The Rising Sun: Episode 6



  The Rising Sun

  Clocks

  BOOK ONE

  J HAWK

  Copyright © 2014 J Hawk

 

  EPISODE 6

  1

  The darkness was absolute.

  And through it, Ion could hear the faintest tingle of a strange, cold noise … it came as a mere echo, bouncing within the walls, reaching his ears only just in time to fade back to nothing. But it was the single most terrifying thing he knew he would ever hear his entire life.

  It felt like a creature’s breathing…

  And it rose and fell rhythmically, so that every pore of him strained in trying to hear it clearly.

  Fighting the effect of the freeze shot, he strained his throat and shouted, “Who’s there!”

  For the meanest flicker of a heartbeat, he thought he saw something through the darkness. Something flash for the split second. But it was gone as soon as it had come, and it left ion’s blood now thundering through his veins.

  Qyro and Vestra were still out cold, lying slumped by the wall feet across where he was. Ion’s widened eyes flew about the place rapidly, trying to catch sight of the strange entity.

  “Show yourself, coward!”

  And the cold breathing noise broke into a ripple of what was, without a doubt … laughter.

  And as the creature’s icy laughter died out, something far more terrifying happened.

  “Show myself?” came a voice through the darkness, a voice that seemed to leave a stab of chill in the air with every word it spoke. A terrible, dementing voice. “you want me … to show myself, do you?”

  Another cackle of laughter burst forth through the voice, and it sounded like a rain of icy daggers stabbing at the world around it. “Very well, boy. You asked.”

  And out of the darkness, a smoky figure swirled to life, a figure Ion had seen before.

  Frost the demon looked just every bit terrifying as he remembered him in Mantra’s flashback. But now, facing him in live form, the terror had shrieked well off limits. Ion’s heart had clutched his chest as he stared into the demon’s icy blue eyes. His entire form seemed to have been made of a pale blue smoke like substance, hardened to give him a partly solid appearance. Seeming to be part solid, part smoke, his face amidst the fumes of blue swirling around him.

  He drew in a swift, long inhale, and his pale blue features re formed into a cold smile.

  “I sense great pain ahead for you.” His smoky form slowly glided over the smooth ground, and with every feet shrinking between them. “That’s the reason I’m here right now. Because if you see my face … then you’re in hell.”

  And without warning, the demon held up both hands.

  And suddenly, the world had dissolved.

  It was all happening again…

  Ion was five years old again … Marion and Selia were crying as he and Eol were dragged off by the authorities…

  And then, commander Rox was bearing down on him with an insane smile…

  And then there was pain. Pain like no other. Millennial pain. He was being tortured … driven insane with cruel experiments subjected on him.

  And then, he was standing before the graves of his parents, feeling his vision blur with tears…

  The vigilante’s body rolled over and Ion saw his brother’s face … Eol’s face.

  “NOOO!!!”

  Ion awoke back in reality. The paralysed effect of the freeze shot had vaporised: the pain he had re lived had surged through him like an electric current, and he was now crouching on all fours, his breath thundering.

  “No, you say?” laughed a terrifying voice, and frost stepped closer to where he lay, his hands outstretched towards him. “But the fun’s just begun!”

  And Ion vaguely felt the scream rip his throat as the world around him faded once more…

  “You’re not my brother…” the dying words of his brother seemed to rebound within Ion’s head.

  “No…” he pleaded, holding Eol within his hands.

  “You’re not Ion…”

  And his brother’s eyes rolled upwards and were still.

  A scream of eternal agony filled the air around, as he threw his head back and shrieked.

  He was back in the dark hall with the smoky figure of the demon standing over him, his face blazing with brutal glee.

  Ion felt his boy hit the cold floor, his robe soaked with sweat. He lay there in a crumpled heap, trembling in the cold.

  Everything seemed to have weakened within him.The demon was sucking the light out of his being, forcing him to face the darkest corners of his soul.

  He couldn’t … he couldn’t face it … he couldn’t face the horrors nesting within his mind.

  The smoke from the demon’s horrid form had now swirled around him and enclosed him. The demon’s face was seen painted over the smoke, a cold smile on his lips, his icy blue eyes gleaming.

  “Relish the pain, Ion … because pain is where you belong.”

  And the world faded again. And now Ion was staring at the poster, unable to face the truth, of what he had become…

  Ion was reliving it. The worst, possible memory.

  The poster … The creature in the poster, seeing it for the first time with newly opened eyes. And the pain scorched his soul whole…

  Ion’s eyes flew open in the real world, as he shook uncontrollably on the frigid ground beneath. The swirling, pale blue smoke raced around him in a speeding ring, and through it, he could see the outline of the demon.

  Ion felt his lungs squeeze as everything gushed back. The guilt. The regret. And lastly, the fear. Fear of the past.

 

  Fear of himself…

  And suddenly, everything had dissolved again. And now, through the endless blackness, Ion heard a howl of laughter … a laughter that had tortured his being for two years now … And the creature with the glowing red eyes and the pale skin was standing before him, the creature from the poster. The thing that Ion had been outrunning forever now … and he had now caught up with him. His past had caught up with him.

  “No,” Ion felt himself sink to his knees in the endless chasm, his hands clutching his head. “You’re gone … I’m no longer you …”

  “I am forever a part of you,” said the creature, bending forward, his lips pulled back in a terrible leer. “And you, forever a part of me.”

  “Make it stop…” he moaned, as he tossed about the floor, all the pain he had ever felt in his life seizing him whole.

  Frost stood before him amidst the swirling fumes, relishing the agony that he caused to gush up in the boy … connecting with, and re awakening the demons of his own soul.

  As he tapped into the boy’s mind, stirring the pain harbouring inside of it, frost felt a savage glee like nothing. One no other victim of his torture had ever presented him with…

  I like you, boy. he thought ruthlessly, as Ion thrashed on the floor before him, amidst the swirling fumes. There is more darkness within you than most others I’ve tortured, and the shadows of your mind draw me…

  He battered at Ion with a vicious relentlessness, causing him to cover his face and toss about on the floor. This was the reason frost existed. To kill. And slowly. This was what he did best. He forced his victims to drown in the dark sides of their own selves, and watched them die slowly. Painfully.

  The fumes from his own form spun around the entire place rapidly, drenching it in a pale blue haze.

  Two other unconscious Nyon lay in the room. But Frost had little interest in them: he could sense the outlines of their beings and knew that they had very less pain to offer him. The real feast was the red haired boy lying before him now … Frost relished every drop of the agony he cause
d in him. Soon, he would be scoured of life completely … And when frost was done with him, the other two would join him as well. The first three casualties of his volcanic wrath, pent up across eight thousand years of waiting…

  “What do you think you’re doing?” came an unfazed voice from behind him.

  Jolted, frost spun around.

  Amidst the swirling smoke, he could see that the double doors to the hall had been thrown open behind him. And standing there calmly was Mantra.

  Frost tilted his head slightly, letting a few seconds pass.

  Mantra … the same Mantra he had known eight thousand years back. The one who had been responsible for their fall eight thousand years back.

  Frost allowed his features to gleam in a smile. The savage thrill that he was now feeling burned stronger.

  “I’m slaughtering,” he said, gesturing to Ion, who stirred feebly on the ground before him. “As I slaughtered thousands…” His smile pulling longer mildly, he turned back and raised his hands slowly. “And as I shall now slaughter you.”

  As he prepared to burst a torrent of ice onto the short man before him, the space between the two of them was suddenly lit in a dazzling orange flare. The force of it knocked frost off his feet, sending him flying across and smashing into the opposite wall. As he bounced off the wall and righted himself, his eyes widened.

  “There will be only one slaughter,” said Nano, his fiery outline dispelling the gloom and chill that had immersed the inside of the large hall. “And it will be you.”

  Mantra slowly sidled up by the side of the leader of the watchmen. And as the pale blue smoke slowly faded, leaving clarity to flow through again, frost’s gaze wandered out the door behind where Mantra and Nano stood…

  And spread outside, were a thousand distasteful, familiar figures.

  “Watchmen.” Frost hissed, feeling his fists tighten.

  He looked at Mantra and said, “Mark my words, this isn’t over.” He glanced down at Ion. “Don’t worry, we’ll meet again, Ion.”

  And with that, he exploded into a cloud of pale blue smoke, fleeing for his life.

  2

  Dusk was falling over the sky, which was turning mild red. The sun lay half sunken beneath the horizon, a crimson glow upon the sky around it. Mantra stood watching from inside the building where the tablet had been. The breathtaking awe of the scene slipped right past his mind, which was in the grip of worries … or one particular worry. Which outweighed any other he had experienced his whole life.

  The Xeni have the crystal.

  But that wasn’t all. Far from it.

  And … Valicros, the most powerful tablet. Mantra had, in his eight thousand years, never felt a crushing hopelessness as he was feeling now. But he wrestled his mind off it, knowing that if there was ever a time that desperately needed them to keep their mind steeled, it was now…

  Outside, spread over the large city, stood the army of watchmen, all of them calmly waiting for their next course of action. Which would go on to be their most crucial course of action.

  He turned and walked back to the inside of the large hall. Nano and Dantox were both inside with their arms folded. Vestra and Qyro had awoken, and were sitting with their backs against the walls across the place. A look of dull helplessness had settled over both their faces.

  And by the side of the double door in front, lying in a small heap, was Ion. His eyelids fluttered as he stirred feebly, slowly waking from his semi conscious state. Mantra felt a stab of pity for what he was well aware the boy had just faced…

  Frost, like all demons, had the capacity to inflict torture like no other on his victims … mental torture. And this was the deadliest mode of torture, which left no visible marks.

  “He’s all right, right?” Qyro asked Mantra as he saw him enter the room. Both him and Vestra were looking at where Ion lay, stirring slightly and groaning.

  “He’ll be fine.” Mantra said, watching the boy. He looked to come around soon. “Ion’s suffered much, and Frost tortured him by making him drown in the agony of his own suffering. If I hadn’t arrived in time, we would have been dead. Because that’s how a demon kills a person … by torturing them not physically, but mentally. And reliving the dark sides of your own self will kill you faster than any other method.”

  Vestra’s eyes lingered for a moment over where Ion lay, before she forcefully looked away.

  “So you found the second bomb?” asked Qyro, his gaze shifting between Mantra and Dantox, who stood feet from him. “You saved the planet, did you?”

  “No, we didn’t.” answered Mantra. “The planet’s destroyed.”

  “While the two of you were lying here unconscious, Zardin had apparently set the bomb off early.” Dantox revealed.

  Qyro and Vestra looked at him in shock.

 

  “And you guys weren’t in the planet when it went off?” Qyro asked. “Did you decide to abandon it?”

  “No we didn’t.” Mantra shook his head. “The planet was destroyed, but no one in it was killed.”

  Qyro and Vestra exchanged a confused glance.

  “We realised that there was very little hope of finding the bomb in time.” Mantra said. “And with that realisation came a new avenue.”

  “Fernox is a planet with very scarce population,” explained Dantox. “As most of the planets of the outer spectrum are. When we got to the planet, we were shocked to have discovered that there were only about four villages inhabited by people. A total of less than one million population.”

  “So we understood that our job wasn’t finding the bomb anymore,” said Mantra. “It was just saving the people. And that was far easier. We just rang an alert to them, that their planet had been one of the ten chosen, and that the bomb would go off in another fifteen minutes. And as soon as we did … they all scurried like rats before a cat. Not all of them had transport. But those who did have ships or hover cars accommodated the ones that didn’t.”

  “We left along with them,” said Nano. “And just in time … not a couple minutes later, the planet was no more.”

  “What about the rest of the bombs?” asked Qyro, his eyes wandering outside the building, where the entire army of watchmen stood about, awaiting them. “The entire army’s back here.”

  Mantra fixed her with a pained look. “They won’t go off.”

  “The Xeni’s have found everything they wanted.” Nano spoke in a subdued tone, his fiery outline seeming to dim very faintly. “And there is nothing more they need to take from the world.

  “What do you mean?” asked Qyro.

  “They had two goals up till now, both aimed at releasing the demon army.” explained Mantra. “The first was setting the anarchy levels loose to the highest level possible. And the second, was procuring the crystal. And now, they have had both these things accomplished. They won’t be needing anything more for what they’ve worked for.”

  Vestra frowned. “But the anarchy level -”

  “They had threatened to blow off ten bombs, to consume the world in anarchy.” said Dantox. “But blowing off four has been more than enough to achieve that: as of this moment, the entire spectrum is gripped by an unravelled chaos. Confusion and panic’s swept through them.”

  “And they have got the crystal.” said Nano. “Their victory has been sealed. The world is now theirs anyway. The destruction of more planets would hold no more charm for them, now that those planets are theirs anyway. When they release the demon army soon, the entire spectrum would fall to their command.”

  The air seemed to strain as the effect of his words slowly sank into it. An emerging, new darkness seemed to eclipse everything…

  “The priest,” said Qyro, suddenly remembering. “He was -”

  “I know,” cut across Mantra. “I heard everything from Nalzes, the real Nalzes. He had been attacked by Zardin, who had taken his disguise to use it to deceive us. He just came around some time back, and got the incident across to me. But by then it was too
late. When I arrived here, Valicros was gone. Zardin took it.” And now, the very worst has come to pass.

  Vestra and Qyro exchanged a startled look.

  “Valicros?” gasped Qyro, turning to centre of the large room, where they had found the tablet. “That tablet was…”

  “Yes it was.” said Mantra flatly. “There was much that I had to hide, and much of history that I needed to twist for the greater good … and the continued existence of the most powerful tablet was the foremost among them.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Vestra, the shock unfaded from her voice.

  Mantra took in a deep breath, before explaining:

  “Valicros had to be kept off the Xeni’s reach. After their evil empire fell eight millennia back, they were not completely gone: they had just gone into hiding, and they would return one day and that I knew. And when they did, they would look for the most powerful tablet to release the demon army with. I had to protect that from happening. And so,” He gazed at the centre of the room, where the most powerful tablet had been kept hidden for millennia. “I hid the tablet here, in complete secrecy, far from the reaches and the ears of the Xeni. But I knew it wasn’t enough: the Xeni would search for the tablet. And so, over the millennia, I spread the message that Valicros had been destroyed after Redgarn’s fall, among all mystics whom I fell to converse with. The deception would have worked, if Redgarn himself had not unexpectedly returned.”