He remembered Jedius’s advice to him from
earlier on:
“
I know you have much anger and guilt.
And that what you are doing now, is trying to vanquish them. But
you have to learn to bear them and do what must be done. You are
struggling with the past, Ion. And as an effect, you are
compromising on the present. You need to forget whatever happened,
and move on.”
He looked away, blinking away tears. The
memory of Jedius passing on, and leaving him with the mission he
had lived for … Ion knew this wasn’t going to be easy. He just
wished he could have his master’s words to console and guide him
all through.
Ion turned to find Qyro’s gaze lingering
over him. But even after learning this dark secret of his, there
was no anger or disgust in Qyro’s face. If anything, there was
softness and pity … He almost seemed moved. But Ion knew that this
was only because he had heard the
whole
story … upto the
end.
“We all come with our pasts, Ion. sometimes,
dark ones.” Qyro sighed and looked out window. “The only solution
to a dark past is in moving past it. Because what’s done is done.
And only if we move past them, can we learn from them.”
The two of them sank into a short silence,
in which Ion looked about the cruiser around him. Most of the seats
were empty, and the chatter in the hall was almost negligible. A
strangely gloomy air seemed to have settled over the world.
“When Mantra and the other masters met you,”
Qyro said, turning to look at Ion. “did they tell you what exactly
was going on? And why he wanted you to get to the most dangerous
planet to get hold of this piece of scrap?” He ended by holding the
crystal out before Ion. “Whatever in the world it is.”
Ion frowned, recalling the conversation.
“They didn’t tell me much, but I do remember
something of what they told me.” Ion felt his voice darken. “They
told me the Xeni were back. And that the Nyon needed to stop them
before they finished what Redgarn started eight millennia
back.”
He looked at Qyro, whose jaw had dropped
wide open.
“The
Xeni
?
” the Redling
gasped.
“You’ve heard of them, I presume?” asked
Ion.
“What! Of course I have. The whole world
has! But they were supposed to be dead. The Nyon took care of them
eight millennia back, didn’t they?”
“Apparently not as well they should have.”
said Ion. “they’ve been in hiding ever since, waiting to grow
stronger before the time to strike back … I guess that time’s
here.”
Qyro looked out the window, thinking for a
few seconds. “You know … Vestra and I heard rumours of some strange
terrorist attack just earlier on…”
“That must be them, then.” confirmed
Ion.
Qyro looked at the crystal piece, his brow
sinking lower in a frown. “But what does
this
have to do
with anything?”
“I wish just as much as you, that I knew.”
chuckled Ion. “But they didn’t tell me anything more. Let’s hope
they do when we get back.”
Qyro continued to stare at the crystal
shard, as though by holding it in his glare, it would reveal all of
its secrets. With a sigh, he stuffed it back into his pocket under
his thick furcoat.
“Tell me how it is.”
Qyro looked at Ion, an eyebrow raised. “How
what
is?”
Ion looked out the window by the wall beside
him. “Life with the Nyon.”
Qyro gave the question a moment’s thought.
Then, he gave Ion a strange smile.
“It’s life as it’s meant to be.” he said.
“At least for me, it is.” He sighed, turning to gaze out the window
again. “Nobody said life was meant to be easy … or a bed of
roses.”
“Nobody should expect it to.” said Ion. “the
true measure of a man’s life isn’t in the amount of happiness he
finds … but quite the opposite. The amount of pain he endures.”
Qyro nodded, sagging on his seat and folding
his arms.
“There’s much suffering in our world, the
world of the Nyon.” he told Ion. “but I wouldn’t presume to know
even a fragment of it. I wouldn’t presume to have seen a fraction
of what some of the older masters saw and went through, in their
time with the brotherhood.”
“How come?”
“I just joined less than two years back.”
answered Qyro. “I was a stay mystic all along, before I joined
them.” A dark look crossed his face, and Ion knew that he was
drifting through those memories, memories of his life as a stray
mystic earlier on. “It wasn’t easy, living as I did back then. I
had known other stray mystics … and I was a part of the world that
the mystic evading prosecution knew. I saw all of the suffering,
apart from my own. And the question that hit me when I spent those
years, hiding and fleeing, was this: was this all my life was going
to come to?” He gave a shake of his head. “No … I wanted to be a
part of something greater. And even if it meant compromising
safety, and taking the world full on … taking the most dangerous
route there was, that was what I yearned for my life to come to at
the end. Something that made meaning. And a greater cause.” A smile
brushed his lips. “And as if in answer to that, they found me …
Mantra and a few others of the elder council. I remember it like it
was yesterday. They told me that this was the most dangerous life
there was, far more dangerous than my present life. They said that
the life of the Nyon was the one that usually turned out to be
shorter than a stray mystic’s … but when I thought about it, I
realised living a shorter life that was more fulfilled was far
better than living a longer life spend hiding and running in
complete cowardice.”
The tone of power and courage he spoke in
drew Ion’s thoughts to another person he could relate such a tone
to.
“What about Vestra?” he asked.
“Vestra was already a member by the time I’d
joined.” replied Qyro. “She was the only student they had, at that
time. Usually the Nyon approach mystics that they deem would as
good members, and ask them to join their brotherhood. But here, it
was the other way around. Vestra approached the brotherhood, asking
to join them. Right from the start, our elders praised her courage
and strength … She came with her own share of suffering.”
He stopped reclining and sat upfront on his
seat.
“My point in the end,” he said, turning and
looking Ion full in the face. “Is that you’re not as alone as you
might think. We’ve all given up much to get here. To where we are
now.”
“And the fun’s just started.” said Ion
ironically.
What they’d just been talking about seemed
to leave Qyro in thought for a few moments. He then looked at Ion
with a slightly confused expression.
“You said that Vestra met you two years
back. And that when she returned to the Nyon, they kept an eye on
you cause they thought you might be a good candidate to join them.
So …
she
was the one who told them that? She told them you
might be a good person for the Nyon to recruit?”
Ion slowly turned back, frowning. This
hadn’t occurred to him earlier. Just an hour back had he learned
why the Nyon had been tailgating him for so long now. But at that
point, in the heat of the situation, it had slipped his
attention.
Vestra … She was the reason the Nyon had
found interest in him.
Qyro hesitated. “Don’t get me wrong: you’re
all right now, and we’re happy to have you by our side. But back
then, you were an assassin…” He lifted an eyebrow. “And she was
actually suggesting to the masters, that an assassin be given the
chance to join the brotherhood of Nyon?”
Ion stared at the seat ahead, slightly
perplexed. Now that he was given time to think of it, what he just
realised was not only bizarre but also slightly humourous.
But beneath the humour, the question still
lingered…
Two years back, Vestra had gotten the
masters interested in him … when he had been a dangerous
assassin…
Why?
__________
Millions of miles away, a young woman with
light brown skin lay seated in another cruiser, watching the stars
outside the window by her right as they glided past them.
Vestra was thrown by the bizarreness of the
past few hours. The suddenness of everything that had happened was
overwhelming. Everything from where Qyro and her had started on the
mission to now felt like a disorientingly slow flash of
lightning.
But it was what happened at the very end of
it all, to have the two of them saved, that really startled
her.
Vestra smiled as she recalled it.
The boy
I met two years back…
The stars spread over the vast, black
expanse were a beauty to behold above all else, and a tune of
melody could be heard silently playing through them.
At first, Vestra hadn’t recognised him. But
later on, when he had reminded her of their meeting two years back
… of that red haired boy she had saved from the Zelgron, it then
hit her with a jolt.
Ion … The name held a firm place in her
memory, as did every other aspect of their meeting. She remembered
how he had poured out his story to her. The story of how his
earlier life had been shattered … torn apart by the brutal side of
this world.
Any other person from an order of
peacekeepers would have acted very differently, in her place two
years back. In learning that a person was a dangerous assassin, one
might have even considered taking the extreme step, and
killing
him. But Vestra had acted differently. Instead of
seeing death and decay in Ion’s orange eyes, as he poured himself
out to her … she saw light. She saw hope. She saw that sometimes,
the twists of fate could make a good person forget who he really
was. Forget that he was good … and as she sat before Ion that day,
listening to him and consoling him, she had the meekest feeling
that she was meeting such a good person. A mistaken good person.
And her heart reached out for him … she felt sympathy like nothing
else. For she believed that the strings of fate had placed a person
destined for good, under the shroud of evil…
And she had decided to help him to come out
of whatever he was going through, and see the light again. And to
find the goodness in him again. She knew that Ion would take the
chance she gave him, to return to the shoes of the noble hearted
boy that his parents had believed him to be. And so, with that leap
of faith, and desiring to help him change, she had told Mantra and
the council to keep their trace on Ion, a stray mystic whom she
claimed would greatly benefit their side when the time came. And
they had believed her.
And today, two years later … Vestra saw that
she had been right. She had been right about that day, when she had
decided to place her faith in Ion … and believe that he would
return to the side of good again.
Today, she saw that her faith in him had
paid of. She saw that with the force of forgiveness and love, she
truly could help change a person’s destiny.
She was inwardly thankful that she had…
The poshly carved room boded not a whisker
of beauty all of a sudden. Everything in it seemed dry, lifeless …
shocking.
“It doesn’t make sense.” said Evander,
frowning.
The men and he were standing inside of the
lavish apartment that was Naxim officer Derigor’s home. Evander was
standing with two other members of the high council on either side
of him. A small group of Rash-cons belonging to the Naxim, and a
group of men from the local authorities were moving about the flat,
all of them engrossed in the investigation of the sudden vanishing
of Derigor. Every face in the room mirrored the same confusion.
When he had tried contacting Derigor on his
z-com, he hadn’t answered.
Repeatedly
not answered.
Sensing that something was not right,
Evander had arrived at Derigor’s flat a few minutes ago, wanting to
check what this was which was keeping him so busy over the past
hour or so. But when he had arrived here, the flat was empty. But
Derigor’s hover car was here. It was almost as though Derigor
arrived in his apartment in his hover car, walked into his house,
and then disappeared into thin air! There was not a trace of where
he had gone, where he now was. His suspicions now realised, Evander
concluded that something was definitely not right … and the
authorities were now here to find out what that was.
Two of the police officers sidled up beside
Evander.
“Sir, we think there’s one possibility.” one
of them announced.
“But it isn’t very pleasant.” said the
other.
“What?” asked Evander.
“He’s been kidnapped.”
Evander twisted around to look at one of the
men standing beside him, and then at the other. Both of the other
high council members showed little reaction at this. Almost as if
they’d been expecting this.
“Isn’t there anyway we can find out what
happened here?” asked Evander, feeling a new urgency weigh upon his
voice. “To know for sure?”