Seeker's Light

by N. I. Snow

  “My hat,” Zaharak's gravelly voice cut through Adam's threat, “have your friends on the other side of that window bring me my hat and then I'll talk.”

  All four humans stared at the Seeker, mouths agape. Adam stammered trying to find his words, “Your hat.” Finally he collected himself, “I am not at liberty to…”

  Again Zaharak interrupted the man, picking glass of off his bleeding snout. He spoke callously, “Save me the speech. I have heard it and similar many times before. You can rant and threaten all you want, but it will do you no good.”

  Adam looked back at the window and nodded. One of the male agents pushed a button on a holoscreen and asked for the Seeker's hat. Shortly after, one of the guards walked into the room with the ragged fedora in his hands. As he handed the hat to Adam, Zaharak counted the two guards outside through the corner of his eye. When the guard left the room Adam examined the hat.

  “It looks rather beat up.” He tossed it near Zaharak's bound hands.

  Zaharak ignored the hat as he tilted his chair back balancing the weight of his body on his tail. He placed his booted feet onto the table and folded his large arms on his stomach. Ignoring Adam's angry look, the Seeker spoke, “Zaharak.”

  “Excuse me?” Adam asked as though Zaharak had said something obscene.

  “You asked for my name. Ever since I have chosen it, it has been Zaharak.”

  Adam pursed his lips together before saying, “Tell me, Zaharak, why are you here on Earth besides killing innocent people.”

  “You accuse me of something I have yet to do,” Zaharak said innocently. “Indeed I have killed a small handful of humans, but that was before the invasion.”

  “Why?” Adam asked his eyes darkening.

  “Information.”

  “Like what? How powerful our weapons are? Where the weakest points in our society are?”

  “Hardly. The Tazalian armies have no need of that kind of information.”

  “Then what?” asked Adam curiously.

  Zaharak sat forward so quickly that Adam leapt out of his own chair. The Seeker pulled up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal the brace on his arm. Upon his pressing two buttons, a blue image appeared above his arm. The image looked like a miniature pyramid.

  “My purpose for being on your planet is simple. I require a relic that has been left here by the Ancients. I find the relic, receive my payment, and leave.”

  Adam ignored the relic and focused on the brace, “How did you get that in here?”

  Zaharak shrugged, “You're soldiers failed to find it.”

  “Even then our detectors should have picked it up.”

  “Doubtful. The material I crafted the brace from is as undetectable to a machine as the jacket I wear.”

  Adam frowned, “Which makes me wonder if they have missed anything else. Take off your clothes.”

  Zaharak complied. When Adam removed the cuffs on his wrists, the gray-scaled Tazalian made no motion to attack the man. The Seeker removed the leather jacket to expose the three jagged scars along his back as well as the one on his chest. He then removed his pants and boots placing them on the table. He turned his bare body in a full circle to show nothing hidden on his person. Adam searched every inch of the jacket, pants, and boots before giving them back to Zaharak. The Seeker pulled his pants on, laughing within his mind. As he put his boots back on he could feel the weight of the hidden knife.

  As Zaharak threw the jacket back on, Adam spoke, “Those scars of yours look rather ancient. Old war wounds?”

  “Rites of passage, to an extent,” remarked Zaharak allowing Adam to replace the cuffs before sitting back down.

  The woman in the other room whispered, “That explains some of it.”

  “Explains what?” asked one of the other agents.

  “Zaharak isn't some dime-a-dozen soldier. He is something else entirely.”

  Adam began speaking once more, “So, Zaharak, if you do find this relic of yours, you said you would leave?”

  “I will. Salianos on the other hand will never leave until he has entire control of your planet.”

  “So you will leave; your comrades won't. Well why don't we just give you the relic and then have you get your slimy hide off of our planet. At least we won't have to worry about one of you. Oh wait! We don't have it!” Adam snapped.

  Zaharak leaned forward and began toying with his hat, “Your government may not have it personally, but one of your citizens does.” Then Zaharak changed the subject. “Now, Adam, you have fed me my answers; I shall feed you yours.”

  Off guard, Adam stammered once more, “Uh, ok.” At that a holopad built in the table went off.

  “Agent Adam, we have the other prisoner,” came a man's voice.

  “Let it in,” Adam spoke to the panel.

  The door opened and two more guards walked in with a red-scaled Tazalian between them. He was bare save for the loose white pants he wore. Sweat could be seen along the back of his neck and his black tuft of hair stood at every angle. His silver eyes went from being half closed to wide at the sight of Zaharak. He turned quickly in his captors arms with them barely managing to restrain him. He yelled with pain as the electric shocks from the cuffs on his wrists tried to stop him.

  “Don't put me in here,” he shrieked in the human's language, “Please, I beg you. I'll tell you anything; just don't put me in the same room with him.”

  As the three humans in the other room watched the drama unfold, the woman remarked, “This is very interesting.”

  “Sit down,” yelled one of the guards as he pushed the poor creature to the ground.

  The red Tazalian whimpered, “Don't you have any idea who that is?”

  Adam looked from emotionless-as-ever Zaharak to the distraught soldier. “He says his name is Zaharak.”

  “That's not his only name,” sobbed the Tazalian trying to get back up only to receive another shock from the cuffs. “Please get me out of here.”

  “Why?” asked Adam, curiously.

  “He's afraid the Death Shadow,” Zaharak spoke finally, “will kill him for not having done the job himself.”

  As the soldier cowered on the floor in a fit of tears at the sound of Zaharak's voice, Adam asked, “Why should he have killed himself?”

  The watching woman’s eyes widened; she had managed to get a reading off of Zaharak. “We have to get the red one out of there.”

  The agent to her left laughed, “Why? What's going to happen? If Zabba or whatever its name is tries anything, the cuffs will stop him; and if they don't, the guards will.”

  “The cuffs haven't been working on him at all. Haven't you been watching. When they go off, he doesn't even twitch.” She turned to the other agent, “Joseph, get the red one out of there.”

  Joseph just stared dumbly at the scene in front of him as Zaharak spoke, his gravelly voice remaining detached. “By the Elders' laws, any soldier who is captured must kill himself instead of bringing humiliation to the rest of the Tazalian army.”

  “When did you ever care about the Elders' laws,” the red soldier shot back. “You're the one who…”

  The attack happened before any of the humans could comprehend it. Zaharak again did feel the shock of the electricity as he stood up and grabbed the chair with his bound hands. Running towards the Tazalian soldier, he kicked the hapless creature. Pressing one booted foot against the soldier's chest, Zaharak listened to the crack of ribs as he raised the chair above the struggling Tazalian's head. The last thing the three agents in the other room heard and saw was the soldiers’ attempts to push the unmoving Seeker off him, and whose desperate pleas were cut off by one of the chair's legs piercing through his skull with a sickening crunch.

  Bits of blood and brain matter coated one leg of the chair. Zaharak set the chair down and sat back down with one bound hand tracing the rim of his hat, acting as if nothing happened. The humans now knew just how deadly he could be.

  “May we continue, Adam? I was beginning to enjoy our c
onversation before that little interruption.” The stoic Seeker's voice was still oddly detached, as if the entire event had never happened.

  Adam couldn't take his eyes off the corpse. Only moments before, it had been a living thing. “You killed one of your own.”

  The guards pointed their guns at Zaharak as he said, “My own? The only ones I would consider my own are the five other Seekers.”

  “Seekers?”

  The woman in the other room managed to shake away her shock enough to realize things had tumbled down hill badly for them “Kill it now!”

  Zaharak gave Adam the benefit of a cruel smile, “I'm afraid question time is over.”

  Zaharak slammed the hand that had been tracing the hat down on the top of it. Immediately the hat emitted a sound of whirling gears. The cloth rim began to harden, finally shifting to form a razor-sharp ring of metal. The top of the hat split away from the front and back and rounded out into a handle. The once innocent-looking fedora had become a deadly throwing disk. Another sound could be heard, this time from the cuffs falling off of Zaharak's wrists and clattering to the floor.

  Free from the bonds, Zaharak grabbed the handle of the disk for a second before throwing it straight at Adam. The man hardly had time to blink before the disk passed through his chest destroying his lungs and heart before slicing through his spine. As the disk broke out of the man's back it did not stop there but sliced through the thick walls as if they were paper and through both male agents' necks, decapitating them instantly. It did not bother the woman, though, as it disappeared into the hallway.

  The two guards who had brought in the Tazalian soldier found it hard to pull the triggers of their weapons with their necks broken by the Zaharak’s strong claws. As their bodies fell to the ground, the disk returned to the awaiting claws of its owner. Pressing a button on the handle Zaharak set the disk on the table, where it changed back into the innocent-looking fedora.

  Zaharak then pressed a button on his arm brace to check the alert levels in the building; everything was calm. When he had shown Adam the hologram of the relic, he had also pressed another button that caused the security cameras to show only empty hallways, for if anyone had walked by and found that two guards lying outside the doors to the interrogation room with their heads sliced off, his plan would have taken longer than needed.

  In the other room, Sarah, the female agent, crouched underneath the interrogation room window. She held a hand to her mouth as tears ran down her face. Her heart raced in her chest as she listened to the footsteps of the creature in the other room. When the footsteps fell silent, so did she. Just when she thought the Seeker had left, the window shattered all around her as one of the steel chairs flew into the room. She screamed, her silence broken, when one of Zaharak's clawed hands lifted her by her wrist.

  The Seeker brought her up so that his warm breath hit her face and, he spoke almost soothingly to the terrified woman, “You didn't believe that I forgot about you, did you?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Good girl,” he held onto her as he stepped through what was left of the window without the protruding sharp glass seeming to bother him. “You are going to help me for awhile; and if you do a good job, I'll let you live.”

  Sarah nodded, unable to speak. Zaharak placed the unfortunate woman on the ground allowing her to steady herself on the high-heeled shoes she wore. Poor choice of clothing to be wearing at the moment. Then again, when she was dressing that morning, how was she to know that she would become a hostage to a cold-hearted reptile.

  Bored, Tarline gazed through the thermal panes of the main warship. There had been no reason for him to have come along, save for his favorite pastime. When it came to torture, Tarline never missed a chance to practice his art on others, or himself. One night the scarred Elder had entered the council room with the remaining half of his tail still bleeding. Now on the edges of Earth he had been testing the resilience of humans to his tortures. Human after human disappointed him. He would hardly begin his tortures and the humans would expire.

  Now the stub of his tail twitched in anticipation at the sound of the bridge doors sliding open. Two golden guards dragged a pale-faced, male human into the bridge. The man's head bobbed with every movement.

  The guards stopped behind Tarline and the man looked up weakly at the bronze Elder as one of the guards spoke, “Elder Tarline, we have brought you a new specimen.”

  Tarline turned slowly and let out a sigh upon seeing the man. The human wouldn't last long during the tortures. “You bring me a new disappointment.” He watched as the man began to tremble. “I tire of these weak-bodied creatures.” He waved a claw. “Take him to the torture chambers; I'll deal with him later.”

  The guards bowed and dragged the hapless man back through the doors. Tarline turned back to the viewport, arms crossed tightly behind his back driving the spikes along his back into the scales on his arms giving him pleasure.

  The sliding door opened once more and Salianos entered. The High Elder stopped midway staring coolly at Tarline.

  “You surprise me, Tarline, you have never missed a chance to torture a new subject,” Salianos’s voice rasped out.

  Tarline didn't turn to face the High Elder. “These soft-bellied humans tire me. They die too easily.”

  Salianos let out a dark chuckle. “You have spent too much time torturing Seeker trainees and,” he noted a fresh wound on Tarline's neck, “yourself.”

  Tarline's eyes darkened. “And even then, only one has ever actually impressed me.”

  Zaharak’s impassive gaze followed Sarah as she walked over to the door of the interrogation room and pressed a button on a nearby panel. When the door slid open, she turned back to face Zaharak only to find that he had disappeared. Was that all he needed? A simple door to be opened? Surely the same creature that killed seven agents in only seconds could have opened the door. Didn't he need her further? How could he expect to get past all the security systems without help?

  Zaharak had not left. In a moment, the warm breath on Sarah's neck alerted her. The Seeker had managed to blend into what little shadows there were in the room. He had no need for cloaking devices or camouflage. If there were shadows, pillars, crevices, or compartments, Zaharak could become undetectable.

  The hidden Tazalian Seeker whispered into Sarah's ear, “You are going to escort me to the communications room. If you call for help or take me the wrong way, I will kill you. Then I’ll go to that room.”

  Sarah tried to hide her fear, “If you can get there alone, why do you need me?”

  “You can unlock the doorways, correct? My brace can do the same thing, but that it is slightly slower. I would rather not waste time when I don’t need to.” From the shadows, Zaharak placed his snout onto her shoulder. “That is, unless you want me to kill you.”

  Sarah shook her head quickly, “I'll take you there.”

  Zaharak's snout disappeared back into the shadows, “Good. Get to it.”

  Sarah didn't need any further motivation. Stepping into the hallway, she checked to make sure no one else was around. She only found the two dead guards. A sickening feeling replaced the fear she felt as she took the route away from the headless bodies. As she crossed one hall to another she lost track of the Seeker. He was doing a perfect job of keeping himself hidden. When they reached a pair of secured doors, Zaharak again stood right behind Sarah as she put in her pass code and had her eyes scanned. When the doors opened, Zaharak disappeared once more in the next hallway as Sarah slowly passed through the doors.

  “We have to board the elevators,” said Sarah. “The communications room is in the building above ground.”

  Zaharak remained silent.

  “I suppose you already knew this?”

  The Seeker made no reply and Sarah crossed the hall into the room filled with desks. Though most were empty, the few that were still occupied made Sarah hold her breath. She could see no way they would make it to the elevator unnoticed; then the sight o
f a gray scaled tail near the elevators reminded her just what she was dealing with. Taking in a deep breath, Sarah crossed the room. No one acknowledged her as she passed by; for all they cared, she could be going to the upper levels to rest for the night.

  When she reached the elevator, she pressed a button to call it down. As she waited, she could feel Zaharak's presence smothering her. When the doors opened she hurried in followed by a gray blur that pressed itself against a side wall out of sight of the agents in the room. Sarah pressed a button to close the doors and sent the elevator to the building above. Zaharak never moved. He looked like a giant lizard statue.

  Sarah looked at him with a mixture of fear and curiosity, “You can move now.”

  Zaharak remained stationary.

  Sarah leaned against the wall opposite of the Seeker to keep an eye on him, not that it would do her much good. “I have a question. You are able to keep your emotions masked even when you don't need to. What caused you to become readable when the red soldier entered the room? What made you lose your edge?”

  Zaharak hardly moved as he replied, “I never did. I wanted you to read my attack.”

  “Why?”

  Zaharak looked at her, a slight smile appeared on his snout, “Amusement.”

  The elevator doors opened to a man waiting to get on. Neither he nor Sarah ever saw the Seeker move until he had the man's head in his claws. The man struggled to get out of the hold as his screams were muffled by one of the Seeker's thick arms. His struggle ended as every vertebrae in his neck broke apart. Sarah stepped away from the sight, tears returning to her eyes. Before the first tear rolled down her cheek, Zaharak disappeared once more, taking the man's body with him.

  Sarah choked back the rest of her tears and continued on with the assignment given to her. She could do nothing else. Leaving the elevator and keeping a steady pace, she came to a broad chamber with three other hallways branching from it. Two guards stood beside the entrances to each hallway including the one Sarah was in. Her heart tumbled in her chest. Eight guards each armed with rifles, Zaharak would never make it out. This was her chance to lose the Seeker.