The Rising Sun: Episode 6 (16 page)

“Finish them.” he snarled.

The circle of Xeni pounced in on where the
four of them were standing. There was a whirl of black robes, and
dazzling orange light. Before Ion knew what had happened, a heavy
body had collided with him from in front. One of the Xeni had
leaped towards him, ramming his fist so hard into his chest that he
felt the breath driven from his lungs. He was thrown into the air,
sailing gracefully out of the clutter of black robed figures. As he
flew backwards at the force of the Xeni’s punch, he saw Redgarn
bound forward into the pack of Xeni engulfing Mantra, Vestra and
Qyro from all around.

A major portion of his hopes for the three of
them had died by the time he hit the ground hard, more than ten
feet from where the Xeni were battering the three helpless Nyon.
The force of his crash landing left pain to rack open his bones.
Far ahead of where he lay, he could see Redgarn’s red eyes glowing
viciously as he and the other Xeni battered down Mantra, Vestra and
Qyro mercilessly.

As a rage of resolve erupted within him, he
swept away all concern he had for himself: forcing away all of the
pain, he sprang back to his feet with a stale groan. But just as he
made to dash towards them, something caught his left leg from
behind, tripping him. He felt both feet lift off the ground as he
stumbled forward and hit the ground. Bursting back to his feet, he
spun back.

And there stood Zardin, his right leg which
had just tripped Ion, casually outstretched. His cold, eyeless
sockets gazed out at Ion from between curtains of dark hair that
fell on both sides of his pale face.

“Why don’t you cast your worries towards
something far bigger.” he said, his razor like teeth exposing as he
smiled. “
Me.
”

Without warning, he gripped the front of
Ion’s robes, heaved his body off the ground and hurled it
across…

Ion felt himself split the air as his body
soared backwards helplessly, like a pebble tossed across a field.
The scene before him seemed to shrink rapidly to his eyes as he
flew back. There was a heavy
thud
, and an explosion of pain
ripped apart his back: his body had hit the wall of the cave at its
far end, and had smashed right through it. Rubble exploded around
him as he flew forth into a new, darker chamber of the cave. He
soared on for a few feet, before hitting the earth along with the
broken remains of the wall he had crashed through.

Feeling paralysed, his mind fumbling through
the daze, he lay crumpled on the ground, unable to move … Pain rent
him whole, as he feebly twitched on the ground.

And then, sharp as a knife cleaving through
butter, the sound reached him…

A slow, striding pair of footsteps
approaching him.

Fighting down the pain tearing his neck
muscles as he craned his head, he looked to the hole he had smashed
on the wall … And a figure slowly emerged from outside of it,
bending to let himself enter the hole and stride up before him. The
darkness in the place was erased as the orange glow of Zardin’s
sword reached across it.

The leer unerased from his horrible face, he
slowly strutted up to where Ion lay. Helpless, unable to move, Ion
watched the demonic, eyeless man bore down upon him with those
horrid, black sockets he had for eyes.

“Get up, vermin.” he commanded, in the sharp
hiss he had for a voice. “We have unfinished business, you and
I.”

Ion felt his features contort with the pain
that came with the effort to form words.

“What … what do you … want with me?”

Zardin continued to stare down upon him, the
dreadful leer unfazed. Then, a soft laugh hummed within his throat.
He took a final step forward and bent down on where Ion lay. Ion’s
insides seemed to cringe as he watched those blank, eyeless sockets
come within the distance of an inch from his own eyes.

“What do I want with you, Ion?” Zardin asked,
so soft it could have passed for a breeze lapping the air. “Let me
show you.”

He gently touched a spot on Ion’s
forehead.

And then, light seemed to shoot through Ion …
freezing time itself for the ghastly span of that one moment. That
one moment where Zardin’s thoughts reached across to his, and a
vision passed from his mind to Ion’s …

And as that one moment, that one dreadful gap
of time, passed … Ion was no longer on the ground. Everything, all
of his bodily complaints, had been wiped clean: he had bolted
upright, staggering back, eyes widened as he stared at the man
before him …

This can’t be.
He thought, feeling a
void of shock and horror erase everything he knew.
This can’t
be…

Zardin shook his head, the leer slowly
morphing into a warm, sweet smile. “Now you know … what I want with
you.”

Ion did. He knew…

The pale faced, eyeless creature standing
before him, was not at all what he seemed to be. What Ion had
thought him to be … He had been something entirely different … He
had had a completely normal life. With a completely normal name. A
name which Ion had known all his life.

“
Eol?
”

This can’t be…

Ion was staggering back, feeling an unnatural
stillness grip the entire world, and him along with it. Time had
gone still, and nothing at all was left to move within the space of
that one, thundering moment.

Zardin continued to stand in front of him,
the smile loosely hinged over his lips, finding relish in Ion’s
horror.

Ion reached for something to steady himself,
but in the darkness, nothing found his hand as he held it out. The
very realm as he had known it seemed to have been tossed over.

“Now you know.” Zardin said, his voice
filling the space between them as a mere, shrill hiss. “Now you
know why I say …
we are the same.
”

“No.” Ion moaned, shaking his head as he
gaped at the creature before him. “This can’t be…”

“It is.” hissed Zardin, spreading his hands
in a loving gesture. “What a beautiful re union we’ve found for
ourselves, beloved twin brother?”

Ion’s mind was reeling at what had just
happened, and a century seemed to have elapsed since a second ago,
when he had been shown the truth.

“You’re not my brother,” he shook his head.
“You’re not Eol … You’re a
monster
.”

Zardin’s smile slowly stretched longer. “I
said the very same thing two years back. Remember? The very same
thing.” He threw his head back and let a maniacal ring of laughter
fill the place. “And maybe we were right after all, more about
ourselves than about each other.”

He slowly took a step forward, his pale
features looming to better clarity out of the darkness. “After you
left me there, in that desert, I didn’t leave. My consciousness was
tethered to the world. I didn’t leave, I couldn’t leave. Because I
now saw the truth. The truth in our world, which you showed me that
day.” His voice lowered. “That there is no light in life.”

The shadow of old grief crossed his face. “My
entire life had been a struggle, Ion. you never could imagine
it.”

“What do you mean?” Ion wasn’t surprised to
hear his voice doused to a bleak whisper. He hardly sounded like
himself.

“I had been a mystic, and I knew it right
from our childhood together.” said Zardin. “I had discovered my
powers. But I kept it secret. I discovered it even before you had
discovered yours. And all through, it was pain beyond all else.
Because I knew that my being a mystic was going to put my entire
family in danger. And so, I kept it completely secret from all of
you. I endured it to protect you and our parents. But it wasn’t to
be. That day, the Naxim arrived in our village not for you … but
for
me
. They had detected
my
powers, and had arrived
in the village. You were just a bonus. It was me, Ion …
I
was responsible for the tragic fate that had befallen our parents
and our family. The fact that I was a mystic, led to it. And that
knowledge, dear brother … was what gave me hell. It wasn’t the
torture they put me through. That was infinitesimal. The real
torture was knowing that I was the reason my lay shattered. I
couldn’t live with the guilt, knowing that because of me, the three
of you were made to suffer more than you deserved.”

He took another step forward. “But I had to
redeem myself for it. And so, I broke out. There had been a
graveyard close to ours and from it, I had found another wrecked,
demolished body to replace mine’s, so that the officers thought I
had died through self inflicted wounds. And they did, and didn’t
bother returning the body to our village. After freeing myself, I
became a crime fighter to redeem the loss our family had endured.
Because Marion and Selia had believed that the two of us were
destined for greatness, hadn’t they? And they had to be proved
right.” His razor sharp teeth clenched in fury. “But you shattered
everything. When I saw that poster, with your face in it, I knew
what I had to do. I had to kill you. Because you were an insult to
what our parents were trying to make of us.”

Ion was hearing all of it, but it seemed to
trickle right through his grasp like water. It couldn’t be …
because if it was, then there was nothing right in the world
anymore. Eol, the noble hearted boy he had known for a brother …
turning into this creature now standing before him.

“You destroyed our parents’ beliefs,” went on
Zardin, a fury within every syllable. “And for that, I needed to
punish you. I had to. But you got there first, didn’t you? You best
me. And as I lay there, Ion, dying in your arms, I saw it. I saw
the truth … the truth which you showed me that day. That the only
true goodness in the world … is pain. Because all of my noble deeds
brought me nothing but pain, Ion. And at the end of it all, I saw
it. I saw that pain was the only constant, the only truth in this
world, and to truly live our parents’ beliefs, I had to make this
world brim with it. And so, my consciousness lay tethered to the
world, desperate to avenge myself. And that was when Redgarn found
me. He trained me, and used his dark powers to re heal my body. I
had lost my eyes by then, but he had given me a far more deadly
vision. And then, the two of us, together, fulfilled long awaited
destiny … Tonight, the world will see goodness. The greatest
possible goodness. And it is
pain.
”

“No,” Ion whispered, shaking his head. “Eol …
how could you?”

“Our parents were right after all, Ion.” said
Zardin, with a new excited spark kindling in his voice as he slowly
stepped forward towards Ion. “Marion and Selia were right after
all! We were destined for greatness. Both of us … we
have
changed the world! Just standing on
opposite
sides, that’s
all.”

Ion didn’t know what to say. He hardly knew
what was real anymore…

“Eol … goodness, Eol, what have I done to
you?”

“You set me free, brother.” Zardin said,
spreading his hands. “You showed me the truth.” His voice now rose
to his usual cold tone. “Now … it’s time to finish what we started
two years back.”

And he held up his sword.

Ion eyed the sword he held for a moment that
seemed to span an eternity. Then, raising his eyes, he met those
cold, blank sockets. “Eol, don’t do this … please, come back. We’re
family.”

“You tried to kill me two years back,
brother
,” said Zardin, his sword unlowering. “Now, it’s time
to finish the job.”

“Don’t do this.” Ion moaned, feeling
suffocation squeeze his breath out of him. “We can set everything
right.”

“Everything already
has
been set
right.” And with that, Zardin lunged again.

Hating every bit of him as he did it, Ion
ignited his sword and leapt back. Their swords met with a loud
cling
. They stood there, the burning orange eyes locked with
the blank, eyeless sockets…

__________

Meanwhile, back in the main portion of the
cave, a battle drilled between Mantra, Vestra and Qyro, and a large
pack of ten or so Xeni. A horribly tilted battle … and its outcome
wouldn’t be hard to predict at all, to any layman.

Mantra was assailed mercilessly by a bunch of
five Xeni, with Redgarn in their lead.

Vestra seemed to flick from spot to spot, her
speed driven to uncanny heights as she struggled not to fall to the
swords of a bunch of the cloaked men surrounding her.

Qyro’s red furred face was contorted in focus
as he swung about madly, his sword blocking and parrying four
others’, all of them as swift as the wind…

It was very unlikely that either of the three
would be able to last long. And they themselves were well aware of
it.

As Zardin launched himself over his twin
brother a third time, their swords banged in a blast of sparks. In
that splinter of a moment, Ion’s mind drew back to the last duel
the two of them had shared. And his heartrate soared in panic. But
he felt a sickened sensation many times more powerful than the
panic, and it came from the realisation that that had been his
brother, Eol, who had crossed swords with him at the temple. His
brother…