His arrival in the crystal cavern was met by the agonised screams of Huxin, who was collapsed before the large stalagmite on which her husband had been impaled. Shi was bleeding a river of blood over the crystal surface of the natural structure that had taken his life and the red stream pooled around the base.
The sight made Rhun’s stomach churn, and his body reverberated with the shock of imagining how Shi had met this end. The answer was simple really: Shi, or rather his previous incarnation, Yasper, could levitate — and would have done so in an attempt to escape his attacker. But if that attacker was carrying a weapon that abolished psychic power with one blast, like the weapon used to destroy the Chosen on Kila, then Shi could have been shot and left to drop. The terrain in the cavern would have done the murderer’s job for him.
Huxin was morphing uncontrollably in a fruitless attempt to escape her anguish, but her emotions were not so beyond her control that she shifted into reptilian form again. Telmo was waiting for the right moment to approach and calm her.
Rhun didn’t even want to check on the state of the rest of the crew, but at a quick glance it appeared no one else had been touched.
‘The creature plans to kill us all, one by one’ was Huxin’s message from Dragonface. Clearly, the others had been left alive on purpose, to show how confident their stalker was that they could be hunted down at his own leisure.
‘How could Dragonface have done this?’ Rhun, struck by a horrifying thought, teleported across to check that the chariot was still cloaked and present. ‘Thank the universe.’ He breathed a sigh of relief to feel its invisible structure.
Telmo had given Dan and Hudan a shake, as despite Huxin’s wailing, they had not stirred from their slumber, and Telmo could not get close to the shapeshifter to pacify her.
‘Dear universe, no!’ Hudan sprang from her reclined position, distressed by the horrifying circumstances that she awoke to. ‘How? Who?’ She rushed to console her sister, who collapsed into her embrace and continued to wail out her grief.
Dan rose to standing, observing his brother’s bleeding corpse with growing ire. ‘Why was only my little brother targeted?’
Despite his personal sorrow, Dan asked the most pertinent question, and Rhun expected nothing less of the captain.
‘Dragonface picked my lover to teach me a lesson!’ Huxin cried out to claim responsibility. ‘It is my fault he is dead!’ She collapsed into tears once again.
The captain clenched his jaw briefly, to contain his welling grief. ‘Why is he still impaled like that?’ Dan looked to Telmo, knowing he could have used his psychokinesis to get him down.
‘I didn’t want to move him before you saw it, Captain,’ the technologist explained.
‘Well,’ Dan’s voice caught in his throat, and he inhaled deeply before speaking again. ‘Get him down, it is distressing to Huxin.’
Telmo nodded and moved to comply.
‘And the sight will distress Ling Hu when she awakens,’ the captain added, glancing down to where the tigress should have been sleeping. ‘Where is Ling Hu?’
Dan looked to Rhun, who felt like a complete failure. ‘My sincerest apologies, Captain, I hadn’t noticed her missing.’
‘This is not your fault,’ Dan insisted.
‘You don’t know what happened yet,’ Rhun pointed out that the captain’s absolution was a little premature.
‘Summon your brother,’ Dan instructed, ‘and you can fill us both in at once.’
Avery was going to be furious, and perhaps rightly so. For despite the captain’s gracious stance, Rhun felt himself responsible for this tragic turn of events, and as much as he hated to admit it, he should have listened to his little brother.
When Song was awakened and enlightened to the events that had transpired during his slumber, his sights immediately turned to Wu Geng, who was still unconscious. ‘How do we know for sure it was Dragonface? Khalid is real pissed at us at present.’
‘He prefers to be called Wu Geng,’ Dan enlightened Song, not liking his implication.
‘Shi and Wu Geng did have an argument before I put them down,’ Telmo reminded the captain.
‘There you go then.’ Song was even more convinced that Wu Geng could be the culprit, or at least involved. Song’s incarnation, Zeven Gudrun, was destined to destroy Khalid back in their home universe — he, more than anyone, had a karmic grudge against their old nemesis.
‘I’m telling you this was Dragonface’s handiwork,’ Huxin seethed. She had expended her grief and now had a killer look in her eye. ‘Give me the chariot and I will go back and prevent this, and destroy that unholy mutation!’
‘We already destroyed Dragonface once today,’ Rhun pointed out, drawing everyone’s attention his way.
To follow the captain’s orders, Rhun had moved away from the general din and summoned his otherworldly brother forth. He’d wanted to have their squabble away from the timekeepers to avoid distressing anyone further while he and Avery sorted out their difference in opinion. Yet their confrontation had been surprisingly short-lived and not as adverse as Rhun had expected.
‘No one is taking the chariot anywhere,’ Avery announced as he accompanied Rhun back into the cavern. ‘I have just returned from Kila, which is as it was before Dragonface ever found us.’
‘So our plan worked,’ Telmo clarified, and as the Lord of the Otherworld smiled, everyone’s mood lifted. ‘We can go home,’ he uttered, buoyed by the thought along with everyone else.
‘Not without Shi!’ Huxin objected.
‘His Chosen incarnation, Jahan, is back in our capital city, safe and sound,’ Avery pointed out. ‘Fortunately, Dragonface picked the only activated timekeeper who came from Kila.’
‘But Jahan won’t remember me, us … or any of this?’ The tears of mourning continued to roll down Huxin’s cheeks.
‘But he is not lost,’ Avery countered, ‘and if we try to rework this instance again, we may lose someone vital to your mission back on AMIE.’
‘He’s right, Huxin,’ Hudan timidly voiced her view.
‘And what of Ling Hu, our daughter?’ Huxin motioned to the vacant space next to their sleeping healer where the albino were-tiger had been.
‘Her Chosen soul-mind is also safely back on Kila, in the embodied form of En Noah’s female counterpart, Rebecca. And she is safely residing in your universe of origin under some other name —’
‘Ayliscia Portus,’ the captain filled in Avery’s blank and the Lord of the Otherworld looked at Dan in appreciation and continued.
‘Along with your mate,’ Avery looked to the captain to be clued in again.
‘Yasper Ronan,’ the captain obliged once more.
‘Yasper Ronan,’ Avery repeated, ahead of frowning. ‘I do believe I knew his father?’
Hudan found his comment curious. ‘You did, but in a timeline that we reworked, so I am surprised that you remember.’
‘Heart attack, wasn’t it?’ Avery pondered.
‘Yes,’ Hudan was doubly amazed. ‘He did have a heart attack, which changed his view of the world in both your universe and again in ours.’
‘I had to send him back to his life, if memory serves.’ Avery stated.
‘He did miraculously recover in both instances,’ she confirmed.
‘This mission is not over.’ Huxin was not as accepting of the outcome as everyone else, and she raised herself from the ground, where she had wallowed and been stained with her husband’s blood. ‘Someone, or something, murdered my love and is now holding our daughter hostage! Now you may be prepared to overlook that, but I will not leave this age until I have gutted every fucking overgrown lizard in this universe!’
Rhun sympathised with her anguish, but she was not being very realistic. ‘It’s a very big universe, Huxin, where do you suggest we start looking?’
‘I’ve heard you call them Orions before today, so that might be a good place to start,’ Huxin spat back.
‘Orion is a very large constellation.’
Rhun raised both brows to implore her to be more reasonable.
‘The creature will find us!’ she stressed. ‘This is part of its vendetta, do you not see?’ She motioned to her husband’s remains, now laid out on the plinth that Hudan and Dan had vacated.
‘We are about to shift three thousand years into the future,’ Rhun advised. ‘So it does not matter that Dragonface found this place, or how he managed to tolerate the healing frequencies for long enough to kill Shi and take Ling Hu, he cannot follow us into the future.’
‘Unless we are taking the true culprit with us? Or they could be in cahoots, and perhaps always were?’ Again Song’s sights fell to Wu Geng. ‘I say we leave him here, just to be sure.’
Rhun shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. I promised Dorje Pema I would take care of him as I would my own brother.’
‘Ha,’ Avery scoffed. ‘In that case, you can slit his throat before leaving him.’
‘Good plan,’ Song agreed.
‘No one is getting left behind,’ the captain spoke up. ‘And no one else is dying.’
‘That’s easy to say, Captain,’ Huxin scolded. ‘No one has woken Fen yet to tell him his charge has been stolen by that creature again!’
At this point everyone bowed their head to warrant that she was right — Fen would be devastated.
‘Perhaps we should not wake him now,’ Telmo ventured to suggest what the rest of the team were no doubt thinking.
Huxin’s scowl was a clear indication of her objection. ‘You cowards!’ She made a move towards Fen’s sleeping form.
Telmo intercepted and tranquillised her with his device, catching her up in his arms before she hit the floor. ‘Let’s not be rash.’ He laid her gently on a plinth.
‘We have to wake Fen, only he can consciously will his soul-mind home to his rightful place in our universe of origin,’ Hudan pointed out. ‘The same goes for Huxin and Wu Geng.’
‘Come back to Kila with us first, where we can debrief properly,’ Rhun suggested. ‘Some time in our healing temple will help them all through their grief, and put some time and distance between them and this mission.’
‘It’s a good idea,’ Telmo agreed.
‘I say we leave Wu Geng here,’ Song added his two cents’ worth.
‘I’ve told you my ruling on that,’ Dan cautioned Song.
‘This is a nightmare,’ Hudan held her head to attempt to get a grip on her thoughts, and then looked to Rhun and Avery. ‘I am at a loss.’ She threw her hands up and looked to Dan. ‘Captain?’
‘This is Rhun and Avery’s universe, it’s their call.’ Dan referred the matter back to them.
‘Although I am sorry for the loss of our crew members, our mission here has been accomplished,’ Rhun’s voice crumbled under the weight of his decision. ‘And at this point you have not lost any of the soul-minds who accompanied you into our universe on this mission … if we mess with time further, that could change.’
Dan nodded. ‘Agreed.’
‘We must tell Fen now.’ Hudan was not as agreeable. ‘He’ll have no chance of saving Ling Hu from three thousand years in the future!’
‘Exactly,’ Rhun advised timidly.
‘We can’t risk him creating another disaster and destroying the future we have now regained,’ Avery added. ‘I am sorry, but in this case the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.’
Song cocked an eye, curious about the lord’s stance — he may not have been the wisest of souls, but he was perceptive. ‘That’s not what you were saying about Dorje Pema, even though we anticipated Kila would be restored, as it has been. Is it just the confirmation of our success that has changed your tune? Or has something else altered that we don’t know about?’
Everyone found the query most curious, especially as Avery appeared a little discomforted by it. ‘Something unforeseeable has happened,’ he confessed with a shy smile. ‘I am to be a father.’
The announcement was a delightful surprise to all, but none so much as Rhun. Avery was a semi-etheric being, and as such he and his Chosen other had been trying for over a century to conceive and never had. ‘How did that happen?’ Rhun queried, and then, receiving a knowing look from Avery, rephrased. ‘I mean, I thought that was impossible for you?’
‘So did I,’ Avery concurred. ‘But apparently I lost my immortality in a previous timeline and during that seemingly unfortunate turn of events, Fallon conceived.’
‘Of course!’ Hudan was mind-blown, as she remembered the instance in question. ‘Fallon was then hidden in the Otherworld to protect the child from the coming confrontation with the reptilians.’
‘So I am told …’ Avery confirmed. ‘And she was never returned. Therefore, the second time around she was not present when circumstance changed and created a divergence in time. Hence it was that I alone was stolen back to Earth’s otherworldly realms by my elemental dominions … I assumed Fallon had perished with the rest of my kindred.’
‘Wow!’ Rhun’s mind was boggling a moment, but then he realised, ‘So then, perhaps my method is not as impetuous as you imagined, oh lord of bloody everything?’ His little brother owed him a very big apology.
‘I take back every derogatory thing I ever said about you,’ Avery relented gladly.
‘You trapped me in an obelisk!’ Rhun stressed his gripe.
‘I swear I will never do so again,’ he stated sincerely, before looking to the rest of the crew. ‘But quite apart from my own joyful news, every life on Kila has been restored, I’ve already given you,’ Avery directed the comment at Rhun, ‘two chances to get this instance in history to play out in our favour, and you have finally succeeded. That, is mission over!’
Everyone was drawing deep breaths at this point to soberly consider their circumstance, yet all eyes eventually looked to Rhun.
He looked inwards a moment, but his want to go home negated any chance of an unbiased decision. ‘This mission has run far too long already,’ he stated in all honesty. ‘We quit now, while we are still ahead.’
Every soul who was conscious in the cavern, nodded to agree.
‘Time to evacuate then.’ Rhun headed towards the chariot. ‘I’ll transport you all one by one, starting with the unconscious.’
‘I’ll hit them with something stronger,’ Telmo reloaded his little device. ‘The extra rest will do them good.’
‘Rest?’ Rhun had forgot the meaning of the word.
‘It won’t be long now, Governor,’ Telmo stated, trying to be reassuring.
But the use of his title only served to remind Rhun that he was returning to a whole other world of responsibility. On the upside, his wife, Sybil, would be there, and all his kindred and his council, so he would no longer be operating on his own. Like a warm blanket around his frozen soul, that thought inspired the best feeling Rhun had experienced in over twenty years of inter-time and forty years of outer-time travel — he was going home.
3
TORN APART
As consciousness dawned, so did questions. Had their mission succeeded? Could they all now go home to AMIE? That notion incited great excitement for Fen, but at the same time sadness, for he could not take his beloved Ling Hu back with him to the universe parallel — she was already there. What would become of her now?
Fen parted his eyelids, expecting to be in the crystal cavern with his tigress beside him, as she always was. His sight may have been a little blurry, but clearly he was no longer where he had been when he’d been put under. This room seemed more like a palace or a temple. The walls, from the floor to the high domed ceiling, had the appearance of polished rose quartz crystal.
‘Good heavens!’ Fen sat straight upright, overwhelmed and confused; he only became aware of the comfortable bed beneath him when he collapsed back onto it with a soft poof.
‘You shouldn’t attempt to sit upright just yet.’
It was a woman who spoke, in the language of ancient Zhou. Fen recognised the voice but could scarcely believe his own ears until he
looked to the source and saw the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty; although not clearly. ‘He Nuan?’ His heart jumped into his throat; had he joined her in death? Was this a dream?
‘Once upon another incarnation that was my name,’ she replied, coming closer to wipe his face with a cool, damp cloth that smelled like his garden on Li Shan in springtime.
Refreshed, Fen looked upon the woman whose features and darker skin tone differed slightly from the lover he remembered, but it was her. ‘Where am I?’
‘You are in the Healing temple of Chailida, on the planet Kila of the Esh-mah star system.’ She advised standing back and smiling warmly. ‘You have just returned from a mission to Earth’s past, where you, and a small team of others, reportedly saved the entire population of our fair planet. So, on behalf of the citizens of Kila, I humbly and most sincerely thank you for your part in our deliverance. It is said that you all went above and beyond the call of duty to achieve your end, and if that entailed reliving our life in ancient Zhou, I understand that must have been very painful for you.’
Fen held his head as his perception adjusted to his new circumstances. Once he’d pieced the puzzle together in his mind at last, he smiled in understanding. ‘You must be the wife of En Noah, my counterpart incarnate on Kila.’
The beauty smiled to confirm. ‘That is correct. My name is Rebecca.’
That seemed to answer the query about the success of their mission, and Fen smiled, appeased to have prevailed. ‘Where is my tigress?’
‘Sorry?’ Rebecca was clearly baffled by the query.
‘Ling Hu, my tigress?’ he repeated, struggling to sit and stay upright. ‘She was put to sleep beside me! So where was she taken, when I was brought —’ Fen gasped on a fearful thought; maybe the timekeepers had not brought the spirit tiger to Kila? For she did not belong here, or in the universe parallel, but to Earth’s long distant past.
‘Where is the captain?’ Fen queried in a panic, and then rethought his demand. ‘Where is Rhun?’
‘Our governor requested to be informed when you were awake,’ Rebecca advised. ‘I can fetch him now, if you like?’
Eternity Gate Page 5