While Sann was still recovering from the Truth Surge, Onnd lifted her staff and pointed it down at Kai. Her stark lips parted, about to speak, but Shen, on the other side of Kai, blurted in —
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! So...uh...you!” he said, pointing at Kai with a fluorescent finger, “You took my...you knew...you HEALED me! How did...?”
Before Kai could even prepare his silence with a breath, Shen erupted into an exalted flurry of colour —
“You...are...my...SAVIOUR! Salvator of light! Light! LIGHT!!!”
He fell suddenly pale and silent. His mouth dropped open and the air turned icy still around him, as he muttered —
“‘One...One silent soul to...to bear the Light.’”
His face began to flush and his voice slowly rose towards a new intonation —
“‘To hold a truth concealed.’”
Finally his rapture burst into a blinding rainbow of realisation —
“In limbs of light as One! The One! You are the Chosen One!!!!! You must be, boy!!!”
Sann, still breathing heavily, looked up at Shen. Onnd’s eyes remained trained on Kai, unmoved.
The preacher caressed his pet reassuringly and helped it to its clumsy feet.
“Oh Blaiput, honey,” continued the girl, oblivious to Shen’s cries, “That was, like, soooo terrible! I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, or, like...totally....”
Her voice trailed off as the young follower she had been pursuing looked back at her shyly from behind the staggering hydra. The girl smiled back coyly, wriggled her fingers into a wave, and stood up — Blaiput’s head dropped straight back down onto the hard stone.
“Oh, my poor heads!” grunted Blaiput to himself, looking around at his crushed and broken canisters all over the forum while holding onto his own overwhelmed skull with one hand, untangling himself from the rope with another.
As Kai looked up at Onnd and Shen in silent, wide-eyed fear, awaiting either judgement, staff or madness to crash down onto him, the two warriors suddenly raised their heads as one and looked behind them, as though some unheard signal had pierced their ears. Shen’s colours cooled immediately, as did his accent: “Oh. Well, I would rather not have to trouble you at this moment, young Salvator, but, you see, the SYS-troops will be here soon, very soon.”
Distant sirens wafted into the still air around them.
“Indeed,” continued Shen, “And, without doubt, they will blame absolutely everything on anyone close to the I’sta here, and...”
Shen gestured up at the warriors as he spoke — but they were gone.
Suddenly the steely sun blazed through the clouds and a blustery gust whistled through. From the far-off archways, oppressive SYS-soldiers began to make their way into the forum, grabbing people and hurling questions. Shen helped Kai to his feet as the wind threw back their hair; Kai’s long strands of curling black snaked in and around Shen’s chaotic shimmer of crystal as they stood in silence for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, looking into the distance.
“Well come on!” said Shen suddenly, scratching his behind, “We can’t stand around here all day just looking...amazingly handsome! Follow me, Salvator!”
Shen spun round and dragged Kai away towards the temple, as the preacher calmly led away his broken beast in the opposite direction, tottering towards the forum wall into a sea of soldiers and through a teeming archway. Once through, they clandestinely turned into a dingy, deserted alleyway.
The cold light of the sun licked dimly in over the lofty tops of the crumbling stone walls of the narrow passageway, along with the eerie whistling gust. The weary hydra stepped forward into its master’s shadow within the gloom. It stopped, sniffed around with lethargically flicking tongues, and looked down — by its heavy hooves lay a body stripped of clothes, its flimsy neck twisted up unnaturally, revealing the bloodied, lifeless face — the preacher!
As the hydra stood with comprehension seeping slowly in, the shadow began to shift around it. Its serpent necks twisted round, but before it could see its master, a hideous adamantine claw slashed in and gouged and hacked at its serpent necks; all but one of the snakes vanished at once leaving only dripping, seeping gashes of gore on the hydra’s massive body. The beast had nothing left; it hissed and fell to its knees, and wailed into the air for mercy with one lonely serpent maw. The contoured claw of steely black grabbed the last neck, and squeezed, then pulled it towards the forming face — the SYS-officer! The skin of his cheeks hung like bloody lips. With his other claw he tore off his fraudulent preacher’s robes and fished into his sable SYS-uniform for the metal barbs, which he then lifted to his cheeks, gouged into his own skin and pulled the gaping wounds closed. Crushing away the beast’s remaining life, the SYS-officer glared straight through the hydra’s two remaining eyes.
“Think yourself remarkable?!” he taunted in a sickly hiss through vitreous teeth.
From the hydra’s broken, dying body sixteen tiny, embryonic serpent heads began to sprout.
“Or your regenerative malevolence?!” he continued, then pulled the serpent even closer to his ragged, grey lips and spat a derisive sneer: “Creature of a day!”
His long, razor digits tightened and crushed the final breath from the beast, and as its dark eyes glazed over, he let the carcass drop to the ground. The foetal heads continued growing for a moment, then dwindled, the SYS-officer watching on with a callous grin.
At the mouth of the passage behind the SYS-officer, the family of four that had fled from him earlier scuttled past in a squabble. The mother had seized command and was holding her left hand up in front of her, following the map on her hand-film. The young boy and girl skipped on ahead, still trying to find the right mythological figure to vanquish one another, as their father dragged along behind, having been supplanted. He looked idly into the alleyway as he walked past. Without thinking, he stopped and peered through the murk. His eyes adjusted, and his mouth fell open as he glimpsed the SYS-officer towering over two battered, bloodied corpses.
“But I said!” came the voice of the boy, as he ran on ahead into the forum crawling with SYS-soldiers, “You can’t beat me. I’m...I’m Lú...”
The boy’s voice echoed away. The SYS-officer twisted round his sallow head and spied the man.
“Yes,” he hissed softly, softly enough to envelop and pierce the man with dread, then sneered, “That’s right, child — Lúez!”
The father gulped hard and retched at dry air, then scurried away to his family as fast as his pounding heart and quivering legs would allow.
Lúez snorted a private, sickly cackle, then followed slowly after them, back towards the forum.
Next chapter — The Religious Quarter
Sunday 9 January 2011
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