Rise of the Mare (Fall of Man Book 2) (9 page)

“I’ll take you into the city later.
It is most spectacular in the evening,” Iry said. “Right now, we
must get to my house and get you cleaned up and into proper
wardrobe.”

“When I visited you through
projection there were women there. Will they be there?”

“Yes.”

“I will not have to be as scantily
dressed as they were will I?’

“They were sunbathing, Vala.”

“The sun cannot bathe you.”

“You’ll learn about the ritual that
humans do, or rather used to do. And no, you won’t be scantily
dressed. You will be dressed formally for court.”

“I don’t understand this court.
Nito’s own father will hear and decide what will happen?”

“Yes.”

“
Will
anything happen to her?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I have never been to
one. The last one I heard of was during something humans called the
Black Plague. We almost emerged full force during that time
period.”

“Iry… how can Nito be of the
bloodline of her father? I was always taught Ancients cannot bear
children.”

It was at that moment, we pulled up
to Iry’s home. I recognized it and he stopped the car.

“It is only being here on Earth that
prohibits us from reproducing with each other.”

“Here on Earth? With each other?”

“We can produce with humans. Let’s
leave it at that.” He opened his door.

“I need answers.”

“I promise you will get them,” he
said. “Right now, we have to prepare you to meet the king.”

“I am worried about my sister.”

“As you should. But I promise you,
Vala, this is the only way to help her. Trust me.”

After looking around and seeing
how far away from my own world I had gotten, and knowing my
sister’s life was in the balance, I had no choice
but
to trust
Iry.

There were plenty of
moments in my life when I wished I was living in the times before
the Great Sickness, in the times before the Sybaris ruled the
Earth, well, for their second reign.

There are moments when I wish I could
have parents to argue with, wear clothes that were subjective, get
something called a driver’s license, because teenagers made such a
big deal over them.

People my age made a big deal over a
lot of things.

I have seen almost every single
television show they had in the recondition bunker. Maybe not all,
I left out the black and white ones, started with
ALF
,
Saved by The Bell
,
and
Fresh Prince
and made my way into the next millennium.

Those shows aided in me desiring
those moments. I wanted to go to that thing called high school,
have friends that were strange, and be the cool guy that helped
kids who wore their pants too high. How awesome would it have been
to have the kick butt hair and a dance called a prom.

They had dances in those days. They
laughed and they smiled and while only television programs, I was
certain it was true because of stories Davis and others shared
about their former lives being generally good and happy.

Not that it wasn’t happy for me at
all. It was. A different happy, though.

Christmas wasn’t a bunch of toys
around a lit tree, it was gratefulness to be alive. I learned to
run fast not because of track and field, but because I ran for my
life one too many times. I shot a gun before I was ten and that
wasn’t by choice. No one was around to help me. I never feared the
dark, but was always leery of it.

My mother is dead and I barely
remember her or my father, but I remember the day they died. The
slaughter that took place, them hiding me and saying. “Don’t make a
noise, Tanner, don’t breathe, don’t cry, don’t move.”

Through my hiding spot I watched them
die. Davis was an angry man that day. He fought and slaughtered
like I had never seen him do, then he took hold of me and
cried.

“I’m so sorry this happened to your
parents. I am so sorry. I’m here though, I got ya,” he said.

And he did.

He told me I saved his life that day
because he was battling to the death, literally. He wanted to fight
until he died, and then he saw my parents die and he always told me
when he witnessed that he thought of me. I became his focus. He
tried to give me a normal life, but the circumstances hindered
that. I can say with certainty that the Battle of Exit 84B was not
one of those moments I wanted to live in any other time. The once
four lane highway was reduced to a single lane, if it could be
called that. There were bald spots amongst the green; our travel
down that single lane inhibited the growth, though everything else
was overgrown. Trees reached out across the road, forming a natural
tunnel. It was thick and high, and a part of me was worried that
the Day Stalkers would be concealed within.

However, there were far too many and
they moved in droves. One big giant group.

There were twenty of us.

Davis raised his rifle. “Gentlemen,
wait until you have a clear shot and on my call, fire.

It was only a few minutes, though it
seemed like longer for the first few Stalkers to appear. My finger
was on the trigger waiting. The plan was to shoot, take them down,
and keep taking them down.

Mark was on the back of the truck
with a grenade launcher. He would fire into the center of the
group.

“Hey, Davis!” Mark hollered out.
“There’s a ton of them!”

“Define a ton.”

“Hundreds.”

Davis acknowledged it with little
worry. “Just wait for my call.”

The large group neared closer and
then finally, Davis ordered us to shoot.

They were nothing but slow moving,
easy targets.

We took them out one by one and the
rest kept coming, all at the same pace. Some tripped over their
fallen cohorts, but for the most part, they all fell.

Mark launched one, two, then three
grenades. Like toy soldiers or dominoes, the Day Stalkers fell.
Those who didn’t kept coming.

Next to me, Davis lowered his
weapon.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“This is tiresome, not to mention
easy and boring.” He leaned his rifle against the truck and pulled
out a machete.

He was going hand to hand, and when
the others saw Davis grab another weapon, so did they. I too
followed Davis into battle.

A few men stayed back to man the guns
in case there was trouble.

They weren’t even a challenge. We cut
through them like vines. Sometimes they were tough, but in the end
they all succumbed.

Limbs sailed, heads rolled, blood
splattered.

We cheered like Vikings.

It was an orchestration of
superiority and we as men were superior over the Day Stalkers. No
matter how vulnerable we thought we were to them, we were human, we
had heart and soul. And like the battle of exit 84B, we would
remain superior as a race and win not only the remaining battles,
but the entire war against the beings that had subdued us far too
long.

I had seen them on the episodes of
ALF
that I watched
while in the bunker, but never had I seen one up close. Apparently,
they are everywhere in the La Sveg As, City of the
Ancients.

Iry called them showers. A pipe
emerges from the wall and ejects warm water onto you like rain. At
Iry’s home, the ceramic stall with the large frosted glass wall had
four pipes with big flat heads like sunflowers. The water flowered
warm and hot, and it felt great against my skin.

The scantily clad human maidens
provided me with lavender soap, a liquid to cleanse my hair, and
then another liquid to soften it. They explained the procedure
since I was used to regular bathing.

I was Iry’s chosen, and special one
and, though I hated the thought of it, I was assigned a chamber
maiden; her name was Samantha. She wasn’t old, but wasn’t quite as
young as me. She was a beautiful woman with flowing auburn hair
that shined like no other. I promised myself I would not ever treat
Samantha unkindly.

I was baffled when she handed me an
object. It had a handle and a sharp head.

“For your legs,” she said.

“My legs?” I asked. “Do they need
grooming?”

“Yes, they do. Be careful, this is a
razor. Be slow. It’s sharp.”

“I am to cut my legs?” I asked.

“
Hopefully not your legs,
the
hair
on
your legs.”

“Why…why…” I stammered, “why would I
do that? I wear pants that cover my legs.”

“For court you will wear a
dress.”

I would not be exaggerating if I said
I gasped in offense. “I don’t wear dresses.”

“Today you do.”

“This dress, it will show my
legs?”

“No.”

“Then why remove the hair?”

“It’s what women do.”

I stared in bafflement at the
object.

“Women shave their legs.”

“Not in Akana they don’t.”

“Here they do,” she said.

“Remove the hair from my legs?” I
questioned once more.

“Yes.”

“That’s very unnatural. Next thing
you are going to tell me is to remove the hair from under my
arms.”

When she stared at me, I knew the
answer was yes.

I was aghast. I felt as if I were
primping and grooming for some sort of show. Never had I heard
about women removing the hair from their bodies. I wondered if men
did it as well. Thankfully, Samantha showed me how to do it.

After my ‘shower’, I wore the tan
dress. It was long with thin sleeves and a golden belt that wrapped
round my waist. The maidens fixed my hair. It was as if I were
royalty. When I asked about it, I was simply told I was chosen.

Weren’t they as well?

At one time they were, they told me.
However, they had been picked to be workers and Iry had inherited
them.

I had never felt like I did at that
moment, a beautiful dress, my hair silky and straight, pulled to
the side, and my lips painted, as was most of my face.

“You look beautiful,” Iry said to me.
“Absolutely stunning.”

“I feel fake. Why am I dressed and
made up like this?”

“This proceeding is very formal. They
happen rarely.”

“What will it entail?”

He shook his head and shrugged. It
was then I noticed he too was dressed up. His clothes were all
dark; black jacket, black pants, black shirt.

“I have so many questions,” I told
him as we left his home.

“I promise, after this is done, I
will answer them all.”

A special vehicle was there waiting,
it was long and black and we both sat in the back. Then I noticed
with a start that… I didn’t smell him anymore. While I was certain
the odor of the Sybaris was still there, like Iry had once told me,
I had the ability to block it out, and I was.

We arrived at the king’s palace, a
huge home with several floors. We followed a man to the back and
entered a large open room with golden pillars. We stopped upon
entrance and waited for the king’s summoning.

It was the first time I had ever seen
the king. Most of the Sybaris had smooth, ageless faces, a look of
youth carried with them. While one could tell an older Sybaris from
a younger one like Iry, they still were mystical and smooth
looking.

Not the king. King Seti was tough
looking, as if he should have been a soldier. He was built like
them. Not thin, but defined. I wanted to ask Iry why that was and
made a mental note of that question. I expected someone evil
looking, a Dark Lord of such, but instead I was faced with a being
that looked wise, his hair white and face wrinkled with lines. He
looked … human.

“I take it this is the Mare,” he
said.

I looked to Iry, unsure if I should
speak. Iry nodded at me.

“I am,” I replied.

“Step forward,” he commanded
softly.

Two steps toward the throne, Nito
emerged. She projected arrogance. Her dark hair was perfectly
pulled up, her face painted, and her grown was slender, form
fitting, streaming with a gold design.

Iry stayed by my side.

“It has been brought to my
attention,” King Seti said, “that Nito has been purposely
disobeying the laws we have set forth. Laws against the humans and
against the Ancients. Mare, we have strict laws. We are bound by
them to provide to the humans and protect them because in a sense,
they provide for us. These accusations are serious in nature and
consequences dire. Do you stand by your accusations?”

To me it was all a charade. Nito was
smug, her red lips pursed as if she was withholding a laugh. The
whole thing was a slap on the wrist to her, meanwhile, it would
accomplish nothing, and possibly make everything more
difficult.

With little conviction, I replied.
“Yes.”

“Speak up.”

“Yes,” I repeated, louder.

The king turned to Nito. “What say
you of these accusations brought against thee?”

Nito laughed. “They are absurd. and
mere imagining, a vindictive plot of a…” she cocked an eyebrow,
“mare. Perhaps she feels slighted that I did not chose her.”

“According to the Elders,” the king
said, “you have tampered with and shorted the nourishment supply by
deliberately causing harm and death to the humans. According to the
Elders, you have a human child in your possession that was not
granted through ceremony.”

“if I have a child in my possession
it is because I have rescued the child,” Nito replied. “This Mare
lies.”

“As you know, Mares are unable to
lie. Step forward, Mare.” The king summoned me closer with a wave
of his hand.

When I arrived before him, he stood.
He was taller than any Sybaris I had ever encountered. He held his
hand over my head.