Chapter 98: Ena

Standing suddenly in the doorway of an unfamiliar octagonal room, Ryoko found herself again taking stock. Marveling at the subtle details which proclaimed this new vista unfolding before her as absolutely real. The sight of lavish draperies splashing iridescent color across dark hardwood walls, a lingering aroma she couldn't immediately identify cascaded pleasantly past her perceptions as Ena's voice softly began.

"I was still quite young; the day my mother pulled me roughly into the room where she held her divinations, urgently pressing me to into a cupboard."

Ryoko watched mutely as the narration paused just as an azure skinned woman hurried heedless past her position, leading a little girl as sky blue as she was by the hand quickly to the room's far side.

Matching hair, white as new snow, elegantly affirmed their lineage as the woman hastily drew a drape aside.

Pausing to touch a hidden switch upon the panel just revealed, prompting in turn appearance of a previously hidden opening which appeared almost magically before them. The little girl was ushered then without ceremony in to the space behind, as Ena's voice solemnly resumed.

"Hastily placing a loaf of fresh bread into my hands along with a tankard of water, my mother then said that I was to remain hidden! Not to utter a sound! Until she or my father came for me!"

Ryoko observed, as the action soundlessly followed Ena's words. Seeing first the confusion on the girl's face as the woman, whose features obviously echoed the adult Ena's tenderly brushed flaxen hair away from the child's large emerald eyes. She could sense the rising apprehension as the panel closed a moment later. Almost taste the child's growing fear as if it were her own.

"I remember thinking; it was all just a game!" Ena continued. "I had often hidden there, behind the lavish beaded curtains my mother had sewn. Listening when she told fortunes to the villagers and to the occasional curious outlander.

I soon realized that day however was to be different! Upon hearing my father's voice outside, shouting over those of several other men!"

Again the scene blurred briefly, placing Ryoko upon a rolling plane over looking a quaint village dell. Crude two wheeled carts visibly lumbered along a dirt road, drawn by hulking creatures resembling shaggy rhinoceros more than any oxen she had ever seen.

"It had been a particularly poor harvest." Ena resumed her narration. "Coming near the end of several rough years. 'Itah' and 'Borron' it seems were in the waning portion of a' hotter' solar cycle. With less grain to sell, the normal influx of tradesmen brought proportionally fewer of the needed and wanted commodities upon which the villagers depended."

Ryoko watched azure skinned men and women dressed in leather and homespun labor in fields. Even without Ena's oratory her years observing farmers in Okayama as a spiritual presence were more than enough to tell the soil was being 'stubborn', while 'events' were played out before her in a sort of time lapsed collage. She did find herself wondered briefly, what sort of crops would thrive at all under the two suns blazing in the sky overhead.

"Thus, tensions were riding high!" Ena's voice drifted across the scene even as Ryoko attended. "And so poor timing indeed for nature to bid me manifest my powers!"

Now at the edge of the village, Ryoko caught sight of the little girl again, standing upon the lip of the village well, talking excitedly to anyone who would hear.

"Yet, here was this little girl, telling this villager, 'Go home quickly your house is about to catch fire!' or to that one to, 'Keep an eye on your wife there's a strange man in your house!' At the time, my skills were nowhere near on par with those of my mother 'Elay'. But what I lacked in polish I more than made up for in scope!"

As images continued to flow, Ryoko saw little Ena playing amid other village children. Several blue skinned little boys and girls hard at a sort of 'dancing game' which to Ryoko sort of resembled 'earthly hopscotch'. She observed as the girl pointed, to what appeared to be a healthy 'rhino/beast' while voicing concern to its owner. She then watched in time lapse as the animal slowly withered and died. Then seeing Ena as the scene resolved, back at the well and the dancing game with noticeably less children playing.

"I was able to 'reach forward', sometimes months, with a level of accuracy and detail frightening even to my mother." Ena's voice explained. "And hers, were not the only fears generated by my visions!"

Ryoko watched while the girl played and 'prophesied'. Seeing the villagers grow more fearful as each new revelation unfolded with startling accuracy even as the circle of children allowed to play with her grew smaller.

Finally as the images began to fade into a kind of velvet blackness, the little girl stood alone at the center of the dancing ring. The white pebbles used to play the game falling from her small hand, a sad little frown creasing that beautiful innocent face.

"It was less than roughly two standard years, as measure by the current galactic calendar from the time of my first vision." Ena continued. "On the day before what would have been my thirteenth birthday, that I sat and I waited, listening fearfully to 'the intensity' building in the voices, just outside the walls of our home!"

The scene before Ryoko brightened again, only enough to show the inside of the cupboard in which little Ena had been hidden. She could almost feel the little girl's heart racing faster and faster. Watching as her delicate hands pressed against the panel before her.

"To this day, I still don't know what precisely caused the villagers to turn." Ena explained. "Ironically, my clairvoyance does not extend to more than dimly seeing elements of my own fate. A blessing in some ways I suppose, yet never more inconvenient than then."

From her omnipresent perspective Ryoko saw the child suddenly start within the cupboard. Could see her eyes widen, as she seemed to hear.

"I heard my father Galus, fine-smith supreme, shout yet again." Ena's voice narrated woodenly. "The last time I would ever hear his voice! For the moment was punctuated by a scream from my mother! Seconds before the noise of the crowd rose to a fevered intensity! Random elements of broken dialogue mixed jaggedly the sounds of smashing furnishing as our home too absorbed its measure of their violence! Fear, wonder and a child's curiosity conspired for me to disregard mother's stern instructions and push open the cupboards hidden door!"

Helpless to do more than observe, Ryoko saw the cupboard open before little hands as the action continued, playing out in perfect counterpoint to Ena's words.

"Framed within that narrowest of cracks, I glimpsed Elay. Backing slowly towards me, giving ground only begrudgingly against the belligerent approach of several recognizable men! I watched her slender frame, even then attempting to remonstrate with the unreasoning hoard. I've inherited my mother's sensual hourglass shape I'm proud to say, though I wish now perhaps she'd been the most unappealing of hags! If it would have sparred their insulting attentions! I was force to watch in horror as they boar her down upon one of the ornate benches my father had constructed with his own hands and observed, horrified and helpless, as the men multiply violated her!"

Ryoko too felt an impudent sickness, wanting desperately to charge into the pack of leering men! To butcher them like the animals their action revealed them to be! Yet she was only a passenger on this voyage of the damned. Watching as a tall man opened his red robes while settling between the spread legs of Ena's mother. Held apart while she strained by two others as a third man held her in place on the bench.

"Even amid her anger, shame and humiliation," Ena continued. "My mother never shirked in her duties. As I was loathed to recognize the village cleric laboring over her, Elay's pain filled eyes covertly sought my hiding place. Our gazes almost seeming to meet as my sweet mother slowly shook her head mouthing a single cryptic 'No' my direction."

Ryoko felt her breath, rapid and shallow witnessing it all! Every microscopic moment of pain and degradation as the beautiful woman took their full horrific measure. Noting that she never again looked towards the little girl's hiding place.

"They took their time with her" Ena's voice continued sullenly. "I'm quite certain my father was already dead. So I suppose at the very least, he was spared witnessing the parade of slavering bastards taking what for them must have been some kind of vengeance.

Vengeance? For what, I'm certain I shall never know. I only then recalled next when Jasib, the son of the village miller was mounting my then un-protesting mother. He was a great, ugly beast of a man, who rapidly seemed to become dissatisfied with Elay's lack of enthusiasm and so began to throttle her!"

Ryoko felt her own throat tighten in outraged revulsion, watching gnarled blue paws the size of hams closed about the woman's graceful neck, gripping the by then insensinate woman's throat for leverage, as he oozed his bloated mass back and forth above her.

"The ignorant swine didn't even realize he had killed my precious mother until he had spent himself. Nor had any of his companions seemed to notice or care until it was far too late!"

From somewhere at last Ryoko found the power to shut her eyes, screwing them closed against perverted circus before her! Blotting the sight of Elay's dead listless eyes silently screaming an accusation into the faces of her murders!

"Only in the 'aftershock' did the light of sanity seem at last to find them. I was even treated to the bitter irony of the cleric who'd participated! Saying a hasty blessing over my mother's still warm corpse!

There was, I recall a search, no doubt for the 'little bitch that had somehow eluded them! Yet hearing them ransacking the house, fear bid I pull the cupboard door close."

Ryoko was only able to hold back her gaze for a few moments. In truth part of her somehow feeling she must witness this! For the sake of the little girl Ena once was. A penance she suddenly in some way owed, for the innocence that had been stolen.

"Father had never intended those 'cubbies' to be truly secret." A tinge of wryness manifested itself here as Ena continued. "Only wanting the room in which his beloved wife was to ply her trade not to give hint, it was in fact the home's pantry. So perfectly had my father skillfully blended the enclosures into to the wall, the villagers never suspected that I cowered mere inches away!

I don't remember how long I sat listening to them tear through our home before I heard a cry from one of the men. Asking why one of his fellows was lighting a torch! There was I recall no direct reply to his question that I could hear. Other than a general consensus that they all should flee! Presently I could smell the smoke as the fine timbers my father had fashioned by hand began to burn!"

As the narrative continued Ryoko witness the panic written plainly on young Ena's face as arid white smoke began wafting around her and into the cupboard.

"I waited long as I dare before venturing out..." Ena pressed on. "Going instantly to my poor mother. I tried to move, perhaps drag her body from the path of the fire, but I was only thirteen. As a last desperate act I yanked the pendent father had made for her from around her neck, bidding a tearful goodbye before I ran at last into the night!"

Ryoko observed, from her sifting perspective, standing only now a few feet away. Instinctively extending a hand towards the girl's shoulder wishing desperately to give comfort as both in turn watched from the edge of the nearby woods. Observing in silence as the only home the child had ever known burn to the ground.

"I wandered ... for what must have been months. Among the other skills my parents had taught, the art of herbology proved its worth. There are always useful things growing around for those with the eye and the knowledge, staying clear, rightfully distrustful of the smaller hamlets and townsteads."

While hardly compensating for a lingering sense of horror, Ryoko felt a strange kind of comfort watching little Ena sitting then beside a clear stream. Even found a smile creeping to her lips seeing the child eating several oddly purple roots she had harvested.

Though as Ryoko looked deep into those emerald pools through which young Ena's world was captured, the sadness rose within her again. Noticing, though clear and beautiful as before they were simply no longer the eyes of a child, a clear and sad testament to what she had irretrievably lost.

"It was thus that I quit the region of my birth, eventually finding my way to the city of 'Logopas.' The largest and most important city on the eastern continent and one of the most advanced on my home world of Boralis at that time.

What a spectacle it was too, far larger by many times the size of any gathering of people I had certainly known! On just the cusp of fourteen, it was difficult to find my way, though honestly at the time I didn't really care. As the collage of my days continued, I adapted to the life of a street urchin. Using every trick my young mind could conjure to survive!"

Continuing, baring silent witness, Ryoko silently nodded. She could certainly sympathize, watching young Ena learning the ways of her world, via her old alma mater. Aka, the school of hard knocks!

"I worked at any job that would have me, eventually settling into the esteemed profession of tavern maid! 'Dyken Reyal', a tavern-master was a nasty old sot but treated me reasonably enough I suppose. All in all, a difficult but manageable existence in pursuit of which I did my best to put the past where it belonged. Swearing solemnly never to ply my mother's trade nor use the skills which had ultimately killed both my parents."

Yet again, Ryoko surveyed the changing scene about her, finding it reasonably palatable. She'd certainly seen and been in worse circumstances. The proprietor or Tavern master Ena mentioned was a huge blue bull of a man, almost making three of Nobuyuki! Beside him, the fourteen-year-old Ena looked like a china doll. Ryoko continued to watch Ena settle into her new, if unglamorous life. Catching a glimpse of Ena going to 'knuckle junction' with another tavern maid over pocketing a tip as the Voice of Ena resumed.

"All that changed the day of 'The announcement'.

I will tell you now Ryoko that 'Boralis' had many distinctions as a world. One of which being that it had been known for many, many generations among those who choose to concern themselves with such things, that we as a people were not alone in the universe. It seems however, while having full knowledge of extraterrestrial life and contact with multiple star-fairing races ... My home world being host to a mostly pre-industrial civilization had no real stake in the larger galactic picture.

Apparently, though I confess this information became known to me only much, much later, this no long was a factor after large deposit of Cysrarium, were discovered almost on Logopas's doorstep."

Ryoko found herself nodding, she knew of that one! A pure white, vaguely iridescent appearing ore which when refined became a high energy source, useful in many F.T.L or faster than light stardrives. At least a hundred space hoping technology depended on it in one fashion or another.

"Needless to say, the race was on! Suddenly a small backward planet became a place of intense alien interest. Overnight an obscure mine in the hills was being besieged by all manner of ships dropping from the heavens, in a few short weeks the sight of actual aliens wandering among the populous became almost commonplace. Within months to use terms you will recognize Boralis had become ... Important.

Suitably important even to be recognized by the fabled Jurian Empire, whose protection Boralis now desperately needed.

Amid the continuing series of culture shocks, finding out that we were suddenly part of a empire seemed somehow trivia, at least to the common man. When one is living from coin to mouth, plans for a spaceport/mining hub being drafted up, with the promise of jobs and a better life was something far more palatable. Enough that it seemed the whole planet was suddenly abuzz!"

The scene again moved to the tavern, now three times busier any previous image of the place. Ryoko couldn't resist smiling, watching Ena lithely dart in and out of the tables with the other barmaids.

"None of which of course meant bilge to me!" Ena resumed. "I had just turned seventeen, having in the past year and a half undergone a promotion of sorts. By day I still tended bar and helped the old tavern-master. By night however I now plied the oldest profession known to woman."

Ryoko felt a kind of coldness creep next to her heart at these words. Feeling it crawl deeper inside of her watching in the darkened after hours in rooms above and behind the tavern as the young woman lifted her tavern livery from her elegant shoulders. Only to allow it then to fall, to the sheer delight of a successive series of strange men.

"I would love to spin some elegant lie for you" Her voice grew hard as she continued. "It would be easy to say that I had been forced by circumstance. But the harsh truth of the matter was, I simply didn't care anymore! I had chosen to drown my sorrows, to lose myself within the endless nights and a sea of faces in a sad parody of love. All the talk of the spaceport and planet Boralis's recognition by the Jurians was less than trivial to me."

Ryoko watched, feeling tears starting finally to burn as the girl gave herself again and again to what appeared a never ending night. Almost moved to open weeping for how dead and empty those once beautiful eyes had become.

"That is, until one night...

I was tending bar later than usual and for once looking forward to the nights ... festivities? A particularly interesting man had taken an interest in me. What did it matter if he were paying for my favor? He was young and for once rather pleasant looking if not handsome.

I suppose even then, like so many young girls I was still foolish enough for some part of me to believe there was a prince somewhere out there! Just waiting to come to my rescue!

Thoughts of that nature may even have been playing about while I was wiping down. When suddenly stricken like a thunderbolt with the strongest vision I'd ever experienced!"

Ryoko jolted forward out of pure reflex, observing as the young woman tumbled. One moment running a damp cloth over top of a table the next crying out as her eyes appeared to glaze over as she fell backwards. The image of young Ena passing cleanly through Ryoko's outstretched hands as she fell to the floor.

"So powerful in fact was the vison that I lost consciousness!" Ena explained solemnly.

All about Ryoko the scene shifted again, melting and flowing from where the young blue woman gazed with milk white eyes at the bars ceiling as the other tavern maids gather round, stabilizing now just outside of the tavern.

Or had it? She couldn't help notice how the view seemed to continue to 'shift' slightly here and there. As if certain details were subtly missing. Most likely she reasoned because she was now inside of the younger Ena's vision.

A dream, within a dream ... Sorta.

"In the realm between, I found myself suddenly standing amid a crowd along the city's main thoroughfare, watching some bizarre kind of parade." Ena's voice resumed.