Chapter 14

When morning came, Conner was wound tight like a spring, ready to snap forward at any moment and hopefully not bash his face into a wall. He could tell by the way Mara’s and Oliver’s jaws were set and their eyes darted that they felt the same way.

Oliver made sure they ate the right amount of breakfast. Enough that they would have energy for the day, but not so much that they would get cramped and tired. After the meal, the grounds were abuzz with preparations for the journey. People ran back and forth between buildings, getting stuff ready. The priests and staff could be found preparing vehicles, or food, or weapons. At one point, Conner locked eyes with Durgna, whose features spread into a wicked grin.

“Conner!” a deep voice bellowed.

Conner turned to see Greg pushing his way toward him, holding something. He held it out, and Conner realized it was his tennis racket. He’d had trouble recognizing it, because the rim was thicker, and the handle had been changed.

“Check it out,” Greg said, thumbing a button on the grip. The extra part of the rim split in half, folding down and becoming part of the handle. Around the outside of the old rim ran a metal blade.

Conner took it by the handle. He made sure no one else was nearby, and gave it a couple of swings. It felt a little heavier than usual, but balanced, and went precisely where he wanted it to. “I love it,” he said.

“Take good care of it,” Greg said. “Keep it sharp. And when you check for its sharpness, don’t run your finger along the blade. That will cut you. Instead run it across the blade. If it catches your skin, that means it’s sharp.” He demonstrated, and Conner heard a slight scraping sound as the blade went over his fingerprints. “When you want to put it away, just run your hand up the handle like this.” He did what he described, and the rim sheath halves folded up around the racket head, covering the blade. “Don’t worry about it opening by accident. You have to really push the button in for it to go.”

Conner thanked Greg again, and practiced swinging his new upgraded weapon for the rest of the preparation time. His good old tennis racket had never felt so good in his hands. Now it was more than a tennis racket. It was a racketblade.

At last, all of the people gathered into one place, behind two trucks, each which pulled a large trailer with benches on it. Conner, Oliver, and Mara made sure to get on a different one from Durgna, Senna, and Bloar. Who knew what kinds of dirty sabotage they might get up to given the chance?

Irom addressed the people sitting on the benches. “We are about to leave the main area of the Sacred Grounds,” he said. “From here on, we may be attacked by wild raptors. Look to your left and your right. These people are your wingmates. They will fight with you, and you with them. Together, you create a link in the chain of defense. By working together, you can prevent the raptors from injuring anyone. If you understand, say aye.”

“Aye,” everyone said, including Conner and his friends.

Irom and Avi each got into one of the trucks and started driving. The one carrying Conner and his friends was second in the line. Conner briefly wondered where Shak was, but supposed he was in one of the passenger seats.

They rode down the dirt road, across a large grassy plain. The boy next to Conner nudged him and pointed into the distance. “Look there,” he said. Far away, Conner saw a pack of two-footed lizard-like creatures, their hides dark with yellow patches, their upper bodies balanced by long, thick tails.

Raptors. Conner stared at them, his whole body tense, willing them not to notice the trucks. They looked like they would have been ferocious enough without the Disease.

“They’re not the ones we have to worry about,” the boy said. He pointed forward along the road. “The real trouble will be the ones hiding in the trees.”

The road took them between two patches of woods, which at places came right up to the road. As the trees passed by, the view through them shifted, forming imaginary shapes in Conner’s vision. He kept his thumb on his racketblade button, ready for the moment something jumped out at him.

They pulled into a small gravel lot, and parked next to a third truck, which did not have a trailer. The trees parted, leaving a strip of grassy lawn with a mulched footpath running down its center, which led to a large dark stone building, at least four stories tall, with a great circular stained glass window near the top, and a highly sloped roof. The Sacred Drumani Temple.

Avi and Irom got out of their trucks. Conner hopped off the trailer along with everyone else, and they started the walk toward the temple. The walk seemed to take an eternity, the air tense with the potential for a raptor attack from the woods, and the temple looming ever larger and closer.

Then, they were there. It was bigger than Conner had thought, the doors themselves wide enough to drive one of the trucks through, and as tall as two whole stories. They were wooden, carved and painted with ornate patterns and religious imagery.

The priests opened the doors and led the people into a grand foyer, three stories tall. Balconies stood on top of gold-painted pillars. Stained glass windows presided over statues of saints and spirits. The inner door looked almost grander than the outer, covered in golden iconography instead of wood brown.

These doors, too, were opened, and the guests were ushered into a great sanctuary, with a vaulted ceiling, and more stained glass windows all along both walls. Conner had thought it would be full of seats, but there were only a few chairs tucked away in the corners. In the middle of the stage up front, a larger than life statue stood. A boy in a hooded robe, holding his hands forward, palms upward, as if bestowing something upon all who stood before him. His face had a proud look, one that could mean either approval or disappointment, depending on the heart of the one standing before him.

“We gather here today beneath the gaze of Drucan,” Irom began. He continued speaking, and Conner quickly lost interest.

“Hey,” Oliver whispered. Conner leaned toward him to hear better. “I’m worried about Shak. I haven’t seen him at all on this trip.”

Now that he mentioned it, Conner hadn’t either. “Yeah.”

Conner stood, Irom’s and Avi’s words passing over him. Then, as if waking from a dream, he heard Avi say, “And that is why we choose this day to pass Myrandah, the talia of Drucan, on to its next caretakers.”

Irom, who now stood by one of the back walls, opened a panel and moved his hand behind it, looking like he was pressing a combination code. The floor opened up beneath Drucan’s feet, and a pedestal rose up with a bright red disk on it. Myrandah, elemental medallion of fire.

Avi picked it up with both hands, as if it were made of glass. “By deliberation and prayer, we choose under the guidance of Drucan, a recipient for this holy relic.”

“Here we go,” Oliver said.

“The one whom Drucan has chosen, is Jairus Durgna.”

“What?” Conner screamed. Beside him, Oliver and Mara were joining in with their own noises of disbelief. Durgna stepped forward, flanked by Senna and Bloar. He sank to one knee and bowed his head, as Avi placed the medallion of fire into his hands. Conner pushed his way forward, oblivious to the looks he got from the people he bumped into. “This is a mistake.”

“No mistake,” Irom said, stepping around and putting his hand on Conner’s shoulder. “This is as it should be.”

“We give you our thanks,” Durgna said, rising. He turned around and met Conner’s gaze, before looking at Oliver. “But we still need three more. If you would please hand them over.”

“You first,” Oliver said.

“Sorry,” Durgna said. He raised his hand, and Senna and Bloar took out their guns. There was a collective gasp, as everyone else backed away, leaving the six of them alone in the middle. Durgna nonchalantly pulled out a gun of his own, and held it at chest height. “There will be no bargaining.”

For a tense moment, nobody moved. Then, Oliver slowly reached into his pocket.

The Tarrans seemed to stop breathing. Oliver whipped out his hand, holding the medallion of time. “Get them!” he cried. “I don’t think I can hold them for long!”

Conner jolted into motion, almost before he realized what was happening. He darted forward, grabbing the gun from Senna’s time-frozen hands, and then Durgna’s. But before he could get Bloar’s, the time rate slipped back to normal. Bloar pulled his hand out of the way, and Conner grabbed his wrist. The gun went off with a silenced pwth, and the people in the general direction it had been pointing cowered and ran.

Conner felt hands grab him, and then rip away. Bloar jabbed him with a knee, missing his solar plexus, but knocking him back. He pointed his gun, but a bright light shone in his eyes, making him cringe, unable to aim. Someone was using the medallion of light. Conner yanked the gun from his hand, and threw it, along with the other two, not bothering to pay attention where they landed.

All of a sudden, Conner couldn’t breathe, and all sound left him but for a loud pounding in his ears. He spun around to see Senna clutching the medallion of air. A deep snarl convulsed his face and he threw himself at her.

She blocked his first two punches, and grabbed him, flipping him over on his back. He rolled, and she stomped a foot on his side, making him double up. She tried for a second, but her motion slowed. Someone must have been using the medallion of time. Conner grabbed her foot and pushed it hard to the side. As her time resumed normal pace, she twisted and fell. Conner thrust a fist upward and hit her side as she came down, making her groan. No more nice guy, Conner thought. No more weakness.

The medallion fell out of her hand, and air rushed back into Conner’s lungs. He had beaten her. He grabbed the green disk and summoned a blast of wind to carry her outside of the circle, and turned his attention to the rest of the fight.

What he saw was not what it was supposed to be. Mara lay sprawled on the ground, and Durgna stood over Oliver, a stack of six medallions in his hand. He turned and looked at Conner, and the next instant, he was right in front of him, as if he had teleported. Before Conner could react, he plucked the medallion of air from his hands. “I’ll take that,” he said, and then walked away before Conner could react, toward a backpack on the floor in the direction of the door.

In a moment of decision, Conner lurched forward. But he was immediately pulled back by a hand on his arm. “You’re too late,” Senna’s voice said, strained with effort and pain.

Durgna knelt down by a backpack that had fallen to the ground, and unzipped it. A polished white sphere rolled out, sounding like glass or marble on the stone floor. “Time to let you out,” Durgna said.

The entire stack of medallions glowed, and then hovered into the air, sticking themselves around the sphere like magnets. The sphere cracked, spilling bright light through, and then it shattered to pieces.

Where it had been, a creature lay. It rose up, standing on two feet like a yuman, black as the darkest Tantalian. But it was taller, and didn’t have a head. Or rather, it held its head in its hands, eyes glowing red, and teeth sharpened to points.

“Your energy source,” Durgna said, holding up the stack of medallions, which he had gathered up from the floor. The metal protrusion that was in the place of the monster’s neck dilated and swallowed the medallions. Then it raised its head up to its shoulders, and connected it to the neck.

“Well done, Durgna,” it said. “You have no idea how cramped it was in that little ball.”

“Everyone!” Durgna said, stepping away from the monster and spreading his arms. “Meet your new lord and master, the Disassembler!”

The Disassembler looked around at the frightened crowd, “Who stood against me?” he demanded. His gaze landed on Conner. “Was it this one?”

“Disassemble at your leisure, master,” Durgna said.

“Wait, what do you mean, disassemble?” Conner said. He tried to move, but Senna still held him tight. She sure had a lot of endurance.

“It is how I got my name,” the Disassember said, walking toward him, looming over him. “It’s a hobby of mine. I disassemble people.” He looked above Conner’s head. “How fitting that my first blood after awakening shall be taken under the gaze of a god.”

He raised a hand, fingers tipped with claws as sharp as razors. Conner stared at it, eyes wide.

The door banged open, turning the Disassembler’s attention away from him. In the doorway stood Shak, arms thrown out to the sides. He was out of breath, and grinning like a predator. “Stand thou prepared,” he said, “for when the day comes, God’s chariots of war will charge into thy land without warning.” He stepped to the side of the room and drew two swords.

“What nuisance,” the Disassembler said. Durgna and Bloar, who had somehow found time to get their guns back, trained them on the priest.

But Shak was not looking at them. Instead, he faced the doors, both of which he had left open behind him. Conner noticed a rumbling sound, and wondered how long it had been there. Then a pack of raptors spilled around the rim of the doors into the sanctuary, their long reptilian mouths exposing full sets of needle-sharp teeth.

The Disassembler cursed in a language Conner had never heard before, but sounded unfathomably foul. He turned and slashed at the head of a raptor that lunged at him. Conner crashed to the ground as Senna let go of him to defend herself. Cries and feet and metal surrounded him, along with splattering blood. He crawled, hoping desperately to get out of the chaos, preferably with his skin still intact.

There! Not far ahead, a glimmer of hope shone through. It was his tennis racket, lying abandoned on the ground. He scurried over to it, adrenaline making him seem to fly over the floor. He snatched it up by the handle, thumbing the release button, and the guards unfolded, revealing the sharp blade beneath.

A snarl right above him made him roll over swinging. He caught the raptor in its shoulder, making it stumble away. He felt bad for causing it pain, but it had been about to kill him, so that was small potatoes.

Conner stood, surveying the chaos. All of the Tantalians had their blades drawn, and most were slashing at raptors. The Tarrans and the Disassembeler were in the thick of things. Several Raptor bodies lay motionless on the ground, but there weren’t any yuman bodies, at least not that he could see. Oliver and Mara were both standing, shielded by Irom, Avi, and a few other Tantalians.

Then, it happened. The perfect opportunity. A clear path opened up between him and the Disassembler, an empty floor between walls of violence. Conner readied his racket arm and charged forward. He batted away a raptor that turned its attention to him. As he approached, he could see the proper motion, the exact muscle contractions he would have to exert.

The action unfolded in slow motion. He drew his racket around his body, pointing his shoulder toward the Disassembler. Then, at just the right moment, with exactly the right foot placement, he jumped, twisting his body and swinging his arm around with all his might. The racketblade made contact with the Disassembler’s cybernetic neck, crunching metal, and to Conner’s surprise, sliced clean through. He kept his momentum going, taking a last look at the Disassembler over his left shoulder, exhilarating in the thrill of the moment, and then landed, facing the way he had come.

The sanctuary went still. The last of the raptors were fleeing through the open doors. Behind him, there was a thunk, and then the sound of a body falling. Then, the enraged voice of the Disassembler crying, “Do you have any idea how long it took for me to grow that body?”

“You’ve just been disassembled,” Conner said, without looking back.

“Drucan’s will be done,” Shak said. From the corner of his eye, Conner saw him put his right hand to his forehead and his left hand to his heart, and then spread them like the statue.

Conner turned to find the Tarrans in the restraining grasp of several strong Tantalian men, including Greg. Several Raptor bodies lay dead on the ground. Oliver and Mara were unharmed, but a few of the Tantalians had gashes from raptor teeth. The Disassembler’s body lay on the ground motionless, the medallions spilling out of his neck. Nearby, his head lay, glowering at him with its glowing red eyes.

“In the name of Drucan,” Irom said, “we the priests of this Drumani temple rescind the bestowal of Myrandah from Jairus Durgna.”

“That which is given out of self-defense,” Avi said, “is not binding in the eyes of Drucan.”

“Therefore,” Shak said, “in the spirit of transparent and voluntary consent, as pleases Drucan, we bestow this medallion of fire, Myrandah, to Conner of the Arguen Islands on Moebius.” He crouched down and picked up all seven of the medallions, carrying six of them with his left arm, and holding out the red one toward Conner. After he took it, Shak smiled. “And you probably want the rest of these too.”

Conner crossed his arms to make a cradle, and Shak poured the medallions into them. Conner stood looking down at them, feeling giddy, as if this moment was not real. All seven of the elemental medallions, which flew across the cosmos in an eternal loop of time, were in his hands. It was a singular moment in history, which happened again and again and again.

There was an electronic beep. Conner looked toward it to find Oliver pulling his phone from his pocket. “Oops,” he said, “looks like Electrobolt has been trying to contact me for some time now.” He held it up to his ear. “Hi, what’s up?” His eyebrows shot upward. “What?” He listened for a moment, and then said, “Say that again.”

He pushed a button, and Electrobolt’s voice reverberated through the sanctuary. “We’ve figured out what the Disease is.”

The whole room seemed to be listening with its full attention.

“It started in StarShine, HiTeq’s social media network. There was a bug in the algorithm that caused inflammatory posts and links to appear a lot more often than usual. When people read the infected posts, the virus entered their brains electrochemically and became a physical pathogen, which got passed on to the people and animals around them.”

“Electrochemical!” Mara exclaimed. “So that was why we had so much trouble finding it.”

“Hold on,” Conner said. “You’re saying the Disease was caused by bad memes?”

“More or less,” Electrobolt said. “Anyway, knowing this, we have managed to figure out a cure. We’ve already patched the StarShine algorithm. The cure should propagate in the same manner as the Disease, so by now most people are already cured, and the rest will take only a few days.”

“That explains why Mithra didn’t have the Disease when we arrived,” Oliver said. “They censor their internet.”

“It also means it will be a long time before the cure gets there,” Mara said.

Conner grinned. “Revolution time.”

“I’m sorry you all had to go on a wild goose chase,” Electrobolt continued.

“Wait,” Conner said, “what?” He looked down at the seven medallions he held in his arms. “Oh.” He stared at them, and then looked up at Oliver and Mara. “What are we going to do with these?”

Mara looked from him to Oliver. Oliver stared at the medallions in Conner’s arms, and said, “I guess we return them to where we found them.”

Suddenly, the medallions levitated into the air and started glowing. Conner stepped back with a gasp. They floated in a circle, glowing blue, white, green, magenta, yellow, gold, and red. Then they shot through the air, out the doors, leaving fading colored trails behind. Conner, Oliver, and Mara ran out after them, seeing them streak off into the sky.

“There they go,” Irom said, appearing beside him. “Off to Shaper’s Back to begin their lives anew.”

“It looks like you helped them fulfill their purpose after all,” Avi said from his other side.

“Let everything that happened here today be for the glory of Drucan,” Shak said.

“Shak,” Mara asked, as Conner watched the medallions’ trails fade away, “why did you let the raptors into the temple like you did? It is the last thing I would expect from someone as devout as you.”

“There is proper time for all things,” Shak quoted. “A time for reverence, and a time for desecration. For it is not these stone walls that are holy; the true temple is the virtuous hearts of yumankind.”

“Oh?” Irom said, teasingly, “I thought the passage was, ‘the virtuous hearts of those who believe.’”

“I believe that it is impossible to be virtuous without believing in Drucan,” Shak said. “Therefore, all who are virtuous believe, even if they do not know it. What I did today, I did in the service of Drucan, as his will directed me.”

“Thanks,” Conner said. He turned around and looked at the Tantalians, who had gathered outside the temple. “Did anyone get hurt?”

“Nothing that good medicine can’t take care of,” Avi said. “Luckily, we have already won that political battle.”

“What will happen to Senna and Durgna and Bloar?” Conner asked, searching the faces in the crowd.

“They got away,” someone said. “They took the Disassembler’s head with them.”

“We’ll spread the warning about them,” Irom said, “though since they had to leave the Disassembler’s body behind, and the medallions are gone, I doubt they will be able to cause any major trouble.”

“Let’s hope so,” Oliver said.