Fulcrum

by Doug Rickaway

  Bayorn felt the beautiful explosion kindle inside his own body. Deep within his core a switch was flipped, and something inside, something long hidden and perhaps forgotten, was once again released. The very particles of his being, drawn to one another in the ancient cosmic dance of existence, spiraled out and were re-forged.

  The boy has the key…

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  The beautiful corona faded. Letho’s head lifted off the pallet, his skin a brilliant newborn pink. He blinked twice, then stretched his own hands out in front of him.

  Flawless, he thought.

  He pulled out the collar of his jumpsuit and looked inside. The bloody gaping hole he expected to see was gone; there was no scarring to be found on his chest. He pulled aside the bandages on his shoulder—the gunshot wound was gone as well.

  Letho then turned and studied Bayorn. Bayorn was a full thirty centimeters taller, his shoulders wider. His fur, which had always been handsome to Letho, had taken on a new and vibrant luster.

  “Bayorn, what happened? You look… bigger,” he said.

  Bayorn looked at his own hands, and his head snapped back when twenty-centimeter-long bone claws, four of them, extended from between his fingers.

  “I have claws,” he gasped.

  “Yeah, and your pearly whites are gone,” Letho said with a little smirk.

  Bayorn fingered the tips of his teeth. His old teeth were gone, replaced by a new set; these looked sharp, dangerous, like they could rip and tear. The other Tarsi gathered around Bayorn, awed by his new form.

  “He is a true Tarsi!” one of the bears shouted.

  A chorus rose among the surrounding Tarsi; they sang of the prophecy and of the Elder’s great sacrifice. And then they turned to Letho.

  “He has returned from the dead,” one shouted. “He must be the one of the prophecy!”

  For a moment there was not a sound save for the cyclic hum of the overhead lights. Then, as if the word prophecy was a cue, small white explosions began to fill the room like stars being born. The Tarsi began to convulse, fur rippling like tall grass in a breeze. A brilliant glow streamed from Tarsi eyes as their mouths ripped back in snarls of both ecstasy and pain. Letho saw teeth disappear into gums with wet schluck! Sounds, to be replaced by proper fangs. The Tarsi doubled over, their already large backs arching and expanding. And then all was silent once again.

  “We are reborn in the true image of the Tarsi!” one shouted.

  “Letho is the one, he is the figure of the prophecy!”

  There were more shouts, a cacophony of joy and wonderment—and then all fell silent as Letho kneeled by the broken body of the grandfather Tarsi, laying his hand on the Elder’s cool cheek.

  A flood of emotion filled Letho’s chest and stung his eyes, and his whole body felt desperate to burst into unrestrained wailing. Choking back a sob, he wiped the tears that ran down his cheeks.

  “Why has he not returned?” Letho asked.

  He took the knife and ran it across the palm of his hand. To his shock, the wound sealed up; only the blood that had clung to the steel of the knife blade remained. Letho tried again, snarling in frustration. The wound closed again, the red blossom of parted flesh opening at first, then curling inward upon itself.

  “Come on, dammit!” Letho shouted.

  Letho gritted his teeth and dug the blade in as hard as he could. Rasping pain shot up his arm as he cut through tender flesh, tendon and gristle, and onward to the bone. A hot, vital gush of blood welled forth—and then the wound was sealed once more, leaving expelled blood upon his palm.

  He placed his palm on the Elder’s wound and spoke his own prayer in soaring Tarsi.

  “Great father, I thank you for the wisdom you shared with me. Most of all, I thank you for your sacrifice. I vow to seek vengeance upon those who felled you. My oath is sealed as our blood becomes one.”

  Letho stepped back, hoping that the Elder’s eyes would open, that his chest would begin to rise and fall.

  “Our brother Letho speaks the Tarsi true,” the other Tarsi began to chant/sing in unison. The gravity of the situation was lost for a moment in the austere beauty of song.

  Bayorn raised his paw and all fell silent once again.

  He went to Letho’s side, placing his hands on the young Eursan’s shoulders. They looked small, fragile in his clawed hands.

  “Come, Letho,” Bayorn said. “It is time to go.”

  “No!” Letho sobbed. “I can save him!”

  “He is gone, Letho,” Bayorn said, “to the halls of his fathers. He suffers no more.”

  The gathering of newly transformed Tarsi watched in silence, tears streaming down green and golden snouts.

  “No! He’s not gone! I can do this!”

  “Letho,” Bayorn said.

  “Fintran,” Letho sobbed.

  “What did you say?”

  “His name is Fintran. Fintran the Oracle.”

  “How did you—”

  “Alastor said it. Right before he killed him.”

  “It is a good name, Letho.”

  At last Letho dropped his hands to his lap and began to cry. His back heaved as great sobs broke free. All of the anger, frustration, fear and sadness began to pour out of him in long, guttural moans. Bayorn wrapped the Eursan in his own arms, a brother’s embrace.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  “Master, we have returned, victorious!” Alastor shouted, raising a fist to the air. The shape of his Master did not move, his features still etched on the block of foul obsidian that was both his vestibule and his prison.

  “Alastor, you must always kneel when you address me; it is my right. Though I am diminished, you must not forget your place,” whispered the corrupted one.

  A lightning flash of rage, and then it was gone; Alastor knelt on the iron circle, his head bowed.

  No gratitude, even now, after all I have done, he thought.

  “There were complications?”

  “Yes, Father. I handled it of course,” said Alastor, a ripple of agitation rising and then slipping beneath the surface of deliberate, cool inflection.

  “Come now, Alastor. Your thoughts do not become you. Of all the many sons I have sired, you are the greatest. I knew the moment I first laid eyes upon you so many years ago that you possessed the courage and the will to do what must be done—to ensure the protection of our legacy.”

  “Father, you do me a great kindness with your words.”

  “Now tell me of this victory,” said the corrupted one.

  Alastor nodded. “We have returned with a large group of Eursans from the Centennial Fulcrum,” he said.

  “You killed Fintran,” the Old One whispered.

  Alastor felt the very molecules of the air around him begin to bunch together, collapsing in on him. If he still had Eursan lungs, he would have begun to asphyxiate.

  “Yes,” Alastor gasped, as the pressure around him forced him down into a pose that was half kneel, half fetal position. “He sacrificed himself for a boy. Someone named Letho. The boy was extraordinary… He moved like… Mendraga.” The pressure intensified. “Master, please! I have Fintran’s blood. I absorbed his knowing. I have the codes!”

  At last the Master withdrew his will, Alastor collapsed on the floor, trembling.

  “Who is this Letho? I saw no such person.”

  Curious. How could he have missed it?

  “I would hear more of this boy.”

  “He came to Fintran. I do not know why. The Oracle would not give me the codes, and I moved to strike the boy, hoping my ruse would cause the damnable slave bear to give them up. But before I could land my blow, Fintran was between us. My blade killed the Elder, and the boy as well.”

  “Fool. Why would you risk a killing blow when you knew the Oracle’s secrets could be absorbed through his blood? We could have learned much from him if you had brought him alive, as I asked.”

  “I do not know, Master,” Alastor whispered, his head low.

  “I do,
Alastor. Your lust for blood and battle overcame your senses. You have both succeeded and failed me in one fell swoop. This boy. Did you not see that he could have been a powerful addition to our Kinsha?”

  Alastor felt a surge of anger, jealousy. The Old One pounced upon it like the opportunistic predator that he was.

  “Ah, I see. How your thoughts wound me. You are my own hand, the executor of my will. I would not cut off my own hand in search of its replacement.”

  “Of course, Master.”

  Alastor looked up at the frozen face of his Master and attempted a smile, but his face would not comply.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  Thresha was listening outside the steel door, fearing he would rip the door open at any moment, and cast knowing eyes on her.

  If only I had the hearing, she thought.

  Alastor had assured her that the gift would continue to grow inside her, granting even greater powers. That conversation had occurred at least twenty years ago. And how long before that had Alastor first taken her from the Intrepid Fulcrum, just as they took citizens from the Centennial Fulcrum today? She could not remember.

  She brushed the auburn hair back from her eyes, eyes that sparkled in the dark corridor, the eyes of a predator.

  There was a power in her eyes, and she had used it more than once to bend others to her will. Men and women alike melted under the power of her gaze. And even more so under the sweet, wilting pressure of her secret kiss.

  She made her way to the bunk station. Biting her lip in anticipation, she buzzed the intercom outside Mavus’s private quarters. She heard a light rustle inside, and for a moment her heart froze. A giddy sensation filled her, like butterflies flittered inside her belly. Anytime she felt something, regardless of the intensity or quality of the emotion, was good.

  “Who is it?” said a voice. The low-quality speaker—hanging by its last, brittle joint of solder—made Mavus’s voice sound metallic, distant.

  “It’s me,” she replied, her voice taking on a lost quality of its own. “Can I come in?”

  “Just a second,” he sighed into the microphone. Then, as she heard the familiar sound of magnetic locks releasing, the cold fist gripping Thresha’s chest let go, and she felt herself able to think again.

  “What do you want, Thresha?”

  He looked tired, drawn. Her eyes searched his, looking for the heated glimmer she knew from so long ago. She saw only coldness.

  “Didn’t you feed?” she implored him.

  “That is none of your business, Thresha,” he muttered.

  He peered at her from deepset, dark eyes like glimmering beetles skittering around at the bottom of a fouled well. His cheeks were gaunt, the horrid fangs inside his mouth more pronounced as his skin dried and pulled back. Thresha lost herself in an insane vision in which she reached out to pluck one of the strident tendons in his neck, causing it to twang like an old Chellan.

  “Feeding on rats again? You can’t live this way,” she said.

  “At least a rat doesn’t beg you not to do it.”

  “Oh, please!” she retorted, stepping toward him with her fists at her side. “These people are donating their blood. It’s perfectly humane.”

  “Do you really believe that? Please tell me that you don’t. If you do, then you’re not the same person that I once…” he stammered, “…that I remember.”

  “You can’t have it both ways, Mavus. You either feed the gift, or it feeds on you,” Thresha replied.

  He turned his back to her, staring at the floor as if it somehow contained an answer. “Maybe I don’t want this gift anymore. Maybe I never wanted it.”

  “Look, I came because I’m worried about you. Your brother today…”

  “My brother is dead,” he snarled over his shoulder, spittle bursting from his mouth in a cold mist. “It was your idea to bind his spirit with that metal abomination!”

  He turned to her now. She felt her eyes yearning to spill tears that would never come.

  Just hold me, she thought.

  Something sinister and cold slithered up from the depths of Mavus’ broken soul, excited by the pain that spread itself across Thresha’s face. “Wasn’t it, Thresha? You, always whispering in the master’s ear. Always wrapped around his arm. You recommended him for the promotion, didn’t you?”

  “He lives on in his new form. Alastor saved his spirit from annihilation by giving him a new body.”

  “Ah, Alastor’s words coming out of your mouth. How fitting,” Mavus said through a grimace that was made grimmer by his emaciated face. “That thing is not my brother! Alastor has now twice taken my brother from me. He is trapped in that machine… trapped by Alastor’s will. He wants it to be over, Thresha, and you took that away from him. I can never forgive you for that.”

  Thresha tried to reach out to his mind, but it was sealed to her. She felt her body’s desire to produce tears again; it was maddening, an urge that her current form could never fulfill. Her inner core, the very seat of her womanhood—once a wellspring of empathy and a fiery, passionate furnace—had gone cold. Her hand went to her belly, and she thought of another Fulcrum station so long ago, where she’d hoped that the man called Mavus would make her his wife. This, too, she had given away, almost as freely and without concern for the future as she had her first kiss.

  “Leave, Thresha.”

  She nodded, and felt her chest hitch with an unsatisfying, aching sob. She turned and left his apartment, never to set foot in it again.

  Mavus watched her as she left, but she could not see the hollow gaze that he set upon her, tinged with only the slightest trace of remembrance.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  Letho and Bayorn had retired to the Elder’s domicile. Letho looked around through swollen red eyes; his body still shook and clear mucus ran from his nose. Bayorn seemed to move as if afraid to disturb anything, as though he still felt that this room belonged to the Elder.

  “I don’t think he would mind if you sat in his chair, Bayorn,” Letho said.

  Bayorn nodded and took a seat.

  They sat there in silence, Letho with a fleece blanket around his shoulders, a mug of warm Tarsi brew clasped in his hands. They were both lost in thought, ruminating on all that happened, the tectonic shifts that had altered their lives in ways they didn’t yet understand.

  “Okay, I need to know about this prophecy,” Letho began. “Is there more that you can tell me?”

  Bayorn sighed, dropping massive paws onto crossed legs with a meaty plop.

  “I do not know what I believe at this point. I once thought these proclamations merely poetic, but I must say that recent events have cast doubt upon my previous beliefs. Certainly the Elder believed in them wholeheartedly; in fact, he would most likely backhand me if he heard me referring to his beliefs as myths.”

  Letho imagined Fintran’s scowl, his inner mirth apparent with the wink of a twinkling eye.

  “The Tarsi lost their home world much like your race did, and this has always weighed heavily upon my soul. It has made it very hard to swallow talk of benevolent beings and their prophecies,” Bayorn said.

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “I do not know, Letho. We rebuild. We carry on. We wait for the prophecy to unfold, or to continue to unfold, for that matter.”

  Could I really be the one that they are looking for? Letho thought. The thought had a tangible weight that seemed to bear his shoulders into a slump. How could I save them? I don’t even know how to take care of myself.

  “I am no savior, Bayorn,” he said aloud. “Some days I forget where I took my boots off. I…” He faltered. “What if there isn’t a savior, Bayorn? What if all of this is meaningless? What if there’s no captain at the wheel of this ship and we’re all hurtling through space with no brakes, straight into an asteroid field?”

  “We may very well find out, Letho. Everything the Elder foretold has come to be. Everything has changed.”

  “There has to be some logical explana
tion for all of this. I mean, these abilities of mine, they had to have come from somewhere. Fintran’s blood, my blood, something!”

  Bayorn shook his head and shrugged.

  No one knows, his eyes said.

  “The prophecy states that a being from a distant star will shed his blood for a Tarsi and will restore that which was lost, undoing the last great wrong. The Tarsi on our station have been restored to their true forms, whether by your hand or the Elder’s. It is uncertain.”

  “Could I be that being, Bayorn?”

  “Fintran believed it to be true. He gave his life for this belief.”

  A heavy silence fell between them.

  “What is the last great wrong?”

  “I do not know, Letho.”

  “Well, I guess we’re gonna find out, huh, old bear?” Letho laughed, and fake-punched at Bayorn’s shoulder. Bayorn shifted back in a flinch that was made more comical by the sheer bulk of his giant, muscled frame.

  In the wake of so much death, laughter was a balm on their weary souls.

  “Ha! Caught you flinching! “Letho said.

  “To say the least, Letho, your customs are very strange.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  The moment of jocularity was interrupted by a figure that had made his way to their place of palaver.

  “Well, this is awkward. If you were about to engage in an intensely masculine, prolonged hug and kiss, I can come back later,” Deacon Shepki said, giving them a sardonic wink and salute.

  “Deacon!” Letho shouted, leaping to his feet in a silky-smooth maneuver that made Deacon’s eyebrows ripple in a dance of sardonicism.

  The two long-lost friends wrapped one another in a firm embrace.

  “Easy Letho, you’re squeezing the breath out of me,” Deacon said.

  “Sorry! It’s just great to see you. It’s been a long time.”

  Deacon stepped back, appraising his old friend with a flick of his gray eyes.