Beyond The Hero's Chamber

by Ian Newton

  Chapter 5

  Return

  Andrew sat on the edge of the Fountain with his eyes closed. The sound of falling water added to the dream-like quality that had surrounded his old, weary body for months.

  “Andrew?”

  His eyes fluttered. It had been almost eighty years since he had heard that voice, but he had never forgotten it.

  “Kaya,” he mumbled to himself. “My dear sweet Kaya.”

  “Andrew, we’re back!”

  Andrew opened his eyes and saw the painting from his room.

  “Kaya, is it really you?!”

  “Oh Andrew, I’ve missed you more than…”

  Andrew kissed Kaya with more passion and longing than he had known in all his years as Andrew Sutton, and she kissed him back.

  They held each other for what felt like the first time.

  “How long has it been?” she whispered in his ear, holding him tight.

  “Too long my love, far too long.”

  Father stepped toward them, wrapped His arms around them, and said with a chuckle, “It hasn’t been any time at all.”

  They each wrapped an arm around His waist, and He said, “Welcome back. I won’t be bringing Jacob back for at least another day. I thought it would be nice for the two of you to catch up before he arrives.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Kaya said, hugging both of them.

  “Thank you,” Andrew repeated.

  “I know just the place,” Father said. “I’ll send Jacob along to see you soon enough. Until then, relax. You’ve both earned a little time away. Oh, I almost forgot,” He said, tapping His finger to the side of His head. “The place you’re going has an “I wish I had” attached to it. I hope you like it.”

  Father winked, and Andrew and Kaya disappeared with a “pop” and reappeared on the shore of a lush tropical island.

  “We’re all alone,” they said to each other at the same time.

  “Did you just use your…,” they said in unison.

  “I did,” they said together.

  Kaya kissed Andrew and hugged him until her arms hurt.

  “How many times did you die?” she asked him.

  “Just the once,” he said, sounding surprised. “How about you?”

  “Twice for me. The first time I got burned at the stake!” she said, sounding exhilarated. “It only took six years for me to get killed, then Father sent me back into another life.”

  “Burned at the stake!” Andrew exclaimed, holding her out at arm’s length.

  “But I didn’t really die,” she said, twirling around in the warm sand. “We’re alive Andrew, and we’re just like we use to be.”

  Andrew sat down on the sand and gazed out over the endless sea.

  “What’s the matter, isn’t this amazing?”

  “It is,” he said, looking up at her, “but I would be lying if I told you I was the same person you knew eighty years ago.”

  Kaya stood in front of Andrew, and said, “Remember my love, it’s not if you change, it’s how. That’s all the control we have. It’s all we’ll ever have.”

  She offered Andrew her hands and he took them.

  “Let’s take a nice long walk,” she said, hauling him to his feet. “I can’t wait to hear all about your life.”

  Andrew kissed her, and they walked along the beach, hand in hand.

  “Where did you live?” she asked as a wave washed up over their ankles.

  “I lived in lots of places. As a kid, I used to live in a farm house. It was in the middle of a huge grove of orange trees.”

  “What’s an orange?” Kaya asked.

  “I wish I had one to show you,” Andrew said, and an orange fell from the sky, landing on the beach in front of them.

  Kaya smiled, and said, “I wish I had my old sword,” and next to the orange, sticking out of the sand, was the sword from Kaya’s first life; the one she used in all her battles.

  Kaya picked up the orange and Andrew pulled the sword from the sand.

  “Peel it,” he said.

  “Swish it around,” she instructed.

  With juice running down her chin, she said, “This is delicious!”

  Andrew went up the beach and attacked a slender palm tree. He walked away with the blade still stuck in the trunk.

  They walked on, littering the beach with everything from automobiles to elephants. Rainbows that made circles floated in the tropical blue sky while airplanes and strange birds filled the air. They shared all their favorite foods, talked about old friends, favorite songs, and the things that fill a lifetime.

  As night slowly settled in, Andrew and Kaya picnicked on a large soft blanket in front of a roaring fire, high up on the beach. With their love for one another rekindled, they spent a passionate night in each other’s arms.

  Andrew had been asleep for about three hours when he rolled over and opened his eyes. He watched the stars slowly twist overhead when Kaya asked, “You too?”

  Under the endless kaleidoscope of stars, he reached down, took her hand, and said, “Me too.”

  “That’s a relief. I thought it was just me.”

  “Sometimes it's three hours, but usually, it’s closer to two.”

  “Exactly. I’m never tired either.”

  “Same for me. I wish you could see all the pictures I’ve painted when everyone else was asleep.”

  The wish wasn’t intended to bring about the images flickering across the sky, but the slide show above their heads went on for more than an hour. There were many kisses awarded by Kaya, Andrew narrated a fair portion of it, and more than a few tears were shed.

  When it was all over, they held each other. Kaya with her head on his chest, and Andrew with his arms around her. After a while, she asked, “What do you miss the most?”

  “Doctor Dave. He was the father I never had. The incredible part was he never questioned who I was. After our first time in the grove, he never doubted me for a second.”

  “Should he have?”

  “What I told him wasn’t possible. What he saw me do wasn’t possible. Everything in my life wasn’t possible, but he didn’t seem to care at all.”

  “You mean because you went to college at fourteen and became a doctor before you were twenty? Because you finished law school in two years or was it the astrophysics you mastered, or the doctorate in math, you said you got. Maybe it was the physics you predicted, then proved to be true,” she said, tracing the never ending figure of infinity on his bare chest as she talked. “What are you going to do differently next time?”

  “Everything,” Andrew sighed. “What about you?”

  Kaya rolled onto her back and watched the stars. Eventually, she said, “Well, I played the God card in my first life. That worked out well for everyone, but me.”

  “Burned at the stake!” Andrew chuckled.

  “In my second life, I still didn’t have any of the technology you did, but I played a lot of the same roles as you. You know, I went the science route, and it was easy because of the Fountain.”

  “Yeah,” Andrew agreed. “I didn’t really need to learn anything new, I just had to apply what I knew.”

  “Uh huh,” Kaya acknowledged. “So, next time I think I’ll try keeping my mouth shut more than I keep it open. I also think I used my power to heal people too much.”

  “It’s funny you say that because now when I look back, all I did was solve other people’s problems. Sure I taught along the way, but now that I’m gone…”

  “What,” Kaya asked, “Now that you’re gone, what?”

  “There isn’t anybody to carry on my work.”

  “I guess I was a one-woman show too.”

  “We need to get better at this,” Andrew said.

  “Much better,” Kaya agreed.

  “But you
made a difference in your first life, didn’t you?”

  “Sure, but it probably wasn’t going to last. I was just a teenager, leading an army against a bunch of bullies. My country hadn’t won a major battle in over a hundred years, and the only reason they followed me was that they were desperate.”

  “Did it hurt when they killed you?”

  “No. Father took me away before it got too ugly. Did it hurt when you died in the hospital?” she asked in return.

  “No. I just drifted away. Then I was back at the Fountain.”

  “I wish we could have talked to each other, you know, by thinking,” Kaya said.

  “Me too, but it would have changed everything. Not that I didn’t try to every night, but I think we’re supposed to be alone.”

  Kaya rolled over, putting her head back on his chest and he put his arms around her.

  “I’m glad we’re together,” she said.

  “I love you.”

  The night had cooled, and Andrew wished for a blanket that drifted down and covered them. The sky lightened, turning pink as the sun made its way above the horizon.

  “What’s for breakfast, love?” Kaya asked.

  “I wish we had some oatmeal with brown sugar and bananas in it,” he said smiling.

  Kaya’s spoon clinked against her bowl as she laid back on their blanket.

  “Delicious,” she declared.

  “Where’s mine!” came a voice from down on the beach.

  Andrew and Kaya looked up, and yelled, “Jacob!!”

  “That’s King Jacob, to you,” he announced, with a huge smile and his arms spread wide.

  Andrew and Kaya bowed and curtsied, respectively.

  “You may rise,” he said, sounding very proper.

  “Jacob,” Kaya said, hugging him.

  “Welcome back,” Andrew said, over-hugging Kaya until they smooshed her in the middle.

  When they separated, Jacob said, “Seriously, what have you got to eat around here? I’m starving.”

  “Hold your hands out, like this,” Andrew said, “right over mine.”

  Jacob held his hands out above Andrew’s.

  “I wish I had a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar and bananas in it,” Andrew said.

  Jacob laughed out loud, and Andrew said, “Catch it!”

  With the steaming bowl of oatmeal in his hands, Jacob laughed again and took the spoon.

  “So that’s what He meant,” Jacob said, taking a bite.

  “Oh my, that is delicious!” he announced.

  “A meal fit for a king?” Kaya asked.

  Jacob nodded, shoving another spoonful into his mouth.

  “I’ve missed you both so much,” he said. “Wait until you hear about my life, it was wonderful, I had so much fun.”

  “I wish you could have seen my throne! It was the…”

  A huge, ornate, oversized chair made of wood and inset with gold and precious stones thumped into the sand.

  “Well it looked just like that!” he said, pointing at the throne.

  “It’s wonderful,” Kaya said.

  “That thing is incredible!” Andrew declared, walking over to touch the towering tribute.

  “Ever seen an airplane?” he asked Jacob.

  They spent the rest of the day making all manner of things fall from the sky. By the time the sun began to set, Jacob, Kaya, and Andrew felt like they had never been separated.

  Jacob had just finished telling them about his death when he turned to Kaya and asked her, “Who were you in your first life? How did you arrive?”

  Kaya touched her finger to Jacob’s forehead, forming the connection between them.

  Jacob tasted blood as Kaya lifted the arm of a dead man off her chest and sat up. She struggled with her little helmet, and her hair was stiff with blood from a head wound. Flies buzzed around her face, and the sounds of wounded and dying men filled the air.

  “Take the boy, if he can walk. If not, end it here and now!” the Slave Master thundered.

  She got to her feet, felt a little woozy, fought against it and waited.

  The man in rags walking toward her was called Slop, and she watched a dying soldier pleadingly reach toward him. The horrible looking man pushed his sword into the soldier’s chest without breaking his stride. As he approached her, his sword dripping with blood, she couldn’t stop from shaking.

  The man looked down through his long dirty bangs, examining her like a piece of fruit.

  When the stench of Slop combined with her overwhelming fear, she fell to her knees and vomited.

  “Welcome ta my world,” Slop grumbled. “Come with me if ya want’s ta live.”

  Kaya wiped her mouth with the back of her leather gauntlet, stumbled over several corpses and followed Slop as they waded deeper into the battlefield.

  Kaya wept silently while Slop delivered passionless steel to all those who could not manage to follow his command. Within an hour, five men and Kaya staggered hopelessly behind the man in rags, out of the field of death.

  From atop his black horse the Slave Master, a fat man of absurd proportions, bellowed, “That’s it?!”

  “That’s all that’s worthy, Master.”

  “Throw the stinking lot in the wagon, and get on with it, you horrible excuse for a life!” Brandishing his crossbow at Slop, the Slave Master screamed, “Or I’ll put another arrow in your back!”

  “Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.”

  Slop turned around and took the flat of his sword to each of the men in line.

  “It don’t matter what ya use ta be, cause yer all slaves now. The Master there owns ya like a dog owns a bone! Yer all a bunch of cowards too, or ya’d be dead in the field with a touch a honor. Now git in that wagon or yer dead!”

  One of the men spoke, and Slop punched him in the face hard enough to knock him off his feet and onto his back.

  Kneeling down on the man’s chest, Slop pulled a long dagger from somewhere under his rags.

  “I’m happy ta end it fer ya nice and slow if that’s what ya was ‘bout ta ask fer,” he whispered, placing the blade across the man’s neck.

  The man spat in Slop’s face, and said, “Do your best, you stinking coward. You spineless…”

  He never finished the sentence because Kaya launched herself headlong into Slop’s side.

  Saving the life of the man on the ground was Kaya’s only real plan if she even had a plan. Fortunately, she had done such a good job of catching Slop off guard, he not only dropped his knife, but he was sprawled out on the ground.

  Kaya had fared about as well as Slop and was also sprawled out on the ground. She heard the Slave Master yelling something and figured she would be dead any second, when the man on the ground picked up Slop’s dagger, sat up, and let it fly.

  The Slave Master was trying to aim his crossbow when the blade took him in the eye. As the enormously fat man fell from his horse, he let his quarrel fly, striking Slop between the shoulder blades. The steel tip partially exited the center of his chest.

  Kaya could hardly believe the chain of events she had let loose, and she didn’t hesitate to capitalize on her good fortune.

  “Can we take the cart someplace safe?” she asked the man on the ground.

  “Well I’m not sticking around here,” he replied. “Come on men, let’s get out of here while we still can.”

  One of them hauled Kaya to her feet, and they all piled into the back of the wagon. Everyone was bloodied, and none were without wounds.

  Kaya took a moment to play with her powers of perspective, flipping her point of view into the man across from her. It felt strange to look at herself through the eyes of another, but it wasn’t what he saw that disturbed her. It was the complete hopelessness within his heart that threatened to drown her in misery.

>   Flipping from soldier to soldier, the dark, brooding sense of lament did not change. Finally, she changed her perspective to the view from above and there she was, sitting with five hopelessly defeated soldiers. Surprisingly, she felt hope and a relative sense of importance.

  Resting her hand on the arm of the soldier next to her, she brought her Light into it. She let it flicker there, unconsciously playing with it as she combed through her vast knowledge to find the reason for hope.

  Suddenly, the man’s eyes grew very wide. He raised his face to the sky and every muscle in his body went stiff, making him straight as a board. Kaya jerked her hand away and stared at the man’s face. It was frozen, except for the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.

  “Stop the wagon,” she yelled, “Stop!”

  Before the horses could bring the heavy wooden cart to a complete stop, the soldier gasped as if he had been holding his breath for hours. The stiffness left his body, and he slumped back against the wooden sideboard, breathing heavily.

  The wagon stopped and the man who was driving, the one who had thrown the dagger into the Slave Master, turned to see what warranted the emergency.

  Only the labored breathing of the horses filled their ears.

  Without warning, the soldier Kaya had touched leaped to his feet. Looking down on her, he demanded, “What have you done?!”

  “I…I…I…didn’t do anything,” she stammered, shuffling across the bed of the wagon, trying to escape.

  The crazed man jumped from the wagon, reached over the side and plucked Kaya out of it.

  He swung her around as he embraced her, yelling, “You are my miracle, my miracle. Little one, you have saved me. You are my miracle.”

  “Put the boy down and get back on!” the driver demanded. “We must keep going, we have to make it back!”

  “I am Remi,” the soldier said to Kaya, “Your loyal servant. If I had a sword, I would swear it to you.”

  “Remi, you are most kind. I would have you put me down, please.”

  Remi swept her up, cradling her in his arms like a baby, then he gently set her back on the wagon.

  “Get in you fool, before we are captured!” the driver insisted.

  The reigns cracked on the backside of the horses, and Remi boarded the wagon with an amazing burst of strength and dexterity.

  “I am healed in my body, and my heart,” Remi declared. “This young lad has made it so.”

  “Look at my arm,” he said, holding it up for inspection. “It was cut by a sword in battle, and now it is healed.”

  “You are mad,” scoffed one of the soldiers. “I have seen this before. You are not healed because you were never injured, you fool. You are elated because we are free, because we survived the day, not because of the touch of this boy!”

  The thigh of the soldier next to Kaya was severely cut and had not stopped bleeding.

  She recalled Father’s advice and smiled.

  “And you boy!” the soldier demanded. “Why do you sit there smiling like a fool as this mad man depicts you as a messenger from God?!”

  With confidence and grace, she looked the man in the eye, and said, “My name is Kaya Elbe, and I am not a boy, I am a woman. One who was brave enough to go into battle, strong enough to come out alive and this man tells the truth. I am on a mission from God.”

  “I really, really hope I’m not overdoing this,” she thought, placing her hand on the wounded thigh of the man next to her. The cut was twice the width of her palm.

  Kaya brought her Light into her hand, and the man’s entire body shook with spasms. She lifted it, ever so slightly, blinding the soldiers. Seconds later the wound was gone, and the man looked terrified.

  Kaya flipped her perspective into the man she had just healed and realized she had only healed his leg, not his mental state.

  She quickly placed her hand on his chest, and the panic faded from his eyes.

  Remi let out a long, loud, playful laugh.

  “What’s happening?!” the driver yelled over his shoulder.

  While the soldiers inspected the man’s unblemished thigh, Kaya scooted to the front of the wagon. She had already used her perspective to look around them, and she knew they were not being followed.

  “Slow the horses and come to a stop when you’re inside the shelter of the forest,” Kaya instructed. “No one is following us. I need to speak with all of you before we reach camp.”

  “I will not!” the man argued. “We will all be captured and killed if I listen to you!”

  Remi crawled along the bed of the speeding wagon until he was next to Kaya.

  “She has worked two miracles in this wagon, brother,” he said to the driver. “If she tells you we are not being pursued, then we are not. Please do as my lady asks or we will remove you from this bench.”

  Pulling hard on the reins, the driver directed his team of four horses into the shadows of the forest.

  After the wagon stopped, Kaya quickly healed the other men. When she had finished, each of them knew Kaya Elbe was more than a mere girl of thirteen, she was indeed sent by God Himself.

  She lifted her finger and Jacob slowly opened his eyes. He smiled, and said, “You just put it all out there, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t want to hide it, and besides, Father told me to have fun.”

  “Well I only told Dave,” Andrew said. “She told the whole world.”

  “Wow!” Jacob exclaimed. “I went my whole life without telling a soul, and you two…You did something totally different.”

  “But none of us created anything that would last,” Kaya pointed out.

  “Not for three thousand years, that’s for sure,” Jacob acknowledged.

  “We’re going to need a plan,” Andrew noted.

  “We’re going to need to experiment,” Jacob replied.

  “I can’t wait to do it again,” Kaya said.

 

  They spent another two weeks on the island talking through all manner of strategies. When they were done, Kaya called out to Father in her mind and the three friends disappeared with a “pop” and reappeared at the Fountain of Knowing.

  “Ready to try again?” He asked with a smile.

  Three heads nodded.

  “Jacob, who does a King serve?”

  “A good King serves his people, a bad one serves himself.”

  Father nodded approvingly and looked at Kaya.

  “And where does the warrior lead?”

  “To martyrdom,” she said.

  “And where does the man of science take his people?” He asked Andrew.

  “To a place, only he can see. To a place in the future where other things are possible.”

  Again, Father nodded approvingly, and said, “Wonderful. Simply wonderful.”

  Kaya reached out, taking Andrew’s hand and Andrew took Jacob’s.

  “Father?” Jacob thought.

  “Oh, I think I can do better than that Jacob.”

  “But I…”

  “Jacob,” Father said, with a twinkle in His eye, “It’s me, remember?”

  Jacob blushed.

  “Then we’ll all be able to hear each other?” Kaya asked excitedly.

  “Not exactly. I thought it would be nice if you returned to the island each night. None of you sleeps more than three hours. Why don’t we give your physical bodies a rest while your minds wander?”