394. Mountains in Oil

Ceru arrived early to the compound at Valla, a place his father had spoke of but he had never been. The main house, as large as it was, looked fragile against the backdrop of the churning sea and roiling gridelin clouds. Leaning hard into the wind, his hand tight on his hat, Ceru struggle up the slippery wet stone steps, worn smooth, it seemed, as bar soap and onto the grey wooden porch. Blu was waiting and together they made their way into the house and to the study where Zeke was standing, his white tunic-ed back to the pair, head bowed and a painting in his hands.

"Come in Ceru" said Zeke without turning, his eyes still locked on the canvas in hand. "Thanks for being on time. You know, your father, he was always on time too."

Von's son stood in the doorway, not quite knowing what to say.

"Come, come, have a seat. The planet's not going to blow away today. Tomorrow maybe, but not today," Zeke smiled, the painting still in his weathered hands. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Thank you, but I'm fine," said Ceru as he sat opposite Zeke's desk in an old leather chair and wondered how many famous arses had graced the seat he sat. He placed his hands in his lap like a nervous schoolboy and looked around the study as if in a museum. After what seemed an awkward silence, he asked, "Is that one of yours?" Then quickly added, "the painting."

"This one?" asked Zeke, holding the painting in the air with one hand. "I wish it was. Then, perhaps, I could leave it be." Zeke realized from the look on Ceru's face the young Hynerian had no idea what he was taking about. "My granddaughter painted it, Kyra. Actually, we did it together. The lesson of the mountains I called it. It was her first time with oils. Still my favorite. We did it with our fingers, her choice. Grand was none too happy." Zeke smiled with the remembrance of the heat he took for that one. Oil paint, fingers and a child don't mix she had said, over and over again. And he had listened over and over again. "But I didn't call you here to wax sentimental. I need your help. Important mission. You open-mined?"

"I suppose no would be the wrong answer?"

Zeke smiled without answering.

"Okay, I'm open-minded."

"Good. But before we discuss details I need to tell you something. About your father."

Ceru moved to the edge of his chair and if there had been birds chirping he wouldn't have heard them, for the gale whipping the shutters and windows presently stood outside the attention Zeke's statement commanded. One never knew one's father as well as one thought. The mere mention of new information, inside information, for it certainly seemed Zeke was about to share something a son would not know about a father, was as treasure more precious than gold.

The ninth order Tao spoke slowly, his voice slightly deeper than before. "He loved you. He loved you as I loved Kyra."

Ceru's eyes welled. He loved his father. Zeke had been the one to authorize the imprimatur on his book of letters, so he knew the Hynerian sitting across from him knew his heart, at least as it related to his father.

"And he left for one reason only. I asked him to." Zeke paused to take the measure of the moment. "I ripped his heart from his chest. I tore him away from what he loved most, his son, you, because he owed me a debt. And I knew, I knew your father, in spite of the pain, the personal cost, would honor the debt. I would like to tell you the asking was noble or honorable or right. I'd like to present my case as to why I had the right to demand such a sacrifice. But I had no right and I have no case. Your father was the honorable one. I was wrong.

Ceru looked down at the floor, the muck of his mind stirred by the words cast his way. Zeke walked around from his desk. "Stand up and look at me." Ceru obeyed as if the asking was an order. Zeke placed his hands on the young hynerian's shoulders as his pale blue eyes sparkled without blinking. "Before we discuss our mission, I need to ask you something and I need you to look me in the eye and answer from your heart, not your mind. I won't accept anything but the truth. You understand?"

"Yes sir," said Ceru, his head spinning, confused, throbbing with a million thoughts.

"Can you forgive me?"

379. Golden Wabi's

(ed note: this chapter takes place on Hyneria, in "story time" almost two years earlier, shortly after Bravo departed)

Zeke's leathery hands, hands of love, of care, of concern, tossed more feed into the basin like rain to soil, life supported from hand to mouth, of one above to those below, not unlike Janus to Hynerian, or so it was believed. His golden wabi's, koi mouthed, fed in the clear and quiet waters of their enclosed universe, peacefully unaware of the troubles without. What was the difference, if he left. They would die as would those left on Hyneria, regardless. Looking above, his mouth as agap as the feeding fish, he had not the energy to question Janus.

Blu hovered to his side, his perse hue blending into the prevailing mood. The skies of Valla had long since given up bright for dark and brother sun, once omnipresent, seemed permanently censored by a dense gray ceiling of roiling clouds. The palette of yellows and oranges and azures gave way to an endless monotony of dull gray and slate blue, as if the planet itself was winter depressed. The cheerful beaches of the compound, a canvas for so many joyful memories, seemed faded and abused and hardly recognizable as spumy waves slammed ashore with roar and slap as if the bewildered hoary sea wanted to strike out at the only object in reach, a cornered, cowering coast.

Above the gentle bubbling of the basin, Zeke spoke. "Blu, what do you think of Ji's proposal?"

Blu glided closer and his eyes begin to glow and blink as if he were carefully considering his response, as if fearful of emoting. "I don't want you to leave me."

"I won't leave you."

"You have no choice. I am a mechanical. If I go, then I deny a sentient a place."

"I didn't say I was going."

"You must."

"Why?"

"Hope."

"Then I will find a way to bring you. There is always a way."

"And if you bring me, who will care the wabi's?"

166. Home, Blu

Kyra’s trembling hands accepted the package, grasping the slender metal folio with both hands for fear the turbulent winds whipping off the bay would snatch Papa’s gift for itself. Through eyes blurred with tears, she kissed Papa goodbye; his strong arms pulling her tightly into his broad chest with such might she feared his embrace would crush the unknown treasure in her hands. He barked a few words over the cacophony and wiped the tears from her cheeks before she turned and quickly boarded the waiting vessel.

Zeke leaned his cloaked resolute frame into Bravo’s hot bluish-white blast, the steel-plated deck beneath his feet rattling like an old wooden rollercoaster, the metal handrail transferring a final blessed kiss of warmth to his aged and leathery palms. Defiant and proud, he shunned the standard bulky blast goggles, paying for his unadulterated view with eyes that burned and teared with a scene he never dreamed would shimmer before them. He had seen plenty of mirages in his travels across the sands of Silus; but this was not Silus and that vessel was no mirage. She was leaving. She wasn’t coming back. Quick as lightning with a thunderous cracking report to match, the vessel disappeared into the roiling dark grey clouds taking its warmth and heat as quickly as it had taken his love.

“Master Zeke, are we going home now?” asked Blu, who was, for all intents and purposes, Goldie’s mechanical brother.

“Yes Blu, we’re going home.”

“And Miss Kyra, should we wait for her?”

“No Blu. She’s not coming with us.”

“Oh.”

“On second thought Blu, let’s head to Valla. I don’t much feel like being alone at home tonight.”

“But Master Zeke, you always have me.”

“Yes Blu, I do. I always have you.”

“Should I alert Miss Kyra as to our destination?”

“That won’t be necessary. Miss Kyra won’t be coming back.”

“Oh. And Goldie?”

“Blu, I’m afraid we will never see either of them again. When we get to Valla, would you fix me some snizzle?”

“Yes Master Zeke.”

“And perhaps, just this once Blu, add a drachm of snoot.”

Immeadiately upon arriving at Valla, Zeke entered his study overlooking the cove and begin to write:

I look back on the general unfairness of life, and I wonder where this idea, that everything would even out, wrongs righted, hard work rewarded, I wondered who planted this idea so deeply in the fertile soil of my adolescent mind. If I could find them today, I would beat them to within an inch of their life; an inch with asinine precision, with cold calculation, with malice born of infected rusty oozing bitterness.

“Master Zeke, your snizzle, just as you requested.”

“Thank you Blu.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“Shut down all communications and secure the compound. I need some time alone.”

Categories: Story, Kyra, Papa, Zeke, Hyneria, Blu