Chapter 2
The Mystery of Kalos
Through the years, Kalos the Emperor was growing crueler toward his slaves. Kalos was the type that seemed to be evil and corrupt for no reason at all. No one had ever seen what he looked like. His face was always covered with an iron mask. There were no openings in his mask at all. No slits for his eyes, no holes for his nostrils and no gap for his mouth. Those around him wondered how he could even breathe or see. The look only added to his eerie image. Attached to his mask was a long, skinny ponytail that sat high atop his head and swung in every direction as he moved. His tall lanky body was always covered in a large black and gray cloak garment, with silver sandals on his feet.
Kalos took joy in others’ pain. Young and old, age did not matter. He was a selfish man who allowed greed and power to corrupt him. Before becoming the Emperor of Ferocities, Kalos was a knight in the kingdom of another high power land in Mandune. He was wealthy there, had domain to almost anything and everything the king allowed and was highly respected. But his dark heart wanted more. Being a highly regarded knight wasn’t good enough for him; he wanted to be the king. Because the king would not abdicate his throne, Kalos took something very dear and precious from him. The outcome was pain, heartache and destruction to the land.
Because of his evil ways, Kalos was banned from a prestigious position. Being a vengeful person, motivated him in his quest for power. He vowed never to answer to anyone, not even to the gods above. So he made his way to the City of Ferocities, killed its leaders and dominated the land for himself and his minions.
Kalos took pride in his land. The terrain of Ferocities was completely covered in marigolds. It was the children’s job to plant marigold seeds all over the land. Kalos had an obsession with marigolds. It seemed unusual for such an evil man to have such a deep love of something so beautiful. But not even the innocence and beauty of a marigold could stop the evil running through his veins.
The slave children of Ferocities were made to do the dangerous and often times deadly task of catching pythons and cobras. These snakes were captured to become pets to Kalos and to those who lived in the kingdom. Once, Ariyah, Sheevar and Orraco were out in the fields with the other children trying to find small baby pythons because they were the least dangerous. Ariyah became hungry and began missing Crystaline. She wanted to go to the palace where her mother was doing her daily duties. The kingdom rules for the children were whoever found the biggest adult cobra or python was allowed to stop working for the rest of the day. So even though catching the baby reptiles was safer, catching the adults allowed them to quit. Ariyah had spotted a long, adult yellow python dangling in the tree. She knew if she got it she could go back to be with her mother.
“Sheevar, look over there” she said with all the excitement of a five year old. Sheevar stopped working to look into that direction.
“Are you mad, Ariyah?” Her little voice squeaked. “You can't get him. He'll eat you alive” she cautioned.
But Ariyah, who was all too determined, did not listen. She defiantly ran over to the tree and tried to find a way to get that snake down from its branches. Sheevar threw her basket down and cried, “Orraco, she's going to get herself killed!”
Ariyah could see him from the corner of her eye running, bare-chested, to her direction. But she tried to speed up because she didn’t want him to stop her. Orraco felt because he was two years older than the girls that he was like their father.
“Ariyah get away from it. He'll attack you!” He screamed.
She just wanted to capture the snake and get back to the palace. All the other children stopped working and ran to see the action. Ariyah began to climb up the tree branches and she grabbed the snake by its tail. The python whipped its head around and snapped at her, causing her to fall backward onto the ground. She fell hard with a thud.
Sheevar was crying in horror. “Get her, Orraco! Please get her!”
The snake was slithering quickly to Ariyah as she tried to get up. It got to her foot and snapped at her heel, just missing it by a few inches. Orraco was able to grab the snake by its neck. He walked to her with disappointment.
“You could've really gotten hurt, Ariyah.” He shook his head and walked back to the palace with the captured snake.
All the excitement had died down and everyone went back to work. Ariyah felt very foolish and was afraid her mother would find out what happened. She didn’t want to get scolded. She only wanted to make her mother proud, and doing something so dangerous would get her paddled. Sheevar continued to bawl as she hugged Ariyah and was thankful for her safety. The kingdom minions gathered around their work area to investigate the commotion, but were now just atop their black horses and ridiculing the children.
Zodner and Semp, the main officers of the Savage Kingdom, were perhaps the cruelest of the minions. They seemed to enjoy making the slaves grovel. Zodner, the brunette with the big hump of a nose and a hairy mole under his chin, was the more intelligent of the two. He was very obedient to Kalos and always made sure to stay on his good side, wherever that was. He made most of the decisions. Semp, the blonde simpleton, was very argumentative, and that usually got him abused by Kalos as well as Zodner.
The other soldiers did not like these two and could never understand why Kalos appointed them as the higher-ups. They not only bullied the slaves but they tried to bully the other soldiers as well, often ending in brutal beatings of the two.
After all the chaos, the children were sent to eat in the dark and cold cob-web filled cafeteria to be served the usual potato and peanut paste meal with the bitter water or curdled milk. Ariyah spotted her mother sitting at the adult table with Vanka, Mr. Toplin and Mr. Crowesh. She ran over excitedly, yet anxious over the repercussions of her earlier snake tirade.
“Mother, please don’t be angry with me” She whimpered, thinking that Orraco had squealed about the python incident.
“Ariyah, what are you talking about?” Crystaline asked, embracing her.
Ariyah looked at Orraco, who was sitting with the children. He did the hush motion and shook his head.
“Oh, don’t be angry because you haven’t seen me all day.” Ariyah smiled and gave Crystaline a big hug and kiss.
“Oh, chile, go sit with the kids.” Vanka chuckled. Crystaline gave Ariyah a mischievous smile and playfully smacked her butt towards the children’s table.
Ariyah sat in front of Orraco and gave him the biggest snaggletooth smile to thank him for not telling. Orraco smiled, pulled a piece of green mold off of his hard biscuit, and said “Don’t make a habit of it. Next time I won’t be so nice.”
After the slaves ate, it was bed time. The soldiers were gathering the children in single file line and preparing to take them to the cages. Crystaline grabbed Ariyah by the arm and took her to the nooks to be with her and the other adults. Crystaline had grown tired of her child sleeping in a cage like an animal. She was determined that from now on Ariyah would sleep outside in the nooks with her and she would use her tall, frail, under-nourished body as a blanket. Ariyah liked it that way. Now she could be with her mother and she could stretch out her growing limbs.
The minions did not like Crystaline making these decisions for herself, but sometimes they grew tired of her antics and just let her have her way. Kalos hated that he could not get Crystaline to break. He would inflict much pain on her, have her beaten, starved and even locked in a dungeon. But through all these things he could not get her to even cry. She was strong, and for that he despised her. He hated her more than any of the other slaves. Crystaline did everything that could and should have seen her sent to the Boulder Guillotine. But for reasons unknown to anyone, she was never sent there.
Crystaline had her reasons for not crying, at least not at the hands of Kalos. A promise she made to herself a long time ago would stop her from ever shedding a tear from this man. She also swore that she would never reveal the reason for this to anyone. But the truth would one day reveal itself.
At night, Kalos would go to his gray throne room that sat high on the kingdom tower, and contemplate many things. His thoughts would usually include Crystaline. How best to destroy this woman? To kill her would simply be too easy. He wanted to break her. He knew no one could be this strong, so he thought of ways to destroy her mind. His mission in life was to have the praise and obedience of everyone in his empire. It wasn’t enough to have 99% of the kingdom doing that. And to know that Crystaline was that 1% that did not scurry with fear of him made him very uneasy. Noire, his black cobra, came and slithered to his side and wrapped himself around Kalos’ leg. What no one knew was that Kalos had a huge trick up his wicked sleeve.