The Mahogany Door

by Mark Boliek

Chapter 27

  The children sat silent; quiet. I stood up, and the only sound besides the crackling fire was the decompression of my leather seat. I walked to the glass doors at the back of Warhead Dale again. I gazed out at the flashes of lightning and listened to the boom of thunder. The light from the fire smacked and licked against the walls whirling a trance filled dance. As I believed that the children thought of a gruesome battle between Triton and Godwin, the real images of the horror of war twirled about in my mind and I felt sick to my stomach.

  I hoped with all of my heart that these children of twelve years realized that their desire earlier in pretending to shoot each other and die on the floor was an insane and despicable act in my opinion. No one should ever have to endure such pain and suffering, or be patronized for it.

  “Have you finished imagining the glory of war?” I stated and turned back toward the kids that were still circled around my big, black leather chair. I tried to jeer them with a little sarcasm.

  I’m not sure if they were horrified by the images of the battle they thought up in their minds or my insisting that acting out the brutality and finality of death by violence was disrespectful to the many that had made that ultimate sacrifice; either way, they looked at me with empty faces. In unison, the children nodded their heads as to tell me that they had imagined their battle, but they were ashamed of it. I really hoped they had learned a lesson. My listeners were exceptional people.

  “Well then,” I began, “the war raged most of the afternoon. I guess I don’t need to tell you that there was a lot of death and injuries during the most intense parts of the battle. Both sides, Triton and Godwin, lost many brave men.”

  Though the Godwin side did make some advances on Triton, the battle had not turned their way.

  JT slashed his way through as many Triton soldiers as he could, but he was becoming very tired. Kali had stayed behind him most of the time, and JT was glad that she finally had taken a little heed at what he had asked of her and remained safe. The closer she stayed by him, the better he felt.

  Michael had become a man in the battle. He led numerous charges through the Triton lines, but near the end of the battle, he and his Godwin army were very low; on energy, and especially low on men.

  As the combat waned, Michael met JT and Kali in the middle of the mêlée and they were exhausted.

  ‘I’m sorry JT,’ Michael began as he lodged his sword into a passing Triton soldier. ‘My cause has faded brilliantly.’

  JT still fought with all of his might, but no matter what maneuvers or tactics he tried, the Triton soldiers with their curved, silver blades kept coming in droves. Wave after wave the battle seemed to never stop. JT, though he didn’t want to admit it, felt that for Godwin the battle would be lost. He almost decided to quit fighting, let a Triton soldier take his life and just let Bruinduer collapse. What would it matter if the Vryheid world was destroyed, ripping time and space like his grandfather suggested might happen and he didn’t exist anymore anyway? He would be dead.

  JT stopped his slaughter and panned across the blood swept battlefield the best he could. Sweat bounced from his brow and his breath became long and slow. The killing fields were ripe. He glanced back at Kali who continued to battle the best she could, but the Triton guards became unbearable.

  He looked across the battlefield and saw Charlie with a bright and wide smile. He knew he was going to defeat JT, Michael, Godwin, and especially his will over Billy.

  JT shook his head and dropped his sword by his side. All was lost. He then saw Michael fall from his horse in pain to the hard, hot, dry desert sand.

  ‘No!’ screamed JT and leapt from Joshua. Joshua bucked on his hind legs and fought off Triton soldiers still battling their way toward JT and Michael.

  Kali noticed what was happening to Michael and jumped from Gabriel and ran toward her friends.

  As JT ran toward Michael, reaching for him, he felt a blow to his back. It felt as though a brick wall had toppled on him. When he hit the sand face first, a bowl full of sand shoveled into his mouth choking him. The desert went black, but in an instant after opening his eyes, there was light, and he was in Bruinduer alone face down in an empty desert.

  Everything was still. He felt no pain and no war raged. There were no bodies flying to the ground around him; no screams of pain; and no clanging of swords. It was just him and a slight breeze shifting the air.

  ‘Am I dead?’ JT asked himself as he scanned around the desert floor of Bruinduer.

  After a few moments and sand clearing breaths, he gathered his wits and climbed to his knees. After another brief rest, he rose to his feet. A strange thought danced through his mind, ‘what now?’

  JT placed his hand to his forehead shielding the sun from his eyes searching the desert around him in hopes that someone or something might find him and take him to whatever afterlife or to anything that might await him if it was true that he had died. A few seconds later, his wish came true.

  He peeled his head back to the sky in response to a deafening screech and discovered the sound came from a very familiar bird. The animal swooped down from the brilliant sun’s rays and landed ten feet in front of him. It was the same bird he had seen right before the battle and also perched on his windowsill in the Godwin Castle that morning.

  It tiptoed around the golden hot sand, its head bobbing back and forth like most birds do; blinking its eyes and pecking the air. Then something happened to the bird. It turned into a heap of a blob and it began to morph into something else. It started to shrink. In another instant, the blob rounded itself into a little, fat, brown rat; the same rat that had found its way down the metal wire JT hung from in the dark dungeon of Triton and chewed its way through the cutting rope that imprisoned him. The little rat scurried in circles in front of JT and then began to change again. This time the blob grew. It grew taller and taller and started to form into a long cylinder. In another second the long cylinder changed into someone he thought he would never see again. Standing in front of him, was the little annoying, blonde-haired, dirty T-shirt, overhaul wearing, barefooted Willy.

  ‘Hello boy,’ muttered Willy in the same annoying twangy voice JT remembered in the horse barn on the farm a few days ago which in some way seemed like a lifetime ago.

  ‘You,’ said JT. ‘You finally decided to show up.’ He shook his head. ‘A little late though, don’t you think?’

  ‘Sometimes things aren’t quite always what they seem,’ Willy said, his voice turning hollow and becoming deeper.

  ‘How so? I thought you were supposed to be our guide in Bruinduer, and from my understanding, I thought you were the all powerful being here. This stuff should be easy for you.’ JT’s thoughts were frustrated. ‘Haven’t we had this discussion?’

  ‘We have, and it is easy,’ began Willy, his voice was the deep, growling, booming sound that JT remembered coming from the deep, dark eyes in his dreams. ‘Like I said, I need people to believe in me.’

  ‘I do believe in you,’ retorted JT, his frustration turned to pleading.

  ‘I think you do believe in me, JT. That’s why I answered you in that dungeon, and that’s why I am answering you now,’ stated the Essence.

  ‘I didn’t call for you,’ JT answered.

  ‘Yes, that may be technically true, but I felt that you could use my help anyway.’ Willy smiled and nodded enthusiastically. ‘But you know, there is another one out there that believes in me. I just think they are having a hard time realizing it.’

  ‘Who, Kali? I don’t know who you’re fooling, she is –’ JT started but Willy interrupted him.

  ‘Kali girl has her own issues of denial she needs to deal with on her own. I think she believes in this but...’ Willy paused and caught himself wandering to another subject. ‘But this isn’t about her. This is about someone else.’

  ‘I guess you mean Michael,’ said JT. ‘You really think he believes in you? From what I heard he doesn’t want to believe.’ JT shook his head.

&nb
sp; ‘I saved you and Kali from the desert when you first came through the Mahogany Door,’ Willy stated; his eyes beaming. ‘But I didn’t do it by myself.’

  JT thought back. ‘What are you talking about? Michael sent Atal out to retrieve us. He told Charlie that we thought that you had saved us because he didn’t want Charlie to think that he had betrayed...’ JT thought about the dinner in Triton with Charlie. Michael’s arm shook so bad he spilt his water, and when his arm shook it was a telltale sign of his deception. ‘He was lying. It was you that saved us from the desert,’ JT snickered. ‘He asked you to save us, didn’t he?’

  Willy stood smiling and shuffled the sand with his right foot. ‘You know, I know you think he hadn’t cared about you the whole time you’ve been here in Bruinduer. You have thought that he had only a lust for power and control.’ Willy nodded. ‘I think he did in the beginning, but in the three years he has spent here building and structuring his kingdom, and trying to live his good life, all he has really wanted in the end is his friends. That’s his true destiny.

  He is confused and has lost his focus.’

  JT felt his heart sink. ‘I guess you’re going to tell me then that you’re actually...’

  Willy stopped shuffling his foot, and looked up at JT. He began to morph once again. Willy shifted into a great ball of shiny liquid and then protruded into a larger cylindrical shape. It grew taller than before. The top of the cylinder began to morph into the round shape of a head and JT noticed that the bottom of the liquid sphere began to sprout the wiry, bushy hairs of a scruffy, black beard. A crisp, white turban then popped on top of the newly formed man’s top before him. It was Atal Leer.

  ‘There are others, too,’ said Atal with an amusing, light voice. JT’s jaw dropped in amazement. ‘You told Charlie that he had probably heard people in his kingdom talk about me; heard the name of Kawaida. You’ve heard it from a few people yourself. Well, they have and they are there, waiting. They are waiting to hear the name come from their leaders. They want to know that those who lead believe like they do.’ Atal placed his hand on JT’s shoulder.

  JT felt calm wash over him. He had always felt safe with Atal, but then realized that he had always felt safe with Billy. The Essence may have gotten under his skin, he may not have liked everything that he had done, but he truly knew that the great protector of Bruinduer cared. He wanted to be needed.

  ‘I’m curious,’ JT stated. He had a knack for asking questions by this time in the adventure, but he didn’t feel conscious about it anymore. ‘Is there a meaning to the name, Kawaida?’

  Atal chuckled. ‘I never understood why my favorite people couldn’t pronounce the name. But, yes it does. Kawaida is a shortened name for Kawaida-ume-fahamu. No matter what shape you may make for this world by being the first through the Mahogany Door, that name will never change and it is always revealed in time; even to the most skeptical. I am known by many names, including Billy, but Kawaida was the ancient name passed to me by the Vryheid. It means something that I hope you may do from now on, “always remember me.”’

  JT felt ashamed. Billy had kept repeating to them that he, Kali, and Michael had forgotten about him.

  ‘Oh,’ Atal spoke up again, this time placing his hand down to his side, ‘I, as the leader of the Bronze Brigade of Godwin, never go over to Triton for only one reason.’ He straightened his white turban and jerked his blue silk jacket down over his waist. ‘I have never been asked.’

  JT woke suddenly face down in hot, blood tainted sand. He was back in Bruinduer, the war raging around him once again.

  It took a few seconds, but JT regained his senses and spit sand from his mouth. He then saw Michael lying on the hard, unforgiving desert floor. He panned up to see a Triton guard charging toward the young king, sword flashing ready to strike. The hardened Triton soldier screamed a horrible bloody roar as he brought the sword from over his head down to finish Michael.

  JT quickly scrambled to his feet and found traction in the bitter pebbles. He rushed toward the violent scene and as the Triton guard was just about to make his kill, JT tackled the brute to the ground. He stole the weapon from the guard’s hand and thrust it into his belly.

  JT then felt an awful burning sensation dart up his arm. He turned only to discover that a Triton guard, young and strong, had slashed him just below his elbow. JT faced his would-be executioner grasping his arm as a stream of blood trickled to the sand from the wound.

  The guard hesitated. For a split second it dawned on the soldier that he knew that he was about to kill one of Godwin’s leaders. His eyes became wide with angered excitement and JT saw adrenaline rush through his enemy’s veins, ripping from his arms and forehead. JT forgot about the pain in his arm and attempted to dislodge the sword from the belly of the guard he had just killed, but the blood from his wounded arm covered his hands and he could not gain a grip on the handle.

  The Triton guard screamed a mad, wild yell and thrust toward JT with his sword. JT closed his eyes. He knew the end was here. He had made a mistake in plunging the sword too deep into his victim, and now he was about to pay for it. He braced for the unyielding blade to rip his skin, but the scream of the would-be killer suddenly stopped, and wind rustled through JT’s hair.

  He opened his eyes and the Triton guard was laying flat on the ground, his sword piercing out of the sand only inches away from JT. Another sword waved back and forth in the breeze jutting out of the attacking guard’s chest.

  ‘You owe me one,’ rang out from behind JT. ‘But don’t think this hasn’t been the first time.’ It was Kali. ‘That’s a nasty cut you got there.’ She hunched down beside JT, ripped a piece of cloth from her shirt, and wrapped the wound tightly.

  JT felt electricity shoot through his body and he wanted to kiss her again greatly, but then remembered what he had to do. Somehow he needed Billy to show up again, this time outside of his dreams.

  He sprinted to Michael who was lying on the ground slipping in and out of consciousness groaning in obvious pain. JT gently grabbed the back of his head and sat him up. ‘Michael, you’ve got to wake up!’ JT screamed. ‘Billy is here. He needs you. He needs us. Call for him. We’re all dying here.’ Michael only groaned and slobbered.

  JT looked up and caught a glimpse of Charlie, a few other Triton guards, and Tickler. Charlie started to laugh and pointed at JT. He then turned on his great beast of a horse and galloped toward the giant Pyramid of Triton away from the battle.

  The entire Triton army began surrounding the rest of the Godwin soldiers. White Godwin flags lay dirty and tattered on the ground stained in dried blood. Bodies strung across the Bruinduer desert floor gaping and heaving their last moments of life. The Triton guards were rejuvenated even though they too had lost a number of soldiers, but still easily outnumbered the Godwin force. They began to move in; beginning their suffocation. The sound of metal swords clanged in the bright, falling desert sun.

  JT screamed again at Michael and his eyes began to burn with hopeless tears. Kali stood silent. That was it. Their hands were empty of weapons and their energy was simply and completely gone. They prepared to die.

  Then it happened.

  Michael coughed up a slurry of phlegm, and in the bubbles he began to mutter, ‘Kawaida... ume... fahamu.’ His breath became stronger with each passing syllable and his eyes gingerly opened. He said the word again, this time with feeling; deep, remorseful, and thankful, ‘Kawaida... ume... fahamu!’

  JT blinked at Michael and smiled. Shortly after, a song began to rise from the desert sands. The soldiers of Godwin and its subjects that had taken up arms against Triton began to sing. They sang the name of their Essence in a joyous, bright, waving tune. They sang to the being they knew would rescue them.

  ‘Kawaida-ume-fahamu!’ Rose and sank with a growing crescendo. Its effervescent notes danced across the forming clouds that overcast the sun. ‘Kawaida-ume-fahamu!’

  The Triton guards halted their advance and looked dumbfounded to the sky. Their
red flags ripped the air as the wind blew harder. Small white clouds circled above the clashing armies and then almost instantly the gathered puffs transformed into menacing black balls of expanding vapor. A pause lingered as the ominous clouds rolled over Bruinduer. Suddenly a tremendous, ‘BOOM!’ echoed through the desert.

  A collective gasp came from the Triton army and the song of the Essence’s name filled the air from over the Godwin Castle. ‘Kawaida-ume-fahamu!’

  Michael sat up on his knees and Kali rushed beside them and grabbed onto JT. Everyone including the Triton army turned toward Godwin.

  Standing atop the dunes at the foot of the castle’s mount just before the desert on a brilliant, white horse that gently kicked the sand beneath it, was Atal Leer. He wore no armor, just his blue silk jacket, knickers, and boots. In contrast to the dark clouds that blanketed the sky behind him, the warrior glowed. In his left hand he gripped the pole of a Godwin white flag blistering in the breeze, and in his right, he held the reins of the magnificent white beast. By his side there dangled an unsheathed, ornate golden sword.

  With one gentle push from the horse’s hind legs, Atal began to charge down the dune. Just as he reached the bottom crest of the dune, the sands from above were engulfed with thousands of soldiers donned in white armor charging on agile horses.

  It was an army JT had never seen before. The soldiers were not from Godwin and were no doubt conjured by Billy. He could barely make them out, because the storm of their power moved very fast and their white shells of armor radiated with light. The silver, double-bladed swords they possessed were held high in the air over their heads ready to strike.

  It was only a matter of moments before Atal’s army of glowing knights was on top of the battle that once raged between Godwin and Triton in the middle of the Desert of Share.

  Once Atal and his horse reached the Triton frontline and passed JT, Kali, and Michael, he stabbed the Godwin flag’s pole into the ground and tore the sword from his side striking hard on a Triton guard and cutting him in half. The army of white knights and Atal Leer raced upon the astonished Triton army and blanketed them with a fury and justice only witnessed by few. They cut through the Triton legions one by one with extreme prejudice. Then, with what seemed like a blink, the battle was finished. The Triton army was demolished and was no more. Silence reigned again.”

  The children in Warhead Dale looked upon me from their rug with petrified, astonished faces. Their eyes were blank and their jaws were dropped. I waited for the scene to sink in for a moment, and then continued.

  “JT looked just as you do,” I started. “He saw Atal and his glowing white riders decimate the enemy with reckless abandon and his eyes were fixated at the carnage, but his mood was strange.” The children leaned in closer than they had the entire day. Their expressions hung on my every word.

  “JT felt empty. He had never witnessed such destruction in one single instant that he could remember. It was as if someone cut down a tree. The tree is standing magnificent one moment and in the next moment it is lying on the ground; its life taken in one resounding swoop.

  JT panned over to Kali whose hand was covering her mouth and then to Michael who was reacting very differently. His hand was clutched in a fist and pumped in the air.

  ‘We win!’ he yelled. ‘That was awesome!’

  JT stood motionless and silent and just as quickly as the white riders cut their way through the Triton army, Atal now stood beside the trio and the glowing white riders vanished, their demeanor stoic and confident as they turned into mist.

  ‘This is not over,’ said Atal to Michael in a commanding but soothing voice. ‘You still have work to do. Your destiny must be fulfilled.’

  Kali and Michael concluded, and JT already knew that Atal was really Billy in disguise. From the beginning of their adventure, he had been watching over them, and though his three favorite people may have lost their belief in him, only now finding it, he had never lost his belief in them.

  JT thought about everything that had transpired before that moment, and it was very difficult for him to comprehend. It seemed as though this adventure had begun a lifetime ago. So many feelings, so many memories had transpired that that lifetime melted away into just a speck of time. Just days before, he was lying in his bed at the farm looking at the ceiling, wondering what path his life might take. Now he stood in a foreign desert wondering the exact same thing. After all that had happened, what next? Where did he go from here?

  He thought about Gregory, Louise, George, and Gracie and what a wonderful idea it might have been that he was still on the farm, sheltered from the events that he had endured, but he knew that it was too late for that. Returning to that same innocence would never be an option for him now.

  His thoughts drifted to his grandfather and when he met him in his dreams. He then thought about Billy and what his grandfather told him right before he went through the Mahogany Door. His grandfather told him that Billy would have all the answers, so why not ask him the questions?

  Michael still had to fulfill his destiny, but to take the next step in that, he didn’t need to fulfill his lifelong destiny. All he needed now was to finish what the BEC had begun nine years ago.

  ‘The diamond, we get the diamond now, right?’ JT asked Atal as he placed his arm on Michael’s shoulder. Michael nearly jumped out of his skin.

  ‘But, why can’t you just go get it Atal? This is over. There’s nothing more,’ Michael whimpered.

  ‘Not true –,’ stated JT.

  ‘Charlie escaped,’ Kali interrupted JT. ‘I saw him gallop off toward Triton. He took some other soldiers with him and Tickler.’

  ‘Why can’t you just go destroy them like you destroyed the Triton army?’ Michael asked Atal, his voice trembling.

  ‘Because I am finished and you must fulfill your own destiny,’ Atal said with a deep, concerning look. He then took Michael’s shoulder and turned it toward the battlefield. ‘Look at what has happened here. This is not a time to rejoice a victory, but a time to reflect. Do you really want to see more bloodshed? This type of destruction will not help you.’

  Michael peered over the battlefield and immediately dropped his head. He was visibly disturbed by the sight of the death before him.

  ‘The people of Bruinduer are people,’ Atal stated. ‘They have feelings, and their feelings should not percolate joy within you, but yield respect. To give one’s life for another in order to preserve someone else’s freedom, is the greatest gift that anyone could give or receive. These people that are lying face in the sand have made that sacrifice. There will be no more blood on this field today. Your destiny can only be determined by you. I, keeping with my mandate, have made it possible for you to proceed.’

  Atal whistled in the air, and his horse with its beaming eyes and its beautiful silky, white coat stopped beside him and kicked up dust. ‘This will end soon,’ he stated, leapt onto his mount, and galloped toward Godwin. It was but just a few dozen yards, and he vanished into mist. JT, Michael, and Kali heard only two words from the wavering vapor, ‘Now go.’”