A Rising Tide

by Ross Buzzell

  “There are two guards at the doorway. Any ideas on how to get past them?”

  “Weren’t you trained for this sort of thing?”

  Lei retorts. The prince nods in correlation of a shrug.

  “Yeah but we can’t exactly knock them out. We need to get them away from the door without drawing alarm.”

  Konner thinks for a few moments. He then notices an idea forming on Lei’s face.

  “Follow my lead.”

  Lei marches past the young prince. Not knowing his sister’s plan he follows her, acting as normally as possible. As the guards see them approach, they salute the royal children. Konner and Lei both reciprocate before she begins to speak.

  “Gentlemen, the chair of the senate is holding a meeting with delegates from four different star systems in the main library tomorrow. It needs to be swept and secured.”

  Her use of rhetoric is so quick and cunning that Konner could not tell if she were lying or telling the truth. The guards move to attention.

  “We are sorry majesty but we have been ordered by the queen not to move from this spot.”

  Lei looks over at Konner. He notices a quick wink from his sister.

  “I have come to you, not as your princess, but as a delegate of the chair of the senate, whose security comes second only to my family. Besides, Konner is a Cryptea now. He is more than capable of protecting our mother’s vault until you return.”

  Lei approaches the guards and glares at them with such hidden fury even Konner feared they would turn to stone; after a moment of silence they salute Lei.

  “Yes ma’am, right away ma’am.”

  The guards leave their post in a fast jog as they head toward the library; impressed at her display of intimidation and cunning Konner approaches his sister.

  “Is there really a delegation happening here tomorrow?”

  Lei smiles and shakes her head.

  “Not here, no, but the library could use some securing anyway.”

  Konner watches as his sister approaches the marble doors that were guarded. With some effort she is able to open the door slightly. On the far side of the wall is a heavy metal door. Konner approaches the massive structure which has bolts slammed firmly into place. On the vault door there is a pad designed for a hand as well as a numerical pad to impute a code.

  “Do you have any ideas on how to get past that?”

  Lei asks Konner as the prince approaches the highly advanced vault security. Konner kneels down, he looks closely at the hand print. An idea sparks in the back of his mind mirrored by a smile on his lips. Konner looks up at his sister and places his hand on the numerical pad. He leans in closely, with nothing to give away what the code would be Konner moves to a slight angle of the pad. He sees faint marks on four numbers with the residue of oil from a hand.

  “Our birthdays, the code is the last digits of the cycles we were born. From the looks of this a hand must be scanned while the code is being put in, Lei, put your hand on the pad… Let’s hope you got mom’s handprint and not me.”

  Lei approaches the scanning pad. She moves to place her hand on it and hesitates for a moment.

  “How sure are you this will work?”

  Konner shrugs as he moves himself into position.

  “Eh, about seventy/thirty.”

  Konner nods to his sister. She quickly places her hand on the scanning pad as the young prince types in the last digits of their birth cycles. A red light shows from under Lei’s hand. Konner’s heart stops for a moment, everything drops into silence as they hold their breath. The red light turns green; the massive bolts slide back with a loud ‘clang’ and the vault door opens.

  “Thirty it is then.”

  Konner says to his sister with a smile as he walks past her and to the vault entrance. As the young prince rounds the corner, he stops in awe as his eyes fall on a large white room. Two pedestals are inside, one holds the cup Konner had made for his mother years ago, with a little wooden horse beside it, clearly his sister’s handiwork. On the other an information disk, one that Konner recognized as the information disk offered to his parents the night of the Training Grounds.

  Lei pushes past Konner. She charges to the horse she had carved, the prince hardly notices the shove as his eyes and thoughts are locked on the pad. But in a very distant background he hears his sisters voice.

  “I remember this, I carved it for mom when I was five; I can’t believe she kept it.”

  Konner musingly approaches the pad; he lifts it up and attempts to turn it. The screen flashes red, a robotic voice echoes out.

  “Unauthorized user detected.”

  “Authorization override, High Prince 1 Konner Lorian.”

  The pad blinks blue.

  “Override command accepted, accessing sealed medical files of Konner Lorian… projecting.”

  Light flairs from the pad. Konner steps back and the pad falls from his hand onto the ground. The walls of the vault go dark as the hologram flickers to life. Konner is so enthralled by the hologram he hardly notices his sister turn her attention over as well. The doctor who had attended to him that evening flickers to life adorned in white garments, his hands behind his back.

  “Patient Konner Lorian brought in for a routine checkup after being forced to go through the Training Grounds. For a nine year old to have survived such an ordeal is a miracle in and of itself. Contained within this data pad is classified information showing why the High Prince was able to survive. It will be encrypted for the House of Lorain’s eyes only.”

  The physician disappears, replaced by genetic sequences. His voice echoes in the back ground.

  “Konner is more than just your average Boronian. His electrons are so unstable I am unsure as to how he is still alive. Over the eons only a hand full of our species has shown this trait, but none have shown this level cohesiveness.”

  The genetic sequence falls away to show Konner’s DNA on a sub-atomic level. This shows he only has one electron per atom.

  “As you can see, his genetic structure is nearly completely lacking electrons as opposed to just being electron deficient. To my knowledge the only reason he still lives is because, unlike the rest of our kind, he can draw from organic matter as well as non-organic matter, which again is exceedingly rare. This results in his extreme speed, the fact that he can peer into infrared light waves before sexual maturity and I hypothesize it also increases his other senses up to ten times the Boronian average. I would like to further study Konner but have been forbidden to by the Queen. This concludes my report, Sol Grun’dar, out.”

  The hologram flickers off as the vault returns to its bright state. The news stuns Lei, but Konner, to his surprise is un-phased. The young prince looks down at his hands.

  “This actually explains a lot.”

  Lei looks at her brother with worry. She approaches him and places a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you ok?”

  With a wide smile on his face, Konner looks up at Lei and nods enthusiastically.

  “Yes, surprisingly I am. I now know why I am able to do what I can. To be honest it’s always weighed on me, not knowing why I am capable of feats no one else can achieve. My only lingering concern is, why do you think mom hid this from me?”

  “Because you were not ready to know yet.”

  Lei’s words are comforting and ring true with the young prince. He nods in agreement.

  “I’m sure you are right Lei. She just wanted to protect me.”

  Konner walks over to the pad; he picks it up and places it on the empty stand. With a laugh he looks over at his sister as an amusing thought dances through his mind.

  “You know, I could have sworn when we broke into here that it would be full of Energynium, precious elements and the most prized treasure of all of Boron.”

  Lei begins to walk toward the vault door. She turns back to look at her brother.

  “That is probably what is in fathers royal vault, to mother these are the most precious treasures in
all of Boron and it’s nice to know that it is us.”

  Konner nods in agreement as he looks back over and sees his cup and his sister’s horse. He turns and follows his sister out of the vault, the two push on the massive door to close it, it shuts with a slam and the locks automatically re-initiate. They move back to the hallway and push the giant stone door back into place as well. As it slides into place, Konner’s bracer beeps as the cold robotic voice echoes throughout the corridor.

  “Bracer 100% charged, weapon charging, shield generation and portal jumping are now active functions.”

  Lei looks over at her brother with a smile. She glances down at his bracer, Konner does too. Glyphs begin to glow throughout the bracer in the language of the Boronian. The young prince reads his name, that power levels are fully charged, a glyph appears telling him that the area is clear and finally his family crest begins to glow the royal azure blue.

  “It looks like you are now truly ready for training.”

  Lei turns and begins to walk away. Konner starts to follow.

  “What are you doing?”

  she calls out.

  “You aren’t allowed to leave until the guards come back.”

  “But you said…”

  “I said you were capable of guarding the vault and you are. I never said anything about me. Don’t worry though; they should be back in the next two hours.”

  Lei waves and begins to walk away. Konner reluctantly takes his position at the guard post. His sister’s voice echoes back down the hallway after she had left his line of sight.

  “It was fun though. I enjoyed the adventure. See you with the politicians!”

  his voice drifts off into silence as it becomes painfully clear that she had intentionally worded her statements to set up the young prince for guard duty alone. Konner stands in silence, his hand on the hilt of his newly formed energy weapon. The silence of the corridor is palpable and eats away at the young prince. Silence always being deafening to him. Konner grips the hilt of his weapon and draws it. He holds the incredibly powerful piece of metal before him and concentrates. A buzzing emanates throughout the young prince’s body as it seems to vibrate from his core to the hilted weapon.

  A clear image of Konner’s training straight sword stands firm in his mind. A soft echo of a flame’s ignition breaks the silence as a beam of azure blue flaming energy forms into the straight sword. Konner swings the sword; the blade adding no weight to the already incredibly light hilt. A soft crackle is accompanied with each swipe of the blade. Konner allows his mind to drift to Man’Sanfur’s massive sword, and without realizing it, the thin straight sword seamlessly morphs into a massive great sword. The buzzing throughout Konner’s core grows to vibration as the mass of the weapon increases. Konner feels his heart begin to race as if he were sprinting up a hill. Almost immediately the young prince realizes that the weapon drains him each time he uses it. The large blade elongates and grows thin as it turns into a spear. The strain on Konner’s body becomes significantly less as he feels the mass of the weapon decrease.

  Konner grips the azure blue staff of the spear; the energy is tangible and feels as real as actual wood in his hands. The young prince gives the air a few swift jabs; the joy of battle begins to grasp him as he slowly loses himself to the art of the spear. Konner spins the weapon causing it to whistles as the sharp head cuts through the air. The young soldier turns and runs toward the vault wall. He leaps and takes three steps up the face. On the third, he turns and shoves off the wall. As weightlessness grasps the young prince, he throws his arm forward as he casts his weapon. With a firm grip on the hilt, Konner anticipates that nothing will happen. With a loud crackle, the energy spear leaves the hilt and soars toward the ground far in front of Konner. Aa brief second of panic sets in as Konner lands on the ground. His eyes train on the weapon as it glances off the stone floor and toward a corner of the corridor’s intersection. The fully formed energy spear buzzes past a guard, missing him by mere inches. The weapon collides with the intersection’s corner with a thunderous crack before returning back toward Konner. With only a millisecond to react, Konner crouches and puts his arms up in front of him to block his face. His eyes are shut tightly in anticipation for the impact of his own weapon only for it never to come. In place of an excruciating blow, a bright light, visible even through Konner’s closed eyes, follows an unmistakable crackle of dissipating energy.

  Konner opens his eyes to see an azure oval before him. Gradually the young prince rises to his feet. As he moves his bracered arm, the oval moves with it. Casually the azure light fades to that only the edges are visible. The rest of the ever so obvious shield has a slight shimmer to it, as the floor on the far side appears slightly distorted. Konner looks up to see one of the original guards standing before him; his face shows he is clearly none too happy about the incident.

  “I’m sorry sir.”

  Konner’s words leave his lips in the shyest of manors as the guard’s stone gaze falls onto Konner, the shield dissipates but the young prince only sees it through the corner of his eye. It is ever so obvious, the gig was up, he had been caught.

  “You had better return to your quarters your highness; I believe the queen would be none too thrilled about you snooping through her things.”

  Konner nods. He takes a wide step to the side before he takes off running down the corridor, he could feel the guard’s eyes burning a hole in his back even as he rounded the corner back to his room. As Konner returns to his chambers, he observes the bracer and attempts to pull it off to no avail. The young soldier gives the piece of armor a few more hard tugs but it does not budge.

  “Bracer, how do I remove you?”

  “You cannot.”

  The bracer retorts.

  “Beginning armor recall protocol.”

  In a flurry of light, Konner’s armor slowly turns into azure energy. It flows over his body like a stream. The young prince looks in awe at the sight before him as the energy flows into the bracer which slowly collapses in on itself to form a bracelet. Konner, now in his robes once more walks over to bed as exhaustion finally catches up to him. The day had been long and tiring and while questions still swirled in his mind about his armor, his bracer, his weapon and even him, those would have to wait until later. For now the sweet embrace of sleep beckons him. As he approaches his bed, Konner leans forward and collapses onto it. The silk sheets caress his skin as the bed itself embraces him into its cloudlike softness. Almost immediately Konner greets sleep as he would an old friend and falls into a deep slumber.

  Chapter 8

  Konner blinks himself awake. The grogginess of the dreamless sleep rapidly dissipates as he pushes himself off of his soft bed. The prince looks down at his hands as he exerts just enough force to lift his body to notice that his bracer has re-formed on his forearm. As Konner stands to his feet, he notices his armor had re-asserted itself in his sleep. Turning, Konner sees his reflection in the mirror. The armor fits him like a glove, contouring perfectly against his form, leaving no space vulnerable to attack. Still not use to how light the armor is, the prince takes a step anticipating excess weight. It is not there. He slides a few feet across the floor. With a smile, Konner catches his balance and rights himself before walking to his bedroom doors. Today was the big day, the day Konner officially begins his Cryptea training. The four year process will be grueling and painful. The prince knows that. But the honor that it will be for him to serve his people in such a monumental way gives Konner a swell of pride in his chest.

  With a deep breath Konner reaches out and grasps the cold metal handle of the massive wooden doors of his bedroom. With a gentle pull the door opens with a click, and the moan of the hinges echo through the hallways. He steps out into the grand path adorned with gold, crystal and mirrors to reflect the light of Boron’s suns, enhancing its beauty tenfold as he begins to take the path before him. The hallway is empty with only the echo of his footsteps, bouncing off the walls with a hollow ring to keep the pensive pr
ince company. Konner’s heart flutters in his chest as he approaches the grand lobby of the palace where his father and mother would be waiting for him. As the Prince makes his way through the hallways he looks around, reminiscent of his time growing up in the palace and knowing he would probably not see it or its inhabitants for the next four years. He passes a small table, the one he used to vault over a guard for the first time while playing tag with his sister. A small smirk tugs at his face as the memory seems to play out in front of him, remembering it like it had happened just yesterday. Konner places his hand on the table. The sensation of its cold, smooth surface is not lost on him.