Kings of Ghumai- The Complete series Box Set

by D N Meinster

  "It's a shame post birds went extinct," Aros said. "They would have been useful right about now."

  Doren was obviously relieved, though he tried to hide a smile. "Are you sure?"

  "We're in this together until the end," Aros said. "So we've got at least a couple more hours."

  "That's optimistic," Doren replied. "Do you know how to get to the Door from here?"

  "You mean you don't?" Aros asked. "Were you just gonna wander around until you found it?"

  "I figured it'd be hard to miss once I made it to the outskirts."

  "That's pretty much how I plan to get to it," Aros said, grinning at his companion. "Though it'd be nice if we had a flying horse right about now."

  "Speaking of horses, where's Mirabelle?" Doren asked.

  They both spun in place, trying to locate the missing steed. "Rikki's gonna kill us."

  "She probably went back to the castle," Doren guessed. "She's a smart horse. She'll be fine."

  Aros took one final glance at Uterak's body, packing away the guilt that he felt inside and focusing on his next destination. He'd dwell more on his actions after this was over, assuming he survived.

  "We better hope we're not too late," Aros said, and he took off down the barren streets, with Doren keeping pace at his side.

  They left a trail of kicked up sand as they whisked past desolate and crumbling structures, fallen signs, and broken windows. No Outerling crossed their path, nor did any other living soul. They stopped only once, when they encountered a body lying in the middle of the road.

  The armor on the body wasn't pierced, and his skin still retained most of its color. This guardian must have been killed recently, and almost certainly by magic.

  Doren and Aros didn't say a word as they studied the corpse. They twirled around, hoping to find another guardian in the area, but were unable to spot one. One living guardian may have been able to do what neither of them was willing to and return to Castle Tornis. It would have been nice to think that reinforcements might be coming.

  But they were on their own, and they quit lingering and charged ahead once more.

  It didn't take much longer to reach the outskirts, where the barren terrain was all that lie ahead. They took a moment to catch their breaths and aim for the Door in the distance. Aros had been there many times before, almost always looking forward to it because it meant spending time with Leidess. Now he was apprehensive, uncertain of what they would find there. Their best case was that Leidess, Rikki, and only Hatswick would be at the Door. Maybe they stood a chance if the Resurrected were elsewhere.

  But the worst case wasn't that all of the Thalians were there. It was that the Door was already open, and the Beast inside was let out. There was no hope for any of them if that had already occurred.

  Aros and Doren looked into each other's eyes, both uneasy and maybe wishing the other would back out and give them an excuse to turn around. But neither said a word. After a minute, they nodded and headed to their almost certain doom.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Behind Metal Walls

  8 B.N.

  Belliore: the haven that Ghumai's scientists had always dreamed of. It was the youngest of all the kingdoms and often the most isolated. For centuries, those that pursued scientific thought had their experiments restricted, their ideas ridiculed, and their colleagues persecuted. To most of Ghumai's rulers, science was only a method to obtain better weapons. They had no use for intellectual inquiries and punished those that defied their mandates. No other occupation was as universally belittled, and yet the geniuses among men felt obligated to persist.

  After a coordinated purge by the Emperor of Faunli and the King of Kytheras, many of the unruly scientists were evicted to live out their days in Terrastream, though some found refuge on the Twilight Islands. But this was a truly serendipitous event, for the vagrant scientists made deals with numerous Terrastream tribes and took up a piece of land in the north of the realm. They formed their own enclave and invited all scientists to join them in a place where intellectual thought could flourish unimpeded. They named this land Belliore, and it was their kingdom.

  The Bellish claimed a wide swath of land, but they all congregated in one central location: Cortex, the capital city. Cortex was a sprawling metropolis, though nowhere near the size of Kytheras. The Kytherans had expanded their city atop every inch of land they claimed, while the Bellish had left sizeable parts of their territory untouched. Whether this was to better perform experiments or included in their deal with the Streamers was unknown. But the magnitude of Belliore's capital was overtly fixed, made visible by the giant metal walls that surrounded the city.

  Prince Shine had never been to Belliore and was astonished by the height of the dark gray metal that encircled Cortex. It was both an ominous and miraculous sight, and he stood motionless while marveling at the structures that hid the entirety of the capital. There was no construction comparable to them in all of Kytheras. Not even the walls of Faunli could match these enormous barricades. How long had it taken them to build? How had they gotten them so high?

  The tiny convoy resumed moving toward the walls, walking the smooth dirt road that led straight to the city's entrance. Shine was only accompanied by two guardians, who were ordered to tag along by King Aergo. He would have much preferred to travel alone, but the King insisted, fearing for the Prince's safety. Shine didn't need to be protected by guardians. All he needed was a sword, which was personally more assuring than the dolts that were there to watch over him. The only relief was that they were so dimwitted they could barely put two sentences together. It made the journey that much quieter and more of what Shine had originally desired.

  The hilt of the Prince's sword jutted out from his light green robes, which were so delicately woven they were almost transparent. Shine wore his silver hair short, allowing him to display the layers of jewels that hung from his ears. He looked quite like his father, though his skin was a tad lighter and his nose pressed closer to his skull. But his eyes were an exact match, as he had heard repeatedly since he was a child.

  These eyes widened as he neared the walls, though the blemishes in the metal became apparent the closer he got. There were patches of rust here and there, and dings that diminished the sleek appearance that seemed so evident miles away. It was further disheartening to see the creases in the wall, between each metal sheet that had been erected. Despite the flaws, it was still breathtaking to walk in its shadow. They were as high as Castle Tornis, if not taller.

  A sound of grinding metal filled the air, startling the party and causing the guardians to throw themselves in front of Shine to protect him from its possibly dangerous origins. But it was an overreaction, as they learned seconds later. One of the unfeasibly large panels of metal that composed the wall began to separate from its components. This tiny crack in the panels expanded until it was wide enough for one individual to fit through. The outline of a man appeared in the opening and headed toward them while they resumed their approach.

  One-by-one, four additional men squeezed through the opening, lining up beside their associate before Shine could make out their features. They wore distinctive clothing; pastel colored jackets that ran the length of their body with collars rising high behind their necks. However, the man in the center of the five stood out, with a navy blue jacket that was many shades darker than all the others.

  As Shine grew nearer, he could see the man in the dark jacket was completely hairless. There was not an eyebrow or an eyelash to stand out on his pallid face. He didn't blink as he followed the Prince's movement toward him, nor did he show any form of expression. Shine wanted to look away from this man and was suitably distracted by his discovery that one of the men in this row was actually a woman. She had short brown hair and rosy cheeks that he had missed from further away. Shine didn't take his eyes off of her until the man in their center spoke.

  "Prince Shine," the man said, clasping his palms together and bowing his head so that his nose touched
the tip of his fingers. "I am pleased to receive you at our gates."

  Shine gave the man a smile but got none in return. "Thank you for welcoming me to your kingdom. My father, King Aergo, sends his deepest respect and hopes to be working with you again very soon."

  "I, too, wish for that," he replied.

  "Are you their king?" one of the guardians blurted out of turn.

  "The Bellish do not have a king," Shine responded without delay, hoping his companion's ignorance would not offend his greeter. The Bellish were notorious for their low tolerance of stupidity, and they found it as disrespectful as a Streamer felt when one cut down a tree. He wanted to send these armored morons away immediately, the potential for irreparable harm by their uneducated tongues too great.

  "Your prince is correct," the man stated. "I am simply the Project Coordinator of Belliore. You may call me Staut Mair. These at my side are the heads of ongoing assignments." Each took a bow as he announced their names, from Treva Pallis to Katren Dilk. Strangely, he forgot to relay the name of the woman.

  "Honored," Shine said with an almost undetectable bow, his eyes again straying toward the female among them, though she only stared straight ahead.

  "Before we proceed, I must insist that you leave your weapons outside of our walls," Staut said.

  Shine tore the sword from his belt and handed it to one of the guardians. "You two can wait out here."

  "But – " one of them began, but Shine shot him such a malignant look that he instantly cut himself off.

  Staut nodded at the Prince. "Follow me." He turned and started right towards the opening.

  Shine followed, with the rest of the scientists lining up behind him. He could feel his heart beating faster with every step that brought him closer to the wall. But was that because of his proximity to the city or the woman right behind him? He wanted to turn around and get another look at her. What was her name? Why hadn't Staut introduced her?

  He kept his eyes forward, urging himself to only be concerned with what was before him, not behind. No distractions. Belliore was about to come into view. Shine had been anticipating this for seasons. His father had always told him he couldn't explain the magnificence of this kingdom to him; that he'd have to see it himself.

  Shine followed Staut through the narrow crack in the wall and instantly stopped on the other side. He shut and opened his eyes multiple times, unsure what exactly he was witnessing.

  There were protracted, gray buildings in the area, all of them two stories high and shaped exactly the same. They lacked the hanging signs that notified what was inside, instead bearing descriptions of their innards on the windows.

  The streets that crossed between these buildings were composed of solid strips of flat stone, reminiscent of the level surface of the walls surrounding the city. And moving about on these streets were carriages without horses.

  These bizarre carriages had open tops and poles affixed to their backs. The poles had an appearance similar to a ladder that became narrower toward its apex, with the top prong of each one resting on a maze of wires hanging from building to building. It was like an enormous spider had spun a black web atop the entirety of Cortex. As these carriages traveled down the street, their ladders dragged along the wires with them.

  "What – what are they?" Shine spat out. There were people at the front of every carriage, sitting, maybe even guiding the metal beneath them. Some had three wheels, and others had four, but they each had at least one occupant.

  Staut turned toward the Prince. "The pinnacle of Bellish transportation. We call them mechanized carriages."

  "Mechcars," one of the scientists whispered from behind.

  "How do they move without horses?" Shine asked. "Magic?" The only time he had seen an object move on its own, it was the work of a mage.

  "Lightning," Staut answered, his lips forming a scowl.

  "Lightning?" Shine repeated. He gazed upward, unable to locate a single cloud. How exactly was lightning moving these carriages?

  "The power of lightning," Staut said, expecting Shine to understand.

  "I'm sorry my friend, but my father has told me very little of Belliore," Shine notified him.

  "You will see," Staut said before heading onward. "Stay close to the buildings and keep pace with me."

  Shine's elbow brushed against the facade of every structure as he tried to stay out of the way of the mechcars. His eyes followed each one that passed by, absorbing the details, from the wheel in the driver's hand to the doors that were built into the side. They traveled at a constant speed, though their movement seemed limited by the wires they were strung onto. They could only go where the wires went, making the sides of the streets the only safe place to walk. Still, Shine did not want to get too close. He knew what could happen if he walked in front of a horse-drawn carriage and assumed getting in the way of these things would be worse.

  "This is our commercial district," Staut said, though Shine was only partially paying attention. "It is nearest to the city's gates, minimizing the length of transport for bartered goods. I know its name is not as imaginative as some of Kytheras' districts, but we tend to keep our labels as simple and accurate as possible. Like all of Cortex's districts, it is laid out in a grid, the most practical shape for citywide construction and design."

  "Are those wires everywhere?" Shine asked.

  "Yes, they are necessary to transport the power of lightning. There are metal towers atop many of our buildings which made stringing these wires much easier. And they all lead back to the genesis point."

  "Where is that?"

  "The furthest point from the gate," Staut answered. "It will be the last stop on this tour."

  "I'm here for more than a tour," Shine replied.

  "Which can be discussed afterward," Staut said.

  Shine was hoping to get more of a clue from this Project Coordinator, but Staut did not want to share any answers. Shine wasn't even sure of the exact nature of his visit. His father had asked him to go on his behalf to discuss a collaboration with the Bellish, but that was as much information as he had. Why hadn't his father shared more with him? He was usually more open, and Shine would have liked to know the nature of this business. If any negotiations needed to take place, he was at a disadvantage.

  "Are we going to go inside any of these shops?" Shine asked, finally looking away from the mechcars to what was at his other side.

  "Unnecessary," Staut answered. "They are not much different from your shops in Kytheras, though each one has their own clock inside."

  "Really?" Shine said, trying to get a better look through one of the windows. He had only ever seen a clock in Treatis Square.

  Staut stopped and turned around. "Do clocks impress you?" He reached into his jacket, removing a piece of silver jewelry and holding it out for the Prince to see. In the palm of his hand was the face of a clock.

  Shine ogled at it. "Amazing."

  Staut extended it toward the Prince. "Take it. Keep it. There are plenty here."

  Shine reached out and took the timepiece from his hand. "Thank you," Shine said as he examined it from every angle.

  "We have yet to trade any of these because we did not believe there would be an interest. We may have been incorrect," Staut said, glaring at one of the scientists behind the Prince.

  Shine slipped the miniature clock into a pocket in his robes and continued onward, staying in step with Staut. "If you don't mind me asking, who makes those decisions? I know you don't have a king, but do you have a leader?"

  "Technically, we do not," Staut informed. "We leave the politics to your king in Kytheras. We only focus on the science here."

  "But those decisions?"

  "Are made through consensus by those who it concerns," Staut stated. "Bartering is a division with its own project head, just like any other in this kingdom."

  "And you have no central authority? What happens if you can't reach a consensus?"

  "That does not happen," Staut said flatly.


  One of the scientists behind him cleared their throat, either in protest or disbelief. Undoubtedly, Staut was misleading him.

  The tour group reached the edge of the commercial district, leaving behind the unentered shops and gray monoliths. Only the streets and the overhead wires made their way into the next section. Smaller buildings lie ahead: little white boxes in perfectly aligned rows, each bearing a single brown door with a square window on each side. Each house was an exact duplicate of its neighbor, from the patches of grass down to the wiring that was strung from the roofs of each home and across the street. And, as Staut had mentioned earlier, it was all arranged in a perfect grid.

  "This is the residential district," he said. "All of our living arrangements are the exact same. We have no royalty or affluent here."

  "It's like that old Kytheran children's story come to life," Shine stated. "Everything the same."

  "A wondrous idea brought to life by those who do not dwell on societal classifications," Staut said.

  "Yet I recall it was a cautionary tale."

  "Only if you choose to see it that way."

  Shine had always seen it that way. Basing a society on absolute equality might sound enticing, but staring at these houses, he only saw madness in it. "Are we going to go inside?" he asked, hoping to take a look at the amenities the Bellish presented themselves. If it was anything like the mechcars, it could be fantastic.

  "There's not much to see in our homes," Staut answered. "It would be a superfluous detour."

  "But why do they all need the power of lightning?" Shine asked.

  "It is better to show you," Staut said. "And that can be seen at the genesis point."

  The group made their way past the rows of houses, with very few signs of life among them. Their inhabitants likely busy with their assignments during the day, it was a waste to pass them without going inside one. Shine truly wanted to see how the Bellish lived. Staut had such an intriguing personality, unlike many in Kytheras. Was this common here, or was that merely how the Project Coordinator behaved? The scientists behind him were no help getting to the bottom of such a question. If only he could get some time alone with one of them, maybe even the female scientist.