The Rising Sun: Episode 4 (7 page)

“Taurandor was built during the golden age of
mystics.” Sitting inside the halo, Redgarn explained in his slow,
rasping voice. “The people who carved this ancient structure meant
for it to never tarnish, and so they imbibed a substance of which
the world had never seen before. They thrust me and all of the Xeni
they could handle catching in here. But the manner of holding the
prisoner was the most uncompromised ever. The halo you see me now
in is a protective shield. It doesn’t wear through time, and can
withstand infinite force from within it. But it is unlike any cage
or prison, for the halo does far more than just hold its prisoner
in. It as good as cripples them. Once placed in the halo, a person
can’t move at all. The halo’s enchantments seal him within it,
preventing any major motion. I was able to sustain myself over
eight thousand years, because of my powers. But it wasn’t easy … it
was beyond easy.

“I payed my price willingly, knowing that one
day, I would set free … and avenge myself and the other of my
brethren Xeni. For our defeat was pain above all else. The halos
you see around you carry the remains of my brethren. The rest of
the Xeni that they had captured were also sealed in here with me,
and left to die. And die they did. But I knew that the loss of the
Xeni order was meant to be avenged with the utmost fury. And so, I
kept on. I mustered all of my mystical strength and fought the
natural forces that ravage a man through time, and turn him to
dust. I fought with all my heart and the mystic strength of my
mind. I kept on knowing that one day, when the light at the
tunnel’s end arrived, I would have the compensation for my pain,
and return all of it to the world. The pain I carried for eight
thousand years. Pain like no other … and now, I see my wish come
true. You have done well.”

“And I did so only with the greatest
pleasure.” Zardin gave a short bow. He could sense the frozen
figures of the three men behind him. They hadn’t moved a whisker
after what he had just said. The same, flabbergasted expression had
fastened over their faces.

He had felt the very same shock, the same
rebounding shock years back, when it had happened. When he had been
contacted by a mysterious force that had claimed call himself ‘the
creeper’. But with the very touch of the strange force’s mind,
Zardin had guessed that there was something far more terrifying
than appeared, with this strange entity. Redgarn had then shown him
the split second vision of his body in the halo. But with that
vision came the compressed piece of information. Which told Zardin
who he really was. He hadn’t told Zardin who he was … instead, he
had
shown
him. To make him understand the sheer
pricelessness of what he was facing, and what had found him. And
understand it, Zardin truly had.

For a few seconds, Zardin had been utterly
speechless, as the effect of the surprise reverberated across his
being. The creeper had said, “We will finish what the great Redgarn
started eight millennia back…” He then came to realise that this
was him. This was the great Redgarn, seeking help so as to finish
what he had started himself. And it was at that moment that the
decision sprang within Zardin, coming with a burning will like no
other. He decided to devote himself to the cause of finding and
rescuing Redgarn. And then, together, tearing the world apart and
filling it with the wreckage of their revenge. It had been the
single brightest moment of his entire life. And he knew now, that
Redgarn was being repayed with the very same feeling of joy as his
rescuer arrived.

“I found you years back, and I saw that your
soul was consumed with the same, burning rage as mine.” Redgarn’s
rasping slowed now, allowing a calmer tone to take over his voice.
“I gave you the freedom you asked for using my mystical powers, and
reconstructed your body to allow it to be inhabited by your soul.
It had been the one chance I had been waiting for, for eight
millennia. You see, what I had done years back was no easy feat. I
could touch your consciousness and connect to it in the manner in
which I did back then only for one reason: that the two of us were
melded into one. Our beings shared the same torch, the same desire
of madness and revenge that allowed us to meld into one … we were
possessed of the same sense of fury that wove us into the very
same. And so, I could reach out for you and connect to you,
something I could not have done with any other being. It was the
chance I had been waiting for, over eight agonizing millennia. I
wanted revenge like nothing in my life, and so did you … and so, I
found myself through you.” A growl compressed with an eight
millennial rage sounded through his tone. “And now, we head out
into the world … and show them that the two of us, together, are
terror incarnated.”

Zardin felt the joy of victory wipe out all
else from his mind. The moment was here at long last, and the
beauty of it, the beauty of triumph … it was the sweetest feeling
in the world. He had done it.

He remembered the long hard slog he had been
through to get here, starting that day he had woken up in the
desert, to now. He remembered all of it. All that came in
between.

File D…

As two words passed his mind, he felt his
lips curve in a smile. File D had been a top secret file made by
the Naxim when they had been founded eight millennia back. Redgarn
had been imprisoned in Taurandor by the laws of the Sirengard,
which forbade death penalty. But when the Naxim had been founded,
they saw a threat looming over them. It was the very same threat
that Zardin had now brought to life today: they had feared that
Redgarn, who had been sealed away in Taurandor, would be capable of
further mayhem despite being imprisoned. They had known his true
powers, and what he was capable of. But the prison had been sealed
and it had been too late for them to do anything about it. And so,
channelling their fear, they had created a file that held the
location of the prison, Taurandor, and had kept it as top secret as
could be. Nobody could know of it. Nobody could know the location
of Redgarn’s imprisonment. For the Naxim were aware that the Order
of Xeni was not completely gone … and that they were still
searching for a means to release their founder. For eight thousand
years, the file had been kept secured. For eight thousand years,
Redgarn’s rescue had been postponed … but now, at long last, the
moment was here. The Naxim, the Nyon … the ancient empire of
Sirengard. All of their efforts had now been flushed in complete
vain. Redgarn had now been found. And the moment was here for the
victory the Xeni had always been destined for…

“The time is now here.” Zardin said, feeling
a deadly vigour pump through his veins. “At long last. The world
has been awaiting us. Awaiting
you
.”

Redgarn gave a harsh rumble of laughter.

“I know it has.” he said, his dead voice now
ignited with fervour. “The halo that I am in has but one weakness:
a mystic’s sword. The ignited blade of a mystic’s sword is the only
thing that can break open this cursed shell that they imprisoned me
in, and set me free. And when I’m released from the halo that
stumps my mind and body’s motion, I would no longer be the cripple
I have been for eight millennia now. I will be physically free
again … and that would be the single turning point of this
spectrum. Do it, Zardin. It’s long past time. Do it.”

Striding forward swiftly with his sword held
raised, Zardin stopped right before the halo. He allowed himself
the passing span of a second to relish it, relish the moment, and
he heaved in a deep, relieving breath. Then, holding his sword by
both hands, he swung it across in a wild slash. The very instant
his ignited sword touched the halo, the entire casing shattered
into a hundred sharded pieces. The skeletal figure collapsed to the
ground with a groan. Zardin thought to rush over and pick him up,
before deciding against it, and stood where he was.

Redgarn lay on the ground in the middle of
the pool of glass shards for a few seconds, his body as still as a
corpse. Zardin and the other three stood rooted to the spot,
waiting … the seconds grew lankier as they waited in silence,
watching the body on the ground.

And then, the skeletal figure slowly
collected itself and sat upright. The mass of tangled hair parted
to reveal a face as red as lava. With two dotted crimson eyes that
were bead like. He slowly raised both hands and examined them
before his eyes, as if unable to believe what he was seeing. He
turned them a few times and twitched his fingers, as if to see if
they were still working properly after eight millennia. Then, a
wide smile broke over his red features, so that a deadly new energy
seemed to awaken upon them.

“Free … at last.”

__________

All pairs of eyes were tightly latched over
the large well like hole in the earth. The large group of cloaked
men stood surrounding the giant tunnel drilled into the earth, all
of them tensely watching the tunnel’s entrance. Zardin and the
three others had disappeared into it almost an hour back. And
nothing at all had escaped from the tunnel since.

Everyone standing around it, of the large
batch of Xeni, was mentally poring over the very same question:
what was going on inside of there? Some of them were beginning to
lose patience, letting boredom waver their hard resolves. Some of
them were beginning to wonder if this was all just a pointless
meandering that their leader had led them into. But a few of them
kept their composure and patience just as collected as ever,
waiting calmly.

And then, it reached them. The sound of the
same hover car’s engine, slowly loudening as it reached them from
within.

A new excitement ran through the group of
cloaked men like a current. They backed away from the tunnel,
giving room. The hover car’s engine loudened to its very peak,
before it shot out of the tunnel. It soared a few metes into the
air before swinging over and sinking back to the ground. It settled
to a soft stop on the ground beside the tunnel.

The batch of Xeni waited, all of them
mounting with anticipation. And then, as the doors swung open, they
saw Zardin and the three other Xeni emerge … but with another
person.

At the very first sight, the man invoked a
surge of terror which almost matched that which Zardin himself
awoke in some of their eyes. His bone like, skeletal structure was
almost terrifying, and the colour of his skin was a bright boiling
red. A mass of tangled hair hung on both sides of his face, a face
contained with a massive hidden prowess and fury like nothing. And
his eyes were bead like and crimson red.

Redgarn stepped out of the hover car along
with Zardin and the other three. He slowly turned about, letting
his gaze carry across the large group of Xeni. His eyes sank right
into every one of the men he saw there, examining them in the split
second they paused on him. Then, feeling a smile spread over his
face, he turned to Zardin, who stood still beside him.

“We have quite a good force, here.”

“Better.” Zardin held his hand out to point
to the cruiser sitting a few hundred feet from them. “There is an
entire battalion of armed forces. And that would amount to almost a
tenth of a single planet’s army. All at
our
disposal.
Consider it your welcome gift.”

Redgarn stared at the cruiser for a few
seconds, and then released an outburst of laughter. His hideous,
rasping voice echoed across the large expanse. The rest of the Xeni
stood just as still, watching the proceedings quietly.

“An entire
battalion
of armed forces.”
Redgarn repeated softly, transfixed as he stood watching the
cruiser. “That … is truly magnificent. We are now placed at a
greater position of power than I would have dreamt…”

The look of delight in his features faded,
and a mounting rage filled them now. “I have waited eight thousand
years. Suffered for eight thousand years. And now, it is time. At
long last. I don’t care how long I have to wait … or how hard I
have to work, but I will find the Nyon, and crush them once and for
all. They would be impossible to find as of now, but soon … I will
find them, and burn their entire temple to the ground and kill
every one of them.”

“Something we would all love.” said Zardin.
“Incidentally, the Nyon are now in possession of our crystal. The
key to the dimension storing the forces of Mezmeron … the demon
army. The Nyon acquired the crystal, and are now in hold of
it.”

Redgarn turned to Zardin, and the fury in his
red eyes blazed wilder.

“Those cursed fiends!” he roared. “The
crystal contains everything for us. Everything we’ve worked for …
I
worked for. We need it to finish what I started!”

A tense silence gripped the place as Redgarn
stood where he was, his fists curled in anger. He was quiet for a
few moments and Zardin waited, letting him pore over the
situation.

“We have everything right now.” Redgarn
growled, turning to the cruiser parked across the rough hands. “We
have an entire battalion of armed forces. We can crush them like an
ant beneath a boot. But we don’t have the one thing that matters.
The location where they now hide.” He paused for a moment’s
thought, and his frown sank deeper. “And after eight thousand years
of heavy prosecution against mystics, they would have gone far into
hiding. It would impossible to find where they are now.”