AWOL

by Traci Harding

  The thought of Khalid made her blood run cold, and seeing him today had been more disturbing than recollecting her death. In that moment she felt she had two options — kill him, or run and hide. As her son had refused her the only option that would bring her any true peace, she had been forced to pursue the remaining option. And if there was anything she knew how to do, it was hide.

  It was dusk on the outskirts of the Phemorian capital of Tonissia, and the night mists were beginning to rise beneath a light drizzling of rain. Her cloak deflected all the moisture from her body but her face was already awash with tears and she barely registered the additional spray, only the cool sting of the night air. At present, Satomi felt this was the one place no one would think to look for her. Everyone avoided this landmark, as renowned for its ghosts as the crash site at Dead Man Downs. This was the playground of the Phemoray and as such was hallowed ground. The magnificent Cathedral of Trees that once stood here had withered long ago — the energy of this place was so spent it could no longer nurture life. Beyond the decrepit remains of the dead forest Satomi came to a large marble staircase leading up to the sacrificial platform. As she scaled the stairs she gazed down into the cavernous void known as the Pit of the Obstinate.

  Into this void had been cast many a Phemorian woman who had displeased her husband — until Thurraya’s revolution put an end to the practice. The last official blood sacrifices made here were all high-ranking male officials who joined the last king of Phemoria in death.

  This pit of horrors past was at the root of all the curses that had overshadowed her life. A revolution was spawned here, and a curse that had so far lasted a thousand years had been unwittingly unleashed upon the Phemorian queens. But with the crown of Phemoria and its curse locked away somewhere, for Satomi this site was now little more than a remote place to process her situation.

  Satomi stood on the sacrificial platform that overhung the abyss, staring into the chasm where skeletons were hidden by the darkness of night. Should she join them? The thought seemed an easy solution to her woes. Just a little lean forwards and all her harrowing thoughts and hurtful feelings would vanish. There was no one here to prevent her death this time.

  It was a cruel twist of fate that had restored her to life, only for her to discover her family were once again keeping secrets from her, perhaps even plotting against her. Her beloved husband wasn’t even aware that he was choosing their arch enemy over her. It was irrelevant why her son had freed, and was aiding, Khalid — it was not as if he was still blissfully unaware of his past. He knew Khalid had destroyed their family. Maiara had told him, and hence his recent actions could only be interpreted as a deliberate betrayal. Khalid could have been exerting some form of mind control over her kin, but in either case, the AMIE crew could not be trusted. It was a worry that her younger sister, the ruling Qusay, was now deeply indebted to AMIE for delivering her from her curse. Khalid could usurp the throne of the planet of his birth and exile, and there was no one to stop him.

  ‘You are the true heir to the Phemorian crown, don’t ever forget that.’

  In a blinding flash, Satomi’s mind was teleported back to the day that she had fled Phemoria. So all encompassing was the vision that she stepped back from the edge of the abyss and collapsed to the ground.

  ‘You must survive,’ her co-conspirator had told her. ‘And when you feel powerful enough to crush the Phemoray, seek me out, for I will aid you to banish their curses. I have tried before and learned a good deal from my mistakes.’

  In her vision Satomi noted her advisor toying with a ring upon her finger. The ring itself was made of metal, but to her etheric sight it was black as night. Yet around the dark energy a shield of golden light was containing it. ‘That ring is cursed; did the Phemoray give it to you?’ she had asked.

  ‘No,’ was the reply. ‘But it takes a curse to fight a curse, and this tool was ultimately of their making.’

  Satomi had never observed such a wonder. ‘But how do you keep its negative force contained like that?’

  ‘By my will, and my conviction in ensuring the glory of Phemoria.’

  The vision turned hazy and plunged into darkness.

  Again, Satomi confronted her old ally; she was older now, and addressing her directly.

  ‘You are the true Qusay,’ she told Satomi — but this was not a memory. ‘You know what must be done to end these curses; you saw the vision with your own divine second sight!’

  The face faded to a vision of herself standing before the throne of Phemoria. ‘I am Qusay now,’ she claimed, ahead of transforming into her sister the Qusay-Sabah Clarona.

  ‘The crown of Phemoria was forged from jewellery found on the dead women in the Pit of the Obstinate. Their souls were drawn forth to the crown by the bloodletting of a man and the Phemoray were born.’ In her mind Satomi heard a woman advise her, but it was not a voice she recognised. ‘To reverse the curse, reverse the spell. Separate the crown into the original jewellery and return it to the pit. The Phemoray were attached to the crown when a male was sacrificed at the hands of women, they can only be cast out of the crown by a woman resurrected at the hands of a man.’

  Satomi turned about to find herself standing on the sacrificial platform before the Pit of the Obstinate once more. Her granddaughter was standing alongside her as the spirits of the Phemoray rose up from the abyss before them.

  ‘You have betrayed us, Thurraya,’ the spirits accused the young girl, as if she were her namesake.

  ‘I have not betrayed you,’ Thurraya answered. ‘I am here to lead you home.’ Her granddaughter manifested a blade in her hand, slit her own throat and dropped into the pit.

  ‘NO!’ Satomi awoke screaming.

  It was daylight now, although the day was dark and overcast. ‘I am the one to do this. I am a woman resurrected by a man!’ Satomi was still embroiled in her vision, and stood to address the pit, from whence the skeletons of her wronged ancestors stared back at her. ‘You shall not take my granddaughter.’

  Satomi felt her will to live harden. Khalid may have had all of AMIE fooled, but she would not permit their blindness to place the next heir to the throne of Phemoria in danger. Alone and in exile this crusade would be near impossible, but if Satomi fulfilled the prophecy she’d just seen then she would have all the forces on Phemoria at her disposal.

  She pulled a knife from thin air, and kneeling before the chasm she sliced her palm and allowed the blood to drop into the void as she swore an oath to her ancestors. ‘I will end these curses, and I will destroy Khalid.’ Why else would she have been awarded this glimpse of the future, if not so she could change the outcome?

  Today’s premonition had not only reminded Satomi of her inherent purpose, but of a very powerful ally. There was someone she could trust, who could advise her better than any in regard to these matters, and she quietly thanked her ancestors for sending her the insight to answer her own question.

  She would not be joining them in the hereafter today; she had much to accomplish. This was why she had been brought back from the grave. Satomi stepped away from the void with a renewed sense of purpose. ‘Before I was a wife, before I was a mother, I was committed to delivering Phemoria from the Phemoray. This is my calling and I shall see it done.’

  Her inner turmoil ebbed and Satomi knew her resolve was sound as a clear course of action began to unfold in her mind.

  PART 2

  EMERGENCE

  6

  SHADOW BOXING

  Mission Log — Day 5

  Two days since my mother’s dressing down and as none of my kindred or crew mates have shown up to spurn my course of action, I can only gather that Taren has consoled or subdued Princess Satomi somehow. Even though I did discourage Taren from allowing anyone to contact me, she would seek me out if my mother caused any damage that was beyond her control.

  Hence I have forged ahead with my own agenda, and since I defended Khalid to my mother we have engaged in several fairly civil conversations,
during which Khalid did not lose his temper once.

  This has proven rather fortunate timing, as Telmo was forced to separate Khalid from the pacifying bite of the rainbow monkey because Karisha has started demonstrating PK ability from gorging herself on Khalid’s blood. Telmo has begun teaching Khalid meditation techniques to calm himself instead, and although our patient is having difficulty taking the practice seriously, there has been a marked difference in his attitude.

  The topic of our discussions has been the clean up of the lost souls at Dead Man Downs. I wasn’t there the first and only time Khalid cleaned house at the shipwreck, and as that event has yet to happen in this timeline, Khalid can only offer theories as to how he would attempt the feat.

  It is common knowledge that the last ill-fated voyage of the Inssurecto and its accompanying fleet began over a thousand years ago, at the conclusion of the sexual revolution on Phemoria. At that time the Qusay used psychic means to seize control of the planet from their menfolk and cast those men who survived the slaughter into exile on Sermetica. The Insurrecto was the last ship of male refugees to be launched from Phemoria. With their communications systems destroyed, the vessel was locked on a one-way journey they had neither the fuel nor the food supplies to complete. The fuel was expended by the time the Insurrecto entered Sermetica’s atmosphere, and it was thought there had been no survivors from the crash at Dead Man Downs. The site had been deemed cursed, as everyone who had ever set out to gain access to the wrecked spacecraft had never been seen again — at least that’s how the legends told it. But Khalid, having been virtually raised by the demons who frequent the site, had a rather different take on the tale.

  The Qusay Thurraya had been the Phemorian queen who led the sexual revolution. She had assumed that she and her royal female kindred were the only ones dabbling in supernatural magic, but the man who came to captain the last flight of the Insurrecto was none other than the last true prince of Phemoria and Thurraya’s own son — Chironjivi. The young prince had been spying on his mother and her female minions as they made a blood sacrifice of his father and his best men. The crown of Phemoria, along with the supernatural force now known as the Phemoray, was forged from the jewellery of murdered women cast into the Pit of the Obstinate during eons of male rulership. Chironjivi used this knowledge to create his own force of lost souls, and every man on board the Insurrecto gladly forfeited his life for the promise of revenge on their Phemorian womenfolk, and on all female-kind.

  The Soul Keep was where all of the crew had taken their own lives, rather than die a slow, inevitable death. According to Khalid there were no skeletal remains in the chamber, only a large vat, which had been cargo bound for Sermetica on the ill-fated voyage and pilfered by the crew. Chironjivi vowed to seek revenge on behalf of the betrayed, banished and slaughtered male populous of Phemoria. To join the campaign, each crew member took his own life by throwing himself into the vat of molten metal that they had gathered from their ship, and the ignition key was used to launch them to their death. This smelter became known as the Soul Keep, and from the soul-filled metal within, the amulet Zeven extracted from Khalid had been forged. Chironjivi promised that the amulet would give Khalid psychic protection, which it had to a point, but I also suspect the evil trinket was dulling Khalid’s true power. As Chironjivi never sacrificed himself for the cause, he’d not joined his spirit to those of his tormented crew, so we must dispose of his demon separately to ensure that Chironjivi never leads the ghost crew at Dead Man Downs again.

  The unnatural earthly form of Chironjivi had been destroyed on the day Khalid was incarcerated with a psychic restraining device and Chironjivi’s soul had been trapped in Khalid’s body with him. This event severed their control of the ghost crew, all of whom raced back to Dead Man Downs, wanting to lay claim to the physical form that Chironjivi had temporarily vacated — to award Khalid a connection to his demon’s remote viewing capability and command of the legion. In their fight to seize Chironjivi’s form, the fragile mass of bone, flesh and blood was torn apart and destroyed. This was the last vision Khalid received from the ghost crew before he was cast into prison and five years of hell, sharing the mind space of the cursed prince who claimed to be his father.

  As reluctant as I am to lead Khalid back to the source of his dark power and past, I shall rest easier when this force is safely contained and hidden elsewhere. For it could still be some time before the timing is right to return these souls to their true source where they can finally rest in peace.

  Today, Telmo, Khalid and I shall run the mission to retrieve the Soul Keep, the outcome of which shall be very telling.

  Dead Man Downs was located in a canyon deep in the desert wastelands of Sermetica, thousands of miles away from any of the planet’s floating cities and mining colonies. Zeven chose the dusk hour to execute the mission as it was the most tepid time of the day on Sermetica — the night-time cool in the desert was not as unbearable as the daytime heat, but the ghosts of the Insurrecto became feistier after sundown. The trio stood on the canyon ridge above the crash site, observing the shipwreck before proceeding.

  ‘So why are we wasting time gazing at this wreckage?’ Khalid queried their landing spot. ‘I’m not sentimental about this, you realise?’

  ‘It seems awfully quiet down there,’ Telmo commented on both his physical and supernatural perspective. ‘The damned energy here is not a severe as I anticipated. In fact, the vibration I’m picking up is not so much evil as … sorrowful.’

  ‘Then you’re wrong, kid.’ Khalid grinned sceptically. ‘This crew don’t have a conscience, and neither do I.’

  Telmo raised both brows doubtfully.

  ‘Where did Chironjivi leave his body? Captain’s Lounge?’ Zeven guessed, having memories of confronting Khalid at Dead Man Downs in other timelines — experiences that, for Khalid, had never happened.

  ‘You’ve been here before,’ Khalid deduced, wary but impressed.

  ‘You could say that,’ Zeven warranted. ‘I might tell you about it sometime … we’ll see how our first date goes.’ He grinned in challenge.

  ‘Well let’s get on with it —’ Khalid began as Zeven grabbed hold of his arm and shifted them to the Captain’s Lounge of the Insurrecto before he’d even finished the sentence, ‘— then.’

  With a thought from Zeven the lights came on — no active power cells required. ‘Yep, this is pretty much how I remember it.’ Zeven nodded in agreement with himself as they all eyed the skeletal remains scattered everywhere in the lounge.

  ‘Home, sweet hell,’ Khalid bantered.

  Once, Zeven had believed all the bones here belonged to the crew of the Insurrecto, but if what Khalid claimed about the Soul Keep was true, then … ‘Who do all these bones belong to?’

  ‘These are all that remain of the women, girls … even babies —’ Telmo motioned to some smaller remains, ‘— that were sacrificed to Chironjivi and his demon crew. I did a cleansing rite to release the tortured innocents from his place once, as I shall again today.’

  ‘If the rite didn’t work the first time, what makes you think it will work now?’ Khalid scoffed.

  ‘It did work the first time,’ Telmo replied, having completed the rite in a past timeline.

  Zeven looked to Khalid, horrified by what the discovery meant. ‘They made you collect these women and deliver them to their death here?’

  Khalid was disturbed by the query, and the still atmosphere in the lounge stirred as small cold draughts began to whip about. ‘The curse kept Chironjivi alive, but the fresh blood of innocents strengthened the supernatural power of the crew,’ he informed, as the disturbance in the room began kicking up dust and light debris. ‘They never forced me to bring these females to them, I did it freely, to gain the favour of the spirits here and utilise their power.’

  Telmo seemed a little wary of what was going on around them, and whatever etheric activity he was seeing he kept to himself. He had warned Zeven that this mission would be more confron
ting for Khalid than he realised, but it was an important step on his road to self discovery.

  ‘You were compelled.’ Zeven held up the coffer containing the amulet retrieved from Khalid’s palm.

  ‘You’re wrong.’ Khalid didn’t want to accept that. ‘I am evil … in its purest form.’ He began to tremble as glasses and bottles behind the bar began to rattle in their racks.

  Was Khalid’s own power breaking through its restraint? Were the ghost crew acting up? Or was the disturbance being caused by the souls of the betrayed women being agitated by the presence of their reaper?

  ‘Because if I am not evil? Then I must sympathise with what I allowed to happen here.’ Khalid shook his head to resist that compulsion — and although Zeven could not read minds, he was fairly sure Khalid was reliving some fairly horrendous memories.

  ‘That’s your conscience waking up, and that’s a good thing. But the fact remains that if you had not been cursed, these women would not be dead!’ Zeven wanted to allay his charge’s rising panic, and relieve him of some of the guilt. ‘Did you indulge in this bloodlust, did you enjoy it?’