For One Nen (4 page)

“Me?” Tala was confused. “Why are you scared of me?”

“You’re pretty intimidating,” Deni admitted.

Tala formed her lips as if she were trying to speak but couldn’t find the right words.

“You’re just so damn pretty. It’s very intimidating. Even scary.”

Tala furrowed her brow and pursed her lips.

“That’s what you’ve always wanted to tell me…that I scare you?” Tala said crisply.

“But being scared is not going to stop me from saying,” Deni tried to take a deep breath but only got half way when she let the words spill from her mouth.

“I am deeply, madly, and forever have been, in love with you.”

Tala just smiled a moment.

Deni added, “I’ve tried for a very long time to make it go away but…”

Tala interrupted, “You don’t have to make it go away.”

Tala squeezed Deni’s hand. The ladies gave a relieved gentle laugh as Deni’s eyes resembled gold nuggets lying in a clear flowing stream. Her skin was tan like the Native American’s of Earth and her high cheekbones were almost hidden by her tight, bouncing, red curls like the highland dancers of Scotland from
Earth.

Deni blinked a few times to clear her vision.

“How about we eat something before we try to make off with the dusty contents of the library’s storage room?”

“Not so loud,” Tala laughed.

“I’m not sure many would even care,” Deni said.

As they stood, Tala looked into Deni’s golden eyes, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Deni asked.

“For still caring. I’m not sure I could get through these next forty odd days without…” Tala took a quick breath and blew out slowly.

“We’ll all be alright,” Deni said confidently.

“I know you can’t know that for sure but thank you for saying it anyway,” Tala said.

She slipped her arm through Deni’s and they headed to the food line to await their portion at the serving window.

Returning to their table Tala began telling Deni of the story she had found.

“It’s in an old book written by a man named Tinnen.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Deni said between bites of food.

“Yes most of us have heard the stories but I’ve never seen anyone read the story. I didn’t even know the story came from Tinnen’s own writings.”

“He’s the little Nen that rebelled against the kingdom like the Hoth once did, right? And he even convinced his Het friend to follow after him?” Deni asked.

“Oh, Deni it’s so different than that. Atenilek, the giant gave his life for Tinnen. They lived underground and…well let me start from the beginning. And you are not going to believe this,” Tala said with a smile of pure delight. She opened the book and began to read.

1200 BE (before the departure of the EGRESS)

Far below the surface of the planet REEN

“I dare you,” Tinnen called as he ran on ahead. “I dare you,” he teased several more times. “But you won't do it. You won't even try.”

Atenilek only had to continue his natural stride to keep Tinnen from getting too far ahead. Maybe it was his deep love for Tinnen, or maybe it was simply Atenilek's size that held his anger at bay, while his little friend taunted him like brothers do. They
were
like brothers, as different as day and night, like brothers so often are, but committed to the bond, never the less.

Atenilek took off in a sprint, but only had to take four steps before tucking Tinnen into the crook of his arm and swirling him around. When he sat his little friend on his feet again, Tinnen stumbled a couple of times before walking straight once again.

As Tinnen took a moment to gain his wits, he shouted, “Just because you’re bigger doesn’t mean you’re braver.” Off he went down the beach as fast as his little legs would let him.

Atenilek was growing bigger each year. He was from the tribe of Het – strong and proud, towering giants as thick as the other tribes’ doorways. His parents had allowed him to work alongside Tinnen, from the lower tribe of Nen - small and swift. They had been friends for as long as Atenilek could remember.

Both Tinnen and Atenilek had been born with the ability to use their gills. This was a physical feature, which many individuals lost as they reached adulthood.

As were the children of all tribes, Atenilek, the Het giant, and Tennin, the tiny Nen, were close to the same height only a short time ago. Yet now that they were nearing manhood Atenilek had shot up like bamboo
, the grass that grew along the water’s edge.

“Remember that time...” was all Tennin had to say for both the boys to be quickly transported back to their childhood.

“But I was much smaller back then,” Atenilek would say.

“Smaller?” Tennin would chide. “Don’t you mean robust, rotund, round, or maybe just plain chubby?”

“I looked like any other Het boy.”

“Uh! Yeah! I said, ‘chubby’,” Tennin would continue his jabs, like those who show their love with good natured insults. Many times they laughed over this memory.

“But I was swift back then. I did win that race,” Tinnen reminded him.

“But now I can hop on one foot, faster than you can run,” Atenilek reminded him plainly.

These boys were quickly approaching manhood, and as all giants before him, Atenilek grew twice the size of his little friend. Atenilek was not only twice as tall as Tennin; he was also twice as broad. His face was flat and wide, his arms had grown large, defined, and muscular. His waist and hips were solid and his legs were beginning to resemble that of an up-side-down tree trunk.

This recent change in appearance was the source of much intense teasing between these almost men. As their bodies changed, their devotion to their friendship grew. Their quick laughter continued in these exchanges, but
it had begun to fade abruptly as both young men remembered their fate.

As children, they were allowed to work and play side by side. But as men, their class defined their social interaction.

Every day Atenilek fully expected his parents to forbid him from working any longer with Tinnen. After all, Tinnen was a Nen and Nen were no better than the quiet Tsila, or the Hoth of the rebellion.

The giant Het were of the elite class like the royal Antip. They were the leaders of the Empire and had faithfully taught their sons and daughters to
regard other tribes as inferior.

However, Atenilek seemed to have grown up in a bubble of grace, for he dared to love
a Nen. He dared to hold beliefs unlike those of his parents, his tribe, and his class. He dared to believe his path was different than those he came from.

Soon, Tinnen wa
s to stand on the sparsing line. He would fight and in the silent part of their hearts, each boy knew Tinnen would breathe his last. Atenilek’s thoughts rested on this truth, and in fact, on Tinnen. When he dreamed, when he woke, when he went about his work, when he was with Tennin, or when he was alone, his heart found a home in thoughts of his playful friend.

Atenilek ached
as if the loss had already come. He knew, as sure as the sparsing, his loss would soon follow.

“No! No! I won’t let him go.” His words woke him most nights. But these thoughts never escaped from his lips when he was in the company of others. He never dared to breathe his thoughts to anyone, not even Tinnen; the one he loved.

Atenilek woke every morning, left for his job, and never revealed his crescendo of excitement for the day with Tinnen.

Lately though, seeing his friend was breaking his heart. Tinnen was to be sparsed and he had tried so hard to wrap his mind around that brutal truth. The very thought of losing Tennin was hollowing out his very soul.

He wanted to ‘Cha’ long and hard to rid his emotions of the terrible, full-body ache, but he knew this would only quake the empire. A bellow from a Het always brought inquiry from the Het guards and the royal Antip. All Het knew that they had to gain special permission from the Empire to do their Cha ritual, which consisted of battle movements and screaming. Since screaming for a Het meant almost quaking the entire empire they were only allowed to do it in the far reaches of the empire in a room large enough for such a practice.

Atenilek was worried for his tiny companion. No doubt he worried for himself. Who would dive with him near the light of Ot to gather the smaller stones of light? They had been given this job because they could still breathe through their gills at the base of their neck
s just above their clavicles. The Nen had always been given the job of diving. But their numbers had dwindled vastly in the last two killing generations.

The Het, strong and proud, were the protectors of the kingdom. Emperor Kent had four Het guards continuously by his side. There were two more that guarded his family and seven more were placed around the perimeter of his palace.

Many Het were on lake duty, fortifying the Empire by maintaining strict surveillance at the water’s edge.

Their underground lake was vast and had many places where rocks and thick vines compromised simple visual observation. This is how the last attack had succeeded during the time of the Hoth Rebellion.

The entire Hoth tribe who had rebelled was still able to use their gills. They were fiercely against the sparsing that Emperor Tapsin had set in place almost a thousand years before Emperor Kent. The Hoth had killed no one during the attack. They came soundlessly from the water while the Empire slept and carried away all of the children. They believed children should not be given to the sparsing line so they didn’t see any harm in stealing them away from their families.

Kent, the current Emperor, wouldn’t allow his empire to be vulnerable
under his leadership. He believed his forefather, Tapsin, had been weak when the children were taken. But he was determined to keep the Empire strong and intact. Kent had always attended the killings but his family and his guards had never been sent to the sparsing line.

“I dare you this time to touch it, Atenilek,” Tinnen laughingly taunted with his gills flailing wide for air as he breathed
in through his mouth as well.

“I’ll do it today,” Atenilek said. After he caught up to his friend, but before his clothes were dry from the swim, he asked with concern, “What do y
ou really think will happen?”

Tinnen shook his body, as if his forefathers were canines, and then faced the light of Ot. He closed his eyes from the brightness and stretched out his arms as the warm breeze flowed over him, drying his clothes and his thick hair like an enormous hair dryer. No one knew why the wind blew but Tinnen did this every time they neared Ot. “They say Ot will grab you into himself and you’ll be burned up for
ever,” he answered his friend.

They had no reason to doubt the tellers of these ancient beliefs but Tinnen did question. He ventured closer and closer every chance he got. He told his friend Atenilek, “It makes me strong like you. See I’ve grown a whole gill width since last year at this time. I
will be strong for sparsing.”

Atenilek turned his back to Ot. “But why do you want
me
to touch it?” Atenilek couldn’t bring himself to think about his friend participating in the killings and he couldn’t bring himself to speak of Ot with such blasphemy. He rarely even used the name of Ot. “Touching The Living Ot?” That was unheard of – unspeakable – almost sacrilege.

Tinnen answered, “Atenilek of the Het strong and proud. I’ve never seen one of you humb
led. And that would be nice.”

Atenilek’s thoughts raced wildly, “Am I hearing my friend correctly? Does Tinnen want harm to befall me, his lifelong friend? Haven’t I proven my friendship to
Tinnen? I can’t believe he will be sparsed. I can’t let him be sparsed. I won’t.”

The Het, Atenilek’s tribe, were giants that lived in the inner
empire where the ceilings were the tallest in the entire empire. The Het were strong and they protected the Royal Antip well.

Because they were the Het, strong and proud they had always been exempt from the
sparsing since its inception. So the Het grew in number, in stature and in devotion with each generation. Atenilek’s mother had taught her sons and daughters to work in earnest for the Empire. “By doing so,” she directed, “you will secure the life of your tribe.” Atenilek had taken this teaching to mean life was to be valued. But his face fell to stone when Tinnen had said those hurtful daring words.

“Is Tinnen jealous that my people have never been killed because the dynasty deems us too valuable?”
Atenilek wondered.

Not even for the thousands of years that the Het had been protecting the kingdom had any one of them lost their life from another’s hand. Some people believed they could never be killed and were secretly afraid of them.

Yet Atenilek was prideful and wanted to show his friend that he couldn’t be humbled. He started for Ot.

“I was just kidding, Atenilek,” Tinnen cried out when he realized what his friend was doing. After taking about twenty quick paces Atenilek began to run with full speed.

He ran till he couldn’t hear Tinnen begging him to stop. He ran till he was almost blinded by Ot’s brightness. He put up his arm to shield his eyes and gazed down toward his feet as now he took one step at a time slowly toward his fear. When he could bare the heat no more he put out his arm, his long outstretched arm, and gave a loud cry. Besides his stature being enormous, his bellow was as well. His cry could be heard across the lake and throughout Empire. The cry was so rumbling that it knocked Tinnen to the ground.

When Tinnen climbed back to his feet Atenilek raced past him and took a leap straight into the lake. The waves that he created took Tinnen by surprise as an enormous tidal wave crushed over him sending him high upon the bank. The water receded quickly and Tinnen held tight to a bare tree root. When Tinnen looked over his shoulder Ate
nilek was nowhere to be seen.

“Atenilek!” Tinnen cried as he clamored to his feet. He r
aced toward the water’s edge.

Atenilek emerged from the deep water like a quickly forming island. He moved slowly toward the shore. There was a grimace on his face that made Tinnen’s heart sink with guilt but nothing prepared his heart for what he saw next.

As Atenilek slowly came from the water with his gills so red they were almost purple it was then that Tinnen saw it.

Atenilek came into full view with only one arm. His eyes were so burned that he shed blood-tinged tears. His skin was a funny shade of red not quite describable, and just above his right elbow – nothing.

Tinnen didn’t see any blood on his arm but he did smell the stench of charred flesh. Atenilek approached Tinnen with a face of vacancy and only a few paces away he collapsed in a crumpled heap on the shore. Tinnen stood in the light of Ot and cast a small shadow over Atenilek’s face. Taking his own shirt he wiped the tears and sweat from Atenilek's brow and face.

They began coming, Het from all over the empire. The bellow had been heard by Atenilek’s cousin, Lakis who was on guard at the entrance to the sparsings as many made ready the grounds for the event. He called upward toward his younger brother. “Bring the others to the water.”

Atenilek’s family came in droves. The Het were a massive people and rarely all together because of their constant service to the Empire. But they all came. The Het from deep inside the tunnels and tall rooms of the empire, the Het that guarded the tunnels that led to the surface, the Het that were carving out the lower basin, and the Het that were on lake duty across the water from Atenilek all came running.

Yet when they came close
, they found Tinnen curled up next to his giant friend weeping great sobs of sorrow.

When Lakis arrived
, Atenilek’s parents were already there. His father picked up his son like any Dad would easily pick up his boy, and carried him away. Tinnen didn’t know if his friend was alive or dead.

Tinnen paced to and fro in front of the entrance to Kent’s palace where Atenilek had been taken. No one came in or out all through the evening. But by nightfall Ish, the gatherer of the dead
, had been summoned by Kent. When Tinnen saw Ish coming he curled up by the corner pillar of the palace, and there he stayed all through the night. He only moved to place a tiny morsel of food in his mouth every few hours. Otherwise, he barely moved his lips. No one gave attention to his whispers.