Chapter Six
April 3, 3056
Goliath Scorpion Ship Jenna Scott
Zenith Jump Point
Meacham, Federated Commonwealth
The three Warriors escorted Lucien along the corridors of the ship, through hatch after hatch, before finally halting outside one unmarked compartment. The woman pressed a short code into the keypad, and the hatch swung silently open.
From behind, another of the Scorpions pushed Lucien forward. Inside, the room was bare, save for a reclining chair, and another hatch on the far wall. A fourth Scorpion—a laborer, this one, lacking the ceremonial regalia—stood beside the chair, a towel across his arm, holding a razor and a pair of scissors in one hand.
“Obey him, Bondsman,” the alto voice emerged once more from the featureless helmet as the woman closed the hatch behind her, sealing Lucien and the laborer alone together.
“If the Bondsman would please disrobe,” the laborer said, bowing his head towards the floor, “and pass through the far hatch, we can begin.”
“I . . .” Lucien began to speak but was interrupted.
“If it pleases the Bondsman, he is neither allowed to address me, nor is he to question me. Place your clothing on the deck in the spot outlined in black, please.”
Lucien frowned, but he closed his mouth and began to unfasten his tunic.
“Thank you. When the Bondsman completely disrobes, he is to pass through the hatch before him. Within there awaits three laborers. He will follow their instructions and then return here once he has completed the task,” the laborer paused for moment, and then bent his head once more, gazing down at the deck. “The Bondsman is not permitted to speak, he may not question; he must obey. If it pleases the Bondsman.”
Nodding, the elemental stripped until all that remained were the three cords around his left wrist. Lucien then folded his clothing neatly into a small pile, placing it in the center of the square tile outlined in black, laying his boots down upon the top of the clothing. He turned and walked to the hatch, which opened at his touch.
Within lay a steam filled compartment, gurgling with the sound of rushing water. The heat was extreme; the humidity worse.
A soft gentle hand took his forearm—a woman’s hand. “If it pleases the Bondsman,” she said, “follow me.”
She was nude, as were the two other women laborers, and he followed them to another hatch. Within was a lavatory.
The woman lifted a vial from a shelf and placed it within his hand. “If the Bondsman pleases, enter, drink the contents, and return to us when he has recovered.”
She bowed, and backed out the hatch, closing it behind her, leaving Lucien alone—naked—in the small head. The vial was filled with a clear liquid, and he unscrewed the cap and sniffed; there was no odor. The mighty Elemental threw back his head and drank the liquid—it melted into the lining of his throat, entering his blood-stream.
Placing the cap back on the vial, he set it on the shelf. Should I go back out now, he asked himself. And then the pain caught in deep in his abdomen. He began to sweat as his bowels roiled and barely managed to seat himself before they exploded. And then he leaned forward to vomit into the sink.
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Sometime later, a pale-faced and shaken Lucien emerged from the lavatory into the steam filled area once more. Immediately, two pairs of hands took his arms and guided him into a sunken tub filled with frothing hot water.
“The purgatives have cleansed you within, Bondsman,” the third woman said as she knelt in the water. “Allow us to now cleanse you without.”
Easing him down onto an inclined seat in the tub, the women began to scrub every inch of his skin, while the bubbling waters soothed him. Soon, he could no longer smell the filth from earlier.
They scrubbed him from head to toe, attacking even the smallest portion of his skin with soap and brushes. And then they led him from the pool and made him stand in the center of the room, and lathered him—every inch of him below his jaw line—with a substance that lightly burned. One of the laborers took a shower hose from the wall and rinsed away the lather with water as cold as ice. With the lather went every hair from his throat down to the soles of his feet, leaving only pink, scrubbed skin behind.
“If it pleases the Bondsman, pass through the next hatch,” she said, “and there remain until one of us comes for you.”
Lucien passed through the third hatch—and recoiled at the immense heat from within. The wooden floored sauna was roughly six feet across, with the heat emanating from a brazier in the center of the room. A wooden pail filled with water sat besides the heat source, a long-handled ladle rising from within. Lucien entered and sat, breathing in deeply of the moist, extremely hot air.
From a speaker mounted on the wall, he could hear the woman’s voice once more. “If the Bondsman pleases, take one scoop of water from the bucket on the floor, and cover the stones. He is to do this three times.”
The first dash of water sent a cloud of scalding steam into the air, and Lucien swayed as he began to feel light-headed. The second scoop so filled the room that he could not see far past his nose. Relying on his mental image, he then placed the third right atop the rocks, even as his head swam.
“Step back two paces, Bondsman,” the soft voice said from the wall. “Step back; sit; and allow the steam and the heat to clear your mind of all thought.”
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Somehow—Lucien did not know how—he was back in the outer chamber, his arms grasped by the women. He felt cold as they ushered him into a pool of freezing water. He gasped as his overheated body suddenly cooled, but the laborers ignored his outcry, and they plunged him beneath the water, not once, not twice, but three times; and then they pulled him up once more and toweled him dry.
Two of them knelt, and the third lowered her head to the deck. “If it pleases the Bondsman, he is too return to the outside.”
And then she knelt as well.
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”If it pleases the Bondsman,” the laborer standing beside the chair said, “will he sit?”
Still nude, Lucien sat in the chair and the laborer began to cut away his hair. “All must go; all must be destroyed. Through death we gain our life, our rebirth, our return into the nest.”
Lock by lock, Lucien’s hair fell away, and then the laborer set aside the scissors and briskly rubbed lather across his scalp, his cheeks, his neck, his upper lip. He extended the straight-edged razor with a flick of his wrist, and began to closely shave Lucien. Even the eye-brows were removed.
When he had finished, the laborer toweled Lucien dry, and knelt on the deck. “If it pleases the Bondsman, he may now leave.”
The elemental turned to the hatch from where he first entered, and pushed it open, emerging into the corridor once more. Waiting for him were three Scorpion Warriors who had first summoned him.
Without a word, the woman Warrior began to march down the corridor again, and Lucien followed, the two males in his wake. Ahead of him, the corridor lights gradually dimmed, until the only light was flickering patterns of yellow and gold coming from an open hatch.
The female Warrior came to a halt just past the hatch and—turning around—she motioned Lucien in. He stepped across the threshold.
Dozens—scores—of candles lined the walls of this compartment. Instead of stepping onto metal, his bare feet touched cold stone; black polished basalt tiles that reflected the flickering tapers, enhancing their illumination. Scorpion warriors stood around the room; how many Lucien could not tell in the darkness; all were dressed in their ceremonial uniform.
In the very center of the room, two candelabras of gold stood to either side of a low alter, made of black stone, and engraved with the scorpion symbol of his new clan, the lines filled with liquid gold allowed to cool and harden in place. A chalice rested atop the alter, and past them both stood Jason Scott—the only Scorpion Lucien could see without the face-concealing helmet.
“Come, Bondsman Lucien; come forward and kneel here before the Scorpion,” the Star Captain slowly intoned.
Lucien advanced and he knelt on his right knee—and then two Warriors placed his left hand on the alter, holding his right tight behind the back.
“Taken in combat, taken in Trial,” Jason intoned into the darkness, “we have before us a Warrior who wears the three cords of bond. This night, amid the stars that we long ago left to follow the Great Father into exile, we welcome into the nest one who may yet be a new Brother to us all.”
“The Scorpion seeks, Bondsman Lucien, and the Scorpion sees. Through its venom we are transformed, and by its code we live and we die. Like the Scorpion, we are patient; be warned that your cords may never be cut, for we do not give Warrior rights to those who have yet to prove themselves. Your entire life may be spent in the quest to become abtakha, know this before we begin.”
“To be a Scorpion, one must have integrity, and fighting prowess, and fidelity; but one must also endure. One must be welcomed into the nest. One must willingly give himself into the grasp and the sting of the Scorpion.”
“Our sibkin are tested from early youth, until only the fittest among them claim the title of Warrior. Our trothkin that surround you have endured; they have lasted and they have survived. Our destiny may kill us, Bondsman, but our legacy shall persevere into the far distant future, when the Great Father’s vision is fulfilled.”
“En route to this chamber, upon this evening, you have been stripped bare of all that you possess. This symbolizes that you—henceforth and forever—leave behind all that you were and might have been, abandoning your past to join with the Scorpion.”
“You have been cleansed—both within and without—purging all impurities. This represents your willingness to forsake your prior teachings and open yourself to the Scorpion and his instruction.”
“You have been shorn of all hair, coming to us as bare as the day you were born. Tonight, Lucien of the Falcons dies, and Lucien of the Scorpions will be reborn anew. A new birth; into your new nest, into your new family, your Brothers and Sisters all.”
“If you wish it, Bondsman Lucien. The path set before you is long; it is arduous. Speak, and tell the Scorpion if it is your desire to tread the path of a Scorpion Warrior. Speak!”
Lucien swallowed, but his gaze never wavered from Jason’s face. “It is my desire.”
“Seyla,” intoned all of the assembled Scorpions in the chamber.
Jason leaned forward and lifted up the chalice towards the sky, somewhere past the deck above, somewhere outside the ship they were contained within. “Seyla,” he said softy as he lowered the chalice.
“Take from me this golden chalice, Bondsman Lucien, and drink of what is within. Drink until the chalice is drained. Drink until the dregs are all that remains. Take within you the necrosia distilled from the venom of the Scorpion and see with Scorpion eyes what may yet be. Drink, honored Bondsman, and should you survive, you will be one of our own, a Brother to our nest, a Son of the Scorpion in truth.”
The Warriors holding him suddenly released their grip, and Lucien swayed for a moment. Balancing himself, he reached forward and took the chalice from Jason’s hands. Lifting it as he had just witnessed Jason do, he then lowered it.
“Three times must you drink, Bondsman,” the woman Warrior’s soft voice whispered in his ear, “three times and you must drain the chalice dry. Dishonor neither yourself nor your new Clan in this.”
Lucien placed his mouth on the rim and tiled the chalice towards him. The pale green, faintly luminescent liquid swirled into his mouth, and he drank deeply, and then lowered the chalice. The liquid tasted bitter, and had a sharp tang to it, and Lucien could feel his hands going numb as the room swam around him.
Warriors lit sticks of incense in a circle around him with the flames of candles taken from the wall. As the sweet odor rose into the air, Lucien drank a second time, the liquid quickly being absorbed by his dehydrated body, and then the lowered the chalice once more.
Raising the golden bowl above his head a third time, his head spinning and the room going blurry, he lowered it one final time to his lips and drank and drank and drank, until no more was to be had.
It was difficult to see, with his vision blurred, his pulse racing, his heart pumping far more rapidly than normal, but he set down the chalice on the alter and released it with hands he could no longer feel. The Scorpions around him took him in their arms and laid him flat against the cold stone of the deck, but even that sensation began to fade. Nothing seemed real, nothing except the Scorpion within his own blood.
With his last vision, he could see Jason knell down beside him, and as if from far, far away heard him speak. “See now what the future might hold, Bondsman Lucien; see if the Scorpion will accept your life as his own.”
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The Elemental woke with a start, covered with sweat. He sat up, as he tried to remember the vision he had had seen, and then he heard a familiar voice.
“The offering—the sacrifice—has been accepted, trothkin! We have among us a new Brother. Seyla!”
“Seyla!” the Warriors answered.
Lucien tried to control his breathing as he located Jason in the circle of Scorpions standing over him. He swallowed, he closed his eyes, and he knelt before the blood-named Warrior.
“I have SEEN!” he cried, his voice hoarse but joyous. “I know now what you Seek, Seeker. The blood-heir of the Cameron line; you seek she who is the rightful heir of Richard Cameron, of Ian Cameron, of James McKenna. You SEEK the one true First Lord of the Star League! YOU SEEK, and I shall follow!”
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