Chapter 10
A broken reflection
Continuing with their truce, the explorers made their camp all the way at the front of the Rainbow Canyon. They chose not to stay so close to the unsealed entry of Rhamastan, lest they be suddenly visited by some unwelcome surprise as they slept. The air was warm and misty and the sky starless and overcast; it was bound to rain soon.
After the tents were pitched and the campfires started, the first thing Bagheera did was flip through the burial tome found at Rhama's throne. Eagerly he devoured page after page, the account being told of the king's life, Sargon, the war, and the building of Rhamastan. Later in the night he discussed all bits of gathered observations with Tyler and Myra, collected what Kit had to say about his journey, and thereafter opened his journal, ripped out and crumbled several previous entries, and began anew to describe the events leading to their discovery:
I turn the eye of my mind to the distant past, and I have reconstructed the end of the Felocian kingdom.
Five thousand years ago, King Rhama of Felocia mined and ravaged the mystical and lustrous resources of his ancestor's hallowed tombs to bring about his dark vision of paradise on earth. He planned a new capital, a vast underground stronghold christened in his own name.
The caverns were saturated in the abundance of the legendary firestone, and those subject to prolonged exposure of its strange energy were gifted with longevity... and cursed with weakness and infertility. Over time it drained them of their very life, yet those who fell under its glare would be forever preserved in a shell of their former selves.
With the kingdom's population fading, and the prospect of Rhamastan never being completed, Rhama commenced an unprecedented stunt. He sailed an army across the sea and plundered the world power of the age, Aridia, thus ending generations of peace between the two nations. Whether this was a gamble to bolster his waning empire or an act of suicide, the reasons have past away with him.
The war was swiftly brought back to Felocia, though the Aridians were ill-prepared to persevere in the jungle, contending with the beasts and storms. They had no desire for the land, only Rhama's head and the return of their wealth.
The first massive wave of Aridian soldiers aimed for the capital city of Sin Rha'Amakha, garrisoned by the Gatekeeper Zul Rhakeith, engineer and architect of Rhamastan's defenses, who was recently deceased and buried in a tomb under the citadel's temple. With no hope of victory, Rhama evoked a last-resort defense mechanism that channeled magma from a nearby volcano through the valley and into the city. The magma was incited by firestone fed into it. The result was catastrophic explosion that brought down the surrounding cliffs. The sprawling citadel was buried in mere moments, and none in its walls were left alive.
The Aridians, in all their great strength, finally fathomed what brutal cunning they faced.
From there, the war swept across the smaller cities and villages and was fought and finished at the gates of Rhamastan, without the two armies ever meeting. Five years passed. The Aridians sieged Rhamastan and worked tirelessly to gain entry. When at last they did, burrowing a tunnel under the gate, they found their enemy already slain. When they realized what had killed them, they hastily retreated, taking great measure to fill the tunnel and seal the gate behind them to ensure they would not be followed.
For during the siege the Felocians had rebelled against the king and killed him, and as a last effort to save themselves from the Aridians, they chose to traverse the darkest depths the Ancient Cave, and take their chances in finding a way out. Their decision was to take the firestone as an explosive and destroy a great iron wall that would take them to depths of the earth untold; a wall constructed in a time that was ancient to them, known only to them as being forbidden to cross, having kept behind its bounds Felocia's best kept secret...
An ink blot soaked onto the page as Bagheera thought. He then continued writing:
Sargon. The dragon god of their age-old mythology awaited them. He and his brood were unleashed and satiated their hunger against the Felocians. The soldiers slew many of them, in a valiant effort possibly drove the beasts to the brink of extinction, but in the end were overwhelmed; the dragon patriarch and at least one other survived, and there, in the caverns, they have slumbered for these five thousand years, waiting for the next band of fools to trespass their lair.
Today his companion was slain, and he has made his intent of revenge known. We do not know where he came from. We do not know how he has lived. We only know that Sargon was no myth. He is not dead. He is alive and well, of flesh and blood...
And fire.
Their camp was four tents around a fire, on top of a leaf-carpeted knoll walled in by giant kapok trees. Many inquisitive eyes shined from the branches and bushes, watching and listening to the strangers study and talk about the golden relics they had recovered.
Tyler and Myra sat together on a log between their tents, by coincidence at first; while putting up their tents, after all the ropes tightened, flaps smoothed, and stakes secured in the ground, they merely sat down for a rest at the same time. Shy smiles and awkward glances eventually led to giggles and small-talk.
Karnage sat immobilized on the edge of the camp against one of the trees, wrapped in rope from boots to shoulders, under the watch of Richter. Kit had not felt comfortable joining them around the fire, and did not want to be seen as much as looking at Karnage; he reclused himself inside of Tyler's tent and fell asleep long before the others.
Bagheera reclined by the fire with a radio and turned the knob back and forth to find anything but static. On a curious thought, he asked Myra for the king's shining amulet. When he held it next to the radio, there was not static but screeching. "Ha, there! There's what's been causing the interference. The more firestone we've been standing over, the worst it's gotten."
"Leaves you to wonder just how big those caverns are," said Tyler. "Some food for thought: the Felocians believed Seren imprisoned Sargon, could that have been literally? Seren, the earth, from deep down where who knows what's there, had the dragons trapped."
"You don't suppose it could get out somehow," said Myra.
"Barring any more the smaller ones, I think that's at least one thing we won't have to worry about," replied Bagheera. "It'd need to find itself an awful big hole in the ground to squirm from."
"Right," agreed Myra, but then she blinked. "Is the volcano big enough?" Seeing as she made Tyler and Bagheera share a startled glance, she changed the subject. "I'm sorry, maybe we shouldn't think about that tonight. I hope we can go back in soon. Just imagine, an exhibit featuring king Rhama himself sitting in his own throne."
"The throne's gone, by the way," said Richter, swigging a steaming metal mug of coffee in the shadows. "Dragon breathed on it."
"G-gone?" sputtered Bagheera. "How is it gone?"
"Incenderous quartz doesn't like fire. When I tried to put some distance between the dragon and me, it shot a flame, hit the throne... all that light blew up like dynamite right under its face, dazed the bastard long enough for me to make a run for it."
"Oh, no," Myra frowned. "The crystals are all over the place... with that thing running loose and spitting fire on anything it wants, everything could all be lost!"
"We won't let that happen," said Tyler. Then all eyes were on him, waiting for him to announce an idea. He wanted to shrink away. "I don't know how, I was just throwing in my vote of confidence."
Richter took another swig of coffee, breathing the steam through his nose. "You know, when animals attack, they just lunge at you. That white dragon was something else. It stood right there in front of me, could've tried to tear me up first thing, but it didn't. It just stood over me for a minute... looked at me. Studied me. Like it was trying to figure me out, what I was, or why I was there. It wasn't a soulless machine running on instinct... you could just see it in its eyes. It wasn't hungry, it wasn't scared... just a thoughtful killer. When I realized that, I could've sworn I felt ice in my veins."
"I thought it was strange how it singled out the pirate," said Bagheera. "It sniffed like it smelled something on him it didn't like. I don't recall it even looking at the rest of us."
"We've got our work cut out for us to see any of that treasure again," Tyler said, holding the dragon figurine he had found. "I'll never look at any of these artifacts in the same way."
A silent moment past in contemplation of their dilemma, and at length Richter spoke again: "I'm gonna level with you guys, because there's nothing secret about it. Shere Khan's got an entire fleet of cargo zeps ready to strip this place bare, just waiting for me to give the word. You should probably consider that before you start making plans."
"Now see here," said Bagheera. "We've a stake in this, too. Oxfurry, Aridia, Cape Suzette... and Alpacatan's obviously going to want in. You think you're just going to whisk this all away from under everyone's nose?"
"No, I think Khan's going to send diplomats to sweet-talk the Alpacatan generals, and then his fleet is going to whisk everything away, and I'm going sit back and enjoy my share."
"What was your share?" Bagheera asked.
"Khan mostly wants the rocks, I wanted the gold," smirked Richter. "Simple arrangement."
"All of it? Absurd!"
"Don't look at me like a bandit, you were all looking to fill your pockets more than your museums," said Richter. "You had your chance to sign up, but you thought you had some principle to uphold. You take it as some sort of life-fulfilling mission, to me it's a fun way to make a buck. If it makes you sleep better, take what you got already in those sacks, but what's left in there is spoken for."
Bagheera scooted around to turn his back on him. "You and Khan are not taking Rhamastan."
"Well, I'll tell you what," said Richter. "I'm not stopping you, and we all know where it's at now. All you need to do is clean it out first." Richter raised his mug in a mock salute. "Good luck."
Kit awoke in the late hours of the night, Tyler curled in a sleeping bag next to him, and though all the others were asleep, there was no peaceful quiet, for rain and thunder had come in unrelenting droves. He pulled away the flap of the tent and peered outside. The campfire was long drowned, and on its other side Don Karnage was left out alone in binds, miserable as he had ever been in his life.
Tyler had left an oil lantern lit at his side, which Kit used to find a utility knife among his belongings. Before stepping out of the tent, he took a deep breath as if he was about to take a plunge into the ocean... considering how much it was raining, he was certainly going to get just as wet. He was thinking of what he was about to do, not knowing if someone would see him or not, and how it would not matter even if they did, for in either success or failure of this task he would be branded a criminal.
Lantern and knife in hand, he made his move. The clamor of the rain kept the splashing of his feet running through the mud silent.
Karnage's eyes were heavy and bloodshot. In his misery he had not rested, and it took him a moment to realize had knelt beside him and started working on the rope. Every moment spent in the downpour, he hardly thought of anything but how the boy was home free and no longer needed his help to get home. It worried him sick to his stomach, as hour after hour passed and it had seemed Kit made his choice; but when the boy was there at last, the burst of delightful pride he felt renewed his spirit.
There was no need to admit any of that, though. "It is about time," he snarled.
"Yeah, yeah. You're welcome." Kit slid the knife between the rope and Karnage's arm and started sawing away.
"Helping me go free... they will know it was you," smirked Karnage... but he was startled when Kit suddenly ceased cutting the rope to think it over. "That does not mean you have to stop!"
"Forget 'em," said Kit. With one strong pull of the knife, the rope broke apart and unraveled. "We're in this mess together. At least, you're the one who got us into it, you might as well be the one to get us out."
"Ha! Not bad at being bad, my boy." Karnage had not even waited for all the feeling to come back to his fingertips before he held out his hand. "Now, give me that knife!"
Kit tilted his head in grave suspicion. It seemed to him that Karnage had just grown two little red horns on his head. "What... for?"
"Hurry!" Karnage grabbed Kit's wrist until the knife fell into his hand. The blade was only a couple inches, but it would do nicely.
"Hey! What are you gonna do? Let's just get out of here!"
Karnage shushed him. "No! We came here for treasure! Don't you know the first rule for any treasure-plundering pirate? Never go back without it!"
"Since when is there a pirate treasure-hunting rule book?"
Karnage shrugged and gave Kit the rope to carry. "So I make it up as I go along, big deal. Follow me!"
"This is gonna be ba-ad," Kit muttered, though he followed anyway. He had been with Karnage on enough schemes back in the day to know there was a point where talking him out of something was a waste of breath, and the fiendish grin on the captain's face meant this was one of those times.
Karnage went straight for Bagheera's tent, where he had seen the sacks of valuables taken in for the night. The panther was sound asleep, cheek on pillow. Karnage rubbed his hands together like a child about to go on a shopping spree in Toyland. The two duffle bags there were bumpy with all sorts of golden goods.
"You start on the feet, yes-no?" Karnage said to Kit, pointing to the rope.
"But why?" whispered Kit. "He prob'ly won't even hear us!"
"Don't be such a soiled sort," replied Karnage.
That one took a moment to register. "Spoiled sport...?"
"That too," said Karnage. "When he does wake up, you want him to run out and tell everyone, or do you want to get a start on your head?"
Karnage picked up one of the duffle bags, and the rattling did wake Bagheera, gasping in the middle of a snore. Karnage was quick to put his hand over the panther's mouth, showing him the knife with the other. Bagheera needed no instruction to stay still and quiet.
Kit gulped. "Now what?"
When Bagheera noticed Kit, it suddenly became clear how he came to be held at knifepoint, and his fur bristled with indignation. "Lad, how could you?" he fumed. "Richter was right all along!"
Karnage snickered with glee. "Señior Baggy-pants, would you be so kind as to show the boy your hands?"
With little choice, Bagheera complied, vowing under his breath that the two would never get away with this. Kit began tying his wrists together and shrugged. "Sorry! I really didn't want this to happen."
"Sorry," huffed Bagheera. "You're sorry? You'll be sorry when you're locked up in ― mmph!"
"There, chew on that," said Karnage, stuffing a handkerchief in Bagheera's mouth. Kit and Karnage worked quickly to tie his arms and feet, and bound everything to the poles of his tent, so that when he did finally try to squirm free, everything would collapse.
"Now then," Karnage said, "We need a number. A simple, roundish number, easy to remember." He glowered at Bagheera viciously, holding the knife under his nose. "Like ten thousand. Start counting backwards. You miss a number, and it's all over, h'okey-dokey?"
Bagheera swallowed hard, and through muffled tongue, began counting, "Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine..." While he was busy with that, Karnage handed Kit one of the loot-filled sacks, took one himself, and they stole out the tent.
About ten seconds past. Bagheera wasted no time in trying to wriggle free, and managed to spit the cloth from his mouth. Just then, Karnage poked his head back in the tent. "I hope I do not hear the sound of no counting! From the top, please."
Bagheera groaned lengthily and started over. "Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine..."
Karnage led the way with a lantern, though they truly had no sense of where they were going. Trudging through the jungle again was sickeningly familiar, but this time the sack of gold relics he had hoisted on his shoulder made it seem not so bad. Behind him, Kit had not stopped complaining about what they had just done, and drug his share of the load at his side, having to use much more effort to carry it along than his companion.
"That's not why I helped you get away," Kit said. "You just couldn't get out of there without doin' something like that."
Karnage rolled his eyes. At that point he had silently weathered the boy's grumbling for quite awhile, and finally turned to stop him. "Look in your bag," he said.
"Why? I know what's in here."
"You know, but you don't know," said Karnage. "Do it!"
Kit scowled and stretched open the top of the duffle bag. "So, it's a bunch of... gold stuff." His voice softened. "Really shiny, expensive gold stuff."
"And it is yours, just what you wanted. So do me one favor, will you?"
It was a bit hard for Kit to take his eyes away from adoring the loot to look up. "What?"
"Shut up!" yelled Karnage.
Kit nearly fell over backwards. He did stop complaining as they moved along... but only out loud.
Soon the light of dawn came, struggling to shine though the breaks in the clouds. The rain had eased, but only so much that it was not pouring in sheets.
They approached a great ravine, one that they had seen once before in a different area. As they looked over its edge, they held it contemptuous regard, more so than the time they had tried to cross it three days prior. This time, the powerful river at its bottom was swollen to new heights, and ever so much faster. Tall, white-capped waves crashed against each other in mass chaos.
"That's gotta be the river Rupo was talking about," Kit said. "We don't have to cross it, though. If we follow it downstream, we'll hit the coast. We'll find some towns there."
They traveled along the edge of the ravine, following the river, and soon their path was blocked by a smaller river that jetted over the cliff in a waterfall. It was narrow and shallow, perhaps a stream that had been greatly strengthened by the storm, but it was very swift.
Karnage stepped into it first, the water up to his knees at most, not thinking much of it until he almost lost his footing. The ground was made in uneven stones, covered in moss. He stepped slowly and carefully, and saw that Kit was about to be past his waist in the water. "Give me your hand, boy. Take my arm."
"I don't need you to hold my hand," snapped Kit.
"Then give me your bag, you belly-aching baboon! If you fall, why lose the treasure?"
Kit stubbed his toe on a stone and nearly lost his balance. He stuck his tongue out in reply to Karnage's 'I told you so' smirk, but gave him the bag he carried, glad at least to be relieved of its burden for a moment.
"I got this," the cub said; one step further and the swift water was up to his chest. "Let's go ― whoops!" Kit missed a step over a rock. Karnage had barely noticed the splash behind him, saw but in a flash Kit's arms swinging out from the water to grab hold of anything. In a blink, Kit was gone. His cry was heard only faintly as he plummeted into the river.
"Boy!" hollered Karnage. He had just made it to the other side with both bags of loot. An unwelcome choice suddenly demanded his decision, where he had plenty of gold in his hands, and he was certain he would make it back to Pirate Island; or, he could jump into a river, and a deadly one at that. Those facts being as they were, it made him boiling mad to consider what he was going to do. "Oooh, that whelp is going to pay for this!"
He ditched the bags of treasure and dove, head-first and skillfully, into the icy and raging river below.
Over the huge crests, Karnage could barely see Kit, catching only a glimpse of him flailing every few seconds. He also saw that the river was about to bend against a piled mountain of broken and jagged boulders. Karnage swam with all his might, trying to catch up with him before the rocks came, but the distance between them was great. When he last looked ahead, he saw Kit slam into the rocks and disappear below the surface.
Karnage braced himself for the impact, clasped onto one of the rocks with both arms just before his face collided with it, then dangled against the current by holding tight to the rocks with one hand, and with the other he swiped several times underneath to find Kit. His claws barely hooked on to the boy's sweater, and he was able to yank him back up.
Karnage held Kit's head up over his chest while backstroking until the walls of the ravine finally gave way to a shoreline. He crawled onto the river bank, his hands and knees digging deeply into the soft, muddy silt, and pushed Kit away angrily.
"You have the brains of a toe blister!" he yelled, in between coughs. "Not one minu-ette ago, I had a fortune in my hands! Now look! Give me one good reason why I should not break your behindular quarters with my boot!"
He realized not only was Kit not talking back, he was not as much as coughing. He was face-down in the mud and not moving.
"Boy...?" Karnage poked him on the arm, then once more, much harder. There was no response. "Boy?"
He rolled Kit on his back, saw his forehead was scraped and bleeding, and his lips were pale blue; he was not breathing. Karnage shouted at him and tapped him on the cheek; when that didn't work, he grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "No, no you don't! Wake up! Boy! You wake up now!"
Nothing was working. Quickly Karnage stacked the heels of his hands over Kit's chest and pushed. "Breathe you stubborn bullheaded bear," he grunted. "You hear me? Wake up so I can make you wish you were dead!" He gave several rapid thrusts until his arms were tired and sore; he slowed, and eventually stopped. Kit lay still, yielding no response.
Fiercely, Karnage pushed on Kit's chest three more times, then slammed his fist hard into the mud. "Well good for you! Come this far, and there you go! Just like you, boy, always...!" His voice trailed off. "... always running away."
Karnage flopped on his backside, slouched over by the weight of defeat, his head bowed low. He squeezed Kit's arm, and spoke softly, under rolling thunder. "You just give up everything you would be..."
And then, his heart grew warm, rekindled in the thoughts of what he once regarded of the boy as the street rat taken under his wing with the potential to be one of the greatest of pirates, his own protege, and the only one to ever look up to him.
Under the rain, the numbing chill, the roar of the river, the endless maze of trees... a smoldering anger flickered in Karnage's eyes, yearning for the entire cursed jungle to be smote to ashes and spat upon. Until that happened, he was not about to let the jungle win.
"I won't let you," Karnage said, hoarsely. He slouched closer to Kit's ear, the rain streaming from his chin. "Listen to me, Kit Cloudkicker, you have pirate in your heart, like me! I know what it is! We are pirates because we say nothing will rob us of our freedom, nothing will stand in the way of what we want, and we live to laugh at the world when it tries to stand in our way! They cannot kill us because we refuse to die!"
Once more, Karnage put both hands over Kit's chest and pushed again and again. "You better start refusing!" he shouted. From the corner of his eye he thought he might have saw the boy's finger twitch, though it could have been the splatter of the rain in the mud. He cursed and yelled at Kit further, ordering him to come to.
At last Kit suddenly coughed, spit out water, and began gasping. Just as soon, Karnage collapsed wearily on his side, and he breathed a little easier himself, having felt a crushing burden lifted from his shoulders. "Boy? Can you hear me? So I can yell at you now?"
There was no reply. Kit stirred woozily as the color came back to his face. His eyes were glazed and he began shivering. Karnage tried to sit him up, but the boy just was not waking. The blood on his brow swept past his ears and trickled down his cheek.
A lightning bolt flashed bright overhead with a blasting crack of thunder. Shelter was a must, anything to get out of the rain. "H'okay we do it this way, then..." Karnage wiped away the water soaked to his cheeks, took Kit in his arms, and staggered down the brink of the mighty river.
Around eight o'clock that morning, coming down a shallow slope of land where the trees had begun to thin out, Don Karnage finally saw the dark gray of the stormy sea low in the horizon. The leggings of his britches were blackened in mud because he had he had stumbled to his knees several times. Cramps in his back and arms grew terrible, though he was driven not to stop until he reached some bastion of civilization; he carried Kit over his right shoulder, as he had been since pulling the boy from the river.
He found a rugged path cut through the foliage that brought him to an old, abandoned estate; it sat on a clearing on a rocky plateau overlooking a small town near the beach. It was once a mansion, but only a burned skeleton of its framework was left to imagine its former splendor, now only a sullen memory lost in tall grass and unkempt overgrowth.
There was a wooden storeroom close to it, and it had been spared being consumed by flame. Its door was open and Karnage was not slow to get inside; if anything good about it, it was at last a reprise from the rain.
Kit began to move, groaning quietly.
"Almost there," panted Karnage, making a final sprint through the door.
A startled flock of birds flew over his head as he plodded inside. The roof leaked, the floor creaked and was flooded to his ankles, yet it was still more of a comfort than standing under the bare elements. The room was dark and laden with cobwebs. It had been emptied long ago, but a few items remained left behind; nothing significant, a box of salt and flower here and there, some gardening tools, and an old tattered stack of hay. A discarded bureau mirror leaned against the corner, cracked from end to end in several places.
Karnage went to set Kit down on the hay as a makeshift bed, and suddenly noticed that Kit was absently clinging to him, with his arms wrapped warmly around his neck. It stunned him for a moment, realizing Kit was hugging him, but over how miserable he felt, it made him blush a little, and smile just a bit. It was the way it should have always been, he thought, what he had wanted, to be the boy's hero, everything his protege loved and admired.
Kit squeezed him tighter, nuzzling his shoulder. Groggily, he whispered, "Baloo?"
Karnage was stung; he recoiled as if a dagger had been plunged into his chest and he nearly fumbled Kit to the floor.
Kit slowly opened his eyes, though just a little. "What happened?"
"Just... rest," said Karnage; he laid him on the stack of hay and gestures for him to be quiet. While Kit lay still, Karnage sat near his feet, with his back turned to him. He blinked a lot, head bent above his knees, like he had the wind knocked out of him and he never knew what had hit him. He kept hearing the same thing echo in his mind: '...Baloo?'
As it all settled in, he grew angry. His thoughts were clouded in dark and grave promises for the next time he ever saw that loser of a pilot. As the moments passed, he could not think of anything else... not just the name, but how Kit had said it, so longingly. He could not grasp it, the absurdity, why of all people to look up to that fat gray bear... why it was not him.
He caught his reflection in the old mirror in the corner, fractured in a web of many cracks. He straightened his ripped and threadbare coat, took a deep breath, and tried to shrug off the moment before, thinking of who he was, the infamous pirate captain, a legend who had far more important matters to concern himself with than to be jealous of childish affection.
He leaned in close to the mirror to smooth the fur on his face, but there was the whisper of Kit's voice again, and he happened to look into the eyes of the ruthless pirate who once tried so direly to end the boy's life for being a traitor... he remembered the anger he seethed over with when that pilot Baloo sprang from out of nowhere and saved the boy's life... the audacity he felt that anyone would try so hard to save a worthless backstabber... the audacity that anyone could love the boy enough to do so.
For once, Karnage had to look away from the mirror. A pang of guilt sank sickly into his gut. For everything he had ever gained, ill-gotten or not, he realized then what he had thrown away.
