by D. N. Leo
“Anyone else?” Alyna asked.
“Yes!” three men cried in unison, running out from the crowd. The trio looked like giant triplets—old men with long white hair wearing long black cloaks.
Alyna charged down the platform in anticipation. A ring of light approached, surrounding her. She raised her arms to grab the ring and started swinging it. The light now looked like a glowing rope with balls of light at both ends. She swung the rope so fast the light looked like a curtain protecting her.
When the trio came closer, she changed the path of the swing, and the rope reached out like a snake, hitting the trio, one by one, across their foreheads. They passed out on the floor before they had a chance to realize what hit them.
She withdrew the light. “Anyone else?” she challenged.
Silence.
“All right, if there are no more objections to my leadership, as a part of this trial ceremony, I’ll show you all I am a genuine protege and Pukak’s leader by his wishes.”
She approached the lake and stepped onto the frozen surface. Feeling the ice was solid, she walked to the middle of the lake. Then she turned and faced the crowd. “We all know what’s underneath this icy surface. It is our duty to protect the Scorpio key. It is Pukak’s legacy, and I swear with my life to protect it.”
She crouched and placed her right palm on the ice. Underneath the ice, something glowed a blinding white.
“Leaders of Amaraq, I present to you the Scorpio key. The key will surface during the summoning ceremony, and you will be able to see the full scope of its magnificence. As for now, rest assured, the key is safe and sound and is under our protection.”
The light bounced off the ice and reflected onto Alyna’s face. She looked magnificent, Caedmon thought. Was that something mages had in common? Sedna had the same aura when she fought. He shook the thought from his head, deeming it inappropriate to compare his wife and Alyna. As the crowd gasped, Caedmon knew she had gained the leaders’ respect. She had earned her leadership.
He felt a movement at his side. Tomkin came from behind him and jumped onto the icy lake. He brandished a knife and stabbed himself in the abdomen. Then he pulled down his outer layer of skin to reveal a metal body underneath.
“Nobody move,” Tomkin said. “I’d suggest you all listen to me. I don’t want to have to kill you.” He turned to look at Caedmon. “You think I didn’t know you scanned me with your primitive technology? I gave you the signal you wanted to see.” He chuckled.
“What are you?” Alyna asked and started to withdraw the light.
“I told you not to move.” Tomkin knocked on his metal body, and it made a hollow, clanking sound. “I’m not a creature. I’m a weapon. Your magic can’t kill me, Alyna. And unfortunately, I was sent to blow up this place, along with the Scorpio key and Pukak.” He shrugged. “Pukak has died, but you can easily take his place, Alyna.”
As Tomkin turned toward her, Caedmon blasted a heatwave at him. But Tomkin was a robot at a much more advanced level than the technology from Caedmon’s era. His heatwave had no effect. Tomkin turned toward him.
“It’s your fault!” Tomkin said to Caedmon, and he looked as if he was going to blow up the entire temple.
33
She grinned. The Thunder Child couldn’t help but giggle. She had found the way to cut the bloodstone. She used the compound the Teacher had taught her to make to soften the stone.
She had spent days in the woods, high up in the mountains, searching for the rare flower pieces in the ingredient list. Then she processed the flowers carefully. It had taken her a long time to make the compound, only because she didn’t have the tools the Keymaster did.
She had a theory. The ice had been created from the Scorpion king’s blood. It was not an ordinary stone. He would need to soften the stone first using the blood of an innocent. The Keymaster didn’t take her suggestion seriously, and he didn’t like her theory, either. So it wouldn’t surprise her if he was never able to finish the key.
The Keymaster had spent a long time carving the bloodstone to make the Scorpio key, only to see the stone heal itself and return to its original form. There had been countless failed attempts, so many that she had lost interest in discussing the making of the Scorpio key with him. Or maybe it was the Keymaster who had stopped talking to her. He got like that when he ran into tough clients for whom he couldn’t produce the key they wanted or for those he didn’t want to make a key for. In any case, he didn’t take failing well when it came to his key-making business. And so she had talked to the Teacher to discover ways to solve the Keymaster’s problem.
Taking advantage of an opportunity when he was away for a short period of time, Thunder Child collected enough material to make the compound, soften the key, and carve the stone herself. She smiled again, seeing the compound absorbed into the bloodstone and watching the stone sizzle and begin to separate even before her knife cut through it.
CAEDMON HAD no choice but to send in his mind blade and cut a gap in the icy surface of the lake beneath Tomkin’s feet. He didn’t know whether it would work. His mind blade normally worked on a larger scale. He could cut a high-rise in half, for example. But the space in the temple wasn’t ideal. He didn’t know if he would be able to operate effectively in such a small area.
As he expected, the ice cracked. But not enough for Tomkin to fall through. To ensure Tomkin fell without discharging himself as a bomb, Caedmon jumped over to him, landing as heavily as he could on the ice. He broke a hole through the ice and dragged Tomkin down with him.
“Keep the light on,” he said to Alyna on his way down.
He didn’t know much about the Amaraq mage tribe. He wasn’t sure all mage tribes used their power in the same way. But Sedna had told him that mages couldn’t use their warm light effectively under water. So he was sure nobody would be able—or willing—to come down here to give him assistance in dealing with this robot.
He thought it might be the same with his light energy. His newly acquired heatwave talent would most likely not be effective underwater. This fight between him and the advanced robot would have to be one of sheer muscle strength.
Underneath the ice water, Caedmon saw a magnificent fifty-foot-tall ice pillar. Inside the ice was the blood red statue of a scorpion. It stood, encased in ice, staring at him. That was the real Scorpio key. Now he knew that what he and Sedna had obtained years ago wasn’t the real thing. It looked nothing like this key.
The ice-encrusted scorpion looked like it was bleeding. A stream of red liquid ran from the statue, through the ice, and then into the water. In the water, it dissolved into red bubbles and faded away. The combination of glowing ice, red stone, and bubbling red liquid made the scene both eerie and magnificent at the same time.
Tomkin was mesmerized for a moment by the scale of the ice pillar and the sight of the Scorpio key. Then he shook himself back to reality. He turned, looked at Caedmon, and smirked. Before he could act, however, Caedmon swam over, pulled out a knife, and jabbed it into Tomkin.
He didn’t know magic, but he knew robots and technology. He knew how to turn machines on and off, regardless of how advanced the technology was. At the nape of the robot’s neck, a critical switch snapped under the force of Caedmon’s knife. Tomkin turned and grabbed for him. Caedmon’s eudqi was on in full, so he was extremely careful not to let Tomkin anywhere near his chest. A strike on the chest would be fatal for him. He had to defend his fatal eudqi point at all costs.
They struggled under the water. Even though he’d already had one critical switch destroyed, Tomkin was still strong. Caedmon managed to connect a few strategic hits to nonfatal parts of Tomkin’s body. He swung his knife again and struck the robot in the heart area.
No effect. This robot model was more advanced that he had thought. Having a critical switch there would be much too obvious.
Tomkin kicked Caedmon, sending him to the bottom of the lake. Caedmon opened his mouth in surprise, swallowing a mouthful of the icy water. H
e glanced up to the surface and saw some of the leaders gathered around the hole in the surface of the frozen lake. They were there to help him, he thought. Alyna still kept the light steady for him.
He was running out of air. Apparently, having a super power didn’t give him any advantage in breathing underwater. It dawned on him then that Tomkin—as a robot—didn’t need to breathe. As if the robot could read his mind, it swam over and grabbed him as he tried to swim to the surface.
Caedmon stabbed Tomkin a few more times, but it didn’t help much because none of the attacks seemed to hit the critical switch of the robot. Tomkin dragged Caedmon further down into the depths of the lake. Caedmon knew he didn’t have much time left before he drowned.
He turned and stabbed Tomkin in the left eye. The robot stopped moving for a brief second.
Got it! he thought and then stabbed the right eye.
The robot jerked, paused, and finally stopped moving altogether.
It was blindingly unlucky for the robot that its critical switches were in its eyes. Caedmon chuckled inwardly as he kicked his way up to the surface. When he was near, a number of hands reached down to help pull him up and out of the lake. His organs were probably ice by that point. He couldn’t even speak.
“Lay him down,” someone said.
“Take him out of here,” someone else said.
He was brought outside the temple.
“He needs some light,” someone else said.
Then Caedmon felt Alyna’s hands on his. “Let me,” she said.
He switched his eudqi off. It was all he could manage to do. The last time, when Sedna tried to inject him with mage energy, his body had rejected it. He didn’t know what kind of energy Alyna had, but he couldn’t stop her from giving him the light. His teeth chattered, and his throat was a block of ice. He just closed his eyes and waited.
Soon, he felt warm energy pouring into his body via her hands. He coughed and spat out some water from his lungs. She patted his back. “Toughen up, soldier!” she said and grinned at him then helped him sit up.
An old leader approached. “So you’re the LeBlanc guy who wants to take over our business?”
Caedmon coughed a few more times then chuckled. “I can’t get the funds now. Can we talk about that later?”
The man grinned. “Sure. You move pretty well for a paper pusher.”
“A what?” He coughed a few more times.
“Never mind,” the man muttered. “Let me know if you need anything.” He looked at Alyna. “This is just the beginning. And I don’t think this is Ethesus’s doing. They’re bikers. They’re not high-tech. There’s no way they would send a robot to kill us.”
“Plus, Ethesus wants to host and protect the Scorpio key, just like us. They wouldn’t want to destroy it,” Alyna said.
The old leader stood. “See you in a month. There’s going to be a showdown with whatever or whoever it is that sent this robot. I’ll send help your way, but be prepared—and stay alive. They might want to take us down before the event,” he said.
Together, he and all the leaders left.
Alyna wrapped her arm around Caedmon’s waist to help him up.
“Come on, Alyna. I can walk myself.”
“Well, you should have seen yourself five minutes ago.” She smiled and let him walk on his own.
Alyna secured the temple door, and the two of them headed back to her place in the city. Caedmon turned to look at the temple one more time as they walked away. He wasn’t a psychic, but he felt the old mage was right. This was just the beginning.
He hadn’t planned on all this when he came to Earth. He didn’t plan to be involved—to any extent—with the mage business. He had come here to accomplish only two things. One, he wanted to locate the real Scorpio key, and two, he wanted to send someone back in time to swap the real key with the key in the past so that Sedna didn’t have to die.
He had achieved neither of his goals. He had violated the fundamental combat principle his father had taught him—avoid fighting while weaknesses are exposed. Humans and magical creatures were too complicated for him to deal with, and they had exposed his multiple weaknesses.
34
C aedmon sat on the sofa, glaring at Lazi. The cat walked around him, eyeing him up and down, his tail repeatedly swooshing left and right. He liked cats, but this huge gray cat didn’t seem to like him at all.
“Is he angry about something? Am I stealing his couch?” he asked when Alyna came back from a round of security checks around the house.
“There’s no way you’re sleeping on the couch, Caedmon. You take the bedroom, and I’ll fix up the training room for myself.”
“No, that’s not right. I’ll stay in the training room…” He stood up, but his legs failed him, and he flopped back down. It became increasingly difficult to breathe and felt as if his lungs were swelling. His mind was growing numb, and he shook his head to clear it. Fatigue took over his body with incredible force and speed.
“You don’t look like you could fight even the cat for the couch.” Alyna looked at him closely. “I’m taking you to the medical center.” She hauled him up. He stood for a few second then dropped back down again.
“Let me sit here for a bit,” he said with difficulty and started coughing. Alyna said something, but he couldn’t quite hear her.
There was a loud bang at the front of the house. Alyna rushed out to check.
What’s going on? Caedmon mentally retraced his steps, starting with the fight at the lake in the temple. He could remember no injuries. Figuring he must have some internal wounds, he switched on his eudqi to heal himself. Whatever it was should be a minor injury. He’d be able to fix the problem quickly. He had done it countless times before.
His eudqi wouldn’t switch on.
Don’t panic, he thought and tried again.
Nothing.
This had happened once before when Sedna had kicked him in the chest, close to his critical point, when his eudqi was on. In that case, his power was cut off, and he’d almost died.
But he had been extra cautious during the fight with Tomkin. He hadn’t let the robot near his chest. And he had no physical wounds at all. Then it dawned on him. He recalled that each time Tomkin hit him, he had gulped some of the lake water. When he’d tried to resurface, without success, and was running out of breath, he had coughed and breathed the water into his lungs.
He didn’t know what the Scorpio key was made of, but he knew it was ancient. It had been made way back at the beginning of time. He didn’t want to think about what might have been living and growing inside the red statue all that time—and then leaking out into the water in that bubbling red liquid. The same liquid he had breathed in and taken into his body. Maybe it contained a substance—or maybe even a living creature—that his Eudaizian body couldn’t handle.
He realized then that the critical point on his chest had been attacked from the inside. In the ice water, the viruses and bacteria that Leanne had warned him about had penetrated his system and attacked his fatal eudqi point from inside his chest. He had been totally ignorant of that possibility.
The nonresponsiveness of his eudqi now confirmed his theory.
He could feel darkness invading his mind, and he knew he wouldn’t remain lucid for long.
There was a commotion at the front. He looked outside to see Alyna battling a handful of fighters. He couldn’t tell how many fighters there were or whether Alyna had the situation under control.
He shook his head to clear his fuzzy mind then went back to the sofa. Every movement he made was like trying to move a mountain. He knew he would die shortly, and right now, his top priority was protecting his wrist unit from falling into an adversary’s hands.
He turned on the holocast.
Lorcan looked at him from the screen. “I’ve been trying to call you Caedmon.” He paused. “You look horrid.”
“I don’t have time to chat, Uncle Lorcan. I’ve been attacked at my fatal eudqi point—whe
n it was on—by some kind of virus or bacteria…” A round of coughing stopped his speech. When he came back on, Aunty Orla was right next to his uncle. Tears gleamed in her eyes. She was about to say something, but he gestured for silence.
“It’s my fault that I’m going to die. There’s no remedy for this. Could you please tell my parents I’m sorry… And tell my sisters I’m proud of them and love them. I still can’t accept Sedna’s death…but if I die now…and I can be with her…wherever she is…please tell my family I died a happy man.”
He cut off the holocast and blocked it from further calls and traces. He pulled out his gun and shattered his wrist unit—his only connection with Eudaiz—into hundreds of untraceable pieces.
Then he collapsed onto the sofa and blacked out.
35
A lyna struck down the last fighter in her front yard and then dragged all of the bodies to the sidewalk. “You’re public waste,” she told the dead men and returned to the living room.
In the living room, Lazi sat on the sofa, hissing crazily. Caedmon lay on the sofa, unconscious.
“Caedmon.” She rushed over and shook his shoulders.
He was cold as ice. She held his hands and injected her light energy into him as she had done before. A force erupted from him that threw her backward against the far wall. She almost blacked out from the strength of the hit. She was glad she had a hard head. She scrambled back up and raced to the bedroom to grab some blankets.
She wrapped him up.
He was still breathing. Barely. “Caedmon, answer me. You’re pissing me off.”
She felt a warm rush over her skin. A beam of light appeared in the middle of the room. She pointed the gun at two human shapes that started to materialize. She would have shot them had they not given her a gesture of peace. They completely materialized into a beautiful, young human couple.