Chapter 7 - Along the Rainbow Serpent

The aurora above Ailbhe's Spike raged like a living river—indigo, jade, and fire-gold sheets folding and unfolding across the polar night. Charlie stood on the pyramid's wind-scoured flank, Nexus Medallion pulsing hot against his sternum, four runes now bright as hammered dawn. Each glowed in counter-time, creating a shimmering chord so intense it left after-images behind his eyelids. High overhead, magnetic curtains opened and closed in deliberate rhythm—as though the planet itself were thumping a drum, urging its caretakers onward to the last coil of the serpent's chain.

Kelan gazed skyward, voice hushed. "We sail that."

Leyla followed his stare. "Charged particles form a transient corridor when four nodes resonate. A two-hour window, maybe three, before the aurora collapses."

Richard hefted his pack, eyebrows climbing. "You're suggesting we… ride light?"

"Walk it," Maeve corrected, a fierce grin cutting across the frost on her scarf. "The old texts call it Draig-Riagh—the Rainbow Dragon path. A ley-bridge of pure geomagnetic flux."

Angus tapped his staff against iced stone. "If we hesitate, Commander Tzeker fortifies Xi'an. We step, or we surrender the planet."

Sarah traced a finger across the medallion's fourth rune, then looked at Charlie—all earnest courage and wide, worried eyes. "We can do it. We already rode tunnels under oceans and deserts. Why not the sky?"

Charlie inhaled frigid air. Four heartbeats thundered inside him—Tara, Giza, Teotihuacan, Ailbhe's Spike. The fifth, Xi'an, glimmered faint and distant, like a beacon glimpsed through smoke. He closed his fist around the medallion. "Let's give the Rainbow Serpent new tracks."

Cecilia deployed magnetic boots scavenged from defunct South-Pole research suits, rewired by Kelan with copper sigils so they would attract not steel but the aurora's charged flow. Lautaro mixed obsidian dust with powdered Sun-Shard shards, painting spirals onto each traveler's palms: an alchemical primer to lock flesh to photon.

Aoife bundled coils of silken rope braided from Fianna bow-strings—insurance in case the bridge wavered mid-crossing. Sharifa plotted exit coordinates on a silk map where ley lines converged outside Xi'an's ramparts, just north of the Wei River.

Isidora Reyes, captain of the cutter they were leaving behind, clasped Angus's forearm. "Come back and thaw your debts in my galley," she said, half-promise, half-prayer. Angus smiled—a brief, weary lifting of beard—and pressed a final Sun-Shard splinter into her palm.

At midnight local, the aurora peaked—bands thick enough to read by. Maeve raised her staff-etched astral compass; a filament of green leapt from the sky, kissing the crystal at its tip. The compass needle spun, then stilled, pointing northeast across darkness.

"Path is open," she said, breath crystallizing.

Kelan stood beside Charlie. "Step with steady will. Cold void below is merely night; the bridge is the note you hold in your heart."

Richard chuckled, slinging Sarah's small pack onto his back. "Just a walk across a harp string, then."

One by one, they activated their boots. Soles hummed as magnetic plates aligned with charged plasma overhead. The team climbed the pyramid's slick face to its apex where the aurora's lowest arc almost grazed the point. There, Maeve tapped her compass three times; the filament thickened into a plank of rippling jade light.

"Go," Angus ordered.

Charlie led. The first step felt like pressing onto taut velvet that instantly turned steel-solid beneath his weight. The second carried him two meters up an invisible gradient, boots humming. He exhaled—no slip. Behind, others followed, boots sparking comet tails.

They marched single file into the sky, leaving the white pyramid small beneath and the frozen plateau a swirl of silver dust.

Within minutes, earth shrank to a memory. They strode inside a tube of light, walls shifting from green to violet to rose. Wind roared but never touched them; air remained crisp, scented faintly of ozone. Beneath the radiant path yawned the curve of the Southern Ocean, then a blur of cloud.

Kelan chanted softly, keeping rhythm; his voice echoed like song in a domed cathedral. The medallion on Charlie's chest vibrated louder, the Xi'an node tugging him forward like moon on tide.

Halfway across the planet, the bridge bucked—an unseen impact reverberating through luminous floor. Lautaro cursed. Far ahead, a smear of darkness shredded the aurora's edge.

Sleet-Wraiths? No—larger. Metallic manta forms: Storm-Razors—new reptilian drones, wings bristling ion blades, slicing magnetic streams. They banked toward the travelers, severing swaths of light, causing ripples to ripple into violent troughs.

"Hold line!" Angus barked. Aoife planted a tripod anchor, lashed ropes to harness rings. Richard swung his staff, generating arcs that deflected a swooping Razor but shredded a section of path behind them.

Charlie felt the aurora sag—the music losing a key. He thrust both palms outward, channeling the combined power of four nodes. Gold bolts shot along the bridge, weaving a lattice patch beneath their boots. The path steadied, but the Storm-Razors wheeled for another pass.

Sarah yanked a flare gun from Maeve's kit, jammed a Sun-Shard pellet into its breech, and fired. The shard burst mid-air, an expanding corona of white-blue fire. One Razor vaporized at its heart; the others veered, wings scorched.

But the flare had drained residual Sun-Shard stores. More drones closed—eight, ten—tearing holes. The bridge groaned; sections flickered.

"Run!" Aoife yelled.

They sprinted. Boots sparked. One Razor clipped the path behind Sharifa; she stumbled, rope jerked taut, Angus hauling her upright just as the bridge erased under her heels. Wind howled. Ahead, the light-tube narrowed into a funnel, the exit node shimmering above the Mongolian steppe dawn.

Kelan spat a final chant. Lautaro spun sling thrice, released obsidian marble; it knifed into a Storm-Razor's core, detonating in violet shards that cascaded onto the path, but the drones had slowed just enough.

Charlie gathered remaining charge. He slammed staff butt to bridge. Four node heartbeats synchronized into a crescendo; the tube blazed, blinding, propelling them forward like a sling stone. World warped—then snapped.

They tumbled onto frost-rimed grass beneath a pale blue sky streaked with retreating aurora. The bridge behind shrank to a filament, then winked out, leaving Storm-Razors to disintegrate, severed from power source.

Every chest heaved. Sarah laughed between gulps. "We rode a rainbow."

Angus grinned in spite of cracked lips. "Aye, and landed closer to breakfast than burial. Count blessings later—we're inside Chinese airspace."

Xi'an sprawled fifty kilometers south-east: a mosaic of high-rises, ancient gates, and morning smog. Beyond, the Lishan hills rippled, hiding the mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang—terracotta soldiers guarding secrets still un-excavated. Beneath that tomb, Kelan insisted, pulsed the final Heart-Node—hidden since the first dynasty wept bronze tears.

But Tzeker was faster than rumor. Reptilian skimmers patrolled the Shaanxi sky-lanes. Military roadblocks funneled traffic. Holo-billboards replayed Charlie's doctored psychiatric diagnosis over footage of Teotihuacan's "terrorist light-bomb."

"Low profile," Maeve whispered. "We need disguise."

Ana, pragmatic as ever, flagged down a rattling farm lorry. Ten minutes' barter secured dusty work clothes, straw hats, and crates of persimmons to hide equipment. Sarah giggled when Angus stuffed his beard under a cotton surgeon mask. Charlie knotted a ragged scarf around his neck, tucking the medallion deep.

They bypassed checkpoints via irrigation lanes. Lautaro bribed one guard with Chilean wine; Aoife knocked another unconscious using a pressure nerve she claimed came from Celtic bards. By dusk, the lorry rattled down a gravel service road to a restricted dig site abutting the emperor's outer necropolis trenches—where archaeologists uncovered fresh ranks of terracotta horses only last year.

Sharifa produced forged Ministry credentials. They breezed past a bored gate officer who barely glanced at paperwork. Beyond, flood-lit pits yawned, clay soldiers frozen in parade rest. Humidity smelled of loam and lacquer; cicadas sang.

Charlie felt the node hum deep below—faint, muffled, but urgent, like a heart trapped in stone coffin. He also sensed reptilian psion dampers—dense webs just awakening, fed by orbital power. Tzeker had laid a minefield unseen.

Maps indicated a hidden chamber beneath Pit 2 where cavalry figures once stood. Cecilia traced microseismic anomalies to a cavity lined with higher quartz—likely the node. But access required slipping past patrolling drones disguised as site sensors.

Angus, Richard, and Ana created a diversion: deliberately triggering a dig alarm then racing forklifts to "secure artifacts." While guards converged, Charlie, Kelan, Maeve, Aoife, Lautaro, Sarah, and Sharifa descended a maintenance shaft into shadowed tunnels once carved for drainage but long abandoned.

Torchlights revealed clay fragments half-buried in silt: broken archers, shattered faces. Glyphs on shards matched scripts from Tara and Ailbhe's Spike—proof the first Eventborns or their allies had infiltrated here ages past.

At a dead-end wall, Kelan brushed dust. A jade inlay of intertwined dragons gleamed. Charlie pressed the medallion; four runes flared, and a fifth glyph—stylised mountain under rising sun—ignited on the disk. Stone cracked; a doorway irised open, exhaling cold air laced with ozone and ancient incense.

Inside stretched a corridor lined by two opposing columns of terracotta warriors—yet not like those above. These bore crystal spears fused with metal filaments, eyes inset with chips of polished hematite. They vibrated faintly, alive with dormant current.

"The Emperor's sorcerers built sentries for the node," Maeve whispered.

Sarah squeezed Charlie's hand. "Will they let us pass?"

He stepped forward, medallion exposed. The warriors' spear tips glowed, then dipped in salute. Passage granted, perhaps recognizing the Eventborn's signature.

Beyond, the corridor opened onto a vast spherical chamber. At its center levitated the Xi'an Heart-Node: a multifaceted orb of jade-glass three meters across, chained by five black conduits that sprouted from the floor like petrified roots—reptilian dampers. Violet sparks crawled along them into a ceiling conduit heading who-knew-where.

Commander Tzeker strode from a side balcony, armor now inlaid with ice crystals and obsidian mirror shards. His crest spread wide, eyes burning violet.

"I grew tired of chasing you, mouthling," he said, voice echoing off jade. "Now you walked into my crucible."

Behind him stood a human doctor—Belgrave—eyes dull, skin sallow, clutched by psion cuffs. Next to him, two dozen Hushkin in riot exosuits raised plasma carbines.

Angus's diversion had been allowed.

Tzeker lifted a claw; violet energy snapped outward, yanking the medallion from Charlie's neck. It hovered before the reptilian, runes flickering between gold and choking purple.

"Five lights will fall tonight," Tzeker crooned. He slashed another talon across a console. The black conduits pulsed; the jade orb dimmed, heartbeats inside Charlie faltering.

Pain lanced his chest—four nodes screaming as their circuit strained. He dropped to one knee. Sarah's cry echoed.

Maeve, Kelan, and Aoife surged forward but slammed into a psion barrier. Lautaro hurled obsidian; shards bounced useless.

Tzeker's smile spread needle teeth. "The lattice bends to fear and despair. Offer me surrender, Eventborn, and your world may slumber, not burn."

Charlie fought for breath. Within him Tara's courage flickered, Giza's fire guttered, Teotihuacan's song crackled, Ailbhe's ice dimmed. The medallion—now halfway between them—wavered.

Then came another beat: faint yet steady—softer than skin-scrape, stronger than steel whisper. Charlie realized it was the people above. Workers, tourists, guards—thousands of human heartbeats drumming life overhead, unaware but alive, refusing fear. Power not of nodes, but of living pulse.

He rose, shaking. "Earth's song doesn't need chains, lizard."

He spread fingers, palms outward. Instead of drawing from nodes, he drew from human hum. The terracotta sentries answered first: eyes flaring, spears raising. The medallion snapped free, rocketing back to Charlie's grip. Its fifth rune burst gold. Conduits shuddered.

Tzeker roared, unleashing a spear of violet. The terracotta soldiers interposed, absorbing the blast, shattering into shards that still moved—living clay duchies of electricity. One fragment lodged in Tzeker's armor, shorting circuits.

Maeve shouted Gaelic words of binding; Kelan added Nahuatl counter-curse; their voices braided with Charlie's rising chant—no known language, just rhythm matching Earth's own.

The conduits cracked. Gold light surged from the jade orb, incinerating psion cables, flooding the chamber. Plasma rifles melted. Hushkin masks fizzled. Dr. Belgrave collapsed sobbing, chains dissolved.

Tzeker staggered toward a side portal—but Sarah's quartz arrowhead, thrown with all her small strength, struck his amulet's cracked core. It shattered, releasing a vortex of stolen energy that yanked the commander screaming into a spiral of collapsing light. The portal imploded.

Silence swallowed the hall. Then a deep, resonant chord rang—Xi'an's Heart-Node fully awake.

Five runes glowed steady on the medallion.

Aboveground, across continents and oceans, every pyramid, mound, ziggurat, and dolmen glimmered: a network once smothered now blazing. Cities flickered as streetlamps dimmed then brightened—the lattice drinking its own stolen power before returning it, balanced.

In orbit, the dreadnought Kezrat-Vos convulsed, bow fracturing as its psion core overloaded. Without Tzeker's control, auto-purge triggered. The ship folded inward, swallowed by a silent blast of white.

Inside the Chamber of Jade, clay dust settled on shoulders. Angus broke first into raspy laughter. Maeve followed, tears carving tracks through soot. Lautaro whooped.

Charlie closed his eyes. Five heartbeats thrummed—Tara's drum, Giza's fire, Teotihuacan's flute, Ailbhe's ice wind, Xi'an's dragon gong. They merged into one vast, complex rhythm. Not his alone—everyone's.

He felt humanity's potential unclench, like muscles releasing after millennia of tension. Not sudden superpowers, not instant paradise—just chains removed, possibilities unbarred.

He opened his eyes to find Sarah smiling, cheeks streaked with clay dust and triumph. "All five," she whispered.

"Now the real work," Kelan said softly—rebuilding, teaching, guarding.

Angus clapped Charlie's shoulder. "The boy who listened to silence became the lad who sang the world awake."

Charlie exhaled, medallion cooling to warm brass against skin. Outside, morning sunlight slipped down mausoleum hillsides, gilding terracotta ranks in mellow gold. Somewhere, far beyond hearing, the first notes of a new age tuned up—minor, major, dissonant, glorious.

And the Gifted listened, ready to play his part.