The Vostok Revelation

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Despite his cell being spacious, well-furnished and comfortably temperate, the Warlord could not help but shiver uncontrollably as he lay on his bed. The tremors, an unavoidable consequence of the poison he’d ingested minutes prior his assault on the Crystal Palace, were an uncomfortable reminder that his plan was progressing.

Soon it would not matter if one or all of his former colleagues learned about his plan. But for at least the next two days the purpose of his assault had to remain veiled behind his being mad and consumed by blood lust. The Committee, he knew, often relied on chemical agents to extract information from reticent detainees. Should his resolve falter, his weakness could undermine everything he already accomplished and jeopardize everything he hoped to achieve. It was far better that he alone suffer the agonizing death from envenomed varadA tea than that all humankind stagnate or perish in Anatarnahs.

“What has happened to you, Xi?” a familiar voice, laden with emotion, forced him to suppress his tremors, open his eyes and sit-up to face the entry barrier.

“Life. Life has happened, Sri. I will not let them squander the only opportunity we have to save our species.”

“But the violence, Xi? All the bloodshed? All the destruction? I thought I knew your heart. You had so many ideas to help… You have murdered so many innocent people, caused so much destruction, so much suffering and pain. Why, Xi, why?”

The deep pain in Xi’s chest eclipsed the widespread anger that radiated in his organs and muscles. Not very long ago he would have done anything to avoid hearing Sri’s voice fill with such sadness or to see her brilliant azure eyes well-up with tears because of him. He knew that he had betrayed her. He’d chosen the welfare of entire human race over the welfare of the woman he was prepared to spend his life with. And now, after all the horrendous things he orchestrated and the many egregious acts he’d either done or caused to be done, he had no choice but to shoulder the burden of all he’d wrought and carry it through to fruition — hoping that humanity would not only survive Anatarnahs but thrive because of it.

Xi grimaced as a searing jolt of pain momentarily stiffened his body.

“Have they hurt you?”

Xi read the concern in her eyes. In spite of all that he had done, her Advocate instincts overtook her emotion.

“Regardless of what you may have done, the Council has absolutely no authority to cause you any degree of pain before it convenes to determine your innocence or guilt. If they have harmed you in any way, I’ll…”

“No one has caused me harm, my love. Whatever is to befall me is of my own doing. Do not hold the Council, yourself, or anyone else at fault for my deeds. I have done all that I am accused of. Even if I lacked honor, I would not contest any of the charges.”

“But-”

“No, Sri.” Xi rose from his bed, his face masking the undulating pain coursing throughout his entire body, and walked to the barrier, stopping across from, his one true love.

“Everything that is born must die. Everything that dies is re-created in some form. You shall see, when everything that must transpire has transpired, rest assured my love, we will be together again… forever.”

“LokanAtha, sarvasvAmin, forgive me,” A frightened young woman genuflected at his bedside.

Emperor Bharata’s eyes snapped open. Blankly he stared at the concave ceiling several meters overhead, transfixed by a female tiger standing guard as her three cubs crouched to drink from a deep green lake at the base of a towering waterfall. Only when his movement was impeded by the limbs of one of the women sharing his bed, did he realize who, where and when he was. Using his elbows, he shimmied himself to a sitting position and then studied the dharmadAsa stirring around him.

Each of the duty slaves, a stunning beauty between sixteen and twenty, was given into service by their race. It was profitable to a people for their offering to be chosen for the Emperors harem. Conversely, it was shameful to be sent away after a fortnight, a dishonor which in time often resulted in an honor killing or suicide.

Xi placed a hand on the sleeping woman’s head and ran his fingers through her nappy black hair.

Nightmares and dreams were for lesser beings, those with only a few lifetimes to remember. When he slept, when his mind became idle, a memory from one of his many millions of incarnations would play-out in his subconscious. The sights, the sounds, the tastes, the smells and, worst of all, the emotions were perfectly and painfully precise, as-if that moment he’d lived countless millennia ago were happening now.

Of late, his nights were spent reliving his last moments with his beloved, Sri Bezanjo.

He missed Sri. He wanted her, desperately. And, although he could easily manufacture her, as he had hundreds of thousands of times before, to the exact time when they were deeply in love, he knew that she would, in time, grow repulsed by the existence he’d provided her and she would come to loathe him. As strongly as he felt the need for her, as painful as it was to merely remember, as all-powerful as he was, he could not endure watching her slowly walk to suicide again. It was better to be alone.

“Awaken,” Xi said, his voice amplified by design, echoed throughout his bedchamber. The dark haired child, nearly of age to join his stable of slaves, was visibly awed. The lavender curtains autonomously shifted, natural light flooded the bedchamber, to reveal an overview of the endless ocean in every direction.

Xi watched the face of the young slave at his bedside, as eight soft, petite hands began snaking across his legs, stomach and chest. The child’s eyes widened as the sheet covering his midsection shifted lower, slipping below his navel. Indifferent to the girl the slaves grinning salaciously, their eyes pleading, begging their master for permission to prove their value.

Burdened by emotion, it would be easy to indulge himself with the eager women occupying his bed. He could, should he choose, include the child in a morning orgy. Still…

“Get out.”

Instantly, the nude women stopped caressing their master, rose from his bed, bowed and silently padded from his chamber.

Xi swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat up, completely exposing himself to the young girl. He reached out and rubbed his backhand downward across her cheek until his palm rest against her shoulder. Amusement filled him as the terrified girl, unlucky enough to be chosen as a messenger by one of his craven advisor’s, struggled to keep her breath. He had no desire to see her budding breasts nor to consume her virginity, but it was deliciously entertaining to watch one of his slaves struggle to maintain composure when confronted with absolute uncertainty.

He removed his hand from her shoulder and pulled the sheet across his lap, “What is it child? Who sent you?”

It took several seconds before the girl could find her words, “Master Portus has sent me, SurAjan. Master Portus sends word of news from Vasundhara.”

A grin spread across his face. He stood up, the sheet fall to the floor, and he placed one hand on either of the girl’s shoulders.

“What is your name, child? How old are you?”

“Li Na Haung, Master. I am thirteen, Master.”

“Look at my face young Li Na Haung.”

The girls face rose, her almond eyes were closed.

“Open your eyes.”

Slowly her eyes opened, they were green.

“You have beautiful green eyes,” Xi reached behind the girls head and untied her pony tail. He used both hands to fan out her hair in front and behind her shoulders. The girl stared at him, struggling to remain stoic to honor her family.

“There will come a day in the future Li Na Haung, when you will be brought to this chamber. Today, go back to your master and let him know that the Emperor will expect him in approximately two hours, after I have bathed.”

Relieved, the young girl bowed and hurried away.

Ka’Na Portus pressed his nose to marble floor of the Emperors meeting chamber. His master, sitting high on his throne, had left him in this uncomfortable position for more than thirty minutes.

“Advisor Portus, you sent a messenger.”

Still kneeling Ka’Na lifted his face from the marble floor and straightened his back, “Yes, my Emperor. A message has been received from a beacon on Vasundhara.

The Emperors face was expressionless, but inside his heart beat faster at the news. All of what the Ancients had predicted had happened. All they had planned several millennia before his first existence had executed perfectly. The virAsana, the sentinel, dormant in its fortified bunker, survived Anatarnahs and, having received its activation signal after so many attempts, deployed its locator’s, who in turn sent out their seekers to find, recover and recombine the bindu that had been protectively scattered across the Vasundrara’s solitary land mass. The bindu, parsed subatomic particles, were the key components to reestablishing communication between Mangal and Vasundhara, were now in place.

The Emperor looked down at the man who, in another life, had once been his colleague and best friend. Ka’Na then, as now, was brilliant in the field of synthetic automation and the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. It was that dual expertise in these crucial fields which kept his sattva, his digital essence, in the fleet data store when so many others had been purged to ensure the fruition of Xi’s vision.