Flash Fiction: For this Lost Planet, A King
Is this how this works?
Wrote this for my first foray into Scoot’s Flash Fiction Friday. Probably won’t have the time to participate regularly but wanted to give it at least one shot.
Which prompt did I pick for this week? All of them, of course. [Edit: I have just learned that previous one’s don’t expire, so this is not actually “all” of them… Plotting is happening.]
“So… you have made your choice.”
One peon of a crew in humble grey uniforms pressed the hypodermic injector to Renaul’s neck. He winced. Breathed in. And out. Stiff and uneven. It stung sweetly as the serum wormed steadily through his veins. His shackles bit into his wrists as his reflexes forced his body to squirm in desperate hope of an escape from that invasion.
An aged man in a regal robe of ancient Eastern make stood within arm’s reach before him, smiling. His words were gentle, his expression soft. Yet, no manners could mask the ferocity that had baked itself into the frame of his hawkish features, nor could it cover the gnarly scar cut down from his bottom right lip in three lines to the end of his bearded chin.
Behind him were doors six times his height. Richly carved with forgotten histories and abandoned symbols. “Well then,” he said, “welcome to your new home.” On cue, ancient mechanisms bellowed from the heart of the stone cavern around them, and the doors slid apart with a grace that nearly belied their massive weight. A foreign sun thrust its fingers through the gap as if to hurry them along with its intangible strength. It could not wait to bring this new member of its house into the fold.
The robed man stepped aside and the uniformed men marched Renaul out into untamed wilds of the planet. All the while, the first jolt of some unknown change tore through Renaul’s nerves from the left optical nerve down to the tips of the toes on his right foot. It pricked at the very root of every nerve in that path, threatening to seize his muscles and send him to the floor a crying wreck. Yet, half of his consciousness stayed fully intact. More than that: alert.
It was pain and it was ecstasy. He was ready to run and climb up to the top of the great plateau now visible, and when he conquered that he was sure he would break down and beg for it all to end.
A hundred paces beyond the threshold, Renaul’s binds were undone and a pack placed into his hands. The terrible feeling abated a part, though his body felt alien in the aftertaste. He turned to watch the men as they marched back into the cavern, and from there the robed man gave his parting address.
“In the years to come—for it will be many—you will forget this old life. You may even forget me, though I quite doubt it.” He almost laughed to himself—if that was a thing he was still capable of. “What you will not do, is grow stagnant. Nor will you die. This I know, though you may not yet believe it.” Slowly, powerfully, he raised a fist and clenched it tight. “Thrive here. Learn its secrets. Master them.”
And then the door closed.
Renaul turned to the plateau, studying it and the jungle that surrounded its base. Anywhere his eyes landed he could see a hundred species of flora for which no name existed—not anymore. At first, he saw nothing else but vague shadows between their boughs and leaves. Then he blinked. The shadows became forms.
He blinked again. The forms gained eyes.
Those things… they were not visible. Not in a spectrum of light Renaul had known up to that day. They were made of colors his brain was only just learning to grasp in that moment, and it did so only barely.
Was he food for them? A toy? Were they sentient or beasts? The ones amongst the trees and bushes stared for a time, then up their gazes climbed to the top of the plateau.
There sat the king of them all: a true behemoth, great and terrible. Under its reign, Renaul was sure to live his new life with ever present dread for what few short days he might manage…
He stared at it. It at him.
Oh, how audacious that old bastard’s claim was. Only the mad could believe him.
But, oh, how often they did.
The passage of time was foreign with that sun, but by his internal reckoning it wasn’t much more than hour before Renaul made it to the base of the mighty, amber-colored ridge. There he found a tunnel. In the tunnel, a winding staircase carved into the rock. The climb was nearly as long as his walk and twice as arduous.
At its end he found himself in a great chamber, still below the surface of the plateau, but lit by the sun through one massive circular window cut through the side of the cliff, and one opening of roughly the same size in the ceiling cut its way a long path up to the sky.
It was an ancient place, that chamber. Older still than the doors he had been exiled through—perhaps. Yet so much of its makers remained preserved for eternity in the carved art of its walls. A ritual chamber, most like. Although the chamber was nearly barren of all but what was rock, there stood a stained altar in front of the window, and a pair of posts below the opening in the ceiling.
Posts which seemed awfully convenient to tie a person to.
Strangely, just one other thing remained in that room: a great piece of metal furniture by it which seemed it could make for a decent bell when struck by the hammer hung from a hook beside it.
Renaul rested for a time as he studied and thought. Then he laughed to himself, spat upon the altar, took the hammer, and smacked out a deep, solemn call for all the jungle to hear. In prompt reply came the rumble and scraping of that temple “lord’s” approach. Renaul stood a short way off from the posts to greet him.
With a heavy thud, it dropped down then stood in its full glory. Its head and claws were of a dragon with scales of stone; its body of a starving wolf, yet with limbs like a great ape; its total size would dwarf an elephant, and every flex of its muscles caused the temple to shake.
It ducked down to look at the morsel that had presented itself, staring with eyes of those impossible colors—ethereal to Renaul’s flesh eyes as he still saw the visible spectrum which passed through. The king’s lips were wet and his hunger immense.
Then Renaul…
Punched it.
A murmur woke in the jungle one day. A clamor so distantly familiar had come to pay a visit. Thus, the king of that land was roused from his morning meal to investigate.
It had been many cycles of that sun since the great cavern doors had opened. Yet, there they were full and wide. At their threshold stood an aged man in an Eastern styled robe. His face was gaunt, his muscles sinewy, his skin thin. Still, vigor flowed through his veins and the glint of a fierce life remained in his eyes… at least the one that remained untouched by the bits of metal that now kept him intact.
The man smiled in ecstasy as he looked up to the king who was carried by his most loyal subject and most beloved friend. “You have done well, Renaul!” the man cried in joy. “Come! Your persistence has served you well in the end. For your victory, I will see that you taste a measure of my glory!”
The king studied this man. Then he laughed.
“You are not my God, either, you foolish old man!”
Okay, that was pretty fun. Sorry to any of you waiting for another proper article, hopefully I’ll have one by the middle of the month… but can’t cut that as a promise yet.
This was a fun read! You should check out Sci-Friday, there’s a bunch of writers (myself included) who post a little something science fiction flavored and tag each other to help boost the signal. Keep an eye out for it!