Heart of Stone

by Arwen Jayne

  Heart of Stone

  by Arwen Jayne

  Copyright © 2013 Arwen Jayne

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved

  While reference has been made to some actual historical events or persons and some existing locations all other names, characters and places are fictional; the product of the author’s over imaginative mind. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses or places is purely coincidental.

  Disclaimer

  This book contains sexually explicit scenes and language that may offend. The author is not responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of information contained in this title.

  Prologue

  100,000 years ago, more or less

  In a galaxy far far away...

  Shimon saw the big adult Meta coming to their house. He ran to his mum finding safety as she knelt down and cuddled him close to her. “Ma!”

  The beautiful young woman, delicate but self-assured, gently caressed the top of his head. “It's alright little one. They need you”.

  Meta stood at the doorway, a picture of majesty. “Come Shimon, you are equal amongst us, there is nothing to fear”. He gently but firmly grasped the little boy’s hand in his own and led him up the path to the shining white temple on the hill.

  Shimon turned to look over his shoulder, his mum was waving reassuringly. He took a deep breath, finding his resolve. He could be a man.

  Shimon had never been inside the temple. The great white marble pillars supporting the outer circular structure looked like giants rising into the heavens. Once through the outer ring they entered under a great domed ceiling. In the center of the dome a clear crystal covered opening filtered shafts of light into a rainbow of colors dancing on the floor of the temple.

  Meta seated himself cross legged on the floor to one side of the temple, motioning for Shimon to sit beside him and then they waited.

  The men and women of the high council entered, followed by the mages, the academy's elite scholars and scientists and then the galaxy defenders.

  Shimon saw the great commander of the defenders among them, tall, straight backed, piercing dark eyes that seemed to take the measure of everyone and everything in the room. His blue black war braids hung down his back, marking him as a follower of the right hand way, a fighter for justice, law enforcer and protector of the weak. Such was the awe and respect in which he was held everyone just called him Thex which meant simply 'right' and few outside his own family remembered him ever having another name.

  Each person sat on the floor, completing a circle, a circle of equals.

  When everyone was there Meta rose, indicating he would take the right to speak. “Sisters and brothers of the Malakim. I have called you here today to hear the words of the all-spirit. For the past few nights I have had dreams of foreboding and others of you have told me that you too have felt the disturbance in the ether. I have asked young Shimon Aris to come here today, as our equal. As was foretold at his birth he has great ability listening to the will of the all-spirit.” Meta sat back down and smiling reassuring warmth turned to Shimon, “arise Shimon, turn your mind inwards for us and listen to the all-spirit for us.”

  Shimon stood. Closing his eyes helped to remove the intimidating presence of the adults. He sent his focus to the top of his head and listened.

  Suddenly Shimon's eyes rolling back in his head, Meta catching him as he fell to the floor. “The Din are coming! All is lost if you flee. All is lost if you stay. But lose and you will endure. Great is the suffering. Great is the pain. But Hearts of Stone by love be freed.”

  With worry creasing his brow Meta placed a blanket over the young boy and put him in a fetal position so he could rest safely, “the all-spirit has given its prophecy”. He turned and faced the others, “go now and prepare for battle, the all-spirit is within you and watching over you”.

  Thex, the battle commander for the galaxy, scowled, “it would seem the all-spirit is about to desert us”.

  Meta sucked in his breath at the blasphemy. “The all-spirit always has its way in the end, the world to come depends on it. It is not for us to question”.

  Thex humphed, “I’ll leave faith and prophecy to the philosophers and mages, Father. If your dreams are any indication then there are some demonic lizards out there that are about to enter into the lower worlds, with who knows what agenda. We are sworn to protect those worlds and I for one will not consider defeat”. Turning to his team, the dozen men and women of the Malakim, the elite force of galaxy defenders, “time for us to go and kick some mean scaly ass”.

  The team rose swiftly from their seats and nodded to Arion, the second in command, to speak. Resolution was upon his face he raised his fist and beat it on his chest “We are with you Commander, always”.

  As everyone left Meta thoughtfully nudged the young boy on the floor. “Come little one, I think I have a job for you”.

  A little while later

  In a Malakim battleship far out in space. Arion yelled into his communicator, continuing to fire his laser weapon at the ferocious lizard beings who were trying to round up his team and slashing with their saber sharp claws and teeth those who resisted “Commander, we’ve been breached, requesting backup”.

  “Shit” came the swift reply, “hold them off a bit longer, I’m coming”.

  Thex left the command deck. He headed to the transporter hold and rounded the corner only to find himself pinned to the wall by a giant lizard, its grotesque face almost lion-like except for the scales. “Bloody Hell! This can’t be happening”.

  The lizard quickly secured Thex’s hands with some kind of metal restraint that snapped ominously in place. “Move and you die like the others, speak again and I will rip out your tongue”.

  Thex glanced around the hold that had become the enemys’ beach head. Corpses of friends, brutally slashed, entrails spilling from slashes, necks hanging loosely by threads. Surrounded by their dead comrades were six badly bruised and bloodied, heavily bound survivors: Arion, Orea, Kiana, Zex, Trian and Kaleem. The lizard yanked forcefully on Thex’s restraints and dragged him to the others.

  Thex tried to mentally teleport himself away but something in the restraints blocked him.

  One of the lizards made a guttural barking sound and the other lizards in the glider bay became rigid, as if frozen in whatever position they were in at the time.

  A larger lizard stomped ponderously into the room, the floor shaking with the vibration of his steps. His eyes like fire gleamed with an evil pleasure. He sneered at the prisoners, “for your crime of attempting to thwart our take-over of these worlds I sentence you to the long death. Your material bodies will be descended into sama crystal and thrown into space to land on the planet below. If you survive re-entry, which you probably will, since sama is the strongest known material in our parallel universe, your souls will be trapped forever, your awareness intact, alone through the aeons, contemplating your defeat”.

  The survivors looked in horror at each other but daren’t speak.

  “You!” The lizard commander pointed at Thex. “You are their leader, yes?”

  Thex just nodded, he hadn’t been given permission to speak.

  “Good”. The lizard laughed insanely. “We’ll do you last. I want you to remember the pain and horror on each of your team’s face and you can take that with you into your eternal prison”. He turned to the lizard beside him. “That girl first!

  Orea, the Malakim’s beautiful but feisty chief of communication for everything from code breaking to computers to managing the ship’s transceivers, rose to her feet and head butted the lizard trying to grab her. “I’d rather die”.

  The lizard commander raised his weapon and shot both her an
d her captor with a stun ray. “Afraid not.” He turned to the other captives. “Now if anyone else would like dispute my verdict I’d be more than happy to remove their limbs before the procedure. I thought not. Well we’ll leave the girl until she comes to. I still look forward to seeing her suffer. You then”. He pointed at Arion.

  Arion glanced sorrowfully at Thex, his clear pale green eyes saying their goodbye to his longtime friend and commanding officer. Just as he was placed in position he remembered something and quickly mouthed “the prophecy”. At that moment a blast of absolute cold black light surrounded his body and he screamed. When the light disappeared all that remained was a gleaming piece of crystal, a rock the shape of a man, frozen in his scream.

  The rock was pushed aside and the next captive put in place.

  Thex watched in horror as one by one his team were reduced to stone. He held himself rigid in defiance and deadly calm yet the single tear coursing down his face betrayed him.

  Finally the lizard commander turned to Thex. “So, any last requests?” His face made more hideous by his laugh.

  Thex glared at him, holding the lizard’s gaze. “Your name”.

  “Ha! I don’t know what good that will do you but very well. I am simply the enemy but you can call me Sakla. Are we done then?”

  “We are done.” Thex calmly stood himself in position and braced himself for the rays impact. “Until we meet again Sakla of the enemy.”

  And then there was only rock.

  Sakla shook his head. “We won’t meet again”.

  A little while later seven large rocks were pushed out the bay doors and fell as meteorites to the planet below. The sama crystal held its hyper dense structure intact, surviving the entry into the atmosphere and impact. Buried in the ground the only sign of where they landed were the craters made as the impacted earth gave and rippled out in circles.

  1

  Tyra Aguila Goodwin woke with a start. “That bloody dream again! One day I’ll have to write it down and maybe then it will go away.” Dream was being too kind to it as it was most definitely a nightmare. But she wasn’t sure she wanted it to go away, she loved the dark haired man in the dream. Loved him for his deadly calm and loved him for his compassion. She hoped one day she would dream a better ending for the man and his warriors.

  A loud knocking at her front door roused her from her musing. Who’d be knocking at this time of the night? It’s three in the morning.

  Quickly she threw on her trackies and a tee-shirt and made a run for the door yelling “I’m coming!” Ha, that’ll be the day! Now fifty years of age Tyra doubted she'd ever have a lover. She had never managed to so much as snuggle up to a guy without thinking of the man from her nightmares. By no means frigid she’d ‘got by’ on a hearty diet of romance novels and discovering that with the right fantasy, usually featuring supernatural warriors or powerful mages, she could occasionally have an orgasm, or two. She wasn’t entirely sad though on missing out on the whole expensive wedding, white picket fence, two screaming kids and cleaning up after a guy thing. She had a good life, had travelled some and enjoyed her low paying but rewarding job as a research librarian. She planned to take an early retirement in a few years and then if she could get a scholarship she’d probably go back to university and do her post graduate doctorate. If not she might go overseas and volunteer as a research assistant on some archaeological dig.

  Tyra peered through the security viewer in her door and saw a youngish but not too intimidating policeman outside. After quickly racking her brain whether she had recently been speeding when driving somewhere and deciding that the policeman wasn’t there for anything she’d done she opened the door with a reasonably friendly face. “Hello?”

  The constable took off his hat, “Sorry madam to be troubling you so late but we need you to come down to the morgue right away, we think it's your uncle and need you to identify the remains”.

  Tyra sucked a breath in and then paused to calm herself. “Come in while I go and put some better clothes on.”

  It would have been cliche to say the morgue was deathly quiet this time of night...but it was. Tyra could see now why the hurry to have the remains viewed...there wasn’t much of them. No doubt it would all be pretty putrid by morning. The heavily slashed body looked like it had been savaged by some large animal. She wasn’t feeling anything, her emotions had shutdown for the time being to protect her. Glancing at Uncle Jack’s rigor mortused right hand she could just make out a piece of paper scrunched in a tight ball. Her librarian’s curiosity got the better of her and since the cops were letting her have a moment on her own before they bombarded her with questions she quickly prized his fingers away from it, retrieved the paper and saw that it had her name on it. She stuffed it into her pocket.

  The doors opened and the two tall, burly Central Investigations Bureau cops who had met her when she arrived at the morgue came in. “Its him then? Your uncle?”

  2

  It was hardly morning. A pale peach coloured sky tentatively bloomed and then gave way to grey clouds and drizzle.

  Tyra’s mum opened the door. “Shit”

  “Thanks Mum, what’s that for?” Tyra was somewhat taken aback.

  “Let me see: it’s Friday and you’ve never missed a day of work in your life, two it's six am and you know I’m not an early riser and three you’re white as a sheet. It can’t be good”.

  Tyra’s shoulders slumped and she sighed. “No it’s not good. Can I come inside?”

  Annabelle Goodwin, Annie to her friends, took Tyra in her arms, gave her a big hug and led her inside. Stepping back a little she looked appraisingly at her daughter. “You’re cold as ice, come and have a cuppa and tell me all about it”.

  Tyra sat down on the couch, listening to the kettle filling sounds coming from the kitchen, wondering how to break the news to her mum.

  A few minutes later Annie put a tray of tea down on the coffee table then looked up to the left as if hearing or seeing something. “Ah it's Jack!” She turned a no-nonsense face to her look at her daughter. “What’s happened?”

  Tyra shook her head in amazement at her mum’s ever reliable ‘intuitions’. She explained her late night call and visit to the morgue, then on the verge of her emotions breaking she handed the confusing note to her mum.

  Annie peered at her brother’s unfailingly messy scrawl and deciphered. “Dear Tyra, If you’re reading this note then the guardianship has passed to you. Don’t mourn me! I did what I came to do and now I return to the all-spirit. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to pass onto you the knowledge you need. Simon’s been on to me for some time to get you up here but I must confess I selfishly decided to let you have your life as long as possible as I knew your career was important to you. Annie knows some of the tale. Simon can tell you the rest. I ask you to override any initial judgements you may make of the man. I trust him with your life. Go to my property up in the lakes. Claim your destiny. Most importantly remember the year 1525. It was the year our ancestors escaped the Din who under the guise of the Spanish Inquisition attempted to eradicate our family. They’re still trying. The heart of stone by love be free. Love. Jack”.

  Annie put the note down, came over to the couch, cuddled Tyra against her and they both had a good cry.

  After a while Tyra got herself together but the grief still hung heavy in her gut. “Thanks Mum, I needed that. How about you? Are you alright?”

  Annie straightened herself and got up. “It was expected. I’ve been having dreams”, she said as if that explained everything. She went over to a Hans Heysen reproduction hanging on the wall, taking the picture down to reveal a small wall safe. She took out an ordinary looking key and some papers and handed Tyra the key.

  “This is the key to the farm gate on Jack’s property. It’s a long time since I’ve been up there, Jack tried to keep the family away from it, for good reason. That’s why you’ve only seen him here or in town. One thing I do remember is that you will need that date, it’s a
combination code to get in his front door. I’d advise against forcing entry without it as I expect he has certain security measures in place. After the Vietnam war he was never quite the same and he got more wary as time went on. I wouldn’t have called him paranoid because he had good reasons for most of his fears. The place is probably booby trapped”.

  Tyra raised an eyebrow at that. “The CIB asked me if he had any enemies”.

  Annie took a deep breath. “Oh he had enemies all right but none the police need to know about, for their own safety if nothing else”.

  “Is that what the ‘Din’ is, the enemy?” Tyra asked, somewhat curious at such a strange term in the letter as well as whether an enemy that was around in 1525 would still be around.

  “I think it’s best you ask Simon about the enemy. Suffice to say they have hounded our family and a few other families for as long as anyone knows. In part I think because each family guards something they want, or want destroyed. But I also think they’ve wanted to destroy us as well, I don’t know why. In any event Jack has … had, one of what they seek and spent his life guarding it.” Annie paused, thinking for a moment about how much to reveal at this stage while Tyra was still reeling from her Uncle’s death. “Perhaps it is this ‘heart of stone’. Family myth says that when the First People were being slaughtered almost to a man by the invaders to their land they asked one of our ancestors, Arthur Goodwin, a free settler, to take over the guardianship. Somehow they recognised him as being from one of the guardian families and knew they could safely hand the duty over to him. There’s been someone of our family living at the property up there ever since. Even I stayed there while Jack was away at that horrid Vietnam war. I think you should go up there straight away. I’ll deal with the will and transfer of deeds for you but you have the key so there is no need to wait”.