Might's Odyssey (The Event Book 2) (20 page)

Everything appeared to be going smoothly for about four hundred kilometers and then madness began as he ran into a vicious hazard. The metal frame of the hover cycle tightened and thickened and the tires seemed to grow bigger gumming itself in some way to the loose desert sand.

The winds were over 200mph. Sand whipped around in a violent fury. He could not understand why he was not carried off by the winds.

It suddenly occurred to him that this was probably what Eleyon meant by helping. The navigation equipment on the hover cycle became skewed and distorted by the weather; he was traveling blind.

A bright shaft of light suddenly blazed in the distance. A frown roughened his brow at the sight. Something told him to make his way towards it and he obeyed.

Reaching it he was disappointed to see that it was not the clearing in the storm as he had hoped, but simply a ball of light hovering in midair.

‘What the devil is this?’ He thought furiously.

“There was a time over six thousand years ago, when my people were lost and imprisoned as you are now and I sent one to deliver them and lead them out of their prisons.

“The desert they traveled was hardly dissimilar from this one. I made a cloud to accompany them on their journey. They moved when the cloud moved and stopped when the cloud stopped. You must do the same with this ball of light. The hazard has disrupted your navigation systems rendering it moot. Now I will be your guide, if you are interested in following me that is.”

“I am Eleyon!”

A sunny smile filled his heart.

“Follow the light__”

Might smiled adjusting his speed as he raced after the light.

Earth (7.30pm)

Gbenga watched the flashing images on the TV screen without much interest. He clutched a half-empty can of Gulder in his right fist. Four others were scattered on the floor beside the black leather sofa he sat on. He did not usually give in to the urge to drown his sorrows in liquor but he was at his wits end. Using drinking as an escape to him was the prerogative of weak willed men. He was not so harsh in his judgment of them now. He could well understand where they were coming from.

The hundred inches TV in front of him showed a news bulletin of a landslide in south East Asia. Thousands were missing. He could see scores of rescue workers on the screen digging through the thick mud as they tried to locate possible survivors.

It was a horrible sight, but he found himself strangely unmoved by it. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be worse than what was due to happen in the next five months. If there was an afterlife, the ones that perished here would be glad they escaped when they did.

The black tee shirt and deep blue jeans he wore were damp with sweat. The room was hot. It usually was the latter part of the year in Lagos. There was an air-conditioning unit hanging on the wall to his left. He just could not summon up the energy to go and switch it on; neither did he have the inclination to open the windows.

A faint sound coming from outside the room made him stiffen. He relaxed after a few seconds. It was probably Seyi going about her business. They rarely said more than two words to each when they did see.

Somehow, he suspected she was having an affair. If his mind wasn’t so occupied with the event and his business affairs he would have looked into it. A weary feeling seeped into his bones as he thought this.

What did it matter if she was having an affair? He couldn’t care less at the moment. There were bigger issues at stake here than the possible misbehavior of a recalcitrant wife.

Raising the TV’s remote control, he quickly switched the channel to a sitcom. He just began to get into the swing of it when his phone rang. Tempting, as it was to ignore it, he decided to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello__” A husky female voice breathed into his ear. Something on his insides tightened. It had been a while since the sound of a female’s voice affected him the way this one did.

“__ is that Mr. Akintunde?”

“Yes this is he__” there was something very familiar about her voice.

“Good evening sir. This is Faith__”

“Faith__” He murmured in a puzzled tone. Who was faith?

“Faith__ Bose’s sister. We met at the Ascona Teaching hospital the other day.”

Brainwave! He thought.

“Aahh Faith!” He exclaimed aloud pleased that she had called. “Sorry I didn’t recognize your voice. Dunno what’s up with my phone, it didn’t bring up your name when it rang.”

He did not tell her that he had not even looked at the screen.

“It’s alright sir. How are you?” Her voice this time was soft and caring.

He found himself immediately responding to it. Watch it bud! He warned. Wouldn’t do to start having a thing for two sisters.

“I am fine I guess. Really happy you called though, feels good to hear a friendly voice.”

She laughed; the sound was sweet and intoxicating to his senses.

“Oh come on! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard a friendly voice all day?”

“Unfortunately no. Yours is the first.”

She paused her breath coming in a whoosh as if she was considering his words.

“That’s quite sad then.”

“Yeah it is isn’t it?”

“Then I best be calling you more often__ if you don’t mind that is?”

“Of course I don’t mind. Or maybe I can call you?”

“I’d like that.”

He felt a twitch in his nether regions. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Oh before I forget, I actually called to tell you that there was a change in Bose’s condition yesterday.”

“Oh?” He said sitting up straighter.

“It was quite strange really. Even now, I am still shaking as I remember it.”

“What happened?”

“Well I was there as usual, reading one of her favorite books to her when I started to feel sleepy. I nodded off eventually immediately entering a dream state__” She paused.

“Go on!”

“Then I saw her. Bose I mean, but she was strangely different.”

“How so?”

“She was dressed in a shiny white robe. Her skin exuding the brightest light I had ever seen and she was floating, six feet above where I was standing. I couldn’t measure distances or spaces in the dream, but something told me that she was hovering six feet above me.

“She drifted forward and lowered herself to the ground a foot in front of me. She then reached out and touched my cheek saying that she missed me so much and was doing all she could to come back to me.”

“What happened next?”

“She then said the strangest thing. She said I should tell Gbenga to find her. That was how she put it. She said tell Gbenga or Swift to find me.”

Gbenga’s heart almost stopped beating as he heard that, but Faith wasn’t finished, not by a long shot.

“I woke up after that, to find her moving restlessly in her bed. I called the doctors immediately, thinking she was coming out of the coma. There was point she sat up and her eyes opened. Seconds later, she lay down on the bed and promptly went back to sleep. The same way she has been for the last year. She hasn’t stirred since then.”

There was a long silence.

“Gbenga! Are you still there?”

“I am__” He croaked. “I am just shocked by what you said.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Exactly what she said, Bose wanted you to give me a message and you have done that.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. How are you supposed to find her?”

“That my dear Faith is what I have to find out.”

They rang off about a minute afterwards promising to meet in Ibadan during the weekend to talk. Gbenga’s heart grew even more troubled. The circumstances he was embroiled in were threatening to consume him. Might still hadn’t awoken and now Brainwave was calling to him from beyond the ethos. What in the world was going on?

Growling in frustration, he rose up, walking to the door of the sitting room. It was time to check the bunker.

The land before him was clear and undisturbed. The hazard had stopped hours earlier. The hover cycle was doing a speed of almost 760mph. Might bent low to avoid the lash of the wind.

The miles to the target was displayed on the touch screen in front of him. He could only hope he reached it before the end of the day.

The cluster of dots still moved in the direction he was going, on a course to intercept him. He knew if he did not get there before them he might not be able to get to the target at all. According to Eleyon, the dark forces hadn’t moved as a cohesive unit for millenniums. That they did it today meant they were hell bent on stopping him.

That thought as it came brought great unease. He struggled to summon up the confidence he had had earlier in the ability of Eleyon to help him.

The darkness of the cluster of dots told him a great army was headed to intercept him. Eleyon had been silent for hours. Might kept expecting him to speak, especially with his heart was as troubled as it was. Eleyon however remained strangely silent.

The landscape rose up sharply. The hover cycle compensated and streaked up the sloping side of dune, which was almost twenty feet high.

Reaching the flat top, he pulled the cycle to a halt and looked down on the flat undulating landscape before him. It was barren and empty. Just as he’d hoped it would be.

Directly ahead, at the opposite horizon lay a series of rock outcrops. Some rose to almost two hundred feet, the others barely five feet. There were also deep furrows and holes cleaved between each outcrop, almost as if some powerful force had drilled through the hard rock.

At this distance, he could not be completely sure. The rock outcrops were blurry from the angle he was looking at them. They zoomed closer even as he thought this. He leaned back startled by the suddenly clarity, until he realized that the suit had some sort of binoculars zoom function.

He could now see them as clear as if he was standing just a foot in front of them. Studying them intently for almost three minutes, he realized that his earlier suspicions had been correct. Some great force had drilled the holes and gaps in the rock.

Frowning he glanced down at the onboard computer. He hadn’t looked at it in almost five hours. Especially since, the navigation equipment went awry.

His frown turned to excitement when he realized that the rocky outcrops were all that remained of the Himalayan Mountains. He had found it.

A rumble many miles to his right snapped him out of fever pitch excitement. A huge cloud of dust loomed on the horizon. His eyes widened in horror. The ether-tome’s forces were here.

The skies above them was dark with flying creatures. Shinning in this darkness were several bright dots of lights, flaming in intensity. Something told him that those lights belonged to the Dríe-gons. The creatures that inspired fear in the hearts of the US military. Creatures he had battled earlier.

“Hurry__”

He gunned the engine of the hover cycle and took off like a shot from a gun. The dríe-gons hurtled ahead of the main force the light from their flames lighting up the gloom around them.

Might swung the mini-gun off his back and cocked it as he held it at the ready. He measured the distance between him and his goal. It was going to be close.

There was a tiny scope on top of the mini-gun. He peered through it as he aimed at the approaching horde. The words written across the tiny screen read out of range.

He growled in frustration and swung the gun back over his shoulders and amped up the speed of the hover cycle. The rumbling coming from their right grew louder. He glanced at the horizon warily seeing the broad shoulders of the Higuan giants striding out of the dust and smoke.

There were hundreds of them, the red glow from their eyes driving a chill down Might’s spine. He was almost halfway across. The dríe-gons were ten miles out and closing. Surely, they were in range now. He wrenched the mini-gun from his shoulder and opened fire.

Thick flaming rounds of flame exploded from the barrel spraying in a wide arc. The dríe-gon veered to avoid them and the rounds plummeted, hitting the earth hard causing massive explosions, which shook the ground for miles around with the concussions.

Might speed up, approaching the max speed of 950mph. The distance between him and the remains of the Himalayas shortened to about ten kilometers and the dríe-gons were upon him, firing long bursts of flame.

He swerved from left to right to avoid the flame bursts. The onboard computer screeched and a gruff voice barked out.

“Underground base detected__ ventilation shaft is all that remains of the entrance into it.”

The computer marked the spot and Might opened fire with the mini gun. A small section of the desert sand collapsed inwards revealing a tiny hole.

Removing a fusion grenade from the sides of his battle suit, Might’s large thumb hovered over the fast burn button on it while he directed the speeding hover cycle towards the hole.

A foot away from the hole he lobbed the fusion grenade into the air. It exploded in about three seconds throwing a fifteen-mile long concussion, which overturned the hover cycle, sweeping it and Might into the small hole in the ground.