Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 4

Like all other Mystalornans, I possess full and crystal-clear recall of everything I've experienced, and I can say, with absolute certainty, I have never, in all my memory, awaited a sunset as eagerly as I await this one...

A false sunset comes first, as the Gara-Laras sun dips below the tops of the trees surrounding Asor's home, then an agonising half-hour that has me pacing back and forth on the flag-stoned area at the back of the house, waiting, waiting... longing for some small sign that my release is at hand...

"Any moment now", Natyari informs me, consulting a Gara-Laserma chronograph. "Seven periods twenty past highest sun..."

The last vestiges of illumination, creeping through the base of the tree-fence, vanish. At once, my skin starts to feel too tight for my body, then contracting muscles force me to the ground as the transformation takes hold... within seconds, I can feel the cold air of oncoming night on my skin, now hairless again - I can feel the cool stone beneath me with hands, and fingers...

...within a minute, I am myself again.

Natyari drapes a soft, voluminous garment about my shoulders, and helps me up. "I... I don't really have anything your style", she says apologetically. "I do have a few things I've grown out of, they're probably more your size - but for now, I don't think Asor will mind you borrowing one of his dressing-gowns."

I gather up the portion of my hair that reaches the ground, shaking out one or two twigs that got caught in my four-legged form's mane, then I'm guided back inside, and into the welcoming embrace of Asor and Soramma, both now two-legged. I'm invited to take the Gara-Laserma equivalent of a bath, in an oval pool sunk into the floor of the main living area, which I gladly accept, and for a while, I can soak some of my cares away in the warm, scented water.

As I bathe, my powers start to return, the first signs being the faintest murmur of thoughts other than my own, and I quickly re-establish my psychic defences, to preserve the privacy of my hosts, and anyone else within my telepathic range. Meditation helps to restore my inner clarity, and gentle telekinetic exercises, mostly stirring the water to wash the grime of the forest from my hair, help to rebuild my confidence. I have been working on psionic abilities beyond pure telepathy, but I'm still a long way away from being able to reshape matter on the atomic or sub-atomic level, like Darkhawk, who can conjure up whole outfits from the dust in the air. I've never been so utterly envious of that power...

When I'm done, I telekinetically lift myself out of the pool, drive the water from my body and hair with a gentle ripple of psychic force, and wrap the dressing gown around myself again. Natyari has left me several items of clothing to try on, and a knee-length dress of silky, flower-printed fabric seems to be the best choice on offer, despite being something I would normally never consider. She's also laid out a couple of pairs of simple slippers, but the decision is already made - until I can find myself a decent pair of thigh-high boots, I'd rather go bare-foot.

Hair draped over my arm, I join Asor and his family in one of the inner rooms of the house, where a comfortable chair is waiting for me, close to the pile of red-hot rocks that warm the room, and provide it with some degree of dim, yet constant light. Soramma and Natyari seem uncertain what to do or say next, but I try to encourage them to continue with their normal evening routine, as though there was just the three of them present.

Soramma is the one to break the silence. "So, son, why didn't you come home through the mirror, like you always do?", she asks Asor. "You can't imagine how surprised I was when you showed up on the door-step like that - both of you."

"We had to use an emergency escape route", replies Asor. "There was... trouble on Wyridaen, which I hope we helped to put right..."

My companion looks over to me. "...but the mirror is quite dead", he informs me. "I had a look at it while you were bathing, and I'm not sure it'll ever work again."

In all honesty, I hadn't given Wyridaen a moment's thought, since my awakening with four legs and a tail. I should try and make contact with someone, if only to let my friends know I'm safe and well - I wonder whether Gara-Laserma communications technology is advanced enough to reach Wyridaen, Myr'aa or even the Dominion Fleet...

I'm so deep in thought about how to proceed that I almost jump out of my skin as something thumps repeatedly against the front door of the almost-mansion. "Spirits Beyond Number, who could that be?", gasps Soramma. "Could be young ones fooling about - it doesn't sound like Uncle Uradam..."

"My father's brother", explains Asor as his mother gets out of her chair to see who might be visiting. "The two of them were in business together - that paid for all this..."

I hear the door open, quickly followed by a gasp of alarm, and before Soramma calls out for her son, Asor is out of his seat and running to his mother's aid. Anxious, and keen to repay Asor and family for their most generous hospitality, I follow, not knowing what to expect - but this time, I have my powers, and any aggressive intruder better be prepared to depend themselves, for I'm eager to my abilities a thorough work-out.

Asor fills much of the door-way, his mother peering over his shoulder, and I err on the side of caution at first, not wanting to cause the family any difficulties by being discovered in their house, watching from behind a finely-decorated ornamental jar that is almost as tall as I am. From here, I can see a dark shape standing at the top of the house's entry ramp - another Gara-Laserma, lead-grey in colour, with curiously pale bluish eyes. They could almost be... white.

"Come now, Asor", the stranger says, in a voice that seems to have difficulty speaking in restrained tones. "Your... friend must be here. I can smell her..."

"You are not welcome here, Zserreth", growls Asor, sounding more aggressive than I've ever heard before. "No-one in this house wants anything to do with you!"

"What? Not even your little companion?", asks the man-monster, his air of disappointment so glaringly false. "Are you sure she doesn't want her clothes back...?"

I emerge from my hiding place, and move towards the door. Any attempt to toy with me with earn Zserreth a taste of the "psyche whip", the most painful expression of my telepathic abilities - and an expression I might just struggle to keep under control, giving my recent difficulties...

Zserreth in Cursed form is quite simply a monster, in appearance and action, but had I not seen the monster first, I could possibly have found his natural form handsome. His words, and the way he carries himself as he leans towards the open doorway, and places a bundle as close to the threshold as he dares, do not endear him in the slightest - here, I keep telling myself, is a predator, always seeking a weakness in competitors or prey.

"I stayed around the area after you left", he purrs, never taking his eyes off me as I come nearer. "Once I was sure the place was safe, and likely to remain so at least until sun's-fall, I went back to our camp, and brought back... help, to aid me in the recovery of your property. I hope everything is there - we found everything that bore your rather, mmm, unique scent..."

"Do not expect me to thank a murderer", I respond coldly, glaring back at him.

"I am a killer of killers", Zserreth hisses back, indignantly. "You saw it for yourself. We are hunted, treated as mere animals. Such... creatures as those three earned their fate!"

I edge forward a little more, but Asor's arm forms a bar across the doorway. "You've done what you came to do", mutters my friend, "now go. Your presence disgusts me, my mother - and I will not be made to explain your crimes to my sister...!"

Zserreth bows, the gesture a pure mockery of civilised conduct, and he backs away, his hair and skin blending into the darkness. "It has been a pleasure to meet you, in your... true flesh, Mistress Mane-of-Night", he says softly, as he retreats. "Yes, I read Asor's stories too - it would be... intriguing to pay Wyridaen a visit some day..."

Asor reaches for the bundle, and quickly drags it inside before slamming the door shut. "I... I'll go and make sure Natyari is all right", says Soramma, backing away from the door as though she fears that Zserreth might come bursting through at any moment. "You... you two, you do... whatever..."

Asor's mother hurries away, clearly agitated by the whole incident. I'm not sure how much she knows, but it's enough to upset her greatly. I hope that's the last time I bring any such anguish to this house.

I reach for Zserreth's bundle, but Asor's hand reaches it first. "Let me", insists my friend, picking up the crudely patterned coarse blanket, most likely of Gara-Morsa design and manufacture, the corners tied together to form a parcel of sorts. "Zserreth's kind - they sometimes exercise a rather grisly sense of humour. There might not be just your things in here..."

We go through to the room where food is prepared, and sometimes served, and in a corner, Asor crouches with the bundle, and carefully begins to untie it. Tensing himself for some disgusting revelation, he takes the corner of the blanket that he has worked loose between two pointed finger-claws, and lets it fall to the floor. "No blood", he murmurs. "Good..."

He takes time and care with the next corner as well, but once he finds there are no stomach-churning surprises, he completes the task quickly, unfolding the blanket to reveal my missing possessions, relatively clean and folded - my jacket, my swim-suit, my skirt, my energy-whip... my boots.

I pick up my favourite footwear, giving them a quick check for damage, then I pull my beloved vinyl boots into a hug, kissing the flared cuff of one of them. “You should put those on", says Asor, relieved that his caution has proved unwarranted. "You haven't looked so happy all day, and... well, you just look wrong with bare feet."

I perch on what is for Asor's kind a low stool, and with my heart pounding I slide my feet and legs inside my Highstride Laqzuri boots, and for the first time in too long, I feel complete again. I'm grateful for Natyari lending me some of her clothes, but I'll feel a lot better with my own things on again... but as I reach for the rest of my gear, I see that not everything is present.

"The swim-suit I wear under my skirt and jacket - the bottom is missing", I mutter, disgusted. "It appears that Zserreth has kept himself a little trophy from the conquest that never was..."

"Another reason for him to stay as far away from me as possible", growls my friend - anger like this is so unlike him, and I hope it's not going to become a regular feature of whatever time I'll be spending here. Despite that, and to my great regret, I'm going to need to know more; if I run into Zserreth again. or encounter any more of his "kind", I'll want to avoid surprises, or any traps that might be laid out for me to stumble into.

We haven't seen the last of that man-monster, of that I feel quite certain.

Bralzis was praying for the day to end. The father of one of the latest hunters to go missing, a lad called Medaa Lus-B'Haaka, had been calling him all day, but it wasn't until the sun had touched the horizon that a security patrol discovered the wreck of the off-road land-racer used by the team of hunters Lus-B'Haaka had been working with - and just before they lost the daylight completely, the team found the remains of two men, one of whom appeared, despite his condition, to be a fair match to the image provided by the anxious father.

Since then, the Security Co-ordinator had been trying to work out how to tell the Lus-B'Haaka family about what had happened to their son. He didn't want to say anything officially until the last missing man, Kaduress Dap'Thaa, had been found, and that would probably not happen until the sun came up again - and Bralzis hoped his men wouldn't be out in the daylight for too long, not with a man-eating Cursed on the rampage...

It was hard to believe, but the evidence was almost impossible to dismiss. Gara-Morsa remains had been trampled into the dirt by hooves, and the bodies had been subjected to the kind of brute force damage that no other animal in existence could inflict...

A harsh, electronic buzzing sliced across Bralzis's thoughts. His personal assistant, at the desk outside his office, had something that needed his attention, and he hoped that it was worth the interruption.

"Co-ordinator? I've got someone from the base to see you", the assistant said over the room-to-room communicator. "Lancer Leader Zulman..."

Had it been anyone else, Bralzis would probably have told them to come back in the morning. If the military were taking an interest in the man-eating Cursed, which were fast becoming a lot more than a wild, unsubstantiated rumour, that was worth another few minutes behind his desk, and a few more minutes away from his home and his much-needed bed.

Bralzis, a former member of the military, stood to attention as the Lancer Leader entered, and saluted. Zulman returned the gesture, then took off his black-trimmed uniform cap, a sign of deference now that he was entering that sphere of influence where Bralzis was in command.

"Sector Co-ordinator, thank you for taking time from your investigations to see me", said the Lancer Leader, accepting Bralzis's offer of a seat. "It's good to know we have a military man looking out for the general populace..."

"It's about time I heard anything from the military, Lancer Leader", Bralzis began. "I don't know what you're doing at your base, but if you're moving materials, equipment, weapons, I should be informed, as a matter of civic security."

"That's what I'm here to discuss", Zulman replied. "I'm sorry we've not been able to observe the usual procedures, Sector Co-ordinator, but that is because we've been under strict instructions, from Central Command, to carry out our operations with as much secrecy as possible. You see, we have a critical duty to carry out, and nothing must stand in the way of its success - tell me, Co-ordinator Bralzis; what do you know about The Dark Child...?"

"As much as anyone else", Bralzis replied. "The accepted wisdom is that it causes The Curse."

"The scientific evidence strongly supports that wisdom", continued the Lancer Leader. "It also tells us that The Dark Child, an object from space pulled into orbit around our world by the moon, has been captured by our planet's own mass-attraction field, and is being pulled closer and closer. In only a few years, Master Bralzis, The Dark Child will collide with Gara-Laras - and that is what we are going to prevent."

Stunned, Bralzis sat back, and tried his best to take in the magnitude of what was being revealed to him. By this time tomorrow, the base would be in possession of the most powerful destructive device the world had ever known, and not long after that, it would be launched into space, to either turn The Dark Child from its destructive path, or destroy it...

All of a sudden, Bralzis found himself regretting his curiosity, but there was no way back to that mundane existence, the day-to-day ordeals of a mere Sector Security Co-ordinator - he was now an inextricable part of a terrible secret, and he prayed to every Spirit that might be listening that what the military were going to do was the right thing.

...to be continued...

Posted at 22:48 on 26.04.2009


~ o O o ~


Previously...
Mane-of-Night And The Watcher From Beyond - Chapter 1 - 21.06.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 14 - 17.05.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 13 - 15.05.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 12 - 13.05.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 11 - 11.05.2009