Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2) (15 page)

Bolswaithe had made sure that Thomas learned about Uluru and Kata Tjuta in the week before their trip around the world. Although he had not mentioned or even hinted that it was their final destination, afraid that somehow the Warmaster was reading his mind, Bolswaithe had explained the rock formations thoroughly in one of his classes.

Made up of the same granite-like material as Uluru, Kata Tjuta was a collection of thirty-six domes in Central Australia, and, like Uluru, Kata Tjuta was a sacred place among the Indigenous Australians. Many dreamtime legends originated from these two sacred sites, and Thomas remembered what Tony and Elise had said about Fauns inspiring humans. He was sure that the halls he had visited could surely inspire dreams, and nightmares too.

They entered a large elliptical hall; it was dark except for beams of light that pinpointed specific areas on the columns.

“This first Hall is the one we are filling right now,” Mrs. Pianova said. “This is why Mar-Safi was angry with you.”

“What do you mean by ‘filling right now,’ Mrs. Pianova?” Thomas asked. He noticed that the columns in this hall seemed exactly as the others.

“Take a look at one of the columns and read it,” she said. “Any will do.”

Thomas walked among the columns until, without any real reason, he centered his gaze on one. The pinpoint of light moved to where he was watching, illuminating the symbols etched on the surface.

His Cypher abilities took over.

He began to read a story of the Cenfu Clan, great birds of the Northern seas. It was a story designed to be told to young ones about the virtues of patience and self-control.

He read on, his eyes jumping from line to line as he walked around the column. The stories told of their beliefs, tales of heroes and everyday occurrences, food recipes, children’s rhymes, world views, habitat, poetry, and interactions with other clans. Most of their stories were winsome and of prosperity, with only a couple where the Clan had to punish one of their own for some minor transgressions or worried about a meeting with another Clan.

Then he found concern. An elder of the Clan had passed away with no new Cenfu taking his place in the Clan.  A couple of lines later the concern became alarm as sixteen Cenfu had died, some in the prime of their life and still no new Clan members had appeared.

The Clan elders made the decision to travel to their anchor’s species breeding grounds—a mission of assessment. The Cenfu had survived the great Ice Age brought on by the Wraith, and their future had seemed secure. Maybe a Pillar had stirred or another catastrophe had affected the breeding grounds and their anchors needed their help.

Thomas jumped through the lines that followed the expedition, curious to know what they had found.

His heart sank.

The Cenfu explorers had found a massacre. The nesting grounds was not only destroyed, but also despoiled.

By humans.

Great sail ships landed on shore while they bred, taking as many as they could for food and oil, and entire colonies were being killed off at the moment of their greatest vulnerability, when the birds were caring for their young.

The explorers returned and found that another thirty-seven clanmates had died without anyone to replace them.

Thomas skipped the next lines, the descriptions of the massacres too much for him to endure. The Cenfu couldn't directly fight the humans, if the humans knew of the fauns existence they would risk the future of all Clans.

The Cenfu reached an accord with the Sarau Clan to help both anchor species share a breeding ground in a remote island. The Cenfu were larger than the Sarau, and the Sarau could fly while the Cenfu were great swimmers. Both were escaping from the humans who were decimating their colonies.

The Cenfu Clan numbered less than forty at that time.

He skipped the descriptions of the failed attempts at securing a protected breeding ground as humans followed them wherever they went. While their numbers dwindled, human inventions became better and better.

With tears in his eyes he reached the last line.

There was no future for the Cenfu, their line was spent, their story over, the last clan member perished on a Sarau settlement without ever finishing their story. The Sarau had been tasked with inscribing her fate on this column.

“You understand now why they hate us?” Mrs. Pianova asked.

“The Cenfu Clan...” he said.

“The Great Auk,” Mrs. Pianova told him. “Humans called it the ‘Penguins of the North’ because they couldn't fly. The last one was killed in 1844 in Iceland. We call the Sarau Clan, ‘puffins,’ and thankfully they are still around.”

“But this column,” Thomas cleaned his eyes, “there’s so many more.” He looked at the others in the room. “Can’t we do anything to stop it?”

“We are,” she said, “but it’s all undecided yet, and we are not the only cause for extinctions. You have to see this, Thomas, follow me.”

She went through the Hall, and Thomas kept his gaze on her back the whole time. He didn’t want to accidentally read any more stories in that room. “It is the way of life for species to appear and disappear naturally. Not all species go out violently. But when they do...”

The next Hall was three times the size of the one they’d just come from, and hundreds of thousands of columns filled it. Very few of the columns rose in perfect order—most of them were cracked, strewn on the floor, or destroyed as if by a huge hammer. Some of the pinpoints of light were over the top of the columns, but most wandered around the hall, searching for columns where only rubble remained.

“This Hall marks a war raged on Earth about sixty-five million years ago,” Mrs. Pianova told him. “More than seventy percent of all species were wiped out during that war. Do you know what I'm talking about?”

Thomas had heard that number before, in school and in movies. “That's when the dinosaurs were killed, isn't it?”

“Yes, Thomas. Scientists call it the ‘K-T Event.’ Fauns call it the ‘Shadow War.’”

“They fought the Wraith?”

“Oh yes they did,” Mrs. Pianova told him. “Can you imagine? Waking up in the morning to a day like any other, then a thunderous explosion, a wave of fire and ash. Whole continents reduced to cinder and the world shrouded in smog and darkness that won't let the sun shine for a decade. And on top of it, the Wraith pouring in from the shadows, killing whoever survived the cataclysm they had brought down from the heavens.” Mrs. Pianova encompassed the Hall with her hand, “Life won in the end, but at the terrible cost you see in this Hall. The Wraith were expelled. Life bounced back.”

She tapped him on the shoulder. “This wasn't the first time the Wraith tried to take back the planet, and it won't be the last. The Wraith are moving, Thomas, and now they have a great General to lead their armies.”

“Tasha…” Thomas said as it dawned on him. Tasha hadn't just been perverted by the Wraith's power; she had
wanted
to become one, to lead them in the next war against life.

She had become the Wraiths’ greatest asset in Ormagra, and he had made it possible.

The thought of him giving Tasha to the Wraith was overwhelming, because he had placed all life in danger.

His hands began to shake. His brain filled with all the information he had gathered about the Wraith and Tasha and the anger the Fauns felt against humans, the impotence of those Clans that had already died off.

It was overwhelming and he panicked. “I shouldn't be here,” he repeated over and over again. “I shouldn't
know
all this!” He was shutting down.

“Thomas! Look at me!” Mrs. Pianova grabbed his shoulders, and when he resisted she held him forcefully by the cheeks. “I brought you here. I wanted you to
see
all this, to
understand
.”

“I just came to know more about my parents!” He tore away from her grasp. “I just wanted to talk with Mneme!”

“And you have, Thomas,” she said, allowing him space. “But this...” she pointed at the Hall “this, can happen again. This time to us. To humanity.”

“Why are you showing me this?” he yelled at her.

“Because the Wraith can’t beat human technology, but technology is beginning to fail because the Oracle is on Earth and the Pillars are stirring. It is a knot, Thomas!” she said. “And you can unravel it to our favor by finding the
Book of Concord
. But you need to focus on finding it.”

“I need to find my parents!” Thomas yelled again.

“Thomas,” Mrs. Pianova said in a calm voice. “If you abandon the
Book of Concord
to search for your parents then Morgan will get it. Magic will be dominant and the Wraith will gain strength. You might find them only to lose them to the Wraith.”

“That’s so unfair.” Thomas looked at her with tears of rage.

“I know. I promised you that I would do anything in my power to see you succeed, Thomas. Even against your wishes, I’m sorry.”

Thomas turned his back toward her and walked away.

“Thomas! You know why Mar-Safi was so angry at you?” Mrs. Pianova yelled, and Thomas stopped, but he didn’t look back at her. “Mar-Safi is the last of the Oryx,” she said. “She came to end the story of her Clan, the Belethi. She’s given up and was ready to die today, but you stopped her. If you hadn’t, her column would’ve joined that of the Cenfu Clan.”

He crossed the Halls by himself, and none of the fauns even tried to talk to him. He reached the exit of the Halls and stepped into the dessert where Tony, Bolswaithe, and Elise were waiting for him.

“How was it?” Tony asked, but Thomas just raised a hand and walked past him.

They quietly fell in line behind him.

Hoormel Kian

“I’m beat.” Tony yawned as they entered the Mansion. “I’m taking a hot shower, then to bed.”

“Second the motion.” Elise seemed even more tired than Tony. Her hair was disheveled, and there was a purple rim around her eyes.

Thomas kept quiet. The things Mrs. Pianova had showed him still played out in his mind. It was too much to learn in so little time, and she had placed so much on his shoulders that he felt like he was about to break.

“Hold on, I think there’s trouble.” Bolswaithe stopped them from going to their separate rooms. Cuthbert was walking as fast as he could toward them without breaking into a run.

“It’s good that you arrived,” Cuthbert said as he passed in front of them without breaking his stride. “Follow me.”

He led them through a corridor where Mansion guards were stationed along the walls.

“What’s happening?” Thomas asked.

Cuthbert slowed his pace. “There’s a Faun delegation with Doctor Franco in one of the conference rooms. They are demanding your presence.”

“Can’t you, like…schedule an appointment? Tell them we’re out?” Tony said.

“They’ve been here for the last four hours, Mr. Della Francesca,” Cuthbert said. “And they won’t leave until you meet them.”

“I thought I was a secret!” Thomas looked over at Bolswaithe. “Why the change in plans?” Stage fright struck him.

“We tried to keep your existence a secret as long as we could,” Bolswaithe explained. “It seems that the genie is out from the bottle.”

“We are going to have to re-schedule... ” Thomas said, right on the edge of a panic attack. Since becoming a Guardian, he had had to learn everything at an accelerated pace, from the founding of the company, and its goals and relations to the Magical and non-magical world. Seven thousand years’ worth of history was just too much to assimilate in so little time. Mrs. Pianova and Elise had just begun to show him the intricate world of the Fauns, making sure that he understood completely that the only thing holding an all-out war between them and humanity was the Guardians.

Mrs. Pianova had told him many times that above all, Fauns valued respect, tradition, and protocol. They even used a special language for their interactions —“Old Form” speech. Each word conveyed a specific meaning, each inflection was important. Guardian linguists adapted and updated Old Form English and every other spoken language every year because the common Old Form language Fauns used between the tribes was just too complicated to learn.

In a show of diplomacy to their hosts The League of Nations tribes used English in their meetings, but even so, Thomas was supposed to learn how to use Old Form and be fluent.

Of course, he was neither, and the language was just one of the things he had to learn about the Fauns. He played in his mind his screw up with Minister Idar. He had just been one faun...how many more were waiting for him behind that door?

“But I'm not ready to meet them!” Thomas told Cuthbert. He looked at Bolswaithe for support but Bolswaithe shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess you need to get ready now, sir.” Cuthbert stopped in front of a door where two guards stood on each side, weapons at the ready. “They are quite riled up. Wait until I announce you.”

Cuthbert opened the door and heated voices and growls reached them from the inside. Elise leaned over and pecked Thomas on the cheek. “For luck,” she said.

Like magic, his attention was drawn from the room to his cheek. He looked at Elise, dumbfounded, but she was already prepping herself to enter the room.

Yes, she was a little grumpy, she was also rigorous and at least ten more adjectives Tony and he had tossed around between themselves one day she had been especially...
severe
with them.

But she was also very, very pretty.

He was looking at her nose and realizing for the first time just how perfect it was when three loud bangs slammed on the floor and the room fell silent.

“Thomas Byrne and teammates,” Cuthbert announced. Thomas heard murmuring coming from inside the room, and he swallowed a lump in his throat.

The little peck had at least diverted his attention for a couple of seconds.

“Go on.” Tony gave him a little push.

When Thomas entered the room, he was surprised at the large and spacious meeting hall. It reminded him of Carlsbad junior high school’s theater. A hundred or so Fauns were seated in semicircular rows in front of an auditorium where Doctor Franco, Killjoy, and three of Guardians Inc.’s high-ranked officials were seated behind a table.