Rescue

 
The Twins
The Jiku guards are gone, and the royal compound is nearly deserted.
One Kizak guard brings him back to the ship, and returns his commdisk.

“This isn’t mine,” says Ilaz.

“It is,” says the guard.
“I put it in the storage area myself, and no one else has been there.”

It looks right, but feels wrong.
They’ve switched it, or tampered with it.

His disk is keyed to his unique genetics.
When he holds it, a pleasant trickle of energy circles his wrist.
This disk feels ordinary.

Sanctuary

 
Dragon Stone
Siksa is rich with a beautiful, dark blue crystal called ensai, that glows softly in the dark.
On land, the greatest concentration of the stone is in Bizra territory, under the meadows where the Bizra lived for centuries.
In the ocean, the most visible deposit of ensai is found in three undersea mountain ranges.
But the largest mass of the crystal is a great disk, hidden seven feet below the deepest part of the sea floor, extending for a thousand miles in all directions.

The disk generates an energy field in the shape of a sphere.… Read more

Worlds Within Worlds

 
Death
The bed is hard, and my head aches as sleep leaves me.
A groan escapes my lips.
I can’t remember who I am, or how I got here.
My heart beats quickly as fear takes hold of me.
Then I take a deep breath and clear my thoughts to push aside the fear.
I sit up slowly, and find a large room with five beds, all empty except for mine.

There’s a young girl at the far end of the room.
She offers me a drink of water, but avoids looking me in the eyes.
“Are you all … Read more