Edge of Revelation

by David John West

  In the Grand Basilica the Wazir of Murkal gathered his high officials to plan the welcome for the new Rakul; the arrival of the great delta wing craft above them could only mean their living god had returned to them as foretold by their forefathers. The Wazir was now in late middle age, patrician and proud of his fitness as indeed were all Jarlankans. Rakul had not visited in his lifetime, but his father’s line were Wazirs before him and he had been regaled as a boy with tales of the last great visitation and how proud they had been of the ritual reception they organised for their godhead. The Wazir sent out frantic orders to the council heads to detail their responsibilities to receive the new Rakul. They would need no persuasion as there could be but one explanation for the arrival of the great craft hanging in the sky over the city. Council leaders competed to be of service; they could not be accused of failing to play their part. The Wazir would expect the city to turn out the most spectacular welcome in history within one daily cycle of the spaceship’s arrival, whereupon he expected Rakul would descend to the main arena to be met by his people in great ceremony. The Wazir’s primary responsibility was to mobilise the whole city to provide the most effulgent welcome, without notice in advance and probably for the only occasion in his own lifetime. A further motivation from the legends was the threat of scourging the city with fire and raking detonations from the delta craft should Rakul be unimpressed by the enthusiasm of their welcome.

  A soft clear night fell over Murkal, aromatic with maquis aroma from the small trees in formal plantings. Skies were clear and the Milky Way galaxy formed a dense band of innumerable stars merging into a bright stripe across the heavens. The remainder of the night sky was still populated with bright stars turning surrounding space midnight blue in their radiance. Directly above the city, Rakul’s delta wing craft descended again in the dark ominously hanging like a black V-shaped hole in the stars, like looking right through the galaxy to a dark matter universe beyond. Rakul would show no recognition of events on the ground by running identification lights until such time he was satisfied with their welcoming arrangements on the morrow. The Wazir was managing the master welcome plan from his grace and favour accommodation at the rear of the basilica. Runners came and went with queries and updates all through the long hot night on the sections of the overall plan owned by their individual masters. The Wazir took no time over dinner, merely sampled fruit and sweetmeats brought in regularly by servants in short white robes tied at the waist. It was touch and go but he would pull the master plan together with no time to spare; no official directly involved would sleep that night. Most citizens would simply be too excited to rest at the prospect of the exciting events on the morrow. The supreme levels of martial prowess of Jarlankan athletes would be on display in honour of their god fresh from the heavens; a once-in-many-lifetimes event they were privileged to witness. Those with invitations to the main arena were the 200,000 favoured high-ranking citizens plus dignitaries streaking in from the other continents of Jarlanka, honoured with seating inside the Stade arena. The commoner citizens would assemble from dawn beyond the moats that surrounded the main arena and official buildings, hopeful of participating in some small way in the festivities.

  Rakul waited on the bridge of the Spargar spacecraft as dawn broke in all its fiery splendour. He crowded over the command table, his very size diminishing the generous proportions of his captain’s chair. He was amused to see the frenzied activities throughout Murkal city centre on the command screens. He would commence his final descent into the arena some time after the completion of their preparations, to keep the locals wondering at his motives, and for dramatic effect. The main arena was filling with people in their ceremonial robes of red, self-conscious of their relative importance. The noblest of all occupied a privileged trapezium of larger seats in the Stade with the long edge of the seating by the centre line adjacent to the bare ground of the arena floor, packed red dust by tradition imported from the foothills of a dormant volcano visible behind Jarlanka city. The most elite warriors were seated around the entrance to the arena itself. Each was silently praying to ascend to Rakul’s personal army for splendid wars across the galaxy, which Rakul was surely here to recruit for.

  Waterspouts thundered dramatically from giant culverts on the outer rim of the Stade to flood the previously dry moats. When they were nearly filled whales captured from Jarl Bay were released to roam the new waters to represent marauding enemies of the empire. A small group of diminutive players were dressed in the brown robes and gold emblems of the Cavallos of Dawn, most infamous enemies of the Empire. They were capering around the arena waving white sticks as mock Ivory Vine staves at the assembling crowds who were hissing and booing in turn at their mock enemies shrouded in their long brown hoods. These were the final stages of the preparations below so Rakul gave the order to prepare for separation of the lander craft that would break free from the giant delta wing and ferry him to the ground.

  Just as the assembled masses in the auditorium were becoming restless a dramatic boom in the sky-blue heavens apprised all Jarlankans on the ground that there was action from the menacing spacecraft high above. Having caught their attention, Rakul ordered the lander captain to break the seal from the left edge of the delta formation. As he did so the captain released a hundred bright ball drones that exploded from the seal and fell slowly towards the ground like the ribs of an umbrella. These emphasised the widening rift as the lander moved gently away from the main craft and spiralled elegantly down to the arena. The crowds in the serried ranks of hard seats craned up to stare at the descending craft. The general jabber of nervous conversations was hushed as the ebony lander slowly descended past the top ranks of seats to the arena floor. It stopped a metre above the packed earth, opposite the trapezium of celebrity seating leading to the arena floor.

  The capering clowns aping their enemies, the Cavallos of Dawn, fearfully approached the lander from all directions. Just as it seemed one of them might actually touch the lander a large group of Jarlankan warriors burst on to the arena floor from the seats adjacent to the arena entry where they were waiting for this moment. A muted roar could be heard from outside the Stade as the commoners beyond the moats watched the entry of their heroes on giant screens hanging from the exterior walls of the arena. Each warrior had won his or her way through numerous trials for the chance of selection as one of Rakul’s personal guards. They raced across the packed earth to drive away the mock Cavallos with their ixwa fighting staves and soon all the brown cloaked figures representing their enemies were felled, groaning to the ground. The clowns sustained serious injuries from the warriors out to demonstrate their lethal capabilities overenthusiastically, even in the face of a mock enemy of jesters. Servants in short togas chased on to the arena to cart off the downed mock Cavallos as the elite warriors bowed low to the lander craft and backed away to the periphery of the arena floor.

  Total silence fell inside and outside the stadium as the massed crowds waited for the first appearance of their Rakul. The atmosphere was so tense that the tiny whoosh of the lander’s ramp opening could be felt by the crowd inside the stadium. It featured in amplified close-up by all those watching outside on the big screens hanging from all the outer walls of the arena oval. Rakul emerged, ox-blood boots appearing first, then trews and cloak. Finally his very face appeared, bareheaded to display the bony ridge running from the nape of his neck and rising highest on his crown to lower again to his forehead where it disappeared, pointing down at the beak of his nose. He cut a striking figure with his walnut skin unlined and newly formed in the generative vats on Spargan. His brown-black eyes burned under long lashes. Twin runes scythed either side of his cranium in mystical tattoos.

  As Rakul stalked to the centre of the arena, the three specially chosen warrior elects entered via the gate to the celebrity seating enclosure. They approached to proffer the ceremonial challenge, silvery ixwas wavering towards their Rakul, alternately threatening and welcoming. Two hundred thou
sand Jarlankans sat hushed in their red ceremonial robes on the edge of the hard terrace seating. Each of the warriors approached Rakul in turn like a diminutive male spider courting attention from a dominant female. The larger could accept them or discard them at a stroke – indeed Rakul occasionally had struck one or more a mortal blow to make just this point in the past, or to address a jarring detail of the ceremony in minor pique. The noticeably smaller warriors, chosen for their physical power as well as their martial skills were indeed conflicted, needing to impress but conscious too that these could be their final moments on Jarlanka, Rakul willing. Rakul sensed the trepidation of the approaching champions, formidable in their own skills but unused to the very thought of engaging their godhead in ritual welcome. Rakul deployed a small fraction of his musclefire that would be sufficient to whelm these brave supplicants and display his superiority to the massed assembly in the stands. He cracked his knees and set his legs in the ready position to engage in the formal dance of weaponry with these three warriors, an ixwa in each hand blurring into silvery discs of motion with the speed of his manoeuvring. Rakul closed with the chosen elite and their ixwas clashed and sparked in the hot sunshine, Rakul’s robes flowing and thrown out in circles as he whirled to address all three warriors, his head blurring then stationary as a hawk’s as his body gyrated to engage each warrior, then on to deal with the next. Very soon two of the warriors were collapsed on their knees on the ground leaving only their champion standing before Rakul.

  Rakul and the champion circled each other warily, Rakul offering maximum respect to the local hero to the great pleasure of the crowd. The Jarlankan champion was a titan of his own kind, the peak of power and training in the martial arts as defined by Rakul himself many generations previously. The warrior and Rakul were of similar height and physique. They sparred briefly; Rakul was impressed with his opponent’s cool bravura; he expected exceptional skills but this man had achieved elevated self-belief that sustained him in this battle with Rakul. Rakul locked gaze with the warrior and received a wary stare in return. Despite himself, Rakul felt the autonomous release of ichors that charged his new body beyond his own mental control. His head thundered with the powers of the adrenaline supercharging, his heart thundering in his ears like Taiko drumming. Rakul held the stare and launched himself up to the angle of the warrior’s left shoulder and head in a ballon leap, right foot leading, left foot just off the ground. His head remained stable so that his stare was unbroken and his head became an irresistible target for his opponent as the rest of his body rose improbably in launched motion.

  The warrior champion was indeed tempted to strike at Rakul’s head and sliced towards it with his ixwa right-handed. Rakul whipped his head out and away to follow the impetus of his leap. The warrior attempted to follow Rakul’s flight over his right shoulder trying desperately to halt the momentum of his ixwa towards where Rakul’s head used to be and turn clockwise back to face his opponent. While still swirling over the warrior Rakul struck a heavy blow down across the warrior’s shoulders, which threw the warrior’s arms outspread. Rakul landed, maintaining the rotation of his leap so that he came up and around under the warrior’s outstretched left arm. Suddenly Rakul was standing face to face with the warrior whose arms were still thrown high from the shock of Rakul’s blow. Rakul considered clemency briefly then discarded it in the wild energy of the first real combat in his new body and he pierced the warrior’s abdomen with the sharp point of his ixwa with a controlled upthrust. The ixwa provided feedback to the leverage of Rakul’s arm as it pierced up through the warrior’s heart, continuing up through the trachea and on into the warrior’s throat. The ixwa released analgesics and dopamine through micropores close to the silvery point as it continued up to engulf the warrior’s mind. The warrior was gripped by the ecstasy of the drug release as his final thoughts spun and the flow of his lifeblood ceased. Rakul held the warrior upright with his left arm as the ixwa performed its deadly purpose and the warrior’s arms fell limp to his side.

  Rakul watched as the warrior’s eyes flared with initial anguish then melted as the ixwa released its powerful morphines to transform agony into ecstasy. “Come to me, my son,” Rakul said gently as he gathered the fallen warrior to his chest in a great bear hug. The warrior’s knees buckled into Rakul’s embrace as his soul flew free. Go well, my son. Rakul celebrated the heroic death silently as he lowered the warrior to the raw red earth of the stadium floor.

  Crowds a million strong inside and beyond the stadium held their collective breath as they witnessed the perfectly executed ecstatic impalement manoeuvre in the loneliness of the killing floor.

  The remaining warriors remained on bended knee and offered their necks to the towering Rakul. Rakul raised his head and turned it slowly to engage the massed tiers of the crowds and lifted his extended ixwas aloft. The quiet spell on the crowd broke and they jumped to their feet and all roared together briefly before the muffled bellow from those gathered outside the stadium caught up with events unfolding on the giant screens. The ceremonial robes of the crowd blurred together in a moving sea of crimson as they produced mini ixwas for bokking together in a crescendo of adulatory percussion that momentarily blasted the senses. Rakul stowed his ixwas over his head in his spine holster and offered clemency to the two remaining warriors by ruffling their bowed heads until they arose and he embraced them in the tightest grip, making them wince in the close comradely approval of their Rakul.

  The Wazir picked his moment to present himself and stepped out on to the hard-packed arena floor. The Wazir wore a maroon tricorn cap over red ceremonial robes that distinguished him from the bareheaded crowds. He was still half a head shorter than Rakul’s towering presence as he flapped across the arena.

  “I see you, Wazir, you are indeed the son of all your fathers I have known before. You have done well here,” Rakul intoned as the Wazir greeted him and he clasped the Wazir on both shoulders.

  The Wazir could feel his confidence and strength seep away in the grip of the fabled Rakul. When they broke free he falteringly spoke the words he had rehearsed for the moment he met his maker. “You… are most welcome… my Rakul.” Then he broke from his prepared text, “You must excuse me, I have waited for this moment for so long,” he petered out weakly.

  Rakul scrutinised his Wazir, “I am pleased with your welcome as well as any of those times that went before. You have fulfilled your destiny well. You are the man full grown from the apple that has fallen close to the tree of your line.”

  The Wazir faced up to his master, bewildered, and with open face said, “I struggle to hear your words, my lord, for the thunder in my ears of who you are.”

  Rakul took paternalistic pity on the whelmed Wazir and led him by the arm from the arena floor so that he would not misstep. The crowd were still celebrating wildly as they watched their highest official speaking earnestly with their returned godhead and roared anew as they saw the Wazir helped from the arena floor. Rakul was as awesome and benevolent as sung in all the legends. He stood high over the Wazir and raised his free arm and visage to all parts of the crowd. Of such moments stories would be told to all their children, which would fuel their faith until the unscheduled arrival of the next Rakul to come could relight their fire.

  Rakul strode with the recovering Wazir through the main tunnel through the arena and showed himself to the people massed beyond the moats. Martial bands pounded out well-loved anthems taken up by the singing voices of the crowds. Small cogs were being rowed around the moats by six-man crews so that a harpoonist standing on the prow could engage the small whales that had been released as mock cetacean enemies as a mirror to the Cavallos of Dawn that had been ceremoniously defeated inside the arena. The whales were acutely aware of their peril and the whaler teams were highly skilled. Two cogs were already being towed by ropes from a harpoon-pierced whale. The wounded whales were crying out at ultra high frequency as the weight of the boat attached to the harpoon rope told o
n the life force of the whale. Resonant whalesong of the most doleful nature rebounded across the seas of Jarlanka and sprang forth into the heavens from the four whalesong nodes that girdled Jarlankan oceans as on planet Earth. The tortured song was received by pods of whales on other planets that were in alignment and then relayed on again to their kin across the galaxy. Some of the receiving whales elsewhere were so affected they beached themselves in shared grief with their kin suffering so on planet Jarlanka.

  *

  Rakul was escorted from the Stade to the Basilica where he joined a committee of elders that officiated the promotion process for the top athletes of Jarlanka to crew Rakul’s starships. Rakul sat with the Wazir on one side and the prefect in charge of the process on the other. The prefect was a gnarled old centurion who had devoted his life after his own retirement to the management of the military sports. He was gruff and short of words as a rule and had never expected to engage in such a ceremony despite the theoretical responsibility in the event of a Rakul arrival. This brusque manner was fine with Rakul who simply wanted the opportunity to meet each candidate and confirm they were qualified for his purposes and then move along.

  The candidates formed in a line outside the Basilica wearing athletic attire rather than military uniform, which displayed their physique to best effect. Some of the most striking athletes were women and there was no gender qualification to their selection. The line reached to the portal where it halted and each candidate approached the dais individually to be clasped right hand to right wrist by Rakul who stared at each one carefully without speaking. He was looking for weakness or chicanery in their character and eliminated a handful of ones that did not strike him as perfect but in truth he was delighted with the quality of the whole group.