The diamond is a classic brilliant cut, and it’s not hard to see why. Its ghostly blue-white light is bright, but not blinding. “I’m here, Your Majesty.” “Welcome, dear Ælura.” I bring the gem into my hands, probably being the first flesh and blood being to look at or touch it in the longest time. “I have it now, Your Majesty. Where should I go from here?” “Good, my child. Now you will journey north to another forest and find rest in a cave there.” “Where are my parents, Your Majesty?” “They are on the other side of the planet. I will guide you to them over the shortest path.” “How will I know which way is north here?” “Just listen to my words, child. I and those who escaped have been dwelling here for a very long time. Besides, you’ll get quite cold soon.” “To the tune of 200,000 years and -40 degrees Fahrenheit, Your Majesty?” “I see you’ve been taught some of the history of our people and yes, I’m taking you through the Arctic to get you there the fastest.” “I thought I was taking you, Your Majesty.” “I see you’ve got my daughter’s sense of humor, but yes, the diamond you’re holding in your hands is the point where the realms of the Physical and the Deathless intersect.” “Was it created by the old gods, Your Majesty?” “Even the old gods could not have created something so perfect, so pure, that no evil could touch what lies inside.” “Like Heaven on Earth for 12 million years?” “Pretty much.” “What do you know of the old goddess Tximista-Gudari, the Cat-Queen of Warriors, daughter of Alÿran-Jakinduria?” “I know from my youth that I was rumored to be a reincarnation of her, but I’ve always kept an air of humility about myself in spite of my imperial status.” “Really? They believed you were the Cat-Queen of Warriors reborn?” “Many of the people believed this, as there were signs in the natural world in the year preceding my birth.” “I was born on the night of a storm, too, Your Majesty. In fact, a sword fell from the sky and stuck in the ground on my family’s land at the moment I first met dry air. A special rose bush still grows where it fell, allowing me to cast boons of protection.” “I had a rose bush just like yours, my child. Sadly, it was destroyed during the Doom, the day our nation faded from your world. After the Darkness retreated from the Earth, driven away by the light of the Star of Elysium, I hurled my sword into the sky, hoping that someday, someone would be next to inherit the power of Tximista-Gudari and would claim the power that was once mine, the power to fight the Darkness, the power to save the worlds of humanity.” “What, worlds? You mean there are humans on other planets, Your Majesty?” “Of course, child. Surely, your Sentinel told you that we colonized all over the galaxy. Every time there got to be too many people on Earth, some would take a ship to another land, but only to those who had no native populations of their own. Nearly two dozen worlds were settled by our people.” “Wow, Your Majesty. People must have been busy if Earth was being overpopulated that frequently, at least, as it is, seeing it took place over almost 12 million years.” “That’s what my daughter used to say when we were together, before she swore her oath of guardianship over the planet.” “Do you miss her, Your Majesty?” “Sometimes I wish she was still here with us, my Aurora, but she was so attached to our old world that she was not willing to leave the mortals behind for long, even though the Darkness was so greatly weakened by our battle.” “It must have been a terrible day, but it may have only been a taste of the terror unleashed by the corruption of Alÿran-Jakinduria.” “I see your Sentinel told you the tale of the old gods, how the Universe was born, their relations, and the corruption of the Mother Queen into a nameless, faceless, formless force of chaos and emptiness. That the stars, the children of Grabit-Astun and Izarra-Hautsa, were so traumatized by the events that followed that for them to speak one word of it they feared would extinguish the fire of their hearts. We do not know the name of Alÿran-Jakinduria’s corrupted self, for we never learned it, nor do we speak the name of the Dark Queen, unless one is plenty far away from any who serve that evil.”
Back on the farm, Lyral is doing research in the basement temple, digging through her dusty old tomes for anything pertaining to the plant life and medicinal substances of the Elder Days, specifically the silver paste made by Lindsay before she left. She studies the residue left in the diamond bowl, taking a sample and performing several tests on it, comparing it to known Immortal medicines in her books. Try as she might, she cannot find any references to the silver apple flower paste. “For the life of me, I can’t find this recipe anywhere. It must have been a family specialty to whichever Immortal House once owned this hidden temple 200,000 years ago, a family whose name and station has since been forgotten.”
Athena is in the Forest with her mate Patience, looking for the dark spirits the obelisk spoke of: Athena searching from the air, and Patience searching on the Forest floor. Then, Patience is startled by a dark figure that darts through the undergrowth just behind him, bumping a tree hard, causing a shower of leaves and twigs that coat his shell like confetti. He turns to inspect the base of the tree in question to see a huge dent in it, with a dark residue spreading out from the center of the divot, cold and menacing like black ice, but seemingly alive. “Athena! Come down.” “Has something happened, my love?” “See for yourself, Minerva.” Athena descends from the air to where Patience sits by the tree in question. “Look at this. I was startled by something hitting this tree, leaving a dent and this residue. It hit the tree pretty hard and shook a bunch of leaves down. Can you heal it?” “I’ll try.” Athena takes her true form. Kneeling beside the stricken tree, she attempts to heal it but is disrupted by a dark, formless being knocking her on her back. Back on her feet, she looks around for it. She then finds it again straight ahead and lunges towards it. A struggle ensues as the goddess and the dark spirit tangle for mastery over the forest, the fight ending with the goddess being flung backwards into the injured tree, doing further damage to it. Patience raises a force field around them, allowing Athena to finish healing the injured tree, but not without having to struggle with a band of dark spirits having heard the fight and been rallied by their comrade. His bubble is forced outward and pushed back, back-and-forth. As Athena finishes her incantation, his bubble pushes the demons back and away, cleaning the residue from the tree and healing it.
Meanwhile, I am flying over the water. “Is there any intelligent life on this planet, Your Majesty?” “There is, my dear Ælura. You will meet her and her people soon enough.” “Who are the indigenous people people here?” “They are one of the oldest non-divine species of life in the Universe.” “Do they look like us, humans?” “What they look like depends on who’s looking at them.” “Shapeshifters, Your Majesty?” “Of sorts. They can take on the form of whatever species they are interacting with.” “Are they immortal, like us, Your Majesty?” “Yes, they are the immortal quartz tree spirits, the first sentient species to arise on the first planet.” Looking down, I see sessile structures in the water now, glowing from within in various colors, like reefs but made from stained glass. “What are those things in the water, Your Majesty?” “They are the glass reefs, similar to the quartz tree spirits, but not nearly as advanced.” “How did life arise on this planet, Your Majesty?” “Billions of years ago, the old gods completed this, the first planet, and Percec-Ikasi, the old god of sentience, took his golden staff and struck a vein of quartz causing two crystals to break off of it: one was stunning with many colors like rose, amethyst, clear, milky, and smoky quartz, and the other was equally beautiful, with dramatic black and white coloration.” “What were their names, Your Majesty?” “I’m getting there, Ælura. Percec took the two sister crystals and digging with his staff, he buried them in the ground and after he recovered them, the old goddess Tximista-Gudari struck their burial places with a mighty bolt to put life in them. Over many thousands of years, two trees grew from the buried quartz crystals. Upon reaching maturity, they were given names by the old goddess Alÿran-Jakinduria: the colorful one was named Ænahïta and the black-and-white tree’s name has long since been forgotten, either from neglect or from its utterance being long ago forbidden, likely for the same reason that the names of the Empty One and the Dark Queen were silenced, for speaking them would bring no good.” “Is Ænahïta the leader of the quartz tree spirits, Your Majesty?” “Indeed she is the Enlightened Queen of all the quartz tree spirits, and just as the Darkness is Queen and Mother of the dark spirits, Ænahïta gave birth to every tree spirit on this planet. Ænahïta was born with the gift of eternal fertility while her twin sister was born sterile, for she was to be a powerful warrior spirit to protect the tree spirits from what Alÿran-Jakinduria would one day become. However, she was unhappy with her lot and growing ever more jealous of the Queen, she went off alone and- “”No more, Your Majesty!” “Who was that, Your Majesty?” “It seems she doesn’t want us to discuss it any further, Ælura.” “Was that Queen Ænahïta, Your Majesty?”
Wednesday: 06/19/2030: Back in Montpelier, Buck, Silo, and Kyle show up at the house to continue helping with repairs. The door opens to them. “Well.” “Let’s get started. Where’s Amy?” “She’s probably off fighting dark spirits.” “Well, Mom and Binky have finally calmed down from the disappearance of Billy, but are shaken anew by the dark spirits.” Kyle goes into the sunroom and finds a note saying that Lindsay, TJ, Sally, and Roger are in ‘a galaxy far, far away’. “Looks like someone’s on a Star Wars tear.” “What?” “Dad, look at this.” Kyle hands Buck and Silo the note. “In a galaxy far, far away (Lindsay, TJ, Sally, and Roger). Off fighting the demons (Al and Amy).” “Well, we could keep on with the bedroom repairs.” They go up to the third floor and continue with the holes in the attic and bedroom ceilings. “It’s weird.” “What’s weird, Kyle?” “That only those who were stung by the dark trees or other corrupted plants were abducted.” “Well, surely Grandma and Lyral are working on a cure.” “I just have this feeling that the one that stung Billy won’t be the last one to show up.” “Well, now that the Sheriff’s Office has released the image of the one that we had, people should know to look out for and stay away from them.”
Meanwhile, Ida is walking in the forest in the direction of the hidden temple, wearing the Wanderer’s Mask. Just as Lyral was guided there by birds, the birds are guiding her towards the temple as well. She comes upon the obelisk and bridge. She is then overwhelmed by a sense of sadness and agedness. “You are so very old, aren’t you? Older than all mortal civilization, older than almost any person alive today.” Ida is surprised to then see a swan flying overhead, even though there are no large bodies of water nearby. The bird disappears into the distance and honks loudly. “A swan. These are strange signs.” She walks around the temple grounds and finds the crystal bowl with the silver residue. She dips her fingers in it and licks them, and she immediately feels invigorated, as though she were a young woman again even though she was in her late seventies. Her joints certainly felt again as though they were 20. Suddenly filled with energy, she jogs back to the house. She enters through the back door and runs upstairs where her son and grandsons are. “Bradley!” “What is it, Mom?” “You have got to see this. This hidden temple in the woods that Amy told me about the other day.” “Have you been running, Grandma?” “Yeah. I feel like a girl again.” “You ok, Mom?” “Come with me, Bradley.” “Mom, we’re busy trying to fix these holes.” “Oh, fine. I guess I’ll show Binky.” Ida jogs back to their house and enters through the kitchen. “Binky! I got something to show ya!” Nothing. “Binky, is everything ok?” She walks into their living room, the TV and entertainment system still a wreck. Then, she sees what looks like a man running off into the woods from the living room window, which he left open. “Binky!” She smells a strange magic, such as she has only felt in the days when her second son returned from a long absence and she finds Binky hiding in a closet holding a rifle. “Binky, are you all right?” “I thought he came back.” “Who?” “Him! Bradley’s-brother-who-shall-not-be-named!” “Right, him. I must go after him.” “No! He got away! There is something unnatural about him! An unholy power gives speed to his purposes!” “He may be my second son. Let me deal with him.” The two women walk around the house, looking to see if anything was taken by the interloper, the suspected second son of John and Ida Crawford who is not named. “Alright, I haven’t found anything to be missing.” “Then why would he come here if not to mess with our family?” “I found something in the woods, Binky.” “What? Another dark tree?” “No, nothing evil. The other day, Amy mentioned a hidden temple in the woods and just today, I found it. I also saw a swan flying overhead and I felt a spirit, so old and sad as to predate modern civilization. I found a bowl with this residue in it. I licked it and now my body feels over fifty years younger.” “This is shaping up to be the craziest summer of my life.” “Crazier than y’all’s wedding? Crazier than y’all’s honeymoon vacation to Hawaii where y’all’s return flight was delayed by volcanic shenanigans?” “Yeah, those were crazy but at least they didn’t involve aliens or evil spirits, or anything like that. It was normal crazy, but this,” Binky makes emphatic hand motions, “is something else entirely.”
On the beautiful planet, in the crystal forest, Arctic Fox and FireFly are walking towards each other and after what feels like hours, they find each other and embrace, her frost spreading over his lava-like armor and his warmth melting the top layer of frost from her armor. “It must have been many days that we’ve been here. Is Lindsay heading towards us?” “I think so. The Empress is guiding her over the north pole region along a great circle.” “Indeed she is.” “Who was that?” “Come forward, Children of the Land of Carbon.” They turn towards this light, a great tree of many forms of quartz, her trunk made of milky and smoky quartz, her leaves made of amethyst, her flowers made of rose quartz, and her whole self covered in knots of clear quartz. Other, smaller trees surrounding the great one then send out crystalline ‘blobs’ that bud off of their trunks and take humanoid shapes. “Hail Ænahïta Silica, All-Mother of the Trees, Queen of the Enlightened, Beloved of the Goddess Alÿran-Jakinduria.” Then, the great tree, presumably Ænahïta, sends out its own blob which takes the form of a beautiful woman with a smoky quartz ‘body’, a white, milky quartz ‘robe’, amethyst ‘hair’, pink eyes, and a crown and staff of clear quartz. “Your daughter is fast approaching this forest. The Great Empress, the first re-embodiment of the Cat-Queen of Warriors is guiding her along a great circle through the North.” They kneel before the Tree Queen. “Your Majesty.” “Welcome, Immortals of the distant Earth. Signs of your kind’s arrival have not been missed.” “How long have these signs lingered, Your Majesty?” “Only a few of your weeks. A message from some stars in a distant Galaxy sent to the Empress warned of the recent awakening of the last remnant of the Horror that once ravaged Creation and which the old gods diminished themselves to defeat.” “You mean you’re billions of years old, Your Majesty?” “Yes, I was created when the Universe was young, but I was not created alone. I had a twin sister, but she is lost to us, and her name is no longer spoken aloud, lest a great evil be drawn hither.” The Queen walks towards the shore of a lake. The water is fairly still, reflecting like a mirror the light of the nebula, the stars, and the ring of light, but then she stirs the water with her staff, bringing up an image of Lindsay, flying north and holding the diamond in her hands. “I can’t wait until she reaches us.” “At her altitude, she will take at least another day to reach us.” “Shouldn’t we go to her, then?” “Let her come here. Then, when she arrives, I have something to show to the three of you.” The image in the lake disappears and it goes back to reflecting the night sky. “I imagine you and your people don’t get many visitors, Your Majesty.” “You are correct, my child. In fact, I and many of my children have not left our rooted bodies since the day your ancestors arrived here after the Doom of your home world. We communicate mainly with thought between our roots, stretching over land and under sea. Not since the sand people went extinct was this world so outwardly active.” “Sand people?” “I’ll tell you later when your daughter gets here.” “How long ago was that, Your Majesty?” “Millions of years ago, I don’t know exactly when. Think about that the next time you feel old. They dwelt in the desert and built great cities and were a very advanced culture. No one knows what really happened to them. One day, they were thriving, and the next day, they just disappeared without any explanation. I myself went into the ruins of their city and they were just gone. My children and I provided them with energy, harvested from our sun, for several billion years and in turn they gave us some of their technology, much of which has long since crumbled away.” Ænahïta turns away from the lake and walks back towards her body. “You both must be so hungry, having been sundered from your home world.” “Now that Your Majesty mentions it, we are starving. I suppose we’ve just been so worried about our kids and everything that we haven’t had time to feel hungry or thirsty lately.” “Well then, I suppose I should feed you two wanderers. My children.” The lesser tree spirits bring fruit to Arctic Fox and FireFly. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” “Enjoy.” Ænahïta returns to her body, her throne that is rooted in the sandy soil, reaching almost as tall as the family’s house back home, the pink sunlight illuminating her rose quartz flowers like fire.
After being out cold for over three days, TJ, in his true form, wakes up in the forest of eerie green glowing deformed trees under the red-gray overcast sky. “Where am I? How long have I been sleeping out here?” He looks at his surroundings and is on the verge of a panic attack. It’s so dark, yet it isn’t freezing cold as one would expect from the lack of sunlight. Sunlight. After nearly freaking out over the reality of his situation, he calms down. “There’s no place on Earth with plants or weather like this.” He then began to realize that he may not be on Earth at all, but on another planet. He takes his animal form and notices the dark towers atop the nearby mountains with dark figures darting in between them like birds or bats speeding between nests. They must have been going pretty fast since those mountaintops were likely miles away from each other, but at those speeds, they should have triggered something like a sonic boom, but they were eerily silent, like ghosts in the night. Having decided to investigate, he trots in the direction of the mountains and their dark towers.
Billy, also having been asleep for over three days, finally wakes up from his coma. He stretches and takes note of his surroundings. He feels the softness of the fur-lined bed and almost feels like laying back down, but he stands up. He notes the room is lit with several torches, but their flames are not right. Rather than being warm in color, they were varying shades of grayscale, from being white as snow to black as the void of space, as if he was placed into a black-and-white movie. They were warm in temperature nonetheless and that’s when he notices the food left out on the table across from the bed. “Steak? Chicken?” Billy’s stomach growls. “Why not?” He takes a bite of the meat and having not eaten for over three days, he scarfs it all down before he realizes that he is likely no longer on Earth. “Am I dead? Is this the world of spirits?” Having eaten his fill, he walks over to the window and is shocked to find that it’s a long way down, and that’s just to where the tower protrudes from the mountaintop. “This is not Earth.” Just then, a note floats in through the window. Bending down, he picks it up. It reads: “Did you enjoy your supper, Billy?” “Who are you? What’s this about? What planet is this?” No answer.
As TJ is emerging from the forest and ascending the slope of one of the mountains protruding a dark tower, he calls out. “Lindsay?! Mom?! Dad?! Billy?! Where are all of you?!” That’s when he is attacked by dark figures, likely the same that he saw darting between the towers, and they, in spite of him struggling, manage to pick him up and fly him deep into the mountain range, dropping him into a specific tower where he lands awkwardly among various other people, who also seem to have been abducted for an as yet unknown purpose.
“So what you’re saying, Your Majesty, is that the reason that the first incarnation of Homo sapiens became immortal was from the Sun’s grief over the ‘death’ of Izarra-Hautsa, the Smith-Queen of Stars, their mother?” “Yes. And it is no surprise that humanity honors them now as then. Sol made a wish to the Divine that there be a way to resurrect the power of the Æther so they would not feel without guidance. They were witness to the tail-end of the Horror and the old gods’ last battle with the Empty One, where with the last of their sentience, the Æther smote the Empty One in her heart-void and shattered her to oblivion, and also undid much of the damage done to Creation in the Horror. Izarra-Hautsa’s final words were for the stars she birthed during the battle for the purpose of weakening evil, mainly our Sun, telling them to preserve her memory for all the celestial children she would birth thereafter.” “And the Sun is non-binary for more than just lacking a companion star, Your Majesty?” “I knew you must be related to my daughter, dear Ælura. The other stars joke that their name is Sol as in ‘solitary’ and the Sun still never hears the end of it.” “They must be so over it by now, Your Majesty.” “Yes, they are quite annoyed by it. In fact, they were only starting to ignore the joke around the time I was born.” “What about the other stars, Your Majesty? How did they deal with the end of the Age of the Æther?” “When we first evolved, absorbed the star water, and became immortal, their spirits came down to us from their celestial bodies and taught us what they were willing to reveal about the past, about the old gods, their relations and their demise. They showed us many other secrets: how to find habitable planets outside our solar system, how to build ships capable of getting us to those places to colonize whenever Earth became too crowded, and how to combat the remnant servants of the Horror.” “You said something last night about a cave on the northern shore of this sea, didn’t you, Your Majesty?” “I did, child. We should be coming up on it now.” In the distance, I see the northern shore of the sea and just a few dozen meters from the beach, I see a great cave, white like it was made of marble and as wide as my house is tall. Just above the shoreline, I land on the ground and just barely make it into the cave before I collapse from exhaustion from levitating for so long. “Have another apple, dear. You’ll need it tomorrow. Goodnight.” “Goodnight, Your Majesty.” The diamond goes silent and I take an apple from my bag and eat it almost whole to the core. After eating, I take a large, thick, silver blanket from within my amulet and wrap it around myself and then I lay down on the sandy floor of the cave on my right side, my face facing the cave entrance. I hold the Star of Elysium in my hands and pull the blanket over my head, drifting off into a well-deserved sleep.
Previous Episode: The Bridge of Light.
Next Episode: Written in the Stars.
