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Kale
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Chapter Sixty-Four: Kar Yalla
Planet: Etheria
Location: In the river, on the planet's surface
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Present Time
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A sea of beady eyes glowing in the darkness look at Kotina and I. Heavy thuds come from the ground as their bodies walk forward. Low feral growls in a chorus surround us on both sides of the river, though they seem to avoid the blue humming light of the formations that jut up from the ground. I think about what Amon said before.
Be wary and do not venture where the light does not shine
My eyes take in the monstrosities that form in the shadows of this planet, thousands of glowing eyes that connect with grotesque deformed bodies, my once hot blood runs cold as I see their mouths, spindles of teeth snapping at us from the edges of the shoreline.
Kotina pulls us back into the rapid waters as she curses under her breath. It is too late though, the horde of creatures leaps into the waters after us. Jaws snap at us as their strange half-formed appendages slap at the surface of the water, as though possessed with only one want, to devour that before it.
Those that venture too close to the formations of blue light along the shore shriek in pain, their grey skin molting from it.
“This just keeps getting better and better.” Kotina says, crushing the skull of one that comes close, it sprays out deep black ooze, tainting the water “Disgusting.”
In the distance, I see the river forks, one side leading to a cave of some kind, blue light brimming from it, the water illuminated more so by it. The other side disappears over a cliff.
“There!” I yell over the torrents of water, pointing with my only hand, the waters running black with blood from the creatures Kotina kills. I am slowing her down, she only has one arm she can use, the other holds me up from the raging rapids.
She turns to look at it, then kicks her legs, plowing us through the water, the sheer force of each kick sending waves of water backward in defiance of the river's flow, spilling the water onto the banks and pressing the creatures back.
She twirls in the water and hurls me towards the mouth of the cave filled with the blue light, sending me flying towards it. Sekat, she’s strong. My body tumbles against the hard ground, I try to roll to disperse the force, but my metal arm doesn’t work and drags beneath me, anchoring me to slide. The stone floor shreds into my tattered clothes, covering me with scrapes. My head slams against a rock, another slam as my back connects with one of the blue formations.
I am still dazed from hitting my head, though I manage to stand, I hear Kotina yelling in the distance, but everything is spinning. My hand touches my forehead, coating it in blood, I stumble over, catching myself on one of the formations that glow. There are vibrations coming from it now, the light from the formation grows brighter as my blood traces down it. Entrancing me in its glow. I feel the energy that overflowed being drawn to it.
“I said don’t touch that.” Kotina’s voice says as she pulls me off of it “Adding deaf to your list of problems.”
My head becomes a little clearer as I feel her dragging me into the mouth of the cave. The creatures shriek and howl from the edge of the light.
“Never touch that stuff.” She says tossing me against the wall of the cave.
My body aches, cuts all over me stinging, but I am alive, thanks to her.
“Never seen so much Netherium before, pairing that with the unfathomable amount of Etherium Prism Flowers, and the Krothaspawn, we are definitely in an uncharted system, probably on the edge of the galaxy.” She says, pacing back and forth “Which means… frag, what does that even mean.”
“Netherium?” I ask, only ever having heard of Etherium, they seem too similar not to be related.
“That stuff you touched.” She says with an irritated sigh “It’s the byproduct of expended Etherium.”
Her armor is melting in a few places I realize, as though sprayed with acid, the soup of metal that bubbles rolls down to the ground.
“Your armor, it’s melting,” I say, pointing to it.
She stops her pacing and looks where I point.
“Slags sake.” She sighs “I just bought this fragging suit. Fragging Krothaspawn.”
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She kicks the wall, causing the stone to crack, making small rocks fall to the cave’s floor. She lets out grumbles of curses under her breath as she scrapes the acid off with the stones she just made. When she finishes, she moves towards the mouth of the cave, inspecting the darkness. The growls become louder as she approaches. The creatures do not venture in towards the light though, they wait patiently, hoping we will foolishly venture out.
“We will stay here until sunrise, Krothaspawn hatchlings typically stay away from sunlight, their exoskeletons aren’t fully formed yet.”
There it is again, Krothaspawn. My jaw tenses as I debate whether to test her patience with more questions. There are so many, where would I even begin? She said they were hatchlings, which would explain the deformities, they haven’t fully grown into shape yet. Kotina looks at me sideways now, with a sigh she slumps down next to me against the wall.
“Out with it runt. You’ve got three questions.”
Only three, which three things should I ask about, there is so much I do not know. So much I feel that I need to know. As I hear the screeches in the darkness, my thoughts become more focused.
“The boundaries, what are they?” I ask her, she tilts her head at me.
“You’ve broken two and don’t even know what they are.” she scoffs, throwing a rock against the wall “You’re a strange one, runt. Not one for explanations, tell me what you know first and we can go from there.”
“When I meditate deeply, sometimes I find a place, I call it the Realm of Dreams. There is water like an ocean or a sea, and a…” I begin, but I am wary of telling her the truth about Valka reshaping it, wary of telling her of the dead that fill it. I do not know how much of what has happened is normal. Not wanting to give her reason to slay me. If I die, as she said before, I will be truly useless.
She stretches her legs outward, rolling her neck, and closing her eyes.
“Yes, that’s called the Soul Realm, everyone’s looks different, usually shaped by their life. Though many have some kind of water and eventually land that comes from it, and once they develop a foundation, they can build upon it, which becomes important for the later boundaries.”
How many boundaries are there? Why is it important? Sekat, more questions.
“Before I fought Adonius again, I pressed against something, like some kind of boundary inside of me,” I say, thinking on it, trying to remember the sensation of it. How can I describe it other than what it was?
“Wait, hold on, back up—you fought Adonius?” Kotina asks, leaning up a little bit, a grin forming on her face, though her eyes remain closed “How’d that go, did you give the slaghole a good scar at least?”
“We killed him—twice even,” I say, trying to open the panel of my metal arm now that we have a moment. It will not do to have it hang uselessly. The edge is bent and folded, the metal too firm for my hands to bend. Sekat.
Kotina’s eyes open with her smile fully as she sits up all the way “Hekat’s left nip, tell me you’re not just pulling my leg.” She pauses then tilts her head “Wait, you said twice?”
Seeing that I have something she wants, I point to my arm, she gives me a smirk and pulls it towards her, looking at the bent frame. As she begins to bend it back, I speak in exchange. An Ulima must always find ways to trade for what they need.
“The first time was Akaria, his former Warden, she cut his throat after I flayed his back,” I say, giving the movements with my blade now, telling the story in the custom of my people, showing what happened.
She grunts as she unfurls another piece of bent metal on my arm, prying off the maintenance port.
“Bet he squealed like the little maggot he is.” She chuckles “Or was.”
I nod, though it does not make me happy to think about it. If I had done what Kotina had said and cut his head off to begin with, I wonder if things would have been different. Images of those he slew, those that Valka slew with my body still linger on my mind, the weight of their deaths heavy on me still. My jaw flexes, but I find the thread of calm and pull it back to reality. Kotina’s watchful eyes can see it troubles me, so she straightens her face, trying to hide her glee.
After I tell her of his resurrection and the blood that followed, she ponders on it for a time. Her hands are not as deft as her protegee Lunara’s I realize as she pulls too hard on one of the pieces, a grinding sound coming from one of the servos in the arm.
“Strange that a God would expend that much Divinity on such a turd.” She says pensively.
Divinity? I want to ask, but I only have two questions left and she has yet to answer the first.
“It is my fault, I think,” I admit, putting my blade down, no longer in the mood to tell the story properly, in the way my people teach. Instead, I reach into the port and feel for the problems.
“Nah, a God wouldn’t care about a runt like you. Cursed Edict or not.” She says, then scratching her chin “They usually only care about themselves. A selfish lot, most Gods.”
“Even if I called them the God of Cowards?” I ask, turning to her again “Saying it for all to hear, challenging them. Saying my people will rise and burn House Helenius to the ground, that I come for them next in the afterlife.”
Kotina raises an eyebrow “How many people roughly?”
“The entire Colosseum.”
She laughs, then straightens her face “Yeah that might piss a God off. Probably not advisable most would say.”
My jaw tenses more, so it was my fault. If I had not called out his God, those people wouldn’t have died. The weight deepens upon my shoulders. My stomach twisting into knots, thousands of souls that I must carry. The faces of the mothers who cried and the young play on my mind again. Each of their faces burned into my memory, each cry to the deaf ears of the Gods echoing in mine. There is so much that has happened in the last months and there has been no time to truly process anything, it threatens to spill out again, even as I try to hold it back. My focus pulls back to reality as Kotina speaks again.
“So, how’d he die a second time?” she asks.
I slowly tell her, not really in the mood to speak on it. The feelings of remorse for calling out the God of Cowards rise in me. Was it pride? Why did I do that? If I pursue House Helenius… how many more will die? Sekat, the emotions twist in me like a storm.
Before I can finish telling her of the end of the fight, telling her of the shattering of the Edict and the words I heard, she speaks, interrupting me.
“You fought him, with his God’s blessing and an Edict…” she stands now, pacing back and forth “And you won?”
My jaw flexes, did I really win? How does one measure success when so many lives are spent needlessly to obtain it? The emotions rise further. Amon’s voice enters my mind now, speaking to me in the old tongue.
Kar Yalla
Its meaning - Search for the calm. He is right, I must find the calm, this is not the time to lose my resolve.
“Sha,” I whisper in the old tongue, pulling it all back into me as the meaning of it resounds in me. The chorus of screams in my memories becomes more silent. The emotions become more still once more.
Kotina looks at me as I breathe slowly in and out.
“What does that mean?” she asks as she peers at me.
“The closest meaning in your tongue… to pull or contract.”
“Okay, back to the maggot Adonius, finish the story.” She says, there is excitement in her voice, I do not know why she despises him or his House, but I sense there is a deeper meaning behind it.
When the calm finds me again, I look up towards her, raising an eyebrow.
“You still have not answered my first question, yet I have answered many of yours.”
Kotina’s mouth wraps into a grin.
“Cheeky lil’ runt.”