Armenta. Second part. The music of Zyklop / NextColony SCI-FI "RPG Story Contest" #2

Dear friends, I want to open this post with my thanks to the @nexcolony team and @art-universe for creating the opportunity for this contest which is, in turn, an adventure. In my case, I have seen a novel emerge. It is very exciting.
I started from two characters, Armenta and Captain Quirón, with the idea of participating in the creation of the fictional world of the interesting experiment of a videogame supported in the chain of blocks that @nexcolony develops and of which it has already culminated some stages (you can have more information here and here); by the time I finished the first part of the second story, it was clear to me that it was something else.
So, I kept writing and here I deliver this advance of the story as participation in NextColony SCI-FI "RPG Story Contest" #2.
Don't miss this opportunity to read the stories that participated in the previous call, here. There are very good writers and very rich universes waiting for you.
I leave the link to the first part of the two stories that originated this second part:
Armenta and Captain Quirón

I am grateful.

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Source

Armenta. Second part.
The music of Zyklop

 

In a small bird's sigh, the Madorian warrior had squeezed his stick against her ankle, threatening to destabilize her and, in the process, break it... But she, in just as long as it took for a fish to beat, had already rammed her stick firmly against his genitals, threatening to crush them.

Armenta didn't dare move, but she knew the warrior didn't either. She knew 13 ways to make him agonize from that position; would he know the 13 ways to make her agonize from his position? She suspected that he knew both, seeing his conscious effort to regulate breathing while a film of sweat covered his glossy skin; but he wouldn't budge.

Then both of them, as their senses had been disciplined for stalking, felt it: the weight of a look that scrutinized them from the top of the pile of sacks.

A Madorian boy, no more than thirteen years old, with his eyes like dishes, watched them. The color had fled from his face. Fast, the eyes of the warriors met and calculated their possibilities. And, as warriors who share a strategic understanding of the world, they made a mute pact.

In a coordinated and silent movement, they each took an ankle from the boy and swiftly subtracted it from the reality of the sacktop to their hiding place. She covered his mouth and put a knee on his skinny chest. He pressed his fighting stick against the boy's throat. Now the Madorian slave seemed much more than before just a desperate child faded by fear and shock.

And both warriors noticed (how not to do it): that boy was naked.

Armenta saw her temporary ally swallow in an involuntary gesture that she implied equivalent to her own stomach shrinkage. That boy, the faded boy scared to death, had his braids cut off. He had been left naked. Without his braids, he was uprooted like a murderer, like a rapist, and, besides, his fighting manna, his bravery, his aggressiveness had been stolen; he had been deprived of the possibility of being a warrior and had been left defenseless, like an old man who had lost his hair or like a baby whose hair had not yet grown. It would take years to grow back, and perhaps not without damage. And someone had broken that bond on purpose, with no crime to justify it. Both warriors knew that if the elders of his village had condemned him for some atrocity, they would have tattooed the symbol of his crime on his forehead, and this boy had no such marks. It had been just an act of evil.

The warrior boy withdrew his stick from the child's throat.

Armenta gestured silently and slowly released his mouth. The naked boy nodded with tight eyes, as if he wanted to escape from his present.

"Armenta," said Armenta looking at each other.

"Tibor," said Tibor without taking his eyes off the naked boy's face.

"Seven," said the naked boy in a trembling voice.

Armenta and Tibor looked at each other briefly, and both saw the naked boy in pain. He had also been stripped of his name.

*****

Zyklop resounds in the night of the galaxy. Its moons emit a constant vibration coupled with the pulse of its platinum light. Its sun crackles with gusts of yellow fire. If anyone could see the soul of this piece of floating rock, they would have seen that it was woven of echoes. Everything on the planet resounded: its rivers made its rocks resound, the rocks bounced their cracks in the trees, the trees whispered to the grass, the buzzing of the grass vibrated in the cuckoo flowers... and everything that populated it echoed. But the clouds were something else. The clouds were furious towards the north where it roared in the Abyss of the Winds, an extension of ten thousand kilometers, hollow and desert, crusade of exiguous veins of heavy water and extinct volcanoes, that crowned the north pole. The Abyss of the Winds was an abrupt elevation of that low-frequency, constant, stubborn concert that was the planet Zyklop.

However, the native creatures did not listen to the tissue of these echoes, as they were coupled to them and their bodies resounded with their particular notes in the whole. It could be said that they were deaf to this one and only with great concentrated effort could they hear the beat of zyklopian music. However, if they had asked any of the settlers, be they Sirilites chiefs or slaves, they would have said that the silences of Zyklop were full. That the silences of Zyklop reverberated and sometimes frightened dreams. Sometimes it made some unveiled slave remember another, happier life and yearn for it to such a point that his will would begin to construct a purpose where there was ash before, and, perhaps, frighten the dream to such a point that a Sirilite chief would remember a remote life in which his heart beat inflamed with other hopes.

When the dawn star rose, those who stepped on Zyklops would see their black earth, fertile by force of the lava and ash that had formerly thrown southward the chain of extinct volcanoes that bordered the Abyss of the Winds. They would see the sun resounding in the yellow burst of the cuckoo flowers and think of beauty... but the visions arising from the bad night would still be there, gnawing and vibrating with their singular agitation in the concert of echoes that is Zyklops.

*****

In another life he had been Cesi.

In that other life, he fished river shrimp with his father or looked after the small market stall where his father sold his sea bream.

At that time Cesi knew only the Mithenic coasts of Mador, a village surrounded by mountains of intricate geography; a handful of isolated houses that traded fish and spices with the islands and with the nomads of the Free People who often crossed the sharp borders. Mithinos was a simple place, alien to the turbulence of the colonial exodus, alien to the radioactive devastation that consumed most of the Earth, as its remoteness and natural barriers had preserved its land, and its reefs harbored bright and juicy life.

Hundreds of years ago, Mithinos had come under the protection of the nomads of the Free People of Mador and had adopted much of their laws and customs, but the truth was that Mithinos had always lived from commerce and very little from politics, and led his simple life without believing that disasters and misfortunes outside his borders had much to do with them. They listened to the news brought by the nomads of the Free People with an astonished attention, similar to the one they gave to the minstrels. In the same way, they supplied one or another sirilite slave commander in distress on the coasts. And it happened with certain frequency, that some mithinic boy was dreamed as a warrior by a shaman of the Free People and that boy left to be part of a troop, to venerate the ochre, the black and the green, and to fight other wars and to share other glories, far from his family; and he was admired, but also received as a somewhat alien relative.

Madorian warriors were revered and respected, almost as much as the caste of Madorian dancers who visited the coast at Summer Festivals, and Mithinic children ardently wished to be chosen by shamans for one or another guild, but it was not frequent. Most of those children eager for military glories and scenographic splendor would become fishermen, traders or growers of pepper, cloves and cinnamon... and would lead good lives, as the inhabitants of Mithinos had always done, oblivious to the noises of colonization and ecological disasters, slave trades and wars of resistance that affected the rest of the world.

In this paradisiacal world, Cesi had grown up to the age of twelve.

By then, in that other life, he was a skinny little boy and his braids were not yet ready to form the complete braids, but he was right-handed with the stick and able to count coins. He had fast fingers. When he did coin tricks, his father felt compelled to close the excited applause of his mother and aunts with this warning: "May your talents be for the glory of Ashanti and not for greed, Cesi". He could have been a magician and traveled around Mador doing tricks (and, who knows, perhaps enlisted in some artist ship to any Syklop settler settlement), but he wanted to be a warrior. And if he wasn't chosen as a warrior by the shamans, he wanted to be rich. And to be rich you had to be a great merchant, or son of the great merchant and he was just the son of Izan, the fisherman ("To the glory of Ashanti, Cesi", his father sentenced.)

Some days he wanted to be richer than a warrior; and that day, one of the last precious moments lived on his own planet (he just didn't know it yet) wanted to be richer than a warrior or a magician.

And why did Cesi, the son of the devout fisherman Izan, want to be rotten rich at that precise moment? To be able to buy a barrel of molasses and sink into it the ugly head of Munro, who called himself The Stone, the fat son of the merchant Sonio.

Cesi could see him sitting a few meters away, in front of his father's shop. The Stone lazily chewed a piece of black bread with molasses. The seductive smell penetrated Cesi's nostrils and his stomach growled. He had eaten breakfast, but that smell so close and expeditious (and so distant from the modest food possibilities of his home) always wounded him somewhere sensitive to his appetite and as soon as he realized Cesi's gaze, he began the pantomime of licking his fingers, calf's half-closed eyes of pleasure, and entangling in his tongue the threads of toasted gold that Cesi tasted amazingly sweet.

On that day, The Stone would have gone much further with its shitty pantomime if the sharp scream of the curry vendor hadn't torn everyone's ears in the fish and spice trade block.

There was chaos.

Maka, the petite dancer whom everyone saw dancing with delight at summer festivals, was horror.

Maka ran, struggled with the ties on her neck, kicked hard (and she was very strong), shattering in desperation the beautiful silks that covered her. With infinite grace, in spite of everything, because even in horror it was impossible for her movements to subtract from beauty.

But the electric sticks that the slaveowners wielded finally won that battle. And the beautiful Maka succumbed, convulsing to the rhythm of the electric pulses. And with her fell under the bullets and lasers of the slave traders who tried to free her.

Then came the drones.

They were clean discs, very white and polished against the blue sky. They were visions of another world, alien to Mador.

And with the drones, misfortune collapsed on Mithinos, so hidden in the intricate geography of the Free Lands of Mador, that they had believed themselves immune to the despair of war and colonization.

Shots were fired. There was bloody fighting and resistance. His father tried to free him from an electric loop with his fish-slaughter knife. He died without touching the mercenary who was herding Cesi with the electric loop. A neat laser shot from a drone killed him. Easily. Cesi believed that his father had never found out (he asked Ashanti for his father to die thinking that he was able to free him). In front of him they dragged Munro, The Stone, who vomited the molasses he had swallowed just before and had peed his pants. Cesi felt that his mouth was shaking and that he was going to cry.

But he didn't cry. Snorting by loop hanging, crouched at the feet of the mercenary who herded him and stood still, trying to recover the thread of air next to the metal-toed boots of his captor. He saw the body of his father hindering the movement of the slave convoy. A stubborn body that insisted on continuing to fight.

Then he saw her.

On the roof of the curry stand, a blue-skinned Madorans warrior watched the scene with tears on her face. She wore her troop clothes (ochre, black, green: quick death, inevitable pain, pity). She was very still and affirmed one end of her stick against her forehead. The chestnut braids, interwoven with the feathers of her poisonous darts, reached her heels. A veil of silence seemed to have spread around her, isolating her from the inferior chaos. She seemed to be drinking from the chaotic scene below, as if wanting to record it in its details, her face crisp with pain. Cesi distinguished the red marks on his stick. That girl had already killed in combat... So why didn't she fight and set them free? Cesi, whose mind was as fast as his fingers, suddenly realized that she was doing the same thing he was doing. To fight there was to die. Those who died in the market on that fateful day lost their opportunity to help the captives, and lost the opportunity for vengeance.

Cesi gazed at his father's body one last time. They had thrown him into the gutter.

With a mute prayer for Ashanti he bid farewell and began to grope the clamping necklace with his fingers. He tried to touch each property of the necklace and engraved it in his memory.

Cesi had begun to build his escape plan.

*****

While a yellow sun was rising in Zyklop, Captain Quirón was preparing to board a ground unit bound for a Sirilite settlement south of Zyklop. The whole thing was a long way from his wishes, but he had to negotiate. He was good at it, it came in his blood.

Although his father had been nothing more than a deficient merchant and pathetically obsessed with terrestrial mythology, native to the western swarms of Delta, Zyklop's neighboring planet in the Antara System, his grandfather had been Antara's most astute merchant in pre-colonial history. He had built a fortune, which his father squandered on absurd commercial projects and lost in the art scams of which he was a victim.

It was not the first time he had had to reinvent his way out of nowhere.

For the time being, the advanced swarm of which he was a part had perished in the sandstorms of the Abyss of the Winds.

After surviving the collision of his own ship, where he lost his companion and the larva of both, and wandered many days in the Zyklopian desert, he had found an earthly settlement that had welcomed him under the terms of Nexcolony's Diplomatic Treaties of Commerce and Colonization. That was the official version.

The unofficial version had its own versions and hidden agendas and, for the time being, would remain partly still in Quirón's mind, waiting for his opportunity.

The earth settlement was an outpost, the important installations were to the south, where it was headed. In the official version, he was to assume the functions of Deltana commercial collaboration, authorized by the Earth's commercial authority, as the only survivor of his chain of command until his swarm sent another mission to Zyklop.

In the unofficial version (which by force he had had to agree with the first Earthly Commercial Delegate, Marcus Méndez), he would investigate the First Warehouse Commander of the Sirilite settlement. He would rummage through his dirty rags, his apparent predilection for Madoran slaves, his possible seditious implications... or sow them... For now, he had no choice.

Marcus Mendez had it temporarily in his fist. Quirón, years ago, had taken advantage of his detachment in a merchant ship to do some private business and Marcus had been his partner in a brief financial agreement. And the cunning earth rat he was had kept certain documents and proceedings very well.

But he was Lucio's grandson and he would find a way to get rid of Marcus.

Although Quirón liked to suppose that he had not inherited anything from his father, the despicable and pusillanimous Macias, the truth is that his temper was dented here and there with the forms of that sensitive spirit. Quirón sighed facing the small window of the dome assigned to him: the zyklopian desert vibrated with a flexible, persistent melody. The yellow light of its sun burned a horizon in violent rushes defining the grey sand line in the distance.

Captain Quirón sighed. His antennas were restless. He lazily unfolded the forearm spikes. He felt his well-oiled skull and a black robe, as was the military use of his swarm, with some lassitude. The scars caused by his long walk under the burning sun of the Zyklopian desert were ugly, like patches on an old sock. In a short time it would disappear, he hoped. Everything on that planet vibrated.

Captain Quirón followed the soft melody of that land and remembered. A long time ago he had been a young soldier in trade missions on Earth. He was stronger, dumber, and less ambitious. He had loved as well. She was beautiful. He could not remember her name.

*****

Then Seven knew he had to act. He had two Madorian warriors with their fighting sticks, brave but frightened, who clearly did not know what to do with him. Point in favor: they looked at him with pity, and he knew it was because of his cut braids (he regretted it more, he was sure.) Then he shrugged and tried to look smaller and smirkier than he was. He didn't have to fake the tremors, he was really trembling and he felt that he had lost the blood on his face. Point against: the girl's stick had three red notches, the boy's had two; that added up to five deaths in combat, and Seven definitely didn't want to be the sixth. Besides, he didn't think (he didn't want to, he refused, he repelled him) to fight, let alone with two Madoran warriors. So he defended himself with his sharpest weapon: ingenuity. And it worked.

They were almost discovered while leaving the unloading dome, and then Ador, the Sirilite Chief of the seventh warehouse dome almost killed him for his imprudence, but now the warriors were well hidden in the basement of grains and fodder. However, Ador made it clear to him that he had just become involved in a big problem. Seven was not sure how Ador counted. According to his calculations he had to get slave clothes for the warriors, fastening collars and a way to hide his braids. That added up to three problems, to which a fourth was added: to convince Ador of the usefulness of the warriors in his plans. Point in favor: the Madoran warriors were flat, but lethal, brave and loyal. Point against: he knew that the account of the problems had not been sincere, but someone had to be optimistic in the team.

*****

Armenta was very still. Her back against the wall, her eyes fixed on the basement door. She felt as trapped as a water rat, but could do nothing about it for now. Tibor didn't look any calmer; in fact, it seemed more tense each time. The boy's offer to take them to a chief of the Sirilite resistance seemed a less bad choice among very bad ones. And now it seemed very, very, bad. Having to hide in a basement was the worst option, in fact.

In the Mithinos market, where Maka had been captured, she had needed all her willpower and strategic sense to abstain from a fight in which she knew she was overwhelmed; to repeat herself she had to remain alive and anonymous in order to recover her. It had taken her a year to track her down and collect the bribes and contacts in order to reach Zyklop. If she had to use the dart with the chief, she would. She was not sure of their strength; the man seemed about to break when he saw them. She had not endured the hell of seeing Maka dragged with uncertain destiny, without fighting, to now come and die on that strange planet.

For hours they had been wearing the slave clothes brought to them by Seven. Each necklace had been removed from the morgue, as well as the robes and scarves that hid their braids. The faded boy had turned out to be a piece to be feared. A skilled and persuasive thief, he quoted sentences and supplications to Ashanti every two sentences. Few slaves wore their cut braids uncovered as Seven. Most felt shame and covered their heads with huge handkerchiefs filled with straw to pretend they still had their braids full.

She couldn't help but smile. She liked Seven. And it was very funny to see Tibor shake his head in disapproval of Seven's hypocritical pleas to Ashanti.

*****

Sunrise was near. She knew it from the music of the earth that reverberated under her hands. Tibor was the first to notice and showed her: he placed his knotty hand over hers. Then she felt the earth pierce her with her pulse, a ripple that stretched from her hand to her breasts. For brief moments, she shared the rhythm of that pulse with the resonance of Tibor's body. In him, the song of the earth became more serious, like a deaf bell.

Suddenly he separated his hand, alarmed. She wondered if Tibor had listened to her music.

*****

Ador kept his word and returned at dawn accompanied by Seven.

Armenta and Tibor were taken in cattle cages to a field. There they were incorporated into a grain threshing crew. There were no dramatic interludes. They were treated as royal slaves and incorporated into their tasks under the guidance of a major slave. The work was hard, but the exercise was rewarding.

From time to time, Tibor and she exchanged glances and she knew what he was thinking: about his mother and his fighting stick. And she knew it because she had similar thoughts: Maka and her fighting stick. Both had left their canes hidden in the basement and both felt the tear. The stick contained their dream stories, their totems. Armenta's rabbit; Tibor's capybara.

Armenta looked up at that strange sun. A horizon set on fire by bursts of fire that echoed in a horizon covered with yellow flowers. The clouds whispered a rain to come.

He had visions of Maka dancing the welcome of the harvest. Spinning. Whipping the ground with bare feet. The open smile and his very black eyes accompanying the rhythm of the drums.

At last a small, cold rain fell. Beams of multicolored light opened up against the horizon.

She looked at Tibor and knew that he was sensing what she was sensing.

It was a beautiful planet.

And they had come to raze it.

Gracias por la compañía. Bienvenidos siempre.


En mi país hay tortura, desapariciones, ajusticiamientos, violaciones masivas de derechos humanos.¡Libertad para mi país!
In my country there is torture, disappearances, executions, massive violations of human rights.
Freedom for my country!

Soy miembro de @equipocardumenSoy miembro de @talentclub

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