Crimson Strike
Page 24
Once Panthra was patched back up, I was sure I could come up with an excuse to take her out for training with a small shuttle. Sure, she was mechanical, but now she was the closest thing I had left to a real friend in the system. As long as I had her, my sword, and my glove, I could take my power and responsibility to fight the Dominion whenever and wherever they next appeared.
Because, if there was one thing I knew, it was that our fight with the Dominion wasn’t over.
EPILOGUE
THE DARK INTERIOR of the City Courthouse had been silent for several hours. Cleaning crews had been working on the landscaping and had cleared most of the rubble outside of the courtroom. But nobody had come inside to begin work on the building’s interior. Not yet.
Something moved beneath the large slabs of fallen wall in the center of the building. If anyone had been looking carefully, they might have seen something yellow glowing between the cracks. And they surely would have heard the sounds of struggle as something moved the wreckage, followed by the pale, long-nailed hand that shot out from beneath.
After several minutes of groaning, a bald-headed figure with pointy ears pulled himself out from under the broken sections of wall and onto their uneven surface. He stood slowly and flipped up the large collar of his dust-covered coat to protect his pale skin from the streaming light that came in through the room’s high windows. He then reached into the coat’s inner pocket and removed something small and red, about the size of a marble. The creature held it out, and when he released it, the little orb hung in the air.
Bowing his pale head, he moved his spindly fingers in a complicated pattern and muttered a steady stream of strange-sounding syllables. As he did so, the orb grew larger and larger. After almost an hour of uninterrupted incantations, the steadily humming sphere was almost a meter in diameter, its surface a roiling swirl of red. Suddenly, a pillar of red light shot straight up from the sphere, knocking yet another a hole in the roof.
Loud voices sounded from somewhere outside the room. The creature quickly reached into his shirt and pulled out a gold chain. In his slender hand, the black vulture pendant’s sun-yellow stone began to glow, and with a grunt of exertion, a thin, bright bolt of yellow light shot out and struck the orb. The random swirling shapes on the sphere quickly became ordered horizontal rings which migrated up and down its surface until they all met in the center. A moment later, there was an explosion of light. The walls around him grew transparent for a moment, and when he looked up along the red beam of light, he could see through the biodome and out into space, where an objects in the distance glinted.
The moment quickly passed. The pale figure stepped back from the glowing orb, grasped his necklace, and held it near his face. Something like the crackling of static sounded, followed by an unintelligible deep murmur.
The creature opened his mouth to reveal several long, crooked fangs. “Send me a veiled frigate outside this enclosure,” he said. “Inform the Ultimate Magus that I have set the anchor point for the next oculi.”
He looked back up at the pillar of light shining up through the roof, then continued, “And tell His Excellency that I will be attending personally to the moons of Caelus.”
As soon as he had finished speaking, the orb flared brightly, but quickly dimmed, bringing an end to the bright red pillar as the orb crashed to the ground. The looming figure’s edges began to blur and his form folded in upon itself, becoming both smaller and darker. A moment later, a large leather-winged bat shot out of the building and flew far away, out of sight.
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