“Yellow Balloons”
By RD Rivero
A storm raged over
the decayed and decrepit world around the Black Pyramid. Chambers shook with each passing pang of
Thunder, passages echoed in the wake of howling winds. In the deep, dark heart of MummRa’s sanctuary -- so far removed from the torrents
above -- the ageless quiet was broken only by stray droplets of water and
flashes of lightning.
The mummy crept up
to the reflecting pool, while the air around him swirled with evil. Upon the water’s smooth, unrippled
surface he saw the red glow of his eyes.
As more and more of his face formed itself from the shadows he stepped
back quickly, not daring to go any further.
A thin, bandaged arm slanted out of the red cloak that had covered it
and from the fist a sprinkle of shiny dust fell into the vast cauldron. The teeming stew at once began to bubble --
thick, gray smoke evolved from the froth.
Images appeared on
the violent surface.
“Games,” he said
through clenched teeth. Visions of
Thundercats and Wollos shooting arrows passed over
the wetness of his eyes. “Sports,” a
stray flash changed the scene to show Warrior Maidens winning a three-legged
race. “Merriment.” Liono’s face
appeared last -- the lion stared off into the distance, as if he knew he was being
watched.
“Enough of this,
Ancient Ones!”
The waters cooled
-- and at once the lights that had come off it to envelope its shrouded master
was extinguished.
MummRa turned back,
wrapping himself in his shoal.
“For millennia I
have been your loyal servant. I have
done your bidding with complete and unquestioned obedience. For all that time we have ruled Third Earth
in this unhallowed chamber -- out dominion over the physical world here had
been unmatched. But not so anymore -- no
-- now he rules -- he, that wretched cub, that MORTAL. He who dares to mock me, MummRa,
the Ever-Living. Year after year we’ve
fought him with bungled plans and incompetent accomplices. We have failed and, now forgotten, it is Blundercat victories that they celebrate!”
His mind reeled
with the memories of Lunatac and Mutant failures, even his own. He looked up to the engraved statues of the
Ancient Spirits of Evil.
“Even our great
powers are not enough.” The
hideously-headed monstrosities turned slowly on their pedestals with dreadful
groans. Their eyes sharp red, their
mouths opening, dripping wet with saliva.
“We’re not fighting
them the right way. Battles and
wars? Our tactics are all wrong. Evil triumphs in the little things it does. Little things too small for the vigilant to
notice or care about. I’ll measure our
victories one corpse at a time, by whatever means necessary. And I shall start with him!”
He pointed with a
shaking, gnarled finger, loose bandages dangling, drooping, to the trembling
waters that hissed with popping bubbles that released more metallic fumes. Liono’s face filled
the void but that time he was not alone.
Cheetara led him in her arms, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“Cheetara? What’s wrong?” the youthful lion asked,
gently stroking her spotted mane. “You
seemed happier just a moment ago.”
She sighed and let
go her slight hold. “I don’t know what
it is, but I feel this, this cold.”
The pair looked
around them. In the open fields by the Wollo village, the gathered locals conversed and competed
in a lively, upbeat manner. It was the
fifth anniversary of the Thundercat’s arrival on Third Earth and the
celebratory festival held in their honor could not have fallen on a better day. Bright and sunny even in the late afternoon
and without so much as a cloud in the sky.
The two looked at
one another once more. Cheetara remained
silent, her mind lost in the recesses of deep thought. Liono was about to
speak when a gust of air ruffled a nearby tree.
Brown, brittle leaves were sent past their feet by the cool, autumnal
breeze. The air was then scented in an
unusual mix of flowers and mist.
He kissed her hand
-- “If you’re cold, I can warm you, you know.”
She moaned a soft
purr. “It’s not that kind of cold. It’s the freezing of my soul, Liono. It’s the cold
that is death and evil.”
Unsure of what to
say, he merely held her tightly.
Pressing her upon the heat of his body it was as if he were saying that
it was all right, that she was safe with him.
Smiling to herself
she said at length: “I don’t want the others to think I’m sad. I don’t want to ruin their fun.” She stroked him arm lovingly. “The falls here depresses me. I never grew up with this kind of changing
weather and I guess my stay on this planet was too short for me to get used to
it.” She looked into his eyes, losing
herself in them for a moment. “I can’t
bear to watch the leaves turn colors and the life shrivel.”
At that moment
Tygra came upon the two from behind. The
tiger’s stay on Third Earth had treated him differently. Far removed from the prying eyes of his kind,
the sky recluse had begun to build in himself a new sort of reserved
confidence. Much to his friend’s
surprise and delight, he was starting to open up and be more comfortable with
his identity.
Snacking from a bag
of buttered popcorn he said: “RoberJack’s opened his
stand a few minutes ago.”
“What’s in his
tent, Tygra?” Cheetara helped herself to
a bit of the popcorn.
“Oh, such a
deceivingly simple game. You get four
balls and with them you have to knock down a tower of pins. If you can, you win a prize.”
“Sounds novel,” Liono added.
Cheetara returned
to the bag for another kernel. “This
food is sinful! Whatever happened to the
fruits and vegetable and all that talk about healthy living?”
The stripped cat blushed
unnoticeably. “I still do those things
but since you guys left for New Thundera, Pumyra and I have been exploring more
of the local customs.”
“Hmmm, it must be
so quiet here now that the Mutants and Lunatacs are gone.”
Tygra nodded. “These earth foods are quite addictive,” he
said, noticing that Liono, too, was eating from his
bag. “The stuff’s almost lethal -- but
still so good!”
A slight chuckle
was enjoyed by all. A muffled yell
echoed from the distance. The three
Thundercats looked down-slope of the short, flat hill upon which they stood
into to the tents and picnic areas.
“That must have
been WileyKat,” Tygra reasoned. “He’s been playing at RoberJack’s
since he opened his stand.”
“Is he winning?”
“No.”
“What are the
prizes?” asked Cheetara.
“Stuffed animals,
balloons.”
Tygra shook his
bag, jostling up to the crisp, buttery kernels.
Looking up he saw that his friends walking, hand in hand, to the tents.
WileyKit was mildly annoyed
with her brother. She tapped her foot,
her hands on her waist, she pouted and said: “You don’t have to do that, Kat,”
in a monotonic voice.
“I’ve almost got it
this time,” he answered as he aimed his round, black ball. It fit snugly between his fingers. “Just start picking out the toy you want.”
She sighed, pose
unchanged: “That’s what you said five games ago.”
“But this is the
last one, I promise, this one’s for real.”
Again she sighed,
again she did not move: “That’s what you said last time, too.”
The boy threw the
round stone. For passing, fleeting
seconds the world was silent, its eyes watching as the dark pellet tumbled, as
it soared through the air in a well-defined arc. But it only managed to eke right between the
gap of the middle two pins, hitting nothing but the floor behind the stand.
He stood there
agape, pathetically.
“Nice try, Kat,” Liono said with a playful smile.
“I just don’t --”
“Come on, WileyKat,” his sister dragged him by the arm, “there are
plenty of other games you can win.” She
pushed him away from the stand but he kept his eyes transfixed on the stack of
pins stubbornly wondering why, by Jagga, they were
impossible to knock down.
Liono and Cheetara stood
before the counter and blocked WileyKat’s view -- not
that it would have mattered otherwise for he and his sister were well within the
mesh of stands at the center of the carnival and coupled with the
ever-lengthening shadows of evening, he could hardly see RoberJack’s
tent anymore.
But someone else,
far further away, had a better view.
MummRa laughed in
contempt: “A child’s game -- of course!”
“How much will it
cost to play?” Liono asked.
“For you, Liono, nothing,” MummRa said.
“For you, Liono, nothing,” the robot bear answered.
“Well, gee,
thanks,” the lion said as he received his four balls. He took one of the stones in his throwing
hand and eyed the cheetah. She was at
once happy and sad.
She felt cold along
with a new kind of dread -- the ever-present death was closer, nearer.
Liono fired his first
round and got the stone to do what WileyKat had
achieved but no more. His second round
was way off the mark having accidentally slipped his grasp. His third round landed somewhere outside of
the stand. Neither exhausted nor put off
by his failures, he readied himself for his last round. With a flick of the wrist he sent his missile
into the air and, as it tumbled wildly, the ancient mummy moved but a finger.
To RoberJack’s astonishment his carefully stacked pile of pins
crumbled to the ground.
“A balloon for the
maiden?” the four-foot tall robot offered.
Liono snuck another side
view of Cheetara. Her face was
particularly hidden under tufts of yellow strands -- her spots were like small,
black eyes, staring back at him.
“Sure. Why not?”
In the mummy’s
chamber his laughter echoed over and above the crashing of thunder.
Liono took the floating,
yellow balloon by the string and walked to his melancholic mate.
MummRa spread a
multicolored salt into the foam of the reflecting pool.
Cheetara grabbed
the frilly string and at that moment a sharp breeze stirred the tent, flicking
the torches and turning the balloon around.
She screamed at what she saw: a simple face was drawn on one side of the
globe. Two black circles for eyes and a
curved line for a mouth, a smiling mouth.
The breeze tapered, the balloon turned back, its face vanished.
“What is it,
Cheetara? What’s wrong?” Liono had taken the
balloon back, snatching it just in time as its string passed her fingers, as it
was floating up, up to the darkening sky of sunset.
“Take me back to
the Lair,” she whispered into his ear -- she had collapsed onto him in
exhaustion. “I’m not feeling well.”
“Oh, deliciously
evil!” MummRa
rubbed his decrepit hands. “They’ll
never know, they’ll never suspect! Even
now, it’s already to late. Mwahahahaahaha!”
The rest of the
Thundercats were too busy enjoying themselves -- with the exception of the dejected WileyKat who was still smarting after his humiliating
defeat -- and neither Cheetara nor Liono wanted to
disturb their fun -- or sulking. They
said their polite good-byes to the festival’s organizers and the crowds. The lion, who was still holding onto the
yellow balloon, waved one last time.
Even the cheetah had managed a slight smile. The onlookers cheered and went back to their
business and without further ado the pair set off on their trek back to Cat’s
Lair on foot.
Without having to
worry about invaders or raiders, Third Earth had begun to improve
dramatically. New roads were being cut
through the wilderness, replacing the awkward, winding paths of antiquity. The first major trail led from the coast all
the way up the front doors of the Thundercat headquarters. It was upon that smooth, sand surface that
the enamored pair traveled.
“Liono,” she turned to him -- as they walked the longer ends
of thin branches whisked across their faces, “do you feel the presence of
evil?”
“Evil?” He stopped her suddenly -- “no. The Sword doesn’t --”
“The Sword isn’t
psychic, it doesn’t portend the evils that are yet to be, only the ones that
are happening now.”
“Cheetara, if
there’s something wrong, please tell me -- you know I trust your instincts
absolutely.” He brought her chin up and
kissed her quivering lips.
“I’ve had faulty
moments before -- no, it’s not an instinct or maybe it is. It’s just so subtle.”
“You said you were
sad, could it be that your mind is not clear?”
“Possibly.”
“Then when we get
back to the lair I want you to get a good night’s sleep. I won’t even disturb you, I promise.”
“Oh, Liono, you’re so understanding.” She hugged him harder. “I feel better already.”
“I can see that in
your smiley face.”
As their hold on
one another Cheetara happened to look up at the balloon and, as it twirled
about its red string, she saw the side profile of that same, simple face.
“You’re so tense,
what is it?”
She fluttered her
eyes and the effect vanished.
“You’re going to
think it’s ridiculous but just now I thought I saw a face on the balloon.”
Liono arched his head up
at it -- the helium-filled orb floated about a foot and a half above his head.
“Did you see it
clearly?”
“Just from the side
-- but back at RoberJack’s I saw the whole face at
once. But again only for a moment.”
Liono thought back to
what had happened back at the tent, remembering Cheetara’s strange reaction
when he handed her the balloon.
“It’s just a
balloon, Cheetara, what harm could come of it?”
“I suppose you’re
right, Liono.”
“Yes, Cheetara,
it’s just a little balloon,” the mummy bellowed. “What harm could old smiley-face do?”
“I--” her eyes
rolled back white in fear and her scream echoed shrilly in the dark trees. He caught her just in time and with one
hand. She had fainted when she saw the
eeriest effect that night. But for a
second she noticed long, pulsating coming form a gash his wrist and wrapping
themselves up the frilly cord to the balloon.
The oddest thing
was what he never stopped to think about.
Even as he caught her, even as he carried her limp body over the trail
into Cat’s Lair and onto her bed, even as he himself prepared to sleep he had
not once let go of the balloon, not once, not for a moment. It had not moved an inch, a millimeter, an
angstrom in his tight grip. It was as if
it had become a part of his body, like a leg or an arm that was just always
there, taken for granted -- its presence easily forgotten.
Liono was in his
bathroom, nude before the mirror, when he noticed that the cord was still
wrapped about his fingers.
“I took my clothes
off holding this?” he rubbed his chin.
“Where has my mind gone? If only
Snarf were still here.”
He thought back to
that fateful day, no more than a year ago when his nanny -- a tear suddenly
came to his eye and he thought then that surely that must have been the sort of
sadness that Cheetara was feeling.
Autumn, that season of death, was as alien to him as it was to her.
He saw a longing
emptiness in everything, in the flight of birds and the fall of withered
leaves, the ever-encroaching graying of the world and the cold. The intense, bitter cold.
Liono staggered back in
terror only to let out a deep sigh of relief.
He had seen dark lines on the side of the yellow orb. Dark, curved lines but it was only the
shadows and nothing more. In shock he
had let go of the string and the magical balloon rose steadily up to the
ceiling where it bounced once or twice on the tiles. A light sprinkling of dust came down to the
floor with a slight, muffled sound.
He stared up at
it. Yes, it was just a balloon, a
meaningless child’s toy. It had no
power. It just floated in the air,
happy, carefree.
He grabbed the
string instinctively and stepped out of the bathroom. The lights were off and the vents had just
finished circulating the warm air. The
lair was quiet and still -- in its own way the place was dead and
lifeless. Odd how quickly decay spread
but like many things that, too, escaped Liono’s
perception. The others would return soon
and perhaps once again the lair would seem to be lived in.
He tied the string
to the post and quickly wrapped himself in the sheets of his bed to sleep.
“Sleep tight, Liono,” the ancient mummy scorned, “don’t let the lice and
ticks bite!” He turned to the four
imposing statues -- pleased with his diabolical intentions, they had returned
to their normal positions. “My plat is
working perfectly -- now, for the cat woman!”
The image on the pool changed in the waving of its rippled, effervescent
surface.
The cheetah tossed
and turned in her bed, undoing the careful tucking her mate had given the
contours of her body in violent strokes.
She moaned, she hissed, she called out Liono’s
name, her legs thrashing all the while.
“Liono? Liono? Where are
you?” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
“LIONO?” Only a faint whisper
came from her lips to her ears.
She looked about
the scene around her. She was in her
bedroom, under the doorway. Her window
was open and a bright, slant of light poured in from it out onto the
floor. Her bed was unmade, the pillows
and blankets were half on, half off the mattress. The floor, walls and ceiling were blackened
by darkness and shadow.
She ran up to the window
desperately. She stuck her head out and
saw for the first time the vast panorama outside. “Liono!” she
shouted again. To the right and left
were the plastered walls of tall, buildings, fused together into a single
patchwork. Their sloped, tiled roofs
were red and capped by the blue sky. Between the rows of houses was a long pool
of water whose sides were lined with small boats, spanned by thin bridges.
“Liono. No, wait,
this isn’t right.” She shook her head,
looking back to the doorway under which she had stood. “I remember this place, I lived here in my
youth. Why --” a noise reverberated from
the doorway and the hall beyond. Another
disturbance followed. Yet a third shook
the furniture.
“Who’s there? What is this?
This is wrong, all wrong! I
should be back at the lair -- Liono’s in trouble!”
Cheetara did not
know where that last statement came from other than pure instinct. She ran to the door and stepped into the
passage. The loud charging continued but
each new pang seemed to echo from further and further away -- as though its
source was leaving.
The hall was even
more familiar but it was not until she started to sprint through its winding
darkness that she realized why. She was
in the lair -- or at least the memory of the lair, distorted either by time or
by the whim of her troubled mind.
She passed WileyKat’s room, his door was open and inside she saw the
same basic arrangement. A window with
the bright view of a place from her childhood.
The young teen was on the floor, his back was to her. He was playing a game -- rolling dice that
hit loudly but dully on a wooden board and the sounds of a metal token
advancing one space at a time in tandem with his arm moving announced the
coming and going of his turn. He and his
companion, who was still unseen in the chamber, chuckled and passed a few words
that were lost to faint, muffled whispers.
WileyKat turned
around. Cheetara screamed and bolted
down the hall at top speed. She had seen
his face and it was not his face at all but that horrid, yellow image of a
circle -- with red eyes -- and an ‘o’ for a mouth.
“Liono! Is this just
a dream or is there more, more that I’m not seeing?”
The hall had a
definite curve to the right and wound on and on forever, eternally. Thinking she was safely away from the horrid
site she had just encountered, she stopped and angled herself into a
crevice. At once the corridor came to
life in a flood of lights. Around each
door, as far as the eye could see, were colored lights framing endless arrays
of locked doors.
She crawled deeper
into the crevice, realizing only too late that she was surrounded by flashing
yellow lights. She had stumbled into a
door, or what passed for a door for it had no knob and felt warm, wet with sweat. She began to dig into the flesh and ligament,
pulsating and throbbing tissues that blocked her retreat. With her claws she tore in the living tissue,
bringing forth a sea of blood and vile, noxious liquids.
The loud pounding
returned, growing louder and louder. She
looked to her side -- down the hall a faint shadow moved in unison to the
on-coming disturbances. She clawed
deeper in response until at last she reached a point where there was no more
flesh but an open space of hot, humid air.
She had carved a
hole into the hide that served as door for that yellow-framed doorway. She peered in and saw a faint, white glow --
another one of those windows with probably the same view of the outside world
as she had seen back at her bedroom.
Examining the hole she feared that it was too small for her to get
through.
“Pull yourself
together, Cheetara, this is just a dream and you’re a Thundercat.”
The pounding came
closer. The shadow was more distinct,
more definite.
“But why am I so
afraid? -- because this isn’t about me!
LIONO!”
She dragged herself
into the hole, scratching herself in the process. She fell onto a floor bloodied, her clothes
torn. She was in another bedroom that
was similar in shape and construction to all the others she had seen before --
just as she had suspected. Except that
time that chamber was covered in networks of veins, arteries and wet, heaving
tissues. A heavy breathing accompanied
the audible throbs in a rough, uneven symphony.
The pounding from
the passage stopped. A long, quivering
mass then began to form itself from the rent Cheetara had formed. She did not scream. She crawled over to the bed where a heavy
blanked covered the contours of a familiar form -- a body whose every feature
she knew intimately.
She pulled back the
sheet and looked down to Liono’s face but it was that
dreaded circle and line drawing set on yellow.
Although the eyes remained fixed and unmoved, the mouth was changing
before her very eyes. It changed its shape
from a flat line, to a circle, to an oval.
The rest of the body had changed, too.
Arms and legs seamlessly morphed from flesh to a network of veins and
arteries. The skin was clear and she
could see the heart beating, the blood flowing.
Suddenly and
unexpectedly a large artery burst and thick, red blood gushed out in gallons.
“Liono!” Cheetara
awoke, jumping out of bed in a cold sweat, alone in her room in Cat’s
Lair. The yellow balloon, that dreaded
orb, was fresh in her mind.
Storming through
the door she entered Liono’s room only to find him
soundly asleep. He was naked and
uncovered and although on any other night she would have used that to her
advantage, something more important had to be done. The floating horror hovered above the
headboard where the cord had been wrapped around a knob. It had its tell-take face -- that time it did
not vanish. It was different in other,
more chilling ways. Something moved
under its yellow surface and it seemed
to her that a thick, dark liquid was sloshing within.
“Liono, Liono, wake up,” she shook
him but he did not respond. “It’s you!”
she growled at the balloon -- deafening the roar of Eye of Thundera. She tore its string and ran out of the room,
down the stairs and into the night.
She stood before
the front steps of the lair. The moon,
high above her, the breeze flapping her hair.
From the distance came the roar of the Thunder Tank -- the others were
about to arrive back home.
She let go of the
balloon and watched it, smiling as it got higher and higher.
“Cheetara? What have you done?” Liono asked. He caught her by surprise from behind. When she had taken the balloon an instinctual
drive -- an urge to be reunited with it -- impelled him to seek it. “My balloon!”
“No -- it was evil,
Liono.”
“Hey, guys, what’s
going on?” Panthro asked.
“You weren’t
waiting for us, were you?” Tygra
added. The kittens were the last out of
the vehicle and the first into the lair -- Cheetara noticed that WileyKat carried a folded game board under his arm.
“Nothing, Tygra,
everything’s going to be OK, now.” She
looked up at the balloon. It was nearing
the blackness of space and, oddly, it seemed to have grown larger.
“Ahhh!” Liono gasped at the moment the yellow orb popped. The heavens rumbled with the sounds of
muffled, distant laughter. The
Thundercats turned to see their lord on his knees with his hands over his
chest. “Cheetara,” he gasped, blood
coming from his quivering lips. He fell
back.
Tygra rushed to his
side and felt the body -- his eyes widened in shock and horror.
“He’s dead,
Cheetara.”
Before she even had
a chance to react she was distracted by the kittens. The twins came rushing out of the Lair,
smiling, giggling.
“What were these
doing here?” WileyKat
asked the cheetah.
“Did RoberJack feel guilty about his scam?” WileyKit
added. “‘Cause there’s one yellow balloon
for all of us.”
Rising from her
fingers was a total of five balloons.
She turned to her brother and gave him one, she walked up to the adults
and handed one to them all. Cheetara was
the last to get one -- it was a yellow balloon and upon its side she saw that
same, simple yet abhorrent design: two circles for eyes and the slightest arch
of a peevish smile for a mouth.
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