Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen (33 page)

"Jame!" he said under his breath as he walked. He caught a glimpse of himself in the slender mirrored panels that ran along the corridor every few meters and shook his head. Whoever would've designed such a jumpsuit! A tiny portal came into view before his eyes, moved with him as he progressed down the hall.

"What news, Shylo?" The voice came from within the swirling portal, but Shylo couldn't see anything but a distortion from his one-way visual communication link.

"Macvaleden Livius will rendezvous with us in less than three hours. The ship he's traveling on is a Utility Class mega-freighter. Gigantic thing. I saw the schematic for it in the schedule log, but couldn't access any specs."

"Got it Shylo. I'll get you the specs in our next download. What else?"

"Not much so far. Pretty simple stuff. Very trusting crew. The only communication I’ve seen has been between Livius and the Keystone and it’s practically constant, hourly at least. But the access code is exclusive so I haven’t been able to tap in. I overheard the communications head muttering about how he was tired of dealing with matters second hand, since Livius can't be reached. Be interesting to see what's really going on over there."

"Time for that will come soon enough Shylo."

"I know." Shylo shrugged, smiled. "Everything's pretty much taken care of on this end. No stealth work involved here. Good thing, too." He gestured to himself and looked into the portal. "Anything new going on out there that I should know about?"

"Not sure." The voice sounded distracted, hadn't even acknowledged Shylo's recognizable humor as he'd talked. "Just smatterings of information. Can't make anything of it just yet. But communications out here are getting worse and worse. It's spreading fast, Shylo."

"You say the word and I'm there."

"I'll let you know more next interface. Just finish tagging that ship for now. And stop worrying about the orange." The portal closed and Shylo laughed as entered the lift. Even with the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, Jame never overlooked a thing. Be it the slightest flutter in a communication line or the change in design of a particular ship's tail fin, all the way down to his protégé's dismay over his wardrobe, Jame was always one step ahead.
 

For practice and for application, Shylo always wore black. When it came to slipping into shadows, disappearing behind a darkened door, curling up within supply containers, black and shades of grey were the colors or perhaps anti-colors, to go with. Bad enough his hair was light like the golden sands of Herezon. But that fact, he supposed, gave him a better excuse to wear the dramatic hooded cloaks that he often favored, though most magic users as young as he didn't like the air of seriousness they carried. Still, if it were Shylo's choice, he would always be in some form of black.

But the uniforms on the Toil's Quarry were burnt orange. And so today, Shylo wore that. He sank onto the bench that ran along the circumference of the lift for the long journey to the engine rooms other side of the ship and began to think about what duties, crewman and otherwise lay ahead of him.

CHAPTER 25

H
is own gasp woke him, the sigh of his breathing pattern changing, the position of his neck bent against his arms stiff and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He moved his face a little, peeled his cheek from the glass dial of his wrist cron, knowing there would be the impression of it left behind from resting upon it for so long. He sighed again, bent his legs beneath himself. When had he moved into a chair? The last thing he remembered was being in the Avè's realm, falling asleep in that unusual bed.

Quade opened his eyes and saw the bulkhead of his ship, the inside of his cockpit. How had he gotten here all of a sudden? And then he heard a sound. It was a hiss really, a strange, whispering timber that came from above. His brow knit together as he looked up groggily, and he fell from his chair in horror when he saw the inky vapor collected at the ceiling of his ship. The inky vapor that was the SanFear.
 

It was teeming against the ceiling of the cockpit, and though it made no advance he knew somehow that it was watching him, that he knew it was there. A rageful voice wheezed to him as he stared in disbelief.

"Insignificant thing. "

The blackness snaked down from its aerial perch, a thousand tentacles of shadowy limbs reaching toward Quade as he scrambled away from it on the floor. Backed up against the control panel, it seeped all around him, curled like liquid smoke as he watched, lunged in vain again and again, then gathered itself in front of him and the whisper sounded again.

"Protected by the very gods that scorned this that is I. Lowly mortal, I cannot affect you."

Quade stared at the floor, stared at the black tip of the boot that stood right next to where he was sitting. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming, and for a moment, he was afraid to raise his eyes. He was no longer on his ship, that much he knew. Then there was a hiss again, a seething sound that made him all at once look up and recoil, his blood run cold.

He was sitting across from the Keystone's desk, and as Aushlin stared at him and spoke, Quade heard no words issue from the Keystone's lips, heard no sound of the conversation he'd had earlier that day, but the Keystone's motions were identical to what he'd seen before. The SanFear ebbed and pulsed from Aushlin's flesh, and dark pits stared at him from the demonic countenance that possessed his movements and his very soul.

"I have already claimed this one as mine. I know who you are. I see that you can see. I know there are others."

Quade stood at the docking hatch of his ship, facing away from the portal, but he quickly turned around as he heard the wheezing hiss from behind him.

"Quade!" He saw Clea reaching out toward him as the hatch began to open before the docking sequence had completed. She was being sucked toward the entry, a violent wind whipping her hair out behind her, and against his sense of rational that this was impossible, he reached out toward her, calling her name. But he was too late. The portal had yawned apart but it wasn't open space beyond it, it was the seething blackness of the SanFear. Clea screamed as the SanFear consumed her, stood before him on his ship.

"I have affected what you love… what else do you love?"

Darkness surrounded him, the dim flicker of dozens of tiny candles bouncing in a weak riot of light off the walls of Trina's bedroom. He spun around to see the outline of her as she lay sleeping within the sheer curtains, but another thing that moved beyond the bed caught his attention. A blackness cut across the candlelit room, a huge shadow obliterating the light, descending from the wall to the floor and toward the bed, and with the sound of an extinguishing breath the candles went out.

Quade's own gasp woke him, and he pitched bolt upright in the bed.

"Avè!"

There was silence as he looked around. Everything was as it had been when he fell asleep; the food cart was next to the settee where he had dined, the candelabra was still lit, though dimmer, the sound of trickling water was still nearby.

"Avè!"

"What is it that you need, Quade?" The young girl who had brought him his food and shown him his bed stood next to him suddenly, looked at him with a curious stare.

"I need the Avè. I need the Avè…now!"

"The Avè is unavailable to you for the time being, Quade. I'm afraid you must wait for him until he is again ready for you."

"I think I've had a premonition," Quade gasped, jumping from the bed. "Something horrible… worse than before. I have to go back home. I have to see the Avè!"

"The Avè is in trance right now. Communicating with the Darbae requires much focus and concentration. He will not be ready for you for some time."

"Then I have to go." Quade began to walk, but realized he didn't know where he was going. He was shaking, panicked. "How does one leave this place? How can I leave P'cadia?"

"I cannot stop you from leaving, Quade. But if the Avè has requested that you stay, I must suggest that you heed that advice."

"I can't! I'm sorry… I have to get home. Something might be happening. Something… I have to prevent! I have the Shrine of Animus, I know how to use it. I'll be back once I've done what needs to be done, but right now I have to leave. Please… can you tell me how to get out of P'cadia?"

"I have never left P'cadia." The girl stood, stared at Quade with fixed concentration, her lips pursed together thoughtfully. "But perhaps I can tell you how to leave. Do you remember where it was that you first arrived?"

"There was a wall," Quade paced as he spoke, trying to remember through his tattered nerves. "A wall with symbols on it that moved. I threw Trina's amulet at the wall, and it disappeared. As I reached for it, my hand sunk into the wall. After that I stepped through the wall itself, and was on the other side, in a forest. When I turned to see the wall so I could mark my position, it was no longer…."

Quade stopped short as he was suddenly in the very forest that he'd been in when he first walked through the wall, on the path where he'd seen the ethereal guide that had brought him here. The young girl stood next to him, staring up as he looked around with relief. The other side of wall that hadn't been there before was right next to where he stood.

"Take this with you, Quade." The girl held out to him a strangely shaped key, the handle elaborate in design, its tiled surface exquisite, the scrolling twists and curves of its make the likes of nothing he'd ever seen before. "This is your own key to P'cadia. You will need to it gain admittance when you return."

"Thank you," he said grasping the key, and testing the wall to see if he was still able to pass his arm through it. The girl nodded her head and continued to watch him, and Quade jumped against the strange wall.

On the other side, the sun hung a bit lower on the land, and from his perspective atop the hill that he stood upon, he could see the glint of his ship in the distance. Before Quade knew it, he'd already ran half sliding down the rocky cliffside, ran across the barren terrain and stopped at the hatch of his ship. He looked back, could see the wall that had originally led him there before. A thousand thoughts ran rampant through his mind, half a dozen voices, and uncountable images. The emissaries, Trina, Clea…

"Have I ever told you the moonlight suits you Quade?"

"P'cadia lost P'cadia found…"

"It is time to test your mettle, Quade."

"Three days, perhaps four."
 

"What else do you love?"

Quade inhaled sharply, pulled the release on the entry hatch and stumbled hastily onto his ship.

"Quade Decairus has left P'cadia."

The voice came from within a darkened chamber, a place that was shadowed in mystery, even from this young girl who had never left the Avè's realm in all the time she could remember.
 

"Yes, Avè. He was quite insistent that he had to leave right away. He said he thought he'd had…"

"A premonition, yes." The Avè stepped from the shadows, carrying with him the strong residual sense of a feminine presence, a warm and calm impression that clung to the air that surrounded the Avè as he walked to his apprentice. "'Tis better this way, Aliquis. I requested that he stay but in the end it would have been that I would have had to send him away with no answers."

"There are answers to be had then?"

"Indeed, many answers. Answers to things he is not yet ready to face, things that would have changed the way he thinks. For one who feels so strongly pain runs deep, and his feelings are what will give him the strength to do what he must. But for now, he need follow the path those emotions take him on, or all that he knows might be lost."

"Will the Chosen be brought together, Avè? Will they succeed in that which is their destiny?"

The Avè looked down to his young apprentice, into her calm and serious eyes. "You gave him your key to P'cadia, apprentice?"

"Yes, Avè. Was this not the right thing to do?"

"It was indeed. That is good, young Aliquis. And now 'tis time to wait and see."

CHAPTER 26