The Guardian (Coranite Chronicles) (30 page)

Shards of glass appeared out of thin air.

Darek’s eyes widened. He didn’t like where this was going. Something had to be done. Darek reached for his dagger and clenched his fingers on the hilt.

“Don’t do anything!” Freddie wheezed, as though he could tell what Darek was thinking. “This is my punishment and mine alone!”

“Well, I’m glad you enjoy it,” the Coranite sneered.

The glass shards flew straight into Freddie’s skin, piercing him from head to toe.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!” Freddie screamed.

Darek shouted, “No! Please, stop this!”

“And you two are doing a terrible job of begging,” said the Coranite. “Is that how you plead for one’s life? Just a simple shout?” The Coranite guffawed. “Beg for your friend’s life like you mean it!” Flames rose up from Freddie’s feet and surrounded his body.

Freddie’s screams intensified as the fire seared his skin.

Darek cried out and wanted to charge at the Coranite. But Slade held him back.

“Stop it, Darek!” Slade said. “We have to obey!”

“What?” Darek snapped. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve always stood up for justice!”

“Don’t you know what kind of situation we’re in?”

“I know! But so what? If I were being tortured, would you sit back and do nothing?”

Slade said slowly, “That’s different.”

“WHAT’S DIFFERENT? We barely know him? He’s still in suffering!”

“Even our justice has limits, Darek,” said Slade. “We do what we can.” He whispered into Darek’s ear, “Even if we did fight and win against this one Coranite, what hope do we have against the rest? A moment of pain or the end of it all. You heard what the Coranite said! We have to beg like we mean it!”

“You can’t be serious.” Darek shook his head. “Beg them? Beg these sadistic monsters?”

Slade punched Darek in the face.

Stunned, Darek gawked at him.

Slade growled, “It’s time you swallow up your pride and realize what’s at stake!” Slade pointed at Freddie, who was being burned slowly in a weak fire. “It’s not about giving up or giving in. It’s not about losing a battle. WE’VE ALREADY LOST! Now it’s about saving a life!”

Slade approached the Coranite, got down on his knees and cried out, “This is my justice! Vengeance to be paid and sacrifices to be made! I ask of you, master, to please release my friend!” He fell facedown on the ground and cried, “PLEASE! RELEASE HIM! I BEG OF YOU! HAVE MERCY!”

“Ehhh,” said the Coranite. “It always kills the mood for me to hear a slave beg—especially with such pride.” He dropped Freddie to the ground. “Well, it’s not good to kill slaves anyway.” He stooped over and said to Freddie, “So I hope you learned your lesson. Next time, I won’t be as nice.” The Coranite walked away, howling in laughter.

CHAPTER 24

Life

Freddie told them how to get to the sleeping quarters of the slaves. Darek and Slade carefully brought him there to rest. They didn’t find any beds because all the slaves had to sleep on floor mats. They placed him on a mat and cleaned his wounds with water.

Darek and Slade slumped to the floor.

Darek bit his nail and muttered, “If only I had more strength...”

“No,” Slade told him. “Nothing can be done. Not everything can be solved by strength.”

“I remember Freddie saying something about Guardians trying to take the tower. If we could somehow reach them, we could—”

“Uhhh…” Freddie stirred.

“Freddie?” Darek examined him. “Freddie, you awake? How are you feeling?”

Freddie blinked slowly. “I’ve had worse.”

Darek said, “If it wasn’t for us—I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t think this would happen. We should have never—”

“Darek, it’s not your fault. I wanted to keep us together.” Freddie turned to Darek and beamed. “It wouldn’t be any fun without you guys. And besides, it’s really not that bad.”

Darek gave him a skeptical look.

“No, really,” said Freddie, smirking. “Take a look for yourself.”

He lifted up his hand. Darek examined it. The cuts and burns were gone. The skin looked perfectly normal.

“It’s been able to heal like this for a while now,” said Freddie solemnly. “I told you I was human, and sometimes I’d like to think that. But it’s been almost five years since I’ve been stuck here.” A tear trickled down his cheek. Freddie gave a half-hearted grin and said, “I wonder if I can still call myself human.”

Darek didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say something encouraging. But having witnessed Freddie’s wounds miraculously heal with a quick nap…he was left speechless.

Freddie saw the conflicted look on Darek’s face.

“Ah, don’t feel bad for me,” said Freddie. “This is the happiest moment of my life.” Freddie laughed. “I never imagined I’d ever meet another living person. I don’t care what happens to me, as long as I’ve got you guys by my side.”

“This is the first time you’ve met a human here?”

Freddie nodded. “I’m sure others have fallen into this realm. But I doubt they survive. They probably become ghasts and forget their pasts. To survive here, you need strong spiritual powers. That’s why Coranites never expect to find humans in the spirit realm.”

It didn’t take long for Freddie to recover. In just a few hours, he was back on his feet. He wasted no time getting Darek and Slade started on their jobs.

Their first task was to feed the dragons. The dragons were kept in the deepest, darkest dungeons. Even getting down there was quite an adventure. Darek learned the differences between several lesser spirits while they headed for their first job.

The ghasts were like empty shells. Freddie wasn’t kidding when he said they were brain dead.
 
Most of them were easily controlled by the Coranites and did their bidding without any thought—and without any care either. Because they were so careless, the Coranites would constantly punish them to keep them working hard. Darek clenched his teeth every time he saw a Coranite bully a ghast. The ghasts still looked very human and even responded to pain. It broke Darek’s heart to know that these ghasts had suffered so long at the hands of these Coranites.

Then there were the jumons—the shadow creatures they had encountered down in the underground farms. These terrifying creatures worked as guards. Easily irritated, jumons would attack other lesser spirits for almost no reason at all. They were brutal monsters. Freddie made it clear to avoid jumons at all costs.

They hid behind statues while they waited for a jumon to be out of sight.

“Freddie,” Darek whispered. “Why are there so many different kinds of lesser spirits? I can’t imagine ghasts and jumons coming from the same place.”

“Good imagination,” said Freddie. “And good observation. You’re right. Lesser spirits have different origins. Take ghasts for example—”

“Let me guess,” said Darek curtly. “Dead humans?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” said Freddie. “But that’s the conclusion I came to. It’s odd because I don’t think a lot of humans fall into the spirit realm, yet I’ve seen many ghasts. That’s a mystery to me. Anyway, the rest of the lesser spirits come from two places: Guardians and Coranites.”

“Oh…” Darek remembered his conversation with Chrovel. Chrovel had said something about Ios being a part of him. Maybe Ios was a lesser spirit.

“Yeah, not surprising,” said Freddie. “You see, while we humans are single entities, the greater spirits actually are made up of thousands of lesser spirits. It’d be like…parts of a body. Our parts form one body. Their lesser spirits form one greater spirit.

“Can you imagine what that’s like? It’s like if your hand had a mind of its own. It could choose to follow your commands…or not. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“I think so,” said Darek. “Most lesser spirits used to be part of a greater spirit.”

Freddie nodded. “Yup.”

“And the reason for these lesser spirits to come out is…”

“Conflict,” Freddie answered. “Greater spirits need unity among its lesser spirits to function properly. Guardians want to be good while Coranites desire to be evil. So Guardians will cast out any angry, bitter spirits and force them out of their citadel. These become jumons—the shadow monsters. Coranites will get rid of their compassion and kindness to create izms—the little floating orbs. Those are the purest forms. Based on an idea, emotion or feeling, a lesser spirit is formed. That’s the gist of it and this is why there are many different forms.”

After the jumon disappeared, they hurried down to the lowest floor and found a massive hall. Only three dragons were there, but they were so huge that they filled up the entire place.

Grunting and groaning, Darek pushed a heavy wheelbarrow filled with mysterious feed across a long platform. Emanating a blue glow, the feed looked light and airy. Darek thought he caught a glimpse of some tiny floating skulls popping out, but decided that was impossible. After dumping the contents in front of the dragon, he sat down, feeling exhausted. The dragon licked up all of his hard work with just the tip of its tongue.

Darek wheezed, “How long do we have to do this?”

Freddie brought over another large heap of feed. The dragon looked displeased, for the heap wasn’t enough for a mouthful. But the dragon hungrily licked it up all the same.

“Don’t rest,” Freddie said. “If these dragons aren’t satisfied, we’ll be next on the menu.”

“Fine, fine.” Darek pushed the wheelbarrow back to the large pile of feed, grabbed the shovel, and went about filling up the container. “So? How long?”

“Until that pile is finished,” said Freddie.

Darek looked up at the pile. It had to be at least fifty feet high.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope,” Freddie said. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner we eat.”

They fed the dragons for a long time. Even after feeding the dragons a whole mountain of feed, the dragons did not appear full or satisfied. But they had done their job and had earned their rest.

They crawled hundreds of stairs to get back to their room. They were wheezing and gasping the whole way. When they arrived at the sleeping quarters, they found trays of food at their door. They sat on the floor to eat. Darek made a face. The food didn’t look tasty. All he had on his tray were stalks of red plants.

“Yum,” said Darek. “Plants. Raw…plants. Great. Wonderful.”

“Eh,” said Freddie. “I’m glad you like it. I never cared for vegetables much.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

Freddie took a big bite of the red plant. “Oh, then, sucks for us all!”

Darek picked up the plant and eyed it. “You know…after feeding those dragons, I’ve been wondering…”

“Yeah?”

“Where exactly does this food come from?” asked Darek.

Chewing on a tough piece of stalk, Freddie said, “It’s kind of hard to explain. I mean, I’d have to explain
everything
.”

“Go ahead,” said Slade. “I’ve been wondering this for a while too. Outside it seemed impossible to find anything to eat.”

“Okay, I’ll tell ya,” Freddie said, wiping his mouth clean with his sleeve. “Just so you know, spirits don’t usually need to eat. They just need energy. And all energy comes from one place: a massive energy source in the Guardian’s citadel. It’s the main source of energy in this realm. As long as you are near, your spirit will absorb the energy. So Guardians have it easy. They never need to eat and never grow weak. But we’re too far from the citadel. We absorb some energy, but very little.

“So what do Coranites do? They turn to lesser spirits. To get raw energy, they’ll extract the essence of a spirit, which is kind of like…the blood of a spirit. And this essence is what they feed the dragons to keep them happy.” Freddie held up a stalk. “What we eat is a bit more refined to make it easier for our bodies to absorb. Coranites have a large network of underground farms. In these farms, enslaved lesser spirits are forced to give their energy to the roots of the gorbon plant for processing. The end result is the production of the delicious gorbon fruit. The Coranites keep the gorbon fruit to themselves and feed us the gorbon plant.”

Looking disgusted, Darek said, “So…this is grown from spirit blood?”

“Essence,” said Freddie. “Not blood. I know I said blood, but…that’s not correct. Don’t think of it as blood, think of it more as…calories.”

Darek reluctantly took a bite of the stalk and scrunched his face. It didn’t taste bad. But it still left a bad taste in his mouth.

After living in the tower for a while, his days became nothing more than a blur. Darek wasn’t sure how long he’d been working there. It could have been a few hours, or it could have been years. Work and rest. That was all they did. Much to his surprise, Darek didn’t seem to mind. The work was grueling, but the food was so much more satisfying because of it. He got over his initial disgust of the gorbon plants and devoured them whenever it was time for a meal. And after having a constant diet of gorbon plants, he noticed that he didn’t really need to sleep anymore. It was jarring at first. It did make him feel less human. But after a while, he came to accept it as something inescapable. Since they no longer had to sleep, they could spend their breaks doing other things, like exploring the tower. In fact that was all they did for fun.