“And it will kill you?”
“Yes.” The Wanderer’s eyes seemed to focus on something far away. “I can do this, because there is now another, to take my place…”
It was then that I realized he was talking about me.
“Wait…you want me to become…” I didn’t even know what to call it.
“My time to lead has passed. Askala has grown too powerful, and she has forced our hand…” The Wanderer gave a bitter smile. “It is the same, on every world. She forces our hand before we’re ready to play it.”
I had no idea what the Wanderer was talking about. All I knew was that he wanted me to fill his shoes, and that was something I could never do.
“You mean — I have to lead the Elekai when you’re gone?”
The Wanderer nodded. “Yes.”
“Why not one of the dragons? Why does it have to be…?”
I shook my head. There was no way I was up to this.
“This is your world,” the Wanderer said. “This is your fight.”
The Wanderer gestured upward — above the rim of frothing ichor, the nearest dragon’s head was visible.
The Wanderer continued. “They were the first to lose their world, millions of years ago. On each world, we make a home like this for them. We’ve saved the genetic blueprints for every species located on our home world, Askalon. You see the trees, the plants, the life of Askalon within these caverns.” The Wanderer turned back to me. “The Askala have already fought their war, but through the xenovirus and the Elekai, they are preserved, for as long as we exist in the universe. But the time of humanity has come, as it has come for every race discovered by the Radaskim.”
I guessed I understood what the Wanderer was saying. This was our war. Our fight. And if the Wanderer was going to die, I was the only one left who could take control.
“If it’s the only way…” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” Anna said.
The Wanderer turned to her, his face questioning.
“I don’t understand why Alex has to die. Isn’t there another way?”
The Wanderer looked down at us. He said nothing at first. After what seemed an eternity, he spoke.
“Alex was chosen by the Elekai,” the Wanderer said. “He was chosen by me. And Alex accepted the call.”
“That doesn’t answer anything!” Anna said, frustrated. It was all she could do to keep herself in control. “Why him? And why does he have to die?”
“Anna…”
She didn’t seem to hear me, instead focusing on the Wanderer, demanding an answer from him that he couldn’t give.
The Wanderer waved us up the path. We looked at each other before following him. As we walked, the ichor closed behind us. It wasn’t long before we stood on the white, crystalline shoreline. The dragons continued to slumber in their healing trance.
“You ask me why he is to die,” the Wanderer said. “The process of converting Askala requires a giving up of the spirit, similar to what I am going to do. When you ask me why he in particular has to die, you are forgetting something important: in the end, we will all die, sooner rather than later.”
Anna didn’t respond. The Wanderer had a good point: it seemed unimportant to focus on the death of a single person when, most likely, we were all going to have to face that death.
All that the Wanderer had told me before came back: on hundreds of worlds over millions of years, the Radaskim had invaded and the Elekai had resisted. The Elekai always chose a champion to fight the Radaskim. That champion, on each of these worlds, had always failed, in the end. The Radaskim were always too powerful to be resisted, crushing all who stood in their way. Earth was just a tiny planet in a vast universe. What was one death compared to all that?
“There are many things I do not know, Anna,” the Wanderer said. “Many things I will never know. I do know that Alex must face Askala, that he has been chosen by the Elekai to destroy her. He can only do so by infecting her. And yes, it involves dying.”
“But, why the sacrifice?” Anna asked. “Can’t he just infect her and get away. Or…”
“The…transformation,” the Wanderer said. “It is hard to imagine how such a thing might be accomplished without death.”
“Wait…” Anna said. “Transformation? What transformation? You mean Askala, or…”
“Askala will become Elekai. I don’t know what that will do to Alex, but it certainly involves his death.”
“So, is there a chance that it won’t?”
“There have been…times…where we thought we won,” the Wanderer said. “Just on a few worlds. Always, the champion had died, the Radaskim faded…but in time, they came back, more powerful than ever…”
The Wanderer went quiet, thinking. Anna waited for him to continue.
“I see that you care for him very much. And Alex will need that. Love is the only thing that makes the darkness of the world worth enduring, and you humans have a lot of it.” The Wanderer paused. “No one knows what happens in the heart of darkness, between the Champion and Askala. Only the Champions know, and they are all dead.”
As the Wanderer spoke, Anna’s hope died in her eyes. Watching that was more painful than anything I could ever remember
“But none of us must give up. Despite the costs we all have to bear — there is always hope. Always.”
The Wanderer looked across the lake, toward the entrance of the cavern.
“We must not linger here. Take me to your ship.”
We swam through the lake and reached the far shore, leaving the glittering cavern behind. The Wanderer led us up the twisting tunnel until we reached the roots covering the opening. The Wanderer raised his right hand. The roots unknotted and retracted into the floor and walls, revealing the glowing night. For miles upon miles, the fields emitted a pale, pink radiance, and in the distance, shining hills rose.
The wind blew warm as we stepped out of the Xenolith. The roots once more enclosed the opening.
I reached for my radio.
“Makara? Ashton? Do you read me? We’ve left the Xenolith.”
“Coming down,” Ashton responded. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
Within a few seconds, Perseus appeared in the sky, its landing lights gleaming. A short time later, the ship lowered to the xenofungal bed.
The Wanderer walked toward the ship, Anna and I walking on his either side. Perseus’s blast door slid open, revealing Samuel and Makara standing at the top of the ramp.
When we stepped inside, we found everyone waiting, including the Raiders. Everyone looked at the Wanderer in surprise.
As the door shut behind us, we stood in silence. Everyone seemed to be shocked that the Wanderer was with us — this mysterious, prophetic man who was the leader of all the Elekai resistance against Askala and the Radaskim.
“The Elekai were attacked first,” I said.
“There’s no army?” Makara asked.
“Their dragons are being healed,” I said. “Very few got out unharmed, if any. The Wanderer knows a way we might save the city.”
Suddenly, everyone noticed what had changed about Anna.