Chapter One: The Depths of Hell
**Third Moon of Plundarr, Thirty-Some Years Later**
Luna threw the leather-bound journal of Grune the Mighty against the wall with all her might. It bounced lightly off the plaster before it landed on the carpet with a soft thud. The outburst should have made her feel a little bit better, but it didn’t.
"Damn him," she snarled venomously. "Damn him!"
Her anger was, as it had been since well before he’d even brought the journal into the room, directed at Frostor of course. She was still furious that he was keeping her locked up and "out of trouble" as he had phrased it. That was only the tip of the iceberg though. Mostly Luna was worried sick about Selene, and that was expressed in the warped way that Luna tended to express emotion—by getting mad. Frostor happened to be the most convenient (and deserving) target.
Reading Grune’s journal hadn’t helped matters any. At first it had been a halfway decent distraction (not that she should have needed one, she thought bitterly) but dredging up the memories of her last nights in the capitol before her forced exile had left her already foul mood even worse.
She never admitted it, not even to herself really, but even after all these years she had never forgiven herself for not waiting for Kalin and Grune. Had it been just the sabertooth, she supposed she never would have thought twice before taking off. But leaving Kalin—one of her own people and probably one of the few of those she would have called a friend in those days—behind never sat well with her. She told herself for years that they never would have made it out if they’d stayed a second longer, but she knew deep down that wasn't true. They were the Lunatacs of Plundarr, after all. They could pull themselves out of just about anything. They were many things, and resourceful was one of them. They probably would have made it out without too much trouble if they’d waited for Kalin and Grune. And no matter how many times she’d rationalized it, that truth nagged at her each time.
"When the hell is he going to let me out of this gods-forsaken prison?!" hollered the irate Luna in frustration.
On the other side of the locked door, the only exit to the room, a snoozing military flunky was jolted back into consciousness by her screech. Luna wasn’t the only one that wanted her out of there, thought the guard on duty. He felt that putting up with her periodic outbursts—which he hadn’t heard any of in the last few hours—was worth hazard pay. A lot of it.
Sighing to himself, the guard opened the door carefully and poked his head in. "Sorry Miss Luna, I haven’t gotten any change in orders. You’re still under house arrest. Believe me, when I find out otherwise, you’ll be the first to know." Because I’m tired as hell of hearing you carry on, he added silently.
The sullen Luna crossed her arms and glared. "Fine," she snapped, then turned her attention to the darkening purple sky through the window. The setting sun marked another day’s passing, another day in which Selene and Psiarik still hadn’t been found. Perhaps it was time she faced what seemed to be the inevitable, that the ruling couple was dead, lost somewhere under the tons of rubble that was once their home. All thanks to that damned bag of bones and the psychotic Thundercat.
A scowl crossed the tiny Lunatac’s face, and she turned away from the unpleasant view. She made her way back to the couch, settled back into the pillows, and waited. There was nothing else she could do.
***
In a silent and lightless realm, a horrifying place of sheer nothingness so vast that it almost defied comprehension, WilyKit stumbled aimlessly, sobbing and alone. There was no way she could tell how far she had gone or how long she would have to go before she found anything or anyone, but she kept going anyway. She knew it would only be worse if she sat still, with nothing but the dark void all around her to pick at what she felt were the remaining shreds of her sanity. So she kept moving, and hoped—however vain the hope might be—that some way, somehow, she would find a way out of the darkness.
She was aware that time had passed, but it was impossible to tell how much. It had probably been only a matter of hours, but for all she knew it could have been days. It certainly felt like days at any rate. Nothing made time feel slower than having nothing to see which would mark its passing. And in this horrible place, wherever it was that the spirit who had taken her body had sent her, there was nothing to see at all.
At first she had called for help, but her efforts had proven useless. Each time she tried, her only response was the oppressive, deafening silence that filled this place. It was enough to make her want to scream the entire time, just for something to hear, but she knew all she would have wound up with for her trouble was the added discomfort of a sore throat. It had become clear before too long that there were no other inhabitants in this forbidding realm, for they surely would have heard her if there had been. Therefore she had given up on the idea of finding someone to help her. She knew that if she was going to get out, it would have to be on her own… and she now feared that she would lose the last of her strength and sanity before she would be able to.
That was why when she first heard what sounded like a shout or a cry in the distance, she ignored it and attributed it to imagination. It was just her mind trying to make up for the vast nothingness around her, a last ditch effort to comfort her in this incomprehensible, maddening place. She would not permit herself to indulge in such a fantasy. If she was going to get out of this place, she would have to keep in touch with reality, painful as that might be.
She heard the voice again, this time a little louder. There’s nothing there, she told herself. It’s not real. Determinedly she ignored it and kept moving along.
"Help!"
WilyKit froze in her tracks. It sounded so real. So lost. So lonely. Just like…
"Hello!" The shout, much closer now, came a second time. "Anyone, anything, is there anyone there? Hello?!"
WilyKit bit her lip and tried to calm her trembling. Great Jaga, you're really crazy after all, WilyKit... they say when you hear voices that aren't there and they sound real and like they're coming from outside your head, that's a sure sign of insanity... The thought triggered a hollow laugh. So what if it’s insanity? If nothing else, I’ll at least have something to talk to. Besides, how could I be any worse off than I am already? She decided to indulge the imaginary voice and answer.
"I'm here!" she called out with a false note of happiness, wiping the tears of pent up emotion and frustration from her eyes. "Is anybody there?" she answered in a crazy-sounding sing-songy voice. Might as well have some fun in loony-land, right Kit?
The voice answered immediately. "I hear you! Where are you? … I'm all alone ... Can't find anyone... Where are you? Please, let me find you!" It sounded much closer now. WilyKit was able to determine that it was a male's voice, somewhat familiar, and he sounded almost as hopeless as she felt herself.
So I made up a buddy for myself, isn't that nice? WilyKit thought. Hey maybe he's an attractive guy, so I can get some while I'm lost in space and time too! She laughed again, thoroughly convinced this was a psychotic delusion, albeit a realistic one, and nothing more. "I’m over here!" she called back.
Within moments an outline of a figure appeared, and it began rushing towards her. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw who it was. So much for her mind dreaming up some nice Thunderian knight in shining armor to take her away and rescue her... instead it decided to send her Psiarik. Boy, does my twisted mind know no bounds, she thought, and resisted the urge to laugh at the dark thought. "What's a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked sarcastically, and laughed crazily again.
Psiarik blinked in surprise as he approached her, as if he were as surprised
to see her as she was to see him. He placed a hand on her shoulder and
gave her a quizzical look. "WilyKit?" he asked. "It really is you...
but… but how can you be here if you're there?" he wondered aloud.
It is you isn't it?" WilyKit then noticed upon second glance that the
Lunatac looked rattled and shaken as well.
"I don't know. I think I'm me... but then again, I'm insane, so my opinion doesn't hold much water," she answered, more serious than sarcastic.
"Good gods... where did she send us... this place is... damn..." Psiarik muttered, taking a good look at the bleak, empty surroundings around them.
"What are you talking about?" WilyKit asked with a frown. Why was Psiarik not making any sense to her if he was just a figment of her own mind? That didn't serve any comforting purpose.
"How did you get here?" he asked her. "Do you remember?"
WilyKit shook her head. "Not really. All I remember is the nice spirit offering to take me away from all of it, she said if I let her in, just for a minute, that she'd make them stop tormenting me. I had to do it, I had to say yes, you don't understand how horrible it was. He was crawling on me, and the smell… the horrible stench… and the tongue… I was so scared!" she sobbed.
"The ghosts," Psiarik guessed. He gave her a nod and waited for her to continue.
"The next thing I know I told her yes and then I was falling and falling for I don't know how long and I landed here in this place, this… nothingness. I’ve been here all alone ever since. I still am I guess, since you're just a figment of my imagination anyway," she ended, her voice teary and hopeless.
Psiarik took a step closer to her. "Listen to me, WilyKit. I'm not a hallucination, I'm real," he assured her, laying a hand on her shoulder to reassure her that he was as real as she. "I don't think you're half as crazy as you think you are. Those things that happened to you, they were real too. You were being haunted, just not in the way we thought."
"What do you mean?"
"It wasn’t a demon tormenting you, but something much worse: Mumm-Ra and Torlei. They were the so-called ghosts, and in the end they got what they wanted… your body, and revenge. Torlei possessed you."
"Torlei? She was the good spirit?"
"Good?" Psiarik repeated, making a disbelieving face.
"That’s what she told me, anyway. She said if I let her take me over for a minute that she’d make the bad one go away. But she lied… she sent me here." WilyKit lowered her eyes and tried to stop a fresh wave of frustrated tears from spilling out.
"Lying is something evil spirits do best," Psiarik said with a sigh. "What she did to you was almost a textbook case of possession. It’s part of a sequence of events traditionally carried out by dark spirits. Infestation and oppression were the first two, when they did all those things to make you agree to let yourself be taken over in the first place. Possession doesn’t work without that agreement, and Torlei knows this well, being a student of black magic. Hell, even I know it. I should have seen it sooner. It’s something we psychic lunatacs are warned about from childhood, since our abilities make us prime targets for supernatural forces," he explained.
"I’m possessed?" WilyKit replied with a startled whimper. "No… I would never agree to…" Her voice trailed off as the implications of what happened began to sink in. If Torlei was in possession of her body, her powerful Thundercat body, and she was trapped here unable to control the actions of it… the potential for destruction…
Psiarik continued his explanation. "I suppose that being Thunderian, you didn’t know any of that, and that’s why you didn’t see it coming. But you did agree, even though you didn’t realize you did. You see, when you agreed to ‘let her help’, Torlei took over your body and sent you here—" he looked around, puzzled "—and I’m still not sure how she even did that. Then, after she gained control of you, you confronted and attacked me, then somehow sent me here as well, after I fought you off in the study."
WilyKit was confused. "But… but I know I didn't fight you in the study. I didn't fight you at all. I have no reason to fight with you, we aren't enemies anymore... if anything, I would call you my friend."
Psiarik nodded. "But Mumm-Ra and Torlei do have a reason to fight me, and you, and all the others for that matter. I imagine their hatred for us runs quite deep after the Battle of the Swords five years ago. And what better way for them to get even than to use one of their hated enemies as a tool to destroy the others?"
"Mine," WilyKit lamented. "And I let it happen. All because of my stupid problems."
"If it wasn’t you, they would have chosen someone else," Psiarik said with a slight shrug. "Right now it’s a moot issue. What’s more important now is getting both of us out of here and you back in the body where you belong."
"What have I done? What did she do after she took me over?"
Psiarik took a deep breath as he started to explain. "She used it to attack us all in the Tower when we were off guard. First she tried to hurt Silvian, and then when Selene tried to stop her, you—I mean, she as you—tried to kill him."
WilyKit gasped in horror. "No! He’s only a child!"
"Like that matters to her? But don’t worry, he’s fine, as far as I know. Selene and WilyKat and I were able to stop you before he was hurt. I then confronted you, and told Selene to run and get Silvian somewhere safe, when you—she—confessed who she really was. Then Mumm-Ra appeared too. I tried to use mind control on you to bring the real you out, but it didn't work, and you—she—whatever—reversed the flow of my psychic hold somehow. I could feel it happening… she drew my powers, then it was like she grabbed my very soul, right out of my body and left me for dead. I don't know, I might be dead... and then I came to in this place. I wandered around looking for anything or anyone who might show me the way out ever since. It was then that I found you, when you answered me," Psiarik explained.
His explanation rang true, and gave her a renewed sense of hope. Her situation was still dire, but at least she knew that her mind was intact. "Oh thank Jaga!" she exclaimed, hugging the Lunatac tightly. "I'm not alone. I'm not crazy!"
Psiarik hugged her back and gave her a halfhearted smile. "Not unless we all are. You know, you and I really have to stop meeting like this. It seems like me ending up coming to your rescue after one of Mumm-Ra and Torlei's attacks is becoming a pattern."
"No offense, but that's a pattern I'd rather not repeat... not being rescued, but being jerked around by those two ever-living losers." WilyKit relaxed a little and then looked around again, hoping for a sign of anything that could show them the way out. "Anyway, crazy or not, we still don't know how to get out of here, or if we even can."
"Good point. So where the hell are we, anyway?"
"A very appropriate question," a deep voice sneered from behind them.
Both WilyKit and Psiarik whirled around to see who it was that had joined them. "What?" they asked in astonished unison.
The spectral figure of Grune the Destroyer stood in front of them. His tall, forbidding stature even made Psiarik feel small in comparison, and the hateful expression on his face chilled them both to the bone. WilyKit almost couldn’t believe this being was the same man she had learned so much about in the few days before…. "Grune..." she whispered.
A knowing, evil grin spread across the ghostly sabertooth’s face. "That's right, Thundercat. I remember you. Our paths have crossed a few times. The first you would remember would be when I haunted Cat's Lair on Third Earth, and turned your own silly child's prank pellets against you. You and your brother were so pathetic… and from what I can tell, you still are!"
An expression of indignant disgust flashed across the Thundercat’s face. "Grune the Destroyer… why are you here? Of all the souls to run into in this damned place, why you?"
Grune only smiled maddeningly. "Why not?" He took a few steps closer. His Thundrainium spiked club appeared in his hand and he tapped it lightly against his hand in a threatening gesture. "You were expecting maybe Jaga?" He laughed derisively. "And here I thought you would be happy to see me, after displaying such interest in my life."
"I want nothing to do with a traitor like you! Now leave me alone!" To emphasize her point, WilyKit threw a pellet at him. It went through his body and exploded harmlessly several feet behind him.
"I'm already dead, kitten, you can't harm me," he sneered at her, his voice dripping with condescension.
WilyKit got angrier. "I am not a kitten, and don't you dare talk to me like that! I am a Thundercat, and I won’t be underestimated or disrespected, especially by a backstabbing bastard like you! You should burn in the hells for the terror and pain you visited on all the innocent lives you destroyed!"
Grune seemed amused by her reaction. "Is that what you think it's like, a pit of fire where we burn and suffer, tormented for all eternity? Oh, kitten, you are so wrong... look around you..."
Psiarik, who had remained quiet and watchful during the exchange, finally spoke up. His eyes widened in shock. "Are you saying that this is the afterlife?" he asked the ghost.
"NO!" WilyKit screamed. "It’s not! This is all a delusion, a sick hallucination! It's not true!"
"If that's what you need to think to comfort yourself, kitten," Grune said with a condescending shrug.
Infuriated, WilyKit charged at Grune and threw another pellet in his direction. "I told you to stop calling me that!"
Grune stepped aside and laughed out loud as her pellet detonated four feet away from him. "Such spirit in you… just like your mother." His face then twisted into a hateful scowl, and he hit his club against the palm of his hand in a display of temper. "How I detest that."
"You don’t know my mother!" she argued, on the verge of tears.
"I think it would be more accurate to say you don't know your mother, wouldn't it?" Grune’s voice remained calm, controlled, and contemptuous. "Unlike you, I knew her well—very well—well enough to know her for the kind of lying whore she really was. And from what I know of you, you’re just like her, carrying your own bastard child, right, Thundercat?"
WilyKit lost her temper completely and lunged at him in a rage. Psiarik reached over and grabbed her arm, holding her back. "WilyKit, don't!" he urged her. "This is exactly what he wants. He’s not worth the energy it would waste to go after him. He’s just a ghost."
"I can't let him say those lies about my mother. I can't!"
Another derisive laugh came from Grune's direction. "You're so sure they're lies." He shook his head. "How would you know the truth? You never knew your mother, and the Thundercats never told you the truth. The disgusting, sleazy truth about who your parents really are. Did they?"
WilyKit glared back at Grune but didn’t answer. She didn’t want to believe anything he said, but she did remember how Snarf had always dodged those questions, and how defensive and upset Tygra had gotten when she asked about her mother and the identity of her father.
"They didn’t," Grune guessed, smiling smugly. "And I can’t say I’m not surprised. It wouldn’t do to have the ‘noble’ Thundercats embroiled in such a scandal, after all." He met WilyKit’s angry, defiant gaze. "Didn't you ever wonder why you and your brother grew up as orphans in Cat's Lair? Why you were trained to be Thundercats at such a young age? Who your father was?" he snarled, stressing the last question, then lowering his voice again. "I know you did."
After seeing the lost, distraught expression on WilyKit’s face, Psiarik decided he’d stood by and tolerated Grune’s harassment of her long enough. "If you think she's going to believe any of your sick lies, you're wrong," Psiarik told him coldly. "Leave her alone and get lost."
"Ooooh, aren't you the noble one?" Grune sneered sarcastically. "A noble Lunatac... what a joke. Stay out of this, fool," the spectral sabertooth warned him.
Psiarik did not take kindly to the threat. "You're beginning to piss me off, feline," he growled, clenching his fists.
Grune ignored the Lunatac and returned his attention to WilyKit, his cold and evil eyes staring harshly into hers. "Tell me, WilyKit, didn't you ever think it was strange that the Thundercats and snarfs that raised you would change the subject every time your parents were mentioned? Didn't you think it odd that you were supposedly from a humble background, but treated like royalty? That you were the only mixed race Thunderians trained as Thundercats, and as young children at that?"
"We were gifted," WilyKit stammered, parroting the phrase Clarece had used many times to describe them and their talents.
The ghost sneered. "Gifted? Oh yes, true child prodigies you were, I'm sure," he said with a sarcastic laugh. "The only thing you two were ever gifted at was causing trouble," he added hatefully.
"All right, that's enough out of you! Shut up and go back to whatever miserable grave you belong in, before I send you there myself," Psiarik threatened, pointing a fist in his direction.
Grune glared at Psiarik. "Don't make threats you can't possibly back up, Lunatac. You haven't got the power to take me."
Psiarik's eyes flashed angrily and he stepped forward. "Try me," he challenged.
A light, but decidedly twisted, feminine laugh echoed through the darkness behind Grune. A shadowy mist formed behind the ghostly sabertooth. "So full of himself, overconfident, and arrogant... just like his father," came a voice from within the mist, and it laughed again. The shadows slowly solidified to form a female figure. "I see WilyKit isn't the only one here proving the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so to speak." As the figure took shape WilyKit and Psiarik saw that their newest visitor was a Hunter Lunatac woman.
WilyKit immediately recognized her from the detailed descriptions in Grune’s journal. "Kalin..." she murmured softly.
"You know this lowlife piece of trash, WilyKit?" Psiarik asked. Given his current feelings toward Alluro, being compared to his father by this woman had only made him angrier.
Kalin scowled at Psiarik. "You'd best watch your mouth, boy, before I take from you what little life you have left. You may think you're all powerful and tough, but trust me, you do not want to start something with me." She then turned toward WilyKit. "Very good detective work, Thundercat. Yes, I am the one once called Kalin."
Putting forth his best effort to control his temper, Psiarik ignored her challenging tone toward him and instead thought about her words. What little life I have left… does that mean… yes, it must… He came to a conclusion and tugged on WilyKit’s arm to get her attention. "WilyKit... we aren't dead after all."
"Don't be too sure about that," Grune snarled.
WilyKit looked to Psiarik. "We're not? How do you know?"
"He doesn't! He's full of it!" Kalin argued.
"Yeah, you’d like me to think that, wouldn’t you?" Psiarik retorted. "Don't listen to them, WilyKit. They’re the ones who are ghosts. Look at them, all transparent and spectral… and they know as well as I do that they can't do much more than annoy us—" he cast a hateful glare in their direction "—talented as they may be at that." He met WilyKit's eyes again and continued. "But they can't do anything else. Now look at us. Unlike them, we're solid and substantial, still flesh and bone. They want us to give up and think we're dead, but we're not. I'm sure of it," Psiarik said, more confident that he was correct as he explained it.
WilyKit glanced from the ghosts to Psiarik several times, seeing it for herself. "But even if it's true that we're not dead, we can't get out of here, can we?"
"Of course you can't, Thundercat," Kalin said. "There is no way out. You're here to stay, here where you belong, forever."
"In hell," Grune added, and laughed wickedly.
***
Far away and unaware of the turmoil he’d left behind after he departed, Alluro’s ship hummed along quietly through the darkened skies of the Third Moon of Plundarr, descending to a slow-paced hover above the wild jungles below him. He sat silently in the leather chair at the controls, leaning back and monitoring the equipment. It wouldn't be long before he arrived now... the next obstacle that lay before him now would be the on-foot part of getting where he needed to go. Finding Darkail was not likely going to be easy, especially since no outsiders, himself included, were really all that sure where Serilune was. Few who were not Hunters themselves had ventured in there and back out again, and none that had ever disclosed anything specific about where it was. They'd probably be hunted down and silenced if they did.
Alluro sighed. He was not looking forward to a trip through the jungle on foot, but he had no choice... he couldn't stay in the air too much longer. The military was already looking for him; the last radio transmission that he had heard before he’d initiated every blocking code he knew was news that Psiarik had put out a warrant for his and Darkail's arrest. He clenched his jaw, and tried not to give into the angry, frustrated feeling that was welling up inside him as he recalled the incident back at the tower. It hurt him more deeply than he cared to admit that his son had turned on him, taken the side of a Thundercat, a miserable feline of all people, over that of his own flesh and blood. Granted, he knew he was wrong in blocking WilyKit's memories and then consequently lying about it, but he had done it for what he thought was a good reason. Shouldn't that have counted for something?
Apparently not enough, Alluro thought bitterly. The entire situation made him miserable and furious at the same time. The worst part was that he wasn't even all that mad at Psiarik when it came down to it, or even at Darkail for that matter. He had to admit that Psiarik's anger at him was understandable, for he had been lying, and he had promised when they made peace five years ago that he would never do that to him. As for Darkail, his foolish actions Alluro attributed to the fact that the ambassador was blinded by a factor that ruled out all possibilities of clear thinking—the troublesome emotion known as love. No, he wasn’t really angry at them for it, so much as he was at himself… for not seeing this coming, for letting Darkail drag him into his mess, and for managing to screw up what he’d come to appreciate as a pretty nice life.
He glanced down at the radio and fought an urge to turn it back on. Though it had only been a little over a day since he'd left the MoonTower, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that he had missed something that he needed to know about. Yet he didn't dare to switch it on. There was no way he was about to risk giving away his location, no matter what had happened in his absence. Maintaining complete radio silence, to ensure not that he was not giving off even the slightest signal of his whereabouts and to render himself one hundred percent untraceable, was the only way he could be sure he kept his location a secret and himself out of lockup.
The feeling was sickeningly familiar to him. I'm getting too old for this, he thought, realizing that in the past five years he had forgotten just how depressing and stressful it was to live on the run. He thought about home and wondered how long it would be before he saw Chilla or Erissa again, or if he ever would see them again. He remembered that when he left, he had told Chilla that he'd be in touch with her. He never intended to stay away long, only long enough to cool off, but now that there was a warrant for his arrest…
Once again the silent radio beckoned to him, teasing him with the temptation to turn it on just for a few moments. Momentarily he reached for the console, but he pulled his hand back before he actually flipped the switch. No, whatever was going on, no matter how terrible or urgent (and he had a feeling it was something big), it would simply have to wait. There were more pressing things for him to do—namely, to find Darkail and bring him back to the Tower before they were both hauled in. He thought that if he could show Darkail how his carefully made plans had come undone, he would go with him and do what it was he'd wanted to do before everything had gotten out of hand—remove WilyKit’s mental block. It was probably too little, too late, not to mention a crazy notion that might very well land him in a holding cell for a very, very long time. But he had to do it. It was the only way to go back to the way things once were, and to somehow redeem himself in his son’s eyes, and that meant just as much to him as seeing his mate and other child once more. He shook his head and put his feet up on the console. It struck him then that maybe Darkail wasn’t the only one who had become irrational in the name of love.
The control panel then beeped loudly, telling him that he had reached the designated landing coordinates. He knew Serilune wasn't far from this area, Darkail had landed this same ship at them once before, the one time he had gone into the settlement with him a couple of years back. Alluro hadn’t piloted, but it was in the ship’s log, so with a simple match of a date he had determined where to land. The hike would prove more difficult, since he had made it a point to not pay attention to the way they went. All he could do was hope that fortune would smile upon him and lead him the right way. He quickly initiated the landing sequence and set the ship down, then climbed out of the craft into the dark, wild landscape. He took a deep breath and determinedly made his way into the thicket of trees.
He had gotten fairly far without incident when something made him stop dead in his tracks. There was no definable reason for it, but all at once an overwhelming sensation of fear struck him, telling him to turn around, run, and get the hell out of there while he was still able to do so. He looked around nervously, but saw nothing unusual, and heard nothing but the normal sounds of nighttime birds and insects. After several more moments passed and still nothing happened, he relaxed and dismissed his startled feeling as nothing more than a bad association he had with Hunter-Lunatacs in general.
As a rule, he'd never liked them... they were unpredictable, vicious, moody, and just plan weird. His fondness for Darkail was a rare exception. Alluro had taken a liking to him almost immediately... perhaps because he saw something in the ambassador's smooth, charming, and somewhat arrogant demeanor that reminded him of himself. Darkail also showed him a form of respect that few did, and that was something he came to value highly after spending so many years as Luna's bitching target. Darkail valued his opinion, and more often than not, listened to his advice on the occasions he asked for it. Alluro often felt that if he ever had a younger brother, or even another son, he would want him to be like Darkail. That association, combined with the fact he believed this had all happened because he hadn’t listened to him in the fist place, was why Alluro was so angry with the ambassador right now.
Alluro continued along on his hike through the rainforest, going on vague memory and gut feeling. He was fairly certain he wasn’t far from the Hunters’ village now. Judging by how long he’d been walking, and the sketchy details he recalled, he estimated that he was about half a mile or so away from where he believed it to be. If he was lucky, he’d be near enough to see it in about ten minutes.
As the Lunatac started on his way again, a fresh shiver of fear ran through his body. He tried to dismiss it, telling himself that it was irrational and that he was acting like some silly child who was afraid of the dark. His mental admonitions did no good. The hair on the back of his neck tingled and stood up on end, and every instinct he had was screaming for him to turn and run as fast as he could. It wasn’t in his nature to feel as timid as did at that moment, but he had a horrible feeling that he was being watched. Or more precisely, stalked.
He was.
All of a sudden Alluro knew that it wasn’t merely his imagination making him feel this way. The Lunatac instinctively reached for his psyche club, intending on using it to either hypnotize or bludgeon his would-be attacker (if there was one), depending on how suddenly the strike came (if it did). Before he could even do that, a powerful and impossibly swift force came out of nowhere and tackled him, pinning him against the jungle floor. He looked up to see that his assailant was a vicious-looking Hunter female. She was naked except for a small loincloth, her long and tangled evergreen hair tumbling in a wild mess over her shoulders and onto his shaking chest. She roughly pressed her talon-like fingernails against the skin of his throat, ready to rip it open, while her lips curled back into an angry snarl. Her eyes, narrowed and ablaze with suspicion and threat, met his in an unyielding gaze. "Give me one reason not to kill you, outsider," she demanded in a low hiss. "You’ve ventured into our territory without invite, and under our laws, that’s punishable by death."
He knew she wasn’t bluffing, and that scared him even more, as he didn’t have any physical means of defending himself at this point. For a moment he was struck with a strange feeling of deja vu. What now felt like a lifetime ago, he’d been in exactly the same position with a woman not too different from this one—Kalin. In fact, it was his experience with her that had made him have a healthy respect (if not outright dislike) for the Hunters. It had happened not long after he’d met her, and came about when he’d made the mistake of coming on to her in a rather sleazy manner. To put it mildly, she had been less than receptive, and had nearly killed him—literally—on the spot. He still shivered at the memory. First she’d punched him, with enough force to send him sprawling onto the floor, then she’d tackled him and slapped him hard across the face with her claws out, scratching him but good and drawing blood. While he had been wincing in pain and trying to catch his breath, she held her claws to his throat and told him in graphic detail what she would do to him and his male anatomy if he so much as even thought an indecent thought about her ever again. Her method of discouraging him had worked. Ever since, he had made it a point to stay out of the way of Hunters. Especially females.
Alluro forced himself to remain calm and met the eyes of his attacker. "I’m here to find Darkail. I assume you would know him?"
"All true Hunters know one another," she replied. "I know him." She kept her claws at his neck and watched him expectantly for further explanation.
"I’m a friend of his. I’ve even been to Serilune once before. Trust me, this is important."
"Hunters trust no outsiders unless we have reason to trust them," she informed him coldly.
"I’m not here as a threat to any of you and I’m not going to tell anyone any of your precious secrets," the hypnotic Lunatac told her, still able to convey a bit of arrogance and disdain despite the circumstances. "I only want to speak with Darkail."
The woman backed off a bit, lessening the force on his body slightly, but not enough to allow him escape without a struggle. "All right, so you know Darkail. So what?" she asked. "Who are you to him? He may have a life on the outside world, but when he or any other Hunter returns here it’s to get away from all that, when you and your kind, who don’t understand our ways, wear down on him. Why should I violate that sanctuary by bringing a reminder of that to him?" she challenged.
"Because he has things to answer for, not the least of which is royally screwing up my life," Alluro replied evenly.
The Hunter shrugged and got to her feet, releasing Alluro now that she had determined he didn’t pose any immediate threat. "So you expect me to go and disturb his peace for your petty outside world problems?"
Once he was free of her grasp, Alluro stood up and brushed himself off. Fortunately, for all their strengths, one weakness the Hunters did have was that they were not immune to the hypnotic abilities of the Psychic Lunatacs. Alluro flashed the woman a million-watt smile, summoned his most charming voice, and addressed her. "Of course I don’t. I would never ask something so unreasonable of you. All I ask is that you take me to him, and he and I can work it out from there. I'm not here to cause you or anyone else trouble. I simply want to talk to my friend."
The expression on her face softened, just for a moment, and her voice lost its edge. "All right, outsider. I’ll allow you into Serilune, but not unescorted. I will take you to Darkail directly and nowhere else. Follow me."
Alluro smiled. Seemed he still had his touch, even after all this time. "Lead the way."
After a twenty-minute hike with the female Hunter, who Alluro soon learned was a nineteen-year-old scout named Thiliana that had never been out of Serilune, the pair of them reached the limits of the settlement. Once Alluro’s hypnotic powers had settled her amazonish demeanor, he found her to be rather pleasant. It didn’t hurt that she was practically naked and had a very nicely toned, athletic body either. Of course, it was covered in dirt and scrapes from running around in the jungle, but hey, he wasn’t going to complain, especially since she had those claws.
As they walked she asked him about what it was like on the other parts of the Moons, and as soon as he mentioned he’d been off them and on other planets, he had her attention for the entire hike back. They had just reached the first building as he was telling her about Third Earth, and more specifically, the Warrior Maidens. Not surprisingly, they were quite fascinating to her. She was almost disappointed when they reached a building set a bit farther back from the road than the others. "This is Darkail’s place," she told him. "You may go in and see him, but as your escort I must stay here until you leave or he dismisses me and takes responsibility for your presence himself."
Alluro gave her a brief, but undeniably charming, smile and started for the door. "I understand, Thiliana. Thank you."
"Hey, maybe on the way back you could tell me more about Queen Willa of Third Earth?" she called out as he headed toward the building.
Alluro only smiled and disappeared through the doorway.
As he entered he wondered if he shouldn’t have knocked, but figured on second thought that he didn’t need to bother. From what he knew of Hunters, manners were not something they worried too much about. The place was surprisingly devoid of possessions or personal affects, save a few belongings of Darkail’s that he recognized and some pictures of Lunatacs, other Hunters, that he didn’t recognize. He wondered if they were his family. Then again, Hunters kept to themselves so much that they all probably weren’t too far apart on the family tree, he thought with a slight shudder.
He noticed some stairs to his right, and a kitchen-like room opening up behind the one he was standing in. He paused for a moment, determining which way to go, but settled on the kitchen. He figured that without air conditioning and in this jungle heat, a second floor was not anywhere he wanted to go unless he had to.
It turned out that the kitchen was empty as well. There was recently cooked food on the stove, however, and from a screened doorway on the opposite end of the room he could see a torch burning outside. He headed for the door and had just opened it about six inches when he heard Darkail’s voice address him from outside. "Why are you here, Alluro?"
Alluro saw the figure of his friend reclining on a lounge chair about six feet away on the patio. "You knew I was here?" he replied, surprised.
"Your voice carries," Darkail answered. "I could hear you talking to Thiliana out front. That small moon accent you have stands out here in Serilune, and no other outsider would know how to find me and manage to get past the scouts who guard our location. Except for maybe WilyKit," he added after a pause. He glanced up at him and motioned for him to come out, and pointed to a chair. "So is that why you came?"
Alluro closed the screen door and joined him on the patio. When he got closer he noticed that Darkail was coping with the oppressive heat and humidity of Serilune by foregoing clothing. It bothered him slightly, as that was hardly tradition where he was from, but didn’t say anything, and instead only sat down in the empty chair. "As a matter of fact, yes, that is why I’m here."
"I’m not changing my mind about the block. If you came all the way here to ask me that, you wasted your time. She doesn’t want to remember and I’m not going to break my word to her. I can’t bear to see her in pain any more than she can bear to be in it."
Alluro frowned and clenched his fist. The frustration that had been building since he left now started to boil. "She’s already in pain, you idiot," he snapped. "And if you didn’t want her to remember you, perhaps you should have thought of that before you did whatever it was that let her figure out that you’re the father of her unborn child. Your little disappearing act after that only made her ask more questions, ones that I had the unfortunate position of having to answer in your absence."
Darkail’s eyes flashed with both worry and anger. "You didn’t," he snarled.
"I had no choice," Alluro replied, the tension in his own voice matching Darkail’s. "She already knew she was pregnant by you without any help from me. Just what did you do to jog her memory, Dark? Jump in bed with her? Brilliant," he snorted sarcastically.
"You don’t know what the hells you’re talking about. She needed me that night, and I wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing when she looked so lost and afraid."
Alluro shook his head in disgust. "I knew it."
"I know I shouldn’t have, but what else could I have done? Would you be able to just ignore it if Chilla was suffering and needed you?"
"I would never block Chilla’s memories of me in the first place, so that’s quite irrelevant. But if I did have reason to do it, I certainly wouldn’t torment her or undermine my efforts in putting it there by following her around or, even worse, sleeping with her," he countered.
"Why do you think I left afterwards? I knew I couldn’t see her again."
"No, you knew you couldn’t face her again. You knew that if she remembered the Hunt—"
Darkail sprang from his reclining position and roughly grabbed Alluro’s arm. "You did not tell her about the Hunt?" It was more of an accusation than a question.
Alluro yanked his arm away and glared back at him. "No, I left that little tale for you tell her."
Darkail relaxed slightly. "What happened? What does she know?"
"You mean, what do they know," Alluro corrected him. The look of mild surprise on Darkail’s face as he said that would have made the older Lunatac want to laugh, had he been in a better mood. "Oh yes, Selene and Psiarik have become quite sympathetic to WilyKit and all her troubles," Alluro explained. "These ghosts that she’s been seeing have become pests to all of us at the MoonTower, enough so that they invited WilyKit’s twin and his spiritualist girlfriend to stay with us so they can all get to the bottom of it."
"Ghosts? Yes, that’s what she said happened the night she and I—the night before I left," Darkail said thoughtfully. "I found her crying, hysterical on the bathroom floor. She said some vengeful ghost was attacking her. I thought it was some side effect of the mind block, I thought she saw… him."
"The ghosts are real," Alluro informed him. "Not long after you left they started attacking more than just the Thundercat. They hit Luna—not that I could blame them for wanting to do that—and threw books at Frostor and WilyKit while the three of them were in the library. They also nearly killed all of us that night. Just about everyone took a hit, including me, and Chilla was knocked unconscious by one of them. The lioness and WilyKit took a fair bit of it too."
"Are they all right?" Darkail asked.
"As far as I know. I left shortly afterward."
"What happened?"
"During the attack, one of the ghosts claimed it wanted vengeance, loud enough for all of us to hear. WilyKit wanted to know why. Selene volunteered Psiarik to use his empathic abilities to see into her mind and try and undo the block I left. Fortunately I do good work, so he couldn’t get past it, but he did see what it was, and was not pleased to find it, to say the least."
"But he couldn’t have known it was you that did it, right?"
"It wasn’t that hard to guess. Not all psychic Lunatacs have the level of expertise I do and while Psiarik has no formal training in mental abilities, he has a lot of power, probably inherited from me in the first place. He knew enough to tell it was done by a pro, and it was only a short step in logic to tie you with me, given that he knew that it was memories of you that were blocked, and that I am one of your closer friends."
"Aside from what I shared once with WilyKit, you are my closest friend," Darkail corrected him.
Alluro sighed and shook his head. "And look what it’s gotten me."
"What happened next? Did you tell them?"
"Yes and no. Psiarik accused me straight out, and then I admitted that I did it."
"But you didn’t tell them about the Hunt? What did you tell them?"
"That you asked me to do it as a favor, and that you wanted it done for her own good. Psiarik didn’t believe it though, he sided with the poor little Thundercat," Alluro explained, his voice angry and bitter as he recounted the events. "He even accused you of paying me off to hide something you did that she knew. I argued of course, but there was no reasoning with him, you know how he gets. He flew off the handle about the lies and deception and how I’m the root of all evil and no good and even threw what I did to his mother thirty-some odd years ago in my face. Then he threw me out, and I found out about half an hour later on the radio, that he wanted both you and I arrested for endangering a diplomatic mission or some such nonsense."
Darkail took all of it in, then sat back down in his lounge chair. "So that’s why you came here."
"Yes."
"And what now, then?" he wondered.
Alluro stood and looked at him squarely in the eye. "You know what we have to do, Darkail. We have to go back and take off the block. It’s the only way."
"The only way what, that we’ll get thrown in jail?" Darkail replied sarcastically. He then buried his head in his hands and sighed in frustration. "It will destroy her to remember the Hunt, Alluro. She can’t stop agonizing over the fact that she willfully took someone’s life in the heat of the moment, even though the one she killed didn’t deserve to live anyway. She even told you herself the night she did it, she never wanted to remember that moment as long as she lived, she couldn’t bear to be tormented and haunted by it a second longer."
"She’s being tormented and haunted anyway," Alluro countered. "Her ghost is just as relentless as any memory from what I saw. It would be better to face him with the knowledge of what she did rather than without it and wondering why, and you can not only give her that, but when you do you can have her again, which is what you really want anyway, and you know it. And think, perhaps with that knowledge the spiritualist lioness could banish this ghost for good before it kills your WilyKit or someone else at the tower… like Chilla or Erissa or the boy Prince Silvian, for instance. Besides, I don’t think Psiarik would really be angry enough to throw us in jail if we voluntarily went there on our own to rectify things. And even if he did, Selene would probably turn around and let us out five minutes later."
Darkail looked up and smiled ruefully. "I knew your motives weren’t entirely unselfish."
"Of course not. I’ve already told you, I don’t give a damn about WilyKit other than in that you seem to care so much about her. I just want my life back in order, and after the lengths I went to for you, I don’t think this little favor is too much to ask, do you?"
Darkail frowned for a moment, wondering if Alluro was using any hypnosis on him to make him reconsider, or if it was just his own conscience acting up. He realized to his lament that it was probably the latter and sighed. "Yes, I’ll do it."
Alluro offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. "Good. Now get some clothes on and let’s get out of here."
***
Back in the military complex that was currently serving as the functioning center of operations for the Kingdom of the Moons of Plundarr, now that the MoonTower was gone, Frostor was catching a few hours of much-needed rest on the couch in his office. He could have retired to his quarters, gods knew he could use some sleep on a real bed as well as a change of clothes, but he didn’t want to be too hard to find in case there was any sort of news on the excavation of the ruin. If Selene and/or Psiarik were found, he wanted to make sure he could be there as soon as possible.
His light sleep was uneasy, for he had almost given up hope that they were alive. He remembered the disasters, and he knew the odds of surviving such a wreck—and they were pretty grim. The recent argument with Luna had done nothing to help his mood either. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he wouldn’t have bothered trying to sleep at all.
He awakened with a start when one of the royal guardsmen burst into the office shouting. "Sir, sir! We’ve found them! They’ve been rescued!" he announced, out of breath from running to find the Governor General.
Frostor nearly leapt to his feet. "You found them? They’re alive?" his voice was more surprised than anything else. Enough time had passed that he was expecting to find bodies, if anything at all.
The guardsman nodded. "Yes, they were found together underneath the last pile we excavated. We’re not sure how, but they both survived. Both are unconscious and in pretty bad shape, but they are alive. They’re on their way into the med facility as we speak, sir."
"Take me to them."
"Yes, sir."
Frostor grabbed his keys and security badge, and was about to head out the door when he remembered something, and hesitated. "Wait just a moment… there’s someone I need to talk to first. I’ll be back shortly." The guard gave him a curious look, but nodded in agreement, and watched in puzzlement as Frostor took off down the hallway.
When he got to the room he’d been heading for, he dismissed the guard who had been posted on duty outside it, and left him with instructions to relieve his partner, standing guard outside a room in the adjacent hallway, of his duty as well.
Frostor knocked on the closed door, then peeked his head in. "Luna?"
Luna, still sulking on the couch, barely looked up to glare at him. "Get out. I’m not speaking to you right now."
"Fine, Luna, don’t speak to me then, but at least listen. Selene and Psiarik have been found. I thought you would want to know."
"Alive?" Luna’s voice was hopeful, despite it’s anger.
Frostor nodded. "Yes. I’m on my way down to the med facility now. They aren’t in great condition, I was told, but alive is better than the alternative. I’ve already sent for Amok to be released from his detainment. He should be here any minute now. Then we can head over to see Selene and Psiarik right now, if you want."
"Oh, so you’re generously releasing me from house arrest, how thoughtful of you," grumbled Luna. "It’s about damned time."
"Luna, I told you about a hundred times already, it was in your own best—"
"—interests, yes, I’ve heard it before. And I still think it’s ridiculous and I still think that you’re full of it. You had no right to lock me up."
Frostor let out an exasperated breath. "I had no choice. Gods know you won’t just listen to me, oh no, you always have to go and have things your way, no matter what. Well I wasn’t going to stand by and watch you charge in there with Amok and wind up hurting yourself or someone else. It was something that had to be done by a professionally trained search and rescue team. You know I wouldn’t have had to detain you if you would actually listen to reason. How many times have I explained that to you now? Damn it, Luna, why are you so damned stubborn that you can’t get it through your thick head?"
Luna let out a loud screech of annoyance. "I don’t have to sit here and get a lecture from you, of all people! Now if I am free to go, then get out of my way! I am going to see Selene." Just then, Amok showed up at the door and barged past Frostor, going over to see his tiny mistress, whom he had missed for the time they were forcibly separated. After giving her an affectionate pat on the head, he picked her up and set her on his back, then carried her to the door.
"Let’s go," Frostor said, following the two of them out the door.
"Lead the way," Luna snapped. "But otherwise, don’t bother talking to me. I’m still not speaking to you."
Frostor sighed. "Whatever, Luna," he mumbled, too tired to argue, and started off down the hall. Luna and Amok followed behind him.
The three of them arrived at the military base’s med facility only to find Chilla, RedEye, Lushara, Vultureman, and Jackalman already assembled there. They too had been on the list of ones to be notified immediately if Selene and Psiarik were found. Luna looked around impatiently. "Where are they?" she demanded.
"They’re stabilized," a doctor, a Lunar-race Lunatac about five feet tall with purple hair, glasses, and aged in his late forties, informed her. "You must be Luna," he said, sounding as though he’d been told (or, more accurately, warned) about her. "I’m Melurne, the head doctor assigned to their case."
Frostor nodded. "He’s rated among the best surgeons and neurologists on this moon. I’ve seen him work miracles on some of the disaster survivors in the past."
"Neurologist?" Lushara questioned, somewhat startled. "I thought neurologists were only needed in cases involving—"
"Brain trauma, yes, that is what we’re most commonly known for," Melurne replied. "I’m afraid that their conditions were such that I was called into this case because of the possibility of neurological complications. You see, when they were brought in, both were unconscious, and his highness Psiarik… well, without getting into too much detail, he is in a deep coma that we are at a loss as to how to revive him from."
"A coma?" Chilla asked with a frown. While she wasn’t too happy with Psiarik at the moment, she didn’t want to see him die, if for no other reason than she knew what he meant to Alluro. Not that Alluro could even be here, she thought angrily, thanks to Psiarik’s earlier temper tantrum about Alluro hypnotizing the Thundercat. This is all WilyKit’s fault, Chilla thought angrily, her and her problems and her ghosts.
Melurne nodded gravely in response to Chilla’s question. "It appears that at some time before the MoonTower collapsed, he suffered a psychic attack of some sort, one that has somehow—for lack of a better term—locked up his consciousness." The others exchanged confused expressions and looked to Melurne for further clarification. "It’s hard to explain," the doctor continued, "We don’t even know the exact nature of it yet. Psychic attacks are still a very iffy area in medicine. We’ve been trying to get in touch with some medical authorities on the small moon to get some insight, but so far we’ve had relatively little luck. Otherwise, his physical injuries are not severe. Surprisingly enough, neither him nor her highness Selene were badly injured."
"And where is Selene?" asked Luna.
"In a room, resting. She has a few broken ribs, minor cuts and scrapes, and is rather weakened and dehydrated, but it’s nothing she won’t recover from in a short while. She regained consciousness not long ago. We’re keeping her under observation and giving her IV fluids for a few days, just to be on the safe side. I think it would also be a good idea that she not be upset right now. Stress in her condition would be very counterproductive."
"I want to see her." Luna demanded.
"I’ll allow it, provided the visit is short, there’s no more than a few of you in there at once, and that you do not stress her." Melurne said, giving Luna a pointed look. He had been filled in on what to expect in dealing with the infamous Lunatac.
Frostor gave a nod of agreement. "I understand. Luna, want to come in with me?"
She ignored him, and instead looked to Chilla. "Are you coming in Chilla? I assume Selene will want to know how Silvian is doing, and I was told that you’ve been watching him."
Chilla shrugged. "Erissa likes the kid, and that keeps her out of my hair. Sure, I’ll fill Selene in on how he’s been." Her tone was ambivalent, but that was expected. Chilla never showed much emotion, unless it was anger. She did genuinely like both Selene and her son, and truthfully hadn’t minded looking after him. If she had, she just wouldn’t have done it, and would have told them to stick the kid with someone else. When she wanted to be, Chilla could be even more stubborn and ruthless than Luna. As far as young Silvian went, the way she saw it, she already had one kid to deal with, so what was another temporarily? Besides, he was Alluro’s grandson, which made him a relative of sorts.
Melurne looked from Frostor, Luna, Amok, and Chilla, then spoke. "All right, that’s enough for now. I absolutely don’t want any more than the group of you four in there at a time. Now follow me." He turned and started down the hallway, with the others following behind. When they got to Selene’s door, he reminded them again to keep it short and lighthearted. Frostor entered first, followed by Luna and Amok, and lastly Chilla. Melurne then turned and left to check on Psiarik to give them a few minutes alone with Selene.
Selene sat up and blinked, focusing on the visitors. "Aunt Luna?" she asked in a tired voice. "Frostor?"
"We’re here," Luna replied, having Amok push her past the others and going to her bedside.
"You gave us a scare, Selene. What were you thinking, charging into that doomed building like that?"
"Psiarik needed me," she answered, then looked back and forth over their faces. "Where is he? Why isn’t he here with you?"
"He’s down the hall, he’s a patient here too." Frostor answered quickly, before Luna or Chilla said something blunt that might upset her. He didn’t like keeping things from her, but the doctor’s orders were orders, and he knew how she’d take the news that her mate was in a coma which he very might well never awaken from.
"He’s all right, isn’t he?"
"Well—" started Chilla.
"Don’t concern yourself with that now," Luna interrupted. "You have to get well. Your people need you."
Instantly Selene detected the undercurrent. "What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?" she asked, her voice rising in a tone of mild panic.
"He’s under a doctor’s care, Selene," Frostor told her. "There’s really no more we can tell you right now. We just got here. We haven’t seen him yet."
"Silvian will be glad to hear you’re ok," Chilla broke in, changing
the subject. "He’s been asking for you. I tried telling that doctor to
let me bring him here, but he’s being a jerk about it. Says kids have too
many germs or something."
The temporary distraction worked for the moment. "You’ve been caring for him?" Chilla nodded a yes. "Thank you, Chilla."
"No big deal," Chilla said with a casual shrug.
"So where is Psiarik, anyway? What room is he in? I’m going to go and see him." Selene started to stand, but Frostor blocked her way and gently pushed her back into a resting position.
"Forget it Selene, you aren’t getting up yet. The doctor said to let you rest."
"I’m fine," she argued. "I want to see him."
"I don’t think that’s a great idea." Chilla said quietly.
"Why?" Selene’s voice had a hint of worry in it again. "I know you aren’t telling me something. Is he hurt badly?"
Frostor sighed. "Just rest, Selene. Please."
"No." she said forcefully. "Stop dodging the subject and answer me. Now."
"He’s in a coma, Selene." Luna told her. "They haven’t been able to wake him up yet."
"Luna!" Frostor snapped at her, giving her a dirty look.
"She deserves to know the truth. She knew you were lying anyway." Luna retorted.
"You weren’t going to tell me?" Selene asked Frostor, getting even more upset.
"We were going to tell you when we were sure you could handle it. You are still recovering from a trauma yourself, and we had orders not to upset you. But some people don’t follow orders very well." Frostor explained, shooting Luna a nasty look.
Selene sat up and started to climb out of bed. "Aunt Luna was right to tell me! I need to see him."
"Like hell you do. Get back in bed!" Frostor ordered her.
"I’m not a child, and you don’t have the authority to order me around!" Selene snapped at him. "I am a Queen, and as a royal order I am telling you to get out of my way right now!"
"Selene, don’t you dare—" Frostor was cut off as Amok grabbed him and restrained him from stopping Selene. "Hey! Let go of me!"
Luna smiled at Selene and sat by while she climbed out of bed, disconnected the IV, and headed for the door. Chilla stood by, not sure whether to stop her or not. Selene looked to Luna. "Thank you, Aunt Luna."
"Think nothing of it, my dear."
Frostor shook his head and growled. "Both of you are absolutely impossible!"
Selene ignored him and ran, stumbling in tired state, into the hallway. Chilla followed her, and then Luna had Amok release Frostor and followed as well. Frostor hit the button to call the doctor in, then dashed out to find Selene. The Lunatac Queen meanwhile was making her way down the hall in a hurry, looking into each room she passed until she saw the room Psiarik was in. She went in and gasped when she saw him unconscious on the bed. Though she knew what she would find, it still shocked her. "Oh no…" she started to sob and leaned on the bed next to him, taking his hand in hers.
Chilla came in right behind her. "This is why they didn’t want to tell you," she said quietly.
Luna and Amok came in and stood by Chilla, while Frostor went over to the side of the bed. "Selene, please go back to bed," he pleaded. "I’m not trying to be mean or heartless. I know you love him, but there is nothing you can do for him, and it’s not doing you any good to see him like this."
"I don’t care. He needs me." Selene squeezed her husband’s hand tenderly. "Please, wake up," she whispered.
"Frostor is right, your highness," Melurne’s voice interrupted. He and a nurse stood in the doorway. "There is nothing you can do for him, and being out of bed and off of the IV in your dehydrated state is not smart. Please return to your room. You need your rest. We will see to it that he receives the best care possible. We also have the same obligation to you. So as your doctor, I am instructing you that the best thing you can do right now is go back to bed."
Selene shook her head. "How can you expect me to leave him like this? I want to be here when he wakes up." A look passed between Melurne, Chilla, Luna, and Frostor. "What?" asked Selene. "He is going to wake up soon, isn’t he?"
"Please go back to your room, your highness." Melurne urged.
"Isn’t he?" Selene demanded, a little louder.
"Selene—" Frostor started, a distressed look on his face.
"Answer me!" Selene pushed, growing more and more agitated. "He is going to be fine, right?"
Melurne took a deep breath. "We… we really can’t say at this point. His condition is physically stable, but he’s under the influence of some psychic attack that we have no way of undoing. There is no physical reason he shouldn’t be awake, or be able to be woken up, right now."
"A psychic attack… you mean what WilyKit… Torlei… she did something to him?"
Melurne’s eyes widened, and he gave Frostor a puzzled look. "WilyKit? A Thundercat did this to him? I had no idea that Thunderians had such abilities… the only ones documented as having any PSI abilities at all are cheetahs, snow leopards, and some strains of lions."
"I had no idea." Frostor replied. "I wasn’t there when it happened. Selene is the only witness still in contact with us. The other two… WilyKat and Leonora, both Thunderians, are on their way back to Thundera right now, to stop WilyKit and Mumm-Ra. They were the ones who destroyed the MoonTower."
"It wasn’t WilyKit." Selene told them. "It was Torlei, possessing WilyKit. She and Mumm-Ra were the ghosts that did all of those awful things."
"Oh, fuck," muttered Chilla.
Luna sighed. "My sentiments exactly. You know, we should have guessed. What two spirits would want revenge on us more than they would? It also explains why WilyKit suddenly went nuts and how Mumm-Ra ties into this, and why he appeared out of nowhere. He didn’t just show up. He was watching us for some time, probably pulling half of that ‘ghost’ crap and laughing at us while he did it."
"Wait… so you are telling me that it was a Lunatac spirit possessing a Thundercat that did this to Psiarik?" Melurne asked incredulously.
"Yeah, that about sums it up." Frostor replied.
Melurne closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Well that one sure as hell isn’t in the medical journals. Psychic attacks are hard enough to counteract. We don’t even have any Psychic-race Lunatac doctors around to look into it, and ideally the only one who could undo such a condition is the attacker himself—or herself as the case may be—or an equally powerful one of the same discipline."
"Her powers are amplified by black magic. She uses dark power from the Ancient Spirits of Evil themselves, doctor. Good luck finding someone who can match that qualification."
Melurne sighed. "Then there is only one thing we can do for him."
"What?" asked Selene worriedly.
"Pray to all the gods that he somehow finds the inner strength to counteract whatever she has done to him. Otherwise he’s lost to us for good."
Selene gasped and choked back a sob. "No! Don’t say that!"
"I’m deeply sorry, your highness, but that is the truth." Melurne told her sadly.
"No! I won’t have it! You are a doctor, damn you, do something for him!"
"Calm down, Selene," Luna said, growing a little concerned. She could see clearly how agitated Selene was getting. While she did think Selene had a right to learn the truth and see Psiarik, she did not want to see her collapse.
"You have to help him!" Selene shouted at Melurne.
"We are doing all we can. Now settle down and return to your room, your highness. You cannot be upsetting yourself like this."
Selene stood and faced him. "This is my husband laying on this bed here, and I won’t calm down until you do what you’re paid to do, and heal him! You can’t let him die! You can’t!" she shouted, growing hysterical.
"Selene, calm down. Please." Frostor interrupted.
"No, you have to do something, you have to…" she broke down and started crying.
Melurne took a few steps toward her. "I told you, we have been and will continue to do everything in our power to ensure his recovery. Now this has gone on long enough. As your doctor I must insist that you return to bed, right now."
Selene clung to Psiarik’s limp hand. "No, I won’t leave him."
"It is not an option, your highness." Melurne’s voice was firm. "Either you return to your room right now, or we will sedate you and take you there ourselves. You are not rational, and you are endangering your own health." The nurse who had walked in with Melurne drew up a syringe quickly, while Melurne took another step toward him.
"Selene, please…" Frostor pleaded.
Selene glared at Melurne. "Don’t touch me. I’m not going anywhere, and you can’t make me. I am a Queen, and I demand that get out right now!"
"That is out of the question. All right, have it your way then. Nurse?" Melurne reached forward and grabbed Selene’s arm. The slight Lunatac struggled in his grasp, yelling and protesting, but he was stronger than she was. Luna had Amok move forward, but Frostor glared at her, and against her instincts, Luna stopped Amok. She hated seeing Selene treated like this, but she knew that she shouldn’t interfere. The nurse grabbed Selene’s arm and injected her with the sedative. The two pulled the hysterical Selene away from Psiarik and out into the hallway. Luna tapped Amok and had him follow. She figured she could perhaps talk some reason to her before she passed out. Of anyone, Selene would probably listen to her.
Frostor collapsed into a chair near Psiarik’s bed and buried his face in hands. "Good gods… this is such a damned mess."
"She was getting a little nuts. She’ll be better after some sleep," Chilla told him. "Seeing him like this after all she went through, it’s no wonder she lost it."
"I know. She’s going to be furious at me. Did you see the look on her face when they took her out of here?"
"She’ll get over it," Chilla said calmly. She glanced at the door and then back at him. "Luna will talk to her."
Frostor let out a short, bitter laugh. "That’s what I’m afraid of. She’ll just make Selene even madder at me, since I’m not exactly high on Luna’s list of favorite people right now."
Chilla raised an eyebrow. "I thought you two were pretty close. What, is she still mad about you barring her from the search of the Tower wreck?"
"I’ll say. She’s not speaking to me at the moment."
Chilla snickered. "You must have really pissed her off if she’s not even willing to bitch at you."
"I guess I should be thankful."
"Definitely," Chilla replied. She and Frostor both smiled at her statement, then the serious mood settled over the pair of them once again. "You look tired," she said eventually to break the silence.
"I am. I haven’t really slept more than an hour straight since the night before the wreck." He rubbed his eyes for a moment, then glanced up at Chilla. "You look pretty worn out yourself."
"I’m fine," Chilla said automatically. In truth she didn’t feel fine, she felt exhausted and worried and lonely not knowing where Alluro was, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It was bad enough that she had her child constantly asking her where her father was and had to think of answers for her. She sure as hell didn’t feel like talking about it with adults. "Maybe we should both get some sleep."
"Maybe," Frostor agreed. He stood and walked toward the door. "Are you in the west quarters, Chilla? I haven’t really kept track of where they put everyone since—"
Chilla nodded. "West quarters, third floor. I think it’s supposed to be an officer’s suite, but they let me have it since it had two rooms and a bath. They put the kids in one and me in the other. Babysitting the prince has perks, I guess," she remarked. "What about you?"
"I have my own quarters in this place but I haven’t used them much except for military business that required me to stay here as of late. I guess it’s home now though, at least until the Tower is reconstructed. However long that might take," he finished with a tired sigh.
"Damn Thundercat," Chilla muttered. "I hate her."
"That was your old friend Torlei responsible for that, not WilyKit. Selene said it was just her body."
"Torlei is no friend of mine," Chilla corrected him in an icy tone. "At best she was an ally, and even that was years ago, before she died. The first time. Besides, WilyKit was the one who brought her and Mumm-Ra here with her. We were all doing just fine until she showed up and turned our lives upside down with her ghosts and her problems and her memory loss," she said venomously.
"A memory loss that wouldn’t have happened if Alluro hadn’t blocked it at Darkail’s request," Frostor reminded her.
Chilla’s eyes flashed with anger. "Leave Alluro out of this, and don’t you dare defend that Thundercat to me. I don’t want to hear it."
Frostor sighed. He did not want to get into another argument. Between the exchanges with Luna and Selene, he was already at his wit’s end. "I’m not defending anyone, Chilla, I’m stating fact."
"Then keep your facts to yourself," she snapped. "Because the only fact I see at this point is the fact that my home, your home, the place we all called home is sitting in a pile of rubble, and I have to sleep in a strange bed in a noisy, unfamiliar place without even the comfort of my mate with me to make it tolerable, and all of that can be blamed on that stupid inbred Thundercat, who should have been in a mental institution instead of here on a diplomatic mission in the first place!"
Chilla had been so intent on yelling, and Frostor so distracted by it, that neither noticed a guard standing three feet behind them until he loudly cleared his throat. Both turned and looked at him. "Yes?" Frostor asked, relieved at the interruption.
"Sorry to bother you, Sir, but—"
"Oh believe me, no apology is needed."
The guardsman cast a wary glance at Chilla, then addressed Frostor. "I came to tell you that the fugitives have been taken into custody. Darkail and Alluro came to us this morning and willingly surrendered."
"Alluro’s here?" Chilla asked hopefully.
"When did this happen?" Frostor demanded of the guardsman.
"They turned up about fifteen minutes ago, on the ship that Alluro took the night he left. They came back to the MoonTower, only to find… well…"
"To find it destroyed by that Thundercat and Mumm-Ra," Chilla finished.
"By Torlei and Mumm-Ra, but let’s not nit-pick," Frostor corrected her. "And what happened? They were captured at the wreckage?"
The guardsman shook his head. "Not exactly. They opened up all channels and requested information as soon as they saw what was left of the MoonTower. We sent an armed ship to greet them and told them if they came into custody quietly, there wouldn’t be a scene. They asked a lot of questions but we told them nothing. We wanted to wait for your orders, since you’re acting ruler with her highness Selene in the ICU and Psiarik in coma. And he was the one who ordered their capture to begin with, right Sir?"
Frostor nodded. "Yes. I’ll take care of them. Take me to where they’re being held immediately."
"I’m going with you," Chilla told Frostor. She gave him a look that said she clearly was not going to take no for an answer.
"Let’s go," Frostor said to them both. The guardsman acknowledged him with a brief nod and started down the hallway. Frostor and Chilla followed closely behind.
Less than five minutes later they came to a steel security door to a large room located centrally on the first floor. It was guarded by two armed officers, who stepped aside and keyed in the clearance code when they saw Frostor. They were surprised to see a civilian with the Governor General, but they didn’t question it, since questioning a superior officer was something that was simply not done in the Lunar-Plundarrian military. The door slid open and the two guards allowed Frostor and Chilla to enter, then closed the door behind them.
Seated in less than comfortable chairs in the highly guarded room were Darkail and Alluro. Both looked up when Frostor and Chilla entered, and despite the unpleasant circumstances, Alluro broke into a relieved smile when his eyes met those of his mate. He immediately stood and rushed toward her, but she met him before he was even halfway there, and the pair embraced one another tightly.
Darkail also stood up, but he did so slowly and deliberately, and eyed Frostor with an intense, yet startlingly calm gaze. "You did come," he stated, then took a few steps forward. "I wasn’t sure your people were going to actually honor our request to talk with someone of importance, with us being two of the Third Moon’s Most Wanted after all. I had hoped for Selene or Psiarik, since he issued the warrant for our arrest, but you’re the second in command beneath them, so that’s not too bad."
"You asked for who was in charge, so here I am," Frostor answered evenly.
"Fine. You know as well as I do that Alluro and I didn’t break any laws, Frostor. To my knowledge it’s not illegal to put a mind block on someone, unless it’s against his or her will. That was not the case with WilyKit. She not only gave permission, but specifically requested that it be done. How does that get turned into—what was the trumped-up charge again—criminal mischief and endangering a diplomatic mission?"
Alluro took his eyes off of Chilla briefly to address Frostor as well. "And when you’re finished answering him, tell me why Psiarik isn’t the one here explaining just that."
"And what happened to the MoonTower?" Darkail added. "Your men said Mumm-Ra destroyed it? How is that possible if he’s banished to another dimension?"
Frostor held up his hand. "If you’ll let me get a word in, I’ll tell you," he said. Both Darkail and Alluro settled down a little and waited for his explanation. "First of all, Psiarik didn’t come here to explain the charge he made against you because he can’t."
"Why not?" Alluro asked, a note of uneasiness seeping into his voice.
"Because he’s downstairs in the medical facility in a deep coma," Frostor answered somberly.
"He’s what?" A mixture of fear, guilt, anger, and worry flashed through Alluro’s eyes all at once.
"You saw the wreckage of the MoonTower when you tried to come back. Well, Selene and Psiarik were both inside when it collapsed on them. That happened yesterday, the day after you left. They were only pulled out of the wreckage earlier today. They’re lucky to be alive at all."
"What about Selene?" Darkail questioned.
"She’s all right," Chilla told him. "A little upset after what happened, but she’ll be fine."
"Psiarik they’re still not sure about. He suffered a psychic attack, they think that’s what’s keeping him unconscious."
"From who? How?" Alluro demanded.
"From your sister," Frostor told him. "Remember the ghosts that were plaguing WilyKit? They were none other than Torlei and Mumm-Ra, playing a very twisted game with the Thundercat as their pawn."
Alluro frowned. "But that’s impossible! I thought the ghost bothering WilyKit was—" The tall Lunatac cut himself off mid-sentence and clenched his fist in frustration. "Damn it! How the hell is it possible for Mumm-Ra and my sister to be responsible for this? Weren’t they banished at the Battle of the Swords?"
"That’s what we all thought, but apparently we were wrong," Chilla said. "According to Selene she possessed the Thundercat and used her body to attack her, the lioness, WilyKat, and Psiarik before she and Mumm-Ra the place. WilyKat and Leonora bailed before the Tower came down, but Psiarik and Selene didn’t make it out."
Alluro gently disentangled himself from Chilla and stepped toward the door. "I want to see my son, Frostor. Take me to him."
Frostor shook his head. "That would be a very bad idea, Alluro."
"Excuse me?"
"Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think he’d find your presence exactly welcoming right now."
"I don’t care what you think," Alluro argued angrily. "It doesn’t change the fact I want, no I demand, to see my own son when he’s in critical condition."
"Look Alluro, I’m really not trying to be a pain in the ass—"
"Yet you keep doing it," Chilla muttered.
Frostor glared at Chilla briefly then returned his attention to Alluro. "The doctors have advised that Selene and Psiarik not be stressed. I’m not going to undermine their efforts."
"I’m not going to stress him."
"That’s also what Luna said, and thanks to her Selene got so upset we had to forcibly sedate her just a little while ago."
Alluro narrowed his eyes. "I’d like to think I have a little better handle on my people skills than Luna, thank you very much. Besides, you said he was unconscious… what stress could I possibly cause him?"
Frostor took a deep breath and sighed. This was just not his day for having people listen to him, apparently. He figured it would probably be easier to humor Alluro than argue with him, so he reluctantly agreed. "All right, Alluro, you’ve got five minutes." He opened the door and beckoned for Alluro to join him. Alluro took Chilla’s hand and the two of them followed him to the medical facility.
***
A short while later, after Alluro spent a few pensive minutes silently at his son’s bedside and subsequently indulged in a short visit with Erissa, he returned with Chilla and Frostor to the secured room in which Darkail had remained behind.
The Ambassador had spent the time that the others were away mulling over all the new information he had just learned. WilyKit had succumbed to her demons and was now possessed by one. He wondered if he had allowed Alluro to undo the mental block when he had suggested, if she would have still been possessed. He had a feeling that the answer was no. Following that logic, Darkail wondered if her block was removed and WilyKit learned the truth once more, if that would give her the strength to fight the evil spirit that had possessed her and break free of her once and for all. He felt it was worth a try, at any rate.
"You’re back," Darkail greeted the three of them as they walked into the room. "How did it go?"
"Psiarik didn’t flatline when I visited him, so I guess it went well, all things considered," Alluro answered. "It was spooky and unnerving to see him like that, and it makes me furious to know that my sister is responsible for it. Even though I know I shouldn’t at this point, I still find it shocking that she could really hate me that much."
Darkail stood and smoothed his long green hair into place. "I was thinking about the situation while you were gone… and I have an idea."
"What’s that?" Alluro asked.
"If Torlei was able to possess WilyKit because she used what WilyKit didn’t remember—because of the block—to manipulate her to agree to the possession, wouldn’t it stand to reason that if WilyKit remembered the truth, she would lose her hold over her? Maybe if we can find WilyKit and take off the block—"
"Not necessarily," Alluro corrected him. "It’s possible, but depending on her strength, WilyKit may not be able to break out of her hold even with that knowledge."
"But it might work, right?"
"It might."
"Where are Mumm-Ra and WilyKit, anyway? Do you know?" Darkail asked Frostor and Chilla.
"Either headed to or on New Thundera," Frostor answered. "WilyKat and Leonora left shortly after they did hoping to warn their people about it."
"Just like the cats to come and wreck our lives and then take off," Chilla muttered.
"Then that settles it, I’m going to Thundera to find WilyKit," Darkail said.
"You’re not going to find her, Dark, you’re going to find my sister and her dark mage of a mate." Alluro sighed. "And you have no idea what you’re dealing with."
"That’s why you’re coming with me, Alluro," Darkail added with a slight grin. "Because you do know how to handle your sister and Mumm-Ra, and you can remove the block and help bring my WilyKit back to me."
Alluro blinked. "I can’t go with you to Thundera, not with my son in a coma and our home in a state of utter upheaval."
"Besides, he just got back," Chilla added.
"And you two are technically under arrest, remember?" Frostor reminded Darkail.
Chilla frowned. "You’re not really going to make that stupid charge stick, are you?"
"I don’t really have a choice, Chilla… I won’t sentence them or anything but they should be at least held under house arrest until either Psiarik or Selene is in well enough condition to make the call on it."
Alluro thought about it for a moment, then a hint of a smile crossed his lips. "How about a deal then, Frostor?"
The Governor General made a face. "I know I won’t like this, but go ahead. What is it?"
"Our so-called crime was putting a mental block on WilyKit and endangering her diplomatic mission, right? Or something along those lines?"
Frostor nodded.
"If Darkail and I were to go to New Thundera and undo WilyKit’s block, she could then testify that we didn’t do anything against her will or cover anything up. You know she’d tell the truth, because she’s a Thundercat and you know they can’t lie or Jaga would probably appear and strike them with lightning or something if they dared to violate their precious code. Therefore her testimony would prove we’re not guilty of any crime and no harm would be done in letting us go."
"And if you don’t succeed?"
"Then our act of breaking some bullshit law that Psiarik thought up in fit of rage will be the least of any of our worries. If Torlei stays in WilyKit’s body and we can’t stop her and Mumm-Ra, I can guarantee that they will see to it that we all die for our part in the Battle of the Swords."
Frostor considered what Alluro said for several moments. "All right. I probably shouldn’t do this, but what the hell, I’m in charge, right? You’re both damn lucky that I like you and that I also agree that having you arrested was a rather childish and overly dramatic move on Psiarik’s part. I’ll allow you to leave, provided you take your own ship and go to Thundera on it. Don’t make me regret this."
"You have our word, Frostor," Darkail said solemnly.
"Yes," Alluro agreed. He then turned to Chilla, who was looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face. "Do I get a kiss goodbye?"
"You don’t deserve it for running off again so soon, but all right." Chilla stood on her tiptoes and brought her lips to his for a short but meaningful kiss. "The ‘welcome back’ one will be better," she informed him, then released him from their embrace.
Alluro grinned. "I look forward to it."
Frostor opened the door and the four of them stepped out in the hallway. He ordered one of the guardsmen to escort Alluro and Darkail to their craft. "Good luck," he called after them. Alluro and Darkail each smiled back confidently at the two Ice Lunatacs, then disappeared around the corner. "I have a feeling you’ll need it."
***
Far off in the lost void in which she and Psiarik were still trapped, WilyKit faced away from her spectral tormentors and struggled to maintain what was left of her composure. "No," she choked out hoarsely. "It’s not true."
"What, do you think you’re too high and mighty to face damnation for your acts, Thundercat?" Grune sneered derisively. "Wrong." His deep, mocking voice echoed loudly throughout the empty realm.
"But I haven’t done anything!" she cried desperately. She clenched her fists and jaw, trying to stop another wave of frustrated tears from spilling down her cheeks. "What did I do? If you know then tell me, because I don’t know!"
Psiarik put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around to face him. "Don’t let them get to you. They want to wear us down. We can’t let them."
Kalin let out a hearty, twisted laugh. "Of course we do! Your desperation is so entertaining."
Psiarik acknowledged Kalin with little more than a disgusted glare, but the momentary diversion was enough for Grune to approach WilyKit from behind, his ghostly form invading her personal space. Immediately WilyKit spun around and came face to face with the dead sabertooth. Grune chuckled malignantly at her obvious distress, taking a perverse pleasure at the distraught look in her eyes.
She couldn’t stand his maddening behavior for more than a few seconds. "What?" WilyKit screamed at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You really don’t know why you’re here in the realm of the damned." He laughed. "That’s even more pitiful than denying it."
"W-what do you mean? Do you know?"
Grune grinned. "I know what you did. We all do."
"Yeah, her body was possessed, and her soul sent here by the same one who did it to me," Psiarik said, unimpressed by Grune’s theatrics.
Kalin’s spirit slid behind Psiarik and wrapped itself around his more substantial form like a boa constrictor preparing to strike at its prey. "That only explains how she’s here, not why. There are many places a displaced spirit can go… though they all must go where the path they have chosen takes them," she said, tightening her grip around the still-mortal Lunatac. "Nothing happens without a reason, and believe me, there’s a good reason she’s here in such fine company as Grune and myself. A very good reason."
Instinctively Psiarik wrenched himself away from Kalin’s hold. While as a ghost she was intangible, there was still something undeniably suffocating about her presence, and he wanted no part of it. He looked toward WilyKit, but her attention was fully captured by the magnetic and dark presence of Grune’s spirit. "He’s drawing you in, WilyKit," Psiarik called out. "Don’t let him."
If WilyKit heard him at all, she ignored his words entirely. "What do you know about me, Grune?" she asked. The hostility in her voice had faded, replaced by a fearful, yet curious tone.
"Everything," was the specter’s sinister reply.
"Everything?"
"Everything," he confirmed. "Including what happened in your lost months—Darkail, your time together, and most importantly, the Hunt."
As he spoke the last two words, she was flooded with an overwhelming feeling of dread. Something about that phrase made her heart skip a beat, and her stomach feel as though it was in a vise grip. "The Hunt?" she questioned nervously. "What is the Hunt?"
As soon as he heard Grune mention the Hunt, Psiarik froze where he stood. Though the Hunters weren’t his race, most Lunatacs, himself included, knew enough about the ceremony to know basically what it involved, especially on the Night of Challenge. While the idea of the Hunt itself wasn’t shocking to him, the notion that WilyKit would willingly participate in such a bloody ceremony was.
Something Alluro said to him on the night they had their argument over the issue of WilyKit’s mind block suddenly came back to him. "Maybe whoever did it had a good reason. Perhaps whatever she forgot will torture her worse than whatever she is suffering now, and the individual who put that block there did it for her own good." Psiarik looked away for a moment, pondering the implications of that along with Grune’s statement. My gods, he blocked her participation in the Hunt, he realized. It made perfect sense and no sense at all at the same time. She couldn’t live with what she did, so Darkail had Alluro make her forget it altogether.
Grune meanwhile continued to delight in tormenting WilyKit with her unanswered questions. "What’s the Hunt, you ask? Oh, I could tell you," Grune told her, "but I think I know someone else who’d much rather tell you that story." Kalin rejoined Grune’s side as he finished speaking, and both ghosts immediately broke out into malevolent grins.
"Who?" WilyKit asked.
Disturbed by the amused look on the dead sabertooth’s face, Psiarik stood closely behind WilyKit. He had a feeling that momentarily she would need all the support she could get. Seconds later a sinister beam of light appeared in the air in front of Grune and Kalin. The malevolent light shimmered brightly, so intense that it momentarily blinded the living eyes that watched it, before it took shape and faded to reveal the form of a third ghost.
WilyKit gasped and stepped backwards when she saw his face, stumbling against Psiarik. Had he not been there she probably would have fallen to the ground, but the Lunatac caught her and righted her balance so she remained standing. It was fortunate for her that she did, for as soon as her eyes locked with the maniacal, violent eyes of the specter that now stood before her, she nearly lost the last of her strength.
She did not yet understand the reason for the fear and revulsion she experienced as she looked into his dead eyes. To the best of her current knowledge, she never knew this man. He was, or had been in life, a Lunatac, and aside from the few she had met as of late she was certain that she would have remembered meeting this one if she had ever crossed paths with him. He was unusual in appearance for his kind. His natural coloring sharply contrasted with itself, most notably his hair and skin, the first of which was a dark evergreen and the second of which was a pinkish purple, marking him as being of mixed-race descent. While that wasn’t any less common among the Lunar-Plundarians as it was among Thunderians, she had yet to ever see a mix that had Hunter blood until now. From the man’s features it was obvious that in life he had been at least half Hunter, for he had the hair, wide-set eyes, clawlike fingers, and graceful musculature of their kind. In contrast, his skin tone, especially in combination with the blue highlights about his eyes, as well as his tall and intimidating build, indicated that the other half of his roots likely came from the Psychic race.
Everything about the spirit radiated a calculating and twisted evil that made WilyKit’s blood run cold. She knew instantly that she loathed and despised him, but at the same time she felt terrified, panicked, and for a reason she did not yet understand, very, very guilty. "Who… who are you?" she asked weakly.
Unlike his Thundercat companion, Psiarik recognized the man immediately. "Demrock," he addressed the phantom.
"So you remember me," the ghost replied in a condescending, angry snarl. "Strange that you would and she wouldn’t, though."
WilyKat glanced up at Psiarik. "You know him?"
The Lunatac narrowed his eyes in disgust. "Yes, I’ve dealt with him."
"Yes," Demrock growled, glaring at Psiarik for a moment before refocusing on WilyKit. "But it’s with the Thundercat that I first want to settle my score." With rage in his eyes, he lunged toward her, intent on choking her. She yelped and leapt back before he could touch her with his terrible bloody hands, and swung her legs at him in a defensive kick. Her foot harmlessly sailed through his transparent form. "Sorry, Thundercat, I’m a ghost, you can’t do anything more to me."
"What do you mean?" WilyKit cried back. "I don’t even know you!"
"Don’t know me?" the ghost snarled indignantly, "Thundercat, you killed me!"
WilyKit gasped in horror, feeling a physical shock like she’d just taken a hard blow to her gut. She stared at the spirit in disbelief, but deep down she feared—or even worse, she knew—that it was true. "No," she protested, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I couldn’t. I didn’t." Her voice grew louder in its desperation and hopelessness, while her body started to tremble and shake violently with each passing moment, until she let out a loud, defiant scream. "NO!" The distraught Thundercat then collapsed to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
"So you’re the one she killed on the Hunt," Psiarik stated, his voice eerily calm given the situation. He then laid a hand on WilyKit’s shoulder for support and narrowed his eyes at the dark spirit. "Good for her," he said in a low, hateful tone.
WilyKit looked up briefly at Psiarik with tear-stained, accusing eyes. "What? This ghost claims that I killed him and you say you’re happy about it? Why?" She tried to stifle another angry sob. If it turned out that he was against her too, she didn’t know what she’d do.
"Anyone that wiped him off the face of the moons should be commended in my opinion," he explained. "He was a sick bastard that deserved to die. Do you remember who he is and what he did in life? Why he was the prey in the Night of Challenge to begin with?"
WilyKit shook her head. "No."
Psiarik cast a second glare at Demrock, who was now standing in front of Grune and Kalin. The three of them were watching the scene between the two living beings with a twisted delight. "He killed children, WilyKit. After spending days, sometimes weeks, torturing them and reveling in it. Some of them were street kids or runaways, but some he’d steal right from their own backyards and take them to whatever place he used as his home and do unthinkable, sick, and depraved things to them. One—the only one—who escaped provided the information we needed to capture him said that he’d get pleasure from hearing them scream and cry for help… and then, if they didn’t die first, he’d kill them when he got bored, and find another. And another."
"Gods, that’s horrible," WilyKit whispered, still shaking.
"He did it sixteen times that we can prove."
"And another eight that you missed," Demrock said with a sneer. "But let us not quibble over details." He hovered a little closer to WilyKit and forced her to lock gazes with him. "It’s too bad that you killed me, when you did, Thundercat. I would have loved to play with your unborn cub someday, too…" Before she even realized that she did it, WilyKit growled at him furiously and moved to strike, but the ghost darted upward and laughed it off. "What are you going to do, Thundercat?" he challenged. "Kill me?"
"He was a loathsome parasite, WilyKit," Psiarik interrupted. "If indeed you did kill him on the Hunt, you did the universe a favor by removing him from it."
"But he says I took his life… that’s wrong… how can that ever be justified? How can you justify it?"
"Who do you think sentenced him to death?" he retorted. "The criminals vile enough to wind up sentenced to being the prey on the Hunters’ Night of Challenge are the worst of the worst, and under our laws the fate of those individuals is always decided by the acting rulers. Selene is too compassionate and forgiving to handle doing it without it wearing on her psyche and depressing her, so to save her the stress, the responsibility of sentencing generally falls to—"
"You," WilyKit finished.
Psiarik nodded. "Yes. And believe me, I have no regrets in sentencing slime like that man over there to death, and for him to die like a hunted animal in the Night of Challenge is more than fitting after what he did."
"You’re so arrogant," Demrock sneered bitterly. "No wonder Mother hated you enough to send you here with the feline."
"Mother?" both Psiarik and WilyKit repeated questioningly.
All three of the ghosts laughed ominously. "It’s a very small universe, isn’t it?" Grune laughed. "So small sometimes that the irony of it is almost funny."
"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded WilyKit. She was starting to lose her patience, along with her mind.
"Fate," Kalin told her. "And how it works out. Your mother detested what I helped Grune to become, and here, thirty years later, her daughter—the one she conceived on the night that she betrayed him—has effectively become the very man she turned against so many years ago."
"That’s not true!" she screamed angrily. "I’m nothing like him! I’m not!"
"I wonder if Darkail would back that up," Grune taunted. "Or what about Demrock here? Or your self-righteous lord Lion-O and your fellow Thundercats? What would they say about a Thundercat born on the Hour of Darkness that broke their sacred Code of Thundera after falling for a green-haired stranger on the Moons of Plundarr? Go on, ask Tygra that little question and see how he answers it. I’m sure—"
"Stop it, stop it, stop it, STOP IT! JUST SHUT UP!" she shrieked at him, then collapsed sobbing against Psiarik. "It’s not true. It’s not."
"I know it’s not," Psiarik assured her. He faced the ghosts angrily. "She is nothing like you, Grune. WilyKit never turned her back on her people or sold them out for her own personal gain. She never let her entire existence be consumed by hatred and revenge… whatever her motivations for going on the Hunt were, I’d bet a fortune in credits that they weren’t anything like yours, sabertooth."
Grune laughed. "And your faith in her would be admirable, if it weren’t so misguided. Who is she to you that you would care enough to defend her?"
"She’s a friend and someone who needs my help. I think that’s a concept long forgotten to someone like you."
"Loyalty gets you nothing but a stab in the back, Lunatac. It was your kind that taught me that, more than once," Grune snarled.
Demrock laughed. "And how ironic that you of all people would stand here talking about it. Betrayal seems to be a curse that runs on your side of the family."
Psiarik glared at Demrock scornfully. "You know nothing about—"
"Oh, but I do," Demrock interrupted. "WilyKit’s similarity to Grune isn’t the only connection here we find somewhat entertaining in its irony."
"What do you mean?"
"Don’t tell me you don’t see the family resemblance, cousin?"
Psiarik went pale at his statement. "What? But you’re a Hunter…"
"Half Hunter," he corrected him. "Surely you noticed I don’t look like the other Hunters. Though I never met her until after I died, I was told more than once growing up that I looked more like my mother… your father’s sister…"
"No," Psiarik said with a shake of his head. "That’s not possible. Torlei had no children."
"None that she acknowledged, but she gave birth to one when she was fifteen years old, by a Hunter named Demlin. It was not her choice, of course—like me, Father had more fun when his playthings were young and unwilling like she was." The Lunatac ghost cocked his head slightly and laughed at the surprised expression on Psiarik and WilyKit’s faces. "But I’d be willing to bet if I asked, that she’d say she no longer hates me for what Father did to her… yes, she would embrace me now… because her partner and I are her only family… and because there are others that she has since grown to hate far, far more. Ones who betrayed her in life, and who worked to make her afterlife a living hell… so to speak." Demrock smiled coldly at Psiarik and WilyKit. "I’m sure you know who I mean."
Kalin laughed. "Funny how all those years I knew Torlei back in the city, that I never realized that she was the quiet, morose young mother of Serilune’s only living half-breed child that stayed in my village so many years before. Isn’t fate just full of surprises?"
"And just as your father allowed my mother to die and defended her killer, you sent me to my death and defend my killer… who, despite their best efforts, has turned into everything her own people dreaded that she would become—and worse, now that Mother controls her, I imagine. I wonder how many she’ll add to the body count you’ve already started, WilyKit." The evil spirit let out a bitter, cackling laugh. "If I weren’t so personally involved in this little melodrama, I’d find it quite funny."
"No," WilyKit cried. She clenched her fists in frustration as her tears began to flow once more. "It can’t end like this! It can’t! There’s got to be a way..." Her voice faded as she broke into sobs.
"It’s too late to stop it now, kitten," Grune sneered from the shadows. "It was too late for me and it’s far too late for you."
"There’s got to be," she sobbed, but as she cast a long, teary look at the unforgiving and cold faces of the ghosts and listened to the harsh reality of their words, the last remains of the mental block placed on her those months ago crumbled entirely. Instantly terrible memories, ones that were ten times more horrible than any nightmare she might have had, flooded her consciousness. She saw the ceremonies of the Hunt one by one. She remembered killing the bird of prey on the Night of Air, slaughtering the small Mepirs on the Night of Fire, how she dove and strangled one of the killer fish on the Night of Water, and relived the rough and deadly wrestling match that she and Darkail fought against the bear-like creature from the Night of Earth. She remembered sitting with her lover at the fire in Serilune’s square, gutting and preparing their kills to be eaten, and she remembered the feral, intense way that she and Darkail had made love to celebrate their victories. And then she remembered the worst night of all—she remembered every last, horrifying detail of the Night of Challenge.
She and Darkail had taken the Eastern route to chase their prey. There was a river in that direction, one that they figured would attract their prey as an easy means of not getting lost and following a path far enough away from Serilune to avoid their fate. Darkail had told her that the smartest and most challenging of their prey would take such a route. So they followed the river. It wasn’t long before WilyKit’s feline senses picked up on the scent of another Lunatac close by, one who had the semi-familiar scent of a Hunter, but one who also had a strong scent of fear about him. Caught up in the bloody thrill of the Hunt, she gave chase. Her mind at the time had rationalized her murderous intentions away, saying that the act wasn’t wrong because those who were there condemned criminals marked for death, and that the chase and kill was a sport that would fine-tune her skills as a Thundercat. She didn’t really think it was wrong, until the moment to strike came, and she pounced on her victim.
The man she landed on was a Hunter, but he was a half-breed, which explained the familiar, yet strange scent she’d picked up on. He fought her roughly and put up a chase and struggle that lasted for the better part of half an hour, until she claimed an advantage and pinned her to the ground. When the time came for her to deliver the fatal blow, she wavered for a second, a surge of conscience welling up inside her, telling her that what she was about to do was wrong. At that moment, she almost changed her mind.
"I know you won’t kill me, Thundercat," he had said to her. "Your kind is too merciful, too weak for it. I can see it in your eyes that you haven’t the stomach to kill."
She lessened her grip the slightest bit. He had struck a nerve. Did she really want to be a killer?
"That’s right," the Lunatac said quietly, "let me go. No one will have to know."
"You’re here because someone thought you deserved to die," she told him evenly. "Why?"
"Does it matter? You don’t want to kill me, do you?"
"Did you hurt someone?"
The Lunatac took advantage of her distraction in questioning him by delivering a hard blow to her midsection and knocking her off of him. "Yes," he growled. "And now I just hurt one more." He rolled over and pinned her to the ground beneath him. "Except you aren’t my usual type. You’re too strong. I like them weak, too weak to be as much trouble as you… but you’ll still do."
She clawed desperately at him, trying to get him off of her. He wrapped his long fingers around her throat and started to choke. He let out a twisted laugh as she gasped and flailed beneath him. Though she ran with the Hunters, it was obvious to him, as one who was raised by them, that she’d never seriously tangled with one before. He was strong enough to crush her throat with one hand, which, to his twisted delight, left the other one free to do her more harm. He drew his claws along the length of her body, exposed and vulnerable since it was devoid of clothing for the ceremony, breaking the skin and leaving a long, bloody trail from her chest to her thighs. "It’s unusual for a feline to be among the Hunters. Your lover must be one… I can smell him on you. Was it he who convinced you to go on this ceremonial night of bloodlust, Thundercat?" He clutched at the tender skin on the inside of her thigh, puncturing it in several places.
WilyKit squealed and struggled more violently beneath him, but wasn’t able to break out of his deadly hold other than for a few ragged gasps of breath. "I wonder what it is that he finds so exciting about you… think he’d mind if I went and found out?" He inched his hand poisonously up the length of her thigh until he reached her most private spot, and roughly thrust his hand in, invading and tearing at her tender flesh with his clawed fingers.
An adrenaline wave of panic and rage surged inside her, and she tapped into a reserve of strength she didn’t realize she still had. Somehow she managed to roll out from underneath him, roaring like a wild beast as she did so, and physically threw him off. She scrambled to her feet before he recovered. She realized at that point she could have run away, but she didn’t want to run. She was too angry, too infuriated to run. Instead she pounced on the Lunatac again and slashed at him violently with her own claws. "And to think I almost spared you," she snarled. "I won’t make that mistake again."
She struck him as hard as she could in the side of the head, not giving him the time or the opportunity to recover between blows. When her fist started to ache from striking his skull, she then picked up a rock and let it do the dirty work for her. He put up a good struggle against her, but he could not match her. Somewhere inside her a voice pleaded for her to stop, but just like Grune had not listened to it so many years earlier, neither did WilyKit. She instead listened to her anger and her rationalizations, telling her that he deserved to die and would only hurt others like he had before and like had just tried to do to her if she let him live. Somehow in her blind rage and thirst for blood she became convinced that it was not only right, but that it was her duty to kill him, and that she should embrace it and carry it out.
And she did.
And now months later, trapped in a realm of emptiness and darkness, facing the ghost of the man she killed and the evil spirits of others who enjoyed watching her in her torment, standing nearly alone in a lost oblivion of misery, she remembered and relived that terrible moment once again.
She screamed, over and over, unintelligibly and inconsolably, as the memories came pouring back to her in a terrible deluge. Psiarik tried to reach to her and comfort her in her pain, but she couldn’t hear or feel his words or touch. She cried her agony until her lungs physically hurt, and when she could scream no more, she collapsed altogether.
Psiarik caught her and held her when she fell, not knowing what else to do. The three ghosts circled around the two of them like hungry vultures. "You might as well accept your fate and embrace damnation with the rest of us," Kalin hissed coldly. "You don’t have a choice. There’s no way back."
"There has to be," Psiarik replied with quiet defiance, though now his own voice was now taking on a tone of despair and hopelessness. He looked around, but saw nothing in the dark void that surrounded them except for the three spirits that haunted them.
"But there isn’t," Grune laughed. "Too bad for you."
Suddenly out of nowhere his spiked club materialized in his hands, and he tapped it against his palm anxiously. Kalin and Demrock also poised to strike, and their Hunter claws seemingly grew several inches in length so that they looked twice as deadly. As he instinctively backed away, Psiarik noticed that the spectral eyes of their tormenters now glowed with a sinister light of added evil power. He held WilyKit tighter, half protectively and half out of outright fear for both of them. The three wicked spirits, cackling in their impending victory, then tightened their suffocating circle around mortal pair and moved in for the kill.
Continued...
How cute, Chilla is looking after children. Main page.