Sole Scion - 3. Chapter Three: The Judicars

Chapter Three: The Judicars

Logan Smith… a man long forgotten by those who once knew him was a complete and total failure. His own son Lanyon despised him. Worst he had failed to save the life of Daniel’s real father Avery Winters. He failed in countless other ways, but none hurt worse than letting Avery needlessly sacrifice his life.

As they flew over the drained crevasse that had been the Long Island Sound he heard Daniel gag. Rising up from the ground were clouds filled with the stench rot and burning bodies. With overcrowding and the diseases that came with cramming too many people in a small amount of space a constant issue, laws had been passed regulating how to take care of unproductive members of society. If Logan could smell like a normal human he suspected he too would have found the stench unbearable. He quickened the speed of their flight.

Looking up at the clouds of ash that never left the sky Logan painfully remembered the days when moon and stars lit up the night sky. Then Azrael happened, and the volcanic eruptions it triggered had filled the upper atmosphere with megatons of sulfuric ash. It would take another eighty years before the acid clouds stopped filling the skies and the light of the moon become visible and admired once again.

Most believed the end of the world began with Earth’s sudden collision with Azrael. Suitably named after the Angel of Death it struck the west coast of Alaska with terrifying results.

While more lives could have been lost if it struck other parts of the Earth, those spared the initial earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions were left to live in a wasteland dominated by famine, hunger, crime, disease and the mutagenic Plague.

Some parts of the world survived better than others. The force of the collision had been such that the Earth was tilted 90° off its axis. Antarctica now faced the sun year round while the northern continents were stuck in an era of frozen endless nights. This left the area south of the equator more capable of sustaining life than in the former more developed northern hemisphere.

There is a saying, hard times bring out the worst in people. The major powers of the United States, European Union, Russia, and China knew if they didn’t act their nations, if not their civilizations would cease to exist. They saw their only hope of surviving as a people was to migrate south. Since the countries in the warmer regions were not likely to let the hundreds of millions of survivors flood into their counties the northern powers would have to take the territory by force.

The result was a war to truly end all wars. The United States, still the greatest military power of its time invaded Central and South America with genocidal intent. With their survival also at stake the EU burned the Geneva Conventions, and marched back into Africa, in an invasion that harkened to the worst memories of colonization.

With no southern territories easily accessible to them, the Chinese and Russian governments signed a treaty of union which formed the Sino-Russian Empire. With their joined military might and threat of nuclear war they conquered Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. They then turned their attention further south and began a bloody campaign in India. While the rest of Asia fell easily, India, with its mountainous borders and its huge surviving population, proved much harder to conquer. Tens of millions died in fighting in the Himalayans but India… openly supported by the US and Europe could not be subdued.

This left only Australia and New Zealand as the only habitable territories yet to be invaded. As with India the U.S. shielded them with their massive naval fleets and nuclear deterrent to protect it from invasion. The Sino-Russians eventually came to the realization that unlike the Allies D-Day invasion of France any invasion of Australia would be discovered by U.S. and European spy satellites well before the invading fleet could set sail. There could be no surprise attack. If the Sino-Russians were to survive they would have to do so within their frozen lands. From their underground Arcologies they would bide their time and look for a moment of weakness among the allies which they could exploit.

With no place to resettle their people, the Sino-Russians turned their attention towards saving as much of their homelands as possible. This led to what became known as the Ark Project. At its core the project involved creating giant vents deep into the crust of the planet. While the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere was growing colder from lack of heat from the sun, the natural heat radiating from beneath the Earth was still boiling hot. It might take decades for the network of Arcologies to be built but only such long term planning could save mankind from cannibalizing what remained of their civilizations. Seeing the wisdom in the Empire’s activities, the U.S. Europe quickly began their own Ark Projects.

While the Azrael Meteor was considered the start of man’s demise, Logan knew better. He knew better because he had been present when it truly began. It had all started several hundred years ago in a small Alaskan island town of Big Rock and the birth of Daniel’s father, Avery. If he had stopped Avery from opening the gate between worlds the devastation of Earth might not have occurred. While a sense of guilt for the billions who died weighed heavily on him, Avery’s death pained Logan more. “I swear by the Gods of Ares I will not fail to protect the Scions again.

That’s where Daniel came in. Like Avery he was a Scion of the shattered world of Ares. Originally there had been seven Scions but over time they were murdered or disappeared. Their descendants were hunted down and eliminate or imprisoned by the Guardians who had been entrusted with their safety. Daniel was a Scion, possible the last of the free ones. Logan was certain, that like Avery, Daniel was destined to do great things. If Logan could keep Daniel alive long enough to fulfill his destiny then he would have taken a major step towards redeeming himself for what happened to his father.

The nightmare that had occurred tonight proved how difficult gaining his redemption would be. With Dmitri involvement the hunt for the last of the Scions had begun in earnest. Dmitri, the man whom Tara had bargained her son’s life with, was well known to Logan and the organization he worked for. The man was a Nosferatu, a vampire, one of the blood enemies of the Gods and their Scions, a creature of the Plague.

If that was not bad enough, Dmitri was no ordinary vampire. While Logan had not recognized the man’s face he knew the name…. Dmitri, Lord Prince of the Vampires of the Day. Prince Dmitri and his former ally Lord Ivan of the Night had raped the God Emperor of the doomed world of Ares to sate their insatiable lust and their unquenchable thirst for blood. Out of his hatred for their kind the God Emperor named the Nosferatu one of the three Blood Enemies of the people of Ares. There was no true son of Ares who did not wish to see Dmitri and all those who followed him wiped from existence.

When he had seen the vampire, Logan’s blood boiled with his desire to kill Dmitri first instead of running away like a coward, but that was forbidden. There was the Blood Treaty. In return for Dmitri’s aid in defeating an even greater enemy, the God Emperor commanded his people not to seek revenge. In return Dmitri and his followers swore never to return to the last true home of the people of Ares. After six thousand years the Treaty still held… but not for much longer. When Logan next reported to the Council he would use Dmitri’s attempt to capture a Scion as proof the treaty had been broken.

That didn’t change the fact that Logan, and many other true sons of Ares, wished the treaty had never been agreed upon. The Nosferatu and another of the Emperor’s Blood Enemies, the parasitical mind controlling worm like Symbiotes had been allowed to join the Exodus because they had helped defeat the most dangerous and hated of all the Blood Enemies, the Dominus. The Dominus, who were both the source of the Plague and the Neos had been the former rulers of Ares with whom the God Emperor had fought against to free his people. It had taken the effort of every race of Ares, including the aid of the God Emperor’s other Blood Enemies to defeat the Dominus. However, at the moment when the God Emperor and his allies victory was certain, the Dominus, not willing to let their creations rule over them, sent Ares’s sole moon crashing into the planet. When it became clear their home world was doomed the God Emperor gathered his people into two massive colony ships, Atlantis and Mordel. Together they began the four thousand year Exodus it took to reach Earth. Among the descendants of those saved were a race of men now referring to themselves as Neos.

Logan, who was a son of Ares but not a Neo, had reasons to seek revenge against both their races. Sating his need for revenge would have to wait however. His first concern… his only concern at the moment, was seeing to the boy’s safety. From Manhattan he carried Daniel out of the incomplete New York Ark to Long Island. They traveled along the length of the island and across the frozen Gardiners Bay to Shelter Island.

The island had been the playground of the rich and famous, but those times had ended long before the arrival of Azrael. With coming of the endless frozen night brought by Azrael, most of the islands had been abandoned for life in the Arks. Shelter Island appeared to be among those abandoned. Logan knew better.

The island’s Mashomack Preserve was a patch of land set aside from development in the late 1900’s. Comprising of 1/3^rd of the island, it followed the shore line and into the interior. With glacial growth causing a global drop in sea levels, the shore line now extended miles beyond the point where the waves had once reached.

Stopping where the beach took a steep drop into the bay they reached what appeared to be an out-of-place sewer cover. Twice the diameter of a standard manhole lid, it was layered with rust. Etched along the rim were the letters D, O, M, U, S.

Daniel pointed to the lid and asked; “Domus? What does Domus mean?” The terror that gripped him earlier had faded enough for Daniel to start asking questions.

Logan put Daniel down so the boy could get a better look. “Domus means home… or more accurately hearth.”

“What is a hearth? Is this your hearth?” Daniel, being the inquisitive sort, was always eager to learn something new.

“First, no this is not my home. A hearth is the area in front of a fireplace. Back in the old days it was considered the best part of the house.”

“I don’t feel any warmer. But I don’t feel cold either.”

“You’ll get a chance to warm up soon enough.” He touched a spot under the upper edge of the right earlobe. “I’m here. Let us in.”

Daniel heard the buzzing of an electric current. As the sound and vibration grew stronger his nose caught a whiff of ozone and his feet began to tingle. Looking down he saw the lid was glowing red. “What’s that?”

Logan took hold of Daniel’s shoulders and pulled him in closer so both of them now stood on the disk. “Stay close.”

The air around grew hot and flow up like a heat mirage. There was no flash of light, or sound for that matter. One moment the two stood on the shore the next they were gone.

Where they turned up left Daniel dumbstruck. He stood at the bottom of the interior of a perfect 50 meter radius black sphere. It was striped with seven evenly spaced horizontal lines of white light. Between these rings blue tinged bolts of energy bounced between then like ball lightening. Looking down at his feet Daniel saw he was standing on a blood red spot near identical to the one Daniel had only just seen on the beach, only larger. Directly above him was a similar spot only this one was blue. Midway between the two spots floated what looked like a hollowed disk. Its radius was half that of the sphere itself. Seated around it, dressed in robes of white were what appeared to be twelve perfect albinos.

Daniel was just getting his bearings when an unseen voice boomed “The Court of the Supreme Judicars is now in secession. The Cybernoid will present the subject for judicial investigation.”

Logan released his hold on Daniel and stepped out of the red light. Daniel attempted to follow but was stopped by an invisible barrier.

“Stay calm. You have nothing to fear. The Primes only want to make sure you are what I suspect you are.” Logan could see his words had little effect at calming the lad. The boy pounded at the barrier. His muted screams went unheard.

The red disc began to rise, lifting the boy up. Now closer to the Judicars, Daniel could see that, their eyes were not red as with most albinos glow a fluorescent white.

As the disc continued to rise Logan made his report to the last true members of the Guardian Council. The Council had been formed by the God Emperor to watch over the Scions of Ares and their descendants. At one time the Council had been much larger and made up mostly of Neos. Over time the Neo members left the Council, most as traitors. A rare few, such as Logan, had grown impatient with the Council’s refusal to openly fight against the traitors. While he still interacted with the Council they would not let themselves be commanded by it.

As Daniel continued to rise one of the Judicars addressed Logan. “Logan Smith of Ares… you have again acted without the approval of the Council. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I serve the Scions, not you.” It was an argument Logan had used many times before as always the Judicars gave him the same response.

“The fate of the Scions are in their own hands.”

“Bull shit… You have the nerve to tell me I’m supposed to let an eight year old boy defend himself against our Blood Enemies!”

“The Scions must be allowed their free will.”

“When they are grown men, not children!”

“Be as that may… you acted without the authority of the Council.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m no longer a member.” If Logan thought it would make a difference he would spit in the faces of the remaining members of the Guardian Council. “He’s a boy… and like any boy he needs a father.”

“His father is dead.” The Judicar replied sharply bit flatly. “Are you offering yourself to be Scion Avery’s replacement?”

“Yes… god damn you all if I’d have it otherwise.”

A different Judicar rose to address the Council. “An offer has been presented to the Council, shall it be taken?”

A third rose. “It cannot be given as an option without another option being made available.”

A fourth nodded in agreement. “I concur. All coins must have two sides.”

“What is the alternative option?” the first asked.

“Is returning him to his mother an option?” A fifth asked.

“Logan of Ares has willfully removed that option from the table.” The third said. His statement was followed by several standing and speaking in agreement.

As they continued to debate with the same identical monotonous tone Logan didn’t know if he should scream or cry. The inability of the Judicars to reach any decision was exactly why he had gone rouge. He was beginning to think he made a mistake in bring Daniel to them when a final Judicar stood to speak. Unlike the others, he spoke in a deep commanding voice. “The other side of the coin is that he be raised with the one who loves him most.”

From the silence that followed Logan knew who had spoken… the Prime Judicar. Within the gestalt mind of the Judicars, he was the only one possessing any sense of true individuality. Though he led the Council he rarely spoke. The few times he did address the Council it was to bring an end to a debate on a matter that could no longer be delayed. “See that the other one is brought to us. His being here could prove useful.”

The blue disc atop the ceiling let out a blinding flash. When the light vanished it hovered in the center of the Sphere next to Daniel’s disc. While the wall surrounding Daniel’s disc were transparent. The dome over the other was blacked out.

The Prime Judicar ordered Logan to leave but insisted he remain where they could easily contact him. After the Judicar promised they would make a quick decision Logan left in the flash of light. The Prime Judicar turned his full attention on Daniel. “Dear child. You have no reason to fear us. We only wish to confirm you are the son of your father.”

Daniel felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “But I am my dad’s son and he loves me… loves me more than anyone,” he found the statement confusing and very hurtful. How could they suggest his dad wasn’t his dad? “Do you mean Mr. Greg? He’s dead too.”

“No. The one who foolishly sacrificed his life to save yours. The one known as Avery Winters.

Daniel’s face flushed with anger. He did not like people saying anything bad about his dad. He did not like being reminded of losing the most important person in his life. First they suggest his dad wasn’t his dad. What had him more upset was their loose claim that his dad had died because of him.

When he didn’t reply to anymore of their questions, the albinos turned to more effective and draconian tactics. If he would not offer his memories of his father willingly, the Judicars would take them by force. Summoning the power of their joined gestalt, they sliced into Daniel’s mind like a knife through soft butter.

It was as if Daniel was moving backwards in time, reliving his life in reverse order. First were the events of the last 24 hours… his traveling with Logan, the death of his step-father, the cleaning up after he make his cake, picking up the mail and placing the bills in the liquor cabinet where her mother could not help but see them. More time passed, school, being ridiculed going through the free lunch line… playing dodge ball with his friends, coming home to find his mother unconscious on the floor. Those terrible days did not compare to his memories of what it was like when he had been told his father had died. The Judicars stopped at that moment and held it there, the potency of those memories and emotions were almost more than Daniel could bear.

They then went further back to the days of his parents’ divorce, the first four years of his life, and on and on until they reached the end of conscious memory. While Daniel could not see what they saw he felt waves of emotions, sadness, joy, and something else… something both wonderful and terrible. Then there was nothing.

When he came to he found himself flat on his stomach. He was still hovering in the middle of the sphere but this time he was not alone. Hovering next to him on a blue disk was a wide-eyed kid. He had platinum blond hair, and ice blue eyes. He appeared to be near Daniel’s own age and he seemed as shocked to see Daniel as Daniel was seeing him.

The youth on the blue disk pounded on the invisible barrier. His wide open mouth suggested he was shouting something but the barriers muted whatever he was saying. The other kid clearly knew him.

Daniel looked at the boy and felt something stir in the back of his mind. Did he know him? He could not remember.

The Prime Judicar stood and pointed a finger directly at Daniel. “The issue presented to us is who we should entrust the Scion to. Lord Logan has offered himself as guardian but this Council has its doubts. From what we’ve observed his best hope for survival might lie with the one who was born to love him best.” He pointed a finger and the boy on the blue disk. “The Council will now vote.”

The Judicar to the left of the head of the council rose. “Was the Guardian Council not commanded to protect the Scions until the day of the Awakening? Is Logan not one of the few remaining Guardians who has always sought nothing more than to protect them? He has served us well in the past. I do not see why he would fail us now. I therefore vote that he be given guardianship.”

The next Judicar rose. “I concur with the judgment of the Left. He will be safer with Logan.”

Moving counterclockwise the next Judicar rose. “I dissent from the opinion of the Left. We, the Primes were indeed commanded by the Emperor to protect his children but were we not also commanded not to interfere in their lives? If it had been God’s wish for his Scions to be protected from all harm then he would have kept them with him in the last true city of our people. It is our opinion that he did not wish to cocoon them in threads of predetermined fate. His desire for his children to have the right of ‘free will’ takes precedence over all other concerns. We therefore vote that the Scion be surrendered into the care of the Labatts. That was his father’s wish. Let us respect Avery Winters and the sacrifice he made and do as he commanded.”

As the voting continued it soon became clear that the Judicars was evenly divided between those who wished Daniel to be kept under the care of Logan and those who wished to respect Avery Winter’s last wish and allow his godfather, Karl Labatt, to raise him.

When it came time for the Prime Judicar to vote those wishing for Daniel to be put under Logan’s care were ahead six votes to five. With a wave of a slender arm the other’s sat. “I agree that we, as Primes, have a duty to protect the Scions with our very lives. Yet God’s commandment that we allow the Scions to make their own way in life weighs heavily on my mind. I therefore have reached this decision. The Scion shall be allowed to live with the Scion of Ben, as his father wished. When he reaches maturity he will be presented to the God Emperor and await judgment. Given the growing situation on Mars he will be far better off left on Earth than for Logan to raise him in the colonies.”

To an outsider it would seem that at most the vote would end in a tie. What Daniel didn’t know was that in such situations the Prime Judicar’s vote would count twice in a tie-breaker. The other Judicars all knew the law governing their kind so there was no need for further comment. One by one the other Judicars rose and bowed before their leader as each said; “The Judicars accept the wisdom of our Prime. It shall be as you command.”

The Prime Judicar spoke one last time. “Release the children and send them on their way.” The gold ring and the Judicars disappeared, leaving only Daniel and the other boy on their separate disks.

Slowly the discs began to draw closer. When they touched they melted and melded into a single purple disk.

The boy with the platinum hair took four large leaps and fell on Daniel. “Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me.” Hot tears streamed from the lad’s pale eyes. His whole body was shaking.

“I… I…” Daniel recognized the voice if not the name.

The blond boy noticed Daniel’s hesitation. “Don’t…Don’t you remember me?

“I… I…”

The boy kissed Daniel on each cheek. Seeing Daniel’s eyes go wide he laughed. Daniel did remember that at least. “It’s me… Andrew.”

“Andrew… Andy? It’s really you? I thought…”

“That I forgot about you. Never Danny. Never, never, never will I ever forget about you.”

“But mom… mom said…” Daniel’s mother despised Andrew’s father, Karl, and his relationship with Daniel’s dad. When Daniel had gone missing three years ago she knew who had taken her son. Karl loved Avery but knew Avery loved Daniel more. If Karl wanted Avery back then he would need to use Daniel as bait.

It had all began five years ago during the final months leading to Tara filing for divorce At that time Daniel’s father had been busy trying to win the lieutenant governorship of Texas. Tara, already cheating on her husband with Greg was offered over a hundred thousand dollars if she could provide enough dirt against Avery to ruin his chance at winning the election. During the most important final weeks of the election she leaked to the press several compromising photos of her husband with Karl. While the resulting scandal didn’t stop Avery from winning the election it did cost Avery his family and in the end his sanity as well.

Knowing the woman he still loved had betrayed him tipped Avery over the edge into a suicidal depression. Tara used his time in the hospital as the opportune moment to sue for a divorce. By that point Daniel was willing to give her whatever she wanted. What she got was primary custody of their son until her handpicked doctors signed off that he was capable of taking care of himself and Daniel.

Seeing the man he loved being destroyed Karl arranged for Avery to leave the hospital and reunited with his son. It had taken the hiring of kidnappers to bring Daniel to his father but since Karl was able to out bribe Tara’s doctors to sign off on Avery having his son back. With possession being two-thirds the law in the eyes of the courts Karl had hoped he would be able to keep father and son together. After Avery’s death Tara used the full force of the legal system and much of her divorce settlement to get her son away from the politically connected billionaire industrialist.

In the end Karl was forced to hand Daniel back to his mother. Having been defeated by the woman who had hurt Avery so much angered him more than losing Daniel.

Karl’s son Andrew however had yet to forgive his father for it. “I don’t care what the judges says. I won’t let you leave me. Never… Never… Never.” Andrew felt that Daniel was his sole reason to live. He didn’t know Daniel was also the sole reason why he had been born.

Daniel wanted to go back to living with Andrew but there was his mother to consider. “But what about mom… she must be worried. I need to go back.” For the last three years Daniel had taken care of his mother more than she had taken care of him. Daniel feared what would happen to her if he did not return. After all he gone through tonight he had yet to grasp that his mother was no longer the crippled drug addict he had been caring for all these year but, with her becoming infected with the Plague, a far from helpless predator. “She needs me. I’m all she gots.”

“What about me? You’re all I got too.”

“But you have your father and that big house and servants. My mother has no one.” Daniel wondered about that. There was his mother’s new friend… this Dmitri fellow. Would he take care of her? Daniel doubted it. Lately he had found himself doubting much of what he thought he knew. His mother and Dmitri had killed his stepfather. He had liked him. Nowhere near as much as his real father, but more than his mother’s later boyfriends.

He had to ask himself would Dmitri want to kill Andy if he went back?” He could not say but could he risk it? Andrew had been his friend… the best of all friends. The idea of the two of them being together again and live with the Labatts where he would want for nothing was too tempting. But what about mom? If I don’t go back… “Can I bring mom?”

“Uhmmm… My dad might not like that.” Andrew didn’t need to know Daniel’s mother was now a plague carrier to not like the idea of having her living with them. She had been the one to take Daniel away from him in the first place. She might try to do so again. Seeing Daniel’s growing doubt Andrew forced himself to laugh. “We can ask dad later but first we need to get back to my house… our house.” He wrapped an arm around Daniel’s shoulders. He pulled him in close and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

Daniel looked about the sphere for a door. “And how do we get there?”

“I don’t know.” He was as scared as Danny but tried to put on a brave face. “No matter I’m sure dad will find us.”

As if hearing the boys the disk rose toward the top of the sphere up the shaft of blue light. As they were taken higher the light became so intense it blinded them.

Using his forearm Daniel shielded his eyes from the painful light. Andrew, on the other hand buried his faced against Daniel’s pajamas.

By the time the disk reached the very top both boys were screaming in blinding pain.

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