And he knew what he now needed to do…
Without wasting another breath, Zardin
stormed down the desert lands. His mind was now ablaze like never
before…
In any other circumstance, his lack of
eyesight would have been the greatest blow possible to him. It
would have left him crippled, senseless, powerless. But in this
circumstance, his lack of outer vision was absolutely no hindrance.
For he had a far more deadly vision.
Inner vision
. He now
saw the world through renewed eyes. He now saw his life with
renewed eyes. The experience of facing death, and then being
rewarded a second chance … it transformed him. It shook him, and it
showed him the true reality of the world. It now showed him that
every passing moment was a gift he could not waste this time. Life
would not wait … Life took no excuses.
And so, seized by an iron hard resolve, he
swept aside everything, all hindrances, all pains and all excuses,
and moved onward. Towards the goal of his new life. With a parching
thirst in his soul.
It took him a few painful months to find the
Xeni. But when he found them, he saw that they were a meek shadow,
weakened and almost powerless. But Zardin had come to change that …
and so, he sealed himself with the Xeni.
Devoting everything he had to learning their
ways, he lived with them and learned the darkest arts of man’s
mind. He drank everything they had to teach him, his thirst
unquenchable. And under the time he spent with them, his mystical
powers grew exponentially. He was beginning to morph to become one
of the most powerful dark mystics they had ever known. And soon, he
emerged as a man with powers unlike anything seen before. He had
completed his training with the Xeni, and had climbed to the
heights of power they could offer him. His lack of eyesight was
insignificant now: for he now bore powers that allowed him to sense
his surroundings, and perceive them to the finest clarity possible,
in his mind.
And so, having finished his training with
them, Zardin completed the first step. He then proceeded with the
next.
He led the Order of Xeni to new heights of
power. They were, at the time, weakened and diminished. But Zardin
strove to make them stronger than ever. He sought out and found
countless stay mystics who were willing to join them. He garnered
the support of others who saw eye to eye with the Xeni’s goal, and
decided to devote themselves to their cause.
But Zardin took their cause many steps
further. He sought out the support and friendship of other allies,
more deadly allies. These weren’t mystics. They weren’t even men …
But they were creatures who shared the same devious goal that they
had…
Zelgron.
He made an alliance with Carcasar. He gained
the support of the Zelgron warlord, along with all of the monstrous
creatures that came under his command.
And under Zardin’s supreme leadership, the
Order of Xeni swelled steadily with power. He bolstered their
strength, allowing them to mount to all new levels. And then, with
the Xeni having reached a new height of power, Zardin brought them
out of hiding. Just as the creeper had asked.
And now, the final step of their journey
awaited…
The present
The final step…
Zardin sat there in the darkness of the
cave, his mind now in the grip of purpose like nothing before. The
entire journey, from when he had been contacted by the creeper, to
now … the entire journey zoomed past his head a second time. He had
met the creeper years back, and had been given this mission by him.
And Zardin had carried forth in the mission to this day. He had
done everything as he had been told. And today, at long last, he
was nearing it. He was nearing the end of the goal that the
crippled mystic had entrusted him years back. He was closer to
finding and liberating the creeper than ever before. He had left
Zardin the mission of finding and joining him, after which they
would together finish what the Order of Xeni started eight
millennia back. And nobody at all would be able to stand in their
way … once he found the creeper, and once they were united, Zardin
knew nothing could stand before them.
He revelled in the glory of the thought for
a few moments …
Everything they had done, starting from the
attack at Mech facility at Tansof, to the cruiser attack, and the
kidnapping of the Naxim official Derigor … All of it had been done
with the goal of reaching the creeper. Zardin didn’t know where the
dark mystic was, and he knew that finding him would be a task of
its own. The creeper was undoubtedly unable to move by himself, and
had no precise knowledge of his own location either. And so, it was
solely upto him to find him and reach him. And all that he had done
till now, the series of events that had triggered such panic in the
spectrum, had been done with the aim of finding the location of the
dark mystic, so that he could reach him. And conclude this journey
at long last…
And Zardin knew that the end was here.
Closer than it seemed.
Very soon now, Derigor, who was lying tied
up somewhere in this very cave right now, would aid them with
finding the last piece… and they would then be able to find the
creeper.
Zardin stroked his chin absently with a long
fingernail, while his idle mind continued to wander. Along the
course of this journey, he had taken the Xeni to a new height.
Their allies had grown greatly and terribly thanks to him … and
today, they were ready for it. Ready for this final step, after
which the entire realm would be theirs.
A slight flicker of irritation arose within
him, as he remembered an event from a few hours back.
I tried to make a new ally … but this one
was not what I had thought.
He dug his hand into his cloak pocket and
withdrew a crumpled piece of paper. Unfolding it, he stared into
the poster of the most wanted criminal, an assassin, in this
spectrum. A terrible face with glowing red eyes. But Zardin knew
that this was no more than a boy. A boy going by the name, Ion.
An interest specimen.
he thought,
amused.
Upto this day, Zardin had tracked down and
gone after mystics whom he believed, qualified to join them. Who
were driven by the same vicious forces that the Xeni lived to
serve. And this boy was one of them.
After identifying a potential candidate for
their order, Zardin would first go into a small study about the
person. Learn everything there was about them and their life. He
had his sources, through which he could garner information about
other people’s pasts … and their personalities. And see them for
truly who they were. And only then, only when satisfied with what
he saw in them, would he go on to find and recruit them.
But Ion’s case had been different: after
finding this poster, Zardin had taken a
personal
interest in
this criminal … a dreaded, most wanted criminal. He had gone into
an indepth research into the boy’s past. And everything in his
life, that had shaped him to what he saw in the poster. He had
learned how the boy suffered greatly due to the Naxim’s cruelty.
How he had been tortured for years, how he had lost his family …
and how it had all propelled him into an evil, brutal life. The
life of a cold blooded killer.
Zardin had learned all of it through the
many terrorist and criminal organisations that the Xeni bore ties
with. The many terrorist and criminal organisations whom Ion had
worked for during his days as an assassin … including Grando’s
terror organisation.
And so, through all the boy’s earlier
clients, Zardin had learned everything about the boy … delved into
the very interesting past he had.
And as he did, he found something very
unnatural.
They were similar. The two of them.
He had found a genuine fascination to this
boy. A genuine liking. And so, just hours back, when Ion had
appeared in the Naxim’s radar, Zardin knew the time had come to
act: He sent one of his men, Xare, to find the boy and get him to
join the Xeni. But the Nyon had gotten there first. And the boy had
joined them instead.
He was now one of them … an enemy.
Ion’s life as an assassin brought great
fascination in Zardin … but more than his time as an assassin, it
was the end of his time as an assassin that caused the greatest
fascination in him. The event that ended his streak as a cold
blooded killer.
It was an event that would undoubtedly have
tormented the boy ever since. Zardin almost felt sorry for the boy
when he had learnt it.
Almost.
Zardin crumpled the poster and stuffed it
back into his pocket. He then rose to his feet, turned and strode
back into the dark abyss of the cave.
__________
Millions of miles away, a young man with
orange eyes and red hair stood gazing out of a window in the Nyon
temple.
Ion was hardly paying attention to Mantra
and the other two as they guided him through a tour of the
structure. He was preoccupied with a silent struggle that was
taking place within him.
A struggle he had been facing for two years
now.
A struggle with his own memories … memories
he wished he never had in the first place.
But of all the gruesome memories from his
earlier dark life, it was that
one
memory that hadn’t spared
him … hadn’t let him go.
The memory that came at the very end of it
all.
For two years now, it hadn’t let him go …
and it never would for the rest of his life.
Two years ago
Night stretched over the realm like a vast,
star strewn blanket, and a tingling chill was left to spread over
the air. Here, in the Igrac hills that was somewhere in the middle
of the planet Enro, the cold aura about the place at night was
nothing short of ordinary.
The hills sprouted over the land in various
heights ranging from mere stubbles to towering mountains. With
stout, shapeless plateaus sitting amidst them. The moon and the
stars together shone down, leaving a feeble blue glow upon the
ground below.
Ion scratched his neck with one hand, the
other one holding a crumpled bit of paper. He let his narrowed eyes
wander over the entire scene before him, surveying it closely. His
cloak rippled in the gentle breeze as he stood here in the middle
of the hilly expanse.
He unrolled the paper held in his hand and
let his eyes run down it slowly, reading it for the tenth or so
time. The paper containing the details of his next target, the
vigilante whom which Grando wanted him to hunt down.
The man’s identification, as in the case of
most of Ion’s targets, if not all, was unknown. All that was known
of the vigilante was that he wore an iron mask and a black fur
coat. He happened to utilise a range of weapons, all of them high
on the techno scale, varying from electro guns to gas bombs. He was
a master in stealth and precision, a well trained spy who had
managed to infiltrate their bases for short spans as technicians or
other low level workers, before taking the entire base down.
Grando’s intelligence network had managed to
uncover that this guy was working alone, secretly trying to target
and bring down terrorist organisations bit by bit. Grando’s secret
head base was his prime target and Grando was assured that the guy
would make a trip there soon enough, if not put a stop to. And that
was where Ion, the master hunter/ assassin known in the field, came
to place.
Ion had set forth on this hunt a few days
ago, after a day’s rest following the previous one. He had managed
to get a very faint string of clues to lead him to this place,
where the attacker was last spotted in a nearby town in a security
camera. The cameras also recorded him hiking off into the hilly
region on his bike. And so, Ion had happened to drop by here to
have a date with this mysterious vigilante. A killing date.
His keen eyesight sharpened the landscape
around him, which was pitched in far detailed accuracy that to any
other ordinary person.
He took in a deep breath, before strolling
down the lands, his ears and senses kept peeled in high alert. He
knew the slightest sound or movement from any stray traveller
anywhere closeby would fall to his grasp immediately. And his
target, unfortunately for him, was no mystic to sense Ion
approaching from nearby. All Ion needed was to manage to wander
close to wherever the vigilante was now. If he did, everything else
would be taken care of with the help of his shadow like stealth: he
would creep upto the target without even letting him know, and then
slit him by the throat.
But he frowned, remembering that Grando
preferred this target alive. He had wanted to torture the brat who
had given him so much trouble, before putting him out of his
misery. And Ion thought, savagely, that he would like to watch this
as well. Torturing non mystics had been something of a delicious
leisure activity for him. And who better to torture than his own
targets – for whom he would get handsomely paid as well.
He strode down the land with a measured
pace, a cat like softness in his steps. To somebody standing
closeby, he might have looked like a shadow left to run loose
without an owner. He trotted down the place for a few minutes,
passing hill after hill, and even climbing over a few of them to
scan the entire lands below with a higher and wider view. But he
saw no one for miles around. But just because he didn’t see them,
it didn’t mean someone couldn’t be lurking about the shadows,
beyond his range of sight.