Chapter Two: Did You Say Gods?
By the time the alarms sounded, the wind was already ripping through the entire cabin. There was a voice behind that was so muffled Starla could barely hear it. At first it sounded almost foreign but then she started to understand it more.
“Try to hold it together, Starla! William is getting the door.”
“Jeremy! He’s gone,” shouted Alicia. “Robert, what about Jeremy?”
“Alicia, calm down. His emergency parachute should have opened.”
“Should have?”
“I can’t argue about this right now,” Robert said as he struggled with the controls in front of him. “Why hasn’t Will gotten…”
The ship twisted again. Starla felt a wave of panic and confusion. She desperately tried to stabilize them but a scream from Alicia meant that William hadn’t had a chance to hold on when they had spun.
“Starla, what’s happening?” asked Robert.
The ship was being pulled down. There was no way to recover from this. What could she possibly do to change the outcome? There was nothing left to be done. The engines were overheating, the door in the back was still hanging open, and they were making too steep of a descent to try a landing.
“We’re going down,” she shouted back. “Repeat. We’re going down.”
Starla jerked awake. She had a throbbing headache and no idea of where she was. She sat up and looked around to see that she was in come kind of small wooden structure. It was as solid log hut, not very modern in its design, but clearly lacking of any kind of metal or stone.There were two guards at the door and they were talking to one another until they saw that she had sat up. When she climbed out of bed they turned to face her and she smiled at them both as best she could.
“Comfortable,” she said. “The bed is soft.”
The guards did not respond.
“I have a friend. She needs help.”
Still, nothing from the guards.
“Talk to me!” She screamed. “I swear if you don’t listen to me that my friend is going to die! I need to help her.”
At that moment, one of the guards suddenly collapsed to the floor looking fearful.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he graveled to her. “I am not worthy!”
“Stop that,” she snapped. “Get me out of here. I have to help my friend.”
The guard stood and immediately left the room. When he was out of sight the second guard smiled and then took a step toward her.“Is it true?” he asked.
“Is what true?”
“Have you come from the stars?”
Starla’s answer came faster than she wanted. “Yes.”
“So you’re her then?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I can’t remember much of anything,” she replied.
“Just as it was with Zata,” said the guard.
Starla was going to ask about this Zata person but before she could a man appeared at the door with a large grin on his face and a necklace in his hands.
“Vorda!” He said. “My name is Kaleb Z’won. I am the Royal Guard for Zabi under the orders of King Reznakk the Fourth. I must say that it is my honor to be in your presence and that the Ca’oDu does not begin to justify your beauty.”
“Kaleb,” asked Starla. “Do you wish to make me happy?”
“Of course,” Kaleb said with a smile on his face. “What can I do?”
“You must help my friend,” Starla said. She didn’t know if she was doing anything right but she was smart enough to know these people saw her as a powerful figure. If she was lucky she could make them rescue Alicia from the wilderness. “She was with me when we fell. She is injured and needs medical attention right away or she will not survive.”
“A friend? You say another fell with you?”
“Yes, now she’s hurt.”
Kaleb nodded and then turned to the outside and shouted several names. When a small group of men had appeared outside he told them that they would be going with Vorda back into the woods so that she could recover the other fallen one. Once they had found her friend, they were ordered to take the best care of her and return to the village as quickly as possible.
“Kaleb,” said one of the men. “The sun will be setting soon.”
“I understand,” replied Kaleb. “However, this is a direct order from Vorda.”
“Very well,” said the man. “We will depart immediately.”
Starla as she had come to identify herself, was now being referred to as Vorda by the people in this village and that was particularly confusing since she really didn’t know which one was the correct one. She was curious to discover why she had quickly been tagged with two identities but she didn’t want to know too much. Right now these people were being nice to her because they thought she was Vorda. If she told them otherwise things might not continue to go so well. At the moment, her main goal was to get to Alicia, so she wasn’t about to tell them that she wasn’t Vorda. Then again, how did she know she really wasn’t? After all, it was only because of Alicia that she thought she was Starla…
She followed the men into the woods until they had returned to the place where she had been captured. They then allowed her to take the lead and she moved to the edge of the cave.
“Alicia?” She asked. “Are you okay?”
“Starla?”
Starla moved into the cave and found that Alicia was lying on the ground with sweat running down her face. Her eyes had dark circles and her injured leg had turned black around the wound.
“Alicia,” said Starla, “we’re here to help.”
“Yeah?”
The men that had come with her now moved into the cave and gently lifted Alicia up so that one of them could carry her on his back. When they got outside, the guard that had spoken with Kaleb turned back toward the village.“We must get moving,” he said. “The demon comes out when the sun sets.”
“With Vorda here, there is no reason to fear the spirit of Morda.”
“Vorda?” asked Alicia.
The guard turned to Starla and she smiled slightly. “My friend is weak.”
“That is what makes me certain we must hurry,” said the guard. “Come on.”
The group moved South to a large lake and then followed the coast until finally coming to the path that would take them back to their village. When they reached the front guard post Kaleb was already coming out to meet them. He saw that Alicia had a terrible wound on her leg and whistled loudly to signal several women standing nearby. They came running over and the leader of the group walked up to the wound right away.
“My name is Keket,” she said to both Starla and Alicia. “I am in charge of healing. Tell me Vorda, will our instruments work on your bodies?”
Starla shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope that they do.”
“I understand,” said Keket. “We will try our best to help her.”
The woman took Alicia to the hut that Starla had been sleeping in earlier. Now that the sun had nearly vanished Starla was uncertain of what to do next. Thankfully, she didn’t have to wonder for long. Kaleb asked her to come to his hut and she followed him back where he had a bowl of fruit and some roasted boar meat waiting for her.She took a seat near a small fire he had in his hut. A cold wind had started to set in over the village and the warmth was a nice change. When he came to join her, he handed her a book and plopped down on the other side of the fire so that she could clearly see him.“I was told you don’t remember who you are,” he said. “Is this true?”
“Yes.” replied Starla. “I remembered part of our arrival here in my dreams but that’s all I’ve gotten so far. It seems blurry now that I’m awake.”
Kaleb rapped his finger on the book he had handed her. “That is the Ca’oDu. It is the people’s best record of how the gods have worked on our world and how we have continually betrayed them. It also documents the fall of Deibra that came shortly after your death.”
Starla looked up at Kaleb with surprise. “My death?”
r /> “Yes. Here, let me show you.”
He took the book and opened it to a certain section and then handed it back. Starla found a graphic image of a woman being slain on a large black rock with text on the other page talking of the people’s betrayal.
“So Vorda… is dead.”
“Yes, she trusted us and we betrayed her. However, she was a goddess and as such, there have been many throughout history that assumed Vorda would return someday. The question was simply if she’d come with good intentions or harmful ones. I always liked to believe she’d come with good ones.”
“So, you believe I’m Vorda?”
“Yes. It all makes sense, anyway.”
“How does it make sense?”
“When the god of the soil took on a mortal body he lost his memory as well. He led our people to victory against the demons that had come to the surface and eventually sealed up the hole to the underworld before returning to his rightful place as our god.”
“So he couldn’t remember who he was either?” asked Starla.
“Not according to the Ca’oDu,” replied Kaleb.
Starla held the book out and then looked as Vorda was explained in a previous area. She had been known as the goddess of light. She was a woman of guidance and understanding and it was with the knowledge she spread that the people of Deibren had been able to hold off the power of Morda, her evil sister who wished to coat the world in darkness forever.“So this Morda; she’s Vorda’s sister?”
“Yes, and she has terrorized our world since…”Kaleb stopped talking just as a bitterly cold wind blew by outside and filled the entire room with a feeling of ice. Starla saw the man’s face growing rigid and he looked at her with a questioning gaze.
“Your friend,” he said as he started to stand. “Is that Morda?”
Starla smiled. “Of course not.”
Outside the hut, in the dead of night, the high-pitch scream of pierced the cold air and sent a chill down Starla’s spine. She immediately stood and took a step closer to the fire while Kaleb moved toward the door.“We must get our people inside,” he said. “The demon approaches.”
“The demon? That’s a demon?” She asked.
“It is the spirit of Morda,” replied Kaleb. “It destroys whatever it touches.”
Starla followed Kaleb out into the open and listened as the man shouted for his guards to take care in locking the doors and hiding the villagers.“Do not rest until they are safe,” he shouted.
Throughout the night the scream came again and again. Sometimes it was louder than others and once it seemed whatever was making such a noise stood just beyond the village’s wooden walls. After that occurred, Starla moved out from Kaleb’s hut and into the one where Alicia was being kept;her friend was looking just as bad as before even though the healers had tried their best to medicate the woman.
“What is that thing out there?” asked Alicia when she saw Starla.
“I’m not sure. They say it’s a demon.”
“A demon?”
“Yeah. I guess it only comes at night so they’ve tagged it to this goddess that has ruled over the night for ages.”
“So, why were they calling you Vorda?”
“They think I’m the goddess of light,” replied Starla.
Alicia laughed for a moment before the scream came again and caused them both to fall silent, waiting until it had once again faded away.
“It sounds like a woman,” said Starla.
“It sounds like a woman screaming out in agony and anger at the same time,” replied Alicia.
“I don’t know what it is but it is no doubt a very dangerous thing. Now listen to me Starla, I’m not going to make it much longer. These guys are giving me herbal tea and seasoned rice to try and fix an infected wound.”
“Alicia you don’t know…”
“Don’t kid yourself, Starla. I’m a soldier and this is no different than if we’d been blown up during our mission. I want you to use the GPS you found. I already asked the guards and they said they have it. You need to use it to locate any emergency signals on the planet, okay?”
“You think someone is alive?” asked Starla.
“I’m counting on it for your sake. Starla, when Anthony left the ship with his emergency parachute, he took a pack from the transport that had all our communicators on it. If you can find Anthony and get the pack you can use the communicators to call for someone to come rescue you.”
“Okay,” said Starla. “Once you get better we’ll head on out to find them.”
“You don’t understand, Starla; I’m already dead.”
“What?”
“They should have amputated my leg hours ago. The infection is in my blood stream. By morning I’ll have already gone septic.”
“But…”Alicia pulled Starla closer to her so that the two were almost touching.“Get the GPS and go find the communicators. You need to get away from this planet as fast as you can. Do you understand me?”
Starla nodded. “I…I understand.”
When Starla returned to Kaleb’s hut, the Royal Guard had fallen asleep at the fire. He stirred when she closed the door and he looked up to see that she had tears running down her face. He quickly came over to her and got a chair pulled up next to the flames so she could keep warm.
“Is your friend okay?” he asked.
“She’s dying.”
Kaleb looked to the ground before making a strange symbol with his hands.
“What was that?” She asked.
“It is the mark of Zata. We make it over our hearts so that he will hear our voice.”
“Could you show me?”
“Yes, I’d be glad to,” he said as he came over to her. He made a circle around his chest before touching his finger to his chin and then to his heart. When he had finished she did the same and saw that he had started to smile.
“What is it?” She asked.
“It’s just that… well, you’re a goddess and yet you are asking of how you can communicate with Zata. I guess I find it a little funny.”
“Kaleb, what if I told you I wasn’t a goddess.”
“I’m sorry?”
“What if I told you that I was just a soldier from another planet.”
“A soldier?” asked Kaleb.
“Well, I guess I’d ask how you know this?”
Starla leaned back. The truth was she knew what Alicia told her and she knew what Kaleb had told her. Both of them had evidence to back their claims but she couldn’t recall either of them.
“I just find it hard to believe I was a goddess. Alicia says…”
“Alicia may not be your friend,” replied Kaleb. “The Ca’oDu speaks of Morda and how she once used deception to get the upper hand in her fight against Vorda. That is what led them into their bitter conflict.”
“How dare you,” Starla snapped at him. “Alicia is my friend.”
“I’m sorry,” replied Kaleb as he reached and took her by the arms. “I meant no harm. I speak foolishness I am sure. Please, don’t let me make you angry.”
Starla collapsed back into the seat, her own energy drained. “I need to get some sleep.”
“I understand completely. I have prepared the guest room for you.”
Kaleb quickly led her through a hall and into a single room that had its own small fireplace and bed. She thanked him for it and when he left she laid out on the bed without worrying about even getting out of her uniform. She looked down at it and saw the emblem of a dragon with four wings that were stretched out. It made no sense for her to be some kind of goddess. She couldn’t understand how she could be so utterly confused by the situation;without her memories, the two people that had spoken to her about her past spoke with such enthusiasm and truth that she could not imagine either of them lying. However, she knew that the things that she had experienced in her ship after the crash had not been made up. She had not just simply fallen from the stars, she had come down in a space ship.Either way, Alicia was right. She needed t
o get the GPS working and find Anthony or anyone that might have survived the crash. Tomorrow she’d be able to get her mind straight and figure out what steps she should take next.When she lay down in bed she realized that the screams had stopped.The haunting noise was gone. She could finally rest.