The Polians are an extinct race that has crawled into a hole to die.
Three Hundred Years Later
Arcanis - Polian Alliance
"We have to hurry, Master..." The young human man pulled on the sleeve of the worn robe, urging the ancient master onwards, "We have to make the last evacuation."
His deep purple eyes were insistent, leading the frail old being through the ruined halls of the great cathedral, cringing with each explosion that echoed from the ravaged world beyond the walls. There was no time to delay; the last group of Polians were even now gathering in the Propylon chamber preparing to leave.
One of the great stained glass windows shattered with the force of a nearby impact, glass raining down from the high vaulted arch that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, showering the small human figure and the much taller and frailer Polian Master.
Gavin desperately looked out of the shattered arch across what had once been the most beautiful city in the Polian Alliance. Built into the side of a steep gully, Tangraya City was burning as yet more ruin from the shattered Arcanis moon fell, punching through the mighty shields that protected the city, slamming with titanic force into the southern quarter. How many lives were lost there?
Gavin shuddered to think.
"Please Master..." he repeated again, patiently tugging on the arm of the old being who had been his mentor, only wanting to ensure his safety.
The ancient creature paused his shambling gait, resting upon the Polian staff weapon. A weak burble formed deep within him: the sickness again, churning in his chest. Were he human, he'd have been doubled over coughing, but Polian flesh was divine, supposedly untouched by the ravages of disease. He pressed the near translucent skin of his high arched forehead against the staff, wizened purple eyes staring out through the window as Arcanis burned. His heavy third arm reached out to stay his young protector, shaking his head slowly as his Polian words squelched out weakly.
The young man shook his head, "We can't Master... the last evacuation will be leaving the Propylon chamber... the Synod's orders..."
The ancient creature's eyes blazed as his hand tightened on Gavin's arm.
"With respects..." Gavin said hesitantly, choosing his words with deliberate care, knowing how foolishly prideful and stubborn a Polian could be at times, "I know you don't blindly obey the Synod, but..." His eyes again looked across the ruin of their homeworld.
The Polian master's eyes softened as he tenderly reached his finger to tilt the young man's head up to look at him, seeing the distress in his eyes, the worry for him and his well-being. How many years had Gavin cared for his venerable master, tirelessly taking on the duties of bathing, of feeding...? A monastic life, isolated from others of his kind, serving because he felt that it was an honour to do so.
The master walked towards the vaulted arch, his staff clicking as he walked forward, seeing with his own eyes the devastation brought down upon their holiest of cities, burbling again as the sickness rose. The pain deep within him meant he would soon be joining those who had died on Arcanis in the eternal garden. There was no avoiding it; each had their own time, and his star was setting on him, and on the entire Polian race, the dawn would soon come, and with it...
He turned to the young man who was standing uneasily eyeing the great barrier shield that was covered in the thick choking black dust that had come to smother the world. The young man flinched involuntarily as another large meteorite slammed through the shield and obliterated another section of the city.
There lay the future, locked within heresy. Purple eyes, framed by dark hair hanging across his face of a proud young warrior, wrapped in the traditional patchwork coat of a Wayfinder. His very existence was a defiance against the Torvonian Synod and their concordant; he had no idea of the legacy he carried within his veins, and the old Polian rested awhile simply staring at him.
"Master?" Gavin asked calmly, returning the gaze. He was never one to flinch away from a Polian, no matter how revered they were amongst the lesser races of the Alliance. The Polian half of him was adamant that he was just as good as they were. "Maybe you should sit for a moment?"
Ever caring, considerate even though he had no cause to be - the ancient one appreciated that about the youth, and he nodded in gratitude. He watched Gavin a moment... his mother had named him, naturally against his father's wishes, Maleke Do had suffered his wife's loud arguments with stoic resolve, but as it was the way in their society, he had conceded to her wisdom.
Gavin dashed back into the hall. A large troop of Polian Warriors tramped past in tight formation, but they ignored him. Carrying their Kabalik staves and protected by gleaming golden armour, they were only there to secure the safety of the Torvonian Synod during the cities evacuation - which had to happen before the shields collapsed and the city was buried once and for all beneath the ashes of their moon.
Behind them strode the six Archons, their armour a molten shimmering of metals that flowed as they walked, burning hot and smouldering. The metal danced patterns down the armoured plates; kept in a perpetual liquid metal state, they glowed a dark red as they smoked. The Archons wore their camouflage cloaks sitting over the armour, the microcrystalline fibres resistant to the heat; the crystals would render the elite Polian guards near invisible and offer them significant protection from Imperial pulse weaponry. Dangerous combatants, they were to be sent to hunt down the butcher of Arcanis, Darien Taine, and exact a righteous vengeance the likes of which hadn't been seen since they had burned the Skyella nebula to slay Kardiac.
They ignored the lone human, as they always had; the only Polian who had ever acknowledged him was the master. Gavin found the chair and returned, heaving the stout piece of furniture, far too big for the lean young man to manhandle without some effort, as he set it down in the middle of the arch.
The Master looked grateful to him, taking a seat and shifting the ancient Kabalik staff to one of his other hands. Each staff was unique, the wood hand-carved, bound together with fibres and engraved with the testaments to battles won and honours received. The Master's was of a black wood, and unlike the ones carried by the warriors or the synod, it was carved from an ancient tree on a long-forgotten world by the same fingers that now coiled about it. The ancient one was remembering what it had cost them all, the taxation of blood the Torvonian Synod had exacted upon the Polian people to wipe the Peligians out.
Now the once proud Polians were themselves a dying race who had been spared execution at the human Warlord Kardiac's hand by an act of divine intervention, only to be struck down by his successor, Taine.
"Master?" Gavin asked nervously, again watching the shield over their head, which was flickering and flaring under the tonnes of debris pressing down upon it. It would fail soon, and bury the entirety of Tangraya City in ashes.
"I must rest awhile," The ancient one replied in English, shocking the wayfinder who had never heard a Polian speaking anything but his own divine language, "I must rest..." his large head sank against the staff, his eyes closing, his words fainter, "You must listen carefully to me, Gavin," His eyes opened again, "I will not be making this journey, I will not follow the Synod to their doom."
"You would defy the will of the Synod?" Gavin asked, quirking an eyebrow, amused at his Master's suggestion.
"There was a time, boy, when the Synod answered to the Elders of our race," The ancient face, lined and almost translucent, glowed faintly, "back in a happier time, before Skyella...before Kardiac. Our wisdom guided and tempered the Torvonians, and through it, our people. Now I fear I am the last master, and the Synod has made its pact with darkness... their thirst for vengeance has left us bereft of conscience, and powerless to stop what is to come..."
"You know what is to come?" Gavin asked, taking a moment to kneel beside his master, adjusting the way the Master sat so that he would be more comfortable, eternally patient even there at the end.
"There is..." the ancient master burbled again, his face contorting in pain, "...nothing mystical about it, I am simply old enough to know the consequences of actions. There is no future for our people..." A piece of debris exploded somewhere in the central plaza, casting them both in a flash of light as a great monument to the poet Gorva Ti toppled and fell, crashing to the ground, "...there is only the past."
"I don't understand Master..." Gavin replied, "You can't remain here..."
"You will leave soon," the ancient one opened his eyes and reached out to touch the boy's hair again; he'd always been fascinated by hair, such a strange thing to have crept into the evolution of a sentient being, "You will go with Jorvian Ke..."
"The Archon?" Gavin shook his head, "But he is to be sent after Taine..."
"Take this," the Master pressed his staff into Gavin's hand, "Go to the Propylon chamber and instruct the Archon that the time has come. That the final sanctuary must be protected... he will know what must be done."
Gavin reverently accepted the Kabalik staff, confusion written across his young face, "Master?"
"Go now, boy, do as I will." The Master rested back into his chair, "Go now and remember the love I have for you."
Gavin hesitated.
"Run boy," the Master insisted, "Run, before he arrives..."
"Who?" Gavin asked, but the insistent look in the Master's eyes sent him running.
* * *
The lone Amsus Raptor screamed out of hyperspace just above the atmosphere, his main ion drive engaging to maximum burn as he shrieked down towards the surface of Arcanis. Entering the outer stratosphere, he began to burn, armour plates peeling from his wings as they burned and bubbled, his lower turret tearing off and crashing back along the underside of the ship that continued to accelerate at a perfectly calculated angle downwards.
Rocks and debris caught in his wake were pulled along with him, adding mass as he screamed towards the Polian capital and the shield barrier that protected it: a burning shooting star that heralded the arrival of darkness. He plunged into the barrier, slamming with such an impossible force that he detonated on impact, the meteorites he had pulled down slamming home just moments behind, the weight of such an impact causing even the mighty Polian shield barrier to collapse under the strain. Rocks, dust and debris caved in upon the city.
Burning rubble caved in on the city, smothering it in a choking cloud of dust as the lone Amsus shuttle shivered, spiralling as it fought to stay airborne. It curled through the burning towers of the once beautiful city that was now gripped in its death throes, the structures organically grown from great plants burning as the stonework they supported crumbled into dust.
The shuttle extended its gears, its wings trying to fold up as it touched down. The wingtips slammed into the thick dust and buckled as the ship crashed into the foot of the high steps leading inside, kicking up more clouds into the air as it ploughed to a rest. The ship didn't power down; the pilot left the engines running as he clanked down the ramp, the shuttle disappearing beneath the dust as its master abandoned it to its fate.
Pachyeus-Ra flexed after his long journey home, black helm angling upwards to look up the cathedral tower and around him at the city crashing down. He swung his head back, marching up the steps through the thick dust clouds and inside. The dust slid, blocking the exit behind him, the weight of it easily filling the gap and sweeping in around his feet as he crossed the entranceway towards the huge wooden doors that led inside the nave.
He ignored the panicked refugees from the lesser races of the Alliance, milling about in the cloisters, staring at the dust and ash that had coated everything, windows cracking under the weight of so much debris. They would be dead soon, and were irrelevant to Ra; his purpose was with the Synod inside. He moved through their ranks as they reached out to him, a few of them begging for him to take them with him to the evacuation site.
One dared to lay his hands upon Ra: a small, frail-looking being who pleaded for him to take his daughter...
Ra's backhand sent the being flying through the crowd, a sickening tumble followed by a loud crash to the ground, a shivering twitch his final motion.
The crowd drew away from the ominous black warrior, shock setting in at what he had done. A Polian had struck someone down for no reason... Ra continued his advance as he climbed to the great doors, his visor fixed squarely on the gold-armoured lesser being, one of those heroic enough to be given the honour of donning armour and the right to carry a Kabalik staff weapon. The guard looked terrified; his staff weapon lowered, he barked orders for Ra to stop in Polian.
The shattered golden shape crashed through the great doors moments later, and Ra stepped through, hefting his newly acquired staff weapon and spinning it in his hand as he levelled it and ended the guard's pitiful scrabbling in a bright blast of light.
He turned back to the crowd. A few were taking hesitant steps up towards the entrance to the cathedral, seeing a possible escape from the fate that had been sealed for them since the day of Taine's apocalyptic attack. One dared to lay his hands upon Ra wasn't about to be the instrument of their salvation; his eye, visible through the shattered half of his helm, tightened in fury. They deserved their fate, and he would ensure it. His staff rotated in his hands, sending a pair of blasts into the fragile ceiling of the entranceway, blowing out the mighty support boss that held the ceiling aloft. There was a crash and a crump as hundreds of tonnes of rock, stones and debris rained down upon the hapless refugees, silencing their cries for help.
Assured that he wouldn't be disturbed, he swept around, clanking on again, mounting the broad stairs and climbing towards his goal.
* * *
The methodical clanking, the sounds of pistons that operated the powered Polian exo-armour, heralded his arrival, and the ancient Master turned his head. "I have been expecting you, Pachyeus Ra," he said, calmly.
Out of the darkness of the ruined cathedral the shadow of Ra loomed behind the chair. The tell-tale click of a staff weapon lowering into gauntleted hands indicated his intent. A guttural sound of Polian words answered him.
"You are no longer Polian," the Master replied calmly, strength ebbing from his voice, "I see only a construct of human devising. You are no longer worthy of the divinity and blessings of our creators 'language."
Ra's voice sounded angry as he made his demands.
The Master rested his head back against his chair sadly: it had come down to this, his life being taken by an abomination - a cruel fate indeed. "I will not tell you the path to Peligia," he replied to Ra's demanding questions, "A being such as you has no place setting foot on sacred ground. However, I would be more than happy to tell you to go to hell." He had always enjoyed that human expression; it was... appropriate.
Ra's voice lowered menacingly.
"And how do you intend to enforce that threat?" The Master asked, his amusement growing at Ra's frustration, "I will be dead in such a short time anyway, I'm afraid your worst threat is, at best, irrelevant." He rose slowly, painfully, and turned to look at the black creature that had come for him. "The archives of our people are safely locked away in the Rock of Braal, away from here, and with them, the secret to the Key. You have made a wasted journey, Ra..."
The staff's discharge sent the ancient one plunging over the edge of the balcony, killing the last being to have seen the final days of the Peligians.
"That was asinine, and pointless,." a voice said from the shadows of the hall.
Ra swept about, his weapon trained on the young human boy stepping from the darkness. Simple black waistcoat and silver pocket watch. Dark hair hanging across one eye, the other a blazing blue fixed squarely upon the creature.
Ra shot him; the boy brushed the blast away effortlessly, the liquid -hot flare melting away before it could reach him. Ra paused in surprise; only his mistress Sephradon had managed a feat like that, and not without more effort and concentration.
"Your brutality will not work on me." The young man said calmly, his voice firm, "I am not a defenceless old man..."
Ra charged him, intent on skewering the boy upon the end of the staff; his charge faltered as the boy sidestepped the clumsy thrust.
"You should take pause and look at what violence begets," the boy's voice came from behind him. Ra spun. The young man stood up on the balcony rail; framed behind him, the city burned. "You should look upon your dying city and grieve for your people. I am offering you one final chance to stop this, here and now."
Ra seethed, his breathing causing his plates to shift, rising and undulating as he considered his next move. He didn't have time to play. He clanked around and back into the cathedral, abandoning the meddlesome human, as he marched down through the transept and out into the massive vaulted ceiling. The Propylon chamber lay behind the high altar, and he wasn't about to allow the last of his kin to escape him.
"You will not find what you seek there," the boy stated, standing in the middle of the aisle, one foot on the step to the lower altar, slowly rolling up his sleeves, "I am going to stop you."
Ra ignored him, advancing onwards as another piece of debris careened through the clerestory, shattering one of the high glass windows and sending dust pouring like a waterfall down over the alien pews. The structure heaved and shuddered, tall pillars shifting and collapsing. Ra sidestepped as a large piece of masonry slammed into the floor where he had stood, cracking the great stones. The roof high above them groaned as the buttresses began to crack.
He angled his head upwards, and back again towards the huge double doors that led to the Propylon chamber, his final destination. He took another step forward, and careened like a rag doll the entire length of the nave, slamming back with incredible force into the stone work above the doors as he collapsed into a pile of twisted metal close to the body of the guard he had used to open those doors.
Ra's head snapped up as he heaved himself to his feet, his wounds and broken limbs knitting together as he healed, looking down the length of the great Polian cathedral to the boy standing facing him amidst the cloud of dust that was raining down from the shattered clerestory. He seemed unstrained from the effort of the exertion.
Ra stepped forward, bending to recover his staff weapon, cutting loose with the shots, the blasts slamming into the altar and snapping the stone winged sword that hung above it. The stonework came splintering down. The boy was unaffected by the falling stonework, which should have smashed a frail body such as his.
"You cannot kill me, Ra." The young man stepped down from the dais and walked down the aisle towards him. "You will not possess the secrets of Peligia, and you will do no more harm to anyone."
Ra opened a panel on his armour, punching commands into the small Polian computer he wore there, looking up again as he charged the boy once more. The juggernaught connected as the human sidestepped again, caught by the edge of Ra's shield as he spun into the pews, splintering their wood as Ra rounded on him.
Ra emitted a guttural demand, levelling his finger at the boy who rose from the shattered pews, reaching down to tap more commands into his computer, advancing steadily on his foe. The shield flickered and flared, flashing in a golden light that solidified before it exploded with a titanic roar.
Ra tore the now useless shield generator from his arm and tossed it aside, levelling his staff at the crumpled form of the boy laying resting against the far wall where he had been sent crashing. The boy simply looked up and smiled as he vanished, slipping into nothingness as he spirited himself away.
Satisfied, Ra continued his passage, climbing the far dais and past the high altar, his staff disintegrating the final doors that stood between him and his goal just as the last flash erupted from the centre of the ring of stones, sweeping a human and a collection of Polian warriors away.
Ra's cold, hard eyes stared around the ancient and hallowed hall, listening to the dull rumble as yet more of the ceiling collapsed in the main cathedral; he had run out of time. His heavy, gauntleted fingers smashed down as he began to access the free-standing Polian computer that would set the Propylon co-ordinates, trying to recall their destination.
"I wouldn't bother," the annoying human replied from across the chamber, blood trickling down from his nose, his eye swollen and red, "They were quite thorough in destroying all records of their transit. I'm afraid you've reached a dead end."
Ra regarded the human for a moment, his hand sweeping to and fro as he inputted a second set of co-ordinates. Clanking to the centre of the ring, he felt the building shift again, the floor finally giving before the Propylons swept him away, the chamber crashing in upon itself, burying him and the Proplyons beneath the rubble.
* * *
Enarbrem Sul'Rikard paused as he walked through the halls of the Imperial fortress on Karin, amusement flickering through his eyes. "The new Emperor has risen." He murmured before he continued his passage.
There was a great deal of activity inside the fortress. Imperial troops marched to and fro, some of them in Karin colours, others in Kardiac blues - but the most interesting to Rikard were the ones who wore black, a mark of tribute to their Prince.
No-one seemed to be paying him much mind; the Kardiac Major's uniform he was wearing was enough to ensure he wasn't questioned by anyone, and discreetly he kept the peaked cap low and the collar of his trench coat turned up. He wasn't about to run the risk of anyone recognizing Nicholas Denver there. To Rikard there was a kind of poetic irony in wearing Kardiac's colours, especially on the eve of a new age of mankind.
He climbed a broad flight of carved stone steps passing command posts and dining areas. It was Taïrian fortress that had been adapted to human usage three hundred odd years before. House Karin had always scraped in the deepest darkest holes it could just to survive. It seemed only fitting that they would choose an abandoned Taïrian warren for their palace.
His ship was standing by on the upper platform. Colonel Evans had arranged for it to be there when he chose to leave, a fast courier that would whisk him to a rendezvous with a Denver Conglomerate transport bound for the Jump Nexus and he would leave that accursed world, glad to be free of it and its chaos.
He paused at the doors to the landing platform. Taine would come to Karin. It was an inevitability that meant that Rikard would have to alter his plans. He stepped out onto the high platform and looked across the snow-covered city that had become, by chance, his battleground, turning a small remote transceiver he had collected from the Excalibur and tapping it to his chin, listening to the whine of the courier's engines warming up.
He would need the key, and he would need the rings. The rings he could attain himself, but the key... There were places not even he would go. Perhaps if he sought to combine his problems and rid himself of a thorn.
"Major, sir," the Grey man behind him saluted, "The courier is ready to depart."
Rikard arched his eyebrow, turning and laying the flat of his hand against the man's chest. "Find an academic," Rikard commanded, channelling some of his own essence into the man, "Give him what I gave you."
"As you command, master," the Vessel responded, marching away without further question as Rikard smiled walking up the ramp into the Imperial courier, undoing the restrictive coat and tossing it aside, taking his seat and turning the remote transceiver over and over in his hands, a plan forming in his mind.
Enarbrem Sul'Rikard paused as he walked through the halls of the Imperial fortress on Karin, amusement flickering through his eyes. "The new Emperor has risen." He murmured before he continued his passage.