The Rising Sun: Episode 5 (17 page)

“Let us keep our strides soft.” said Nalzes
enigmatically, before marching off into the ship’s hull through its
ramp, with ion, Vestra and Qyro following.

The ramp sealed itself as the four of them
mounted it.

Seconds later, the ground hosted a faint
shudder as Flamebird lifted off it. The ship twisted about and shot
back into the skies the way it had come.

__________

The deep, multi tunnelled cave was as silent
as always. As gloomy…

The man with the hairless red skin and the
bead like red eyes, was sitting in the midst of the cold ground of
the cave. Redgarn was sitting opposite to four other Xeni, who were
also sitting cross legged as he was. With their hoods drawn, their
faces were concealed in shadows. Their chests swelled and shrunk in
a methodical rhythm as they kept the flow of their breathing
controlled.

Redgarn let his eyes rest over them, moving
from one to the other slowly. He could sense their calm, unwavered
states of mind glow like torches in the darkness. And something
very unlikely seemed to have happened, as Redgarn watched them and
sniffed the steely glow of their minds:

He was almost impressed.

“Zardin has taught you well.” he said,
feeling his lips twist into a smile as he said it. “Not bad at
all.”

The four of them dipped their heads in a
faint imitation of a bow.

“Thank you, my lord.” said one.

“He truly has, my lord.” said another.

Redgarn felt his mind flash back eight
millennia, to the fall of their order, which had driven their
fragmented remains into hiding. He felt a shadow of the heavy,
crushing pain of the ages as he watched, unable to help, unable to
act. But now, the agony had ended. The wait had ended, and after a
painful long stretch, they had risen again. But only through the
efforts of one sole man. He remembered that day, when he had found
Zardin, in the middle of the desert. From there, to what he was
now, and the astonishing feats he had accomplished along the way …
Redgarn couldn’t help but feel truly impressed at his student.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Zardin truly has been
the soul of our new order. And he will prove it again, very
soon.”

Beneath the dark of their hoods, Redgarn
could feel the same curiosity kindling in the men’s faces.

He chuckled softly. “Yes, that’s right. He
will prove once more, why he is a mastermind among mystics
themselves. He will prove it … by fetching us the plague
crystal.”

As he said it, he could almost feel the air
freeze around the four Xeni in front of him: a sudden stiffness had
sparked in their postures. Redgarn could feel the thrill rising in
them.

“The - the plague crystal, my lord?” hissed
one of them, unable to keep his curiosity from bursting out of
him.

Redgarn gave a low laugh, which left a
tingling hum to echo behind it in the cave. “Yes … Zardin has just
gone for the one task that we need accomplished right now. He’s
gone to have the plague crystal obtained. From the Nyon.”

The hooded faces slowly twisted to face each
other, and Redgarn sensed the same mixture of shock and excitement
beneath all their hoods.

“But - how?” asked one of them, daring to
break the same question that all their heads now contained.

Redgarn licked his lips, his eyes narrowing
sharply. “He did not tell me. And I did not bother asking.”

The Xeni slowly exchanged another quiet
look.

“I have faith in him.” said Redgarn, smiling
as he said it. “And whatever plan he has for this.”

The Xeni dared speak no more. But Redgarn
knew they were all weighing the odds … and trying to hope that the
mastermind who had brought their order this far, could accomplish
this final goal for them. The plague crystal.

Redgarn couldn’t help himself either: he
pondered over the chances of success Zardin bore. Wondering if he
would manage to accomplish this last, and most important feat…

But he quickly caught himself and pushed away
such worthless dwellings and fears. Silencing all questions. For
the answers were very soon to reach them.

Good luck, Zardin.

“Two minutes.” Qyro said, looking into the
fifth holo screen beside the four others. “We’ll be at the planet
in two minutes.”

He turned to Vestra and Ion, who stood by his
left looking into the screen as well. It displayed the distance and
time remaining to their destination, the planet Garnor in the
nearing star system.

Ion glanced behind at the hull. The priest,
Nalzes, sat at the very back, cross legged and eyes closed. After
he had entered the ship, less than a minute or two ago, he had
settled at the back of the ship where he sank into a deep,
undisturbed meditation.

“Let’s check the details of this planet.”
Vestra suggested.

Ion ran through the pages of the data stored
in the fifth holo screen, before arriving at one that gave them
what they wanted - everything about the planet Garnor.

Qyro ran through the page quickly, before
turning to the two of them.

“It’s a rainforest planet.” he told them.
“One of the rare ones, as a matter of fact.”

“Is it inhabited?” asked Vestra, who bent
forward to read, but Qyro shook his head.

“Not my man beings. Not now anyway.”

“Not now?” asked Ion.

“Garnor was apparently inhabited a long, long
time ago.” he explained, squinting at the lines of small words
filling the page. “Probably too long to even leave any traces of
inhabitation behind. Anyway, it’s all green now. Nothing but
forests throughout the planet.”

“There is a city remaining behind.” Ion told
him. “ An abandoned city. It’s not inhabited. But it used to be,
apparently, when the planet was.”

Qyro lifted an eyebrow. “How’d you know?”

“Because that’s where the tablet is.” Ion
recalled the exact directions to the tablet, as Mantra had told
him. “This abandoned city is where we’re going to find the
tablet.”

He mentally ran through the details of the
tablet’s location, as given by Mantra. The ship had been set on
autodrive to take them directly to the outskirts of the city. From
there, they would enter the abandoned place by foot. The tablet, as
Mantra had explained, would be found in a structure at the centre
of the abandoned city.

He placed his arms behind his back and
watched as the empty black stretch shown in the four screens
carried on for a minute or two. And then, they could feel the
ship’s speed entering a steady drop. And a small orb appeared on
one of the screens, enlargening against the black background.
Coloured rich green, it expanded in size until the entire screen
was swallowed by it.

The stretch of black on all four screens was
wiped out as the ship zoomed into the planet’s atmosphere. One of
them displayed the sky, while another showed the green lands
beneath them, which came hurtling closer.

The lively greenery on the ground zipped
backwards as the ship flew by over it. It was dense and rich,
forest life that seemed to spawn on and on.

It was mid day: they could see so through the
screen bearing the sky. The sun lay half concealed behind a large
puff of cloud, a slice of its bright orange rim exposed.

The ship soared on gracefully, its altitude
lowering gradually as it approached its destination. Within a few
seconds, they saw what was undoubtedly a man made area of
inhabitance crop into view at the very edge of the grassy lands. As
they approached, they saw the city grow out over the land, steadily
turning clearer. Flamebird descended with a stunningly accurate
precision: it landed on the grassy land coming beyond the city,
right on its outskirts.

“We’re here.”

The three of them spun around, and saw the
priest standing right behind them. He had apparently woken from
meditation completely unknown to them. His green eyes were fixed on
the four screens before them, and a faint frown wore on his
brow.

“Let’s not tarry,” he said, his voice pinched
with something faintly grim. “Time is of the essence.”

“And so it is.” Ion frowned too, and the as
the ramp caved in from the floor before them, landing on the grassy
ground beneath, the four of them swept down it.

The ramp re sealed itself as they exited the
ship. The four of them lined outside of the ship, holding their
gazes upon the deserted, ruined city spreading before them.

The buildings were all made in the same,
identical fashion. They all looked like small scale pyramids with
the upper tip shaved off. All of them were roughly of the same
size, rising as tall as a two storey building. The skin covering
the structure seemed to be some sort of a diamond like material. It
glimmered in the harsh rays of the mid day sun, carrying a polished
shine unfazed by the great span of years it had endured.

Ion couldn’t help observing that Nalzes’s
expression was strangely closed, with a half frown over his brow. A
strangely dark look. For some reason, he heaved in a deep breath,
and then held his eyes closed for a long, intense moment, as though
praying … or trying to detect something.

And then, Nalzes’s eyes suddenly opened.

“We should hurry.” he said softly.

His voice was just as calm as ever, but there
was a sharp note of urgency in it.

“I’ll lead the way,” said Ion, giving him a
nod.

And without another word, he swept forward in
a brisk pace, with the other three hurrying on behind him.

As he walked, Ion had the strangest feeling
that Nalzes was sensing trouble. The same way Mantra could. He
remembered having the same feeling when he had met him earlier.
Feeling his nerves tingle very mildly, he gathered his pace and
walked faster with the three of them striding along behind him.

The flooring of the entire city was uniform,
laid with concrete tiles. The entire city was sprawled over the
unbroken concrete tiling that acted like a platform for its build.
The half pyramid structures were all distributed over the city’s
large platform. Faint mushes of greenery lay smeared between the
concrete flooring, either in the form of tufts of grass or bushes.
Creepers stretched over most of the buildings, some of them thin
and mildly layered. While others were dense, wrapping and
enshrouding the entire building in greenery.

They were treading down the large,
magnificent city at a hurried trot. Ion was leading them, the other
two and Nalzes huddling along in his wake. He sent a glance back
and saw Qyro and Vestra by either side of Nalzes, whose face
carried the same dark frown. The two others had stoned looks on
their faces, and Ion knew that the same, silent anxiety pressed
upon them all. One that had been triggered by the sudden urgency
Nalzes displayed. The anxiety of something looming over them,
waiting to land.

Pushing the thought away, Ion turned back and
let his pace quicken subconsciously.

As the four of them swept down the city, Ion
couldn’t help letting his gaze wander over it. Despite its
abandoned state, the place had a lingering sense of awe from the
exquisite nature of its build. The touch of grandeur in the city’s
craft was unravaged. The expensive material making the half pyramid
structures all around them preserved the unblemished, smooth nature
of its surface, even through the age it had stood through. Some of
the structures, which were noticeably larger than the rest, had
their surface coated with a spread of glinting lights. And with a
closer look upon one of them, Ion noticed that they were precious
stones that adorned the building. He guessed that these had been
buildings bearing a greater importance in the city than the
rest.

Though simply modelled, the city was large,
larger by far than he had imagined. He redoubled his pace, and the
three of him followed suit, almost running. The place seemed to
spawn for a small eternity of tense walking, with Ion’s nerves
quietly tingling all through.

An air of desolate emptiness haunted the
place. One that seemed strangely awakened, renewed as the five new
visitors hurriedly passed through the city.

Ion let his gaze shoot about the place all
the time, looking for signs of the building Mantra had directed him
to. He remembered Mantra’s instructions, directing him to a central
building in the abandoned city, wherein lay this tablet. And,
keeping them in mind all through, he carried on down the maze of
structures, leading the others.

Within a few minutes, he had reached the
building Mantra had directed him to. And as soon as he did, as the
five of them stood before the large, grandly built half pyramid
wherein lay the tablet, Ion felt something in his gut loosen.

The building was the largest of the entire
city, or so Ion guessed from what he had observed of the city
through their wandering. A large pair of large double doors lay
sealed shut at front.

Nalzes gave a flick of his hand and the door
swung open, revealing a large dark hall touched only by the
faintest illumination. But even through the dimness of the place,
they could spot it … sitting directly in the middle of the room,
large and elegant.