The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “How exactly did you find out then?” she asked.

  “I guess it’s much easier for one sorcerer to recognize another,” Q chuckled. “It actually took me a little while to sense the hidden power inside Taylor. But I could also tell that Taylor herself knew about those powers. She knew, but chose not to tell anyone, and I respected her decision by keeping quiet as well.”

  “I’m still quite stunned,” the Empress said. “I’ve grown up alongside Taylor for so much of my life, and now I find out she’s a sorceress.”

  Q’s face turned a bit serious. “So you’ve known her back from when she was brought here to become the second Night Witch?”

  Andrea nodded, “I was quite close to Commander Lokai back then. My mother took me along quite a few times when she went to watch Taylor train.”

  “Ah,” Q said. He wondered what sort of training Taylor had gone through. His mind urged him to ask, to ask her about the things he didn’t know about her world. But he remained silent. He knew the world he wanted to know about was a world that Taylor had cast aside, a world she no longer acknowledged. There was no use learning anything about such a thing.

  Andrea smiled at him, “You’re a good friend,” she chuckled. “I know you’re trying hard not to ask me things you really want to know.”

  Q looked at her nervously, “That obvious huh?”

  “If there were something worse than an open book, it would be you,” she laughed.

  He chuckled along with her. He relaxed, trying to make himself stop wondering about Taylor’s past.

  “She was a cheerful girl,” Andrea started, her hands around her pillow, her chin resting on its silky softness. “To be honest, I never once thought she looked like she was being treated harshly.”

  Q kept quiet and just listened.

  “It was only when I grew up a bit that I realized she was actually being treated like a tool,” she said. “But even then, I’ve never once seen Taylor break down over how unfair everything was. She never complained. She never said a single thing.”

  She sighed, “Thinking back on it now, I think it just seemed that way because she confided in Lokai all the time. Even though she and I became very close, she didn’t trust me enough to tell me anything like that,” she said. “I don’t blame her to be honest. I was the daughter of the lady who was holding her captive. Even I wouldn’t have trusted me if I had been in her place.”

  Q knelt before the Empress, “Nevertheless,” he said. “I thank you for being there for her.”

  “You may get up, Q,” she said. “This formal behavior doesn’t really suit you that much.”

  He tussled his hair, “I know right?” he chuckled. “I’d hate to see what I’d look like as a Knight.”

  Andrea raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh!” he yelped. “No no, I didn’t mean it like that! I mean. Sure I’d love to be a Dark Knight. But. Well. Oh damn it!”

  Andrea laughed, with an expression of happiness that Q had never seen on her face.

  She’s probably never really had experiences like these before, he realized. Being the Empress must have restricted her from taking part in all sorts of ‘human’ experiences. It finally dawned upon him that Taylor was probably the only proper friend that Andrea actually had.

  “I still can’t believe it,” the Empress said. “I can’t believe that that little blond girl grew up to be a sorceress as strong as the Wielder of Light.”

  Q chuckled, “Trust me, she’s not even close to being as strong as I am,” he grinned. “She’s way stronger.”

  ***

  4-5

  A Dark Knight barged into the royal chambers, sending red alerts coursing through Q’s mind. He swiftly moved, placing himself between the Empress and the possible threat. At the moment, he didn’t trust any Dark Knight other than Taylor.

  This Knight looked at him in confusion and stepped away from him.

  “It’s fine, Q,” Andrea said. “Let him speak.”

  Q nodded and backed away. The Dark Knight calmed down and bowed to the Empress. “The security team has found a possible threat to the Palace. We would like for you to take a look at it immediately, your Highness.”

  “You could have asked your higher ups of that could you not?” Q asked. He wasn’t going to trust this Knight until he had evidence he wasn’t on the other side.

  “Yes, standard procedure would be for me to inform a squad commander or a Commander, but given the circumstances, I am not sure of who to trust among those around me. The Empress is the only one who is not a liability at the moment.”

  Q glanced over to Andrea. She nodded, “He’s right, there was no other choice.”

  “Very well,” Q said. “Where would you like us to come?”

  “The council room, your Highness,” he said. “I have already called for Commander Reagan, Commander Lokai, and the blond Dark Knight.”

  They don’t know who she is, Q chuckled.

  “Thank you, Dark Knight,” Andrea said.

  The Knight bowed and left the room in a hurry. Q took a quick look outside to see quiet corridors. Everything was calm. He turned around to see Andrea arming herself with a Dark Knight’s armor.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, a little confused.

  “A disguise,” she grinned. “No enemy will expect the Empress to dress up in battle armor.” She placed the helmet onto her head.

  “Well, it’s fine. I guess,” he shrugged. He was pretty sure she didn’t need something like that when he was there to protect her, but the extra measures didn’t hinder him so he left it alone.

  They headed out of the royal chambers and through the silent corridors. Q kept a watchful eye over everything that moved, whether it was the wind or a speck of dust.

  “So you say Taylor is stronger than you?” she asked.

  “At the moment, she’s not even half as strong as I am,” he said. “She’s just awoken to her sorceress powers so it’ll take a while for her mind to function at its full capacity. But when she does reach that stage, she will be much more powerful than I am.”

  “So if she’s a sorceress,” Andrea asked. “Wouldn’t that mean she could probably control some other Elementa in addition to her Elementa of Darkness?”

  “I’m surprised you’re asking me this,” Q raised an eyebrow. “The Elementa of Darkness seems to be quite an intense Elementa, more so than the Elementa of Light. Taylor has gone one step further and tried to fully control her Elementa, so she may have to invest all her power into it. With me, I have very good control over my Elementa of Light, but it is not like the control she has over her Elementa of Darkness.”

  “So she’s basically sacrificing being the jack of all trades, so that she can be the king of one?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “So tell me, Wielder of Light,” she said. “You’ve been regarded as the most superior warrior for quite some time now. Do you feel threatened that Taylor may replace you?”

  Q remained quiet as they turned into another corridor.

  “You’re going to stay silent on that I see,” the Empress said.

  He smiled, “We’re here,” he said and opened the door to the council room. Commander Reagan, Commander Lokai and Taylor sat at the table inside.

  Q’s attention immediately shot towards Taylor. “Is Chris okay?” he asked.

  Taylor nodded, a smile on her face, “She’s just fine,” she said.

  Thank god, Q breathed a sigh of relief. He and Andrea hustled to the table and took their seats. Q sat close to the door, so that any intruder who entered would have to go through him first.

  This bodyguard business is quite fun, he thought.

  “What exactly is going on, Commander Reagan?” the Empress asked.

  “I’ve been briefed on the situation, your Highness,” he said. “I believe it is easier if I just show you everything.”

  He snapped his fingers and four blue beams of light shot from each corner of the room, converging right at the cent
er of the table. A 3D hologram formed before their eyes.

  A tower, Q realized. Before him appeared a holographic image of a massive tower, one that was nearly as tall as the Palace of Darkness. The top of the tower looked jagged and rough, as though it had still not been built completely.

  “What is that thing?” Andrea asked, a worried look on her face.

  “We believe the enemy is building a defense tower,” he said. “We tried having two drones attack it, but their anti-aircraft guns took them out even before they could get near the place.”

  “Levi would not simply build a tower in the middle of nowhere for no reason,” Q said. “We need more information on this.”

  “There is one more thing,” Commander Lokai said. The hologram zoomed into the tower’s upper floors. Q could see large cannons peek out from the window like structures on the walls. White Cannons with neon purple lines on them.

  “Oh my god,” Q gripped his seat, his fingers trembling in the sudden shock.

  “The Pandora Cannon,” Taylor said quietly.

  “The what?” Andrea asked. She’d clearly never seen or heard of it before.

  “It’s a weapon that creates projectiles of anti-matter and fires them at its targets,” Taylor said. “The target is completely disintegrated as soon as it comes in contact with the projectile.”

  “That tower is filled with those weapons,” Reagan said.

  “It’s just like Levi to do something so inhumane,” Q clenched his teeth.

  “This isn’t even the worst thing yet,” Lokai sighed.

  “There’s worse?!” Andrea asked. She already seemed quite crestfallen about the Pandora Cannon. He could imagine how it felt to hear that there was something worse than that.

  The image zoomed out until they had a bird’s eye view of the few hundred square miles around Levi’s tower. About twenty different Dark Knight towers lay scattered in the area, all of them much smaller than the Palace of Darkness.

  “I don’t get it. What’s wrong?” Andrea asked.

  Commander Lokai zoomed in on one of the towers. Hundreds of White Knights charged into the place, and not a single Dark Knight came out. Q shuddered, thinking of what that could mean. He hoped it was only because they had all evacuated into their assigned safety bunkers.

  “Is this the case for all of those towers we just saw?” Taylor asked.

  “I am afraid so,” Lokai sighed.

  “The enemy forces are too overwhelming,” Reagan said. “Their numbers are too strong, and their equipment is far more advanced. What’s worse, we were so accustomed to thinking the Knight War was over, that they took us completely by surprise with all these attacks.”

  That’s true, Q thought. It had hardly been a day since the White Knights attacked the first Dark Knight tower, the one Lokai had been in, and now they were taking out a good portion of the Dark Knights’ forces.

  “What are our options here?’ Q asked.

  “There is only one way we can end this attack,” Lokai said, and zoomed in on the ground next to the White Knight tower. A boy stood there beside a man dressed in white battle armor.

  “Levi and Albion,” Q mumbled. It made sense that they were personally overseeing the construction since that tower was crucial to their battle strategy.

  “We’re going to have to take them hostage,” Lokai said.

  “Ah,” Q said. “That shouldn’t be too hard as long as we isolate those two from their forces.”

  “I would not dismiss it that easily if I were you,” Taylor said. “Those two have been a bag full of surprises all along. It wouldn’t be too jarring to find out they have a few more tricks up their sleeves.”

  “Fine,” Q sighed. “What’s the plan then?”

  “We’re going to take a battle cruiser and dive from about a mile above the tower,” Lokai said.

  “What is it with you Dark Knights and skydiving?!” Q complained.

  Lokai chuckled. “It is necessary, my boy,” he said. “We need all the advantages we can get with this attack, and the element of surprise is our most powerful ally. If we’re that high up, there’s very little chance the enemy will ever sense our presence.”

  “Ugh, so we’re going to drop from like eight hundred yards above ground, land straight onto the desert, and take out Levi and Albion.”

  “Killing Albion would not be a wise move,” Andrea said. “It would only fuel the White Knights’ rage against the Dark Knights even more.”

  “So many complications,” Q mumbled. “So we knock them out and take them in.”

  “Exactly,” Commander Reagan nodded.

  “And your Highness?” Lokai turned to the Empress. “I believe it’s time to open that vault.”

  Andrea glanced at Taylor, and then back at Lokai. “Are you certain?”

  The old warrior nodded. “Yes, your Highness,” he said.

  “Andrea? What are you talking about?” Taylor looked utterly confused.

  “It’s finally time for you to open a special gift, little one,” Lokai smiled. “A gift from your mother.”

  ***

  5-1

  Taylor tried to keep up as Lokai swiftly moved along the corridors. She was confused and excited all at once. She had no idea what was going on, and the thought of discovering something new filled her with jubilation.

  “Where are we going?” she asked the elderly Dark Knight.

  “You’ll see,” he smiled and turned into another corridor.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to tell me you know, Lokai,” she pouted.

  “I see you still haven’t learned the skill of staying patient,” he chuckled.

  “Oh please, you should talk to Q. He’s the king of ‘No-I-cannot-wait-even-half-a-second-so-I-will-do-everything-right-now’.”

  He laughed, “I’m sure he isn’t that bad.”

  They hit a dead end. A dark metal wall was all that faced them.

  “Are you sure you know where we’re going?”

  Lokai quietly walked to the wall and placed his hand on it. A circle of white light glowed around it on the wall. A brighter circle of red glowed around the white one for a moment, and then the red changed to green. A beep sounded through the air and the wall split open, revealing a glass room inside.

  “An elevator?” she asked, bewildered.

  He nodded.

  “I don’t remember any elevator’s needing fingerprints to function.”

  “You don’t remember because you’ve never seen it before,” he said and stepped through the open wall of the glass room. Taylor hustled behind him, the uncertainty making her feel uncomfortable.

  We’re going to a restricted area? she wondered.

  The glass doors closed. The elevator jerked for a moment and then rocketed downward. Taylor felt her body come close to weightlessness as the elevator dropped down at amazing speeds. Seconds passed but the elevator still keep flying down. She reckoned they were about half a mile below the surface, where the deepest floor of the underground medical chambers existed.

  But the elevator kept going for a few more seconds.

  “Okay seriously, where are we going?” she said, a worried look on her face. She wasn’t exactly claustrophobic but she wasn’t okay with knowing there were a million tons of collapsible land over her head either.

  The elevator began to slow down, and came to a jerking stop a few seconds later. The doors opened, revealing nothing but darkness in front of them. Taylor often found comfort within all sorts of darkness, but this particular one unnerved her. It was almost as though this darkness was hiding something from her.

  “Come along then,” Lokai walked out the elevator and strode into the black.

  A series of lights on the walls lit up, flooding the darkness with dull light. Taylor could see a corridor in front of her, not a rocky one like she had expected, but one with metal walls. This place had obviously been urbanized to the max. The ceiling and floor were metal as well, a gray-ish metal that radiated a powerful aura. She followed Lokai, her
nerves calming down with all the darkness gone.

  “Watch your step,” he said and stopped.

  She peered over his shoulder and saw that they were on the edge of a cliff. Below her was a massive drop whose depth she had no clue about. All she could see was a pit of black below her. The faint echo of her heartbeat pulsated in her ears. It was a haunting sound that shook her very bones.

  “We have to go there,” Commander Lokai pointed to another cliff on the opposite side of the drop. It stood there, on the other side of the fifty yards of sheer drop, about two hundred yards higher than the cliff they were on right now.

  “And how exactly do we get there?”

  “Ah, that’s simple,” Commander Lokai crouched. He took off from the ground and jumped high into the air.

  I didn’t know he knew power infusion as well, she thought.

  The old man’s body quickly began to drop down, and Taylor realized he was only halfway between the cliffs.

  “Lokai!” she yelled.

  The Commander suddenly stopped falling, and floated in mid-air. No, it was more like he was standing on something.

  An invisible ledge, she realized. She had heard about these from Andrea years ago. They were solid rocks filled with strong magnetic ore that let them float in the air. Their most spectacular property was that their outer shell was made of elements that were great reflectors of light, so one would find it nearly impossible to notice them.

  Lokai smiled at her, “This place has more secrets than you think,” he chuckled.

  Taylor crouched low as well, recoiling her muscles, infusing them with energy, and using her enhanced body to jump onto the ledge. From there it was just another quick energy-infused jump onto the other cliff.

  The moment she landed on the cliff, her eyes glazed over at the sight in front of her. A staircase stood before her, and led to a large metal tower. The tower was a massive cuboid of dark metal that was more tall than wide.

  Lokai led her up the staircase and towards the tower. Taylor watched her reflection on its smooth metal surface, the image dulled by its darkness.