Chapter Fifteen

Things were way past desperate. Somehow, despite that fact that they had not managed to obtain every piece of the Statue of Omens, the Cult of Mumm-Ra had succeeded in freeing the evil being they worshipped as a god. And he was out for revenge against the Thundercats and all those allied with them; already, I could see that the ball of energy he had formed in his hands was so large that, if it was unleashed, Third Earth would be finished. Not that it would matter to anyone in the immediate vicinity - they'd all get vaporised in the initial explosion.

I found myself wondering what it would feel like to be vaporised, to be literally reduced to nothing faster than you could say: "Thundercats, ho!" The thought was too terrible to contemplate, so I turned my attention to trying to figure out a way out of this, a way of stopping Mumm-Ra before he could unleash his final, destructive attack. But, like I said before, the only one present who might have some sort of chance against such power was my father, the bearer of the Sword of Omens, and he had not yet noticed the danger.

Though I knew there was little chance of me reaching him in time, I turned and started to run in my father's direction. If I managed to get there before Mumm-Ra unleashed his energy ball, I would be able to warn my father and he would be able to use the Sword's powers to deflect the energy. He might even be able to do that thing Wilykit's spirit told me about, channeling the spirits of the Thundercats who had previously wielded the Sword through the Eye of Thundera. However, if I couldn't . . .

My thoughts were abruptly cut off as Mumm-Ra launched his energy ball and the entire landscape was swallowed up by an overwhelmingly white light.

I woke up slowly, feeling as though every cell in my body was on fire. For a moment, I struggled to recall what had happened, how I came to be lying on the ground, then it came to me. "Mumm-Ra," I said out loud, recalling how the being I had previously only known through stories had . . . The realisation made me stop with a start. Mumm-Ra had unleashed an energy ball so powerful that nothing caught within its radius could possibly have survived. But, if that was the case, why could I still think and feel? And what would I see if I opened my eyes?

There was only one way to find out. I slowly lifted my eyelids to find myself looking directly into Wilykit's face. But she seemed somehow . . . different from when she had appeared before me in the cells at Castle Plundarr. Then she had appeared ghostly and ethereal, the echo of a life now past. Now, however, she looked as solid and alive as . . . Wait, did that mean . . .?

"Am I dead?" I asked, thinking even as I said it that it was probably a ridiculous question.

Wilykit shook her head. "No, Storm, you are still in the world of the living."

"But how . . .?" I broke off, struggling to take in what she had just told me. By all rights, I should be dead, blown to pieces by the energy blast Mumm-Ra had unleashed. And what about everyone else who had been involved in the battle, both friend and foe? What had happened to them?

"Remember what I told you in Castle Plundarr?" Wilykit asked. "About the Eye of Thundera?"

"Yes, something about being able to absorb the spirits of those who have wielded the Sword of Omens." I remembered the moment Wilykit had said those words, words which seemed to offer hope in the midst of a hopeless situation. But, in the thick of battle, I had been unable to reach my father to tell him; I hadn't even been able to warn him what Mumm-Ra was about to do.

"That's right," Wilykit replied, nodding her head in approval. "And it was clear that the battle was not going our . . . your way, so I materialised before you father and told him what he had to do." As she said those words, I realised with a jolt that this must be the first time the spirit of a dead Thundercat had appeared to a living Thundercat Lord since the days when Jaga used to appear before my great-grandfather to offer him advice and guidance. "So," Wilykit went on, "when Mumm-Ra unleashed his energy blast, your father was able to draw on the power of all your ancestors to create a forcefield around all the Thundercats present and every one of their allies."

So that was how I had survived; the forcefield must have protected me, must have protected everyone it had surrounded. But, then, another question occured to me. "What happened to Mumm-Ra?" I asked, recalling how he had been hovering over the battle, ready to unleash his coup de grace.

"No-one knows," Wilykit told me. "But there's something else you should know. When the forcefield deflected Mumm-Ra's energy, it set off a chain reaction which set the whole of Third Earth on fire."

Wilykit's words echoed in my mind. The whole of Third Earth on fire . . . The idea of an entire planet burning was almost too enormous to grasp, even though, from what I'd been told, something similar had happened to this planet on two previous occasions. And what had happened to everyone? My fellow Thundercats, Queen Tia and her Warrior Maidens and all the other races who had united to fight the Cult of Mumm-Ra . . . Were they all - I hardly dared to think the last word - safe?

"The . . . the others?" I stammered at last. "What happened to them?"

"They are safe, Storm," was all Wilykit said, before she vanished into thin air, leaving me with my head swimming with unanswered and unanswerable questions.

Looking back, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that my fellow Thundercats were safe; after all, I'd been told that the Sword of Omens would never allow them or anyone allied with them to be harmed, least of all by something caused by the greatest enemy the Thundercats had ever known. The forcefield which protected me must have protected everyone else as well. At the time, however, I did not have time to think about this; all I could think about was Wilykit's news that Mumm-Ra's deflected energy blasts had caused Third Earth to burn. They must have been even stronger than I had thought . . .

Just then, my thoughts were cut off as the door opened and my parents entered the room. I had not yet taken stock of my surroundings, but now I did. The room I was in appeared to be underground, or at least windowless, since there was no natural light coming in; the only light source, which I hadn't registered when I first woke up, was the torch in a nearby wall bracket.

As my parents drew closer to me, I sat up and looked at them. They both looked the same as ever - my mother, beautiful and elegant, and my father, strong and confident. Yet, there was something in the expression on their faces, something I couldn't quite explain. However, something told me it had to do with what Wilykit had told me earlier about Third Earth having burned. But, if that was true . . .

"Where am I?" I asked, unsure what the answer would be.

My mother sat down beside me, as my father stood behind her. "Back in the Refuge," she told me. "We fled here after Mumm-Ra . . ." And she repeated the story of how, just when it seemed the battle was lost, my father had called on the spirits of our ancestors, allowing him to use the Sword of Omens to generate a forcefield so powerful that it not only protected every Thundercat and Thundercat ally present, but triggered a chain reaction when it deflected Mumm-Ra's energy blast. But I already knew all this from what Wilykit had told me.

However, there was one question which remained unresolved. "What about the Cult?" I asked my father. Not that I really cared what happened to the Mutants and Lunatacs who had caused us so much trouble; I was asking mainly to satisfy my own curiousity. I already knew (or, at least, I had guessed) what had happened to me; I must have blacked out for some reason and someone must have carried me when everyone fled back to the Refuge, which had fortunately not been completely demolished in the earthquake the Cult had caused earlier. However, a number of passages leading deeper into the underground complex were now impassable.

"We think a lot of them managed to find shelter," my father replied. "Kayon's out there with some of his men right now, rounding them up for transportation to the Penal Planet."

"What's it like?" I asked next. "Outside?" I tried to imagine what Third Earth would look like now that Mumm-Ra's energy blasts had set the entire planet on fire, but I'd never seen destruction on such a scale. Therefore, I had no idea what I would find if I ventured outside, no idea what scenes of devastation would await me. However, Wilykit might have been able to give me a rough idea had she still been here; she had been among those who fled the destruction of Old Thundera, so, though she had only been a girl at the time, she knew what planetary cataclysms were like.

"Very grim," was all my father said. He looked down at the Sword of Omens for a moment. "Storm," he added, "there's something you ought to know. When Wilykit appeared before me and told me I could use the Sword to call on the spirits of our ancestors, I had no idea what the result would be. Even now, I don't know precisely what happened, but my guess is that Mumm-Ra had built up so much energy that even he couldn't contain it. So, when the Sword deflected it . . ." He left the last sentence unfinished, but I could guess what he was about to say.

For the next few days, I was confined to the Refuge, with no way of knowing precisely what conditions were like outside; when I asked, all anyone would say was that it was "grim" or some other uninformative word. However, I never once considered sneaking out to see for myself. I'd left the Refuge when I'd specifically been told not to once before and the result had, to say the least, not been the one I'd hoped for.

During this time, Kayon and his men were kept busy hunting down the Cult of Mumm-Ra, many of whom had been scattered in the confusion caused by the cataclysm that had been unleashed. When any of them were caught, Kayon would radio for a prison transport ship which would come to pick the prisoners up and transport them to the Penal Planet - almost invariably on a one-way ticket. The female Reptilian, Karsa, was among the first to be caught; when she was loaded onto the prison ship, she defiantly shouted that the Cult of Mumm-Ra would not be broken. I did not witness this, of course, but I did later hear two of Kayon's men talking about it.

Mumm-Ra himself remained unaccounted for, but we all had an uneasy feeling that we had not seen the last of him, that he was waiting to finish the job he had started. And, if he did show up again, we would be in for serious trouble, especially since the Cult had somehow found a way round the defences in both the Book and the Statue of Omens. I was reminded of something Pumar had once said, something about the most dangerous enemy being the one who hides, though I didn't fully understand it at the time; I was only just eleven when he said that and thought the most dangerous enemy was the one who launches an all out attack with every weapon at their disposal fully primed.

However, experience had taught me that there was a great deal of truth in Pumar's words. The enemy who hides could be biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike. And, with an enemy as dangerous as Mumm-Ra, there was no telling when or where that would be, so we had to be on guard at all times.

After nearly a week, I was getting tired of all this sitting around and doing nothing. "Father," I said one evening, as the afternoon patrol (Fangelo, Queen Tia and two of the Warrior Maidens) checked in, "when are we going to do something about Mumm-Ra?"

He looked at me seriously. "We can't do anything until we know where he is," he told me. "Even then . . ."

"And, meanwhile, Mumm-Ra's building his power ready to have another crack at us!" I cut in, forgetting my manners for a moment. If Snarf Emala had been within earshot, she would have threatened to wash my mouth out with soap; she'd always been very strict about not interupting when others were talking. But she was back on New Thundera, looking after Lata, Sita, Sylvia, Tigon - and Hunter . . . I paused, thinking of the Ocelot boy who was my closest friend and whom I hadn't seen for some time. Nor had I had any contact with him since I was sent to Third Earth. If and when I got back to New Thundera, I would have a great deal to tell him about everything that had happened here.

" . . . it won't be easy," my father said, as if I hadn't spoken. "Mumm-Ra's a dangerous enemy, Storm. A very dangerous enemy."

"But, if he was vanquished once, surely he can be vanquished again." But, for the life of me, I couldn't think how it could be done. Mumm-Ra's followers may have been broken up and several of them may have been en route to the Penal Planet, but he himself remained a threat, a threat that had to be dealt with, preferably before he dealt with us.

"You're right, Storm," my father conceded. "The only trouble is we don't know how."

"Then we'll have to find a way, won't we?" My father and I looked at each other, both of us carrying the blood of generations of Thundercat Lords in our veins. "Isn't that what Lord Lion-O would have done?" I added, recalling everything I'd ever been told about my great-grandfather. His would be a hard legacy to live up to, but I was determined to do my best.

A day or so after my father and I had that conversation, we were all gathered together to arrange the day's patrols. I was not particularly interested in these meetings, as I knew I would invariably be left out on the grounds that I was "too young". So you can imagine my surprise when, in answer to the question of who was going on the mid-morning patrol, Kayon replied: "Ocelotra, Pumar, Jaya and Storm."

There was a stunned silence, which was only broken when my mother spoke up. "Are you sure there hasn't been a mistake? I thought we agreed Jaya and Storm were too young for these kinds of missions."

"No mistake, Lady Amber," Kayon assured her. "And, in case it's escaped your notice, Storm and Jaya are growing up. They can't stay sheltered in here forever, especially Storm. If he's to become Lord of the Thundercats, you must start treating him less like a child and more like the young man he'll be soon."

My mother sighed. "I guess I'm acting like all mothers," she said with a slight laugh, "wanting to protect my child for as long as possible. But you're probably right - Storm's no longer the child he was on New Thundera . . ." She paused to gather her thoughts. "Very well, my son can join the patrol, if my husband agrees."

My father slowly nodded his assent.