Looking at her arms, she realized that they were coal black with the same thin marble lines in them that her Femoh captors had. Her hair was now unbound. It fell in gray and black stripes around her head. She was different than any of the Femoh she'd seen, but she had similar features. Maybe her body was rebelling in a way that caused her not to look entirely like them. Maybe it didn't want to look like them, and neither did she. She hated them with every fiber of her being. She had dreamed through her pain of her brothers, tied down to their beds, crippled with the pain that she was experiencing. Her greatest fear was that they would feel this horrible pain. They had always felt dimly what the others had felt whenever one got sick. She missed them so much that she had to block out this pain so that they would not feel it. She tried to think of anything at all that could give her peace from the burning pain and the aching intensity of this power and fire torture the Femoh were inflicting on her.
Eirena heard them coming just like she always did, although they were light on their feet. Whatever they did to her made her sensitive to sound. She quickly closed her eyes and pretended to be knocked out, just as she always did when they came to increase the power of the surge to her body. They seemed to keep pushing it up higher, as though they were trying to see where her breaking or dying point was.
“Wonderful! She is changing. I believe we have found the one that we can use to start the shilmena, and if so, we can replicate them to regain our former power and ability to harvest other species to our purpose,” hissed Gitab. Eirena knew it was Gitab by his voice, as she had become familiar with all of their voices and names. They spoke freely around her, believing that the pain incapacitated her. She would play the submissive victim, but when she got the chance, she would kill them. She would destroy them all.
“Would you like me to start the cuttings now?” asked Triab a bit too excitedly for Eirena's taste. He ran his hand through Eirena's hair and then down her back to her waist.
“Of course. Yes, we shall. However, this time, put some limin on it. That way, it will burn the wound closed so that we can do this through the night. She will heal nicely for us to continue tomorrow with this form of torture. We will bring her to pain. I intend to hear her scream. Either she simply refuses to scream, or she is too weak at this point to let it out. I will hear it from her before we finish the inspection to see if she is from the ancients,” Gatib asked.
“If she is from the ancients who conquered our planet thousands of years ago, then she can be dangerous. I know they visited this planet long ago and brought the knowledge of navigating the universe, but no one knows where they came from or how they acquired their power to adapt or travel so fast. The only things they left behind were the scrolls and the shilmenas. The highly advanced shilmenas have allowed us to travel the galaxies as a supreme power. We used to have hundreds of these spacecrafts to travel and conquer, but now we have only one. If the Katek were to find out we have this one, we would have another major war with them,” Triab replied, while he started rubbing a cool clear cream over Eirena's legs.
“Not to worry, Triab. We have now embedded the designs of the shilmena into the knowledge base. It will allow us to create many, many more of them. We just need this being to start it. We don't have a power source great enough to start it on this planet. The shilmenas were left here with an unlimited power source until the vile Katek destroyed it all. They utterly destroyed that power source that was once connected to the shilmena. The Katek idiots were too stupid to know that blowing up ancient ruins caused them to lose the very thing they were fighting us for,” Gitab stated, angrily hitting his fist to the palm of his hand.
“May I begin, sir?” Triab asked when he finished rubbing Eirena's arms and legs with the cool substance. Eirena mentally braced herself when Triab put his hand on her to smooth the clear cream over her, as she knew that with them, every act was followed by pain.
“You know, Triab, we need to meet with the council. I have something that may subdue this being and allow us to control it to our will. It is the batiluk, which was held in the ancient ruins with the shilmena. The scrolls noted its power to control these beings. I believe it was the source of their departure,” Gitab mentioned. Eirena heard him pick up something heavy and metallic, which he dragged across the floor.
Just as Eirena was getting used to the sensation of the pulsing electrical shocks with the burning fire to follow, the cutting started. She held back a scream of pain and anger as she felt a knife of fire rip her from her calf to her thigh. It was instantly followed by a scorching burn, which healed her skin, leaving the pain deep within the tissue of her muscle. Her leg didn't throb, but it felt like it was still ripped apart with muscle and bone exposed.
“Oh, she is healing nicely. I will do the other leg while we start the nailing,” Triab said with a sick sound of glee. Before Eirena's mind could adjust to the searing pain on her leg, she felt the floor give way as hundreds of cutting nails pierced her arms and the front of her legs to her toes, as Triab started cutting on the other leg. She bit down on her tongue, and tears fell unchecked from her eyes. She refused to speak, to yell, or to scream, because she felt it would give them pleasure. She pushed back the pain, breathed deeply, and thought of better days as the monster of her body's misery taunted her.
At that moment, she heard Aadi. He was in her mind again, telling her he would save her. She tightened her eyes as the next wave of pain hit her when they left her legs to work on her arms. Her mind went black. She could fight no more.
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Aadi and Jantik were definitely captured. The Katek warriors had them chained together at the neck by gold collars. The collars emitted sharp pricks in the skin whenever Aadi or Jantik struggled to walk while being pulled by the leashes that were tied to these mammoth animals called catire that the Katek rode on. The catire looked like a cross between a horse and scorpion. It had legs like a horse and a face and nose like one, but the outer shell of a scorpion. The Katek warriors were speaking amongst themselves and looked back to check on Jantik and Aadi periodically.
“This will bring us a large prize. Capturing the son of the Nutah leader, life will be good. Listen, Petin, watch those prisoners closely. I want to know where the one with Jantik comes from. He is not of Shrenas, nor of our planet Tulinih. Although he looks like he is part of Shrenas and is surviving in the harsh climate changes, he looks otherworldly. We will get to the bottom of his mystery when we take him to Olinu. Since it was Olinu that told me to capture him, he must be important. Obviously, Olinu doesn't know the Nutah is assisting the being, because he would have requested its capture also. This will be a great surprise,” said the lead warrior.
“Quetek, can we have some fun with them, go high speed and drag them along for fun? Olinu didn't say we had to bring them back in one piece,” said Petin, the obvious second-in-command.
“Oh, yes. Let's race!” Quetek said as he and Petin started to drag Aadi and Jantik by their collars by prodding the catire to gallop at a faster pace across the red sand.
Aadi felt the piercing sting of the painful collar and saw Jantik struggling to run, as they had shackled his feet. How they could treat one of their own kind with such cruelty, Aadi didn't know, but he had no time to think as the pain of the tugging grew with Petin and Quetek pushing their animals to full speed. Aadi grabbed Jantik and pulled with him as he speed behind the Katek, keeping perfect time with the beasts. Jantik looked at him with surprise as Aadi concentrate on keeping up and staying on his feet. Aadi hadn't realized that he was running easily behind the beasts.
“Aadi, how are you doing this? I am fast, but no one can keep up with a catire. They are some of the fastest animals on this planet,” Jantik announced while out of breath.
“I don't know how I am doing it, and I don't care. I have got to get free so I can save Eirena!” Aadi said. He forced the saliva carefully down his throat as even a swallow caused the collar to pierce his skin.
The Katek warriors stopped the race when they came upon a small grouping of hut-shaped buildings. There were only a few of them gathered in small clusters. The warriors took both Aadi and Jantik to a large pole. They were thrown toward the secured poles near the side of one of the huts that had a rounded globe for a roof. The warriors attached them to the pole by clamps that fit the chain leash on their collars. Then the Katek went inside the huts, leaving them as though they were dogs waiting outside for their masters.
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“Jantik, we have got to get free!” Aadi said. Frustrated, he kicked his feet to the ground.
“These binds are impossible to break. They will release sharp knives that will pierce our skin and inject a poison that will burn through our veins. We won't die from it, but we will wish we had,” Jantik said with a shiver.
“I will rest a bit and take this off of us,” Aadi said, closing his eyes. He had to get to Eirena. He didn't know how much longer she would last, but he had to get to her quickly. Shutting his mind, he pictured her and then touched her mind with his. Projecting to her, he saw darkness and then felt her pain. It was so deep and sharp on his arms and legs that the front of his body shivered and shook. He heard Jantik call out to him from a distance. He couldn't bear to think she was feeling this. She had buried herself so deep within that the pain had her trapped in a cocoon in her mind. “Eirena, you need to help me, you need to fight. I will save you!” Aadi called out to her in his mind. Then he saw her with black marble skin, white curvy designs on her body, built with muscle, and gray hair with black streaks. She looked amazingly powerful and angry. Then the door to her pain, her anger, and her hate slammed on him, and he forced himself to stand.
“Ugh!” Aadi cried out. The sharp needle-like knives cut the skin at his neck, forcing the black poison deep into his blood and down his neck. He screamed and felt like acid was pouring through his veins. He fell back to his knees. Picturing Eirena, he forced himself back to standing, one leg at a time. He told himself to focus and heard Jantik in the background telling him to stop fighting it. He blocked everything out and grabbed the collar that was locked on his neck. He felt the power building through the intense pouring of the poison through his veins. The power started in his center and poured to his legs, his feet, his arms, and finally his hands. With all the focus he could muster, he pulled the collar off, and it snapped in two in his hands. He felt nothing but anger and his determination to save Eirena, his one last link to home.
Without thought or hesitation, he turned to Jantik, who now appeared afraid of him. As Jantik shied away in fear, Aadi reached out and grabbed the collar on Jantik's neck. He yanked it off and broke it into pieces before it could inject its poison into Jantik's veins.
“Thank you, my friend. We must hurry before they return!” Jantik said, and he ran off without hesitation. Aadi quickly followed, only to get frustrated with Jantik's comparably slow pace. Aadi scooped Jantik up easily with his arm and ran at an accelerated speed to the boulder that held their weapons and Ebu. Jantik held on tightly, as the thought of falling seemed much worse than allowing Aadi to run with him tucked under his arm. They quickly came upon the boulder, and Aadi put his backpack on. Jantik quickly followed by putting on his sack.
“Ebu, is there a faster way into the lair of the Femoh?” Aadi asked. He had no time for doubts or concern for why he was changing. He didn't wonder why now only the dull pain of the poison seemed to be absorbed into his body as though it was part of him.
“Yes, the fastest way is down through one of the sinkholes. This one will take us to an underground tunnel,” Ebu said.
“Then that is the route we will take. Do you want me to carry you, Jantik?” Aadi asked and held out his arm.
“No. We need to take this slowly, for there are millions of Femoh, and they are not as weak as they may seem. They are quick and deadly when they have to be. We still need to sneak up on them. If we are walking, we don't appear threatening. We want to be able to sneak in undetected,” said Jantik. He started to walk in the direction of the sinkhole that would take them directly into the Femoh domain. Aadi followed with no hesitation or fear. He called to Eirena and screamed into her mind, “Get up and fight, Eirena! Now! Help save yourself! Push away the pain and pull in the power!” He knocked down the door Eirena had built around herself in her mind with a strong mental push.
Eirena jerked with the mental image of a red-skinned, red-eyed Aadi, and it shocked her out of her pain. She was flat on the floor with the painful nails removed from her body. They no longer pierced the skin that now healed almost instantly as the nails sunk back into the floor from which they came.
Finul was now the only one left of the lead torturers that enjoyed causing her so much pain. Eirena groggily opened her eyes and saw about twenty other Femoh observing Finul's ritual of cutting her with the long knives that sent needles of burning fire into her muscles. They were all smiling down at the spectacle in pleasure. Eirena breathed in deeply to pull all the pain within and felt power starting to build deep in her stomach. It flowed through her veins, down her legs, to her fingertips, and she called to the connection Aadi had created to communicate with her mentally.
“I am in the west corridor, and I am ready when you are!” she thought, as she pictured the changed Aadi slipping through a sinkhole in her mind.
Aadi slipped easily behind Jantik as they slid through the rounded sinkhole into the Femoh territory. The tunneled hallway was carved smoothly from a black granite stone that had lines of white striped throughout. Jantik took out his weapons, ready for any surprise attack. Aadi followed suit and held the lavik in his hand as he would a gun and the talin as though it were a sword. They slowly snaked undetected down the winding hallway and came upon a small group of Femoh heading in their direction.