“
They’re not the brutes of the sort you
met two years ago.”
Eryx had warned him.
“Carcasar’s sent
his very best. His most lethal. They’ll be on your tail wherever
you go. They’re as intelligent as man beings themselves…”
Ion inwardly cringed, realising that he
should have taken Eryx’s word for it the very moment he had told
him this. He sent another glance back. The hover car was tailing
behind him, about a twenty metres’ gap between the two of them.
Turning back, Ion spun the throttle harder. The bike shot forth
with an electric jolt, splitting the air with a new fury. It passed
towers higher than the rest of the buildings with a deadly speed.
The scrambled maze of the city, more than thirty metres beneath,
soared back speedily.
As the roar of the bike’s engine drowned out
everything else from his mind, Ion turned back for the second time.
And as he did, his hold on the throttle automatically loosened,
allowing the bike’s speed to dropped slowly: the Zelgron’s hover
car had fallen too far behind to make out, melting behind the haze
enveloping the entire city. Ion took advantage of the large gap
between them to make an unnoticed diversion: he dived lower into
the maze of structures and then cut left, gliding serenely between
lines of buildings rising to three or four storeys on both sides.
He turned back a final time, to find that the coast behind was just
as clear: he had lost them. Or so he hoped.
He slowed down and then took the bike through
the balcony of one of the four storeyed buildings which were
visibly abandoned. The bike gracefully soared through the large
open balcony, which was spread over an elegant area. Ion allowed
the bike to float to a stall by the side of the balcony, before
sliding off and staggering into the flat through its broken
door.
Without even trying to stop himself, he
stumbled and hit the floor of the large hall, where he lay panting
for a few hazy seconds, his head spiralling.
__________
The memory of the six black cloaked, hooded
fiends chasing him, almost catching him…
Ion kept shooting glances out the balcony,
terrified that the creatures might zoom in with the hover car and
find him here.
The shock of the realisation lingered within
him: he had just seen the Zelgron drive a car! The very thought
knocked off the boundaries of the world as he had known it, so that
everything felt less safe than before … and he felt more
vulnerable. Who knew what more they were capable of? Nothing at all
felt certain anymore.
Giving himself a minute to steady himself,
Ion slowly rose and walked down the large hall. The ceiling and
floor of the place were lined with cracks and seemed ready to fall
apart anytime now. Like the earlier flat, the furniture were coated
with what looked like dust gathered over years. He walked into one
of the doors at the end of the room, and found himself in a hallway
with dusty old portraits against the walls.
As Ion continued to drift into hallway,
pondering his next move, he felt a mild shudder run through the
ground … accompanied by a gentle
thud
.
Spinning around, Ion hurried out into the
main hall…
And the six cloaked figures stood there,
their outlines slightly blurred in the complete lack of light. They
had parked their hover car outside on the balcony, apparently just
having exited it. The shudder and the
thud
had been that of
the car landing there.
An icy sensation swooped through Ion’s
insides.
And he now realised that he was right, as was
Eryx: the Zelgron he was now facing weren’t anything at all like
the bunch he had faced three years ago… they were far, far
deadlier. And now, they were claiming what they’d come for.
His hand flew to the handle of his sword
before any of them made another motion. But the creatures stood
there, completely unbothered, as he drew his sword and held it
before them.
So be it, then.
Drawing in a quick breath, Ion ignited his
sword: the familiar bright orange glow consumed the blade. The
sword’s orange light spread across the entire room, sweeping away
the state of darkness it had slumbered in till now … And in the
light of the room, Ion could see that beneath the hoods of the six
cloaked figures, were the faces of completely normal men. Not
Zelgron!
All of them stared at him with exasperated,
irritated looks on their faces. Mixed with a flicker of
amusement.
“You can put that down,” the man in the
centre said, pointing to Ion’s sword. “I have no idea why you’ve
led us across this senseless chase halfway around the city, but it
would be nice of you to stop now. My name is Mantra, and we’d like
to talk to you.”
“For whatever reason you were running from
us,” said another of the cloaked figures, an Iveling with maroon
hair. “You can stop now, for heaven’s sake. We’re not with the
authorities trying to arrest you for being a mystic. We’re mystics
too.”
Ion found his bewilderment rising with every
passing second. “You’re mystics?”
He frowned, remembering their uncanny powers
which seemed beyond that Zelgron could have knowably achieved. And
he realised that it made complete sense. In either case, it bad
been a little too bizarre to see Zelgron, half brutes as they were,
driving a hover car.
“Yes,” answered the elderly man called
Mantra, who was standing right ahead of Ion. He was about two heads
shorted than Ion. But a strange power, something transcending the
limits of physical dominance, seemed to resonate from him and his
calm white eyes. He had a trimmed, white moustache and beard, with
the last of his thin white hair on his partially bald head falling
loosely over the back of his shoulders. “But not everyday
mystics.”
He exchanged a look with the maroon haired
Iveling.
“We come from the brotherhood of Nyon.” said
the maroon haired man.
Ion found himself floating out his body, as
he tried to process this. The prize among the surprises of the
day…
“Nyon?” His voice left him as a shrill gasp.
“The brotherhood of Nyon?”
His widened eyes darted from the maroon
haired man to Mantra, the short elderly one in front of him.
“So you’ve heard of us.” concluded the maroon
haired man, nodding. “That makes things a lot easier.”
Ion let his gaze travel across the six
cloaked men, all of whom were either middle aged or elderly. When
he managed to get a firm grip on what he’d just heard, the shock
was quickly overrun by a more powerful emotion: confusion.
“And … did you say you needed
me?
” he
asked slowly.
The six of them nodded as one.
Ion stared.
“Exactly what for?” he asked, perplexed.
“What could the ancient brotherhood of Nyon want with me?”
A sad smile crossed Mantra’s face.
“The ancient brotherhood of Nyon.” he
repeated softly. “First off, son … we aren’t whatever you’ve heard
of us. Not anymore we aren’t. There was a time when the brotherhood
was what it was meant to be … during the days of the empire of
Sirengard. But now,” He shook his head, a heaviness in his voice.
“We’re nothing more than a shadow of our earlier might and prowess:
we have been diminished to a very weakened state, following the
Naxim’s iron hard stand against mystics. As a matter of fact, it’s
rather surprising that we’ve even managed to survive this long.
“Among the scarce mystics found in hiding
today, very few want to serve us. In the current, heated anti
mystic atmosphere we hardly have new initiates joining us But we
need initiates, to carry on our work. To keep our brotherhoood
alive. And as a result, we understand that the situation demands
action from our side. To ensure that we find new members and keep
the Nyon alive … even if it survives as a mere ghost of its former
grandeur.
“And so, over the years, we try to keep tabs
on stray mystics whom we manage to tread upon. And when we do, if
any of these stray mystics that we wander upon believe in the
values and ideals that we do, we try garnering their support. Try
winning them over to our side, to join us.” He stopped for a quiet
sigh. “But it hasn’t been easy, Ion. We are dwindling, and will
soon fade … and now is when our might, the might of the last
remaining fragment of the age of Elderon, is required. Because
there are dark forces like no other waiting to unleash over the
spectrum. To plunge it to chaos forever. Now is the time where the
world needs our help. But we ourselves need help, Ion.
“Some time back, we found a certain stray
mystic. He was a great, shining opportunity, one we’d been yearning
for, for too long now. He was our primary target among the stray
mystics. But we saw that he needed some time before he could answer
our call. We needed to give him some time to grow. And so, we let
him be for the time being, watching as he tended to things that
fell to his prior importance, before tending to ours. But as we
did, he slipped from our watch. Our primary target among the stray
mystics. But fortunately, for it is nothing short of the greatest
fortune that has granted us this, we managed to get a trace on him,
and had him back on our radar just earlier on today. And we’re now
standing before him, explaining ourselves for it.”
Ion had his stare fixed over Mantra many long
seconds after he’d finished. He needed to work through a daze to
digest and absorb what he had just heard.
They’ve been watching
me…
“You said you found this certain stray
mystic, who was your primary target,” he said at last. “But you
didn’t really elaborate
how
. Exactly how did you manage to
find me? Or that I was a mystic?”
Mantra held his eyes for a moment, and the
hint of a smile touched his lips. “Vestra.”
“Who?” asked Ion.
“We’re assuming you remember the person who
saved you from the Zelgron two years back?” asked the maroon haired
man, stepping forward beside Mantra.
Ion’s gaze went far off for a moment, as the
memory caught up with him. And as it did, in a jolt everything
added up to make complete sense.
The girl…
He thought.
The one who
saved me from the Zelgron…
He looked at Mantra, stunned. “The Nyon … it
was you! You were the
mystic crime fighters
that she said
she was working for.” The thought that that young woman he had met
had been a member of the Nyon left him momentarily overwhelmed with
shock.
Mantra nodded slowly, his smile growing.
“Yes, Ion. We were the ones who had sent Vestra to where she had
met you. And the mission we had sent her for, was to bring down the
Zelgron warlord, Carcasar.” A quiet darkness crept into his voice.
“It was a point of time when we learnt that Carcasar had turned
into a very deadly nemesis. He posed a new danger for us, and we
knew we needed to stop him for it. And so, we sent one of our own
for it. And for the reason that she had undertaken that mission …
you are still alive.”
“But she didn’t take down the Zelgron
warlord.” Ion pointed out. “He’s still alive.”
Tragically.
The maroon haired man shook his head. “Yes,
she didn’t take him down. And the reason for that would be you.
Vestra was sent to take him down as a stealth mission, without
getting their attention. She was meant to secretly slip into their
group and bring them down. And she would have done so if she had
not decided to instead have an innocent person they were brutally
attacking saved. By doing so, she gave her position away. It was a
choice she took at that moment.”
“Galinor’s right.” said Mantra. “She decided
to abandon the mission for the sake of saving you. The mission had
been lost, but we had gained something else. Vestra accomplished
something else from her failed mission: she found a stray mystic
whom she thought might prove to be a good ally for us, someone she
thought may be of great aid to us sometime in the future, if given
the right input. And so, we decided to keep a tab on him, to see if
we would be able to bring him around to join us.”
“But you said that you then lost track of
me,” said Ion, frowning.
“We did.” said the Iveling, Galinor. “And
it’s not at all out of the usual. Our contacts and our intelligence
slips past us in the weakened state we’re in: we can’t do much in
the heavily prosecuted state that we’re now in.”
“So how’d you find me now?”
“It was an event that might have been seen as
a curse by you,” said Mantra. “But as a pure blessing be us.”
“What?”
“If you’d remember,” said a Brownling with
golden hair, who stood among the four others behind. “earlier on,
the Naxim had discovered you, and tried chasing you down. In the
planet Sacrogon.”
Ion nodded. “They had.”
The Brownling smiled. “Well, after that
chase, you had somehow caught the attention of the Naxim’s high
council, and their leader Evander himself.”
Ion, who was completely unaware that he had
invoked such a high scale of seriousness in the Naxim, was slightly
thrown. “I didn’t know that.”