Zenith (eBook)

CHAPTER 1

Inside a low-lit room, a damp room, a room with no chairs, no windows, and one door, purposely left unchanged since the time before time, Queen Regent Burdette sat, cross-legged, on the old floor and meditated. As always, she was supposed to be in deep focus on the bloodshed that would happen momentarily. However, as always, she sat and thought of the small hill outside of Zenith’s walls, where she and her childhood friend, Nizoni, would lay a blanket and tell each other stories. The kind of stories about heroes and villains and dragons and dreams. In these mindful moments of calm, she did not smell the damp dank of a long-forgotten staging area where athletes, of the time before time, had used, prior to sport. Instead, the smell of wild lilac that grew near the tree where the two of them lay filled the air around them. Her meditation level had come to the point where she could not feel the cold of the 300-year-old concrete, but rather, the touch of the blanket against her thighs, and the prick of sharp grass against her bare feet. Deep into her mind’s eye, she could not hear the faint roar of the crowd calling her name from the stadium above, but the slight creak of the wind against the tree that stood nearby, or her friend Nizoni’s laughter. There, the two of them sat, best friends, not needing anything else in the world except for each other’s company. Sometimes, Nizoni would laugh without explanation. Light-hearted always, like she was recalling some fond memory the two of them shared.

“What is so funny?” Burdette would question.

Nizoni would smile and say, “I’ll tell you later.”

The vibration in the concrete was hard to ignore. The dancing, and oh how the people of Zenith would dance, the rumble of stomping feet and clapping hands, was hard to ignore. However, Burdette, having been here many times over the past 3 years, registered nothing except for the small green hill, where she and Nizoni would spend most summer afternoons.

The small hill overlooked sweeping acres of farmland within the outer wall of Zenith. Green for as far as the eye could see. This land had always been fertile. In the time before time, corn, and soy and wheat to feed innumerable amounts of bovine grew here. Now long extinct, the cows had been replaced by goats and chickens who did not require such amounts of food. These fields fostered wheat for bread, numerous vegetables, potatoes, and gourds that could be canned and stored when the winter came.

As a child, Burdette knew she was not allowed outside the walls. But there were no trees inside them. In fact, there were not many trees outside of the walls either. In her natural science studies, Burdette had learned of distinct types of trees, but she had only ever seen this one and a few others like it. A river birch, it was called, although the tree was nowhere close to the river. With Nizoni’s dagger the two had carved “Niz and Burdy” some years ago. Their mark was still there. The two were inseparable. The two were closer than sisters, together almost every day since they were children.

Far, far, into her meditation, Burdette reached a hand out from her spot on the cold floor into the space in front of her. Her vision brought forth the tree, and she ran her fingers across the old, shedding, thin bark that reminded her of paper. Niz sat next to her. Burdette felt the grass at her feet. She smelled the flowers. She heard Nizoni’s laugh. There was peace.

“Your Highness?” A voice from behind Burdette and Nizoni beckoned. Cross-legged on the cold floor, Burdette could feel herself rise from the grass and look back towards the towering residences of Zenith. She knew who was calling, and what that meant. She knew the routine like the back of her blade.

She turned for one last look at her childhood friend. A shared smile.

“Your Highness, it’s time.” The voice repeated.

Burdette raced through the tunnel of her mind and was suddenly back in the cold room, deep within the stadium. The vibration grew more intense. 90,000 patrons stomped their feet and jumped and danced. 90,000 people called her name. 90,000 people, still, almost 300 years on, drew an energy, an electric pulse from the common cohesion and togetherness that live sport brought. The sport had undoubtedly changed. Long gone were the days of young men and women dressed in similar garb throwing balls through baskets for points. But the hunger for competition remained; deep, innate, in the collective mind of all Zenites. Regardless of the sport, there was now, as there had been in the time before time, a thirst for conflict. A compulsion in humankind to choose sides, to take arms, and to do battle. The primordial feeling could be satiated but never relieved.

Now, the masses cheered for a tradition held sacred in Zenith. A tradition honored by all who lived within its walls. A tradition equal parts barbaric and beauty. Although the tradition never had an official name it had come to be called the “Millionth.” Two of the Zenith elders, “volunteers,” would have the honor of dying, in battle with the Regent Queen herself. It was written into the treaty of Co-Governance, almost 300 years ago, by Heard and the First Prez. Balance. There would be balance. Balance was the only way Zenith could survive.

The “Millionth” honored all those who would give up their lives so that the balance that had been so cared for, so manicured, so protected, would be allowed to continue. And here, in the cold concrete staging area, that had been left to rot for 300 years so as to serve as a reminder of what was, is where Burdette returned from her meditation.

“Your Highness...”

“I heard you the first time, Ikiya,” Burdette responded, eyes still closed. “Give me a hand.”

Ikiya, her loyal bodyguard and childhood friend, reached and helped her up from the floor. Burdette brushed off the dirt and dust from behind her legs. She stood, if only for a moment, placed her gaze towards an old mirror in the corner of the room, and took a deep, deep, breath. A flood of calm, from her time on the hill had washed over her.

“Who am I, Ikiya?” She asked, somewhat rhetorically, but at the same time wanting the answer she favored. She moved a long strand of red hair from in front of her eye. A strand that had given her fits since she was young. I can never get this fucker to stay.

This again? He thought. “The Regent Queen, the Prez, your Highness,” He replied with the answer she favored. He always did.

“No, no, I mean, WHO am I? Like, what do you think when you see me?” She began to lean over and stretch her lower body back and forth, like a sprinter preparing for a race.

“I am afraid I don’t understand, your Highness.”

“I am Regent Queen, fine. But I don’t feel like it, you know. Do you see me as some grand monarch? I look in this mirror and see the same girl with whom you grew up. Pigtails and what not.”

“I see the first Regent Queen in our history to take up the ‘Maga’ sword and do battle with the volunteers. I see the first woman Prez in our history. I see the woman who campaigned as a leader of the people, by the people. A woman who will put an end to the greed of the Legislate...”

Burdette cut him off. “A woman viewed by many as simply the bearer of the heir to the throne?” She patted her stomach and raised her thick red eyebrows.

“Your duties as Regent Queen and Prez can be mutually exclusive. The treaty of Co-Governance states...”

“Ike, don’t fucking quote civics to me.”

“You were born into the Royalty. You chose to run for the Prez. You asked for the burden.”

“The burden?”

“The weight of the oppressed, yes? You vowed change. You are the one who must deliver in the face of the Legislate.”

Burdette brushed this off. “Fine, but I’m not talking about what labels the people have put on me. I am talking about my essence. You know, my being.”

“You are god.”

“Nah, Ike, don’t quote Watts to me.”

Flustered, Ike responded, “Well, your highness, who do you think you are?” He replied trying his best to not seem annoyed at one of the Regent Queen’s famous “gotcha” question sessions.

Burdette ran her hand across the back of her neck as she stretched her torso, “Sometimes I feel I am the candidate the people elected to end the patriarchy.” Her thoughts turned to the Legislate and its elected chancellors. All of them old men, set in their tired ways. All of them crafting and scheming into law ideals that keep them in power and in profit.

She continued, “Sometimes I am the woman who must find a suitor with whom to bear a son.” Her thoughts now on her title of “Regent.” Zenith had never had a female leader in their 300 years. She was simply holding the place for a male heir.

“But now...right now, because that is all there is, yes? Now I am the woman who wants to get the ‘Millionth’ over with so we can go get drunk.”

Burdette walked the line. To the people a poised reflective intelligent leader. To her friends, of which there were few, a reveler of the awkward age where one can no longer be a child but cannot yet be an adult.

She smiled at Ikiya, as he pulled a flask from his side. “A quick nip, your Highness?”

“Ike, you dog. Clear spirits or brown?”

“Brown. Rye to be specific.”

“UGGGGH, can’t do rye before a fight.” She clapped her hands. Enough. Time to...