Free The Rising Sun: Episode 2 by J Hawk Page A

lit space
across the end of the room.
     
    He stood there in the darkness, wandering the
depths of his memory, the chambers of his past which lay locked
within him … And something almost seemed to shift in the darkness
ahead. Ion had refused to join and help the Nyon. But his reason
for it was his own.
     
    Absently, as though waiting for this moment
all through, he stuffed his hand into his robe pocket. And drew a
familiar piece of rolled parchment. He unrolled the poster with the
deadly murderer. Ion looked into the face in the poster, feeling
wounds of his past dig deeper into his soul.
     
    And there was the reason.
     
    That face in the picture was the reason for
refusing the Nyon.
     
    After leaving Jedius, Ion had devoted months
to finding and bringing down various criminals, terrorists and
mafia lords. Targets in the world of crime to which he owed much.
But among all of them, there was one final target he had … The
darkest and most dangerous target, whom he now needed to focus on.
And he knew that he would never rest … he would never be free,
unless he brought down this final, prized target. And that target
was the face he saw in the picture. The man with the glowing red
eyes, whom he shared a dark history with.
     
    As much as he yearned to, Ion knew he would
never be able to live with himself unless he settled his past with
this murderer in the picture … his struggle would never end until
and unless he brought down this one man. Until he had his revenge
against him. For if he didn’t do this, the guilt would be
unbearable. And he wouldn’t bear this pain at any cost … even at
the cost of turning down the Nyon and whatever noble mission they
had for him.
     
    Ion trotted over to the other end of the
room, gazing out the glass door of the balcony. They were now at
the deepest stage of the night, with the darkness at its pitch. He
leant by the side of the wall by his right, his gaze revelling in
the beauty of the starlit night through the balcony outside.
     
    “This is hardly the place.” came a voice out
of the darkness in the rest of the room.
     
    With an electric jolt, Ion whipped around to
face the other end of the room, his heart hammering his ribs.
     
    And then, movement slowly moulded out of the
stillness at the dark end of the room. A figure was slowly emerging
from where he had remained, hidden in the darkness all along. As
the man walked over to before the balcony’s entrance, the starlight
glazing this side of the room struck his face, bringing it to
complete clarity.
     
    “This is hardly the type of place where I
hoped to find you.” repeated Jedius.
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
12
     
     
     
     
    The two of them stood there, master and
disciple, grown man and youngster, Elfling and Fyrling, staring at
each other for what could have been a few centuries.
     
    The warmth of Jedius’s smile seemed to dispel
the gloominess of the room.
     
    Ion needed a heavy effort to break from the
shock and find his voice again.
     
    “Master?” he whispered.
     
    Jedius patted him gently on the shoulder.
     
    “Nothing could have gifted me more happiness
than finding you in a healthy and happy state, old friend.”
     
    Ion looked down the other end of the room,
where his master had evidently been skulking, in wait of him.
     
    “How long where you here, waiting for
me?”
     
    Jedius laughed softly. “The first lesson, as
you well remember me teaching you, is patience.”
     
    As the shock faded, emotion welled within Ion
at the sight of his master. And only now, after finally seeing him
after so long did he realise how much he had missed Jedius … and
how much he had craved to meet him again.
     
    “ How ?” he gasped, finally able to
blurt his confusion.
     
    “How did I manage to find you?” asked Jedius.
“That shouldn’t be of significant concern right now.”
     
    He walked forth and patted Ion warmly on the
shoulder. “I just thought I would drop by to see how things are
running