"They can do that?" The lines in Zordan's forehead deepened.
"Yes. They send out a signal that controls the cyborgs through their chips. The only way we know to stop it is to stop the crystal that powers the control mechanism, but Tordan has almost died twice doing it to free us and the cyborgs from the moon base."
Zordan was silent for a moment, obviously fighting the information. "So, when these Ardaks return, we may not have control over our minds?"
"That's right. We're trying to find a way around it, but it might require blocking our own frequencies to do it.”
Zordan narrowed his eyes. “And you might not be able to do it at all.”
Mordjan looked away.
The fact that he didn’t answer was enough. "All right, well, since there isn’t anything we can do about that right now, let’s get these metal birds in the air.”
As the docking bay door closed behind them, Mordjan stopped and faced him. "I know the idea of Ardak control is disconcerting. But it's a fear that all of us live with every day."
Zordan glared at him, angry for the first time. "You think that I'm afraid? It is not fear that silences me. I am responsible for strategy, and this information changes everything. Until now, my goal had been to have the best-trained fighting army possible in the short time allowed. But now you tell me that the more well-trained, the worse it could be if the Ardaks take us over."
Mordjan shrugged. "We have to do our best to fight them and hope that we can find a way to overcome the signal in time."
"That is your strategy?" he asked incredulously. "How many cyborgs are trying to solve this problem?"
"Three.”
“There is no point in training the cyborgs to fight or fly ships unless we know they will not be a danger during the war. Otherwise, we should simply be building an enormous underground chamber where the Ardak signal will not reach us, locking ourselves in, and throwing away the key until the Ardaks are defeated or we are overrun."
Mordjan met his gaze, and to the Siirtian’s credit, he did not look away. "It pains me to say this, but I agree with you." He ran a hand through his hair. "I've been avoiding the problem because I don't know if it's solvable. We have a strategy where we can block certain locations from all frequencies, like Renwyn, but outside of that, we don’t have a solution. However, I will get ten of our best minds on it this afternoon, and ask Durstin to call in ten of the elder elves to see what they think.”
Zordan exhaled. "Fine. Now that we have that sorted, let's find out what these ships can do."
Chapter Sixteen
Lielle
Lielle glanced down at the powerful crystal around her neck, which had replaced the crystal the queen of the higher elven realm had given her, and raised her hand. A portal appeared before her. She turned back to Geeeroo, impulsively giving him a brief hug. "Thank you for everything."
Over the past few hours, Geeeroo had taught her how to use the crystal to channel her lesser elemental magic. She could create portals and manipulate the four elements with sufficient skill. Yet, her strongest magical affinity, which was gaining visions from the spirits, still eluded her.
Geeeroo had told her what it would feel like, so she knew that when she felt the cool tingling at the back of her neck she should stop everything and concentrate. If she focused on the feeling and called it to her with the power of the crystal, she should have another vision. She just had no idea when it would be.
"I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again." The elder elf smiled.
"You probably will," she agreed as Aielle also offered him a farewell hug. "Take care of yourself, Geeeroo," she said kindly. "And please, try to hang on. If this situation is as dire as Lielle's vision indicated, I have a feeling we might need your expertise."
He nodded solemnly.
Aielle stepped through the portal and Lielle followed, emerging onto the plain in front of Renwyn. There was no one there, and several of the ships were gone. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, but Aielle looked up into the sky, blinking. "Up there!"
Lielle craned her neck and squinted against the sunlight. Sure enough, hundreds of ships hovered in the air above.
"Can you portal us onto Zordan's ship?" Aielle asked.
Lielle shook her head in confusion. "I have no idea how I would even begin."
"Why don’t you try to find him with your magic?” There was a smile in her voice. "Close your eyes, follow that sensation. Feel what ship he's on."
Lielle obediently closed her eyes, then opened one to see if Aielle was making fun of her. "Is this really possible?"
"Not for everyone, but I have a feeling for you, it will be. Now give it a try.” The queen gave her an expectant smile.
Lielle closed her eyes and focused on the tingling feeling, reaching out with her magic. She opened her eyes, looked up, and knew which ship Zordan was on. "I know where he is," she murmured.
"Good. Now create a portal there."
Lielle closed her eyes again, waving her hand to create the portal. When she opened them, it was there, and she could see what looked like a ship in the haze beyond.
"Now we find out if you're correct." Aielle laughed. She stepped in front of Lielle with a wink and entered the portal.
Lielle followed, stepping through into another world of lights and metal. There was a faint tremor of the ship beneath her feet, and the enormous window of clear glass in front of her made it feel as if she were on the verge of falling. She reached out a hand to steady herself, but it met empty air.
She flailed for a moment, then warm, strong hands gripped her, holding her upright. Disconcerted, she glanced over her shoulder into Zordan's eyes, remaining absolutely still as he closed the space between them and lent her his warmth.
"Are you all right?" His deep voice rumbled like the engines of the ship.
"Yes."
"You did well," Aielle said, creating a portal with a light wave of her hand. "I must return to the castle, but contact me if you need anything else." She stepped through, and it was as if she'd never been.
Lielle took a deep breath and leaned a little closer to the window as she took in the landscape below. It reminded her of how she often saw Aurora in her visions. The rays of the sunlight illuminating the landscape and reflecting off the snow of the mountains caused a wave of longing to fill her—homesickness for the higher elven realm. It was almost funny because, when she'd been in the higher elven realm, she'd always thought of her planet as the place where she'd been from. But she'd been in the higher elven realm almost three times as long as she'd lived in the mortal realm—and the higher elven realm was now her home. A home that was in danger.
"Do you like the view?" Zordan's questioned.
She glanced back at him, then turned back to the window. "I love it. This is how I'm used to viewing Aurora."
"Your visions are from above?" There was more than idle curiosity in his voice, and she turned to face him.
"Yes. Why?"
His steel-gray eyes magnified in their intensity, narrowing on her. "How well would you say you know the landscape?"
"I know it as well as my own reflection," she answered truthfully. "I've been watching it for over nine hundred years."
He swallowed. "Nine hundred summers?"
"Yes." She turned to stare at the peaks of the mountains in the distance. "So much has changed upon the land, and yet, so little of the land itself is different. It survives us, unchanging save for the interference of the other elements."
"Air, fire, and water," Zordan mused. "I never thought of it that way." His eyes glinted as they roved the landscape. "I also didn't realize how open and defenseless we would be from above until I saw the landscape from up in this ship. There’s nothing we can do about the palace, but we'll need a way of hiding troops so they can't be seen from the sky. Since you know the terrain so well, you can help with that."
She stepped closer to the glass, seeing the world as he might see it. Wide open plains. On land, the towers of Ren
wyn rose above the trees, but the entire palace was visible from the sky.
"We can use the trees as cover," she offered.
"Yes, and Mordjan mentioned that there are underground tunnels. But we need to think of things that aren't so obvious as well as figure out ways to defend against an air attack. With the power of these ships, it would be easy to attack the trees."
She pointed at the bowl in the high mountains. "You can't see it, but that is where Garthurian is.”
Zordan's eyes followed her finger in the direction of the mountains. "Why can’t I see it?”
"Because they have a shield. I can see it, because I'm an elf."
"Switch to infrared, and you'll see it, too." Mordjan's voice came from above.
"Really?” Lielle looked up in surprise.
"Yes. We can see most uses of magic if we know where to look,” Mordjan replied gruffly.
Zordan must have done so, because his mouth dropped open and he stepped closer to the glass. "Do the Ardaks know that elven magic appears on infrared?”
“I don’t think so, only because they don’t seem to know about Garthurian.”
“Are they able to pass through the shield in any way?”
“When the shield was around Renwyn, they were unable to pass through it. Until it ran out of power, that is.”
There was a drawn-out pause as Zordan tried to control his temper. He wanted to yell at everyone for not enacting similar defenses. "Then how do we put the shield back up around Renwyn?"
“I've asked Queen Aielle about it, but I'm not sure she knows how to restart it. The Renwynian elves don't know as much magic as the Garthurian elves."
"Then find a Garthurian elf, dammit. That invisibility shield is our first line of defense against the Ardaks. We need one around Renwyn, and I need to know the specifics of how it works. If the elves can create more of them, we need one over the plain with the ships in front of Garthurian as well."
"I'll look into it," Lielle offered, opening her mouth before she thought the better of it. "Aielle is their queen, and she is working with the Garthurian queen. If they don’t know, then I can ask Geeeroo if he knows how to weave the magic."
Zordan opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand.
There was a cold tingle at the back of her neck.
"A vision," she whispered, clutching the crystal around her neck, channeling its power to grab on to the vision and hold it.
∆ ∆ ∆
"Oh gods, it can't be true!" A female's sobs rent the air, the terror in her voice palpable.
As Lielle followed the voice, the haziness dispelled and her vision became clear. Before her sat the queen of the higher elven realm. But she was a younger version than the one Lielle knew—and even more, she was occupying Lielle’s chambers.
The vision must have taken her back in time, to when the high queen was simply Aurora’s spirit-seer.
"What did you see, love?" The most beautiful male she'd ever seen strode forward from the shadows of the room. Long brown hair fell over one side of his face in careless waves, and his arms were covered with swirling tattoos that appeared strangely reminiscent of wings. As he glided swiftly past her toward the queen, Lielle saw that the tattoos covered his upper back and joined at his spine. The tattoo swirls rose up his neck. His long hair parted as he leaned forward to put his arms around her to brush a kiss across her forehead, exposing a tattoo of a bird of paradise.
"It is worse than I could have imagined!" the queen cried, burying her face into the hard planes of his chest. "Enormous power is coming to Aurora, and the elves there must not get their hands on it.”
The male frowned. “Why would you want to keep power from the elves?”
“There is darkness among them, although I cannot see who it is. If we give them the power now, that elf will rise, wielding a dark and terrible power unlike any the universe has ever seen." She began to sob hysterically once more, and the male soothed her with gentle caresses, murmuring into her hair. His eyes were distant, his face a mask of pain she couldn't see. They stayed like that for some time, holding each other, communicating the depth of their love through whispers and touches. Finally, he let her go and straightened. "So the prophecy was true."
"She is never wrong," the future queen replied, her face looking older than it had before.
"It's all right, Lahrelle.” He set his lips in a firm line. “I can stop it.”
"But I don't want to lose you!" Her fingers clutched at him, turning white. "If you go back to the mortal realm, you won't be able to come back to this one.”
He smoothed the hair back from her tear-streaked face. "I don't want to leave you either. I love you as I have never loved another. You've made eternity more bearable, brought me back to life. If there were any other way, I would do it. But the prophecy was clear, and we both know it. I am to set the stage for what will happen a thousand years from now."
"Oh gods." She buried her face in her hands. "I don't . . . I don't know if I can do this without you. I don't want to exist without you, Pharadis."
He took her shoulders, his eyes blazing. "You must! I cannot do what I must unless I know you will be there to meet me in the next dimension. You are destined to become the next queen of this higher elven realm—and once your power grows strong enough, you will move on to even higher realms.”
“That could be thousands of years from now.” Her voice was half-angry, half-pleading.
He chuckled then. “Oh, love, I don’t think it will take you half that long. But we both have our destinies, and both of us will do what we must to keep the darkness at bay.”
They stood there for long moments, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.
Finally, he broke away. “I will be counting the days until we meet again. And until then, I will leave a window open just for you."
At that moment, Lielle knew why the queen always searched the same spot in the sky.
The future queen threw her arms around him. "I love you!"
"I love you, too, baby. I'll be waiting." For a moment, he held her just as tightly. Then he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her as his body slowly dissolved into tiny glitters of light.
The light descended, and Lielle followed it. Down, down, down, until she recognized the mountains of Aurora and the coastline near the Crystal Cave. An enormous spaceship lay half in the water and half on the beach. It was old, its outsides beaten and weathered. It was a ship from the elven empire.
She landed gently on her feet, and before her stood a bird of paradise. Unlike a normal bird of paradise, he was so large that he stood at eye level with her. He was just as beautiful, just as magnificent as the male had been, only in a completely different way.
As she crossed the sand toward him, he cocked an eye at her and clicked his beak. "I cannot see you, young spirit, but I know you are here." He squinted, searching, and she had the feeling he could almost see her.
"What is this ship? Why is it here?"
"At least I can hear you," the bird said with satisfaction. "Shall we go aboard and find out?"
"Yes. Let's." She neared the ship with caution, watching as he tapped on a keypad to open the door.
There was a hiss as it opened, and the bird stepped back a few paces. "It's a good thing you can't smell that, young one. A good thing indeed." A ramp had lowered from the inside, and the bird inhaled deeply before he daintily stepped his way up the ramp into the docking bay.
Once inside, she followed as the bird turned left. They passed an open door on the left, and several elves lay inside, obviously dead.
"I have a bad feeling about what we'll find here," the bird muttered under his breath.
"What do you think we'll find?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
The bird didn't answer as he neared the door at the end of the corridor. He stretched out a wing to touch the pad beside it and the door slid open. He stepped inside and she followed, but they both froze in awe when they saw what was contained within.
"So enormous." Her voice was awestruck as she stepped inside the room.
"So much power," he agreed. "So much pain. These are the crystals from Baihu, the Ardak homeworld. They must be protected until the time is right." Without another word, he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
She followed him from the ship, and once outside, he cocked his head and examined the cliff in front of them. "There is a reason the ship landed here. The rocks in this cliff are threaded through with metal—it will protect the crystals so no one can detect their power." He made his way across the sand toward the high cliff on the left. When directly in front of it, he raised his wings and held them outstretched, and suddenly a door appeared. Once inside, he raised his wings again, and a second cavern appeared in front of them. He closed his eyes and with a mighty flap of his wings, the crystals were instantly there.
It was so magical that she didn't even see him fall. She just heard him hit the floor. She reached for him, but her hand passed right through his body.
"Can you hear me?" she asked.
He clicked his beak. "Yes." He sighed. "The magic just took a lot out of me, even though this is the form in which I channel it best."
He waved a wing, and the cavern sealed itself, leaving only a golden keyhole in the center.
He strode to a second, much smaller, cavern off the main cave. "If you are who I think you are, this is what you need to see."
Lielle watched as he scratched a sign into the floor with his three-toed foot.
The sign burst into flames before her eyes, and the vision began to disappear.
"Watch for the sign," the bird said urgently.
∆ ∆ ∆
Lielle tried to hold on to her vision, to channel the magic even more, but it was no use. As it faded, she came back to herself, in Zordan's arms, in the spaceship above Aurora. Both Zordan and Mordjan were staring at her.
"What did you see?" Zordan asked, setting her on her feet.
She glanced between them. "The Crystal Cave."
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