Great Ones
Chapter 1 - Under Attack
The two red headed figures in dull brown travelling robes, crouched behind a clump of bushes and drew their capes around them. They were at the base of a steep uphill path, and scanning back along the narrow valley towards the open plain beyond. With their vision adjusted to see into the far distance, they could make out the farmers driving bullocks in straight rows, ploughing new fields. Further away, there were fields already sprouting with the new season’s crops.
“There is nothing following us,” Kryslie commented quietly, and added mentally, “Except Frest, of course.” She brought her focus closer, and scanned the steep sides of the hills that enclosed the valley. Her eyes flicked to where their guard was trying to blend into the rock face - and failing.
Her brother Tymos concurred, also in a quiet voice. “There is nothing out of place, but I’m uneasy.”
“Mithas says that the aliens don’t know of this valley,” Kryslie commented.
“I wouldn’t assume that,” Tymos warned. “I even doubt if our elders know all that the aliens’ technology is capable of.”
“True. Their aircraft move around undetected by our ground radar or the satellites. They could have flown over this area.”
Instinctively, she glanced skyward. Nothing marred the azure blue of the sky, no clouds, and no shadows as cloaked planes flew over. However, a spy plane could be so high as to be only a pinpoint, and still able to see clearly, a lone person on the ground.
Tymos caught his sister’s mental image and replied silently, “And two red heads would stand out like a forest fire. Could that be what we sense?”
Kryslie shrugged. Their unease was too nebulous even to be a premonition of trouble. However, it was the reason why they had not argued with Allyn, another of their guards, when he insisted on scouting ahead up the trail. Even while trying to be unobtrusive, Allyn, Juan and Drake, stood out like guards on parade. If someone or something was aware of their presence, she and Tymos hoped the watcher would reveal its presence. Nothing had.
Without waiting further, Kryslie secured her travelling cape behind, her, covered her head with the hood, and began to climb. The first part of the uphill trail was more like rock climbing, but there were plenty of places for toes to rest and hands to grip.
Tymos waited until she was twice his height above him before starting after her. Frest would watch their backs until they reached the actual zigzag trail, and then follow. Up higher, still a length or two above Kryslie, an actual path was cut out of the rock face and it led to the cave that was their immediate destination.
Mithas, leader of one of the reclusive mutant tribes, called it his ‘back door’, though it was only one of many entrances to the maze of tunnels used by his people. When he had agreed to let them return and talk to him, he had warned them that the ‘front’ entrance was being watched.
As if aware of his thoughts, Kryslie’s mind voice asked, “Why do you think the aliens are watching the other cave? Surely they don’t expect us to go back to a place where we were captured.”
Communicating that way meant that when Tymos answered, the open communicator did not relay his answer to their guards.
“It doesn’t seem logical,” Tymos agreed. “Perhaps they are waiting to see if the Governors send a punitive force there.”
“Which Kellex would expect if, after we escaped from his men again, we found our way back to the Estate,” Kryslie proposed. “Let’s assume that Kellex thinks we are still alive and didn’t crash with the plane…we are a long way from home, he would expect us to have no way to communicate …”
“He’ll be looking to find us again before Father does,” Tymos interrupted her. “I am going to assume that Kellex knows we are still alive and is doing everything he can think of to find us.”
Kryslie did not pause in her climb, it was child’s play to her, but Tymos paused to glance each way along the narrow valley, before taking his next upward step. He hadn’t gone very far when he sensed his sister had stopped climbing.
“Bro?”
“What?”
“Something is wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
Kryslie didn’t answer, but now he shared her nebulous feeling through the deep twin bond. In moments, the feeling spread to become a feeling of pressure in his gut. That feeling he knew well. It meant a ground tremor was coming. He had felt it all too often before, but this was the first time since he had left the Royal Estate. He sensed Kryslie begin to climb faster. She wanted to be off the rock face before the pressure built to an uncomfortable level, and before the tremors began.
He shared the sentiment, even though the pressure usually eased when the tremors began. He too began to climb faster, and without losing concentration on the climb, he sought to distract himself and let his tense abdominal muscles relax.
He felt this way whenever there was a ground tremor, and in many cases, the tremors were too slight to be felt by other people. The Tymorean Elders called it ‘planet sense’ and it was one of the rarer abilities of those endowed with the Guardians’ mystical power. It was the ability to feel the insults done to the planet as a physical sensation.
Tymos wondered what possible use it was. However, apart from his sister, the Elders could not recall anyone in recent history that had also had the odd gift. The only reference they found to it was in mentions of the Great Ones of legend and that was nearly a thousand years ago.
The ability to see in the dark and to use UV and IR light to see, another gift he and his sister shared, was much more useful.
As he reached for the next handhold, Tymos had to stop. He suddenly wanted to double over, as pain blossomed in his gut. Instead, he gripped the jutting rock as hard as he could. He dared not let go when he was twenty feet up a near sheer rock face, and whilst he knew his stomach was not expanding like a giant balloon, it did feel like it was about to explode.
He felt the first faint tremors and anticipated the exquisite relief, but the tremors grew stronger and the pain remained.
“This can’t be natural,” Kryslie thought at him. “It must be the aliens doing this.”
Tymos felt the effort it had taken to form the thought. He sent his agreement as a feeling, and not in words. They had suggested to the Elders that the tremors were the covert work of the subversive invading aliens. Moreover, many of the tremors had caused cracks in the vital water storage basins but although their idea was taken seriously, no evidence had been found to prove it. Nevertheless, it fit with the other guerrilla tactics the aliens were using to demoralize the population of Tymorea. Hit and run, Tymos thought to himself, refusing to show themselves and fight.
The tremors were increasing, and the rain of coarse sand hitting his head was feeling like grit and small stones.
“Prince Tymos!” The voice was Allyn’s coming over the comm. unit, but Tymos ignored it. He didn’t have the energy to speak, even if he could formulate an answer. It was all he could currently do to hold on when the whole mountain seemed to be bucking and heaving like an unbroken stallion.
The pain in his gut surged, shooting pain to all parts of him, making his mind black out for an instant. He became aware of Frest’s horrified exclamation over the comm. as the rock face slid past him, less than an inch from his nose. Instinctively, he let his legs collapse when his feet hit the valley floor.
Seconds later, he felt Kryslie thud down beside him and glimpsed her curling into a ball, to hold herself tightly. Her muscles were twitching spasmodically, like his own were. He copied her posture and tried to relax.
“Prince Tymos, are you alright?”
Frest sounded frantic, as he ran out of cover to kneel beside him.
“Watch our back trail!” Tymos forced out through gritted teeth. Even the ground seemed to be heaving, but now the pressure in his gut was easing. If Frest would let him concentrate, he could start the biofeedback pain-relief technique. “Is Mithas alright?” he thought at his sister.
Kryslie didn’t respond immediately, but Tymos knew she was reaching out to find the mutant’s mind. This common ability had brought Mithas to trust them, and sever his allegiance to the aliens.
“Shaken,” she thought finally. “I don’t think he felt it so much inside the mountain. He says he will wait until we reach the cave before appearing. He tells me he has a boulder blocking the back of the cave, and Allyn and the others didn’t notice there was a tunnel there.”
Kryslie uncurled, but stayed lying on her side on the ground. Her pain had eased to acute nausea, and she could still feel faint tremors.
Tymos whistled softly, just enough to get Frest’s attention. He hadn’t gone far, just to where the rock face had a natural man sized concavity. It had some boulders and scrubby bushes providing cover for his lower half, but the rest of him, clad in the dark brown of the palace guards’ uniform, was a distinct contrast to the light brown rock and the grey green of the spiky leaved bushes.
Kryslie caught her brother’s eye and then looked skywards. In the twin bond, he sensed, “He’s going to have to learn.”
Frest was hurrying towards them, flicking his gaze from them, back to the view to the farmlands. He was twitching with worry, and Kryslie had the distinct feeling that he was holding himself back from wringing his hands.
“We should go back to the palace. This is a bad idea,” he blurted. “Look at your hands, your clothes, your face…”
“Frest! We’re fine,” Kryslie insisted. She forced herself to her feet, although she was not yet feeling ready to stand. She couldn’t help wincing when she straightened.
“But you fell nearly thirty feet…and you are hurt!”
“Nothing worse than what we’ve been after some of our lessons with President Reslic or his brothers,” Tymos insisted. He was also talking to Allyn via the communicator. “No. Stay up there. We will be up shortly. This mission is too important to abandon.”
“What do you think you can do, Prince Tymos? Make all the mutants suddenly like us? They are in league with the aliens, we can’t trust them,” Frest said. “They have never listened to your elders, what makes you think they will listen to you?”
Tymos stood, keeping his face from betraying the lingering soreness in his muscles. “We have already made friends with Mithas, who we will be meeting today. He has invited others to listen to us. If you are afraid of mutants, you may stay down here and guard our travel packs.”
Frest’s mouth dropped open, and then snapped shut. Finally, after several attempts to speak, he said, “My duty is to guard you and Princess Kryslie.”
“Guard then, but don’t interfere,” Kryslie snapped.
In the three days of travelling with the four guardsmen, neither Tymos, nor Kryslie had succeeded in convincing the older men that a close guard was not necessary. To the guards, they were the Heir Designates of High King Tymoros, and it just wasn’t done to let them have no guard at all. Indeed, if they were back at the Royal Estate, there would be guards, or teachers or attendants always near them.
However, away from the palace, Frest, Allyn, Drake and Juan, were out of their usual environment. They were highly experienced guards, but they were unused to open country and being away from instant back up.
Their attention was chafing, but they had agreed to an escort for the sake of their Father. They did not want to add to his fear for them - that they might be caught and turned into enemies, as three of their sibs had been. For escorts, the only option had been palace guards, for the units of the Tymorean Peace Corps were stretched thin dealing with alien sabotage, and tracking down the perpetrators who were as hard to see as ghosts or wisps of smoke.
Tymos leant back against the rock wall and closed his eyes. He simply wished they would ditch the uniforms and dress like commoners. Anyone seeing them would know instantly that some member of one of the three ruling families was nearby. However, so far, the four guards had resisted the idea.
“Can you get us a drink, Frest?” Kryslie asked. “I need something to get the rock dust out of my mouth.”
Once he had moved off to where the packs were hidden, Kryslie said softly, “It was only the surface layer that was affected.”
Tymos realised that she was right, and the giddiness he was feeling was from the roiling, unseen energies of the planet. When he sought deeper into the ground, the aura was calm, like a still lake.
He reached out for Kryslie’s hand and together, they drew on the calm energy and felt themselves recover their own energies.
Deep within the twin bond, they shared the sense that this was one of the advantages of the planet sense.
“Prince Tymos, are you sure it is safe to climb up,” Frest blurted, as he handed a drink flask to each of them. “The rock could be loose.”
Tymos looked skyward as if counting to ten before speaking. In fact, he was sensing the feel of the mountain.
“We will take it slowly and carefully. I think all the loose rock fell down. Once we reach the trail we will be fine.”
It wasn’t quite that simple, but the fading tremors and the residual strangeness in his gut wouldn’t hinder him. He hoped to be up past the initial climb before any aftershocks manifested.
Tymos capped the drink flask and handed it back to Frest to hang on his utility harness. “We’ll get started. I’ll go first; Krys will be next, then you.”
After another careful scrutiny of the area around them, with the only movement being Frest’s jerkiness, and the only smells on the breeze being from the sun heated rock, the soil, and the spiky mint smelling bushes, Tymos began his climb. Kryslie followed more closely than before.
The mountain on this side of the ridge was formed of steeply rising rock, as the valley was carved out by an ancient, long vanished glacier. The track above was formed partly from natural erosion, and partly from someone chipping rock out of the way. It was left looking as natural as possible, with small rocks littering the ground.
This time they made it to the trail, and gave Frest the okay to come up. He took longer to make the climb and needed help to clamber onto the ledge. Although breathing more heavily than usual, he assured his charges that he was ready to continue.
With a natural sense of balance, honed by the physical training given to all the Royal children, Tymos and Kryslie kept up a fast pace. Frest, no longer used to the extra stamina needed for the steep climb, soon dropped behind.
The trail zigzagged up the rock face and for the most part, someone walking up it was exposed. There were sections where outcropping boulders screened the trail, or where the scrubby bushes found root space in cracks, but these were few and far between. Tymos wanted to reach the cave as quickly as possible.
They paused at the second abrupt change in the path, to check how far back their guard was, and were about to start up the next section when Kryslie asked, “Do you hear something?”
Feeling a shiver of warning, they both crouched down, and drew their capes around them, so they might seem like boulders from a distance. Frest, breathing heavily and making enough noise to startle roosting birds into flight, finally caught up to them. He was about to speak, but Tymos used the Guards’ hand gesture for ‘silence’.
“Listen,” Tymos directed, in a quiet voice.
Frest made a visible effort to quieten his laboured breathing.
“Can you hear that high pitched sound?” Kryslie asked her brother.
She saw him go still, and then remove the communicator earpiece.
“Yes, but I thought it was some kind of feedback from the communicator,” Tymos admitted.
“I can’t hear anything,” Frest stated. “What are you talking about?”
Kryslie ignored the question and continued exchanging ideas with her brother. “The mutants wouldn’t be causing it; they don’t have the technology, or the learning.”
Tymos flicked his sister a mental image of Mithas’s mutant kin, as they had appeared the previous week, toting alien weapons.
Mentally Kryslie countered, “Old, worn out, power drained and only useful as clubs.” Then she spoke aloud. “It has to be something the aliens are doing. And I bet they don’t realise anyone can hear it.”
“Hear what?” Frest demanded. He was starting to look around, glance everywhere, as if beginning to sense danger.
Relenting, Kryslie explained. “I am hearing a very high pitched noise.”
Frest stifled his disbelief and tried to sound decisive.
“Princess Kryslie, Prince Tymos, we need to keep moving, we are too exposed here.”
“They can’t possibly know that we are here,” Kryslie said aloud as she scanned the area below them and looked at the sky. The volume of the high-pitched noise was increasing as if the cause was getting closer.
Tymos abruptly turned his head as he smelt a whiff of hot metal. “Down!” he told Frest.
A light shower of gravel began to rain down on them, and more tremors rocked the mountain. Frest’s face bleached to white.
“Allyn,” Tymos spoke sharply into the communicator. “Use the signal boost, call the Estate, have Xyron or Reslic check for unsanctioned satellites or drone probes in this area. Something is emitting a very high frequency sonic signal…Allyn, do it now!”
Mentally, Tymos told his sister, “He wanted to argue with me.”
“Idiot,” she responded the same way. She was instinctively estimating how long it would take the request to be acted on and the source to be located and destroyed. The tremors were increasing in strength, but this time they hadn’t felt the inner pressure.
“Shouldn’t we keep moving upwards,” Frest suggested.
“No,” Kryslie overruled him. “There is something close that is targeting this area. I can hear it, hovering. If we move, it might come at us.”
That silenced Frest. He squatted down next to his charges and allowed Tymos and Kryslie to concentrate on senses, or instincts, other than the normal five and listen for inner prompting from the mystical, god-like Guardians of Peace.
The ancient beings who had bestowed the ‘Royal Power’ on the first Triumvirate Governors in Tymorea’s earliest history were the source of great wisdom. Their presence was very real to those whose power was strongest. Tymos and Kryslie let the subliminal messages coming to all their senses form into a need to act. Tymos suddenly grabbed Frest, and pulled him up the track. Kryslie followed closely behind him.
Frest had no breath to protest or demand a reason for the sudden movement, and when they stopped again, he was too surprised to speak when Tymos pushed him hard against the rock wall, in a position where there was a slight rock ledge above them.
A very loud ominous, “CRACK”, followed by several more, had both Tymos and Kryslie looking up as if seeing through the ledge and up the face of the mountain.
Frest heard the sound of rocks sliding, and tried to struggle free.
“Keep still,” Tymos ordered, but it was absently, for his face showed signs of concentration.
Frest saw the first of the stones, gravel and loose rock sliding over the ledge, and knew bigger stuff was coming. “We can’t stay here.”
He wasn’t answered, but he began to become aware of a purple glow around him. The rocks that seemed to want to bounce into their shelter touched the glow and rebounded - continuing to bounce down to the valley below.
The heavy stuff, a mess of cracked-off rock, finally finished falling past them. Tymos eased his weight off Frest, and gave him shivers by turning to glance down at the trail on the level below.
“The trail is still okay, just a little of the light stuff is there.”
Frest found his voice, “It was fortunate that you had a protective force screen on, Prince Tymos. I didn’t know you had one.”
“When we left Dira, to start the tour, Father gave us one of the ones taken from the aliens that infiltrated the Estate,” Kryslie admitted. She watched Frest straighten and was aware that he was relieved to have figured out what Tymos had done. The she added, “But, that stopped working when they turned an EM pulse on us.”
“How…” Frest started to ask, how they had created the protective effect, but an explosive blast, deafened him, drowning his voice. At the same instant, his eyes were blinded by the brilliance of a fireball. He changed his question to, “What was that?”
Echoes of the explosion were reverberating between the rock faces of the two mountain ridges. Then a faint shadow passed over them, accompanied by the faintest smell of burnt jet fuel. Frest turned his head in the direction the cloaked jet had gone.
“That was whatever had been causing that sonic barrage - being blown up,” Kryslie said calmly.
“Something flew over,” Frest insisted.
“Yes,” Tymos agreed. Then to distract the Guardsman, he said, “Come on, let’s go.”
Into the communicator, he spoke a short sharp command, “Allyn, be quiet. We’re fine.”
This time, Tymos kept his pace to one that Frest could match, but only because he was aware that the sonic barrage may have caused more fractures.
Frest was quiet until they were three quarters of the way up. “How did you do that? It felt like a force shield.”
“Think about who we are Frest,” Kryslie suggested. “We are not Father’s Heir Designates for nothing. Our power is a lot stronger than yours is, and are sensitive to the aura. We have found we can actively draw on it, and feel when there is a disturbance in the ambient energy field.”
“Oh!” was all Frest could think of to say. He was embarrassed now, because it was his job to protect them, not the reverse.
Kryslie swore deliberately, startling Frest because she shouldn’t have known those particular curses. She finished with, “We have been trying to tell you we can look after ourselves.”
To end the subject, Tymos and Kryslie increased their speed. However, they continued to discuss the events with each other using their telepathy.
“It probably wasn’t us, specifically, that they were after,” Tymos proposed. “It might be some other type of intended sabotage.”
“True, but that thing didn’t cause the first quake. More likely it was to make the cracked surface rock break off,” Kryslie proposed.
“To try to block the mutant’s ways in and out? How could they expect to block them all? Bring the mountain down?”
“The aliens in their infinite arrogance may not have thought of multiple exits. It might be spite if they had the idea that the mutants helped us,” Kryslie suggested.
“How could they think that? We were far away from here when Jon helped get us off their ship,” her brother disagreed. “And they left the mutants incapable of helping us.” He gave a mental shrug. “The reason isn’t the issue right now. My concern is that, whoever sent that drone, will probably know it was destroyed. We don’t know if it had sensor capability and saw us or not. Either way, the aliens will probably come to investigate. Those in the next valley are nearest. It will take them at least a day to get here so we have to finish here before then.”
“I’ve warned Mithas,” Kryslie said a few moments later. “He will have a lookout in case the aliens try to find a way through the tunnels.”