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Solaris. A planet like any other, rife with wars, science and love. But at the peak of its civilization, a great meteor fell, bringing long-dead souls to Solaris, souls that had been sustained by the life-force of one lone man, Ineal.

At the moment of impact, these souls scattered across Solaris, giving inhuman abilities to mortals while scarring their bodies and corrupting their lives.

Samuel was one such man, a man of faith who thought to use his powers to worship his God: he watched his followers, and his planet, die. Seas turned to lava and the skies darkened. And as Samuel's heart grew weary and angry, he used his powers to manipulate the world to serve him alone.

Samuel became god of a planet whose only life was the symbiotic life so like his own.

Centuries later, he discovered others, threats that had not been on this planet before. A winged woman; a cyborg; a future-seer and a child. A great vengeance burned a comradery between them.

They were souls that could overthrow him. Souls that he would need to destroy.
Breakwater Harbor Books presents by Scott J. Toney

Sci-Fi

NovaForge (Nova Trilogy #1)

Fantasy

The Ark of Humanity

Eden Legacy

# NovaForge

Scott J. Toney

Copyright 2014 by Scott J. Toney

Smashwords Edition

Breakwater Harbor Books, Inc.

Scott J. Toney and Cara Goldthorpe, Co-Founders

www.breakwaterharborbooks.com

Copyright © 2014 by Scott J. Toney

All Rights Reserved

Cover by Bradley Wind

Author email – poeticliscence@hotmail.com

First Printing, May 2014

NovaForge is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real people or places (past or present) is strictly coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Dedicated to Ivan Amberlake, a fellow author whom I am honored to call friend and whom I am greatly indebted to for all the support and edit advice he has given my books. I set out on this writing journey in search of new worlds and have discovered an excellent friend in the process. Check out his book, The Beholder, when you've finished NovaForge.
Acknowledgments

A tremendous thank you to Ivan Amberlake, who has once more been an essential help in editing and whose dedication to my writing means a great deal.

Thank you to Melissa Simonson, whose edit advice I greatly value.

Bradley Wind, my cover artist. This is the fourth cover Wind has designed for me. His talent is immense and I am honored to have his artwork for the covers of my books.

A great thanks to my fellow authors at Breakwater Harbor Books. It is an honor to create and publish beside such talented authors.

My stunning, intelligent and loving wife Laura is the woman of my dreams. She believes in and supports me in all endeavors and is everything and more than I'd ever imagined having in my wife. Without her nothing would make it to page or be worth writing. As my equal partner, she fills and enriches my life.

Annabel and Benjamin, you are the most amazing children, a little rascally at times, but I wouldn't have you any other way. May you enjoy this and all my books when you are old enough to read them. I love you deeper than you will ever know.

CI

# Foreword

Darkness consumed Ineal as the voices tore at his thoughts. The sole survivor of the planet Eon, he wanted to shut off his brain, to destroy his consciousness and be nothing. But the voices would not let him.

The planets' souls, he thought, encased in this meteor hurtling through space. The souls of dead planets destroyed us. I am the last. They take me for their own.

He did not know when the essences of dead planets first came to Eon. Men and women bonded with them, inviting the haunting gaseous essences to their bodies and allowing the essences to become necessary symbiotes of the flesh. The symbiosis with the dead planetary souls gave his people powers and abilities beyond their dreams. But the price, the price of the flesh was great, and an ultimate death of sacrifice and pain was given in return. Ineal was the last, and the only being of Eon who had not accepted them into his flesh.

But you took me, he thought as they spoke with their unintelligible voices, whispering in a constant echo through his mind. When my planet died you came to me. You took my body to keep yourselves alive. They kept him alive too, feeding him their energy as they fed off his living essence.

Millennia of time passed as the meteor orbited the solar system.

Ineal could take no more. Rock pressed against him, suffocating his thoughts.

He closed his mind, pulling blackness from the void beyond and urging it to destroy him and the planetary souls, so that whatever planet they would go to next might be spared.

His mind's darkness came. He forgot speech. He forgot sight. He forgot love. But the essences would not release his life force and the greatness it became in their harnessing embrace. They would not allow him to forget primal sense.

Then, in that rawness of life, where he was barely being at all, he sensed a planet. They had intended this new planet as their destination from the start.

The essences' telekinetic connection pulled away from him, severing the symbiosis and sending searing heat through his form.

There was a moment of silence for Ineal, of freedom. Then came the violent crack of stone, as meteor met planet. A great boom consumed him. Ineal's consciousness was lost... almost. But his essence lingered somehow in the planet's form.

The planetary essences fled their transport, consuming life and searching for prey.

*

Moments Before

Ivanus stood in awe, watching the radiant orb and its tail of fire growing larger and larger in the sky.

He stood in the market of the city of Asil. Men and women streamed around him, while others did as he did, watching death come down. It had been prophesied that the meteor would come, and then the world would die of fire.

It radiated a striking hue.

Ivanus shut out the sounds around him. Silence loomed past the screams of his city's people.

A vast burning ring ripped in his planet's atmosphere as the meteor punched through.

A second passed.

It hit as if in slow motion, pummeling the earth miles before him, and a massive shockwave blinked the plants, city and people from existence.

But in that instant, something punched Ivanus through his skin and muscle. It held his body solid while he watched the world flatten in the meteor's wake. He watched as glowing spirits splintered and burst forth from the crag.

His stomach lurched. Black swelled over him. His body disappeared from the expanse of the land, leaving nothing where he once stood. He was gone from that time.

When Ivanus opened his eyes, centuries later, radiant sunlight burned his retinas. Before him, a woman screamed in pain.

*

The other side of the planet

After the meteor came the essences sought out beings to be their hosts. People proved to be most compatible. They were given great powers because of them, but not without cost. The more they used their powers, the more the planetary essences devoured their life force.

Markings covered the bodies of the essences' hosts, streams of boiled flesh burned into their victims as proof of what would ultimately be given to possess the supernatural abilities and the great power that came with them.

Men died and new men rose to connect with the essences in their wake. Again and again the cycle went.

But that was not always the way. There were a select few who could control the coming death and harness it, keeping themselves alive almost indefinitely. A great Bishop and leader of men was one of these.

Samuel was one of the first to discover that the essences had power. His faith in his god was great, surpassed only by Samuel's love of that deity. At first he used his power to pull as many followers to his god as possible and teach them the ways of peace. But as he sustained his life his followers died. The planet was consumed, its vegetation devoured by the heat of its two suns and the life-draining power of the essences. Seas turned to lava. The sky darkened, and so did Samuel's heart.

He turned on his god, knowing that he did not exist, that no true god would let this suffering come to the world. And in his ages of life he turned on goodness and was consumed by desire, desire to control and manipulate the world to serve him.

Samuel used his power to attract people to him. He turned them not only to his worshipers, but fighters in his name, conquering civilizations all over the dying planet and turning them to his slaves. Any who neared him to overthrow him were encased in their minds, while their bodies were turned into his loyal warriors.

He was god of a planet whose only greatness of life was supported by the symbiotic essences. His reign and power would be eternal.

Then one day, centuries after he first discovered the essences, he looked out over the lava sea beyond his citadel and knew. There were new planetary essences out there that had not been on his planet before. He sensed someone who could overthrow him, someone he would need to search out and destroy.

Samuel stretched his boil-singed hands, smiling at the burning sensation that coursed through him. "Come," he spoke into the hot, rust-flecked wind that curled over his body. "You will only die."

# Chapter 1

Raw, hot wind whipped over Julieth as she ran barefoot across red earth. A mesh mask covered her face to protect her from the rust-wind. Her chest heaved heavily.

Battle raged in her city, miles behind her, and though there was nowhere to run, to stay would mean death. Since the arrival of the essences to the planet, those who connected with them used their powers to rule and destroy powerless humans of the world. A half metallic man sent by the great Bishop, Samuel, now butchered her city with the help of mercenary warriors. The conflict had gone on for mere days, yet already the structures of the city lay scorched and warped on the earth.

With a bow and arrow clenched in one hand, and a ten-year-old boy from her city clutching her other, Julieth fled as quickly as she could. He was one of two boys she had cared for since their parents' deaths. She hadn't been able to locate his brother before fleeing the Kaskal but at least Bayne would live. If we are lucky, she thought, once they defeat my people and take them to enslave, we can return and find food stores to sustain us for one or two weeks. The land was barren of vegetation and most animals, but her city possessed a machine from the fallen ages, which created synthetic food to sustain what remained of humanity. She couldn't operate it, but some of the synthetic food would surely remain.

Julieth stopped for a moment, something on the horizon catching her breath. A spark of light grew larger and larger as it approached. Her auburn hair whipped in the harsh wind. Have they discovered us? Her vision shook and a crack resounded in the air, deafening her for an instant.

"Come to me!" she called to the boy.

She touched his back with her hand as he came, and then radiant light blinded her.

Julieth's body thrust back as ethereal gasses burned her flesh, ripping through her body. She hurtled to the red soil and cried out. Hot pain surged in her chest and back as she struggled to stand. Bayne? she thought while realizing she didn't hear the boy's voice. What happened?

Julieth forced back the pain and braced herself, standing. Darkness swelled in her sight, but soon she made out the silhouette of the mountains in the distance and a form standing before her.

"Bayne?" she asked, stumbling toward it. No, it is too tall for him. She stopped, fear raking through her. It hunched over, its form slowly more distinguishable in her returning sight.

"Where... where am I?" a young man's voice asked.

"Don't come near us," she warned, picking her bow off the ground and knocking back an arrow from her quiver in aim.

The man heeded her, but looked around in confusion. "Where is Asil? Where is the meteor?"

"Asil?" Julieth asked, seeing Bayne lying limp on the ground nearby, his chest rising and falling. Her back throbbed in pulsing pain. "The city of Asil was destroyed when the meteor came long ago," she said. "It was here, but now this is a barren land." She watched the young man, her arrow cocked at him as he looked around in disbelief. "And the remnants of the meteor are in the earth in the distance. You look as if you truly do not believe me. Where were you raised, that you do not know these things?"

The man rubbed his brow. "But they were just here," he said. "My head is foggy." A look of certainty came to his eyes. "What is the year?"

She needed to lose him and escape with Bayne, that or kill him and leave him here. "3906," she said, watching him intently as he did not react.

"It was 3674 a moment ago. The meteor crashed through the sky." He suddenly seemed to notice something beneath his shirt, touching it as he looked down.

Julieth recognized the vibrant marking the moment she saw its glow. He is one of them. She did not hesitate, only let the bowstring slip from her fingertips, its arrow shaft splicing toward his skull.

Before she loosed it, his hand moved before his head, right where the arrow shot. He clasped its shaft in his fist and pulled it away.

Julieth backed away from him, fear coursing through her chest and across her skin.

The man took a step toward her. "Hear me, please. I am from when the meteor crashed."

Julieth cocked another arrow back in her bow, holding it steady in aim. It won't work against him, she thought after seeing him pull the other arrow from the air, but it is the only protection I have.

"I think I must have moved through time." The man held still. "I am somehow sensing what will happen for miles around us, moments before the time actually comes. It's coming in blips of energy in my mind, but I see it."

"What do you see, and how can I know you won't harm us?"

"A people a great distance from us are dying as a man with mechanical limbs leads warriors against them. These people fight, but are losing ground."

Julieth stood beside Bayne, measuring whether she should lift the boy and try to escape, or attempt to flee alone. "If you were one of them, you would know that. Leave us, if you are who you say you are, and do not head in that direction."

"I am Ivanus, and I cannot leave. I have no place to..." he stopped speaking, watching her with a look of awe on his face. "Step away from the boy. I cannot tell you what is going to happen. But you will not want to be near him."

"What?" Julieth asked, stepping away from Bayne, though she didn't know why she listened to Ivanus. A deep pain suddenly struck her chest and back as her sight went red. She opened her mouth to scream, but was in such pain she could not make a sound.

She fell to the ground, clenching earth with her hands and barely seeing Ivanus dragging Bayne's limp body away from her. Her back quaked as something ripped from her flesh. It felt like a writhing serpent, moving, but still connected to her. A moment later another surge of pain struck her as another massive thing burst out of her back. A slimy substance oozed around her on the red soil. The pain receded as regular sight returned. Feathers blew in the wind away from her, covered in the same gooey substance on the earth around her body.

"You have wings!" Ivanus called out nearby. "Vast, beautiful wings. I didn't know what they were when I saw them in my sight."

What is he saying? Julieth worked through the remaining pain, trying to pull together her thoughts. She could move the things protruding from her back, and could feel them as if they were her limbs. What is going on? Do I really have wings? She could believe it if she had somehow bonded with an essence, but had never seen wings in person before. All species of flight perished shortly after the meteor, except for one man who had been possessed by the essences. He was rumored to be part dragon, but she had never seen him.

Whatever struck me when Ivanus arrived, those must have been essences from his time, if he is telling the truth. Julieth touched her chest where the things had entered her, and then reached around her back to feel for their markings. Her hands touched slime, and then the intricate patterns of fresh muscle and feathers. A shiver ran through her and she used the new muscles protruding from her back to curve her wings before her and into her sight. Their ivory white feathers were beautiful. They are a part of me, she thought in surreal wonder.

Julieth looked back at Ivanus. Can I trust him? she thought, approaching him and suddenly unafraid. Ivanus laid Bayne on the earth and walked away before she could tell him to.

"You are beautiful," Ivanus said. "Is that what the markings do, give people physical and mental traits? Why would they do that to you, and then do this to me?"

Julieth kneeled and touched Bayne's back, noticing the color markings of an essence seared in the top of his spine. When will his ability manifest? Why has it not yet? she wondered. "Are you really from the past?" she asked. "You do not know these things? I suppose it would explain a lot. And if these are new essences in us from the meteor, then they will kill us slower than the essences bonded with others, that have connected to multiple people since the meteor's crash."

"Kill us? Essences?" Ivanus exclaimed, genuine fear in his eyes.

He cannot be faking that, Julieth thought. "Yes, they are the essences of planets long dead, their souls, I am told. And as you use your abilities given by them, your life-force will slowly drain away." The realization washed over her that this was her fate now, too, but there was no way to remove them once they bonded with your flesh.

"Ivanus, the city you sense close by, is my own," she spoke in desperation. "In blood its people are yours as well, because the few survivors of your city when the meteor came, fled to where my city is now. I must go back, to save my people, and I need you by my side. Before you came, my people had no essences or abilities and no chance to turn back our enemy, but with your sight and my wings, my people might have a chance."

Ivanus walked toward her. "I know nothing definitively of what has happened to me, and less about how to control it. And what can we do, a man who sees things only seconds before they happen and a woman with wings? I cannot fight. I worked as a Stone-Smith in my city and have never wielded a weapon."

Julieth looked at him. "You pulled an arrow from the air with your hands. Surely there is much in you that you may not know, but which will give us a chance. Besides, what else will you do? You do not know this time. Without help, you may perish."

"And the boy?" Ivanus asked hesitantly. "He needs medical attention. A battlefield is not the place for a boy as injured as he appears."

"Kaskal is the only city for a great distance. If he is to be healed, then that, my city, is the only place he can go. And besides, an essence has connected with his flesh as well. It will not allow him to die yet, at least not of natural causes, because it is so fresh in his body."

Ivanus hesitated as wind cut around them.

Heat baked Julieth's back. Somehow that heat invigorated her, giving her strength through the veins in her wings and drying the goop from their forms. "I am Julieth, and this is Bayne." She held out her hand. "Will you help us fight for my people?"

Ivanus took her hand and embraced it with his own. "I will go there with you and do what I can. But I make no promises of if I will stay if your city falls." He let go of her hand, looking over the barren landscape behind her and closing his eyes.

"What is it? Do you see something there?" Julieth asked.

"Your people need us quickly. If those wings allow you to fly, then you could move with speed, but how am I and the boy to join you?"

Julieth felt a surge of strength as she spread her vast wings, pumping them and lifting quickly into the air. Their muscles were warm against her back as she beat them and hovered in the sky above Ivanus and Bayne. She curved her wings in the rushing wind and soared upward away from them, then curved them again and dove. "They are strong," she said while landing and stirring soil from the ground. "I could carry Bayne in my arms until we reach Kaskal." She was desperate. There was no time. Grasping, she asked, "What if you rode my back?"

"It will work."

Ivanus's mind was registering the future again. It frightened Julieth that she could see his ability manifesting so easily. He walked behind her, going between her outstretched wings and clasping tight with his hands on her shoulders, holding his body close to hers.

"Hold on," Julieth said, pumping her wings and lifting to the sky, then diving low and hefting Bayne's limp body in her arms from the earth in a swoop.

Barren soil swept by beneath her as she flew, harnessing flight fully for the first time. She had never seen the planet in this way before. Shells of rusted out structures that once stood like titans on Solaris's form carved the crimson earth below.

Wind made it hard to breathe, and her hearing lessened as it pounded her eardrums. Ivanus weighted down her back. If he could speak in the battering wind, he did not.

In the distance she saw the city of Kaskal and its broken buildings littering the earth. A tall, vast wall surrounded the city. Breach holes pocked its shell. Blasts of light burst across Kaskal, and though she remained far off, she knew what they were.

"He has guns!" Ivanus said loudly as he leaned close to her ear. "But his warriors do not!"

"Guns?" Julieth asked. "I have not heard of 'guns', but this man harnesses weapons that bear lightning to the world, destroying all that their energy touches!"

"They are guns! I remember them from my time, though I have never seen ones so advanced! What do we do with the boy if he does not awaken before we arrive?"

Julieth tried not to focus on the encompassing, beautiful feeling of her wings pumping air and the embrace of wind curling over them. If I live, there will be time for that later. It was as if the essences in her body wanted her to focus on her power, instead of the people and city she loved. "You are the one who can see within the city walls!" she shouted to Ivanus above the wind. "Where do you think I should set him down?"

"I see time as it will be, not as it is!" Ivanus called back. "But I sense the basement of a destroyed home within the city that is far from the fighting! The boy should be safe there!" He clutched tight to her shoulders as she curved and cut through the sky toward Kaskal, nearing quickly in the distance.

"I will need you to guide me, and we may be struck out of the sky before we can even land!" Julieth looked down to the child she clutched in her arms as she flew. His hair wove over his face in the currents. He looked lifeless, and yet she felt his heartbeat through her palms.

They approached quickly through the sky, the only thing airborne near this walled city in the middle of a vast desert.

BOOM! An explosion ripped through the front of the city.

"Head away from the blast!" Ivanus called out as he clutched tight on Julieth's shoulder to signal her.

A bolt of electricity cracked the air and shot near them as they dove, striking out from where the explosion in the city had been. It sent static through her wings, causing her to lose command of her wing-muscles for a split second, then regain control and curve toward the city's back wall.

"Dive!" Ivanus shouted and Julieth listened as another column of electricity struck up at them from below.

Smoke roiled around them as Julieth dove into Kaskal's ruins. People shouted in fear and bodies littered the stone-cobbled streets.

BOOM! Another blast from the front of the city shook the structures around them as Julieth landed roughly on the street.

Ivanus let go of her shoulders and began running down an alleyway nearby. The tops of the alley's buildings were gone, crumbled down in the hulls of their structures. Soot marked their clay walls. "This way!" he shouted to her.

She retracted her wings and ran wearily after him while clutching Bayne tightly in her arms. People stared at her in fear and awe.

Ivanus turned into a structure half her height, disappearing down a stairwell and into a dark chamber, seemingly once a basement or storage room.

Julieth ran behind him, rushing into the near darkness until she came to him, standing in a corner of the chamber where several cots lined a wall.

"There is someone here I've been watching through my sight, who I think can be trusted," Ivanus said. "Come out, we mean you no harm!" he sang into the dark.

A moment later a disheveled woman appeared holding a candle, out of an underground passageway. The candle's light danced about them. "Julieth, is that you?" she asked. "I heard you'd fled us." She gasped as she saw Julieth's wings.

"Yes, Sara, it is me. I had no choice. We would have died." Julieth took Bayne and gently laid him on the nearest cot. "I have come into contact with essences. They are part of me now, and they are also a part of this man I come with. Will you watch over Bayne as I see what I can do to fight our enemy? If I die, I will need you to protect him."

"We will all die," Sara said as she touched Bayne's face, a hard look on the woman's features. "But yes, I will watch over him." Sara's eyes looked to Julieth's bow, still strung over her shoulder. "There are arrows tipped with fire-powder at the base of that wall." She motioned into a darker portion of the chamber. "Take them, they are no use to me."

"Thank you." Julieth laid her hand on Sara's shoulder. "Is there a weapon here my friend could use, a sword perhaps?"

"My husband's sword and shield lie near the arrows. He died yesterday as a surge of fire rained down on us."

"I am sorry. He was a good man," Julieth said while taking the arrows in her hands and loading them in her quiver. She eyed the small sword. It would have to do. "Here, use this." She handed it to Ivanus and then did the same with the thin metallic shield.

"But I have never wielded a sword." He clutched the sword and shield awkwardly as he stood.

"When the time comes, pray that your sight serves you. May you wield a sword for the first time like you did your abilities while taking my arrow. Have confidence in yourself. It is the only way any of us will make it from today to tomorrow alive."

They ran up out of the mouth of the basement's darkness quickly, the light and heat of the planet's two suns blanketing them as they rose once more into the broken city's shell. "Where do we go?" Julieth asked, hoping Ivanus could see where their enemies would soon be.

BOOM! An explosion went off a distance away from them and the screams of a woman pierced their thoughts.

"Toward her voice." Ivanus rushed to Julieth's side, working hard to firmly support the sword and shield. The planet's rust-flecked wind stung their faces. "The woman will die soon, but there are others who need us."

Another scream pierced the air as Ivanus ran after Julieth into a wider street. "I cannot support you with the sword and shield," she said while looking to Ivanus. "You'll have to make your way to the front of the city on your own. If you need me, call out, and if I hear you, I will come." I just met this man, she thought, and already I feel a deep trust and alliance to him. Is that because we are both connected through the essences?

Julieth extended her wings fully to her sides as the few people in the street around them kept their distance. Sunlight shattered off her wings' forms as she thrust them downward, pumping upward above the city and watching as Ivanus made his way through the maze of debris battered streets below.

She took a moment to scan the cityscape and saw a massive group of her people defending a building a distance away. That is where the synthetic food creator is, she thought, realizing that if the structure fell, this could be her people's last stand. Why have I returned? A wave of heat surged through her. I have no family here, and few friends. Leaving had been easy to justify when she was just one regular woman and knew she would make no difference if she stayed to defend her home. But with this new ability, I have to fight for my people.

Julieth drew a fire-powder tipped arrow from her quiver and cocked it back in her bowstring. With a pulse of her wings she dove low, hugging above the remains of houses and stores lining the streets.

As she neared the fighting, she saw the mercenary fighters who had come with the metallic man, slowly driving back her people. They wore armor black as night and their swords were red with the blood of human life. Bodies littered the ground around them.

Julieth aimed at the front mercenary's torso and let her arrow fly, watching as it exploded on contact with his body, killing him and several fighters around him. Some of her people looked up at her and cheered, while others used the opportunity to force their way forward.

Swords met swords and cries of death rang through the air. Arrows from archers volleyed between the groups.

Julieth caught a current of wind and moved behind the enemy as arrows barely missed her from below. She became more and more adept with the movements of flight. I have harnessed my ability as quickly as Ivanus has harnessed his, she thought, and then wondered why she hadn't seen him below in the fighting yet. Does he see something in the future and know a different place to go? It was useless. Ivanus was not with her, and without him she would not know until the time came.

Pulling another fire-powder tipped arrow from her quiver, she looked for the best place to aim. She flew high enough now that the mercenary arrows could not reach her and the enemy refocused their attention fully on her people once more.

Where are you? she wondered of the metallic man, knowing he lurked somewhere below. And why aren't you with your men?

A static charge rushed over her flesh and she began to fall as a column of blue electricity surged up at her from below, barely missing her body, and only because she lost control before it came.

"No!" she screamed, and then finally beat her wings again, bracing herself in the wind. She instantly let the arrow fly to where the electricity originated. It exploded, toppling the wall of a clay home. In the smoke she saw the metallic man aiming some sort of weapon at her. The whole right side of his body was a metal skeleton and sunlight radiated off its parts. The weapon radiated blue and she dove away as static burst over her flesh, another burst of electricity pulsing past her only breaths away.

Julieth let her body free-fall, hoping the man would mistake her for dead and she could land in a portion of the city blocked from his vision. Blood rushed to her head and her mind pulsed. As soon as she was beyond his sight, she braced her wings in the wind and glided to a street below.

I am only blocks from him, she thought, knowing he would come check where she fell. Julieth cocked another fire-powdered arrow in her bowstring and ducked in an ash-covered building close by. The air was dense as she stood in the darkness of the doorway, her arrow ready to fire. Will a fire-powdered arrow kill you? she wondered, knowing that it probably wouldn't and shivering while anticipating her death.

An instant later a beam of electricity struck across her vision, exploding the home across from her and sending fragments of its walls through the air.

"You cannot hide from me," a metallic voice spoke out, through the cloud of smoke rising from the toppled, scorched structure. Soon she could see him walking through the street. He stood taller than any man she'd seen before. Gears moved and adjusted in his cybernetic arm and leg.

I have no chance, she thought, watching in awe as the cyborg turned toward her, a metallic eye shifting from orange to red while examining her structure.

Her fingers loosed the bowstring as her arrow punched his chest and exploded, knocking him backwards and causing him to stumble before leveling his weapon at her building.

Julieth ran full force, pulling an arrow from her quiver and loading it, ready to let it fly as she pumped her wings and took to the air. She took a breath, bracing for the death that would come when his weapon fired, but as she looked down she saw Ivanus charging across a rooftop close by and leaping through the air, crashing down on the cyborg with his shield on his back and sword held high.

Clash! Ivanus's blade beat the cyborg's metallic arm, glancing off but taking one of the man's metal fingers with the blow. Ivanus stammered. She saw a smirk on his face as the cyborg leveled his weapon at him.

Julieth's second arrow found the cyborg's torso, exploding and sending him to the ground. As she loaded another arrow, the borg fired its electricity on her, punching through one of her wings and sending her toppling to a rooftop not far below.

Her back and wings burned, but she could not stop. She cocked another arrow and ran across the rooftop, aiming at the borg while leaping from the rooftop to the street. Ivanus dealt blow after blow to the man's metallic exterior, at the same time avoiding blasts from the man's weapon. He has amazing reflexes, she thought. She would not be able to fire on the cyborg without injuring Ivanus.

"Ivanus!" she called. "Escape so that I can fire!"

The cyborg kicked Ivanus with his massive foot, sending him stumbling back, and then leveled his weapon on her.

As the electric blast came, Julieth fired, her arrow exploding as it made contact with the electricity beam and sending a shockwave through the street before knocking them both back.

The cyborg leveled his weapon again, luminescent blue radiating in the weapon's barrel, and Julieth felt a sudden wave of darkness consume her.

She fell limp to the cobble street below.

## Chapter 2

## Moments Before

Darkness.

Bayne could not see, could not think. Hollow nothing surrounded him. It rose and bloomed from the depths of his soul, its tendrils wrapping his limbs and pulling down his mind.

Then, with a burst of light, the darkness was gone. Bayne awoke, his hands touching cloth he did not recognize. Dark surrounded him as beams of light shone down from above; illuminating the floor of the room where he lay.

"Bayne, are you awake?" a familiar voice came from nearby. "Please, wait for me, I am coming."

The last he remembered, he held Julieth's hand as the two of them ran to escape Kaskal and its attackers. "Where... where am I? Am I in Kaskal?" he asked the woman he recognized from the city.

She came to him, putting a moist cloth on his forehead.

His eyes slowly adjusted. "Where is Julieth? Why are we here?" He braced his arm shakily on the cot's side, fighting back nausea as he stood.

"She has returned to fight our enemy and has come into contact with the essences."

The essences... he thought, his memory murky. Where would they have been? Bayne was young; barely ten years of age, but in this world of wars and famine had been forced to grow up quickly.

"I need to go to her." He looked up at the woman standing over him. "Since my parents died, her and my brother are all I have."

"Bayne, neither of us can do anything to save Kaskal." The woman put her hand to his forehead, checking for fever. "We must stay here and hope they return safely."

"I will do as you say," Bayne said, watching the woman's eyes and calculating what he needed to do. "Do you have anything to eat?" he asked.

"Let me check the storage chamber," she said, turning and heading away from him toward a hollowed-out hole in the room's wall.

He took his opportunity, moving as swiftly as he could without making a noise, shuffling quietly up the staircase leading to the sunlight.

"Bayne! Bayne!" he heard the woman shouting for him to return.

Light blinded him as he left the destroyed structure and stepped onto the street. He squinted, looking up to the suns above and then tightening the mesh mask over his face. Bayne ran swiftly towards the end of the alleyway, bounding through the streets closer and closer to the city's front. Where has Julieth gone? he wondered.

He knew he had to find her. If what the woman spoke the truth, then he did not know what would happen to his life, but he yearned to be beside the woman who had shown him such care.

Bayne stopped for a moment and looked down at a man's dead body in the shadows close by. Blood seeped from an arrow wound in the man's chest. It sickened him. The boy reached down and touched the man's open eyelids, pulling them down over his eyes.

"Rest," he said, "and send my love to my mother and father for me."

He ran on, weaving through streets and ducking away from conflicts until he noticed the beautiful winged creature in the sky. Sunlight illuminated her form as he looked on her in awe. It took a moment, but as he stood there watching in the middle of the vacant street he realized he knew her form, without the wings behind her. "Julieth," he spoke, half voicing his knowledge and half questioning reality.

The screams of his people dying sounded in the distance and he shivered with fear. I will die in these streets today, he thought, somehow resigned to that fact after watching his people fend off many attacks during his short life, but none like what came upon them now. His older brother was somewhere in the city. Are you alive, Andral? Julieth had insisted they had no time to search out Andral before they fled. And yet she brought me back to this place. Wherever you are, Andral, I hope you live. I hope you would forgive me for leaving you.

A sudden flash of blue light cut across Julieth's winged body in the distance. Bayne's heartbeat quickened and his feet were heavy on the street as he ran in her direction. She fell from the sky and out of his view.

He darted through a series of backstreets, moving quicker and quicker, determined to assist her. He had no weapon, no physical strength, but somehow he would help.

A loud noise cracked nearby, and soon he pivoted onto the street where Julieth fell.

Bayne froze, seeing two men fighting each other in the middle of the street not far from him, and Julieth, clearly wounded but coming toward a man with metallic limbs.

He watched in horror while seeing the cyborg level its weapon at her. Fear took over. "No!" he shouted.

A wave of energy exploded from Bayne's body, felling the cyborg, the other man and Julieth to the ground. They did not move.

Bayne held his hands before him, stunned by what had just happened, not knowing what caused it. What was more bizarre was that there was complete silence, outside of the wind, where just before the sounds of battle sounded around the city. What is going on?

It only took a moment, and then after seeing no movement from the cyborg or anyone else Bayne ran as fast as he could to Julieth's side. Her body lay limp but he could feel her heartbeat in her veins.

He touched her palm, feeling the warmth of her skin and holding it tight to his chest. "Wake up," he said. "I need you." Feathers from her wings ruffled in the wind. No reply came.

He walked close to the cyborg and watched as the gears in his leg and arm spun and clicked. The borg's body was half flesh, half metallic. Lines of boiled flesh covered his skin and there were markings from the possession of an essence on his cybernetic hand. The borg's one metallic eye glowed an eerie red, and then slowly transformed to a soft electric-blue.

# Chapter 3

A steady, aching pulse surged through Julieth's mind as she opened her eyes. Sunlight blinded her. Her body sweltered in the heat and her throat was parched. The mesh mask she wore clung to her face, digging into its form. She reached up slowly, grabbing the mask with her hand and tearing it away. The essences would protect her from the rust-wind. There was no need to wear it any longer.

"Ugh." Her body ached as she lay in the street where she fell. Why am I not dead? In the sunlight, looking out over the street, she saw the cyborg motionless on the ground. A faint blue light glowed from his metallic eye. Ivanus also lay motionless in the corner of her vision.

Her heart raced. She heard nothing but the wind. How could that be? she wondered, and then braced herself to stand. Surely his weapon would have killed me. What is happening? She reached back to where her wing had been hit by the cyborg's blast, feeling fresh muscle and goop where the hole had been. Tiny feathers poked through the flesh. She could not feel it healing, but instead felt a throbbing pain in her back.

What is that sound? Julieth thought, hearing a muffled noise close by. She scanned the street, at first seeing nothing but the cyborg and Ivanus's bodies, but as she listened to the low noise she saw a youth's figure in the shadows, hunched against a building's wall. It held its head in its hands. It was crying.

Bayne? she thought, careful to be stealth as she went to him. She caught the breeze in her wings and used it to lift her higher on her feet so that she could not be heard. It was him, she could see him clearly now as she approached.

"Bayne," she said lowly, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Why are you here?"

Bayne startled and then calmed as he looked up at Julieth, wiping tears from his eyes. He stood up to embrace her. "I thought you would die," he said, shaking in her arms. "What happened? One moment the metallic man aimed his weapon at you, and the next a force hit and you all fell to the ground."

"I don't know." She continued holding the boy and wrapped her wings around them both. We are not safe, she thought, keeping her eyes fixed on the borg. Whatever did this, the effects wore off on me and could wear off on them as well.

Julieth suddenly realized the opportunity that presented itself. "Stay here," she told Bayne. She lifted into the air, just slightly off the ground, and flew near the metallic man. I do not want to kill, she thought, but you have left me no choice. And you may not be a man at all, because you certainly don't have the heart of one. She slowly drew a fire-powdered arrow from her quiver and leveled it at the cyborg's skull. She was about to release it when she heard him speak.

"Samuel," the borg mumbled in subconscious distress. "...no...no, I will not. You cannot have me." He jolted and then grabbed his weapon. Blue light charged up the gun and over his limbs as he leveled the weapon at an empty part of the street, blasting a hole in a structure with a massive burst of electricity.

A second later, a contingent of his mercenary warriors turned into the street and charged with swords drawn to attack Julieth and Ivanus.

"No! You cannot have me!" The cyborg leveled his weapon at the mercenaries and fired again and again, disintegrating them and spreading the remains of their bodies over the street. He staggered backwards. "Who are you?" he asked Julieth in panic, aiming the weapon at her. "Where is Samuel?"

Julieth was taken aback. The cyborg had seemingly helped them. "The great bishop is far away from us," she told him while keeping her arrow trained on his forehead. "He sent you to destroy our city."

"No... it can't be," the borg said. "I was there. I was so close. He must have entered my mind."

"You are in Kaskal. Do you mean my people harm?" she asked.

"No." He lowered his weapon, a look of exhaustion and loss in his eyes.

This could all be a ruse, Julieth thought, unwilling to lower her arrow. "Then put down your weapon so that I can restrain you."

The borg leveled the weapon at her again. "A warrior is not controlled."

Ivanus had come to, staggering in their direction, his sword and shield braced before him. As he reached them he laid his sword on the ground and reached a hand out. "May I touch you?"

The borg did not answer, but did not move to avoid Ivanus.

Ivanus placed a hand on his skin, closing his eyes and then opening them. "He has neither a good nor an evil heart. I can sense that in him. And somehow, because there are essences in us both, I believe I can sense he means what he says."

"Then I will trust you as well." The borg put his gun before him, and then kicked it forward with his massive mechanical leg. "I am Riad," he spoke. "I attacked Samuel's citadel, and had him in my sights before falling to darkness and awakening here."

Ivanus picked up his sword and came near Julieth as she landed on the cobble street. Bayne stood behind them, watching intently. The sounds of battle reemerged in their ears.

"You can trust him," Ivanus said. "I can see that he will let you restrain him."

"Are you positive?" she asked, her arrow ready to loose at the borg's skull.

"Yes."

Riad held his hands behind his back and turned. The gears moving in the wrist of his cybernetic hand gave her pause.

Julieth reached back to a pocket on her quiver, removing a silver tube and pressing it against the borg's flesh wrist. Instantly a chain of light circled his wrists, tightly binding them together. She looked to Ivanus. "Leave the sword and take his gun. We need to move him deeper in the city, to the prison, so that we can continue to fight. Bayne cannot remain here, either." The light chain was a piece of technology passed down generation after generation in her family from the time before the meteor ages ago. Most technology was gone, but a few pieces like this still remained. This small artefact had served her well.

"Wait," the borg's metallic voice spoke. He slowly turned to face them. "I can be much more useful as an ally than a prisoner."

"You led them here." Julieth re-aimed her arrow. "We can't trust you."

"You could keep my gun and energy mines. That weapon could destroy me with a few blasts." He eyed the gun in Ivanus's hands. "With just my limbs I could be of use."

Julieth looked to Ivanus. "What do you think? Do we trust him?"

Ivanus closed his eyes for a moment, as if sensing something. "There are many of the mercenary army remaining. He would greatly increase our odds. I am not a warrior, and I do not know about you, but here we have a man who seems to know war."

BOOM! A loud blast rang from close by and smoke roiled above them across the rooftops.

Julieth put her arrow back in her quiver and slung her bow over her back. "Where are the mines?" she asked. A compartment on his cybernetic arm clicked open and she looked at ten mines that were being held there. "You can keep them," she said, realizing that to have them on her could prove just as dangerous as Riad keeping them. The compartment closed again, without being touched. This man could break free of my restraint, she realized. With the tap of her finger to the tube of the restraint, the chain of light retracted. She took the tube and placed it back in her quiver's pocket.

"We are needed in the fight," Ivanus said as another blast shook the ground beneath them.

Julieth looked back at Bayne. "Head back!" she called to him. "Stay in the shadows! We will meet up when the enemy either retreats or is defeated!"

Bayne hesitated for a moment and then went to Ivanus's discarded shield, hefting it before him as protection. "Be safe!" Bayne called out. "I lost my mother! I cannot lose you!"

Julieth watched as he disappeared down an alleyway behind them. "You will need to lead us," she told Ivanus, "because you can see what we cannot."

"Most of the enemy is in the city's center," Ivanus said. "And we could use the streets, but we will probably be discovered."

"You sound as if you have something else in mind," Julieth said.

"Yes, did you know of the underground passages beneath Kaskal?"

"I vaguely remember being there once as a youth," Juieth told him. "Are you saying those passages can help us now?"

"They are not being used, and there is an entrance to them not far off. Will you be able to travel in a more confined space without damaging your wings?"

Julieth thought of how fast her wing healed after taking the blast from Riad's weapon. "It seems that I will need to."

She quickly followed Ivanus, with Riad beside her, careful to keep a close eye on the borg. He was still a threat and she didn't know what she would do about him once the conflict ended, but she had made the decision to trust him now, and she could not change her mind. They reached an older storefront with a sagging roof and the trio ducked in its entranceway.

"Over here." Ivanus motioned to them as he kneeled on timeworn planks of wood. Wooden floors were scarce, because for so long trees and other vegetation had been gone from the planet. Portions of the wood floor were worn away and clay earth had replaced where they had been. But where Ivanus pointed, Julieth saw metal where pieces of plank were missing.

"A door?" Julieth asked.

"A passageway." Ivanus propped his large gun on the floor and gripped a metallic latch that rose up from the wood. He strained, but could not open the latch.

"Use the weapon," Julieth said, while backing away from the passageway.

Riad did not move.

Ivanus braced the gun in both hands and backed away. Light exploded in the room as a blast erupted, disintegrating the door as metallic smoke swept over them, lingering in the air.

As smoke dissipated from the blast, Julieth peered into the passageway's darkness. "How do we see?" she asked.

"I can see in the dark," Riad said as his cybernetic eye adjusted, taking on an eerie glow. "And I can help with your sight as well." Crevices over his cybernetic arm and leg lit with blue light. The borg reached over, touching the gun, and it also vibrantly lit with blue. "We will need to extinguish the light before we reemerge, but it should work well."

"Agreed." Julieth took the restraint tube from her quiver's pack and touched it to her wrist. The light chain swept around it, providing its faint glow.

They descended carefully into the darkness of the tunnel, rusted lamps lining its walls and the skeletons of long-dead animals littering the floor. The light of Riad's cybernetics and of the gun Ivanus held gave off an eerie glow as they cautiously made their way toward the city's center.

"These passages have not been used in so long," Julieth said as she led up the rear. This portion seemed to have been completely forgotten. She took a regular arrow from her quiver and strung it back in her bow, aiming it forward at Riad, but prepared to instantly adjust should some other enemy surprise them in the labyrinth of underground veins beneath the streets.

A chilled breeze swept over Julieth, sending goose bumps over her flesh and pricking the tissue of her wings where feathers attached. She was amazed at how certainly Ivanus led them, and at how well he could know their city without being from there.

The tunnel carved out of earth slowly began taking shape before them, changing from more of a burrow to a square passage with a worn stone walk. Dust-covered signs marked the walls. Julieth eyed steel doors and dark passages as they passed. What was this place used for, she wondered, and why have my people not used it for centuries?

Ivanus halted suddenly and Riad and Julieth stopped with him.

"Bayne will reach safety soon," Ivanus spoke back to Julieth. "I can sense it."

"Thank you," she replied in lowered voice. "Do we near the depth of the fighting?"

"Shortly." Ivanus's voice came back to her. "I wanted to speak here, where I knew we could not be heard. Your people battle the largest group of mercenaries nearby."

"Once we are beneath them we can strike," Julieth spoke. "We can destroy the street above with Riad's weapon and fight our way from inside where the enemy holds its position. And it will be important that once we are above ground, Riad strikes the enemy hard and where he is visible. If he is not quickly known to have joined our side, then the people of Kaskal may attack us as well."

"I will make sure to be seen," Riad said. "And might I suggest we use a mine for the street above, and not the gun."

"You know these weapons best," Ivanus said and led them forward again. "We must go now, to have the moment we need to strike."

"How do you know it is the right moment?" Julieth asked. "Just because you see the future does not mean it will work out well."

Ivanus turned to her, the electric blue light sending waves of illumination and shadow over his features. "You're right, I don't know what would be best, but I do know what will happen for a few moments beyond now. We will be there. We will fight at the time I see now. It is the future. We have no choice."

"I always have a choice." She watched his shadowed eyes. "My fate is not decided without my decision."

"We need to move," the borg's voice broke their words.

"Yes," Julieth said, disturbed by Ivanus's certainty. If he saw his own death or theirs, would he only accept that and not try to change it?

Ivanus directed them into another passage and walked a good distance before turning and holding his hand up, then pointing to a mosaic painting on the roof a short distance above. Its faded paint was chipping and warped from time. He stepped back as Riad approached, clicking his arm compartment open and removing a mine with his fingers.

For the first time, Julieth noticed and remembered the finger missing from his cybernetic arm. I hope it does not hinder him in battle, she thought.

A rush of static burst over them as Riad rocketed the mine toward the mosaic.

BOOM!

Julieth stumbled backwards as the blast decimated the roof. Debris thundered in the tunnel around them and smoke filled her lungs. She was disoriented for a moment, and then looked up, catching her footing as she saw a body clasping to the edge of the destroyed street above, dangling in the light over the opening. She squinted as a blast of electricity struck the man's body from Ivanus's gun nearby, severing his arm and sending him crashing to the debris a short distance away.

A hard force hit the back of her head, forcing it inches from the ancient street below.

"Keep low," Julieth heard Riad's instruction overhead.

He held her, pinning her down, but she moved her head and watched as a man charged toward them with drawn sword. Blood smeared his face.

Riad leapt from overtop her, beating back the attacker's sword with his metal arm and then clutching the enemy's throat, releasing the life from his body as the foe's eyes rolled in his head.

A moment later a blast came from across the cavern and Julieth witnessed the form of an attacking archer disintegrate with electricity, ash from its body wafting away like the ash of a fire in the breeze surrounding them.

"We need to move!" Riad shouted as he struck a look back at her. "Can you get us up there?"

"I'll need defense, but I think I can carry you both, at least that short distance." Julieth looked over the debris, scouring it for living attackers. She expanded her vast wings and flew over to Ivanus. "You know what to do."

He went behind her, bracing an arm over her upper body and holding the massive weapon in his other hand.

Julieth lifted up and flew to Riad, holding down her hands for him to take.

She beat her wings in full span behind her as the trio rose. The weight of the two men pulled her down, but somehow she made slow progress. As she approached eyelevel with the street she saw armed warriors watching them in fear and awe. Some fought her people in the streets, while others clenched their swords, ready to fight.

Archers volleyed arrows toward them and she quickened her wings' pulse, barely avoiding the arrows' range. She was about to call out to Ivanus, but felt the charge of the gun, watching as its blast lit up the archers, causing them to duck or flee.

"Go for the far side!" Riad called out as Ivanus ceased fire, adjusted, and then fired on the mercenary swordsmen.

Julieth looked and saw that the unmanned far side of the open crevice. It had been cool in the tunnels, but hot, dry wind cut across her as she beat her wings toward the area.

Men rushed their way as she reached the space.

Riad let go of her wrists, hitting the ground hard as he landed, and then drew a mine and thrust it into the coming onslaught.

BOOM! The enemy's bodies were shredded in the blast.

As Ivanus dropped from her back, she pumped her wings and soared into the sky. The city dropped away, revealing two major pockets of fighting, both nearby. Chaos raged around where they opened the hole.

Julieth took a breath, taking a moment high above the fighting to calm her nerves, and then realized she didn't have that moment she had just taken to spare. Arrows shot toward her from below and then fled down toward the earth once more, completely out of range. She reached into her quiver and pulled out a fire-powder tipped arrow, quickly pulling it back in her bowstring and firing it into the enemy below. She watched as bodies of the enemy were decimated in the blast.

Something caught her eye below. Her people drove back a group of mercenaries that had pressed deeper into the city. The mercenaries, the size of minute creatures below, fell quickly. Riad, Ivanus and I are not there, she thought. We have a real chance to defeat them.

Electric light struck through the fighting below as Ivanus utilized the weapon they had taken from Riad.

Julieth needed to return to their side. Her people might recognize her, but would not know Ivanus and would see Riad as the enemy. She drew an arrow as she dove, firing it into the skull of an attacker charging for Riad, as she landed near him on the street, blood webbing and pooling in the cobble's crevices.

"That way!" she shouted, holding an arm out toward where she had seen her people making progress. Julieth fired more arrows into the enemy before them as Riad took them on with his bare hands.

Swords glanced off Riad's cybernetic limbs as if they had never touched him, and he thrust his metallic half forward first, using it as both weapon and shield.

Sweat flung off Julieth's body as she moved, readjusting quickly to fire her arrows. There were few fire-powder tipped arrows left and she tried saving them for absolute need. Two mercenaries found their way past Riad and she missed the one she fired at. With barely a thought she pivoted and thrust her wings against them, knocking both attackers to the street. While revolving around again she struck one man's chest with a shot. He cried out in agony as she struck another arrow into the second felled mercenary's neck, blood spurting from the wound.

Julieth breathed heavily, watching as Riad made progress. She kneeled down over the body of the man whose neck she had pierced. She pulled the arrow from it, realized it was unusable and thrust it aside. My quiver will be empty soon, she realized. I need another weapon. Julieth reached down and hefted the mercenary's dented sword. It will have to do for a while.

An electric charge blasted past her as she stood, colliding with the enemy force Riad confronted. Ivanus looked worn as he joined her side and the two pressed on. Julieth's bow was now braced over her shoulder as she held the sword firmly before her.

"What do you see in our future now?" she asked Ivanus as they moved.

"There is too much going on, I can't focus," he replied.

She could see her people fighting from the other side of the enemy. This segment of the attacking force was pinned.

With a beat of her wings she burst up above the fighting, close enough for the people of Kaskal to make out her face. "Do not attack the borg!" she shouted below as the sound of steel meeting steel rang through the air. "The man with the electricity weapon is with us as well!" At first she was unsure they heard her, but soon some of her people in the back of the fighting looked up to her in recognition, calling out to their fellow defenders with orders. A friend of her father's, when her father had lived, caught her eyes before charging into battle below.

She angled her wings, soaring down near the man and holding her sword high while landing and charging into the enemy.

Clang! Her sword met a mercenary's, energy reverberating through the muscles of her arms and shoulders as she parried and struck again. Dark determination glared in her opponent's eyes.

Clang! Their swords clashed again. Clang! Clang!

"Fall back!" the words came from somewhere close to her, on her side of the fighting. Riad and Ivanus are doing too good a job, she suddenly realized. They are driving the enemy against us, forcing us deeper into the city.

Clang! Clang! She moved back, and then shuddered in horror as she watched the man she had recognized be struck in the waist by a sword and fall to the ground, crying out in pain.

An electric glow illuminated the mercenary force as Ivanus's gun devoured the enemy and sent a static charge across the fighting.

Now, Julieth thought, seeing her chance and hammering her sword against her attacker's. Clang! Clang! Their swords battled before her blade ripped into the man's torso, ripping flesh and splaying blood. She let loose the sword's hilt as it drove into the man's body, and then with one swift movement pulled her bow over her arm with one hand and a fire-powder tipped arrow from her quill with another. She pulled the arrow back and struck it into the fighting.

BOOM! The remaining mercenaries before her were decimated by the blast.

Riad came through their crumpled bodies, reaching down with his strong arms and choking a man before removing a mine from his arm and lobbing it into another group of the enemy.

BOOM! A second major blast sent limbs flying. Men who knew they were outnumbered and doomed screamed above the sound of clashing swords.

Julieth watched as Riad brought his cybernetic hand down to his metallic leg, gripping it and removing a dagger from what had appeared before to be part of the leg's form.

What remained was a slaughter, with their enemy easily overrun by Kaskal's force and the abilities of Riad, Ivanus and Julieth.

As the fighting neared its end, Julieth stood on the street staring at the bodies of her people and the enemy. Heavy heat filled her lungs as a haze curled over her. It was not horror that consumed her. She had seen far too much death in her life for that. She was in awe of the power coursing through her veins, and of the fact that she was still alive.

# Chapter 4

Julieth sat in a tall stone chair, at a stone table of a vast chamber whose roof had been destroyed in the fighting days before. Ivanus and Riad sat at the table with her; moonlight illuminating them as they spoke. Sconces lit with fire flickered around the chamber.

"Bayne is special," Riad held out his hand as he spoke, lifting a clay mug to his lips. "If it was him, and from what you say it was, then Bayne removed the consciousness of all people in Kaskal for a short time. He brought me out of the trance Samuel seems to have put me under. It is an unmatched power, one that if honed, could help to defeat Samuel."

"Hold your words," Julieth spoke to him. "What makes you think Ivanus or I would follow you, or care at all for Samuel's death? You come to my city, attack us, and now because you claim to have changed, you ask us to follow you away from here. This battle with Samuel is your own. He cannot be defeated, from what I have heard, and I will not die fighting him. I am not a warrior by trade, Riad, but a warrior by hardship and chance."

Julieth took her own mug and brought it to her lips. The drink was pungent and bitter, made with liquid from the food-replicating machine and fermented, dried vegetation stored in a secret place in Kaskal. It was a true honor to be provided nourishment not completely forged from the replicater, but it churned her stomach all the same. They were provided this drink and the vast room out of thanks for what they had done for Kaskal. She noted that Ivanus had been silent, and also had not lifted his mug. "I would drink that. It will be an insult if you do not," she told him.

Ivanus lifted the drink, sniffed it, and then quickly put it down. "I am not from here. I remember meat, fruit... vegetation. Julieth, you made it clear when I arrived that I am not a part of Kaskal. From what Riad says, these essences are partially to blame for Solaris's state, and yet this barren world could not have come about without men like Samuel."

"Men and women," Riad spoke. "Make no mistake of that. There are women who have played almost as large of a role in the fall of this planet."

Ivanus turned to him. "Of course. It was a way of speaking." He fixed his look to Julieth once more. "I will go with Riad, where he heads from here. I have no family alive, and no home. If I can help to remove Samuel's poison from this world, then I will have purpose."

"Thank you, Ivanus," Riad spoke, his metallic voice resonating over them, "but we need Bayne with us. I will teach you both to harness your abilities fully. Without Bayne, we cannot approach Samuel. He would control us as he did me. With Bayne, we might be able to take away his consciousness long enough to near him and expel his life."

"Would Samuel's infecting essence allow that?" Julieth asked. "If he has lived since the meteor's crash, then surely he will not be so easily killed. You could stay here and be a part of my people, Ivanus. And Bayne will not go with you. He is only a boy."

"I will decide," Bayne's youthful voice came from the back of the chamber, startling her as she turned to watch him walking toward them in the sconce light. A faint echo resonated in the room. "And I am not so much a boy."

"Come," Riad lifted his cybernetic arm, electric light shimmering from the seams of its form as he motioned to the boy from the table.

Bayne walked slowly, much unlike a child, and sat at the far side of Riad, near Julieth. "I sense something foreign within me." He looked to Julieth as he spoke. "An essence? I don't remember what happened." He turned his focus toward Riad. "You say I caused it, when the people fell. How could that be? What is happening to me?"

"You did not control it then?" Riad asked. "Did you feel anything?"

The boy held his shoulders with his hands, as if he were cold. "I was so afraid, and then... then I felt this surge of something leaving my body. That was when you all fell."

Riad looked to Ivanus. "It could be that his fear is a trigger." His metallic hand rested on the table, gears moving in his arm and minute noises coming from its workings, in the otherwise silence. "It will not go away," he told Bayne, "but I could teach you to control it."

"He wants to use you." Julieth put a hand on Bayne's. "We do not know him. He might sacrifice you if it suited his means."

"I would not let him do that," Ivanus interjected.

"No, no it is alright." Riad took another swig of his drink and set it down. "She does not speak false. To destroy Samuel I will sacrifice myself, or any of you, if it will save this world from his possession. What I offer you is control of your ability, and a purpose to serve and direct your ability toward. I will use you in the end. My hope is that you will not die, but I cannot promise that. You are not a boy to me. Any person with the abilities given by an essence is no longer a child in my eyes."

Julieth's heart raced. Bayne had always been a strong-willed child, doing what he chose to do, and not necessarily what he was directed to. Would he choose to go with them? She was not his mother, and could not stop him.

"What will we do?" the boy asked.

"At first we will need to fully understand your ability, as well as Ivanus's. Then we must harness them and plan, before attacking Samuel. We will need help, and I know of some who would be willing to join our side. I do not know how to attack, but before we reach that point we must decide."

"I will join you," Bayne said with certainty.

"You can't mean that, after he's admitted he will use you with no care for your life?" Julieth spoke.

"And what would you have him do here?" Riad held out his arms, motioning around the broken, charred structure.

Julieth stood to gain leverage on him. "We should remain and defend our people in case Kaskal is attacked again. We did not have people with symbiotic essences in Kaskal before, but now that Bayne and I have them and these abilities we can protect the city."

"Samuel is amassing his armies and taking control of all he comes near. Would you wait here for him on his own terms? Already he sent me. What more is to come? By my side, you can learn your abilities well and we can try to stop him before it is too late."

He is right, Julieth conceded in her thoughts. But how can we fully trust him when we barely even know him? What will happen to our people if we leave?

Ivanus smiled across the table, and when she met his eyes he looked away. What was he seeing?

Bayne ran a hand through his hair, touching the back of his neck and then setting the hand on the table once more. "I will go with you, with or without Julieth, I will go."

She realized what she needed to do. "I cannot leave you. Riad is right. It seems something needs to be done about Samuel before he arrives at Kaskal's gates. I will join you." She looked at Riad, gauging a look in his hardened eyes. A scar ran over the flesh near his glowing cybernetic eye that she had not seen well as they fought. "But I control where I go and what I do. I control my fate."

"There is something in the catacombs beneath the city we must get before leaving, something I sense will be important to us," Ivanus said before Riad had the chance to respond. "I see it and yet do not fully understand it. It calls to me. There are creatures down there as well, but we must go."

# Chapter 5

A crowd watched on as Ivanus and Riad entered the tunnels beneath Kaskal through the same passage they used before. The people were in awe, more of Riad than Ivanus, but more than fifty people watched as they descended into darkness. Julieth and Bayne remained in the city, on Julieth's insistence that they help heal Kaskal as much as possible before their leaving in a day or two's time.

A shiver ran through Ivanus as he clutched handguns Riad had taken from compartments in his larger weapon. Static from their handles pricked the palms of his hands. "Do you think Kaskal's people will be alright once we leave?" he asked Riad when they were far enough away from the entrance that they would not be heard. A faint blue glow shimmering off their weapons lit the dark.

"Kaskal survived for centuries before we came," Riad spoke. "I do not know if they could handle another attack, but their destruction is inevitable if Samuel is not challenged."

Ivanus led them. He could see a vast portion of the underground catacombs with his future-sight. He saw things as if they were behind a fogged glass. He had to focus to see them clearly, and as he saw some things, others would slip away.

The stone floor beneath them was strange. In tunnels and caverns from his time there would have been moisture in the air and furry winged creatures that would fly screeching through the dark. But this cavern was dry, and though cooler than the land above, still warm. His lips were cracked because of the planet's air.

"How far must we go?" Riad asked, kicking a stone as he moved. The sound echoed around them.

"It is a while further, and a level down." Ivanus sensed something coming their direction, one of the creatures he sensed when he initially sighted what they were looking for. It startled with the echo Riad caused.

An airy, guttural sound came from the tunnel before them. A shiver ran up Ivanus's arms, his hair standing on end as he braced his handguns where he knew it would appear. He saw how he would fire a blast from each weapon, be hit by the beast and fall back before killing it. His sight was proving to be both a blessing and curse. He had quickly learned he could not change the order of events he envisioned, only live them out.

"Stay back. The creature is mine," he instructed Riad. "There are no others nearby." He waited, his heart beating heavily and stress rising in his chest. He did not know when it would come, only that it would. The cold handles of the weapons were solid in his grip. The airy sound consumed his hearing as he leveled them.

Consuming light and electricity erupted from his guns, booming against a wall of the chamber as the blasts narrowly missed a lanky, tone creature with claws lunging for him. It screeched, crashing against Ivanus and hammering him to the cavern floor. It thrashed its talon like claws against his chest, tearing out strips of leather from the vest he wore. Moist, wide eyes peered out from its skull.

Ivanus punched a leg against the creature's torso, causing it to suck in air and rasp before clawing toward him once more. Its chest met the barrel of one of Ivanus's weapons, electricity evaporating the creature's chest as the remainder of the thing's body thrust backward and crumpled to the catacomb floor.

"There are more!" Ivanus called out as he scrambled to stand and moved back near Riad, taking care not to be alone in a confrontation again.

The airy guttural noises ceased moments later and a haunting feeling flooded over him. He knew they would be upon him and Riad soon. He saw the battle in his sight, and knew the horde now waited for that moment, staying just out of vision in the darkness, their wide eyes watching them. What intelligence do they have? he wondered. Are they beast, or some relation to man? That thought that worried him the most. They did not look like men, but these creatures had never existed in his time, at least not that the people of his time knew of. Were they fighting some adaptation of humans brought on by the meteor?

A screech deafened him as the first creature thrust into the glow shimmering off their weapons. A vast static charge burst over him as Riad discharged his gun and energy consumed the creature's body, exploding into fiery particles as flame flecked smoke weaved into the atmosphere of the chamber.

Ivanus discharged his guns simultaneously as more of the creatures charged for them. Two of their bodies exploded, spraying the walls with matter.

"How many are there?" Riad called from nearby.

Ivanus didn't have the time to register what he was seeing. "Enough, but we have to get through!" He turned, watching Riad pull a mine from his arm, pound it to the front of his gun and then blast it into the coming beasts.

BOOM!

The blast shook the cavern; knocking Ivanus to the ground as he listened to the high-pitched cries of the creatures. His head was foggy and he realized the future he saw skipped somehow. A taloned hand clutched his arm, knocking his gun free and dragging him across the cavern floor. "Riad!" he shouted for the borg.

Crack! He heard the sound of the creature's neck breaking above him and then watched as its body tumbled to the ground. Riad's glowing hand reached down to him and he took it, using the borg's strength to stand. He grabbed his second gun from the ground nearby.

As he regained footing Ivanus felt sickened by the bodies of the beasts littering the room. There was no time to think, or to second-guess. "The others of their group have fled deeper into the catacombs," he said. "We have only a short window because they will return. We take this passage." He pointed to a wall a distance away from them. A line in the stone trailed its edges, but otherwise the passage was hidden from view. As they reached it he stopped, trying to remember how he saw himself opening it.

Ivanus felt a surge of power as he touched the crevice in the stone, running his fingers down its edge until they came to a groove that dipped into the crevice and gave a handhold on the door. He leaned back on its heavy weight, putting all of his back's strength into opening it. With a moan the massive stone opened. Stale air puffed out from the new passageway, causing him to choke before leading Riad in.

They closed the door behind them and continued down a spiraling stairwell chiseled out of earth and rock.

"Are there more creatures here?" Riad asked him. "I have never seen anything like them before. To think, these beasts have lived beneath Kaskal for all this time and never emerged."

"There should be none in this chamber. It was hidden from them, and I sense no-one but ourselves here."

Soon they were on a level stone floor once more walking through the dark. Ivanus stopped, knowing they had arrived to their destination, and turned into a dark room.

As the light from their weapons faintly illuminated the walls of the room the two men saw dusty bottles, books and statues lining shelves. Cobwebs disintegrated as the light touched them. "Their age is so great that even light destroys them," Ivanus said.

"What are they?" Riad asked as he moved toward a corner of the room. Vast webbing blew away as dust as he neared with his lit weapon.

The depth of distance he had traveled from his time, struck Ivanus. "Insects called spiders used to create those. Do they not even have those here?"

"Yes, yes I do remember spiders. But they have been long gone," Riad remarked. He took a filled bottle and held it close to his cybernetic eye, a red light in his inner eye fluxing as he held it there.

Turning from him, Ivanus moved to another portion of the room, taking a metallic box from a shelf, and then clicking it open. There, inside, was a glowing orb. He wanted to touch it, reaching his fingers out to do so, but then stopping himself, as he knew he had not seen himself touch it in his sight.

A shiver ran over him and he looked up, seeing only darkness above. Is there someone there? he thought, afraid of something lurking above them, something he could not sense. No, I would have seen it.

He tucked the box in his cloak, leery still of whether or not to trust Riad. It is an orb of essence from the meteor, right? Why would it be down here, and why would it not have bonded to another creature before now? I will take it with us to better examine when we are away from here.

"Have you discovered what we came for?" Riad questioned, turning to him.

A steel ring rested on one of the shelves. Ivanus reached for it, holding it up and making as if he were examining the engravings in its surface. "I do not know why, but this is it."

"A strange object to be drawn to." Riad eyed him with suspicion. "If this is what we searched then we should return to the surface."

The two men took one last, long look around the room before heading back into the darkness of the tunnel.

Ivanus could not shake the feeling that they were being watched.

# Chapter 6

"I have found him! I have found him!" Bayne's voice rang up to Julieth from the street below as she flew, pulling heavy cable that connected to a spool below and then attaching it to communication boxes throughout the city. With the cable connected the city's people would be able to speak to each other quickly should another conflict emerge. It was rudimentary, but better than nothing.

"Who?" she shouted back down to him. She quickly flew to the remains of a stone post and wrapped cable around it before hanging the cable there and diving down toward the boy.

Bayne smiled. "Andral, he is alive. I discovered him on a recovery bed while delivering food to another portion of the city." Bayne wiped tears from his eyes as Julieth came to him, embracing him in her arms.

"What will you do?" she asked. "We have promised Riad that we will leave within two days' time."

"He is not that injured, and we could carry him if need be," Bayne spoke confidently. "I cannot leave him behind again."

"And what if he chooses not to follow us? He does not have abilities like us. You should not attempt to force him."

Bayne stepped back from the embrace. "I have already spoken with him and he insists on coming."

# Chapter 7

As the company left the city's perimeter Julieth turned back to watch Kaskal's massive rusted gates close. They stood five times a man's height, as did the city's outer walls. For the second time in days she would be leaving her people, unsure of her return. But they are safer now, she thought, a good feeling swelling inside of her with the knowledge that she had played a large part in their safety. She chose to walk, though she knew she could just as easily fly. She wanted to be near Bayne and his older brother, Andral. She still was not sure she could trust Riad, or even Ivanus.

Heat pulsed over and through them in waves as they trudged through the desert, both of Solaris's suns overhead beating down on them. They carried heavy packs with edible stores from the food-replicating machine. They would sustain the company for at least a week, but after that time, even if they had not eaten the food, it would change and once again be uneatable matter.

That night they made camp in the shell of a rusted-out metal structure. Most of the building was gone, taken by the winds and sand long ago, but spiked shards of its outer shell made a defendable place for them to rest.

The first sun had set and the second dipped below the horizon as Riad took a sphere from a chamber in his gun and set it on the cooling sand they sat on. It lit quickly with a vibrant red glow and warmth exuded from it as night air cooled about them.

"How many things do you keep in that weapon?" Julieth asked.

Riad just smiled and began removing slabs of food from his pack, passing them around the company of five. "I could have escaped you when you first took me," he spoke. "But I wanted you to trust me. There is much about me you do not yet know."

Julieth took her slab of food from him. As she took a bite, muted spices touched her palate. "What was it like to eat real food?" she asked Ivanus, for some reason suddenly wishing she had something different in her hands and that she had lived in his time.

"Delicious. There were fruits, vegetables and animals that we killed and ate. The tastes were nothing like this." Ivanus held his slab of food before him. "There is no flavor in this. It even tastes metallic. I used to go out into the fields and pick red fruits called pawberries that grew in patches on the earth. They were full, juicy and sweet. It's a wonder anyone has survived with only slabs of replicated food to eat. What are they replicating anyway? It is certainly nothing from my time."

"I wouldn't know." Julieth grinned, happy to have the opportunity to talk about something mundane and to relax, something she hadn't been able to do for days. As she chewed the bland meal she looked at the others' faces, the light of Riad's sphere shimmering over their forms. She closed her eyes while looking to Bayne and Andral. The two smiled and joked. What remains of their innocence will be lost. She dwelled on the reality for a moment. And yet there is no choice, not with these essences in our lives.

"We need to plan," Riad said as the others finished eating. "Julieth, can I see an arrow?"

Julieth reached over to her quiver lying on the sand nearby and handed an arrow to Riad. "Gladly."

Riad took the arrow and used its tip to trace lines in the sand between him and the others. "We are here." He motioned with the arrow's tip to a mark he had made. "We are in part of the remains of the city, Canlal. It is a long dead place."

"Canlal... I remember Canlal." Ivanus grinned. "Their silks were so beautiful. It was a hub of both sophistication and elegance. The women..." He made a motion with his lips, kissing toward the massive moon above.

"Canlal is gone, unfortunately, and when I knew it and it was alive, it was a desolate, thieving place," Riad said. "I am sorry, my friend, but even before the desert reclaimed it, Canlal had already died."

Julieth watched Ivanus close his eyes and continue to smile.

"And here is Kaskal." Riad moved the tip of the arrow to another mark in the sand. "Obviously, we have not moved far. There are few cities still alive in the desert, but if we are to make progress and come nearer to Samuel's lands then I know of one city that might welcome us." He took the tip of the arrow, moving it above a line in the sand and to another mark a good distance off. Here Riad drew lines symbolizing mountains near another marking.

"What city is that?" Julieth asked, not recognizing the location. "I don't remember it, from what I have been told of our local fellow cities. My people scarcely leave Kaskal's walls, but I think I would have heard of a city so near to us."

Riad looked to her, his glowing eye somehow warming to look at in the darkness. "It is possible that I have not shown things to scale. The city's name is Olan. I have not been there for years, but it would surprise me greatly if it did not still exist. If nothing else, we can hope their food replicater is still there and intact so that we will have something to nourish us as you better learn your abilities." He handed the arrow back to Julieth. "Olan will take a few days' time to reach, but I see it as the best way."

"What do you say?" Ivanus asked Julieth. She was happy to see that he did not just follow Riad blindly.

"We must go somewhere, and Olan seems as good a place as any. Do you know anyone there?" she asked Riad.

"There was an old man and his grandson who I stayed with once while crossing the desert. It has been years. I'm sure that the man has passed, but his son will hopefully remain there and be alive." The illumination of Riad's eye changed from red to orange as he looked around them into the darkness of the desert. "We should sleep now, but someone must remain awake, to listen and warn us if there is trouble."

They decided Ivanus would take the first shift, then Riad the second and Julieth the third.

As Bayne, Andral and Riad slept soundly on the cool desert, shards of the rusted structure rising up around them, Julieth sat awake and alert, leaning against a wall. She could not sleep on her back, because of her wings, and found it hard to sleep on her front against the sand. She watched Ivanus with interest as he left the group, standing a distance beyond them and scanning the terrain as if looking for something.

What does he think is out there? Julieth wondered. He would sense it if something were there. He should be able to remain here with us and know if something comes our way. Just as she opened her mouth to call to him, Ivanus turned toward her and raised an arm, halting her voice.

He came to her, moonlight shimmering around his shadowed form as he moved.

"What are you looking for?" Julieth asked him.

"It is hard to say." Ivanus gave a glance behind him as he spoke. "Since leaving the catacombs beneath Kaskal I have felt as though we are watched."

"If we were being followed, then you would sense it," she assured him.

"It would seem that way, but I just cannot shake this feeling."

As Julieth sat watching Ivanus walk back into the night, darkness eventually came over her eyes, taking her to slumber.

She awoke suddenly as something cold clasped her shoulder. With a strike of her elbow she pounded into it, thrusting with her legs and pumping her wings while bursting into the night sky. Her heart raced as she realized Riad stood where she flew from. The touch of his metallic hand had been what surprised her. She dove down, landing gently beside him.

"I have seen nothing of interest, but that does not mean we should not be alert," Riad said. "Wake us if we are needed, even for the slightest thing."

"I will," Julieth assured him.

Riad fell asleep almost instantly as he lay down once more on the earth.

With a deep breath, Julieth went to where Bayne and Andral lay. She kneeled down and kissed Bayne's forehead before thrusting her wings and bursting skyward. Moonlight illuminated her feathers as she intently watched the vast expanse.

*

Moist eyes watched the illuminated angel as it hovered in the sky, a beacon drawling the creature toward them. The being panted heavily as its furry skeletal ribcage convulsed. Steam wafted from its snout into the night air.

# Chapter 8

Sweltering heat curled over Samuel as he stood on his balcony, watching the molten ocean that stretched out over the horizon and ended near the walls of his citadel below. Flames licked up from its radiant crimson waves. Nothing could cross its maw, not even his own vessels.

He walked across the balcony, looking another direction and seeing the sheer girth of his army, standing erect and prepared to move at his will.

What do I have to fear? he thought. I have lived for centuries without a true challenger. Why does this new presence worry me? It had been days since he first sensed the new essences on Solaris and the powerful essence that plagued his dreams. But I cannot be overthrown. No one can approach me without losing their body's possession.

He clenched a golden staff with his hand, looking down at his flesh and the maps of boils crossing it. You will protect me, he thought to the essence within him. You and I are one.

No, the hissing voice of the spirit entered his mind. You are the host. Do not forget that, Bishop. I could just as easily discard your flesh for another.

# Chapter 9

The suns were hot as Julieth flew above the company, but the thing she had learned most about the essences that forged with her body, was that they liked the heat, in fact thrived on it, and the hotter it was the more energy she had to fly. She pumped her wings and burst upward, higher and higher as the light of both suns almost completely blinded her with whiteness. Then she halted her wings, letting herself free fall and embracing the pummeling wind as the desert floor blurred and closed in on her. By curving her wings and beating them once, she leveled out just above the land and glided parallel to its terrain.

"Do you see the city yet?" Ivanus called from far behind her. His voice was almost silenced by the sound of the wind against her ears. "Riad says it should be just over those mountains!"

Julieth pulsed her wings again and arched her back, soaring high above once more.

Great mountains rose up in the distance. They were a different color than the desert, black goliaths from a different time. What have they seen? Julieth wondered. What civilizations have lived and died at their feet? She could see the remains of structures on the mountains and on the desert at the foot of them, but she could make out nothing moving. All looked eerily barren.

With a thrust of her wings she soared through open sky, moving closer and closer to the mountain's ridge. As she flew above its base she looked down, watching her two shadows from the suns following below. Torn white flags beat in the wind, climbing the mountain face. Huts lined a road that weaved upward, and then disappeared in the mountain's center. Some were burned, some had fallen and some stood silent, with no people around them or in the streets.

She flew near the mountain's face, a sulfur scent charring her nostrils as she soared above the mountain and looked down.

A vast city of clay structures lined the mountain's base, with the arms of a wall shielding it from the desert and nestling it close to the massive black rock. Where are Olan's people? Julieth squinted while looking down, scanning the city for movement. There appeared to have been a disturbance. The buildings were all intact, but the streets were in disarray, with goods and other things strewn over them. Pockets of darkness coated the roads. Whatever has happened here, it cannot have been natural or good. She pulled an arrow from her quiver, cocked it in her bow, and then curved in the wind, seeing something move below while passing back over the mountain's peak. Was it a man? Julieth wondered. She would investigate the city with the others. We will have to come here, because we will need to replenish our supplies, but there is no need to place myself in possible harm.

As she returned to Riad and the others, diving down and scattering a cloud of sand with the beating of her wings, Ivanus came quickly to her.

"What did you see?" he asked impatiently. "I can see the city's form with my future-sight, but see nothing living."

"Something is wrong in Olan," she said, looking to Ivanus and then to Riad and the boys. "I cannot place it, but you are right, I see little sign of life there. There is nowhere else nearby that we could go, is there?" she asked Riad.

Riad's cybernetic eye adjusted as he looked toward the mountain, a pinpoint of light burning within it. "To my knowledge, Olan is the only city for a good distance. We need to search out a food-replicater there before moving on."

Ivanus held a hand above his eyes. "You said 'little' sign of life?" he asked Julieth. "Did you see something? I can sense nothing living on the mountainside or in Olan's streets."

"As I left I saw a quick movement below. That is all. Perhaps the heat played a trick on my eyes."

Ivanus stood with a distant look on his face. "Possibly, but this has happened several times in the past few days. It makes me nervous to know I am not seeing all around me properly."

They approached the road at the base of the mountain cautiously. Riad led the group, with Ivanus staying behind with Bayne and Andral, and Julieth flying overhead. She remained close though, so that if something startled them she could quickly join the others.

The road wound steeply up the black rock's face.

As they reached the first abandoned village Riad waved for her to come to them. She stood on the road, arrow cocked, watching as Riad searched the clay structures near them.

"They have seemingly been abandoned for years," Riad spoke with a chill in his voice. The torn cloth flap of the structure's door rippled in the wind as he held it open. "It has been a long time since I was last here, but this." He stood, breathing for a moment, as the others were silent. "There are no bones. There is no blood. I did not expect this. Whatever has eradicated this civilization may still be near. Stay on the ground," he instructed Julieth. "Bayne may need your protection quicker than can be given in flight."

Julieth felt anger well in her chest. "You do not command me." She gave him a hard look, striding to him and lowering her voice. "And there is more than one boy. If you do not value Andral as you do Bayne, then the least you can do is not vocalize it aloud."

"And what would you have me do?" he asked, walking past her and continuing on the road climbing the steep black rock. "These are days for honesty."

"Then honestly be a man who cares, instead of one who does not!" she shouted to him, causing him to turn and face her. "You speak of wanting to save this world from those who would cause darkness with the abilities given from the essences, but what would you rather have in return? I know my person, and my heart, but what drives you? What would you have this world be?"

"This is not the time," Riad spoke, turning and looking up the looming mountain before returning his gaze to her.

Sweat dripped down Julieth's back as the suns' heat beat down on her. Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She dragged a hand over her brow, wiping more sweat away. "We may never have time, but I need to know your soul, your past and why you hate this Samuel, before I follow you beyond Olan and this black mountain."

Riad turned from her, continuing his climb up the crag. "Tonight you and I will speak alone. I must focus. We all must focus and be alert."

Julieth decided to walk, not because Riad ordered it, but because if Bayne and Andral needed protection, she wanted to be close by in order to provide it.

The day sat over them in a haze as they walked, black dust wafting up from the mountain as their feet hit road that Julieth was uncertain had been traveled for a long time. They passed several other villages, all abandoned like the first, and then, just as Julieth knew she must sit and rest, they reached the vast mouth of the cave that curved into the mountain's chest.

Cool air wafted out of the cave's mouth, curling over Julieth's body and ruffling the feathers in her wings. She held her bow level, eying the shadows intently for some unseen enemy. "Are you sensing anything living yet?" she asked Ivanus.

"Nothing," he spoke lowly. "And what's more, I am having trouble seeing with my future-sight at all beneath our level of the ground. I sense nothing below."

They stepped from sunlight into darkness, moving without light to avoid detection. Behind them the light from the mouth of the cavern's opening was cut off as they turned.

Time passed. They walked on. And then, just as Julieth thought they would never emerge from the cavern, a light in front of them opened up from a pinpoint, slowly bringing illumination to the forms of the rock wall a distance before them.

Julieth squinted as they walked toward it. The light was hard on her irises. As they exited the tunnel, looking out over the large city of Olan, she saw nothing moving but the same weather-worn white flags that were also scattered over the other side of the mountain. The bareness of it all, the vacancy of movement and life struck a pulse of leeriness through her.

"As soon as we find their food-replicator and replenish our food we get out beyond the city's wall," she said while pulsing her wings and lifting just above them.

"It is in the city's center," Ivanus said. "I sense it there."

"Then that is where we head," Riad said.

Julieth flew low as the company weaved around stone and clay buildings that were barely taller than Riad's height. As they exited the thoroughfares, the streets opened up to a massive slab of mountain rock. The stone area was pocked, like hard, dried skin that peeled off of scorched flesh. And then in places it appeared smooth, perfectly flat in form.

"Beware of the flat places," Julieth spoke to them all. "I saw them from above the city. They mark portions of this whole city."

"Bizarre. I have never seen anything like this." Riad leaned down, touching his cybernetic hand to the pocked surface of the rock slab below them. A humming noise came from where his hand touched it. "Its structure is weakened with time. We must make our way to the replicator."

They moved quickly toward the structure where Ivanus sensed the replicator. Then, just as they reached the center of the area, Ivanus startled them.

"It is going to give way!" He called out, first directing his voice toward Riad and then quickly looking up to Julieth.

"What?" she called back down. She dove, landing beside him and the boys so that she could hear him better.

"The earth below us is ripping apart."

A sudden rumble came from nearby. Then the ground sank beneath her, not as sinking soil, but as scales of dried earth cracking off from their surrounding pieces and tumbling into a vast cavern below.

Julieth instinctively pulsed her wings as the ground she stood on dropped away, pulling the rest of the platform with it in shattered pieces of earth. Riad, Ivanus, Bayne and Andral were consumed by blackness below; the boys' shouts piercing her hearing.

Her heart beat rapidly, not knowing why the earth had caved or what was below them, but without thought she angled her wings and dove down after them, curving out of the sunlight and into the black unknown below.

Wind beat over her, ramming her chest and curling around her as she dove. Julieth could barely make out the shadowy forms of her companions falling beneath her. Then a series of splashing sounds echoed in her ears, sounds she hadn't heard before. It would sound different if they collided with earth, she thought, adjusting her wings to hover down instead of quickly descending. What has happened to them?

Julieth halted in the blackness, hovering and watching below as torches lit a chamber. A liquid substance was directly beneath her. Her companions bobbed at the top of it. It could not be lava, she realized. Could it be water? She had not seen a pool of water for years.

Beasts held the torches, their rippling, furred muscles illuminated in the firelight. They had long noses and pointed ears.

"Can we eat them?" a rasped voice echoed over the chamber and came to her ears.

Julieth felt a surge of energy rushing through her, the same as when Bayne had rendered all in Kaskal unconscious, and then darkness came.

Wings stopped. She hurtled down, barely able to register the punch of her body hitting the water.

# Chapter 10

In the darkness of her mind she heard voices, an alien tongue she could not discern. Rock was hard below her. Her wings were restrained. With an involuntary suck of air Julieth awoke, violently startling and writhing on the floor of a prison cell before realizing where she was and stopping the struggle. A faint red hue illuminated the cell from somewhere beyond it. Her hands and feet were bound in rope.

She thrust her legs against the black rock floor, pushing herself like a serpent toward the rusted steel bars that caged her in. With a roll and a look above her she realized the cell was only half her height if she were to stand.

"Move or you get no food!" an unnatural voice shouted beyond her cell.

She peered out of the cell carefully. Twenty or so shirtless men and women pulled at a massive stone with ropes, slowly dragging it across the cavern base a distance below her. Several long-nosed, doglike beasts prodded the people with pikes and whipped their backs if they faltered. The beasts' backs were hunched with the bones of their spines stretching their skin.

One man fell to the ground in exhaustion, his knees quaking as he struggled to stand.

"You dare slow the construction of the master's temple!" A beast near the man shouted in its guttural voice. The beast cracked the man's back with his whip, blood splicing where the weapon hit, and the man shrieked in pain. "What are you looking at?" The beast glared at the slaves. "Pull, or you will be next!" As the worn people continued to pull the stone slab onward the beast walked to the fallen man.

"Please, please have mercy." Julieth heard the elderly man plead. Blood streamed down his back.

"There is no mercy for slaves." The beast lifted a clawed foot and struck it down in the man's legs.

Crack! The sound of his bones breaking echoed around them.

Julieth watched in horror as the beast continued onward.

It grabbed one of the man's arms, dragging him across the cavern floor. A trail of blood covered the underground road, the man screaming in pain and convulsing as he was pulled.

Bile churned in Julieth's throat as she lay immobile in the cell. It burned in her chest. Who are these creatures? Do they serve Samuel? She would have to escape before the answers to any of her questions would matter.

As she eyed the rust-coated bars she realized that a shard of metal protruded slightly away from one of them. Over time it must have separated, she thought. Will it be enough to free me?

Julieth waited a few moments, and then eyed as far as she could down the red illuminated passageway. Others in cells across from her had begun to move. She pushed slowly with her legs, angling her back towards the bars. It was cramped and she had to curl into the fetal position to get near them. Her bound wings scraped against the bars, the feathers cutting and pulling against the rust flecks peeling off of them. She felt the feathers pulling loose of her wings and her wings rejuvenating and creating new feathers as they healed.

With another thrust she was in position. She could not come right up against the bars because of her wings, but she extended her arms and thrust them against the extended metal shard. She sawed the braids of the rope binding her, praying to loose her arms before one of the beasts came to open her cell.

"Julieth? Julieth, is that you?" Bayne's hushed voice came from somewhere above her.

"Sh!" she hushed him, taking a second to make sure the voice was his. It was. "Yes. Be quiet. Do not draw attention."

"They are gone. They will not return for some time. I have been watching them for a good while now." Bayne still spoke quietly, obviously not willing to keep silent.

Moans and other hushed voices echoed around the comb of cells she was stacked in.

Julieth decided to trust the boy's opinion. "Did you see what happened? I remember a sensation much like what I felt when I blacked out in Kaskal. Did you cause this as well?"

"I could not help it. I was afraid." Were those tears she heard in his voice? "The energy pulsed out of me. My brother, Ivanus and Riad all were unconscious then and you thrashed down into the water beside us, but the beasts were not affected. They came for me. Their eyes glowed and steam roiled from their nostrils as they came to the water's edge, reaching in and dragging me out. Their claws drew my blood. I do not know where they took the others, but after they scaled the cells to cage me I remained alert and eventually thought I saw one of the beasts bringing you below." Bayne was silent for a moment. "How do we escape? Where are we?"

"I do not know," Julieth said, beginning to saw the rope binding her hands once more. She could feel strand after strand snapping after hitting the shard's edge. She eventually felt the bindings weakening and leaned away from the bars, pulling with all her strength in an effort to break it. "Ugh," she moaned, the muscles in her arms burning with heat and pain. She sat up, letting her body relax for a second, then, with a forceful pull with her arms the rope shredded and her arms flung into open air, one of them thrusting against the stone wall of the cell. Blood trickled down her knuckles, but she was free. Without hesitation she reached down and untied the rope knotting her legs.

"I have freed myself of the ropes," she spoke upward out of the cell bars.

"Will that do us any good if we cannot escape these bars?" Bayne replied.

"...click, click, click, click, click, click..." a faint metallic sound came from the underground road beyond their cells.

Julieth lay flat, peering out to see what was coming. There is nothing there, she thought. Then, in the shadows along the bottom of the far wall, she saw a metallic thing that could not have been bigger than her foot, quickly skittering along. Her heart raced as she saw it stopping. Its head adjusted toward their direction, and then it quickly moved across the road toward their side.

"...click, click, click, click, click, click..." The metallic thing moved. She saw its beady red eyes before it disappeared from view.

"Did you see that?" she whispered to Bayne.

"Yes. What is it? I haven't seen anything like that with the beasts before. Do you think it is coming for us?"

Before Julieth had the chance to answer the head of a metallic, insect-like thing flipped up and into her cell. Its body remained out of sight below.

"Beep, Vrax at your service, compartmentalized cyber-repair and multifunctional cyborg device." Its eyes glowed the same red hue she had seen in Riad's. It's talon-like metal feet clasped onto her cell's ledge. "Permission to enter requested."

"Riad?" she questioned, wondering if this thing had some connection with him.

"Beep, yes, Cyborg Riad's repairing pair, mam. Permission to enter requested. Vrax is on orders."

Julieth stared at the bizarre mechanism for a second. Could she force it to leave if she wanted to? "How do we know Riad has sent you?"

...click, click, click... Vrax climbed the rusted bars, curved inside her cell and turned its back to her. On it was a blue symbol that she remembered seeing on Riad's leg.

Yet something else you have hidden from us, she thought, now certain this thing was with and possibly even a part of Riad. "Permission granted," Julieth said, scooting back in the cramped cell as Vrax moved in further and held its claw-like hands before her.

"Cyborg Riad requests assistance," it spoke coldly to her.

"In case you haven't noticed," Julieth held out her hands as if motioning to the 'grandeur' about her, "we are not able to come to him at the moment."

"The woman and boy are restrained, yes, but Vrax can fix." The bot's head clicked and flipped down, steam roiling up from an open area where its head had been. Its arm reached up, grabbing something minute from within the hole. Its head then flipped up and clicked back into place.

"What are you?" Julieth questioned.

Without hesitation the bot brought the minute rod from its back up to the bars and touched one.

A hot metallic scent wafted over Julieth as she watched the bar glow molten orange and then ooze down and harden on the cell's floor. Again Vrax touched the rod to a bar, melting it with heat and then moving on, until no bars of her cell remained.

Julieth unbound her wings while Vrax climbed above her to free Bayne. She held her head beyond where the bars had been, glancing to be sure that the hall was still barren and that it was safe to talk.

"Vrax, what does Riad need? Where are he and the others?" she asked as it returned to her cell.

It stared at her, silent. "Coordinate and instruct reboot requested," it spoke. The lights in its eyes went dark briefly and then clicked back on. "Riad bot coordinates reset. Orders... woman and boy to follow Vrax to main throne. Cyborg Riad urgently in need."

...click, click, click, click, click, click... The bot suddenly scurried out of her cell and back down the wall of other cells.

"We need to follow it if we are to find the others," Julieth spoke to Bayne. "Leap onto my back as I fly out," she instructed him.

"Ready," his voice came from above.

Julieth leaned out of the cell, slowly expanding her cramped wings into open air. She pulsed them once, her feet leaving the cell's floor just before Bayne landed on her back. She temporarily lost control of her flight, being pulled downward by the thrust of his weight, but quickly beat her wings again and again, steadying herself in the air of the red-lit darkness.

"There it is," Bayne said while sitting on her back.

She couldn't see his outstretched arm, but registered the direction his voice went and looked there, watching Vrax's silver shell quickly moving away from them on the edge of the cavern floor below. Julieth swooped upward; hugging the cavern roof where she hoped the darkness there would protect them from enemy eyes. They passed several companies of beast-led slaves below, but none glanced upward as they moved.

Vrax suddenly veered into a completely dark tunnel, a minute glowing light on its head the only thing Julieth could see. Then, in the distance, light opened up before her. Is that sunlight? she wondered. A massive temple rose from the cavern's base. She quickly dipped, diving from the roof of the cavern to a shadowed spot on its floor. Her feet barely made a sound as she landed. She and Bayne both flattened their bodies against the wall behind them, watching as Vrax scurried into the sunlit space and then disappeared in a crevice along the temple's bottom.

"Can you control your fear?" Julieth asked Bayne in a whisper. "It sounds as if your ability has no effect on these creatures. If it manifests, then they will recapture us and we will probably die."

"I can try, but what can we do?" the boy said with a steady voice.

If he cannot control his emotions, she thought, then we are doomed. "I do not know," she said. "My bow and arrows are gone, and we do not have Riad's weapons."

"Shh..." Bayne's voice caressed her ears. There, striding around the base of the temple, was a man. He held a large sword, almost the length of his body, sunlight shimmering off its blade and refracting through the darkness. He wore no shirt and his body was tone and strong.

He is no slave, Julieth thought. As the man walked from the sunlight and into a shadowed area his body changed, covering in hair and taking on the snout of the beasts, then morphing into human form again while re-entering a shaft of sunlight. So the beasts are men. She clasped a hand on Bayne's wrist, assuring him that all was well, trying to keep the boy from releasing energy and destroying their chances. Are they all like this? The darkness allows them to maintain their forms, and the sunlight exposes their flesh. This is why they are below Olan and not in its streets. But are they Olan's people or an invading force?

Julieth held her breath as the soldier turned, peering out into the tunnel's darkness. He did not move for a long moment, and then began his pacing walk once more. Have we been seen? she wondered. Is it only a matter of time? Regardless, our opportunity is now. We will need weapons if we are going to escape. My chance will be when he is in human form. "Bayne," she spoke softly, cupping her hands near his ear. "I must do something. Kneel down and cover your ears. Do not watch me. I will return shortly."

The boy huddled against the wall in the darkness as Julieth pulsed her wings, lifting upward and gracefully flying to a cut out portion of the wall near the temple. Sunlight streamed over her. The soldier moved away from her and she kept silent enough that he wouldn't hear her movements.

Everything hinges on Bayne's fear, she thought as the soldier took the form of a beast in the shadows. How are we to fight, or even survive, if every time Bayne is afraid he takes away our consciousness?

She watched as the hair-covered beast stepped back into the sunlight, his body contorting as he twisted back into the form of a man. She waited a moment, letting him get a distance into the sunlight before punching her feet against the rock wall behind her and soaring quickly down toward him.

The man opened his mouth to shout but could not get out noise before Julieth connected with him, punching the man in the face with her fist and then using the feathers of her wings to muffle his mouth as the two careened to the ground.

Clang! As she grappled to tear the sword from his hand it flew out from his grasp into the darkness. Julieth held him pinned, but she could not defeat him without a weapon. Even in human form he was too strong.

With a thrust he knocked her off of him, his eyes deep with anger. "A prisoner has escaped!" he shouted before stammering toward the sword.

Julieth pulsed her wings, lifted off the ground and gave a hard kick into his chest that sent him to the darkness near where the sword lay. It was grotesque to watch his form change, his muscles moving and morphing like liquid into the beast's form. Veins covered its flesh, pulsing as it gained footing and lunged toward the weapon. Without a moment's thought Julieth dove toward the blade, hefting it and driving it deep through the beast's chest, blood spurting out of the wounded cavity.

The thing tumbled, clasping onto one of Julieth's wings and pulling her toward it with its claws. Its fanged maw snapped at her as she struggled, eventually finding the hilt of the sword, pulling the blade from the beast's chest and then driving it into its skull.

The beast convulsed beneath her, blood spewing from its wounds as it quickly died.

Julieth withdrew the sword from its skull, hefting it as she stood and looking around for other beasts or men. She saw no one, only the shadow of Bayne's form huddling in the darkness of the cavern passage. With a flap of her wings she moved quickly to him, placing her free hand on his back. "It is through. I have taken his weapon," she spoke lowly.

Bayne did not reply, did not move.

"Can you hear me?" she asked him, jostling him with her hand in an attempt to get through to him. "Bayne, are you alright?"

After another shake the boy looked up at her. "What?" he asked. "Is it done?" His pupils were dilated and slowly returned to normal size.

"It is through," she repeated herself, realizing he had not heard her the first time. "The man-beast is dead."

"I must have shut down my mind so that I could not feel fear." Bayne slowly stood.

"We need to find an entrance to the temple," Julieth whispered. "That is where Vrax went and that is where we should find Riad, Ivanus and Andral."

"Should I stay here?" Bayne asked. "Or somewhere close by? I worry that my fear will destroy us."

"We can't chance that. You need to control your emotions somehow, because if you are discovered here the same thing could happen, and it is possible that we will not be able to leave the temple in the same place we enter it."

Bayne followed her silently as both he and Julieth approached the massive temple. Juieth stood for a moment in the sunlight, letting the sun charge her body with energy. I will need this if we are to be away from it again, she thought. She looked up, seeing how the temple rose in a spire above, a shell of earth near its peak where it actually spliced into the sun and the world above ground. She wondered why no other guards met them in attack. Are they so sure that they are impenetrable?

As they walked around the temple's base, an area the width of several structures of Kaskal, she saw no entrance, no opening in the massive rock bricks that piled one on another toward the sky. She laid her hand flat to the sunlit stone. There has to be an entrance here. Riad's bot was able to cross this façade. We will discover a way in.

A sudden glint of light flicked above them and Julieth looked up quickly, her sword braced at the ready for an attack.

...click, click, click...

Vrax? Squinting, she could see the bot's legs moving in the sunlight. She met Bayne's eyes, motioning upward, and then clasped his hand and beat her wings, lifting upward to where the bot clung to the temple's side. As she neared it the bot leapt from the temple, clutching to her leg and then forming tight to its muscles. She opened her mouth to speak to it and then stopped before the words left her lips. An opening in the temple side became visible above. She hadn't seen it before because of the angle. It was about the width of a person's torso.

Rising higher, Julieth set Bayne down in the opening, watching him get on all fours and crawl deeper in. She clasped the outer wall of the temple with her fingers and steadied her own feet, pulling her wings tight against her form and following him.

They crawled for several moments through the space, out of sunlight and into darkness, before Julieth spoke to the boy. "Do you see anything?"

Bayne stopped crawling in front of her and her eyes adjusted to see a red glow in the darkness around his form. "There is an opening here, dropping down into a big chamber," he spoke softly. He breathed a sudden deep breath. "You will not believe... there is a horde of them below. And I see Riad encased in something, but not the others. I did not think the temple could be this deep."

"Can you move so that I can come beside you?" Julieth asked.

"I can try."

As Bayne hugged the wall to his side Julieth slowly crawled forward. Her wings scraped the wall and she wondered if their damaged forms would hold her if she needed to take to flight before the essences healed them. She looked down through the opening, in awe of how deep the chamber dropped. The part of the temple that we approached initially was only its tip, she realized. Eerie red light rose up from a massive inferno that licked and burned like a giant wave of flame in the chamber's center. The beast-creatures stood in a large mass, facing a smaller group of them that sat in thrones on a platform rising up from the temple base. The low resonating noise of their voices climbed the temple's walls to her ears.

"Where did you see Riad?" Julieth asked Bayne.

The boy moved beside her, looking down the vast opening. "There." He pointed toward one of the corners of the room where human slaves bowed low on the stone floor. The light of the inferno glinted off a man with metallic limbs. An almost transparent casing covered his form. "What do we do?" Bayne asked. "We cannot save him."

Julieth scanned the chamber for Ivanus and Andral in hopes that she could see what Bayne had not, but so far she could not spot them. A sharp pain surged through her leg where Vrax clung to it.

"Cyborg Riad instructs an explosion from above," the thing's voice shivered through her thoughts.

Julieth immediately reached back, clasping at the bot and gripping it hard as she attempted to remove it from her flesh. A burning pain struck through her until she released her grip on it and let it be. The leg it gripped went numb and convulsed as it cramped.

"Do not attempt removal of Vrax. Temporary symbiosis is necessary for mind communication."

"Not with me," Julieth spoke lowly but harshly to the droid. "Release my leg or I'll find a way to remove you."

"What?" Bayne looked to her in unknowing.

Surprisingly, Vrax released her leg instantly. Small, bloody punctures remained where the bot had clung to her.

"Vrax repairs organics," the beady-eyed thing spoke, and then brought two of its limbs toward her leg, sealing the punctured areas with metallic alloy.

Warm, muted pain moved over Julieth's leg. She thought for a moment. The droid had seemed to suggest they explode the temple's roof. It may work, if we can figure out a way, she thought. But we all might be killed in the fall and the rubble. "The bot spoke in my mind," she informed Bayne. She told him what it suggested.

"But how could we do that? We have nothing explosive and Riad is captured."

It suddenly struck Julieth. "Vrax, do you know where my quiver is? I had fire-powdered arrows in its case."

"Vrax knows," it spoke quickly, turning and leaving the way they had come, out of the hole in the temple's roof.

They waited, silent for long moments as they watched the brood of werebeasts below. Their apparent leader, a creature much larger than any other's size, sat on a massive throne in the center of the raised area. Several humans kneeled before the beast as others fanned it at its sides. Julieth noted tunnels leading from the chamber along the base of the room.

She watched as the massive beast stood. "We have overthrown many cities of man since you have chosen to follow me!" Julieth could barely make out its words echoing from below, but was completely still as she listened to what it said. "This city is not any better or worse than the rest. We have taken what we need, eating their food, mating with their women and using them as slaves to erect temples to commune with our fellows in the worlds beyond Solaris. But we must travel on beneath the land's crust if we are to survive. Olan offers nothing to us now."

A roar erupted from the mass below.

"And so the time is coming soon for Blood Night, the time when our captives choose to become us, or choose a death of fire."

"What if we choose neither?" Riad's metallic voice just barely carried to Julieth's ears. The humans chained around him quaked with fear.

"You dare to stand and defend your life?" the massive beast asked. It reached an arm out and shoved one of the human's bowing before it to the ground, pressing down hard on it as it cried out in pain. "You and your followers are new, metallic one, but do not doubt that you are the same as these pathetic slaves. The difference, the only difference, is that they have learned enough to know to join us. They will give up free will for survival. It is a gift we offer them, to join with our blood. And the few who do not," the beast held its muscled arm out toward the writhing inferno, "we will relish in the cinder of their and your deaths as the rest are transformed."

Roars and howls filled the chamber.

"We will do what you say! Release us!" a woman's frail voice called out through the noise.

Above it all, in the hole in the temple's roof, a shutter crept over Julieth's skin. What have Olan's people experienced that they would surrender to be transformed into these beasts? Then something else came to her. Bayne is controlling his fear again. He is learning, but with that is he losing his human emotion as well? She took a hand and reached in the dark until it rested on his shoulder. She could feel Bayne's body relax with her touch.

"I hear it," Bayne's voice came in a whisper beside her.

"What?" she asked.

"Vrax, I can hear it returning to us through the opening."

Julieth focused her hearing behind them and not on the temple's lower chamber. She could make out the faint noise of Vrax's legs clicking on stone. The droid came to them quickly, dropping her bow and an explosive arrow beside her, and for a moment, turned its beady glowing eyes toward her. She handed the sword back to Bayne now that her bow was returned.

"What do we do now?" Julieth asked in a hushed voice.

It did not respond, but instead clutched the remaining three explosive arrows in its claws and left the passage, scaling the inner wall of the temple's roof until it reached a spot it seemed to like and began burying the arrows in nooks in the stone. After placing the arrows, Vrax scurried off along the roof of the temple away from them. It was now positioned far overhead Riad. It blinked twice in her direction.

"I think it wants me to blow the explosives. Hold on to me if we fall after the blast," Julieth said to Bayne as she reached down and picked up her bow and the one explosive arrow that remained. She cocked it back against the bowstring, her arms shaking with her nerves.

Then she watched curiously as the droid let go of the temple roof and fell straight down on top of Riad's back.

She faltered, pulling back in the arrow as she watched werebeasts clambering toward Riad, and then watched the thing that contained him disappear. Julieth stepped back in the passage as she saw Riad remove something from his leg and then level it at the roof.

Light and electric charge blasted into the roof where the explosive arrows were. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The sounds of their blasts hurt Julieth's ears and left them ringing in their wake.

One moment she was steady footed and the next the ground beneath her shattered, thrusting up around her and then falling away. She clutched her bow and arrow with all her strength, praying that the arrow wouldn't collide with rock and explode.

"Grab onto me!" she shouted to Bayne as they fell in a mass of large stones toward the temple floor. Moments passed. She feared the boy was already dead or would not reach her in time. Or will his fear prevail? Then these rocks or the beasts will kill us both.

A sharp rock gashed against her leg and she beat her wings, desperate to maneuver through the falling stone upward to safety. Her wings pivoted her through the stones, their sharp edges tearing at her feathers, and then she felt Bayne's hand grip desperately at one of her wings. He gripped tight to it and she barely maintained flight. She reached back with her spare hand, grabbing onto the boy's arm and pulling him off her wing. She cradled him close beneath her as she continued to maneuver and soar upward.

Unearthly screams cried out in pain below as Julieth felt a static charge surge through her body. With a pulse of her wings she flew above the falling stone, sunlight radiating on her back from where the temple roof had collapsed above.

Riad blasted through the rocks falling down on him and then shot charge after charge of electricity into the beasts running and leaping at him.

The sunlight, he wanted sunlight so that the werebeasts would transform back into mortal form, Julieth realized while watching a beast charge into the sunlight coming down, transform into a man and then be smashed by a massive falling stone.

Fire and char from the intense blaze in the chamber's center flew out and rained down on them while Julieth landed near Riad, letting Bayne go and turning with her final explosive arrow cocked. "Thanks for the invite! It seems like you could have handled this on your own!" she called out over the noise to the cyborg. She looked to Bayne who barely supported the sword. "I'll need that blade in a moment," she told him.

Riad fired charge after charge into the beasts.

As Julieth focused on her surroundings, she realized that any of the people injured or standing in the sunlight could be her enemy. She could not kill innocents, even if it were for her protection.

"They were ready to become one with these beasts, they can all die," Riad spoke as if reading her mind.

Her heart quickened and she breathed deeply while watching several long-nosed beasts charging for her, their massive claws ready to rip her hide. An explosion burst before her as she let the arrow fly, a stinging mist of blood covering her from the blast. "The sword!" she shouted, reaching back toward Bayne. "I need the sword!" A second later it was in her hand and she slew a beast that charged for her, plunging the sword through the meat of its body and then quickly pulling it back out.

Chaos reigned around them as Riad and Julieth took back-to-back stances with Bayne between them. Riad's energy blasts had sent many of their enemy fleeing from the chamber, though their leader still remained on his elevated throne. The human captives in their chains huddled low, in fear and uncertainty of what would happen next. Boulders of stone littered the temple floor as sunlight covered the center area of the chamber.

"Where are Ivanus and Andral?" Julieth asked as Riad moved and she followed, toward the elevated area where the ruler sat.

"They are somewhere in the caves, but we may not find them," Riad spoke coldly. Then he looked up to the beast on the throne. "You have come to the wrong city and taken the wrong man!" he shouted to the thing. "The difference between me and them," Riad motioned to the quivering prisoners with his cybernetic arm, "is that I will not die. I cannot be destroyed and I will take vengeance on you!"

"And you think I am like the ones that flee from you?" the thing responded, standing two times their height and flexing its muscles and claws, saliva dripping from its open maw. "I am from the beginning, one of the alphas from our world beyond this. Without me, these creatures do not exist. You do not scare me, mortal. You and your companions will join us or die!" Steam rose from its mouth as it leapt at them, moving the distance of twenty men before Riad's energy blast thrashed its chest and electrified its body.

The thing was not impeded, but pounded into Riad and struck him to the ground. It beat its clawed fists into him, tearing flesh and metal as Riad released a charge bomb from his body and stunned the thing long enough to blast it with his gun and pound it with his cybernetic arm in the face.

"Uahrrr," the beast half moaned, half growled.

Julieth watched in horror as it clawed at Riad's cybernetic eye, ripping it from its socket and thrusting it off into the writhing fire.

Riad shouted, struggling against the massive thing. She feared it would rip off his limbs, and was about to attack the thing with her sword before watching Vrax separate from his leg and climb a pillar nearby.

Julieth scanned around her as she saw a beast approaching in the corner of her vision. Bayne once again huddled on the temple floor, humming something loudly and rocking. "Stay away!" she shouted at the muscled thing. As it leapt for her she cut into its leg, sending it to the floor before she dug her blade into its jugular.

A roar erupted from behind her and she turned to see Vrax on the leader's back, its spindly legs digging into the beast's raised spine as the beast roared, slamming Riad's body against the ground and then losing the life in its eyes.

Riad breathed heavily as the thing lay limp overtop him. After a moment he pushed it up with his arm muscles and the kicked it up and over with his legs. The beast rolled like butchered meat. As Riad stood, Julieth fully realized the extent of the damage he sustained. His cybernetic parts were gashed, sparks igniting within them and showering the air. His chest was bloody and marred by the beast's claws, though she saw his flesh healing itself, rejuvenating, whether the ability was something gifted by the essence bonded in his arm or his cybernetics, she did not know.

His eye, though... Where his cybernetic eye had been now only a chasm of scarred meat and blood remained.

"It's better than it looks," Riad said to her while blasting one of the final beasts in the chamber with an electric beam from his gun. "Vrax, retrieve my eye from the fire and get to repairs. We cannot waste time in this chamber. We need to get to the surface."

The insect-like droid quickly skittered into the flames.

The prisoners around them backed themselves into a corner of the chamber.

"How will we free all of them?" Julieth asked, taking a heavy breath of smoke from the blaze as she finally let her arm muscles and the sword relax. "I cannot fly them all to the surface before we are attacked again."

Vrax returned to Riad. It inserted the charred metallic eye in his eye socket and began welding it in place, clicking and shooting minute beams of something in the eye's direction as it worked.

"We leave the people of Olan. They allowed this to befall themselves. They would only slow us down. We need to get to the surface now."

Hot anger grew in Julieth. If it wasn't for Riad, they wouldn't be here, and now he prepared to leave these innocents behind. "And Ivanus and Andral, you would leave them too?"

Vrax moved to Riad's chest and began work there as Riad's eye flicked back to life. "Do you know where they are being held? Do you even know that they live? All that matters is that we get Bayne to safety. There is no other purpose. Ivanus would understand."

At the sound of his name, Bayne looked up and ceased humming. "I will not abandon Andral," he spoke steadily. "He is my brother. Without him, I will not do what you want. I at least need to know if he is alive, and if he is, then I need your word that you will rescue him."

Riad looked upward at the sunlight shimmering down into the temple and then back to Bayne. "Fine, boy, but if we discover he is dead I am not hauling his carcass back above ground to bury." Riad surveyed the area around them. "But these people are on their own. They may follow us if they like, but I will bear no responsibility for their lives."

Julieth looked at the withered forms of men and women, chained and huddling in fear in the dark recesses of the chamber. Riad speaks with wisdom, she thought. We cannot rescue them all, but I could not leave them here without at least trying. She held the sword before her, its hilt heavy in her hand. "How do we defend ourselves if we venture away from the sunlight? Yes, you can fight many of the beasts at a time, but how are we to have any true chance at success?"

Riad's hard expression changed to a smirk. "Weapons, my dear, weapons. I can set my guns to fire ultraviolet light. By aiming the light weapons at the enemy we will render them mortal, creating places for our weapons to sever their souls from their bodies." Riad clicked a lever down on the side of his gun and leveled it at the darkness before them. A beam of UV light instantly lit, illuminating the stone wall that was there. "And for the rest..." A burst of electricity struck out of the weapon and charred that area, shattering stone and sending a wave of dust toward them.

"I suppose you don't have another weapon or two like that for me and Bayne?" Julieth asked.

"Not content with a sword to be shared between the two of you?" Riad asked as he looked into the darkness of the tunnels, away from her. Was that a smirk she heard in his voice?

He is a strange man, Julieth thought, one with a truly cold soul.

Riad turned back toward her and Bayne, a deadpan expression on his face. "Yes, I have two spare guns, one of which can also be programmed for UV light." He removed two smaller guns from his cybernetic limbs. As he handed them to Julieth she realized they were the same weapons he had allowed Ivanus to use in the battle for Kaskal. "This is the one with light creation capabilities," he pointed to the slightly larger gun out of the two.

The weapons were solid and cold as she took them both in her free hand. These would clearly be more effective than the sword, but she was not sure she was prepared to part with any weapon in this alien place.

"I'll take the sword," Bayne spoke, making the decision for her as to what to do.

She handed it to him, knowing that if he were to have to wield any weapon at all, chances were that his ability would manifest and no amount of weaponry would be able to rescue them.

"If we are going to rescue Andral and Ivanus, then we must move." Riad shined the light from his massive weapon before them into a dark tunnel and heading in a quickened pace through the mouth of its entrance. "These beasts may take their revenge on them because of our defiance. Wasting time here is not an option."

As Julieth clicked the UV light on, watching it illuminate from the barrel of one of the guns, she witnessed Vrax finish repairing a gash in the side of Riad's head and then move quickly down his side before attaching and forming once more to his calf. A shiver ran through her as she witnessed it. How old is he? she wondered. Is he even from this world?

Once more, worry for the weakened populace of Olan played in her heart. She turned briefly before following after Riad with Bayne by her side. "Follow us!" she shouted back at the cowering people in the dark recesses of the temple chamber. Follow at a distance! We may not return to this place, and we could be your only hope of survival!"

Howls echoed through the dark of the passage as they moved, mixed with the sound of something dragging against the stone floor. Behind them Julieth could also hear the sound of people following them. Their movements sounded like a mass of insects, the noise echoing in the distant dark.

Julieth's legs burned as they walked quickly. She beat her wings gently, taking to the air just barely above the ground, flying near Riad and Bayne.

In the light from Riad's gun she saw something move from one side of the tunnel to the other, its form morphing from beast to man and then back again as it left the light. Before she had the chance to speak Riad adjusted his weapon, locking on to the creature again and firing.

A haunting scream, half beast and half man, released from the thing's lips as electricity scorched its chest, charring it as it struck lifelessly to the ground.

"Move!" Riad instructed. "I see more moving in the darkness along the walls with my cybernetic eye. We need to reach them before more mass against us."

With a thrust of her wings, Julieth flew beyond Riad, traveling above the light of his weapon's beam, with her own guns aimed at the darkness before her. A low rumble resonated as she moved, growing in noise quickly.

A moment later Riad's light adjusted and an electric surge decimated a small beast on the tunnel floor that transformed into a young man before crumbling to ash.

"Look out!" Riad shouted to her from somewhere behind.

She swooped down, landing on the rock floor and aiming her light in a quick circle around her, trying to discover the danger. Nothing.

"Above!" Riad's voice rang in an answer.

As she aimed the guns and the light upward she saw the beasts clasping with their claws to the rock. Their bodies twisted and morphed to human form, causing them to lose their grip and fall into the darkness around her. Electricity pricked over her as she blasted a beast that had fallen at pointblank range before her. Then, a moment later, something massive struck her to the ground, its weight crushing her lungs, pinning her down.

She struggled against it, firing the non-UV light gun at its maw before being struck by its claws in the back. Pain surged up her spine as the thing made contact. Something wet dripped down over her face. As it entered her mouth Julieth realized it was blood.

Suddenly it clamped onto her back with its canines. Blood surged through her body toward the intrusion.

"Help me!" Julieth screeched in pain.

A sudden explosion of UV light flooded over them, followed by multiple blasts of electricity that struck into the bodies of morphing beasts around her. The one above her held her firm, then went limp as she heard tearing flesh. It tumbled to the ground beside her.

Julieth breathed heavy, each breath pained and thick as she rolled over to see Bayne removing his sword from the beast's back.

"Will... will I be alright?" she asked Riad is pained breath. Where the beast had bitten her back an acid-like feeling seared her flesh. Somehow she felt her wings reconnecting where they had been broken and her flesh repairing itself.

"Time will tell. Get up," Riad instructed, blasting a beast charging toward them and leveling it to the ground. The thing clawed and moaned as it pulled itself on the rock in their direction. "If you morph into one of them I will destroy you." Riad blasted the beast clawing toward them in the face, its human-like form glaring at them with red eyes before disintegrating in gore from the blast. "I can't promise it would be painless though. With the essences bonded to you, you would die hard."

"I appreciate your honesty," Julieth said, still stunned at Riad's coldness but glad Bayne would be protected from her if the beast's saliva and bite were enough to change her to one of them.

She found she did not have the strength to fly now and instead kept by their side, limping as she moved. The pain somehow moved from her back to her legs.

You will survive, a voice entered her thoughts.

Julieth looked to Riad's leg, checking that Vrax was still there.

Do not speak to her, not yet. She is not fully ours, another voice came.

You do not rule me, the first voice returned.

Julieth knelt, holding her head with her hands. It throbbed in pain. "Wait. There is someone in my thoughts," she spoke to her companions.

Riad came to her, holding his cybernetic hand to her forehead. She watched as its mechanics glowed green.

"The essences are contacting you. They have found a way to join with your consciousness." Riad removed his hand and then shone the UV light from his gun down the tunnel, holding it braced there.

"I have never heard of that about them." Julieth closed her eyes, trying to hold back words that whispered eerily in her thoughts.

"Not all with the essences hear them, but you have many essences bonding in your flesh. It is likely that they were triggered by the beast's bite. Think of what calms you and you can possibly hold them back for a time. Bayne and I will continue. We must move to reach Ivanus and Andral if they are alive. Follow us when you are able."

It was paralyzing.

She cannot reject us now. We can teach her and show her the ways.

Control her. I do not share what I possess without controlling the flesh.

You are but one of many in this form...

"ENOUGH!" Julieth shouted aloud, silencing both voices. She closed her eyes, focusing on the past, to that boy she loved in her youth, before he was taken from her, swallowed up by the sinking earth that claimed him. His eyes... his face. They were so beautiful. One moment she had been chasing him playfully through the desert, the two suns setting on the horizon, and the next moment his body had been swallowed whole. Can no pain be spared me in my life? she thought. Then she realized that the voices in her head had gone silent.

She stood, her body still burning, and illuminated the darkness before her with the light of her gun. Nothing. She did not see Riad or Bayne. None of the beasts were in her vision either. Just as she began to walk forward once more a hand clasped her shoulder.

She violently turned. Olan's wounded people stood in a mass, staring at her with their hollow eyes.

# Chapter 11

Olan's people trudged behind Julieth in near silence, a mass of a hundred at least moving but not speaking, murmuring while blindly following her lead.

"What happened to you? How long have the beasts been here?" she asked.

Their mentally blind, wide eyes had only stared back at her. Their silence sent a chill through her that she could not explain.

Some of Olan's people remained shackled, their chains echoing as they dragged, clawing over the tunnel floor.

A great span of time passed as Julieth and the mass of bodies moved through the darkness. She had thought it only moments since Riad left her side, and when she had rejected the voices of the essences, but she still saw no sign of him or Bayne.

A warm rush of air blew thickly over her and she stopped, seeing a red light in the distance beyond the UV light of her weapon.

Boom! The light of an explosion erupted beyond the opening of the tunnel there, the force of the blast enough to shake the stone floor beneath her and cause her to brace her hand on the wall to steady herself.

They are there, she thought, her heart racing. And what else will we find when we arrive? "Only the strong should follow me." She turned back to Olan's people. "There is battle at the end of this passage, and I have no spare weapons to give you. If you wait here, then I give you my word that I will return.

The people of Olan said nothing. She turned and looked to them, watching their hollow eyes stare at the red-lit passage in the distance. "Then do as you will. I have done what I can do for you for now. If you protect yourselves, then I will come back for you."

With her strength returned, Julieth pumped her wings and soared quickly through the darkness, embracing the cool air of the cavern as she spliced though it, and yet remaining alert constantly.

Howls echoed over the passage's rock walls as she neared the red illuminated chamber. She landed in the darkness. Juieth remained a way back, squinting to see cells much like the ones she had been held captive in lining the far wall in the red chamber. Sweltering heat wove over her form as she walked closer. Her vision swam, as if her sight were a mirage.

BOOM! Another blast rocked the ground beneath her, lighting up the chamber with fire and then blanketing it with smoke as the bodies of two beasts were thrown through the air, landing in front of her. One of the bodies morphed back into the form of a man, its arm severed and its body covered in char from the explosion. The other beast was stunned for a moment, but soon dug its massive clawed hands into the cavern floor, hefting itself up, looking around and locking eyes with Julieth. Its spine curved grotesquely and its beady, haunting eyes shimmered, sending a surge of fear through Julieth's body. A grin moved over its saliva-coated maw.

It moved quickly as it rose, running on all fours towards her.

With barely a thought Julieth held the guns high, drenching the beast with UV light from the one and blasting it with electricity as it leapt for her. Meat shed from bone and it howled in agony while thrashing into her torso, knocking her to the ground.

It was dying, but still fought her, thrashing with its claws down toward her skull.

Julieth thrust her head away as its claws bashed against the rock below them, sending a screeching sound through the chamber. As it lifted its arm to strike for her again, she grappled for her weapon on the ground nearby. The beast's arm thrashed down and she blasted it with her gun, disintegrating it with electric charge and sending it toppling to the ground beside her in agony.

Julieth's muscles burned as she stood. She illuminated the thing once more with her light. Its muscles twisted and pulled as it morphed back into human form. Blood soaked the rock floor from its wounds. Half of the now human looking thing's jaw was missing.

"Why? Why do you hate us?" Julieth asked it. "Why would you choose to live a life like this? Surely there is consciousness and morality somewhere in the makeup of your race."

The dying man's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he convulsed violently, choking on the blood pooling in his throat.

I will put you out of your misery, whatever you are, Julieth thought. She leveled her weapon at its chest and fired a long blast of electricity, decimating its core and charring the blood that had been liquid in its extremities.

Searing bile rose in her throat as Julieth turned away from him to walk into the red illuminated chamber. It cannot be worse there in the unknown than here with his corpse. As she entered, another blast shook the chamber, causing her to drop down and brace her arms. She looked up to see a horde of beasts attacking what appeared to be Riad and another man a good distance away. Is that Ivanus with him?

Her feet landed heavily as she moved, eager to join the battle and assist the men. Then, with a pulse, she beat her wings and took to the air. The beasts looked up as she flew above them. Riad picked them off in pairs, illuminating them with UV light from his weapon and then blasting them apart before eliminating more.

She leveled her own guns at the mass and ripped electricity into them at random.

A beast charged for Ivanus and he thrashed away its claws with a sword. It howled as he ran it through and before he could remove his sword from its gullet another beast ran at him.

Julieth's heart raced as she redirected her fire and blasted the thing, thrusting it aside so that Ivanus could withdraw his blade in time to hack into the thing's arm and deal it a death blow to the skull.

Battle raged for what seemed an eternity as beast after beast attacked them. When the enemy's number dwindled, more appeared from the tunnels. The enemy had no way to attack above, however, and so Julieth had the upper hand. Riad continued to explode light and fire grenades as they fought them off, and as only a few remained, Julieth dove down and stood with Riad and Ivanus. The final two beasts fell as Riad illuminated them with light and then reduced them to ash with one blast from his weapon.

Julieth looked to her companions, their faces gashed, bloody and sopping sweat. She sucked in a deep breath before clasping her knees with her hands and pulling her wings tight to her back.

"You know that is not all of them," Riad spoke coldly. "We will not have rest until we are away from this place."

"Where are Bayne and Andral?"

"In a cell along that wall." Riad pointed to the far left wall.

Julieth ran in that direction. "Bayne! Andral!" she shouted, relief rejuvenating her as she saw the two boys running towards her. She quickly hugged both boys, kissing their foreheads.

"Thank you for protecting my brother," Andral spoke. "Thank you for coming for me."

"I would not leave you with these beasts. If either of you would die, it would only be after I gave my own life," Julieth assured him.

"Look!" Bayne pointed to the tunnel Julieth came from. Something moved in the red-lit dark.

"The people of Olan have arrived." Julieth led the boys back to Riad and Ivanus. "Come, we need to meet with them and see if they know of a way out."

Then a human voice rose above the rest of Olan's people's clambering noises, shouting unintelligible words that the rest of the group repeated.

"No..." Ivanus gasped nearby. "My sight has returned. Olan's people will eat the beasts." A look of nausea washed over his face.

"It must have been the beasts that blocked the abilities given you by your essence." Riad walked quickly toward the mass of humans. Olan's people grabbed at the limbs of fallen beasts, dragging them into the darkness away from the larger group.

The sound of cracking and grinding bone sent an eerie shiver up Julieth's spine. The sucking noise of muscle being torn from bone came to her ears as moist whispers. "Why are they like this?"

"Perhaps the beasts began the change in Olan's people, turning them into beasts themselves, before we ever saw them. Possibly this is the way it manifests. Whatever the reason, beneath Olan is not a place we want to remain." Riad looked back to Ivanus. "If your abilities have returned, then that must mean there are few beasts left in this area, though I am certain they reside in other areas beneath Solaris's crust. We should be safe to leave the way we came if Julieth has the strength to fly us out of the temple's roof."

"I can do that." Julieth lifted into the air, aiming her guns at Olan's people as she flew above them. The others of her group moved along the wall and into the tunnel they came from. She looked at Olan's people's eyes as she dipped into the tunnel, haunted by their glossed-over stares and the tears dripping down their faces.

Julieth closed her eyes as she flew. Darkness consumed her. She blocked out sound and emotion. She always knew the world to be cold, but this... Her skin was chilled.

Then heat swam over her, growing warmer and warmer until her wings filled with it and she began to lift higher. She opened her eyes to the inferno of the temple's fire.

As she landed on the floor of the chamber, a young man lying in a beam of sunlight moaned, dirt caking his face as he looked up at her. She looked back to the tunnel, not seeing Riad or the others yet, then went to him.

"Can you hear me?" she asked, placing her hand on a weak muscled shoulder.

He turned, looking quickly into her eyes. They were a royal, crisp blue. "Yes." He stood slowly, looking up at the sky as if he had come from there.

There was something strangely familiar about him.

"You do not look like the others. What has happened to them?"

The young man stood silent, looking blankly at her. Then, after many moments, he came to her and spoke. "Kaskal." The rasped word licked off his tongue.

"How do you know where we're from?" she called to him as he ran, leaping from the sunlight and into darkness before morphing into the form of a beast and quickly clawing his way up the temple's wall. He did not look down, but moved frantically upward.

She pulsed her wings, soaring up near him and leveling her weapons. "How did you know?" she shouted. She could not fire. It had done nothing to harm her.

As they reached the temple's destroyed top she burst into the sky, watching as the beast morphed back into the form of a man in the sunlight and ran away as fast as he could.

It might be a trap. What if I am lured away and the others cannot escape? With a deep breath she swooped, plummeting into the dark, inferno lit temple, thrusting and crouching to the ground just as Riad and the others emerged.

# Chapter 12

The wind hit her harshly as Julieth emerged from the mouth of the destroyed underground temple one final time. She had flown Riad to the surface first, and then Bayne and Andral, leaving Ivanus for last.

"My sight has returned to me," Ivanus spoke as she flew him down toward the rest of the group, already moving across the sweltering desert terrain. "And yet I did not see the manbeast you discovered in the temple chamber. You said that it said 'Kaskal' to you?"

"Yes, I am afraid of what that means. He holds a connection to us there." Julieth swept lower and Bayne looked up, waving at them.

Ivanus released one hand from her grasp and reached to position a cloth above his brow. "When we first camped in the desert I feared something I could not sense following us from Kaskal. How or why a were-beast would have tracked us from there is beyond me, but I fear that is exactly where this thing has come from."

As Julieth set him on the ground and then landed, a great quake rocked the earth. She knelt low, bracing herself with her hands on the reverberating sand, and then looked up to witness the mountain range between them and Olan break apart and begin to be swallowed into the planet. "Run!" she shouted over the loud roar of earth swallowing earth. The hollow underground devoured Olan whole.

She turned, her feet hitting heavy on the shaking desert as she moved away with the others as fast as she could. After a few strides she remembered her wings and lifted up, soaring and continually pressing onward.

Cracks ripped through the desert before them, swallowing sand and stone into their jaws, but somehow not blocking the route they ran.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, the roar and the quaking stopped.

Julieth allowed herself a breath, curling in the wind and looking in awe at the massive, shadowed crevice in the distance. The city and mountains were gone. All that remained was a swarming plume of earth and a view that led to more barren sand. "Where should we rest?" she called down to the others.

"We must soon, even if it is out in this heat," Riad responded. "But I fear we will have little rest in coming days as we move. Yourself, Ivanus, Bayne and I are protected from starvation by the essences, but we are low on stores and Andral will need sustenance or he will become weak."

As the suns set in the distance they made camp beside a large, flat stone jutting up from the ground. They did not set out one of Riad's heat orbs, for fear of being discovered, but instead lay on the bare sand, chilled in the coming darkness and giving in one by one to the night because of exhaustion.

Julieth was the last, shivering and staring out into the pitch-black night. She feared the voices in her head would return. The thought haunted her. Then a searing sensation pressed from her palm, up through her right arm. She looked to it, touching dark marks that moved, a labyrinth of boils leeching up her skin. She brought her fingers to it, her flesh setting on fire with the touch. She watched as puss bubbled up from beneath the darkened flesh. The scorch mapping has begun. As I use my abilities it will increase and I will slowly die. She looked to Bayne, snoring softly nearby. How long until the boils appear on Bayne or Ivanus? Will we even make it to Samuel in time?

# Chapter 13

Dirty water rolled over Samuel's hands as he lifted them from the bath. It ran in streams down his arms. The water had not been replaced in months, but he remained the only person he knew of with water to bathe in. If more were discovered beneath the planet's crust, his followers would bring it to him. He stared out his window at the light of a vast moon. His army stood vigil and alert beneath its light.

Samuel touched the marking the essence made, imbedded in his chest, feeling its harsh lines. The voice has been silent for days. He breathed and allowed himself to relax, sliding down until his head was all that was not submerged.

"Sir," the voice of one of his servants broke the silence.

Samuel lifted a boil-seared arm from the water, bracing it on the ivory tub's side. He did not turn to see the man.

"The Raols are attacking the edge of our territory again. Marcin has sent word from his camp. He says it will be handled shortly. He only wanted to keep you informed."

These are more that will serve us. The essence gripped his mind. Go to them and claim them.

"Send word to Marcin that I was told." Samuel sank back into the bath, submerging his head in effort to block out the essence's prodding.

Pain seared through his chest, forcing him to emerge, gasping for air.

After drying the water from his flesh he tossed the towel into a fireplace in the hall beyond the chamber. Its moisture evaporated into steam as the towel charred and blew as ash through a chimney. Samuel walked to his chamber and dressed in a light robe. A sword braced on the far wall of his chamber caught his sight and he went to it, lifting it in his hands and measuring its weight.

As he walked down the hall he was determined. He would give the essence its followers, yes, but he would show the thing he was in control.

Torches flickered in sconces as he walked. He came to the main doors of the holy temple. His servants pushed them open and he strode out beneath the moon, taking one step after another down the stairs to the desert soil. The lava ocean resembled blood in the moonlight.

"Sir, will you be needing your transport tonight?" a man standing post nearby asked.

"Yes, gather one at once."

The man hurriedly left to return moments later with six strong men and himself carrying a platform with a chair positioned in its middle.

"Set it down here." Samuel pointed nearby. He stepped up onto it and sat, watching his people as he was carried past them. They stood in unbreakable formation, their hollow stares fixed on some point in the distance.

As the night wore on he was carried toward that point in a steady, unbroken pace. He passed thousands of his soldiers, standing erect and ready to defend.

And then the first of the two suns rose in the sky.

The loud noise of steel meeting steel and the shouts of men in his army came to him in the distance as they moved. The death screams of his enemy filled him with warmth somehow. But that was not what he came for. He came to satiate the essence, and now the essence demanded souls to follow them.

Samuel sensed the men and women not yet under his control. How easy it was to possess them and have them follow him in any way. One moment shouts and clashing metal filled his ears, and then as he took control a second later, there was silence except for the sound of one lone man shouting loudly.

"Set me down here," Samuel instructed the men carrying him. Sunlight draped over him, spilling a vast shadow before his form.

Samuel walked steadily on the earth, his tone muscles tensing as he moved and his thin robe rippling in the wind.

"You! My people will kill you!" an armored man with his arms held firm by people wearing his same garb shouted, spitting toward Samuel. His spittle evaporated as it hit the ground.

Do not do this. Take him. Make him follow us, the voice of the essence spoke.

"No, if I am to serve you, then you must allow my whims."

Did you have these whims when you served your God and not me?

"You proved to me that there is no God, after all these ages of forced life. At first I looked at you as a gift, as a way to bring worshipers to him, but if there was a god then he would have purged my body of you long ago."

The soldiers around him did not look at Samuel. They did not flinch or flex, but instead stood motionless where they had been in battle, their hollow eyes gazing blankly at the horizon. Only the non-possessed man moved.

"Who do you speak to?" the man asked. "You surround yourself by followers and yet none hears your words."

"I do not need to speak to them." Samuel grinned. "They follow me with a thought in my mind."

He looked out at what he had taken. At least one hundred new warriors joined his force from this skirmish. He would not need them, he knew. He only kept them to appease the essence. "What is your name?" he asked one of the new men under his control that held his companion's arm.

"Pax," the man responded without emotion.

"Pax, kill this man for me, to prove your loyalty."

"Brother," the restrained man pled, looking to Pax with tears streaming from his hardened eyes. "Do not give in to his control. I know you are there inside somewhere."

Pax drew a dagger from his side. He held it to the man's sun-worn neck, pressing its tip into his quaking flesh and tearing through the soft tissue from one side to the other.

Blood gushed from the wound and the man choked on it as it gurgled up from his lips as well. Life soon left his eyes.

Pax stood there with the others holding his brother's bleeding carcass, emotionless and calm.

"You have proven yourselves, my servants." Samuel turned from them, walking casually back toward his escort. "You may release him now."

The lifeless vessel of flesh thumped to the ground.

# Chapter 14

Julieth's company traveled through the heat of day wearily, exhausted and yet on constant watch for an enemy attack or food of some kind. Andral consumed their last container of food that morning. Though the rest of them could survive without food, hunger still tired them quickly.

"I see the essences have begun scorching your skin," Riad remarked without looking to Julieth. The two of them led the others.

"Yes. How long is typical until it kills?"

Sunlight radiated off Riad's metallic limbs. "One never knows. I have seen people crumpled days after the markings began, and though I am marked, my health is seemingly never affected. Perhaps that is because my essence is in my cybernetics, and not in my flesh."

"Do you hear your essence's voice?"

Riad turned his head slightly and gave her a half grin. "Yes, but not as you do." He tapped his hand on his leg where Vrax connected to him. "The essence has taken over my repair bot. It speaks to me through it."

It made sense. It also made her nervous when she thought of how Vrax had connected with her skin and spoken through her thoughts in the temple. "You said you would explain your past. The others are not that close to us, now. We seem to have the opportunity and the time."

"I will share some." Riad reached out his hands and cracked his bone knuckles in the one. "I am not from Solaris, or really any planet. A long time ago I was birthed on a space vessel in this galaxy. My parents and my people were soldiers stationed in that place. I grew, learning to fight and defend. When I was a young man there was a battle on a planet near us. My limbs and face were irreparably scarred as a group we thought were our allies ambushed us. I threw myself on a mine to protect my company. That day it was decided for me, as I was unconscious and dying, that the cyborg program would be run on my body."

He paused. Walking on without word or emotion. "A meteor was discovered on the edge of the galaxy after the races of that planet were defeated. We detected a life in its core, and a strange energy surrounding it. Then word came from our home planet that we were to investigate.

"That day we left with a company of fifty, half our stationed force, and months later arrived in our star-fighter to Solaris.

"While nearing your planet an asteroid collided with the back of our ship, partially destroying landing gear. Flames writhed over our ship's hull as it plummeted in Solaris's atmosphere. A blast that must have shaken the planet itself exploded as our ship thrust into Solaris. Then it all went dark."

Julieth watched Riad's emotionless face.

"When the ship's power rebooted we realized all thrusters and guns were destroyed in landing, along with COM connection that would have allowed us to communicate with our home station. Sensors, though, were still viable and indicated a nearby civilization. Several of our number also lost their lives in the crash. It was decided that we would exit the craft, armed and ready for conflict. When we discovered the meteor, we would examine it as directed and attempt to repair the COM to communicate what we found back along with a request for assistance.

"As the vessel bay door opened, the heat of your planet overwhelmed me. I was in the back of our group, charged with keeping any enemy we may encounter off our flank. The vegetation we saw beyond the crater our ship had created was all either wilting or charred. There was a spoiled stench in the air. This planet had clearly been filled with life in recent time, but as we feared, the meteor appeared to have altered the planet's atmosphere.

"It was silent. We walked through the tall, browned vegetation for a long while, and then I heard our leader, Sar, over our company's personal COM line.

"'Planetary life forms spotted. Prepare to make contact. Life forms appear to be peaceful.'

"'What direction do they come from?' a man named Garda's voice broke in on the line.'

"I waited for Sar's response. The only sound I heard was static. Then I heard screams and saw fire slithering above the rotten vegetation in the distance.

'Retreat! Sar has...' Another voice clicked on and off the COMs.

"The men around me, lower ranking men, looked to me to guide them.

"'Walk low and prepare for anything,' I instructed.

"It would not be long. The fire quickly spread through the dying vegetation as more screams echoed around us. Then, as we met a clearing, silence blended with the crackling of the fire coming in on us. I breathed relief as Sar stepped in through thick smoke along the clearing's far side. I motioned to him using my hands.

"Without hesitation Sar leveled his weapon at me and fired, the charge of its blast knocking me down and back in the foliage we came from. Multiple blasts sounded before the silence returned. Then, just as I thought I had the strength to stand, two fingers pressed into my neck.

"I do not have a pulse there. My cybernetics keeps me alive without a clear pulse, but instead with an even flow of blood through my body. That is how I knew it was an enemy. As the fingers lifted I thrust my weapon up, opened my eyes, and then fired in the center of Sar's forehead. Blood bathed the clearing with splatter and as I stood I saw the five who had been with me lying dead in the area.

"How could Sar have betrayed us, I asked. I ran full speed forward through the bodies of my company until I burst through a wall of fire toward another open place. I saw him then as I slowed, and then lay low to the earth. He did not see me, but his robe flowed in the wind and I could see two suns printed on the back of the garb. I waited as the flames seared my flesh until this man and a few others with him walked beyond my sight. I knew that somehow it must have been him. Somehow he had possessed Sar. I vowed I would have the man's soul in return.

"Then, as I knew I would break that vow and death would take me in the flames, a glowing gaseous thing roiled above the charred soil before me. It stopped, illuminated by the fire scorching my form, and I suddenly had the urge to touch it. I reached my cybernetic arm up, thrust my cybernetic hand within it, and had the strength to stand."

Julieth's heart raced. "That man was Samuel. I had wondered why you are so set on his death, and yet seem to have no care for us or Solaris."

Riad looked to her with heat in his eyes. "It is not that I don't care for you. But I am one left out of many men and women. His blood must spill before there can be any other importance. When his soul dies, only then can I move on."

"What then? Solaris will celebrate what you do." Julieth saw the silhouette of a man on the horizon as she spoke. She wondered if she saw a mirage.

"Then my life will return to my hands, and I will choose if it lights anew or is extinguished."

# Chapter 15

Earth surrounded Ineal as his consciousness awoke. And yet it did not contain him. How long has my mind been asleep? he wondered, looking through the soil around him for his arms' forms.

He saw nothing. The chewing of insects and slithering of worms echoed in his hearing.

He focused hard in the darkness of the earth, and then, when looking again, could see the limbs of his body like an ethereal vision before him. Have I died? How long has it been since the meteor I was encased in landed? Then it suddenly came to him that the essences' voices were gone... all of them. Whether I am dead or alive, I am free.

Full, natural energy pulsed through his form. He could feel the earth around him, sense the movements of the insects as if they moved over and through him. Far above, he felt the feet of beings pressing down on the planet's surface.

You must renew me. They have forgotten. All is dry and barren, but through you I can touch them again, the warm voice of a woman spoke in his mind.

Who are you? How are you in my thoughts?

I am the mother of all things. Solaris's people have forgotten me. I need you to show them. I am within you now. You are now connected with me, but I am not the same as you.

Are you one of the essences? I denied them for so long, and yet now I hear you within me.

No, they are not I. They are dead and wish to spread their own means. I wish to restore and provide.

And what if I deny you? What if I chose to travel my own path?

All paths lead to me. Your choice is your own. If you choose my lead, then I will provide the way.

Are you a god? Ineal asked.

Silence.

The warmth of the soil around him set like a deep ocean in his soul. Somehow in the darkness and soil he felt more free and alive than he ever had. Images swam through his thoughts. He saw the universe's creation, the birth of multiple worlds and the fall of many as the essences devoured them. Before observing Solaris's infection by the essences he witnessed the death of Eon, his home world.

I see now, mother of all. The essences must be stopped here. I will return your touch to Solaris and help them to remember. The essences are somehow the absence of you, aren't they?

Nothing... no response... and then...

See me by my spirit, sole survivor of Eon. I charge you as my herald.

Ineal wanted to go to the surface see the suns and Solaris's land with his sight. With just a thought, his ethereal form moved through the earth upward. Then, as he neared the surface, he paused. I feel the earth as part of me. Will I feel the wind and the sunlight in the same way? He slowly raised his hand above the surface of the land, not disturbing the planet's crust, but passing through it. He felt one with the wind, unable to control it but feeling the freeness in his heart of its movements. He did not feel the sunlight's heat on his arm, but instead a connection with the fiery orbs radiating far out in space. It was both overwhelming and surreal.

You cannot control the world around you, but you will be able to touch and renew life in it, the woman's voice spoke to him again.

After a moment's hesitation Ineal rose into the sunlight, standing firm on the cracked earth of the planet. Every portion of the world called to him, speaking with their movements and existence to his soul. In the distance he could feel the footsteps of several of the planet's beings slowly approaching him. One was in need. He could somehow sense the beings' physical stability because of their touch to the world surrounding them.

Ineal smiled a caring, true smile. I will start with you. He held out his hand, beckoning them forward through the wind.

# Chapter 16

"Look, is that a man? Ivanus, can you sense someone out there?" Julieth squinted as sand whipped across the dry earth before them. The figure she had assumed a mirage in the distance solidified into human form, wavering as if it were a shadow somehow set down in the heat of the day.

"I've sensed its life force for some time now," Ivanus said. "It was beneath the earth and had been moving toward us. It is not one of our people. It must be a member of an alien race."

"Can you sense what it's going to do?"

"It will not move until we reach it. It stretches its arm toward us. I believe we can trust it, but yes, I sense its movements. I should be able to sense its intents before it does us harm."

Riad looked back to Ivanus. "Stay back with Bayne as we approach. Leave initial contact to Julieth and myself and call out if you sense danger. We can not risk Bayne's fear especially if the being is immune to his ability."

As they neared the being's form it fully solidified. Its skin was stark white. It had a nude form, without genitalia. No hair was on its head and its deep blue eyes glowed, somehow visible in the distance where it stood before them. One of its arms stretched out, pointing at them.

"Why do you come to us?" Riad leveled his weapon at the man.

They halted their approach as Ivanus, Bayne and Andral waited a distance behind them.

The albino did not speak. It stood with wide eyes, watching them, and then began to approach.

Julieth leveled the gun Riad had given her, her heart racing as the albino quickly moved.

A sudden charge of electricity birthed from Riad's weapon, pulsing through the thing's body as if it were not there.

Julieth fired two charges of her own. "Are we in danger?" she called back to Ivanus after each shot failed to hinder the thing.

"No, but it will approach Bayne!"

Julieth beat her wings, lifting to the air and swooping down toward the albino, firing several shots into it and then reaching out to grab its body. Her grasp found only air, passing through the thing's form as she soared skyward once more.

She landed hard on the ground while Riad fired shot after shot into its body. Sand whipped over her, her heart beating heavy with fear.

"It cannot be stopped!" Ivanus shouted out over the sound of the electric charges Riad fired.

"Retreat!" Riad shouted, running at the albino and firing a shot through its skull before the thing disappeared.

Julieth ran, closing the distance between her and Ivanus quickly, then lifted up into the sky as the albino's form reappeared beside Andral.

It touched him, placing its nova white hand to his cheek and then kneeled and touched its fingers to Solaris's surface.

Julieth stood, stunned and unable to fire for fear of harming Andral.

She moved cautiously toward them and then stopped, captivated as something green sprouted out from the earth, rising quickly upward and sprouting limbs at its sides.

"What is it?" Bayne asked in awe.

"I don't know," Julieth said as Riad joined them. He leveled his weapon at the albino, preparing to fire.

"He will not harm us," Ivanus assured them. "And I have seen that thing before. It is a tree."

The green form changed to brown, sprouting other, thin green things from its limbs. Then a sweet aroma moved around them as delicate blooms formed.

"A tree..." Julieth spoke in disbelief. "That is what people ate ages ago, or at least I have heard."

"No." Ivanus grinned. "We ate those."

Red and orange spheres grew on the tree's arms as the flower blooms were carried away in the wind around them.

"What are they?" Bayne asked.

Ivanus came to him, placing his hand on the young man's shoulder. "Fruit."

"We can not trust him. It is a trick of the heat," Riad spoke.

Julieth watched Bayne reach up, twist a fruit from one of the limbs and then reach out and place it in Andral's palm. "You are weak, brother. We can live a long time without food, but you need this."

"How do I eat it?" Andral asked Ivanus, who had just picked a fruit of his own from the tree.

"Bite through the skin. The insides of the fruit are sweet. It has only been days since I have eaten one, in my time, and yet this is such a delicious relief to have."

Julieth took a step toward the tree and reached up, feeling the smoothness of the fruit with her fingertips. "Do you speak, man of miracles, and why have you brought us this gift?"

The albino pointed to the suns overhead and then to his heart before watching her with a smile.

Her fears quelled as she watched Andral take his first bite. Energy appeared to fill his body once more as his eyes lit with life. Juice from the fruit dripped down his arm. "Delicious," he said, taking another bite and then passing it to Bayne in an offer to share.

Julieth brought her fruit to her lips, savoring the sweet scent before biting through its skin and enjoying the way its juices caressed her throat. "Fruit, I never dreamed I'd have fruit."

"You do not have an essence marking in your flesh, or scar mapping." Riad approached, inserting a shard of metal from his finger into a still hanging fruit. The red sphere steamed as he spoke, and then cracked and fell to the ground, exploding as mush. "How do you create vegetation out of dry earth? How do we know you are not poisoning us?"

The albino did not answer, only turned and walked away from them as they ate and watched in stunned wonder. The way the sun reflected off his flesh was almost blinding.

Julieth and the others picked the remaining fruit and then followed. They kept a safe distance, cautious of this mysterious new being and knowing that if they were to keep Andral alive, then they would need this creature's abilities.

"We cannot trust him. He is unnatural." Riad remained in the lead and looked back to Julieth. A burst of sand whipped around them.

"How could we trust you in Kaskal? How can we trust you now?" Julieth answered. "In these times we need all the allies that come our way. I will trust him because I need to trust him. That is why you are here as well."

# Chapter 17

Julieth flew above the others, eying the unknown man who had given life to a tree out of the desert soil. The sunlight heating the ground below almost blanked the stark white being from her vision, but the movements of his muscles and arms contrasted with the textures of the whipping sand.

Who are you? she thought, bringing a hand to her chest where one of the essences had entered her body. She felt the smooth scar seared in her flesh. You are not one of us, and yet you have these abilities. What does that mean?

A city had been growing larger and larger in the distance for some time now. The being led them there. She trusted him, partially because she knew Ivanus would be able to warn them of danger, and mostly because there would have been no point in feeding them if the man had intended to kill them. The city was encased in a circular wall much like Kaskal's, only instead of being stone and clay, the wall appeared to be mostly forged by the remnants of rusted-out walls of buildings from a distant age.

Gest, she thought. She had heard mention of the place twice by nomads on the brink of death. They spoke of it as a place where few still lived, a dark place where the people had broken souls.

As they neared the city she landed.

A sentry looked down to them from the wall. "Why do you come? We do not accept travelers here!"

Julieth remained a distance back with the others.

The albino looked up, staring but saying nothing.

"You are unwelcome!" An arrow spliced from the sentry's bow, thrusting before the being's feet. "Approach and the next will pierce your heart!"

The albino knelt, touching the earth as a green sprout pushed up from the sand and grew. He stood, took a few steps and touched the sand again, causing another tree to rise.

"He is unnatural." Riad held his weapon up, eying it before lowering it to his side.

"And a woman with wings, that is natural?" she smiled.

Tree after tree bloomed, young limbs morphing to bark, moaning with the rapid growth, until a small forest of fruit trees shaded Gest's massive rust gates. The trees grew to ten times a man's height.

The people of Gest congregated, looking out over the rust wall in awe. Dozens stood, pointing to the foliage, unable to believe their eyes.

"They would not open their gates for nomads, but will they open them for fruit?" Ivanus asked beside Julieth.

As if on cue, the massive gates screeched, slowly opening as several poorly armed men walked out.

Julieth followed Riad as their group came to greet Gest's people.

One man approached the nearest tree, reaching up and plucking a red fruit from its branch. "What game is this that you play?"

"He does not speak," Julieth spoke up after the albino had not offered a reply. "We came upon him in the desert and he brought fruit to life for us as well. He is trustable."

"We will judge that," a second guard spoke. "If you wish to enter our walls, then you will come in in chains."

A surge of light charged across Riad's gun. "Then we will remain here. We have no need for you or your people if you will not accept us."

The albino held out his arms, standing silently as large chains were brought and secured around his arms and torso. He was led through the gates. They closed and those that had congregated on the wall's edge disappeared behind its façade. One lone watchman stood guard as they made camp beneath the trees.

# Chapter 18

Ineal walked slowly as he entered the city. Men with swords and pikes surrounded him. Others with arrows aimed at him from the city's rooftops. He could not feel the chains on his wrists and arms, but knew that the earth mother had made it so that the men could shackle them there.

"What kind of abomination are you?" A man caked in dirt with a massive gut approached him.

Ineal stopped moving, watching the man and waiting for his next words. Now that I am here, what do you want of me? he spoke to the planet's voice through his mind.

Bring my love to them. Teach them.

The scowling man untangled a whip at his side. "I lead Gest! Why have you come?" the man shouted.

Crack! The man's whip spliced his backside.

Pain surged through Ineal, pain he had not thought possible now.

Crack!

Ineal fell to Solaris's soil. Tears streamed from his eyes as he saw blood dripping from his back. It pooled as it landed.

Forgive them, the mother's voice spoke to him. Forgive them and share what I have given you.

Crack! The whip tore the flesh of his back, sending globules of blood up in a splay.

Ineal fought the pain. He held a hand up.

"What is he doing?" a female voice asked.

Ineal breathed deeply and then dug his fingers into the soil. He closed his eyes.

Sighs of awe and wonder breathed around him.

"What has he done?"

"I have never seen..."

"Mother, look..." The child's voice caused him to open his eyes and take in the beauty the planet's Mother created through him.

A sea of wildflowers bloomed up from the city's thoroughfares. Trees bearing fruit swayed in the wind. Ineal's hands pulsed with energy and he could feel the growth blooming as if it were his own body.

A woman came to him, holding out her child. "Save my son. If you can create vegetation then surely you can heal him. He has had the rust sickness since his birth."

"Can you not see, Maive, that he is a demon?" The man with the whip shoved her and her babe away. "He has come to poison us, to take and destroy what little we have left."

Ineal felt the chains on his arms and legs leave him, dropping from his physical form and crashing to the ground. He had not been released, but instead was no longer tangible. The people of Gest were startled as he approached the woman and her child. He reached out and touched the baby's forehead. He looked into the child's yellow eyes. A purple and red rash covered its skin.

Can I heal him? Can you give me that gift? he asked the planet's spirit.

I will not give it to you, but to him. This child will be free to live. Remember, you are but a vessel to share my love.

The rash on the baby's skin left him completely. The yellow in his eyes changed, a hazel hue replacing in the orbs. Ineal was stunned at the wonder of the healed babe. To create vegetation was one thing, but to heal life...

"You may stay with me." The baby's mother spoke while pulling the child close. She looked out to her fellow people. Her eyes were dark with exhaustion. "There can be only good in a man who takes pain from my son. Look, Elias," she motioned for the man with the whip to come to her. "Look at what this man does for your son. We should not fear him. He is offering us life."

# Chapter 19

Julieth lay still in the night, beneath the veranda of tree limbs, their leaves clicking in the wind. The company had decided to remain outside Gest's walls in hopes of discovering what had become of the albino man.

It is like my home in Kaskal, and yet so different. The structure she slept in in Kaskal had a roof pocked with holes from wear over time. There was no point in replacing it. It did not rain on Solaris. There was only open sky. These things, these trees, they are so beautiful, she thought, reaching out a hand and pressing it firm against the bark of the nearest tree.

What if we didn't go to try and kill Samuel? This albino can create fruit. What would happen if I tried to remove the essences from my body and instead attempted to convince Ivanus, Bayne and Andral to stay with him, no matter if we remain in Gest or if we leave? Her arm burned as she watched the scorch markings on it weaving down her arm. Would it even be possible?

Do you think we would leave you so easily?

A shutter ran through her as she let go of the tree and looked up at the cold stars. Only starlight draped around her through the leaves. What do you want from me? Haven't I given enough, knowing that these powers you give me will take my life?

You are ours. If you do not listen, then we will kill you quicker and with more pain, so that we can find another more easy to possess.

Julieth sat up, looking at the others sleeping soundly on the desert beneath the trees. How many of them hear the voices of the essences?

A dark laugh filled her mind. They all do, whether they know my brethren are separate from them, or they believe my brethren's words to be their own thoughts and minds.

She ignored the voice, trying to push it to the far reaches of her mind.

You will go with them to the one called Samuel. That is where we desire you to go. You will kill him and destroy his symbiotic essence.

I am my own being, not yours, she spoke to it, feeling a surge of pain in her gut and cringing, her wings stretching in the wind as red surged through her eyes.

We will leave you for now. Go with them. If you do not, we will see to cause you pain until you do.

The pain left her body in a flash, as if it were never there. She breathed heavily. "I must act, and soon," she whispered, hoping that vocalizing her thoughts would prevent the essences from hearing them.

"What?" Bayne's voice came from close by. His form was black as he sat upright, visible before the starlight behind him. "Who are you speaking to?"

"Do you hear the voices of the essences?" She folded her wings behind her and reached out an arm for him to come near. "One of them returned to my thoughts moments ago. They are trying to control me."

"No." Bayne sat down beside her, lying down against her legs. "I've seen their marks on you."

"They worry me. They say they are speaking to us all. The voice tonight told me that if I do not go to fight Samuel, then they will kill me and possess someone else."

"Why would we not kill Samuel?"

Bayne's childlike voice speaking such words sent a chill through her. She traced her hand on his arm. "What if we stayed with the albino and could be safe? What if we are following Riad to our deaths? The root of health for our world could begin with this albino. He creates trees and fruit at will. Instead of destroying our enemy, what if we could revive and nourish our planet around him until he is gone?"

Bayne sat up. The warmth of his back against her leg left quickly and a cool breeze blew through them. "When has peace solved problems? I am still young, I know that, but I know that wherever there is health, there will soon be pain."

Julieth reached her hand out and touched his back. "That is not true. You are healthy and always have been." She watched as his hand reached back and felt the marking his essence forged in the top of his spine.

"The essences saved us. You are like a mother to me, and now they are killing you. They will come for me too. I want to make a difference before they take my life. I want to save our world."

Julieth breathed a sigh. "But if you do what Riad wants, you may exhaust the abilities given to you by the essences. Your death will quicken."

Bayne turned to look at her. She could not see his eyes, but somehow sensed a deep darkness within them. "Have you seen Riad's power? He drives away the darkness from around him. I want that power. I want to control the essence and keep away the death that comes."

Julieth felt emotion rising in her. Goose bumps ran over her arms. Where has the boy gone whom I protected in the streets and whom I stole away to safety? "All power comes with a cost. We are proof of that with our abilities and the price we pay for them."

Bayne stood, blocking a portion of the starlight from her vision. "You say the essences speak to you and control you? Take power over them. Become their controller. I will not let them have my life." He walked away slowly, not turning back to her, and lay down to sleep a distance away on the desert near Riad.

Tears streamed from Julieth's eyes as she looked up through the starlit veranda. Whatever God controls the universe, protect that boy. He is becoming a man and I fear the forces guiding him.

*

The sound of metal grinding on metal shrilled through her ears as Julieth awoke beneath the shade of the trees and heat of the rising suns. She stood quickly and then soared into the sky. Riad and Bayne were speaking at the edge of the trees and Ivanus and Andral stood below her.

"Are you with the creator and healer?" A deep man's voice trumpeted from where the doors of Gest opened. "I am Elias! He points beyond our walls to you! He is welcome and you are also desired within Gest's walls if you wish to join us!"

Riad stood below her now. He looked up. "We need to nourish and heal, and if we can convince the albino to come with us and keep us strong, then we should." Riad tossed a gun up to her hands. "But we cannot trust them. Keep alert and listen for Ivanus's warning should he sense problems."

Julieth glanced at Ivanus. "What do you sense now?"

"The albino is in a garden surrounded by children. He has enriched their city with foliage, trees and fruit. They seem to trust him."

"What is a garden?" she questioned.

"I will show you when we arrive."

Julieth landed and walked with the others through the massive rusted gates. The contrast she saw struck her, the pure beauty of the foliage blanketing streets and rooftops while the rust-crusted walls encased them within. Eyes peered from windows and doorways as they passed. "Gest's people seem to fear us," Julieth spoke in a whisper to Ivanus beside her.

"From what I can see that is true. A select few of them appear to be the ones who want us here. They must hold sway over power."

"We welcome you gladly." Elias walked behind them and placed a hand on Ivanus's back. "Your companion has healed my child. You have earned at least a few days' stay within our city's walls because of that."

"Do you have a place that we could rest?" Riad asked.

Elias walked before them, waving his finger in the air. "Come with me. There is a shelter built against the wall this way."

As they walked, Julieth saw an area of green where the albino sat staring at a patch of yellow flowers nearby. He held out his hand, tilting it in the sunlight and examining a red leaf there.

"I will come soon," Julieth told Ivanus before walking toward the albino.

As she reached him, the albino held up a hand with another leaf. He did not speak but pressed it into her palm.

"It is funny what little things hold beauty and sway over our lives." She held up her hand and blew it, watching as it caught the wind and swam about the leaves of trees above.

# Chapter 20

"Julieth... Julieth, wake up."

A tentative hand shook her as she slowly opened her eyes. Darkness was around her and moonlight shone through the open doorway of the small rusted structure she had been led to to use. She lain down to rest when the suns were still high. "Who?" she asked, beginning to stand, and then recognizing the man's face above her. Torn clothes fell around his form and a hood fell over his head. "Ivanus?"

Ivanus held a finger to his lips and she looked around them, assuring herself that there was no one else in the structure. "Put this on and come with me." He whispered and held out a tattered robe similar to the one he wore. "There is something I need to show you."

"What? Where are we going?"

Ivanus moved closer to her. "I have seen a man in my sight, a man like us with an essence within him, but he is near the end. I have not physically gone to him, but I feel I must and I need someone else by my side. I'm not sure that the people of this city would want us there."

Julieth took the robe and quickly wrapped it around herself, bracing her wings close to her body and pulling the hood down to shade her face.

Voices came to her ears as she followed Ivanus through the moonlit streets. They emerged from structures around them and couples passing by, but no one came to them or tried to stop their movements.

It was a dilapidated, rust worn shack where they arrived, unguarded or watched. A deep red light shone through holes in its metal walls.

"Can we enter? Is it safe?" she asked lowly.

"He is immobile." Ivanus pushed the door open slowly and the red light glimmered hauntingly from within.

As she stepped inside, Julieth immediately saw the globule mass in the corner of the room. It barely held human form and its eyes, hollow gold spheres, rolled slowly in her direction. Streams of scorched flesh crisscrossed most of its liquefying skin. The light radiated from an essence marking in his chest. His flesh boiled around the marking, draining in streams of wax-like liquid down his body.

"This is our future." She took a step toward the dying man, nausea overcoming her. "Can you hear me?"

The mass blinked slowly and then reopened its eyelids.

"Why are you here? Are they holding you against your will?" Julieth asked.

The thing's chest convulsed, gurgling as it struggled to speak or breathe and then spat vomit from its swollen lips. "I... I am here..." a deep, wet voice blubbered from its mouth. "...as an exchange."

"What has been exchanged?" Ivanus knelt near the thing.

"Is it an exchange with the essence?" Julieth quickly interjected.

The thing's belly rippled as it moved what was once its head. "No... I am its... no, an exchange with..." It spewed bile that rolled down its chest and over the marking. "...with Gest... shelter in trade for..."

A yellow glow swept over its liquefying body, draining it before their eyes until its final remains evaporated into the air. Only an ethereal orb resisted, hovering above the soil where the thing had been. Its light glowed far brighter than the marking had. Julieth could feel it tempting her to touch it and forge it with the others to her form.

Ivanus stepped towards it, reaching into his robe as he moved.

"No," Julieth gasped.

"Don't worry, I do not want any essence in me, let alone this one." Ivanus pulled a black box from his robe. Click. He opened it, moving it near the orb before clasping the box closed over where the orb hovered. Julieth noticed another orb within it before Ivanus clicked it shut.

"Where did you get the other essence?"

"In the labyrinth tunnels beneath Kaskal. No one knew, not even Riad. I wasn't sure if I should share what I had found. These essences will kill us, but they could also be our saviors."

"Did that man look saved?" Julieth drew her hood tight and headed for the structure's doorway.

"I do not trust the essences, but the abilities they provide us are undeniable."

"What do you think it meant, an exchange?"

Ivanus tightened his own hood. "My guess is that they offered him shelter and food in exchange for his essence when he died. I saw them visiting him, checking on him but doing nothing to assist his state. When they discover him gone along with the essence his benefactors will know it has been stolen. They are not the rulers of this place, but I do not know the extent of their sway. If they do not suspect us, then they are fools."

"We couldn't let the essence bond with one of their flesh. You have done the right thing."

They walked slowly through the streets back to their housing, cautious to be unnoted as they moved.

Julieth looked to Ivanus as they neared her doorway. "Protect them. I would not tell the others. Riad might get ideas to use them if he knew."

"Things will fall as they fall." Ivanus lifted the hood off his head, his face exposed in the moonlight. "Even seeing the future, we can only walk forward."

He is handsome, Julieth realized, looking at the man. How long had it been since she'd felt a man's touch? No, especially now, in this world of almost certain death, there is no sense letting another in. "The man's benefactors will look for it tomorrow. Sleep with one eye open."

Ivanus took a slight bow. "I fear I see the future in my dreams. I will know if they are coming. Good night, Julieth." He pushed the rusted door closed.

The sound of the door's metal grinding sent a shiver through her body. She removed her robe, tossing it in a corner of the room and stretching her wings as much as she could in the place. With a sigh, she lay down on the cold earth floor, laying her head on her arm before quickly succumbing to sleep.

\--

"Julieth," a voice called.

She opened her eyes. A vast field of green swayed before her. Trees as tall as mountains stretched up to the heavens.

"I am the mother of all things," the voice spoke again, echoing around her.

Yellow and white things grew up from the green field as a tempting aroma caused her to smile.

"They are flowers. Take one."

Julieth knelt near the closest one, pinching its smooth base with her fingers and plucking it from the earth. She held it before her, tracing its silky petals with her fingertips and then bringing the thing before her to smell. "They are wonderful. Where are they from?"

"They used to blossom across much of Solaris, but now there are none."

"They were destroyed by the meteor."

"No, my daughter, they were wounded by the meteor and destroyed by man, by man's greed, hatred and uncaring."

There was silence for a moment.

"Ineal, the albino, is here to heal the world, as a gift from me that your planet's people are neither worthy of or deserve."

"Then why are you...?"

"Because you are my children. Because though I tried, I cannot turn my back on you. When the others leave, remain with him. He will teach you, guide you, and you will be an instrument of his and my own hands. There is no strength or healing in killing, only destruction."

Julieth hadn't noticed before, but she reached a hand back, stunned to find her wings gone and unmarred skin where the wings had connected. "You have removed my wings." Her heart raced in nervous awe.

"It is only a dream, my child. I will not allow the essences where I am. When you awake, all will be as it was."

"Can they be removed from me when I am awake?"

"In time, there is a way. I will leave you now. Remain with Ineal. Follow his guidance and Solaris may be saved."

The thing's connection left her quickly and darkness fell on the land. "Where are you?" she called out. "Return to me!"

Wind swept over her, lifting her up above the land as she watched the flowers and field shrivel and die. The giant trees around her cracked, sending booms and waves of reverberation through her. Fire raged on the earth, charring the husks of the trees and filling her lungs with soot and ash.

\--

Julieth awoke in a cold sweat, her hands throbbing as she looked to where they were. The tracks of clawing hands were dug in the ground.

"I will not be calm!" a male voice shouted outside her door. "You know as I do that the essence was meant to save us! What are we to do now, rely on this foreign man? Just because you trust him, does not mean we all do!"

"Please calm yourself, Salv. We do not know it was them, and the albino has done nothing to lose our trust." Julieth recognized the voice as Elias'.

"And none of them has done anything to earn it! They will return the essence, or my clan will take all their essences from them!"

Julieth stood quickly, heading to her door. This will not end well, she thought. If they attack us, Riad will make sure they pay. Sunlight shone brightly in her eyes, causing her to squint as she opened the door to see Elias fending off six men with swords and axes by waving his arms in the air. He was slowly being backed up to the structures she and her companions had been given to use.

"What essence?" she called out, startling all of the men and causing them to look to her. "If there is another essence than the ones we possess, in Gest, then we have no knowledge of it. Why would you not tell us of something like this?"

"She lies!" a burly man with a disheveled beard, Salv, shouted with hatred at her.

Elias stood his ground. "And if she does, what will you do then? They have power and strength that we do not. You were going to use the essence's abilities to raid other colonies so that we could provide our people with food. Look around you. The albino has provided us with fruit, real fruit, not the substance of the food re-producers. My wife has shown me the wisdom of believing in this miracle. My son is healed."

"They have done nothing for me!" Salv stomped forward away from his clan. He held a sword at Elias's jugular, forcing the man out of his way before passing him, intent on attacking Julieth.

"Stop this," Julieth pled. "You don't know what you are doing. Even if you had this essence, you would only be cursing yourself to death. The essences are a curse, not a gift."

Riad stepped out of a structure nearby with Bayne and Andral at his side. "What are we being accused of?" He leveled his gun, static electricity charging through the crowd as its end burned with neon-blue light.

Salv spat in Riad's direction, lifting his sword and charging as a boom from Riad's gun wrenched Julieth's insides with dread.

The charge from Riad's weapon hovered as a sphere in mid-air before Salv.

It stood as an impassable wall and before any could speak the albino stepped out of the crowd. He held his hands outward toward the spinning light, sweat beading on his forehead. He walked forward, touching it.

In an instant the light was gone.

Before Salv could react, the albino reached out and touched his sword, causing it to turn to sand and blow away in the wind.

Julieth felt something rising in her, a voice that was hers and yet she did not know how it came to her. "Leave us alone, Salv. Go back to your home and we will forget this. We do not want trouble from you."

Riad sent another charge to the tip of his gun. "Please return when your protector," Riad eyed the albino, "is not by your side. I'll strengthen my charge. Next time, you will not live through your arrogance. And when you find this essence, I demand it be brought to me. You obviously do not possess the mental capacity to partner with it."

The crowd dispersed and Julieth spoke with Riad and the boys briefly before approaching Elias and assuring him they meant his people no trouble.

As Elias left she went to Ivanus's door, pushing it open to see him sit up in his cot and yawn. "Some protector you are, seer of all things." She laughed, pushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. "Oh great watchman."

"What... what happened? I just woke..."

"Don't worry. All is well. Go back to bed." She watched Ivanus fall back in his cot before she left his structure. She allowed herself a grin before walking out in the streets.

# Chapter 21

She found him in a clay structure near the gates of the city. Crowds stood in line and packed the street, speaking loudly and jostling each other for a look into the structure's open doorway.

"I have heard that he heals the ill," a weatherworn man spoke beside her to a woman with dark circles under her eyes. "Look around us. He has brought us fruit. Surely he is a god."

"Excuse me. I need him to heal my leg. Let me pass." An elderly man with a long beard and cane hobbled past her. He was ignored by most and was being pushed back by the crowd.

If I assist this man, then I can make my way in as well, Julieth thought as she came to him and locked her arm around his. "I will help you," she told him as she began pushing forward.

"Thank you." The old man bowed his head with sincerity.

"Make way!" Julieth shouted over the crowd, forcing her elbow into a tight group of men. "I have a cripple with me who needs to see the albino! Let me through!"

The crowd slowly conceded and made room for them to pass.

As she entered the building, Julieth saw the albino in the corner of the room sitting on the rusted frame of an old chair.

He held his hand to a girl's forehead, her head glowing with light, and as he looked up he looked directly into Julieth's eyes.

"Ineal," she spoke, time almost seeming to halt in that moment as he recognized she knew more of him somehow.

He stood and kissed the girl's head before pushing through the crowd toward Julieth.

Just as he was about to reach her he veered course, kneeling and clasping his hands around the crippled man's leg. Ineal's eyes glowed vibrant blue as the cripple stood, grinning widely and dropping his cane to the floor. "I am healed! I am healed! You have given me life!" he shouted.

Men and women clambered to see the man from outside. As Julieth attempted to escape the commotion, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Ineal," she spoke the name again and turned around to look him in his pure eyes. "We need to speak privately, or at least I need to speak. I dreamt of the earth mother last night. She spoke to me in my dreams."

*

They sat in the garden he had created, on stools of rock, as Julieth looked into his eyes.

Ineal watched her knowingly. It sent a chill through her body, and yet somehow calmed her.

"Has she told you that she spoke with me?" Julieth closed her eyes for a moment, calming herself in the darkness there. "She says you hear her, that she will use you to heal our world. Is that true?" She looked at him again.

Ineal stared at her blankly, a stoic look on his face. Then he nodded.

"Is that a yes? Why do you not speak?"

Silence. His lips moved up for a second. Was that a smile?

"The voice that spoke to me says that I should follow you. She says that I should help you in her work... that the essences in our world are bad. I want to trust you, Ineal. I do not know or understand you, and yet something tells me I should remain by your side." She looked up to the two suns above, feeling their searing heat on her back and doubting the course she had chosen since speaking to the voice claiming to be the Mother of the Earth. How could I desert Bayne or the others to follow a being I know so little about?

Blooming warmth moved on the back of her hand as Ineal reached out to her, clasping it with his own. He smiled as she looked into his eyes.

This is my path now. There is no other way. Julieth breathed a deep breath, tasting the crispness of the air that the vegetation created around her. Death and war has served Solaris long enough. Now that we have this being, peace must take its place. The wounds must heal for my people to be saved.

# Chapter 22

## Weeks Later

"You must control it, focus your ability and use it at will, if we are to defeat Samuel." Riad stood with Bayne in an open span of desert a good distance beyond Gest's walls. "You have learned to control and prevent your fear since your ability first manifested. That is both a blessing and a curse, because we have no guarantee you will be able to call upon it when the time comes."

A hard, rust-flecked wind blew around them as Bayne kneeled on the earth, clutching it with his hands as he mentally willed his ability. They had been attempting to manifest the ability without fear since arriving in Gest. So far, nothing had come of it.

Heat burned in Bayne's chest as his mind pulsed with exhaustion. The marking of the essence on his back burned as he strained himself. "There is no use, I can't do it," he said, giving in to the strain as he stood. "Sometimes I feel so weak. I want to be strong like you."

Riad placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You are strong. To stand by my side after what we have already seen together shows your strength. And within you is an ability unmatched by any."

"Then why is it that I..."

"Sit. Rest. Control will come to you in time. Sometimes it is not about willing something to be, but instead allowing it to happen." Riad sat on the earth, amidst the roiling sand, and motioned Bayne to do the same.

Bayne's mind contracted as he sat, his eyes closed and his mind open to the darkness. He envisioned Kaskal and its broken wall. He saw the man he had discovered in Kaskal's streets, in his mind. And then he saw Riad and the way the man decimated all in his path, ultimately saving Kaskal.

Riad says my ability is beyond all others'. I can be greater than him. He flexed his hands, gripping them tightly and digging his nails into his palms.

But how do I harness it? We have been trying so long, and nothing has come.

Allow it to happen. I need to allow the essence and the ability through.

Power coursed through him. It was raw, giving strength to his entire body, rippling through his veins. He liked it, this raw energy that overtook his form.

I am more powerful than anyone.

He stood slowly, watching Riad kneel to the soil in meditation. Boils pocked and burst about the boy's flesh as he allowed the power in his veins to flow through him.

Bayne blinked.

Power exploded from his form, searing his thoughts with destiny and heat.

Riad lay crumpled and motionless on Solaris's soil.

# Chapter 23

As soon as Bayne mastered his abilities, Riad insisted they leave. "More die at Samuel's hands while we linger here," he spoke when Julieth proposed they remain in Gest for a while longer so that a less risky plan could be thought of. She did not speak of the earth Mother or what she knew of Ineal, but she argued vehemently to convince them departing now would hinder them later.

It was no use. Riad's path was the only path he would consider, and Bayne was unusually insistent that the cyborg was right. Julieth's relationship with Bayne had completely changed the night they spent beneath the trees beyond Gest's walls. Not only was he more mature, he was increasingly defiant towards her. The boy she nurtured and raised since his parents' deaths was seemingly gone.

"Please, come with us," Ivanus spoke to her, though Julieth knew with his ability he could see she would not be swayed. They stood at the gates of Gest as Riad, Bayne and Andral waited for him in the desert beyond the city's walls. Tears welled in his eyes.

His hands were strong as they held hers. She looked into his eyes, wondering if she would ever see him again. "I do not believe attacking Samuel is the answer. We can use what Ineal brings to us to heal our world. Before, the only path was violence, but now that we can create vegetation, we can heal Solaris and its people through peace."

Ivanus rubbed the backs of her hands with his thumbs. "I do not know which path is right, only the path that I will go for now. I see it and I know what I will do. But I will miss you, Julieth. I hope that you are right. No matter which path is correct, I fear we will all die."

Riad glared at them. "She will not be swayed! She is but a woman! Come, Ivanus!" he shouted.

"Take this." Ivanus unsheathed the wooden box from beneath his robe.

She took it, her hands shaking. "Why?"

"I do not trust Riad if he discovers they are near."

Julieth ran her fingers over the box's clasp and stuffed it in her satchel. "Watch over Bayne. He needs direction. Perhaps he will listen to you. Please protect Andral as well."

Ivanus lifted a hand to her cheek, sending a flush through her body as he touched her. "I will. Watch over yourself. At least with Ineal, I sense you are in good hands."

He moved to her, his lips embracing hers as warmth soothed her... and then the warmth left and she opened her eyes to watch him walking away.

Ivanus turned. His smile made her feel distant somehow. "I had to take the chance!" he called back to her. "Until we meet again!" He waved and then joined the others, disappearing in the swarming desert sands as she watched them from a perch on Gest's walls.

When she could no longer see them, Julieth felt alone. For a second she contemplated flying to join their side.

Then a hand braced her shoulder and she turned to look into Ineal's eyes. No, this is the right path. If I am meant to join them again, then fate will bring that into being. The essences burned within her chest as she walked with Ineal into the city. Somehow, beside the mute man, the pain was not as great.

# Chapter 24

Samuel sat beneath a vast tent beside the sea of lava, which flanked one side of his citadel. He looked out over the boiling sea, basking in the heat resonating from its surface. "Come to me, Jan. I desire a drink," he spoke to a servant girl standing erect with others nearby, kept there to await his orders. He did not need to speak to order her, and yet he found it entertaining at times.

The young girl came quickly to him, her torn dress of rags sweeping in the wind as she moved. "Here, my lord." The skin around her face and arms clung to her bones. He could replicate as much food as needed for these mindless creatures, but why feed servants more than was necessary.

He took the goblet of dirt-stained water from her tray; swishing it and watching soil swirl in it before drinking it fully. It quenched his thirst and he lay back, looking at the light-silhouettes of the suns above through the tent's fabric.

You are enjoying yourself, Samuel. Good, the voice of the essence within him came. But do you not sense the being that will challenge you becoming stronger?

"And when he arrives I will possess him, as I have all those before."

And if it is not that simple?

"Have you not seen my army? My strength is all powerful."

Will you not confront this being before he reaches your gates?

"Is that what you wish, you insolent thing, to disturb my peace and force me into skirmishes I need not wage? When our symbiosis was young I was easily pulled, but I am not that man now. When they are ready to be controlled, they will come to me."

They challenge us! the voice roared, coursing red through his retinas.

As pain pulsed through his body, Samuel screamed, falling from his chair and writhing on the soil. Through the heat he saw Jan hobbling toward him, her hands clasping his neck as he gasped for air.

You cannot control them without me, the essence laughed as Samuel reached up, pulling her fingers from his neck and snapping their bones as she fell to the ground beside him.

"You killed my family, you devil!" she screeched as she hit him with her crumbled hands.

Samuel thrust a foot into her emaciated stomach, thrusting her a distance away. "Then I will face this being, if it will satiate you." The pain instantly fled his body and he immediately regained control of Jan. She looked at him with admiration as her bleeding body lay nearby.

### There is no need of you to go. No, that would be too simple. Send the 5th Guard. Let them show our enemy we know who they are.

Samuel stood, brushing sand from his robe and forcing the battered girl to stand. "You dare to attack me, after all I have given you?" He walked to Jan, kissing her broken hand and then letting it fall. Samuel looked up to the others under his control. "Because of this all of you must show me you love me and that I am the one you follow."

"What can we do, sire?" Jan asked.

"You know." He grinned.

They moved fluidly as they walked to the shoreline, one by one wading into the lava as flesh melted from bones and they collapsed into the sea. They did not scream or flinch; only obeyed.

Samuel poured himself another glass of water and drank it, tossing the goblet into the sea with the charred bones before turning from its expanse.

# Chapter 25

They were camped in the crags of a mountain face when Ivanus sensed the fighters nearing. They carried weapons like Riad's and walked in a uniform line. It was early morning and Solaris's first sun had just risen. "Riad! We are being approached!"

"How close?" Riad stood quickly from where he had been heating food they packed from Gest.

"A distance. They are not visible on the horizon, but I sense they will be soon."

"Are they Samuel's men?"

"That would not surprise me. They carry guns like yours. Where are you from? Could they know you?"

"My people are all dead," Riad responded quickly. "If they carry my weapons, then they have raided my ship, or created something like them on their own. We need to face them. We will treat them as a threat, and if they prove to be friendly, then perhaps they can be utilized against Samuel." He glanced back at Bayne. "Stay here. We cannot risk losing you." Andral sat by his brother, holding his arms.

Heat curled up the mountain face as Ivanus followed Riad down its slope. Sweat poured down his back and several times rocks crumbled beneath his feet, almost sending him down the steep grade.

"What will we do when they reach us?" he spoke lowly to Riad as the two reached the foot of the rock, kneeling near each other behind boulders. "Do you honestly wish to speak with them?" Static charged through Ivanus as Delta brought a burst of electricity into his weapon, readying it to fire.

"No, we will trust your sight. If they appear to be hostile, hold up your hand and signal me. Then we will engage."

"There are ten of them. How will the two of us fend off that large a force?"

"We will, or we will die," Riad spoke calmly. "We bested the beasts below the earth, surely we can handle ten men."

Ivanus's mouth was dry and he gulped down the anticipation rising within him. "And if they appear peaceful?"

"Then show me by aiming your weapon to the ground. Then I will approach and you will remain here, watching my back but unseen."

An hour passed in the scorching heat as the men knelt in wait.

Ivanus watched the men. They moved with certainty, never turning or speaking, but gazing toward their position the entire time. "They will be upon us soon," he whispered as Riad looked coldly ahead. "They do not appear hostile, but their faces are so cold. I believe Samuel may be controlling them. Their eyes lock to our position."

"Then we attack," the borg spoke lowly, his arms steady as he held his massive weapon firm.

Ivanus counted his breaths as the men reached them. They stood in a line a short distance away.

"We come for the boy," an almost mechanical and yet human voice came from beyond the boulders.

A shiver crept through Ivanus as he saw what would happen before it did.

"Guile?" Riad asked, stepping out from the boulder with weapon braced. "How are you alive? I witnessed your deaths."

"Dive!" Ivanus shouted, seeing the blasts before they occurred.

Multiple charges of electricity battered the mountain base as Riad dove low, firing his weapon on the group of ten. "Run!" he called.

Ivanus held his arm out, firing on their enemy and then pulling it back to safety as charges of electricity burst around the boulder's edges. The hairs on his arms stood on end as he felt the stone being charged by the blasts. He dove low as the boulder exploded, raining shards through the air. As he looked up, Riad moved before him.

"Up the mountain! Retreat!" Riad called.

"No, watch your left shoulder," Ivanus said.

Riad adjusted just in time to avoid a blast. A detonation of blue lightning rocked from Riad's gun in return, charring the attacker's head from his shoulders. "Stay with me then! My shield is up now!" Just as he spoke an almost transparent blue shield materialized before his body, holding off the battery of blasts that thrust against it from the remaining enemy.

Ivanus stood, his gun braced before him. He was careful to remain behind the shield. Through the electrified light of explosions rocking the shield he could make out the faces of the men attacking. Their forehead structure and eyes reminded him of Riad. "They are your people, aren't they?"

"Our only hope is to take them now." Heat radiated off Riad's mechanics. "They are not themselves. They react like drones, but even drones would realize our shielding and adjust strategy."

Ivanus followed Riad as they approached, firing blasts around the shield and contacting with the armor of the men.

Spheres burst up from Riad's cybernetic arm, thrusting about the enemy and shocking the earth with explosions. His shield crackled and he lit up the enemy with charge.

Ivanus ran from Riad, firing his weapon at an enemy away from the others and dropping to the ground to escape a blast electrifying past. Another bolt charred the sand beneath him, sending molten globules upward as he rolled away just in time. He stood quickly, firing into the man's weapon, causing it to backfire and maim the enemy's arm.

The weaponless soldier came for him, good arm outstretched, and Ivanus hit his body armor with blast after blast until the man fell, writhing on the earth.

In his sight he witnessed a man standing over Riad with a gun pressed to his skull.

Ivanus turned, running and leaping over the fallen body of an enemy Riad had felled, while witnessing one of two remaining enemy soldiers charging Riad's body with electricity and knocking him to the ground.

In a moment the man stood over Riad, gun pressed to his head.

"Over here!" Ivanus shouted, firing at the attacker's armor. The man hesitated, only briefly, but did not look at Ivanus. Then Ivanus caught the glint of light reflecting off Vrax climbing the man's back.

A scream of pain pierced his ears as the warrior fell, convulsing in pain.

"Riad!" the remaining enemy called as Riad stood. The man raised his gun in apparent surrender.

"Sar, how do you live? I took your life."

"He has an essence within him," Ivanus warned.

"Yes, an essence." Sar grinned a haunting grin. "That is why, and that is how though you left us for dead we have not died."

A blood-red glow hovered over them as the dead and wounded warriors convulsed around them. Heads and limbs grew fresh from their bodies, goop covering their forms. The attackers stood, eyes hollow and black as they raised their weapons to attack once more.

"I can resurrect the dead." Sar laughed, electrifying Riad's shield. "And Samuel is the one and only lord!"

Ivanus saw Bayne at the mountain's base with Andral, kneeling in concentration, and then walking amongst the fallen bodies of himself, Riad and the enemy. He clutched his gun tight, dropping to the ground and positioning the weapon in Sar's direction. The world instantly went dark.

*

A telepathic wave pulsed over everything from the mountain's base to a great distance beyond the fighting, emanating from Bayne's chest. Andral, already curled at the base of the mountain beside him, went limp.

Bayne looked out over where the fighting had been. They have all fallen, he thought, looking at the bodies of men littering the barren plain.

What strength I have. I can do anything. I could kill them all.

Or only the enemy. Riad and Ivanus are my friends. He walked to where Riad lay motionless on the earth, reaching down and touching the man's gun that was still clutched in his cybernetic hand. Could I take this from you? he wondered.

A red light blinked in the corner of his vision, startling him. It came from the bot on Riad's leg. "I will not take the weapon," he assured the thing.

The bot hefted itself from Riad's cybernetics, clacking toward him. With a thrust it punctured Bayne's leg, sending burning pain through his veins. No, take it. You must, it spoke in his thoughts, then removed its leg from the puncture and sealed itself once more within Riad's form.

Bayne eyed Vrax for a moment. Then it will not stop me. He pulled at Riad's metallic hand, prying the massive gun from his grasp, and held it before him. I kill them now, while they are unconscious.

Sar first.

Bayne turned, finding a large man he somehow knew was Sar close by. He pressed the weapon to Sar's skull and pulled the trigger, incinerating the man's head. Blood splattered around them, and then oozed from his neck as singed flesh bubbled along its edges.

The power of the moment filled him. He knew it was wrong, but somehow this control and power felt so good. It filled him with energy and excitement.

Is this what pure freedom feels like?

Bayne moved quickly, knowing he had only a short time before the others would regain consciousness. As he came to each enemy fighter he pressed the weapon to their chests, scorching their innards and assuring they would not rise.

Ivanus had a look of fear in his eyes, even though Bayne knew the man was unconscious. "You see all, and yet now, in my time, you see nothing." Bayne grinned, wiping dirt from his face and then aiming the weapon at him. "I could kill you if I wanted."

But he will still be of use. Now is not the time.

With a smirk Bayne walked to their final attacker. "Now is your time. You should never have come. No-one will ever take my fate from me again." A shiver crept down Bayne's arms as he spoke the words.

Doubt. No, I will let you live. I will leave you for the others.

He stood silently, his clothes rippling in the wind, waiting for his companions to awake.

*

Heat coiled over him as Ivanus opened his eyes. His consciousness returned slowly at first, like a dense fog, only gradually giving way to reasonable thought. His chest burned as he looked up, coughing and wheezing as he saw the bodies of men littering the expanse before him. He reached out, clasping his gun, watching a figure standing still; a black silhouette in the heat of the suns.

His sight was returning to him, but he could not yet comprehend what things meant.

Then his memories returned in a rush, his head pounding with pain. "Bayne, what have you done?" he asked, not loud enough for the boy to hear, but out of disbelief.

Ivanus stood slowly, bracing his free hand in the sand and pushing upward. He walked through the bodies of their enemy. Blood oozed from them out of gory, blasted holes that had decimated their chests. The one Riad called Sar lay decapitated a distance away.

Bayne stared at him with hollow eyes.

Ivanus swallowed and watched as Riad slowly stood. "What have you done?" he asked Bayne while nearing him.

The boy held Riad's massive gun in his small hands, aiming it at the final remaining enemy's skull. "They are dead now, all but this man. I used my ability on them."

"How could you just slaughter them? They were under Samuel's control."

"I saved your lives, all of our lives." The boy's voice was firm, without fear or regret.

Something about that worried Ivanus. Shouldn't there be some remorse? How can a boy your age kill and yet feel so little? "Riad experienced that same effect. Your ability felled him as well, and yet when he awoke his own mind returned to him and now he fights to rid Solaris of Samuel. Couldn't these men have also assisted us if their minds had been restored to their bodies?"

The man Bayne aimed the weapon at moaned, his body convulsing to life.

"Do not harm him." Riad joined them, taking his weapon back from Bayne's grasp. "You did what you knew you must, Bayne. It is in the heat of battle that the hardest decisions come. These men would have gladly killed us. Their lives were your right to take." Riad thrust his mechanical foot against the remaining man, rolling him over so that he squinted while staring at the suns. An insignia was burned into his forehead and his skin was coarse and raw. "Carcos," Riad ignited electricity in his gun, "is that you?"

"R... Riad?" the beast of a prisoner asked as if he were a child.

"You have been possessed by a dark priest of this world. He has sent you in a company of our companions to kill me."

"The last I remember our spaceship was crashing... how is this possible?"

"Watch him, Ivanus, alert me should there be need." Riad looked to his companion before once more regarding Carcos. "How am I to trust anything you say, any evidence you could give? I need to know if you are still possessed and I am not sure of any certain way to do so."

The two men watched each other hesitantly for a moment, stillness in the air.

"If I took your life, then I could be certain you would not be my enemy." Riad pressed the large barrel of his gun to Carcos's chest, energy surging through it and charging the man with electricity. Carcos convulsed, vomiting and screaming in pain.

Ivanus reached out a hand to stop Riad, to at least insist the man be relieved of his misery, and then saw what would be and stopped.

"Enough," Riad spoke, ceasing his low level blast. The man's clothes were charred and he lay half dead. "If you had resisted, then I would have known." Riad turned to Ivanus. "Will you..."

"Yes, let's lift his body back to the rocks. We should heal him and see if he can be of use." Ivanus hefted Carcos's legs while Riad carried his arms. He wondered as they moved what would come of the essence which departed Sar's body. Where is it now, this essence which raises the dead? His legs burned as they carried Carcos. What soul will you convince to pair with you? Will they be friend or foe?

# Chapter 26

Julieth stood silently, watching children run around the grove of fruit trees Ineal had brought to life in the city's center. The people of Gest had been kind to her in the few days since the others' departure and she was coming to know a kind of serenity here. I wish those I left behind in Kaskal could know this. She reached her hand up, feeling the smooth skin of a red fruit, twisting and plucking it from its limb before bringing it to her mouth and crunching a bite. Its sweet juices were fresh and cool as she chewed. I will bring this peace to you. You do not need to know the hardship you do now. There will be healing and eventually the planet will strengthen and the violence will end.

"You can't catch me!" a boy shouted as he looked mockingly back at another who was chasing him. The young boy threw a small nut at the other, laughing as he moved.

Joy. Did the young ones of Kaskal ever have this, this playful energy and life? Did Bayne ever have their happiness in his soul? She could not remember a time when she had. Her first memories were of starvation and fighting within the city's own population. She remembered a man being killed by another in front of her over a container of recreated food. She vividly remembered the convulsions of his hand as he died, lying in blood before her. Is that why I am attracted to Ivanus, because he experienced this playful youth and still retains something of it in his spirit?

"Got you!" another boy shouted and then, "Ooomph!" both boys crashed down, laughing as one tackled the other.

Julieth smiled as she took another bite. Warmth came into her heart. The generations of this city and the others we touch will be different. It will take time, but change will come.

A hand clasped Julieth's shoulder, startling a breath from her. Her wings spread wide and she turned. "Who..."

Ineal stood silently, knowingly watching her eyes. He lifted his hand, motioning for her to follow him.

"Where are we going?" Julieth asked, walking behind Ineal. They passed venders in the streets, some selling rusted metallic trinkets created by working the metal littering the earth beyond the city walls. Others had already begun peddling the fruits growing about them and different shaped leaves from the trees' limbs. These things were purchased not with coin, but with services or by bartering. It had been a necessity before to sell whatever one could in the streets, but now fruit was abundant and it was more of a peaceful thing to do with the day.

Ineal turned back to her and then pointed beyond Gest's open gates, to the low-lying area surrounded by trees that she had slept in with the others the night they arrived to the city.

"Why there?" she asked.

Ineal turned away, walking steadily as she followed, leading her beyond Gest's walls.

As Julieth neared him he stared up at the open sky. A look of concentration... possibly fear, weighed heavily in his eyes. "Where does the planet's spirit lead you now?" she asked, standing by his side as Ineal kneeled to the earth.

The pale man touched the soil before him, and though he could not make noise, Julieth could almost feel the reverberation of a tune moving through the wind that had not been there moments before.

There was silence next.

Anticipation.

A breath.

And then the earth shook violently, sending Julieth to her knees as she clasped the arid soil with her nails in an effort to gain control.

Crack! Crack! Limbs of the newly birthed trees splintered down about them. Screams of fright sang from within Gest. And then all was still again.

All was as it had been, except for a slim crack that ran across the earth beneath the trees. Julieth followed the crevice with her eyes back to the tip of Ineal's finger, where it began.

Ineal turned to her, holding out his free hand and closing her eyes with the movement of his fingers.

She heard something in the darkness, a hissing sound and then a gentle rush. What is it? she wondered, and then felt it as it met the soles of her feet. A cool sensation gently lapped over her toes. It cannot be. Julieth opened her eyes. Before her stretched a vast body of water, clear and crisp. It rose around her ankles; then neared her knees, flooding up from the crevice Ineal had opened. It was like nothing she ever experienced and she cupped her hands and dipped them, drinking the substance fully as she brought it to her lips. The water moved between the trees, their veranda stretching above as sunlight filtered through.

Julieth turned to look back at Gest, witnessing a guard pointing excitedly at them and shouting, before looking back to Ineal and seeing he held two clay bowls. She did not know where they came from but took one as he handed it to her. Did he create them from the sand beneath us? Nothing would surprise her now. As Ineal dipped his bowl she did the same and the two walked out of the rising water back toward Gest.

They offered the water in their bowls to the city's people and then led them to the water to drink.

# Chapter 27

Julieth, a voice called to her in the distance. White light surrounded her and when she held her hands before her she saw it shimmering over her black silhouette.

Where am I? she thought, shivering in the stasis void... and then... Earth Mother?

Yes, my child, it is I.

Why do you speak to me?

Because you have questions, because Ineal needs your strength.

For a moment there was silence. Questions, what questions did she have? Today Ineal opened Solaris's crust and brought a great lake of water where there was none before. How is this possible? How can he do these things?

I am Solaris's essence. How do the suns rise? How does the breeze blow? How did your mind awaken out of nothing in your Mother's womb before you took your first breath? These things are. They exist because they are willed to exist. So was the lake created and the water shared. Do not ask how, but instead give thanks for the gifts.

What can one like you ask of me, one who can do these things in our world with a thought? I cannot speak to Ineal, only to you, and I cannot understand him.

Listen, child, and you will hear. Ineal speaks in his mind, but those thoughts travel in the wind... And you are needed more than you know. Men to the West come for Gest's water and fruit. There will be a storm in the hearts of Gest's people and Ineal cannot quell this. Only a person of Solaris can change man's ways. Man is receptive to the gifts given, but does not understand them yet. Man strives for existence, while you strive for peace. This is your great mission. In your heart you have the ability to save all.

And how is Samuel's reign to be brought down by peace and nature? I cherish these things, but they cannot solve Solaris's problems alone.

First comes the changing of hearts, and then, if all else fails, we will use our hearts to break the core essence's hold. Water and wind are great adversaries, but fire is needed as well.

There is a core essence? What do you speak of?

Silence. Julieth could hear a steady breath around her as the brightness of the void faded to gray and then black. She listened to the breath methodically sounding.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

It had such strength, such solid movement.

Julieth opened her eyes to sunlight. The breathing was her own.

# Chapter 28

"Do you remember nothing after our vessel's crash?" Riad kneeled in the heat of the sun, shading Carcos's body as he applied rags with healing ointment to the man's scorched flesh.

Carcos looked at him with weary eyes. One leaked puss and was bruised. "No... Our ship was falling, and then I was here with you."

"I knew Samuel to be cruel, but this is beyond what I expected. That is because I thought you dead though, not because I believed he could not do it. Ivanus," he turned from Carcos to look at him. "Tear rags from your cloak so that we may bind them over the ointment on Carcos's body and protect him from the sun."

It was not the same. Ivanus had not felt the same about this company since leaving Julieth. True, he had feelings for her that he could not deny. But there was a coldness here which had not been here before, an existence between the group that had nothing to do with her.

He did not like being ordered, but realized Carcos needed clothes to protect him and Ivanus had the most excess garb. He found tears in his robe where a rust shard had torn it in his sleep and with quick pulls, shredded off pieces of cloth. "Here." He held them out to Riad.

The cyborg wrapped them tightly over portions of the man's boil-pocked flesh.

"I do not remember Samuel, but knowing what he did to me, I wish to fight by your side. It is hard to believe that Sar turned." Carcos moved his arms to support himself and sit, shaking but eventually gaining his position.

"Sar was controlled as well. I remember when we explored beyond the ship. That is when he changed." Riad braced a hand on Carcos's shoulder. "We will have you," he said without asking anyone's opinion. "But I hope that your memory returns. We could use that. I cannot move past what has been done to us until the priest lies in his own blood."

"Do you have food? I feel as if I have not eaten in years."

As Riad removed a bar of replicated food from a compartment in his arm, Ivanus knelt to the ground, closing his eyes and sensing something a distance away and beneath Solaris's crust.

An excited wonder moved over him. "There is someone else near us, many others. I do not know why I did not sense them before. They are in the caverns beneath the earth."

"The man-beasts?" Riad asked.

"No. I did not sense them before and am not sure I would again. No, these are men with hollow stares. They hold a man in chains. He has a great heat in his eyes."

"We should move over them and continue as soon as we are able." Riad wiped beads of sweat from his brow.

"There is something..." Ivanus closed his eyes, fire and raw energy coming to him as he focused on his sight of the man. "We are meant to free him. I am sure of that. This man's power is undeniable. He could be a great resource. And the people who hold him appear to be controlled, possibly by Samuel."

Riad stood silent for a moment. "How would we reach him?"

"I do not see an entrance to the underground here. We would need to blast one. A distance before us there is a chamber that could be reached, one without people inside."

Riad motioned Bayne and Andral to their side from where the boys had been standing and talking. "Bayne, Ivanus has discovered something. There is a man held captive in the tunnels beneath us. I need you to stay here with Carcos and Andral to protect them if there is need. Remain within the mountain's rocks and we will return soon." Riad handed the boy a gun one of their recent attackers had wielded. "Use this if you need. Ivanus should see any enemy before they reach you and we will return quickly should that happen."

"I can handle my own," Bayne said, reaching his hand down and helping Carcos to stand.

The trio hid in the mountain's crags and Ivanus and Riad walked across the arid land. They went a good distance, barely speaking.

Ivanus breathed deeply. His throat was raw and his lungs felt thick as he moved. His chest burned and he touched within his shirt at his skin there, boils meeting his fingertips. The essence, it has begun to claim me. But nothing can be done. It is a part of me, and not by my choice.

"Here." Ivanus stopped, marking an X in the sand with his shoe. "This is where we should enter." He backed away from the spot, his guns gripped hard in his hands while watching Riad pop mines from his arm and position them on the marking.

A moment later Riad joined him and leveled his massive gun.

Electricity and static convulsed through Ivanus's spine as Riad released his weapon's charge.

BOOM!

The earth shook, rock caving beneath them as swarming sand stung Ivanus's eyes. He went into a free fall and then his tailbone surged with pain as he crashed to the cavern floor. A rock weighted down his arm as he lay sprawled in the rubble. The cavern was dark except for sunlight streaming through the blasted hole above. He aimed the gun in his free hand at the rock and then blasted, splintering it in shards across the chamber.

"Let's move. Someone is bound to have heard the blast," Riad spoke from nearby, walking on the broken rocks. He stood above him, reaching down his hand and helping Ivanus up. "Which tunnel do we take?"

Ivanus closed his eyes, sensing the three passageways leading out from the room and determining which led to their destination. "Over here." He walked steadily as Riad followed. "A small group has heard us. I see them coming. They are only armed with daggers. They have sent none of their company ahead to warn the main group."

"Then we wait. We could use the guns." Riad stopped speaking as Ivanus held a finger to his lips.

"Not yours," Ivanus whispered, "it would be too loud. These three are mine."

The thudding of feet and heavy breathing interrupted them as the trio neared them through the tunnel.

Ivanus's heart was steady and his nerves calm. He had seen what was to come and was prepared. As the first leather clad man burst forth from the darkness Ivanus tripped him, sending him to the cragged cavern floor. Ivanus dove at him, blasting the man in the skull and rolling, firing another shot into the second man as his eyes emerged in the darkness. A gargled moan came from the man and he staggered before crumbling with a thud to the ground. "Your dagger!" Ivanus called out to Riad while rolling on the ground to avoid the attack of the third man charging from the tunnel.

With a thrust the attacker spliced his dagger toward Ivanus, peeling flesh from his side as Ivanus struggled for freedom.

Riad's massive cybernetic hand clasped the attacker's hair and tore him from Ivanus, thrusting his own blade into the man's chest as he forced him against the chamber wall.

Blood drooled from the man's lips.

Riad eyed him, looking into the hollow orbs that stared into his own. "He is in a trance, as you said." He looked back to Ivanus. "How far does Samuel's hand stretch? How far does that power go?"

The bleeding man shook, hands twitching as if involuntarily. He should have had the ability to speak, but did not.

"We should finish him and put him out of his misery." Ivanus stood and began walking into the pitch passageway from which the enemy had emerged.

Riad sliced the enemy deep in the throat and the man crumbled to the ground, drowning in his own blood and then silencing at last.

They moved slowly through the darkness, careful not to draw attention to themselves from connecting passageways. The only light was a faint glow emanating from Riad's cybernetics. It was cold as they moved, but as they neared the massive chamber they sought, dry warmth came, growing hotter and hotter. A deep crimson glow lit the tunnel at its far end a distance before them.

"The one we seek is there," Ivanus whispered to Riad. He closed his eyes, watching the future play itself out in his thoughts. "We can walk confidently. His captors will not sense us until we reach the opening. Then be at the ready. There are at least fifty armed men standing guard."

"Before we move on take this and seal your wound."

Ivanus turned to see Riad holding a tube of gel for him to take. The tube was warm as Ivanus clutched it, removing its top and spreading the luminescent pink gel inside on his side's wound where there attacker had grazed him. "What is it?" he asked. He had seen that he would use it and that it would work, but had no understanding of how.

Riad took the tube back and stored it once more in a compartment of his mechanics. "It is a byproduct of my cybernetics. It is stored in a tube within them, unless there is excess, and can be used either for the cybernetics' fuel or as a sealing and healing agent on flesh wounds."

"Your people must be quite advanced. There is a weapon you keep in your shoulder; it appears to shed a great light. You should keep it at the ready. We will need it at the chamber's opening." Ivanus felt the strength to the passage way's stone floor as he moved. He did not fear what would come, the battle and blood, not because it was not danger but because what would be would be and could not be changed. He saw the movement of each muscle in his body before it came. And so instead of focusing on fear he focused on seeing. What will I do if I ever rid myself of this curse? he thought as they neared the opening, dense heat rolling over his skin and chapping his exposed face and hands. What portions of my mind have been destroyed and replaced for this value and curse of seeing the future?

He saw the one they came for first. The majestic being hovered in midair in the center of the vast chamber, his eyes glowing a hallucinogenic orange and his completely exposed flesh radiating a bright yellow-orange light. His mouth was open and a deep resonating sound moaned from within him, vibrating the air of the chamber as Ivanus reached a hand through the passageway's opening and into it.

"No!" Riad shouted at him as the silence quickly filled with the sound of armor and the clacking of arrows ricocheting off the passageway's walls.

"It was the time," Ivanus rebuked him, falling to the hard stone floor and positioning his guns. "Use the light weapon now!" He watched the saucer rocket through the chamber and then land, blasting the area with blinding light and static electricity. Ivanus stood, walking confidently into the white nothing and fired his weapons where he somehow knew the enemy stood. Again and again he fired, hearing metal crush against stone. He jutted to the right and felt air moving along his left arm where an attacker almost dug his sword into Ivanus's flesh. He fired again and again, hot liquid splaying his face from a close by enemy, and then he ducked low, witnessing the bright light leaving the chamber and taking in the carnage he had reaped about him. The heat resonating from the man in the center area was great, catching Ivanus's breath in his throat and making it hard for him to take full breath. Sweat rolled down his forehead and into Ivanus's open, panting mouth.

"Behind you!" Riad shouted.

Ivanus turned to see an attacker's chest disintegrate to ash as a powerful blast from Riad's weapon hit him at close range.

They were surrounded and Ivanus stood, on the balls of his feet and at the ready to move swiftly to dodge the arrows he saw would come. A second later Riad created a static shield to hold off a shower of arrows and Ivanus dove hard to the ground, rolling and thrusting himself up to standing position again while arrows zinged past. He cocked his guns and fired beams of charge into several archers only a short distance away.

Men with swords separated him and Riad now and Ivanus turned, blasting into the nearest man's skull and jumping back as the man's sword clanged down, his headless body crushing with a thump beside it. Ivanus quickly holstered his guns, thrusting down and hefting his attacker's massive sword and plunging it through the neck of another sword-bearing attacker coming for him. The man struck his sword at Ivanus, barely missing his wrist, before falling and writhing on the ground.

"They are like drones!" Riad shouted over the sound of battle. "Weak and unskilled, but determined to shed their lives!"

Clang! Clang! Ivanus's blade parried his new attacker's own and he was pushed back toward the heat radiating man hovering in stasis above. Why did I go for the sword when I had the guns? Ivanus thought. But he had seen it happen and knew that was what he must do. All was fate. All was decided. His chest and arm muscles burned as again and again his blade met the other man's sword.

Ivanus let a hand loose from his weapon. Then Clang! his attacker's blade crunched through his remaining sword-hand's fingers, sending his sword careening away and four of his five digits ripping with blood spewing rage through the air.

Ivanus was numb to the pain, already knowing his fate and too focused on battle to care. As the sword hit he had reached down with his free hand and gripped a gun, blasting through his opponent's torso and crushing the life from his soul. The blast moved through the man and then struck against the body of the glowing being above them.

Ivanus knelt, tearing fabric from his shirt and wrapping it over his finger nubs tightly, praying it would halt the blood as the fabric soaked through. "Aaah!" he screamed as the figure in the center of the room's eyes moved from a blank stare to vibrant life.

The room shook, rocks crumbling down from above as the man moved. "You dare contain me!" The being shouted as he radiated even greater heat and then rocketed upward, puncturing the chamber's roof and escaping to the sky.

The chamber instantly darkened and as the being's heat left them a great cold vacuumed over their flesh.

Thick smoke filled the air as portions of the chamber's roof crashed down. One, two, three... Ivanus counted, waiting for Riad to re-illuminate the room.

Discs lit up, sliding across the chamber floor and letting off a faint glow. The way their attackers were lit caused them to possess an unearthly aura as they lumbered forth with their swords.

"Come to me!" Riad shouted as Ivanus slowly stood.

Riad blasted into the torsos of several men between them as Ivanus ran in his direction, one hand clasping the other to stop the blood. Darkness swam in Ivanus's sight and nausea filled him.

"Can you clasp my back?"

Ivanus nodded and let loose his bloodied hand to clasp over Riad's shoulder. He gripped tight as a claw and thick link of chain burst from the borg's cybernetic arm, disappearing into the darkness of the ceiling where the illuminated man had punctured the chamber.

Riad kicked a man that ran for them. Then, with a burst of tension, the chain retracted into his arm and Riad and Ivanus soared into the darkness above.

They thumped against rock. Darkness was consuming Ivanus's mind, pulling him down.

"Hold on," Riad spoke to him. "I cannot hold you and climb. If you fall I will leave you. We need to reach the surface, and then I can sear your wound and remove some pain."

Ivanus's hands were clammy and his gripping hand was slipping from Riad's shoulder. "We will reach the top. I see it."

"That has yet to happen. Hold on. Fight through the pain. You are not safe until we reach sunlight."

Ivanus gripped tight, his arm burning as they made the jostled climb, knowing he would survive for now but not knowing how the strength remained in him to hold on. The wound to his hand could be fatal. He could not sense far enough ahead to know his destiny there.

Darkness.

He breathed heavy.

"I see sun. The rocks are hot here. It must be from the heat of the being's body."

Ivanus took a deep breath and could taste the fresh, un-stale air of above ground. He closed his eyes.

As he opened them sunlight singed his vision. He lay on the earth with Riad leaning over him. Somehow the pain had lessened.

"I have given you something for the pain. Give me your hand."

As he lifted his hand toward Riad, the borg took the butt of his gun and pressed a radiating hot metal portion of it against his open finger wounds, melting and singing the flesh of his nubs to the protruding bone that stretched just beyond the flesh.

The pain was barely existent. Riad walked away from him, a figure of shadow in the blazing sunlight. The borg stared upward at something beyond Ivanus's sight.

"Who are you?" Riad shouted. "We come in peace!"

Heat swarmed over Ivanus as he stared upward to see the hovering man's burning white form.

Red flame licked in the man's eyes, and then, in the exasperating heat, what appeared to be a mirage distorted the man's form and he grew, his form changing to a massive shadow above. The void of matter beat vast wings, sending gusts of wind over Ivanus's form. It no longer held the shape of man at all, but was now a great beast.

"It cannot be true," Ivanus uttered in hushed breath, trembling and hugging the arid sand beneath him.

"I am Orpheus," an archaic voice struck through his mind, almost as if it had not been spoken but had instead been transferred from the beast's thoughts. "I am the last dragon and I am free!" Flame leapt from the maw of the thing. Its scales illuminated with golden light as the fire bombarded Riad's armor.

Ivanus saw the depths of the creature's eyes as it dove for Riad.

The borg pulsed a charge from his weapon into the beast's chest, knocking it upward into the sky. "Orpheus, I have freed you, but I will not allow you to destroy me!" Riad shouted as he ran, fending off another scorch of flame and then aiming his arm upward, firing a grappling hook around one of the dragon's wings and charging it with energy as the claw of it grabbed hold.

Static rushed over Ivanus as he listened to the screech of the wounded dragon, watching it fall.

BOOM. The earth shook as the great beast landed, breathing fire over the desert and Riad as the borg made slow progress walking toward it, his armor shimmering like molten metal.

Ivanus stood, running toward the pair and knowing what he must do.

Riad fired a constant charge of electricity through the dragon's fire as he neared, battering the thing's maw and causing its fire to lessen. Then, as he closed on it, the beast thrust its claws forward, pinning Riad to the sand.

"No mortal is the master of me," the beast spoke as it lifted its head, bobbing like a serpent as it eyed its prey. "I am awakened again." Its tongue flicked its scaled lips. "That will not be taken from me."

"Wait," Ivanus spoke as he neared, holding his disfigured hand up to stop the thing.

The dragon eyed him, its irises narrowing as it measured him.

Ivanus breathed deeply, focusing his mind. "Shaun Dune, hear me, we are your friends."

The dragon closed and opened his eyes, and as he looked at Ivanus now, Ivanus saw something human within them.

"How do you know that name?" the dragon asked, still pinning Riad. "We do not know you." Steam puffed and writhed through the beast's nostrils.

Ivanus approached cautiously. "You do not know me, though I do remember you, from a time before the meteor. I did not know that until just now, when I saw what I would do."

"Before the meteor... all who have known us before that time are dead." Orpheus turned his glare from Ivanus and lowered his maw towards Riad once more, sniffing his face. The beast pawed at Riad's cybernetic leg as the borg struggled to rise, making guttural noises as his chest was being crushed.

"The city of Asil," Ivanus spoke.

The dragon lifted its head to eye him once more.

"I know you from Asil. You are Shaun Dune, the dragon hunter. I watched you leave us to search out one of the beasts days before the meteor struck. There was a massive crowd."

"If what you say is true, then you must know things. Prove what you say, and how you know it, or your companion's flesh will be my first meal since opening my eyes and your bones will pick my jaws clean."

Ivanus thought hard, back to the day when the dragon hunter had left his people for the final time. It had not been that long ago, in Ivanus's actual life, and yet his mind was blurry. In actuality it had been eons. "She smacked you. Your wife smacked you as you said goodbye. It was rumored in Asil that you had cheated on her with another, but I heard her whispering to a handmaiden in the ally later that she had begged you to stay."

The dragon's chest heaved and smoke curled forth its nostrils. "She feared for my death so greatly that she struck me." The beast's voice was almost human now. "And yet it was she that died when the meteor struck... and I who am cursed with life eternal."

Ivanus took his chance, walking forward and holding out his scarred hand toward the beast. "We are your friends. Whatever has occurred in your life, whatever ails you, we come in peace and have freed you from your prison. Do not harm us. Give us the opportunity to at least explain ourselves."

The dragon flexed the muscles in its wings, shattering the grapple chain from Riad's weapon before eying him with heat in its irises and lifting its massive paw from his chest.

"Foul creature." Riad spat, staggering to his feet and stumbling backward to Ivanus's side.

Slowly the dragon's dark form transformed back into that of the man, radiating light and heat. "Who are you?" Shaun Dune spoke, the day seeming like a shadowed mirage beyond the brilliance of his nova form.

# Chapter 29

Ivanus sat in the dark of night, in a circle with his companions on the hard desert floor.

All in the group, Bayne, Andral, Ivanus and Carcos, had been silent as Riad spoke with the radiating yet mortal form of Shaun Dune, his heat warming their flesh.

Ivanus watched Dune take in the words fully. Riad told him about their pasts and of their quest to overturn Samuel.

"I remember him, this dark priest, though I did not know his name," Dune spoke when Riad had finished, his voice heavy in Ivanus's mind. "One day I flew in our dragon form above the earth, and as I soared I saw an army of men where just days before there had been no one. My cave was near and I had seen no other for what seemed like ages, and so I flew to them. But when I was almost above the mass, darkness consumed my mind. The dragon took full control then, from what Orpheus speaks within my thoughts, and when my own consciousness returned I saw a man with red flowing robes before me in the hollowness of a cavern. He did not speak, but glared hauntingly as pitch black once more consumed me."

"The havoc he has reaped, on you, me, my people and this land deserves the price of his death paid," Riad spoke as Vrax clicked up his arm, welding a damaged portion of his armor. The moons of Solaris gleamed in the distance beyond Dune's vibrant silhouette.

Riad was about to speak more but Ivanus knew it was not time. He raised his eyes to meet Dune's. "What happened to you? How can you be one with the dragon?"

The marking of an essence on Dune's shoulder radiated eerily in the silence between them. "I had tracked Orpheus for days across the land, following the signs, dragon skin shed from his back in the wind and also the scent that only some can track. I followed the beast to his lair, and when I knew he slumbered, I crouched in wait with my arrow taught in its bowstring. I also fastened a dense net to the outer wall of the cave. When I heard him move I shouted to him.

"'Dragon!' I called.

"As Orpheus heard my voice he stirred, lumbering toward me, his maw spread wide with fire writhing past his fangs. My hands sweat as I let the bow flit past my fingers, its arrow splicing the beast's fire glands as a low pop came and putrid smoke writhed through its mouth.

"I knew I would conquer the beast as I ran backwards, unsheathing my sword as the dragon plunged into the net in rage. It thrashed. With a breath I ran for it, thrusting my sword into its neck and drawling a thick stream of blood. I mounted the dragon, using all the muscles in my body to hoist myself upon it, and as it thrashed blood spewed where the sword pierced its back.

"Then time seemed to stop as I pulled my blade from it, readying for the death blow. In the sky, in my peripheral, a streak of fire spliced through the atmosphere. The earth trembled beneath us and I thrust the blade blindly into the dragon's back to solidify my body. It was in that moment that something thrust against me, combining with my form.

"Darkness consumed me completely, then scorching heat seared my chest and I opened my eyes. As I thrust my hand before me a great dragon paw dug at the earth. I breathed and fire consumed my sight, burning away the rope that contained me.

"'No, who is there?" a voice that was not my own boomed from my lips.

"'Who dares form with the flesh of Orpheus?'"

# Chapter 30

Men ran shouting through Gest's streets as the suns rose in the sky above the city fortress. Their makeshift armor glinted in the sunlight as arrows were readied and many took their positions along the edges of the city's walls.

"We will send the scum back where they came from!" a man shouted as he ran past Julieth, his dingy face wearing a scowl. A large company had been sighted on the horizon and many in the city feared these newcomers came to take their newfound water and food.

"Men to the West come for Gest's water and fruit. There will be a storm in the hearts of Gest's people and Ineal cannot quell this." The voice of Solaris's spirit resonated in Julieth's mind, as if she had just heard it in her dream. "Only a person of Solaris can change man's ways. Man is receptive to the gifts given, but does not understand them yet. Man strives for existence, while you strive for peace. This is your great mission. In your heart you have the ability to save all."

Julieth beat her wings, soaring up above the city and into the rays of the sun. The men below her stared skyward, still in awe of this spectacle, but she was not concerned with them. In the distance she saw the approaching company. Julieth could not make out their features, but recognized their belabored movements, those of a starving mass. Come to us, she thought. Come so that our bounty may nourish you and you may be healed. With a thrust of her wings she flew above the city, toward them, and then felt a mental pull from below her, causing her to look back. There, outside Gest's main gates, Ineal knelt with Elias by the lake of water that had risen up from the earth.

She dove for them, wind buffeting her wings as she fell and landed on the soil by their side.

"The people of our planet will come to be renewed. They are only the first," she spoke to Ineal with no fear of Elias's knowledge of her words. His eyes had been opened. She would need Elias's assistance in helping the people of Gest to both understand and welcome the people of the world. "This opportunity, to heal the world with nourishment and love instead of through war, is vital."

Ineal looked to her, his pure eyes dipping into her soul. He held a hand out over the lake. As he lowered his outstretched hand the hand's dark refection below neared it.

He is speaking to me, but without words. She realized. Is that what the spirit meant? As his hand nears the water the dark hand rises to it. When we achieve what we progress towards, then the darkness will meet us on the water's crest. Will we be drawn to force?

Ineal looked to her, a stern look in his eyes.

Elias touched a calloused hand to hers. "I will attempt to help my people understand. This is the way. I see it now. We do not need to covet this newfound wealth of nourishment. With Ineal by our side, there is enough to share with all."

"I will meet those approaching in the desert." She took her hand from his touch, giving Ineal an acknowledging head nod as she burst into the sky.

The lake water rippled in the wind from her wings. It moved upward, caressing and blanketing the mute's hand, causing the shadow below it to disappear. As the water touched his skin Ineal closed his eyes.

Wind pummeled Julieth's wings as the day's sun burned in her retinas. The depth of what she was destined for was heavy on her heart. As she closed her eyes spots of sunlight hovered in the darkness of her eyelids like ever distant stars.

An unintelligible voice echoed from below and she opened her eyes to see a man with a horn shouting toward her. Wind pushed upward against her as she circled downward, landing in a run. "I approach peacefully!" she called to the man.

He brought the horn from his lips to his side, almost dumbstruck, waiting for her.

Julieth neared, and then stopped, careful to keep her distance. "We know why you come, because of the food and water in Gest. Some are leery in the city, but others are sympathetic toward you. We have all suffered long and are resistant to give up what we feel we own."

The bone-thin man in torn rags looked desperate as the hand that clasped the horn shook. "We are starving and half dead. Many of our city are already but bones in the desert's sand. All those who remain follow to Gest. We pose no threat, even if we wished to. Without the grace of your people we will die and remain beyond Gest's walls."

"Come, we will find you acceptance. I will speak for your people." Julieth held out her arms, her wings full behind her.

The man came to her and she hugged his fragile body, warmly embracing and calming his rapid, panicked heart.

He stepped back, tears running down his worn face. "My name is Da'ar. Can you convince your people?"

"I am Julieth. They are not my people, but I arrived with the man who has brought what nourishes the land. Together we will convince them. The lake that provides Gest with water is beyond the city walls, and so your people can partake of it easily." She watched as the rest of Da'ar's people neared them. Several of the company limped and she noticed a cart with several men and women who looked to be dying being pushed by a larger man.

Da'ar peered past her. "A lake? We heard rumors of water and food. We assumed a small spring had been discovered or a larger store of forgotten goods. How can there be a lake? The essences have never helped provide people with nourishment before."

"The essences have not brought us this."

"Then what?" Da'ar asked, awe in his voice.

"I cannot say now, but there will be a time," Julieth assured him.

"Da'ar," one of the women who approached spoke. "Who is this winged woman? What news does she bring?"

Da'ar turned. "She says many in Gest will not accept us, but that she will stand by our side to convince them. There is water beyond Gest's walls to nourish us until that time. A lake." He grinned.

Several in the group gasped at this.

"A lake?" the woman asked, disbelief in her eyes.

"Yes," Julieth responded, "and fruit, beautiful trees bearing fruit with more taste than anything you have ever eaten. There is enough food and water in Gest for your people and for many more." As the rest of the group congregated around them, standing like bare trees in the wind, a boy made his way toward her. He reminded her of Bayne, and yet the look in his eyes was completely different. Bayne, I miss you, the thought rushed through her mind as the boy touched her hand. Let what is good guide you. As she looked down to the boy holding her hand she realized he was years younger than Bayne.

"My mother..." the boy spoke, his voice frail.

"Where is she?" Julieth asked, scanning those before her.

"She promised to take the pain in my stomach away." Tears streamed from his eyes.

Da'ar stepped toward them, placing a hand gently on the boy's head. "His mother perished on the journey here. It has been weeks since we have eaten anything of worth. Our city's food replicator broke months back and has only produced powder since, hardly enough to provide for our hunger."

Julieth held the boy's bony hand firm in her own. "Come," she spoke to him, motioning for him to walk in front of her. She hefted him up and looked to the others. "Follow me. Your bodies will find nourishment and rest."

She led them through the desert towards the oasis, walking instead of flying so that she could lend her strength to their weakened souls. And as she walked she carried the boy who had taken her hand. She looked down at the flesh of his face tightly wrapped to his skull. Julieth held him tighter as she watched the perspiration seeping from his pores as he allowed himself to sleep in her embrace.

After a long walk they arrived to the outer cusp of the lake. It astounded Julieth to watch these frail, worn people using what little remained of their strength to run to the water's edge and drink dunk after dunk of water with their hands.

Julieth looked beyond the trees and lake before them to the massive walls of Gest. Citizens of the city peered over the walls much as they had at her, Ineal and the others when they had first arrived. Arrows aimed at them, but she did not fear their use. We will find these people acceptance as we ourselves did, she thought.

Pain suddenly burned in her chest and back, causing blackness to drown her sight. She choked and fell to the earth, holding her hand to her chest.

You defy the order that comes, a voice scathed her mind. Do not think there is no cost.

The burning sensation passed through her chest directly into her hand and she found it crippled, unable to move.

Air vacuumed from her lungs as Julieth tumbled limply on the ground, letting out a moan before darkness consumed her. She heard footsteps running in her direction as her mind faded.

...

Darkness.

Silence.

Thump thump. Thump thump. The beating of her heart moved melodically in her ears as sight slowly returned. The voice and the pain were gone and Da'ar kneeled over her, his hands on her back and head.

"You are awake." Da'ar smiled, water glistening over his face and beard in the sunlight where he had been drinking. "We feared you dead when you collapsed but I felt a pulse."

The pain was gone now as Julieth looked to her hand. She opened and closed it, watching a fresh web of scorched lines that veined across her palm. She held the hand to her neck and felt scarring there too. "Thank you. The pain is gone now."

Da'ar held out his hand, taking hers and helping her to stand. "Is it the essence within you? There was a man in our city that had the power to control wind. He protected us until the essence within him took his mind and then his body."

"It is an essence, yes, but there is nothing I can do about it. This is the curse I bear. It connects itself to me, but I will not let it control me or the actions I take. It is a part of me. Come, let me lead you to Gest's gate."

"Turn back! You are unwanted here!" a shout rang out over Gest's wall as Julieth and the others neared.

Ineal and Elias were not in sight.

They must have reentered the city to persuade its people, Julieth thought as she raised a hand above her eyes to block the sunlight. She stretched her wings full, drawing the attention of all onlookers behind Gest's walls. "The trees and the water are not yours to possess!" she shouted back at them. "Look at the people who approach you! They are weary and starving! Do you have the heart to fight them over nourishment that is infinite and which has been given freely to you? Do they not also deserve health? They come without weapons and armor but instead with a plea and faith!" Julieth eyed the men and women guarding Gest's walls as she finished speaking. She was mostly a stranger to them. Would her words hold weight?

"Return to your land!" an angry shout rang with others as arrows spliced through the air, spitting into the desert around them but hitting no one.

"Please..." Da'ar spoke modestly, directing his voice up to the man who had shouted down. He lifted an arrow from the sand as he spoke. "Allow us to join you. We will all die without your grace."

No-one responded to Da'ar, but Julieth watched as those perched on the walls turned their gaze from beyond the city to something inside the city's walls behind the main gate. The earth rumbled beneath her, causing her to take to the air and fly toward the gate.

The sound of crushing timber boomed around them as cracks splintered down the gate, veining to its sides before the ancient wood gave way, crumbling down.

Sand swirled up where it had fallen, masking the shadow of a man in the plume. The shadow walked toward her as men within Gest shouted at it.

Ineal, Julieth realized. She landed on the desert once more, holding a hand back to instruct Da'ar to stay, and then walked slowly toward Ineal. When he arrived to her side he held a hand to her eyes, closing them. Only the wind made noise. The spirit of Solaris has done this through him so that these peoples will be forced to share what has been provided them, she thought. I must speak for Ineal.

Ineal removed his hand from Julieth's eyes and she opened them to see many of Gest's people climbing over the crumbled gate. "I have heard Ineal," she walked toward them as Elias met her side. "He has destroyed your gate because the gifts given to you are for all. You will share the fruit and water of this land or you will leave it and journey to another place. There is no end to this bounty. It will grow and provide for all who hear of it and travel here."

Elias approached. "My people will accept these and others who come. Give them time. It is difficult to change when for years we have been forced to defend what little we have with blood."

"Then come with me." Julieth walked past him, motioning for Da'ar and a small section of others to accompany them as well. "While your people learn to accept we will gather bowls of fruit to bring back to the lake and share with this starving flock."

That night, beneath the veranda of trees, Julieth shared fruit from inside the city walls with the starving mass. They devoured it hungrily while being watched suspiciously by Gest's people, moonlight glinting off their aimed arrowheads.

It is a beginning, Julieth thought. The sweet juice of a red fruit swam on her taste buds as she bit into it. From here we will build security for our world. We will build a foundation to heal and love.

# Chapter 31

A sweet aroma wafted around him as Ivanus lay flat on hard stone floor. Thick fog gusted above. Through it, spearing down, were shafts of sunlight.

He watched, somehow rapt, as curls of fog swam and intertwined with each other. At times he would see faces, haunting faces, watching him cautiously before dissolving in the wind. It battered his ears as he lay still, and in the fog the dark shapes of wings appeared. He reached toward them as Julieth burst through above, wrapping her arms around him and lifting him into the sky with her. Ivanus's heart raced but her warm body comforted him, her curves fitting against his form.

"How did you find me?" he asked. "Where are we?" He vaguely remembered being with Riad and the others, speaking with Shaun Dune.

Julieth looked at him, her deep eyes reflecting the stars. He felt so warm in this place, so at ease. She moved her lips to kiss him, and as their lips touched blackness blanked Ivanus's mind.

*

Moments passed.

*

As light returned to Ivanus a vast desert expanse surrounded him. Warriors lay nearby, their armor burned and flesh dripping from their faces. Hollow eye sockets stared at him through the dead's facades. Ivanus gripped for understanding.

He stood slowly, sand whipping around his fingers as they braced the earth. As he gained full footing a dark silhouette stood before him. Samuel lay dead at the man's feet, a sword piercing his skull. Ivanus ran for the man towering over Samuel, breathing hard and shouting words he did not himself know. Then, just as he could almost make out the man's face, Ivanus's foot caught in a groove of the earth, thumping him against the ground.

"Ivanus. Ivanus, wake up," a voice came to him distantly. "Ivanus..." He could feel someone's hands shaking his shoulder. With a violent jolt Ivanus opened his eyes to sunlight and thrust away. "No!" he shouted, Bayne staring back at him. Hot sweat beaded on his forehead and his arms would not cease shaking. "No..." He turned, seeing Andral watching him as well.

"It was only a dream," Bayne assured while stepping away from him.

But it felt real, he thought. Who stood over Samuel?

"Come with us." Bayne and Andral walked from him. "The others are in camp discussing what to do next. You must have left us in the night in your sleep. It took us until the suns' mid-rising to find you."

He stood, following the boys a distance behind them. Unease pricked his spine and he saw moments into the future around him, seeking anything that was out of place. There was nothing though. It was as Bayne said; the others stood a distance away from them. Shaun Dune possessed the radiant form of a man.

As he walked Ivanus was struck by the distance he had moved while he slept. He had never done so before, and combined with the substance of his dream, he wondered what part the essence forming to his flesh had to play. What were you showing me? he questioned it.

There was no answer, and yet a burning in his chest as scorch lines continued to map there made him think somehow the essence bonding with him was displeased.

It is a necessary curse, one that is inescapable, Ivanus thought as he gripped his chest beneath his shirt and felt the searing lines. To see death, to constantly feel its approach drains the soul. And yet... and yet there is something freeing about that knowledge. You will not control me, whatever you are. He spoke to it in his mind. You are as much a prisoner of my flesh as I am of your spirit.

"We feared for you," Riad said as the trio approached. Shaun Dune burned brightly beside him and Carcos kneeled, tracing a map in the sand. "We've been speaking. It seems Samuel knows we seek to confront him. He may well know what abilities we bring and even that Dune and his dragon have joined our side. The longer we wait, the more opportunity we give Samuel to attack or prepare."

"But how could we approach him?" Ivanus kneeled, eying Carcos's map. "We are not properly prepared."

"We were not prepared to face the beasts beneath the ground, and yet we defeated them." Sunlight glinted off Riad's cybernetics, shining in Ivanus's eyes. The borg stood, unmovable. "Carcos has begun remembering much of Samuel's citadel, though he was being controlled while there, and Bayne's abilities have grown immensely. With an extra push, Bayne could render Samuel unconscious and we could move to kill him."

"An extra push?" Ivanus stood. "How? Surely there is no way to quicken the progression of his abilities."

Riad walked toward Bayne. "Think. At first you fought against and did not understand your abilities. We all did. And in that time we were the weakest. What Bayne must do, what we all must do, is allow the essences to strengthen within us and trust them. We must let our apprehensions fall away if we are to reach a level where we can defeat Samuel."

"And what might become by letting the essences take hold? We cannot trust what we do not understand." Ivanus looked to Bayne. "Yes, we need to destroy Samuel and his reign, but at what cost?"

"At the cost of our lives if that's what it takes," Bayne spoke up. "We control ourselves, no matter what the essences do within us. We are in control. Samuel must be destroyed and I am willing to sacrifice myself if it means Solaris is free of his presence."

"It is Bayne's decision, all of our own personal decisions, and Bayne is the lynch pin to our success."

Ivanus took a deep, hot breath, opening his mind to the knowledge that he could not stop Bayne from fully opening himself to the essence bonding to him. "Then what is the plan? What have I missed while sleepwalking the desert?"

Carcos pointed in the distance before them. "First, we must continue to approach the realm of Samuel's control. It is a distance from us, but we must be careful to not allow ourselves to enter space where Samuel can possess our minds. Then, once we come as far as we can, myself, Riad, Andral and you will ride Orpheus's back far above the land, above Samuel's realm of control. Shaun Dune assures us that once he has taken his Dragon form Orpheus will carry us where we need go."

The thought of riding a dragon gave Ivanus chills. It will be nothing like flying with Julieth, he thought. "And what of Bayne? We cannot leave him by himself."

"We must if we are too succeed," Riad looked to Ivanus. "Bayne will walk on foot where we leave him, towards Samuel's citadel, blanking the minds of Samuel's army with waves from his thoughts. As he nears he will blank the mind of Samuel himself."

"And what if he doesn't?" Ivanus asked. "Samuel is extremely powerful. What if he cannot be affected by any of our abilities?"

"Then we will fail," Riad's stare was hard. "But we will also fail if we do not try. Death is death. I believe Bayne to have strength great enough to at least hinder Samuel enough for us to approach him. Once we believe Samuel to be wounded Orpheus will bring us to his citadel and we will sever his soul from the world."

They ate a meager meal that morning. The fruit they had brought with them from Gest was now gone and so they were left with what remained of their synthetic replicated food. Riad heated a portion of their remaining stores with his mechanics before passing compact slats of the substance to the others.

"If only Ineal would have accompanied us," Ivanus smirked and then cringed as he bit into it. It tasted strongly of salt. If sand had nutrients I would gladly ingest it instead, he thought while consuming it.

They walked through the day across the arid terrain, allowing Carcos to lead them. Sweat beaded on Ivanus's forehead and as he breathed he noted the bitter taste of rust flecks in the air, something they had been mostly without since Kaskal. "We are nearing," he spoke. "I cannot see Samuel's forces in my sight but there are worn, rusted structural remains on the horizon and it would make sense for Samuel's citadel to be near them."

"Yes, we near the place." Carcos extended his arm toward the distance before them. "Look where the land meets the sky. Samuel's forces begin their guard there."

Ivanus squinted. The suns were setting now and streamers of radiant orange and pink sheered the sky like blades, but there, where the land met the sky, he could see what looked like earth moving. "Why are there no scouts? Why have we not been confronted as we near?" he asked.

"Why indeed," Riad's low voice rose up beside him. "Yes, he is sure of himself. I assume he does not view us as a real threat, but I thought surely he would have attacked again, at least with scouts."

"There are so many unknowns in this world," Shaun Dune responded and startled them. He spoke distantly. "It is an advantage to us. Keep your eyes and ears open. Be ready for everything and we will use whatever advantage Samuel touts to destroy him."

"Tonight we rest amongst the rusted hollows of the desert's remains," Riad spoke while looking to towering rust shards that stood out of the earth only a short distance away. "Tomorrow we take back Solaris."

# Chapter 32

Ivanus lay silently in the night, his back braced against the rusted metal of a shard rising out of the ground. His head ached with tension and his restless mind prevented him from slumber. What will tomorrow bring? He eyed his companions, each unconscious around him, all except Riad who paced nearby in anticipation of attack. Tomorrow our world will change forever. He closed his eyes, stretching his mind to the limits as he tried to see the future into the coming day. Sharp spikes of pain spliced in light surges through his mind. He cringed, quitting the fruitless error. If I were stronger, then I would have the ability to see further. He opened his eyes, staring at his hand where his fingers had been severed. But I could not prevent it even if I knew what tomorrow brings. His heartbeat raced. Julieth, he thought. Should I have stayed with you? Are you still in Gest? Are you still alive? Will I ever know the fullness of her touch? How could I have allowed myself to fall for her in a world like this? He lay for a moment, watching the stars, allowing his mind to go clear. As he began to count them warmth came over his forearm. It stretched down to his hand, searing as it cut down his skin.

Ivanus turned from the stars to look upon his own flesh. Raised lines of dark, boiled skin webbed down his arm, stretching fully to his fingerstubs. It is as if the essences slowly consume us. He flexed them and felt the full burn of his freshly scarred flesh. When my life is taken you will perish too. He spoke to the essence within him. Take me and I will find a way to sever you from existence as well.

# Chapter 33

A low pulse emerged in Ivanus's brain as he stood with the others, preparing to leave Bayne alone to face Samuel's forces.

"Remember to direct your mind forward and allow the essence to strengthen," Riad spoke to Bayne as the boy looked into the distance, fixated on something unseen.

"I understand my role." Bayne's spoke coldly. "May I have a weapon?"

"All you should need is your mind." Riad placed his metallic hand on the boy's shoulder. "If your abilities fail you then we will not be able to reach you in time and a weapon will do you no good. We need the arsenal we have for the citadel. The essence will give you the ability to succeed. Trust in that. Place your faith in it. If you doubt and believe in failure, then it will seep in."

Andral came and hugged Bayne. "Be careful, brother."

Bayne returned the gesture without emotion. "Stay alert. Watch."

"Come, let us leave him to his task." Riad turned toward Shaun Dune's radiant light. "Are you prepared? Make sure the dragon will listen to us."

"We have spoken within my dreams. Stand back while I change form."

The overhead suns seemed to dim as the nova blaze of Dune's form burned hot white, expanding and coiling upon itself as it grew in length and height, no longer the form of a man. Then, in a breath the hot light retracted, slithering black weaving over the form, popping and cracking as muscles emerged, covering with flesh and then char colored scales. The heat that had exuded from Dune left a chill in its wake and the dragon, Orpheus, breathed a spray of flame over the earth, its wild eyes searching them as the flame extinguished. "You do not control me." The voice was guttural. "But vengeance will be ours."

"You will aid us, then," Riad spoke confidently as he approached the beast.

"It serves a purpose. Yes." Orpheus crouched low to the earth, still towering the height of two men above them.

Riad reached an arm up, clasping its scales and hefting himself arm after arm up its back. As he reached its notched spine he stood. "What are you waiting for?" he shouted to Carcos, Andral and Ivanus. A moan came from the dragon's stomach as Riad walked its spine and sat between two of its bones toward the base of its neck.

"We have a noisy mount," Carcos commented while approaching and helping Andral find his footing. "Perhaps he still does not like us."

"Perhaps he wants to eat us." Ivanus smirked as a shiver ran through him. Carcos looked worried, as if he had not thought of it.

Ivanus watched Carcos climb, waiting until the soldier made his way toward the dragon's head before placing his first hand on its scales. As he touched them it bothered him that they were cold, at least not hot like the heat Shaun Dune exuded. Their black forms flecked, ashing off as he gripped with the finger bones of his stubbed hand and then his other, pulling himself up the beast's side. One of the scales gashed his palm as he hefted himself upon its back. He looked down at the scrape and the blood forming there. He hadn't been focusing with his sight and so he had not seen the wound in his future. The feeling lifted his heart. To not know something before it happens, he thought. What release. Freedom. When I die I will find silence once more. In his future sight he saw how Bayne would begin his walk away from them... the look in his eyes. "Bayne!" he called out, watching the youth.

Bayne did not look to him, did not move.

"Bayne, take care of yourself! Today you do a great thing!"

The boy looked to him, silent.

Where has his youth gone? Ivanus thought, looking to the dragon's back and watching his footing on its uneven scales. He sat behind Carcos, hooking his feet in the grooves of Orpheus's scales and grabbing them with his hands as well.

"It is time we met our destiny. Let us fly," Riad spoke to Orpheus.

The dragon's back muscles slithered beneath Ivanus's body as its massive black wings extended, angling in the wind. He gripped hard to the beast as its wings crashed down, thrusting them into the sky. A burst of wind rammed him, almost knocking him from his perch and he found Carcos's arm held out for him to brace to.

"More gently, Dragon!" Riad's voice called out over the wind deafening their ears.

"You patronize me, mortal," Orpheus laughed. "You treat me as a beast and yet expect me to follow orders."

Hot air stung Ivanus's face. He could barely keep his eyes open in the wind and squinted, looking downward to escape its current.

"Do not fear. I will take you where and how you wish to go."

Ivanus clenched tight to the beast's back, closing his eyes completely as they drastically changed direction, climbing higher and higher. Instead, he focused on his sight. He watched as Bayne would approach Samuel's amassed army, felling them with his mind.

# Chapter 34

Bayne walked for hours in the scorching heat, one foot in front of the other as the specks in the distance slowly materialized. His heart was steady. His eyes were open. He had no fear.

He focused completely on the essence bonded with him, listening to its voice and allowing it to fully join with him.

As he approached the standing, silent army, Bayne allowed energy to flow from his mind, grasping their bodies and holding them still. He searched for Samuel's energy within them, clenched it, and as he let out his first blast he sensed damage to the Dark Bishop also. As the first wave of energy bloomed, flooding from his mind, hundreds of men dropped unconscious to the ground.

There was no movement as he continued, stepping over bodies, some lying as if in peaceful slumber while others had been gored by their own swords while falling. Blood flowed in streams from their wounds, collecting in puddles in the pocked land.

Bayne stepped in the blood as he walked, leaving red footprints behind him as he continued.

Soon he was in range again for another wave. He closed his eyes, sensing the army before him and bloomed out another flood of energy to blank their minds. In the distance he could hear men falling.

As he moved, disabling Samuel's amassed horde, he felt the bishop weakening. Samuel did not attempt to control his mind, either that or Bayne simply was not susceptible to the ability. Bayne had believed himself strong enough to withstand any mental attack, at least with his essence's help, but the complete lack of Samuel defending himself either with his mind or his army left a chill over the boy's skin.

As the suns ascended high in the sky Bayne neared the citadel. Its stone façade rose in a spired horn from the earth, towering upward out of rusted, dilapidated structures surrounding it. The great lava sea stretched as far as the eye could see behind.

Bayne turned, looking out at the thousands of men littering the battlefield, all disabled.

Sunlight glinted off something nearby, blinding his eyes, and he turned toward the light. There, loosely gripped by a well-shielded soldier's hand, was an intricate, beautiful sword. It was pure, without blemish, and Bayne wanted to own it.

He reached down, blocking the sunlight that shimmered from its form as he moved and stopped for a moment before hefting it. Then he removed the man's calloused hands from the pure blade and hefted it strongly before him.

# Chapter 35

As the two suns rose in the sky earlier that day...

Wind whipped over Samuel's body as he stood, weary-eyed, on the balcony attached to his chamber. The sky was crisp red. His body ached deeply, worse than ever before. Do you deceive me, essence? he thought, looking to his arms. The scorch lines had deepened to gashes in his flesh in recent days and he felt as if his body were decomposing. Have I not told you that if you harm me I will destroy you as well?

You do not control me. I possess you. There was an eagerness in the thing's voice as it spoke to him.

Enough. Samuel pushed his hatred for the essence to the back of his mind. He could feel the presence of the other essences and their hosts approaching, sense the boy coming near. You dare face me? He grinned, gripping the balcony's rail. You are great, yes, but once you are under my control you will become my greatest warrior. You think to use your abilities on me, but my range is greater. I will take you first. At least the essence was wise in advising me to wait and stay my hand until you neared.

Samuel closed his eyes, focusing on the boy, searching the youth's consciousness for his entrance to it. It took only a mere moment to find an unprotected, barely used portion of the boy's consciousness. With a surge of energy gripping his skull, Samuel grasped for the boy...

...and found nothing.

What is wrong? He opened his eyes. A part of his abilities was now gone, he could sense it. Essence, what is happening?

Silence. The usually taunting thing was now devoid of response.

Samuel could sense the boy nearing the range of his men. He sent a mental command for the first hundred men to attack him.

His army did not move. His possession of them was still firm, the connection strong, but he had no further command over their advancing will.

Sudden pain in the back of his skull sent shards of light through his vision. He gripped tighter on the rail as the feeling of fire clutched his spine. His possession of hundreds of his men had been ripped from him.

# Chapter 36

As Bayne neared the citadel

Wind rushed against Ivanus's face, stinging him as the dragon soared far above the citadel, so high up that nothing couldn't make out anything below. It had been hours since they first took to the air and Carcos had hacked over the side several times out of nausea.

Soon, it has to be soon, Ivanus thought as his own stomach churned. Orpheus had calmed his speed, but that did little of them now as they circled in the sky. Ivanus focused in his thoughts, deep within his sight. For a good while now he had only been able to get glimpses of the future, both below and around him. Increasing pain swelled in his head. It worried him. What does that mean? he wondered. What is blocking me?

"Has he reached the citadel? Is Samuel unconscious?" Riad shouted over the deafening high elevation wind.

One moment Ivanus saw Bayne a good distance back from the citadel, walking steadily. The next moment he saw the boy standing next to the structure surrounded by fallen men. His mind glimpsed moments and not spacial-time. "He should fell Samuel's entire army soon!" he shouted back.

"And Samuel?"

Ivanus reached his mind inside the citadel, searching for Samuel. All there was was darkness. "He is shrouded from my mind! But if Bayne has been allowed to reach the citadel and do such damage, then surely Samuel is disabled!"

"Is the risk worth taking?" Carcos asked, coughing on a burst of wind.

"We cannot allow Bayne to be harmed, not after he has gotten us so near to the Dark Bishop! If we are to die here, or have our minds controlled, then let that be our fate!"

"Then downward?" Orpheus's deep voice reverberated through the wind.

Ivanus watched Riad place a hand on the beast's neck. "Yes, my fellow, dive!"

Instantly the dragon's wings angled and they thrust through the air, downward, downward, surging in a burst near the earth and leveling in a wide circle around the citadel's spire. Sand and clumps of earth burst up from the ground as the bodies of men below them rolled and turned from the force.

Ivanus's stomach thrust up in his chest.

"Where is he? Where is Bayne?" Riad's shout echoed distantly in Ivanus's ringing ears.

Ivanus's mind, his sight at least, was blank. "I can see nothing!" he shouted back. The visual of the hundreds of unconscious men beneath them struck him.

"It makes no matter! We need to head to the spire's top!" Riad's mechanics illuminated and adjusted as he shouted.

The dragon obliged, his notched wings pulsing downward soaring them up, and then halting in a hover beyond a balcony near the great citadel's peak.

This is as far as I go, the dragon spoke in their minds. I would allow Shaun Dune to accompany you, but should you need a quick escape I am your only hope. I will await you nearby. If you call out, then I will set the citadel ablaze. The great beast lowered its head, aligning it with the balcony's rail so that they could enter. Its wings beat steadily at its sides.

"Follow me," Riad spoke, waving at them and then standing. He walked with his arms outstretched and two electricity guns at the ready to blast.

Ivanus was in awe while watching the borg walk over the dragon's neck and across the beast's skull before leaping onto the balcony with ease.

"Come on!" Riad shouted while continuing to aim his weapons inwards the structure.

Andral hesitated, frozen, for a good moment before Carcos prodded him to stand. "You've come this far. Would you rather stay with the dragon? He has not tasted meat for years."

This seemed to work as Andral shakily stood, almost tumbling off the beast more than once as his footing slipped and the dragon would compensate his movements to give the boy more support. "I can't... I can't go any further!" he shouted back, kneeling to grab Orpheus's neck. Just as he did, Carcos fully stood and the boy lost his grip, tumbling over the side, clasping on to a stray scale and screaming in a high-pitched tone for help.

"If you had just continued to walk..." Carcos ran full tilt up the beast's neck, kneeling down and grabbing the boy's arm harshly before pulling him up once more. "Come, let me carry you then. You would be dead already without us."

As Carcos leapt with Andral in his arms to the balcony Ivanus stood. He could still see nothing in his sight and it worried him more and more. Will my death come now, here, as I fall from the dragon, or does something more sinister await to take my life beyond these walls. Fate is fate, he concluded, steadying himself the best he could while walking toward Orpheus's cranium. As he reached it he looked down. The world dropped away and all he could see close by were the massive serpent's eyes looking hauntingly up at him.

Up and down the beast moved, and as Ivanus leapt from his head Orpheus pulsed backwards from the tower.

"No turning back now," Carcos smirked as Riad handed both he and Ivanus guns.

Ivanus held the cold metal in his hand. What would he do if he had to fire it? Ever since arriving in this time he had possessed the ability given to him by the essence. It allowed him to see how he would manipulate a weapon and in effect allow him to master a weapon even though he knew little of its actual use. Would that be enough now, that knowledge he had weaned, now that he had no sight?

Riad was already in what appeared to be a worshiping room off the balcony as Ivanus joined his side, closely followed by Carcos and Andral. The only noise they heard was the wind as it beat the tower walls. An altar was built along one wall of the room. Its base was cracked and dust gathered thickly over a stack of... were those books? Ivanus had not seen books since before the meteor came. "Wait?" he whispered to Riad, halting his progress. He went to the stack and picked up one of the heavy tomes. He grappled for it with his nubbed hand, dust falling from it before stuffing it beneath his cloak. Samuel was a Bishop once, he was reminded as he looked around. How could he have changed so greatly? Surely he was corrupt before the essence found him. And yet... and yet he keeps these books. Is a part of his heart still good?

"You should leave that," Riad spoke. "It will prove awkward and will hinder you. You could always take one when we leave if you still desire."

"No," Ivanus spoke, holding his spare hand to it beneath his garb. "We may not return this way, or we may die."

"And if you die, what good is it to you then?" Riad smirked. "Come, I need you close so that we can quickly communicate. Where is he? Can you see Samuel?"

Ivanus neared Riad, bracing his gun before him as they walked into the shadowed hallway. There were unused ledges dug in grooves in the wall.

"Nothing, my sight is blank."

"Then use your hearing." Riad's cybernetics glowed as he inspected a bath area nearby, returning with no insight. "This is the uppermost level. If he is not here, then he must be nearby."

A flash of light and pain struck Ivanus inside his iris and he braced against a wall as Carcos passed him, eying him as he went. He put a hand on Ivanus's shoulder but Ivanus stood straight and used a glance to motion the man forward.

They continued a short distance, moving in shrouded sunlight until they heard raspy breathing and the sound of something scratching against the ground. An old voice came to their hearing. "No. No, you were to protect me. You are a part of me." A hacking cough came and then a thud.

Surely that is not Samuel? Ivanus walked forward, quickly following Raid and the others into a large, open chamber. The gun shook in his hand. As they burst in Riad immediately went to a man in a long red robe, crumpled on the ground. The man's body was contorted and taut with scorch marks covering him. His eyes were bloodshot and he shook violently.

"He is not unconscious, but Bayne's ability must have somehow triggered this," Riad spoke, taking a swath of the bishop's hair in his hand and yanking the man's head upward. The barrel of Riad's gun ignited with light as the borg thrust it against Samuel's skull.

Blood and spittle drooled from the man's cracked mouth. His eyes looked hollowly at Riad. "You do not know. They will have you. They will have us all." His eyes quaked. "Lord, forgive me, if you exist." His voice was barely audible.

Ivanus walked forward.

As he did, Samuel's eyes gained life and looked to him. Fear struck his features. "How can it be you? Ivanus? I saw your death."

Riad looked to Ivanus and then yanked the bishop's hair hard. "You will not distract us. It's time for you to pay."

How could he know me? Ivanus held his gun firm before him, and then looked with Riad as the sound of feet hitting heavily on stone came from the nearby descending stairwell. He turned, ready to fire, but was relieved when Bayne burst into sight hefting a large sword.

The boy breathed heavily. "Wait. I need to speak with him." He wiped sweat from his brow and approached Samuel, their eyes locked.

"No," Samuel spat, his temples pulsing hard. "It wants him. Can't you see it?"

Bayne drove his sword through Samuel's heart, blood spewing forth from the attack as the bishop screamed.

An ethereal orb, the essence which had bonded to Samuel, rose up from his body as Bayne withdrew his sword and Samuel thumped lifelessly down. With desire in his eyes Bayne reached forth, touching the orb and allowing its light to weave over his body and bond a marking in his palm.

Pain seared Ivanus's mind and darkness consumed him as he blinked from time, no longer there.

*

Andral walked to his brother, kneeling and kissing his hand. "Is it done?" he asked. He had spoken with his brother much is the past days about this moment, always uncertain it would come to fruition.

"Look at them." Bayne smiled, the bloodstained sword limp in his hand.

As Andral stood and turned he saw the glazed-over look in both Riad and Carcos's eyes.

"They are under my control." Bayne walked to the borg, touching his cold cybernetic hand. "You taught me to only follow what I desire, Riad. Now all people will do as I bid."

"Why do you allow me to be free?" Andral asked.

Bayne gently laid the sword on the ground. "You are my brother. You know the depths of me. Besides, someone needs to watch the others bow."

# Chapter 37

Ivanus's stomach ached, his chest burning as out of nothing he felt solid ground beneath him. He tumbled, bracing himself with his hands on cold rock floor. Darkness swelled.

No, not now.

Bile rose in his throat.

Where am I? He clutched Riad's gun tight, the edges of its handle forming indents in his hand. He also noted the book he had taken still in his garb. Is Samuel defeated? Have I time-jumped again? Chanting voices echoed in a nearby hall and an herbal scent filled the air. This cannot be the citadel.

He stood slowly, his head pounding as he began to see figures moving around him in his sight. They were blurry and indefinite.

Daylight streamed through a nearby doorway and Ivanus walked toward it, moving into a hall where bouquets of flowers sat on ledges in vases. He stopped, touching a yellow flower's petals and breathing in its aroma before following the light onward.

"Lord, almighty. Lord, protector. Lord, creator." The chanting grew louder as he walked. "Forgiver of sins and knower of all things. Praise to you for the fruits we eat. Praise to you for the blessings of our lives."

The voices speaking in unison warmed him, reverberating and lulling him in a way.

"Lord, almighty. Lord, protector. Lord, creator. Forgiver of sins and knower of all things. Praise to you for the fruits we eat. Praise to you for the blessings of our lives."

Where am I? When am I? He looked around the corner.

Three men in red robes kneeled at an altar. Their hands were braced in prayer and their heads bowed low. Another man who was also robed in red kneeled at the altar closer by. His robe had white, interweaving designs on it. Behind them was a balcony. Pure sunlight shone through its opening and Ivanus could see a vast blue ocean and green mountains through it. There were boats and rafts with men on them on the water.

I am in the citadel. He stumbled, scuffing the ground as he moved and causing the chanting men to be silent.

The man who had kneeled separately from the others stood, walking to him. "How did you get here? This tower is sealed off from city folk."

"I..." Ivanus stepped backward, concealing his weapon within his clothes.

A far younger Samuel held out his hand. The branding of an essence was in the flesh of his arm.

"However you arrived here, you are welcome to pray with us. The Lord has brought you to us and we will share our food, faith and what peace the Lord gives us with you."

# Chapter 38

The moon was full in the night sky, a glowing ring illuminating around it and draping Solaris in crisp white light.

Julieth lay outside Gest's walls, in the forest of trees beyond them, relaxing and watching the stars sprinkling the sky in the distance. Nearby children laughed, chasing each other beneath the trees' veranda. Small fires also pocked the desert beyond the trees as groups of men and women gathered, telling stories and sharing ideas while enjoying fresh fruit that had been provided to them. A makeshift city had begun to form outside Gest's walls. Once the people of Gest realized there was an infinite supply of food and water they became less leery of the strangers journeying across the desert daily in search of the city's life giving nourishment.

"You can't catch me!" a girl with long hair shouted as she ran past, giggling as a boy chased her.

Bayne. Julieth was suddenly reminded of the youth. She thought much about him and Ivanus in recent days. Where are you now? Will I see you again? The way Bayne spoke before they left had scarred her heart. What I would give to know you are safe...

Pow! Pow! Pow! Vibrant lights suddenly exploded overhead and the people inside and outside of the city cheered. A group that had arrived the day before had manipulated metallic powder stored in Gest to create decorative balls that could be launched and explode in the sky.

Look what man can create when we are not solely focused on survival. It is beautiful to see the greatness that is possible. She stood, extending her wings. Wind buffeted against them, rippling and lifting her off the ground. She spiraled into the sky, enjoying the air currents curving over her form before beating her wings and hovering above the earth in the moonlight. Looking at the fires on the land and the lake's rippling water warmed her.

Look at them, they are free and safe. We cannot remain safe, though. Solaris must be set free from this darkness Samuel has cast upon it, set free from him and the essences. Kaskal must be told what is here and be healed. Something swift caught her eye in the desert beyond the city, distant from everything else. It ran on all fours, a shadow darting back and forth much faster than any being she had seen before. No. Julieth dove quickly, pulsing through sheets of wind as she struck out toward the thing. Her heart beat fast. She was unarmed.

As she neared it the thing stood on two legs, its fur blowing in the wind as its wild eyes stared at her. Sharp teeth filled its maw.

Julieth's feet landed hard. "You are the one who spoke to me when we fled the underground. Why are you here?"

The were-beast sniffed the air, its ears perking in the wind. "I come for what was taken." It neared her, its clawed hands flexing. "And if you will have me, I come to serve."

\-- --

The author would like to express his thanks for your purchase of NovaForge. It is his honor to share this book with you and he would enjoy hearing what you think of the read if you would like to email him. His email is poeticliscence@hotmail.com

If you enjoyed this work, it would mean a lot to the author if you would post a review and rate it on the site you purchased it from so that other readers may have the opportunity to enjoy the author's books in the future. Each review posted leads to higher visibility on the site.

\-- --

Thank you greatly for your time with NovaForge! Its sequel, NovaSiege, will release June, 2015.
NovaSiege, book 2 of the Nova Trilogy

An Excerpt

The wind sawed over Solaris's arid land, howling like a tortured, dying creature being torn apart in the night. Julieth, though warmed by the heat of a crackling fire nearby, was chilled to the spine by the sound.

It had been months since she last saw Ivanus and the others leaving Gest's gates, venturing into the thankless expanse. Rumors grew by displaced citizens searching out Gest that Samuel killed more and more, amassing his forces.

Bayne, Ivanus, they must all be dead. How do we stand against such evil? She turned a twig with a leaf on it in her hand, watching the moonlight refracting off its veins. A tree with white blooms thrashed in the harsh wind close by. So much life blooms around us and yet we can do nothing to clog the sea of blood coursing across our world. I feel it bludgeoning Gest's gates, reaching for me.

As she closed her eyes a deep chill crept over her, a sharp cold starting with her palms bracing the ground, and then seeping up her body.

The wind tonight... it has never been so cold.

But it was not the wind. Thick frost marked the earth, spreading and climbing the rust-walls nearby and the trunks of trees, coming from below. It ascended her flesh, its sparking white form glistening in the moonlight. Cracks slowly formed in the ice sheen, and then the ground moaned as a section of earth a distance from Julieth cracked in on itself and then fell into a dark void.

Julieth opened her eyes while hearing shouts of terror, stripping her of near sleep. Shadows thrashed through her sight. An entire shack dropped through the earth, disappearing from her view. "Mother!" a girl shrieked.

Ice flecked from Julieth's body as she moved. "What is happening?" she shouted, running towards the screams. A thrust of wind punched her wings, beating her flat to the earth.

She breathed erratically, her arms punching through frozen soil as if it were a shell. The arms of a beast ripped through the earth below her, clawing at her form as the earth's shell cracked away and they both fell into a dark void.
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