by J Hawk
Ion turned back, feeling the dead weight in his stomach grow heavier. The entire Nyon temple was now alone, fighting off the onslaught of a ruthless Xeni army in the middle of the sky. The masters were all by themselves now.
But a part of Ion’s concerns clung to something more aggrieving for him. Vestra and Qyro…
__________
It was over faster than anyone had thought it would be.
Redgarn, Zardin, and the rest of the Xeni now stood in a large platform that was perched higher on the sky than the temple. The giant platform, torn from the Nyon temple, was floating serenely in mid sky, carrying a large group of cloaked, hooded men over it. A group of warships hung about around the large platform, spread over the sky around them.
Redgarn stood frontmost of the cloaked men on the platform, his red eyes peering scornfully down at the Nyon temple below them. Zardin stepped forward, turning to gaze at Redgarn from between his curtains of long black hair, through the dark sockets that had no eyes.
“Have they all … been taken care of?” he asked silently.
Redgarn growled, “Every one of them … The brotherhood of Nyon is no more.”
Zardin continued to gaze at his master, something sparking in those black, eyeless sockets … Then, a cruel smile awoke on those pale features.
After hearing that Mantra had escaped with the crystal, Redgarn’s fury had loosened like an uncontained blast. He had struck down every one of the remaining Nyon he found in the temple, crushing them all like ants below a boot … and now, it was over. The temple below then was free at last. Free of the taint of the Nyon. As was the entire world.
Redgarn held up his hand, letting the gush of mental energy which he had kept up till now steadily dissolve. “And so … the ancient brotherhood falls.”
As he let the energy holding the Nyon temple up dissolve, the swirling debris around the structure hanging below them stalled slowly. The Nyon temple hung over the sky, untethered, for one final, fleeting moment … and then, the lifeless structure dropped, along with the flood of debris surrounding it.
__________
As one, the wrecked remains of the Nyon temple, now scoured of all life, plummeted to the ground … across a two mile drop. It violently gathered speed with every passing moment. And its speed, as it rocketed downward through a two mile fall, seemed to split the sky as it fell through it.
And then, with an explosive splash of wreckage, the temple crashed to the ground. The impact left its shattered, worthless remains to spew across a hundred metres of where it had landed, raining wreckage all over the ground around it.
The Nyon temple rested in smithereens on the cold earthen floor beneath it.
A legacy that had carried across eight thousand years, now lying shattered on the ground.
8
Utakor, Outer spectrum
The barren soil was a few inches high, leaving the three pairs of feet to sink into it, muffled and soundless. The deserted plain of this region seemed to stretch on forever. It ran forth, sweeping the land for as far as could be seen, before merging with the horizon at the very edge.
After leaving the temple, Mantra, Dantox and Ion had flown through the outer spectrum on their hover boards, to this planet. They knew that they had to put as much distance between them and Farnor as possible, to prevent the Xeni from finding them again. And so, they had carried across a painful half hour long journey to reach here. They had decided on this planet, for the reason that it was nearly uninhabited, and cut off completely from the rest of the spectrum. The Xeni would never find them here.
The vast half hour long journey had sapped their boards’ power drives of all power. They had decided to make their way by foot from where they had landed, with their hover boards scoured of all fuel and worthless. But being stripped of transport made no difference to them now, for they knew that moving from this planet anytime soon would be foolish. After what they had undergone to save the crystal and reach here safely.
The heaviness of the situation seemed to press over the three of them cruelly, as they treaded down the deserted lands of the famished planet.
Ion still couldn’t bring himself to face it. The cold truth. A part of him screamed in rebellion, searching for another way … for a way out. But deep down, in the silent depths of his intelligence, he knew there was none. There was no other way, and there was no escaping it.
We’d just met less than a few hours back. He felt a dead weight clutch to his stomach, as the beautiful face flashed across him again. Her face seemed to cross him as a distant shadow, a ghost. Try as he may, he couldn’t block it out … she came back to haunt him.
The memory of that day, that beautiful day they had met two years back replayed at the back of Ion’s mind, suddenly not seeming so distant at all. It seemed like yesterday … it had been a memory that was carved so beautifully in his mind. And now, the same memory brought a stab of cold like nothing else. Just a few hours back .. And I thought all problems had vanished, when we met.
He looked up at the stars burning in the night sky. An echo of his grief could be felt resonating in the velvety chasm overhead … the stars willed to share his pain, and bear it.
But Ion knew his pain was his alone…
Vestra was gone.
He had lost her right after he had found her.
His eyes burning, Ion reached for his sleeve.
And Qyro as well … He remembered the two of them and the short, beautiful time they’d shared, standing before the lake outside the temple … before everything came crashing down, reduced to wrecks…
They’re gone. Ion felt the agony and the anguish crash over him like a tidal wave. They’re all gone…
He turned to the two masters by either side, who hadn’t spoken a word. Not one word, since they had landed here. The mournful silence shared by them bore a pain that well surpassed Ion’s. With their gazes firmly set on the ground before them, the two of them walked on slowly … as if pushing their limbs with every ounce of energy in them.
In his own bitterness of losing Vestra and Qyro, Ion had forgotten that they were facing a loss, a grief that was tons heavier: after living for so long, and after being with an entire company of other masters their entire life, Mantra and Dantox had now seen them all destroyed … They had lost every one of their brethren among the Nyon. The three of them were now all that remained …
And they would have to carry on until the job that the brotherhood of Nyon had stood for was done … or die in vain along with it.
9
It was past late at night. But the city, as always, was still thriving and brimming with activity. The giant towers sprouting into the skies had a majority of their storeys lit, with people still active in the offices and homes within them. Large passageways built for air vehicles snaked across the place. Circular passages made of a transparent, glass like material. They twisted and twined all about the city, passing through the giant towers and forming a connected network of the city’s structures. Air vehicles flowed in a constant stream within the glass passageways, most of them small ships or hover cars. Hover bikes, and occasional boards could also be spotted. The buzz of vehicles rushed past the tunnels through the towers and all over the city, sustaining the flow of the thriving metropolis. One of the most advanced, and elegant of this day.
Standing on the large balcony stretching from one of the giant towers was a lone figure in a clean brown suit. For some reason, as Haxor gazed out the balcony, he felt a cruel betrayal: the city’s beauty and its man made, artistic look was a veiled deception to the state of threat it now lay in. The state of threat the entire spectrum lay in.
Fighting off the weariness, Haxor kept himself patient. He had been here, at the Naxim’s headquarters, for almost an entire non stop day now. Without a wink of sleep. For the past few hours, the entire high council and he had worked furiously, contacting all of their bases, setting them to the state of alert. Hiring various intelligence networ
ks to help them with this. But nothing at all seemed to add up to give them a response. They were as good as clutching at straws. The mystics they were after were as good as ghosts, and they knew finding them was going to be far harder than imaginable.
For a few quiet moments, Haxor let his gaze float about the urban scenery before him.
His mind was running over the problem with an incessant grit, trying to find a means to reach a solution for it. But as Haxor continued to look out the balcony silently, he felt a rising foreboding. Something in the atmosphere seemed to bear down over the entire world like a cage. Haxor had the strangest feeling that this dark, threatening phase that they were going through was only going to get worse.
Sighing, he turned and headed back to his office.
10
Sitting with his legs spread in front on the chair, Redgarn allowed himself a few moments of silent pondering. To consider his next move. The world was almost his now.
There was only that tiny smudge that the plague crystal had failed to be recovered. But they would set that right too, in time. Yes, they would.
The ship they were now in was a large, silver one, its hull sprawling and lavish. Standing about the back of the hull were a small group of Xeni. Redgarn was sitting right before the control desk, watching the expanse of star strewn black through the window ahead of him.
He frowned, trying to think through the radio playing from the ship’s desk:
“- protests have flared in the Varido republic over the rising electroz prices. The citizens have channelled –”
Although he knew he was wavering in focus, Redgarn felt the nature of the newsline draw him slightly. Negativity. The media feeds, thrives on negativity. On anarchy. What a tragedy … for this world, that is. And what a blessing for us.
“The rebel forces at the corner of the Svarion Empire had claimed responsibility for the serial blast that had I two days back. The empire has seen a widespread –”
Redgarn clasped his hands tighter, inhaling slowly to let his mind gather focus. He sat idly for a minute or so, while a part of his mind stayed attuned to the mostly negative news.
“King Xurin, the executive head of the Kingdom of Sunatra, has just been reported missing,” the reporter was now saying. “Sources claim of the involvement of the separatist forces –”
“Oh, turn that trash off, won’t you?” snarled Redgarn, now feeling really irritated with his inability to focus because of the radio’s negative news feed ranting.
One of the Xeni, who had been sidled by the wall of the hull behind, came hurrying up and jabbed a button, and the annoying reporter’s voice was instantly doused.
Enjoying the silence, Redgarn mulled over what needed to be done, his eyes perched on the starry chasm their ship was now tearing though mindlessly.
For the meanest moment, his thoughts zapped back to that moment, more than an hour ago, where he had crushed them all. Crushed the entire Nyon like bugs beneath his foot. The sight of the temple plunging from the skies and smashing to smithereens … it was a sight that Redgarn would treasure for all of time.
It happened over an hour ago, and yet Redgarn re lived it every moment since. And he revelled in it.
He knew that despite their failure to recover the crystal, things were still proceeding in a good direction. The plan was going rather well.
But the crystal is the key element to the plan … and we’ll be needing it.
Redgarn scowled, slightly irked at the thought. He knew this was true. And the fact that they didn’t have the crystal obtained when they were so easily suited to, left him annoyed. He pushed the thought away, not letting himself be bothered: he knew that the crystal would be re obtained very soon. As of now, there were other things they needed to cast their focus towards.
Redgarn’s scowl deepened as he mentally ran over the next stage of the plan. A plan eight thousand years in the making. And now, the time was here at last. Their time was here. Nobody would ever see them coming.
“Well, enough time for thinking.” He decided, getting to his feet and sweeping around to face the other Xeni. “The clock ticks, and the world awaits us.”
He strode down the hull, pausing before Zardin to beckon him by his side. The two of them exited the ship’s hull, and went striding down the corridors outside of it.
“Well, the plan’s all set then.” Asked Zardin. “I presume the time has come for action.”
Redgarn smiled as the two of them treaded down the unlit, gloomy corridor. “Indeed … We are now proceeding with phase 1 of the plan.” He turned to Zardin. “The beginning.”
Zardin smiled. “The beginning of the end.”
They arrived at the end of the long, dark corridor, and stood facing each other for a brief moment. A small cupboard lay by the wall of their right, beside where the two of them stood, looking meaningfully at each other.
Smiling, Redgarn wrenched open the door to the cupboard, allowing the bound, gagged body of King Xurin to collapse sideways, landing on the floor by his feet.
“They think,” said Redgarn, bending low over the gagged body of the King. “that some stupid separatist group is responsible for your capture.”
Zardin let out a low hum of laughter.
“Who do they think they’re kidding?” asked Redgarn, so close to the gagged face of the bound King that his breath would surely fall hot on the man’s face. “We just kidnapped you without leaving the meanest trace of evidence, or any sort of lead behind … and they think some pathetic non mystic separatist group’s behind it?”
Zardin bent down and plucked out the man’s gag, so that he gave a gasp of surprise and long contained breath.
“What –” he started, his breath rattling. “What do you – want with me?”
The two Xeni exchanged a fleeting grin, then turned back to the man below them.
“We require a certain, err…” Zardin trailed off, pretending to search for the right word.
“A certain service from you, my dear King.” Finished Redgarn, and in the darkness, his smile would have appeared to flame with viciousness.
11
Since landing, the three of them had been ploughing across the vast desert worthlessly. They had walked for well over an hour now, only to find nothing at all here. Ion peered as far as he could, but the gloomy sands seemed to stretch all the way upto the horizon and nothing at all, no structure, was faintly visibly anywhere out there. Mantra and Dantox were walking by his right and left, both of their eyes fixed ahead. The three of them had been trotting through the desert soil in shared silence.
But it was the silence that was unbearable. Ion racked his brains to find some way, some hope to cling to … to believe that the impossible could have happened. And Vestra and Qyro were not dead. But in all his honesty, he knew that it couldn’t be. He knew that he had to face the reality. And reality was that the two of them were gone. As were the rest of the Nyon.
Forcing down the upsurge of emotion, he turned to Mantra.
“What now?” He felt like he was speaking for the first time in a few dazed centuries. “It’s all over. There’s nothing left for us. Everything’s gone. What do we move on for now?”
Mantra slowly unfroze his gaze from ahead and turned to him.
“We move on to protect what our brotherhood stood for.” He turned back ahead, shaking his head. “To protect the cause they died for … and die for it ourselves, if need be. We move on because we are destined to be greater than the twists and turns of fate.”
His soft voice carried the weight of a new sorrow, but it hadn’t lost the resolve ingrained in it.
“We are but facing a repetition of history, Ion.” He went on. “And the last time this happened, we were in a brighter position than we are now. The last time, the Nyon had a strength like no other, and we fought with the might that we bore during those ancient days. The last time, we had the Grael conch, the entire army of watchmen by our side. And lastly,” He turned and fixed his
white eyes on Ion. “the last time, the spectrum was a far more friendly environment. And our struggle was supported, instead of being opposed. We were well known and revered, instead of being hated and prosecuted. The last time, we were at an age of light. But now, if you look around you, you will find nothing at all but darkness and gloom.” He stopped for a dry sigh. “But we have the one tool that we haven’t lost across eight millennia. The one tool that has allowed us to stand for eight millennia. And I believe this tool will suffice however dreaded our fate may turn…”
Ion cocked an eyebrow. “What tool?”
A weak smile flickered on Mantra’s wizened features. “The greatest of them all … Endurance.”
“Yeah?” Ion felt his jaws lock. “And exactly where’s endurance left us now? In ashes!” He bellowed, feeling the anger spill out of him. “Everything we know, everything we’ve worked for … it’s all gone, and we’re standing here as helpless as the ants beneath our feet now!”
