The Gift of Volkeye (10 page)

Embarrassed, and unable to believe this person had gotten so far beneath his skin that he was crying, Felix took his antics to the next level. Wide-eyed and howling like a lunatic, he charged Nhad. He was going to have this bike, one way or another.

Unfortunately when Felix closed in, Nhad side stepped him and stuck out his foot. Suddenly Felix found himself soaring through the air—
without
the aid of the bike he wanted.

He landed on his knees, ripping the skin from them as he slid along the earth. Felix didn’t have a scratch anywhere else, however. An extraordinarily large pile of manure, which gave him a cushion, prevented the manifestation of other injuries.

Excreted by specially bred super cows, these were house-towering mounds of waste. In fact, unless one saw it with their own two eyes, they would never have believed that a pile of shit could become so incredibly massive. On the days of the month when the cows were brought through town, each was made to do their business all the way in the vacant corner of the business district, where the wind most often led the fumes in the direction of the sea and couldn’t easily disturb the district’s commerce.

Felix, buried in feces from the hips on up, was disoriented and wondering what the upper half of his body was swimming in. He placed his palms on the ground and hoisted himself from the pile of manure, managing to open his eyes, despite the fact that the lids were extremely heavy.

Then he saw the flies.

All of them, fat and slow, swarmed around his entire body, but particularly around the face area. Felix blew ferociously from his nose, clearing his nasal passages, smelling himself. Realization struck him.

The brown blob with legs began rolling around on the ground in a fit of anger.

“You little filthy, bastard peasant!” it screamed.

A small crowd of people gathered around the scene. There was a butcher with two ten-year-old daughters that Felix would pester, trying to get a peak at their underwear. Another spectator was an overweight woman
(who ate enormous pork sandwiches for every meal and wore a pretty red dress to the Mune Ju market on weekends)
. Felix was constantly passing by her, yelling “Lose some weight, you fat whore!”

Also appreciating Felix’s humiliation was a man in his mid-forties
(who was always carrying a straw wood laundry basket full of clothes)
. To Felix, however, doing laundry was for women.

“Show some backbone, sissy man! Laundry is a girl’s job!” he’d say to the basket man, as he rode by on his
stolen bike.

Also in the crowd was the owner of the stolen bike: a thirteen-year-old girl that Felix punched in the eye, taking her only method of transportation. She’d been walking four miles to school everyday since.

The last of the crowd included: a fat man
(who sold oranges at the market)
and a barking dog that Felix blinded in one eye after throwing a brick at it for no reason other than having nothing to do. (Felix had gone for the dog after becoming bored with mashing the fat man’s oranges beneath his boot heels.)

Relieved to see the little brat get a taste of his own medicine, the people reveled with joy.

“Silence! I’ll have my father kill every single last one of you, mark my words! …Especially you, bike boy, you’ll get it the worst!” Felix remarked, swearing revenge on them.

Deciding it was done with its fit, the shit ball with legs got up abruptly, and, despite its injured knees, stormed down the road, pouting. Drops of super cow manure dripped from its body the entire way home. Whatever it touched, it left its mark. Wherever it ventured, it left its stench.

The theft victim retrieved her stolen bike, and then, one by one, the applauding audience dispersed. After a while Bahzee and Nhad were the only two people left on the street. He wondered why Bahzee had such a long face.

“What’s wrong, Baz?”

Clearly, he had no idea what he’d started. “Nhad, you need to go…now!”

“I’m not going anywhere till we’ve had our weekend ride, now c’mon. Why are you so afraid of him? He’s not dangerous, he’s a pussy is what he is! Trust me.”

“Believe me, it’s not him that I’m worried about…it’s just—”

He cut her off.

“Float yourself to the back of the bike and latch on!” he said sternly but with a smile. “I’m not going to let a sixteen-year-old brat frighten you out of having fun!”

“But…”

“This conversation is over! Are you coming, or not?”

Nhad climbed onto his bike, and Bahzee latched her hoverchair to the back. He turned to look at her, but she kept her head down, eyes tearing, staring at the floor.

“Sorry Baz, but you’re my best friend, and no one is gonna’ come between us. I don’t care if it’s man, woman, demon, or god.” He laughed.

Bahzee dried her eyes and looked up, smiling. “We still have a few hours before it gets dark,” she said. “Let’s have some fun!”

“That’s my girl.”

The bike growled as Nhad charged it up. Still worried, Bahzee, held back another tear.

Nhad didn’t know the Xyecahs, and if he hadn’t cut her off she would’ve told him that Phyllamon was, in some way, responsible for the death of her mother’s husband. Bahzee heeded Asha’s warnings and had never crossed Phyllamon...not until this day when she’d indirectly offended his son.

Why did Nhad have to protect me so? Now who will protect him?

As Bahzee’s mind toiled with worrisome thoughts, they sped off.

For the next three hours, she forgot about that day’s incident as they soared throughout the maze-like environment at top speed. They zigzagged through the trees of the forest surrounding the city, and wound up doing sixteen circles around Mashyuvah in the process.

Nhad, intent on showing Bahzee a good time, traveled far and northeast of Mune Ju Mountain, along the coast of the Mashyuvian Ocean. Though unaware, he and Bahzee quit their northern exploration only two or three miles short of the gates of Castle Xyecah.

They turned around and went extremely far south and quickly sped through an out of the way, and seemingly secret forest village. Bahzee loved the scenery of the beautiful town (having no idea that she’d soon be calling this place home).

Finally it got dark, and Nhad took Bahzee back to her house on the edge of the city. Despite her insistent pleas for him to get home with haste, Nhad felt no need to. Instead, he went back to the downtown area of Mashyuvah to see if anything was going on. It was dead. All the businesses were shutting their doors and arming their security systems. There were a few people outside their stores putting garbage in dumpsters and sweeping up the messes of the day.

Nhad looked afar, wondering if the mountain of feces had been removed yet. The fire-hot air from the hover’s exhausts kicked up dust and leaves, as he sped down the road to check it out.

Yep, it’s g—

He heard a deep growl from the belly of some kind of a vehicle and gasped as a three-story, hovering tank came thundering into town.

It was occupied by beasts of all sorts on both levels, and atop Nhad spotted Felix. He ran up to a tall, lanky man who was garbed in a red cloak as if he was some kind of emperor. Felix yanked on the man’s arm and pointed in Nhad’s direction.

“There he is, Papa!”

Nhad revved his engine. And in those first few seconds before the end of his life, he truly understood why Bahzee was afraid of him getting started with Felix. There was no need to bring such an army for one person! Obviously they meant to kill him.

He sped off.

“Catch him, you fools!” Phyllamon roared impatiently.

The tank’s exhausts flared red as a burst of fire erupted from each one. It sounded like an enormous firework flying into the night sky, howling furiously as its massive steel body cut through the wind.

For a moment, the main strip of downtown Mashyuvah looked like a spot for illegal drag racing, as the two vehicles bolted down the street, one of them leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

The sound of the engines persuaded the majority of the resting neighbourhood to peek out of their windows. All their eyes could catch, if anything at all, was a blurry tornado of flying objects and the cloud of dust and engine exhaust left behind.

Nhad wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced over his shoulder to see how close the tank was. Astonished to find that it was about to rear-end him, he steered a hard right.

His bike, having very obedient mechanics, cut so hard that he almost took a plunge off the side. Though he’d managed to hang on, the turn had put him in line for a collision with a light pole. He swerved to avoid it, but his bike’s backside still got nicked, and he went sailing uncontrollably into the air.

“Whoa shiiiiiiit!”

Nhad was soaring in a flat spin in the air when the bottom of his hoverbike touched the chimney of one of the buildings, straightening him out. It allowed him a second to think, and he discovered that this height gave him an advantage.

Tanks as big as Phyllamon’s were a nuisance in the air within enclosed areas such as this one. He didn’t dare take it any higher, as he was afraid of flying through traffic lights and electrically charged wires.

Nhad’s hover was fast, and seeing that they were slightly falling behind, Phyllamon chastised his pilots. “Do not lose him!”

With a series of weaves and somersaults, Nhad maneuvered his way through the high hanging traffic lights with the grace of a pilot in an airshow. The end of the strip was near, and he’d soon be able to make it into the forest, losing them.

Nhad shifted into the highest gear.

For a moment, things looked promising for him, but Phyllamon, seeing that he was about to get away, gave a new order to the four-armed Cyclops. The beast leaned over and came up with…a rifle!

Even over the roar of his engine, he could hear the explosive shots, echoing throughout the atmosphere. Nhad ducked so low that he wasn’t able to see over the handlebars of his bike, and so he was now flying through wires. The impact tore the rubber casings off, and they exploded into flames, sparks erupting everywhere.

Though his cheeks burned, and his knuckles were stripped bare from the wires slapping his hands, this was the extent of Nhad’s pain. The bullets had missed.

He wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes and stood up. Noticing that the wires had loosened, he sped off. If he made it to the trees, Nhad was sure that the Mashyuvian forest would cloak him in her shadows. With his escape to freedom but seconds away, he put the acceleration pedal to the floor…but that was when he heard the shots.

The four-armed Cyclops was now shooting an automatic machine pistol, held in its other two arms. A much-less-than-human comrade, who was using a slow but powerful laser shotgun (which was obliterating the underside of Nhad’s vehicle) joined him. All the damage caused the bike’s wiring to malfunction, and it was soon in flames.

The next shot fired missed the hover but tore through his shoulder, spraying his blood in his eyes. Temporarily blind and soaring through the air at one hundred fifty miles an hour, he braced himself, accepting his fate.

The last shot caused the bike to explode and hurled Nhad to the foot of the forest at a perilous speed. He flew backwards into a Blackbirch tree and broke all of his ribs, hitting the different branches, on the way down.

Phyllamon’s tank had come to a halt. It hovered in the air for a moment longer and then gently settled on the ground. He, Felix, and the two shooters began dismounting. There were many other beasts aloft on the second level of the tank, and although armed and ready, they stayed behind.

Nhad, who was slowly drifting out of consciousness, managed to open his eyes just a little. Through a pile of flaming scrap, walked the two beasts, Felix, and...
the Emperor
.

The only thing…that’s…missing…is…red carpet!
he sarcastically thought, dismissing the fact that he was dying. In fact, Nhad would’ve laughed were he not in so much pain.

Phyllamon approached with Felix. He was in mind to tromp on Nhad’s skull a few times, but he resisted.

No, no, no…I want you to be conscious when you die!
he thought.

“Pick him up.”

The Cyclops came over and lifted him by his neck, slamming him up against a tree. Nhad groaned and spat up blood, his feet dangling in the air. Phyllamon got so close to him that their noses were almost touching.

“I’m only going to say this once…well, I’ll only need to say it once, because you’ll be dead in a moment…but if my son asks for your bike…”

Nhad coughed once more, showering Phyllamon in blood. However, Phyllamon continued talking as if nothing had happened. His unibrow arched upward at both ends.

“…then you goddamn well give it to him!”

“But…it…wasn’t…hiiiiiiiis,” Nhad choked out, gagging from the Cyclops’s tight grip.

“It doesn’t matter. Anything that belongs to anyone around here belongs to me! Therefore it belongs to my son!”

Nhad tried to speak, but he was too weak. Phyllamon continued. He pressed his face against Nhad’s like he was tempted to bite him.

“I don’t care if you consider me unjust, boy. Money is power, and because I have so much of it, the authorities around these parts can be bought. In fact, the man who controls it all is personal friend of mine. So you see, lad, there is no right
or
wrong for people like me! I do as I please, and all of you are dogs to do my bidding. Do you understand?”