The Third Craft
Page 28
“You cannot refuse me. If you don’t act soon, I fear no one will leave this planet alive.”
“Majesty, consider your options.”
“Why do you think I am asking for your help? Have you thought of an alternative?”
Asunda paused, then shook his head. “I can offer no alternative. But the Abishot queen need not affect us. She is leading her own followers to their doom. It is her people who will suffer for her deeds.”
“No, Asunda, we will all suffer. You know perfectly well we cannot organize an evacuation and fight a war at the same time. If we fight a war, we lose our window for escape. If we ignore the insurgents and focus our resources on shipbuilding, we’ll be slaughtered before we have a chance to evacuate. And then all are dead!”
“I need time to assess the situation, Sire,” Asunda said. “I beg your leave.”
The king nodded.
The hallway was crowded with survivors and refugees from the first attack. Asunda jostled his way along as he contemplated his choices. He had to acknowledge the logic of what the king was saying. He needed time, though, to collect his thoughts. He needed accurate information. Retiring to his private suite, he used his Gift to contact his peers in other sectors using a secret code. Asunda contacted his kind in each city. Theirs was a unique brotherhood – and sisterhood, since most of the wizards were female.
He learned that all of the cities were in grave peril. Three cities had been decimated, and there were surely more attacks to come. He searched for news of a pending offensive against the palace but there was none. He realized that the attacks were not just against the palace, they were against all Narok. The palace could wait. Perhaps the king was right. Perhaps the greater good of mankind overruled the morality of a single wizard.
He made up his mind, summoned a monitor, and hailed the king. “Majesty, when one deals with madness, one must be slightly mad oneself. I cannot merely sit back and do nothing. I am not some timid observer. I am a participant. Is it time that the Queen Mother of Abishot should cease to exist?”
“It is.”
“So be it.” I am forever corrupted, he whispered to himself.
CHAPTER32
The Abishot queen sat stonily in war council with her select group of trusted councilors. They sat around the oval table discussing their military options. The queen mother sat apart from the others in keeping with Abishot custom.
“We move against the remaining cities in two days,” she said. “Our spies tell us that the House of Narok is in turmoil. They are reeling from the elimination of almost half their people. They don’t know where to turn. There is no safe haven for the enemy.”
The queen paused and allowed herself a smile. “Trust me. We will finish them soon. Then we will storm the palace. We have many spies inside so we can easily bypass their security. Soon there will be no more Narok. We will capture their spaceships and hijack their technology. Then it is they who will beg us for a place on the ships.”
She rose from her rough-hewn throne and placed her right hand on her chest. “I salute the brave martyrs that have forfeited their lives for this glorious cause. They died so that others could move forward toward final victory.”
She paused, her eyes searching the room. Something was amiss.
“Their sacrifice and bravery …” Suddenly her nose wrinkled. She had powerful instinctive gifts and advanced olfactory sensitivity. She sensed something.
“Those martyrs of Abishot will …” Her eye flashed toward her personal councilor.
The woman, a wrinkled wizard, rose from her seat, her eyes flicking throughout the room, her hands splayed firmly in front of her on the cold stone tabletop. She glanced left then right. She looked back at the queen with widening eyes. Her voice scratched the air. “Who is in charge of palace security?”
A male voice from farther down the table answered a little too confidently. “I am. Why, Wise One?”
The councilor flicked her wrist and a bright bolt of lightening arched from the base of her hand. The spear of deadly light streaked across the room and embedded itself in the man’s neck.
“You are relieved of your duties,” she said.
The man’s body convulsed, and he slithered to the floor. A geyser of blood arched from his wound, pumping in time with his heartbeat. He writhed and twisted for several moments before becoming still.
The room went silent. Some council members had risen half out of their seats. All eyes turned to the queen mother. She looked questioningly at the wizard.
“A security breach?”
“The air vents, Ma’am,” the councilor said, wiping spittle away from her mouth with the back of her hand. “Look at the air vents. We have been murdered.” Her aura flared.
Everyone turned to look at the wall furthest from the entrance. An almost-invisible blue gas was snaking down from the vents. Their eyes began to blister and burn. Their mouths tasted coppery, as though they had just swallowed blood.
Some people threw back their chairs and attempted to escape the room. They traveled no more than a few feet before their knees buckled and they collapsed in a heap, clutching their stomachs. Others died at the table, unable to move as the invasive neurotoxin froze their limbs. Their last moments were spent in spasmodic convulsions, coughing up yellow bile.
The queen mother and her councilor had activated their auras. They were the strongest in the room by far and if anyone could be protected from the effects of the gas, it was the two of them. Their defenses seemed to work. They were left standing alone among the dead. The queen mother started to walk over the bodies and gestured to her councilor. “Let’s get out of here.”
The old wizard continued to hold her right hand over her mouth as if to rid it of a foul taste. “Too late, Majesty. We are poisoned. We shielded ourselves too late. Too late.” She sat down heavily in her seat, her eyes blinking spastically. Her aura began to falter.
The queen mother coughed. Her throat was irritated. “Nonsense! I’m fine. So are you. Come!”
The councilor grasped at her neck and mouth. Her aura flashed brilliantly, causing miniature lightning bolts to crackle across the room, scorching the walls.
The queen mother squinted and ducked as a bolt seared past her ear. Her eyes were irritated. She blinked to clear them. She moved quickly away from the table and toward the doorway on the far side of the room. She took a few steps then stumbled over a body. Her eyes were failing. “No. This can’t be happening to me. I am the Queen Mother of Abishot. I can’t die like this. Do something, fools!”
Her command fell on deaf ears. In her peripheral vision the queen mother saw the old wizard slide gracefully from her chair. She turned and saw the wizard’s sputtering aura envelope her in a final cocoon. Then it flickered out as she curled herself into a fetal position on the cold stone floor and died. Yellow bile oozed from her swollen mouth and onto the floor, forming a small pool around her head.
The queen mother collapsed to her knees. Breathing was difficult. Her aura faltered. Then, out of some hidden reserve, she pushed with a primal force. Wrapping her blue-black silk cloak around her in a swirl, she hurled the poison gas from her body like a dog shaking off water. Her aura glowed brightly as it protected her from further contamination. Still on her knees, she wound the cloak around her entire body and sat stiffly upright on the stone floor.
About thirty minutes later, Amonda slowly opened the door to the meeting hall. There were distinct smells of copper and some unknown flower. She was carrying a sensitive instrument. It registered zero poisons, so she collapsed her protective aura. She studied the room. Amonda gave the OK for the crowd behind her to enter and to attend to the dead and check for any living. She knew their instruments would show that none was alive.
She spotted the queen mother prone on the floor in front of her, her blue-black cloak wrapped about her. All the others were dead, lying in grotesque postures. She closed the door quietly behind her, leaving the palace military to attend to their business.
She bent over the queen mother’s body and whispered in her ear, “Arise, Ancient One.”
The queen mother’s eyes opened coyly one at a time. She managed a grin with her cold blue lips. “Amonda, child, help me rise.”
Amonda placed her arm behind the queen mother’s back and helped her up to a sitting position. The queen mother’s breathing began to strengthen. Her blood began to flow more quickly and gray-white pallor left her face.
“That’s better,” the queen mother said.
“Your councilors are dead, Majesty.”
“Yes, I know. And everyone believes me to be dead also.”
“Yes.”
“What about the Narok? Do they believe their assassination plot was successful?”
“Yes, Majesty. I have spoken with Asunda. The House of Narok is convinced that you have been eliminated.”
“Including him?”
“For now. He is a powerful wizard and can read me if I am not careful.”
“We are defeated here. Make arrangements for my body to ‘disappear.’ Call it a secret ritual or some such nonsense. In the meantime, we have important work to do. You must help me prepare for my journey.”
“Yes, Ancient One. I am at your command.”
CHAPTER33
It was 1767 here on Earth when the evacuation of Sargon began.
Russia’s Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, appointed a commission of 564 deputies in that year to make recommendations for the modernization of Russia, limiting the powers of landowners over serfs. It was the fragile stirrings of a middle class.
In America, the Mason and Dixon line between the Pennsylvania and Maryland colonies was completed. North Carolina woodsman Daniel Boone went through the Cumberland Gap and reached “Kentucke” in defiance of King George’s decree. Boone was a veteran of the French and Indian Wars who had learned woodcraft from the Cherokee. To the north, in Canada, Hudson’s Bay Company explorer Samuel Hearne led an expedition from Fort Prince of Wales to check reports of mineral deposits to the northwest of the Bay and search for a Northwest Passage. Mankind was on the cusp of self-determination and discovery and soon man would enter into the technological age.
Meanwhile, on Sargon, the Houses of Narok and Abishot were evacuating the planet. At the Narok palace, a burnished, cinder-encrusted shuttle smoldered in the launch area, ready to transport the crypt-orbs of the royal couple to their galactic cruiser. This was its last run,
Asunda had organized the transportation of the transitioned king and queen to the shuttle. Their crypt-orbs joined fifty-eight others in five cube crates, each holding three layers of four crypt-orbs, like eggs in cartons.
There had been time for the Narok to construct only three galactic cruisers. Each held about a hundred thousand orbs. The raids by the Abishot six years prior had drained their resources, and wiped out half of their population and many of their most skilled technicians. The best they could muster was to construct and test three galactic transporters. Roughly three hundred thousand transitioned people would evacuate the planet, leaving the remaining human population to perish. The sun had grown huge and was threatening to collapse the remaining biospheres. Few humans were left alive. The heat was unbearable and oxygen was not filtered properly. Even with their protective shields at full strength, people were not able to deflect the searing heat. The population was being irradiated. They were being cooked alive.
Some people had commandeered short-haul spaceships and fled to Alpha moon. This would prolong their lives until Alpha blew up as a result of colliding with the planet Sargon. Huge chunks of the planet would hit Alpha, causing it to wobble out of orbit and be consumed by the sun.
The wizards, of course, had foreseen this many years earlier. They were among the last to transition and leave the planet. Many chose not to transition into a digital form. They felt that they could slow down the effects of travel through meditation and cryogenic storage. Wizards were afforded this privilege if they so chose. Amonda and Asunda chose to remain with their physical bodies. They had the responsibility of piloting and navigating the three cruisers to the new world.
Amonda appeared on the ramp beside Asunda. “I see you, Asunda.”
“I see you, Amonda.”
“The last orbs? The king and queen?”
“Yes. They are here. What about you? What are you planning to do?”
“Same as you.”
“Death by fire?”
Amonda laughed. “Humor, how novel. No, I will join the rest of the Abishot after I have determined that the course is set and all is well.”
“Gamma III?”
“Yes. And you?”
“Pretty much the same. Get the crew set up for long-range travel coordinates. Perform systems checks. Verify marker beacons so we are on track with the scout ships. That sort of thing.”
“You’re aboard the lead ship, Gamma I?”
“Yes, I will travel with the king and queen on that ship.”
Amonda paused. “You didn’t tell the king,” she said with a smile.
“No. He was not in a rational mood after the raids. He blamed the entire House of Abishot rather than the queen mother and her council. He wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“Thank you for keeping your word.”
“All we have is our word.”
“Well, thank you anyway. We panicked when news reached us that the entire House of Abishot was to be punished and that none of us were to be evacuated. You are our champion.”
Asunda laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. Without your guiding hand, the fall of the Queen Mother of Abishot could not have been guaranteed and we might not be here at all.”
“Let us never mention the queen mother again,” she said, looking away. She hoped her voice hadn’t betrayed her.
“I, too, share your shame,” Asunda said. “The taking of life is unnatural for our kind. The saving grace is that we prevented the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It was necessary.”
Amonda said nothing to this. There was no way to explain the hold that the queen had over her. She could never kill the queen mother. “All ten thousand Abishot are safely aboard Gamma III,” she said. “I will join them. Can I hitch a lift on the shuttle with you?”
“Welcome aboard.”
Aside from a backup ship in the launch area, the shuttle was the last spacecraft capable of linking with the waiting cruisers. All the other shuttles were already secured aboard the orbiting galactic cruisers as they waited to depart the solar system.
Asunda looked around him. His personal shield shimmered as it was showered with intense solar radiation. Energy snaked off his shield in streaks and grounded wherever it could like rivers of rain falling to the ground. Shards of lightning crackled across the tarmac. The heat was so intense that the air rippled like tall grass in the wind. Asunda saluted the terminal control tower, and the two air traffic controllers saluted back and nodded solemnly. They were brave souls. Their bodies were slick with sweat. Their skin was dull gray and their eyes were bright red with pain. He climbed aboard and Amonda followed right behind. The tarnished gray-and-white shuttle door closed down behind them with an odd creaking sound. Asunda spoke softly and the shuttle rose clumsily a few feet off the ground.
The Terminal Controller opened both of the huge terminal doors. They cracked open very slowly, the mechanism groaning in protest. Then the doors jolted and stopped unexpectedly.
The voice of one of the ATCs crackled over the com. “I am going to have to override the system. I can’t open the doors – they are fused to the sliders. Hang on.
”
There was nothing for a few moments. Then what appeared to be an explosion at the base of the doors blew them apart, freeing the fused sliders. The doors flew open along the sliders and bounced to a stop at each end. A sudden rush of intense heat gushed inside, blowing the shuttle backward across the terminal floor, sparks flying. Licks of flame hundreds of feet long roared into the terminal cavity. The control tower window blew in and then outward. Both ATCs were killed instantly. Their flaming bodies cartwheeled through the air and plummeted onto the flaming deck forty feet below. Machinery and equipment began to melt on the floor, flaming and flaring like Chinese fireworks.
Neither Asunda nor Amonda was quite prepared for the intensity of the onslaught from the sun’s heat. “We may not make it off the planet,” Asunda yelled over the roar of winds. “We may have waited too long!”
“Possibly. Let’s pool our resources. Are you linked into the shuttle brain?”
“Yes.”
“Good, I am, too.” Amonda reached over and grabbed hold of Asunda’s hand. “We must focus our auras to enable us to protect the shuttle and give it an opportunity to break free from Sargon’s gravity.”
Both creatures were outwardly calm. As prophets (the most powerful wizards possessed notable prophetic abilities) they had already envisioned the outcome. They sensed that their destiny was not to die on this planet.
“Will our combined strength be enough?” Amonda asked.
“I’d bet my life on it.” As Asunda spoke, his aura blossomed like a parachute opening mid-air. It intensified. There was the sound of music in the air.
“I’m impressed. I never knew it was so powerful!” Amonda said as her aura also expanded. There was a distinct tonal sound emanating from her body. She was in tune with Asunda, the universe, and its Song. Their combined aura was staggering. A green sail-like aura surrounded the craft.
“We should do this more often,” Asunda said.