“Watch this,” I said, and I teased apart the shards of Djamrock’s brain with a knife until a small crystal was visible. I gouged the crystal out and showed them. “This is how they control us. Paklas in the brain. They translate for us, they spy on us. As we already discussed, very small paklas in our blood stream rejuvenate us, by manipulating our hormones to regenerate dead cells that wouldn’t usually regenerate. The water of the well of life is rich in these miniscule-paklas, that’s how it is able to heal us. ‘Despair’ is, I suspect, a chemical reaction in the tissues of the body induced by an imbalance in the hormones in the brain, synthesising minerals dissolved in our blood from these lurking paklas. Flesh becomes stone; though it’s not really stone, it’s a crystalline form of carbon.
“Despair in short is a way of keeping us docile; if we aren’t happy, our bodies are turned to stone. Enjoy your lot-or die! Evil, but effective; and the technology is not so very hard.”
“The Ka’un have powers beyond our imagining,” Sai-ias informed me, anxiously.
“That’s only because you’re so fucking dumb, Sai-ias! My civilisation’s science is considerably more advanced than yours,” I said, scornfully. “Give me a lab and equipment, I could replicate all these effects.”
“You can control minds?” said Sai-ias.
“We have done so. Not any more, we fought a war over it with the Southern Tribes. Not all our wars are futile,” I added, tauntingly.
After the encounter with Djamrock’s brain, and my final explanations of how the Ka’un control us, we returned to the grasslands. The planning stage was over. The war was about to begin.
And each of the creatures on our world had a part to play in my complex and audacious battleplan.
The aerials patrolled the sky; they could warn us at once if the Ka’un made any attempt to open the firmament and attack us from above.
Sai-ias had spent three days motionless in the waters near the Tower, studying the movements of the Metal Giant. And, as I predicted, she saw it vanish-proving that it was a projection turned off by a simple switch. And she also saw a two-legged creature emerge from the earth, and wander around for a while. This was a Ka’un, I was sure of it. The Tower wasn’t their home, but it was their way in and out of the interior world.
And so it was the Tower we would attack. Sai-ias and the sea-creatures would carry land-warriors under the gap in the force protector shield. And when an army was gathered inside, we would break open the entrance way to the Ka’un’s section of the ship and flood into the exterior world, where dwelled the Ka’un.
At the same time, using the Temple building as our scaffold, we would attempt to breach the very sky, using the strength of the giant sentients like Fray and Ioday and Miaris to rip apart the metal hull. Serpentines would be hauled up and would squeeze through the gap created; and they would advance mercilessly upon our enemies who resided, so I believed, on the other side of the sky.
There were however several terrible obstacles in our way; I carefully marked them off in my mind.
Firstly, the Ka’un could shut off our air. If we suffocated, how could we fight?
The answer was simple; for I knew that Sai-ias could survive for very long periods without air.
So, once we broke through into the outer hull, via the Tower gateway, we would all charge inside and fight desperately and savagely; while Sai-ias would take the rear.
Then, once the air was cut off, we would all die-the giant sentients, the aerials, the arboreals, the serpentines, all of us; but before we died, we would wreak as much damage as we could.
And then Sai-ias would follow behind; and she and she alone would finish the war, clambering over our corpses to do so. We all knew her phenomenal fighting power; she was the only weapon we truly needed.
And our own deaths were, we all felt, a small price to pay for victory.
A second problem remained however; for we knew that the Ka’un could control us through the paklas in our brain. They could turn a switch and send us into dreamless sleep; and then all of us, including Sai-ias, would be wretchedly and easily defeated.
I wrestled hard with this problem; and in the days after showing Djamrock’s brain to the others, I consulted with Quipu ceaselessly in the hope he might find a subtle scientific solution. Yet he had none; so I chose to embark upon my wildest gamble yet.
And now my course was clear. First I had to free my people from the mind-control of the Ka’un, by the most brutal means possible.
And then I had to lead them to victory; and their inevitable doom.
I kneeled in the clearing with Fray and Quipu and Sai-ias, while our whole army encircled us. Quipu held the knife in his delicate hands. And he pressed it to my forehead. And he dug the knife in, until it penetrated the bone.
Then he carved a circle of blood around my skull. And pressed harder, until knife dug into bone, all the way around my forehead.
Quipu then carefully lifted the skull cap away from my head, until the brain beneath was bared.
“What can you see?” I asked.
“Brain,” said Quipu One snappily. “Precious little of it, it’s a miracle you can-”
“Look for the crystal!” I said angrily. I felt naked and vulnerable with my brain bare to the world; and only the paklas in my bloodstream were saving me from shock, trauma, and sudden death.
“I see it,” said Quipu Two.
“Then take it out,” I said.
Quipu’s sharp blade gouged deep into the tissues of my brain and I recoiled in horror; surely this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me!
But I endured it; and a few moments later I was looking at the bloody crystal in Quipu’s hand.
“Water,” I said.
Sai-ias sprinkled the healing water from the well of life over my exposed brain.
Quipu spoke; but I could not understand his words.
The others joined in; it was a babble of discordant sounds.
My pakla could no longer translate! And the theory was proved.
Then Quipu slipped the skull back into place. Sai-ias splashed more water on the join, and wrapped a bandage around my head. I felt somewhat dizzy; but I was confident none of them knew my species well enough to read the panic in my eyes.
I spoke: “Can you understand me?”
Another babble of sound. They could understand me, but I could not understand them.
And so it began; the cutting of brains.
Within hours the clearing was a pool of blood. The brain-tainted crystals were piled high. And as each of my fellow slaves lost their crystal, they lost the ability to understand each other. The clearing became a babble of competing noises, with no meanings.
Then Sai-ias extruded her brain out of her skull carapace for the operation to be performed. I held the knife.
Sai-ias
I was among the last to have my brain cut open; I was dreading it terribly.
But before the blade touched my extruded brain, Sharrock paused and dropped the knife to his side. For the sky had darkened; and we turned and looked, and saw two huge creatures came beating a path out of the blue sky.
Cuzco.
And Djamrock.
Both back from the dead.
I howled, in horror and dismay, and my brain shrank back into my skull, still uncut.
Sharrock backed away, still holding the knife. And Cuzco swooped down towards us low and fast, and his neck and skull orifices blazed fire; and Sharrock’s body was engulfed in flames. I tried to spit web on my burning friend, to put out the fire; but my mouth was dry. I could not spit.
But Sharrock rolled wildly on the grass; and Fray pissed upon him; and his charred body stood and he was ready for combat once again.
And all around me, the fighting commenced.
Imagine a battle like nothing you can imagine.
Thousands of us fought against two; but Cuzco and Djamrock were the mightiest of giants, and could fly. The
