Twilight

CHAPTER 21

THERE WAS NO THOUGHT OF BOXES, LABELS, OR categorization now. With the very foundation of their sacred place shivering beneath the figurative footfalls of the encroaching dark archon, the alysaar came at a run, their arms filled with brimming boxes or even sacks. The ship was large, but not enormous. It had been designed to carry about a dozen protoss and a fairly decent amount of cargo, presumably for shorter-term excursions. Vartanil realized, as they all did, that only a small handful of those here would make it out of the Alysaril.

He and the others began to tear out seats. They would load the vessel with as many protoss and crystals as they could. It was the best he could do.

Ulrezaj was almost—almost—disappointed.

It had been a long time since anyone had offered even the merest possibility of defeating him in battle. He had actually worried for a time on Aiur, with the three factions attacking him simultaneously. Indeed, had he not retreated when he did, they might have won.

But it had taken all three large forces to threaten him with any real danger. Now it was the remnants of the zerg and a handful of alysaar untrained in combat who foolishly tried to stop the mighty Ulrezaj from achieving his goal.

Effortlessly, almost lazily, he continued to move forward toward the building where he had once been an eager young student. How the memories raced through him now. He thought, almost nostalgically, that he might opt to spare the building. But no—why leave anything the protoss could use against him? Better to raze it all, protoss, terrans, zerg, crystals, structure. Wipe the surface clean. Then he could return here unmolested whenever he needed to.

It was time. Ethan wondered if he wasn't already cutting it too close. At the speed of thought, his zerg acted. The pack that had been waiting like good dogs at the foot of the stairs now sprang into action. They bounded up the stairs, chittering and snapping their jaws.

They were not unseen. Selendis rushed forward, psi blades glittering, and sliced three in half almost immediately. Blood and ichor began to drip down the black stairs. Still the zerg came on, driven and utterly obedient.

Inside, the hydralisk acted. It hunched forward, firing spines from its back. The two guardian protoss immediately sprang toward it, blocking the deadly barbs with their own bodies, dying to protect their alysaar'vah and the human he tended to. They went down silently, their bodies impaled a dozen times over, blood pooling out from beneath them.

The four forms within the room remained still, as if they had not noticed anything. The hydralisk ducked its head and moved forward, sliding into the chamber.

There was no battle cry to alert it, no posturing threat or warning. Only the sudden and violent impact of spikes of quite another variety than its own, riddling it as it screamed and thrashed and twisted around to see a petite human female still firing at it.

It surged toward her, extending its scythes to separate the human's head from its body. The human didn't back down. Pale, tight-lipped, her blue eyes intense, she kept firing until, with a final faint swipe, the hydralisk toppled and hit the floor. The intense yellow of its eyes faded to dark.

Rosemary stared at it a moment, panting. It had gotten within inches of striking her. Quickly she glanced into the room. All was as it had been when she had left. Nodding to herself, she took off for the courtyard, where she could hear the sounds of ravening zerglings on the rampage.

Ethan grunted as the zerg that was his eyes on the inside died. Rosemary, of course.. .Trouble had much to answer for. Still, several zerglings had managed to get past Selendis and make it inside. The executor killed all she attacked, but the sheer volume ensured that she couldn't take down all of them. A thought sent a second group away from harrying the dark archon and rushing up the stairs.

Suddenly a soft blue-white radiance sprang up around the Alys'aril. The zerglings, running full tilt, slammed into the barrier and were knocked back. Some of them did not rise. The others kept hurling themselves at it in vain.

A psionic shield. The protoss who served in this.. .this library were not warriors, not the way the templar were on Aiur. But they had will, and they had mental power, to protect the structure.

Ethan swore. He should have seen this coming. Angrily, he summoned the guardians toward the glowing, radiant dome of energy that engulfed the temple, and had them attack.

Closer to the Alys'aril, Ulrezaj paused, mildly amused as he felt a slight brush against his thoughts and realized that the alysaar wer erecting a field to protect themselves. It was...almost endearing, how they kept trying. Endearing, but foolish. Well, he would let them think they had succeeded for a moment or two; he found it entertaining.

The earth, already dry, turned utterly dead as he moved inexorably across it. Like a slug leaving a smear of slime, Ulrezaj left a blackened trail to mark where dark archon energy had obliterated the soil beneath him. He reached out with his mind and touched the protective shield the alysaar had erected. Grudgingly, he realized that it would actually hold against his first assault. They were stronger than he had expected; stronger mentally than he had been, before he had secretly approached the forbidden Wall of Knowledge in his youth and learned about the powers he now wielded almost effortlessly.

Yes, it would hold against his first assault. Maybe even the second.

But not the third.

It was time to end this. He had toyed with them enough. Like a careless child treading on insects beneath his feet, Ulrezaj continued to move through the zerg almost unaware of their existence beyond a mild annoyance.

The sun shone with fierce and dispassionate brightness down upon the scene of dead and dying, squirming, shrieking zerg, meditating protoss, and the great dark archon that was about to destroy them all. Its intensity did not penetrate Ulrezaj; his darkness took the light and swallowed it.

And then a shadow fell on the bright, dead ground. And another. Until dozens of small shadows danced on the earth.

And Ulrezaj shook with terrible rage as he realized that a third enemy had joined against him yet again.

Rosemary felt the shock and delight rip through her mind as the protoss saw it.

Ships—so many that the sky was becoming crowded. Terran vessels. "I'll be damned," Rosemary said softly. "The cavalry does come over the hill."

Of course, this cavalry was no doubt commanded by Valerian Mengsk, and that meant trouble of another sort, but she'd deal with that later. She shot the two zerg that were bearing down on her, then raced out into the courtyard and assessed the situation as she swung the rifle into position.

She could see Ulrezaj with her own eyes now, looming toward them. His dark image was slightly obscured and softened by the blue-white shield the protoss had erected, but it was clear enough. At his feet was a vast spread of dead and dying zerg of all shapes and sizes. The hot air, so still when she had first come here as if nothing ever pierced the silence, was now swirling with dust and laden with sound. The shrieks and bellows of the zerg as they hurled themselves at the shield; the deep pulses of Ulrezaj's dark energies as they surged outward; and the more familiar sounds of Dominion vessels. Rosemary heard the reverberating spurts of plasma torpedoes, the explosions of cluster rockets, and the once-you've-heard-it-you-never-forget building, nail-biting hum of a Yamato cannon.

Some of the ships she recognized right off the bat, such as the dropships like the one she herself had piloted not that long ago. There were battlecruisers, of course. She counted four of them. She could peg them anywhere by the sound of the Yamato cannons and the unique hammerhead shape. But they looked different, somehow. And the fighters—she blinked, wondering if the waviness induced by the heat in the air was making her see things. For the first time, she understood the phenomenon of the mirage and the oasis. She was sure the thing was there a minute ago—

And then it reappeared, a zippy little planetside fighter with almost nostalgic-looking turbofans to propel it. Cloaking ability, then. It was small and swift and Rosemary felt like she was falling in love as she watched it dip and dive and unload cluster rockets.

And over there—the piece of military equipment she'd pegged as a type of siege tank had tucked its massive legs underneath it, somehow leaped into the air and sprouted wings. It had now taken flight and was diving and retreating at Ulrezaj while a mutalisk was doing the same thing.

Heh... talk about "air to ground, "she mused. Clearly Arcturus, or at least his military people, hadn't been just sitting on their butts drinking port over the last few years.

And amazingly enough, the combination of zerg and Dominion vessels was obviously giving Ulrezaj pause.

It had been many years since Rosemary considered herself starry-eyed, and she wasn't now. Ulrezaj, from what she understood, could replenish himself easily and effectively at any point. Even as she watched, several of the fast little ships got too close to the dark archon and were vaporized instantly. Even if Valerian had brought the whole Dominion fleet with him, she wondered if they'd be able to best Ulrezaj on his home turf.

Still... all they needed was some time. Some time to pile into the ship, get through the warp gate, and come back with a bunch of protoss ready to...

She shook her dark head. No, they might get through with the vessel, a couple of alysaar, and some crystals. But even a slew of protoss who were masters at the sort of thing she'd witnessed on Aiur wouldn't be able to stop him. He'd wear them down.. .and then restore himself.

They were losing. He was almost here. Rosemary realized that at this moment, she was utterly impotent. She could do nothing. No grenades, no gauss rifles, no weapon or power she could wield as an ordinary human female was going to make a difference. It had been up to the protoss to defeat him, them and their psionic storms. The protoss here had done everything they could, she'd give them that— but it wasn't enough. It simply wasn't enough.

They were losing, and she and Jake would die.

Her brow creased in the stubborn frown that both friend and enemy alike would have recognized, had they seen it. Rosemary lifted the rifle and got the dark archon in her sights. It was a pointless and empty gesture, but if he got within range, she was going to fire on him.

At least she'd go down fighting.

Jake still held Zamara's four-fingered hands in his own. They were growing more and more transparent and felt oddly fragile, as if he were holding an empty eggshell instead of flesh and bone, as if he could crush them with a quick squeeze. Of course, both this eggshell-thin version of Zamara's hands and a more solid one were equally unreal, existing, as they did, solely in his mind.

More solid...

Jake stared at them. It wasn't his imagination—well, of course it was, it all was, but that was beside the point. Zamara's hands were indeed growing more solid within his own.

"What..." He didn't dare hope, but Zamara's eyes shone brightly.

"The crystal," she said, and he suddenly understood.

Normally, the dark templar utilized the khaydarin crystals found on Ehlna for the purpose of storing memories. But Jake had not given them an Ehlna crystal. He had given them a piece of the enormous crystal that had hovered deep beneath Aiur, by all accounts the most powerful khaydarin crystal any living protoss had ever encountered.

And this unique crystal was able to contain more than simple data.

"You...you won't be lost," he breathed. He felt his lips stretch in a grin that, he suspected, bordered on the idiotic.

She hunched her shoulders in a laugh. "It would appear not," she said. "Perhaps, in the future, we will find more crystals like this one. And then the dark templar will be able to preserve memories almost the way we do."

He felt almost giddy with relief and squeezed her hands, the hands that were not real. But they were real. They were as real as the tumble he'd taken that had kicked off the whole chaotic adventure, as real as the guilt that still racked him about the deaths of his friends, as real as Rosemary's kiss before he entered this mental state.

As real as—

"Ulrezaj!" he cried, reflexively tightening his grip.

"I know," Zamara said. Her grief was his own. "I have led him here, to this sacred place of irreplaceable knowledge, to these innocents who have had nothing to do with anything other than study. He has come for me, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey."

"He won't get you," Jake swore. "When—this is done, and you're in the crystal, we'll get you out. We'll keep your knowledge safe." What you died for will not be lost.

"You do not understand," she said, half closing her eyes in a smile. "My knowledge must be preserved—but so must Ulrezaj be stopped."

Jake stared at her, uncomprehending. "What do you mean? Do— do you want to get back into my head? Stop the transference?"

"No, it is too late for that. My essence is already in the crystal." Humor washed through him, shy, almost girlish. He had never thought of her as girlish, but this, too, was a part of her as much as her strength, will, and occasional acerbity. "I simply did not want to say farewell until I had to. Life is sweet, Jacob. Protoss or terran, we share that."

"I don't understand." What was she getting at. "Didn't you just tell me you were going to make it through this okay? Well—as okay as you can be?"

"I...had thought so. But now—Jacob, I believe I might be able to stop him once and for all."

"How?"

"The Alys'aril is constructed above one of the strongest energetic nexuses of this world. There is a nest of power here, it is why the site was chosen."

He nodded. This much he knew.

"Ulrezaj is just outside the Alys'aril. So are his adversaries— once again, zerg and terran fight together to destroy a monster who is our common enemy."

So, Ethan and Valerian had followed the dark archon. Jake's thoughts started to race—if Ulrezaj was indeed defeated, they would need to fight both Valerian's forces and the zerg. They would—

A gentle remonstrance brought his attention back to her words. "Time enough to deal with that once Ulrezaj is defeated," Zamara chided. "The three factions fight outside, but their battle will not be won there. It will be won here, inside your mind, inside the khaydarin crystal that contains what is left of me and all the memories I have stored."

"What?"

"Ulrezaj has recovered much of his strength. My guess is that this world—these energies that make the crystals what they are—are what has helped fuel him all this time. He was once a student here; here he was born, in a very real sense. And here, he must cease to be. The selfsame energies that created the monster can give me the abilities to harness him."

Jake thought he was starting to understand what she intended to do. The cold prickle of apprehension crept over him. He prayed he was wrong.

"You think...we can trap him in a crystal, like we're doing with you?"

"Not quite, Jacob. I intend to use a crystal to contain him, yes. But not one like the one that holds me."

Understanding crashed on him like an avalanche, and even deep into his link with Zamara, he felt his physical body twitch in protest.

"Oh no.. .Zamara, you can't—"

"I believe I can. If this crystal is powerful enough to contain not only my knowledge but my essence.. .1 might be able to utilize its powers and those of the nexus to encase him within it. Also, it should serve as a sufficiently strong prison for Ulrezaj. At the very least, I must make the attempt."

Zamara, for the good of her people, was going to spend an eternity imprisoned with a dark archon. He couldn't let her.

"No, Zamara, I will not permit you to do this. Hey!" He lifted his head to the utterly fictitious skies and yelled without a voice. "Hey!Don't let her!"

"Jacob—it is what must be done. I have ever served my people the best I knew how. If Ulrezaj is not contained, he will destroy me, you, Rosemary, every protoss here, and the Alys'aril and all the information it houses. I have done so much to keep the memories with which I have been entrusted safe."

"You think they'll be safe with—with that trapped in with them? What do you think he'll do to those memories? God, Zamara, what do you think he'll do to you?"

"It does not matter. I must stop him, and this is the only option I have. Jacob—please, you must release me now. You must let me do this. If you do not, you could be trapped with us."

"I don't care!" he cried recklessly, realizing he spoke the truth. He wanted to live—he wanted to be with Rosemary, to continue to explore and learn, to feel the sun on his face and taste food and run and laugh and make love. But he could not abandon Zamara. Maybe, if he were trapped with her, he could help somehow.

"No. I have damaged you sufficiently. It is time for me to go, Jacob. To leave the mind I should never have been forced to enter in the first place. I will not take you with me."

"Zamara—"

Zamara half closed her eyes and tilted her head, smiling at him a final time. A whisper in his mind, of affection, and faith in him.

He felt her extend herself, reaching out and at the same time somehow pushing him away. Once, she had descended into his mind so decisively it had been more than he could bear. Now Jake didn't want her to leave, didn't want her to sacrifice herself to—God, he couldn't even wrap his mind around an eternity with Ulrezaj as part of him. He fought her, but hers was the stronger will. When she finally pulled free, he cried her name sharply, feeling lost and abandoned and so very empty. "Zamara!"

She was gone.

Blackness descended.

The mammoth dark being froze. Rosemary frowned and kept peering through the sights. What was going on? The mutalisks and various Dominion craft continued strafing him, but he simply... stood? Sat?.. .right where he was. Suddenly Ulrezaj's mass quivered and spasmed, extending an arm of darkness here, bulging out there, as if something was inside a sack and struggling, kicking, flailing tt?⁰⁰ get out. Her hair and skin prickled suddenly and her gut clenched as energy crackled around her, intense enough to feel but not powerful enough to incinerate or harm. Slowly, she lowered the rifle, staring.

An eerie wail erupted and even she winced. Some of the Dominion vessels backed off, spooked by the strange motions of the dark archon and the ear-splitting cry he was emitting. The zerg kept coming, and this time, Ulrezaj did not repulse them. He simply stood, and they milled around him, doing no damage but clearly also not taking any.

"What the hell..." she murmured.

There was a flash of darkness from Ulrezaj so intense it was almost like a bright light. Rosemary gasped and squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then willed them to open.

Ulrezaj was gone.

She wasted perhaps half a second wondering what had happened, then a predator's grin split her face. In a single smooth movement she'd positioned herself behind a protective pillar, hoisted the gauss rifle, and began firing into the swirling morass of flesh and carapace that was the zerg.

She'd take down as many as possible, glorying in finally being able to destroy something that richly needed destroying.

And then she'd do the same to their leader.

Ethan could not believe it. He didn't know what had happened, and frankly, did not care. Grinning a very human grin, with a thought he effortlessly redirected what was left of the zerg toward the two remaining foes. He was glad that he was no longer forced to fight alongside protoss and terrans—zerg should destroy them, not cooperate with them. Zerg were the superior race, as his queen had said and as he believed. He would prove this to her, prove his worth and loyalty, by bringing her the thing she sought.

Surely whatever arcane little ritual the protoss were doing to separate Zamara from the professor's body was done by now. At the very least, he would move toward the Alys'aril so that he would be in position to snatch the prize before the terrans could claim it.

He had brought many zerg with him to Aiur, but Ulrezaj had decreased their numbers. He had further decimated them here, and Ethan felt the faintest twinge of worry as he glanced up at the skies, dark with ships. No. He was so close. He would not permit worry to distract him.

The disciplines, both mental and physical, with which he had honed his body as a mere human were every bit as strong now as they were then. He called upon them, focused his attention to laser-sharpness, and directed his subjects.

There—a single human female, hiding behind a pillar, firing at the zerg that were converging on the temple. A smile twisted his mouth. Good old Trouble. He'd have to put an end to her this time, and he was sorry in the abstract about that. But it gave him not a moment's hesitation as he trained an entire group of zerglings and hydralisks in her direction, like he'd sic a dog on an intruder.

"Bye-bye, Trouble," he said, watching as they surged up the steps to the courtyard. They were almost within range, and he saw the hydralisks lift their carapaces to expose their razor-sharp spines. They let loose a volley, but Rosemary had seen it coming and interposed the pillar between the spines falling around her like javelins and her smooth, unarmored skin. She peeked around to fire and two of them dropped. Two, out of dozens.

No pillar would protect her from the claws, fangs, and sickles of the zerglings, who were almost on her. She had to know that, even as she fired, and he felt the respect he'd always had for her one final time before her death.

Then the little pack of zerg seemed to explode. Blood, ichor, and flesh went high into the air, raining down in pulpy fragments. It took a fraction of a second for Ethan to realize that one of the small terran vessels had hovered like a hawk just in time to fire dozens of rounds of cluster rockets into their center. Two zerglings managed to escape mostly intact, and, oozing fluid in a sluglike trail behind them, struggled to get to Rosemary. She dispatched them both swiftly, and lifted her dark head.

She seemed to stare right at Ethan.

The small fighter continued to hover protectively above her, and Ethan swore. Valerian had no doubt issued orders to guard his pet assassin. No matter. He'd get her later.

He was distracted by movement in another part of the courtyard. A protoss had suddenly emerged. He realized it was the one he had spoken with earlier, who had seemed to agree to his demands if he would only wait until the ritual was completed. Ethan growled softly. He should have known better—likely the whole story aboutthe "delicate ritual" was a lie to buy time. He wanted to see this Executor Selendis ripped to pieces, too, and with a jerk of his hairless head another pack suddenly pulled itself from fighting the Dominion ground troops to tear off toward Selendis.

She met them halfway, leaping from the courtyard into the fray. Ethan could appreciate good fighting, and he knew what he was seeing was magnificent. Glowing blue blades erupted from Selendis's wrists and she whirled and almost danced as she fought. Her bright armor glinted in the merciless sunlight, the glare bright enough to make Ethan wince and probably harsh enough to be a weapon on its own at close range. Selendis dispatched two zerglings almost instantly, then turned on a third. The hydralisks fired a volley of spikes. Selendis cocked her head, as if listening, then leaped and flipped in midair. Her blades moved so swiftly they were a blur, and Ethan realized that she'd been fast enough to simply not be there when the spines reached her, and had sliced to pieces those she couldn't elude.

He debated sending in the "bigger guns" of his zerg army, but they were having a tough enough time holding off the Dominion attacks. Ethan realized that he was letting his emotions get the better of him. This must not become a personal battle, if he was to win it for his queen. He would leave Rosemary and Selendis to the lesser zerg; even a girl who was an expert with a rifle and a protoss executor would eventually fall.

Even as he turned his head, two battlecruisers began attacking the guardians that were spewing acid on the strange new units that were wreaking havoc on the zerg. He watched them for a moment, enough of a good sport to admire the technology. Small, sleek little vessels with sporty red trim, they came almost to ground before the wings retracted, legs extended, and the ship became a ground unit to be reckoned with. Ethan shrugged. Impressive—but once they were on the ground, the ships were easy targets for the guardians. He pulled two more in and directed them at the robot/vessels.

Valerian was not going to win this one.

Rosemary glanced up only briefly. If she had guardian angels in the forms of Dominion ships sent to protect her, then it was a fallen angel named Valerian who'd sent them. If he wanted her alive, he likely wanted something from her. Well, hell, if he was going to put his resources to saving her, then she was going to do what she burned to do.

She left the comparative safety of the pillar and raced down the steps, slipping and almost falling on zerg guts. She recovered, leaping the rest of the way to land firmly on the hard-baked earth. Rosemary had seen Ethan, flying out of harm's way on a mutalisk. She looked up at the ships overhead, waved, and pointed, then took off at full speed.

Ethan should have been harder to take down, she thought as the ships raced ahead and began bombarding him. The mutalisk screamed in agony, a horrible, screeching sound, and flailed before dropping like a stone. The ships continued to fire on the writhing zerg and its passenger.

Kerrigan saw it happen through Ethan's eyes, and sighed. She'd spent so much effort in creating him, had had such high hopes. As his body was riddled with metal, as he twitched and spasmed in agony, she experienced not a little regret. But there was nothing she could do. The task had been his to complete, and he had failed, and now he would die.

"My... queen..." he gasped in her mind.

She sent him the equivalent of a pat on the cheek, and then, unmoved by his wail of betrayal and shock, pulled out of his brain.

Still, she mused, the experiment had worked. She would simply have to create a new consort at some later date. One that would hopefully survive his first real challenge.

"Damn it!" Rosemary scowled as she ran, hoping there'd be enough left of Ethan for her to personally dispatch. The ships backed off as she entered their targeting range, unwilling to strike her.

He was still alive. She skidded to a halt and caught her breath, picking her way swiftly but carefully to avoid the pools of acid that some of the dead zerg had left as a final attack. Ethan hadn't been so lucky. His mount had fallen into one of these pools, and where he wasn't scorched, the acid was eating through him.

He did not scream, though he must have been in terrible pain. Rosemary respected that. She regarded him for a moment as he writhed in front of her.

"Huh," she said, casually. "I'd have thought a whole bunch of zerg would be coming to you right now, to spirit you away for healing."

Ethan propped himself up on one arm and one scythe-arm. His legs were pools of liquid flesh. The tendons on his neck stood out like cables as he tried to control his pain. But the look in his eyes gave him away. Rosemary raised an eyebrow; she'd never seen such anguish. And she knew it wasn't physical, either.

"Wait, let me guess. Your connection to the zerg has been severed, hasn't it?"

His silence confirmed it.

"Wow. Nice queen you've got there, huh? Drops you the minute you need a little help from her. Looks like you're just as expendable as the next zerg, Ethan."

"No!" The word was ripped from his throat. "She will not abandon me...." The protest turned into a harsh sob. "My queen... Kerrigan..."

Rosemary grinned and made a mock tsk-ing sound of sympathy. "And so you die betrayed. Hooray for appropriate ironies, you son of a bitch."

She lifted her rifle, slowly, so he could watch her, and took careful aim.

A sudden golden-blue blur interposed itself between Rosemary and her prey. Before Rosemary could react, Ethan lay lifeless before her, his head severed from his body, the flesh cauterized by a psi blade. Selendis stood before her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Rosemary shrieked.

"Protecting you," the executor replied calmly.

Rosemary let loose a string of oaths. "Protecting me? You robbed me of my kill! He was all but dead! I didn't need protecting from anything!"

"I did not protect you from what Kerrigan left of Ethan Stewart," Selendis said in that oh so irritatingly quiet mental voice. "I protected you from slaughtering out of hate. We are warriors, you and I. We must sometimes take lives. But we should do so because it is necessary. Not because we enjoy it. It is my fervent hope that after this moment, you will never again have to slay with hatred in your heart."

Beneath the resentment, the anger, the shock of feeling cheated, beneath the hate that did still surge fiercely inside her, a part of Rosemary understood.

"I'll give you a piece of my mind later," Rosemary said, then winced at how literally that could be taken. "For now, we've got to stop the zerg—and then Valerian."

Selendis nodded, and together the executor of the templar and a terran assassin sprang into the fray.