Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:32:55 -0800 (PST)
From: kyler pettry <kpettry2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: when dark powers stir9

			       *Disclaimer*

First and foremost, the legalities. If you are under the age of consent,
whatever that age may be in the state where you currently reside, read no
further. This story is part of an ongoing serial fiction and contains
graphic depictions of homosexual encounters. All encounters are of the
masculine variety and are often done with little regard to 'safe sex'. This
is after all a work of fiction, so none of the characters can get aids or
the like. It is the recommendation of the author of this story, namely
myself, that if you absolutely must engage in copious amounts of man sex,
then do so as safely as you can. The last thing you want is to turn into a
victim of your own hormones.
	
Secondly, for those of you who have written me and expressed a like of my
story, thank you. I have enjoyed corresponding immensely. I would like to
apologize again for the delays in posting. Between school and the various
other things sapping my time it has been very difficult to post in a timely
fashion. However I have been informed by some people very close to me that
should I not post the ending to this story I will probably be facing some
very real, very vicious demons of my own. I hope you enjoy, as always
comments are welcome, gimmee a holler, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

*As always you may view my artwork and the sketches that will be going
along with this series and all future series at my website
www.designsbykyler.com . Love peace and chicken grease.



	The miles unfolded in their tranquil harmony. The scenery opening
itself like the petals of some night blooming flower. In the far distance
with the soft ambience of deep night behind their shadowy line, the
Appalachians waited.
	The soft green glow of the console lights shed they're meager
ambience on the sleeping face of the man to Darren's right. The unconscious
form filling him with love and something else. Perhaps it was fear. For as
long as he'd been alive, Darren had been filled with fear. No, this wasn't
fear. He didn't know exactly what it was, but fear had no purchase on him.
	That numbing fact was his first clue. The first hint that perhaps
something was other than it should have been. He looked back the long
expanse of road that had been pulling ever toward him the last hours. He
looked at the gas gauge. While not yet on empty the refill sign has lit
up. He'd had a full tank, which meant they had traveled hundreds of miles.
	He looked at Terry again, the soft sense of love filling him as it
had every time he'd looked at the man who'd taken his heart. The road
pulled him back yet again, or maybe it was more than the road. The truth.
	Darren knew something had been done to him, he didn't know what. He
knew it was more than the compulsion that had sent him spiraling across the
eastern seaboard for nearly four hours and not a memory of it. For that
matter he didn't even know exactly what a compulsion was or how the name
seemed to echo in his mind. But he did know who put it there.
	Tep, he said to himself, what did you do to me you mad old bat!!!
	-Nothing beyond what had already been set in motion-
	The deep resounding voice with it is bare trace of indefinable
accent stroked through his mind as though it belonged there. The sense of
invasion was pronounced, in all the fantasy books he'd read as a child in
which telepath played a part, he'd never found one that spoke of such a
depth of violation.
	-Calm yourself boy. I am only a shadow, an image imprinted upon
you. It was the only way the old one could make certain you would know what
it is you face. Now...let me tell you a story...

	The jungle sprawled below him, not the wild untamed thing that
lives in steaming south America today. That was not yet to be born. This
jungle held trees that towered over even the oldest and largest of trees
found in our world. The colors lush and green, and littered everywhere with
plants that could not be the image of the place brought tears to Darrens
eyes.
	"Welcome to the world of the Aet'lan Darren." He felt and strong
hard hand set on his shoulder and he turned to look. Tep stood before him,
though not the Tep he'd seen before. This one was young, and strong, and
imminently more attractive than the craggy old man. The smile that lit
Tep's face seemed to part his head in half.
	"I was not always old." His head turned back the jungle below
them. That was when Darren took stock of where they were. The two stood at
the apex of a ziggurat, carved out of a soft rosy stone, like sandstone
that had been smoothed by the years.
	They were at the edge of a massive stairway that looked more than a
little daunting. Darren instinctively backed away. Bringing another smile
from Tep. "You have nothing to fear from this dream, but that will not
always be so." There was a touch of sadness to his eyes as he said it.
	"What is this place Tep, why am I here?"
	Tep turned and looked at the jungle once again. "This is the land
of the Aet'lan," he looked back at Darren. "My people."
	Darren looked around once again and understanding seemed to dawn,
"Tep this is a mayan temple."
	Tep laughed, this time it was low and full of amusement. "Actually,
you're wrong, the mayans, were the children of my people's greatest
grandchildren. The brilliance of their race built on whispers of ours."
	The twinkle in his eye confused Darren even more. "Tep they died
out millennia ago, if your telling the truth, you'd have to be..."
	"Well over ten thousand years old...at least in one form or
another. For the majority of the time I slept in a place of peace beneath
the ruins of this temple, and when even those were gone, I slept still. I
awake only when danger comes to the children of my race from out of the
past."
	Darren considered, "The demon, the thing that killed you."
	Tep nodded, he turned back around and there was hate in his voice,
and a sorrow more immense that Darren could fathom. "How odd that our
greatest creation should become an undying legacy of pain and death."
 	The shade looked back at Darren, "My people had mastered
mathematics, advanced energy, things that your society would not believe,
in the end, we were old enough to know better.
	We were explorers you see, we had touched our feet upon every inch
of this world, had talked with the true ancients that walk the stars. We
searched for something greater still to discover. We knew the mysteries of
this universe, and so, decided to unravel those of another.
	Darren couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "You mean,
you..."
	"Using the combined resources of our entire race, we sought to take
ourselves away from here, to another place, where thought and time meant
different things." Tep laughed then, and it was harsh, and cold.
	"In our arrogance we never stopped to think, that in our attempt to
walk through a door, something else might come through as well. They
swallowed half our great city in a fortnight. They were beyond anything we
had ever seen before. Had it not been for our leader, Gant'ash letnah, we
wouldn't have stopped them. He brought us out of our daze, and made us push
them all the way back to the doorway. And once through we sealed it,
forever hoping to contain them.
	"But alas, fate doesn't forgive arrogance such as ours so easily."
He looked Darren in the eyes, let his pain and grief lay between them, "The
doorway can never be truly sealed. The device that creates it, exists in
both worlds, a twain created at the moment we closed the door. And since we
cannot destroy the one on the other side, the one here cannot be destroyed
either. So there is always the chance that someone will let them out
again."
	Tep looked at the ground, his eyes full of tears that he would
never shed. "So part of us remains. We created a means to keep ourselves
alive through the millennia...through our children." He looked up, the
intensity back in his black eyes.
	Darren, his mind trying to cope with too much at once felt
knowledge settle on him like a fine veil. "The gift, Terry's gift, its
something that you did to him...to me."
	Tep nodded, "Of the races of man that existed on this earth, we
were the only ones to possess the power to defeat them. The others would
fall like fodder without our legacy. That is what flows in Terry's
veins...in yours."
	Darren thought to tell the ghost, or shadow, or whatever the hell
he was that there had been a mistake, that something had gone wrong, he
wanted nothing to do with any of this. It would have been a lie, but he
would still have sought to tell it.
	Tep however forestalled him, "Would you accept the burden of your
legacy if it meant that Terry's life might be saved?"
	Darren's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
	Tep breathed deeply. It was hard to believe this being existed only
in Darren's mind. "Terry will be the creature's target, merely because he
thwarted it before. It wanted him, not Peter, the lout had not a drop of
Aet'lan blood in him. That is was the thing needs to release his kind en
masse."
	"So your saying that I have to learn how to control this to help
save Terry's life?" Darren could fathom why two would be great than one.
	Tep looked deeply into Darren's face, "Only in part. Terry is a
bright, powerful person...but he isn't you."
	Darren's forehead wrinkled in surprise and confusion. "I didn't
think I could get more confused, thankyou for clearing that up for me."
	Tep raised his hands in a placating gesture, it was the first time,
young or old, Darren had seen the ancient Aet'lan in anything other than a
position of absolute dominance. "Some have the gift in greater abundance
than others. Terry was barely able to keep the beast from taking him, but
still, it left scars I could not heal...he won't survive a second attempt."
	Anger bordering on fury raced through Darren. The sky over the
jungle grew dark, and sparks began to fall from the skies. In places the
dense jungle caught fire. "OH and I can! Ill fight something older than god
knows what, and save the day, because you say so! You have taken everything
away from me. I finally got the one thing that I have wanted my entire
life...someone to love, and now YOUR past is trying to take it away!"
	Tep looked at the world, at the jungle below and Darren saw the
agony in his face. "Please, stop this Darren. It is only in your mind, but
once I saw this burn for real...please stop."
	The pain in the other's face brought Darren a scrap of control and
he calmed himself. The fires stopped falling, and the sky grew
clear. Though a promise of overcast gray remained, almost as a warning.
	"I would not have had it so. Even had I lived to teach you, you
would be the worst possible student. Terry was the joy of centuries, his
humor and life brought to me a peace I have not felt is so terribly
long. But in the end, that spark began to fade, because he did not have
what he needed to survive. He needs you, just as much as you need
him. Together you have the strength to stop this thing. No you didn't make
it, no it is not your responsibility to stop it. But in the end I can
promise you, as small as your hope is, it is the only one. Make your
decision."
	Darren looked at him, His mind in a uproar. He wanted to take Terry
and run as far and as fast as he could, just to get away. In the end, he
knew he had no choice. Choice for them was an illusion, one that would get
them killed, and he wouldn't even take a chance on Terry's life.
	"What do I have to do..."


some interesting twists, hope you like it. I am actually thinking of
extending this one. I was getting a little tired of it, but some people who
I both love and fear informed me that to leave it unfinished would be at my
own peril. I had planned to finish this one in the next three chapters. But
if you want more of it email me at Kpettry2000@yahoo.com. Thankyou all for
your support and feedback.