Aegeus' Story

by Ruth Anne Scott

  He gestured toward a chair, but the man standing in front of him shook his head, continuing to pace back and forth in tight, fast passes.

  “I think that someone is after me,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Aegeus asked.

  “They found out. They know what’s happening. They know what you’re doing and want to stop me.”

  “What have they learned?” He didn’t answer and Aegeus stepped up to him, grabbing him by his upper arms. “What have they learned, Martin?”

  “Etan, the man who replaced me on the ship, died during the crash, but it wasn’t what it looked like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was made to look as though Etan’s death was by his own hand, but that’s not what happened.”

  “Why would someone want it to look like Etan killed himself?” Aegeus asked.

  Martin seemed frantic, on the edge of being able to control himself.

  “The members of the crew were chosen very carefully. This mission was the most clandestine and guarded that has ever been done and the team was selected to ensure that they were able to not only handle the actual elements of the mission but also be able to keep it completely secret and protected. But there was one who was chosen differently than the others. Even the crew didn’t know that this person was there. Its presence somehow fooled even the lifeforce monitors, either by making it seem like it was something else or by masking it completely.”

  “How could it possibly do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t understand. Why was it even there if it wasn’t a part of the crew?”

  Martin shook his head, lifting his hands to his sides as if in surrender and backing away from Aegeus a few steps.

  “I can’t go into it anymore,” he said. “I have to leave. I know that I’m being followed. I don’t want any of them to find you or the rest of the group.”

  He reached into the bag that he wore across his chest and withdrew a wrapped package. He held it out toward Aegeus.

  “Take this,” he said. “Protect it until you see me again.”

  Martin rushed out of the room, disappearing from the house and into the Kingdom beyond. Aegeus looked at the package in his hands, trying to process what had just happened. He didn’t fully understand what the human man had been trying to tell him, but he could see by the fire and desperation in his eyes that Martin had been very serious about his concerns. Whatever it was that was in this package held tremendous meaning to him and he had entrusted Aegeus to protect it. Aegeus felt he had no choice but to comply. He took the package and brought it through his house, down the stairs, and into the hidden lounge that held at its core his war room. Entering the war room, he went to work finding the ideal hiding place for the package where it would remain fully hidden and totally protected so it would be safe no matter what might happen.

  Chapter Five

  Five months before capture…

  “You haven’t heard from him?”

  “No. No one has.”

  “Since when?”

  “He hasn’t been seen or heard from since he came here and talked to you. You’re the last one who anyone can find who saw or spoke to him.”

  Aegeus’ hands shot back through his hair and he let out a growl of frustration and worry. It had been a month since Martin’s strange appearance in his home and now he knew that when he walked out of the house that night, he simply disappeared.

  “Do you know what he gave you?” Athan asked. “What was in the package?”

  “I didn’t even look at it,” Aegeus admitted. “I just hid it.”

  “Don’t you think that you should know what’s there?”

  “He didn’t say that he wanted me to look at it. He just told me that I needed to hide it and keep it safe until I could give it back to him.”

  “What’s inside that package could be important. We need to know what it is. Especially if something has happened to Martin.”

  “You’re right,” Aegeus said.

  They were starting back toward his house when a young member of the Order rushed up to him.

  “There will be a raid tonight.”

  There was a time when the raids by the Panel were what Aegeus dreaded more than anything. There was nothing that made his stomach sink more. Now they were the furthest thing from his mind as he felt the crack of the Valdician’s weapon across his cheekbone and his body slumped toward the ground. Another of the creatures grabbed him and yanked him to his feet again. Aegeus’ mind was spinning from the assault that he was suffering and he didn’t have time to react again before the creature that had hit him pulled the dark hood down over his face and they began to drag him toward the doorway to his cell.

  As they pulled him along, Aegeus found his mind automatically recounting the steps and the turns. He was remembering. He could predict the next move. He knew where they were taking him. He felt a slight boost of hope within him, but it didn’t last long. They dragged him out of the building and stopped him, aggressively turning him around and yanking the hood from his head.

  Aegeus could smell the acrid air rushing into his lungs before his eyes focused on what was happening in front of him. What he had thought was the rich glow of sunset in the distance was actually flames shooting into the sky as the building burned. Aegeus gasped and pulled toward the building, trying to get to it, but the Valdicians pulled him back. He could hear screams echoing through the night, stabbing through the low sound of the crackling flames. Horror coiled in his belly and he let out his own roar.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

  They wouldn’t respond and he fought against their grip, trying to free himself so that he could get back to the building. Maybe he could save one. Just one. But the Valdicians were strong and two of them were more than capable of controlling him, especially in his tired, hungry, and weakened state.

  “Why are you doing this?” he demanded, but they didn’t reply.

  He felt the hood snap down over his head again and they started to pull him again. This path was new. They hadn’t gone in this direction before and he had no frame of reference. It left him feeling vulnerable and even more out of control than had become his daily existence. He didn’t know where they were going, or what they were doing. He wondered if the time had come, if this was going to be the night that they finally killed him.

  At the same moment, he knew that that wouldn’t make sense. If they intended to kill him, they would have left him in the building with whoever and whatever was still inside. They had a plan for him. There was something else that they were going to do to him. He refused to be afraid, to think that he would be better off if he was one of the ones they left behind in the burning building. He knew that his fear is exactly what they wanted and he wouldn’t give it to them. They had already taken his body, but he wouldn’t allow them to have his mind or his spirit.

  Aegeus turned his attention back to memorizing the path that they were taking, trying to remember the steps so he could remain, at least on the surface, in control. Finally, he felt himself tossed to the floor. The hood was yanked from his head and he looked up at the cloaked Valdicians who hovered over him. They reached for chains, the same types of chains that were his constant companions, but Aegeus drew himself back as far as he could, wanting them to look into his eyes for as long as he could force them to.

  “I know who you are,” he growled at them. “I know who you have always been. You will never have the power that you are after. The countless years that have passed should be enough to tell you that.”

  Four months before capture…

  Aegeus stood his ground, refusing to show even the faintest glimmer of fear. He kept his feet planted firmly beneath him, his eyes focused unwaveringly in front of him. His hands were clasped behind his back and he willed them to remain relaxed, knowing that the men in front of him would be looking for any sign that he might be tense or afraid.

  “Aegeus,
” the man sitting in the center of the long, elevated table in front of him said, “you have been brought before the Panel because of intelligence that we have secured that indicates you might have knowledge of behaviors injurious to the Order.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vetrin,” he responded. “What has this intelligence told you?”

  It had been several years since they commanded him to execute Casimir and in that time, they had continued to trust him. Until the moment he found out that he was being called up before them, Aegeus had no indication that the Panel felt any suspicion about him. Now he felt as though he were completely in the dark. When Casimir was tried, they had an idea about what the Panel knew about his involvement in the rebellion. It made it easier for him to feel prepared and to field the questions and accusations thrown at him by the Panel. Aegeus, though, had no idea what they could know or think that they knew.

  “What do you know of the Denynso?”

  Aegeus narrowed his eyes at Vetrin.

  “The clan from the other side of Uoria? I only know them as much as our official interactions.”

  “No,” Vetrin said. “Not them. The missing clan. Do you have any knowledge of them?”

  Aegeus shook his head. The line of questions struck him as odd. Though the entirety of the Order had been trying to understand the disappearance since well before Aegeus was even born, it hadn’t been something that he had been actively involved in throughout his tenure within the group.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” he said.

  “We have heard that there was more development in the situation and that you might know something about it.”

  “No,” Aegeus said. “I haven’t heard anything new.”

  Vetrin looked at him for a few long moments and then nodded, leaning back slightly in his chair.

  “Alright,” he said. “Thank you for coming in to speak with us. You will come to us if you hear anything about this matter that might be meaningful?”

  “Of course,” Aegeus said.

  Vetrin nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said again. “You may go.”

  Aegeus turned away from the Panel and left the room as calmly as he could, not wanting to show any eagerness to get out of the room. Within the hierarchy, his position made it so it wasn’t out of the realm of expectation that he might be called in just to speak with the Panel about situations as they unfolded. It had happened before. But that had completely left his mind when he approached the elders that day. Now he wanted to get away from them without showing any sign that he thought this meaning was anything more than the ones that they had had before. If he stayed calm and in control, he might be able to lessen any suspicion that could be building within them.

  Once out of the meeting room for the Panel he increased his pace, moving through the corridors of the Order lair as quickly as he could until he was able to climb out of the access hatch nearest Athan’s home. He ran toward the house, bursting in without knocking. His friend turned to him from the kitchen.

  “I think that the Panel knows something.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They asked about the Denynso clan that disappeared. They didn’t make any indication that they think I’m involved and they didn’t mention you or anyone else, but there was something strange about it.”

  “We need to go talk to Declan and Astaria,” Athan said.

  Aegeus nodded his agreement and they headed out of the house, making their way toward the home of Casimir’s son and daughter-in-law as quickly as they could without appearing suspicious. When they arrived, the couple ushered them through the house and into a back room concealed behind a bookshelf. Astaria scooped up Icelyn as they went, bringing her along with them so that she could set the child in a corner with toys, keeping her distracted and out of the way while also protecting her during the meeting.

  When Aegeus was finished telling them what had happened with the Panel he looked back and forth between them, waiting for their reaction, for them to tell him what they thought that they should do. Finally, Declan spoke.

  “We can’t let this derail us in our plans,” he said with determination. “We have our timeline in place. We already know what we are to do and when. We can’t rush it. If we do, it could ruin all of the work that we’ve already done.”

  “Declan’s right,” Athan said. “These timed elements are laid out this way for a reason and we have to stay true to them if we are to be sure that they will work out the way that we want them to.”

  Aegeus nodded.

  “We will just have to be more vigilant,” he said. “We have to pay closer attention and notice any other signs that they might know something. Until we do, our plan remains just as we have it.”

  Three months before capture…

  “Are you alright?”

  Aegeus looked across the blanket spread in the grass at his wife. Ellora was staring at him with concern in her eyes and he shook his head, trying to give her a casual, carefree smile.

  “Nothing, love,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “You haven’t eaten anything,” she said. “You look like you’re so far away from me.”

  “I’m right here,” Aegeus said, reaching toward her and taking her hand. “I’m right here.”

  “You don’t seem like it. You haven’t seemed like it in weeks. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said again, hoping to dissuade her.

  “I know that’s not the truth,” Ellora said. “I can tell that there’s something distracting you. Something’s on your mind that you’re not telling me.”

  He wanted so much to tell her. He wished that he could tell her everything and lean on her the way that he was able to lean on her with all the other battles that he had fought, but it wasn’t an option. She couldn’t know what was ahead. Even the slightest hint to the other side could be disastrous to them. Aegeus knew that many people had died just because the Panel suspected their involvement in rebellious activities or with who they believed knew about the rebellion. He just had to keep it from her for a short time further. Soon it would all be over. Soon they would call the corrupt into battle and his plan will unfold. They will defeat the corrupt members of the Order and sever the connection between the Valdicians and Uoria, ensuring that Vyker and his kind were able to control their quest for power throughout the Universe. Together they would guard existence, for his family and throughout the generations to come.

  Chapter Six

  Two months before capture…

  The mask Aegeus wore was hot and tight, pressing close to the skin of his face until he felt as though he could barely breathe. He wondered how much of that feeling was truly because of the mask itself, and how much of it was because of what the mask represented. When he wore that mask, he was literally faceless. He was just another member of the Order, another of the hierarchy. This mask fulfilled its purpose well. When he wore it, he was unknown to those he spoke to. They didn’t know which of his rank within the hierarchy they were speaking to, protecting him and maintaining the shadowy properties of the Order. Through this mask he was nothing more than a continuation of the Panel and the ranks before him, as well as all of those who shared his own rank with him. While this was useful in some situations, including the rituals and traditions that defined the Order and persisted after countless generations, it was also disturbing. The mask stole from him his very identity. It took from him what made him his own and differentiated him from those around him. This was not only deeply impactful for him and the great pride that he had in his family, but also created a hollow feeling within himself.

  It was that hollow feeling that worried Aegeus the most. He knew when a person felt hollow in that way, they most often began to search for something to fulfill them, to remove that feeling and protect them from the uneasiness and loss of confidence and control that could come from it. The mask created that hollow feeling within the members of the Order so that they would fill it with complete dev
otion to the Order and all that was asked of them. When he wore the mask, he began to lose himself and his true aim. He began to think more about the Panel and what they taught. He felt himself grow stern and fall more and more into line with what was expected of him rather than what he believed and knew that he should be doing.

  He struggled against that feeling now as he sat in one of the smallest lounges of the lair with a group of lower ranked Order members gathered around him.

  “I’ve heard rumors about the corruption, but I can’t honestly believe that it’s true,” one of the young members said.

  The slightly older man beside him nodded.

  “I agree,” he said. “It’s just too outlandish. We are a unit and if there was something like that happening, we would know about it.”

  “The Order is a hierarchy,” Aegeus pointed out. “What happens in the ranks above you is rarely something that you truly know anything about.”

  “Then how would you know?” one of the men asked. “By your mask we know that you aren’t at the top rank. How do you know what happens among the Panel members?”

  “You just have to believe me,” Aegeus said.

  “I think what you call corruption is no more than some of the upper Order members not living up to the true goal and aspirations of the Order. What they’re doing is wrong, but they are far too high in the hierarchy for anyone to fight against.”

  “There are more than just the members of the Order,” Aegeus said, frustrated and horrified that they were taking this situation so lightly. “The corruption has spread into the community. It is stretching further each day.”

  “Then why has no one in the Kingdom noticed?” one of the men asked. “If what is happening is so horrible and there are people just roaming the streets throughout the Kingdom so corrupted that it is changing their very bodies, how does no one know about it?”