Journey's End (Book)

Journey's End is a soon-to-be book, posted online by Greg Farshtey. To acess it in PDF format, you must first log in and enter the B.I.O. Code, shown before each chapter number. A new chapter will be posted every Wednesday at the "news" page of bionicle.com, starting with the prologue on Wednesday, February tenth, 2010.

Every Wednesday, a new B.I.O. Code is posted in the news section of bionicle.com.

Prologue
Over 100,000 years ago …

Angonce walked purposefully toward a blank stone wall in the rear of his chamber. As the tall, spare figure approached, the blocks that made up the wall softened and shifted, forming an opening. He gazed out this new window at the mountains and forest below, sadness and regret in his dark eyes.

He had often stood here before, reflecting upon the beauty of Spherus Magna. From the southern desert of Bara Magna to the great northern forest, it was a place of stunning vistas and infinite opportunities for knowledge. Angonce had spent most of his life discovering its mysteries, and had hoped for many more years in the pursuit. But now it seemed that was not to be. He had run every test that he could think of, and checked and rechecked his findings. They always came out the same: Spherus Magna was doomed.

How did it come to this? Angonce wondered. How did we let it get so far? He, his brothers and sisters were scholars. Their theories, discoveries and inventions had transformed this world and changed the lives of the inhabitants, the Agori, in many ways. In gratitude, they had long ago been proclaimed rulers of Spherus Magna. The Agori called them the “Great Beings.”

But the business of running a world – settling disputes, managing economies, dealing with defense issues, worrying about food and equipment supplies – all of this the Great Beings found a distraction. They wanted to build, study, invent, not oversee, adjudicate, and set policy. Those were vital duties, they realized, but better that someone else do them. And so, the Great Beings did what they always did when they had a problem: they created a solution.

Choosing six warriors, one from each village, the Great Beings endowed them with the power to control, respectively, fire, ice, water, plant life, rock, and sand. They altered the warriors’ very body chemistry to make each closer to being one with his element. Finally, they gave their newly created Element Lords weapons and armor that made them look like symbols of the natural forces of the world.

The Great Beings also gifted the Element Lords one more thing: the responsibility of ruling over the six tribes of Agori. They would shoulder the day to day duties the Great Beings so despised, and in return, they would be allowed to rule without interference. Our first mistake, thought Angonce, though far from our last.

He turned away from the window, which transformed instantly back into a solid wall. It was time to face the truth. Any seeker of wisdom will, at some point, encounter an experiment that goes wrong. When that happens, the best thing to do is learn from it and move on. Naturally, the results of that experiment must be destroyed to prevent any unforeseen damage from being done.

The Element Lords had been an experiment that had gone horribly wrong. Now the Great Beings would have to unleash a new invention to destroy an old one.

Angonce left the chamber and walked down a long corridor, passing a sealed door. Behind it, he knew that Heremus and the others were completing work on an ultimate weapon to be used against the Element Lords. He had no desire to witness this. Rather, he felt the need for a vision of hope, something that spoke of better tomorrows and not the tragedies of today. Leaving the fortress, he walked into a clearing – and there it was. Already standing millions of feet high, the giant before him was the last, best hope of Spherus Magna. Heremus had said that if it could not carry the physical heart of the planet within, it could at least carry the great spirit of this once beautiful world.

Angonce had liked that thought. When it came time to give this new creation a name, he knew just what to choose. Using the programming language that would guide the giant, he christened it “Mata Nui."

The Great Spirit.

Chapter One
A lone figure stood before an ancient fortress. His journey had been a long and treacherous one. Now it seemed as if it had come to a sudden, and very frustrating, end.

The structure in front of him had no visible doors or windows. There was no sign that anyone lived inside or had for years. However, the fresh footprints of an Agori nearby said this might be the place. The answers he sought were inside, he was certain of it, but far less sure of how to reach them.

His name was Mata Nui. Once, only mere months before, he could have reached down from the heavens and torn the roof from the building. A complex array of sensors could have located the Agori or any other person or object he sought from a world away. One stride could have carried him many kios across the land.

That felt like a lifetime ago. Then, his mind and spirit lived inside a miracle of engineering,towering some 40 million feet in the air. But he had been driven from that body and exiled to the desert world of Bara Magna. If not for the power of the Mask of Life he wore, he wouldn’t even have a body now. As it was, he was only a little over seven feet tall, vulnerable to pain and hunger and thirst, and from removed from the power to shake worlds.

Seven feet tall, thought Mata Nui. I really hate being short. Bara Magna had been a revelation to Mata Nui in many ways. He had found friends among the Glatorian and Agori who lived here. He had been drawn into their struggle against the marauding Skrall and bone hunters. He had even found proof that the Great Beings, his creators, had once walked these sands.

Part of that evidence had been a coin found by an Agori scavenger named Berix. Made of a metal said to have been mined to the north, the design on the coin’s face matched that of the one on the Skrall shields. At first, it looked like just a bunch of interconnected lines. But as Mata Nui learned more about this planet, particularly about the Great Beings and their works, he realized the design was far more than decorative. It was not just artwork or a symbol of some abstract concept. It was a map.

But, he wondered, a map of what?

That answer came courtesy of an Agori named Crotesius, who told him that he had been part of a failed expedition to the north in search of the “Valley of the Maze.” He had returned without finding it, but one of his companions, Tarduk, had left again to resume the search. Mata Nui resolved to seek the valley and find out what might lie at the heart of the maze.

Now that mission had brought him here, to a fortress with no doors in the center of a vast stone maze. After weeks of traveling and many dangers, here he was, confronted by yet another mystery with no easy solution.

“By the Great Beings, I have had enough of this,” Mata Nui growled. His voice echoed off the peaks all around.

Amazingly, there came an answer. The words came from the fortress, though there was no sign of anyone to speak them. They floated through the air on a whisper so soft he almost missed it over the sound of the breeze.

“What do you seek?”

Mata Nui took two quick strides forward and stared up at the fortress. “Entrance,” he said. There was a long silence. Then the voice repeated, “What do you seek?”

“I wish to enter,” Mata Nui replied, more loudly. “But I see no way to do so.”

This time, the voice did not hesitate to respond. When it did, there was a trace of iron in its tone, as if the speaker were losing patience.

“What do you seek? What is your burden? What brings you life, and death?”

So it’s not asking questions, thought Mata Nui. It’s posing riddles. This fortress, and the maze that surrounds it, were designed to keep out anyone who might use the power of the Great Beings for selfish reasons. So if I don’t give the right answers here …

He allowed himself to wonder if Tarduk had made it this far, and if so, had he given the wrong answers? What, then? Had the Great Beings rigged traps to destroy potential intruders? Were his creators really that ruthless?

What do I seek? It’s a very good question, he admitted. When I first came to Bara Magna, all I wanted was to escape and save my people from the evil of my enemy, Makuta. I didn’t know then that this place was tied to my origins. I didn’t know I might find answers here to questions I had never asked.

Mata Nui sat down on the ground and stared at the stone walls of the fortress. He was going to have to give this answer a lot of thought.

§ § §

“Where is he?” Kiina asked. She was standing amid the dunes of the Bara Magna desert, her eyes fixed on the northern mountains. “He should be back by now.”

Beside her, Ackar nodded. “Perhaps. But we’ve got no idea how far he had to travel, or what he might have found.”

“Or what might have found him,” Kiina added, grimly. “We should have stayed with him, no matter what he said.”

The two were warriors and Mata Nui’s closest friends. He had helped them free their villages from the threat of the Skrall, but not stayed around for thanks. Shortly after the villages had agreed to unite into one mega-city, Mata Nui had departed to track down the meaning of Berix’s coin. Ackar and Kiina, accompanied by another warrior, Gresh, and Berix had gone with him.

The way had been fraught with danger and the battles had been fierce. After Berix was badly wounded, Mata Nui had insisted that the others turn back and return to the desert. Ackar had argued that it was too perilous for Mata Nui to go on alone, but Mata Nui remained adamant. “No, my friends,” he had said. “You are needed there, with your people. I have to find a way back to mine.”

Now, weeks had passed with no sign of him. Ackar felt the same worries Kiina did, but saw no reason to make her feel worse.

“We have to believe Mata Nui knows what he’s doing. It’s not the first time he’s gone off on his own,” he reminded her. “Last time, it was to save your life.”

“Right,” said Kiina. “So I owe him … and I pay my debts. With or without you, I’m going after him.”

Ackar knew there were some things on Bara Magna that one couldn’t argue with: an enraged Skopio, a hungry swarm of scarabax beetles, and Kiina once she had her mind made up. Besides, there came a point where being a true friend to Mata Nui meant not respecting his wishes on everything.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get supplies. You find Gresh. He’s going to want to come too.” Ackar started to turn away, but Kiina reached out to stop him. When he turned back to her, he saw real fear in her eyes.

“Do you think he’s okay?” she asked. “I mean, he couldn’t be … you know … could he?” “If anyone can come back out of those mountains in one piece, it’s Mata Nui,” Ackar answered. “So let’s make sure we’re there to greet him.”

§ § §

Mata Nui had been staring at the fortress for hours, rolling the questions around in his head. He had moved on from trying to divine the correct answer to the first, and focused on the second. What is my burden?

That was easy. He had left behind a universe full of beings that depended on him, Toa and Matoran willing to sacrifice their own lives on his behalf. His carelessness had allowed evil to usurp rule over his home and placed all those lives in jeopardy. Now here he was on Bara Magna, with little clue how to make things right again, reduced to trying to figure out maddening riddles. It was beyond frustrating. He had a duty to save his people, and he was wasting time like –

Wait a minute, he thought. Duty … it’s duty that drives me on, the responsibility I feel for the people of my universe. Duty is my burden!

Everything suddenly made sense. The Great Beings had taught him about three “virtues,” which he and the Matoran he protected were to live by. They were unity, duty and destiny. If the answer to the second question was duty, then perhaps …

Mata Nui rose. “I seek … unity!” he shouted.

“What is your burden?” the mysterious voice asked.

“Duty,” answered Mata Nui.

“What brings you life, and death?”

The same thing that brings it for everyone else, thought Mata Nui. “Destiny,” he said.

Before his eyes, the stone blocks in the center of the fortress seemed to soften and melt together. A square gap about eight feet high appeared at the base of the building. Then the stone became stone again, with a doorway now in place.

Mata Nui glanced at Click, the scarabax beetle who he had befriended on his arrival on Bara Magna. It now rode on his shoulder, but did not look very happy about that fact just now.

“Looks like an invitation,” said Mata Nui. “What do you think?”

The beetle clicked its pincers together furiously, a clear sign of displeasure.

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Mata Nui replied. “Well, sorry, old friend, we didn’t come all this way to stand outside.”

Mata Nui entered the tower. He half-expected another maze inside, but it was quite the opposite. A stairway leading down awaited him, but no other exit. Sword at the ready, he descended the stairs.

They seemed to go on for days, winding around and around with no end in sight. Then Mata Nui began to feel the heat, an overwhelming wave that almost staggered him. It grew worse the further down he went, but he pressed on. There was, after all, no other choice.

When he finally reached bottom, it took him a moment to take in the incredible scene. A large chamber stretched out before him, bare of any furniture. In the center of the floor was a pool of lava, boiling, churning, and glowing red hot.

And hanging suspended above it, upside down and bound in chains, was Tarduk.

Chapter 2
“Help … me …” the Agori croaked.

“Hang on,” said Mata Nui. He took a few steps backward, broke into a run, and leaped toward Tarduk. Catching hold of the chain, his momentum carried it and the Agori away from the lava. When they were almost at the far wall, Mata Nui slashed through the links with his sword. The chain snapped and he and Tarduk fell to the stone floor.

“I can’t … I can’t believe you did that,” gasped Tarduk. “I thought I was cooked.”

“What is this place?” asked Mata Nui, getting to his feet and helping Tarduk do the same.

“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you,” the Agori replied. “But you can believe this: we’ve got to get out of here, now!”

“You go,” said Mata Nui. “I came here for answers and I’m going to get them.” A violent tremor shook the chamber. Gouts of lava shot up from the pool, raining down on the stone floor and burning through the rock.

“The only answer you’ll get here is what happens after death,” said Tarduk, already running for the door. “Come on!”

Mata Nui stood rooted to the floor for a moment. He had gone through so much to reach this place, and now he was supposed to flee from it? But Tarduk was right, something very bad was happening here. The stone all around was melting, but not from the heat. No, the structure was shifting, turning into something else as he watched. If he didn’t move, and quickly, he would be trapped here – so he ran. Tarduk was already halfway up the stairs. When he reached the top, he dashed out the door and up into the rocks. Mata Nui followed not long after. Both turned to see the entire tower melting like a block of ice in the sun.

“Incredible,” said Tarduk. Mata Nui said nothing. His attention was riveted on the scene before him. Something was rising out of the ground beneath the tower, and the tower itself was sliding away as if to make room for it. The first thing he saw was the molten lava, followed quickly by what looked like an entire mountain pushing its way up from beneath the earth. It was an awe-inspiring sight – an actual volcano, given birth in a matter of moments.

“Incredible isn’t the word,” muttered Mata Nui. “It’s impossible.”

Tarduk pointed up at the river of lava flowing slowly from the crater. “Looks pretty possible to me. But what could cause it?”

Mata Nui gestured at the maze. “The same that caused all this – the Great Beings. That’s no natural volcano.”

“How do you know?” Mata Nui smiled. “Let’s just say I know something about volcanoes that aren’t really volcanoes, and leave it at that. Stay here. I’m going in.”

“Into that?” Tarduk said, shocked. “You’ll be killed!”

“I don’t think so,” Mata Nui said, already walking toward the eruption. “I think I was meant to go in there … or someone was.”

Ignoring the heat and the ominous rumbles coming from inside the mountain, Mata Nui began to climb the slope. He hacked at the rock with his sword, trying to make an entrance. To his surprise, the rock crumbled easily, to reveal smooth, polished metal underneath. He struck at the gleaming metal, but his sword bounced off without leaving so much as a scratch. Even more determined now, Mata Nui continued to chip away at the rock.

After several minutes, he had uncovered what appeared to be a hatch. Grasping the handle and pulling with all his strength, he was able to force it open just wide enough for him to slip inside. Warning Tarduk again to stay put, Mata Nui went into the volcano. Mata Nui knew what the inside of a real volcano looked like. He had seen his share on hundreds of worlds, some of which made Bara Magna seem like a little corner of paradise. They looked nothing like what he was seeing now. The inside of the “mountain” was a mass of pipes, conduits, and wires, all vibrating from a low hum that filled the entire structure. It was so crowded that it took an effort for him to even move ahead. The pipes were hot, no doubt from pumping the “lava” toward the top of the edifice, where it could be disposed of. Efficient and deceptive, he thought, two hallmarks of the Great Beings’ work. Forcing his way through a nest of cables, he found himself in a small, open area. The first thing he noticed were plans on the wall for a giant robot, the same plans he had earlier seen in a cavern near the village of Tajun. Mata Nui smiled. He had been right. There were answers to be found here, for there was a connection between here and the construction of his original body. Next to the plans was a blank screen. Mata Nui reached out and brushed his fingertips against it and it flared to life. A series of images flashed by at mind-numbing speed: schematics, calculations, notes, details of design and construction. It all went so quickly it was impossible to consciously focus on any one thing, yet Mata Nui could feel the knowledge flowing into his mind just the same. It was overwhelming and painful, but he endured. This is what he had come here for – this was his origin story. He saw it all now. The early experiment that had failed, the one that resulted in robot pieces scattered all over the Bara Magna desert; the discovery of protodermis, an artificial substance that could exist in multiple forms, the key to the creation of his original body and the nanotech that dwelled within it; and more, he saw why he had been created and for what purpose.

A conflict raged, a Core War over a substance Mata Nui recognized as energized protodermis. Even the Great Beings were not sure of its properties, but the silvery liquid transformed or destroyed whatever it touched. It was flowing up from inside the planet and the various tribes all wanted to claim it. But tapping the power of the volatile substance would result, the Great Beings discovered, in the destruction of the world. When their efforts to end the war failed, they built a giant robot they called Mata Nui. His purpose: to leave the planet before it shattered and travel the universe, gaining the knowledge to prevent such a terrible war from happening again.

After 100,000 years, the pieces of Spherus Magna would be stable enough to be brought together once more. And that was why Mata Nui truly existed – his mission was to undo the errors of his creators and to heal the world. That’s it! That’s what I’m supposed to do, he exulted. My destiny is to recreate Spherus Magna as it was before the Shattering … to make the three pieces of the planet one again. Now it all became clear to him. He had been on his way back from his exploration of the universe, heading for Bara Magna, when he was attacked from within by the evil Makuta. Rendered unconscious, he crashed into the ocean of Aqua Magna. The impact had temporarily damaged the memory core of the robot, causing him to forget his mission. Even when he was reawakened by a band of heroes called Toa, he had been without purpose. Before he could initiate self-repair and retrieve the knowledge he needed, Makuta had seized control of the robot and exiled Mata Nui’s consciousness into space. By chance or design, he had ended up on Bara Magna, his original destination. He was armed with the knowledge he needed at last, but staggered by its implications as well. To achieve his mission, he needed his original body, or something close to it. More, the task of reconstructing the planet required the power of not one, but two robots. There was supposed to be a second one, he realized. The Great Beings were supposed to build another Mata Nui! But they never did … maybe the planet’s end came too fast, or maybe they were killed. And … I can’t do my mission alone. I can’t do what I was created to do. Mata Nui sank to the floor. For the first time in his existence, he felt truly defeated. The hope he had held onto, even through his exile, was extinguished. Even if he got his old body back, he couldn’t –

“What’s the matter?” He turned at the sound. It was Tarduk, who had followed him in despite Mata Nui’s orders. Being smaller and more agile, the Agori had had no trouble navigating through the jungle of iron and wires. Seeing no reason to keep it secret, Mata Nui laid out what he had learned. Tarduk listened intently. When the tale was done, the Agori walked over and pointed up to the plans. “I don’t know what you can do about your old, um, body,” he said. “But from what you said, you already have a second one. It’s lying in the Bara Magna desert, isn’t it?”

Mata Nui nodded. “Yes, but it’s been dead for well over 100,000 years. It has no power, and even when it was active, it was unstable.”

Tarduk frowned. “Not sure about stability, but as for power… what does this remind you of?”

Mata Nui looked around. Of course. He had been so caught up in learning about his past, and then the overwhelming odds against achieving his mission, that he never realized. The “volcano” was a power plant. “The plans,” he said, rising. “That’s what was created here – the power source for my body! And if they planned to build a second robot --”

“Then there might be a second power source,” finished Tarduk. “It’s worth searching for, right?”