“Abetak.” A man swaddled in earthen-toned fabrics bows his head as he places two fingers to his chin; peeling through a bush of brown hair. “Dominax, many blessings. Tehn ret gorrish.”
The final blessing, his words are empty. A hand reflects the same gesture upon Simora’s chin. “Tebera.”
“The people of the Brotabak nation have sent me.” This man cloaked with all the familiar hues of his tribe stands with a back straighter than any arrow. Several layers of the people, as per their culture requires, change the shape of his body. This balled up man stands as a sort of beacon for his people—the emblem of a gold sword and spear rising and falling together though a green circle (all on a black background) rests on his breast.
Blue eyes, like a Summer’s day invaded only by one or two of the smallest, wispy clouds, peer across the desk at the ruler of his native planet. Though the tanned line of an exolung’s nostril plug runs up his cheek, the man is currently without one. Sweat drips down over the discolored skin without slowing; falling into the nest of beard.
“And what, pray tell, has the hearts of the Brotabak people weighed with such need?” Ravager nation. Northeast continent: Enert. He must’ve traveled by ship and mount for quite some time. Why must they avoid Discs at all cost? It would be much quicker. “Speak, and hear your words weigh upon my heart the same.”
The man’s lips flip about as he wets them. Taking up a glass of chilled water from the desk, the man parts beard from mustache to welcome the pure liquid. “Nema cats.” He drinks again; chills poured down to his core to combat the heat swelling in the nest of fabrics.
“Nema cats?” Simora’s mind maps out a series of mental images to be manipulated. Descriptors, studies, dissections, samples, and every other bit of data he could draw from the darkest corners of his mind. This cat, as luck would have it for the envoy, was one of Simora’s favorite specimens. They were a problem. Now? I’ve already taken care of these beasts. With risen brows and an elongated face, he leans into the desk, “What of those blasted lions? I’ve heard their cries are quite distressing. Surely a bother after the sun’s fall.”
“Wev det Irakari.”
“What was that?” Whispered under your breath? Simora exhales and stretches his hands across the motif of stained currents in the wood. “Please, sir. What of the nema cats?”
Emptying the glass, the man leans back in his magnetically lofted chair. Seemingly uncomfortable, he shifts and settles the layers of fabric. “Our people see them along the cliffs nearest the town, and our people are concerned.”
Concerned. “Preventing loss of life is, of course, our priority, Mr…”
“Ethar MoShac.”
“Mr. MoShac.” Simora’s head swings about in a measured tempo until he finds the right words. “None have attacked? Are your people in danger?”
“Of course, they are.” The Ravager lifts his arms with force enough he might’ve flipped the desk. “Once hunted, ho ra nof, the life test. None may lead among us save those that have taken an eye of the beast.” His thumb stabs at the empty space of his forehead.
Three eyes per beast. Offers a chance to offer mercy, yet they must shed blood by trickery or bravery. Difficult item to safely traverse the jungle with. Glancing at the information of dissection notes that only he can see, the Dominax nods to himself as his tongue clicks three times. Apex predator in most locations; however, Enert’s ecosystems actually force them down several rungs on the carnivore hierarchy. Their carrion exudes odd pheromones inciting hasty disposal of their dead. Their manes are valued highly for their prismatic dispersal of light. Used as a mechanism for defense or offense. He then studies the long claws, the jaw capable of locking once clamped, and the beast’s mesmerizing mane. A prism of fur to catch prey silly enough to be temporarily blinded or charmed.
“I know their numbers have increased. An easier task, I would believe.”
“We needn’t ease, Dominax.” The title sounds tainted by emotion… any emotion. “Untested are the newest generation. It is as if they hunt the hare.” Fabrics slide and cry against one another. “We send them out, and they return before the day ends with arms filled with eyes!”
“Seems wasteful.”
“You know my meaning, Dominax!” As the volume increases, a small device on the desk opens, turns, and aims a spherical eye at the representative of the Brotabak people. A red blip signals the need for civility, and the Ravager nods with understanding. “Please, Dominax.
“Tales of you have reached far,” the man’s eyes drop to his calloused hands as the leader listens intently. “Life has been preserved and forsaken at once. Where the body dies, the spirit lives on. What then, becomes of the soul that dies before the body?”
“A fine philosophical question.” Simora has already begun to review his knowledge of the cats and these peoples. “I believe such an inquiry best posed to our Deep Root Patire Isserman. She may yet provide insight into how best to adapt with these practices while retaining the integrity of the ritual. Your cultural needs are important, yet this tempering of a man-eater weighs the scale against any plight to reverse what has been done.”
“I believe there has been enough adapting across Rakar.” Ethar shakes his head and stares at the mechanical vermin that studies him. The red ring of its singular eye has gradually faded to orange toward yellow. Once finished, he knows it will return to sleep, yet the warning remains. “How long until the beasts remember their blood and desire ours? What if this evolution, as all that have come before it, leads to more bloodshed later?”
“The Amelioration has made that an impossibility. My studies span four counts of the Universal Atomic. While I have made public my apologies for being out of the people’s eyes for these several cycles, I did so to begin the greatest breeding program The Namaste could imagine. The nema cats were one of my first subjects. I do apologize for the trouble it has caused. I will admit, I knew nothing of your ho ra nof. However, this work I had begun long before my rise to Dominax has yielded spectacular results globally. Beginning before my father’s untimely death.” Simora motioned toward a statue the man refuses to join him in examining.
Ethar’s eyes widen as he stares into the golden orbs of the Dominax. “Almakamla, dit prow vum?”
“I do not believe myself a god, Mr. MoShac. I simply trust the practiced arts of the experts—including myself. Selective breeding and minor changes to environments or ecosystems have turned even your ghastly nema cats into human-averse carnivores. Hunt them as necessary for your trials, and let your leaders stand in greater numbers by the deed. Or, adapt and find proper guidance by those wielding greater minds. Build upon the rituals and retain the rites.”
Ethar and Simora stare into one another, yet one has been greatly ill-prepared for such a conflict. By blood, the Dominax wields the upper hand.
He wants violent creatures. They seem to prefer the danger. Religion and cultural rites… Patire should be handling this. He’ll press for another type of breeding. Something to preserve those precious hunts.
“Then for ours, and the many tribes like us, might we fashion a sanctuary to the natural way? In this, we and the cat retain the soul before our body’s death.”
He seems pleased with himself. He’s considered this… several times along his journey. Fully conversed with himself and filled in my answers without any knowledge of my nature. I am no cat to be blinded for your crown. “Why not evolve the rite? Complete a task of some other danger?” He’ll note the success of my Amelioration and insult the new ways.
“There are no tasks for the hunter. Not for the forager, nor for the seeker.” He motions to himself in all his earthen-colored fabrics. “Not one fabric displaced. Not one, Dominax.” The voice was rising, and a little yellow ring solidifies in preparation of reversing the colors. “Prints-a-Ment jungles instead of woodlands, wastes, or open waters. A planet fashioned into a zoo. And our culture the pipe organ’s tune.”
Feeling only the slightest annoyance at his great work being labeled “zoo,” Simora glances over his office where all his meetings are held.
An expansive studio of art, artifacts of culture and of science, and all that is required to survive away from home. Though his residence is quite a blissful, solitary treasure, he finds himself trapped within the lab, kitchen, bedroom, or even entertainment studio through the many doors of this oddly colored room. Walls of deep brown, nearing black, stand in slats between Prints-a-Ment slabs of blue ocean beneath a sheet of ice.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
A statue of a man, bronzed and projecting, stands beside a gathering of seats for more relaxed conversation. This statue steals most of Simora’s attention as he glances over his domain—a quick series of clicks escape his mouth. Dominax. He forces himself to glance across the remainder of the considerable room.
Simora takes in all that he’s found comfort in; the sanctuary of his mind. Where my soul thrives immortal as the body gradually seeks death.
“A world so filled with adversity.” Simora stands to turn toward the wall behind him. Knowing his user preference, the room activates the shaded windows. Brown, nearing black, and a blue ocean trapped beneath a sheet of ice suddenly vanish. A wall of grassy fields, standing trees, and a beautiful scene of natural serenity spans the view. Along the creek, a small critter scrubs his nose before sneezing and scurrying back toward a favored tree.
Ethar stands with an open mouth as he moves around the desk—the little mechanical eye following his movements.
He’ll stay on that side to not raise suspicion. He’ll answer how it might be lovely, but it’s fabricated. He will talk of a strength robbed of his people.
“I-it’s beautiful.” Ethar’s hand rises to the layers over his heart. “Are we not—”
“Thirty-nine floors up?” Simora continues to peer outward. Among the bushes, a pair of eyes peers back at him. “Yes.” The shades can block one direction from the other, yet he’s never enjoyed that function. If he can see them, he wants them to see him.
Ethar’s head droops as he considers it again, “Another zoo. Caged.” He focuses on something there; something among the bushes.
“Not at all.” Simora points one finger toward the right. “We are against the cliffs, sir. Water flows naturally, unimpeded. Creatures come and go from this point as they wish.” Still, the man stares out. “Since the fall of the Keep, I’d had this building constructed as the jewel of Valkenaria. This tall slope was eroding. My building now braces it to preserve this beautiful scene.”
“Then you understand.” The Ravager points out, bouncing a bit like an overstuffed scarecrow, “You see it. The varabelm.” He motions toward the eyes that stare toward the Dominax.
He sees it. A hunter completing his rites before the Amelioration.
“How it watches as a mouse. These walls should be nothing!” Ethar clears his throat and glances at the orange-colored eye of the device. “A varabelm is vicious. What has your hand done to break beast and man alike?”
As predicted. “I have fashioned gold from mud.” The ruler continues to stare down the notable predator—one that even nema cats are sure to avoid. “Drawn the attention of the collective among the stars. Grown economy and designed a more favorable structure for humanity.”
“You’ve toppled the columns of Rakar!”
“You demand a hunt, Mr. MoShac.” Simora steps to his left, granting more distance between the two, and moves to the glass. “You believe your people’s worth comes from the rite of bloodshed and conquest.”
“Yand Forakan.” The voice trembles. “Journey that must be. All walk their path, and all must struggle.”
“You believe that? You believe all must suffer?” Simora’s hand raises and places itself on the glass. He will confirm it for me.
Ethar steps back, noting the oddity in the Dominax’s tone. “We are Emel-Rakar.” He straightens himself with the pride of the word that has remained across all dialects and fables.
“Embers of Icarus.”
“Rakar.” The Ravager attempts to correct.
Paying no mind to the attempt at control through semantics, the Dominax’s tongue clicks ten times with the same beat of his fingers tapping against the glass. “And why are you called ‘embers?’”
“Almakamla scorches and chills, breaks and builds. A world that must become by overcoming.” Ethar turns back to the beast that hasn’t moved from the bushes in the distance. “Almakamla places before us a mountain, and we break it to rubble. A varabelm is a king’s trophy. To conquer the beast is to prove the brightness of the ember.” His hand again pounds at his padded chest. “For Almakamla knows then of our strength and will.”
“To conquer the beast.” Simora taps a final time on the glass. “Open wall.”
Clicks and a snap of electricity precede a sudden vanishing of glass—like continents of frost receding into nothingness of invisible air. This powerful glass, mere molecules thick, bows to such a man with eagerness. A sudden wind from the surrounding cliffs floods the room.
“What are you doing?” Ethar grabs at his waist and finds all the tools of his survival are still absent—kept safely at the desk of the Dominax’s secretaries. He now stands only in the protective, and cumbersome, layers of fabrics at the edge of tall grass that bends into the room as if trying to uproot and escape. “Dominax. Please.”
“A king’s trophy?” Simora steps into the grass where his flowing cloak of greens and blues blends into the surroundings as if it were woven of the flora. It wraps about his neck as if to give the appearance of a human face upon a floating sapling.
“Stop.” Ethar steps to the very edge where Prints-a-Ment resists the ever-expansive demand of the jungles. “You damn me for your death?”
“Your people have not been wronged. I disarm the beast that no man in Valkenaria require pulser or blade.”
Golden eyes from within the bushes across the creek move. Shifting like a pendulum, the beast’s deceptive nature draws a smile from the ruler. Just as the families of Black. Secrecy. Hiding position, then hiding path, then hiding attack, then weapon, then end. A plan so many creatures experience yet never appreciate.
Ethar thinks to move forward. He demands himself to, yet the leader of man must possess instinct. The part of his brain, the most primitive survival portion, plants his feet on the Prints-a-Ment. Had he been allowed his Vibrato-Po, Makam blade, sidearm, or even, he believes, a sharp stick… he might trek forward with the crazed Dominax.
Though, he knows… this is a lie. Not before a varabelm. Not before such a beast.
The bush begins to rustle.
It’s coming. Use this, Simora glances up to the sky; exposing his cloth-covered throat as he squints toward the sun. Sun. “Come then! Confirm my honor and status!” The yellow eyes of the bush open wide as the creature’s slender body leaves cover. A length of gray and green skin, smoother than the finest cut jewel, slithers through the air above the grass. Four meters, all slapping through the grass at odd intervals, tear through the blades and soil as the body rushes from its hiding spot. “Hear the word of Irakari-Tol!”
This skittering lizard’s extended neck swings back and forth to keep the prey guessing which way the powerful jaw will lead. Of course that’s the first trick. Simora stands still with his arms out—blessing the scene and predator that threatens his life. Ethar listens, bewildered by the final comment of his planet’s master, and finds his body unable to move… unable to breathe. They both know the slithering head, as large as a man’s torso, is a feint.
Only when the powerful claws and poisonous-barbed tail get into range does the head proceeds to phase two. As if an object were cranked back, the spring tensing with the weight, the head is pulled back into folds of smoothed skin of grays and green.
Dead. Ethar feels his chest suddenly empty as if his heart plummets into his stomach. He has watched many a man die, yet this would mean more than the simple end of a soul. Rakar often stole the lives of the weak and foreign. To watch a ruler expose his chest and throat… to welcome death… this was a new and disturbing thing. One direction will be the lunge, the other the tail, and the claws in the center. Such was the way of the apex varabelm.
Were the Dominax, he knew, facing a beast yet to be Ameliorated, he would surely be torn apart and devoured. The varabelm is known for its vicious behavior… the playful beast. Yet, Simora waits patiently as the beast turns slightly and begins running sideways at him. Even as the claws, reaching his shoulder’s height with ease as it ran, approached, Simora watches the sky. His tower rising into the deep blues above.
Ethar watches as a sickened expression creeps over his wrinkled skin. Will the next Dominax be grander? Does this return to us our ways? Will Almakamla guide us from the folly of off-worlders? I would give my life for such. His body relaxes as the thought crosses his mind.
As sunlight drowns the land above the Dominax’s tower, the landscape of woods and streams, and the vicious predator… silence slips between the streams of light. Tightened about throats, limbs, and flora, all stand silent and stilled.
A hand, one human and weak, extends out toward the varabelm’s head. The creature’s tightened muscles overflow the cavern of a body it’s sunken into. Two yellow eyes, as large as Ethar’s fists, peer into the ruler’s sandy, golden orbs. A predator that few beasts could match across the globe stands like a freshly finished piece of taxidermy.
Placing two fingers gently against the beast’s snout, the Dominax focuses his Spark. Touching upon the beast’s mind, he drives in just to the surface of the simpleton creature’s brain.
Boring… a dangerous and mostly disgraceful ability of the Blue… penetrates the basic dealings of a beast’s mind. Simora does not recall when he’d first attempted such a skill, but he knows it must not become habit.
Instincts. Hunger. Food and fun. Hunt. Simora’s lips pull back into a smile that’s unseen to the Ravager. Ameliorated. Of course you are. Now, go back to your hunt, and for this one time… you may remind the human beside me of your nature.
Turning back toward Ethar, Simora examines the wide eyes and pursed lips. Those blue eyes, aquatic planets turning about with exhausted clouds, flash with horror. Realization, the sudden, harsh collision with truth, can break even the strongest of wills.
Varabelms, a symbol of a cunning and vicious leader, steps to the side. Like an arrow nocked in the swollen body of the beast, the prepared death now aims at Ethar. As if the myths and legends were true, the Ravager feels himself petrifying in place as the yellow eyes dig into him.
There, loaded as a bullet, the spring-necked hunter of Icarus waited patiently for his master’s command. “Go and hunt, beast.” And so, the creature did his master’s bidding. Leaving two fresh and tasty meals behind, he moves toward easier, less-delicious prey. “Slaying a beast, Mr. MoShac?
“It seems such a waste,” Simora inhales slowly as he clicks his tongue. His eyes open back to the harsh light of Icarus. Bathing in the silent moment, the Dominax steadies his heartbeat after the use of Spark—of Boring. “Go home and tell of my trophy. No more need have your people of collecting eyes, teeth, or claw.” Golden eyes, like a gilded beach slipping into black wells, release Ethar from his petrification; though, a fate worse than stone seems to play out behind the wispy streams of golden sands. “A king stands with open arms before you. Paradise is his promise. No need for weapons and war; of struggle.” His arms, still out, aim toward the Ravager. “That I have conquered the planet itself, Almakamla must witness my will. In this, I offer all my prize.”
He will carry my tale forth. He will remember my words… Irakari-Tol. Yes. Sun Owl. Go and tell. He stands, unblinking, as the Ravager swallows back all the emotions that had sought escape. Ethar bows his head slowly with the aged understanding of how best to survive among the beasts. Go forth and tell.