The effect of the words reached Ion a
sluggish second late. His eyes went wider. “You’re … one of them.
The Xeni.”
“And you’ve heard about us,” Eryx’s sneer
stretched. “That’s good. You’ll be going to you’re grave with the
knowledge of who it was you trifled with.”
“Trifled with? I don’t even know you. Any of
you.”
“No. but you’re about to join the Nyon. And
we can’t allow that, now, can we? The last thing we need is for our
sworn enemies to gain the benefit of a fresh young mystic joining
their ranks. See, kid, the brotherhood is weakened. Badly. They
haven’t had a lotta new initiates in a while. Finding and getting
stray mystics to join them is becoming harder and harder for them.
They’re in a bad state… and at the brink of an inevitable
collapse.” Eryx gave a nasty laugh. “We can’t let someone like you
join them and lessen the odds of
that
happening, now, can
we?”
Ion had heard enough. He felt his mind
sharpen with a rising fury. He stared Eryx dead in the face.
“You aren’t stopping me.” he said quietly. He
took a step forward, closing the distance between their faces to a
few inches. “Now get out of the way … unless you’re a little
confused about what’s good for you.”
Eryx stood there, unmoving. The silence of
the alley suddenly seemed louder as the two of them stood there,
glaring at each other…
“Get out of the way,” repeated Ion, his voice
a breathing hiss. “Or you’ll be sorry you called me in the first
place.”
“Oh no, Ion.” Eryx’s sneering face livened
with malice. “In the following few minutes, no one in the
spectrum’s gonna be as sorry as you.”
And then, the dustbins on each corner of the
alley wobbled and the lids covering them flew off. A cloaked figure
with a sword emerged from each dustbin, climbing out of the bin
with his eyes focused dead on Ion.
Ion felt his jaw slide open. As he turned his
head back to Eryx, he realised his mistake. A second too late…
Eryx’s sword, now drawn and ignited, lunged
at him from the side. Ion threw himself off the way, only to feel a
fiery, scorching feeling across the brace of his skin by his hip.
Giving a mild yelp, he landed on three limbs, his hand still
holding his sword.
The four other cloaked figures, now having
crawled out of the dustbins, ignited their swords and came
sprinting to the centre of the alley, where Eryx and Ion were.
Ion felt the air in his lungs go thin, as he
realised there was no getting away this time … His mind sped up,
and he leapt backwards a second not too soon to avoid a slash from
one of the Xeni, and then ducked another from the second. The third
slash almost caught him by the side of his face. Without bothering
to stop for a breath, he threw himself aside. A split second later,
the two glowing swords of two other Xeni clashed against each
other, showering sparks right around where he had been
standing.
The three others, standing a few feet ahead
of him, sprang towards him, their faces livened in the flickering
light of their glowing swords. Making a lightspeed leap to the
side, Ion dodged the first man’s blade, then ducked as another two
slashed at the air to his ribs. His sword left a thin, loud
cling!
in the air as it blocked the third man’s sword, and
then slashed across the fourth’s with such speed that the Xeni’s
blade went spinning out of his hand…
Eryx charged at him from right amidst,
sending a fist hurled at him. Ion’s ribs throbbed with pain, as the
force of the man’s punch sent him flying. He felt his sword leaving
his hand, twirling off his grasp… and his body soared back and
crashed loudly on one of the dustbins of the alley.
He rolled off the rummage and slipped to the
ground of the alley, his vision flickering slightly. He fought the
spinning sensation over his head and watched helplessly as the five
mystics, their glowing blades in hands, came strutting upto where
he lay, defenseless … Their mocking sneers were the last Ion saw
before the blackness overcame him.
__________
“Wait till he wakes … he oughta see this
himself.”
“How do you think he’ll like that?”
“He’ll never know what took him.”
“Definitely.”
Ion’s eyelids fluttered open.
What appeared to be a metallic roof spread
right overhead him. He tried to move, only to realise that his
entire body lay wrapped in heavy iron chains. He felt a mild
tugging sensation, like that of high speed motion. It seemed as
though he was now in some sort of a vehicle.
A pair of footsteps came his way, and then
Eryx bent down over where he lay chained up.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, and then gave
a cruel chuckle. “Well … we are.”
“What … where … am I?” breathed Ion,
straining to knit words together.
“Boss told us to make it slow, kid.” replied
Eryx coldly. “And it’s been a while since we’ve watched someone
die.” He stopped for a thought, then added, “At least die like
this, that is.” He gave another cruel laugh, before turning and
striding off.
Die like this?
thought Ion, his panic
mounting.
What the hell does he mean?
He tried to crane his neck to either side, to
catch a glimpse of where he was, or what was going on … But rigged
tightly in iron chains, his whole body lay bound in a scarily
still, statue like state. The chains weighed down on him from atop,
pressing him hard to the cold metallic surface beneath him.
Eryx reappeared, holding a long, thin stick
like object, with a handle emerging from one side.
“A poetic ending.” he whispered, bending
down. “Live and die by your sword.”
He tucked the sword by Ion’s back, inserting
it through the chains binding him from behind.
Then, with a final salute, Eryx sent a magnum
kick to Ion, who felt himself soar off the ground. His eyes shut
themselves in preparation of the impact of hitting the floor again.
But for some reason, the impact never came … He seemed to go on
soaring.
A sudden rage of wind currents tore at him
from below, and Ion’s eyes shot open again.
And instantly, he wished he hadn’t opened
them.
He was falling. Freefalling down the
blissful, cloud gorged layer of the sky. As his body spun upwards
in the torrent of the wind, he saw a hover van fly past far above
him. The hover van which the Xeni had just thrown him off. He was
now falling through what seemed like a few miles above the
earth.
As his spun about again, and the clouds below
him slowly shifted, Ion felt his blood halt in its course…
Looming below him, a giant churning mass … an
ocean.
He had just been tossed out of the sky,
towards an ocean.
Ion’s insides froze in horror.
The ocean surface was raging and wild, with
waves that lashed about with uncontained might. And as Ion saw it
racing up towards him, he knew that this was the worst possible way
to die…
His fall gained speed rapidly as gravity
sucked him downwards in a raw, senseless tug. His body seemed to
slice through the air like a bullet. The giant, untamed mass of
blue below him slowly magnified, and the brutal waves lashing
around it swelled in size. Raw fear coursing his veins, Ion felt
time slow down, and every moment seemed to expand. The fall seemed
to go on and on, bottomless and agonizing.
As the last few seconds of the fall, and his
life, dawned over him, Ion felt all hopes vaporise. As he spun
about one last time to face the sky above, the beauty of what he
saw filled the grip of his mind for what felt like a clear,
untarnished moment:
The sky was a pale, taintless blue. The
clouds strewn over it looked like giant mushrooms, dense, white and
puffy. The sun lay frozen near the top of the clear blue expanse,
its radiance trickling through the gaps in the clouds in shining,
golden rays. The elegance of the sight washed across Ion with a
powerful, divine force. It was, he thought, one of the most
beautiful moments of his life.
And then, his body twisted around again to
face the inevitable doom awaiting him below.
He plunged through the ten or so metres
between him and the ocean within the splinter of a second. And then
he felt himself crash into what felt like a wall of solid concrete.
He thought the impact snapped a few bones in his body. As
unbearable pain seared all over him, the lights within him dulled
and went off…
Tapping his foot in impatience, Evander held
the z-com to his ear, waiting. The ringtone played for fifteen
seconds, before falling silent. Evander slowly lowered the z-com,
frowning. He dialed the same number again, and pressed the z-com to
his ear. But again, there was no answer.
His gaze drifted out the large window at the
front of his office, looking past the towers outside and the flow
of vehicles and ships around them.
Derigor wasn’t answering his call. Evander
had tried calling him more than ten times in the past hour or so.
But all ten times, there had been no response.
A tune of anxiety began to ring softly at the
back of Evander’s mind. Something didn’t feel right.
For a person in such a high ranking post,
this wasn’t the type of thing Derigor would do. But knowing him
personally, Evander knew that it
definitely
wasn’t the type
of thing Derigor would do. In the past few years, he had rarely
ever missed a call from any of his colleagues, even when off work
hours.
Feeling the tune slowly louden at the back of
his mind, Evander continued to gaze out the window for a few
seconds. He let his thoughts run over a list of explanations as to
what had happened, to keep Derigor busy enough to miss ten
successive calls from his colleague. But the deeper his mind waded
into the scenario, the stranger it felt.
Sweating mildly, he slipped his z-com into
his pocket, turned and headed for his door.
__________
Logic seemed to have vaporised, leaving the
world in a senseless haze of confusion. No direction. No meaning.
No reason. Nothing at all, but the cruel sensation of floating
mindlessly, untethered.
Faint noises seeped through, before being
swept away by the tiding chaos.
Finally, a ray of clarity sliced through the
grogginess. And then, slowly, the world seemed to unfold around …
Reason came breezing in. Light came flooding into the world,
illuminating everything.
As his eyes flew open, Qyro found nothing
making sense initially. He squinted, his thoughtflow still groping
amidst chaos and confusion. Finally, as the hazy, disorienting
feeling faded, he found everything making sense before him.
And that was why panic seized him.
This can’t be!
The small room that he was in had dull brown
walls, with a door posed directly opposite to him. A thick gag was
stuffed into his mouth, while a pair of thick iron shackles bound
his wrists. Qyro could have easily used his mystic powers to snap
apart a pair of normal cuffs. But the thick iron make of the cuffs
that clasped his hands were far too strong. Even for his mystic
strength. And even if that weren’t so, his mind was now clouded
with panic and dread: and this would have diluted his powers, which
would have slipped past his unfocussed grasp. It was no use … he
was trapped, taken prisoner. The worst had just happened…
I’ve been taken prisoner?
Qyro
couldn’t believe it.
Why didn’t they just kill me?
This was the worst possible, dreaded outcome:
When Vestra and he had been sent here, they had been made well
aware of this. At absolutely no cost would they be taken prisoner
by the enemy … that would spell catastrophe for the entire
brotherhood. Now his captors would interrogate him. They would try
finding out who he worked for and everything about them. And if
they succeeded in weeding the information out of him, the location
of the Nyon temple would be compromised. The information would hit
the Naxim, who would attack the temple. Qyro felt his pulse soar
out of control, and a faint drumming noise ensued from within his
chest.
Where’s Vestra? What’ve they done to
her?
A small voice which came from intelligent
reasoning told him that she was dead. It was undeniable. The rebels
didn’t need either of them alive, except only to interrogate them.
And if so, they didn’t need two prisoners alive for interrogation …
they just needed one. She was dead. She had to be.
As a part of him mourned the loss of his
friend, another part of him imagined a new, dawning possibility
that revolved around her. A
nasty
possibility.
What if they’ve already interrogated her?
And what if … she had submitted?
If this was true, she would be
dead as well. And if this was true, there would be a far graver
reason to mourn, and to despair…
The Nyon.
The entire brotherhood would be under attack,
with the location of the temple now disclosed. The Nyon in the
temple would be attacked completely unawares, and there would be
literally no escape. Nowhere to run.