Book of Dark #1: Always Stand Up

by Deepak Khanchandani

  ~~~

  Tristan emerged from the elevator and made the short walk down the hallway to his apartment. When he got to his door, he was entirely unsurprised to find it ajar.

  His abode was a sparse but functional affair which bore the distinct feel of unintentional permanence. This was, of course, unsurprising, since it had started off as a transitory stopgap, but had ended up serving as Tristan’s home for over a decade now. It had one of those new-fangled open floor plans that Tristan didn’t like much—he missed walls. The kitchen could be found to the left upon entering, and the living room to the right, with a passageway in between which led to the bedrooms within.

  Gingerly, Tristan entered, only to find the kitchen lights on and the refrigerator door open, too.

  “Symbrellus,” he sighed, “If you must strut around in the human world, you might want to bear in mind that antlered beasts aren’t exactly local fauna around these parts.”

  He pushed the door of the fridge shut to reveal the Majjikon lumbering behind it.

  There were a number of ways to introduce Symbrellus: Grand Gaian; oldest and most permanent resident of the High Realm; Head of the Council of Majjikons; and, last but not least, Tristan’s old Zennhai—his mentor and trainer—from an era bygone.

  The large-framed Majjikon stood cloaked in dark maroon robes and had his neck bent sideways to stop his head going through the ceiling. His wrinkly face was framed by a beard which, save for a grey strand here and there, was as white as snow, as were the few hairs that still stubbornly clung to the sides of his otherwise bare head.

  And he held a turkey leg in his hand, the incriminating outcome of his raid on Tristan’s fridge.

  “Trizovarius!” he said, engulfing Tristan in a big bear hug and inadvertently smearing turkey juice all over his back.

  “It’s Tristan, actually,” said Tristan, helpless against the stifling hug. Trizovarius was the name of a man that the high school teacher had once known very well indeed, a man who had once been an integral part of the Council of Majjikons, a man whose every word had once been trusted, whose every instruction followed by all—not only the Realmsfolk (residents of the High Realm) and the PeaceKeepers, but the Councilmembers too.

  But that had been a long time ago. Tristan had not been that man for many, many centuries now.

  When Symbrellus finally released him and began to chuckle, his belly jiggling all over the place, Tristan couldn’t help but think how much the man had let himself go.

  “Worry not,” said Symbrellus sinking his teeth into the turkey leg, “I shall be more careful with Muuki.” He caught Tristan staring at the drumstick in his fist. “Ah, that, yes, well, we had expected you back sooner, you see, and having not quite had supper yet…”

  “Fine,” said Tristan, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “Tell me, though, Trizovarius—”

  “Still Tristan—” started the teacher, but Symbrellus, being quite uninterested in this little titbit, kept on talking.

  “—how much longer must the charade continue?”

  Tristan turned away, his interest in playing the kind host waning by the second. “What are you here for, Symbrellus?”

  “Why, to urge you to stop wasting your time, of course!”

  “It’s not a waste of—” Tristan checked himself and took a deep breath. There was no point in lying to one of the most powerful Majjikon to ever walk upon Gaia. He adjusted his tone and his tact. “I mean, yes, it’s true that I expected the task to be easier, and to be completed sooner, but believe me when I say this, Symbrellus. There is a presence in that school. I sense it. I really do. And I’m so close to finding it. So close…”

  “Oh, Trizovarius!” said Symbrellus, his tone suddenly subdued and his expression softer, neither of which, in Tristan’s extensive experience of the man, was a good sign. “Dear, dear Trizovarius. Of course, it is only natural to want to believe that the loved ones we have lost still live. Yes, only natural…”

  It was a good act, and Tristan waited for the climax with arms folded and eyebrows raised.

  “But perhaps…” Symbrellus hesitated with perfectly rehearsed vacillation. “Perhaps one is merely indulging in wishful thinking?”

  “Are you quite done now? Good. Well, that’s not it. Not even slightly. And if you’d just meditate on this with me, you’d see that the—”

  “Alas, it has been centuries, Trizovarius! It is time you finally admitted that the beings you seek no longer even exist! It is time you moved on.”

  The hardening lines on Symbrellus’s face made Tristan resolve toughen too. He’d had enough of the naysaying and the taunts. Grand Gaian or not, Tristan felt the need to correct him.

  “Vlaiidruugh,” he said darkly.

  “Trizovarius!” Symbrellus was taken aback.

  “The LoneWalker.”

  “Stop it!”

  “Is he not considered impossible to find?”

  “That is quite enough!”

  “But you and I both know he exists, don’t we?” finished a defiant Tristan.

  “Preposterous! Simply preposterous!” The white-bearded Majjikon threw his arms in the air with indignation, sending bits of turkey splattering onto the walls. “I have traveled all this way to implore you to help us stop the Terralytes. Alas, here you are, spouting—what—mythology at me?!”

  But Tristan didn’t hear the last part of Symbrellus’s outburst because his brain had just tripped over a word…

  Terralytes.

  “Oh, and to think that I—” Symbrellus trailed off when he caught a glimpse of Tristan’s pale face.

  He heaved a sigh and nodded somberly, casting his anger aside, and that’s how Tristan knew that he’d heard right, that his worst fears were, in fact, coming true…

  Terralytes.

  So easily had Symbrellus uttered the name. So simply. As if the Days of Inequity had never even happened. As if the decades of death and destruction wreaked by the renegades who went by that name hadn’t forever changed the very course of history. And the course of his own life, too.

  It was a word that Tristan had neither expected nor wanted to hear again. Especially not now. Not when there was so much still to do.

  He absently walked out of the kitchen and into the lounge where he stopped at the large picture window that span almost the entire length and breadth of the wall. And as he stared out through it at the distant buildings that comprised the campus of John Atkins High, he couldn’t ward off the eerie feeling that something within the redbrick walls was calling out to him.

  Symbrellus joined him at the window and watched the stars in the sky for a few moments. A gloomy smile spread his beard as he put a hand on Tristan’s shoulder.

  “When or how they will come, I do not know,” he said, “But believe me, come they will.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “The Solarians,” said Symbrellus. “And they have had words with the Kahnomdaehi as well. They wanted him to speak with the Council. About Rodukai and Prophecy…”

  Tristan smirked, knowing, from first-hand experience, that the Solarians were banging their heads against an unyielding wall there.

  So, instead, he shifted his attention back to the imminent threat of the Terralytes. He wondered what could possibly have provoked them into resurrecting their Order. And why now? How strong would they be this time round? And which imposter would they be led by?

  He decided that waiting for the Terralytes to come to them was foolish, and that pre-emptive action was required.

  “I shall assemble a task force!” he announced, turning to Symbrellus, but straightaway regretted it, as he’d spoken too soon. “Er, once I can arrange some holiday leave, that is.”

  Symbrellus almost dropped his turkey leg.

  “I… beg your pardon?!”

  Tristan shrugged. “I can’t just take off without authorized leave, you know. After all, I am Chairman of the Student Prom Committee.” He said it with a sense of pride, the reason for which
seemed to be lost on Symbrellus.

  “I see. The once great Trizovarius has decided to take complete leave of his senses, has he?”

  “No, really. You see, there’s this ceremonial thing the humans hold at the end of an academic year called Prom…”

  “Oh, for Gaia’s sake! I know what Prom is, Trizovarius! And before you start explaining what a committee is next, I say you simply tell your overlords that you are feeling ill and make your way back to the High Realm on the doub—”

  “Symbrellus! That would be unethical! I was taught better than that… By you, actually.”

  This seemed to curb Symbrellus’s outrage. The large-bellied Majjikon sighed. “So be it. Now, would you be so kind as to stop this incessant hunt for the boys and start making preparations for—”

  “Stop the hunt?!” interjected Tristan. “On the contrary, we must double our efforts!”

  “Oh, good Gaia!” Symbrellus flung his hands into the air once again and stormed back into the kitchen, frustrated. He chucked the now bare leg bone into the trash and slammed his palms down on the kitchen counter. “When will you learn, Trizovarius?”

  “When will you?” Tristan scowled back.

  Why could no one else see how essential it was that Hozar’s twins be found? Indeed if the Terralytes were planning to return, the Khavarakh and the Rodukai and their collective powers were needed now more than ever. He was so tired of fighting over this with the Council, and with Symbrellus, and even with the Realmsfolk. It seemed that everyone, absolutely everyone, wanted to believe that the twins were dead.

  Everyone but Tristan.

  But how could he? For if Gaia’s Trifecta was truly no more, and if the Yoverikh—the Creator—had not been reborn, nor taken another form, it would mean that the cycle had failed to repeat, which would make Thuulmahr’s words bunk, and his legacy bogus.

  A sudden flash of inspiration hit Tristan.

  “Symbrellus,” he said, as the idea developed in his mind. “If you want me and my team to help you deal with a full-blown Terralyte resurgence, I’m going to need all the help I can get… You’re going to have to promise me one thing.”

  Symbrellus looked up, still cross. “And what would that one thing be?”

  “When the time comes, you must allow the boys to train.”

  “What? No! Absolutely not!”

  “Come, Symbrellus. You know that my team of warriors is the best amongst all the PeaceKeepers of the High Realm. And you know that they follow my lead and my lead alone.”

  “Well, now, that is rich, considering how very long a time you have been away for…”

  “It hasn’t been as long as you think it has,” Tristan said with a sly smile.

  “Nevertheless, our PeaceKeepers are quite capable. Yes, quite capable, indeed, thank you very much! I only came to warn you and that is all.”

  Tristan stifled a chuckle. In all his centuries, he hadn’t seen a worse liar than Symbrellus.

  “You and I both know that you would not have come had you not needed my help. Those are my terms,” he said, pressing home his advantage. “Non-negotiable. Take it or leave it.”

  It was a gamble, of course, because, while Symbrellus may not have been aware of Tristan’s last visit to the High Realm, it had still been many, many centuries ago.

  But Tristan was also aware of the factions in the Council working against the leadership, factions which Symbrellus simply did not trust.

  In essence, then, Tristan was gambling on the Head of the Council’s distrust outweighing whatever prejudices he held against the twins.

  “Good Trizovarius,” implored Symbrellus, with clasped hands. “This insistence shall consume what is left of you.”

  “So be it,” shrugged Tristan. “Shall I take that as a ‘yes’, then?”

  Tristan held steadfast and allowed Symbrellus to fully consider the offer. He knew that it was not the training of an additional boy or two that was weighing on the Grand’s mind, but the principle of allowing back into the High Realm direct descendants of Hozar—of the Rofikhuul, of the Devil, himself; of the only Fargham Zohai that ever lived; of the last known Master of the Terralyte Order…

  Symbrellus sagged as he finally conceded. “Fine, but only if they ask to be trained. Of their own accord. I shan’t allow High Realm resources to be expended on timewasters,” he said, wagging a finger at Tristan.

  “Fine by me,” said Tristan, fighting to keep a straight face and repressing his desire to punch the air in celebration.

  “Fortunate, then,” said Symbrellus, his cloak swirling dramatically as he turned to leave, “that they shan’t ask.” The Grand Gaian crouched under the ceiling and started toward the exit in long strides.

  “Oh, I think they will,” said Tristan, as he followed him to the door.

  “Shan’t!” said Symbrellus curtly, as he stormed through to the hallway beyond the apartment.

  “Oh, believe me, they will,” said Tristan, beaming at the back of Symbrellus’s cloak as it descend the stairs. He continued to smile as he heard the snorting of the elk, then the clatter of hooves, and, finally, the thud of the foyer door closing.

  But, as he retreated into his apartment, elation soon gave way to apprehension.

  Sure, after an argument which had lasted for centuries, he had, at long last, managed to wrest, however partially, what he wanted from the Head of the Council. But it had come at a hefty price.

  It wasn’t his return to the High Realm that he was worried about. He expected that part to be much like riding a bike; sure, he may be a touch rusty with the incantations to open the portal to Azav Rahd, and a tad hazy on the exact route through Kolaeritha and onwards to Moehndahr, but he was certain that it would all come back to him once his journey was underway.

  No, getting there wouldn’t be difficult. The part he had reservations about was locating and resurrecting the old team. He had now been away for so long that there was much that he simply did not know—like if the team members had kept up their training, or if they were still PeaceKeepers, or if they were still alive even. And Gaia only knew if they were even remotely up for what lay ahead.

  The Terralytes were coming.