Marci rushed to the guard she had just dropped. Yes, this was the one who had chained Gwen up. It didn’t take long to come up with the key. She unchained herself then rushed back to unchain Gwen. She picked her up from the altar. Gwen hugged her tightly.
“Told you I could do it,” said Marci. “See, no worries.”
Gwen didn’t reply. She just hung on like she never intended to let go.
Chapter 26
The roar of the arena faded into the distance as the high priestess, Lita Ka, and her entourage made haste to reach their temple within the drell city and from there to the Great Koth. The transit between the two would require less than a minute through the gate of light. It was the trip to the city temple that would be time consuming. She only hoped that they had enough time.
“It is almost incomprehensible,” admitted Lu Gee, one of the priestesses under Lita Ka, “first the wulvers and humans rebel and now this, an attack on the Koth. Never has such a thing as this happened. Humans and wulvers working together? Who could be behind it all?”
Lita Ka looked but briefly over at her young protégé. “There is no doubt in my mind as to who was behind this. In the final analysis Dre Kon is to blame.”
Lu Gee seemed surprised. “Dre Kon?”
“Yes,” confirmed Lita Ka. “He has driven the wulvers to this desperate act with his cruelty. I am certain that it was Lukor that planned and lead the attack against us within the arena. No other wulver is so bold or crafty. But it was his mate Kadra that led the attack against our Holy Koth. Only she might know the secrets of the Koth or know the way to get there. Only she had the wisdom to defeat its defenses.”
“Kadra?” said Lu Gee. “But she is one of us, a priestess of Lilith.”
“Is she?” posed Lita Ka. “Have we truly treated her as one of us, as an equal? I think not. It is a situation that might make our upcoming negotiations all the more difficult.”
“Negotiations, we’re going to negotiate?” asked Lu Gee. “With who?”
“With Kadra,” said Lita Ka. “First of all we must convince her that these games of terror were Dre Kon’s idea and that we opposed them.”
“But we didn’t,” objected Lu Gee.
“Kadra and the other wulvers must be made to believe we did,” continued Lita Ka. “We need to convince them that they would have a better life under our rule, the rule of the priestesses. That human woman, Connie has provided us with the means to make that point. It was she who has planted the seed of a new order; the seed of discontentment, of doubt. I believe many of our people will follow us. The wulvers are physically very powerful. If they will follow us as well our bid for power might succeed even if Malfacian and his forces support Dre Kon.” Lita Ka hesitated. “There is something else something that will compel the wulvers to side with us. I know Dre Kon’s intentions for the wulvers and humans. No, he has not spoken of it openly, certainly not to me, but I know nonetheless. He intends to exterminate the wulvers and humans alike. It is the thinking of a maniac. He will be the death of us. We need both the humans and the wulvers for our continued survival. We must act.”
“I agree,” confirmed Lu Gee. “But Dre Kon commands our military, and that of Lord Malfacian. Do you believe that we, even supported by an unsophisticated half-starved band of wulvers and humans, can defeat him?”
“Yes,” replied Lita Ka. “It takes more than military force to win a war. I am convinced that I can defeat him in psychic combat, neutralize him. As for this unsophisticated band of wulvers and humans; once the wulvers and the humans realize the fate Dre Kon has in store for them they will join us and they will fight well.”
“If we arrive at the Koth in time this might come to pass,” said Lu Gee. “But suppose we do not?”
Lita Ka didn’t reply.
Camron had never felt so fulfilled, so complete. Abaddon had answered his every question. He had not held back, not even once, and Camron believed every word. Abaddon’s story was one of beauty and tragedy. He felt sympathy for the plight of this mighty winged being, this dark angel, yet he had brought Camron hope. He no longer felt so alone, so abandoned. Now Camron knew and he understood more about the true nature of the universe than any living man or woman. His impending death held no fear for him, not now.
“The truth shall make you free,” whispered Camron. He paused. “Well, time to get on with it. Time to change the world.”
He had given Abaddon the time he asked for to get to a safe distance. It was time. Camron hobbled toward the crystal, hammer in hand. The pain in his leg was not so bad now. Anyway, this death would be far kinder than the one cancer would grant him on Earth. There was no point in going back, really. He would miss Leslie, of course, and the life they might have had together. If only things had been just a bit different.
He could feel the growing energy emanating from the crystal as he moved to the very heart of this temple of power. It wasn’t painful, indeed, it was invigorating. Now he stood directly before the crystal.
Quite abruptly there was a flash of light amidst this realm of shifting colors. He couldn’t quite tell what had happened but he figured that it couldn’t be good.
“A human,” said a voice from somewhere nearby. “You defeated the spawn of Lilith?”
Camron looked to see the drell standing not fifteen feet away. He drew back his hammer. “I had some help.”
“Young man you stand on the threshold of eternity. Are you so anxious to end your own existence?” asked the drell. “Does life hold so few wonders to you that you are willing to throw it away.”
“Life here does,” replied Camron.
“It doesn’t have to. I am Lita Ka, high priestess of the drells. If you are willing to give me a few minutes of your time I am prepared to offer you an alternative that does not include the termination of your existence.”
“The termination of my existence,” said Camron. “Is that what I’m considering?”
There was a pause. “Camron, it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m not your enemy. I didn’t demand that your people be slaughtered in the arena, Dre Kon did. Indeed, he intends to exterminate all of you, but together we can overthrow him. Under my rule and that of the priestesses the nightmare will end. You and your people will no longer be slaves but citizens with a voice on our council. Together we will create a new world with me as its leader and Kadra as my second in command.”
Camron was caught totally off guard. He had never expected this. “Kadra?”
“Yes,” confirmed Lita Ka. “When the day is won and Dre Kon defeated, this will be the order. But we need your help, you, and the other humans, and the wulvers. We need to work together.”
“But don’t you need our flesh and blood?” asked Camron.
“Your blood, yes, but not your flesh,” replied Lita Ka. “But even that will pass. Your scientists on Earth were prepared to help us with our problem. I will gladly accept that help, and in return open the door to technologies they can hardly dream of. We have greatly wronged your people. Nothing can change that. We cannot replace the lives we’ve taken, but we are prepared to offer some sort of compensation. Both sides could profit richly from this exchange. We will become a good friend of humanity. We will gladly release those humans who wish to return to Earth. They may do so with no fear of retaliation. We shall not stop them. Those who elect to stay will help us build a brighter future as equal partners. Those who come in the future will do so willingly, in the spirit of an exchange of technology and culture.”
Camron was stunned. “You make a strong argument.”
“Of course I do,” replied Lita Ka. “Not all of my people are like Dre Kon. Dre Kon is a tyrant, I am not. Now, gaze into my eyes, drop the hammer and step away from the crystal.”
In that moment Camron saw into the heart of this drell who had filled him with so much hope. But that hope was but an illusion, it was all a lie. Lita Ka was a deceiver. She was a different face, but her agenda was the same as that of Dre Kon. She was no better. She had d
elayed him in an attempt to override his will. Now he understood.
“Never trust a drell,” said a voice deep within Camron’s mind. It was the voice of Abaddon. “That would have been your next lesson if we’d only had the time. The spirit of man is eternal. The spirit of the drells is not. You can destroy the crystal now.”
“Thank you,” said Camron. “And God said let there be light.”
The hammer came down upon the crystal with tremendous force. There was a flash of light, bright beyond comprehension but Camron never saw it. He was already gone.
The ancient ship, the Koth was vaporized within an instant as were the drell priestesses and the remaining offspring of the great spider. The cavern was filled with a light greater than that of the sun. It swept away the mists and the filth. It brought an end to the horrors of this place as surely as it brought an end to the place itself. Without the power of the crystal to support the great expanse of the roof of the cavern it collapsed.
Nearly two miles away, Kadra and the others were thrown to the cave floor by the earthquake that told the story of the end of an age. The cavern behind them totally collapsed and they were surrounded by a cloud of billowing dust even as they were shielded from the pyroclastic cloud of thousand-degree plasma that swept out through the tunnels radiating away from the blast zone. They all knew that one of their fellows was no more.
It took several minutes for the dust to settle.
“He was a brave one, for a human,” said Satar.
“He was a brave one for a wulver,” corrected Lemnock.
Satar nodded in agreement.
“Are we all well,” asked Kadra looking about.
The others nodded. They seemed a bit dustier but otherwise unscathed.
“We can only hope that the tunnels ahead have survived that quake,” said Kadra. “I’d hate to be stuck down here.”
The group moved on. They decided that their best destination would be the arena. Perhaps they would be able to lend some assistance to the rest, give some part of themselves to the cause. They knew Camron had given all.
The earthquake threw virtually all of the combatants to the ground with its violence. The great bronze bull toppled to one side and split open to reveal its empty interior. A large portion of the ceiling gave way. Most of it fell to the cavern floor where Malfacian’s troops were rallying to begin their organized extermination of the wulver and human rebels. Within seconds they had been brutally crushed beneath thousands of tons of rock. A smaller portion fell upon the far left section of drell spectators, bringing an end to nearly a third of the drell race in a matter of seconds. The cavern shook for nearly a minute before a silence broken only by the cries of the dying replaced it.
On the arena floor, Debbie, Gwen, and Marci rose to their feet and looked about through the thick dust at the carnage. It was Marci who noticed the collapsed wall before the royal box. The route to Dre Kon was difficult but open. Marci smiled as she turned to Debbie.
“Look after Gwen,” said Marci, drawing her sword, “I have a promise to keep.”
Marci ran to the collapsed wall and began to climb up the steep pile of rubble. She was like a woman possessed.
“Marci!” cried Gwen. Gwen turned to Debbie even as she began to glow. “Debbie.”
A great smile appeared on Debbie’s face. “You’re going home Gwen. I’ll see you soon.”
Gwen collapsed to the ground then vanished into glowing vapors.
Marci struggled up the embankment. A moment later she was face to face with a drell warrior, sword in hand. Apparently she had caught him totally by surprise. Could they be killed? She was about to find out. She swung the sword in a swift horizontal blow directed at his neck. The sharp blade swept through his neck with relatively little resistance. His head and body parted company with little fanfare.
“That answers that question,” whispered Marci, pushing on to where Dre Kon was being assisted to his feet by another of his guards. Yet even now Marci felt the sensation. It was a sort of lightheadedness, a disconnection between mind and body. “No, not yet,” she cried. “The train is leaving the station, got to be quick.”
Marci threw caution to the wind. She made one final lunge at her prey. It had to be her that did this. It just had to be.
A sword swept just inches from her as she plowed body and sword into Dre Kon. The sword penetrated his entire body directly through where she imagined his heart to be. She was spattered in his blood. They swung around in the struggle, her body wrapped around his. She felt a blade penetrate her left leg but she didn’t let go. The next thing she knew they were tumbling down the embankment she had just climbed, head first, with Dre Kon on bottom. In that final second she found the dagger she had slipped into the hem of her loincloth and buried it into Dre Kon’s huge head. Then she was gone into a mist of light.
Dre Kon landed at the bottom of the rubble. Within a minute he had died a death at the tip of a hundred slave wielded blades. One of those blades was Lukor’s and another was Debbie’s.
“Ready to come home?” asked Sybil.
“Not yet,” said Debbie, speaking to the person only she could hear. “I still have work to do here.”
More wulvers and humans climbed the pile of rubble into the stands. With better than half of Malfacian’s men killed during the collapse of the ceiling the drells were indeed vulnerable. The drells scattered in panic. For now, they realized that without their crystal granted regenerative powers they were as mortal as their slaves. Dre Kon had been right. Today blood was flowing in the arena, but it was drell blood.
With renewed hope the wulvers, under the command of Lukor began pushing the remnant of Malfacian’s Red Guard back. Soon the fight had moved from the arena and into the tunnels leading to the drell city. Within a few hours Kadra and the others had joined the fight, sharing in the carnage.
By day’s end the forces of Malfacian were nowhere to be found and the drell city was littered with the bodies of its would be gods. The empire of the drells had passed away in a single afternoon.
The wulvers had sustained surprisingly light losses. As for the humans, their losses were difficult to gauge. Some had fallen to the sword, but far more had simply vanished into glowing mists. The battle was over, the war won. Or was it?
It was late as the humans and wulvers looked up nervously as the crystal lights within their compound slowly faded. It would not be long before they would be in darkness. The gathering darkness made the glowing display that occurred with each human’s departure all the more noticeable. Amidst the joy of their victory there were deep concerns.
“We can’t remain here,” said Kadra, turning to the gathering of wulvers and humans in the great hall. “Soon we will be in darkness.”
“But where shall we go?” objected another.
“We will follow the route of Malfacian’s traders,” said Lukor. “It has to lead to somewhere.”
“To their encampment,” replied Lemnock.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Lukor. “They often spoke of the journey to reach us, a journey of some months. We will have to carry all of the food that we can and depart.”
“We can’t carry many months of food,” objected another.
“We may not have to,” said Lukor. “Now let us get our things together. We must start the journey tonight. The humans who have not been taken will come with us. I will not leave them behind.”
“Yes, in a few minutes,” said Debbie, speaking to apparently nobody. She stood before the group. “I’m going to be leaving now. The rest of you will be leaving as soon as your Earthly bodies arrive at the institute back on Earth. None of you will be left behind, I promise. Our good friends the wulvers will take care of you until then. I’ll see all of you on the other side, back home. Let’s all stay in touch.”
Debbie turned to Kadra and Lukor who stood beside her arm in arm. They embraced.
“Thank you,” said Lukor. “You helped me rediscover my humanity.”
Debbie handed ba
ck Lukor’s Bible. “Here, you might need this. I have one of my own back home.”
Lukor nodded as he accepted it. “I suppose I should start reading it.” “It couldn’t hurt,” said Debbie.
Lukor smiled.
“I suppose I need to find a new profession,” admitted Kadra.
“No you don’t,” said Debbie. “You need to be their spiritual leader. You need to find this new faith and bring your people to it. You’ll find it in that book. After all, God did send you a couple of angels to help you.”
“Is that what they were, angels,” asked Kadra.
“I believe they were,” said Debbie. “And remember Connie’s words on the cross? They all came true, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” confirmed Kadra, “they did.”
“You’re going to find a new home,” said Debbie. “I’m sure of it.”
Kadra nodded but didn’t reply.
Debbie looked off into the distance for a moment. Her mind seemed far away. “OK, I’m ready. Beam me up Scotty, I mean Sybil.”
There was a pause. Debbie giggled. “No, Sybil, not Star Wars, Star Trek, you know, the one with Kirk and Spock. Yeah, the one with the pointed ears.”
A few seconds later Debbie was glowing. Then she collapsed into Lukor’s arms. He slowly, gently lowered her to the ground. She vanished into glowing mists.
“Let’s gather our things,” said Lukor, wiping a tear from his eye. “We must be off. We don’t have much time.”
Debbie’s surroundings brightened as she made her final trip back to Earth. The sounds and odors of the cavern were replaced by those of the FENS lab. She opened her eyes to see David standing there leaning on a cane.
“Hey you,” said David smiling broadly.
“Hey you,” said Debbie. She felt a slight sting in her left arm.
“Just insurance,” said Claudia. “We want to keep you here this time.”
“How many did you get out?” asked Debbie.
“Seventy-eight so far,” replied Ron. “We’ll have a lot more arriving over the next few days.”
The Realm of the Drells Page 39