Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone (21 page)

"We’ve got one last stronghold, Jonas. We need the Elementis to win this war!" Hawk said.

"How many survivors?" Jonas asked.

"Less than a million, at a push. The Zohr has taken the civilians from the undercity," Hawk warned him.

"Twain’s mother?"

"All of them, kid."

"Get us a transport, we’re going into the caves and then onto Mercron," said Jonas.

"Jonas, the Elementis is your priority," Hawk advised.

"I need to help a friend first!"

"Very well, I'll send you a transport for Mercron. Jonas. Your father. I’m sorry."

"Let’s worry about that later, Hawk. Like you said, the Elementis is my priority now," Jonas said, blocking out the emotions of his father's death.

Twain, Jonas, and his protectors left the junior Guard patrolling the skies and set their fighters down outside the caves of Subterennea. Twain's heart pounded seeing the thick smoke that bellowed out from the burning homes inside. He struggled from the tight straps secured around his chest. Scrambled down the side of his dekapod and ran towards the smoke, sealing his helmet's visor as he ran into it with the press of a button.

Jonas opened his pilots hatch. "Twain, wait!" he called after the boy. Twain was already half-way home, he ran so fast.

Jonas hurried out of his fighter, turning to Spectrum who was just unstrapping. "Stay here! Hawk is sending a transport," he shouted up. Spectrum nodded in agreement, and Jonas ran into the smoke.

Jonas ran out of the opening where Twain and he, had not so long ago, stood admiring a city full of life. There were no longer any recognizable buildings. The tree roots clinging to the ceiling above no longer glistened with the light of flourishing algae and the colourful skin of glowing worms. And it was clear too, that Twain's mother no longer dwelled in peace where Twain had grown from a baby to a boy. The ground smouldered with an evil glow of red heat. Twain removed his helmet, slotting it under his arm. Saying nothing, he stood as still as a corpse. His eyes burned with smoke, his eyes burned with thoughts of his mothers suffering. Jonas released the seal of his helmet, his visor shot up revealing his face, and he placed a comforting arm around Twain where they would stand in silence for as long as the young boy needed.

The floor of the cavern crackled and spat molten flames into the air from explosions of oxygen trapped in the burning woods and metal. The land of burning spirits itself would not look so cruel, Jonas thought. And the Zohr would never stop. He wouldn't stop until every world looked this way, until every being alive lived within his dead soul. Jonas's thoughts were disturbed by a noise behind them, a clanging in one of the caves. It grew louder, closer.

Jonas and Twain turned and raised their blasters, pointing them at the many exit holes from the cave. The noise got louder still.

A familiar voice called out. "It’s me, my serdar, it’s me!" said Lynk as he limped out of the cave.

Twain ran across and hugged his creation. "Lynk!! Am I glad to see you. Where’s mother? Is she alive?"

"They took her," Lynk sighed.

"Where? Was she hurt?" Twain pressed, almost shaking Lynk by the shoulders.

"I do not know, my serdar," he said, ashamed that he couldn't answer.

Jonas stepped over to Twain and placed a hand on his shoulder, looking sincerely into the troubled face of his friend. "We’ll find her Twain, I promise! We’ll find her!"

Chapter XVII

Necrofac

Goldheart gripped his hands around the unfamiliar controls of a dydrid transporter. Everything stunk of the dydrid. Cold to touch, sharp metal finishes everywhere and even the black dash and bright-red data-displays resembled the beastly red eyes of the dydrid emblem. It made him feel sick just to touch anything. The passengers were less wary about the feel of the ship and more worried about what was approaching outside of the windshield. Jonas, Twain, Lynk, Menace, Cortex and Spectrum all glared out of the window, watching Mercron draw closer as the tree tops whizzed beneath the ship.

"It’s way too quiet around here," Cortex noted, seeing no sign of movement.

As clever as Twain was, even he had underestimated the vastness of the Zohr's empire. "I didn’t realise it was so big," he admitted, as he studied the five towers.

One of the red data-displays flashed up on screen. Goldheart fiddled with a few buttons. "We’re being pulled in!" he announced, letting go of the controls.

They watched the smooth silver surface of Mercron consume them as they were sucked in towards the clawed fortress of the damned. A landing bay door slid open half way up the main middle claw. The crew comforted each other with silent smirks, all too aware of the risks that would come once the landing bay door closed behind them. The ship floated inside and settled down with an echoing clunk. The bay was glum and cold and empty. Goldheart released the ships ramp while they armed their weapons and aimed through the gap of the opening door. The ramp clamped to the ground. All was quiet. Spectrum led the group out with his blaster held ready to attack. The others did likewise behind him. The landing bay was empty, no sign of anyone, just an eerie echo of silence filling the height of the hangar.

Jonas lowered his weapon and stood up straight, relaxing from the tension of his attack position. "Goldheart, Menace stay with the ship and keep her ready," he requested. "Everyone else, let's find Calyx and get the hell out of here!"

Jonas, Twain, Lynk, Spectrum and Cortex hurried across the metal deck and through a door leading out to a corridor. The quietness of Mercron heightened their anticipation. Jonas looked both ways, each direction looked the same, one long corridor of darkness.

"I can’t believe they sent every soldier to fight," said Twain.

A voice came from their side. "I can," said Willow, emerging from a shadow. "My grandfather displays far too much confidence."

Jonas stiffened, thinking that it was by no coincidence that Willow had fled from Enterra before it was ransacked. "Willow," he said, greeting her coldly.

"Jonas," she returned, bowing her head a little with an unblinkered stare.

"We’re here for Calyx," Jonas advised.

She pierced through the lenses of his pupils with green eyes that sparkled even in this darkness. "Follow me," she said, turning to walk on. Jonas would have preferred to find his own way but he had little choice. He could either roam the walkways of Mercron for hours trying to find his brother or he could follow the temptress with caution, and hope she would take him to his brother and waste no more precious time. He nodded to the others to follow, but not without keeping a firm finger over the trigger of his blaster as he walked behind her.

Having walked some way and turning several times down replica walkways, Willow broke the uncomfortable silence. "Your father was far more prudent than I gave him credit for, Jonas," she said, turning to look at Jonas for a couple of paces. She turned back to face forward. "Not prudent enough to stay alive, unfortunately," she remarked.

"I thought of you as a friend, Willow," Jonas said.

"You do not trust me, I know," she responded, stopping dead, causing the others to shuffle to a halt. "You have made that very clear!" Willow waved a hand across a sensor, sliding a metal door open.

"Perhaps my helping you might change your mind?" she said, gesturing for Jonas to enter.

"Ladies first," Jonas insisted, heeding the advice of his father and treading with much more caution than he had done so before.

Willow took that as Jonas still not trusting her and she entered the room; Jonas and the others followed inside. Jonas looked around at the lavish quarters. Silk sheets lay softly on a grand, round bed, and deep lounge chairs and a fire-place were decorated with gold trim. The reason for the luxury was all too obvious; the Zohr did nothing from the kindness of his heart, he was trying to win Calyx over. The prince wasn't in the room. A fleeting thought shot through Jonas's mind that Calyx may already have been killed. If the Zohr knew that he had sent Jonas a warning message about the war and knew that Calyx would never join him, he would have had no more use for the boy. Willow moved to the balcony door, which slid open with her approach. She went outside without a word, leaving everyone to wonder whether or not to follow. Jonas and the others looked at each other in counsel. Spectrum shrugged his shoulders and Jonas took his own judgement stepping through the balcony door after her.

Calyx was still alive. He stood facing the forest. The city of his father, and of his people smoked in the distance. The city that he had spent every day of his life learning to protect was now nothing more than burning ash and the ruins of a once glorious civilization.

Calyx did not turn to see who had joined him on his balcony. He knew who had come. "My brother, I have watched our city fall while I could do nothing. Why have you come to me when it is too late?" he said, with a sense of anger.

"We must work together, Calyx. Our father is dead," Jonas told his brother.

Calyx turned to Jonas, brother to brother, face to face, as if looking in a mirror to see himself but not himself. Jonas inspected his brother's silver eyes and ran his own eyes across Calyx's jaw and down to where his birthmark disappeared through the neckline of his shirt.

"And the Elementis?" said Calyx.

Jonas looked back into his brother's eyes, annoyed that his first thought with the news of their father's death was the Elementis.

"The decoy stone was taken, we're here to find out if you know where the real Elementis is," Jonas told him.

"A decoy?" questioned Calyx, looking confused. "Why?" he said, shaking his head.

"We don’t know! Where is the real stone, Calyx? We must find it!" Jonas said.

"We?" Calyx said, turning his head to stare at Spectrum. "Spectrum, you protect him now?"

"It is my duty, Calyx," Spectrum said, bowing his head to his old liege.

"Your duty is to me. I am the firstborn prince, and with my father's death I am the new king," Calyx said, pressing his authority.

"I’m afraid, Prince Calyx, that you can never be our king," said Twain, without mincing his words.

Calyx shot a look to the young boy. "For what reason exactly?" he inquired, with a smile of denial for the remark.

Twain explained how he saw it. "You now have the silver ears, silver eyes, silver heart and silver blood of the dydrid. I expect in time that some cythereans would agree to your crowning as king, but it would cause a civil war. That I am sure of!"

"I agree Calyx. I am sorry, Jonas will be our king," said Spectrum.

Calyx looked across to another of his old protectors. "Cortex?"

"It’s just how it is now, Cal. You can see that," Cortex said to him.

Calyx turned away to look back to Enterra, wondering if this was how all of the people would feel. He had gone from a prince with so much promise to a dydrified soul, outcast because of the colour of his eyes. It wasn't fair, couldn't they all see that. If this was how they felt then this was how they felt, there was nothing Calyx could do to change that. He watched the burning in the distance. Calyx's sudden silence brought an uncomfortable feeling amongst the group.

Willow helped move the discussion forward. "There will be nothing left to be king for if you cannot locate the Elementis. Calyx, you were the heir, you must know where it is!"

"As far as I was concerned our father wore the real stone. I know nothing about a decoy," he sulked, staring out over the forest.

Jonas moved to his brother. He grabbed his shoulder, pulling him round. "You must know!" he said. With the brother's touch, bright-blue rays of light burst from the inside of Jonas's pendant. Jonas released his grip from Calyx's arm, surprised by the light shooting from his chest. The light disappeared.

"So it is a necrofac!" smiled Twain in amazement.

Everyone stared at Twain.

"It's a what?" said Jonas.

"A necrofac. I knew I should have kept it! That’s obviously a good one."

"Twain, what exactly is a necrofac?" asked Jonas, annoyed that he'd never mentioned this before.

"Well, different ones do different things," said Twain, as if everyone knew what a necrofac was. "Like make objects disappear, make things bigger, heat things up, even find things you've lost," said Twain.

"Find things? Like the Elementis?" said Jonas. "Twain you knew about this?"

"Why else would I swap a dekapod for it? But yes, you could try using it to find the Elementis," Twain said, with a youthful smile, unaware that this knowledge would have been useful to Jonas a whole lot sooner.

Jonas was more than a little annoyed with his friend who had once again returned to his title of the stupid genius. Unfortunately, Twain always assumed that because he knew something, everyone else knew it as well. Nonetheless, Jonas wanted to see if what Twain said was true. "How does this necrofac work exactly?" he said, without showing any further annoyance.

"Similar to the Elementis, your brain controls its matter. What you focus on is what it will take you to. If it's the right kind. It takes a strong mind—when you two touched, the power was more than strong enough."

Calyx interrupted. "Give it to me, I’ll try," he said, stepping forward, holding his hand out to Jonas.

"No. I’ll do it if it’s all the same," said Jonas.

"Of course," Calyx said, lowering his hand.

Jonas removed the pendant and rested it on the palm of his hand, sliding the stone lid away from the top to reveal a hollow pendant which looked as unuseful as ever and not even big enough to hold a smoke of tobacco; had a blue light not flashed out of the thing when Jonas touched Calyx he'd have never believed it was anything more than just a simple pendant. Jonas closed his eyes and concentrated with every neuron he could reach. The pendant's hollow began to fill with blue light. The blue intensified, shining into the air, and forming into a floating image of light. The rays formations became clearer. The image was Jonas holding the pendant, standing with Calyx, Willow, Twain, Lynk, Cortex and Spectrum. It was an image of the present.