Chapter 11:
The pyre had burned down; the ashes had scattered on the wind. The mass grave had been set ablaze and still burned. The evening had come in. Wounded had died. The battle-weary troops had set up a temporary camp, and now he sat across from Talon, Renall, Jeval, and Marik and their mates. Tara was at his side, and he could feel the silky spring of her hair against his neck. That comforted him somewhat but his heart was heavy, and regret ate into him with every breath.
So much time wasted, and so many things left unsaid between his father and himself, and now there would never be time to say or do the things he had wanted to say and do with and to his father. Their time in the world had parted ways.
Renall said, “Tralam’s a myth.”
“I don’t even know what the myth is,” Tara said softly. “I have never heard of it.”
“That’s because you are human and young and the humans forgot about it centuries ago. But we Revants are long-lived, as are a few other species, and our memories are long,” Marik stared into the fire lit in the center of the shelter comprised of wreckage and cloth. The shadows danced over his face, highlighting the planes and angles there, and Blade said, “I heard of it once on some planet. There was a singer who sung of it, called it the fearsome Tralam and spoke of the horrors awaiting there.”
Renall chuckled. “That’s how they carried its tale, those who knew of its existence. They turned it into myth on purpose because they knew nobody would believe them, or so the very eldest of the ones who were centuries old when I was but a few years into life said.”
Tara looked at Blade. Her green eyes held so many questions and so much concern, and he knew that that concern was mostly for him. His hand found hers and squeezed gently. She managed a smile, and that made a small smile come upon his mouth too, but it died fast and hard.
Jenny said, “I have never heard of it either. Why don’t you tell it to us?”
Marik looked around at the others gathered there in the shelter. “I don’t know that I could do it as much justice as a singer.”
Blade said, “We do not need a singer to tell us this. My father thought that there was something to it. While it may be simply a tale, perhaps there is some truth to it at its heart. If we can hear it, we could either dismiss his words entirely or consider them.”
Renall spoke quietly. “They do say that every story has some grain of truth within it. I have no idea how much truth is within that particular tale, but if there is any, then it may serve us well.”
Jessica poked an elbow into Talon’s ribs. “Have you ever heard of it?”
Talon nodded his head. “I always disregarded it. I don’t need to know how or why the founding members of the Federation died or the creation of the universe. I did hear that many millennia ago humans worshipped a myth similar to that tale, a tale of creation and self-sacrifice, I mean. But who knows? They have all been dead for centuries, and while it is said that the first Federation founders killed themselves, that might just be a myth too.”
Blade shifted uneasily. The shelter had been built haphazardly, and the ground was near earth and grass. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit, but that was not why he shifted the way he had.
A sudden memory had risen up in his mind, a memory of his father standing over him when he was ten or maybe eleven and saying to him that the root of all that could be found to be evil lay not in the Federation itself but in those who had taken it over. That if the eldest of the Federation, its founding members, could only come back, that they would be able to set right all that had gone wrong in their absence.
At the time he had thought it was merely wistful or wishful thinking, but perhaps his father was truly mourning the loss of the original Federation’s founding members—something that made much more sense now that he knew they had all taken their own lives.
That the Federation had gone from being a thing meant to ally the universe and bring it peace to a corrupted system filled with the power- and wealth-hungry was a clear thing, and even the Federation’s most staunch supporters knew that all was not what it should be.
Blade moved his leg so that it pressed more tightly against Tara’s. “I had not heard that the founding members took their own lives.”
Jessica looked at him with a frown forming between her straight brows. She looked over at Jenny and then at Margie. “Nor had I. That’s something I’ve never heard. I heard they died but that we were living their legacy and that we must always honor the thing that they’d created. I never heard they committed suicide.”
Blade’s fingers inscribed a small pattern into the dirt beside his bent knee. “Why on earth would they commit suicide? They had formed the most powerful alliance ever known, and they were in charge of it. Why would they have killed themselves?”
Talon said, “Maybe that’s why they don’t discuss it much. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Why would the beings that had complete control of the entire universe suddenly destroy themselves? I always thought that part of it was strange, but the old tales of the old gods and old civilizations have plenty of deities who gave their lives in order to save the population.”
Blade snorted. “I’d say they fucked up then. If they really did off themselves, all they accomplished was to let their underlings run amok with all the power in the universe, and look what they have done with it through the centuries.”
Tara looked over at him. Her mouth was turned down a bit, and he could see the weariness in her expression. The expression on her face tugged at his heartstrings, and he felt more regret and remorse settling in. He had nearly lost her more than once, and still might. The Federation had been beaten back; they had not been beaten. In order to truly best them, they would have to fight for a lot longer, and many more lives would have to be given.
But, oh God, he did not want hers to be one of them.
Talon said, “Tell the story then, Marik.”
Marik settled in a bit. His voice began, and Blade leaned further against the body of the woman that he was in love with. He closed his eyes as the tale began, and he let the words spin out around him, take him to another time and place...
“Once, long ago when the universe was still uncivilized and unsettled, there arose war. All of the planets were governed by their own governments and upon each planet was war. The planets were at war with themselves, and with each other. There was war over class systems, war over resources, many of which were dwindling throughout the universe. There was violence and blood, disagreement, and hatred. Humans disliked those who were not human. The alien races who were not human disliked the humans because they were too arrogant and prideful and because they had not yet understood, as their awakening to the fact that the universe was greater than just their planet system, that they were but one species among many.
During this time of great strife and darkness, there grew another time. Alongside the darkness came much light. Technologies advanced. Civilizations advanced. Death could not be stopped; it is the universal rule that death shall always have its hold. But the things that caused death could sometimes be changed or halted in their tracks and death could be stalled or stymied.
At that time, the greatest beings in the universe were the Speakers. The Speakers were an ancient race, older than even the universe, or so some whispered. Others said that the Speakers were in fact the creators of the universe. That they had fled from their own universe into the one of which we now speak, and then closed the door firmly behind them in order to prevent this new universe from ever knowing of the other. It was whispered that the Speakers had done this because on the other side of that door lay nothing but the ruins of planets and worlds who had been too long at war and who had destroyed themselves and everything living in its lust and need for war and power.
