Barbara held out her hand. ���Let’s have it then,��� she snapped.
But their little spat was to be cut short, as Surru, the Desert King, drew his dagger from around his waistband and set its razor blade point to a precise location on the face of the globe. A shaft of exploding light flew upward. And Surru strutted confidently toward the group of light travelers, as if there were no way that he could be beaten. He halted in front of Arthur, stopping only inches from his face and hairy long beard.
���If you are able to survive, by some impossible chance, then I give you permission to come back and kill me,��� Surru said, enjoying the arrogant sport of it all. Then he grabbed at Arthur’s hand, and ran the length of the blade across Mr. Greyford’s thumb, spilling out a few drops of blood. Arthur’s eyes were stalwart and unflinching.
���But I don’t think you’ll last through the night,��� the evil king said. ���Goodbye, old friend. Sorry you’d squandered your chance at eternity.���
Arthur ripped a strip of his clothing, and wrapped it as a bandage around his thumb.
���To live alone… in the ruins of your once glorious planet. I’ll take my chances with mortality, thank you,��� Arthur replied.
Surru gave a wry smile. ���Where is your imagination, old man?��� he said, opening Arthur’s good hand and placing in his palm the hilt of his dagger.
���I was coming back,��� Surru said for himself. ���We’ll rebuild, once the Empire is ours again.���
���When? After you’d slain countless innocents across the galaxy?��� Arthur said, outlining what the true cost of regaining the Empire would mean.
���The cost of greatness…��� Surru answered.
A clear anger shook through Arthur’s words. ���You can never rebuild something that is ruined in its heart. Your Empire is lost, old friend,��� Arthur replied, stretching out the words ���old friend��� to show that Surru was no longer that. ���As soon as you stopped caring about the mortals in the other worlds, your Empire was ruined… and I will see it end.���
A glow of light energy began to emanate from the dagger held within Arthur’s hand. And Ata, seeing this, knew he had only seconds to retrieve what had been taken from him. With the ease and cleverness of any good sneak thief, he bumbled into the Desert King during the commotion, lifting out of his pocket a mechanical ball that he would not want to be without. Howbeit, the King’s reflexes were just as good, and he grabbed at Ata’s forearm band.
���I should kill you for that,��� the Desert King uttered.
Ata tried to think of what to say. He had only seconds before he would be left behind.
���You said you’d let us go… [gulping air] O Great King,��� Ata replied.
This groveling made Surru coyly grin. ���So I did,��� he said. Then letting go of Ata’s wrist, he added, ���Run along, little boy.���
At those words, the glow that had begun in Arthur’s hand, swelled around him. Knowing what this meant, the rest of the group of light travelers ran to Arthur, holding hands and forming a chain so that they would all be connected. (All except for Tavora, who had not used light travel before, and had not known what to do.)
Before the last second, as the orb was forming, Ata stretched out and took her hand. Innately, she knew this action to be somehow curiously related to the globe, and the light that built around them. Yet the shock of any normative physical touch was so foreign to her, after several years of repeated calloused and unfeeling interactions, that she nearly pulled away, as an instinct.
But good thing that she hadn’t, and that Ata had grabbed her hand tightly, or she would have been left behind in the world of Gleomu, that was now made increasingly dangerous. And also, if she had been left behind, there’s no doubt that she would have been murdered within the hour.
The impenetrable wall of the orb’s light surrounded them. And in this enclosure the silence was unbreakable, keeping at bay Myre’s sad whinnying, and all other noise of that world.
It would be a year, by the settings on the globe dials, before they would have any chance at all of returning. And what a difference a year might bring, if only they could last that long.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Circumstance
The planets and colossal solar systems of our galaxy flew past them. From their orb they saw a lone icy blue planet circling a singular reddened sun.
���Can someone please tell me what’s going on here?��� Timothy blurted out, as they soared through the expanse of space.
���Yes, and who’s this girl with you, Ata?��� Barbara added with a curious tone.
Ata was a bit beside himself regarding what to say. ���She’s my… guide,��� he answered, not sounding confident.
Barbara smirked. ���You need a guide to get around Gleomu now?��� she joked.
Ata was slightly red in the face. ���Is it my fault that I haven’t lived there as long as you two have?��� he said.
���No, but it is your fault for not paying attention,��� Timothy answered, in good fun, as they split through a meteor belt in some unlit portion of space.
Almost faster than the eye can see, they blasted through the core of a massive meteor, and broke through the other side without ever hearing a sound or feeling the smallest tremor.
���Speaking of unexplained guests,��� Ata said, possibly trying to divert the topic of conversation, although not consciously. ���Is this?…��� he continued expectantly.
Timothy could, by this time, read his friend’s mannerisms very well, and so he thought he might know what question Ata could be asking, before the words came out.
���None other,��� Timothy answered with a subtle nod of his head. ���Ata, meet Arthur Greyford.���
They were falling to the ground, through a canopy of gigantic trees, and the light was beginning to fade in that world, so that they could not tell exactly which planet they were headed to.
���A pleasure to make your acquaintance,��� Arthur replied, which was not the sort of pleasantry that you’d expect to receive from such a wild-looking bearded man. ���And your lady friend?��� Arthur said as a question, motioning to the curly-haired girl beside Ata.
���Tavora,��� Tavora said, introducing herself.
���A pleasure, my dear,��� Arthur answered. Then, he took a deep breath as their orb touched down in the dusk of a massive forest. ���But I would have liked to meet you both under better circumstance,��� he continued.
And to say that our group of light travelers had run into a bit of bad circumstance would be an exaggerative understatement. In all honesty, they had found themselves in a nightmare. The night had fallen like a wave.
In worlds where there are no streetlights, no visible cities, or even the glow of a campfire, the dusk will turn to night in the blink of an eye, and all will be bathed in darkness. This was one such place.
The towering trees with their interwoven canopy of leafy branches blocked out almost all of the soft starlight. And added to this fact, was that this planet did not have a moon like ours, so that on this world there was never much light to guide the night, nor would there be. And absolute darkness in an uncharted world can be tremendously disconcerting.
Yet, thankfully when they had landed there was still a few minutes of twilight left; Enough time to gather dead branches for a fire, and enough time for the apparent good fortune of finding a cave.
Perhaps a cave would provide better shelter they thought, though not all of them. Tavora, as a habit, had not been fond of caves, and would avoid them as a matter of principle. However, she relented, not wanting to be left out in the cold. And so, in this manner, they found themselves in a spacious cave with exceptionally high ceilings, enjoying the pleasant glow of a well-burning fire; As Arthur wa
s incredibly good at starting fires, using the blade of his new dagger against a piece of flat stone to cause a spark, which then became a flame, which then became a blazing fire, beaming from their cave into the utter and unprecedented night.
���You were friends with that man?��� Timothy said to Mr. Greyford, as they huddled around a well-burning fire that crackled and snapped, burning a mixture of new branches and dried fallen logs that they’d hurried to gather as the deep night fell.
Arthur leaned back from the fire to consider his response.
���I was friends with the man that he was, but that man has since died,��� he answered. Then stroking the long strands of his beard and chuckling to himself, continued, ���…And it seems I should do better in choosing my friends, I’ve a lousy track record.���
���But how did you meet him exactly?��� Barbara asked, speaking loudly from across the fire. ���In your visits to Gleomu?���
���What?��� he said, looking around at the group, and specifically at Barbara and Timothy. ���You still haven’t figured it out yet, have you?���
���Should we have?��� Timothy questioned, while throwing another sapling branch on the fire.
Then Ata butted in, asking, ���Was he… some other business partner of yours, like that one fellow, what’s his name?���
���Darius,��� Timothy said, finishing Ata’s thought.
But Arthur shook his head ���no���, to show that was incorrect; And as the flames burned steadily moving a light across the dark of the cave, he told them the story of how he’d met Surru, the Desert King, on the desolate eternal planet of Eddesu, with his small band of survivors that had miraculously outlived the final deadly war on their world that had raged for a millennium.
���And after a while I began to make regular visits to Eddesu. Not all the time mind you, because at first I did not want to make it a crutch for myself, but if I was especially ill, or if I’d suffered some injury and needed it to be remedied in a hurry, I would travel to Eddesu. And in all these visits, which I allowed to become more frequent, there Surru and I became compatriots, if not true friends.���
And Arthur went on to explain, sitting in the solitary light of their burning campfire, that he’d believed Surru when he’d said that he wished to return his world to the honor it once had. ���But I was quick to warn him,��� the bearded Arthur Greyford continued, ���that perhaps a world of eternity was too great a power to be contained, and that it might always be destined to degrade into mayhem and violence, because, although we’d wish it not be so, such actions are bound up irreparably in the hearts of men.���
So that, some time later, when they’d eventually discovered the lost globe of Eddesu, forgotten and hidden within the devastated ruins of the King’s palace, Arthur offered Surru an open invitation, to flee from that wasteland deserted planet, and to find a place amongst mortal men.
���A decent life, even a short life, will always be far better than an exceptionally long life lived in ruin,��� I told him. Yet he, at the time, dismissed my warnings.
���You have no faith, Arthur,��� he said. ���No vision.���
���Perhaps not,��� I told him. ���But I would take wisdom over blind faith, if it did me better.���
���And that seemed to be the end of it, or so I thought, until the last time I’d returned to Eddesu and found it deserted… though apparently, it seems, Surru was not satisfied with his decision,��� Arthur said.
���So then, the Desert King and his people didn’t come from across the sea, like we’d been told, they came from some other world?��� Tavora asked, as a novice light traveler, and very much so trying to wrap her mind around the idea.
���Yes, that’s correct,��� Arthur answered.
After this, Timothy threw a hefty branch onto the fire and it blazed up immediately, spreading even more light around their cave shelter. As it burned, the wood made a scraping, and crackling, and distant scratching noise.
���Does anyone else think the fire is exceptionally odd sounding?��� Barbara asked, having spent the past few minutes carefully listening.
���What do you mean, odd?��� Tavora asked in a constrained, yet frightened tone.
Barbara did not naturally trust, nor did she wish to speak with the girl who’d stolen her medallion (and still had it around her neck, mind you), but she did so nonetheless.
���It just doesn’t sound like fire, is all I’m saying,��� she said quickly answering Tavora. And then turning to Timothy, she asked, ���Doesn’t it sound more like two sounds mixed together?���
Closing his eyes to have a purposeful listen, Timothy tried to block out all his other senses; And since both he and Barbara, and Arthur for that matter, were still feeling the superhuman effects of living in a perfect world, his ears were still, for the most part, finely tuned and precise.
���There are two sounds, I think,��� Timothy replied. ���And the other is coming from…��� He shut his eyes again to try to place it, but Arthur heard it best since he’d lived in that perfect world for the longest amount of time.
���The ceiling,��� Arthur interjected, with some concern, peering up toward the high cave roof, but seeing nothing in the overwhelming darkness.
���I don’t hear anything,��� Ata was quick to say.
Yet Timothy, who seemed to be paying much more attention to the perplexing noise coming from the ceiling, than to what his friend was saying, he lifted a massive burning branch from the fire.
���What are you doing?��� Ata asked.
���We need more light,��� Timothy responded, hurling that sizable fiery branch at the cave ceiling as if it had been only a small lit torch.
It flew upward, dispersing a trail of sparks in its path. And as it reached the high point the ceiling appeared to move like a black wave, that glistened ever so slightly. The scratching and ticking scraping sounds increased tenfold, so that Ata and Tavora could now hear them.
The burning light shone more intensely on the cave roof as it approached, and in the last second the wave split open to avoid the lit branch, as if a cannon had just shot a hole through the black pulsing tide.
The dark mass upon the ceiling was far too intertwined, and much too far away for any of them to see clearly except for Arthur, who still had the better vision of all of them.
Though every one of them, even Tavora as an inexperienced light traveler, could tell what this black mass upon the ceiling was. In the same way as anyone who has had the experience of switching on a light, or burning a candle, and of seeing something black and lightning fast, and grossly and detestably mechanical dart from their field of vision.
And what made matters worse, was that in the instant that the black mass scattered apart, Timothy’s thrown lit branch extinguished itself, and they could see nothing above them, but heard the noise of tens of thousands of spiny legs all scraping against one another, and running upon the roof and walls.
Then the fluttering began, like the beating of a legion of horse hooves, and with a wind that very visibly blew back strands of their hair. There were expressions of terror from each of them, even Arthur, as they felt the unnatural wind on their faces, and heard the thunderous beating wings.
���Oh, God, I want to go home,��� Barbara said, with her eyes shut, and in a whispered voice that was in her own way a very sincerely felt prayer. (So that, coming from a family who thought it silly to believe in such things that cannot be easily seen, this might have been the very first time that Barbara had ever consciously prayed.)
���Grab a weapon,��� the bearded Arthur Greyford commanded, sending all of them sprinting to their stock pile of weapons that they’d brought along from Eddesu.
The old man, with his ragged clothes and f
ull unkept facial hair, yelled out, ���We’ve gone into their nest!��� he shouted, holding a long spear at the ready. ���And I shouldn’t think we’d be let go without a fight.���
They circled with their backs to the fire, weapons in hand: even Tavora, who had never used a weapon before in her entire life. Though there was no time like the present to learn it seemed, as she held a short curved sickle sword in her sweating, but firm grip.
With a new rush of foul wind, the creatures descended. And if you might imagine the sound of a beetle’s wings flapping, only a beetle that was many times larger than you could have ever imagined, and that multiplied over ten thousand times, this was the noise they made. Ten thousand massive black winged bodies, each with six spiny, razor-like legs and a hardened exoskeleton, and giant clamping jaws. And all of them so terrifyingly mechanical, and viciously unrelenting, that you’d wish that such a creature had never been created.
The swarm, or hive, whatever you would call them, came down from the cave ceiling: some of them landing on the ground, some of them still hoovering in the air, like a dome overtop of them.
The flames and light from the burning bonfire seemed to be the only thing that frightened these monstrous insects. Yet, one by one, or in groups, they began to attack. And with each new wave they grew more confident, more vicious, which in turn increased the frequency of their attacks.
A precisely fired arrow launched from Barbara’s bow, her hyper-sensitive vision adjusting for every movement. Sailing through the air, it hit its mark, and with a crunching and snapping sound the tip of the arrow lodged into the creature’s abdomen. At once, its wings stopped beating and the black monster, glistening in the light from their bonfire, fell to the sanded cave floor with a thud.
Barbara immediately smiled at the thought that these unimaginable beasts could be killed.
���Good shot, Cholley!��� Timothy yelled, slightly turning to congratulate her while still keeping a mindful watch on the swarm.
The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending Page 55