CHAPTER 20
ROSEMARY GOT THE NEWS THE MOMENT IT happened.
She had been lying beneath the ancient vessel, her hands and face and leather clothes luminescent with crystal dust instead of greasy with oil, when Razturul sent his farewell.
For a split second, she saw what he did: the sea of zerg roiling beneath him, the cloud of them descending from the air and all sides. The ground was rushing up to meet her: The ship was falling out of the sky. And then nothing.
She also knew, although she had not seen it, that Razturul had been mere minutes from making it to the portal. He had led them on a good chase, had the dark templar. And he'd almost made it.
"Rosemary?" The thought was from Vartanil, and she saw him now through blurred vision as he bent and peered underneath the ship. His concern wafted over her, comforting her, and she dragged a hand over her face quickly.
"Got some of this damn dust in my eyes," she said, although of course she knew he knew it was a lie. "Get back in the cockpit and let's keep going."
Damn the protoss anyway, and damn herself for giving a rat's ass about them. And about Jake for that matter. What the hell was she doing here when—
The light was unexpected and elicited a sudden whoop of delight from her. The ship purred, a pleasant sound, as it awakened like a cat from a nap in a sunny window. Excitement and pride emanated from Vartanil as he gleefully sent to Selendis, "Rosemary has done it! The vessel is operational!"
"That is excellent news," came the executor's response. "And I am told that the ritual is about to finish. They are cautiously optimistic, although—"
The cool words were suddenly drowned by a rush of emotion, quickly quelled. Rosemary's heart lurched as a single word came to her: "Ulrezaj."
He was here. Somehow, damn him, the thing had found them. Information inserted itself into Rosemary's mind: He was here, he had again grown strong and powerful, and he was heading directly for the Alys'aril. Rosemary didn't need to be telepathic to know what that meant. Ethan, at least, seemed to want Zamara alive—at least asalive as someone could be when their essence had been transferred to a khaydarin crystal. And he was cruel enough to leave the alysaar and all the others, including and likely especially her, alive to dwell on their failure once his hydralisk had gotten the prize.
Ulrezaj, though, had nothing to hinder him. He had come to destroy Zamara and likely everything and everyone else along with her.
Ethan couldn't believe what he was seeing. A frantic flicker crossed his mind: The thing's unstoppable. But that was nonsense. Nothing was unstoppable. He'd seen with his own augmented eyes that Ulrezaj could be wounded. Hell, his zerg had been part of it.
Kerrigan had predicted that the dark archon would lead Ethan to Zamara, and of course his adored queen had been correct. What she had not predicted was that this place would also enable the nearly-destroyed Ulrezaj to recover so fully. And so quickly.
It was as if the battle on Aiur had never happened. Ulrezaj moved toward them, a roiling absence of light, as if the combined forces of protoss, terrans, and zerg had not come close to dispatching him. It was deja vu.. .except for one thing. This time there would be no protoss psionic storms to slow his approach. Dark lightning sizzled and crackled about him as he came on.
Quickly Ethan looked through the eyes of his hydralisk. They had not permitted the zerg to enter the room, of course; but the creature was observing through an open door. Two protoss stood on either side of the door. They were unarmed; these were scholars, not fighters, but they were guards nonetheless. Briefly, he considered sending a second zerg to find out what Rosemary was up to, but then decided against it. If they tricked him, he could find her quickly enough.
Ethan could see the prone form of Jake Ramsey, lying very still on a small raised table carved from black stone. The old protoss and two assistants stood over the terran. Their hands were extended; one hand almost touching Jake's body, the other palm out toward a crystal that hovered in the air. Glowing blue lines went from their palms to the crystal. The ritual was still going on—which meant that Ethan needed to slow Ulrezaj down long enough for them to finish.
Ethan sent his zerg of course, and they obeyed like a pack of hounds on the hunt, scurrying, slithering, and flying toward the creature. The mutalisks attacked from above, spitting out their insatiable, horrific symbiotes. Ulrezaj's form pulsed, and with seeming casualness a wave of shadow spread off of him, like a pool of oil but one that moved unnaturally fast. The mutalisks were struck dead instantly, their corpses and those of the voracious symbiotes falling heavily atop their comrades, crushing several of them. Ethan caught glimpses of zergling legs wriggling frantically from beneath
the mutalisk bodies. Others dropped on Ulrezaj and were turned to ash on contact.
The hydralisks hunched forward and fired wave after wave of spines at the creature. The spines, deadly when striking flesh, seemed somehow to be absorbed by the monstrous creature. Bolts of blue-white energy exploded from the dark archon, as if it was parodying the attack it had just received. The hydralisks were impaled with glowing energy, shrieked, and died, their scythe-arms —so like Ethan's own—clawing one final time in their dying paroxysms.
The zerglings descended en masse. They never even reached the foe. A single pulse and they swirled about futilely like leaves blown by a strong wind.
Ethan swallowed hard as the zerglings fell like so many dominos. Surely the attack had done something—weakened the bastard somewhat. But no. Nothing about Ulrezaj showed any kind of weakness—any kind of way an antagonist using physical means such as acid, spines, or pincers could bring him down.
Cold sweat broke out on Ethan's smooth, gray-green skin. He had failed his queen once before. He could not fail her a second time. He had hoped to save this final attack for later, but he realized he had to call out the guardians now. Crablike creatures that were even more powerful than the mutalisks they had once been, the guardians began bombarding Ulrezaj with globules of acid. Accompanying the huge creatures were dozens of tiny scourge. They dove suicidally toward Ulrezaj, their sole purpose to explode like small, living plasma bombs. This, finally, seemed to rattle the dark archon. He stopped and roared with pain, and his glowing dark aura seemed dimmer and more erratic. He turned his terrible attention to the guardians and the scourge. Some of them perished instantly, but others darted away from Ulrezaj, coming back in for another attack.
He was stopped, for the moment, and he would be slowed.
It was the best Ethan could hope for.
Which meant that he had to have another plan. A thought sent a pack of several dozen zerglings racing toward the protoss temple. The least useful of his army against Ulrezaj, they would have no trouble ripping apart a few protoss monks. Whether or not the ritual was completed, if Ulrezaj moved too close for Ethan's comfort, Professor Jacob Jefferson Ramsey and the crystal that hovered over him would belong to the zerg before the dark archon could bring the temple crashing down upon him.
The protoss were mobilizing, as best as a group of scholars could. Orders flew, whizzing past and through Rosemary's head at dizzying speed. She got a vague gist of the plan: Those who could stand against the onslaught would do so. A second time, they were in a peculiar alliance with Ethan and his zerg; neither zerg nor protoss wished to see Ulrezaj triumph.
"The protection of this place and its knowledge is vital," Selendis's thoughts, clear and hard and pure as a khaydarin crystal, rose above the jumble. "We must permit Krythkal to finish the ritual to preserve Zamara's knowledge. While it continues, as many crystals as possible will be placed in the vessel Rosemary Dahl has restored to us. We cannot possibly mount an assault with so few numbers and no weaponry. Ethan and the zerg are currently engaged in combat; we will let them weaken our enemy for us. They seem to be slowing his advance. Nonetheless, I do not believe they will be able to halt Ulrezaj, and therefore we must prepare for defense of the Alys'aril. But we will wait until the last possible moment; it will not serve us to reveal our plan too swiftly."