Ok’di was a solid wall of muscle. Instead of the traditional curved sword that knights wore at their sides, he had a massive hammer strapped to his back. He had four scars along the right side of his face, as if some large creature had tried to take his eye out with razor-sharp claws.
He led us straight through the middle of the swarm of bodies. Everyone gave us a wide berth, which made me even more wary of where Ok’di might be taking us. After traversing almost the entire large market, he turned down a small aisle, past someone selling wilted fruit and dried frogs, and toward a little booth with nothing but an old wooden table.
The woman sitting behind the table was ancient. Her skin was dry and cracked, and she did not look at us as we approached. “Marana, the ones we have been waiting for are here.” She did not look our way, did not speak. Instead, she lifted a hand up and held it out toward the large man. He took her hand and held it against his face. Her eyes fluttered and her skin became more vibrant. She sat up straighter in her chair.
We watched in amazement as the woman was transformed, the years falling away from her before our eyes. Ok’di, however, looked like he could have been the father of the man that led us through the market. His face had become sallow, his eyes lost the vibrant spark it had held before. He hunched over the table, putting one hand on it for support.
“You move quickly. I expected you tomorrow.” The woman’s voice was raspy, as if it had not been used in days. “No matter, we can prepare you a bed. Stravus told us that you would be coming.”
I looked at the woman, then at my traveling companions. Torlyn spoke up first. “Ai, mother. Your hospitality is gracious.” He stepped forward, and she held out her other hand to him. I winced, glaring wide-eyed at Torlyn as he reached out to take her hand, took it to his mouth, and kissed her fingers. I waited for him to shrivel and age like Ok’di had, but lowered her hand, bowed low, then stepped back. Baila stepped forward and repeated the gesture. Then, all eyes were turned toward me.
“Ai, mother.” I whispered as I reached for her hand. My own hand was shaking, and I hesitated just short of touching her skin, stealing another glance at Ok’di before I grabbed her hand and brought it up to my lips. As I kissed her fingers, a wave of warmth and a feeling of safety washed over me.
The woman spoke to me directly, holding onto my hand as she did so. “The path you walk is a dangerous one, child. You will lose everything that you want, but you will be left with all you need to complete your journey.” She let go of Ok’di’s hand and patted mine. I watched in awe as her hands shriveled and curled again.
Ok’di dropped to his knees, breath coming in gasps. He did not regain his vibrance as quickly as the crone had lost hers. I tried to help him up, but he either could not get up or he refused. Baila looked at the woman, then at the large man. Neither moved. Each only stared vacantly forward, not speaking or reacting to our prodding.
After several minutes, the behemoth of a man spoke again, faintly. “Water. Please.” His mouth barely opened. Torlyn was the first to react, grabbing for the canister he had tied to his pack. He opened the canister and held it to Ok’di’s mouth, tilting it slowly. An unintentional whimper escaped my mouth as I watched droplets fall from his mouth and onto the ground.
Torlyn tried to pull the canister from the other’s mouth, but Ok’di reached out and pulled it from the man, tilting it higher and draining every drop. Some of the color returned to his face, and his breathing became more even again. “That-” he gasped, “was not pleasant. We have the mother’s blessing. We can go to the pit now.” He pushed himself off of the table and back to his feet. The mother, as he had called her, did not react to their departure. She only looked ahead with glossy eyes as they blended back into the crowd.
They exited the marketplace into an alleyway that was barely wide enough for their massive escort to navigate. His shoulders bounced off the walls in a few spaces where the path became even more narrow, but didn’t slow his pace. They came to the end of the alleyway and Ok’di looked out before rushing across the road and into the alleyway on the other side. We followed him in a single file line across.
After going halfway through the next alleyway, he stopped at a small door and knocked out a rhythmic beat on the wood. Someone opened it immediately, and he stepped back to let us go in first, squeezing his giant frame into the doorway behind us.
The room was dark for a moment, then the lights turned on all at once, revealing the large hole in the center of the room, ringed by a small path around the perimeter. “Welcome to the pit,” Ok’di said to us. There was a circular stairway that went down the wall, with a few landings that held armored guards. We walked down the stairs to the first checkpoint, where a man stood in our path on a stone landing. He did not speak to us, just held out his hand.
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Ok’di moved forward and took the other man’s hand. He winced, looking momentarily pained, but nobody else seemed to notice. They let go of one another and the giant man took a deep breath. He stepped forward and the sentinel reached out again. After none of us moved, Ok’di spoke up. “Just take his hand. It won’t hurt. Much.” He smiled a little. It was the first time he had shown anything aside from begrudging tolerance toward us.
The three of us looked at one another. Torlyn and Baila seemed just as uneasy as I felt. We glanced at one another, none moving toward the sentry. Vuvu finally broke the awkwardness, rushing up from behind me and licking the man’s hand. It made the sentry smile, and he broke his unmoving routine to rub the fox behind the ears. She nibbled playfully at his hand until he gently pushed her away and resumed his position holding a hand out to the trio.
“Oh, for Boh’s sake,” Baila grumbled, then pushed past the rest of us and grabbed the sentry’s hand. She let out a gasp, then her body seemed to slump. The man let go of her and she stepped away quickly, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
Torlyn called out to her, but she just shook her head and urged us to complete the process as well. Torlyn shuffled through and held out a single finger, barely touching the man’s outstretched palm. Immediately his frame went limp and he collapsed, unconscious. We looked to the sentry, then to Ok’di, who shrugged his massive shoulders. “Well, I guess he won’t be coming down to the pit with us.”
The sentry dragged Torlyn up against the wall, shackling him to the wall, then spoke directly to Ok’di. “He has proven himself unworthy to enter. Your intentions are impure. He may wait here for you and your companions, but he cannot join you down below.” Ok’di nodded his understanding. The sentry then stood back straight up and held his hand out to me.
I took a deep breath, held it in, and reached out to him. As soon as our fingers touched, the world went white and it felt as if something was burrowing through my mind, digging through all of my memories.
A man with dark red eyes is arguing with my Gr’apa. Both are getting louder, shouting at one another. I am sitting on the floor, pulling at a wooden bovii on a string. The toy is barely a distraction from the two men arguing about my future.
“Father, I know that you don’t want me to go, but it is what is best for our people.”
“What about what is best for your family? For your son?” Gr’apa is younger, less wrinkled, but also less carefree than the man that had raised me. “You want to rush off to the farthest corners of space just to fight someone else’s fight. I cannot stop you, but I ask that you wait long enough that your son may remember your face.”
My father takes a quick glance at me, a crimson drop running down each side of his face, and leans down to kiss me on the top of the head. Then, he walks out the door, and I never see him again.
The only thing anyone has talked about for months is my father and the rest of the delegation that had been flying for two spins, updating us on their progress toward the Terran Empire’s home planet.
Everything had been going properly until they got inside of the Terran’s Milk Way. Gr’apa said they called it the “milk way” because only the milky-skinned Terrans could get through. He must have been right, because the ship was hit by an asteroid and all were killed. I try to keep my head up, but I feel overwhelmed by so many adults asking if I am okay.
I am not sure whether I am okay or not.
After I told Gr’apa my plans for the dice, it is all he has talked about. He is thrilled that I have finally shown more interest in creating something for the store. We sit up for a few hours, working on designs and deciding the proper size for the six-sided cubes, and finally I know what I want the finished product to look like. It has been a few years since I had thought of my father. I spend countless days carving hundreds of tiny wooden cubes, carving each face by hand. The wooden dice swept the school, and I have friends for the first time in my life.
Fabian, my best friend, has begun selling modifications for the autofilter masks that the school gives out. He made them himself. One changes the user’s voice. It has become very popular with the other boys in the school, pretending to have deep, booming voices instead of the squeaky sounds they actually made when they spoke.
The other is an adapter for melt, an aerosol that amplified the senses and opens pathways in the brain that allows for telepathy and, in some cases, telekinesis. He made almost a million before school was out, and I was the only one that knew how he made the money. He invests it all to open up his shop.
All of these memories and more rushed through my mind, leaving me confused and making my head ache, but I was still standing, and the man stood aside to let me pass. We continued on down the spiral staircase, checking in the weapons we carried at the second checkpoint, and being given food at the third stop before making it to the large, empty space at the bottom.