Chapter 041: The Sword
"Looks
like my brighter side
Has
gotten a bit darker"
Cynical
Fuck - Extreme
We had been flying through the heavy storm winds for quite a long time,
temperature dropping steadily and the air gradually getting thinner and more
difficult to breathe, when finally some dark mass loomed up ahead in the
distance. The thirteenth island! I turned my head and glanced over the mohai's
back at my companion. Venzai had also spotted our destination and was looking at
it with an expression full of rapture. Poor guy. He probably felt he was pretty
fortunate to be the chosen one to accompany me on my quest, even though I had
repeatedly tried to convince him of my not being his legendary Prophet or
Saviour. Maybe I shouldn't have brought him with
me, if only to spare him his imminent disappointment. Still, I had needed some
local to keep me company and he had been the best choice, true believer that he
was. Sigh. It's hard to keep your hands clean in this business.
Much time to muse on Venzai I didn't have, though, for there appeared to
be more pressing problems. The mohai clearly wasn't made to withstand such harsh
cold weather and it had more and more difficulty to stay airborne. Now and then
it loudly squeaked to express its dismay and its surprise at seeing its breeding
grounds in these circumstances. I tried to calm the beast as best I could,
urging it on towards the island, of which I was less sure by the minute that
we'd make it. As we slowly crept closer to our destination I could distinguish
features in its terrain: mostly snowcovered rocks and boulders with here and
there some small stubborn patches of vegetation senselessly holding on to life.
The mohai squeaked again as it tried to make a turn
that would take us on a touchdown course and limped on through the air towards
the island. The poor creature was suffering badly and as it got closer to the
ground I became convinced that we were in for a crash landing. I shot a quick
glance at the rocky surface speeding by under my feet. The thin cover of snow
would do nothing to cushion a fall from this height, but at least I'd be more or
less controlling my own fate instead of relying on a worn-out distressed mohai.
With a quick movement I heaved myself out of the ropes and shouted at Venzai to
get out as well. He looked surprised at me, but I didn't wait for him, I jumped.
For a couple of seconds I was hurtling through the air, then the ground
reached up and plucked me out of the air, doing its best to bruise or even break
any part of my body it could. Thankful for some of the combat training I had got
from my uncles I deftly turned my fall into a roll, coming to a standstill a few
moments later when I collided with a pile of rocks. Dazedly I lay there for a
couple of minutes until I had sufficiently caught my breath. Examining myself I
found a lot of bruises, a few scrapes, but luckily no broken bones. Venzai had
not been so fortunate, however. During my fall I had heard him cry out over the
din of the storm and when I got to him I saw that he had landed badly. Blood
trickled down the side of his head from an ugly-looking wound and he didn't
react to any of my cries. Of our faithful mount there was no trace.
What now? I felt an unspoken urging from my bracelet to leave Venzai
here, but I resisted it. No, he deserved more than that. With a little bit of
trouble I managed to lift his unconscious body onto my shoulders, where I tied
it in place with some pieces of rope. After that I started looking for a place
where we would be able to find some shelter. There didn't appear to be anything
helpful around, though, so I slowly started climbing the rock wall, hoping to
find something at the summit of the island. It was hard work, with Venzai's
extra weight and the freezing cold doing its best to completely numb my fingers,
but in the end we got there.
Through the drifts of snow at the top I could barely make out some large
structure, which when I got closer turned out to be a huge dome surrounded by a
collection of smaller buildings, little towers and wings. Its remarkably
graceful style seemed to contrast heavily with the wind and snow raging around
us, but then perhaps the weather had been a lot finer when these structures had
been built. With Venzai still tied to my back I stumbled towards the pair of
heavy wooden gates that appeared to be the only entrance. I didn't bother
knocking of course, but went straight in, trying to escape the freezing cold as
quickly as I could. Well, the temperature inside wasn't much higher, but at
least we had some shelter from the wind and snow. I carefully untied Venzai and
laid him against one of the walls in the corridor. He seemed to be slowly
regaining his consciousness, but he would need something to keep him warm really
fast. I followed the corridor until I came to a crossroad. Instead of taking
either one of the side corridors I opted for the double doors, which led into
the large round hall under the dome, just as I had expected. In the middle of
the hall there stood a broad pillar topped with a large globe made of some kind
of whitish material. Aside from the doors through which I had entered there were
three other pairs of double doors spaced evenly along the wall, with between
every two pairs two objects that appeared to be some sort of glass sarcophagi.
Through the smudged and dusty glass I could make out their occupants, who looked
quite human in appearance.
Hmm, I got the feeling that perhaps Venzai might know more about them, so
I headed back to where I had left him. Just in time too, for while he had come
to, he appeared to be quite drowsy, and when I nudged him he mumbled something
about being all cosy and warm. This didn't look good. I quickly helped him to
his feet and tried to make him move around a little to snap out of it, but I had
to keep on supporting him because of his right ankle being broken. He didn't
want to walk around of course, but I was quite insistant, only relenting when he
started complaining about being too cold again. As his teeth started chattering
he also became much more lucid. I took him with me to the hall with the glass
coffins and before I knew it he was on his knees and praying.
"Who are these people?" I asked him, but I couldn't get an
answer from him until he had finished. Finally he explained to me that these had
to be the eight Holy Ones. We had indeed come to the thirteenth island.
"Very nice," I grumbled, "so where's
the Sword?"
"I don't know," he said, losing a little
of his earlier enthusiasm.
"Are these Holy Ones supposed to do anything
here?" I asked.
"They are resting," Venzai said testily.
I couldn't help myself, though. Being cold and tired doesn't make me very
reverent.
"They do have some connection to the Sword,
though?" I said.
"Oh, yes," he replied. "At least,
the Book says the Holy Ones are the Sword's keepers." Oh, great! Did that
mean that they were supposed to keep it safe from intruders, or that they would
keep it until someone came along to claim it? Better assume the worst in these
kind of situations and let sleeping dogs lie; I wasn't looking forward to
fighting eight Holy Ones in this cold.
I suggested to Venzai that we'd better check out the rest of the
buildings as well, which he agreed to despite his ankle. We couldn't find
anything of interest, however, so after an hour or so we ended up back in the
same hall. For the first time I noticed that its ceiling was totally flat
instead of the round structure of the dome. There had to be another room up
there, but how to reach it? I studied the pillar with the globe for some time
and even tried climbing on top of it. There wasn't much point to this, though:
the pillar stood about two metres high and was made of stone, while the globe
was made of some whitish opaque material.
As I sat there on the globe pondering my fate Fiona contacted me again,
wanting to know where we were and what things looked like. I gave her a quick
outline of our situation.
"Wait a minute," she said, "I'll
have a look around." I waited for a moment or so and then she was back
again. "See if anything happens," she said. I looked around, curious
to see what she had come up with. To my amazement one of the double doors opened
and shut of its own accord. When I told Fiona, she said: "Ah, it's the
right system." She demonstrated this by opening and shutting all of the
other doors as well. Things turned quiet again for a few minutes, until I
noticed how the temperature in the room seemed to be getting more comfortable.
"That was the heating system," Fi said. "Hmm, what's
this?" There followed a loud buzzing noise as the whole ceiling slid away,
revealing the dome and hanging there up in the air the Sword. Again I told Fiona
what had happened.
"Interesting," she remarked. "I
don't have any more buttons, though, at least not at this level."
"Pity," I said, glancing up at the Sword.
A dull and greyish sheen from the skylight at the top of the dome hung around
it, but there seemed to be no way of reaching it without a ladder. Perhaps if I
could break the glass in the skylight... But no, I was not ready to brave the
cold outside again just yet, and besides it might very well be nigh impossible
to scale the dome, especially in this storm. What was keeping that Sword up
there anyway? Strings? I picked up a piece of rock, took good aim and threw it
at the weapon. Miss. I tried a few more times, until I was fairly certain that
there had to be some kind of forcefield protecting the Sword.
"I can't get to that part of the system," Fiona remarked
casually. "It's a specially protected file."
"What kind of protection?" I asked,
feeling a little mystified by the way she kept refering to this stuff as if it
were all computer related.
"You'd need some kind of personal code to get
in," she replied.
I tried concentrating on the forcefield for a moment, but I could only
sense something very vaguely before Fi warned me against logging into the system
myself. I guess she had a point: if I got stuck in there as well, it might take
a very long time before someone would come looking for us. However, I felt that
I had to apply my mental powers in some way or other, so I started studying the
pillar and globe more closely. They seemed to be in some way a part of the whole
system, but I still couldn't figure out what their function or functions were. I
again told Fi what I had seen, though, since she seemed to have a far better
grasp of the situation than I did.
"I suspect that those eight Holy Ones as you called them could help
us with that personal code," she said. "Perhaps the globe is part of
the subsystem which rouses them from their slumber."
"Can you do something to set all of that in
motion?" I asked, although I still wasn't entirely convinced that it was a
good idea to wake them.
"Like I said, there's a subsystem that's
supposed to take care of that. First some condition has to be reached, though,
to start it all of. Some change in the current situation, probably something to
do with the globe."
She again began working every part of the system that she could get her
hands on, opening and shutting doors, lowering and raising the temperature, and
so on, but to no avail: the eight sarcophagi remained closed and their occupants
lifeless as before. My gaze was once again drawn up to the Sword. Funny that
skylight being there...
"Fi," I said, "perhaps we need some
light to make the globe work."
"Light? Of course! A strong source of light
right overhead would do the trick I think. Hmm, I could try to get rid of all
the clouds for a few moments, but that's not the easiest thing to do. I could
try something else, though. I've got it. Just stand clear for a minute, will
you?"
I moved back to the wall where Venzai lay staring at me. By now he must
think I was totally crazy, talking to people who weren't there and stuff like
that. Then again this might only have reinforced his belief in my being the
Prophet. Ah well, as long as he wouldn't get in the way.
Just when I was getting impatient the loud buzzing noise resounded
throughout the hall as the ceiling slid into place again. As soon as it had,
there was a bright flash of light in the middle of it. Fire! The ceiling was
burning, clearly not with a natural fire, though, for it burned too hot and too
bright. Nice of Fiona to warn me to stand back from this inferno. She might have
told me what she had been planning,
though.
Anyway, her plan appeared to be working. The intense light of the burning
ceiling made the white globe glow and resonate with power, until it reached a
certain critical stage. Suddenly rays of light shot out of it towards the eight
coffins. Another buzzing sound, though slightly different this time, and they
slowly slid open. Immediately Fiona, who had been monitoring everything,
retracted the ceiling again, keeping the room safe from fire. I waited a few
minutes, before I carefully went to inspect every coffin's occupants. Every pair
of them contained one man and one woman of some indistinct middle age, and they
didn't seem to be very lively. Yes, they had thawed somewhat by now, but whether
they were alive or dead I couldn't tell.
"So what now?" I asked Fi after I had told her what had
happened.
"Well, you're the one who's there," she
said a bit testily. "Wake them up. They may have been inside for over a
thousand years, so they need some time to become acclimatized."
I quickly checked each of the eight Holy Ones, but in the end there was
only one man who was still alive. He needed a lot of energy, however, and it
took quite some time before he opened his eyes. He looked straight at me, trying
to get his vision into focus. It was clear that he wanted to say something, but
he couldn't quite work the right muscles yet. I gave him a little of the water
from my supply and helped him step out of the sarcophagus. The poor man could
barely stand, let alone walk. It took him several minutes before he could
finally address me properly.
"What about the others?" was his first question. His voice was
still very frail and he looked as if he would collapse at any moment. I hated to
give him the bad news as soon as this, but I wasn't going to lie to him either.
"They didn't make it," I replied gently.
They news clearly gave him a shock, but before I could do something to calm him
Venzai was there before us on his knees, pleading and begging.
"Oh master, help us!" he cried, bowing
his head.
"Yes, yes," the old man sighed
soothingly. He clearly still had to recover from his recent shock before he
could truly start acting the Holy One part.
"We have braved many dangers to find
you!" Venzai insisted. "We really need your help!"
"It's alright, my son," the Holy One said unctuously.
"What is your problem?"
"We need the Sword!" Venzai blurted, and
he plunged on in a description of everything that was wrong with the world. The
Holy One frowned at hearing this story.
"These storms are peculiar," he said when
Venzai had finished, "that's not the way things are supposed to be. But the
Sword?" He shrugged. "It's the symbol of this world. As far as I know
it doesn't have any special powers." For a moment Venzai looked totally
crestfallen.
"But.. but...," he stammered, "it
was all in the Book. It's got to be true then, doesn't it?"
"Do you have a way to get it down here?"
I asked the old man.
"Yes, of course," he said in a tone of
mild surprise. He raised his right arm and started concentrating, and slowly the
Sword drifted down into his outstretched hand. As it came down I saw that the
blade wasn't made of steel, but of some kind of crystal, with the hilt made of
white stone.
As soon as the man held the Sword in his hand I asked him friendly
whether I could hold it for a moment. Venzai looked a bit annoyed of course,
wanting to hold the legendary weapon himself, but he couldn't refuse the Prophet
this honour, could he? The Holy one studied me closely for a moment.
"I will entrust you with the Sword," he said, "but please
realise that you'll be holding the fate of this world in your hands." I
nodded and carefully accepted the weapon from him. It was curiously light and
well-balanced in my hands and I wondered about the identity of its maker.
"You've got the Sword?" Fiona asked. "Good. Then we can
leave." I glanced at Venzai and the Holy One, trying to find a way I could
spare them this pain and disappointment, but there wasn't. I couldn't stay here
in this world and they would only be in the way if I were to take them with me.
Was it just me, or had I picked up yet another Amberite trait: that of
indifference to the fate of Shadow dwellers? I heaved a sigh. Maybe I'm just not
cut out for this line of work.
"Okay," I said to Fiona, "let's be off." The world immediately started to blur around me, but the last thing I saw was Venzai rushing towards me with outstretched arms and an expression of despair on his face, his cries of: "NO! NO!" ringing in my ears. I'm sure he didn't hear me whisper: "I'm sorry..."