The Reward of The Oolyay (10 page)

Suddenly there were no Hagayalicks in the room; everything was strikingly silent. There were a couple of eating utensils which they had left for the pair, but it was clear that they did not consider either of them enough of a threat to remove them.

“Listen to me, Teftek, we have to act quickly...“ Iquay started.

“No, we don’t.” Teftek stated calmly.

“Teftek! We need to devise a plan, we...“ Iquay persisted

“Just sit down and eat some dinner with me,” Teftek broke in. Iquay stared at him, amazed.

“What happened to the brutally efficient military commander? What happened to the Teftek that saved my life not one day ago?” Iquay protested. Teftek pulled a leg off the baked Urio and as he was about to bite into it when he suddenly dropped it on the plate, and everything caught up to him.

All the sadness of his life. The torment that he, a nonbeliever had felt from the day his father had been executed and thrown from a cliff-side to the day he had watched that poor farmhand die by his blade because she had tried to hand him a flower, it all rushed into him. He saw the eyes of every victim, his own and others, and he saw the terror of every battle and every war he had fought. He felt the pain of his people, of four arduous, brutal world wars that had ravaged the surface of his planet and left a path of destruction and agony for generations to come.

Most of all, he felt the true, bitter irony. He had signed up, he had believed the narrative of change, of control. He had believed that he could help control this world and turn it into a place where peace reigned and foolish sacrificial religions were myths of the past. He had watched the news channels declare peace, seen the old leaders of the past consent to the rule of the Uyor Sevoign. He had helped more rational minds prevail. Even if it had meant the deaths of so many, and maybe the death of his own soul and body, he had fought every waking moment of his adult life to bring about a world that was peaceful and modern. And just as they had claimed the throne of power…the world decided to end.

He put down the baked Urio leg and stared at the table. He put his head in his hands and wept. The world and its concerns went away and Teftek cried in peace, with Iquay's warm hand on his neck, a Vesh he could have come to love and respect if there had only been more time. If only the transports hadn’t been destroyed…and he cried for that too. Everything was forsaken now, all his dreams were dead, and the only thing he had to live for was the passage of time, the forestalling of a certain execution for those who he considered his last obligations.

As he cried, he knew that was true; that he still had three remaining obligations. The tears wore off as his sense of duty returned to him. In his hand, a bottle of Ytiri herb appeared from Iquay’s satchel, and she closed his hand around it.

“You’ll need this now,” she confided, and wiped away the stinging tears along his black striped face.

*  *  *

Inlojem and Iogi sat on small stone benches in the holding pit where the rest of the Oolyayns that had not yet been sacrificed awaited their fate. The Necrologists were all gone - piled headless at the base of the Ulgayir - but some of the villagers that the Hagayalicks had found a use for were put here. The night was moonless, leaving Inlojem without any hint of time. Eventually the ladder rolled down and Iquay crawled down into the pit. She walked directly over to Inlojem and sat next to him, speaking quietly.

“There is a place underground here which has a portal of great power. The Master Necrologists were gathering food for us to step through it. It’s all been set up, we just need to get to it,” Iquay informed Inlojem. The old Necrologist’s eyes lit up, but he didn't dare glance at her, lest he give away his intentions.

“That’s where the Red people are,” a voice whispered from behind them. They turned to see Iogi listening in on them. “When we go through the portal, we’ll be one with the Red People.”

“Who are these…Red People, Iogi?” Inlojem asked, cautiously revealing his sense of curiosity to the child.

“We don’t have time. I believe you, Iogi, but we don’t have time. It’s going to happen soon!” Iquay stammered. “Listen, Teftek is going to cause a distraction, I will fight off the Hagayalicks.
You
must get to the portal.”

“You should take the child,” Inlojem said.

“No! It has to be you!” Iogi demanded. “You are the death priest!”

“I am too old-“

“Inlojem
listen to the child
. We are the same,” Iquay avowed, gripping his shoulders. He stared at her, shaken out of his defeat. He was astonished to feel fear and importance simultaneously invading his soul. The ladder dropped down and their attention shifted to the Hagayalicks standing at the precipice.

“You three, come out of the pit. The Stranger has requested that you witness the death of your heathen compatriot,” boasted one of the Hagayalick Necrologists. Inlojem, Iogi and Iquay obeyed and climbed up the ladder, walking with the Hagayalick escort to the acropolis. Inlojem glanced around, looking for Ilquast. He was surprised that his hubris hadn’t prompted him to make a public appearance for this Vesh’s execution. The Oolyayns were pressed in on either side by Hagayalick warriors and Necrologists armed and ready to kill an innocent whenever a chance presented itself.

The Hagayalicks always hide behind armor
,
thought Inlojem as he glanced at his own people, skittering about in chains and in rags. He noticed that the herbs he had given Iquay were no longer hanging from her belt.

“Did they take those from you?” He whispered to her, nodding to her belt.

“No,” she replied. “I gave them to Teftek.”

“Why?” he asked.

“They will give him the will to fight,” she explained.

Teftek stood at the top of the Ulgayir, looking down onto the enslaved Oolyayns, who were crowded into efficient little rows between the hundreds of Hagayalicks.  The wine and the herbs had culminated and the world swayed with Teftek. The chants and shrieks of hundreds of Vesh, in joy or turmoil, seemed like air that bubbled up through thick and viscous water.

The Necrologist who would sacrifice Teftek looked at him expectantly and commanded,

“Address them. You have your last words.” Teftek smiled slightly and stumbled, catching himself on his executioner’s shoulder. He chuckled wildly at the skinny Necrologist, whose striking orange eyes looked beautiful in Teftek’s altered vision of reality. He stared into the Necrologist’s eyes, oozing as much discomfort out of the Hagayalick as he could, until he threw his head toward the crowd.

He listened to them, listened to this last moment. This  moment that would be his death and he knew that he had no more strength. He knew that this was where it all ended, regardless of what Iquay had said to him. Regardless of his duties, this was his end. He couldn’t even think of anything to say.

And then, the entirety of his being was changed. He remembered the child standing at the portal. He remembered the old Vesh who had spoken about the Red People, and he felt the ground around him rumbling. His ears recognized these vibrations: the explosions of strategically launched warheads, erupting into an atomic inferno somewhere in the distance. There was no other sound like it, and the crowd shook like Teftek’s vision of life shook.  His eyes careened up to the sky and he caught the clouds in his vision, to give him the one final step for his soul to climb until it rested in the cradle of the Oolyay. He knew then that he finally believed and knew what he must do, because he knew what was coming through those clouds.

He began to laugh slowly at first. It grew to a maniacal chuckle and then elevated in pitch into an insane, howling cackle as through the clouds above burst the immaculate vision of sheer and unadulterated irony. A massive alien ship, as large as three sky-scrapers stacked end to end, barreled toward them. It was a hulking cube of burning metal blasted the cloudy night out from under it. From the sides of the hull screamed torrents of nuclear fire, the products of atomic artillery launched into it as it had approached the planet.

Teftek imagined thousands of those strange tentacle-masses inside that ship all waiting to ask “will you be my friend?” with the chilling voices of children, if they lived through the painful crash-landing that would soon ensue. The blast would send shock waves of dust and rock through the region as the mountains would be pulverized by this colossal, dying machine, and every being between here and the Dread Gulch would be one with the Nothingness.

Teftek gazed down at the panicked crowd, already being consumed by the wrath of Oolyayns, as the Hagayalicks had been distracted for just long enough. He turned back toward his own executioner, whose eyes were still glazed over and his jaw still slack as he stared into the sky. Teftek struck at the stomach of the Necrologist and snapped his neck in one fluid motion. He heaved the limp body over his own and sent it tumbling down the steps of the Ulgayir as he watched Hagayalicks race up the old temple to stop him.

Iquay ducked down as the chaos ensued in the crowd and ripped a confiscated sickle-blade off the side of a Hagayalick, slitting his throat a moment later. Inlojem gripped Iogi and yanked him up under his arm, a bloody sickle-blade appearing in his hand a moment later from Iquay, who had chosen to work with a straight-blade. He nodded his thanks to her and they started to weave through the crowd.

Teftek lumbered down the steps with the executioner’s massive battle axe in his hands, launching himself over the body he had thrown and into the crowd. He swung it three hundred and sixty degrees, lacerating the bodies of many warriors as he moved. He saw Inlojem further on in the crowd and fought to push through in order to reach them. Projectile weapons fired rounds into the sky and haphazardly sprayed through the crowd while their owners were hacked down by blade-wielders.

Inlojem and Iquay sliced and cut through the crowd of battered, screaming Hagayalicks who fired on their Oolyayn foes in sheer terror, and all the while doom rumbled louder and louder from above. Iquay led Inlojem into a hidden catacomb entrance  within the village’s humble library. Inlojem looked back to see if anyone was following them and saw that a whole squad of Hagayalicks were right on their heels. He slammed the thick wooden library door and scrambled after Iquay with the child in hand.

Teftek followed close behind the squad of Hagayalicks that burst into the library, his whole form covered in streaming purple blood. He threw himself like a pile-driver into the crowd of Hagayalicks before they made it through the door, only one escaping his vicious slaughter,as his axe ripped through the bodies like loose clay.

Iquay caught a glance at the Hagayalick behind them and took up Inlojem’s back to fight him. Yet the ground stammered as she moved past Inlojem, and they were all thrown to the ground for a moment. Something huge had hit the surface above them…falling wreckage from the ship. As Iquay made eye contact with the dazed Hagayalick, a massive piece of metal pried open the earth and incinerated his body, blasting chunks of debris in its wake. A piece of the debris tore through Iquay’s stomach and pinned her to the wall. Iogi fell from Inlojem’s grasp and darted down the corridor. Inlojem placed his hand upon the young Necrologist’s face.

“Go…it’s just around the bend,” she begged.

“Give me your last words, child-“ Inlojem pleaded beside her. She gripped him and gave him a small bar that hung from her belt.

“Take this. The transmutation block…you’ll need it to activate…the…portal,” she stuttered, her grasp upon consciousness becoming weak as she struggled to keep life within herself. “When you…get to the…other side…it will be there. Take it back so they don’t…follow.”

He stared at her with eyes of sadness. “I am just a faithless old Vesh. I'm not even as strong as you, how am I...how is it I who raises the child-“

“Inlojem…I have never had faith,” she declared in her last moment of breath. He gazed upon her with ultimate understanding. Her grip released and her eyes went blank. Inlojem rose from his moment of weakness and felt the strength of his soul return to him. He felt Quantelenk inside of him, and Pojlim, and Aljefta and every other fallen Vesh who had died at the hands of this cruel world. He pursued the child.

Teftek came to a massive metal shard that had bored into the ground and split it. The captain crawled atop it to see the sky's light flooding into the catacombs, realizing that the arm of the Hagayalick he was chasing was trapped under it. As he came to the other side, he found Iquay’s body, lifeless and empty. He felt a shudder tear through his bones as he saw her that way, the Vesh who had saved him from a useless end. No Vesh, believer or not, wanted a useless end, and she had delivered onto him…for this one moment in time... faith and purpose.

Inlojem rounded the bend and there, in front of him, was a simple pyrix arch, lifeless and dull, that seemed to sprout out of the ground. In its side was a small bar-shaped slot for the transmutation block. In front of the portal was something much more menacing; Ilquast, with Iogi struggling in his arms. A sickle-blade curved around the child’s neck.

“You,” he snapped. “I should have seen your face in my visions. I should have known you would be the one to face me here.

“Let go of the child,” Inlojem instructed as calmly as possible, “and fight me directly.”

“No, the child will go with me, and you will start the portal. I know she told you how, that miserable Oolyayn whore,” Inlojem crept toward Ilquast and dropped his blade on the ground. He placed the transmutation block into the slot on the side of the arch, and the portal brimmed to life with a spectacle of fizzing white-magenta light that filled the archway. Black arches generated arcs of electricity shot out from inside it and snapped at the walls of the room. Inlojem stood with his back to the portal, as Ilquast pressed the child’s throat with his blade.