From the Ashes Read online

  He had dozed off throughout the day. Tending the herd was dreary, nothing to do but feed them and make sure the breeders didn’t mix with the meaters. The fat beasts were cute and friendly, but Yosh was determined not to get attached again. Crying until his eyes dried up wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat—ever.

  Yosh approached the brown lump of metal that passed for a spaceship from the north. He was grumpy, sleepy, and sore everywhere from fighting Skrill and sparring with Assai. The other slaves noticed the direction he came from and flashed little knowing smiles—strange smiles, from crooked alien mouths. If any of them said anything, Yosh would clobber them. With four years hard training on his side, why would he allow himself to be pushed around or mocked? I wonder what Assai is doing now, he thought. She’s the only alien who doesn’t look at me with hate and bitterness.

  The landing pad’s flat, blackened cement surface was cracked and uneven. Obelyn’s ship, the Troubadour sat smack in the middle of it, surrounded by the usual crowd. Obelyn claimed troubadours had been traveling merchants back on Earth ten thousand years ago. Men and women who traveled the world with mighty caravans and personal armies. Yosh suspected Obelyn invented most of the things he said, but he liked the merchant.

  Obelyn had set stairs as usual, leading into the Troubadour’s cargo bay, but the other slaves, ragged beings dressed in patched rags like his own, weren’t scurrying along them as Yosh expected. Instead, almost all the hundred slaves of Shacktown stood huddled in a circle around the entrance. Something’s happened. Yosh’s thoughts went to his grandfather. The old man was supposed to wait for him here. If Skrill wanted to beat up Yosh but didn’t find him, he might have turned his sights on the next best choice.

  Yosh’s heart boomed against his chest as he ran toward the blue, red, green and purple-skinned crowd. “What happened?” He pushed his way through the aliens, sometimes harder than intended. The aliens ogled him as he drove toward the center. They snarled and snapped their jaws, some even scratched at him, and muttered curses in their strange tongues. “Get out of my way.” Yosh shoved them aside. Yesterday’s rage came back—a smoldering white globe in his gut. If something happened to his grandfather, he’d beat every single one of them to a pulp.

  He reached the center. There were bodies strewn at the bottom of the stairs. Yosh blinked and adjusted his awkward glasses. He didn’t understand what happened. Three bodies lay on the ground and… Skrill was here! He and Merril stood at the base of the stairs next to the bodies. Cold sweat trickled down Yosh’s face and he fought to keep his hands from shaking. He wanted to get closer to see the bodies, but the two arkanian guards loomed over them. Gray hair, Yosh thought. Check if they have gray hair.

  Yosh flinched as someone grabbed him by the shoulder. He spun around ready to bash in some alien teeth.

  “You’re late,” his grandfather said in his usual grumpy voice. “What do you think you’re doing? You pushed right past me. That’s hardly a good way to treat your grandfather. Why when your father was your age—”

  Yosh rushed the old man and put his arms tight around him. His grandfather stopped talking, hesitated a moment, and returned the embrace. After a moment, Yosh pulled away. He cleared his throat and took a few seconds to get his bearings. “I was looking for you.”

  His grandfather grinned. “I’m fine, lad. You worry too much. That’s my job. It’s not your turn yet.”

  Yosh smiled and nodded toward the bodies. “What happened?”

  His grandfather’s deep blue eyes flicked to them, and Yosh turned. “Your friend Skrill and his brutes tried to steal Obelyn’s ship.”

  “Yes, my friend…” Yosh studied the bodies without the fog of panic. All three were alien. Two blue skinned—lorran—and another hairy and big, sylosian. Skrill stood over the body, wobbling back and forth, humming low. He howled and kneeled before the sylosian body. Was he crying? Sarla, Yosh thought. That’s Sarla. Yosh had never seen the two of them apart.

  A knot caught in Yosh’s throat. One of the arkanian guards pulled Skrill’s shoulder, trying to get him to his feet. The big, hairy oaf didn’t pay him any mind. Instead, he took Sarla in his arms and held her tight to his chest. The arkanian roared something and pulled out a two-foot-long baton. Yosh heard the electric buzz from thirty feet away as the guard shoved the charged end of the baton between Skrill’s shoulder blades. The air stank of ozone and charred fur, and Skrill roared in pain. Skrill’s entire body shook under the charge, but he didn’t release his hold on Sarla. The guard didn’t give up, and the encounter seemed to last forever. How could Skrill endure the shock stick so long?

  “Stop,” Yosh yelled. “You’ll kill him!”

  His grandfather put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. “Quiet, Yosh.”

  They were the same height and Yosh looked his grandfather in the eyes, puzzled. He couldn’t let Skrill get tortured or killed, could he? He rubbed the spot above his eye where Skrill had said ‘hello’, but he still couldn’t just sit and watch. Yosh shook his grandfather’s hand away. “We can’t let them do this. We can stop them.” He leaned closer to his grandfather and whispered. “There are only two of them. They’re old. We can take them with Skrill’s strength and ours. Steal their ship, leave this—”

  “Silence, you fool.”

  The white hot bulb of rage in his gut got larger. “Skrill,” he said, turning. “Just lie down. They’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  Skrill turned to Yosh. He looked confused, even more so than before. By now the second guard, who held Merril by the arm, came over, dragging his limping prisoner behind him. He took out his own baton, but instead of unloading the charge into Skrill he bashed the wailing brute over the head with it. Skrill’s tears had evaporated and smoke slithered from his fur into the air. After another minute of being shocked and bludgeoned, Skrill closed his eyes and collapsed over Sarla’s corpse. His body shook now and then.

  “Back to your duties,” the guard holding Merril told the crowd, waving his shock stick in the air. “Now, before I send you all to the Pits for treason.”

  The crowd muttered and dispersed. Yosh’s grandfather dragged him away by the arm, and the guards dragged Skrill and Merril away. At least Skrill was alive. They wouldn’t have bothered otherwise, just like they didn’t bother with the three that remained at the entrance to the Troubadour.

  Chapter Four

  “I never liked that big monkey,” Obelyn said, his chins flapping. “I noticed him last year, prowling through my ship, trying to get to the upper decks. Said he was looking for the little sylosian’s room when I caught him. The nerve!” Obelyn waved his pudgy hands through the air as he spoke. It was dangerous to stand next to him when he was talking. Even though Yosh towered over him now, he still remembered coming too close when he was younger. His jaw had been numb for an hour, but Obelyn showered him with candies afterward as an apology.

  “They thought because old Obelyn is fat, it means he’s weak and stupid too.” Obelyn chuckled and looked at Yosh and his grandfather. “Well, I showed them. I bought security droids last year after I left Mandessa, just in case my blaster hand wasn’t as steady as in my youth.”

  “I remember how your blaster hand was in your youth,” Yosh’s grandfather said, smiling. “More fit for a chicken leg than a blaster.”

  Both of them laughed and Yosh smiled. Seeing Obelyn always made his grandfather happy, and Yosh saw him smiling so rarely that it brightened his mood in an instant. They sat on comfortable chairs around a table in a small backroom adjacent the cargo bay. The bay itself was sealed now, and the ramp retracted. Obelyn would stay a few days more, but he was done with business for today.

  One of the Troubadour’s service droids brought them three metal cups of sweet, steaming cider. Yosh picked up his cup in both hands, inhaled the sweet smell of apple and cinnamon, and thanked the droid.

  “Olexander, you old coot, how I’ve missed you,” Obelyn said, one hand squeezing the hot mug, the other shaking Olexander
’s shoulder. “You look just as you did a year ago. Time seems to ignore you. Either that or this slave colony suits you.”

  “I may not look it, but trust me old friend, I feel every year that has passed over me.”

  “Want me to whisk you away from this dung heap of a planet?” Obelyn said, chugging the piping hot cider without flinching. “Arkanians won’t miss an old pisspot like you. It’ll be just like the old days, Obelyn and Olexander flying through the dark to cause trouble for the arkanians.” He slapped a meaty palm against the table. “The Emperor’ll soil himself.”

  Olexander’s eyes shone in the dim lights of the backroom at the mention of Earth and the old days. A peculiar impression snuck up on Yosh during the few seconds his grandfather looked Obelyn in the eyes, pretending to consider his offer. His grandfather was doing a great job at feigning interest. Yosh’s hopes spiked. Maybe his grandfather accepted and they would both fly away with Obelyn. But then what about Assai? Yosh wanted to leave Mandessa, but he didn’t want to never see Assai again. It didn’t matter. Yosh knew the fat man dressed in gold and red garments was joking.

  Olexander and Obelyn burst into laughter at the same time. Yosh grinned, half-sad they still didn’t have a way off Mandessa, half-relieved he didn’t have to leave without Assai.

  “I’m afraid that’ll have to wait, my friend.” Olexander’s eyes flicked to Yosh for the tiniest of moments, and focused on the cup of cider between his fingers. “Soon though. Perhaps very soon.”

  “Oh, indeed?”

  What was that? Yosh scratched at the metal cup with his fingernail and watched them closely. I wonder. Is Obelyn going to…? As soon as Yosh thought it, Obelyn’s eyes flicked to Yosh and back to Olexander again as if nothing happened. Blast. Something’s going on.

  “Yosh, are you all right?” Obelyn said to him. “Your hands are still shaking. Was it the fight?”

  Obelyn’s tiny eyes were very nimble. Yosh set the steaming cup on the table and cupped one hand in the other to steady them. “I never— You know.”

  Obelyn nodded and his chins nodded along with him. “You never saw a corpse before.”

  Yosh stared at his hands. He was glad he had the strength to will them into not trembling.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll likely not see anything nasty like that on Mandessa again. This is a peaceful world, a sanctuary from the chaos, violence, and suffering that’s out there.” Obelyn pointed one of his pudgy, ring-adorned fingers toward the sky. “That’s why coming here to visit you is like a vacation. I might just start increasing the frequency of my visits.”

  “You’re most welcome here any time, old friend.”

  “Tell that to those arkanian customs officers. Greedy bunch o’bastards. What use do they have for the do-dads they seize from me? Tell me.” The big man shrugged his giant shoulders.

  “But we’re slaves here,” Yosh interjected.

  “Aye,” the merriment vanished from Obelyn’s eyes. “You are and be grateful you are slaves on Mandessa. There are worse places. Trust me, I’ve visited them. You don’t want to be a slave on Richter Prime, where life expectancy for humans is twenty-two.” Obelyn leaned over and narrowed his eyes toward Yosh. “How old are you, Yosh?”

  Yosh smiled at Obelyn’s attempt to frighten him. He straightened his back, grabbed the cup of hot cider, and threw it down his throat, like Obelyn had done a minute ago. “Seventeen,” he said through the burn.

  Obelyn smiled, leaned back, and spread his arms. “Well congratulations. You can expect seventy more peaceful years of life here on Mandessa. Count yourself among the lucky ones.”

  Yosh didn’t know what to say. Obelyn was right about having a peaceful life, but was he supposed to be satisfied tending the dog herd until he was as old as his grandfather? No, something was wrong, but what? Life seemed misaligned, as if things weren’t as they were supposed to be, and everyone knew it, but they kept quiet. It gnawed at him night and day. Sometimes his blood boiled with rage for no reason and he couldn’t figure out why. He was meant to do something—he felt it in his bones, but what was he supposed to do?

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that bloody business, Yosh, but people must protect themselves. You can’t have others taking what belongs to you. If someone wants to take what’s yours, you must fight for it.”

  Yosh seized the opportunity. “What about freedom? Isn’t that worth fighting for?”

  “Enough.” Olexander’s voice reverberated through the small chamber. “That’s dangerous talk for a slave, Yosh. Be careful.”

  “You’ve been telling me to be careful all my life. What use is being careful if the arkanians can torture and kill you in public on a whim? They would’ve killed Skrill today if nobody said anything.”

  “Enough Yosh. We’re not discussing this now,” Olexander said and assumed a blank, passionless face. He always did that when he wanted Yosh to drop a subject. But this time Yosh didn’t want to drop it. He was right, and he had Obelyn as audience now. Perhaps this time his grandfather would give in, perhaps he’d listen. Yosh needed to push and goad him out of his silence.

  “Did you tell my father the same—to be careful? Some good it did him. Why did he die then? Wasn’t he careful enough?”

  Olexander’s eyes flashed and his mouth curled in an angry snarl as he slowly rose from the table. “How dare you?” His voice reverberated through Yosh’s chest even though his grandfather had not yelled, and Yosh’s determination melted away. “Yes, I told your father the same blasted thing. I told him to be careful, and he was anything but. He was a reckless fool, just like you.” He paused, his facial muscles coming under control again and the mask of impassiveness taking over. “And I loved him for it.”

  The familiar threat of tears gathered behind Yosh’s eyes, but he had learned long ago to subdue them. He stared at the floor. “I miss him.”

  Olexander sat. “I miss him too, Yosh.”

  Yosh cleared his throat and rose from the table. “Well, I’ll go scrounge through uncle Obelyn’s wares. I usually find something useful among all the junk. If I search hard enough…”

  Obelyn put a hand to his chest and made his eyes bulge in fake outrage. “I'll have you know I deal in only the most select of junk. But, you’ve had a rough day obviously, so I forgive you. Pick something nice, something to make you smile, and it’ll be yours. I got my hands on new books, you might want to peek at them.”

  Yosh smiled. “Thank you.”

  “If you need any help, ask the droid there; he’s fitted as a merchandiser too.”

  Yosh left the backroom. He heard them chuckle behind him, and he heard his grandfather thanking Obelyn again. Before he went five steps, the door shut behind him with a steel thud. Yosh considered spying on their conversation, but that would have to wait. Obelyn always had very interesting odds and ends and Yosh liked nothing more than to sift through the junk in search of hidden gems.

  ◆◆◆

  Yosh scrounged his way through most of the items in the cargo bay in about an hour. Among his most interesting finds were two books bound in black leather, thicker than any book Yosh ever saw. The titles spanned across the covers in big, bold golden letters, which might have looked nice long ago, but now the leather was worn and the letters faded. Yosh preferred them like this. He had an affinity for old things. The worn leather gave the books an ancient and esoteric quality. In contrast, the pages were as white and crisp as if printed yesterday.

  The title of the first book read The Life and Work of Augustus Polynsky: A Treaty of Superior Genetics, by Arthur A. Polynsky. Yosh had heard the name Polynsky before, mentioned in other books and old printed news reports about the beginning of the order of the Protectors. It enthralled Yosh. The Protectors were a sensitive subject. Obelyn would get in trouble if the arkanians knew he possessed such wares. Owning any book was bad; owning a book written in English was worse; owning a book written in English and about the Protectors meant instant incarceration. Yosh wanted it.

  The
second book showed even more signs of wear and tear. Its leather corners were tattered, and the pages seemed yellowish and brittle to the touch. The cover read Four and Twenty Tales of Bravery, but the author’s name was illegible. Yosh had already read Three and Twenty Tales of Valor, and Two and Twenty Tales of Courage before that. He loved them. They described life on Earth, hundreds and thousands of years ago. Sometimes the tales matched the history lessons his grandfather taught him; sometimes they didn’t. They had one thing in common though. They showcased brave deeds and brave men, women, and children who risked their lives for their friends, family, and sometimes even for the entire world.

  Yosh wondered how humans had lost the war with the arkanians. Were Earth men and women less brave as in the old days? If humans kept Earth safe from trolls, demons, elves, dragons and other such fearsome beasts, why hadn’t they saved it from arkanians?

  Other trinkets caught his eye. A rusted tin box the droid said was a machine that burned bread, very popular in the old days. This sounded like folly to Yosh though. He also stumbled across alien trinkets whose uses he couldn’t imagine, with handles and levers and sharp edges. Yosh stayed away from those.

  He remembered his eye drops and his skin ointment and groaned. He had brought them along, but the sleep deprivation made him forget. The drops stung Yosh’s eyes, but at least it was over. However, the Troubadour’s cargo bay didn’t seem the best place to strip and use his boil ointment. I’ve been using these for years though, he thought, weighing the two vials in his hand. He was still blinder than a mole without his glasses, and his skin still bristled with boils.