Chapter 2
The facilities were extravagantly luxurious and astonishingly elaborate. My Dad’s phrase, ‘to gild the lily,’ came to mind and a smile played on my lips. Everything my eyes feasted on, even the spas, were designed and built by the Zikalic—using some technology we didn’t even know existed on this primal planet. A power source derived, no doubt, from their dazzling crystals, mined from somewhere on this Eden. Or something like that. Manipulating the coloured crystal jewels, the Zikalic created an energy source that powered their entire city.
The breathtaking City of Zika was constructed about ten strides above the marshy valley basin which we had called the Shadow Valleys—a term descriptive of the dark, murky but vast valley floor from where we knew our terrible enemies hailed. Covered by a colossal, dark glass-like dome that blotted out the sky, the Zika-city was constructed from a kind of light concrete of sorts, and wherever you wandered, the air was perfumed by a nose-catching fragrant incense.
And my favourite of all … hundreds of purple, green, red and blue orbs hung suspended at different heights—the lowest ones easily a hundred strides in the air; the highest ones possibly twice that distance—defying gravity, sparkling, coruscating a kaleidoscope of colour around the city. Not only were they a marvel to behold, the magical-hanging lights were also immensely practical: easy on the fascinating but fragile Zikalic eye. (From all that I’d learnt of our former enemies in the last few days, sustained exposure to direct sunlight could severely damage their eyesight. Possibly, even render them blind.)
How do the orbs just hover in the air like that?
The number of questions I had for Miltredic was mounting rapidly.
Our senior leaders—which we called Mzees, from an ancient Swahili word meaning, “respected one”—had washed up first and had left to meet with the Zikalic Chiefs. The tangible sense of expectation at Miltredic’s stupendous show of favour—his Declaration of Peace—and his unblushing promises of support, had spurred the Mzees to rush their first shower in a decade. After all, regular showers were surely a thing of our future.
This is a new day after all. Yep, this is on playback-loop in my head.
“Ristan!” I heard my name yelled out from across the bathhouse, but I wasn’t sure from which direction. The flood of water dulled my hearing even though it roused my soul.
“Rist!”
I looked around, stepping out from the shower, wiping the water from my face. “Yep?”
“Over here! The Mzees have asked you to join them.”
“What?” I then spotted my friend Judd Williams at the south entrance of the bathhouse, waving his arms furiously to get my attention. Our friendship had been severely tested recently, but I think it had endured. I trusted him with my life. And I would defend his with mine. “Pardon?” I replied.
“The Mzees have called for you,” he yelled again. “They want you to join their meeting with the Zika-Chiefs. Seems things have come, uh, unstuck.”
Unstuck?
Even though the word carried easily over the water, it seemed that nobody took much notice. Basking in the blissful indulgence of the lavish bathhouse evidently dulled everyone to the potential likelihood of any bad news.
Did I hear right?
“Okay,” I replied as an immediate sense of heaviness bore down on me. So much so, my knees turned to liquid, and I had to use all my wits to keep upright. While I was obviously concerned by what was implied in the word ‘unstuck,’ I was also roiled by their request for me. I’d hoped to return to my simple, out-of-the-spotlight existence. I felt ever so tired. Drained. Rising to the occasion, again, was the last thing I felt like doing.
Massaging my knee still aching from when I had twisted it, my legs remained wobbly. “Coming right away,” I muttered and coughed out the words.
I rinsed once more under the shower and was about to dive into the surrounding pool when his raspy voice jarred my nerves.
“Hey, Ristan,” said the incorrigible Cainn, two bodies down on my left. “Going to save the day again? In loyal service to the Mzees, eh?” His sarcasm-drenched words caught me midstride and I nearly lost my footing. Before I could respond, Cainn clicked his tongue and continued his taunt. “Maybe I should call you Skywalker. No, I know…”—he broke into a guttural giggle—“I know, how about Crackcrawler!” His barbed comments dug in. Deep.
Boosted by an outburst of sniggering and horsey squealing, seventeen-year-old Cartyr jumped on the bandwagon, his lazy left eye more exaggerated under the cascading water, complimenting his drowned-rat look. “And Pretty Boy wants your autograph.”
“Cartyr, pal,” snapped Ruzzell; containing his smirk better than the rest, he massaged his bruised brow. “Only I get to call Judd that, see?”
Ignoring Ruzzell as he browbeat Cartyr into submission, Cainn continued his acerbic assault on my fragile emotional capacity. “Go on, then. Run along. Play your little hero role.” He glared at me and then spat out a final word: “Turncoat.”
“What?”—the only word I could find. I didn’t expect Cainn to become friendly all of a sudden. After all, he had been one of Dylain’s key henchmen in the plot to sell us out. And I didn’t want his gratitude either—from him or anyone else. Yet, I hadn’t anticipated his caustic contempt. I felt my blood boil.
“Let him be, Cainn,” said Ruzzell, four bodies down from me. “The dude did save us from being munched by—”
“He didn’t,” said Cainn, cracking his knuckles and bearing his crooked lower teeth. “His little Zik-girlfriend did.” His chortle was chaffing.
Sixteen-year-old Shawz, standing closest to me on the left, cheered the joke and snickered, “Dank dude! You’re cooking with a heap of fat!”
“What’s your problem?” I stared at Cainn; the fresh injection of anger in my veins partly settled the uneasiness I felt. To my surprise, the anger made me feel a little more in control. And I needed all the composure I could muster; it was clear that our silly little confrontation was now the subject of everyone’s attention.
“My problem?” said Cainn, his slight underbite becoming more pronounced as he sneered. “Your little fling with the Zik-female got us into this mess.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Your little uprising had nothing to do with it?
“Risto,” said Dixan to my right, “we all know Cainn’s a head-case, bro … if it wasn’t for you, we’d all be Sabre chow. Don’t listen—”
“You! Punk!” Cainn glared across at Dixan, pointing a crooked finger threateningly in his direction. “You’re just a kid—call me a head-case again, and I swear; I’ll bite your head off!” His eyebrows narrowed squeezing his crazed, leering eyes together. He ran his thumb menacingly down the inflamed, full-face scar that curled under his chin, a disfigurement that made an already unattractive twenty-six-year-old man look utterly hideous.
I nodded at Dixan to express my gratitude and reassure him; his handsome, dark face turned ashen at Cainn’s threat. Another friendship that had been forced through the furnace over the last day or two, but I held no grudge against Dixan. Young and impressionable, he’d made a poor choice in temporarily falling in step with Ruzzell’s renegades. His apology in the Arena earlier was sincere, backed up by his attempt to support me now.
“Chill, buddy,” Ruzzell appealed to Cainn as he rubbed his puffy right eye tenderly, his nose horribly swollen and skew from where my forehead had flattened it earlier in the morning. “Just let it go…”—and then he covered his mouth with the back of his hand and lowered his voice—“…for now.”
“Ruzz, you just back the hell off,” snapped Cainn, perhaps not hearing the last two words, his pale blue eyes bulging in their sockets. He took in a mouthful of water, gurgled and spat the contents in my direction, his face rumpled into a snarl. “Just because our little hero here knocked you silly, doesn’t mean I’ve got to sign up and join the fan club.”
Twenty-four-year-old Ruzzell was a brute of a man, a head taller than Cainn and m
ore so than me. Pressing his lips into a straight line, he scratched his coal-black head of hair. He seemed immersed in thought, almost as though he was trying to restrain himself. Out of his cold, deep-sunken eyes, he stared at me and an odd look crawled onto his bewhiskered face, his dark eyebrows scrunching together … then he just smirked and shrugged his shoulders. I was lost in disbelief for a minute or so, confused by his inexplicable reaction and the level of animosity directed my way. What troubled me most was not Cainn’s outburst, but those two little words that snaked out of Ruzzell’s mouth.
What does Ruzzell mean by “for now?”
Sure now that his indifferent defence of me was merely an appeasing delay tactic, I figured I could expect some backlash from him at a time that was more opportune to whatever agenda now served his whims. His apology in the Arena was now looking distinctly insincere. Although we’d been in the same clan for ten long years, he had never liked me. And the feeling was mutual. Ruzzell and I would go head to head again. Soon. Of that I was certain.
When it was obvious that Cainn had wrapped up his rant, and everyone went back to what they were doing, I rubbed my aching knee before plunging into the pool, and swam underwater to the pool’s edge. I wanted to hold my breath forever. If only I didn’t need to surface. I would have given just about anything to avoid dealing with Ruzzell and his gang. To avoid facing my women-dilemma. To avoid having to report to our Mzees and the Zikalic Chiefs. Underwater, it was quiet. No noise, no demands, no worries. Only, underwater … I couldn’t live.
And if there was one undergirding, driving force that had dominated my dreams and animated my aspirations over the last decade of my life on this wretched planet, it was simply this.
I want to live.
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