Chapter 12

The Shooktah Outpost

∞

The plan was that there wasn’t a plan, couldn’t be a plan, and wouldn’t be a plan. The two Minh were the only ones that had ever seen a Shooktah up close, and they had met with utter and complete failure. Because of that, neither of them would offer up a plan. Their enemy had the high ground and their enemy was a superior force.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t tried to come up with one. There was talk of a plan but, ultimately, either Argimos, or Belimos shot everything they talked about down. If their experiences taught them anything, it was what wouldn’t work, but offered little about what would. If there was any saving grace at all, it was that the Minh had no correllium armor, and no correllium weaponry in their previous dealings with the Shooktah. Because of that the two Minh had no idea if correllium would be effective against them, which was better than knowing it wouldn’t. Fortunately, for them, there was a pile of it where they had met which, more than anything, was what Argimos had hoped when he planned for them to meet where they did. He had hoped that an alliance could be formed, had hoped that two Baran-Dak Toi, could change their fate, and hoped, more than anything, that the Shooktah could be dealt with. These were all big hopes but they were not assurances.

“So the great and wise Baran-Dak Toi feels we should enter the lion’s den naked and vulnerable, does she?” Jo-Viel commented as the group finished arming themselves from the pile next to the bones of the long dead Prim.

“The Baran-Dak Toi feels that our only hope lies in retrieving our ancestor’s weaponry, yes. But if you have suggestions I am still happy to hear them,” Jo-Laina said back to her.

“I am only joining you for my chance to earn an honorable death and my place on the ribbon. I will fight with everything I have, but I do not believe that we have a chance at victory. Not if what the Minh say is true.”

“Then bury your pessimism deep, Prim and fight with honor without killing the spirits of your comrades,” Jo-Laina spat.

Nobody saw as Panpar slid something into the pile of weaponry that was left in the pile.

∞

The clan still had quite a distance to close until they had reached the top of the mountain, a fair amount of time before they would reach the threat that awaited them there. Panpar was going to make as best use of that time as possible. There were things that needed to be figured out.

He had been having dreams, both of past events, and of things that would happen in the future, of people that he’d never met, people he had only just met, and people that he would never meet himself. Many of these dreams he didn’t understand. Many he could never understand because, no matter what, there was no way for him to be able to make sense of them at all.

Jo-Laina, for example, existed in a great many of his dreams. It didn’t matter to him that both she and Jo-Vanna were exact duplicates of each other, in appearance. He could see them both standing side by side, and still be able to tell the difference immediately. He could also see them apart, whether he knew what they were wearing or not, and tell which he was looking at instantly. He could tell by the slightest facial tick, mannerism, and especially by their attitude. He had learned these differences between them before he ever laid eyes on either one. Despite all of this, there was still something that he couldn’t fathom.

Because he had dreamed of a Jo-Laina that wasn’t Jo-Laina, and yet she was. This version of Jo-Laina wasn’t even called by that name. She was called something else entirely. Whitney was her name in these very odd dreams. In those dreams she was always much older than she was as they paced their way ever higher toward impossible odds. She dressed differently too. She mostly wore something called cheens, or jeans (he could never quite understand the words) and she had a twin brother, instead of twin sister (which made no sense). In these dreams, people didn’t ride on horses, or asses, but in metal boxes with see-through shields that opened and closed by pushing buttons, and they lived in large square boxes instead of large hollowed out tree trunks or natural vine structures with leaves woven in to keep the rain out.

This older version of Jo-Laina, a version in which had absolutely no scars from battle, had time to kiss boys. At least she did one boy by the name of Kam-eron or something such as that. The fact that this Jo-Laina, who wasn’t Jo-Laina, except it was, had time to kiss boys and it was, in his mind, a good thing because this version of Jo-Laina bore entirely too much weight on her shoulders. This version of Jo-Laina needed a little time to be young, needed some free time, away from battle, and away from receiving even more scars, both on her skin, and in her heart and mind.

How many more scars would Jo-Laina receive on this day? How many of their clan would make it through the day, breathing air, lifting their sword, sabre or battle-axe in victory? For Jo-Laina, every death was another pound on her shoulders, he could see that in her eyes, for she may be a Prim, but she wasn’t a Prim that, like a tree, didn’t feel the leaves that fell from its branches. She was a Prim that loved those who fought by her side, and mourned their deaths with a crying soul. She never forgot those who sacrificed their lives for her cause.

It was the dreams of the other Baran-Dak Toi that his mind seemed to center on. It was the Ancient Jo-Laina, who Panpar believed could help provide an answer to the dilemma they faced and Panpar searched for a connection in his memories of those dreams; a connection in which could help them.

As with everyone, dreams are an elusive thing. There may be answers hidden among the images within dreams, but those answers are never easily seen. They hide as color does in the night, turning all shades of bright, into shades of grey, or of black. They are like the shadows that are seen by the Prim with their blind eyes, present but in need of interpretation by their perceiver.

The Ancient Jo-Laina was a powerful Prim. She had learned to use all of the abilities granted to her through the great grey beyond, harvesting those abilities, drawing upon the strength of the grey, for it is the grey that makes a Prim a Prim. The Prim are not limited to the normal dimensions that bind most races and peoples. They can move between the veils that separate their world and the grey.

Which is why we need the Prim Pockets, Panpar’s mind reminded him.

Ultimately, that was what the Pockets of the Prim accomplished. It was what made that final connection, for a Prim, between this world, and the grey beyond. These pockets appeared to be just a small pouch, hanging from a Prim’s waist, like any pouch carried by any other person, but these pockets were much more than that. They served a much bigger purpose. It was true that, like most pouches, a Prim could carry a virtually limitless amount of items, bearing no weight, consuming no space at all (in this world) but it was also much more. For any Prim who possessed one of these pockets could also disappear into the grey, avoiding enemy attack or detection, and then reappear back into this world.

However, always in the same place that they left it, Panpar’s mind again reminded him.

Panpar continued to think. The Pockets, indeed, were important, but even with those he couldn’t see how they would help to defeat the Shooktah. According to how the Minh described them, it would take weaponry far above being able to disappear into the grey that would enable them to conquer a foe that could penetrate a shield of a Minh. Argimos hadn’t specified exactly how that was possible, only that their weaponry was beyond what he could understand, but still, the mental shield of a Minh was the only thing a correllium sword could not slice like bread. If the Shooktah’s weaponry was mightier than that, it seemed their plight was still a hopeless one. Even with the Prim Pockets.

Panpar searched through the images in his mind, clinging to hope, as he searched for some inspiration from the ancient Jo-Laina. Some image that could serve them, some picture, ability, or something.

He watched, in his mind, as images of the ancient Jo-Laina took correllium from the mountain. It was a feat that nobody else could accomplish but, somehow, she could, and she could do it easily. For centuries, all peoples had tried everything their creative minds could come up with to cut, shape or mold correllium, and it was to no avail. No material could cut it, no amount of heat could melt it, no amount of force seemed enough to break it, and yet, the ancient Jo-Laina could seemingly mold it with a mere thought.

That was what separated her from every other Prim in the histories of all Prim. There were other Baran-Dak Toi, which had come along before her, but none of those seemed to have that ability. Before the ancient Jo-Laina correllium had went unmined.

So what was the difference?

The only other difference that Panpar could think of was that she had also befriended a Minh somehow. That friendship had come despite the hatred that both races had for each other, and their friendship had been so strong that the ancient Argimos had joined the Prim and abandoned the Minh; essentially fighting against his own people.

Panpar could put his finger on one other difference. That Jo-Laina didn’t have a bolainin. In all of the dreams that he had about her, he never once saw her with a companion from which to see or hear.

Or had he?

Panpar’s mind began to race a little faster. He rummaged through the memories of his dreams, looking for the answer he needed. Her eyes were almost never silver. Her eyes usually looked...

Exactly like a Minh’s eyes.

He had never realized that before, because his dreams never featured the ancient Argimos. He had seen him many times, but it was always in the background, never featured, never up close, and never in the Minh’s face. It wasn’t until Panpar imagined this Argimos, the one that they had just met, that he was able to put those eyes into place on her face. It was the ancient Argimos that served as her bolainin, and it was their connection with each other that had been able to convince the Minh to leave his people.

He still didn’t think that would be enough to help them defeat the Shooktah. Panpar could imagine that having a Prim that could join minds with a Minh, would be an advantage, but he couldn’t see how that advantage could turn into a victory.

Hopefully Jo-Laina could.

∞

Jo-Laina raised her fist, elbow halfcocked, off to her side, to signal to the others behind her to stop and lay low. The others complied instantly; everyone immediately crouching, hushing, and waiting for further instructions.

Everyone except for Panpar. For some odd reason Panpar made his way up behind her. He did it in an urgent way, crouching low, but moving quickly. He had been near the rear of the clan, walking slow, lost in thought perhaps, like he usually was, his mind never on what was happening, never thinking about right now, but always in either the past, or the future. That was how Panpar was. She had scorned him a thousand times for doing that, had also saved his neck countless times, catching a predator just before it snatched the old man, because his mind wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings.

He came up behind her, knelt next to her, and she reached over and snatched him by the throat, squeezing hard, cutting off his windpipe before he could speak. She dragged his head close to hers and whispered so quietly that even he would barely be able to hear her words.

“The Shooktah are close. If you utter a single verb you will bring all hell down on every one of us,” she said, and she released his throat. The Shooktah were just around this one last bend in the mountainside, the very bend that they were crouched behind and she could hear them through Picket’s keen ears. They were talking but she could not understand a single word they were saying. Their tongue was foreign to her mind.