by Clayton Wood
Having completed his survey, Sabin redirected his awareness to his avatar floating on the floor of the chamber below. He directed a small portion of his now-massive consciousness to the shard buried in the avatar's skull. He could see from his avatar's eyes, yet still saw from his own. He could feel his avatar's limbs, and move them, and yet he still felt the burning, crawling pain searing his own tortured limbs. He was a consciousness divided, existing in two bodies at once.
And if he desired, he could exist in dozens at once.
With a thought, he levitated his avatar to the ring of green crystals surrounding the base of the huge cylinder. These were where the shards were manufactured, the crystals that powered his Chosen. He guided his avatar to one of the green crystals...one that would become the most advanced shard he had ever constructed.
With a sliver of his consciousness, he set his avatar to work.
* * *
Kyle froze as the ceiling above him began to churn violently, the very walls around him quivering like jello. The ceiling above tore apart, revealing a golden glowing disc. The ceiling and walls of the living room melted around him like candle wax, revealing a dome some twenty feet above their heads, walls of gold surrounding them on all sides. The wooden floor wavered, then shrunk, a golden metallic floor replacing it. The last of the cherry wood floor beneath his feet disappeared, and he braced himself, knowing all too well what was coming next.
Pain.
It slammed into his chest almost immediately, the pressure so intense that it knocked the wind out of him. He gasped for air, clutching his throat with his hands...but no air came. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. His vision blurred, and then there was blackness.
And then it all stopped.
Kyle gasped for air, his vision returning. He found himself lying on a cold, hard floor, bright light assaulting his eyes from a golden disc above. He groaned, shielding his eyes from the harsh light. A blurry shadow came over the disc, and Kyle lowered his hand, squinting at it. A hand clad entirely in golden, metallic armor reached down, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet.
“Hey kid,” a familiar voice greeted.
Kyle squinted, his vision clearing gradually. Intense blue eyes stared back at him.
“Darius!” he cried. It was the bodyguard...his grandfather, perhaps the most powerful being in the world. Kyle looked around, realizing that he was in the center of the Gateway, a circular room that served as the only entrance and exit to Antara, a floating island that existed in two worlds at once. The Gateway was some twenty feet in diameter, with a ceiling consisting of a large dome made of many thick, golden metal bars arching upward toward a brightly glowing disc at the top. The bars were set back against walls with tiny runes etched into them, each rune glowing a soft blue like the disk above.
Kyle rubbed his left shoulder gingerly, staring at the man standing before him. Over six feet tall, with short brown hair and blue eyes, his skin tanned by countless hours spent in the sun, Darius looked resplendent in his golden armor. The smooth metal plates that covered him from the neck down glimmered brilliantly in the light from above, the armor polished to its customary mirror-shine. Kyle couldn't help but stare, as he always did when he hadn't seen Darius for a while; the bodyguard was formidably handsome, and possessed of an undeniable presence. Anyone who didn't know him would automatically assume that he was powerful and charismatic, and they'd be undeniably right about the former. As to the latter, well...that assumption only lasted as long as Darius kept his mouth shut. Which he did most of the time, thankfully.
“Follow me,” Darius ordered, turning about and walking toward the curved outer wall beyond. Kyle hesitated, then sprinted after him.
“Why are we back on Antara?” he asked.
“I've spent the last week locating Xanos,” Darius answered, not bothering to turn around. Kyle blinked. Had it really been a week since he’d left? For every day that passed on Earth, about 40 days passed on Doma. He’d been on Earth for maybe an hour and a half, which would make 60 hours on Doma...less than 3 days.
“It’s been that long?” Kyle asked.
“On Antara, yes,” Darius answered. Kyle paused for a moment. It made sense; for every day that passed on Doma, three passed on Antara. That meant about a week had passed here. Darius was right, as usual.
Darius stopped before the curved wall. Suddenly his armor flashed bright blue, the golden metal plates covering his body instantaneously replaced by inky black armor etched with countless runes. A visor appeared around Darius's face, its curved mirror-like surface reflecting the wall before it. In a heartbeat, he'd metamorphosed from a simple bodyguard into the most powerful Battle-Runic that had ever lived.
Ampir.
The runes on Darius's right forearm flashed a bright blue, and a curved section of the wall in front of them rippled, a hole expanding in the middle of it. Beyond, there was a familiar long, upwardly spiraling corridor. Darius stepped through the hole into the corridor, and Kyle followed.
“Did you find Xanos?” Kyle asked, following Darius to a window on their left. Beyond the window was a familiar room; he'd seen it the first time he'd visited Antara. It was filled with squat tables littered with strange devices. Kyle rested a palm on the cool glass of the window, trying to make out what lay inside.
There was a flash of blue light, and suddenly he was inside the room.
“Yes,” Darius answered. He walked up to one of the tables, grabbing a small metallic disc from the large pile of odds and ends stashed there. He shoved it right onto the center of Kyle's chest.
“Hey!” Kyle protested, taking a step back. The metallic disc vanished in a flash of blue light, and Kyle felt a horrible pain rip through his chest. He cried out, slumping against one of the tables behind him and clutching his sternum. The pain subsided quickly; Kyle glared at Darius, rubbing his chest gingerly. “What did you do to me?” he demanded.
“That was a spacetime bridge generator,” Darius replied.
“Huh?”
“That disc makes spacetime bridges,” Darius clarified.
“The same things you use to teleport?” Kyle pressed. Darius nodded. Kyle frowned. “What's spacetime?” he asked.
“A part of space at a particular time,” Darius clarified. When Kyle stared at him blankly, Darius gestured toward the window that looked out into the hallway they'd come from. “The hallway is one space,” he explained. “This room is another.”
Suddenly there was a flash of blue, and a portal appeared in the air beside Darius...a window of sorts that gave a long view of the hallway, as if they were standing in it.
“That's a bridge connecting two spaces in one time,” Darius concluded.
“A spacetime bridge,” Kyle murmured. He lowered his gaze, spotting a pair of long, jet-black metallic things on the table in front of him that resembled rifles. Kyle remembered having seen them the last time he'd been on Antara.
“What are those?” he asked curiously. “Is that a scope?” he added, pointing to a cylinder on top of one of the rifles. Darius said nothing, picking up one of the guns and pointing the barrel right at Kyle's chest. Kyle took a step back, raising his hands above his head automatically. Darius smirked, handing the gun to Kyle. Kyle took it gingerly, pausing to glance at Darius, then peering through the scope himself. He saw something red flitting in and out of focus there.
“What's that?” he asked.
“Your heart,” Darius replied.
Kyle jerked his eyes up from the scope, staring at Darius incredulously, before peering down the scope again. He saw the flitting redness again – although it was going faster now. He swung the barrel of the rifle around, but the image on the scope remained the same.
“It's still showing the same image,” Kyle realized.
“Don't pull the trigger,” Darius warned.
“What happens if I do?” Kyle asked, taking his finger off of the trigger.
“You die.”
Kyle jerked his head away from the scope, dropping t
he rifle on the table with a clatter and backing away from it.
“Get it off my heart!” he demanded, staring at the rifle with horror. “Get it off me!”
“Relax,” Darius replied. “It's off.” Kyle shook his head at him, goosebumps rising up on his arms.
“What if I had gone back to Earth?” he asked. “Would that thing have followed me there?”
“Yep.”
“It could've killed me from across galaxies?” Kyle exclaimed. “How?”
“Spacetime bridges,” Darius answered. “It's an old prototype,” he added, nodding the rifle. “A spacetime bridge cannon.”
“I'd hate to see what the latest version can do,” Kyle muttered, putting a hand over his heart. Darius smirked, then turned toward the shimmering portal beside him, striding down the hallway beyond. Kyle hesitated, then followed after the man, stepping through the portal. He was expecting to feel something weird as he passed through, but there was no sensation at all...besides the slight vibration of the magic involved. When he turned around to look back at the room however, all he saw was more hallway. Kyle turned forward again, shaking his head; spacetime bridges were going to take some getting used to.
“So where'd that disc go?” Kyle inquired, rubbing his chest absently.
“Inside your sternum.”
Kyle stopped abruptly, his eyes widening.
“What?”
“I teleported it into your sternum,” Darius clarified, as if that were the most reasonable thing in the world. Kyle blanched, clutching his chest and feeling suddenly queasy.
“Why'd you do that?”
“Later,” Darius promised. He continued up the spiral hallway, Kyle following close behind. He'd only spent a few minutes with Darius, and he was already getting tired of his grandfather’s cryptic ways. He preferred Kalibar's more straightforward approach.
“Where are we going?” Kyle asked.
“To see Marcus,” Darius answered. Kyle frowned; Marcus was Darius's former “employer,” and had been Kalibar's mentor.
“Why?” he pressed. Not that he minded paying Marcus a visit. The old man was wonderfully pleasant and considerate, unlike Darius.
“To deal with Xanos,” Darius replied.
Darius stopped suddenly. Kyle halted, realizing that they had reached the top of the long spiral hallway at last...and that it had ended, as before, in a nondescript wall. Kyle glanced at Darius, whose runes glowed bright blue for a split second. Suddenly the wall vanished, sunlight pouring into the hallway. Kyle squinted, turning his head away from those searing rays, blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted. After a moment, he turned forward again, seeing a long road extending beyond the golden floor of the hallway, trees flanking the road. The sun peeked out from behind a white, puffy cloud, sending squat shadows across the road. At the end of the road was a small cul-de-sac with a light brown ranch at the end of it. A short white fence surrounded the front yard, its small gate partially open. Kyle recognized it immediately; it was Marcus’s house.
Darius stepped out of the hallway and onto the road beyond. Kyle followed, feeling a warm, gentle breeze rustle his hair. He followed Darius past the gate to the front door of Marcus's house, and Darius pushed the door open without bothering to knock. They walked down the long, narrow hallway beyond, the floorboards creaking under their feet as they went. They made their way past a few closed doors on either side, reaching the door at the end, which Darius pushed open. Beyond, there was a familiar room; it was quite large, perhaps thirty feet square, with a cathedral-style roof supported by rough wooden beams. There were a few round tables in the center, with a large stove at the far end. Standing at the stove was a tall man with long salt-and-pepper hair. The man turned when they entered the room, smiling broadly.
“Ah, Darius!” he greeted. “Kyle! So good to see you both.”
“Marcus!” Kyle exclaimed, grinning from ear-to-ear. Marcus bowed slightly, then turned back to the stove, upon which sat a large silver pot. He used a ladle to spoon some delicious-smelling stew into three bowls, and carried these to one of the tables in the center of the room.
“Come, sit,” Marcus urged, pulling up a chair and sitting down. He turned to Kyle, his gray eyes twinkling merrily. “I remember how much you enjoyed my stew the last time, Kyle,” he added. Kyle sat down, as did Darius, and they all dipped their spoons into their bowls, eagerly consuming the delicious stew. Kyle made short work of his, polishing off the entire bowl within minutes. Darius was no slouch either.
“Now,” Marcus proclaimed as he finished his own stew. “I believe we had business to discuss.” He turned to Darius. “Have you explained everything to Kyle?”
“Does he ever?” Kyle grumbled. Marcus turned to him, smiling ruefully.
“Yes, well,” the old man stated. “To put it simply, Darius believes he's found where Xanos is living.”
“Where?” Kyle asked.
“Well, we're not exactly sure,” Marcus admitted. “Do you remember the Void?” Kyle nodded; the Dead Man had brought him to the Void on two occasions. “Darius searched for Xanos under the assumption that Xanos would live in or near a Void chamber similar to the one you both visited.”
“That makes sense,” Kyle reasoned.
“So Darius scanned Doma – the entire planet – for Void chambers,” Marcus continued.
“How'd you do that?”
“By creating small spacetime bridges and passing them through the upper part of Doma's crust,” Darius replied. When Kyle stared blankly at him, Marcus cleared his throat.
“You see,” the old man explained, “...the simplest spacetime bridges typically generate...and require...magic on both sides of the bridge.” He paused for a moment, sipping a glass of water. “When you both were captives of the Dead Man, Darius observed that the Void absorbed all magic from the earth around it, for at least a few hundred feet in all directions. And that was a small Void chamber,” he added.
“Very small,” Darius agreed.
“So you see,” Marcus continued, “...any time Darius tried to create a spacetime bridge anywhere near the Void, the magic needed to maintain the bridge was completely absorbed into the Void crystals, and the bridge collapsed.”
“Ohhh,” Kyle breathed.
“So by recording the coordinates of all the places on Doma where he couldn't maintain a spacetime bridge,” Marcus continued, “...Darius was able to map the likely locations of every Void chamber on the planet.”
“Wow,” Kyle stated, nodding at Darius. “That's really clever.” Marcus nodded.
“That's not the half of it,” he replied. “Darius was also able to estimate the sizes of each of the two hundred Void chambers, and one of them was much larger than all of the others.”
“There were two hundred of them?” Kyle exclaimed, his jaw dropping. Darius nodded grimly.
“Most the size of the Dead Man's chamber,” he confirmed.
“Yes,” Marcus agreed. “While the Dead Man's chamber was roughly forty feet in diameter, there was one chamber that was substantially larger.”
“How much larger?” Kyle asked. Marcus didn't answer, glancing at Darius.
“Eight miles,” Darius answered.
“Whoa,” Kyle breathed, a chill running down his spine.
“Indeed,” Marcus stated grimly. “You can see why we believe that's where Xanos must live.”
“But how can you be sure?” Kyle pressed. Marcus glanced at Darius.
“I interrogated Rivin and Bartholos's assassin,” Darius replied. Kyle blinked.
“Wait, how?” he asked. “The assassin vanished after Xanos...”
“I brought him here,” Darius interjected. “He's still here,” he added.
“He’s on Antara?”
“He is,” Marcus confirmed. “Darius employed my skills as a diplomat to win his trust, to get him to talk.” He paused the, glancing at Darius. “Darius made the alternative...unpalatable.”
“What did the guy say?” Kyle asked.
&nb
sp; “Darius's methods were far more effective than mine, I'm afraid,” Marcus admitted with a grimace. “I got very little out of him.”
“He confirmed that he got the shard he used on Rivin from an old man,” Darius stated. “The description matches the old man we met, and the one who killed Ariana.”
“Sabin?” Kyle asked. Darius said nothing, but Marcus sighed.
“Kyle, do you recall Kalibar telling you of how the Ancients were destroyed? How the original Empire was defeated?”
“Yeah,” Kyle replied. “Some guy tried to assassinate the Grand Runic and got caught,” he added. “They caught him and he escaped, and then he made the Behemoths and sent them to destroy the city.”
“Correct,” Marcus agreed. “And do you remember that man's name?” Kyle frowned.
“Uh, yeah, it was...” Then he blanked.
“Sabin,” Marcus finished.
“Right,” Kyle agreed. Then his eyes widened. “Oh!” He put a hand to his mouth, leaning back in his chair. “You're saying he's the same Sabin?”
“He is,” Darius answered. And the finality with which he said those two words left little room for doubt. But doubt Kyle did.
“How can you be sure?” he pressed.
“Because it's obvious,” Darius grumbled. Kyle glanced at Marcus.
“Sabin was the preeminent researcher of magic vacuity in Ancient times,” Marcus explained, leaning back in his chair. “His focus – before his arrest – was something he called the 'void mineral.'”
“Ohhh,” Kyle breathed, smacking his forehead with one hand. “Master Banar told me that!” he exclaimed. “I can't believe I missed it.”
“I can,” Darius grumbled.
“As Darius mentioned,” Marcus added, ignoring Darius's comment, “...there are numerous other clues as to Xanos's true identity. And they all point to Sabin,” he concluded. “A man considered to be second only to Ampir in ability.”
Kyle's eyes widened, and he felt a chill run down his spine.
“Wait,” he protested. “...you're saying that the old man we met in the Arena was the Sabin?”
“Not exactly,” Marcus corrected. “We have reason to believe that the old man you and Ariana met is merely another Chosen,” he added. “A body controlled by the real Sabin. Darius sensed shards in the old man...shards with a similar to the ones in the other Chosen, but far more complex.”