“I am. Taste my glory once more, fiend,” Flaer said. “And Zesm, if piece of what you once were can hear me…” Flaer paused, thinking of the man who had been his friend: “Thanks for what you once did for me, long ago…goodbye.”
The Unicorporas cackled through a fit of coughs, frail eyes sunken into its hoary face. “Complete the Maelvulent Flaer—do this in memory of me, and you will have salvation,” the Unicorporas whispered.
“Sickly maggot of Gaigas. I’ll complete your death, for your voice pains me—it seems even the Rod meant me to finish this job.”
“Gaigas!” screeched the demon, finding humor in the name of the planet’s spirit. “Oh Flaer!—and how the Rod nearly did, and now you will!” gloated the Unicorporas, an eerie smile crossing its putrid face. Unable to bear the demonic sight any longer, groaning loudly, Flaer ran his fingers in an arc down toward the flattened mountaintop, sending his concentrated force: energy flashed bright, entering into each orifice of the Unicorporas, singing every pore beyond recognition; its skin evaporated, then its meat, muscle and bone. The evil form, a decrepit merger of Vesleathren and Zesm, was no more.
“It is done—your aid will not be forgotten!” came the last withering sounds from the abomination. Flaer stepped back, letting his Vapoury work. Soon the red light vanished, his energy dissolved, and there was but a black mound of ashes ready to be swept into the wind.
“Good riddance. Adacon, where the hell did you go? I do not want to climb down this damned mountain—I’d much prefer a nap,” Flaer smiled, letting the joy of victory finally grip him. He’d fulfilled his truest wish—to dissolve the very fabric of the one he hated most—to turn his skin to dust, his bones to soot, his evil to nothingness. Flaer sat down exhausted, patiently waiting for Adacon to return. Looking south in the distance at the tiny throng in the valley, he saw a quivering mass of celebration—the Hemlin Army had won.
XXXI: DEPARTURE
“I’m sorry commander, that field—I still can’t believe it was generated by a native of this world—had I just realized that earlier…” He trailed off.
“No matter, Brosse,” came the delicate, sweet voice of Commander Naeos, thoroughly pleased to be finally past the engine interference caused by the Unicorporas: it seemed the immense energy field the Unicorporas had been drawing from the planet—its trees, grass, mountains and water, even wind and atmosphere—had caused a disruption in the operation of Naeos’s vessel. She didn’t seem to mind the long process that had consisted of Flote, Flether, and Brosse working fervently to figure out why the engine had stalled now that they were moving again—at the time she had been screaming furiously though, a scary sight that Brosse hoped to never witness again; she had been directing her verbal assault primarily at him, whose specialty was in engines. Once the disturbance mysteriously disappeared, coincidentally with the nearby eruption of what Flether said had been a volcanic eruption, Naeos had become instantly calm, as the engines silently whirred to life again, pushing them finally toward their mark—a site the computers detected as two separate deposits of the ore.
“That’ll be it—setting her down,” came Flote from the control panel. The glinting silver vessel, an elongated egg-shaped tube, smooth and featureless, hovered above a wide crater gouged from the earth. Through the transparent walls of the vessel’s command center the crew gazed out, looking at uniformly cresting waves of green, the frozen tide of the Hemlin Hills, stretching away interminably from the smoldering city far behind them.
“There,” cried Flote, realizing that the tiny figure standing on a hill almost thirty yards away was Kams, and hopefully, their ticket back home—on the ground by Kams’s legs was the reflective sheen of a metal arm. Commander Naeos ordered her vessel over toward Kams and her vehicle, a much smaller variant of the commander’s own ship. Brosse was the first to race out from the vessel, yelping with the excitement of going home:
“Second confirmation? Has it been acquired?”
“Yes Brosse, second confirmation is complete, and there are two of these—arms,” returned Kams. Welgrunt, Ballar, and Teme stepped out into the Hemlin sunlight, stretching. “The other is already quarantined aboard—just wanted the commander to see—Commander Naeos,” came Kams, delighted to see her chief.
“Kams,” the commander replied calmly, all traces of her lapse into anger gone. “Very well done. Get it aboard the ship, along with the other piece you’ve found.”
“Commander—there’s something strange with these,” came Teme, rushing up to his commander with a semi-translucent projection emanating from a piece of his wrist. “See—” Teme didn’t say anything further, he simply held out a reading of numbers, projected into thin air, letting the commander review them herself.
“It won’t matter—there’s enough in these arms,” the commander said, reading the numbers, understanding instantly what Teme had been concerned over.
“What is it commander?” Brosse asked warily.
“Only twenty percent of the original mass, even with both of these,” Ballar jumped in, visibly concerned about leaving without the rest.
“The Godking will not be—” started Welgrunt, but Naeos cut him off:
“The Godking will be happy that we have saved our race, and our home—it only takes a fraction of the ore to make the circuit of the engine complete. There is more than enough here. The rest may remain on this planet for the next time we need to reverse the expansion of the cosmos.” Naeos let out a whimpering chuckle, apparently amusing herself. She cut out her charming smile as she saw Brosse goggling over her pleasure-filled expression.
“Right then, get it in.”
“Yes commander,” said Kams and her crew.
“How is it that this primitive race of tribal—of primitive sentients could have rent the ore into this kind of statue?”
“Statue? I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d made a robot from it,” Brosse chimed in.
Kams laughed as she dragged the heavy arm on board, helped by Teme, Welgrunt, and Flote.
“You wouldn’t laugh so much if you’d seen what I did,” said Brosse angrily. “These things—these beings—they transmute energy from the matter around them with their consciousness!” The whole crew erupted into laughter at Brosse’s suggestion, hysterically thundering at the impossible suggestion—only Naeos didn’t find it funny.
“Determining the technologies of this planet is for another expedition, another time. They possess something special here; I cannot say what, nor is it my mission to find out—Brosse, your suggestion is not without merit, I suppose,” said Naeos. The laughter stopped suddenly and the crew quietly finished securing the arms of ore aboard the main vessel—it seemed the reaction of Naeos was unexpected; no one could have expected the commander, of all people, to have taken it seriously.
“Dock your ship and we’ll be heading home,” Naeos ordered, a subtle pitch of victory in her voice, signaling to her crew that it had been a job well done.
“A course toward base ship, please, Flether,” Kams smiled triumphantly; finding the ore would surely mean an accolade of some kind once they returned, hopefully a promotion, she thought. She piloted her small vessel into the hull of its larger cousin, and each member of the crew entered the main ship. Brosse, entering last, paused to peer out one last time at the hills; he was taken aback at their beauty, despite the scar of the crater. Had their errand not been so dire, he thought, he would have enjoyed staying, investigating the planet’s strange life.
“What’s the problem now?” Naeos said, unalarmed. Thirty seconds more than was necessary had passed; their vessel should have already landed by its mother ship, stationed at the rim of the Vashnod Eye, yet they hadn’t even lifted off.
“I—don’t—not sure yet, commander,” said Flether hesitantly, wanting to be sure the ship was not stalling due to an error of his own. He knew it wasn’t him; he was as excited as everyone else to have found the ore so quickly, and to be heading home, but he’d been operating the same pilot gri
d for thirty years—he knew what he was doing, and the ship wouldn’t budge.
“Let me see,” said Kams walking close to Flether, peering over him, watching his operation of the ghost-like screen, hanging in thin air in front of Flether’s face. Flether repeated the same motion over and over again, pressing his fingers in a quick pattern on the holographic control array, but the ship didn’t seem to respond.
“It’s—as if we’re stuck—the engines are running fine, the systems are without error or warning,” said Flether, looking up from his airdisplay to the cockpit window, “Oh my god!”
“What?” Brosse said, shattering the jovial mood, racing toward where Flether and Kams were hunched over controls.
“It’s—it’s—holding us!” gaped Kams in her frail voice, and at the sound of the panic, Naeos gave a grunt of annoyance, coming to the front of the ship from her spot of comfort in the back.
“What is—oh dear god…” said commander Naeos.
“What do we do?” came Teme fearfully.
“Turn it off…” the commander said calmly.
“What?” Flether replied.
“The ship… turn it off,” Naeos directed. “Stay here…”
“But commander, he could be dangerous!”
“I said stay here, do you not forget that I alone have permission among us to use the Godking’s weapon?” The crew grew quiet, silenced by her mention of the weapon, and Brosse watched longingly at her from behind as she fearlessly exited the side of the ship, going to confront the young man who’d been anchoring the ship to the planet by a pink glow that rolled wave-like from his arms, ensnaring their large silver vessel.
“Hello,” said commander Naeos calmly.
“Where is Slowin?” Adacon said menacingly, not moving his hands which spread wide in an arc from his shoulders, sending a steady flow of energy at the ship, harnessing it to the hill. The entire vessel shone pink-silver, gossamer-fine strands of energy wrapping it, an anchor running up from Adacon’s feet, through his hands, and out to encompass the spacecraft.
“Most of him is still here—buried somewhere, I presume, on your planet. As for the small bit we’ve taken, it won’t be missed by your kind…now please, before I have to break my personal code of conduct and cause you harm, release my ship so that we may go peacefully away from your world,” the commander offered soothingly.
“Never—not before you give him back—whatever it is you have of him.”
“His arms?” chuckled commander Naeos loosely. “Out of curiosity, how is it that your friend came to be? Like a real live person you make him sound…not just a stat—”
“Slowin is my friend,” roared Adacon. He violently trembled, and the entire silver vessel rose shakily off the ground. “Now release him, unless you want to see your own friends smashed against a mountain!” Adacon raged furiously.
“I did warn you…” Naeos tried one more time, but Adacon kept lifting her ship high into the air, its engines now off; the energy that wrapped the ship turned from pink to puce, as a voice shot out from inside the silver vehicle, magnified somehow:
“Commander—the cage field has no effect! He is like the other one! Please, use the weapon!” screamed Brosse, his cry for action soon echoed by the others, who inside frantically tried to operate the cage field, its manipulation of the electromagnetic field failing to freeze Adacon’s output—it had not the slightest affect on him; he continued to transfer energy at will, and to the astonishment of the entire crew, without the aid of any visible technology.
“Very well, have it your way,” whispered Naeos, but Adacon didn’t hear her, he only collapsed instantly to the ground, his puce aura evaporating just as fast. The enormous vessel quaked the earth as it crashed down, nearly rolling down the side of a hill before Flether turned the engine back on and stabilized it. Adacon lay motionless on the grass, lying face up, the sun beating down on him. Commander Naeos tucked away a small brass-colored device, fastening it onto her belt, her sleek uniform reflecting the bright sun. She quickly walked back into the ship visibly startled.
“Are you alright commander?” asked Teme as she reappeared inside.
“Fine, thanks,” the commander replied, and Flether needed no more from her leader; the ship engine engaged, and soon the vessel was once again a hoary streak in the sky, blurring between clouds and beams of sunshine, racing south over the Angelyn Mountains.
XXXII: DEEDLE’S TAVERN AND INN
“So you didn’t see what it was that hit you then?” asked Erguile for the third time over a stout glass of Rislind’s finest ale.
“No, nothing, just one moment I’m holding them down, and the next, I’m out cold, everything’s gone,” Adacon replied.
“Better than last time,” Remtall boisterously bellowed from across the table. “At least you woke as soon as Krem found you—no coma this time around.”
“To Slowin!” came Flaer’s nearby voice, as the overpacked guests of Deedle’s Inn collaboratively raised their glasses, cheering the memory of their dear friend.
“To Slowin!” the tavern chorused in echo of Flaer.
“I hear there will be an expedition to search for him—so that he can have a real ceremony,” Calan said softly.
“I heard that too, and if it’s true, I’ll be going,” Erguile affirmed.
“You’re going to go?” asked Remtall. “Hah! A slave child thinks he can make progress into the Angelyn mountains alone?” Remtall had been drinking all day in honor of both victory and mourning, starting in the early morn with an elegy that had been held for Slowin in the meadow—in place of a body they had used a small sculpted monolith in the likeness of their golem friend.
“It won’t be alone Remtall—there’ll be an entire party of course—and besides—I’ve heard news today: none of the horse stables seem to have been destroyed, and more news coming down from Peren bodes that many of the city dwellers are still alive, having hid themselves in underground rooms and tunnels during the siege.”
“Erguile, that means Weakhoof will be there!” Calan exclaimed.
“He will.”
“About time that horse retires, Erguile, he was already set to when you all first arrived here,” Remtall said, calming himself down with some pipeweed.
“Did you hear about Wiglim?” asked Behlas, strolling up casually with a mug in hand, the Rod of the Gorge at his side as a walking stick.
“That stubby dwarf?” replied Remtall.
“Yes. Reap and he have started a deep study of the Waln Parchment, looking for clues about what the Prophecy of the Key portends.”
“What it portends? It’s already ended, hasn’t it? They came like it said, and took Slowin away,” Adacon said in anger.
“Well—not quite so completely,” Behlas replied. “It seems the Parchment has many more predictions for the future of our world,” chuckled the soft-glowing spirit.
“Bah! Leave the seers to their prophecies, it’s no matter to us, for there is true peace. Hear me! Peace on Darkin this day!” Remtall thundered over the din of the chattering tavern. Working through the crowd, a small man edged his way toward Adacon’s table; Krem’s flowing robe and gem-encrusted cap emerged from between the lower halves of two standing trolls, both nearly twice as tall as the bearded hermit.
“Krem!” Erguile greeted him.
“Adacon, Erguile, Calan—Behlas, Remtall…” Krem smiled.
“How is Falen?” asked Adacon.
“He’s healing right up, thanks to Reap I’ll add.”
“I suppose Reap found a strong place among us as a healer—better than hurtling mountains at us,” Adacon laughed between sips of ale. Krem laughed heartily though the others didn’t, not yet knowing the tale of Reap.
“Well, it’s really over lads—Vesleathren is dead, and Zesm. I don’t know what we shall do without an evil to confront,” Krem chuckled, “perhaps rebuild a peaceful Arkenshyr?”
“That sounds just right. After I get back from Hemlin, I think I’ll start my own
farm,” Erguile said.
“Erguile the swordsman, a farmer?” Calan humored him.
“It’s one thing I know how to do—and I’ll reap what I sow this time, now that Grelion’s not in—” Erguile said but was cut off:
“When is that damned murderer’s trial?” Remtall spat, rising from a standing slumber he’d fallen into before the mention of Grelion’s name. “I can’t wait to see him hanged.”
“Seven days from now; a proper council is still being assembled, so that he may be judged properly—it will take a talented congregation of Vapours to measure the truth—if he was or wasn’t possessed by dark magic,” said Krem.
“I don’t care if he was possessed—he still murdered my son. He ought to hang regardless,” Remtall protested.
“But you will abide by the decision of the council, Remtall,” informed Krem indifferently.
“Well of course, I don’t plan on fighting the decision of a bunch of damned wizards.”
“Remtall, they are Vapours, not wizards,” chided Adacon.
“Pah! Magic users, one and the same, the lot of them,” Remtall piped, finding a chair and sitting down, drifting back to sleep again.
“Where’s he being held now?” asked Erguile softly.
“Haeth and his men have agreed to keep him in warm custody until the hearing,” Krem answered.
“Ah good Haeth. I saw him fight valiantly at the choke—he slew four dwarves, single-handedly,” Erguile said with glee.
“Four?” scoffed Flaer, walking over to the table filled with his friends.
“Flaer!” greeted a choir of friendly voices.
“A right proper toast you gave,” Erguile said.
“Thanks. Erguile—I’ve been meaning to ask…How did Slowin die?” he asked. A quick silence overtook their corner of the tavern, as solemn apprehension descended and all eyes turned toward Erguile, the only witness of the incident.
“You were down in the crater that Vesleathren’s explosion caused—the soil was smoking, it looked like there was nothing that could be done; Vesleathren had taken your sword, shattered it, and it looked like he was set to impale you with the jagged shards,” Erguile said, pausing to flex his memory.
Darkin: The Prophecy of the Key (The Darkin Saga Book 2) Page 37
