ZeQuest: A Space Opera Mystery Novella (The Quest Saga Science Fiction Adventure Series Book 2) (5 page)

Q stood on the cold stone floor, his eyes looking straight at Idhren who was standing on the other side of the room. Well it wasn’t as much a room as it was an arena, a rectangular-box with cold-colored metal floors and dull stone walls.

“Shall we start then?” Idhren asked, his voice faintly echoing off of the walls.

Q nodded. He cleared his mind of any cluttering thoughts and focused on his breathing, bringing it down to a steady flow.

Idhren raised his staff into the air, and muttered something too quiet for Q to hear. The staff’s crystal orb glowed a rich aquamarine, the intense rays basking the walls in a mystical hue.

He raised the staff, “Come warrior!” he yelled and hit the wooden base against the floor. A burst of wind shot out in a circle, picking Q up and tossing him onto the ground.

Q picked himself up, positioning himself to defend another attack. A torrent of winds shifted around Idhren, clouding him in a mask of dark air.

The Elementa of wind
, Q thought.

That was one of the tougher Elementa to deal with, mainly because it could manipulate any sort of air, and air was something that was almost always all around them.

He focused his mind, feeling a pool of energy with him and imagining it flow into the air around his hands. A tinge of red emerged from his fingers, turning into a roaring five-foot flame on each of his hands. He spun around to gain momentum and released the fireballs straight at Idhren.

The flaming blobs shot through the air, leaving behind a faint trail of red. They spun around Idhren, flowing through the fast winds that ran around him.

“Is that all you can do?” he asked and pointed the staff at Q.

The flames flew out of the vortex and headed straight at him. He dived to his side and the flames flew just over him, sizzling when they hit the walls.

That’s a burn spot they’ll never get out
, he thought.

A series of soft thuds entered his ears. He jumped onto his feet and saw Idhren walking to him, using his staff as a makeshift walking stick. The winds around him had subsided, but Q knew Idhren could summon them whenever he wanted.

He needed to find some other way to beat this guy. The room was pretty much useless at helping him out. Stone walls didn’t help at all since he didn’t control the Elementa of Earth.

And the metal walls? The Elementa of metal was an insanely hard Elementa to control, let alone master. It took so much training to perfect that he hadn’t even tried controlling it.

Wait. Metal
, he thought.

The floor was made of pure metal, and the ceiling was metal too. He threw his hand up at the ceiling above Idhren. The High Priest paid no attention and continued walking towards him, his staff glowing even brighter than before.

He focused harder, trying to force a good chunk of life energy into his attack.

C’mon
, he thought.
Don’t let me down now
.

A small spark flickered from the ceiling.

Q smiled,
Gotcha
.

He brought his hand to the ground, and a hundred bolts of red lightning shot between the two metal surfaces. All around the room a haze of red shone through the air, but smack in the spot where Idhren stood, was a sphere of calm. It was almost as though that region of the room were in a completely different dimension he couldn’t affect.

For a second, Q really thought Idhren had created his own force field. Who knew what these Druids could do?

Then he realized what was actually going on. Idhren had pressurized the air around him to form a sort of high density shield of air. Air was one of the best insulators against electricity. Q’s could get past the normal insulation power of air, which is why the lightning was easy to create, but denser air had much greater insulation power, which meant it was harder for lightning to pass through it. Once the air got to a high enough density the insulation strength would be so great that lightning would never be able to get through it.

And that’s exactly what had happened.

Damn it
, he thought.

“You will need more than parlor tricks to beat me, boy,” Idhren said and with one simple swing of his staff, dissipated the entire storm of red lightning.

Q was starting to doubt if he could ever beat this guy. That lightning storm was one of his strongest attacks, and this guy took less than a second to counter it.

“You have yet to show me your true power,” Idhren pointed his staff at Q, and a blast of wind shot at him.

Q instinctively threw his hands in front of him. A wall of translucent white rose from the floor a few yards away and isolated him and Idhren from each other. He looked through the translucent barrier and saw a wide smile across Idhren’s face.

“A barrier from the Elementa of light,” the High Priest smiled.

The orb at the top of his staff went from aquamarine to bright white. Loud thuds came from the white wall and small cracks started to form all over it.

The wind
, he thought.

Idhren was concentrating the air into high density regions and ramming it into the wall, almost like a sledge hammer. Q tried to channel out more of his life energy to strengthen his barrier, but he knew he faced a far more fundamental problem - he had no clue how he’d put up that barrier. The key to mastering an Elementa was creating visual cues to help set up a wave-skill, and right now Q had
no
cues at all.

The thudding stopped abruptly, and Idhren took a few steps back, swirling his staff around before pointing it to the ceiling.

“
Extieum
,” he said.

A funnel of wind shot out of the staff, like a raging tornado, and crashed through the barrier, shattering it into nothing. Q flew through the air once again, this time hitting the stone wall before slumping to the floor.

Ugh
, he thought.

He’d been utterly defeated by the High Priest, even though the man had only used his Elementa of wind.

Idhren calmly walked over to him, the soft thuds of his staff accompanying his steps, “That was a good battle, my boy,” he said.

“I can’t believe you beat me,” Q said.

It wasn’t the nicest thing to say but he was genuinely stupefied. He was pretty sure Elizabeth would have felt the same way if she’d found out about this. He’d just used three different Elementa, and lost to a guy who used just the Elementa of wind.

“Do not misunderstand. You have potential greater than all the strongest warriors combined,” he said. “But you do not possess the skill set you need to tap into that potential. Your powers have been at their strongest when your emotions surged through you, yes?”

Q nodded.

“That is the sign of a lack of perfection in your wave-skills,” Idhren sighed and paused for a bit. “It’s decided then. You will be trained on your general wave-skill while focusing more on the great Elementa of light.”

“Trained? By whom?”

Idhren smiled, “I’ve heard the High Priest is a very good mentor.”

***

Q opened his eyes and the darkness of the night greeted him. He had to admit it felt scary to sleep all alone in a medieval like room. He couldn’t help but feel someone would try to assassinate him while he was asleep, and the fear only accelerated when he recalled the whole intruder situation that had happened earlier on.

Unable to go back to sleep, he walked over to the room’s only window. It had a wide wooden frame, about six feet in width, with a smooth, high-quality texture on its surface. He looked out at the scenery before him. The dew on the grassy lawns below caught the moonlight and glittered like hidden jewels. The moon itself was not very visible, hiding behind the dark clouds that ran across the lower regions of the sky.

It had been a hell of a day, from the Thanonian attack to the hotspring to the battle he had with Idhren. Interestingly though, Carlos seemed completely unsurprised that Idhren had beaten Q comfortably.

Maybe he’d expected it all along
, he thought.

His brother often turned mysterious at times. He would refrain from giving him pieces of information until what he felt was the optimum moment. And the optimum moment was usually the last possible moment.

Q was expecting his brother to tell him about some old age connection he had to Idhren, but his brother had been quiet on that aspect. It seemed very likely that the two of them had known each other for a long time, even though Idhren said Carlos hadn’t come to Armorica in the last five years.

To him it seemed as though Idhren had been Carlos’ teacher, and that idea made even more sense since both of them had very good control over the Elementa of wind, with Idhren being way better than his brother.

Q stared out into the open, letting the images of the night wash his thoughts away. The actual capital city was a beautiful place. The houses were simplistic and medieval, with stone walls and roofs. There were of course the larger two-story houses that were also made of stone but of a much more refined and polished kind.

In between all this architecture, Q noticed a faint shadow pass the outer palace boundary, lingering for just a second before fading into the dark. He looked hard, squinting his eyes to get a better image, and made out an outline of a large group of people heading deeper into the housing region of the city. Honestly, he felt he’d just imagined the entire thing. The shadows in the darkness were almost invisible, and were probably just as easy to conjure up in one’s imagination.

A loud shriek tore through the quiet night. Q gripped the windowsill, a chill passing down his spine. Another scream broke out, this one sounding farther away and a little dull, as though the person had been muffled.

Q stiffened.
Not my imagination
, he thought.

He rushed out of the room, somehow maneuvering through the dark corridor and reaching the room at the end. He didn’t bother knocking but barged in.

A confused Idhren sat up in his bed, his hands reaching out for his staff. Q panicked at first and realized the High Priest couldn’t see anything through the darkness. To Idhren he could have been just about anything from a cookie-selling girl scout to a sword-wielding assassin.

“Idhren something weird is going on,” Q said.

“Ah it’s you,” he retracted his hand back from his staff. “What happened?”

“I saw some shadows.”

“Yes, sometimes we have people running around at night. I cannot for the love of me figure out what it is they do. Maybe parties.”

“I heard screams.”

Q could see Idhren’s shadow hunch forward, his hands on his face.

“Screams you say.”

“Yes. Heard them twice,” he said. “The second one further away than the first.”

Idhren clapped his hands twice and four white lava lamps dully lit the room. He stood up, already dressed in his white gown, which apparently doubled as a nightgown.

“I suggest you go rest,” he grabbed his staff and walked to the door. “I will look into this immediately.”

And with that he left the room.

Q didn’t think he could relax after what had just happened and so he just stayed in Idhren’s room, whiling away time by looking out his window. Soon he realized he was subconsciously trying to be on the lookout for any of those shadows.

Idhren finally came back into the room, when the sun was just peeking over the horizon. A man stood next to him, his face a little nervous.

“Intel spent the last four hours scouting around for information and leads.”

It’s been four hours?
Q thought. He hadn’t noticed the time go by at all. Rather, how had he been able to stare out a window for that long?

“We’ve confirmed ten missing civilians.”

“What?” his eyes went wide. “Then those screams were…”

“The civilians. Yes. Many families report hearing screams from their loved ones’ rooms before finding out they’d vanished.”

“Those shadow men are on a kidnapping spree.”

“It seems so.”

“I hope you found out the kidnappers identities?”

“I believe so.”

“It seems so uncharacteristic to think a civilian would do something of this sort,” Q said. “You guys seem so kind and peaceful.”

“That statement still holds true.”

“What?”

“Our kind is neither morally nor skillfully enabled to perform something so disastrous. This was an outside job.”

“Then…”

Idhren nodded grimly, “The shadow men were not from Armorica,” he said. “They were Thanonians.”

***

Elizabeth sat in her room, staring at the room’s large doors. The waning sunlight strained through the lacy, transparent curtains that hung over the bed like a sort of canopy.

It was nearly nightfall and Alicia still hadn’t come back. She’d bonded quite well with the pilot, and felt pretty bored when she wasn’t around. And so the entire day had passed in pure silence. She never left her room, other than for her meals, and no one came in.

She’d kind of expected Carlos or Q to come by at least once, but nope, those two seemed to be on some other agenda for the time being.

Should have gone to the hot spring
, she thought.

The last few rays of sunshine shone brighter than before, as though they were going down pridefully.

And then she saw
it
.

A faint group of shadows far off in the distance. They could have been regular civilians, but these people were jumping between rooftops and moving fast. No way a civilian did something like that.

The same guys Q saw
, she thought. There was no doubt these were the same.

Her first instinct was to go tell Carlos or the High Priest. And then she reconsidered her idea.

By the time she did that those figures might completely disappear, and she really didn’t want to lose sight of them. She gave herself a small running start and jumped out the window like a parkour athlete. Her body remained still as she dropped from the third story and she opened her wings only when she was a few feet above the ground. Her wings caught the wind and she glided across the palace’s grassy lawns, a small tailwind nuzzling the greenery behind her.

The guards saw her and deactivated a section of the force field. The deactivated part was pretty hard to distinguish since the whole force field was invisible, but she just flew straight, trusting that the guard would deactivate the right section, and sure enough she got out without cracking her skull.

The area outside the force field wasn’t what she’d expected. The air was colder, much colder, and the wind blew quite hard.

The force field must keep the harsh weather out
, she thought.

Her wings caught an updraft and she rose into the sky, trying to give herself a better view. Even though Armorica’s sun had set, its faint glow still remained in the sky, illuminating the city just enough for her to pick out her shadowy friends.

They were jumping from rooftop to rooftop before dropping down into a cluster of homes. She flew towards them, maintaining her height to keep her advantage over them.

A blood-curling scream came from a distance. She picked up the pace and shot through the air, her wings flapping briskly.

A few civilians came out of their houses, chatting noisily. Windows and doors opened up with curious faces peering out of them. No doubt they’d all heard the scream. She was sure everyone at the palace had heard it too. Maybe now the High Priest would deploy his security team.

She heard a faint hum, one that would have been inaudible to a human ear.

A ship
, she thought and floated higher into the air like a hot-air balloon.

A small cuboidal aircraft, probably a carriage ship, rose from just outside the city’s borders. She dived down, retracting her wings and dropping like a missile, increasing her speed with every meter she fell. There was no way she was going to let this ship get away from her.

The craft was slow to rise into the air, which left her just enough time to lay herself on top of the ship. The worn metal surface gave her enough grip to hold on. The ship rose into the air, and shot forward. Luckily for her, it wasn’t too fast, and she found it relatively easy to hang on.

She was eager to head into the ship and teach these guys a thing or two, but she knew it was far more valuable to find where they were going than give them a morality lesson. She could always wait until they reached their destination and then teach them that lesson.

The sound of thunder rumbled in her ears, and a moist wind hit her face, bringing along with it a whiff of an earthly scent.

Rain
, she thought.

A deluge of dark gray clouds gathered ahead, and the ship headed right into them.

Great
, she thought.
Just what I needed.

“
Ethosien
,” she said. Her bracelet glowed and in seconds she was in her blue and white armor.
Now
she was ready for the storm.

Ironically though, nothing happened.

Sure, bolts of lightning light up the sky, claps of thunder shattered the air, and the fuming wind howled like a one of werewolves heartbroken in love, but it didn’t really feel like a storm.

It felt like an illusion.

Then again, maybe storms on this planet were just much weaker than she’d expected. The whole ordeal spanned only few miles of sky, and soon they were out the cluster of gray, and this time the scenery was wildly different.

The urban houses were long gone, replaced by hills and valleys filled with luscious green terrain. A mountain range stood beyond the hills, and between it and the hills was a small river, almost like a natural moat. A faint fog lay over the river, slowly creeping onto the grassy land.

The most prominent part of the scenery, though, was the moon.

It was
humongous
, and rose from behind the mountains, its surface a clear, milky white. A blue tinge shone around it, surrounded by the stars; bright diamonds on a canvas of faint blue.

The spacecraft lowered towards the ground the closer it got to the mountains. It seemed like it was trying to head right
at
the mountains, which was probably not a good idea.

She heard a low hum come from ahead. Her suit picked up the sound and traced it to one of the larger, thinner mountains that looked like a wide, rugged pillar.

A section of the mountain opened up, large enough for about five similar sized ships to go in at once.

Elizabeth went back to lying flat on the ship’s top, trying to stay as hidden as possible. They headed into the mountain and the opening slid back, thudding to a close.

A few portable lamps, of primitive tech, hung from the walls, lighting up the room.

“Well, well,” a voice echoed.

A hooded face peeked out from the front of the ship, “So nice of you to join us.”

Elizabeth panicked and tried to make a break for it. She turned around and saw another hooded figure standing over her, a rocket launcher in his hand, his finger on the trigger.

***