[Original Novel] Pariah of the Little People, Part 26

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I burst into tearful laughter, knelt and scooped the cantankerous old puss into my arms. It weakly licked my nose a couple of times, eyes still not fully open, then rested its head on my chest. My heart soared. I could’ve screamed just then. Could’ve danced, were it not for the delicate load I now carried.

“I did it Tyler”, I thought. Katerinka wiped the tears from my face and asked “Some spell, yes? Can blyadischa do that?” I raised an eyebrow, asking her who she meant. She waved it off. “Is not safe here. For cat, or for boy. We must go, I have much to show you and little time.” For lack of any better idea, I took her home with me.

“I was wondering how long before you brought another animal home” Dad quipped as I came in the front door with Mr. MacGufferson in my arms. “Oh, this time you brought a girl too.” Katerinka introduced herself as my classmate and curtsied. “We’ll be in my room, talking” I explained. Dad chuckled, and wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Talking huh? Leave the door open. ...On second thought, don’t.”

Once the door was shut, Kat removed the leather bound tome from her backpack, set it down on my desk and opened it to the desired page. I laid Mr. Macgufferson down in a drawer I set up as a bed, same as I’d once done for Winston. Felt good to make that bed. Felt even better to see it filled.

“Is happen much faster than I predict” Katerinka started in. “I thought we have more time to prepare.” The open pages formed a map of the area, presumably drawn long ago by the crone. With a pencil, she marked five spots on the map with various symbols.

A drop of water, a rock, a cloud, a flame, and a leaf. I recognized the positions as corresponding to the locations of the various Homunculi colonies. She then drew a star, connecting the sites to one another with straight lines.

“There, in the center. The Locus.” She said it as if I was supposed to understand. I pressed her for details. “Now that quarry has fallen, Tyrants will feel embolden to attack other settlements. I do not believe is possible to fight them. They spend all this time since last battle using captured little ones to multiply. Thousands of them now, easily.”

I shuddered, recalling the ritual I witnessed that night in the woods. Still, glancing over at Mr. MacGufferson recovering in the improvised bed, I felt as if there were still some hope of coming out on top. That, having achieved the small victory of snatching this sweet old cat from their claws, the rest might follow.

“The day will soon arrive”, she warned, “when you must stand upon the Locus and play the Secret of Storms. When that time comes, if your heart still contains even the smallest particle of hatred, all is lost. The future is a world overrun with Tyrants, subjugating whatever part of humanity will obey and murdering the rest.”

I assured her we’d been over this, but she insisted on adding to it. “There is foolings of me, but there is no foolings of instrument. Your heart must truly be clean the moment you take it up for playing of final song. Stay at home, is my advice. Nothing must happen between now and then which would endanger-”

I cut her off and assured her that in recent weeks, all anger had drained from me. That when I thought of Tyler I could summon no rage, only dreary, barren sadness. I was never difficult for others to topple, I told her.

I’d always found the strength to get back up until they took Tyler away. When that happened, following a brief explosion of pain, fury and grief, I just sort of crumpled inward. Didn’t have the energy to sustain it.

She didn’t look reassured. She instead looked mournful, and took my hand in hers. Less of a surprise this time. She’d grown slowly warmer ever since Tyler’s death, though I couldn’t figure out why. I just knew I liked it, and for the first time began to see her differently.

I remember being struck by her otherworldly beauty when we first met. It was just so alien, and her manner so cold, that I didn’t recognize it as feminine until recently. Much too late to do anything about it, of course. I’ve already pledged my heart to Heather. Thrown my hat over the wall, bet everything on the remote chance that I may yet love again. Truly, unreservedly, as I had with Jennifer.

Probably just conceit to think that such a uniquely lovely creature would reciprocate those kinds of feelings anyway. Kat’s all business. She’s only here to prepare me. To tie up the loose ends left by the crone’s passing. I’m sure once that’s done, she’ll leave. Best not to grow attached, then.

Heather’s the safe bet. She doesn’t call me a foolish boy, she’s never been cross or impatient with me. A sure thing. No sense in throwing that away to take a risk on an unknown quantity. Besides, I already have plans with her for dinner tomorrow. If I mean to really make a go of it with her, to be unfaithful before our first date would hardly be getting off to a good start.

I’ve reflected more than once on the similarities between Heather and Jennifer. The superficial ones. If Heather’s hair were longer, she could pass for Jennifer pretty easily. I couldn’t say why, but the more I dwelled on that, the more uncomfortable I felt. It cultivated some nameless guilt within me, as if I were doing something wrong with no clear idea of what.

“It’ll be alright if I just don’t think about that”. That’s the conclusion I came to after laying awake the night after the planetarium trip. I just want it to work out so badly. I suppose I never really healed after Jennifer left.

The hole she left within me cries out to be filled. If not by her, then whatever’s closest. At the same time, some other part of me recoils from the prospect, as you would from poison or the stench of disease. Warning me, I think. But of what?

Pick a direction and go in it. I can’t just chase after every pretty face I see. How would Heather feel if I were to ditch her so easily for another girl? I thought back to when I saw Jennifer round the corner in that shop, hand in hand with Trevor. Could I really inflict that on another person?

I withdrew from Kat. She frowned, then seemed like she was about to say something. Instead holding her tongue. Closing up her book and slipping it into her backpack, she readied herself to leave. “Thank you” I said. “What you did for the cat. It meant the world to me.” Again, she opened her mouth as if to reply, but some internal conflict prevented anything from coming out.

She smiled warmly. Even so, I thought I could see sadness in her eyes. Probably just my imagination. I’ve never been able to read people before, I don’t know why my brain would choose today to turn that part of itself on. After she left, I sat by the drawer for a while. Quietly thinking, and gently stroking Mr. MacGufferson’s ears as he slept.

The next day at breakfast, Dad wasn’t wearing his oil company pin. Or the jacket, or the hat. I weighed the risks of asking him about it, guessing it might be a sore spot, before finally breaking the ice. “I take it you did a little investigating?” He looked bewildered for a few seconds before cottoning to what I meant.

“Nothing like that. I just don’t feel like...I mean, it was a success. I’d call it a success. I learned something. I just think I could be making even more money in other ways.” He peered at me over his coffee. Perhaps trying to discern whether I bought it. I shrugged inside. So long as he dodges that bullet, I don’t care how it happens.

“Tonight’s your big date, isn’t it?” I choked on my cereal, then admonished him for making such a big deal out of it. “It is a big deal! Your first date. Oh, the stories I could tell you. I’d have to leave out some parts until you’re older though. Are you going with that girl you brought home yesterday?” I shook my head. He looked confused, but recovered quickly.

“I s’pose that isn’t my business. I just kinda assumed, yanno? She was real pretty. But I’m sure the one you’re going to dinner with is too.” I told him I didn’t really want to talk about it. Then we got to discussing the cat. What to do with it, how long to keep it before finding somebody to take it off our hands, all the same stuff we discussed the day I brought Winston home.

“Don’t go thinking this is the same as it was with the dog” Dad warned. “It’s not our cat. Whatever you may think of Tyler’s father, and rest assured I probably agree, it’s still his animal.” I scowled, imagining the first thing he’d do would be to find something wrong with it. The color of the fur. The length of the tail. Then he’d send it off to be put down, someplace where he didn’t have to watch.

Thoughts of returning Mr. MacGufferson to that man plagued me as I biked over to Everton Lake. Might it turn out alright? The cat’s a loner after all. Like me. Wanders wherever he pleases, so if need be, he could get away. But then there’s the Tyrants. As I reached the top of the hill, I spotted plumes of faint grey smoke rising from where I knew the lake to be.

Surely not…? My pulse quickened, and with the aid of gravity I accelerated madly towards my destination. It was exactly as I feared. Their victory the other day only encouraged them to press on to the lake, where the blues and whites now fought desperately alongside each other to fend off the marauding swarm of Tyrants. This time primarily of the winged and gilled varieties.

I looked on, forlorn, as the seemingly endless mob of pale little bodies poured into the lake. Flashes of light indicated underwater detonations, now and again a mass of bubbles would rise to the surface. The air from within some jug, jar or bottle, liberated when a Tyrant smashed it to pieces. The occupants most certainly drowned, as I drew near I could see dozens of tiny bodies floating gently towards the shore.

I wanted to do something. But what? Without diving gear I saw no way to intervene that wouldn’t simply drown me as well. If only I knew what was happening down there! If only I knew who was winning. Above the lake, a flock of winged Tyrants resembling large albino bats circled the white robes’ airborne complex.

The single seat, rocket powered fighters fared much worse than the flying soldiers had over the quarry. Though the sleek little craft were much faster than their opponents, they were also markedly less agile. The ability to outrun the winged Tyrants was of no use here as they sought to defend a stationary mothership.

Again and again, winged tyrants swatted fighters out of the sky. Hinged control surfaces shattered in the attack, I watched in horror as one little fighter spiraled out of control, exploding spectacularly as it collided with another.

The flying colony’s laser spat flaming death at the gilled Tyrants below, but lacked the power to injure any of them severely as each of them immersed in water just moments after being struck. The white robes’ strategy shifted to aiming for their eyes.

The power of the laser proved much more effective at blinding than it had at maiming. Gilled Tyrants screeched and clutched their bulbous eyes as the laser swept over them. Six of the horrid little beasts crawled onto the nearest shore carrying a submarine they must’ve removed from the battle below.

I gasped, eyes wide as they forced the hatch. The Tyrants then began to fish around inside the sub, shoulder deep, pulling out the crew to gobble down one at a time. A flash of light and a loud report accompanied the complete annihilation of those six Tyrants by artillery fire. I searched for the source and spotted a unit of metallic crayfish on the opposite shore.

The victory was short lived. They were set upon by a trio of Tyrants who, after grappling with the formidable serrated claws, positioned themselves in such a way as to pull the poor critter apart at the joints. After which they eagerly cracked open the shell and feasted on the gelatinous insides.

The frogs proved useless for the same reason. Like the rest of their weapons, designed for use against other tribes of Homunculi, not Tyrants. So focused on defeating on another, they lost sight of their common enemy. The one now brutally savaging them.

A pair of amphibious carriers emerged from the water, their noses unscrewing and swinging to one side. Assault troops poured out, little rifles blazing. But again, the bullets were of a caliber designed to kill Homunculi. It took over a minute of sustained fire by upwards of ten soldiers just to bring down a single gilled Tyrant.

Even with appropriate weapons, I knew they never stood a chance. The Tyrants were simply too numerous. Too comparatively powerful. Wherever they managed to destroy one Tyrant, ten of his buddies converged on them moments later, with twenty more close behind. There’s just no end to them!

“How can there be so many” I thought. Why did I let this cancer spread for so long? Multiplying safely in the shadows, without opposition. If only I’d stopped it then. The time to act was a year ago! I frantically tore at my own hair, watching the irresistible masses of rotten little monsters laying waste to the little fellows’ final redoubt.

It can’t end like this. Can it? An entire planet dominated by these creatures would be a waking nightmare. Yet as I witnessed the battle concluding before me, I could see no other possible outcome. I thought I’d have more time to prepare.

I assumed until now that I might come up with some plan in the nick of time, that I might once again lead the little ones to victory in the eleventh hour. All remaining hope died as I watched the flying settlement break apart, one balloon after the next burst by the sharp little teeth and claws of the flying Tyrants, until the tangled mass of flaming wreckage plummeted into the lake.

I biked back to my house consumed by a mixture of confusion, regret and despair. “Is that it?” I thought. Had I just witnessed the end? Can’t be. There must be more settlements. Must be. I thought back to the map one of the little fellows once showed me. Dozens of colonies. They can’t all be destroyed. They can’t. If so, why go on?

I recalled something Tyler once said. That above all else, I must never let them put out the fire within me. Even if all that’s left is an ember. I spent most of the day cowering by the window, waiting for an approaching swarm of Tyrants that never came. Busy seeking out the remaining colonies most likely.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 27!}