The Light-Field

  Sammael and his Grigori brothers were not required to communicate with the council, but were represented by their higher self, who was one with the Watchers. It felt rather like they were in the waiting room outside the council chamber, and every now and then a faint muttering of the proceedings would filter down into their understanding via their higher self.

  From what they could glean from the proceedings, the Watchers foresaw a risk to keeping Sammael’s male manifestation in the existence in question any longer. On one hand he was a great asset, on the other, a high risk due to recklessness in nearly exposing the Zagriata.

  It was argued that the soul-mind in question was a great asset to the Zagriata and that he had learnt a great lesson in the advantages of humility and prudence.

  The Watchers did not agree that lesson had been learnt, but given penance, the soul-mind in question would be further tested, to see if he could rise above his ego, in time to serve the Zagriata.

  This was a relief to all the Grigori, for it meant Sammael’s action could be upheld; but that ruling would not be without recompense for his charge.

  When the penance was announced, Sammael considered his male charge would probably prefer death to the trial he faced if he survived the desert.

  But what of my female charge? The Grigorian appealed to the Watchers ruling in regard to her.

  It was decreed that there would be no karmic fallout lain in her quarter and the news was music to Sammael’s being. I can save him. He was eager to return to their assignment.

  Today maybe? Azazèl waylaid him, so that he might consider the ramifications. But his future —

  — will be a huge learning experience. Sammael was determined. Believe in me.

  Azazèl did, without question. Let us proceed.

  But the Grigorian throng were not dismissed.

  Sammael, Azazèl, Armaros. Their over-soul singled them out. As the triad of being advancing the cause of the Zagriata, you must stay aligned with cosmic will, or risk a backlash in the physical world that renders existence there more wretched than it was before the birth of the Zagriata.

  The Grigori heeded the warning most solemnly.

  Aurora’s eyes felt weighted in the wake of her tears and shock, and she drifted into a micro-sleep.

  At first she saw only reruns of the day’s sad events. Then Aurora’s inner vision turned vivid and she felt her temperature rise, as a heart etched in the dusty desert earth appeared in her mind’s eye, as if it were laid out before her. The message of love with her name scribbled across it banished all the heaviness in her chest. This is the vision I asked for!

  She awoke with a gasp and a grin on her face, which was quickly replaced by worry.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Reba asked, as Aurora’s distress was enough to startle the twins in the front seat of the convertible.

  Aurora looked around to note they were just about back at the presidential apartment in the private sector. ‘I need to go to Zeven’s apartment, right now!’

  ‘Why?’ Rada was curious.

  ‘No questions,’ Aurora insisted, ‘I just need to go there.’ She was distressed, and Aurora knew the twins would humour her without needing her to reveal her motive to them. Aurora could have been wrong about this, but risking exposing her secret talent was worth it, if she had the chance to save Zeven’s life!

  Aurora’s fake government pass came in handy once again, although the twins were well-known by the security station guards and drew a lot of the attention away from their illegal passenger.

  When Zeven’s car was safely parked in his garage, Aurora instructed the twins to wait in the car. Normally they would have objected, but given the circumstances, they were cooperative.

  Aurora bypassed Zeven’s apartment door and rang the back door bell of the apartment next to his.

  Mythric heard the door chime, but was disinclined to raise himself from his spa, where he’d been attempting to drown the day’s events in booze. Then the thought that it could be Anselm — or better still, Starman — raised him from his wallowing and Mythric found a towel to wrap around his naked body.

  He’d found a door that led from behind the bar to the entrance at the back door, which saved going up and around through the bedroom to get there. Zeven would never use a door. That hope flew the coop en route.

  When Mythric viewed Aurora on the security screen, he felt the day was only going to get worse. The thought of comforting the grieving diva was enough to put Mythric off opening the door, but with a heavy sigh he dispensed with the barrier. ‘Miss DeCadie, I’m so sorry to inform you —’

  Aurora shoved him back inside the apartment. ‘Seal the door.’ She advised, ducking through the open door to the bar area.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Mythric just wanted to get the bad news out in the open.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ she whispered, and Mythric closed the door at once and followed her.

  ‘You know what happened?’ Mythric queried.

  She nodded, keeping her voice as quiet as possible. ‘I saw it. Kapow! But I’ve had visions about Starman before, and I just had one where he wrote me a message in the sand,’ she confessed and Mythric was not entirely surprised she had a Power. ‘I tell you, he’s in the desert dying right now, but he is not dead yet.’

  Mythric’s eyes parted wide upon hearing this.

  ‘Is there something you can do, some way to track him?’ Aurora appealed.

  ‘Yes, there is,’ Mythric conceded, ‘but I need you to leave immediately.’ He grabbed her arm and led her back to the door.

  ‘But I want to come with you,’ she pleaded.

  ‘That’s not possible.’ Mythric was sorry to inform and although she was disappointed, she did not want to hold him up.

  ‘Then bring him back to me,’ she requested, ‘give him my love.’

  ‘I will.’ Mythric, fearing he was being unfeeling, shoved her out the back door. ‘Trust me.’ He reactivated the back door, which slid closed and shut her out.

  As soon as Mythric was alone, he thought himself dressed.

  He had vowed to Zeven on the first day they’d met that he’d use his Power when duty called for him to do so. He’d been hesitant to confide in Zeven or anyone, bar the Timekeeper, about his talent, as it exposed more about him than he’d like.

  Time to discover what I do. Mythric psyched himself into action and thought of his partner.

  The figure heading toward him through the fading heat haze of the day must have been a mirage, Zeven figured. It wasn’t until Mythric squatted beside him and poured cool water over his head that the pilot realised he’d been found! ‘I’ve lost my power … couldn’t get back.’ He grabbed the bottle and drank the liquid down. ‘How did —’ His voice was still husky.

  ‘Aurora got your message.’ Mythric pointed to it on the ground next to Zeven.

  ‘But how did you get here so quick?’ Zeven frowned, bemused.

  ‘Let’s talk over a real drink, hey?’ Mythric suggested, grabbing Zeven by the arm to teleport them both back to his lounge room.

  When Zeven landed on Mythric’s lounge and the cool of the apartment returned him to his senses, he was completely stupefied a moment.

  ‘Well,’ Mythric broke the uncomfortable silence, ‘now you know what I do.’ With a grin, he headed to the bar.

  ‘You’re … like me,’ Zeven squeezed the words out and gulped down the rest of the water in the bottle in his hand, so he could get out the rest of what he wanted to say. ‘You’re royalty.’

  ‘There are two royal ancient Sermetic lines, the House of “Anselm”, which means protector, and the House of “Vidor”, meaning warrior … I was born into the latter,’ Mythric began.

  ‘So, your real name is not Mythric Zeon?’ Zeven concluded and Mythric shook his head.

  ‘That’s the name I took when I joined the MSS.’

  Zeven was confused. ‘If you’re Sermetic, then why would you want to join the Maladaan Secret Service?’

  ‘To get a
way from Sermetica,’ Mythric said matter-of-factly.

  ‘That’s why you were so pissed when the boss asked you to come here.’ Mythric again nodded and gulped down a shot. Zeven sensed that Mythric’s confession was building to a crescendo, as the pertinent question begged to be asked. ‘Why did you want to escape —’

  A knock on the front door startled both of them to a state of high alert.

  ‘It’s probably Anselm,’ Mythric suggested as he moved to investigate. ‘Or your girlfriend.’

  The locks on the front and back door clicked open at once, and the apartment was flooded with agents.

  Mythric raised his hands and backed up to join Zeven.

  ‘Who are these guys?’ They didn’t look to be secret service or government guards — maybe they where Khalid’s men?

  ‘Which one of you is Zeven Gudrun?’ The man in command asked and as Zeven moved to identify himself, Mythric did the same — to confuse the issue.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Zeven scowled at Mythric.

  ‘Look, I know you are just trying to protect me, because that’s your assignment, that you’ve almost failed once today already.’ Mythric confused the guard further, but Zeven understood well enough.

  ‘Bag them both,’ the commander decided, whereupon Zeven was zapped in the neck, and the shock sent his consciousness into the land of nod.

  As Zeven awoke in a very comfortable armchair, in a spacious, elegant sitting room, he could not imagine how he’d come to be there. It was a relief to spy Mythric standing over by the large windows, gazing outside. His partner was appearing more serene than Zeven had ever seen him. ‘Are we in trouble?’

  Mythric looked to Zeven and grinned. ‘Hard to say really.’

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ Zeven stood and approached the windows to gaze outside, although one great view in Sermetica was much like another — desert. Below them on ground level, before the drop-off, was a huge domed garden to rival those at Heavens-Gardens.

  ‘We’re in the Royal House of Vidor,’ Mythric replied. ‘I know; I grew up here.’

  Zeven gasped, realising why they had been dragged there. ‘This is about that royal summons from the Dowager Duchess!’

  ‘What summons?’ Mythric went white.

  ‘When I refused her royal invitation, the old bat —’

  ‘Shh, she’ll hear you,’ Mythric warned.

  Zeven frowned and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘She issued a royal summons, which I thought Anselm had explained I could not attend, as I was testing the Hunzo —’

  ‘She issued a royal summons?’ Mythric went into a daze. ‘She hasn’t done that for twenty years,’ he said to explain his shock. ‘Did she say why she wants to see you so badly?’

  ‘I never read the summons.’ Zeven shrugged. ‘I told you, I don’t care about my family, I just want to get back to serving the boss.’

  ‘So your Powers have returned, have they?’

  Both men froze in fear when they heard the old woman’s voice coming from inside the room. Mythric headed for the source — it seemed to be coming from a high back chair facing away from them — and there he found the dowager duchess had been sitting and listening in. ‘Lady Maiara Vidor.’ He announced her presence to Zeven, who cringed.

  ‘Come, come, Spyridon,’ she replied, ‘you used to call me, grand-mai.’

  ‘Spyridon?’ Zeven assumed this was Mythric’s true name.

  Mythric nodded as the duchess rose in order to see Zeven and address him directly. ‘That’s right, Spyridon Vidor. It means “Spirit Warrior”, which rather suits him, don’t you think?’

  ‘Considering what I have learnt of him today, yeah,’ Zeven conceded.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’ The stately woman looked to Zeven and he was stumped a moment.

  She didn’t look at all old and frail, as he’d imagined. Her hair was as dark as his, and although she carried a little weight around her middle and her tall stature was diminished, she appeared healthy and as sharp as a razor.

  ‘Have your Powers returned?’ The duchess jogged his memory.

  Zeven attempted to will himself back to his apartment and was not surprised to be disappointed.

  ‘I didn’t think so, nor will they for some time, if ever,’ she told him.

  ‘How do you know?’ Zeven challenged her premonition, before he realised. ‘Actually, how do you know I have Powers to lose in the first place?’

  ‘Because I know who you really are.’ Her eyes darted over to her grandson, who was looking as bemused as Zeven was.

  ‘No, Maiara,’ Mythric’s voice broke over his words, ‘don’t tell me you betrayed me?’

  ‘A person’s light-body is as individual as their fingerprint,’ she explained to him gently, before turning her sights back to Zeven. ‘And I can see, plain as day, that this is indeed Zaman Vidor — your son.’

  Both men near choked on the shocking emotion of the moment.

  Mythric found his voice first, and it was tempered with anger. ‘You told me —’

  ‘You would have searched,’ she defended.

  ‘This can’t be?’ Zeven protested. ‘Mythric — I mean, Spyridon … is a good guy, he would not have abandoned me as a kid.’ He felt he knew his partner better than that.

  ‘I —’ Mythric tried to speak but the duchess intervened on his behalf.

  ‘You are completely right about that.’ Maiara approached to speak with Zeven more intimately. ‘He and your mother fought gallantly to keep you with them, as a family. Satomi, your mother, was the older sister of the Qusay-Sabah Clarona, who died attempting to keep you safe. But an attempt on your life forced me to arrange for you to be raised in secret, far away from your true parents and family.’

  Zeven was welling with mixed emotions and looked to his partner to see if this tale was ringing true for him — the tears streaming down Mythric’s face said it all.

  He turned and left the room before his feelings could overwhelm him.

  ‘Hey, wait,’ Zeven called, but the duchess grabbed his arm to waylay him.

  ‘Give him a moment, Zaman,’ she appealed. ‘He has just relived the worse night of his life, where he believed he’d lost both his wife and child.’

  ‘He thought I was dead?’ Zeven was suddenly regretting bad-mouthing his biological parents so often around Mythric.

  ‘It was my doing,’ the duchess admitted, sounding as if she both regretted and stood by her decision. ‘If I had not convinced him you’d perished, Spyridon would have tracked you to the end of the universe, and we couldn’t risk exposing you; you’re too important.’

  ‘Why?’ Zeven was wary.

  ‘Because the night you were born, I brought forth a prophecy that foretold that you would be the one to rid the universe of the abomination that wears the guise of Khalid Mansur.’

  Shocking pangs of fear, inner recognition and adrenaline shot through Zeven. ‘Thanks so much, Great Gran-mai, couldn’t you have kept that to yourself? Then I could have kept my family and still killed Mansur!’

  ‘You can’t control prophecy any more than you can control a precognitive fit — and you should know how difficult that is from your association with Anselm’s daughter.’

  Zeven was shocked yet again; this old bat was a surprise a minute!

  ‘Yes, I know about her.’ She nodded firmly. ‘Don’t look so surprised — before your new wave of Zagriata came into being, I was the most powerful psychic alive!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Zeven gave a nervous smile. ‘But I always thought the Zagriata was a single entity?’

  ‘It is, and it isn’t,’ Maiara replied. ‘It is many working as one to serve the many, to bring light and love back into balance.’

  ‘So I am one of the souls that the legend is referring to?’ Zeven was thrilled beyond belief to discover that the legend wasn’t just about Taren — it was about them all! Taren had tried to tell him this many times, in different terms, but finally he believed it.

  ?
??Actually your participation is currently under debate.’ The duchess was sorry to put a dampener on his aspirations. ‘The loss of your Power is evidence of that.’

  ‘Who is debating, the Grigori?’ Zeven needed to know, so he knew who to appeal to.

  ‘You know of the Grigori?’ The duchess raised both brows, impressed, and then shook her head in answer to his question. ‘Your Power comes from your soul source, which is far beyond the Grigori’s realm of influence … they can only guide. Your Grigori stepped over that line, Zaman, in order to salvage an already precarious situation.’

  ‘How do you know so much?’ Zeven didn’t like that Maiara seemed to see through him like a pane of glass.

  ‘I have gone to great lengths to listen and know my higher self, and through it I get reports from the Grigori, very regularly.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Zeven mumbled, sensing that for some reason, he was in trouble. ‘All I did was hesitate when Sammael told me to get out, is that really so awful?’

  The duchess seemed rather amused by his words and chuckled down deep in her throat. ‘Come, Zaman, do you really think that is the reason that your place among the Zagriata is in question?’ She looked at Zeven as if to warn him that she knew otherwise.

  ‘No.’ He swallowed hard on his realisation. ‘I’ve been a show-off and a smartarse, and my actions have risked exposing the Zagriata.’ In this instance he was using the term to refer to Taren Lennox and the private army she was building.

  ‘Top marks.’ The duchess awarded him his due. ‘That is precisely the reason.’

  ‘So what is to be done about it?’ Zeven appealed.

  ‘The only thing to be done, is for you to go live in a quiet isolated place, where no one will find you and you will not be tempted to show off. Live in humility and service to others, until your soul source feels you are truly worthy to once again carry the sword of the universal cause,’ the duchess informed him bluntly, much to Zeven’s horror. ‘And you had better hope your Powers do return, because the Zagriata are going to need you.’