The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Fifty-Seven ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

Master Ornius was old enough to have developed more than a few questionable habits. When he was advanced to the rank of Grand Master Guardian, Ornius was given Pith’s old apartments which were much more grand than his old digs in the Shoe. The best feature of this new suite was its bathroom. Pith had spared no expense on himself and it was lavish by Citadel standards. It’s everfull tub was so nice that it was common for Ornius’ friends to invite themselves over to use it. However, mornings were a different story. The isolated commode had its own room and even a door that he never shut. It had assorted electronic devices that Ornius had removed on day two leaving a nice collection of empty ledges. He didn’t need to be reached by OrderSec while busy.

He filled these ledges with his own stuff, mostly with rings of ears. They weren’t scalped flesh ears; they were parts of clothing that were worn by every person who lived at Citadel. Master Ornius was a Master of Textile Creations, a long defunct art no longer taught as an area of expertise. He had become the person in charge of keeping students, Masters, Guardians and OrderSec clothed. And now, he oversaw the clothing worn by Ba’Neesh when they chose to do so. It was fair to say he had cloth from every single garment worn in Citadel as he didn’t allow outside clothing to be brought in unless it passed his personal inspection. If he couldn’t harvest a one and one half inch piece of cloth from a garment, it was summarily rejected. Since he was the big boss of Citadel, his garment rejections required no reason to be given so he had long maintained the secret of his craft.

He used these fabric squares to make ears. In simple terms, he embroidered an ear onto the fabric, embedding the magic working of its creation and then he hung the ear on a ring of other ears. Each fabric square ear had an embroidered name so he could easily tell whose belonged to whom.

Of course, he had his favorites and he ringed them separately. These were usually students who were up to mischief. He loved listening to student pranks and to hearing what was really happening below stairs which included all levels below Level Three inside the Citadel.

During his morning meditations, Ornius was given to spying on the Citadel, sometimes at random, sometimes on tight focus.

Immediately after the battle for Citadel that Tule Soc lost, Ornius had to use the commode and being bored, as usual, he grabbed a ring at random and snooped in on some students.

The first few were doing nothing of interest and then he happened upon one in the midst of a heated argument. It took him several minutes to identify each of the other students nearby contributing to the argument. The subject was sneaked footage of the tunnel battles from DireSec.

Ornius perked up immediately. He particularly liked when students were up to mischief, he considered the trait highly useful and the sign of healthy brains. Children should be up to stuff, particularly against authority. He listened in for more than an hour, his reason for sitting on the pot totally forgotten. It became clear this footage had been cloned and passed among a wide swath of the student body, and it was wildly popular. Every detail and sometimes numbered frames-by-frames were being argued.

Ornius eventually decided his butt would have a permanent ring if he didn’t get up. He put aside his ears and returned to his formal office, piled with stacks, boxes, baskets and bins. Ornius felt most comfortable when his primary workroom was hoarded. There was exactly one chair, a very comfortable chair right in the middle of the mess. He sat and had a long think. Then he called down to Math Department Head Calypso, waking him. He asked Calypso for a specific collection of musical arrangements. Calypso, being quite familiar with Ornius’ eccentricities, moved to his own office and contacted Brad, the guru of all computing systems.

Brad, equally groggy asked what for and was told simply, “Ornius.” The name was enough. After fifteen minutes of searching the world shell, Brad sent Calypso a collection file of multiple similar yet different bell tones from an instrument called a glockenspiel. Calypso forwarded the file and both Soek returned to their beds.

At six in the morning exactly, the emergency alarm system of the Citadel and every student slate woke up to brightly ringing bell sounds. It was roughly thirty minutes before most students usually rushed awake to hurry to classes. So, throughout the Citadel students and Masters alike as well as all of the Ba’Neesh, sat up swearing.

The sound repeated and then it was followed by the sound of a throat clearing. Grand Master Guardian Ornius addressed the Citadel saying that at exactly nine-thirty that evening a set of secret files would appear on the slate of every student or younger if they had completed their assignments due the following day. No sharing allowed. Any sharing would be punished by the inability to receive the next secret file the following night. This announcement was followed by a different set of beautiful bells. And, immediately after that, a wild uproar could be heard as students, youngers, Ba’Neesh and Masters lurched out of beds to question each other about exactly what was in the mystery files.

It was the first time any Grand Master Guardian had ever addressed the entire Citadel population using this surprising method. The first time bells were used. The first time the emergency broadcast system was hijacked and no one but Ornius had a clue what it was about.

It made for an overwhelming number of calls to his office, all ignored. Attempts to find him were not successful and the situation resulted in very animated class rooms as every class was occupied with trying to solve the mystery.

It was the first time in years that every student, bar none, had their assignments done and submitted before the deadline and students sat, squatted and hovered over their slates eager to discover the file. They weren’t alone, every Master was doing the same on class slates drawn from stores as they couldn’t decide if their own systems qualified and they, like their students, had to know. It was aggravating, the common word used in the Master’s private lounge the entire day.

Calypso alone had some insight, mostly because Ornius now sat under the Sigil in Calypso’s Math Department rooms drinking excellent coffee with his guest Old One Horn while Calypso waited to upload the file. On the dot the file reached out to every student slate, even the ones being falsely used by Masters. It was actually a series of files from a variety of devices documenting the footage of the battle of the blue hand. Classified DireSec footage.

Calypso groaned as he too opened the files to see what Ornius was up to. He heard Ornius and Old One Horn cackling together as Ornius set up the holo projector to play an old vid while the two relaxed in a massive bean-filled bag Ornius had sewn and placed in the room for their comfort.

“Gods Ornius, Thorne is going to have a fit.” Calypso yelled out, once he understood what he was seeing, “He’ll know this is from Brad.” Calypso said, unable to not watch the footage. He’d heard about it, of course, but to see it... The blue hand was amazing. The file footage finished with Elias yelling that Mick had been wiped. It was high drama at its finest. Calypso instantly wanted to run it again, to see every detail.

“Thorne is busy.” Ornius said while the opening credits of the old vid played, “Anyway, technically, all footage taken by the Directorate is in open ownership of the Order and as I am head of the Order, that means it’s mine. It’s time to be the change we need, Calypso, why do you think Old One Horn and I are still alive? Mick is right. Something is coming. Time to ramp up.”

Calypso looked past the doorway into the Sigil room where the two old ones were comfortably reclined with a platter of snacks close to hand. The old Soek was the bomb. Clearly, he expected Calypso to mute his own slate-attached system so he could romance One Horn, if that was what they were doing. No one was quite sure, except maybe the two of them. Mick was right? Calypso pondered that statement. He knew Ornius to be a superb strategist. What was coming? He put on comfortable head phones and replayed the files, noting another set popping up marked with the next day’s date. Clearly Ornius wasn’t finished. He focused, he needed to catch up. His mind automatically ran calculations to identify how the hand had understood the complicated trajectory of knocking one ship into another while each ship was trying to evade the action. It was elegant. A domino assault. Soon, he was lost in the math.

The following morning Citadel roused early. A different set of bells rang out, silencing the occupants. “Good Morning Citadel.” Grand Master Guardian Ornius said, “The curriculum of Citadel is now altered. Every Master will adjust their classes to prioritize the questions posed by the footage you have seen. Additional footage of the tunnel battle, the graveyard and the exit from the tunnel is already on each slate. You are expected to review this footage and ask strong questions about what you see and hear. Students with inventive weapon solutions will apply to the OrderSec office on Level Three and discuss their ideas with Commander Sindu. Viable weapons will be tested topside as early as possible with OrderSec and Ba’Neesh supervision. Masters are instructed to do everything possible to encourage all student inventiveness. All Quarters and Vacations are cancelled. I expect your best efforts. Another file will be directed to your slates at half past nine this evening, same criteria applies. You finish your class assignments first. I want your best.” This was followed by closing chimes and silence and then overly loud, excited voices as the dining area was swamped by hungry Soek and Ba’Neesh far earlier than normal.

Ornius, well satisfied, retreated to his commode room to listen to his ears. He reminded himself he needed to talk to Old One Horn about why she wasn’t dead. It was time she told him. Logic suggested he wasn’t going to like her answer. He expected that. He had ordered four OrderSec operatives on his outer door to refuse anyone entry into his quarters. He had shut down his communication machinery. The Masters needed to stop having him hold their hands. He could hear the operatives refusing entry at the door almost immediately, they seemed to be enjoying telling the Masters and Guardians, “No.” He grinned.

It took three days for the outraged Masters to come to grips with the situation. It took the students and youngers a few hours. They ate up the footage, argued details, swore at the dearth of weapons. Mick made a rapid acceleration to full-on celebrity status. Every class now required an application, an understanding of Mick’s choices and how he had thought things might work.

The day Mick and the Fels Ba’Neesh made the Turtle sigil to carry to the town, the entire student body of Citadel demanded they create a fixed Turtle sigil over the island. Several argued in the assembly, held in the defunct Level Four Casting Arena, that they needed fixed Beloved on buoys tethered around the island and Wayward, the supply island twelve miles east. The Ba’Neesh refused to part out their Beloved for these buoys.

Ornius stood and the assembly grew silent. “The solution?” He asked and then pressed his palms toward the ground to maintain silence. “Your history? Are you stupid Soek? What did Mael teach the Ba’Neesh?” He raised his finger-pointing right hand and a single word raced round the room, “Laser.”

“Yes!” Ornius nodded, “Think it through.” He demanded, lowering his hand.

A young Soek raised a wobbly hand. Dillian. He was seven and seated next to a seven-year-old Ba’Neesh name Crucible. They were friends and always in trouble together. Ornius liked to spy on both of them, they were on his favorites ring. “Dillian?” Ornius asked.

“The waters off Citadel are full of downed Tule Soc Vrill trace drones. Thousands. Mick says these devices have Beloved bones in them.”

Ornius allowed himself a smile. “Exactly right. Soek and Ba’Neesh old enough to fit the ocean-going exo suits will take emergency classes in operation and safety and immediately go find the Beloved. The first student to correctly work out the correct number of bones necessary should send their work to Master Calypso, they will be rewarded with a dinner from Master Lal.”

There was an immediate rush toward the wall-mounted sign-up sheet as Masters glowered at Ornius as yet more classes were undermined in favor of application, everything now focused on weapons. The crowd formed out in teams, another result of the latest footage, Battle Ba’Neesh and Battle Soek formed paired partnerships as student sorted themselves into functional teams.

The medics were already calculating the rotation of Soek carrying Beloved in backpacks for a slow alter process under one of Ornius’ orders. Not everyone volunteered, but everyone wanted to jack in, link, Vrill out, power up. Topside was awash in weapon testing and Ba’Neesh identifying Soek who could carry them. The gym was equally busy with Soek focusing on Vrilling their muscles to be like Big Bad Karl. There were clubs forming in alignment with several of the top personalities in the footage. Citadel was rapidly changing. Calypso pointed this out to Ornius, that he was morphing all of them at once. Ornius nodded, his expression serious. “Tomorrow we begin mandatory Healer courses. Old One Horn told me she is alive because so many will be injured and die. Everyone will learn. We mix Soek, human and Ba’Neesh healing skills. Mandatory.”

“She said that?” Calypso was horrified. They had caught up with the live Mick progress. The Soek boy now something else, like Mael only not, mutating. The Green Army. The enormous Turtle sigil that seemed aggressive at the distance of Calypso watching. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see the famed Agnosin Ritual. He knew he must. They all must. He had come to agree with Ornius, hold nothing back from the youngers and students, Mick wasn’t. Only the infants and those bearing must be spared. “What are we facing, Ornius?” He asked.

The old Soek looked at him. “Old One Horn says we will learn tonight. She is sad and fierce. Will you watch with us tonight, Calypso? I don’t think anyone should watch alone. I will put that in my announcement today. No one is to be alone as we face this together. Mick has united us, perhaps for the first time ever.”

(I dearly love the Citadel and a number of my novels include events at Citadel or Barrens, another facility I have not introduced in this novel although it will be mentioned. I also love Ornius and his antics. It was time to reveal how all of this affected the Citadel, in the absence of a great number of its primary residents. ::smiles::)