Free The Rising Sun: Episode 6 by J Hawk Page B

sense,” mumbled Mantra,
standing straight and looking around at the other three youngsters,
one of which was the red haired boy who’d been with Mantra earlier.
“The conch can only be used by a Nyon … only an initiated member of
the brotherhood can sound it.” He turned back to Rygar. “Is there
something else you’d like to tell us, pal?”
     
    Rygar had to summon every bit of his nerve to
keep from flinching. “I’m swearing to you … that’s all I know. I’ve
told you everything about the ambush.” Except the fact that
Dantox is the one doing it. Rygar thought in the private
confines of his own mind. Nyon master Dantox, or so you think
…
     
    Mantra’s eyes continued to remain distant for
a quiet moment, as he tried to place it all together.
     
    “But how will they sound the conch?” he
demanded finally. “It can only be used by a Nyon master.”
     
    Rygar held his hands before him, pulling up
as innocent a look as he could muster. “It’s no good asking me.
I’ve told you all I know.”
     
    Mantra’s eyes narrowed slightly, as his
thoughtful gaze intensified.
     
    Then, slowly turning to the other three, he
said, “Set the ship to the planet Vorgos, to location he’s just
mentioned … and hope that we aren’t too late to save them.”
     
    As Mantra had his back turned, Rygar allowed
the shadow of a smirk to rub his innocent look. Good luck with
that … because about just anytime now, the watchmen will all be
dead.
     
    __________
     
     
    Vorgos, The Outer Spectrum
     
    Nyon master Dantox mounted to the top of a
large plateau in the middle of a deserted terrain. He held the
Grael conch in his right hand, lowered for a few seconds while he
scanned the barren land in front of him. The crimson coloured earth
was unlevelled and rough, scoured of a drop of greenery. It ran
across for miles before entering with the horizon, a massless line
separating the hard red earth and the soft blue sky.
     
    Dantox’s mind flashed back to the time when
they had discovered the conch from Ion, and when the watchmen bad
been re enlivened. It had been a place very much like this one
where it had happened. And now, they would be facing their end in
the very same setting. It was rather fitting, thought Dantox.
     
    Dantox heaved a final deep breath, relishing
the cool evening air as it lapped into his lungs. Then, he raised
the conch to his lips and sounded it…
     
    It felt like a thousand earthquakes smashing
apart the silence as one … the ground and the air seemed to tremble
for a handful of seconds. The sound seemed to reverberate through
the air, making the world itself rumble like a volcano.
     
    Dantox lowered the conch, but the echo of the
majestic noise seemed to hum over the air for many seconds…
     
    Anytime now…
     
    Dantox fixed his eyes on the deserted stretch
of land in front of the plateau he now stood on. The watchmen would
have all gathered there anytime now. He knew that wherever they all
were spread over the outer spectrum’s many distant planets, they
would all come rushing back here to answer the conch’s call. He
estimated a maximum of three minutes, before all of them gathered
here…
     
    To meet their doom.
     
    __________
     
     
    They used the chains that had bound Ion and
Mantra earlier on, to bind the Xeni up and leave him at the back of
the control room. Qyro had set the ship on autopilot to Vorgos, and
the four of them were now standing with their arms folded inside of
the ship. They had no idea what was going on in Vorgos, but
whatever it was, they would be reaching it in a few minutes to find
out…
     
    “Can we reach there to stop the ambush before
it happens?” Vestra asked Mantra, her voice strained with
anxiety.

    “Let’s hope we so.” said Mantra, sounding
just as calm as always. But Ion knew that Mantra’s calm was a
painful deception to the true depth of the grave situation they
were now in. As the ship zipped through space, panic racked Ion’s
nerves,