Disclaimer
First and foremost, the legalities. If you are under the age of consent, whatever that age may be in the state where you currently reside, read no further. This story is part of an ongoing serial fiction and contains graphic depictions of homosexual encounters. All encounters are of the masculine variety and are often done with little regard to 'safe sex'. This is after all a work of fiction, so none of the characters can get aids or the like. It is the recommendation of the author of this story, namely myself, that if you absolutely must engage in copious amounts of man sex, then do so as safely as you can. The last thing you want is to turn into a victim of your own hormones.
Secondly, for those of you who have written me and expressed a like of my story, thank you. I have enjoyed corresponding immensely. I would like to apologize again for the delays in posting. Between school and the various other things sapping my time it has been very difficult to post in a timely fashion. However I have been informed by some people very close to me that should I not post the ending to this story I will probably be facing some very real, very vicious demons of my own. I hope you enjoy, as always comments are welcome, gimmee a holler, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
*As always you may view my artwork and the sketches that will be going along with this series and all future series at my website www.designsbykyler.com . Love peace and chicken grease.
The miles unfolded in their tranquil harmony. The scenery opening itself like the petals of some night blooming flower. In the far distance with the soft ambience of deep night behind their shadowy line, the Appalachians waited.
The soft green glow of the console lights shed they're meager ambience on the sleeping face of the man to Darren's right. The unconscious form filling him with love and something else. Perhaps it was fear. For as long as he'd been alive, Darren had been filled with fear. No, this wasn't fear. He didn't know exactly what it was, but fear had no purchase on him.
That numbing fact was his first clue. The first hint that perhaps something was other than it should have been. He looked back the long expanse of road that had been pulling ever toward him the last hours. He looked at the gas gauge. While not yet on empty the refill sign has lit up. He'd had a full tank, which meant they had traveled hundreds of miles.
He looked at Terry again, the soft sense of love filling him as it had every time he'd looked at the man who'd taken his heart. The road pulled him back yet again, or maybe it was more than the road. The truth.
Darren knew something had been done to him, he didn't know what. He knew it was more than the compulsion that had sent him spiraling across the eastern seaboard for nearly four hours and not a memory of it. For that matter he didn't even know exactly what a compulsion was or how the name seemed to echo in his mind. But he did know who put it there.
Tep, he said to himself, what did you do to me you mad old bat!!!
-Nothing beyond what had already been set in motion-
The deep resounding voice with it is bare trace of indefinable accent stroked through his mind as though it belonged there. The sense of invasion was pronounced, in all the fantasy books he'd read as a child in which telepath played a part, he'd never found one that spoke of such a depth of violation.
-Calm yourself boy. I am only a shadow, an image imprinted upon you. It was the only way the old one could make certain you would know what it is you face. Now...let me tell you a story...
The jungle sprawled below him, not the wild untamed thing that lives in steaming south America today. That was not yet to be born. This jungle held trees that towered over even the oldest and largest of trees found in our world. The colors lush and green, and littered everywhere with plants that could not be the image of the place brought tears to Darrens eyes.
"Welcome to the world of the Aet'lan Darren." He felt and strong hard hand set on his shoulder and he turned to look. Tep stood before him, though not the Tep he'd seen before. This one was young, and strong, and imminently more attractive than the craggy old man. The smile that lit Tep's face seemed to part his head in half.
"I was not always old." His head turned back the jungle below them. That was when Darren took stock of where they were. The two stood at the apex of a ziggurat, carved out of a soft rosy stone, like sandstone that had been smoothed by the years.
They were at the edge of a massive stairway that looked more than a little daunting. Darren instinctively backed away. Bringing another smile from Tep. "You have nothing to fear from this dream, but that will not always be so." There was a touch of sadness to his eyes as he said it.
"What is this place Tep, why am I here?"
Tep turned and looked at the jungle once again. "This is the land of the Aet'lan," he looked back at Darren. "My people."
Darren looked around once again and understanding seemed to dawn, "Tep this is a mayan temple."
Tep laughed, this time it was low and full of amusement. "Actually, you're wrong, the mayans, were the children of my people's greatest grandchildren. The brilliance of their race built on whispers of ours."
The twinkle in his eye confused Darren even more. "Tep they died out millennia ago, if your telling the truth, you'd have to be..."
"Well over ten thousand years old...at least in one form or another. For the majority of the time I slept in a place of peace beneath the ruins of this temple, and when even those were gone, I slept still. I awake only when danger comes to the children of my race from out of the past."
Darren considered, "The demon, the thing that killed you."
Tep nodded, he turned back around and there was hate in his voice, and a sorrow more immense that Darren could fathom. "How odd that our greatest creation should become an undying legacy of pain and death."
The shade looked back at Darren, "My people had mastered mathematics, advanced energy, things that your society would not believe, in the end, we were old enough to know better.
We were explorers you see, we had touched our feet upon every inch of this world, had talked with the true ancients that walk the stars. We searched for something greater still to discover. We knew the mysteries of this universe, and so, decided to unravel those of another.
Darren couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "You mean, you..."
"Using the combined resources of our entire race, we sought to take ourselves away from here, to another place, where thought and time meant different things." Tep laughed then, and it was harsh, and cold.
"In our arrogance we never stopped to think, that in our attempt to walk through a door, something else might come through as well. They swallowed half our great city in a fortnight. They were beyond anything we had ever seen before. Had it not been for our leader, Gant'ash letnah, we wouldn't have stopped them. He brought us out of our daze, and made us push them all the way back to the doorway. And once through we sealed it, forever hoping to contain them.
"But alas, fate doesn't forgive arrogance such as ours so easily." He looked Darren in the eyes, let his pain and grief lay between them, "The doorway can never be truly sealed. The device that creates it, exists in both worlds, a twain created at the moment we closed the door. And since we cannot destroy the one on the other side, the one here cannot be destroyed either. So there is always the chance that someone will let them out again."
Tep looked at the ground, his eyes full of tears that he would never shed. "So part of us remains. We created a means to keep ourselves alive through the millennia...through our children." He looked up, the intensity back in his black eyes.
Darren, his mind trying to cope with too much at once felt knowledge settle on him like a fine veil. "The gift, Terry's gift, its something that you did to him...to me."
Tep nodded, "Of the races of man that existed on this earth, we were the only ones to possess the power to defeat them. The others would fall like fodder without our legacy. That is what flows in Terry's veins...in yours."
Darren thought to tell the ghost, or shadow, or whatever the hell he was that there had been a mistake, that something had gone wrong, he wanted nothing to do with any of this. It would have been a lie, but he would still have sought to tell it.
Tep however forestalled him, "Would you accept the burden of your legacy if it meant that Terry's life might be saved?"
Darren's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Tep breathed deeply. It was hard to believe this being existed only in Darren's mind. "Terry will be the creature's target, merely because he thwarted it before. It wanted him, not Peter, the lout had not a drop of Aet'lan blood in him. That is was the thing needs to release his kind en masse."
"So your saying that I have to learn how to control this to help save Terry's life?" Darren could fathom why two would be great than one.
Tep looked deeply into Darren's face, "Only in part. Terry is a bright, powerful person...but he isn't you."
Darren's forehead wrinkled in surprise and confusion. "I didn't think I could get more confused, thankyou for clearing that up for me."
Tep raised his hands in a placating gesture, it was the first time, young or old, Darren had seen the ancient Aet'lan in anything other than a position of absolute dominance. "Some have the gift in greater abundance than others. Terry was barely able to keep the beast from taking him, but still, it left scars I could not heal...he won't survive a second attempt."
Anger bordering on fury raced through Darren. The sky over the jungle grew dark, and sparks began to fall from the skies. In places the dense jungle caught fire. "OH and I can! Ill fight something older than god knows what, and save the day, because you say so! You have taken everything away from me. I finally got the one thing that I have wanted my entire life...someone to love, and now YOUR past is trying to take it away!"
Tep looked at the world, at the jungle below and Darren saw the agony in his face. "Please, stop this Darren. It is only in your mind, but once I saw this burn for real...please stop."
The pain in the other's face brought Darren a scrap of control and he calmed himself. The fires stopped falling, and the sky grew clear. Though a promise of overcast gray remained, almost as a warning.
"I would not have had it so. Even had I lived to teach you, you would be the worst possible student. Terry was the joy of centuries, his humor and life brought to me a peace I have not felt is so terribly long. But in the end, that spark began to fade, because he did not have what he needed to survive. He needs you, just as much as you need him. Together you have the strength to stop this thing. No you didn't make it, no it is not your responsibility to stop it. But in the end I can promise you, as small as your hope is, it is the only one. Make your decision."
Darren looked at him, His mind in a uproar. He wanted to take Terry and run as far and as fast as he could, just to get away. In the end, he knew he had no choice. Choice for them was an illusion, one that would get them killed, and he wouldn't even take a chance on Terry's life.
"What do I have to do..."
some interesting twists, hope you like it. I am actually thinking of extending this one. I was getting a little tired of it, but some people who I both love and fear informed me that to leave it unfinished would be at my own peril. I had planned to finish this one in the next three chapters. But if you want more of it email me at Kpettry2000@yahoo.com. Thankyou all for your support and feedback.