Zein: The Prophecy Read online

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Kabel was pulled from his thoughts by Delilah, who had wandered across to sit next to him.

  ‘Oh, just thinking of how fortunate we are,’ Kabel said, looking up at the blazing sun. ‘We have summer all the time with just enough rain and no winter.’

  ‘Well, the Elders wanted us to use the wonders of Earth and our technology to live well and leave behind the winter.’

  ‘Do you ever wonder what it would be to experience a Zein winter?’ Kabel asked.

  ‘It must be horrible. Cooped underground for so long and then having to wait for reflection to finish. Then you have the Pod to contend with.’

  Due to the way reflection erupted it was dangerous to be on the surface when this happened. It was said this was where the mysterious Pod grew so strong, drawing in the energy and becoming so powerful before they infiltrated the underground havens and began slaughtering the Zeinonians.

  Kabel’s anger suddenly flared up as he thought this and a blue glow began to throb from his hands. Delilah rocked back onto her calves. Kabel thrust his hands into his tunic hiding the tell-tale flashes.

  ‘What was that? It can’t be!’ Delilah was startled and confused, ‘You have the magics. How, why?’ she asked.

  Kabel hesitated as Malkin had warned him to keep his identity secret but Delilah was his closest friend. There was a chirping in his ear. The Changeling had flown to his shoulder and glared at him warningly out of his one Mina bird eye. Kabel ignored him.

  ‘I am a Blackstone of the royal bloodline,’ he told her simply, with a shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘You’re a w-what?’ Delilah was astonished. ‘You can’t be, though that does explain a few things.’ She answered her own question. For the first time she put all the facts together – how different he was, how strong and fast he was. She now saw him in a new light. Delilah came from a family that had little historical relevance. It was only through the sponsorship of Lord Southgate and Hilah’s acceptance into the Elders, due to plain hard work, that their status had grown. Now she was sitting opposite a member of the most famous of the royal clans.

  ‘Tell me all,’ she demanded eagerly.

  Kabel told her everything. How he stole the seckles and how he could hear others’ thoughts. At this point Delilah blushed, to know that he may be able to read her mind. Does he know about my crush on Daniel Lightfoot? Kabel kept his face passive. Yes, he did but he was not going to tell her that.

  ‘Can I see the seckles?’ Delilah asked, finding it hard to contain her excitement.

  Kabel pulled one of the seckles out from his tunic, carefully shielding it from prying eyes. He didn’t see the two men watching him from a nearby picnic bench.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Delilah said reaching out to touch them.

  ‘No, don’t touch,’ he said curtly. Then seeing her hurt expression he explained. ‘A seckle can be lethal if picked up by someone who is not in the clan. There can sometimes be little poisonous spikes that are triggered when they do not detect the DNA.’ She paled, Kabel had never raised his voice to her before and there had been a flash in his eyes which made her nervous. Delilah hoped that their relationship would remain the same.

  Kabel shoved the seckles back into his tunic and jumped up and approached the picket fence circling the great tree. Delilah followed a little circumspectly, not really knowing what to say, her youth placing her in awe of her adopted brother.

  ‘They say that no one but the Village Elders has ever touched the tree.’ He wondered. There was an annual ceremony each year to recognize the day they came to Earth in which the Livescale residents came out and surrounded the lake with the Elders all on the island. Speeches were made and flowers hung on the picket fence. The tree was an important symbol of life back on Zein. The environmental programme included the tree in its source code, the tree representing the entrance to the hibernation lairs that the Zeinonians retreated to before winter set in. The mangrove trees were the only large living thing able to withstand the great winds, rains and freezing conditions. Everything else hibernated. Each village had a similar tree.

  ‘I know,’ she answered not really listening, her initial excitement turning into doubt about how Kabel would view her. Kabel caught the uncertainty and turning away from the tree he took hold of her hands.

  ‘This changes nothing between us, Delilah. You are my sister and I will always love you,’ he said and then hugged her. Delilah smiled back pleased at his words. An element of doubt still remained.

  The sun was going down and they decided to make their way back to the village through the woods. When they were nearing the centre of the woods, two men stepped out in front of them. Kabel stopped abruptly, sensing the danger and thoughts of the men, and immediately placed an arm across Delilah and then stepped in front of her.

  The two men looked familiar. The picnic bench!

  Before he could challenge the men each removed a seckle from their tunics and ran at him, their faces twisted into savage masks.

  ‘Get back,’ he shouted at Delilah, pushing her to the side of the path. He reached into his tunic and pulled out the two seckles, the blue glow from his hands triggering the blades on each weapon.

  The attackers split apart as they reached Kabel and launched themselves at him from opposite directions. Kabel didn’t move.

  Delilah, who had pulled herself up from being sprawled on the ground after Kabel’s push, gasped, ‘Move, for Tucan’s sake, move,’ she screamed. The man who came at Kabel from the left jumped into the air and brought his seckle down aiming to slice Kabel’s head open.

  Kabel was suddenly a blur of movement, the blue glow spreading up from his arms and enveloping him. The seckle in his left hand blocked the seckle wielded by the man on the left and then he moved into a crouch onto his right knee, which automatically made the scything blow from the man on the right whistle over his head. At the same time his right hand seckle cut into the right man’s left leg. The right hand attacker went skidding to the floor. The left hand attacker, who had steadied himself from the initial block, went for another blow aimed at Kabel’s head. Kabel simply leaned back with such ease and the blow missed. The momentum of the blow turned the left hand attacker around. Before he could turn to steady himself, Kabel was up on his feet and attacked him with both blades which cut him at the waist and the neck. He fell dead. Without hesitation Kabel turned to the right hand attacker who was clutching his leg with his left hand and holding his seckle in the right for protection. Kabel’s right hand seckle went over the defending seckle and cut the second attacker’s throat open. He also fell to the ground dead.

  Kabel felt the power course through him. He vaguely heard a voice.

  ‘Kabel, Kabel…’ He blinked and calmed his breathing and the blue glare receded until he found himself standing over the two dead men. Delilah was the one calling his name. He looked at his sister and then hearing others coming down the path he flicked the buttons on the two seckles and the blades smoothly went back into the handle. He placed them back into the safety of his tunic.

  Soon there was a crowd of onlookers from the Falls, who hearing the commotion had come to see what was happening.

  The village marshals were called and they came with Elder Vois and Malkin. Kabel quickly explained what had happened and they listened before escorting them back to the safety of Livescale. Not before Malkin recognised the two men as the ones from the Federation Fair.

  Assassins! Was history going to repeat itself was his worried thought.

  Kabel didn’t see Delilah’s expression. She could only think that her brother, in a space of a few moments had turned from a loving, kind person to a warrior capable of extreme violence. What was Kabel becoming?

  Malkin missed nothing. He saw the frown on Delilah’s face and correctly interpreted what had happened.

  Later, the Village Elders were told of the attempted murder and Kabel’s explanation that he was able to disarm one of the men and use the man’s seckle to fight them
off. The story was accepted by Lord Southgate, if not Lord Malacca. Malkin sensed that the latter was somehow involved and was disappointed that Kabel was still alive.

  After the excitement calmed down and the majority of people had left the family’s home, Malkin went to find Kabel.

  He found him in his room staring moodily up at the ceiling.

  ‘You struggling?’ he asked. There was no answer. ‘It is never easy on your first kill, however good you are,’ Malkin said quietly.

  ‘A little,’ Kabel said. Puzzled he asked, ‘When I trigger the seckles I am covered from head to foot by some kind of force-field and I felt everything was slow motion. Why does that happen?’ he asked Malkin.

  Malkin grunted and sat down in a chair at the side of the bed.

  ‘That is the personal shield barrier that the magics give to the Blackstones. If a blow had got through, the barrier would normally have protected you. It does not stop all blows and can weaken with repeated attacks but means you have protection that others do not. It gives you an edge, as does the ability to read thoughts.’ Malkin paused. ‘The magics in the other clans are all different. The Malacca Clan can levitate when threatened, the Fathoms distort their image and you find yourself attacking thin air, the Tythers can change their height and the Southgates can jump great distances even though they are the smallest of the clans.

  ‘So Zylar has the same magics as I do?’ Kabel asked.

  ‘Yes and he was not satisfied with that. The rumours said that he sought the magics of the other clans and I don’t know whether he achieved this. This is called the One Way, mastery of all magics. This way brings madness as your soul is corrupted, twisted if you like.’

  Kabel folded his hands behind his head as he rested back on his bed.

  ‘Who can defeat Zylar then if I can’t?’

  ‘The humans below are different. They may look like us but that doesn’t mean that they have developed biologically like us.’ He paused, forming his next words carefully, ‘You already know that their retina is fixed and the way they see colours is different from us. They always see their grass as green but sometimes it is blue to us and their sky is blue to them but on a very sunny day it is green to us. Our retina has evolved, almost damaged from the impact of magics, always fluctuating what we see, whilst the humans have no magic to impact on how their brain adapts to what they see or experience. However, their body mass is denser than ours, which makes them stronger than us but slower.’ Malkin was building the case for the point he was leading up to.

  ‘Have you ever thought what may happen if we crossed our DNA with humans, Kabel? Have you ever asked yourself what magics that cross-species would have? The Prophecy said, “One will come from another world to lead all races. Zein will be free once more.” This is an event that will happen,’ said Malkin.

  ‘A human!’ said Kabel excitedly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed as he sat up.

  Malkin shrugged. ‘Maybe, or maybe a hybrid – from the joining of a Zein and human. What has concerned us over these many years is that if the humans with their ability to reproduce readily and their very aggressive nature were to obtain our magics then Earth would not hold them for long,’ said Malkin, looking at Kabel from underneath his bushy eyebrows. ‘Would they attack us and enslave us like the Xonians wanted to do all those years ago?’

  ‘Does a human or hybrid exist, as you called it?’ asked Kabel struggling to keep up with the conversation; there were too many unanswered questions. Malkin smiled.

  ‘That’s enough for tonight. Get some sleep.’ He left the young Zeinonian with his thoughts. It was a long time before Kabel dropped off to sleep.

  The following day was the monthly Inner Council meeting. As Kabel was still on probation he couldn’t attend the Council meetings so he slept in and when he went up for breakfast everyone was out. His mother had left to open the store, Drogan and his father had gone to the meeting and Delilah was shopping with her aunt. The Changeling was curled up near the door.

  He made some crispy baons and was just piling a big stack into his hungry mouth when Delilah burst through the door.

  ‘Something is happening at the Village Council!’ she said, her voice full of panic.

  Kabel dropped his food and ran into the main street, followed by the Changeling, who had grown into a two fanged, six legged Roth, a vicious animal from Zein. The first thing Kabel saw was the photon blasts emitting from the Transportation building. He saw the Western Quadrant militia running from all directions towards the Village Council. They were pulling on their tunics and yanking out their blasters. Suddenly there were soldiers appearing from the Transportation building shooting into the approaching militia and also indiscriminately hitting the civilians running away.

  He saw Drogan burst from the Village Council building accompanied by some of the other Elders, including his father. Elder Vois fell, caught by a blast. Drogan turned and shot back into the council hall from where they had just emerged.

  Enemy soldiers were in both buildings.

  Lord Southgate, standing with Drogan and the surviving Elders, called the militia to his side. The air was thick with the smell of the photon shots.

  The Southgate Clan leader projected a shield of yellow from one of his hands, which deflected the bolts and with his other he shot with immense skill at the enemy, killing many.

  Kabel had a surge of pride as his brother stood shoulder to shoulder with the great Lord Southgate. Then the insurgents grew in number as more came through the transportation portal and spilled out of the Transportation building. The militia had taken some major casualties and Lord Southgate and Drogan fell back to try to form a viable defence.

  Just as the insurgents’ numbers began to tell there was a great roar and Malkin came sprinting across the square with a squad of soldiers. With his cane gleaming in the sun, the wicked blades exposed, he ran straight at the insurgents, his cane in front of his body deflecting the photon shots. Without hesitation he threw himself at the enemy, his blades slicing through the front ranks as if they were butter.

  Kabel had seen enough. With a speed that he didn’t know he possessed, he charged up the street to support the Livescale troops. As he ran his hands reached into his tunic and he pulled out the seckles. The blue glow of his protective shield flared up and covered his whole body from head to toe. The seckles glinted in the early morning sunlight.

  Letting out a great roar that startled not just the insurgents but the remaining Village Elders and the militia he ran past the hasty built defence and with a final spurt ran into the midst of the insurgents. His two seckles sliced open the necks of two soldiers. The Changeling was not far behind him and had grabbed one of the soldiers by the neck and broken it with its enormous mouth with the fangs biting into the neck. As they fought side by side the pile of dead bodies mounted. It was not long before Malkin joined them from the right flank. His brother and father rushed to join the fight along with Lord Southgate. One of the injured Eastern soldiers on the floor shot wildly and caught Drogan in the stomach. In disbelief he clutched the wound and fell to the ground. Hilah went to his son’s aid.

  Kabel continued fighting, oblivious to his brother’s injury. The force-field protected him from many of the photon shots. The adrenalin was pumping fast in his body, he felt invincible. Before long the insurgents were all cut down and Malkin ran into the Transportation building and shut down the portal to prevent reinforcements.

  Kabel stood there breathing deeply with the blood of the insurgents dripping from his seckles.

  ‘Kabel!’ It was his father. He turned to his right and saw Drogan lying on the ground clutching his stomach and his father cradling Drogan’s head in his hands. He wiped the blades on a dead insurgent and deactivated the blades. He went and knelt down, tenderly taking his brother’s hand into his. His father was shell-shocked.

  ‘Knew there was something about you apart from your good looks,’ Drogan said coughing. His breathing was slow. ‘Don’t talk, Drogan.
I will get you some help.’ He searched the people helping the wounded and saw a medic nursing an injured soldier.

  ‘Medic,’ he shouted. The medic looked up and gestured that she would be there next.

  ‘No use, bro, I am afraid I feel pretty bad,’ Drogan spluttered, blood dripping from his mouth. ‘So you are one of the royals, then, eh?’ He grabbed hold of Kabel’s hand. ‘Take care of Delilah for me.’ He looked Kabel directly in the eye. In that moment he felt the rush of love from his brother to him and how proud he was. The knowledge jolted Kabel.

  ‘Of course I will. Anyway, we will be able to fix you up. You are going to disappoint all the girls if you die,’ Kabel joked, suppressing the tears welling up.

  Drogan smiled. ‘Well, don’t want to cramp your style.’ His eyes rolled, head lolling to one side with Kabel still holding his hand as his last breath left him. The tentacles of despair and loss crept around Kabel’s heart and squeezed as hard as they could. Background noise faded away as he held his brother’s hand remembering the fights and the recent closer relationship they had. It was true that you didn’t know how much you truly loved someone until they were gone.

  ‘Look,’ someone shouted. The cry broke through Kabel’s reminiscing and he followed the outstretched hand of one of the Elders. Over the hill a large number of levitation tanks were bearing down on the village with thousands of uniformed men. The Ilsid had arrived.

  Malkin ran to Kabel and pulled him away from Drogan, leaving his father still cradling him, rocking back and forth in grief.

  ‘You have to go,’ Malkin said, glancing up at the hill. Lord Southgate came across still holding his blaster. He inclined his head in agreement.