As we made our way west along the flat, wide avenue that was the upper limit of fortress Grell, I took in the grandeur of not only the surrounding countryside, but the marvels of the fortress itself. I examined the small towers situated near every stairwell, and found them to be as pristine as the rest of the structure. There was no sign of wear, no fallen stones, no cracking.
I could understand the sound condition of Izzy’s shielded cave, and knew being underground protected the white room and corridors from the elements, but why was this exposed fortress not showing signs of natural wear? It had to be older than the Spood occupation, and they had been here for at least a few hundred years, judging by what Smerkas had revealed before we descended into Gor-jar’s lair. There was debris, but it was all from the outside; twigs blown up and over the parapets in storms; sand carried on the wind, building up in the corners. In addition, it was certainly as Izzy had said; it was as if someone had once regularly cleaned these walkways and stairwells, but had recently let the debris accumulate. It made no sense to me. This fortress should not be in the exceptional condition it was.
I gazed as far ahead as sight would allow along the serpentine wall and could discern no end to it. To both east and west the wall diminished into the appearance of a string in the far distance. I wished I could follow the wall all the way around to determine how vast this fortress was. I wasn’t here to sightsee, however. Beauty and ugliness were competing for my attention. For down below in the fields, both inside and outside Grell’s walls, slaves yet toiled, unaware of the winds of rebellion whistling their way.
The contingent of droove riders traveling the main road encountered both slaves and their oppressors. I watched as Izzy and her riders freed another small group, disarmed their Creet guards, and then sent them back down the road to Grell. How many more slaves were inside this vast enclosure? Were there thousands toiling unseen in the currently invisible eastern and western lands?
What about outside the walls? How many slaves, scattered throughout how many lands controlled by the Spood, awaited deliverance from bondage? I could not free them all. My hope was that the can-raks would do the work for me. I had sent them into the city, into the power center of Spood society. To kill the monster you often have to cut off its head. Kill enough highly placed people in government, those who make and enforce the laws, those who defend the regime or provide the spiritual sustenance of the populace, and you sow confusion and chaos. Soon there is no one to guide you, to provide for you, to protect you.
My hope was that the monster could not survive without its brain. I killed Smerkas, and that was a start. He must have been out on some inspection tour when we met on the road. Unlucky for him. He had been the top man, in essence the ruler. Now Brilna had his sparkling wand and he was food for the razoks. I wondered about his high-haired wife. Had she met the talons of the can-rak yet?
After a couple of hours of treading stone, I felt the gate had to be near. Then, I spotted the road outside the walls. This road was the one that led up to the entry tunnel, the same path Javen, Lillatta, and I had once traveled to pass into the fortress. I had long ago lost sight of Izzy’s caravan. Their greater speed had left our group behind, but now I spotted them hiding in a grove of kansers near the gate. I gathered they were awaiting our arrival.
I waved down to them, unaware if they could see me. It appeared they caught my signal, for they began to swarm forward toward the weakly guarded portal. I now stood high on the fortress wall above the gate. The guards’ heads showed as moving dots below me. I watched as a quick and relatively bloodless confrontation took place. The surviving guards were soon on their way to Grell, and I assumed Izzy was working on opening the massive gate.
Not wanting to waste any more time up top, I hurried to the north side stairwell closest to the gate and urged everyone to descend. At the bottom, I waved Izzy’s ring across the eye. The wall panel churned the packed soil and opened to the outside fields. We climbed from the cubicle and flooded out onto the grass outside the fortress. Javen, Lillatta, and I, along with several others, followed the wall to the tunnel entrance. Two guards peered into its gloom. They must have heard the movement of the gate and now waited to see who was coming out. They had no idea my friends were on the other side. Our approach alerted them and shock lit their faces. When made aware of how well armed we were, they fled into the fields.
I ran down the tunnel to the gate. When the barrier lifted enough for me to slip beneath it, I joined the droove-riders on the other side and quickly scaled the gate-opening platform. I wanted to make sure, once the gate was at its maximum height, that it would remain open for good. I had to find a way to sabotage it. We discovered it was easy to wreck the mechanism, but could not figure out a way to jam the gate permanently to prevent closing. In the end, we tore the gate apart, piece by piece.
Surprised that our presence had not attracted more attention by Creet soldiers, I then realized that this gate was in a rather remote part of the fortress. The only fields worked by slaves, at least at this location, were outside the walls. There was no garrison of troops here, just a paltry unit of guards assigned to open and close the gate. Traffic in and out seemed nonexistent. We were lucky to have caught them on a slow day.
Izzy came up to me after the gate's demolition. I handed her the ring, and then watched her slip it back on her finger without benefit of assistance.
“So, now what?” she asked. “Where do we go from here?”
“My intent is to go home and kick the Spood off our land.”
Javen, Lillatta, and Brilna joined us.
“I’m up for that,” Izzy said with enthusiasm.
Lillatta nodded her head. “I have some unfinished business with Bratar,” she said.
I looked at her to get her meaning, but she said nothing more.
Brilna made it clear she was sticking with me, but Javen remained silent and appeared to be deep in thought. Then he spoke.
“Of course I am returning with all of you. I must avenge my Raab brethren and clear the Spood vermin from our lands. But I feel I must express something of importance before we go.”
He turned to me. My heart began beating an increment faster. He reached for my hands, lifted and held them chest high between us, his grasp feather-light. His soft eyes sought mine and I recognized something remarkable in them. It was a look I had seen in my father’s eyes, the same look that came whenever he spoke of his beloved Brisa, my mother.
“If it is my fortune to survive the coming battle, I wish only one thing,” he spoke, his voice gentle, his eyes moist. “If you will have me, my only desire is to be yours, to spend my days with you, to roam the grasslands with you, to be by your side, always. I am in love with you, Sanyel of the Sakita.”
I was afraid to speak. If I did, I feared the moment would shatter and I would never get it back. This precious pause was one of those in which time runs in place, no longer progressing, allowing the images and emotions to crystallize. I wanted to hold onto those words, to retain those sights and feelings as long as I could, to allow them to find a permanent place in my heart and consciousness. Time, in its dreary passing, can be cruel, but can also offer these small gifts, the ones you can later pull, fully formed, from memory. At your lowest and highest points in life they bring comfort. They carry you through the worst because they remind you of how incredible the best can be. All I could think of was that I didn't want to ruin this moment by saying or doing the wrong thing.
“Kiss him already!” an exasperated Izzy exclaimed, more than happy to break the impasse.
So, I did.
Never in my life had I felt any happier than in that brief moment. Words were unnecessary. We understood that we had made a commitment to each other. I was aware of the tears in Lillatta’s eyes, and while I knew she was happy for me, I could tell she was thinking of her lost Kalor. It was then I truly understood her loss.
“Well, enough of the kissy
, happy, lovey stuff,” Izzy said, breaking the mood and bringing us back to the practical world. “We need to get as far away from glorious Spoodland as fast as we possibly can.”
As usual, pragmatic Izzy had condensed everything down to its essence. We had to get out of here—now. No telling what size force the Creet were assembling or how soon they would begin pursuit, though I sensed they probably had their hands full with the can-raks. At least the Creet soldiers who had been guarding the slaves in the fields outside the gate wouldn’t be a problem. They had chosen to flee. Those slaves were now flocking over to join us.
We would be a blend of riders and walkers, though fairness demanded we alternate those roles along the way. Our destinations were not identical, but a strength in numbers philosophy obliged we travel together as far as reasonably manageable. At the very start, several small groups separated from our larger company, as their homelands were in a direct line either east or west of our current location. I asked one of those departing west if he knew how far the fortress wall extended in that direction. I was surprised to learn that within a two-hour walking distance the wall curved toward the ocean, before again heading back this way along the ocean side.
My path lay north to the desert, along with my small circle of friends. In the early afternoon we set out, accompanied by about three hundred former slaves. Attrition had scaled our numbers back so that we now totaled the same as when we had escaped the city. That number would drop further as individuals peeled off to follow their personal roads home. What they would find there was anyone’s guess, but all vowed a determined stand against the occupiers.
We traveled well armed, with each member possessing at least one weapon. A large Creet patrol might give us trouble, but anything else we felt confident confronting. My personal plan was a simple one. My friends and I, along with the Sakita and Raab members returning with us, would cross the desert to the Kodor Mountain fracture. Counting the five of us, only twenty would make that crossing, as that is all who would remain
The Sakita no longer saw me as an outcast, and for that I was grateful. These survivors informed me that after the Creet invasion only a small number of tribespeople had made the journey to Grell. The rest remained to toil on Spood projects. Those included arranging the grasslands into fields and plots to grow food and working a mining venture in the eastern mountains. Apparently, the rare metal used to mint Spood coins was abundant along that range.
I also found out, from one of the Raab, how the Creet had discovered our little enclave in the Kodor Mountains. While looking for a passage through the straight mountain range bordering ours, a Creet company had spotted a glint of metal. It seems one of the Sakita guards at the fracture was on the desert side doing a routine inspection. Sunlight reflecting off his spearhead alerted the Creet to the opening. They captured the Sakita watchman, along with a second watchman soon afterward. The Creet sent a messenger for reinforcements and the invasion soon followed.
We had no idea how many Spood currently occupied our homeland. When we arrived, we would number only twenty, not much of a counter-invasion force. Among our number were Miras, and the man with the Izzy-induced haircut, Oster. Miras told us her husband, Jalak, was one of those sent to work the Spood mine, along with Semral, the great and legendary hunter.
It was a relief to learn Semral still lived. He was a hard man to kill, as I knew firsthand. Two encounters with can-raks had not been enough to send the mighty warrior to Mimnon. I would have to find him. His help might prove invaluable.
The days passed and we encountered only small Creet patrols. Most scurried off after scouting our strength, but one inexplicably charged. In short order, ten Creet were dead. We secured their drooves, along with another valuable cache of weapons.
About halfway through our journey, I made acquaintance with a former slave, a man originally from a tribe east of the Desert of Bones. This knowledgeable, middle-aged man, held captive by the Spood for many years, informed me he had worked in the Spood archives. I, of course, did not know what an archive was. He told me it was the depository of all Spood historical documents. He then explained what he meant by a document after clearly seeing I had no clue what that was, either.
He told me the Spood, early on in his captivity, had assigned him to clean the archive building. In time, he became familiar to the scholars there and a friendship of sorts developed. They began teaching him their written language, and it was not long before he was able to read the documents for himself.
The notion of a written language was captivating to me, having only recently heard of such a thing when told of the Spood prophecy parchment. I truly did not comprehend how the process manifested. Someday, I hoped to learn more about it.
This man, Kersla, from perusing Spood writings, knew fascinating tidbits about their history, and had even gained a glimpse of their predecessors’ influence.
“How long have the Spood occupied Grell?” I asked. “They don’t seem to have been the original builders.”
“You are correct in that assumption,” Kersla confirmed. “The Spood believe the fortress was constructed five thousand years ago.”
“Five thousand!” That astonished me. I had suspected the fortress was ancient, but not that old. The puzzle of how those walls could have withstood that many years of what should have been natural deterioration was mind stumping.
“So how long have the Spood been rulers of the fortress?”
“Only five hundred years,” Kersla replied. “They found the site during their nomad days. The gate you destroyed was not there back then. The entrance was open and it was only later the Spood closed it off. They found the place overgrown, with no sign anyone had ever inhabited it. There were no buildings, not like now. Those were all built by the Spood over the years.”
“But what about the rooms and corridors beneath the city? Those cannot be Spood.”
“No, those were discovered only about three hundred years ago. The Spood had been digging wells for water when someone hit stone beneath the ground. They excavated and discovered steps leading down. They came to a pocket where the corridors and the white room are. Some kind of rock formation had protected those areas from an ancient collapse that had filled whatever else had been down there.”
“Didn’t the fireless lights frighten them?”
“Oh, certainly. They were terrified and would have fled and never come back, except the leader of their group had no fear in him. He was of a curious mind, and he knew of Spood stories that told of advanced people who had lived before.”
“Our stories have the same legend!” I interrupted, excited to learn other cultures passed down the same tales. “A people who had devices that flew in the sky and swam underwater.”
“Exactly!” Kersla confirmed. “This fearless man knew these things, so he went ahead to explore—and then he met Gor-jar. At first, the man fell to his knees in terror, expecting the beast to devour him. He soon realized, however, that some force constricted Gor-jar, limiting his movements. He assumed the god had somehow ensnared himself between the physical world and the spiritual, as he would occasionally disappear from the man’s sight, only to return. He sent word to the high priest of his discovery, and from that encounter a whole new religion was formed.”
That amazed me. Why would anyone interpret anything about this hollow creature to be divine? It seemed a strange conclusion to come to, but then again, these were the Spood. Trying to understand how they think or attempting to decipher why they do things will only lead to a splitting headache.
My companion’s assertion that Gor-jar was only a three-hundred-year-old god surprised. I asked if the Spood had worshipped another before they switched their allegiance to the dancing beast.
“They worshipped the sun god, Sester. However, Gor-jar was so frightening and powerful that they soon abandoned the old god. Sester had been distant and unreachable. Gor-jar was immediate; they c
ould walk right up to him. They associated Gor-jar with the ancients who had built the fortress. They assumed he was the vanished people’s god, so they wanted to please him. After all, they were living in his house, on the land he appeared to rule.”
Another sun god? This one named Sester? The wily Ra-ta came in many disguises apparently.
Kersla had even more fascinating information to impart.
“When Gor-jar was discovered, all excavation ceased,” he continued. “The only other allowed was for construction of a back entrance leading to a can-rak pen. The Spood raised young can-raks they had captured in the wild. The people revered them, but discovered long ago that can-raks are nearly impossible to train or control, and used them instead for somewhat gruesome entertainment. The Spood wanted Gor-jar to stay, and they thought that if they fed him he would. Somehow, they concluded that Gor-jar was more of the spiritual world than the physical, so only meals of spirit would sustain him. They enlisted the can-raks to ‘release’ the spirits of physical sacrifices so Gor-jar could feed on them. Later, they got greedy and started using the grottis, executing the sacrifices themselves, although they always felt the ones presented by way of the can-raks made Gor-jar the happiest.”
This was almost too mind bending to comprehend. They discover a fearsome, yet impotent beast in a hole in the ground, and turn it into an object of worship. In addition, that turns into a bloody mission to satisfy this creature’s phantom appetite. They sacrifice innocents, spilling the blood of people who couldn’t care less about the Spood’s insatiable deity. This was a twisted race, or at least those who conjured up this travesty.
“What about the coins I found in the white room?” I asked Kersla. “I understand the people offered them to Gor-jar too. There is no way hundreds of years of offerings were in that room.”
“It is interesting you should mention that. I discovered a fascinating reason for that discrepancy. It seems they remove the coins monthly. The priests realized years ago that this was an easy and efficient method of restoring the treasury without having to levy taxes. Let the people acquire Gor-jar’s blessings by offering monetary gifts. Then, knowing Gor-jar cannot eat the coins, retrieve them for use in paying for the army and government services.”
“So you are saying the priests were deliberately using the god for purely cynical ends, that Gor-jar was simply a useful fraud?”
“Oh, no, not at all. The priests wholly believed in Gor-jar, and that the offerings served a genuine spiritual purpose. They believed Gor-jar cherished the coin gifts. They also believed, since he didn’t eat the coins, that he was indicating they should go back to the people. They felt the sincerity of the gesture was what counted. Gor-jar was more apt to answer prayers if he could view and admire the people’s offerings. Then, the priests could reclaim them and allow another month’s worth to accumulate. Why a month, I have no idea”
It all sounded delusional to me.
“How did they get the coins from the white room without running into can-raks?” I asked.
“They had gotten the can-raks to respond to a horn they sounded. The can-raks associated it with food, so whenever it blasted, they scrambled over to the feeding gate, far enough away from the white room so that slaves could safely enter to gather up the coins. The slaves would also remove any bones of sacrifices the can-raks might have left in the room. They wanted Gor-jar’s residence to be pure.”
Well, that explained why I found no bones in the room. Still, why clean out only those? Why not clear out the fallen debris, too, if they wanted the room so purified and perfect? Kersla had the answer.
“When they first discovered the room, the Spood did indeed clean away layers of dust and a massive amount of debris that had fallen over the years. However, someone in authority during that period felt disturbing the god’s quarters, even for cleaning, was wrong. After much debate, the Spood decided it would take too much trouble to put back the debris taken from the room, but they did return the objects they had removed, placing those items in the exact spots they had found them. No one has changed the room since. They now allow the natural deterioration of the ceiling and any other such decay to continue undisturbed. They remove the bones only because they are not natural to the room, not original fixtures. I imagine that is also one of the reasons they remove the coins.”
“But what about the hallways? They seemed absent of debris except for a few scattered bones. Why clean those, and if you do, why leave the bones?”
“The Spood realized the narrowness of those corridors required they maintain them. The can-raks needed unobstructed passage throughout the underground. Any ceiling fall in those hallways might permanently block an important route, as the beasts needed those clear in order to do their grisly work. The Spood left the bones in the hallways as simply another mind game. They wanted the sacrifices to see what was in store for them, to feel fear. I think they felt Gor-jar appreciated it, that the spirit meal was more satisfying to him if accompanied by a strong emotional element, especially terror.”
I had to shake my head over that. The more Kersla told me about Spood reasoning for the bizarre things they believed, the more I figured they were missing something in their makeup—brains, most likely.
“What about the lack of can-rak feces?” I asked. “Do they clean up those messes too?”
Kersla again had the answer.
“Can-raks will not defecate or urinate in confined or artificial spaces if they can avoid it. They prefer to be out in nature, in the forests or out on the grasslands.”
“What about the number of can-raks? Are there more in Grell? Or were those ten the only ones?”
“I don’t believe there are more in the city. The can-raks do breed, and I’m sure the Spood now hold a growing number of them in captivity. However, I think they keep these outside the city limits, maybe even outside the fortress. A man once told me they bring in new ones only when Gor-jar’s can-raks fall ill or die. I believe they transport them in metal cages.”
I racked my brain to think of more questions for Kersla, not wanting to waste this opportunity to learn as much as I could about the Spood.
“What do you know of the scorch marks that seem to cover the inside fortress walls?”
“The Spood have recorded the marks were there when they entered the enclosure five hundred years ago. Other than that, there is nothing.”
I thought of one more question, one that concerned my role in all this.
“What do you know about the Disrupter prophecy? When and how did that come into being?”
“Not long after the Spood discovered Gor-jar, a seer had a vision,” Kersla said. “This man had foretold many events accurately in his lifetime, so this future vision of the Disrupter was taken very seriously. It became his most famous prophecy, and that is why it is still known and feared today.”
This was all so fascinating. The Spood had abandoned one god for another, one who better reflected their brutal nature—at least in my judgment. Perhaps my arrival had been prophetic, maybe even arranged by old Sester himself, tired of insignificance and determined to assert his might again. Sun gods are like that; they don’t like to remain hidden in the shadows for too long.
**
~~TWENTY-FOUR~~