Isaac

Part Two

By Kyence

 

Disclaimer: Zarkon and Lotor and Drules are property of World Events Productions.

 

‘’ denote character thoughts

 

            Zarkon patiently waited for Aket.  He stared at the wall, amidst in his misery-laden thoughts.  After the meeting he had immediately contacted Aket.   It had been years since they had spoken.  Zarkon had often suggested to Aket that they join forces, but the pacifistic nature of his acquaintance would never be swayed.

            He sighed, and idly paced about his room.  He found himself staring at his reflection in a small wall mirror.  He was surprised at how three days had transformed him so.  His eyes were dark, with rings around them.  His proud posture was replaced with a slump.  The top of his head, usually clean-shaven and completely bald, showed small black strands piercing through the scalp.   He growled, and tore his face away from his haggard image.  Without looking, he quickly grabbed the mirror with his left arm and flung it across the room.  It shattered into a million fragments.  Each piece of glass slowly undulated through the air, shimmering like broken promises and shattered dreams.

            He knew Aket would have the answer.  Aket had never aged in all the years Zarkon had known him. Aket had escaped Vajel, to explore the Universe and inhibit Vajel’s spread whenever possible: a true, simple soul, with no deception in his heart. By simply being alive, Aket would give him the answer he so desperately needed. 

            “Your Majesty...Lord Aket is here.”

            “Send him in.”

            He entered Zarkon’s chambers.  Zarkon was facing the doorway on the other side.  The doorway closed behind Aket.  His lavender eyes gently beheld Zarkon. 

            Zarkon stared at Aket as well.  He could still recall the first time he had beheld this violet person.   He had known he had been looking at someone far more than a Drule...the purple eyes and hair hinted at it.  Drules were not COMPLETELY VIOLET.  Aket was incredibly tall as well, even half a head taller than Zarkon.  He also looked very young; to see him, one would think he had just entered adulthood.  However, once Aket spoke, and you looked into his eyes, you knew that he was older than you have ever met or will meet.  Zarkon knew much of his life history; his knowledge would be especially invaluable this day.  Silence danced through the room like an entity, trying to tempt the tension away.

            “How...”  Zarkon whispered.

            Aket remained still.  “Hmmm?”

            “How...”  Zarkon’s eyes glanced to the ceiling, as though he were asking some higher power for a reason.  His head rolled down, as did his eyes.

            “How did they find me?”  He looked up again, with tears begging for release trapped on his eye lids.

            Aket’s voice was quiet and calm.  “They have their ways when Vajel desires a quarry...so, what was your reply?”

            “I...I told them I didn’t know...”

            Aket walked across the room.  “Mhmm...”  He closed his eyes, deep in thought. His lilac hued brows furrowed to hint his displeasure.  

            “Aket...?”  Zarkon asked gently, as though he were a child asking for permission from a parent.

            “Yes?”  Aket turned around when the pause seemed far too long.

            Zarkon’s head was down.  “What...what is your advice?  Should I?  Is it worth it?”

            “Honestly, Zarkon, I would say that killing Lotor is the best thing you could do...”

            Zarkon held his head in his hands, gripping it fiercely, forcing himself to swallow his growl.  That was not the answer he had wanted to hear.  “And...why is that?” he grit through his teeth.

            “Because you KNOW you can’t be a good father...”

            Zarkon’s head bolted up as he stared into the eyes of his friend.            

            “You KNOW that you aren’t a good person, because you don’t care about anything except yourself...but that’s okay...” Aket crooned as he strode over to Zarkon and lowered himself to his eyelevel.  He place his hand on Zarkon’s left shoulder.  “...No one ever cared about you; how else could you have turned out?”  Aket sported a sneer to accompany his change of tone, which Zarkon abruptly turned away from.

            “You are special, Zarkon, more than even I can divulge to you.  You are a Vajellic in spirit, Zarkon.”

            The King of Doom bore his caustic gaze into Aket.  “What do you mean?” he seethed.

            “Vajel does not tolerate inferiority.  You know this well, of how many races, animals, plants, worlds, galaxies have been dealt Vajel’s judgment of extinction...”

            Zarkon bolted away.  ‘Aket has never spoken like this. He never took pride in the Vajel's campaigns. What is happening?’

Aket rose again to his feet.  “And those stories of the plague that reduced the Hieygs to a sparse few rejects?  The rejects that ran, too foolish to realize that Vajel hid in each and every one of them...”

            Zarkon’s hearts felt as though they would burst from his body.  He felt the blood smashing through his arteries.

            “...I believe they ended up calling themselves...Drules...”  Aket raised his eyebrow.  “But don’t worry, Zarkon...” he quickly added, “You are far more your mother...”

            “Then why did my father...?”

            Aket stared at him. ”Your father what?”

            “Why...was he given the chance if he was so worthless?”

            Aket roared with laughter.  “You know why...but just keep shoving that truth in the back of your mind, because you are sooooo afraid of everyone finding out just what kind of  Translating freak you truly are...”

            Zarkon’s ears began to ring.  He cupped them in his hands, as he sank to his knees. 

            Aket advanced towards Zarkon.

            “He is already dead, don’t you see?  Lotor must die; he is weak.  Is it not more merciful to be killed by your father than by an uncaring harbinger?  Didn’t you accept it at the very end...”

            Zarkon sprang up and dared to see the face that said these words...it was his own face...with the purple eyes of Vajel’s kin.

 

            Zarkon bolted up.  He looked around the infirmary.  The infirmary?  He focused his eyes at the blurred image in front of him.  It was his Royal Physician.

            “Just relax, Your Majesty, let the sedatives run their course...”

            “How...how did I get here?”  he slurred.

            “You passed out just as you left your throne room, sire.”

            <I>So it was a dream...at least the part with Aket...</I>

            He held his head, but, just as he remembered the dream, he had forgotten it again...

            “What...what time is it?”  he inquired.

            “Sixty minutes before the newmorning hour, sire.”

            ‘I have one hour left before the deadline.’ Zarkon motioned himself to get up.

            “Your Majesty,”  his Physician said, “you must get some rest.”

            Zarkon stared at him.  “Do not give ME orders.  I will do as I please.”

            <I>That’s right.  I will.  </I>

            His gait was a little unstable, but he managed to walk out of the infirmary.  He WAS going to find Lotor. And do the only thing he COULD do. 

 

            “So, where are we going father?” Lotor inquired.  He studied his father’s face, waiting for his response.  None came as they walked.  He turned his head, and focused on the horizon.  He could see the faint glimmer of Castle Dhm in the corner of his eye still; they were quite a distance away now.  He wondered what it was his father was going to show him.  It was very early for him to be up.  He’d been woken out of a sound sleep by his matron.  Of course, once she said that his father had summoned him, he practically tripped over her to get ready.  Now, here he was, walking beside his father.  He looked again at his face.

            He seemed to be deep in thought, with a quick stride; it was all Lotor could do to keep up. 

            ‘Maybe he didn’t hear me,’ Lotor thought. 

            “Father?”  he asked again.  He was considering touching his father’s arm to elicit a response, but, for someone who had never initiated physical contact with his father, it was an unknown gamble, at best.  What would his father do if he did that?  Would he strike him?  How would he react when his father did that?  Would he cry right then and there?

            He kept his arm by his side. 

            Confident that they were far enough from the slaves and the castle, Zarkon came to a stop.  He turned around, and watched as his son caught up with him.  His only son.  His only beautiful son. Once again, the dark reverie re-enacted in his eyes.

 

He feigned slumber.  He was simply lying there, looking as though he was.  He was too beaten and swollen to sleep; his whole body had still ached from the punishment he had received.  This particular episode happened days ago, and it was the most painful discipline he had ever received.  He knew when his father checked on him every evening; he kept his breathing at a slow, steady pace when he did, though his hearts pounded  so forcefully he was sure his father would hear it as he did; but, his father always seemed to assume he was truly in slumber. 

 

            Zarkon shook his head as the vivid memory seeped through his sight.  ‘I can’t remember that now.  I cannot allow any more delay on my part.’  The newmorning hour, the deadline, was within minutes, with the wrath of Vajel’s messenger to take its place if he did not succeed.

            “Lotor,” he ordered, his voice thick. 

            “Yes, Father,” his child replied.

            ‘The reason I brought you here is for a special ceremony.  A ceremony that only those of our royal lineage can do.”

            “Really?”  Lotor said, intrigued.  ‘Father does accept me!  He is going to show me how to perform a regal ceremony!  I’m so happy!’  It was all he could do to contain his excitement and not hop with joy.  “What is it for?” he posed.

            “A sacrifice...to a god...for his propitiation and blessing...” Zarkon said in a distant voice.

 

            He heard his father’s heavy breathing.  It was slow and rhythmic, yet unusually deep and noisy.  Ællon, though his eyes were closed, could smell and feel that his father’s face was inches from his.  Uncomfortable from this, Ællon turned to his side in a way that someone may toss and turn in a deep sleep.

 

            “What do we do first?” Lotor continued, his enthusiasm not daunted by his father’s somber mood.

            It seemed to him that his father was caught in some daydream.  His eyes were focused on something far away, something Lotor could not perceive.  He glanced in the direction of where it seemed his father was looking, but only saw a barren landscape.

            Zarkon blinked his eyes repeatedly.   ‘I must do this!’ 

            He gestured to a large flat rock a few yards away.

            “Go over there, Lotor, and face away from me.  Stay motionless. Do not talk.  Do not move.  It is the first part of the ritual; you must meditate...”

            Lotor, with a broad smile on his face, complied and ran .  The smile tore at Zarkon more than a scowl ever could have.  He turned his head to the side, and felt the repressed tears finally trickle down the sides of his face.  He sobbed as quietly as he could, not even wanting to suppress his remorse. 

            He reached into his cape...and pulled out a gun he always had concealed behind it.  He had always planned to use it as a final defense against an assailant, but, apparently fate decreed it to serve a different purpose.  He glanced into the distance.  His son was indeed facing away, completely unaware of his motive.  He had no idea.  Zarkon began to move.

           

            He pulled the covers up a bit closer to his head.

 

            He would fire point-blank into the back of Lotor’s head.  He would never see it, never feel it.  He would be spared the pain, the fright, the fear of knowing he was moments from Death’s embrace.

 

            But, the loud breathing was too loud for his ears to take any longer.  He instinctively placed his hands over his ears...

           

            He walked slowly, and stealthily, being careful not to make a sound. 

 

            ...and the wire cord encircled his throat and tightened.

 

            Zarkon’s gait abruptly ceased.  His eyes were wide, and his mouth quivered as the images held within for so long smashed through the barriers, demanding to be seen. 

 

            Ællon gasped.  What was going on?  he thought as he thrashed and kicked in a panic.  The cord tightened, and Ællon felt his thick blood dripping from his wrists; his hands had been trapped  along with his neck.  However, the pressure of the tighter and tighter wire was pushing his hands against his windpipe; he was suffocating.

 

            He shook his head vigorously, unable to take a step further.  He grit his teeth and fought his hardest to keep his scream from erupting.  He was remembering.  Truly remembering every nuance, every detail.  Dropping the gun, he placed his arms about his head in the same fashion, as though the cord traveled through the mists of time to strangle him once more.

 

               Tears poured from his eyes as he realized someone was trying to kill him; he tried to yell out, but he had barely any air to breathe, let alone scream.  He heard a sizzling noise.  The cord suddenly snapped.

 

            He shivered now, water pouring from his eyes.  He could neither move nor discern Lotor in the distance.  The land in front of him became the room he had lived in as a brutalized child.  And the voice...

 

            He fell forward, and crashed to the floor, hoarsely gasping for oxygen as he heard a man’s voice curse.

            “Damn your blood...it has grown corrosive enough to eat through thin metal.  I suppose the blunt force used in our previous session will have to do…”

            Ællon slowly rose to his feet, still heaving.  He then burst out with a run.

            “Oh no you don’t,” he heard the voice as a horrible pain seized his shoulder.  He fell to the floor, but still crawled.  He was terrified.  Ællon turned around.  It was his father.

            His father had his arm raised in a fist again, with a calm, determined demeanor… cold-blooded. He wore gloves and thick sleeves, anticipating blood that could blister his skin.  As the fist came crashing down, Ællon used the only weapon he had-his leg.  His right foot smashed into his father’s face.

            He heard a gargled yell, and the fist retracted back to reflexively attend to the injured face of his attacker.

            Ællon took this opportunity to escape.  His body was screaming from agony; his lungs hurt, his back hurt, and his neck and wrists were bleeding profusely.  He hurried towards the stairs.   All he needed was to get down them and run out the door.  In this moment, his mind had a sudden clarity to it; this was why the two servants were dismissed today.  This had to do with the meeting his father had with those three strangers.  He was meant to die this night.

            He began to whimper.  A tiny whine warbled out of his bruised, lacerated throat.  His ears picked up a sound coming from the previous corridor.  His father was approaching.  He looked at the stairs. 

            He bolted down them.  He suddenly snapped back, landing on his spine.

            “Is something wrong?”  his father mused.  The fall had knocked the wind out of Ællon.  He felt that it was a lazer whip that had caught hold of him, sizzling his skin with its constant contact.

            He looked at his father pleadingly.

            “Pll...please, father...” he begged in the Drule tongue.  “Please don’t kill me...”

            His father merely stared at him as though he were nothing at all.  “Ællon, give me one good reason to let you go on living when your rotting corpse will give me the greatest gift of all?”

            Ællon began to cry.  The tears coursed down his bruised cheeks.  He was confused.

            “I trap you?  You want freedom, is that it?”  Ællon asked.  “...you don’t have to kill me...I’ll leave...you’ll never see me or hear from me ever again...just let me live...PLEASE LET ME LIVE!” he begged as his voice thickened.

            A backhand to his face silenced him to smaller sobs.

            “Yes, it is freedom...freedom from death...and life itself...but, what do YOU know of freedom, Ællon?”  With each pause, he used his free hand to punch his son in the face.

            With both hands, he wrapped the whip around Ællon’s neck, who squirmed and writhed against it.

            “You...can’t...fight this...it’s too strong for your blood...accept...your fate, and give me back what you took from me!  My life!” 

            Ællon moaned and yelled desperately.  It sounded guttural and moist as though his very voice was crying tears of pain and fear.  He continued to thrash and flail, striking frantically at his father.

           

            King Zarkon, the Monarch of Dhm, was incapacitated.  He hyperventilated, his body trembling.  ‘I will do this!  This will rectify all of my suffering!  It is my turn!  Why shouldn’t I do this?  I fought hard...I survived.  I wanted to live, and I proved it.  I deserve this chance, no matter what anyone thinks of me!’

           

            His father was unprepared for this. After all the times he had struck his son, he had never fought back.  Now, here he was, resisting; Ællon was to die, whether he fought back or not.  Was he too stupid to realize this?

            Ællon continued to fight as the whip wound tighter and tighter around his neck.  The stairs were too close to his heels.  The death grip tightened.  He was out of breath now; he tried to inhale, but nothing entered his deprived lungs.  He was not strong enough to fight any longer...but, he wanted to hold his father...

            With his arms jerking from lack of oxygen, he slowly embraced his father...and fell back, accepting his death...

            ...he felt the first impact on his side as he heard his father’s scream abruptly cut off with a loud smashing noise, and then the sensation of tumbling...

            ...on the floor, Zarkon pulled off the whip slowly from his neck.  He seemed to suck in all the air in the room before coughing and hacking it out.  He was lying on his side, feeling a dull, aching pain.  His right leg was completely numb.  He turned his head over to the side, in the direction of an odd smell.  He met the glassy eyes of his deceased father.  Blood trickled from his mouth. 

            The fall had broken his neck.

 

            Zarkon blinked.  Now, he stood a few feet away, looking at the fallen father and son at the foot of the stairs.  He closed his eyes.

            “This is what you were always afraid to see...”

            He opened them again.  His youth was now standing before him, his eyes a saffron sliver.  Zarkon looked behind his young doppelganger.  The battered child still lay on the ground, staring at his father, moaning from pain and shock.

            “You now remember...”

            Zarkon nodded.  “I now remember...” he whispered.

            “What will you do?”

            “I’m not sure...”

            “I think you do...is the cost worth the gain?”

            Zarkon looked unsure.

            “What good would living eternally be if you would never be able to live with yourself?”

            Zarkon sank to his knees.  His youth approached him, and embraced him.

            “I have always lived within you.  We have stood against it all. We have suffered, we have won, we have lost.  Yet, have we ever loved since all those years ago?  We wasted it, didn’t we?”

            Zarkon was silent, his eyes closed.  He brought his arms around his younger self, and held him.  A strange, foreign feeling pierced through him.  It was not painful.  It was different, soothing.  He reveled in it.

            “Shall we try again, Ællon?”

            “I would...”      

 

            “Fa...father...?”

            Zarkon heard the call from the darkness.

            “Father?”

            Zarkon opened his eyes.  His son, Lotor, was incredibly close to his visage.  Zarkon was holding his son.  The look of fear and vigilance emanated from the youth’s face.

            ‘What should I say?’

            Lotor smiled uneasily.  “You don’t like to meditate?”

            Zarkon was not expecting that....but, he was glad he was not.  His laugh a genuine one, he picked up Lotor.

            “No...I don’t like to dwell on things, I guess...”

            “Are...are you okay?”

            “Yes...yes, I am, Lotor...”  He placed his son down. “The ritual is complete.  You have done well, my son.  Let us return to our castle.”

            Lotor flashed another smile. ‘The god in question gave me his blessing,’ Lotor thought happily.

            Zarkon began walking in tow, quickly retrieving and concealing the dropped gun before Lotor noticed it.  Zarkon looked on as his wonderful son jogged to Castle Dhm.  He rubbed his neck absently for a few moments; then, realizing he was, pulled his hand away, and walked with his son through the pure newmorning breeze.

           

 

He looked down at the body of Vajel’s messenger.  It was the same augmented Drule that had given him the ultimatum the night before.  He nudged it with its foot, and it responded in the manner of a lifeless corpse.

He sighed.  “Not exactly as immortal as you would lead me to believe, eh, Vajel?”  He retracted his arms fin spine from the torso of the corpse.  “I am more my mother anyway; probably wouldn’t have worked at all.  So, shall we renegotiate?”  The purple fluid slid innocuously down, dripping onto the floor.  It had the consistency of jelly, leaving not a single residual molecule or infective cell on the spine to infect him.  Zarkon smirked.

“I figured you would retract the offer.”