The Guardians' Pendants (The Zor Chronicles Part I) (13 page)

“For that matter, I am
not quite sure that they care,” came a voice from across the
room.

Lanaru turned towards
the direction of the voice. In front of him now stood a hunched
looking Zor wearing a tattered scarf over his head, concealing the
majority of his face. His attire matched that of the other Zor
behind him almost exactly. Both looked to be fairly aged, and the
first spoke with the unmistakable learned-sounding accent of the
Hub.

“Oh great, another
one!” Lanaru snapped in frustration.

The first Zor emitted a
rather high-pitched chuckle in response. “Not exactly,” he replied.
“In fact, we Zor have been sent here as weapons manufacturers
ourselves, you see.”

“Come again?” Lanaru
asked, confused. “What business do a couple of wise Hub Zor have
here in Af’Mara?”

At that, the Zor’s eyes
appeared to take on a rather somber look. He shook his head in
disappointment. “Ah, so often do I find myself asking myself this
very question,” replied the wise Zor simply.

Lanaru paused for a
moment, gazing around at his surroundings once more. He may have
been well-trained at performing his former job, but he admittedly
knew not a thing about working as a manufacturer of weapons. It was
an art completely foreign to the Mara who often spent his days
taking to the skies, rather than finding himself locked in a dingy
cellar room.

“It’s truly not that
difficult, once you get the hang of it,” the Hub Zor replied from
behind his back. “just fit one of the metal plates into the
fixture. Then, guide the shaping blades across it according to the
specifications you’ve got. You’ll find them posted above your work
bench.”

Lanaru stared blankly
back at former. “Uh… say that again?” he asked, scratching his
head. He stared down helplessly at the tools before him. He reached
for what must have been one of the plates the wise Zor was
referring to and did his best to fit it into the fixture to his
right.

“So, how many more
until we’re good to go?”

Lanaru paused for a
moment, hearing for the first time the voice of the second Zor. He
spoke monotonously and with a distinctive chill in his voice that
bordered on bitter-sounding, but was not quite
there.

“Apparently our quota
for the day is thirty-five,” stated the first Zor. “But I wouldn’t
worry too much about that.”

“You aren’t
saying-”

There was a pause then,
and immediately Lanaru began to worry that the others suspected him
of eavesdropping. Hastily and loudly, he gathered the tools before
him and continued to work sloppily on his first
blade.

From there, the hours
seemed to pile up slowly and tediously. For the first while, Lanaru
struggled greatly at grappling the task of keeping the metal plates
in place whilst trying to shape the swords’ blades. Gradually,
however, the process began to grow somewhat easier, and after a
couple of hours Lanaru had managed to churn out seven blades – five
that were rather sloppy, but two that he was actually somewhat
proud of. As time wore on, his worries about what lay beyond the
doors of the cellar began to wear thin as his temper cooled. He
thought long and hard about what the guards had told him prior to
leaving him – of how the Zor of Af’Mara had been reassigned to
weapon production in an attempt to militarize against whatever
threats lay on the horizon. Surely it couldn’t have been a bad
thing, right? For the first time, Lanaru began to think of the
Tavar’s actions towards him and the other Veha as nothing more than
a misunderstanding, and one that could be forgotten if he redeemed
himself through hard work.

“Making any progress
over there, Lanaru?” the first Zor asked suddenly, breaking the
long-lasting conversational silence that had fallen over the
underground room, broken only by the sounds of clinking tools and
machines.

“Huh?” Lanaru asked.
“Oh, yeah, I-” he stopped mid sentence, spinning around to face the
other two Zor. Something was amidst. “Wait a second,” he began,
eyeing them suspiciously, his eyes traveling from one to the other.
“I never introduced myself to you two,” he stated. “How do you know
my name?”

Once again, there was a
shrill chuckle from the more talkative of the two Zor. “Word of the
coming of a hero travels quickly, I suppose,” he answered simply.
“Depending on your connections, of course.”

Lanaru paused, his
disturbed expression downturned towards his feet. “Well, in that
case, I am sorry to disappoint you and your… connections,” he began
disappointedly, feeling reality creeping back up on him. “But I am
no hero, in the eyes of Tavar Nuraka or the
Authority.”

“And
who says that you must be seen as a hero to them?” asked the wise
Zor. “What matters most is how you are viewed in – well –
your
own
eyes.”

“My
eyes?”

The Hub Zor nodded.
“And rest assured, dear Lanaru, that when you finally come around
and discover your true value, you will find that you are not alone
in your views,” he added with a smile.

Lanaru opened his mouth
to speak, but could utter no words. In truth, he was unsure really
of what could even be said.

“Who are you?” he asked
finally, his eyes darting from the hunched Hub Zor before him to
the other who remained in the far end of the small room, working
away.

“My name is Arkem,” the
Hub Zor introduced himself. “And this,” he said, signaling to the
other, “is Fau.”

Lanaru paused for a
moment, feeling something suddenly click inside his brain, though
he somehow remained unsure of exactly what it was.

“Arkem and Fau…” he
repeated under his breath. “Where have I heard those names
before?”

It was then that it
finally occurred to him.

“Wait!” the Veha
exclaimed. “You were the other candidates for the position of
Tavar!”

Arkem smiled. “Indeed,”
he replied.

“But… I don’t
understand. What are you doing working in weapon manufacturing?”
questioned Lanaru. “I mean, shouldn’t you be doing something a
little more important?”

Arkem chuckled once
more. “Do not be so quick to come to conclusions, dear Lanaru.
Judging a Zor based on his occupation now, are we?”

At that, Arkem made his
way towards the back of the room.

“Now?” asked Fau confusedly.

Arkem nodded. “It is
time.”

“But what about our
quota?” asked Fau coldly.

“Forget about the
quota!” hissed Arkem, sounding frustrated. “The Veha have arrived.
At this time, it is fair to expect that we shall not be returning
here.”

“What are you talking
about?” Lanaru begged from across the room, butting
in.

At that, Arkem and Fau
both made their way towards a barrel that stood in the far right
corner of the room. They grabbed hold of it, pushing it from its
original position, revealing a sizable hole in the
ground.

“You are to come with
us,” Arkem declared, eyeing the Veha. “And whatever you do, don’t
scream!” he hissed, warning Lanaru.

Without so much as
another glance, Fau slipped into the hole and out of sight. Lanaru
took a couple of steps back in surprise. Where did it lead? And,
more important to him at the moment – how deep was
it?

“I’m
counting on you, hero!” Arkem reiterated. “Don’t back out!”

With that, he had
disappeared into the darkness as well.

At first, Lanaru
hesitated, though that hesitance was but for a brief moment as he
longed for explanations to satisfy his curious mind, demanding to
know what was going on. Approaching the hole now, he gazed down
into the pitch blackness.

“Let’s just hope I can
trust them,” Lanaru muttered to himself. “With that, he shut his
eyes and leapt into the blackness.

The feeling of falling
suddenly into nothingness suddenly overcame the Veha, who was sent
plummeting into perpetual darkness, trying his best to heed Arkem’s
warnings and not scream. Lanaru felt fear coursing through every
inch of his body as he continued to freefall, unsure of when he
would finally touch ground again. Gradually, however, he began to
see dim lights appearing below. Suddenly, his freefall was brought
to an abrupt end as he slammed into the solid metallic ground
beneath him. As the shockwave of impact rushed through his body,
the Veha cried out in pain.

Suddenly, Lanaru was
greeted by the familiar sound of Arkem’s laughter once
again.

“Well, I am impressed.
I did not hear a single sound from you until you hit the ground,”
he stated with a smile. “I thought that you’d bailed
out.”

At first, Lanaru wanted
to call Arkem out for making him take the leap. However, all anger
inside of him suddenly subsided, and he began to smile, even
chuckling for a moment.

“Veha don’t bail,” he
stated proudly. “Now then, where exactly are we?”

At that, the Mara began
to scan his surroundings. He was surprised to find that they
appeared quite familiar to him.

“Are we… are we down in
the Web?” he asked.

“Precisely,” answered
Arkem. “An abandoned sector of the Web at that; these tracks
haven’t been used in ages,” he added, tapping the Pod tracks below
with his foot.

“Where are we off to, then?” Lanaru questioned.

“Not too far from
here,” Arkem replied as Fau approached them from behind now as
well, though he said nothing. “Follow me.”

The three began making
their way through the tunnels, with Fau and Arkem leading the way
while the Veha trailed close behind, following their lead. Their
travels seemed slow for Lanaru, who was chiefly acquainted with
speeding through these pipelines in Pods going more than tenfold
their speed on foot.

“If you don’t mind me
asking,” Lanaru piped up, “why was it that you pulled out of the
run for Tavar? You seem just as fit for the job as anyone I’ve ever
seen.”

Arkem appeared to
cringe at this. He hesitated. “Well, you see,” he began in a somber
tone that caught Lanaru’s attention. “We didn’t,
exactly.”

Fau
scoffed.

“Fau!” Arkem scolded
him. “What Fau here is so inappropriately trying to suggest is
that, well, that rather than withdrawing, as you have suggested, we
were forced to drop out.”

“Forced?” Lanaru
repeated, shocked. “By whom?”

“The same one who is
forcing us into weapons production,” replied Arkem.
“Remula.”

“That good for nothing
cheat; he rigged the entire system! He must have known that Nuraka
would re-appoint him Chief of Security! He bribed him with the
prize of victory in exchange for a return to power for
himself!”

“I fear you are all too
correct,” Arkem replied gloomily with a nod.

In the distance, Lanaru
could have sworn that he could now hear the distant hum of voices –
and many of them, at that. Pushing the observation to the back of
his mind for the time behind, however, he continued to listen to
Arkem.

“From there, Remula sought to it that we were kept as far
from the public eye as possible. He captured us, and had us sent
here to work with weapon production just over a week ago. Our trips
to and from the Hangar – except for those conducted through the Web
– have been under constant surveillance of those new
guards
that he’s instated to round up Zor and
reassign them to tasks fitting to their own selfish needs,” Arkem
explained. “However, not all have been naïve enough to comply to
every order given. That is our purpose here, you see – we are
almost there.”

Lanaru could hear the
hum of voices gradually turning into a roaring chorus now. As they
rounded a corner, they appeared to have reached their destination
as Arkem and Fau came to a halt before the Veha.

“Well, we’re here!”
Arkem declared.

Lanaru’s eyes widened
at the scene unfolded before him. Countless Zor from all of the
Five Islands, with numbers stretching possibly into the thousands
within the vastness of the space they occupied, stretched far down
through the tunnels that still were still laid out before
him.

“Meet the Resistance, Lanaru,” announced Arkem. “Those who
oppose not only Remula, but who are driven to rise up against
the
true
dangers that are now at hand. Meet your
army.”