Kade V. The Stardust Part Two

 

Kade waited until she knew the man was sure of his victory, In the last moment, she bent back dodging the blunt instrument. The man lost his balance and stumbled to his knees. Kade attacked with precision and elegance. Her body twisted ninety degrees as her hand came down on the back of the man's neck. His body went limp a moment. She watched it transform to powder and acollapse into a cloud of dust.

 

Disturbed, Kade stepped back and searched the caverns; she saw, heard or felt nothing. Taking a breath Kade tasted nothing unusual and continued investigating the situation. She turned one of the unconscious men face-up and pulled his mask back to see his profile black covered with dust and dirt. Moving a finger across his forehead, Kade watched the man fall to dust. A day ago she would be crying at this sight, too many strange things were happening – everything confused her. Why hadn't the book mentioned this power? She felt her mind fill with fear. What other powers did the bio-chip give her?

 

A pinching came from her arm, and she remembered the arrow. She broke off the arrow head and pulled the wooden shaft from her arm. The arrow made a hole in her arm large enough for her to see through. Her gut told her to look at anything else; her mind forced her to stare at the gap in her flesh. No blood came from the wound, it was the chip she knew. She tore off a piece of her dress and wrapped the wound to protect it.

 

Turning to the last man Kade made sure his robes covered him, threw him over her shoulder, grabbed the book and resumed following the map.

 

The next five miles filled Kade's senses with wonders beyond anything she had imagined. A cough broke the endless silence. Kade laid the man on the ground, and his eyes flickered open. He focused on Kade, sat up, and looked in all directions.

 

"Where? Where are my companions?" he muttered in a scared whisper that Kade heard at normal conversation volume.

"I touched them, they.... I'm sorry."

    “Kade. You are Kade of The Stardust,” Kade stepped to the side studying the man.

    “How do you know that?”

    “Your defect will destroy any of us without it.” The man realized his words, jumped to his feet and hid in a corner. He pulled a small blade from his belt and held it at ready trying to stop an idle Kade.

"What is your name?" Kade asked forgetting one of her oldest lessons and the man thrust his knife at her. Kade focused on the man's eyes "I will not hurt you," she pushed hard enough. Through the bio-chip, she heard the answer in her head. "Do not worry Roke; I do not want to hurt you."

 

Roke's eyes turned to slits; his muscles tensed as he growled back. "Keep out of my mind you wikkjaz!"

 

Waving his blade, he lunged. Kade looked the small, stubborn man over and pulled the orb from her neck.

"This is the last Stardust in the universe. You must listen, or you will be destroyed," Roke turned and ran down the cavern. Kade watched him go as she slipped the orb back under her dress. She turned from the coward, looked to the map and continued.

 

She walked searching for what to believe: the book or The Stardust – her past. Since her coronation nothing made sense. With each passing step, she sensed that she would have to make a choice. That choice would have to wait. Kade rounded a corner, and her universe experienced a vicissitude.

 

Light: brilliant and orange, something she hadn't seen in several hours. It flowed down a winding cave that led to a settlement. She prepared herself for whatever was in the village by finding filling her stomach with some water and fungus.

 

Rounding a corner she found herself in a domed cavern with walls covered in billions of chisel scars bore of solid rock. The cavern stretched at least ten miles and was five hundred feet at its highest. A yellow vine ran the distance of the ceiling emanating an orange blanket of light over the cavern. Under the vine were hundreds of small, round, domed structures molded from dark-green clay. Each structure had a six-foot tall entrance with a piece of rough wool hanging across it.

A suspicion grew deep in Kade's mind as she noticed that the paths separating the parallel rows of huts were empty. The silence here was eerie - unnatural; there should be abundant life in this place. She took a deep breath. Her senses couldn't see it, smell it, taste it or hear it but she knew someone was here. Holding her necklace above her chest, Kade yelled. "I am Kade, and I have the last of The Stardust," nothing, "Show yourselves," she finished. A chill came over her, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

 

She hesitated, hid the necklace and spun one-hundred and eighty degrees. She saw a man a foot taller than her dressed in long, flowing red robes that covered a bulky body. Shocked that she hadn't heard him approach, Kade looked up to his fa.ce: A beard covered his entire visage except two beady yellow eyes. Both rested on a thick and leathery neck connected to a sturdy, robust body.

 

"You have done well," he spoke in a deep, stern voice that echoed through the vast cavern. Kade stared into the man's eyes for several moments, yet his thoughts were silent to her. What had happened to her? Why had The Stardust and the biochip failed her?

"I too have a chip in my brain, just like ever other Captain amongst my people," Kade back-stepped, “but only you Kade can manipulate your senses, we can only keep thoughts out.”

 

“Why have you brought me here?” Kade questioned.

"The journey was a test, to confirm the defect was real," the man spoke. Groups of men and women, as large as him, approached from all directions. “Now that we know the truth, your education can begin,” Kade took another step back. "You did not take what they taught on the surface as truth." The man smiled, and Kade searched her mind: What the Vicar taught her, what she learned herself?

 

The Vicar had instilled in her a sense of superior righteousness. When the explosion ended her coronation, it destroyed metal and mortar, but it took away any sense Kade felt towards her former superiority. This man wanted her to follow that path again. That she would refuse. She still had to decide her future, so she proceeded with care.

 

“But what you will teach me is true?”

 “Would you rather go back to your Vicar and be their puppet?”

"I'd be better off as your puppet?" Kade spat, a little too forceful, she reminded herself to concentrate. The crowd ad doubled in size.

"It is the way it was meant to be," the man answered, and with that the negotiation was over. Kade knew it but made sure the man remained oblivious. Sizing up the situation, Kade took several steps back till she could see all the people that had gathered. She grabbed the necklace and held the orb up.

 

Diplomacy was the first subject The Vicar schooled her in, and that meant facial reading. The conversation had been long enough for her to learn his profile and she blinked to see the sonar of his face.

 

“It said in here, “Kade pulled the book from her dress, “that long ago my people conquered yours and renounced seoroq then banished you to these caverns,” Kade declared with all the sympathy at her command.

“The Stardust granted us the gift of seoroq and we are determined to do its bidding,” he replied.

"Yes The Stardust," Kade asserted hiding her fear and shame, “You denounced my people but not The Stardust,” she finished and watched the crowds eyes become glued to the orb.

"The Stardust does not lie, but your people do, we are bound to follow it."

 

“Why do you say we?” Kade responded in an innocent tone and saw in her sonar what was invisible to the naked eye. His obicularis occuli tensed but stopped short of a blink; he was nervous. "How can you speak for so many?" She had made her decision – turning back was no longer an option.

“I am the ancestral leader.”

 

Lormir, Kade heard in her head. That was his name. He was faltering. She wanted to smile but turned that urge into a split-second pout.

"the Stardust is your ancestral leader," she professed shaking the orb, and the crowd gasped. "Is it not Lormir?" Kade finished.

 

Lormir stared as Kade retreated and threw the necklace into the air. She picked up a rock; waited till, as she had calculated, the orb was over the crowd. With all her might she released the rock. It would hit its target; she was sure. The people would see what, if anything, was inside. Kade refused.

With or without the Stardust Kade knew what path she must go on. Her power was her defect, it belonged to her, to do with what she thought honorable. She would remember The Stardust, but it ceased to be her future.

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