by Greg Dragon
“No,” Rafian said. “I know for a fact that you would not have dealt with it the same way your sister did, Marian. Knowing you, there would not have been a surrendering of your neck for that gang. You would have died trying to kill Mikah and the rest of those kidnappers. A Marian, I’m sorry, I mean a Rienne Laren, would have fought tooth and nail before she would let anyone take her away against her own will. Rhee, we can’t begrudge our past too much because without it we wouldn’t be the people that we are,” he said.
“You’re right,” she said and nodded continuously, as if the motion would force her mind to accept it. “Well, this is different,” she teased. “I’m getting counsel from what sounds to be Rafian the Mera Ku monk, and not Rafian, Supreme Leader of the Phasers.”
“I can be wise when I want to be,” Rafian said with a smile.
“I rather like this version of you,” she said. “You know, I came upon one of your temples on my travels here.”
Rafian sat up suddenly and regarded her darkly. “Which temple?” he asked, and she noticed that his tone was no longer playful or endearing, but cold and dangerous.
“It’s the one temple that you probably thought nobody would ever get access to,” she said.
Rafian raised an eyebrow, “Oh really?” he said, still watching her as if hoping she was only joking.
“I think they call it the navel of the gods,” Marian said. “It was deep in an inaccessible valley, north of Apun. I had flown across a body of water to access the Aria Mountains, but it was there. I used a crystal to get down there since I was desperate and needed to find a way to reach the rebels.”
Rafian stood silent for a time and Marian took the opportunity to get up and walk into the kitchen. She opened the old cupboards and poked around until she found a large red jug. She opened and did a celebratory dance after sniffing it. She brought out two teacups and poured wine into them, then walked back over to the bed. She placed the jug on the ground and handed one of the cups to Rafian.
Rafian was thinking of his time in the temple that Marian had visited. The pilgrimage that he and the other monks took to reach it would take them several long days. The first time he had gone, it was with Lucci, back when he was only a swordsman in training. He had to lie to his friends that he was on a mission, and it had taken them over a month to reach it.
He had undergone the trials there, broke his mind as they would say, and emerged from the temple a master, a brother of the Mera Ku, and a deadly weapon against the Felitians.
To get to the temple, one would have to go through a series of hidden caves, riddled with predators, deep blackness, and bottomless pits. Everything that Rafian was had come from that temple: it was built to only be accessed by his brothers, so hearing of Marian violating its grounds gave him mixed feelings.
It was there that he mastered meditation. It was there that he mastered the sword. And it was there that he had gotten the power that would allow him to defeat Arn Stryker, the then leader of the Jumpers, an organization that he usurped and later renamed as the Phasers.
Marian sat next to him and held his hand as she inhaled the sour aroma. She let it clear her mind from the stress of her sister’s remembrance.
“I don’t know what that temple did to me, Rafian, but something happened as I examined the artifacts and poked around, trying to find out more about you. I remember chairs, lots of chairs, one of which I sat in and received some of your memories.” She then noticed that Rafian seemed tense and concerned with her story, and though he sipped at his wine infrequently, his mind was not there in its entirety.
Something about the temple had caused him to become uneasy. He finished the wine and placed it down on the stone floor. Marian leaned in so that he had to look at her and asked, “Who was Iharia?”
Rafian looked as if his greatest fear had been realized and he placed his head inside of his hands and rubbed it. When he had done this for a time, he sat back up, and then looked at Marian with eyes that were both sad and filled with regret.
“Part of being a Mera Ku monk is an extremely painful process that we are made to suppress,” he said. “We take apprentices…well, we took apprentices back then, but not all who trained were worthy to become masters and transcend. Iharia was in love with me, and I didn’t know this at the time because – well, you know how I was back then. I was completely devoted to the cause, and I accepted no distractions. Part of me knew that she liked me, but I kept it professional between us. She must have thought that this was how I was with everyone, so she kept on trying. I ignored her, and then I met you.
“You managed to get past my iron exterior to find my heart. You set yourself apart to me as something more important than saving this thyping world. Iharia couldn’t handle that, so she took her own life. It angered me, and I was sad that I lost a student I had been training for over a year. She was a good friend. Iharia lent ear to many of my problems, especially since I had no memory of my past back then. She meant a lot to me, but a Mera Ku monk is meant to be stronger mentally than normal people. For her to give up her life force because of an aching heart was beyond disappointing. I thought I’d taught her to be stronger than that.
“I never told you this, but I was hurting, Rhee. I was hurting the night when I slept next to you and woke up and found my true memories. I was hurting a lot, so when opportunity gave me a chance to leave this world and make it possible to consider all of this a dream, I leaped at it. I got us out of here as quickly as possible. When you asked me to come back here to Luca, to check in on friends and loved ones, all I could see was Iharia’s face, and the disappointment in her eyes when she leaped from that precipice and fell broken to the arena.
“It was selfish of me, and I am sorry, Rhee.” Rafian said.
Marian finished her wine, collected the cups and jug, and then walked back into the kitchen where she set them down inside the sink.
“I wonder why it was that I was able to receive your thoughts and no one else’s,” Marian said.
“The way of the Mera Ku is mysterious, Marian. Everything cannot be explained through technology or by conventional means, unfortunately. There is an energy here, a life force that isn’t easily explained by any of us. What we did in those days was to learn how to open our minds and bodies to it. To let it heal us and preserve us. For anyone who would bring our loved ones harm, we learned how to manipulate it to allow us to hurt them. My sword sent home so many souls of the Felitians and it makes no sense how much power we Mera Ku have. The same goes for my master, Lucci. He took out whole armies on the plains of Talula.
“What we had down there in that temple was a school for the galaxy’s elite order of Mera Ku monks. I dare not divulge everything that we did down there since much of it was appalling. It would devastate you to know what your darling husband has done to gain his power. But, we aimed to set things right here in Luca. This is why we did it. We were going to be the ones to remove the Felitians, and we were going to be the ones to amass the troops to do it. Lucci and I started doing that here on Tyhera, but we had an infiltrator,” Rafian said and sat without talking for such a long time that Marian wondered if he would finish. He seemed tired and she reached up and rubbed his bald head.
“Beloved masters fell to this man and I lost a brother. So we hunted this individual down in the palace of Veece, and took back everything from him,” Rafian said.
Marian was confused. “What do you mean everything? What did he have?”
“We took back the training, we took back our love, and … we took back the life force from him,” Rafian replied.
“Seems like we both have a lot of painful memories here, huh?” Marian said.
He looked at her and smiled. “Lots of sweet memories, too, Rhee, not just negative. You received my memory because of our link. It may seem trivial that the rings we wear and the love we feel are personal, but a bigger, much greater energy knows. You are my wife, the woman that I am meant to be with – forever. So my thoughts were the ones that would
find you. Had you been a stranger to the Mera Ku fellowship, that chair would have killed you instantly,” Rafian said as he regarded Marian.
“Wow, well, I guess it’s a good thing that you love me, huh?” Marian teased and stuck her tongue out and Rafian tackled her onto the mattress, happy to end their somber talk.
The wine was strong and they ceased talking in lieu of more delicate methods of communication. It began with deep kisses and caresses that forced them to lay next to one another on the bed. Talula drifted to its highest point as the resistance vanguard spoke at length around a campfire built in what used to be the lobby of Cally’s casino. In the upper rooms of the building, where only a few bedrooms remained intact, a former elite of the Felitian Empire and a Mera Ku monk drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.
About The Author
GREG DRAGON has been a creative writer for several years and has authored on topics of relationship, finance, physical fitness and more through different sources of media. In particular, his online magazine has been a source of much pragmatic information, which has been helpful to many. As a result, his work continues to grow with a large and loyal fan base.
This Florida author brings exciting action and drama to his written work. His storylines keep readers engaged with characters that come to life from the beautiful celestial scenes of science fiction, to the gritty world of urban drama.
See Greg’s author page at gregdragon.com or keep up with his latest books and appearances through email.
The New Phase
Anstractor: Vestalia
Lady Hellgate
Phasers of Anstractor
Blade of The Lucan
Supreme Leader of Anstractor
Knights and Demons Omnibus | Season One
Re-Wired
The Factory
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Chart of Memories
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About The Author