The Morning Meeting

The Monotooth was in the skilled hands of the royal physicians, the Servatori were on guard around its room, the body of Ch’Voga was being…tended to by the family servants, Amisbhake didn’t know if embalming was the word anymore.  What does one do with a dried corpse, especially one which had begun to rot again when the Monotooth carried it into slightly more humid climes?  How long had the undead cyborg walked among the people?  A corpse carrying a corpse, it gave Amisbhake a shiver to consider.  The Sun would not rise for a few hours yet but no one was looking for his bed.  The day had begun.  The Viceroy led them back to the council room, which the uncanny staff in their vigilant prescience had lit and prepared for them.

“So,” this most unique of all morning meetings began with the calming familiar, the Viceroy pouring the first cups of coffee for each of them himself and placing the first question to his advisors, “What do you make of this?”

“Verily,” C’Yashi’s gravely purr was the first heard, also familiar, though possibly not reassuringly so.  “You do not want to know what I think, sire.”

“Probably not, but pretending for a moment it is early and my better judgment slept in, indulge me.”

“Very well.  I think I for one have never been party to so vulgar an act as I have just witnessed in all my years!  And may I never be again should I live a thousand more!”

The Viceroy finished pouring, sat in his throne at the head and adopted a listening posture.  “Indeed.  Do tell?”  They all sat in their places, two divans for the six advisors on either side of the central charcoal. 

“In my long years of service to Milord, I have almost become inured to the battering of my liege’s shocking displays and erratic decisions.  But this!  This, by far, is the most irrational, preposterous and outright irresponsible of them all!”

“It would seem since we’re beginning the meeting early today,” Amisbhake said, “we will be treated to longer preambles.”

“Pre-rambles, you mean,” Moche chuckled.

“Peace counselors,” the Viceroy chastened, “The source of your outrage, C’Yashi?”

“Is this, Milord: the Regent embracing his son’s very murderer?  It is indecent!  Extravagant to the point of forgetting, nay!  Flogging justice, to say nothing of your beloved son’s memory and honor.  Does he not deserve justice?  But!  Milord’s soft-hearted forgiveness and mercy are legendary so one could almost, almost I say, swallow this bitter lozenge.  But to call the very… abomination your son!  To name it your heir!  Have you gone mad, Milord?  I do hope your better judgment awakes and joins us soon!”  Amisbhake always had a violent itch to draw his sword after C’Yashi spoke.  Some low murmurs and hard looks around the council told him he was not alone in the sentiment.

“Should I not honor my son’s last wish?”

“How do we know it was his wish?”

“We have his will.  Written in his own hand or I’m not his Father, sealed with his ring.”

“But what state was your son in, Milord?” the emphasis on ‘your son’ could not be missed.  “Alone, most probably injured or dehydrated, captured by this vile devil,” which, Amisbhake translated in his head, is not your son, “and being dragged back to its lair.  He very well could have been delirious.”

“Yet was coherent enough to instruct a member of a hostile race that to my knowledge, no one has ever managed to communicate with,” Amisbhake countered, “giving him specific instructions on how to get here, how to get in contact with the Viceroy himself, write a legible, credible will and testament and seal it.  A high cognitive delirium indeed.”

“The cyborg had the ring.”

“And knew what it was for?”

“Conceded.  However it could be a joke!  Not to be crass, Milord but Ch’Voga was famous for his dry wit.  Never expecting the creature to make the journey here, much less survive, he could have written it only to amuse himself.”

“Pretty risky,” Moche said, “giving a Monotooth directions to the capitol for a joke.”

“What is it you fear, C’Yashi?” Amisbhake asked.

“Assassins, large dogs, the laundry staff losing his imported robes,” Melchizadek quipped.

“Perhaps,” Moche added, “he fears the assassin is here for him, Ch’Voga’s last joke, as it were.”

C’Yashi waited for the chuckles to settle, “Sire, I apologize for starting this line,” C’Yashi said to the Viceroy.  To Moche he hissed, “Have you no shame?  We have not even buried him!”  All eyes shifted to the empty place on the Viceroy’s throne where the heir sat.

Moche, abashed, also apologized.  “I meant no disrespect, Milord.  I loved him as my own.”

“I know, Moche.  Fear not, Ch’Voga would be the first to complain if we were dour on his account.  The time will come to mourn, to grieve, but we who knew him in this council, may speak as he would have had us speak,” Chofa rumbled with only an extra softness to his distant thunder rumble to betray the pain he must be feeling.  “And I do not believe for a second he would send anyone to assassinate his favorite foil.”  C’Yashi’s smile was wan.  “So what is it that has you so concerned, C’Yashi?”

“Your highness, I do not trust what I do not understand.  A barely sentient cyborg killing machine I understand.  One here in the capitol, in the very palace infirmary, this I do not understand.  Ch’Voga naming it like a pet; that I could understand.  Like his own child, I do not.  Wanting a connection while he is alone, someone to belong to, even this I could attempt to understand.  Showing it the way here so it could sit in that very place at the council fire,” he gestured to Ch’Voga’s empty seat, “and someday yours, Milord, that I most certainly do not understand!  Nor can I certify it as wise.”

“What would you have me do?”

C’Yashi waved his hand, “It is not my place to say…”

“What would you do, C’Yashi?  If you were Viceroy, what would you do with this pitiable creature?”

C’Yashi met his eye.  “Kill it, Milord.  For the sake of our posterity.  For the sake of all that’s holy.  And for Ch’Voga, your beloved son, I say, kill it.”

The Son of Chofa

The Harvester-taken-prisoner stood in the circle of large, avian meat animal drones swaying a bit.  Had it read the signs correctly?  The Fire-maker had been very insistent in its directions but after weeks of feeding only on rodents and fruit, its wounds sealed but festering, the Harvester-taken-prisoner was in a perilously weakened state and easily confused.  It shifted the Fire-maker’s husk and got a better grip on its weapon for all the good it would do. 

Doors opened somewhere in this great warren and a monster of a meat animal, easily as large as the drones, entered the chamber.  It saw the circle of avians.  It saw the Harvester-taken-prisoner.  The primary of the avians came to it and spoke with it and though the meat animals were not near and the chamber full of echoes, the Harvester-taken-prisoner still heard what was said.

“Sire, it is a cyborg soldier from the Sand Sea.”

“I’m familiar with what it is, Servitor Sobyeit.  What I am wondering is what is it doing in my antechamber?  And how it has come to be in possession of my son’s body?  Or should I say, why it has chosen to bring it here?”

“Apparently because your son told him to.”

“What?”

“Perhaps you should read this first, sire.”

“Ch’Voga’s copy of the Scriptures.”  The voice went from distant thunder to whispered breeze.

“The creature was carrying it.  Your son seems to have written his will in the margins.” 

The meat animal carried the book nearer to one of the lanterns lining the walls.  It read with it’s back to the Harvester-taken-prisoner for some time.  At one point, four more meat animals entered the chamber with fresh linens and a long plank.  The primary of the meat animals spoke with them and they came, timid and fearful to the Harvester-taken-prisoner.  The primary of the avian drones spoke for them.  “They have come to take the body to prepare it for burial.”

The Harvester-taken-prisoner tried to comprehend.  The four meat animals tugged gently at the Fire-maker’s husk.  Their heat was coming at it in waves, soft, vulnerable.  The Need was rising yet it must not feed.  It didn’t know what was happening.  It didn’t know what would happen when they took the husk.  The primary animal had the book.  If they took the husk, the Harvester-taken-prisoner would have only one last gift of the Fire-maker.  Would the drones attack then?  “Please,” one of the soft ones said.  It realized it was still gripping the husk tight.  It released its burden to them, if only to make them leave sooner.  It took its weapon in both hands and waited on ever weakening legs for the inevitable.

It peered at the drones with its remaining eye.  They peered back.  No one moved.

“Ch’Loi,” the primary animal said, “Come here please.”

It took a beat or two.  The last precious words of the Fire-maker.  So much to remember.  So hard now to recall.  The Harvester-taken-prisoner took a halting step outside the circle of avian drones.  They made no move to stop it though one muttered, “Good Lord!”  It limped over to where the great primary meat animal stood waiting for it.  It was only a few strides but it felt longer than all the steps it had taken since it turned its face toward the East.  The primary of the meat animals waited.  At last it stood before the shaggy great monster.

“My son,” the monster said, “Ch’Voga, he gave to you the name Ch’Loi didn’t he?”  The Harvester-called-Ch’Loi chopped the air weakly.  The primary watched the gesture with great interest.  “He gave you something else, did he not?”  The Harvester-called-Ch’Loi raised its hand, not to chop or slash but to show the gift.  “Do you know what these gifts mean?”  The Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest-and-was-without-kin-and-was-taken-prisoner-and-was-completely-overwhelmed slashed.

“I am Chofa.  My son, my beloved son Ch’Voga, named you his heir and gave you his ring.  He named you Ch’Loi.  It means, “Son of Chofa.””  The primary of the meat animals took its shoulders in great furry paws, no claws, just firmness.  “It means, you are my son, I am your father and you are home.”  The great monster wrapped it in its arms.  No longer able or needing to support its own weight, the Harvester-named-Ch’Loi fainted.

The Servatori and the Ragamuffin

“Servator!”

Sobyiet the watchman heard the cry and made toward the sound.  Two of his brethren, Miyaki and Brumbow, joined him from other streets.  Rounding the corner, they found a crowd on the verge of becoming a mob, nervous, frightened but unhurt, hemming in a raggedy, hapless member of the town’s homeless community carrying a sack and an ugly looking club.  Sobyiet, being senior, took the lead.  “Good evening, PaLau*.  How may I be of assistance?”

“He’s a leper!”  “Look, he’s carrying a dead body!”  “Plague!”  “Murder!”  “Leprosy”  “Grave robber!”

“One at time, please!  You, what did you see?”

“Little but enough.  You can see he’s…very sick,” here the citizen pointed at the homeless man, bandaged and bedraggled, “and I think the bundle he carries does have a corpse inside.”

“Oh, come now, it’s late and the sandman fills the dark with fantastic dreams.  He’s obviously a peddler of rags and sundries.  Why do you say it’s a corpse he carries?”

“See for yourself.”  The man looked as if he had seen… well, a dead man.  Twitchy and on edge, there was little to be learned from the witnesses.  The watchman asked them to come to the Warden’s Court in the morning where they could make their statements; then he dismissed them.  Some would come, some wouldn’t.  By then, it probably wouldn’t matter; meanwhile, now they were out of harm’s way and more importantly, out of his.  They dispersed and the servitors were alone with the peddler.

“Certainly looks like a grave robber with a broken shovel,” Brumbow said.

“And a corpse carrying a corpse,” Miyaki added.

“We’ll know soon enough,” the watchman addressed the homeless man, “Well then, ragamuffin, let down your sack and show me your wares.”  The hooded man did not move.  To his brothers, “mind that club,” and to the homeless man, “Come sir, lets us see you and speak as men.  Do not be afraid.”  Slowly, a slender, long fingered hand reached up and pulled back the hood.

“Yah save us!  What is that?” Miyaki cried.

“Well, that explains the muteness.  I didn’t know leprosy did that!” Brumbow said.

“Nor did I,” Sobyiet said, “What are you carrying, cousin?”  The leper carefully set his bundle behind him.  Then opened a bag on its hip.  “What’s this then?  A book?  You want me to take it?”  Vigorously the Leper slashed the air with the club hand.  “Whoa!  Fine!  Keep it!”  Sobyiet jumped back and the three watchmen went into defensive stances.  Their lanterns now became flails.  The Leper advanced and tried to offer the book again. 

“Insistent chap, isn’t he?” Sobyiet said.

“Deranged is more like it,” Brumbow answered.  “I don’t like it.  I say we put him down for his own good.”

“His good or our good?” Sobyiet asked.

“Same difference.”

“You want me to take the book?”  Again he slashed with the club.  Miyaki’s flail shot down and Sobyiet grabbed the book.  As soon as he had, the Leper jumped back into a defensive stance, spines extended from either end of the club to make a wicked, two-pronged spear.

“How much you want to bet he can throw that like a javelin?” Brumbow said.

“Enough of this, we need to take him down,” Miyaki argued.

“Seconded.”

“No,” Sobyiet commanded.  “We need to take him to the palace.”

“What?”  “Are you deranged?”

Sobyiet ignored his brothers but addressed the Leper, “cousin, may I see what you have in your sack?”  He pointed at the bundle behind the Leper’s feet.  He set his flail aside.

“What are you doing?  Stay away from him!”

“Just.  Keep.  Calm.”  Sobyiet slowly walked over to the bag, the Leper didn’t move but watched Miyaki and Brumbow.  Sobyiet knelt and parted the coverings.  “We need to take him to the palace, to see the Viceroy.  We need to tell the Viceroy, we’ve found his son.”

*PaLau – literally, “children of my paternal ancestors”, sometimes used for cousins or siblings.  Here used to denote solidarity with fellow citizens of a shared heritage.

Scavengers

The vulture circled and circled as if it had all the time in the world.  The advantages of being a scavenger, an eater of the already dead is one’s prey isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  Slowly it spiraled downward until at last, it gingerly set its feet upon the hot sand.  Even then it hesitated, eyeing the dunes in all directions, instinctually aware that the line between eater and eaten, quick and dead is often tenuous at best.  In the air it was a prince, riding unseen currents with motionless ease.  On the ground it was a refugee, handicapped and hamstrung and only nominally more at ease than a carp would have been.

Assured of its solitude, it hopped over to the shroud-covered corpse and began to look for an opening.  Before it found one, a hand shot out of the sand below and snapped its neck.  Ignoring its death throws, the Harvester-which-had-no-kin, pierced its feathers and drank deeply…

As if it had all the time in the world.

Disoriented, adrift, life cut off from a reason for living.  Cut off from the collective.  Cut off from the kin.  Any kin finding it now would kill it as the kin by the pool had tried and almost succeeded.  Cut off from its purpose, its reason for existing.  What was a Harvester with no reason to harvest?  If it knew how, the Harvester-which-had-no-kin would have cursed the day it had felt the fire in its mind.  Cursed the moment it had chosen not to harvest this meat.  Cursed the enflamed hunger which had overpowered its function; caused it to betray its kind for a meat animal; to exchange the known for the unknowable.  If it could, it would have wished it had died by the pool.  How it had survived, it knew not.  It had awakened in the pool and the kin were gone.  Perhaps believing it to be dead, perhaps not caring either way.  Much the way the Harvester-without-purpose felt now, not caring if it lived or died.

Save the bundle, the shroud-covered corpse of the meat animal must be returned to its kin.  This was the only purpose the Harvester-without-purpose had.  This is why it continued to feed on lizards, rodents and birds, whatever the desert provided.  Why it raised itself with each falling dusk and walked until the rising sun shown in its remaining shuttered eye.  Night after night it walked, suspecting any meat animal which found it would kill it too, it skirted the outposts of the animals and the city on the water, sticking to the open sand as long as it could.  Too soon however, the Sea ended and the lands of the meat animals began.

Food was all around, yet the Harvester-without-purpose continued to fast, to cling to the shadows, to hide from the day, finding some park or trash heap to bury itself and its burden.  Here there were less birds but more rodents, it would not starve but the night was no longer dark; it was lit from a thousand points.  There were meat animals at night now too though less than by day and it took to covering itself from head to toe in case it was seen, much the way some of the meat animals did.  It did not go unnoticed, but none seemed inclined to challenge its presence.  Some, covering their faces, even made wide berth around it, giving way as if afraid to be touched but not crying out as they would if afraid to be drank.  This puzzled the Harvester-without-purpose and it spent many a night pondering the strange behavior of meat.

The Last Gift

Ch’Voga heard the Monotooth return.  He opened his eyes and its skullish face hovered above his own.  He wanted to laugh at the irony that his last companion should look so much like his people’s mythological representations of Death itself.  He was near giddy; whether from his joy or dehydration he could not say.  “There you are,” he whispered between cracked lips and a swollen tongue.  “Been gone a long time.  You seem to have had a rough…a rough go.”  The creature’s normally scarred and nightmarish face with its gaping maw was even more wounded than before.  One eye-orb was smashed, the forehead looked cracked and something black and faintly blood-like was oozing out and caking on its ashen skin.  “I-I… when I saw you were gone, I prayed for you.”

“Quite remarkable really.  Such… clarity I’ve had since you’ve been gone.  How so many of my prayers have really been about...about me.  My mission.  My service.  My fame.  My glory.  My safety.  But I prayed for you, dear friend!  I knew not your peril, and in… indeed, you seem to have had some.  A sign.  A sign that what I saw… was from Him.  Yah…Yahweh led me to pray for your safety.  I e-even prayed for your soul.”  He reached up and carefully touched the monster’s face.  “I didn’t even think you had a soul?  Are you man or machine?  I do not know, Yah knows.  I prayed you would be… reborn.  Made… new.”

The Monotooth slid away from him then.  “No,” he wheezed.  It was getting harder to talk.  He had so much to say!  “Please, please, last, best friend, come here, come close!”  The creature hopped almost in place.  “Closer.”  An increment more.  “Closer.”  Another inch and Ch’Voga, with all the strength he had left, grabbed its bony arm and dragged it the rest of the way.  “Friend, I call you friend no longer!  Three gifts I have for you!”  He whispered his instructions to the creature, forcing the hapless monster to chop that it understood all he had told it.  Then he shoved his bag with its precious copy of the Holy Scriptures into its fingers along with his second gift and a great sigh of relief.

“Now, now the final gift.  The last gift I have to give.”  He told the Monotooth and it recoiled, slashing the air and if it could,  Ch'Voga thought it would have screamed.

Kin

It left before the sun went down.  The meat animal was sleeping or unconscious.  The Need was not.  It was a roaring which demanded to be fed.  Even now, with many strides between them, the meat animal in the cave was searing the Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest’s senses.  There was a wadi, if it moved quickly, unhindered, it could just make it.  Pain came with every step against the pull to go and feed.

When the Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest was still some way off from the wadi and the moon was rising it became aware of the presence of kin.  Other harvesters rising from the cooling sand where they had slept the heat of the day away and continuing their own journeys to the wadi and water.  It was a natural gathering spot.  With the last predatory meat animal’s nest destroyed they would be returning to the collective with the spoil in their crops bulging with blood, bile, marrow and gore.  Any one of them could share with the Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest.  A new plan sprung fully formed into its mind and it adjusted its route to intercept the nearest kin traveling alone.

While the Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest was still a long way off however, the kin it was pursuing altered its own course.  No longer moving directly for the wadi, it was edging toward other kin and away from the Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest.  It was running away!

The Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest nearly came to a stop.  What reason would the kin have to avoid it?  Unless…

It changed plans and course again, continued on to the wadi.  It was going for water now.  It was no threat.  There would be plenty for all the kin.  It would gather what it needed as quickly as possible and leave.  The new, awakened part of its mind recognized this plan as “hope.”  It noticed the way the kin to either side were clustering together.  It sensed a clot of its kin already at the wadi waiting.  The hope dwindled. 

It crested the rise and there was the muddy pool below.  A few plants clinging to life around the water’s rim and six kin harvesters spread out between it and the pool’s edge.  They appeared anxious.  The longer it hesitated the more kin would arrive.  Even now four more appeared on the far side of the wadi.  The Harvester-which-chose-not-to-harvest cast, THIRST, and made for the pool.  The kin did not move but let it pass.  It waded directly into the pool up to it’s waist and slowly lowered its head to drink.

The first blow came from behind, the second from the side and the third blended right into the fourth and the fifth and the sixth so it knew not whence they came.  It crumpled below the water with the Kin-which-were-no-longer-kin’s cast ringing in its head.

INTRUDER!  THREAT!  KILL!

Fruit

They walked all night yet the sun was already high and hot when they came to another cave, not much more than a scoop out of a rock in the sand.  By the time they reached it Ch’Voga could barely stand, much less walk.  He groaned deeply when he found it was just another hidey-hole and again there was no water. 

“I am…sorry dear friend.  I know I am slowing you down.  Too many… days on a boat have …have not been good…preparation for a forced march…I’m afraid,” Ch’Voga gasped between phrases.  Talking much like he traveled.  The Monotooth, hardly even listened to the words.  It was twitchy and distracted and crawled into a tight ball as far from him as the hole would allow.

“Do we move again…later?”

Chop.

“Will there be water in …this new place?”

Chop.

“Then, I will rest …in hope.”

The Monotooth uncoiled a bit at those words.  It grabbed his jaw and waggled it.

“You want me to …speak?” Ch’Voga croaked.

Chop.

“Now?”

Chop-chop-chop.

“Oh.  About resting?”

Slash!

“No?  Damn.  I had hoped…”

Chopchopchopchopchopchopchop!

“What?  Hoped?  Hope?  Alright.  Hope.  Unfortunately the only verse that comes to mind is, “Whoever is joined to all the living has hope. After all, even a live dog is better than a dead lion!”  Ch’Voga wheezed a laugh.  “Sorry.  I guess imminent death dampens my memory and my normally sunny disposition.  Let me see if I can find you a more ‘hopeful’ verse.”  He pulled his copy of the Scriptures from his bag.

The Monotooth became very excited.  It leapt forward and nearly snatched the precious book from his paws.  It bent back the pages so it could see the words on them.

“Please Friend!  You may have it when I’m gone but for now, treat it with care!  It is life to me!  Nearly broke the spine, devil’s…Life to me.  Oh, Psalm 119!  You have jostled it loose!”  Ch’Voga turned to the appropriate page and read, 

““And do not snatch the word of truth utterly from my mouth,” (“or my hands,” he winked at the Monotooth.)


”For I hope in your ordinances.


So I will heed your law continually,


forever and ever.


And I will go about freely,


for I have sought your precepts.


And I will speak of your testimonies before kings, (I’ve done that you know!  Poor child.)


and will not be ashamed.


And I will take delight in your commands,


which I love.


And I will lift up my hands to your commands, which I love,


and I will meditate on your statutes.

Remember your word to your servant,


upon which you have caused me to hope.


This is my comfort in my misery:


that your word preserves my life.”

My comfort in my misery…Never have I wished so hard that I could drink in the Word.”  He was shaken awake by the Monotooth, “What?  Had I fallen asleep?”  The creature grabbed his jaw again and worked it.  “Ow!  I shall not be able to speak if you dislocate my jaw!  I’m sorry.  That’s twice I’ve lost my temper with you.  I do not mean to get angry, friend but I’m very tired and my head is throbbing.  You ask for words of hope from one who has lost much of the store he had.  I came to this desert because of hope.  To carry the hope of the Gospel to new lands, to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the captive and sight to the blind.  To speak the Truth to anyone who would listen.  And I have found the only two who would listen were an overwhelmed child and an undead, predatory, cyborg, vampire, devil who for some reason or another has not killed me yet.  The only prisoner I freed, died of fever and now instead, I’m a prisoner, though without chains, thank you.  I’m afraid however my hopes, like my patience and my charity are waxing low just now.”  He tried to stuff the book back in his bag and it wouldn’t go.  “What the..?  Why won’t it…?  Damn and damn and damn again!  What the devil is in here?!”  He turned the bag over and two, bruised and battered fruit fell out.

“Oh.  Oh my.  Dear Lord forgive me!  In my anger you still provide!  I put these in there so long ago I’d quite forgotten them!  Here, friend, one for each of us.  We should try and con-”  The Monotooth extended its tooth, a long, needle-like fang protruding from a powerful tongue and punched it through the skin of the fruit.  With a deep pull the gourd drained down to a wrinkled knuckle a quarter of its former size.  “-serve them.  I hope you won’t mind my saying so, but I do not want to get used to that; it’s uncanny!”  The Monotooth looked at him with its large, globular, shuttered eyes.  Without thinking, he reached out and gently touched the face of the creature.  “What was done to you, child?”