The Eye of Elektron: A Clean Urban Fantasy (The Sumrectian Series Book 1)

by Leigh G. Wynn

  Then, without warning, he made a grabbing motion with his hands, and into the air flew a blood-stained, blue handkerchief. Dawn inhaled sharply when she saw Ansel with his two arms raised and stretched out in front of him as if invisible ropes had strapped them together. Regina’s hands flew to her mouth while the other Sumrects stirred at the sight of a conspicuous gash across Ansel’s right palm.

  “So easy,” marveled Vance while he watched the handkerchief float down to his feet, “when your biggest foe is human.”

  A few Sumrect soldiers gasped out loud. Quinn was the only one who did not look surprised.

  “Your biggest foe, Vance, is not me. It’s yourself,” Ansel said.

  “I tend to believe otherwise. The truth of the Etherian spell has once again been proven. Only one soul shall rule the rest, Ealon. Only one.”

  A red flame materialized between Vance’s fingers and traveled along a predetermined path in the air to intertwine with Ansel, crawling up his arms, encircling the rest of his body like a fast-growing vine.

  “Stop! You’ll kill him!” Regina screamed when the smell of burnt cotton and flesh filled the room, but Vance seemed to be relishing the long-awaited moment, too engrossed to hear anything but his brother’s labored breaths.

  At that moment, when Vance diverted all his attention to Ansel, Dawn felt her bind loosen. She wiggled herself free and sprang to her feet. Fueled by fury, she dashed into the meeting room, slammed her body into Vance and tackled him to the ground, breaking his trance.

  The flaming vines vanished. Ansel dropped to his knees, cocooned in water. The other Sumrects leaped to action. An enormous force punched Dawn in the stomach, knocking the air out of her lungs as she was flung against the illusory wall, which turned out to be an electricity field. She crashed hard before sliding down next to Ansel.

  “Stand back! All of you!” Vance scrambled to his feet, appearing rattled by Dawn’s unexpected attack and vexed that Regina had come to Ansel’s aid. With a wave of his hand, he broke Regina’s water cocoon. With the other, he tied Dawn and Ansel together.

  “No, Vance!” Regina entreated. “Listen to me! You have got it all wrong—” But before she could say more, Quinn pulled her back and pressed a hand over her mouth.

  “This is how you catch two birds with one stone!” Vance grinned, ignoring his wife.

  “Ansel,” Dawn cried, her back pressed tightly against his. She felt his breathing but could not see his face. “Ansel, are you okay?”

  No response.

  “Ansel!” she tried again.

  Still no response.

  With her hands tied behind her back, she searched desperately for his. An all-consuming panic spread over her.

  “Calm yourself, human. He’s not dead… yet. That will be too easy,” said Vance, bending down to grab Ansel by the hair. “I want all of Tempeia to see justice served to this monster.”

  Much to Dawn’s relief, Ansel twitched.

  “Vance, please listen to me!” Regina freed herself from her brother’s grasp at last. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “NO, Regina!” Quinn hissed under his breath, but he knew it was too late.

  “Speak!” Vance eyed Quinn suspiciously.

  “That night, when Amber died, when the Etherian cast the spell, I-I was there—”

  “Any more lies I should know about?” Vance glared at Regina.

  “You see, the Etherian said, ‘Only One soul shall rule the rest… More than One soul undoes the test…’”

  “I’m aware of the spell!” Vance snapped.

  “The Etherian did not mean only one of you shall have all the power…”

  As Regina spoke, Dawn felt a light tap on her hand. Ansel!

  He pressed a few cold objects into her palms. From their smooth texture, she realized he was giving her back the amber stones and Eye of Elektron. In his excitement, Vance had completely forgotten about Ansel’s portals, which had scattered onto the floor during the scrimmage and somehow found their way back to the owner. Dawn quickly grabbed on to them. All eyes were now fixated upon Regina, so no Sumrect took note of the exchange.

  Regina paused before resuming, her face marred with consternation. “I was told, long ago, by an Etherian, that the spell can only be cast in the presence of one being… ‘More than One soul undoes the test…’ I’m sorry, Vance, that due to my ignorance and curiosity, both Ansel and I were present when the spell was cast. The test, and therefore the spell… can’t be completed!”

  “NO!” Vance stomped his feet like a little child. “‘Only One soul shall rule the rest.’ Only one!”

  “Yes, but the Etherian words—”

  “Don’t tell me what an Etherian spell means!”

  Dawn did not hear Regina’s reply because at that instant, Ansel whispered into her ear, “The Eye of Elektron… not limited by time… back to the creation…”

  “What?!”

  Yet before he had the chance to clarify, Vance’s Sumrects snatched him away.

  ✽✽✽

  When the last rays of the setting sun bid farewell to Nymion Clearing, Myles knocked on the door of the wooden cabin. As promised, Ansel’s Sumrects were waiting for him by the pine forest edge, where the executioner lay unconscious. They left Crimson Estate immediately and headed straight for the clearing where his family stayed. Now, only this wooden door separated him from the people he had fought to protect all these years.

  There were sounds of shuffling, and then, a voice he had not heard in a long time spoke, “Who is it?”

  “Dad! It’s me—”

  Myles did not need to finish the sentence.

  Max, Riesa and Pam spilled from the cabin and threw him into the tightest embrace. For the next few minutes, he was engulfed in tears of joy and “thank God you are alive.” Only when he finally convinced his family that his return was no illusion did they pull back and notice the host of humans and Sumrects standing behind him.

  “Meet my friends and saviors.” Myles beckoned to his still hesitant family.

  Standing at the front of the group, Gail spoke first, “Good evening, I’m Gail Thornton. With me are Kai from Chesterfield and our Sumrects from Phyon: Lorenzo, Blair, Nico, Winston, Alexander and Jarret. I’m sure Ansel has already informed you of our arrival.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Lang inhaled in synchrony.

  “Ansel Cassadian? But we were brought here by a human named Ealon. He claimed he was Myles’s friend!” Max sought confirmation from Myles.

  “Dad, Ealon is Ansel’s name in Sumrectian! And yes, he is my friend. He arranged my rescue from Crimson.” Myles went on to explain how Ansel’s Sumrects had saved him by the pine forest edge. When he finished, Max and Riesa were shaking their heads in disbelief.

  “We thought he was human… But how’s that possible?” said Pam.

  Myles laughed. “I thought so too when he first offered to help us.”

  “You are telling me that Ansel isn’t the monster we have been led to believe all this time?” Riesa gazed at him, her expression skeptical. “He is not our enemy?”

  “More so than that, Mom, he’s our friend and to whom we owe our lives!”

  “Mine too!” Kai added. “That is why we are here. He has been turning human for some time now, and we’re not sure how much Sumrect’s left in him. Long story short, Vance has him imprisoned at Crimson, and we have got to save him from that lunatic!”

  “And free the one hundred human workers held captive underground, awaiting certain death,” Gail said.

  Dumbfounded, Max stared at everybody with his mouth slightly open. “This… This is all so overwhelming…”

  “Mr. Lang, I know you don’t trust us Sumrects from Chesterfield,” Lorenzo said, “but I assure you, we’ll protect your family from Vance. You are completely safe here with us. Ansel’s friends are our friends too.”

  Myles nodded earnestly. “Dad, Vance is our enemy, not Ansel. It was Vance who broke our connection to the Source for his own gain.”


  After a long look at his son and the group in front of him, Max finally responded, “If so, then what are we waiting for? Tell me the plan! We have a friend to save and a regime to overthrow!”

  Chapter 21

  Dawn saw enough. She could no longer sit back and watch Vance inflict more suffering upon those she cared about, and she most assuredly was not going to let him take Ansel’s life. She needed to fight back, yet she did not know how.

  After whispering the cryptic message into her ear, Ansel was taken away and locked up in one of the many cells below Crimson Estate.

  “Not limited by time… back to the creation…” he had told her. The phrases swirled in her head.

  The creation of what? She chewed her lips as she examined the two amber pieces and the Eye of Elektron he left her. It was obvious Ansel wanted her to revisit his past. The answer must lie within these portals, she thought, rubbing the slick surface of the pieces, but there is something missing. Something I’m not seeing…

  Next to the amber portals, the Eye of Elektron glowed. Why does it answer to me? Why am I the bringer of new light?

  For the longest time, Dawn had believed the immigrants could no longer return to their home reality because the Source was destroyed. But every orb contains a piece of amber, and thus every Eye of Elektron is of the Source. Her breathing quickened. The reason the Eye no longer functioned was not that the Source had been destroyed but that the sole owner of the Source was no longer alive; when Amber died, the power of the Eye died with her.

  Then why does it respond to my touch? She paced the small concrete box. She was no Sumrect. She had no special abilities. Her touch should not have brought any change to the Eye. Unless…

  A thought seized her.

  Unless the owner is still alive.

  The notion jolted her being. She hesitated to entertain the idea for fear of the disappointment that would surely follow should she be mistaken. However, the seed had been planted, and hope, rekindled; if the owner was still alive, so was the humans’ chance of returning home.

  Her mind flitted to the moment in the rotunda when Ansel granted Amber access to the Eye of Elektron. Besides the couple’s hands in the basin, Dawn had seen a third hand within the electric column. The trespasser’s identity remained hidden in the portal, but now…

  The answer became apparent as day, and Dawn knew precisely what she needed to do.

  ✽✽✽

  Much to Myles’s surprise, the Phyon Sumrects, Kai, Gail and his own family all managed to squeeze into the tiny cabin at Nymion Clearing. The dining table now hosted a hanging hologram of Crimson Estate and the tunnels beneath. Lorenzo stood next to it, describing the plan they had hashed out with Ansel back at Chesterfield.

  “On any given day, Vance has about three hundred Sumrect soldiers on Crimson grounds,” Lorenzo said.

  “Three hundred?!” Max choked on the water he was drinking.

  “They outnumber us for sure,” Myles stated the obvious.

  “Right,” Lorenzo agreed. He zoomed out of the hologram so that Crimson Estate shrunk to the size of a peanut. Myles could see the Estate was perched on a cliff’s edge, which dropped steeply into the ocean.

  Lorenzo traced his finger around the border. “All along that cliff, about half a mile offshore, are Morvyanns, submerged under water. When we flew over them on the way here, we detected about six of those vessels.”

  Pam chimed in with a question. “Excuse me, but what are Morvyanns?”

  “They are Sumrectian killing machines packed with Morvs, which are basically robots designed to kill any Sumrect not branded with Vance’s symbol,” Kai said matter-of-factly. “Trust me, you really don’t want to fight them.”

  Myles scowled. The numbers were not comforting at all. “You are telling me that we are planning a rebellion with six Sumrects and a few Pathfinders against six Morvyanns and three hundred Sumrect soldiers?”

  “Yes. That’s correct.” Winston grinned.

  “The plan, to me, sounds nuts,” said Myles. Beside him, Max and Riesa nodded in agreement.

  “We do have weapons. About two hundred silver-barreled centinums—as the Sumrects like to call them—which will be distributed to Pathfinders at Tempeia who participated in the last uprising… to those who still wish to take part, that is,” Nico said.

  “Okay, a little better, but still, we have nowhere near enough ammunition and people.” Myles grew more and more skeptical by the minute.

  “All we need is for someone to go into Crimson and open the gates when the time comes. Should be no problem since we have Blair, who’s a talented morpheo.”

  “What’s a morpheo?” Max looked to his son for help.

  “Shape shifter. A face changer. Morpheos are a rare occurrence among Sumrects,” Myles replied.

  “Well, it all sounds impossible, right? To give you some perspective,” Lorenzo said to the Langs, “it took around fifty Phyon Sumrects, plus Delia and Ansel, to bring down three Morvyanns, and that was with the help of Dawn, the bringer of new light—”

  “Bringer of new light?”

  “Another one of Vance’s prisoners. Again, long story short, she is the one responsible for launching this whole mess,” Myles explained but felt he only confused Max more.

  “Without Ansel and Delia’s help, six Morvyanns will be quite the challenge to take down… if not impossible.” Lorenzo paused, scanning the room with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

  “Come on, tell us the plan! You must know a way to defeat all three hundred Sumrects plus the Morvyanns at once,” Pam urged.

  Sitting cross-legged on a bench by the dining table, Blair rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Lorenzo, now is not the time to put on a show. Get to the point, will you?”

  Lorenzo rubbed his hands together. “Patience, Blair. Right now, we would be insane to attempt a rebellion with the numbers we have. But…” He zoomed in on the hologram ocean until a whale-like vessel appeared, spinning slowly above the dining table. “What if we can use the enemy’s weapons against themselves? What if, instead of the six Morvyanns attacking us, it’s the same six Morvyanns helping us?”

  “What do you mean?” Kai narrowed his eyes.

  The broad-shouldered, pony-tailed Sumrect gestured to Jarret. “I’m going to let him continue with the technicalities because he is the real expert and mastermind behind this undertaking.”

  Jarret stood up with reluctance, scratching his head. He kept his eyes on the floor as he explicated in a monotone voice, “the Morvyanns are programmed to only kill Sumrects not branded with Vance’s symbol. All we need to do is modify the Morvs so they only target Sumrects who are branded. We can accomplish this with a simple rewiring done in the control room. My only concern is the same as Ansel’s.” Jarret shot Blair a look of warning. “Morvyanns are powered by Etherian forces, an overdose of which can be detrimental. Whoever’s doing the rewiring will come in close contact with the power source. It can be dangerous for those susceptible to the influence of dark forces…”

  Blair crossed her arms and pouted her lips. “You worrywart. It’s not like we’ll be down there for long. The real trick will be getting in and out without being detected.”

  “Underwater,” added Winston.

  Myles shifted forward in his seat. The plan still sounded insane but no longer unfeasible. “You mean, you are going to sneak into the Morvyanns while submerged in water and reprogram them to attack only Vance’s soldiers.”

  “Correct!” Blair clapped.

  “How are you going to accomplish this? I mean, how do you plan to sneak into the vessels?”

  “Easy, thanks to Blair and her dabbling in dark powers.” With a wink, Lorenzo pulled his shirt collar down to reveal a six-legged beast tattoo on his collarbone. “Sumrectian ink, effective for days. We will head down to the Morvyanns in pairs. One clears a path to the opening while the other sneaks in for the controls. The Morvs will register the fake branding and withhold attack, assuming we are Vance’s soldier
s. We have already decided that Winston, Blair and Jarret will sneak in while Alexander, Nico and I clear the entrance.”

  “Don’t forget about me. I’m going too.” Kai stood, raising his hand.

  Lorenzo shook his head. “I don’t think so, young man. Ansel made us promise not to include you in this attempt. It’s too dangerous for humans.”

  “Do you expect me to wait here and hope that everything turns out okay?”

  “Yes. That would be ideal.”

  “Ha! Fat chance!”

  Something gnawed at Myles’s reasoning. “What if the Morvs reject the tattoos as fakes and launch an attack on you? Wouldn’t that ruin everything?”

  From the way Nico and Lorenzo exchanged somber glances, Myles knew he had indeed pinpointed their biggest worry in the entire plan. They too had no confidence the phony tattoos would bypass detection.

  “Look, you are right, but this is the only option we’ve got,” said Nico.

  “Then let me, Kai and Gail come along,” Myles offered.

  “Nope. Not part of the plan—”

  “Listen, the Morvyanns cannot detect humans, right? You’ve seen how Dawn shut the machine down from inside. She came out just fine.”

  On the dining bench, Blair straightened her spine.

  “Let us sneak in with you, so that in case anything goes awry, we’ll turn off the machines.”

  “No, no!” Lorenzo slammed a hand on the dining table. “I can’t let you do that. Ansel specifically told us—”

  “Come on, Lorenzo! Let us go with you!” Kai pleaded.

  “But—”

  “Lorenzo,” Alexander spoke up at last. “Myles is right. We need their help. Hundreds of lives are at stake here, including Ansel’s. We can’t afford mistakes.”

  Gail and Jarret bobbed their heads in agreement. Myles watched Lorenzo wrestle with the decision. After a long minute, he finally sighed in defeat and buried his face in his hands. “Alright, alright! If Ansel kills me when he finds out, it’s on you!”

  Next to him, Kai beamed. “You can even let us humans go in first and shut down the vessels before the Sumrects enter for the reprogramming—”