by Jacob Whaler
That won’t do.
Ryzaard turns and takes a step back, his eyes filled with incredulity. “Who are you?”
“None of your concern, Mr. Ryzaard.” Jhata is still wearing her fairy godmother dress. She makes sure Ryzaard can see the belt of Stones on her waist. “And neither is he.” With a wave of her hand, the energy field around Matt fades and disappears.
Matt coughs violently, and then his mouth opens wide, chest rising and falling, gasping wildly, filling his lungs with air.
“What are you doing?” Ryzaard’s eyes narrow. “You don’t understand. He’s dangerous.”
Jhata walks closer to Matt. “And he’s mine. I’m just taking back my property.” She fingers a Stone on her belt. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
“No,” Ryzaard says. “As long as you destroy him.”
A smile creeps across Jhata’s face. “I know about your plans. I am impressed with all you’ve accomplished in so short a time. You have an appreciation for power. Based on that, we share more than a hatred of this boy.” She viciously kicks Matt with the sharp toe of her golden shoe.
He moans, and his eyes start to flicker open.
“I don’t understand,” Ryzaard says.
Jhata slips a Stone from her belt. “Of course you don’t. And I intend to keep it that way.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Ryzaard’s tone of voice makes it clear he knows he is outgunned, or at least out-Stoned.
“Whatever I please. Whether I destroy him or keep him in a cage as a pet or have him for breakfast is none of your concern. But you needn’t worry about him meddling in your affairs here.” She strokes Matt’s dark hair. Her fingers slide down his shoulder and arm, and then slip into his hand, taking away the Stone he holds in his fingers. “He’ll never see his home planet again.”
Ryzaard hesitates, then speaks. “And what of the others?”
“Others?”
“Two children, a boy and a small girl.” His eyes drift up to meet Jhata’s. “Each has a Stone. They were all together the last time I saw them.”
“Why should I tell you?” Jhata says. “Information is power. I like to keep all the information so I have all the power.”
“Then you do know where they are.”
“Perhaps.”
Ryzaard reaches to the ground to pick up the killing machine. “Destroy them all immediately. They’re dangerous. Unpredictable.”
“Who isn’t?”
“What about you?” Ryzaard methodically pulls the five Stones from the sphere as he speaks and drops them into slots on his chest harness. “Will you be visiting here again?”
“Perhaps.” Jhata stands and sweeps the field with her eyes. “A planet with eleven Stones. Rare, to say the least.” She breathes in, staring at the ground, and then lets her eyes glide up, pausing momentarily on the Stones displayed on Ryzaard’s chest. Finally, her eyes meet his. “I sense power here. I like that.”
Ryzaard visibly relaxes. “I look forward to your return.” His eyes drop to Matt’s face. “We have a saying in my world. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have any friends. And I intend to keep it that way.”
“Friends or not,” Ryzaard says. “It may be to our mutual advantage to cooperate.”
“Perhaps.” Jhata bends close to Matt and slides her hand under his torn shirt and down his blue chest, stopping just above the sternum. “But I make no promises.” Her fingers gently press, and the blue skin recedes from Matt’s face, arms and legs.
His eyelids flutter open with recognition as he looks up at her. His arms reach up to push Jhata away.
With a swift movement of her hands, she brushes his arms to the side and runs the bejeweled nail of her little finger along the side of Matt’s head to his chin. A thin red line rises on his skin like a welt, blood oozing and dripping.
Matt’s eyes snap shut and his body goes still.
“That’s better,” Jhata says. Without warning, she twists, pointing the Stone in her hand at Ryzaard. A jagged green line jumps out at his chest, slamming into a blue bubble of light that materializes nanoseconds before impact.
The blow causes Ryzaard to stagger backward, falling to the ground. He stands up, unhurt, and glances at the line of heli-transports only meters away, raising his eyebrows.
Twenty EM laser cannons simultaneously shoot white tongues of fire at Jhata’s chest. The energy beams dissipate harmlessly on the silky fabric of her dress leaving a residue of arcing blue beams and sizzle-pop in the air.
“I don’t trust you,” Jhata says. “And you don’t trust me. Let’s keep it that way.” She kicks Matt in the ribs. Bones crack. Then she reaches down, gently placing the palm of her hand on his neck and looking up at Ryzaard. “A word to the wise. Don’t follow me.”
Jhata and Matt vanish in an explosion of white light.
CHAPTER 37
Matt floats in a dreamscape.
He catches a glimpse of Jhata, but only a glimpse. Almost immediately, before he can react, he is pulled under again, into the dark depths of a well.
And he loses track of the way out.
He reaches for the Stone, but it is far away, the connection weak. So he stops trying to reach it. He simply floats wherever the current takes him, moving with it, trying to understand where he is and where he is going.
And then the pull of the current changes, getting stronger. Matt fights against it, matching his strength to the force of the pull, hanging in limbo, not moving.
A light appears above him. The current releases its grip. It might be a trick, but he swims to it. When he is close to the light, he reaches out and touches it.
“Welcome back.” Jhata’s voice purrs in his ears as if muffled by a meter of water. “Nice of you to decide to wake up.”
With difficulty, Matt opens his eyes to a blur of lights and colors. He still has a floating sensation, and his skin is moist and warm all over. His own arms and legs float away from his body as if they belong to another being. Weightlessness washes over him. The colors in front of his face visibly move.
“Not an unpleasant sensation, is it?” Again Jhata’s voice permeates as if through layers of water. “I could have made it much more painful. Rather generous of me.”
“Where am—”
When Matt opens his mouth to speak, it fills with a tasteless, viscous liquid the consistency of warm honey. Startled by the revelation that he is suspended in a tank of fluid, he struggles to breathe, reliving the sensations of suffocating inside the energy bubble from Ryzaard’s weapon. But the panic passes when he realizes that, in fact, he is breathing in the liquid in which he drifts, and he isn’t drowning.
“I’ll do all the talking. You listen.” Jhata moves closer to the side of the tank so Matt can see her. “You’re floating in a perfluorohexane mixture. It’s absorbed through the skin. I’ve added a little something extra that will make it impossible for you to use a Stone. That particular part of your brain has been switched off by the drugs. You will forget who you are, what you are. All of that will be stripped away, layer by layer, as long as the drug courses through your veins. You simply won’t have the mental capacity for remembering. There’s no use beating your head against the wall trying to make it work. Just enjoy this blissful state as long as it lasts. No memories. No suffering. Any questions?”
Why?
Matt wants to ask the question, but his lungs are like flattened balloons, devoid of air. Vocal cords don’t work. He is effectively mute.
“Everything happened so quickly. No time to figure out what I’m going to do with you. I suggest you clear what’s left of your mind and enjoy it. At least you’re alive. For now. Sweet dreams.”
Matt raises his fists and beats against the glass. He kicks his legs. All his movements are in slow motion. He tries to scream. But there’s only silence.
Jhata smiles and moves away from the glass until she is just a blob of color.
Then the blob disappears.
CHAPTER 38
“Did you trace the jump?” Ryzaard stares at his jax and waits for the answer.
A miniature holo of Jerek’s face leaps up. “There was a massive energy burst when she left, but I think I got it all.”
“Good work.” Ryzaard hefts the sphere in his hands. “Quite a machine. Built-in data sensors and all.”
“Are you going to follow her?”
Ryzaard shakes his head. “No. Not now. But I’d like to know where she went.”
“Impossible to tell from this data stream. Looks like gibberish to me. Only your Stones can interpret it.”
“I’ll let you work on it as soon as I get back. Make sure you download the final product to my jax. I’ll study it later. You never know when it will be handy to know where the woman came from.”
“See you back at the ranch.” Jerek’s gaze drops back into the jax.
A change in the direction of the breeze wafts the smell of burnt flesh past Ryzaard’s nose.
So there is another.
He suspected that Stone Holders existed on other planets and that it might be possible to find them, to communicate with them. He intended to look for them after gathering all the Stones on the Earth, becoming as powerful as possible.
But now one of them has found him.
It is a matter of grave concern that the woman possesses more Stones than Ryzaard, but not a big surprise. He demonstrated that he has the power to protect himself from her. Almost certainly, others in the universe have more Stones, more power, than even she does. If he is right, then there is a scattered hierarchy of power extending ever upward to higher and higher levels.
Who knows where it ends, or even if it ends?
Whatever the answer, it is a hierarchy that Ryzaard plans to join. And master.
But he will have to play his cards right.
With the sphere in one hand, Ryzaard surveys the field. Twisted bodies lie in piles between him and the trees. Thin lines of white smoke rise from heaps of flesh, like hundreds of fires on a vast prairie.
“Captain Jackson.” Ryzaard speaks into his jax. “Are you prepared to finish the fight?”
“On your command, sir.”
“Good,” Ryzaard says. “I want every square centimeter of this camp searched. Recover any intel you can.”
“What about survivors, sir?”
“Survivors?” Ryzaard cocks his head to the side and looks at the holo of the captain’s head. “What survivors?”
“That’s what I thought, sir.”
“Then make it so.” Ryzaard drops the jax into a pocket and turns to the line of black attack-helis.
Simultaneously, side doors pop up on each of the five ships, giving them the appearance of giant beetles spreading wings, preparing for takeoff. Men in battle gear pour out and flood past him into the field like a black tide.
Ryzaard takes a last look at the battle scene, a smile playing across his lips. And then he is gone in a flash of light.
CHAPTER 39
I’m not letting you go, Matt.
Jessica looks down the sights of the pulse rifle and lays them on a spot between Ryzaard’s shoulder blades. She pulls the trigger.
He barely flinches.
She lowers the rifle and steps out from behind the rusty trunk of the ancient cedar tree, standing in full view of Ryzaard. Across the sea of fallen and torn bodies, across the smoke floating like a shroud above the field, Matt lies helpless on the ground, his body still.
Ryzaard is slowly killing him and laughing as he does it.
Not again.
A torrent of raw emotion erupts from somewhere deep inside. Her muscles pulse with rage.
I’m not leaving you, Matt. I’m tired of the way they always hurt you and take you away from me. I’m coming. And if you die, I’m still coming.
Fear slips away. She slings the pulse rifle across her body and lunges. Ryzaard looks up from Matt, a smile on his face, his palm pointing in her direction.
I’m still coming.
A ball of light slams into her chest, knocking her to the ground, forcing her eyes shut, sucking her into blackness.
When she opens her eyes and looks up through the grass, Matt is gone. Ryzaard stands on the grass, a sphere-shaped object balanced on the palm of his hand.
Matt is gone.
Men in black battle gear stream out of the attack-helis, moving past Ryzaard in loose formation across the field, the scopes of their combat rifles not far from their eyes. As they pass bodies on the ground, they fire rounds into them with as much emotion as though the bodies were mere target practice.
Fifty meters away, the closest solider sweeps the tip of his shoulder cannon past Jessica.
Her chest pounds into the ground, fingers curling into the long grass. Slowing counting down from ten, when she reaches zero, she will bolt upright and make a suicidal run for Ryzaard.
I’m coming for you, Matt.
Matt’s voice floats through her mind from a recent conversation. He had been trying to teach her a few yoga moves.
Relax the muscles in your body, fingertips to toes. Melt into the ground. Allow the breath to flow through your body. Focus on love, my love for you, your love for me. Open yourself up to all thoughts and feelings. Resist nothing. Let it all turn to peace as it moves in and out of your body.
Three breathing cycles pass. Her heart rate begins to drop.
Five, four, three . . .
Carefully reaching back, she pulls the pulse rifle from her shoulder and lays it in front. With both elbows balanced on the ground, she picks it up and stares down the barrel, aiming for the nearest solider as he turns off to the side.
As soon as she pulls the trigger, she’ll make a run for Ryzaard.
It will all be over in seconds.
Her index finger finds the warm metal and slowly squeezes.
The ground beneath her shifts and opens up like a gaping mouth.
Falling into the blackness, she lands hard on a floor of packed dirt. The hole in the roof closes above her.
The pulse rifle discharges into the dark. Dirt and rock explode not far from Jessica’s ears.
“They’ll discover the tunnels soon.” A woman’s voice pierces the emptiness. “We don’t have much time.”
A light comes on, and Jessica looks up.
A woman with long black hair and prominent cheekbones stands alone a few feet away. It’s Eva, the leader of the freedom camp, the woman Jessica and Matt met in a tent less than an hour before.
“I don’t understand.” Jessica jumps to her feet, dizzy, still grasping the pulse rifle, wanting to rush at Ryzaard. “How did I get here?”
“I opened one of the entrances to our underground tunnel system, hoping to pick up any survivors from the clearing.” Eva points to a lever on the wall. “Looks like you’re the only one. You must have been just above it.”
Jessica stumbles, and the tip of her pulse rifle swings past Eva.
“Steady, girl.” Eva reaches and gently pushes the barrel of the rifle down. “I’m here to help. Follow me.” She turns and runs a short distance in the opposite direction before stopping and turning back. “It’s our only chance. We’ve got to hurry before they seal off the other end.”
Vibrations from above the roof filter in, like a herd of buffalo running somewhere above them in the darkness. Chunks of dirt rain drop from the ceiling on Jessica.
She tries to remember the last image of Matt. And then she remembers that he was gone after the brilliant flash of light. Only Ryzaard was left standing on the field.
Matt is gone.
The thought slams into Jessica with full force. She can’t comprehend it and pushes it away.
“Come on!” Eva shouts from ten meters down the tunnel. “You’re no good to anyone if you’re dead.”
Jessica turns and runs to catch up.
Eva turns back, her dark eyes barely visible. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Je
ssica nods.
“Then you are the leader now.”
“I don’t understand. I can’t—”
“We might have a chance if we outrun them.” Eva looks in the darkness beyond. “They’ll be doing EM scans of the entire area. They’ll pick up the signature of my light if they haven’t already. We’re going to have to do this in the dark. Give me your hand.
“What?” Jessica says.
“Give me your hand.”
Jessica puts her hand out in front of her.
Eva slips the loop of a rope over Jessica’s wrist and pulls it tight.
“Stay with me. We’re going to fly.” Eva’s light goes out, flooding the tunnel with utter blackness.
Jessica is totally blind. “But how can you—”
“No time to argue,” Eva says. “Photographic memory. Trust me. And don’t drop the rifle.”
The rope goes taut, jerking Jessica forward into a black void. Even though her feet are running across the ground, she does have the sense they are flying.
CHAPTER 40
My two darlings.
Jhata returns to the table opposite Leo and Yarah, both of them still asleep. She hops lightly inside Leo’s mind and finds the seas calm and peaceful. Many unexplored regions remain. More treasures to be carefully uncovered and exploited.
Satisfaction spreads through her mind as she contemplates her contact with this new world with eleven Stones that produced a man such as Matt.
The only living being to pass through the Eye of the Universe unscathed.
It’s just a matter of time before his world joins her empire. For now, she is happy to let the man named Ryzaard do the hard work of uniting it under his control.
Patience and time. She has plenty of both.
Withdrawing from Leo’s mind, Jhata moves closer to Yarah and places the palms of her hands on Yarah’s neck. The pristine young mind of the girl lies open, unguarded, inviting. It calls to Jhata like a cool mountain spring calls out to a parched throat.
Just a sip.
With the gentleness of a silk thread, Jhata closes her eyes and slips inside Yarah’s consciousness. Immediately, Jhata luxuriates in the chaotic mix of colors and sound, filling her own senses with delight. The intoxicating scent of morning dew on freshly mowed grass floats across open plains. A white horse with a black mane gallops in slow motion at the foot of an immense slab of rock the size of a mountain that rises up out of the prairie floor at an angle, like a knife carelessly tossed away by the creators of worlds. The light of two large suns, one yellow and one red, bath the land in a golden glow.
