Thursday: 06/20/2030: I awaken suddenly. Looking out of the cave, I see that the pink sun has not yet risen, but the rings yet glow in the sky, as does the glowing pink nebula. I sit up and still wrapped up in my blanket, I look down at the Star in my hands. “The Sun’s not up yet.” “Good morning, Ælura. They will be here soon.” “Who, Your Majesty?” “The ones you call the Sun, the Underarm of the Hunter, and the Mouth of the Southern Fish.” The Star goes silent again. “The Sun, the Underarm of the Hunter, and the Mouth of the Southern Fish.” Just then, the cave is filled with light. Red light, blue light, and gold light. “Good morning, Ælura. Hope you slept well.” I look up at the elderly red woman, the blue youth, and the middle-aged Sun. “Good morning. You must be Betelgeuse, Fomalhaut, and the Sun.” “Congratulations. You’re the first human to tell me ‘good morning’ directly since before the Doom. Since the Empress dwelt on Earth.” “It’s just weird. I know now that the stars are alive, I’ve just never had a conversation with any before, at least directly.” Betelguese, the elderly red giant, appears as a woman in red, with light and dark blotches on her body, like those on a star’s actual body, and her red hair is cut in what almost looks like a mohawk, but not quite. There are also reddish swirls on her skin. Fomalhaut, the young blue star, appears as a male in his early twenties with short blue hair and his lower half is a fish’s tail and his skin is patterned with blue swirls. Sol, the Sun, appears as a middle-aged, androgynous person with a gold and green raiment, long, curly gold hair, bright yellow eyes, and a gold pharaonic crown, for the link between the Sun and royalty. Their yellow-green skin has gold and a slight green swirl pattern, for the spectrum of the sun is mostly yellow-green light. Around their shoulders and upper chest is a collar reminiscent of ancient Egyptian royalty and their eyes are lined with kohl in the manner of ancient Egypt. “I suppose it was the stars who told the first immortals who were responsible for Alÿran-Jakinduria’s transformation into the nameless Empty One. How would they have found out otherwise?” “It was the only thing we were willing to tell them about the Horror. We didn’t even tell the other Æther that Percec-Ikasi was responsible, for we feared that would further destabilize Creation.” “Do you know what happened to Percec-Ikasi?” “We just know that the Divine punished him for his actions, but we don’t know how he was punished.” “It was so horrible. I was among the last stars to be birthed by Izarra-Hautsa before she lost her sentience. I was born during the Æthers’ last battle with the Empty One, who is not named, and I remember the Horror, just the tail-end. I witnessed my ethereal mother’s ‘death’ as she became lifeless, two nuclear forces. I, in my grief, begged the Divine to give us stars a way to resurrect the power of the old gods, so They fulfilled my wish by allowing us to infuse the water on the infant Earth with our light, with myself contributing much to that end. For that reason, the first Immortals, when they evolved over 12 million years ago and learned what happened, they honored me and still honor me for the gift they received.” “What do the stars know of the Dark Queen, the Mother of Shadows, the dark mist?” Betelgeuse pipes up. “Ever since the Doom, I swore that I would oppose the Darkness wherever she went, even if I went supernova before the end, I would fight her and her servants. Whenever she awoke, we would harass her, distract her, waste her time, etc. Even Sol would get in on the fun.” “Why did the stars not intervene when the Darkness made the curse on the Immortal Nation, or even when she separated me from my family?” Fomalhaut answers. “Long ago, when the Immortal Nation first arose, we made a promise not to become too involved in their affairs, lest we feel tempted to rule over them. We were trying to deal with Other servants of the Empty One, those we will also not name lest they be drawn hither, to the ruin of the fairest land in Creation.”
The house in Montpelier is filled with the smell of cooking scrambled eggs as Lyral brings Al and Amy their breakfast. “Thanks, Lyral. What did you learn about that silver paste?” Putting her drink down on the table quickly, she replied: “I looked through every single book on Immortal medicine I own, and there was absolutely no information on this stuff. I concluded that it must be a family specialty, which family came up with it, no idea.” “Think it might have been the same family that owned the forest temple?” “Likely. That’s where the bowl with the residue was found.” “I got a message from Ida last night about how she feels over fifty years younger after licking some of it from the bowl.” “She ate some of it? Why would she do that?” “Don’t know. She must have some reason for doing it.” “Either way, we should go out and look for more of these little demons.” “Right.” The elders change their forms and leave the house for the Crawfords.
Following reports of a disturbance tearing up a man’s tool shed, Athena goes there and finds the man huddled in his house with a gun, ready to shoot it if it comes near. “It sounds like some kind of bird creature, but far bigger and meaner, by the sounds of it.” The shed erupts with a deafening shriek and the shed door flies off violently and hits the side of the man’s house, leaving him all rattled. “Well, then. I’ll deal with the creature. Just stay inside.” Athena approaches the shed, summoning a light breeze to flow through the small outbuilding. “You! Come out of there! In the name of the Ancestors, you will obey!” Only a loud clattering of tools and other objects is offered in reply, followed by a chattering noise. Athena enters the shed and after a brawl involving the shed being blown apart, the creature attempts to flee, revealing itself to be a bird in form, a cassowary-like creature that is nearly eight feet tall at the shoulder. As soon as it enters the light of day, it writhes and shrieks, eventually dissolving into smoke. Athena emerges from the remains of the shed, covered in cuts and scrapes and a blue-black residue from the creature. The man emerges from his house, shaking nervously. “Is that spawn of the devil gone?” “Yeah. It’s gone now. It looks like the sunlight killed it.” He looks at her, his eyes widening upon seeing the state of the goddess. “Should I expect more of these gosh-darned things to show up?” “I don’t know, sir. I can cast protective spells.” Athena helps rebuild the man’s shed and places a boon on his land to prevent the creatures from returning.
After hearing of a loud growling noise coming from the attic of a nearby restaurant, Patience finds the employees and patrons milling around outside the building. “Has anyone seen it?” “No, but it sounds like a dog growling or a bear or something.” “All right. Let’s have you.” Patience goes inside the building and into the attic and after the sounds of bumping, grunting, and screeching are heard, a dark, wolf-like creature is hurled out of a vent and into the nearby street where it quickly dissolves in the hot sun. The shelled god quickly casts a spell to protect the restaurant and leaves.
Lyral, after hearing of a local farm being contaminated with a strange blue-black substance, takes the form of Arctic Fox, and smites the anomaly, a fungus-like growth infesting the crops. The owners asked her if this would be the end of it and she replied that with a protection spell, their farm would not be disturbed again.
The five Crawfords arrive in the driveway and enter the house. “So, he broke in?” “The living room window was left open, but nothing was taken. I smelled a new magic. It was unclean, but not quite the same as the magic of the dark spirits. It was also not of this world.” “Get Lyral to do something so that my brother can’t get into the house again. Are you sure nothing was taken or moved, Mom?” “I’m sure, son.” Ida and Binky get to work on the kitchen cabinets, spraying fungicide and pounding new nails into the wood. The boys are outside at the outbuilding where the combine and other machines are housed. Buck and Silo are putting up new drywall for the wall that was torn off during the storm while Kyle is super-gluing wood planks and boards together for the pieces his father and brother are putting up. As he is almost finished with the last piece of the wall, he has a strange feeling that he is being watched. Looking up from his work, he sees a figure at the edge of the forest that looks like his little brother Billy. Confused, he calls out: “Billy? Is that you?” The figure does not respond. Kyle looks back down at his work and looking forward again, he sees the entity standing only ten feet in front of him. It looks just like Billy, rather something’s not right about him. He’s not in normal color, but he looks like a person in a black-and-white film, and it seems like the background around him was in black-and-white as well, like an aura that’s draining the color from its environment. But the most horrifying thing about it is its eyes: black voids like the night sky without starlight, like the vacuum of space in the voids between galaxy clusters. Though they are colorless, they nonetheless bore right through the boy’s mind. Kyle stands still and motionless, enthralled by the creature’s unholy gaze. Buck and Silo look at Kyle. “Hey. We need the last piece.” Nothing. “Kyle? What’s the hold-up? You ok?” Kyle then abruptly passes out and collapses onto the ground. Buck and Silo descend their ladder and rush Kyle back to the house. Kyle wakes up again once they’re inside. “It looked just like Billy, but he was all black-and-white and he had completely black eyes, like one of those Black-Eyed Kids from the urban legend.” “So, it wasn’t really your brother?” “No. It couldn’t be.” “And it’s too much of a coincidence for it to be heatstroke or sunstroke.” “When they get home, we must tell them about it.” “Agreed.” The boys break for ice cream to cool down and the women start work on the dining room cabinets. “So, it looks like the boys fixed up the torn wall on the outbuilding when Kyle fainted.” “Black-Eyed Kids?” “Maybe there’s some basis for the urban legend. Maybe some of the dark spirits take this form to terrorize people.” Ida gets the same weird feeling that Kyle got at the outbuilding. “Ida?” Binky screams. At the window is the BEK version of Billy, staring at Ida and Binky. Drawn by the scream, the boys run to the dining room, and that’s when Ida’s hammer flies out of her grip and hits the cut glass chandelier, sending dozens of crystals flying around the room. “There it is!” The dark spirit departed, letting out a loud, deranged cackling as it flew back into the forest. The silver bell outside the back door rings, signaling Lyral’s return. “Lyral!” Binky runs downstairs. “Lyral!” “What’s going on?!” “We saw a grayscale BEK of Billy!” “What?” Lyral’s face has a look of confusion and Kyle runs up to them. “We were working on the outbuilding for a while, and I saw something on the edge of the woods. It looked like Billy and then when it got closer, it was all black-and-white and it had completely black eyes. Then, I fainted. It was horrible.” “Then it was up in the dining room window?” “Yeah! And then my hammer flew up and hit the chandelier!” Lyral goes up to the dining room and sees the dozens of cut-glass crystals scattered about the table, chairs, and the floor and Binky’s hammer still hanging in the perturbed remains of the chandelier, still swinging around from side-to-side from the impact. Lyral reaches up and gets the hammer down and stills the chandelier’s motion. “Come down into the temple. I feel none of you are safe anywhere else.” They follow her down and make themselves at home just as Al and Amy are returning. “What happened today?” “Do you believe in BEKs?” “No. Why?” “Because we just saw one of Billy today.”
In the Quartz Forest of the beautiful planet, Fox and Fly are surrounded by the lesser tree spirits, all of them looking like older teenagers wearing various colors. “How far away is the planet Earth?” “Are all of your kind immortal?” “How did you all reach our world?” “Are your trees made of crystal like us?” “Earth is billions of light-years away.” “Most of our kind are mortal, I suppose, like the sand people.” “There was a tornado and then we woke up in your world.” “Our trees are made of something called wood, specifically lignin.” The tree spirits hang on the two humans’ every word, listening intently. “How old are you, then?” “We don’t know. We just know that we’re very young relative to the Queen. How old are you?” “We’re between the ages of 30 and 40 years.” The spirits’ eyes widened in shock. “Then, that means you’re very, very, very young!” “You’re only like a seedling!” “How often does the Queen give birth?” “Only once every galactic year does the Enlightened Queen spawn. In fact, you and your kind have arrived at a most auspicious moment for our people. The All-Mother shall give birth within a few days and it would be wonderful for us to witness it along with your daughter when she arrives here.” “What happens when she spawns?” “Oh, I’ve heard that it’s a sight to behold. The Mother Tree setting loose her seeds to the winds and the water in their thousands.” “What do you know of the sand people?” “They were once a great culture and were skilled spacefarers and shipwrights. I suppose only by speaking the name of a servant of evil could an entire people be wiped out, but nobody knows what happened, and even the Queen, when she sent some of us into the ruin of their capital, could learn nothing of their fate.” “Some of us think it’s better that way. Better for some things to be left undiscovered.” “How did these Other servants of the Empty One come to be?” “It was said that after she lost her true name and true self, the Empty One went about among Other spiritual beings, and allied herself with the King of the Others, who promised her an army of enthralled spirits, though the Queen of the Others and her four divine daughters: She of the White Mushroom, She of the Holy Metal, She Who is Green, and She of the Rose Crystals fought alongside the Æther and other spirits still loyal to the Divine. Thus, the only one of us she could corrupt wholly was our Queen’s sister who we do not name, for she had a comprehensible motivation.” “These Other spirits are known simply as the Others, for there is no other name for them.” “Anyway, enough about the Others.” “How far is it to the city of the Sand People from here?” “Roughly one day’s walk to the south from where we are, my lord.” “Perhaps we will go there as soon as the Queen gives birth.” “Assuming Lindsay gets here before then.”
The Stars have been guiding me through the cold North over the past day, shrouding me with their heat. Over the many hours, we discussed many things of importance to me. “How many were corrupted by the Empty One?” “No one knows exactly how the Others, gods born at the moment of Creation, fell under her sway. The Æther gods were the ones who contributed directly to Creation while the Other gods didn’t. The King and Queen of the Others, aside from some strangelets, begot four divine daughters. When Alÿran-Jakinduria lost not only her heart but also her name and nature, she went about trying to corrupt as many as she could find to her service, and this included the Others. Though she was able to infuse those loyal to their King with her malice, because of their wild and independent nature, she could not bend the Queen and her four divine daughters to her will. It was when she found Ænahïta’s sister, envy and hatred festering in her darkening crystal heart, that not only could she corrupt her but also bend her to her will: the perfect slave.” “Why was Ænahïta’s sister jealous of her?” “Ænahïta at birth was gifted with perpetual fertility but her sister was born sterile. She thus grew jealous of the Queen’s power to have children for all time when she never could. The Empty One, it is said, tempted her with the gift of fertility and the unhappy tree spirit gave in, becoming She Who Goes Bump in the Night, spawning dark spirits in exchange for eternal servitude. When Ænahïta learned that her sister had betrayed them, she and her children banished her from this land and cursed her, that she shall never return while the heart of Alÿran-Jakinduria remains displaced from its true home.” “Where are these Others? Where do they dwell within the Universe?” “One must be careful when discussing the corrupted Others. They are a cognito-hazard. The more you know of them, the more power they have over your mind, such is the malice that the Empty One put into them. They have become what many of your kind would call Eldritch Abominations.” “All covered in tentacles and a million eyes in unlighted chambers beyond all incarnate knowledge.” “I guess Lovecraft was onto something with his Cthulhu mythos.” “As was Tolkien with his Nameless Things.” “So, the Queen’s sister was the one who Doomed the Deathless 200,000 years ago.” “Yes, but there is another being from that time who is her longest-suffering prisoner. Someone who is not far off from you.” “That secret will be uncovered in its time.” “In time for what, I wonder?”
Fox and Fly sit among the silicate roots of the Quartz Trees, who are humming songs heard by no outsider to this world before, in no language as ever heard by all other beings save the departed old gods and the sand people. The song is of great joy, supposedly due to the Queen getting ready to bear fruit. “Have you heard from Lindsay?” “I have not heard so much as a thought from our daughter.” “You remember our wedding night, when you took me to the caldera of Kilauea?” “And I floated on my back, and you lay beside me on the cooling lava rock.” “And we tried to avoid being seen by any volcano watchers.” “And then you took me to Antarctica where I lay beside you on the melting glacial ice.” “It was a divine night of love and fire and ice.” “Only the births of our children surpass the bliss of that moment. The storm that heralded the coming of our daughter and the high winds that came with our son.” “Goodnight, my love.” “Goodnight. I look forward to the coming of Lindsay in the morning.”
“Well, that was an interesting day. If you consider BEKs to be of interest to the typical farming family. I used a few sigils to ward off your brother from our house, Bradley. He won’t get near there again for a long time.” “My brother? He dares go out in the sun with how pale he’s become. It seems like he’ll get burned by as little as moonlight with how little he goes out.” “Like he’s a vampire, or something.” “I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he better stay away from us, especially from the children, if he knows what’s good for him.” “I think he fears me, above all others, save the Immortals. I might’ve scared him off when I ran in the house and found Binky hiding in the living room closet with the gun. Whatever he was looking for in our house, he probably didn’t find it.” “Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.” “And one more thing, let’s not tell the boys about it.” The Crawford brothers, specifically Buck and Binky’s sons, have never met their uncle. They do not associate with this unnamed man because he committed an unspeakable act, supposedly involving cannibalism and dark magic. They tried to involve the police, but the man and the evidence all disappeared, and the authorities are still looking for him as he has long grown skilled at evading his enemies. The boys finish up getting ready for sleep and enter the basement. “We’ll sleep on the bean bag chairs in the game room.” “Ok. Y’all ok?” “Yeah. We’re just a bit shaken by the whole BEK thing.” “But that hammer and chandelier business, though?” “Yeah, don’t remind me.” “Did you like dinner, boys?” “Yeah, it was good. Goodnight, Mr., and Mrs. James.” “Goodnight, boys.” Silo and Kyle lay down on the bean bag chairs in the game room while the adults sleep in the temple.
Previous Episode: Diamond in the Sky.
Next Episode: Fire and Ice.
