by Jess C Scott
Dresan slipped into one of the tents. He was lucky. The people inside were all fast asleep. He used his stun gun swiftly and accurately on all of them. He worked systematically and with precision. When he made his exit, he smiled at Tavia, before continuing in the next tent. He’d make his way from one tent to another while Tavia stayed on guard outside. That way, they wouldn’t be outnumbered.
Dresan signaled to Tavia when he was going to slip into the next tent, which was slightly bigger than the others. His intent was to stun-gun all of the individuals who were fast asleep inside.
Tavia shook her head, before looking to the side. She thought she heard something.
“Too dangerous,” she whispered to Dresan. All it took was one bullet to cause a fatal wound. The tent Dresan was about to go into was slightly bigger than the rest. That could mean more people, which ultimately meant a higher chance of something going awry.
He chose not to take her advice, as he crept up to the tent. He raised his head when he thought he saw a guard moving in the distance. Dresan stood still, lifting the gun, and shot at the target, smiling when a dark figure fell to the ground: another eliminated officer. What Dresan didn’t expect was a guard that had crept right up into the compound.
The guard sprang up from the shadows, coming out from his hiding place beside one of the pitched tents. Dresan froze for a split second, as he stared down the barrel of a gun—before Tavia took aim and fired at the guard’s arm, causing the gun to fly out of his outstretched hand. Dresan shot the guard in the chest thereafter, bringing another sentry down.
Dresan took another step, before turning swiftly to the left, bearing the sole of his foot down into the ground for balance and support. He fired a shot, which caused a bullet coming in his direction to ricochet midair. Dresan took another step, to the side this time, when a guard stepped up from behind, aiming his weapon at Dresan. Tavia fired a shot, which missed, but sufficiently distracted the guard—it was Nin who heard the commotion, whipped out his pistol, and took aim, taking the guard down with one shot.
Dresan looked at Tavia and Nin with a straight face, bringing a hand across his collarbone in a, “I nearly got my head chopped off” gesture, before facing his palm up—his own wordless way of conveying a much-appreciated thank you.
Anya and Nin had witnessed Dresan’s narrow escape. Anya was close to immobilized. The sheer danger of what they were doing had really sunk in. She forced herself to continue frantically searching for the redroot, as Nin proceeded to search around the Tree of Life itself. He was seeking out some markings on the tree, or a specific spot to stand in the ground, while racking his brains as to what the symbol meant.
“Let not the eye fool thee…” Nin muttered under his breath, as he jumped on certain spots, waiting to see if reciting the poem would have any effect.
He met Anya’s gaze for a moment, and he put his hands up slightly, to signal that he still hadn’t found the symbol.
Don’t give up, she sent her thoughts to him.
Nin recited the whole poem, then different portions. But nothing happened still.
He paced up and down, before stopping at the base of the tree, where its roots still clung strongly into the ground. 2, 1, 7, Nin thought to himself. Second, first, and seventh signs—Taurus, Aries, and Libra—Julius, Anya, and me—do we all need to be here, for something to happen?
Nin recalled the illustrations on the parchment, and went on the ground, using his index finger to drawing out the rough design of the Zodiac symbol—of the circle, divided into 12 separate and equal parts.
“Orn, Ilfirin,Lir,” he tried again, almost chanting the three words that o, i, and l stood for, on the Elven parchment.
Just as Anya found a small box containing red roots, Nin muttered the ‘2, 1, 7’ code of numbers, and marked the first segment at the top of the circle as ‘1’, for the first sign of Aries, and marking the subsequent signs, in an anti-clockwise direction. He had always respected the ancient arts of astrology, mathematics, and magic, whether or not anyone else shared his beliefs. “Orn, Ilfirin, Lir”—he repeated, using his hand to touch the ‘2, 1, 7’ segments of the Zodiac symbol, with each of the Elven words he uttered.
Suddenly, the symbol shone on the ground. Nin was standing right over it. He stepped back in surprise, then in awe, at the Zodiac symbol in full detail framed by a circle. The entire symbol shone golden, like it had been engraved into the ground. A glass capsule was situated in the middle of the symbol, gleaming like a clear gem. He knew then, what he had to do.
He was just about to call out to Anya, when she ran over to him, holding out a piece of redroot.
“You found it!” Anya whispered, though she could still hear the pride in her voice.
“And so did you…” Nin replied, tilting his chin towards the redroot. It was the last, elusive item to form the elixir. “Which box was it?”
“A small one.” Anya pointed to the open box where she had left it. “I thought I’d never find it.”
“Hurry up…” Tavia whispered to Nin. She didn’t mean to interrupt them, or rush him unnecessarily, but she wanted all of them to get out of the compound as soon as they could. Tavia snuck a quick peek of the golden Zodiac symbol, before turning around again. She sensed danger in the air, and was using all her strength to stay focused and alert for the slightest sign of movement.
“Redroot and diamond dust,” Nin whispered the first line of the poem titled ilfirin. Anya’s eyes widened when a shimmer went over the Zodiac symbol. Even the elements of nature seemed to respond—the wind picked up speed, coming in from all four corners of the world—an inner pulse from deep within the earth caused the ground they were standing on to move, and streaks of lightning flashed across the dark clouds gathering overhead in the blackened sky.
Nin retrieved the partial elixir from the box in Anya’s hand. “The redroot,” he asked her, and Anya handed it over to him, feeling the sense of mystic power that seemed to be as natural to Nin as breathing was to Anya.
Nin stepped into the symbol, holding up the vial in one hand, and then tossing the redroot into the solution. “Redroot and diamond dust. One part moonshine”—he held up his pendant, above his eye level. Anya saw a beam of moonlight split through the pendant. The diamond dust pieces in the vial swirled up in a brilliant burst of white light.
“One part Elvenhumankind!” Nin finished.
Dresan heard the high whistle of the iron arrowhead, which struck Tavia. She fell to the ground, clutching her thigh, before yanking out the arrowhead. Before she could reach for her guns, she found herself the target of another weapon—a long rope with twin metal weights, that wrapped and locked itself round her ankles.
Dresan fired off random shots in the direction of the dart. He turned to Nin once, for a nanosecond, with a look that said, “Where, where’s it coming from?”—before crouching in a low bend, dodging another dart that flew out from the shadows. Dresan moved forward—he thought he spotted a hand, a flash of silver in the dark—and fired a few shots, deflecting a dart that would have hit Nin, before falling to the ground once another dart was fired—a dart which sliced across the side of Dresan’s neck. It knocked him out completely. He lay motionless on the ground.
Nin drew his plasma gun with one hand, and handed the vial to Anya. “Pour this inside,” he instructed, already turning to face his opponent.
“Where?” Anya asked, but Nin was fully focused on the next shot which he knew was coming.
The elixir sparkled with a swirl of red and gold stardust. Anya kept her hand steady, noticing the glass capsule in the center of the symbol. The capsule had lifted part of its cover, revealing a small golden hollow inside, with the Zodiac symbol engraved at the bottom. She felt more comfortable leaving this to Nin, but he was now looking out for both of them. All she had to do was get this final step done right.
Nin heard a barely perceptible ‘clink,’ and spotted Julius in the dark, from a menacing glint in Julius’s soulless gray-blue eyes. It was
the coldest look Nin had ever seen, directed solely at him.
Julius wanted him dead—he wanted all of them dead. He deeply regretted believing Nin so easily, that he took Nin’s word that he didn’t know anything about “the Elven seal.”
“The symbol’s right there…” Julius muttered to himself, as he swerved to the side to avoid getting hit by Nin’s laser gunshot. “You knew about it, all along—the elixir’s mine!”
I didn’t—I didn’t know! Nin thought, picking up on Julius’s words as the breeze blew in his direction. He could explain—Julius wouldn’t even have to wait more than a minute, to see the Tree’s true power—but he knew it was impossible to have any kind of negotiation with Julius, whose single-minded mission was to exterminate anyone that stood in the way between himself and the elixir.
One of the high-powered shots Nin fired hit Julius in the chest. Julius stumbled—Nin brought his gun down, as he turned towards Dresan and Tavia, meaning to check on the injuries they had sustained.
As Julius fell back, he fired one last iron arrowhead, aiming at Anya, who was almost done with pouring the entire elixir into the capsule. When the last drop had been emptied, the glass cover resealed the capsule. The glistening elixir streamed out, following the lines of the golden symbol.
Anya’s heart froze to ice when she heard the whistle of the iron dart coming her way. The archer hiding in the distance, she recalled from her dream, with an arrowhead—
She turned—to see that Nin had run ahead, towards her, shielding her while deflecting the arrowhead with a clean laser shot. A second later, and Anya’s wrist would have been shredded to pieces by the iron dart. Her heart skipped a beat when she glanced down at the laser gun in Nin’s hand, which had kept her from harm.
Nin smiled at her, keeping his upright stance to let her know she was safe…just as Julius set off a programmed iron hummingbird bullet. He’d saved the best weapon for last.
“Nin’s heart,” Julius whispered to his secret weapon, unheard and unseen by anyone on Xenith’s compound—his compound—as he set the speciality high-speed bullet off to locate its target.
Nin took a moment to catch his breath. It was the only moment he was totally caught off guard—the only moment that the bullet needed. They never saw the bullet coming at high-speed, and the shrapnel going through Nin’s body like it was designed to do.
“NIN!”
Anya’s scream pierced the night, as Nin slumped onto the ground, taking the execution shot to the back of his chest—dead center in his heart.
Chapter 19:
Nin couldn’t feel a thing. He lay with Anya, beneath the tree, the bullet shrapnel embedded in him, as scattered rays of sunlight started filtering through its branches.
Leticia came running forward into the clearing, her hand cut and bruised, where she’d wrestled and squeezed her hand out of the handcuff. Blood trickled down from a jagged, nasty gash in her wrist. She saw what had happened, and noticed Julius’s body on the ground, not knowing if he was dead. She saw that she was too late. She got on her knees on the ground, quietly praying to her own God.
I blame myself, Leticia uttered in prayer. The image of Julius stepping out of the jeep with the case of arrowheads flashed over and over again in her mind. She felt she could have tried harder to stop Julius, though she’d done whatever she could.
Anya held Nin in her arms, cradling his head in her lap. She placed a hand over his chest, unable to accept what had happened. It was too unreal. Nin had left her side, to take down the individual that had fired off the darts—Julius. She’d heard the arrowhead coming in her direction—it was for her—she was the one that should have been hit.
Anya’s worst nightmare had come true—that of a friend, lying in her arms, in their last moments.
“There are more vials,” she said, half-choking on her words, her fingers fumbling over the wound in him. “There’s still a bit of time, there’s…”
Nin held her hand, feeling the hand of death closing in around his neck, the lifeblood ebbing away from his physical body.
The end of the line, Nin thought, remembering the break in his fate line, when Anya had held and read his palm.
Anya’s heart was torn in a whirl of conflicting feelings: enraged that Julius’s massacre had been so swift, embittered at the unjust outcome, engulfed by a sense of disappointment and discontent that hit her in the core of her soul. Having allowed Julius to have his precious elixir would have been a more merciful option than the torture she now had to endure because her life was spared.
Why had Nin made the decision to save Bloodstar, using the elixir? What if it turned out to be a wasted effort?
Anya searched the ethereal eyes of Nin: her roguish, Elven partner-in-crime, her slain friend, her first real love…and saw her own reflection…which led her to realize she was staring into the eyes of her soul mate.
“Nin…” she called out to him. “You can’t go, not now, not after we…”
She didn’t even know what to say, about all the things they seemed to have bonded over—the conversations they’d enjoyed—the essential culture they seemed to be drawn to…
“Look,” he whispered, the last word that came from his lips. He was looking at the Tree, a faint smile forming on his lips.
Anya leaned in. She gave him a kiss—a kiss of life, as she intended—before feeling his life force slip away from her, forever.
Leticia came over, laying a comforting hand on Anya’s shoulder.
“Anya…” Leticia said, pointing in the direction of the Zodiac symbol.
Through her tears, Anya watched as the golden circle started to rise from the ground. The battered half of Bloodstar was reaching its branches down toward the hollowed out earth surrounding it—just as Nin had said, about the branches being able to morph into roots. All the forces of nature were summoned—a strong, howling wind blew over the naked landscape—dark clouds in the sky swirled in a vortex above—as streams of glittering deep red and gold traveled up the Tree, from its deepest roots, to the leaves on the topmost branches.
As Bloodstar rejuvenated its life force, everyone and every living thing on the planet was engaged at their core, unified in the interconnectedness of all forms of life.
The compound started to transform right before them. Lush, fresh greenery started sprouting up over the barren, sandy, cracked areas of earth caused by all the recent excavations, and continued throughout similar spaces in the Amazon and beyond. The tents that had been set up by Xenith had all been blown away.
“Go, just go!” called out one of the scientists to his colleagues, who were now awake. Even the guards were scrambling out of the vicinity as quickly as they could, some dropping their weapons along the way, not knowing what was going on.
Leticia tugged hard on Anya’s shirt sleeve, and held onto Anya. Anya hugged Leticia back in return, clinging to her. They had both survived—what about the rest?
They watched Julius slowly blinking his eyes, and beginning to regain consciousness. The first thing he set his gaze upon was the Tree, surrounded by a pure, crystal-white halo, before he turned towards Leticia. For a moment, Leticia remembered the good times they had shared. Despite what he had done to her only just moments ago, she found herself feeling pity for him. She thought he had the same look of repentance on his face too.
“Leticia,” Julius called out in an almost inaudible voice, “Please…I’m so sorry…”
He tried to lift his hand, but he was far too weak. Leticia looked at Anya, as if for approval. Anya forced a thin, weak smile, before gazing down at Nin. Leticia approached Julius and took his hand in hers. At least she could offer him a last gesture of comfort. She felt Julius’s grip tighten a little.
“Leticia,” Julius repeated, in a ghostly voice.
Leticia felt his grip grow stronger. Somehow her presence seemed to give him strength. She saw some color seep back into his face. What was happening? She turned to look at Anya, frantic for an answer, and saw Anya still cradling
the lifeless Nin in her arms.
“What’s going on?” Leticia questioned. Suddenly, she understood.
“Julius, I can save you,” she said in a rush. “My love for you is giving you strength. You don’t need to die…but just promise…promise you will not harm the tree, Bloodstar.”
Julius tightened his grip. What Leticia had said seemed to be true. He seemed to be growing stronger. He could stay alive—he wanted to.
“I won’t,” he said. He wouldn’t harm the tree. What Nin said was true—Julius could see it for himself now. What he thought was gibberish was actually fact, not fiction. Julius thought he might even try to protect the tree, now that he’d witnessed its powers first-hand.
But he noticed the color draining away from Leticia’s face, which was looking more gaunt and sunken, the longer he held on. He was watching his touch drawing her life force—if he lived, then she would have to die. He remembered what he had done to Leticia, and Anya, and Nin. Julius deduced Nin was the ultimate betrayer, who knew how to piece together the symbol and numbers on the parchment, to reveal the elusive and prized elixir of eternal life.
He looked at Nin and Anya for a brief moment, realizing what he had done. A sense of immense remorse came over him: she was never going to get him back. Julius could feel Bloodstar calling out for him—his blood—to repay Nin’s life that he’d taken.
Julius released Leticia’s hand the slightest bit, and already saw she was a little less drained. He remembered the better times they had shared. He couldn’t let her die, especially not for him. He knew what he had to do.
Slowly, he loosened his hold on her hand.
“Julius,” Leticia cried out, “Julius, don’t let go…”
“It’s better this way,” Julius said in a deathly whisper. “I don’t deserve to be here.” Then he looked deep into her eyes, with an intensity Leticia had never seen before. It was a soft, tender look, with a touch of genuine humility. “Remember me this way.”
He let his hand slip out of hers. In that instant, Leticia saw Julius’s body and soul transpire into the golden Zodiac symbol. Then the whole ground seemed to reverberate. A single, blinding beacon of light shone from Bloodstar, in a column toward the heavens, then in an all-surrounding halo. Anya and Leticia both held out their arms to shield their eyes from the brightness. With a final blinding flash of light, the Zodiac symbol was covered forever more.