go back into the Nan-Torel, everybody!”
“I don’t think they’ll follow us in very far,” Max said, “Most beings have a deathly fear of the Nan-Torel.”
Michael nodded. “I’m surprised they came in this far.”
Together, Max and Michael rushed everyone back down the trail in the direction of the bog. For fifteen minutes, they saw no more shadows that looked out of place, but then Zorel spotted something high in a tree. It looked like a rob-jetta bat, swooping from one tree to another, but Zorel had never seen a rob-jetta in this sector of the Nan-Torel…
“Dad,” Zorel said, tugging on Michael’s arm and pointing into the tree. Michael saw it and nodded. A moment later, a blast from the palm of Michael’s hand sent the “rob-jetta” tumbling and spiraling to the ground. Two Maxes, two Michaels, and two Jim Valentis were immediately on top of the black form, which writhed eerily on the ground for several moments before turning back into its natural form, something between an oily rag and an oily humanoid.
The shadow shifter must have thought he was seeing double as he opened his eyes, though it is possible that he had already figured out that there were two of each of them, since he had been following them for some time already in the tree tops.
“Kivar is dead,” Michael said emphatically, in case the shadow shifter had not seen what happened. “You don’t have a master anymore. What do you want with us?”
The shadow shifter writhed again, momentarily attempting… unsuccessfully… to change its shape, before answering in defeat, but still with the false pride and superior attitude typical of his species… “Kivar is not my master.”
“You serve him blindly… You do his bidding,” Michael said, “That makes him your master.”
“Convenience,” the shadow shifter mumbled, “Kivar has power. We want it.”
“Not now he doesn’t,” Jim said. “He’s splattered all over the front of an asteroid… along with his ship. I don’t think you want to be like him.”
“We saw what happened,” the shadow shifter muttered, “But we did not need Kivar. He needed us.”
“Symbiotic parasites,” Kyle said, “That’s what you both are… or were… symbiotic parasites. You fed off of each other… But you don’t have Kivar anymore.”
“How many of you are there here on Antar right now,” Jim asked.
The shadow shifter did not reply.
“Oh well,” Michael said, raising his palm and aiming it at the dark form on the ground. “I guess you saw what happened to your companion back there. What are you guys made of… oil and gas?”
The shadow shifter writhed on the ground, clearly appearing to be distressed. He attempted yet again to shift but apparently still could not change his form. Michael’s power blast had stunned and addled him too deeply.
“There are fifty-three of us,” the shadow shifter replied. It was a half-truth. There had been fifty-three, but fifty of them were on the ship when it was demolished. One more had burned up after being hit by Max and Michael’s power blast. There was only this one left now… and one other one that was still at large. But Max and Michael had no way of knowing this.
“Fifty-three!” Kyle exclaimed. “What are we going to do, Max? We’ll be out here forever.”
“As long as it takes,” Michael said with determination. “If there are fifty-three, then we stay as long as it takes… till all of them are dead. We get them one at a time if we have to.” Michael raised his hand again. “We can make that fifty-two right now.”
“No!” the shadow shifter yelled, cringing. “No… I can give you information… information you need.”
“What information would you have that we would care about,” Michael asked, pretending disinterest.
“How many of us there are… still alive… and who it is.”
Michael lowered his hand, and the glow in his palm ebbed… “Alright… tell me… but make it convincing. I’m getting tired of discharging like this. I need to blast something. It’s frustrating getting all up and then having to hold it.”
A smile tugged at the corner of Max’s mouth, but he struggled to maintain his stern look.
“There is only me left… and Bezto,” the shadow shifter said, “The others were all… on the ship.”
“Well, that’s better odds,” Kyle said. “Maybe we won’t have to be out here forever after all.”
“But can we trust him,” Alex asked, “I know I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Max said, “But I have a gut feeling that he’s telling us the truth. I don’t know why.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the shape shifter said, “Bezto will kill all of you. You will not be able to find Bezto… or defeat him. He will be there when you least expect it. He will come from nowhere. He will be unseen… until it is too late.”
“We’ll see,” Michael said. “We’ll see.”
Michael had barely spoken when the ground rose up at his feet, and his own shadow lunged at him, grabbing him around the throat. There was a knife in its left hand. Michael saw it coming but didn’t have time to react. The knife came up and passed across Michael’s throat with a speed that was unexpected. Fortunately, Max saw it coming, too, and from where he was standing, he WAS able to react in time. A blast of power sheared off a small portion of the attacking shadow and sent it scurrying into the trees. It had left Michael bleeding from a serious, but not fatal, gash that Max was able to quickly heal, even as Michael protested that he deserved it. Michael was furious with himself for not getting the creature, and Max was annoyed at himself for not making a direct hit, but he had been concerned that he might hit Michael by accident. He was, after all, trying to kill Michael’s shadow, as weird as that seemed.
Even worse, Michael looked around and discovered that the other shadow shifter had disappeared while they had been distracted by Bezto. That fact, on top of everything else, probably would have elicited some interesting word choices from Michael’s occasionally interesting vocabulary; but before that could happen, he got a glimpse of something shadowy flying through the trees. Unexpectedly, it turned and headed straight for him. This time Michael WAS ready, and he spun toward the attacker and blasted it. It was a perfect, dead center shot. A huge hole opened up in the center of the oily creature and began to burn, quickly consuming the shadowy mass, which Max and Michael could now see was the one they had had on the ground and not Bezto.
“Wow, that felt so good,” Michael said, looking relieved.
Max smiled. “Would you like a cigarette?”
Michael gave Max a strange look. “Max, you’re losing it.”
“Just checking,” Max said.
“Do you still believe him,” Alex asked Max. “Do you think that Bezto is the last one left?”
“I don’t know,” Max said honestly. “These shadow shifters have pursued us deep into the Nan-Torel. There’s almost nothing that will come in here… even them, usually. I just don’t know what they’re capable of anymore.”
Max turned to Michael… “Let’s get everybody back to the bog. If someone does get hurt, you’ll be able to do something about it… if something happens to me.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Liz retorted.
“Reality check,” Max said, sighing. Then he put his arm around Liz. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but reality can be harsh, Liz. I have to face the fact that something could happen to me… and make contingency plans for the safety of the group.”
Liz put two fingers on Max’s lips… “I know… but I don’t have to like it.”
Max smiled and kissed her. “No… you don’t have to like it. But I don’t intend to just roll over, Liz. They’ll have to drag me down fighting if they get me again. I promise you that.”
As the group walked on toward the bog, the conversation dwelt on the eerie way the shadow shifter had simply replaced Michael’s shadow. It unnerved them all, and more than once, each one found himself or herself staring suspiciously at his or her own shadow. The children seemed especially concerned about their shadows, occasionally jumping on them or kicking them… Liz and Max’s son, Alyyx, pelted his shadow with rocks from time to time… just to be sure.
They all knew that, somewhere out there, Bezto was watching and waiting for just the right moment to strike again. It wasn’t a question of “if” but of “when.”
“I don’t understand what Bezto has to gain from killing us now,” Alex said. “Kivar’s dead, so what’s his motivation, anyway?”
“I think Bezto has this pride thing,” Michael said. “He can’t let go until the job is done.”
“That’s probably true,” Jim agreed, “But I think there’s more to it than just that.”
Max nodded… “Well, the other shadow shifter did say that they wanted the power for themselves… and that they didn’t need Kivar, he needed them.”
“You think the shadow shifters want to take over Antar?” Isabel asked.
“I think that’s a very real possibility,” Max said. “At least, I think Bezto wants to take over Antar.”
Michael nodded. “I have to agree. Bezto wants something, and it has to be big. He doesn’t bother with small potatoes. If he wants something on Antar, it’s probably Antar.”
“So he’ll keep trying to kill us… and Max, especially,” Maria surmised thoughtfully.
“I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet,” Jim agreed. “We have to get Bezto before he gets any of us. If we get Bezto, now that his army’s gone, too, there won’t be any more shadow shifters left here… and I don’t think the ones back on their planet will bother coming here again.”
“Unless another Kivar or Bezto comes along someday,” Alex said.
Max nodded. “But Jim’s right. If we get Bezto, we’ll probably have peace on Antar, now that Kivar is gone.”
“Peace… without Kivar… without shadow shifters…” Isabel mused longingly. “Can it possibly be true? I’ve dreamed of that.”
“On our Antar in our dimension, Alex from the New Granolith said, “we have had peace ever since Kivar was killed. There have been other problems, especially from the Ghors, but basically, our planet has been at peace… And largely because of Michael, we have over three hundred new allied planets now. The strength of our peace has never been greater than it is today.”
Max from the present dimension turned and looked at Alex. “I long for the day when I can say that. We have had relative peace here since Kivar was sent packing, but he’s made other attempts to return. The threat has always been at our doorstep, and then, of course… this happened.” Max was referring to their murders at the hands of the shadow shifters. “Maybe now that Kivar is gone, finally, we can have a real and lasting peace.”
As Max spoke, Varec and Amy’s daughter, Liz-Jolee, began jumping on her shadow.
“I thought I saw it move.”
“Were you moving when you saw it move?” Varec asked with a smile.
Liz-Jolee nodded.
“It’s all right,” Amy said, picking Liz-Jolee up, “We’re all a little spooked by everything right now.
Alyyx looked around for several stones that were just the right size and threw them at Liz-Jolee and Amy’s shadow, but they were only shadows. He noticed another large stone and picked it up to throw it, too, but this one failed to fly out of his hand. Instead, Alyyx Evans found himself in the clutches of Bezto, who had been lying on the path waiting, in the form of a stone… the precise type and size of stone that the boy had been picking up and throwing at shadows as he walked. Bezto had been watching and plotting. And now he had his bait.
Bezto did not wait to be hit by another power blast from Max or Michael. Holding the child close to him to dissuade them from firing at him, he quickly leapt behind a large boulder with his hostage. Max and Michael both knew that they could easily blast the boulder apart, but that might kill Alyyx.
“Give us the boy,” Michael yelled. “He’s not the one you want. Take me.”
Maria gasped and held tightly onto Michael’s arm, but she didn’t say anything.
“The boy is mine,” Bezto said from behind the boulder. “I will kill him at my leisure.”
“No! Don’t!” Max yelled, swallowing hard, as Liz held his arm and cried, terrified for her son’s safety.
“I could be convinced to let him go… if you were to take his place, Zan.”
“I’ll take his place,” Liz cried. “Take me and let him go.”
Max shook his head at Liz and hugged her, then he released her and walked toward the boulder himself. At the same time, he looked at Michael, and Michael nodded, understanding.
Bezto smiled to himself, seeing his plan coming together. What Bezto did not notice was Max and Michael’s signals… He also did not notice two children whispering to each other.
Danyy smiled and nodded at Andya, and Andya closed her eyes and concentrated. Then Danyy concentrated, too.
Suddenly, a 14-foot-long red snake with a light mint-green belly, an electric blue zigzag pattern on its sides, and small, brightly glowing luminescent greenish spots all over fell out of the tree behind Bezto, landing right on his unsuspecting shoulders. The snake immediately slid down over Bezto’s arms, pinning them to his sides.
Bezto struggled unsuccessfully to get free, and in his struggling, he accidentally managed to cause the tip of the snake’s tail to touch its head, forming a complete circuit. As soon as this happened, the entire snake lit up like an atom bomb that had just exploded, throwing a roaring sheet of flames high into the air… a sheet of flames so intense that it went right through both Bezto and Alyyx’s bodies, allowing everyone to actually see Alyyx’s skeleton and Bezto’s odd interior physiology in a sort of X-ray effect… and making it momentarily appear that both had been vaporized. This elicited gasps from most of the group…
Slowly, both Alyyx and Bezto returned to their normal opaque state, and the radiation-like glow all over their bodies started to subside. Completely freaked out by what had just happened, Bezto shapeshifted into a small bat, slipped out of the snake’s noose, and flew off, disappearing before Max or Michael could hit him with a power blast.
“Damn!” Michael exclaimed, throwing a blast that incinerated the top of the tree that Bezto had just flown over, but missing Bezto. Max, meanwhile, ran to check Alyyx out. Liz was already at Alyyx’s side, and both were sure that Alyyx was going to need Max’s medical attention in a very big way after what had just happened. To their shock and amazement, Alyyx was fine… and the snake had mysteriously disappeared.
“I don’t understand,” Liz said, looking their son over, “He’s not burned or hurt at all… not that I can see.” Max shook his head, speechless.
“I think I can explain it,” the other Max, from the New Granolith, said, “What you just saw was an Antarian Nan-Torel green-spotted fire snake. Jim can tell you about them. He had one on his TV program, ‘Jungle Jim,’ that’s been running on our Antar for a while now.”
Jim nodded… “The flash of fire the fire snake gives off is actually not fire but a massive burst of radiation coupled with a sensory boost produced by a small organ in the snake’s brain that allows it to intensify the visual effect of its display in susceptible brains… like ours… and apparently, Bezto’s. When the fire snake gives off its flash of radiation, it sends out a powerful signal from its brain at the same time that causes a predator to see the radiation flash as flames. The flash is real, but it wouldn’t be visible, or certainly not as impressive, without the sensory boost from the snake’s mind. If the flames were real fire, the fire snakes would burn the Nan-Torel down.”
Jim was trying to explain the mechanism of the snake’s awesome display but was drawing blank stares from most of those there, who had never seen his show in their dimension.
“It can be lethal to smaller animals and to some larger animals with susceptible nervous systems,” Jim continued, “But it’s not lethal to humans or Antarians… as long as we’re in Antar’s atmosphere, which counteracts much of the radiation’s effects. On Earth, this amount of radiation would probably have killed them.”
“Are there a lot of these snakes around here,” Max asked Zorel.
Zorel smiled. “We’ve only seen two or three. Andya made this one with her mind… and Danyy told it what to do.”
Max turned to Andya and Danyy… “You did that?”
“Was it okay, Dad,” Andya asked sheepishly.
Max looked at her sternly then smiled. “Well, Michael and I did have a plan to get Bezto, but it was risky. Someone might have got hurt. You got Alyyx away from him without Alyyx or anyone else getting hurt. Thank you! You guys are pretty awesome!”
Andya and Danyy both grinned from ear to ear.
“We can make more fire snakes whenever you want them,” Andya said.
Max shook his head. “I’ve had enough fire snake excitement for today, AnDasniya… but thanks. I’ll keep it in mind in case I need one anytime.”
“Max, do you think we got rid of Bezto,” Tess asked, “I mean, do you think he’ll come back again?”
“No and yes… in that order,” Max replied solemnly. “He’ll try again. We can count on it. Until we get him, we will never be safe, I’m sorry to say. Bezto is like a Gorvian chogo. When a chogo clamps its jaws down on you, the only way to get it loose is to remove the jaws from the chogo and pry them apart… after the chogo is dead. That’s Bezto. He won’t let go… ever.”
Nobody seemed happy to hear Max say this, but it was what all of them either knew or suspected already.
The group walked on toward the bog for another thirty minutes, with everyone on hyper alert for any sign at all of Bezto’s presence, but no one saw any trace of him.
“There’s the bog,” Zorel said, pointing ahead about a hundred feet. Max nodded and walked to the edge of the bog. Then he stood there, looking at the black waters, and thinking.
“What are we going to do if we don’t find Bezto,” Alex asked.
Max shook his head silently.
“We won’t find him,” Michael said, “He’ll find us. We just have to be ready.”
“Jiba, can you make us all invisible now,” Max asked, “So that Bezto can’t see us?”
Jiba nodded enthusiastically and concentrated momentarily, then she opened her eyes. “It’s done.”
“I still see everybody,” Max said.
Jiba nodded. “We can see each other, but anybody else won’t be able to see us.”
Max walked over to the spot where they had crossed the water and bent down to feel the stepping stone just beneath the surface.
“Do you think he could be masquerading as one of the stepping stones,” Kyle asked.
Max nodded. “Bezto could be anything. We won’t know what he is or where he is until he pops out.” Max poked at the stepping stone with a stick. It appeared to be only a stone, though he couldn’t see it. In any case, there was no reaction when Max poked it, so he proceeded to step onto the second stone and poke it, too. Again, he got no reaction. Max stepped onto the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stones, poking each one as he went, with no reaction. He looked back at the others, from the center of the bog, and shrugged.
“Max, look!” Michael yelled, pointing across the bog toward the other side. Max turned around and looked where Michael had pointed. It was the pawgor that had gone into the bog earlier that day, the one with the injured leg, coming out of the bog, and its leg looked totally healthy now. So, unfortunately, did its appetite. Standing in the middle of the bog, Max froze, as the pawgor sniffed the air. He was unsure whether the pawgor could see through Jiba’s mind warp or not, but he suspected that a major movement might be perceived by the cat, even if only by dispersing his smell into the wind for the cat to pick up.
“Oh oh,” Michael whispered, “It’s hungry. It’s looking for food. Stay very, very still, Max.”
Max couldn’t hear what Michael said; Michael didn’t expect him to. It was merely a thought… expressed out loud… if only in a whisper.
Sniffing the air, then the ground, the pawgor found an inoffensive wiffer, a large armored turtle-like creature that hides underground, just beneath the surface, in the Nan-Torel. The saber-toothed cat dug the wiffer out of its hiding place then nudged it, turning it upside down in an effort to get at the animal inside the armored shell. Crushing the shell would not be a problem for the pawgor. With its two huge front teeth and vice-like jaws, it could make short work of the wiffer’s shell, and it would if it was unable to get at the animal any easier way.
The pawgor was patient, but it was also hungry. It managed to get a hold of the wiffer’s front leg and pull it out of the shell, but the wiffer quickly reclaimed its leg and pulled it back into the shell. The pawgor had waited long enough for its meal. It stretched out on the ground, held the wiffer between its front paws, and used its huge front teeth to literally pry the top part of the shell from the bottom part. The shell burst open, exposing the pawgor’s meal… but it was not the meal that the pawgor had expected. The succulent white meat of this wiffer was neither succulent nor white, but dark and oily… and the creature mutated rapidly, suddenly rising up and becoming a man-sized object. The pawgor grabbed it with sharp claws, ripping the dark, oily creature almost in half, as the creature tried unsuccessfully to escape…
Already injured, and unable to shift his entire body to another form again, Bezto tried to run. That in itself was a major mistake, as Jim could have told him had he asked. Jim had once said that anything running was pawgor food.
Bezto tried to fight back, quickly producing a large knife by shapeshifting --It was actually a part of his arm-- but it was no match for the pawgor. A shrill scream pierced the air of the Nan-Torel, as the pawgor grabbed Bezto and shook him violently, shredding him into small pieces that floated on the wind and came to rest on the ground all around the huge cat.
The pawgor sniffed at the shreds of what had once been the prince of the shadow shifters. It didn’t seem too impressed by the smell, but it was hungry, so it ate some of the pieces anyway. They didn’t stay down long. Hacking like a cat with a hairball, the pawgor ejected the shredded pieces, along with its other meager stomach contents.
Across the bog, Alex watched and smiled sympathetically… “Yeah, I know! Hospital food sucks, doesn’t it!”
tbc
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Island Breeze
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Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
A New Age Dawns
Chapter 13
XIII
“To our new friends from across the dimensions… however many dimensions it may be and however far from here their Antar may lie… may our hearts and thoughts bind us together now and till the end of time,” King Zan said, raising his goblet in a toast.
“Hear! Hear!” Alex seconded, raising his goblet to Isabel’s, as the rest of the royal group and friends raised theirs, too, in joyous agreement.
“And may our doubles have long, healthy, happy, prosperous lives wherever they may go in their travels,” Michael added, clinking his goblet against Maria’s.
“Hear! Hear!” several people said at once.
It was a joyous occasion, as everyone sat around the large royal dining table together, enjoying the finest Antarian foods and jubish, an Antarian wine-like drink, for the first time in seven months. And the meal had an added atmosphere of celebration because their doubles were present… the doubles who were at least partly responsible for their being alive now. After all, it was Max from the other dimension who had healed many of them… and it was Max and Michael who had made Kryys aware of his own incredible healing abilities so that he could heal the others.
Kryys’ contribution had not been forgotten either… nor had those of the other children…
“To Kryys Guerin!” Zan said, raising his goblet again… “For healing me and many of the other parents. You have an awesome ability, Kryys! Thank you… from all of us!”
(Alyyx Evans sneaked his hand under the table, smiling innocently.)
“And to Jiba, Danyy, Zorel, Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, Alyyx, Taz, Jayyd, Liz-Jolee, Drel, Mareeya, Ceelya, Rayyn… have I forgotten anyone?”
(Alyyx shook his head, still smiling innocently, and pulled his empty hand back out from under the table.)
Zan looked around the table and smiled, as he saw the grinning faces of each one of the children. “I think after the last two seasons and three days… actually, four days, now… you have all become something more than the children you were before this happened, and you’ve earned the right to join us at the big table during formal meals at the palace where everyone else is present. You were forced to survive without us for two seasons and three days… almost seven months. And you did better than just survive. You drove Kivar and his shadow shifters away and protected Antar and our people from them when they tried to return, and you saved me and all the other parents here by taking us to the healing place, a place that I was not even aware existed until we woke up there. So, Danyy Valenti… here’s to you for discovering the healing place… Zorel Guerin… here’s to you for guiding us through the Nan-Torel and for holding everyone together as a group… Jiba… here’s to you for the most awesome illusions I’ve ever witnessed anywhere…”
“Hear! Hear!” both Max and Michael from the other dimension said at the same time, raising their goblets with a grin.
“Maya Evans… here’s to you,” Zan continued, “For using your mental ability to find out when Kivar was coming before he got here… and Andya Evans… here’s to you for creating wild animals to help scare Kivar away the first time… and for a totally and outrageously awesome asteroid… which some of our people, I hear, are already calling ‘the Kivar petard’ and ‘the Kivar Avengerstar.’”
There were a lot of nods and chuckles around the table, and everyone raised his or her goblet again, as they had done each time another name had been mentioned.
“And to all of you, here’s to you… our children,” Zan said, “For staying together and being an unconquerable force for good while we were away, uh… sleeping.”
Zan raised his goblet, and the children grinned. Some of them raised their own glasses, which contained a special mixture of Indigo Grape Snapple, Agave Cactus Snapple, Cherry Coke, and a dash of Tabasco, all flavors that the Antarian scientists had copied from Earth drinks brought back to Antar by Michael. The children absolutely loved the mixture and always asked for it at parties. And this was definitely a party… or at least a major celebration.
“To a new beginning!” Liz said, “And freedom from the threat of Kivar ever returning again.”
“I’ll toast to that!” Maria and Isabel both said at the same time, raising their goblets high. They were quickly joined in by everyone else.
(Danyy nonchalantly slipped his hand under the table, all the time looking straight ahead and smiling as the grownups spoke.)
“So what do you plan to do next,” Zan asked his double.
Max smiled and shook his head. “We’re going home, we hope. That’s where we thought we were when we came here. We didn’t know this was another alternate dimension until we saw the children and figured out that something more than the weather was wrong here.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Varec said, “I have a couple of theories about why we went off course. My thinking at the moment is that the four individuals who called themselves sliders may have had something to do with it. I’m working on that as the most likely theory.”
“But you can get us back on course, right?” Michael said.
“I should be able to,” Varec replied, but his tone did not sound particularly optimistic.
“Well,” Michael said, shrugging and turning back to the others, “Varec will get us back. I have complete faith in him.”
“What I want to know,” Liz said, turning to Tess, “…is, what in the name of Antar possessed you to jump into the black bog, when we still had no idea what was going on there. You might have drowned!”
Tess smiled. “Jiba jumped in. We have a bond.”
“Well, yeah, I know,” Liz said, “I have a mother’s bond with Maya and my other children, but these weren’t OUR children really… they were our children’s doubles.”
Tess sighed and nodded. “I know… but I still felt something. I knew that Jiba was totally unafraid when she jumped in… I felt it… and I knew that she would be all right… and that I would be all right.”
“Must be a side effect of the mind warp ability you and Jiba share,” Kyle said.
(Jayyd giggled and peeked under the table then slipped her hand under the table and back out quickly, looking straight ahead and smiling.)
Tess nodded, then she looked at Liz again… “I have a question for you, Liz. Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx are all here… I mean their doubles are here… but where is Jeffy… your baby? Is his double here? I haven’t seen him.”
Liz from this dimension caught her breath and turned to her double from the New Granolith… “You have a baby?”
“You don’t?” Liz from the New Granolith asked, but deep inside, she already knew the answer. She had known it all along… “I think Jeffy is a one world wonder,” Liz said, a bit sadly. Her double looked puzzled.
“What Elizabeth means,” Varec offered, “Is that Jeffy was created in a time bubble that no longer exists and that only ever existed in that one place and time where Jeffy was conceived and born. It ceased to exist, and… it’s very difficult to explain, but… it never existed at all.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Liz from this Antar said, trying hard to understand.
“Our Michael traveled back in time,” Liz from the New Granolith said, “And he met my double in the past. It was a screwed up timeline, and Max, Michael, and the others didn’t exist in it… and I was about to marry some jerk professor who had been stealing my research to get himself ahead, but our Michael showed up and kind of put a stop to the wedding. Anyway, Max was in a different time or something entirely, and like I said, he didn’t exist in my double’s screwed up timeline. Time and everything had been all messed up by some guys called the Nogi-K’ya. We thought Michael did it, but it was them. Anyway, I was curious about what Max looked like, after Michael told me about him and convinced me that he was supposed to be my husband, so I called the sphere of the portal… Michael had shown me that it would answer to me… and I went to meet Max. I returned the same day to my own time by coming back in time again. But I had stayed with Max for a whole year in the other timeline, and we had Jeffy. I meant to return to Max right away, but then everything changed again and the time bubble that Max was in disappeared. At first, I didn’t remember having Jeffy, because when the time bubble ceased to exist, it never happened. With the timeline thing straightened out, I returned to my real timeline with Max and our children… or became one with myself in the real timeline. I think that’s actually what happened… but I couldn’t forget my baby.”
“She knew there was something terribly important that she was supposed to remember,” Michael said, “And it was killing her. Eventually, she remembered. The Nogi-K’ya told her that Jeffy never existed, but Liz couldn’t accept that. My son, Kryys, found him by going into the river of time, and he found a way to get him back and bring him home to her.”
“Wow! I have a baby brother in another dimension,” Maya exclaimed. “That’s so totally awesome,” added JoLeesa. “Can we get one, too,” Andya asked.
Alyyx just wrinkled his nose, but then he smiled. “Oh, I guess I could train a new little brother.”
Liz smiled. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you guys, but apparently, this baby only exists in their dimension. You would have to go there to see him.” She sighed then looked at her double, as she thought about it… “Do you think that would be possible?”
Liz looked at Varec, and he shrugged and smiled. “I don’t see why not. Once we get back home, I’ll have the ship’s internal log of all the places we’ve been, and I should be able to find them again… I suppose it would be possible for us to bring them to our Antar… to meet Jeffy.”
The three girls squealed with delight, and Alyyx smiled and nodded… “Cool.”
“Of course, we have to find our way back home first,” Liz from the other dimension said.
(Ceelya pulled her hand out from under the table secretively and smiled.)
“Well, Zan said, raising his goblet again, “Here’s to all of us…” He looked at Zorel and Danyy and smiled… “And to Jung-Jo under the table!”
The children’s mouths dropped open. “You knew?” Danyy asked, surprised.
Zan nodded. “It was either that or one of you kids has been licking my feet all during the meal.”
Everyone laughed.
“I thought Zorel’s appetite was pretty hardy today,” Michael said, looking under the table. “They’ve been feeding Jung-Jo.”
Zan nodded.
“Can you let Jung-Jo stay here with us when you go home,” little Jayyd asked.
Jim from the New Granolith laughed. “I think Jung-Jo wants to get back home, too, honey. He has a family, too.”
“Whoa!” Jayyd exclaimed. “Jung-Jo is married?”
“Pawgors don’t get married, silly,” Zorel said, laughing.
“That’s true, they don’t,” Jim said. “But they do choose a mate for life. Their babies grow up and leave to make their own lives, and the mama and daddy pawgor go their separate ways for a while, but they always find each other again when… when…”
Michael leaned forward and raised his eyebrows, waiting for Jim to finish and enjoying seeing him stammer as he tried to think of the appropriate words.
“When they want to start a new family,” Jim said.
“I’m gonna miss you, Jung-Jo,” Jayyd said, lifting the table cloth to peek under the table again. A big tongue licked her face, putting a huge smile on it again, as the other children all laughed and nodded in agreement.
“Maybe Jung-Jo’s double is here on our Antar somewhere,” Alyyx said.
Jim sighed but nodded. “It’s possible. He may have survived, but he would be a fully-grown wild pawgor now. He didn’t grow up around people the way Jung-Jo did… and around Danyy, who can talk to him.”
“Our Danyy can talk to pawgors,” Maya said, “Maybe he can find him.”
Jim shook his head. “Even if you found him, remember that he would be wild. A wild pawgor is a dangerous animal.”
“Oh, I know that!” Danyy replied. “I hear their thoughts. They’re not like Jung-Jo.”
“Exactly,” Jim said. “But since you may be going into the Nan-Torel again, I should tell you what I know about pawgors. It might save your lives. If you ever see one face to face, never, ever run! Anything running is pawgor food. That’s lesson number one. Lesson number two is, drop down on all fours and stay totally still. The pawgor will sniff you and leave. Don’t get back up until he’s long gone. And lesson three, don’t ever come face to face with a wild pawgor if you can help it.”
The children all nodded.
“Good advice,” Zan said.
“And if you ever get lost in the Nan-Torel and have to sleep there,” Jim added… “First off, don’t! And second, if you do, cover yourself up with a deep layer of Ama leaves. It will keep the rob-jettas from eating you during the night.”
“Wow,” Zorel said, “You know a lot about the Nan-Torel.”
“I’ve been in it a few times,” Jim admitted, then he looked at his double and smiled.
Jim’s double nodded. “I’ve been in there a few times myself. I always wanted to go in and do some deep exploring. I had been thinking about it a lot right before Kivar’s shadow shifters showed up and ambushed us. Thanks for the tips.”
“You’re welcome,” Jim said, “There’s one other thing you should know about the Nan-Torel. The jah-ee is not just a myth. Since your Max does not have an understanding with the jah-ee’s, you will have to consider them extremely dangerous predators. They have hollow talons filled with a deadly poison for which there is no antidote except in the world beneath their island. It would really behoove you for Max to make friends with them, but I don’t know how he might do that. It was mutual need that brought the jah-ee and our Max together. And the jah-ee tried to eat him first. So beware. Do not get caught out in the open in a clearing in the Nan-Torel, especially near the river. I suspect that Zorel and the other children here can tell you a few more things about the Nan-Torel.”
“Oh, yeah!” Zorel agreed, nodding, “We can!”
“Don’t ever touch the purple bushes with the big anchor-shaped leaves,” Liz-Jolee said, “They’ll give you real bad welts all over.”
Jim from the other dimension nodded. “Those are poison guma plants.”
As Jim spoke, a huge feline head with two long saber teeth laid itself in his lap and purred. Jim smiled. “I know… we all want to get back home, don’t we, boy.”
Jung-Jo appeared to smile. It was probably his eyes. When he closed them in a contented way, it gave his entire face a smiley look.
“Jung-Jo says he’s going to miss us, too,” Danyy said, hearing the pawgor’s thoughts.
**********
Most of Antar, it seemed, had turned out to say goodbye to the group from the other dimension as they prepared to leave their Antar and return home to their own. The New Granolith hovered on its anti-gravity docking system, waiting for the last ones to come aboard.
The group had spent the morning of their third day on this Antar receiving gifts and giving tours of the New Granolith to their doubles and to anyone else who wanted to come aboard; and that had been a steady stream of Antarians. Now, at just after high noon, they were finally ready to depart.
Liz, Maria, Isabel, Tess, and the others had all said goodbye to their doubles and to everyone else, and enough kisses and hugs had been exchanged to power the New Granolith all the way back home to their own dimension if kisses and hugs could be converted into energy. Max and Jim were the last ones out now, along with Jung-Jo, who was still frolicking with the children, giving them rides and pawgor licks. But the time had come to go, and Max nodded to Jim. Jim gave a little whistle to Jung-Jo, who came running to his side.
“Goodbye, friends,” Max said shaking his double’s hand again and hugging Liz and Maria and a few others. He looked at Jung-Jo and wondered how he was ever going to be able to extract him from all the adoring little arms holding onto him… If anyone had been a real hit here, it had been Jung-Jo with the children.
“Come on, Jung-Jo,” Jim said. We gotta go.”
Jim led Jung-Jo into the transport circle beneath the ship, and he and Max waved a final goodbye, as the transport beam took them into the ship. Moments later, the ship rose slowly from where it had been hovering… and headed out into the Antarian sky.
tbc
A New Age Dawns
Chapter 13
XIII
“To our new friends from across the dimensions… however many dimensions it may be and however far from here their Antar may lie… may our hearts and thoughts bind us together now and till the end of time,” King Zan said, raising his goblet in a toast.
“Hear! Hear!” Alex seconded, raising his goblet to Isabel’s, as the rest of the royal group and friends raised theirs, too, in joyous agreement.
“And may our doubles have long, healthy, happy, prosperous lives wherever they may go in their travels,” Michael added, clinking his goblet against Maria’s.
“Hear! Hear!” several people said at once.
It was a joyous occasion, as everyone sat around the large royal dining table together, enjoying the finest Antarian foods and jubish, an Antarian wine-like drink, for the first time in seven months. And the meal had an added atmosphere of celebration because their doubles were present… the doubles who were at least partly responsible for their being alive now. After all, it was Max from the other dimension who had healed many of them… and it was Max and Michael who had made Kryys aware of his own incredible healing abilities so that he could heal the others.
Kryys’ contribution had not been forgotten either… nor had those of the other children…
“To Kryys Guerin!” Zan said, raising his goblet again… “For healing me and many of the other parents. You have an awesome ability, Kryys! Thank you… from all of us!”
(Alyyx Evans sneaked his hand under the table, smiling innocently.)
“And to Jiba, Danyy, Zorel, Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, Alyyx, Taz, Jayyd, Liz-Jolee, Drel, Mareeya, Ceelya, Rayyn… have I forgotten anyone?”
(Alyyx shook his head, still smiling innocently, and pulled his empty hand back out from under the table.)
Zan looked around the table and smiled, as he saw the grinning faces of each one of the children. “I think after the last two seasons and three days… actually, four days, now… you have all become something more than the children you were before this happened, and you’ve earned the right to join us at the big table during formal meals at the palace where everyone else is present. You were forced to survive without us for two seasons and three days… almost seven months. And you did better than just survive. You drove Kivar and his shadow shifters away and protected Antar and our people from them when they tried to return, and you saved me and all the other parents here by taking us to the healing place, a place that I was not even aware existed until we woke up there. So, Danyy Valenti… here’s to you for discovering the healing place… Zorel Guerin… here’s to you for guiding us through the Nan-Torel and for holding everyone together as a group… Jiba… here’s to you for the most awesome illusions I’ve ever witnessed anywhere…”
“Hear! Hear!” both Max and Michael from the other dimension said at the same time, raising their goblets with a grin.
“Maya Evans… here’s to you,” Zan continued, “For using your mental ability to find out when Kivar was coming before he got here… and Andya Evans… here’s to you for creating wild animals to help scare Kivar away the first time… and for a totally and outrageously awesome asteroid… which some of our people, I hear, are already calling ‘the Kivar petard’ and ‘the Kivar Avengerstar.’”
There were a lot of nods and chuckles around the table, and everyone raised his or her goblet again, as they had done each time another name had been mentioned.
“And to all of you, here’s to you… our children,” Zan said, “For staying together and being an unconquerable force for good while we were away, uh… sleeping.”
Zan raised his goblet, and the children grinned. Some of them raised their own glasses, which contained a special mixture of Indigo Grape Snapple, Agave Cactus Snapple, Cherry Coke, and a dash of Tabasco, all flavors that the Antarian scientists had copied from Earth drinks brought back to Antar by Michael. The children absolutely loved the mixture and always asked for it at parties. And this was definitely a party… or at least a major celebration.
“To a new beginning!” Liz said, “And freedom from the threat of Kivar ever returning again.”
“I’ll toast to that!” Maria and Isabel both said at the same time, raising their goblets high. They were quickly joined in by everyone else.
(Danyy nonchalantly slipped his hand under the table, all the time looking straight ahead and smiling as the grownups spoke.)
“So what do you plan to do next,” Zan asked his double.
Max smiled and shook his head. “We’re going home, we hope. That’s where we thought we were when we came here. We didn’t know this was another alternate dimension until we saw the children and figured out that something more than the weather was wrong here.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Varec said, “I have a couple of theories about why we went off course. My thinking at the moment is that the four individuals who called themselves sliders may have had something to do with it. I’m working on that as the most likely theory.”
“But you can get us back on course, right?” Michael said.
“I should be able to,” Varec replied, but his tone did not sound particularly optimistic.
“Well,” Michael said, shrugging and turning back to the others, “Varec will get us back. I have complete faith in him.”
“What I want to know,” Liz said, turning to Tess, “…is, what in the name of Antar possessed you to jump into the black bog, when we still had no idea what was going on there. You might have drowned!”
Tess smiled. “Jiba jumped in. We have a bond.”
“Well, yeah, I know,” Liz said, “I have a mother’s bond with Maya and my other children, but these weren’t OUR children really… they were our children’s doubles.”
Tess sighed and nodded. “I know… but I still felt something. I knew that Jiba was totally unafraid when she jumped in… I felt it… and I knew that she would be all right… and that I would be all right.”
“Must be a side effect of the mind warp ability you and Jiba share,” Kyle said.
(Jayyd giggled and peeked under the table then slipped her hand under the table and back out quickly, looking straight ahead and smiling.)
Tess nodded, then she looked at Liz again… “I have a question for you, Liz. Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx are all here… I mean their doubles are here… but where is Jeffy… your baby? Is his double here? I haven’t seen him.”
Liz from this dimension caught her breath and turned to her double from the New Granolith… “You have a baby?”
“You don’t?” Liz from the New Granolith asked, but deep inside, she already knew the answer. She had known it all along… “I think Jeffy is a one world wonder,” Liz said, a bit sadly. Her double looked puzzled.
“What Elizabeth means,” Varec offered, “Is that Jeffy was created in a time bubble that no longer exists and that only ever existed in that one place and time where Jeffy was conceived and born. It ceased to exist, and… it’s very difficult to explain, but… it never existed at all.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Liz from this Antar said, trying hard to understand.
“Our Michael traveled back in time,” Liz from the New Granolith said, “And he met my double in the past. It was a screwed up timeline, and Max, Michael, and the others didn’t exist in it… and I was about to marry some jerk professor who had been stealing my research to get himself ahead, but our Michael showed up and kind of put a stop to the wedding. Anyway, Max was in a different time or something entirely, and like I said, he didn’t exist in my double’s screwed up timeline. Time and everything had been all messed up by some guys called the Nogi-K’ya. We thought Michael did it, but it was them. Anyway, I was curious about what Max looked like, after Michael told me about him and convinced me that he was supposed to be my husband, so I called the sphere of the portal… Michael had shown me that it would answer to me… and I went to meet Max. I returned the same day to my own time by coming back in time again. But I had stayed with Max for a whole year in the other timeline, and we had Jeffy. I meant to return to Max right away, but then everything changed again and the time bubble that Max was in disappeared. At first, I didn’t remember having Jeffy, because when the time bubble ceased to exist, it never happened. With the timeline thing straightened out, I returned to my real timeline with Max and our children… or became one with myself in the real timeline. I think that’s actually what happened… but I couldn’t forget my baby.”
“She knew there was something terribly important that she was supposed to remember,” Michael said, “And it was killing her. Eventually, she remembered. The Nogi-K’ya told her that Jeffy never existed, but Liz couldn’t accept that. My son, Kryys, found him by going into the river of time, and he found a way to get him back and bring him home to her.”
“Wow! I have a baby brother in another dimension,” Maya exclaimed. “That’s so totally awesome,” added JoLeesa. “Can we get one, too,” Andya asked.
Alyyx just wrinkled his nose, but then he smiled. “Oh, I guess I could train a new little brother.”
Liz smiled. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you guys, but apparently, this baby only exists in their dimension. You would have to go there to see him.” She sighed then looked at her double, as she thought about it… “Do you think that would be possible?”
Liz looked at Varec, and he shrugged and smiled. “I don’t see why not. Once we get back home, I’ll have the ship’s internal log of all the places we’ve been, and I should be able to find them again… I suppose it would be possible for us to bring them to our Antar… to meet Jeffy.”
The three girls squealed with delight, and Alyyx smiled and nodded… “Cool.”
“Of course, we have to find our way back home first,” Liz from the other dimension said.
(Ceelya pulled her hand out from under the table secretively and smiled.)
“Well, Zan said, raising his goblet again, “Here’s to all of us…” He looked at Zorel and Danyy and smiled… “And to Jung-Jo under the table!”
The children’s mouths dropped open. “You knew?” Danyy asked, surprised.
Zan nodded. “It was either that or one of you kids has been licking my feet all during the meal.”
Everyone laughed.
“I thought Zorel’s appetite was pretty hardy today,” Michael said, looking under the table. “They’ve been feeding Jung-Jo.”
Zan nodded.
“Can you let Jung-Jo stay here with us when you go home,” little Jayyd asked.
Jim from the New Granolith laughed. “I think Jung-Jo wants to get back home, too, honey. He has a family, too.”
“Whoa!” Jayyd exclaimed. “Jung-Jo is married?”
“Pawgors don’t get married, silly,” Zorel said, laughing.
“That’s true, they don’t,” Jim said. “But they do choose a mate for life. Their babies grow up and leave to make their own lives, and the mama and daddy pawgor go their separate ways for a while, but they always find each other again when… when…”
Michael leaned forward and raised his eyebrows, waiting for Jim to finish and enjoying seeing him stammer as he tried to think of the appropriate words.
“When they want to start a new family,” Jim said.
“I’m gonna miss you, Jung-Jo,” Jayyd said, lifting the table cloth to peek under the table again. A big tongue licked her face, putting a huge smile on it again, as the other children all laughed and nodded in agreement.
“Maybe Jung-Jo’s double is here on our Antar somewhere,” Alyyx said.
Jim sighed but nodded. “It’s possible. He may have survived, but he would be a fully-grown wild pawgor now. He didn’t grow up around people the way Jung-Jo did… and around Danyy, who can talk to him.”
“Our Danyy can talk to pawgors,” Maya said, “Maybe he can find him.”
Jim shook his head. “Even if you found him, remember that he would be wild. A wild pawgor is a dangerous animal.”
“Oh, I know that!” Danyy replied. “I hear their thoughts. They’re not like Jung-Jo.”
“Exactly,” Jim said. “But since you may be going into the Nan-Torel again, I should tell you what I know about pawgors. It might save your lives. If you ever see one face to face, never, ever run! Anything running is pawgor food. That’s lesson number one. Lesson number two is, drop down on all fours and stay totally still. The pawgor will sniff you and leave. Don’t get back up until he’s long gone. And lesson three, don’t ever come face to face with a wild pawgor if you can help it.”
The children all nodded.
“Good advice,” Zan said.
“And if you ever get lost in the Nan-Torel and have to sleep there,” Jim added… “First off, don’t! And second, if you do, cover yourself up with a deep layer of Ama leaves. It will keep the rob-jettas from eating you during the night.”
“Wow,” Zorel said, “You know a lot about the Nan-Torel.”
“I’ve been in it a few times,” Jim admitted, then he looked at his double and smiled.
Jim’s double nodded. “I’ve been in there a few times myself. I always wanted to go in and do some deep exploring. I had been thinking about it a lot right before Kivar’s shadow shifters showed up and ambushed us. Thanks for the tips.”
“You’re welcome,” Jim said, “There’s one other thing you should know about the Nan-Torel. The jah-ee is not just a myth. Since your Max does not have an understanding with the jah-ee’s, you will have to consider them extremely dangerous predators. They have hollow talons filled with a deadly poison for which there is no antidote except in the world beneath their island. It would really behoove you for Max to make friends with them, but I don’t know how he might do that. It was mutual need that brought the jah-ee and our Max together. And the jah-ee tried to eat him first. So beware. Do not get caught out in the open in a clearing in the Nan-Torel, especially near the river. I suspect that Zorel and the other children here can tell you a few more things about the Nan-Torel.”
“Oh, yeah!” Zorel agreed, nodding, “We can!”
“Don’t ever touch the purple bushes with the big anchor-shaped leaves,” Liz-Jolee said, “They’ll give you real bad welts all over.”
Jim from the other dimension nodded. “Those are poison guma plants.”
As Jim spoke, a huge feline head with two long saber teeth laid itself in his lap and purred. Jim smiled. “I know… we all want to get back home, don’t we, boy.”
Jung-Jo appeared to smile. It was probably his eyes. When he closed them in a contented way, it gave his entire face a smiley look.
“Jung-Jo says he’s going to miss us, too,” Danyy said, hearing the pawgor’s thoughts.
**********
Most of Antar, it seemed, had turned out to say goodbye to the group from the other dimension as they prepared to leave their Antar and return home to their own. The New Granolith hovered on its anti-gravity docking system, waiting for the last ones to come aboard.
The group had spent the morning of their third day on this Antar receiving gifts and giving tours of the New Granolith to their doubles and to anyone else who wanted to come aboard; and that had been a steady stream of Antarians. Now, at just after high noon, they were finally ready to depart.
Liz, Maria, Isabel, Tess, and the others had all said goodbye to their doubles and to everyone else, and enough kisses and hugs had been exchanged to power the New Granolith all the way back home to their own dimension if kisses and hugs could be converted into energy. Max and Jim were the last ones out now, along with Jung-Jo, who was still frolicking with the children, giving them rides and pawgor licks. But the time had come to go, and Max nodded to Jim. Jim gave a little whistle to Jung-Jo, who came running to his side.
“Goodbye, friends,” Max said shaking his double’s hand again and hugging Liz and Maria and a few others. He looked at Jung-Jo and wondered how he was ever going to be able to extract him from all the adoring little arms holding onto him… If anyone had been a real hit here, it had been Jung-Jo with the children.
“Come on, Jung-Jo,” Jim said. We gotta go.”
Jim led Jung-Jo into the transport circle beneath the ship, and he and Max waved a final goodbye, as the transport beam took them into the ship. Moments later, the ship rose slowly from where it had been hovering… and headed out into the Antarian sky.
tbc
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
On The Road Again
Chapter 14
XIV
On the road again!
Just can’t wait to get on the road again!
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again!
On the road again!
Goin' places that I've never been!
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again!
On the road again!
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends!
Michael leaned back in his co-pilots seat and smiled at Maria and Liz…
“Looks like we can count on music during our journey. Max and Kyle must be expanding their artistic range. First MC Hammer, now Willie Nelson. Well, no one can say they’re locked into a rut.”
Liz laughed and nodded. “I don’t know, I kind of like it myself. They’re not that bad… once you get used to them.”
“Green eggs and ham wouldn’t look that bad to someone coming out of the desert after a week,” Michael chuckled. “We’ve been deprived of real music for too long.”
Maria slapped Michael playfully on the arm. “Don’t knock Dr. Seuss. I like Dr. Seuss. And I agree with Liz, Max and Kyle are kind of… sort of… not too bad.”
“Like green eggs and ham?”
“Oh, Michael!”
On the road again!
Goin' places that I've never been!
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again!
On the road again!
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends!
Jung-Jo lifted his head and let out a softly rising aaarrrroooooooooooooooo, seeming, eerily, to harmonize with Max and Kyle.
“Okay, now, that’s an improvement!” Michael exclaimed with a big grin. “I could listen to that!”
As fate would have it, Varec walked in at that moment, effectively ending the concert. Everybody turned to Varec, waiting to see what he had to say about their futures.
Varec smiled, but Michael noticed that he also swallowed hard… “As you often ask on Eluymer, so I have heard, do you prefer the good news first or the bad news first?”
“Bad,” Michael said. “Good,” Liz and Maria both said at the same time. “Just give it all to us,” Max said.
Varec nodded. “Well, the bad news is, I don’t know exactly where we are interdimensionally, so I cannot guarantee that the next Antar we come to will be our own… or the one after that… or ever…”
“What’s the good news,” Michael asked.
“I know what happened. The New Granolith was moved off of its predetermined dimensional plane by a powerful beam composed of ions and protons… the vortex that brought the four Sliders to our ship.”
“So what do we do about it,” Max asked. “There must be a solution.”
“There is always a solution,” Varec replied. “If one can find it.”
“Then we work on that,” Max said. “We WILL get home.”
The others all nodded, and even Varec, who –usually- was too scientific-minded to be swayed by emotion, seemed oddly relieved seeing Max so emphatic that they would get home.
“Where there is conviction, there is always solution,” Varec said with a smile, switching from Antarian, which he had been speaking, to his best English.
“You mean where there’s a will there’s a way,” Maria said.
Varec nodded. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Maria smiled and nodded.
Michael sat back down in his seat, leaned back, and sighed… “Well, nothing to do then but see where we wind up… and if it’s not our Antar… we refine our calculations and try again…”
He picked up a couple of wooden pointers and began beating out a hard drum beat on the console…
And the road becomes my bride
I am stripped of all but pride
So in her I do confide
And she keeps me satisfied
Gives me all I need
And with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Call me what you will
But I'll take my time anywhere
Free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll redefine anywhere
Anywhere I roam
Where I lay my head is home.
Jung-Jo put both paws over his head, and Michael stopped and looked at him…
“Traitor! I’ll have you know that was Metallica! That’s real music!”
**********
Forty-eight hours later, everyone was gathered in front of the New Granolith’s large bridge window to watch, as once again the ship approached the planet Antar. There was no question it was Antar. The Golden Sea was pretty distinctive… plus, all the landmasses were right. But was it theirs? No one could say for sure.
“What do you think, Max,” Michael asked.
Max shook his head slowly and shrugged. It looked like their Antar… but so had the last one… before the storms had started. So far, there were no visible storms on this Antar. That, at least, was a good sign. Max slowed the ship and took it into the upper reaches of Antar’s atmosphere. Almost instantly, they began receiving a transmission.
“Put it on the VidScreen,” Max said, but Michael was already on it.
A young man appeared on the screen. It was Dak, the young AVMTech at the Antar Space Field outside CoruzAntar. Immediately, a cheer went up from everyone onboard the New Granolith.
“Wait,” Max said, holding up his hand, “Don’t get your hopes up too high just yet. Just because Dak is here doesn’t necessarily mean this is our Antar.”
“But it could be,” Isabel said, grinning.
Max nodded. “Yeah. It could be.”
“Identify yourself and your ship,” the young AVMTech said. Everyone’s hearts sank a bit, but they hoped that there would be some unexpected explanation for Dak’s not recognizing the New Granolith.
“I am Zan,” Max said. “Rath is with me… and my wife, Liz, and our friends. The ship is the New Granolith, our mother ship. Are you having a problem with the transponder signals, Dak?”
“No problem with the signals,” Dak said. “You will have to land at the field on the outside of CoruzAntar, on the east side of the capitol.”
“Do you know who I am, Dak,” Max asked.
“You said that you are Zan.”
“Do you know who Zan is?”
“Of course. Zan was our king. But you are not that Zan.”
“Was?”
“Before Kivar… then the regents.”
“Who?”
“The regents… Lady Vilandra and the new King of Antar.”
“The… what!”
“Omigod!” Isabel exclaimed, “Please, please, please don’t let it be Kivar!”
“Lady Vilandra… Isabel… and Alex, the King and Queen of Antar.
tbc
On The Road Again
Chapter 14
XIV
On the road again!
Just can’t wait to get on the road again!
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again!
On the road again!
Goin' places that I've never been!
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again!
On the road again!
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends!
Michael leaned back in his co-pilots seat and smiled at Maria and Liz…
“Looks like we can count on music during our journey. Max and Kyle must be expanding their artistic range. First MC Hammer, now Willie Nelson. Well, no one can say they’re locked into a rut.”
Liz laughed and nodded. “I don’t know, I kind of like it myself. They’re not that bad… once you get used to them.”
“Green eggs and ham wouldn’t look that bad to someone coming out of the desert after a week,” Michael chuckled. “We’ve been deprived of real music for too long.”
Maria slapped Michael playfully on the arm. “Don’t knock Dr. Seuss. I like Dr. Seuss. And I agree with Liz, Max and Kyle are kind of… sort of… not too bad.”
“Like green eggs and ham?”
“Oh, Michael!”
On the road again!
Goin' places that I've never been!
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again!
On the road again!
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends!
Jung-Jo lifted his head and let out a softly rising aaarrrroooooooooooooooo, seeming, eerily, to harmonize with Max and Kyle.
“Okay, now, that’s an improvement!” Michael exclaimed with a big grin. “I could listen to that!”
As fate would have it, Varec walked in at that moment, effectively ending the concert. Everybody turned to Varec, waiting to see what he had to say about their futures.
Varec smiled, but Michael noticed that he also swallowed hard… “As you often ask on Eluymer, so I have heard, do you prefer the good news first or the bad news first?”
“Bad,” Michael said. “Good,” Liz and Maria both said at the same time. “Just give it all to us,” Max said.
Varec nodded. “Well, the bad news is, I don’t know exactly where we are interdimensionally, so I cannot guarantee that the next Antar we come to will be our own… or the one after that… or ever…”
“What’s the good news,” Michael asked.
“I know what happened. The New Granolith was moved off of its predetermined dimensional plane by a powerful beam composed of ions and protons… the vortex that brought the four Sliders to our ship.”
“So what do we do about it,” Max asked. “There must be a solution.”
“There is always a solution,” Varec replied. “If one can find it.”
“Then we work on that,” Max said. “We WILL get home.”
The others all nodded, and even Varec, who –usually- was too scientific-minded to be swayed by emotion, seemed oddly relieved seeing Max so emphatic that they would get home.
“Where there is conviction, there is always solution,” Varec said with a smile, switching from Antarian, which he had been speaking, to his best English.
“You mean where there’s a will there’s a way,” Maria said.
Varec nodded. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Maria smiled and nodded.
Michael sat back down in his seat, leaned back, and sighed… “Well, nothing to do then but see where we wind up… and if it’s not our Antar… we refine our calculations and try again…”
He picked up a couple of wooden pointers and began beating out a hard drum beat on the console…
And the road becomes my bride
I am stripped of all but pride
So in her I do confide
And she keeps me satisfied
Gives me all I need
And with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Call me what you will
But I'll take my time anywhere
Free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll redefine anywhere
Anywhere I roam
Where I lay my head is home.
Jung-Jo put both paws over his head, and Michael stopped and looked at him…
“Traitor! I’ll have you know that was Metallica! That’s real music!”
**********
Forty-eight hours later, everyone was gathered in front of the New Granolith’s large bridge window to watch, as once again the ship approached the planet Antar. There was no question it was Antar. The Golden Sea was pretty distinctive… plus, all the landmasses were right. But was it theirs? No one could say for sure.
“What do you think, Max,” Michael asked.
Max shook his head slowly and shrugged. It looked like their Antar… but so had the last one… before the storms had started. So far, there were no visible storms on this Antar. That, at least, was a good sign. Max slowed the ship and took it into the upper reaches of Antar’s atmosphere. Almost instantly, they began receiving a transmission.
“Put it on the VidScreen,” Max said, but Michael was already on it.
A young man appeared on the screen. It was Dak, the young AVMTech at the Antar Space Field outside CoruzAntar. Immediately, a cheer went up from everyone onboard the New Granolith.
“Wait,” Max said, holding up his hand, “Don’t get your hopes up too high just yet. Just because Dak is here doesn’t necessarily mean this is our Antar.”
“But it could be,” Isabel said, grinning.
Max nodded. “Yeah. It could be.”
“Identify yourself and your ship,” the young AVMTech said. Everyone’s hearts sank a bit, but they hoped that there would be some unexpected explanation for Dak’s not recognizing the New Granolith.
“I am Zan,” Max said. “Rath is with me… and my wife, Liz, and our friends. The ship is the New Granolith, our mother ship. Are you having a problem with the transponder signals, Dak?”
“No problem with the signals,” Dak said. “You will have to land at the field on the outside of CoruzAntar, on the east side of the capitol.”
“Do you know who I am, Dak,” Max asked.
“You said that you are Zan.”
“Do you know who Zan is?”
“Of course. Zan was our king. But you are not that Zan.”
“Was?”
“Before Kivar… then the regents.”
“Who?”
“The regents… Lady Vilandra and the new King of Antar.”
“The… what!”
“Omigod!” Isabel exclaimed, “Please, please, please don’t let it be Kivar!”
“Lady Vilandra… Isabel… and Alex, the King and Queen of Antar.
tbc
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
Alex & Isabel, King & Queen Of Antar
Chapter 15
XV
“Is there a problem,” the AVMTech asked.
“No… no… no… no problem,” Max stammered. “We, uh… We’ll land where you directed us to land. Is, uh… King Alex around?”
The young tech smiled. “The king has more important things to attend to than hanging around watching me work, I suspect. He may be at the palace.”
“Could you let him know that we’re here?”
“I already have,” the tech said. “The message was relayed to the palace and to his private ComServer as soon as your ship entered Antarian air space.”
“Oh… okay… well… good. Yeah, that’s… that’s… good.”
“I can’t wait to see how this all came about,” Michael said, as Max dropped back into the pilot’s seat, a stunned look on his face.
**********
The New Granolith settled into the space designated for it at the CoruzAntar spaceport and powered down, coming to rest on its anti-gravity locks. From the bridge window, Max could see that a hover vehicle was headed toward the ship…
“I’ll go down first and make sure their friendly.”
“Like hell, you will,” Michael objected. “I’m going with you. You may need me.”
Max just nodded.
Max and Michael appeared in the transport circle beneath the ship and watched as the hover vehicle drew near. It was a Dyygitix-Sixteen. Michael looked the vehicle over, nodding appreciatively, as it approached…
“Well, somebody is either robbing the royal treasury or Antar is going through a prosperity boom,” Michael mused, “A Dyygitix-sixteen would set me back two years salary on our Antar.”
“Maybe it’s the palace car,” Max said.
Michael nodded. “Could be, I guess. Kind of small and sporty for a palace car, though.”
The Dyygitix-sixteen pulled up beside Max and Michael, and the top slid back and flipped upward then slid down into the sides of the vehicle and disappeared all in one smooth, almost fluid movement. Alex hopped out of the driver’s seat and walked up to Max and Michael, looking Max in the eyes…
“When they told me you were here, Max, I wanted to see it for myself. I’ve gotta tell you, I didn’t really believe it.” Alex glanced at the New Granolith. “Where’d you get the ship? Even I don’t have any ships that big. Don’t tell me Kivar left it on Earth. You couldn’t hide something that size.”
“You’d be surprised,” Max said, lifting his arm and speaking into his wrist ComServer… “Varec… put the invisibility shield on.”
As they watched, the New Granolith disappeared completely from sight.
Alex nodded. “I’m impressed! But I still don’t believe Kivar left it on Earth.”
Max shook his head. “Nope… you’re right… he didn’t. I had it built. That is, Michael and I had it built… so we could go back to Earth’s past and change some… uh… mistakes.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You lost me there, Max. The past? Did you mess with the past on Earth? My past? Am I going to disappear now or something, so you can take your throne back? You didn’t want it… remember?”
Max’s face clearly betrayed his surprise, but he recovered quickly…
“Alex, there’s something you need to know.”
“Yeah, it sounds like it.”
“We’re not the same Max and Michael that you know… KNEW. We’re sort of… from a different dimension.”
Alex nodded. “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?”
“You believe me?”
“No.”
“It’s true,” Michael said. “Do you want proof?”
“Proof would be good.”
Michael nodded and spoke into his own wrist ComServer…
“Varec… would you send Alex and Isabel down, please?”
Michael smiled, enjoying the puzzled look of uncertainty that came over Alex’s face. A moment later, Alex and Isabel appeared in the transport circle beneath the still invisible ship and walked over to where Max, Michael, and the King stood.
Alex put out his hand, and his royal double took it and slowly shook it, albeit a bit suspiciously… then he looked at Isabel and shook his head…
“Another dimension, huh?”
“Yep,” Alex from the New Granolith said.
“Wow. That’s… unexpected…” King Alex replied thoughtfully, finding himself having trouble taking his eyes off of Isabel. “Why did you come to this dimension?”
“Actually, we were trying to find our own dimension again,” Isabel said. “We seem to have been pushed off of our dimensional trajectory or something like that. Varec can explain it. Anyway, we keep finding Antars in the wrong dimensions now.”
The king nodded. “I didn’t know the existence of alternate dimensions had been proven yet… much less that anyone was actively traveling around between them.”
“We’re kind of new to it,” Alex from the New Granolith admitted. “I guess that’s why we’re lost.”
His royal double smiled, suddenly becoming the congenial host. “Well! As long as you’re here on my Antar, you’ll have to come to the palace and have dinner with us… with Isabel and me. She’d love to see you!” Alex turned and looked at Max… “I’m happy to see you, too, Max… even if you’re not the one I knew… or maybe because you’re not.”
“I don’t think we’ll all fit in a Dyygitix-sixteen,” Michael said.
Alex nodded. He had forgotten that there were others on the ship besides Max, Michael, Isabel, and his double. “How many of you are there?”
“Eleven,” Michael said, “Max and Liz, Maria and myself, Alex and Iz, Tess and Rayylar, Varec, Kyle, and Jim.”
“Liz and Maria?” Alex repeated, suddenly perking up noticeably, “Liz and Maria are here?”
Max nodded.
Alex raised his wrist to his mouth… “Joygo, would you please send the palace car to the spaceport? Yeah… thanks.” He turned back to his guests and smiled. “There’ll be plenty of room.”
**********
As the sun began to set over CoruzAntar, Antar’s capitol city, the palace dining hall came alive with gaiety, laughter, and small talk…
“To our guests,” Alex said, raising his tall glass in a toast. Queen Isabel, Tess, and several Antarian friends raised their own glasses in agreement. When Isabel had learned of the arrival of the New Granolith group she had called Tess and her Antarian friends and asked them to come to the palace.
“It’s nice to have visitors from Earth,” Isabel said, “It’s not like we get a steady stream of them. In fact, actually, you’re the first… and you don’t even live on Earth anymore.”
Isabel from the New Granolith looked at her double and smiled, but her eyes seemed to be saying, “I’m so sorry.” The queen noticed…
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I chose to come… I have Alex! And I have friends, lots of them. Of course… they’re not the ones I grew up with. Or mom and dad…”
“I’d love to hear how you came here by yourselves and became the king and queen,” Liz said, looking at Alex.
Alex smiled and shook his head… “Boring. You wouldn’t want to hear it.”
Liz raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together with determination…
“I do want to hear it, Alex! And I don’t think it’s boring. There has to be a very interesting story there!”
Alex shook his head again. “I try not to make a habit of killing my guests with boring talk about myself… especially during their first meal with me.”
“We’ll take the risk,” Maria said. “Spill it, Alex!”
“Let’s talk about you,” Alex replied, trying to change the subject. “Tell me about your ship.”
Liz and Maria, sitting on either side of Alex, both reached over and put their hands around his neck at the same time. “Don’t make us strangle you, Alex!” Maria said. “Humor us. You’re not supposed to say no to a lady’s request.”
Alex adopted a mock look of terror and glanced at Isabel… “Are you going to let them do this?” Isabel smiled and nonchalantly took another bite of grelliats.
“Darn, she knows we love him too much to kill him,” Maria said.
“But what if we didn’t,” Liz asked.
“I’d probably have to vaporize you,” Isabel said, calmly taking another bite of grelliats. This drew laughter from all her Antarian friends as well as from Tess; and Liz and Maria both smiled, too.
“You’re lucky you’re so adorable,” Liz said, giving Alex a gentle shove, “‘Cause if you weren’t…”
“So I don’t have to tell you how we got here then?”
“I didn’t say that,” Liz replied emphatically. “I can still hurt you… lovingly, of course.”
Alex chuckled. “Alright! Alright… You asked for it. Don’t blame me if I bore you to death, though. I warned you.”
Alex turned and glanced at Tess, almost apologetically, and seemed to be asking for her permission. Tess smiled slightly and then nodded.
tbc
Alex & Isabel, King & Queen Of Antar
Chapter 15
XV
“Is there a problem,” the AVMTech asked.
“No… no… no… no problem,” Max stammered. “We, uh… We’ll land where you directed us to land. Is, uh… King Alex around?”
The young tech smiled. “The king has more important things to attend to than hanging around watching me work, I suspect. He may be at the palace.”
“Could you let him know that we’re here?”
“I already have,” the tech said. “The message was relayed to the palace and to his private ComServer as soon as your ship entered Antarian air space.”
“Oh… okay… well… good. Yeah, that’s… that’s… good.”
“I can’t wait to see how this all came about,” Michael said, as Max dropped back into the pilot’s seat, a stunned look on his face.
**********
The New Granolith settled into the space designated for it at the CoruzAntar spaceport and powered down, coming to rest on its anti-gravity locks. From the bridge window, Max could see that a hover vehicle was headed toward the ship…
“I’ll go down first and make sure their friendly.”
“Like hell, you will,” Michael objected. “I’m going with you. You may need me.”
Max just nodded.
Max and Michael appeared in the transport circle beneath the ship and watched as the hover vehicle drew near. It was a Dyygitix-Sixteen. Michael looked the vehicle over, nodding appreciatively, as it approached…
“Well, somebody is either robbing the royal treasury or Antar is going through a prosperity boom,” Michael mused, “A Dyygitix-sixteen would set me back two years salary on our Antar.”
“Maybe it’s the palace car,” Max said.
Michael nodded. “Could be, I guess. Kind of small and sporty for a palace car, though.”
The Dyygitix-sixteen pulled up beside Max and Michael, and the top slid back and flipped upward then slid down into the sides of the vehicle and disappeared all in one smooth, almost fluid movement. Alex hopped out of the driver’s seat and walked up to Max and Michael, looking Max in the eyes…
“When they told me you were here, Max, I wanted to see it for myself. I’ve gotta tell you, I didn’t really believe it.” Alex glanced at the New Granolith. “Where’d you get the ship? Even I don’t have any ships that big. Don’t tell me Kivar left it on Earth. You couldn’t hide something that size.”
“You’d be surprised,” Max said, lifting his arm and speaking into his wrist ComServer… “Varec… put the invisibility shield on.”
As they watched, the New Granolith disappeared completely from sight.
Alex nodded. “I’m impressed! But I still don’t believe Kivar left it on Earth.”
Max shook his head. “Nope… you’re right… he didn’t. I had it built. That is, Michael and I had it built… so we could go back to Earth’s past and change some… uh… mistakes.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You lost me there, Max. The past? Did you mess with the past on Earth? My past? Am I going to disappear now or something, so you can take your throne back? You didn’t want it… remember?”
Max’s face clearly betrayed his surprise, but he recovered quickly…
“Alex, there’s something you need to know.”
“Yeah, it sounds like it.”
“We’re not the same Max and Michael that you know… KNEW. We’re sort of… from a different dimension.”
Alex nodded. “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?”
“You believe me?”
“No.”
“It’s true,” Michael said. “Do you want proof?”
“Proof would be good.”
Michael nodded and spoke into his own wrist ComServer…
“Varec… would you send Alex and Isabel down, please?”
Michael smiled, enjoying the puzzled look of uncertainty that came over Alex’s face. A moment later, Alex and Isabel appeared in the transport circle beneath the still invisible ship and walked over to where Max, Michael, and the King stood.
Alex put out his hand, and his royal double took it and slowly shook it, albeit a bit suspiciously… then he looked at Isabel and shook his head…
“Another dimension, huh?”
“Yep,” Alex from the New Granolith said.
“Wow. That’s… unexpected…” King Alex replied thoughtfully, finding himself having trouble taking his eyes off of Isabel. “Why did you come to this dimension?”
“Actually, we were trying to find our own dimension again,” Isabel said. “We seem to have been pushed off of our dimensional trajectory or something like that. Varec can explain it. Anyway, we keep finding Antars in the wrong dimensions now.”
The king nodded. “I didn’t know the existence of alternate dimensions had been proven yet… much less that anyone was actively traveling around between them.”
“We’re kind of new to it,” Alex from the New Granolith admitted. “I guess that’s why we’re lost.”
His royal double smiled, suddenly becoming the congenial host. “Well! As long as you’re here on my Antar, you’ll have to come to the palace and have dinner with us… with Isabel and me. She’d love to see you!” Alex turned and looked at Max… “I’m happy to see you, too, Max… even if you’re not the one I knew… or maybe because you’re not.”
“I don’t think we’ll all fit in a Dyygitix-sixteen,” Michael said.
Alex nodded. He had forgotten that there were others on the ship besides Max, Michael, Isabel, and his double. “How many of you are there?”
“Eleven,” Michael said, “Max and Liz, Maria and myself, Alex and Iz, Tess and Rayylar, Varec, Kyle, and Jim.”
“Liz and Maria?” Alex repeated, suddenly perking up noticeably, “Liz and Maria are here?”
Max nodded.
Alex raised his wrist to his mouth… “Joygo, would you please send the palace car to the spaceport? Yeah… thanks.” He turned back to his guests and smiled. “There’ll be plenty of room.”
**********
As the sun began to set over CoruzAntar, Antar’s capitol city, the palace dining hall came alive with gaiety, laughter, and small talk…
“To our guests,” Alex said, raising his tall glass in a toast. Queen Isabel, Tess, and several Antarian friends raised their own glasses in agreement. When Isabel had learned of the arrival of the New Granolith group she had called Tess and her Antarian friends and asked them to come to the palace.
“It’s nice to have visitors from Earth,” Isabel said, “It’s not like we get a steady stream of them. In fact, actually, you’re the first… and you don’t even live on Earth anymore.”
Isabel from the New Granolith looked at her double and smiled, but her eyes seemed to be saying, “I’m so sorry.” The queen noticed…
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I chose to come… I have Alex! And I have friends, lots of them. Of course… they’re not the ones I grew up with. Or mom and dad…”
“I’d love to hear how you came here by yourselves and became the king and queen,” Liz said, looking at Alex.
Alex smiled and shook his head… “Boring. You wouldn’t want to hear it.”
Liz raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together with determination…
“I do want to hear it, Alex! And I don’t think it’s boring. There has to be a very interesting story there!”
Alex shook his head again. “I try not to make a habit of killing my guests with boring talk about myself… especially during their first meal with me.”
“We’ll take the risk,” Maria said. “Spill it, Alex!”
“Let’s talk about you,” Alex replied, trying to change the subject. “Tell me about your ship.”
Liz and Maria, sitting on either side of Alex, both reached over and put their hands around his neck at the same time. “Don’t make us strangle you, Alex!” Maria said. “Humor us. You’re not supposed to say no to a lady’s request.”
Alex adopted a mock look of terror and glanced at Isabel… “Are you going to let them do this?” Isabel smiled and nonchalantly took another bite of grelliats.
“Darn, she knows we love him too much to kill him,” Maria said.
“But what if we didn’t,” Liz asked.
“I’d probably have to vaporize you,” Isabel said, calmly taking another bite of grelliats. This drew laughter from all her Antarian friends as well as from Tess; and Liz and Maria both smiled, too.
“You’re lucky you’re so adorable,” Liz said, giving Alex a gentle shove, “‘Cause if you weren’t…”
“So I don’t have to tell you how we got here then?”
“I didn’t say that,” Liz replied emphatically. “I can still hurt you… lovingly, of course.”
Alex chuckled. “Alright! Alright… You asked for it. Don’t blame me if I bore you to death, though. I warned you.”
Alex turned and glanced at Tess, almost apologetically, and seemed to be asking for her permission. Tess smiled slightly and then nodded.
tbc
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
Okay, this part may have just a little bit of strong language… but probably no more than you hear on any TV program today… maybe not as much! Just so you know, though (Like that’s going to stop you, right? :lol ) Also, this part is being told by Alex, but not always in the first person. There is direct dialog between the characters, set off by quotation marks “” in the usual way. There is simple exposition, to say what you should be “seeing” as Alex tells it, but which is not in Alex’s own words precisely, though he is telling it. And there is what Alex says to us directly. This has been indicated with >>> before he begins each time. I think it will be clear when you read it. 
Sliding Into Antar
Alex’s Story
Chapter 16
XVI
Alex sighed and rubbed his chin… “Where to start…”
“Try at the beginning,” Liz said.
“Okay… well, I was born in…”
“Not that far in the beginning, Alex! Come on! Start with… whenever whatever happened that led to your BEING HERE ON ANTAR!”
“Oh, that!” Alex smiled. He knew he was jerking the girls around, but he also knew that he could get away with it.
“Well… I guess it started when…”
**********
“You did this to me, Tess! You sent me to Las Cruces!”
“Okay… Alex… Alex, let me fix your mind. You're not thinking straight.”
“You mind warped me for two months while I decoded that silly book for you, and now there's nothing left for you to mind warp. You destroyed my mind! How could you do this to me?”
>>> I think that’s when Kyle came in and asked what was going on. Tess was already frustrated and scared, because she was having trouble controlling the situation…
“Kyle, get out!”
>>> At that point, I was losing it, too… totally. I didn’t care who was there or anything. My mind was just so totally numb from all the mind warps, and I couldn’t think straight anymore. But I finally remembered enough to know who was responsible…
“See what you’ve done, Tess? I can’t… I can’t… think… I have nothing left of ME anymore. I might as well be dead!”
“Calm down! Just calm down,” Tess pleaded frantically, at the same time trying to get Kyle out of the room. Then I felt it happening again… It felt like a flood washing through my brain, washing away everything that was me… all my memories, all my own thoughts, all my feelings. I tried to fight it…
“No! You can't mind warp me again… NOOO!”
>>> That’s all I remember. Then everything went blank. I know now that my brain couldn’t take any more, and it simply shut down on some level. It was gone, like a light that had been blown, and it wasn’t coming back on this time… not for anything that Tess might wish or do.”
**********
“Your duffel's all loaded.”
“Thanks Kyle.”
“Want me to come along?”
“No. Go in the house. I'll take care of everything from here.”
“Are you sure?”
>>> Tess looked Kyle in the eyes, and he nodded and walked back toward the house. He never knew that the “duffel” he had put in the car was actually me… he had been mindwarped. Tess drove over to my house and got a guy who was passing by on the sidewalk to move her “duffel” from her car into the front seat of mine. Then she drove out to the highway and stopped and got out. She pushed me over into the driver’s seat and used her powers to start the car and guide it into the front of a semi at 70 miles per hour while she watched from a safe distance away, out of sight.
After the crash, Tess went back to the café and tried to act like one of the group and like nothing had happened, but her mind was in turmoil. Then Valenti came into the CrashDown and told everybody that I had been killed in an accident, and they all rushed over to the morgue with him so Max could heal me. When the coroner’s van showed up, Valenti hurried the two attendants inside to give Max a chance to get into the back and bring me back to life, but Max wasn’t able to. My body was too… well…
When Max wasn’t able to bring me back, everybody just started to fall apart, and Tess didn’t know what to do. She walked around for the rest of the afternoon, thinking. That evening, she showed up at the CrashDown again…
“Max.”
“Tess.”
“I need to talk with you, Max.”
“Okay.”
“Not here. Not in front of everybody.”
“Anything you have to say, you can say in front of Liz and me,” Maria said.
“This doesn’t concern you, Maria. Stay out of it.”
“If it’s about you and Max, it concerns me, Tess. Liz is my friend, and you’re hurting her.”
“Maria… It’s okay,” Liz whispered.
“No, it’s not okay, Liz… You have to speak up. Wherever you and Max are, Tess always shows up. It’s like she’s got a LoJack hidden in his pants. She always knows where he is. If you don’t stop it now, she’ll have him in bed before you know it.”
“Maria!” Liz exclaimed, her face reddening to a bright crimson, “That is so not going to happen. I’m a big girl, Maria. I can handle my own relationships. I know you’re trying to help, but… well, don’t. Not here… not right now. You’re embarrassing me.”
Max and Michael looked at each other, and both decided, perhaps wisely, not to comment.
“Well, I tried to tell you,” Maria said, glaring at Tess.
Tess huffed and pursed her lips tightly together… “Okay… okay… you all want to hear it? Okay, then. But you may not find what I have to say very pleasant.”
“Well, that won’t be a big change,” Maria said.
Tess took a deep breath. “I killed Alex.”
There was total silence for several moments… total stunned silence.
“Why?” Maria asked, tears starting to roll down her face. “Why would you hurt Alex? Alex, of all people! What did he ever do to you?”
“Nothing.” Tess’ lips trembled, and she started to cry.
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t!” Liz said, starting to shake uncontrollably and unable to contain her feelings any longer. “Save it for the theater, Tess!”
“I’m not acting. I didn’t mean to kill him. It just… it happened.”
“Shit happens,” Maria said. “Killing my best friend doesn’t just happen.”
“It was an accident. I needed him to decode the book. I didn’t know his mind couldn’t handle the mind warps.”
“He died in a car wreck,” Liz said.
“I staged that to take suspicion off of me. He didn’t die in the crash.”
“Why are you telling us all of this now,” Max asked solemnly.
“I only wanted to tell you, Max. I didn’t want to tell everybody.”
“Well, now we all know,” Michael said.
Tess nodded. “Max, you need to try again to heal Alex. If I help you, maybe we can do it… together.”
“You didn’t see the body after the crash, did you?” Max asked.
Tess shook her head.
“If you had, you wouldn’t ask me.”
“But it was an accident, Max. I didn’t mean to kill him. You have to heal him.”
“It’s too late for self-recriminations, Tess. Maybe if you hadn’t smashed him into a semi head on at 70 miles per hour, I could have done something…”
“A hundred twenty-five,” Liz said. Max turned and looked at Liz.
“The truck driver said he was doing 55. Alex’s car was going 70. That’s 125 miles per hour.”
Max nodded and looked back at Tess. “I can’t fix that, Tess. Nothing can.”
Tess closed her eyes and choked back a sob, but there was no sympathy for her in the room.
“Leave us,” Max said, “Leave Roswell. Go far away and don’t ever come back. If you ever do, I’ll kill you myself.”
Michael nodded in agreement. Tess looked around the room, but except for Maria, everyone was in agreement that she be banished. Maria preferred the death option.
“Omigod,” Liz whispered, placing her hand over her mouth reflexively, “When Isabel finds out what really happened, she’ll die.”
“Where is Isabel,” Michael asked.
“She went home,” Maria said, “To cry.”
Max turned and looked at Tess again. His eyes were hard, cold, and totally void of any sympathy… or any feelings that he ever might have had for her. Tess knew that this time she had stepped over the line, and what she had done could not be fixed with a few tears, real or otherwise. She turned and walked out the door of the CrashDown in silence… and didn’t look back.
**********
At home, Isabel lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow. She had been like this since finding out that Max would not be able to do anything, and her pillow was already in desperate need of a long tumble in the dryer. Seeming to finally realize this, she rolled over to reach for a dry pillow… And that’s when she noticed…
Thinking that it must be the tears making it look like what she thought she saw, Isabel wiped her eyes and looked again…
“Hello, Isabel.”
“Alex? Omigod, Alex! You’re alive! How did you…?”
“That’s not important, Iz. Actually, I’m not sure how I got here.”
>>> Isabel reached out and touched me to see if I was real, and she found that I was solid… It surprised me, too… maybe more than her. She threw herself into my arms and hugged me, and tears started running down her face again.
“You’re not really here, are you, Alex? This is a dream. You’re not real. It’s not fair!”
“It’s not a dream, Isabel. I’m here… in some way.”
>>> I tried to reassure her that everything was going to be all right, even if I couldn’t be there with her anymore, but I felt wrong saying it, because I knew that it would never be all right for me. I wanted Isabel to move on… for her sake… but…
I put my arms around her and kissed her… and I was overcome by the passion that flowed between us… through our kiss… through every fiber of our very beings, whatever our beings were at that moment. Isabel closed her eyes and surrendered herself to me totally, and we both let the feeling carry us away emotionally. But her heart was still breaking, and I could feel it. We both knew that our time together was limited and I would have to be going much too soon, so we held each other tight, trying, in those few short minutes, to capture all the moments that we would miss for the rest of… eternity.
“Dance, milady?”
Isabel nodded and smiled, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. And we danced…
…and we danced…
…and as we danced, I felt myself slipping away…
“Iz, I have to tell you something. I love you!”
“Oh, God, I love you, too, Alex… so much! Will I ever see you again?”
“Not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m being taken somewhere… I think… my body…”
“Your body?”
“Tess…”
That was the last thing Isabel heard me say before I disappeared.
Isabel stood there, her mind reeling, thinking about what she had heard, trying to put it all together…
“Omigod! Tess!”
Isabel raced from her room and out the front door. Slamming the door behind her without stopping to look back, she jumped into Max’s jeep… then headed for the desert.
tbc
Sliding Into Antar
Alex’s Story
Chapter 16
XVI
Alex sighed and rubbed his chin… “Where to start…”
“Try at the beginning,” Liz said.
“Okay… well, I was born in…”
“Not that far in the beginning, Alex! Come on! Start with… whenever whatever happened that led to your BEING HERE ON ANTAR!”
“Oh, that!” Alex smiled. He knew he was jerking the girls around, but he also knew that he could get away with it.
“Well… I guess it started when…”
**********
“You did this to me, Tess! You sent me to Las Cruces!”
“Okay… Alex… Alex, let me fix your mind. You're not thinking straight.”
“You mind warped me for two months while I decoded that silly book for you, and now there's nothing left for you to mind warp. You destroyed my mind! How could you do this to me?”
>>> I think that’s when Kyle came in and asked what was going on. Tess was already frustrated and scared, because she was having trouble controlling the situation…
“Kyle, get out!”
>>> At that point, I was losing it, too… totally. I didn’t care who was there or anything. My mind was just so totally numb from all the mind warps, and I couldn’t think straight anymore. But I finally remembered enough to know who was responsible…
“See what you’ve done, Tess? I can’t… I can’t… think… I have nothing left of ME anymore. I might as well be dead!”
“Calm down! Just calm down,” Tess pleaded frantically, at the same time trying to get Kyle out of the room. Then I felt it happening again… It felt like a flood washing through my brain, washing away everything that was me… all my memories, all my own thoughts, all my feelings. I tried to fight it…
“No! You can't mind warp me again… NOOO!”
>>> That’s all I remember. Then everything went blank. I know now that my brain couldn’t take any more, and it simply shut down on some level. It was gone, like a light that had been blown, and it wasn’t coming back on this time… not for anything that Tess might wish or do.”
**********
“Your duffel's all loaded.”
“Thanks Kyle.”
“Want me to come along?”
“No. Go in the house. I'll take care of everything from here.”
“Are you sure?”
>>> Tess looked Kyle in the eyes, and he nodded and walked back toward the house. He never knew that the “duffel” he had put in the car was actually me… he had been mindwarped. Tess drove over to my house and got a guy who was passing by on the sidewalk to move her “duffel” from her car into the front seat of mine. Then she drove out to the highway and stopped and got out. She pushed me over into the driver’s seat and used her powers to start the car and guide it into the front of a semi at 70 miles per hour while she watched from a safe distance away, out of sight.
After the crash, Tess went back to the café and tried to act like one of the group and like nothing had happened, but her mind was in turmoil. Then Valenti came into the CrashDown and told everybody that I had been killed in an accident, and they all rushed over to the morgue with him so Max could heal me. When the coroner’s van showed up, Valenti hurried the two attendants inside to give Max a chance to get into the back and bring me back to life, but Max wasn’t able to. My body was too… well…
When Max wasn’t able to bring me back, everybody just started to fall apart, and Tess didn’t know what to do. She walked around for the rest of the afternoon, thinking. That evening, she showed up at the CrashDown again…
“Max.”
“Tess.”
“I need to talk with you, Max.”
“Okay.”
“Not here. Not in front of everybody.”
“Anything you have to say, you can say in front of Liz and me,” Maria said.
“This doesn’t concern you, Maria. Stay out of it.”
“If it’s about you and Max, it concerns me, Tess. Liz is my friend, and you’re hurting her.”
“Maria… It’s okay,” Liz whispered.
“No, it’s not okay, Liz… You have to speak up. Wherever you and Max are, Tess always shows up. It’s like she’s got a LoJack hidden in his pants. She always knows where he is. If you don’t stop it now, she’ll have him in bed before you know it.”
“Maria!” Liz exclaimed, her face reddening to a bright crimson, “That is so not going to happen. I’m a big girl, Maria. I can handle my own relationships. I know you’re trying to help, but… well, don’t. Not here… not right now. You’re embarrassing me.”
Max and Michael looked at each other, and both decided, perhaps wisely, not to comment.
“Well, I tried to tell you,” Maria said, glaring at Tess.
Tess huffed and pursed her lips tightly together… “Okay… okay… you all want to hear it? Okay, then. But you may not find what I have to say very pleasant.”
“Well, that won’t be a big change,” Maria said.
Tess took a deep breath. “I killed Alex.”
There was total silence for several moments… total stunned silence.
“Why?” Maria asked, tears starting to roll down her face. “Why would you hurt Alex? Alex, of all people! What did he ever do to you?”
“Nothing.” Tess’ lips trembled, and she started to cry.
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t!” Liz said, starting to shake uncontrollably and unable to contain her feelings any longer. “Save it for the theater, Tess!”
“I’m not acting. I didn’t mean to kill him. It just… it happened.”
“Shit happens,” Maria said. “Killing my best friend doesn’t just happen.”
“It was an accident. I needed him to decode the book. I didn’t know his mind couldn’t handle the mind warps.”
“He died in a car wreck,” Liz said.
“I staged that to take suspicion off of me. He didn’t die in the crash.”
“Why are you telling us all of this now,” Max asked solemnly.
“I only wanted to tell you, Max. I didn’t want to tell everybody.”
“Well, now we all know,” Michael said.
Tess nodded. “Max, you need to try again to heal Alex. If I help you, maybe we can do it… together.”
“You didn’t see the body after the crash, did you?” Max asked.
Tess shook her head.
“If you had, you wouldn’t ask me.”
“But it was an accident, Max. I didn’t mean to kill him. You have to heal him.”
“It’s too late for self-recriminations, Tess. Maybe if you hadn’t smashed him into a semi head on at 70 miles per hour, I could have done something…”
“A hundred twenty-five,” Liz said. Max turned and looked at Liz.
“The truck driver said he was doing 55. Alex’s car was going 70. That’s 125 miles per hour.”
Max nodded and looked back at Tess. “I can’t fix that, Tess. Nothing can.”
Tess closed her eyes and choked back a sob, but there was no sympathy for her in the room.
“Leave us,” Max said, “Leave Roswell. Go far away and don’t ever come back. If you ever do, I’ll kill you myself.”
Michael nodded in agreement. Tess looked around the room, but except for Maria, everyone was in agreement that she be banished. Maria preferred the death option.
“Omigod,” Liz whispered, placing her hand over her mouth reflexively, “When Isabel finds out what really happened, she’ll die.”
“Where is Isabel,” Michael asked.
“She went home,” Maria said, “To cry.”
Max turned and looked at Tess again. His eyes were hard, cold, and totally void of any sympathy… or any feelings that he ever might have had for her. Tess knew that this time she had stepped over the line, and what she had done could not be fixed with a few tears, real or otherwise. She turned and walked out the door of the CrashDown in silence… and didn’t look back.
**********
At home, Isabel lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow. She had been like this since finding out that Max would not be able to do anything, and her pillow was already in desperate need of a long tumble in the dryer. Seeming to finally realize this, she rolled over to reach for a dry pillow… And that’s when she noticed…
Thinking that it must be the tears making it look like what she thought she saw, Isabel wiped her eyes and looked again…
“Hello, Isabel.”
“Alex? Omigod, Alex! You’re alive! How did you…?”
“That’s not important, Iz. Actually, I’m not sure how I got here.”
>>> Isabel reached out and touched me to see if I was real, and she found that I was solid… It surprised me, too… maybe more than her. She threw herself into my arms and hugged me, and tears started running down her face again.
“You’re not really here, are you, Alex? This is a dream. You’re not real. It’s not fair!”
“It’s not a dream, Isabel. I’m here… in some way.”
>>> I tried to reassure her that everything was going to be all right, even if I couldn’t be there with her anymore, but I felt wrong saying it, because I knew that it would never be all right for me. I wanted Isabel to move on… for her sake… but…
I put my arms around her and kissed her… and I was overcome by the passion that flowed between us… through our kiss… through every fiber of our very beings, whatever our beings were at that moment. Isabel closed her eyes and surrendered herself to me totally, and we both let the feeling carry us away emotionally. But her heart was still breaking, and I could feel it. We both knew that our time together was limited and I would have to be going much too soon, so we held each other tight, trying, in those few short minutes, to capture all the moments that we would miss for the rest of… eternity.
“Dance, milady?”
Isabel nodded and smiled, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. And we danced…
…and we danced…
…and as we danced, I felt myself slipping away…
“Iz, I have to tell you something. I love you!”
“Oh, God, I love you, too, Alex… so much! Will I ever see you again?”
“Not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m being taken somewhere… I think… my body…”
“Your body?”
“Tess…”
That was the last thing Isabel heard me say before I disappeared.
Isabel stood there, her mind reeling, thinking about what she had heard, trying to put it all together…
“Omigod! Tess!”
Isabel raced from her room and out the front door. Slamming the door behind her without stopping to look back, she jumped into Max’s jeep… then headed for the desert.
tbc
Last edited by Island Breeze on Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Island Breeze
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Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
Abducted
Chapter 17
XVII
Puffing from exertion, Tess stopped and wiped her brow. Then she took the end of the rolled up carpet in both hands again and continued to drag it across the desert sand, leaving a swept path in her wake. The distance between the car and the rocky outcrop was no more than fifty feet, but the desert heat was merciless, and Tess was not accustomed to doing heavy moving herself.
Perhaps it was this fact, and the exertion, that caused her not to immediately notice the arrival of another vehicle. That was a mistake that she soon regretted, as something unseen hit her with the force of a freight train, bowling her over and sending her sprawling into the desert sand. Before Tess could get her breath back, Isabel was on top of her, straddling her, and Tess was face down in the sand.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tess?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question,” Tess managed to sputter, trying to spit the sand out of her mouth. “I’m going home. Max told me to leave, remember? You all did.”
“What’s in the carpet?”
“None of your business. Groceries… my belongings… what do you care?”
Isabel shoved Tess’ face into the dirt again. “Who’s in the carpet, Tess?”
Tess gasped and sputtered…
“Earl… It’s Earl, okay?”
That answer earned her another mouthful of desert sand.
“It’s Alex, isn’t it?”
“If you know the answers, why are you asking me?”
Isabel rolled off of Tess, wiping the sweat off her own face and giving Tess a chance to roll over on her back and finally look at her attacker. It was, at least, an improvement over eating hot desert sand.
“How did you get the body out of the morgue, Tess? Wait! Don’t tell me! You had the attendants roll it up for you and put it in your car.”
Isabel thought she saw just a flicker of a smile tug at the corner of Tess’ lips. She considered removing it with another mouth full of sand but realized that that would make it harder for Tess to answer questions. And as much as Isabel wanted to stuff Tess’ face in the dirt again at that moment, she wanted answers even more.
“What do you want with Alex?”
“I’m abducting him. Isn’t that what we do, Isabel… abduct humans?”
Isabel reached for Tess, but Tess was ready this time and brought her hand up unexpectedly, throwing sand into Isabel’s face. Isabel choked on the sand for a second, which was all the time Tess needed to grab her tormenter by the hair and pull her onto the ground with her. Isabel screamed, more out of dismay and anger than pain, and grabbed Tess by the hair, too, as they rolled in the sand together, each trying to gain the upper position. After several rolls, Tess came out on top, but a sideways kick from Isabel put Tess in the sand again, and Isabel scrambled to get back on top of her before she could get up. Isabel succeeded in securing the upper position but only had one of Tess’ hands pinned, and Tess grabbed at Isabel with the other hand, catching hold of Isabel’s blouse at the neckline and ripping it from the neck all the way down the right arm, causing the shredded garment to hang awkwardly.
“You bitch! That was a new blouse!”
“Ooh, somebody needs their mouth washed out,” Tess taunted, ignoring the fact that she was currently at a disadvantage again.
“And I suppose you think you’re the one who’ll do it,” Isabel spat angrily.
“Well, frankly, Iz, I could care less about your potty mouth. Unlike you, I’ve got more important things to worry about… like Alex.”
Isabel slapped Tess resoundingly, leaving a pulsing crimson handprint on her alabaster cheek… though in actual fact, not much alabaster was visible anymore. Most of her face was by now covered with desert dust… as was Isabel’s. For good measure, Isabel grabbed Tess’ blouse at the neck and ripped it down the front, leaving her exposed.
“You’ll pay for that!” Tess screamed, flailing her one fist that was still free, trying to connect with Isabel’s face. Isabel dodged it and grabbed Tess’ arm, forcing it back down, and ironically, hitting Tess in the eye with her own fist.
“What do you want out of me?” Tess cried. You wanted me to go home, so I’m going. You should be happy. You’ll never have to see me again!”
“I didn’t tell you to take Alex with you,” Isabel said angrily, no longer in a mood to even pretend civility.
“What difference does it make, Iz? He’s dead. Max can’t bring him back. You know those stupid Earth doctors can’t bring him back. So what do you care what happens to his body?”
“I care,” Isabel said, “I care. Alex deserves a decent, dignified burial at least. You killed him. Isn’t that enough?”
Tess stared at Isabel, Momentarily at a loss for words, and Isabel thought that, just for the briefest of moments, she saw something unexpected in Tess’ eyes: regret… and sadness. But then she told herself that it was probably just Tess’ black eye coming on.
“Isabel, listen to me… This stupid backward planet is, like, in the stone age compared to our planet. What Earth doctors couldn’t even dream of doing is common every day practice on Antar. They can heal Alex.”
Isabel shook her head slowly, wanting to believe it, but having a hard time making such a leap of faith…
“I don’t know, Tess. You heard what Max said. Alex is beyond his help, and we’re Antarian, too.”
“Max is a child, Isabel. He’s just a boy. His knowledge is like a two-year-old’s on our planet. There’s so much more that our people can do. You don’t have a clue what we are capable of. Nasedo could have taught you so much.”
Isabel shook her head. “What he would have taught me, I can live without. Mom and dad taught me more important things… like not to kill my friends… of which you are not one, I might warn you.”
“That was an accident, Isabel. Okay, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! I never meant to kill Alex. Alex was my friend. Nasedo taught me to survive, okay? And survival sometimes means using others… even if they’re your friends. It’s life. That’s just the way it is.”
“Not for everybody, Tess. Working with others and respecting them can get you a lot more in life than using them can.”
“That’s if people like you and want to work with you… and respect you,” Tess said.
“Well, you have to earn their respect, Tess… especially after you’ve lost it.”
“My watch is broken. Do you still have your watch, Iz?”
“You’re worried about the time? It’s 4:26.”
Tess exhaled, still trying to remove some of the sand that was stuck in her teeth… “We have four minutes to get Alex into the Granolith… four minutes to decide if he lives or dies. What’s your choice, Isabel?”
The color went out of Isabel’s face, and she stammered, “I… I… What about Max… and Michael? If we take the Granolith…”
“Three minutes, Iz.”
Isabel grabbed the end of the carpet… “Get the other end, Tess. I can’t do this by myself.”
Tess smiled and grabbed the other end, and the two girls carried it into the Granolith chamber together.
“Put him down right here, Iz. The Granolith will pull us in when I touch my hand to it. You should leave us now.”
“I’m not leaving Alex with you, Tess. Wherever you’re taking Alex, I’m going with him.”
“Suit yourself… One minute left.”
Isabel wiped at the dust that was caked on her face and groaned… “I don’t suppose there’s a ladies’ room in that thing…”
Tess smiled and shook her head. “I don’t suppose.”
“Just checking.”
Holding the carpet with one hand, Tess reached out with the other hand and touched the Granolith, and immediately both she and Alex were absorbed into it, along with Isabel, who was holding the other end of the carpet.
“What happens now,” Isabel asked.
“How do I know. I’ve never used the Granolith before. It’s a one trip machine, I think.”
A moment later, lights began to swirl around them and the sound of rocks crumbling could be heard, even from inside the Granolith. Then the Granolith streaked into the sky, leaving a vapor trail behind it, and taking with it three passengers.
Isabel smiled wearily… “Let me fix your blouse, Tess. You’re indecent. We don’t want you to show up on Antar this way.”
Tess nodded silently, as Isabel passed her hand over the torn blouse, mending it… then Tess lifted the torn sleeve of Isabel’s blouse back over her arm and passed her hand over it, fixing it the same way.
“What about Kivar?” Isabel asked.
“I can handle Kivar,” Tess said with assurance.
**********
The Granolith settled gently into the grass near the Starkeen River, several miles outside Antar’s capitol city, in a well-hidden area surrounded by forest and high cliffs. Not far away, there was a small house, and someone inside was definitely aware of the machine’s arrival. An older man and a girl hurried out of the house and over to the Granolith. As they approached it, it ejected its three occupants, and Tess and Isabel suddenly found themselves on their knees in the grass.
“I am Zory,” the old man said in Antarian, “This is my daughter, Tryla. I thought there would be four of you.
“Just us,” Tess replied, also in Antarian.
“I didn’t know you could speak our language,” Isabel said, surprised.
Tess nodded. “Nasedo prepared me to live on our planet. It was his purpose… besides protecting me. He awakened my memories and taught me what I would need to know to survive. He could have done the same for you and Max and Michael… if he had raised you.”
“That thought just plain scares me, Tess.”
“You wouldn’t have grown up so ignorant of who you are if he had raised you,” Tess said, then she turned to the old man and the girl, who appeared to be about seventeen…
“We will need someone to take the other one of us to a healer or to one of our scientists who can regenerate badly injured bodies. The patient is inside here.”
The old man looked at the roll of carpet and shook his head sadly. “Kivar banished most of our scientists. It may be difficult to find one on Antar anymore.”
Tess closed her eyes and groaned. “Then take me to Kivar.”
The old man and the girl both recoiled, quite obviously shocked by this request.
“I need to know where to find one of our scientists to heal Alex,” Tess explained, “And if Kivar has banished them, he will know where they are.”
The old man nodded solemnly… “I will tell you where you can find Kivar, but I will not take you. You will have to go on your own. Kivar would kill me… or torture me… or both… if I were caught. I am the keeper of the Granolith, and Kivar is searching for me.”
“Where can I find him then?”
“In the palace, of course. You will need to walk along the river until you get to the small settlement of Starkeen-Lom. From there, someone will take you into the city. You will see the palace. If you want, you may leave your indisposed companion here so that you can travel more easily, but you must not bring Kivar here… and he must not know where the Granolith is.”
Tess nodded. “Are you ready for a walk, Isabel?”
“No. I’m staying with Alex. Besides, Kivar may find it suspicious if he knows I’m here. Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Tess?”
“Yeah… sure… I can handle Kivar, trust me.”
“Do I have any choice?”
Tess shook her head. Then she set out walking along the river in the direction indicated by Zory. After a little over an hour, Tess came to the settlement of Starkeen-Lom, and there, she quickly found a good Samaritan willing to drive her to the capitol; though like most Antarians, it seemed, the young man did not wish to go near the palace himself. Tess accepted and thanked him. Twenty-five minutes later, she was in CoruzAntar. The young man dropped her off three blocks from the palace with a note of caution, which Tess acknowledged, seeming genuinely grateful for the advice. Then she walked off toward the palace.
At the entrance to the palace grounds, she was stopped by four guards, who were not the least bit inclined to allow her to pass; a few moments later, however, they happily escorted her into the palace, convinced that Kivar had sent for her and was expecting her. Tess’ mind warps did work on full-blooded Antarians. This was good to know.
The four guards escorted Tess to the entrance of the throne room, where Kivar was at the moment, and left. Taking a deep breath, Tess knocked on the door then opened it. Kivar sat on the king’s throne, meditating, and he looked up to see who had entered. He never expected it to be the person he saw in front of him…
“Ava?”
Tess nodded and smiled. “I could not bear being stuck on that backward rock any longer.”
Kivar laughed. “I don’t doubt that. But I’m quite sure that there are other reasons for your being here that you aren’t telling me. You have no reason to want to ally yourself with me. Why are you really here, Ava?”
“You’re right. I need information.”
“Information? That’s all?” Kivar laughed again. “You mean you have no hidden ulterior motive? No matter. I will find out what it is. How did you get here?”
“I hitch-hiked.”
“What does that mean?”
“A traveler gave me a ride.”
“A traveler… stopping off on that backward blue planet? Earth has never been high on the list of interplanetary stops and vacation spots, Ava… except for scientists looking for clues to primitive evolution. And Antar, I might add, has not been high on the list either, since I took over. Why would travelers go out of their way to bring you to Antar?”
“I mind-warped them.”
Kivar laughed. “Well! That was straight-forward and honest. I didn’t expect that. But you always were shameless, Ava. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that. I can work with people who want something and those who have ‘agendas.’ I understand them.”
“I heard that you banished all of our scientists.”
“Mmm… not all of them. I still have the important ones… the physicists and weapons developers.”
“I didn’t know there were weapons developers on Antar anymore.”
Kivar waved his hand dismissively. “There weren’t. But what else are physicists good for? They haven’t complained. It’s kept them alive… and off of some of the dreariest planets in the universe… where most of their colleagues are trying to survive right now.”
“I need a healer.”
“Well… that’s no problem. I have healers.”
“Not just any healer… a regeneration specialist.”
Kivar chuckled then started to laugh… “For a black eye? That’s vain even for you, isn’t it, Ava? A bath and some cologne would do a lot more for you.”
Tess reached up and felt her eye. It did hurt. Until now, she hadn’t really noticed.
“A healer would be fine for my eye, Kivar… and… and the bath. I need a regeneration specialist to reconstruct… a friend.”
Kivar raised one eyebrow. “A friend? Really? Now this I do find interesting! You have a friend, Ava? And not just any ‘friend…’ but one that you care enough about to come here and ask me to bring back a regeneration specialist, whom I banished to the other end of the galaxy… just because you ask me to. I’m perplexed, Ava. Either you have some motive that I haven’t figured out yet or you’re even more of an enigma than I realized.”
“So do I get the regeneration specialist?”
Kivar thought for a moment and shook his head. “There’s nothing in this for me.”
“I’m here… begging you. Isn’t that enough?”
“It’s pleasant, I admit. But I have no reason to send a ship to the far side of the galaxy just to please you or to heal a friend of yours, Ava. Sorry. If you had something tangible to offer me, I might consider it, but you standing here before me, humbled and begging, is merely a pleasant diversion for me… one that I am already enjoying, without having to give you anything in return. I’m sure you see my point.”
Tess nodded. “I expected that. That’s why I brought Vilandra with me. I can give you Vilandra.”
Kivar smiled and rubbed his chin with one hand. “Now that is much better. Still not enough… but much better. You realize, of course, that I can find out where Vilandra is without giving you anything. I have excellent methods for obtaining information. But surely you know that. What else do you have for me?”
“The keeper of the Granolith… and the Granolith.”
Kivar perked up noticeably and, for the first time, he actually looked interested.
“I could still get the information from you my way, you know…”
“You could… but you might kill me trying. It is a risk that you will not take… considering what is at stake for you.”
Kivar nodded then started to laugh again. “Oh, Ava! You are good! I knew there was something you were hiding! But it’s not enough. I can’t control the Granolith without the codes, and the keeper does not have the codes.”
Tess’ face fell, and Kivar could see that she had totally expected him to leap at this offer.
“You have something else, Ava.”
“I don’t. I have nothing else to give you, Kivar. I swear it.”
“Oh, but you do. You’re still hiding something from me. And whatever it is, it has to do with this alleged ‘friend’ whom you wish to have regenerated. How well do you handle torture, Ava?”
“You might lose everything if you try.”
Kivar smiled and nodded. “True… but I might consider it anyway. That is something that you cannot be sure of. Tell me why this ‘friend’ is so important to you, Ava. And don’t tell me that you are becoming sentimental. I’m not buying it. This person has something that you want very badly. What is it?”
Tess pursed her lips tightly together and scowled. This made Kivar smile, more certain than ever that he was on the right track. Tess took a deep breath and, with a look of total dejection, shook her head…
“I didn’t come all the way here to have my prize ripped from my grasp, Kivar. I can resist your methods… even torture. You may kill me, but you will not get any more from me. Haven’t I given you enough? I gave you Vilandra, the keeper of the Granolith, and the Granolith.”
Kivar laughed again. “Well said, Ava… and exactly what I expected you to say. I think you’ll find that I can be flexible… when it’s in my interest. Whatever this secret of yours is worth to me, I’ll give you thirty percent. I would take it, Ava. It’s a very good offer. You won’t get another one.”
Tess swallowed and closed her eyes, a look of total frustration and resignation on her face…
“All right. The boy who is to be regenerated decoded the book for me…”
Kivar looked at Tess, suddenly interested… “The book… that book?”
Tess nodded. “The one you were never able to decode.”
“It’s ancient Antarian… and written in an unknown code besides… None of the scientists that I had look at it were ever able to decode a single word. You’re telling me that a primitive Earth boy was able to do what I and all of my scientists could not?”
Tess smiled. “It seems so.”
“Where is the decoded version?”
Tess smiled again. “In his head. He never got to write it down. In order to… convince him to help me, I had to mind warp him… over a period of two months. I didn’t know that his mind would not be able to handle it. He died before he could give me the complete decoded version. His death would have been investigated, and I would have been suspected of causing it, so I made it appear that he had been in an accident… in his car… with a semi, an eighteen-wheel truck. Now do you understand why I need the regeneration specialist, Kivar? The person who controls the Granolith controls the universe.”
“And that book contains all the information for controlling the Granolith… including the codes for all of its different functions.”
Tess nodded, and Kivar smiled…
“NOW you have a deal.”
tbc
Abducted
Chapter 17
XVII
Puffing from exertion, Tess stopped and wiped her brow. Then she took the end of the rolled up carpet in both hands again and continued to drag it across the desert sand, leaving a swept path in her wake. The distance between the car and the rocky outcrop was no more than fifty feet, but the desert heat was merciless, and Tess was not accustomed to doing heavy moving herself.
Perhaps it was this fact, and the exertion, that caused her not to immediately notice the arrival of another vehicle. That was a mistake that she soon regretted, as something unseen hit her with the force of a freight train, bowling her over and sending her sprawling into the desert sand. Before Tess could get her breath back, Isabel was on top of her, straddling her, and Tess was face down in the sand.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tess?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question,” Tess managed to sputter, trying to spit the sand out of her mouth. “I’m going home. Max told me to leave, remember? You all did.”
“What’s in the carpet?”
“None of your business. Groceries… my belongings… what do you care?”
Isabel shoved Tess’ face into the dirt again. “Who’s in the carpet, Tess?”
Tess gasped and sputtered…
“Earl… It’s Earl, okay?”
That answer earned her another mouthful of desert sand.
“It’s Alex, isn’t it?”
“If you know the answers, why are you asking me?”
Isabel rolled off of Tess, wiping the sweat off her own face and giving Tess a chance to roll over on her back and finally look at her attacker. It was, at least, an improvement over eating hot desert sand.
“How did you get the body out of the morgue, Tess? Wait! Don’t tell me! You had the attendants roll it up for you and put it in your car.”
Isabel thought she saw just a flicker of a smile tug at the corner of Tess’ lips. She considered removing it with another mouth full of sand but realized that that would make it harder for Tess to answer questions. And as much as Isabel wanted to stuff Tess’ face in the dirt again at that moment, she wanted answers even more.
“What do you want with Alex?”
“I’m abducting him. Isn’t that what we do, Isabel… abduct humans?”
Isabel reached for Tess, but Tess was ready this time and brought her hand up unexpectedly, throwing sand into Isabel’s face. Isabel choked on the sand for a second, which was all the time Tess needed to grab her tormenter by the hair and pull her onto the ground with her. Isabel screamed, more out of dismay and anger than pain, and grabbed Tess by the hair, too, as they rolled in the sand together, each trying to gain the upper position. After several rolls, Tess came out on top, but a sideways kick from Isabel put Tess in the sand again, and Isabel scrambled to get back on top of her before she could get up. Isabel succeeded in securing the upper position but only had one of Tess’ hands pinned, and Tess grabbed at Isabel with the other hand, catching hold of Isabel’s blouse at the neckline and ripping it from the neck all the way down the right arm, causing the shredded garment to hang awkwardly.
“You bitch! That was a new blouse!”
“Ooh, somebody needs their mouth washed out,” Tess taunted, ignoring the fact that she was currently at a disadvantage again.
“And I suppose you think you’re the one who’ll do it,” Isabel spat angrily.
“Well, frankly, Iz, I could care less about your potty mouth. Unlike you, I’ve got more important things to worry about… like Alex.”
Isabel slapped Tess resoundingly, leaving a pulsing crimson handprint on her alabaster cheek… though in actual fact, not much alabaster was visible anymore. Most of her face was by now covered with desert dust… as was Isabel’s. For good measure, Isabel grabbed Tess’ blouse at the neck and ripped it down the front, leaving her exposed.
“You’ll pay for that!” Tess screamed, flailing her one fist that was still free, trying to connect with Isabel’s face. Isabel dodged it and grabbed Tess’ arm, forcing it back down, and ironically, hitting Tess in the eye with her own fist.
“What do you want out of me?” Tess cried. You wanted me to go home, so I’m going. You should be happy. You’ll never have to see me again!”
“I didn’t tell you to take Alex with you,” Isabel said angrily, no longer in a mood to even pretend civility.
“What difference does it make, Iz? He’s dead. Max can’t bring him back. You know those stupid Earth doctors can’t bring him back. So what do you care what happens to his body?”
“I care,” Isabel said, “I care. Alex deserves a decent, dignified burial at least. You killed him. Isn’t that enough?”
Tess stared at Isabel, Momentarily at a loss for words, and Isabel thought that, just for the briefest of moments, she saw something unexpected in Tess’ eyes: regret… and sadness. But then she told herself that it was probably just Tess’ black eye coming on.
“Isabel, listen to me… This stupid backward planet is, like, in the stone age compared to our planet. What Earth doctors couldn’t even dream of doing is common every day practice on Antar. They can heal Alex.”
Isabel shook her head slowly, wanting to believe it, but having a hard time making such a leap of faith…
“I don’t know, Tess. You heard what Max said. Alex is beyond his help, and we’re Antarian, too.”
“Max is a child, Isabel. He’s just a boy. His knowledge is like a two-year-old’s on our planet. There’s so much more that our people can do. You don’t have a clue what we are capable of. Nasedo could have taught you so much.”
Isabel shook her head. “What he would have taught me, I can live without. Mom and dad taught me more important things… like not to kill my friends… of which you are not one, I might warn you.”
“That was an accident, Isabel. Okay, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! I never meant to kill Alex. Alex was my friend. Nasedo taught me to survive, okay? And survival sometimes means using others… even if they’re your friends. It’s life. That’s just the way it is.”
“Not for everybody, Tess. Working with others and respecting them can get you a lot more in life than using them can.”
“That’s if people like you and want to work with you… and respect you,” Tess said.
“Well, you have to earn their respect, Tess… especially after you’ve lost it.”
“My watch is broken. Do you still have your watch, Iz?”
“You’re worried about the time? It’s 4:26.”
Tess exhaled, still trying to remove some of the sand that was stuck in her teeth… “We have four minutes to get Alex into the Granolith… four minutes to decide if he lives or dies. What’s your choice, Isabel?”
The color went out of Isabel’s face, and she stammered, “I… I… What about Max… and Michael? If we take the Granolith…”
“Three minutes, Iz.”
Isabel grabbed the end of the carpet… “Get the other end, Tess. I can’t do this by myself.”
Tess smiled and grabbed the other end, and the two girls carried it into the Granolith chamber together.
“Put him down right here, Iz. The Granolith will pull us in when I touch my hand to it. You should leave us now.”
“I’m not leaving Alex with you, Tess. Wherever you’re taking Alex, I’m going with him.”
“Suit yourself… One minute left.”
Isabel wiped at the dust that was caked on her face and groaned… “I don’t suppose there’s a ladies’ room in that thing…”
Tess smiled and shook her head. “I don’t suppose.”
“Just checking.”
Holding the carpet with one hand, Tess reached out with the other hand and touched the Granolith, and immediately both she and Alex were absorbed into it, along with Isabel, who was holding the other end of the carpet.
“What happens now,” Isabel asked.
“How do I know. I’ve never used the Granolith before. It’s a one trip machine, I think.”
A moment later, lights began to swirl around them and the sound of rocks crumbling could be heard, even from inside the Granolith. Then the Granolith streaked into the sky, leaving a vapor trail behind it, and taking with it three passengers.
Isabel smiled wearily… “Let me fix your blouse, Tess. You’re indecent. We don’t want you to show up on Antar this way.”
Tess nodded silently, as Isabel passed her hand over the torn blouse, mending it… then Tess lifted the torn sleeve of Isabel’s blouse back over her arm and passed her hand over it, fixing it the same way.
“What about Kivar?” Isabel asked.
“I can handle Kivar,” Tess said with assurance.
**********
The Granolith settled gently into the grass near the Starkeen River, several miles outside Antar’s capitol city, in a well-hidden area surrounded by forest and high cliffs. Not far away, there was a small house, and someone inside was definitely aware of the machine’s arrival. An older man and a girl hurried out of the house and over to the Granolith. As they approached it, it ejected its three occupants, and Tess and Isabel suddenly found themselves on their knees in the grass.
“I am Zory,” the old man said in Antarian, “This is my daughter, Tryla. I thought there would be four of you.
“Just us,” Tess replied, also in Antarian.
“I didn’t know you could speak our language,” Isabel said, surprised.
Tess nodded. “Nasedo prepared me to live on our planet. It was his purpose… besides protecting me. He awakened my memories and taught me what I would need to know to survive. He could have done the same for you and Max and Michael… if he had raised you.”
“That thought just plain scares me, Tess.”
“You wouldn’t have grown up so ignorant of who you are if he had raised you,” Tess said, then she turned to the old man and the girl, who appeared to be about seventeen…
“We will need someone to take the other one of us to a healer or to one of our scientists who can regenerate badly injured bodies. The patient is inside here.”
The old man looked at the roll of carpet and shook his head sadly. “Kivar banished most of our scientists. It may be difficult to find one on Antar anymore.”
Tess closed her eyes and groaned. “Then take me to Kivar.”
The old man and the girl both recoiled, quite obviously shocked by this request.
“I need to know where to find one of our scientists to heal Alex,” Tess explained, “And if Kivar has banished them, he will know where they are.”
The old man nodded solemnly… “I will tell you where you can find Kivar, but I will not take you. You will have to go on your own. Kivar would kill me… or torture me… or both… if I were caught. I am the keeper of the Granolith, and Kivar is searching for me.”
“Where can I find him then?”
“In the palace, of course. You will need to walk along the river until you get to the small settlement of Starkeen-Lom. From there, someone will take you into the city. You will see the palace. If you want, you may leave your indisposed companion here so that you can travel more easily, but you must not bring Kivar here… and he must not know where the Granolith is.”
Tess nodded. “Are you ready for a walk, Isabel?”
“No. I’m staying with Alex. Besides, Kivar may find it suspicious if he knows I’m here. Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Tess?”
“Yeah… sure… I can handle Kivar, trust me.”
“Do I have any choice?”
Tess shook her head. Then she set out walking along the river in the direction indicated by Zory. After a little over an hour, Tess came to the settlement of Starkeen-Lom, and there, she quickly found a good Samaritan willing to drive her to the capitol; though like most Antarians, it seemed, the young man did not wish to go near the palace himself. Tess accepted and thanked him. Twenty-five minutes later, she was in CoruzAntar. The young man dropped her off three blocks from the palace with a note of caution, which Tess acknowledged, seeming genuinely grateful for the advice. Then she walked off toward the palace.
At the entrance to the palace grounds, she was stopped by four guards, who were not the least bit inclined to allow her to pass; a few moments later, however, they happily escorted her into the palace, convinced that Kivar had sent for her and was expecting her. Tess’ mind warps did work on full-blooded Antarians. This was good to know.
The four guards escorted Tess to the entrance of the throne room, where Kivar was at the moment, and left. Taking a deep breath, Tess knocked on the door then opened it. Kivar sat on the king’s throne, meditating, and he looked up to see who had entered. He never expected it to be the person he saw in front of him…
“Ava?”
Tess nodded and smiled. “I could not bear being stuck on that backward rock any longer.”
Kivar laughed. “I don’t doubt that. But I’m quite sure that there are other reasons for your being here that you aren’t telling me. You have no reason to want to ally yourself with me. Why are you really here, Ava?”
“You’re right. I need information.”
“Information? That’s all?” Kivar laughed again. “You mean you have no hidden ulterior motive? No matter. I will find out what it is. How did you get here?”
“I hitch-hiked.”
“What does that mean?”
“A traveler gave me a ride.”
“A traveler… stopping off on that backward blue planet? Earth has never been high on the list of interplanetary stops and vacation spots, Ava… except for scientists looking for clues to primitive evolution. And Antar, I might add, has not been high on the list either, since I took over. Why would travelers go out of their way to bring you to Antar?”
“I mind-warped them.”
Kivar laughed. “Well! That was straight-forward and honest. I didn’t expect that. But you always were shameless, Ava. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that. I can work with people who want something and those who have ‘agendas.’ I understand them.”
“I heard that you banished all of our scientists.”
“Mmm… not all of them. I still have the important ones… the physicists and weapons developers.”
“I didn’t know there were weapons developers on Antar anymore.”
Kivar waved his hand dismissively. “There weren’t. But what else are physicists good for? They haven’t complained. It’s kept them alive… and off of some of the dreariest planets in the universe… where most of their colleagues are trying to survive right now.”
“I need a healer.”
“Well… that’s no problem. I have healers.”
“Not just any healer… a regeneration specialist.”
Kivar chuckled then started to laugh… “For a black eye? That’s vain even for you, isn’t it, Ava? A bath and some cologne would do a lot more for you.”
Tess reached up and felt her eye. It did hurt. Until now, she hadn’t really noticed.
“A healer would be fine for my eye, Kivar… and… and the bath. I need a regeneration specialist to reconstruct… a friend.”
Kivar raised one eyebrow. “A friend? Really? Now this I do find interesting! You have a friend, Ava? And not just any ‘friend…’ but one that you care enough about to come here and ask me to bring back a regeneration specialist, whom I banished to the other end of the galaxy… just because you ask me to. I’m perplexed, Ava. Either you have some motive that I haven’t figured out yet or you’re even more of an enigma than I realized.”
“So do I get the regeneration specialist?”
Kivar thought for a moment and shook his head. “There’s nothing in this for me.”
“I’m here… begging you. Isn’t that enough?”
“It’s pleasant, I admit. But I have no reason to send a ship to the far side of the galaxy just to please you or to heal a friend of yours, Ava. Sorry. If you had something tangible to offer me, I might consider it, but you standing here before me, humbled and begging, is merely a pleasant diversion for me… one that I am already enjoying, without having to give you anything in return. I’m sure you see my point.”
Tess nodded. “I expected that. That’s why I brought Vilandra with me. I can give you Vilandra.”
Kivar smiled and rubbed his chin with one hand. “Now that is much better. Still not enough… but much better. You realize, of course, that I can find out where Vilandra is without giving you anything. I have excellent methods for obtaining information. But surely you know that. What else do you have for me?”
“The keeper of the Granolith… and the Granolith.”
Kivar perked up noticeably and, for the first time, he actually looked interested.
“I could still get the information from you my way, you know…”
“You could… but you might kill me trying. It is a risk that you will not take… considering what is at stake for you.”
Kivar nodded then started to laugh again. “Oh, Ava! You are good! I knew there was something you were hiding! But it’s not enough. I can’t control the Granolith without the codes, and the keeper does not have the codes.”
Tess’ face fell, and Kivar could see that she had totally expected him to leap at this offer.
“You have something else, Ava.”
“I don’t. I have nothing else to give you, Kivar. I swear it.”
“Oh, but you do. You’re still hiding something from me. And whatever it is, it has to do with this alleged ‘friend’ whom you wish to have regenerated. How well do you handle torture, Ava?”
“You might lose everything if you try.”
Kivar smiled and nodded. “True… but I might consider it anyway. That is something that you cannot be sure of. Tell me why this ‘friend’ is so important to you, Ava. And don’t tell me that you are becoming sentimental. I’m not buying it. This person has something that you want very badly. What is it?”
Tess pursed her lips tightly together and scowled. This made Kivar smile, more certain than ever that he was on the right track. Tess took a deep breath and, with a look of total dejection, shook her head…
“I didn’t come all the way here to have my prize ripped from my grasp, Kivar. I can resist your methods… even torture. You may kill me, but you will not get any more from me. Haven’t I given you enough? I gave you Vilandra, the keeper of the Granolith, and the Granolith.”
Kivar laughed again. “Well said, Ava… and exactly what I expected you to say. I think you’ll find that I can be flexible… when it’s in my interest. Whatever this secret of yours is worth to me, I’ll give you thirty percent. I would take it, Ava. It’s a very good offer. You won’t get another one.”
Tess swallowed and closed her eyes, a look of total frustration and resignation on her face…
“All right. The boy who is to be regenerated decoded the book for me…”
Kivar looked at Tess, suddenly interested… “The book… that book?”
Tess nodded. “The one you were never able to decode.”
“It’s ancient Antarian… and written in an unknown code besides… None of the scientists that I had look at it were ever able to decode a single word. You’re telling me that a primitive Earth boy was able to do what I and all of my scientists could not?”
Tess smiled. “It seems so.”
“Where is the decoded version?”
Tess smiled again. “In his head. He never got to write it down. In order to… convince him to help me, I had to mind warp him… over a period of two months. I didn’t know that his mind would not be able to handle it. He died before he could give me the complete decoded version. His death would have been investigated, and I would have been suspected of causing it, so I made it appear that he had been in an accident… in his car… with a semi, an eighteen-wheel truck. Now do you understand why I need the regeneration specialist, Kivar? The person who controls the Granolith controls the universe.”
“And that book contains all the information for controlling the Granolith… including the codes for all of its different functions.”
Tess nodded, and Kivar smiled…
“NOW you have a deal.”
tbc
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
Sliding Into Antar
Showdown At The Granolith
Chapter 18
XVIII
“Hello, Vilandra!”
The voice behind Isabel was smooth and silky, but it sent chills and a bone-felt shudder through her body. She spun around, knowing, somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, what she would find.
“Kivar!”
Isabel stared into the eyes of her worst fears come true, then she noticed Tess standing nearby, a smile on her face. It didn’t take much effort to add up the facts and come to a pretty certain conclusion…
“You brought Kivar here? My God, Tess! Is there anything you aren’t capable of? I trusted you! We all trusted you! You betrayed us… You betrayed Alex!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Isabel. That’s life. Deal with it. Sometimes it sucks. I try to make sure that the sucky parts fall on someone other than me, that’s all. You were naïve.”
Isabel nodded, her heart aching with the pain of betrayal. It hurt, even if it was Tess who had done it. Tess! Of all the people she might have trusted! Tess! If Isabel had had a gun in her hands at that moment, she wasn’t sure whose brains she would blow out with it… the little traitor’s or her own… for being so useless and easily deceived.
“Ah! The Granolith!” Kivar said, spotting the machine, which still stood nearby in the grass. “The universe at my fingertips!”
Not far away, four of Kivar’s guards held Zory and Tryla, who had already ceased to struggle, realizing that their end was now assured and imminent.
“You never intended to help Alex at all, did you, Tess,” Isabel said sadly.
Tess seemed to smirk. “Shows what you know, Isabel. Kivar already sent a ship to get the best regeneration specialist Antar had. He’s on a swamp planet called Da-wy’a, not very far from Antar. He’ll be here by evening.”
Isabel felt oddly relieved hearing this, though she had no reason to trust anything that Tess said anymore. Still, the idea of having Alex back gave her warm fuzzies inside. It was odd… totally incongruent with the other feelings she was experiencing at the moment… like a cute puppy that she just wanted to pick up and hug but couldn’t get close to, because it was surrounded by crocodiles. But there it was, wagging its tail and waiting impatiently to smother her with puppy kisses.
For a moment, the briefest of moments, Isabel let the crocodiles go, and the puppy leapt into her arms…
Alex picked Isabel up, kissing her passionately, and spun her around and around.
“Alex! Oh, God, Alex!”
“I’m here, Iz. I’ll save you. I’ll never let them hurt you. I love you…”
“Vilandra?”
The vision of Alex wavered, then disappeared, as the silky voice brought Isabel back.
For a moment, the briefest of moments, Isabel seriously considered killing Kivar where he stood. It wasn’t inconceivable. At the very least, she was quite sure that she could cause him some major pain before being killed herself, either by him or by his guards. But where would that leave Alex? It wouldn’t help him. He would only be left alone on an alien planet with the little whore. That was inconceivable. Isabel saw that the crocodiles were back… and this time they were snapping hungrily…
“Later,” she mumbled, not quite sure if it was an apology or a promise.
“Later what?” Kivar asked, his keen hearing picking up the muttered comment.
Isabel shook her head. “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
Kivar laughed. “Living on that backward planet all those years would do that to anyone. No matter… you will soon rule at my side, Vilandra… as my mate and my queen.”
Noticing that ‘Vilandra’ didn’t seem to greet that news with the enthusiasm he thought it deserved, Kivar took her in his arms, somewhat roughly, and pressed his mouth against her unwelcoming lips. Isabel turned her head and squirmed to break Kivar’s grasp, but that only seemed to excite Kivar more.
“Wouldn’t you like to be the queen, Vilandra, with the handsomest man on Antar sitting at your side?”
Isabel started to shake her head, but unexpectedly, an image of Alex sitting beside her as the king came to mind, and she smiled.
“See? That’s better! It only took a little reason. You do crave power, after all, Vilandra!”
Isabel smiled and nodded… <<The power to remove your sorry ass from the universe, you bastard>> she thought to herself.
“When I am the master of the Granolith, you will have more power than you ever dreamed of, Vilandra! Ah, but first things first…” Kivar turned and looked again at the Granolith with adoring eyes. Isabel knew without a shadow of a doubt which one would be his real passion… and his real mistress. The Granolith. As horrible as that was to contemplate, Isabel almost felt relieved knowing that at least she would never be his primary obsession. It was a small comfort, especially when she considered the power the Granolith would give Kivar. He could, literally, control most of the known universe if he could control the Granolith. Now she felt guilty.
“Ava!” Kivar called, looking around for Tess…
Tess hurried over to Kivar’s side.
“Ava, I need the override code for the Granolith… now.”
Tess shook her head… “I… I told you… I don’t have the codes, Kivar. Alex has them in his head.”
“Ava, Ava, Ava…” Kivar took Tess’ chin in his hand and turned her head both ways just a tiny bit… just enough to let her know that her life was in his hand… literally. A sudden twist, either way… and he could end it now.
“Ava, you know I’m no fool. You tell me that this Earth boy has the book decoded in his head, and I believe you. After all, what else would you want him for? But I know you better than you imagine, Ava. Ever since you were a young girl, I’ve watched you… I’ve kept track of you… Nasedo never knew. There is no way… no way at all… that you would have allowed that boy to die before obtaining the override code from him. If I am right, you got that information a very long time ago. It isn’t everything, but with it, I will at least control the Granolith.”
“Override code?” Isabel asked. “What’s he talking about, Tess?”
“It’s like the key to your car. The driver’s manual may tell you how to operate all the functions, but the key gives you the power to start it and drive it. Right now, the Granolith is encoded with the handprints of the royal four. That’s why I was able to bring us here. But by reciting the right code, someone could reset it to accept a different handprint… like Kivar’s.”
“Tess, you can’t. If you do know the reset code… you can’t…”
Tess shrugged. “Life sometimes sucks, Isabel. But it can still be good for us. We can rule with Kivar or we can die with those who don’t. I’ve never been fond of the sucky parts myself.”
“Please!” Zory cried, “For the love of all that’s right, don’t give it to him, Ava!”
“Don’t,” Tryla begged.
“Kill them,” Kivar ordered, motioning to his guards. Two of the guards took out their knives, as the other two held Zory and Tryla.
“No, don’t!” Tess said, stopping the guards. Then she turned to Kivar… “Don’t kill them… not yet. We may need them. I’m… I’m not sure, but they may have information about the Granolith that we may need. At least wait until you have the information from Alex and know that there’s nothing more that we need from them.”
Kivar nodded then motioned to the guards, who put away their knives.
“You’re right, Ava. There will be time enough for them to die… after we know that they have nothing more that we need. It is wise to be cautious.”
Tess nodded.
“Now give me the code, Ava. Then come with me. I want you to be standing with me when I become the master of the Granolith.”
Tess glanced at Isabel then at Zory and Tryla, and they thought they saw genuine sadness in her eyes. Her lower lip appeared to tremble, but she bit down on it to hide it and smiled at Kivar. Then she closed her eyes… and recited the code…
“Har’van-Dar-Jimov’das-Kordym-Lyyn’xma-Fronba-Maret-Plard’nas.”
Zory gasped and hung his head in grief.
Tess carefully pronounced each word, as Kivar listened, memorizing the sentence. Then Kivar smiled.
Zory closed his eyes, and Tryla began to cry.
With one arm around Tess, Kivar stood next to the Granolith and carefully recited the words that Tess had given him…
“Har’van-Dar-Jimov’das-Kordym-Lyyn’xma-Fronba-Maret-Plard’nas.”
As he finished saying the last word, the Granolith began to glow; then, for a moment, it became brighter than the sun. Zory, Tryla, and Isabel turned their heads away and put their hands over their eyes. As the light abated, they looked again, but Kivar and Tess were not there. Their bodies lay nearby, on the ground, smoking heavily and burned partly to ash. Isabel gasped.
“She knew what she was doing,” Zory said. “She gave him the destroy code. It’s a safeguard code that was intended to be used in the event that the rightful masters of the Granolith were ever forced to give up the code. It worked exactly as it was intended.”
Isabel shook her head… “But it killed Tess.”
Zory nodded. “She knew it would. It couldn’t be helped. If she had refused to stand with Kivar, he would have realized that something was wrong. She saved all our lives… by giving up hers.”
Isabel sobbed unexpectedly… “Damn you, Tess! Why couldn’t you just be good or bad? You made me hate you, then like you, then hate you again, then you had to go and do this. If you were alive, I’d… I’d… probably hug you. You planned this all along, didn’t you… to bring Kivar here and have the Granolith get rid of him? Why would you risk your life to get Kivar?”
“I think it was for your friend, Alex,” Tryla said.
Isabel nodded, as she thought about it, then she looked around, suddenly remembering the guards, but it seemed that they had all run away after seeing what the Granolith did to Kivar… and chances are, they were miles away by now… and probably still running.
tbc
Showdown At The Granolith
Chapter 18
XVIII
“Hello, Vilandra!”
The voice behind Isabel was smooth and silky, but it sent chills and a bone-felt shudder through her body. She spun around, knowing, somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, what she would find.
“Kivar!”
Isabel stared into the eyes of her worst fears come true, then she noticed Tess standing nearby, a smile on her face. It didn’t take much effort to add up the facts and come to a pretty certain conclusion…
“You brought Kivar here? My God, Tess! Is there anything you aren’t capable of? I trusted you! We all trusted you! You betrayed us… You betrayed Alex!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Isabel. That’s life. Deal with it. Sometimes it sucks. I try to make sure that the sucky parts fall on someone other than me, that’s all. You were naïve.”
Isabel nodded, her heart aching with the pain of betrayal. It hurt, even if it was Tess who had done it. Tess! Of all the people she might have trusted! Tess! If Isabel had had a gun in her hands at that moment, she wasn’t sure whose brains she would blow out with it… the little traitor’s or her own… for being so useless and easily deceived.
“Ah! The Granolith!” Kivar said, spotting the machine, which still stood nearby in the grass. “The universe at my fingertips!”
Not far away, four of Kivar’s guards held Zory and Tryla, who had already ceased to struggle, realizing that their end was now assured and imminent.
“You never intended to help Alex at all, did you, Tess,” Isabel said sadly.
Tess seemed to smirk. “Shows what you know, Isabel. Kivar already sent a ship to get the best regeneration specialist Antar had. He’s on a swamp planet called Da-wy’a, not very far from Antar. He’ll be here by evening.”
Isabel felt oddly relieved hearing this, though she had no reason to trust anything that Tess said anymore. Still, the idea of having Alex back gave her warm fuzzies inside. It was odd… totally incongruent with the other feelings she was experiencing at the moment… like a cute puppy that she just wanted to pick up and hug but couldn’t get close to, because it was surrounded by crocodiles. But there it was, wagging its tail and waiting impatiently to smother her with puppy kisses.
For a moment, the briefest of moments, Isabel let the crocodiles go, and the puppy leapt into her arms…
Alex picked Isabel up, kissing her passionately, and spun her around and around.
“Alex! Oh, God, Alex!”
“I’m here, Iz. I’ll save you. I’ll never let them hurt you. I love you…”
“Vilandra?”
The vision of Alex wavered, then disappeared, as the silky voice brought Isabel back.
For a moment, the briefest of moments, Isabel seriously considered killing Kivar where he stood. It wasn’t inconceivable. At the very least, she was quite sure that she could cause him some major pain before being killed herself, either by him or by his guards. But where would that leave Alex? It wouldn’t help him. He would only be left alone on an alien planet with the little whore. That was inconceivable. Isabel saw that the crocodiles were back… and this time they were snapping hungrily…
“Later,” she mumbled, not quite sure if it was an apology or a promise.
“Later what?” Kivar asked, his keen hearing picking up the muttered comment.
Isabel shook her head. “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
Kivar laughed. “Living on that backward planet all those years would do that to anyone. No matter… you will soon rule at my side, Vilandra… as my mate and my queen.”
Noticing that ‘Vilandra’ didn’t seem to greet that news with the enthusiasm he thought it deserved, Kivar took her in his arms, somewhat roughly, and pressed his mouth against her unwelcoming lips. Isabel turned her head and squirmed to break Kivar’s grasp, but that only seemed to excite Kivar more.
“Wouldn’t you like to be the queen, Vilandra, with the handsomest man on Antar sitting at your side?”
Isabel started to shake her head, but unexpectedly, an image of Alex sitting beside her as the king came to mind, and she smiled.
“See? That’s better! It only took a little reason. You do crave power, after all, Vilandra!”
Isabel smiled and nodded… <<The power to remove your sorry ass from the universe, you bastard>> she thought to herself.
“When I am the master of the Granolith, you will have more power than you ever dreamed of, Vilandra! Ah, but first things first…” Kivar turned and looked again at the Granolith with adoring eyes. Isabel knew without a shadow of a doubt which one would be his real passion… and his real mistress. The Granolith. As horrible as that was to contemplate, Isabel almost felt relieved knowing that at least she would never be his primary obsession. It was a small comfort, especially when she considered the power the Granolith would give Kivar. He could, literally, control most of the known universe if he could control the Granolith. Now she felt guilty.
“Ava!” Kivar called, looking around for Tess…
Tess hurried over to Kivar’s side.
“Ava, I need the override code for the Granolith… now.”
Tess shook her head… “I… I told you… I don’t have the codes, Kivar. Alex has them in his head.”
“Ava, Ava, Ava…” Kivar took Tess’ chin in his hand and turned her head both ways just a tiny bit… just enough to let her know that her life was in his hand… literally. A sudden twist, either way… and he could end it now.
“Ava, you know I’m no fool. You tell me that this Earth boy has the book decoded in his head, and I believe you. After all, what else would you want him for? But I know you better than you imagine, Ava. Ever since you were a young girl, I’ve watched you… I’ve kept track of you… Nasedo never knew. There is no way… no way at all… that you would have allowed that boy to die before obtaining the override code from him. If I am right, you got that information a very long time ago. It isn’t everything, but with it, I will at least control the Granolith.”
“Override code?” Isabel asked. “What’s he talking about, Tess?”
“It’s like the key to your car. The driver’s manual may tell you how to operate all the functions, but the key gives you the power to start it and drive it. Right now, the Granolith is encoded with the handprints of the royal four. That’s why I was able to bring us here. But by reciting the right code, someone could reset it to accept a different handprint… like Kivar’s.”
“Tess, you can’t. If you do know the reset code… you can’t…”
Tess shrugged. “Life sometimes sucks, Isabel. But it can still be good for us. We can rule with Kivar or we can die with those who don’t. I’ve never been fond of the sucky parts myself.”
“Please!” Zory cried, “For the love of all that’s right, don’t give it to him, Ava!”
“Don’t,” Tryla begged.
“Kill them,” Kivar ordered, motioning to his guards. Two of the guards took out their knives, as the other two held Zory and Tryla.
“No, don’t!” Tess said, stopping the guards. Then she turned to Kivar… “Don’t kill them… not yet. We may need them. I’m… I’m not sure, but they may have information about the Granolith that we may need. At least wait until you have the information from Alex and know that there’s nothing more that we need from them.”
Kivar nodded then motioned to the guards, who put away their knives.
“You’re right, Ava. There will be time enough for them to die… after we know that they have nothing more that we need. It is wise to be cautious.”
Tess nodded.
“Now give me the code, Ava. Then come with me. I want you to be standing with me when I become the master of the Granolith.”
Tess glanced at Isabel then at Zory and Tryla, and they thought they saw genuine sadness in her eyes. Her lower lip appeared to tremble, but she bit down on it to hide it and smiled at Kivar. Then she closed her eyes… and recited the code…
“Har’van-Dar-Jimov’das-Kordym-Lyyn’xma-Fronba-Maret-Plard’nas.”
Zory gasped and hung his head in grief.
Tess carefully pronounced each word, as Kivar listened, memorizing the sentence. Then Kivar smiled.
Zory closed his eyes, and Tryla began to cry.
With one arm around Tess, Kivar stood next to the Granolith and carefully recited the words that Tess had given him…
“Har’van-Dar-Jimov’das-Kordym-Lyyn’xma-Fronba-Maret-Plard’nas.”
As he finished saying the last word, the Granolith began to glow; then, for a moment, it became brighter than the sun. Zory, Tryla, and Isabel turned their heads away and put their hands over their eyes. As the light abated, they looked again, but Kivar and Tess were not there. Their bodies lay nearby, on the ground, smoking heavily and burned partly to ash. Isabel gasped.
“She knew what she was doing,” Zory said. “She gave him the destroy code. It’s a safeguard code that was intended to be used in the event that the rightful masters of the Granolith were ever forced to give up the code. It worked exactly as it was intended.”
Isabel shook her head… “But it killed Tess.”
Zory nodded. “She knew it would. It couldn’t be helped. If she had refused to stand with Kivar, he would have realized that something was wrong. She saved all our lives… by giving up hers.”
Isabel sobbed unexpectedly… “Damn you, Tess! Why couldn’t you just be good or bad? You made me hate you, then like you, then hate you again, then you had to go and do this. If you were alive, I’d… I’d… probably hug you. You planned this all along, didn’t you… to bring Kivar here and have the Granolith get rid of him? Why would you risk your life to get Kivar?”
“I think it was for your friend, Alex,” Tryla said.
Isabel nodded, as she thought about it, then she looked around, suddenly remembering the guards, but it seemed that they had all run away after seeing what the Granolith did to Kivar… and chances are, they were miles away by now… and probably still running.
tbc
Last edited by Island Breeze on Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.