by Jasmine Walt
The same mark recently caught his eye. As he rummages around in his memory, the last piece of the puzzle falls into place. He remembers having seen it on the public statement posted by the king of Ka Surya a few months earlier in the town square. In it, the king had warned the citizens of Ka Surya to prepare for Shaitan’s invasion. To sharpen their swords, clean their weapons, brush up their fighting skills, and keep their spacecrafts in readiness.
“Shaitan is coming,” said the king. “It is just a matter of time.”
They had been asked to prepare for the worst, to be ready to evacuate the planet if necessary, given Shaitan’s track record of razing almost every place he attacked.
Of course! Athira slaps his forehead as it all rushes together. Shaitan is always represented by this symbol, and it closely resembles Yudi’s birthmark.
The evidence is there, but part of him refuses to believe it. Surely this is all a mistake… And yet he has a sinking feeling that Yudi is connected to Shaitan. It is the only way to explain his extraordinary intelligence. He can already feel the pain of the forthcoming separation.
Shaitan had mercifully spared Ka Surya long ago and Athira had become engaged with finding a way to cheer up the young Yudi. He simply replaced one animal with another and got Yudi a white horse and hoped it would renew the vanished companionship of the cub, and distract the boy a little.
It was wishful thinking on his part that the horse turn Yudi into the proverbial knight in shining armour, which would one day take the young boy to safety.
If only it were that simple, he thinks, drawn back to the present.
So the cub slowly fades from Yudi’s memory, and Athira trains Yudi to ride the horse, to look to the horizon, to his future.
Ka Surya, 3000
Yudi, a few days shy of his tenth birthday, is racing his horse. In his mind, he imagines being the hero who will save the world. He approaches the palace walls of Ka Surya. It is one of the biggest hurdles in his mind, one that he has consciously skirted around. On this particular day, however, he is filled with blind confidence; a “challenge the world” feeling blooms in his heart.
With a kick, he urges his steed straight for the walls, and jumps over in one movement. Breathless with excitement, heart thudding in anticipation, he and his horse land inside the palace grounds and tear a path through the bushes growing close to the boundaries. He emerges onto open lawns and, before he is aware of its presence, knocks down a doll, forcing him to rein in his steed.
Alarmed, he dismounts and scurries toward the figure to make sure he has not broken anything. Then another girl runs toward him from the trees. She appears about the same age as him.
She stops, wide-eyed, and asks him in a soft, melodious voice, “Is she dead?”
“Dead? It is alive?”
“Sure, and we were playing hide-’n-seek.” She peers at him through the fringe of hair partially covering her eyes.
“So that’s why she was hiding near the grass next to the bushes.” He points to where his horse had landed and torn a path through the boundary bushes, a hair’s breadth away from her.
Eyes flashing, the girl declares, “You’ve killed her!”
“No, I’ve not!”
They are about to come to blows when the figure on the ground groans. Eyebrows raised in surprise, the two children whip to each other and cease their quarrel long enough to reach her.
“Maya, how are you? Maya!” The girl rests her palm on the brow of the doll-like figure.
“Maya?” Yudi rolls the name around in his mouth.
The other girl glares at him. “That’s her name.”
They stand over the girl on the ground, who is utterly still. While gazing at her, Yudi wonders what to do next.
The injured child sighs, rolls over, opens her eyelids, and groans again. Then she looks straight at Yudi, who is taken aback by the directness of her gaze, and shifts uncomfortably at the eerie light in her green eyes, which consumes him in fierce concentration. The uncanny sixth sense that tingles whenever something unpleasant is going to happen warns him that she has already developed a crush on him. She holds her breath and dissolves into utter stillness. Only her eyes are open, and she continues to look at him, unwavering in her attention.
“Maya. Maya! Are you okay?”
Maya does not reply, and instead, holds out her arms to him.
Despite his many questions, he picks the figure up from the ground and follows the other girl through the gardens into the palace.
They enter a gigantic chamber and Yudi examines the interior, enchanted at the high ceilings, the jewels in the arches, the plush carpets in the colours of the rainbow. He places the girl on a large, soft couch, which is almost as big and as wide as the entire living room floor of his home.
The queen runs out of her rooms to meet them in a furore. She drops onto the couch and pulls the girl to her chest, hugging her and running her hands all over her hair and body to make sure she is not hurt.
“Oh!” The queen looks at the girl who is still standing. “What has happened to her?”
All of a sudden, Yudi understands that he has run into Tiina and Maya, twin princesses, of whom his father has spoken many times.
He folds his hands together in greeting to the queen. “I am Yudi, the royal sword master’s son, at your service.”
“Then you have to curtsy to me, too,” says Tiina. “For one day I will be queen of Ka Surya.”
Her mother laughs. “And so he should, Tiina. But first you should thank this young man for helping your younger sister.”
Yudi smiles, not for the first time noticing how incredibly alike the two girls are. “So, the two of you really are identical twins?”
“Yes, except—”
“Except for the eyes!” he exclaims.
Where Maya has the greenest of eyes, Tiina has soft brown ones that sparkle. His heart skips a beat, and he pales.
The queen notices. “Quick, sit the boy down before he faints.”
To Yudi’s embarrassment, Tiina takes a firm grip on his hands and guides him to the couch. Then, realising that this is his one chance to feel her hands on him, he gives in to the pure pleasure of being fussed over by the various women. He closes his eyes.
When he comes to, it is dark outside, and he wonders how long he slept. He is in a room, on a bed, covered by a feathered quilt. Bright light shines in his eyes and starlight pours through the window. He rises from the bed and pads toward the balcony, from which he can see the ocean crashing far below. It is far enough for him to spy the white tops of the waves, but not hear them.
He looks up at a shooting star as a gentle touch brushes his arm.
Tiina asks, “Awake at last?”
The moonlight plays on her skin. A song from long ago runs in his mind, clouding his senses. With some effort, he snaps out of his reverie. “I must have passed out.”
She laughs. “Is that all you have to say?”
He smiles and holds out his palm, but she hesitates and he nods to reassure her. The breath squeezes out of him as she rests her hand in his. Pure joy of the moment lights her eyes and cheeks. Yudi’s chest tightens with excitement. She’s the one! Never before has he been so sure.
“Wow!”
He teases her, “Wow?”
“Who are you?”
“Your true love.”
He leans forward to kiss her and grins when she melts into him and, stepping forward, he holds her close, so that not even a ray of light can find its way between them. The noise of someone approaching penetrates his consciousness.
Yudi breaks the kiss, though he is still unwilling to part their clasped hands.
She opens her eyes. “It’s Maya, she…”
“…should not learn about this.”
He kisses her smile one more time, then waltzes over the balcony and whistles for his horse, which comes galloping out of the darkness. He vaults over the rail and lands on the back of the steed below. Silhouetted against the moon, she stand
s where he had been just a few moments ago.
Then involuntarily, he gasps as he retraces his steps back from the morning, taking his horse across the lawns, through the bushes, and after a jump over the wall, disappearing into the darkness.
Yudi looks back one last time and can just about make out her profile as she raises her face to the heavens as if in prayer.
Storing the last image of Tiina in his mind, he takes his horse across the palace walls. He rides through the adjoining cluster of palm trees and emerges onto a beach, then heads along the shore, enjoying the warmth of the first rays of the sun. Something has shifted within him, and for the first time, he feels completely alive. Within twenty minutes, he is home.
Athira is pacing the garden outside their house waiting for him. “Where have you been?”
The boy in Yudi is a little scared of his father’s anger, yet somewhere in the previous twenty-four hours he has grown, almost a man in many ways. He merely glances at Athira as he dismounts and leads the horse into a small stable to the right of the garden. In the next stall, his father’s horse looks up, butting him affectionately. Every movement is relaxed as he takes the harness off and pours water into the trough.
In a fine rage now, Athira stomps up to Yudi and shakes him by the shoulder. “Shaitan is about to destroy our planet, and you…you are happy to just groom your horse.”
Yudi catches his father’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Don’t push it, old man.” It is the first time he has spoken to his father as if they were equals.
He releases Yudi and takes a deep breath. “I was worried about you.”
“Worried? What happened?”
“I received a transmission from Pluto.”
Dirt lifts into the air from the horse’s short hair as Yudi continues to rub down the animal, using circular patterns with his brush. “I didn’t know you still kept in touch with those on Pluto. Thought you had left all that behind.”
“Not completely; I am in touch with some of my old buddies. You never know when we may need friends. One of them reached out to warn me.”
“Warn you?”
“Yes. Shaitan is on his way to Ka Surya. They showed me what had become of other planets where he has been already. Tortured and burnt by—”
“Shaitan?” Yudi stands still for a few seconds, then resumes his earlier actions.
“It was just a matter of time. We always knew this was going to happen.”
Yudi throws down his grooming brush and walks around the horse to Athira.
“After destroying Uranus and Neptune, he seemed to have slowed down. I thought he may even have forgotten Ka Surya. No such luck. We must leave.”
“Why, Father? Why not stay and fight?”
Athira puts his arms around his adopted child. “Yudi, you are my son and nothing can change that.” Love and sorrow fill his eyes. “Yet…yet I live with this nameless fear that you will be taken away.”
He sounds once more like the petulant young boy he really is and he snarls, “Nothing will happen to me!”
“What about the birthmark?”
“That doesn’t mean a thing.” He rubs his left hip, where he bears the strange mark that is the bane of himself and his father. “I don’t want to leave!”
Father and son stare at each other in challenge, the same obstinate expression on both faces. “You don’t have a choice, Yudi. Where I go, you follow, at least until you are sixteen.”
Fed up with all this talk, Yudi grabs a bag of oats for the horse. His mind is still full of his earlier meeting with Tiina, and he just wants to keep that sweet feeling close.
“I have a surprise for you, and when you see it, I promise you will feel differently about leaving Ka Surya.”
“Hmm!” Right! Likely story. “You are not going to show me another yoga posture, are you?”
“It’s something you have never seen before. You don’t want to miss this, Yudi, I promise. Come on.” Athira drops the brush and slaps the horse on its rump. “Let’s get some food and water for the journey, shall we?”
A reluctant Yudi drags his feet as he follows his father from the stable. It’s not fair!
They cross the garden before entering the house. Then a thought strikes Athira. “Hold on! You never told me where you were all night.”
Yudi barely pauses in the middle of packing his backpack with essentials. “I was at the palace.”
Athira chokes on the quick sip of water from his bottle. “The palace? What were you doing there? Playing hide-and-seek with the princesses?”
Yudi chuckles. “You could say that!”
“Yudi!”
“Okay, okay! Well it seems…,” he hesitates, “it does seem like I’ve met her.”
“Who?”
“You know who…um…the one…you know!”
“The one?” Confusion pinches his father’s brow, then suddenly his face smoothes as understanding dawns. “Ah! You mean the one! You are too young to know what you want right now, let alone decide about the one. What do you know about the one, anyway?”
“That’s not fair! When did you know?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. But I was much older than you when I met her and had seen the world already.”
“You always said that age has nothing to do with it.”
“When it suits me, yes.”
“You mean when it makes you feel young.”
“You are growing up too fast, Yudi.”
“I can’t wait!” He rolls his eyes.
“And I’m proud of you, too, but we have to leave.”
“Yes. I know. What will you tell the king?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? So we just slip away…?”
“We don’t have much time.”
The words are hardly out of his mouth when the walls of the house shake, sending the pots and pans on the shelves crashing to the floor.
After shipping his bag over his shoulder, Athira springs into action. “I am going to get what we need for the journey.”
“Father!”
He disregards his son and runs up the stairs into his bedroom.
Yudi walks to the window and looks out in time to hear an explosion in the distance. A huge burst of flame rises to the sky near the palace. Open-mouthed, he gawps as the flame becomes a cloud of smoke, then he is shaken out of his reverie by Athira, who runs down the stairs with two swords in protective sheaths.
He throws the smaller one across to Yudi, who secures it on his back with the leather scabbard strap across his chest. The sword is almost as a big as him and is heavy, but he does not complain. Athira mirrors Yudi’s movements, cinching his own sword between his shoulders.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Yudi has not moved from the window. Tiina! As the fire continues to burn in the distance, he tells Athira, “We must get her.”
“Who?”
“I can’t leave without her.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Athira has not even finished speaking when Yudi walks over, and much to the surprise of both of them, strikes Athira on the shoulder.
“Ouch!” Athira gasps more in surprise than pain.
“Don’t say that again!”
Unhappiness tightens his jaw. “Wow. Perhaps it is true love after all.”
“You have no idea. Are you coming?”
“We are so going to regret this!”
They run out of the house, lead their horses out of the stables, and mount them before racing back along the beach, retracing Yudi’s earlier route.
In just a few hours since his last journey to the palace, the scene has changed a great deal. The beach is filled with the bodies of dying human soldiers and the peculiar gooey, messy remains of slaughtered snake-like beings. Shaitan’s attack came from nowhere; even with the king’s warning, few were prepared for battle.
“Ugh!” Yudi shudders as his horse steps over various severed body parts covered in a horrible slimy liquid—blood. “Where did they come from?�
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“Don’t be surprised. There are all manners of creatures in Shaitan’s army and these are just one of them.”
Some of those who are not dead try to attack them, and the two riders pull out their swords, cutting their opponents down. One particularly tenacious creature gets onto the saddle behind Yudi, and he spurs his horse forward, the creature hanging off for almost half a mile before Athira gets close enough to kill it from behind.
Finally, they arrive at the palace and dismount.
Athira shakes the sweat out of his eyes. “This is bad, Yudi! Really bad!”
He does not reply and runs into the palace, passing the bodies of dead guards and wounded maids moaning for help. The corridors and rooms are untouched, as if someone took a sharp blade and let it scratch against the walls all the way through, leaving only a single trail of destruction.
Yudi and Athira follow the line zigzag fashion, cutting diagonally through the rooms and up to the balcony where Yudi stood less than twenty-four hours before. With a sinking heart, he enters. The bed is in complete disarray, but the rest of the room is untouched. Tiina is such a vital presence that her absence sucks all the energy out of the space—the quiet at the centre of the storm.
Yudi’s heart beats fast and then stops. I am too late.
Athira, who had fallen behind, finally bursts into the room and brushes by Yudi. “She is not here.”
Where is she? Had he found her just to lose her so quickly? Her laughter echoes in his ears, fading away until all he can hear is silence. Refusing to accept reality, he squeezes his eyes shut.
Sympathetically, his father squeezes his shoulder. “We must go.”
“And leave her here?” He stands his ground.
An unusual softness eases the edge of his father’s urgent words. “I am sure she escaped. She is too smart to be captured, and you are of no use to her dead.”
“I am no use to myself alive!”
“Get a grip on your emotions. It doesn’t help if you give into your feelings.”
Yudi nods and, with an almost physical effort, pulls himself together. “I will find her.”
“I know you will.” Athira hugs him, then turns around and runs back the same way they came in, pulling Yudi with him.
This time Yudi is hard-pressed to keep pace with his father. On the way out, they encounter three of Shaitan’s soldiers. Before Athira can react, Yudi pulls out his sword and swings, his pent up emotions powering his arm. Within seconds all three are beheaded.