Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe

by Cynthia Joyce Clay

  "Goddess, I beseech thee speak of who thou art!" softly chanted Neighteeha.

  "I am the Maid! Goddess, I beseech thee, who art thou?" quietly returned the Bright Noon Priestess.

  Neighteeha answered, "I am the Matron!"

  The two of them turned to me. The holograph was still intoning the List of Zitam, which seemed to make an ideal counterpoint to our ritual.

  The two women chanted, "Goddess we beseech thee, who art thou?"

  At this point, uncannily the glowing image of the ancient philosopher delivered my name as entered on the List. I winced and then felt a fire of energy flaming in my gut where once I had the cold weight of a stone.

  The Woods Deep Priestess and the Bright Noon, chanted, "She is the Crone, our divinity encompasses all! We call upon one brother to hear our calling and do as the Light and Love does bid! Erase this vile List, set the zitam free. May no tongue, no thought, no heart ever nurture that abominable word again! So we have Spoken! So let it be!"

  As they spoke, I saw in my mind's eye a piece of paper laid on a table burst into flame. I saw a hand let go of a paper that was erupting into flame. I saw flames licking out of a filing cabinet drawer. All of this occurred in rapid succession. I smelled smoke, and I felt something hot along side my leg. My pack was on fire! I threw it down and the three of us stamped the fire out without letting go of the wand. The pack was now a heap of cinders.

  Neighteeha looked at me penetratingly, and said, "Thy Letter of List was in that pack, was it not?"

  I stared at her solemnly and gave a quick, tiny nod.

  The crystals of the wand gleamed brightly for several moments; then, they flickered. The Holograph stopped speaking for a moment.

  "Pardon me, I seem to have forgotten what I was saying," it said. "Let me think. Maybe it will come back to me. Hmmm. No, I cannot remember. It is quite, quite gone, whatever it was I was saying. That information has been lost."

  We smiled at each other, barely able to contain our euphoria. Neighteeha kept the transporter asking permission with a look that I answered with a nod.

  "Let me check that it is erased for sure," said the Bright Noon Priestess, "Sir, can you tell us about the List?"

  "The grocery list? The list of great attacks? What list do you want?" asked the ghostly philosopher.

  "The one you were just reciting."

  "I recited nothing."

  Neighteeha was looking tense, "Methinks it's time for us to make our separate exits."

  We did so, and I saw we were being pursued by guards. They were catching up to Neighteeha, and she ran. I scurried off in the opposite direction. I heard shouts in the opposite direction of "Catch that blue robed priestess; it's a zitam!"

  How did they know who I was? Had that one guard who had kept following me around somehow known who I was? Each room and hall did have cameras; perhaps it was as simple as seeing me on the monitor and checking the Zitam List for a picture. I felt a sudden, bitter chill go through me.

  "Zitam! Zitam!"

  "Which blue robed one is the zitam!"

  "Find the Zitam! Catch it! Catch it!"

  “The one with the mask!"

  "They are all wearing masks!"

  I escaped the awful voices by rounding enough corners. Oh Forests, I had to get out of here! But what about Neighteeha and all the other Holy Folk who were helping me? I was gasping for breath out of terror and exertion. Somebody grabbed me and whirled me around. I cried out at the pain of the grip on my arm and at the shock. My personal nemesis had me. Hate smoldered in his eyes.

  "My wife showed me a picture of you," he said.

  My captor did not let go of my arm. He propelled me towards and onto an elevator. The elevator shot downwards. When the doors opened, I had one of the most awful surprises of my life. Professor Raiboothnar stood awaiting us.

  "Priestess, I believe you and my wife have met."

  "One day I will set a torch to that Forest Zollocco; then, you will never be able to hide in it again," said Raiboothnar.

  I remained mute.

  "Wife, I am under orders to put all garbed Holy Folk in detention cells. So, even I must snatch your zitam from you."

  "Go along with you then, husband. It is just too bad that you can't lock up all of the other holy ones also."

  "We can't be sure who they are when they don't wear their ritual garments. The public relations we are so carefully trying to control would fall into chaos if we arrested seemingly innocent visitors. Is there anything you can salvage from the loss of this zitam to the holy orders, wife?"

  "Yes, there is," Raiboothnar said in a way that sounded darkly crazy. She rubbed her hands. White, round scars dotted her hands and wrists. Were the scars up her arms and her legs, I wondered thinking of how the vipers rained upon us and bit her when we struggled for the university transporter. Her clothing hid the scars if they were up her arms and legs. She wore her customary thick white make-up, so whether there were the little scars on her face I didn't know. Had the trauma and the poison combined to make her insane?

  "Oh, wife? What?"

  Raiboothnar's disturbingly insane look in her eyes deepened when she answered: "Revenge."

  I was taken to the detention room. About thirty priests and priestesses were cooped up in the huge cell. The Healing Night members did not look too pleased. All of the Holy Folk gathered in a circle around me. Neighteeha walked up to me. She had a red splotch on her cheek. I pointed to it in a questioning manner.

  She answered, "When the guard ripped the mask from off my face and saw I wasn't thee, he lost his temper and slapped me. Then he ran in pursuit of thee. I feared his rage might cause him to harm thee. I'm glad to see thou art unharmed."

  Neighteeha removed the green hood from my head to reveal my face, "Sisters, Brothers, is this the face; the woman you envisioned in your dreams?"

  I pivoted so everyone could see me clearly. Nods, murmurs, gestures affirmed that each and every one of them had dreamed of me.

  "Surely sister, thou hast a reason to give wherefore thou visited us in our dreams and urged us to come and disrupt this spacecraft," a short-necked, small-eyed member of the Healing Night complained.

  The bland looking Bright Noon priest who had approached me when I first arrived on the craft spoke up incensed, "Obviously she is under a vow of silence and so the dreams did double work; first, to contact as many Holy Folk as possible all at once, and second, to communicate with us without violating her vow. As to the particulars of what must needs be done here, we explained to thee when thou didst arrive."

  Suspiciously squinting so that his small eyes became even smaller, the short-necked Healing Night priest retorted, "Thou explained why thou art here. Did thou succeed in erasing the Zitam List?"

  "Indeed, I did!" And the happy mischievous fire sparkled in the Bright Noon priest's otherwise bland face.

  Sticking his head as far forward as his short neck allowed, the Healing Night Priest complained, "And what other mischief dost thou plan to wreak under the guise of Forest sanctity?"

  "Healing Night brother," softly spoke the much haired Wild Rain Priest. He had also been among the ones to come up to me on my arrival on the craft. "I did see the Zitam Zoo, and as thou wilt admit, it is the purpose of my sect to work among the beasts and preserve their welfare as well to lend their abilities to the needs of humanity--"

  The short necked Priest pulled his head back to its normal position, but continued to squint his eyes suspiciously, "And didst thou see, Brother Wild Rain, any suffering, any mistreatment of the alien beasts?"

  "Yes Brother! I did! The beasts were angry at being denied their natural habitats. More than one was pining away at the lack of freedom--- "

  "What thou dost say dost not mean we should have erased the List," interrupted a grim faced Bright Noon priestess.

  "I repeat, I have seen these zitam, and yes they do, indeed,

  suffer," said the Wild Rain Priest tucking his ungloved fury hand under his opposite arm.

&nb
sp; "How could the beasts do otherwise?" the small-eyed Healing Night Priest snorted, shuffling his weight from foot to foot in his aggravation. In his hostility, he squinted his small eyes so tightly they looked like slits. He continued to lance at the Wild Rain Priest with his words, "They have been taken from their universes by some strange warp of physics, that no one, no one understands. Of course they suffer, but the Toelakhan did not purposely take them; they couldn't; they don't know how to create the warp. Of course, the Toelakhan sell them. That is what the Toelakhan do. The Toelakhan keep them clean and fed, which for the Toelakhan is an improvement. Why are we here? To interfere with the Toelakhan when they are at last showing some social responsibility?"

  There was agreement with this statement.

  "The beasts are sold to owners who use the beasts as measures of wealth and prestige. What one among us does not know this to be wrong?" cried out the Wild Rain Priest.

  A fellow priestess of his spoke up, voicing the values the Wild Rain Sect holds, "Places must be found for each and every zitam where they will be able to exist within an ecosystem of Imenkapur in true harmony with their zitam natures and in harmony with the Imenkapurn ecosystem. Although this is difficult and takes a long time to find the planets suitable, it can be done. We have done it with a few species already."

  "We esteem your knowledge and work, Wild Rain, but this priestess," and here the small-eyed Healing Night priest jutted his chin forward and thrust his index finger at me, "has incited us to act against the Toelakhan in a destructive rather than constructive way."

  "This is true, priestess," said the Wild Rain Priest looking at me. The skinny and very hairy Wild Rain Priest tucked his ungloved and hairy hand under the opposite arm, patiently waiting for my defense.

  "Now thou dost see why I do question this silence of a priestess who wears the robe of an order other than her own," said the grim faced Bright Noon priestess. I thought unkindly that her bony features were so sharp that she looked like she was regularly placed in a pencil sharpener. Most everyone was looking at me with some measure of disapproval. I felt my eyes filling with tears, a lump clumping in my throat. I had not incited them to anything. Or had I? I did have some busy dreams in Oasis but I didn't remember much of their content, only the busyness. But this was crazy! They had all chosen to do what they had done.

  Neighteeha spoke, "Holy Folk, certainly we were prompted to action by our dreams, but we chose to carry out the action. I knew this Priestess before either she or I was a Priestess. You can rely on my word if you refuse to rely on her silence. We acted because we all knew that the Toelakhan do something worse with this zitam trade than you wish to remember. The Toelakhan have taken humans as zitam. They sell slaves!"

  "That in only a rumor!"

  At this, the slightly disheveled Bright Noon priestess who had questioned the philosopher hologram for me stepped forward. She was now wearing her yellow sash and her carriage was erect and dignified.

  She spoke up firmly, "No it is not! See me! I put on my Sash after I arrived on this craft, after I met this mute priestess. I did not agree to rash action, so I did not wear my Sash. But I did hear the hologram list this woman, this priestess of the Blue Dawn, as a zitam! And so I put on my Sash! Yes, I took part in this disruption as ye may call it, and I dare to be proud of my part!"

  "The Hologram Listed this priestess? Thou must be wrong. That can't be. Surely, thou art mistaken!" the buzz of disbelief reverberated against the smooth walls of the cell.

  "Our captors come; let them not see us in such discord!" cautioned the lanky and hairy Wild Rain Priest.

  Several men and women in gray uniform came up to the cell's bars. One of them unlocked the door, and Raiboothnar, who had stood in the midst of the gray formation, stepped into the cell to survey us.

  "There is the zitam. Put the beast with the other zitam."

  I was grabbed and the green robe ripped from my shoulders. I was then forcibly ousted from the cell. The Holy Folk were too stunned to speak.

  After a long moment, the Wild Rain Priest jerked forward, "Thou must not do this to this woman. Many of those beasts in that zoo are predators. She will be torn apart."

  Raiboothnar enjoyed answering, "Is not that the natural order of the Forests? That the wild beasts establish and maintain their chosen food chain? Surely this once we can give the zitam predators the treat of warm flesh, instead of sating them with canned food."

  I was dragged away. The Holy Folk formed a circle. I could feel the white protective light they sent enveloping me. I was afraid. I didn't want to emulate the early Christians. I struggled with myself. I must think of something pleasant. I thought of the Forest Zollocco. If I was going to die, I wanted to die happy.

  "Hurry up," said Raiboothnar. The man dragging me shook me like a rag doll and so I complied with Raiboothnar's request.

  I envisioned Zollocco the Forest. I felt it around me, saw the lush foliage, heard the brisk movement of the stream. What was this? That huge furry beast that lived in Zollocco was standing before me.

  "Hello," he said. "Remember me?"

  I stared at this sight in my mind's eye.

  "Now, don't run away like you always do when your body is part of this Forest. Use the Remembered Tongue with those zitam just like you are doing with me. Tell them not to eat you because then it will take longer to find them new homes."

  How was I understanding this creature? He wasn't speaking.

  "You are using the Remembered Tongue; do it with those zitam. Some of them know about you already and are waiting for you. Just tell them with the Remembered Tongue you've come as, as, what's the word Massive Oak? Emissary of their new homes. Okay? I'll see you later." Then the creature ran off into the woods.

  A door was opened and I was pushed into a reeking zoo. I was still in a light trance so, as was usual when I was in a trance, I was quite sure-footed, and I did not loose my footing even though the uniformed man had been quite rough. My hands radiated heat. I looked around at my fellow zitam. An animal the size of a hippo wearing a shell like a turtle stretched his long, armored neck towards me. A dotted furry creature with quills gazed at me with glowing eyes. A python (somehow I was not surprised to see a creature from my own world) coiled and licked the air. Creatures hung from the ceiling. The room was crowded with wild life great and small. Different as they were from each other they all had one thing in common--I was the object and center of their distrust. I felt myself slipping deeper into trance. I fell to the floor and, though I lay sprawled there completely vulnerable, I knew that no creature was creeping forward to chew off my face. In my trance, I envisioned myself showing the creatures images of different planets of Imenkapur. I explained that I was sent by the Forest World as an ambassador. Each one of them would be given a new home. The creatures were very pleased and agreed that they would not eat me, but in future, they preferred to be handled by the gloved people. By this they seemed to mean the Wild Rain Sect. I asked them if they would follow me to free some of the gloved people and then come to a transporter room. They growled and hissed, etc. and made it clear they had been transported before and really didn't like it. Maybe they should eat me after all. I said the gloved people wanted them to stay with the Wild Rain Folk until new homes could be found. The creatures were pleased by this suggestion and agreed to go where I led them. I stood up although I was still in a heavy trance and went to the door. I placed my hands on the knob. I saw colorful light come out of my hands and encircle the latch. The door opened, and all of us zitam trooped out of the zoo cage and down the hall to the cell where the Holy Folk still stood meditating in a circle.

  Our arrival seemed to unsettle the Holy Folk somewhat, and they were even more unsettled when I took a hold of the lock and the colorful lights again swept out of my hands and around the lock. The cell door swung open. The Wild Rain Folk looked at each other and then came forward. They accompanied all of us zitam down the hall. With the same skill I had developed to navigate the fickle forest changes o
f Zollocco and with the same trust in my inner senses I had developed to find my way in Saemunsil, I marshaled the zitam and the Wild Rain folk to the transporter room. It seemed perfectly natural that we never saw any gray uniformed people. I went to a control panel. There was a uniformed person at the controls, but one look at us and he ran away. The wild zitam climbed onto the transporter pods with the Wild Rain folk. I held my hands over the control panel. Without my touching anything, the colored light from my hands caused buttons to be pressed and the transporters to be activated.

  It seems the rest of the Holy Folk had been creeping fearfully along behind the zitam and Wild Rain group and so I now smiled encouragingly at them to get onto the pods. They did so. Neighteeha placed my blue robe around my shoulders and put my portable transporter down beside me. Then she got onto a pod. Again I held my hands over the control panel and the buttons were pressed without my touching them. Neighteeha and the rest of the Holy Folk disappeared.

  A scream of hate shocked me back into everyday awareness. Raiboothnar stood at the door screaming in incoherent rage. Guards were rushing in the room towards me. I grabbed the portable transporter and flicked off the safety switch.

  "The troubadour, the troubadour has the whole List in his head! He set it in verse! I'll track you down, every last one of you! I'll track you down and put you on the rack!"

  I was too busy flipping switches and trying to concentrate on Zollocco, Zollocco. Zollocco get me out of here!

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Arachnid's Trap

  I landed in the Spring Room in Oasis. Why hadn't I landed in the Forest Zollocco? I sighed. If I couldn't be there, this was where I'd like to be. I went down to the Pure Chamber, bathed, came back up to the Spring Room, went out to the garden and gathered some vegetables, went back to the Spring Room and ate as though I had never been fed. A child put a small loaf of bread on the table for me, and I nodded thanks. After eating, I dragged myself to my room and slept the night and most of the morning through. I awoke to a ravenous appetite, the realization that I had four more days of this vow of silence, and to a note under my door.