“It was that day that stuck with me the longest. That day I ruined someone. I couldn’t take them to the hospital, there was no medicine to fix them, they were just ruined and I was the one who did it.”
Letters from Jaius to Ali .
Jaius watched in horror as Ali was led into the large hall. That Theric guy was pushing her forward. He did, however, feel an overwhelming sense of joy. She had come after him, she hadn't given up. He knew right there that she really did care about him. He had to get out of this bubble. He tried to push at it and kick it, but just like the previous hundred or so tries, it didn't even budge. Then he heard the Hyress say that Ali was to be killed and he started kicking even harder, he even tried to sing, but nothing worked. Then Ali did something even he didn't expect her to do. She turned and kicked Theric in between his legs and then when he dropped and let go of her she rushed the Hyress and tackled her.
Jaius, first cringed as Theric crumpled to the ground from Ali's kick, then he cheered as the girl's Tiara was knocked off her head. Then fear gripped his heart as he realized what such an attack would mean for Ali. It took him a moment to notice that there had been a change in the girl that Ali had tackled. He looked closely at her. Her hair had been blonde like Ali's just moments before, but now it was black as night. He looked around and saw people standing, some were shouting, others were covering their mouths with their hands.
He saw Maleric staring at the Hyress with rage flashing in his eyes. He stood and threw his chair back against the raised platform behind them. He then began to sing and slowly rose off the floor. Knowing that he was about to be leaving the room, Jaius turned to see what had happened to Ali. He saw her putting the Hyress's Tiara on her head as she ran up the steps toward the large purple crystal chair that rested at the top. As he was drug forward, toward the large main doors he saw her sit down on the large crystal chair and point after him as she yelled to the crowd to stop Maleric. The people did not react. He still felt gratitude to her for trying. It looked like she might be in charge now. He had gathered that only a girl with blonde hair and the ability to sing could become this Hyress and lead the people. If anyone could pull that charade off it was Ali. If she had convinced the A table that she was some popular girl from another school, then she could definitely convince these backwood shlubs that she was this Hyress person.
He lost sight of her as Maleric cleared the main doors and flew through the hallways and then out of an open window. He went over the village and then over the mirror-like surface of the lake. He picked up speed and soon the large main hall of the village was just a tiny speck. They began to gain altitude as Maleric flew up over one of the mountains and then down the other side. Before them stretched a wide valley. A river wound its way through it and in the center of the water was a large Island. There was a twenty-foot wall surrounding the Island. It was made of clear crystal that seemed as if it almost grew right out of the ground. There was a large ranch style building complex that dominated the center of the island. There were smaller ranch style houses that surrounded the main structure. A large crystal barn lay in each of the four corners of the wall. Each barn radiated light from the crystal of the structure itself. There were also buildings that had smoke coming out of them, and he could hear the clanging of metal coming from them. Maleric descended and landed in front of one of the barns. He went around to the side where Jaius saw a large fenced in area that housed about thirty, what looked to be, pigs. Maleric turned and looked at him. He touched the staff around the middle part of it and suddenly Jaius was falling to the ground. He hit hard and all the air left his lungs. As he lay there trying to breath, Maleric stood over him. He kicked Jaius in the leg. “Stop that wheezing and get up.”
“Get up!” He said as he kicked Jaius in the side. Pain exploded up and down his body. Still unable to breathe correctly, Jaius got to his knees and slowly moved to his feet. He bent over, holding his side and continuing to wheeze. Maleric picked him up and tossed him over the fence and into the muddy pig pen. It took only seconds for Jaius to realize that there wasn't just mud on the floor of this pen. He got to his feet as fast as he could, but it wasn't quick enough to avoid getting covered in the disgusting muck that he had been thrown into. When he looked back toward the fence he saw Maleric placing the last of seven buckets over to his side of the fence. “Everyone earns his keep around here slug, the only thing it seems like a whiny woman like you would be able to handle is feeding the Pics. Its probably not possible but I would be hoping that you can show me that you can do more than that, Its not hard to replace a pic-boy.”
With that he turned and walked away. Jaius had caught the threat. He had thought that maybe he could do a bad enough job and Maleric would just let him go, but now it seems that he would need to really wow Maleric in order to get a chance to leave. If he did let him go then he could head off into the woods. He felt pretty confident that he could survive in the woods long enough for Maleric to stop looking for him. He'd get back to Ali and then they could go off and find a clearing that no one else knew of, one where they would never have to leave. It seemed every world in the universe was populated by bullies and thugs and he had had enough of them. He and Ali could live in peace, if they could just find somewhere where there weren't any people. He pushed those thoughts away for now and picked up a bucket.
As he was filling the troth with the contents of the third bucket he heard someone snicker behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a boy about his age. He was taller than Jaius and had black hair. “So we got ourselves a new Pic-Boy. Father must have given you this job cause you already smell like a pic, and looked like one too. You must be half pic then, a true and actual PicBoy.” The boy began to laugh. He was joined by the voices of three other boys and two girls as they stepped out of a side door in the wall of the barn. “Eww, I can smell him from here.” said one of the girls. “Yeah, I think you better sleep in there tonight Pic-Boy, you'll keep the rest of us up otherwise with your smell and your whining. Seewee- sewee!” Laughed one of the other boys after he made a squealing sound.
Jaius turned his back to them, he was finding it hard to process the fact that even halfway across the galaxy, on another planet, he was still being picked on. A month ago, when Ali and he had first gotten here, he had let himself begin to think that God really did answer the prayers offered to the statues of the saints. When he was able to focus enough on praying to actually pray to the saints he had asked to be transported to a world so far away from the Dungeon that none of the kids there could find him.
He had also asked if he could have someone go with him, to keep him company. It had to be someone cool though. After a few days on Paltophern he actually began to wonder if the saint that he had prayed too, he thought it was saint Jerome, had heard the prayer and really had delivered it to God. Even throughout the sickness they both endured, he was happy on the inside. Ali actually cared enough about him to help him even though it was the worst slickness he'd ever had. And she let him help her, even though she seemed to also demand a lot of privacy during that time too. He didn't understand why she had needed so much time alone, all he had been able to figure out was she spent a lot of time in the creek. It had hurt a little at first, that she couldn't trust him with what she was going through, but he soon got over it. She was never mean about asking him to leave the clearing, on the contrary, she was usually very apologetic, he just hated not being able to figure something out.
His current situation had birthed the same frustration in him. How can bullies exist, well everywhere?
This question was forced out of his mind as a hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, and before he could even register who the hand belonged to there was a solid impact on his right cheek. He crumpled into the muck. Pain cascaded across the right side of his face. Tears began to form. He'd never been punched before, he reflected in that moment that it was not what they made it look like in the movies. He could taste the metallic flavor of blood in his mouth. He used to get nose bleeds a lot and sometimes it would run into his mouth before he could stop it.
“Don't you ever turn your back on Me Pic-Boy, I am Jekk, My father is Maleric, son of Jukus whose mother was Naamah who traces her parentage back to the Second himself.”
Jaius looked up at this Jekk, tears making streaks in the muck that now plastered his face. “Your pathetic Pic-Boy. Can't even take a strike to the cheek, well you definitely won't be able to handle this then.”
Jekk drew back and kicked Jaius in the chest. Jaius flew back and skidded about ten feet through the sludge. All his breath left him again, the previous injury to his side making it even harder to regain his breath. Seeing no other option he just lay there, wheezing and crying.
“Really Pathetic. You know what happens to those who can't cut it around here, don't you Pic-Boy. We let you go into the woods, give you an hour head start, and then me and my friends, head off after you and track you till we find you, kill you, and feed you to our dogs.” Jaius saw him turn to the others. “Looks like we might have another hunting trip sooner than we expected gang.” He looked over his shoulder at Jaius and sneered, and then hopped the fence and moved past the others, who followed close behind him.
Jaius laid there and cried. “This definitely is worse than the dungeon. Maybe this is Hell. Maybe I did die, and wasn't good enough to get into Heaven, and so I've landed in purgatory or, Hell?” Fear gripped his heart. Images of his family came into his mind. Anne, his Dad, Sis, and his Mom. It was the last one he called out for, not caring who heard.
“Mom!” He kept crying and calling out for her. After a while of this, with no response, he did finally come to the realization that he was a kid stuck in a world that was not kid friendly and that he needed protection. He had always thought his parents were overprotective and felt like they were strangling him. In this moment however, he appreciated what they did for him like he never had before. The world was a cruel, evil place, and they did everything they could to protect him.
Soon a deep emptiness flooded him. “She's not coming, she can't, I'm halfway across the universe. I'm all alone, and so I can either sit and wait to die, or I can show that creep up.” There was the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something very important in his thought process, but he couldn't lock it down. Giving up in trying to identify it, he stood slowly and crawled over to the next bucket and continued his job. “I'm going to have to survive this on my own.” Again that feeling like he had forgotten something filled him.
He finally poured the last bucket into the troth and almost got bowled over by a huge sow as she nosed her way to the food. He tossed the bucket with the others and climbed over the fence. He looked around, trying to figure out where to go, and he noticed that Jekk's friends had left the door in the side of the barn open. He poked his head in and saw that it wasn't a barn for animals but it had stalls with three tiered shelves. Growing out of the shelves on each level was every different kind of grown food that he could imagine. Above each tier were suspended a glowing crystal. It was attached to a thick cord that was vibrating slightly. He looked longingly at the fruits and vegetables growing there, as he realized that he'd barely eaten since he was abducted. Maleric only gave him enough to live on.
Something drew him to a crystal door set at the end of one row of stalls. It was the shape of it that drew his attention. He moved over to it and saw that it was a curved sheet of thin crystal that looked like it slid open on a track. He tried to slide it, and it opened. The little chamber inside had a grate on the floor, and a grate on the ceiling. There were two topaz crystal knobs set into the wall. As Jaius was looking closely at the knobs, he saw something moving within the crystal wall of the chamber. After looking closely he realized it was water flowing within the crystal. This tickled his memory, but he couldn't lock it down before a stronger one pushed its way into his head.
“Na, it couldn't be.” He took a look at himself and decided that any other state of being would be better than covered in pik-poo. So he stepped in and slid the door closed. He turned the knob on the right and half of the metal grate at the top opened up and cold water poured out. He bit his lip to keep from screaming out, which failed terribly, because of the wound to his mouth. He screamed and quickly turned the other knob. After two minutes he finally got the mixture of hot and cold right. He let the water run over him, basking in the first shower that he'd had in over a month. He never imagined something so mundane could be transformed into one of the most glorious events he could remember. He didn't removed his cloths, he just let them soak. He looked down at them. He had never noticed cloths much before this, but he looked on in shock at what the past month had done to cloths that had been bought just before he arrived here. There were tears of all sizes and shapes, and stains that they hadn't been able to get out. Ali had been able to sew some of them together. They had dried out some of the guts of the smaller animals and she had used a sharpened piece of bone as a needle. She had read a book once that was written around 1900. It detailed what to do if you were living off the land. She seemed to be able to remember most of what she had read. Tears began to leak out of his eyes as the cloths made him think of his family. His Mom had picked them out, and even though he hated the cloths he did love his Mom.
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The move away from Pittsburgh had been hard on her also. She had been very involved in the community there and also in their church. She had made a lot of friends that she also had had to leave behind. He got the impression that she couldn't get used to the smallness of Black Canyon, and that this was one of the main reasons he hadn't seen his Mom smile a lot over the past number of years. His Dad had always been reserved. Jaisu knew he loved him, he worked very hard to give them a good life. He sometimes worked twelve hours a day to get overtime so they could go on vacation, or have an awesome Christmas. They didn't connect on a lot of levels, save one, his Dad was as into movies as he was. It was the one area where they could meet on common ground. It was the main reason that he had begun watching so many movies, he wanted to connect on as deep a level with his Dad as he could.
He then began to think of Ali, and the tears intensified, and more tears began to mingle with the water that poured over him. She had become so important to him over the past month, he'd never of made it this far without her being able to remember all the things she had ever read. He would have starved long before now. It wasn't even that though, she had called him her friend, she had noticed him and not gone screaming the other way. She had even come after him. He had stopped believing that he would ever have a friend again, and now that he had finally found one, they were separated, and she might even be dead, and he was stuck being bullied and cleaning up after pigs.
He had begun to wonder, if they would spend the rest of their life together, here on Paltophern. He had begun to really want that to be the outcome. There were moments when they would be sitting on the lip of the Hole and they'd turn to look into each other's eyes and they would stay that way for a while, both searching for the thing that would fill the holes in their hearts. Then they would look away, cough nervously as if someone had said something embarrassing and then one of them would make a joke and they would laugh. They would tell scary stories around the fires at night. Hers were from books, some written a hundred years ago, most of his were from movies. There were certain ones from both of them that brought a deep chill to each of their hearts. In those moments they would rest their heads on each other's shoulders and look up at the sky, which usually made them feel better. “Ali...”
“Who's Ali, eh Pic Boy?”
Ice went through his veins as he heard that voice. He didn't even have time to cringe before Jekk's strong hand dug deep into his shoulder and he was torn from the watery shelter and thrust onto the solid smooth crystal floor. He slid about twenty feet and slammed into one of the shelves. Before he could shake off the pain and confusion Jekk was sliding up next to him. He grabbed Jaius by the throat and lifted him off the floor. Jaius had never been choked before. The unfamiliar pressure made him more afraid than the fact that he could actually die from that same pressure. He was shoved against the door he had come in through and suddenly they were outside and he was tossed over the fence and landed back in the disgusting muck of the pen. “That is where you belong, Pic-Boy and that is where you will stay. If I ever catch you out of that pen again, I'll remove one of your legs.” Said Jekk with an evil grin.
“Come in here and try it!” Jaius heard someone call out. He looked around but didn't see anyone but Jekk and his posse. Then he saw Jekk's face and it began to dawn on him just where that statement had come from. It had erupted from his own lips.
Fury lit up Jekk's face and in one swift motion he vaulted the fence and landed a few yards away. He stalked toward Jaius. Jaius could feel something different in this situation. He has had bully's advance on him in similar situations, but where those always ended in him being tossed into a locker, this encounter would end in blood, he was sure of it.
“What do I do? He's gonna kill me.” He felt it, the same loss of control that had happened when the tiger was attacking Ali. He was about to wet himself. As that memory washed over him, he could see her face. The disappointment he saw in her eyes flipped a switch in his head. That scene from the movie Sherlock Holmes, where Iron Man was playing Holmes, jumped into his head. The one where Holmes is losing to the thug during the underground boxing match, and everything seems to freeze as Holmes calculates his next attacks and the damage they will do to the man, and how long it will take him to recover. Somehow replaying this scene in his head caused it to happen in his own mind, in his own body.
Everything seemed to go to slow motion, and fighting moves he had seen in other movies began flooding his mind. Within the space between heartbeats, his mind had selected a routine. Jekk jumped up in the air with his fist pulled back to thrust into Jaius's head. Jiaus side stepped at the last moment and Jekk's fist hit the muck instead. Not giving him a chance, Jaius jabbed his fist into Jekk's right ear. The boy screamed in pain, and would have been flung into the muck, but quicker than either thought possible, Jaius reached out and grabbed Jekk's shirt and gave him a quick kick to the sternum. This pushed Jekk into the air and then down, face first into the muck. Jaius backed up a few paces to see what that had done to his opponent. Jekk came up out of the muck wheezing, clutching his chest with one hand and his ear with the other. He began to cough and choke as his wheezing brought muck into his lungs. Jekk staggered backward toward the fence.
“No ya don't, I'm not done with you yet.” Thought Jaius as he saw his enemy retreating. He had heard those exact words shouted at him, the many times that he'd run from Steve Pennington. There would be no running today. The rage of thousands of torments filled him. Jekk had become to him every bully that had ever had their way with him, and apparently a month living off the land had gotten rid of his sloppy pudgy exterior and replaced it with some hardened muscles. He could feel the strength in his legs and arms and knew that when he hit Jekk it wasn’t going to be with the wet noodle slap he would have been giving him just a month ago.
He moved in like a boxer, fists raised in front of him, scenes from Rocky flooding his mind. He lit into Jekk, fists flying faster than he ever thought possible, his surroundings sliding away from him, as he lost himself in one fight scene or another. He heard himself yelling, screaming. Distantly, somewhere deep in his mind, he could feel something tugging at him, trying to pull him away from his prey, that old desire to be a saint to do what the church would say was right trying to pull him back from the brink. Just as he was getting to a point where he was wanting to listen to the tugging suddenly his constantly shifting mind's routine switched from movies to video games. Mortal Kombat filled his mind, shoving out the Pious voice pulling at him.
He turned to the side and kicked Jekk in the stomach, which brought him forward. As his chin came close Jaius hit it with a south-paw upper-cut that lifted Jekk off of his feet and landed him hard on his back. Jaius reached down in one motion, grabbed a handful of muck covered fabric and hoisted Jekk to his feet. It was purely the motion of Jaius's pull that kept Jekk standing. With the words ``Finish Him!” ringing in his head and a feral yell Jaius crouched down and spun, catching the back of Jekk's right ankle with his foot. The leg sweep was meant to finish him by slamming him down into the muck, but Jaius had not seen how close to the fence the fight had moved. The back of Jekk's head hit the fence as he came down, with a sickening crack. Jekk's body slid into the mud and lay motionless. His eyes were closed and his breathing was labored.
Jaius stared unemotionally at the blood that oozed from the back of the boy's head to mingle with the filth that he lay in. The fact that he may just have killed someone was far removed from him, and it was having a hard time getting into his head. He felt numb. He had just done what he had only dreamed about months before, he had stood up for himself. He looked up to the others standing on the other side of the fence. The boys' mouths were hanging open, and the girls had tears in their eyes and their hands over their mouths. In all of those eyes Jaius saw fear. Something about them being afraid of him brought this swell of pride and satisfaction welling up in him. Then one of the girls began to back away, when she was a few yards from the fence she turned and ran toward the large central building as fast as she could.
Jaius knew he should be afraid, but he wasn't. He didn't start looking for a place to hide, he merely looked down at Jekk and the blood that was mixing with the mud. Jekk began to moan, he moved his body in a jerking motion, as if the right signal just wasn't getting to the muscles. Jaius continued to stare at him, waiting. He didn't flinch as he heard large feet running toward the pen. He did glance up, however, and saw Maleric running toward him. The girl who had left was right behind him. Maleric skidded to a halt at the fence. Jaius saw most of the fear leave the eyes of the others that were standing there. This seemed to stoke the fires of his rage even more. He'd finally gotten, no earned, the respect he'd craved, and Maleric dared take that from him.
Maleric looked down at Jekk, laying there convulsing. Jaius knew he was about to die, knew there was no way Maleric didn't avenge his son, but strangely enough Jaius didn't care. He'd had enough of bullys, he'd take out every last one out that he came across. He'd keep going till there weren't any left or one of them killed him. Maleric merely looked back up at Jaius, his face was unreadable.
“What is yer name?” Jaius was waiting for him to add “Pic Boy.” to the end of that, but no other words followed. “Jaius.” he said through gritted teeth. “Jaius, a good name for the Son of Maleric. From here on Jaius ye are my own flesh, and second only to me here. Ye answer to no one but me.” There was a very pregnant pause as Maleric's eyes seemed to grow large and menacing. “Ye will answer to me though Jaius or else I'll give ye a fight that you want no part of.” Even with gallons of bravado and something else filling him, Jaius could see that in such an encounter, he may be at a severe disadvantage. As that was working its way in through the layers of rage that surrounded him, he also began to realize that he had just been adopted. Just like in the movie Ben Hur, which his family watched every Easter and it had become one of his favorite movies, the scene where Aries the Proconsul makes Judah Ben Hur his adopted son and heir to all his possessions and fortune. He let go of his rage, just a little, and nodded his head. Maleric seemed to take that as an acquiescence, because he turned away from Jaius and looked at the three boys that were standing there. “Ruk, Lak, Selak, grab this waste of flesh whose blood is fouling up my Pen and take him into the woods and end his miserable life.” There was only a moment's hesitation on their faces before they nodded and lept the fence. As they began to hoist up Jekk something cut through the think blanket of anger that had covered Jaius's heart. “They're going to kill him, he's defenseless and they are just going to end him.” Just like that the bully turned into the bullied, and compassion bloomed in Jaius's heart for Jekk. Whether it was because he has been where Jekk was, defenseless, with no one to help him, or because Jaius had been the one that had caused this to happen to him, he wasn't sure.
“No.” he said loudly. The boys froze, one of them looking at him with fear in his eyes, another boy looking at Maleric with, Jaius assumed, the same fear. Maleric turned to him, anger flaring on his face, and murder floating in his eyes. “Forgive me... father, but I thought, that if he could be kept alive, that he would serve as a reminder to anyone who would think of challenging my position. Let him muck out the Pic pen so that all may remember what happens if they cross me.” Jaius said with as much contempt and malice as he could muster. Maleric studied him for a long minute. Then without warning, Maleric erupted in sadistic laughter. It only took a few seconds for the boys to join him, and then only a few seconds before the girls began to giggle. Jaius showed nothing on his face, but inside the rage returned. “They're laughing at me!”
“Well, it seems that I chose well. Your a son after my own heart. So be it, if the healer can save his life, then he will stand as a testament to your power and your skill. Take him to Rikia.” The boys nodded and lifted Jekk up. They got him over the fence and hauled him off toward the main structure. Jaius could not help at wonder at the pride that was swelling in him as Maleric complemented his decision. He had never had another man esteem him like this. It was the affirmation that he had been missing his whole life. “Alise, Lorna, take my son to his new room. Find him clothes worthy of his station.” The two girls bowed and then they both turned and looked at him. Jaius almost lost his cool as he saw admiration in their eyes. No girl had ever looked at him like that before, especially two pretty girls.
“We will feast tonight in the great hall. As the light dims.” Maleric looked once, just a passing glance, at the blood darkened mud, then turned and walked purposefully back the way he had come.
“Come with us Jaius, we will show you to your room.” He funneled the rage into all the corners of his mind that were trying to be occupied with paralyzing fear. He then walked toward them, lept the fence, and landed in front of the girls. 'Show me then, but first I'm going back to the water and I’m getting this filth off of me. Wait outside for me.” he said with as cold a tone as he could muster. This did not dissuade them in anyway, if anything it seemed to make them even more interested in him. “So if you're cold and unemotional to girls they like you even more because of it?” He tried to process this along with everything that just happened as he allowed the water to run over him for a very long time.