Party of Five - Book II

by Vasileios Kalampakas

  ***

  “I say we just stick it to ’im,” said one of the two men standing watch over Bo. He was dressed in a tight grey leather uniform of some sort; a number of insignia adorned it. He was wearing a rather large, vermillion cap adorned with a golden drake. He stood taller than the man sitting at the unremarkable table. The other man, in similar attire but with different insignia was quite critical of him:

  “The rabbit stays.”

  “What for?” said the man in uniform standing up.

  “Boss said not to touch it,” insisted the man sitting at the table.

  “It’s a flippin’ bunny rabbit! It belongs in a bloody pot!” cried the other one, stabbing a finger at Bo’s directions.

  “Orders are orders, Jimbo.”

  “I haven’t followed orders since the academy, for crying out loud. Even then, I mostly pretended,” said the man called Jimbo and shrugged.

  “Well you better follow these orders. Or we don’t get paid, to say the least,” came the reply.

  “Hey Tark, let me ask you. Have you worked before for these, uhm..”

  “Aliens?” the man sitting down filled in promptly.

  “Isn’t that a bit harsh? We’re all aliens to one another, aren’t we?” said Jimbo with a slight touch for the philosophical.

  “Well, they’re not human,” said Tark, sitting at the table while staring at Bo as if the bunny somehow held some sort of truth for him.

  “They certainly look human, some of those Ygg do,” commented Jimbo and scratched his head.

  “Appearances can oft be deceiving,” Tark told Jimbo and stared at him for just a moment.

  “Now there, you sound just like Jameson.”

  “Who?”

  “You’re telling me you don’t remember Commander Jameson?” asked Jimbo with a grin forming on his face.

  “Haven’t even heard of him.”

  “Aw, come on! Third flotilla? Navigator on the Bon Homme Carter?” insisted Jimbo. The other man shook his head and shrugged.

  “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Ah, those were the days. Where were you stationed back then really?” asked Jimbo with invigorated interest.

  “If you must know,” said Tark and sighed before adding, “I was in Naval Intelligence.”

  “Whizzers! You must be costing them a small fortune, eh?” Jimbo exclaimed with renewed enthusiasm.

  “Not really.”

  “How come?” asked Jimbo with eyes that begged to be humoured.

  “Because I’m not really working for them.”

  “Come again?” asked Jimbo looking genuinely puzzled. The next moment, Tark’s hand connected with the back of Jimbo’s head with a violent chop. Jimbo crumbled on the wet, musky floor with a dull thud. Tark didn’t waste a moment; he carried the unconscious Jimbo to a shadowy corner of the impromptu holding cell area. He bound his head and his feet together, and made sure to gag his mouth with a ragged piece of cloth that somehow stood out. He couldn’t help but notice the weaving: it was an Elvish pattern.

  As he was about to grab the crystal from the throne and leave, he saw Bo’s eyes flare up. Tark took a step back reflexively.

  “Emperor’s bones!” he said surprised. Bo’s eyes then flared up white hot before shooting a thick beam of blinding fire at the bars that held him captive.

  A small cloud of evaporated metal rose from the bars and wafted harmlessly towards the exit. The rest of the bars were now a molten pool of metal, sizzling as they cooled off on the oak floor. Tark’s eyes widened with restrained shock; he put one hand to his utility belt and went for an oddly shaped knife.

  It was just then that Bo jumped gracefully about four feet in the air as if his feet were nothing more than springs. Bo landed on Tark’s shoulder who had neither the time, nor the capacity to turn the blade in his hand towards Bo.

  Without so much as a squawk, Tark was doubly surprised when he felt a thin strand of whiskers, followed by a wet, pink sliver of lips touching his mouth. Bo had kissed him and then conveniently jumped off. Presently, the bunny rabbit sat at the table, eying Tark intently but without the characteristic flames that sprouted from its eyes.

  “I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Tark. Little did he care if he attracted the attention of the swarming neophytes, guards and mercenaries of the Ygg, milling about in the labyrinthous, bulk of the giant space-faring oak they had hollowed out and turned into a factory. All that, along with his up to that point successful infiltration felt like another life entirely. The single most important thing in his life at that moment was that a rabbit had kissed him on the lips.

  Still stunned in place and unable to comprehend, he heard a sweet melody echoing in his mind. The melody soon cleared up into a young woman’s voice.

  “Do not be alarmed, Tark. I’m an ally, of sorts.”

  “This place reeks of dark magic!” said Tark ominously under his breath, for a moment searching for a way to flee as if an unseen foe was after him.

  “You’re right about that, but it’s not me,” the voice said and Bo’s nostrils flared up, its whiskers writhing about nervously.

  “The bunny? The voice.. That voice is coming from the bunny?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said the voice in Tark’s head, while Bo sat down on all her legs and dug her head between her front paws snugly.

  “How is that possible?” asked Tark audibly. He had a feeling the bunny was telling the truth, even though he had no idea why that feeling made the least bit of sense to him.

  “Well, it is magic. But it’s not dark magic. I’m on your side. I think,” said Bo and scratched the table nervously with one paw for just the barest moment.

  “My side? Who do you work for?”

  “No-one.”

  “I find that even harder to believe,” said Tark stiffly.

  “Well you should. I work for myself. And my brother. And some friends.”

  “That makes for a preposterous cover story. You must be telling the truth, then,” Tark commented with a feeling of sarcasm while checking the way in and out of the holding area quickly.

  “I really am,” Bo voiced in Tark’s mind, somehow managing to sound a bit hurt.

  “Well, it’s been really interesting, but I’ve got a job to do.”

  “The elves?” she asked bluntly. Tark froze barely for a moment before putting on an opaque facade over his face.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do know. You just don’t care,” said Bo and fidgeted around the table, the bunny in her trying to have a go at the wooden surface.

  “Look here, there’s a lot more at stake than a bunch of slaves. Plus, the place is mostly empty,” said Tark, making sure to keep his voice down.

  “It involves the throne and the crystal doesn’t it?” Bo sent in his mind and the whiskers on her nose stood upright as if electrified.

  “You do not have the clearance for that kind of information,” retorted Tark and shook his head.

  “My father crafted that crystal. I know everything there is to know about it.”

  “You’re just too good to be true,” said Tark and grinned in disbelief.

  “I’m not bluffing, Tark. We need to team up. At least until I find my friends, that is.”

  “I do not team up. I work alone,” said Tark and pointed a stiff thumb at his chest.

  “Is that right?” said Bo in his mind and suddenly her eyes flared up with a torrent of fire. Two tiny pulses of fire shot past Tark and landed on the face and chest of a hobgoblin who had just made an appearance at the exit, right behind Tark’s back. Tark looked coolly at the slightly charred body which was lying face-first right beside him.

  “Right. I guess you could tag along.”

  “I do not tag along. I hop along,” the voice rang in his mind and as if to illustrate the difference, Bo hopped down onto the cave-like wooden floor.

  “Semantics. Don’t lag behind,” said Tark and shot a glance outside. The dimly lit corridor hewed
into the wood looked clear. Tark nodded to Bo and stepped outside. Trying to look casual, Tark straightened his vermillion cap and picked what seemed to be a familiar direction.

  “How did you end up inside a bunny?”

  “I’m not inside a bunny. Technically, I am a bunny. Nevermind; it’s a long story,” said Bo in Tark’s head and hopped pacefully behind him.

  “So you’re a magical bunny?”

  “A sorcerer, actually. A sorceress, even.”

  “Makes some bit of sense, if all of it is true,” remarked Tark in a low whisper. He signalled with his palm for a pause at a rough intersection.

  “It is. What’s your story?”

  “You don’t need to know,” offered Tark as he kept an easy pace.

  “Why is that?”

  “Better yet, you don’t want to know,” Tark insisted.

  “You’re some kind of spy, aren’t you?”

  “I am many things.”

  “You know things as well?”

  “One too many,” Tark agreed and nodded to himself even as he remained watchful while they passed through decrepit corridors and roughly hewn, splintered hallways, with little light to guide them other than a haze the color of the deep blue sea that seemed to linger everywhere.

  “What do you know about the crystal and the metal throne?” asked Bo.

  “Your friends, that crystal and the throne have certainly spurred quite an interest to the Ygg. That can’t be good,” he whispered, stopped, checked the next intersection and moved along again.

  “Those alien monsters you call the Ygg? We’ve faced one of their kind before,” said Bo and hoped alongside Tark fretfully. Tark replied while scanning the road ahead. It seemed like he was looking for some sign to find the right path. Somewhere along the corridor they were on, a swath of bright light seemed to emerge. He scoffed and whispered:

  “And you survived? I might’ve been impressed if you weren’t covered in fur.”

  “I couldn’t care less about your opinion, but the truth is it wasn’t an easy encounter,” Bo admitted as she hopped along.

  “It’s not supposed to be easy. Now just be silent. We’re coming up on the vestibule.”

  “I am silent. You’re the only one who can hear me. What’s the vestibule?”

  “The reason I’m here,” whispered Tark almost inaudibly as they made a left turn on a slightly upwards sloped rough path. Brilliant orange light poured down on them. It didn’t seem to be the usual torch light, roughly dispersed along the maze-like corridors they were walking through.

  “And what might that reason be?” Bo asked silently. No answer came until they reached the very end of their path, where a tiny ledge stood. It was so rough and sudden, that Bo nearly leapt off it. Once she stood there though, she really longed for her human body. She needed to gasp. Instead, her nose twitched while the vista filled her rabbit vision. Tark laid low on one knee and simply said:

  “This.”

  “Stars above! It’s..”

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” said Tark and nodded. They were looking at the very core of the giant oak, a sparse, hollowed out expanse wide enough for a small city to fit from one end to another. Through the very center rose a sharp, multi-faceted crystal, shimmering with gold and silver, blue and white trailing lines like strands of heavenly hair wrapped around it. Concentric rings of pure white light seemed to hover in the air around the crystal; there was no end of them in sight. The crystal itself rose interminably high, lost in a blinding, twirling sea of white and blue, while at its very base a red and orange swarm of pulsating multi-coloured lights frothed inside a hazy, lava-like cloud.

  “It’s incredible,” said Bo inside Tark’s mind, the awe transcribed as flawlessly as thought would allow.

  “It will have to go,” said Tark, rose up and walked back down the path.