Shaken, it took Aunty Gertrude a few moments to wipe the nervousness off her face.
‘My Lord, what is he doing here?’
‘He is the new Overlord of Ramathor. The mantle of destruction is laid upon on him.’
Daquan smirked at her, casually leaning on the High Overlord’s chair with a contemptuous air.
She clasped her hands to her chest and bowed lower.
‘These matters, my Lord are best handled by yourself.’
Daquan roared with laughter.
‘All these years you old conniving witch and you have not changed a bit. Still trying to manipulate people.’
‘So what do you call what you are doing?’
‘You should have mated with a snake. I don’t hide what I want.’
High Overlord Sector shuffled in his chair. Strange, thought Aunty Gertrude, how the he tolerates such insolence and utter disregard. She knew in an instance that Daquan must know something that only the Overlords knew.
‘What do you really want?’ she asked.
Daquan cast a longing glance on the High Overlord, licking his eyes over his embellished chair.
‘Power.’ He roared with laughter again. ‘This decrepit old fool won’t last much longer, nor will the others. Times are about to change and they, in all their wisdom have not foreseen it, but I have. And I shall reap this reward, harvest this crop.’
He grabbed the arm rests of the High Overlord’s chair and pushed his face closer.
‘Your stupidity, your punishment against me has turned on you, fool. You tried to squash the head of the scorpion, but now the tail is swinging over your head, bearing down to thrust its poison stake through your stupid heart.’
No emotion registered on the High Overlord’s face.
‘Perhaps, we shall see.’
Noting their exchange, she thought that maybe she should not totally run afoul of Daquan, at least not for the moment.
‘My Lord, my Lords, then perhaps it is time to adhere to our time honored customs.’
‘To which do you refer?’ asked the High Overlord Sector.
‘It has also occurred to me that it is an insult to all the students that have spent years suffering and overcoming and training for the High Galelain, to allow the outside children to enter.’
Daquan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
‘Are you suggesting they might actually have a chance at winning?’
Aunty Gertrude shrugged her shoulders, feigning innocence.
‘It is our ways that need to be followed.’
‘Really. What are you up to? Are you trying to protect these children? What are you hiding?’
A face with years of faking sincerity, stared back up at Daquan. ‘They just need to be tribulated immediately.’
‘There is not time for them to be tribulated,’ High Overlord Sector replied. ‘It could take weeks and the High Galelain is due in just over a week. This will not do.’
Aunty Gertrude’s face reddened.
‘My Lord, the other children! They will see this as a license to flaunt our ways.’
Daquan kicked dust at her.
‘Don’t trust her. She is up to something.’
High Overlord Sector cleared his throat, a sure sign he was about to utter his final word.
‘The children shall enter the High Galelain. In this matter I trust the Head Discipliner, Sah-Task-Master Carrion. But should they fail, should they live, should they flee like cowards, should they not show up; then I will allow them to be banished to the Southern Wastelands. There will be no tribulation for them.’
Daquan spat on the floor, and kicked more dust.
‘Very well crone. You have got your way. But if they shall die their bodies are mine.’
She blinked her eyes, trying not to show the dust bothered her.
Got my way? Hardly. I want the children gone.
‘Agreed.’
She bowed her head, turned and left.
Curse that Bear-nard. This was entirely his fault, though at least now she could work out a way to save face; possibly even blame her husband. But she would have to suffer whatever fate befell the bratty cousins in the High Galelain.
And what was Daquan up to? At the last meeting he had opposed their banishment and even tribulation for them. But now he did not mind they had been entered into the High Galelain nor did he object to banishment. And why want their bodies?
Chapter 33 - A Warning
Threading through the passages at least an hour later, the cousins passed by their Aunt and Uncle’s room. Hearing murmuring, Melaleuca peered through the small peephole, the others joining her, taking turns. Aunty Gertrude sat on the bed in her flannel nightie berating Uncle Bear-Nard.
‘And besides now they have to win, or else. What if they do not win?’
Uncle Bear-Nard dropped his head forward.
‘They have to.’
‘Yes they do! If they fail, then it is my name that will be mud. ME! After all my years of service.’
‘Stop it Gerty! I will never allow that to happen.’
‘You! Not allow it. What can you do, you toothless old fool. If you had listened to me, then it would be you in the Ramathor Overlord chair and not that reclusive retard Daquan.’
The news caught Uncle Bear-Nard by surprise.
‘Daquan? Since when?’
‘What do you mean, since when? Have you so completely absorbed yourself in those brats that you have lost touch?’
He launched himself up off the bed and whacked one of the four posts of it.
‘When did he get the chair?’
She told him of the meeting a few days earlier.
Uncle Bear-Nard paced back and forth, fretting.
‘Well it’s no use getting upset now,’ Aunty Gertrude said. ‘You only had thirty years to claim it.’ She turned from him in disgust. ‘I married a fool. I could have helped you. That could have been us.’ Malice dripped from her words, ‘I still have your secret.’
Uncle Bear-Nard spun around and jabbed a finger toward her throat.
‘AND I YOURS…….So…we are even and always have been. Now be quiet so I can think. Do you think you are the only one who has plans?’
This news shocked Aunty Gertrude. Plans? Secret plans? Plans unknown to her?
‘Since when? Tell me. You must.’
‘Daquan is up to something.’
‘Of course he is. He’s a madman.’
‘How could I have missed it?’
She searched Uncle Bear-Nard’s face, but his face became a closed book.
‘You are hiding things from me.’
‘As are you.’
‘For your own good.’
Ignoring the words he plunged his brow into deep thought, knotting it up in tension, and Aunty Gertrude huffed at him.
‘Anyway should the children fail, I shall say they are impostors, and have them banished to the southern wasteland. Maybe they can go mad there like your sister Karena’s friend Daquan.’
Uncle Bear-Nard batted her away.
‘Behave or soon I will not need you.’
‘Not need me, by the founders of this great mansion, look at what these children have done to you. Never before would you talk to me like this.’
Uncle Bear-Nard reached down and stroked her hair as she sat trying to feign hurt. Thirty years of waiting tumbled through his heart, and he spoke feeling the weight of all those years.
‘You were the prettiest girl in all of New Wakefield. In all my days in the Borstal I thought only of you. I was glad when your husband died, because then you were mine, even though it was only desperateness that made you agree to this union.’
Her face softened and he lifted her chin up and said, ‘But not a union of love, for such is forbidden, but a union of strength.’
Her face filled with pride.
‘But you are beautiful no more. Just iron for a heart.’
She swotted his hand off her chin.
‘You are weak. You are
infected. But maybe you can still ─ ’
‘It’s too late now, Gerty, too too late. This die was set a long time ago.’
Tense silence fell between them.
***
Back at the girl’s room, they removed their costumes, and Melaleuca ran them through a long overdue clearing. As they acted out previous events, it became apparent how much had happened in such a short time.
The boys left, returning to their room to sleep.
Lexington hovered about the window, writing in her notebook. Despite the clearing, her mind sifted through a wad of information, a fact only to clear to Melaleuca.
‘Lexington. This Galelain is only a week away. We do it, and then, I promise I will make the others help you.’
Lexington cast an “I-did-not-think-you-cared” look at Melaleuca.
‘Lex. You have a super brain. Asking why is good, but not when it causes you to stumble.’
Lexington sighed, her emotion-filled eyes widening as she said, ‘It’s like we have been following a small trail, and now, what was a few trails has become many. Too many. Even with the costumes, playing and pretending, trying to solve what is going on and fitting it all together, it’s overwhelming.’
Melaleuca bore into her, racing past all her questions, theories, and postulations, until she hit a locked decaying door. Something trapped behind it struggled to get out.
Melaleuca bit her top lip as she spoke the truth she had seen. ‘There’s something inside you that must be removed. It shouldn’t be there.’
Lexington turned away, thinking of her inner voice. Was that what Melaleuca meant?
‘Why me? Why not Quixote or Ari or even you?’
‘I don’t know though if we keep moving forward ─ ’
‘It’s moving forward that is making me feel like this!’
‘After the Galelain, Lex….after…..promise…..’
***
As they left for the Vahn the next morning, Aunty Gertrude stood on the lawn staring at the torn-up earth and the large tear through the west wing of the Cathedral-Mansion. Broken windows, shattered stones and bricks lay on the ground.
As Pembrooke rode them away she screamed at them, ‘This is all your fault. Come back with shattered bodies, you worms.’
‘Nice,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Took her a while to notice that.’
Just before the cart left the woods on the hill leading down to the valley floor, a hooded figure stepped out of the bush, holding their hand up. Pembrooke slowed the horses down, pulling the cart to a halt.
‘Thank you Pembrooke,’ said the familiar pleasant voice. ‘Now get us off this track before anyone comes.’
‘Right you are Matron,’ Pembrooke said.
Harshon threw back her hood, as Pembrooke steered the cart into a small bunch of bushes.
‘Listen, you are in danger. Late last night someone went to the High Overlord Sector and requested that you be tribulated before the High Galelain. It’s one of New Wakefield’s many traditions. All children are tribulated.’ She looked away. ‘It’s another brutal method of weeding out the weak. There are four levels. They are normally done over a ten-year period. He refused, but said if you fail to win, and survive, then you will be banished to the southern wasteland.’
Melaleuca could hear her genuine concern.
If only she knew about the costumes.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Melaleuca said.
‘Not matter? Surely you may die.’
‘I doubt it. We were entered because it would humiliate us. Now, if someone has asked to tribulate us, then perhaps they fear that we might just win.’
‘Or they just want you dead quicker.’
‘I thought that only one ship survived and that everyone else died,’ Ari said. ‘If we lose how can we be sent to the Southern Wasteland?’
‘There are survivors. They are as good as dead. They are all sent to the Southern Wasteland.’
Harshon started to irk Melaleuca.
‘I have already said Harshon that we will not lose.’
‘Your confidence is surprising, admirable even, but listen, entering the High Galelain means certain death. I can get you out of here. It is not the first time I have smuggled someone from New Wakefield. I smuggled a girl out once, named Karena. And her four male friends. You see they were all involved with the Marauders about thirty years ago.’
Melaleuca knew exactly what Harshon was up to, trying to flush information out of them. Lexington’s face lit up as Harshon said this, though she held her word and said nothing in return.
Melaleuca chuckled. She liked Harshon, but they were to be true to themselves first.
‘Nice try. Our mothers were identical sisters, all born at the same time, all four of them.’
‘Perhaps, but I only grew up with one Karena, who bore a striking resemblance to you and your mother or mothers. I am here to get you out before something happens to you.’
‘What is this tribulating thing then?’ Ari asked.
‘It’s horrible. All of us, apart from the Gorks and the banished, bear scars from it. There are four tribulations, they represent the two births and the two deaths we are all required to undergo. The birth into pain and long-suffering, and the death of the body and emotions. Disciple Track is where 7-year-old children go to become tested by the trial of pain. It’s a track through brambles, blackberry bushes, thorns, rose bushes, matagouri, gorse, thistles, stinging nettle and poison ivy. They bind to everything; ladders, swing ropes, climbing bars, and poles. As you walk the track, there are sheer walls on both sides, and only one way forward. Everything is covered with something that rips or cuts your skin. It is also known as the first great clearing as the weak and unwilling to withstand pain are weeded out.’
The looks on the cousin’s face soured as they listened. It went a great way to explaining why the children of New Wakefield acted the way they did.
‘What happens to them then?’ Lexington asked.
‘If they fail, they get sent to the borstal for three years hard labour and pain education. Believe me, completing Disciple Park is a lot quicker and easier than a three year stint in the borstal.’
‘Those poor children,’ Lexington said.
‘You all looked horrified, but that is only the first trial,’ Harshon said, pleased her words affected them. ‘Come you need not hear more. I can take you away from this.’
‘I want to hear more,’ Melaleuca said, thinking that perhaps her parents had gone through such tests.
Harshon sighed heavily, the pain of these trials still with her all these years later.
‘Very well. But I must say you display the same verve that Karena did. She had little regard for our ways, nor did she fear them. She really seemed immune to them in fact.’
She paused, looking to them as if wanting to reveal something.
Melaleuca’s impatience grew.
‘Harshon, the next trial?’
‘The next test is the Unforbidden Forest. It is the second great command of discipline, to endure suffering.’
Harshon shook.
‘The Unforbidden Forest?’ Quixote said. ‘That’s the one all the kids our age are getting ready for?’ He made spooky noises to go with his sentence.
‘Yes. 11 to 13 year olds go through it. They are forced to go in to the forest, travelling from one side to the other, with nothing, no food, no water, no shelter, no warmth, nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘Doesn’t sound too bad,’ Ari said. ‘We have stayed out in the bush.’
‘Not a bush like this,’ Harshon said. ‘Nothing grows there except Burglen Trees and it is said of them they feed off rotting human meat and vile emotions. The whole area is full of deep craters. Some of them once you fall in, you never get out of. It is a most disorienting place, where everything is grey and barren, save for the trunks of the trees, and even then acid-moss grows on the side of them. It all looks the same, one thing blends into another. Up feels like down, down feels like up. Left and right, nor
th, south, west and east get confused; line and circles blur, and some never get out. The cold there is a gnawing cold, and insects that dig and burrow and crawl over you every minute. And worse this is where the bodies of those that fail are tossed.’
She finished with a shiver.
Even Pembrooke appeared upset by Harshon’s words. He tilted his head down and tried to suppress a sigh. The cousins responded in silence, Harshon again pleased with the effect. Perhaps now she had convinced them to leave.
‘Now come, I will smuggle you out.’
Harshon grabbed the side of the cart to pull herself up. Melaleuca halted her with her hand.
‘We stay Harshon, Thank you for telling us this. We have to stay.’
‘Stay?? But why?? Have you heard nothing I have said? You will not survive. Most don’t. You are too gentle in spirit to even think about attempting it.’
‘The other tests. What are they?’
‘Surely those two are enough,’ Harshon said.
Melaleuca peered into her eyes and saw that Harshon held a bewildered admiration for the cousins that she did not want to feel. She locked on deeper and dove into her mind. Within a second, she sensed a deep secret that Harshon desired to tell them.
‘What are you hiding from us?’
A surge of regal power burst into Harshon from Melaleuca’s hawk eyes, and as if she stood humbled before a Queen, Harshon gabbled, ‘Before I smuggled Karena out, she said that she would return one day, that she would bring a power back with her to free everyone.’
Harshon stopped. Surprised she had uttered the words with so little resistance, she decided to press her point a little more. ‘Are you sent by Karena?’
Melaleuca sensed desperateness in her voice.
‘We have told you where we came from.’
‘I know it is all lies. I know Matron Gertrude is up to something, I know the signs that something is afoot. Tell me. I can help you. You cannot stand four against hundreds or thousands. I am on your side.’
Vahn and the Bold Extraction, The Page 15