by B A Vonsik
Aren’s completed manifestation drew Nikki’s attention away from Rogaan, some. She was torn between seeing the wonders of what Rogaan was doing, and those of Aren. This manifestation of his felt different . . . aggressive, evasive, probing, even a bit malevolent, with fragments of numbers spinning in Nikki’s head, not unlike those Aren suffered in his long-ago civilization, in another time. The whine and beehive buzz of flying security drones started drowning out all other sounds. Looking up, Nikki found the shadows of dark, flying security drones surrounding them while approaching from the ground the resort’s blue android ALFs came walking into view from multiple paths leading to the courtyard and patio. Their synthetic eyes now glowed with a red tint. More camera flashes than before gave Nikki a concern more people were assembling to witness them.
“This doesn’t look good . . .” commented Dunkle.
“Miller?” Anders asked.
“No, the new company we’re keeping,” Dunkle clarified. He then spoke to Rogaan. “Any chance you can be done with Miller? Of course, after you save his life.”
Rogaan appeared to be concentrating and not paying the doctor any attention. Dunkle placed his MediScanner back near Miller’s forehead to take new readings. A hopeful expression grew on his face.
Something new entered Nikki’s conscious mind. The feeling familiar, but vague. She turned to look behind, but before she did, the stinging pain of two weighted pricks struck her in the back. What? Nikki’s muscles suddenly tightened and seized up painfully as she felt electricity flow, jab, and lash through her body. She staggered backward, and the pain went away as quickly as it struck her. Nikki sucked in a breath of air filling her lungs. Again, her muscle bound up as she suffered painful stinging, convulsing this time as she let out a scream that sounded more like a long grunt. As she fell backward, she saw Dunkle, Anders, and Aren look back at her. Nikki knew she hit the patio hard, but the shocking electrical current kept her muscles taunt and head from snapping back into the concrete. The racking pain left her once more. She tried to take in a breath, only to find every movement of her ribs painful. A shadow above her drew Nikki’s eyes up. Fright gripped her. The stoic face of the gray-suited U.N. blond agent stared down at her, a void of compassion with that practiced smile of a sadist.
“A bit underdressed for the occasion.” The blond agent spoke coldly with a cruel smirk. “I have more questions for you.”
Nikki retained vague memories of the blonde’s questioning in Bolivia. What she did remember sent chills down her spine. A cruel woman . . . a sadist. Nikki never heard her name spoken. Her fellow agent only called her “Agent 19.” Meeting Agent 19’s eyes confirmed to Nikki that the agent was devoid of compassion, sending another chill down her spine.
“I demand your surrender,” Agent 19 snarled at Rogaan and Aren.
Looking past Agent 19, Nikki saw a flash of a spark in the air open into a swirling man-sized circular rainbow revealing a black void inside. Tyr super soldiers . . . No, these are bigger and darker, jumped from the darkness of the resort’s bushes at the edge of the patio taking positions next to the void as they revealed themselves by turning off their stealth camouflage. They stolidly stood guarding three to each side of the swirling circular colors. Two more super soldiers jumped from the void before taking up positions on either side of the swirling rainbow. Sensing Aren manifesting an attack of lightning against the agent and others brought hope and a sense of satisfaction to Nikki. Another manifestation, not Aren’s, though familiar to her . . ., formed just as quickly. Aren’s lightning lashed out for the blond smirk and super soldiers lighting up the entire area as it struck an unseen barrier protecting the insanely dangerous rabble. A blinding brilliance caused Nikki to shield her eyes for long seconds. Wanting to be out of the line of this fire, she tried to get up, but instead, was painfully slammed back onto the patio concrete by a black-armored boot solidly planted on her chest. Looking up, she found Tyr super soldiers armed with rifles of some kind flanking the blond agent, one with his armored boot on her. A figure emerged from the void. This one in a dark cloak casting deep shadows over his face and covering much of his red, glinting armor. Nikki didn’t need to see his face. She felt his presence as much as she did Aren’s and Rogaan’s. Dread firmly gripped her.
“Subdue the whore,” snarled the cloaked figure, his voice familiar to Nikki, his eyes gleaming mauve from under his shadowy hood as he walked up behind Agent 19. The Agent still facing Nikki, wore a mix of fear and anger in her eyes. The Tyr raised their weapons in anger, only to settle them back into ready positions at the wave of the newcomer’s hand. Nikki felt him do something to their minds . . . a manifestation. The cloaked figure glanced at the two super soldiers accompanying him through the step-gate. Nikki thought she felt the cloaked one experienced an intense moment of disappointment. He then set his gaze on Aren and Rogaan as Nikki felt the first twinges of pain from another electrical surge of the taser starting to flow through her. The shadowy figure spoke, “Let us finish . . . this.”
In Nikki’s screams of agony, darkness overtook her.
Chapter 1
Enduring
Blurry appeared the dirt beneath Rogaan’s sandaled feet. His head swooned as his body felt sluggish as he willed himself to move, yet somehow, he still felt light as a feather to his mind. Tremors in the ground, he felt through his sandals, were familiar and comforting in their almost constant presences. A noise off to his left, a shuffling of feet over the crunchy ground. Rogaan swung his body around to face whatever it was but staggered off to his right, almost falling before regaining his footing. A featherwing’s screech echoed above him. A light breeze was at his back carrying on it the scent of cooked fish. Rogaan shook his head forcing it all to clear, the haziness slowly receding. He both welcomed it and felt a loss for the euphoria. He took a deep breath. His thoughts returned to him, and his vision cleared. Looking up, in the light of the late day standing before Rogaan was a Tellen of light-brown skin. The Tellen was not as tall as he and filthy in appearance, dressed in a torn, dark green tunic, light green, loose-fitting breeches, and high-ankle sandals. The Tellen’s dark hair hung over his broad face falling to his shoulders in a tangled mess that matched his hand-length beard. Those dark gray, oval eyes set apart slightly more than the average Baraan fixated on him with a burning intensity few could match.
“This one will kill you,” Sugnis scolded Rogaan with deep and grumbling words. “He is more capable than the handful before him. How you avoided the point of this Saggis’s diseased blade is a mystery of the Ancients.”
“Staying downwind of me limits your fight options,” Rogaan hinted of Sugnis’s tactics to close on him as he sought to avoid the unpleasant discussion of his seriousness and commitment to the fight. The expression returned on Sugnis’s face told him the Tellen got his meaning.
“Most go down with the hook punch you took,” Sugnis critiqued, the flash of a compliment in his eyes and face now gone, replaced with that intense burning stare that gave Rogaan shivers. “You recover fast . . . faster than all but him. Still, you need to learn to avoid injury and pain, not endure it.”
“I deserve it,” Rogaan spoke more to himself than to the Tellen, filling the need to pay for all the terrible things he had caused happen to his family and friends . . . and their family. “And more.”
“What did you speak?” Sugnis asked, though Rogaan felt certain the Tellen heard his words.
“Will you ever take a bath?” Rogaan continued to insult Sugnis of his terrible body odor to throw him off the coming lecture about feeling sorry for himself. “Seriously, I can smell you even with you being downwind.”
Sugnis simply stared at Rogaan, his oval eyes narrowed, and his jaws clinched. Rogaan felt the intensity of that stare as a familiar shiver crawled up his back.
“Guilt clouds your thoughts again,” Sugnis reprimanded. “It will kill you to lose focus against such a dangerous foe as you just lost focus allowing me to strike you.”
“No,”
Rogaan argued with Sugnis. “You are that good at fighting. I did not see your punch.”
“Your eyes tell the moment to strike at your sides,” Sugnis simply stated. “They wander when your thoughts wander over that guilt you carry.”
“I made a mess of things!” Rogaan growled at himself more than at Sugnis.
“Yes.” Sugnis stated matter-of-factly. “A terrible time fighting against enemies far beyond you. So, few lost their Lights or were put in bondage or servitude. You did well for not being prepared.”
“Tell that to Pax and Suhd.” Rogaan felt sick to his stomach.
“Nothing you do to satisfy guilt will make well their situation,” Sugnis advised. “They too were swept up in the same winds being friends with you.”
“Being my friends is what lost them their parents.” Rogaan felt tears well up in his eyes and his throat tighten as he fought down a wave for welling despair and rage. “Now, Suhd is being forced to do who knows what, and Pax is with us on this unkind rock of a prison surrounded by every watery set of jaws wanting to eat us.”
“You have your wellness,” Sugnis spoke cheerfully in his deep voice with obvious intent at redirecting this discussion more positively. Then, his deep voice dropped even deeper, more serious. “At least until the morning when you face this latest Saggis.”
Rogaan was about to argue with Sugnis again, proclaiming his failings to Pax and Suhd and Mother and Father before getting interrupted by a group of newcomers. The group consisted of strongly built, light brown-skinned male Baraan island prisoners dressed shirtless and with breeches or loin covers. The group walked the edge of the two-stride high elevated rock rim of the fighting pit.
“Practice all you want, stoner,” one of the Baraans yelled out as they walked. “Tomorrow, you die, and I win my Hili’giin. He looks to be a pretty one.”
The other Baraans laughed at the statement as they strolled off to the hovel Rogaan shared with them. Rogaan felt disgusted and dirty at the thought of the “Hili’giin service” as the island prisoners called it. Youngling prisoners, female and male, forced to be concubine slaves to the older prisoners. The female younglings rarely survived it. The few that did killed themselves on the rocks or threw themselves into the waters to avoid carnal and other abuses as a “Nigilim’gardu,” spoiled concubines, for whatever time they had remaining of their jailing. Rogaan quickly learned only strong and ruthless survive this prison island.
When Pax and Rogaan arrived as the ship docked in the inlet, they were thrown into a crowd of unruly prisoners. They were immediately whisked off to a fighting pit located close to the dock where they, along with a handful of other young prisoners, one a female Rogaan has not seen since, were commanded to strip naked by the crowd. When Pax and Rogaan refused, the self-proclaimed leader of the island, Urgallis, ordered those Baraans loyal to him to teach the uncooperative a lesson. The fight was brutal and short with five of Urgallis’s thug brawlers sprawled out in the pit. Pax suffered many bruises, and a crude knife wound on his ribs but refused Rogaan’s offer of aid, instead, keeping to himself, even caring for his own wounds. For Rogaan, he stood tall with bruises, but otherwise well off. Before Urgallis could send real fighters at them, Urgallis’s rival in this rocky prison, Kirral, showed up with his battle-ready Ursan, quickly declaring Rogaan and Pax to be too old to be Hili’giin, just to spit in the face of his adversary. Since then, Rogaan and Pax kept to the hovels controlled by Kirral to avoid fighting with Urgallis’s bands of loyalists, though, even the Kirral loyalists, mostly Baraans considering themselves higher in standing than the few Tellens, Evendiir, and Skurst in their midst, treated him with contempt. At least they talk to Sugnis and me, Rogaan reflected, seeking something positive from the horrid experience.
“Don’t give them a thought,” Sugnis coolly told Rogaan. “Those needing to dominate others to feel better of themselves are best avoided. And when you can’t avoid them . . . kill them. Come, you need food to keep up your strength for tomorrow. I have fish drying on the rocks.”
Rogaan’s first thought was to politely refuse Sugnis’s offer of a meal; one whiff of the pungent Tellen churned his stomach. Sugnis really needs a bath. Thinking on his need for allies and Sugnis’s kindness, Rogaan reconsidered. Besides, he would likely have to fight for scraps back at the hovel. “I accept on one condition.”
“I’ll guess,” Sugnis’s deep voice sounded playful. “You want to eat upwind?”
“Yes,” Rogaan replied with a guarded smile and a bit relieved.
Sugnis led Rogaan to his camp. Near the fight pit and away from the hovels, the camp sat in a high crop of rocks and boulders where structures were not easily built or navigated due to the treacherous way the rocks rested upon each other from successive floods and for the tangle foot, strong vines that covered much of the island. It had a high vantage point where much of the island, the Ur River, and the surrounding area of the far shorelines were visible. Rogaan had come to this spot several times in his first days on the island, seeking solitude so to stew on his self-made predicament and blame himself for his arrogance and stupidity . . . a dangerous combination. Rogaan fell into his melancholy once more. If I had only listened to Father and gone to the Ebon Circle temple, I would be a prisoner of them and not here on this forsaken pile of rocks, Pax’s and Suhd’s parents would not be dead, and Pax would not be shunning me. Then Rogaan’s thoughts turned to his family . . . prisoners, Mother at her Isin family’s estate and Father in the Farratum jails. Regrets swept heavily over Rogaan, causing him to misstep and trip. Fortunately, he got his feet back under him before falling to the ground and embarrassing himself. A disapproving look from Sugnis was the worst that happened.
Approaching Sugnis’s camp, the wind shifted several times almost in tune with the trembling in the land beneath him as they climbed, making Rogaan regret accepting the Tellen’s meal offer. He really needs to bathe. Along the way, Sugnis disarmed trip-cords, made from the island’s tangle foot vines, barely visible to Rogaan that he would have easily missed if he did not see where Sugnis reached. The Tellen carefully reset each trip-cord upon their passing. Several times as they went, they stirred up white- and gray-colored twin-tailed featherwings that flew off back to the colony on the western shore of their rock of an island. Soon arriving at their destination, the camp itself was a four-by-five-stride recess in the rocks, cleared of the vines, with a rocky overhang on the south side forming a small cave-like structure facing north. The sun on an east to west arcing path through the northern sky heats the rocks by day, and the rocks keep him warm by night. Rogaan appreciated the Tellen’s knowledge and pragmatism. The camp had some unexpected features; rocks for sitting around a central fire pit with a pile of driftwood neatly stacked in the rocks, a bed of partly dried ferns elevated slightly off the ground in the cave recess, makeshift wood plates, dining ware, and a metal pot hanging over a pile of red and gray embers in the fire pit. Accommodations Rogaan thought inconsistent with Sugnis’s minimalist vision of living.
“Not my usual ‘hole in the ground,’” Sugnis proudly stated as he stirred the embers in the fire pit with a stick before adding several pieces of driftwood on top. “It’s a bit too done up compared to my covered ‘holes’ needed in the wilds on the mainland. Keeps me from being a bite to eat in the night. But here, only Baraans are a danger, and I took care of that when I arrived.”
Rogaan heard of Sugnis’s arrival on the island, killing several of Urgallis’s fighting followers, then holding a bone dagger to Urgallis’s throat before the first day fell to night. Ever since then, Rogaan observed Urgallis always gave foul looks in Sugnis’s direction but took no action against the Tellen. When Sugnis took Rogaan as an apprentice in fighting, Urgallis begrudgingly extended his foul looks and the immunity from physical abuse to him as well. This hatred, and more importantly, the fear, were welcomed by Rogaan, free of the need to look over his shoulders at all times. No longer needing to worry about Urgallis’s band, Rogaan focused on the many Saggis who a
lmost always appeared on the island a few days after the resupply ships arrived. Soon after the dockings, a new killer emerged from the shadows trying to extinguish his Light. Rogaan had become expectant of it and even felt annoyed by the Saggis. In truth, Pax had saved him from the shadow blades several times and scolded Rogaan to be more serious in his respect and regard of the killers.
Rogaan reflected on that first attempt on his life. It was a long fight breaking much of the shack he lived in. After that, the Saggis was subdued by a bunch of Baraans who took him away to ready him for the pit, the means of keeping order on this rock. Rogaan found himself in the pit the following morning facing the killer again. He had no intention to take the Saggis’s Light, only to survive the one-on-one combat, but the Saggis had other plans and would not relent, leaving Rogaan no choice. He had to kill him, with a large rock to the head, of all things.
In this morning’s attempt to take his Light, the Saggis caught Rogaan unaware. He was enjoying the morning sunrise—too much—and feeling the small ground tremors frequent on this island. Rogaan had let his guard down. His inattention allowed the Saggis to approach undetected. If it had not been for Pax rendering the Saggis unconscious with a thrown rock, Rogaan was certain he would not be taking breath now. Then, before Rogaan could thank Pax, he disappeared back into the shadows of the hovel and stayed elusively at the edge of Rogaan’s vision all day. Since the Saggis was taken away by Kirral’s followers, Rogaan prepared for the fight in the pit with Sugnis critically coaching him.
Now, the two sat quietly in the fading light of the day around a low fire eating Sugnis’s dried fish he retrieved from a sun-exposed boulder covered over by a makeshift thin metal mess to keep animals, featherwings, shell-walkers, or biters from the meat. Where did he get such a well-made mesh of metal? Rogaan pondered a bit on that after he got over being surprised by Sugnis having it. Rogaan took notice how strange it was that the annoying flying biters did not bother them or even buzzed about. What is Sugnis’s secret at keeping them away?