Chapter 11 Amethyst Wings

Granted, I can’t say no to anyone asking for help because of my programming, but also because I’m such a narcisstic personality, always seeking attention. We get in trouble because we give in to a weakness, only to blame others. Well, I’m not going to blame anyone, whatever happens.

Luan is reserved, discreet, almost mysterious.

“I’ve lost a silver ring with a precious stone that your father gave to me. He will be really mad at me if I do not find it soon. I know I haven’t been very nice to you, Demi, I promise it will change if you help me! Come with me, please!”

I nod. Not everything he said is true. But he is so concerned! Let’s do whatever it takes to protect him from my father’s wrath.

He leads me out of the stables, around the house and through the bushes. There is a narrow passage overgrown with weeds, leading directly to the street. No one ever uses it, as people just come up the paved road that leads to my father’s impressive stone-built house.

It’s getting darker, and I follow Luan down the street towards the city square. The last vendors are putting away unsold goods from the stands, and a carriage drives by.

At the sight of a carriage Luan immediately hides behind one of the vegetable stands, jerking me to do the same.

“What are you afraid of?” I almost fall and scratch my hand on a wooden board.

“No one should know I employed you for this!” Luan’s voice trembles.

We briskly cross the square, and he leads me to the back door of the city hall, a building with a tall tower. My father works here alongside Per Taonur. Letaluan comes here often. Logically, he must have lost the ring somewhere here. He is more home than here, though. It does not smell right...

My thoughts are interrupted, as Luan unlocks the door and pushes me inside. There are a couple of windows, but it’s still pretty dark and the air is stuffy. A narrow hall leads to the staircase into the tower.

“Please follow me! Yesterday I was up in the tower because I was told to go through the archives. Must have lost the ring in the pile of papers!” Luan explains, as he starts up the winding metal stairs.

I feel somewhat unable to turn back, as he is so insistent. I climb the stairs into a small room, that indeed, has tons of old, dusty papers in stacks along the walls, and just strewn on the floor.

The sunset shines its last farewell rays through the only window.

“Where were you in the room yesterday?” I ask, as I feel no trace of his energy anywhere here. He was not in this room, not even in the town hall itself for a couple of weeks.

“Oh.. I was all over the place… cleaning… Dusty, eh?” Luan says. “I’ll open the window for you!”

Cleaning? I thought the city hall had its own servants, and he was sent to go through the archives. Now he’s obviously lying, can’t even keep his story straight.

“The ring is not here. There is tons of metal objects in this room, but none of them are of silver. Luan, if you came here to force me to steal stuff, I’m not going to do it!”

“No, no, I’d never do that! You’re too good and honest for this!” His voice is all of a sudden sweet and soft. “Come here!”

Jeez, man, what happened to you? Oh, ok. I come to him, and we stand by the window, looking at the sunset, burning bright to the end. The wind dies down, and it feels nice. We are pretty high above the ground. The square looks small from here, and the last people hurrying home are like toy dolls you can pick up with two fingers. Funny.

“I’m sorry, Demi.” Luan says at last. His voice is flat and cold. “You should’ve not come home. Your father’s money will be mine, not yours.”

Then he pushes me out of the window.

All I have time for is to let out a scream of shock and fear. I don’t have any time to think about anything. I know that I’m falling to my death. This is it. Maybe it is to the better.

The ground advances quickly. The cobblestones look like a lace. What a strange thought. It’s going to hurt. Or not. Who cares.

Some extremely strong hands grab me in midair, and carry away. The face of the creature from my dream is right in front of me. We’re flying. What a terrifying, yet exhilarating turn of events no one could predict. I look down in terror as we climb higher and higher above the city and the surroundings.

My rescuer has a pair of huge transparent wings the color of amethyst. He flaps them, then glides for a while, then flaps some more. We fly almost to the edge of the clouds when a door in the sky opens, and he flies into what looks like the inside of Ari’s spaceship, but different.

A small, thin creature, almost a stick figure of a humanoid runs up to us.

“Right in time! If the idiot did not throw you out of the window, I’d have to look for creative ways of getting you to my ship.” The winged one says. “They are ready for the surgery. I’m going to have to put you out.”

With that the small creature rolls up the sleeve of my shirt with small, frog-like fingers, and inserts a needle with some device on its end into my vein. The pain only lasts for a second, then I’m gone.

I wake up, cuddled by this freak of nature, God knows of which planet. We’re sitting in the middle of a field with a forest not far away. His amazingly beautiful amethyst wings are above us like a tent. He smiles and flaps them a couple of times, creating a gust of wind. It feels odd and fresh. The creature’s skin is dark with an intricate pattern. He pats my hair with a big, heavy hand, and lets me go.

“My name is Kallitris.” He says in a deep voice with a strange accent. “I was watching you for a long time, since I found you. I can’t believe Leot’s ship crashed here and he did not track the offsprings! Well, your suffering was getting to me. So last night I took some of your tissues for a test. Apparently the neurotoxin you’re addicted to is a non-protein-containing amino acid. When did Leot manage to develop that? Well, he’s always been a strange guy.”

This creature in front of me has the air of adventures about him. He traverses the Universe in search of things important to him. He’s seen the worlds I can’t even fathom. His native planet is almost all carbon in every stage, if at all possible… Wow. I see his reflection in lakes of liquid carbon, oily to the touch. Fascinating.

“Who are you?” I get up, shaking all over. The left side of my neck and collarbone hurt like bloody hell.

“Let’s just say I’m your secret friend to help you with your little problem. I had my lab synthesize this compound for you. I surgically implanted a port under your left clavicle. It is guaranteed to pump the neurotoxin into your system for at least a year.”

He pauses and looks at me with love. I swear, this is what it looks like in his mesmerizing eyes that change color almost constantly. His words reach my consciousness, and I realize my utmost, amazing luck. The constant pain of not having Leot’s chemical in my body is gone.

“Thanks. I feel great. I feel free.” I manage to say.

Only now I notice that it is almost morning. The face of this Kallitris guy is somewhat human, covered with wrinkles. However they do not repeat the typical emotion expression pattern, like that of an elderly person. They cover his whole face in a symmetric pattern.

“Here is also some patches to put on your skin. Do not let anyone touch it. It is irreversibly neurologically destructive to any human.” Kallitris hands me a small, but quite heavy package.

“Am I not a human?” I mumble, bewildered, overwhelmed, as I take the package with trembling hands.

“In a way you are. But your mother had a mutation with a spike of over 35% of sian genes. Incredible. The spike went down in an offspring, you, as she mated with a human. But you’re still a whopping 19% sian plus at least four more carbon-based species found in Andromeda and Coma Berenices. Apparently this neurotoxin is an interface between Leot and your kind, developed by him in an attempt to bind himself to his creation.”

“So what am I?” I ask, in a daze, confused by all the information. “Do you know Leot?”

“He is my ex-boyfriend, thank you very much!” The creature grins, and I sense sadness. Deep, incurable pain, leaking out of his alien soul, making it very recognizable, worthy of compassion. He knows I feel it too. It throws him off.

“Excuse me, I have to leave now. We’ll meet again, Tensartis. I will not let you go!”

Only now I notice a small black wire hanging on the right side of his face. He listens to this wire, then answers in a language I can’t understand, gets up on long legs covered in black cloth, kisses me on the forehead in a swift motion, and vanishes.

My mother had what mutation? And what name did he just call me?

I look around. The sun is coming up. This vicinity is unknown to me. However, he took me southwest. I walk across the field, struggling through tall grasses and tightly intertwined undergrowth in a forest, thick and scratchy to the touch.

It takes me a couple of hours to find the road. Then I sit on a patch of grass, exhausted. I know where I am, but it is at least three more hours of walking back to Deikeren.

A distant sound of hoofs breaks through the silence. Soon a horse appears on the road. It is none other than my dear Sarji.

I make the last effort to get up and come to him.

“My sweetheart, how did you find me?”

The horse rubs his nose on my face and snorts happily. I’m only too grateful to get on his back to ride home.