Path Into the Darkness
Part Five: Grune
Looking Back
*Third Moon of Plundarr, Present Time*
Frostor frowned sadly as he looked at the pile of rubble that was once the MoonTower. It looked worse than bad, and he held little hope that Queen Selene and her husband Psiarik were still alive anywhere in such a terrible mess. Nearly a full day had passed since Mumm-Ra destroyed the Lunatacs’ royal quarters, and although the excavation crews had been working nonstop since the undead mage and the possessed WilyKit vanished, no trace of the royal pair had been found yet. Frostor was not sure whether that was a good thing or bad—for he knew it was most likely that the only thing they would find at that point were bodies, not survivors, unless they had been very lucky, and he was not particularly looking forward to finding that. Not only were they the Moons’ rulers, but he also thought of them in a way as his children, especially Selene, whom he had helped to raise from a young age. He kept trying to think positively, but like most icewalkers, he was a realist and not an optimist at heart. He stared at the impossibly large pile of cement and steel and sighed, as his thoughts drifted to Luna. How in the name of the Moons will I be able to explain this to her?
His concern came from the hysterical reaction Luna had displayed once the gravity of the situation sank in to her. She had completely lost her control, and although over the last few years Frostor had been witness to a number of her tantrums and fits, he had never seen her quite like he had seen her the night before. She was out of control and irrational, and although she probably would have had Amok punch him had he pointed it out, he had even seen tears in the lunar woman’s eyes. He understood her grief—she had grown quite attached to Selene during the last five years—but he had never seen such an intense reaction from her before. If the truth were to be told, until the previous night he had thought the most intense an emotional reaction Luna could display was one of anger or rage. She had caught him by surprise. It was not an altogether bad thing in his eyes, although naturally he wished the circumstances were better.
However at that moment, Luna’s mood was all anger, mostly because she was being held under house arrest in the neighboring military complex by some of the Lunar Royal guardsmen, where the other survivors of the wreck were housed. It was not an order that he had particularly wanted to give, but as usual, Luna had left him no choice but to be cold and efficient. Twice she had Amok take her into the ruins of the MoonTower to dig and search for Selene herself, insisting that the Queen was alive quite vocally and that she would find her herself if it came to it. She also had some rather unflattering words for the rescue workers, who were taking precautions not only for their own safety, but also to avoid inadvertently worsening it for anyone trapped in the rubble, and every time Frostor had tried to reason with her she gave him nothing but a lot of grief and mouth—two things Luna excelled at.
Eventually he had lost his own temper, and had warned her to either back off or be forcibly removed from the premises. Luna was never one to take orders well, especially from him, and she had called what she thought was his bluff. She was not pleased to find out he had been serious, and when Amok was knocked out with stun guns and Luna carried off by two unfortunate guardsmen into the complex, the obscenities and curses she hurled at him were likely heard for miles around. Frostor had ordered his men to keep her and Amok comfortable but separate, and left the strict instruction that they were not to leave their designated quarters without his express consent. It went without saying that Luna was less than thrilled about being held against her will, but it did not overly concern him. He had known Luna long enough to know that she would get over it eventually, and although it would certainly not be a quiet time for him, he supposed he could live with her bitching, irritating as it was.
Staring at the wreckage again, Frostor wondered yet again how long it would take to recover Selene and Psiarik, dead or alive. It upset him greatly to think that one or both of them, likely both, would be gone. He had watched Selene grow from the age of eleven, after she and her brother Silvian had been orphaned by the disasters. He recalled how he and a few of the other survivors of the disasters in the area—which included numerous earthquakes, an eruption of the nearby mountaintop as a deadly volcano, and countless fires and storms—had found the two terrified and half-starved royal children wandering in the woods of the old palace grounds a week or so after the eruption. As it had turned out, they had been playing on a nature outing of some sort when the eruption happened. Two of the survivors found them while hunting for game, and brought them to the camp. Back then he had taken the fact that the royal children had survived as a sign of hope. But Silvian had lost his life in the Battle of the Swords five years earlier, and now it looked as though Selene was gone as well. So much for hope.
The ice general’s thoughts then turned to Psiarik, another one he’d watched grow up in part. Psiarik was older than Selene by a few years and had been a teenager—an obnoxious one at that, he recalled—at the time, but it was nothing that he could not handle. Those times were stressful ones, and by that point Frostor had seen and dealt with far worse than a brooding teenager with an attitude problem. He had stumbled across the psi in the city ruins almost two months after Selene and Silvian had been recovered. Psiarik had been living entirely on his own since the disasters began, living in what buildings still stood and scrounging food and drink where he could find it. Living alone had not been good for him, and had greatly magnified his emotional problems. Nevertheless, Frostor had taken a liking to him, and the psi had eventually grown out of the worst of his issues. Much of that was likely Selene’s influence, once their relationship developed years later, but still Frostor was proud of the both of them.
He frowned and rubbed his white, neatly trimmed beard, deep in thought as he surveyed the dismal scene in front of him. How could we have let this happen? Why didn’t we see it coming?
An answer came to him in an indirect manner when the toe of his boot brushed against an object on the ground. Frowning, he glanced downward and saw the corner of a leather-bound book at his feet. He glanced down at it, his dismal mood temporarily replaced by his natural curiosity. “Books from the library were blown out this far?” he murmured in surprise. He bent down and retrieved the dusty tome, and on close inspection he realized he did not recognize the book—a surprise in and of itself. Though his duties as Governor General and head of the military kept him quite busy, he had never lost his bookworm like habits from his pre-disaster days as a historian and university professor, and he generally spent the majority of his free time reading. He knew most of the books in the royal library at the very least by title, and he had read many of them several times. The fact that he held an unfamiliar one immediately captured his interest.
Frostor carefully brushed the dirt and dust off of the bound piece, and was astonished to see that the book in his hands was not one he recognized because it was not from the library. Thumbing through the pages, he recognized the writing as not even in common, Lunar-Plundarrian, or even one of the Moons’ native tongues—but Thunderian. Fortunately his educational background was extensive enough that he could read and understand several of the system’s languages, Thunderian included, as that, Plundarrian, and Lunar-Plundarrian were similar enough in their roots that once one knew one of them well, the others were easy to learn. It was a common—although not terribly well received—theory that the similarity was because the inhabitants of both planets and Plundarr’s moons shared a common ancestral race, and their current differences were mostly due to isolation and natural evolution. It had never been disproved, and the fact that they were all different species but still able to interbreed, as WilyKit and Darkail had recently proven, only strengthened the theory.
Frostor immediately recognized the name on the first page: “Grune the Mighty”. So this is that journal WilyKit had been telling us about earlier, he thought, the log of Grune’s experiences before his betrayal. His thoughts drifted back WilyKit asking Luna about Kalin the day before, a day that seemed almost surreal now, and the Thundercat saying that Luna, in her days before her exiled life on Third Earth, had been mentioned in the journal’s entries. The thought of looking that up in the book held a great deal of appeal to him, as Luna was a subject that had long fascinated him, long before he had even met her in person.
Suddenly a loud shout from the rescue crew in the ruins snapped Frostor back into reality. He saw that they were attempting to lift a particularly large section of wall, taking care to avoid causing what was underneath it to cave in. Immediately the icewalker chastised himself for not paying closer attention to the situation and stuffed the book into his coat. He decided that any study of the journal would have to wait, and then an idea struck him out of the blue. There was someone he could give it to in the meantime, someone who would not only likely enjoy the opportunity to read through it, but someone who’s good graces he would prefer to be back in—for the sake of his eardrums only, of course, he told himself. Luna. He was fairly sure that that she could read Thunderian, as she was well educated and it went without saying that the lunar woman would want to read anything involving her. Additionally, it would also serve to keep her distracted while the search and rescue teams worked, an escape and luxury he wished he could afford himself at the moment.
Frostor approached the supervisor of the crew and called him to attention. “Is everything well enough under control that I can take care of something at the base for a few minutes?”
The laborer nodded. “Yes, Governor General Sir, we’re fine. It’s slow going, but we’re making progress.”
“Good,” he replied with a nod. “Report any significant finds to me on the comm unit should the need arise before I return.”
“Yes, Sir,” the workman answered dutifully.
With that Frostor climbed into one of the vehicles and drove back to the complex.
* * *
Luna stared out her tenth-story window from her plush chair and scowled through the glass. She could see that the rescue work was well in progress at the ruins in the distance, but she was too far away to see any specifics in detail, and she wondered if anything had been found. She had asked the guardsman outside her door to at least bring her some binoculars if Frostor insisted on keeping her locked up, but he had yet to produce them for her, and only told her that he would see what he could do. In the meantime, her mood festered, and much of the grief and worry she felt for Selene twisted into a more easily expressed feeling—anger at the ice general who had ordered her placed under house arrest to begin with.
Feeling a fresh wave of disgust, she turned away from the window and glared resentfully at the locked door. “How dare he keep me prisoner like this?” she seethed. “He has a lot of nerve, assuming command and then calling me irrational like some child! Who does he think he is, anyway?”
The object of her frustrations chose that moment to knock on her door. “Luna?” Frostor’s gravelly voice sounded on the other end of the door.
“Unless you’re letting me out, go away!” Luna shrieked angrily.
The door opened anyway and the icewalker stepped into the room. “Hello, Luna,” he greeted her.
Her eyes narrowed contemptuously. “What do you want now, you arrogant blowhard? Come to grovel and apologize to me for how you’ve treated me? Or have you come to ask my help since your incompetent crew can’t seem to find Selene and Psiarik?”
Frostor sighed inwardly, coming to the realization that he had seriously underestimated how angry she still was. She is in rare form today, isn’t she? He closed the door behind him and approached her; thankful that Amok was not in the room. He never cared to have to ice the brute when it was his mistress who was out of line, but it had happened before, usually when Luna was in as foul a mood as she was at that moment. “Luna, you know I don’t like doing this—”
“Then let me out of here!” she cut him off, her voice rising to an unbearably shrill note.
“I can’t,” he argued back. “Not until I can be sure you won’t do something foolish and impulsive like charging into the rubble on your own and putting yourself, Amok, the rescue workers, and even Selene or Psiarik if they’re still alive, in jeopardy.”
“They are alive,” Luna insisted coldly. “Even if you don’t believe it.”
The ice general breathed deeply to steady his already frayed nerves. “I do believe there’s a chance, Luna, or else I wouldn’t have my crews working overtime to search for them,” he countered. “And that has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve acted irresponsibly and put others in danger to prove your point. You have no rescue training and you can’t be trusted to follow their orders and cooperate with the rescue team.”
Luna’s glare at him intensified. “Because they don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Please, explain to me exactly why you’re qualified to make that judgment,” Frostor retorted sarcastically, the hold he had on his temper slipping for a moment, before he regained his composure. He straightened and tried once again to reason with Luna, losing a proposition as that was. “Look, Luna, I know you mean well, and I know you want to help. I wish I could let you. But I can’t allow it.”
“You can allow plenty,” the lunar woman argued venomously. “You’re mister important Governor General, aren’t you? As the head of the military, you’re in charge when the rulers are unavailable, are you not?” she challenged. “I’m telling you now, if they die because you had to satisfy your male ego trip, I will never forgive you for as long as I live.”
Frostor let the latest bit of her melodramatics roll off him. He had known her long enough to know when she was just blowing off steam, and he refused to take her seriously. “Luna, you’re being ridiculous,” he stated, a mist of frost accentuating his words as he spoke them. “Anyhow, as much as I would love to stay and chat with you when you’re in such a fine mood as this, I am needed back at the site. However I found this and thought you might be interested in it. It seemed like something that might take your mind off of everything until we get some news,” he said, and retrieved Grune’s journal from his coat. He held it out to her.
Luna adjusted her glasses and took the book from him, eyeing it suspiciously as she turned it over in her hands. “What is it?”
“I found it on the ground near the wreckage. It was in WilyKit’s possession when she came here, before she—well, before everything happened last night. It was the book she questioned us about in the library. It’s the journal of Grune the Mighty.”
Luna raised an eyebrow at the ice general. “And why would I care what some long-dead traitor Thundercat wrote about?”
“He mentioned you,” Frostor said, relieved that the notion had somewhat caught her interest. “He also mentioned your associates of the time, including Alluro, Chilla, TugMug, and RedEye. Besides, you knew Grune. Doesn’t that interest you at all, seeing his take on things that you experienced yourself?”
“Not nearly as much as getting out of this damned house arrest you’ve got me under would,” she snapped.
“And I already told you that is out of the question,” Frostor replied. “It would seem we’re at an impasse, Luna. Whether you think so or not, I am doing what is necessary.” He glanced at the timepiece he kept in his uniform. “And I’ve been gone too long as it is, so I am going to head back over there now. Enjoy your reading, Luna. If we should find anything, you’ll be among the first to know.” He then turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone once again.
Luna frowned as the lock clicked back into place behind him. “Oh, aren’t you generous?” she seethed, glaring at the spot he had stood in just before he left. “Sanctimonious ass,” she muttered, and opened the journal’s cover. “Thinking he can keep me quiet by giving me a book. If I had anything else to do I wouldn’t even open this thing, but they didn’t even give me the morning news to read or watch in here,” she complained, although she was the only one who could hear it.
Sighing, she thumbed through the first few pages of the journal. Grune’s handwriting was legible enough, and Frostor’s assumption that she could translate the Thunderian was a correct one, for she had learned it years ago in her schooling, although she was a bit out of practice at the language. It took her some time before she got the hang of it again, and soon she was able to decipher it almost as quickly as if she were reading common or Lunar-Plundarrian. She read the first few entries and was not terribly impressed by them. Mostly it detailed Grune’s relationship with Scarlette and how he could not bear to be apart from her while she was away. “Ack, love, such a nauseating emotion. Nothing makes sensible individuals more irrational or irritating. I’m glad I’ve never caught that particular disease,” she remarked, and quickly flipped past the pages that waxed poetic on Scarlette, her virtues, and why he loved her so. To Luna’s dismay there were not even any racy entries about their sex life, which would have been the saving grace for mush in her opinion. As it stood, reading the sappy material only served to make her detainment that much more intolerable.
Luna was relieved when the tone of the journal changed, around the time Grune went away to the Third Moon of Plundarr. There were a few things in those entries that gave her pause for thought, an entry that mentioned her name being the first of them. It was not all that significant a mention, only a description of the royal banquet thrown by Lunaro and Sileira that she a few of her associates had attended. She thought back on that night, and recalled that Chilla had been a foul mood even for her, and that she and Kalin had been in some sort of tiff, and that RedEye had been instigating the both of them. Alluro had also gone to that party, as had the bubble-headed psi he dated in those days that turned out to be Psiarik’s mother. She remembered the banquet itself being a little on the dull side, although her arrogant cousin Lunaro and his prissy wife Queen Sileira had clearly been displeased to see her, which did provide some amusement.
Luna could not help but chuckle when she read Grune’s description of Sileira’s reaction to her. The former queen had never cared much for Luna, and it went without saying that her cousin Lunaro despised her, mostly because they were threatened by her and the power she had amassed through less than legal channels in the capitol. She was nobility, related to the royals but not in line for the throne, and she had money and the ambition to gain power in whatever ways she could. The lunar woman scowled thinking about the now gone ruling pair, and how much she had loathed the two of them. Even though they were Selene’s parents, Luna was glad they were dead, and she took perverse pleasure in knowing how much their daughter looked up to and accepted her thirty years later. It was Lunaro’s fault that Luna had been run off the Moons in the first place, forced to give up the life she enjoyed for a miserable life on the run, all because the royals felt a need to declare her a conspirator against the crown. It was Luna’s firm belief that the charge had been placed merely because Luna’s organization had more control over the people in the capitol than the royalty did, and they could not stand for someone that made them look so inept. It had nothing to do with justice at all, only offended egos.
Luna’s mood grew sour once again after thinking of Lunaro and Sileira, not only because of her contempt for them but because they reminded her of the fact that Selene was missing. She scanned further on into the journal in search of other mentions of her. She was somewhat surprised when she came across several pages of Grune doing nothing but complaining about how much he could not stand Kalin and how manipulative he thought she was. Although they made no mention of her, she found those entries quite amusing… mostly because of the fact that to anyone else, it was obvious he was only upset because the hunter had gotten under his skin. Though Luna also had personal knowledge of something Grune apparently did not—that Kalin had a similar reaction to the sabertooth. After that night he had come to the club she had been so angry at his rejection of her advances that she had taken stills from the club’s security cameras depicting her and Grune in a compromising pose and had them sent anonymously to Cat’s Lair, addressed to a feline named Scarlette. Luna remembered Kalin saying something about there being “more than one way to skin a cat” and her proudly announcing that her action would easily take care of the “little girlfriend” back home. It had occurred to Luna then, and again as she read the entry, that Kalin’s planned seduction of the Thundercat might have gone farther than the hunter herself even wanted, and that neither of them could control their attraction to one another. The events that took place later on in their relationship certainly gave credence to that theory, anyway, Luna thought.
Her curiosity piqued, Luna began reading Grune’s journal in more depth. She noticed there were pages upon pages of entries after that, so Grune had plenty to say about something. She wondered what it was. When she began reading, she got her answer.