Chapter 7: Return of the Dark Voice

Now that I think on it, looking back was what brought me to this low state. Looking back at our family’s former glory made me hunger for that future ... a future of power. In our last days, the Lurranna family consented itself to petty mercenary work. A profitable business for those possessing Elemental powers, but not nearly as prestigious as a galaxy-spanning Empire. When I looked into your eyes, Leon, I knew in my heart that it was your destiny to rule the universe someday ... more than destiny, it was your birthright. We are the Lurranna family after all. We are superior beings! If anyone deserved to rule, it was us. That is what I had been taught since I was a child, and I never doubted that belief ... until now.

Saria had fallen asleep in her office again. She had been working late and had sent her assistants away hours ago. Had she known what lay in store for her as the Minister of Fire, she probably would have never taken the job. Fighting wars and battling with the elements was easy. Paperwork ... that was hard. However, as tedious as the daily chores that come with running an Elemental Ministry could be, that was nothing compared to the dream Saria was having at the moment.

Saria had never been one to pay much attention to her dreams. Oh, sure, she put up the basic mental barriers to stave off telepathic influence, just like any experienced Elemental would. That being said, Saria was not one to doddle the day away trying to unravel the mysteries of her own psyche, there was just no point to it. But even Saria would have seen every psychiatrist she could find just to know why Zanderius Alastar had suddenly appeared in her dreams.

“Saria,” said the phantom image of the Prime Minister in the dream world.

Saria was stunned. It’s true that Zand had always been on her mind, but she had never dreamed of him before. In point of fact, she had even taken precautions to make sure she would never dream of him. She had ordered the telepaths under her command to remove any possibility of her dreaming of her old flame in order to avoid unneeded distraction. And yet, for the first time in years, she heard Zand’s voice as clearly as if he stood right next to her.

His image came in a little fuzzy, almost as if he were a holographic transmission experiencing some minor signal interference, but other than that, he appeared much in the same way that she remembered him. White hair, short beard, shining green eyes, possessing a face that was neither young nor old, yet handsome nonetheless. No mustache because Zand found such things to be unrefined, though why he thought his beard preferable to a mustache, Saria had never known. He wore his white robes and silver-encrusted armor, signifying his rank as the Prime Minister of Elemency. Although his title had been officially revoked years ago by the Tarrus government and he was now a fugitive, he looked no less dashing while donning the uniform of his previous station. Saria could even see the intricate symbols of the Hamashe family interwoven into his armor and his robes. Circular patterns that shined with a benevolent light. Even though Zanderius Alastar was not of the Hamashe bloodline, Saria had always seen him as nothing less than royalty ... that is until recently.

“Saria, this isn’t a dream. I’m here speaking into your mind’s eye,” explained the ghostly apparition of Zand.

Saria had guessed that this was no mere dream from the moment she first saw him. Even if his image was slightly hazy, there was no way she could have recalled such detail.

“I’ve come to warn you of an impending doom that threatens the lives of our young. An insidious plot to foil what little chance we have for a future without war. I beg you, Saria, please heed my words and be wary.”

Saria did not respond, but instead glared as coldly as possible at the image of the man who had broken her heart.

“Why do you not speak? Say something, Saria! It’s really me. It’s your Zand. You have no idea what I had to go through to get past the barriers to your mind. It’s only because I know you so well that I’ve been able to delve this deep into your psyche. But honestly, it is me. Surely you recognize my aura.”

“Oh, I recognize it alright,” said Saria tersely. “What I don’t understand is why you have the gall to show up after all these years, acting as if nothing happened. Or did you forget the part when you abandoned me nearly six years ago and left the Ministry to fend for itself in the aftermath of your exile?”

Zand’s image fizzed slightly. He seemed to be getting uncomfortable as he grabbed hold of his collar in that nervous habit of his. Zand managed a frightened smile before saying, “Ah, Saria. Your rapier wit never ceases to amaze me.”

“Get the hell out of my head!” cried Saria as she lashed out at Zand angrily with every mental attack she could think of. Although Saria was no telepath, while in the confines of her own mind, the defense of her innermost thoughts was confined only to her imagination and her will.

Bending the landscape to her will, Saria changed the environment of her dream, which up to that point had been nothing but a hazy mist. Now that Saria had taken control of her mind, she could command her dream to take on any form she desired. And at the moment, all she desired was a form that could crush Zanderius Alastar.

Zand seemed to shrink as Saria’s astral form grew in size until he was as small as a mouse compared to her. Saria then grabbed the tiny form of Zand and squeezed with all her strength.

Zand’s form writhed and gasped as Saria put all her might into driving the traitor from her mind. Between gasps of pain, Zand managed to say, “Now ... Saria ... my dear ... violence ... is completely ... unnecessary. Can we not ... discuss this ... like civilized beings?”

“You despicable lout!” shrieked Saria, letting loose six years of pent-up fury. “You moronic worm! How dare you? How dare you think you can invade my private thoughts and not suffer the consequences? You lost the privilege of having access to my mind and soul a long time ago!”

“I know you still bear malice towards me,” said Zand in a strained voice, but Saria got the feeling that it was not because he was being strangled to death. “But this is not about me, Saria. This is about the children. Please hear me out for their sakes. Just listen to me for a few moments and I’ll leave ... forever if you wish. You need not suffer me ever again.”

Saria’s grip loosened ever so slightly as wrath gave way to curiosity. “What sort of threat, and to whom?”

“Who do you think?” replied Zand in a high-pitched voice, but only because he was running low on breath.

“Squad 99 again, huh? I get no end of trouble from those brats,” muttered Saria to herself.

“Reminds you of our own misadventures from the days of our youth, doesn’t it?” said Zand in a vain attempt to get on Saria’s good side. Zand had always been as duplicitous as a politician.

“Don’t try to change the subject!”

“My apologies. All I know is that there may be a plot underway to kidnap Éclair, Leon, and Ryan ... sometime within the next few weeks I would guess, and it will likely involve Mystic infiltrators from outside the Ministry. At any rate, it might be best to cancel the Second Level qualifying exams for the year.”

“Cancel the exams! Are you mad?!”

“I’ve been called worse,” he said with another disarming smile.

That was one of the things about the man that Saria had found most disturbing ... and the most interesting ... his ability to smile no matter the situation. Still, Saria remained dubious as far as her trust for Zand went.

“First of all, why should I trust anything you say after you abandoned the Ministries to chase some fairy tale? That ‘Grand Solution’ nonsense you’re always going on about. Second of all, even if I were to believe you, who would dare threaten my students inside my own Ministry no less?”

“It doesn’t matter whom, all that matters is when. I bid you, dear Saria, heed my warnings lest disaster strike the great legacy.”

“I still don’t have any reason to trust you, you old fool,” she said through gritted teeth as her grip tightened over the small, frail form of Zanderius. As if to insinuate her mood, lightning and thunder rolled through the recesses of her subconscious, illuminating Zand’s frightened face in a silhouette of blue light. “And as far as I’m concerned, you and I still have a score to settle.”

Zand’s voice became very faint, and his figure seemed to dissolve out of Saria’s grip. She tried to keep her hold, but it was like trying to hold a pool of water in the palm of her hands. Little by little, Zand’s form just slipped from her grasp. “Oh, look at the time! You really should be waking up now, my dear. Tell Eramar I said hello.”

An instant later, Saria felt herself being gently jostled by Eramar as she slumped on her desk. She awoke in a daze ... an angry daze to be more accurate. To put it mildly, waking a sleeping Dragon guarding a treasure horde would’ve been safer.

“Get back here you coward!” shouted Saria in fury as waves of yellow energy discharged unbidden from her body like a miniature nuclear reactor.

As Eramar got caught up in the blast, he instinctually raised his defenses in an attempt to dissuade the electric energies from consuming him. However, his power was nowhere near the same level as Saria, so he did not escape unscathed.

Saria soon recovered from her daze in time to see a frightened-looking Eramar pinned to the wall by her static electricity that she had unwittingly unleashed upon the world.

“Eramar! I’m so sorry!” she said, rushing to his side in an instant.

Saria let Eramar descend to the floor gently, using her static electrical powers to assist his descent. It wasn’t so much telekinesis as it was magnetism. There was a limit to the things that Saria could move with her lightning without blowing them up. As Eramar came to the ground, Saria cradled him in her arms. His hair stood on end, but his pulse seemed fine, so Saria reasoned that he suffered no permanent harm.

“Say something. Are you hurt?”

“I would have been if it was anyone else but me,” he explained in a haunted voice.

“Eramar, please forgive me,” Saria pleaded guardedly. She would’ve preferred Eramar didn’t know of her encounter with Zanderius. “I experienced a ... a troubling dream. It upset me more than I should’ve allowed. Learning control is basic for all Elementals. I should know better than to let my emotions rule me ... especially with Tava’s power.”

Eramar regarded her coolly. Though he was younger than her by half a millennium, there seemed little his stoic gaze could not comprehend. “I take it that Zand has decided to pay a visit,” Eramar finally said as he nodded towards Saria’s hand.

Saria looked down and noticed that she was clutching the blue feathered quill that Zand had left behind before vanishing.

“Well, that was terrifying,” said Zand to himself as he sat in his personal meditation enclave on the Tarrus Moon of Galsin.

It was a small room, with little to no furnishings so as not to distract Zand while meditating. With the white marble-lined floors, and the simply designed pillars that dotted the room in the shape of a circle, there was little to draw the eye save for a floating, metal disk that Zand sat on while he was in deep meditation.

Though his surroundings were not the most lavish, there was no place on the entire moon that resonated with as much psionic energy. Every planet had a center. Not a physical center like the core of a planet, but a spiritual one that amplified all Elemental powers. This room was the center of Galsin, the first place on the planetoid where Elemency came to being. Often, Elemental powers were determined by the proximity of the user’s birth to the center of whatever planet he or she was born on. The center of the planet was often the place where life first manifested itself on any given world, a fact that could bring unimaginable power and spiritual stability for those who were sensitive enough to the free-flowing ways of the universe.

“Hell truly hath no fury like a woman scorned,” said Zand to himself as he stretched out gingerly and opened his eyes for the first time in days. It had taken him three days of constant meditation to get past the barriers of Saria’s mind unnoticed without damaging her mental faculties. To do so again would most likely prove too risky for both parties.

Zand was in such a daze after his telepathic encounter with Saria that he hardly even noticed the quiet footsteps of Hannah Lioness as she made her way into his quarters.

“Shouldn’t you be seeing Saria in person instead of sneaking around her mind like a Goblin Assassin in the night?” asked Hannah casually.

“Listen well, child. You do not know that woman like I do. I barely escaped with my life back there. Imagine if I had shown up in person,” said Zand, turning to the figure of the young yet wizened form of Hannah Lioness.

Well, young compared to me, but then most beings are.

Hannah wore her ceremonial robes as the High Priestess of the Order of Light. The white robes went down to her feet while interwoven in the ancient language of the Hamashe family with its intricate designs that took on an almost birdlike quality. Hannah had lusciously long, golden blonde hair that would have been visible had she not been wearing her hood up. As always, her deep blue eyes were filled with both passion and sorrow.

It wounded Zand’s heart when he recounted that Hannah’s eyes had not always looked so sorrowful. Her smooth, angular face seemed that of a young woman in her mid to late thirties, but Hannah was much older than she appeared to be. Much like many Elementals of any considerable rank, or former Elementals in Hannah’s case, she had inherited something near to immortality with the advancement of her abilities.

“I despise all this secrecy,” started Hannah bluntly, lowering her eyes and sighing. “Why must we who serve the light be forced to scurry in the shadows?”

“Hannah, I have told you before. Until such a time that the universe is ready to hear our teachings, I’m afraid that this is the way it must be. We tried six years ago, and as a result, the Hamashe line has been reduced to near extinction. A corrupt man now sits on the throne on Tarrus, and the Monastery has had to distance itself from political power because of your affiliation to me. This tells me that the people of the universe need a little more time to mature and grow before the message of peace can be realized. We cannot force our will on the people. They, like all of us, must choose darkness over light. It is the only way to bring out harmony without resorting to tyranny.”

“It might be the only way, but it shouldn’t be. Our mission is to help the people come to the light. How can we do that when we dwell in obscurity? It’s no wonder that our enemy feels obliged to torment us so boldly.”

Hannah’s words rang with the passion of youth, a quality that had recently resurfaced in her. Zand couldn’t help but smile. He knew that time was the truest path to attaining wisdom. But sometimes, even greater enlightenment is achievable through the innocence of youth. A youth that is unburdened by the cynicism of life can sometimes see more clearly than the oldest sage. But, of course, the passions of the young often led to the frustrations of the old if that passion was not restrained by practicality. Perhaps the balance involved youthful exuberance and the more practical wisdom brought on by experience.

“You seem awfully pensive today. What ails you, my dear?” asked Zand, knowing there was more to this conversation than there appeared to be.

Hannah huffed in frustration and turned away from Zand, unable to meet his gaze. Zand knew that such a reaction usually meant that she was going to make a request of him - a request that she knew he would probably have to refuse. Zand could guess what said request might pertain to.

“I want you to recall Torsha and send me instead,” said Hannah abruptly, her tone almost demanding.

“You know why I can’t do that.”

“It’s my life, and for Ryan’s sake, I’d risk it gladly!”

Since Hannah’s encounter with the mysterious young boy, Ryan Uruks, Zand had noticed a profound change in her. She attacked life with much more vigor than she used to. Her eyes, which had once seemed hazed over with despair, now shown with a new brilliance that she had only possessed in her younger days. That being said, there was a time when childish zeal, as well-intentioned as it could be, needed to give sway to more elderly counsel. It had taken Zand many years to decipher moments such as these, and even now, he was still unsure of the logistics with his dealings in fate.

“I know you would, Hannah, But I would not dismiss your life so casually, even if offered in service to another.”

Zand mentally descended from his seating post atop the metal disk. It felt like ages since he had moved his muscles, and even though his lifespan was more long-lived than most Elementals, some things just didn’t get any easier the older he got. Zand let a soft sigh of pain escape his lips as he forced himself to stand to his feet after three days of remaining completely motionless. He allowed himself about a half-a-second of mortal vulnerability before returning to the rigid role of Prime Minister of Elemency.

“Ryan’s fate is still undetermined. As much as I want to protect the boy, there are still many forces vying for control over him. We cannot afford to show our hand before its time. That is why I chose a more indirect means of protection for the time being. Ryan and the young Torsha share many similarities. It is for that reason that I believe she will have a positive influence on his upbringing ... as he, in turn, will have on her. And besides that, sending you now is far too dangerous. You are too recognizable to the Mystics who are no doubt still in hiding within the streets of Tarrus. If my suspicions are true, our enemy has been able to plant a spy very close to Ryan and the others. It is for that reason that we must tread carefully.”

“You’re referring to this mystery telepath that supposedly influenced Lord Gregory. He has long been on your mind,” speculated Hannah as some of the fire seemed to leave her eyes.

Zand nodded as he stared up at the top of the small room to look at the stars above. A thin layer of water rippled and churned within the circular portal. It served as a kind of barrier to prevent anyone from looking inside, but it did not prevent anyone from looking outside. Zand could recount times when he had literally spent days scrutinizing the stars, trying to decipher the mysteries that they held, and if the answers to some of those mysteries might aid him in his quest.

“In any case, your path is not meant to intersect with Ryan’s just yet. There will come a time in the near future when he will greatly require your counsel. That much I can sense. But other than that, the future is veiled ... even from me. We live in uncertain times, Hannah. A fact that I wish were not so, but wishing upon the stars never changed them.”

“I understand,” affirmed Hannah somberly. “I apologize for my outburst. Caretaker’s blessings, my Lord Prime Minister.”

The Priestess bowed reverently and turned to leave, but before she could, Zand moved to stop her. It was a subtle movement on his part, but for Hannah, it seemed as if he materialized right in front of her. One of the perks of being a Sacred Vessel were the constant looks of surprise on people’s faces. Zand often evaluated himself with those looks that people gave him - used them as reference points to determine whether his actions could be used for good or for ill. One of the burdens of being a Sacred Vessel was determining which aspects of nature to change and which to leave alone. Since Zand wasn’t really changing anything in this case, he reasoned that letting his power show just a little would not have too dire consequences.