Unknown

by Paul Kelly

  “It’s just down here,” muttered Solomon, his voice amplified by the tight tunnel.

  Elijah didn’t answer him. The fear had left him now. All that was left was a cold rage for his murdered father and a burning desperation to save his sister. He didn’t care what it took. He was going back to the Skylands and he would bring her home.

  After a short walk, they turned a corner and the darkness suddenly disappeared. The brightness of the room they entered blinded Elijah and he blinked rapidly. They were in a huge cavern, a natural cave. Stalactites even hung from the ceiling. In several corners, huge iron braziers spat out light and heat. Elijah looked around it: people flooded the room, clustered into dozens of groups as large as five or ten. Some looked up in curiosity as Elijah passed, but, for the most part, they ignored him. Solomon walked straight through it and Elijah quickened his pace to keep up with him. Abruptly, Solomon stopped and tapped the shoulder of a tall, lean woman with closely cropped blond hair.

  “Ash,” he said pleasantly. “I have a new recruit for you.”

  The woman turned around instantly, breaking off her conversation with the three people in front of her. “Solomon?” she asked. “I was told you were captured in the last attack.”

  “I was,” replied the old Seer. “Apparently I didn’t have as much in me as I’d thought.”

  “How’d you escape?” Ash asked.

  “Lucky for me, the Skylanders managed to actually capture a Seer for once.”

  It was only now that Ash noticed Elijah. Quickly, she stepped forward and grabbed him by the chin, pulling him towards her.

  “What the frig-?!” Elijah spluttered, but the woman ignored him. Moving quickly, she tilted Elijah’s head back staring into his eyes.

  “Say ah…” she muttered.

  “No I will not bloody well say-”, but he never finished his sentence as Ash used her other hand to pull Elijah’s nose upwards as he talked, locking his jaw between her two hands. She peered quickly down his throat and then let go.

  “What the freakin-” began Elijah.

  “He looks good.” Interrupted Ash, ignoring Elijah. Solomon just grinned. “How is he when he prophesies?”

  “He took down the entire Testing Centre with just the raw timeline. That good enough for you?”

  Ash’s eyebrows rose. “He could be very useful to us,” she mused.

  “Are you kidding me?” shouted Elijah, his patience wearing thin. “I didn’t come here for a dental exam, I came because you guys are supposed to have an army! My sister is dying up there in those mines because I’m a Seer! You are an army of Seers. I want you to help me get her back!”

  Ash smiled one of those thin smiles that no one ever uses when they are actually happy. “I make the orders here, young one. Look around yourself,” She swung her arm around in a gesture that took in the whole cavern. “Do you think there isn’t one person here who hasn’t lost someone to the Skylands? Do you think that we are going to just drop everything, just because one more Earthlander has become a slave to the mines? There are thousands of people just like your sister. We don’t want to just save her, we want to save everyone. To do that we have to plan, we have to use strategy. We have to think ten steps ahead of the Skylands because if we don’t they will kill every one of us first chance they get.”

  “Yes but -”

  “We will save your sister,” interrupted Ash. “That is why we fight, to right the wrongs that the Skylands impose upon the Earth. But you must calm yourself, allow yourself to be trained. Then you can go up there and get her back yourself.”

  Elijah took a deep breath. “She is nine years old. She doesn’t have time for me to train. She doesn’t have time for your strategy. She won’t survive up there! Solomon said you raid the mines the whole time, I’m just asking that you bring me with you. Let me bring her home!”

  “Do you even know what Island she’s on?” Ash asked. “How about what mine, what seam? She could be anywhere.”

  “Then I’ll search every single damn Island till I get her back!”

  “That is not a sound strategy,” replied Ash, her voice as cold and unrelenting as a glacier.

  Elijah stared at the commander. Her eyes were grey and resolute atop cheekbones that seemed to stab the air. He knew what everyone else saw. They saw determination, they saw a cool head, they saw the only person brave enough to pin a nation’s hopes to a rag-tag bunch of Seers whose own knowledge of their power had been lost to the depths of time.

  But it wasn’t what he saw. He saw an obstacle. He saw the person stopping him from rescuing his sister. He saw an unmovable wall that stood between himself and Truth.

  “The Earthlands hate you, you know that?” He said. “Every single person in this land you claim to represent would murder you themselves if it came right down to it. They hate you for your power. They hate all of us for it! Every single one of us! They would never follow you. Even if you get your war, even if all the Earthlands rise up as one to overthrow the Skylands, they will not follow you. And from the ruins of a world after war they would come for you. They would come for you and they would rip out your tongue just like the Skylanders!”

  “Be silent,” commanded Ash.

  But Elijah wasn’t going to stop now. He couldn’t stop now.

  “What’s the point? If you can’t help Seers, what’s the point? If you can’t even save one scared and hungry little girl why do you even exist?”

  “We exist to bring hope,” replied Ash, her voice as steady as a rock, conviction oozing from every word.

  “You exist to hide!” roared Elijah. “You exist to find every Seer you can and hide ten feet underground because you know everyone else would kill you the first chance they got! You are nothing but a coward!”

  Ash’s face went white with fury. A second later, the palm of her hand slapped across Elijah’s face. It wasn’t an indignant slap. It wasn’t one of those slaps you use just to make a point. This was a slap which had weight behind it. It was the kind of open handed blow that an assailant has chosen to use because they know that a fist would just break the offending party’s nose. And it almost threw Elijah from his feet. Spots danced in front of his eyes and blood dripped from a broken lip.

  “Ouch,” was all he said. Then Solomon was there, grabbing Elijah by the shoulder and planting himself firmly between them.

  “Wow! He likes to talk doesn’t he? Pity he’s not much good at anything else! Sorry about this Ash,” he smiled pleasantly and began to drag Elijah away. “You know how it is with the Tear, he’s had a hard day. He’s doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I meant every word…” grumbled Elijah. “If you bunch of – “

  “We’ll come back later, after he’s had some training,” interrupted Solomon, using his other hand to block Elijah’s mouth. Elijah tried to bite him.

  “Wait Solomon,” Ash called after them. Solomon paused halfway across the cavern, still holding Elijah in an iron grip. “The Testing Centre was his Tear you said? Is he the one you and Xanthius have been looking for?”

  Solomon nodded once and then turned his back on the commander of the Future Storm.

  Chapter 9 – Hesther

  It was hard for Sybil to get her life back to normal. She couldn’t get the image of the broken mirror out of her head. Often, she tried to think about the mirror itself: the broken glass, the simple wooden frame, anything that could take her focus away from what lay within it.

  Even mustering up the enthusiasm for Higher Level Destruction was an effort. Surprisingly, however, her concentration on not thinking about the mirror helped her to keep her appearance more controlled.

  Master Sooth noticed.

  “Sybil, let’s start with you again,” she said. She was wearing bright blue Breaches today, Sybil noticed vaguely. “This time, there will be no guidance. You must enter the mind of the beast on your own.”

  Sybil nodded, sure of herself. She could remember the beat of the
last lesson exactly. It was quiet in the grassy clearing and she used the silence to calm her mind. Beside her, she could sense the presence of her fellow Students, but they too were perfectly still. The air was calm and beyond the points of the skyscrapers, the sun shone brightly. Listening for the quiet drum of the Pulse, she let it fill her and allowed it to form into the desired volume and tempo. Gradually, she reached out to the Wyvern, searching for the familiar spark that would allow entry into its mind. The Wyvern cringed back into its cage, moving great talons over its head as if it could protect itself. Within seconds, she saw the flash of light, just above its ribbed nose, and she directed the beat towards it, absent-mindedly tapping it out with her foot as she did so. Her Pulse entered the Wyvern’s mind and suddenly her vision blurred, her view split between that of this world and that of the seething mass of memories that was the Wyvern’s mind.

  Master Sooth nodded approvingly, sensing Sybil’s progress. “Now show it what we can do, Sybil,” she commanded. “Pick a memory and destroy it.”

  On the second plane that now made up half of Sybil’s vision, she watched memories fly by, brief moments of movement, most just still frames, snatches of random interactions between the Wyvern and a couple of others. No, not a couple. Sybil stopped letting her beat flow, retracting it, staring at one of the memories. Dozens, hundreds. The Wyvern cringed back against the cage. More Wyverns than she had ever seen in her life. She could feel herself interacting with them, the memory melding with her own mind, feeling the Wyvern’s joy, his happiness and his sense of oneness with the others…

  “Sybil!” the voice of Master Sooth snapped her back to reality. “Destroy the memory!” Sybil shook herself. Why was she doing this? For the sake of a training exercise? Was it worth destroying for that?

  “Sybil!” the Master commanded more insistently.

  Sybil left the Wyvern’s mind and let the Pulse drift away from her, allowing it to quieten to just a gentle beat in the back of her mind.

  “I won’t,” she said quietly. “It’s wrong, Master Sooth.”

  The Master inhaled sharply. “They are just animals, Sybil,” she answered levelly. “And if you have gotten this far, you know how they must be treated. The minute you start to empathise with them, to trust them, they gain an advantage you cannot afford them to have during any Arrival.”

  “I know,” answered Sybil coolly. “But I still won’t do it.”

  “Are you disobeying a direct order, Student?” Master Sooth asked, her tone gentle, but tinged with menace.

  Sybil just stared at her, her eyes defiant.

  “It’s always the best ones that get these notions,” sighed the Master. “Right. Brandon!” she called and a lean Guardian stopped in his patrol of the grounds.

  “Yes, Master Sooth?” he asked.

  “Take Student Sybil to Hesther,” the Master commanded coldly. “And see that she listens to every word he has to say.”

  “Have you been to Hesther before?” Brandon asked as they walked down the stone steps into the depths of the Drum. Sybil shook her head, unwilling to talk unless her voice shook. She did not know Brandon well, but he seemed uneasy about his task. He probably did not want to visit the madman either.

  “Try not to pay too much attention to him,” Brandon continued. “He may claim to have seen the future, but he’s also insane. You might think what he says applies to you, but he’s nuts, he could think he’s talking to Tommen or something.”

  “He was alive when Tommen lived?” Sybil asked incredulously, breaking her silence.

  “I doubt it,” grunted Brandon. “The guy can’t be much older than fifty and Tommen died over a hundred and fifty years ago, yet sometimes he acts like he was talking to him just yesterday.”

  Sybil nodded. It was rare that the Pulse brought madness, but when it did, it was terrible.

  As they moved deeper below the Drum, the air seemed to get colder and colder, causing Sybil to shiver. Finally, they reached a plain wooden door, bound by two heavy iron hinges. The door was made to act as a barrier, so that Hesther’s effect on the Pulse could not leave the room. Sybil could feel the beat of the Pulse flowing through the wood, its steady rhythm repeating again and again.

  “I’ll be out here when he stops talking,” Brandon muttered. “When I open the door, you’ll know you can leave.”

  Sybil nodded, steeling herself. This was not going to be fun. As soon as she entered the room, a shrieking pain screamed through her mind. Sybil gasped as if struck. Behind her the door slammed shut. The familiar, steady, beat of the Pulse had become a screaming, tortured wail. Sybil tried to concentrate on muting it, on lowering it to something just in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t, the sound was too slippery, too intangible. She couldn’t get a grip on it. The piercing wail continued its tormented shriek, burning through her brain. Suddenly, she felt nauseous. She fell to her knees, her hands covering her ears, shutting her eyes against the shriek. But there was no stopping it, no preventing it, the Pulse was as much a part of her as her own arms. She groaned in agony, small stones digging through her trousers as she ground her knees into the cell floor. Suddenly, from deep within her, a feeling of utter despair began to creep through her gut.

  No.

  She would not give in. She was not weak. Her eyes flashed open. The piercing pain was still there, but she refused to let it affect her. She clenched her fists together, grinding them into the stone floor. She would not be broken.

  “They sent another one,” a voice whispered suddenly. Sybil’s head snapped up, her gaze moving beyond the flagstones. In front of her stood about thirty thick iron bars, separating her from a dim cell where a man lay in a foetal position, his head balanced on his knees. His voice was only just audible above the scream of the Pulse. Sybil was surprised she’d heard it. Then, suddenly, he was on his feet, sprinting towards the bars and hitting them with both palms first, his hands closing around them. The sound rang throughout the cramped, rocky room, but Sybil barely noticed.

  Hesther leered down at her. “Oh, but not just any one of them. I’ve seen you before. You who will make the Sky fall!” he convulsed quietly, laughter contracting his lined, bearded face. “You’ve seen him!” he laughed, then he stopped, his head twitching. “No not him, no, you haven’t seen him yet. But you will, won’t you? Will you? You might. The Sky is falling!” he collapsed, his hands covering his head. “What have you done? You use the cursed gift! You use the Seer’s power, you are one of them!”

  Sybil struggled up from the ground, only now noticing her nose was bleeding again. She wiped the blood away casually with one grey sleeve. “I am not one of them,” she said, her voice trying to be cold, but just sounding desperate to her own ears. It didn’t help that she had to struggle to keep from screaming. But Hesther had already started muttering again: “three and then seven, nine and then stop! It’s happening again! It’s happening again. Three, seven, nine and then twelve, thirteen, nine and then back to six. It will happen again!”

  “What are you…?” Sybil asked.

  “He is coming!” Hesther screamed suddenly, shaking the metal bars in a frenzy. “He is coming to turn the world flat, to break the Wyvern’s wings. You will destroy the other! And he will destroy all of us and he will break the wings himself and he will come back to us and beasts greater than ever seen shall come. Stone shall be flesh! He is coming!”

  Sybil stared at the ragged, desperate, screaming man and suddenly laughed. This thing did not even know she was there. He was talking nonsense. She was no Seer, she did not even make the Wyvern’s glow. To even consider his words made her almost as mad as he was.

  Then Hesther tilted his eyes up, staring right at her. “Do not laugh, Sybil,” he said quietly and Sybil’s breath caught in her throat, almost choking her. She coughed raggedly, struggling to breathe.

  “Beware he who breaks the Wyvern’s wings,” he continued quietly. “Beware when the sky turns white for then your loyalties shall be
tested.”

  Sybil felt a cold, dark fear fill her heart. He knew her name.

  “Beware who?” she asked, suddenly desperate. “What are you talking about, what do you know?”

  But Hesther just giggled inanely, retreating into one of the cell’s dark corners.

  “Tell me!” Sybil shouted, her voice more a shriek than anything else.

  “Sybil?” a voice came from behind her. She twisted her neck, realising she was still on the floor. In the doorway, Brandon stood. How long had he been there? “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Sybil scrambled to her feet, running from the room as behind her Hesther convulsed into silent laughter.

  Chapter 10 – Prophecy

  Elijah stood in a huge marble palace. He glanced down at himself. His body was faintly translucent, as if a mad potter had decided to paint him in a glaze which had not yet dried. Experimentally, he poked an arm into his chest and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see it pass straight through it.

  Turning his attention away from his ghostly frame, he looked around the palace that surrounded him. He’d never seen anything like it and although that was getting to be a pretty common feeling, he doubted the richness of his surroundings had any equal. The ceiling was huge and vaulted with beautiful mahogany timbers, polished to a shine. Their roots were balanced delicately on dozens of pink marble pillars, each inlaid with so much gold it made Elijah’s fingers itch. If he’d had a bit more substance to his form, he’d have been at them with a hammer and chisel faster than you could say ‘destruction of priceless architecture’. Massive paintings hung on every wall, depicting people he’d never heard of all in improbably heroic positions, half of them fighting beasts he could not put a name to. At the very top of the hall stood a beautiful, gilded throne, bathed in sunlight from a circular stain glass window set above it. Atop it sat a man wearing a thin circlet of beaten gold, speaking to a small group of advisors who surrounded him. A purple carpet led up to the group and Elijah began to walk along it. As he got closer he realised that the figure atop the throne was not in a good mood.