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Four Lands
The travel suit is light-grey, a little thicker and heavier than ordinary clothing, and warm to the touch.
It shapes itself to me when I put it on, and I feel a trickle of energy from the shield that spreads across the material.
I soon forget that the suit is there, even the mask that covers my face.
I hover over the towers at ten thousand feet, while I scan through terrain maps on the headset display.
There are a few small islands scattered through the ocean, but only four continents, three of them joined to a fourth.
The seven races and the guardians refer to them as the four lands: First, North, West, and East.
FirstLand is the heart of them all, a near-perfect circle, fifteen hundred miles in diameter.
The towers rest on a plateau at its center.
Legend says that creation began here.
[Continue reading: Bright Shadows]
Watchers
My energy sight is gone.
I can’t feel the web, or the movement of energy.
Still, I have a vague sense that Kihyez is scanning me.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, a moment later
“You were a master when you first met us.”
“Now you have no strength at all!”
“How can you be a watcher like this?”
“The others will crush you.”
“Others?”
He grabs me without answering, and flies toward the seventh tower.
The towers are great stone cylinders, fifty feet wide and two hundred fifty feet tall, that glitter in the daylight.
The surface of the towers is decorated with thin streams of colored crystal that move up the towers in gentle spirals that branch, merge, and disappear.
A sharp crystal spire rises another thirty feet above the cylinders.
The base of each tower is surrounded by a garden with flowers always in bloom, and a single path to the tower.
As I watch, a glowing, mostly transparent mist rises from the gardens to form a spiral around each tower.
The mist takes the color of the tower, while the rest of the mountain goes dark, suddenly shaded in grey or black.
Just before we reach the door, seven tones fill the air, one from each tower, like trumpets with a pure, clear sound.
Kihyez tries the door, but it refuses to open.
“Aren’t we going in?”
“Too late,” he answers, and flies away from the towers and down the mountain.
“Why are we running away, Kihyez?”
“To save your life, fool!”
[Continue reading: Lost Light]
Alone
I walk slowly, letting the crowd move past me toward the shuttle.
Mayani takes my arm, and we stop.
He pushes on my mind wall, and I drop it.
He gives me a series of three security codes.
Can you remember them?
Easily.
Your identity has been authorized for full access to the facility, Lukara.
Enter the main storage area, and find the control surface.
Touch in the codes without requesting a command, and a hidden door will open, giving you entry to a ship hanger.
Thank you.
Where will you go?
Do you have another ship hidden on another world that can travel between galaxies?
How long will it take you to reach your home?
The ship you’ve given me will be good enough.
As soon as I get far enough from this planet, the effects of the cage projector will fade.
I’ll be home shortly after that.
[Continue reading: Long Way Home]
A Free Heart
Late at night, the inside of the ship is quiet and dark, in the areas where the pilgrims sleep.
The elders keep a close watch on the pilgrims, enforcing a rigid schedule, with an early bedtime.
The common rooms for the crew are bright and noisy, hours after the pilgrims have gone to bed.
I sleep near the crew, and I often stay up with them.
The captain lets the staff decide their own hours, as long as the work gets done.
The young body that I wear doesn’t need much sleep.
Still, if I’m tired in the morning, I sleep late, or use healing energy to restore my strength.
The ship has a cage projector that cuts me off from the web, but I can block it.
I use a nullifier sparingly, to shield me from the projector, and reconnect with the web.
We’re far from any stars, but I keep a second nullifier, capable of blocking a star cage, just in case I need it during this trip.
I eat first meal, and then walk among the pilgrims, accepting their daily greeting.
Their excitement washes over me, even before they touch me.
With the Mind Cage active, and my jammer off, I can’t reach their thoughts without skin contact, but I can still read feelings, if they’re strong enough.
We’ve arrived at red world, the first planet of the ring.
Some of the pilgrims are eager to see a different world, full of legends, while other pilgrims just want a break from the ship.
[Continue reading: Colors of the Heart]
Pilgrims
The spaceport near the capital city is called StarPath.
It was designed by one of the empire’s leading architects, filled with curves and high ceilings.
Most of the waiting areas are underground, beneath the clusters of landing pads.
The ships rise and rest quietly, through g-tech that allows them to manipulate gravity.
The above-ground terminal is made of three domes, surrounding a taller fourth dome, with a blue stone tower.
The smaller domes are red, yellow, and green, with black-roofed walkways at ground level leading to the larger white dome.
Each of the three outer domes has a large entrance, marked by an arch thirty feet tall.
A river of stars and planets moves across the arch, displaying the colonies of the empire.
The inner walls of the spaceport are also in motion, covered with info streams, or decorative, moving patterns.
I find the loading gate, and a place to sit.
One of the walls shows our ship, the RingShaper, waiting to leave for the ring of planets.
It’s designed for speed, not luxury, but it’s new and pleasing to the eye, with a bright silver hull, and spiral designs of green and black.
The Kizak expect their ships to be beautiful.
This one is small for a Kizak passenger ship, and carries less than four hundred guests.
We enter, forty or fifty at a time, through an elevator that takes us up into the center of the ship.
The pilgrims all dress the same, but only some are bright-Dahwee, true believers.
The rest are shadow-Dahwee, unsure, uncommitted.
The Dahwee-van, the clear way, is the dominant religion in the empire.
Nearly all Kizak go on the pilgrimage, sooner or later, even if they don’t believe.
There are other reasons to visit the ring, and many science and tourist vessels go there.
Still, it’s rare and strange to do what I’m doing, walking with the pilgrims, while setting myself apart.
I relax when I see some of the ship’s crew, dressed in ordinary clothes, like me.
One of them calls my name, and she leads me away from the others.
Soon, she stops by a large opening, edged in gold, and marked with a dark blue light.
“This is your place,” she says.
“Touch the pad.”
I put my left hand on the security pad, and the doors open to a beautiful, large room.
Not what I expected.
Dahwee pilgrims pledge to abandon comfort and rich foods during their silent journey, and the ships reflect their simple needs.
I’m confused.
“How can this be a pilgrimage ship?” I ask.
“It’s too luxurious.”
“This section of the ship is for the crew and the occasional special guest, not pilgrims.”
“We don’t take the pledge, and we like our comfort.”
[Continue reading: Silence]
Traitors
The emperor wakes early this morning, like every morning.
Teyus spends seven hours in bed, but his sleep doesn’t bring him the rest he needs.
He’s troubled almost every night by dreams of aliens destroying the homeworld.
Teyus shakes off the fear and fatigue, and sits up.
He reaches for a pitcher of juice to ease his thirst, but the pitcher is half-way across the room, spilled on the floor.
Many nights, the pitcher moves from where he left it, along with other random objects.
Security is uncompromised, and video shows the objects moving by themselves.
Despite the cage, the curses still circle somewhere inside him, and burst out.
The emperor activates the wall screen to see what’s in the info-streams.
They’re still full of talk about the Madar val, and Neyima, the hero who turned out to be a traitor, and freed one of the Madar.
The stream commentator speaks to people in the shopping tower.
“Who is this Neyima?” he asks.
“Madar,” says one woman.
“He only became Kizak so he could come here and rescue his brother.”
“There are hundreds or thousands of secret Madar here, walking as Kizak, planning to take over the empire.”
“They have already killed top officials.”
“They eat the dead flesh so they can take their shape, and live their lives.”
“Soon they will kill us all!”
“Neyima lived in the palace compound.”
“What if the Madar have already replaced the emperor and his son?”
[Continue reading: Sweet Waters]
Cruelty and Purpose
The emperor calls me in to see him.
“Congratulations, Neyima.”
“Disu has made incredible progress in his fighting skills, and he told me that he has agreed to the Madar val.”
“Yes, great father.”
“I have a few questions for you.”
“I want to understand the training that you’ve been giving him.”
“My staff has been analyzing the sims that you use.”
“Acting?”
“Practicing silence?”
“Being insulted?”
“These seem like a complete waste of time, and totally different from what the other tutors did.”
“May I speak freely?”
“Of course.”
“The other tutors accomplished nothing with Disu, great father.”
“Their approach was clearly the wrong one, at least for him.”
“But acting?”
“A good leader would like to always speak the truth to his people, but sometimes the people aren’t ready for it.”
“The emperor must be convincing whenever he speaks, whether or not he’s telling the truth.”
“He must show the emotion that’s needed, and be in control at all times.”
“To do this, a person needs skill in acting.”
“He must be comfortable with silence, and be able to ignore insults.”
“He must control what and who he allows to influence his thoughts and feelings, and most of all his words.”
“You’re teaching Disu to lie!”
“I’m teaching him to stay focused on what he must to do, great father, whether it’s easy, true, or not.”
[Continue reading: Fear of the Wild]
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Story News
- 25Jul11: Book 3, Part 2 Draft
- 29Apr11: Book 3, Part 1 Draft
- 15Aug10: Finished first edit of Book 2
- 17Feb10: Finished first edit of Book 1, including four new stories
- 31Aug09: The rough drafts of my first two books, Traveling Home and Lives of War are posted. It took me just about a year.
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