CHAPTER 16: GAZING OUT TO SEA
1871 Words
It was called the Royal Paradise, a sprawling hundred-acre private residence.
Before the Meltdown, it had been a magnificent villa on the northern tip of the kingdom of Eden. With its man-made lake, exotic and carefully-groomed garden, lovely buildings and little luxuries, it was a place that King Eli Kem had loved. He frequently left his palace and visited the Royal Paradise with his wife, and later with his whole family when the kids came along.
The Meltdown had destroyed part of it and tainted what had once been a rare thing of beauty. For a while, some few survivors of the Meltdown had hidden here and survived on the stored food and water in the Royal Paradise.
However, their fairly comfortable life ended when Sali Kem arrived on the premises. The kingdom, an island, had been hit fiercely by the Meltdown, and the Royal Paradise was one of the few places that had retained a semblance of its former glory. When Sali Kem got to the residence, he killed exactly two hundred people who had made it their new home. From the main entrance to the main beautiful royal quarters, he had not spared anybody; men, women and children.
As he bit through their jugulars, or forcibly pulled out limbs from them, or crushed their heads between his strange metallic hands, one person watched with tears in his eyes.
That man was King Eli Kem.
Sali had insisted on bringing his half-brother along. He had made Disciples out of twenty of the former palace guards who accompanied him everywhere. King Eli Kem, who wore only shorts nowadays, was kept in a cart with a cage that used to transport horses in the royal palace stable.
His disciples pushed the cart where the ground was even, or they carried it. It had been a long arduous journey. Sometimes they took a boat or pontoon, and sometimes they moved on lands.
But, eventually, after almost a month, they had arrived at the Royal Paradise where Sali Kem's madness hit a peak. As King Eli Kem watched his brother slaughtering innocent people, especially defenceless women and children, his heart was torn apart.
He stood in his cart-cage-prison and screamed, shaking the bars and begging Sali to stop, but to no avail. If anything, his screams had only served as the boost that incensed Sali, and he brought some of his victims right to Eli Kem's cage before cruelly killing them.
Sali Kem liked how the people he killed turned to a liquefied purple and sailed through the air, and loved the sound of bones clattering on the ground.
As Eli Kem stood in his cage and glared at his purple-eyed half-brother, he felt the deep-rooted pain blasting through his heart again.
He remembered how Sali Kem had murdered his wife, Anya Kem. He remembered how Sali Kem had diffused chemicals into the birth chamber of his unborn son. King Eli Kem screamed and shook the bars of the cage, but Sali Kem only laughed derisively and mocked the king.
"There's nothing you can do, Eli, dearest brother!" he hissed nastily. "You're going to live like a dog because, in all truth, you're a dog. You'll live like this, and die like this, and only then will my wrath against you be sated!"
When they reached the main residence, and after Sali had again killed all the people who had found a new home and hope there, Sali Kem held the cart and jumped with it to the roof of the large building and put it on the flat, concrete roof.
They left him alone, but the king was grateful for one thing at least: the cart faced out to sea, and he could see the frothy waves in the distance. It brought nostalgic memories flooding back, memories of him and Anya on their boat gently cresting the waves, revelling in the beauty of the sea at night, making love on the deck as the icy wind caressed their skins and the stars shone done gently on them, their music the sound of the waves lapping gently against the body of the boat.
Oh, Anya, my love, my darling! I miss you so much, darling! This beast killed our son too! But I'm not dead yet, no, not quite yet! It has been eighteen years and counting, but before my last breath, I'll have my revenge, maybe not for you, for you would disapprove… but for our son, our unborn son, Eli Kem junior!
His ankles were shackled with chains, and his hands were tied with chains. And, around his neck, was a metal brace with a chain extending to the wall of the cart.
He did not know how long he stood gazing out to sea, but eventually, he heard a scraping sound, and Eli Kem appeared, and he was dragging a metal chair behind him. He set it up and sat down facing the sea.
"Beautiful view this, isn't it, brother?" he asked softly. "These purple eyes makes everything beautiful. My new state is really funky, but I guess I miss the taste of real food sometimes, and of course the p***y. My libido was all right during the early stages, but now the thought sickens me. I guess you must be hungry and thirsty now, little brother. When was the last time you ate?"
King Eli Kem gripped the metal bars tightly, but he did not answer, and Sali chuckled softly.
"Silence is also an answer, you know. Best you remain silent to preserve the little energy you have left, seeing I'll not be feeding you anytime soon. Sometimes, I wonder why I hate you this much, little brother, but it's all good."
Sali became silent for a long time as he sat very still gazing across the sea. The shadows darkened, and the sea became a pale sheen under the bright moonlight, and the waves became shifting, white-topped bars of mystery.
Eventually, Sali Kem stood up and turned towards the cart. Without warning, he balled up his fist and smashed Eli Kem in the face, the blow so powerful that it lifted the king off his feet and slammed him into the back of the cart where he collapsed on the floor. There was excruciating pain in his face as warm blood fell from his nose and shattered mouth.
"Now that felt good, little brother," Sali Kem said with a nasty chuckle. "Real good. Goodnight, Eli. Time for me to cocoon down."
The king lay on the floor in a daze, his face blazing with pain, his body suffused with a mounting temperature as he tried to stop the blood.
The sheer helplessness of his situation assailed him, and for a moment he remained on his hands and knees, head and shoulders down, and then great tears silently fell down his eyes. After a long while, he sat down with his back against the wood and tried in vain to cheer himself up. Eighteen years after the attack of the Purple Visitor, after suffering humiliating torture and bullying from Sali, there was little hope for Eli, and there had been times that he had wished for death.
He heard a soft step, and he shuddered suddenly with trepidation, thinking that Sali had returned, but the figure that stood in front of his cage was a lot less bulky. It was the tall, lean figure of Sam Rule.
Sam had been one of the elite palace warriors, but Queen Anya had accused him of stealing a box of jewellery. Sam had protested, claiming he was innocent and that he had simply found the metal box on one of the balconies of the palace.
Anya had been livid, of course, because the box had contained some of her favourite jewellery. Finally, the king had demoted Sam Rule to the stables to tend horses, and sometimes cattle.
He had almost forgotten about Sam until, six years ago, Sali had brought the man back as one of his circle of warriors. Eli Kem had been sure that Sam Rule hated him, but as it turned out, he had been far from the truth.
When he saw Sam Rule standing in front of the cart, the king got to his feet quickly and approached the bars.
"Quiet, my Lord!" the warrior said sharply. "The chains speak!"
King Eli Kem slowed down his movements, and when he was near the bars, Sam Rule extended a cylindrical flask to him.
"Some water, Your Majesty," he said in a calmer voice. "And I brought you some painkillers. Probably expired but might work."
King Eli Kem grabbed the flask and the little wrapped paper. He unfolded the paper, took one of the tablets nestled in there and popped it into his mouth. He swallowed and drank the water thirstily.
"Go easy on the water, Your Majesty!" Sam Rule said. "You might need some to wash down the bread."
The king looked up hungrily.
"Bread?"
"Mouldy, and a can of baked beans probably expired."
"Hunger makes no differences, Sam," Eli Kem said.
A moment later, he leaned against the bars and ate the hard, crusty bread and scooped the baked beans from the can with his bare fingers. He ate hungrily, licking the delicious beans off his fingers.
He licked his fingers clean when the food was finished, then drank the water thirstily. When he lowered the bottle, he looked at Sam with grateful eyes.
"Thank you, Warrior," he said softly. "Your acts of kindness have kept me alive."
"It is my duty to protect the king at all times," Sam Rule said quietly. "Hand over the flask, Your Highness, and the empty tin. Must get rid of all evidence."
"Wait for a second, Sam," the king said gratefully. "I'll drink more water in a second. Sam, tell me this, seeing my wife is dead and I'm now a prisoner in some goddamned cart. You never stole that jewellery, did you?"
"I didn't, my Lord."
"But you know who stole them, don't you?"
Sam Rule sighed heavily.
"Sir, all I can say is that she needed it more than the queen did. She needed it to save her family."
"And that is why, even after all this, you won't tell me who she was?"
The warrior shook his head.
"I can't tell you, Your Majesty. Goodnight, my Lord. Tomorrow is another day."
He took the flask and the empty can from the king.
"Good night, Warrior," the king said weakly. "I'm grateful for your care through the years, risking your life for mine! Remember, things are going to change for the better, and I'll show you how grateful I really am!"
Sam Rule bowed low.
"Your welfare is my prerogative, but I will not say no to any better thing from you."
The king laughed at that and watched as the warrior disappeared, and then he resumed staring across the sea in her beauty at night.
"Are you there, my son?" he asked painfully. "Somehow, I have been having this feeling that you're somewhere out there! Come back home, Eli Kem, my dearest son!"
He looked across the dark sea; he stood there watching for a very long time.
- Writer
