AEGIS EVOLUTION

by S. S. Segran

  “It is a myth,” Ashack growled. “We have many parchments dedicated to all kinds of legends and tales. This is merely another one.”

  “Help me search for more mentions of these seeds,” the old man begged, ignoring Ashack. “Please. I need to try all avenues and I refuse to stop now.” He rose to his feet and went up to Nageau, grasping the Elder’s arms. “Please. I beseech you.”

  Nageau lightly placed a hand on the older man’s face. “We will help you, old friend.”

  Ashack didn’t look happy but Nageau, though not optimistic about the endeavor himself, knew that Magèo would not leave the vault until he had combed through every page of every book and read through each line of each scroll.

  We might as well help him figure out that the solution may not be in this vault, he thought morosely, turning to the many shelves. This will be a long night.

  * * *

  It was well past midnight when Nageau closed the sixteenth book he’d scanned. It was an almanac of sorts, detailing curious happenings during the initial period when his ancestors first established Dema-Ki. A particular story had grabbed his attention; one of the original Islanders had vanished one night from the newly-formed tribe, never to be seen again. The chronicler of the book had named him the Lost Man, and as much as Nageau wanted to continue reading, there were more pressing matters at hand.

  Lodged on the floor between two bookshelves, the Elder placed the almanac aside and observed the others. Tikina and Saiyu sat cross-legged together, smartly categorizing the ancient records by relevance. Ashack was by himself in a corner, eyes slowly closing and snapping open, only to slowly close again. They were all exhausted and the desire to give up hung heavily in the air. Only Tayoka and Magèo showed some hint of vigor. They stood by the tables, shuffling through the contents of the crates.

  Is it possible, Nageau mused silently, that we are not meant to find a cure at all? He dismissed the thought quickly, blaming his tired state for such contemplations. Then he noticed Tayoka’s shoulders and back stiffen. The man did not move for a minute, and when he did turn around, his hands shook. Resting upon his open palms was an ancient leather-bound journal that, by all rights, should have been falling apart.

  “Have you found something?” Nageau asked.

  Tayoka delicately passed the book to Magèo. The old man’s finger zipped over the words on the pages, his mouth moving silently as he read.

  “This,” he whispered. “This is it!”

  “What is it?” Ashack sighed.

  “The cure!”

  “For the disease?”

  “No, for my arthritis,” Magèo snapped. “Yes, for the disease!” His face glowed as he skimmed the pages. “This is the journal of Arka’th. He was one of the fifteenth-generation Elders of Dema-Ki—one of the surviving Elders who escaped their doomed island home.”

  All lethargy vanished from the Elders like mist dissipating above their heads. “What have you found?” Saiyu asked.

  A tantalizingly slow smile crept across the scientist’s lips. “An entry about the seeds of the Tree of Life.”

  “No!” Tikina gasped. “They are real?”

  Magèo bobbed his head, looking down at the journal. “There is an account here of a smaller group of survivors who escaped the destruction of the Island, but they were not with the Islanders who made it here. One of the families was the Keeper of these Seeds, the ones responsible for the Tree of Life. They, along with the Keepers of Remedies, were one of various group of people under the auspices of the Custodians of the Temple, who in turn were supervised by the Council of Elders.”

  “But where did they go?” Tikina probed.

  “Remember the trading vessel our ancestors escaped in?”

  “It carried fifty-one survivors to this continent,” Saiyu said. “The forefathers of Dema-Ki.”

  “Yes. But there was another ship. A smaller fishing vessel that carried two families from the opposite side of the Island in a different direction. One family did not survive the voyage, but the other did and ended up on a coast near a desert. They resided there in a small settlement and eventually melded with the local people just as our ancestors did here.”

  Nageau started to nod slowly. “I remember hearing this story decades ago as a boy. But nothing was mentioned about the Tree of Life. All we were told was that the family lasted for a few generations, and that they kept in touch with the Elders here for a time. Did they not?”

  “They did. The last of that bloodline, a brother and a sister, made contact with the Elders one last time before their presumable deaths.”

  “What happened?”

  “Roman conquerors seized the fort that they and others from their village were using as a safe haven. The siblings, along with a few others, managed to escape the siege and hid in caves. The brother reached out to Arka’th before the warriors found them. He transmitted a message that a box containing the seeds was safely buried there. Sadly, the siblings were never heard from again and it does not seem like an attempt was made to retrieve the box, most likely because the Elders did not have an exact location, nor did they have the means to travel to such distant lands.”

  “Fascinating.” Nageau stroked his chin, mind reeling. “Absolutely fascinating. So these seeds, they really do grow into trees that cure any and all diseases?”

  Magèo picked up the parchment he’d found earlier that detailed the seeds of the Tree. “It seems so. It says here that it was routinely used by the Custodians of the Temple on the Island to create medicines that cured ailments. Of course, since the discovery of our crystals, our ancestors hardly ever fell ill, but in the rare instances that they did, they were cured by tonics made from the sap of this tree. That could explain why, even though the tree had potent capabilities, there is hardly any mention of it elsewhere in our history.”

  “Perhaps our ancestors viewed it as another fixture among the numerous curious finds they had discovered on the Island,” Saiyu suggested.

  “Quite likely. They were able-bodied and, as I said, rarely unwell, so a cure-all tree would not have been a part of their daily conversations.”

  “Even if, by some miracle, we do find these seeds, trees take a long time to grow,” Ashack pointed out.

  Magèo looked down at the scroll again. “True, but… perhaps not this tree. If what is stated here is veritable, then the Tree of Life will reach maturity”—he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling—“very quickly after a seed is planted. Very quickly indeed.”

  “The scroll appears to be missing a portion,” Tikina remarked.

  “That it is, but it does not matter because we have the important part right here.” Magèo caressed the parchment. “The ink has faded but much of it is still readable. What matters now is that we know with certainty that this is not a myth. We must find those seeds, my friends.”

  “It does seem to be the only lead we have,” Tayoka said.

  “It could very well be a lost cause, a wild chase,” Ashack cautioned. “We do not know where to even begin the search.”

  “We may not, but perhaps the Sentries will.”

  Nageau nodded firmly. “We must do everything we can to obtain these seeds. I will reach out to the Sentries and the Bearers of Light as well. Their mission is about to begin.”

  21

  Aari slumped heavily against the wall, perspiration dripping from his brow. “I’m done,” he wheezed. “I’m done. Kode-man, you get in there.”

  Kody put away the bo staff he’d been studiously practicing with and bounced on his toes a few times before squaring off against Mariah in a boxer’s stance. He struck out and she easily blocked with her gloves. He brought his left arm up for an uppercut but she ducked and threw him off balance with a well-placed kick to his knees. Kody fell onto his back with a heavy grunt, then made a face at her. “Okay, I see how it is.” He sprang to his feet, back in his ready stance. “Come at me, woman!”

  Mariah threw a jab toward his head but he dodged inward and clamped his
arms around her torso. Before she could counter, he lifted her up and flipped her over his shoulder. She landed on the mat with a thud. Groaning, she gave him a thumb’s up. “Nice.”

  Aari undid the Velcro fastener of his glove with his teeth and removed it. He stretched his fingers, watching his friends spar. The group took every opportunity they could to be in the training room—though sometimes a few had to be dragged out of their comfortable beds—since nothing much else could be done while they waited for Magèo’s full test results on the tissue samples they’d sent him.

  Kody was knocked onto his back again. He leapt up, roared comically at Mariah, and they continued sparring for the next ten or so minutes until a voice called out, “Hey, munchkins!”

  Aari turned to see Tegan and Jag walking down the stairs, both of them grinning. “How’s training going in here?” Tegan asked.

  Kody wiped the sweat off his face with his arm. “Good. Mariah’s determined to kick my butt, as usual.”

  “Attagirl.”

  “How was the outdoor training?”

  “Great,” Jag beamed, rummaging through a box of martial arts equipment and pulling out a pair of focus mitts, “although we’re still figuring out how to use our abilities in tandem. And we had some fun with parkour. It was kinda cold, though.”

  Tegan nodded, face still flushed from her workout, then swiped the mitts from Jag and slipped them on. “Alright, who’s up?”

  Aari looked away like a student avoiding eye contact with his teacher when the class is asked a question. Tegan smirked. “On your feet, Brainiac.”

  “I was just up against Mariah,” he complained.

  “And it looks like you’ve caught your breath. Come on. On your feet.”

  Aari put his glove back on and faced off with Tegan. She had a calm and cool look in her gray, almost silver, eyes. Aari blew a raspberry. I wonder if she’ll beat her record time of throwing me to the ground. Last time was eight seconds.

  Six seconds later, he found himself on his rear end on the training mat, groaning. “I’m done! D-o-n-e, done. I’ve been getting served all session-long today!”

  Jag chuckled. “Then you need more training, genius.”

  Tegan pulled Aari up. “One more round. I’ll go easier on you this time.”

  Aari scowled. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They squared off again. Just as Aari leaned forward for a jab, Marshall called out to them from the third floor. The friends immediately threw off their equipment and raced up the stairs, bare feet stomping on the hardwood. They found the Sentry at the meeting table, a sheet filled with notes in his hand. He had them all sit around the table, not wanting to waste time.

  “Elder Nageau just reached out to me,” he informed the teenagers, “and it looks like we may have a breakthrough.”

  “The test results came back?” Aari asked.

  “Yes, and there are some strange findings. It seems that anyone of Dema-Ki blood is immune to both strains of the disease.”

  “That’s weird,” Mariah said.

  Jag crossed his arms. “And what about us?”

  Marshall licked his lips and glanced down at the paper. “The good news is that you’re immune to the aging strain.”

  Aari felt like a weight had been dropped onto his chest, forcing the breath out of him. “But not the violent one.”

  “No. Not a hundred percent of the time. I’m really sorry, guys.”

  “Great,” Mariah said sarcastically. “Well, I don’t want to tempt fate. Guess we’ll just keep carrying our masks with us.”

  “Why aren’t the Sentries and villagers affected?” Kody asked.

  “Magèo’s theory is that it may have been designed that way, specifically to target anyone who doesn’t share our DNA.”

  “But why would Reyor want that?”

  “Beats me, kiddo. And for some reason that Magèo can’t nail down, it seems that if one of you does get infected, the pathogen seems to stay with the host.”

  “Meaning we won’t be contagious,” Aari said.

  “Yes.”

  Tegan rested her feet on the edge of the tabletop, frowning. “Weird. And was Magèo able to find a cure?”

  “Sadly, no. But he did find some evidence for a possible solution.” Marshall placed his notes on the table; Aari tried to get a peek at it. “Which brings me to my next point. We’ve finally got a mission.”

  The friends sat up, backs erect.

  “The Elders believe that there’s a cure out there in the form of seeds,” Marshall said, “that when planted, grow into the Tree of Life—a tree that can cure any and all illnesses.”

  The teenagers looked skeptical, and Aari voiced what they were all thinking. “That sounds like something right out of a fantasy novel.”

  “You’re forgetting the people you’re dealing with, Aari. The Tree of Life was thought to be a myth even by the people of Dema-Ki, just one legend among many. Turns out, there are actual historical records of it. A few of our ancestors managed to escape the devastation of their island with a box containing the seeds, but they weren’t on the trading vessel that carried most of the survivors to North America. Instead they got on a fishing boat that ended up on the shores of an arid land.”

  Kody leaned forward eagerly. “Like, a dessert?”

  “That’s the thing. We don’t have a specific place or an exact location because the last that was heard about the fate of the seeds and those who guarded them was back in the first century.”

  The teenagers’ jaws dropped. Mariah held up a hand. “Wait, let me get this straight. We’re hunting for the seeds of a cure-all tree that was essentially lost, like, two thousand years ago? And we don’t know where exactly on planet Earth to start searching? Oh yeah, that’s gonna work out just fine.”

  “We do have some information,” Marshall countered. “Here’s what we know: This happened sometime during the first century A.D. It took place in an arid region not far from where my ancestors’ home island used to be. The last Keepers of the Seeds, two young siblings, were barricaded in a fort on a mountain that was being attacked by Roman legionnaires. All that we know is that they snuck off to hide in caves in the mountainside. Unfortunately, it’s believed that they were killed. The last connection they had with Dema-Ki was when one of the kids reached out to the Elders and informed them of their situation, and that they’d buried the box in the cave they were hiding in.”

  “That’s not giving us much,” Jag said. “We don’t have a location.”

  “But we can search for it online,” Kody suggested. “There’s got to be some kind of record somewhere for an event like that, right?”

  Aari lifted a finger. “I… I think I know where this all happened.”

  The room went deathly quiet for a moment. Marshall leaned toward Aari. “You do?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to double check online, but what you described…” Aari steepled his fingers together, index fingers pressed against his lips. “It sounds familiar. My grandfather, a Polish Jew, had a keen interest in the history of his people. He managed to survive the Holocaust and emigrated to Israel after the war ended. He eventually moved to the States and settled down. I… I remember sitting with him in front of the fireplace as a kid, completely absorbed in the stories he’d tell me whenever he visited. One story in particular came to my mind as you described what happened to the siblings. I mean, it fits the description of a god-awful event that happened in Israel to a tee, except for one important part.”

  “And what’s that?” Marshall asked.

  “There were no survivors amongst the besieged—all nine hundred and sixty souls in the fort committed suicide,” Aari replied softly. “Basically when the Romans were expanding their empire in the first century, they took over Jerusalem. That was in response to the Sicarii, who were pretty much the earliest form of an organized assassination unit, when they tried to drive the Romans from their homeland.

  “The Romans executed a three
-pronged attack and Jerusalem fell. It felt like the literal end of days for the Jews… So many were killed. Those who survived fled to a safe haven, a fort built by Herod the Great on a mesa in the Judean Desert. The Romans followed them and laid siege to the fort for over a year. Then they constructed a massive ramp from the desert floor to the fort. They used engineers and Jewish slaves to build it, which took two or three months of back-breaking labor. The Jews in the fort—and the Sicarii zealots—couldn’t do anything except watch the progress in horror and probably scream curses. As the Romans used a battering ram to break into the fort, the people in the fort knew that their end was near. And, yeah, they couldn’t escape or fight, so they decided on mass suicide.”

  “I can’t imagine that kind of desperation,” Tegan murmured.

  “Me either.”

  Marshall looked down at his notes again. “Your story does seem to match what little I was told by the Elders. Except, as you said, for the mass suicide pact.”

  “But it looks like there could have been survivors, and we may have a location,” Jag said. “Israel.”

  Aari looked up. “And I think I know where in Israel. It’s by the Dead Sea.”

  “Does it have a name?”

  “Masada.”

  Kody threw open the laptop at the center of the table. “Well would you look at that. It’s actually one of Israel’s most popular tourist spots. It’s even a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

  Aari pulled the laptop toward him. “There’ve been archaeological digs all over the place. They’ve even found a few remains in the caves you mentioned earlier, Marshall.”

  “Looks like only the plateau is accessible, not the caves,” Mariah said. “If it’s a popular tourist site, we’re gonna have an issue getting down there.”

  Tegan disagreed. “Given the state of the world right now, I think tourism would be down. More than that, if the place has already been excavated, wouldn’t the box have been found? Who knows where it could be.”

  “It might be in a museum somewhere,” Jag said.