Rise of the Mare (Fall of Man Book 2) (10 page)

“Nito, my princess, I ask you one
last time. What say you about these accusations.”

My eyes made contact with Nito and I
a glimmer of fear, but she stood straight and confident, as if she
didn’t fear the consequences of her actions. Why should she?

“I deny them.”

“Very well. Counsel!” the king
bellowed. From a door behind where the throne sat emerged four
Sybaris males. They were older, all wearing ceremonial robes, and
none had hair. They stood behind the king, two on each side of
him.

“This is absurd,” Nito stated. “I am
being treated like a criminal.”

“The testimony shall determine.”

I was prepared to tell my
story. What I was
not
prepared for was for the king to place his hand on my
head. The moment he did, it felt as if icy fingers struck into my
brain. I was unable to breathe, and my body grew rigid. There was
no control of my arms, legs, or anything else.

After a moment, the feeling of
penetration withdrew from my mind, and I gasped as the air returned
to my lungs.

With a closed fist, the king pulled
back his arm and threw his hand toward the flat wall behind
Nito.

Immediately, scenes appeared on the
wall. My memories were now visual, and as if through my eyes.

“We will see what the Mare has seen.
Counsel, please watch,” instructed the king.

The first moving image was Nito
standing before a large truck. The doors opened and with a raise of
her hand, multitudes of Day Stalkers poured out.

Nito immediately spoke up. “This is
obviously not from the Straits of—”

“Silence,” the king ordered.

The image moved to the exchange
with Nito on the pier and then to the center of the village, crying
out her warning.
“You must
encourage the Elders to place her with me to be in a secure place.
If she is free, she will cause death, destruction, hunger, and
famine. She is cursed. When the reign of terror and murder stalk
through the night and take your young, blame her. They will come
for her, they follow her, and in turn they will come for
you.”

“And they did,” Nito said in her
defense. “We saw what the Savages did.”

“It is unusual,” the king said, “that
the Savage beasts made their way into the Straits and passed the
fortitude of the gatekeepers. It has never happened.”

“There’s always a first time,” Nito
said snidely. “I had nothing to do with it.”

The king shot a glare at Nito then
returned to my memories.

I stood over my mother’s dead body
and heard my little sister scream for help. I lifted my head to see
the Savage flying with her. The vision went from my mother to the
carnage around me then into the air as I projected, holding on to
my sister, hoping that I saw where they took her before my
projection ability timed out.

The Savage held her carefully and
tightly, my sister screamed and cried, wriggling her body, soaring
high in the sky, but not for long. The Savage began its descent
following a torch from a wooded area.

As I kept on to that projection, I
thought the Savage had made his way to their camp. Instead he
landed by a black vehicle parked by the torch in what was once an
old city block. A city overgrown just like Angeles City.

Nito emerged from the car and the
Savage released my sister at her feet.

Sophie screamed and cried, and Nito
reached down, lifting her.

“
You’ve done well
beast,”
She said. She raised Sophie ,then
cuddled her with fake concern.
“There, there child, you are safe.”
She
then turned to the Savage.
“You
will be rewarded for this.”
She snapped her
finger and one of her guards stepped forward, opening the back of
the car. He lifted out a bound woman and threw her to the
ground.

“
No! No!”
the woman begged and pleaded.
“No, please don’t!”

Without hesitation, the Savage lunged
for the woman, grabbed hold, lifted her in his claws, and flew
away.

The wall went blank.

Silence reigned in the room.

The king stepped back from me and
faced the counsel.

“You see?” Nito said nervously. “You
see? The Mare distorts the truth. The Savages came, just like I
–”

“Enough.”

“I rescued the child.”

“Enough!” the king roared. He locked
into a silent stare of the counsel, as if they were communicating
somehow. Eyes still on the counsel, he said to Nito, “Where is the
child?”

“I have her at my—”

“Get her.”

“She may be resting. You know how
human children need their naps and—”

“Get her!”

His voice shook my body.

Nito did not move.

“Never mind. Guards, bring the
child.”

The king was angry and it wasn’t what
I expected. What I believed would be a passive trial ended up
filling the room with tension. Nito could no longer maintain her
cool exterior and her face showed it when the doors opened.

“Sophie!” I shouted when my little
sister walked into the room. She was wearing a dress of fine
material and looked like a little princess. I took one step forward
and Iry grabbed my arm.

“
I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I
am
so
sorry.”

“What? What?” I flashed a look at
Iry, then to Sophie. Why wasn’t she running to me? Why didn’t she
welcome me? And then I knew why.

The four males on counsel gasped.

“What have you done?” The king rushed
over to Nito. “What… have… you… done?”

“She was injured. It was the only way
to save her life.”

Nito had turned my little sister.
Sophie was no longer a complete human, but was now a hybrid. More
Sybaris.

My soul broke and I wanted to
cry.

“I just wanted to help her,” Nito
said plaintively.

“By condemning her to a life without
growth!” The king clenched his fist and bellowed out an emotional
dry screech that blasted into Nito, knocking her back a foot or
two. “Remove the child from this room,” the king ordered. “She is
still in a formation state. Take her to the educator’s home before
more damage can be done.”

I fought back the desperation and
tears and turned to Iry fearfully. “What does that mean?
Formation?”

“She was just turned. That's why she
isn’t saying anything. She can easily be manipulated. Bringing her
to my home puts her near you. Mentally she’ll come back.”

“What about—”

Iry shook his head to silence me.

The room cleared at that instant, all
but me, Iry, Nito, and the king.

Nito was on the floor, staring up at
her father with pleading eyes. “Please, no.”

“You have been found guilty of
breaking the most high laws of the Ancients.”

“I am your daughter.”

“You have manipulated our deadly
enemy, brought them to our protected land—”

“No!” she cried “No!”

“You have put at risk your brothers
and sisters and those in the City of La Sveg As. You have tainted
the nourishment, and in doing so, hindered our wellbeing and
survival. A human child is a gift from the gods to the Ancients and
you have broken the Laws the gods have set forth that a child of
human nature is to be allowed to experience growth in physical
being and maturity. You defied that for your own selfish gain.”

Nito lowered her head. “Please, I beg
you.”

The king drew up a bellowing voice.
“For crimes against the humans, crimes against the Ancients, and
defiance of the laws set forth by your king, the counsel in
accordance with the gods, I hereby sentence you.”

Nito scurried to her feet. “Father,
please. Please!”

His voice dropped to a saddened
whisper and he stepped back. “Gods be with you.” Nito shook her
head frantically.

“I take from you all that you have
given to that child. Until such a time where you have proven your
worthiness to hold such high power again, I… banish you.”

The king swung forth and from his
hand blasted a golden light. It struck into Nito and she cried out
in agony. “No!”

The light encompassed her, her body
withered and shook as the lighter grew deeper, and Nito faded to a
transparent image. Her back arched, her head flew back, and with
one final scream, she vanished.

The golden gown that she wore dropped
to the floor and the light extinguished. The king walked sadly to
the garment, lifted it, and turned to us.

“Educator, take the Mare to her
counterpart and bring back the memories. Tell the child nothing of
what happened.”

“Yes, my king.” Iry bowed his head
and the king walked out.

I was still holding my breath. “Nito
is gone? Banished? What does that mean? She disappeared.”

Iry took hold of my arm and began to
lead me out.

“So she is no longer a threat?”

“Not right now she isn’t.”

“She will be again?”

“Doubtful. There have been many
banishings and only a few prominent figures. No one has ever come
back.”

“Where do they go?” I asked. “What
happens to them?”

Iry shrugged. “We aren’t privileged
to know the details of the banished. Like I said, they don’t come
back. I don’t know where Nito is now. My guess,” he said with a
shrug, “is that she is somewhere she can’t hurt a soul.”

Had not I not seen her disappear
before my eyes, I wouldn’t believe Iry’s words. However, Nito did
vanish, and only her clothes remained. Surely she went someplace
where only her ethereal being could exist. With all the bad that
had happened, there was one bright spot. Nito was gone and chances
were she wasn’t coming back.

Never had I experienced pain
like I did when Father banished me. It was far more than the
physical pain, I was lost in an emotional collapse that I never
would have thought I’d experience.

That was at first.

I was confident, after all, I was not
one of the lower Ancients, a peasant in nature. I was a princess,
next in line for the throne. There was no question in my mind that
if there would be punishment it would be minor. A slap on the
wrist. Perhaps I would have been sent to the pen to monitor the
farming for a few days. That is disgusting work, because humans can
be so vile.

How they ever came to be so
accomplished on Earth is beyond me. Yet they did and again, because
of their vile nature lost it all.

Many times in man’s history they lost
it all but they rose again to the occasion and reclaimed. Not this
time.

Standing in that pathetic court while
my father and four peers passed judgment on me all based on the
word and memories of a lowlife Mare enraged me. Why was there even
a question? The beast attack needn’t even have occurred had the
Elders handed the little wench over to me.

It all would have been done, over
with. Her withered body would lay at the bottom of a ravine,
ravaged from me draining her. Of course, a Mare drained too quickly
became more savage than any beast out there. I did have the plan to
slaughter her in the brief moments before she changed over.

That was done.

Fantasy over.

When I saw my father draw back his
fist, when I saw the look in his eyes before he cast me out, I felt
the pain I caused him, but it was minor to the pain he caused me.
How dare he? I knew nothing about being banished. No one does. No
one ever returned. They were “sent away until proven worthy”,
whatever that meant. I took it as a nice way to say, “you are done,
goodbye, good riddance”.

The encasement light sucked something
from me. I felt burning, as if I were going to combust, and then
they were all gone. My father, the Mare, the educator, all faded
from my sight and then I was floating in a black abyss, unable to
see in front of me, and could only hear the cries and moans of the
damned that had gone before me.

I had to clear my mind of the Mare
and any other human force on Earth. We Ancients lived much longer
lives. One year of our lives is equal to one hundred years of a
human’s life. So, even if I were only banished for one Ancient
year, the Mare would be long dead, unless of course she ended up
being one of those wrinkled, decrepit creatures that existed during
man’s best years.

With every second I moved and spun
with more velocity. A torture device, that I would sink into and
eventually get used to.

It did not matter how long I
was sentenced or banished, because no matter when it would be,
unlike those who were banished before me, I would be
different.
I
would return.

The entire day after court was spent with Sophie. She didn’t
respond at all, nor talk. Iry said it was normal, that the
formation point was vital. That was the point when a human was
turned, that the ‘turner’ could erase all human memories from the
person. Typically, a human was transformed at the age of eighteen,
after being raised by the Sybaris. Most have no recollection of
being amongst humans.

However, Sophie was four, almost
five, and she did know me, and our mother. Nito was close to
erasing all that.

As long as no one attempted to form
her to a complete mental Sybaris, Sophie would retain her human
memories and some of her human instincts.

It was a good thing that all of Iry’s
house maidens were human.

She was safe, she would return, and
would be able to speak, in just a few days.

I placed Sophie in a bed to rest,
though I doubted she would sleep. She was a Sybaris with only
traces of humanity remaining. Sybaris needed only to sleep every
three months, and oftentimes when they did, if they didn’t train
themselves to live by the human clock, they’d sleep for a
month.