ZeQuest: A Space Opera Mystery Novella (The Quest Saga Science Fiction Adventure Series Book 2) (3 page)

Oh. My. God
, Q thought.

The whole planet was basically everything one would want in a fantasy world. Lush greenery, flowers that glowed like jewels, a clear blue sky with the faintest of breezes flowing through it. He stared up at the towering stone castle in front of him, its architecture making it seem like it came straight out of the middle ages.

“Are you serious?” Elizabeth said. “Alien planets have castles now?”

“Well, Armorica’s entire culture is sort of medieval,” Carlos said.

“So we get to do quests for pretty women?” Q chuckled.

“This isn’t Skyrim or some other fantasy video game,” Elizabeth punched him lightly.

“Beautiful place is it not?” the High Priest said and raised his staff into the air.

A dull burst of light hit Q’s eyes and left him a bit dazed.

“What was that?” Elizabeth asked.

“That, my child, was feedback from deactivating the force field.”

“What?”

“The main palace has an invisible force field around it - our form of a high-tech medieval drawbridge. Deactivating the force field causes a small burst of light. That’s all.”

Wow
, Q thought.

Common thinking would suggest that there was nothing special about an invisible force field, but in reality it was very different from every other type of force field. Most ships and armies had energy scanners that scanned the surroundings for energy or heat. A regular force field would radiate heat and thus be seen on a scanner, but an invisible one wouldn’t radiate even a bit of heat and would just blend into the surrounding energy readings.

Usually, force fields could be forced to shut down using complex processes, but each of those processes took time, expensive equipment, and a hell of a lot of planning. The only way the enemy would even find out about the force field would be if they realized their attacks were getting stopped by emptiness, and by then it would have been too late to even attempt to shut down the force field.

Q found the force field’s concept to be pretty clever, and much stronger than any high end defense mechanism. No enemy force can take down something whose existence they’re not even aware of.

“Come along now,” the High Priest led them to the palace.

At the entrance were wooden double doors stood shaped like an inverted shield. They automatically creaked open as they walked towards the castle.

Q stopped mid-stride and took a good close look at the the brown doors. There were small inscriptions all over their surface. Alien scripts and rugged drawings lay embossed in the wall with delicately carved lines filling the gaps between adjacent inscriptions.

“Q! We need to get going,” Carlos yelled out from inside.

He jumped past the doorway, and into the castle just as the massive doors slammed shut, leaving a thud that resonated through the air.

The inner palace was, not surprisingly, just how a medieval castle would have been. A gold-bordered, red carpet spanned almost the entire width of the room, with a few yards gap on either side. It ran from the door all the way to a wide staircase at the end of the corridor, where it branched off into the two doorways on either side.

Several men and women stood on each side of the carpet, all of them dressed in gown-like robes. They bowed down respectfully as the High Priest walked past them.

Can’t get any more medieval than that
, Q thought.

The High Priest led them straight towards the staircase, but instead of heading up its steps, he went around to its side.

“Come along,” he said.

Q walked over to the side of the staircase and noticed a rectangle, about the size of a person, engraved on the wall.

The High Priest touched the wall and the engraved outline glowed with a bright white light. The entire section retreated back into the wall, revealing a hidden passageway.

“It would be best for the men and women to enter at different times,” he said.

“What?” Elizabeth asked. “Why in the world does gender matter?”

He raised his hand and two women Getafixians hastened to him.

“Show these two ladies to the master quarters,” he said and turned to Elizabeth. “As to why your gender matters. You shall soon find out.”

“That’s just absurd,” she said, her choice of words slowly becoming less respectful and more attacking.

“Elizabeth,” Carlos put his hand on her shoulder. “No one’s trying to offend anyone here. Just calm down will you?”

Her body relaxed, but her eyes still locked onto the High Priest.

Q sighed. He didn’t really blame her for her reaction. She had good reason to take any gender discrimination very personally.

She was from the Seraphian race, a race of angel-like beings. But though they resembled those holy doers of good, their structure of society was quite messed up. Women were just objects, subject to abuse and discrimination, and in such a society men got away with the most unethical of things.

Elizabeth’s mother had lost her life when her father abused her to the point of fatality. Elizabeth never really talked about it, but Q was very sure she was still bothered by it.

“Come along, Mistress,” both of the ladies bowed to Elizabeth and led her and the pilot up the staircase.

“We will be with you within the hour,” the High Priest said.

Elizabeth nodded, almost forcefully, and the women disappeared up the staircase.

“Shall we get going then?” he walked through the opening in the wall and Q followed him through along with Carlos.

The dimly lit pathway seemed to run parallel to the staircase. The only visible light came from a small bluish glow radiating from the stones on the walls and ceilings.

“Out of curiosity,” Q said. “Where exactly are you taking us?”

“For centuries, our race has possessed a certain sight,” the High Priest said, his words spaced between the soft thuds of his staff. “One that we show to every one of our visitors.”

“Like a monument?”

“A special place,” he said.

They walked further until they reached a dead end in the wall. The High Priest tapped his staff against it. A blue, door-shaped outline appeared just as before, and this section of the wall slid into the ground.

A small cloud of mist flowed into the passageway, and a warmth seeped through the air and the walls. Q walked on, feeling a light breeze blow through, bringing with it the scent of fresh jasmine and lilies. The mist dissolved in the wind, revealing the faint image of a pool of water.

“Welcome to Armorica’s best tourist spot,” the High Priest said.

Q’s face broke into a smile when he realized what this was.

“Hot springs.”

***

Q laid back against the smooth stone wall and let its warmth soothe his body. He had to admit, when the High Priest said ‘special place’, a hot spring was not exactly what he’d expected.

“This water has the rarest natural occurrence of a set of minerals,” the High Priest said. “Strongest relaxation agent in existence.”

Q couldn’t see him speaking though. The mist around them was thick enough to hide them all from one another.

“Must be good to have it in your backyard,” Carlos said. “A quick dip now and then?”

“This spring is reserved only for special visitors and ambassadors,” the High Priest said. “Overusing the pool could deteriorate its healing qualities. The general public, including myself, use the lower quality springs all over the planet.”

“So is healing the Getafixians speciality?” Q asked. It seemed to make sense that a planet filled with nutrient-rich springs would have caused the natives to develop an affinity to healing wave-skills.

“The Getafixians were born wielders of the Elementa of light,” the High Priest said.

Q was stunned for a second, mainly because the Elementa of light was supposed to be one of the rarest Elementas to control, and then he noticed a small snag in what the High Priest had said.

“Wait, the Getafixians
were
?”

“For many generations, the total number of Getafixians light-wielders decreased. Then, about two generations ago our race’s ability to control the Elementa of light completely vanished.”

“Just like that? No reason at all?”

“Our race was genetically endowed with a very high level of life energy. Light is one of the most superior of all Elementa, and needs the wielder to channel out a very large amount of energy. Currently, the regular warrior class has too little life energy to use the light Elementa.”

“So that means one from the Mage class can use it?”

“The mages of course have a lot more life energy to use, but only the most powerful of all mages can have even rough control over light. And then of course there is you, the sorcerer. Your life energy level dominates that of anything else in the Universe. Controlling light would not be too hard for you.”

“Wait, so if only a sorcerer can control light, then what class do the Getafixian light-wielders belong to?”

“In between the mage class and sorcerer class lies an ancient, hidden class, The Druids. The Getafixians were the first and only Druids of the universe.”

“So you’re between Mages and Sorcerers?”

“Exactly. Druids have significantly more life energy than the Mages, but are still far behind compared to a Sorcerer.”

“And so now, not even a single one you are of the Druid class?”

“We’re all just a little weaker than most mages.”

“Carlos,” Q said. “Didn’t you tell me a long time back that mages were a very rare class of warriors?”

“I did,” his brother said. “And that still holds true. The Getafixians are the only race with that much life energy to use. They’re the exception to my statement.”

“So no other race specializes in the Mage class?”

“The Thanonians,” the High Priest said, a little venom in his voice. “They’re mages as well. Much weaker ones, but mages nonetheless.”

“What?” Carlos seemed surprised. “Their race isn’t supposed to have that much life energy.”

“They have always been strong users of wave-skills. Ironically they chose to leave that gift alone and practice close combat instead. I believe their large army benefits more by practicing close combat rather than wave-skilled combat.”

“Do they have a race-specific element like the Getafixians do?” Q asked.

“The Thanonians control the Elementa of sound,” the High Priest said.

“That doesn’t seem too terrifying.”

“That is only because none realize the hidden potential of the Elementa.”

“What? Hidden potential?”

“Everything that has mass vibrates. So every object, living and nonliving, vibrates at a specific rate. We call this our natural frequency,” he said. “Say we caused sound waves that vibrated at the same rate, or frequency, as the object. This would make the object vibrate at a higher intensity, a phenomenon called resonance. If the waves were loud enough the object would tear apart and probably explode. A Thanonian, after much practice, can identify the natural frequency of any object, and create waves at the exact same frequency.”

“They’re a walking detonator,” Carlos said.

“Well, all I can say is that we’re very lucky they don’t use these powers regularly.”

“I think it makes sense why they don’t use them though.”

“Really?”

“Regardless of how many Thanonians use their powers, they can only break apart things one object at a time, right? If they try to break apart two objects at once, the two sound waves they create would interact with each other and mess up the whole attack.”

“True,” he said. “Plus two people is an understatement. Their armies are hundreds of millions in numbers.”

“Things have changed so much since I last came here.”

The High Priest laughed, “It’s been five years since you left,” he said. “Of course things would have changed a lot”

Q listened a little closer after Idhren said that. He was really curious about his brother’s connection to Armorica, and he was sure he wasn’t going to get a straight answer if he asked him.

“I was quite surprised when you contacted me,” Carlos said. “I wasn’t expecting you to find out about Q that early.”

“Information travels around fast these days. As soon as I heard of the light wielder I just had to meet him. A few information sources were willing to help trace back your location once they realized the one who had requested was Idhren of Armorica.”

“You should just call yourself Lord Idhren. This High Priest business is just silly?”

The High Priest just laughed, “The Getafixian customs do not let them call me by name,” he said. “Believe me, I requested to be addressed by name, but no one took me seriously.”

Q tried to keep listening, but his head started to ache. High Priest Idhren’s voice started to sound like a jumble of incomprehensible words. Almost immediately he felt his body go sluggish, and he slumped into the waters. A torrent of bubbles swirled around him and his vision went blank.

***