by Clayton Wood
“I don't heal like you do, you know,” he warned.
“I know,” she mumbled. “I'm really sorry,” she added morosely.
“It's okay,” he reassured. “I forgive you.”
“Can I touch you now?” she asked. Kyle hesitated, then nodded.
“Sure.”
Ariana gave him a weak smile, then reached out to his shoulder – his left shoulder, thank goodness – putting a hand atop it. Kyle forced himself not to flinch, feeling her coldness even through his thick Runic shirt. She was exceedingly gentle this time.
“Hey, at least I stopped you from panicking,” she ventured, giving his left shoulder the slightest of squeezes. Kyle glowered at her. She leaned in close, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him, giving him the gentlest of sideways hugs. “What are we going to do?” she asked.
“About what?” he asked.
“Xanos.”
“I don't know,” he admitted, feeling suddenly depressed. If Darius was truly dead, then what could they do? The answer, of course, was nothing.
“We have to do something,” she insisted, pulling away from him. Kyle shrugged, feeling utterly helpless. He knew what he could do; with the spacetime bridge generator in his breastbone, he could teleport back to the safety of Earth...never to see Ariana, or anyone else on Doma, ever again.
And while he was safely away, they would all be killed.
“What can we do?” Kyle muttered. “We're no match for Xanos.”
“What about the K-Array?” Ariana proposed. “We're learning new patterns every day.” Kyle shook his head.
“It doesn't matter,” he replied bitterly. Ariana frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Xanos is Sabin,” Kyle answered. Ariana blinked, then drew back from him.
“The old man?” she asked, her tone suddenly flat.
“The Sabin,” Kyle countered. “The one who destroyed the Ancients.”
Ariana's stared at Kyle for a moment, as if trying to process what he'd said. Then her mouth fell open, her eyes widening. She began to say something, then stopped, just staring at him. Finally, she shook her head.
“He's as old as Ampir,” she proclaimed.
“Yeah.”
“How can we win against him?” she asked. “We don't stand a chance!”
Kyle shrugged – then regretted it. His right arm throbbed with the motion, making him wince. They both knew that the only chance they'd had to beat Sabin had been Ampir...and that he had failed. She was right...there was no hope. If Darius had only left Kyle with a way to teleport his friends to Earth or Antara, he could've saved them...but Darius had left them with nothing.
Except...
“The bomb,” Kyle mumbled. Ariana frowned at him.
“What?”
“Ampir gave me a bomb,” he explained. “He told me to use it if he failed to kill Sabin.”
“A bomb?”
“Yeah,” Kyle replied. “It's supposed to blow up anything within 10 miles, in case Xanos...uh, Sabin...attacks again.”
“You have it?”
“I do,” Kyle confirmed. “It's in my room, inside the map.” Ariana blinked, then her eyes widened.
“The map!” she exclaimed.
“What about it?”
“Come on,” she answered, grabbing his hand and leading him back through the pouring rain, toward the Tower in the distance. “I have an idea.”
* * *
Kyle rubbed his throbbing arm absently as he watched Ariana pull his large, ornate bed away from the wall. Then she walked behind the headboard to retrieve the rolled-up map from where he'd stowed it. She unrolled the map on the bed, glancing at the small black metal cylinder that had been placed within.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“That’s it.”
“It's so...small,” she observed. Kyle shrugged.
“He said it'd blow up anything within 10 miles.”
“How do we activate it?”
“I think you just tap one end,” he answered. “But he said I was the only one who could arm it,” he added. Ariana nodded, staring at the bomb for a long moment. Then she set it aside, turning back to the map.
“So Xanos is here,” she stated, pointing to the red circle drawn on the map. Kyle nodded.
“Yep.”
“So far away,” she murmured. Kyle frowned at her.
“What are you thinking?”
“If Xanos attacks,” she replied, “...and we use the bomb to protect ourselves, then it'll only save us once.”
“That's what I told Ampir,” Kyle agreed.
“But what if we use the bomb here?” she proposed, putting one pale finger on the map...right on the red circle. Kyle stared for a moment, then glanced up at her.
“On Xanos?” he asked.
“Right.”
He stared back down at the map, mulling it over. If they could make it to Xanos's lair, then it might be possible to arm the bomb and run...
He felt his pulse quickening.
“That would do it,” he stated. He broke out into a smile, suddenly gripped with a burst of hope. “Ariana, that’s brilliant!”
“Right?” Ariana agreed.
“It would work,” he proclaimed, slamming a fist into his palm. Then he froze. “Wait...”
“What?”
“That means I would have to go,” he realized. “I'm the only one who can arm the bomb.”
“Right.”
“Right,” Kyle mumbled, visibly deflating. Traveling to the heart of Xanos's lair to set a bomb there would hardly be a walk in the park. Chances were that Xanos had the area well-defended, after all...and what chance would he have against such an enemy?
“Well can't you just activate the bomb, then have Kalibar send a Weaver to fly it over there and drop it?” she asked. Kyle shook his head.
“It has a three-minute fuse,” he countered. “We'd need to activate it right at his base.”
“So you have to be there,” she stated quietly, staring down at the map. Kyle nodded. She tapped her chin with one finger – much as Kalibar did when thinking – then nodded to herself.
“What?”
“So we'll go,” she decided. Kyle blinked.
“Wait, what?”
“We'll go,” she repeated. “If you're the only one who can do it, then you'll have to do it.”
“But how?” he pressed. “Xanos will slaughter us before we ever get close.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But we have to try.” Kyle shook his head.
“No,” he stated firmly. “It won't work.”
“It has to work,” Ariana countered.
“It's too dangerous,” Kyle protested.
“If we don't kill Xanos,” she countered, “...we're all going to die.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “This is the only way we'll have a chance.”
Kyle opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He could hardly dispute her point, after all. If they did nothing, death was certain. But to travel to another continent, to the heart of Xanos's lair...it was suicide.
Unless...
He put a hand to his chest then, over the device Darius had implanted in his breastbone. He did have a way out, if his life was threatened. He could teleport back to Earth at any time if he had to...and activate the bomb before he did so. He only had to get within 10 miles of Xanos's lair to destroy the self-proclaimed god, after all. But that meant he would never get to see Ariana or Kalibar...or any of his other friends on Doma...ever again.
But at least he could save them.
“I'll tell Kalibar,” he stated suddenly.
“Wait, what?”
“I'll do it,” he clarified, “...and Kalibar can get us there,” he added, pointing to Xanos's lair on the map. Ariana stared at that finger for a moment, then shook her head.
“We can't tell him,” she protested.
“Why not?”
“He'll never let us go,” she explained. “He would n
ever risk his children like that.”
“But...”
“We can't tell Kalibar,” she insisted firmly. “Even if he lets us go, he'll want to send a whole army of Battle-Weavers to protect us.” She shook her head again, her long brown hair falling in front of her eyes. “Xanos will know we're coming, and he'll kill us all.”
“So what,” he stated, “...you want me to go alone?”
“No,” she replied, putting a cool hand on his arm. “I'll go with you.”
“But...”
“I can sense the Chosen,” she interjected. “And I'm more dangerous than any Battle-Weaver,” she added. “I don't sleep, so I can stand guard at night while you sleep.”
“Ariana,” he began, but she cut him off again.
“I'm going,” she insisted.
“This is crazy,” he protested. “It's too dangerous...it'll never work.” He turned to the map. “Besides, how will we ever get across an entire ocean by ourselves?”
“There are big trading boats that go there all the time,” she replied. “There's one that just got back here a few days ago.” Kyle frowned at her.
“Wait, how do you know that?”
“I saw it,” she answered. When Kyle stared at her blankly, she shrugged, lowering her gaze to the bedsheets. “I went past the Gate shield,” she confessed.
“You did?” Kyle asked. “How?” It was a good question; Kalibar had forbidden either of them from leaving the campus of the Secula Magna, for fear of being kidnapped – or worse – like Kyle had been a short time ago. The Gate shield had been made from Ancient runic technology...not even Kalibar could get past it.
“My shard,” Ariana replied, touching a fingertip to her forehead. “I tried walking through the Gate shield a week ago, and my shard protected me.”
“Why did you do that?” Kyle demanded. She could have been hurt, after all...or even killed.
“I was getting sick of being trapped here,” she admitted. “I felt like an animal in a cage, walking around the campus every night, over and over again.” She turned away from Kyle then. “I just wanted to experience something new,” she added. “You won't tell anyone, will you?”
“Of course not.”
“Thanks,” she said, looking much relieved.
“So you saw the boat?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I can check the boat schedule tonight,” she offered. “That way we'll know when the next ship is leaving.”
“Wait, we can't go on the boat,” he protested.
“Why not?”
“We'll get caught,” he replied.
“We can board the boat at night,” she countered. “They'll never see us.”
“But what about when we're on the boat?” he pressed. “How long does it take to get to the other continent?”
“About a week,” she admitted.
“We can't hide for that long,” he protested. Then an idea struck him. “Or maybe we can.” He smiled at her obvious confusion. “Remember our guards?”
“What about them?”
“They were practicing the invisibility pattern,” he replied. “The one that the K-Array discovered. If we learned that pattern, we'd never get caught on the ship.”
“You’re right!” Ariana exclaimed. “Good idea Kyle,” she added. “Okay…I'll check the boat schedule tonight, and you can learn the invisibility pattern. You're better at remembering patterns anyway.”
“I'll ask Erasmus to show me the pattern,” he offered.
“Good,” she replied. She rolled up the map then, stowing the black cylindrical bomb inside, and placed it back in its hiding place behind Kyle's headboard. Kyle watched her, then sighed.
“I still don't like that we're not telling Kalibar,” he admitted. “If we leave without telling him, he'll think we've been kidnapped...or killed.”
“We can leave him a note,” she offered. “Telling him that we're okay, but that we had to leave to do something.”
“I guess,” Kyle mumbled. But it still didn't feel right. Kalibar had risked his life on countless occasions to save them both, and had suffered Kyle's kidnapping – and Ariana's death – within the last week or so. It hardly seemed fair to do this to him. But what choice did they have? If they didn't do this, the Empire – and everyone in it – was surely doomed.
Ariana was right, he knew. The only way to stop Xanos was to kill him...and with Darius dead, Kyle was the only person on the planet who had even the slightest chance of doing that now.
Chapter 9
By the time Erasmus had gotten around to meeting with Kyle in the testing chamber adjacent to the Runic Archives, it had been well past noon. Despite it being a weekend, Kalibar and Erasmus were as busy as ever, attending countless meetings and giving speeches. He'd managed to catch Erasmus between meetings, and had asked the portly Grand Runic if he could see the K-Array. Erasmus had been overjoyed, eager to show Kyle the invention he'd helped to perfect. They'd gone down to the Runic Archives at once, arriving in the testing chamber where the K-Array had been placed, sitting on top of a plain white table.
The K-Array, it turned out, looked a bit like one of those machines at the store that printed receipts...except much larger. It was about the size of a washing machine, with spinning rolls hidden inside that moved a sheet of paper rapidly as a pattern was being sensed. Each time a sensory rune in the K-Array sensed a part of a pattern being woven, it would print that pattern fragment onto the paper. What came out was like a huge receipt, except with rows of symbols written on it. By linking the symbols together, Erasmus was able to recreate the pattern that had been sensed.
After demonstrating the K-Array a few times – while grinning like a boy opening presents on Christmas morning – Erasmus had agreed to teach Kyle the invisibility pattern. He'd handed Kyle a page with the symbol drawn out in standard Runic notation, just as Lee had for her lessons the other day. The pattern had been long and complicated, and Erasmus had made Kyle practice the pattern in the relative safety of the testing chamber a few times to make sure he'd gotten it right. After that, the old Runic had left to another meeting, leaving Kyle alone in the testing chamber...but not before destroying the drawing of the pattern, for security purposes.
Kyle sighed, walking out of the testing chamber and back into the Archives. He made his way into the hallway, walking toward the riser at the end of it. He'd agreed to meet Ariana back in his bedroom, and he rode the riser up to the 41st floor to do just that. He walked down the hallway, staring idly at the painted statues that lined the walls on either side. He'd passed by them almost every day since he'd starting living in Kalibar's suite. The statues were extraordinarily old, and were thought to be of Ancient Council members. His eye paused on one of the statues – of a man – and he slowed, then stopped in the middle of the hallway.
The statue looked awfully familiar.
He stared at its face, carved out of stone, remembering that he'd thought it had looked oddly familiar the first time he'd seen it...the first time he'd been in the Tower, in fact. And now he knew why. The squared jaw, the stern eyes, the nose...even the hair...was identical to the person it represented. Whoever had repainted the statue had gotten the colors wrong – they'd painted the eyes brown and the hair black – but even so, there was no doubt who it was.
Ampir.
Kyle felt a chill run through him, and he stared at the statue, remembering his last moments with Darius. There had been no real goodbyes, no fanfare before he'd left to battle Sabin. He hadn't wished Kyle luck, or even really talked that much.
He'd said nothing, really.
And that, to Kyle's dismay, was what he felt now as he stared at the man's ancient statue...nothing. He wanted to feel sadness, but he didn't. He couldn't. There was only a hollow feeling deep inside, a void in that place in Kyle's heart where his feelings for the bodyguard had been.
Kyle sighed, turning away from the statue and continuing down the hallway to Kalibar's suite. He unlocked the magical door with his mind, and the door
opened of its own accord, letting him step inside. He found Ariana sitting on one of the couches in the main room of the suite.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Hi Kyle,” Ariana replied, gesturing for Kyle to sit down next to her, which he did. “Did you learn the pattern?” Kyle nodded.
“You want to practice it?” he asked. Ariana nodded.
“Later,” she agreed.
“We should do it now,” Kyle countered. “I don't want you to get caught when you go out to the shipyard.” Ariana considered this, then nodded.
“Good idea,” she agreed. She stood then. “Come here first,” she stated. Kyle got up, following Ariana to his bedroom. She crouched down before his bed, pulling a heavy-looking sack out from underneath and placing it on top of the bed. She reached inside, pulling out a silver breastplate.
“The Aegis,” Kyle exclaimed. It was the Aegis of Athanasia, magical armor created by the Ancients. Over two thousand years old, it was enormously powerful, able to protect the wearer from nearly any manner of injury. Kalibar had given him the Aegis weeks ago, during the awards ceremony after his coronation as Grand Weaver.
“I got this too,” Ariana stated, pulling a gray cloak out of the sack. It shimmered in the sunlight pouring in from the nearby window, its edges glowing silver, like the lining of a cloud.
“Your cloak!” Kyle exclaimed. She’d gotten it from Kalibar during the awards ceremony. He'd entirely forgotten about it.
“The Tempest cloak,” she confirmed. “Kalibar said it would let me draw lightning from clouds, and I could never get hurt by falling if I wore it,” she added. Kyle nodded; nearly every time Ariana got hurt in the last few weeks, it had been due to falling. The cloak would certainly come in handy.
Suddenly, Kyle had an idea.
“Hey, why don't we just fly there?”
“What?”
“Why don't we just fly to Sabin's lair?” he clarified. “You could wear my gravity boots and fly us there.” He didn't know why he hadn't thought of that earlier; they could skip the boat entirely.
“It wouldn't work,” Ariana replied. Kyle frowned.
“Why not?” he pressed. “You don't need to sleep,” he argued. “You could fly us the whole way without stopping.”