The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

by Drury, Matthew J.

  It was time to help out the poor guy. Pretty soon, things were going to change, he was going to use the wormhole to travel back through time, and he wasn’t sure when the opportunity to do this would arise again. He waved a hand over the crystal, subtly manipulating its cellular structure with his mind, commanding it to record his image and words onto the naturally-occurring matrix within.

  “Hello Cristian,” he said, his expression solemn, his gaze boring into the surface of the crystal as if it would allow him to see his past self through the mists of time and space. “You may be wondering how you recorded this message without remembering it. The truth is, I’m you… six months in the future. Relatively speaking, of course.”

  He felt a wave of lucidity as he spoke the words, remembering that day six months earlier when he had been the unwitting recipient of this message. How inexperienced he had been back then! His mind turned to everything that had happened since then, everything he had learned, the things that had transpired which made this necessary – here, now, before the ship reached its destination.

  … before my transformation is complete…

  “It would take too long to explain everything, and time is short. If you want to live, you must follow my instructions carefully…”

  He found the timeless nature of the instructions he was giving somewhat ironic, aware of the strange linkages of space-time which meant that he was referring to actions he still hadn’t taken yet – such as programming the holocube – in a past tense. It hadn’t happened yet from his current perspective, but when his ‘past self’ happened upon the recording, everything had been set into motion already. It was paradoxical, yet predestined. He inhaled deeply, feeling an intense satisfaction at his own self-fulfilling prophecy. He was living it right now. More ironic though, was the fact that he spoke as if Chen were still his lover. Little would his past self realise that Lorelei Chen would ultimately betray him – choosing her own twisted moral ideas over the love they had shared, and allowing these ideas to spoil their potential happiness together. Part of him regretted the loss of that love, but he knew deep down that his true calling, his true desire, had to lay with the destiny that awaited him, the Power that the Eidolon would bestow upon him once they returned to Deadworld. Lora had played her part in that destiny, for sure, a vital part, but ultimately, she had proved to be merely a tool to be used on his journey to Ascension, a means to an end.

  “I’m counting on you, Cristian. Don’t let me down.”

  He ended the recording, turned his head and gazed out of the small porthole window, at the rainbow blur of the hyperspace tunnel outside the ship. He smiled to himself, feeling a pleasant rush of anticipation.

  Amazing.

  Absolutely astonishing.

  Puissance to the formerly powerless, power to the formerly impotent, was heady stuff indeed, and he was feeling positively giddy with the prospects that lay before him, the prospect of ascending to that Highest Heaven, and being with his family again. With Alexis, and Kimberley…

  And the Power and Glory that awaited him as Lord Damarus, the saviour of all mankind.

  “Mesifh Khufsm vyfign, attar.”

  Lorelei Chen didn’t understand the words being spoken, but Sai’bot was clearly distressed and in a serious amount of pain. His skin was no longer green and smooth, but white now and cracked into massive, diamond-shaped scales. As well, the eyes, ears, mouth, and other appendages were abnormally contracted. His facial features now mimicked a stylised makeup, pulled tight into a grim parody of a clown’s smile. His appearance was monstrous, akin to an abominable foetus suffering from harlequin-type ichthyosis.

  “I… I’m so sorry, Sai’bot,” she said. “If I had any idea what he was going to do…”

  Sai’bot croaked from within the depths of his throat. “It’s not your fault…”

  Chen gasped in shocked horror. “You speak English?”

  “I learned from the damarr … dam… Damarus. I’m a fast learner.”

  She gritted her teeth, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said again. “You’ve lost your home… your people… your entire world…”

  Sai’bot’s breathing was loud and wet. It came hard, and harsh, and it scraped nerves in his lungs that were already raw, causing excruciating pain. “The Majka is dead,” he conceded. “The Sirkharins died with it. Without the Majka, I would be dead too, if not for the grace of Damarus. He has spared me. Praise him!”

  Chen frowned. “Grace? He just destroyed your planet! Your entire solar system! Wiped out your entire species! Just to achieve his own selfish goals…”

  “He destroyed the Asterite,” Sai’bot said, “as he promised he would. That was his only purpose. I cannot argue with his methods. If it was the will of the gods themselves, it only pleases me. All these things must come to pass before the end of ends.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Commiting genocide on that kind of scale? What kind of ‘god’ would want that?” She was fuming, outraged by Sai’bot’s apparent lack of emotion.

  “A vengeful one,” Sai’bot said adamantly. “Alas, I have devoted my life to His service. That is my purpose now. Leave me to my prayers, human. The Lord and I have much to discuss.”

  She shook her head in disgust, horrified at the morbid existence this creature was now doomed to endure. Clearly, Sai’bot’s faith had blinded him to the truth and prevented him from being angry at Cris, at Damarus, this Destroyer of Worlds, for the atrocity he’d committed. She however, felt a sense of anger and resentment building inside of her, a hatred, a determination to stop this maniac before he could inflict his selfish evil on anybody else – namely the Earth of the past.

  She had only one more chance to intervene now, to change history for the better.

  She had to stop him from reaching Heaven’s Gate.

  26

  Neither of them could miss the stark contrast when the Thunder dropped out of hyperspace and they saw the brown planet of Deadworld looming before them. How different it was from Sirkhari, a place of vibrant life and deep blue water, with cloud patterns swirling all across it. Deadworld was just a ball of brown hanging in space, as barren as Sirkhari was alive. It had no moons; only the vast, ring like structure of Heaven’s Gate hanging some distance behind the planet, marking the location of the wormhole – and the way back to Earth’s Sol system.

  “We’re here,” Cris said excitedly.

  Chen tried to manage a smile, but the edge of her nervousness kept it from appearing genuine. Too many disturbing thoughts assaulted her. What was going to happen next? Was the plan she’d formulated really going to work? Could she really stop Damarus at all? Had the possibility really existed in the first place?

  Cris brought the ship down fast, breaking through the planet’s atmosphere and soaring across the salmon-pink sky, heading toward the coordinates he’d so heartily memorised. “There it is,” he muttered finally, when the jagged, twisted visage of the alien city, with its perverted monoliths and sepulchres, came into sight against the horizon, nestled in the aeons-old crater. He went in hard, landing the ship just outside the city’s perimeter wall, easing it gently onto the harsh sands. He killed the engines, and suddenly everything seemed deathly still and silent.

  “The Eidolon awaits me,” Cris said joyously, staring through the main viewport at the age-worn stones of this hoary survivor of untold millennia, this great-grandfather of the eldest pyramid. “Are you coming, Lora?”

  She shuddered inwardly, remembering what had happened the last time they were here, and the tumultuous rollercoaster of emotions she’d been through. Gingerly, she shook her head. “No. No, you go. I’m going to stay here, with the ship, and have a proper wash. I’ve been yearning for a decent shower for months.” She looked at him, wondering if he was going to fall for her obvious ruse.

  Oblivious to her trickery, he nodded. Certainly, their six month stay with the Sirkharins had required sacrifices, a high level of personal hygiene being one of them. “Okay. I think
you’ve earned it,” he said, giving her a stare of longing and regret. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he wasn’t sure how. He turned away. “Sai’bot?”

  The broken Sirkharin straightened as if he were a soldier standing to attention. “I will accompany you, my Lord.”

  Cris took a sharp inward breath. “Very good. Then we will leave at once.” He moved for the doorway, turning back to give Chen a final, pained glance. She looked at him and nodded; although no words were spoken, the expression on her face said it all.

  Goodbye, Cris.

  Through the main viewport, Lorelei Chen could only just make out the image of Cris and Sai’bot now, walking against the hot desert winds, into the maelstrom of sand and dust whipped into the air by a fierce sandstorm. At length, they appeared as a couple of silhouetted outlines moving against the raging torrent, fading, as if being swallowed up by a great monster. Once they had disappeared from view completely, Lora waited for several minutes, unmoving, waiting until she was certain the coast was clear, before dashing across the bridge to the pilot’s chair and firing up the Thunder’s engines.

  She wasn’t sure where she was going; she only knew that she needed to get away from this place, away from Cris. Without the Thunder, he would be stranded here, on this dead planet, with no possible means of escape.

  Not ever.

  Her heart racing, she waved her hand over the controls, and the ship lifted into the sky. As the Thunder ascended, she saw the sandstorm below as a giant low-flying brown cloud sinking beneath her, as wide as the horizon, rolling across the desert floor and over the ancient city like a flash flood. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she found herself trembling as the ship left the planet’s atmosphere then, and streaked into the blackness of space.

  “Goodbye,” she said aloud, to nobody in particular.

  The roaring noise of the sandstorm all around them, a high pitched shrieking howl, made it difficult for Sai’bot to hear his own voice. “She’s gone!” he yelled, pointing, watching the Thunder disappear from view.

  Cris lifted his head toward the darkening sky, squinting through the dust, where the ship was already a barely distinguishable point of light among the flickering stars. For a moment he considered reaching out with the Power of the All to stop the ship; quite easily, he could bring the ship back, even as the point of light stabbed into an elongated strip and disappeared, the vessel catapulting into hyperspace far above them. No, he would allow her to leave, he decided. There would be another way to get through Heaven’s Gate when they were finished here. They didn’t need the Thunder to do that. Somehow, he just knew…

  “Lora’s journey must follow a different path than mine,” was his simple reply.

  Sai’bot nodded.

  Finally, after several minutes, they reached the obsidian doorway that marked the entrance to the long-dead city. Cris went first, lighting the way with the bioluminescent lamp of his Rãvier suit, following the narrow steps of the onyx tunnel into the dark depths of the ancient, subterranean necropolis. Sai’bot followed closely, silent except for the laboured, wet smacking sound of his own respiratory process. It was an eerie sound in the hollow, claustrophobic blackness. Cris couldn’t help but feel uneasy, despite his excitement about what was to come.

  As they neared the bottom of the tunnel, Cris found his level of anticipation building. He felt that his entire journey, ever since being awoken from cryofreeze back on Earth, had been building up to this moment. Soon, he would be with his family again, and the gulf of time, the centuries that had separated them for so long, would be bridged and cast aside. Indeed, even death had no meaning for him now, no power. He had transcended death. By doing so, it was now no longer an obstacle to be overcome, in order to become One with the All…

  He had destroyed Death.

  Truly, if ever there was a man worthy of adoration and worship over the course of human history, it was him. He had achieved things only spoken of in the religions, myths and legends of the past. And here he was – Cristian Stefánsson, the Damarus – a god amongst men.

  When they emerged into the cube chamber, Cris immediately began to hear that familiar, damnably rhythmical piping sound that signalled the imposing presence of the Eidolon. He moved toward the opposite doorway, listening intently. Somewhere behind him, Sai’bot was leaning over the edge of the stone platform, trying to get a better look at the featureless, monolithic black cube that hovered in the centre of the huge multi-levelled room. He saw himself reflected in the polished surface, noticing an odd shifting iridescence, faint rainbow hues of blue and red, gleaming in the metal-like material. The only markings he could see were a series of deep, convoluted grooves, cut in an intricate pattern into the surface of the cube.

  “Pardon my asking, my Lord,” Sai’bot said, “but what exactly is this place?”

  Cris took a deep breath and gazed up at the antigravitic cube, at the precious stones suspended in columns of light around it. Despite his best guess (some kind of power generating room, maybe?) he really wasn’t sure what to tell the curious Sirkharin. “Nobody really knows,” he told him. “The people who built this place are long since dead, and their secrets died with them eons ago.”

  Again, he heard that monstrous sound, a half-acoustic pulsing, that thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute, increasing steadily in intensity. Somehow, the sound made him feel small, and cold. It was very unnerving. Cris turned his head, his eyes quickly surveying the chamber, though he could not determine the source of the noise.

  “Sai’bot, I…”

  When he turned back, he realised with a twinge of startled horror that Sai’bot was gone. In a silent instant, the Sirkharin had disappeared, and Cris hadn’t noticed, his back being turned for what, two, three seconds at most. He swallowed dryly, and took a few steps toward the edge of the stone platform where Sai’bot had just been standing. With a careful reluctance, he leant forward and peered over, but saw no sign that Sai’bot had toppled over the edge. Where, then, had he gone?

  “Sai’bot?” Cris said.

  A cold chill fell over the chamber then, and the infernal voice of the Eidolon pierced the darkness, cacodaemoniacal, hideous with the pent-up viciousness of a trapped, desolate eternity. “Welcome back, Cristian. I have been waiting for you…”

  Cris lowered his gaze, a wicked smile coming over his features. “Eidolon, it is good to hear your voice. You may address me as ‘Damarus’ now. I have renounced my former identity and embraced a new one. An identity defined by the Divine Power you bestowed upon me.”

  “As you wish, Damarus.”

  “The Asterite is dead,” Cris said, his breathing intensifying. “I did just as you asked, Eidolon.”

  “Yes, I know,” the voice said. “I knew from the very moment the Asterite ceased to exist that you had succeeded. In that moment, my chains were broken, and I was set free. Thanks to you, I will finally take my rightful place in the Light and leave this cursed place forever… but first, the Power that I promised to you, I shall give you…”

  Cris revelled in delight as he felt a wave of energy wash over him. “Yessss…”

  “Now, you will learn how to ascend to that Highest Heaven,” the voice said, “if you want to see your family again.”

  “I am your humble student,” Cris said. “Okay, what do I do?”

  “When the mind is enlightened, the spirit is freed and the body matters not. Release your burden.”

  “Okay, well, consider it released. What’s Step Two?”

  There was silence for a moment. “Stand there, Damarus. Open your mind to the possibility of an existence not governed by the rules of science which you hold so dear.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Just close your eyes and relax. Think of nothing but the Light itself. Picture yourself entering the Light. You will enter a non-corporeal state beyond the confines of your physical body.”

  Cris took a breath, then closed his eyes. Though he was unaware of it, he began to glow brig
htly with intense white light, losing his human form as he did so. The light surrounded him.

  He opened his eyes, but found he was no longer inhabiting his own body.

  “Oh, my God.”

  The chamber around him began to grow lighter, the colours becoming more vivid, as though somebody with a remote control had turned up the brightness on a television set. It felt lucid, like a dream, and slowly but surely, the light enveloped everything, until he could sense nothing else.

  The Light…

  Light.

  Then, through the radiant brightness, a voice.

  “Daddy?”

  He opened his eyes, and saw her. Kimberley, his beautiful daughter, was standing some distance ahead of him in a gorgeous spring meadow of grass and pink chrysanthemums, watching him with a loving smile on her face. Behind her, the sun was rising on the horizon, its warm yellow light piercing the entire scene with glorious, arcing rays that made everything seem tranquil and serene. An intense feeling of love and happiness burst forth within Cris’ chest, and tears of joy filled his eyes.

  “Kim!” he blurted and rushed toward her, bounding across the meadow, embracing her into his wide open arms. He held her tightly, sobbing ecstatically, content for a moment to just hold her and kiss her golden hair, oblivious to the ethereal world around them.

  Nothing else mattered…

  “Baby, I love you so much,” he said. “I missed you.”

  “I love you too, daddy,” she said. Then she looked at him. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes. I’m ready,” he told her, wiping the tears from his face. “More ready than I’ve ever been. But where’s Alexis?” He gazed at the dreamy meadow around them, but saw no sign of his wife.

  “Mommy? She went ahead. She’s waiting for us on the other side…”

  He blinked, feeling confused. Other Side? “The other side of what?” he asked.

  Somewhere in the distance, they heard a loud trumpeting sound. The glare of the rising sun was growing more intense now, almost unbearably so.