Prologue
A star blew across the dark, inky sky, leaving a trail of patterned blue dust behind it. It seemed to zoom past the grey, hulking clouds and through the thick, smoggy fog that poisoned the air like a plague. It neared the end of its course, blowing out before crashing into another star, sending an explosion of blue and purple over the town of Woodharvest.
It was there, in the large village where the king lived, who now stalked around his chambers in the dark hour. He creeped through gloomy darkness, until finally reaching his balcony, where he revealed himself to the sky and explosion of the stars. The king wore a set of violet robes, with a white collar speckled with black dots. A pair of light blue pants rested firmly around his waist; a night robe of the same color wrapped around his torso. It was the lights that brightened his mood, sending a powerful burst of energy through his rigid, old body. The king leaned against the marble railing, scratching his puffed white beard as to why the explosions occurred.
He watched the lights sprinkle over his town like a waterfall, a beautiful sight of fireworks, yet still mysterious and odd. The comets seem to fly from the East portion of the galaxy. Could it be the Xerox Empire? Definitely not the Rilux. They are South, and the comets are clearly coming from the East . . . it could very well be effects of the Astrofield, but could stars travel so far? The field is over a thousand cycles away. The king thought for a few more minutes before hearing a familiar voice.
“Watching the booming again? It’s very late for a king to be awake at this hour. Don’t you have a federation meeting tomorrow?” asked a figure behind the king. He turned to his chamber, seeing the outline of his daughter walk to the balcony doors. She came into the light, smiling at her father.
“Yes. First thing in the morning,” said the king, holding his daughter’s clammy hand. She was young, twenty maybe, (the old man had nearly lost count) her straightened brown hair fixed into a ponytail. Indeed, she was beautiful, for she had the green eyes of her father and face of her mother. “My dear, how proud your mother would be. If only she was here with us.”
“She is, father. In spirit. The monks out near the mountains believe so too. They told me when I was visiting them,” said the daughter, for it was only a week ago that she’d visited the monastery. A large, marble building it was, with a black domed roof and red and white walls. Scrolls were hung everywhere, the ancient language of the former ancestors scribbled onto the sheets. The daughter had come out to the far outskirts of Woodharvest, in seek of answers. She’d entered to a nice cup of tea, for the four monks who lived there where kind as ever, feeding and resting her until she was ready to seek answers.
“What else did the monks say? Besides about your mother?” asked the king. He looked up back at the sky, the explosion fading back to the reveal the gloomy sky. “I heard the monks didn’t truthfully answer each question as they used to.”
“Who told you? The monks are the most trustworthy villagers here. Remember they foresaw mother’s death weeks before it occurred,” said the daughter, clearly confused about her father’s account. “They know most and everything.”
“Indeed the monks are a part of our culture. Something inside me, it doesn’t exactly feel right. As if the monks began to guess answers. They did foresee your mother’s death, yet I don’t know,” said the king. He looked up at the beautiful explosion, blue and purple clouding the sky. Of course, the king could never tell his daughter his feelings towards the monks. It made him uneasy, that a small group of men named themselves the tellers of fortune and kept to themselves in their temples. He’d gotten used to the Azetane people visiting the monks for answers, but never did the king consult with them himself. He could very well rule out the monks from Azetane culture, but it would only harm his political agenda.
“You should appreciate these people complexing their minds to understand everyday predicaments. They meditate all day in their monasteries, only to seek out information. Nothing more. They are selfless, and only care about others,” explained the king’s daughter. She looked over the balcony to the far side of the mountains, a dim light barely visible atop. It was where the monastery was, so far from the rest of the village. “I just don’t understand why they cannot live with the rest of the village.”
“The monks perhaps want privacy and quiet for their meditations. The mountains are a good place for them,” lied the king. He didn’t want the monks to move into the village. Never. It was far too kind of the king to let them stay on the planet, but mixed with his own people, that would be too much. “They have chosen a place to live. We must respect their needs and customs.”
The king and daughter shared a silent moment, watching as the comet explosion unfolded into the night sky. “Dear. Why do you think the explosions occur. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” The king looked curious, his head swerving to face the mountains.
“I don’t have the slightest clue,” replied his daughter, following the king’s gaze. “The monks might know. They did say something about the sky explosions signifying a dangerous era. But none of the four elaborated.” The king kept his stare towards the mountains, finally making out the dim outline of the monastery. It seemed to grow bigger each day, like a plant or animal. Or one of the creatures from Xerox, he thought, seeing how it towered over the mountain cliffs and edges. It looked awfully like his own castle, a shadow even, just far more praised or known. Except for its vibrant red and white colors, the shape of the monastery seemed to match the royal castle, as if it was built by the same architect or for the same purposes. Weird. I’ve never noticed the similarity before. Maybe it is just me. I’m old and it is nearly midnight . . .
“Father, should I travel tomorrow? To the mountains, to ask the monks what they think the explosion means? After all, all I have to do tomorrow is resemble a good image for the princes of our federation at the meeting,” proposed the king’s daughter. “Have you noticed how handsome the one of Okuxezia is? He was so dazzling last time at the royal ball. And seemed to take a liking to me.”
“The princes of the kingdoms only want our power, nothing more. You are to stay away from them. As for the monk visit, you may go. Only for an hour, though. I need you back here in case the kingdoms require an audience,” said the king. “If one decides to secede from our federation. I would need you to be representative.” The king’s daughter gave her father a slight nod, as if upset about the matter between her and the princes. “Report to me what the monks say. If it is serious, I will consult with them.”
“I’m pretty sure father the explosions are just a natural effect. Nothing serious, or a sign our empire will go down,” said his daughter. The king surely hoped so. The last thing his kingdom needed was a galaxial comet shower to ruin their stand in the parliament. Then surely the mobs would take over, for their reign of terror and malice empire spread across Azetane planets. Nothing serious, the king knew. Just smuggling operations that his men were able to bust up before the gangsters could even profit off the stolen products. There was one specific gang that the king feared, but the chance they would take over was unlikely. The monks never got their predictions right anyway. There was nothing to fear for the king. Or so he thought.
“What do you mean when you say the princes want only power?” asked the king’s daughter. By this time, the sky was back to its gloomy, darkened state, the purple and blue fading from view. “One would think they’d joined us to help our federation.”
“As well as one might think Rilux is North of us. People can think may things, my dear. It is easy for me to think that I’ve beaten Xerox, but not true has it become,” said the king. “These kingdoms joined our federation for more say and power in the galaxy. They only want to improve their political stance and become like one of the three powers in the galaxy;us, Rilux, and the Xerox.”
“What if we merged kingdoms? We’d be united and more powerful,” said the king’s daughter. “Wouldn’t it help everybody. Our empire and theirs?”
“That means the other kingdom must give up its power to us. No ruler in any right mind would want to give their ancestor’s work.” The king looked sternly at his daughter. “That’s why the parliament exists, and why federations were made. So that kingdoms are united, but still their own empire and able to make its own governing laws.”
“The parliament doesn’t seem to regulate crime syndicates in any empire or federation. It seems our galaxial governing system is corrupt, yet still rules us all,” said the daughter. The king sighed, clearly tired and drowsy. “Why don’t you do something. Hasn’t there been an attack on Cantonia by Toxin Visage?”
“Toxin Visage is merely a crime leader and only makes money off hiring bounty hunters,” said the king. “We will soon have him and his goon party. We were able to get troops to Cantonian fortresses in time to stop the raid.” The king smiled at the thought of capturing the notorious gangster, one he’d been sought to kill since years ago. Toxin Visage had taken so much from the old man, his wife, his ports, his people, all for an unknown reason.
The king remembered quite some time ago, when he too had believed in the monks, as his daughter did. He’d traveled across the desert biome of his home planet and up the enormous mountain to the monastery, where the monks told him of Tixon Visage’s purposes, for all the man wanted was money. But the king feared more. Tixon Visage’s attack patterns, how his crime syndicate only assassinated royal members, it was like pieces of a puzzle.
One not even the well praised monks could know. Nor his own teller who lived in the dungeons of his castle, just below the dining room. “He’s a mysterious man,” the teller had said in her scratchy, eerie voice. “Doesn’t reveal his plans until they are put onto effect. It seems his ways do not match any other gang or mob.” The king had sighed at the news of his teller also unknowing of Visage’s attacks. “He isn’t after money, that is all I know for sure. Though I sense it is a powerful asset to his plan.”
“Is this all you can tell me?” the king had asked.
“All I know,” sighed the teller. She tried to seem hopeful, but the king’s gloomy and dark expression turned to disappointment, his brows arching sadly. “Your highness, I will try to figure his plan. I promise you.” Yet all these years later, the teller had never fulfilled her promise to the king nor ever helped him after that, for the plump woman in purple and black had left the castle for good.
“Tixon Visage will be caught daughter. I promise,” said the king. It was unfortunate that neither he, like his dear departed teller, would ever be able to keep that promise. And though he was not one to know or understand the future, the king knew it to be true. It was why his face saddened as he promised to his daughter, a young woman who would soon face the horrible and distasteful task of being queen.
“I know he will. The man deserves a terrible fate like the ones he’d imposed on his victims,” said the daughter, her face prideful and hopeful. It was the same face her mother made when she was at her best, exactly the same, her smile dignifying and daring, her eyes big and bright, her brows narrowed above her eyelids.
The king watched his daughter. “I know you will make a great queen. Just like your mother did when she was alive.”His daughter resembled the queen very much so that they had the same soothing, calm manner and beautiful facial features, the same smooth, pale skin (despite living on a desert planet) and most of all, the same obsession: books. A whole tower in the castle was devoted to books, a messy library so crammed that there was no room for even the royal guards to stand. Only a small chair and lantern in the very corner, where the queen, and now her own daughter, could sit and read for hours. The king did not like books, as much as he didn’t like the monks. He figured reading of fictional stories that would never happen was a waste of time for a leader of an empire. Time could be spent learning of the political matters, or meeting with other sovereigns and proposing for them to join the Azetane federation. But instead, like his bookish wife, his daughter favored reading over the responsibilities of leading an empire.
“It’s getting late, father,” said the daughter. “I think I’m going to go sleep now. I just need to take a quick stroll around the castle before.” The daughter smiled at her father, who gently kissed her hand and left her to go to her duties. She slowly creeped down the stairs to where two guards stood, blasters in their rigid hands, uniforms polished and cleaned, hair fixed and combed.
“Princess,” said one guard, with brown, pulled back hair and eyes the color of the sky. He looked just like one of the princes from the royal ball, yet only a knight for the Azetane kings guard. “Would you like to be accompanied by a guard in case something occurs?” His tone was soothing and sweet.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry, nothing ever happens here, especially with the rim guard around the planet perimeter,” replied the princess casually. She untied her ponytail, letting her brown, smooth hair spread out behind her back. Even more beautiful, thought the guard, nodding to his blond, shaggy haired partner, who lifted the gates on cue. The smell of fresh air entered the princess’s lungs as she smiled to the two handsome guards, then marched off into the night.
The village was quiet, like the library in the west castle wing. It was peaceful like the monastery, and calm like the seas. The air was unusually thick,and there was a heavy scent of flowers, probably from the gardens out back. It was unusual for pines and roses to grow on a desert planet, yet the gardener had managed with the rough circumstances. Redwood trees and blooming lilies grew near the waterways, maids carrying tin cans back and forth, the flowery smell clinging to their checkered black and white attires like perfume.
“I love the garden. The smell is lovely,” said one maid to another when the princess happened to be listening one morning. “Especially the wildfire roses. They smell just like lemons and strawberries.”
“Ooh, and the lilies out near the well. Have you smelt them? Just like clams from the sea,” said the other, tying a white bow around her silky black hair. “And the violet ferets? Just like vanilla, but even more entrancing and beautiful.” The princess had watched the two stand up and continue to water the flowers, happily smiling and giddy with joy.
The scent seemed to grow stronger as the princess headed toward the back of the castle, the sand sprouting green, soil sprinkled over the grass, pastel-colored flowers erupting from dirt. Small, roaming beetles and gripeons flew from stigma to stigma, sucking pollen, their ends glowing red and blue.
The princess sat snugly against a flowerbed, plucking a blood red daisy from its stem and fitting it into her hair. From time to time, a beetle or gripeon would land and try to suck pollen, then leave, their ongoing buzzing following them like a shadow. It was odd though, for the minutes that passed by, the princess seemed to notice something in the air, suspended like as if it were flying. She didn’t seem to care for a while, but its shadowy, string-like form almost blended with the night sky. Squinting, the sleep-deprived princess tried to make out what the object was. Is it me, or is that a . . . She squinted harder, her bottom almost off from the ground.
It was a rope. Slung from one of the rooftops of a house to the back edge of the castle. It was the color of shit, dirty brown shit like the ones piled into mounds she’d seen when helping Jamie at the stables. She loved the stables, especially petting and feeding the mythicons. Her favorite was a male in the very corner stable, with purple fur, blue stripes twirling around his body, and a shining gold beak. He had fierce eyes, fierce large eyes that glowed a yellow hue in the dark, like the luminescent stones she’d seen back at the monastery. How she missed the poor mythicon, for it was only days ago when he’d gone sick and died.
It was Jamie, the handsome, brown haired stable boy who’d helped her out of her misery. “The other mythicons are healthy though. And we can bury the body too. I’ll dig a grave if you want, princess. A proper grave, decorated. There’s the tailor, I bet he could help weave some cloths to hang around the gravestone,” said Jamie all those days ago. “My brother, Jackson of Ontara could help as well. He knows how to carve stone. The way he does it is so smooth and clean, and I’m betting he’ll do it for free. ’Anything for the lovely princess’ he’d said the other day while carving a bird.” Jamie was a very gentle man too, a smile always taped to his face. He never yelled, nor looked angry for any reason whatsoever, even the one time when the princess had gotten tired and forgot to close the stables. Every mythicon, even lazy John, had sprinted out the stable doors and out into the sandy desert, where it took Jamie days to find them, yet the kind stable boy never put on a frantic nor frustrated look as if not to worry the princess.
Even though Jamie had an identical twin brother, Jackson (the princess often mixed the two with each other) their personalities were much different. Jamie was rather calm and kind-hearted, yet Jackson had rude manner. The twin always thought of himself rather than others, but the monks had foretold his fate, a sense of karma the princess thought. Like that one time when he’d accidentally fallen off one of the sand rooftops into the mythicon’s shit near the stables. He hadn’t come from his hut for days from shame and embarrassment, and reeked horribly, like the king’s former fortune teller.
The princess had almost never seen the teller. The seer had kept to her chambers in the dungeons, where the daughter preferred her to be. She thought the teller was an insult to the monks and her culture, and had only ever been in her chamber once. It was a room covered in pink, draped in velvet curtains with brewing pots and old, leather bound books placed everywhere. The shelves were covered in a myriad of different sized vials and bottles, each substance a different color, some acid green, other blood red like the sun when it set across the horizon. The teller herself was rather stout, her face pudgy and eyes dark. Her hair was wrapped in a dark magenta turban, her purple robes embroidered in black like a vine suspended in the air or tree roots digging through dirt.
“Why is there a rope connected to the castle?” asked the princess to herself. She sat up from her comfortable spot, marching across grass. “There shouldn’t be any attachments to the castle.” She quickly walked towards the hut, her face producing a worried look. She knocked lightly on the door, the wood splintering her soft, pale knuckles. Ow. Stupid wood. After a minute of waiting, the impatient princess knocked again, though rather reluctant to do so the second time. The house was still eerily quiet, no sign of anyone answering the door. Temper rising, the princess knocked a third time, hard, yet instead of staying closed, the wood door creaked open from force, moonlight casting into the darkened room.
The anxious princess looked around the hut, for it was normal like most. A few shelves of books and trinkets, a cauldron and kitchen, bathroom in the lower section, and a bed in the corner. The beds are empty. Or is the dark playing tricks on my sight? The princess scanned around the dimly lit room, before stepping her slippered foot onto an object, far to thick to be carpet. The weight of the object shifted from the spot, causing her to trip onto the hard, sandstone floor. “Ouch!” she cried, pulling her pained knee to her chest. She squirmed onto her feet, trying to make out what the object was.
A lantern. A lantern would help. If only there was one here. The princess again looked around the house for a light, and saw the small silhouette of a lantern placed on a windowsill, yet oddly shaped. She picked it up, only to see a dark hole through the circuit.A hole in the lantern. Fried wires. Only a blaster could do that . . . Scared, the princess stepped back, dropping the lantern to the floor, glass shattering across the sandstone. A small, electric light shone from the broken pieces before dimming and burning out completely.
A blaster hole in a lantern? Empty bed? Something’s wrong . . . The princess stumbled over to the dim silhouette of the kitchen, running her hands over the stove. Maybe, just maybe if I could find a lighter. She gave up on the surface of the counter and began rummaging through drawers. Yes! Perfect. Exactly what I need. The princess smiled as she picked up a sleek black lighter, flicking its switch to see a small fire ignite from the end.
Like a plague, the shadows on the wall danced away to the other end of the hut upon seeing the light flicker. The princess swung the light around like a sword, trying to see what lay on the sandstone floor. The warm, sunset-like fire shone upon a body, a man with tousled brown hair and gray, bland eyes. His smooth, raspberry-colored lips seemed to grow stale from laying in the same position, his curved nose arching over his bushy mustache.
The princess backed in shock upon seeing the corpse. His chest, covered in a mahogany nightshirt had a large, burnt hole through his lungs, like the shot through the broken lantern.Scared, the princess inched forward. A murderer? These shots look fresh, as if I can smell the blaster smoke. A thought raced into her mind. What if they kill father? Silly me, the doors are guarded. The only way a murderer could get in was— The princess froze in her tracks. A rope.
It had only been a few minutes without his daughter that the king decided he too should go to sleep. His head felt heavy, like the seas of Cantonia or the islands of Devonexus had been pressured upon him. His arms,like twigs, ached the old man, his face wrinkling with time. Perhaps the booming will occur tomorrow. I’ll wake to see it then.He smiled at the gloomy sky once more before staggering back to his chambers, laying his head on the velvet sheets of his bed. The king snuggled against his blanket, like he did every night, hoping that when he looked under his wife would be there. Just like a child. I can’t believe I still have hope in magic. What have omens and summoning tricks ever done for me? The king covered his frail body, his eyes closing tight, almost feeling the warm taste of the queen’s lips against his, her smooth, pale hands ruffling his hair. Giddy like a child again, I am. Even my own daughter doesn’t believe in—
A sharp crack came from outside the king’s chambers. It sounded like ice, fresh cold ice like the glaciers in Oreon, cracking into small bits and pieces. The clacking of boots followed, nearing the wooden door to the chambers, cloth swishing and swiveling in perfect synchronization. Clack, swish, clack, swish, clack. The king stood from his bed, flattening his robes and glaring straight at the door. He turned to his cabinets, pulling open drawers in search of a weapon, something the man could use in case of defense. The door creaked open, a shadow pealing onto the wooden floorboards. The king turned once more, trying to see who stood, but the light from the outside blinded him. He covered his eyes, and before able to squint, the same cracking sound of ice rang through the still air. A pain seared violently into the old man’s chest, like a Rylocrypt had gnashed its silver claws through his skin. Blood flowed from his chest like a waterfall, the king limping to the ground like a defeated animal. He twisted his head, setting his gaze on where the figure stood, yet only saw the light from the lanterns outside, and the smoking blaster that had shot him laying on the floor, its smoke matching his dying breaths.
