Hours later, he was still trapped. They wouldn’t let out unless he promised to obey them. He sat, as he had sat for hours, and mused. He was a heretic among his own kind, disowned by his family, and shunned by those who knew him, for Fate was his kinds’ supreme goddess and he had defied her.
He didn’t know if she was real in the sense his that his people thought she was, but if she was, then he had all the more reason to run, for she was cruel, unyielding, and seemed to do things for no reason. He was not about to be servant of such a master, or a slave to the kind of fear his people felt.
The elders seemed just as illogical as Fate herself. How was he supposed to be anyone’s savior when he was trapped here? As far back as he could remember Fate’s elders had always instilled a superstitious terror. It was the same way with Fate herself only more so. From his people’s fear came an absolute devotion, after all what was more important and more fearful than future fates of which nothing was known? In his people’s beliefs everything happened for a reason, and that reason was a very strange, and apparently cruel goddess.
He didn’t intend to be anyone’s savior but his own. If Fate wasn’t real then there certainly was no need to give any heed to what the elders said, and if she was, then he would defy her as he had always done.
Matthew stood up and walked around the small space in which he was contained. Something fell out of one of his pockets. The perfect tool. Of course, he should have remembered this! He could get out almost immediately! But the question was, when he escaped what should he do? It was all too clear that he could no longer continue to live on Valled, his home planet, but where could he go? Most of the other nearby planets had negotiations, agreements with the elders. If he came to any of those worlds the authorities there would be sure to try to hunt him down. No, he had to go to some place far away.
Better yet . . .
He would go to Earth. Aliens, or those foreign to Earth, were a distant rumor, he had read. Anyone who pointed to the sky and voiced such a belief was likely to be labeled as crazy. He had heard that Earth had only one moon. How strange, he thought as he looked up into the sky, and saw the three which circled Valled.
Yes, he would go to Earth, but first he would do what he had always wanted to. They would know who had done it.
Matthew stood outside of one Fate’s temples, in the province of Raylen. He held the gleaming sapphire laser sword in his hand, looked almost pityingly at the architecture, the ebony columns, embellished with many figures from their mythology, and the doors studded with gems. Time to demolish.
He climbed up the large stone steps and stepped inside, looking for the statue of the goddess Fate, but not to worship her. The first thing to do was kill the goddess.
She stood in the center, made of solid gold. In one hand she held a scepter, and in the other their planet, complete even in minuscule points of geography. Her stern face gazed down, as if she might be roused to wrath any moment. Her head was crowned with a diadem, and studded with gold in the shape of stars.
Matthew swung once, and high. Fate’s head fell to the temple ground with a clang. He continued to dismember her until he was completely satisfied. He went throughout the temple wrecking havoc in other areas.
He would have loved to bring those columns down, but knew the awful noise that would make.
The spaceship he taken was nearby. This was the longest trip he would ever take, and so far the first unauthorized one.
He had always wanted to be a spaceship pilot, that had been his dream, before he started running. Most of his studies had been put into the understanding of other worlds, and the understanding of Valled’s techology, and how it worked.
Then the elder came as his family sat to eat dinner. His parents rose, apparently terrified, apparently afraid they had offended, caused some breach of Fate’s law. Matthew was still deciding whether or not to humor the elder when his mother gave him a glance. He stood.
The odd thing, he thought, was that the elders seemed just as terrified as his parents. He knew things were far from normal.
‘’ We have received a prophecy from Fate herself concerning your son. It concerns him being the savior of a world,’’ said the elder.
Matthew watched as his father’s eyes widened and he forced himself to speak.
‘’ Do you know . . . anything else?’’
The elder shook his head. ‘’ We will expect him to come with us, early tomorrow morning. ‘’
Young Matthew wasn’t about to abandon his dreams for them, or anyone, so that night he ran.