The Rising Sun: Episode 6 (12 page)

He remembered this entire journey crawl past
his head … a flow of images crossed his head, starting with when he
had met Mantra and the masters in Sacrogon, to now. He blurrily
recalled everything, as the images sped past his head…

But one of the images paused before him,
swelling and engulfing his mind…

Jedius…

For a moment, as the three of them stood
there, feeling the weight of the situation press upon them,
something arose within Ion…

Something powerful.

“All odds have been thrust against us.” he
repeated, facing the three of them. “But isn’t that the very reason
we’re here?” He felt a smile flash on his face. “To fight all odds,
and to do what must be done?”

He brought his gaze from one of them to the
other, looking at them all intently.

“The brotherhood of Nyon endured for eight
millennia.” he continued. “We’re all that remains of the age of
Elderon, and we ploughed on to the very end. To stand guard to the
world. Our journey wasn’t easy … and it couldn’t have been harder.
But we did it: we fought our fight for eight thousand years, and
we’re
still here
. The four of us were spared for a reason.
And I think that reason is this. The moment is here for our
brotherhood to make its stand … for Elderon to make his stand.
Through us.”

They were quietly listening, but Mantra gazed
at Ion with something twinkling in his clear white eyes.

“Even if we’re all that’s left in the way of
the Xeni,” Ion felt his voice go sturdy with resolve. “We need to
show them that we are. That we will do what we must whatever the
cost may be. And that no matter how far they push us, and how
helpless we may be … we aren’t gonna step aside and let them take
control. Even if the price is getting slaughtered by them for it.”
He gave a sharp nod. “I’m in.”

Mantra continued to hold him in a serene
gaze, before his lip curved at the corner.

Ion turned at the other two.

“I was always with you, master.” Vestra said,
turning back to Mantra. “Right from the start, when I found you and
came to you years back. And I still am.”

“If the empire’s swallowing the world
anyway,” Qyro gave a complacent shrug. “We’ve really got nothing to
lose. Let’s take some of the Xeni with us where we’re heading at
least.”

Mantra looked about the three of them
steadily, something kindling in his eight thousand year old pair of
eyes.

“Very well, then.” he said softly, making no
attempt to hide his smile. “I see now that our brotherhood is not
long dead after all. Its spirit still lives. It resides within you,
our only three apprentices.
My
apprentices.”

He turned to face the inside of the room, at
the far end of which lay Dantox. “Very well, Dantox. We’ve found
you a reason to live. You’re going to lead us to the Xeni’s
lair.”

The darkness which had enveloped the cave
earlier was gone. The air seemed to simmer with a blood red glow
that spread across the walls and ceiling. And red lights streaked
the inside of the cave in ribbons.

A sensation of quiet rumbling came over the
entire cave, and seemed to slowly stretch over the entire world.
The roar of an ancient evil bound and caged for eight millennia,
and now … waiting to be released once more.

Redgarn’s incantation’s boomed over the
entire cave as he waved his hands over the tablet on which the
crystal lay.

The red lights swirling within the cave grew
rapid. And the flare of red soaking the inside of the cave grew
brighter … almost blinding.

Zardin stood lurking at the corner of the
expanse in which Redgarn and the tablet lay, and a quiet smile
creased his face. The spell was almost finished. In less than a
minute or so, it would be done.

Through the window at the front of the ship,
they could see starlight glinting. Dantox was tied up and placed at
the corner of the ship, the stray ship they had acquired to reach
that planet in. It was now peeling through space towards Synistros,
the Xeni’s lair.

Mantra was standing amidst the three of them.
His quiet gaze lay pinned to the window ahead, and it hadn’t
shifted a whisker since. Ion and the other three stood around him,
casting occasional anxious glances at each other. The tenseness in
the air was unbearable.

The low growl of the ship’s engine was the
only sound heard. Every ticking second of silence was louder than
the last.

Ion glanced sideways, and saw Vestra biting
her lower lips as she did usually when anxious, her hands cradled.
Qyro twiddled with his fingers absently with his hands behind his
back. His tousled bronze hair seemed to have wilted, no longer as
messy as it always stood.

Ion felt panic claw at him. What next? What
if they failed to stop the spell before it ended? And even if they
managed to reach the lair before the spell ended, would they be
able to fight through the entire Xeni army…?

As the ship exited the space jump, its speed
dropping suddenly, the destination planet rose over the screen
ahead, a large brown orb. The ship was soaring right in, so that
the planet swelled over the window, engulfing it.

And then, suddenly, Mantra’s voice cut the
stiff rumble of the ship:

“It’s almost time. The spell is almost
finished.”

__________

The spinning of red lights grew intense, so
that even the Xeni lurking behind the walls outside the expanse
felt their eyes burn with the light. All of them shielded their
eyes with their hands, slowly backing off into the darker depths of
the place. Melting away from where the ghastly spell was occurring.
Redgarn’s incantations were now booming across the entire cave. He
flung his hands around above the tablet in a lunatic fashion, his
tangled white hair flying.

Zardin watched with hunger, as the streaking
wild lights completely filled the inside of the cave. The glow of
crimson devouring all in it. The large clearing was now fully
empty, with only Redgarn and the tablet resting right amidst it.
But as the spinning of the fiery red lights reached a climatic
speed, Redgarn, the tablet, and the entire clearing drained from
sight … and only the senseless storm of violent, swishing red
occupied the entire cave. All that was left to be seen in it.

And then … there was now a distinct,
uncontained roar that was heard over Redgarn’s chanting.

It seemed to shred the very air itself …
booming across the realm.

Zardin felt as though the lights were setting
his entire being aflame, as he stood there, watching the dawn of a
new era.

__________

The air slashed at Ion from ahead as the four
of them tore down the land. In a senseless race towards the
mountain ahead. Dantox had pointed them to the Xeni lair, which
they noted was a cave. They had landed the ship as close to the
cave’s entrance as the roughened lands of the planet permitted.
Now, they were ripping across the hundred or so metres remaining
from the cave in a breathless dash.

Almost there…

Far ahead of them, through the entrance of
the cave, they could see a horrific, blood red glow devouring the
inside of the cave. Pouring out of the entrance that they were
pelting towards…

“They’re done!” shouted Mantra, as the four
of them swept down the land. “That’s proof that the spell’s
over!”

Ion heard the words vaguely, as if reaching
him from another dimension. But the moment he heard them, they set
off a fiery rush through his veins. The four of them were now
literally flying down the distance remaining: their motions would
be an edgeless haze to anyone who saw them streak past…

Ion’s eyes almost streamed as he split the
air in his mindless speed, the three others seen as an unclear blur
that raced along with him. For now, everything else had faded from
their sight, save for the cave’s entrance up ahead. And they were
dashing into the cave…

And there, sitting in the middle of the
clearing, with the red lights spinning around him, was Redgarn,
with the tablet in front.

Mantra waited not the splinter of a second …
his sword was out and blazing, and he was in a mid air launch
towards the man in the centre.

Redgarn slowly raised his eyes, following
Mantra’s form as it soared over the air towards him. In the flash
of a moment, the two of them had collided and Redgarn was tossed
back, sent rolling over the ground. Without even bothering to stop
and steady himself, Mantra ran his sword right through Valicros,
stabbing it from the centre, and the plague crystal lying in the
middle of it.

The red lights vanished the very next
instant, and darkness descended back upon the cave.

And as Mantra’s sword lay buried in the
tablet, a piercing silence fell over the entire cave. That one
moment seemed to grind across a few hours as all attention in the
room, every pair of eyes, settled over the Nyon at the centre, with
his sword clutching the destroyed tablet.

Ion and the other two stood rooted a few
metres before Mantra and the tablet, their eyes locked with what
they were witnessing before them: the final, undisputable proof
that it was all over. Despite everything, it was over. The spell
had been stopped, even though at the very nick of time.

They had won.

Ion realised he had been holding in his
breath, and exhaled slowly…

And then a sudden gush of light found the
cave, dispelling the darkness to utter clarity. A greenish,
unnatural light.

And as the three of them slowly turned, Ion
saw the source of the light.

Standing spread over the cave’s inside, all
of them as still as stone, were smoky, hazy figures … An entire
army of them.

And Ion saw that the lands outside of the
cave, seen through the entrance behind, were also spread with a
seemingly endless number of the creatures…

The sight made something glacial scoop Ion’s
insides out. Because he knew what they were.

Demons…

The deathly silence was lifted as Redgarn’s
laughter rumbled within the cave. The Xeni leader slowly
straightened himself from where he lay, laughing.

“Poor Nyon,” he called, his beady red eyes on
where Mantra stood a few feet ahead, and then moving over Ion and
the other two. “You came here all the way to save the world … Only
to die in complete vain: you’re too late. The spell’s
finished.”

As he said it, the entire army of demons
shrieked with laughter. Cold, ice like laughter that reminded Ion
of frost. The shrill, skin crawling noise seemed to suck out all
warmth from the world.

“And now,” said Redgarn, his voice booming
over the demons’ laughter. “we have the finest possible sacrifices
to conclude the ceremony with. Get them, boys.”

Before Ion could comprehend what had
happened, cloaked figures came jumping in towards the three of them
from everywhere. A pile of bodies slammed over him, pushing him to
the ground.

He saw Mantra standing before them,
surrounded by the cloaked men with their blades drawn. Heaving a
deep breath to re gather the calm upon his face, Mantra slowly
raised his hands. In surrender.

Meanwhile, Ion struggled with all the might
he could muster, thrashing on the ground with the Xeni all over
him. Beside him, he could hear muffled groans from Qyro and Vestra
as they too, wrestled helplessly against their captors.

Then, a familiar face slowly strolled up
before them, holding a Sparkler. Zardin smiled as he slowly lifted
the Sparkler, aimed straight on Ion’s face, and fired…

A flash of brightest blue. And then the
crippling, ice cold sensation shot through his entire body, turning
every nerve in it rigid as stone. His form crumpled and went still
on the ground, with the freeze shot effecting in an instant.

Zardin turned the gun to the other two
struggling beside Ion and sent two more jets of blue that found
their targets, so that Vestra and Qyro both stiffened in the midst
of their thrashing. The Xeni trying to pin the three of them down
rose and circled where they lay on the ground, paralysed.

And soaring over the air, right over the
circle of Xeni, came a fourth frozen body. Mantra gave a rough
groan as his body slammed to ion’s left, before lying as still as
the other three.

Zardin spread his hands, and the last faint
chuckles and mutterings among the Xeni died in an instant, leaving
a clear silence to fill the entire cave and the grounds outside.
Spread over which stood the entire demon army.

Redgarn walked forward from where he’d been
standing. He turned over where he stood, his gaze scanning the
entire army of smoky, evil creatures clustered inside of the cave
and outside.

“Demons,” he called, his voice loud and
echoing within the cave. “All of you, servants of Mezmeron. We, the
Order of Xeni, have waited eight millennia to give you this, as I
myself have awaited it … your grand return to this world. And now,
at long last, it’s here. And this could not be a warmer, and a more
delightful welcome. As of now, this world is under the grasp of
anarchy deeper than ever before. We’ve made it the perfect place
for you. For your welcome. This is your time. Your time to strike,
and relish the task of ripping the world apart … as it was meant to
be.” His lips parted in a diabolical grin. “
Get out there and
have some fun.”