Author's notes:
*I know there was a bit of excitement that this chapter would be the "Father and Son" chapter. In fact, I had titled it prematurely- that'll be the next one. Nevertheless, I'm fairly sure you'll find plenty of the developments in this chapter… interesting.
*As I've mentioned before, if the name-switching confuses you, it depends on the speaker, or, in non-dialogue, the perspective a section is from. People who knew Amiti/Myalkni as "Amiti" still think of that as "his name," but he has come to refer to himself as Myalkni, as do Arcanus, Zhungmyen, Latakia… and Rief.
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CHAPTER 19: BETWEEN TIMES, BETWEEN LIVES
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Karis stared down at Zhungmyen's corpse. The former guard was lying in the center of a spreading puddle of blood and water, face-up, mouth hanging open. Her heart was impaled with an icicle. Karis slowly looked up at the black-robed specter standing above the dead woman. Rief did this. It was Rief who did this.
"What have you done?!" Karis cried. "Why?"
"She was a dirty traitor," Rief replied, "and the punishment for treachery is death."
Karis' head was spinning. Where was Rief taking them? Why had he just killed Zhungmyen out of the blue, like there was nothing to it?
"She wasn't a traitor," Karis protested. "She was being held here against her will, just like the rest of us, and you too!"
"I don't think you understand," said Rief, narrowing his eyes.
"What don't I understand?" Karis asked. Did Rief know something she didn't?
"She swore on her life she'd be loyal to the Tuaparang. She broke her vow, and so she had to lose her worthless life!" Rief spat.
Karis stared in shock. Who was this person? She had thought she knew him. "What happened to you, Rief?" she demanded. "Are you really the same person I traveled around the continent with?"
"Yes, I certainly am," he said with a slight smile. "It was quite the experience, I remember everything."
That's exactly how he would say it, Karis thought darkly.
"Aren't you a traitor too, then, if you're with the Tuaparang now? Just months ago, you fought with us against them."
"Back then," Rief answered, "I was in a state of ignorance. I didn't know how things truly were. Since Arcanus stole me away, I-"
"Arcanus kidnapped you?!" Karis exclaimed.
"Yes," Rief said, "in the middle of the night, when I was staying with Kraden in a motel in Ayuthay, he came… he killed a few people and kidnapped me. I fought against him then, but now I'm embarrassed I did. He took me, he saved me, and now I see things differently."
Karis shuddered. What, she thought, did you do to him, Arcanus? "What do you mean, you see things differently?"
"The things the Tuaparang want to do for the world are really wonderful," Rief said, with a sincerity that unnerved Karis. "There will be no more wars between all the quarreling kingdoms, no more rivalries. All the people of this world shall live under one same sky, united in peace…"
"You're insane," spat one of the fugitives. "Your peace is just subjugation, slavery and death!"
"Shut your mouth!" Rief bellowed, as he pointed his rod incriminatingly at the woman. He summoned forth a needle-sharp shard of ice, and launched it at her with a flick of his wrist. It buried itself into her chest, and she collapsed to the ground with a moan of pain. "Keep it shut forever."
The fugitives stared in horror.
"I don't demand that you all see things as I do," Rief said, "but I know I must not let you escape alive, for the sake of my Emperor's dream."
"You don't really think you could kill us all without us finishing you too, do you?" another fugitive taunted bravely.
"We'll see about that," Rief shot back.
And with that, he made a magnificent sweeping motion with his arm. Ice shards materialized in the air, and flew into the rock formations below the path, creating cracks in the stone. The shards then quickly melted, leaving the cracks empty, and the foundations of the path began to collapse.
Chaos ensued on the pathway above, as the sides of the stone bridge fell into the lava, taking anyone who was standing there with. A panic descended upon the party. There was only so much safe land, and there was no longer space for every person. Having just fought alongside each other, they now pushed and shoved each other into the lava in order to a safe spot for themselves. Others who couldn't make it tried desperately to grab onto rocks on the edge, and hung perilously above the lava. It wasn't long until these rocks too fell in, taking screaming refugees with them. At the back of the line, some of the refugees turned tail and fled back along the path from where they came.
And yet, in spite of all this, no one pushed or shoved Karis. They knew that she was key to their survival. As the sides of the path fell in, they helped each other to move her to the middle of the path, determined to keep her alive, if not themselves.
When the avalanche had finished, the path was much thinner than before, and the numbers of the fugitives had decreased significantly. The ones who remained stared silently at the scene. The previous air of defiance was gone, replaced by sheer survival instinct.
"I think the numerical difference is a lot more manageable now, wouldn't you all agree?" Rief said. "You all have two choices- return, pledge your loyalty to the Tuaparang and beg forgiveness, or die like your comrades."
-~:|~~|:-:|~~|:~-
Myalkni stared at the ledge in front of him. Their path was interrupted by a gap, and they'd need to jump to the ledge on the other side to carry on. It was a pretty far leap, and if he missed his landing, the lava pit below was waiting for him.
Tyrell made a running jump and landed cleanly on the other side. As apprehensive as he was about the jump, Myalkni couldn't bear the thought of Tyrell knowing that he was afraid of such things, after all he'd been through. It was pretty pathetic, he thought. After travelling across Angara, fighting shadow monsters, ending the eclipse, being captured by Arcanus and tortured by Latakia and finally breaking free, he was still afraid of a jump like this. What a pathetic, pampered prince he was.
Tyrell was looking back at him, beckoning him forward. "Come on, you can make it," he called. "We gotta hurry!"
Myalkni didn't wait another second. He hastily leapt off the edge, without taking time to run up. Only after his feet left the ground did he realize how foolish that was.
He barely made it to the other side. His feet landed on the very edge of the cliff, and, in the process, his right ankle twisted. As he swung his arms, trying to balance himself, the stone beneath his left foot fell into the lava, leaving him with only his sprained right foot to stand on. His heart racing, he frantically struggled to get back his footing, but fell backward in the process.
Just then, Tyrell rushed forward and grabbed Myalkni around the chest, saving him from falling into the lava.
Myalkni's breathing slowly returned to normal. Tyrell's arms felt very comfortable, and oddly safe to him. He realized that he had spent much of his life yearning for that feeling. He'd always yearned for the feeling that even if the world was all out for his head, he could still feel safe because someone's arms were surrounding him, protecting him. That he wasn't facing the world alone. As a child, he had rarely ever gotten that, he remembered. He supposed that, as Arcanus would say, the feeling was a worthless illusion, so he wasn't really missing out on much. Tyrell's arms might be able to save him from falling into the lava, but they alone couldn't do much else. They couldn't save him from the whole world.
Still, even if it's an illusion, he thought, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's worthless, he silently argued back at his father. It still makes me feel better, and that's worth something isn't it? It made him feel less afraid of the world. And his paranoia, fearing the world suddenly turning on him… that wasn't just a symptom of his problems, it was also a cause, he thought. It embodied the pathetic, pampered prince he was.
"Thanks for saving me, Tyrell," he said aloud.
"Don't mention it," Tyrell mumbled back.
"Sorry that I'm being a burden even when I'm supposed to be the one freeing you right now," Myalkni said with a sad laugh. "When I'm supposed to be making up for what I did before."
"Don't sweat it," Tyrell said. "It's great that we've made it this far. Let's get out of here."
"I just… felt the need to apologize anyway," Myalkni said quickly.
"You're not only doing this for me," Tyrell said. "You're doing it for yourself too. You're freeing yourself too."
Yes, I'm trying to free myself from the prospect of living with myself after all the crap that I've done, thinking I can make up for it like this, Myalkni thought. Even the act of trying to rectify how I selfishly wronged you before is, in essence, selfish.
But as he thought about it, Myalkni saw that Tyrell was right in a number of senses. After all, he too was escaping from this cave, but it went beyond that. He thought of Latakia. If he had stayed, he probably would've ended up as something like her, and he was freeing himself from that. He was also freeing himself from the prison of helplessness that had encaged his own mind, he thought.
Before, Myalkni thought, I was an automaton on the outside. I did exactly as they told me. My identity survived, but it was submerged, trapped beneath the surface. I was unable to have any control over my actions. My existence- my identity- lived on, but it wasn't fully living. I could only watch as I was forced to do things… If that was 'living death', as I called it back then, now perhaps I am freeing myself so I can go back to, well, 'life.'
-~:|~~|:-:|~~|:~-
"Everyone, stay where you are!" growled Karis. And everyone halted. Even in this chaos, I still command respect among them, she thought, amazed.
She turned to face Rief. "Please Rief, harm only me. It was I who persuaded them to try to escape and led them the whole way."
"Yet they followed you of their own free will."
"Rief, wouldn't it serve your purposes better to not pointlessly slaughter them just for punishment? After all, they are the Tuaparang's workforce," Karis reasoned.
"I never intended to do any such thing as merely slaughtering them for punishment," Rief countered. "You falsely accuse me."
Karis ignored him. "So fight only me," she continued. "If you win, all the prisoners must go back, but if you lose, you must let us all go."
It would be better that way, she thought. In addition to being the responsible thing to do for the prisoners, it would actually make it easier for her to fight Rief if she didn't have to worry about protecting them. And then, she thought, she had a decent chance of winning. He was at most her equal.
Rief paused for a minute. Tension pervaded the air, and the fugitives whispered anxiously to one another. Karis fingered her arrows as she waited, but was careful not to appear to be preparing a preemptive attack.
At last, Rief spoke. "I accept your terms," he declared, and readied his staff.
-~:|~~|:-:|~~|:~-
At last, he had found them. That red-headed oaf, son of Garet, was across the ledge, and his own son was making the jump to join him. But for some reason, his stupid fool of a son didn't run up before he made the jump. Myalkni barely cleared it. Then, the edges began to crumble, and he almost fell in, but Garet's son rescued him, scooping him up into his arms. Then they proceeded to embrace for an unnecessarily long time. Inexplicable. Weren't they trying to escape? These fools really stood no chance in the world, Arcanus remarked to himself.
Hadn't he seen this before? He had the feeling that he certainly had. Arcanus wracked his brain, trying to find what it was that this was reminding him of. Then he found it.
For a moment, Arcanus was back in the Jupiter Lighthouse. Mia had fallen off a ledge and Garet rescued her by grabbing her arm. Garet had hauled her up, and held her tightly in his arms afterward. Her blue locks fell over his arms, and Garet's stupid ginger face sat atop her head. Arcanus remembered feeling inexplicably bothered.
He felt the same way this time. Myalkni's hair wasn't quite long enough to reach where Tyrell's arms were. That was good, somehow. But Tyrell's ginger face still sat obnoxiously upon Myalkni's head.
The scene before him now was really quite different from the one at the lighthouse, and yet at the same time they looked profoundly similar. And they bothered him the same way. Tyrell really was the same sort of stupid oaf as his father, Arcanus thought. They both thought no place was complete without them inflicting their buffoonery on it. And they spread their buffoonery to other people too.
And then there was Myalkni. Despite being his own son, the boy could be such a stupid fool, despaired Arcanus. Surely he had inherited this from his silly mother's side. What a shame. If only it was possible to simply clone myself, Arcanus mused. The boy just had no idea what was good for him. Arcanus had such grand plans for Myalkni, but the stupid fool was trying to run off with this dumb oaf instead.
If Tyrell was like Garet, then Arcanus had to concede that Myalkni was also somewhat like Mia. His temperament was markedly different from hers, but Arcanus knew that at his core, despite his cynicism, the boy was the same sort of idealistic fool she was.
Arcanus was using his Cloak Psynergy, so they couldn't see him. He could choose to strike whenever he wished. He quickly jumped across the gap, not making a sound. They would never make it out, Arcanus would make sure of that. For his goals, he knew they mustn't escape. That was what was bothering him, he decided, not some supposed similarity to what had happened at the lighthouse. It was a pragmatic and completely reasonable feeling, not anything like the irrational nonsense that he knew plagued the minds of, say, Myalkni, or Mia for that matter. Myalkni needed to be returned to his side, and Tyrell would have to be punished. A gruesome, horrible punishment was probably necessary for the Tuaparang's purposes, to deter future prison breaks, Arcanus resolved. The green haired girl would probably have to be punished too.
-~:|~~|:-:|~~|:~-
"We should probably get going now, right?" said Amiti.
"Are you okay from your fall?" Tyrell asked, before releasing him. Tyrell had been thinking that for awhile, that they should be moving, but in truth he didn't want to let Amiti go, as if he could still fall into the lava or something.
"Well, my ankle's sprained I think, or something… but it's nothing I can't heal," answered Amiti, before proceeding to heal it. "It'll still feel awkward, but I'll be able to walk and run fine, really…"
"Let's get going, then," Tyrell said. The two began walking briskly.
After awhile, Amiti spoke. "No," he said, as if he was thinking aloud, answering a question he had posed to himself. "Instead of 'sorry,' I should really be saying 'thank you'."
"I know this sounds terribly corny," Amiti continued, "but thank you from the bottom of my heart."
It did sound corny. But it sounded sincere too. "You're welcome," Tyrell replied, "from the bottom of my heart."
Both of them laughed. Tyrell really liked the look of Amiti's face when he was laughing, he realized.
"Thank you for coming and saving me," Amiti said. "Honestly, if it weren't for you, I might have ended as some… thing like Latakia. I was really pathetic, you know. I really needed you."
Tyrell nodded. I'm so glad, he thought, that things are working out now. He just wished Amiti would stop hating himself. He could save Amiti from cliffs and maybe the Tuaparang, but he knew he'd never really be able to save Amiti from himself. Only Amiti could do that. Still, he was surprised and almost grateful that they'd managed to get this far.
It's really too early to celebrate though, Tyrell cautioned himself silently.
"We're not out yet," he murmured aloud.
"I know," Amiti said. "That's why I needed to tell you… in case we don't make it out."
"Oh come on," Tyrell said with a smile, "we're not out, but don't bet on us failing. It won't be long now, I-"
Tyrell was cut off by a dark voice emanating from in front of them.
"Oh, yes, it will be quite long," the voice said. "You aren't going anywhere. You'll never leave this place without my permission."
And with that, Arcanus materialized out of thin air in front of them.
Tyrell clenched his fists.
"A cloaking psynergy," gasped Amiti.
"That's right," Arcanus said, "my son."
Amiti winced.
"Long time no see, son of Garet," Arcanus said. "Too bad for you two, but I think your little boyish adventure will have to come to an abrupt end at once. You have two choices: surrender, or suffer."
-~:|~~|:-:|~~|:~-
Next Chapter: Father and Son
Author's notes:
*Please review! It'll make my day :).
*After a long hiatus, there is once again a new poll. Go to my userpage to vote for your favorite character… After you review, hopefully :).