Meuik covered her ears as the screams of pain and fury drifted from the narrow hall she was entering. She concentrated desperately on the sound of her hooves on the ramonite floor, and then she tried focusing on old Sofor's hoof falls, anything, anything to drown out those screams.
Sofor was indifferent to them. He'd been in war, he'd worked in this hell hole for years. He was used to those cries for mercy, vengeance, and death. They meant nothing to him, but he was understanding of Meuik's obvious agitation. He had once been like her. Soft, weak. She didn't realize why these rebels, these monsters, must be made to live like this. He turned suddenly and smiled with his eyes, the way Andalites do. The sooner she started to learn that this was her job, that these screams would never stop, the better.
< This is your sector. These are the twenty most dangerous criminals in the rebel camp. These rooms are guarded well, of course, but we've found it convenient and prudent to have at least one live guard. >
Sofor turned away, swaggering in his steps with his own pride. Yes, that was what kept him going. The thing he told himself every morning, that they deserved this, that he, servant of the people, had a right to be proud, that he was justified.
You know when you tell a lie so much that you come to believe it? That's what it was like. He knew, deep down, that it was wrong, but he didn't want to think about it.
Don't think. Do.
He turned a stalk eye to look back on the daughter of the great Aximili, now a forgotten guard under his command at this prison, this hell hole of death and torture, Onlatra.
< Have fun, Guard Meuik. >
< Yes, sir. > she muttered in a meek reply.
Meuik sighed. This was what she went through eight years of training for?
Why was she not with Ryan, tracking down criminals instead of guarding them?
But then Meuik remembered. Tracking rebels was a thankless job, and only the cold-hearted Ryan could do it without being affected too much. Hell, she was tracking her own twin little brother and sister. And her friend, Desmond, son of Cassie and Jake.
Meuik could never do that. Not with the horrors she'd seen first hand, even in the minimum security level of this prison.
Now, she was the head guard, and she guarded those who were considered the most dangerous in the galaxy. Hork-Bajir thinkers, most of them. Some humans. One or two Andalites.
She felt a stabbing pain in her hearts. She'd seen their leader, Daroneasa, along with her love, Jiseka and their son, Specimen 42203, who'd been tortured since the Hork-Bajir war, killed. Some things she had told the authorities. Some she hadn't. She didn't say how Specimen 42203 died. Killed by Meuik's father, Aximili, but a younger one, drawn into the present from the past of a parallel dimension by a porthole. He'd accidentally killed the peaceful son of the leaders of the rebellion. Neither Daroneasa nor Jiseka knew he existed. Daroneasa had never told Jiseka, and she had thought that the Andalites had killed her child long ago in the bloody K'glique war. In truth, the Andalites kidnapped him and used him in their terrible medical experiments. The Andalites, who justified every evil action, who considered themselves superior to all species, even the humans. The Andalites taught hate, they taught arrogance. It was taught to the young, and it was a terrible aspect of her personality that Meuik had to fight. She had to control her hate and prejudices. It was an ongoing battle that would not end.
Meuik had changed much in the ten years since those three, along with three other thinkers, Niuk, Gihash, and Nissa, had died.
She used to hate the thinkers for who they were.
What they were.
No more. She felt sorry for them. Their very existence had always been a crime. To the Arn, to the Yeerks, to the Andalites.
Especially the Andalites.
Now, even if a Hork-Bajir thinker was not part of the rebel army, it would be locked away. No trial. Just seized and incarcerated into this prison. Onlatra prison, the largest prison on Earth, built by the Andalites to house the thousands of criminals of the rebellion. Some other criminals as well. Men and women of all species convicted of Rape, Murder, Treason, and various other high crimes. Torture was often employed. Death was as common as the sound of those horrible screams.
She sighed.
Most didn't deserve this fate. Even the real rebels didn't.
"....On a dark desert highway...cool wind in my hair...."
She looked in the cell next to her, staring at the singing Hork-Bajir thinker. He was middle aged. His eyes stared at nothing, and one had a large scar over it. He was covered in battle scars.
"....warm smell of calitas, rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim.
I had to stop for the night....."
Meuik listened to the words to the very old human song. Why would he sing this one?
He sang through the song up to one line and then stopped.
"And still those voices are calling from far awayyyy.....wake you up in the middle of the night...."
He suddenly collapsed, sobbing.
"Why?!" he screamed to no one.
"WHHHHHYYYY!!!!!??????"
< Why what? >
His eyes didn't focus on anything. Meuik realized with grim horror that the poor creature was blind.
Such beautiful green eyes. Too beautiful for the miserable, pathetic, broken thing before her. A shame they could not see.
" Andalite...stupid Andalite! Don't you know!?"
Meuik thought she knew. He was in despair about where he was, what had happened. He had no control where he was once free. To breathe fresh air, to hear the sweet sound of silence, to feel the grass under his feet, to hear a kind word, to run free, with nothing but the wind and infinite to stop him. To see the world, as he must have once seen it.
Understandable.
< I understand. This prison must be terrible for you. >
"You understand nothing!"
He was silent, the glint of insanity in his eyes dimming.
"No, it is not you're fault..." he sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. He hit it against the hard ramonite repeatedly, slowly and deliberately, his eyes staring off in space, as they would always, until the day he died.
"It is no one's fault but my own."
< What? >
"Nothing, nothing that would concern you."
Meuik studied the thinker. Medium brownish green skin, dark brown hair. . He was skeletal, weak, and, in fact, rather ugly, by Hork-Bajir standards.
< Tell me, please. >
"That I am what I am. A coward, an ugly monstrosity, a weakling. I have destroyed whatever joys I ever glimpsed. Do you know, Andalite? Do you know what it's like to lose everything, and it be your own fault?"
< What? You are surly a warrior, or else you would not be in maximum security. Surely you are a brave fighter...surely... >
He laughed, his voice cracking
"Warrior? They put me here because they wanted to punish me. Because I have always served my leader. I am nothing."
Meuik sighed. Surly this creature was insane, but Meuik was curious now.
"They keep me here because I knew her....oh, god!" he winced, as if he'd been hit in the gut. He said her in such an unmistakable way that Meuik knew...
< Daroneasa? >
"How sweet her name sounds, even from the mind of an Andalite enemy. Yes, yes, yes...."
< I also knew her..well, not really, but.. >
The thinker smiled.
"No doubt the only way you knew her was by hunting her or fighting her."
Meuik's stalk eyes drooped.
< Yes..yes, but..I realize now.. >
"Quiet, little foolish one. If anyone knew that you said such things..."
She knew what would happen. I'd be in one of those cells, and someone would be outside feeling sorry for her. Sympathizers were guilty of treason, and no trial or jury could be granted. They were simply imprisoned.
< I will whisper. > She said, converting to the Andalite form of communication that allowed only this prisoner to hear her.
He smiled, his face cracking into ugly lines and his scars becoming prominent. He was extremely unattractive. More so than Meuik had first thought. She could tell that he'd always been that way. The insanity and unsanitary conditions of this prison had fostered even more ugliness, but most of it was natural. His voice was high and sibilant, and he breathed with some barely noticeable difficulty. His face was marked with acne scars, or perhaps Kash marks, from the disease that had been common among the young Hork-Bajir thinkers, quite similar to measles scars. Meuik didn't flinch. She based no value on beauty.
"Perhaps you would like to know of her."
Meuik marveled at this creature, this ugly abomination with beautiful eyes that could never see.
< Yes. Yes...I...they don't tell us much about you thinkers. Well, only... >
"Only that we are evil, greedy monsters?" He supplied.
< Yes. > Meuik sighed.
"They're right."
Meuik looked up in surprise. The thinker smiled.
"Well, in my case anyway."
< You don't seem evil to me. What have you done that is so evil? >
Tears fell from the thinker's dead eyes.
"I will tell you my story. Then you will see what I mean."
Meuik thought for a moment. Yes, a story. Anything to break her boredom and satisfy her curiosity.
< Alright. >
Meuik knew that Hork-Bajir had a strange ability to tell a story from all sides, if they wanted. No one was sure why, except the thinkers. The other Hork-Bajir just...did it. The thinkers understood it.
< One thing...what is you're name? >
The thinker blinked his blind eyes, thinking for a moment. He had no need to know his name for decades. Then, it came to him.
"My name? Ras Tila." he spit the word out like a sour fruit, vile and bitter.
"Adrian to some."
Meuik wondered why he might be called by the ancient human name of Adrian. Perhaps he had human friends who had called him that?
But the name Ras Tila she knew. Ras Tila, the traitor, the abomination, the one who perhaps caused the downfall of the rebellion. The third member of the terrible three, the trio who had, so to speak, been the ones pushing the lever on the toilet when the galaxy went down the drain. Ras Tila, Esplin 9466, or Visser Three, and, of course, her father, Aximili.
Of these three, Ras was the most despised. At least the other two had been somewhat loyal to their people. Ras was a traitor. Ras's very name was a curse among his people.
But, she didn't say her thoughts. She composed herself in a meek reply.
< I am Meuik. >
"Ah. Well, listen to my story, Meuik, and judge for yourself what I am. What Daroneasa was. What Jiseka and Niuk and Aurora and Daroneasa and T'Enki and Sekir and Tukash and all the others were....and what your own people are."
Meuik felt her hearts speed up a little. She knew one thing: Her people did unspeakable things to the Hork-Bajir after the K'glique war. Who knew what had come before?
Ras relaxed his crossed arms, leaning his whole body into the corner, closing his eyes, though they moved rapidly beneath the eyelids. His breathing slowed down. Meuik realized he was in a dream-like trance. Interesting.
And then, Meuik began to hear his words...but, as he spoke, she saw, like she was experiencing it for the first time, what Ras had felt. She let herself be lost in this nightmare as he began.
Chapter 2:
Ras
I guess I was destined for failure and dishonor. I was born weak and fragile, almost too small to survive. My own parents felt thankful, though, that they had been born with a son that would certainly succeed, if not two. I had been born a twin, and, in the thinkers, the twins are usually not identical. I certainly wasn't the equal identical of my brother, Tukash. Tukash was born strong and handsome. I was born shriveled and ugly, barely moving, unable to breathe properly. No one expected me to live. My parents didn't have to tell me all this. I knew it from the time I was very young on. I was unwanted, a burden. I could not run or get excited or emotional, or I would go into arrest, unable to breathe or move. Violent, uncontrollable spasms would rack my body like a thousand blades in me. My muscles were practically non-existant, and I could barely walk when I first went to school. Tukash, though, ran and played with the other children for long periods of time. He was a cute little kid, with large eyes and a face that would one day be quite handsome. Me? I was very ugly. I was born with Kash marks, deep scars on my face that would last for a lifetime. My mother had contracted Kash while she was pregnant, and, I guess, Tukash was spared my ugliness. I think that I might have been like Tukash if not for that disease. I often wondered why it was me, not Tukash, who had to be rendered lame before birth. Why me?
That seems to be all I think about. Why me? Why did I have to be born the way I was, why did I have to be the butt of every joke, the bully magnet? And then, later on, why did I have to be the way I was, as ugly on the inside as on the outside?
It matters not why. I was. Perhaps, if I had been strong and handsome, I would have died in the Arn or the Yeerk war. I would have much preferred it.
There was one light in my life, sparkling like a star that could never be reached by me. Daroneasa.
Precious, beautiful, Daroneasa. She towered above me, giving off more light than even the most beautiful gem sparkling in the morning sun. Someone I could never touch, lest I contaminate that beauty. Oh, why is it that we always want what cannot be obtained? In all my life, I have truly loved few. Oh, I feel compassion and care for every living thing, surprising as that may sound. No one would expect Ras Tila to say that. But I do. But it is not the same as having a special someone. Someone. I felt I could have loved a few like that. And only one have I loved with every ounce of my being.
Daroneasa was, of course, too beautiful and wonderful for me. Then again, all of my species was. Daroneasa kept away from me as much as possible. She was repulsed by me, and I can understand that. She hated herself for it, though, and she tried to be polite and kind to me. She pitied me. But deep down, she wanted me gone. She never wanted to be around me.
That was what she wanted, and that was what I did. I stayed away, watching her from afar as she and my brother and their friends grew to adolescence together. My only childhood friend was Enyale, an outcast like me. She was small and weak and had scars like me. She had beautiful long light blond hair, similar to the color of the Terran plant, wheat, and large dark brown eyes. Her voice was small and hushed, similar to mine. She had a sort of sweet mystery to her, and, in my mind, she will always be a symbol of the perfect friend, and perfect innocence. She was one who was meant for beauty, not those horrible scars. But the disease had robbed her of any life save one of pain, like me. Her mother had been only a teenager when she was born, and was not vowed to anyone, so they were alone, and they struggled for survival often, even though some members of our community helped them by giving them old clothing and food. Kids teased her for wearing old ratty stuff. I never had to worry about not having a meal or clothing. That was a luxury I took for granted until I looked at her. She lived close to me and we often went to my house to play, or just talk. She had a mind like mine, and she thought alot. She was so sweet...I just don't understand why she had to endure the cruelty of our peers. Why couldn't they see what I saw? She was truly my best friend. I had only a few friends in my life, but, always, they were worth more than all the precious gems in the Deep. Everytime I think of her I give myself a good kick in the ass. It was so painfully obvious that we were the perfect match. But, of course, I had my sights on the sapphire of the group. I didn't see the diamond because it did not glint so brightly, I guess. If I hadn't brushed Enyale aside in favor of Daroneasa, my life would have been much different. I wouldn't be a most hated tyrant of the universe. I'd be a dead hero of the Arn or Yeerk wars, or even a controller. All better than being what I am now. Better a slave than the millions dead because of me. As a teenager, I could only see Daroneasa. I watched her and fantasized that maybe someday she'd love me. I even associated with some of her nicer friends. Those who were beautiful and handsome and smart enough to enjoy Daroneasa's company were her friends. Heska, a sweet girl who I always liked, was her closest friend. Heska was wonderful, with an outgoing personality, and an eye oblivious to my ugliness. She acted a bit strange at times, teasing the boys one day, messing up their hair, and then, the next day, hugging everyone in sight. She was as beautiful on the inside as Daroneasa was on the outside. Not that Daroneasa wasn't a good person, but she was more withdrawn and much shyer than Heska.
Heska would try to include me and sometimes Enyale in the group. Mainly, it was to make us feel better, but also, to piss T'Enki off. T'Enki, the bane of my childhood existence.
Heska would drag me at mid-day meal over to where she and Daroneasa and my brother and their friends sat and talk to me and then note how I always smiled in something between pleasure and embarrassment whenever she messed up my hair or asked for a hug or tried to get me to talk to Daroneasa. During these sessions, the rest of the group would either be indifferent or flat out angry with Heska and myself. Except for Niuk. Niuk liked me enough, but, as with Heska and Daroneasa, it was mostly pity. He felt angry with my brother often, and I believe that Niuk came closer to being a brother during those years than Tukash. He looked out for me when he could, and he tried his best to include me in things the group did.
Niuk was the most popular boy in our school. He was tall and handsome, with an athletic frame. He had a nice smile and spiky blond hair that Heska loved to mess up. He was Daroneasa's boyfriend in the year before the Arn war, though they later broke up.
No one went against what he said. He had a keen wit and was quick to use it, always knowing the line between innocent jests and cruel teasing.
Those who remained indifferent were Jalrai, and Nakahissa.
Jalrai was a quiet, very brilliant girl. She was silent most of the time, but when she did talk, it was usually to argue some scientific fact, and she and Enyale shared that passion for the art of science, though, unlike Jalrai, Enyale was very spiritual, and often talked theology. When Jalrai wasn't talking with Enyale, she sat at the meal table and drew things. She sketched all her friends, trees, animals, anything she saw. She never sketched me or Enyale. I guess she wanted to spare our feelings.
Nakahissa was the step-sister of Daroneasa. She had blond hair like Daroneasa, but it was rather dull, and she had amber eyes instead of blue, and light brown skin instead of the deep rich brown of Daroneasa's.
She was like her step-sister. She didn't care much for me, but she kept quiet about it, either to spare disfavor by
Heska or to spare my feelings. I'll never be sure.
I was grateful for those that weren't cruel to me. They were few. All others tormented me. My Brother was one of those, in a way. He didn't want me to associate with him and his friends at school. I understood that. If I had been him, I would have felt the same, I guess. He was Heska's boyfriend, and, so, tolerated Heska's insistence on including me in the group.
Then, there was T'Enki, Sekir, and Ronra. T'Enki. Bane of my younger years. He was a blatantly stupid boy, with small beady eyes and an evil smile. He was handsome, though, with his red hair and dark, almost black, skin. He and his friend Ronra were cruel always. Ronra had light skin and black, long hair. He had an innocent, baby-ish look to his face. But his sweet looks hid a vengeful and cruel mind.
Sekir was the one of those three friends I can forgive easily. He had a hard life. When he was young, his mother and father died, leaving only him to care for his infant sister. He was actually, I think, a good person, who got caught up in the thrill of the attack with T'Enki and Ronra. He had a broken smile and brown eyes filled with pain, and light brown, almost blond, hair that he kept neat and short.
Daroneasa and Heska often brought him to shame for his cruel actions, and he felt true remorse. But it didn't stop him from doing it again.
Being a bully to me was an addiction for him.
He focused all his pain on me. So, while T'Enki and Ronra hated me, he that actually wouldn't hurt me under any other circumstance always hit the hardest. That was the way he attacked. He would grow to be a vicious fighter, because of that ability to focus on an enemy, associate it with all his pain, and then attack it.
These three abused me physically. But two girls, Paki and Sunyra, did everything they could to verbally abuse me, and make me look bad in the eyes of Heska and Daroneasa. Paki was T'Enki's twin sister, also not very bright. She was peppy, though not in the same way as Heska. She was annoying. She talked a million times more than she thought.
Her insults were easier to ignore, because I knew she didn't have a brain in her head, as Heska would have said.
But Sunyra, T'Enki's girlfriend, with her dark beauty, was almost as smart as Jalrai. She knew how to formulate and plan evil insults, so degrading that I trembled when I saw her. Sometimes, as I walked down the carved halls of the ancient school, she would 'accidentally' nudge me as she walked by, knocking my weak body to the ground and causing great laughter from most of the others. Her apology would always be false-polite. "Oh, Ras! Sorry, but, you know, since you are so weak, it is quite easy for accidents to happen, isn't it?"
She was more my enemy at that point in my life than T'Enki would ever be.
This was my life when I was fifteen, the year before the Arn War. Goddess, my problems then seem like a heaven now. If only I could go back then, I'd take a thousand beatings from T'Enki and a million insults from Paki and Sunyra. If only....
But the past is past.
The day our great war broke out was like any other. I was walking home, glancing over my shoulder as T'Enki and Sekir and Ronra began running after me. T'Enki reached me first, slinging his arm around my shoulder like we were great buddies. He smelled of sweat and his huge knotted arm around my neck almost made me vomit.
"Hey there, Ras, my buddy, my pal! What'cha doin'?"
Ronra snickered behind us.
"N-not much. J-just walking h-home..."
"Oh? Well, we'll walk with you. It could be dangerous for a little weakling like you!"
Sekir appeared at my side, his eyes taking on that monstrous appearance they always did when Sekir was preparing to attack.
"Th-thanks, T'Enki, b-but I think I-I can m-make it on my own."
"Are you refusing my generous offer, runt?" T'Enki asked, using his arm to cut off my air supply. I gasped in surprise, trying to suck in air through my constricted wind pipe.
"...Ahhhh..." was my only answer as I desperately sucked in a breath of air.
"What was that? Ronra, Sekir, I believe he said he was refusing. Well, we'll just have to show him how dangerous it is to walk home alone for a worthless runt!"
I looked ahead. Sekir was in front of me, drawing back his fist. I closed my eyes as he pummeled me with punches, biting my tongue against the screams that rose from my chest.
"Stupid Bastard!" Sekir growled, kicking me in the stomach. T'Enki dropped me as I collapsed in a heap, coughing blood and wheezing.
Ronra moved in, helping T'Enki pull me up by my feet, dangling me upside down over the precarious ledge. I looked down. Nothing but the core of the planet, miles below.
"T'Enki!" I moaned.
"Oh, c'mon, weakling. Beg. Beg for mercy, and I'll let you go!" He and Ronra laughed. Sekir sat back against the stone wall, panting and watching, sorrow in his eyes.
For the first time in my life, I decided to be brave.
"Never."
T'Enki blinked his stupid beady eyes.
"What? What did you say?"
I spit in his eye.
"You heard me. Never. Not ever again!"
T'Enki wiped my spit from his face and growled.
"You may not live to regret that!" he snarled furiously.
"Good." I said. Was that the truth? Did I really feel that way.
Yes.
I'd rather have died that last day, but no. No such luck.
"T'ENKI!"
I turned my head to see Heska, Tukash, Niuk, and Daroneasa. Heska was running towards me, Niuk close by her.
Niuk ran full out into T'Enki, sending the boy flying. Heska grabbed me before I could fall to my doom and easily pulled my light body back to safety. I looked at Niuk as he continued to beat T'Enki, who was now helpless against the rock ledge.
"How do you like it, huh?!" he screamed, infuriated, and kicked T'Enki below the waist. T'Enki fell to his knees with a grunt and Niuk finally stopped the beating.
Daroneasa grabbed Sekir as he made a break for it, twisting his arm behind his back. Tukash watched angrily, and gave me a dirty look, as if this humiliation were my fault.
Niuk and Tukash pulled T'Enki to his feet roughly.
"W-We were just playing...." T'Enki smiled, "Weren't we, Ras?" he growled my name in a dangerous manner, a signal for me to agree or be punished further. I didn't answer.
Heska walked up to T'Enki and looked at him square in the eye, though she was almost two feet shorter than him.
"Listen here, you bastard, leave Ras alone. If I hear of this again..."
Niuk slammed his fist into his palm and growled at T'Enki.
"Same for you, Ronra. Stop hiding, you coward. You too, Sekir. Go home, all three of you. Now." Heska turned to walk away, but then turned back to T'Enki she looked like she was going to add something, say something cutting, but didn't. She reached out with her bladed wrist and smacked T'Enki in the face, cutting a gash below his eye.
T'Enki blinked in surprise as Heska turned and walked away. Tukash sneered at me as he left, shamed that his little weakling brother had to be saved by his friends. He left me there, because I was too weak to walk. Niuk, though, saw that I was too injured and weak and helped me back to my home, carrying my light body with ease. Niuk was, I guess, my best friend in that world so long ago. He was a very good person, and when I think of how he ended it makes me cry every time. Poor Niuk. When I returned, my brother ignored me and my parents just sighed and rolled their eyes. Niuk looked at the three of them, bewildered, then left. My parents had given up asking me who and for what reason I was beaten. Everyone knew. T'Enki and his friends beat me because I was weak and worthless.
That night, a call sounded, summoning all people between the ages of 15 and 30 to the great hall. I limped there, meeting Niuk and Heska on my way. They helped me some, but Tukash did not. I fell once, and Tukash, his eyes staring ahead, paid no heed as Niuk helped me up.
Heska jogged ahead and began speaking with Tukash, and I could hear their angry speech. I can only guess that she was chewing him out. She was good at shaming people.
At the great hall, about three thousand people were gathered, waiting for our leader, Olitay, to speak.
I found a seat with my friends next to Daroneasa. She fidgeted in her seat nervously. I wished I hadn't sat there. She was uncomfortable around me.
I looked ahead, as our aging leader, Olitay, climbed the steps to her podium. She looked out on the crowd as it grew silent.
"My people...today, at late dawn, a neighboring settlement was attacked by Oula armies. They are moving this way, and I need now an army of my own. The Arn have organized the Oula to destroy us. Your mission will be to stop those armies as they move towards us. Then, you are to search the settlement for survivors. You will all be issued weapons. Good luck, my soldiers. May you all return to me in good health."
That was it.
From that moment on, I, my friends, Daroneasa, all my generation, were soldiers.
That was the day I was turned into an instrument of destruction and death. From weak runt to a feared killer.
Again, now, I wish T'Enki had just dropped me. Thousands of lives would have been spared if only he'd dropped me. I would have died and the fate of the galaxy would have been turned for the better.
But, of course, no. Fate sucks, doesn't it?
Olitay cleared her throat to gain attention as anxious whispers swept the crowd.
"I have, for many months, been watching the younger in our community. Searching for a suitable second in command, who would lead our armies. And, if she wishes the position, I have found such a young woman that I think would lead us to victory."
My body felt numb as Olitay spoke the name of my love.
"Daroneasa Urasha."
Daroneasa blinked in surprise. Her eyes met the closest pair, for a friend to give her the strength through a gaze.
Unfortunately, she gazed into the eyes of the weakest of all, and I had little strength to lend. She stared at the green eyes for hope.
Mine.
Legends say that Daroneasa was always like a stone, never faltering, no fear in her heart.
That's a lie. Her eyes were full of fear and self-doubt.
I smiled reassuringly to her and she trembled as she rose. She slowly approached our beckoning leader.
"You, young one, will be my successor. You will lead our armies. Do you accept this role?"
Daroneasa gained her strength and looked steadily into her leader's eyes.
"I pledge to lead our armies, and, in my time, lead all our people."
It was a magical moment as Daroneasa took her place at Olitay's side.
From then on, Daroneasa was, in the minds of the people, our leader, even while Olitay still lived.
She and her friends and I were forever separated.
"You will appoint your generals. Make them those you trust. Choose three, one for each army."
Daroneasa looked down upon us, looking into the eyes of each.
"Tukash." She spoke first. Tukash rose quickly, practically leaping to Daroneasa's side. He hid his smile, because he would have looked like a fool, grinning like an idiot wanton child. But he was absolutely glowing with pride. He was the type that was anxious to follow orders.
"Heska."
Heska walked with calm grace to her new leader's side, but, as she looked back at me and her other friends, her eyes showed self doubt, like Daroneasa's.
"And Ras."
My whole body fell numb.
Ras?
Did I hear correctly?
RAS?
I looked into her eyes. Those beautiful sapphires with sparkling stars on each facet. She had said my name. She smiled at me weakly.
I shakily reached my feet. The crowd stared in amazement at this weakling, covered in bruises and limping pathetically.
T'Enki and Ronra stared at me with awe, then anger that neither of them had been chosen.
I stood on Daroneasa's right side, next to the other two.
"These are my generals, Olitay."
Olitay blinked at me.
"The most trustworthy and strongest of character are not always the strongest of body." Daroneasa replied simply. I felt my heart flutter with joy.
Olitay grinned and nodded in agreement.
"We shall retreat and organize our armies. We leave at daybreak."
I followed my new leader and Olitay away from the great hall.
I was overjoyed. Daroneasa had chosen me!
But, later, I'd come to regard it as a punishment. The weak are not meant to rule.
And I was the weakest of them all.
The next morning, I looked out over my troops as we marched towards the advancing Oula. I remembered the Oula from school. They were the rulers of the monsters of the deep, created, like us, by the Arn. They were programmed to hate Hork-Bajir. They were as smart as us, but almost completely controlled by the Arn. Now, the Arn were sending them to finally destroy us. I watched their leader. A male.
The Oula had bright blue fur, making them difficult to see in the deep. They were shorter than a Hork-Bajir, and had large black eyes and a short snout. They bounded towards us in a fashion much like our cousins, leaping on a set of huge feet. They had blades like us, on their elbows, wrists, ankles, and knees. Their heads sported large, pointed ears and a wild tuft of white fur that they liked to braid flowers into. I felt sick. The Oula were like us, created from the genes of a species called "humans". But we were much more like the humans than them. Save for our beaks, tails, claws and blades, we WERE human. The Oula looked a bit like humans, not much though. We'd seen pictures in school of humans. The Arn had obtained specimens from some species called the Skrit Na. In a rush to create tree-herders for their dying planet, they used this DNA. They had no idea what they'd get. Intelligent and agile, deadly minds in deadly bodies. They wanted stupid, gentle creatures. They created the stupid Hork-Bajir with less than ten percent of human DNA.
Our ancestors escaped the Arn, living below them, or in the mists. Those that lived in the mists left or died when the Oula were created. The Oula had no desire to advance. They led the monsters of the deep, created by the Arn to separate themselves from the stupid Hork-Bajir.
I jerked myself from my thoughts as I heard Daroneasa's shrill battle cry.
It was a melee!
Hork-Bajir leaping onto Oula, Oula leaping onto Hork-Bajir, slashing, screaming, biting. The monsters charged forward. A few of my warriors ran. I thought about shooting them, for desertion, but I realized that I could have been them too.
I grabbed an Oula who ran towards a female of my species, screaming and whirling like a Sinalka dancer. The Oula was small, a young adolescent female, biting and screaming in fury as I held her in my grasp. I struggled with my conscious. A child. It was little more than a child.
It screamed a name out in it's own language. A larger Oula looked at me from a few yards away.
Her mother?
No, no. Too young. It was a female, more my age. I shut off my screaming mind, that was crying for my victim as I slashed her throat. The older female dropped to her knees and screamed as I threw my victim to the ground. I looked at the female in the eyes. I don't know what she saw, but it wasn't what I really was. She saw the eyes of a killer in me. I tried to convey a silent apology as she flung herself onto the dead body, crying and screaming.
I was a monster.
I'd killed a child.
I could not stand dumbfounded. War raged around me.
The young adult female looked up at me, with hate in her eyes. But something else. She was begging.
Begging for death.
I granted her plea with a swift blow from my bladed tale to her neck.
My mind screamed.
Murderer! Killer of children!
Ignore it!
Ignore your mind and fight!
I shoved myself back into the corner of my mind and let my instincts do the fighting from then on.
How many Oula did I kill that day?
The day before, the final day of innocence, I was the victim. Now, I was the hunter. I was the killer.
Killer of children.
I can say it was war all I want. I can say that those young Oula would have killed me if I had not killed them. I can say that I had no choice.
But, it matters not what my mind says, only what my heart knows.
I hated the Arn for making the Oula what they were. But I hated me the most for what I had made myself.
People talk of the glories of battle. Stories are told of the valiant hero who slew evil men and saved his homeland.
But, such battles are fantasies.
There is no evil. There is no good.
There's only death and violence and the sheer waste of life.
It's hard to kill when you know that the person you are killing has just as much a right to live as you do. That they aren't evil, but they are what they are. Like me.
That day, I was injured. I lay at the base of a tree, half conscious, watching my comrades and my enemies fight and fall in a dream-like state.
Don't sleep! If you sleep, you'll sleep forever!
My mind struggled. No, I couldn't die yet, no matter how much I wanted to. Daroneasa and my people needed me.
With much difficulty, I lifted myself up, forced myself to think and become a warrior again.
A body flew through the air past me. It hit the tree with an incredibly loud thud and a sickening sound of bones being crushed and crunched against the hard wood. He slid down the tree, leaving a trail of blood, and crashed to the ground.
I looked towards the source. A Jubba-Jubba monster.
I ran to the thinker. It was Ronra.
He looked at me with hollow purple eyes, not really seeing me.
"Oh! Oh! No! The Red Eye!" Ronra screamed. I looked at him in surprise. What?
"Crayak....."
I shuddered. My heart felt new fear and a faint sense of destiny when I heard that awful name.
"Ronra, wake up. Ronra!" I slapped him, trying to get him to come to his senses. No use. He was a broken shell, with little time left on this world.
"...Ras....Crayak...Daroneasa...."
"Silence." I said gently, trying to sooth the boy who had been my enemy only yesterday.
Ronra smiled, his face a copy of a young child's.
"How....how...I enjoyed....tormenting....you..."
Ronra reached out at nothing, tears running down his pale cheeks. His eyes focused on nothing as they finally lost the spark of life. His hand went limp and fell.
I choked back tears. I think that perhaps Ronra was good at heart. I don't know. His last words have always made me wonder.
SMACK!
Another body!
Daroneasa!
"Oh GOD!" I screamed as she fell next to Ronra.
"God, please, no! Please, be alive! Be alive!"
I shouted this, as if through my words I could will her to live if she were dead.
I shook her angrily, felt her pulse and listened to her breath.
She had not been thrown so hard as Ronra. She would live. She was knocked out cold, but she would live.
I protected her, sheltered her from the battle. I focused on her as the battle died behind me.
Hours, years, decades, millennia later, silence was the only sound I heard.
I dared not look over my shoulder at the ruins of the field.
Were my friends, my brother, my people, all dead? Were the Oula? Both?
I heard soft footsteps behind me. I looked.
"NIUK!"
He turned his head and looked at me. His eyes no longer held that good humor. He was covered in blood, most of it Oula blood.
His eyes were dead. Childhood was gone from them like they were from mine.
"Ras...oh god....Daroneasa?" he choked.
"She's alive. She'll be fine...Ronra..." I trailed off, motioning to the stiff body of Ronra. Niuk slumped a little and slowly approached. He lifted Daroneasa from my arms, cradling her. He still loved her, despite the fact that he knew she would never be his again.
"Come. We have won, if you can say that. The Oula armies have retreated. We have lost half of our forces. We are searching for the settlement."
Niuk turned. I followed, wading through the bodies of Oula, Monsters, and Hork-Bajir thinkers. I couldn't see well. It was dark. I tripped over the bodies of the two females I had killed. Niuk helped me up gently, seeing the pain in my eyes.
"God...God...." he muttered, over and over again as we made our way across the blood stained field.
I didn't speak. I just followed, trying not to look at the Oula bodies. I saw a few Hork-Bajir I'd briefly known. Some of them my soldiers. One, a boy a year younger than me, whispered in a sibilant, rasping voice to me as I bent at his side, seeing that he was still alive.
"General..."
I picked him up, though he was much heavier than I could hope to carry comfortably. I could not leave him.
We finally found our people. My peers, Enyale, Heska, Sunyra, T'Enki, Sekir, Paki, and Nakahissa stood watching us.
Adults.
Childhood's brief dance was over. Our innocence had died with the Oula and our friends.
I looked for my brother. Was he dead?
No.
I saw him, standing apart from the group, his eyes watching the stars.
"Tukash..."
He looked at me and made an attempt at a smile.
"Hi, Ras...I'm glad you're alive."
I didn't have time to hurt.
I looked around the settlement. More death.
We searched, but found no survivors.
As I finished my section, I turned to leave when I heard a faint moan, like that of a fallen animal's. I turned towards the sound. A pile of ruble. I saw something I had not noticed before. A large hand was sticking out.
"Oh my...TUKASH! NIUK!"
My brother and Niuk ran to my side.
"Under this! There's someone, and I think they're alive!"
Niuk and Tukash exchanged glances of doubt, but dropped to help me.
We dug at the rock and dirt for a few minutes, finally reaching the unfortunate Hork-Bajir.
He was my age, a strong and handsome boy who looked like he could have fought T'Enki and a dozen other warriors and won. Not that he was any larger. He was tall like Niuk, but much stronger. He had pale tan skin and light brown hair. He looked up at us with deep purple eyes.
Heska appeared at my side, helping to pull out the young man.
"....mom....dad..."
Heska looked at him gently.
"What's your name?"
"J-Jiseka...where's my family?"
He looked past us at the horror and destruction that had been his village. Mutilated and broken bodies covered the ground.
He howled in fury and anguish.
Heska hugged him, forcing him not to look.
"Don't look! Don't!"
I looked across the field. Daroneasa was limping towards us.
"Hello, Daroneasa. We've found a survivor."
She nodded to me and gently touched the shoulder of Jiseka. He looked up at her with tearful eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He moaned and fainted from loss of blood and the shock that his entire world was gone. Niuk and Tukash lifted him gently.
Later, I would learn that he was indeed the only survivor.
Sometimes, I wish there had been none. If not for Jiseka, my life might have been a lot different. Maybe. But somehow, I doubt even that.
Jiseka and Daroneasa were made for each other. They were meant to be together.
And I?
I was meant to suffer. I was meant to fight, to kill, to lose all emotion but hate.
Chapter 3
The Oula war was brief and bloody. During the time, we lost many battles, but won more. Daroneasa gained in popularity.
I remember that last month before the Arn forced the Oula to withdraw.
That last month when tragedy struck. When I would be forced to be a lowly warrior, stripped of my rank, beaten, dishonored.
I sat on a low branch of a tree, watching two Oula walk peacefully through the grass, holding each other's hands. My age, again. What were their lives like? Was the female like Daroneasa? Was the male like Niuk or Jiseka?
They were oblivious to the immediate danger Nakahissa and I posed in the tree above them. Across the field, Sunyra and Daroneasa also waited to ambush the two. I readied my gun, charging it for a powerful blast. But then, I heard Daroneasa and Sunyra. I looked up. They were arguing.
"They're like us!"
"They are Oula scum!"
Sunyra pointed her gun at the two Oula, who, upon hearing the voices of Sunyra and Daroneasa, were looking about, bewildered.
"NO!" Daroneasa howled, grabbing the gun as Sunyra fired.
BLAM!
I looked at Nakahissa. She didn't look back. She fell from the branch to the ground ten feet below with a loud thud.
"Nakahissa! OH GOD! DARONEASA! SUNYRA!"
I ignored the two Oula as they ran. I dropped to the ground, falling at Nakahissa's side. She had a hole in her forehead.
She was dead.
In two seconds, tragedy had struck. She'd been alive only a few seconds ago, now, her spirit had left her body forever. I looked over my shoulder as Daroneasa and Sunyra ran towards me.
Sunyra gasped in surprise, and I saw the shame and fear in her eyes. But then, they changed to a grim formulating stare.
"Daroneasa, this is your fault! You made me misfire!"
Daroneasa sobbed at her step-sister's side. I looked at Sunyra angrily.
Sunyra grinned.
"Yes! Your fault! You will be stripped of your rank! Dishonor will come to you!"
Sunyra laughed hysterically. I stood, anger coursing through my veins.
"Daroneasa will not loose her rank."
Sunyra looked at me, a smug grin on her face.
I turned to walk away, knowing what I must do to protect my love.
And so, I told them that I had grabbed Nakahissa's gun as she fired, causing it to backfire and kill her. I expressed grief, but, still, I was sentenced before Sunyra and Daroneasa returned. I was thrown into a make shift cell.
I sat for hours before I heard the friendly voice of Heska.
"Ras?"
"Heska....hello...."
"Oh Ras!" She sobbed, reaching her hand through the bars and stroking my ugly face gently.
"I...I'm so sorry." She moaned.
"Yes...so am I."
"HESKA! Move away. It is time to carry out the sentence."
T'Enki.
Of course.
He and another guard grabbed me, taking me into the great hall. T'Enki grinned, enjoying the knowledge of what would happen to me. I knew my fate as well as he.
I would be stripped of rank.
I would be beaten, and a scar of dishonor placed over my right eye.
And the leader would do it.
Olitay was dying, too weak to carry out my punishment. That meant that Daroneasa would be my punished.
I was shackled and chained, so that I could not move from my standing position. The people in the crowd did not jeer nor cheer. They were silent as Daroneasa appeared.
"Ras Tila, you are convicted of negligence leading to the death of a fellow soldier. Do you deny it?"
I sucked in my breath.
"No."
Do you feel your punishment is too severe?"
"No."
These words being spoken, in tradition, meant nothing, of course. She would beat me whether I thought I deserved it or not. Her eyes pitied me, but, as always held repulsion.
Gratefulness, too, but, still, that silent, boiling hate that no one, not even she, could explain.
"You are no longer a General. You will be a common warrior. Do you accept your dismissal?"
"Yes."
You are to bear the scar of dishonor. Do you accept dishonor?"
"Yes."
She slashed!
Blood ran into my eye.
"You are to suffer the punishment of pain. Do you accept pain?"
Oh, yes, did I accept that? Yes, yes. I had long accepted it.
"Yes."
I shut out the pain as Daroneasa slashed me, beat me, broke bones. I didn't care. I looked once into the crowd with my left eye, because my right was clogged with blood. Tukash watched with horror in his eyes, but with an indifferent face.
After my punishment, they threw me back in the cell. I collapsed into a deep sleep, ignoring the pain.
Pain in my body.
Pain in my mind.
Pain in my heart.
Pain in my soul.
That night, Heska came to me, gently dressing my wounds. Jiseka also came, helping her to clean the blood from my body and splint my broken leg and wrist.
Jiseka was kind, nothing like what he could have been. If he had been a cruel bully, He could have hurt me ten times worse than T'Enki.
Niuk also came, talking to me gently, saying how he was sorry that it had happened and that none of them blamed me, realizing it was a terrible accident.
I am truly grateful for Heska, Niuk and Jiseka and those few who were kind to me. It's all I ever knew of unconditional friendship.
I went back to being a warrior, though there was no war, a month later. People starred at me, sneered at my ugly scarred face as I walked past them. I ignored them on the outside, but I screamed on the inside. Daroneasa came once to thank me. I smiled at her sadly, touched her shoulder, but she instinctively drew away. She apologized, blushing with embarrassment.
That's okay. I understood.
A beautiful creature, a thing so wonderful, would never want me. I would corrupt that beautiful soul if it came too close. Dark, ugly, dishonorable Ras was not for the Beautiful gem, Daroneasa.
Oh, just as during the Oula war I would have died just to have one day back from my childhood, I would give anything to go back to those days of dishonor. But, no, I can never go back. Those days, I thought, would never end. I prayed for the day when maybe something might happen, that I would no longer be the target of hate for my fellow Hork-Bajir. Or maybe, maybe I would die in my sleep. Maybe my weak heart would finally give out and I'd be found in the morning by Heska or Tukash, since at that point I had moved from my parents' house, both my mother and father could not stand me around anymore.
Sometime during this period, Enyale committed suicide. I don't know why. I just know what they said. That she had jumped into the planet core. I mourned for my old friend. She had loved me, and I wish I'd been able to love her back like that.
I prayed for the day my pain and dishonor would end.
And then, it did come.
That day.
And forever will I wish it hadn't.
Because, before, I'd only lost what little pride I had. I'd lost nothing, really, that no one else looses eventually.
But the Yeerks, with their dracon beams and their ships and their way of crawling into your brain and taking control, they taught me true loss. True pain.
Oh, that last night before they came was the last time I saw many of my friends. It was a celebration. Dancing, music, revelry. Anything to pull us from the depression caused by the Oula war. I, against my better judgement, went to this dance, gathering my courage. Tonight, I would ask Daroneasa to dance with me. What did I have to lose?
I looked around the cave, decorated with bright lights and flowers. Paki greeted me with a false smile and a cruel insult. She was the one of us who was not that much effected by the Oula war. She waved while she jumped up and down to a silly song that the younger teenagers liked.
"HI RAS! Man, that scar makes you look even nastier than you did before!"
And then she turned back to her date and said something they both laughed at.
I ignored them.
"Ras! Hey man!"
I looked to my right, near the refreshments. Jiseka waved to me, grinning. I knew little of the boy who had won Daroneasa's heart, only that he seemed like a nice guy. Niuk was passed out on the floor. I walked over and studied him.
"What in the world? Only an hour into the party and he's already drunk as a Jubba-Jubba monster?!"
Jiseka laughed.
"Of course not. He's just tired. I think."
Jiseka studied the drink in his hand. I got a cup and sniffed it. Tikon berries. No wonder Niuk had passed out.
"Jiseka, this has been contaminated with Tikon berries." I sighed, looking him with a suspicious eye as he took another sip of his juice.
"Oh?! Reaaaaaalllyyyyy????" He smiled, staggering.
I sighed as I saw Daroneasa walking in the door.
"Yeah, this is really what you need. Daroneasa, I'm sure, doesn't want to see you like this. It only takes a few minutes to get sober. Put the cup down and find a seat for the next couple of dances."
Jiseka sat and frowned.
"What about her? She'll want to dance! Hell, I want to dance too!"
I smiled.
"I'll dance with her. You'll puke all over her if you try to dance."
Jiseka grinned and hiccuped.
"You're the best, Ras."
I turned away from him. I know now that that night was the only time Jiseka was ever so irresponsible. I can understand. No one had suffered from the Oula war as much as him. He'd been easily accepted into our group. He'd lost everyone and everything he'd ever loved to the Oula. No, not the Oula. The Arn.
I approached Daroneasa, despite my brother and T'Enki's dirty looks.
"um....Dar...um....would you...um...if you don't mind..."
I looked into her eyes, conveying a silent plea.
"Please?"
Daroneasa opened her mouth, perhaps to protest, but then smiled gently and nodded.
My heart skipped about a million beats, I think, as I danced with her for the next song. It was a beautiful song, one that I think Niuk had wrote. Niuk was a good musician.
I kept my eyes on her lovely sapphire ones the entire time, only thinking about her beauty, only feeling her hands in mine. Oh, those hands, so smooth, so delicate. She touched my wrist gently where she had broken it that night I was dishonored.
"Ras, why are you so good to me?" She asked finally. I snapped from my day dreams.
"What?"
"You, in all these years, after everything, have never been anything but kind to me, always protecting me from danger.
Why?"
I smiled sadly.
"You would not like the answer."
The song ended. She stared at me in awe, suddenly aware of the truth.
"I...I have to go." I muttered, ducking through the crowd.
"Ras, wait!"
I ignored her. I ran, and ran, and ran until I collapsed into a gasping heap. What a fool I was! Now, she would forever torment herself for this.
I heard footsteps behind me. I thought, for a moment, it was Daroneasa. I turned to get a blade under my throat. T'Enki, and, behind him, Sekir, Paki, and Sunyra.
"Well, well, wellllll....if it isn't good ol' Ras!" T'Enki put his face close to mine.
"I hope you enjoyed that dance. You're going to die for it someday. But tonight, I'm not going to mince words. I'm gonna stomp your stupid, ugly ass into the dirt."
I growled at him, a low rumble that only he and I could hear.
"Oh, poor Rassy-poo. Why don't you run?" Paki teased maliciously.
I growled louder, standing to my full height of less than six feet, looking at T'Enki, who was over eight feet tall, with hate. I wasn't going to take his beatings without a fight. No more. Only one person could hurt me now and get away with it. And it certainly wasn't T'Enki.
"Try it."
"Oh! Brave, aren't we?!"
"Drop your childish games, T'Enki. We're adults. We've both been in war, we've..."
"No, no, Ras. I saw you huddled beneath a tree in that first fight. You didn't fight, coward."
I gaped at him for a moment, boiling with hate.
"You fool! Maybe you should have been there, instead of me, when your friend Ronra died. He was beneath that tree dying, and I was trying to save him, you fool!"
That shut him up. I looked at Sekir angrily, but Sekir's face had gone from hateful to sorrowful. Good.
T'Enki growled, slashing me across the chest. I roared in pain, falling back, already exhausted.
"Hmmmm, well, Hell, maybe I WILL kill you tonight. Who would care about weak, ugly, dishonorable, stupid Ras? Do you think Daroneasa would care? Do you think she would cry for you? I don't. If she ran across your dead body on her way home, would she do anything more than call for someone to tell your asshole brother and your fucking parents and to burn your pathetic excuse for a body?
Who do you think would care if you died right here in this ditch?"
"I would!"
T'Enki whirled around to meet Niuk's fist. My brother grabbed Sekir angrily, and then Paki by her arm. Heska tackled Sunyra. Jiseka helped me up.
We watched as Niuk and T'Enki growled at each other, circling, ready to fight, perhaps to the death.
"Well...Niuk, defender of the weak, is it?"
Niuk hissed. We all took a step back. A Hork-Bajir has to be pretty pissed off to hiss like that. They continued to circle, moving in closer and closer. I looked up to mother sky, praying that nothing bad would come of this. It was a chance glance, but I caught the ship in my eye.
"GUYS! LOOK!"
The ship, shaped like a bug, flew over our heads. The others gaped at it.
"What was THAT?!"
"ARN!"
"No way!"
I ignored them, starting to run.
"C'mon, we gotta warn Daroneasa!"
Tukash and Jiseka bounded past me. Niuk slowed to my speed. I was grateful for his kindness. Even if he was quick to fight and quite ambitious, he was a very good person.
Oh, how can I cry about my life when I think of all that happened to poor Niuk. He would not be the kind person he was now for very long.
We burst into the dance hall. They weren't dancing, or singing. They had already stopped, and all had a solemn look on their faces. Everyone stared at us as we ran in.
"Dar! Dar!!"
Daroneasa ran to Jiseka, fear on her face.
"What?!"
"There's something out there! A ship! And it's not an Arn design, either!"
Daroneasa bowed her head and spoke in a low tone to Jiseka.
He looked alarmed.
"Olitay? Dead?"
I felt my throat clench. Daroneasa was leader. And she would lead us in this battle against our new enemies.
That night was the end.
The real end.
We discovered what our enemies were, and we fought. The Yeerks. Hideous slugs who took over the body and the mind while their victim's screamed in silent terror. They were terrible and powerful.
Heska was badly wounded early in the war, and, so, could not fight. Paki somehow got out of the war, too. Tukash and I fought side by side in a raid on a yeerk base. I'll never forget that day. We got separated from our group. I fought my way through the base, trying to escape, trying to find my brother. On the outside, I found him, waiting for me.
"I'm glad you're okay, Ras."
A chill ran up my spine. Something wasn't right.
I walked with him for a while, back towards our home. My mind was asking a question I didn't want to answer. But I had to know. I tripped on a rock, lost in my thoughts. Tukash grabbed me as I fell.
I looked up at him.
And I knew.
You see, Tukash never would have helped me like that. Only a yeerk overplaying his part would.
"You okay, brother?"
"Yeah..umm...fine. Lets stop here for a while."
Tukash nodded, stopping. There was a small river, and I took a drink of the water.
"How long do you think it will be until we get there?"
I looked over my shoulder at my brother, now a slave to the yeerk in his brain. How had it happened? When we were separated, of course. It would know everything. But it could not return to our home without me. They would be suspicious.
"Well, two days if we travel non-stop. But four, since I cannot go so fast."
Tukash's face lost some color.
He shook his head, bending down to get a drink of cool water. I stood above him, realizing what I had to do.
NO!
YES! BETTER DEAD THAN A SLAVE! BETTER TO KILL HIM AND SAVE YOUR PEOPLE!
Oh, may God forgive me for what I did next.
While he sipped the water, I raised my blade over his neck. He looked up to late as I brought it down on him.
He fell, gasping. I saw the yeerk, trying to escape. I grabbed it, squeezed it in my hand until it burst, then threw it into the grass.
I knelt at my brother's side. He was gasping for air. He was dying. I choked back my tears.
"Tukash...I'm sorry...so sorry.."
He smiled, then winced in pain.
"Don't...don't be sorry...you did what you had to."
He looked back up at me.
"Ras, I never told you, because I'm a fool. But you are my brother. And....I love you."
"I know you do." I said gently as his breath slowed.
"Tell Heska..tell her I loved her."
"I will."
My tears fell on him as he drew his last breath. I sat back, stunned and silent. Then, in a voice not my own, I howled a long mournful cry.
My heart knew pain. Now it knew.
I collapsed next to Tukash, not wanting to live.
But no. I'd promised I'd tell Heska.
I lifted his body from the ground. He was heavier than me, and I had to go slower. My brother's body was still warm.
I had lied to the yeerk. It was less than hour to our home. I had been giving the yeerk a final test.
It had failed.
I cried the entire way. When I came back to the great hall, the soldiers were resting there.
"Daroneasa! Niuk! Jiseka!" I screamed in anguish as my legs buckled.
"What...oh GOD! Tukash!"
Daroneasa was at my side, then Jiseka and Niuk.
"Oh god....Ras, Ras, I'm so sorry!" She put a trembling hand on my shoulder. My mind was blank. I looked up to see someone limping towards me. I couldn't tell. My good eye was blurred with tears. Then, I realized it was Heska. Her face was ashen, and she was shaking her head in denial.
"No." She said simply, shaking her head even harder and falling next to my brother.
"NO!"
She flung herself on my dead brother, screaming in pain.
"NO! TUKASH!! NONONO!!!!"
I touched her shoulder gently. She looked at me while she cried, then buried her head into my chest, crying on me instead of my poor brother.
"Ras...noo...." she moaned. I stroked her hair gently, but I cried on her too. The others were around us, but I was barely aware of anything.
Only pain. That's all I knew.
They buried Tukash under a tall fit-fit tree. It was a simple burial. After everyone had left, I carved a message into the base with my blade.
"Here lies Tukash Tila, brave warrior and brother. We'll never forget you."
It was simple, yes, but it was fitting. I turned after I had finished to find Sekir watching me.
"Not today, please." I said in a low, hollow voice.
"No, Ras, I am not here to punish you." He smiled his broken smile, and gently touched my shoulder.
"You've had enough punishment in your life. More than even I have known. I want to apologize. For all I've done to you. For what has happened. I know I can never say sorry enough, but, for what it's worth, I am."
I looked up at him calmly.
"Actually, that's worth alot."
And then I turned and walked away, leaving Sekir starring after me.
"It is worth nothing to me. But it is worth a million gems for you, Sekir." I said over my shoulder.
Over the next few months, I fought, and I fought, and I killed and I killed. I didn't care if I died. I didn't care. I wanted to die.
We captured two yeerks in the last few months. Eslin 123 and Yakirsh. Eslin was a good friend to me. She was our ally, and, so I thought, was Yakirsh. But I didn't trust her. She was quiet and sullen, and a bit cowardly at times. Plus, she'd been basically forced to join us or die. Certainly she felt she would have rather have seen us all as slaves at that time.
In fact, that's what brought our downfall.
Our armies were weak, and Yakirsh saw her chance.
Can I blame her for what she did? Can I say I would have done any different in her case?
I don't know.
She made her move when we were going to attack a Yeerk base. They fired, she ran. We chased her, realizing what had happened. But I fell behind.
I never cursed my weakness so much.
I collapsed near a tree, watching my people leave me. I gave up. I would die beneath that tree, if I could. A few of the normal, stupid, Hork-Bajir watched me, muttering in their primitive language. But they left me alone.
I raised my left wrist blade to my throat and closed my eyes. Yes, now, while they were gone. They'd never miss me....
SMACK!
T'Enki sent me sprawling. I gasped in surprise.
"Now, now, Ras, if you wanted to DIE, why didn't you just call me? I told you once that I'd be happy to do it for you!"
He leaped at me. This time, he was not intending to just beat me up.
He meant it.
He was going to kill me.
I growled. No. I would not die by his hand. I wouldn't give him the pleasure of killing me. That was my right. Not his.
I dodged, slashed at him as he missed, whirled, let my instincts fight instead of my mind. But he was strong, and I was weak. I may have been a decent warrior, but he was a born killer. He cornered me against a tree, pinning my arms down with one hand, holding his elbow blade against my throat with the other.
"Now, weakling, you die. Oh, and you might want to know this....Enyale was a great fuck, man. Heh heh, too bad she decided to go and kill herself..."
He was the one.
He had raped her and caused her to commit suicide.
"You unimaginably evil son of a bitch! I'll see you in Hell some day!" I screamed.
"Yeah, well, whatever. Save me a seat in the flames."
I stared at his stupid face, and, as before, spit in his eye. He growled and prepared to end my life. But then, I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye.
Sekir!
Sekir grabbed T'Enki, leaping on him, slashing at his friend in a way that would not kill him, but harm him.
"Traitor!" T'Enki reached around and grabbed Sekir by his neck, holding him in the air, and hissed. I rose to leap, but T'Enki was too fast. He broke Sekir's neck right then.
I stared in horror.
Before, I had only thought T'Enki was a jerk, a bully.
But, I realized he was more than a bully. He was an evil creature. Something without a heart.
I looked at him as he turned, his face twisted in hate, smiling an evil smile.
"Now, weakling...."
"NO!"
I dodged again, leaping backwards onto the base of a tree, then into the air again. T'Enki recovered from his miss, looked up just in time to see my bladed and taloned foot meet his face.
He fell.
I collapsed back, the fight making me even weaker. I looked over at T'Enki. He was dead, his head sliced down to the brain by my ankle blades.
I walked over to poor Sekir. He stared at me with his pain filled brown eyes.
"I...I can't move, Ras. Can't feel. Kill me, please. Please please, don't leave me like this."
Paralyzed. Completely. He could barely move his head to face me as the tears ran down his cheeks. He was thinking of his little sister, who had died only days before. Poor Sekir..
I put my blade to his throat and sighed.
"Do it. Please...I don't want to live."
" I .....I understand. Goodbye."
And with one quick movement it was over. His eyes closed as he breathed his last words.
"Thank you."
"Your welcome." I sighed.
I looked up in the air. Two ships, strange, egg shaped with what looked like a weapon, were flying in the direction my people went. Something told me to run, warn them.
I ran.
After a few minutes, I saw them. Ahead, they had found Yakirsh. Jiseka, Daroneasa, and Jalrai were preparing to kill her. On the hill above, Niuk was resting, watching. And a few yards below Daroneasa were the rest of the soldiers, watching, waiting.
"RUN!" I screamed as I saw the ships doubling back, ready to fire. I ran faster, seeing only a few heads turn.
And then, in slow motion, I saw the shots. I saw the explosion. I fell to my knees screaming. Daroneasa, Niuk, and Jalrai were knocked down by the shockwave. I thought there was no way they could have survived it. Niuk was blown back into a tree. Yakirsh flew past me, screaming. I didn't bother with her. I screamed for what seemed like hours, unable to move as the ships landed and strange, four legged, blue aliens took Niuk's body. He was alive still, and fought as best he could, but those creatures used their bladed tails to knock him unconscious. They fought some yeerks as they went. I saw Jalrai rise slowly, and then feel Daroneasa's neck. She bowed her head and rose, leaving Daroneasa there.
TSEEW!
A dracon beam fired at her. She ran.
The yeerks grabbed Jiseka, who had been knocked out cold. They also felt Daroneasa's neck. They left her.
Yeerks have no use for a dead body.
I found my legs, finally able to move, and ran to my fallen love. She was limp in my arms, her blue eyes staring at nothing. I watched the Yeerks and the aliens who had killed my love leave. I cried for hours over her body, finally falling asleep there, my mind finally too tired to function. Nothing but the trees, where the normal Hork-Bajir watched me with pity, and the molten slag below that had been all I'd ever known.
If tears could have revived Daroneasa, she would have been not only alive, but a goddess, with my rivers of tears.
But tears do not revive.
Tears dull the soul's pain.
So I slept in my river of pain and tears, drowning in my own life with nothing to hold onto but a corpse.
I awoke. Daroneasa was gone. The trees were gone. My people were gone.
Nothingness.
I looked around at the blank white landscape. Nothingness.
Was this death?
RAS.
I turned around and screamed at the creature who had said my name.
A blood red eye.
Something between a machine and a living thing.
Crayak.
YOU KNOW WHO I AM.
"Y-yes..."
I HAVE A TASK FOR YOU. YOU WILL ACCEPT IT. YOU WILL DO AS I COMMAND.
Yes, I would. I was his now. I was a creature for his disposal, and I would do what he said.
"What do you ask of me, Crayak?" I asked, trying to sound brave.
YOU WILL GO TO A WORLD, A DIMENSION, NOT YOUR OWN. I WILL CHANGE YOUR FORM TO SUIT YOUR MISSION. YOU ARE BEING SENT TO DESTROY SOMEONE.
I nodded, and, in a flash, I was there.
Nothing else, just there.
My mind had a new store of information. I was on Earth, in the year 2031. There were no Yeerks in this world. It was not the real Earth. I marveled. I had not known of Earth before, yet, now, I knew so much. The humans ruled this planet.
I watched the setting sun, a yellow star that felt good on my face and wings.
Wings?
Yes, wings. I flexed the double sailed wings and then folded them like a cape about my shoulders, clasping them with three fingered claws on the tips. I had changed little, save for the wings. My beak was no longer green, but matched my skin. My blades were also the same color as my skin. My feet were wider, but still had only three toes. My ankle blades were gone, replaced by a spur.
I was a gargoyle.
My wings could glide on currents of air, but I could not truly fly. Gargoyles were created to protect. But I was not a protector. I was a killer.
Most gargoyles turned to stone during the day. But Crayak needed me to remain flesh at all times, so I did not.
My heart was screaming for Daroneasa, for death, but I could not think of that. The mission. Yes.
Why had I accepted? Did I really have a choice?
Don't think about that. Do what this Crayak wishes. Then, kill yourself.
I looked at the statues next to me. Gargoyles. They would awaken soon. I decided to wait. Maybe one of them would be my victim. Crayak had not told me who I was to kill yet.
"Hey!"
I turned to face a human female.
"What the...what are you doing here?!"
Her dark hair was streaked with gray, and she had some lines in her face. She was an older human, perhaps fifty or sixty years old.
"I...I am Adrian." I lied.
"That's nice. What are you doing up here, pal?"
Crayak provided an excuse for me.
"I was flying past here when I saw this castle and these gargoyles on the parapets. I thought, perhaps, they were real. I was waiting to find out."
"Yeah, well, if gargoyles turn to stone at daybreak, why aren't you stone?"
"A spell." I replied simply.
"Are you from Avalon?"
My mind raced. Avalon. Magical island inhabited by the fae and a clan of Gargoyles.
No.
"No."
"Where are you from, then?"
I shrugged.
"I have no home. I wander around, looking for others of my race. Are you a friend to...."
I turned, hearing the stone breaking. I watched the four gargoyles awaken from their stone sleep. Crayak told me who they were. Broadway, Angela, Lexington, and Steel. Lexington was the leader. Steel was the adolescent son of Broadway and Angela. Their former leader, Goliath, and the old leader before Goliath, Hudson, had been killed by a gargoyle hating group called the Quarrymen. They had had a dog-goyle named Bronx, but it had died of old age a year ago. Brooklyn, who should have been the leader, had joined with the enemy of this clan, Demona, a female gargoyle bent on the destruction humanity.
Lexington was part machine, this being the only way he could truly function normally, since he had been severely injured by the Quarrymen. Broadway was blind, but could sense things with a sonar colar made by Lexington. Angela had several scars and was missing an eye and two fingers on her left hand.
I looked back at the human. Elisa Maza. She had loved Goliath much. She was a human law enforcer, a detective. I felt sorry for her, for losing her love. I understood that pain.
The gargoyles stared at me in disbelief. Finally, Lexington spoke.
"Who....who are you?"
The fools should have asked what I was. Crayak's Assassin. Was it one of these gargoyles I would have to kill?
I sighed. Don't think, Ras. Do what you have to.
"I am Adrian."
I used the name Crayak provided for me. It was ancient Celtic name, meaning 'dark one', and it fit me. My voice carried a strange accent that Crayak told me was Irish.
"Where'd you come from? Avalon?"
"No, no. I am a loner."
I saw the distrust in their eyes. Gargoyles lived in clans, and loner gargoyles had abandoned that. They tended to be wild and unpredictable, often evil, like Demona and Brooklyn.
Crayak was telling me that only the young son of Angela and Broadway mattered. I needed to gain his trust. Was he my target? If so, I would kill him and be done with it. But Crayak would not tell me that. He only told me that I needed to take Steel with me, to a city far away. A city known to the humans as Philadelphia.
"My clan was destroyed when I was a child." I said, a part of me realizing I had not lied. My clan, my tribe, my people were dead.
Daroneasa was dead.
My heart exploded in pain. No. Focus, Ras. You must protect the others who you love.
The gargoyles pitied me. For that night, we talked. I fed them lies about my life as a gargoyle, they told me truths about their own. I became friends with Steel easily. I was the only young Gargoyle he'd ever met. Steel was not so huge, like his father, but muscular, and his skin had a silver tone to it. He had Angela's dark hair and four small horns on his brow. He did have Broadway's ears and eyes, though.
Steel was younger than me, about eighteen in gargoyle years.
I told the gargoyles that I had to go to Philadelphia. I fed them a lie about some human friend.
"I must go. I stopped here only to see if I could befriend you. It has been a while since I've seen others of my race."
Angela nodded and then, suddenly, had just the idea I was hoping she would have.
"Maybe you would want to travel with Steel. After all, our son has never left New York, and I'm sure he would keep you company."
I grinned
"Yes, yes. That would be nice to have someone to talk to."
Sucker, I thought.
But it must have been Crayak, supplying the idea as what would seem like a sub-conscious thought.
Steel smiled at me and nodded in agreement. He was all for leaving the castle.
Morning came, the gargoyles slept. I managed to sleep for a while too....but it was not so happy as a gargoyle's sleep would be.
I dreamed. I saw faces of those who had died.
Oh, twenty four hours ago, they had all lived, I'd fought alongside them, Daroneasa was alive......
She had been alive...
I woke up crying. Elisa was standing over me.
"You were having a nightmare. Who's Daroneasa?"
I looked away and chose not to reply.
She set a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"I understand what you're going through..."
I looked back at her. She reminded me of Heska. Had Heska survived? Yes. She and Paki and Sunyra had been in the city.
I realized quickly that this human didn't think I was ugly. No more than any other gargoyle. Gargoyles didn't see ugliness. Their leader was certainly not good looking or strong. It was his mind that allowed him to lead.
I wished I could live their life.
But no, I couldn't. I couldn't be a part of their clan. I could destroy Angela and Broadway's child, Steel, who now trusted me.
I knew I would, whether he was my target or not.
Outside, they were awakening. Elisa and I walked onto the balcony to wait. I waited on the edge for Steel to join me, so that I could be gone.
"Come. If we're going to get there before sunrise, we must leave now."
Steel hugged his parents and said his good-byes. I watched, my mind screaming. They'd never see him again, in all likelihood.
Because of me.
No! Not me, Crayak!
No, I couldn't blame anyone but myself....
Steel and I left the Manhattan clan, flying almost all night. He complained of being hungry a few times, but that was all he said. We reached the city just before dawn, choosing a tall church's bell tower as our resting place.
"I'll protect you during the day." I assured him as the sun turned him to stone.
I sat down on the cold stone of the bell tower floor and listened to the bells. Beautiful music. It reminded me a bit of the music of my people.
I began drifting off to sleep, the night of flying causing me to be exhausted. I noticed I was not so weak in this gargoyle form. Crayak needed me to be stronger to carry out his mission.
I had just fallen asleep when I heard voices approaching. I hid behind a bell. What would I do?
Two female gargoyles. One older than the other. The older one had green skin, a beak, and short blond hair. She was middle aged and had small wrinkles on her face.
The other one was young like Steel and I. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Like the other gargoyle, she had a short beak and large blue eyes. Her hair was gold and silver, cascading down her shoulders. Her skin was a brilliant orange and her wings a bright blue. She shone like the most brilliant star.
Like a gem.
Like Daroneasa.
The older female, for all she lacked in youth and beauty, seemed to shine as well. Curious....
"Mother! Look!"
The young one stared at Steel in awe.
They walked around him, studying him. Why weren't they stone, like him? A magic spell, I guess, since magic seemed to be a reality in this dimension.
I held my breath. Would I have to attack the beautiful creatures before me to save Steel, who I would kill in turn?
Surely they wouldn't harm him.
I watched them gaze at him in curiosity. The young one suddenly approached my hiding spot. At that moment, I had a terrible thought. Either she or her mother was my target.
Oh, Crayak, why didn't I see your evil plans, or the truth, then. Why didn't I realize?
I slipped.
"Oh! CRAP!"
I bruised my ribs as I collapsed onto the stone floor. How had I slipped?
Crayak.
The female jumped back, her eyes wide. I looked up at her. She looked at me in awe and fear at the same time. I looked past her at the older female.
Her eyes were even wider, and her mouth formed a word that looked like "Ras".
But I shrugged that off.
What a fool I was.
"Ummmm.....hi!" I said, employing what I only hoped was a disarming smile.
Crayak told me not to tell them my name.
Oh, god, I should have seen it then, what was going on. How could I be so blind?
"Wh-What are you doing here? Who are you?"
I climbed to my feet and addressed the older female who had spoken. Her eyes continued to grow.
"I am Adrian. My friend, Steel, and myself had to perch here for the night. I'm sorry. We didn't realize this was your home. We will leave tonight, if you wish." I lied.
"And what is your name? And yours?"
"I am Da....I mean, Erin." The older one answered. She had started to say something else. She held her head, like it hurt with a migraine. Why?
The young female stepped towards me and smiled in a shy manner.
"I'm Aurora....it's nice to meet you, Cynrik."
I smiled and, in a sudden burst of confidence, kissed her out-stretched hand.
What?
Where was all this coming from? These feelings like I was going to win her heart by my charm? Since when did I even know the meaning of charm?
Crayak of course.
Once again, I had to get close to the one I would betray.
She smiled and looked away, her orange cheeks flushing with red. I smiled. Enjoy yourself, Ras. This may be the last pleasure you'll ever know.
I lost myself over the next few weeks in my crush on Aurora. The only girl I'd found myself in love with other than Daroneasa. Erin and Aurora gladly let us stay.
But, with grim horror, I realized that Steel, who had never met another female of his species his age, was falling madly and deeply in love with Aurora. Of course. I knew how he felt, I guess. I knew that Aurora didn't like him much. His loud voice, his childish attempts to impress her. It hurt me because it hurt Steel.
I found myself in Steel's position as well, trying to win Aurora's love. It was easy for me. So easy to gain her trust and her love. But that's the thing about trying to get someone to fall in love with you.
You ensnare yourself in that trap too. It's a suicide mission.
I didn't care.
Erin chose to sit aside to herself. I discovered from Crayak that she was my target. I wanted to get it over with. I wanted it done.
So I devised my plan. I'd find Erin alone, and then, I 'd kill her. My heart ached, but I ignored my pain. I just wanted to get it over with. Then, I'd kill myself, and be done with it. But....Aurora...I did love her, although not like I loved Daroneasa. I knew she loved me. How could I betray her?
No, no, ignore it. Ignore you're heart, Ras, it's broken, and it'll never bring you anything but more pain.
I ignored my heart. I let myself become the creature who new nothing but hate. That creature that the history books remember. I made myself be what Crayak had intended me to be, and I didn't care. I didn't give a damn about anything. I like to think I have a split personality. There's a real me. And then there's that dark, cold one that kills. And that dark one is so much stronger than me. So much more intelligent. I am a slave to the creature Crayak created. I am as much a slave to it as I would be to a yeerk. I sat in the back of my own mind, screaming, crying, watching the pain and horror caused by my own hand and not being able to stop it. It was like some horrible dream, that I could not awaken from.
But a dream doesn't cause pain to others. I caused so much pain. The dark personality, who I always refer to as simply The Darkness, was perfect at faking his love for Aurora. Perfect at winning her heart. Perfect at helping Aurora and Erin and Steel protect the people of Philadelphia. Perfect at pretending to care about others.
I do care. I care, god damnit, I care. I care more for people than any other creature that ever existed. I don't know why things happened the way they did. I loved Aurora, very much. But I had no control. That's no excuse. It was not as if I had a yeerk in my brain.
I can never explain it or rationalize what I was. To this day I cannot understand why I am what I am. Crayak allowed me to live, he is my master, no matter how much I hate it and defy him. I am one of his many discarded children. Like the howlers, I was born to kill, born to destroy. Unlike the howlers, though, I didn't think it was a game, and I didn't like it, and I wasn't innocent.
Through this turmoil beneath and the guise of the cool, calculated Adrian, I lived for a year as a gargoyle, protecting the people alongside Erin, Steel, and Aurora. Aurora became my mate in time. Gargoyles, like Hork-Bajir, didn't have an official ceremony. It was just known. It was understood, and the bond was usually for life.
But, of course, ours would end the second I ended Erin's life.
And my chance came suddenly one day. I awoke, just before nightfall, in Aurii's and my bed. The setting sun made her beautiful blonde hair shine like gold. Deep down, I felt so lucky that she loved me. Why couldn't I just stay there and be happy?
I could never forget Daroneasa. My heart belonged to her. But she was dead. I had to move on.
But no.
Crayak and my dark side wouldn't let me.
I rose gently, so as not to wake Aurii, stretching in the warm sun. I happened to glance over to Erin's bed. She wasn't there.
I knew instantly that within a half hour, all would be done. This was the day.
This was it.
I snatched my handgun that I had long ago taken from a human thief and went outside. There, as the sun set, I saw Erin. She was standing, watching silently.
I felt a twinge of regret. I wished I'd died that day a year ago with Daroneasa.
But no.
Suddenly, as I aimed and prepared to fire, she was surrounded by a brilliant light.
NO, RAS, EVIL CHILD OF CRAYAK. THIS ONE IS MINE.
The huge voice was like Crayak's. The Ellimist, I knew. His enemy. I felt a huge force hit me, invisible. I sank to my knees, watching with awe as Daroneasa quite literally separated from Erin. Both looked a bit confused for a moment, then there was a flash, and Daroneasa was gone.
RAS, YOU HAVE FAILED ME.
Crayak's voice echoed in my head.
Of course.
It made such perfect sense. Why else would Crayak send me to another dimension to murder an insignificant old gargoyle, unless she might be harboring the soul of Daroneasa. Yes, the information was in my mind. From the Ellimist, this time.
Erin was Daroneasa's sister, of sorts. Their father was Tala Jamree, a Hork-Bajir thinker. Their mother was a gargoyle.
It was so simple. Tala fled the Yeerk war. He found the time matrix, created the gargoyle universe. Then, he hid there.
When he and his mate had an egg, the child inside must have had two identities, must have been two creatures in one body, as an effect of the time matrix perhaps. One, the Hork-Bajir half, was sent to her own world. The other somehow had survived to the twenty first century.
How, it didn't matter. It was so.
The two were bonded in spirit. When one died, the other snapped into her sister's body. In Daroneasa's case, she was needed much in the scheme of the real dimension, so the Ellimist created a new body for her.
So simple.
I was such a fool. If I had killed Erin, both would have died.
Such a fool.
Suddenly, something tackled me from behind. Steel!
"Adrian!" He screamed, growling, knowing what he saw. Me, seemingly ready to shoot Erin.
I struggled for a moment, tried to get loose. But I could not.
BANG!
It was an accident, I swear. It really was.
I didn't do it on purpose. The gun just went off.
And like that, Steel was dead, with a bullet in his brain.
I pulled free of his dead body and glided into the air. Below, he hit the ground. Humans screamed, gathered around his poor body, looked into the sky where I hovered, stunned.
"The other must have shot it!"
That's what I heard.
I glided away just as a bullet rang out. Yes, they were firing at me. Of course.
Not for Steel. For their own fear.
I collapsed on a rooftop. I wanted to die.
"CRAYAK! Why? WHY?!" I sobbed to the night. Why me? Why why why why?
That's all I wanted to know. Why'd he let me live for this?
Why?
Why me?
Why not some other fool, or someone who didn't give a damn about anything, like T'Enki or Sunyra. Why me?
I looked at the gun in my hand. It was time to go. Time to end it all and begin my eternity in the fires of Hell.
"Adrian?"
I turned, stunned. Aurora floated down next to me.
"What are you doing, love?"
She embraced me, seeing my tears. I hugged her, sobbing into her golden hair and letting my tears fall on her beautiful face.
"What's wrong?" She asked, alarmed.
ENJOY THIS LAST MINUTE ,RAS.
Crayak sent me an image of Aurii, writhing in pain. Crayak was punishing me. He was going to kill her, slowly, painfully.
No.
No more pain.
I knew what I had to do.
"I....I love you. I'm sorry." I looked on her beautiful face for the last time. Her lovely eyes searched for an answer in my face as I aimed at her.
"Adrian..."
"I'm sorry."
The gun hit her with perfect accuracy. She collapsed, a bullet lodged in her head, and red blood seeping down her face.
I knelt next to her and picked her up. I wouldn't leave her to rot on that building. No. I owed her more than that.
As I flew back to the tower, I looked on the street below. An ambulance and many police cars were below. I saw them taking Steel's dead body away.
In the church where our tower was, there was an empty place. A vault, for the dead. There, I laid Aurii in her final resting place.
Then, I went back above. I could see Erin, unconscious on the roof. I went into the part of the tower that had been a sort of storage place. There, I found a pen and some paper, and I wrote a note to Erin. Telling her I was sorry, that I could never expect forgiveness, but I hoped she would someday be happy again.
And then, as I began leaving, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something round, an oval.
I turned and looked.
An egg.
A gargoyle egg.
I knelt next to it. It was most certainly Aurii's and mine.
I placed my hands on it, feeling it's warmth, letting my tears fall on it. My mind told me to crush it. My very guts and instincts told me to. I know why now. But my heart wouldn't let me. I had killed my mate. I wouldn't kill my child, even if it had no chance at life without it's mother. Maybe, by some miracle, Erin would be able to care for it.
I took it out with me to our bed. There, I sat it next to me and placed the note on top of it.
Now, it would end.
All of the pain of this world would be replaced by the fires of Hell.
I looked up into the stars. Those stars that seemed so strange, so alien, to me.
I cocked the gun, holding it to my head. Cold, very cold. I was shaking. I began to apply pressure to the trigger. Would it hurt? Would I die instantly, or would I linger for a few minutes?
"I'm sorry...."
Those last words....was I talking to God? to Crayak? to Aurii? Steel? Angela? Broadway?
Or myself?
I squeezed the trigger quickly.
I didn't feel anything. Nothing. Just oblivion.
Sweet oblivion.
Nothingness
I was dead.
Chapter
I screamed. I was alive! Hork-Bajir thinker again!
Weak
Ugly
"NOOOOO!!!!!" I screamed. Of course. I was back in my world. Or was I?
I looked around. Battle raged. Andalites, huge insects, humans, thinkers, normal Hork-Bajir. All on a strange but beautiful alien world. At least, it might have been beautiful, if not for the blood stained ground and the gore around me.
Where was I?
Why was I still alive? Why couldn't I have just died!?
"Ras! Oh my god! Ras!"
It was Jiseka.
He grabbed me as a human barely missed hitting my head with an extremely large battle blade.
"Oh man, where have you been?" he screamed, carrying me as he bounded away with the other troops. They were retreating. The humans and Andalites were cheering.
I passed out at that time. The shock, the terror, the confusion.
And through it all, I could hear Crayak laughing.
Laughing at my misery.
All at that time, I realized that it was not over. My walk of darkness, leaving death in my wake. I was not done.
I lived for a few weeks in the barracks, like any other soldier. I learned that Daroneasa was leading this rebellion. Of course.
Most of my time was spent lying there, staring at the bottom of the bunk above me. Sometimes I wept, sometimes I just played the memories over in my mind. Over and over, the death and the destruction.
The sheer and utter waste of life.
And, as always, I thought to myself 'why? why me?'.
In the records of history, in any encyclopedia, run a search for 'tyrants'.
I assure you, my name will be there along with dozens of other such evil and cowardly beings as Hitler, Aximili, and that famed Gikan leader, Ko, who murdered billions of Nlash men, women, and children.
During the times I wasn't thinking, I was fighting. I'm not sure how many Andalites, humans, and skirt na died at my hands. But it must have reached into dozens.
I remember my last night as a soldier so perfectly.
I had been out walking, far from the base. I searched the night skies, studying mother sky's face. I was not familiar with this world, and mother sky was alien to me. She stared down at me with a cold, accusing glare.
"Hey!"
I blinked at the young voice that had cried out in the night. A young thinker boy stood before me. He was grinning like mad, and his face was so very familiar, in a way.
"What are you doing?"
I smiled at him gently, but at the same time I wondered what this child was doing so far from the base. I'd never seen him before, I thought, but there was definitely something about him.
"Watching the stars. Talking to Mother sky. What about you? Why are you so far from home?"
The boy smiled.
"My mother told me to stay here. She always says that all others are bad, to stay away from them. But you don't look bad."
"You're wrong there, little one." I thought to myself. I contemplated what he'd said. It didn't make any sense.
"What's your name?"
He smiled again, and suddenly I knew what that smile reminded me of.
T'Enki. Yes. And those eyes. Sunyra.
Reality hit me. This was their child. Of course. His mother would be Sunyra. OF COURSE!
"Gihash. What's yours?"
"R...Ras." I stuttered. Why was he so young? It'd been over thirty years since I had destroyed T'Enki, though, for me, it'd been a year or so. Why was Gihash so young? The obvious answer was bio-engineering.
I struggled for an answer to this problem. I couldn't leave the little child out there, alone, where he could be blasted apart by Andalites. No no, I had to take him with me, Sunyra or not. It was what was best.
"You wanna come with me? We can have an adventure." I said, smiling. He looked at me dubiously, then asked:
"What's wrong with your face?"
I frowned for a moment, the unintentional insult cutting me. 'From the mouths of babes' I thought, and shrugged.
"I was born like this. Do you want to go on an adventure or not? It'll be fun."
Gihash smiled, accepting my answer and my offer, and nodded excitedly
"Sure, Ras!"
I smiled and took the boy's hand and began leading him back to the base.
It was a couple of Earth miles, and a long walk for both of us, considering how weak I was and how young he was. I was forced to stop halfway on the edge of a rock outcropping. I watched the night sky while Gihash took a short nap. Why had this child come to me, just when I was going to end it. Everytime I tried to end my life, something happened that stopped me. Maybe it was a signal from Crayak...or perhaps, even, the Great Goddess?
I sighed. I didn't really care. But I had an obligation now. To get Gihash to safety. I rose to stir him from his sleep, but movement caught my eye below. Two Hork-Bajir thinkers, seemingly arguing. I strained to see their faces. Then, I heard their voices.
"No, Paki. Stay away from me."
Ah. Jiseka and Paki. I smirked, knowing immediately what was going on. Paki had always had a sort of crush on Jiseka.
"Jiseka, if you do not kiss me, I will tell Daroneasa you did anyway. And I'll tell EVERYONE ELSE too!"
Jiseka stopped walking.
"no no, you fool...." I muttered, spying a blond headed figure approaching from the opposite direction.
Of course, he couldn't hear me. I watched Daroneasa approach as Jiseka kissed Paki. And I knew she had seen them.
She paused, stopped and looked weak. Then she turned and ran.
I grabbed Gihash and dropped down next to Paki and Jiseka.
"YOU FOOL! YOU SLUT BITCH!" I pointed at Daroneasa's retreating figure.
Jiseka's eyes doubled in size and he stared at me.
"You weak fool! You IDIOT!" I screamed at him angrily.
"I...I didn't..."
I scowled at him and then looked at Paki.
"Happy, slut? Are you HAPPY!? ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOURSELF?!"
She hung her head a bit and sneered at me.
I growled at the two angrily, then turned and ran after Daroneasa. It was difficult with Gihash in my arms. I watched her disappear into a small gully.
I sat Gihash down between two rocks on the wall, telling him to stay put, then slid down to the bottom.
"Who's there?"
Daroneasa's trembling voice shattered my heart.
"It's me....Ras...."
"Ras?"
She was confused, hurt, vulnerable. Weak.
I approached her hiding place in the shadows slowly. My eyes adjusted to the dark slowly. She was holding her wrist blade to her opposite wrist, trying to cut herself.
I pounced on her and grabbed her wrists.
"NO! Don't you even dare, Daroneasa!"
She trembled and sobbed and tried to pull away.
"Let me be ,Ras. Let me die."
I kept my grip on her, and shook my head.
"No, no, Dar. You aren't going to die. Don't be a fool. Don't throw yourself away. This world, this galaxy, this universe depends on you. I won't let you kill yourself. Besides...."
I shut up. I didn't add what I knew. She couldn't die. Erin still lived. She'd come back again and again until Erin died. Killing herself would not do any good.
She looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes.
"Ras....did you see..."
I hugged her and tried to be strong. Tried not to cry.
"Yes...yes I saw."
"How....?" She sobbed against me, and, as always, gave the involuntary shiver at my touch. I looked into the night sky and asked silently why Daroneasa had to be my enemy. Even now I could feel Cryak tugging at my brain. But in this dimension, he had no real control over me.
IT COULD ALL BE OVER, RAS. JUST SNAP HER NECK. LIKE AURORA.
No, you bastard, fuck you, never.
I wasn't afraid of Crayak. I was only afraid of hurting, not being hurt. I was past pain.
The only pain I knew was my heartache for Daroneasa and Aurora and all my victims.
Daroneasa sobbed again and I drew back a bit from her.
"Ras....why would Jis do this to me?"
I began to speak...
TSSSSSEWWWWW!
A shredder beam hit my leg. I buckled and collapsed. Daroneasa looked at me in horror.
"RUN!" I screamed through my teeth, clenched in pain.
I looked back up the side of the valley. The Andalites had Gihash. And they were coming for Daroneasa and me.
"RUN! GO NOW!"
Daroneasa turned and ran.
I don't remember much after that. I remember the Andalites grabbing me, hitting me with the blunt side of their tail. I remember humans whooping and hollering as they dragged me into their ship.
They covered my blades in ramonite.
I remember being thrown into a ramonite cage. That was the day I lost my freedom. From that day on, I belonged to them.
The next morning I awoke in my cage. There was no light. It was just a dark box. I couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything. I bumbled around blindly in the dark. The cage was not tall enough to stand in, even for a short person like me. It was about seven human feet across and seven human feet in length. I felt around in the dark, looking for any possible escape, even though I knew that I would probably never glimpse freedom again. In the dark, I tripped over something warm.
"Ras?"
Gihash reached out and grabbed my arm, clinging to me fearfully.
"Gihash...."
"I don't like this adventure." he said, fear in his young voice.
"I don't either....I'm sorry...."
Suddenly, light flooded the room. I shielded my eyes instinctively as some Andalite guards grabbed me and Gihash. I was drug to a sort of flat, vertical table, and strapped to it by my arms and legs and tail. I didn't see where they took Gihash, though. The device I was strapped to...I knew what it was. It was a means of torture, used to extract information from the enemy. Several humans and Andalites stood in the room. The two leaders were an older Andalite and a young human male. I looked at the human. He was positively huge. Like T'Enki, he was pure muscle. He looked at me with the slightest twinge of pity in his brown eyes, but I knew he could snap me in half if he wanted.
The human looked at the Andalite.
"Sofor, what in the world is this? This is the most pathetic excuse for a soldier I've seen so far. How important can he be? Just kill him."
< Ah, Prince Jake, don't underestimate it. We found it with Daroneasa. Alone. What could THAT mean?>
Jake sighed and looked at me, and he seemed to be apologizing for failing to have me killed. Now, I would be tortured for the truth. For anything I could tell them.
Tell them that as they spoke, our armies were sneaking up on a nearby base of theirs.
Tell them where our base was.
The very rebellion was in my hands. If I told, it was gone. If I didn't, we were safe...
I could never tell. Never.
Sofor walked towards me, swaggering with pride.
< Now, what is your name, Thinker? >
I sighed.
"Ras Tila."
< Heh, Ras Tila. Everyone remember that name. He will be the one who will cause the downfall of his vile race. Now, Ras, you can either go ahead and tell us where the secret base is, or we can torture you until you do. It doesn't matter to me, but you might as well make it easy on yourself. >
"I will never tell you anything, Andalite scum." I snarled viciously. I gnashed my teeth and put my head forward.
"You will never get me to betray my people."
< I'm sure. >
Sofor nodded to some Andalites nearby. I screamed as a surge of pure pain ran through my body.
< Now, doesn't this feel lovely? Ready to tell us now? >
"NOOOO!!!!!!" I screamed. I would die rather than tell them. Crayak was in my mind, telling me to talk, and he magnified my pain. It went to my brain, taking over it and seemingly stirring my darker side, Adrian. Adrian, the tool of Crayak.
"NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed, this time addressing Adrian. Never never never! Adrian could not take control!
But I felt him taking control. I fought him....I did....I fought him as best I could as my entire body writhed in pain.
"STOP SOFOR! STOP IT!" I heard Jake scream.
< Don't be a fool, Prince Jake. This is how we Andalites do things. >
"It's not how humans do it!"
The pain stopped suddenly. I continued screaming, however. It was involuntary. The pain was now dull and throbbing. My entire body ached.
< Prince Jake... >
"I said enough, Sofor. I don't approve of your methods."
< Fine. We'll just use truth drugs. >
Jake nodded.
"Yes, yes..."
I held my breath as a human injected the brown colored liquid into my neck. The room seemed to spin around me, and I went into a sort of dream like trance....
I blacked out and lost all real consciousness. What was happening to me? I was vaguely aware of being talked to. And answering back. What were the questions? What was my answer?
I had no idea. I knew in the back of my mind what must be going on. Goddess, what had I done? How could I have allowed myself to be captured? Why hadn't I killed myself when I'd had the chance?
I began regaining consciousness. My head hurt, my body ached. I opened my eyes to meet Jake's.
"It's over." He reassured me.
"What.....what happened?"
< Thank you, Ras Tila. Because of you, we intercepted that little invasion. The losses to your people were massive, and, luckily, we lost only a few of our people. >
"No..."
"Sofor, silence."
< Jake, you don't give the orders to me. >
Jake growled and glared at Sofor.
"Don't you think you've tortured him enough? I thought you Andalites were supposed to be compassionate."
Sofor ignored Jake.
I didn't care. I wanted to know anyway.
< Also, that base was simple to destroy. Heh, Daroneasa is sending us a transmission! How wonderful! >
An Andalite Aristh looked from me, to Jake, to Sofor and then began speaking.
< She wishes to know how you knew. >
Sofor grinned with his evil greedy Andalite eyes.
"Please...." I moaned.
< Sorry, you DID betray your people. I think they need to know who brought the end for them, don't you? Someone to hate. >
I moaned and hung my head as I heard Daroneasa's enraged voice flood the room.
"I demand to speak to Prince Jake!"
< This is Prince Sofor.... >
"I said JAKE. Are you daft?!"
She was positively pissed.
Jake sighed and began talking.
"I'm here, Daroneasa. What do you want?"
"Besides your blood? I want whoever told you....I want them dead! I want them returned to me so I can kill them slowly, myself."
"No can do, Daroneasa. He's to be incarcerated in the prison system."
Daroneasa was silent for a moment. I could hear her saying something to a soldier or whatever.
"Yes, that's...Heska, yes...I know. Carry on."
Daroneasa addressed Jake again, her voice trembling.
"Who was it? Give me his name, at least."
Jake opened his mouth to speak, but Sofor beat him.
< Ras Tila >
Daroneasa paused.
I sobbed. I didn't care what the others thought.
"Is that him I hear?"
"Yes." I said simply. I knew she could hear me.
"Ras, you will die slowly and painfully for this, I promise. Heska is dead.....they're all dead. Do you understand me? You've destroyed them. YOU. You coward. You told them! YOU BASTARD!"
"I'm sorry." I mumbled between sobs. Jake sighed and cut the connection.
That was the last time I ever talked to Daroneasa. The last time I heard her beautiful voice. My life was over that day. That day was the end for us all.
For the next few years, I was transferred between different rebel camps several times before ending up on Onlatra, a huge prison on Earth, located near Skrit Na City. Inside, I was allowed to wander around and do whatever I pleased, but I preferred my cell, only leaving to eat. Many of my people joined me in the hell of that prison. The rebels were used in scientific and medical experiments. I saw many deformed and handicapped individuals. Many that were crazy, many that had been only young warriors, transformed into depraved and deformed creatures. I heard my name cursed daily, but, of course, very few knew my face. I kept to myself, and no one messed with me. But if anyone ever recognized me...I knew they'd kill me. I was the one who had caused their pain. No one can imagine what it is like to live in a hell created by their own hands and see the souls that THEY broke.
Goddess, I wish I'd died before I was born. I wish I'd died that day T'Enki dangled me over the cliff. I wish I'd died during the Oula war, I wish I wish I wish......why hadn't I died?
Why had everything worked out so that the person who would give his life for anyone and had wanted to make the galaxy a better place, the one who would have rather died than lived to see another in pain, why had he grown to be nothing but a curse? Why why why?
I'll never know.
It was years before I even spoke. I had no need to speak. One time, I saw Jiseka moving among the prisoners. I gasped and ran back to my cell, with him and several others staring after me. He, of course, was curious. Perhaps he thought he recognized my retreating form. He chased me, but I managed to hide.
Not long after that, I met up with another old friend.
I was sitting at a table, eating the gruel they fed us in that prison. I looked up as a creature sat down across from me. He was half-thinker, half-machine. I smirked at him, slightly annoyed.
"Hi ho, Ras."
I dropped my bowl and stared at him.
"Heh, yeah, I know your name. How's life?"
I stared at him. How did he know me?
"Who the hell are you?"
"The person who should have let T'Enki kill your sorry ass."
I thought for a moment. My memory was hazy.
"Don't tell me you don't remember me, Ras!" He laughed.
"Don't say my name, please." I said, glancing around nervously.
The cyborg smiled. His blue eyes reflected insanity...familiar....
"NIUK!" I gasped, suddenly remembering. My best friend, practically my brother, sweet, caring Niuk. What the hell had happened to him?
"What...what happened to you?"
Niuk grimaced.
"I don't know, but we're both monsters. Do you know what would happen if I just threw you to that crowd and told them your name? Do you?"
I sighed and nodded.
"Yes, I do. Why don't you do it?"
"Because I want to know why, Ras. Why did you do it?"
I sighed and looked at the table, burying my head in my hands.
"The Andalites captured me, used truth serum stuff. I didn't want it to happen...."
Niuk's eyes softened and he nodded.
"Alright....then....I can't blame you. As always, it's those damn Andalites. I wish they'd all die!"
He slammed his fist on the table. The bowl of food flew into my lap. I peeled it off and nodded.
"Thanks, man, but I don't eat through my belly button anymore." I said, setting the bowl back on the table. He grinned a bit.
"Heh, good, you still have a sense of humor."
I sighed.
"Anyway, I have a plan to escape." Niuk said, leaning forward.
"Meet me tonight. A whole bunch of us are going to make a break for freedom."
I laughed.
"Fool, no one has ever escaped from Onlatra!! We'll be killed!"
Niuk gritted his teeth.
"So?"
I shut up. He was right. What did we have to loose?
"I'm with you." I said.
He grinned and nodded. He stopped and thought for a moment.
"You know, people will want to know who you are. And I doubt anyone will be as understanding as me."
I shrugged.
"Ummmm......Anador Iska."
That was my father's name. I, being the second born (by a few minutes), had inherited my mother's last name, Tila.
Tukash, of course, had been 'Tukash Iska'.
Niuk nodded and patted my shoulder.
"Damn, in the words of the humans, Life Sucks."
I nodded, and stood up.
"I'll see you tonight. Remember, Anador Iska."
He nodded and waved as I went back to my cell. Freedom's light was only hours away.
And I knew that it was a vain hope, and that I would more than likely parish in my attempt. But I had to try.
And maybe I could help. Maybe maybe maybe I could make things right in a way.
That night I waited by the testing facility. This was where the torture of rebels was carried out in the name of science. I heard children crying and men and women screaming. I tried to drown out the sounds as a small group of Hork-Bajir joined me. I studied the faces of the new comers. One was a normal Hork-Bajir female. Niuk, and about fifteen other thinkers. I noticed a child among the group, perhaps ten or eleven. I sighed.
"Glad you could make it, Anador."
I nodded to Niuk.
Niuk turned to the female Hork-Bajir.
Toby, lead show us where the tunnel is."
She nodded. Toby Hamee. Of course. She was a seer, and had been a sort of commander for the normal Hork-Bajir. She should have been dead, though. Normal Hork-Bajir only live for fifteen or so years, where Thinkers can live up to 350 years.
But, somehow, she was as young as ever, and she led us as we tunneled underground. We went right under the Medical facility. The screams above us became so loud I couldn't even think. Niuk looked at my troubled face and sighed. I shook my head.
"Go ahead Niuk. I have to do something." I mumbled, looking up through a vent. I could hear children crying in that room.
He laughed.
"Anador, we're with you. I know what you are thinking. Lets do it."
I smiled and grabbed the vent grating, yanking at it.
"It won't budge." I growled angrily.
"Allow me." He said, grabbing the grating with his mechanical hand. He easily yanked it away.
I, being the smallest adult, shimmied into the room. I was met by several thinker children. They looked up at me, sobbing. They were hungry looking. I began passing them down through the hole to the others. They would slow us down, but we had to do something. I realized that they were hybrids, not thinkers. Half human. It didn't matter to me.
As I passed the last one down to a waiting Hork-Bajir, I met eyes with the one below.
Jiseka.
His eyes went wide as he grabbed the child. I smirked.
"RAS!" he hissed.
"Shut up and take the child. I'm sorry, I have no time to let YOU kill me." I growled, looking back at the door. I could hear the Andalites coming.
"Get going. I'm sorry, Jiseka, I truly am, but you have to trust me."
"I wouldn't trust you with a blunt stick...." he growled.
I shrugged and stood. I moved a table over the hole as the Andalites burst into the room.
They grabbed me and beat me. I don't remember anything after that but darkness.
I haven't seen anything since. I think it is the drugs they inject me with monthly. It keeps me this way.
Not long after that, I was transferred to this very cell. I haven't moved since.
I am dead.
******
Ras stopped.
Meuik looked at him, contemplating him. What was he? Monster or Saint?
No one had the answer.
Not even he had the answer.
Meuik began to speek but was interrupted by Sofor.
< Ah, Meuik, is it story time? >
Meuik turned and gulped.
< Sir! I..I..that is... >
Sofor laughed in her head.
< Ah, but you don't believe this lunatic, do you? Ras likes to tell his wild tales, don't you Ras. >
Ras nodded slowly.
"The truth is a wild tale, eh Sofor?"
Sofor snorted.
< As you can see, Meuik, he is a liar. >
Meuik nodded in fear.
< Y-yes he is. >
Sofor opened the cage and grabbed Ras.
< Anyhow, it is time for his execution. Come, Meuik, I'd like you to watch. It'll be fun. >
Meuik's eyes went wide.
< But...sir... >
"It'll be fun." Ras said, smiling to himself.
< That's an order, Guard. Obey your Prince. >
Meuik sighed.
< Yes sir. >
Meuik helped two other guards and Sofor drag Ras to the execution room. He was tied to a sort of stake. He would be burned alive.
Ras did not try to struggle. Why should he? His life had ended years ago.
< Meuik, do it. Execute this scum. > Sofor hissed.
Meuik sighed and began entering the commands....
"DIE!!!!"
Meuik gasped as a dozen Hork-Bajir thinkers dropped down on the Andalites.
Daroneasa was among them. She grabbed Sofor and killed him. Simple, like she would have scraped a bug from the bottom of her foot.
Ajani, now an adult, grabbed Meuik and held her blade to her throat.
< Don't kill me, please. > Meuik muttered. It was not a plea, just a request.
"Don't worry about it. Just don't move."
The battle was over in seconds. The other two Andalites were in the same predicament as Meuik.
Daroneasa looked up at the platform where Ras was waiting for death.
"Ras...."
He lifted his head.
"Daroneasa?"
Ras heard Daroneasa's gentle footsteps as she climbed the platform. Slow and deliberate. They seemed to match a beat with his own dying heart. Closer and closer, steady and sure, confident. Like Daroneasa herself. Always having a purpose. Always working for her cause, whatever it may be. And now, it was to destroy him.
They stopped. He could feel the warmth of her body, smell the faint but beautiful scent of her long golden hair. He could hear her breathing. She was angry, furious. He could almost see her beautiful blue eyes burning with hate.
Finally, the sound of her rage filled voice reached his ears like a siren's song. Lovely and deadly at the same time, encompassing him in a death grip of loathing and fear and grief.
"You...why? Why did you do it, Ras? For what? What was worth all this pain? What was worth the near annihilation of our species? The lives of my family, my friends. Our friends. Those who loved you. Those who I thought you loved. My only conclusion would be that you are incapable of love. That you don't care about anything but yourself. Why, Ras Tila? Why?"
Ras refused to let himself cry. No, no....not now. Not at the end. Don't be weak, Ras, he thought.
"Dar....dear soul. I know...you ...dear God, I can't answer your question. Because it's mine too. And no one has the answer. I don't know. I never meant to hurt you. I...I..."
"Don't say it. You don't know what love is. You are nothing but an abomination, a monster." Her voice escalated into a furious howl.
"You don't have any idea what pain is! You don't have a heart! You monster! WHY?! Why couldn't you have just died in the war, before you lost your heart?! Why did you live when the good people like your brother, and Heska, and Jiseka, dozens, hundreds, possibly thousands of others died?! All dead, because of you! Because you lack the ability to see the pain of others! Why didn't you just die?! Why did you change? Why Ras? Why couldn't you stay so sweet and shy and have just died quietly like the weakling you are?!"
Each word was like a knife twisting into Ras's already broken heart. Every breath like a poisonous sting to his brain. If only he could see her.
"I know, Daroneasa. I know. I...my death has not been limited to this world. This dimension. I know much about you. Do you, perhaps, remember, when you were 'visiting' the gargoyle universe, a young gargoyle named Adrian?"
Daroneasa gasped. Ras could hear her trembling, and, suddenly she launched herself at him.
"YOU! YOU! YOU HAVE UTTERLY RUINED MY LIFE! MONSTER! DEMON!"
She didn't cut him. Not badly. She wanted to leave him alive to die, alone, cold, and in pain. Like Jiseka had died. Like Heska, Gihash, Tukash, Steel, and his numerous other victims had died.
Ras let her strike. Blood ran into his empty, unseeing eyes, mixing with the tears he could no longer hold back.
Daroneasa backed away, her voice trembling
"There....die...right there. I won't bless you with a quick death. Let the hunger and pain eat at your being like the sadness eats at mine. Let the pain of your wounds drive you insane, like the ones you left in me."
Ras lifted his face to heaven as she walked away.
"I'm sorry."
Daroneasa shuddered and kept walking. She didn't look back.
Maybe it was because she would have had to accept that Ras Tila was not what she'd thought he was.
Maybe it was because he was exactly what she'd thought he was.
Ajani looked up at the killer of Daroneasa's people. Ajani had never been one given to emotions. She was nothing like Daroneasa, despite being her clone. She considered Daroneasa to be weak in her show of emotions, but, then, Ajani had not been through what Daroneasa had been through.
Slowly, Daroneasa's soldiers followed her as she climbed out of the facility.
Meuik noted, quite interested, that they were hybrids. Hork-Bajir thinker and human.
"Morph human or Hork-Bajir and come with us." Ajani ordered in her mellow, cold voice that sounded nothing like Daroneasa's.
Meuik nodded and began her human morph. Weak eyes, strong limbs, practically no sense of smell.
Ajani helped her to walk, as Meuik was unused to only two legs.
And they left. Left Ras there to die of his wounds.
But, he thought as the final footstep faded away, it wasn't the wounds of body, but the wounds of his heart and soul that he would die from.
He hung his head and waited for the end.
Outside, Daroneasa walked ahead of her people. No need to run. They'd disabled the sensors. The Andalites couldn't know they were there.
None of her soldiers dared approach her.
Not Ajani, with her cold deliberate manner. She couldn't feel Daroneasa's pain, and she wouldn't try.
Not Desmond. He didn't know Daroneasa's heart.
Not any of the hybrids.
The poet, Lucis.
The little friend to all, Alex
The warriors, Ender, Diablo, Adia and Talen
The little sister to Daroneasa, Katzi
Her close friend, Esdee
Sweet Alice
weakling Rattie, who was no doubt descended from Ras
The mysterious brothers, Hawk and Blade.... none of them dared.
All knew the truth, though. They knew that the one who had made it possible for them to live, who had saved them from this terrible place, was dying a death that should have been their's back there in that cold dark room.
One dared, though. One with a heart that was so much like Daroneasa's. One who's sight was clearer. One who saw the truth in things.
Erion gently touched her friend's shoulder. Daroneasa bowed her head and turned to her friend.
"What is it?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Sweet soul....before you leave him...I want you to know something. It was not Jiseka who saved us from death. Well, it was, but it was Ras who led him and Niuk and the others. He saved us, so long ago. And, when we reached the end, when the Andalites found us, he stayed and sacrificed his sight and his very life so that most of us lived. I...just wanted you to know that."
Daroneasa's eyes went wide.
"You know in your heart that he is not the evil thing you want to believe he is. Maybe...just maybe...he knows more pain than you. For, if it hurts to be the victim...imagine the remorse and pain of Ras, who was the victimizer. Imagine the guilt. Imagine his heart, rebelling against his very nature, trying to feel, trying to love, and only harming in the process."
Daroneasa reeled inside. Confusion. But yes, Erion was right. Erion knew.
Slowly, Daroneasa began walking back to the door.
"What will you do?"
"What I should have done long ago."
The others watched from the door as she entered the room again.
It was dark. Immediately, Daroneasa knew something had gone wrong.
"Ras?"
No answer. She strained to see that horrible torture wall he'd been chained to.
The shackles were empty.
She bagan to back away, her intuition telling her that she was in danger.
She ran back towards the door, her heart thudding, but tripped over something. Someone.
She looked at her feet. Ras. He was lying in a pool of his own blood, and he barely managed to gasp in pain and surprise as Daroneasa's ankle blade dug into one of his legs.
"Ras! Oh God!"
"Get out..." he whispered hoarsely
"Wha...." She heard something behind her. She turned to look down the barrel of a dracon beam, and, beyond that, a grinning, old Sunyra.
Black.
Daroneasa awoke with a massive headache from the stun gun
She opened her eyes, blinking at the light. Sunyra stood there, smug.
"Morning, sweetheart. Hope those chains aren't too tight."
Daroneasa looked at her arms and legs, chained to the torture wall.
Sunyra laughed maniacally.
"Oh, this is so sweet! Pay back is a bitch, isn't it, Daroneasa?"
"Sunyra! What'd I ever do to you?!"
Sunyra growled.
You and that weakling led the Andalites to my son, that's what. You took him from me, and then that goddamn Niuk killed him. Niuk killed him, and you know it. You were there. You saw him kill my son, and you did nothing."
Daroneasa sighed.
"You think I wanted that?"
"Does it matter? Either way, he's dead, and you are to blame."
Sunyra sneered angrily and walked over to the keyboard.
"Burn in hell, Daroneasa. I'll warm you up..."
"NO!"
Ras hit Sunyra, sending the old Hork-Bajir flying into some nearby electrical equipment.
Sparks flew and Sunyra screamed in pain and let out a final death rattle as Ras collapsed, the very last of his energy spent.
Erion and the others came quickly, alerted by Sunyra's screams.
Daroneasa felt relieved as Diablo and Talen unshackled her, letting her away from that wall of terror where many of her soldiers had more than likely died. Many of her friends.
Erion was at Ras's side, trying to comfort him in his last moments.
Daroneasa approached gently and kneeled next to the man who, without her ever knowing it, had devoted his entire life to serve her.
Daroneasa reached out a shaking hand and touched his scarred face.
"I..." she began, trying to put her emotions into words.
"Don't say anything, please....I know...."
He turned his tear-filled blind eyes to her. So she could see, maybe. Maybe see his soul.
He had no idea why she'd returned. Somehow, though, she'd realized a piece of the truth about him.
"Do you remember that time we danced...when we were children. You asked me why I was so good to you. I told you didn't want the answer. Well...I can't leave this world without answering your question."
Daroneasa hugged him, embraced his weak body, shielding her broken friend with her tears. And Ras felt his failing heart flutter with a last joy that she didn't tremble this time. Her cool tears fell on his broken body, soothing his pain. And Daroneasa saw what she'd never dreamed was possible. She loved Ras just as much as she had loved Jiseka. Possibly more. Fate had made them deadly enemies, through no fault of their own. Just as fate had made Ras a weakling and a killer.
She had wronged him so many times. And yet, he still spoke those words, that his heart had always known since he was a child, when his misery had only just begun.
"I love you."
Daroneasa sobbed, gently touching his narrow shoulder, pulling away.
"Now...please....end it. Please. But...take my necklace. I realize that everyone had one...but...heh, maybe you'd want mine for something."
She nodded and gently unhooked the silver chain which held a triangle, symbolizing the rebellion. On the back, his name was engraved in Hork-Bajir writing.
She held it close to her.
"I'll keep it always."
He smiled gently, and, suddenly, he could see. But he couldn't see through his own eyes. He was above them all, watching his own self die. And, as he finally felt he could stay no longer, as his body died, he said those words to Daroneasa that only she could hear.
"I love you.....and....I'm sorry."
Daroneasa lifted her face to heaven and had a faint sense, that, perhaps, she would see Ras again someday.
And maybe then, they'd get it right. Maybe then, someday far away, they'd be able to love instead of hate.
As she and her small army left, she carrying Ras's body, his words echoed in her head.
"I'm sorry....sorry....sorry..."