When he turned back, he saw Thresha and Deacon embracing, and an involuntary rage welled up inside him. In an instant, he felt a psychotic urge to strike them. It was then that he knew that he had to get away. That perhaps what he had become was not fit to live in this new world he had helped create.

Deacon looked over and smiled and waved, as did Thresha. But Letho did not return the gesture. They stared at him, confused, and a knowing worry spread across Thresha’s face.

I have to get out of here.

Letho felt something thrumming inside him, some untapped well, something new and powerful. Without really knowing why he was doing it, he crouched down on one knee and placed his hands on the ground. He pressed with both his hands and feet, as hard as he could, and launched himself upward.

The ground shrank beneath him at alarming speed, and the people below him became insect-like as he plowed through the air. The wind roared in his ears, drowning out the heavy thoughts that burdened his mind. From up here he could not see the fearful expressions that some cast upon him. Though he had fought tooth and nail for the people below, he knew that many of them regarded him as an aberration, a freak. One not to be associated with.

Soon he reached the apex of his climb, a height where only eagles dared fly, where the atmosphere became thin. And from there he looked down at the spectacle below. It was much like what he had seen when he had first pierced the atmosphere of mother Eursus. She bore many scars, all of them from wounds dealt by his race. He felt shame that such majesty had been diminished by his people, and for such trivial pursuits.

And then gravity took him, and the ground began to grow again. The earth below approached at an alarming rate as he rushed toward his fate: becoming a splattered red paste across the planet’s surface

But as the ground grew closer and he could make out streets, buildings, and wasted vehicles, he remembered Abraxas’s invisible, crushing fist, and he wondered if he could wield such a power. He tapped deep into himself, and there it was—power. He willed himself to be lighter, to slow—and somehow, it happened. His body crashed to the ground heavily, but not hard enough to shatter his bones or liquefy his flesh as he rolled across Eursus’s rough hackles. He gained his footing, surveying his wake, then crouched and pressed his hands to the earth again, imagining that he was shoving the planet away from him, altering its cosmic trajectory. And he bounded again and again, until Hastrom City was but a mere twinkle in the distance.

****

“What the hell?” Deacon shouted. “Did anyone know he could do that?”

“The gifts of the chosen one are not recorded by our people. We do not know the extent of his powers,” Bayorn said, looking up at the pristine night sky.

“He just left us. I can’t believe it,” Deacon said.

“Our friend Letho is very troubled. He needs time alone,” Bayorn said.

“Don’t worry, Deacon. He’ll be back. I know he will,” Thresha said.

They stood together on the moonlit landing of the temple, their skin and fur resplendent in the milky glow. And all above them a ring of twinkly stars—the Fulcrum stations—watched the people below like silent sentinels.

Epilogue

Shortly after the battle, Bayorn had returned with the others to Haven. It was, after all, the final resting place of Zedock Wartimer, friend of the Tarsi, and the dormitories deep beneath the surface had reminded him and his fellow Centennial Tarsi of the underneath from their beloved Fulcrum.

Bayorn had been resting in his domicile when the lightning blast struck him. A new vision of his forefathers. As before, he watched it through someone else’s eyes—the eyes of a distant ancestor.

And in the vision, the true purpose of the Fulcrum stations was revealed.

It was time at last for Bayorn to complete the mission that his forefathers had begun so long ago. Even as their civilization fell in flames, they had looked to the future. They had wanted both to save a planet dear to them, far across a sea of galaxies, and at the same time preserve their own race so that the Tarsi might one day return and rebuild what had been lost.

“You ready?” Deacon said.

“Yes,” Bayorn replied. “Take me to the Centennial Fulcrum.”

He boarded Deacon’s shuttle, and it wasn’t long before they were racing away from the surface, the details below growing smaller as the Fulcrum station above grew larger.

Deacon docked his shuttle at the bottom of the Fulcrum station, and memories flooded Bayorn so strongly that he had to hold back tears. He now looked upon the very airlock from which they had launched Fintran’s remains.

They made their way to the underneath through a series of tunnels that Bayorn had not known of before his vision, though he had always believed that he knew every nook and cranny of the bowels of the Fulcrum station. Now they discovered an entirely new section of the station, one that had not been entered since the Fulcrum stations had left Tarsus so many millennia before.

The lights here were a pristine white. The walls were made of a smooth material that looked like marble but felt cold like metal. Bayorn led Deacon forward into this strange, sterile facility, until at last they came upon a single door with a touchpad in its center.

“Can you open it?” Deacon asked.

Bayorn closed his eyes and recalled the memory that had been shared with him. The code came to him, just as clear as his own name. He wondered if Fintran had been privy to this knowledge. What visions had been shown to the former Elder? He had whispered to Bayorn, just before going to his death at the hand of Alastor, that the visions would come.

Bayorn pressed the numbers into the keypad. Pleasant, affirmative Tarsi song-speak played from unseen speakers, and the door slid open.

Bayorn and Deacon stepped through the doorway into a room stacked high with small cylindrical containers. It wasn’t really a room—it was some sort of channel, built into what was likely the very center of the Fulcrum station. Bayorn looked up, and could see no end to the stacked cylinders above him.

“We must be in the center of the Fulcrum station,” Deacon said.

“Yes,” Bayorn answered.

In the center of the room was a large pedestal with a keyboard—just the right size for Tarsi hands—and a computer screen. Bayorn moved toward the computer and closed his eyes, again recalling his ancestral memory. Alastor had done this very thing—using knowledge he had gained from absorbing Fintran’s essence. But he had not done what Bayorn was about to do, either from ignorance, or deliberate intent.

Bayorn began to type, and strings of Tarsi pictograms appeared on the screen. Bayorn read them, followed the instructions, and continued typing.

“So… what’s going to happen here?” Deacon asked.

“We are going to land the Fulcrum stations on the surface of planet Eursus. This is the intent of my forefathers,” Bayorn said. “The coordinates for each station are already programmed. They will touch down at strategic points all across the planet. The Centennial Fulcrum is to land very close to Hastrom City.”

“Then what?” Deacon asked. “Are people going to come live in them again?”

“Be patient, Deacon. All shall be revealed in due time.”

****

The day when the Fulcrum stations came down to Eursus was a day that would long be remembered in the annals of Eursan history, for it was the day when life returned to the bedraggled planet. Citizens would recount the tale to their children, who would recount the tale to their children, and so forth over millennia. Footage of the Fulcrum stations entering the planet’s atmosphere like benevolent meteors would play on news sites for generations.