Forbidden World

by Jeremy Michelson

  Everything was burned. The King’s small, but dedicated army, had cauterized the coastal lands. Destroying all the boats with fire.

  And there were no forests left to gather wood for more boats.

  He had deliberately trapped them on this land.

  More signs of madness that Ivfa would not see.

  She motioned to the sword stuck in the scorched dirt between them.

  “Pick up your sword, Koba,” she said, “Lift your head high and ready to meet your Challenge.”

  He shook his head. Backed farther from the sword. And her.

  “I don’t want to. I will never be a King.”

  Ivfa’s eyes flicked to something over his shoulder. He spun around.

  The King stood, inches away.

  Even though Koba was a grown man now–or close enough–the King still seemed to tower over him. The King loomed large over everything, powerful and godlike.

  “Koba,” he said in his deep, resonant voice, “You are ready for the Challenge. Take your sword and best the dragon.”

  Koba backed away from him. Which only sent him back toward Ivfa. And the sword. He changed direction. Backing away from all of them.

  “No! I will not! I have no wish to be King. Pick up the sword and kill the dragon yourself. I’m done. I will not fight for you anymore.”

  The King spread his arms out. “It is not I you fight for. You fight for Dendon. Your world needs you.”

  “Why me!” He shouted.

  “Because you are worthy,” the King said, “Because you do not seek power. You question the use of power. Because you have compassion.”

  Koba shook his head. The stink of sulfur and scorched earth filled his head. Everything was ashes. The entire world. He and Ivfa. A gust of wind would blow them away. Scatter them over the burned landscape.

  “You’re evil,” he said. He waved his arm at the burning land. “Look at what you’ve done to us. Is this supposed to be saving us?”

  The King closed his eyes. A look of infinite weariness came over him. When he opened his eyes again, Koba had to look away from the sorrow they held.

  “Yes, Koba,” the King said, “This is saving you. Saving Dendon. To build something…something with a strong foundation…the old work must be torn down. Demolished down to bedrock. I wish it could be different. But this is the only way. Now, take up your sword and find your destiny. Become the man your world needs you to be.”

  If the King had said that to Ivfa, she would have snatched that sword up and gone after the dragon. The King wouldn’t have even had to say anything to her. Just a single look from his noble eyes would have done it.

  But he was not Ivfa.

  He pulled at the straps on his leather armor. Undid the bonds holding him, pulling the hot, heavy armor over his head. He threw it out into the smoke. It landed with a thump and clatter. He turned to the King, his hands clenched into fists.

  “Never,” Koba said, “You don’t get to tell me what to do any longer. You’re evil. And I will not follow you.”

  “Koba!” Ivfa said.

  She took a step toward him. But the King put his hand up. She stopped. Her gaze went from the King to Koba. Back and forth, her face twisted in an agony of indecision.

  For the merest instant, Koba thought of begging her to come with him. But he held onto the last shred of his dignity. She was already lost. He spun around and began to walk away.

  “Koba,” the King said, “Think of your people. They need your strength to guide them.”

  “Guide them yourself, O’ King,” Koba called back.

  He strode into a cloud of thick smoke.

  It was then that the great, red eyes rose up before him. That he heard the rush of air as the great beast inhaled.

  The smoke parted and the Dragon rose up. The beast’s bronze colored scales shimmered in the flickering light of the fires. It spread its huge, leathern wings and beat once at the air. The smoke swirled and eddied away from the beast.

  And Koba.

  The beast's long, sinuous body arched upward on its thick hind legs. On its smaller, but still powerful front legs, knife-like claws glittered. Six twisting black horns flowed out from the back of the Dragon's head. The blazing red eyes stared down at him from the beast's long snout.

  It opened its jaw, revealing rows of black, jagged teeth. Orange and red flames glowed at the back of its throat.

  Koba reeled backward, almost losing his footing and tumbling to the scorched earth.

  The Dragon’s heartbeat vibrated the ground under his feet. Thump thump…thump thump…

  How far away was the sword?

  Too far away now. And he’d thrown his armor away, too.

  See, Ivfa? What kind of stupid King-to-be threw away his sword and armor?

  The kind that was going to be eaten by a dragon very soon. If there was any justice left on this pitiful, dying world, the dragon would eat the King, too.

  Though Ivfa would try to defend him and get eaten first.

  He clenched his hands into fists. Drew himself up to his full height. All right. Fine. Maybe he could slow the Dragon down long enough for them to get away. He drew a breath of smoky, sulfurous air. He suppressed the coughs that tried to wrack his body.

  “Dragon!” He shouted, “I am here to Challenge you!”

  The Dragon lowered its head on its sinuous neck. Brought its burning red eyes level with Koba’s.

  “No, little man,” the Dragon said in a deep, sonorous voice–much like the King’s– “I am here to Challenge you.”

  Forty-Six

  Chris

  Never turn your back on a Don.

  Who told me that?

  My old Stickman buddy, Azor?

  Probably. Someone had definitely told me that at one time or another. Foolish me didn’t listen. Too preoccupied with trying to wring some truth out of that little weasel, T&T.

  I woke up in a very uncomfortable position. Which I soon discovered the source of my discomfort. All the bones of the dead things underneath me.

  The images from the dream the Dendon had fed me faded into the fuzzy recesses of my rebooting consciousness. Could someone dream when they were dead?

  I sure seemed to. With some help.

  I had no idea what the dream was supposed to mean. The Dendon seemed fond of cliffhangers, though. Blah blah blah, I am here to Challenge you…

  All right. Whatever. Still wasn’t doing anything to help me in the here and now.

  I breathed in the spicy scent of Dendon, overlay with the stink of rancid cat food that was that bastard Don, Kawl Tejoh.

  I put my hand to my chest. Found a lovely hole in my shirt. And a tender spot where a nasty blade had poked through earlier.

  My head pounded with a headache that felt like the drum solo of a death metal band. My chest and back ached.

  I was not having any kind of good day.

  I rolled myself off the pile of bones and stood up in the chilly room. A narrow window at the top of the room put out a small amount of ruddy light. The sun had been going down as we got to the room.

  I hadn’t been out long, then.

  Long enough for Kawl and T&T to get pretty far away, I bet.

  Kawl probably didn’t know I wasn’t going to stay dead, though. Even if T&T squealed, the Don probably wouldn’t believe him.

  He was going to be in for a big surprise when I caught up to him, then.

  I flexed my arms and my hands.

  Liz. She was out there. Somewhere in these tunnels.

  But I had a pretty good idea where Kawl and that piece of crap, T&T were headed. Back to that gold room Liz and I had stumbled across. And maybe T&T was right. Maybe that winged murder nugget had swung back around there, too.

  At the moment, it was the only lead I had.

  I stood still in the small room. Beside the discarded bones of the murder worm’s enemies. Or victims. Where I had been dead and discarded not so long ago. I listened and heard a whisper of wind. It was a low moan moving
through the nearby tunnels. It carried the dust of countless dead Dendon people. They were in every breath I took. The spicy essence of an entire race, obliterated by…

  The Don?

  I knew the Don were more than willing to take credit for the demise of Dendon. But had they really been the ones who destroyed all life on this planet?

  Or had it been something else?

  I concentrated on my inner buddy. Knower of all knowledge of Dendon.

  Including who killed it.

  What do you say, buddy? Was it the Don?

  The Don were the instrument of Dendon’s Death.

  Instrument. Interesting way to put it. So did they set out to kill Dendon? Or did someone let them?

  Silence.

  Here's another interesting question, buddy. Once upon a time, you were pretty anxious to kill every Don in the universe. Enough so that you almost let my planet die. Was that a burning desire for revenge?

  Or to cover up evidence?

  More silence.

  These dreams you’ve been showing me…these little historical dramas. This mysterious King guy who mysteriously appears in the Dark Ages of Dendon to somehow save the Dendon people from themselves. So far he doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it, mind you. But then it’s hinted that’s part of his master plan.

  This King…you’ve been dropping all kinds of clues as to what he really is.

  So when did the Dendon people invent time travel?

  An electric jolt went through my body. Strong enough to make my knees weak. Enough to make me dizzy enough to sway and nearly tumble back into the pile of bones.

  The feeling passed quickly enough for me to recover.

  And that jolt was enough to tell me a whole lot about why we were here.

  That time travel device is still here on Dendon, isn’t it?

  My buddy didn't reply. But flash of anger went through me.

  Feelings that didn’t come from the squishy matter in my skull.

  You brought me back here to use it, didn’t you? Or maybe I’m supposed to destroy it. Something very bad happened two thousand years ago. Something that wasn’t connected with the Don dropping a maker bomb on the planet.

  The Don slipped past our system defenses. They did set loose a maker device in the atmosphere that led directly to the death of all life on Dendon.

  And how did the Don slip their maker bomb past all that high tech Dendon security?

  HeJov is very clever.

  The emperor of the Don Empire? Somehow he found out the entire planet was distracted by…what? Come on, buddy. This is connected to that story you’ve been telling me. The one about the time-traveling King who went back in time to save his world from eating itself.

  Nothing? Okay, how about why you’re wanting me to take the Challenges and become King of Dendon. When I become King, do I control all of Dendon right?

  Silence.

  I’m going to take that as a yes. So that means I get the keys to that nifty time machine that’s stashed somewhere here. Along with all the other goodies. But its the time machine that’s important, right?

  And I’m betting you’re wanting me to do something with it. Am I supposed to zip back a couple thousand years and warn everyone to be on the lookout for slippery Don bombs? Wouldn’t that cause a paradox?

  Temporal travel would not work in that manner. There is no such thing as a time paradox. A time travel event would simply create a different branch of reality.

  So there is a time machine? How about a little more information, buddy? Now that the cat is out of the bag.

  You must best the Dragon. Then you may know all.

  Not really what I was wanting to hear.

  What happens if the Don get hold of this time machine? What can they do with it?

  The Don would not find a temporal travel device.

  Right. You probably shouldn’t count on that. But here’s another question: What am I supposed to do with it? Because there’s a reason why we’re here, right?

  Everything has purpose. Including you.

  Good to know. Now how about a little more explanation on what I’m supposed to do?

  That is simple. You must best the Dragon in the Challenge.

  Luckily there was a nearby wall for me to beat my head against.

  Forty-Seven

  Chris

  The logical thing to do was to go back to the tunnels where the gold room was. Somehow break into it without Liz’s golden door opener. Then do battle with a bunch of metal murder creatures and save the day, rescue the princess and live happily ever after. Woo hoo.

  There were a lot of flaws in that plan, however.

  Even though I had reclaimed the powers the Dendon had taken away from me, I still had problems.

  Like how to keep from getting murdered by all the various entities that wanted to kill me. Long enough to rescue Liz.

  Obviously getting killed was (usually) a temporary problem for me. However, I still wanted to avoid it if at all possible.

  So instead of going deeper into the tunnel system, I decided to leave it altogether.

  I returned to the surface. The dead surface of this dead world with its swirling, spicy dust and tombstone-like towers.

  I’d found my backpack near the pile of bones. My good buddy T&T had ransacked it. At least I assumed it was him. All of my nutrient bars were gone. Along with my flashlight.

  I’d stood there in the cold room of bones and listened to my body. It wasn’t telling me I was hungry. Which was strange. I should have been ravenous after all the energy I’d expended earlier. But…nothing.

  Okay, so maybe I didn’t need the nutrient bars, then. They all tasted uniformly awful anyway, so no great loss. If there was a hell, hopefully the guy who made them will spend all eternity eating them. Slowly. Savoring every nasty, inedible bite.

  Even though the backpack was empty of sustenance, I brought it back to the surface with me. Maybe I could put some rocks in it to throw at the metal murder worms.

  I exited the subway and made my way to the wide boulevard that led to the plaza of government buildings. Night had fallen and the wind had picked up. Gusts full of gritty dust slammed me. The wind howled around the edges of the towers. Making sounds like tormented souls.

  There was still a dim light on the horizon where the sun was rapidly escaping to the other side of the planet. The days and nights on Dendon were a few hours longer than Earth cycles. I was in for a long, long night.

  I stood in the middle of the street and concentrated for a moment. I imagined night vision and suddenly the street and the towers brightened in grainy, bluish, high contrast relief. It was enough for me to navigate by.

  I called up my super speed and zipped down the street. Dust rooster tailed behind me before the howling wind quickly swirled it away.

  A minute later I pulled up to the cooling wreckage of my ship. The stench of burned plastic and scorched metal was strong enough to make my eyes water. Even under that acrid stink, I could still catch a whiff of something like rancid cat food. That Don odor just would not die.

  I wasted a few minutes poking through the sharp-edged, scorched debris. I was hoping to find some plasma blasters or other weapons.

  I found pieces of them.

  Which helped not at all.

  What would have been really helpful was if our space radio had been ejected from the wreckage, intact and working. Then I could have called up that Don ship that was in orbit. Maybe worked out some kind of deal.

  Or not. I didn’t need any more Don stabbing me in the back. Literally.

  I gave up my smokey treasure hunt.

  It wasn’t why I came back there.

  I turned to the government buildings behind the wreckage of our former way off this dead planet.

  The central tower that was the King’s Seat reached a long way up into the sky. There was a temptation to go explore it further. But I had a suspicion I wouldn’t find what I was looking for.

  No, that was mo
re likely to be in another building.

  The blocky shape of the Defense Ministry stood next to the King’s tower. There might be all kind of goodies in there. But not likely weapons. Probably lots of plans for weapons. Maybe records about locations of weapons.

  But I was guessing the Defense Ministry would be depressingly free of actual weapons I could grab and use against my enemies, so to speak.

  So I turned to the building on the other side of the King’s tower.

  The Records Ministry.

  A short, sharp jolt of electricity went through me.

  Got something to say about that notion, there, Dendon buddy?

  No?

  Then Records Ministry it was.

  The building was nearly as tall as the King’s Seat. It had a gentle, circular shape with designs the reminded me of Ancient Greek temples. Things that could have passed for fluted columns and carved in stone vines and floral type things.

  It looked like an alien library, if there was such a thing.

  I moved to the wide, too tall steps. The sunlight was completely gone now. Even my night vision was having trouble resolving the details of the steps and the large, arching doorway. Wind driven sand and dust pelted me. My shield didn’t seem to do much to keep the spicy scented dust off me.

  As long as it kept letting me breathe, I wasn’t going to complain. Too much.

  I hopped up the stairs and examined the door. It was carved with looked like stylized scenes of Dendon life. At least it looked like figures of Dendon people doing Dendon things. It was hard to tell in the grainy, high contrast images I was getting.

  I put my hand on the door.

  A roar cut through the night behind me.

  I spun around, ready to fight the metal murder worm.

  But it wasn’t one of them.

  Lights pierced the dust filled air. Conical bursts of flame dotted the air behind the lights. Through the howling wind, came the sound of turbines.

  A ship.

  Someone else had come to the surface of this dead world.

  Forty-Eight

  Chris