Cold air blew across the planes of the Darkened Place. Cold wind like the evil breath of the Hytoike passes over the small camp of Aetherion below.
“Everybody up!” Kalar shouted. He kicked dirt over the remnants of a campfire and motioned expansively. “I said! Everybody up!”
Amy and Mike got to their feet, packing their small bags and rolling up their mats. Michal clipped the knife he slept with back to his belt, turning completely visible. He often began to turn invisible in his sleep. The three of them stared blankly when they finished at Zane’s sleeping form.
Kalar gave Zane a kick in the side. “Wake up, metal bones! Up with you.”
Zane sat up, blinking rapidly to clear his vision of the interconnecting blue and white lines. These lines made up the energies of the world around him; he didn’t understand what he saw most of the time, and the only use he could find for this ability to ‘see,’ as his friend Lee put it, was to tell when a lightning bolt was going to strike. It showed him everything in blue and white tones, stressing the blue as the more energetic or kinetic parts.
Vision cleared, Zane focused on Kalar. The two stared briefly before Zane remembered what he was supposed to be doing and embarrassedly rolled up his mat. It slipped from his hands twice, and in the end, he just wadded it up and shoved it into the bag before slinging it over his shoulder. Now everyone was waiting on him, including Gale, who’d just returned from the scout mission Kalar had sent her on earlier that morning. Gale was a speedster; she could run incredibly fast, though it used up her power reserves at an alarming rate. Every Aetherion besides Zane had a power reserve. This reserve powered their different gifts; all Aetherion regenerated power at the same rate, getting a full reserve every twelve hours or so, but not all of them used it up at the same speed.
Gale rolled her eyes, joining the ranks of the other four Aetherion now staring at Zane. They’d expected a warrior, a trained elemental, not Zane. Zane hadn’t expected himself either; he’d expected the elemental Aetherion he’d been once before, when six months ago, he summoned a storm around himself and flattened an Onyxian relying on a power he didn’t fully understand, a power beyond himself. Instead, during the last six months, he’d almost gotten worse.
Zane’s father, Elijah, whom all the other kids respected and revered. Explained that before Zane had accessed his abilities in the height of ‘emotional trauma and elemental forces,’ but had been unable to use his abilities at will. Now, Zane had improved and could make small sparks and gusts of wind at will. This didn’t appear as an improvement to Zane; it didn’t appear as an improvement to the other young Aetherion in his group either.
“What if a whole pack of iron wolves had been coming down the hill?” Kalar asked rhetorically, his entire scowling toughed face showed he was angry. People were always angry, which is why Zane disliked them in general. Zane had assumed that the Aetherial City and the Aetherion within would be a calm, united group; instead, they were just as angry and grouchy as everyone else.
Zane didn’t answer, Kalar sniffed; it was like a mix between “I have a bad cold” and a snooty huff. “You would have been gutted in an eye blink, heck, even a scrapling could have slit your throat if he’d wanted to.”
Zane readjusted his pack and turned away, scanning the hills behind them. “Whatever, Kalar. You win. Let’s keep moving.”
“Like forges we will, come on.”
Zane turned and walked after the four of them. They talked amongst themselves, ignoring him as usual. Only Lee’s friend Michal turned his head briefly to see if Zane followed.
Just my luck that Lee couldn’t come. Zane thought bitterly. He kept one thumb in his shoulder strap and let his other hand hold his blade’s handle loosely. The sword’s glow penetrated the sheath around the top, where the hilt perched in a rectangle of light, giving the whole weapon a colorful aura. The colors were comforting somehow, despite them being dangerous to any creature of forge or earth.
Lee hadn’t come because he’d already earned his mantle as an Aetherion. Zane still had to prove himself to the council of the intergalactic warriors despite having slain an Onyxian. Then again, maybe they knew it hadn’t really been him; it had been something outside him, a greater force. The higher power that all Aetherion served.
“Keep up, Zane!” Kalar called our reaching the bottom of the incline their camp had topped. Zane nimbly hopped down the rest of the way, coming out of his contemplation. A gift the ruler had given all Aetherion was their incredible strength and agility. Within the last half year, Zane had gone from ‘what is a push-up’ to the kid who did pull-ups on window sills. That was the least of the changes being a Aetherion had done to him.
Zane’s ‘transformation’ had been late compared to the other kids his age; Michal had gained his powers around two, and Kalar at five. However, Zane’s father told him this wasn’t unusual with him being an elemental Aetherion; they were known to start late.
Kalar stood behind the other three who walked ahead. He faced Zane. “Keep up, please, thanks.”
Zane rolled his eyes and followed the group. He hadn’t been that far behind, but he had been distracted.
Focus, he told himself, clearing his mind of thoughts and worries, just get through this mission, become an official Aetherion, and move on from there. Maybe you can prove yourself to Kalar and the others by doing well here.
The air was cool, and at night it turned frigid. They’d just finished with the mountains and foothills, it appeared, and were moving on through the empty, expansive planes of a darkened place. Zane didn’t like how open it was; it scared the wits out of him. There could be Hytoike watching their every move anywhere. The ground was flat, dusty, and scattered with fist-sized rocks. Cracks of a few inches to a half foot spiderwebbed the whole plane, as if it were unwaterted ground, which it might well be; Zane hadn’t seen a drop of rain since they’d arrived.
Rain, ah, now that would be nice. Zane loved nature, and he especially loved storms, wind, and rain, thunder and lightning; it was there he felt most safe, most powerful. He’d tried to explain this to his dad once, but his father had just shaken his head. “You’re getting it all wrong, Zane. Your powers are a gift, the one who gave them to you is always with you, always around you when you are in a desert or when you are in the sea.”
That really didn’t make much sense to Zane; it wasn’t like he produced wind or rain; he had to use what was around him. His father had only responded to that with. “There is much more to the world than you can see. Than any of us can see.”
Stay focused! Zane told himself furiously. He was on a mission; the Hytoike had sent a lesser minion (a Chyalbsor to be exact) to secure and guard a particular Aetherion treasure from its hiding place in one of the Aetherion’s worlds. Now Zane and the other trainees would have to enter one of the darkened places to find said treasure and return with it, preferably after destroying the Chyalbsor.
The Aetherion were the guardians of peace and harmony throughout the universe. They traveled between worlds set apart by light-years using portals and currents of energy spanning the worlds. However, traveling this way could get tedious because there was no ‘select which world you want’ button next to a monument; usually, you had to envision where you wanted to go and hope you got there, not to mention some monuments only connected to certain worlds.
Kalar held up a hand. “Do you guys hear that?”
Zane listened carefully. A soft rumbling could be heard in the distance, like continuous thunder slowly but surely getting louder, though it seemed to be coming from all around. He nervously glanced at his companions, who either shrugged or didn’t give an answer. So far, the young Aetherion’s trip here had been uneventful. This world was a darkened place, yes, but no Hytoike made their home here. A darkened place was a world in which no human lived, but in which a civilization had once thrived.
It was the name for a world which the Hytoike had destroyed, an all too common occurrence. Usually, after a world fell, Hytoike who felt crowded on their own worlds with other Hytoike (if more than three were on a world, they felt crowded; they could sense each other’s magical presence like elbows in an airplane) would take up residence on the newly scoured planet; this one had none.
Rumor had it a Hytoike named Celikor was coming to take up residence soon, but the main reason the Chyalbsor came here was the emptiness. Zane glanced all around. Amy cleared her throat. “Maybe you could float up to see what it is?”
Zane looked at her after a moment, realizing she was talking to him. “Me?”
She nodded slowly. “You can fly, right?”
That was kind of asking someone in a wheelchair if they could walk. The answer was no, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t cross the room. Zane couldn’t fly, but he had caused the winds to lift him three times. Only once did it really succeed. Zane opened his mouth to say this, but decided against it; he needed to impress these people. Impress his fellow initiates, and they’d respect him and stop making life harder.
Zane nodded slowly as the rumbling began to fade. He straightened his posture and held out his hands. The main difference between him and a normal Aetherion wasn’t necessarily the type of power he had (Kalar could throw out lancing bolts of energy similar to Zane’s lightning), but the fact that he drew power in from his surroundings, making himself stronger the more he used. Other Aetherion tired quickly when using their gifts, but Zane, if he could get going at all, could go on until his concentration broke.
The wind picked up in a funnel around Zane, pulling on his hair and clothing, whipping them around. Zane’s hair was dark black, contrasting with his blue eyes, which were said to fairly glow. He wore a traditional Aetherion outfit for combat. A sleeveless shirt with two long strips of cloth continuing past the belt, which hung something like coat tails in the front, but more rectangular. Sometimes he wore a robe on top of this and his loose but well-fitted shorts; other times, like now, he didn’t need it.
Zane’s feet lifted off the ground, raising him two feet in the air… before unceremoniously dropping him face-first to the dirt. Zane cried out as he fell and smacked into the ground. He hurriedly scrambled up to face the disappointed faces of his peers, but before they could mock him or otherwise degrade him, Zane ran forward, grabbing Kalar and Amy’s arms to force them forward with him. “RUN!”
Without a word, they all joined him in running. The rumbling grew louder again. Kalar tried to shout over it while running and disentangling himself from Zane’s grasp. “What!?”
“Creatures! Things! Of forge and earth!”
They all ran harder. The enemy of the Aetherion (the Hytoike) employed a range of servants, all of whom were of forge and earth. To be of earth meant a monster connected to the ground and dirt: a giant or a huge serpent. To be of forge was much more dangerous; they were the more intelligent creatures, shards of humanity encased in metal and glass, forged in the deadly mountains and darkened places. Things like the Chalybsor and the Onyxian were of forge. There were also those of both forge and earth, like the iron storm or the Ferrumdusta, as some called it. It was actually only one being, even if it had many bodies.
Even as the five young Aetherion ran, they could see the horizon clouding with a swirling black mass: a dark cloud of metal, lethal to all Aetherion, even more so to Zane. The loud rumble drowned out all other noise. Zane couldn’t even hear his own footsteps as he pounded his way away, trying to run all the different abilities he had through his mind. He could shoot a lightning bolt at the iron storm; all the iron it threw into the air would conduct electricity, but would electricity hurt it? Zane’s eyes were continually drawn to its looming presence, quickly zoning in on them and catching up. They didn’t have more than minutes.
“Eyes forward, metal bones!” Kalar shouted, “Run like mad!”
Zane sprinted for a few feet before slowing enough to get a good look at the storm. He changed his vision to what Lee called ‘seeing’ and saw the world as it was, not as it appeared to be. He saw the world as interconnected charges of white and blue light, threads lined together, white for all the iron, but blue for the swirling mass at the storm’s center. Before Zane could do anything or contemplate this small thing at the center of the large cloud, it focused on him, and the entire storm crashed over him, throwing him into blackness.
His last thought was of how small the iron storm truly was.
• • • • •
“Aetherion!” Something growled out in a voice that sent spasms down Zane’s whole body.
Zane’s head snapped up. His whole body burned with the feeling of metal. A creature crouched over, tilting its head back and forth. Zane didn’t know its name, but by the power that radiated from it, it was obviously high-class, a servant of the Hytoike, with more power than an Onyxian or any other creature Zane had fought. It was long and sleek, four buggish legs coated in metallic scales held up its lower body. The neck lifted up from that in rows of denticles with a muddy coating. The ‘head’ was a humanoid torso with long, claw-like hands that had horrible fingernails. The arms were much too long for the rest of the body, which clashed terribly with the neck/torso of it, seeing as the skin was pale and covered in horrible burns.
The neck bent low, letting the human torso bend close to Zane so he could smell its stink. “Aetherion! Heed my words.”
Its teeth were of dark metal stained yellow; this was indeed a creature of both Forge and Earth. Being of both was usually more powerful, but monsters of forge could be more dangerous because creatures like the Onyxian were much more intelligent than their counterparts.
Zane sat up, crossing his legs. His shirt was stained with mud and blood, maybe his own. Someone had unceremoniously ripped the long tassels at the front off. “You have said anything.”
The creature reared back, lifting its neck up so the torso hovered a full five feet above the sitting form of Zane. Zane glanced around his cell while the creature contemplated its subsequent words. It appeared that the creature had very little to say but wanted to drag it out as long as possible. The cell was made entirely of dark metal walls with a giant safe door; it didn’t even have a rubber seal (rubber came from trees that were alive and therefore could help an Aetherion). This minion was very efficient.
“I’d advise you to respect your betters’ child.”
“You are evil,” was all Zane said. He relaxed his face and relaxed his body. The amount of metal all around him burned in his insides and damped his power. He did as his father had told him and relaxed to cause the pain to lessen; an Aetherion on edge was more susceptible to metal.
The creature huffed. “You are my prisoner.”
Zane laughed. He couldn’t help it; this was a serious and desperate situation, but this minion was too ridiculous. The creature frowned, listening to Zane’s laughter. “Come, my master wishes to speak to you.”
Zane wiped tears from his eyes and stood heavily. “Aren’t I his prisoner?”
This time, the creature clobbered him across the head, and Zane smashed into the wall. Pain flared up through his body, in accompaniment to the metal burning his body. Zane hadn’t felt this kind of pain in a long time. An Aetherion’s body was naturally strong and agile; Zane could jump from twenty feet in the air with no injury. Being thrown into the wall was nothing new; the pain from it was.
“I am no simple minion boy!” The hideous creature snarled, he bent his neck low cocking it to the side so the torso would line up with Zane’s prone body. Its breath was so horrible that Zane literally gagged. “I hear that you destroyed an Onyxian. You think that qualifies you to throw down the Hytoike from their metallic coffins and bring light to the darkened places. You feel you don’t need to fear me because you are stronger than I, well, I am no Onyxian! I am the Omne Ferrum Terrae, the Omni Oculi, the destroyer of Aetherion, and the prime servant of the Hytoike. My name is my own, my power the Hytoike’s. I have slaughtered piles of elementals just like you.”
Zane got up as the Omne Ferrum Terrae bent its neck back, stepping from the cell. Zane followed him, head spinning. When he got out of the cell, it only slightly improved his situation. The tunnel of dark rock, lined with veins of metal, created a painful atmosphere. Worse yet, Kalar was waiting for Zane. “So… elemental, what is your plan to escape?”
“Silence, foolish children.” The Omne Ferrum Terrae growled. Zane decided to call it the OFT. “You are powerless in the presence of Celikor the mighty!”
Zane eyed Kalar knowingly; apparently, Celikor’s arrival had moved ahead of schedule. Perhaps the Chalybsor’s theft hadn’t been the coincidence it seemed. Possibly the whole point was to lure the Aetherion here… to lure Zane here.
Zane remembered with sudden clarity the words Lee had spoken on that day six months ago, warning him of a spy in their midst, an Aetherion or ally of the Aetherion, actually, who served the Hytioke. It seemed like a ridiculous idea until Zane had been captured because of that spy.
The OFT led them into a large open area on the top of whatever fortress they were in. The view showed them the entire plane of this darkened place. The air up here was thin, and the number of stairs they had to climb indicated the fortress probably burrowed into this mountain.
“Is this the mountain we were heading for?”
Kalar nodded wordlessly. This mountain was where the Aetherion elders said the Chalybsor had hid. Apparently, he’d hidden in a fortress full of nasty monsters. That detail somehow had been overlooked. The OFT turned away to a tall pyramidal object in the middle back of this open-roofed hall. The hall was a vast space with a step pyramid in the back and a raised section of floor in the front where Zane and Kalar stood, the back wall behind the pyramid was of rock and metal, the side walls were half of the same but stopped eventually switching to rows of pillars and arches, like the front wall behind them, that is what gave the room such a good view, all in all? Zane thought he’d give the room a 5-star review aside from the cold, maybe, and the monstrous roommates.
“So, earth skull? A plan?”
Zane ignored the insult, for an Aetherion to refer to someone as anything followed or preceded by forge, metal, earth, mud, or iron was insulting. Metal bones, earth skull, mud legs, or iron head were common among younger Aetherion. “Get away from metal, summon our powers, and bury the OFT under a few hundred tonnes of rock.”
“What is an OFT? And that is the most mud forged plan I’ve heard!”
“Omne, Ferrum, Terae,” Zane said slowly and mockingly. “O-F-T.”
Just then, the OFT turned, fixing them with a glare. “Silence, weaklings.”
He turned back to the pyramid, muttering phrases under his breath, probably to break Celikor from his sentient sleep. When the Hytoike entered a trance-like state in the metal coffins in their high-up tombs, they could influence events far and wide, albeit with less power than their physical presence could manifest. To wake a Hytoike was labourious and got harder the longer they’d been in the trance. Celikor probably hadn’t woken when he’d moved here, but probably commanded his servants through his oracle (usually a stone edifice or statue that manifested his desires) to take his coffin here.
Zane whispered from the corner of his mouth. “If he awakens Celikor, we’re dead.”
Kalar shook his head. “Celikor will take days to wake. They brought us here for something else.
The OFT finished and turned to the two of them. “So! Zane, elemental, betrayed and brought low,” the hideous beast clicked his way forwards, long insectile legs moving in a blur. “How do you hope to survive?”
“You want me to tell you my escape plan, pal? Sorry, then it wouldn’t work.”
The monster eyed Zane. “You can’t escape, that was my point! You must bow before the Hytoike. If you give Celikor your power, he will only break your mind before turning you into a minion. Refuse, and he will continue to torture you until even your soul is but a whisp under this mountain.
Zane began to sweat. Things just took a drastic turn. The Hytoike together had decided to kill him when they sent the Onyxian six months ago. Celikor must be acting on his own. If he gained Zane’s elemental abilities, he’d be chief among the Hytoike, a fact that had kept them from trying to capture him before. No Hytoike wanted another to have Zane.
“You’re forgetting my escape plan!” Zane said, desperately glancing around.
“We can’t escape,” Kalar growled. “We have no choice.”
Zane’s face lit up as he stared towards the exit door. “Easy for you to say. Now, Gale!”
Kalar started in surprise, leaping forward. The OFT turned its neck 180 degrees, flaring dark nebulous powers around itself. They both stared at an empty door as Zane sprinted for the edge of the hall, where the cliff dropped off to a plane far below.
Kalar noticed and sprinted after Zane. “Hey, that actually… worked! Oof!”
Kalar tripped, knocking into Zane, sprawling them across the floor a few feet from escape. Once free of the metal floor and walls, Zane could have slowed his fall with wind.
The OFT cackled, scuttling over to them, long hands digging into their shirts. “You would have left your friends here?” it cackled. “You are lower than I thought.”
Zane remembered his fellow Aetherion shamefully; he’d forgotten about all but Kalar and him in the moment. No, escape wasn’t enough; he’d have to find a way to deal with the OFT before Celikor could awaken. The Omne Ferrum Terrae cackled awfully, his pointed teeth glinting in the light. He dug his long fingers with metal nails on the ends into Zane’s neck, lifting Kalar up too. He threw Kalar down and set Zane in front of the pyramidal tomb, a metal coffin, the home of a Hytoike.
“Give Celikor your strength! Give it up to him or die!” The OFT screamed at Zane, spitting, marking the young Aetherion’s face.
“I will die before I give in to the Hytoike!” Zane growled.
The OFT flexed his claws, “I’m sure you’ll come to change your mind in time.”
With that, the hideous creature reared back, ready to strike. Kalar lay on the floor a few feet away, watching silently. Zane was alone, alone in a darkened place.