Tuesday: 06/18/2030: I look around the temple complex at all the diamonds as they shine with the light of the water in the font. I then notice a white stone bridge, probably marble, veined with gold and silver, crossing a clear stream whose source is the great font of star water. Running my finger through the water, it shines with a pale, blue-white light when it’s disturbed. “Here you will prepare.” “What?” The voice came from the obelisk. “Prepare what? What must I do next?” “Take the crystal bowl and phial from the altar near the bridge.” I pick up the crystal bowl, carved seemingly from a single large diamond and bring it to the obelisk. “Next, take all the silver petals from the tree and crush them to powder in the bowl.” I take my sack out, and after gathering up all the silver petals, I take a great handful of them, and with my strength, I crush them to a fine powder. I do this until all the petals are pulverized in the bowl. It looks like there is one cup measure of the silver powder. “Then, take half a cup of water from the font and mix it with the crushed petals in the bowl.” I take a half-cup blob of water from the font and slowly mix it with the crushed petals, creating a glowing silvery paste in the bowl. “Now, pour the paste into the phial, and carry it with you.” I pour the glowing paste into the phial and stash it in my bag. I look over towards one of the pillars. It holds a bejeweled sconce containing various items like gems, metals, and other stones. Rifling through the contents, I find a fulgurite carved into the shape of a cat. I pick it up and tie it around my waist with the long leather string. Gathering my resources in my bag, I turn towards the marble bridge and a membrane of gossamer-thin, glowing white tissue hangs over the entrance to the gazebo beyond the two willow trees at the crest of the bridge. I ascend the bridge and peek through the membrane, seeing the stars rush past, then many galaxies, galaxy clusters, and then superclusters, to a very old galaxy on the edge of the observable universe. It zooms in on one red dwarf near the galactic center, and then a pale pinkish planet with shimmering rings around it. “Come through the curtain, Ælura Fulmena. Cross the Bridge of Light.” Taking a big breath, I step through the tissue-y membrane, and my journey continues.
On the other side, I find myself walking in six inches of comfortable, warm water covering a vast plain seemingly made of marble or some other kind of sea mineral. I look around for dry land and find a shore over towards where the ‘sun’ is rising above the horizon. I walk towards the shore and the ruddy sunrise and rest on the beach. “Where am I? What is this planet? Is this the oldest, fairest, and most perfect land in all Creation? The place where my parents and brother are?” I look over towards the trees and I notice that they’re made of various forms of quartz crystal rather than any known species of wood. Feeling hungry, I take an apple out of my bag and bite into it. No regrets. I have never tasted any fruit sweeter than this apple and I simply laid down under the trees as they sparkled in the morning light. “You are now in the oldest, fairest, and most perfect land in all Creation, Ælura Fulmena.” The voice is of the purple light from my dreams and then I realize that it is also the voice of the woman who spoke to me when my powers first emerged at age 4. “You are the purple light, aren’t you?” “I am indeed.” “Are you the last Empress of the Immortal Empire?” “I am.” “Are my loved ones here?” “Your mother and father are here, but not the others.” “Where are they, Your Majesty?” “Go into the lake, walk with the rising sun on your back and swim to the opposite shore. There, you will find traces of their movements.” “Thank you, Your Majesty.” I get up from my resting position on the forest floor and putting away my bag, I start into the water and in the direction the Empress instructed me to go. Thinking about the silver apple bloom paste in my bag, I ask: “What kind of apple tree grew in my room, Your Majesty? Something from the Elder Days?” “Yes, child. That is what all apple trees in the Milky Way looked like in my day. These were Imperial Apple Trees.” “The temple in the woods told me to make this paste out of the silver petals and star water. What is it for, Your Majesty?” “In plenty of time, you will soon see, child of the storm. I see you found the last temple from the Elder Days.” “I did, Your Majesty. But why? Why is this happening to me now?” “The Darkness is more than one being. She seeks something that will either free her from ages of torment or doom her to an eternity of it. Bring them home, Ælura Fulmena.” The Empress’ voice disappears. “Your Majesty!” No further response, only silence. I continue on in the direction of the evening horizon with the sun on my back. The water in the lake gradually deepens and eventually I must swim as I can no longer feel the bottom. After almost an hour, I feel the bottom again and I slowly reach the other shore, exhausted. I take another bite of my apple. “Where are you, Your Majesty?” “I will eventually come to you, my child.”
Back home in the basement, Lyral wakes up and rubs the sleep out of her icy blue eyes. Seeing only the cats in the sleeping bag, she gets up and wakes up Xena. “Where is Lindsay? Is she in the bathroom?” “Meow.” “All right, very funny, little warrior princess. Where is the family’s firstborn?” “What’s going on, Lyral?” “Yeah, what’s wrong?” “The cats are quite mum about where Lindsay is.” “She wasn’t taken by the Darkness, Lyral. That much is certain.” “Oh, I see. Did she sneak out, my little prosperous one?” “No. She went to find them.” “And you allowed her to go?!” “It wasn’t that we didn’t try to convince her to reconsider, but you know 12-year-olds.” “You don’t even know where she went, do you?” “Not exactly, but she mentioned that hidden temple in the woods, that in her dream, Roger and Sally told her to look for it if she wanted to find them. She also said that Billy, being mortal, would have no other way to get back home save the Darkness changing her mind and returning him herself.” Lyral marches upstairs and looking out the back door, she freaks. “Nuts!” “What?!” “Yesterday, I went to check out that obelisk she talked about, it changed before my very eyes! I then ran back to the house. She must have followed my snow trail to the temple!” Al and Amelia look at Lyral all bewildered. “We need to go there and if she’s still there, I’ll be relieved, and she’ll be grounded! How long, it depends!” They leave the house, following the snow trail to the secret temple. They don’t find her, but they find the obelisk, the circle, and sconce, the bowl, and the bridge as they were earlier in the night. “I don’t understand it, she must still be around here. Lindsay! Get over here!” Amelia notices the silver paste residue in the diamond bowl. “What’s this, Lyral?” She shows Lyral the evidence. The latter runs her finger through it and tasting it, is surprised. “What?” “I’ve heard of medicines like this, made with star water and a pulverized magical plant material, but I’ve never observed one. In fact, no one has since the Elder Days.” “What’s it for?” “I’m not sure. I think it’s the petals of an apple tree from the days of the Empire, but they were all destroyed by the Darkness during the Doom. This knowledge was passed to me and my sister 500 years ago by our mother at birth.” “What about her forest room?” “What about it?!” “I have a feeling that there might be something of note in there.” “Right.” The three of them go back to the house and into Lindsay’s Forest room where they find the magic apple tree with all blooms or fruit missing. Al finds the crystal flower and shows it to Lyral. “What’s this?” “She must have picked it up in the caves at the beach. You know her and TJ, always bringing plenty of goodies home.” “Well, I don’t know how this led to this,” she answered, pointing to the tree.
“Leaves of gold and silver blooms grace the apple trees.
The Sun glints through their boughs like flames, fanned as the wind breathes.
The flowers shine like the full moon, guardian of the night.
The fruit so sweet none can refuse, gift of the Divine.”
The crystal flower emits the song in response to Lyral’s query. The buds on the tree regenerate into silver flower buds. “Well, bless us. This must be our Imperial Apple Tree.”
Having regained my strength, likely from the apple, I look up at the pink sky and see the shining ring arcing across its breadth, reflecting the light of the red dwarf. Standing up, I walk on the beach, looking for the traces the Empress mentioned. Eventually, I find a pile of small ice crystals mixed with ashes from a fire. “Mom’s and Dad’s wings leave elemental trails when they fly. Mom? Dad? Where are you?” “Lindsay?” “Mom?!” “It’s ok, honey. I’m on this planet, too.” “Where are you? Where’s Dad?” “I’m not sure. He said something about a ruined city in the desert. I woke up near a river in either the arctic or antarctic of this planet.” “Have you met the last Empress of the Immortals? She guided me here.” “Maybe in my dream before I woke up on that riverbank.” “She says she’s coming to me.” “I remember hearing the story of the Doom from my family’s sentinel with your Aunt Connie when we were children, and your Grandma Selma heard the same stories as a child herself, in addition to meeting the Lady of Light when our powers manifested.” “Who is the Lady of Light?” “She is the leader of all Immortals in the physical world. Like the president, she executes the laws of our people, made by the Immortal Council and judged by the Immortal Curia.” “Just know that I am coming to find you and Dad. Then, we will find TJ and Billy and return home.” “Ok, baby. Talk to you later.” I walk through the crystal forest, looking for any indigenous animal or other sentient life on this otherwise quiet planet. The rings in the sky are almost as bright as the red dwarf sun, so bright that I cannot long look at them without burning my eyes. It begs me to wonder if my family being taken is part of some greater plan. If most of our ancestors escaped the Doom by entering this pocket dimension inside this diamond, is this where it ended up? This planet? Could it be hidden among the planet’s shining rings? How did it get here 200,000 years ago? Why leave the Galaxy? Was the reach of the Darkness so great that nowhere in the Milky Way was safe?
“Lyral?” “Al.” “Back at the hidden temple, I thought I saw something in between those willow trees, on that bridge leading to the gazebo, like an image.” “Me, too. You think that’s where she’s gone?” “Maybe. I think we should go through it. Find the kids, find the grandkids.” “Me, too.” The three of them transform and go back to the temple in the woods. “Take us to the other side, obelisk.” “Then who will defend the town from the dark spirits which have infested it?” “What dark spirits?” “The spirits who accompanied their Dark Queen in conjuring the storm that sundered your family, who overpowered you and Electra’s heir.” “So, we can’t go after my son, daughter-in-law, and their children?” “They will be fine, I hope. The dark spirits lurk around every corner and are especially dangerous at night. The mortals of this town need you three here.” “But we’re not as powerful as Lindsay.” The obelisk goes silent and the three turn back home. “How will we know where these dark spirits are? Where or when will they strike?” “Roger mentioned that ‘dead’ bramble bush. We should look for anything that looks unnatural or unseasonal, like free ice in the summer, etc.” “Very well, we’ll stay in town.” “I’ll go and check up on the Crawfords. See how they’re doing.” Grandma takes her barn owl form and flies over to the Crawfords’ house and is noticed by Ida. “Do you know where my little grandson is, Amy?” “We found an old temple hidden in the woods for 200,000 years. The force guarding it says that Lindsay went through it last night, looking for Roger, Sally, TJ, and Billy after she awakened it yesterday. It told us we must remain here to guard against the dark spirits it says conjured the storm with their mother.” “I have been seeing them, Amy. Dark spirits, indeed. Outside the windows, even inside the house.” “Show me, Ida.” Ida shows Athena the dark substance coating the family’s kitchen floor. “Is anyone hurt?” “No, just terrified of their own shadows.”
The kitchen door blows open and the dark substance flakes from the kitchen floor and blows outside with the wind. “Thanks, Amy.” “Just let us know if there are any more disturbances. It may not be the last.” Athena flies off over the town, searching for more dark spirits. Patience goes into the Forest and is speaking to various animals, asking if they have seen the dark spirits. Birds tell him they are terrified at night of they and their chicks being picked off, even the predators are scared.
Having found nothing in the crystal forest, I look up towards the sky, specifically at the ring. I see a streak of white fire and light soaring across the sky, falling from the shining ring. Before my eyes can adjust to the light, there is a mighty, thundering boom off in the distance as whatever had fallen from the ring, perhaps a big honking diamond, hits the ground. She said that she would come to me. Is the legendary diamond here? The diamond that represents the link between our world and theirs? Running out of the woods and back to the shore, I see a towering plume of luminous blue-white plasma rising up from the sea over the horizon, marking the place of its landing. Not feeling like swimming, I lift myself into the air and fly in the direction of the blue-white light, the previously calm water disturbed by the sudden impact. “Are you down here now, Your Majesty?” “Yes. We are all down from that ring now.” Who’s ‘we’? The Royal We? She is an Empress, after all. I hope that after all this traveling, that we can get back to our other summer plans, like the County Fair in early July, where all of Hanover shows off its food, fashion, and especially music. One thing that’s intrigued me is the fact that the Empress stated that the Darkness is seeking something that will either free her or doom her, like how the One Ring was a double-edged sword of sorts for Sauron. Is the Darkness a ‘Dark Lord’ of sorts for some faraway domain of evil? Is Mordor manifest in some lonely corner of Creation? Perhaps the whole ‘Dark Lord’ concept stemmed from the early teachings given to newly mortal humans, inspiring countless literary masterworks, to say the least of The Lord of the Rings. The only thing is, I cannot think what kind of object she is seeking other than it’s somewhere on my property. She was always demanding to know where ‘it’ is a couple weeks ago, whatever ‘it’ is. Maybe she and her servants conjured that storm for more than mere revenge, but perhaps in an attempt to reclaim whatever she was looking for. It seems like the boons I put on our properties must have frustrated her, keeping her from her quarry. I can only hope that she hasn’t found it. After flying and following the light for nearly an hour, I reach the place where this legendary diamond hovers above the water, beckoning me.
Previous Episode: Remnants.
Next Episode: Diamond in the Sky.
