He motioned for the construction crewmen to step aside so he could inspect the fix. It looked like brand new to me. It appeared from the outside that no damage had ever occurred. They could move on without the public being any the wiser. I can't believe that Evan is the guy in charge of all this. Though he didn't seem much like the guy I knew for so long now, there’s no mistaking that he’s deeply involved in this cryptic scheme. While peering at him, I noticed he lacked a certain sense of human emotion. He conveyed an overly devoted focus on the goal at hand, like some sort of robot. In fact, most of the Squadron members present seemed robotic in movement and speech.
All expect Geary, of course. He was just as vile as usual. He seemed to possess all of his human traits that made him the derelict moron -I knew. That’s why I always kept a close eye on him. Always put him in the team I led. Being the commanding officer, I figured keeping morons like him in line was my duty. Of course, it was. And we never got along well because of it.
Evan walked away from the pillar, came over to me and crouched at my front. He lifted my head so that we were eye-to-eye. "I'm sorry that you couldn't stay in the fold, Criston," he said with his robotic talk. "We have been friends for so long and I must admit this is no easy task."
"You're no friend of mine," I said through my teeth. Then in drastic fashion, my tongue and lips, in fact, my entire mouth, reacted instinctively. I hocked a pile of spit straight into his face, and then arrogantly smirked.
He wiped away the spit like it wasn't repulsive at all to him. He didn't even flinch when the first bit of it touched his face after leaving my mouth. His eyes were cold blue, icy and distant. I stared into them, and all I could see was a captive mind. This isn't the Evan I grew up with, not a chance. I can’t read this new man. The walls of this man's mind didn't crumble as Evan's usually did when challenged.
Normally, he could never hide an ounce of emotion from anyone, better yet me. His best friend and really ... his brother. His icy blue stare didn't say much of anything to my heart, except nobody's home. His tan skin didn't have the same warming glow. He looked unnaturally pale. I thought maybe I shouldn't have done that, for Corinth's sake. I need everyone as calm as possible, to ensure he is treated with a sense of respect and care. But really, who could hope for such a thing from someone who hunts you down and holds you against your will.
"I deserved that I suppose, but let me assure you that you are only alive because those above me want it to be." He called my arrogantly smirk, and raised me the value of my life. New Evan had quite a hard poker face. He turned away to take something from a Squadron goon standing behind him. I couldn't make out what it was, so I let my head drop again. Just waiting for those around me to decide my fate, as well as Corinth's. I saw just Evan's legs swiftly turn back toward me after he retrieved what he wanted from the goon. Then, he freaking shot me!
"Ow!" I immediately cried out in shock. He got me right in the neck with an absorption dart. A little different from the bigger guns, it was intended for one target at a time. There was no blast radius to account for, just a single dart in my neck. It slowly started working its way through my system. Leeching out any traces of magik in me. I didn't want to go through this again, but I started passing out right after my head hit the cobblestone streets with the gold and silver pixie dust flakes in them. I could see only the sparkle from the flakes against the twilight as I began to drift away, lying helplessly on the Puente del Cielo.
Just before I completely lost it, I pulled out the dart sticking from the left side of my neck. I knew the effects had already kicked in, but I was still defiant. My head had hit the ground hard a second ago and my vision was fading from it. But as I stared at the little mechanism I just-pulled from my neck, I’m almost certain it isn't an absorption dart. If not, then what on earth did he just do to me?
Chapter 4:
The Seat Of Power
March 28, 1002 ~ Midday
I came to while in the back of a moving van. I was lying sideways at the very back of the vehicle on its floor. I guess these guys didn't care much about the condition in which I arrived to wherever we're headed. My hands were still handcuffed behind my back. I tried to wiggle out, but it was pointless. From wiggling, I realized that my feet were now shackled as well. Evan knows all too well that I'm crafty. Apparently, he is too. Even more so than I. He must have thought to take every precaution possible to prevent me from escaping.
I can't see to the outside, so I can't gauge where we may be going. But wherever it is, I can tell the driver is in a huge rush to get there. The van kept making sudden turns and swerving back and forth. It seemed as if the driver was-evading traffic, because there’s a loud siren that accompanied the roar of the engine. I had never seen an interior of a van like this before while at Squadron. In fact, the siren was different from the local police units, and Squadron's alike. If I took a gander, I’d say that we are in the city center. Hints from the evasive driving. That's the only place I can think of that's populated enough to need to drive like a maniac.
I realized that I had no idea how much time haspassed. The darts are usually weaker than the radius blast. Also, I wasn't using much magik at the time, but I had just used a spell with that cheetah girl’s llave before they caught up with me. Abruptly, I recalled my fading mind on the bridge. Was it a dart or some new technology he shot me up with? Without my llave, things are-going to be very rough with these guys. Most likely it hadn't been very long, only a couple of hours I’d estimate.Then again, the sun was fading when I began fading, but now she’s standing tall in the sky, I noticed from one of two back windows.
The car came to a very sudden stop. With my body being pressed up against, what seemed like two outward opening backdoors, I still couldn't get any sort of vantage point. My mind raced about Corinth's well being. That sun-dried Gente Peligroso from the abandoned factory said something about a transfer. I’d never dream that Evan is willingly taking part in a plot that might end my son’s life.
I kept on thinking sad and maddening thoughts until the two backdoors swung open and I rolled out off the floor of the van onto a road filled with shrieking people. It was a low drop, but still hurt, -as I couldn’t even begin to brace myself for it. The masses had come out for some event, but it didn't seem like anything remotely cheerful. Some screamed, some threw their fist into the air in rebellion, and others even carried signs. Signs that nearly split my mind in half.
I thought it possible, but I never imagined the extent to which the 8ights Council would go to remain firmly in control of all that occurred in Draconia and abroad. But only here in Draconia could they amass a crowd like this. Full of angry parents, scared onlookers, -and lone strangers that just wanted something to yell about. This was the 8ights’ way of making people feel like their voices were being heard. By giving them the opportunity to confront public enemy number one.
"Me," I whispered at first, while staring up from the ground at the crowds behind barredmetal barricades. "You think I'm the one to blame for all this. Open your eyes people… you're being duped!" I started shouting, but with all the push back from the large crowd in Center Square, no one could hear my cries. Not even me. The collective voices of concerned citizens, or idiots, whichever fits best, drowned out my every word.
A set of Squadron goons, guys I never encountered before in my fourteen year career, picked me up off the ground where I fell from the van. As they erected me to an upright position, I found myself facing the crowd head on. They were held back by dozens of those barricades. I assumed they would, at the very least, unshackle my legs so that I could walk, but the opposite happened.
They grabbed me almost simultaneously. Onefrom underneath my shoulders, and the other from beneath my knees. Those two went on carrying me after a third goon dressed in a standard all black jumpsuit slammed shut the van’s backdoors. These were the ordinary Squadron uniforms, but these weren't ordinary Squadron members. These guys seemed superhuman. Way too strong for their sizes, and just so damn
emotionless.
Every time I caught a glimpse into one of their eyes, they appeared lifeless. The color of their eyes was also very strange. I had never seen a shade of blue like that in all my life here in Draconia. This is our race, we all have blue eyes, some lighter and shiny than others, but nonetheless just plain old blue eyes. This shade was so icy, so shiny that it didn't look like something that occurred in nature. At least not the nature I grow up around. Come to think of it, Evan had the same myopic stare shuttering through and through last I saw him.
Though it's possible that I'm the one who has become myopic. As I glanced back at the crowd behind me, all I saw was a gray blur of angry faces that I couldn't see past. I couldn't distinguish one mad face from another anymore. I lacked the ability to relate to the fears that must be enveloping all of the Worlds right now. To hear that a new World has been created must be terrifying. There were so many dangerous people out there, even groups of them like the Gente Peligroso, but no one believed that anyone had the power to do such a thing. Year after year, we hear different news stories about someone trying and failing miserably to use the forbidden spell that Julia masterfully wielded. Overtime, those stories occurred less and less. The very nature of them struck fear in the hearts of potential candidates for future attempts to create with the dreaded phrase:
Novus Ordo Seclorum
I didn't dare utter the phrase aloud, for fear of the outcome. I didn't even have my llave with me and I still couldn't muster the courage that Julia didn't seem to think twice about. To bring about a New Age Order is no small feat.
While I thought, I looked around at the buildings downtown and they didn't have the same vibrancy that I used to notice. Center Square at the Parthenon was crowded and tense, but all I saw was a uniformed image of gray on gray. The goons had gotten me to the large marble steps of the Parthenon and were carrying me up into the building, where I presume the 8ights Council would decide my fate.
We were close to the high extending marble columns that were the support structure of the large and slightly inclined rooftop. Everything in Center Square is made out of marble. Every texture, sculpture ... just everything. The crowds were huddled around the huge, you guessed it, marble circular fountain at the center of the square. The entire space was dominated by the Parthenon itself, but there were two smaller replica buildings that lay at it sides.
Also, a-plentiful group of trees that sat directly across from the Parthenon, over the large grounds that enclosed the area forming the square. The rectangular Parthenon building, and its slightly inclined triangular roof, had small statues of all the former Draconian leaders sitting inside the wide-open space. The square was technically a rectangle, because the replica buildings weren't nearly the size of the Parthenon. Though the Alley of Trees, as it’s called, ran the length of the Parthenon from the opposite side. But why bother calling the square a rectangle if no one else has ever said a word.
From beyond the Alley of Trees I could see the rest of the City Center's gray buildings disappearing from my sight. The goons took me inside the government run edifice and hoisted me onto a rolling limestone altar.
The doors slammed behind us and silence took the stage. The Parthenon has always been sound proof, so that protest from the people never intimidated the Draconian council during any deliberation. As if it could. The small councils of each World and the 8ights themselves are the ones always doing the pushing and shoving. Especially in Draconia. I can't imagine how Sebastian would let them brand me a fugitive.
Some -of the signs out there said things like;"Aiding Criminals Is A Crime!" and“You Have No Right To Your Draconian Blood, So Give It Back!" With as long as the phrases on those signs were, they really spoke volumes of the things that occurred in the day and a half that I spent behind Julia's crumbling walls of Corinthia. They branded me an accomplice in her failed attempt to shelter Corinth. I suppose that's chiefly due to my presence provoking her ego, but I couldn't just not see my son ever again. The stakes here are climbing higher and higher, and I have no idea how I can bring them down.
The goons in black continued the transfer of me, from their hands, onto the altar. They strapped me onto it like a sacrificial lamb. My arms were spread out slightly above my head and my legs were strapped down and spread out as well. "Where are you taking me?" No answer came back from the tall tan skin guy with the scar behind his left ear. "Where is Sebastian, the Chancellor? I'm a friend of his; I demand you take me to him!"
"Making demands won't get you anywhere with them, friend," Evan said, with a sly smile and giddy deposition. He was a few yards down the short corridor. He leaned up against a half-pillar that was built into the gray and black swirling texture of the walls. A small wood and gold coffee table sat next to him. On top of it, I noticed a black and gold lamp that brought back memories.
This was the same chamber of the Parthenon where I, and some of my Squadron team members, found the former Chancellor dead at his desk from a heart attack, at age forty-one. That lamp was on his desk at the time, which is just beyond the entryway that Evan is standing in front of, and then down the hall. The lamp was labeled as a treasure in memory of the late Chancellor. There were tours being given in his honor and things like that lamp were landmarks and talking points for the tour guides to explain his unlikely rise and fall as the youngest Chancellor in Draconian history.
Sebastian was a part of the senate before he rose to claim the seat of Chancellor. The senate voted him in nearly unanimously, which was odd considering the public’s disdain for his desires to return to the days of old. We probably should have had an election, but he was in the line of succession, and the elected senate approved him. Though true, he was anti-Phillip, some might say. Phillip became Chancellor while running against Sebastian and beat him with ease. Sebastian was a man without compromise. His first order as Chancellor, in Phillips stead, was to ban the use of magik. Something that hasn't occurred since the days when the Great Eight still walked the earth over a millennium ago. Those were different times, very different, but Sebastian was obsessed with that era. It's a wonder he hasn't done away with the 8ights Council all together. He didn't take their advice on anything anyhow.
Likewise, it's truly a wonder why he ever liked me. My marriage to Julia was something even the most liberal Draconians would think to be over the line. Her green eyes and different cultural background being the only reason. But I couldn't let that thwart love. It would have been the worst decision of my life. And that's saying something, considering where I am now. All because of her.
"I'm imagining your biggest concern right now is that troubling son of yours, am I right, Criston?” He was mocking me, but he also had Corinth in his grasp, so this one I'd have to play cool.
"I am really concerned," I started out calmly. "Corinth is just a boy, you know that. He can't handle all of this. If you need to take me in, then do it, but send him up north to my mother’s. It's the best place for him to be right now."
"You still don't get it!" Evan shouted in an angrily excited tone. He was scratching behind the left side of his neck like it was a lottery ticket. He'd start to bleed soon if he didn't get a grip. "You are not the prize," he went on, "your son, Corinth, he’s the prize in all this! Not you, so get over yourself! Everything isn't about you!" his voice started to crack as he bent over and fell to the white and black marble floors of the same pattern from the walls.
I was silently hoping for him to drop dead, but I tried to keep a cool composure. The two goons guarding me at my sides rushed over to help, but he swatted at them like flies.
"Get your grubby hands off of me! I'm fine. Just get him into the offices and continue on with the operation!" They reacted on command and returned to my sides to wheel me into the former offices of Chancellor Phillip. Now the offices of acting Chancellor, Sebastian Wilcox. As we passed Evan, and made our way through the black arches of the threshold, he whispered something into my ear. "Things aren’t what they seem," he almost sounded like his natural
self again.
When we entered the vestibule of the Chancellor's offices, I noticed something odd. A peculiar mark behind the ear of the other goon, who was a little bit shorter than the goon to my right. They both had the same scar behind their left ears. I saw this guy's scar as he dipped inward and turned his head. He was trying to get a better grip on the handlebars that helped them wheel the heavy altar they had me horizontally strapped to. At first, my only sight was the ceiling and their faces, and then they used the handles to redirect the position of the altar. They turned me upright and continued pushing me forward on the two bottom wheels.
The Chancellor's offices were subdivided into different chambers for the members of his staff. The hall we're in is wrapped around in a circle. There were dark brown doors every few feet. They all had small gold plated labels on them, bearing names engraved in black. These are the different offices of the staff that are important enough to warrant needing an office. The Chancellor's personal office is positioned at the very end of the hall, in either direction. There are two entrances or exits, if ever Sebastian chooses to use them. The office is large and has a huge window that covers the whole wall behind the Chancellor's desk. It overlooks a beautiful garden on the outside perimeter of the Center Square.
Original Souls (A World Apart #1) Page 9