Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee

by J. Joseph Wright

  JACK

  JAMES

  AND THE

  CALL OF THE TANAKEE

  Text copyright 2013 by J. Joseph Wright

  Cover copyright 2013 by Krystle Wright

  Author’s website: jjosephwright.com

  Artist’s website: krystledesigns.wordpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  I want the world to read JACK JAMES and the CALL OF THE TANAKEE. If you’d like to share it with your friends, feel free. Just don’t make a material gain off of it, because that would constitute copyright infringement. Thank you, J.

  Dedicated to my life, my love, my partner, my best friend…Krystle.

  ONE

  The Citadel of Mashkan Shapir

  The year – circa 3000 BC

  A SUDDEN, VIOLENT shock forced Kubi to his hands and knees. Dust cascading from the ceiling stung his eyes. He wiped them clean with his palms. Quickly. No time to waste.

  “Father! Are you okay!” he shouted into the grime and gloom. The stone walls held—for now. “Where are you, Father!”

  A velvet sheen pervaded the soot, each and every particle of hovering flotsam flickering in the stuffy air. Kubi heard coughing, and felt awash with relief. His father was alive.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Shantu cleared his throat again and again.

  Kubi jumped to his feet, hooked his elbows under Shantu’s arms, and heaved hard. He was only ten, and much smaller than his father, yet he possessed a will beyond his size. He tugged until his father, out of breath and trembling, dug in both heels and stopped him.

  “All right, my son. You’ve saved me. The apparatus! Get the apparatus!”

  Kubi spotted the purple glow and searched for its source, a light unlike any other. Neither here nor there, the illumination came from all angles. Luckily for him, the machine not only emitted light, but also issued a melody of chirps and whistles never so sweet to his ears than at that moment, in the heart of his father’s workshop, with the city’s fortifications about to crumble.

  He found the apparatus concealed beneath an overturned table, surrounded by its own tiny halo, swirls of shooting stars tossing and turning deep inside. It made him gasp for air each time he laid hands on it. This time, it seemed even more breathtaking.

  “What was that, Father?” he offered the device to Shantu, who had already gotten the table onto its four legs again and was in the process of relighting the candles that had extinguished in the commotion.

  “Followers of the dark serpents…and they’re serious this time!” he placed the mechanism onto the table then rummaged through his scattered tools and sundry journals and vials of solutions. “Where did it go! Where did it go!”

  “What, Father? What is it?”

  “I can’t find anything! The apparatus needs to be completed, and my materials…they’re gone! I’ll never get it finished in time!”

  “I’ll help you, Father!” Kubi knelt and gathered the precious components, when another immense explosion rocked the floor and fractured the ceiling. More dust, spilling from the roof, spoiled Kubi’s vision and he felt constricted all of a sudden, unable to move a muscle. He heard shrieking, crying, orders shouted in haste. He felt someone grasp his ankles. Two strong pairs of hands pulled him free, into the blinding light and the musty, coppery scent of smoke and ash…and death.

  “It’s okay, child,” a steady voice failed to soothe him.

  “Where’s my father!” Kubi kicked loose from the man’s grip, only to be stopped by another, larger man. It was Lu, the city’s elected leader. “You’ve got to save my father!”

  The rescuers shared long, sallow frowns amongst one another.

  “What!” Kubi struggled harder. Lu held tighter. “NO!”

  “He’s gone, son,” Lu said. “He’s—”

  A dazzling bluish-purple eruption lifted the rubble pile upward, forcing the rescuers to scramble for steadier ground. Kubi was the only one to stand firm. He’d seen his father’s invention in action before. Shantu, surrounded by a sparkling halo, burst out of the suffocating debris. The dazed onlookers had no time for astonishment. At that moment, an aerial ambush was unleashed. Round after round of flaming arrows spilled down on top of them, forcing a mad dash for cover.

  “Father!” Kubi felt for and found Lu’s hand. “Come! Get into my father’s shield!” Lu’s weight overburdened young Kubi, yet he managed to tug the man inside the instrument’s lustrous and magical bubble of protection.

  Lu stared in wonder as the translucent shield repelled the arrows. Then he regained his commanding presence rather quickly, spurred on by the sight of his beloved city being reduced to dust and ash. He took Shantu by the collar and pulled him close.

  “You need to use your apparatus, Shantu…it’s the only thing that can save us!”

  Shantu’s eyes lost all luster. He stared at Lu, then his invention, then again at the leader.

  “I-I can’t. It’s not ready yet.”

  “Not ready!” Lu towered over Shantu. “Our walls are all but breached. That apparatus is the reason the invaders are here in the first place. The city’s defenders are putting their lives at risk. The least you can do is show you’re not afraid to make a stand…use it!”

  “I’ve tried,” Shantu lowered his head. “I’d do more damage than good.”

  “You have to try again, Father!” Kubi pleaded.

  “The apparatus isn’t ready. I’m not ready!”

  A particularly loud and unnervingly close detonation upset the earth. Several men up on the battlement fell from their stations. Screaming. Tumbling.

  “Come with me!” Lu dragged Shantu up the narrow steps to a landing near the top of the fortification. Kubi followed, eager yet terrified. They had to push past a gauntlet of tower guards and militiamen, some headed down, carrying injured comrades, some hobbling and complaining. As they passed Shantu, each of them stopped and stared at the mechanism in stunned reverence.

  When they reached the highest level, where the battle raged, Kubi saw the most terrifying image he ever possibly could have dreamt. But this was no dream. This was the substance of nightmares. A sea of bloodstained, mud-blemished, battle-painted faces glared up at him, each scowl more menacing than the last.

  Littered about the landscape, carpeting every square cubit of ground for miles, were soldiers of all kinds, both men and beasts. Great and hairy pachyderms with decorated tusks and painted skin. Massive wolves with teeth so large Kubi could see them even from a distance. And other animals. Beasts so hideous and unreal, Kubi had to fight his own mind to accept the sight of them. Giants, the size of ten men, stomped about the terrain, writhing and reeling under their shackles. Harlequins clad in whimsical rags danced and flirted among the brutes, making light of the tension as if it were all a big game.

  Kubi breathed hard when a hot blast of wind blew his shoulder-length hair asunder. The heavy stench of sulfur mixed with burnt blood. He tightened his stomach, trying to ward off the convulsions. He refused to accept this. There had to be a way out. His father’s invention was too important to be lost. Too priceless to be stolen by a bunch of bandits and mutants and scoundrels.

  He heard his father behind him, begging.

  “Son, what about your protector? Call him, Kubi! Call your protector!”

  Kubi nodded, then focused his thoughts on his little, furry friend. Shouting on the inside, he called out for protection, for help in this, his direst time of need. He called out mentally until he felt warmth in
his gut, and a low rumble permeating the ground, shaking the support stones of the city walls.

  A hush fell over the beleaguered valley. The formerly boisterous giants, big and muscle-bound and mean, now shook in their boots. Worry replaced rapture. Concern overtook confidence. Even the colossal animals quit stomping and snorting in their furious attempts at getting into the city. Abruptly they stopped everything and turned their ears toward the ground.

  A bugle call from in the distant woods yielded murmurs and grim whispers in cautious tones. The entertainers tried to lighten the mood, dancing about the soldiers in their motely garbs, manipulating stick puppets and juggling skulls and flying small kites. All smiles they were, moving playfully throughout the crowd with fanciful swiftness and ease.

  Another deep, chest-thumping trumpet sounded, this time louder. No doubt the source was coming nearer. The attacking army, thousands upon thousands of hearty, rugged souls, stood still as statues.

  Then the ground shook and the pachyderms roared and reared on their haunches, sending their riders tumbling. Horses whinnied and bolted through the crowd, trampling dozens of men in their paths. Another vigorous earthquake forced virtually everyone to hands and knees. The city’s defenders, a ragtag mix of farmers, shopkeepers and young men still without wives, took cover behind the ramparts.

  “It’s coming!” one of the attacking soldiers cried.

  “LOOK!”

  All heads turned to the mountainside, to a solid slab of rock known as The Promontory. Silence. Not one soul dared take a breath. The entire valley, it seemed, had gone still, as a single figure appeared, climbing so quickly it was nearly impossible to follow. An initial, collective breath of fear. But then, when it became obvious the lone individual was but a tiny, furry thing no bigger than an overfed feline, another collective breath issued forth, this time one of relief.

  Giggles matured into laughter, then into an anxious flood of hysterics. Men slapped their own thighs and patted the backs of their comrades and stomped on the ground with their hand-sewn leather boots. The clowns and merrymakers stood from their hiding spots and reveled once again in the newly boisterous atmosphere, doing their best to create even more cheer.

  “That? That is the fearsome and all powerful protector?”

  “It’s not terrifying!”

  “Look, it’s just a little thing!”

  “How can such a small creature be so dangerous?”

  Surly men jutted their jaws and tightened their lips, showing off black stubs for teeth, those who had teeth at all. Through the haze and the smoke, high above the mammoths and the towering platforms, Kubi’s protector stood proud and tall—well, at least proud—his steady gaze fixed on the marauding militia.

  From there things got confusing. To Kubi it seemed the rock cropping where his protector was standing filled with shadow suddenly, though scarcely a cloud adorned the sky. The dark area increased in size, overtaking the mountainside. With shocking speed, the distant landscape flushed with a brownish tint, the same color as his protector.

  Kubi blinked his unbelieving eyes. Closer inspection told him what he already knew. The shadow, spreading like a plague, was actually a great number of Tanakee, tens of thousands of them, all exactly the same—silvery brown with a blazing, determined glare.

  “Orzabal!”

  “Which one?” Shantu shouted over the panic beginning to spread among the invading army.

  “All of them!” Kubi swept his arm.

  “It-it can’t be!” Shantu’s jaw gaped open. Kubi knew better. His protector had mystical abilities. He’d seen Orzabal divide into duplicates before, though never like this. This was different, almost inconceivable. He tried to calculate the numbers, and found it too difficult.

  The foothills rumbled with movement, and the besieging army cowered at the base of the ancient city walls. Kubi saw a line of Tanakee cresting over the soldiers like a wave. Men tried to fight, arms raised, swords slashing, arrows cutting the wind. The massive army of miniscule monsters was too nimble, too fast, and the soldiers became overwhelmed. Tanakee after Tanakee after Tanakee, suffocating and overpowering everything in their paths, reducing the once brutish and rowdy warriors to blubbering, whining, crying infants.

  And, just like that, the battlefield, strewn with bodies, smoky with the raging fires of war, lay in quiet. Orzabal, in an amazing instant, became a single individual again, returning to his regular self, a small and furry thing with eyes the color of the rising sun and the most spectacular emerald markings on the tips of each cheek. The teeming horde of little creatures, which had only seconds earlier conquered like a swarm of locusts, were gone.

  Kubi smiled at his protector. In two deceptively large and quick bounds, the little creature stood on the parapet, his shaggy hair tossing in the breeze.

  “Kubi, you must leave this place. It’s not safe here.”

  “But my father’s apparatus,” Kubi protested. “It’s not completed yet.”

  Orzabal shook his head. “Then it is not the time.”

  “What do you mean,” Shantu stood over his son’s shoulder. “Time for what?”

  Without words, Orzabal gestured upward. Clouds had begun to roll in, taking on sinister shapes, whipping with supernatural swiftness, swirling like dark dragons veiled in silver satin. The thick haze layer shrouded the menacing objects, yet they were plainly visible to Kubi.

  “What are those things!”

  “Nagas,” Orzabal’s stoic monotone made Kubi even more uneasy. “We must leave this place!”

  The sky seemed to split open, and from the fissure spilled a legion of long, slender beings with sleek wings. They undulated in groupings much the same as flocks of birds, but these were no birds. Cutting through the wind in hungry pursuit of prey. Clacking and clicking with thousands of rigid talons.

  Muscular men inside the city struggled to remove the bars from the doors and, after they did, a mass exodus began. Mothers carrying children. Fathers leading oxen and horses. Young people rushing like deer, shouting and pointing up at the dark devils plunging from above.

  “Come with me!” Orzabal took Kubi’s hand. “Run, young True Soul, run!”

  “Father!” Kubi glanced back as they hurried from the shattered citadel. “FATHER!” he heard nothing except the constant clamor of battle. The groans of the city’s defenders. The shrieks of the attacking serpents. Kubi felt a hole inside his gut where his stomach should have been. Suddenly he caught a vision, or the lack of one. Emptiness. Loss beyond comprehension. His father. Something was wrong.

  He dug in his heels and forced Orzabal to stop, not such an easy task. When their eyes met, Kubi knew. He asked anyway.

  “My father is hurt, isn’t he?”

  “We must continue. We must go. You must live,” Orzabal pleaded. “Kubi, do not stop now. You must live.”

  “But my Father!”

  “He wants you to live. He sacrificed himself so that you would.”

  “NO!”

  “Kubi, listen. You must survive!”

  The city walls behind them began to fall inward. The very metropolis was crashing down onto itself. Kubi didn’t care what Orzabal said. He had to help his father.

  “I’m going back!”

  “No! Wait!” Orzabal stopped him. “I’ll go! Get out of here!”

  Kubi didn’t have the chance to argue. Orzabal left him in a cloud of dust, straight to the city entrance, now not much more than a mound of debris. Kubi wanted to follow, and did. For two steps. Then someone grabbed him up and carried him from the battle, from the destruction, from his father—and his protector.

  “NO!” Kubi let out all his pain, all his loss, all his emotions in one final cry, knowing his protector, his father and the apparatus were all lost.

  TERESA EXHALED UNTIL she had no breath remaining in her lungs. She watched while brick and mortar and wood, as if by some unseen hands, built up piece by piece, until four solid walls hid away the mass of invading serpents, concealed the Tigris valley, and
blocked Kubi from view as he sobbed on the mountainside. All of so-called reality bounced back into place when she closed the storybook, and Kid Castle, inside Winmart Food Store, in the town of Willow, Oregon, once again encompassed the storyteller and her bedazzled audience.

  Before her were twenty-three pairs of wide, motionless eyes, along with twenty-three wide, motionless mouths. Each and every soul inside Kid Kastle had been transported to the sleepy dream realm where her stories became so real that every smell, every sound, every touch became truth. Each and every soul was convinced indeed, save for one strong-willed individual, a boy no older than six, red-haired and freckle-faced and obviously suffering from hay fever.

  “Did that really happen?” he crossed his arms and sniffled.

  Teresa cleared her throat. “Children? Did that really happen?”

  A little girl with pigtails and braces nodded with conviction.

  “Of course it happened. We all saw it. Right, guys?”

  “YEAH” the entire audience erupted. Well, not the entire audience.

  “Oh yeah?” the boy held his convictions firm. “I don’t believe it!”

  Teresa leaned and captured him with her enchanting smile. “Oh, you will believe, young man. You will believe!”

  TWO

  “DAVOS! YOU FOOL! Is there no limit to your incompetence!”

  Davos felt a stinging slap across his face. He wanted to change out of his human appearance, yet whenever Her Majesty held council, she demanded they all remain in this repulsive form. Something about the way it made her feel, she once had said. It disgusted him.

  “What was that?” she bellowed. “I heard you think that! What disgusts you?”

  He kept his head down.

  “That boy and his Tanakee protector disgust me, that’s what.”