As Asha, Harry, and the Awumpai marched up the long stone walkway, the so-called ‘Royal Mile’, to the magnificent floating palace of the gods, Harry noted that the palace contrasted sharply with the drab, medieval-looking city of Joppa-Cal.
The palace was breathtaking. To Harry, it reminded him of all those pictures he had seen in National Geographic. It was as though the designers of the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, the Mayan temples, and the Egyptian pyramids collectively had built the palace. Or perhaps it was the other way around, Harry mused. Maybe the designers of Earth’s greatest architectural wonders had been inspired by the floating palace. Either way, Earth’s monuments paled in comparison with the enormous palace.
The entrance alone was two-stories high. The great doors were propped open to receive the myriad worshipers, who arrived with tributes of jewels, livestock, and slaves.
Captain Reed had seen many strange beings since he left Earth, including light-bulb-headed Martians, purple-skinned Mooks, woolly samurai, and fairy wood nymphs. However, the two guards that flanked the palace’s entrance blew them all away in the category of weirdness. The humanoid creatures stood on three powerful legs and had giant gemstone eyes. Their lower bodies clip-clopped around like horses, but these orange-skinned creatures were far from horses.
As they passed between the two guards, Asha moved a little closer to Harry’s side and squeezed his hand. Harry wasn’t afraid to admit it; he squeezed back.
The Awumpai snorted with distrust when they moved near the creatures, and Harry knew that Fu-Mar, at least, kept his hand near the hilt of his sword. If the tripod-legged creatures were afraid of the Awumpai, they didn’t show it.
The group passed through the doors and came to a stop. A line of worshipers had formed in the inner hallway, and it took Harry, Asha, and the Awumpai another hour to progress to a second set of giant doors. As Harry neared the doors, he saw the reason for the holdup: a royal announcer, a tiny hybrid who bore an uncanny resemblance to a Siamese cat, stopped the line to announce each newcomer as he or she entered the palace.
Finally, it was Asha’s group’s turn. “Announcing Dan-Sai Asha of the Province Mukara.”
Within the palace, the air was cool and smelled sweet.
“Ah, can you hear the music?” Asha asked Harry.
But Harry heard nothing besides the announcer’s annoying voice, the echoes of shuffling feet, and the joyful chattering of the worshipers. Looking at Asha, he saw that she was clearly entertained. Her eyes were ablaze as though they looked at something wondrous. However, when he followed her gaze, he saw nothing.
Sensing his frustration, Asha finally looked back at him. “Oh, I’m sorry, Harry. I forgot.” She reached up and lightly touched behind his ear with her middle finger, just as she had done by the river to show him the vision.
Harry felt a slight shock and suddenly heard beautiful harp-like sounds. When he looked up, he saw glowing female forms in translucent gowns playing strange, yet wonderful, instruments. The smell of an intense, pleasant fragrance flooded his nostrils, and his body instantly felt lighter.
“Do you hear them now?” Asha asked.
His senses were so overwhelmed that he had nearly forgotten her presence. “Yes,” he said, “but what did you do?”
Asha thought about his question before answering. “I helped you,” she finally said. She grabbed the inside of his elbow, and they continued to move deeper into the palace with the masses.
As they neared a hallway leading to one of the outer chambers, an effeminate male voice addressed Asha and said, “Ah, Dan-Sai Asha, we’ve been expecting you.”
Harry saw a tall, thin, elf-like man standing amongst the numerous marble columns that flanked the hallway. The elf’s velvet clothes were adorned with glittering jewels, and he had multiple rings on each of his fingers.
“Do you know him?” Harry whispered.
“No, do you?”
“Please, Dan-Sai, right this way.” The elf, who was nearly as thin as Asha, gestured for the group to follow him up a large marble staircase that was hidden from the masses by the thick columns. Every inch of the walls around the staircase was adorned with decorations composed of precious metals.
“Thank you,” Asha said in her language. Harry understood her perfectly and assumed this was another benefit of her ‘help’. He found himself wondering why she hadn’t ‘helped’ him before now. Perhaps it was something that had taken her time to figure out or maybe it wasn’t until after the bar fight she had deemed him worthy.
After ascending the staircase, they were ushered into a white tiled room where numerous visitors received spa treatments from dozens of Mook slaves. Some visitors received manicures, while others received haircuts or deep-tissue massages. The room reminded Harry of a very fancy version of his mom’s beauty salon back home in his youth.
When the Mook beauticians weren’t scrambling about in a frenzied state, hurriedly obeying their master’s commands, they were dancing on the balls of their two-toed feet, anxiously awaiting their master’s next command.
“Don’t worry, Dan-Sai. We’ll have you looking fabulous in no time,” the head beautician informed Asha.
“Thank you, Master Beautician. You are most kind.”
Seeing Captain Reed’s haggard appearance, the master beautician raised a nostril and said to his assistant, “Put the strange one into a susha bath right away.”
“Get your damn hands off me!” Harry yelled when two Mooks grabbed him without warning. He heard a PHOOT sound, and when he turned toward it, he saw one of the Mooks concealing a small tube in his white tunic.
Suddenly, a susha bath didn’t sound so bad anymore. It actually sounded pretty good.
“It’s okay, Harry,” the princess said. “They’re just going to give you a susha bath.”
“A su-sha bath?” Harry’s eyebrows raised as the room seemed to tilt at an odd angle.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” She allowed the Mooks to lead him away, and she herself was led to another beauty chamber.
“What about his clothes?” an assistant asked the master beautician.
“Destroy them,” the master replied.
Assistants immediately began tearing Harry’s clothes from his body. His prized bomber jacket had survived World War II, an alien abduction, and a crash-landing, only to be destroyed now.
“No, wait,” the beautician said just before the Mooks threw Harry’s soiled and torn clothes into a nearby furnace. “Give his clothes the full number six cleaning treatment and repair them.”
The Mooks gave Harry’s clothes to the tailor’s assistant, who was so short he could barely see over Harry’s garments and boots when they were piled into his arms.
“What about his hair?” another assistant asked.
The master beautician thoughtfully rubbed his narrow chin. “Shave him bald.”
Harry’s eyes glanced questioningly at the assistant, who signaled another Mook to bring the clippers to the barber. The clippers were activated and began vibrating loudly. It seemed as if the buzzing sound of clippers was universal. Harry’s drugged body tensed up slightly, but the Mooks holding him tightened their grip on his arms.
The tailor’s assistant dropped one of Harry’s boots, and as he bent down to pick it up, a photo fell out of Harry’s bomber jacket.
The photo fluttered slightly and landed near the master beautician’s velvet slippers. He picked it up and examined it.
It was the photo of Harry, Julie, and their daughter in front of their Florida home.
“Wait!” the master beautician said to the barber with the clippers. “Cut his hair like this.” He held out the photo.
The barber turned the photo this way and that and examined it up close and at arm’s length as if there would be serious consequences for any deviation from the haircut in the photo.
Meanwhile, another set of Mooks retrieved a ladder, set it next to Harry, and climbed it at various heights.
Without warning, the floor parted behind Harry. He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide when he saw a tub filled with thousands of small, diamond-shaped fish — susha, he presumed.
The susha resembled suckerfish, but the sushas’ bodies were lined with thousands of little frilly fronds. These fronds scrubbed off the outer layer of dead skin and scooped it up into the sushas’ tiny mouths, which were located near their bellies. As they fed, the fish secreted a pleasant cologne.
The Mook on the ladder’s top step placed a cap on Harry’s head, and the other two Mooks pushed his drugged body over. He fell backward like a towering oak tree and landed right in the tub.
Despite the drugs he had been given, Harry was terrified when he felt the susha scrambling all over his body and imagined that the small creatures were eating him alive. He gripped both sides of the tub and attempted to climb out, but several Mooks shoved him back under the waves of susha. Harry screamed as they did so, but his scream was muffled by the squishy sounds of the squirming parasites.
After every pore of Harry’s body had been cleansed, but violated, he was removed from the susha bath and given a robe. The Mooks drugged him for a second time and moved him to a cushioned chair for his haircut, manicure, pedicure, and facial.
As Harry was getting his treatments, an assistant asked the master beautician, “Sire, what do you want to do about the Awumpai?”
“Send them in one at a time.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” the assistant asked nervously.
“Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“Well,” the assistant gulped, “the big one’s already eaten one of the Mooks.”
Needless to say, the Awumpai never got susha baths. Harry figured that Hu-Nan would probably just eat the fish anyway.
#
After his treatments, Harry waited for Asha in a room near the palace’s main audience chamber. He wore his uniform, which now looked brand new, and he had never been cleaner or sweeter smelling in his life.
“Hi Harry,” Asha said as she walked through the room’s double doors with her Awumpai behind her. “You look very pretty.”
“I’ve never felt so violated before in my life,” Harry said.
But Asha didn’t hear him. Her face suddenly turned serious, and she grabbed his hand and led him to a nearby couch.
“What are you doing?” he asked, concerned by the serious look on her face.
“Before we go inside, I want to give you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember the SongBird Goddess?”
“Yes,” Harry replied immediately. He still felt compelled to rescue her. “Is she here?”
“No, at least not really,” Asha whispered, as though to admit such a thing were a crime. “What I give you now is not from me but from the SongBird Goddess. I am merely a vessel. And she, she got it from the Father.”
Asha took Harry’s severed wrist in her small hands. “I would have given it to you sooner, but I wasn’t ready.” She blew on his wrist, her breath sweeter than jasmine. “And I may not get a chance to give it to you later.” She blew again, and this time lights resembling tiny butterflies escaped from her bluish lips.
Instinctively, Harry tried to pull away, but Asha held fast. Her delicate frame was surprisingly strong. “It kind of burns,” Harry said. The butterflies encircled his entire body, and he found himself in a tornado of the butterfly lights.
“Hello in there! The gods will see you now,” an assistant said from behind the audience chamber’s double doors. He knocked and called to them again, but a vicious roar from Fu-Mar ceased any further inquiries.
A few seconds later, the butterfly lights dimmed and disappeared. Asha, Harry, and the Awumpai walked to the doors that would lead them into the god’s audience chamber.
Harry opened the door for Asha — and used his right hand.