by N. I. Snow
“What are you talking about?” Emma asked tentatively. Tears of the Gaia?
Salianos licked the tear from his claw before placing his hand on the side of her head, “Come now, child, you must realize it.”
“What?” Emma tried to turn her face away from his, but his claws moved under her chin to keep her gaze on his.
His hand moved to her right arm. He stood up, pulling Emma to her feet with him. “That either you are the Light itself or a vessel for its power.”
Salianos let Emma go and turned to face the viewport. He raised his arms out as if to absorb the universe before him. “It is ironic to have had the very thing I have spent my life searching for under my claws without even know it.” He turned back to face Emma, “I should have realized it sooner. You were able to read the Ancients’ language when no other being could and that uncanny ability of yours to pick up a foreign dialect quickly, it makes sense that you would be able to. After all you are the Creator.”
“You're mad,” Emma cried, but deep down she had a strange, sinking feeling that Salianos was right.
Salianos grinned as if he knew that she believed what he was saying. “Soon, my little cub, we shall see if I am.”
Several corridors from where Emma was cornered by the High Elder, Tigret sent a kick at the defenseless Zaharak. The heavy blow cracked several ribs causing the Seeker to roll on his stomach coughing up blue blood. Another kick from the bronze Tazalian sent him into the air. He landed with a roll on the ground. He listened as Tigret slowly walked towards him.
“I have always despised you, Zaharak.” Her stony voice was lined with venom. “I was the greatest Seeker until you came along. How is it that even with your disloyalty the Elders still favored you over me? It can't be because you were better than me. Look at you lying there covered in your own blood, unable to see. How were you ever the Death Shadow that everyone feared?”
Zaharak felt her lift him up by the collar of his leather jacket. She spun him around and threw his body into the air. He crashed painfully on a wall before falling to the ground. He tried to crawl to his knees but only succeeded in falling on his snout again. Ahead, he could hear Tigret approaching him again. He reached forward to try and pull himself up again but felt something sharp slice through the tips of his claws.
“You know I can't wait to hear that girl scream when High Elder Salianos catches her. Not only will I get the honor of killing you, I will also be able to see the look on your face knowing you failed to protect her,” Tigret taunted.
It was something sharp…round…
He could hear Tigret kneeling down to lift him up again, still goading him, “She has softened you, hasn't she. I will thank her personally when Salianos brings her back this way.”
Zaharak's hand shot for the handle of his throwing disk. Before Tigret had time to register what was happening, the gray Seeker twisted onto his back while slicing the blade where he imagined Tigret to be. His ears received the sound of sharp metal cleaving through the dense flesh of the bronze Seeker's chest. Warm blood spilled out onto his body as he listened to Tigret gasp and clutch at her chest. Zaharak struck again, aiming at her heavy breathing. Gauging by the sound, he swung to where he was sure her neck was. Tigret made an odd gurgling noise before collapsing onto Zaharak.
The gray Tazalian shoved the dead Seeker's body off him. Once freed, he stood shakily to his feet. Then bending over, he coughed heavily many times, feeling warm blood escape his throat. Standing up with a straight back he tilted his head by habit to look around the room. He emitted an angry growl at seeing nothing.
He had to find Emma. He had to rescue her from Salianos's clutches. Zaharak took in a deep breath and drew from his memory where he now stood in the room based on where his disk had fallen. The corridor leading to the Valkyrie would be at least three meters to his right. Flow of air also suggested that it was indeed the correct corridor. Not pausing to question himself further, Zaharak dashed towards his right and the air flow and was relieved when he didn’t crash into a wall. His memory of the station was perfect and even without the use of his eyes, he could navigate the halls. He would reach Emma. He would save her.
Emma backed herself against the wall. Salianos paced in front of her, his green hair sticking out at wild angles, his violet eyes filled with glee, his hands animated with every word he spoke. “For years I have been pondering how I would control the Light's power without it destroying me. Then it came to me. I would have the Gaia combine our souls together.”
“What makes you think the Gaia would have done that?” Emma whispered.
The girl shut her eyes and turned her head away as Salianos turned to face her. He again placed a claw on her jaw line forcing her to look at him as he spoke quietly to her, “Oh, I have been thinking about that for a long time, but I could never quite figure it out. After all what did I have to offer the Gaia in return for its power. I could have tried to manipulate it into believing that I could be its physical arm, capable of living in its galaxy and passing judgment for it. Of course, I had a feeling that it would have been able to see through that guise.”
Salianos let go of Emma and continued his pacing with her watching him carefully. “I want that power. My perfect galaxy will come to pass. No more will the weak exist. Only those with a strong enough will to survive shall.”
Emma pressed her body tighter against the wall as Salianos’s pacing brought him back towards her. “And now, thanks to you, my vision will become reality. You will fuse my soul to the Light.”
Emma turned her head away as the High Elder's hot breath beat down on her face. Her gray eyes narrowed. “I do not know if that is possible. I don't even know if I believe that I am the Gaia.” She then turned her head back to face the faded-blue Tazalian, and the expression she wore was fearless as she continued, “But even if I did, even if it were possible. I would never give the Light’s power to you.”
Emma drew the dagger from her back and slashed Salianos’s snout. The High Elder drew back with a yowl of pain when the sharp blade dug into the side of his jaw. He clenched a hand to the deep wound, blue blood squeezing through his fingers. Emma did not give him a chance to recover. She stuck the tip of her dagger beneath his jaw, pressing it hard at the point where his neck connected to his head. A frightened look shown in the High Elder's usually cold, violet eyes.
Salianos spoke carefully barely opening his mouth but still noting that with each syllable the dagger tip pressed harder against his neck. “Hold, child.” He licked his thin lips nervously. “You wouldn't kill an old Tazalian, would you?”
Emma pressed the tip of the blade harder against the High Elder's neck. Blue blood began to trickle from it. The young girl's voice was tight with anger, “Why shouldn't I? You and your followers didn't give my brother or Zaharak the same mercy. Why shouldn't I kill you now?”
“You are not a killer,” Salianos noted the conflict in Emma's eyes as he spoke the words. “You have never harmed a creature in your life. Why start now on an old fool like me?”
Emma gritted her teeth, “You are a foul hypocrite. You beg to be spared when you would never do the same for another. But you're right. I'm not going to kill you.”
Salianos smiled weakly. “Oh merciful,” he began but stopped when Emma pressed the dagger harder against his throat.
Emma glared at him darkly. “Don't tempt me further, Tazalian. I want you to crawl back to your ship, call back your followers, and leave this place. I never want to see a single scale from you again.”
Salianos slowly backed away from the dagger. He bowed his head to the girl while speaking calmly, “Of course, mighty Gaia. I am but your creation.”
Just as Salianos turned to leave, the worst happened. Jonah came limping through the doorway of an adjacent hall. The pale-faced youth’s blood-smeared body looked ready to collapse. His blurry green eyes caught sight of Emma and he hurried towards her not noticing the faded-blue Tazalian off to his side. Before Emma could warn her brother, Salian
os had the unfortunate boy pinned to the ground. One clawed hand held him down by the neck while the other hovered dangerously over his face.
Salianos ignored the young man as he struggled weakly in his hold. He looked up at Emma whose dagger hung loosely in her slackened grip. “So, child, what will it be? You can save your dear brother by giving me what I want or you can live the rest of your life with the burden of his death on your shoulders.”
“Emma,” Jonah groaned from beneath the High Elder's hold, “run! Don't worry about me, just get out of here.”
Tears welled in Emma's eyes as she looked from the sneering snout of Salianos to the agonized face of Jonah. She couldn't let her brother suffer any more, but neither could she allow Salianos to gain the Light's power. She clapped her hands over her ears at Jonah’s scream when Salianos slowly dragged a claw along his forehead leaving red blood flowing down the sides of his head.
“You can end your brother’s pain now. All you need to do to allow him a free passage home, where he can recover, is to fuse my soul to the Gaia's.” Salianos smiled cruelly at the girl. He watched with a pleased look as she in turn looked grief-stricken at Jonah. “He doesn't look like he will survive any more tortures.”
Emma flinched as Salianos again dragged his claw along Jonah's scalp. Her brother let out a heart-shattering moan. She could take it no more. “Stop!”
Salianos withdrew his claws and looked up at the shaking girl, who shed more of the wondrous tears. The dagger in her hand fell to the floor with a loud clatter. She could not bear to see her brother suffer anymore because of her. Her voice was thin and broke several times, “I'll bind your soul to mine. Should one of us die, the other will as well and both will be combined when the Light is reformed.”
Salianos let out a hiss of pleasure as he stepped away from Jonah. The High Elder walked cautiously towards her, watching her carefully should she try to backstab him. If she did try, he would return quickly to the boy before she could move. Emma raised her hand out before her, palm straight up facing the High Elder. Tears still falling, she closed her eyes.
Emma did not know how she would fuse their souls together. She knew, though, that if she did not try, Jonah would only suffer more, if not die. She took in a deep breath and focused on willing the Light's power to appear. She searched deep into her own spirit until she found it, only to realize that it was her soul. Her entire being was made from a luminous, warm white light that burned at the back of her eyelids. How could she not have noticed it before?
Having found the Light, Emma willed it to flow through her body to her outstretched hand, hoping that it would do what she wanted. She heard an awed breath escape Salianos’s lips and opened her eyes to see that her entire hand glowed with the radiant white light.
“There it is,” Salianos whispered the words as though he were speaking a prayer.
Emma wanted to close her eyes as Salianos slowly reached out with his hand to touch hers. She had failed. Lutianist, Kahluna, Zaharak, Jonah, and the Ancients all fought to keep Salianos from the Light and now all the fighting was for nothing. Emma couldn't keep Salianos away. She couldn't fight him. She had failed all of them.
A pulse of electricity seemed to throb between the girl and High Elder as his claws neared her hand. The entire galaxy seemed to fade away as he inched closer. The pulse sparked between them and seemed to grow more rapid and powerful when Salianos's claws were an inch from her fingertips. The galaxy was lost.
Then a flash of silver streaked between their extended hands. Salianos' hand shot back and an angry growl sprang from the High Elder. Emma and Salianos both stared at his hand. The claws on three of the High Elder’s fingers had been sheared off. Emma’s head jolted towards the sound of a metal object hitting the floor to see the round throwing disk lying innocently on the ground.
Zaharak’s disk! Emma’s head pivoted to where the disk had come from. A feeling of relief and hope flooded her entire body when she saw the gray-scaled Tazalian covered in blue blood leaning against the doorway of one of the corridors. Zaharak was alive. Then horror took over Emma’s mind and body when she saw the blood that still ran from his ruined eyes. He was blind!
Zaharak had run through the halls like a gray streak of lightning. When he had reached the corridor that led to the room where he and Emma had trained, he could hear her voice thin with sorrow and fear. That sound urged him to run even faster. He had paused momentarily at the doorway in response to a blinding, white light that filled the darkness that was his vision. The light then shifted into a small ball just in front of him. He could hear Salianos’s voice whisper somewhere in front of that light. The Seeker had the mind to raise his disk, ready to throw it, but he hesitated. He couldn't throw it without knowing where Emma was.
A booming voice echoed in his mind. It urged him to throw the disk to the right of the light. Zaharak still had hesitated. What if he hurt Emma? The room seemed to pulse as the voice shouted again for Zaharak to throw the weapon. Time slowed for the Seeker as he launched the deadly disk into the darkness. It seemed like an eternity before he heard the angry growl of Salianos and the clatter of the weapon landing on the floor. Then the light faded, leaving Zaharak once more in darkness.
“Zaharak!” he heard Emma yell, not in pain but with joy and relief.
“You,” Salianos growled with fury, “I should have known that Tigret would fail to contain you.”
Zaharak turned his head to the right where he estimated Salianos's voice to have come from. “I don't give up easily.”
A scrape of metal let Zaharak know that Salianos was drawing his dagger. “We shall see Seeker.”
Emma cringed as Salianos and Zaharak charged at each other. Salianos swung his dagger towards Zaharak's snout; miraculously, the Seeker, who at the last minute decided to come in low, ducked under the blade while sending a fist towards the High Elder's head. However, the faded-blue Tazalian dodged the blow with ease. Fearful for Zaharak but equally fearful for her brother, Emma ran past the battling reptiles to Jonah, who lay motionless on the ground. His face and hair were caked heavily with his own blood. She knelt down beside him to examine every painful wound that scored his body. The young man let out a low groan when she put a tender hand on the side of his face and opened his green eyes slowly. He was exhausted, but he still smiled weakly at the girl leaning over him. “Emma.”
Emma grabbed hold of one of his hands, noting how weak it felt. Her brother hardly had any strength left in his body. “I've got to get you to the Valkyrie.”
Emma tried to lift Jonah to his feet but only succeeded in sitting him up. He was too heavy for her to carry, and he was too weak to stand on his own. The girl looked desperately over at Zaharak who still fought the High Elder. Zaharak let out a grunt as Salianos spun his body around and whipped the Seeker with the thick of his faded-blue tail. The gray Tazalian spun to the ground, his head smacking hard on the cold floor.Salianos laughed as he looked down at the stunned Seeker, “You are pathetic. You cannot stop me from binding my soul to the Gaia's.”
Zaharak needed a weapon. Emma frowned and looked around the room. His throwing disk was too far, he could be seriously wounded before she reached it. The dagger he had given her on the other hand was only a meter and a half from her.
She ran for her dagger skidded to a stop, and reached down to grab it. When she stood back up she saw Zaharak fighting against Salianos, who was bent over him, trying to stab him in the chest. Zaharak, grasping Salianos’ dagger hand with both of his, battled for control of the weapon. Emma gasped when she saw a wide cut across Zaharak’s chest.
“Zaharak!” Emma called to the Seeker before sliding her dagger as hard as she could to him.
The dagger stopped just out of reach of the gray Tazalian, but Emma knew he had heard it and knew where it was. Zaharak pushed Salianos away from him, then kicked the High Elder in the stomach causing him to roll away from the Seeker, coughing for air. Zaharak rolled for the dagger and picked it up just in time to parry Saliano
s's dagger as it whistled through the air towards his head. Brother and sister watched silently and fearfully as the pair fought. They could do nothing else. Their hope rested on the blind Seeker, who battled against the wild-eyed High Elder.
Zaharak ignored the sharp pain in the side of his chest, where Tigret's kick had cracked his ribs. He had to focus on Salianos’s breathing and the sound and the vibrations in the air during each of Salianos’s attacks. He had to call on every ounce of his training from Soforin and apply it in reverse to hear every sound he had been trained not to make. The training did not fail; every time Salianos brought his blade towards Zaharak, the Seeker blocked it with his own blade, but not without some difficulty.
Zaharak felt the air move and heard his opponent’s grunt of effort as Salianos swung a fist at him. The Seeker ducked beneath it and brought his dagger along where he knew Salianos’s chest must be. He listened as the High Elder backed away from the Seeker growling with pain.
Zaharak followed the growl and moved in swinging his dagger. He felt Salianos parry the blade. Zaharak kicked a booted foot at where he assumed the High Elder's torso to be and it connected. He felt the Tazalian fall backwards and heard him land on the ground. Zaharak lunged for the sound of fallen High Elder. He was right on and was rewarded immediately with a sharp pain in his shoulder as Salianos buried his blade deep in his flesh. The Seeker gritted his fangs and fell to his knees beside the High Elder, the blade stuck in his shoulder. Salianos immediately recovered his weapon, yanking it from Zaharak shoulder, releasing a stream of blue blood. Zaharak fell to the ground in momentary shock. Salianos crushed the Seeker's dagger hand underneath a sandled foot, kicking the weapon away with the other.
Salianos's hot breath spread over Zaharak as the High Elder bent down over his body. The Seeker felt the tip of the High Elder's blade press down on the base of his throat and heard the High Elder's thin, raspy voice, filled with arrogance, “Time to end this little game.”
