Sai-ias

I was among the last to have my brain cut open; I was dreading it terribly.

But before the blade touched my extruded brain, Sharrock paused and dropped the knife to his side. For the sky had darkened; and we turned and looked, and saw two huge creatures came beating a path out of the blue sky.

Cuzco.

And Djamrock.

Both back from the dead.

I howled, in horror and dismay, and my brain shrank back into my skull, still uncut.

Sharrock backed away, still holding the knife. And Cuzco swooped down towards us low and fast, and his neck and skull orifices blazed fire; and Sharrock’s body was engulfed in flames. I tried to spit web on my burning friend, to put out the fire; but my mouth was dry. I could not spit.

But Sharrock rolled wildly on the grass; and Fray pissed upon him; and his charred body stood and he was ready for combat once again.

And all around me, the fighting commenced.

Imagine a battle like nothing you can imagine.

Thousands of us fought against two; but Cuzco and Djamrock were the mightiest of giants, and could fly. The aerials were helpless against them; the grazers were burned casually as they fled; the giant sentients like Fray were powerless to fight, for Djamrock and Cuzco could plunge down and rip pieces out of their hide before they could bite or butt. The larger aerials fared better; but they were puny by comparison to these, the greatest of the giant sentients possessed of the power of flight.

Quipu’s body was ripped from top to toe within the first few minutes of this ghastly massacre, though his wounds were not fatal. Lirilla loyally attacked and died an early death. Sharrock fought bravely with sword and fists though his skin was burned and charred; but his power was nothing against these two brutes.

Miaris, a giant sentient almost as large as Djamrock, stood on his hind legs, and hurled powerful blows at the two flying monsters. His fists were like cliffs; his skin was as tough as granite; his jaws could chew through metal. But Djamrock dropped upon him from above, and gouged open his skull, and ripped apart his body; and spat acid upon him. And Miaris roared, and fell.

The battle raged; the arboreals fought and died, as did the aerials, as did the giant sentients. No one could withstand this double assault by the flying giants of our world; and the grass was red with blood and gore now, and screams became a wearily familiar background noise.

So the battle fell to me; I alone could fight against such huge flying beasts; and I had, after all, bested Cuzco once before.

And ever since I have wondered: could I have defeated them? Was it in my power to best two of the greatest monsters on board the ship?

I will never know; for throughout the whole conflict, I could not move. I stood, betrayingly, like a statue, observing helplessly as the battle played out. Sharrock screamed at me to help; but I could not.

I was, I realised, under the control of the Ka’un; there was a pakla still inside me. I fought its power; I wrestled for freedom. I poured every particle of my soul into this one desperate goal: to move, and fight, and kill.

And eventually I succeeded! I was able to stir my paralysed limbs; and I moved; and I seized Sharrock in my long tentacle; and I squeezed him to death.

And then I fell asleep; a deep dreamless sleep.

And when I woke, the corpses were all gone. The grasses grew high, with no trace of the blood that had stained them, or the body parts that had been so carelessly strewn. The piles of paklas had vanished; there was nothing at all to indicate a terrible battle had taken place at this spot.

Some months had passed, I deduced; and the world had returned to normal; and was populated once more by my comrades. Fray, Lirilla, Miaris, I saw them all, going about their business, and they saw me. They were all magically restored to life, with no trace of their appalling and fatal injuries.

Whilst Cuzco and Djamrock patrolled the skies above, proud and arrogant and unassailable.

I realised then which was the most appalling of the powers of the Ka’un; it was their gift of resurrection. They had brought Cuzco and Djamrock back to life; and they had done the same for the rest of those slain in that brave, yet futile battle.

And so we would never again dare defy them. For they were—surely they were?—gods.

“We cannot speak of it,” said Quipu.

Quipu like me was one of the few actual survivors of that day; he had been badly hurt, and still required the healing powers of the water of the well of life to mend his scarred body and the partially damaged brain of Quipu Five; but the Quipus had not been “resurrected.”

“It was a horror beyond—well, it was the worst of all horrors,” said Quipu Two.

“I fell asleep,” said Quipu Three, “and then—”

“Cuzco lives!” said Quipu Four.

Quipu Five grunted; incoherent yet still following the discussion.

“Not Cuzco,” I said. “Not the Cuzco I knew.”

For a few days ago I had touched Cuzco with my tentacle tip and begged for his pity. And he had looked at me with total scorn.

And at that moment, I realised he had no recollection of our intimate experience on the mountain top. We had loved each other then; but this Cuzco had never loved me.

He was a replica from a previous time; a past Cuzco, reincarnate.

Fray too had no recollection of the attack upon the Ka’un, or of our previous lives together; and nor did Lirilla. Fray was a stranger to me now; Lirilla knew me not. I found that, strangely, hardest of all to bear.

So the handful of us who had survived the war with the Ka’un were forced to nurse our secret to ourselves. The story of a mutiny that had failed; a rebellion that had been thwarted before it had even begun.

Sharrock groaned.

They had pinned him to a metal spike with cross-bars, his arms outstretched; a form of torture I had never encountered before. And they had flogged him, mercilessly. The rain drizzled upon the raw flesh of his wounds, which scarred him from face to thighs. I sprayed healing moisture on him with my tentacle tips, but it did not help.

I spoke to him but he did not respond. His eyes stared into the distance, never blinking. He was, I suspected, quite mad.

I stayed with him for four days and nights, talking constantly, explaining to him my new view of things: “They are gods, Sharrock, we cannot defeat them.”

And then I realised he was awake and he was staring right at me with blank blue eyes and for a brief moment, his sanity returned: “Never give up,” he whispered.

“We are defeated!” I protested. But he could not comprehend my words.

Then he began to choke. I yearned to help him, but did not know how to. Finally however the choking stopped; and he opened his mouth.

And balanced on his tongue was a red jewel. I reached in with my tentacle and took it out.

It was the jewel he had stolen for Malisha.

“For me?” I asked.

He grunted, and tried to smile. “A gift. Of love. From me to you,” he eventually rasped.

And then he fainted once more. And blood trickled down his body and further soaked the blood-drenched grass; but he did not die.

Two days later Sharrock’s body was gone.

Sharrock died a hero’s death; that I will avow.