DarkLight

Part 14: Caldera

The voice was all around him, the black and the voice. The deep, booming, wise voice which was chanting some language he didn’t understand. The cold, howling wind was gone now-it was just the black, the voice and the warmth. Was he dead? It felt like he’d been floating endlessly in a sea of black warmth. But then the voices stopped. Just as they had suddenly appeared on the wind above the forbidden continent, they had stopped in the warm abyss. But then the black started lifting. The warmth stayed, but the black was fading into a yellowish glow. Soran could see dark figures all around him.

“Am I dead?” He asked, his throat felt like razors and he spoke in a rasp tone.

“Not quite yet, Soran” He heard back, from near his right ear. The voice was deep and soothing, a voice full of wisdom past Soran’s years. The dark figures were taking shape now, women and men all around him wearing midnight blue shirts and trousers. There was a clinical smell about the room, sterile. His eyes finally came into focus as he looked up at the harsh white strip light above him. The white room was full of an ecclectic mix of ancient looking runes and transparent coloured crystals and medical equipment. In his arms was an IV drip with a blue liquid inside which he was pretty sure was glowing slightly. He pushed himself upright on the bed, leaning against the pillow and looked to the direction the voice came from. Standing next to his bed was an unusually tall man with a bald scalp, but long white hair descending from all around the side of his head almost to his waiste. His long white bered was kept in place by five black beads, and ended at thigh level.

“I am Master Kisa” the wise old man continued as Soran looked on in amazement at the ornate white and red robes that were covered in gold symbols. He recognized the clothing style immedietly. Slowly looking up towards the old man’s serene face, he saw the tell-tale bright blue symmetrical vins on the man’s forhead.

“You’re... Skry?” Soran said in a half whisper.

“Yes” the old man replied with a small smile. “Master Kisa. Welcome to Eresmai, Soran”

“Master Kisa?” Soran questioned. “The Master Kisa!?”

“The very same” Kisa simply replied. This couldn’t be right. Firstly-the Skry were hunted to near extinction and allowed to live only in small primitive villages on the Forbidden Continent with next to no technology, and Master Kisa was killed in the very first stages of the Human-Skry war.

“But... but how do you know my name?”

“There is much to discuss, Soran, I know much more about you than one would think”.

***

“We lost one LordShip, your grace, but we believe that we have successfully disposed of Soran Lex. His ship was successfully shot down seven kilometres off the coast of the Forbidden Continent before the LordShip suffered a cascade failiure in its Energy Control Matrix”.

“Thank you, Captain Farrell. Your service to The Corperation has been exemplary. Your team, am I right in thinking, was the first to find the enterance to The Sorceress’ Catacombs?”

“Yes, my lady, it was my team that found the doorway” The tall dark-haired captain Farrel replied in his rugged voice. His long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and unshaved appearance was pleaseing to the High Matriarch. She pressed a button on her ornate desk, bathed in sunlight by the bright Utopian morning sun, and a rectangular safe-like cabinet rose from the ground behind her.

“Your services to the Utopian State shall be well rewarded” She said, turning the many locks on the security door. It opened with a hiss and she removed a six foot long object covered in a black drape.

“This is a token of thanks from the State Of Utopia, Captain Farrel. You are the new Defender Of Utopia!” She exclaimed, pulling off the drape to reveal Farrell’s new trophy-a Scimitar made of a mystic, lightweight, faintly glowing blue metal. Captain Farrell was now the newly bonded guardian of one of the most powerful weapons in existance-the DarkLight Scimitar.