Chapter 15

Why do I get a nudibrym, and you get a mantilla?” Protested the young attaché vee vee. Ūna looked back towards him with a sardonic grin” don’t knock Rex he’s been my faithful squire for many a year!”

The mantilla (Ibliss) was jet black; his kind were amongst the best mode of transport on Mars. They had huge raptorial front legs, hard exoskeleton, and two large compound eyes, they moved fast when necessary and were very hardy. In comparison the nudibrym Which was a large Slug with a soft, slimy underbelly, vibrant colouring, slithered at half the pace, they had two antennae instead of eyes and gills that looked like polyps sprouting from its lumber.

“You don’t have to mock me, major, I’m grateful, I am … but why keep such a hindrance?” Purported the young diplomat

“ Have a care!” Answered ūna, you’ll unsettle the company!”

She took out some fruit from one of her bags that were laden on the nudibrym; it resembled cooking apples, the mantilla danced around excitedly clicking, as he munched it in his mouth,

She did the same for the slug as he moved slowly over his apple, making pleasing noises of satisfaction.

The evening air smelt damp.

“ where are we going ?” asked vee, handling a twisted stick he’d found by the wayside as his only weapon

“to Witchaven !” She answered, “I need a special tome for the task at hand!”
“well… then explain to me why we’re so far off the road to Witchaven??”

Ūna smiled at the young diplomat, he was handsome in a youthful way with his light aubergine hair and eyes of copper, but he wore a disguise all too often of being more naive than he was, which ūna found bothersome. “Let’s make camp here tonight! “She said, changing the subject.

“ We’re very close to the dark woods!” Said vee as he harkened and observed a coppice of densely packed trees nearby and shuddered.
“We’ll be fine, now you put up the tents, and I’ll gather some wood!”

It would have been cosy if it wasn’t for the proximity of the dark malevolence of the woods spreading its aura, it was almost as if the woods were watching, waiting, anticipating.
Ūna sat adjacent to Vee, “are you normally this quiet ?!” she asked gazing at him through the rising embers of the roaring campfire as it spat its missiles into the air, like a mini volcanic eruption.
“ I’m sorry major. I’m just …!?” He was at a loss for words “I just heard that at the Dark woods, changelings come out at night… take things, take people,”
“Well then!” She answered sarcastically “it’s a good job I’m here with you!”
Vee vee replied meekly “now-now there’s no need to make jokes!” She inclined her head toward the gnarled, twisted wooden stick, “do you even know how to use that thing!” “Yes!” He replied concisely “are… you …sure!” She cocked an eye towards him, did he even know she was teasing him? “Of course, it’s not rocket science! “He said dryly,” you just whack them!” She smiled “as simple as that, you just whack them !”
“Yep!” he answered curtly as he unfurled a blanket and stuck it over his legs.
“Major?” He paused as if he were trying to gentle ask something sensitive “can I ask you something?”
“Sure go ahead!” She answered
“The name Paschėlle?” She raised an eyebrow,” isn’t that a name given to orphans, in Mercia province?”
“Yes!”
“So ‘err ?” The Pa ’minas face had changed from being playful to being sombre “I don’t think that’s anyone’s business, but mine!”
He had found her Achilles heel, he was deceptive, but then the reality was that most people were.
“Sorry, I… I meant no offence Major. I didn’t realise it was a sensitive issue.” He stuttered

“well, I am a bit skittish about that subject!” She sighed and then searched herself to find the right words to describe the tragic events that occurred when she was a small child and began to tell her story “it was around the time of the calamity, I don’t remember a lot, but I do vaguely picture what happened on that day!”

“Does it haunt you?” Probed Vee.
“O’ yes!” She affirmed.

Ūna began to recount the events of that day seven seasons ago. She recalled standing in the capital’s square before the white and silver steps of the palatial estate alone with many strange children and young adults standing together like a herd of cattle waiting to be slaughtered in an abattoir. Their faces tattooed with three lilac stripes to signify their unsavouriness, as a crowd of spectators watched on. Some marvelled, some were mortified, others told one another they were merely doing what needed to be done, succinctly and without callousness.

A man sat in an ornate throne with devilish glee in his eyes as he heckled the soldiers to begin the cull.

Something else about that day bugged her; there was something else, whether you believe in Demons or monsters something else was present, something unmarsly, it was like Teeamatt herself had birthed the monsters and sent them from the Underworld, and Leer didn’t care.

The only thing the damned had in common was the colour of their hair, no other reason or logical argument could be offered forward, they had red hair, it was neither ginger nor auburn, it was winette the colour of red wine.

Then it began, an old gnarly ghastly man thrust in his head into the holding cages, looking around with his disturbing eyes, wondering who to pick to start a good spectacle, his breath was acrid and foul.

One by one they were dragged away, to meet their destiny, some went quietly, some went in blasphemous contempt. from the oldest until they began to turn their sights toward ….the children.

And There was no salvation.

Eventually, they came for ūna; she let out a shriek as she tried to resist with her clammy hands, the tension of the looming peril lingered and manifested itself so that she perspired through her back, it was absorbed by her clothing. However, a bead of sweat hung about her and matted her hair; the odour persisted it was the smell of misery. one of tai t’sars men hefted the young child, like a piece of meat, mercilessly with no real thought to her status of being a sentient creature, they were different and needed to be destroyed in his opinion, the only opinion he was allowed… the one held by the state , she struggled for dear life, kicking and screaming as she was pulled up each step until finally, she reached the killing ground, step by step she fought but to no avail until she found herself in the domain of the slender madman on his ornate marble and golden gilded throne.

“Hold this one’s eyes open when you slay her, I would like to see the life ebb out of them. “He said.

“Poor thing!” He tutted

One of the high priests protested “sire, we cannot harm this child; she is undefiled!” He said in disgust “to do so would be sinning against leer the most High herself!”
“Well, you’d better deflower her then, make sure that all the people see you do it!” The priest cringed, but the king only smiled on with perverse satisfaction “ You clergy don’t usually mind raping kids!!” he cackled.
Ūna recalled how she saw fear grip the man, every fibre of his being wanted to resist; she knew that he was in hell, but that he dare not give any recess, he was just too afraid. So against his own will he began to allow fear to pull his strings and through him orchestrate a betrayal of the faith to the flesh, as two soldiers held her arms at bay, he bent the child over, and he began to tear off her undergarments. ūna tried to blank out the memories; she couldn’t remember much, silence, from the crowd just encroaching deathly, prevailing, silence.

But she couldn’t forget the smell of blood and the emancipated embers of the remnants of those victims flying through the ether in the bright sunlight.

Then as if an answer to a prayer, a man approached she didn’t see his face, but he wore robes of state and trailed a blue cloak that was pallid like the sky, In he sauntered like a blue pilgrim. There was a temporary pause, and the high priest sighed and thanked the merciful mother above as if he had been delivered from doing the unspeakable by corporeal hands working in mysterious ways.

“What the hell are you doing, release the child!” he said

She was unleashed for the moment, but she was not free. She massaged her wrists the man approached her and offered a silk handkerchief; he said it belonged to his daughter but that she could have it. He unclasped his cloak and wrapped it around her. It was warm and clean and smelt like flowers and berries, ūna thought of it as a shield from malice, a shadow she could hide in, to protect her virtue. Through all the shouting wailing and suffering this one selfless act had moved the young girl to tears as they streamed down her face, and at once, she knew why the stranger had given her the handkerchief.

He walked up to the guards and dismissed them, and then he walked up to the king, and he broadcast through his body language that he was incandescent with rage and so he didn’t prostrate himself and give the monarch his proper respect.

She didn’t see his face, but she knew that look. It was horror, horror gripping you in the dark corners of the empty places of the soul when you wondered, what would I, or wouldn’t I do, and you realise that you, yourself didn’t know and that there was no marsly way of knowing. He had most probably told himself it was a misunderstanding, it was just a nightmare, and that he would awaken soon, only to realise that he had awoken and the reality was as bad as a rotten ghost.

The stranger drew back his hand and slapped the king on his throne with a hard jolt to his ear, without a care of the consequences. As silence grasping once again gripped the court.
“You’ve brought shame, to the country and the faith you’re meant to defend!”
The tai tsar looked in shock no one else had ever challenged him before.

Anger then gripped him as he raged, it was sobering, but he couldn’t hold his tongue.

“How dare you!! This is treason; I am the tai t’sar, I am the god-king, I will have you killed for your insubordination, like, a dog!” He Ranted frivolously scowling his face as it turned as red as a beetroot.

The stranger merely took out an embellished obsidian dagger and offered it to the king, he placed it on the armrest of the monarchs’ chair without blinking, in a non-threatening way. It drew dirty looks from the king, as his bodyguards began encroaching on the scene, as their shadows drew closer.
“Go on then!” He solicited
“What ‘?” Remarked the king
“ show your men by example!”
“I …I’ve never!” The king was at a loss for words
“Well, you’d better get on with it then… almighty!”
There was a standoff as the king’s mask began to slip a little more to reveal his privilege. He began to try and deflect.

“GO ON MAKE ME DIE !!!” Shouted the stranger As he stared the king in the throne down with his eyes that did not waver or flinch, and then calmly he uttered: “ there’s nothing else, you’re going to make me do!”
He didn’t like to be challenged by someone he couldn’t intimidate or bully; the stranger turned away as the king rushed at him from behind. There were only seconds where the stranger and the king laid on the floor. In the kerfuffle, no one knew what had happened, but it was apparent that the king was now dead. He was stone dead, and a huge collective sigh of relief seemed to resonate from the armed guards that had been tasked with defending him.
Amazingly the praetorian guards just turned and saluted the man, and simple scattered, scattered to the winds like the Kings’ physical remains poignantly joining the others in delicious irony, there was a loud shriek, the sound of the Queen learning the news could be heard and then inconsolable sobbing. They say the Queen’s mind broke that day, and she was never the same after.

The stranger took ūna by the hand as a Black man greeted him at the atrium’s exit. It was the first time ūna recalled seeing a man from the Mooraweena coast.
He said “I want you to go with my Moorish friend here, he will take you to a safehouse, my daughter will keep you company there, she’s about your age, and extremely likeable. We can perhaps find your family when all this blows over.” she hugged the stranger it was the last time she recalled seeing him that day, but she always thought about him as an example of forthright integrity, he was her saviour.

The Moor and ūna walked hand in hand between the crowds of the masses as conflict and riots broke out and spilt into the surrounding streets, “the king is dead “ they lamented, and anarchy was sure to follow, missiles narrowly missed them, as injured people and debris littered the pavements. She felt safe with him somehow he appeared capable and terse, he had a knack for traversing the streets until at last, they reached the destination of the safehouse.

At the sanctuary, the man looked left and right he asked “are you ok, little one?” traumatised ūna could not speak, her voice, she looked for it in the air, but it was nowhere to be found, and so instead she simply nodded.

When they were sure, the coast was clear they both entered the secret doorway that was obscured and virtually impossible to see.

Inside the Moor called out “El-key, Elkie !” “Where is that girl now?”

Entering the room “a young girl around ūnas age perhaps slighter in stature appeared, “hello!” she Said as she curtseyed. ūna was scared to look at her, to begin with, but finally, she began to cast her little eyes over her face, to see that she too had long flowing ringleted winette hair, Beautiful eyes like polished marbles that twinkled.

Looking at the dirty silk handkerchief she clutched in her hand, Elkie the polite aristocrat’s daughter said: “snap!!” As she too had a silk handkerchief of similar design.
For a few hours ūna could be at some type of peace as she tried to digest and quantify all that had happened, and the gentle soul Elkie was there to hold her hand if she needed company.

After a while The moor returned, he was putting on a brown cloak one that would obscure his identity, and allow him to move around more freely “ girls I’ve got to go, I need to get to the embassy “he said,“ Elkie don’t open the door to anyone, Darling! Do you understand me” she nodded to assert that she did, He looked over to ūna

“ and you little one, just try and find your voice,” he said as he patted her on the head “there are some clean clothes Elkie will help you with them and don’t forget! “he pointed to his head “cover your hair!” And then he was gone she couldn’t recall if he even looked back.

And then in ūnas memory, the pictures in her mind were frayed. She vaguely recalled that Elkies mother came to the safehouse that day, she was quickly climbing out of her guards’ uniform and putting on civilian clothing, she hurriedly made provisions for ūna to leave with her. She was very fierce, and beautiful. The type of women ūna would someday aspire to be like as a grown up.

The plan, Elkie was to wait for her father, it was to give each other a better chance of success.
As the guardswomen and ūna left into the side street, they passed Elkies father, on the way out, but there was something not right about him, he seemed offish, why did he ignore the pair of them as the women called out to him
“Beloved !”
They exchanged glances in the twilight as
He drew his finger across his lips and intimated to be quiet, as the two of them turned away.

ūna looked back one last time. She was restless, and after a while, her head ached, and she thought she heard a Ringing in her ears, and so it began a migraine and dizziness , could she be certain she saw something real and not Just the product of an overzealous imagination. What she saw was not the stranger at all but an impostor, that barely seemed to be any real form it was almost a blur, a dark shadow sent from some dark dream. It made her blood run cold. She recalled pulling on the women’s hand, grabbing the women’s arms, she tried as hard as she could to get her to turn back, she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs “PLEASE don’t leave her behind!” but she could not find her voice, till eventually, all she could do was, nothing. She was powerless. Quietly she wept as Elkies mother spirited her away diligently risking her own life, ūna thought that day it would have been better if she had died.

She found out years later what happened?

Poor Li Elkie they murdered her. The Changelings ,on that day, her father the stranger would come shortly after, and in the alleyway, he would be passed by a trickster in the form of a hind-fox some said it was the one known as the Knightmare.

Ūna knew she could never tell Vee her full story, so instead, she just told him a watered down version.
It seemed the kindest thing to do.

She began her closing statement.

“ and so you see, for the longest time I didn’t know the identity of the man, but I’ve got a feeling I know who it is now!”

“Li Kay!”
“Yes !” She nodded
“ I only need to find Tumjai, and if he’s a Moor, I’ll know! “she confirmed with a dry grin

Vee looked at her, not often was he speechless, but he could not find any suitable
words.

“Vee!” She said
“Yes,” he answered.
“ I have a confession to make!”
“ what?” He asked.

“ we’re going into the Dark woods!” She said with confidence, as she gripped his forearm,
Lighting two torches she started waving them above her head,
“ what about the Changelings? “He said frantically, Ūna thought Vee was cute when he looked worried. She smiled, as she danced around cackling just like a Witch “There aren’t any, we just made that up to keep people out. however, there is a band of cutthroat assassins that live in there, and we’re going to meet them,”

with that, a band of men seemed to appear from the undergrowth wearing straw garments that blended into the fauna they were surrounded by them, this whole time.

The Leader had a sullen face, “a witch!” He remarked, “What is a witch doing in these parts!?” Asked the man “and you?! Who are you” He said pointing at Vee as his band of straw covered rebels swarmed the campsite. “
“I’m looking for some assassins! “she declared
“Who is the target?” Asked the leader as he stood in the afterglow of the campfire, correcting him she said: “ I didn’t say I wanted just anyone killed, I said I’m looking for some assassins !”

And then she said loudly “Wi Sako & Vir Okota … Li Kay is calling you to regain your honour” and two men came forward to listen to what she had to say.

The first was burly with pure white hair the second man was svelte-like with slate coloured hair,

“I have a proposition for you, maybe for all of you!“
She started walking about the men, so these are the old knights of Mercia she thought to herself, Li Kays men

She spoke courageously with a hearty tone “Once upon a time you believed in honour; your code was that of the Just and the righteous “

She took a breath and continued “when a crime goes unpunished, the world is unbalanced. When a wrong is unavenged the heavens look down upon us in shame; I ask that what shall be given, be a lot, for this cycle to be broken… it can only end in death, but we are all dying, how many of you can say you’re really living? “

“ I propose you leave a legacy to this world, not one that can be spent, but a lesson on honour and duty that the forgotten knights of Mercia shall regain, none of us TrueType know how long they shall live. But soon, all that shall be left of our brief lives is the pride our progeny feel when they speak our names!”

“Your old master li kay is calling you, to the light, it’s up to you whether you choose to step into it. !”
The motley band of rebels gave their answer as Cries of yeeehoooooeee, echoed through the camp and through the woods.

———

The Wyrzel stood at the warrior’s gate, it was night, and the stars had just begun
To come out, he was terrified to go into the black mist it was almost as if it were laughing at him, how could something so insignificant be so terrifying, he asked himself? He was a disgrace to his kind, a monster that’s afraid of the dark, afraid of strangers.

He closed his eyes tight as he began to slowly saunter into the darkness.

Ooh dear he said to himself
As his breathing started to become erratic, I hope it ends soon, where am I going, I hope the Sprite is ok and the bird.

He thought he heard a faint voice “Googlee!!!” was it an echo, no It was the sprite, pull yourself together he told himself as he began to gallop through the remaining darkness

Eventually, he found the Sprite waiting on the otherside sitting on a river bank.
Cross-legged slumped with her fists pressing into each cheek.

Looking forlorn and disenfranchised.

Boo, he whispered in her ear as she smiled and pressed her face into his and a single tear rolled down her cheek.