Chapter 28: Reclaim
"Elder Isha’Ka had a vision. He said...cough...the undoing of the oracle has come forth...cough..."
Emperor Turk’s ring glowed brightly as he stood from his throne.
"And you’ve come to tell me this, why?"
"T-the elders s-sent me..."
"To deliver a prophecy without deciphering it first?"
Fucked.
No, fucked was an understatement.
The elders had sent him to deliver a prophecy without its meaning and he had foolishly obliged.
"Your Majesty I—"
The large doors burst open and another Vashki marched in.
Ira’Oka.
"Insolent! Barging into the throne room with no regard!" The preceptor roared as the U’Kan bowed before Tuk.
"Great One, I heard of the events at sanctum."
"And so what if you did?" Tuk hisses, his face cracking open.
The Emperor was pissed.
"I know who the prophecy speaks of..." Ira’Oka tore off the side of his garment showing his healed wound. "... the demon child."
"...he’s no oracle neither is he worth being the undoing of one. Get lost from my sight, your failure reeks off of you. I do not wish to see you in my presence."
"Your majesty, please let me fight once more. I will—"
"You will what?"
The room reverberated with the question sending dust and gusts of winds from the ceiling of the room.
"You couldn’t kill a mere child and you dared to come back here bleeding and whatnot. Even your wife, the ’tigress’, had her head crushed by his hands! You have no body of hers to mourn...tell me, Ira’Oka, isn’t that the highest grade of unredeemable shame?"
"..."
"Get lost, you sour my mood."
Ira refused to move. Instead, he fell to his knees and began striping himself of his rings.
"I will give you my rings if I have to! If it will make you let me fight! You gave that whore a second chance! Why not me!"
The throne room shook.
Debris rained from above and the air seemed to distort.
One minute Ira was on his knees and the next he was flat against a wall. Tuk towering above him, a large hand around his head, ready to crush him.
"Cuss him all you want but do not do so in my presence...I will make you regret it!"
"I am worth more than he will ever be! Look at me! I have nothing to lose! My wife is dead!"
"Then me killing you should’nt be problem either..."
"Your majesty, please calm down."
Gigi took this as his cue to run.
"Yes, Ira’Oka of Kun failed his mission woefully. He is still a valuable asset...if truly the prophecy speaks of the demon child, we should let him go."
"And why is that?" Tuk growled.
"He has a score to settle and Your Majesty...there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal."
"..."
The emperor tilted his head, contemplating whether or not to finish off the scoundrel before him.
Silence hung thick in the air. Then,
"Bring the demon child’s head to me...if you cannot, you must dig out your own guts."
Saying this, he flung Ira and returned to his throne.
"I will not fail this time. I will find the demon child and bring you his head."
Ira bowed profusely and exited the room.
"Is your majesty settled?"
"Hm"
"Would you like to discuss plans surrounding Ira’Oka’s return for revenge?"
"...hm, it is time to retrieve him."
"What?"
"I’ve let my little pet go astray for too long."
"Y-your majesty, that is not the matter at han—"
"Ready my ship, I have to meet an old acquaintance of mine."
──── ✦ ────── ✦ ────
The sand of Nythera crunched beneath K’s feet.
Their ship had landed not quite long and they were heading to the portal. Led by Iniko.
The quest from earlier replayed over and over in his head.
Why give him the same quest? And twice?
Then it hit him.
His theory was most likely correct!
He had restored Shira in that ’trance-dream’ state. And her now her actual body was most likely beneath the spring Iniko spoke of.
Just like Kagu had said, Iniko’s people were most likey created from the crater shaped like a woman that Kagu had found. Then it meant their wildlife and planet structure most have stemmed from the crater too. So was the gravitational effect and evolved life forms.
He had one theory.
If the spring Iniko spoke of could bring their weapons to life then it meant that spring was a concentration of her energy.
"So how exactly are you going to find her body?"
"Do as they said...dive."
"Yeah yeah, dive alright."
"They’re back!"
A child yelled as they were tossed out on the other side of the portal.
"My, I did not expect you to be back so soon."
The elder tribeswoman, Iniko’s mother, approached them. "Does the time move rather quickly on your planet?" She added.
"No mother, we have come back to complete the ritual!"
"Ritual?" The old woman’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown. "We’ve fufilled the prophecy. You have fufilled the prophecy."
Iniko nodded and held her mother’s hands. "Indeed but there is more to that! The Other Kind has revealed a possibility to me."
"Your Fallen star or as you call it, the sacrilege of the oracle, is beneath your settlement." K stepped forward presenting Kagu and her holograms, who waved excitedly and displayed her floating tabs.
"We have a theory! While I was documenting your settlement, you know me being a data research artificial intelligence, I gathered the oldest artifact in the area and discovered this..." a tab expanded showing side-by-side images of the crater and the artifact she found. "...using absolute dating, I compared the age of the artifact to the crater and....they were a 99% match. So—"
"So either that artifact you found was made at the time the crater was formed or it was made from the crater..." Iniko’s mother finished.
Kagu snapped her fingers in agreement. "Bingo!"
"We have a theory..." K nodded at her to open another tab. "...your spring brings your weapons to life."
The elder’s head snapped to Iniko, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Iniko! You’re not meant to reveal our secrets to just anyone!"
"He’s not just anyone!"
The two bickered for a while before settling down.
Once the two had huffed their last breathe of anger, K continued.
"I believe the energy of your fallen star which I know as Onik’Shira is concentrated at your spring. Which happens to be where the ritual took place."
"Listen Other Kind, no one has gone down there before. Even when we forge our Ulu , we never go further into it. We let it down into the pond and allow it to sink to the spring."
"...during the ritual, one of your women told me to sink...how come I can but you cannot?"
"You’re the Other kind. The spring is reserved for only you and our weapons."
"And how do you know this?"
The elder let out a long and heavy sigh. "Come with me."
They walked further into the settlement and into a old treehouse K assumed belonged to the elderly woman.
"Just this way."
She led them further into the house and down a well concealed basement. As they got to the last step, she paused.
"Now whatever you see from this moment onward must never be uttered to another being...I need you all to promise me that."
Silence filled the basement before they all echoed in unison. "I promise."
The elderly woman nodded before proceeding into the room.
"In this little community of ours, we have sisters. We are each other’s sisters. And we have chosen ones."
"Chosen ones are our sisters who are blessed with child..." Iniko started.
"...that’s how we are able to keep our lineage strong and growing." Her mother finished.
"Parthenogenesis."
Kagu muttered.
"My sister...she was a chosen one but the blessing made her mad."
The elder moved to a large box with a huge blanket thrown over it. "She began to see ’visions’, horrifying dreams that kept her awake at night. And it didn’t stop there, she began to harm herself."
A beat of silence passed.
"And then one day, she went to the ritual treehouse. She said the child told her that her freedom lay at the bottom of the basin where the pond meets the spring...and she did."
Soft sniffles escaped the woman as she pulled down the blanket.
"Oh stars!"
Inside a large tank of water lay a woman. A rotting woman, her Efun glowing erratically as something wiggled around in her swollen belly.
"The water from the pond keeps her, she’s still alive...her skin is like this because once she’s exposed to normal hair, her skin begins to rot."
"External decay and...I’m detecting life form in her. Two to be precises!"
The woman was pregnant with twins.
"So, Other Kind. This is why we cannot descend below the spring. We are here to protect it and to protect what you say lays beyond it."
K held Kagu up to his eye level. "We’re going swimming."
"Okies...wait no!"