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Authors: William R. Forstchen

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy

The Crystal Warriors (6 page)

BOOK: The Crystal Warriors
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"No, stand by my side."

Ikawa was watching this closely. This one knew how to command men, and had a presence as well. He was half a foot taller than any of the others, with a full mane of golden hair pulled back and held in place by a crownlike thing that had glowing crystals in it. His face was dark, tanned as if accustomed to being in the field. This was no palace princeling. This was a warrior, a man worthy of his sword.

Allic recognized Ikawa's appraisal with a nod. "You are men of qualities," he began. "Pina has told me of your fight with the demons. You will be men that I wish by my side."

"You understand the agreement that Pina has given to you and in your pledge to me, and through me, to my father Jartan, from whom you will find protection."

"On our world," Younger put in, "that's called a contract and it's made in writing."

Pina stepped forward with an oath and Younger recoiled.

"Damn you, Younger, shut up!" Mark hissed.

With a wave of his hand Allic ordered Pina to step back.

Allic swept them with his gaze and there was a hint of anger in it. "Listen, outlanders, and listen this one time. You are no longer on your world, wherever that might be. You are on my world, and in my fiefdom. The rules are mine, the game is mine. I approach you now in good faith: I will do it only once. Those who pledge their loyalty to me will have mine in return. Here on Haven we still honor our word. If a man does not keep his word he is
unta,
unspeakable. To call against a man's given word will always result in the death of one or the other. I will however forgive you this. Just this once."

He fixed Younger with his gaze and Younger lowered his head.

"Do you understand me?" Allic asked.

"We do," Ikawa replied. "Forgive him his mistake; he is not used to your ways."

"We understand each other, then. Do you have any questions?"

"Is there any hope of our ever getting back?" Mark asked.

"I cannot answer what I do not know. I can only pledge to you that after your three years of service I will do what I can to aid you in that quest. That I now swear to you."

"Then I am willing to swear service in return," Mark said quickly.

"I therefore accept you as my vassals. I shall command and you shall obey. In return for your service I will give you shelter, comfort, and protection from your enemies, as you will give me protection from mine. At the end of your service I shall aid you in your quest to return. You may stand, my warriors."

The ceremony impressed the Japanese, and just as predictably, the Americans groused. One by one they were all brought forward and blood was taken from a vein in their arms while they recited an oath of allegiance to Allic and the god Jartan. The blood was poured on crystals, two to each man. Surprisingly, the blood was absorbed immediately. For Jose, who was still unconscious, the crystals were gently pressed against his wounds. Each man received a wristband with one of his crystals fixed within it. The other crystals were stored within boxes that Allic kept.

"These are your first crystals," Allic told them. "They will provide you with basic protection. Do not take them off without cause. You are very vulnerable to spells right now."

Allic looked closely at Ikawa, realizing that he already liked him. He had the strength of command―as did the leader of the other group. Pina had said that these two bands were enemies. Looking from one group to the other, Allic hoped he could control the animosity that both parties held repressed. Now that the immediate danger was past, their hatred might boil over. These were good men; it would be a shame for them to waste themselves on each other―and it would require some attention on his part to prevent it.

After the ceremony, Pina brought over the wounded demon that his assistant had restrained in the field of light.

"So, Chaka, a little too zealous in carrying out your master's orders this time," Allic said sarcastically. "Three hundred years you have annoyed me, and now you are mine."

"Loose the field that surrounds me, Allic, and I'll spit in your eye," the demon responded in a voice that sounded like a landslide in a gravel pit. He turned to face the outlanders. "It is because of you that I face more bondage, and I curse all of you. I swear one day to rip your bodies open and eat your livers in front of your dying eyes."

Chaka reared up to his full ten-foot height, his glowing red eyes filled with malevolence. He opened his mouth to reveal twin rows of sharp yellow teeth that glistened with saliva. His breath stank of corruption.

He tried to extend his leathery wings, and groaned in pain as the holding spell prevented it. Chaka's face contorted with rage, and he shook his taloned fist at the offworlders.

"If it takes a thousand years I'll not forget," Chaka roared, fixing Mark with his gaze. "I'll hunt you in this world and the next until I find you."

The offworlders were clearly terrified, though they tried to hide it.

All of the sorcerers and riders, however, broke into harsh laughter.

"I call that bold talk from someone who will spend the next thousand years in the mines," one of the riders jeered.

"Chaka always was bombast and birdshit," called another. "If you have any real power, Chaka, why are you allowing yourself to be held by such a little field of light?"

And the entire assembly started laughing again.

The newcomers watched uneasily, like children trying to comprehend a conversation beyond their reach.

Allic's body began to glow brightly and he floated into the air.

"I'm going back immediately. Pina, you'll take command here. Keep the calvary escort and all the triads except my personal escort; fly my new vassals back home, and then detach one triad for a wide sweep to the south."

Looking over the travelers, he continued, "We'll give them the rank of acolyte initially and upgrade them as they earn it. Quarter them in the guest estate next to the palace wall. Bring them to me as soon as you arrive in Landra to start their training. The way the Essence is growing in them, they may turn out to be first-class sorcerers."

Speaking to the newcomers, he continued, "Pina will accompany you back to Landra, my capital, where you'll get settled. I will see you to do the initial testing. I'm also taking your wounded comrade back to my palace, where our healers will attend him. Good day to you."

He turned in the air and smiled at Chaka like a cat staring at a trapped mouse. "I'm taking Chaka with me too. We have a lot to talk about."

With that he shot into the air, and as he rose heavenward a pulsing beam of blue-white light shot from his hand, circling Chaka with its soft diffused glow. A cry echoed from the demon as he was pulled aloft with light that wrapped around him like fiery coils of rope.

Allic's escort surrounded Jose with the same field of light and rose to join their commander and his prisoner. Within seconds they had crested the far ridge and were out of sight.

"Shit!" It was Walker, standing off to one side. He was trembling, a look of panic in his eyes.

Mark went over to him. "What is it?"

"Captain, you won't believe it. You just won't believe it!"

"Try me."

"Look, Captain, there was this damn wasp. It just kept flying at me and I got pissed off, waved my hand at it, and Captain, I blew it to hell with my finger. Here's another one!"

Walker pointed towards a droning insect. There was a flicker of light from his fingertip. A thin shaft of light snapped out with an electric crackle, and the wasp vaporized with a tiny puff of fire and smoke.

Incredulous, the men backed away from Walker, who stood in shocked bewilderment.

Pina looked at Mark and the others, then turned back to Walker. "So soon," he whispered.

* * * *

China

The cowards hid out on the open slope, none of them daring to approach the entryway to the temple. "Motherless dung-eating curs," he cursed, realizing that he'd have to go in alone and finish it.

Chang Shin, warlord of the Hing bandits, stepped into the narrow defile, breathing heavily, his face soaked with the acrid sweat of fear.

His own men had come close to killing him as it was. If he did not go through with this, the survivors of his band would turn on him and slaughter him out of fear and anger over what had just happened.

He crept forward, bent double under the hundred-pound satchel charge. Chang reached the right-angle turn and crept past the 37mm gun, now a twisted pile of wreckage.

His throat was tight; his heart felt as if it would burst out of his chest. He pushed on. There was one of them. He wanted to turn away but his morbid curiosity forced him to look again.

Truly it was a monster from the nether regions―a demon of night. As they had charged the temple, expecting to slaughter the Japanese and white-skinned foreigners, these monsters of the night had greeted them. They had killed his men by the dozens, tearing the hearts out of quivering bodies and burning others with gouts of flame from their mouths.

He prayed to his ancestors, begging for protection, as he crept up to the smoldering temple. The four demons had died, cut down at last in a wild fusillade, but not before they had wiped out a quarter of his command and melted down the precious gun so recently taken from the Japanese.

The Japanese and the foreigners. Where were they? Damn them to the realm of nightmares, he hoped they suffered the anguish of a thousand cuts for all eternity.

Chang pulled the fuse, staggered to the temple door, and heaved the charge inside. Turning, he sprinted away, leaping over the smoldering bodies and puddled remains of the artillery piece.

He paused in the corridor only long enough to pull the fuse on the other two satchel charges that he had crammed into a fissure in one of the overhanging walls.

Just as he reached the entrance there was a roaring thunderclap, and another. A giant's hand of concussion hurled him down the slope. Rolling to one side, he watched as the canyon walls trembled then came dashing down, sealing the temple under a million tons of rubble.

"Curse them all," he whispered. "May they suffer in the nether regions forever."

Chapter 6

"S
ir, time to awake. The first bell will soon strike."

"Damn." Mark rolled over, trying to hang on to the last vestiges of sleep. There had been that strange, haunting dream again. It had come to him half a dozen times since their arrival on Haven over a month before. The dream would start with a roiling thunderhead building in the distance, until it seemed to rush across the landscape, filling the world before him with its elemental powers. It washed over him, covering him as if he were floating in the air. And then within the raging torrent he would sense something else, a presence that could almost be touched, if only he knew where to find it.

"Sir."

"All right, all right." He opened his eyes.

It was Yamir, his aged and balding body servant. What an ugly face to wake up to in the morning, Mark thought, and he wanted to return to the dream, but Yamir stood silent, that annoying look of superior reproach in his eyes. How Mark hated morning people, who happily awoke in the hour before dawn and looked down their noses at anyone who was not bounding about when they were, as if late wakers were morally corrupt, or at the very least, suspect.

"God, I wish you could get me some coffee."

"You've asked me that before, sir. You know I've never heard of such a thing called coffee."

Mark closed his eyes. It was beyond him how any civilization could survive without providing its citizens with two scalding cups of Java before starting the day. It was yet another reminder of just how far from home he really was. His mind filled with the memory of Alice, who always woke before him and brewed a pot and set the steaming cup by his bedside before leaving for the hospital. English nurses, he thought longingly. She was most likely in France now, somewhere with the British Eighth Army, and he was...

"Sir, your robe."

It was best to start in. Yamir was not only a body servant, he was a trained observer. The men called him a spy, but Mark preferred the other term, since Allic was only following good judgment by having his new men closely watched to get a better understanding of how they acted.

Taking the robe Mark followed Yamir into the main corridor of the manor. Ikawa came out from the opposite room and the two commanders exchanged nods. They then followed their servants to the bathing hall in the guest estate in Allic's citadel which had become their home. Over the last month the Japanese soldiers had started to lose the faceless anonymity of enemies and started to take on distinct personalities. Mark knew that while his mood was bad in the morning, Ikawa's was downright fierce.

Turning into a side corridor, Mark could feel the warm moisture in the air and hear the sounds of running water and muffled voices, punctuated occasionally by peals of laughter.

They stepped through a wide doorway and into a large circular room which was open to the garden outside. Opposite the doorway a bubbling stream cascaded out of the wall and down a smooth stone culvert into a round, steaming pool. Half a dozen Japanese and several Americans were sitting in the pool, and they shouted a cheery round of greetings which they knew their grumbly commanders would ignore.

Removing his robe, Mark braced himself and stepped beneath the cascade. It was always too damn hot at first, and he gasped as the steamy water thundered over him. Mark found it fascinating that the city sat above a geothermal spring which not only provided hot water for all its inhabitants, but was also used for heating when cool weather came. As near as he could figure, the climate was like southern California: almost perfect weather with a short, mild winter.

It had rained heavily the day before and as a result the derusa trees has flowered again during the night. Dozens of bright red blossoms were scattered across the pool―the footwide blooms filling the room with a scent like lavender. Mark had decided that the derusa trees were like huge gardenias, genetically designed to bloom all year. Hell, according to the lectures he'd been attending, even their food crops were like that, producing harvest after harvest all year long. This world was really something.

Servants appeared from a side alcove and began to scrub Mark and Ikawa with pumice stones that always stung initially, but soon left them feeling loose and tingly. The public nature of all this, and the casual acceptance of nudity in Allic's court, still left Mark uneasy. But to the Japanese it was almost like the communal baths of home.

One of the servants finally gave Mark a gentle nudge out of the cascading shower. It still made him feel like a little kid as he sat down in the mirror-smooth culvert that went into the hot pool below. It was like riding the sliding board into the pool at Coney Island.

The hot tub made him feel like he was melting. He floated lazily for several minutes, wishing that he could slip back between the warm sheets and pretend today was Sunday morning, and breakfast in bed would soon be served, along with the Sunday
Times.

But there was the responsibility, always the responsibility. Opening his eyes a crack, he saw that several of the men were already out of the pool. Yamir stood stoically to one side, but his impatience was already apparent. Reluctantly Mark swam over to the far side of the pool, and finding the exit hole, he ducked under the water.

With a quick push he slipped into the current and let it suck him along for its short length until he reemerged into the cold water pool in the adjoining bathroom. With vigorous strokes he crossed the pool and stepped out on the far side next to another cascade of water. This was the tough part.

Holding his breath, he ducked under the shower and let the icy water splash over him, shocking him into full consciousness. As he stepped out on the far side, more servants greeted him with towels and gave him a quick rubdown.

Now he was ready at last―but damn it, how he craved a cup of coffee.

"Thinking about coffee, sir?"

"Kochanski! I'd like to get back home just so I could have a cup and a pack of Luckies."

Kochanski was looking over a smiling dark-eyed redhead walking by outside in the garden, who boldly returned his gaze.

"I don't know about that, Captain. I bet this bathtub's better than anything I'd ever have back on Earth." His gaze returned to the girl. "It'd take more than a cup of coffee to get me to give this up. Like this age stuff. Now, I still don't know if I believe it or not, but according to what we've been told, people who can use the Essence can live for a thousand or more years if they stay here. Why would I want to leave?"

"But what about home?"

"Home to beautiful Trenton, New Jersey?" Kochanski said softly. "Home to getting my ass shot at by Zeros?"

"Or ducking ten tons of bombs from a B-29."

The two turned as Ikawa and Sergeant Saito came up beside them.

"Just talking about home," Mark said evenly.

"It's what we're all thinking about," Ikawa replied as he reached for the light blue tunic and breeches that one of the servants presented to him. It was the standard dress for Allic's sorcerers.

"If we start talking about that again," Saito interjected, "it will only remind us both what stands between us back there―or could still divide us here."

A single bell sounded in the distance, interrupting any response. Dawn had come, and with it the start of another day of training.

The elderly sorcerer who stood on the dais reminded Mark of one of his old briefing officers, but Valdez was far more of a perfectionist.

"As I have told you before, you must learn to focus your thoughts. That is the key, the source of your strength, to focus."

Allic had ordered him to finally start with the offensive training, but Valdez felt it was far too early for that. He looked at his charges for a moment then, exasperated, turned away. Thirty days of this, he thought. The ones called Japanese were learning at an acceptable rate. It seemed that their minds were better trained for what was needed―it must have something to do with how they worshipped their god. But the ones called Americans, they were too haphazard, they would not force their thoughts sufficiently inward, or worse yet, they had the annoying habit of acting like they already knew it all.

As Allic's master trainer Valdez was entrusted with preparing these men to use the tremendous potential that they all had, but Allic wanted miracles. These men were out-worlders, barbarians without any social graces.

"Now watch me."

Valdez took the crystal wristband off his right wrist and handed it to his daughter, then looked back at the outlanders.

"Damn it, Walker, watch me, not my Liala. She's not the one with the gift, I am."

"I'd say she's got gifts enough," Walker mumbled.

"What was that!"

"Nothing, sir, nothing." The men around him chuckled.

"All right you clowns, knock it off," Mark ordered. "This could save your life someday, so listen up." He nodded for Valdez to continue.

The old trainer ignored Mark. Raising his hand, he turned to a straw dummy that was propped up across the courtyard. The audience grew quiet as a pulsing shimmer seemed to encompass the old man.

Several seconds later a sheet of light snapped from his hand and towards the dummy, which burst into flame.

"That is the power of the Essence," Valdez said, looking back to his audience. "It is part of the very fabric of this world. When Jartan and the other gods transformed Haven, they gave of their own creative spirit and their Essence, brought with them from the Great Void. The gods and their descendants may draw upon this power to create and to destroy."

"Does that mean," Giorgini asked with a touch of sarcasm, "that you claim to be a descendant of a god?"

"No, damn it. And don't blaspheme," Valdez replied. The genetic pattern of all humans who were brought to Haven thousands of years ago has been subtly altered so that we mortals cannot draw upon the Essence. Occasionally someone like me is born who does not carry this genetic trait, and thus we can work what you call magic.

"It seems that your god did not leave any Essence in creating your world, or perhaps attempted to make too much, and thus the Essence was dissipated, spread out too thin to be of use―for even a god is limited in how much he can create."

"Without the direct presence of the Essence it seems probable that your god did not bother to give your race the genetic trait that our gods chose to give us. Therefore you have the ability to use the Essence here like few others, but it takes practice and concentration. Otherwise you'll be more dangerous to yourselves than to anyone else."

"Ah, but burning that dummy is easy. I've been practicing this stuff on the side," Walker replied.

Standing, he extended his hand and pointed. A second target dummy smoldered and gradually burst into flames, while his comrades and even the Japanese cheered his performance.

"Just fine," Valdez replied sarcastically. "But inelegant and crude. Now watch me."

Valdez snapped his fingers and his daughter handed back the wristband which he clicked into place. A second later there was a bunding crack of light. The head of the dummy Walker had ignited disappeared in a lightning flash. Valdez swung his hand around towards a row of dummies mounted in a line. Two holes were drilled where a real man's eyes would have been, the next one exploded in a gout of flame, the third was decapitated by a fiery sword of light, and the fourth simply disappeared into smoldering ashes.

Valdez swung around, and before anyone could react, the Air Corps insignia on Walker's hat congealed into a flowing puddle of fire. The frightened tailgunner whipped off the flaming headgear.

"That is the power of the Essence," Valdez said coldly. "Think of your body as a sponge drawing in Essence, expelling it as energy as you squeeze, and then refilling. It is the crystal that focuses my power. I send the power of the Essence through it―to narrow it, to magnify it, and then to use it. But to do that I must first learn to control it. Those who have the gift to use the Essence can use it at any time, but it usually is dispersed and can only be projected short distances. Only with the crystals can we focus it, send it to distant targets, and turn it into a finely balanced weapon or tool."

"Without the ability to calmly control the Essence, you will never receive a crystal of attacking power. We know you have the innate ability to focus your Essence for attack. That is why you men have been chosen to learn under me. Attack and defense all of you will learn, but some of you will also reveal your powers in additional ways; some for farseeing, some for healing, creating, or any of several other skills. But for now you will be trained as warriors."

"A moment of anger, even a careless thought, and you could do damage to yourself, or worse yet, to someone innocent. You must learn to be able to turn the Essence on and off as it flows through you."

"You must learn to use the Essence for defense before anything else. Lord Allic has given you defensive crystals which you should all be practicing with."

Valdez walked over to the group and approached Walker, who looked warily at him.

He grabbed Walker's left wrist and held it up so that the crystal in the wristband was before Walker's eyes.

"Why didn't you use this when I attacked you?" Valdez snapped.

"Well, ah, you see..."

"No excuse... There is no excuse if you're dead. We've been over this many times. You must learn to divert part of your thoughts to your defensive crystals even while attacking your foe. Visualize a sphere around you that lets nothing in. A blast will bounce off a good shield and save your life."

Valdez suddenly brought his hand up as if to strike Walker and the lanky tailgunner crouched down low and brought his left hand up. A dull crackling hum filled the air as what appeared to be a protective sphere materialized around Walker.

"Good, very good," Valdez replied. "You must train your instincts to focus your Essence into the crystal of defense. It should be done in a blinding flash, without thought, but by instinct alone. Remember that pointing your left hand towards the blow will focus the energy of your shielding to better deflect or absorb a strike from that direction."

BOOK: The Crystal Warriors
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