Chapter Two
I sat back watching the spectacular sundown of this world with two suns. The one sun was farther out and smaller, while the other was closer and much brighter. This world orbited both suns, but the twin gravities affected the orbit of the planet in a unique way.
Half of the world was pulled in closer to the brightest of the suns, while the other half saw less of either of the suns and experienced extremely cold temperatures as a result. It was a world of extremes for sure.
As soon as the twin suns sank below the horizon I would be on the move again. My way forward would be lit by the light of this world’s four moons.
In a way it never really got completely dark on the sunny side of this planet. That had its benefits and drawbacks.
Right now it was a benefit because I had light to travel by. Looking back to the waterhole I looked at the lump of falling apart flesh that I had drug-free of the water.
Tanic wolves didn’t bother me, but what had killed this one did. The abundant solar power of this side of the world fostered a whole assorted array of the reptilian kingdom that ranged from snakes to lizards. It was said that even dragons were commonly found in both colder and warmer regions of the planet.
I hated all of them with perhaps the exception being the dragons. They kept to themselves for the most part and didn’t bother humans, but to the others I was free pickings.
There were sand vipers big enough to swallow children or short statured people. They would lay in wait buried beneath the sand for months at a time patiently awaiting their next big snack to come along.
Ornig lizards were vicious little monsters that seemed impervious to fire, which amazingly enough they had mastered the effective use of. They didn’t breathe it as some of the dragons reportedly did, instead they were aware of the explosive quality of the top layer of the soil in these deserts.
They would mound it up within traps and wait for a victim to come within range before a whole horde of the little monsters would spit on their piles and ignite them. Whatever victim had wandered into the kill area would be surrounded by a wall of impenetrable flame.
Sometimes the Ornigs would wait for the explosive flames to cook their meal for them, but other times they would just race out into the flames and take bites out of their victims flame and all. Their traps could be avoided, if you knew what to look for, and for the most part they were cowards without the use of their fire to back them up.
On every world I traveled I killed every one of the pesky little saboteurs that I ran across. I found the depths of their guile in the pursuit of food to be intolerable.
Neither giant sand vipers or swarms of Ornigs were to blame for the wolf’s death though. The wolf had been missing a chunk of flesh from one of its rear legs. And on further evaluation I had determined that the wolf had been in the water for far less time than I had initially thought.
It could have stumbled into the water as early as a day and a half before I had arrived. It had been apparent that it had been eaten up from within with infection.
Near death the wolf had hobbled to the waterhole out of severe thirst, because of the fever ravaging its body. It had then collapsed in the water and died from its injuries.
There was only one creature other than a snake that could kill with just a single bite. A Ranzer lizard.
Ranzer lizards were big and yet they could out run a man over short distances. They had no poisoned fangs, but rather it was their saliva. I’d rather be bit by a snake any day then suffer the after effects of a Ranzer’s bite.
Nobody survived from the resulting infection of a Ranzer’s bite. The dead wolf was clear evidence that there was at least one Ranzer in the area. One was too many.
When I caught up with Zayri…….I could practically feel my fingers around her throat even now. Shaking my head I tried to get a grip on myself. I’d never let any woman get under my skin like I had her. Worst of all was the attraction I felt for her that called out to me in some elemental way that defied all logic.
I stopped walking as several profound thoughts occurred to me. The urge to hunt Zayri down after I survived this trip through purgatory was overwhelming, but I would probably be best served if I avoided her.
Not making her face the justice that she deserved rankled, but it was probably for the best. She was poison to me and I didn’t want to end up like that wolf back there. I was close enough as it was to his condition now!
I started walking again as my mind continued to ponder. What would people say, ‘Taran Collins, feared lawman afraid of a woman.’ They’d be right too. Whatever had induced me to take the cuffs off of her?
Not knowing the answer to that had me seconding my choice to avoid her from now on. To say that my poor decision making stemmed only from the raw attraction that I had for her just seemed to somehow cheapen the man that I had thought that I was.
She had a way of passing through the usual barriers straight to the core of who I was. Yes, it would be best to avoid her. Let the gossips say whatever they wanted to.
*****
I made good time through the night. The water had rejuvenated me and my will to live was strong. Despite my new positive outlook I wanted no part of facing the heat of the dual suns rising in the sky behind me.
It was time to find shelter from the heat and wait for night. I could afford to do that now as I had filtered extra water for myself, which now lapped to and fro within my hat that I held before me with both hands.
I found a likely spot, but with anything it was always best to investigate first. Picking up a rock I spit on it and then I threw it forward to land on the most likely spot beneath an overhang of projecting boulders that formed a natural shelter from the two suns.
The sand near the fallen rock shifted and a huge fanged mouth appeared only to clamp down on the rock I had thrown. In the next instant the monstrous snake spewed the rock back out before turning its bright eyes filled with hate toward me standing a safe distance away from it.
I stepped clear of the viper’s presence and moved on. Giant sand vipers lacked any speed to apprehend a victim and so the snake watched me go helpless to make up for the months long vigil it had kept beneath the sand lying in wait for a meal. Personally I was very glad to see it disappointed.
About a half mile further I found a large boulder that offered a minimal amount of shade from the heat of the risen suns. It would have to do as all the best spots were taken.
*****
Blinking I opened my eyes. It was very hot and judging from the position of the larger of the two suns I determined that I’d only been asleep for about four hours.
The heat was insufferable and I didn’t give myself a very good chance of being able to fall back asleep. Miserably I looked around, which is when I saw the clouds.
In alarm I shot to my feet. Clouds meant the possibility of rain, which heralded the occurrence of a desert fire. An unlikely occurrence, but so too was the sight of clouds on this side of the planet.
Picking my hat up I drank all the remaining water held within it. Putting it on my head it offered only a momentary relief from the heat as its soaked interior cooled my head. Just as quickly though everything was hot again.
I started walking south and away from the storm front that lay at my back.
Time passed, but with it my suspicions were proved correct. For such a harsh environment there was more life than one would expect hidden within it and now, like me, animals were heading south for the cover of the ice fields. My best guess was that I was two days out from the swamp land that lay between the desert and the colder water rich lower hemisphere of the planet.
My pace quickened into a run, as the paranoia of the fleeing wildlife inspired the same within me. Looking back I was pretty sure I didn’t have two days by which to reach the swamp lands.
By nightfall I was completely exhausted from running, but I kept on. It may be night, but the entire horizon behind me was lit up by fire. By my calculation I’d managed to shave maybe a half days journey off by running, but the ground beneath me remained volatile sand.
I stumbled on through the night, the need to survive demanding the impossible effort that I was putting forth.
*****
Breathing hard I crashed into a boulder and lay against it for a moment. Dawn wasn’t far, but the fire was closer. Close enough to feel the heat of it against my back.
Grimly I looked back to witness the progress of the sizzling flames that raced along the ground feeding on the explosiveness of the top layer of dirt. I had but minutes before the flames reached me.
I could see greenery to the south, but it was still at least a half days journey away and that was only if I ran the whole time. I wasn’t going to make it.
“God I need help!” I cried out.
Shaking my head I acknowledged that I had been far too stubborn in asking of help from my Heavenly Father lately. It shouldn’t take dire circumstances such as this to provoke conversation with my Maker.
The light was brighter and straightening up from the boulder I pressed on towards the south. Escape from the flames might be hopeless in my present condition, but I had to try.
There were some projecting up-thrusts of rock ahead with one larger mound of rock in the middle of the rocky spires. Maybe I could find a sheltered spot away from the flames. It was my best chance at the moment for survival.
Reaching the first outcrop of rock I realized with a start that it wasn’t a natural outcrop, but rather the fitted stones of a building’s corner foundation. Ruins?
To my knowledge there was no human settlement on this world nor ever had been. The structural remnants were very old from the looks of it and the odd pillar standing here and there were inscribed with a language unfamiliar to me in my travels among the outer worlds.
With renewed energy I pieced my way past ancient piles of rubble toward the central construct of stone that still stood for the most part intact. The air rebounded around me of explosions from the fast approaching storm of fire.
Making my way around the still intact stone walls I came across a pillared entrance way that led into the interior of the structure. I stopped and stared for a moment in profound shock at the emblem that was emblazoned across the top of the entryway.
I’d seen the emblem before. As a boy I had seen my great-grandfather wear such an emblem about his neck on a necklace. I’d even asked him once what it was. He’d smiled and said with a faraway look, “It is but a token memory of a place long since past. Harmony. The symbol signifies harmony.”
Then with his face reflecting deep sadness he’d said, “Harmony is no more.” That had been all that he’d say and I had let the matter drop.
Walking as if a man blind to all else I made my way down the line of pillars towards the wall at the end that seem to be illuminated in a warm glow apart from any outside light source. There was a skitter of scales and instinctively I lunged off to the side drawing my gun.
I heard the snap of jaws and a burning pain in my side erupted to life. I fired. The bullet struck the Ranzer in the one hind leg and with a screech it lurched off to the one side.
It turned its baleful eyes away from its leg to me and I filled it full of the lead from my five remaining shells. It jerked repeatedly and keeled over on the ancient stones of the place as the light of life left its reptilian eyes.
I felt on the edge of hysteria. I’d made it so far only now to die. No it couldn’t be!
Here I was in a place that must surely tie in to my distant past, but all I could hope to experience now was a death torn apart by a war from within. Shaken to the core I looked down to the gash in my side that I felt blood pouring out of.
Something dawned on me then and my sluggish senses quickly caught on to the distant hope presented. The ranzer hadn’t bit me. It had swiped me with one of its taloned forelegs. There was still the chance of infection, but the flow of blood out of me had likely washed all contamination from the wound.
I was going to live!
Blood was dribbling to the floor and in concern I realized that I might not live after all given the rate at which I was bleeding out. I had to stop the flow of blood somehow, but I didn’t have time to make a fire as the thought of cauterizing the wound came to mind.
I had a very bad idea then. Groaning with the expected pain of what was to come I nonetheless made my way back out to where the pillared entrance way opened up to the sands of the desert.
I tore my shirt off and laying down on the ground I scooped up a handful of the top layer of sand.
“Oh God!” I whispered out, as I held my hand up and let sand funnel out of my hand down the length of the gash in my side.
Breathing hard I watched the sand soak up the blood and then it began to smoke and then my torn flesh burned. I slammed my fist repeatedly into the ground in a hammer like motion as I writhed in agony on the floor of this ancient place.
The smell of my flesh burning had me wanting to throw up, but I had nothing to throw up already being days without food. The flames were finally out as the sand was spent of its fuel to burn.
Crying I rolled up to my knees. The bleeding was stopped, but I felt like I’d lost several years of my life in the amount of pain I had just suffered through.
Glancing through watery eyes I saw the fires of the desert getting close. The thought of my whole body engulfed in the flaming agony I had just suffered through drove me to my feet and back down the pillared interior of the structure.
What I was hoping for I didn’t know. While through some miracle there was little sand accumulated in the interior of the structure the smoke alone from the outside fires would likely kill me. I’d be dead outside by now though anyway.
The atmosphere inside this place was already heated and looking back I saw flames all along the opening of the pillars. I came to the wall at the end of the pillared causeway and coughing repeatedly on the smoke I studied the many carvings and glyphs on the wall before me.
It was just a bunch of gibberish to me. There were stories to be told in the glyphs, but I didn’t know how to read them and I didn’t have the time even if I did. All I recognized on the wall was the central symbol, which my great-grandfather had said meant harmony.
Harmony of what?
There was nothing in a state of harmony on this world that I could tell of. One glyph caught my attention. It depicted a planet with two suns on opposite ends of the planet. There were four moons orbiting the planet as well. The glyph was depicting this world as it must’ve once been!
Somehow the lesser of the two suns had been pulled out of its orbit and closer to the other one. The discordant orbit caused by two suns exerting gravitational pressure in the same direction must be what caused the extremes of this world’s downfall from what evidently had been a highly sophisticated culture at one point in time.
This place must’ve once been a paradise. With two suns on opposite sides of the planet there had likely never been night. Coughing I commented out loud, “Harmony broken.” As I realized what my grandfather had meant so many years ago now.
At the sounding of my words the glyphs on the wall before me, along with the many inscriptions in an unknown language, briefly glowed. Blinking in surprise at the apparent advanced technology of this ancient place I said, “I need to get out of here.”
Great, my madness had reached the point of talking to walls.
I put my hand to the wall and it immediately glowed where my fingers touched. I traced my fingers across the surface and the glow followed the path of my fingers.
Very cool and all, but it did little to help me in the moment. The wall had first reacted to a voice command so maybe speaking was the way to go, but what to say?
I thought of my great-grandfather and what little I remembered of him. My cousins, my brother and I had always been in fights with each other and chief of all things I remembered about my great-grandfather was how he would step into the scene of the fight and say over and over again, “Harmony must be restored!”
It’s was worth a shot, “Harmony must be restored.” I spoke aloud.
The wall before me cracked and groaned and what I had taken to be etching made into stone disappeared from view as the wall became smooth as glass. Then indentations formed and the world as it was now formed deeply etched into view in the wall.
I didn’t have any more time for these games of discovery. “I need to leave!”
One of the four moons pulsed brightly and I said, “Yes, take me to the moon!”
All four moons pulsed with color, but reaching up I touched the one that had glowed first.
The indented image on the wall before me changed again and this time the moon in question appeared. It revolved slowly almost as if it was an orb separate from the wall.
Different spots on the moon lit up and flashed. I got the impression I was being asked where on the moon I would like to go. I saw what looked to be a city with a flashing icon beside it and I touched it.
There was a snapping sound and I felt myself pulled backward by a strong wind. Pulled backward was a small word for it, I was flying back down the row of columns and then the columns were no longer in view.
There was darkness lit up by stars and then I was coming in to land on the surface of a clearing in a patch of forest. Gun in hand I looked around in surprise as the wind left me and I found myself breathing air that was devoid of smoke and fire.
Looking up into the sky past the branches of the trees revealed that I was no longer on the planet that I had just been on. Instead I was looking at it right now in space.
Had my ancestors really once been of this world and had mastery over these moons? The evidence seemed convincing that it was so.
How then had it all come to the ruined state it was in today? Had they not been wise rulers? Had they been judged by God or had events beyond their control occurred to wipe out almost all traces of civilization on the plant that I had just narrowly escaped from?
I didn’t know the answer to any of my questions, but I did know I was no longer choking on smoke or under the threat of being burned alive. Kneeling down I expressed my gratitude, “Thank you God! When my life’s journey doesn’t make sense You somehow make sense of it all. Help me be about accomplishing Your will and doing what needs done.”
Getting up I headed towards the sound of water in the forest. There were the usual forest sounds, but then just as I reached sight of the noisy stream of water all sounds ceased within the forest. I froze in place not moving a muscle.
I heard crashing in the brush and my hand drifted down to the gun that I had just holstered a few moments before. In sudden realization it occurred to me that I had never taken the time to reload the gun after I had emptied it into the Ranzer!
Internally calling myself every kind of a greenhorn idiot I stood there silently. Not being discovered was my only defense now.
A man burst free of the foliage further upstream from me. There was a panicked look to him that spoke of great terror.
Glancing back he halted his rapid breathing for a moment and seemed to focus on listening over the need to breathe. His heavy breathing came back then and seeming slightly less alarmed he knelt down and drank water from the stream noisily.
The sound and look of the fast-moving water was on the verge of driving me mad with the urge to drink it, but I dared not move. I remained motionless as I listened to the sounds of the forest in search of anything that might not belong within the natural framework of a forest’s repeating melody.
I didn’t hear the threat, but I saw it coming in fast over the tree tops and for a moment I almost called out a warning to the man still lapping up water by the stream. Two barbed metal shafts with thin metallic cables attached zipped through the forest foliage from above.
The man screamed in pain as the barbed shafts sank into the back of his shoulders. He grasped at the stones of the river screaming with the terror, of horror unequaled, but it did no good. He was born aloft into the air to be bumped off tree branches until he cleared the canopy of the forest.
Once clear of the forest canopy the craft hovering in the air overhead turned and headed back the way it had come. The man had still not ceased from screaming as he was flown off from out of my sight.
My need for water forgotten I pushed through the forest until I reached an overhanging precipice that rose above the treetops further down the slope. I walked out to the edge of the cliff and from there I had a good view of all the surrounding land.
My eyes took in the city at the valley’s bottom with interest. Of special note were the pyramid structures that dominated in size over all the other buildings.
I’d heard people talk of the pyramids of ancient Egypt back on Earth and then of course there had been the accounts of the children of Israel and Egypt to be gleaned from Scripture. What I was looking at now though seemed different somehow. A blend of ancient with something more advanced.
Even from this distance there seem to be an oppressive quality to the valley, which after what I had just seen clearly witnessed to it. The man no doubt had been an escaped slave.
I didn’t hold with slavery and from the looks of the structures in the valley below it would seem that there would need to be a lot of slaves in order to have brought such monolithic structures together. Idly I drew my pistol and started thumbing cartridges into it from my belt.
I needed to restock up on ammo by paying a visit to Edgar sometime soon. For now though a new job had opened up in which the possibilities were endless.
The people down in the valley being oppressed to build such structures could very well be the remnants of my people. So could their captors for that matter. Time would tell on both accounts.
I turned and headed back to the water. The water was more abundant on this moon and the chance of fire slight, but I had the distinct impression I had just jumped from the cooking pot into the flames.