Chapter 8: New Dawn
The palace's resplendent domes and lofty minarets grew smaller as Makoto and Afura gathered speed in their flight.
Soon, they had left Floristica far behind and were passing over serpentine rivers and verdant forests, which gave way to bleaker, more inhospitable terrain the farther north they ventured - deep canyons teeming with pillars of precariously balanced boulders, and towering mountains, groups, ranges and isolated peaks alike, many crowned with eternal frost.
The land below was gradually bathed in beautiful amber radiance as the sun rose in the east, but neither of them was in the right frame of mind to admire the spectacle - or even say very much, for that matter.
Which was just as well, for Makoto was wholly undistracted when a faint, odd sensation like an itch on his brain assailed him - a sensation akin to that which he felt when he accessed the ancient underground energy network during his and Ifurita's battle against Ab-Zahal.
Closing his eyes and concentrating on this feeling, he found himself mentally floating amidst the power grid's innumerable motes of light... facing a glowing silhouette he recognised as that of Princess Rune.
"Thank Heaven I've been able to raise you," she said breathlessly. "We are compromised. Expect the enemy either en route to the Sepulchre or at its location. The Palace is-"
And before he knew it, the vision was gone.
"What's happened, Makoto?" asked Afura, who had noticed his brief, trance-like fugue.
"Princess Rune just sent me a warning through the Ancients' old energy network," he replied somberly. "The Reapers are on to us somehow. We're not deviating from our plan to find the Sepulchre, but we can expect an attack at any time."
Afura shook her head in wonderment. "We're lucky the network apparently extends this far afield, and that you can connect to it without even touching any of its physical components."
"It's something I've become increasingly able to do, but either we've exceeded the network's outermost boundary, my power's effective range, or both, because she was cut-off mid-speech."
"Was there anything else she tried to say before the connection was lost?"
"There's a situation back at the palace." Makoto fixed Afura with a steely gaze. "I think you should leave me at the Sepulchre once we locate it and get home as fast as possible, Afura - the others may need you urgently. Whatever's in that place, I can figure it out for myself."
The Wind Priestess tightened her jaw. "Let's see how things go."
Forewarned as such by Rune, the pair were in a constant state of vigilance throughout the remainder of their journey, Afura actively probing as they progressed for disturbances in the air around them that might denote the presence of their enemies.
The temperature of said air was now chilly and the ground beneath carpeted with snow as far as the eye could see, dotted here and there by patches of ice crystals that glittered all colours of the rainbow.
As the primordial pinnacles of the Tchah range loomed up in the distance, Afura abruptly tensed.
"They're here," she said. "Steady yourself - we've got a dicey run ahead of us."
Executing a manoeuvre that swiftly brought them down to an altitude of merely five or six feet, she then made a wide turn to approach the foothills from a different direction, using a deep, rock-strewn gully for cover.
Makoto's pulse raced upon spotting two dark shapes passing high above, gliding through the scattered clouds with a curious grace despite their size - he immediately recognised them from the illustrations in Dr Schtalubaugh's codex as uncloaked Shadow Reapers.
Motioning for complete silence, Afura continued to propel them down the trench towards their objective, slower and more warily than before.
After many nerve-racking minutes, they came to the end of the ravine, and saw something up ahead that made them stop and stare.
At first glance, it resembled a gigantic slab of mirrored steel lying upon the surface of the snow, but upon careful scrutiny, Makoto and Afura realised that it was the flat roof of a buried building - they had found the Great Sepulchre.
Unfortunately, a third Reaper stood atop the structure, attacking it with his saw-hand in a clear attempt to force entry - there would be no sneaking past, unless...
"Listen, Makoto. I'm going to distract him."
"Wait, you're going to do WHAT? Afura, I can't let-"
"Don't argue with me. Ura, as soon as I break cover, you get Makoto right over there as fast as you can."
Ura winked and raised one paw in imitation of a thumbs-up, prompting Afura to chuckle: "The cat's better at obeying orders than her master." She took a deep breath and regarded Makoto fondly. "Be seeing you soon, my friend. Don't make a hash of it."
Knowing when he was beaten, and that time was of the essence, Makoto could not help but fiercely embrace Afura before she soared out into the open, shouting curses far more befitting Shayla at the sentry, who took off after her with guns blazing.
Unwinding herself from around Makoto, Ura elongated her body into a sled, her legs forming the runners, and used her tail to sweep her master aboard before spinning it like a rear-mounted fan, the motion propelling them towards the Sepulchre at a breakneck pace.
Upon reaching it, Makoto alighted from his ride, who reverted to her feline form, and hurriedly searched the seemingly featureless surface for a means of ingress, the not-too-distant sounds of battle between Afura and her pursuer reminding him that his position was precarious and the clock was ticking.
He was almost despairing of finding a way in when a warm glow began emanating from his coat pocket - Rune's token, now shining with unearthly luminescence.
As if in response to the token's presence, a hexagonal area of the Sepulchre's roof beneath his feet started to descend, elevator-like, beneath ground level, taking him and Ura with it into unknown depths.
The Reaper chasing Afura stopped in mid-air, as if realising he had been decoyed, and deployed a Wraith from beneath one wing, which streaked back towards the Sepulchre and plastered it with every missile in its arsenal - to no avail, for another hexagonal panel had slid into place, sealing the elevator shaft opening and holding fast against the bombardment.
"Good boy," Afura smiled to herself, Makoto's success not lost on her.
It was now time for her to do as he had urged, namely make a beeline for Floristica... but the opening that the Reaper's hesitation created suddenly looked much too good to pass up.
Perhaps it was because she was fed to the teeth of near-constantly being on the defensive ever since her first encounter with the Reapers.
Perhaps she had rubbed shoulders with Shayla for too long.
Whatever the reason, she now wished to show these creatures what it was truly like to go toe to toe with an Elemental Priestess of Wind.
There would be enough time to school her adversary thusly before making a break for it, she decided.
Seizing the moment, Afura gained altitude and brought a funnel shaped column of wind sweeping down upon the Reaper, snaring him in a swirling vortex that spun him round and round like a top.
She gestured with her fingers and the tornado's speed increased to the point where its air currents would cut as sharply as any blade, and the trapped monster was little more than a vague, blurred figure being tossed around behind its revolving walls.
Her earlier smile now took on an almost savage aspect - she was going to relish this.
Thoroughly fixated on her target, too late did she recall that the Reapers operated in cells of three...
The elevator came to a halt at the very lowest level of its shaft and Makoto, with Ura at his heels, sprinted down a tunnel leading away from it.
Each step he took, strange spatial designs decorating the walls - planets, moons and stars - spontaneously began glimmering in unison with the light from Rune's token.
He could tell that unseen security systems were tracking his every move, but the token's presence was negating any hostile response on their part - prompting them to register his entry as being fully authorised.
All perception of time was nearly lost to him as he traversed a bewildering maze of corridors, ramps and stairways, guided only by his senses, which were detecting a presence of some kind within the Sepulchre and inexorably drawing him towards it.
His perambulations finally ended at a massive, arched door of sparkling blue-white metal, in the centre of which a recess corresponding to the token's outline was visible.
Beyond this portal he could feel the presence more strongly; his skin tingled and his heart beat like a drum as he placed the token where it belonged.
The moment he did so, the entire portal began began to shimmer and lose its solidity; it became transparent and faded completely, as if evaporating into thin air, the token vanishing with it.
And for the first occasion in its long history, the secrets of the Great Sepulchre's inner sanctum were revealed to the amazed eyes of an Earthling.
"Same like 'Furita?" Ura asked in an awed whisper, pointing at what lay beyond the empty arch - a chamber containing a large sarcophagus of gleaming silver.
"No, Ura," answered Makoto, slowly approaching the casket, its transparent lid clearly showing what, or rather, who, lay silently within. "He's not a Demon God... and I'm pretty sure he's not dead, either."
This impressive physical specimen, his hair flowing and silken, his face bearded and mature with deep-set, wide-shut eyes, and his Herculean torso and limbs encased in futuristic plate mail that fit him like a glove, was indeed a living entity, Makoto's senses told him - the source of the energy that had drawn him to this vault.
And yet the motionless man's vital signs were near-imperceptible, as if he were in a state of suspended animation - a slumber that must have lasted many hundreds of years while still leaving him unravaged by the passage of time.
As he pondered the marvel of it all, Makoto started violently upon realising the casket's cool, unyielding surface was in direct contact with his hand, which he did not even remember stretching out.
Then down his mind seemed to plummet, up it seemed to rocket, plunging into icy waters, passing through a raging firestorm, tumbling end over end through a kaleidoscope of electrons and light, through which could feel his memories being comprehensively scanned.
The contact was severed in an instant, bringing him to his knees, pale and trembling from psychic shock... and confronted with the awakened sleeper, who stood nearly an arm's length taller than himself beside the now-open sarcophagus, and appraised him with pupils of fiery gold.
Ura arched her back and hissed, but settled down when the colossus lifted his hands in a sign of parley and helped Makoto to his feet.
"You need not fear me, Makoto Mizuhara," he said in a voice that matched his grip - gentle, yet strong. "I am General Varic. Forgive me for scanning your mind; I had to be certain of your identity and intentions. Much has evidently changed since my wounds necessitated placement into stasis."
"Much has, yes," replied a still-dazed Makoto after a moment's pause. "Except a threat from your era still survives to this day, and we will be hard pressed to fend it off without help."
Varic's expression darkened. "So I saw. Zheveryn's legions have returned to cut their bloody swathe across El-Hazard."
Though the name of Zheveryn was foreign to him, Makoto had no doubt whatsoever what the warlord was referring to, and nodded speechlessly.
"Once more, unto the breach," Varic muttered. He gazed up at the vault's ceiling as if picking up on what was taking place aboveground. "They shall be dealt with, young Mizuhara. But first things first - you have a friend outside in need of assistance. Let us go to her aid."
He passed his right hand over a gem on his left wrist, and the entire edifice began to shake as long-dormant engines rumbled to life.