by Clayton Wood
Marcus walked away then, his back to Kyle, moving across the large room toward the hallway Kyle had walked in from a short time ago. Kyle paused, unsure of what to do, then stood up, following Marcus into the hallway. The old man stopped suddenly halfway to the front door of the house, and Kyle stopped beside him.
“It's time for you to go,” Marcus stated gently. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” He gave one last smile. “Darius believes in you, Kyle,” he added. “And so does Kalibar. You should too.”
Kyle lowered his gaze, mumbling a “yes sir.” Marcus pushed him gently but firmly toward the door.
“Tell Darius I said hello,” he called after Kyle. “And tell him I said congratulations, would you?”
* * *
When Kyle opened the front door of Marcus's house and stepped out into the sun, Darius was waiting for him. The bodyguard had changed back into his characteristic golden armor, his huge sword strapped to his side. Kyle wondered how he'd gotten a hold of his armor after the Dead Man had confiscated it, then remembered who he was dealing with.
“Come on,” Darius prompted, motioning for Kyle to follow him. They walked silently over the stone walkway leading back to the street ahead, sunlight glimmering off of Darius's armor as he moved. Kyle realized that his feelings about the man had changed since his talk with Marcus; he still resented what Darius had allowed to happen to Kalibar, but he no longer hated the man. Darius's intentions had been noble, but a lifetime of blindness was too extreme a price to pay for Kalibar's so-called salvation.
They continued down the street, the line of tall trees to their right now, the tall black fence with trees beyond to their left. Kyle began to worry that his continuing silence might make Darius think he was still mad, and the urge to break it soon became overwhelming.
“Marcus seems nice,” Kyle offered. Darius said nothing, but turned his head ever-so-slightly Kyle's way. Kyle glanced at the man's expressionless face, then sighed. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. Darius still didn't respond. Kyle took a deep breath in, feeling rather annoyed that the man was making this so difficult for him. A normal person would have said something, after all. But he tried again. “Marcus...”
“I know,” Darius interjected. Kyle frowned.
“I haven't even told...” he began.
“No need,” Darius replied. Kyle grit his teeth.
“But can't I just tell...”
“No.”
Kyle fought down a wave of frustration, kicking a loose pebble on the street.
“You suck sometimes,” he muttered. Then, to his surprise, he felt a metallic arm drape around his shoulders. He turned to see Darius smiling at him.
“So do you,” he countered. But he gave Kyle's shoulders a squeeze, then let go, lowering his arm to his side. Then he made a turn toward a small, nearly invisible dirt path to their right between the trees, and Kyle followed close behind. The path was too narrow for them to fit side-by side, and had short bushes lining either side. The path wound through a thick copse of trees, twisting this way and that, until it stopped, opening up abruptly to a large, rocky ledge. Darius stepped to one side, giving Kyle an unhindered view of what lie beyond.
Kyle's jaw dropped.
The rocky ledge was just that...a narrow outcropping that ended abruptly, dropping into a sheer cliff some ten feet from where it started. Beyond, there was endless blue sky...at least until he looked down. Hundreds of feet below, there was a mass of angry, churning gray clouds unlike any Kyle had ever seen. Bolts of lightning flashed in the depths of that roiling maelstrom, the clouds circling the cliffside in a narrow belt. Beyond, there was only blue sky and fluffy clouds...and a hint of darker blue miles below. Something that looked suspiciously like an ocean.
“Whoa...” Kyle blurted out, grabbing onto Darius's metal-clad arm. No matter how long he'd practiced flying with his gravity boots, he was still wary of heights. He turned to the bodyguard. “Wait, where are we? Are we in the sky?”
“Yep,” Darius replied. Kyle shook his head, staring downward at the ocean below, barely able to believe his eyes.
“The entire city is floating?”
“Yep.”
“Wow,” Kyle breathed. Then he frowned. “What are those clouds there?” he asked, pointing to the dark, angry clouds surrounding the cliffside far below.
“It's complicated,” Darius replied. He pointed to the border between the blue sky and the dark clouds. “This island – Antara – floats above the surface of a planet far from Doma, on the other side of the galaxy. The dark clouds are from that planet's atmosphere...mostly substances you know as sulfuric acid, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen.”
“Wait, but we're breathing oxygen,” Kyle observed. Darius nodded.
“Beyond the dark clouds is Doma's atmosphere,” he explained. “This island exists in the other planet, but a continuously open spacetime bridge supplies breathable air...and a view of Doma's ocean.”
Kyle frowned, staring down at the roiling clouds, then at the blue sky beyond.
“I don't get it,” he admitted. Darius smirked.
“No one does at first,” he replied. Then he dropped to one knee on the rocky ground below, gesturing for Kyle to do the same. With the tip of one gauntleted finger, Darius traced out the following, the rock below turning a smoky black color as he went.
“That,” he stated, is the island we're on now.” Then he continued to “draw,” his finger leaving a dozen or so indentations in the rock. “This...” he added...
“...is the planet's poisonous atmosphere, and the surface is a few miles below that.” Then he drew another, arcing line around the island:
“This,” he explained, “...is the shape of the spacetime dome connecting Doma and the other planet. As you can see, only Doma's atmosphere can get through to the city...and if you look out at the edge of the island like we are now...” He drew another two lines, representing their field of vision:
“...you can see the alien planet's atmosphere circling the island, and Doma beyond.”
“Wow,” Kyle replied, staring at the drawing on the ground, then at over the edge of the cliff. “That's pretty amazing.” Then he frowned. “Wait, you're floating an entire island miles above an alien planet? Doesn't that take a lot of magic?” He had a hard enough time levitating himself for any extended period of time, after all...particularly after his visit to the Void.
“You could say that,” Darius replied with a wry smile.
“Where does the magic come from?”
“From the milarite Core,” Darius answered. Kyle frowned, vaguely remembering Darius having mentioned milarite before. “Remember when you were looking out of the windows earlier?”
“Oh, the green stuff,” Kyle realized.
“Milarite is a mineral,” Darius explained. “It's great at storing magic. The Core you saw was only a small column of the total. That column extends down into the island itself, and makes up most of the inside of the island.”
“Wait, so the entire island stores magic?” Kyle asked. Darius nodded. “But it's like, ten miles long!” he exclaimed. A one-carat diamond could store enough magic to last Kyle for a full day's worth of training...an entire island of storage? It was inconceivable. “Who refills the Core?” he asked.
“Who else?”
“But Antara must use a ton of magic every minute,” Kyle protested. “How could you possibly...”
“I make a lot of magic,” Darius interjected. “And I'm more clever than you realize.”
Kyle sighed, realizing that he wasn't going to get any more information out of Darius about that particular issue. He stared out over the edge of the cliff, at the rim of alien atmosphere below.
“Why not just float the island above Doma?” he asked. Darius stood up.
“Time,” he replied. “For every three minutes that passes here, one minute passes by in Doma...a useful advantage.” He gestured for Kyle to stand up. “And no one can find us here,” he added. “As far as I know, I'm the only human being
who knows how to teleport. And even if someone from Doma were to fly above the island, they wouldn't be able to see it...a gravity field warps light around Antara, making it invisible.”
“But what if someone accidentally flew into it from above?” Kyle asked, pointing up at the sky. Darius smirked.
“They would die.”
“Wait, what?”
“If half of your body were to experience time at three times the rate of the other half, what would happen?” Darius asked. Kyle frowned, thinking about it. Then he shrugged; it was too hard for him to visualize. “Image traveling between worlds,” Darius continued. “Say you're going through headfirst. As your brain passes through the border between worlds, time is traveling three times as fast for one part of your brain compared to the other. Blood is moving three times as fast, the heart is pumping three times as fast compared to your brain.”
“Okay,” Kyle mumbled.
“Your brain cells can't communicate with each other,” Darius continued. “Your blood vessels engorge with blood, because your heart is beating 270 times a minute instead of 90...the pressure in your vessels spikes, and they burst.”
“That's bad,” Kyle admitted.
“You have a seizure as your brain malfunctions,” Darius continued. “The vessels in your face burst. And when your lungs pass through, part of them experiences three times the number of breaths as other parts...and they pop.”
“I think I get it,” Kyle stated, feeling suddenly queasy.
“Next,” Darius continued, ignoring Kyle's comment, “...your heart passes through. Some chambers are beating three times faster than others, and your heart goes into an abnormal rhythm.”
“And then you die,” Kyle interjected, having heard quite enough at this point. Despite his parents both being doctors, he was still a bit squeamish.
“So I assumed,” Darius murmured. Kyle frowned.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
Darius sighed, turning away from the cliff-side view and facing Kyle, his blue eyes unblinking despite the sudden breeze blowing through his hair. He stared at Kyle for a long moment.
“One person survived it,” he clarified. Kyle continued to frown, but lowered his gaze, unnerved by Darius's piercing stare.
“Who, you?” he pressed. Darius shook his head.
“My son.”
Kyle thought back to his dreams, those memories Ampir...or rather, Darius...had shared with him. He could still close his eyes and see the images in his mind as if it were a movie, each detail as crisp as if he were experiencing it firsthand. The large underground chamber with the stone dais in the center. The ceiling cracking under the weight of the Behemoth. His son standing on the dais, gazing upward as the air ripped open, forming a passage to another world...a portal that had been too small for Ampir to fit through.
Kyle could feel the panic gripping him, as it had gripped Ampir so long ago.
He pictured Ampir's son rising upward toward the shrinking portal, saw it close just as he made it through. Saw something small fall from where the portal had been, striking the dais and bouncing onto the stone floor below.
A toe.
Kyle frowned, opening his eyes. He lifted his gaze, seeing Darius staring back at him. He could still see that severed toe in his mind's eye.
It had been the boy's big toe.
Kyle felt goosebumps rise on his arms, felt his heart hammering in his chest. He stared at Darius's blue eyes, for the first time noticing how similar he and his long-lost son had looked. Darius's words came unbidden to Kyle's mind.
Blood vessels in your brain burst...your lungs collapse...
The big toe amputated.
“My dad,” Kyle blurted out, feeling suddenly dizzy. His legs wobbled, then gave out, but Darius caught him before he fell, gently lowering him until he was sitting on the warm rock below. Kyle stared right through the bodyguard, feeling numb. His father had been found in the middle of the street as a boy, his face bruised and swollen, with a bleeding stump where his left big toe should have been. He'd had bleeding in his brain and both of his lungs had collapsed.
Darius said nothing, staring at Kyle.
It made perfect sense now. Ampir had been trying to tell him all along, through Kyle's dreams.
He shook his head. How could he not have seen this? It'd been right there, staring at him, waiting for him to see it all along.
Darius dropped to one knee in front of Kyle, his golden armor glittering in the sunlight, Kyle's distorted reflection rippling across that polished surface. Kyle gazed up into Darius's eyes, his mouth open. He realized he was hyperventilating, and tried to force himself to slow his breathing.
“I'm...” he blurted, stopping as Darius's gauntleted hand rested on his right shoulder.
“You're my grandson, Kyle.”
* * *
“What?” Kyle blurted out. He stared at Darius, his jaw slack with disbelief. Darius said nothing, staring back at Kyle with his customary flat expression. Kyle just stood there, his mind racing. If he was Darius's grandson, then his father was Darius's son...but Darius had been born over two thousand years ago. Kyle's father was what, forty-four? The timing was all wrong...it simply wasn't possible that Darius could be Kyle's great-great-grandfather, much less his grandfather. He said as much to Darius.
“That would be true,” Darius replied calmly, “...if it weren't for the time rate difference between Earth and Doma.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Kyle asked.
“Remember that time travels at different rates depending on how fast you're moving compared to another planet,” Darius explained. “Here on Antara, for every minute that passes on Doma, three pass here. So if you spent one year on Doma, three years would have passed here.”
Kyle nodded; that much was simple enough, as long as he didn't think about it too hard.
“On Earth,” Darius continued, “...for every minute that passes there, roughly 40 minutes pass on Doma.”
“Wow,” Kyle mumbled. “That's a lot.” Then he frowned. “Wait, so how much time has passed on Earth since I left?”
“A few hours.”
“That's it?” Kyle exclaimed. He felt a sudden elation, realizing that to his parents, he'd only been gone for a short time. While they would still be frantically looking for him, at least he hadn't been gone for weeks. Heck, he'd only have missed a day of school when he got back, if that. He couldn't remember what day of the week it'd been when he left, but if it'd been a Friday, he wouldn't have missed any school at all.
“That's it,” Darius confirmed.
“So you're really my grandfather, then,” Kyle mused. He stared at Darius, trying to find some resemblance there. He did look a bit like his dad, except his dad had hazel eyes, and lighter brown hair. In fact, now that Kyle realized it, the resemblance was hard to miss. How had he not noticed that before?
“Yep.”
“I still can't believe it,” Kyle admitted. It was hard enough to imagine that his dad was an alien from another planet, much less the son of an immortal being with god-like powers. It made sense, though; Kalibar had always maintained that Kyle produced more magic than anyone in Doma, which would certainly be the case if he was the (nearly) direct descendant of an Ancient.
“What color were my runes?” Darius asked suddenly.
“Huh?”
“What color were the runes on my armor?” he clarified. “My black armor,” he added. Kyle shrugged.
“Blue,” he answered. “Why?” But Darius shook his head.
“They're not blue.”
“What?” Kyle replied. “Of course they are,” he added, rather defensively. He wasn't colorblind, after all; he'd been specifically checked for that at school. Darius hardly seemed convinced.
“Nope,” he countered. Kyle crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well then what color are they?”
“They aren't,” Darius answered. Kyle rolled his eyes.
“You're killing me,” he grumbled.
“They aren't any color,” Darius insisted. “My armor is completely black.”
“Yeah, but its runes glow blue when...” Kyle began, but Darius cut him off with a gesture.
“Only to you...and me.”
“Okay,” Kyle grumbled, throwing his hands up in the air. “I give up. Why do they glow only for you and me?”
“Because of my gift,” Darius explained. “Your people would call it a mutation. Most people can only sense magic...a subtle vibration in the mind. I can see magic.”
“Okay...”
“And it's blue,” Darius added. “I passed that gift on to you, Kyle.”
Kyle frowned, staring at Darius for a long moment. Then he shook his head.
“But if I can see magic,” he countered, “...then why did I have to have Kalibar teach me how to feel it in Crescent Lake?” Darius smirked.
“I was wondering if you'd ever pick up on that,” he admitted. “You thought Kalibar's gravity shields were blue...and even told Kalibar that, but he told you they were clear. You never thought to question your teacher.”
“Oh, man!” Kyle breathed. Darius was right...Kalibar had told Kyle that his shields were clear. Ampir's armor, the gravity shields, the faintest trails of blue light every time he wove magic...he'd thought nothing of them. And Darius had stood there, probably rolling his eyes while Kyle blundered about completely oblivious to his own abilities. “Oh man,” Kyle repeated, slapping his forehead with his palm.
“You should be ashamed.”
“Thanks,” Kyle grumbled. Then he scratched his head. “So why me?”
“Why you what?”
“Why'd you bring me here?” Kyle pressed. “I mean, you could've brought your son – my dad – here and taught him magic.” But Darius shook his head.
“My son will never be able to use magic,” he countered. “If you don't have your Awakening...your first use of magic...in your teens, you lose the ability forever.”