The Mirage on the Brink of Oblivion (The Epic of Aravinda Book 3) (21 page)

CHAPTER
36

SCREAMING DOWN

With a single wet chomp, Durazha sunk her teeth into a fresh agnihawk as it flailed about frantically. She smirked and flicked her wrist to twist its neck, killing it instantly, and a feeling of elation swept over her. It had been centuries since she had dined on fresh agnihawk, and every molecule of her body reveled in it. With a final chomp, she devoured its small head, and blood ran down the edges of her twisted smile.

As blood trickled down her hardened carapace, she set the headless bird back into the shallow bowl in her lap and raised her eyes to Razakh who stood beside her, staring out into the starscape ahead.

“I am pleased that you enjoy it,” he said, unmoving.

“It fills my veins with strength,” she said. “I will walk now.”

He turned. “Yes, my daughter! Embrace your old strength, but start slowly.”

Durazha braced herself against the armrests and pushed upward, at last managing to stand. Although her rebirth had happened only a few days prior, she flexed her ancient legs, feeling them stretch in a thousand tiny places, and took a few steps toward the control console ahead.

Each step was a new revelation, and she relished the feeling of pressure on her feet.

“Durazha,” Razakh whispered. “You truly grow stronger by the minute.” He walked behind her, examining the growth progress on her new carapace. “And the carapace implants continue to mature. Excellent.” He brought his sharp fingers together into a tight fist. “Your strength parallels the dark fissure we bring with us, Durazha. Although the fissure has taken longer to transport than I expected, we shall feed it the jewel of this system soon enough. At last, the Avanians shall learn the true nature of this galaxy.”

“Yes,” Durazha hissed and walked up to the command console before turning back around to face him. “Once the fissure brings Avani into our dark space, they shall never escape. We will crush them, and once we draw the energy from their world, our powers shall be unstoppable!”

“And don’t forget,” Razakh added. “If they kill even one more of our number, we shall revive them with the stone. We have conquered death.”

“The stone,” Durazha whispered. “Father, I want to see it. I want to see the stone that brought me back. Show it to me.”

“An autarch of our race cannot wield it, Durazha,” he said. “For some perverse reason, it requires a heart to perform its function. I have been reading the histories, and without a heart, we must call upon an overlord to fully wield its power. That is why we must avenge what happened and defeat Avani. Only then will my overlord will reveal its location to me.”

“Father!” she pleaded. “My soul longs to look upon it.”

Razakh groaned. There was only one person in the entire galaxy who could affect him with pleading, and it was her.

“Wait, child!” He walked down to the far end of the room where a narrow hall was lit by tiny red lights, like eyes along the ceiling. She watched him turn and unlock a room in the far distance before disappearing inside.

She heard a crashing noise and a roar.

The door slid back once again, and the fearsome autarch, covered in thick obsidian armor, approached her holding a small orb that glowed in a soft blue light.

“What happened in there?” she said, unable to take her eyes off of the orb. “Did someone attack you?”

“No,” he said, walking up to her. “A stack of containers fell. No doubt it was Zura’s doing. She’s always stacking our cargo, spouting her rhetoric on spatial efficiency.” He shook his head. “Foolish creature, she is.”

Now that it was closer, Durazha admired the small orb’s iridescent surface.

“It is perfection,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Razakh said, looking down to the orb in his hand. “My advisors agree that it is one of the oldest artifacts ever retrieved.”

She looked up to him. “Older than the Anuttam Vakra?”

“The first?” He tilted his head. “No, I suspect not. But not long after that.”

He glanced over to the display beyond and walked up to the console below the sweeping windows. “At last, we have an unfiltered visual of our prey. See that pathetic blue dot? Soon it will be engulfed in beautiful shadow.”

Durazha regarded the dot calmly and shook her head. “Father, you are being impulsive. We should amass more fighters before our attack. If what you say about this world is true, then they are resourceful. We must be vigilant. We cannot afford another defeat.”

“Silence!” Razakh boomed, pulling the orb closer to his chest. “Avani is our next target. It is true; they will no doubt try to use the Fire of Life against us once again. But this time, we shall be ready for them.”

“That’s your plan?” she said. “To try and flush out the only thing that could delay us? You are being foolish. I’ve reviewed the records. The last time you were in this system, you were nearly destroyed!”

Razakh tightened his hand into a fist. “Durazha, you may have once been the greatest strategist of your time, but much has changed since then.” He turned around to face her, his red eyes burning into her skull. “You will obey me, or face the vacuum of space! Do you understand?”

She narrowed her gaze at him. “What would you say if the Anuttam Vakra came to me in a dream?”

“Hah!” Razakh bellowed. “And why would
our
overlord, with the power over six factions, waste its time projecting itself into your dream, Durazha?”

“I’m not saying it did. But hypothetically, what would you say if it came to you and offered you everything? Unlimited power and authority, all for one simple action. What would you do?”

Razakh regarded her suspiciously. “You know quite well the sacred power of the Anuttam Vakra, Durazha. Even though we draw from its power, few ever behold its presence. Any autarch would be a fool not to consider an offer from the Anuttam.”

A twisted grin spread across Durazha’s mouth. “Precisely.”

With one swift motion, she extended a spike out from her arm and plunged it into Razakh’s left hand, causing the orb to tumble down.

Durazha caught it and spread her dark fingers over its surface, screaming the words that the Anuttam Vakra had given her.

“Vigalati! Vigalati! Vigalati!” she screamed. “The strong shall rule the weak!”

Razakh cupped his hands over his head and wailed in pain.

“Vigalati! Vigalati! Vigalati!” she shouted again.

The red glow behind Razakh’s eyes faded. He tried to speak, but before he could form a single word, he collapsed onto the metallic floor with a dull thud.

“What an absurd excuse for an autarch.”

Durazha pulled the orb close to her chest and smirked, looking down to the pathetic heap of Razakh’s body. She was tempted to kill him right there, but decided against it. He would be more useful to her as a puppet. She had noticed how his faction revered him. Perhaps she would torture him later. Either way, keeping him alive gave her further leverage.

At the far end of the room, a narrow door opened revealing Zura, a minor Vakragha similar to Durazha in appearance except that she was only two-thirds her height.

“Sky God! You shall be pleased to hear—”

Zura froze, noticing her autarch piled in a crumpled heap on the floor.

“Autarch!” she screamed, running over to him.

When she reached him, she crouched down to examine his face. “Razakh, what happened?” She looked up to Durazha, her tiny crimson eyes filling with dread. “Is he dead?”

Durazha twisted up her face in disgust. She hated these minor Vakragha. A useless distortion of their species, their kind began as a mutation and were eventually relegated to grunt work. Still, a rare few, like Zura, trained long and hard to become master advisors to the command structure.

They were also incredibly loyal. Unless her father officially transferred ownership of this minor Vakragha to Durazha, it would always hold Razakh’s concerns above hers.

That would be a problem.

“Zura,” she hissed. “Razakh was not strong enough to wield the stone. He just collapsed. I have never seen anything like it.” Durazha curled her lips slightly. “He was obviously unfit to be the autarch. But where he was weak, I am strong!”

Durazha charged downward and throttling Zura’s neck against the metal floor.

She wheezed, her words hissing out like a dying whisper.

“Durazha, please!”

The old strategist smiled, shooting a spike out of her arm and moving it toward Zura’s head. “Tell me, Zura, why should I let you live?” She pressed the sharp tip of the spike into her temple, and dark green blood oozed out.

Zura flailed around, but Durazha held her in place easily. “Please, Durazha! I was your father’s greatest servant and advisor. I could do the same for you!”

“I don’t need an advisor, Zura. I have made a deal with an overlord, and soon I shall become one myself and this limiting form shall fall away!”

Zura’s eyes widened. “You spoke to an overlord?”

“The overlord approached me! Don’t you understand? I am destined for supreme power. Razakh wanted to be Grand Autarch of Aravinda, but I shall be even greater than that. First, I shall become the overlord over our six factions, but I won’t stop there. I shall not rest until I am the Supreme Overlord of the Galaxy itself!”

Durazha pressed the tip into Zura’s temple farther, causing the blood to ooze out even faster.

“Please, Durazha!” she pleaded. “I can help you. Tell me what I can do!”

“Tell me that I shall be the Supreme Overlord!” Durazha yelled. “Pledge to me your undying allegiance!”

“I pledge it to you and you alone!” Zura screamed.

Durazha’s eyes burned into Zura’s, pressing the spike into her temple just a bit more. “Tell me that you would die for me without hesitation!”

“I would! Please! I would do anything!”

“SAY IT!”

“I would die for you, Durazha!”

“OF COURSE YOU WOULD!”

She thrust the spike deep into Zura’s skull, sending a spurt of green blood shooting across the floor.

Zura screamed in agony a final time, and her eyes went blank.

Durazha stood up and retracted her spike, watching as the green blood dripped down from it. Somehow, killing one of her own kind left her even more intoxicated with power.

She shook her head. “What a pathetic creature. My father may have needed you, but as an overlord, I shall only speak to the autarchs below me. Compared to them, you are nothing.”

With burning determination, she walked over to the command chair and sat down. At once, she saw a new series of data overlaid on her vision, and with a blink, she opened an encrypted channel to the entire fleet.

“Greetings, Razakh Faction. I am Durazha, daughter of Razakh and possessing far superior intelligence. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I have just destroyed my father’s ability to speak or walk, and from this point forward, you shall be known as the Durazha Faction. I am your new commander, and those of you hellbent on attacking Avani may continue, if you wish. But you’ll have to do so without me. My flagship is headed out of this system to meet the Anuttam Vakra itself.”

Durazha paused, anticipating some protest, but heard nothing. Apparently, the entire fleet was either too shocked to respond or too afraid to challenge her.

“I am departing momentarily,” she continued. “Anyone who wishes to assist me will be greatly rewarded. That is all.”

She closed the channel and huffed the sickly air of the command deck. With one easy maneuver, she spun the flagship around and raced toward a ruddy gas giant in the distance. Ahead, a swirling vortex formed.

Durazha scanned the area once more and was pleased to discover that a half dozen cruisers and a few dozen fighters, roughly eighty percent of the fleet, had joined her. She made the necessary adjustments to the timespace drive and inhaled sharply, watching as the radiant realm filled her vision.

As before, the ship flickered between the blackness and whiteness of spacetime and timespace, like a full-body strobe, before finally emerging into space above a dark planet, speckled with hundreds of bright orange dots across its surface.

With the Kiss of Life firmly in hand, Durazha’s blood red eyes burned with passion. The view filled her with a sense of déjà vu, and she realized that all appeared exactly as it had in her dream. Except now, beholding the rivers of lava for herself, it appeared even more beautiful, and she sent the ship screaming down to the tortured surface of Agnira at full impulse speed. After all, she didn’t know how long her father would remain unconscious. At this velocity, she would reach the surface in under a minute and excitement bubbled in her veins.

A glorious transformation awaited her.

CHAPTER
37

A COLD TERROR

Once they’d heard that the hidden gate was finally activated, Darshana and Vivek found it nearly impossible to fall asleep for several hours.

After spending most of the night trying to calm her mind, Darshana couldn’t help but wish that she’d insisted on leaving with Nirupak. She told herself that such a line of thought was useless, that Nirupak would have definitely invited her to come with him to the gate if it lined up with his plans. But, as Darshana had so often observed, Nirupak had other plans. He must have wanted to examine the device for himself before putting her in danger.

Yet everyone on Avani was in danger, no matter where they were. As far as Darshana was concerned, she had just as much chance of being captured by the Vakragha as she had dying in a gate accident.

Darshana thought of Nirupak’s first team. She knew him well enough to decode his nuanced way of speaking. From the careful way he spoke about them, Darshana guessed that he knew they were dead, but didn’t want to focus on it.

Light streamed through the crystalline latticework that made up the far wall, and a wave of disappointment washed over her. The day was beginning, and she hadn’t given herself a minute of true rest all night.

No matter. She sat up and stepped out of the wide hammock, rousing Vivek who had fallen asleep on one nearby.

She walked over to the latticework and looked out through a clear round window set into it, admiring the blue forest canopy and the narrow valley beyond.

Darshana paused for a moment, taking in the richness of the azure forest in the valley below. A wave of despair washed over her, as she realized today could be the last time she ever saw the valley before the Vakragha destroyed everything.

BZZT.

Her gaze shot over to the reading pad resting on a table to her left, and she picked it up. It was a call from Nirupak, and she touched the pad to answer. A video stream filled its screen, but it seemed unstable, cutting out every few seconds.

“Nirupak, how are you doing down there?” she said. “Your stream is choppy. What’s the status on the transport you’re sending to us?”

“We’re fine,” he said. “The interference might be caused by the gate. Yes, I’m calling you because your transport will arrive in 15, and we need you, Dar—”

The feed went blank for a second.

Darshana grumbled at the device. “Niru, can you hear me?”

“—to work all night, but we can’t get it to respond. It’s definitely active, but we can’t get a portal to open. We need you. Be ready when that transport arrives.”

“Of course,” she said. “Just be careful down there.”

“We will,” he nodded. “Nirupak out.”

The feed went blank, and Darshana set the pad down and turned to Vivek, who was still half awake in his hammock.

“Dear, wake up! That transport will be here in 15 minutes,” she said, putting her lab pants on as quickly as possible. He only mumbled. “Vivek!”

He inhaled sharply, sitting up so fast that he fell right out of his hammock and onto the floor. “Sorry, I’m up. I’m up.”

In a whirlwind of preparation, they both ate a quick snack and grabbed what they’d packed the night before, finding Yantrik’s face illuminated by the white light of his wristcomm as he read quietly in the front room.

He looked up to them, a serious expression filling his face. “We have an eventful day ahead of us. You two get any sleep?”

Vivek and Darshana spoke at the same moment.

Darshana winced. “Not at all.”

“Briefly.” Vivek nodded, but winced when he heard Darshana’s response. “Dear, I had no idea. Do you want a stimulant? We have a few left.”

“No, I’ll be fine.” She sighed and turned to Yantrik. “The transport will be here any minute. And you’re sure you know how to operate one of those gates? We may need your expertise.”

Yantrik nodded. “Let’s just say I’ve seen my share.”

“Good.” She waved for him to follow and opened the door.

Outside was a long airboat, hovering a small distance above a grassy patch that ran alongside the nearby path. Its canopy was down, making it easy for them to see the driver in the front. He was a middle-aged man, sporting the same shade of ash-blond hair that Vivek had. The man stood up and waved them over to the boat, wearing a jet black uniform that was featureless except for a familiar insignia of an eye on the collar.

“I am Officer Taktakayana of the Ashraya Observatory, designation: Pilot, L-2. Master Nirupak requests you at once.” The officer paused, looking over to Yantrik. “I was only instructed to bring two. This one will have to stay behind. Hurry,” he waved again, “we may not have much time left.”

“Tak?” Vivek called out to him. “That’s what you want us to call you, right? Weren’t you an auditor before?”

The wind kicked up, and Tak squinted at him. “Excuse me? Hurry up! We’re wasting time!”

Vivek turned to Darshana, concern filling his face. “I met that officer before. He was pretty rude, almost took Yantrik and me in for questioning.”

Yantrik called out to the officer. “Sorry, Tak, but Darshana has asked for me to join you. I trust that won’t be a problem, unless you make it one.”

“I’ll handle him,” Darshana said coldly, turning around and walking up to the airboat.

“Should we do something?” Yantrik turning toward Darshana as she made her way to the airboat.

“Keep your distance,” Vivek said, grabbing his arm. “When Darshana is fired up, she’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Even before she spoke, Darshana burned her gaze into Officer Tak for a few seconds, and he wilted slightly at her presence. “Listen,” she said, “just so you know, I didn’t sleep at all last night, so I advise you to be circumspect about your conduct. Nirupak is a
personal
friend of mine, so if you give us any trouble, I’ll make sure that your
new
designation is sanitation officer. Do I make myself clear?”

She held him in her gaze unflinchingly.

“Yes,” he whispered, clicking his teeth nervously.

“Good.” She turned back around. “Come on!”

Yantrik only blinked before his expression melted into a grin. “Now that’s a woman I respect. Stands up for herself.”

They all rushed into the airboat, securing their safety straps.

“Is everyone secured?” Tak asked.

Darshana looked around, noticing the plush white seats.

She nodded. “Punch it.”

The airboat lurched ahead and upward. Tak took them above the sapphire forest canopy, and soon they were gliding a few meters over the rolling ocean waves.

For some time, no one spoke. All three of them were engrossed in watching the islands diminish in the distance behind them.

After what seemed like a half hour, the last hint of the island peaks finally disappeared below the horizon.

“I just remembered,” Darshana said, turning to Vivek, “the rockturtles will hatch today.” A sadness washed over her. “Not that it matters anymore.”

Vivek took her hand, the gaze of his slate-grey eyes falling softly on her. “We’ll survive this, my dear. I can feel it.”

“We must. I will not die without seeing my son again.”

A great wind kicked up out of nowhere, jostling them back and forth for a few moments, and Darshana studied the horizon. There was nothing, only blue sky.

BZZT.

This time, Darshana answered the call in under a second.

Nirupak’s face was visibly strained. “What’s your status?”

“We’re on our way,” she said.

He winced. “Darshana, although we were able to activate the gate with Avanian blood, we can’t get the gate to actually open, and the Vakragha wormhole has grown rapidly since we last spoke. It’s beginning to affect the atmosphere. It appears to be stripping off part of the exosphere now. Has anything unusual been happening near you?”

“Some wind, but that could have just been weather,” she said. “We’ll be there soon.”

“Good,” he said. “I should warn you though, based on the current rate of wormhole growth, I calculate we have perhaps a day before the entire atmosphere is torn away.” His eyes darkened in despair. “I’m afraid not everyone can be saved, Darshana. Not everyone.”

Beside her, she noticed Yantrik tap furiously at his wristcomm, causing it to display a myriad of odd control interfaces that she didn’t understand.

“Hold on,” Yantrik said, “if he can show me what kind of gate it is, I might be able to communicate with it via my ship. After all, I can control my fighter with my wristcomm easily.”

Darshana furrowed her eyebrows at him. “Are you sure?”

Yantrik shrugged. “As sure as I can be. These old gates are unpredictable, but it would certainly save time.”

She turned back to the reading pad. “Listen, Niru. We have a friend who has seen this technology before. He’s right beside me. If you can bring the camera closer to the gate console, he might be able to help you get it activated.”

Nirupak regarded her with disbelief.

“Please, Niru,” she said, “he’s trustworthy.”

Yantrik leaned over to see the video stream more closely and waved. “Howdy.”

“All right.” Nirupak pointed the pad’s camera to the console, showing them the controls in detail.

“Excellent.” Yantrik smiled back to him. “I think I know what kind that one is. Let’s keep our jets cool for a second, and I’ll use some of my equipment to make a few gravity pulses.”

For a moment, Yantrik once again tapped at his wristcomm.

“Okay, any change?”

A shocked expression filled Nirupak’s face. “Yes! The gate hum got deeper. How did you do that?”

“Never mind that,” Yantrik said. Did the control console change, at all?”

“Well, there’s a hexagonal shape pulsing farther up on the panel now.”

“Push it,” Yantrik said. “I gave it coordinates to a world that should prove quite habitable.”

He screwed up his face. “You what?”

“Look, if you want the gate to open, press the hexagon, man!”

“All right!” Nirupak shook his head and pressed it.

Instantly, the low hum of the gate grew into a mighty roar, and Nirupak pointed the camera toward the gate. Darshana watched as a point of light appeared in the center of the ring.

“It’s active!” Nirupak said in utter elation.

Darshana smiled and turned to Yantrik. “Thank you.”

Before anyone could respond, she heard a series of alarms sound over on Nirupak’s end of the video stream.

“What’s going on, Niru?” she said. “Are you okay?”

He glanced to something out of view. “Darshana, there’s a burst of activity in high orbit. You need to get down here! Now!”

To Darshana’s shock, a thick viridian beam of plasma shot down through the ceiling above Nirupak, causing huge chunks of ice and rock to fall all around him.

“Nirupak!” she called out, but there was no answer.

Darshana froze as the beam sliced into the glowing ring gate, destabilizing it and drawing boulders into the swirling vortex.

Nirupak must have dropped the reading pad because the video feed whipped around, pointing directly up to the ceiling.

She heard a huge explosion, followed by dead silence. The silence was broken a few seconds later by a sickening whine and the crash of a huge collapse of rock.

The cavern faded to blackness, and she could see nothing.

“Nirupak?” she whispered. “Nirupak, please.”

The video feed cut out.

To her left, Vivek took her hand, saying nothing.

Yantrik only shook his head slowly.

“Those were Vakragha weapons,” she whispered. “They must have detected the gate’s activity just as we did. And Niru.” She turned to Yantrik, shock threatening to overtake her. “What have we done?”

“I am so sorry, Darshana,” he said.

Vivek looked up to her. “My dear, was there any other way? There’s still a chance for escape. There must be.”

Tears filled her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “We’re finished.”

The wind kicked up again, buffeting them against the water, and Officer Tak turned around to face them. “The wind is becoming hazardous. I’ve never seen it like this out here before. We may have to dive under.”

Darshana didn’t respond, simply letting her gaze drift up to the radiantly blue sky. Except, something had changed. High in the sky, there was a dark patch that hadn’t been there before, and the moon was slowly being pulled toward it, filling her with a cold terror.

She turned to Vivek, feeling tears in her eyes. “My darling, please tell me we’ll see our boy again. Tell me we’ll see Zahn one more time, and I’ll believe you.

He embraced her tightly and stroked her hair. “We’ll see him. We
will
see him. Somehow, my love, we will.”