Chapter 5: Askauri

5

“Belozi,” Bealz's father thinks, head lain back on crossed arms. His feet were crossed, crowded and propped up at the foot of his bunk.

“ Belozi Bin Askauri. He doesn't even know what his common name means.”

To be fair, there were not many who knew the meaning of his name either. Real or common. Of course it was best not to dwell on it much, lest a stray thought leak out in the company of some unseen enemy. One's real name, when granted with purpose, served as a virtual link to one's essence.

Askauri Bin Qwana. That was his name. It was the common name by which the State of Illinois' Department of Corrections knew him by, at least. His real name was too long to recite without a company of living griots to attend to the listener.

Askauri. This is what his mother called him. What his people called him.

He missed them, his mom, his people. One and all. Still, he thought again of the jest to be had back home at the idea of the great Bin Askauri, locked away in a most drab, most non-magical prison. under guard of Earth-borne humanity.

Hell, it was still nearly enough to make him laugh.

Oh, if his mother could see him now, he thought. He could certainly hear her clearly enough. “You see, this is just the type of thing I've warned you about...,” she'd say.

And she had, of course. Warned him. Chided him for years about his frivolous ways. His bandy behavior and the recklessness along with the numerous and salacious trysts strung across two worlds. Most concernedly, she had warned him off from his more bellicose pursuits. His thirst for adventure and the childishly macho desire to test the extent of his physical and diplomatic limitations.

As the youngest heir to the throne of the Long Plains Kingdom of the Incata, Askauri's never felt the paralyzing yoke of responsibility required of the King in Waiting. That had been his brother's rightfully inherited burden to bear. Askauri was free to enjoy the benefits of royalty and fame at leisure, without the severe threat of obligation.

This of course had led to some hair raising moments and scandal within the Royal Court.

After years of complacency, though, and the only reason Askauri had been able to avoid censure up to that point, the Court was now nothing like the massively unforgiving, formally structured morass of complicated rituals and regulations that it had once been.

Instead, and quite by necessity, it had ceded its day to day concerns, spawning a massively unforgiving, formally structured morass of an administrative state with its own system of complicated rituals and regulations to take its place.

Political and social progress, at its corrosive worst, it seems, came even to the magical lands.

So much was changing. So rapidly. Class, genetic and magical hierarchies, caste systems, all were crumbling under the weight of this social progress, and it was difficult, if not impossible to check the tide of disruption.

Some form of an infrastructural communications system had been up and running for some time, even way out in the dimensional sticks, allowing even the lowliest of beings in the Incata access to all of the online information currently available in two worlds.

And information, as is well known, can eventually spawn cataclysmic upheaval.

Royalty, basic and magical knowledge, entertainment, far off connections and communications and dancing cat videos; all of these things had lost their mystery. And with the absence of mystery, there began to grow a dearth of faith, which lead to an absence of belief. The need for elaborate rituals and the expectations of caste acceptance waned in tandem.

Lacking magical propensity no longer hindered one's access to all sorts of amazing knowledge and abilities. This of course had led to a huge downturn over time in the legitimate employment of wizards, witches, mages, and other sundry magical folk. Why would you need to rent out some crop quickening amulet when you could just Google the best organic fertilization techniques?

Many people within the magical communities blamed the long serving ruling families for these changing fortunes. Pointing to Askauri's frequent trips to the other side and its influence over him as proof. Others, if not most, understood that this form of modernization was a natural result of their current state of alignment.

The Incata was not always tethered as it is to the Earth. The two states of dimensional being circle about each other in elliptical orbits, only interacting periodically over vast spans of time. It was possible to cross between the two when they were not in synchronous orbit, though it was much more difficult.

The Earth and the Incata had been locked in a dimensional dance for several thousand years now and was likely not to separate for at least several hundred more. Askauri had only ever experienced existence during this latest period of contact and had always enjoyed easy access between the two realms, taking advantage of the close proximity.

Some believed that there should be a greater level of contact between the two worlds, that the Incata should fully reveal itself in the spirit of mutual cooperation. These folk spawned near religious, cult-like followings, though their numbers were few. None of them could rightly recall the reason why this open contact was not meant to be.

This isn't the first time that the Earth and the Incata were so closely linked and it will be far from the last, with a cataclysmic shift occurring during both the periods of conjoining and separation.

Many times, on Earth, particularly, this period of global upheaval has been interpreted as both the beginning and the end of the world.

Most in the Incata, and a relative few on Earth, however, have always known these to be the inherent cycles within a naturally abiding system. The sun rose and set. The seasons waxed and waned. Galaxies rotated about their central core. And the Earth and the Incata parted ways only to eventually drift back into each other's arms.

Together or apart, each exerted equal but opposite force upon the other. It was this balance that was now challenged. There were factions at play in both worlds who wished to bring about a permanent and open connection between realities, who didn't hold much faith in the legends and laws of old.

The Earth-borne faction of these ideologists hungered for greater access to the magical sources of creative energies abundant within the Incata, while their counterparts in the magical lands desired the sorcerous technologies, the power and control that the Earth's vast forms of material wealth represented.

Each faction was representative of the epitome of their world's own particular forms of conspicuous consumption. So, what more is there for them to attain when they owned most of their own worlds already?

For the fabulously wealthy and the impossibly powerful, there were stakes to be had in the next world over. Consequences to the future be damned.

For much of his life, Askauri had been able to consciously minimize the threat represented by a handful of these esoteric cultists and their weird extremist beliefs. These seemed like issues of the state. There were Lords and Ministers and Department Heads and Directors for that sort of thing, after all. His time, as far as he was concerned, was best reserved for his own pursuits.

He lived and trained like a soldier, yes. He was, after all, the honorary commander of the Royal Families' Forward Expeditionary Unit. But he partied as if he had no concerns, no other obligations.

Perhaps if he'd known that things were so much worse than he had imagined, much worse than the Queen Mother or his goofy fop of an older brother had let on, he would have made a different choice.

He knew that it no longer mattered.

He could feel his brother's death, the moment he drew his last breath, even across the veil. He didn't need to be there to know what that portended and if he had any doubts about whether there had been a more mystical hand at play in his arrest and conviction, they were completely gone when his brother's life energies and fleeting memories had washed over him.

Now was no longer the time to concern oneself with such regrets, though. He knew that The Great House of The Askai, Rulers of The Great Plains Kingdom of the Incata, had been called to war.

His family's heritage as The Defenders Of The Great Pillars, Central Spoke of the House of Families and Keepers of the Aspects, was being challenged for worthiness.

But for now he must concern himself with his son. He'd thought that no one of importance knew of the boy or the boy's mother. Mostly because none would likely suspect that Askauri's heart had been stolen away so easily. The woman had not been his first fling, nor the boy his first bastard.

Before, though, all were easily enough forgotten. His mother had helped to see to that, quietly compensating the women and brutally eradicating any unborn potential threats to the familial line of succession.

She did this as a sort of royal duty, he supposed. Askauri was not in line to inherent the throne, but a good many people still dreamed of tapping into the Royal Family's vast supply of Dukedoms and Earl-ships and any number of other lesser appointments best reserved for unwanted bastards.

Bealz's mother had been different, though. Much different. She was not a member of any of the Great Houses. She was not the comely daughter of some dignitary or politician. She didn't come from any of the powerful merchant families. In fact, she was not even of the Incata.

She was a stripper from the Southside of Chicago.

Askauri had fallen in love immediately, her, not so much. They'd met when he had, on a lark, visited the dank, dark and dangerous gentleman's clubs lined up like a seedy row of strip malls just outside of the Chicago city limits. He and a couple others from his Royal Expeditionary Forward Unit, the band of soldiers, fellow revelers and confidantes whom he kept company with, were celebrating yet another successful foray to Earth.

Watching her dance onstage, he had found himself completely captivated. There was something familiar about her. Something ghostly and attractive that he could not quite name. She looked vulnerable, almost ethereal as she moved about the tiny stage, completely ignoring the gathered throng of hooting men thrusting money towards her.

Askauri couldn't tear his eyes away for different reasons, though. He could sense a latent power, thrumming just beneath the surface.

He paid outrageously for a private lap dance, wishing to be nearer, to know more of her. Any thought given to 'rescuing' her from a life trapped in such circumstances were dashed immediately,

though, once they'd actually met.

Hers had been a most harsh life, certainly, made even more so by the fact that she was an alluring young child abandoned into a broken, state run foster care system. What she had been able to achieve most successfully, as a result of this, though, was endurance. She was a survivor in the midst of a world filled with hustlers, pimps, drug dealers, deviants and killers.

She was no shrinking violet, however. Many of the dancers were working girls, prostitutes who handed tips over to their pimps as soon as they left the stage. Most were barely of age and quite a few were still little more than children, roped into the life by unscrupulous men.

She was having none of that. What she did, she did of her own accord and strictly by the rules which she set and refused to deviate from.

Askauri watched for her later on that night, waiting to see if she was going to take him up on the earlier invitation to breakfast at closing.

Surprising herself, maybe it was something about the strange man's eyes or the fact that he really only seemingly wanted to talk, she had accepted. This, of course, didn't stop her from checking the box cutter's blade before stepping out into the alley behind the row of clubs.

Awaiting her in an idling car, Askauri could see two men silently split away from the dark shadows surrounding the cone of light cast by the yellowed bulb above the back door. His heart had quickened as he opened the car door with the intent of dashing to her defense. What he saw next had stopped him cold in his tracks.

Her hand vanished inside the clutch purse she carried and came out faster than the average eye could follow, with the blade of the box cutter fully extended. She swung it round in a tight, practiced arc as lethal in its execution as anything Askauri had ever seen.

This is not what had stopped him dead in his tracks, however. It is what she had become in that instant. Her being had transformed, erupting in a blistering flame that burned above the perceptions of the cowardly men closing in on her.

He could sense the energy roiling off of her in waves, even at a distance, and it was impressive.

She was an adept. Here. In this place. The most unlikeliest of places to meet such a beautiful creature.

Her fires marked her as the descendant of some long lost warrior caste. Somewhere in her genetic past, buried beneath thousands of years worth of DNA, her ancestors had been fierce protectors, soldiers serving the God of Two Skies, the one true unifying force between the two worlds.

Her kind were rare, if not little more than a rumor in the Incata. They were down right unheard of here on Earth.

Askauri was amazed as he watched one of them, Earth's own living Valkyrie, eviscerate two junkies in an alley behind a strip club in Gary, Indiana.

It was like watching the angel of death performing a masterwork. Much more intimate than a lap dance.

Later, they ate pancakes at Denny's

She did not know what she was. Had never really known what she could do. How she could do it. She just did it. It scared her sometimes. Kept her fed and safe most others.

Soon enough, Askauri folded her over into the Incata and brought her before his mother, who rejected her right away.

Askauri would not abandon her, however. He had her secretly enrolled in the Moor-lander's Mountain Region Academy, high up in the University Cities, hoping that she'd learn to fully explore her range of expressions, only to lose her once again to the Earth when his trusts were betrayed.

Before he could follow after, her senses, her memories, had been clouded. She remembered little of what he had shown her of herself. He lost his connection to her and she eventually lost track of time. Forgot a great many things.

But she never forgot the intense love she felt for the child she carried out of the Incata within her womb. The child none of the other 'elf people', as she called them, knew about. Not even the child's father.

Only wishing to care for the boy, though, her mind had become a painfully splintered thing, trying to reconcile the memories of two different worlds. Two different lives.

She spiraled down into confusion, lost touch with the inner source of her strength.

Soon, she forgot. Easy enough when all those around you think that your tales are just the unchecked ravings of a madwoman.

When he had smuggled Monie into the Moor's University Cities, Askauri knew what was at stake. He had been warned about the scope of the dangers faced by each of them, but it had not really become perfectly clear until she had been expelled from the Academy and soon enough from the Incata all together.

He tried to follow after, to seek her out, but when he arrived on Earth there was a trap there waiting for him.

He manifested above the body of a young woman who looked very much like his lost love. The police were there to greet him. In disregarding his mother's wishes in his pursuit, he'd chosen to set aside his mantle of authority, leaving him powerless to act against the laws of these men. Askauri was helpless. Just another black man professing his innocence.

He had been locked away for nearly two years before he could even sense the existence of his offspring. Soon after that, though, the child began to call to him, to seek him out.

He met his son in a dream. The essence of the boy. He was only able to talk to him, guide him through the child's own imaginings of the Incata, where he had been conceived, explaining to him what he saw, whom they met.

The boy had no idea that he was conjuring forth impossible memories. Memories of a time when he was but a quickened idea in his mother's womb.

Askauri was powerless to help his son in any reasonable way, but what bit of his life's essence, his link to The Source that he had been able to maintain, he used as a shield of protection for the boy and his mother. He could only hope that it was enough since his grasp on the energies flowing from the Incata was a tenuous thing.

The shield had been weak, at best, depending more on their anonymity than his magical might, and now it had been shattered altogether. And now, until he could withdraw the energies exerted in the shield's formation, he'd be too weak even to speak to the child in the dream state. He could only hope that the boy would remember some of what was shown to him upon waking.

Askauri had reached out to Bealz's mother. To his broken warrior. Her mind remained in a perpetual state of dreamy duality. Neither fully awake nor asleep. He wasn't certain if she could understand the urgency he had tried to convey to her. The need for her to focus, to shake off the cottony doldrums, the remnants of the Queen Mother's spell of banishment.

She needed to get to Bealz and get out of there before the others came. And to do so, she would need to find a way to find herself. If only for a moment.

Askauri knew that, if nothing else, Monie had held on to the need to protect her son. Her mind had wandered far and wide, ranging out over time and through two different worlds, but she remained anchored to the boy. Bealz kept her from drifting too far.

If Monie could get to their son, sneak with him back into the Incata, Askauri was certain that they could find safe haven, that there were some he could trust to aid them, hopefully before they were recognized by any others. And once they were properly concealed, he could begin to consider his next move.

But first, he would have to find his own way back to the Incata.

Easier said than done, he thought, staring up at the underside of the top bunk.

Much easier.

Slowly gathering his thoughts and energies, calling upon meditational techniques honed during his childhood magical academy training, Askauri slips off, first into a deep sleep, then into a coma.

His cellie, unable to wake him some hours later, calls for the guard.

Coming in and checking his pulse, the guard then radios in for a medical response unit.

Askauri is pronounced dead the next morning.