Stalked
Chapter 54
LIV
Michael was practically running, turning this way and that, looking carefully in every nook and cranny he passed, opening every door to look in every room. His brow was covered in sweat, and he was puffing more than he ever thought was possible, but he was determined not to let the stalker escape this time. Looking both ways down the long halls of the royal palace, Michael made a quick decision. To his left, he could see all the way to the end of the hall. It was vaguely possible that the stalker might have gone that way… and found a place to hide… but the hall to the right went well beyond his sight and offered so many more places to hide… places from which one might lay an ambush for an unsuspecting passer-by. And the stalker was an expert at ambush and escape, as he had already so shockingly shown.
It was up to Michael now. Max had been the stalker’s first victim. With Max out of the way, the stalker had ambushed Kyle and Angie Lee, then Alex and Isabel, then Liz, Maria, and Diane all three in one swift coup. And Michael still had not been able to stop or catch him despite the continued bold, brazen nature of the stalker’s almost reckless ambushes. This fact hurt more than anything else… almost.
Michael took a deep breath and steadied himself. Down the right hall… that was the way to go. Michael closed his eyes just for a second to gather his strength, then he ran to the right, holding his palm out in front of him as he ran, moving it from one side to the other as he passed any place where the ambusher might be hiding or from which he might attack. Michael was the only one left now; the ambusher would want him next. That much was crystal clear. It was Michael or the ambusher. One of them had to lose. And the one left would be… what? The winner? Even if Michael succeeded now, he wasn’t sure if that term would be appropriate anymore. In a way, he had already lost. His confidence was gone… his dignity was demolished… his body ached…
As Michael dwelled on this, he made a mistake. He let his concentration drift from his objective… to his feelings. It wouldn’t have happened if he had had a chance to gain experience… to grow into his position, as his older double had had the chance to do on the other Antar. But Michael, for all his abilities, was new to this, and now… he had made a fatal mistake.
With a blood-curdling shout of victory, the ambusher leapt from a small niche above an open archway, falling onto Michael’s back as Michael passed under it while turning the corner. Michael spun around, attempting to dislodge the attacker, but it was too late…
“I gotcha, Dad! I win! You’re the stalker now!”
Kryys jumped off of Michael’s back just as the older Michael came around the corner, a huge smirking smile covering his face almost from ear to ear. He looked at his younger double, who looked like he had just been to war and lost, and shook his head…
“You ready for another round?” the older Michael asked, without a trace of pity.
The younger Michael fell slowly backward then slid down the wall into a sitting position on the marble floor.
“You’re not tired, are you, Dad?” Kryys asked, clearly urging the younger Michael to get right back up.
The older Michael was really Kryys’ father, of course, but Kryys wasn’t making any distinction between them. He knew which one was which, but he was enjoying having two “Dads,” and he called them both that indiscriminately. The older Michael had made no overt effort to correct his son, realizing that his double was just as much Kryys’ father as Maria had been his own wife in the past he had gone back to earlier. He knew that THAT Maria wasn’t his wife… but still, in a way, she was… to him. After all, she was Maria! So how could he tell his son that his father’s double wasn’t his dad when he was him? And what else would Kryys call him… if not “Dad?”
Still, Michael wasn’t totally successful at hiding his glee at the younger Michael’s present “condition…” although maybe… just maybe… he wasn’t trying very hard.
“I’ll bet you can’t wait to have your own kids, huh, Rath, old buddy,” the older Michael goaded, “Isn’t this fun!”
Kryys smiled up at his father, and Michael smiled back. Michael may have been older… just a little bit… than his younger double… but he had one fantastic advantage in physical conditioning. He had three young children. He was used to this. Well, maybe he couldn’t always keep up with Kryys… or with Zorel or Jayyd for that matter… but at least he had had a lot of practice trying. His younger double looked like a mass of jelly on the floor after just two games. And the older Michael absolutely loved it!
“Michael!” Maria admonished, walking up on them at that moment with Liz and Diane…
“You’re being cruel! Try to be understanding.”
Sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, the younger Michael held up his hand and shook his head…
“No… don’t stop him. He’s right. I’ve got a kingdom to protect now… and all of my friends here. Understanding and sympathy won’t save them or me if the need ever arises to defend the kingdom. I made a mistake. I learned something.”
Kryys smiled widely. “Can we play another game of stalker then?”
The older Michael held out his hand to his younger double, and the younger Michael took it. Michael pulled him up.
The younger Michael ran his hand over Kryys’ head wearily, tousling his hair… “I learned more than one thing, Kryys… I learned to keep my mind focused on my objective… I learned to swallow my pride in battle, because it can get me killed… and I learned to fall back and regroup when the odds are hopelessly against me. Give me fifteen minutes, okay pal?”
Kryys nodded.
“How many times have you guys played this game,” Maria asked with a knowing grin.
“Just two,” the older Michael replied, “But it’s not just a game. I’m preparing my double to be the protector of his kingdom… and getting him into shape before we go.”
“It looks to me like Kryys is getting him in shape.”
“Yeah, well, okay, he is, but I’m the one who taught Kryys to play stalker. It was our game. I made it up for him.”
Maria smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Don’t feel too bad, Michael,” Max said, walking up at that moment and joining them, “He got me too. I still don’t know how he got in the throne room.” Max looked at Kryys suspiciously. “You didn’t… you know… do that molecule… atom thing you do… did you?”
Kryys shook his head vigorously. “No, really, I didn’t. I promised I wouldn’t do anything that you or Dad couldn’t do.”
Max groaned. “That’s what I was afraid of. You got me honestly! How did you get into the throne room with me guarding it?”
“I just followed you in. When you turned around, I hid behind the throne, and when you sat down…”
“Yeah, I know. You pounced.”
Kryys smiled.
Max wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. “But I would have seen you behind me, Kryys. It’s not that easy to just walk in my footsteps and not be seen. It would be almost impossible to move exactly when I did and always stay right where I couldn’t see you… and not make any noise that I might hear either.”
Kryys shook his head. “Just have to be fast… and alert… and very quiet.”
“You… or me?”
“Me… but if you want to catch me, you, too.”
Max nodded. “Well, maybe if I’d known you were there…”
“You weren’t supposed to know,” Kryys said innocently.
Max smiled. “Oh yeah. That’s right. I forgot. Okay, then, next time tell me you’re following me so I’ll know.”
Kryys looked confused.
“I’m just kidding, Kryys! I’m still can’t believing you were following me and I didn’t know you were there or see you or hear you or anything at all. When you jumped over the back of the throne into my lap you almost gave me a heart attack! You make a great stalker. Just don’t make a profession of it or teach it to my enemies… okay?”
Kryys smiled and nodded his agreement.
Liz and Maria both laughed, and Diane nodded with a grin.
Maria pulled her son into her arms and held him in front of her proudly. “I’m afraid Kryys won’t have time to play any more games. We’ve got to get ready to go see Ta’lan and Rahn in the Valley. They wanted us all to stop by for a good-bye dinner and some kind of going away gift they have for us before we leave. Our ship is still there in their valley.”
Maria smiled. Her eyes were misty, yet at the same time joyous at the idea of returning home to ALL of her children. As happy as she had been to see Kryys when he so unexpectedly showed up in this dimension, it made her all the more keenly aware of what she was missing back home.
“Where’s Kyle,” Diane asked. “I’ve seen most of the others recently, but I don’t think I’ve seen Kyle or Angie Lee since early this morning. Kyle said he and Angie Lee had a place to hide where Kryys would never find them. And by the way, Kryys, I’ve been meaning to ask you… how did you know they’d try to hide in the palace tutorial stockroom?”
Kryys smiled again. “I’ve seen them go in there before… and they leave the lights off.”
“So you decided to wait inside the tutorial stockroom and ambush them when they came in… in the dark…?”
“Yeah.”
Liz looked at Max and raised her eyebrows with a grin… “Eraser room.”
Max nodded.
“What’s an eraser room,” Kryys asked.
Liz coughed then smiled. “You want to explain it, Max?”
Max seemed to hesitate momentarily. “Well, on earth, they keep… erasers there… chalk erasers… for school. That’s why it’s called an eraser room. Kyle probably misses his old school. The tutorial stockroom kind of reminds him of… fun times… I mean, when he used to be in school. It’s… nostalgic… you know…”
The look on Kryys’ face was a bit doubtful, but Max was finished explaining.
“So where’s Kyle now,” Diane asked again.
“He decided to do some work,” Liz replied. “He’s out in the antechambers interviewing locals who want jobs in the palace… and some who worked here before. He said something about his plans changing and needing something to occupy his mind… He also said he thought he’d be safer working than hiding as long as the palace was haunted with little goblins in the dark. Now I know what he meant. Angie Lee is helping him try to interview the applicants in Antarian… English… English-Antarian, or whatever it is they’re using out there.”
Diane laughed. “I’d love to have seen Kyle and Angie Lee’s faces when they found Kryys in the tutorial stockroom with them… in the dark. Was the eraser room at your school like ours when I went to school?”
“I suspect so,” Liz said with a nod. Then she glanced at Kryys and smiled. “They’re all used to clean and store erasers.”
“Exactly,” Diane said. Max and Michael nodded their heads in agreement.
As Liz and Diane spoke, Kyle walked up with Angie Lee…
“Well! Well! The ghosties are out in broad daylight!” Kyle said, tousling Kryys’ hair playfully and, at the same time, putting his other arm around Angie Lee affectionately, as his double from Antar stood beside them. Angie Lee smiled. “I’ve got good news,” Kyle continued, turning back to Max and Michael and the others. “My double and I hired some staff. We’ve got an official palace chef now… and some attendants to make the beds and clean this place up… especially certain dark, haunted places… like, say, the tutorial stockroom.” Kyle looked straight at Kryys, and Kryys grinned. He knew exactly what Kyle meant.
“You finished just in time,” Maria retorted. “We’ve got to be in the valley in thirty minutes.”
“Speaking of that… is everybody dressed and ready?” Liz asked.
“Well, I need a quick shower and a change,” the younger Michael said. “Somehow, I seem to have gotten unexpectedly sweaty. I imagine Kryys needs to clean up, too.”
“No I don’t,” Kryys replied.
“Yes you do,” the older Michael said, whisking him off the floor and onto his shoulders. “Maria and I’ll have Kryys ready in a jiffy, then we’ll be ready to go.”
“Good!” Liz said. “I’m looking forward to going to Ta’lan’s house for dinner. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting hungry!”
“Yeah! I think I’VE worked up an appetite myself,” Michael agreed, with a suspiciously hungry-looking grin inching further and further over his face as he thought about it.
Twenty-five minutes later, the whole group was together and ready. Liz held up the sphere of the portal…
“Please take us to Ta’lan’s house… outside her front door… in the Ke’cje valley…”
One by one and two by two, the entire group stepped out of the portal directly in front of Ta’lan’s front door, just as Liz had asked the sphere. Kryys looked dapper with his hair combed down ever so neatly.
Max raised his hand and started to knock, but the door opened before he had a chance, and standing there, with a very big and totally human-looking smile, was Rahn.
“Come in,” Ta’lan called out, beckoning to them from the dining area. “Dinner’s almost ready. I’ve invited a few of our people to join us.”
Max looked around. There were nine Ke’cjes in the room… eleven counting Rahn and Ta’lan…
“They wanted to meet you personally,” Ta’lan said, placing yet another large, banana-shaped glass-like bowl of something that definitely smelled very good on the table. “And also… I needed them to ‘approve’ the gift that Rahn and I wanted to give you. But we’ll talk about that later… in good time.”
Max and Liz clasped the hand of each one of the nine Ke’cjes one by one in the typical manner of most Antarians, then Michael and Maria and the others did the same. They didn’t have any idea if it was the way of the Ke’cje shapeshifters or not… but the Ke’cjes were, after all, Antarians, too.
The first Ke’cje, a male, introduced himself as “Jayak.” The next, a female, introduced herself as An’dana. An’dana was followed by Yl’Ivya, Dashnen, Ly’stya, Xyrvel, Sha’malya, C’tolvyo, and Cor’ysta. All in all, there were four males and five females, but Rahn made it five and five if one did not count Ta’lan, who was the hostess.
Cor’ysta, perhaps the most outspoken of the group, took no time in initiating a conversation with Zan…
“Most Antarians believe that the Ke’cje people do not care what goes on in the king’s palace… or in the rest of Antar… because we are isolated and in most ways we rule ourselves and have our own laws. But we do care. We just do not allow negative changes to affect our culture. If one is inside a glass ball bobbing on a stormy sea, even if one is sealed up and well-protected inside the glass ball, it is not the same as floating serenely on a smooth sea. On the rough sea, a headache is assured. We are well-protected here in our valley, but Kivar was a rough sea… he gave us a headache. His… successor… Nyykto was a pain… in another place. Either way, we have longed for the return of our real civilization… and our real king. Welcome home, Zan…”
Cor’ysta turned to face Michael…
“And Rath… it is good to have you back, too…”
Next she turned to Isabel and Angie Lee, eyeing them for a moment then smiling… “Vilandra… Ava… welcome back. We have seen that there have been some changes in the makeup of the royal house. We hope that this will lead to good things for Antar… and happiness for the royal family. Perhaps it may help to prevent any unpleasant reoccurrence of what happened before.”
Cor’ysta was nothing if not blunt sometimes, but Michael understood. So did Isabel and Tess.
“It appears to us that you have chosen a loyal and capable group of friends…” Cor’ysta said, then she added, without any apparent hesitancy or trepidation, “…and new mates.” She was addressing Max and Michael now, but she intended her comment for Isabel and Angie Lee, as well. “Ta’lan has explained that you were reborn through DNA transplants, so that might have been expected. And in the end, it may be for the best.”
“Damn right!” Michael said, putting his arm around Maria.
Cor’ysta looked at Michael with a puzzled expression… “I… I don’t think that translated right.”
Max put his arm around Liz and grinned. “He was agreeing with you… emphatically… I do, too.”
“Oh.” Cor’ysta smiled. “Good… I mean… I’m glad you… I mean, yes, well… that’s what I thought…”
“We understand,” Isabel said sidling up to Alex, who put his arm around her and smiled as Kyle and Angie Lee did the same. “We all think we’ve got the best mate. And none of us want someone like Kivar to come in and take over again like he was able to do before… because of our… uh… misunderstandings.”
“Damn right,” Cor’ysta said, starting everybody to laughing.
“Was that not correct?”
Maria nodded, still laughing. “Exactly correct, Cor’ysta. You learn fast.”
“You have strange expressions on Eluymer,” Cor’ysta said, shaking her head in wonderment, but smiling nevertheless. Then she turned to Max from the other dimension… “Rahn has explained the reason there are two of some of you. Did you have similar problems in your dimension?”
“You mean Kivar?”
“Yes.”
“Unfortunately, we did. He was still in the palace when we got to our Antar. We had to fight him… but we defeated him, just like our doubles defeated Nyykto here.”
Cor’ysta smiled, and the look in her eyes suggested a certain admiration.
“Where did Kryys go?” Michael asked, suddenly realizing that his son was not standing with him and Maria anymore.
“The boy is talking to the strange bird in the cage… over there,” Xyrvel said, indicating the caged hawk on the other side of the room with his finger.
Michael looked where Xyrvel had pointed. Indeed, Kryys was trying very hard to befriend the hawk. The hawk, however, was having none of it.
“Kryys!” Michael admonished, walking over to where he stood, “You shouldn’t harass Nasedo.”
“I’m not harassing him, Dad. I’m trying to be his friend. But he isn’t very friendly. Is that his name… Nasedo?”
Michael nodded. “Or J’Shalo. That’s his Ke’cje name.”
“Hi, Nasedo! Nice Nasedo… J’Shalo,” Kryys said cheerily, sticking his finger through the bars into the cage. “Do you want to be my friend?”
The hawk opened its mouth and snapped it down on Kryys’ finger hard, but the finger suddenly dissolved into atoms, and Kryys pulled it back out quickly. Then the atoms swirling around the end of his hand turned back into a finger again. It was something that Michael barely paid attention to anymore, but it clearly rattled Nasedo, who wobbled momentarily and would have fallen off of his perch if his beak hadn’t caught on the cage, stopping his fall, as he tumbled forward.
“I think Nasedo would rather mope in his cage alone,” Michael said.
“He’s a mean bird,” Kryys said apologetically. “I only wanted to be his friend.”
“I don’t think he wants any friends,” Michael replied. “That’s why Ta’lan keeps him in his cage.”
“Do you think she’ll ever train Nasedo and teach him to be nice, Dad?”
Michael smiled, but it was Ta’lan who answered for him…
“Child, I’ve been trying to train J’Shalo for a very long time… too long. When he’s free he always hurts people. I’m afraid the only thing to do is keep him in his cage. But who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be surprised, huh…”
Kryys smiled.
“Now if everyone will gather around the table, my dinner is ready and just waiting to be eaten.”
Kryys’ eyes lit up, and he rushed to the table, forgetting about the hawk completely for the moment. Ta’lan directed everyone to their seats then began passing the food around. This would be the last meal on this Antar in this dimension for the group from the other dimension… including Kryys. For the group from this dimension, on the other hand, it would be one more beginning… the beginning of their own lives, without the help of their guardian angels.
Unlike Max, Michael, and Kyle from the other dimension, who had arrived on their Antar without Liz, Maria, Isabel, or any of the others of their group and with no idea what they faced, this group was together and had been at least somewhat prepared. There would be many things yet to accomplish, of course… many roads still to go down… and perhaps -even probably- many trials to bear and future burdens to overcome, but the younger group had a head start… they had friends and allies… and most importantly, they had each other. In spite of the disaster at graduation… in spite of Culpepper, Judge Lewis, the FBI’s special unit, and the army… in spite of being shot, paralyzed, locked up in an insane asylum, and everything else that had happened to them, with a little help from friends in another dimension, all of them had made it to Antar alive. And because of their guardian angels from the other dimension… and an extraordinary determination and will to live… this group would not need to go back in time to change a horrible, unbearable past in order to be reunited with their soul mates or their friends. They had already been reunited. Now they could begin to live their lives… and look to a much, much brighter future together… in the place where destiny and love had led them.
End of chapter 54
tbc…
tbc…
Coming up: The final chapter
Yes, you heard right. The end has finally come… almost! The last chapter is mostly written already, so look for it in a couple of days if not sooner. Of course, I could have waited and posted them both together, but then I would have only got one more feedback from each of you.
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