The Realm of the Drells

by Kenneth Zeigler

  “The young human and I have a plan,” announced Satar. “I believe it is a good one, though risky.”

  As Satar explained their plan, Kadra above all expressed her doubts. But they were out of time. Its success would depend upon just how smart the spiders really were. They might eventually see through their deception. They could only hope that by the time they did it would be too late.

  Chapter 24

  Ron stepped into Connie’s room along with Nurse West. Here they discovered Sybil with her hand on Connie’s forehead, and upon her hand was David’s hand. Both Sybil and David were motionless with their eyes closed. The glow that had been around their hands before was conspicuously absent.

  Ron reached into a plastic bag upon the side of which was printed the name Radio Shack, in bright letters. He pulled from it a set of high end headphones with a disk of Styrofoam glued to each headpiece. He prepared to place it on Connie’s head.

  “Shouldn’t you wake them first?” asked Claudia.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Ron. “I think that’s the last thing I’d want to do.”

  Carefully Ron placed the set of headphones over Connie’s head. He slowly maneuvered them around until a faint glow appeared around both Sybil’s and David’s hand. He continued to adjust the position of the headset until the glow seemed the brightest. Actually it was considerably brighter than the one he’d seen in Debbie’s room.

  “It really works,” gasped Claudia. “I can’t believe it.”

  Ron removed his hands from the headset and slowly backed away. There was movement in Connie’s body, especially around her eyelids. It almost looked like she was in rem sleep. “We’ve pulled her into a state of higher mental activity. It’s almost like she is in a state of light sleep, just below the threshold of consciousness.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Claudia.

  “We wait,” replied Ron. “It’s all that we can do. Wait and hope.”

  Never in her life had Connie experienced such intense pain. The nails in her wrists and ankles had taught her a new definition of agony. But it was more than that. The slightest movement resulted in excruciating pain. And upon this device of death movement was essential. Her arms were stretched so wide, pulled so taut by her own body weight, that after a while breathing became almost impossible. She could breathe if she pushed up upon the nails driven into her ankles. But that gave rise to an entirely different and equally savage form of pain. She could bear that pain for only so long before slumping back down. Then the process began anew.

  Then there was the terrible spectacle being played out before her, a sadistic spectacle of horror and death. She thought of the agony of Jesus upon the cross. Surely that had been even worse. She hadn’t been lashed 39 times nor did she wear a crown of thorns.

  The four poor unfortunates upon the stake had been burned virtually to ashes as the soldiers stirred the coals around them. Their agony was over. She feared that hers had only begun.

  Then she felt a jolt that ran through her entire body. Mercifully, her pain subsided to about half of what it had been. She felt lightheaded, only half here. She felt pressure upon her forehead.

  “Connie, can you hear me?” said a voice that seemed to emanate from everywhere, yet Connie knew it was only within her head.

  “I hear you, Sybil,” said Connie, thankful to hear a familiar voice. “Can you get me out of here?”

  “We can’t,” replied Sybil, “at least not yet. It may be another hour.”

  “Then you’ve fixed FENS?” gasped Connie.

  “Yes,” confirmed Sybil. “Can you hold on that long?”

  “I have to,” said Connie.

  There was a pause. “Ron said something about the coils being at negative 168 Celsius. Is that enough?”

  “No,” gasped Connie. “Don’t even try until you have 230 below. Too much impedance at a higher temperature. You’ll burn out the coil.”

  From the stands, the eyes of all had turned to the woman upon the cross whose body had turned a milky white color. More than that, she had begun to glow.

  Debbie’s heart was filled with hope. “Come on,” she whispered. “Come on Dr. Wilson, get her out of here. Put a little fear in these drells.”

  Dre Kon was furious. “Those scientists! How?”

  His subjects also seemed troubled. This he could not have. He turned to Malfacian who stood by his side. “I grow weary of this wench,” he cursed. “Let us bring her to a quicker end. Send one of your men out to break her legs. I want to watch her suffocate.”

  Malfacian bowed slightly and turned to one of his lieutenants, who nodded and departed.

  “I will not have this human ruining our fun,” said Dre Kon. “She no longer amuses me.”

  Sybil opened her eyes and looked at the headset that was placed over Connie’s temples. “I wasn’t able to reach her until you did that. What is it?”

  “I dug into one of the old books you brought with you,” noted Ron. “It spoke of a priest, Kyle McClendon, who managed to bring back the children of a Scottish parish with some mysterious magnetic rocks. Dr. Martin talked about him just before dinner last week. Well, I went to Radio Shack and bought a pair of headphones and some very special magnets. Neodymium magnets, they call them. They are the most powerful magnets around. They weren’t powerful enough to pull her soul back to us but they did something. For a moment I thought she was close to consciousness. How could ordinary magnetic rocks pull those children back all those years ago but today it takes FENS to do it?”

  “You’re the scientist,” noted Sybil. “Maybe the drells have a tighter hold on them now. How long before FENS is ready.”

  “Another hour at least,” replied Ron. “That is assuming that we don’t need to realign the field emitters. We shouldn’t have to, but I’m not sure.”

  “We need to create a diversion,” delay the drells somehow,” said Sybil. “Otherwise they’re going to kill more of the children.”

  “You already have,” said David, whose hand was still on Connie’s forehead. His eyes were still closed. “In the other world Connie’s body is milky white and glowing. It is creating a diversion, keeping the drells from sensing what is happening at their temple.”

  “What is happening at their temple?” asked Sybil.

  “The small force that the wulvers and slaves sent out to destroy the crystal has reached the temple,” continued David. “Those two dark angels are with them. But they’ve run into difficulty. They have a plan, but they’re not sure it will work.”

  “David, how do you know all of this?” Ron asked.

  David never opened his eyes nor moved his hand. “I know because Connie knows. She knows that she has to delay the proceedings. She also has a plan. Dr. Griego, I don’t know how she knows all of this stuff. But we need to trust her.”

  The warrior whose task it was to break Connie’s legs in multiple places had already been dispatched when Connie, still glowing, looked toward Dre Kon. She forced her pain into the back of her mind.

  Connie pushed upon the nails driven through her ankles so as to get a breath of air. The pain, though dulled by her current state, was almost beyond toleration. But she could not rest, not yet. There was a duty that needed performed.

  “Dre Kon, the blood of your father still calls out from the grave, a grave that you yourself put him in, you and your ambition. You killed him in order to bring your family back into power. No, to bring you into power. Your own people do not know what manner of leader they have. Shall I tell them? You are the leader who will bring them to the threshold of extinction. You speak of a cure for the ills of your people but you have lied. The research you have pursued has led to nothing. It is a blind alley. There is no cure here. You have already thrown away their last and best hope. You might silence me, but time will reveal the truth in my words.”

  Connie felt the impact of the huge mallet upon her legs. It was a sickening pain. Then she felt it again. She slumped down upon her shattered legs.

&nbs
p; The drell masses looked among themselves in puzzlement. They had all heard the rumors of how Dre Kon had come to power. But how did this human woman know them? And this strange glow, what were they to make of that? This was very troubling indeed.

  Dre Kon sensed the rumblings among his people. They were beginning to doubt him, even as they questioned the manner by which he and his family had returned to power. No, the sooner this woman expired, the better. With her legs broken in so many places, he doubted that she would last 45 minutes. He rose to his feet.

  “Among the humans there is a ritual,” he began. “It is called the circus. The greatest of these is the three ring circus. Here, three totally different sources of entertainment greet the audience. Our circus shall be no different.”

  He drew the attention of the crowd to a ring of crystals that formed a circle thirty feet wide in the middle of the arena. In the middle of the circle was a great metal bull the color of bronze setting above a circular hearth filled with giant mushroom stumps of the sort that the wulvers often used to burn and cook food. Immediately the crystals began to glow a bright yellow.

  “In this ring we have the legendary Minoan bull, a most ingenious contrivance from the human’s ancient past.”

  One of Malfacian’s guards opened a hatchway in the belly of the bull to reveal its hollow interior, a dark and ominous metal prison lined with an intricate series of pipes. It drew a gasp of horror from the human and wulver audience, for already they could discern the function of this terrible device.

  “Since this device is of uniquely human design, I think it only fair that it be supplied with four human children.”

  From a side tunnel four human children, one barely ten years old, were roughly escorted into the arena. Their arms were chained behind their backs and their feet were in shackles.

  “Allow me to present the stars of this portion of our show,” continued Dre Kon. “From Brazil, Jennifer Madura. From England, Henry Moore. From the United States, Sara Carter, and from Israel, David Rabin. They shall all be escorted into the bull, where they shall be sealed away in the darkness of its belly. But don’t worry, the pipes will bring them just enough air that they might survive. Alas, suffocation shall be the least of their worries. For in but a few minutes we shall kindle the fire below them. They shall be slowly broiled within the belly of the bull and their vaporizing blood shall make for a most amazing scene as the bull blows forth the steam even as their cries, soft as they may be, will make the bull snort.”

  Dre Kon motioned to the far ring where a ten-foot-wide pool of boiling black oil frothed and spat. Above it was a metal tripod fifteen feet high, and from it in four directions ran long chains with wrist manacles attached at the ends. From another tunnel four wulver children, two boys and two girls, their ankles in shackles, were led into the arena and toward this insidious device. They wrists were placed in the shackles, linking each to the top of the tripod. The chain allowed them to stand only about twenty feet from the terrible pool before becoming taut.

  “Let us consider a question,” began Dre Kon. “Is it better to die quickly or to live as long as possible? Let this game begin.”

  At once a winch at the top of the tripod began to wheel the children in ever so slowly. They cried and struggled, pulling as hard on the chain as they could but it was futile.

  “Back to my first question,” continued Dre Kon. “Kir, Wena, Salasa, and Kur, if you give in and jump into the pool of oil before you, you will be dead within half a minute. But if you wait, the chain will pull you in and hoist you above the steamy oil. The heat will steam you, the vapors will disintegrate your lungs. In the end you will drown in your own blood, but it will take over an hour. It will be an hour of pure agony. Choose, but don’t take too long. The option of a quick death will expire within the next ten minutes.”

  Then Dre Kon turned to a white stone altar within yet another crystal circle at the near end of the Arena. Two humans, a tall one and a short one, were escorted from a third tunnel to the altar by several of Malfacian’s soldiers. Debbie looked on in horror as she realized that they were Gwen and Marci. Both Gwen and Marci were dressed in a tattered gray loincloth and top that barely covered their more intimate areas. Gwen was quickly laid down face up upon the altar, her wrists and ankles shackled to the corners. Marci too was shackled to the altar, to a ring at its base but by only one ankle with a chain about 25feet in length.

  Finally, they smeared Gwen with some sort of foul smelling liquid from a metal bucket. Their mission accomplished the guards departed. Almost as an afterthought one of the guards tossed a dagger back in the direction of Marci’s feet. Marci picked it up and examined it. It wasn’t much of a weapon. At first she tried to release Gwen but it was futile. All the while the drells watched in silence.

  “And now the third attraction,” announced Dre Kon. “Allow me to draw your attention to these two human females. The larger one has been the protector of the smaller one for about a year now. Indeed, it is my understanding that the larger one is actually a warrior among her people. Now she shall face her ultimate challenge. We have seen to it that this younger one has been drenched in a pheromone perfume extracted from a female oarken.” The drell paused. “Oh, but of course the humans and wulvers wouldn’t be familiar with the oarkens. We engineered them by combining the essence of a boar, a human, and a giant ground sloth. The last of which has been extinct on the world of the humans for some thousands of years, such a pity. Nevertheless, we engineered them to be both workers and food for our people. Sadly, the experiment didn’t turn out so well. They were dumb, wild, and at times unpredictable, especially during the rutting season. There were an awful lot of fatalities, especially among the females during the rutting season. The males tended to get a bit carried away. I suppose they were a species that was never intended to exist. We exterminated most of them thousands of years ago. However, we kept a small but high quality breeding stock for just such an event as today.”

  Dre Kon paused for effect. “I will be releasing one male oarken into the arena. It won’t take the dumb beast long to pick up the scent of the little one. Thinking that he has at last found a female in heat he will head straight for her. It will be the job of the large female, this Marci, to prevent him from reaching her and having his way with her. She is so small and fragile that I seriously doubt that she would survive his advances.”

  “Marci,” cried Gwen.

  Marci leaned down and kissed Gwen on the forehead. “Don’t worry, Gwen, I won’t let anything happen to you. I’m a marine, remember? I’m the baddest thing in this arena.”

  “OK,” replied Gwen.

  “What is today?” asked Marci.

  “The day we get to go home,” said Gwen. “I feel like today is the day.”

  “It is, sweetheart,” said Marci, “as soon as I put this oinker out of its misery.” Then Marci looked up at Dre Kon. Their eyes met. All of her effort went into the words that followed. For a moment one might have thought that her voice had been restored. “When I’m finished with this damned oinker I’m coming after you!”

  Dre Kon laughed, as did a large portion of his people. “Oh are you? We shall see.”

  “We shall,” replied Marci.

  “In your dreams,” said Dre Kon. “But then again you won’t have any dreams. The dead don’t dream.”

  The drell spectators laughed, partially because they were expected to, and partially because they could see no outcome but death for this human wench.

  Dre Kon would spend no further time on this woman. The show had to go on. “But before we release the oarken, let us load up the bronze bull,” proclaimed Dre Kon. “I want you to hear the bull snort for yourselves. It might amuse you.”

  The terrified children were forced through the hatchway and into the belly of the bull. The hatch was then closed and locked behind them. The guards stood there with torches in hand, prepared to ignite the fire beneath the bull.

  As Dre Kon promised the bull did snort. It was the sof
t cries of the children within its belly reverberating and amplified through the maze of pipes that lay beneath the bronze skin of the bull. It was a distressing sound.

  It was then that the unexpected happened. A wulver female in the stands rose to her feet. She seemed calm at first as she walked to the wall that separated the stands from the arena. Then that all changed. She quickly climbed over the wall and leapt into the arena, right on top of one of Malfacian’s guards. Within a second she had cut his throat with her dagger. Blood erupted from his throat like water from a fountain. Then she took his sword and dashed toward the four wulver children that were being pulled into the bubbling pool.

  “Not my child,” she screamed.

  “By the Code of Torin,” gasped Lukor, “it’s Keziah, Lemnock’s sister.”

  Several of the archers along the upper track of the arena went into action, firing several arrows at the wulver female but they were way off their mark. They were caught off guard by her bold erratic move and by the time they reacted she was too far away. In addition, the archers, though skilled, were not accustomed to the low light levels of this place. It played tricks with their depth perception.

  In very fact, no one seemed prepared for this possibility. It was bold and totally irresponsible. One of the guards watching over the four doomed youths moved to cut her off. It was the last act of his life. She dodged the lateral swing of his blade only to run him through with hers. Still she advanced, reaching her son only a few seconds later. With a single blow she cut the chain from shackle about his wrists. She took him in her arms.

  Slowly a commotion arose from the wulver ranks. It rose in intensity to an outright cheer. Three more wulvers, two males and another female jumped from the wall, swords in hand amidst a flurry of arrows. They rushed toward Keziah’s side.

  “No!” gasped Lukor. “It’s not time.”

  Guards within the arena moved toward Keziah and her son. Before any of them could reach her, she had been reinforced by the other three. As Lukor watched in horror, two more wulvers, two of his best soldiers, jumped into the arena.