Narican- the Cloaked Deception

by D M Robbins

  Tanz white knuckles the steering wheel.

  “Uh, huh,” is all he mutters, staring out the windshield.

  Powering up the hill we bounce onto hard land and find a ramshackle barn leaning on stilts a few hundred yards up. It sits over the stream that feeds the swamp. Parking the truck half leaning on a small red maple tree that’s ready to snap, he jumps out, smiling. “I’m famished.” He claps his hands together.

  I sit unmoving, dazed, in the truck, my head still bouncing. From behind his seat he grabs the food and hard cases. Paranoid, I step slowly down from the cab making certain no gators are underfoot.

  Once I’m on the grass I pause, looking around. “This has nothing to do with your cooking but, blxxkk.” I stoop over, puking.

  “Last one in the barn is a rotting egg,” he says, striding up the barn ramp.

  “That’s rotten, egg. Bllkkkxx,” I say, puking again.

  BARN

  Sitting on the rotting floorboards in a one room barn, I wonder as I’m setting up for the night, if the stream below is wide enough for gators. I don’t ask. I hear splashing below and try to focus on eating my turkey and broccoli as the dark night creeps closer. I can’t stop my mind from running away with these scary thoughts.

  “I think the dark forces have me, Tanz.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m scared of alligators.”

  He laughs. “It’s natural to fear alligators. Now get some rest.”

  I keep thinking the gators are coming up from the swamp, smelling us. Maybe they live in the barn too. The sun has gone down and so has my last hope of protection. I feel like a child again, afraid of the dark.

  After dinner I drift off in the creaking barn. Hearing the grunting and hissing sounds of the gators. I dream of dark forces floating in their hypnotic black eyes marching toward us as we sleep.

  Startled awake. “Tanz. Tanz, are you awake?” I ask, sitting up.

  “I find myself to be now.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Shall we work?” he inquires.

  “Yes. Please. I need to think about something else.”

  I hear him shift and a sliver of moonlight catches his laser blue eyes. “I was going to wait until morning but since we’re awake and the dark forces are certainly awake, we best get to work. We are partially blind to their intentions, yes?” He brings up his incomplete blue pulsating equation that hangs in the air, illuminating the room like a nightlight, waiting for the right components to be entered.

  “We don’t know who’s behind this. So let’s begin with what we do know.” He places each bit of information into the blue light equation. It’s instantly absorbed. “When did you turn eighteen?”

  “Less than a week ago…”

  “And when did these changes begin?”

  “Less than a week ago…”

  “They’ve been watching you… waiting…”

  “I feel like my whole life people have been watching me. Teachers in school, parents would look at me in weird ways.”

  “They have. I’m sorry.”

  “Was anything real? Even my nasty relatives at holiday parties?”

  “Well, that was your drunk uncle who pushed your father once. Awkwardness, meanness, cruel judgments are not necessarily the dark forces at work but one’s own conflicted conscience. That’s why Earth is a battleground. Good has not prevailed over evil. And equations without all their pieces are unsolvable riddles.”

  He adds and rearranges segments and they light up, taking shape. “All images past and present are alive. The universe does not know death or time. That’s why memories are often more alive now than they were when they first happened. Their clarity has grown. The moment is isolated.” He looks at the Akashich records again and shakes his head. “It is not there yet must be.”

  “Perhaps they encoded or filed it incorrectly on purpose?”

  “Impossible. Accounting is about known factors, not conjecture. Let’s get back to the list. Known factors often lead to unknown and soon to be known factors.”

  “Like following breadcrumbs,” I say.

  He nods. “Surrogate family, dead. No siblings.” He lists this information like, well, an accountant would. “Dreams of Narican?” I nod. He sprinkles it in.

  “No powers so far but speed. Has begun the transformation and alignment process. Has begun the training in connective meditation, levitation, ESP, war rings, and is growing stronger daily. Eats a healthy diet of turkey and broccoli. Dark forces are growing exponentially. Job infiltrated and is wanted dead.”

  “Yup, let’s not forget that,” I say.

  “We are now on the lam figuring out our next move. Gaining strength. Reconnecting DNA. Taking Iron Core Crystals.”

  “Oh, and that you can hotwire stuff…” I say chiming in.

  He ignores me and stands, analyzing the haze cluster that attempted to rob the old man. He saved me while they gnawed on me. I can still feel the pain in my ribs.

  “There are no permanent cells to scan. Haze forms are too scattered. There’s no substance within a single intent of aggression, confusion, or befuddlement. No root cells, no memories, only murky impulses. Their histories are as murky and obfuscated as their gaseous bodies. We must do better. Narican has already grown dark. The rest of the universe could fall: a moonless night for the gods to be sure.

  “The records were created as a historical database, not to find criminals. I can only access histories. I cannot scan everything. That would take lifetimes. You must help me, Claremone.” His eyes intensify and hypnotize me. I look away.

  “How?” I ask.

  “I cannot scan your life. One picture alone has a million bits of information. I must get closer to the source. You must remember events that stand out.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything.”

  We fall silent with the gators nearby. I try to focus. An owl flies off a rafter above and out a glassless window. “Hooo. Hooo.” It scares me three quarters to death. Water splashes and the swamp sounds close in. I try meditating on events and clear my head but the boards creak under me as I shift, trying to think.

  “Wait, a woman came into the shop and touched my arm. And that tattooed guy came and saw you on line.”

  “Their cells will remember.” Tanz walks over and places his hands on me. The boards creak and bend even more as our weight sinks in place.

  He speaks in measured monotones as blue images play. “They entered your energy field. They received orders… to test you… study you…That is why she touched your arm and he was rude. They were to test you and report back.”

  “To who?” I ask. “Testing me, what did she see?”

  “They were planning to ambush you and take your life…” Tanz plays the image and intention placed in them to kill me in an alley. Watching, I can feel the lifeforce ripped out.

  “That’s comforting,” I say, looking away. “She had orders? Who’s her boss?” I’m getting pissed off now, wanting payback. I’m still alive and will keep being so. Equations jump through the air erasing and rewriting. He calculates, tracking DNA imprints where she spends most of her time.

  He tracks space and time to a warehouse in the textile district and the image of a low-level pain dealer who sells dark forces on the open market. The man is scruffy with a strange bump on his head.

  On the brick building advertisements read, “Will ruin any relationship $500; car steering failure $750; broken bones $1000; any death $5000 and receive a free trip to the Bahamas!” Haze and dark forces surround the building.

  “Looks like a real winner,” I say.

  Tanz sits down. “It’s worse than I thought. Upon our return, we must be careful.”

  “Careful? Now we’re returning?”

  “Yes, we will need you as bait.”

  “Bait? Don’t they want me dead? Didn’t you see that image?” I swallow hard, stomping around, forgetting about the damn creaking boards.

  “Yes. That’s why you’re
the bait. Makes perfect sense, no? We must find this dark force dealer, Qualmsy.”

  “Qualmsy?”

  “Yes, Qualmsy is his name.” Tanz lies back down to rest, satisfied with our progress. The equation waves in blue over him after he sprinkles in this information.

  “82% Complete.” He rolls over and says, “Sweet dreams.”

  “This is not going to help me sleep, Tanz.” I’m not sure which is worse, gators or people wanting to kill me. I lay down on the sleeping bag with a racing mind.

  Tossing and turning, sitting up and laying down, I can feel the bending in the boards soft from years sitting over the creak.

  Restless, I sit up and lie down once more trying to get comfortable when the boards break. I fall five feet into the cold rushing water. Startled, now in the muddy water, the air is black and impenetrable. I see nothing but shadows of moonlight. Hissing and grunting scurry toward me. Black eyes from the bushes creep forward.

  Tanz jumps down. His eyes glow like flashlights but the beasts don’t slow their approach. Out from the bushes the hissing and grunting grow louder.

  There must be ten of them with immense slick and ridged bodies. I hear Tanz inhale deeply then let out a sound that can only be described as half-donkey, half-wolf.

  “Hyyyrrrooo!”

  Unleashing this terrible call works. The gators scurry back into the bushes. He yanks me into the barn and tells me to stay close to the wall. “Joists are stronger there.”

  Shivering, shaking, wet and muddy, I change and crawl into the sleeping bag. “What was that awful noise you made scaring half the swamp?”

  “Oh, that? That was a bloomdiphous. A two headed beast from Narican that puts fear into its prey. I learned the call when I was a boy. Even won some competitions.”

  “Oh, I see… Well you saved my life again. I owe you. Thanks,” I say, warming up and closing my eyes now somehow calmer.

  Drifting off, I hear him say, “You will have your opportunities.”

  RETURNING TO THE CITY

  The next day we ditch the truck in a sea of juniper bushes. At least it’s not a swamp. We jump down from the truck cab. The poor thing has nearly broken down, Tanz beat on it so hard. Smoke pours out of the hood. We walk the last few miles to the city from the outlying woods. Hacking through bushes I ask, “Do you even have a license?”

  “For what?” he responds without a hint of sarcasm.

  I shake my head laughing.

  The last half mile are prickers, muck, trash, and mosquitoes.

  “Why again are we going back?” I ask, seeing the cityscape down below.

  “We are Sun Clan and it is our duty. That does not change with risk.”

  “So we’re soldiers?”

  “Of sorts. We essentially work for the gods.”

  “Soldier gods?”

  “Not quite. The Sun Clan DNA within our cells was placed there by the gods as protectors. We are their last line of defense.”

  “Well, what’s the first?”

  “The people themselves of course.”

  “So, we’re going back to warn them?”

  He stops walking. “People will be frightened if we speak the truth. Truth frightens them.” He grows thoughtful. “Their minds will shut down and they will become violent. History has proven that humans become aggressive when a new idea is shown to them. It challenges their way of being. The new and unknown scares them. It is out of the norm thus violence ensues. We must find this Qualmsy ourselves and deal with him,” he says, and takes up moving again.

  We make it to the tip of the city and inconspicuously stroll along Century Boulevard. I’m happy to be on concrete again. Within the first block we see haze balls floating and shifting in front of stores like drug dealers. There are more than when we left. They grab people coming out of stores with beers and cigarettes, recruiting it seems, as they envelope them. I avert my eyes.

  People walk through and their dispositions change.

  Two blocks down, Tanz spots a middle-aged woman crying with a tissue to her nose sitting on a sidewalk bench on the other side of the road. “Stop.” He puts his hands up, watching this colorful being hover over the woman.

  “Come,” he says and begins crossing the street.

  “I thought we were staying hidden.”

  “We must gather information when it presents itself.” He stops in the middle of the street. Cars honk. “We are all that’s left, Claremone. Do you understand what this means? If we fail, darkness spreads, devouring all that is light.” He continues walking. Several drivers flip him the bird, which he ignores then says, “Concerned citizens,” stepping onto the curb.

  I stand, confused, now several feet behind him up on the sidewalk. “But isn’t that a dark force? What are you doing?”

  “You are wrong. There are others.”

  SPIRIT ANGEL

  We get closer and this floating creature is a woman with flowing sapphire hair imbued with golden highlights. Rainbow colors undulate through her like waves through water. Light permeates. She floats, smiling, enveloping this crying woman as if comforting her. The woman on the bench seems kind with soft eyes and a warmth beneath her sorrow.

  I’ve never sensed such compassion before. We stand within a few feet now. The spirit smiles at the woman, glowing with radiant love without words, while floating above her.

  “That’s what I thought,” Tanz whispers to me. “There is a veil between this world and the Homdin. Humans cannot see these spirits other than out of the corner of their eye as a trick of the light.”

  “Ho… Hom… what?”

  He leans over and whispers, “This colorful woman is not a dark force but a spirit guide hovering and comforting.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Not who, what. Spirit guides watch over this planet yet cannot be revealed.”

  In awe, we watch longer. Her aura glows with the pure intention of love. My body tingles and I feel like a baby in the arms of my mother. I don’t want to leave or move but lay down on the sidewalk to nap.

  “They are evolved beings that gather in the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere. They choose to stay here on this planet and give comfort.” He pulls my arm and we walk a few feet away so as not to disturb her.

  “They are pure energy and intention yet speak no words.”

  “So, in basic terms she’s like a dark force, but a good force?”

  “To overly simplify, yes. The intention of one’s energy creates the colors of one’s aura or energy field. You’re looking dazed at me again.”

  “I’m eighteen, remember? This is all a little beyond me.”

  Tanz shakes his head. “They’re friends yet live by a different set of universal laws.”

  “I didn’t know the universe was so complicated.”

  He furrows his brow and I think rolls his eyes. “You sure you didn’t…?

  “Yes, yes, I must’ve bumped my head. I know.”

  The woman guide hovers over this grieving woman. Her aura shimmers. Colored lights dance through her body like sunlight through stained glass. Her eyes glow soft and warm.

  Tanz grabs my arm, we step closer again. He warns, “We must be cautious; we cannot interrupt her directive from God.”

  “God?” I swallow.

  Tanz nods. “The head of spirits is named God. That’s his name. Spirit God, God of Spirits, Leader. They are a collective. He is their being head and they work from the same impulse as a school of fish. Nature is governed by these electrical impulses that maintain symbiosis. You sure you weren’t hit on the head?”

  “Why do people keep asking me this? I’m eighteen, man, and have pimples. Someone tried to kill me a couple days ago and it seems throughout my entire life!”

  “Right, so pay attention.”

  I shake my head as we get closer and Tanz moves to speak with the spirit lady. She’s surprised and looks up. My guess is no one has ever spoken to her before in this dimension. His forehead pulsates with light. She smiles gently, nodding.
He leans into her energy field and the light of it. Peace comes over his face. “Delightful,” is all he says. His body is next to mine but clearly he is elsewhere.

  He leans back out, touching his heart, and nods. “Thank you,” he says to her in a whisper.

  She nods, returning to the mourning woman.

  Walking away in silence, my heart is happy and full. After another minute and down another block, Tanz says, “She doesn’t understand the increased suffering in the world or know where the dark forces are coming from. She is only certain of love.”

  After another block, Tanz stops. “We must get to the apartments. There are a few things I need. Go to yours and get anything you can’t live without. Then meet me at the Botanical Gardens downtown.”

  “In all this you want to look at flowers?”

  “Angry people do not seek out flowers,” he says, and walks off.

  Over his shoulder I hear, “Meet me in one hour. Speak to no one… look at no one… eyes reveal truth.”

  I nod and take one step then stop. “But what about your equations on the walls?”

  He stops and turns to me, now standing a few feet away. “They live within me. We must find this Qualmsy and deal with his underground network that sells pain and destruction. Speak to no one, and if you see something do not stop.” He steps away then stops again. “There is something unstable about that boy Dino and his sister. You are weak to them. Stay away.” This gives me the chills.

  Upon parting I realize the warmth of the day is baking my shirt and burning my face.

  *

  Something’s wrong in my apartment. I step in and quickly notice the fire escape window is up. The walls have graffiti on them in red paint. My bed is cut up and tossed. Pillow feathers lay on the floor. My desk is knocked over and broken. My laptop gone. A strange symbol is drawn on the wall. I step closer. It matches the tattoo on that guy’s face. I check the apartment making certain no one is hiding to assault me. After what Tanz told me with them wanting to kill me, I can’t be too cautious. I check every door and crevice. Nothing.