by B A Vonsik
The door opened just as Rogaan made to smash it with his blue steel-covered fists. The eyes and face of a young blond woman dressed in a revealing green elf costume met them.
“It’s about time you got here,” the beautiful young woman chastised. “We’ve been waiting for you. What’s going on out there?”
“Who are you?” Nikki asked with a hint of jealousy as she looked at almost a double of herself.
“They’re your doppelgängers,” Miller answered for the young woman. “They’re the sleight of hand Dunkle eluded to earlier.”
The building shuddered at a series of thunderous explosions. Debris flew across the hall as dust fell from all over the place. Nikki looked all around. She immediately feared for Aren and Anders . . . and Dunkle. If Ezerus and his gang are attacking us in this building, then they must be dead.
“Are they still . . .” Nikki looked to Rogaan for answers.
The half Tellen had that distant look. His eyes surrounded by black, burnt, scabbed over skin that looked to be in the advanced state of healing. In Antaalin, he replied. “They still fight a good battle . . . against Soldats and . . . drones. The floating chariot is meaning to destroy this place.”
The building shuddered again, and again, at more thunderous explosions from the UFO. Rogaan gestured for everyone to get inside the room when the high ceilings and walls collapsed all around them.
Dust and debris filled the air making it difficult to see more than an arm’s length away. Nikki felt Rogaan’s strain before seeing him struggle to hold up the wall next to them. It fell as a complete structure, heavy and not as the fake stone blocks would have suggested.
“Get inside . . .” Rogaan grunted at Nikki and Miller. With unsaid protests, they climbed over the debris and into the room. Rogaan grunted as he made his way to the doorway, holding the weight of the wall up as he did.
Nikki stood in horror as she looked around the moderately sized room. Moonlight from an opening in the ceiling far above and one emergency light were the extent of their gloomy illumination. Next to Nikki, her once-beautiful doppelgänger hung bloody and lifeless, impaled on multiple broken rods of rebar embedded in a large chunk of fallen concrete. An Aren look-alike lay on the floor with half his head crushed in from falling debris. A Dunkle look-alike suffered the same fate not far away. Nikki could make out three bodies under another fallen section of wall. They all appeared dead.
“We need to make haste,” Rogaan demanded of them. Looking at Miller, he asked a direct question. “Where is this step-gate?”
Miller pointed to the far wall as he stumbled to the bodies crushed under the fallen wall. The step-gate wall appeared to be untouched in the destruction of the room, but Nikki only saw a stone wall.
“Where’s the gate?” Nikki asked with growing anxiety.
“It’s hidden behind a nanomolecular wall coded to Dunkle’s and my biometrics and DNA,” Miller answered as he checked for life in the Rogaan, Anders, and Miller look-alikes.
“Leave them and get to the wall,” Rogaan commanded.
“This one is still alive—” Miller was kneeling over the Rogaan look-alike.
“Leave him now,” Rogaan demanded without looking at his doppelgänger.
“But he’s alive,” Miller protested.
Rogaan grabbed Miller by his shoulder harness and lifted him into the air, carrying him to the far wall, then placing him back on his feet. Nikki felt Rogaan’s sense of urgency. It was real to him, even though she didn’t understand what was driving it. “Reveal the step-gate.”
Miller reached out to several places along the wall as another series of thunderous explosions shuddered the building again, and again. More debris fell, some on top of the fallen wall with the pinned survivor. The newly fallen debris fell directly on the now-assumed dead survivor. Miller’s attention fell firmly on the Rogaan look-alike. A smack on Miller’s shoulder from the half Tellen pointing at the wall got him to put his hand on another spot. The outline of his hand glowed red, yellow, then green; then the wall seemed to melt away revealing a gateway that appeared exactly like the one Nikki fell into back in the Bolivian cave—starting all of this. Nikki shivered at the sight of the thing, two eight-foot blue metallic obelisks standing about eight feet apart. Each of their four sides was about a foot wide at the top, flaring out to a greater width at their bases. A blue metal cross brace spanned the space between the obelisks at the bottom where they were largest. There were far fewer symbols and inscriptions on these obelisks than what Nikki remembered of the one she fell into in Bolivia. A shallow hexagon-shaped inset in each obelisk was at identical heights, four feet from the bottom brace. Nikki remembered the insets being triangular in shape on the other step-gate.
Rogaan held out his upturned palm at Miller. It took a moment for Miller to realize what Rogaan was asking for before he placed the blue steel hexagon-shaped object . . . the step-gate key, into Rogaan’s hand. Rogaan wasted no time placing the key into a matching indention on the blue steel metallic frame of the gateway. The Agni in the key glowed blue as the step-gate came to life just as the one did in Bolivia that Nikki now thought she experienced a lifetime ago. Its blue steel frame reflecting the shimmering curtain’s glow of energy and matter brought back her unsettling memories of being lost and floating in a universe of nothingness.
“Quickly, young Miller,” Rogaan demanded. When Miller hesitated, Rogaan grabbed and pushed him through the gateway. He disappeared as if walking through a wall of dark, rippling water. Rogaan held out his hand to Nikki. He sensed her fearing the shimmering curtain of energy. He spoke in Antaalin. “This one has been prepared for us. It is safer than remaining in this room.”
Fearing being trapped inside the step-gate, a Möbius loop in modern terms, Nikki took baby steps forward trying to delay entering it. Rogaan gave her a knowing look giving her the courage to take a breath and step forward.
“Do not forget the Heavenly Hammer, my ol’ friend.” Rogaan spoke to someone in Antaalin as Nikki felt herself stepping into the watery void of liquid energy.
Holding her breath, she felt herself inside a rainbow tunnel made of energies colorful beyond description. She felt nothing . . . no vibrations, no sounds, no movement, not even time. It was as if she were in a set of virtual reality glasses in a soundproof room, floating. The visual complexity of the tunnel was breathtaking, beautiful, and mesmerizing. Without warning, Nikki found herself at a watery wall of energy, its semitransparency allowing her to see what lay beyond . . . an empty room. She felt as if she were being pushed from the tunnel by some unknown force. She stepped through the watery wall.
Nikki emerged from the void of liquid energy on her knees, trying to suck in every breath of air she could. Her heart calming, she opened her eyes, finding herself in a smaller room than what she left. It looked and felt gloomy and much more primitive than the resort-staged décor, with a dirt floor and imitation limestone and dried mud-covered walls. Nikki feared the gateway sent them somewhere distant and isolated. Bathed in the shimmering blue-gray glow of the step-gate, Nikki found simple furnishings of several modern wood crates, one with an almost fresh bouquet of simple flowers in a likewise modern manufactured vase. A small open, frameless window above and to her left revealed wherever she was the waning moments of the day she would experience again. We must be west of Nassau Island, she thought as a slight breeze of chill air from the window to the frameless doorway told her she was also likely north of where she just came from. The light cast on the walls from behind her started rippling. Realizing she was right where Rogaan would appear, Nikki rolled to her left before rising to a kneeling position. Rogaan emerged from the step-gate as if walking out of a vertical surface of dark waters. A few moments after he stood in the room with Nikki, the step-gate went silent and cold. The room fell into a deeper gloom. It stood as if it had been undisturbed by time. Rogaan had the hexagon-shaped Agni key in his hand. He put that in the top of his small backpack that his over-the-shoulder sword sheaths were att
ached to.
Not paying Nikki any heed, Rogaan stood motionless with that distant stare. Nikki felt him deeply connected with the presence of the Wind. They were . . . assessing . . . calculating. What? She didn’t know. Nikki worried for Aren, Anders, and Dunkle. The step-gate was “off,” and Rogaan held the key. They wouldn’t be able to activate the gate, even if they could get to it with the rubble of a destroyed building on top of it.
“Hey, my PDA is picking up a signal . . .” Miller barged into the small room from a hallway wanting to share news he thought important. When he saw Rogaan standing stolidly and not paying any attention to him, he fell silent. He realized Nikki was in the room and motioned for her to come with him. She reluctantly followed. The narrow hallway, more of a gloomy cave, just outside the room looked even more abandoned than the room they just left. Walls with the same imitation limestone and mud like covering over what looked like simple stage material beneath . . . drywall and wood studs.
“Look, my PDA is picking up the US national broadcast . . . we must be in the States,” Miller told her excitedly. “The PDAs are locked so they don’t transmit any data other than our false identities, but they’ll receive what any PDA can normally receive.”
Nikki was relieved that Miller’s averted near-death experience didn’t seem to have slowed him down much. The young seaman appeared to be just about normal with his Southern drawl in full blossom. Miller put his PDA in holographic mode, so he and Nikki could both watch the live news feeds. He had several feeds up in multiple display sheets. The news agencies all had their attentions on New Atlantis, watching from different perspectives the battle still ragging on the island. Several different cameras watched as Aren fought off Cmpax Soldats and Tyr. The audio commentaries of the news anchors were all over the place. A few were just commenting on what they saw without embellishment or grandstanding. Most made commentary with wild speculation of what was unfolding. They all got their speculation completely wrong. Some of the Tyr and their wedged-shaped drones were attacking the Soldats in addition to Aren. Nikki watched as Aren seemed to be doing everything possible to provoke attacks on himself . . . bolts of light, lightning, balls of fire, and things Nikki wasn’t certain of but looked nasty when they struck. What in the hell is he doing? she thought to herself. Another feed was on the discoid ship having just finished pulverizing to dust the tower ride building they just left. Surprisingly, with all the Soldats and Tyr and their drones raining projectiles and energy blasts at him . . . and there’s Dunkle and Anders just behind him. They were huddled behind Aren and his failing vaporous shield and a new shield she didn’t recognize. No! Aren struck the discoid ship again, with what she thought was an exalted blast of lightning. It got the ship’s . . . Ezerus’s attention as it too rejoined the attack on the Evendiir with those deadly light pulses.
“That is good, ol’ friend . . .” In Antaalin, Rogaan spoke in a low voice as if talking to himself.
“He’s going to get them all killed,” Nikki complained in a fit of growing despair. “What’s he doing?”
“Bring them closer . . .” Rogaan talked to himself again.
Nikki glanced at Rogaan finding him still motionless just as she left him. She felt in him both a powerful determination and a deep concern, growing by the second, for Aren. What are they up to?
“Now, ol’ friend . . .” Rogaan spoke calmly at first, then not so calmly the second time. “Flee, Aren!”
Nikki watched as Aren fought off the Soldat, Tyr, their drones, and the ship with his right hand and formed a personal step-gate with his left. At a nod from Aren, Dunkle helped Anders quickly through the rainbow-colored circle of swirling energy. As soon as they were gone, Aren leaped into the gate. A moment later, the rainbow circle vanished.
“What just happened?” Miller asked no one in particular.
“Watch,” Rogaan answered calmly from the other room.
The discoid ship started accelerating away when all the displays filled with brilliant white flashes. The closest feeds went blank. The more distant feeds, from drones or aircraft or ships some miles out and from high-rise hotels, watched multiple brilliant explosions on the resort battlefield, each looking like a miniature nuclear detonation. Nikki counted three or four. One of the news feeds watching the battle from a high vantage point over the harbor on Nassau Island was blinded by another larger detonation where Nikki recalled passing by several U.N. ships anchored when they brought the Sukkal into the resort port. A mushroom cloud rose over the western outer zone of the port and more over the northwesternmost part of the resort. Nikki stared on in awe and horror as a growing number of news feeds showed devastation, though most of it localized. The rest of the resort grounds were left largely without damage except for broken windows in the hotels and other buildings and loose umbrella-type features. The port showed damage only around two sunken U.N. frigate-sized ships, one broken in half and partially sunk in the harbor channel. The other near and still sinking with a badly bent hull and rolled over on its side. Both were engulfed in flames.
“What in the hell did you hit them with?” Miller asked Rogaan without taking his eyes from the news feeds.
“Heavenly Hammer,” Rogaan answered in English as he walked to them. When he stepped out of the room, the step-gate disappeared behind a solid singular wall that reformed as if water flowed in from all directions. More nanomolecules.
Several more news feeds popped up display sheets on Miller’s PDA reporting similar explosions at the U.N. port facilities in Freeport, Bahamas, and Guantanamo, Cuba. The Guantanamo facility report spoke to most of the base along with the port being destroyed. Nikki and Miller looked up at a solemn Rogaan.
“What is a Heavenly Hammer?” Miller asked with his eyes again glued to his PDA’s holo-display sheets.
“A hard metal pole in a blue steel container let fall from the Wind,” Rogaan answered in English as he looked off distantly again. “This one, into small poles to limit devastation only to what is . . . needed.”
“How many?” Miller seemed not to want to stop asking questions.
“Eleven,” Rogaan answered as he kept with his distant stare.
“Eleven Rods from God!” Miller sounded awed. “I count only six or seven in the news feeds.”
“Four Tyr ships in waters east of the island are now to be lost to the sea,” Rogaan answered solemnly, yet a bit absently,
“You and Aren maneuvered all of them in close to keep from harming everything and everyone around them?” Nikki asked her rhetorical question, truly wanting Rogaan to answer.
Rogaan appeared to take a moment to translate Nikki’s words before returning his attention to whatever he was doing that made him stare distantly. “Indeed. I destroy the evil ones, not the . . . multitudes.”
Nikki smiled at Rogaan’s casual honorableness. Yet, she knew his roguish side that allowed him to do what he must for the greater good he knew. Watching the ancient half Tellen at task, all-in, doing what he does, with a sense of noble purpose, gave Nikki a sense of promise for the future and a warming in her heart. And a pang of guilt rippled across her feelings.
“Anders!” Nikki spoke his name aloud without intending to. Wanting to keep the others and Rogaan off the scent of her feelings in turmoil, she thought quickly to ask of the others. “Are you searching for Aren, Dunkle, and . . . Anders?”
Rogaan nodded, then spoke. “First, to make to be safe the Wind. To hide it again. Many of your world . . . seeking for it now that I have revealed it. Their flying ships are able enough to make trouble. Then, I able to find my ol’ friend and the others.”
Nikki realized she had little for an idea of where they were at, except maybe somewhere west of Nassau. There was something familiar about this place, yet it was long abandoned . . . except for someone who kept fresh flowers in a rather plain stage representation of an ancient, primitive room. Curious, Nikki decided to go outside of the cave in the waning moments of dusk to look around, hoping to get better oriented. Stepping from
the cave like hall, she found herself in an open courtyard of dirt and large gravel meant to simulate arid desert conditions, though much of the area was grown over with different types of plants, some that now sat dormant for the winter. What were several life-sized Roman legionnaire statues lay broken and strewn about near the cave entrance. To her right sat broken in halves a large imitation circular stone, as big round as a tall man . . . taller than Rogaan. One of the halves had tendrils of dormant vines wrapping much of it. Familiarity with the place teased Nikki. Not just of physically being here, but of the theme. Turning around, Nikki found a wall of simulated limestone and dolomite. Much of it was covered in dormant vines. Looking higher, she found what she remembered from her early childhood when her parents had taken her on a hushed trip exploring their religion. In the dusky light, above in a patchwork of repairs of modern lumber and ropes, stood the three life-sized wood crosses of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
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B. A. VONSIK
Primeval Origins: Paths of Anguish
Book One of the Primeval Origins Epic Saga
Multiple Award-Winning Primeval Origins: Paths of Anguish (2nd Edition) is the first book of the epic origins story of mankind, our heavenly hosts, and the eternal war between good and evil where all is revealed, through characters both past and present, and tellings of humanity’s heroic struggles against terrible tyrannies, deadly dinosaurs, and ancient gods as the origins of our End Times is revealed, answering the question, “What if all of our myths and legends are true?”
Myths and Legends...just fables and fantasies for those taught to scoff at them is understood, as I was taught when a graduate student in the sciences; scorn and ridicule the forbidden. Myths are just...myths. Legends are just...legends. Then, I discovered different, in a South American dig where my life went upside down after finding what should not be with what we thought we knew so much about. My consciousness, my Light, plunged through a maelstrom bound to those of our undiscovered history. I witnessed through the eyes of ancient warriors, Rogaan and others, a wondrous human civilization of old, grand beasts and dinosaurs, and celestial gods of myth in what the modern Hopi and Maya branded our First World-Age. An age deep in blood and conflict born of gods and new man covetous of true powers and self-motivations loosing upon their world tyrannies, energy forces...sorceries, and abominations affronting Creation. Sealing the fates of the age, sword-messengers, warrior angels, risen new to bring forth the Harbinger of Creation’s Judgments, slayers of civilizations...both of men and gods, the Horsemen. I am bound to them. In the here and now, standing at the precipice at the end of mankind’s Fourth World-Age, I fear what is to come from the others...the Horsemen of Prophecy. And yet, I have hope for what follows. As our ancients did in tablets of clay teaching us our undiscovered past, I Nikki, now share these steel bound epics with you before the sounding of the trumpets.