The Geode King

by H A Tisdale

  I finished the libation before she completed her exhortation. “Uhh, right, let me just fill it up again real quick before we go.” When I refilled my water supply, I jumped down from the stage to meet Reina by two of the windcycles. Both of them looked like choppers with the front wheel positioned a few feet in front of the handlebars.

  “So this is easy to ride, right?” I jokingly speculated.

  “Does it look easy?” Reina replied as we witnessed a windcyclist wipe out in the distance.

  “Not super,” I remarked, watching the man chase after his windcycle as it flipped around ahead of him. “So where’s the brake on this thing?”

  “The brakes are on the handlebars here,” Reina instructed as she pointed, “and on the right one is the button to release the flaps.”

  I assumed closing the flaps wouldn’t be as easy. “I’m guessing you have to do something else to close them?”

  “You sure do,” Reina confirmed. “The flaps themselves have knobs that release the hinges that hold them in place, but we shouldn’t have to worry about that until the wind stops blowing, which could be for a number of days.”

  “Great,” I stated facetiously, “I’m sure my butt will love me by then.”

  Reina laughed, genuinely delighting in me. “The seats are actually quite comfortable,” she opined, “and if you get hungry, there are snacks in this middle consul. So we should be set to go. Just remember to stay focused and keep your eyes looking ahead. I’d say follow me, but something tells me you’re going to want to race instead.”

  I grinned, feeling more excited to experience the full power of the wind.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Definitely,” I answered as I mounted my red and blue windcycle, caressing the smooth grip of the handlebars.

  Reina hopped on her orange and blue one before leaning over to me with something in her hand. “One more thing,” she said as she handed me the object, “don’t forget to wear your helmet.”

  I reluctantly placed the clunky device over my aching head. “Happy?” I smirked behind its visor.

  “Very,” Reina smiled before putting on her own helmet. “Now let’s ride!”

  She released her flaps and took off in a flash. Unwilling to eat Reina’s dust, I pushed my flap-opening button without hesitation, and the windcycle accelerated forward faster than I could handle. Almost losing my grip on the right handlebar, I thought I would crash for a second as my wheels skidded across the grass, but just barely avoiding this immediate wipeout, I regained control over the machine and surged ahead in pursuit of my blonde-braided friend.

  But before catching up with Reina, I recklessly decided to take off my helmet so I could feel the current on my face, and in that thrilling rush, I truly understood the appeal of following the wind. My eyes stayed wide open, constantly alert to the changing conditions of my ever-increasing speed, and my hair rustled wildly as we traversed the heavily treaded terrain, a vast plain of grass graced with the abundance of colors that shined down from the vibrant expanse. All the while, my nostrils breathed in the fresh and open air, my exhilarated mind rejoicing in the freedom of the breeze.

  I eventually returned the helmet to my head where it belonged and caught up with Reina to indicate that her challenge had been accepted. So the two of us raced radiantly through the polychromatic fields in pursuit of our family and friends, those already riding through the Pit in search of the Glorious King. But basking in this king’s glory would not come before crossing the Sands of Suffering, which awaited just ahead on the path laid out before us.

  So as the light from the cavernous ceiling dimmed, Reina and I crossed into that terribly dry desert where our windcycle wheels plowed roughly through the loose sand. Riding at a slightly slower speed as a result, I squinted through the sandy scenery and saw many windcyclists caught in a storm up ahead. I initially wondered how atmospheric clouds could form underground but then figured I should stop picking apart the strange conditions of the dreamlike world. Then I glanced over at Reina whose ruby eyes looked very concerned behind her visor.

  “Should we be worried?” I yelled, hoping she could hear me not only through my helmet but also through the sandy wind.

  “Very!” Reina shouted. “A storm in the Pit is a bad sign!”

  “Of what?!” I screeched.

  “Rotten Ruakia!” Reina shrieked.

  “I wasn’t sure you believed in their existence!” I admitted very loudly.

  “I’m starting to!” she screamed over the rumbles of thunder in the distance.

  Feeling the dread of the storm, I figured we should maybe stop before it was too late, but based on Reina’s facial expression through her visor, she looked determined to ride forward, likely afraid for her children’s lives. I too worried for them all, especially for the one I most adored. So we did not apply our brakes in the sand but instead journeyed forth through the windy desert to face the storm.

  Reina and I caught up with the windcyclists in no time and witnessed the absolute chaos that ensued. The wind was blowing the swerving riders erratically as lightning struck all around them with deafening booms of thunder. As a result of the electric environment, pockets of people funneled in different directions, being twisted and turned through the mighty tempest as its lightning lit up the dark sand.

  Not wishing to be separated from my companion, I squeezed my breaks enough to drop behind Reina, fixed to follow her to the end of storm, but in the blink of an eye, a cloud flashed in front of us. A subsequent bolt surged out of its mass and struck me right in the chest with enough force to knock me off my windcycle.

  I rolled violently across the sand’s surface as I simultaneously fell into a mystical trance. So when I reached the terminus of my tumbling, I lay absolutely stunned in the sand. Suddenly, a cold, prickling sensation creeped up in my toes in the same way a person’s foot falls asleep, and a thousand tingling needles pulsated through the skin of my feet.

  Bewildered, I looked down and saw a black-haired woman holding onto my ankles. From my perspective, she appeared to be composed of lightning, that is if lightning could rot like an apple. Not as pure as lightning, her essence appeared dirty. Not as bright as lightning, her form possessed patches of thick darkness, and not as powerful as lightning, the sinister woman seemed to be draining energy from me rather than having any herself.

  This rotten-lightning woman started crawling up my body with zombie-like arms, spreading thousands of tingly needles through my legs. Suffering immensely in a state of paralysis, I gazed down in horror at the woman’s deadly black hair, which covered her face, and I desperately hoped I wouldn’t see that cursed countenance.

  When my entire lower body had fallen asleep, I thought I had met my doom, but in a flash of golden light, the electric woman was blasted away. The feeling in my lower body returned immediately, and I quickly turned to see who had saved me.

  With great shock, I saw two little children standing before me. They shined bright like the sun and dazzled purer than anything I could’ve imagined. These two star-children were beholding me with loving eyes and warm smiles, and as I stared back at them in awe, I noticed that one resembled a boy and one resembled a girl.

  The star-boy took a gentle step toward me. “You’re safe now, Sunseer,” he declared with authority. “She can’t hurt you anymore. Now rise and find the Glorious King.”

  As soon as he finished speaking, the little star-girl sang a high-pitched note, which raised the star-children into the air. Overcome by the weight of this supernatural force, I fell back on the sand, temporarily blinded by the beaming light that resulted from the star-children’s majestic departure.

  When I finally recovered my ability to see, I no longer saw the star-children nor the rotten-lightning woman. Swirling sand alone whirled in my vision, for the wind from the storm had created a vexing vortex of sand. Due to this obscured view, Reina and the other windcyclists had completely vanished, and my own windcycle lay nowhere in sight.

 
; Thankfully, my helmet served as a shield for my face in the midst of this sandy whirlwind. However, my fall from the windcycle had discombobulated me so much that I could barely think straight. Instinctively, I marched forward but didn’t get very far before I stumbled to the ground. Thus, too distraught to continue, I lay in a curled-up position as I endlessly waited for the treacherous storm to pass.

  Chapter 9

  A Married Mirage

  When the storm finally passed in the early hours of the morning, I awakened in the desert with a most agonizing hunger and thirst. Though my windcycle was gone and the snacks with it, the canteen still hung from my neck. I immediately chugged the water without a care for the future, for at that moment, I thirsted beyond compare. I felt more dehydrated than I thought possible, and this unbearable thirst demanded to be quenched.

  But the water in my canteen was not enough, not nearly enough. I thirsted for more in the Sands of Suffering, that vast, arid desert where a ubiquitous dryness tyrannically oppressed the land, penetrating all things to their very core. Everything came to nothing on its moistureless mounds. Everywhere led to nowhere within its endless miseries.

  I too felt like nothing as I lay there alone in the sand, separated from everyone I had met in the Pit. I feared I would never see any of them again, and this saddened me greatly. Reina had taken such care of me, and with her sons, I had shared a brotherly bond. And after only a few minutes with Meina, my heart had soared beyond the moon.

  Meina…to hear her name in my mind makes my heart ache. What if she perished in the storm? What if all of them have turned to dust in this desert? These dreadful thoughts are filling my soul with such bitterness. Life would be so empty without loved ones. Even a mere dream without others would serve no purpose. But I refuse to be overcome by such emptiness, nor will I be taken under by this thirst. Surely water must be hidden somewhere in the desert. Surely my companions have endured the storm.

  Clinging to these small glimmers of hope, I rose from the ground and journeyed forth through the seemingly boundless sand. But as the light from the cavernous ceiling shined brighter, the day grew hotter, and the wind blew fainter. With sweat dripping down my spine and brow, the wind follower garment became unbearably hot. So I ripped the top half off and wrapped two of its pieces around my feet to insulate them from the scorch of the surface.

  After traversing the Sands of Suffering like this for almost three full days, I collapsed, exhausted and shriveled. As on Victory Hill, it would take another happenstance of deliverance to save me now, for my hope rapidly dwindled as I scanned the empty horizon from the ground. Between the visible waves of heat in the air and my own dehydrated dizziness, my vision failed me, informing me that the cruel desert would never end. Without the slightest sign of salvation, I closed my eyes with the conclusion that the sand would soon become my grave.

  Thus, a hot, dusty death I faced, though I did not know what death even meant. So for a moment, I tried to convince myself it was all just a dream, and this façade of death would simply awaken me to my other life. But my suffering in the sand felt too real. I feared that this dream had somehow become my reality, that what I confronted was not simply an illusion of death.

  So if I truly face death, what does that even mean? What will happen to me? Will my consciousness fade into nothing as my body shuts down? Or will I be aware after entering death’s door? Which do I even prefer? Both alternatives sound equally evil and equitably enigmatic. What is this abominable ambiguity that everyone nonchalantly calls death? What a cruel joke! Has no one gotten to the bottom of life’s most significant mystery?

  Seething in the sand with bitter anger, my mind sunk into a maddening mud of confusion. Why had no one properly warned me about this invisible monster? I needed an answer to this wretched riddle but had not even been given a clue. Had no one loved me enough to give me the only thing I ultimately needed? Had no one even the common courtesy to discuss with me my fatal fate? Apparently not, for I was falling into the vacuous void without the wings to escape it.

  But I refused to die in ignorance. An answer existed somewhere in the Pit. I was sure of it. And if not, I would at least do my best to search for it, for I could not accept death’s illogical reality. Life made much more sense than death. Life I had always known. But death had no meaning to me. Indeed, I felt death existed apart from knowledge, and nothing sounded worse than meeting the unknowable.

  Unwilling to meet this foreign beast, my heavy eyes opened back to the blinding light of the cavernous ceiling. The gems on its surface shined with such splendor as if an echo to the sun, and I had seen the sun alright. I was the Sunseer after all, at least according to the salvific star-children.

  Now rise and find the Glorious King.

  The star-boy’s words resonated through my soul, replenishing the fibers of my being that felt drained and diminished. With the rejuvenation of my spirit, I rose out of the sand and marched with perseverance. A cool breeze suddenly arrived from behind to fan my burning back, so I maintained my course with the gale as my guide. This wind had come just in time to lead me to my salvation.

  Within the hour, I noticed something off in the distance, though after walking for so long without seeing anything but sand, I found it difficult to trust my fuzzy vision. I had heard about mirages of course and knew that my eyes could be playing tricks on me. However, as the breeze blew me farther in that direction, the blurry image began taking shape.

  An isolated patch of palm trees emerged on the horizon, though I still debated whether my mind could trust this convenient discovery. Plus, as I drew nearer, something else further enforced my doubts. Leaning on a palm tree, I saw a dark-haired woman with a red gown wrapped around her physique, and the sight of this woman confirmed to me that I must be hallucinating.

  Though I would have preferred a mirage of the woman I truly desired, I figured I could still enjoy the tantalizing vision of this married one. As I advanced closer to the wavy palm forest, the forbidden woman turned her neck in my direction and spotted me immediately. So she came out to meet me on the outskirts of the trees.

  “Oh my goodness, Benjamin, I can’t believe it’s you,” Kecelia voiced sweetly as she met me with an electrifying embrace. And as her bosom squeezed up against my chest, I seriously started to doubt my pending mirage theory. She felt more real than the ground under my feet, the fresh scent of coconuts emanating from her body.

  “Kecelia,” I rasped, “is it really you?”

  “Yes, my sweet Benjamin,” she confirmed her reality, continuing to hold me close, “I am here.”

  My head spun as the dizziness progressed. “Water,” I wheezed, “water.”

  “Of course, my dear,” she comforted as she released my body and took hold of my face, “you must be thirsty beyond compare.”

  I nodded weakly as I wearily gazed into her amber eyes.

  “Oh, Benjamin, let me care for you, and I will soon quench your agonizing thirst,” she assured as she grabbed my hand and led me back to the palm tree oasis. We did not walk far before we came to a fresh pool abundantly sourced by an artesian well. I dropped to the ground at once and submerged my entire head in the water, gulping down mouthful after mouthful.

  After multiple seconds, I lifted my head out of the pool and ran my hands through my refreshingly soaked hair. Kecelia soon squatted next to me with a piece of fruit in her hand, which she had picked from one of the trees. She handed the fruit to me, and I took it and ate.

  “I’m so glad you found me here in the desert, Benjamin,” Kecelia expressed her delight. “I couldn’t find you at the Festival of Masks, and when the wind started to blow, I thought I may never see you again.” As she spoke from her birthstone, I continued to munch at the exquisite fruit. Every single bite brought an explosion of juices that either trickled into my throat or dribbled down my chin, and seeing the rogue juices fall from my mouth, Kecelia wiped them away with a deep longing in her eyes. “But you are here now, and we can stay in this oasis for as long
as we desire. We could even build a home and live happily ever after in our own little haven.”

  “I know you’re married, Kecelia,” I snapped sluggishly, trying to snap myself back to reality.

  “Married, HA! I would hardly call what Hive and I have a marriage. He doesn’t love me. He never did, especially not when I fell off his windcycle in the storm. If he had really loved me, he would have come back for me and abandoned his pursuit of the wind, but no, instead, he cared more about holding onto his precious glory. He valued being the Windcatcher more than being my husband. So as you can see, our ‘marriage’ was a sham to him. But you and I, Benjamin, we could have something much more real than Hive and I ever had,” Kecelia proposed as she grabbed my hand.

  “He’ll find us,” I resisted wearily, standing up to pull my hand away.

  “Hive will never find us,” Kecelia assured me as she stood up to make her case. “We’re in the middle of nowhere for Pit’s sake. No one will ever see what transpires in this desert. No one will hold it against us.”

  “It’s wrong, Kecelia,” I declared deliriously, trying to stand firm through my speech. “We shouldn’t do this.”

  Unable to appeal to my reason, Kecelia resorted to something more powerful. Ever so gently, she pulled down her strapless, red dress so that her breasts blossomed into the light. The sinuous sight of her tantalizing torso seized my faint heart as I stared in a stupor, wholly enamored with dreamlike desire, for out of nowhere, she had broken through my defenses.

  But for a split second, I intended to restrain myself, feeling I could still turn away. I full-heartedly believed that it wasn’t too late to turn back from the smooth hills before me. Without a doubt, this forbidden excursion could have been avoided right from the start and the flame extinguished long before reaching full ignition. So I wrestled fiercely with myself as my self tussled aggressively with me.

  Kecelia seemed to sense my agonizing ambivalence and sought to compel me further. “I can see it in your eyes, Benjamin, that you like what you see.” She put her right hand on my left pec, sending my infected heart into a swirl of delight. “I see you.” Her left hand grabbed my right hand and moved it to her left breast, holding it firmly against her warm flesh so that I could feel her heartbeat surging through her chest. “And you see me.”