The Time Stone (27 page)

“
Wow, this sure is
something.” He smiled as he snapped some photos up into the skyward
blue. He felt something suddenly bump against his leg, “ouch” he
yelled and looked down. A small dwarf-sized man ran past him
yelling “excuse me” he hugged Drax’s leg and then tried to run off
quickly running from something.

“
Wait who are you?” He
looked down confused and saw the man look up, a full head of dark
carefully combed hair, similar shirt to his own, and oriental
complexion.

“
Who the heck are you?”
The small man responded grunting.

“
I’m Milton Drax” he spoke
gingerly.

“
I’m Roy… Roy Biggers. You
look like you got a fortune in gold bullion.” He snorted as he
tried to run off.

“
Well I do alright” Drax
nodded as he grabbed onto his small new friend.

“
I am known as Pelador
Pequeno.”

“
Little fighter is a great
name. I like it.” Drax said.

“
That’s right, I know
martial arts and boxing,” he screamed chopping air with his small
hands.

Drax saw that he was anxious to get
moving as there were several uniformed officers chasing him. Drax
saw this and pushed Roy behind him. As the officers approached,
Drax gulped with a stern look masking his fear.

“
Freeze, give us that
little thief” they uttered in Turkish.

Drax responded in the same language
“be calm gentlemen, he is with me. I am a big businessman from
America. How much does he owe?”

The officers explained to him it was a
small amount by Drax and his corporate American standards of high
wealth and posterity. Drax agreed to pay that amount back from the
store owner that Roy stole from and the officers let him go. Drax
sat on the steps of the castle-like structure with Roy and talked
to him about his life and found out Roy Biggers was born in Turkey
and was a sultry soul who was orphaned at a young age and abandoned
and turned to crime to get by.

“
I bet you have a lot of
impatience” he smiled sitting with his hands on his knee bent up on
the steps, “I can see you can’t sit still.”

“
Just nervous, got the
shakes” add Roy “but thanks for bailing me out.” He shook his head
nervously.

“
I always wanted to tour
this place.” Drax added. “It’s a castle isn’t it?”

“
It sure is. It is
something big and special.” Roy said.

Drax saw that Roy was kind of slow.
Drax got up and smiled. “Can you show me more in the castle? I want
to take some pictures for work.”

“
We can’t, it’s closed.”
Roy said.

“
Yeah but you can tell me
if there is another way in.” Drax said as Roy looked up at him
suddenly still and as if stopping the apparently endless shifting
of his eyeballs.

“
Yes, there is” he nods
and smiles, “I like you. You’re a good friend.”

The two men nod in recognition to one
another and walk off towards the entrance of the structure, a giant
wooden doorway twice the size of Drax’s tall and muscular frame.
Both men did not notice there was someone watching them who was as
curious as they are and tall and stealthy.

Nearby in the castle perimeter, Drax
and Roy were confronted by a padlock on the tall wooden
door.

“
It’s locked” said Drax in
a slow and patronizing tone.

“
That is not the end.” Roy
smirked and pointed up to a small window and arched portal about
sixteen feet above, too large for a man of average height but
perfect for Roy to fit into. “I can travel in small places, like in
the war.”

“
Oh cool, what do you
think we should do?”

“
I’ll climb” he shimmies
up the stone wall grabbing each large stone block and making his
way towards the window quickly in a matter of seconds and getting
in.

“
He’s good” said a slight
female voice from behind him and as Drax turned he saw a slender
young woman with chestnut brown hair and blonde highlights standing
beside him with her hands on her hips and sleeves of her white
button down shirt rolled up to her elbows and front tied revealing
her belly and unbuttoned toward the top and she had a pair of knee
cut jeans on. “Very good” she added.

“
Who are you?” Drax spoke.
“Marina Swift” she spoke slow and out of place in the touristic
setting. “You are an American businessman, aren’t you?” She
asked.

“
Milton Drax, I’m an
attorney from America.” He smiled as he held out his hand but she
kept her poise and tilted her head in curious amazement. “I’m on
vacation” said Drax. Then suddenly the padlocked wooden door
revealed a smaller door within its frame opening from within and
Roy stuck his head out.

“
Come on Mr. Drax” he
yelled, “the plane, the plane… inside this small wooden plane.” He
gestured to Drax to crawl into the small doorway. Drax looked
around behind him and then ducked down and inspected it thinking he
could fit in and he crawled in. He found himself in a dark room
with some sunlight peered in and visions of cobwebs and dust
covering the candelabra, chandelier, and furniture covered in
drapes and glistening in the light. Drax was followed in and soon
turned to find the young woman from outside who had crawled through
the plane.

“
Miss Swift?” He
uttered.

“
Yeah, I just wanted to
keep an eye out. You might need my help.”

“
Hmm” he smiled and turned
with his entourage into the darkness of the tall interior
structure. The light suddenly popped open and Roy ran towards them
suddenly with a smirk.

“
I got the magic touch” he
laughed as the walls and lighting fixtures lit up.

They walked in and to a back room
where Roy showed them into a secret passage he revealed behind the
pantry in the large fading kitchen area. He turned a lever and a
door opened revealing cupboards and behind it another door with a
small stairwell deep into the darkness below. In stunned silence,
the duo of Drax and Marina followed Roy down the long narrow
stairwell with no railing and Drax felt like he was descending into
the depths of one of Dante’s Inferno’s nine levels. There was a hot
white light with blinking red at the far end of the corridor before
them. The stairway seemed never ending and curved down. Finally,
they landed and within seconds a bright light became active at the
far end of the corridor before them, nothing else, so they wandered
into the opening about four to five meters wide at the end of the
corridor and the light grew wider. Drax felt shivers going down his
spine. He extended his hands into the darkness lit by the hot white
lights and blinking red and there was a slight humming sound, a
noise like a vibration instrument pluming in the
distance.

“
What is this place,
really?” Drax asked.

“
Strange and mysterious
place” said Roy. The noise was louder as they approached and
synchronistic to the lights in the former distance now coming up
before them. Their perception of the light grew around them to
envelope them and Drax saw the source of the light suddenly before
him, an alter extending along the entire length of the meters long
room and he saw it had some odd symbols in some language he was not
aware of. There was an indentation shaped like a pentagonal object.
Lights suddenly surrounded the alter blinking brightly as if on for
a very long time.

“
What is this?” Said
Marina, who identified herself as Roy’s sister. She held close to
Drax out of fear. She was worried about her brother but also for
her new friend. Drax figured as much and assured her it would be
alright. He was mesmerized by the object before them.

“
I wish I knew”, Drax
responded to her previous question and looked at the object
curiously and felt his hands grasp the warm air before the glowing
lights. Drax saw sudden images appear as the light reached his
eyes, he saw an image of his mentor Broad Staffnight holding a
pentagonal shaped green emerald and beasts of immense power flying
around killing people in the central square. He lowered his hands
together before the lights on the keyboard to the indentation and
pressed on it, his hands glowing in the stream of lights, a strange
sound continuously emanated with the lights stringing along in
harmony like notes on a melodically scale and sounding deep along
the traditional scale. The images changed before Drax’s eyes to
four images in a row far enough to be recognized but he did notice
one was him and they were in some kind of ceremony with medals and
honorary dignitaries nearby he recognized, the mayor of Chronix
Bay, the president of the United States, local governors and
statesmen. “Hmm.”

“
Cool, like do re mi …”
Marina began and Drax looked at her with a smirk.

“
I think it’s a high tech
piano of sorts.” Drax said.

“
Piano?” Asked Roy
confused.

“
Honey, that’s a music
maker but it looks ancient.” Said Marina.

“
This is interesting…”
Drax lifted his brow and then he raised his head looking up in
shock as suddenly the room began to shake as a tremor activated the
room in massive movement. Drax turned to his companions and ran up
with them in hand. They headed up the stairwell back where they
came from. As they exited the castle, they looked up at the sky and
saw beams of light fly up and through the air around the town
morphing slowly into three gruesome and ferocious beasts one a dog
with three heads, another an eight-headed dragon, and the final one
a large amphibian long-necked creature. They land on various
grounds and buildings and begin a terrible rampage amongst the
city.

“
What is that?” Screamed
Roy.

“
Oh no, it’s beginning.”
Drax said.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the hotel room, Broad looked at a
screen popped open from a metal briefcase arched up, Mark and
Elizabeth at his side sitting on the bed. A shadowy faceless figure
sits on the screen in an obscure background and emits a low-pitch
crinkled voice, “the last time is soon approaching. If we do not
commit the full cycle by the eve of the next cycle, the last time,
we will lose all hope of securing our position for the
future.”

“
We will prevail, my lord.
We have the object.” Broad says gesturing to a box before him on
his lap. “It took some doing but we managed to retrieve it from the
ancient one you sent.” “We will control the divine right of space
and time.” Said Broad. “We will make the difference
today.”

“
Be wary” the voice
continued “there is one amongst us who disagrees and will betray
our midst.”

“
Let none be the wiser
capable of stopping us now or forever in time.” They laughed
excitedly.

CHAPTER 62

BOOM! The ground shook more and more
as one intense bombardment after another kept following as the
bombings followed by another series that decimated the
infrastructure of the town, rubble from the buildings falling to
the ground, concrete spread on various levels, and the roads were
soon littered with fallen blocks and building pieces of glass and
plaster. There were several beasts approaching and spitting flames
and causing chaos in their rampant wake throughout the town. The
cars careened off the road and passengers screamed in agony.
Pedestrians wandered around running in all directions screaming at
the immense horror as some watched the falling debris crush their
contemporaries into bloody messes on the sidewalk. The sounds of
pain and fear were permeated throughout the air. The three beasts
roamed the town landscape rampaging stores and breaking through
glass windows and stomping the stone cobble walkways as they roared
in the mist menacing the populous and attacking with biting and
scratching motions to the various citizenry. As Drax and his
cohorts ran through the crowds, Drax recognized his coworkers
coming out of a cab nearby the central square near a statue of
Hermes of Greek myth. He saw Broad Staffnight holding a box with an
object and as he opened it, Drax began to walk faster towards him
stretching out his hand. Roy and Marina looked at him curiously.
Drax began to run and Broad turned and saw him as he grabbed the
item in the box and held it out in his clutched hand, a green
emerald pentagonal shaped object.

“
You traitor.” Screamed
Broad recognizing it was him who would betray them as he had left
them and now was running to them in pure putrid shock and horror.
But however fast Drax ran towards his mentor, he could not run fast
enough. His vision he saw in the castle had come true and now Broad
stood before him with his arm extended up in the air twisting his
hand holding the object. A beam of yellow swirling light emitted
from the object twirling in both directions in the glistening
sunlight, as the five orbs in the center of it were shine brightly.
A portal vortex bursts open in the sky above them.

“
Oh” screamed a woman
running as the dragon jumped up and swooped down reaching with one
of its heads and snapping at her swallowing her whole. The beasts
moved quickly as they drew close to the vortex spiraling
wildly.

“
Our destiny will soon be
complete” said Broad.