The Voyage of the Cybeleion: A Rawn Chronicles Interlude (The Rawn Chronicles Series)

by P D Ceanneir

  Lord Ness nodded, ‘possibly.’

  ‘Can you nullify it, or is that a stupid question?’

  Ness Ri chuckled. He waved his hand and Havoc saw the compress of energy disperse harmlessly.

  Lord Ness turned towards him with a smug smirk. The prince rolled his eyes and walked past the Ri.

  At the entrance, Havoc scrutinised the Skrol on the door. Tia joined him and brushed away the dust and snowmoss to reveal more.

  ‘I know a fair bit about Skrol, but these symbols are unknown to me,’ she said.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Lord Ness, ‘of the eighty-four known symbols of Skrol, none of them are present on this door.’

  ‘Now, that really is disturbing!’ said Powyss, ‘luckily we brought someone who can read Skrol perfectly.’ He stared at the prince.

  Havoc, using the Muse Orrinn on the Sword that Rule’s pommel, saw the symbols of the subconscious language waver and form into words he could understand. His hand brushed over several of them with quick random movements, picking out four of them and ignoring the rest. The symbols shimmered under his fingertips, though he knew that the others would not be able to see the energy emitting from the carvings. There was a loud click, something thumped dully behind the door, a form of cantilever, and the door rolled to the right to leave a gap large enough to admit one person at a time.

  Little Kith barged his way to the front and gently pushed the prince to one side, ushered all of them to stay where they were and entered the opening. He was gone for several long minutes. The others waited patiently as the time passed.

  ‘Kith?’ hissed Havoc in a loud whisper towards the darkness of the tomb.

  ‘Why are you whispering?’ said Powyss.

  Havoc gave his friend a withering look. ‘Kith!’ he then shouted.

  The big face of Little Kith suddenly appeared at the opening. Everyone jumped with genuine surprise.

  ‘You big lummox, you scared the shit out of me!’ scolded Powyss.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the big man.

  ‘What did you see in there? You were gone ages,’ asked Maleene with a worried frown.

  Little Kith shrugged, ‘nothing. It is too dark. Did anyone bring a torch?’

  ‘Oh, for the sake of the gods,’ groaned Powyss shaking his head in exasperation and pushing his way into the doorway.

  5

  The light from the opening revealed little of the tomb’s inner space. Lord Ness solved the problem by creating a Powerball of energy; a mix of all four elements blended in harmony to create a glowing orb. The orb floated up to the roof of the tomb and revealed a high domed ceiling and a large open room, smaller on the inside than the barrow showed on the outside due to the thickness of the walls. Huge towering monoliths held up stone lintels which supported the roof, the flagstone floor was thick with dust. Undisturbed dust that bloomed into clouds as the group walked over it.

  ‘No one else has been in here for a long time,’ remarked Tia, her voice echoing around the room.

  ‘Gonliss did not get in here, then,’ remarked Havoc, ‘he obviously could not understand the Skrol at the entrance.’

  Up ahead lay a set of three stairs leading to a plinth with a plain stone sarcophagus resting at an angle on top. Flanking the coffin were statues of human skeletons standing twelve feet tall holding thick spears and shields. The skeletons merged with the far wall as did the plinth, apart from the coffin there was nothing else remarkable about the tomb.

  Havoc approached the sarcophagus and, with Little Kith’s help, managed to push the stone lid to one side where it finally toppled to the floor, smashing into three pieces.

  ‘Gods! You two would make poor grave robbers,’ remarked Powyss.

  Everyone crowded around the coffin and looked inside. They found what they expected to find, the body of the Blacksword.

  6

  Vlaren gripped the handrail of her Lander platform stairs just as the Clarion took evasive action and pitched to port. All around her, the flight crews and soldiers were running towards their Lander units, panic was setting in. She made it to the top of the platform and looked around at the confusion and the frightened faces.

  The mile wide Lander Bay had twenty-four Lander platforms jutting out of the bay walls at various heights, this was designed to keep a clear path to the runway-zone at all times. As she looked around, she could see the Landers loading their equipment and crew. The Lander SG Mk VII was a Personnel Carrier for tactical infantry drop missions. It was thickly armoured and well blessed with extensive weaponry. It held a flight crew of three and twenty passengers at the rear of the cockpit.

  The alarm for the Red Alert sounded over the platform speakers and red lights lit up along the deck where she stood, indicating that the SS Clarion had engaged the Dark Tanis. She took several long strides to the nearest computer console and tapped in her personal code.

  The computer’s emotionless voice said, ‘display ready. State desired interaction.’

  ‘Hull camera view, all angles,’ said Vlaren.

  The scream flashed up about a dozen separate images from the various camera ports along the Clarion’s hull. She tapped a finger on six of them and enlarged the images. What she saw disturbed her.

  A massive array of tentacles took up most of the picture. The Entity was so large that the whole fleet looked like tiny silver specks before it. How it had arrived here so fast was a mystery. Already the SS Ventnor and the Hiunti had engaged it. These ships were two of the twelve equipped with the New AR Particle Cannons, or Planet Crackers, as they were affectionately termed. The cannons energy beams were strong enough to break open a C Class planet and destroy its core with one single burst. Unfortunately, through prior experience from other alien races, the cannons would barely pockmark the surface of those thick black limbs, but it was a necessary distraction in order for the Lander crews to reach the planet’s surface.

  As she watched in complete disbelief, the looming Entity drew closer with each passing second. Those long limbs flailed about in space swatted away ships as she herself would swat away annoying Marsh Flies back home in her youth. The Ventnor and the Hiunti were the closest and the first struck by the limbs. Both ships seemed to atomise on impact and their obliterated debris joined the field of drifting space junk that the Plettraian Battle fleet had just exited.

  Heart in her throat, adrenalin pumping her limbs, she sprinted for her Lander and took the ramp into the rear of the small ship. Inside she found only two of the flight crew strapped in to their seat in the cockpit and four of her assault team, equipped and seated.

  ‘Where are Captain’s Rocha and Farn?’ she asked.

  One of her infantrymen answered, ‘they will be here soon, Commander, they were not far behind us.’

  Vlaren tried to hide her disappointment. She turned towards the pilot in his seat, ‘are the flight checks complete?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the pilot.

  ‘Then be ready to take off at any moment.’

  ‘But the others…’

  ‘We are already under attack, captain! If we don’t go now there will be no assault teams left.’

  Vlaren stood by the ramp, she knew she could only spare a few short seconds. Suddenly the ship lurched to starboard and vibrated noisily. She saw a few of her team exit the main hangar doors with others and take the stair to her Lander platform. She ushered them to hurry with an impatient wave. Then the ship pitched again, this time violently. There was a series of dull booming thuds in the distance and then a sudden rushing wave of flame shot out of the hangar door, incinerating her team and a mass of others within the blink of an eye.

  Vlaren yelled for the pilot to take off while at the same time she punched the green button that engaged the rams to close the ramp-door. The door was half closed when she felt the Lander lift and tilt to port. She slammed against the bulkhead wall and jarred her shoulder. Out of the thin port window, she was glad to see the other Landers take off, yet a rolling sheet of flame washed over the platforms fro
m the rear of the hangar catching one ship and forcing it to collide with another. The explosion from the impact happened a short distance from her Lander and the spinning debris hit the side of her ship.

  ‘Port nacelle has taken damage,’ said the co-pilot over the internal intercom.

  ‘Reroute fuel supply to starboard nacelle,’ said the pilot. He was having difficulty in keeping the craft level. Up ahead, the view through the cockpit window revealed the wide mouth of the hangar exit, open to space, but shielded by a force field that retained gravity and life-support within the hangar.

  Several of the Landers now passed through the shield which buzzed with electricity as they did so. Tongues of flame from the far end of the hangar followed them and Vlaren’s Lander shook violently as the turbulence from the exploding space ship forced her craft out of the opening amidst a torrent of flames.

  Vlaren scrambled to the rear of the Lander and looked out of the rear window. The SS Clarion was a ruin; at some point one of those massive tentacles had carved right through the ship’s spine. The drive section was an obliterated mass of metal cloud amongst bursts of the plasma fires. The bridge section now spun away into space, breaking off sections of the hull as it turned. She tried her earpiece communicator to contact the ship, but all she received was static. She finally shed a tear for her father.

  ‘Evasive action!’ cried the pilot and the Lander twisted to the right. Vlaren gripped one of the racking-cages that sat above the seats and looked out of the cockpit window. She saw a mass of writhing tentacles shifting slowly in space. The pilot saw an opening through the deadly morass and plunged his ship through the gap. Other Landers were not so lucky. Even though the hardy vessels were made with thick armour, they just shattered on impact with the limbs.

  ‘The Entity is in our flight path,’ said the co-pilot.

  ‘We need to get out of this…’ said the pilot through gritted teeth. Around them the limbs moved like an ever-twisting cave system, but the pilot’s skill saved them on several occasions.

  ‘The creature is putting out some form of electro-magnetic dampening field, sensors are affected and the stabilisers are offline, we're losing attitude control. We have not enough power to reach the RVP,’ the co-pilot said in a very worried tone.

  ‘Damn!’ said the pilot.

  Vlaren stuck her head into the cockpit, ‘deviate course,’ and she tapped at her PDU, ‘I’m sending you new coordinates.’

  The co-pilot checked his flight console, ‘but commander, these figures takes us into the heart of the city.’

  ‘Do it! We either die quickly up here or live longer down there!’

  The pilot nodded to his colleague and they changed course. The Lander moved quickly out of the tentacles and struck the thin atmosphere of the planet where they bounced and jostled through the layers of cloud.

  ‘Better buckle up, commander, this could get messy,’ said the pilot.

  7

  It was a man, a tall man, about seven feet in height, wearing a black cloak and fine black leather boots. He gripped a sword that lay on his chest with the tip pointing down to his feet. His skull looked back at them with an amused grin. Havoc had to laugh; the corpse looked more like a creature of death than the Blacksword did.

  ‘Obviously not the Sword that Rules,’ said Lord Ness pointing towards the old and tarnished blade of the corpse’s weapon. The Pyromantic blade of SinDex would never look so old seeing as not even dust would be able to settle on it.

  ‘Wasted journey, then,’ said Little Kith. He stepped down from the plinth, Debdil and Maleene followed him.

  ‘Yeah, well…worth a look anyway,’ said Powyss as he indicated to the others to leave. He and Tia turned to go, but Havoc remained. He stared down at the corpse. Lord Ness picked up the sword, pushing off the bony fingers as he did so.

  ‘Not even a Rawn weapon looks locally made. The blade is black, though, which explains much.’

  Havoc was not listening. He was looking at the skeleton’s hands. There was a large light brown stone ring on one of the fingers. Something drew him to it and before he knew what he was doing he was reaching out to the ring, which seemed to glitter with gold and silver flecks throughout the brown.

  ‘Let us go and let the dead rest,’ said the Ri.

  Havoc tugged at the ring.

  The room turned bright and the walls shivered and turned into a stream of colours. There was a rushing roar and Havoc screamed as he covered his ears. The others disappeared and he was alone in the torrent of the ever-changing tunnel, a maelstrom of confusion that surrounded him and suddenly stopped without any warning.

  He was still in the tomb.

  Alone.

  ‘Lord Ness? Powyss?’

  No answer. His voice echoed around the walls.

  ‘What…?’

  He looked down at the corpse and stepped back in shock. The skeleton no longer wore a cloak of black.

  It wore the amour of a Raider.

  8

  ‘Dampeners are off-line. Hull integrity is down to twenty-four percent,’ shouted the co-pilot.’

  Vlaren sat down and strapped herself into the seat across from the four infantrymen who were looking at her with some trepidation. She smiled her most reassuring smile, but it did not seem to liven their spirits.

  ‘Auxiliary power?’ asked the pilot who was having trouble keeping the Lander in level flight.

  ‘I have already diverted what I can to the flight systems,’ said the co-pilot with an edge of fear in his tone.

  ‘Damn it! This is not going to go well. Deploy the glide wings.’ His colleague pressed a series of schematic designs on a screen and there was a buzzing sound as the wing-foils extended from the craft. The pilot was intending to glide the ship to ground if all the systems failed.

  Out of the cockpit window, Vlaren could see the clouds clear and rivulets of rainwater block her view beyond. However, flashes of sheet lightning lit up the smashed ruins of the city below. The broken towers of some large buildings jutted out of the earth like rotting teeth and loomed larger with every second of their descent.

  ‘Find us a safe landing area,’ said the pilot.

  The co-pilot shook his head, ‘sensors are down and we have no detailed layout of the city on record, sir.’

  The ship whined and shook from the buffeting winds. The pilot pulled hard on his joystick and thrust control levers at his side, but the speed of the Lander did not reduce and the craft was shaking viciously.

  ‘Pull up!’ shouted the co-pilot as the broken towers sprang into view with the next burst of lightening.

  ‘Can’t…’ groaned the pilot ‘can’t…manoeuvre.’ The Lander tilted to port in order to avoid the tower, but it was not enough. The ship ploughed through the structure, cleaving the top off, which crashed to the ground. The shock resistant windshield of the Lander shattered to spray sharp glass around the cockpit and eviscerated the flight crew. The impact with the building tore the starboard nacelle away from the hull and gouged a huge hole in the aft section walls. Vlaren could only look on in shock as her four infantrymen were sucked out of the tear in the hull, seats as well. They were lost in the darkness of the roaring storm beyond.

  The Lander twisted upside-down and Vlaren screamed as she held onto her seat rails. There were two more collisions and by the time the Lander crashed into the ground, Vlaren was already unconscious.

  9

  The Raider armour was old, very old. Havoc tore his eyes away from it and it was then he noticed that the two tall skeleton statues were now Raider soldiers carrying spear and shield.

  ‘What is going on?’ he gasped.

  The Blacksword shifted in his mind as if coming out of some ethereal slumber.

  The tomb has moved or we have, I would go for the latter. Check outside.

  Havoc stomped towards the exit and found the door closed. There were no Skrol markings to open the door on this side so he used the arts to shift the stone to one side and found that it was an extraordinar
y effort in summoning the Earth and Wind elements.

  ‘That was harder to do than normal,’ he said as he pulled his way through the opening.

  What he found was a nightmare. A thunderstorm crashed overhead in the nigh time sky. Dark brooding clouds obscured his view of the stars but there were bright bursts of light streaking through the formation. Around him lay a ruined city of dark buildings saturated in the rainstorm. The rain that fell was not exactly clear, more like black grey sludge.

  ‘Where on earth am I?’ he said. Then it hit him. Everything was strange, but familiar. The position and height of the buildings in the distance, a partially ruined bridge to the far side of the obvious island the tomb stood on, even the tall monoliths that held up the barrow walls.

  ‘I’m on Carras Isle. This city is Aln-Tiss.’

  Can’t be.

  ‘Your eyes are better than mine, see for yourself!’

  The prince allowed the Blacksword to take dominance, but he did not fully change into the strange being that occupied his body. His face, however, paled and his eyes became deep black orbs inside sunken pits. The excellent eyesight of the Blacksword dashed away the darkness and revealed the landscape with shocking clarity. Havoc observed the scene before him and picked out the more recognisable landmarks, the palace apartments, the library campus, the great hall and the castle spires.

  You speak the truth, the Blacksword’s voice boomed hollow in his head. Above them, the sky was awash with white streaks that showed through the gaps in the clouds.

  ‘A meteor storm?’ ventured Havoc.

  Could be. There are certainly many of them burning up in the upper atmosphere. The bombardment was mesmerising. Some of the smaller streaks burnt and fizzled away, others, larger, struck the ground around the city with loud dull thumps.

  Havoc-Blacksword watched one as it zoomed overhead with a loud whining sizzle and then evaporate before it hit the ground, but the Blacksword’s attention was drawn to a large mound to his front. The mound, like all of the land around their barrow, was grassless and covered in congealed mud, yet still recognisable as the Paladin’s Vault. Standing on the mound was a creature they both recognised and so Havoc ducked back into the barrow entrance. It was watching the bombardment light show above and had not spotted him. It was tall, but crouched on all fours, the mass of long black quills on its head and back and the large mouth with the sharp teeth made it easily identifiable as a Brethac Korzac, yet this one looked thin and hungry.