CHAPTER EIGHT
For the next two days of the journey Joey was at the mercy of Tylin and Lezura. Each morning began with a brisk warm up and a jog with Tylin around the spot where the caravan stopped.
Even with Lezura’s medical skills his shoulder and butt wound hadn’t fully healed. This, however, was helped a little when Tet administered a vile of his blood to Joey, which sped up the healing process dramatically.
But Tylin didn’t except that excuse. In fact, she said it was perfect, for in times when Joey would be deep in the heart of war, he would have to endure with even worst injuries.
After the jog there was breakfast, tasty meals done by the cooks with exotic flavors. But Joey didn’t eat anything remotely resembling a vegetable. After the meal it was combat practice and then they would be off again on the journey.
In the evenings Lezura would have the rest of him. She went over his Blueburst to ensure he could release them quickly enough and with enough lethal force.
When it came to trying the Bluebolt it took Joey nearly a full minute to prepare the honoi in the right spots in his arm, and instead of a beam he was releasing a drooping stream of honoi. At times Joey would use honoi until he felt dizzy and his head throbbing. Lezura explained that it was honoi fatigue.
At night before bed Joey would hit the virtual books and brush up on his Naasi. He learned a few new words and memorized them well. He could even make his first sentences: “Yesh shou”, meaning “Good morning”. “Ir ari grato”, which meant; “I am hungry”, and so on.
On the fifth day since Joey’s arrival to Sangetsu the caravan was on its way to Suride Town. They could see the top of the dome in the distance of the bare-road path, with over hanging crispy blue flowers from the vines of sinni and pomeg trees, like a giant, orange moon rising over the horizon. They were less than four hours away, and had even gotten started early in the morning to reach.
After his morning workout with Tylin, Joey was free for the rest of the day until the evening came, but he still felt the pangs of exhaustion lingering in his young muscles like flood water after a hurricane.
He leaned on Lezura’s back to get some rest, while she directed Redbolt onward. That really didn’t need much work, as the red-soiled path was straight-going, so Lezura was reading up on her data-scroll, researching the internet for unique honoi techniques for projectile type honoi users.
It was good that she could access the internet all way out here, thanks to the orderran satellite she secretly hacked with a program she got for from her friend years back. Unfortunately further hacking into the satellite would be detected, so she couldn’t try to get a phone call. Not that she had a cellphone or there were any networks up and running on the continent since the Prestige System was institute anyway.
Joey’s rest was thwarted when his energetic mind compelled him to try something. He leaned off Lezura and carefully leaped off Redbolt’s back.
“What are you doing?” said Lezura.
“I’m goanna try out my lingugish,” he said.
“It is lin-guis-tics, Joey,” said Lezura, quite pleased with Joey’s idea.
Joey hurried up to the cart being towed along by two greshkues. Crates of fruits, chests of valuables and gardening implements were packed in the back of the cart. Sitting at the edge was S’us, wearing a pink and white head-wrap and dressed in an old black frock with frilly orange straps. Beneath it she wore dusty trousers.
She was busy reading a book with a title on the cover Joey didn’t really care about to pronounce. He thought about turning back to not disturb her, but she looked up at him with nice yellow eyes.
“Joey,” she said, clapping the book shut.
Joey went ahead with his plan. He sat on the edge of cart next to her. He had the translator in his ear to make communication from her side easier. When S’us was about to put the translator in her ear Joey stopped.
“I wanna try talking to you in Naasi, right now,” said Joey.
“Okay…sure,” said S’us.
“Yesh shou,” said Joey.
“Good morning, too,” said S’us.
Joey was blushing but he kept at it. “Owwo…ari yuh?” he said.
S’us touched her book and said, “I am fine, thank you. I was just reading a book on my people’s history back on my homeworld. Do you want to have a look?”
“Vri,” Joey said, taking the book from S’us.
The book’s texture had the feel of one of those ancient works by some famous, long dead writer like Shakespeare. Joey knew this because he went to a library once to try and read one of Shakespeare’s works to build his vocabulary and sound smart. When he saw the first paragraph in the book he threw it away and strode out of the library.
Joey skipped the introduction of the book, skipped some more until he found a picture. It was the map of the planet Slyerrick, about six visible continents and some islands scattered around. He didn’t see a recognizable Naasi word on the page. Luckily S’us was there to help.
She pointed to an island and said, “That is where my family came from, when they migrated to this planet seventy years ago, Sen-sisio Island.”
Something struck Joey, he said, “How old are you?”
“What?” S’us said.
Joey realized he spoke in English and tried to string the right words for the question. “Owwo…nihic…air yuh?” he said after a while.
“Sixteen,” S’us said. “My species can live for up to ninety years. How old are you?”
Shit! Joey thought. How did you say seventeen again...? Joey didn’t remember, so he counted on is fingers to show S’us; holding ten fingers up and then seven.
“You are still a child too,” said S’us with a charming smile.
“No,” Joey said, “I’ll be eighteen in two months. That’s if your calendar here works like mine.”
“Which I strongly believe it does not,” S’us said with a grin.
And there was a thunderous roar in the air. Lezura, the only nycarman present, screamed and covered her ears. Joey instinctively leaped off the cart and ran to Lezura’s side.
“You okay?” Joey said.
“My blasted ears hurt,” Lezura said, placing her fingers inside her ears.
The caravan stopped, carriage by carriage. They looked in the sky and saw the source for the horrendous sound.
Through the trees they could see a long red line in the sky, twitching and stretching. It pulled open some more with another thunderous roar that sent the birds in the trees screaming in their flight.
Joey was familiar with what the thing was, though he only ever saw it twice in his life back on Earth. Once in real life, the other instance on the TV in a liquor store on the CNN news’ live coverage of a rift opening in Sicily.
The dimensional rift seemed to actually bulge the air around it, as if something was trying to push its way through.
“You have these things happening too?” said Joey to Lezura, though he figured it should have already been obvious to him long ago.
“We certainly do,” said Lezura with her cloaked draped over her ears, “although our circumstances are different.”
“Why?” said Joey, leaping onto the huge beast and crawling up behind Lezura.
Lezura said, “My planet, and a few others, had practiced methods of sending convicted prisoners of heinous crimes to other dimensions. This world was known by many names, but the reapers called it Wuharah. That was the first time reapers actually helped civilians outside the rift. They agreed to all create a path to a world where the condemned could be sent to live, instead of executed. We had machines that could open portal to other worlds.
“Ninety years ago, when the Akirmon government was to convict a racial murderer of raizean to Wuharah, the portal accidentally went off its time-space mark and locked onto another world.”
The portal was wide enough now for Joey to see the swirling mass of the tunnel inside. The people were watching with sweating anticipation, like a monster was going to burst through in a bloody frenzy.
But small portals slashed open around the giant rift, and out flew reapers on large tiles of cosmic energy. What they did next was something Joey had seen just once but fell in love with completely.
The reapers lined themselves along the rift. They de-materialized their scythes and shot out cosmic energy from their hands. The energy moved in the form of dozens of threads, stitching through the mouth of the portal. The reapers visibly pulled, flying back on their tiles, tightening the portal.
“What happened when it went off its mark?” Joey said.
Lezura said, “The connection to Wuharah was switched to that of Deton, or hell; the world of the Barakies.”
Joey turned to her with shocked face. “You mean literal hell?” he said.
“I cannot be certain,” said Lezura. “But the creatures that came through there were very destructive and powerful. The reapers called them Barakies, and so we went by that name.
“When the rift was linked to Deton, it caused a chain reaction that allowed connections to both worlds even when the teleporters’ connection was severed.”
Monsters? Joey thought. They have monsters? Joey didn’t know whether to jump around in joy or soil his pants.
An idea hit Joey. “Lezura,” he said, “the teleporters—”
“Have been shut down,” said Lezura. “After that incident, the UN of Sangetsu decided it was best to end the DMR program.”
“DMR.?” Joey said.
“The Dead Man Relocation program,” Lezura said. She looked at him squarely and said, “So no; we cannot teleport ourselves to Ugatin or Maltatabi Island. A teleporter is not even there, anyway, or else people would easily access it.”
The reapers had managed to close the portal. It shrunk into a thinning red line and subsequently vanished. Once done the reapers simple slashed open portals and disappeared in them.
Now gone, the people breathed a sigh of relief. Joey knew now what they were anticipating. They moved on.
“Well this’s a bitch,” said Joey, “there’re two things on this planet that can teleport us; that stupid wizard and those machines. But none of them can get us to where we wanna go.”
Lezura smiled, saying, “I think it would be what they call in those movies a plot-twist that leads us the only option we were first represented with.”
“In other words it SUCKS!” Joey said.
They reached Suride Town; a city concealed behind an eight story high wall of dark, metallic brown, covered with a dome that was rotten at some sides to reveal sunlight into its husk. Pieces of the brown lining on the wall had been peeled away by erosions and explosions to reveal slabs of grey metal beneath.
The path leading to the front gates were smoother, of red grey asphalt that sliced through the grassy ground. At the streetside were lamps in the shape of black, vertical twisting vines with five-petal white flower on an oval bulb in the top. Thin trees with twisting green trunks and large purplish-green leaves; called fan-trees, loomed over the street to observe the caravan approaching the gate.
“Neat…” said Joey as he observed the dome.
“Keep your attention elsewhere, Joey,” said Lezura, gesturing with a hand over Redbolt’s head at the gates.
“Are they really goanna shoot us?” said Joey.
“Not unless they suspect us to be bandits smuggling illegal weapon and drugs into the city,” said Lezura.
The gates to Suride Town were two stories high, a shiny black-grey with ornate silver artwork like flowers in the center and a sign that read “Suride City” above.
The guards at the gate were a tall, slender lazhinian man and a largaph to the right. Both wore sand-brown coats with thick leathery collars. There were green epaulets with yellow dots in the center on the shoulders and right side of the chest. They wore black helmets that completely encased their heads like a shell, and grey uniform beneath with heavy duty, dirt crusted boots.
The lazhinian approached the caravan with his silver rifle raised and one had gesturing for them to halt. When they did Clastaan went to the front and greeted the man, while the largaph slowly strode down the line of travelers to look for anything out of the ordinary.
The largaph, of course, spotted Lezura, a nycarman, with some peachy skinned alien sitting behind her.
The guard’s face flushed with surprise. He gestured with a finger for them to come off their beast.
“Ah man…” said Joey as he descended Redbolt, “I hate the cops.”
“Just keep a cool head,” whispered Lezura to him.
Joey turned to see people from the group looking at him expectantly; S’us and Tylin included. Both women gave him reassuring expressions. So did Tet, but Podge was grinning at Joey like a boy being called to the principal’s office.
The largaph got right to the point. “What are you?” he said to Joey, translated by the device in his ear.
With a go-ahead nod from Lezura, Joey said, “Mi ari wan human.”
“Where did you come from?” said the guard.
Lezura quickly answered, “He is just another immigrant who snuck through the armada around the planet. He came here trying to make a new living, but he did not know the planet was like this.”
The guard wasn’t biting the hook like Lezura wanted. He looked at them long and hard, and said, “Come with me…”
He led them to the front. S’us, Tylin and Tet came of their carriages and silently followed.
Up at the front, Joey and Lezura were just in time to hear lazhinian guard say, “We won’t kill you for it, but if you please give us some medicine and weapons as a sign of good gesture, it would be much appreciated. We are currently short on supplies because the gangs keep on robbing the train coming from Ugatin.”
“Sure,” said Clastaan, “anything we can spare is yours.”
The lazhinian nodded, turned to Lezura and Joey and looked flabbergasted. “Who are they?” he asked the largaph.
“The alien says his species is ooman,” said the guard.
“H-uman,” said Lezura.
In S’us’ mind I’us rolled her eyes and said dryly, “Know-it-all bitch.”
“Quiet,” said S’us.
Tylin pinched S’us’ cheek. She winced and said to Tylin, “What was that for?”
“Quiet,” said Tylin.
“But what about her?” said the lazhinian, “where’re you from, woman?”
Lezura sensed that more hostility was being directed at her than Joey. “I am just a friend of his,” she said.
“She might be a spy,” said the largaph, “for the orderrans down south to Tartian.”
Clastaan waved his hands franticly and said, “No, no, my dear fellows! This young woman is…well…” Clastaan scratched his chin. He turned to Lezura and said, “Where are you from…?”
The lazhinian lifted his gun to Lezura’s head. “I don’t trust this woman!” he said. “Not even the people travelling with her know where; she’s from…?”
Up until now, what Lezura thought of Joey in combat was uncoordinated, unbalanced, and overall unskilled. But that changed the instant she saw the lazhinian’s finger pull on the trigger ever so slightly, and a shiny blade appeared at his throat.
“Pull the trigger and I make you have to smoke out of your throat,” said Joey.
The second guard raised his gun at Tylin just as she moved forward and put her sword in his face.
Clastaan flailed his arms about madly and said, “All of you stop this foolishness!”
But no one flinched. Not even a breath was heard except for a crying baby in the caravan and the gentle warm winds rattling the leaves.
Clastaan said with the most anger he could muster on his weary face, “Have we all gone suspicious of each other just by skin color and outwardly features, now? Have we all been blinded to see that we are slowly being reduced to nothing by the Prestige System and the orderrans?” Clastaan looked at the guards and Joey and Tylin, no one budged still. “It appears as if you all have gone blind, deaf and dumb. If we are all here right now, it means we are all in the same boat—we are all suffering worse than the gufders and the tapikes.”
A tapike looking at the fiasco scurried back in the bushes, almost as if it could understand the rapturan.
Finally Tylin lowered her weapon, knowing very well that Clastaan was right. And if not he would take action himself to end the argument. Joey didn’t move until the lazhinian brought down his gun. The largaph was last.
“Now that we have gotten that out of our systems,” said Clastaan, “can we pleased be allowed to go inside.
“Sure,” said the largaph, “after you’ve given us some supplies.”
It was more of a demand that what the lazhinian had said, but they all complied. After given them the items, the largaph took a radio from out of his coat and said, “Everything’s okay at the front gate, let them in.”
Seconds later the front gate pulled inward.
“Thank you, kind sirs,” said Clastaan as he led them inside.
When Lezura and Joey were passing the guards, the lazhinian said, “Just who are you people?”
Neither Lezura nor Joey answered. Meters into the city they saw Joey hold up the key of salvation before the gates closed on their shocked faces.
Most of the architecture in the town was angle-less, grey and brown colored buildings of varying heights. Most were circular shaped with domed caps, with bridges and platforms interconnecting them and irrigation pipes.
Joey noticed that most if not all the buildings seemed to have gone though some kind of assault like a dog that ripped up a carpet, but he could also see the attempts made to cover them up with paint and new material added to the wounds.
Nature had gotten its revenge on this city, as wild plants sprouted in unusual places. There were some buildings that had a tree growing beneath it and tilting it at an awkward angle. There were vines crossing overhead, though time had been taken to get them out of the way of the few light wires in the city.
Joey noted a few small buildings being supported on top of sinni and arrow-trees more than once, and instead of trying to cut them down, the people simply integrated them into the building’s architecture.
The air smelt of wild flowers mixed with the stink of civilization; things coking, materials burning and the unmistakable stink of a sewer. All together it wasn’t unpleasant but weird.
The sections were the dome was missing had even larger trees, and there was a small ville tree that jutted out the top like an alien parasite bursting through its host.
The traffic that Joey, Lezura and the caravan had integrated in was mostly cart-drawn animals. Joey did see a few vehicles, but they looked like they were chewed up and spat out, rusting and moving on wheels. It was mostly the security forces in these vehicles.
“You’d expect a hovercar on an advanced alien planet,” said Joey.
“That is if you can afford it,” said Lezura. “Plus hover vehicles do not work well in obstacle-ridded terrains like forests.”
Joey noticed the weird variety of aliens around him. He saw smaller, nimble looking rapturans than the Dracoid. Their eyes were big and bright, and their heads rounded, yet with distinct feature like nose height, chin length and jaw width. They had spectacular varieties of green shades to what of their skin could be seen under their clothing.
“Are those rapturans too?” said Joey to Lezura, gesturing as discreetly as he could to aliens, even though a few were checking him out as well.
“Yes,” said Lezura, “they are called geckoids, like S’us. There are actually three breeds of rapturans, the third being the vipoids, but they are rarely seen even on their homeworld.”
Redbolt walked pass an alien that was nearly as tall as the animal. Joey gave the woman a fixed stare. She was tall, lean and muscular, yet still maintaining feminine grace and quality as she strode pass them in white blouse and black frock.
Her skin was a steel-blue, covered in leathery armor-like segments all over. Her face had these plates in patches on the cheek and smaller ones beneath the eyes and chin. Their rectangular nose reached near the middle of the forehead and was also covered in the leathery armoring like a cap, and on the forehead three plates formed a “V” pattern. But despite this her skin had a healthy sheen, and the parts not covered in armor had a lighter shade. Her eyes were almond shaped and brown, her mouth wide, and her leathery head covered in bright red feathers from the top and upper sides.
“Are those some kind of gorilla-bird people?” Joey said.
“No”, said Lezura, “her species are the yautgan. Though they have feathers they are mammals; you can tell by the breasts.”
Joey saw a group of yautgans, male and female, conversing around a wooden table on the green-stone pavement outside a store. Some of them had skin tinged in pale green and grey.
“Yeah,” said Joey, looking at the woman around the table’s chest, “some nice huge boobs!”
Lezura nudged Joey from behind. They turned onto another street, lit by a shower of sunlight from a missing piece in the dome.
“What else can you tell me about ‘em?” Joey said, swatting a bug from out of his face.
“They are very strong,” said Lezura, “stronger than dracoids, and orderrans. Though female orderrans can get nine feet tall, and are much stronger that any sentient species known in the solar system.”
“Shit…” Joey said.
Lezura continued, “Yautgans have thick skin that can hardly be penetrated by anything other than metal, even honoi does not affect them that much. Much like the plates on a largaph’s head that protects them from head injuries from even swords.”
Hearing that made Joey think he really needed to step up the power of his honoi.
“They sound like they’re always ready for a fight,” Joey said.
The caravan stopped to wait for two security vehicles to cross their path, along with a carriage being towed by heavy-set brown animals.
As they continued Lezura said, “Joey, please do not stereotype a race by their appearance. Those attributes are what their species has to protect themselves, and their body saw no need to get rid of even as technology progressed on their planet.”
“Sorry,” said Joey with a dull look, “I just didn’t really know much about them. That’s why I asked you.”
“You made the right choice,” said Lezura with a smirk. “Not many people care to study other species’ culture, but I for one consider myself a scholar in such areas.”
Joey rolled his eyes. “Sure…” he said. And upon doing so Joey picked out of the crowd individuals in suits of metallic armor covering every inch except their green heads.
Before Joey could inquire about them movement close to him caught his attention. He looked down and saw small children, running by the caravan to have a look at the new visitors. They waved at them, and Joey waved back.
But among the bliss of childish laughter and smiles, Joey couldn’t help but pick out malicious eyes fixed on him and Lezura like their next meal.
Joey nudged Lezura and gestured for her to glance at the people. “You did them something, Lezura…?” Joey said.
Lezura looked at the men leaning against the wall outside a clothing store, from yautgan to geckoid to lazhinian. She looked away with a creeping feeling up her back and said, “I am a nycarman, so they put me in the same boat as orderrans; people who try to oppress the other species.”
Joey touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t pay ‘em any mind, Lezura, you aint like that.” Joey looked back at the men and said, “And I’m the Rakai! And I’ll kick anyone’s ass who tries to touch my friends!”
Minutes later, the caravan arrived at the inn on a narrow street, darkened by the looming buildings and the absence of a sun overhead, though the flower-like lamps provided a warm glow of glittery yellow light. The inn itself was a four-sided building without angles, sand colored and looking like it was going to fall down on them.
It wasn’t rare for buildings to be pushed over when the trees sprung up from beneath them, but luckily a network of vines and branches skewered the top of the eight story building and held it in place.
Everyone got of their animals to check their belongings. As Joey did so, he found amongst his bag next to painting of Blinchi something he had forgotten.
“Check it out,” he said as he held up an acorn.
Lezura knew what it was, and said, “Why would you be carrying around an acorn?”
Joey grinned, saying, “I stole it from the squirrel. You know, Nutty the talking squirrel?”
He saw Lezura smile, and open her mouth as If she were about to laugh.
“I know,” said Joey, “It’s funny, right?”
“So you are the moron that stole the squirrel’s nut?” said Lezura, adding a light laugh.
“That was cold Lezura,” said Joey, “I aint stupid. The real idiots are the people who actually put crap like that on the news.”
Lezura nodded, biting her bottom lip.
Joey scowled at her, and said, “Oh please, you’re just jealous because my nut looks better than your ugly braces!”
Lezura stopped smiling and instinctively reached a hand to her mouth. She whacked Joey in the head with a fist and said, “Leave my braces out of this!”
Clastaan, S’us and Tylin came up to Joey and Lezura.
“Where are you youngsters heading from here?” said Clastaan.
Lezura said in a low voice, “We are going to rest up in the inn before leaving for Ugatin tomorrow. We both know that the orderrans will not take their defeat lightly. They might send people for us.”
“They will send people for us,” said Tylin. “It is also best that we try to leave as quickly too, but not before spending a few days here to earn some money and get some supplies.”
“Where’re you guys going anyway?” said Joey.
Tylin was about to put in her translator when Lezura translated what Joey said. Tylin replied saying, “We are going to Ugatin as well. We want to settle down somewhere. We can’t keep up the wondering around like the lost people of Shross forever, you know.”
“I wish you the best of luck,” said Lezura, giving Tylin a hug.
“Yeah teach…” said Joey as he hugged her. “Ooooo….teach you smell nice…”
Tylin pushed Joey away.
“We’ll be seeing you around S’us,” said Joey.
S’us reached for her translator and out it in her ear. “What?”
Joey repeated himself, and as he was about to hug her she ruffled his hair and said, “Sure thing Joey. But we won’t be in the same inn though.”
“Why not?” said Joey.
S’us reflexively reached in her pouch and produced I’us, who said, “Not this one. We will try the other ones around the city. We like to separate the group in a new area so we can get a good layout of it.”
Clastaan produced a pouch from his coat. He gave it to Lezura and said, “Take these to pay for your expenses.”
Lezura opened the pouch and saw that they were gold coins; they even had the symbol of the old Ixian kingdom on the surface. It was a tragic thing to think, but now that the nation was gone the value of their gold actually would go up. “How did you come by this?” she said.
Clastaan raised his hands, showing them a transmutation circle tattooed in each palm. “They do not call me the Brilliant Alchemist for nothing, you know. I came a across an Ixian coin during of journey. I knew that the currency was still used up until thirty three years ago. It might still have some use now.”
Lezura and Joey thanked them and went on. They found a stable where people tied their animals when visiting the inn. A young yautgan male was there to take Redbolt. He gave Joey as at least six glances during their time in there.
They entered through the wooden double-doors painted in red. Compared to the outside the inside of the inn was quite lavish, somewhat. The floors were jade with white markings in the tiles, though a bit dirty. On the walls were paintings if forests, lakes, mountains and vast pastures with an ethereal; quality.
“Do they have running water?” Joey said.
“They should,” said Lezura.
“Good,” said Joey, scratching some bugs out of his hair, “Because the last time I took a bath in the river a fish bit me on my you-know-what?”
They reached the foyer, were round, rich red tables and chairs were occupied with people conversing and eating. Oval windows let in warm light that illuminated the inside. Ceiling fans circulated the rich scent of the cooked meal.
But all the sounds of cheers quickly died when Joey and Lezura entered the room. Even the waiters serving the people were staring at them like out of place animals.
Joey’s eyes darted from left to right at the aliens fixing their multicolored eyes on him. Joey frowned and shouted, “What the hell are all you bitches looking at?”
A few people looked away, but a few eyes still lingered on them.
A lazhinian woman in a yellow apron over her green uniform approached them, smiled warmly and bowed with the required courtesy and said, “Are you two fine people seeking accommodation?”
“Yes we are,” Lezura said.
“Please follow me to the inn keeper’s desk,?