The Rising Sun: Episode 6 (18 page)

His blank eyes unmoving from his twin
brother, Zardin leapt forward again, swinging his sword. Ion
parried the blade with lightspeed reflexes as it danced around him,
its bright orange glow seeming to merge with the blaze of fire in
the atmosphere around them.

__________

Redgarn sprang back at the speed of wind to
dodge the fire serpent that came spinning towards him from the
right. Mantra’s white eyes caught the light of the flame as it
passed before him, a swirl of flickering orange light emanating
from within their calm depths.

Taking advantage, the old man bounded forward
as the fire serpent just passed, swinging his sword faster than
Redgarn’s dazed attention could catch it. He felt his feet carry
him to the side, his sword moving to block the shot. But too late
-

A searing pain scratched across the front of
his chest as Mantra’s sword brushed it. Redgarn gave a shriek of
pain, jumping back. And before Mantra could leap over and finish
him, another fire serpent cut across the air between them, forcing
Mantra to jump back instead. Redgarn toppled over and rolled over
the ground, clutching the scratch laid over his chest. Through the
spinning flames, he saw Mantra standing feet ahead of him, his
ignited sword held ready to lay the final blow. The scratch it had
left on Redgarn’s chest burnt with pain, as though the sword’s
blaze lingered on the cut.

Fighting back the pain spreading from the
scratch, Redgarn rose unsteadily. His sword doused. Fixing Mantra
with a glare that radiated more fury than the fires rushing around
them, Redgarn snarled, “You may have won this petty battle … but
the war is ours, old friend. The victory that matters most, is
ours
. Tonight, we’ve released the Mezmeron in his most
powerful form … And our empire has returned to seize the world.
Nothing can now stop us. Nothing
will
now stop us.”

He turned and swept his gaze over the rest of
the cave. Nearby within sight, the other two of Mantra’s disciples
could be seen, feebly diving about the swirling flames, and at the
same time fending off his men.

“Xeni!” Redgarn boomed, his voice mounting
atop the crackling of flames. “Retreat!”

Mantra made no attempt to stop the wretched
Xeni leader as he turned and bounded off, dodging and ducking the
fire serpents in a dash towards the cave’s entrance. The few Xeni
who had been duelling Vestra and Qyro stopped and ran after him. A
few of them were hit by the fire serpents before they could make
it, but the rest of the black cloaked fiends were fast enough to
pelt across the cave unmarred. One of them was signed by the sleeve
of his robe, but he kept on, unbothered. And the entire surviving
pack of Xeni led by Redgarn melted from sight as they vanished
through the cave’s entrance…

Mantra drew his attention back inside the
cave, and the suffocating heat washed over him with a new
intensity. His knife sharp reflexes put him on the move just in
time to duck as one of the ribbons slashed across the air above
him. Rolling over on the ground to avoid a second ribbon as it flew
down from his right, Mantra jumped back to his feet, his mind
thundering with an alert tenseness.He swept his gaze about, trying
to scout out the only remaining thing that mattered to him in the
face of this predicament…

Vestra and Qyro were both standing on
opposite corners of the large cave, both close enough to reach him.
Both their postures were rigid as they stood helplessly amidst the
spinning mayhem. Tongues of fire shot forth all about them, and
they were constantly on the move, ducking, leaping and throwing
themselves off the way of the fire serpents that came slithering
out of side.

They were far off from where Mantra stood …
too far for him to try reaching them.

They would be reduced to ashes very
shortly.

The Xeni and even Mantra himself, being of
prodigious skill, would escape from here only with a stroke of
luck. But the two young inexperienced disciples stood next to no
chance … It was too much to even ask that they had survived this
long.

Mantra let his eyes linger on the two of them
amidst the blazing hysteria around, watching as they fervently
ducked and dodged death by mere whiskers. While the fire serpents
rushed in all over, relentless. And a sharp twinge of guilt formed
within Mantra. He had thrust them into this journey, starting with
the mission to recover the crystal … And starting from then, they
had been thrown into a senseless adventure that was far too much
for their inexperienced age to handle … And now, at the very peak
of the danger, they had been pushed over the edge. And the fault
was
his
. He had been responsible for what they had undergone
from the very start…

The realisation ignited Mantra’s mind like no
other ever had. Resolve flared within him, pushing away all of the
hopelessness and dread.

I took responsibility for them.
he
reminded himself.
I stood before the elder council and claimed
full responsibility for both their lives and deaths, just a day
back … and the time’s come to keep up my word.

Without pausing to consider it, Mantra slid
his blade back into his sheath and bounded through the hysteric,
swirling fires to reach his two disciples. And to get them out of
here alive.

__________

Ion’s thoughts were suddenly dishevelled,
thrown into chaos in confusion and panic. And his panic sharpened
like a talon as he thought of the other three. And all his worries
regarding this new development found them.
They’ve gotta be all
right!

Ahead of him, his black hair spinning like
the fire serpents across the cave, Zardin stood death defyingly
calm amidst the raging mayhem. His pale face was livened with a
deadly fervour. His blank sockets fixed on Ion.

Two of the fiery ropes swooshed downward and
shot right in between them. As the second passed, Zardin raised his
sword and lunged. The Xeni sent another heavy assail of jabs and
slashes, which Ion would have fallen for if he hadn’t taken
advantage of his surroundings to jump in and out of the swishing
fire.

As one of the fire serpents shot from the
right, Ion threw himself to the right, out of its way. He hit the
ground at the force of his leap. Zardin stood just as calmly, his
eyeless sockets more terrifying than ever in the blaze spinning
around his surroundings. A sudden tongue of flame rushed in from
behind him. He lazily flicked his hand aside, and the fire serpent
exploded into black smoke.

As Ion struggled to get back to his feet,
Zardin progressed on him. Ion lifted his blade just in time to
block the heavy slash the Xeni sent him. Their blades collided with
a burst of sparks, their glimmer dampened in the fierce flames all
over them.

__________

Mantra had reached Qyro, who was standing a
few metres from where Vestra stood. The two of them were now wading
down the inferno to reach her.

A fire serpent came in from her right, and
Vestra had the space of a second to throw herself out of the way.
Her mind lay parted in its concern, now between herself and the
other two: Mantra and Qyro were slowly making their way to where
she was, halting, jumping and twisting amidst the flaming ribbons
that danced all about them mercilessly.

As managed to reach her, Vestra said, “Wait,
what about Ion?”

“We don’t know where he is.” Mantra said,
looking about. “There’s nothing we can do for him, except to hope
he isn’t still inside here.”

Vestra swept her eyes over the surroundings,
trying to find him. Trying to make out evidence that he wasn’t
still in here, trapped … because if he was, he was done for.

But she could make nothing of the flaming
mayhem. She turned to Qyro, whose eyes echoed her fear.

Mantra spun towards the entrance far ahead of
them, which was blocked by an endless supply of swirling fire
serpents.

“Let’s go,” he said, glancing back at
them.

And the three of them started a mindless dash
through the place, towards the entrance far ahead. Aiming to reach
it in one, uncharred piece…

__________

This has to be a dream.
thought Ion,
half praying for it, as he blocked blow after blow sent at him by
the man he was fighting…

The man he had been fighting for two years
now, within him.

Zardin seemed to move at the speed of
thought, slashing and jabbing at such a savage pace that Ion was
pushed back with every blow…

Ion felt utter hopelessness overrun him. But
his outer circumstance, the fact that he might be struck down, or
hit by one of the fiery snakes, wasn’t the cause of the
hopelessness. It was the revelation. The revelation of what his
actions had wrought in this world.

He was now looking at the effect of his
actions … his wrongdoings. His evil.

Zardin was his evil. An effect of the ill
deeds of the past. He was responsible for transforming an innocent,
noble young man into the horrid creature that was now duelling him
inside this chamber of swirling flames.

The fault was all his own. And this
realisation brought more pain than all of his past regrets put
together.

He was the one to blame for this…

But as the thought crossed him, a sudden
flame kindled within him. Because Ion understood that, as the fault
was solely his own … so was the responsibility to now correct the
fault. To correct
his
fault.

A tongue of fire zipped between them,
throwing both of them out of the way in reflex. Ion took advantage
of the split second delay in Zardin’s motion, and lunged forth…

His sword met Zardin’s with a sharp, steely
cling
that sounded clearly over the rushing flames around
them. And the sword held in his opponent’s hand was sent flying off
at the force of Ion’s swift blow.

Disarmed, Zardin stood just as unfazed amidst
the flames spinning about, with Ion holding his ignited sword up
before him.

And then, very slowly, a look of delighted
acceptance stretched across Eol’s pale face.

“Congratulations, dear brother.” His pointed
teeth exposed as he smiled. “You’ve won. You’ve won
again
.”

Ion held his sword an inch from Eol’s chest,
his chest heaving. He lowered the sword slowly.

“Eol, come back.” he whispered, stretching
his free arm towards his brother … the brother that he had lost,
and was now trying to reclaim. “Everything that’s happened … it’s
all over. We’re gonna fix everything, take it all back to normal.
Come back to the right side. We’re
family
, Eol.”

His words seemed to leave a silent, yearning
screech in the air after he’d said them.

Ion stood there with his hand held out
towards Zardin, waiting.

And then, Zardin’s smile stretched longer,
and the blaze of a lunatic came over his pale features.

“
Eol
is gone.” he said softly, but his
voice seemed to thunder through Ion’s mind. “And now, Zardin will
follow.”

He kept both hands outstretched, and two of
the ribbons of fire suddenly came swirling in from behind him … And
as one, they both hit one of his outstretched hands…

Ion heard a scream of eternal horror pierce
the world … before he realised it was coming from his own
mouth.

Feeling as if he himself were on fire, he
watched as the fire swept across his brother’s body within the
fragment of a second. The body that had been Ion’s brother blazed
like a pillar set on fire. Eol didn’t scream. He didn’t move. He
didn’t even flinch as his entire form lay engulfed in flames…

And then, after the passage of a few
eternities, the blaze slowly dissolved, and what was left to remain
of the body crashed over the ground behind in a pool of ashes. All
that now remained of Ion’s brother, Eol.

Ion was barely aware that he had sunken to
his knees, staring at the ashes that had once been a living,
breathing being. His heart seemed to have clutched his chest,
unwilling to beat … He couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe.

He slowly reached out and clasped a handful
of the ashes, raising it to his eyes.
Brother…

A gust of wind sent the ashes scattering, and
his attention snapped back to the present. The fire serpents
swirling all over him seemed to have gained a new fury in their
senseless flow.

Now that the duel was over, his mind fell in
complete tune with the true depth of whatever was happening around.
The danger of the present circumstance…

He tried peering through the large crash in
the wall which his body had made. The swirling ribbons of fire
could be seen in the main chamber of the cave outside. But as he
swept his eyes through it carefully, he felt a spark of elation:
the other three weren’t there … at least they were saved.

He, however, was not going to be … Because as
Ion analysed the climate with all honesty to himself, he knew that
the chances of him being able to make it out of here alive were
next to zero.