When War Calls(108)

After five minutes’ walk, Lendon requested that Jaden jump into the back of a vehicle. They were then driven to an airfield at the other end of the city. There, Jaden was taken out onto the runway. Lendon had used a radio device in the vehicle to have an aircraft waiting for them. Jaden did not recognise the craft. It was unlike anything that the Alliance had used. He thought it resembled the black helicopter he had seen patrolling Callibra before flying east, but this was larger and green, with twin engines on either side as well as a propeller on its top. With Lendon’s help, Jaden stepped inside, finding a fairly spacious cabin with three seats on either side, as well as two in the front. Two pilots were in the cockpit, but they paid him no attention.

‘Sentinel,’ said Lendon, ‘from what they have told me, this force coming will be too powerful for us to stop alone. I need you to ask if the people of Ceahlin might ally with those in Waikor so that we can stand a chance. Can you do that for us?’

Jaden nodded to him, and the Kayde seemed to relax a little as his people’s future seemed to brighten with the prospect.

‘Good fortune to you, Sentinel,’ said Lendon, and he closed the cabin’s door, locking Jaden inside.

Jaden sat back in his seat as the pilots were given clearance to take off. He would have felt nervous flying for the first time, but his heart was already pounding. All he could think of was Alyssa.

The aircraft lifted high into the air before one of the pilots turned to shout at Jaden. ‘Make sure you put on a harness,’ he called, and Jaden did his best to do as instructed.

After some fiddling around with the buckles, he was strapped in tightly, and the twin engines on either side of the craft were activated. It moved slowly forward for a while and then began to pick up more speed. Without windows in the cabin Jaden could see nothing, and was forced to look into the cockpit to see anything outside. He knew they were extremely high up when all he could see was cloud and blue sky, but it didn’t matter. The anxiety was becoming too strong for him to bear.

‘How long until we reach Waikor?’ he shouted to the pilots.

‘Conditions look good. Two or three hours at most.’

Jaden sat back again. It wasn’t too long, but he wasn’t going to sit and do nothing. With the free time, he lifted the crystal Raquel had given him from around his neck and was instantly transported to the broken city. He ran quickly into the one door where he found another staircase that hadn’t been there before, leading down again but to a room with two separate doors. He stepped through the one on the left and found himself in darkness. This was where he was able to see what he wished to see. Beautiful scenery soon appeared, of Callibra and the places Raquel had shown him. He was trying to settle his thoughts in any way that he could. When that failed, he tried to call out to Raquel, hoping that she might appear next to him as before, but Raquel did not respond. She was not with him. It seemed she was only able to enter the crystal’s realm while she was able to hold it herself. He then tried to train a little, getting used to feeling the energy around him and knowing its capabilities, combining what Raquel had taught him with what the Daijuar had, and then finding a balance between the two.

He began to wonder at how Raquel knew so much when she was not of their kind. She did not have endobraces or Daijuarn garments. She was still a mystery to him and knew similar things to what the Daijuar spoke about. She was an enigma, and one he would attempt to understand someday, if he were ever to see her again. He would confront her somehow, in a way that would not cause her to simply ignore him. He knew there must have been a reason for why she neglected his questions or walked away every time he tried to gather his thoughts, but still he couldn’t understand.

He then tried to imagine something in his future that he could test, to see if his reactions to problems would be right or wrong as Raquel had seemed to show him, to help him speed up his path. Minutes past as he thought hard, but as nothing more than wanting to be with Alyssa again filled his mind, he exited the crystal’s realm with a sigh. It was hopeless. He just had to get this over with.

He put his head back in the seat for the remainder of the flight, drifting in and out of an uncomfortable sleep before being woken entirely by the same pilot shouting back to him.

‘We’ll be landing in ten minutes.’

Jaden quickly made sure that he was alert and awake, running over all the things he would have to say to the heads of the city to make his visit as quick as possible.

The aircraft gave a small jolt as it landed and Jaden was allowed out.

‘Welcome to Waikor, Sentinel,’ said a man standing outside. ‘I am Regustus, I will be your guide.’