The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  Carlos paused, hesitation clearly written on his face.

  “What?” Q asked.

  His brother’s voice went into a whisper. “He was the one who killed her.”

  ***

  2-5

  Q couldn’t feel rage. He couldn’t feel anger. He couldn’t feel sorrow.

  He felt nothing.

  Albion killed my mother, he clenched his fists. Albion is the reason my mother and father died.

  “Q, calm down,” Carlos’ voice became nervous. “Listen, I told you all this because I owe it to you. Now you owe it to me to not let this ruin you. Please don’t make me feel guilty about telling you the truth.”

  Q walked to the window in his room, and opened it up. The cool night breeze blew through, caressing his face with its cold touch. Each breath of air anchored him in the present, pushing him away from what Carlos had just told him.

  I’ve got to focus, he told himself.

  He took a deep breath and turned to the hologram of his brother. “Who else knows about this?” he asked. “Do any of the Dark Knights know?”

  Carlos nodded. “Empress Andrea does. Your father was her uncle.”

  “I’m related to the Empress?” Q was stunned.

  “Her mother, the late Empress Aria, was your father’s younger sister,” he said. “It was because of your father’s death that she ascended the throne in the first place.”

  And Andrea has kept quiet about this, he realized.

  Carlos smiled. “Why do you think Aliea and the Dark Knights have been allies from the very start?”

  Q’s eyes widened, everything finally making sense to him.

  “Empress Aria was well aware of where you had gone, and so she extended her hand to help us,” he said. “She asked my father to build Aliea, just so that he could use it to become an ally of the Dark Knights. Once you’re an ally of the Dark Knights no one but the Empress can command any sort of attack on you.”

  Q didn’t know whether to cry or to smile. He couldn’t believe everything that had been done just so that he could stay alive. It was all just so overwhelming.

  But he didn’t let his emotions pull him down. What he was getting was information, and he didn’t know if he would ever get this opportunity again. His intellectual sense told him to worry about his feelings afterwards, when all of this was over.

  “How come Levi knew about me though?” he asked. “There’s no way he could know about this, right?”

  “I am confused about that as well,” Carlos squinted. “He is too young to have known about these events. Which means an older White Knight must have told him, but as far as I know, there is no such Knight who could have told him. Even Albion doesn’t know that you are Periel’s child.”

  Q could feel his emotions ready to burst through. It was almost as though his mind was asking him why it was that he wasn’t feeling anything.

  “I think that’s enough of that topic,” Carlos said. “It’s too much to take in at the moment.”

  Q smiled. “Thank you.”

  “We still need to discuss what’s going on at your end.”

  “You’ve talked to the Empress?” Q asked.

  “Yeah, she told me about how Levi took Taylor and the others,” he said. “Listen, I wouldn’t give up hope if I were you. You’ve already healed the Tenebrae EcQuest once, so it’s definitely possible you could do it again.”

  “The last time I and Taylor did it together.”

  “The last time you were already weak, and Taylor was not fully awakened as a sorcerer. Right now you’re much more powerful than the two of you were back then.”

  Q didn't agree with that claim but he didn’t rebut it either. It was a waste of time to argue unnecessarily about stats.

  “Fine, I’ll keep some hope with me,” Q sighed.

  “Good. Now, the biggest problem is the Infinity Cannon right?”

  Q nodded. “You saw what that thing did to Zygrade didn’t you?” he said, immediately feeling guilty that he had used that as an example.

  Carlos though, seemed to react fine to it. “Yeah, I did,” he bit his lip. “I talked to Burke as well, and we have no idea how to shut that weapon off. The only thing we can do at the moment is completely take the ship out, or hack into it.”

  “I’m not sure Levi would have left any doors open for us to do either of those things.”

  “Me neither,” Carlos said. “That kid is quite careful when it comes to security.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really know how I can take down Levi. Plus it’s just Ruby and me at the moment. The odds aren’t in our favor.”

  “Well,” Carlos hesitated. “Burke actually managed to bring back some equipment from Aliea when we made the emergency teleport back to Earth.”

  Q chuckled. “Well, he does love his tech.”

  “He actually brought all his data files with him,” he said. “He and I went over to the Area 51 facility yesterday and began to go through it all. We managed to go through probably one percent of it all, but we found something interesting. Wait, I’ll show you.”

  A small dialogue box opened on the top-left corner of Q’s vision and a 3D star map opened up, glowing in a blue hue. A red dot blinked at the center of it all, bright and bloody.

  “We found a new anomaly that doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before.”

  Q tensed. “An inter-dimensional portal?” he asked.

  “We’re not sure,” Carlos said. “All I know is that it’s very weird, and that if you’re stuck on a dead end, that’s worth checking out.”

  “What about Levi?” Q asked, a bit disappointed and annoyed that his brother wasn’t giving him any info on that.

  “The Empress told me his ship has gone into stealth,” he said. “There is no way we can find them for the moment.”

  Q grit his teeth, Damn it!

  “I’ve transferred the map over to you,” Carlos said. “Are you sure you’ll be able to find it properly?”

  “Yeah,” Q said. “Zelph will help me if I get lost.”

  “Zelph?” Carlos asked, his eyes confused one moment, and glaring at him the next.

  Uh oh, Q panicked, realizing too late that Carlos was dead against Project Z.

  “So Burke sent him to you in the end huh?” he sighed. “Given the situation we’re in, I don’t blame him”

  “Why are you so against Project Z anyway?”

  “Zelph is an untested, unverified AI who can control anything he wants as long as he gets onto a public network,” Carlos said. “How is that not scary?”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” Q’s voice trailed off.

  Heyyy, Zelph complained. Don’t make me the villain here.

  Q smiled, but kept his attention on his brother. “So the red dot then?” he asked.

  “The red dot,” Carlos chuckled.

  “I guess I’ll see you sometime soon.”

  “Yeah. Stay strong,” he smiled one final time, and the feed cut off.

  Q jumped onto his bed and buried his face in the sheets. Every single situation he’d faced was hitting him as hard as a freight train, massive and precise. He felt the blows hit his mind, each one pushing him deeper and deeper into dullness.

  You’re a sorcerer, he felt his mind speak to him. One who can control the sacred Elementa of Light cannot be pushed around by mere emotions, however strong they may feel.

  Something snapped inside Q that moment. Elizabeth was gone. His friends were probably beyond help. His mother and father were killed because of his birth, and the White Knight king was the one who murdered them.

  Q knew he was supposed to feel wrecked, he knew that revenge and anger were the emotions he was supposed to feel.

  And yet all he could do was stare at the night sky beyond his window. All he could do was think of the infinite cosmos that the window didn’t show him. He could see the connection between his emotions and the window. They both only showed him things that they could show, not the things that he would like to see.<
br />
  His mind wiped itself clean of its emotions, of the fear, the anger, the sadness, the remorse. He knew there were reasons for him to feel the emotions that he had been feeling all along, but he knew that there were bigger reasons for him to stop letting those emotions control his thoughts, and if casting aside those very emotions was what he needed to do to free his thinking, then that was exactly what he would do.

  Well, you seem fresher, Ruby walked into his room. What did I miss?

  Q grinned. “Would you be interested in an adventure?”

  ***

  Q felt the cold air flow past his face. Or at least he would have.

  Unfortunately they were in space, so no cold air there. Plus, he was inside a Dark Knight spacecraft, so it’d be stupid to even think wind would get in here.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Ruby asked as she entered the ship’s bunker.

  “Of course I’m okay,” Q said, lying down on his bed. “Why do you think I’m not?”

  “Well considered what you’ve just gone through, people would usually refer to you as a boy who has snapped.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Usually yes, since snapping refers to people going crazy or insane. You on the other hand seem to have become more...mature?”

  Q laughed. “I knew you’d say something weird, but I honestly didn’t think you’d call me mature.”

  And just to be clear, you laughed way too hard for that, Zelph said.

  “He did, didn’t he?” Ruby said.

  “Wait. You can hear Zelph?” he asked, confused and flustered.

  “Well duh? He talks to you using brain signals. How do you think I talk to you?”

  Oh yeah, Q thought. Guess I should have expected that.

  “Well, I was pretty sure you wouldn’t,” Zelph said. “You’re not very bright are you?”

  “Oh shut up,” Q pouted.

  A relaxing feeling came over him, almost as though something were washing away from him. It took him a while to realize these were the first few minutes he had spent where he hadn’t had a single negative thought weighing him down. The last bits of his depression and sorrow were being pushed out of his mind.

  He smiled. “Thanks guys,” he said.

  “What?” Zelph asked.

  “Forget it, he’s an idiot,” Ruby sighed.

  “What do you think this planet is going to be like?” Zelph asked, changing topics.

  “Well, I’m not too sure to be honest,” Q said. “Shouldn’t you be able to connect to some galactic database and find out what that planet is like anyway?”

  “I already did that. I just wanted to know how wrong your guess would be.”

  Dear god, Q thought, slowly regretting the company of his two sarcastic companions.

  “I’m not sarcastic!” both of them yelled at once.

  He covered his mouth, trying to keep himself from laughing too much. “So what’s this planet like anyway?” he asked.

  “The record didn’t have much to say actually,” Zelph said. “Those thing are pretty outdated to be frank.”

  “Well that’s very comforting to hear.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not like the planet is going to eat us up.”

  “Forget about it, Zelph,” Ruby said. “Mr. Paranoia won’t believe anything until he sees it.”

  “Hey, that was mean,” Q feigned a childish voice.

  Zelph burst out laughing.

  Q was taken aback for a second. He’d never heard an AI unit laugh before.

  This is what it must mean to be a self-aware AI, he thought.

  It sounded like a scary thing, but to Q, it felt calming. He felt as though he had someone he could depend on, someone he could talk to, someone who would scold him when he went crazy, and someone who would help him when he needed it.

  After losing everyone he cherished, he finally felt like he had friend again.

  ***

  “Okay seriously, this is not what I thought the planet would be like,” Q sighed, pushing aside the large creeper in front of him and walking into the path behind it.

  “We could have just flown to the anomaly you know?” Ruby walked beside him.

  “We can’t pinpoint our destination if we do that,” he said.

  Q’s vision was now filled with all sorts of stats. Temperature, wind speed, everything. He honestly didn’t even know how Zelph was getting all this info.

  “The lens does much more than just let me project and say things,” Zelph chuckled.

  I hate mind readers, Q sighed. He looked at the vast jungle in front of him, standing tall with its massive trees and dense canopies. They were lucky enough to have a dull light come through at the moment. Q didn’t want to use his Elementa of Light for something as trivial as making a light globe. He didn’t know what this situation could turn into, and until he found that out he wanted to keep his energy at peak capacity.

  “So how much further is this anomaly thing?” he asked.

  “It’s tough to say,” Zelph said. “Carlos’ map only pointed us to the planet, not to the anomaly itself. Right now I’m using the lens's heat sensors to scan for the anomaly. But I need better equipment to be more precise about the location.”

  “The ship would have had some equipment though wouldn’t it?”

  “It isn’t too much of an advancement, so it’s not much use to us,” he said.

  Q jumped over a fallen tree as he followed the orange line that Zelph was showing him; the path to the anomaly.

  “How precise can you get?”

  “Within two miles or so.”

  “That isn’t too much of a-” Q froze.

  The air turned cold as a dark figure appeared before them. It was surrounded by black haze, its form and its presence saying it was nothing but ominous.

  “What is that thing?” Ruby asked.

  “Can you try reading its mind?” Q asked, his body readying itself for combat

  “Already tried,” she said. “This thing had some sort of mental fortress around it. I can’t get through.”

  Mental fortress? Q tensed. Just what is this creature?

  “Zelph?” he asked. “How long will it take for you to match this creature to your database?”

  “On it,” the AI said.

  Meanwhile the figure itself hadn’t moved. It just stood there, still and frozen. Q couldn’t even tell if it had a face. It looked to have a humanoid form, but it had so much haze around it that he wasn’t sure.

  “Damn it, I can’t trace its species!” Zelph yelled.

  “A sorcerer,” a new voice entered Q’s head, its thin tone full of curiosity.

  “Who is that?!” Q’s mind became alert.

  “Umm...Q?” Ruby said.

  The black haze slowly vanished from view and in front of them stood a humanoid dressed in a dark, hooded cloak.

  “That’s actually a person?” Zelph was stunned.

  “I know of what you seek,” it said. “I shall take you there.” The figure turned around and slowly headed into the forest without another word.

  “Q? We’re not seriously going to listen to it are we?” Ruby asked.

  Q hesitated for a moment. The hooded figure seemed really suspicious, but at the same time, it seemed to know they were searching for the anomaly.

  I can probably protect myself from it if something happens, he assured himself.

  “I guess we’re following it then, huh?” Zelph asked.

  Q said nothing and walked behind the figure as it made its way through the forest. Question upon question entered Q’s mind but he listened to none of them and just focused on following the figure.

  “We stop here,” its voice entered his mind.

  He looked around and saw that they were still in the middle of a thick forest. His body tensed, immediately recognizing a threat. The figure stretched out its arms, and looked up to the dense canopy. A blazing white light exploded from within the humanoid, and when the light disappeared everything around Q
had changed. He was no longer in a forest, but on a mountain range.

  He looked around. High, mountain-peaks spanned across for as far as the eye could see. In front of him though, lay a deep drop, its bottom disappearing from view and receding into darkness. A stone bridge lay across the gap, connecting the mountains on either side.

  The stars above him shone bright and glorious, their light not a pure white, but a mystical blue. Q looked in wonder and awe as a bluish glaze covered the entire landscape, giving it a magical look.

  “That forest was an illusion,” Ruby said, completely stunned. “That creature broke the illusion for us.”

  Q didn’t know whether to ease up or worry more. The hooded figure seemed to have good intentions, but at the same time, the illusions part worried him a bit. But he knew that was only because the very word illusion reminded him of the Masked Magician.

  “Come along now,” the hooded figure said and led them across the bridge.

  “I could fly you there if you want,” Ruby told Q.

  “Nah,” he said and followed the figure across.

  The figure stopped at the other end, “There,” it pointed at the rocks in front of them. Q walked ahead of it and noticed that there was a cave inside the mountain.

  He turned around. “So how do we-”

  The figure had disappeared. Q tensed, his eyes darting all around him.

  “I sense the anomaly,” Zelph said. “The signal is stronger than before.”

  “Well, what do you know?” Ruby asked. “That hooded guy did help us out after all.”

  Q wasted no time and entered the cave. As soon as he stepped in, a bright flash of purple hit him in the eyes. The cave was quite small, with a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites rising from the floor. But at the center of it was a massive vortex of purple light. It was almost as though a river of purple were spinning into a maelstrom.

  “This is it,” Zelph said, a bit surprised. “That’s the anomaly.”

  “A portal,” Q mumbled. He stared at the vortex, mesmerized by its swirling light and its swaying motion.

  “What do we do now?” Ruby asked.

  “Zelph, I trust you downloaded yourself to our ship’s systems?” Q asked