That was the day that Teftek realized that life was more valuable than death.
Had he lost that?
A village filled with people…the old Vesh on Gastiquy Point…a young female Vesh who milled, but kept her knife close because she always expected soldiers. He never knew the names of them, of so many of them that he had taken away from this world, had he-
From the blackness and the encroaching doom, emerged an obliterating whiteness that, for just a moment, seemed to devour him. As the burning glare reduced and his vision adjusted, the brilliant light remained in the shape of a rectangle conveniently large enough to fit Vesh-sized bodies. Out of the portal, the silhouette of a small, malnourished child emerged, unnaturally black against the white light, and extended a bony finger to Teftek.
“You are the death priest,” he droned, as he always did, but then he continued, moving his finger ever so slightly to point past him. “You are the life priest.” He extended his hand, open to hold Teftek’s. As Teftek felt his form and shape emerge from the darkness, another drifted past him; that of Inlojem. He joined his hand with the child, and their eyes merged; red spheres against their blackness, and they turned from him, entering the portal. Teftek followed them, but found that he hadn’t the will to step through to the other side. “Destroy it,” he heard the child say, “and do not follow.”
Then he was slapped. Suddenly he realized he was awake again. He felt crisp night air assaulting his body with cold. Two of the three moons blasted moonlight onto the rocky ground, and a copper-eater howled at them in the distance. Inlojem’s large, creased white hand had just pulled back again when Teftek grabbed it and looked at the old man.
“You slap me again and I’ll snap your wrist,” he grumbled. Inlojem relaxed and smiled just a little, the light of the campfire in the background making his deep eye sockets seem deeper.
“Such a shame- I assumed you were dead; would have made good meat to distract the Shades.” He chuckled as he glanced at Teftek’s clutching hand. “For such a small thing, you certainly have some lightning in your heart,” Inlojem responded as he shook Teftek’s small hand off of his taught, muscular wrist. Inlojem rose to stand, as Aljefta handed Teftek a small canteen of water.
“I was able to get us up into Shade territory,” Aljefta explained to him, with no real pride behind his voice. “Only problem-“
“How many Uyors left?” Teftek asked, moving his fingers to the back of his head to inspect the damage.
“Just us seven, Captain,” Aljefta responded, motioning to the five remaining soldiers behind him. They were spattered with the mauve blood of their comrades, and their clothing and armor was tattered. Aljefta’s limited medical skills had gone a long way in patching them up. “Only problem-“
“Did those things take out the rest?” Teftek cut in again.
“Yes sir, but we-“ Aljefta started in again.
“Angkelm Stuigis!” Teftek shouted, as he felt the wound on the back of his head, and it burned to the touch. It was covered with a bandage and he felt that some of his hair was shaved.
“Captain! Please!” Aljefta looked Teftek in the eyes. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay,” Teftek responded, “Well- out with it!” Aljefta sighed in frustration and responded,
“The truck’s broken…and since Pojlim’s dead…it looks like we’re on foot,” Aljefta finally explained.
“In Shade territory?” Teftek responded, sitting up now and understanding the exigency of the situation. He still felt a little woozy and grasped onto Aljefta’s bicep to support himself. Aljefta nodded, to confirm what Teftek had said. “Stuigis qulrota.” Teftek muttered. “Well, I’m not bent or broken, so I suggest we get going.
“And why would we walk amongst the Shades in the shroud?” Inlojem asked as Teftek got to his feet, Aljefta pushing him up. “We have fire, and one another’s company - out there, the Oolyay beckons us to feed it.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Teftek replied condescendingly. Inlojem sighed and took his sickle blade from his side, setting it next to Iogi. He wrapped his big hand around the child’s shoulders and looked cleanly at Teftek.
“You do not know me, even though we have faced death together,” Inlojem responded.
“And you don’t know me,” Teftek responded brashly. “I’m not afraid of what’s out there - you think a little brush with death will make me ready to sit down and die?!” Inlojem looked at him silently. “You claim to be such a great killer - so in touch with death and so in touch with the prophecies of our culture, well you know what? You can take your stuigen prophecies and piss on them! ALL MY VESH ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF YOUR FOOL ERRAND!”
“Um, Captain,” Aljefta cut in.
“NOT NOW!” Teftek barked back. “What’s the point behind all of this?!
“Nothing,” Inlojem responded. “So far as I can tell, there is no point to any of this…it’s just madness.”
“Oh of course,” Teftek threw his hands up. “The nothingness-“
“No. Nothing; not The nothingness, not something to do with the Oolyay…just nothing,” Inlojem retorted. “I have no faith. Not anymore.”
Teftek became quiet for a moment before walking up to the seated Inlojem. The captain knelt down to look into Inlojem’s eyes. “Then why are you here?”
Inlojem sighed, knowing a young Vesh wouldn’t understand. “I am loyal to my teacher…my Master.” But Teftek did understand. The captain had his loyalties as well and he nodded, sighing just as deeply.
“Well, then,” Teftek responded, lifting up again. “We’re at the point of no return, aren’t we?”
“If we go South then we run back into the aliens,” Aljefta confirmed.
“And North is Shade territory,” Inlojem followed. Teftek sat down on the small bedroll Aljefta had laid out for him. He looked at his soldiers.
“Alright, all of you. Get some shuteye. We’ve got a long hike tomorrow,” Teftek commanded, opening up his carry-pack and sorting the contents. Iogi watched them all, his bleak black orbs sucking in the things he had already lived as he wandered in the future. As the soldiers restlessly wrangled their sleeping bags, Iogi tugged on Inlojem’s robe.
When Inlojem looked at the child, Iogi simply stated,
“My people are called The Ixotil. My name is Tixqu,” Igoi mimicked. His face contorted in the way that a mother’s face does when she comforts her child. His arms rubbed the air, as if grasping at another’s arm, to show confidence, acceptance.
Inlojem leaned down and placed his hands on Iogi’s shoulders.
“Iogi, what do you see?” Inlojem questioned. Iogi snapped out of his trance and looked at Inlojem with some confusion.
“I like your robe, it’s furry,” he said and began to run his bony fingers against the kyrun hide on Inlojem’s robe. Inlojem’s face slumped.
* * *
Inlojem felt the slow ache of time pass through his skin, into his muscles, and wither through his bones as he trekked alongside the young Vesh soldiers through a canyon pass. Its bright, fiery red rocks loomed over their heads as Teftek slashed aside brush and dry weeds that sprung up from the dust-laden rocky paths. The eyes of the Necrologist wandered from ledge to ledge, looking for the translucent claws of the true owners of this land. The sun dimly emitted its limited white glow through the thick clouds; a daylight that only lasted several hours before the Arctic night would encapsulate them again.
The soldiers had taken the path deep into the country of Shades now, Ru’Aar Quinsolto, and they were hardly guests in their realm; they were prey to be stalked and violated. In each nook and cranny was a lurking death that boasted the ability to blend into its settings, camouflaging itself with a natural translucence. The creatures’ whole forms were almost invisible to the naked eye. Invisible until they were directly in front of their victims and their claws were dug into the skin.
Inlojem had unmasked only one in his lifetime, but knew of their form in his mind’s eye. They were comple
x; creatures that seemed to be composed out of claws which retracted and expanded to allow them to roll along the ground like crackling invisible spheres. When they approached their claws expanded and they became an explosion of violence, blasting forth to wound their victims and steal them away.
Inlojem had washed the one Shade he had killed in his life, to see if its body was translucent, and discovered that its skin was gray and tan. The creatures seemed to ooze invisibility, and bleed invisible blood, but their bodies were thick and solid mud-colored masses. Protruding from what could only be assumed were their heads were several small proboscises that boasted slender tongues coated with almost microscopic spikes that could break off in a victim’s skin. These were the transference mechanisms for the plague - little violating particles of Shade that floated inside one’s blood and blighted it with bacteria, depriving it of oxygen and slowly killing the host.
The foundation of Oolyay lay within those little spikes; a plague that had brought forward the most prolific insights into the mind of a Vesh that had ever been revealed. Those were quiet, forgotten moments of time that existed at the center of Oolyay faith, discarded by all invaders and disregarded by all dissenters. Yet, it had occurred - Inlojem had seen those afflicted predict, time after time, the fate of many individuals and the ends of many events. They had a distinct understanding of upcoming death, be it their own or another's. For the Hagayalicks, there was no plague, no stark terror to ground them in a true worship of death. But for the Oolyayns life was the exploration of death, and from the words that had echoed off the tongues of fraught, infected children, death was the emergence into new life.
For Inlojem, the witnessing of such prophecy as told by those who traveled into the deep recesses of the plague-induced coma were far more real and honest than the stories that Hagayalicks believed, and that some old Oolyayn Necrologists claimed to have seen. Quantelenk and Ilquast, as different as they were, spoke from time to time of the powers of a single Necrologist to destroy things, to move things, to revive things with only a thought as their tool. These stories were written down in the ancient texts of half the planet’s cultures, but so many had disappeared - destroyed by the Uyor to shatter the cultural power of the Necrologists, or lost to the weathering claws of time.
Inlojem noticed The Prophet, Iogi, whose little nubby hand was steadfastly attached to the ragged, lingering threads of the death priest's cloak. His tiny legs ran to keep up with the hulking Necrologist’s long gait, and his eyes seemed to scan the rocks more than Inlojem’s did. They were filled with a different sort of observation, though - a childlike curiosity, which kept his eyes erratically flicking from one ridge to another, as opposed to Inlojem’s suspicious gaze that moved prudently from shadow to shadow, checking for inconsistencies or movement. Inlojem found he was staring at the child now, until finally Iogi looked up at Inlojem and stopped in his tracks.
He pointed behind him and went “Bang! Bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang! Bang!” Inlojem shot him a crooked, disdainful look and instructed,
“Quiet, boy- let’s-“ but before he could finish, a boulder dropped from the ridge behind him, and every soldier around him opened fire, shattering and dividing the boulder into little broken chunks of red rock against the sandy dirt path. Inlojem grabbed the boy and clutched him tight, dropping to his knees before he realized what was going on.
As he peeked, he heard the boy in his arms going “Bang bang bang bang…” to the percussion of the gunfire.
A brief moment of blazing gunfire petered out as Teftek shouted “cease discharge!” at his men. Aljefta heard the scrawny captain complaining and moved his big arm in front of the soldier next to him. The other soldiers understood and the firing sputtered and petered out. Inlojem stood up and allowed his limbs to relax Teftek’s soldiers stood and looked at the boulder for a moment, dumbfounded and embarrassed. Teftek growled and ordered them forward again.
Iogi tugged on Inlojem’s cloak as he stared at the shattered bits of red rock in fascination.
“Come on, you’re gonna miss the girl!” Iogi declared, continuing to tug on Inlojem’s cloak.
“What girl?” Inlojem responded, slipping away from his trance.
“Come oooon!” Iogi whined, pulling harder on his cloak. Inlojem looked on the pitiful creature, who was mustering all his strength to pull Inlojem forward, and obeyed the boy’s wish.
The day slowly burned away, and the faint white glowing dot far beyond the clouds drifted toward the horizon slowly, as the sullen travelers wandered through windswept mountain passes. The bulky, chipped red stones of the canyon faces faded and gave way to the tanned gray color that The Shades themselves possessed, making their camouflage especially easy.
A tension that was almost tangible settled over the party, and made each step seem like a struggle against a viscous force. Every step forward felt to the soldiers like their very last; with every step each soldier felt closer to death. The wind was the only force in this part of the world, as the bugs, mammals and Veshmali-bound reptiles had all but disappeared. Occasionally a six legged Gikun Deer would snap its head up from a nearby ridge and launch itself down the cliff side faster than seemed physically possible. Aside from these occurrences though, life was unknown to them now.
They ate their lunches in a meadow as dusk made its early appearance in the arctic time zone. As the light faded they sat amidst the ruins of an Oolyayn temple which had long ago been smashed to the ground, likely by the very Necrologists who held it sacred. Inlojem fed Iogi a Qigo fruit and inspected the ruins for signs of their demise, only to find the long-buried remains of several burnt bodies; plague victims. Many temples like this had been destroyed by their preservers in the Ru’Aar Quinsolto, to discourage more Oolyayns from settling among Shade country. Teftek mobilized his soldiers and they continued forward through the small valley of meadows, and back up into the mountain passes, until darkness enveloped them and they were forced to stop and build a camp.
They settled into a desolate village, whose former residents, Inlojem confirmed, had also met the fate of plague long ago and had abandoned their yurts. The village was surrounded on three sides by a large semi-circular cliff, lurching up from the mountainous formations below and hugging the village against a small plateau. One side of the village remained open to the plateau, on which a small field of rhete grew lazily, barely defying the cold. The structures were caved in from the wear of past snows. They weren't useful for shelter, but they erected their tents within them nonetheless.
The feeling of walls around oneself is an irreplaceable feeling of comfort for a Vesh. Inlojem knew the comfort was false and pitched a small tent in front of the village, close to where they had built their fire. Inlojem sat with the boy away from the small congregation of soldiers, huddled close together and wrapped in military blankets. Tonight they did not drink and barely spoke; their eyes were thickly laden with yesterday’s trauma. They had mostly changed their clothing, but the purple and pink spots on their carry bags and backpacks were still visible by the light of the fire. Teftek’s weary figure stood behind them, looking out into the dark village and scanning it for movement, with Aljefta walking a patrol.
Inlojem gave the boy another Qigo fruit and watched his scrawny little fingers clumsily handle it, until he could get his mouth around the bulbous part and pick off a bite. The child's jaw smacked with an almost comical fervor as he blankly stared into the dark. He seemed to hum some unknown tune as he glanced around. The boy paused and, as if through a sudden revelation, stared at Inlojem.
“When I grow up, I want to shoot lightning. I’ll go BZZZ BZZZ and shoot lightning right out of my arms,” Iogi blurted out all at once.
Inlojem listened to him with distant interest.
“When did you start talking so much?” Inlojem asked the boy, who stared blankly at him and then took another bite of Qigo. “What did those Hagayalicks teach you anyway?”
“What’s a Haglalicks?” Iogi asked.
“A Ha-ga-yal-ick
…the priests that watched over you,” Inlojem explained.
“I don’t know…they were mean. They didn’t like me,” Iogi conceded, clamming up a little.
“Why?” Inlojem pressed.
Iogi didn’t answer for a moment, looking at the ground in childish shame as he wiggled his knee.
“Um…because…” Iogi started. He looked up and saw that Inlojem was expecting him to finish. “Be- because um…I told them that um... we would go to the big flashing door and it would open and then we would go live with the Red People for the rest of forever.” Inlojem’s brow cocked sideways. He understood why the Hagayalick priests had rejected such a prophecy. “I saw it,” Iogi insisted weakly. “The Death-priest will take me there.”
Then he stood up and pointed into the blackness, and his irises lit up like light-blasted onyx. “You are a death-priest!” he prophesied, as he pointed at a figure that emerged in front of him. Inlojem turned around and saw the figure, a Vesh’s figure drifting out of the blackness toward Inlojem. The soldiers all stood up in unison and lifted their weapons in response, but before Inlojem could grab his blade, he realized that the figure was a young Vesh female, and was covered in rich violet blood that trailed down her white skin through her thick, hide-woven cloak.
She was a Necrologist.
She collapsed into Inlojem’s arms and he caught her, looking back at Teftek with astonished eyes as he held her. It was like a miracle had fallen to him from the sky. Her hand feebly grabbed for him as she mumbled incoherently. She began to convulse in his arms, but he gripped her by the back of her neck and by her torso and held her body rigid, like he had with Iogi before, keeping her awake in his arms.
The Reward of The Oolyay Page 4