Reincarnation

by Timothy McGowen

  Chapter Thirteen

  he walk back was lonely and dreary. Sumahon tried to speak with me several times, but after spending nearly an hour searching over the side of the canyons, I was sure that In’ah had died. And with those thoughts came a strange emptiness I don’t remember ever feeling before.

  It was hard to understand why I felt this way, but I tried to understand as I walked. Had it been my fault, she died? Maybe she wasn’t even dead? Perhaps I should turn back and keep searching for her.

  Several prompts tried to catch my attention, but I dismissed them without looking at a single one.

  These thoughts and many more poured through my head as I walked through the desolate wasteland of the blight. The wind was still, and the air quiet. But I barely registered any of that because my mind was racing, trying to justify my actions.

  “What more could I have done?” I asked the open wasteland ahead of me. I could just make out the edge of the village that I had been born in ahead. Sumahon had, without my asking, added an arrow in my visual display that pointed me towards my destination.

  “People die,” Sumahon said in answer to my question.

  It was hard to ignore voices when they spoke in your head, but I did my best.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this now, but I am going to tell you anyway,” Sumahon continued, “It is better that she die, than us. If we die, then two lives end; with her, it is just one.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably as a chill run up my spine and down my arms.

  “How can you be so vile!” I screamed aloud, “She was our friend, and now she’s dead.”

  I’m not sure why I kept repeating the obvious, but a part of me still couldn’t believe that the person that had taught me to fly, had saved my life, and fought beside me, the person I had seen alive not even hours ago, was now dead. Gone. Never to wield her swords again.

  “You are fixating!” Sumahon shouted inside my head, “She is gone, and I doubt she will be the last to die. Take a page out of my book and let it go.” Sumahon laughed for some reason, and finally, my mind quieted so that only my own thoughts filled my head.

  I wouldn’t listen to the mad book’s ravings. Even if death was common, I refuse to push aside my feelings.

  So, I walked in silent numbness, waiting for the world to make sense again.

  That is when the sky exploded.

  Several impossibly loud noises boomed in the distance, and the sky above my head was filled with streaks of orange and red. A near-constant roaring filled the air as I watched the objects burning in the sky begin to separate.

  The balls of fire stopped burning, and I saw their blackened shells hurtling towards the ground. I counted nearly four, maybe five, dozen of them.

  Then one by one, they smashed into the dead planet, and clouds of earth shot into the air. Three hit just over the horizon outside the village, large billowing clouds of dust marking their location.

  From somewhere close behind me, I was enveloped in a dense cloud of dirt as wind whipped all around me. The force wasn’t enough to take me off my feet, but the cloud of dust and dirt that shot from it completely obscured my view.

  “What was that?”

  “What was that?”

  Sumahon and I asked at the same time.

  “I’m searching, but nothing is coming up. I can’t be certain of what or where those things came from.” Sumahon said, his voice was rushed, and I would have sworn he sounded afraid.

  Afraid for his own wellbeing, I’m sure.

  “I’m going to investigate,” I announced. I really didn’t want to, being as scared as the book hanging on my belt, but the hollowness inside of me pushed me to act. My fear wouldn’t keep me from acting.

  I repeated this inside my head a few times, trying to convince myself.

  The dust began to clear, and I came upon a hole in the earth. Well, not a hole more like a bowl cut out of the ground.

  I inched forward towards the edge and poked my head over. The dust had just begun to clear, and there was a whirring sound coming from the blackened rock, like the trill of a bird.

  The blackened husk cracked and roared, a stream of air that whistled into the quiest afternoon. The sky rock was huge, as big as the strange craft In’ah and I had found in the rat cave. While I watched the air hiss from the ever-growing crack in the blackened surface, a strange mist clung around the large rock and obscured my view.

  I strained my eyes to see through the cloud of mist and was rewarded when I saw something green pierce through the obstruction.

  It was an arm and a big one at that!

  Then after a moment, an entire body emerged. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It had a large hulking body, standing almost double my height. The body was green, scaled, and wet with a long snout and many sharp teeth.

  “It looks like a giant lizard man,” Sumahon said, “But I can’t pull any information from it. It’s almost like I am being blocked.”

  The lizard man wore tight short fitting black shorts and a tight, but not as tight, black shirt with belts that crisscrossed on its chest. The belt held an odd assortment of small containers that I couldn’t make out.

  I noticed it had some kind of visor covering its eyes and a strange device strapped to its hip.

  As I examined the creature that fell from the sky, it looked directly at me. I ducked my head out of sight and slowly began to scoot back.

  “Reveal yourself, slave,” The lizardman said, his voice a raspy growl that sounded from deep in his throat, “I will not hurt you.” His last statement was followed by what I could only assume was a laugh. Rough hacking sounds that quickly turned into a sort of wheeze.

  ”I vote we run,” Sumahon whispered inside of my head.

  “For once, I think we agree on something,” I said aloud and turned and ran. Sometimes it was okay to be afraid; I decided as I struggled to run faster. Behind me sounded unintelligible yells followed by a burst of quick booming sounds.

  I looked at my visual display and noted that I had recovered about half of my Sri. Slowing momentarily, I looked over my shoulder and nearly fell over. The large lizard man was gaining on me fast. As I watched, it raised a gadget, and a yellow beam of something shot out with a familiar boom and struck just ahead of me.

  I ran through a shower of dirt and dust. It was time to fly, I decided.

  I’d never gone from the ground into the air before. Still, I figured the idea would be the same as when I needed to gain altitude, so I prepared myself to shoot upward.

  The familiar tingle of power let me know I was ready. I trigged a burst of my Sri, I felt my body lurch. Instead of going straight up like I had planned, I was flung forward with my limbs flinging in every direction.

  Struggling to keep my eyes open, I was able to straighten myself just as I neared the ground. With another shot of power, this time it only hit the air and I shot forward just as I imagined.

  Several shots of golden power buzzed by my head as I did a controlled fall in the direction of the village. Before long, only the sound of wind rushing past my ears could be heard.

  I had escaped!

  It was about that time that my power gave out, and I began a freefall.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I could taste a mix of dirt and blood in my mouth and an odd buzzing noise chirping in my head.

  “Wake up, wake up,” the voice repeated, “I didn’t break my spine, and neither did you so snap out of it and let’s get moving.”

  My mind moved like molasses, and I could barely comprehend the words being spoken at me. Spine? Then like a rubber band being snapped into place, I could feel again. And what I could feel was pain.

  Managing to roll myself onto my back, I immediately entered a fetal position. Every inch of my body hurt, and moving just made it worse.

  �
�We are nearly back to Aetex’s hut,” Sumahon said, “Just a little bit further, and we will be safe.”

  I heard him speak in my mind, but moving meant pain. I reached out with my mind and inspected my body. I felt myself connect with the Sri pulsing inside of me and I knew that I hadn’t broken anything. I probed further into my body using the Sri inside of me as a way to highlight the inside of my body. I could see, I realized, that I had received deep-muscle damage, the kind that would hurt for a while, but not be deadly.

  How I knew this for such certainty, I wasn’t sure, but I knew it as much as I knew my Sri had nearly recharged.

  Opening my eyes, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand. I wasn’t sure if the pain lessened or if I was getting used to the constant pain, but either way, I found that I could walk without aid.

  A sudden horrid realization came upon me as I slowly walked towards Aetex and the promise of a warm bed. I was filthy. The rain from the day before had created several large thick mud puddles, and I had landed in one. It might have been what saved me from any broken bones, but it also had caked me in a thick layer of mud.

  Looking at my arm, I decided that I could probably lay down sleep without any worry of being found. I was covered in dirt, and I was not happy.

  Distant voices pulled my attention forward. I was less than a mile from the rim of the village now and what I saw made my stomach churn. Two of the sky rocks that contained the green lizardmen had crashed inside the village and one right on the edge of the blight a stone’s throw from Aetex’s home.

  “Get down!”

  “What?” I sprung to the ground and moaned audibly from another flash of pain.

  “I am reading several missing spots in my sense of surrounding ahead,” Sumahon said. His voice was a whisper even though he spoke into my mind.

  “Missing?” I asked back.

  “Yes, missing. In the same strange way as the other lizardman wasn’t readable.”

  “What about Aetex?” I asked, searching frantically for the large man.

  I found him, just a speck from this far away, and he stood with several larger green specks next to him.

  “We have to hurry!” I shouted in my mind to Sumahon, “He will need our help!”

  “I doubt that,” Sumahon said smugly, “I can read him just fine from this distance. He is putting out a Physical Potential of over 1000.”

  “It’s over 9000?!” I mentally shouted back to Sumahon in surprise.

  “What? No, I said 1000. 1045 to be exact.”

  “Oh, I must have misheard. That is still strong enough to deal with anything, right?”

  “Lets slowly move that direction, and we will find out.”

  I could see that Sumahon and I were the same in many ways. I could almost feel the curiosity that the lizardmen elicited in him.

  Telling myself, I was more worried about Aetex’s safety and not my curiosity, I pressed forward. Moving low to the ground and making as little noise as I could manage. Surprisingly I found walking stealthily came easy to me. It helped that from a distance, I would be hard to spot because of the mud coating my body. Just another part of the landscape.

  I drew close to the edge of the crater and was able to hide even better. Using the tip of the impact zone, I positioned myself close enough to hear what they were saying without revealing myself.

  “You will be taken care of shortly,” One of the lizardmen said, I nicknamed him Ugliest, he had a large scar splitting his face from eye ridge to neck.

  I saw that Aetex had been beaten severely. Sapphires blood ran from his face and he had a small hole in his lower gut. Aetex was not in great shape. He had been tied up and gagged, but even as I watched he strained against his bonds and yelled against the gag.

  “Shut it already,” Ugly said, the lizardman with the least scars, “Why can’t we just end him and be done with it. Thruzk’s squad is having all the fun in the village and we are stuck babysitting this old-timer. He is half-dead already. I am just going t…”

  The words never finished. A sickening crunch pounded my ears and a dust cloud sprung up obscuring the three lizardmen and Aetex.

  The sounds of screaming echoed through the stillness of the blighted lands, and I watched in awe as the dust cleared.

  Another Erusha had joined the fight! Wearing long ragged brown robes that obscured nearly all of him, I caught a shimmer of light from his forehead and knew for sure he was like me.

  Ugly had been smashed into the ground. Some unseeable force had compacted him into little more than a puddle. And now with graceful dance-like movements, the newcomer weaved towards the remaining two. I watched as they reached for their beam devices to defend themselves, but even from a distance, this new Erusha attacked with deadly effectiveness.

  The new Erusha swept his hand down and both their weapons leaped from the lizardmen’s grasps. The Erusha didn’t move any closer but twirled around and shot out one of his hands. The lizardman I hadn’t given a name to shuddered under an unseen force. Then like a dam breaking, his body ripped into three parts.

  A wave of nausea threatened to make me puke, but I kept control of myself for now.

  “He is using Sri Manipulation,” Sumahon said, clearly in awe of what was happening.

  “But In’ah said that manipulation couldn’t affect living matter.”

  “I can see the Sri he is moving. It’s like he is controlling the flow of water all around him. The Sri he used to attack that man came from the air, not the lizardman. He forced it through him.”

  “Maybe I picked wrong,” I said, unable to not appreciate the deadly effectiveness of Sri Manipulation.

  I watched as Ugliest looked to his fallen comrade back to the Erusha and then back to his comrade. Then he ran. I began to stand just as another person fell from the sky right in front of the fleeing lizardman.

  Another Erusha! This one was a sight to behold. He was taller and more muscle-bound than Aetex. He was the first Ki’darthian I had seen that matched a lizardman in height.

  Next to the small crater he made in the ground where he landed in front of the lizardman, was a hammer of ridiculous size. The hammerhead was so giant as to make it uselessly heavy, and the handle was long enough that it extended half a foot over this new Erusha’s head.

  I had trouble making out any features from this distance but I recognized the familiar Erusha garb that Aetex had dressed him in, all belts, vest, and undersuit.

  I had a thought as I watched the new Erusha approach the lizardman, who had fallen backward and crawled away in haste.

  I willed for my overlay to switch on, and it did. Focusing on the newcomers, I got a reading.

  First, I read the brown cloaked fighter.

  -Level 18-

  Then the newest addition.

  -Level 5-

  What? That is impossible.

  “He is suppressing his power, and doing it very effectively. I can sense a vast well of power just below the surface.”

  “Can you take a guess at his full potential?”

  “I can try, but there really is no way of knowing for sure.”

  “Just do it,” I commanded, watching the exchange in awe. The newcomer had reached the lizardman just as he got to his feet.

  “At least four times as powerful, but my gut says most likely more.”

  I digested this information. The newcomer had to be Mesh’el, that In’ah spoke of. This Erusha radiated power and confidence.

  I watched as the one I suspected to be Mesh’el reached out to grab the lizardman. A boom filled the air and I watched a flash of light leave the lizardman’s hand; he had found his little gadget!

  I looked up towards Mesh’el, expecting to see him injured or dead, but found a surprise instead.

  Mesh’el stood with his hand out in front of him and a smoking hole next to him on the ground.<
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  “He uses Sri Shielding?” I asked Sumahon, but I knew that must be the case.

  “That is correct, but be quiet. I am trying to study his technique. Did you see how he just reflected whatever that beam of energy was? You would be useless against him! I wonder if he likes books?”

  I watched as Mesh’el’s hand shot out and connected with Ugliest’s face, laying him flat.

  Feeling as if the conflict was finally over, I began moving closer but still remained unseen.

  “That was amazing, Mesh’el!” The brown-robed figure said, “I mean, I had it under control, but I appreciate the assist. We should get to the village Elders and dispatch the rest of these sl…”

  I watched in horror as Mesh’el approached the other Erusha and struck him in the stomach, doubling him over.

  “What in the…” I thought towards Sumahon, “why would he do that?”

  I didn’t receive an answer and watched as Mesh’el placed his large toed foot on the other Erusha’s chest.

  “I’m sorry, Narth’l,” Mesh’el said his voice smooth and almost melodic in tone but thick with sorrow as he spoke, “but this is for the betterment of our people.”

  I cringed and slipped back into hiding as the sound of crunching filled my ears. He had just caved in his chest! What is happening, I couldn’t understand this world.

  I forced myself to keep watching and saw Mesh’el reach down and push the gem from Narth’l’s forehead with his thick fingers. Mesh’el turned his attention towards Aetex.

  Watching Aetex tied up and unable to defend himself left me horror-struck. I stood and began to channel Sri.

  “No!”

  My Sri connections failed, and I felt my power cut off.

  “What did you do?” I screamed at Sumahon, “Stop it!”

  “I’m sorry. But look, it is already too late.”

  I looked just as Mesh’el reached Aetex.

  “You do not deserve an Erusha’s death,” Mesh’el said, his voice filled with disdain and hatred.