The Rising Sun: Episode 4 (6 page)

“
She was facing her share of
suffering…”
Ion remembered him saying.

He looked at Vestra, whose gaze was still
distant. But something seemed to stir in the depths of her black
eyes as she watched the horizon. A strange, thrumming emotion.

Was it grief?

With another soft sigh, she joined Qyro in
watching the other duel across the balcony, evidently unkeen on
pursuing the subject.

But Ion had deduced enough.

Vestra had joined the Nyon for the greater
good of helping this world. She had sacrificed a normal, carefree
life for this … And it had cost her something along the way.

Ion flashed back to that day, two years
back…

And he couldn’t at all find it hard to
believe that this was her…

The girl who had changed him from a senseless
murderer to a good person.

The girl he had fallen in love with.

Terinoz, Outer spectrum

Stroking his chin absent mindedly, Zardin
stood on the rocky terrain. The ground ran forth as far as could be
seen in its rugged format, with miniature plateaus and hills rising
all across it. Above, the sun lay frozen in the middle of the sky.
Spread around over the small elevated portion of the land he now
stood over, were a half dozen other cloaked men. One of them sat by
the edge of the outgrowth Zardin stood over. Their ship was resting
on a smooth portion of the rugged landscape at the distance.

Zardin tucked his hand into his pocket and
felt his fingers clasp around a small pen like device. He withdrew
the mineral detector, the one they had stolen from the Mech
laboratory, and held it before him, rotating it between his
fingers.

After obtaining the treasured information
that they had been seeking in file D, the lot of them had come here
to this planet. After arriving, with the help of the sophisticated
mineral detector that he now held, he had traced a region with a
high concentration of a mineral which lay hidden deep down in the
bowels of the planet. A region with a high concentration of a
particular, extremely rare mineral, known as Xarenol.

They now knew what to do.

They needed to dig their way into the earth.
And reach this Xarenol filled region…

And there, the creeper would be awaiting
them. He was trapped somewhere under the earth, where he had been
all along. Unable to free himself for being a cripple, he had used
his mystical powers to contact Zardin that day, and saved his life
in return for having him found and freed. And Zardin was now here …
and he was going to find and rescue someone who would be the
greatest gain for the Xeni.

“But how, sire?”

Zardin turned slowly to face the source of
the voice. The Xeni who had been sitting by the side was now
standing before him, his arms folded.

“How do we proceed now?” he asked.

Zardin turned back, lifting his head to the
sky overhead them. The clear blue expanse was fazed with streaks of
white clouds. “I fail to understand your concern, Ferio.”

“The region that we located, where the
mineral is found … it’s hidden almost
miles
beneath the
earth.” Ferio paused to phrase himself. “How are we going to reach
it? We would need greatly advanced tools, to drill our way
through.”

Zardin continued to hold his head raised
towards the sky for a moment, before turning and fixing his blank
eyesockets on Ferio, who visibly fought the impulse to flinch.

“Everything has been well taken care of.” he
said, feeling his lips curve. “We will reach the region where the
Xarenol is. And quite easily too.”

Ferio seemed to teeter at the edge of speech
again, before deciding better of it and falling silent with a
bow.

Zardin raised his head towards the sky again.
The glare of the sun would have proved detrimental to someone else.
Someone who had eyes. But he stood there facing the sky and the mid
day sun above for minutes, without even the need to blink. Ferio
stood beside him in equal silence, as did the rest of the cloaked
figures.

Zardin allowed the silence to linger for a
long time, before speaking.

“The Oristor republic had been spending its
resources in crafting their armed forces. They recently finished
with the first battalion of ships, Rash-cons and an arsenal of
other powerful machinery. Having completed it, they were
transporting the battalion in a vessel from its planet of
manufacture to the republic’s capital.” He slowly turned to face
Ferio. “The vessel went off track a few minutes back. It had gone
off range in the course of its travel mysteriously, and there is
not the slightest clue of where it now is.” He gave a soft sigh.
“Poor Oristor republic.”

Ferio was listening with an attentive
frown.

“So…” he asked very slowly. “where’d it
go?”

Zardin turned to face the sky again,
spreading his hands. “Here, of course.”

And a small dot appeared on the clear blue
sky, enlargening slowly. The vessel zoomed in size rapidly as it
approached. It came shooting down from the sky at high speed, its
beak angled towards the earth. The rest of the Xeni standing around
turned and faced the magnificent, giant vessel, watching as it
dived down right to where all of them stood.

Its speed dropping rapidly as it approached
ground, it circled the expanse that they stood around twice, before
swerving and falling to a gentle, hovering stop over a levelled
portion of the land hundred feet away.

Zardin watched as the doors at the base of
the giant vessel opened and a group of cloaked figures slowly
trickled out of it. He turned to Ferio, whose face carried a
mixture of surprise and awe.

The group of cloaked men who came out of the
cruiser slowly crossed the distance between, and came to stand
before Zardin in a line. Zardin stood facing them for a long
moment, before giving a slight nod.

“Good.”

They sank in a bow as one.

“It was rather easy, lord.” said the one
standing in front. “The ship was automated. We just had to sneak
in, and overrun the automation. We destroyed its tracking system,
and all video recording.”

“There was nothing within to guard it except
a bunch of Rash-cons.” said another, smiling gleefully. “They
clearly didn’t expect something of a real threat. Not like us,
anyway.

“Their loss. And their loss is our gain.”
said Zardin. “We are now under control of an entire battalion of
armed forces. And it is complete with warships and an arsenal of
machines.” He gestured to the giant vessel. “Bring the drilling
machine out.”

The group of Xeni stood at the front of their
ship, watching as the large, intimidating machine bored into the
earth with fury. The ground seemed to quake as it did. A pillar of
dusty, brown smoke released from the earth where it drilled
through. The heavy, grinding noise drew on endlessly as the machine
dug through the earth with its giant driller. Zardin and the rest
of the entire group of Xeni stood patiently in front of their ship,
waiting and watching. The hole that was being carved would be as
wide as a large as a large well.

Some of the Xeni covered their ears, wincing
at the sound of the heavy drilling. But Zardin stood just as
composed as he ever was, enjoying every second of it…

When it was done, they had removed the giant
machine, revealing the tunnel it had dug through the earth. The
bunch of Xeni stood around the giant hole in the ground, surveying
it. The tunnel seemed to drop on endlessly, fading into darkness
beyond a point. It was large enough for a hover car to fly through.
Zardin turned and faced his men.

“You three,” He waved his finger across to
three of them, whose attentions sharpened quickly. “go bring a
hover car from the cruiser.”

They bowed and then scurried away.

“The rest of you,” Zardin called, turning
around to look about all of them. “wait here … I will go in, and
finish what I started long back. When I emerge from the hole …” A
lingering pause followed his words, and Zardin smiled again. “The
Order of Xeni would have gained someone who will take us to a new
level of power.”

The group of them slowly backed away from the
large tunnel. In less than a minute, a hover car emerged from an
entrance at the top of the cruiser, gliding towards them. A slight
lash of wind occurred it soared closer. The car came to a stall
right before Zardin, and hovered in mid air before him. The front
door swung open and Zardin climbed into it, seating himself by the
right of one of the three men, while the other two sat behind.

“Take us through the tunnel.” he ordered the
Xeni beside him, who was piloting the car. The man nodded and
turned back to the controls in front of him. He steered the wheel,
so that the car turned over and leapt right into the hole. The
tunnel seemed to spawn endlessly as the hover car dropped through
it at a controlled pace. The car’s headlights lit the way down for
a few hundred feet, so that if they arrived at the bottom, they
could see it beforehand. Now that they were here at last, Zardin
felt a tingle of anticipation. He knew that once the Xeni drew this
man into their ranks, their journey would begin…

The rumble of the car’s engine carried loud
and clear over the silence as they plummeted miles through the
tunnel. And then, after what felt much longer than it actually was,
the car’s headlights shone over solid ground at the base of the
tunnel.

We’re here.

The speed lowered so that as the end of the
tunnel approached, they found themselves exiting the passageway
into a large corridor adjacent to the tunnel. It was a man mad
corridor, constructed miles below the earth. The hover car floated
to a stop at the bottom of the corridor. As its engine died, the
headlights went off so that total darkness engulfed the place
again.

The doors flew open and the four of them
exited it warily. One by one, they drew their swords and ignited
them. The orange shine of the four blades filled the corridor
across both sides. Zardin could sense the other three looking about
at this strange place they found in the middle of the earth,
wondering what it was. But he knew what this was. It was home to
the creeper.

“So … where’s the Xarenol?” asked one of them
in a hesitant undertone, looking at Zardin.

“You’re standing in it.” replied Zardin.
“This place is constructed of Xarenol.”

And with that, he started down the corridor,
letting his ignited blade light the path ahead. The other three
hurried along in his wake, the light from their swords leaving a
long shadow of Zardin to stretch on the ground in front.

The passageway carried on and on. The four of
them carried on in muted silence. Zardin could feel an air of great
curiosity form among the other three, who were no doubt heavily
intrigued by this strange place constructed close to the centre of
the earth. It was crafted of mortar, but Zardin knew that it was
imbibed and strengthened by the mineral Xarenol, which was the
reason it still stood.

The light from their blades cast a flickering
glow over the walls that followed them as they waded forth…

And finally, after traversing what could have
been over a mile by foot, they found an exit to the passageway
forming ahead of them, hidden behind a veil of darkness. The four
of them walked forth, and the darkness melted as the light from
their ignited swords reached the opening. And spreading beyond this
corridor, they could see a giant chamber.

The four of them stopped automatically at the
entrance to look about. The ceiling rose almost twenty feet above
the floor, and the entire place seemed to sprawl over the space of
a large stadium. But what attracted Zardin’s attention here was a
giant halo like encasing spread over the walls of the giant room,
hanging in mid air. They were all glass like encasings, but Zardin
knew that the material making them was far tougher than glass.
Inside of each of the glass halos lay what looked like a puddle of
sand.

Zardin strode forth into the giant chamber,
and the three others followed without asking. He crossed the giant
chamber and reached the far end, where lay the only halo unlike the
others: here, instead of sand inside it, a cloaked man sat. He had
his back facing them, and his physique was resemblant to that of a
skeleton, and nothing more at all: he looked as though he had
starved his whole life. A tangle of matter hair fell from the back
of his head. It was the creeper. He was sitting as still as stone.
It was evident that he couldn’t move. He was crippled, and he could
only allow his mystic mind to wander, but not his body.

The glass like halo wrapping him reflected
the light from their blades as they drew closer. Zardin paused a
few feet from the halo in which the creeper was, and the three
others fell to a stall right behind him.

“You came.” he said in a rasping voice, a
noise that sounded like a shovel scraping over dry soil. “Now … we
will have our
revenge
together.”

“We most certainly will.” Zardin said, before
directing his words at the men behind him. “There are mystics whose
level of power transcends anything known before.” He slowly turned,
to bring his blank eyesockets over the men, and went on. “The sheer
extent of their powers can go completely ungrasped to others, who
may gravely underestimate them. And among such mystics, there are
those few whom even time cannot ravage. Whom
nothing
at all
can ravage … and who can perform feats of such incredible awe that
death itself withers before the extent of their powers. Such is the
glory of this kind. Of the mystic mind. And sitting before us now,
is a mystic of such extraordinary prowess. And he was gravely
underestimated.” He paused, allowing the words to sink into the
three of them. His lips then curved. “Men, this strange place we’re
now at … is
Taurandor
, the ancient prison. And the man you
see sitting in that halo … is the one known as Redgarn.”