Hudan nodded in apology. ‘As you wish, Wu Geng, but you must learn to surrender to the will of the divine, just like the rest of us.’
‘This is not divine will,’ Wu Geng insisted. ‘It is Rhun’s will, and it is your will … so you can get back to our universe and destroy me! But … as far as I can tell, the divine has not weighed in on the issue.’
‘Then what was Rhun’s recon mission?’ Hudan queried.
‘You’d already decided!’ Khalid argued his point, frustrated. ‘Of course it would play out as he expected, only worse, because this time it is a set up!’ He calmed himself to continue in a reasonable, less passionate tone. ‘Would it not have been fairer to view that mission from before the instance where Rhun told Dorje Pema about his past faux pas?’
‘He has a point,’ Hudan had to agree, and so did Dan to a degree.
‘Be that as it may, if we continue to try to rework one particular instance in time it inevitably becomes tangled.’ This was Dan’s fear. ‘And we’ll end up with even more causality to contend with than we do now.’
Hudan was nodding in agreement, but Wu Geng’s face had gone blank.
‘What … the … fuck … are you talking about?’
‘You swear like Khalid,’ Hudan noted.
‘Only when inspired.’ He kept his tone civil despite the cussing.
‘You haven’t done enough time-hopping to have been in a situation like this,’ Dan began, but Wu Geng waved him off.
‘Save your breath.’ He decided to keep moving. ‘What was I thinking? I’m only here so you can keep an eye on me. Sorry, I forgot.’
‘Wu Geng,’ Hudan went to go after him, but Dan pulled her up.
‘I would suggest giving him a little time to cool down, before you try reasoning with him.’
Hudan considered the man’s admiration for his mentor. ‘About a thousand years ought to do it.’
Dan exhaled, not confident Wu Geng was going to continue to be a help and not a hindrance. ‘We have a week.’
As the days passed, the timekeepers grew more and more edgy, both with the plan and each other — the loss of the compassion shield and the abstract presence of the evil force amassing around the periphery of the diminishing light barrier was being sorely felt by all.
By the time they had to bid farewell to Dorje Pema there was not one ounce of joy left among them. Right up until the moment of their parting, Wu Geng was begging Dorje Pema to reconsider, but she would not.
‘Then let me stay with you,’ he appealed, then referred to the rest of the crew: ‘That would serve their cause well, I would forget everything that has transpired since I left our universe, and they wouldn’t have to babysit me any more!’
‘Your path to us was so very difficult and strange … that it seems apparent that you are meant to be on this journey, with all the other castaways from your universal scheme. To throw away all that knowledge would be a cosmic injustice.’
‘And what about all your knowledge?’ he appealed from his kneeling position in front of her.
‘Our quest is done, Wu Geng, Khalid’s quest is not.’
He had no reasonable retort. ‘I hope they destroy him, the outcome does not matter to me.’
‘Khalid has the potential to be you, Wu Geng,’ Dorje Pema pointed out. ‘But not without the benefit of your knowledge and understanding. You must endure and right all that has been wronged by Khalid’s actions. Only by so doing will you truly be the spiritual warrior you have been striving to become. Vow to us that you will endure, and place no blame for our passing in any quarter.’
Wu Geng bowed his head to swallow the bitter mandate.
‘Your survival is far more important than you, or any of your team mates, realise,’ Dorje Pema spoke up for all to hear. ‘Your soul source may be different to theirs but it is just as splendid. You are no more alone in your plight than we are. Make it home and you shall know we have not led you ill.’
‘I shall obey you in this,’ he looked back to her, his tears of frustration welling, ‘as in all things.’
‘You must go now, with the others, and be sedated,’ she told him. ‘Just as I shall be sedated, to avoid alarming all the shifters of our land.’ Dorje Pema looked to Fen and smiled warmly. ‘Fen Gong has prepared a special brew to keep me happy and relaxed throughout the entire affair.’
Fen assured Wu Geng that was true. But he was not comforted. ‘So this is goodbye, Shifu.’
She nodded and smiled warmly. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in the next one.’
Whether she meant the next life, the next universe or the next evolutionary scheme, he didn’t ask, but merely bowed his head, stood and backed up to join the rest of timekeepers.
‘I’ll stay here, with Dorje Pema,’ Rhun advised, and Telmo waved as he and the rest of the team joined hands and departed for the crystal cave.
‘May the universe bless you Pema, and the Dropa … always!’ Hudan managed to say before she was shifted to safety with the others.
Telmo had mastered psychokinesis during his time as Taliesin and used this skill to raise several crystal plinths inside the cavern for their tranquillised crew to reside upon. One alongside the other, the smooth surfaces glowed as brightly as the substance they were fashioned from. There was a double width plinth at both ends of the configuration to accommodate Hudan and Dan, and Fen and Ling Hu; Song, Shi and Khalid were allocated the single plinths in the centre.
The cloaking device on the chariot had been engaged as a cautionary measure — the entire reason they had given the chariot a facelift in the first place was because Wu Geng, AKA Khalid, had seen it, and as he had psychokinesis, he could find the time-hopping transport whenever he liked. Despite his apparent change in character, they could not risk the chariot being stolen again and so had remodelled it to the point that it was unrecognisable — and thus unfindable.
As the crew got themselves settled, Telmo approached Song with the small device that delivered the anaesthesia.
‘Is this going to have side effects?’ Song was lying down, but held Telmo at bay with an outstretched hand. ‘How long are we going to be out for?’
Telmo smiled, as if preparing to reassure him and touching the tip of his device against his patient’s open palm, Song immediately passed out. ‘No side effects, and you’ll regain unconscious as soon as your body is disturbed, like this.’ Telmo gave Song a good shake, whereby he opened his eyes again and seemed confused.
‘Sorry, were you saying something?’ Song frowned.
‘So yeah,’ Telmo finished, ‘there’s just a bit of a memory lag.’
‘Hey, hold on,’ Song recalled his query and was annoyed. ‘Did you knock me out already?’
‘Yes.’ Telmo said with glee, and hit Song again with the device, causing him to go back to sleeping like a baby. ‘Any more questions?’ he invited.
The rest of the crew declined.
‘Splendid. Huxin,’ he looked to the shifter, who was seated beside Shi, bidding her husband farewell. ‘You should shift into Jazmay now, before we return.’
She smiled to reassure her husband, backed up to standing and transformed into the tall, ex-Valourean, Jazmay Cardea. The Valoureans were the bodyguards of the Queen of Phemoria — a planet of psychic female warriors, as beautiful as they were deadly.
‘Wow!’ Shi grinned, having never seen her do that transformation before in this lifetime. ‘You are beautiful no matter what skin you are in.’
‘You!’ Wu Geng was back to standing, for Huxin’s transformation sparked a past-life memory. ‘You killed a reptilian back on Kila. You can assume their form, I’ve seen you do it! You could protect Dorje Pema, and bring her back! You must!’
Shi was up and standing between Wu Geng and his wife, although she did not need protecting.
‘I remember that instance too,’ Shi was in Wu Geng’s face. ‘The reptilians have a hive-mind; to shift into their form would leave my wife’s thoughts as open to Dragonface as his hive-mind is to her.’
Jazmay exhibited the very same scowling expression that crossed Huxin’s face when she was displeased, and it wasn’t clear which man she was more annoyed with. ‘I cannot save a woman who does not want to be saved,’ Jazmay moved her now shorter husband out of the way, to address her accuser directly. ‘You are mistaking your own fear of loss for compassion, when death is the compassionate stance in this instance.’
‘Or you are being elitist, sacrificing such a magnificent soul to save all your own skins!’ Wu Geng retorted, just as Telmo touched Wu Geng with his device and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
‘I understand his view, but it’s too late to go back now.’ Telmo focused his psychic will on their rogue crew mate and floated Wu Geng’s body gently up off the floor and brought it to rest on the plinth allocated for him. ‘The good news is that, true to form, as Jazmay Cardea you do seem to be completely emotionally detached from the outcome.’
Shi appeared concerned by this. ‘Does that mean you also feel emotionally detached from me?’
Jazmay gripped hold of Shi, who was fearful of her intent until she kissed him passionately, and then drew back to instruct. ‘Now rest.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Shi grinned and returned to his place to be sedated. ‘See you after.’ He lay down and allowed Telmo to knock him out.
‘Maybe I should stay awake,’ Hudan was edgy.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ her sister insisted. ‘I’ve got this. Get her, Telmo,’ she urged him to work faster.
‘But I have a b—’ Hudan turned to appeal to Telmo, but he got her with a prick from his device and she went down peacefully.
‘Do you think the next word out of her mouth was going to be bad?’ Dan was concerned as Hudan was an oracle.
‘’Night, Captain,’ Telmo administered Dan’s dose too, and he fell down beside his wife. ‘There’s too many bloody control freaks on this crew.’
‘Ha!’ Jazmay was amused. ‘Says the greatest of them all.’
‘Why, thank you,’ he bowed graciously, ‘I like to think so.’
‘Greatest control freak, is what I meant,’ Jazmay clarified as Telmo headed past his sleeping crew to the far end where Fen was settled with his tigress up on the plinth.
‘I am in control,’ Telmo agreed, ‘and I am a freak of nature, as are we all. Isn’t that right, sweetness?’ Telmo leant down to address Ling Hu at close quarters and gave an affectionate pat to the tigress he was about to sedate.
‘Don’t call her that,’ Fen was annoyed, as he watched his tigress lick Telmo’s face. ‘You are getting her all excited when we are trying to put her down to sleep.’
‘She likes me,’ Telmo continued to dote on her, rubbing his head against hers. ‘If only you were a woman, Ling Hu, I’d be courting you.’
‘Over my dead body.’ Fen urged Telmo to back up a bit.
‘Well, if she were human, Ling Hu would see you as a father, not a love interest,’ Telmo reasoned with a grin.
‘She does not —’ Fen began to state surely, and then bit his own tongue.
Telmo was intrigued by his response. ‘You sound so sure about that?’
‘He’s just teasing you, Fen.’ Huxin rolled her eyes at how easily he was baited. ‘Stop fighting over my daughter and get on with it.’
Telmo did the deed, whereupon Ling Hu fell into a fitful slumber and, seeing her peaceful, Fen finally settled down beside her. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me awake?’
‘Very sure,’ Telmo hit Fen with a dose from his device and the worry left the healer’s face as he passed out. ‘Finally … all the kiddies are asleep.’
‘Then let’s get this over with so we can all go home.’ Jazmay was clearly champing at the bit to straddle this last hurdle.
Telmo could not have been more empathetic — for him home had a name, Kalayna, and he couldn’t wait to see her again.
Rhun sat high on an icy ridge, miles from the Dropa vessel. He still carried his binoculars on his weapons belt from Kila. With the high magnification of their lenses, he could see the stranded spaceship he’d called home in ancient Zhou, set atop the plateau where it had resided safely for the past twenty thousand years. With the compassion shield diminished, the illusory camouflage of mountainous caves had vanished and the large metallic craft now sat in plain sight with only large clumps of melting snow and ice to conceal it from the enemy.
This time around, Rhun chose a far more remote viewing point than he had during his recon mission, so as to place himself behind the advancing enemy line and not in its path. The shadows of the smaller mountains between here and the Dropa craft were crawling with reptilians, just waiting for sundown so they could attack.
‘Nice view,’ said a familiar but oddly accented voice. Rhun looked aside to find Jazmay Cardea and grinned to see the warlike beauty again.
‘You know I’ve always felt threatened by women taller than me?’
Jazmay rolled her eyes to jest. ‘Come, Governor, you cannot find all women threatening, surely?’
Rhun smiled off the insult and turned to find Telmo standing to his other side. ‘This is not the spot you viewed this from before, I take it?’
What kind of an idiot did everyone take him for? ‘No.’ Rhun raised his binoculars to view the other ridge face closer to the Dropa craft, and spotting himself standing and observing the event, he passed the magnifiers over to Telmo. ‘That’s me there.’
Telmo retrieved the viewing tool to take a look.
‘And any moment now, for your viewing pleasure, I am going to be ambushed.’ Rhun took a deep breath and walked away to keep his welling anxiety and angst in check.
‘Oh … yes, I see,’ Telmo commented flatly. ‘There are quite a few of them, aren’t there?’
‘What did I say?’ Rhun wondered why he bothered opening his mouth at all.
‘Ah … there you go.’ Telmo witnessed Rhun vanish from the rumble and handed the binoculars back. ‘Can’t be long now then.’
Rhun went to agree but the words got stuck in his throat, and he merely shook his head.
Just after nightfall Rhun switched his binoculars to night vision but unable to watch, he handed the surveillance job over to Telmo.
‘This is not your fault,’ the technologist commented, his eyes focused down the viewing device. ‘It was a time bomb waiting to happen.’
‘Your buddy Avery does not agree,’ Rhun retorted.
‘It’s not his realm of expertise,’ Telmo mumbled.
‘That’s what Dorje Pema said.’
‘Well, there you go.’ Telmo got fidgety, as he relayed, ‘And here we go.’
The plateau in the distance suddenly lit up, and both Rhun and Jazmay gasped at the sight. The sound of metal on metal echoed across the darkened landscape to them, as the exterior doors of the craft locked closed.
An eerie silence followed, from which slowly arose the sound of tigers and wolves howling in pain, and foxes screeched in panic. This only heightened the feeling of alarm Rhun was experiencing, and he felt guilty for wishing the craft would just take off. He looked aside to Jazmay, and even with only the moonlight to see by, he noted how she trembled. ‘Jaz? You okay?’
She nodded in the affirmative, although she was clearly using some restraint to do so.
With a mighty crack, akin to the birth of an avalanche, the craft lifted off the plateau, and despite the stricken cries from the shifters of the region infusing the moment with hysteria, it was an awe inspiring sight to witness.
‘I have to answer their plea,’ uttered Jazmay, shaking her head to discourage herself. ‘I am the only one who can save her now.’
Rhun dragged his eyes from the spacecraft ascending to witness Jazmay transform into a reptilian.
‘No!’ Telmo strongly objected.
‘It doesn’t matter, she can’t make it on board the ship,’ Rhun grabbed hold of Telmo to attempt to calm him. ‘Avery tried to teleport himself on board last time this happened and could not. It’s shielded by sub-etheri
c magic.’
‘That’s not the problem!’ Telmo tore himself away from Rhun as the spaceship suddenly shot out of sight, which distracted them all momentarily.
‘Change back now!’ Telmo ran to Jazmay, but came to a stop before the towering reptilian, in case she forgot whose side she was on. ‘The creature will be in your head!’
No sooner had he said this than the reptilian collapsed onto its knees, gripping its temples, and wailed as it raged an inner battle to resume a human form. Finally Huxin’s will won the struggle and she resumed her regular appearance. Fortunately the organic-fibre suit she was wearing had adjusted itself to fit her shifting body shape and she was not left naked and freezing in the snow. Despite this she was trembling uncontrollably.
‘The creature knows what we are up to,’ she blurted out in panic, and was temporarily paralysed by her fear. ‘It wants us to destroy all his kind here on Earth as it is the fastest way to find his long-lost kindred in space!’
Just as death was the fastest way for the Dropa soul-minds to rejoin their long-lost kindred in space, it would seem this was the case with Dragonface as well.
‘Oh fuck!’ Rhun was bowled over by the contingency he had not bargained on and was still reeling from that comment when a large patch in the distant night sky suddenly lit up like a huge brilliant blue firework in the heavens.
‘Listen to me!’ Huxin cried to compete with the eye-catching event and grabbed hold of Telmo who’d come to kneel beside her. ‘I think Dragonface knows about the crystal cavern.’ She gasped back her horror, as the sky fell dark again, and the eerie silence returned. ‘The creature plans to kill us all, one by one!’
‘With what?’ Rhun, angered by the threat, motioned to the sky above where every single reptilian on the planet had just been evaporated. He hated to think the beast had somehow outsmarted them. ‘If you ask me, he was bluffing in a hopeless attempt to piss me off one last time.’
‘Let’s go.’ Telmo gripped hold of the trembling woman beside him, and teleported her to the cave with him.
Before Rhun gave pursuit, he drew a deep breath and made a wish — that he would find all the timekeepers resting safely in the cave just as he had left them.
Eternity Gate Page 4
