Abduction of the Farns

Low over Eshcaton’s obsidian crust a blocklike juggernaut brooded, its hover-jets kicking up whirlwinds of synthetic ether which swirled in counterpoint to that planet’s perpetual storm. The Foretold One, stationed at middle-height by the north face of this paraphernalia, was flinging lance after lance of his twilight tint from one hand after the other in relentless bombardment upon the temple entrance. Eshcaton’s ancient sanctum was subterranean, and could not long withstand such a pounding. The quartet of venerable sages who studied there knew as much, and with all the inevitability on which Harbin had reckoned they were presently staggering up the rough-hewn spiral steps and out into the gale.

Their assailant held his fire. From the underbelly of the hanging hulk began to unfurl four mechanical legs, jointed like those of some giant crab. Each was tipped with a hollow capsule the height and breadth of a man.

White-bearded Albazorascabaranthi, robes whipping as he toiled over the jagged terrain with much call for his wooden staff, was taken first. A gangly machine-leg stretched, an upright holding-cell clapped down, and an open hatch sealed at the captive’s feet. In a veritable tribute to cold automated efficiency Albazorascabaranthi was hoisted through the scudding sky, staff and all.

Manual, fighting-master, was still the equal of any opponent in the sector but could make no foray against unfeeling technology. He went next, and seconds later the leathery alien mystic named Prune was picked off likewise. Even Benmor, a blue-shimmering spirit-form, was not spared, for these traps boasted some supernatural forcefield that rendered him as powerless a prisoner as his three fellow-scholars.

Harbin alighted on the barren plain beneath. Through some wordless directive, either technological or telepathic, he willed the harvester to commence retracting its loaded mandibles. These however were but early into the process when a dazzling body of crimson and chrome punched through the tumultuous Eshcatonian clouds, and Harbin froze as this avenger zeroed in on him and dropped into a screaming nosedive. Joe, ablaze with outrage and shame to witness the flesh of his flesh committing unprovoked transgressions against men whose gentle arts were honoured the galaxy over, flew from his seat and ran headlong down the racer’s hood before leaping ahead with one fist ignited. This struck home, and father and son closed in combat for the first time since their battle under brimstone skies on the borders of The Back Garden.

Turning with the momentum of his preliminary swing Joe delivered a second blow from his other incandescent hand, and then drove again, and again, hammering Harbin back towards the temple stairs. Through the sheer fury of our hero’s efforts his adversary was successfully steered into the great pit in the planet’s surface and down these spiral steps, golden sparks from each impact throwing a pair of huge duelling shadows on the glassy wall behind. Dauntlessly Joe strove on, though his son’s defences were of fearsome speed, and as were the savage retaliations that quickly began to make their way through Joe’s own. The Foretold One would never have embarked on this maniacal mission without charging himself beforehand on some neighbouring black hole, and once before when glutted on the void Harbin had proved a match for eight individuals wielding capacities at Joe’s level. Our hero had been there and knew it well, but still he endeavoured, until inevitably one thrusting knee met his midsection and a forearm swatted him wheeling into the shaft.

Not one sidelong look did Harbin waste on this triumph, and by the time Joe had slammed to rest against a lower arc of the stairwell his scion’s gaze was already pinned on open skies. Sure enough, there in the circle of stormy black ringed by the pit-mouth above, Flashtease was perching on the harvester’s perpendicular hull. Beside him a maintenance-panel was flung back, and little fingers worked busily to hijack the contraption and so deposit its four prisoners in the racer which was idling below. One smooth undulation ran through Harbin’s cape from shoulders to heels, and he vaulted directly at the small fluttering grey-and-yellow form.

“Flashtease,” Joe attempted, but finding himself too winded to yell, mustered instead a power still at his command and hurled the widest possible dispersal of bright-burning bolts after his son’s cloak-tails. That one shot straight up from the hole, already drawing back an arm, while Joe’s ascending comets followed him. Vertical distances between harvester and Harbin and fireballs fell and gained over each other on crazy sliding-scales as this potentially lethal relay-race played out its last split-seconds. One sweeping twilight hand bowled the javelin for the final straight, but as Harbin completed that motion a strip of fire ran up against his flank and jolted him off-target. Flashtease was thereby dealt only a glancing blow, which dazed him and knocked him clear of his labours without rupturing him through the heart as intended.

He fell, headfirst and insensible through the buffeting torrents, but Joe was already on his feet and high-stepping it up and around the temple stairs. Bursting out upon the elements he bounded aloft and caught the plummeting waif safely in his arms, but this was all the opportunity Harbin required to regain transportation and prize far above his enemies’ reach. Imminent dots of headlamps behind the thunderclouds heralded the approach of reinforcements from the Flash Club-Toothfire Alliance. At the harvester’s saddle The Foretold One soared, to grip handlebars and stamp down on the kick-starter. With a brute bellow of exhaust Harbin and his slaves were gone into the night.

As the arriving squadrons began to touch down, all too late, Joe held Flashtease close to him and continued to stare out on desecration and aftermath. Disastrous though this engagement had been, the incipient turmoil in whose grip Joe languished took precedence even over such fearful auguries of coming conflict as were resonant yet.

Just as the father knew the son, so the son knew the father. Harbin would have been able to surmise from the outset that Joe was willingly making himself a decoy, to buy Flashtease time for his errand of rescue. And, while it was very much Joe’s way to risk his life in the name of such an objective, Harbin’s thoughts never ran on any topic but his own most immediate demands. Evidently, whatever reason it was that had motivated him to kidnap the wisemen was of such importance that even the pleasure of finishing off an age-old foe needs must be sacrificed. There was the situation as it surely stood. There was the happy explanation as to why our hero was still breathing to cogitate on such themes.

Unless of course, what Joe dreaded as its alternative should be true instead.

Maybe Harbin had felt no desire to dispose of his future ally.