by J Hawk
And a small dot appeared on the clear blue sky, enlargening slowly. The vessel zoomed in size rapidly as it approached. It came shooting down from the sky at high speed, its beak angled towards the earth. The rest of the Xeni standing around turned and faced the magnificent, giant vessel, watching as it dived down right to where all of them stood.
Its speed dropping rapidly as it approached ground, it circled the expanse that they stood around twice, before swerving and falling to a gentle, hovering stop over a levelled portion of the land hundred feet away.
Zardin watched as the doors at the base of the giant vessel opened and a group of cloaked figures slowly trickled out of it. He turned to Ferio, whose face carried a mixture of surprise and awe.
The group of cloaked men who came out of the cruiser slowly crossed the distance between, and came to stand before Zardin in a line. Zardin stood facing them for a long moment, before giving a slight nod.
“Good.”
They sank in a bow as one.
“It was rather easy, lord.” said the one standing in front. “The ship was automated. We just had to sneak in, and overrun the automation. We destroyed its tracking system, and all video recording.”
“There was nothing within to guard it except a bunch of Rash-cons.” said another, smiling gleefully. “They clearly didn’t expect something of a real threat. Not like us, anyway.
“Their loss. And their loss is our gain.” said Zardin. “We are now under control of an entire battalion of armed forces. And it is complete with warships and an arsenal of machines.” He gestured to the giant vessel. “Bring the drilling machine out.”
The group of Xeni stood at the front of their ship, watching as the large, intimidating machine bored into the earth with fury. The ground seemed to quake as it did. A pillar of dusty, brown smoke released from the earth where it drilled through. The heavy, grinding noise drew on endlessly as the machine dug through the earth with its giant driller. Zardin and the rest of the entire group of Xeni stood patiently in front of their ship, waiting and watching. The hole that was being carved would be as wide as a large as a large well.
Some of the Xeni covered their ears, wincing at the sound of the heavy drilling. But Zardin stood just as composed as he ever was, enjoying every second of it…
When it was done, they had removed the giant machine, revealing the tunnel it had dug through the earth. The bunch of Xeni stood around the giant hole in the ground, surveying it. The tunnel seemed to drop on endlessly, fading into darkness beyond a point. It was large enough for a hover car to fly through. Zardin turned and faced his men.
“You three,” He waved his finger across to three of them, whose attentions sharpened quickly. “go bring a hover car from the cruiser.”
They bowed and then scurried away.
“The rest of you,” Zardin called, turning around to look about all of them. “wait here … I will go in, and finish what I started long back. When I emerge from the hole …” A lingering pause followed his words, and Zardin smiled again. “The Order of Xeni would have gained someone who will take us to a new level of power.”
The group of them slowly backed away from the large tunnel. In less than a minute, a hover car emerged from an entrance at the top of the cruiser, gliding towards them. A slight lash of wind occurred it soared closer. The car came to a stall right before Zardin, and hovered in mid air before him. The front door swung open and Zardin climbed into it, seating himself by the right of one of the three men, while the other two sat behind.
“Take us through the tunnel.” he ordered the Xeni beside him, who was piloting the car. The man nodded and turned back to the controls in front of him. He steered the wheel, so that the car turned over and leapt right into the hole. The tunnel seemed to spawn endlessly as the hover car dropped through it at a controlled pace. The car’s headlights lit the way down for a few hundred feet, so that if they arrived at the bottom, they could see it beforehand. Now that they were here at last, Zardin felt a tingle of anticipation. He knew that once the Xeni drew this man into their ranks, their journey would begin…
The rumble of the car’s engine carried loud and clear over the silence as they plummeted miles through the tunnel. And then, after what felt much longer than it actually was, the car’s headlights shone over solid ground at the base of the tunnel.
We’re here.
The speed lowered so that as the end of the tunnel approached, they found themselves exiting the passageway into a large corridor adjacent to the tunnel. It was a man mad corridor, constructed miles below the earth. The hover car floated to a stop at the bottom of the corridor. As its engine died, the headlights went off so that total darkness engulfed the place again.
The doors flew open and the four of them exited it warily. One by one, they drew their swords and ignited them. The orange shine of the four blades filled the corridor across both sides. Zardin could sense the other three looking about at this strange place they found in the middle of the earth, wondering what it was. But he knew what this was. It was home to the creeper.
“So … where’s the Xarenol?” asked one of them in a hesitant undertone, looking at Zardin.
“You’re standing in it.” replied Zardin. “This place is constructed of Xarenol.”
And with that, he started down the corridor, letting his ignited blade light the path ahead. The other three hurried along in his wake, the light from their swords leaving a long shadow of Zardin to stretch on the ground in front.
The passageway carried on and on. The four of them carried on in muted silence. Zardin could feel an air of great curiosity form among the other three, who were no doubt heavily intrigued by this strange place constructed close to the centre of the earth. It was crafted of mortar, but Zardin knew that it was imbibed and strengthened by the mineral Xarenol, which was the reason it still stood.
The light from their blades cast a flickering glow over the walls that followed them as they waded forth…
And finally, after traversing what could have been over a mile by foot, they found an exit to the passageway forming ahead of them, hidden behind a veil of darkness. The four of them walked forth, and the darkness melted as the light from their ignited swords reached the opening. And spreading beyond this corridor, they could see a giant chamber.
The four of them stopped automatically at the entrance to look about. The ceiling rose almost twenty feet above the floor, and the entire place seemed to sprawl over the space of a large stadium. But what attracted Zardin’s attention here was a giant halo like encasing spread over the walls of the giant room, hanging in mid air. They were all glass like encasings, but Zardin knew that the material making them was far tougher than glass. Inside of each of the glass halos lay what looked like a puddle of sand.
Zardin strode forth into the giant chamber, and the three others followed without asking. He crossed the giant chamber and reached the far end, where lay the only halo unlike the others: here, instead of sand inside it, a cloaked man sat. He had his back facing them, and his physique was resemblant to that of a skeleton, and nothing more at all: he looked as though he had starved his whole life. A tangle of matter hair fell from the back of his head. It was the creeper. He was sitting as still as stone. It was evident that he couldn’t move. He was crippled, and he could only allow his mystic mind to wander, but not his body.
The glass like halo wrapping him reflected the light from their blades as they drew closer. Zardin paused a few feet from the halo in which the creeper was, and the three others fell to a stall right behind him.
“You came.” he said in a rasping voice, a noise that sounded like a shovel scraping over dry soil. “Now … we will have our revenge together.”
“We most certainly will.” Zardin said, before directing his words at the men behind him. “There are mystics whose level of power transcends anything known before.” He slowly turned, to bring his blank eyesockets over the men, and went on. “The sheer extent o
f their powers can go completely ungrasped to others, who may gravely underestimate them. And among such mystics, there are those few whom even time cannot ravage. Whom nothing at all can ravage … and who can perform feats of such incredible awe that death itself withers before the extent of their powers. Such is the glory of this kind. Of the mystic mind. And sitting before us now, is a mystic of such extraordinary prowess. And he was gravely underestimated.” He paused, allowing the words to sink into the three of them. His lips then curved. “Men, this strange place we’re now at … is Taurandor, the ancient prison. And the man you see sitting in that halo … is the one known as Redgarn.”
6
“Taurandor was built during the golden age of mystics.” Sitting inside the halo, Redgarn explained in his slow, rasping voice. “The people who carved this ancient structure meant for it to never tarnish, and so they imbibed a substance of which the world had never seen before. They thrust me and all of the Xeni they could handle catching in here. But the manner of holding the prisoner was the most uncompromised ever. The halo you see me now in is a protective shield. It doesn’t wear through time, and can withstand infinite force from within it. But it is unlike any cage or prison, for the halo does far more than just hold its prisoner in. It as good as cripples them. Once placed in the halo, a person can’t move at all. The halo’s enchantments seal him within it, preventing any major motion. I was able to sustain myself over eight thousand years, because of my powers. But it wasn’t easy … it was beyond easy.
“I payed my price willingly, knowing that one day, I would set free … and avenge myself and the other of my brethren Xeni. For our defeat was pain above all else. The halos you see around you carry the remains of my brethren. The rest of the Xeni that they had captured were also sealed in here with me, and left to die. And die they did. But I knew that the loss of the Xeni order was meant to be avenged with the utmost fury. And so, I kept on. I mustered all of my mystical strength and fought the natural forces that ravage a man through time, and turn him to dust. I fought with all my heart and the mystic strength of my mind. I kept on knowing that one day, when the light at the tunnel’s end arrived, I would have the compensation for my pain, and return all of it to the world. The pain I carried for eight thousand years. Pain like no other … and now, I see my wish come true. You have done well.”
“And I did so only with the greatest pleasure.” Zardin gave a short bow. He could sense the frozen figures of the three men behind him. They hadn’t moved a whisker after what he had just said. The same, flabbergasted expression had fastened over their faces.
He had felt the very same shock, the same rebounding shock years back, when it had happened. When he had been contacted by a mysterious force that had claimed call himself ‘the creeper’. But with the very touch of the strange force’s mind, Zardin had guessed that there was something far more terrifying than appeared, with this strange entity. Redgarn had then shown him the split second vision of his body in the halo. But with that vision came the compressed piece of information. Which told Zardin who he really was. He hadn’t told Zardin who he was … instead, he had shown him. To make him understand the sheer pricelessness of what he was facing, and what had found him. And understand it, Zardin truly had.
For a few seconds, Zardin had been utterly speechless, as the effect of the surprise reverberated across his being. The creeper had said, “We will finish what the great Redgarn started eight millennia back…” He then came to realise that this was him. This was the great Redgarn, seeking help so as to finish what he had started himself. And it was at that moment that the decision sprang within Zardin, coming with a burning will like no other. He decided to devote himself to the cause of finding and rescuing Redgarn. And then, together, tearing the world apart and filling it with the wreckage of their revenge. It had been the single brightest moment of his entire life. And he knew now, that Redgarn was being repayed with the very same feeling of joy as his rescuer arrived.
“I found you years back, and I saw that your soul was consumed with the same, burning rage as mine.” Redgarn’s rasping slowed now, allowing a calmer tone to take over his voice. “I gave you the freedom you asked for using my mystical powers, and reconstructed your body to allow it to be inhabited by your soul. It had been the one chance I had been waiting for, for eight millennia. You see, what I had done years back was no easy feat. I could touch your consciousness and connect to it in the manner in which I did back then only for one reason: that the two of us were melded into one. Our beings shared the same torch, the same desire of madness and revenge that allowed us to meld into one … we were possessed of the same sense of fury that wove us into the very same. And so, I could reach out for you and connect to you, something I could not have done with any other being. It was the chance I had been waiting for, over eight agonizing millennia. I wanted revenge like nothing in my life, and so did you … and so, I found myself through you.” A growl compressed with an eight millennial rage sounded through his tone. “And now, we head out into the world … and show them that the two of us, together, are terror incarnated.”
Zardin felt the joy of victory wipe out all else from his mind. The moment was here at long last, and the beauty of it, the beauty of triumph … it was the sweetest feeling in the world. He had done it.
He remembered the long hard slog he had been through to get here, starting that day he had woken up in the desert, to now. He remembered all of it. All that came in between.
File D…
As two words passed his mind, he felt his lips curve in a smile. File D had been a top secret file made by the Naxim when they had been founded eight millennia back. Redgarn had been imprisoned in Taurandor by the laws of the Sirengard, which forbade death penalty. But when the Naxim had been founded, they saw a threat looming over them. It was the very same threat that Zardin had now brought to life today: they had feared that Redgarn, who had been sealed away in Taurandor, would be capable of further mayhem despite being imprisoned. They had known his true powers, and what he was capable of. But the prison had been sealed and it had been too late for them to do anything about it. And so, channelling their fear, they had created a file that held the location of the prison, Taurandor, and had kept it as top secret as could be. Nobody could know of it. Nobody could know the location of Redgarn’s imprisonment. For the Naxim were aware that the Order of Xeni was not completely gone … and that they were still searching for a means to release their founder. For eight thousand years, the file had been kept secured. For eight thousand years, Redgarn’s rescue had been postponed … but now, at long last, the moment was here. The Naxim, the Nyon … the ancient empire of Sirengard. All of their efforts had now been flushed in complete vain. Redgarn had now been found. And the moment was here for the victory the Xeni had always been destined for…
“The time is now here.” Zardin said, feeling a deadly vigour pump through his veins. “At long last. The world has been awaiting us. Awaiting you.”
Redgarn gave a harsh rumble of laughter.
“I know it has.” he said, his dead voice now ignited with fervour. “The halo that I am in has but one weakness: a mystic’s sword. The ignited blade of a mystic’s sword is the only thing that can break open this cursed shell that they imprisoned me in, and set me free. And when I’m released from the halo that stumps my mind and body’s motion, I would no longer be the cripple I have been for eight millennia now. I will be physically free again … and that would be the single turning point of this spectrum. Do it, Zardin. It’s long past time. Do it.”
Striding forward swiftly with his sword held raised, Zardin stopped right before the halo. He allowed himself the passing span of a second to relish it, relish the moment, and he heaved in a deep, relieving breath. Then, holding his sword by both hands, he swung it across in a wild slash. The very instant his ignited sword touched the halo, the entire casing shattered into a hundred sharded pieces. The skeletal figure collapsed to the ground with a groan. Zardin thought to rush o
ver and pick him up, before deciding against it, and stood where he was.
Redgarn lay on the ground in the middle of the pool of glass shards for a few seconds, his body as still as a corpse. Zardin and the other three stood rooted to the spot, waiting … the seconds grew lankier as they waited in silence, watching the body on the ground.
And then, the skeletal figure slowly collected itself and sat upright. The mass of tangled hair parted to reveal a face as red as lava. With two dotted crimson eyes that were bead like. He slowly raised both hands and examined them before his eyes, as if unable to believe what he was seeing. He turned them a few times and twitched his fingers, as if to see if they were still working properly after eight millennia. Then, a wide smile broke over his red features, so that a deadly new energy seemed to awaken upon them.
“Free … at last.”
__________
All pairs of eyes were tightly latched over the large well like hole in the earth. The large group of cloaked men stood surrounding the giant tunnel drilled into the earth, all of them tensely watching the tunnel’s entrance. Zardin and the three others had disappeared into it almost an hour back. And nothing at all had escaped from the tunnel since.
Everyone standing around it, of the large batch of Xeni, was mentally poring over the very same question: what was going on inside of there? Some of them were beginning to lose patience, letting boredom waver their hard resolves. Some of them were beginning to wonder if this was all just a pointless meandering that their leader had led them into. But a few of them kept their composure and patience just as collected as ever, waiting calmly.
