The Teristaque Chronicles

by Aaron Frale

  Part I

  Kal’s Fall

  “Why do I look different?” Kal’Da’Hak often asked her mother.

  Her mom would smile and say, “The Earth Mother blesses you.”

  Kal never felt very blessed. Her bones had the strength of twigs compared to her earth brothers and sisters. She was a good length shorter, and her torso was thin. When the river swallowed the Te'Cek family home, the village came together to build them a new one. The young always did the heavy lifting of the stone and wood, but Kal was believed to be too fragile, so she was left to weave rope for the roof with the elders. The worst thing was that her skin was the lightest shade of green to have ever been born. Most of her earth brothers and sisters had vibrant green skin with blue, orange, or silver hair. Her skin was light green, and her hair was black. She looked like she was sick even though she felt fine. The oddest part was her eyes, the deepest blue like a crystal clear lake. None of her people had blue eyes.

  In the woods, Kal would lift stones and logs. While she could not lift as much as her earth brothers and sisters, she could still do it without breaking her bones. The myth of her fragile bones came from various accidents in her youth. The children would use stone balls during sport. While the stone ball would bounce off the others leaving minor bruising, the same ball would shatter Kal’s ribs. Her fragile nature made her feel like an outsider, always stuck just watching the activities or being given lighter duties typically reserved for the elders.

  The villagers always treated her with respect. Even though she felt alone, she never felt unwelcome or unwanted. Everyone in the village looked out for one another, but Kal felt that she could not do her part and look out for them. Once, a cart smashed the leg of one of her brethren, Wek’Ri’Ket, and she could not lift it. By the time she found help, Wek had lost too much blood and joined the ancestors with the Sky Father. No one blamed Kal or doubted her sincerity. They believed accidents were the will of the gods and not the blame of Kal’s birth. Despite the comfort from her fellow villagers, Kal felt guilty. Her birth-blessing was more of a curse. She would always be the weakest of the village.

  Kal also knew she was different beyond the limitations of her earthly form. Most of her earth brothers and sisters had fathers, but she did not. Her mom always told her that her father had died in the Teristaque invasion. Kal’s father left the tribe to fight in the war while Kal grew in her mother’s womb. The Teristaques won the war but left Kal’s village alone because they were interested only in Mother Earth’s metal, and Kal’s village had none. Despite having never met or seen a Teristaque, Kal imagined her father dying in a great battle and fighting to the last breath. She didn’t tell her family about her visions of war. Violence was abhorred by the tribe and was used only as a last resort.

  Aside from Kal’s fantasies, all that was left of her father was an insignia; a patch from his uniform, it featured a fierce bird swooping in, poised to attack, and strange lettering in a language unfamiliar to the tribe. The Teristaques were feared and hated by all. Legend said that there were other tribes from the stars that had followed the Teristaque fleet to Kal’s world to help fight the invading force.

  It wasn’t until her sixteenth season, and her first real encounter with a star species that she would come closer to finding out the fate of her father.

  _______

  Kal pushed hard against a giant felled tree. Most of her earth brothers and sisters could have easily pushed the tree, but Kal pushed with all of her might and the log barely budged. She wanted to push the log down a hill, onto a pile of logs and rocks at the bottom that she had collected from the woods. Kal planned to build a cabin by herself. She had collected a fair amount of building supplies and even snuck a few tools from the commons.

  Kal liked her trips into the woods, and no one seemed to notice she was missing. In the woods, she was free to do as she liked and she was never asked to perform the tasks of the elderly. Kal started building the cabin as a way to display her strength to the tribe, but still she sometimes thought about never returning. This day, however, her mind was on the log, knowing the cabin would never be finished if she couldn’t get the materials down the hill. She had dragged the heavy tree trunk a long distance only to get it stuck in a rut near the top.

  She pushed, pulled, yanked, and even tried to dig the log out of the rut, but it was too heavy. The rollers she used to pull logs long distances would not work in the rut. For heavy objects, the tribe would put rollers on the ground, then would push or pull the objects to their destination. For several people, the task was steady and always flowing. A few of the young would pull and an elderly, or Kal, would dart back and forth taking a roller from the back and putting it in the front. For a single person, it was slow going. Kal would push the log, move the rollers, and push the log some more. It was slow, but Kal was determined. And now she was thwarted by a rut.

  “You know, that’s easier with two people,” a voice said from behind.

  Kal nearly jumped out of her skin. She had been alone in the forest every afternoon for almost three weeks and had never seen a soul. Behind her, to her shock, was a star species! The being was strange, with thin twiggy arms and a small chest to match. It had tan skin and brown hair, and even Kal stood a good six inches taller. The being was definitely one of the star species, but even so, Kal couldn’t help herself. She reached out to touch the thing to make sure that it was real.

  “Ok, ok,” the star being laughed. “I get it. You’ve never seen a human before.”

  “HU-MAN?” The clunky word did not roll off her tongue. “You mean star species?”

  “Right,” The HU-MAN looked down at a device on his arm. “The translator doesn’t have the word human. Call me Oliver.”

  “All-LIV-ER?” Kal had trouble making the words.

  “Ah hell, just Sarge. The folks back in my service days used to call me Sarge.”

  “Sarge,” Kal pointed to him and then pointed to herself. “Kal.”

  “Thank God for small favors, a local who has half a brain. You couldn’t spare some of that jerky, could ya? I’m mighty hungry, and I don’t know what’s good to eat or what will kill me on this planet.”

  Kal looked at the jerky in her belt pouch. She almost never ate the jerky anyway, even though her mom always insisted that she should bring it during her hikes, so she gave the entire amount to Sarge. The HU-MAN was very grateful. He devoured the jerky, and a unique friendship was born.

  _______

  The next day, Kal brought food from the commons, and in exchange Sarge offered to help build the cabin. Over the next couple of weeks, he traded labor for food. Sarge had all sorts of questions and seemed particularly interested in learning survival skills for her planet, especially what trees and herbs were good for mending wounds. She taught him how to live off the land and in exchange, he told her about the universe. Sarge seemed to be obsessed with fair trade, a foreign concept to Kal since no one from her village would ever let anyone go hungry, and they shared their knowledge without expectation of gaining something through trade.

  During the first few weeks of their friendship, Kal realized that Sarge did not have a home. She caught him sleeping in a nest under a tree like a wild animal. She resolved to give him the cabin when they finished.

  They talked as they built. She taught him her words, and he taught her his. The words she found the most interesting were about space. The universe was bigger than she could imagine, with more stars in the sky than those she could see. Around every star were planets. Most were without life, but there were also many worlds like Kal’s. The universe was teaming with tribes, so many it would be impossible to meet them all.

  When she listened to Sarge speak, Kal felt like she underst
ood her father for the very first time. Every other person in her village felt like they fit in and had a home. Now she realized that her father was probably just like her and did not fit in either. He was the only person from her village to fight in the Teristaque Wars, which she never understood, but if fighting in a war meant getting a chance to see these other worlds and tribes then she could understand the allure.

  _______

  On the day the cabin was finished, Sarge began to pack his bags.

  “Where are you going?” Kal asked.

  “You don’t have any more work, so I think it’s time to move on,” Sarge said. “Got to put food on the table somehow.”

  “You don’t have a table.”

  “Don’t rub it in,” Sarge said as he started towards the woods.

  Kal chased after him saying, “I bring you food because you are a being, an Earth child like the rest of us, not for your work!”

  Sarge laughed, his laugh loud and free in the open air. “Oh, is that how it is?”

  “Yes, this house is also yours because you are part of the tribe.”

  “I got nothing to trade for a house.”

  “I already have two homes, my home in the village and this one. You have no home, so naturally the house should be yours.”

  “I don’t know how it works here, but where I come from, you pay your way,” Sarge said as he turned to the woods.

  “But winter is coming! There will be nothing to hunt, and you will not survive without the shelter and warmth of a home!”

  Sarge turned back to Kal and lowered the bag from his shoulder.

  _______

  One night, a few weeks after they finished the cabin and he had decided to stay, Sarge was cooking a kill over the flame like Kal had taught him. The leaves were beginning to turn outside. As the smoke billowed from the chimney, the smell of fresh banjer meat made Kal’s mouth water as she entered. The cabin was a single room with a pitched roof to protect against the winter snow storms. They made a bed small enough for a human as well as a few chairs and a table. The cabin was sparse, but it was never intended for more than one person, unlike the multi-family homes in the village.

  Sarge looked back from basting the banjer with the tree sap mixture Kal had taught him and said, “You’re just in time for Sarge’s homemade barbecue! Reminds me of home. Ain’t nothing like Kansas City barbecue!”

  Kal didn’t remind him that the recipe was a village tradition and not from the Kansas City Tribe. She was pretty sure that Sarge was homesick, so whenever he said something tasted or smelled like his home, she didn’t argue. Sarge’s fantasies about home made perfect sense to Kal; she often fantasized about being anywhere other than where she was.

  When Sarge set the table for dinner, Kal noticed blood stains on his shirt. When she looked closer, she could see a daniyup leaf tied to his chest. Daniyup leaves were good for mending wounds because they stopped the bleeding and had a numbing effect when in contact with skin.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Kal inquired.

  “Oh, that? Just a minor wound. I slipped when I was hunting the banjer and fell on a tree branch. Hit that sucker between the eyes, though! Not bad for my first solo banjer hunt.”

  Kal nodded in agreement and listened to the story of his hunt while they ate his “World Famous Kansas City Barbeque.”

  _______

  After they had finished their meal, Sarge rolled a smoking plant into a giant wrap he called a stogie. They sat on the porch listening to the faint chirping horn of the lasaile bug. They would usually watch the stars, but tonight was different. Kal wanted to know about her father, and a man as well traveled as Sarge would surely know about the Teristaque Wars. Kal pulled her father’s insignia from her belt. She had smuggled it from her home in the village earlier that day.

  “I have something to show you,” Kal said and produced the insignia. Sarge took the patch and looked it over. Kal could not read human expressions, but the patch seemed to strike Sarge in a peculiar way. Sarge bellowed with laughter.

  “It seems you got a genuine artifact on your hands!” Sarge howled.

  “It was my fathers.” Kal hadn’t yet figured out if laughter was good or bad. Sarge laughed a lot, but sometimes it seemed a cover for dark memories. Other times, it was the enjoyment of life.

  “Don’t that explain everything! It was your pops!” Sarge laughed.

  “My mother said it was a part of his uniform.”

  “Of course, it was… and all this time I was wondering….”

  “Wondering what?”

  “About you!”

  “You know of my father?”

  “Not personally, but I can tell you where to find him.”

  “He is alive?”

  “Of course, he’s alive! You think they fight with sticks like the people of your village?”

  “My people do not fight.”

  “Well, shoot. No wonder you lost the war.”

  “What do you know about my father? Please tell me! I have to know.”

  “Listen up, kid. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about your father, but I need you to do one last thing for me.”

  “What? Anything!”

  Sarge rummaged through the house until he brought back a small blinking stone. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. There was a light in the center that blinked a deep red. It looked mysterious and magical.

  “What is it?” Kal couldn’t take her eyes off the light. It almost looked as if the light was looking back at her.

  “It’s how I stayed ahead. And now, I’m giving it to you. It’s very valuable and will set up your village for a while.”

  “We have no need for money because—”

  “I know, I know. I don’t need no hokum fancy crap. You will need money one of these days, and this is your ticket. Now listen up. You put this in your parent’s house. Bury it under stones or something. Keep it safe.”

  “But--”

  “You listen up. I don’t want no arguments. Come back to me tomorrow and I’ll tell you all you want to know about your pop.”

  Sarge dropped the stone into Kal’s hand and closed her palm. The stone felt warm to the touch like it had an unnatural heat. The slow blinking light transfixed Kal.

  “Now run along home.”

  “But I don’t have to be back until Sat’Re’Nik rises.”

  “Go home. Get.”

  Kal knew Sarge was serious, so she went home early. She ran through the forest, and her heart pounded. He was alive! And she would finally know more about her father. Maybe Sarge would even take Kal to the stars to meet him? Kal had never felt more alive in her life. She buzzed by the wildlife and trees while she made her way home.

  _______

  Later that night, she hid the stone under the floorboards of the kitchen. She covered it with a pile of stones to mask the blinking light. Once she knew it was safe and out of view per Sarge’s instructions, she climbed back up the stairs to her bedroom. Luckily, no one had awoken while she secured the precious gift.

  _______

  The next morning, Kal heard the most terrifying noise she had ever heard in her life. She got up and stumbled from her oak bed. Her room was small, barely big enough for her oversized bed, made smaller still by the mattress stuffed full of soft bearuga leaves. Even though she was much smaller than her earth brothers and sisters, the villagers had built her a normal sized bed. She decorated the furniture with interesting rocks she had found in the forest.

  A giant beast roared outside, and the villagers ran around screaming. She heard them yell, “Teristaque! Teristaque!” A lump formed in Kal’s throat. Her father’s enemy had come at last. She heard that the Teristaques were savage and fierce and that they would eat children whole. Kal thought about sneaking out to warn Sarge but knew he was better off hidden away in the cabin. The Teristaques would not raid a cabin when they could raid a whole village.

  She heard her front door being broken down and heard the screams of her fa
mily. She looked frantically for a weapon and ended up breaking a leg off her chair. Seconds later, a Teristaque kicked open her door, sending rocks tumbling from her dresser. With a battle cry, she smacked the thing invading her room. The makeshift weapon bounced harmlessly off its hide. It tore the chair leg from her hand and kicked her to the ground.

  The Teristaque was truly fearsome to behold. It was bipedal, like her, with smooth black skin that looked hard as tree bark. Tubes connected its hulking chest to its face where it had deep fearsome black eyes. Warpaint covered the body. A fearsome bird of prey unlike anything she had seen on her world was tattooed on its chest. It was a hulking mass that could contend with the strongest villager. The Teristaque pointed a giant club at Kal.

  “Move,” The Teristaque said in a deep growl. “Outside now!”

  _______

  Teristaques were swarming the village. They shoved families out of their multi-story homes, and they were corralling them up in the town square. There was a giant bird hovering over the village. Fierce and menacing, it was painted the same black as the Teristaque’s skin. Kal wondered if it was one of those spaceships Sarge talked about.

  Villagers who didn’t comply with the given orders were dragged to the town square. They were kicked, punched, and knocked around by the clubs the Teristaques waved and pointed at everyone. The scene was chaotic, and families huddled together. Children wailed in fear. Kal’s mom tried to comfort Kal with a hug, but Kal pushed her mom away and stood to wait for the Teristaques to speak. The soldiers just stared with their hollow black eyes.

  One member of the crowd panicked, breaking away from the square, and started running as fast as he could. The Teristaque soldiers screamed at him to stop, and they ordered him to the ground. A panicked man does not listen to reason, so one of the soldiers leveled his club towards the running man. Thunder and lightning spewed forth from the club, and the running man dropped to the ground. It was too far away for Kal to see what happened, but he was no longer moving. The soldiers didn’t seem to pay any more attention to him after that.

  Once the Teristaques had rounded up the remaining villagers, the soldiers formed a circle around them. Some villagers prayed to the Sky Father and others to the Earth Mother. Children whimpered; mothers and fathers comforted their families. Most of the young and able-bodied stood with grim, blank expressions. It was like the expression of competitors before sporting matches, but unlike Rock Ball, or Log Toss, they may have to fight for their life. Even if Kal never met her father, she would go down fighting the Teristaque. Her father would be proud if she died a warrior like him.