Arrival of the Prophecy (28 page)

His head hung over his tray deep in thought, when he felt the solid
wet chunk of meat hit him in the side of the face. He raised his head slowly, looking
with the piercing eyes that normally scared every man he looked at, only this
time his head never even made it up half way before a wad of mashed potatoes
splattered from his forehead to the bottom of his nose. Both of the girls had
their eyebrows raised when he stood up wiping the food off of his face, and they
rolled over on their backs, laughing so hard that they never saw him get the
peas in one hand, and mashed potatoes in the other.
Dillan
put his overly full hands behind his back, nodding, laughing, half bent over as
he walked to the other side of the bed, as the girls giggled harder.

“That was really funny, huh?” he asked.

Both hands came around and
Dillan
dove
forward smearing a green streak across Cara’s face, and a white chunky one up
Tara’s, right into her nose, and across both eyes. They yelled out in laughter
grabbing his arms and accidently rolled him right over their dinner trays. “Awe!”
he yelled, then grabbed them and pulled them down on top of his waist, trying
to hold them with one hand as they all dug around for mushy food, then he
rubbed it in whoever’s face he was touching. All of the sudden he felt a warm
feeling running down his side and knew one of the girls just went to the ‘rest
room’, and no sooner than he thought it, the other relieved herself too.
Dillan
lifted them up and slid off the bed. He looked down
at his urine covered shirt then ripped it down the middle, instead of pulling
it over his head.

“Hey, I have a fun idea,” he smiled. “
Wanna
play in a rain box?”

Dillan
had talked
the girls into taking a shower, that had three different shower heads, one that
rained down like a thunderstorm over head. He was also able to add cream rinse
after he washed their hair, finding full bottles of both on a shelf in the
shower. He took a comb and worked it down through the girl’s hair while they
were still playing in the water. They all had soaked clothes on, so he slipped
out, grabbed a towel and went in search of finding them all something else to
wear. He ended up bringing the girls back two different
colored
sweat suits, hoping that he could explain the use of the toilet, and more so
hoping they were smart enough to understand the meaning behind it.

Once they were dressed in their sweats, and him in another pair of
jeans from his father’s closet, he walked them over to the chair that they’d
found
humor
out of earlier playing with the lid.
“This is where you relieve yourself,” he said, then scratched his head. “You go
pee-pee in this, watch.” Then he pulled down the handle that flushed it, and
watched in amazement as they jumped back. He did the only thing he could think
of; he pulled down his pants and took a seat, relieving himself. He looked up
with an exciting gasp, then reached around and flushed the toilet a second
time, before standing back up. It was Cara that made the first move to sit down
on the open hole, getting back up as soon as her backside touched, but then
eased herself back down.

Dillan
felt like
he had accomplished an enormous feat, after both girls used the bathroom like
two normal female
wereboars
, and went down and found
them some ice cream to show how proud he was of their progress. Soon after he
had them tucked into what was more than likely the first real bed that they had
ever slept in.
Dillan
stayed in the room until they
were completely out,
then
made his way down stairs
where Thomas and Charles were waiting. It was time to seek what he had come to
find.

Charles took them back down through the basement, passing what
Dillan
had thought was the last door of his sister’s prison.
But, Charles went further, pushing on the back wall that looked like solid
cement. Charles put his shoulder into it and grunted with the force of the
shove, making the wall give way to a small passage barely big enough for a
small man to squeeze through. Thomas pulled Charles back then leaned in for an
inspection of his own, then looked back and nodded at his leader.

“It’s the only way to reach his grave,” Charles raised his shoulders.
“The other entrance was sealed after your father died.”

“Then lead the way,”
Dillan
replied,
noticing the wrinkle that appeared on Thomas’ forehead. “If my father had this
passage placed here, then he used it. He was no small man, if he fit, so will
you.”

“The height isn’t so bad,” he replied gripping his mid-section, “it’s
my width that’s bothering me.”

Dillan
burst out
laughing scaring Charles, causing him to walk
barkwards
out of the passage to see what had happened.
Dillan
pushed him on the back, telling him to hurry and get out of his way. Charles
went returned, having no clue why
Dillan
was still
laughing, but noticed that Thomas was bumping his stomach, then, up against the
dusty walls of the extremely tight fitting walkway.

“It’s hard to breathe…I cannot take in air,” Thomas complained,
pulling his large almost seven foot, three hundred pounds, deeper in behind the
other two.

“What good is having all those muscles, if you can’t even control
them?”
Dillan
asked, chuckling under his breath.

“I master no art, I was born a big man,” he replied in short grunts.

“Not to mention that you ate three plates of food…and two huge
goblets of milk,” Charles added, as he took the sharp turn that went back to
the right.

“Shut up…” Thomas began saying then saved what little air he had.

A bright glow came to life as
Dillan
approached the turn in the passageway. He could now see Charles standing in the
middle of a room just a few feet away. Once he reached the entrance to the room
he realized it wasn’t his father’s death chamber, but just another area to
light a torch to go through yet another small passage, one that was wider, but
much shorter overhead.
Dillan
held a torch of his own
out in front of him, looking down into the darkness that slanted at a slight
angle, making the traveller go deeper underground. He was wishing now that he
had worn more than just a pair of jeans and slip on house shoes, because it was
obvious that he would need another bath.

“Thank Mother Earth.” Thomas pulled his way out of the passage,
practically falling into the room.

His shirt was ripped from top to bottom, covered in the length of
the wall’s dust and webs from years of accumulation. The back of his head and
his once long, perfectly braided ponytail was mushed to one side and strings of
hair were hanging out at every curve of the braid. “Where’s the crypt?” he
asked, looking to his left, seeing
Dillan
looking
back at the next hellish tunnel. His head dropped forward, as he grabbed his
knees.

Charles walked up and put his hand on the big man’s back and handed
him a torch, then walked away before he could stand back up. Charles smiled at
Dillan
then barely bent over and headed down into the stone
floor passage, moving with a great amount of speed.

Thomas walked over and stuck his unlit torch to
Dillan’s
flaming one, then slapped him on the back. “I don’t want you to see if I have
to come down on my ass.”

Dillan
shook his
head, laughed, then bent way over and went in after Charles. He could hear
Thomas cursing well before the depths and long after he lost the glow of his
torch. The path turned back to the left one time, ending with a small
dropoff
right into the burial chamber.
Dillan
hung his legs over the side then dropped down where Charles was rubbing his
ankle. His father’s crypt was carved out of earth and covered with another
large stone at the back of the cave like room. There were paintings of his
family leaning up against the wall, along with rolls of carpets and pieces of
décor from his family’s personal belongings.

“Why are these down here?”
Dillan
asked,
picking up one of the framed photos.

“Your mother ordered they be sealed in with him, my…”

“It’s alright, Charles. She was a worthless leader and an even worse
wife and mother,” he replied, picking up another photo. “I don’t remember
this.”

It was a photo of his parents surrounded by him, Parker, and his two
sisters, when they were around three years old. Charles stood behind
Dillan
silent for a few minutes,
then
told him that photo was taken right before the family was split apart. A few
minutes later Charles divulged to him that the reason he wouldn’t remember, is
because they had only been brought together for the photo, then taken back to
the parts of the home they had been kept in. “So, even when we lived as a
family, we were never truly one?”
Dillan
obsevered
, placing the photo back down by the others.

“Your father stayed with you boys as much as he could. When your mother’s
actions became too violent, he sent you both to the men’s camp, thinking your
sisters were sent to the women’s.”

“He speaks the truth,” Thomas concurred, dropping down, with a huge
grunt. “Your father placed me in the camp, and came often before
he
…” He stopped talking when he saw the crypt, going down on
one knee.

“Help me open it,”
Dillan
said, as he
started moving things away.

Charles began helping, setting the objects delicately on the other
side of the small chamber. He took the vases and set them on the steps that led
to the sealed door that went into the family plot out behind the house.
Dillan
got on one end while Thomas took the other, and both
pushed with everything they had, moving the stone enough to peer in at another
smooth wooden casket.
Dillan
leaned into the corner
of stone pushing it until it tilted on the edge. It was then that Thomas helped
lower it to the floor.

“There’s a latch on the other side that will allow you to open it
with ease,” Charles said pointing at the casket from across the room.

“Well, find it,” Thomas replied leaning down on the outer crypt.

“I…I don’t think that I can,” he stuttered.

“You know where the latch is, Charles. We will take care of the
rest,”
Dillan
spoke in a calm tone, causing Thomas’s
confusion in his
demeanor
to deepen.

“Okay,” he coughed. “But, I do not wish to look upon my Lord’s
remains.”

Charles ran his fingers together as he walked over, remembering the
very day that he had helped place
Dillan’s
father,
Kemon
Fortain
, in his final
imprisonment as if it had happened just yesterday. He licked his lips
nervously, and then closed his eyes leaning into the crypt, feeling around the
backside of the casket. A small clank popped twice inside the dark wooden
encasement, and Charles hurried back to the steps, wiping the sweat off of his
forehead.

Dillan
looked up
at Thomas then reached in truly hoping that there would be no remains, hoping
his mother never killed his father and the
rumors
could be put to rest. However, the faint smell of death that was escaping when
the lid lifted told him that his father was indeed inside.

“Holy Mother Earth,” Thomas said, and then went back down on one
knee, laying his head on the cement of the outer encasement.

Dillan’s
forehead
wrinkled and his hand went to his mouth as sound made its way around his
fingers. He fell back against the wall, rolling his head back as tears coated
his face. His father’s head had been placed in his own hands like some sort of
a helmet, both legs removed at the knee, and he was wearing the garments of a
working slave, not the clothing of the king of a pack of strong, proud,
wereboars
.
Dillan’s
head slowly
turned in the direction of Charles who was now holding his hands up palm out.

“I can explain,” he said, as
Dillan’s
body
was now turning in his direction.

“He suffered, and you knew and did nothing,”
Dillan
growled, his hands elongating, as his teeth became jagged in shape.

“She made us abuse his body, after his death…not before,” Charles
alleged.

“You should have warned me.”

“My Lord,” Charles replied, stepping back to the staircase.

“Not one of my father’s
true
followers would have done that to his remains,”
Dillan
said, yelling the last few words.

“She would have killed me and placed me in there with him, you know
she would have,” Charles pleaded as he glanced back seeing Thomas step around
the crypt.

“Why did you let me open it without telling me the state of my father’s
remains?”
Dillan
demanded, in a deep guttural tone.

“I don’t know. I was afraid.”