“Basha, what…” Oaka said, and then his eyes widened as he saw the two previous opponents lying behind Basha. He turned, and watched Basha dispatch another opponent.
“This isn’t you...” Oaka slowly backed away.
Basha gasped, and turned; he stared at Monika, who already had dealt with her own opponents, and now was watching the proceedings like Fato was. “What have you done?” She asked, not looking at him, but staring at his new sword instead.
There were other people here. “I needed help...” He said, still slightly stunned as the warehouse doors opened. Fato finally stopped screeching, a blessed relief, Basha thought as he lowered his new sword. He turned around, and a group of men in uniform came in. He recognized their uniforms, from Sir Nickleby’s descriptions and from seeing them from afar once or twice, as belonging to those of the Border Guards. Basha tucked the sword behind his back, not certain if…
Their commander, a major, stormed forward. “Monika, what have you done?” He cried. “You were supposed to trap them until we came in here!”
“And you were late!” Monika said. “You were supposed to come in here when I needed help, not leave me alone until I was about to be killed.” She then pointed at Basha and Oaka. “And then these two just burst in here!”
Basha and Oaka stood to the side, watching and listening to all of this in confusion as something flapped over their heads. Basha was trying to concentrate on the conversation, but other things swam into his focus; the smells, the horrible smells, the people crying or else being really silent, their breaths held in expectation as they tried not to move.
“We saw them come in here, we didn’t know if they were after you too or if…” The major shook his head. “Drop your swords!” He ordered.
Basha and Oaka did just that, raising their hands up above their heads as Basha hoped they wouldn’t take away his sword. He lost focus on everything else but what was happening in front of him.
“Get the others chained up.” The major instructed one of his men.
“They weren’t after me, they were rescuing me!” Monika sarcastically said. “Or so they say. One of them, Basha here, I met him a couple of months ago in Coe Baba. Decent sort of fellow, or so I thought, but I didn’t expect him and his brother to be here today, following me. And he did most of the damage here!”
Basha was hurt by what she had to say, but he also was thinking…oh, Tau, what had he done here, thinking of those three men he had dispatched, and how easily they had fallen...
“We weren’t following you!” Oaka said. “We didn’t have a clue where you were! We were attending the fight next door, and then we had a falcon…” He groaned.
“A likely enough story for idiots!” The major paused. “Who’s laughing?” He yelled, looking around.
“Me, major!” A voice called, and they all looked up at the falcon perched on top of one of the crates. “My name is Fato the falcon, royal messenger bird extraordinaire. I led these boys in here. I told them what I saw from that window over there, and I was the one who followed this girl Monika in the first place, not because of them. My oath as a royal messenger bird of King Sonnagh, major, their story is true. They just happened to be here, innocent bystanders who decided to give aid.”
Aid? Was this aid? Basha wanted to ask. Fato did, indeed, seem to be calmer than he was before. Probably because he was just frightened of the fight.
“Why does Fato always miss the fights?” Oaka whispered to Basha.
Basha felt like throwing up; he did indeed swallow back some vomit.
“Do you vouch for these boys, falcon?” The major asked as he frowned.
“I do indeed vouch for these boys. They have good character, even the cowardly one.” Fato said with a smirk. Yet he still seemed uneasy as well.
Oaka grimaced as Basha shuddered, and then Monika said, “All right, they were helpful when I needed them, but why didn’t you come in?” She asked the major.
“We had the medium here try to observe the proceedings, but he couldn’t get a clear picture!” The major remarked.
“It was too blurry, something was interfering,” The ‘medium’, a thin man who could barely fit in his large uniform, remarked. “We had too many people involved here, not just you three and the smugglers, but also the others,” He hesitated. “And then there was something else very disturbing that showed up near the end of your fight.”
“What others?” Basha asked desperately.
“The smugglers were bringing in human cargo.” The medium started to say.
Basha fainted at this point.
“The tiger, I felt him, if only for a brief moment,” Doomba hissed, turning to one of his Ghoulmen lieutenants.
“The tiger?” The Ghoulman asked, curious.
“He is here, alive, awake, whatever you might call it,” Doomba said, turning away from the Ghoulman to stare off into the distance, the shadows wreathing about his neck. “The tiger is stirring, stirring with an intensity that could sweep away kingdoms, young and fierce. It only lasted a brief moment before it faded, subdued again into whatever subconscious contains it,” Doomba said, frowning to himself as the shadow wreath coiled tighter. “Yet I can just sense him out of my sight and out of my reach as well. I cannot control it.”
“Calm down, sire,” The Ghoulman lieutenant said, bowing his head in a snipeish manner.
“He is here, the impression of his presence still lingers on in my mind, yet I cannot control or fathom it.” Doomba said, ignoring the lieutenant’s protestation. “There is just no clear distinction between him and the mass of huddled people out there in the world, yet just the mere hint of his presence drives me mad. It is too much for me.”
“Calm down, sire, we will find him.” The Ghoulman said.
“Search for him then!” Doomba cried, turning upon the lieutenant. “Search far and wide, never give up until you have found him. I, too, shall never give up until I know he is dead, dead enough not to harm me.”
“Harm you?” The Ghoulman asked, his ears, or what one could call his ears, narrow slits as they were alongside his head, pricking up.
“Never mind that!” Doomba cried, pushing back against the lieutenant with the force of his power. “He cannot harm me anymore than I shall allow him.” Doomba said, nodding as the Ghoulman lieutenant cowered in the corner. “No mortal wound shall strike me down, I will rise up again. The tiger is stirring, and we must find him!” He insisted.
The lieutenant nodded and left him, skittering off, perhaps to pass on the order to his fellow lieutenants and subordinates, or to cower elsewhere. It made no difference in the end. Doomba slumped back into his throne. He had waited for so many years, not just for the tiger but for other things as well, that he had forgotten how to stand and move properly. His body rotted from the inside out, what rotten luck, and so he could not budge far from his chair with very little physical strength. He was stuck here. The tiger was familiar to him now, and Doomba desired to stand, and march out to stalk his ultimate opponent, but it was only his inability to do much more than sit, wait, and watch for the tiger that stopped him.
Yet he still had his power, which was able to sustain him and his network of shadows for all these years, that was some good news.
His senses stretched out across Salarria, although he could not single out an individual for very long with such a wide range, and some areas seemed to be blocked out entirely. He gathered as much intelligence as he could about these blocked-off areas from his Servants and Followers who were able to slip in and out of these areas unnoticed, although sometimes they weren’t heard from again.
He was disturbed by these disappearances and absences occasionally, wondering if there was something taking place in those blocked-off areas that he was missing, perhaps the tiger. But then again, these areas were so far away from him that whatever was taking place there could not possibly reach him, or at least not yet, especially when there were so many Followers and Servants between him and there, ready to shield
him if necessary. Perhaps one or two or three Servants and Followers going missing was nothing to worry about at the moment, especially when they were taking such enormous risks, and it should be expected that there would be losses, but eventually the tiger would arise from his hiding place to strike at Doomba, and he had to be ready to face this foe.
His Servants and Followers were very loyal to him, or as loyal as they could be when he sometimes used them to sustain himself. He promised them immortality, a chance at something more than themselves, and an opportunity to gain power. He also promised that he would spare their miserable little lives from his wrath and torment once he had gained enough power to control everything.
He gave them very little of what he promised them during their lifetimes, though, as they often had such short life-spans, and he often could sleep away 20 years in the blink of an eye. He also didn’t trust them sometimes, especially the humans, as they did have the habit of trying to grab too much power for themselves, and occasionally would try to break out of his control.
Thus, he trusted very few of them with knowledge of the tiger’s existence, what the creature could do to him, as he doubted that they would stay with him then. He gave them only enough knowledge to try and track the tiger down, with dim scents and the estimations of locations he provided from his own fuzzy knowledge. He promised them great reward for the capture of the tiger and ordered that they should bring any suspected tiger to Coe Doomba so that he could determine whether or not it was the real tiger in person.
However, it never was the real tiger. Despite these limitations, at least he could now sense the real tiger approaching, and he would be ready for it.
As the Ghoulman wandered off to relay its orders, it passed by a Trolla talking to its friends. “I don’t understand it. I left the pickaxe on the ground, right by my feet. Next thing I know, it’s gone. Impossible to figure out who stole it.”
“It’s not that impossible, it’s probably one of the animals stealing it.” One of its friends remarked. “Have you checked them out?”
“I already have.” The Trolla said. “It didn’t work, none of them will confess to any crime. And the pickaxe was stolen right out from under me. Who could have done such a thing without being noticed?”
Chapter 5: In Between
The boy, he is lost and he is alone, he
Does not know where to go. To whom
Does he turn to in his hour of need? What
Spell or god can protect him in his hour of darkness?
--Proverb of Manhood, Urso
As had become her habit, Habala snuck into her sons’ bedroom and picked out Basha’s copy of Legends of Arria, from which she read:
The Ocean Myth
From the fissures of Day’s and Night’s union, however, an egg had been dropped, and that egg contained three sons and a daughter. Day and Night had not been male or female, nor were their children completely fixed as such when their genders could be changed. But three sons and a daughter had been born because their genders had been fixed in the minds of the people who heard the story, and in the minds of their children afterward who were born and heard the story from them.
The three sons were Popo, Loqwa, and Menthar, born in that order, while the daughter was Mila, who was either the oldest or the youngest, depending on what you believed. Popo, Loqwa, Menthar and Mila fell into the ocean from the sky while Day and Night mated. However, the children could not breathe underwater, because they were born in the sky and breathed air, while they could not swim because they had not learned how and it was unnatural to them. And so they sank, drowning underwater; Day and Night were unaware of what was happening below them, with the children that were born, distracted and absorbed with their own mating. The world did not exist for them yet, and they had no knowledge of the consequences of their actions yet as the light was not bright enough yet to illuminate everything.
Meanwhile, the children of Day and Night reacted differently to drowning, depending on what they thought. Popo thundered with anger and fear. He was certain that he was the oldest, and certain that he was drowning, when he could not breathe and there was water all around him. That made him angry; he was set against dying on principle, because he knew that he would have to live to lead the others. There was no one else besides him who could be the leader, as far as he was aware of, and he knew that he would set a bad example for his siblings, who were the only other beings that existed as far as he knew, by dying before he got the chance to live. That made him afraid when he didn’t know what else to do in this situation except drown. He thundered because it was in his power to do so, but it made no noise below water and was useless otherwise.
Menthar burned with lightning and hatred. Lightning was his power, and he used it because he did not want to waste it. He had been given fire, and he would burn it for as long as he was able, while it was in his possession, because it belonged to him. He burned with fire from the sky, fire from the sun that he was a part of, and he belonged in the sky, blazing alongside the sun, because they were twins.
Menthar knew that he did not belong in the water. He hated being in the water. Being quenched from burning more than he could if he had been in the sky, and drowning in the water that robbed him of air he needed to breathe, and stoke the fire deep inside. He hated dying. He hated dying, and he hated the water. He wanted to live and burn, to rage against dying. Of course, that didn’t mean he could do anything about dying; though he burned, there was too much water, and he kept getting snuffed out every time he tried to burn so that only smoke came out.
While Menthar and Popo both sank at an equal rate together at the same level, being useless about doing anything other than struggling and fuming needlessly at their drowning, their other two siblings were different. Loqwa sank faster than the others because he was actually trying to sink down faster, diving in a way that he was pointed straight down at the bottom and tried to move towards it, not looking up at the sun.
Loqwa did not want the sun that had dropped them. He felt abandoned by his mother and father, whoever they were, and he wanted to drown and die because there was too much effort in struggling against the water and death. There was too much going against him in trying to reach for something higher like life and the sky when there was calmness and serenity in the depths, if he surrendered. He was tired of his older siblings’ bombast and their games to survive already when they were only prolonging the inevitable, and he wanted to embrace the nothingness that existed in death rather than wait. Besides, Loqwa was half certain that there was something, down deep below the surface of the water, he could feel it, that was beyond explanation, and beyond life. That had to be explored, and he wanted to go beyond death...
Mila, however, struggled towards the surface and the light. She saw it, perhaps even more than her siblings did, her brothers, because she was looking up while the others were interested in looking down (Loqwa), or at each other (Popo), or at themselves (Menthar). She was reaching out, and branching out, towards the sun. She felt the warmth of the sun and of the surface, even through the water, and thought that she wanted life from the sun. She wanted to be comforted by the sun, who was her mother, and to be met with the sky, who was her father. She wanted to breathe again, and to be free of water, because she remembered, deep inside, that there was more than water; there was sky.
Her hope sustained her, and she grew toward that sky.
Their struggles disturbed the water as they were the only things moving in the water with such strength, fury, and purpose, mainly to escape, or not, as the case may be. They churned the ocean with their powers, and the water was riled up all the way down to the ocean floor as the ocean recognized them as outsiders, children of Day and Night. While they struggled, rain and stars fell from the sky, and the sun and the moon shone over the ocean, and at this point, the ocean realized they were meant to live in the sky. The powerful forces were commanding it to let them go. They could not die down here, out of the sky, and the ocean had to get rid of
them before the sky got angry at the ocean for losing them.
So the ocean floor rose up to meet them at this point, and take them to the sky when the water could not hold them. Loqwa, who was still diving when this happened, did not want to surface when the ocean floor rose up to greet him. He continued going downward, this time digging as he created valleys, trenches, and canyons in the ocean floor in his attempt to escape life. But as he did so, however, he opened holes, holes to other dimensions, and other worlds, that he could look through and see what was on the other side. And so he knew that death was not the end of life, but rather the beginning of something more. He was interested in this, in finding out more about the other side, even as they came closer to life.
Popo, meanwhile, started urging the ocean floor to rise higher and faster with his powers. As he realized what was happening, that they were being saved by the ocean, he wondered why they were being saved, what purpose they might have in order to live. Yet as he created mountains and hills in this manner, their peaks rising above and beyond his sight, he realized that he had a higher purpose in life, not death; by attempting to escape death, he had used his powers, and those powers were greater than himself. And so Popo called himself a god because of those powers, the very first one as he thought he deserved to live and use these powers for the greater good of the world he might help to create.
Even though Menthar was being saved by the ocean, he was still angry at the water, and burned even hotter and faster as they got closer to the surface and air. He boiled the water around him, and as he did so, microscopic creatures that lived in the water, and had lived there even before the sky had been created, were sparked with new life, real life as they started growing into the creatures of land and sky. The ocean creatures that were created wiggled off the rising ocean floor, and back into the sea, although a few creatures would live in between.
Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) Page 8