Alliance of Serpents (13 page)

Kindel had defeated the Ma'tuul, and yet his
soul would be forever tainted by the insanity that came with such
awesome power.

The weapon shook once more, drawing Kindel's
glowing eyes. He stared for a lifetime, an eternity of struggle
with his desire for sanity and lust for power. He could feel the
warmth of the hilt through the dirty cloth as it pulsated against
his palm. He wanted more, so much more, and the power was eager for
him to take it. It beckoned him, called to him, pleaded with him,
but his mind still knew right from wrong, and despite the
unquenchable thirst that drowned his soul, he threw the cursed
thing away, sending its black blade clattering down the
mountainside where it disappeared amongst the trees. His knees hit
the dirt at the same moment, and he unleashed a cry that pierced
the air and reverberated across the farthest lands.

When he opened his eyes, he was sitting
upright in his bed as the last echoes of his shout silenced.
Scimitar and Kalibur burst into the room immediately, weapons drawn
and ready. When they saw there was no imminent danger, the cool
composure returned, and their weapons returned to their places. "Is
everything all right, Master?" Kalibur asked after a moment.

Kindel didn't even look up. "Yes, thank you,
I'm fine." He waved them away with a dismissive hand. He had
stopped trying to interpret his dreams long ago—most had no real
significance anyway—but this was one of the most vivid nightmares
he had had in a long time. If he was a fool, he'd think that the
Maker was trying to say that he was drunk with power. But Kindel
had yet to really get his hands on any true power aside from the
artifact in his dream, and he'd had yet to truly consider laying a
hand on that bloody weapon. The lephadorite would be enough, and he
intended to make sure it was used only when necessary, else anyone
who abused the gift would find themselves on the wrong end of his
anger.

When the door had closed behind his two
assistants, Kindel rose from his bed and wiped the sweat from his
forehead. It was rare that anything riled such fear in him, and he
felt embarrassed for even waking from it. As he walked to the
viewport beside his bed, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in
the glass window. Shirtless, sweat ran down his chest and back,
glistening against the light of the stars. But it was his glowing
blue eyes that kept his attention; no matter how many times he saw
them, he'd never really gotten used to them. When
had
 they picked up that glow, anyway?

His bedroom was not much more than a large
closet connected to his office. He had a bed and a small drawer of
clothes in there, and it was all he really needed. Pulling his
cloak from the wall and lazily throwing it around his shoulders, he
headed through the door. Scimitar and Kalibur stood ready on either
side of his desk. "Go find Dr. Barrine and get an update on the
project," he ordered them. With hasty acknowledgments and bows, the
two darted through the door like assassins moving in for the kill.
Once he was alone, Kindel dropped into his chair and stared,
wrapped only in his thoughts.
It was only a dream. Nothing more
to it than that.
He knew the Maker could send messages through
any means, but that kind of experience was reserved for prophets
and teachers, wasn't it?

Then again, the number of people who even
believed in the Maker's existence was dwindling across the
universe. As more and more scientists released reports theorizing
the beginnings of the universe, more and more people began to turn
away from the Maker. Kindel himself had been uninterested in all of
that religious mumbo-jumbo until the day he stumbled across an
artifact on a distant planet. It was the subject of one of the few
stories about the Maker and his Grand Design that remained the same
on whatever planet it was told. Even that seemingly impossible
coincidence hadn't managed to convince people of the truth about
the conception of the universe, but when Kindel's eyes fell upon
the weapon for the first time,
he
believed.

Now, it sat on the counter near the wall,
covered with a fine white cloth. He soon found himself standing in
front of it, lifting the fabric to reveal the sparkling sword. Both
hilt and handguard had been carved of a rare blue diamond, studded
with precious gems and lined with gold around the edges of the
pommel. The blade itself was straight and clear with ridges near
the hilt that pointed upward. An image of a winged lion was carved
just above the handguard. Kindel had never been able to determine
what the blade was made of, but if the legends were to be believed,
it was unlike anything the universe had ever seen. If the stories
were true, then it was a material forged by the fires of heaven and
wielded against the greatest evil ever known.

But it wasn't the history of the sword that
struck terror into his heart. Fear of the blade had plagued him
ever since he'd lifted it at the museum where he'd discovered it.
It was an event he desperately tried to block from his mind, and
though he'd been successful for the most part, images and memories
still occasionally haunted his dreams. When he had approached the
sword in the museum and wrapped his fingers around the hilt, he was
instantly brought to his knees under a wave of immense power and
energy that surged through his bones like the flood of a thousand
fiery oceans. Even when he had tried to pull his hand free, his
fingers gripped harder as though acting of their own accord. One of
the museum curators finally tore his hand away, and shouted babble
about the sword being cursed. They happily gave it to him when he
requested it, and though he carried it as seldom as he could, he
never let his bare skin touch its surface again.

Dangerous as it was, he kept it as a
failsafe. If a great threat ever emerged, one that managed to
overcome each and every weapon and soldier that Kindel sent
forward, then the sword's power would have to be harnessed.
Truthfully, Kindel wasn't sure if even he could control such a
weapon, but that was why he kept it as a last resort. Surely there
would be no need to use the thing anytime soon, and perhaps he'd be
able to dedicate more study to it once the lephadorite project was
complete.

The beep of his communicator yanked him from
his thoughts, and he draped the cloth back over the sword.
"Yes?"

"My Lord, Dr. Barrine requests your presence
in the research lab," Scimitar's voice said. "He says it is
urgent."

Kindel was almost glad to have something to
take his mind away from the sword. When he put it out of his mind,
it stayed there. But anytime he allowed himself to dwell on the
subject, it clouded his vision with an anxious fear that made him
feel as though his back was always against a wall. Better to put it
back where it belonged, in the shadows of his mind where it could
be ignored. "I'll be right there."

He headed through the door immediately,
turning his thoughts to the business at hand. If Barrine had
anything other than good news for him, it would likely be his last
report as head of the research team. Despite constant assurances
from his scientists, Barrine seemed more and more unsure each day
that the lephadorite experiment would be a success. Then again,
they were all scientists, and to Kindel, that was enough of an
excuse for their inept behavior.

Even if Kindel hadn't found evidence of the
Maker's Grand Design, he likely would've wound up believing in Him
based on his own experience with scientists. All too often he'd
seen complex theories developed based on an assumption that was
little more than a far-fetched guess to begin with. Experiments
were pushed forward after slight miscalculations because the
scientists didn't feel they had enough time and resources to go
back and start again. Ideas became fact simply by word of mouth,
and theories law. But they maintained their professional front,
claimed the precision of their work, and the universe believed. For
thousands of years, scientists proclaimed that tales of the Maker
were nothing more than myths, and that the universe had actually
always existed somehow. And the people believed.

"They are blind fools," he growled, entering
the lift. How anyone could look the splendor of the universe and
believe it to be all some kind of chaotic accident was beyond him.
For that matter, to think that scientists knew all there was to
know was even more appalling. What right do they have to declare
themselves as the highest level of intelligence in the universe?
The arrogance required to even consider such an idea was
astounding.

When the lift door slid open, Dr. Barrine's
gaunt face met Kindel's with a smile. "Sir, I believe you'll be
happy to see what's happened."

"I'd better be," Kindel muttered. "I haven't
even gotten to wash yet."

Barrine led him to the research lab where the
lephadorite egg was incubating. Scimitar and Kalibur bowed when
Thorus entered, though he hardly noticed. A long jagged crack ran
along the shell lengthwise. For a normal Belvid hatchling, the egg
would've grown to at least four or five times larger than the egg
in front of him. But being that this was a scientifically
reproduced organism using the embryonic sequences of the
baharinda
, its shell had been engineered not to grow any
larger than a fist. A translucent white liquid was draining from
the crack, and a gelatinous beige substance could be seen beneath
it. "That doesn't look like my stone, Doctor," Kindel said quietly.
"What am I looking at?"

"That's just the albumin of the egg," Barrine
responded. "Think of it as the white from a chicken's egg."

"But when a chicken hatches, the white is not
a part of it."

Barrine laughed as he began to peel away the
shell. "Belvid eggs and chicken eggs have few similarities. See,
the albumin in a Belvid egg remains until—"

"It doesn't matter," Kindel cut him off,
rolling his eyes. "Where is the duplicated stone?"

"It will be just a moment." Barrine lifted a
scalpel from the steel tray beside the incubator and gently
inserted it into the white albumin. Piece by piece, he cut the gel
away, revealing a purple stone no larger than a small fingernail.
Barrine stared at it blankly for a time before looking back at
Kindel. "Interesting," was all he said.

Kindel nearly gutted the man there and then.
"Interesting? Interesting?! I was promised a duplicate of the stone
I showed you! This is a useless fleck of a pebble!"

"Apparently my calculations were slightly
off," the old man said. He was so wrapped up in his fascination
that he barely seemed to notice Thorus' anger. "I'll have to study
this to see if it truly replicates the properties of the host."

Slightly off? The experiment was a blunder of
a catastrophic failure!
Why did you expect anything more?
a
voice wondered somewhere in the back of his mind. "Summon the rest
of the science team here at once, Barrine," Kindel ordered. "We
have matters to discuss."

When the entire team had been assembled in
the lab, Kindel motioned for Barrine to step forward. "The progress
of my project has been impeded constantly by your unfathomable
incompetence," Kindel shouted. As a rule, he liked dressing down
subordinates in front of others. It gave them a warning of what
they would face if they failed in their own assignments. It was
time to put a little haste into the efforts of these supposed
geniuses. "I was led to believe by your research"—he put a tone of
disgust in that last word—"that you would be able to clone my
specimen through your scientific methods. But all you've managed to
produce is a spec of a rock covered in slime!"

"Sir, you have to understand that our
calculations were based on estimations and that—"

Kindel snatched the tiny stone from the
doctor and dropped it into the small brown pouch on his belt. "I've
no time for miscalculations and faulty estimates. I accept nothing
but the best from my soldiers, nothing but the best from my
assistants, and
nothing
but the best from my scientists." He
turned his eyes on the rest of the research team, nervously
clustered together by the cabinets against the far wall. "Which of
you ranks directly below Dr. Barrine?"

A short female Pelwig, a bipedal race with
webbed hands and feet and oxygen-breathing gills on either side of
their necks, stepped forward. "That would be me, Sir." She raised a
blue-skinned hand and nodded slightly. "I'm Dr. Masse."

"Good." Kindel nodded. "You are now in
charge." Without any further delay, he grabbed Barrine around the
throat and lifted him into the air. The doctor gasped for air,
struggling to pull Thorus' hand away. "My patience with you has run
out, Mr. Barrine. Your repeated failures and your constant
indignance will no longer be tolerated. I
would
order you to
be my servant, but quite frankly, I'd rather have a servant who
will perform the duties I assign without failing and without
excuses. So I'm afraid the Vezulian Armada no longer has any use
for you."

Some of the scientists flinched visibly as
Barrine's neck cracked multiple times in Kindel's grip. When his
body was finally released, it fell to the floor in a lifeless heap.
With a grunt of disdain, Kindel kicked Barrine's corpse in the ribs
before making for the door. "I want new plans to properly reproduce
the lephadorite and I want them immediately. Dr. Masse, I expect
results, and please keep in mind that broken promises will send you
down the same path as your predecessor."

A faint "Yes, Sir!" came through the closing
door. As he headed back toward the lift, Kindel drew the reproduced
jewel from his pouch and took a closer look. Its color and texture
seemed similar, if not identical, to the lephadorite in his office,
but that didn't necessarily mean that it carried the same
properties. He cursed himself for listening to the claims of a
scientist, but then again, he had no where else to turn. "A
starving man will look the garbage to survive," he muttered. "At
least now I'll no longer have to deal with the biggest rat."