The Rising Sun: Episode 6 Read online

  Qyro nodded at Ion as he rose. “About time.”

  Vestra’s gaze darted all over Ion, as if wondering how he was real. “What about the demon?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Mantra said, hearing the hurried tone in his own voice. “But we still are in the middle of the lair of the Xeni, and we should try leaving before it’s too late.”

  And right as he said it, a sudden, heavy thud hit the ground behind them, as though that of a pair of feet landing there.

  As one, the four of them whipped around.

  Redgarn stood across the crater, clutching an ignited sword in his right hand.

  “For the meanest moment,” sneered Redgarn, slowly walking forward with deliberate, slow steps. “You may have deceived yourself into thinking that you were getting to get out of here alive.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, before spitting, “Well, you aren’t.”

  Vestra and Qyro drew their swords and ignited them. The four of them stood there in the wide crater, with Redgarn slowing to them from the other side, his face contorted in focus and rage. Ready to pounce … He stopped ten feet in front of the four of them, his face hungry with malice as it surveyed the four of them slowly.

  Mantra drew his sword last, his white eyes locked with the gleaming red ones of their approaching opponent. He held his sword up by his right hand, and a dazzling orange flash emitted from the blade as he ignited it.

  Redgarn’s eyes flickered to the blade held in Mantra’s hand, before slowly scanning the line of four Nyon. The last four of his long hated enemies. Something seemed to churn within those deadly red eyes, an ocean of rage.

  And then, fast as a furious red blur, he moved … pouncing forward like a lion spotting a deer.

  Even as Ion made to move, desperate, Mantra reacted. He held up his hand in a commanding gesture. And a large solid wall suddenly sprouted from the earth, rising before him. A heavy crash sounded as Redgarn collided over the wall, followed by the sound of his feet stumbling. Cracks could be discerned etching across the wall at the force of his clash. But with a sudden shudder, the wall was ripped off the ground and sent rising into the air. Redgarn stood behind the wall with his hand outstretched, his features blazing with a fury brighter than that of the blade held in his left hand. The wall floated right over his form, and he gave a sideways flick of his outstretched arm. The wall spun to the right, swerved over and came flying forward towards the four Nyon…

  A explosion of pain rent Ion’s comprehension for an agonizing moment, before he realised that the groundless, untethered sensation came due to the fact that he was airborne, flying back as though hit by a crane. He could feel a trickle of blood from the front of his face as he soared over the air and out of the crater. Then, he crashed over the solid earth, having flown more than ten metres or so. A group of heavy, crunching thuds emanating from a few feet around told him that Mantra, Vestra and Qyro had also been blasted backwards by the wall Redgarn had sent soaring at them.

  Ion pushed away the heavy spinning sensation and steadied himself. He slowly levelled his gaze with the other three lying around him to see if they were all right. But his attention instantly snapped towards something else.

  Standing around where the four of them lay were a pack of Xeni spread in a neat circle. There were about fifteen or so of them standing spread around where the three of them lay, all of their hoods drawn … waiting to close in and finish the last of their long hated enemies. The other three caught sight of it as well and as one, the four of them leaped upright, their swords igniting again.

 

  A furious roar caught their attention from somewhere further off. They turned their heads to the crater to see a sweep of red mingled with black shoot out of it, soar over the air, and land in the ground before it. Redgarn righted himself slowly, his murderous gaze pinned over where the four Nyon stood amidst the giant batch of Xeni. He ignited his sword, and slowly held it out before him, pointing at where they stood.

  “Finish them.” he snarled.

  The circle of Xeni pounced in on where the four of them were standing. There was a whirl of black robes, and dazzling orange light. Before Ion knew what had happened, a heavy body had collided with him from in front. One of the Xeni had leaped towards him, ramming his fist so hard into his chest that he felt the breath driven from his lungs. He was thrown into the air, sailing gracefully out of the clutter of black robed figures. As he flew backwards at the force of the Xeni’s punch, he saw Redgarn bound forward into the pack of Xeni engulfing Mantra, Vestra and Qyro from all around.

  A major portion of his hopes for the three of them had died by the time he hit the ground hard, more than ten feet from where the Xeni were battering the three helpless Nyon. The force of his crash landing left pain to rack open his bones. Far ahead of where he lay, he could see Redgarn’s red eyes glowing viciously as he and the other Xeni battered down Mantra, Vestra and Qyro mercilessly.

  As a rage of resolve erupted within him, he swept away all concern he had for himself: forcing away all of the pain, he sprang back to his feet with a stale groan. But just as he made to dash towards them, something caught his left leg from behind, tripping him. He felt both feet lift off the ground as he stumbled forward and hit the ground. Bursting back to his feet, he spun back.

  And there stood Zardin, his right leg which had just tripped Ion, casually outstretched. His cold, eyeless sockets gazed out at Ion from between curtains of dark hair that fell on both sides of his pale face.

  “Why don’t you cast your worries towards something far bigger.” he said, his razor like teeth exposing as he smiled. “Me.”

  Without warning, he gripped the front of Ion’s robes, heaved his body off the ground and hurled it across…

  Ion felt himself split the air as his body soared backwards helplessly, like a pebble tossed across a field. The scene before him seemed to shrink rapidly to his eyes as he flew back. There was a heavy thud, and an explosion of pain ripped apart his back: his body had hit the wall of the cave at its far end, and had smashed right through it. Rubble exploded around him as he flew forth into a new, darker chamber of the cave. He soared on for a few feet, before hitting the earth along with the broken remains of the wall he had crashed through.

  Feeling paralysed, his mind fumbling through the daze, he lay crumpled on the ground, unable to move … Pain rent him whole, as he feebly twitched on the ground.

  And then, sharp as a knife cleaving through butter, the sound reached him…

  A slow, striding pair of footsteps approaching him.

  Fighting down the pain tearing his neck muscles as he craned his head, he looked to the hole he had smashed on the wall … And a figure slowly emerged from outside of it, bending to let himself enter the hole and stride up before him. The darkness in the place was erased as the orange glow of Zardin’s sword reached across it.

  The leer unerased from his horrible face, he slowly strutted up to where Ion lay. Helpless, unable to move, Ion watched the demonic, eyeless man bore down upon him with those horrid, black sockets he had for eyes.

  “Get up, vermin.” he commanded, in the sharp hiss he had for a voice. “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

  Ion felt his features contort with the pain that came with the effort to form words.

  “What … what do you … want with me?”

  Zardin continued to stare down upon him, the dreadful leer unfazed. Then, a soft laugh hummed within his throat. He took a final step forward and bent down on where Ion lay. Ion’s insides seemed to cringe as he watched those blank, eyeless sockets come within the distance of an inch from his own eyes.

  “What do I want with you, Ion?” Zardin asked, so soft it could have passed for a breeze lapping the air. “Let me show you.”

  He gently touched a spot on Ion’s forehead.

  And then, light seemed to shoot through Ion … freezing time itself for the ghastly span of that one moment. That o
ne moment where Zardin’s thoughts reached across to his, and a vision passed from his mind to Ion’s …

  And as that one moment, that one dreadful gap of time, passed … Ion was no longer on the ground. Everything, all of his bodily complaints, had been wiped clean: he had bolted upright, staggering back, eyes widened as he stared at the man before him …

  This can’t be. He thought, feeling a void of shock and horror erase everything he knew. This can’t be…

  Zardin shook his head, the leer slowly morphing into a warm, sweet smile. “Now you know … what I want with you.”

  Ion did. He knew…

  The pale faced, eyeless creature standing before him, was not at all what he seemed to be. What Ion had thought him to be … He had been something entirely different … He had had a completely normal life. With a completely normal name. A name which Ion had known all his life.

  “Eol?”

  22

  This can’t be…

  Ion was staggering back, feeling an unnatural stillness grip the entire world, and him along with it. Time had gone still, and nothing at all was left to move within the space of that one, thundering moment.

  Zardin continued to stand in front of him, the smile loosely hinged over his lips, finding relish in Ion’s horror.

  Ion reached for something to steady himself, but in the darkness, nothing found his hand as he held it out. The very realm as he had known it seemed to have been tossed over.

  “Now you know.” Zardin said, his voice filling the space between them as a mere, shrill hiss. “Now you know why I say … we are the same.”

  “No.” Ion moaned, shaking his head as he gaped at the creature before him. “This can’t be…”

  “It is.” hissed Zardin, spreading his hands in a loving gesture. “What a beautiful re union we’ve found for ourselves, beloved twin brother?”

  Ion’s mind was reeling at what had just happened, and a century seemed to have elapsed since a second ago, when he had been shown the truth.

  “You’re not my brother,” he shook his head. “You’re not Eol … You’re a monster.”

  Zardin’s smile slowly stretched longer. “I said the very same thing two years back. Remember? The very same thing.” He threw his head back and let a maniacal ring of laughter fill the place. “And maybe we were right after all, more about ourselves than about each other.”

  He slowly took a step forward, his pale features looming to better clarity out of the darkness. “After you left me there, in that desert, I didn’t leave. My consciousness was tethered to the world. I didn’t leave, I couldn’t leave. Because I now saw the truth. The truth in our world, which you showed me that day.” His voice lowered. “That there is no light in life.”

  The shadow of old grief crossed his face. “My entire life had been a struggle, Ion. you never could imagine it.”

  “What do you mean?” Ion wasn’t surprised to hear his voice doused to a bleak whisper. He hardly sounded like himself.

  “I had been a mystic, and I knew it right from our childhood together.” said Zardin. “I had discovered my powers. But I kept it secret. I discovered it even before you had discovered yours. And all through, it was pain beyond all else. Because I knew that my being a mystic was going to put my entire family in danger. And so, I kept it completely secret from all of you. I endured it to protect you and our parents. But it wasn’t to be. That day, the Naxim arrived in our village not for you … but for me. They had detected my powers, and had arrived in the village. You were just a bonus. It was me, Ion … I was responsible for the tragic fate that had befallen our parents and our family. The fact that I was a mystic, led to it. And that knowledge, dear brother … was what gave me hell. It wasn’t the torture they put me through. That was infinitesimal. The real torture was knowing that I was the reason my lay shattered. I couldn’t live with the guilt, knowing that because of me, the three of you were made to suffer more than you deserved.”

  He took another step forward. “But I had to redeem myself for it. And so, I broke out. There had been a graveyard close to ours and from it, I had found another wrecked, demolished body to replace mine’s, so that the officers thought I had died through self inflicted wounds. And they did, and didn’t bother returning the body to our village. After freeing myself, I became a crime fighter to redeem the loss our family had endured. Because Marion and Selia had believed that the two of us were destined for greatness, hadn’t they? And they had to be proved right.” His razor sharp teeth clenched in fury. “But you shattered everything. When I saw that poster, with your face in it, I knew what I had to do. I had to kill you. Because you were an insult to what our parents were trying to make of us.”

  Ion was hearing all of it, but it seemed to trickle right through his grasp like water. It couldn’t be … because if it was, then there was nothing right in the world anymore. Eol, the noble hearted boy he had known for a brother … turning into this creature now standing before him.

  “You destroyed our parents’ beliefs,” went on Zardin, a fury within every syllable. “And for that, I needed to punish you. I had to. But you got there first, didn’t you? You best me. And as I lay there, Ion, dying in your arms, I saw it. I saw the truth … the truth which you showed me that day. That the only true goodness in the world … is pain. Because all of my noble deeds brought me nothing but pain, Ion. And at the end of it all, I saw it. I saw that pain was the only constant, the only truth in this world, and to truly live our parents’ beliefs, I had to make this world brim with it. And so, my consciousness lay tethered to the world, desperate to avenge myself. And that was when Redgarn found me. He trained me, and used his dark powers to re heal my body. I had lost my eyes by then, but he had given me a far more deadly vision. And then, the two of us, together, fulfilled long awaited destiny … Tonight, the world will see goodness. The greatest possible goodness. And it is pain.”

  “No,” Ion whispered, shaking his head. “Eol … how could you?”

  “Our parents were right after all, Ion.” said Zardin, with a new excited spark kindling in his voice as he slowly stepped forward towards Ion. “Marion and Selia were right after all! We were destined for greatness. Both of us … we have changed the world! Just standing on opposite sides, that’s all.”

  Ion didn’t know what to say. He hardly knew what was real anymore…

  “Eol … goodness, Eol, what have I done to you?”

  “You set me free, brother.” Zardin said, spreading his hands. “You showed me the truth.” His voice now rose to his usual cold tone. “Now … it’s time to finish what we started two years back.”

  And he held up his sword.

  Ion eyed the sword he held for a moment that seemed to span an eternity. Then, raising his eyes, he met those cold, blank sockets. “Eol, don’t do this … please, come back. We’re family.”

  “You tried to kill me two years back, brother,” said Zardin, his sword unlowering. “Now, it’s time to finish the job.”

  “Don’t do this.” Ion moaned, feeling suffocation squeeze his breath out of him. “We can set everything right.”

  “Everything already has been set right.” And with that, Zardin lunged again.

  Hating every bit of him as he did it, Ion ignited his sword and leapt back. Their swords met with a loud cling. They stood there, the burning orange eyes locked with the blank, eyeless sockets…

  __________

  Meanwhile, back in the main portion of the cave, a battle drilled between Mantra, Vestra and Qyro, and a large pack of ten or so Xeni. A horribly tilted battle … and its outcome wouldn’t be hard to predict at all, to any layman.

  Mantra was assailed mercilessly by a bunch of five Xeni, with Redgarn in their lead.

  Vestra seemed to flick from spot to spot, her speed driven to uncanny heights as she struggled not to fall to the swords of a bunch of the cloaked men surrounding her.

  Qyro’s red furred face was contorted in focus as he swung about madly, his sword blockin
g and parrying four others’, all of them as swift as the wind…

  It was very unlikely that either of the three would be able to last long. And they themselves were well aware of it.

  23

  As Zardin launched himself over his twin brother a third time, their swords banged in a blast of sparks. In that splinter of a moment, Ion’s mind drew back to the last duel the two of them had shared. And his heartrate soared in panic. But he felt a sickened sensation many times more powerful than the panic, and it came from the realisation that that had been his brother, Eol, who had crossed swords with him at the temple. His brother…

  Zardin stepped to the side and, in the span of an instant, sent three deadly slashes across the air, which Ion parried with only a mini second’s grace each.

  Without waiting, Zardin leapt forward, his sword thrust forward in a wild jab. Ion’s sword swiped across the air, and a burst of orange sparks occurred where their swords met.

  “Now you know why I tried to get you to join us.” said Zardin, his razor sharp teeth exposed in a grim smile. “But you refused, didn’t you. I knew you would, I just wanted hard proof of it, before I could kill you with all the pleasure I knew. And now, kill you, I will.” And with a shriek of fury, he pounced again.