by A A Warren
She reached out and touched the shard. Talon felt a pulse of energy course through the glowing crystal. Tiny blue bolts cracked through his arms. He stumbled backwards, as the power surged through his body.
A blessing from R’Kur… Her words echoed through his mind. Enough for one last portal… Goodbye, my warrior.
As the wave of energy subsided, his vision cleared. He saw a dark shape stumbling towards her, looming up close behind her again. Talon thrust his arm out, but he was too far away.
Salena!
Sartarus threw his arms round her neck. “Enough, my wife. You will not take me from my children again! This ends now!”
Salena grabbed the shard in both her hands. “I’m sorry, Lyko,” she whispered.
She pulled the crystal into the beam. It flew forward and pierced her chest. She cried out as it tore deep into her flesh. Behind her Sartarus gasped…
Talon could see the glowing tip of the crystal pierce Sartarus’ back. They were impaled together on the shard of R’Kur.
Sartarus stumbled away from her, a dark, bloody hole gaping in his chest. Talon saw a light flickering within the wound… shattered fragments of crystal fell from his body.
Salena lifted her arms. Despite her pain, a look of peace settled over her face. She closed her eyes.
“The shard has destroyed your power source, Lyko.” Her words echoed through the beam, as if amplified by the energy within. "The dark energy is no longer yours to command.”
A wave of light rippled around her, then exploded outwards. The color of the beam shifted, from crimson to electric blue. It expanded outwards, filling the temple with its purifying glow.
Talon raised his hand, shielding his eyes from the intense glare. Behind him, the wave of light struck the creatures scrambling from the gorge. One by one they exploded, sending clouds of black ash flying backwards through the air.
The wave struck the Star Claw as well, buffeting the ship. Avra grabbed a landing strut to steady herself as the vessel lurched in the powerful shockwave.
A low, rumbling roar came from within the center of the beam. Talon spun around…
“By the Haunted Stars,” he whispered.
Salena’s body glowed white-hot. She rose up in the air and hovered within the swirling blue energy. Below her, Sartarus screamed in agony. His body seemed to writhe and decay, as if something was eating its way through his flesh. A swarm of tiny metal worms, nanobots of some kind, erupted across his body. They dropped to the ground, inert without a source of dark energy to power them. His skin began to dissolve and fall away, revealing desiccated tissue and bone beneath.
He stumbled to the edge of the beam, his arms stretched before him as if to claw his way through. But his fingers burst into blue flame as they touched the energy barrier.
Sartarus looked up at Talon as the fire traveled up his limbs. Within seconds, the blaze consumed his body. Even as his flesh burned, his brilliant sapphire eyes still held their intense, manic glare. Talon met their gaze, as they peered out from the man’s charred, blackened skull.
Sartarus threw back his head and laughed. The chilling sound reverberated through the temple as his remains burst into clouds of ash. The dark, floating particles were swept away by the cobalt inferno.
Salena curled into a fetal position within the beam. The shard seemed to expand and grow, surrounding her in a crystalline cocoon. The light pulsed and grew brighter within. Then it exploded, sending smaller shards screaming through the air.
Talon stepped forward. He stared in awe at the being that emerged.
Somehow he knew… This was R’Kur.
The statues and carvings he had seen… he realized now they were crude, primitive attempts to capture that which could not be explained. The creature before him was a being of pure energy. He saw a glowing blue halo, arching over a golden triangular snout and crackling white eyes. Wings of teal crystal swept back from the swirling coils of its body. A galaxy of stars and planets swirled beneath the translucent skin of its flesh.
Daizon devoured reality and replaced it with illusion. But R’Kur… R’Kur was creation itself.
The great dragon of earth and sky would not be contained.
Its body swelled, filling the confines of the beam. It spread its wings, uttered a screeching roar. Then it burst through the remains of the temple’s roof. Rubble exploded through the air, and pounded the side of the Star Claw.
R’Kur ascended up the beam, growing larger and larger as it neared the Crimson Maw. Soon it blotted out the swirling vortex above with its shimmering crystal plumage. The dragon touched the heavens with its shimmering wings. And as it drew them together, the maw began to close.
Talon fell to the ground. The tremors grew even more powerful, and the rock walls of the plateau crumbled apart beneath the seismic onslaught. The temple listed, as the ground beneath it broke and sagged around the blue beam.
Looking up, he spotted the Star Claw, hovering a few meters away. It had drifted to the other side of the plateau to avoid the falling debris. Avra beckoned to him from the landing ramp.
Grinning, Talon picked himself up and sprinted across the crumbling rocks. He reached the edge, as the stone pillars behind him collapsed. The remains of the temple fell into the shattering earth as he leapt into the air. His feet thudded onto the ramp, just as the plateau was at last devoured by the fiery abyss.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Avra grabbed his arm and helped him regain his balance on the ramp, as the Star Claw curved away from the falling rocks.
“What the hell just happened?” she gasped, her voice crackling though the speaker in her helmet. “Where’s Salena?”
Talon shook his head. “She’s gone. No time to explain. Did you fix the reactor?”
“I rigged a bypass, but it won’t hold for long.”
He nodded, pulling her into the ship. “Good. We have to get out of here before the maw closes.”
She hit the ramp controls with her fist, and it banged closed behind them.
She followed him to the bridge, and yanked off her helmet. “And if we don’t?”
Talon sat in the navigation chair and powered up the holo-display. “We’ll be trapped here, and become one of those creatures you blasted.”
Avra tossed her helmet to the ground as she settled into the pilot’s seat. “I had to ask. Okay, strap yourself in, Fledge first class. We’re leaving.”
Talon buckled his harness as Avra grabbed the controls, and tilted the nose of the ship up. She grinned, and slid up the thruster power. “Sensors show debris falling from the maw. Hang on, this is gonna get rough.”
The ship screamed up into the heavens. Through the front windows, Talon could see the opening of the maw ahead… it grew smaller as the curtain of energy surrounding it shifted from red to blue. The blue energy field rippled across the opening, severing through the massive tentacles. The withering, lumpy flesh petrified into cold, lifeless rock as they drifted into space.
The massive stone limbs broke and crumbled apart, unable to support their own weight. Some of the fragments floated off into the void, but others fell back into the maw. The burning meteorites rained down to the surface, plunging through the toxic atmosphere.
Avra piloted the ship around the falling rock fragments. Proximity alarms wailed, and smaller chunks of rock and stone pelted the windows. A crack appeared above Talon’s navigation station, but the thick glass held.
“Shields are taking a beating,” she shouted. “It’s like the whole damn sky is falling on us.”
Talon peered though the falling debris… the black hole ahead was growing smaller and smaller.
“We have to go faster!” he shouted. “We’re not going to make it!”
The ship wobbled as a meteorite struck the wing. Avra cursed and swung the craft to the right, darting around a fragment the size of a battleship.
“I can’t go faster and dodge these rocks at the same time!”
The ship spiraled around three smalle
r burning rocks, then straightened out, and continued charging up. The clouds parted around them as they neared the maw. Talon narrowed his eyes… the hole was even smaller now. He glanced down at the navigation display. The proximity alarm continued wailing, and warning lights flashed red on his console.
“Avra, break off!”
She glanced over art him. “What? We can’t just—”
The circle of black space closed further, and the swirling clouds on either side filled his vision. He could barely see the opening ahead. “It’s too small, we’re not going to make it!”
“Hundskak!” she cursed. She threw the ship to the left, and followed the contours of the upper atmosphere as the portal closed. The black circle of space vanished, and the beam of blue energy faded. Only the swirling clouds and the crimson sky remained.
“Now what?” Avra asked.
Talon shook his head. “I don’t know.”
A blessing from R’Kur… enough for one last portal.
He turned to Avra. “The portal drive… Salena transferred some energy to me, through the shard. She said it was enough to open a star-path.”
“Open a path where? If this place really is another dimension, we can’t just jump back to ours.”
Talon stared at his holo-display. “She must have had a reason… There, what’s this?” he said, pointing to a blinking spot, deep within the planet.
Avra peered over at the display. “Another gravimetric distortion. It reads like a portal, but it’s a steady signal. And it’s small… too small for the ship to make it through.”
“That has to be it! Take us there, now!”
Avra threw the ship into a steep dive. Talon flew back in his chair, as the massive G-forces pressed him back into the seat. They swooped between the falling rock fragments, racing back towards the surface of the planet.
The ground sped towards them at a dismaying speed. Within the crumbled remains of the plateau, a circle of blue light glimmered within the dust and rubble.
“There it is,” Avra shouted. “But I told you, it’s not big enough!”
“It will be!” Talon slid his arms into the portal drive’s docks. He closed his eyes, and powered up the drive.
Goodbye, my warrior…
Talon felt Salena’s presence flow through him. The bond in his mind burned bright and strong. Then it began to fade, as her energy flowed out of his body and into the drive controls. Swirling blue symbols shimmered in the air within the tiny circle of light. Grasping the controls with the docks, Talon manipulated the star-path, pulling the symbols further apart and increasing the radius of the blue circle.
The ship’s proximity sensors continued to wail as they dove closer to the ground.
“Ground approaching,” Avra shouted. “Impact in nine seconds… Eight. Seven. Six.”
The proximity alarm stopped its blaring. She glanced at her display. “By the gods…”
She adjusted the controls, as the circle filled the cockpit window.
Talon opened his eyes, and shot her a smile. “Victory or death.”
She kept her eyes focused on the display as she made a final, minute adjustment to the controls. “Let’s find out.”
The ship dove into the glowing blue light, and disappeared.
In the space above Vendaru, a graveyard of crippled ships and mangled debris drifted through the void. The DNS Paladin, the battleship of Sartarus, listed at a wild angle as it tumbled end over end through the heavens.
Inside, the pool in the chapel glowed a brilliant blue. The metal deck plates around it crumpled inward, as if tugged by the gravity of a black hole. Water sloshed over the edges, and spilled across the deck as the swirling circle of energy inside grew larger. Then the pool itself disappeared, and the glowing blue light engulfed the chapel. The portal grew further still, tearing though the bulkheads, and devouring the metal skeleton of the lifeless ship.
With a shriek of wrenching metal, the Paladin tore in half, ripped apart by the star-path opening within its structure. The burning fragments of the ship drifted away from each other through space, as the Star Claw streaked out of the portal. The tiny ship sped away from the wreckage, and dove towards the remains of Vendaru.
The glowing star-path faded, then reduced to a pinpoint of light. Finally, it disappeared. The remains of the Paladin spiraled around the devastated planet. It joined the other wreckage floating in the cold, silent depths of space.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
PLANET TAL ADAR
Tygon Dominion Throne World
Twelve days Later…
Talon and Avra marched though the Grand Hall of the Imperial Palace. Images of Salena, Zobo, Avra and Talon shimmered in the air above them, projected for the crowds in the upper rows of the cavernous grandstands to see. The hall held over a thousand people, and their thunderous applause reverberated though the massive chamber.
Talon tugged at the collar of his ill-fitting Dominion uniform. The white tunic was tight across his chest and neck, and his trousers appeared to be a size too small. He glanced over at Avra. Her long red hair spiraled up in an intricate bun, held in place by a pair of emerald-tipped pins that matched her sparkling green eyes. She wore one of her leather jumpsuits, but she had thrown a lush velvet cape over her shoulders for the occasion. The purple fabric billowed behind her as they continued moving towards the throne at the end of the room.
“Why don’t you have to wear one of these damned uniforms?” Talon whispered as he undid the top button of the shirt.
Avra laughed, but kept her eyes forward. “That’s what you get for walking around half naked all the time,” she whispered. “A battle harness and breeches is hardly proper attire for greeting the new Emperor.”
“It was appropriate enough when he was a fugitive on Vendaru,” Talon grunted.
More hover spheres flitted over them, dispersing clouds of glittering confetti through the hall. Talon brushed the shiny plastic bits from his hair, as they marched past a row of royal heralds. The musicians raised their long, curved horns in the air, and trumpeted a heroic march.
Ahead of them, Lucian Tygon, newly-crowned Emperor of the Tygon Dominion, sat on a throne carved from pure bloodstone. Beams of sunlight pierced the skylights above. They struck the towering chair, causing the crystal to glow with a warm, inner light. Lucian’s royal guard flanked either side of the throne. The soldiers stood at attention, clad in white armor and red capes.
Captain Javis stood at Lucian’s right hand, clad in the same style uniform as Talon. It fit him perfectly, and the only wrinkles in his tunic were caused by the bend of his injured left arm. It hung from a sling, still healing from the wound he sustained at Vendaru.
Talon and Avra stepped up to the throne. Avra performed an elaborate bow. “Congratulations, your Majesty. May the stars shine eternal on your benevolent reign.”
She glanced over at Talon as she straightened up. “Like we practiced,” she hissed from the corner of her mouth.
Talon folded his arm over his chest and gave a stiff, reluctant bow. “Your Majesty,” he muttered.
Lucian leapt from his chair, beaming at them. He took Avra’s hand in his own.
“My friends, please. Do not bow, I forbid it! With Kyr gone and his weapon destroyed, his fleet scattered like cowards. The people here on Tal Adar rose up against his garrison. The rest of the Dominion followed their example. We owe all of this to you. I thank you. My people thank you. You’ve brought peace to the Dominion, at long last.”
He moved over to Talon, and held out his hand. “I’m sorry about Zobo and Salena. Their statues will join the hall of fallen heroes, here at the palace.” He glanced at Avra, and she nodded in return. “I give you my word, their bravery will never be forgotten. And neither will yours.”
Talon took the boy’s hand and shook it. “Thank you. It was an honor to fight beside them.”
Lucian smiled, and turned his eyes to Javis. “I promised you your freedom, Talon. And I'm a man of my word.”
Javis marched over to them, and slipped a small, clear crystal from inside his tunic. The chip sat in a ring of metal, and tiny lights and circuits blinked along its outer shell.
“This is your record from the Imperial Archives. This info-crystal holds all your blood scan data.” Lucian held it up. It sparkled in the beams of sunlight.
He dropped it to the ground, and stomped on it with his boot. The crystal shattered, and the miniature circuits sparked and went dim.
Another deafening cheer arose from the crowds in the great hall.
“You are a slave no longer,” Lucian said, shouting to be heard over the crowd. “Wherever you travel within the Dominion, you shall be greeted as a free man!”
Avra threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “Congratulations!”
Javis leaned over and spoke into Lucian’s ear. “Your Highness, there is the matter of the other gift?”
Lucian grinned. “I almost forgot.” He turned, as a royal porter approached them, and kneeled before the throne. He was carrying a small metal case on a velvet cushion, which he offered to the new Emperor. Lucian took the case, and opened the lid. He held up a small, white statue.
“Salena asked that I give this to you, upon your safe return. She said you would know what it meant.”
Talon took the statue from the prince’s hands. It was a carved figure of a man, holding a bow.
“Orion,” Talon said in a quiet voice. “The hunter’s god.” He drew a finger across the stone. The chalky white residue on his fingertip slowly turned to black dust. “Caldurian stone.” He smiled. “This is the real thing, isn’t it?”
The prince nodded. “Of course. It’s from the Imperial collection. But why did she want you to have it? What does it mean?”
Talon sighed. “It doesn’t mean anything, Your Highness. Just a gift from a dear friend.”
Lucian smiled and nodded. “I hope you consider us friends as well. Now then…” He held his hand over his heart, then gave them a brief bow before settling back on the throne.
