The Gift of Volkeye (28 page)

“Zephranie, grab hold of the arm and back of the couch instead.”

Were it not for the pain she was feeling, Zephranie would’ve likely leapt upon Sumi and choked her. Face red with fury, she carefully followed Sumi’s instructions, awaiting the opportune moment at which she could do exactly as Murlach had planned.

5

Within two hours, Sumi found herself straining to hold back her tears. The crying child that she held in her arms was horribly disfigured from the neck down, defects, among which included a broken collarbone. Sumi knew that such a wound couldn’t have possibly occurred unless the poor girl’s mother had done violence to her whilst in the womb.

So I was right about her!
she thought, marking Zephranie with furious eyes.

“Let me see it!” Zephranie snapped.

“This is your baby…she’s not an
it!
She’s a human being, and she must have a name!”

Sumi cradled the child in her arms and finally let the tears fall from her eyes, looking away from Zephranie with disgust. “You haven’t even thought of a name, have you?” She shook her head, groaning, then turned the baby towards her mother.

As do most women at the moment they give birth, Zephranie cried out. Unlike them, however, she expressed laments of disgust and fright. What was held before her, Zephranie marked as a sticky little beast, whose head was the only normal thing about it. The body, merely a skeleton with a near-transparent layer of skin wrapped around it, was gnarled and contorted to the point that it held a similar likeness to that of a dead tree branch...ugly and brittle. The baby’s skin was covered in red blisters, soft but sticky to the touch and bleeding profusely. Those on the child’s stomach didn’t bleed but oozed with puss, slightly opening and closing as her belly rose up and down with each breath.

The baby flinched from her painful sores, raising her arm to reveal another deformity, a claw-like hand, curving downward at the wrist.

Sumi knew these defects had resulted from a contaminated womb, and when she saw Zephranie cover her mouth in horror, Sumi knew not to hand over the child.

No!
she thought, knowing for certain the baby would die in the hands of her mother.

Sumi’s notion was confirmed as the murderess before her pulled a small, steel icepick from between the couch pillows and reached for her daughter.

“Give it to me!”
Zephranie brought her arm down with a heavy ‘swish,’ cutting through the air like the blade of a guillotine, hoping to land the blow on her daughter’s skull.

Sumi spun her body to protect the baby from the weapon, and spittle flew from her mouth as a sharp pain bolted through her body. As she whirled toward the door, Sumi was stabbed several more times in the back and neck. The baby, however, remained unscathed.

Zephranie attempted to give chase but took only a few steps before falling to the floor. While watching Sumi struggle with the latch on the door, Zephranie passed out.

As Sumi managed to get the door open, the room stirred with commotion as the cold air sped throughout. In an ominous fashion of the surrounding violence, the deep red bed drapes swayed back and forth, mimicking the large puddles of blood that rippled about.

Sumi, already expecting Murlach, found him right outside the door, swinging a scalpel at her. Already injured and weak, she was unable to fend off the attack. It was a clumsy but effective strike, with the entire the blade slicing right beneath her kneecap. Staggering backward and bracing herself against the wall, Sumi kicked Murlach in the face, sandwiching his head between hard leather and the opposite wall. This knocked him unconscious.

With her remaining strength, Sumi now limped from the Ghurzblood Mansion, seeking refuge for the child.

6

More concerned with getting the baby to safety, Sumi had inadvertently killed herself. By the time she made it to Mashyuvah, most of her blood was gone. As she struggled from the seat of her hovering wagon and landed roughly on the frozen dirt street, Sumi looked about the desolate place.

They were in the business district, and it was already closed down for the evening, so there was no one to call to her aid. But still, it would have to do, as she didn’t have the strength to travel further.

The child squirmed, disturbed by Sumi’s fall to the ground.

“Shhhhhhh,” she said.

Pulling herself up by the door handle of her wagon, Sumi trudged to a dumpster close by, sitting next to it in an area guarded from the howling wind. She then pulled a small assortment of medical supplies from a tiny sack at her side. Sumi put her nursing skills to use, working as carefully as possible to preserve the infant’s life.

Having no food or milk on hand, she injected a nourishment supplement into the baby’s stomach, knowing that she was not only in pain but hungry. To this she added a mild painkiller, just enough for the anguish to temporarily subside. Next she cleaned the child’s sores with soothing ointments and dressed the wounds with a soft bandage that wrapped around the girl’s body.

Goooooood…let’s get that baby warm again!”
Sumi smiled as tears froze on her blood-spattered cheek.

Sumi then removed her winter coat and laid it over the child, wailing in pain and exhaustion as she picked herself up from the ground. Her next act could possibly send her to her grave all the sooner, for Sumi would need to use the last reserves of her energy just to accomplish it.

You must finish for the child’s sake!
she thought, grabbing hold of the large steel dumpster. She cried out as she pulled the dumpster sideways from its semi-frozen position to a state in which it protruded out into the street a bit.

Sumi looked down at her house garment and gasped, in utter disbelief that she’d lost so much blood. Knowing that she had to be on her last breath, Sumi began undressing. Her injuries didn’t make it easy to get the dress off, and she sobbed furiously as the pain sent torturous flames of agony throughout her body.

God, give me the strength to live just a little bit longer!
she prayed wearily.

After tying her dress to the handle of the dumpster, making the obtrusive piece of steel even more noticeable, Sumi threw one of its two lids backward. To her relief, the inside of the dumpster was filled with soft boxes, moistened by the weather, permitting the baby to rest high up. With tremendous effort, she knelt over and gathered the baby and all the supplies, knowing that she wouldn’t have the strength to do it over again.

Someone will come, young one…I know it. Just hold on, child,
Sumi thought as she kissed the girl goodbye and placed her inside the enormous steel crib. She pulled her coat snug around the child and left her face uncovered from the nose up. At one last glance, she noticed the baby’s face contort into fleshy hills of exhaustion with her mouth stretched wide, peeking out from beneath the winter coat. The child was yawning.

Good, you’re warm and comfortable.

Upon completing her task, Sumi wrapped her arms around her semi-naked body, ever more aware of the fifteen degree weather, worsened ten times over by the wind. As she turned to accept whatever refuge the forest could offer her in the last moments of her life, Sumi noted how her dress (ghostly white at some parts but rigid and opaque from frozen blood at others) flapped about in the wind. She’d created a flag, beckoning a miracle to come and assist the child in her losing battle.

Sumi trudged slowly into the forest, and, once inside, she propped her back up against a tree and slid to the earth in a fall. She raked all manner of forest debris over her body, burying herself up to the neck. Sumi had positioned herself with a view of the street, so she could see the baby and watch for passersby. There was no one. Only dead leaves floated past the child’s place of rest.

**

For some time, Sumi drifted in and out of consciousness, her life prolonged by will alone. As her last bit of hope for the child began to wane, something happened.

A woman was wandering along the road in quite an aimless fashion. Until Sumi’s dress smacked her in the face, the woman hadn’t even bothered to look up. Though Sumi was barely alive, she could feel the woman’s sorrow. This was an emotion she knew all too well, because this day she’d been acquainted with it on a more personal level than ever before.

Overwhelmed with curiosity, the woman looked inside the dumpster, and her sadness was replaced with shock. She jumped, taken aback, hand to her chest. Sumi could tell that she was crying. The woman scooped the baby girl up, medical sack and all, slightly bouncing the child up and down in a soothing manner. She must’ve woken her.

It began snowing. The flakes were beautiful and heavy, blanketing the surrounding area, giving them all gentle, wet kisses. If not for being fatally stabbed, Sumi would’ve considered it a perfect ending to her life, for this was her favourite aspect of nature. Sumi was so happy she could’ve laughed herself into oblivion, were she able.

The woman now looked curiously about for the one who’d left the girl and finally came back to the bloody dress that first got her attention. Clearly something terrible had happened, and despite her sadness at the situation, she could do naught but shed tears of joy, as she gazed upon the child.

Now having served its purpose, the woman untied the dress from the handle of the dumpster and threw it inside, as not to alarm more passersby. She pondered the baby’s sex as it eyed her curiously, blinking as each snowflake melted upon her face.

The woman looked around once more, and her gaze landed upon a snow littered clearing at the foot of the forest, having no idea that she was staring in Sumi’s direction.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the air.

The wind carried her message to the forest, echoing throughout the trees.

You are most welcome,
Sumi thought, dying, as tears and a victorious smile froze in place as her final gesture to the world.

“Dammit!” Felix swore as he tossed aside another bundle of papers that were singed and illegible.

Most everything they found was charred and brittle. When disturbed, the piles did nothing but fall to the floor in a million black, snow-like flurries, disintegrating upon impact.

Felix lifted his head with a sigh.

“Patience, boy. Frustration will only lessen the keenness of your eye, and we cannot afford to leave a single item unchecked. Keep looking,” Murlach said.

Among the homes in Rhameeryla that were still standing, they had been rummaging through the contents, in search of anything that could lead them to the castle in the sky. Several hours of hard work had reaped no positive results.

They finished inspecting the last of the cottages to the same end as the others—nothing. There was not a single piece of useable information, and they fumed with anger, swearing under their breath. As Felix slammed the door to what was once Asha’s home, it fell from its hinges.

Murlach’s eyes followed Felix. As he watched the boy pace back and forth, he began to wonder whether they should dig through the rubbles of the fallen homes. Just as he made up his mind to do so, he spotted something peculiar from the corner of his eye.

It was a tree with a large portion of the bark scraped away at the trunk. Since it was at eye level for him, he went to get a closer look. What he found were many stick figure drawings etched into the bare wood.

Some of the illustrations depicted human men with disproportionate muscles of all sorts, holding unrealistic amounts of heavy debris. Others were pictures of men breathing fire, vanishing, and flying. There was also a short story told through a series of images, depicting a hero and a slain villain whom (where at the end of the story) the hero had his boot resting on the chest of his enemy. This latter piece, boasting an exceptional amount of skill, would’ve enticed Murlach to lavish all of his attention upon it if not for a set of engravings off to the upper right.

Although Murlach would lie to Phyllamon later about the source of his information, knowing that he was a skeptic and would scoff at the idea of trusting drawings done by children, Murlach was positive that he had stumbled upon a wealth of facts.

These engravings were carelessly carved and resembled trees more than rocks but were nevertheless labeled “Mune Ju Mountain.” Within the same illustration, there was an arrow stretching about three inches above, ending abruptly as it hit the bottom of a castle of some sort. The carvings next to it read:
“100,000 miles above Mune Ju’s highest peak…”
And then in all capital letters read:
“…VOLKEYE CASTLE.”

Adjacent this illustration was another, drawn by a more steady hand it seemed. It was of a man upon a throne with a long robe, draped over the edges of the chair. His crown was jeweled and much too big in proportion to the size of his head. Next to the picture, scratched in extra large print, was the phrase:
“King Zynathian.”

That’s him!
Murlach thought, turning to Felix.

“I’ve found him!”

1

Upon arrival, Asha and Zynathian got to work right away, as there were a number of tasks to be completed. First, Zynathian had several of his Mechs dispose of everything in the freezer and then gave them instructions to carve a bed out of a block of ice, so that Maugrimm would have something comfortable upon which to sleep. Next, he had all of his equipment moved out of the lab on the first floor, to his craft shop on the third. When the room was cleared, he helped Asha move all her things inside. The two of them heaved a large, old leather case on top of a table. Once unlocked, she opened it and began digging through its innards.

There were several automatic laser weapons that she had built in a variety of sizes. The smallest was about eight inches in length, shimmering as sunlight from the window reflected off its polished surface. Of all the weapons Asha had completed over the last year, this, her latest, was the piece of which she was most proud. Its appearance was humble, yes, but it fired faster than all her others and could do so for twenty minutes straight without reloading. Nor was there any recoil from the laser blasts. Despite its steel body, it was heat resistant when in use because the entire inner frame was lined with a near-indestructible substance she designed.

Asha had experimented with resins and asbestos for more than a year before finally coming up with a perfectly heat resistant material. Being the careful talent she was, Asha had no trouble with the poisonous attributes of asbestos and had since found a multitude of uses for her unique creation of no name. This achievement had won tremendous praise from Zynathian once Asha knew him well enough to share her talents with him, and it was also greatly responsible for him plunging into the abyss of love for the second time in his life.

Asha held her prize accomplishment of the past year in her hands.

Hmm, perhaps I’ll give this one to Sing,
she thought.

She then went to the trunk and pulled out measurements and rough sketches of Maugrimm, depicted in battle gear that she had designed specifically for him. She had done all this over the last several days at the Igloo. Accompanying Maugrimm’s drawings were measurements of the children, but without visual aids of any kind, and also designs for many types of guns and explosives.

Asha flipped through the pile and handed the pages to Zynathian.

“Have your Mechs start on those, dear…oh, the body armour…is it possible to build it with whatever it was that you used for Bahzee’s skeleton? I’m sure it will be much stronger than my resin mix.”

Zynathian nodded with enthusiasm. He took the pages and eagerly looked through them, wondering if he could make any suggestions or alterations to what was already astonishing work. Before he had been rather uneasy about Asha’s gift but now he was ecstatic about collaborating with her, curious of what they could come up with.

“You haven’t given me body armour sketches for the others…how do you want it done?” He grinned, hoping that she would give him complete autonomy with the task.

“You’re a genius, stupid…use your imagination!” She laughed. After a slight pause, she queried. “Can you program your Mechanicals to fight, Zynathian?”

He nodded.

“Good,” she said, planting a kiss on his lips, holding him close afterward.

“Our friends from Rhameeryla…shall I leave that task for tomorrow?”

“Yes, right now we have too many other tasks to worry about. We just have to trust that our people are alive and well.”

Zynathian agreed and turned to leave.

“Also,” she said from behind. “Where do you keep those water-spitting, attack ships that you built? I remember you saying that you had made thousands.”

“They’re in the shop upstairs. Why?”

“Target practice,” she replied. With that, he was off.

2

After Asha gave them a quick summary on the guns they held, she demonstrated several evasive moves that she learned from her late husband. Though she wanted to avoid bloodshed at all costs, she still knew it would come down to exactly that, and thought to instruct them anyway.

Being so young, none but Maugrimm had trouble with the exercises. He was just too big, and the large spikes down his back didn’t make rolling any easier. The kids, on the other hand, couldn’t only roll over, sit up on one knee and aim their weapons with ease, but they could also do cartwheels, forward rolls, and (in Sing and Teshunua’s case) backflips.

Maugrimm, though terrible at the exercises, was exceptionally agile on his feet and the best out of all of them at the parrying moves Asha showed. In a real battle, however, Asha knew that it would be wiser for him to rely on his body armour, as it would be quite difficult for one so big to dodge anything.

With the discarded contents of the freezer (now Maugrimm’s quarters), Asha had built a miniature war set. The frost covered racks and metal shelving units were set up as pillars, meant to be protection from the water shooting aircrafts that raced about in front of them. Asha had set the
Spitters’
distance right outside the shield entrance, as she knew it was safer to have the family aiming outdoors.

They were now ready to begin, and Bahzee laid her gun up against the wall and slumped to the floor. She knew that she would never gain a competence with weaponry—it just wasn’t in her. She knew very well that if it ever came down to her having to use a pistol, she would become flustered and forget everything she’d learned anyway. She hated the way guns smelled when they were being polished. She loathed the way they felt when they were fired. She detested the way the grip on the handle always got sweaty in her hands. Truthfully, after so many years of living with her mother and having gun trivia constantly shoved down her throat, Bahzee was abhorrent of everything about firearms. She was a
hand-to-hand type, and if she couldn’t do that she would much rather have been a distance fighter, knowing that she could throw a bomb over any length imaginable.

Asha noticed Bahzee’s mood and was sympathetic. Although, she’d never come right out and said it, Asha knew that Baz had never warmed to using firearms…it was just completely alien to her. For this reason, she’d been secretly discussing other alternatives for Bahzee with Zynathian. Presently, however, she could do nothing about it and decided to dismiss Bahzee from the exercises.

Asha stepped forward, making an example of herself first.

“I warn you all, this is not as easy as it looks, and it’s even more difficult for a fifty-year-old like me. At this range you are going to be hit, so don’t get frustrated. This is merely an exercise to get you used to the idea of being in a real battle.”

It was absolutely frigid with the shield open. Zynathian (who had come down to watch the event) tightened his scarf and earmuffs, winking at Asha as he watched from the bottom of the winding stairwell. She blew him a kiss and smiled as his long, salt-and-pepper hair and beard whipped about in the bitter wind.

She now activated the first Spitter with a control on her wrist. Except for Bahzee, everyone paced excitedly about as the first ship came forward. Its speed varied between a slow hover and a quick dash as it went back and forth. Asha raised a long, black automatic rifle and began slowly walking back and forth, keeping the ship in her sights. It fired.

“Dammit!” she said, kneeling as she wiped the water from her eyes. In doing so, she was pelted with squirting water twice more, and the pellets of moisture clung to her dreadlocks as she rolled out of harms way.

“Oh my, I am much too old for this shit!” she bellowed.

The family’s laughter echoed over the howling wind.

Asha peeked from behind the overturned metal shelf and took cover once again as the Spitter detected her movement, unleashing a flurry of ammunition. A small puddle formed as the water slid down the metal back of the overturned shelf. Asha then took advantage of its missed target and rolled out from behind her shield, sat up and fired.

The sound of the laser blasts was jarring, but not nearly so as the explosion of the miniature ship. As the blue sky before them was covered with orange, red, and grayish-black hues, the others flinched at the bright light and speeding shrapnel from the destruction. Seeing that no harm had been done from the blast, the others looked to Asha with admiration, cheering.

“Not bad, old woman,” Zynathian said as he came forward.

Asha was kneeling, basking in all the praise. Then she groaned as she stood up, stretching her back.

Oh, I am definitely too old for this!
She smiled, motioning for Sing Tzi Yi to come forward. Asha tossed her the wristband.

“Sing, it’s your turn. Do you remember what I showed you?”

Sing nodded.

**

Asha watched them for three full hours, wanted to be sure that they grasped her ideas. In all, they were rather good to be so inexperienced. Being young and energetic (and also having lots of fun), the kids could have gone all night. Asha, however, had had enough. She turned and found Zynathian had come back downstairs, waiting on her.

Asha waved Sing over. “You and Maugrimm are in charge.”

She then walked to Zynathian and led him up the stairwell.

“…And you all remember not to get too close, because debris from the explosion might come your way!” she yelled over her shoulder.

Sing watched her new parents walk away, leering at one another with a sexual hunger that she understood but had never felt.

Hmm…naughty, naughty!

She smiled, knowing that some secret portion of the castle was soon to become an arena for unspeakable acts of lust from a very loving couple that had clearly been waiting for this moment for awhile.

They deserve it,
she thought, being just a tad bit envious of them, wondering if she would ever have such feelings for a man.

The lovers didn’t seem to notice the boisterous merrymaking as they calmly advanced on the ladder of passion. They had arrived at the glass elevator on the mezzanine level and then locked themselves in a passionate embrace. The progress of these gestures would be denied by the clear glass cylinder, which now elevated them in pursuit of the climax to their romantic saga, putting all their actions on display. Calming themselves, they kept their explosive emotions at bay, abhorrent of the idea of racing through the Romanesque pinnacle of their story.

Upon exiting the elevator, one hundred feet above the rest of the castle, they found themselves in a cozy apartment, in which they could further indulge a new chapter in their saga. As they stripped their bodies of the dirty worn dust jacket of
restraint
, they found themselves basking in the ecstasy of uninhibited, lascivious deeds, raw and unsheathed, allowing full sensory of each verse of orgasmic poetry. With each turning page of emotion, they penetrated the theme of their story further, vigorous rising actions leading to an earthshattering climax of euphoric bliss. As they lay enveloped in a heavy blanket of poetic genius, indescribably elated with the resolve of an epic tale of romance, they rested awhile, only to reread the story over and over throughout the night.

3

It was over a day later that Asha and Zynathian reappeared below. Whilst on their exhaustingly blissful voyage of sexual exploration, Sing and Lyn Sha had been reading together in the library most of the time; Khyeryn and Maugrimm had both become expert shots and destroyed many of the Spitters; and Bahzee and Teshunua had nearly died in agony, trying to keep their hands off one another.

The previous night, the two young lovers slept in separate rooms, knowing that there would be hell to pay if Zynathian and Asha happened to take a break and caught them in the same bed. Though this was unlikely (for Asha and Zynathian had a combined twenty six years of sexual frustration between the two of them), it was still too risky.

Being curious adolescents, Bahzee and Teshunua had their very own frustrations to be concerned with. Within the solitude of their neighbouring chambers, the two of them solved this problem. As most virgins of Tesh and Bahzee’s age, they resorted to the innocent and miraculous relief delivered through the skillful use of their hands. Moaning aloud each others’ names at separate intervals, each one would gasp with wonder, almost certain that the other had called out their name. Now that their eyes met from across the dining table, they couldn’t help staring at one another then looking away, blushing. They’d been playing this game all day.

When Asha and Zynathian entered the room, the others were sitting down shoveling food in their mouths with such vigor one might have thought them to be upon the brink of starvation.

“Oh my…who did this?” Asha asked, seeing her new daughter turn bright red. “Sing, I didn’t know you cooked!”

“A little…I had to cook many times on occasions when Phyllamon or Felix had sexually abused the cooks so badly that they couldn’t even move!” She scowled, slamming her spoon down the table.

Lyn put her hand on Sing’s, comforting her. Since receiving her gun from Asha, Sing had been constantly fantasizing about blowing the innards of Phyllamon’s head all over the place. She boiled with anger every time she envisioned his face, now even sorrier that she failed to kill him.

Asha walked over and rubbed her shoulders, kissing her cheek. “Shhh,” she said, “let’s see what you’ve got here!”