Raiden
Raiden often led tours in
the Tri-City Forest that connected Malysai, Kalia and Hewenia, but he rarely
ventured beyond the forest to the city-state of crystals and water. As his
shuttle flew passed the border, he was overcome by the incandescent navy shades
of the crystal structures that slept in the moonlight.
Dawn was still a few hours
away, but he wanted to ensure that he knew where he’d be going before Hela
reclaimed the sky. He passed two of the six rivers that helped outline the city
of Kalia and kept in mind the image that he saw in the District of Shadows. The
cluster of lights in the center had revealed where he needed to go.
Dawn
of the First. He thought to himself. It made perfect sense that the
clue referred to Kalia. It was the land that the first race of Noreis had
inhabited, or so the stories went. Many thought that the first creatures, the
Mashinians, had been a myth. Even if they were, enough people were inspired by
them to create a much larger replica of the city than had been built by the
Mashinians long before the Great Extinction wiped them clean from the planet. The
more time that passed, the less people believed that it ever happened. The
stories remained, but they’d become more like children's tales than anything.
There was much debate about
whether building a city-state like Kalia would even be worth the trouble, given
how much money went into it. It certainly wasn’t as cost-effective as its
neighboring city-states. In Malysai, people built a city-state as a part of the
forest and cast nets high above the ground so that even when people fell they
wouldn’t be harmed. The city-state of Hewenia was given a grant by the
Monarchical Board, but with the riches of many of their religious zealots, they
hardly needed it. What saved Kalia was its beauty. It had the ability to
attract tourists from all over the world, whether they believed in the first
beings or not. Their operation costs were pretty low as well, since the
city-state ran almost exclusively on hydroelectric power and solar energy.
Raiden turned his attention
to a map of Kalia, which was a close replica in size to the image he’d seen. At
first he thought that the cluster of lights was the hydro-dome, but it came
into view long before he reached the center of the city-state.
“Woah,” he gasped at the
sight of it.
The hydro-dome was easily
two-hundred feet in height and encased in thick, clear crystal. Without the
gleam of the moonlight, the dome would’ve looked like a half-ball of splashing
water that swooshed and made waves that slammed against an invisible barrier. The
water glowed neon, so it was impossible to see whatever generators were
powering it in its center. Streams of water flowed out of the dome’s base and
went on to light the sidewalks, streetlights, and the rest of the city.
Raiden faced forward in
time to swerve just before crashing into a building of crystal spikes in front
of him. He was so taken by the sight of the hydro-dome that he’d forgotten he
was still in motion. He sighed, grateful to have avoided an accident. If he
drove into the spikes, one of them would’ve certainly impaled him. He continued
toward the center of the map, gazing down the sparkling streets as he went. The
closer he got, the more he thought of watching his father taking a gunblade
through the chest.
‘Just
stay behind me and you’ll be safe.’ He’s dead because of me. I’m the reason
he’s gone. Now Rexus must face the consequences… or I must face mine.
His shuttle glided onto a
block where the streams of water stopped and the crystals’ gleams were no
longer bouncing off the pavement. Raiden slowed down and examined the buildings
in front of him. They were pale and white, as if this part of Kalia had been
petrified long ago.
“Of course,” he said to
himself. He knew that he needed to search no further.
When Kalia was recreated,
there were four square blocks where the architects had purposely created the
city as it may have looked six thousand years before. The crystals here were
bland and sterile, made with the resources that the Mashinian creatures had
access to when they roamed Noreis. It was far less pretty than the rest of the
city-state, hence the shiny tourist trap that had been built around this
cluster of buildings.
Raiden took another glance
at his map, but already knew that he was in the center of the city-state. There
was only one place in this sterile district that Rexus would go, and Raiden
knew that neither of them would be able to access it until just before dawn. It
was then that their fates would be decided.
He reversed and turned
around. There was an inn two blocks back. Even if there were no rooms
available, they’d have a bar or… something. If his life was going to end in a
few hours, he wanted to be sure to have one last drink first.
Raiden parked in front of the
inn and approached the door. It
was a triangular shape in the wall with another triangle protruding in front of
him. Luckily he knew enough of Kalia to understand how their doors worked. He placed his hand on the center of the
triangle, where creases formed from the three points of the triangular wall and
slowly inched towards the center. When the three creases touched, the new
triangles they'd formed retracted into the edges of the triangle itself and
opened up the entrance of the hotel lobby.
The
gaunt man at the front desk didn’t even look up from his paper when Raiden
stepped inside, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t there for a bed that evening. He veered
left and into the bar before the door could reassemble behind him.
Raiden
noted that, of the fifteen or so tables, only one of them was occupied. The bar
itself was completely empty, excluding the Trewanian bartender doing menial
sidework from behind the bar.
“Good
evening,” the bartender said as he took a seat across from her. “What would you
like?”
“A
double-tall maroki please.”
“Make
that two, actually,” a deep voice had said behind him.
The
bartender’s mouth dropped for a second and she was at a loss for words. “Of… Of
course, Sir.”
A
man in a fastened silver vest and a silky white dress shirt took a seat next to
him, and Raiden knew immediately why this man drew such a reaction from the
bartender.
“I
hope you don’t mind,” Captain Koston Donnick said as he folded his diamond
encrusted overcoat and placed it on the stool beside him.
Raiden
didn’t know how to respond. He gawked while the bartender filled their glasses
with liquors from two black bottles.
“A
maroki,” Captain Donnick said as he inspected the grayish-brown cocktail in his
hand. “I heard that these things could burn off your tongue.”
“You’ve
never had one?” Raiden asked.
“No,
I normally don’t drink,” Captain Donnick said. “I have tonight, but usually my
son does plenty of that for the both of us.”
“Heh,
he should meet my wife then.”
“I wouldn’t trust him
around any man’s wife,” Captain Donnick said in a sudden spurt of laughter.
The bartender smiled and
then started wiping down bottles on the top shelf. It’d prove to be a difficult
task for most, but since she was seven feet tall, she had a distinct advantage.
Captain Donnick slid
several gold coins on the table in the bartender’s direction. “That should be
enough for the both of us. The rest is yours.”
The bartender stopped what
she was doing to bow. “Thank you, Captain Donnick.”
“Yes, thank you,” Raiden
said. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
“I have too much gold as it
is,” Captain Donnick said as he raised the glass and peered into it. He gave it
a queer look when the cocktail began to bubble and put it back down. He glanced
back at the bartender with a set of already glazed eyes. “Perhaps I should have
ordered something simpler.”
“Nah, live a little,”
Raiden said as he held his glass up. Having a beverage with one of the most
prominent men in Noreis wasn’t something he’d planned, but it’d be something he
could tell Riles when he returned home.
Raiden nearly laughed as
Koston raised his glass with a great hesitation, as if there was poison oozing
within it. He didn’t think that the almighty Koston Donnick would be afraid of
anything, much less something that came in a pint. He clinked his glass against
Koston’s and took a sip. The liquid burned the tip of his tongue at first, but
then his whole mouth came alive with an amalgamation of earthy flavors and the
spice of the Tri-city forest pepper plants. By the time the first sip went down,
he felt warm and his nerves subsided. Even the thought of impending death
couldn’t scare him now.
Captain Donnick had barely
taken a sip before he erupted into a coughing fit and grabbed a napkin from the
nearby tray.
Raiden wanted to laugh, but
he knew it would be inappropriate. He smirked on the inside and patted the
Captain’s back. “Easy there. Perhaps we should get you a draft instead. Marokis
aren’t for the faint of heart.” He made eye contact with the bartender, who
bobbed her head in agreement.
Captain Donnick blushed, nodded,
and slid his glass toward the bartender’s side of the counter. He cleared his
throat and spoke with his sleeve over his mouth. “If you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” the
bartender said. Her hand was already clutched around a draft tap.
This time it was Raiden who
placed a couple of coins on the bar. “I’ll get the Captain’s.”
“There’s no need,” Captain
Donnick said.
“That’s where you are very
wrong my friend,” Raiden replied. “I was just sixteen when my father and I
moved from our small settlement all the way to Malysai. I’ve always loved
forests. There weren’t too many where we used to live, so the very idea of
getting to live in one was nearly unfathomable to me. The way that Hela peers
through the mighty trees, the shuffling of the leaves when a gust of wind blows
by, the symbiotic relationship between all of the animals and plant life just… I
loved it all far more than I thought I would. I longed to work in the Tri-City
Forest. Having this new world surround me, and growing up in a way that made me
appreciate just how precious it all is made me want to share that with others.
“Unfortunately, my
education was not quite up to par with those that had grown up in the Malysai
school system. It’s not that I wasn’t a good student, I was just taught
different things—things that were pertinent to the home I lived in. When he was
Monarch Superior, your grandfather passed a Norean-wide law that allowed for
kids in my situation to go to trade schools as long as they passed a basic education
test that proved that they had the skills that were needed, irrespective of
where they lived. If it wasn’t for him, it would have taken me an extra three
years to have gotten my dream job, and everything good in my life now are
things that I’ve acquired while working there. So, yes, Captain Donnick, I
believe that I owe the grandson of the man who made my dreams possible a drink.
I owe you this whole damned bar.”
The captain resigned from
his protest and took a sip of his new, more conservative brew. “I had the right
idea when I donated it all. I don’t know why I decided to make all of it back. All
money has ever done is cause me trouble.”
Raiden smiled and took
another sip of his drink. He didn’t know how to respond to Captain Donnick’s
trivial plights. He wasn’t poor, but having an abundance of money wasn’t
something that he could relate to. Captain Donnick must have realized this. Once
he took a sip of his drink he stopped talking for a moment.
“So how’d you end up here?”
Captain Donnick asked.
Raiden thought the question
was for him, but then he noticed the Captain addressing the bartender. He
wasn’t too surprised. He probably didn’t look very friendly that evening.
“What do you mean?” She
replied.
“Were
you a citizen of Hewenia or was your family part of the Nonconformist
Movement?”
Hewenia
was declared a city-state only a century before. While it attracted many
Hennians and Trewanians to move within it and deemed it their holy land, not
nearly as many of the creatures moved as the religious zealots and the
Monarchical Board had predicted. As opposed to millions, only a couple hundred
thousand of Hennians and Trewanians left their homes to make the journey for a
new one. Most of the races' creatures, both religious and not, chose to remain
in the city-states they'd grown up in and became known as the Nonconformists.
“Neither,”
the bartender replied. “My parents live in Raliffe. My grandfather moved there
from Hewenia and started up his own textile business. I moved here when I was
nineteen. I attended Kal-U, but I decided not to go to grad school. I'm still
paying off my loans.”
“School's
expensive,” Raiden said.
“Not
school. Interest rate hikes.”
Both men agreed with her.
Someone else entered the
bar, so the Trewanian left them to greet her new customer.
Captain Donnick took
another sip of his draft brew. He seemed to like it. The glass was already half
empty. Raiden was still getting started on his. Not even Wessena could drink
marokis quickly.
“I hope my son decides to
attend,” Captain Donnick said.
“Attend what? Kal-U?”
“Anything,” the Captain
said with a shrug. “Do you have kids…?”
Captain Donnick held his
hand out, so Raiden shook it and finished his sentence for him. “Raiden, and yes,
I have a son.”
The Captain smiled. Even
with the distraction of his impending encounter with Rexus, he couldn’t ignore
the kindness in the Captain’s aura. “He’s still just a kid though,” Raiden
said. “Barely eight years old… Not like your son.”
The mention of Marquez
Donnick caused the Captain to let out a ‘humph’ and take a heavy gulp of his
beverage. “I love Marquez dearly, but you should be glad that he is not yours.”
Raiden had read the papers
and seen the news just like the rest of Noreis. Everyone knew who Marquez
Donnick was and always aware of what he was doing. Marquez’s name was brought
up even more than Koston’s!
“I leave Kalia tomorrow. I
will become Advisor under Queen Kallisto in just a few days, and when I do,
only a monarch or the Monarch Superior will have more say in the world than I. I
am to become one of the most powerful men in all of Noreis, and yet I still
have to worry more about my son and what sort of nonsense he’ll find himself in
next.”
Raiden heard Captain
Donnick’s words, but couldn’t shake the image of another man in his head. The
Captain had used a stern, yet compassionate voice, strikingly similar to the
kindness that rang in his father’s words. Perhaps this was a sign from the
Gods. Maybe the captain was there to remind Raiden of what his father had been
like, and what he was fighting for.
“I wish I could point him
in the right direction,” the captain went on. “I wish he would just listen to
me. I’ve been where he is…” A second later, Captain Donnick grimaced at the
sight of the bottom of his glass.
I
should have listened, too. If I only stayed behind…
“I’m sorry, Raiden,”
Captain Donnick said. “You probably came in here to get a drink and sit alone. I
just needed to get out of the palace. I had two drinks there before the serving
staff started whispering amongst themselves. Somehow they already knew about my
son’s latest indiscretions.”
“There’s no need to
apologize, Captain—”
“—Koston. Please, call me
Koston. I need an evening free from formalities.”
Raiden ran his fingertips
around the edges of the glass, but didn’t take another sip. He wasn’t sure how
much of it he wanted to drink. He didn’t want to run the risk of getting
sleepy—not when so much was at stake.
“I get why he does it,”
Koston said as he pondered whether or not he was going to order another drink. “I
wasn’t exactly an upstanding youth myself. I certainly had a knack for trouble.
Drugs, parties,” he clenched his teeth, “women… I crashed my shuttle into a
daycare center once. Thank Gods it was closed that night, but that certainly
didn’t excuse my actions.”
Raiden kept his
astonishment hidden from his face. History and teachings only ever focused on
the stories its writers wanted to tell. That one was obviously omitted. “What
changed you?”
Koston went to speak, but
it took him a few seconds to find his words. “My father… As bad as I might have
been, he was worse. I can’t remember how often I'd seen him drunk. My grandfather
had the ability to prevent an entire war between Meniffa and Raliffe with just
the power of his words. He found ways to pay off the global debt without
compromising any of our health, education, or defense programs. Even to this
day he is revered as the greatest leader we’ve had in centuries. But amidst all
of that, he couldn’t prevent his only son from overdosing.” Koston paused. Raiden
could’ve taken the opportunity to speak, but he didn’t dare say a word.
“He never admitted to
anyone how saddened he was. People were able to speculate, of course, but he
never showed it to the public, not with an entire world to run.” Koston’s eyes
grew heavy with the thoughts of darker times. “I doubt that you were old enough
to remember it, but in his last speech as Monarch Superior, he talked about how
proud he was to be given the opportunity to be the man that Noreis wanted him
to be. The twelve city-states remained at peace, and across the board economies
were thriving. He said that the greatest gift he’d ever been given was the
ability to rule Noreis, and to earn the respect and love that he’d been given
by the people that admired him.”
The bartender returned and
Koston nodded his head. She began to pour him a second drink.
“There was a line in the
first draft of that speech that he was advised to omit. His council had no idea
if he was going to do so or not until he took to the podium that evening. He
had nothing to lose, after all. He’d already lost the thing he prized most in
the world. People came from around the world to witness his closing speech. The
seats in the auditorium were removed for the occasion so that they could
further maximize their capacity. Tens of thousands of people young and old
alike were forced to stand so close together they were pressed against one another.
Guards and staff members should have been scared of what would happen in the
event of a fire, but even they were too fixated on my grandfather’s closing
speech to be bothered with precautions.
“A whole world waited in
silence as my grandfather captivated them with the potential of that last line.
Five seconds went by, then ten, and then it was nearly a full minute before he
said a word. Finally, he said ‘thank you,’ and walked off the stage without
uttering the words that were really on his mind. The greatest gift he’d ever
been given was the ability to rule Noreis, and to earn the respect and love
that he’d been given by the people that admired him. His greatest regret was
becoming Monarch Superior, and to have to watch his son devolve before his very
eyes without having the time to do anything about it.”
Raiden could only frown. He
no longer remembered what he was going to say to Koston before their
conversation became so grim.
Koston grabbed the pint and
redirected his attention to the bartender. “Miss, you mentioned that you went
to Kalia University.”
The Trewanian turned from
her cash till. “Yes?”
“And you’re still in debt.”
She shrugged. “I have a
payment plan. I’ll be caught up in three years. It’s not a big—”
Koston dropped a small sack
on the counter and a splatter of coins splashed within it. The
Trewanian stared at the bag with a set of wide, bewildered eyes. “That
should be enough to clear you of your debts. If it isn’t, please contact me
personally in Cardeau Palace.”
The Trewanian’s mouth was
moving, but if she was speaking, the words certainly weren’t loud enough for
either of them to hear her.
Koston turned to Raiden
with his glass in hand. “Without the wealth of the heart I have no money at
all. I hope that my Marquez can understand that someday. You should teach that
to your boy before he follows in my son’s footsteps. If you can, then you’ll be
a far wealthier man than I, Raiden.” Koston clanged his glass against Raiden’s,
which was still nearly full. “To the fathers of sons: May we protect them, love
them, guide them, and never leave them behind,” he said. He took a hearty gulp
of his second drink.
Raiden grabbed his glass,
but couldn’t bring himself to take a sip during the toast. He couldn’t stop
thinking about the promise he’d made to Riles. I’m doing this because Riles’ life was threatened, Raiden told
himself. Even as he thought it, he got the image of Riles waking up that
morning and combing the house in search of a father that might have already
been dead.
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