Bealz, Prince Of The SouthSide

The Burning Trees of The Great Forest

Monique, The Snake and The Spider

I'm liking the pencil sketch more than the watercolor I think

Prince Askauri Bin Qwana

Monique Felani Kokua-Binti

XLIX Ignoring the beast's boastful words, Jo-Mel hopes that its conceit will keep it too occupied in self-aggrandized banter, keep it from ending both her and Monique with a single stroke. “I think perhaps I'll walk about, take a look around,” the Great Beast says. “This new world is delightful, so intriguing. There's so much to explore, so much to see. They don't even know what they've done.” She can see the spectral frequencies conjoining thousands of devices, forming an intricate web, ensnaring the users in a peculiar sort of enchantment. The air was filled with these signalings. The beginnings of a new plane of reality was forming around these electronic signatures, creating a near infinite, nearly empty cyberspace that connected them all. Oh, the possibilities. These people were advancing much more quickly than she could have imagined when she had first been scattered and driven down into the Earth. They had harne

48 As they rocketed through the astral plane, with Monique as their point of reference, Askauri could see a black cloud smeared up through several different dimensional strata. A burnt, ashy malignment, at its heart was a darkness, a split in the fabric of reality that formed an absence, a sucking void. The blankness pulled at them, drew them on, beyond Monique, down towards its blank oblivion. Askauri tries to slam on the brakes, to check their speed. He scrabbles to gain purchase in the Earth's material reality, but could feel himself, dragged along in Bealz's blistering wake, being bent towards the void. Askauri strains hard to turn Bealz away, to arc them instead straight through to the heart of the massive energies, where Monique's life force, hers and something very much like it, roiled over and over, in a perpetual eruption. They shoot on, though, their momentum dangerously unchecked.

47 “I know your kind,” Jo-Mel says, rising painfully, slowly to her feet. Turning towards her, the beast looks closely and is surprised on this delightfully unexpected day yet again. “As you should, little wildling,” she purrs. “I feasted on the flesh of your kind out beyond the soft places, in the dark lands.” “Then you know that we hunted you all down and drove you out.” “Well, that would depend on your perspective, I guess,” the beast chides. “As you can see, I wasn't hunted down. I wasn't driven out.” “But I do remember the temerity, the audacity of you unfinished people,” she continues. “Your harassments were ceaseless. “Perhaps I should pay you back in kind for the sum total of those offenses?” Jo-Mel saw that Monique was held fast and struggled against her bindings to no avail. The beast's black threading was nothing like the invisible, gossamer web that Pickle-Me-Jack had spun around her. Monique struggled

46 As Askauri stepped into the astral plane, intending to move over into the Incata and back to where he'd sensed Monique, he was spun off course. A once familiar pathway had suddenly become an incomprehensible maze. There was a time dilation that normally occurred between crossings. It took focus and effort to overcome it, to keep from wandering off course, drifting off through the time stream. There were plenty of tales of untrained adepts blundering into the plane states and losing themselves to some far distant past or an unknown future. Askauri was well aware of these tales and struggled hard to keep himself anchored. He held Bealz tightly, afraid he'd be pulled from his arms and spun out through time. Askauri knew what was happening. He recognized his mistake immediately. The eruption of energy that centered around Monique had sent brutal, shock waves throughout several layers of space/time that resonated for hundreds of miles around its epi

45 Monique struggled against the crushing weight of the Great Beast as it bore down upon her. It mocked her and laughed at her mounting anger, her growing distress. It made remark against her futile struggles. “Little felani,” it growled. Its voice grated like a massive, grinding rock-slide. “Don't struggle so. This won't be long. You won't feel much, when it's done.” Monique felt her blood boil. The heat grew, was turned inward by the Great Beast. She was contained. She felt helpless. But unafraid. “Ah, there it is. I see it,” The Great Beast purrs, shifting back down through to her human form. “You so want to kill me, yes? The need to do so burns within you.” Monique can't speak. She can feel the beast's sickening black threads weaving around her, tightening, binding her. “I can still smell my little brother's blood on you, whore,” she taunts. “Do you fancy yourself a demonslayer?” The Great Beast fel

44 Askauri joins his son on the balcony. Bealz ignores him. Turns his music up a notch. Askauri is just as much at a loss for words. This is new ground for each of them. He knew, though, that it was his responsibility to bridge the gap. His son, he could only imagine, had been through enough so that his rough demeanor and gruff attitude should be understood. Still, it wasn't easy to see and served as a harsh reminder that he had been absent for so much, not just his son's social development. Askauri, in his own unique way, could relate to his son's emotional hesitancy, even after having grown up in such different circumstances. His father had died when he was but an infant, leaving him to be raised by a constant coterie of specialists and instructors without his guidance. And although his upbringing was very much traditional in the royal sense, it had left him with an objectively skewed understanding of his own son's fundamental needs.

43 Monique feels the seismic pounding of the Great Beast's blows as its fists crash down upon Jo-Mel's shield. It takes her a moment to rise back up through the depths of her inner voyage. She opens her eyes to find Jo-Mel struggling to hold her enchantment. With each blow that the beast rains down upon the Breaker, the shock wave causes the Earth to shake and the neighborhood immediately surrounding them is torn apart as burst gas mains sporadically erupt into flame. Mass panic grips the neighborhood as police, emergency and fire crews, already stretched thin due to the building collapses caused by the earthquake, are dispatched to the scene. The area residents, unable to flee in their cars because of the buckled and shattered streets, run as fast and as frantically as possible, attempting to distance themselves from the ongoing destruction. None, in their mindless panic, seem to even acknowledge the supernatural presence of a treetops tall de

XLII Bealz had tried to keep up with the conversation. He wasn't sure, though, just what was going on. His dad and the smoothly dressed, smooth-talking man were discussing stuff, people and places, that had no meaning to him. Soon enough, he wandered away, sauntered over to the balcony overlooking the Lakefront. Bealz popped in his earbuds and cued up some Kendrick Lamar. He kept Kendrick and Chance the Rapper, mostly, in heavy rotation. Looking out over Lake Michigan and back South towards his far distant neighborhood, out over a very short span of the city, Bealz can still see the fog of dust and debris from the building collapse staining the air and his thoughts drift back towards his mother for the millionth time. He wishes that she could be here with him. It would be cool for her to see this place. He could imagine her laughing and smiling and dancing about amongst the opulence. It would be cool to see her enjoy something ni

XLI Monique still could not quite understand what was happening. She knew that she sat cross-legged on the remnants of a filthy shag rug in the living room of an abandoned house with Jo-Mel. They traded stories. And yet: Monique was experiencing a sense of vertigo. She felt as though she had fallen backwards, had tumbled down into herself. She continued the Telling along with Jo-Mel. She continued to tell her story. But she was now submerged within it, pulled along by its own momentum. She opens herself to the press of history that washes over her. It floods her senses with more than the human mind alone could possibly process. Monique thrashes about, the story splintering, slipping away. And then she feels something firm, something solid lifting itself up to meet her, to support her. She finds a rock upon which to stand. There, she meets her Mothers. She meets the Felani. Mamurakan was not among them. She wandered still,

40 Jasi Kupele had reserved his easy demeanor and the laughter for Bealz's sake. What he had to tell Askauri, however, was no amusing matter. Nothing was as it seemed. The Throne was in danger and there had been a warrant issued for Askauri's life and all those loyal to him. Bealz and Monique were listed on the warrant. “Who would do such a thing?” Askauri needs to know. “It's not who or what you'd think, my man,” Jasi cautions. “And I'll get to that. But first, I have to tell you just what I've been doing. And you must understand, old friend, that my loyalty to you, to our friendship, has never faltered, and that won't change. What I know, what I'm about to tell you, is between us and I'll keep it that way.” Kupele went on to explain how he had found an angle. How he had followed a lead into the heart of corporate America. “...and if you thought the Royal Courts were bad, man, that place is a real snakepit!