Cling!
Qyro’s blade flew off his hand as Ion’s
clipped it from the base, loosening his hold.
Qyro froze as Ion’s sword hovered before his
neck. And then, his surprised expression dissolved behind a wild
smile.
“Bravo!” came Vestra’s voice from where she
was sitting at the back of the hull, watching the sparring between
the two of them. “That was so good, for a second there, I was dying
to believe it was a real fight!”
“Well, I’m lucky it wasn’t one.” beamed Qyro,
as Ion lowered his sword.
Ion doused his sword and sliding it back into
its sheath behind him.
As Qyro collected his sword and turned, Ion
saw a quiet marvel in his eyes. “You know, for someone trained
outside the Nyon, your powers are
really
developed.”
“I had a good master.” Ion said. He looked at
Qyro and nodded. “And you were with the Nyon for less than a
year!”
“I was.” said Qyro, sheathing his sword.
“And your powers aren’t half bad either! You
almost had me.” Ion gave an impressed nod. “You earlier master,
tolgaor, he’s done a hell of a job for a stray mystic. He should
start a training school or something.”
Qyro gave a hollow smile. “He’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Qyro nodded, carrying his eyes over to the
blank screens upfront. Ion sensed the same melancholy in him as he
felt when thinking of Jedius…
“Was it the Naxim,” Ion asked, still watching
him. “who killed him?”
Qyro looked at Ion, frowning. “I wish it
was.”
Ion stared. “What do you mean?”
Qyro looked at the pedestal enclosed in the
bubble like shield behind them, thinking for a moment. Sighing, he
looked up at Ion and said, “You remember those adventures I told
you about … which me and Tralgor used to go in, across the outer
spectrum?”
“I do.”
“Well, one of them went wrong.” His scowl
deepened. “I always thought it would, but Tralgor was the sort that
wasn’t afraid of anything. Even death. We ran into a horde of
Incratys-”
“A horde of what?” asked Ion.
“They’re one of the many brutal non man being
species living in the outer spectrum.” clarified Qyro. “They were
in a nasty fit at the time. And like all non man beings, or most,
they don’t entertain outsiders, and man beings among them. And like
all non man beings, they
hate mystics
.” His voice darkened.
“It got tense when the two of us ran into the horde. In the end,
when a fight was going to break out…” Qyro looked at the four
screens upfront again, at the glinting starlight spread over them.
“Tralgor decided to distract them to give me a chance, though he
was well aware he wouldn’t make it. He died to save me. Like I
said, he wasn’t afraid of anything, even death.”
He paused for a strained second. “And it was
then that I decided that the life I would go on living, was meant
to ensure that his sacrifice wasn’t in vain. To live upto his
legacy … and so, I joined the Nyon, when they approached me just
after.”
He looked as though having run out of words
for a moment. As Ion looked at him for a second, he felt himself
mirrored in him. A strange dawning connection formed between the
two of them.
“
To live upto his legacy” … Like I try to
live upto Jedius’s.
Ion gently patted him on the shoulder.
“I’m fine!” he said fiercely, holding both
hands up. “But anyway, I know have every reason to hate them. Hate
them all!”
“Who?” asked Ion.
Qyro’s face was blanketed by a seething
rage.
“Non man beings.” he spat. “They’re savage
creatures, the entire lot of them.”
Ion personally didn’t share this belief, but
he said nothing, knowing that Qyro had a perfectly viable reason to
uphold this hatred.
Something he had said now struck Ion’s
attention. “Why’d you say non man beings hated mystics?”
“I don’t say it.” said Qyro. “The whole world
does.”
Ion looked at Vestra, who had been sitting
there with her hands around her legs before her. She shook her
head. “Non man beings suffered much during Redgarn’s reign. You’d
remember Mantra telling you that.”
“Yeah,” said Ion, frowning.
“Well, most of them have been scarred badly
by the evil empire’s reign.” she explained, while Qyro nodded.
“Some of them were even driven close to the point of extinction
during the Xeni’s reign.”
“But why?”
Vestra sighed. “Because Redgarn and the Xeni,
being the twisted things they were, didn’t tolerate them, did
they?” She frowned. “You remember the flashback Mantra showed us …
you remember Redgarn trying to convince the other Nyon of his
twisted belief that they were, as mystics,
greater
in the
pyramid of creation. So the same belief went for man beings and non
man beings as well.”
“The Xeni tolerated non mystics, but only as
slaves to them.” took over Qyro. “But in the case of non man beings
…” He shook his head.
“… They didn’t tolerate them at all.”
completed Vestra. “The Xeni, with their demon army, tried scouring
the entire spectrum and getting rid of all non man beings, whom
they thought were unfit for even existing. And that’s the reason
the non man beings hate all of us, now. Especially mystics. But
even more than mystics…”
“They hold a specially nursed hatred for
them.” Qyro said quietly. “For the Xeni.”
“Most of their kind haven’t forgotten at all,
all the tyranny that they were subject to during Redgarn’s reign.”
said Vestra. “Which is the reason they’re all now shattered, and
left hidden deep in the outer spectrum.”
Qyro gave a sigh, and looked at the pedestal.
“Why don’t the two of you take a break … I’ll drive.”
Ion knew he wanted a span of time alone,
after talking about the loss of his master. And he didn’t at all
blame him for it.
He walked to the back of the hull, sitting
beside Vestra.
“Well, we’re halfway there.” she said, a
small spark of excitement in her voice.
Ion nodded absently, knowing she was
referring to the journey to the planet Velrox. Where they would
have it all ended once and for all…
“I’ve been blinded all this time.” he said
softly. More to himself. “I thought I’d seen it all. Guess I was
wrong. This is a whole new world that I’ve now entered. A world
that’s so far away from normal ones. A world filled with pain.” He
turned to look at Vestra, who was listening quietly. “But a world
that bears the courage to survive through it nevertheless …”
Vestra was sitting with her arms around her
legs in front. Silent in her own thoughts. The same heavy look
moistened her gaze. The look she had had in the balcony earlier
on…
Ion watched the four screens at the front of
the hull, through which they saw the four sides of the endless
expanse of space they now were amidst. The pedestal enclosed in the
shield sat in between, with Qyro sealed within it. He was driving
the ship in a quietitude that the two of them sitting behind him
shared.
“Why?” asked Ion, looking at Vestra.
She was quiet for a few moments. Then, her
lead still leaning on one shoulder, she brought her eyes to him
slowly. “Why did I join the Nyon when I wasn’t even a mystic?”
She gave a quiet sigh, before flicking a
strand of hair away from her face. “I had a … family.”
Ion looked ahead, staring at the blank
screens. Waiting.
“A beautiful family, and I’ll never forget
them…”
Ion knew where this was heading, of course.
“And … you lost them?”
He turned to see, to his surprise, that she
was smiling.
“Of course not.” she chuckled. Staring ahead
for a quiet moment, she drew her gaze to Ion and said, “They lost
me.”
Ion stared. “What?”
Vestra shook her head, and Ion saw the depth
of her black eyes now filled with a heavy sadness.
“I ran away from home, Ion.” she said
softly.
“What?” asked Ion, bewildered.
A long second passed between the two of them
as Ion watched her with her head leaning on one shoulder, her long
black hair falling down by the side of her face.
“But … why?”
She was silent for a second, before taking a
deep breath and speaking in a brittle voice.
“I came from a village in one of the lesser
developed planets of the inner spectrum. And my family, like most
others there, were facing much difficulties. They were in a
terrible state. But they ploughed through with it for the ones they
loved.” She stopped for a deep breath. “I saw the world through
their plight. I saw that they were just a reflection of the many
pains this world was facing and straining to fight. And I knew that
if anything, my life’s purpose was sacrificing myself for them, the
family that I so loved. The family that showed me what we were
all
going through. For if I truly valued my own family’s
pain, it meant for me to value this world’s equally.” As she spoke,
Ion could feel her voice strain to hold back tears. “And so … I ran
away. Knowing that I had to help bring a solution to the mess this
realm was in. When I spent my days travelling through the outer
spectrum, I came to hear of the Nyon through some mystics I’d met.
And I found them, asking to be joined so that I, too, could share a
place in the struggle they were putting up … a struggle for a
better world.”
She ended with a sob, her eyes sparkling with
tears that she held back.
Without knowing where the motivation for it
came from, Ion put an arm around her, patting her by the side. He
felt himself flash back to that day, two years back. When the two
of them had met.
He continued to pat her while she steadied
herself with deep breaths.
“Well, you were right.” he said finally, as
she gained a hold over herself.
“What do you mean?” she sniffed.
“Your sacrifice did build a better world.” He
smiled as looked at her. “It did for me.”
She looked at him with the same softness in
her deep black eyes as a silent moment passed.
“That day,” Ion continued softly. “two years
ago … you changed my life. You showed me the world through your
eyes. And after that,” He shook his head. “I was never the same
again. You gave me a chance that day, and since then, there’s a
piece of you that’ve been holding ever since. And it’s the reason
I’m no longer what I was back then. The reason … is you.”
They sat there, their eyes held for what felt
like an eternity. Vestra’s grief seemed to melt beneath a dawning
warmth in her expression. She smiled slowly, wiping her face.
“I was right when I took a chance with you.”
she whispered, and then wrapped her arms around him in a gentle
hug.
“Because you are a good person.” she said, as
they withdrew. “If you can’t trust yourself with that … at least
trust me. Because I know I’m never wrong.”
“I hope so.” Ion said.
As the three of them sat there in silence,
Qyro sitting within the bubble like encasing over the pedestal and
the two others on the seats behind him, Ion stared at the four
black screens at the front of the hull. In less than twenty or so
minutes, they would have reached Velrox. Found the priest. And it
would all be over…
Their struggle would be over…
But Ion wondered if it his struggle would
ever be over.
For his was a struggle that no amount of
resistance could win. No amount of warfare and rebelling. His was
the worst struggle possible. The struggle against the inevitable …
against who he was.
As much as he tried to wrestle against it, as
much as he tried to resist it, and to deny it … He couldn’t alter
what had already happened. It was done. And he was left to live
with the crushing guilt of it all for the rest of his life.
Two years ago
All had ceased.
Nothing at all existed. No motion, no
movement. No thought, no emotion…
Just the pain.
And it had consumed the world. It was now all
there was for Ion as he knelt there, holding his twin brother’s
dead body in his arms.
A numb silence had stolen over the entire
world.
But through it, thundered a ring of agony.
Agony that bored into Ion’s soul, seeming to cleave him in two.
“No, this can’t be happening.” he moaned,
unable to move his eyes from the unblinking, hollow ones of his
brother. “Eol…”
But he knew that his brother was no longer
here. That he had left this world forever.
And the reason for it was him. Ion. He was
the one who had done this. He had killed his own brother.
The realisation swelled within Ion, pushing
away every other thought in his mind … and he felt every inch of
him trembling as he held his brother’s body on the spot.