Miscellaneous
go to kryndamar
meet chakkuns
Akeena knelt by her bedside and raised her palms together in reverence, as she did every night before anything else. She began to mumble her traditional prayer, praising the great god Whutevver, when suddenly she stopped.
She was filled with a sense of concern and dread. What was the proper protocol for this situation? The great god had returned, had come to his own celebration feast, and left. Had he ascended to heaven? Was he still on Kryndamar, perhaps visiting another tribe, if indeed there were any more out in the jungle? What sort of prayer would fit the situation?
She realized, then, that she had uttered the same prayer every night, without fail. I am grateful for the Sun which presides over Day, and for the Moon which watches over Night. I am grateful for our abundance of food, and for my loving family, and for my popularity with the boys. Please watch over me, and deliver me from mine enemies, if ever I should have any. Astuday.
What really went into that, besides memory? Nothing at all, she realized. Certainly not faith. And then she wondered, for the first time since her father had taught her how to pray, did she really have any faith? Did she really believe that the man who had come to them was more than a typical traveler, that he was indeed the deity they had anticipated for so long?
She gazed idly around the room. Her eyes happened upon the mirror, which she normally spent two hours a day in front of, and she noticed they were full of tears. She was not truly happy, she realized. She never had been. Something was missing from her heart. A crucial empty space.
Gathering a coat of animal skins around herself, she silently got up and left to go for a walk in the moonlight.
It was very peaceful in the near-dark. She found she actually preferred it now with no people, no livestock about. And so she decided to sort out her thoughts.
Suddenly she heard a hiss, emanating from deep in the jungle. She reflexively jumped back.
Then, spilling forth from the shadows of the trees at the village’s edge, she saw him. The god, if that indeed was what he was, was walking towards her. She quickly bowed.
He hissed again, this time forming words. “Vile tramp! Dirty alien whore!”
She did not understand the words, but the tone stung. She bowed deeper, trying to appear penitent.
He stopped walking right in front of her. She was too frightened to breathe, much less look at him. She did truly begin to feel sorry for all she had done, the sins she had made in her personal life. Perhaps they were responsible for her lack of happiness. Perhaps they had kept the empty space from being filled.
But she would have to atone for them!
The god suddenly reached down, grabbed her by the neck with one hand, and lifted her above his head. Although she dwarfed him by nearly a foot, somehow she was suspended so that her toes barely brushed the grass. He did, indeed, seem to have godly strength.
She gasped, and began to cry out for mercy with her rapidly waning breath: “Karo to shuda! Karo to shuda!”
As tears began to stream from her eyes, the god smiled anxiously. Then, in a malicious act of mercy, he increased pressure and snapped her neck.
Aaron threw her corpse across the ground. It slid, coming to rest by her hut.
He took pleasure in his action. It had been all her fault. She’d gotten them into this whole mess.
But shouts were beginning to ring through the village. The other tribe members, in response to her anxious pleas, were beginning to emerge from their huts. All right, he thought, well, they’re the ones who killed them.
[gap]
She smiled seductively, showing off perfect and impossibly white teeth. “I see you’ve had a taste of Chakkun hospitality,” she said.
Aaron glowered at her. And then he realized, that was why the villagers had seemed so familiar. They shared with this demon their stature, their skin tone, and particularly their pointed ears. She’s one of them, he realized.
“Was, Dr. LaBarr, was,” she corrected. She hadn’t read his thoughts, not exactly, but rather his face, his body language, all sorts of little cues, easier than a book. There was nothing magic about it. “I was their resident, how do you say, witch doctor. Healing the wounded. Making prophecies. Conducting little experiments in my spare time.”
Aaron showed no reaction to this revelation. Well, he would, certainly, if she elaborated on what sort of experiments had been conducted, but now was not the time for that. She had a job to do. In fact, it wasn’t even necessary to give him all this plot exposition, but it served to make her feel even more in control, that she could comfortably talk and admit things to her foe.
So she continued: “That life was okay, but it lacked one thing: money. Everything is done, there, for the glory of their god.” She eyed Aaron up and down. They had chosen well, she decided. “Faith isn’t my strong suit. So I skipped the planet, on a ship left by some previous guests, and for a nominal fee, told these fine gentlemen about the crystal. The crystal which you are now going to recover for us.”
He laughed and spit in her face. “Fat chance, sister. I’ve got nothing to live for and I’m not going to help these cretins take over the universe, and not you or your little doll is gonna make me! So you can just pack up and go to hell, and if you insist, take me with you!”
She never lost her smile. “Is that so,” she said. “‘Nothing to live for,’ you say? Perhaps you are referring to those two street urchins you so foolishly brought along and subsequently choked upon?”
He glowered at her some more. She had hit a nerve, but he was far too deflated to lash out at her. He was completely at fault for what had happened, and he knew it, and it bothered him.
“You can save them, Dr. LaBarr,” she insisted. “You can save them using the crystal. It can take you back, back to a point before they were killed, and you can rescue them from their fate.”
“And somehow, even though this conversation will have never taken place, you will be there waiting for me to take it away,” he retorted.
She shrugged. “We already were, just in case. It hasn’t happened yet, but when it has have happened, we will have been –”
“Stop it. Don’t try to confuse me with this time traveling jargon. It’s irrelevant, because I’m not helping you, so drop dead.” He stalked off towards his ship again.
She made no attempt to go after him. He would be back, soon enough. In fact, right now, as her cohorts were already turning with their quarry in tow.
She saw him glance back at the commotion, and then spin around and gape at the sight. Between them, the men carried Mary Delisle and Paul Binyird, tired and hungry and barely able to stand up.
“The children were an accident,” she said softly. “The doll is a contingency plan. But I believe this is a better one.”
Aaron gaped at them in disbelief. He’d never expected to see them again.
Mary and Paul shared his sentiments.
For a moment, they were all at a loss for words. Finally Mary managed to get out, “Aaron. Aaron LaBarr.”
He nodded dumbly.
She shook her head. “You’re working with these monsters?”
“No!” Aaron protested. “I’m caught up in it like you are, see.”
“The great Aaron LaBarr can’t get himself out of this one?” Paul wondered caustically.
“He can, by giving us exactly what we want,” said Quaileek. “We killed many innocent students and faculty to procure you two… and his own protégé of similarly innocent kids was killed coincidentally. You? Not so innocent, perhaps. But it makes no difference to him, naturally, since he does not care enough to cooperate either way.”
At that, one of the men pointed a gun at Mary’s head and fired. The blast went through her skull and lodged itself in Paul’s brain. Their knees wobbled, and they collapsed as one.
Aaron wanted to hit Quaileek’s victorious smile with a brick. But she knew he would not. Instead, he would recover the Kryndamar Crystal.
[gap]
As she turned her head, Aaron gathered all his strength, and lunged.
[gap]
The men stared at a small transmitter which was carrying their voices to their boss, somewhere in space, and vice-versa. Their voices had just carried with them the news that the crystal was about to be secured.
The voice being carried back to them seemed very please. “Good,” it said. It was very smooth and pleasant, not like a villain’s at all. “Very good.”
The men looked at each other, hesitating, and then one of them deciding to speak. “Sir –” he began, tentatively.
“Yes?” The voice, sensing the trepidation in his, had suddenly grown cold.
“Sir, about the witch –”
“You remember the plan, Spalding. As soon as she has given you the crystal, eliminate her.”
have battle
Akeena seduces pirates, one suspects, Squogs kill them
“They’re fighting for me,” he said, a lump rising in his throat. “I can’t just leave them to die for my sake. I shouldn’t even be here.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. “You go ahead. Save yourselves.”
Mary wanted to argue, but she could see in his eyes that it would be futile. Tears welled up in her own. “You’ve changed,” she said softly, in a barely audible whisper.
She expected him to say something sarcastic. But he just nodded to himself. “Yeah. I guess I have.”
[gap]
“They’re going back in time to kill my parents.”
[gap]
“So, you must be this Aaron LaBarr I’ve heard so much about,” he demurred. “I am honored to have such a worthy opponent.”
“Why don’t you join my fan club?” Aaron snapped.
“A pirate’s life doesn’t offer much free time, I’m afraid.” The man spread his hands apologetically, and they saw that the right was not a hand at all, but rather a wicked-looking hook that belonged somewhere in the seventeenth century. “It was hard enough to make time for your execution.”
Aaron nodded solemnly. “Well, good for you. It’s the people in your life that matter most, after all.”
“Quite right.”
take ship down
pride in invasion fleet
meet chakkuns
Akeena knelt by her bedside and raised her palms together in reverence, as she did every night before anything else. She began to mumble her traditional prayer, praising the great god Whutevver, when suddenly she stopped.
She was filled with a sense of concern and dread. What was the proper protocol for this situation? The great god had returned, had come to his own celebration feast, and left. Had he ascended to heaven? Was he still on Kryndamar, perhaps visiting another tribe, if indeed there were any more out in the jungle? What sort of prayer would fit the situation?
She realized, then, that she had uttered the same prayer every night, without fail. I am grateful for the Sun which presides over Day, and for the Moon which watches over Night. I am grateful for our abundance of food, and for my loving family, and for my popularity with the boys. Please watch over me, and deliver me from mine enemies, if ever I should have any. Astuday.
What really went into that, besides memory? Nothing at all, she realized. Certainly not faith. And then she wondered, for the first time since her father had taught her how to pray, did she really have any faith? Did she really believe that the man who had come to them was more than a typical traveler, that he was indeed the deity they had anticipated for so long?
She gazed idly around the room. Her eyes happened upon the mirror, which she normally spent two hours a day in front of, and she noticed they were full of tears. She was not truly happy, she realized. She never had been. Something was missing from her heart. A crucial empty space.
Gathering a coat of animal skins around herself, she silently got up and left to go for a walk in the moonlight.
It was very peaceful in the near-dark. She found she actually preferred it now with no people, no livestock about. And so she decided to sort out her thoughts.
Suddenly she heard a hiss, emanating from deep in the jungle. She reflexively jumped back.
Then, spilling forth from the shadows of the trees at the village’s edge, she saw him. The god, if that indeed was what he was, was walking towards her. She quickly bowed.
He hissed again, this time forming words. “Vile tramp! Dirty alien whore!”
She did not understand the words, but the tone stung. She bowed deeper, trying to appear penitent.
He stopped walking right in front of her. She was too frightened to breathe, much less look at him. She did truly begin to feel sorry for all she had done, the sins she had made in her personal life. Perhaps they were responsible for her lack of happiness. Perhaps they had kept the empty space from being filled.
But she would have to atone for them!
The god suddenly reached down, grabbed her by the neck with one hand, and lifted her above his head. Although she dwarfed him by nearly a foot, somehow she was suspended so that her toes barely brushed the grass. He did, indeed, seem to have godly strength.
She gasped, and began to cry out for mercy with her rapidly waning breath: “Karo to shuda! Karo to shuda!”
As tears began to stream from her eyes, the god smiled anxiously. Then, in a malicious act of mercy, he increased pressure and snapped her neck.
Aaron threw her corpse across the ground. It slid, coming to rest by her hut.
He took pleasure in his action. It had been all her fault. She’d gotten them into this whole mess.
But shouts were beginning to ring through the village. The other tribe members, in response to her anxious pleas, were beginning to emerge from their huts. All right, he thought, well, they’re the ones who killed them.
[gap]
She smiled seductively, showing off perfect and impossibly white teeth. “I see you’ve had a taste of Chakkun hospitality,” she said.
Aaron glowered at her. And then he realized, that was why the villagers had seemed so familiar. They shared with this demon their stature, their skin tone, and particularly their pointed ears. She’s one of them, he realized.
“Was, Dr. LaBarr, was,” she corrected. She hadn’t read his thoughts, not exactly, but rather his face, his body language, all sorts of little cues, easier than a book. There was nothing magic about it. “I was their resident, how do you say, witch doctor. Healing the wounded. Making prophecies. Conducting little experiments in my spare time.”
Aaron showed no reaction to this revelation. Well, he would, certainly, if she elaborated on what sort of experiments had been conducted, but now was not the time for that. She had a job to do. In fact, it wasn’t even necessary to give him all this plot exposition, but it served to make her feel even more in control, that she could comfortably talk and admit things to her foe.
So she continued: “That life was okay, but it lacked one thing: money. Everything is done, there, for the glory of their god.” She eyed Aaron up and down. They had chosen well, she decided. “Faith isn’t my strong suit. So I skipped the planet, on a ship left by some previous guests, and for a nominal fee, told these fine gentlemen about the crystal. The crystal which you are now going to recover for us.”
He laughed and spit in her face. “Fat chance, sister. I’ve got nothing to live for and I’m not going to help these cretins take over the universe, and not you or your little doll is gonna make me! So you can just pack up and go to hell, and if you insist, take me with you!”
She never lost her smile. “Is that so,” she said. “‘Nothing to live for,’ you say? Perhaps you are referring to those two street urchins you so foolishly brought along and subsequently choked upon?”
He glowered at her some more. She had hit a nerve, but he was far too deflated to lash out at her. He was completely at fault for what had happened, and he knew it, and it bothered him.
“You can save them, Dr. LaBarr,” she insisted. “You can save them using the crystal. It can take you back, back to a point before they were killed, and you can rescue them from their fate.”
“And somehow, even though this conversation will have never taken place, you will be there waiting for me to take it away,” he retorted.
She shrugged. “We already were, just in case. It hasn’t happened yet, but when it has have happened, we will have been –”
“Stop it. Don’t try to confuse me with this time traveling jargon. It’s irrelevant, because I’m not helping you, so drop dead.” He stalked off towards his ship again.
She made no attempt to go after him. He would be back, soon enough. In fact, right now, as her cohorts were already turning with their quarry in tow.
She saw him glance back at the commotion, and then spin around and gape at the sight. Between them, the men carried Mary Delisle and Paul Binyird, tired and hungry and barely able to stand up.
“The children were an accident,” she said softly. “The doll is a contingency plan. But I believe this is a better one.”
Aaron gaped at them in disbelief. He’d never expected to see them again.
Mary and Paul shared his sentiments.
For a moment, they were all at a loss for words. Finally Mary managed to get out, “Aaron. Aaron LaBarr.”
He nodded dumbly.
She shook her head. “You’re working with these monsters?”
“No!” Aaron protested. “I’m caught up in it like you are, see.”
“The great Aaron LaBarr can’t get himself out of this one?” Paul wondered caustically.
“He can, by giving us exactly what we want,” said Quaileek. “We killed many innocent students and faculty to procure you two… and his own protégé of similarly innocent kids was killed coincidentally. You? Not so innocent, perhaps. But it makes no difference to him, naturally, since he does not care enough to cooperate either way.”
At that, one of the men pointed a gun at Mary’s head and fired. The blast went through her skull and lodged itself in Paul’s brain. Their knees wobbled, and they collapsed as one.
Aaron wanted to hit Quaileek’s victorious smile with a brick. But she knew he would not. Instead, he would recover the Kryndamar Crystal.
[gap]
As she turned her head, Aaron gathered all his strength, and lunged.
[gap]
The men stared at a small transmitter which was carrying their voices to their boss, somewhere in space, and vice-versa. Their voices had just carried with them the news that the crystal was about to be secured.
The voice being carried back to them seemed very please. “Good,” it said. It was very smooth and pleasant, not like a villain’s at all. “Very good.”
The men looked at each other, hesitating, and then one of them deciding to speak. “Sir –” he began, tentatively.
“Yes?” The voice, sensing the trepidation in his, had suddenly grown cold.
“Sir, about the witch –”
“You remember the plan, Spalding. As soon as she has given you the crystal, eliminate her.”
have battle
Akeena seduces pirates, one suspects, Squogs kill them
“They’re fighting for me,” he said, a lump rising in his throat. “I can’t just leave them to die for my sake. I shouldn’t even be here.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. “You go ahead. Save yourselves.”
Mary wanted to argue, but she could see in his eyes that it would be futile. Tears welled up in her own. “You’ve changed,” she said softly, in a barely audible whisper.
She expected him to say something sarcastic. But he just nodded to himself. “Yeah. I guess I have.”
[gap]
“They’re going back in time to kill my parents.”
[gap]
“So, you must be this Aaron LaBarr I’ve heard so much about,” he demurred. “I am honored to have such a worthy opponent.”
“Why don’t you join my fan club?” Aaron snapped.
“A pirate’s life doesn’t offer much free time, I’m afraid.” The man spread his hands apologetically, and they saw that the right was not a hand at all, but rather a wicked-looking hook that belonged somewhere in the seventeenth century. “It was hard enough to make time for your execution.”
Aaron nodded solemnly. “Well, good for you. It’s the people in your life that matter most, after all.”
“Quite right.”
take ship down
pride in invasion fleet
