[Prologue]    [Chapter 1]   [Chapter 2]    [Chapter 3]    [Chapter 4]    [Chapter 5]    [Chapter 6]    [Chapter 7]    [Chapter 8]    [Chapter 9]    [Chapter 10]    [Chapter 11]    [Chapter 12]    [Chapter 13]    [Chapter 14]    [Chapter 15]    [Chapter 16]    [Chapter 17]    [Chapter 18]    [Chapter 19]    [Chapter 21]    [Chapter 22]    [Chapter 23]    [Chapter 24]    [Chapter 25]    [Chapter 26]    [Chapter 27]    [Chapter 28]    [Chapter 29]    [Chapter 30]    [Epilogue]
   

Chapter 20

The day was hotter, so they had now gone inside the tent. Balka-Rae continued with his story.
    “A few hours later we were once again sitting in front of the screen when Ingree announced his new laws. “Loyal subjects in all of Catlan! I make these first rules to lead you to an era of strength. All trading will be stopped. Trading is a sign of weakness, we will show Takla we can fend for ourselves! No more Catlans will leave this mighty country and we will bring back all those who deserted us. As for the outsiders, if you don’t leave by the end of tomorrow you will be taken prisoner and most likely executed for your crime. And finally, we are all to talk the language the rest of Takla uses instead of that gibberish which belongs to the inferior Doglans!” So yeah, all of the conversations that had happened so far were spoken in desert gibberish but to make things simpler I translated right away. All of the people in the desert can speak some of your language, but many nomads and farmers prefer the gibberish.
    “Back to the story. We all hated the fact that we couldn’t speak the traditional tongue anymore. I said that I would speak to the King himself, so I was given a camel and a pad of paper, which had your language on it, so whenever I rested my camel I could learn enough of the language to get on Ingree’s good side. I set off after about 2:30 at noon. I made sure my camel was running as much as possible.”
    Zana then felt he was speeding along the desert on a camel.
    “It took me 3 or 4 days to get to the city. I left the camel outside and ran inside Imperial. Everyone was celebrating. There were all these banners that were so obviously not in the gibberish. There used to be all these stalls of pretty colours and other Taklans sold food and clothes in them, now there weren’t any in sight...just Catlans. I found my way to the palace and went to the Royal Throne Room.”
    Zana then saw what happened next. Balka-Rae pushed the doors wide open and walked past the guards. They tried to hit him but he punched them in the faces without looking. He then called:“Spablar a Ingree!” “Guards!” Ingree shouted.
    Balka tripped up 3 guards and kicked the fourth. More guards came up. He back-flipped and kicked a guard on the chin while doing it. The other guard he kicked in the nuts. Another guard crept behind him and pulled at his cloak, strangling him. He unfastened his cloak and pulled it, making the guard fly through the air and slam against the wall. A guard that got tripped up earlier tried to attack Balka but was suplexed onto another guard by him. Balka did a quick leapfrog to get up.
    More guards ran in from outside the room. “Halt!” shouted Ingree. He smiled. “I like you.” “Your Majesty, many solan vag you sedred because es no wuk traddy,” Balka told his King. (He said: “Your Majesty, many nomads and farmers lose respect for you because they’re not allowed to speak the traditional tongue.”) “Aren’t you supposed to talk differently?” asked Ingree. “I’m sorry sir but I have not learned enough of the language yet,” told Balka.
    “Why do I keep getting these images? Stop it!” thought Zana. Balka-Rae carried on with his story.
    ““Name,” he said. I was about to tell him when a General told him: “Balka-Rae sir, he was exiled before your birth.” “Hm, no matter,” the boy king said. “He is a strong fighter, one of high speed. Balka-Rae, I honour you with the title High Marshal. Butler! Show him to his honoured quarters and make sure he’s dressed as a Marshal should.” “What about my matter?” I asked. “I’ll deal with it,” he said.
    “I thought I did what I came to do so I followed the butler out of the room. One guard smirked at me, so I pushed him to the floor.” Taklans giggled. “An hour later, I was in an apartment inside the palace. There were curtains everywhere: on walls, on the bed. I was dressed in this dark brown velvet body-suit with a badge pinned on it. I had more velvet suits just like that one being made, they were meant to be the suits I wore while in the palace. I sat there, not quite believing that this’ll be my home.
    “It’s quite odd you know, you don’t have to have any combat experience let alone a brain to be High Marshal. Just make Ingree like you. But I’m jabbering on a bit. So anyway, I just sat there for an hour, then I heard the buzzer go off. I pressed a button on my bedside cabinet to open the door and in came my first visitors. My parents. We talked for a bit. I wasn’t sure I could ever love them, but we all made up. After all, I needed some people I could lean back on.
    “I was in a better mood the next day, I wore my favourite suit: the blue velvet. I went to the feast that Ingree was holding. I talked to a servant along the way. I asked:“Have you heard any news of what Ingree did to solve my matter?” “I’m sorry sir, His Majesty has done no such action,” the servant told me. I carried on going.
    “The guests at the feast were me, the Deputy Marshal, the Generals and the Ministers. There was also the Imperial Clerk, his job was to keep an eye on the money and plans in the city. I walked in as he said: “The interbreeding experiments are going to plan.” Ingree loved hearing that.“That’s good to know. Ah, my loyal Marshal. Please take a seat.” Ingree had his hand on top of the empty chair next to him. I sat in it. Then I said quietly: “Your Majesty, you have done nothing about my matter.” “Oh that,” he said just as quietly. “I sent some soldiers to keep an eye on all those groups. If they choose to talk like idiots, I’ll let them, if they follow my order, I’ll reinforce my law.” He then said more loudly: “Allow me to introduce to you, your Deputy Marshal, Saren.” I looked at the blonde woman next to me. She looked about 40. I could tell just from looking at her I could trust her.
    "“I’m glad to know the King has recruited some talent,” she said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. She then told me. “Our boy king has made a small council of higher authority, but they’re all playmates who are nowhere close to graduation.” “Serve the first course!”  shouted Ingree. Saren talked again. “I’m not exactly asking you to play babysitter but you’re the one to keep them under control, that’s for sure.” I grinned. “We’d do it better if we work as a team,” I said. She grinned too.
    “Herbed Soup was served, but mine had a funny smell. I spoke to the King quietly. “Sir, what is the meaning of putting poison in my soup?” “A tester,” he said. “I can’t have a good High Marshal if he’s killed easily. Serve the real soup butler.” “You’ll get plenty of murder attempts against you,” Saren told me. The soup with no poison in was given to me. I could not help but ask her: “You tell me this now?!” ”
    Zana was getting images again, he saw what happened next. A guard was about to shoot Balka, but Balka-Rae shot the guard first. “This one I did not set up, honest,” told Ingree. The High Marshal saw a General whisper to his fist. Another guard was about to shoot him, but then he stood up and shot him first. Balka then pointed his phaser at the General. “Do you have something against me?” Balka asked.
Ingree panicked a bit. “Guards! Arrest Adek! General Orum, find the highest Captain and rank them new General.” “Arrest the guards knocked out while you’re at it,” Balka told Ingree. “You didn’t kill them? Why?” asked the King. The High Marshal looked at him. “We would lose men, I will sentence them tomorrow.” “Please stop giving me these images, they’re freaking me out!” thought Zana.
    Balka carried on with the story. “I sentenced them to be whipped 10 times and made them the lowest ranks: Privates. At morning I took a camera and went to the underground where the Doglans lived and worked. More like a prison than a home. I took pictures and used them to convince Ingree to give Doglans 3 meals a day and make jailors only whip them if they were sentenced. You see, there’s a small courtroom where Doglans are tried if they did anything bad, they’re always sentenced to prison or whipping. I met Ingree’s council, none of them were older than 18. One of them was Kayla.
    “So in the next few weeks I did my duties. Looked at training, looked at plans with ministers, met with the King, met with Generals, some murder attempts against me, arrested people, gave ideas for better cadet training, went to a feast, more murder attempts, visited my family, looked at plans for better fighter jets, went to a party, someone else tried to kill me. By that point I was fed up. I told Ingree that I needed to get away from the city. He said I could go but had to come back soon. He thought I went to the desert. I actually went to Waya. I stayed there for 3 years.”
    “Why’d you go to Waya?” asked Rida.
    Balka sighed. “I just got in a shuttle and flew until I wanted to get out...On my first night there, I looked out of my hotel window. I saw a Tyron, I could tell she was a woman. She was sitting on the edge of a building.” Zana then saw her too. Balka carried on. “I then carried on watching her as she took off and flew along the sky. After a while she landed. Then she took off again and flew away. I watched her do that all week. Same time, same place. I then decided to talk to her.
    “I went to the building she always sat on, got to the roof by the elevator. I got a slight surprise. The roof was pretty high up. She never landed on the roof, she just hovered there in front of me. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I…want to talk to you,” I said.”
    Zana then saw her, hovering in front of him. He could tell he was standing on a roof, just like how Balka-Rae was. “I’m on sand not a roof!” thought Zana, who was scared. “Why do I keep getting these images? Please stop!”
    “I’d rather not talk about what happened in my love life, it is a little private. It was around 2 years later that Ingree started to send soldiers after me, ordering me to come home. Some months later.., my partner told me she was going to have a baby. I couldn’t believe it...me, a father. I started finding hiding places for us. We ended up in a hotel basement. It was then, we realised, we couldn’t raise our child together. When he or she was born, we’d have to split.
    “She gave birth right before I got caught.”
    Zana saw what happened. “Please Lark, no, you’re scaring me,” thought Zana. He saw his Mum in pain. It was a long time before Balka-Rae held a small, wet baby in a cloth. The baby was crying. “That’s me,” Zana knew. He saw his Dad wipe him with a small towel. “It’s a boy,” Balka-Rae said quietly. He gave him to Zana’s Mum. The baby started to stop crying. She stared at her son’s fluff-which would turn into his wings. “Balka, they’re blue.” “Meaning what?” his Dad asked. “Don’t you get it? Our little boy is a white head,” she told him. Balka looked behind him at the table where there was paper and a pen. The forever-dagger appeared. He walked to it. He held up the dagger in its holder.
    Sounds of crashes and soldiers could then be heard. “Balka, the baby isn’t safe, you must get outta here,” Zana’s Mum said quickly. Balka took a piece of paper and wrote on it. Then he took the paper, dagger and the baby…but he just stood there. “What about you?” he asked. “I’ll be fine if they don’t know, now go!” she shouted. Balka-Rae ran through the door on one side of the room.
    “I slammed the door,” Balka told them. “That night, I really wasn’t careful, I never checked to see if anyone was watching for me. I just ran and ran and believe me I was scared. It was funny, he didn’t even have a name and he was already in danger. I noticed a Main Training Home. I almost dropped Zana and the paper and dagger. I didn’t want to hang around the front door too long so I didn’t find the doorbell, but punched the door instead.
    “I ran away. For the second time in his tiny life, baby Zana cried. If I was found very far from my son, they wouldn’t be able to tell I was related. I was out of breath when they captured me. I felt like I’d ran for hundreds of miles.
    “I was thrown into a cell on the boat, taking us back to the city. Ingree saw me soon after we left port. I could tell because I had a window. “Had a nice break Marshal?” he asked. I didn’t say anything. He just talked the whole time. “You stayed in Waya too long. You fell in love with a Tyron.” How did they know? That’s what I was thinking and Ingree could tell. He grinned. “Don’t worry. We didn’t kill her. Would’ve made problems. She admitted to your affair and you must pay for it.”
    “My punishment was hanging in a dark room for a whole day. No food, no trips to the toilet. My only worry was how my son was. Have they thought up a name? Did they even think of raising him? The thing I wrote on the paper was 'Born today’. That made sure they knew his birthday.”

©Ruth Amy Louise Hüneke 2008