The Guardians' Pendants (The Zor Chronicles Part I) (6 page)

“
What do you mean?” Ikani
questioned.

Kaho hesitated. “We may have undergone
physical changes; and yes, we may have all experienced the same
visions of being declared Veha by X – whoever she really is – but
we cannot afford to jump to such simple conclusions at this
time.”

Enoke nodded. “Kaho’s got a point,” he
piped up. “After all, even if those visions were real, then we’ve
got quite a task on our hands right now of, well, doing what she
said.”

“
Protecting Paradius from
impending danger,” Ikani murmured.

Enoke nodded.

“
And how do you suppose we
do that?” Lanaru retorted. “After all that walking that X put us
through – not to mention warding off a Shadowed Spirit – some tips
as to what we do next would have been nice.”

“
Lanaru!” Kaho
snapped.

“
Hey!” the Mara protested.
“I was only saying I’d rather not go into this blind! And besides,
who put you first in command, sister?”

“
I’m not commanding
anybody,” Kaho replied defensively. “But judging by your
complaining, I would have thought you’d have wanted some sense of
leadership amongst us,” she pointed out.

Lanaru frowned, but decided not to
argue. He said nothing more.

Ikani hesitated for a moment, glancing
around at the others before speaking. “Were you all shown the same
things that X showed me?” he asked finally. “Before leaving the
Spirit Realm?”

The other Veha all shook their
heads.

“
What’s the miner on to
now?” Lanaru asked curtly.

“
She showed me the Hub –
it was destroyed,” Ikani recalled somberly. “I was standing atop
the Tavar Tower, looking over the city in ruins.”

“
The Hub?” Kaho asked
worriedly. “Could it have been a vision of the future, perhaps?”
she hesitated. “A vision of the darkness to come?”

“
I don’t know,” Ikani
replied restlessly. “But Veha Oren was there, too.”

“
Oren?” Enoke asked.
“What’s he got to do with all of this?”

“
He must still be alive!”
Ikani insisted. “somewhere; and if we’re going to have any hope of
saving Paradius from whatever dangers await us, we
must
find him before
it’s too late!”

“
Ikani…” Kaho began, her
tone concerned, though she said nothing more.

“
I guess what Kaho’s
trying to say is that using visions as your sense of directions is
never a good way to navigate your problems – no matter where those
visions might have come from.”

“
Then what good is any of
this?” Ikani protested. “Didn’t we all just experience the same
vision together; were we not just brought to some Spirit Realm and
– well, is it that you don’t believe me because
I’m
the only one who saw it?” he
argued.

“
It’s not that, Ikani,”
Kaho insisted. “It’s just that, well,” she paused, gathering her
thoughts. “Whatever is going on right now, I think the best thing
that we can do is to consult with someone who knows more about what
we’re up against. I say that we pay a visit to Tavar Nuraka; he
should know what to do.”

Lanaru and Enoke nodded in agreement.
Ikani hesitated, but soon came to agree as well.

“
And if he intends for us
to search for Oren, then we shall do so. Regardless, it is of
utmost importance to notify him of the shadows that might be fast
approaching so that we can all prepare to keep the them at
bay.”

The Veha all turned now, looking out
over the barren Af’Lagi desert landscape before them. Somewhere out
there, beyond miles of rocks and crumbling ground was the Central
Island, their destination.

“
Looks like we’re bound
for the Hub,” Lanaru stated, turning his focus to the distant skies
beyond the rocky mountains.

Chapter VI – The
Pit

High atop the Tavar Tower stood
Remula, his attention focused outwards upon the sweeping view of
the Five Islands far below.

Even now, the winds of change were
beginning to blow. It had been eighteen long years since he had
last stood, watching over the Hub City and the Satellite Islands in
the distance, and while part of him came under the impression that
it felt like just yesterday that he had last been here, another
half of his consciousness was occupied by contradicting thoughts
that had their roots in the fact that nothing about the present day
was reminiscent of what had happened before. Everything had
changed, and things were still changing even now.

From behind came the sound of elevator
doors.

“Chief Remula, sir,” came the voice of
a Hub Security guard.

“What is it?” he asked, looking back
over his shoulder briefly before turning his attention back towards
the view below.

“Both Sirens and Hub Security guards
alike have been deployed to the Satellite Islands as you
commanded,” the guard began. “Their goals have been explained to
them, and all should be going according to plans as we
speak.”

While it was not visible to the guard
who stood behind him, Remula smiled. “Excellent,” he answered
simply, nodding.

***

It had been a long trek through the
Af’Lagi desert to locate a Pod Station, but at last the Veha had
made it; they had arrived in the Hub City.

“
What do you suppose they
will think of us?” Ikani questioned, uncertain as they entered into
the city limits. “The other Zor, I mean.”

“
I’m sure they will all be
left speechless by our unrivaled
brilliance
,” Lanaru boasted. “Chosen
by the Gods themselves, a new squad of Veha Guardians to
-”

“
Oh save your breath,
Lanaru!” Kaho snapped. “Or I’ll see to it that you’ll serve as my
personal punching bag while I test out my
brilliant
Veha-worthy strength,” she
mocked the Mara, who gulped in response.

“
I suppose we’ll just have
to wait and see then, sister,” Lanaru replied, relaxed again,
offering a wink that was not returned in any way.

They had entered now into the heart of
the city. Blue-white Hub Zor were busy about the surrounding
streets, working odd jobs as shopkeepers and as aides to
Af’Lagi-imported architects and builders who were busy at work
throughout the expanding city. As the Veha traveled the streets en
route to the Tavar Mafa at the city’s heart, they found themselves
immersed in a sea of surrounding whispers as their appearance had
become known.

“
I’m not really worried
whether they’ve got good things or bad things to say right now,”
Enoke began. “None of that matters right now; I just hope we won’t
have to work alongside
them
,” he grimaced, signaling
towards the cloaked and hooded figures that seemed to be positioned
at just about every street corner as they drew closer towards the
central square.

They were Sirens; bearing a striking
resemblance to the Zor in their build, save for their cold gray
skin and abilities in flight. Their inability to speak the Zor
language further separated them from their brethren species. Once
seen solely as an enemy to the Zor of Paradius due to their icy
disposition, they were often quarantined to the least populated
areas of the Satellites (there were even noted to be extreme cases
in which they were confined in a branch of the Af’Lagi Vaults that
dealt with dangerous or rare living creatures. In recent years,
however, the idea of training the Sirens to work alongside Paradius
Authority was slowly brought up and later initiated by Remula
during his first tenure as head of the Paradius Security Committee,
though in truth this partnership often more closely represented a
form of servitude in which the Sirens were without much choice in
the matter. The first time around, however, using the Sirens as
guards quickly turned out to be unreliable and on several occasions
were even discovered to be plotting against the Zor members of the
Committee, even with a handful of deaths reported.

“
I know Remula said that
they were better trained this time around, but I swear I’ll never
fully trust those things,” Enoke added bitterly. “They spell
nothing but bad news to me.”

“
Come to think of it, I
don’t see any Hub Zor guards around these parts at all,” Lanaru
remarked.

“
Figures,” Enoke muttered
as they passed through the Tavar Mafa, approaching the
Tower.

“
So what’s the plan from
here?” Lanaru asked.

“
We go inside and ask to
speak to the Tavar,” Kaho declared. “And warn him of the dangers to
come.”

Standing before the Tavar Tower once
again gave a strange sense of déjà-vu to the Veha, who had stood
below the skyscraping structure only one day prior as common Zor,
listening to the induction speech of their new leader. Now, they
were to approach him as near equals – as noble Guardians who would
protect the Tavar and the Zor of the Five Islands from any and all
imminent dangers.

Ikani stepped away from the group and
approached the tall double doors that stood before him, knocking
loudly.

“
Welcome to the Tavar
Tower,”
a familiar robotic voice
sounded.
“Please enter your pass code
using the keypad to your left to unlock doors.”

“
Pass code?” Enoke asked,
annoyed.

“
We haven’t got one,” Kaho
stated.

“
No kidding, sister,”
Lanaru retorted. Kaho frowned.

“
What’s going on over
here?” a voice from behind demanded. A pair of Zor guards native to
the Hub were making their way towards the four, their eyes telling
of suspicion.

“
We need to speak to Tavar
Nuraka immediately,” Kaho replied simply. “It’s urgent.”

“
And why might that be?”
the first guard questioned, scrutinizing them.

“
In Oren’s absence, we
have been chosen as the new Veha Guardians of Paradius,” Ikani
explained. “We have come to warn the Tavar of a great danger that
is on its way.

The second guard gave a slight nod, as
if he at least somewhat understood what Ikani had said. “Just wait
here a moment, all right?” he said. “I’ll be right
back.”

With a quick dancing of his fingers
across they keypad to their left, the double doors slid open and
the guards slipped inside. One of them returned several minutes
later, cracking the door open slightly.

“
The Tavar has agreed to
see you all,” he stated. “Mind you, he’s extremely busy, so try not
to take up too much of his time. Now, if you’ll be so kind as to
follow me, we can get underway.”

“
Of course,” Kaho
answered. “Thank you for seeing us.”

They then slipped inside, entering
into a room that was quite reminiscent of the Vaults of Af’Lagi
(which was not surprising, given the fact that the Tower itself was
built by exported builders from the southern island many years
ago). The dark metallic walls were lit on either side by rows of
dim lights. To their right was a series of elevators, their routes
tracing a maze across the high-reaching far wall. Undoubtedly they
lead to places such as the Authority’s headquarters as well as the
top of the Tower.

“
You’d think we’d get
treated with a bit more respect as Veha!” Lanaru complained under
his breath behind the guard’s back, directed almost solely at
Ikani, who merely nodded, only partially aware of what the former
had said as he focused his attention on where they were
going.

“
The Tavar is waiting for
you beyond these doors. Best of luck to you all,” the guard
declared and, with that, he pulled open the doors that stood before
them.

The four Veha stepped through the
doors, expecting an office setting of some sort – something with an
important and official atmosphere about it. They were shocked,
however, when they found that the doors had opened into a large
underground pit.

“
Where are we?” Kaho
questioned.

“
It beats me,” Enoke
replied, shrugging his shoulders and gazing around at the
rectangular-shaped pit, surrounded by stone walls and complete with
a bed of sand beneath their feet. “It looks like some sort of
training ground,” he figured. “For someone…”

“
Or something,” Lanaru
muttered beneath his breath.

“
Perhaps Tavar Nuraka
plans to train us here!” Ikani exclaimed suddenly. “Yes, of course!
If we are to become fitting of our new title, then we must work for
it!”

“
And work for it you
shall,” came a distant voice. Four heads searched for its source.
Their eyes simultaneously fell upon the enigmatic figure of the new
Tavar, standing above them on a balcony that spanned all around the
ground below. At each of his sides stood a single Siren, their hood
shrouding their faces in such a way that the only trait giving away
their identity was their scaly grey hands that protruded from their
sleeves.

Nuraka turned to one of the Sirens and
quietly in a tongue that was unfamiliar to the others.

“What’s he saying?”
Ikani asked.