Caidoz

Chapter 18

   I blink in confusion as Procyon continues to pull me down the candle lit stairs. "Proc-"
   He turns and slaps his hand on my mouth. He shook his head furiously and got behind me. This way, he could continue to hold my mouth shut. Even for his quiet manner at times, this was beyond strange.

   I felt a small bit of cold dread nawing at my heart. What in Caidoz is going on?! I stepped to the next step only to take a stride forward.
   Procyon kept his hand on my mouth and moved to my side. Do not say anything, the look he gave me seemed to scream. He slowly moved his hand away to immediately unsheath his two daggers. The only light came from the candles on the stairs. Blue, purple, green, pink, yellow, red, and black.

   My mouth immediately formed a question.
   He seemed to sense another one coming and did something I could never believed to occur. He pressed me into the brown earthy dirt with his two sharp daggers pressed slightly to my throat.
   I stifled my panic. Why is acting like this? ! I asked myself. I knew that I had only recently met this boy, and my mother always told me to never trust commoners, but... I felt a bond of trust between the two of us. Or so I had thought.

   He looked around for something and I take this chance to attack with only thing I have. I grabbed at small chunks of the only energy I still have and, remembering the lesson given to me by my mother, hurled it at him in a powerful force. He is thrown backwards to an invisible wall that was unseen in the darkness.

"Ugh." He covers his mouth and sharply looks to the stairs.
   I heard a strange sound.
   Clink- klank, clink-klank.
   He turns a pale white. He threw me a look beyond fear. Beyond the borders of which fear was crossed with the depression of certain death. I did not know what placed such fright apon his countence, but I was then was silent.

   Clink-klank, Clink-klank. Clink. The sound stoped at what appeared to be the entrance.
   Procyon gripped his goggles.
   I felt my hand draw to my own pair in confusion.
   He scarcely drew breath as we waited in a frightful silence.
   Then, clink-klank, clink-klank. The footsteps seemed to fade away.
  
   I exhaled and angrily turned to Procyon to ask him why he had been so harsh to me.
   He held up a hand quickly and faces the stairs. After what seems hours, I heard clink-klank, clink-klank, clink-klank. These footsteps are soon distantly heard tromping away. My jaw dropped open. Whomever it was who was at the top of the stairs, they had tried to fool us into coming out into the open. What a dirty trick!
  
   Procyon cloused his eyes. When they were reopened, he stared into me. This stare did not stop and I started to feel self-conscious.
   I saw his gaze not on my eyes, to my head. I had nothing there except my goggles. I pointed to my mouth.

   He tilted his head and then after some conderation, slowly nodded.
   "What's the deal, threatening me with your daggers like that?!" I inquired angrily.
   "Oh yeah? I think you did something far worse than I simply threatened!" He growled. "You... did something...strange. I never felt anything like it." Procyon shook out his hair.

"I did what I needed to do. You were going to hurt me!" I suddenly felt weaker. The drain of Caidozain energy on me was exhausting. My mother, queen Virgo, had an interesting theory about this. She believed when a Caidozain is low on energy, simply being a Caidozain by keeping the animal or stronger human self inside became an agony. I was starting to agree.
"I would never hurt you!" He exclaimed, shock pure on his face.

"Then what was that for!? Why did you so meanly cover my mouth?" I asked angrily.
"I needed to keep you silent! You failed to understand my first methods! That was all I could think of!"
"From whom?!"
   Procyon sighed quietly, his body falling slightly limp against the wall. His eyes dropped from my goggles to my face."Severials, men of the queen's army."
"So what? In Caidoz, Draco is the head of the guards and he loves to protect the people."
   He laughed bitterly.

"Caidoz is MUCH different than Simeh. You are now in danger. You should have never got those." He pointed a stiff finger at my goggles.
   I touched them again."Why not? Like I said, they make me look like everyone else."
"Preciously the problem. In Simeh, just about everyone is a Quester. If you asked them their ambition it would go something similar to 'I want to find the Quest items, so I can gain the servants, or so I can attain the queen's favor.'

   "The exception to this is wealthy shopkeepers, like that lycan, and usually mothers and children. Ha, well, let's make that babies. Some of those kids manage to convince their parents they are ready for the Quest."
"It doesn't seem a problem then." I said.
   Procyon chuckled darkly. "You will see in a minute," he said.

   "The serevials are no ordinary people in the least. Tis beileved they contain half a robortic brain, full of twisting and turning parts. It's said they never had training in their lives. They were only installed with the parts in their minds and they instantly had the knowledge." He said.

   I gasped. Could men like the ones he described really exist? Okay, so everything he told me so far in the forest had been true. Giant birds had chased us. Carnivorous plants with thorny tounges had attacked us. I had almost lost my life to a metal device that fell from the sky. Thinking about it all again, I knew Procyon must be telling me the truth. So far he had not lied to me. He had protected me, and gave me a meal in my belly. That was what friends did for one another.

   A...friend? An actual person as a friend?  I had always dreamed of a friend to play with at the castle. To run though the halls and chase butterflies in the gardens. To share my deepest secrets with and grow up with. I though back to my stuffed animal resting on my bed. My father had tried to convince me I no longer needed Atthekey, my stuffed bear with cute black patches that was rapidly losing fur with age.

   But he had been my only friend allowed in the castle. I could only speak to my crab friends. There was really no adventure there. Atthekey was my only companion and would probably be my only friend, though now he simply rested on my bed, perched up against the pillows. Until today... I thought.

"I... I am really sorry about my actions. I thought..." I sighed. What was there to say? I had just doubted the only person who had helped me. My friend.
   Procyon massaged his shoulder, rotating it in its socket. "I suppose it was a bit harsh. I'm just lucky you did not scream in fright. Besides, nothing seems broken." He laughed and then quickly turned it into a cough as he looked down at my broken wrists.

"Where are we anyway?" I asked, taking curiosity in our surroundings. Pale dusty yellow bricks made the small room, the ceiling was nothing but grass and dirt compacted together, giving a musty order. I heard small scratching noises and knew it had to be rats gnawing away in the shadows.

"This is one of the many hiding places in the town, built by the town's people. Serevials are vicious beings. They know who Questors are. They also know that the Questors are in service to the queen. It's easy to find them, they're everywhere, remember?

   "And it's easy to spot them too. Just look for goggles. The serevials like to take advantage of this. They still contain the bodies and thoughts of men, regardless the matter if they actually do contain a mechanical brain. "
    Procyon leaned his head back against the brick wall. "They like to use the Questors. They coming running toward us calling in the name of the queen. But this is no direct order from her royal Highness. Thus is an act of greed and pleasure.

   "They beat us brutally with their weapons, sometimes to bloody masses to be left there on the streets. But for what? For small reward of the carried baked goods, and pickings."
   This must be a joke. The more I hopelessly thought it, the more it became apparent to me that he would never dare joke about such a serious matter.