The Mirage on the Brink of Oblivion (The Epic of Aravinda Book 3) (20 page)

“Take it easy!” One of the guards yelled. “Don’t make any irrational movements. We will comply.”

“Don’t listen to her!” The Empress screamed. “She doesn’t—”

Asha closed her eyes for a moment, using the last of her energy to make the sphere even thicker. She looked up to the guard holding Oonak.

“LET HIM GO!” Asha barked.

The guard diminished slightly and looked over to the Empress who was screaming something, although no one could hear. Apparently at a loss of what to do, the guard relaxed, and the sphere that trapped Oonak faded away.

Oonak laughed in disbelief and flew down to the Breath of Life, easily pulling it free from the golden mound. He turned to the Empress and shook his head. “You will see, dear Empress. We will free this galaxy from terror, and we will do it with or without your help.”

Curiously enough, a dim sphere remained embedded in the central mound, and Asha realized that Oonak had only taken the etheric body of the stone. Its physical component remained unmoved, yet dim.

Oonak’s body was filled with a new glow, and he rapidly shot a half dozen energy balls in all directions, trapping all of the remaining guards within seconds, all the while holding the Breath of Life under his right arm.

“Extraordinary,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Oonak nodded. “The Breath of Life is as powerful as we had hoped.”

Zahn’s sphere faded, and he zoomed over to Oonak and embraced him tightly. “I can’t believe it’s you!”

At seeing this, Asha zoomed over too and embraced him, careful to keep the Empress and the trapped guards at a safe distance. “After everything that’s happened, I’m so glad that you’re okay.”

As he embraced them, Asha felt a flood of warmth.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell either of you,” he said as he embraced them. “The Empress had spies everywhere. The risk was too great. I hope you both understand.”

“I understand,” Asha said.

Behind her, the Empress screamed. “You fools!”

Asha turned around, noticing Zahn as he rubbed his temples. He must have hit his head pretty hard.

“Oh, yeah?” Zahn said, glaring at the Empress. “And which one of us is stuck in a bubble?”

“But it’s getting thinner, Zahn. We can hear her, which means her thought-nuggets could get out again. And you look hurt. Let me see.” Asha examined Zahn’s head. One side was dimmer than the rest of his body, and she touched the dim area, channeling light through her heart and out her hand. “Does that feel better?”

Zahn brightened. “Thank you, Asha. That does feel better.”

“Don’t any of you understand?” The Empress collapsed within the bubble, breaking down into tears. “If you take the Breath of Life, you won’t only destroy Mirage City. You will destroy our entire world. Please, see reason! I beg you!”

Asha shook her head. “I understand your perspective, but you are reacting out of fear, not compassion. This stone is only a catalyst. Your people built your city with their thoughts, and borrowing the stone won’t change that. Your world will not fade in its absence, and we
will
return the stone once we have defeated the scourge.”

Oonak shot three more spheres out of his palm, and they wrapped around the first one, leaving the Empress encased in a four-layered energy bubble.

At seeing this, the guards redoubled their efforts to escape the bubbles they were trapped in, but made little progress against Oonak’s ambrosial spheres.

“That should hold her for a while. Come, my friends. We may have the third stone, but we’re still short on time.”

“And we still need the other two stones,” Asha said.

Oonak tilted his head curiously. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you when we get to the surface. I don’t want any chance of the Empress overhearing us.”

“Of course.” Oonak nodded, his energy feeling much clearer to her than before. She felt him stretch up to the surface and focused her mind on his ident.

Her awareness passed through untold layers of ice and stone, and once again the chamber was silent, leaving the Empress and her guards trapped within perfect spheres of ambrosial energy, and with great rage, they struggled to break free.

CHAPTER
35

LIGHT-YEARS DISTANT

Once again, Oonak found himself on the familiar edge of a lifeless trench that dropped off for many meters, bleached white by aeons of radiation. Still, it had a quiet kind of beauty.

“You two are astonishing,” he said, turning to Zahn and Asha who had materialized just beside him. “Do you know that?”

Asha ran up to Oonak and embraced him tightly, filling his body with warm energy. “I know I already hugged you, but I just can’t believe you’re here! Oonak, we thought you were dead.”

She looked up to his face, her eyes studying him intently. “Zahn was right. Your hair
does
have a tinge of blue. It’s hard to see the blue because it’s so dark, but I see it.”

“So, can I see the stone?” Zahn said.

Oonak nodded and held it out for them to see.

“Look!” Asha said, pointing to its center. “It has a shape buried within it, just like the Tulari did.”

Still glowing in a deep golden light, all three of them examined the stone from different angles.

“It’s not the same, though,” Zahn said. “This one looks like two pyramids touching at the base. An octahedron.”

Oonak looked up to Asha, noticing how the golden light of the stone illuminated her face. “Asha, what did you mean when you said we need the two other stones? What have you learned since our first mission together?”

Asha seemed caught off guard for a moment. “Well, when we retrieved the Chintamani stone on Vaari, it spoke to me, much like the first stone spoke to Zahn.”

“What did it tell you?”

“It said that this third stone would show us where the hidden Vakragha autarchs were, but it told to me bring the powers of all
three
stones to where the Vakragha chose their fate. So for this to work, we’ll need all three.”

“And we asked the Tulari where that was,” Zahn added, “but it told us that only the Breath of Life knew.”

“Hmm. I don’t have the answer, but I know the question all too well. It means, where the Vakragha chose the service-to-self path, basically, when they decided to be evil.” Oonak looked down at the stone in his hands and spoke to it. “Chintamani, I am Oonak of the Confederation of Unity. Do you know where the Vakragha species chose their fate? Where did they embrace the service-to-self path?”

A golden thought-nugget zipped out of the stone and into Oonak’s head. Within his mind, he saw the planet of their desire, dark and peppered with orange volcanic plumes. In the distance, Oonak thought he could make out a small dark orb just above the surface of the planet.

“Agnira,” he whispered.

“Where’s that?” Zahn asked.

Oonak looked up to him, blinking the image away. “Thousands of light-years distant. An ancient place.”

Asha shook her head. “But we still need the second stone.”

“Wait!” Zahn said. “Remember when we moved the Tulari to show it to the jagrul? If we could move its etheric body, then couldn’t we take the Kiss of Life the same way? We only have to find it. Once we do that, we can skip there just like we skipped to this moon, couldn’t we?”

Asha turned to Oonak with expectant eyes. “What do you think, Oon? Is that possible?”

A plan percolated in his mind, and he nodded. “We’ll go in order then. First the Tulari, then the Kiss of Life, and then we’ll take all three to Agnira.” He nodded again. “Out of our current options, I estimate that is our best chance of success. Is the Tulari still inside Navika?”

“Yes,” Asha said.

“Okay,” Oonak said, “I’ll lead the skip down to the shield barrier, and then we’ll find another gap. Lock on.”

Oonak felt his awareness stretch thousands of klicks down to the planet, finding himself at the threshold of the watery barrier once more. He was about to zoom up and start searching for a gap when he heard a familiar voice.

“What the blazes is anyone doing out there?” the voice said. “Your signatures are distorted, but I think I recognize the ident of one of you.”

They all zoomed over to the source of the voice and tried to discern a face through the shield barrier. The figure appeared to be wearing a long golden robe, but that was all they could see.

“Good,” the voice continued, “stay right there! There’s a perimeter guard nearby that’ll open the barrier and take all of you into royal custody. Don’t any of you
dare
move!”

Asha turned to Oonak, concern filling her face. “It’s Torin. I’d recognize his voice anywhere.”

“What do we do?” Zahn said.

“Under usual circumstances, I would suggest diplomacy.” Oonak glanced back to the moon behind them. “But given the current scenario, success requires us to improvise.”

“Criminals, are you still there?” Torin snapped. “The perimeter guard has arrived.”

Behind, Oonak saw a new shadow beyond the barrier.

“Freeze!” the guard yelled. “I’m coming through!”

Oonak held the Breath of Life in front of him, tapped into a tiny fraction of its power, and directed a torrent of energy through his heart, down his arm, and right out of his hand. To his great delight, a bright wave of light shot out of his palm and blew a huge hole through the barrier.

The explosion was followed by a wailing scream that faded into the distance.

Now, he could see Mirage City clearly through the opening in the barrier, like a jagged wound. Torin had only narrowly missed the blast, and his face flickered with rage.

“Yikes,” Zahn said, turning to Oonak. “Did you just take out that guard?”

“Traitors!” Torin screamed, and charged toward them.

Oonak shot a series of white domes out of his hands, but Torin expertly dodged them, pulling a small packet of golden liquid out from one of his pockets. Torin consumed the packet whole, and to everyone’s shock, he vanished.

“He’s gone,” Oonak said, “and staying here is useless. Lock onto my ident, both of you. We must keep moving. Don’t worry, I can feel Navika’s presence now.”

“Locked!” Asha and Zahn said almost simultaneously.

Oonak stretched down to the familiar presence, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself at a loss for words.

Parked atop a dusty plateau was an old friend that he hadn’t seen in what felt like over a year. And when he considered it, he had to admit that, in Mirage time, it was completely true.

Oonak walked up to the gleaming ivory ship and placed both of his hands on the hull.

“Navika,” he whispered, “my old friend.”

Asha walked up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Yes. Come on.” He waved for her to follow him inside. “Sooner or later, someone is going to free the Empress from her energy bubble. Let’s not be here when that happens.”

She sighed. “You’re right.”

Oonak stepped through Navika’s hull and found the Tulari still sitting within the cable mesh of the central node.

“Magnificent,” he said, floating closer to examine it. “The Fire of Life, mender of spacetime. It is as beautiful as I imagined.”

“Oh yeah,” Zahn said, floating up beside him. “I guess you haven’t seen it yet. We were separated before all of that.”

Oonak turned to Zahn, pain welling up inside him.

“It’s okay,” Zahn said. “If you hadn’t done that, we probably would have never made it out alive at all. You sacrificed yourself for us.”

“I did what the mission required. And how is your mother?”

Zahn furrowed his eyebrows. “She was fine when I left Avani. But with the Vakragha so close to home once again, it has everyone terrified.”

“Yes,” he said. “I understand. I’m just glad she’s alive.”

He inhaled slowly. “Me too.”

Asha floated up beside them and took Zahn’s hand. “I told you before, Zahn. Anyone who can survive what she went through is an incredibly strong person. She won’t lose hope. She believes in us. She believes in you.”

Zahn squeezed her hand and smiled. “Thanks, Asha. That means a lot.”

Oonak touched the Tulari, and it pulsed in brightness.

“Is it what you expected it would look like?” Asha asked.

He nodded. “Mostly, but the inner structure—”

Before Oonak could continue, Jyana bolted up to them and glanced around, sending a wave of surprise around the room.

“
There
you all are!” she called out, zooming over to them. “There’s been a breach in the barrier, and when I tried to stretch out and feel where Torin was, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I feel something terrible has happened. Do any of you know what’s going on?” Her eyes dashed back and forth between Asha, Zahn, and Oonak. “Wait a minute!” As she examined Oonak’s white robe, a light came on behind her eyes. “Who are you? You’re dressed as one of our guards, but I can see your face.”

“I am no one of consequence.”

“Yeah right,” Jyana said, “He’s the one, isn’t he? The one you two were looking for? What happened to Torin? Did you fight him? Tell me!”

“Jyana, it’s okay. I’m sorry, but we don’t know where Torin is,” Asha spoke as calmly as she could and gently touched her shoulder. “A lot has happened.”

Jyana sighed, relaxing into Asha’s comfort. “You’re telling me. I talked to Torin about the ambrosia. He won’t tell me anything directly, but from his reactions, I fear the worst. I think you were right all along, Asha. The ambrosia production is destroying the web of life here; it all lines up. And the worst part? The Empress doesn’t even seem to care.” Jyana looked back up and noticed the orb under Oonak’s arm. “What is that? That’s the Breath of Life you told me about, isn’t it?”

“Well…” Zahn’s eyes darted over to Oonak and Asha.

“Yes, Jyana,” Asha said. “It is.”

Jyana peered intently into the stone, mesmerized by it.

“That’s it?” she whispered, unable to look away. “That’s the stone that started the Mirage? The stone that allowed my ancestors to leave their bodies?”

“Yes, it started the Mirage, but it’s not what keeps your civilization going.” Asha said. “Those thought-forms are already established. We’re only going to borrow it for a short while. It won’t affect this world.”

Jyana snapped out of her reverie, turning to Asha. “And you said you needed it to defeat the scourge?”

“Yes,” Asha said. “With this stone, we can finally stop their spread across the galaxy, and no one will need to fear for their world being taken ever again.”

“And,” Zahn added, “we’re about to jump to the world the Vakragha originally came from and strike at the head of their dominion. This may be our only chance to stop the scourge once and for all, and we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Jyana gazed into the Breath of Life.

“Then I want to help.”