by Tew, J. D.
The closer we were to the king, the more I wrapped my face with the scarf to filter the stench.
Upon our arrival, King Trazuline stood up strong and prideful. He sounded irritated and disappointed.
‘Well, how was your trip through the town?’ he asked, and none of us responded. His tone was slightly sarcastic. ‘That is precisely why you are here. You are lacking a defined leader, and your confidence is impaired. What will you do when you are shoved into battle?’
‘We will fight, your majesty,’ Lincoln said. I was surprised to see his assertiveness, since he was the more cerebral one.
King Trazuline sneered. ‘Like you did in the bazaar? I specifically instructed you not to stop. You could have all been killed. Your assigned guard detail will be increased. One guard for each of you.’ Sitting back, he took another swig of his suds. He burped out loudly and said, ‘Want some?’
‘No, thanks,’ Dan politely declined. We exchanged startled glances at each other.
After wiping his mouth, the king shook a finger at us. He gazed into Lincoln’s eyes, and scolded,
‘I had you humans ranked among the top of the recruits. You are all brilliant, but you have failed me with your cowardice. To see you run like sissies after that tea party with the Rangiers just outside the castle.’
The boys were stunned. I think they even believed him, becoming ashamed of themselves.
That was all the fuel I needed; no one talked to us like that. My mother would give me hell if I let any man, alien or not, push me around. I didn’t care—for that one fleeting second—if this was a king of an entire planet, imbibing a brew right in front of us. That he had millions in his servitude and was the right-hand man of the demigod Zane. ‘Respect is earned,’ I affirmed to myself, seething. I was ready to blow up in the face of that arrogant beast. To the boys’ shock, I stormed over to him with my fist clenched and my posture straight.
I said, ‘Listen here! We are strong and will fight for you, if you just give us a chance!’
“That was all that came out of my mouth before I felt a crushing weight on my back. I had to kneel as if bowing to his glory. He made me cower with his rolesk.”
“From what I know about you, Mariah, I cannot imagine you taking that,” the warden says. I am still in the holding room with the warden, halfway done with my story.
“I have not always been as strong as I’d like to be. Just as the crushing pressure was starting to make me buckle down even more to the floor, he waved his hand in the air. Suddenly, I was free.”
King Trazuline gazed at me admiringly and said, ‘You have fight within you, but you lack the patience to make it work. I am your last hope in the multiverse. Can't you see that?’
‘Yes, your majesty,’ I said. As if I had a choice of words.
To my surprise, the king’s features softened as he stared at me. He clapped his hands and motioned for the guards to take the boys away. ‘Take them to their rooms!’
The boys twisted their heads around with pleading eyes as I saw them leaving, my heart sinking. What did Trazuline want with me? Was he trying to isolate me? Why?
The king looked at me in the eyes for a few more seconds, and he turned to the doors to ensure that everyone was gone. He mouthed the words, ‘I want to speak to you alone.’
Nodding, I say nothing. I sense he doesn’t want me to speak. He seemed worried about being overheard.
‘Follow me,’ the king mouthed to me as he beckoned at me. I walked in lock-step behind him as he led me to a secret door in the room. ‘Step inside.’
I did.
The door shut electronically. He breathed a sigh of relief, and said, ‘This room is powered by magnetism. The electromagnetic field around this chamber keeps Dietons outside. What we say in this room, stays in this room.’
My heart beat as I realized his apparent change of heart—or his well-crafted plan. ‘Why would someone create a room to keep Dietons away?’
The king’s eyes took on an appearance of innocence. What a change from that brash display in the strategy room. ‘Could you imagine living in your house on Earth with absolutely no privacy? Imagine going to the bathroom, while cameras watch you and document every move you make. How would that make you feel?’
It was an easy answer. ‘Vulnerable.’
‘Precisely. We are in an age of peril, Mariah. No one to trust.’
‘Why should we trust you?’ I asked. I’d had enough of Zane. We trusted him, and look how far it got us.
The king held his hands up in the air, temporarily lifting his robes off the floor. He turned his back to me. ‘I have given you a purpose. Zane was deathly afraid of you all staying on his ship because of your unbridled spirit. I was the one who seized the opportunity to solve Zane’s problem and make him happy. But he doesn’t know everything.’
He cackled at me. ‘Mariah, I know Theodore is alive. His ship crashed on another planet.’
My blood chilled. ‘What! How do you know that?’
He whispered to me, ‘Because I helped him escape.’
I stood stunned. This powerful discipline of Zane, standing right before me, was admitting to something that could cost him his life— treason. His pungent stench was also starting to overpower me again. It was hard to think straight.
‘Where is Ted?’ I demanded, furious that he’d been hiding a secret from us.
‘I can’t tell you. We have to work together.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said, stepping back from him. ‘You know where he is, and you’re not telling us? How can we work together if you don’t tell us?’
‘Please understand,’ he asserted. ‘It could endanger all of us to have such valuable information. Zane could crush you all, and I would be powerless to stop him.’
‘Where is Ted?’ I insisted.
‘Work with me. I will tell you.’
I gazed at him, furiously thinking. Why was he speaking to me alone? Was he trying to pry our team apart, one by one? Aha, I thought. We were the key to getting Ted back, and Trazuline was pretending to be the good cop. After Ted reached out to us, and Zane captured him, Zane would just terminate us all and amply reward his loyal subject Trazuline for luring us. I had to play my hand carefully.
‘It makes perfect sense,’ I lied through my teeth. ‘I need to discuss this with my team.’
Trazuline visibly relaxed at my apparent change of heart. ‘That's fine. Just think about what I have said. We could rescue Theodore together.’
‘Thank you very much for giving us this valuable information. You have given us fresh new hope.’ I left the chamber, shaking over the revelation about Ted still being alive.
“Before I exited, Trazuline whispered. ‘Be very careful how you tell your team. Everywhere, Zane’s spies may be eavesdropping on you.’”
“This sounds like something straight out of a spy story. What did you do?” the warden asks, flashing his teeth.
“I took control of the team, because someone had to. When I caught up to the boys, I said, ‘Wait up, you guys. Listen to me for a second. Let's all meet in the recreational lounge, after we put up our stuff.’”
We requested for the guards to let us mingle by ourselves in one of the lounges. It was a huge lounge, and we positioned ourselves inside the center, playing a game of electronic shuffleboard. The magnetic disks sailed along with ease on the marble floor as we babbled to each other, holding our electronic shuffleboard paddles straight up as if they were walking sticks. The guards were far away, taking our activity as a sign that they could ease up. They appeared bored, and reveled in the opportunity to gossip among themselves.
I knew that Zane, or one of his minions, could be listening every second, but I chanced it. Who could be listening in every second, twenty-four hours a day?
I told the guys about the shocking revelation of Ted being alive. We fell into an excited banter, but did our best to appear casual. ‘What should we do? We don't have a choice. We have to play ball with these guys,’ Liam said.
‘M
y mother once told me, Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but you can still make a purse out of something else!’ I said.
The boys looked at me like wavering bowling pins. ‘Okay,’ I relented, ‘I admit we have not been at war. We are not used to fighting for our lives, and that is why we are having a difficult time. They are giving us weapons and training us,’ I lowered my voice and leaned in so they all could hear me. ‘We could escape. So far, we have been so predictable. Let's take control of our own lives and leave here!’
‘Yeah, I think this Traz guy is just bluffing. But he knows about Ted. What do you have in mind?’ Dan asked.
‘Trazuline told me he knows Theodore is alive. We could find Theodore ourselves. What's stopping us?’ I gazed at the disk in front of me and gave it a half-hearted push. It fell short of the required baseline. I ignored my faux pas.
Lincoln rolled his eyes. ‘Reality check. We have to find out where Ted is. Trazuline’s not telling us. Plus, we need a ship. Trazuline helped Ted find a ship, but he’s not going to do the same for us. Plus, how about the guards that are constantly following us?’
I seized the moment to motivate them further. I said, ‘Don't you see? They are protecting us. We mean something to them. I am sorry, but I do not trust Trazuline. He seems like a good guy, but there is something he is not telling us.’
Lincoln pressed on his disk and pushed it out accurately, making us envious of his grace under pressure. ‘They will not even know what is coming. We can do this. We just have to make a plan. We can escape and find Theodore,’ Lincoln said.
“That was all I needed to hear, and even I started to believe...”
“Believe in what?” the warden asks.
“Us. When Theodore left, we were freaking out. We were like a car with no steering wheel, empty of gas. He brought us to the Uriel and without him, our purpose was gone. But we found ourselves when we heard he was alive.”
“I see. Well, it has been a pleasure, Mariah. I have to admit, there is actually no real exit debrief. My prisoners leave, and before they go, I tell them one thing.” I scoot to the edge of my seat to hear, nearly falling off. “If you pick up another rifle to fight for Sephera and Zane, or resist us in any way, with Theodore and your misfits, you will be in here again. And not in a way that is considered easy. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then, tomorrow you will be free. Make the best of it.”
A guard barged into the room and yelled, “Warden! We have a situation!”
“Wait here! I want two guards on this prisoner. Why are the alarms sounding?” the warden asks.
“I am not at liberty to say in front of the prisoner, sir,” the other guard answers. The two extra recruits arrive to take over command.
The two original guards leave, and I am left sitting between the gun muzzles of the two freshly arrived guards who are watching me intensely. What could be so pressing? I have never heard the alarms sound before, besides drills, but usually the warden seems prepared for those instances.
This was probably my weirdest encounter in this prison. If he is keeping my friends captive here, it may not be the last time I see this prison. I sigh.
17 theodore: jaakruid
The stampeding of bodies and pouncing of the dirt floor of the cave drove me crazy. I hid from the unknown. It caused me to shield myself within my cave room.
‘He is in here, summon him forth,’ an Elon voice said from outside the room.
‘They are waiting for his command,’ another Elon voice different from the first said.
It was time to make my grand entrance. I let loose the searing destruction of Wrath through the leafed curtain and peered out in astonishment at the stirring sight before me. My heart slapped my sternum with a violent ferocity.
Directly in front of me stood a thousand Elons, erect and still. When I appeared, they all turned to me in perfect harmony.
‘Master Theodore. Sir, we are honored. Attention!’ one of the Elon soldiers echoed loudly throughout the tunnels, and every Elon in the Cave snapped to an upright formal posture. They were like a line of Monk statues. They looked so similar. It was difficult to tell one from the next.
‘What are you waiting in line for?’ I asked, because the line paralleled the walls of the cave with no end.
One of the Elon soldiers jumped to respond, ‘We already have received our communication devices, and now we are waiting for our gear, sir-zzz.’
I felt overwhelmed at the prospect of shouldering the responsibility of such a large army. The simulation exercises on the Uriel were nothing compared to this. The Uriel had trained me to fight, but not to take command. This was a totally new level of authority. I was a commander of my own army, and being a solider of Zane was long in the past.
The Elons were young and wiry, but they were plants, resilient, and full of life. They were saplings compared to their mother, but they were still formidable. Even though I was anxious, I was focused.
I remembered what Jezra said about blind obedience, and I knew that if I was going to drive these Elons like a javelin into the chest of Travis and his band of Dacturon warlords, I had to give my virgin army reason.
The atmosphere in the cave was positively electric. The current of energy flowed down that army, and I was wired as I strolled past the never-ending throng of troops, which gradually parted exactly in the middle as I inspected them all. Each head turned as I walked, boring in on me. It felt like being in a battalion of robots, but these were living, breathing beings. When I made it past the contingent, Pike was darting about, a ball of energy, as he delivered bows and arrows to each Elon soldier. He was calculating inventory when I approached him.
‘Hey Pike, so the weapon of choice is bow?’ I asked.
He beamed a huge smile as he looked at me and said, ‘Ha! The young Messiah awakens. Yes, my liege, the bow will be the perfect weapon—you will see. Each soldier will have fifty arrows and two bows. If they run out, you will find they have the means to make more for themselves.’
I thought as Lincoln always would in moments like that: one thousand soldiers with fifty arrows apiece—that is fifty thousand arrows. That is real firepower. I needed to get Pike alone so we could discuss strategy. I beckoned to him and walked off to the side with him.
‘Pike, I am going to get the help of one of the Elons to do the job you are doing right now because, well, I would like to discuss our plan of attack.’ He agreed quickly, admiring me. He had come a long way from mocking me the first time I had landed on his planet. After all, I was the Messiah.
I turned to the first Elon I saw close by, swelling with newfound confidence. I was now unstoppable. ‘You there, I have an important job for you, what is your name?’
The Elon meekly replied, not daring to look at me in the eyes. Rather, he stared straight ahead, out of respect. ‘I don’t have a name, sir. I will be pleased to attain one.’
‘You will relieve Pike at his post. Each soldier gets two bows and fifty arrows. We will discuss names later.’ I grabbed Pike after I was done directing the Elon, and we walked along a corridor of the cave that was separate from the lengthy file of Elons.
‘Okay, so before we discuss strategy, I have some questions that need answering. How do the Elons know English, how come they don’t have names, and how do they know how to fight?’
‘Theodore, I thought I explained that to you already. Elons pass on information to their kin through their genetic make-up. A Venus flytrap on your Earth, for example, does not need to learn how to trap insects. It just does, based on its design. In a way, you humans are not that different. Every learned experience will be passed on to the next generation. As for naming the Elons, you are their commander and it is your job. I would like to see you name a thousand Elons in one hour. They will be issued rank next at your complete discretion, for any Elon is highly adaptable and can quickly rise to any senior level because of his collective experie
nce. It is a lot for you to take in, I know. Now, have I answered all your questions?’
‘So, to confirm, we launch an assault against the Dark King?’ I asked.
‘That’s why you arrived on our planet, yes, Theodore. It has been pre-destined.’
‘And you will show me where Jaakruid is?’
‘I know it like the back of my hand. I used to live there, while Jezra was still a young Princess. I helped her escape when the Dark King usurped power. I will be your guide.’
‘Fair enough,’ I deliberated thoughtfully. ‘Strategy, I need to know what we are up against.’ I asked. For half an hour, while the thousand Elons were busy fitting themselves with weapons, Pike and I discussed our battle plan.
Our plan was simple, but each level of attack required success one after the other, and there was no room for error or contingency.
A small elite group of the finest Elon’s in my army would escort me, cloaked with invisibility by my XJ7-321, through the forest. After the fall of Jaakruid, I was to finally reap my own personal reward by hijacking a Tritillian vessel to escape to Karshiz. Pike had told me that King Trazuline was working against Zane and would like me there covertly. Once there, I could prepare for my offensive on Odion.
Earlier this morning, Pike had sent dozens of small airborne recon devices to observe any advantageous points of entry. These spy devices had just returned, and our Elon commander had been busy collating and interpreting the dozens of classified observations. These Elons were sure intelligent creatures.
‘What did you find?’ an eager Pike asked the commander.
The commander spoke crisply, ‘Sir, we found that our route is heavily guarded. There are roaming patrols throughout the city’s perimeter, as well as the one gigantic Morlorian at the gates. There is a possibility of an approaching offensive. Quasikeum seemed to know that Master Theodore is with us now. He was guiding the warships into formation. There looks to be a Tritillian offensive forming, but there is one other thing.’
‘What is it?’ Pike yelled, wary.