Location: The Shrine of " The Children of Destiny" in Prime City, on the planet Notron
"Shut Up Cora!" The panicked man scolded.
But, Cora couldn't help it. She had known this day would come. She had trained her mind and body to endure the pain without the aid of "The Power".
But, nothing could have prepared her for this experience. It wasn't just the typical pain associated with bringing a new life into the world.
During the last contraction, an excruciating agony, originating in the depths of her soul, ravaged her psyche and threatened to drive her mad. She couldn't help but release a sharp cry of pain, the baby's head had emerged
Her breathing was burdened, and her sweat-covered body, shuddered with fatigue.
It would be so easy to give in and use "The Power". But it had been drilled into her since she was a youngling: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, USE THE POWER! Only when her usefulness was over, could she ever use: "The Power."
If she had her way, she would never have to resort to such extreme measures.Things, however, were not looking good.
"Are they here?" Asked Draybon. He was speaking to the young woman, who was on lookout duty at the room's entrance. She gently cracked the ancient wooden door open for the second time in less than five minutes.
"Yes!" She replied.
"How many?" He asked
She looked back at him, a stricken expression on her face
"A Hundread! Maybe more! They're at the bottom of the Spire, but they're making their way up!"
He threw a concerned look over to the tall slender woman standing over Cora's bed; the woman he had known since childhood. The Priestess. She met his look of terror and glanced down at the exhausted mother-to-be, before returning her gaze back to Draybon.
"No! We can't move her! The child is here! Too much is at stake! "
Draybon grabbed a handful of his own hair and let out a curse. This was his breaking point! He could feel the weight of the entire Zhell race on his shoulders. He was barely 17 years old. He could not be expected to carry out this sacred duty with the grace and poise common among the more mature of the population.
His union to Cora, some nine months earlier had been planned since birth. The same had been true of his father, and his father's father... back eight generations. That would make him the ninth, and his child would be... the tenth... His child, would be...everything!
Just then, Cora let out a scream... A moment later, her scream was followed by a new sound. A child's weak and helpless cry.
It was just a simple cry from a newborn... but it was so much more.
That simple cry, transcended concepts of sound and feeling, pain and reason. Draybon felt as if his soul was being ripped free from the great power that had always laid dormant, just below the surface.
The experience left him in a daze, his subconscious desperately tried to revive him: "Must... Must protect the... uhhh... must protect the... the child... that's it! Where is the child? The child was... where was?... Yes! The Child is with... Corah."
Gradually he was able to piece together his shattered reality. When he fully became cognizant of the situation, panic struck!
The Anzati! There was no way they didn't sense that great eruption of raw power. He didn't have to ask the girl guarding the door. He could read the horrified expression on her face:
THEY WERE OUT OF TIME! THE ANZATI HAD COME!
Throughout the last hundreds years or so, Zuffarin Keilki had caught the passing whiff of
something inconceivably powerful and... delicious: A life soup so potent, so complex; it would nourish him for centuries, maybe even millennia.
He laughed at the irony. Before the "stranger" had arrived on the Anzat homeworld and gave them the free gift of interstellar flight, the Anzati were a weak and pathetic race. His own father lived to be only 28 years old, and that was considered quite aged. Stuck to the confines of their own planet and limited by their unique biology, the Anzati fed off the life soup (the life essence found in every living being's brain) of each other. Their cannibalistic nature, served as a check to their population. Once they had hyperdrive technology, they learned a previously hitherto unknown fact about Anzati biology. With a constant source of fresh "Life soup", a single Anzati could live hundreds possibly thousands of years.
Zuffarin himself, was now over 200 years old. Instead of alway surviving at the very brink, the Anzati were now thriving! They weren't really an empire; they didn't rule, or demand tribute or taxes. They could best be described as galactic marauders. Their goal? Fulfilling their instinctual need continual sustenance.
All creatures with a brain, were suitable for everyday nourishment. However, it didn't take long for the Anzanti to discover that not all minds were equal.
Some minds had a strong connection to "the great power". All Anzati, likewised possessed the gift, that's how they hunted their quarry
Through the currents of the great power, they could sense individuals whose mind was more acutely attuned to "The Great Power"; the force that binds the universe together.
Feeding on such a mind did more than sustain the feeder. It lengthen his or her life! It increased their intellectual capacity
It was an irresistible lure to any Anzat. They could sense this special prey from many light years away.
This is why Zuffarin and his crew had come to Notron. Those passing glimpses of great power had finally coalesced into a steady beacon. When he was of clear mind and purpose, he recognized the threat a Zhell, this powerful, posed to the Anzati. But as he closed in on his target's location, his insatiable craving overrode his reason.
They landed the ship at the base of the Sacred Spire, and had allowed their hunger to guide them. The Large hill, known as "The Sacred Spire" was decorated with a vast hodgepodge of Shanties all connected to a complex network of wooden ramps and walkways.
Atop the summit, sat the shrine belonging to the "Children of Destiny"
Their insatiable hunger drove them up, higher and higher! Once the marauders had reached half way up the spire, a surge of delicious energy exploded all around them, turning the Anzati into mindless beasts as they lusted over the delicious prize that was now within reach.
Loosing all but the most basic control, their feeding tentacles, began to unravel from the inner pouches where they were discreetly stored, extending outward towards phantom victims.
In truth, a single creature only had a relatively small amount of brain matter stored in their skulls. There would only be enough for ONE Azanti!
The first one to reach the tantalizing feast, would be the sole partaker.
Zuffarin was determined to be the first. Like all the other Anzati with him, he was starting to drift into a semi-hallucinogenic state as he could already imagine his tendrils slipping up into the nostrils of the poor unfortunate soul, and perforating the thin membrane into the being's brain cavity. The life force contained within could undoubtedly sustain him for Millennia, as well as provide him with unfathomable insight and intelligence.
It took, every ounce of control to haul himself back from the brink of euphoric insanity. He was so close! HE WAS SO CLOSE!
The child... The Girl, cried out as all newborns do: A Low tonal braying intended to illicit feelings of empathy and maternal self sacrifice.
Cora felt so cold... so empty. The baby had been part of her. Their heartbeats had never been apart more than a hand's breadth. Now... now she would never even get to hold her baby.
Her muscles were still shuddering from the ordeal, when the tears began to fall
"You must take the child!" The priestess told Draybon, while trying to hand him the infant wrapped in cloth. But he didn't take her.
He just stood there, staring at Cora as she mourned the loss of a child she would never know. In that moment he felt every bit as young and unprepared as his age suggested.
"Draybon!" The older woman yelled. "If you don't act, all will be lost! This is your destiny! The child must live! Take her and go! Now!"
She said as she, once again, pushed the baby into his arms.
Finally, he grabbed hold of the small bundle.
She then walked to the room's centre and pulled down on a leather strap hanging from the ceiling. Up above, a hatch door flew open, releasing an angled ladder that slammed down onto the floor.
"Hurry!" She said as she pushed him to the ladder. He took one last look of the room. Cora was now wailing with grief as hormones surged through her blood stream, and the loss of her baby tore through her heart. He felt no real bond to her. There was no love there. But the sudden eruption of raw human emotion on her part, caused him a degree of sympathetic pain.
In a surreal daze. He began to climb: Rung after rung, hands pulling him up and legs pushing him higher and higher.
Back in the room he had just exited, everyone except for Cora, became motionless as their heads lulled to one side and their eyes glazed over. The main door to the room burst open, knocking over the semi unconscious woman who had been guarding it. A flood of Anzati poured into the room like like a swarm mindless insects after some exotic nectar.
For the first time, since she was a youngling she had awakened the great power that was stored deep within her soul. Ever since the child had emerged, she had been gathering the power, concentrating it. She did this even while she wept, knowing this would be the first and last act of love she could ever give her daughter.
Because of this, Anzati had zeroed in on her, thinking the earlier outburst of psychic energy they had detected, emanated from her. Even though she did not posses the same amount of power as her daughter, she was strong enough in her own right. By this means, she masked her daughter's existence. But, she couldn't stop there.
As soon as the Anzati began extruding the liquified brain matter of everyone in the room, they would find out the truth: "The Grand Scheme" that had been in the works for over a hundred and fifty years. She wouldn't give them that chance.
The long ladder led Draybon to the very top of the shrine; a hidden room. The small room was part attic, part garage. Two long rails bisected the room's floor. Atop the rails, sat an unusual vehicle. It was a streamlined version of a rail car with some very unique features
Draybon had never laid eyes on the contraption before, but he had been made aware of its existence, and been proficiently instructed in its use and function.
The fact of the matter was, this Shrine had been the latest in a long line of sacred buildings that had decorated the top of the Spire.
Its previous incarnations had been the victims of uprisings, ethnic cleansings , or a myriad other catastrophes intrinsically tied to religious zealotry. With such a history in mind, this particular building had an escape plan built in.
At this point adrenaline was coursing through his bloodstream, and it took every ounce of concentration, to climb into the peculiar looking carriage without dropping his daughter. Thankfully his tight grip and constant movement seemed to have lulled the newborn to sleep.
Once inside, it took him a moment to recall the launch sequence he had been taught. Then it came back. He pressed down the floor pedal with his right foot and then he used both hands to pull back on the large side-lever. Once he heard the distinctive click. He took a deep breath. This was it: He was about to put his trust in an untested contraption that was nearly 100 years old.
"Im damned either way." He said with a note of sarcastic desperation.
"Damn it all!" He said between clenched teeth, as he released his foot from the depressed pedal.
With that, the craft was hurled forward with incredible force. Almost simultaneously a section of the wall directly in front of him slid open, revealing a steep railed ramp that had been disguised from below. At the end: Thousands of feet of emptiness that lay between him and the base of the spire
The craft had no steering mechanism. It had been designed for single use, with very specific parameters in mind. All he could do is use one hand to hold onto to the baby and the other to hold on the handle bar in front of him.
With incredible speeds he shot down the ramp, until he reached the end, which was slightly upturned.
The moment the pod's wheels left the rails, another mechanism was engaged. On either side of him wings of fabric and wood folded, catching the craft before it started to descend.
Off they glided into the night, past the city limits and towards the foothills of the Manarai Mountains... Towards salvation...
Cora had been waiting for a very specific sound from upstairs. A sound that told her that her baby was safe... Her baby was out of reach... Her baby was gone...Forever.
With eyes full of tears, she whispered the words:
"Good bye Sahre'el."
With that, she spread her arms wide and clapped her hands together.
The spot where her hands met, instantly became the epicentre of a supernatural chain reaction. A blinding white light appeared, and then expanded... Explosively
The Light, devoured everything and everyone within fifty feet of its orgin. Everything and everyone beyond that, was the victim of the violent shockwave that followed. Cora, the priestess, the monks, the guards, the Anzati... all of them were gone in an instant.
Her daughter would never meet her; she might not ever learn of the sacrifice her mother had made for her. But it didn't matter! Cora spent her Last breaths loving her baby.
A lifetime of love, in a handful of heartbeats