Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: Nelson Cage, facing the grim choice of either death by hanging or volunteering as a gunea pig in an experiment that will hurl him across the vastness of interstellar space to an alien world, chooses the latter. But why has he been condemned to death and what strange things will he encounter on the Planet of the Purple Star? I think you know how to find the answer to this puzzle. The real question is: are you man enough?
Edit history: Minor changes were made to this story on 5 June 2021
Chapter 1: Exiled to the Unknown
Nelson Cage stood before the huge, incredibly complex machine that in but moments would hurl him with incalculable speed across the dark vastness of interstellar space, and cast him permanently upon the soil of a distant alien world.
Another world! A tremor of excited anticipation ran through Cage’s brawny frame, and from the corner of his eye he glimpsed a malicious grin split the thuggish features of the installation’s security guard.
“Frightened, Cage?” The man smirked, misunderstanding his reaction. “Would you prefer the hangman’s noose instead?”
Cage ignored the heartless baiting, and the ugly snout of the machinegun the grinning brute had trained upon him. He stood in stoic silence, but the guard’s callous words stirred his memories, and with churning bitterness he recalled the dreadful circumstances that had condemned him to his destiny.
Was it only twelve months ago he had been a policeman – a respected member of the community and a law abiding citizen? Oh, how heartless circumstances could change one’s life entirely in but a second. Cage laughed a soft, humourless laugh as he remembered that fateful afternoon.
He’d been on foot patrol in the small country town where he lived. It was a hot summer’s day. Main Street was quiet and deserted, the townsfolk not caring to venture into the noonday sun whose intensity made the air shimmer with its wilting heat.
Cage sweated and silently cursed. As far as he and the other officers were concerned patrol cars were a more efficient method of policing. Richard Churchgrove, the local mayor, however, wanted a more visible law enforcement presence in response to an upsurge in petty crime, and felt that some foot patrols were also needed. Elections were coming up, pressure had been applied in the right places, and so here he was pounding the baking pavement in a blistering heatwave.
Bloody interfering politicians, thought Cage with fury as he reached the corner of the street where his father’s shop was situated. He paused, removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was as hot as Hades. What he needed was a cool drink of water and a sympathetic ear. Cage replaced his hat and stepped through the jingling door of the corner store. But as he entered the cheery greeting instantly died upon his lips, and he paled in open mouthed horror at the confronting sight before him.
His father, Thomas Cage, lay sprawled upon the floor, blood from the terrible wound in his chest pooling on the polished boards. Three young men stood around the body. Their heads jerked up at the sound of the bell. Cage recognised the Mason brothers instantly – tearaways who caused no end of trouble. His eyes darted to Jack, the oldest of the teens, and locked upon the dripping hunting knife in his hand.
The boy dropped the weapon. It clanked jarringly on the floor. All three backed hastily against the counter with raised and trembling hands.
Jack swallowed hard. “I... I didn’t mean to kill him,” he stammered. “We just wanted money. He refused. There was a struggle. I... I didn’t mean to...”
Something in Cage’s brain snapped. The blistering heat, his anger at fat-arsed cigar chewing mayors, the sight of his father – the man he loved and admired stretched out pale and lifeless upon the boards – all combined to push him over the edge.
The 45 was in Cage’s hand as if by its own volition. Jack opened his mouth to scream for mercy. Cage fired. The bullet struck the youth between the eyes and splattered half his brains over the wall. In a frantic panic the other brothers tried to dive behind the counter. The automatic roared twice and both fell lifeless to the floor with bullets in their backs. Cage stood in the terrible silence, staring dumbly at the copses. The 45 dropped from his fingers and clattered on the bloodstained boards. Shortly, the wail of police sirens could be heard...
The trial had passed in a haze. The only clear recollection Cage had was of the lurid newspaper headlines: CRAZED COP GUNS DOWN TEENS, blazed the local rag. His lawyer had put in a plea of temporary insanity, but the hardnosed jury hadn’t bought it. He’d been found guilty of triple murder in the first degree. Death by hanging was the punishment.
A voice broke Cage’s grim train of thought and brought him back to the present. He turned and saw Professor Lawson standing next to him.
“Sorry. What did you say?” queried Cage.
“The machine is ready,” repeated Lawson, with a sympathetic smile upon his owlish features. “It’s time to begin your journey... Unless you’ve change your mind, that is.”
Cage shook his head. The dangers had been carefully explained to him. He knew that if something went wrong with the process of transmission he’d be dead. He’d be dead, too, if the beam dropped him into the middle of an ocean, or missed the planet entirely and reassembled him in the heart of its sun. But at least there was some chance at life and the promise of a great adventure. Better that hope than certain death swinging at the end of a rope, for all legal appeals had failed – he was a cop gone bad and the system was hell bent on making an example of him.
Lawson nodded. “This way, please,” he said as he ushered the prisoner towards the humming apparatus. Cage looked at the man. The professor was as calm and imperturbable as the first time he had seen him – the eve of his execution. One would never know Lawson was on the verge of sending a man to a distant world, and exiling him to the unknown.
The professor, head of Project M - a secret government research programme - had needed a guinea pig for his hazardous experiment, and who better than a man already condemned to death. Cage had sat in fascinated silence in his cell as Lawson had spoken of planets orbiting distant stars, and the possibility of visiting them through a revolutionary breakthrough in physics. Robots, explained the scientist, were simply not as versatile as a human being. He needed to put a man, not a mindless machine, on the earth-like world the astronomers had discovered.
Cage’s body would be broken down into subatomic particles and hurled across the void at a speed many times that of light by expanding space itself.* When the ray was switched off these microscopic elements, thanks to quantum entanglement – the fact that separated particles still remain mysteriously connected even at a distance - would resume their precise positions instantaneously, and he would be whole again.
That was the theory, anyway. But whether the theory lived up to the physicist’s expectations remained to be seen, for although experiments with laboratory rats had proved successful over a distance of a mile, a transmission of interstellar magnitude had never been tried before. Even so Cage had jumped at the opportunity, for by now the shock of his father’s death and what he’d done had largely passed, and though he felt incredibly remorseful over his killing of the three brothers, the desire for a chance at life, especially being only twenty five, was very powerful.
“Remember,” reminded Lawson as Cage stepped onto the large circular transmitting lens of lucid crystal. “Your brain will become entangled with the transmitting beam which, in turn, is connected to our instruments. Everything you see and hear, even though you are a hundred light years from Earth, will be recorded by our apparatus. Please observe all things carefully... And, good luck.”
Cage shook the professor’s hand, which proved surprisingly strong considering his rather scrawny appearance. Lawson stepped down from the glassy disc and walked to a bank of instruments. Other technicians busied themselves at their stations. Cage adjusted his backpack, but was careful not to touch the holstered pistol and machete at his side. It wouldn’t do to give his thuggish guard the pretext of an excuse to shoot him down at the last minute.
Switches were flipped and dials twisted. A large section of the roof above Cage rumbled back as the faceted disc he stood upon began to glow. Waves of light flowed down the crystal columns at the four corners of the black square upon which the lens stood. A prismatic ray of enthral light shot up from the glowing disc and enveloped Cage in its tingling radiance.
The humming generators soared in pitch. A thrill of awe and apprehension shot through Cage’s entire being. He was only seconds away from being either dead or the first man to set foot on another world of a distant star. He shut his eyes as the light increased to actinic brilliance and wondered what he’d find. Then searing pain engulfed Cage as the atoms of his body were torn apart by raging forces and flung towards the stars. Life and death, time and space had now lost all meaning for the disembodied man.
**********
For Cage the transition was virtually instantaneous. One moment he was in utter agony, the next he was standing in the open air under a blazing purple sun. He experienced several seconds of dizzy disorientation and blurred, swirling vision as he adjusted to his new environment. Despite the vertigo a thrill of elation coursed through his being. He was alive. Cage glanced at his body and was further relieved to see all was as it should be. A silly grin was upon his rugged face as he breathed deeply the air of an alien world.
But a savage hissing cry suddenly jarred Cage out of his euphoric complacency. The Earthman turned and his jaw went slack when he glimpsed the thing rushing at him. The gwaru’s massive body was roughly humanoid. But bony plates of a bronze hue formed its integument, and its articulated limbs were crab-like in appearance. The head was a neckless dome with six black compound eyes spaced evenly about its circumference. The mouthparts resembled the mandibles of a praying mantis. Its intelligence and hostile intent was evidenced by the oval shield and the mace, spiked with obsidian, it bore in its man-like hands.
Cage reacted instinctively. He whipped his gun from its holster and leapt back as the gwaru swung its weapon. The club struck the automatic as the Earthman squeezed the trigger. The blow spoilt his aim, tore the pistol from his hand with jarring force, and sent it spinning through the air. It thudded on the ground a hundred feet away.
But although Cage had missed, the explosive roar of the gun had started his assailant, giving him time to draw his machete. The Earthman aimed a vicious cut at the gwaru’s head. The thing caught his flashing blade on its wooden shield and countered with a ferocious stroke. Cage blocked the blow and was nearly driven to his knees by the force of the attack.
Again, the gwaru swung at him. Cage ducked and slashed at its side as the club whistled in a narrow miss above his head. The creature hissed in pain as the blade cracked a bony plate. It thrust its shield at the Earthman. He twisted away, but the buckler caught him a glancing blow and sent him spinning to the earth.
Cage hit the ground hard. Through a haze of pain he glimpsed the eight foot tall monster looming over him. Stunned by the fall, he struggled to reach his machete. His trembling fingers touched the hilt as his antagonist’s club came crashing down.
*Footnote: Although nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, Einstein’s theory of special relativity doesn’t prevent space itself from expanding or contracting at speeds greater than that of light, and thus carrying objects along with it.
Chapter 2: Stranger in a Strange Land
Cage grasped his machete and managed to roll aside. The mace thudded against the ground in a near miss. A rush of adrenalin fuelled the Earthman. He swung a desperate two handed blow at his assailant’s leg. The gwaru screamed as the whistling blade severed its limb. It crashed to the ground in a writhing heap. Cage staggered to his feet and swung another two handed blow at its bony head. More yellow gore spurted. The thing gave a final convulsive twitch as it died.
The Earthman tore his gaze from his slain antagonist and looked warily about. During the wild battle he had caught a hint of his surroundings, but due to the swiftness and violence of events hadn’t had the opportunity to fully absorb the scene.
Now he saw he was in a roofless cage of wooden bars resembling ebony. Each of the imprisoning rods was about four inches in diameter and projected upwards from the grey paving of an expansive, tree lined plaza. Before the cage was a mighty stepped tower of circular plan. It soared to a height of one hundred and fifty feet and was constructed of massive blocks of rose coloured crystal. Each terrace of the structure, and there were three of them, was overflowing with golden, broad leaved vegetation that bore trumpet-shaped flowers of an emerald hue, each scented bloom as large as a bugle.
Stairs spiralled around the building, giving access to all levels. At the apex Cage could see a colonnaded structure that he assumed was something’s living quarters, for it was the only part of the stupendous pile where circular windows were in evidence, the rest apparently being of solid stone.
For Cage the amazing sight was overshadowed by his growing apprehension. Was the creature he’d been forced to kill a member of the species who had built this structure? And how would the others of its kind react to his slaying of a fellow being? Lawson and his crew had certainly dumped him neck deep in the middle of it.
Cage caught a flash of light from the edge of vision. He quickly turned, gasped. Another creature entirely different from the one he’d slain confronted him. The startled Earthman felt fairly sure this second being was female. Although she lacked breasts like those of an earthly woman – her pectoral muscles were as well developed as an Olympic swimmer’s – the girl’s nipples were very prominent, resembling in shape the teat of a baby’s bottle, but twice the size and orange in colour like her lips.
Her hips flowed in womanly curves as is needful for the birth of children, which added strength to the conclusion she was feminine. Despite obvious differences she was far more human in appearance than Cage’s erstwhile assailant. Her features, although of an alien cast, were nonetheless attractive by human standards. The girl’s smooth skin was of a tawny hue and entirely hairless except for eyebrows, eyelashes, and a bristly black mane that ran from pate to waist.
She was clad in a brief loincloth of white material trimmed with crimson tassels, and sandals shod her feet completing her scanty apparel. Behind her was a vast crowd of similar beings, strangely silent. Cage found himself the focus of innumerable topaz hued eyes. The eerie quite and their strange appearance was unnerving in the extreme.
The woman was armed, and the flash of light that had caught Cage’s eye had come from the crystalline spearhead of her weapon. The glittering diamond point was no less hard than the wild look she cast upon him with her hostile eyes, and her burning gaze conveyed to the wary Earthman that his precipitous arrival had interrupted a ceremony of some kind in which she was suppose to slay the creature that he had killed.
Further evidence that she didn’t appreciate his stealing of her prize swiftly followed – the woman rushed at Cage, a howling cry of utter rage bursting from her lips. Her sudden movement broke the spell of shock upon him. He barely turned her stabbing spear with his whipping blade.
Again, she came at him. He leapt aside, avoiding the charge. Her human appearance made him reluctant to strike a blow. The woman began to circle him, her anger giving way to strategy. Cage sweated. He didn’t want to die, but was sick of killing. Perhaps he could disarm her and strike a disabling blow with the flat of the machete.
She thrust suddenly, nearly taking him by surprise. He swung his blade in a blur of speed and lopped the head off her spear. The point tinkled on the paving and a look of consternation and defeat came upon the woman’s face. She dropped her weapon and shield, and slowly sank to her knees, head bowed as if inviting the Earthman to deliver the finishing blow.
Cage was startled by her unexpected submissiveness, and was at a loss as to what to do. He certainly wasn’t going to kill the girl, of that he was certain. The problem was solved for him by the sudden lowering of the bars, which sunk silently and smoothly into the paving until they were flush with its surface. A man approached him from the crowd. The fellow was dressed in the same apparel as the girl, except that upon his loincloth was emblazoned the image of a stylized sun in purple thread.
He looked to be about twice the age of the girl - forty years by Earth standards, but for all Cage knew he might be a hundred or a thousand. The fellow drew near and said something in his native tongue. It sounded like gibberish to the Earthman’s ears, but obviously wasn’t.
“Sorry, I don’t speak the language,” replied Cage, feeling like an idiot. Here he was, face to face with a being from another world, and that was all he could think of saying. Still, it was the truth.
The man frowned in puzzlement. He turned to the kneeling woman and said something. The pair conversed for a moment; then the man turned back to Cage and motioned him to follow. Seeing there wasn’t much point in refusing, the Earthman complied, albeit apprehensively for he hadn’t a clue as to what would happen next.
Cage retrieved his pistol as he was led to the stepped tower, the woman and the crowd following at a respectful distance. But only the Earthman, his guide, and the woman commenced the ascent of the stupendous structure. It was an exhausting climb to the top. Flights of broad stairs wound their way up and through the terrace gardens, which were irrigated by a series of miniature waterfalls fed by a huge cistern at the apex of the building.
The Earthman considered himself to be pretty fit, but by the time they reached the summit his legs were like jelly, and it took all his strength not to stagger through the loggia that surrounded the living quarters of the upper terrace. He entered a large room whose rose crystal walls had their starkness broken here and there by exquisitely carved panels of an ivory timber.
Light from unglazed circular windows illuminated the chamber, which was largely free of furniture. A long table of the same ivory wood occupied the centre of the room, and drawn up before it on each side were three backless seats that were a combination of chair and storage chest. The stippled pelts of alien beasts, spotted and striped in black and ochre were scattered here and there upon the floor, but apart from that the room was rather bare.
Cage was motioned into a chair by his guide while the woman disappeared through a circular doorway that led to an adjoining room. After the Earthman had sunk gratefully onto the seat his host touched his own chest and uttered a single word: “Noymu.”
Cage’s instruction in the Cafani language had begun.
**********
It was early morning and the hundred and twenty first day of Cage’s arrival on the world of Oron, as it was called by its people. He was sitting on the uppermost terrace of the stepped tower eating a breakfast of dried, spicy fruits which resembled dates, but were burgundy in colour and tasted a little like honey into which a small amount of chilli had been added.
Having finished his meal he placed the square, shallow bowl of ebony porcelain on an ivory-wood stand, rose and gazed out across the plaza. Beyond the square’s tree lined border he could see the neat rows of thatched huts of the Cafani, as these people called themselves.
The conical houses of Tena, as this city was named, were interspaced with vegetable gardens and fruit trees that supplied food for the population, which Cage estimated to be about six thousand beings. Beyond the hut-city the land rose into forested hills of golden leaved vegetation resembling giant tree ferns whose smooth trunks were patterned in stripes of black and brownish-yellow hues, and in the extreme distance a chain of mountains thrust their impressive grey-blue bulk against the azure sky to complete the wondrous scene.
As Cage leaned on the balustrade he reviewed what he had learned so far – Cafani society was an agrarian Stone Age culture. He had seen no evidence of any metals, and as his language skills improved he had come to the conclusion that they either didn’t exist in mineable form on this world, or that metallurgy hadn’t developed for some inexplicable reason. Fortunately, hard gemstones, such as diamond, were in plentiful supply in this region and were used in the manufacture of weapons and other cutting implements.
Noymu, his host, wasn’t a king. The man’s role – his official title was lumin - was more like that of a shaman or witch doctor, with the added responsibilities of a mayor. A lumin could only hold office for a period of twenty years, after which he had to step aside and allow the first born of his wives, in this case Vaya – the woman Cage had fought – to take his place.
As part of the inauguration ceremony, the new lumin had to prove his or her worthiness by killing a gwaru – the Cafani’s traditional enemy, which the Earthman now knew was the monster he had battled in the cage. The problem was that not only had Cage killed the thing, but had also defeated Vaya by disarming her.
His unexpected and mysterious appearance had left Noymu in a difficult position that was political as well as philosophical. What was Cage? Where did he come from? Was his dramatic and inexplicable arrival, and his defeat of Vaya a sign he was to become lumin? Part of the answer could be had by teaching Cage the local language. The rest lay in more esoteric realms.
The Cafani had no concept of a god as most humans understand the term. These people believed in something called Memefu. It was difficult for Cage to grasp the concept, partly due to his lack of proficiency in the language, partly because of the strangeness of the idea.
As far as he could figure it out, Memefu was akin to something like the laws of nature and fate rolled into one. It wasn’t a personal god you could pray to and expect to answer your petitions. Memefu brought things into being and sustained them. It created and destroyed according to its own inscrutable and impersonal purpose. All one could do was use the art of divination, not to fulfil the will of Memefu, but rather to try and chart a safe course through life’s vicissitudes.
Noymu had advised Cage last night that the complex series of divinations he was undertaking would be complete, and that the Earthman would be informed in the morning of the outcome. Cage rubbed his chin in thought as he ran these ideas through his mind. He liked Noymu, but the man was prey to alien concepts that made his reactions unpredictable by human standards.
Would he, Cage, a stranger in a strange land, be raised to the position of lumin as a result of some superstitious nonsense? Why, he didn’t have a clue as to how to rule these people as they expected to be governed. It was utterly ridiculous!
The sound of his name being called interrupted Cage’s thoughts. He turned and saw Noymu standing in the doorway of the colonnade. The lumen beckoned.
“Please come with me,” he said. “My divinations are complete, and have shown the path our feet must tread upon.”
Cage followed the lumin into the building with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. Both men progressed through a series of rooms and up a flight of steps to a central area – a kind of inner sanctum on the upper floor where the rituals of divination were performed.
The Earthman gasped when he entered the small chamber. It was bare except for a central rectangular block of stone resembling alabaster - a slab of glistening rock whose entire surface had been carved with esoteric symbols of serpentine appearance. But it was not the shining whiteness of the mineral or the strange appearance of its occult carvings that had shocked the man. Rather, it was the disturbing sight of Vaya lying completely nude upon the stone, and the glistening diamond knife by her side.
A dark and prickling premonition shot through Cage as he faced Noymu. “What means this?” he blurted.
“The omens,” calmly explained the lumin, “proclaim you my successor. And in accordance with tradition you must slay my daughter, the defeated contender for the title. We shall then eat her flesh as custom demands.”
Cage could only look on in speechless horror as Noymu smiled at him as if he’d suggested nothing more than a picnic in the park. The Earthman’s eyes darted to the girl. She wasn’t bound to the stone, but simply lay there calmly staring at the ceiling. To the shocked Earthman it seemed as if he’d been plunged into a madman’s nightmare.
“I... I can’t do this,” gasped Cage. “As I’ve explained before, I’m from another world with entirely different mores.”
A look of sadness came upon Noymu’s face. “The omens also suggested this possibility,” he replied, “for the future can diverge along many paths. I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
The lumin’s hand flicked out. The concealed dart leapt from his palm. It struck Cage’s chest. The Earthman swore. He jerked out the projectile with one hand while his other darted for his pistol. It was all too late - his vision grew dark, the strength drained from his limbs and his gun clattered to the ground. Poison! It was Cage’s last thought as he hit the floor. Then black oblivion crashed down upon his reeling senses.
Chapter 3: Hope Yet Remains
Cage regained consciousness. He was lying on his back in a cell. The ceiling of his prison had been painted with a glowing substance that emitted a pale greenish light which illuminated the windowless chamber. His limbs felt heavy and sluggish – no doubt the after effects of whatever paralysing toxin had been used on him. The Earthman struggled to a sitting position and, with considerable passion, called Noymu a few choice names.
“You have no right to insult my father after the kindness he has shown you.”
The Earthman jerked around and saw Vaya sitting in the corner of the cell, regarding him with an angry gaze. Although Cage had cursed in English he’d mentioned the lumin’s name, and by his aggressive tone the girl had divined the fact his words were far from complimentary.
“I find it hard to believe you’d defend your father,” snapped Cage, “considering he wanted me to kill and eat you.”
“You are a strange man,” replied Vaya with a frown of puzzlement. “Had you killed and eaten me I would have become part of you. I would have shared your being. I do not understand your attitude at all.”
Cage opened his mouth to vent a withering reply, but then realized the futility of anything he could say. It was clear that aspects of Cafani culture were so thoroughly different from his own that each was virtually incomprehensible in some ways to the other.
Indeed, although he had been on the planet Oron for over three Earth months he knew very little about Vaya, for the Cafani considered it inappropriate, under most circumstances, for a woman to be alone with a man who wasn’t either a close relative or her husband - a fact that placed considerable barriers between the Earthman and the female members of Noymu’s household.
This segregation wasn’t based on the idea of sin: as far as he could see such a concept didn’t exist in Cafani culture. Rather, it was simply something that just wasn’t done – like a man going for a swim in a tuxedo. Cage sighed. The only thing he could do was accept these differences and hope he could find some common ground, and with this in mind he changed the subject.
“What will happen to us?” He enquired.
“My father,” replied Vaya, “will most likely choose Tumon, my younger brother, as next lumin of Tena, our city. If he passes the initiation ceremony,” she continued with disquieting nonchalance, “he will kill and eat us in accordance with tradition.”
Cage silently cursed. He figured it would be something like that. “And when will this happen?” He asked with forced calmness.
The girl wobbled her head, which was the Cafani equivalent of a shrug. “It depends how soon another gwaru can be caught.”
Cage grimaced. He wasn’t going to wait around for that to happen. The Earthman stood and moved to the portal of his cell. It was barred by a thick disc of black timber that could be rolled sideways into the wall like a sliding door. Cage peered through a circular grillwork set at head height and saw a flight of steps leading upward. A distant noise, like an immense vociferous crowd came to his ears. He couldn’t determine what the sound was, but correctly guessed the cell was beneath the living quarters of the stepped tower, and that the faint illumination coming down the stairwell indicated it was early evening.
“Escape is impossible,” observed Vaya, fatalistically, as she watched Cage grip the grillwork and haul upon it until his face reddened with the strain.
“Hope yet remains,” he gasped as he leaned against the door, breathing heavily. “I’m not going to sit here and wait to be slaughtered.”
The Earthman began to think. How could he escape? His gun and machete had been taken from him, for Noymu knew they were weapons – the machete was obvious, and the fact that Cage had reached for the automatic when attacked indicated that it, too, was a deadly instrument. But his bandoleer of cartridges had been left to him.
Cage grinned. Noymu, ignorant of exactly how the pistol operated had overlooked its ammunition, and that ammunition was full of an explosive powder! Cage examined the lock of the cell. The keyhole was extremely large. No doubt the absence of metal meant all its parts were wooden, and had to be quite bulky for the sake of strength. The Earthman began the task of removing the bullets from their cartridges, and pouring the powder into the keyhole.
As he had no pliers, the job of removing the bullets was a difficult one, and could only be accomplished by bending their tips against the floor, and working them backwards and forwards as one does when trying to break a piece of wire, until they loosened.
Vaya watched as Cage grunted and sweated at the painstaking chore. “What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously.
“You’ll see,” replied Cage evasively as he rubbed powder into the strip of material he’d torn from his shirt, hoping it would make a satisfactory fuse. He was about to insert it into the lock when the clamour he had heard made him pause. It was closer now - much closer. The Earthman went cold. Were they coming for him? Was he about to be butchered like a lamb?
The girl, who was still intently watching, hadn’t been mollified by his evasive answer. Indeed, she had grown even more suspicious. “You’re trying to escape,” she gasped in sudden and amazed realization. “Ho, guards,” she cried. “The prisoner is trying to escape!”
Cage swore. He jammed the fuse into the lock and drew a Zippo lighter from his pocket. Vaya threw herself on him. Her arm whipped about his neck in a stranglehold. The lighter tumbled from his hand as he clawed at her constricting limb, loosening her deadly grip. The girl might be fanatical enough to die for her beliefs, but Cage certainly wasn’t. He slammed an elbow back into her ribs, tore free and scrambled for the Zippo.
Vaya fought through the agony of Cage’s blow. She lashed out with a vicious kick. Her foot thudded against the back of the Earthman’s knee and sent him flying. He crashed to the floor. Cage cursed in pain and fear. He could now hear the sound of many feet pounding furiously down the stairs.
The Earthman rolled and Vaya’s foot stamped down where he had lain. He grabbed her ankle and jerked her leg out from under her. The girl fell, but twisted with the agility of a cat and landed safely.
Cage scuttled for the lighter. He ignored the lancing pain from his fall, spurred on by the sound of hands scrabbling at the door in a desperate bid to get it open. He scooped up the Zippo just as Vaya slammed into him. The force of impact sent him crashing against the door and he felt her wiry fingers clamp around his throat in a crushing hold. A rush of fear shot through him as his breath was stopped.
In utter desperation the Earthman tensed the muscles of his neck, flicked the lighter and thrust the red hot flame against her arm. Vaya screamed and collapsed upon the floor, clutching her singed flesh. The pounding of many fists upon the door reached a thundering crescendo as Cage, gasping for breath like a beached fish, lit the fuse.
The fuse sputtered to life as he grabbed the girl and dragged her clear. Then an explosion erupted with deafening fury as the contents of twenty cartridges were detonated. Fragments of wood ricocheted madly about the cell, and the distinctive smell of gun-smoke filled the air with its reeking effluvia.
Cage, who had thrown himself on Vaya to protect her from the blast, carefully raised his head and stared through the swirling dust and smoke of the explosion. The lock had vanished, and in its place was a smouldering, palm size hole. The Earthman staggered to his feet. His ears rang from the blast. The dust and smoke choked his lungs with its foulness and made him cough violently.
He hauled Vaya to her feet and half carried, half dragged the woman to the shattered door. Perhaps he was a fool, but he just didn’t have the heart to leave her in this horrible situation. The woman leaned against him heavily. At the moment she was simply too stunned by (to her) the inexplicable event that had rocked the cell with terrifying thunder, to continue any aggression.
Cage paused by the door and listened. No fists hammered upon it as far as his ringing ears could tell. The explosion had no doubt knocked down those outside the cell, either disabling or killing them outright. The Earthman quickly reviewed his plan – seize Noymu and with him as hostage flee the city for the safety of the wilderness. It wasn’t much of a scheme, and the Earthman knew it. But it was the only thing he could think of that stood a chance, albeit vanishingly small, by which he could save himself.
Carefully, Cage rolled back the door. The sight before him was a surprise. For the girl it was more shocking. No Cafani corpses were scattered upon the floor. Instead it was the single body of a gwaru that had been felled by the shattering blast. In an instant the Earthman realized his mistake – the many people he’d thought were racing down the stairs had been instead the echo of the creature’s heavy tread, and the many hands pounding on the door was just the force of its greater strength, all amplified by his magnifying fear. But still, what of the crowd-like noise he had originally heard?
Vaya supplied the frightening answer: “Gwaru,” cried the girl in utter horror. “They’ve attacked, invaded the tower. We must... ”
Her words were suddenly cut off by a bestial roar. The couple’s heads jerked up and fell upon a terrifying sight - the shadowed bulk of another prowling monster lumbering down the stairs. Its dark eyes, glistening sinisterly, caught them with its horrid gaze. The thing vented another hideous cry as it hurled its frightening bulk through the doorway, and came at them in a savage rush.
Chapter 4: A City in Flames
Cage snatched up the dead gwaru’s mace as the other monster charged him. Vaya grabbed its obsidian tipped spear. They faced the rushing mountain of destruction, united by a common foe. The creature swung its club. The Earthman blocked the blow and was nearly swept aside by its terrible force.
Vaya thrust for its eyes. The gwaru turned her spear with its shield as Cage dashed behind the monster. He struck at its head, but the creature’s all-round vision enabled it to dodge the wild blow. It lashed out at him with a clawed foot as the girl lunged at its supporting leg. The Earthman leapt aside, and the monster’s talons missed him by an inch. Then it screamed a brassy cry as Vaya’s spear slammed through the bony integument of its limb. The gwaru crashed to the ground. Cage leapt in, mace swinging. The thing tried to raise its buckler but wasn’t quick enough. The obsidian spiked club, driven by the Earthman’s brawny frame, smashed against its skull with crushing force. The fight was over.
The couple stood quietly in the gloom for several minutes as they caught their breath. Both noticed that the sounds of battle filtering down from above had diminished considerably, suggesting that the enemy was withdrawing. But was it in retreat, or were they leaving because no Cafani were left alive to fight?
This thought occurred to Vaya. Her face set in grim lines of worry as she moved with urgent purpose towards the stairs. Cage placed a restraining hand upon her shoulder, but she pushed him away.
“I must see what has happened to my family,” she snapped. “You may stay here and hide if you wish.”
Cage stifled an oath and followed the girl up the stairs; stung by the implication his caution was instead cowardice. They emerged on the northern side of the upper terrace. Corpses of Cafani and gwaru lay strewn about in attitudes of violent death. Silence and the strange vinegary smell of alien blood lay heavily upon the scene of slaughter. The man and girl prowled through the building with wary caution. The battle had been short but brutal. No one was left alive.
They came upon Noymu and the members of his family in the southern wing of the building. All were dead, surrounded by a ring of butchered guards. The final stand had been a ferocious battle as was evidenced by the terrible wounds upon the broken corpses. But the foe had not gone unscathed – dead gwaru lay piled knee deep about the circle of the slain Cafani - a grim testament to the fierce resistance of the defenders.
Slowly, Vaya knelt by her father’s body. Her face was inscrutable. Whatever emotions she was experiencing were known only to her. She removed the diamond knife from her father’s lifeless hand. Cage felt the gorge rise in his throat as she cut off the first joint of Noymu’s index finger on his left hand and began to eat it. He turned away, stumbled to a window, and leaned heavily upon the circular sill. Beyond, he saw the city of Tena. Tongues of flame leapt from the conical huts, lurid red against the blackness of nightfall.
The light of the blaze illuminated the hulking shapes of the nightmarish gwaru as they lumbered away and were swallowed up by the darkness. A breeze carried the stench of smoke and the wailing cries of the bereaved, the injured, and the dying to him. And hung upon the night was Yad – Oron’s blood red moon that seemed to gaze with the malevolence of the Devil’s eye upon the world. The whole effect was like a scene from Hell, and behind him an alien woman went about her cannibalistic funerary rites with inhuman calmness.
Cage shuddered. He was trapped on a distant world among strange beings. All things of Earth, all comforting familiarity was forever lost to him. For the first time he wondered if the hangman’s noose would have been a better option.
**********
Six days had passed. Cage stood at the base of the soaring terraced tower, gazing out at the reconstruction taking place in the ruins of the city. The Cafani had been hit hard by the raid. Their society was extremely hierarchical – The lumin, along with his immediate family and an elite corpse of kapis*, governed with unquestioned power. The gwaru had slain the heart and brain of their community, leaving the survivors in a state of utter disarray, and it had only been by the Earthman and Vaya working together that order had been restored.
Cage could have easily escaped during the chaos of the night, but hadn’t. He had joined the police force out of a strong urge to help the community, and despite all that had happened to him he found that his convictions wouldn’t permit him to abandon a people - for notwithstanding all differences the Cafani were intelligent beings – in their hour of desperate need.
That the devastating raid had caught the Cafani completely by surprise had puzzled Cage until Vaya supplied answers to his probing questions: Warfare on Oron, he discovered, was very ritualistic. If the ruler of one metropolis wished to attack another, then a formal challenge would be issued by an envoy to the lumin of the opposing city.
If the challenge was accepted - as it inevitably was to avoid loss of face - a team of one hundred warriors from each city would meet at a mutually agreed time and place. Each side would form a line facing the other, separated by about one hundred feet. There would then commence an exchange of insults. War-chants and feet stamping added to the din, with the warriors of each side working themselves into a battle fury.
In a short space of time some fighter would be possessed by berserker rage. Cage pictured the frightening sight: The mad rolling of the warrior’s eyes, his foaming mouth gnawing on his shield, his bestial grunts and the trembling of his limbs. Silence would then come upon the scene as the eyes of friend and foe alike fell upon the shuddering man in expectant breathlessness. The possession would swiftly reach its dark crescendo, and the Earthman visualised the ensuing eruption of unbridled savagery:
The warriors’ eyes, wide and staring, suddenly locked upon the foe. A screaming cry burst from his throat. He charged the opposing line. Upon this signal both sides rushed towards each other like loping wolves, howling madly. The shouting mob came together in a shocking clash – a violent whirlwind of smashing clubs and stabbing spears. The air was rent by the screams of the dying and the savage woops of the victors; blood stained the earth in sickening pools. It was a wild melee that would continue until one side had had enough and fled in unpursued retreat...
Cage shook his head in disbelief as he reflected on this strange state of affairs. Obviously, someone had changed the rules of combat in a most unorthodox manner. Vaya had admitted that they had heard rumours filtering through from other Cafani cities indicating a new leader had arisen among the gwaru, who were nomadic hunter-gatherers, and had welded them into a single people with ambitions of conquest.
Noymu had dismissed the idea – it was inconceivable to him that thousands of years of tradition could be overturned; that the gwaru would conduct themselves in a manner that was different from his father’s time, and his grandfather’s time and so on back into the dim mists of antiquity. And so he had taken little notice of the looming threat. As things transpired it proved to be a fatal error.
It was clear to the Earthman that the attack was more of a commando raid than a full scale assault, for from eyewitness reports it appeared that no more than about one hundred gwaru had been involved – fifty had made straight for the tower while the remainder had rampaged through the city setting fire to as many huts as they could. The new leader of the creatures, inexperienced in the tactics of large scale battles, was evidently testing some ideas before committing the main body of his army to the field.
The city of Tena was a logical target. It was the only source of the large, high quality diamonds that were needed for tool and weapons manufacture. Clearly, the gwaru war chief meant to capture the metropolis, cut off the supply of raw materials to the other Cafani cities, and use the superior gems in the armament of his own troops for the coming campaign of conquest.
And there could be no doubt that a further attack was imminent – a caravan form Yat, another city ten komu** to the south had arrived yesterday, and reported seeing a huge number of gwaru, possibly up to a thousand, massing in the Valley of Quazzar.
Zu, team leader of the caravan, had looked upon Tena’s devastation in utter disbelief when Cage and Vaya had explained what had happened to the city. For Zu it was shocking - as if the sun had suddenly risen where it should set. But the weight of the surviving citizen’s testimony convinced him it was true, and he had hastily departed for Yat bearing a gift of the Earthman’s new weapon, and news of the unprecedented threat facing all of them.
Cage shifted his gaze to the warriors in the square engaged in target practice with their atlatls– his introduced innovation - under the supervision of the instructors he’d trained. The atlatl, or spear thrower, was a shaft two feet in length with a cup at one end in which the butt of a dart – a four foot long projectile resembling a large arrow – was placed. The dart was cast with a swinging arm and wrist motion that was amplified by the atlatl, which could hurl the missile to a maximum distance of one hundred and fifty yards.
The Earthman, whose sport was fencing, had taken a keen interest in the history of antique weapons and their manufacture during his teenage years. He had initially considered longbows, but then rejected the idea. Time was not on his side. He needed a weapon that could be quickly mass produced and was fairly easy to use, and felt that the atlatl met these requirements.
But would the new weapons be enough? Cage hoped that the atlatls would catch the enemy by surprise – because of the close quarters and ritualistic nature of combat on Oron, and the fact that hunting was accomplished with elaborate traps; meant long range weapons hadn’t been developed. He hoped to kill as many gwaru at a distance thus demoralizing and depleting the foe before they could close with the Cafani and gain advantage due to their superior strength.
Cage looked glumly at the warriors as they hurled their darts. Most missed their targets, and as he wasn’t proficient in the weapon either, he could only offer them very basic training in its use. His only hope was that when the gwaru attacked they would do so in closely packed ranks where even an ill cast dart would have a good chance of striking the enemy.
The arrival of Vaya brought him out of his depressing thoughts. They had worked together very closely over the past days of hectic activity. Her hostility had quickly been dispelled when she saw that Cage was committed to helping her and her people, and the Earthman found himself becoming attracted to the girl despite her strange appearance and outlandish customs.
Perhaps his desire was born of loneliness, and the knowledge he was forever trapped upon this world. But what were her feelings towards him? He couldn’t tell, for although she was very human in some ways, in others she was unreadably alien. Besides, there was still the unresolved issue of who would rule Tena which stood between them.
At the moment the immediate threat of the gwaru required their full attention and cooperation. But when that passed and provided they won, would Vaya, the sole surviving member of the ruling elite, become the next lumin, or would it be Cage as Noymu had wanted? In either event someone would have to be killed and eaten.
A dark cloud of despair again settled on Cage at that depressing thought, and his spirits sank even lower when he saw dire news written in Vaya’s grim expression as she strode towards him.
“Our scouts have reported in,” she hurriedly said. “The gwaru are on the march and will be here when the sun is at its zenith.”
* Footnote: The kapis is the title of the person who records important information, and also the method by which it is recorded. Lines of various colours, radiating out from a central point, are drawn on a scroll. Numeric and phonetic values are then encoded on these lines (whose hues also have meanings) by means of combinations coloured circles, triangles and squares drawn upon them. The kapis is used more as a mnemonic device than a record as we understand the term.
** Footnote: A komu is a linear measure of 1000 paces, or roughly half a mile.
Chapter 5: Flying Death
Cage stifled an obscenity. Despite all the frenetic activity of weapons manufacture and training they were still woefully ill-prepared for the coming conflict. Time, as he had greatly feared, had run out all too quickly.
“What’s their line of march?” he asked with forced calmness. “And how large is the hoard?”
“They are coming up from the south,” replied the girl, worriedly, “and no doubt plan to ford the Hepos River at its narrowest point. Our scouts have confirmed Zu’s estimate - there must be at least a thousand gwaru on the move.”
A thousand gwaru at the very least! The numbers were huge by the ritualised standards of Cafani conflicts, and Cage could well understand the look of anxiety on Vaya’s face – it mirrored his own hidden fears. The Earthman was only too aware that he was just an armchair general. Still, all he could do was put his plan in motion and hope for the best.
“Mobilise our warriors,” he ordered with studied confidence. “We march to meet the foe forthwith.”
**********
Cage, standing on a slight rise by the banks of the Hepos River, ran a critical and nervous eye over the ranks of his twelve hundred strong Cafani army. He had drawn them up in a crescent shaped formation – the centre consisting of four hundred atlatl troops with the remainder, armed with maces, split evenly between the horns. The warriors were further divided into units of one hundred men, each under the command of a veteran fighter. The Earthman’s plan was that the horns of the army would flank around the sides of the gwaru hoard whilst the main body attacked the front after casting their darts.
The idea was sound in theory, but would it work in practice? Cafani combat was largely an undisciplined melee in which each warrior strove for personal glory. Fighting in an ordered formation under the direction of a single commander was completely alien to them, and the Earthman feared that once the enemy was close enough they’d give way to tradition and charge the foe in an unruly mob.
Still, they made a colourful sight that lifted his spirits. Fan shaped headdresses of metallic green and lavender feathers adorned their heads. Grinning white skulls had been painted on their bodies, and they were garbed in black loincloths fringed with crimson tassels. Sunlight flashed from diamond studded maces and the points of the wicked darts that the warriors had fitted to their atlatls. They stood silent and expectant, their eyes fixed on the advancing mass of the gwaru hoard as it marched between the two hills of a rolling plain that was covered in golden fern-like vegetation several feet in height.
Cage shifted his gaze to the enemy. They were about one hundred and fifty yards away from the river, which narrowed at this point to a distance of approximately two hundred and eighty feet. The sight of over a thousand gwaru lumbering towards him in a roughly square formation one hundred creatures abreast was an intimidating sight. The Earthman sweated. His eyes flicked apprehensively to his own warriors. The sight of the enemy could easily provoke some to battle frenzy.
The Earthman cursed. His worst fears were realized - already he could see early signs of berserker fury coming upon a man. Cage leapt from the mound and, machete drawn, dashed towards the warrior in the centre of the crescent. Already the fellow had begun to tremble and to chew upon his shield. The Earthman sprinted madly for the man as the affected warrior began to stamp his feet in a dance of savage frenzy.
It seemed to Cage that every eye was upon the wild performance in breathless expectation. The Earthman put on a burst of desperate speed. The warriors’ gaze locked upon the enemy. He prepared to rush the foe. Cage’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He knew if one man broke ranks the entire army would follow suit like a pack of wild hounds. Rage spurred him to the utmost. He reached the wild eyed man just in time and swiftly struck him down with the flat of his machete.
“Hold the line,” he bellowed, glaring at the others in utter fury. “Fools, if you break ranks you’ll give victory to the gwaru.”
His shouted warning and the unconscious man at his feet had a sobering effect upon the warriors. They slowly settled. Cage turned his back to them so they wouldn’t see his look of deep distress. He abhorred violence, but circumstances compelled him to it.
The hissing cries of the enemy interrupted the Earthman’s morbid train of thought. Their long strides had eaten up the distance with unexpected rapidity. The foe was now only seventy yards from the river. Cage’s eyes flicked to his own lines as the gwaru broke into a lumbering run. Relief came upon him as he saw his men holding their positions, then fear stabbed him as his gaze shifted to the frightening sight of over a thousand giant and monstrous beings bearing down upon him with the unstoppable momentum of an avalanche.
The roaring foe charged into the river and Cage grinned in relief. The water, which came up to the monster’s thighs, began to slow their savage rush as he’d hoped it would, causing the rear ranks to pile up behind the front. The Earthman waited tensely until they were in range, then he drew a wooden trumpet from his belt and blew a reedy note. As if by magic the air grew dark with hissing darts as four hundred warriors hurled their flying death.
Gwaru died by the hundreds as the rain of missiles tore into the packed mass of the hoard with lethal disruption. Some managed to raise their shields, but most were taken completely by surprise and went down with diamond points buried in head and chest. A great roar went up from the throats of Cage’s men. The sight of so many hated foemen falling to their weapons had roused the warriors’ blood lust. All orders were forgotten, all discipline abandoned. They charged the floundering gwaru in a wild rush of screaming savagery.
Cage swore furiously. He was nearly trampled by the howling mob as they swept around him, completely oblivious to his cursing commands. The Earthman dashed to the slight rise to get a better view of the disaster. And a disaster it was – rather than allow the enemy to charge into a withering hail of darts, his men had stormed mindlessly into the river where they were more impeded by the rushing water than their monstrous foes.
Chill fear swept through Cage’s tense frame. The mass of gwaru was starting to engulf the Tena army. His own tactics were being used against him! The Earthman’s worried gaze swept the melee and spotted a huge monster at the edge of the surging figures. The thing must have been at least ten feet tall. It towered head and shoulders above its fellows and shouted orders in the hissing gwaru tongue, bringing order to the chaos.
Cage cursed. His men were falling, cut down by stabbing spear and smashing club. In but moments they would be entirely engulfed by a sweeping tide of monstrous, towering foemen. Again, he raised the wooden trumpet and blew a swift succession of blaring notes.
Upon this signal his reserves, led by Vaya, burst forth from the concealing vegetation to his rear. These hundred men, having been chosen for levelheadedness and kept from sight of the fray, still retained their wits. At the girl’s command they hurled their darts upon the rapidly encircling foe. Gwaru screamed as the storm of missiles pierced them. Again, the enemy was thrown into disarray at the unexpected assault. More screeching foe tumbled into the churning, blood stained water as withering flight after withering flight of darts struck their floundering ranks.
Missiles exhausted, Vaya cried a sharp command. She and her men charged the gwaru with wild yells. They crashed into the remnants of the encircling mass, breaking it up. The centre of Cage’s army, what remained of it, pressed forward into the disorganized enemy and gained the further bank. Now on dry land and unimpeded by the water, the Cafani’s greater agility began to tell upon the lumbering creatures as they darted in with rapid blows and danced away from whistling counterstrokes.
Cage watched the swirling bloody chaos that the battle had become. Fear for Vaya was uppermost in his mind. He was about to join the fray in a desperate search for her when a roaring challenge drew his eye. The Earthman felt terror tie a cold knot in his stomach. The leader of the gwaru – that ten foot monstrosity – had plunged within the river and was coming at him with deadly purpose.
Foam flew from its snapping mandibles as it gained the shore. Cage stood alone. He hefted his machete and faced the brute as it lumbered up the slight acclivity towards him. For a brief moment the Earthman wished he’d been able to find his pistol, then the creature was on him and there was no time for the futility of regret.
The thing roared. Cage dodged its wild blow, which would have swept him off his feet if he’d tried to block the whistling mace. The Earthman leapt in and cut at its leg. His blade chipped a bony scale. The gwaru war chief hissed. It swung another savage stroke that caught Cage’s weapon and tore it violently it from his grasp.
Time seemed to slow – like the movements of an old-fashioned pearl diver walking on the ocean floor, clad in his bulky suit and helmet. Cage caught a glimpse of the machete sailing through the air. He also saw the scene of battle and his heart sank. Inspired by their war chief’s daring attack upon the Cafani’s leader, the faltering gwaru now stood firm and with renewed resolve pushed forward, forcing Cage’s centre back towards the river. The Earthman’s warriors were falling beneath the crushing blows of their mighty adversaries, and in but moments he would share their dreadful fate.
Chapter 6: Lumin of Tena
The monster towered above Cage. It swung its mace upon him – a terrible spiked sledgehammer that would crush his head like an eggshell. The Earthman rallied his courage. He ducked. The mace whistled above his head in a blur of speed as he grabbed his brutal foe behind the knees and heaved with all his strength. The gwaru hissed in rage as it toppled to the earth and hit with jarring impact.
Cage scrambled to his knees as the gwaru war chief rolled to all fours. He leapt on its back in sheer desperation. The Earthman clung to the thing as it surged to its feet, whistling like an enraged steam engine. The war chief’s double jointed arm swung the mace in a savage arcing blow over its shoulder and down upon the clinging man. Cage saw it coming, let go, fell. He felt the club brush his hair. Then the creature screamed as the heavy mace slammed against its spine in a shattering blow.
It tottered for a moment; then toppled like a felled tree. The Earthman scrambled frenziedly aside. He barely avoided being crushed by the thing as it crashed against the ground with dust stirring force. Cage staggered erect and looked at his foe. The force of the blow had broken its back, and the fall had driven the obsidian spikes of the mace deep into its vital organs. It was clearly dead.
A strange quavering howl - the gwaru mourning cry for a fallen chief - drew his attention to the scene of battle. The mournful sound spread swiftly through the ranks of the enemy as other monsters saw their leader stretched lifeless upon the soil. By contrast an exultant shout roared forth from the throats of Cage’s warriors. Realizing what had happened the Cafani redoubled their efforts, and flung themselves in a whirlwind of violence upon the wavering foe.
With their leader dead, and under the withering assault of Cage’s men, the gwaru lost all heart. One dropped its weapon and bolted from the scene of growing carnage, then another and another. In but moments the trickle became a flood. The once mighty hoard broke apart like dead leaves scattered by the wind.
The surviving monsters, perhaps as few as three hundred, fled in ragged disarray, casting aside spears, shields and clubs as they escaped across the rolling plain in ignominious defeat. Cage watched them until they were out of sight, sped on their way by the jeering insults of the victorious Cafani braves. He was elated by the victory, but also appalled by the terrible loss of life both sides had suffered. He hoped that Vaya was not among the dead.
**********
A day had passed since the Cafani victory. The gwaru war chief was dead, and his army broken and scattered. After such a resounding and disastrous defeat the Earthman thought it unlikely that the savage nomads would be contemplating plans of conquest for many years to come, if at all. Cage, of course, was lauded as saviour of Tena and justly so. But his elation at being victorious was overshadowed by the problem of succession, and so with growing apprehension he approached the inner sanctum on the tower’s upper floor where the rituals of divination were performed.
Cage paused by the entrance to the room. Vaya had summoned him and he steeled himself for the coming confrontation. His escort behind him made escape impossible. Indeed, this so called ‘honour guard’ had, at the girl’s command, been shadowing him ever since he’d returned from the battlefield. Clearly, she meant to forcibly resolve the issue of who would be lumin regardless of his feelings on the matter.
Would she expect him to let her slit his throat, or did she want him to cut hers? There was only one way to find out. Cage, grim faced and tense as a cat surrounded by hounds, stepped within the room. Vaya stood beside the altar of divination upon which rested two goblets of ebony porcelain. The Earthman eyed her with a strange mixture of desire and wariness. Her expression was unnervingly unreadable and gave no hint as to her thoughts. His unease increased.
“There was enmity between us,” said the girl without preamble. “But now there must be peace,” she continued gesturing at the goblets. “Step forward and join me in the Ceremony of Friendship.”
Cage cautiously approached and took the proffered vessel. He gazed at its contents – a brownish liquid made from the ground nuts of the avuka tree – uncertainly.
“If I wanted to kill you,” explained Vaya, mildly annoyed. “I could have easily done so without recourse to the subtlety of poison.”
Without waiting for a reply the girl downed the contents of her goblet and Cage, somewhat embarrassed, followed suit. Although the liquid had a peppery, muddy taste to it, the Earthman drained the vessel to its dregs, feeling he’d caused enough offence already without adding to it by gagging on the vile brew. His frame of mind was also a little more relaxed. It seemed the expected showdown had been avoided.
“Now, concerning your inauguration as lumin of Tena,” spoke the girl, shattering the calmness that had come upon the man. “Considering it was divined by my father, and that you have proven yourself worthy by killing gwaru in abundance, I see no reason why you cannot assume the title as from today.”
Cage blanched and nearly dropped his goblet. “If you think I’m going to kill and eat...”
Vaya held up her left hand, which heretofore she had concealed behind her back. The sight of her bandaged index finger, which was missing its first joint, silenced the troubled Earthman for he knew she’d survived the battle unscathed.
“Your introduction of new weapons and means of fighting,” explained the girl, “Have shown me that customs must sometimes change. I have burnt my flesh and mixed the ashes with your drink. I am now part of you. This is my compromise out of respect for your beliefs, strange though they are to me.”
The Earthman, shocked by her actions, leaned heavily against the altar of divination, barely managing to keep the contents of his stomach down.
“I... I know nothing of being a ruler,” he stammered in a strangled voice, barely able to believe what she’s done.
“I will be by your side, helping you in all things,” reassured Vaya as she took his hand and placed it upon her loins.
Cage, now more familiar with Cafani customs, knew that despite the segregation of the sexes woman had the right to choose a mate, and that by her actions Vaya had selected him.* The Earthman smiled for the first time in a long time. Despite everything, perhaps life wouldn’t be so bad here after all.
*Footnote: The concept of romantic love is largely absent from Canani culture. Each year every Cafani city holds a mating festival where unmarried people of both sexes are allowed to freely mix in order to find a life partner. This festival lasts for thirty days at the end of which couples may marry if they choose. Vaya, having been forced into close association with Cage through unusual circumstances, obviously feels she knows him well enough to make a decision without the usual formalities.
THE END