The Guardians' Pendants (The Zor Chronicles Part I) (10 page)

Carefully, more aware
than ever of his surroundings, Ikani made his way back down the
mountain and beyond the clearing at its base, hurrying silently
down the winding pathways towards the Village. Relying solely on
his memory, Ikani retraced the path on which he had seen Hari
travel before – though it was but a handful of times – in the
direction of his dwelling. Suddenly, there was a sound of footsteps
other than his own that broke through the silence of the night.
Ikani frantically sought shelter, ducking behind a boulder on the
roadside.

“Are you certain that
there has been no sign of him?” Came the voice of a
guard.

“Yes sir,” a second
voice replied, “we had deployed Sirens throughout the Village to
search for him and we have checked his dwelling. We have gotten
confirmation within the hour that Ikani has fled Af’One
village.”

Ikani froze at the
sound of his name with a mix of rage and unease creeping up inside
of him. The temptation to reveal himself at that moment – to
proclaim their searches unsuccessful and to attack the guards – was
all but overwhelming as he reached for his sword. Accidentally
leaning too far against the boulder behind him, Ikani caused a loud
thud to echo through the stillness of the night.

“What was that?” one
of the voices asked.

“What was
what?”

There was a pause.
“Never mind me,” the first voice replied. “It was probably just
some falling rocks or a fire serpent in the night; nothing uncommon
in these parts, of course.”

With that, their
footsteps continued on, eventually disappearing into the
darkness.

Ikani breathed a sigh
of relief and checked his surroundings anew before setting out
again. It was not long before he arrived at the dwelling which he
remembered to belong to Hari. As he advanced towards the small
one-room hut, Ikani felt a sense of fear wash over him. It was a
mix of concern that he either had the wrong house, or that his
company would no longer be welcome given his current status as an
exile of his home village.

Taking a deep breath
and finally mustering up the courage to do so (and partly out of
fear of being seen out in the night) Ikani moved forward and
knocked on the door. Almost immediately, the door swung open and he
was pulled inside.

“Are you all right?”
Hari demanded, concerned.

“Yes,” Ikani
blurted.

“Are they following
you?”

“I don’t think
so.”

Finally, Hari breathed
easy. “That’s good to know,” he said simply, walking away from
Ikani, pacing around the small circular room. He turned back to the
Veha, giving him a stern look. “They were here multiple times
looking for you, you know,” Hari stated. “Apparently you had been
asking where I was.”

“I needed to know that
you were safe!” Ikani exclaimed defensively.

“They don’t want you
to know anything!” Hari shot back, quickly quieting down into a
hushed whisper. “They don’t want you,
period.
Now, I don’t know
-”

“Did you hear about
the incident with the Tavar?” Ikani interrupted.

Hari hesitated for a
moment, opening his mouth to speak though no words escaped. He
simply nodded.

“What do you think,
then?” Ikani asked nervously.

At that, Hari almost
seemed to smile, perplexing the Veha as the former took a seat in
the corner, resting his aging body, crossing his arms and legs and
eyeing Ikani.

“You would be a fool,
Ikani,” he began, “to expect me to not believe that what you are
doing has purpose,” he stated with a smile that Ikani attempted to
return, filled with a sudden sense of relief.

“Especially after
being demoted to the mines; I’d believe anything if it’d help me
get my job back.”

“You’ve been demoted?”
Ikani asked in disbelief. “But… you’ve been a member of Af’One
Security for years!”

“Sixty-seven,” Hari
recalled. “And certainly long enough to know that such abrupt
changes in authority are neither normal, nor are they a good sign,”
he added gravely.

“Then
-”

“Dark times are ahead
of us, Ikani; I can tell that much. The new Security may ridicule
such predictions, but I know in my heart that the truth lies within
your warnings.”

“They were not my
words,” Ikani responded, hesitating. “They were… someone else’s
words; a warning -”

“And now they must be
yours to pass on,” Hari cut him off desperately, though his voice
quickly softened and another smile crept across his worn face.
“Veha Ikani…”

It was a title that
should have brought a sense of great honor to Ikani, but all that
he could feel was overwhelming uncertainty and fear that seemed to
prevail over all.

“What am I to do,
then?” he asked helplessly.

At that, Hari rose
from his seat in the corner and made his way towards the window. He
pointed in outstretched finger through the darkness, beyond the
stone pathways and the mines and the skyward smoke stacks of the
steel factories.

“Word of mouth of late
says that far beyond the Village of Af’One – somewhere along the
far side of the mountains, a wise Zor named Garahi has supposedly
taken up residence. I get a feeling that you shall find some
answers with him.”

“But such a trip
should take weeks!” Ikani protested.

Hari smiled. “Nothing
less than a journey suited for a Veha,” he stated.

At that, Ikani finally
conceded. “If I truly must, then I shall seek out this Garahi; in
that case, I suppose I shall be leaving in the
morning.”

“Oh no,” Hari
responded quickly. “You must leave immediately. Given the
circumstances, travel by night is your only choice,” he
elaborated.

Ikani, though slightly
taken aback at first by the sudden onset of yet another task on
this seemingly endless day, knew that he had no other choice. He
could not risk staying in Af’One Village any
longer.

“I shall prepare to
leave immediately, then,” Ikani declared, “And hopefully this
Garahi will know the whereabouts of Veha Oren; Paradius needs
him.”

Hari nodded gravely.
“As well as the other missing Zor.”

“Missing Zor?” Ikani
questioned, confused.

“Have you not
heard?”

Ikani frantically
shook his head.

Hari sighed. “It was
not just you who disappeared after the induction,” Hari began. “The
numbers might even be in the hundreds. I cannot imagine where they
might have gone…”

***

It was an unimaginable
amount of information to take in during the span of two days. And
now, as Ikani continued along his journey through the mountains
nearly two long weeks later in search of Garahi, he continued to
juggle these thoughts through his mind as he struggled to cope with
the lonely nature of the climb. It was during times like this, as
the final glimmers of daylight succumbed to the darkness of night,
that Ikani wished he had not set out alone, leaving the others
behind. He wondered what the other Veha were doing at this time;
perhaps they had even located Oren, he mused.

He shuddered at the
thought of the other Satellites being overrun by the same
corruption of authority that had fallen over Af’One, similar to the
complete blackness of night that now surrounded Ikani. Suddenly,
however, that darkness was broken by a pair of torches that lit the
entrance to a hole in the side of the mountain.

Chapter IX – Hanging
On

“Why did I even
bother?” Enoke muttered to himself as he trudged along through the
thick underbrush of the forest. He had taken the long route back to
his home Satellite, electing to cross the Great Bridge of Lagi as
opposed to traveling by Pod in hopes of cooling his temper before
his return. However, the further he grew from the other Veha – who
by now may very well have retreated to the corners of the Five
Islands, all heading their separate ways – the more Enoke’s ill
feelings seemed to surface. “Damn you, Ikani,” he cursed under his
breath, clenching his fists. “You’d better be happy now; after all,
we’re only fueling the fire that you set underneath us by splitting
up. You just had to run off -”

At that, Enoke was
taken aback by a sudden burst of light that emanated from his
Pendant. He clasped it in his hand, watching in surprise as it
seemingly began to point towards something. Struggling to find his
bearing in the forest, Enoke glanced upwards, estimating by the
angle of the sun that that
something
was further
south, potentially even the distant Af’Lagi Village, perched atop
the mountains which acted as the main entrance into the Historical
Vaults.

“I suppose I’d better
get going then,” Enoke figured, sighing and taking a moment to
stretch before trudging on. The trek through the forest was no easy
task, however, and his path – whenever one could be found – was
often blocked by outwards-expanding undergrowth while branches from
the overhead trees hung low enough to force the Veha to duck at a
minimum rate of three or four times per minute.

“This is just great,”
Enoke complained as he trudged on, swatting at bugs that were
beginning to swarm around him, nipping at his skin. “Put me
underground, and I’d be living the life,” he began, reminiscing of
his work in the Vaults, a post which he had now seemingly all but
vacated abruptly in favor of this unfamiliar lifestyle. “Or on the
other hand, you could put me in the middle of the forest and I’d
get eaten alive. Remind me why I came this way?” he asked himself,
annoyed. After all, it had been Enoke’s decision to travel back to
his home Satellite via the Bridge, in doing so electing to cross
through the thick and unrelenting forest that spanned the northern
half of the island. It was an area that was home to wildlife
researchers and who spent their days researching the many plants
and animals that inhabited the forest, which eventually gave way
further south to a drastic change in scenery seemed to include
nothing more than barren, rocky territory until Af’Lagi Village
came into view atop the island’s southernmost band of
mountains.

Suddenly, there was a
rustling sound to Enoke’s right. The Veha spun around,
instinctively readying his sword and perking up his ears. There was
something approaching, he knew it. But what? As he inched closer,
holding himself tight against a nearby tree, Enoke observed a large
path that appeared to have been walked many times before – and by
something far larger than any Zor. Then, from behind now, there
came a chorus of animals’ cries as a family of frightened deer
barreled down the beaten pathway, as if fleeing from something. Not
daring to move, Enoke watched on as two enormous Forest Lions –
easily and unquestionably recognized as the fiercest land animals
on the Af’Lagi Satellite Island – bolted after them, growling
fiercely as they hunted their prey into the bushes
anew.

“That’s encouraging,”
Enoke grumbled. Coming off of the tree trunk now, he glanced
upwards once again, taking notice of the quickly setting sun. It
was not until that moment that Enoke became aware of the sense of
fatigue that had crept up on him since leaving, with his run-in
with the Stone Golem back in the Pit and his long trek through the
thick woods finally taking its toll on the Veha. It was for that
reason that Enoke eyed this time as a chance to rest and
recuperate; he would set out anew in the morning. Testing his sore
body, Enoke scaled the tree’s tall and thick trunk with a great
level of difficulty before finally perching himself atop a sturdy
branch a good way’s up, knowing that he would be safe from any
hungry Forest Lions should they return. Without another thought of
what lay ahead, Enoke’s eyelids blacked out the world around him,
the darkness drowning out the light that emanated from the jewel
around his neck.

It was not the
breaking of dawn that awoke Enoke the following morning. His
exhausted body and mind had voted to sleep beyond that hour – well
beyond it, for that matter. It was not until a familiar rustling
had taken over the forest again that Enoke’s eyes finally snapped
open. When they did, he was alert at the very first moment, his
attention focused on the fast approaching sounds from the thick
woodlands below. He didn’t dare move – in fact, Enoke daren’t even
breathe as he anticipated the return of the Forest Lions at any
minute. Judging by the intensity of the chorus of snapping branches
and fast-moving footsteps, it sounded like it could be an entire
pack, following the same course as the two from the night before on
the hunt for food once again. However, Enoke was taken aback as the
first of the figures emerged into the open, revealing themselves
but momentarily as they darted through the forest, heading
southward as well. Enoke remained perched atop the tree, unmoving
and paralyzed with the emergence of an entirely new wave of fear as
he watched the pack of hundreds of Sirens on their exodus towards
their destination that he knew – without a doubt – to be Af’Lagi
Village. Their grim, slender bodies were hidden behind their baggy
cloaks and metallic facemasks as they dashed through the forest,
carelessly uprooting small trees and destroying any and all life
that stood in their way as they carved an entirely new trail that
ran almost alongside the one taken by the Forest Lions the night
prior.