Child of Time (68 page)

“Kendra, she’s slipping away and I can’t heal her.”
Kiyan’s mother was at his side an instant after his desperate cry
for help. Kendra only paused long enough to find the injury. She
held her hands over the wound that fresh blood still seeped out of.
Kendra’s hands glowed with the effort but the wound didn’t recede
like expected.

“I can’t.” Kendra gathered her strength to again.

“You have to! I never meant for this to happen. Not
to her.” Kiyan felt as if the weight of his decisions were going to
crush him if he lost Terra.

“Get ahold of yourself. No one ever plans for
something like this to happen.” Kendra had failed a second try at
healing Terra. She placed a hand over the wound and a white light
flared for a moment. When she removed her hand there was no longer
any fresh blood seeping out. Kendra had managed to cauterize the
injury. “I don’t know if it is the proximity to the portal or her
body that is preventing me from healing her.”

“She can’t die.” Kiyan sank to his knees with a
haunted expression. “I never wanted her here, I knew I could be
lost here but I didn’t want her to get hurt.” His throat felt like
someone has strangling him. Vision blurred with tears.

“The bleeding is stopped but I can’t do anything
more. I’m sorry.” Kendra’s words barely penetrated the haze that
surrounded Kiyan’s mind. Slowly the only thing that meant anything
in the universe was the feelings that he had never told her about.
How he had felt since he had first seen her. Kiyan could sense her
pulse fading. No matter how much he willed it he couldn’t stop her
life from flickering out. In an instant it was too late. Terra’s
lifeless body lay in front of him. Grief and rage flooded his mind
blocking all else from existence. Suddenly it was all gone replaced
by a burning hatred of the one responsible for all the pain and
hurt that he had ever experienced. In the moment of clarity he
tested his abilities to travel back in time to save Terra and found
that option blocked. Giving in to the desire to destroy the dark
one he looked for other options. The temporal fragment was in a
pouch at his waist and the portal was nearby. Luke knew when it had
all started. There was only one way to undo the damage.

--------

Kendra sensed that there was nothing that she could
do to help Kiyan. She stepped back to let him work through the
emotions that had rendered his mind immune to her attempts at
comforting him. Kendra ached with every mother’s desire to keep
anything from hurting her son. Blue flames began to play over
Kiyan’s features indicating the chaos that consumed him. Suddenly
all was still. He rose to his feet and looked around at the
assembly. His gaze returned to Terra’s body and in a flash he was
gone.

Jeremy’s blue flames flickered for a moment in the
stunned silence before going out like they always did when Kiyan
was too far away. Corban’s golden glow replaced the lost light but
still Kiyan was gone.

“Where did he go?” It was Ray that posed the
question. No one knew the answer so all remained silent. Suddenly
it seemed as if gravity had been switched off. No longer was
everyone held to the floor. It was chaos for a few seconds with
Corban’s flames swirling madly around him. There was no way to tell
what was up or down until impact shattered the stone that encased
them.

Fred shoved the slab of rock off of himself and
dusted his cloths. Addy had been fortunate enough to avoid any of
the debris not that it would have damaged her thick plates. Jeremy
poured out from under a pile of the rubble and reformed himself.
The swirling flames coalesced into Corban and Sapphire. Ray snorted
and shook a few loose pieces off of himself. He had managed to
mostly shift into his dragon form before the impact. He limped a
little but was hardly bruised. Theo and Kendra were likewise
uninjured.

“The portal prevented me from knowing that I had
dropped us through the ceiling of the cavern.” Theo apologized for
the failing.

“Terra is dead and Kiyan is gone with the temporal
fragment. What are we supposed to do now?” Sapphire’s hair still
glowed hotly as she brushed it back over her pointed ears.

“I’m not sure but something feels different here.”
Kendra closed her eyes and held up a hand like she was feeling
invisible barriers. There was a shimmer and she disappeared. The
shimmer appeared again a minute later followed by Kendra’s
appearance.

“So time travel is possible.” Theo observed.

“It feels like the eye of the storm. The portal
energies are disrupting everything around us accept for here in
this cave.” Kendra frowned and looked around them.

“It couldn’t have been that easy.” Theo bent a ball
of fire and launched it up at the cave ceiling high above them. The
orb of light climbed higher until it had reached the top before
arching back down. Briefly the lit cave ceiling outlined an object
suspended in the center. It didn’t reflect light but seemed to
drink it in and remain the epitome of darkness.

“No no, this is wrong.” Theo remained staring at the
spot above them until it was lost from sight. “It isn’t
possible”

“I don’t understand. What is it?” Corban was confused
by Theo’s reaction.

“The portal didn’t come from the dark universe did
it?” Kendra asked.

“He used the energy in this universe to open the
portal.” Theo responded.

“What are you talking about and what does this have
to do with finding Kiyan?” Jeremy was tired of the cryptic
exchange.

Finally seeming to remember the others Theo looked
down. “The dark one opened the portal using the energy from this
universe. Opposites attract. He was able to manipulate the energy
in this universe to create the portal. There is no limit to the
number of portals that he could open. Closing this one would do no
good. He would just open another one. There is no way we could ever
track down and close every single one. There is only one way to
stop it for good.”

“We have to go into the portal and defeat Reigns.
There is no other way to stop him.” Kendra finished where Theo left
off.

“What about Kiyan?” Jeremy pressed his earlier
inquiry.

“There is nothing we can do for him if he went
through the portal now but if he went to the past when the portal
first opened...” Kendra trailed off and began focusing. Theo joined
her and soon the group was encased in shimmering bubble. In what
seemed like only a moment the surroundings outside the bubble
changed. The bubble was gone an instant later. The cave was no
longer cloaked in darkness. Above their heads the portal blazed
like a star. It was spherical in shape and pulsed with light.

“He is already in there!” Theo shouted to Kendra as
he shifted.

“Take care of yourselves. I know not what will result
from our battle.” Kendra finished speaking as she dissolved into
energy. Together she and Theo streaked into the portal leaving the
rest of the group standing in astonishment. Theo was the first to
pass through the portal. What met his eyes was a landscape that he
had long since wanted to forget. The dark world was a place where
the laws that govern the physics of light universes don’t exist.
Matter or the dark equivalent contorted in waves around the portal.
On this landscape Theo saw Kiyan. The young ascended was shining
like a star. Rays of light reached out and slashed at the dark
world around him leaving gashes in the very fabric of the universe.
With Kendra at his side they joined Kiyan in the fray.

“
You were waiting for me to open the portal?”
Reigns sounded incredulous.

“
You should have known that we would find
you.”
Theo combined his attacks with Kiyan’s.

“
Would it have been so hard to accept me as one of
you?”
Reigns taunted.

“
NEVER. You are a monster.”
Kiyan unleashed a
wave of light that destroyed a huge stretch of the planet
surface.

“
Prometheus, your dog has a bite. You let a
mongrel like that ascend but you refuse me the same privilege.
The anger that had been concealed before simmered in Reign’s
words.

“
Never. You stole everything we took from
you.”
Theo sensed an accumulation of dark energy and struck at
it with a vengeance. He sensed it melted away under the
onslaught.

“
Conceited foolish ascended, Always thinking that
you could control everything. When you banished me here I was
forced to become one with this universe to survive. You made me
more powerful than you could ever hope to be and now you try to
destroy me. I will crush you with my power starting with your
mongrel.”
Reigns threatened ominously.

“
Just try. Our son was known as the Star Killer by
your drakken. As for you, I will destroy this entire universe if I
have to be rid of you.”
Theo lanced out with beams of light at
every concentration of dark energy that neared them.

“
Enough! You I will kill last. After you there is
none to oppose my conquest of the core universes.”
Reigns began
the battle in earnest. The group of energy beings were soon
surrounded by darkness as deep as the deepest night. Reigns no
longer had a body to strike at. Only a cloud of energy that was
trying to suffocate them. Light flashed and burnt holes in the
cloud only to have the lost energy replaced with endless
reserves.

Kiyan drew on the temporal fragment and released
supernova like waves of light that shredded Reign’s energy. The
momentary headway only lasted as long as it took for more dark
energy to flow into the void. Kiyan had lost most of the initial
blind rage that had directed him through the portal but he still
only had a single purpose. There was only one way that he knew of
that would return Terra to life and he intended to accomplish that
very thing. Even if he was never to meet her in the alternate
timeline mattered little as long as she lived. To that end Kiyan
blasted away with the potent energy that he extracted from the
temporal fragment.

Kendra understood Kiyan’s purpose. She agreed with
him and marveled at how much power he was able to command. On the
other hand she knew that Reigns was more than a match for the three
of them. She really didn’t see any way that they could survive let
alone achieve victory against Reigns. Her goal was to weaken Reigns
so that he could never again summon another portal. She had no
desire to be sacrificed meaninglessly. By their death she hoped to
save the rest of the people in the known universes.

Like his wife, Theo understood the hopelessness of
their situation. His goals were similar to hers as well. They only
differed in that he wanted to force Kiyan and Kendra through the
portal just prior to sealing himself in. He had been trapped here
once before and had only managed to escape with Kiyan’s help and
the connection that they shared. Last time he had resisted giving
in to the darkness but now Theo saw no other choice. As dark energy
he could spend the rest of time keeping Reigns from escaping. A
warden of sorts. One preventing the other from escaping. Each would
be unable to harm the other until such time as the dark universe
was crushed by the core light universes.

While Theo was trying to figure out how to out how to
trick his wife and son into abandoning him, Kiyan opened the energy
potential of the temporal fragment to his parents. Together they
burned like the suns. The dark planet was burned away and the
darkness was beat back. Their stars were surrounded by the clouds
of darkness that pressed in against the blinding light. It seemed
that they burned for hours before the fragment was depleted. Like a
flood the dark energy surged in on them.

Without the fragment to bolster them they began to
feel the strain of the prolonged battle. Now they battled in close
proximity with the endless darkness that Reigns mustered. On every
side they met the shadows with light. A pocket of light amidst an
ocean of darkness.

Kiyan had to admit now that they were hopelessly out
powered. There was not the faintest hope of victory. Even jumping
back to the beginning could not have changed the outcome of this
fight. It was doomed even before he had passed through the portal.
Even staring defeat in the face and hearing Reign’s mocking, Kiyan
looked back over his life and could find no other path. His last
consolation was that Terra would never have to live under the Dark
One’s control.

Theo was despairing of his plan to save his family.
There had been no chance to force them through the portal. For all
he knew Kiyan had traveled back in time and foiled his plan
already. Looking back now Theo knew that even Kiyan’s gift would
not have mattered against Reigns now. He was simply too
powerful.

Suddenly the shadows took form enough to smash the
orb of light apart. Thrown away from his parents Kiyan was engulfed
in the sea of dark energy. He struggled against the shadows that
burnt him but it was as futile as fighting a storm with a piece of
drift wood. The agony that tore at Kiyan was echoed by the torment
that his parents were also experiencing.

“
Give in to the darkness, together we can rule the
worlds.”
Kiyan felt Reigns insinuating promises of power into
his mind.

“
Never! I will never become a monster like
you.”
At Kiyan’s response the darkness seemed to crush him from
all sides. One last valiant blast was all that Kiyan was capable
of. The shadows were shredding his energy ruthlessly. As his last
strength diminished he felt his consciousness being pulled
apart.

When he thought that he was completely destroyed the
pain stopped. Paralyzed and powerless Kiyan waited for the final
attack. It never came but voices broke into his mind.

“Who would have known? The time vortex would be our
descendant.”

“It exists in all universes.”