“The Spiral we knew is dead, Dilasa.”
“The group mind is shattered, and the energy gone.”

“I want the spirits dead, Yagrin.”
“They killed my parents.”

“The runaway star spirits that formed the Spiral are too weak to join together again.”
“Some have died.”
“And the rest are too weak to survive on their own.”

“The spirits are dying?”

“Yes, Dilasa.”

Her breathing slows.
“That’s wonderful, ina,” she says, calming down.

Their death is no joy, only a tragedy.
But there is no time to explain.

There are just moments to do what I must do.
Before the other spirits die.

The sun’s focused energy surrounds us.
And poisons the spirits.

In the middle of this light, I search for the dark way, the hidden way, the unexpected way.
I search for the solution not seen, but desperately needed.

My healing body leaps out from me with its own will, and shapes itself into a large, hollow sphere, near the dying star spirits.
My fire body takes hold of the sun’s energy, and transforms it into a rich Feldin glow which fills the sphere.

The star spirits move into the sphere, attracted by the glow.
And find protection from the sun’s energy within the healing sphere.

As the sun’s energy shines upon the glowing sphere, the sphere spins faster, and faster.
And a simple, sweet melody plays upon the sphere.

The music grows louder and louder within me.
And weaves the sun’s energy into a bright shell that covers the sphere.

The sphere and the spirits become distant and hidden.
As the music weaves more and more threads of energy into the shell.

The sphere is far away from energy eyes.
While the shell stands confident before the sun’s strength.

The shell glows, brighter and brighter, until its light can no longer be seen.

A dark shell of energy remains, a cocoon to protect the spirits.
That shows itself for brief moments, with small flashes of blue lightning, and waves of sparkling colors.

More and more energy flows from the fifty suns into the cocoon.
And disappears.

The spirits enter a suspended state.
Frozen in time.

I pull back my healing body.
And let go of the light that I’ve called from the suns.
And tell Dilasa to do the same.

The cocoon erupts with a great blast of energy, directed at Sinesu’s sun.
And the sun sends a small wave of energy into Sinesu’s sea.
Then waits quietly.

“What have you done with them, ina?” asks Dilasa, when she touches my mind and feels the cocoon.
“Are they dead, ina?”

“No, Dilasa.”

“They are outside of time, and shielded from death.”
“They can’t live, and they can’t die.”

“Why, ina?”
“Why won’t you let them die”

“We’ve stopped them, Dilasa.”
“Now they have another path.”

 
Fifty Dreams
“What now, ina?”

“We need a vision to show us what’s possible.”
Dilasa and I open a DreamHunter’s gateway, together, as Mayla taught us.
We touch the blue fragments of Sinesu’s universe and others nearby.

Fifty suns play together in an empty universe.
In the vision, Dilasa and I are fire bodes, glowing as brightly as the suns.

We watch the others play, unsure of our role here.
The play seems to go on forever.

“Come play, ina,” says Dilasa at last.
And we join them.

We touch each sun once in our play.
With each touch two balls erupt from the sun.
The balls are soft energy, bright and spinning.

The balls reshape themselves into tapered energy wells.
And melt into our heart wells.

When all fifty suns have given their gifts, the play stops.
One sun moves away, and the other forty-nine form a ring.

Then the ring of forty nine suns forms a great energy well.
Tapering to a point.

Just below the well is Sinesu’s sun.
And a star spirit speaks to us from within this sun.

“I hear the spirits from another place.”
“They have given you gifts, and pushed you here.”

“What do we do now?” asks Dilasa.

“Done,” answers the spirit.
“Just stand out of the way.”

“I will shine,” says the spirit.
“Sinesu will end.”
“Sinesu will fly, a wanderer born.”

“Sorrow for life flashes lost.”
“But star spirits reborn.”

Another star spirit comes out of the well in the vision, and faces me.
“Well done, brother,” it says, and disappears.

The vision ends.

“What does it mean, ina?”

“I don’t understand all of it.”
“But if I’m right, Dilasa, we have to hurry.”

“Sinesu’s sun is changing.”
“And Sinesu itself will no longer support life.”

“All from that flash of energy that came from the cocoon?” asks Dilasa, angrily.

“I can’t explain, yet.”
“I’m going to speak to the Mayru again, to see if I’m right.”

I open a gateway and enter the deep sea as a Ketkin.
And touch the mind of the water Mayru.

“Returned,” comes the voice.
“Only moments until we grow, faster and faster.”
“Join us friend, in new life.”

The fire and water Mayru are reconnected.
And Sinesu will soon begin a rapid transformation into a star.

 
Sinesu’s End
I return to Dilasa.

“I was right,” I tell her.
“We have to get all the Jiku off Sinesu in the next few hours.”

“There are only a dozen ships on Sinesu, ina.”

“Ships are useless for this, Dilasa.”
“I’ll move the Jiku through the gateways.”

“Where will the Jiku go?”
“There home is on Sinesu.”

“Gunal.”
“There’s endless open space there for them to settle.”

“That’s the Fiklow home world, ina.”
“They won’t be happy with a land full of Jiku.”

“It’s the right place, Dilasa.”
“Still, I’ll have to get the help of the queen and Vendik to make it work.”

“That all comes later.”
“First I have to move the Jiku.”

“Will there be enough time, ina?”

“No, Dilasa.”
“Even I can’t move fast enough.”

I contact Keesha and Botzar, and the central authority on Sinesu.
“In a few hours,” I tell them, “Sinesu will be a world of fire and death.”

“I will help the Jiku on Sinesu find their way to a new home.”
“Before the planet and the entire star system turns deadly.”

“Spread the word to all Jiku and Fiklow.”

No time to explain more.
I must act.

I take Dilasa back to Gunal.
She tries to protest, but I ignore her.

Then I cast off my physical body.
I’m ready to begin the first transport, when I see a star spirit hovering near me.

A star spirit can’t survive for long in our physical universe.
Unless it stays within the heart of its sun.

Without a sun, the spirit grows weak.
And must leave.
Or, like the Spiral, must start feeding on living energy.

This star spirit has just arrived.
It carries all of its strength.

“Hello brother,” it says, and plunges into my fire body.
It’s too fast for me to stop it, even if I could.

It takes a few moments for me to regain my awareness.
And I feel that I’m not alone.

“Why have you done this?” I ask.
“Without me, all of Sinesu’s life will die.”

“There is no harm, Yagrin,” it says.
“I’m here to help.”
“Together, we will not weaken.”

The world moves strangely.
Time is almost still.

“Together, brother, time touches us like a shadow,” says the spirit.
“Do all you wish to do.”

With barely a thought, we open larger gateways than I have ever opened before.
And move the Jiku, with their buildings, and possessions to places that I prepare on Gunal.

Animal, birds, freshwater fish, and plant life are next.

The seas are already rich on Gunal, but I move a third of Sinesu’s sea life to quiet places in Gunal’s seas.
And I transport the remainder to oceans on other Jiku worlds.

Half of the Jiku have heard the warning about the end of life on Sinesu.

But others have not.
They are terrified when their eyes find a new land and a new sky.

Who has stolen them away from the Jiku’s ancient home?
And who has brought this curse upon them?

Finally, my work is done.
And my fire body tears itself into two parts.

“Goodbye, Yagrin,” shines a distant voice.
The star spirit and its voice are bright within me for a moment, and then the world is quiet.

I am alone.
And time takes hold of me again.

 
The Wanderer
Seven streams of energy fall from the sun, and pass through the earth, air, and water to touch the core of the planet.
This is the same energy that the sun absorbed from the cocoon.

A star gateway opens, and Sinesu is pushed through.

I follow, before the gateway closes.

We are far from any living sun.
This area is rich with dead suns, dark worlds and energy.
And Sinesu rests in the middle of this graveyard.

Nothing moves here.

This is a strange place, standing apart from gravity and other laws of physics.
A nursery to feed growing suns.

Sinesu transforms as it absorbs the matter and energy that is fed to it.

It takes hours for the transformation to complete.

Another gateway opens, and the sun moves through the gateway.
I follow again.

“I am Sinetka,” comes a voice that touches my mind.

“Are you the spirit that joined with me?”

“No.”
“You are Yagrin.”
“Like Yagrin, the spirit of Gunal’s sun.”

“Yagrin joined with me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you Mayru?”

“There were Mayru of fire and water on Sinesu, but their life is ended.”
“They knew you.”

“Their hearts echo within mine.”
“I am just born, a wanderer.”

Sinesu’s Mayru are gone, fused together into a star spirit.
The spirit is the intelligence that moves this wanderer sun.

It’s clear now.
I see what to do.

I open a gateway and bring the cocoon here.
And push it into the core of the wanderer.

The cocoon transforms the energy that touches it, renewing the weak, sleeping spirits within.

Before long, the cocoon has finished its work.
The cocoon cracks and bursts, flooding the sun with star spirits.

I enter the sun.

“Who are you?” ask the spirits.
“How are we here?”

“Answer them, Yagrin,” says Sinetka.
“You brought them here.”

“You came to this world, long ago.”

“Yes,” they agree.

“We came, without suns, to explore.”

“It was forbidden and foolish,” says Sinetka.

“Is it forbidden to learn?” they ask.

“You destroyed,” I say simply.

“We were too proud to go home.”
“And too hungry to think.”

“We remember a dream that brought us low.”
“But little more.”

“The dream is dead,” I tell them.
“With the dream, many of you died, empty and alone.”

“Listen to the new way you are given.”
“Sinetka will guide the wanderer.”

“You will ride the wanderer.”
“It will travel in the space between the stars, and protect you.”

“Sinetka will stop, far from a star.”
“He will wait, as you explore for a star’s day.”

“When you feel weak, return and renew your strength.”

“Are we are banished from the world of spirits?”

“No,” says Sinetka.
“You are welcome there.”

“But all who explore must live in the wanderer,” says Sinetka, sharply.
“So say the council of star spirits.”

“So say the spirts,” repeat the spirits that ride the wanderer, accepting this new way.

I am suddenly cast out of the sun, into the quiet, dark space around it.

“We go alone now,” says Sinetka.
“Your way is not with us.”

I watch as the wanderer disappears through another gateway.

I look at the space around me with energy eyes.
The energy web is thin here, but it is still full of energy.

I touch the web with my healing body, and feel the gentle waves of quiet and joy that wash across the web, and into my heart.

There are many universes on the possibility sea with their own form of the Spiral.
Will I spend my days, fighting that sickness, again and again?
Will I conquer it in all worlds, or find a world where it destorys me?

I can’t see my whole path in this moment.
But I must return to Siksa and my family, and face the Spiral of my universe.

I open my own gateway, back to Gunal.
Botzar, B’tzel, and Makish are already there.

Dilasa and I join them for a few days.
We help the Jiku begin their new life on Gunal.

It will be a long adjustment, and they need more than I can give them in a few days, but I must return to my own family.

Makish kisses Dilasa goodbye and gives me the greeting of palms.
“Let us see only joy together, Yagrin.”

“Where are Botzar and B’tzel?” I ask Makish.
“They will not say goodbye,” she answers.
“But they gave me a few words for you.”

The long years will bring us together.
You cannot leave us for more than a moment.

All Jiku are your family.
We are your brothers, sisters, and children.

We watch and wait, to welcome you back.

Makish squeezes my hand for a moment.

I let go of Gunal for now, as Dilasa and I turn, and pass through the sparkling gateway.
Toward home.

** End of Book 2: Lives of War **

I love the sea.
And I watch the birds dance between land and sea, loving both.

One bird somehow reminds me of a seagull, though it looks and sounds different.
I can almost pretend that I’m walking again on Earth.

This world is so beautiful.
It’s hard to remember the desolate place that it once was.

The ocean floor was a desert for thousands of years.
Cursed by the touch of artifact energy.

Now the artifact is safely hidden within Gunal’s sun.
And the ocean is, as it was, full of life.

When the artifact destroyed the ocean, it spared most of the life on land.
But the land’s ecosystem was traumatized by the loss of its ocean.

Now that the ocean is reborn, Jiku scientists are working with the Fiklow to restore a healthy balance of plants and animals on the land.
I’ve been obsessed with this project the last few weeks.

I felt lost after I returned to Dilasa on Keesha’ ship, and shared my memories of the energy creatures called Mayru.
They bring together energy, fire, water, and light.

I knew that the Mayru on Sinesu are one of the keys to defeating the Spiral.
But how?

Every time I asked myself the question, I thought of Gunal.
And how I felt when I helped restore the ocean and its life.

It was an extraordinary healing.
But how does that help me face the Spiral?

After a few days, Dilasa told me what I already knew:
“Listen to your heart, ina!”

So we came to Gunal.

Dilasa and I swam in the ocean as Fiklow.
I visited the crystal forest, where the old queen died.

I even looked deep within the planet with energy eyes.
The throne rests there, a strange energy object that transforms a chosen Fiklow female into the queen.

So much has touched me in the ocean.

But I knew after a few hours, that there was no answer, no comfort waiting in the water.
So we left the ocean, and returned to Jiku form on the land.

I was surprised to find other Jiku here.
When I heard what they planned, I offered to help.

They wanted to transport large numbers of plants and animals to Gunal.
They had only a few ships, and few hands to do the work.

It was an ambitious, long-term plan.
They needed years to bring the life here, and decades or centuries of growth after that.

With my help, it’s amazing what we’ve done in a few weeks.

I’ve used Gen speed, pathfinder gateways, and flow to challenge time, shrink space, and transform the land.
And I’ve spread healing energy on the land’s life to temporarily speed up growth and reproduction.

The Jiku recorded my work.
When it was all done, I sat and watched some of it with them.

Endless plants and animals seem to burst out of the land, and appear on Gunal, including an entire flock of Heelu from Sinesu.
I know that the Heelu can carry the Spiral, but they were free of our enemy, when I brought them here.

The scientists believe that the ecosystem has stablized enough to continue to heal without my help.

During my work, I traveled back to Siksa a few times to be with Shazira, Tzina, and Berek.
They agreed that it’s more dangerous here in the Fiklow universe, so Shazira and the two children will stay on Siksa, for now.

Dilasa has stayed with me through all of this.
She’s helped with the planting.
And used her own healing energy to help the ecosystem.

We set aside time each day to be together, like today’s walk on the beach.
Our work has given us a wonderful diversion, and helped us to forget the Spiral.

But more importantly, the work has refreshed our spirits.
We feel different, with this gift that we’ve given to the world around us.

But with our work done, the questions return.
“What now, ina?” asks Dilasa.

I sit on the warm sand, and pull her down next to me.

“I checked Gunal’s oceans, and the inner planet,” I tell her.

“There are Mayru.”
“The fire Mayru here have forgotten the water Mayru, just as I saw on Sinesu.”
“The Mayru are sad and lost, and searching for purpose.”

“I scanned the other Fiklow and Jiku worlds.”
“But there are no other Mayru there.”

“How can that be?” asks Dilasa.
“There are Ketkin on every Fiklow colony.”

“Those Ketkin are not a separate group of Mayru.”
“They are part of the group minds of the Ketkin on Gunal or Sinesu.”

“How will the Mayru help us, ina?”

“I don’t know,” I answer, too loud.

“Don’t worry, ina,” she says.
“Maybe the Spiral is gone and won’t bother us again.”

“Gone?!”
“It will be back, Dilasa.
“In a few days or a few years.”

“So, we wait?”

“No,” I answer, standing up.
“We can’t wait for it to kill again.”

“I’m going to find the Spiral.”
“When I do, I think that I’ll understand how we can fight it.”

“How will you find it, ina?”

“An energy creature once showed me how to find the path that can’t be found.”
“It’s called the spinning of opposites.”

“Watch with a mind touch, but don’t follow me.”
“I may find a path that can only be traveled as pure energy.”
“Wait for me to come get you.”

I look with energy eyes at my seven energy wells.
With eyes more sensitive than ever before.

Each well is bursting with endless spinning lights, each in the color of the well.
And every light is full of endless smaller spinning lights.
Without end.

I imagine eyes of energy, that cannot be seen, but see all.
Black, even to the powerful energy senses that I carry.

I focus energy from all seven wells and radiate that energy into the eyes.

Suddenly the world is dark, with glowing bright eyes before me.

I shine brighter light toward these eyes.

And the world is bright again, with dark eyes facing me.

I spin the world faster and faster, switching back and forth from eyes of darkness.
To eyes of light.
Hundreds and thousands of times.

And I hold one clear thought:
“I will end the threat of the Spiral.”

The eyes before me are dark and not dark.
Surrounded with a ring of silver.

Though the eyes are dark, I can see within them.
There are millions of bright and dark paths, but one calls to me.
Darker and brighter than the rest.

I try to reach out to it, but my physical body stops me.

I let go of the physical body.
Still, the fire body stands in my way.

So I dissolve the balance pattern.
And stream my fire energy toward the path that waits for me.

 
Pillars of Death
I am in an endless space, full of light and dark, sound and voices.
Bright streaming beings of energy circle all around me in an endless dance.

There is a great bright pillar of sparkling colored light.
That stands in the center of this space.
Reaching without limit up and down.

It rests on nothing but its strength.

The pillar is a great storehouse of energy.
That feeds the beings in this place.

Within each being, I see a spiral center.

Are they Mayru?

No.
I feel the image of Nival and his dark eyes, somewhere far away.
He’s not here, but I feel him trying to tell me something important.

Then I know.
I am inside the Spiral.

I join the dance.
We move and play.
And fill this space with song.

How can this beauty bring such destruction?

I reach out my mind to touch the dancing beings.

But there is only dim awareness here.
Like an animal.
Or someone who sleeps, caught in a dream.

I leave the dance and approach the pillar.
The pillar is beautiful, and frightening.

With all the strange places and life that I have seen, I feel small and foolish to pass judgment on the pillar.
But there is something wrong in it.
Something that must end.

I push aside a feeling of dread, an inner warning.
And plunge my fire energy into the pillar.

“Another star spirit joins us?”
“It’s been so long, and we are all so hungry.”

“You will consume me?”

“NO.”
“But your strength will become ours.”
“And you will join this mind.”

“Your shell will drift with the others.”
“You will no longer be alone in this dark place.”

“Do you know what you do?” I ask it.
“Do you know that You kill living beings to feed yourself?”

“They are only ghosts of awareness,” it answers.
“Their shells are brittle, and the energy within small.”

“If they all vanished, who would notice?”
“Still we only take what we need to live.”
“Unless they threaten us.”

“You are threatened?”

“Yes,” it answers.
“When the dark ghosts learn to damage our hunters, they must all die.”

“Do we wait for them to empty the light from the pillar?”
“And make us vanish forever?”

I feel energy drifting away from me, like I’m falling toward death.

“You are no star spirit,” it accuses.
“Your fire has no spiral within it.”
“How do you find us here, without star eyes?”

“The spirits gave me the gift of star eyes,” I tell them, as my strength fades.
“And sent me to find you.”
“I taught the dark ones to fight you.”

It feeds on me.
There is no escaping from this.
I don’t have the energy to find a gateway, or even the way out of the pillar.

Something angry in me speaks, taunting the group mind as I hold myself just barely above death:
“I’m here to kill you.”

“We are changed,” it cries.
“Our old selves forgotten.”

“We can’t go back.”
“And you will not live.”
“Your energy is small, but we will take it.”
“Then we will crush the shadows ourself, with no hunters.”

I feel fear in the pillar.
It fears the community of star spirits, as a prison.

The ones who left the community did so to explore, and be free.
But now the pillar has become a worse prison.

The Spiral holds desperately to what it is.
It fears leaving this world.
It fears the memory of what it was.
And it fears me.

I hear all its thoughts, although it does not speak to me.
It will strike Sinesu, and try to shatter the planet.

I have no way to warn the Jiku.
And if they had warning, What could they do?
Their weapons will not stop the Spiral itself.

Will Dilasa have the strength to stop the Spiral when it comes to Gunal?
I believe she will.

But it’s too late to think of this any more.
I focus on the memories of those who I love.
And I wait for death, and expect the world to fade away.

But instead, light strikes the pillar like a wave of daggers.

The group spirit is in agony.
“Don’t push us to our old selves.”
“There is no going back.”

In its agony, the spirit forgets me.
And my strength returns, fed by the light.

I leave the pillar.
And follow the trail of blinding light away from this place.

Until I’m drifting just above the beach on Gunal.
Fire energy.
Streaming and circling along the web.

I’m at the center of a blinding wave of energy.
It falls from the sky onto the beach, and onto me.

I don’t have my full strength yet.
But I push ahead without it.

I shape the balance pattern, and my fire body returns.
Then I shape my Jiku body, but it feels weak, and falls on the sand.

When I wake, I see Dilasa sitting next to me.
Her tears cover my face as she holds my hand.

“I’m all right now little one.”
“But the spiral almost killed me.”

“You disappeared,” she says.
“Something felt so wrong, but I couldn’t get to you.”

“I heard the sun calling me, and Sindar’s necklace started to glow.”
“I reached my energy toward the sun.”

“I didn’t know where you were, but I reached for you.”

“The light and energy came down from the sky and moved through me.”
“It was too much, but I wouldn’t let go.”

“It took forever until I felt your energy come back.”
“But then your body fell to the ground, and I thought you were really dead.”
“Forever dead, like the rest of us when we die.”

I kiss her head.
“You saved me little one, just as Sindar promised.”

 
Shining into Battle
Dilasa and I sit aboard Botzar’s ship as it moves toward Sinesu.
“This isn’t your fight,” I tell Botzar, Makish, and B’tzel.
“No one but Dilasa and I can stop the Spiral.”

Makish rises angrily, and brings her face inches from mine.
“Do you think that we’ll hide in space while whole worlds of Jiku are threatened?”
“You can only protect one world.”

“She’s right, Yagrin,” says Botzar.
“We won’t abandon the Jiku.”

“Fine,” I answer, frustrated.
“Dilasa and I will be on Sinesu.”
“The Spiral plans to strike there first.”

“Choose another world to protect,” I add.
“May the creator help us all.”

I take Dilasa’s hand, and open a gateway to Sinesu, and drop off the ship.

There are about fifty Fiklow and Jiku worlds to protect.
But I have a plan.

I don’t know where the Spiral is, but I can hear its thoughts, and I’ll sense when it comes.
But will it come to Sinesu?

I connect to Dilasa with a mind touch.
“You can draw knowledge out of my mind, but can you teach me?”
“Can you show me how you call down the light?”

I see the memory, the feelings, and the movement of energies within her as she did it.
I feel a strange stirring within me, and then I reach all of myself in two directions at once.
Part of me reaches toward the sun.
While another part reaches toward an area about 50 feet from us.

I feel the energy circling within my heart well, and I imagine that I am the sun.
That I wish to pour out light and feed the whole world around me.
Dilasa never had such thoughts, but the thoughts help me to make the connection and shine.

The light pours through me.
It hurts, but it does not weaken me.
It makes me stronger.

At first I think that I will just accept the light, and bear the pain.
But then I realize that the more I resist the light, the more it hurts.

I let myself resonate with the light, and be the moving light.
And the pain is gone.

I practice the calling of the light, and letting go of it, over and over.
Until I can do it at Gen speed.
With and without a physical body.

When the practice is done, I let go of the calling.
And the light stops.

The Spiral extends throughout space, but it is bringing large parts of itself to Fiklow and Jiku worlds.
To destroy us.

It is afraid, and feels the need for much of its strength.
If I can kill the parts of it that come to our worlds, the whole of it may shatter.

“I feel it coming, Dilasa, to more than one world.”
“But it will strike Sinesu first.”

“How do we stop it, ina?”
“There are only two of us.”

“Two is all we need, Dilasa.”
“I can’t explain now, but when I ask you to connect to the sun, just do it.”
“And shine the energy where I tell you.”

“Yes, ina.”

I open gateway after gateway, enough to pass between all the Fiklow and Jiku worlds.
On each world except Sinesu, I call the planet’s sun, and shine the energy toward the gateway.

I pass through world after world, again and again, at Gen speed, and hold the calling to all the suns.
I move so quickly that I feel my heart energy pulsing as its own web that spreads across many worlds.
And in each world my heart resonates with the light of the sun.

I am my own web, bright with the sun’s strength.
The light joins together and fills all the worlds, except Sinesu.

When I feel the Spiral come to Sinesu, I tell Dilasa to call the sun.
And the energy of Sinesu’s sun moves through her, and joins my web of energy and light.

I keep moving among the worlds, as I direct the light of fify suns towards the Spiral, and the pillar within it.
The Spiral attacks a dozen other worlds, but I’m already there, and spreading the light around it.

Much of the enemy is trapped within the light, and this deadly light spreads to all of the Spiral.
Even the parts that rest at the other end of the galaxy.

Its pillar is coming apart, some place far away.
And the group mind shatters into its star spirits.

They are so far away from their lives of light.
And so low on energy.
That each is barely aware of itself.
And almost helpless.

All they know is the pain of their loss.
And I hear a cry that speaks of a lost light that will never return.

Dilasa touches my mind and sees how weak the spirits have become.

“Kill it now ina.”
“Don’t let it escape.”

I reach out to intensify the light.
And erase the fragments of the Spiral from existence.

But then I stop.

“No, Dilasa,” I tell her.
“There’s another way.”

Nearby, one of the large, automated weapons sits, quiet and dark.

Wisten is dead and the monument gone.
That much of the vision is true.

But the world has changed.
The town survived with little damage.

And we have weapons now against the hunters.

Dilasa looks at the blood, and her face is pale.
I ask myself why I’ve brought her here.
No child should have to face this.

But I know the answer.
She has already seen death.
And the struggle with the Spiral is not over.

She will need to see death again as she stands with me against the Spiral.

One of Wisten’s assistants approaches me.
“You’re too late,” he says angrily.

“I was in the ship above, coordinating the battle.”

“You were with the Fiklow?” he accuses.

“Yes,” I answer.
“But they risked their lives in this fight the same as you.”
“The leader of the union was there on the ship.”

He’s quiet.

“How did Wisten die?” I ask him.

“With a good death,” he answers, “defending the people she loved.”

“Most of the Jiku went underground at the start of the battle.”
“But some remained on the surface with hand weapons.”
“Including Wisten.”

“Why?”

“She didn’t trust the automated weapon to protect us.”

“The power source for the automated weapon is outside the town.”
“Wisten told me that she had a feeling that the weapon or its power source would fail.”

“What happened?”

“The power source has its own weapon to protect it.”
“It was undamaged.”

“But the connection that delivers power to the weapon in town was broken.”
“It happened near the end of the battle.”

“The automated weapon was useless.”
“And dozens of the Hikweh moved toward the center of town.”

“Wisten and a few others stayed to fight.”
“She was worried that so many Hikweh would find and penetrate the bright room.”

The death ceremony comes a few hours later.
Dilasa and I walk with the body in the ceremony.
And we speak the blessings of the dead.

Afterwards Dilasa is very quiet.

“Are you all right, little one?”

“No, ina.”
“Death scares me.”
“Do you remember when death still scared you?”

“You’re wrong Dilasa,” I tell her.
“Death does scare me.”

“But why?” she asks.
“It can’t touch you.”
“When death takes your body, you just flow another one.”

“Death is no end, Dilasa.”
“We all live after death.”

“But some don’t believe in that life.”
“And it frightens them.”

“Why are you scared, then?”

“I’m not afraid of my own death, Dilasa.”

“Most who die turn to a life of pure energy.”
“And leave this world behind.”
“Someday, I’ll also follow that path.”

“But for now, my path is to return, again and again, to this physical life.”

“I’m afraid of being alone.”
“Who would I be little one, if everyone I love died around me?”

“You’re afraid of us dying?”

“Yes.”

“Can we push away death, ina?”
“I’ve heard of masters living a long time.”

“There were ancient masters who refreshed their body every day with healing energy.”
“And lived for thousands of years.”
“But eventually they tired of this life, and let the body go.”

“Is Sindar tired of life, ina?”

“I’m not sure Dilasa.”
“But I think he’s forgotten what it’s like to really live.”

“He heals his body, and sleeps away the years.”
“With only machines around him.”
“That’s not life.”

“Can you teach me to build a new physical body like you do?”

“It takes more than a new body, Dilasa.”
“You have to disconnect your fire body from the old one, and reconnect it to the new.”

“The cubes teach of other masters who tried to move into new bodies.”
“And turned insane.”
“I think that the new connection was incomplete.”

“But you’ve done it, ina!”

“Yes, I’ve done it for myself, and even for others.”
“But my fire energy is different than other Jiku.”
“My energy is part Bizra and Gen.”

We walk away from the town, toward her aunt’s old farm.
The burnt building has been torn down.
And the fields are overgrown.

We pass by the fields and into the nearby forest.
Her old swing still waits for her.

“Would you like me to push you on the swing, Dilasa?”

“Not today, ina.”
“I don’t feel like playing.”

 
Little Friends
Dilasa and I hover a few hundred feet above the lightning storm over the center of the sea.

I feel her mind touch.
“Why are we here, ina?”

I tell her of the inner voice that I heard during the battle.
“There’s something here Dilasa that will tell us how to deal with the Spiral.”

“But you told me that the spiral’s gone.”

“Just for now.”
“It will return, and we have to be ready.”

“Keep your connection with me, and follow my energy sight.”

I scan the storm with energy eyes, and listen for an inner voice or feeling to guide me.
But there’s no hint of an answer.

“Try the ocean below the storm, Ina,” suggests Dilasa.

I scan the ocean, all the way to the sea floor.
The sea life is fascinating but there’s nothing here to help us.

“Nothing, Dilasa.”

“Let’s swim in the ocean as Fiklow,” she says.
“Maybe we need to see the ocean with different eyes.”

We move far from the storm, and flow our bodies as we enter the water.

“The ocean is exceptionally deep here, Dilasa.”
“Too deep, even for Fiklow.”

We move down through the water under the storm.
Our bodies will tell us when we’re approaching our limits.

“It’s beautiful, ina,” says Dilasa in the high-frequency speech of the Fiklow.

Her sounds attract a number of shining small creatures.
“What are they, ina?”

“These are Ketkin that we named the weapons after.”

Ketkin are small stinging creatures that live on most of the Fiklow worlds, but are native to Gunal.
Fiklow are immune to the Ketkin neurotoxin, and enjoy the company of the colorful little creatures.

When I pronounce the Fiklow sound for Ketkin, they surround me.
And produce sounds of their own.

One approaches and hesitantly tries to sting me.
Thankfully the Fiklow body is immune to the poison’s effects.

My body instinctively releases a chemical which calms the creatures.
The chemical signal identifies us as friendly, and the Ketkin stop trying to sting us.

They start to dance around us.
And look like they want to play.

Until I pronounce the Fiklow sound for the Spiral.
And the Ketkin quickly swim away toward the sea floor.

“Don’t follow them, Dilasa,” I tell her with a mind touch.
“They can stand the pressure, even at the bottom of the sea.”

Dilasa sees into my mind as I follow the Ketkin with energy eyes.
The swarm moves straight for the bottom.

At the bottom, they swim in one spot for a few seconds, circling over ordinary dirt and stone.
Then they drift away, dissolving the swarm.

I look carefully at that place with the full sensitivity of my energy vision.

The energy web there is marked with a dim energy image.
It looks like the heart of the star spirits, an energy spiral.

“Do you see it, Dilasa?”

“I see it through your energy eyes, ina.”
“I know that it looks like the energy of the star spirits, but what does it mean?”

“I don’t know.”
“There’s nothing physical in that place, or anywhere near it, that’s unusual at all.”

“Is there anything below it?” asks Dilasa.

“Nothing,” I answer.
“Just rock and dirt.”

“No,” says Dilasa.
“Not right below, but deep in the earth under that place.”

I move the focus of my energy vision down through the rock, until the rock melts into fire.
And there, the web is full of energy creatures, with spiral energy at their centers.

“Are they star spirits?” asks Dilasa.

“I don’t think so, but they are like the spirits.”

We go back to the ship.
With questions for Keesha.

“Are the Ketkin intelligent, Keesha?”

“Each of them has some intelligence, but they are much more aware when they swarm together.”

“Do they have language?”

“They rarely make any sounds, except when they swarm.”
“And the sounds are too simple to be a language.”

“They seemed to respond when Dilasa and I spoke around them.”

“They like our sounds, Lord Yagrin, but they don’t understand them.”

I tell her what happened when I mentioned the Spiral, and what I saw.

“I can’t explain it,” she says.

I spin a tentacle in agreement.

“There is a strange legend about the Ketkin,” she tells me.
“I’ll tell you the legend, but I don’t know what it means.”

“Tell me.”

“According to legend, the Ketkin are messengers between the oceans and the stars.”
“They see into Fiklow hearts and speak to the stars.”

“No idea what this means?”

“None.”

“There is one more part to the legend.”
“The Ketkin are the ones who created the throne that transforms our queens.”

 
Living Fire
I can think of nothing else as Dilasa and I swim to my chamber.

It’s strange for a legend to give so much power to a simple creature.
That the Fiklow think of as a pet.

I remember the Ketkin dancing around me.
And the way that they led me to the image of the spiral.

“Ina,” shouts Dilasa.
“I was talking to you.”
“Didn’t you hear me?”

“Sorry, Dilasa.”
“My thoughts were in the ocean and the world below it.”

“You can’t come with me this time,” I tell her.
“I need to be pure energy, to enter the world of fire.”

“Can I swim in the ocean above you while you explore?”

“Stay on this ship, Dilasa.”
“It’s safer for you here, if the Hikweh return.”

“I can’t help you from here.”
“And I want to see what you see, Ina.”

“It’s hard to touch your mind when you’re pure energy.”
“And you’ll be so far away.”

“We’ll try to hold the connection, Dilasa.”
“But I have to go.”

I wrap tentacles with her, and then move out of sight.
She still finds it troubling when I let my physical body dissolve in front of her.

With my Fiklow body gone, I open a gateway to the ocean far below me.

I lose the connection with Dilasa for a few seconds as my fire body travels through the gateway.
But I reconnect once I reach the ocean.

“Where were you, Ina?” she asks.

“Traveling through a gateway.”

I find the place with the energy image, and pass below it deep into the earth.
Until I reach the world of fire.

These energy beings remind me of the star spirits and the Spiral.
Their energy bodies are fluid, with a spiral center.

I watch as the bodies dissolve into streams of fire energy.
And then, a few minutes later, reshape themselves into energy bodies.

When I approach them, they move away.

Their presence makes me think of Nival, an energy being full of mystery.
He was Jiku and Bizra before his death.

I knew him long after that death, when he had become something else.

He was full of light, and took the shape of a child.
But his dark eyes and power frightened me.
It was I who felt like a child in his presence.

What is Nival’s connection with these creatures?
I let go of old mysteries and focus on the world before me.

I shine with the Feldin glow, and they move toward me.
But they stop several feet away.

Their energy is troubled.
My fire body repels them.

I must get closer.
I let the balance pattern of the fire body dissolve.
And my energy body melts into streams that circle through this world of fire.

I continue to shine with the Feldin glow.

The fire beings circle around me.
Their energy meets mine.
And we dance.
As I danced with the star spirits, with filaments of energy connecting us all.

After a time, they pull away, frustrated.
What do they want?

“Are you still with me, Dilasa?”
There is no answer.
The mind connection cannot touch my energy as it streams through fire.

I send out my healing body and spread it upon one of the fire creatures.
My healing body shakes and glows, and strange energy surrounds it, like an aura.

I’ve never seen my healing body behave like this.
It seems to move on its own.

I watch as it returns to me without my call, and merges with my fire energy.
I take the energy shape of the fire beings.

We swim in a sea of fire.
I feel its rhythms, its waves.

We are diamond-shaped, sparkling.
We spin as we dance, and weave a web of color.

And I hear the thoughts of all.

We are Mayru.
Swimming deep within the fire of planets.

Once there were many planets full of us.
But no more.

We are fragments, children of the wanderering suns who travel freely through the universe without planets.

Over great ages, we work to transform a planet into a sun.
Then the community of Mayru joins together as one, and becomes a single star spirit to the new sun.

“The star spirits did not speak of us,” I tell them.
“Do they know of us?” I ask.

“They have forgotten, or think us all gone.”
“We cannot touch their thoughts, only the thoughts of a wanderer.”

“When will this planet become a sun?”

“We are shamed.”
“We abandoned our work.”
“There is no purpose in it, anymore.”

“Why?”

“There is a moment when a world is ready to become a sun.”

“When that moment comes, we become a star spirt.”
“And guide the sun to a new home.”

“But we have lost the way of the wanderers,” they cry out.
“We have forgotten how to move the sun, and find its new home.”
“And there are no more wanderers to come near, and teach us the way.”

I feel the pain that flows through us.
It is a hiding and a darkness and a weight that cannot be lifted.

“How could the wanderer come near to us without destroying the planet?”

“Unknown.”

“How could we lose the way?”

“The knowledge of the way rests in the water.”

“Long before the world is ready to be a sun, the world grows hot, and the oceans vanish.”
“When the world heats up, we begin to change, and the knowledge returns to the fire.”

“The world does not grow hot yet, but the knowledge no longer speaks to us.”
“It is gone or quiet.”

“What are you?” they ask.

“Now, I am Mayru,” I answer, remembering the me that is not Mayru.
“Before, and soon I am not.”

“I speak with star spirits, and wanderers.”

“Bring the wanderer here to us, and let it teach us the way!”

The wanderer I know is in Siksa’s universe.
No star can pass through the possibility sea or the seven towers.

But maybe there is another wanderer here.

“The wanderer I saw cannot come to Sinesu.”

They are quiet.

“Why are you here with us?”
“Why do we speak of our sadness.”

“There is danger, and the answer lies here with you.”

“We are the danger?”

“No. You will end the danger.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, yet.”
“But when I discover how, will you help me?”

“Bring us the wanderer, or its knowledge, and We will swim with you.”

 
Ways of the Wanderer
I move to the edge of the fire sea, where the molten rock begins to cool.
And bind the balance pattern to my fire energy.

My fire body returns, and I rise upward, still shining with the Feldin glow, toward the sea.

I pass through the sea bottom and the energy image that rests on the energy web.

The Kitken circle around me.

They see my fire body clearly!
They dance around it as they danced around me when I was Fiklow.
What are they?

I taste the patterns that shape their bodies.
The patterns are almost Heelu.

I flow myself a Ketkin body from the seawater, and bind my energy to it.

I feel myself swimming in the ocean, as a distant dream.
But I am mostly elsewhere.
Surrounded by lights.
We are all lights.
We are one.

There are memories of star spirits, and wanderers.
We know how to move a sun through space.

We are water Mayru.
We are light Mayru.

Once we were touched by the Spiral for a moment.
It tried to take us, to rest on us.

We raised our light.
We pushed it away.
And it fled in fear.

But that touch left a scar.
Our link to the fire Mayru is broken.

Apart, we cannot be whole.

I let those sad memories go.
An dance and play among the water Mayru for long moments.

Our lights are great spheres.
Clear and bright.

Flashes of energy pass between us.
And disappear.

Our time ends.
And my Ketkin body becomes water again.

Dilasa sits on the other side of Shazira, and looks troubled.
She turns toward me, and I sense her mind touch, and her fear.

“How do we stop the Spiral, ina?”
“Don’t you need a plan?”

I have no plan, and no words to answer her yet.
I gently squeeze Dilasa’s small hand, and touch her hand to my cheek.
And look at her.

Shazira feels Dilasa’s fear, and looks at my calm eyes.

Then she takes Dilasa’s hand, and mine, and presses them to her heart.
When she lets go, we are all calm.
And I know what to say.

“I have ideas, little one, not a plan.”

“But there is a way.”
“It’s waiting for us.”
“It just seems out of reach.”

“Help me let go and listen, and the answer will come.”

I pull her onto my lap, and wrap my arms around her.
In the silence and the love, something will grow.

Quiet fills the ship.
And energy sparkles and circles around the ship as we move toward home.

When we land, Shazira leaves the ship with Dilasa and Tzina.
I stay behind as Berek and Mayla close down the ship.

“How confident are you of the new weapons?” I ask her.

“As confident as I can be without testing them against an energy hunter.”
“There are no hunters here on Siksa, thank the creator.”

“We need to test these weapons, Mayla.”
“The probes have identified many worlds that the hunters visit.”
“We’ll take the ship to one of those worlds, and attack a hunter.”

“What if you’re successful, ina?” asks Berek.

“Then we’ll send out probes to help protect those worlds, and teach the beings there how to protect themselves.”

“You’re missing the point, ina,” says Berek.
“If we’re successful, the Spiral may notice us.”
“And follow us back to Siksa.”

“Can the Spiral follow you through the ship’s star tunnels?” asks Mayla.

“I don’t know,” I tell her.
“But Berek’s right.”
“We can’t risk it.”

“Give me samples of the weapons, Mayla.”
“I’ll take them to Sinesu and test them against the Hikweh.”

“You need more than samples, Yagrin,” says Mayla.
“The Spiral could create hundreds of hunters on multiple Jiku and Fiklow worlds.”

“You’ll have to teach the Jiku and Fiklow how to make the weapons, and defend themselves.”

“How long will it take you to teach me?”

“Not you alone, Yagrin”
“You’ll need help.”

“How long?”

“It will take a few days to train you and Dilasa on the new weapons.”

“A few days?”
“How many will die on Sinesu before then?”

“I know we can’t wait, Yagrin,” she answers.

Mayla calls Dilasa, and then brings us to a training circle.
“Days will pass in the simulator,” she says, “but only a few hours in Siksa time.”

Dilasa and I enter the circle, and find ourselves in a factory.
We learn about the detectors which can locate the energy hunters.
And we learn how to build and repair the weapons that shatter the hunters.

Mayla teaches us the science behind the weapons, and the machine that replicates them.

I feel like a child again, playing with toys.
But I remind myself that these are powerful weapons that will save our friends from death.

We study the cluster of energy patterns that describe the detectors and weapons.
It still amazes me that our energy minds can recognize, remember, and use these complex patterns.
We can flow a weapon from air or light.

But Dilasa and I can’t be everywhere at once.
We need to teach others how to build the weapons, and defend themselves.

The circle ends, and Mayla shows me a small blue cube.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“A storage cube with the plans for the detector and the weapons.”
“And the machine that shapes them.”

I frown.

“What’s wrong Yagrin,” asks Mayla.

“The shaper is a powerful machine.”
“Maybe too powerful,” I add.

“It can produce any type of object or weapon.”
“Someone will abuse its power.”

“You’re right,” says Mayla.
“A true shaper will download any design, and then shape it.”

“But these shapers will be pre-loaded with the designs for the weapons and detectors.”
“They will not accept other designs.”

I take the cube.

“The cube uses an ancient data format,” continues Mayla.
“Botzar’s ship can read it.”
“And transmit the plans to the Fiklow and the Jiku.”

“Help them produce the weapons, and connect the devices to a power source.”

 
Tower of Sound
It’s quiet and dark by six of the seven towers, when Dilasa and I pass through the gateway.
Each of the round towers is made of a different color crystal, and narrows to a point at the top.

The shield holds around us, and no one notices our presence.
I glide us toward Sindar’s tower.

“What are you doing, Yagrin?” asks Dilasa.
“We have to get back to Sinesu.”

“First,” I tell her, “we have to protect Sindar.”
“I want to give copies of the weapons to the machines that watch Sindar.”
“In case the spiral or its hunters ever reach the towers.”

There is no doorway in the well-lit seventh tower.
Hundreds of Sindar’s symbols spin around the tower in a rising spiral.

And a message moves across the outer wall, near the base.
The message repeats itself over and over, in the many languages that I know.

“Here lies the burial chamber of Sindar’s ashes.”
“Let no one dishonor his memory.”

“From death will come death.”
“To all who approach.”

“Is he really dead, Yagrin?”

“Probably not.”
“It’s just a way of scaring away visitors.”

I ask Dilasa to raise her own shield, and I approach the tower alone.
The surface of the tower glows brighter as I reach my hand toward it.

I touch the tower, and my hand passes through the outside wall for a moment.
Then I’m pulled inside.

I’m standing in a clear chamber that floats like a bubble above the point of Sindar’s tower.
I see Dilasa on the ground far below.

The chamber is empty except for a circle of nine pearl white eggs.
The eggs are a foot taller than me.
A simple, clear tone sounds from within each egg.

I scan them with energy eyes.
Each holds a Jiku male, who looks like me.

But as I look deeper with my energy eyes, I see that they are not truly Jiku.
These are manufactured bodies, machines, tools of the artificial intelligence that guards Sindar.

One of the eggs opens, and the body within it moves.

I found it strange once to meet my twins.
But it’s stranger still to meet machines who look like me.

Mayla is not Jiku, but she seems Jiku.
This intelligence feels much more like a machine.

“Sindar calls me Kihyes,” it says, as it rises and approaches me.
“You are Sindar’s brother,” it adds.
“The chamber opens for you.”

“Yes.”

“Still,” it says, “you will not pass beyond this room into the tower.’
“Sindar will not wake for months.”
“Even for you.”

“I know that,” I tell it.

“Then why are you here?” it asks, annoyed.
Its first display of emotion.

I give it a copy of the cube.
“This cube contains plans for a new type of weapon.”
“Use it to defend Sindar, in case the tower is attacked.”

Kihyes pauses for a moment, as it scans the cube.
“Weak, inferior weapons,” it says at last.
“These are useless.”

“No,” I answer.
“Only this weapon will stop a dangerous enemy that absorbs energy.”

“The unique energy signature shatters the attacker.”
“Stronger weapons with different energy will only strengthen this enemy.”

I explain about the energy hunters and the Spiral.
I tell of the many worlds that are threatened, including Sinesu.

“Sindar has never spoken of this danger,” says Kihyes.

“He doesn’t know of the enemy.”
“The Hikweh came to Sinesu recently.”

“You monitor the Jiku on Sinesu?” I ask it.

“Yes,” it answers.
“We have probes that watch the Jiku, and store hundreds of years of data on unusual events.”

“Do you review all the data?”

“No.”
“The probes mark data which Sindar has asked for.”
“The rest is merely stored.”

“Scan for strange storms that the Jiku call Hikweh.”

Kihyes pauses.
“I obey Sindar and Geyfal, not you,” it replies.

“This is advice, not a command,” I answer.

“I see the attacks,” it says after a few seconds.
“And even your battle with the creature.”

“But I see no weapon.”

“The weapon is new,” I tell it.

“You plan to use the weapon against the Hikweh?”

“I’m returning to Sinesu now, to test the weapon.”

“I will monitor your tests,” it says.
“And I will shape the weapons, if you are successful.”

“Whatever happens,” I tell it, “Sindar must know of it when he wakes.”

“I will tell him.”
“Now go,” it commmands.

Seven rings of color, each within the last, appear on the wall near me.
“Touch the rings,” says Kihyes, “and you will leave the tower.”

I touch the rings, and reappear near Dilasa.

 
First Battle
Only two days have passed, but the weapons and detectors are in place on every Jiku and Fiklow world.
And on most ships, including Botzar’s.

Dilasa tried to help me.
But I had to take on a Gen form with its enhanced speed to flow thousands of the weapons and detectors.
Dilasa can’t take on the Gen form.

The first Fiklow and jiku I worked with wrote instructions for connecting the weapons to their power sources.
And transmitted the instructions throughout the union.

Afer that I delivered the equipment alone, at Gen speed through pathfinder gateways.

I moved so quickly that no one could see me.
The equipment just appeared at designated locations.

Now, I’m aboard Keesha’s ship with Dilasa and Vendik, the leader of the Fiklow union.
With support from Vendik and the queen, the Fiklow and Jiku have agreed to activate the weapons and detectors.
After I demonstrate their effectiveness.

It was much harder to get the different worlds to agree to install the weapons in advance of the test.
And verify that the weapons were properly connected to a power source.

At Vendik’s suggestion, we’ve called the weapons Ketkin.
Ketkin are small creatures that live in the sea, and have a powerful poison sting.
The Fiklow are immune to the sting, and sometimes keep the Ketkin as pets.

“I can smell that you’re troubled by something, Yagrin,” says Vendik.
“Are you unhappy to have me here for the test?”

“I’m only concerned for your safety and Commander Keesha’s,” I tell her.

“If the weapons fail, how will I protect you?”

“My presence here convinced the council to agree to install the weapons, and activate them on our signal.”
“Your daughter is also here with us,” she adds.
“I trust that you will not fail her or me.”

“Vendik, do you really think that all the worlds will activate their weapons upon your signal, as promised?”
“The Spiral may initiate a massive attack in response to our first use of the weapon.”

“Your logic is sound, Yagrin.”
“And I’ve explained it personally to the planetary leaders and military.”

“Your nearly magical delivery of the equipment has added to your reputation, Yagrin.”
“This will also help.”

“Now, we must hope that everyone will follow their orders.”

At first, we use the detector to search for Nikol, space hunters.
But we find none.

Reluctantly, I direct the ship to Sinesu to search for Hikweh.
There are a series of detectors in orbit, on the ground, and aboard ship, all networked together.
We will see instantly if there is an increase in the number of Hikweh in response to our attack.

At my request, the automatic weapons on Sinesu are activated.

There are great electrical storms on Sinesu, similar to the ones on Siksa.
But on Sinesu, most of the lightning storms stay over the ocean.

And there is a small storm which always hovers over the center of the great ocean.
Between attacks, Hikweh seem to rest there, and draw strength from the storm.

It’s there that we find our first three Hikweh.

The ship’s crew has been instructed to follow my orders during this mission.
I sense that they will obey, but I smell their fear of me, when I speak with them.

Dilasa joins us, and her presence on the ship seems to calm them.
Their protective instincts take over in the presence of a child, and push away their fears.

The weapons will activate automatically if the hunters appear close to the ship, or if the hunters approach the ship from a distance.
But these Hikweh are stationary, and too far away.

“Target and activate,” I tell the crew.
An energy pulse leaves the ship, and enters the storm where the Hikweh are resting.

The Hikweh emerge from the storm, but they are undamaged.
“Why didn’t it work, Lord Yagrin?” asks one of the crew.

Before I can answer, another pulse is automatically released.
And the Hikweh are shattered.

“Why didn’t it work the first time?” asks Keesha.

I turn to her, taking my attention away from the detectors.
“The electrical storm blunted the effect,” I answer, “but the Hikweh still felt its sting.”
“The detectors showed a small disruption in the Hikweh energy.”

“The detectors,” shouts one of the crew.”

There are thousands of Hikweh all over the planet.

“Send the transmission to activate the weapons on other worlds,” I shout.

“Already done,” answers the crew.
“We’ve received confirmation from all facilities.”
“The automatic weapons are active.”

The weapons on Sinesu are working.
But new Hikweh appear, almost as quickly as they are destroyed.

After a few minutes, the Hikweh vanish.
The same pattern is seen on some of the other worlds.

“The test is a great success, Lord Yagrin,” says Vendik.
“There has been some damage, and some loss of life.”
“But there is no trace of the Hikweh!”

During the battle, I watched the planet with energy eyes.
With the gift of strength from the star spirits, my vision moves without limit.

Distance does not exist.
And the spiral here on Sinesu is as easily seen as the energy web.

I watch the Hikweh as they erupt from the streaming energy of the spiral.

And now, the last of the Hikweh on Sinesu is gone.
And I see the last streams of the nearby spiral disappear through a gateway to some distant place.

I find little comfort in its going.
This is only a short moment of peace.
With more war to come.

An inner voice whispers that the real answer lies deep beneath the sea.
Where the storm hovers.
I will go there soon.

For now, I remember what the star spirits told me.
The Spiral will be angered.
And will return.

Mayla is an artificial intelligence, but her creations grab your attention and hold it.
Everything she designs has a touch of elegance and beauty.

I ask her why she wants us to launch from the beach.

I know this ship can take off from any surface without damage to the ship or the environment.
But why a beach?

Mayla won’t give me a straight answer.
But I think the answer is simple.

The ship will never look so beautiful as when it rises from the beach, and glides over a stretch of sea, before rising toward an opening in the city’s dome.

I board the ship with my whole family.
And Mayla.

Mayla has installed a partial copy of herself into the ship’s computer.
And one of her artificial bodies joins us in the control room.

She sits near Berek.
Berek takes command of the pilot’s station, and checks the status of ship systems.

Mayla will guide him if necessary, but he will need little help to fly the ship.
He’s the pilot of the ship, with years of pilot training within the DreamSchool.

Mayla explains the use of a new weapon to all of us.
We will not see the Spiral or its hunters on this short journey, but our ship carries weapons to fight them.

Mayla never sleeps.
Last night she began with a plan for a weapon, brought back by the probe from a distant galaxy.
With the speed of Mayla’s thought one Jiku night can be years.

In that night, the plan changed and changed, until a powerful weapon was born.
And installed on the ship.

The ship also carries instruments to detect the energy hunters.
But not the Spiral.

“I don’t have any real data on the Spiral,” Mayla told me.
“Get me more data, and I’ll find a way to detect it.”

I like the feel of this ship.
As it slips toward the wanderer, who waits for us only a few light years away.

The trip is short.
And the ship returns to normal space, a comfortable seventy million miles away from the wanderer.

“How do we talk to the wanderer, Mayla?” asks Dilasa.

“It will speak to us,” answers Mayla, “when it chooses.”

Dilasa wears the necklace that Sindar gave her.
The one that strengthens her connection to the stars.

My thoughts are broken by Dilasa’s screams.

“Ina,” says Dilasa, franticly.
“Get the necklace off me.”
“It burns, hotter and hotter.”

I glide the necklace to a table, where we all sit.

The stones in the necklace are too hot to touch.
And the bright light from the stones makes the world disappear.

Soon the light shapes itself into images that surround us.
And pull us in.

The ship fades, and we are somewhere else.

We stand together on a smooth stone platform thirty feet wide.
Suspended in a space that goes on forever.

The platform is surrounded with a fence-like, thin ring of fire that rises straight for ten feet.
Before it curves and meets high above our heads.

“Am I here?” asks a voice.

“We hear your words,” I answer.

“There are no words,” it says.
“But there is understanding.”

“The stone is curious.”
“I gave the energy, but the stone shaped this place for us to meet.”

“You are the star sent to help us,” says Shazira.

“I am the wanderer,” it replies.
“I am here to protect life.”

“I am here to do what I must do.”
“And you are here to do what you must do.”

“What will you do?” I ask.
“And what must we do?

“I will find quiet space, and keep it free of the river.”
“And you must greet the river where it touches life.”

“What is the river?” asks Berek.

“What you call the Spiral.”

“How do we greet the river?” I ask.
“Do we drive it away, or destroy it.”

“The river is nearly without end.”
“You can drive it away, but it will return.”
“You can anger it, but not destroy it.”

We’re quiet, hoping for an explanation.
But none comes.

“We don’t understand what to do.” I say.

“You aren’t here to understand.”
“I am here to understand.”

“What do you need to understand?” I ask.

“Whether you can help me,” it answers.

There is silence.

“I understand,” it says finally.
“The largest will disappear, and rise in the circle of stars.”
“Come to me and shine brightly!”

“The smallest will carry the largest.”
“And the river will shine home.”
“You are blessed.”

We find our awareness back in the ship.

“What does it mean, Yagrin?” asks Shazira.

“I don’t know all of it,” I answer.
“Dilasa is the smallest, and I am the largest.”

“Whatever we’re doing to greet the Spiral, Dilasa will carry me.”
“She’ll enable me to succeed.”

“What’s the circle of stars, ina?” asks Dilasa.

“I think it’s the place of the star spirits.”
“I have to find a way to go there, and I think the wanderer can help.”

“How will you get there, ina?” asks Berek.

“Our fire bodies can survive the wild energy at the heart of a star.”
“I’ll enter the heart of the wanderer with only my fire body.”

“And I’ll search for a path there to the star spirits.”

“When I leave, Mayla, just bring the others back to Siksa.”
“I’ll meet you there.”

“We’d rather stay here for a few days,” says Shazira.
“And wait for your return.”

“I also want to stay here Yagrin,” says Mayla.
“I want to monitor the wanderer’s energy as you interact it with it.”

I hug my three children.
I look toward Shazira, to see if she will accept a hug.
But her face is cold to me.

I dissolve my physical body.
And pass through the ship into empty space.

Then I look for a gateway that will shorten my journey to the heart of the wanderer.
I travel for a few minutes at top speed, and find the gateway.

I widen it, so my fire body can pass through.
And soon find myself at the heart of the star.

The energy is overwhelming at first, but I get used to it.
My fires are strong here, glowing like never before.

At the center of the star, I see a spinning energy wheel.
It reminds me of the gateways that cover the energy web.

I try to pass through the gateway.
Then I try to widen it, but I can’t.

Maybe, it’s not really a gateway.

I remember the energy map that the star spirit showed to the probe.
How can I use this map?

I shape an energy pattern that duplicates the map, and I touch the pattern to the gateway.

The gateway opens wide, but my fire body still can’t pass.
There’s an energy barrier that blocks my way.

What did the wanderer say?
“Come to me and shine brightly.”

I’m already shining brightly, but it’s not enough.

I smile inside and let the Feldin glow shine, and touch the glow to the energy map.

The whole star seems to brighten for a moment from the glow.
Then the barrier opens, and I’m pulled through the gateway.

 
Circle of Stars
I’m hovering in an infinite space.

There is an immense river of light that passes through the center of this space.

The river is round and thick, forming a great tunnel of light that winds its way through this space.
Light fills the river, but it’s brighter in great clusters, with darker areas between.

I let my awareness grow quiet.
And I ask myself, “where is the right place for me in the river?”

Then I let myself be pulled to the place that I must go.

When I enter the river, my energy eyes see a different world.
A great funnel of energy rises wide and high around me in all directions.

I’m near the base of the funnel, hovering above a sunken disk.
The disk seems soft and flexible, and moves in beautiful, colored rhythms, mostly of yellow and blue.

The funnel is filled with energy bodies.
Star spirits.

The bodies don’t have a favored shape.
They’re constantly changing.

And there are no energy wells in these bodies.
Instead there is a large energy spiral that spins at the center of each body.

Hundreds of lines of energy connect one spirt to another.
And the funnel of spirits becomes its own energy web.

I am suddenly assaulted by hundreds of energy streams that join with my fire body.
My energy senses are overloaded, and I’m effectively energy blind.

My awareness stops.

I don’t know how much time has passed before my awareness returns.
But my energy senses have also returned.

And I am part of the web and the funnel.
This is the circle of stars, and I am accepted here.

I can touch the awareness and history of all of the spirits in the funnel.
Much of what I see, I don’t understand.

I try to ask questions, but none of the spirits respond.
I am connected with them, and yet in some way, I’m out of synch.

I let go of myself.
I think of the Gen stadium, the old ones’ temple, and my performance in Tshuan.

I rise through the funnel, twisting and turning.
With every movement, I release some of the energy streams that hold me, and send out new streams to touch other spirits.
The others join in, and the funnel is filled with movement, color, and vibration that form a great symphony.

Streams of energy form and disappear, connect and disconnect, and we shine together.

Eventually the dance stops, and I feel the excitement and joy that streams through the circle.
And I have no questions.

Only understanding.

When a sun dies, its spirit returns to the circle forever.
There is no return to the physical world, except to join a newborn sun.

It is forbidden, never explained, for a spirit to enter the physical universe without a sun.

But some spirits sparkle with curiosity.
Filled with a strange desire to leave the circle.
And explore the worlds of life.

Rare among star spirits.
Not understood.

It’s forbidden for the spirits to go.
But not impossible.

Some of the spirits without suns have entered the world.
Disconnected from any sun, the awareness and energy of the spirits grows weak as time passes.

Many return home.
But others never rejoin the circle.

Some of the lost have vanished when their energy is gone.
Others join together in a web that spans the universe, exploring life.
But hungry for energy to stay alive and aware.

This is the spiral.
It feeds on life to survive.
The energy that feeds it also brings back some of its old awareness.
But not all.

It’s a sad shadow of what it was.
Powerful, but dull.

The story of the Spiral brings shame to the star spirits who stay in the circle.
Outside the circle, none may speak of the connection between the star spirits and the Spiral.
I am also bound to this silence.

“What can I do to end the Spiral’s attack?”
I become aware of my question, just before its answer.
“Erase the spiral from your universe.”

There is no how.
No explanation that will tell me how to eliminate the spiral.
No answer when I remember how the wanderer said that the river (the Spiral) cannot be destroyed.

I let the confusion and heaviness go for a moment.
We have played together.
And shared joy, here in the circle.

What I have learned is the only answer that they can give me.
I am totally confused, but I accept the answer until I can understand.

But I have one more question.
“Can I succeed?”

“Yes. You and your reflection have the power.”

“Who is my reflection?” I wonder.
Dilasa.
We are the twin suns of ancient visions.
We will conquer the Spiral.

“Strength.”
I feel this idea move through the circle, and I wonder what it means.

The streams that connect me to the circle multiply.
And my fire energy glows in an unfamiliar way.

The endless streams fill me with energy beyond what I can hold.
And shatters the balance that holds me within the circle.

It’s too much.
I look at the balance pattern that holds my fire body together.
The pattern looks like it’s about to shatter.

Why are the spirits doing this?

All of the streams fall away.
I feel strange, thin and weak like air.

Then I see the gateway open for me, and I’m sucked through it.
Into the center of the wanderer.

But I’m not a star spirit.
And I’m weak from my journey.
Too weak, perhaps, to bear the power of the star.

 
Starlight’s Gifts
Something has wrapped me in a bubble of energy at the heart of the wanderer’s star.
And I feel my strength returning.

A word slips into my awareness from the star.
“Soon.”

I wonder what that means.

A few seconds later the bubble vanishes.
And the balance pattern shatters.
The fire body breaks up into streams of fire energy.

My fire energy moves easily and swiftly throughout the star.
And I regain my strength.

Time to rebuild my fire body.

I easily shape the balance pattern that holds the fire body together.
But I can’t bind the pattern to my fire energy.

The star’s energy interferes with the binding.

I need to get out of the star.
But I’m afraid.

Outside the star, in empty space, I know that my fire energy will fade quickly, with no fire or stone to support it.

I focus my attention.
I must be ready to take action at the moment when my energy escapes the star.

I feel confident as my fire energy rushes toward the outer edge of the star.
But when my energy touches empty space, it’s like being thrown into a boiling desert.
And I feel my energy fade.

The energy web is thin in deep space.
And even planet Gunal’s thick energy web was no help to me, the first time I lost the fire body.

Still, the energy web has always been like a friend.
And I reach toward the web for comfort, purely by instinct.

“Fool,” I think, just before my energy touches the web.
“The web can’t help me in my streaming form.”

But this time I’m wrong.
When I make contact with the web, it comforts me, and feeds me, and my strength grows.
How?

The star spirits.
They gave me a gift.
And changed my fire energy.

I reach out along the web with my energy sight.
I know that I am too far away to see Mayla’s ship.
But still, I reach for it.

The distance is nothing to me now.
I see the ship glow brightly, as if it was right before me.

The web seems to call to me.
And pulls me to come and play.

My fire energy blasts around the web in circles, around the wanderer.

Time to return to the ship.

I fill myself with the intention to let go of everything that holds me.
And just move.

Whenever I glide on the web, I know that it’s my will that moves me.
But now, I feel that the web plays with me.
And sends me in a smooth path toward a distant target.

I’ve never moved so fast across the web before.
One of the unknown pleasures of my streaming form.

I could open a gateway back to the ship or to Siksa.
But in this form, traveling at half the speed of light, the ship is only a few minutes away.

Before long I pass through the ship’s outer hull, and enter the control room.
I see the shock in my family’s energy bodies, when their energy eyes see my streaming energy.

They’re expecting a fire body, and wonder whose energy moves through their ship.
They would be frightened beyond measure if they knew that the spiral moves like this, as a stream of energy.

I found such pleasure in rushing along the web, that I forgot to rebuild my fire body.
Before Mayla or my family tries to attack this strange energy, I rebuild the balance that anchors my fire body.

Then I reshape my physical body.
And bind the physical and fire bodies together.

With the first breath I taste,
I take Shazira’s hand.

“Don’t be mad at me any more,” I say softly.
“I won’t return to Sinesu until you forgive me.”

She lets go of a long breath.

“Of course I forgive you,” she says, running a finger along the top of my nose.
“Now tell us what you learned.”

“The spirts gave me a gift of strength.”
“And told me that Dilasa and I have the power to erase the spiral.”

“But they didn’t tell me how to do it.”

“What kind of strength?” asks Shazira.

“My fire energy has changed.”
“I can move along the energy web without a fire body.”
“And see along the energy web, without end.”

“How will that help?” asks Berek.

He grows tall.
Someday he will rise taller than me.

I look him in the eyes, and a fire seems to pass between us.

“I don’t know how this new strength will help us, Berek.”
“The star spirits reveal little of their intentions.”

“But they gave me this gift to fight the Spiral.”
“Dilasa and I will discover the way.”

I repeat what Mayla told us, and I try to explain.
BUt she continues to yell at me.

Tzina and Dilasa come to our room, and are surprised by the yelling when I open the door shield.
Shazira stops yelling, when she sees them.

“What’s wrong?” asks Dilasa quietly.

“Visions!” answers Shazira.

“What visions?” asks Tzina.

Shazira is silent.
She doesn’t want to speak to the children while she is so angry at me.

Dilasa tells Tzina about the visions and the DreamSchool.

Tzina looks at me.
“Today, ina?” she asks, and starts crying.

Shazira softens when she sees Tzina’s tears and hugs her.
She glares at me.

“You act like it was my fault,” I tell her.

“Don’t you know,” she says quietly, “how much we miss you and worry about you when you’re gone?”
“We never know if you’re coming back to us.”

“He will come back,” says Dilasa, adding her own tears.

“Dilasa,” says Shazira gently, “you can’t be certain.”
“Yagrin wraps himself in danger.”

“Sindar said that I’ll protect him,” she says, raising her voice.
“I’ll bring him back.”

It would be laughable for any other six year old to promise such a thing.
But when Dilasa says it, her eyes are like fire, and we all believe her.
Shazira just stares at the powerful will that shines through those eyes.

Dilasa has a stronger spirit than any of us in that room.

Soon, Berek joins us.
Only Balshown and Mayla are missing.

But Mayla is never really gone.
She quietly sees and hears everywhere in the city, and across much of the planet.
Although she rarely speaks of it.

I just raise my voice to call her.

“Where’s Balshown, Mayla?”

“Gone,” she says.

“He woke before first sun.”
“And we spoke about the probes and your visions and your time in the DreamSchool.”

“I showed him some of the images of the Hikweh and he looked troubled.”
“Then he asked to leave the city, and I let him out.”

“Why did he leave?”

“He wouldn’t say.”
“But he left a note for you.”

Mayla seems so Jiku when I speak with her, but she’s not.
Her intelligence lives deep below ground in the main computer.
Sometimes, she greets us with holographic projections, and other times, she uses the Jiku-like bodies to interact with us.

One of her bodies enters the room.
And she hands me the note.

I’m a coward, Yagrin.
I deserted my world, and I’m embarrassed to tell my story in person.

I’ve tried to forget my old life.
I’ve never spoken about how my spirit traveled, and came to this Jiku body.
Until now.

My race is nothing like the Jiku.
Each of us has our own mind, but we also share a group mind.

Our galaxy is at the other end of this universe.
We were a proud race of energy masters, with a long, bright history.

Unlike the Jiku, our young are born aware, and we feel the energy web from the moment of birth.
It’s a great sight Yagrin, to see the swarms of our young fly along the energy web.

Our skies are always guarded.
We have faced enemies before.

There are many living worlds among the stars.
And many visitors saw our waters.

Some came as enemies, though most were just curious.
But we thought that we were superior to all.
And looked at all visitors as enemies.

When the energy hunters came to our world, we thought of them as just another enemy.
At first, they killed only a few of us.

But this enemy was troubling.

Our energy shields were useless.
And the hunter seemed empty of intelligence.

So we searched for the real enemy.

Whenever we join our minds together, we are filled with power, and our energy senses are sensitive beyond measure.
When we joined this time, to face our enemy, we felt an immense presence in the world.
And we knew that the presence is the real enemy.

It must have been the Spiral.

We touched it with the group mind.
It felt our contact, but it ignored us, like we were stones.

It must have been offended, or threatened by our touch.
Suddenly there were dozens of Hikweh, and they killed thousands of us each day.

Our power was nothing.
Our shields weak like air.

We had technology, but never space travel.
The idea of leaving our world, and the rest of the mind was unthinkable.

There was nowhere to go to escape the Hikweh.
We all watched friends and family die.
And we each wondered when our day would come.

Still, our population was billions.
So many that the group mind stayed strong, even as the death rained upon us.

We knew that there were enough of us to survive thousands of years of this slaughter.

Our spirits were dark.
But we hoped that someday we would find a defense against the monster.

The days and years passed.
The killing continued, but didn’t increase.

We were comfortable in our misery.
Until disaster came.

Our star erupted in a powerful stellar flare.
And the energy scorched our planet.

My energy shield was powerful enough to protect me, but the planet was in ruins.
Only a few dozen of us survived, and some were too damaged by radiation to have young.
We could barely form a group mind.

Only one good thing came of the destruction.
There was no trace of the Hikweh, or the shadowy presence behind it.

We gathered together and healed some of the land.
And wondered if we would survive.

We were an arrogant and violent race.
Though we had grown enough to let go of war with each other.

Before the destruction, we still thought nothing of killing other beings, including peaceful visitors from the stars.
And we had slaughtered a great race that once lived beneath our oceans.

Once we were invincible.
How small we had become.

I was young then, and I saw our world as a living death.

Our lives were bitter.
And our memories of our glory were worse than death.

There was great disgrace in killing ourselves.
And nowhere to go.

There were no ships, and we would all die, rather than think of leaving our brothers.

We sleep and dream half our day.
In my dreams, I found my way to Siksa.
And took a Jiku body.

I understood that I had pushed out another spirit.
But I was untroubled by its death.

I was alive on a strong, growing world.

I could feel a distant connection with my old body, and I tried to return to it.
But I couldn’t find my way back.

As the days passed, the connection with my old body haunted me.
How long will it survive without a spirit to guide it?
Will my old body claim me just before its death?

It took me some time, but I found the way to break the connection.
And I abandoned the other survivors of my world.
And all that was left of the group mind.

This body was so strange for me.
And I was so alone.

I left this note to tell you that you’re right.
The sun’s energy can be deadly to the Spiral.

But I had to warn you that the energy you use may kill the Jiku you’re trying to save.

I hope you find a way to safely fight the Spiral.
When you return, I need your help.

Mayla showed me an image of a Hikweh attack on a distant star system.
That star is only one hundred light years away from my own world.

If my race survived, they may be in danger again.
And who else but me can help them?

I am tired of being a coward.
I look at myself in the Jiku body, and I can’t bear what I see.

Help me find my old world, and open a pathfinder gateway to take me home.
And show us the way to kill the Spiral.

“Did you read the note?” I ask Mayla.

“No. Balshown asked me not to read it,” she says.

I flow the note into dust.
Balshown’s past is his business.

If I can, I will help him go home.
And fight.

“What was in the note?” asks Shazira.

“Much of it was private, just for me.”
“But he gave me proof that the sun’s energy is a potent weapon against the Spiral.”

 
Crushing the Spiral’s Limbs
“I’m coming with you, Yagrin,” says Shazira.

“No,” I tell her.
“It’s not safe.”

“Safe?!”
“Is there anywhere safe now?”
“We all know of the ancient visions of war.”

“There will be war, here on Siksa,” she answers.
“Whether from Tshuan or the Spiral.”

“Do you think that you can change that?”

“If there’s a war on Siksa,” I tell her, “I know you’ll fight.”
“And I want you by my side.”

“But why look for another war?”

“The Jiku far away are still our people,” she answers.
“Besides, if you can take Dilasa, you can take me.”

“What about Tzina?” I ask.
“Would you put her in the path of another war?”

Shazira is quiet.

“Stay with Tzina.”
“If you come with me, and we fail on Sinesu, she’ll be left an orphan.”

Shazira doesn’t answer.
But I know that she’ll stay.

I say goodbye to Tzina and Shazira, and take Dilasa’s hand.
Both Shazira and Tzina hug Dilasa.

Then Tzina hugs me, while Shazira moves away and is silent.

I start to open the pathfinder’s gateway.
But Mayla stops me.

“Yagrin, you must see this.”
“One of the oldest probes has just signaled its arrival.”

“Can’t it wait until I return?”

“No,” says Mayla.
“This probe has critical information about the Spiral!”

Mayla displays the images from the probe in our room.

“This probe has been watching Spiral attacks for hundreds of years.”
“But something else has caught its attention.”

A distant light moves across space, disappearing and reappearing.

“What is it?”

“It’s a small star without planets, moving through space, faster than light.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” she answers.
“It goes against everything we know about stars.”

“How long has the probe been following it?”

“At first, the probe shadowed a Nikol, one of the Spiral’s energy hunters, through space.”

The hunter follows ships as they pass between stars.
It disrupts the energy tunnel that the star drive opens.
And makes the star drive explode.

The Nikol absorbs the explosion, and the energy of all life aboard the ship.
The hunter radiates this energy, and makes a bright trail for the Diwan (the Spiral) to travel in.

“Sometimes the Nikol attacks a ship in normal space, to force the ship to activate its star drive.”

“About two hundred years ago, the probe reviewed its data and made an interesting observation.”
“It noticed that the hunter only attacks ships in normal space when they are far away from the local star.”

“The Nikol is not intelligent.”
“It operates according to programmed behavior.”

“It’s well known that activating the star drive too close to a star can result in stellar flares or even a nova.”

“The probe assumed that the Nikol must be programmed to avoid a catastrophic nova.”
“But no.”

“Data showed that the hunter was much more careful.”
“It would not even risk igniting a stellar flare.”

“The probe continued its studies.”
“About 50 years later, the probe was trailing a hunter as it approached a ship from a race called the Dakwil.”
“The ship was studying a star with no planets, and was relatively close to the star.”

“In fact, the Dakwil ship was close enough to the star, that an attack would cause a stellar flare.

“The probe was surprised when the Nikol attacked.”
“The hunter must have been damaged in some way, or desperate for energy.”

“When the Nikol approached, the Dakwil ship activated its star drive.”
“But it didn’t enter the tunnel.”

“The drive ignited a flare, and the Nikol was destroyed.”
“While the ship was safe within a radiation shield.”

“Great Mayla,” I tell her.
“This confirms that a stellar flare is deadly to the hunters.”

“That’s not all Yagrin.”
“The probe made contact with the ship.”

“The Dakwil told the probe that they are working to develop a weapon against the hunters, and even the spiral.”
“The weapon will simulate the energy signature of a stellar flare, in a highly focused beam.”

“Once perfected,” they said, “we will be able to use this weapon, even on our planet, with minimal damage.”

“The Dakwil gave the probe details of the planned weapon.”
“And the probe remained near the Dakwil world to see what would happen.”

“The probe even assisted in the design of the weapon.”
“When the first prototype weapon was complete, the Dakwil tested it against a Hikweh, away from population centers.”
“And the Hikweh was destroyed.”

“It was a treasured victory that was widely celebrated.”
“But the Dakwil knew that it was only a beginning.”
“It will take months of work,” they told the probe.

“Time was needed to design and test a more precise weapon, safe to use within the cities.”
“And still more time to produce and deploy enough of the weapons to fight the Spiral itself.

“It took too long.”
“The Dakwil were attacked by the Diwan before the weapons were ready, and this time, the whole planet was wiped out.”

“A few Dakwil ships escaped the attack, and one of them approached the sun.”
“The ship wanted to generate a flare which would cover the planet and destroy the Spiral.

“The hunter exploded the ship before it could get close to the sun, and activate the star drive.”

“The probe watched all of this.”
“And waited.”

“Then, something surprising happened.”

“A powerful stellar flare erupted from the star and covered the planet, destroying the hunters, and all local traces of the Spiral.”

“What ignited the flare?” asks Tzina.

“That’s the surprising part,” says Mayla.
“It was the star itself.”

 
Star Spirit
“It’s not possible,” says Berek.
“The sun isn’t intelligent.”

“That’s what the probe thought,” answers Mayla.
“Until the star spoke with it.”

“The star is the physical shell for a type of energy being – a star spirit.”

“The spirit has a lasting energetic connection with its star.”
“But the star spirit is not aware of our universe most of the time.
“Its awareness moves within an energy world where it joins with others of its kind.”

“It spends only rare moments within our universe, and during one of these it saw the attack.”
“And drove away the Diwan.”

“Drove it away?”
“Not killed?”

“The energy of the Spiral within a star system is like one of its limbs.”
“The limb was destroyed, along with its hunters.”

“And the Diwan will not soon return to a place, after one of its limbs is destroyed.”
“But the energy limbs of the Diwan are endless.”

“How do you destroy something which stretches across galaxies?”

“I won’t accept that,” I tell Mayla.

“Good, Yagrin,” she answers.

“Logically, it seems impossible to do more than drive away the Spiral.”
“But the star spirit agrees with you.”
“It told the probe that the threat of the Spiral can be erased from existence.”

“How?

“The spirit refused to tell the probe.”

“The spirit scanned the probe’s knowledge base to learn about the probe, and the Jiku who sent it.”
“Then the spirit told the probe that only the Jiku would understand how to fight the enemy.”

“The star spirit can’t focus for long on our physical universe.”
“And it’s time was gone.”

“It left an image for the Jiku to look at.”
“And was silent.”

“What good will an image do us?” asks Shazira.

“It’s a map to the world of the star spirits,” answers Mayla.
“An invitation to meet with them.”

 
The Wanderer
“What about the moving star?” asks Berek.

“When the spirit reviewed the probe’s knowledge base, it asked the probe a question.”

“Can the Jiku can leave their physical bodies behind, and travel as pure energy?”

“I only know what’s in my knowledge base,” answered the probe.
“The energy masters have an energy sight which can move far away from their bodies.”
“And they have a healing body which can move across the planet.”
“But I’ve never heard of a master that can leave her body behind, and journey to other worlds.”

“The Jiku are still welcome,” said the spirit, i”f they can follow the map.”
“But I think we must light another way.”

“Then,” says Mayla, “the communication just stopped.”

“The probe didn’t know what to do.”
“It stayed near the dead world for a few days to see if the star spirit would return.”

“But the probe was alone in the dark space.”

“It drifted, wondering if it was time to bring its data back to Siksa.”
“Then, the probe saw a bright new image.”
“And realized that there was a star moving quickly through space.”

“How can a star move through space faster than light, ina?” asks Berek.

“It doesn’t have to move faster than light.”
“There are endless gateways which connect distant places.”

“Pathfinders like me, can widen these gateways and travel through them.”
“The Spiral streams its energy through the gateways, perhaps without widening them.”

“The star may have its own way of using the gateways to travel.”

“Does the probe know where the star is going?” asks Shazira.

“The probe followed the star to see what it was doing.”

“It stayed far away from other stars.”
“But in open spaces between the worlds, it looked for Nikol energy trails, which the Spiral travels on.”
“Wherever it found Nikol, or limbs of the Spiral, it destroyed them.”

“The probe followed the star for a hundred years.”
“The star seemed to sense where to find Nikol and the energy trails that it lays down for the Spiral.”

“Why is the star doing this?” asks Dilasa.

“To help us,” I answer.

“Exactly,” says Mayla.
“Recently, the star made contact with the probe, and explained why it’s here.”

“The star spirts chose a star with no planets, to help us fight the Spiral.”
“Acting together, the star spirits strengthened the bond between the chosen star spirit and its star.”
“Once bound, the spirit can hold its awareness in our universe indefinitely.”

“The spirits know of the gateways that fill the universe.”
“But the chosen spirit was taught the secrets of moving a sun through the gateway.”

“It calls itself, the wanderer,” says Mayla.
“And it will soon arrive at a place a few light years away from us,” she continues.
“The wanderer expects the Jiku to meet it with a ship at a safe distance, so it can communicate with us.”

“Will it fight the spiral for us?” asks Dilasa.

“No, Dilasa,” I answer.

“It can help us in places between the stars.”
“But it can’t go near another star or planets.”

“It’s up to us to crush the limbs of the Diwan that wrap around the worlds of living beings.”

It’s warm in the city, but Mayla spins cool breezes around us to mirror the ice above.

There are crystal tables in the plaza arranged in a small circle.
The tables are set with food and drink, and we sit and watch and listen.
And eat.

I sit on one side of the circle, and the others sit opposite me.

Dilasa sits on Shazira’s lap, and Tzina sits next to her, holding her hand.
Dilasa is so happy.
And Tzina is thrilled to have a new sister.

Balshown and Mayla sit near Shazira.

I feel calm.
I’ve found my balance again.

A longing for my family remains.
Satisfied for the moment by their presence.

An ache will return when I leave again.
But now it’s an ache that I can live with.

“Where is Makish?” asks Shazira.

“She stayed behind to teach the Jiku.”
“And she’s not coming back.”

“Makish is an important part of our story, Shazira”
“She’s with an old friend from her youth.”

“Tell the story, ina,” says Dilasa.

I take a long drink.
“You know most of it, little one”
“You’ve seen my memories, and you were there on Sinesu.”

“I know,” she answers.
“I can’t wait to hear the parts about me!”

We all laugh.
And I tell the story.

I could give my listeners memories of it all.
And the story would be over in a few moments.

But it deserves more.
The story needs to be told slowly.

Still, I give them a few memories, so they can feel and see what the places and people of the story are like.

It takes hours to tell it all.
And I stop sometimes to take a drink, and pass healing energy into my throat to renew my voice.

Dilasa interrupts to remind me of details that I’ve left out, or to tell what she was feeling at the time.
“Who is telling this story?” I tease her.

“We are,” she answers.

When I finish, they’re all quiet for a few seconds.
Eventually, Balshown speaks.

“How will you fight the Spiral, Yagrin?”

“Show them the necklace, Dilasa.”

She pulls the necklace out of her clothing.
It’s a strange crystal that holds a piece of kralestone.

“Sindar left this necklace for her when she was first born.”
“He told us that this necklace gives Dilasa a special connection to the stars.”

“In Dilasa’s vision she pulls energy from the sun, and uses it to drive away the Spiral.”

“That’s how we’ll fight it, if we need to.”
“But I’m not sure that fighting is the answer.”

“First, I want to try again to communicate with the Spiral.”

“You leave again in two weeks?” asks Shazira.

“Yes.”
“Jiku and Fiklow are dying.”

“And who knows?”
“If the killing isn’t stopped there, it may spread across the possibility sea.”

 
Dreaming Together
The night comes soon, and Dilasa sleeps with Tzina.
“Are you ok, Dilasa?”

Tzina hugs Dilasa tightly.
She loves being the big sister.

“Don’t worry, Ina,” says Tzina.
“We’ll sleep in the same bed.”
“She won’t be alone.”

I kiss them both.

“My dreams scare me,” says Dilasa softly, taking my hand.

“If you need me or Shazira,” I tell her, “we’re in the next room.”

When sleep finally comes for Shazira and me, I’m so tired.
But I feel happy and safe among those I love.

I could erase the exhaustion with healing energy.
But tonight I want to let go of my strength, and feel the world catch me, and hold me in its arms as I sleep.

I dream.
Dilasa and I are floating in space.

I know that I am dreaming, yet the world around me is sharp, and I feel completely alert.
At first I think that this a lucid dream.
“Ina,” asks Dilasa, “why are you here in my dream?”

I laugh.
“Maybe it’s my dream,” I suggest, “and you’re visiting me.”

I look at Dilasa, and I feel her presence looking out through her eyes.
This is really Dilasa and not a dream of her.
I feel her mind touch.

“We’re awake in the dream together ina.”
“Yes, little one.”

Space closes in on us, and a large cube forms around us.
The walls are clear, nearly invisible crystal.
The floor is soft and warm, and full of cracks.
And there is a dark blue circle in the center of the floor, just like the entrypoint to a DreamHunter’s vision.

Surrounding the cube, the universe shrinks around us.
There are thousands of galaxies, most of them spirals.

Each fragment of the floor shows a different image of the consuming storm, the Hikweh.
The images show the Hikweh attacking many strange creatures, a few of them vaguely humanoid.

Mayla approaches us.
“Mayla?” I ask.

“Yes, Yagrin.”
“You know already that this is no ordinary dream.”

“What is this place?”

“It’s a DreamSchool.”

“How did we enter the school without a dreamnet”

“I spread the dreamnet energy over you and Dilasa as you slept.”
“Shazira and Tzina are untouched.”

“This is a school for DreamHunters.”
“The training is dangerous, even for DreamHunters, and deadly for those without the gift.”

She looks troubled.
“Before tonight, I’ve never cast the dreamnet without a sleeper’s permission.”

“Then why this time?”

“It’s urgent.”
“You know that the city was sealed after the destruction.”
“Shilann and I spent our time studying the contents of the library.

“He spent his time with philosophy and art.”

“I read everything in the library dozens of times before he read his first words there.”
“Still, with further study and experiments, I found many ways to improve our existing technology.”
“More advanced computers, weaponry, power sources, and many other innovations.”

“One of my most exciting breakthroughs was a dramatically faster star drive.”
“The technology was so elegant and powerful, but it seemed to have litle use.”
“It gave off so much radiation that it could never be used for a ship with life aboard.”

“Shilann gave me the idea of what to do with the star drive.
“He was restless in his exile with me.”

“Above all, Shilann had an explorer’s spirit.”
“And Siksa was a small planet in an unexplored universe.”

“I built hundreds of probes, equipped with the new star drive, and a powerful, compact artificial intelligence.”
“And we launched those probes to the far ends of this galaxy and beyond.”

“Eventually, most of the probes returned.”
“And they brought images and sound from strange worlds.”

“The probes found intelligent life and language on hundreds of worlds.”
“They deciphered the languages, and gathered the writings that each world most treasured.”

“The probes saw physical beings who ride the energy web as you do.”

She pauses.

“Another time, Mayla,” I tell her, “and I would love to explore what they’ve seen.”
“But you still haven’t told us why we’re here.”

Dilasa tugs at my black robe.
“Yagrin,” she says, “the pictures of the Hikweh are real.”

“Yes, Dilasa,” says Mayla.
“After you told your story of the Hikweh, and went to sleep, I scanned the probe images looking for evidence of the Hikweh and the Spiral in our own universe.”

“You were worried that the Spiral might spread across the possibility sea.”
“Either it has spread, or else it grew on its own in this universe.”

“Most of the images you see are from another galaxy.”
“But a few images are from a distant part of our galaxy.”

“Hikweh here?”

“Not near our sun, yet, but in our galaxy,” she answers.

“Why not just tell us in the morning?”

“The old masters who guard the cave contacted me.”
“They know when someone has been in the cave.”

“So you told them about us?”

“I did, but you and Dilasa are not the only ones who visited the cave.”

“There was a message left in the cave.”
“It says that the Spiral will attack the planets Gunal and Sinesu in a few days.”

“Is the message from Sindar?”

“No. The note is from a master who says that she’s a DreamHunter.”

“Maybe it’s a trap,” I suggest.
“There were masters who saw us at the Seven Towers.”
“They must know that we’ve come to Siksa, and they want to discover how I’ve penetrated the barrier.”

“Maybe, Yagrin,” she answers.
“But what if the vision is true?”

“If it’s true, we can’t wait two weeks.”
“But how do we know if it’s true?”

“The DreamSchool training will strengthen your visions.”
“Then you can see for yourself if Sinesu is threatened.”

“And, the training may help you use your gift as a weapon.”

“A weapon?”
“One of the ancient DreamHunters had a vision of the far future.”
“She saw a DreamHunter open a tunnel between two universes.”

“The DreamHunter wore the black robe of the pathfinders.”

“Isn’t that a rare combination of skills?”

“The ancient masters believed that it was an impossible combination.”
“But you and Sindar have both skills.”

“Still,” says Mayla, “it may take the strength of more than one DreamHunter to open such a tunnel.”

“That’s why I’ve brought Dilasa here.”
“She can combine her strength with yours, and help you open the tunnel.”

“A tunnel between Sinesu and Siksa would be wonderful,” I agree.
“We could travel without passing through the possibility sea, or the Seven Towers.”

“But how would a gateway become a weapon?”

“You could lure an enemy into the gateway,” says Mayla.
“And dissolve the tunnel, destroying the enemy within it.”

I shudder inside as I think of the energy creature called the Balancer.
It keeps the possibility sea in balance.

“There’s a balance, Mayla, within the possibility sea.”
“Part of the balance comes from the separation between one universe and another.”
“What will happen if we join two together?”

“I don’t know,” she answers.

I have spent more than one night in DreamSchools.
This one is different.

There is no building, no energy masters to teach us, and no other students, except Dilasa.
Mayla created this simulation just for us.

Still, time is compressed here, like other simulations.
One night’s sleep becomes one year awake within the school.

“Why is this training dangerous, Mayla?” I ask.

“Anyone can learn to open the gateway, and wait for visions.”
“But without DreamHunter talent, the visions would drive them insane.”

“But we have the talent,” I answer, “so there’s no danger to us.”

“Opening the gateway is not dangerous for you.”
“But I’ll also teach you to focus your intention, and control the type of vision you receive.”

“When you narrow the focus to a single universe, your connection to it is so strong, that it’s easy to get caught in it.”
“Your mind circles through events that you find enticing or horrible, over and over again in an endless loop, until you go insane, or your body dies.”

“Don’t most DreamHunters have visions about a single universe?”

“Their vision comes from a group of nearby universes, where the possibilities are similar.”
“And they don’t consciously focus the vision, they just wait for it to come.”

 
Spinning the Gateway
“I want you to remember,” says Mayla, “when you first found yourself in the DreamHunter’s gateway with the blue circle and the shattered images.”

“Yes,” we answer.

“What happened next?” asks Mayla.

“The vision filled me,” I answer.

“Yagrin,” she says, “the vision takes you over, because you just wait for something to happen.”

“What else should we do?” asks Dilasa.

“You make a choice,” says Mayla.
“You play with all of the possibilities around you.”

“Play?” I ask.

“Play,” she answers.
“When you play in any situation, you accept that there are endless possibilities around you.”
“The world is alive around you, and an equal partner in play.”

“You fill yourself with the joy of living and discovery.”
“You let all your energy rise up within you, and you reach out to meet the possibilities around you.”

“You want to discover the rules, then break the rules, and make up your own.”

“This is true in every corner of your life.”
“It must be true when you enter the DreamHunter’s gateway.”
“You’re literally surrounded by every possibility that can exist!”

“But even the right attitude isn’t enough.”
“You can’t wait until you enter the gateway by accident.”
“The first thing to learn is how to enter the DreamHunter’s gateway at will.”

“You do this,” she says, “by spinning your energy.”

“Your fire body has seven energy wells.”
“The wells are lined up in a row, purple-white on top, and red on the bottom.”

“But your fire body is more fluid than most masters think.”

“Let’s explore that flexibility.”
“Imagine the seven energy wells flying away from the rest of your egg-shaped fire body, with the dark blue well at the lead.”

“The dark blue well takes the center, and the other six wells form a ring around it.”

“Shape some of the energy from your fire body into a small dark blue sphere that surrounds the dark blue well.”
“This sphere, and the energy within it powers all your visions.”

“Pour the rest of your fire body onto the ring of the six wells, and watch a sparkling, multi-colored torus take shape.”
“The torus is partially transparent, and you can see the six wells within it.”

“Energy radiates back and forth, between the sphere and the torus, like spokes, and your fire body has become a wheel.”

“See it, and feel the energy there.”

“Are you with me?” she asks.

“Yes,” we answer.

“Good.”

“Now, watch the six energy wells move within the torus, around the sphere, at a steady, medium speed.”
“Each of the wells radiates its color in all directions.”

“The empty space on the floor, around the wheel is filled with sparkling bits of the six colors, floating on a dark blue sea.”
“All universes exist outside the wheel, but you can’t see them yet.”

“Let all your energy wells spin, faster and faster, and watch the empty space start to crack, and images appear on each fragment.”
“There are endless fragments, and each is a universe.”

The energy wheel seems to disappear, leaving a solid, dark blue circle on the floor, at the center of the fragments.
I see my body standing on that circle, looking out over the sea of possibility.

“Now, we close the gateway,” says Mayla.
“Just reverse the steps.”

“Let the energy wells stop spinning.”
“Then return the fire body, and the wells within it, into its traditional shape.”

“Practice opening and closing the gateway five times.”
“Let me know when you’re done.”

“Ok,” we tell her.

“Now, join your minds together.”
“Let’s see if you can combine your gateways.”

I reach out with a mind touch to Dilasa.
“Are you there, little one.”

“Yes, ina.”

As our minds touch, we see two gateway images.
I nudge my gateway toward Dilasa’s gateway, and the two meet.
And the gateways vanish.

“Mayla, the gateways just collapse when our minds come together.”

“I hoped that your gateways would spontaneously combine,” says Mayla.
“Instead, you’ll have to work at it.”

“Break the mind touch,” she says.
“I want each of you to practice opening and closing the gateway one hundred times.”

We practice and practice and practice.
Until the opening and closing come quickly and easily.

“Now what?” I ask Mayla, when Dilasa and I are done.

“I don’t know,” she answers.
“If there’s a way for the two of you to enter a vision together, you’ll have to find it.”

Our minds touch.

“Let’s try one well at a time,” I suggest.

Dilasa shapes the sphere first around her dark blue energy well.
Then, I try to move my well into the sphere.
“Ow,” we both say together, when my well touches the sphere, and the sphere crumbles, leaving our two wells floating near each other.

A deep breath, and we begin again.
We move the two energy wells next to each other.
Then we both pour energy from our fire bodies around the wells to build the sphere.
The sphere forms for a moment, but then it drifts away like smoke.

“Ina,” says Dilasa, frustrated, “just tell me what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I tell her.

“You do, ina.”
“I feel that you know, somewhere inside you.”

 
Inside
I know that there is a part of me so much wiser than the me who walks and talks.
But I always seem to forget this.

I smile and let myself go.
I imagine a large group of selves, who all look like me.
We’re laughing and playing together, engaged in a dozen different games.

“Let’s play a listening game,” I say to myself.
“What can we hear, hiding in the silence?”

I play with the words as I think them, imagining them bursting out of some hidden fountain.
I feel their sound and rhythm, and let them dance and fly through my mind.

I see myself playing and chasing the words through an endless, changing landscape in my mind, as I fly, full of joy.

In the center of the sky I see a shiny, gleaming, black clould, it’s surface like a screen, covered with images.

There, I see an image of spinning rivers of energy.
This is an image from the queen’s birth.

Energy wells.
They’re shaped like the funnel of a tornado, spinning wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.
What if I change them into spinning rivers?

“Watch my energy well, Dilasa, and do what I do.”

I smile and stretch out my dark blue well, like I’m playing with clay or a spring.
Then, I reshape the well into a spinning river, a spiral of energy that gets narrow as it descends.

Dilasa does the same.

“What’s next?” I say to myself.
“How do we let these rivers play together?”

I watch and wait.
The two rivers wrap around each other, and form a spinning double spiral.

The double spiral is wide at the top, and narrows toward the bottom.
Where the two rivers finally touch.

When the bottom of the spirals touch, energy rushes out from our fire bodies.
The blue sphere forms by itself, and surrounds the double spiral.

We continue the game.
I let each of my other six wells unravel, like I was pulling on a poorly woven gartment.
And each well becomes a spining, narrowing river.

“Let the rivers dance and wrestle,” I tell Dilasa.

I don’t push the rivers together.
I just let my river go, and Dilasa does the same.

Each pair combines into a double spiral.
And dances its way into a ring around the sphere.

More energy from our fire bodies streams towards the six spirals, and forms the semi-transparent, sparkling torus.
And the energy wheel is complete.

Now, it’s a contest between us.
Who can spin the double spirals faster?

And the gateway forms.
The wheel becomes the blue circle, and the two of us stand together on the circle, holding hands.
There is a beautiful deep tone that seems to rise from the possibility sea around us.

 
Focus
“Open and close the gateway, together.”

At Mayla’s direction, we repeat the process, thousands of times.
Sometimes, I try to force it, and the opening fails.

But then I remember.
I’m playing with my daughter, and the world is joining in.
And the next opening is fine.

We take long breaks when we tire of the gateway.

Sometimes, during our breaks, we just fly together to a mountaintop within the simulation, and sit together without words.
Sometimes we speak out loud, or with a mind touch.

During most of our break time, we practice healing skills.
With a little time for weaving and flow.

Mayla reminds me to play with Dilasa as we practice, and the time melts away.

We seem awake in the DreamSchool, and we seem to have bodies.
But our dream selves don’t sleep or eat.

In other trips to the DreamSchool, I’ve found the endless days exciting, but sometimes a burden.
This trip is different, at least when I remember to think of the learning as play, not work.

Finally, after several weeks within the DreamSchool, Mayla is satisfied with our progress.
Dilasa and I open the gateway together in a few seconds, with only a quick mind touch, and barely a thought.

“You’re ready for the next step,” says Mayla.
“Open a gateway together.”

In a moment, the gateway opens, and we stand together.
The cube around us feels like it has boundaries, twenty or thirty feet away.
But when we look out over the floor, and each fragment that carries an image, the fragments and the floor seem to go on forever in all directions.

“The image in each fragment is static, or changes rarely,” says Mayla, after the gateway opens.
“To see more, you touch your healing body to one or more fragments.”

“You can use a quiet touch, empty of thought and feeling, but you’ll be flooded with images, and you’ll blackout for a few seconds.”
“And you’ll learn nothing.”

“Instead think and feel about your need to know of a person or place.”
“Touch the fragment with the intention.”
“Your intention will be a filter for what you see.”

“Both of you must use your healing bodies, and touch a fragment together, with the same intention.”
“Don’t let the other act, while you simply watch through your mind touch.”

We begin by touching dozens or hundreds of related fragments at once with our healing bodies.
Mayla tells us where to touch, and what intention to hold in our thoughts and feelings.

Even with an intention to focus the vision, there’s still too much information.

we learn how to make the briefest touch to the fragments.
And how to make our intentions more precise.

But the flood of information is still overwhelming.

“It’s too much, ina,” says Dilasa.

“She’s right Mayla,” I add.
“We can barely remember who we are within the flood of information.”

“You’re trying to hold on to the energy that carries the information,” she tells us.

“Let the energy rise up from the fragment like a fountain.”
“Let it wash over you, and return to the fragment.”

“Believe and accept that you’ll remember what you need to know.”

We tell Mayla what we see with the first intention, and she helps us craft a second intention to further refine what we see.
We practice with groups of fragments for months.

As the months continue, Dilasa and I design, and refine our intentions together, without Mayla’s help.
And the groups of fragments get smaller and smaller, until we touch only 3 or 4 fragments.

Mayla shows us a type of universe that she calls “the empties”.
These universes seem empty of structure.
There is no matter and no energy.

There are no suns to fill the emptiness.
No life, and no spiral.

Among the universes with energy and suns and life, a creature like the Spiral is common.
In some, we see visions of its death.
In other universes it takes energy from living creatures, but never kills.

In some, it seems to disappear in a flash of overwhelming light.
And in still other universes, the Spiral spreads, and its hunger grows, until it consumes all intelligent life.

Together, Dilasa and I seek a vision about Sinesu and the Spiral.
We touch our Sinesu’s universe, and others nearby.

The vision comes.
Dilasa and I return to Sinesu, and I see myself trying to speak with the Spiral.
Soon afterwards, the Spiral attacks.

Does the attack come because I contact the Spiral?
Or because I fail to make contact?

One thing is clear.
The note from DreamHunter of the Seven Towers is true.

When a month remains of our year in the DreamSchool, Mayla stops us.
“It’s time to touch a single universe,” she says.

“The two of you will open a gateway, together, and then Yagrin will touch the universe where Dilasa was born.”
“Dilasa will listen with a mind touch.”

“When Yagrin focuses on the single universe, the size of the fragment will grow.”
“Yagrin won’t see it on his own.”
“The vision overwhelms every other thought.”

“It’s up to you, Dilasa to focus your attention on the growing fragment.”
“I’m hoping that Yagrin will be able to see the fragment grow through his mind touch with you.”

“Yagrin, if you’re able to see fragment grow, then be sure to disconnect before the fragment reaches the circle.”

“Dilasa, if he doesn’t stop when the fragment approaches the blue circle, pull your energy from the gateway.”
“The gateway should close.”

We try it.
The vision draws me in, and I drift from one event to another.

In the distance I see a shadowy image of a blue circle and something growing toward it.
I remember, and disconnect from the fragment.

Each of us practices this hundreds of times, until we learn to see the vision and the shadow of the fragment.
And disconnect ourselves before we get completely lost in the vision.

“Seeking a focused vision is dangerous,” says Mayla.
“But sometimes there’s no other choice.”

We continue to practice.

One day, I notice that the far ends of the simulation are starting to shimmer.
“It’s almost time to wake,” says Mayla when I ask her about it.

“What about trying to join two fragments,” says Dilasa.

“I haven’t forgotten,” answers Mayla.
“I planned out the exercise.”

“The two of you would open a DreamHunter gateway together, and then each of you would touch the grandmother pattern to a different fragment.”
“Finally, Yagrin would stream the glow into both fragments to open a pathfinder gateway between the universes.”

“Will it work?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” answers Mayla.
“But I’ve decided that it’s too dangerous to attempt.”

“It may kill you, or destroy both universes, or even the entire possibility sea.”
“There’s too much risk.”

The DreamSchool starts to fade.
“I bound your bodies to the DreamSchool with a new type of dreamnet,” says Mayla.
“You’ll awake refreshed and strong.”

When adults use an ordinary dreamnet to enter the DreamSchool, it takes days for their bodies to recover.
Children recover much more quickly.

The DreamSchool is gone.
And I awake in a large round bed.

The early morning sun shines in through a green crystal window.
Shazira is already awake, and listening to birds singing just outside our window.

“Are you mad at me, Yagrin?” asks Dilasa, as she touches my mind.
She’s afraid of the anger that I showed before, and her mind touch is weak.

“No, Dilasa.”
“I’m not angry any more.”
“But I wish that you had listened to me.”

“Who were the ones flying toward us, from the tower?”

“I don’t know, Dilasa,” I answer, frustrated.
“But we were seen, and Sindar told us that we should not let ourselves be seen.”

“Will they follow us?”

“I’ve told you what Sindar said,” I say, too abruptly.
“I don’t know more than that.”

It’s dangerous to travel from the Seven Towers to other worlds, even for an energy master.

When you open a tunnel to another world, you can’t predict what you will find at the end of the tunnel.
Be prepared to be surrounded by a thunderstorm a thousand feet in the air, or lava, somewhere near the planet’s core.

And two trips to the same world will end in different places.

But it’s possible to build a stable doorway on a world.
After that, every journey from the Seven Towers will take you to the same, safe place.

There’s a doorway on Siksa, and our tunnel will take us there.
It was built by the Bizra and the guardians, who want to stop travel between Siksa and the Seven Towers.
But where do you put a doorway that you don’t want anyone to use?

Before long, the tunnel fades, and Siksa’s universe expands before us.
And we find ourselves in a small cave with a dirt floor, no more than ten feet long.

The rock walls are cool and moist, with a glowing crystal that provides a little light.
But there’s nothing to see here.

There are no doors, and no way out.
There is air here, but not much.

I drop the energy shield, and look at the walls with energy eyes.
The cave is surrounded with a barrier of energy that I can’t see through.

Dilasa watches as I try to move my healing body through the energy field.

I stop, and flow some of the dirt in the cave to oxygen, and we breath easier.

To change the nature of an object or an energy field, you have to see and understand its underlying energy patterns.
Then if you have the skill, you can flow one pattern into another.

This barrier seems to have no patterns, and is constantly changing.
It reminds me of the apparent chaos of the wall that protects the city of life.

There is a way to pass through that wall, using the wall’s strange murals.
But there are no murals here.

This wall is not made to be opened.

“How do we get out of here, Yagrin?” asks Dilasa, frightened.
“I don’t like this small place.”

“If nothing else works, we can always open a tunnel back to the Seven Towers, and then back to Sinesu.”

She lets go of a long breath.

“Yes,” she admits.

“If I wasn’t with you, Dilasa, could you raise the shield, and open the tunnel?”

“Yes,” she says, “but where are you going?”

“Don’t be scared Dilasa, but I’m going to disappear, and try getting through the barrier with only my fire body.”

“I can’t do that, Yagrin.”

“No, Dilasa, you can’t.”
“Your fire body is not like mine.”

“If you let go of your physical body, you’ll forget who you are.”
“And you won’t be able to make a new body on your own.”

“Look into my mind,” I tell her.
I show her how I flow the carbon dioxide that we exhale, back into Oxygen.

“You know that your body takes in the good air, and breathes out air that isn’t good for you?”

“Yes.”

“Try flowing the bad air into good air.”

When I’m satisfied that she can do it, I prepare to go.

“Every few minutes,” I tell her, “remember to flow the bad air back into good air.”

“I understand,” she says, trying to be strong.
“But come back soon.”
“I won’t leave without you.”

She’s scared of this place.

For all her strength, she’s still a child.
And I shouldn’t leave her alone.

Right now, this is the only way to get home.

I give her a long, hard hug, and she sighs.
Then I let go of her and dissolve my physical body.

 
Living Fire
My energy sight is brighter with my physical body gone.

The barrier is full of rich, swirling colors.
It’s beautiful to look at.

But I still can’t get through it.

My fire body tastes the energy of the barrier, and it seems familiar.

It reminds me of the barrier that protects the city of life.
And I remember a way to reveal the patterns of the barrier.

I shape the grandmother energy pattern, and play with it for a moment, letting it dance around me.

Then I bring it to a gentle stop, just in front of the barrier, and clothe it in a dark blue sphere of energy.

I shape the twelve mother patterns of energy, and lay them out in a ring around the sphere.
Then I shape spokes of energy that connect the twelve mothers to the sphere.

I bind my fire body to the energy wheel.
And become the wheel, filling it with the Feldin glow.

I spin.
And look toward the barrier again.

The chaos is gone, and the barrier’s patterns are clear.
I could destroy it.

“Fool,” I tell myself, after a moment.

I could flow away the barrier, but I don’t.

I don’t know how to rebuild it.
And without it, Siksa will have no protection from the dangers of the Seven Towers.

Frustrated, I let go of the sphere and the other patterns.

Sindar visited the old Yagrin on Siksa, after the barrier was built.
What are the skills of the pathfinders guild?
How did he get through the barrier?

Sindar isn’t here to help me.

I look around with energy eyes at the web within the room.

When I recovered from the Hikweh energy venom, my energy sight grew stronger.
And the energy web became full of tiny spinning wheels, of energy and color.

The wheels are gateways to distant places, many on this planet, and some far beyond.
A brief touch of my healing body to a wheel, and I can see where the gateway leads.

The spiral travels effortlessly through these gateways, but it has no form, not even a fire body.

Is that the way?
Could I pass through as fire energy, with no body?

I scan my fire body with energy eyes.
And I see a subtle energy pattern almost hidden within the fire.

Before my vision was strengthened, I would never have seen it.
I see a complex pattern of balance that holds the body together.

I look carefully at the balance pattern.
It’s a simple variation on the grandmother pattern that I know so well.

A few hours ago, the throne touched my fire energy with the balance pattern.
And helped me rebuild my fire body.

If I let go of the fire body, will I be able to resore it, alone?

I look at Dilasa, sitting quietly in the cave, propped against a wall.
I can feel her fear.
And it stops me, for a moment.

Then, I focus on the balance pattern, and let it dissolve.
My fire energy finds safe haven in the stone of the walls, as the fire body disappears.

If only my fire energy could move easily along the energy web, as the spiral does.
I try it, and watch my strength begin to fade, before retreating back into the stone.

I scan the spinning gateways that fill the energy web within the cave.
And find a gateway that opens to the city of life.

Heelu glide through the air, high above the sea, moving toward the western shore.

Heelu!
The spiral can move its energy through the Heelu.
In this form, can I can do the same?

I move my energy to the gateway.
And pass through!
Leaving the cave behind.

But my excitement doesn’t last.
My fire energy spreads out like a cloud as it enters the air of the city of life, and drifts downward.

I am weak without stone or fire to support my energy.
It’s difficult to think.

But I can still shine with a Feldin glow.
And it attracts the Heelu flock.

One of the Heelu comes close enough to touch my energy cloud.
And my fire energy rushes into the Heelu and radiates to the rest of its flock.

My strength returns, and I direct the movement of the flock.

We land on the western shore of the sea.
With one of the Heelu coming to rest on top of a large rock.
The Heelu’s ribbon-like body fluttering like a sail in the breeze.

I slip out of the flock and into the stone.

I use the balancing power of my healing body to hold my fire energy in the shape of a fire body.

But this is not a real fire body.
It’s weak, and must stay in contact with the stone.
And still, the healing body cannot hold the energy in this shape for more than a few seconds.

But that’s long enough.
I recall the strange balance pattern that the throne taught me.
And I flow that pattern in the midst of the temporary fire body.

The fire body sparkles for a moment and stabilizes, and draws strength again from the energy web.

I reshape my physical body on the rock, and bind it to the fire body.
I sigh loudly, as I rise in the air, free of the stone.

 
Intruder
I shine the Feldin glow as a present to the Heelu for their help, and they crowd around me.
But I extinguish the glow after fifteen seconds.

Dilasa is trapped in the cave.
And I need to see my family.

The Heelu drift away, and I look toward the city.
There are dozens of machines moving toward me, with Mayla behind them.

When the machines reach me, they surround me, and project a powerful energy shield.
“Who are you?” asks Mayla roughly, “and how did you enter the city?”

“Don’t you recognize me, Mayla?”

“You’re not Jiku,” she says.
“I’ve never seen you before.”

I look at my hands.
They’re furry.
I’ve taken one of the Gen forms.

I reshape my body into my Jiku form.

“You may look like Yagrin,” she says, “but your fire body is different.”

“Yes,” I agree, thinking of the Hikweh’s venom, and the queen’s blessing.
“My fire body has changed, but I’m still Yagrin.”

“You know that I’ve traveled with the Fiklow to their universe,” I tell her.
“Travel through the possibility sea leaves no one untouched.”

She looks less certain.

I speak of how I first entered the city, and tell her the history of the Jiku on this world.
And the artifact.

“You’ve spoken with Yagrin, or taken his memories before his death, but you’re not him.”

“Death?”
“You know that I can reshape my physical body.”
“Why would you think that death would keep me away?”

“The deathstone,” she says, as she holds up a glowing red stone.
“It tells me that Yagrin’s fire body is gone.”
“There’s nothing left of him to return.”

“It’s wrong,” I tell her.

“I am Yagrin.”
“Makish and I were taken against our will by the Fiklow.”
“But it worked out well in the end.”

“I’ve made peace with the Fiklow.”
“And I’ve hidden the artifact where no one will ever touch it again.”

“I’ve walked on the hills of Sinesu where Shilann and his wife walked.”
“Would you like to see those hills, Mayla?”
“Someday, I’ll take you there.”

“It must be a sad place, desolate after the wars,” she says, half believing my words.

“No,” I answer.
“Some Jiku on distant colonies survived the wars, and a few thousand have returned to Sinesu.”
“They’ve abandoned the coast, and live deep within the great forest.”

“The Jiku and Fiklow face a powerful, common enemy called the spiral.”
“They need my help to fight it, so I must return to them in two weeks.”

“But I’m here now.”
“Is it so hard to believe that I found my way home?”

“We monitor space for ships,” she says.
“There was no Fiklow ship to bring you home.”

“I came here without a ship, through the world of the Seven Towers.”
“Sindar told me the way.”

“Sindar is only a legend,” she says, dismissing me, “dead for tens of thousands of years.”
“All that remains of his legend is a monument not far from here.”

“No, Mayla, he’s real, and he’s still alive.”
“He has slept in a stasis chamber for almost all of his long years.”

“The guardians have sealed the path from the Seven Towers,” she says.
“You can’t reach Siksa through that path.”

“I found a way out of the cave at the end of the sealed path.”

“You have an answer for every question,” she says, then stops.
“How do you know about the cave?”

“No one but me, the guardians and the Bizra know where the path leads.”
“And they never speak of it.”

“I told you.”
“I’ve been to the cave.”

I stop, as someone approaches, gliding through the air.
My heart beats faster when I see that it’s my son.

“Let him go,” says Berek.

“Berek,” says Mayla, “he only looks like your father.”
“I’ve told you about the deathstone, and its power to track those who touch it.”

“Yagrin touched the deathstone before he left to meet the Fiklow.”
“And the deathstone says that Yagrin has died.”

I remember her handing the grey stone to me, and asking me if I liked the blue that it glowed when I first touched it.

“The deathstone streams energy into the fire body of anyone who touches it, and turns blue.”
“The stone detects the energy, and tracks a person across any distance.”

“I thought that the Fiklow might try to capture Yagrin.”
“And I hoped that the stone would help us find him, even across the possibility sea.”

“When the Fiklow ship disappeared across the possibility sea, I wondered if the stone would fade to grey, or show the red of death.”

“Instead, it stayed blue, still connected to the distant energy.”
“But then, a day ago, the blue turned to red.”

“When were you planing on telling us this?” asks Berek angrily.

“I was waiting a few more days.”
“Hoping that Yagrin might prove it wrong.”

“But he’s here,” says Berek, “just as you hoped!”

“My fire body shattered,” I tell her.
“And the deathstone energy must have separated from me.”
“That’s why the stone glows red.”

“But my fire energy survived, and I found a way to restore the fire body.”

“I want to believe you,” she says, “but if you’re lying, you’re a great danger to the city.”
“I’ve sent a message to Shazira.”
“She’ll help me figure out the truth here.”

“I can’t wait any longer,” I tell her, frustrated.
“A young girl is trapped below ground, and will die if I don’t find a way to free her soon.”
“She can’t escape the cave the same way that I did.”

“I need a way now to transport physical things from place to place without a transport platform.”
“Does the library speak of anything like this?”

Mayla is quiet.

“Answer him,” says Berek.

“I’ll tell him,” she says to Berek, “but only because there’s not much to tell.”
“The library calls Sindar the last of the pathfinders.”

“The Bizra told us that there once was a collection of pathfinder secrets, called the Memories of the Pathfinders, or Sindar’s gift.”
“But what good is it?”
“The memories can only be accessed by someone who is already a pathfinder.”

“The Bizra say that the gift is hidden somewhere on Siksa.”
“I never expected to find it, but I scanned the whole planet for it.”
“It’s not here.”

“Did you look in Sindar’s monument?” I ask her.

“It was the first place I looked.”
“The monument is just stone, with a genetic lock that opens a small, hollow chamber within the stone.”

 
Pathfinders
Storm clouds form around Berek.
And lightning blasts the machines that imprison me.

Free, I glide toward Berek and hug him fiercely.

“I missed you, Ina,” he says quietly.
“It was too quiet here without you.”

I laugh.
And then I turn my head.

Mayla is about ten feet behind me, with her arm raised, ready to attack me.
But she’s confused.

“You raise no shield to protect yourself,” she says.

“Why would I raise a shield to protect myself from you and my son?”

I reach out my thoughts and find Shazira and Tzina approaching.

“I’m home,” I tell them with a mind touch.
“But we must hurry, or a young girl will die.”

Shazira and Tzina arrive and join me in a hug.
I could hold them forever.

“Ina,” says Tzina, “we were so worried about you.”

“I missed you so much,” I say, holding Tzina’s gaze for a few seconds before falling into Shazira’s eyes.

“I’ll explain later,” I tell them, “but a young girl has come back with me, and she’s trapped.”
“I have to find a way to help her.”

“Come with me,” I say, as I glide to Sindar’s monument.

“Who built this?” I ask Mayla.

“The Bizra.”

I touch the top of the monument.
It glows brightly, and the top slides away, uncovering a small empty space.

“It opens for you!” says Mayla.

I ignore her, and scan the monument with energy eyes.
An energy image of the Feldin hovers at the center of the empty space.

I reach inside myself, and release the glow, and let it shine toward the energy image.
memories come streaming into my mind.

They begin with a message from Sindar.
“Only the touch of one of Geyfal’s sons will open the monument.”
“So I say, welcome brother.”

“And the Bizra tell me that only the Feldin glow will open the gift.”
“They dreamed that you would come one day, carrying the glow.”
“And so, I left this message, and the Memories of the Pathfinders, for you to find.”

The pathfinders train for years to increase the sensitivity of their energy eyes.
So they can see the gateways.

The Memories teach me how to train.

When an apprentice is judged to be ready, a master pathfinder touches the apprentice with pathfinder energy.
The energy renews itself within the pathfinder, providing an endless supply.
The pathfinder uses this energy to enlarge any gateway so she can travel through it.

Sindar’s voice returns.
“I can teach you the methods with the Memories, but I can’t give you the energy.”

“Ask me for it, if we meet again, after you have completed your training.”
“And I will transfer the energy, according to the old ways.”

He laughs.
“The Bizra will not explain themselves, but they say, that you will not need my gift of energy.”
“Who can understand them?” asks Sindar, as the message fades.

“You look strange, Yagrin,” says Shazira.
“What did you find?”

“A message from Sindar.”
“And the Memories of the Pathfinders.”

The Memories are of little use to me.
I already have the sensitive eyes of the pathfinders.
Though, I can use the Memories to teach the ways to others.

But why would the Bizra say that I don’t need the pathfinder energy from Sindar?
How else will I open the gateways?

I drift slowly to the ground.
And the world fades into a DreamHunter’s vision, where I watch myself open a gateway.

“Are you all right, Ina?” asks Berek, as I awake from the vision.
Even Mayla looks concerned.

“I’m ok,” I tell them, “and I know what to do.”

I rise quickly along the web, seeking the gateway that brought me to Siksa from the cave.
The others follow.

When I arrive, I hover in the air, and shape a tiny version of the grandmother pattern, and touch it to the gateway.
Then I fill the gateway with the Feldin glow.

The gateway opens wide, and we all see Dilasa lying on the floor of the cave, barely breathing.
I glide her body through the gateway and into my arms.

I close the gateway, and then I heal her.

She wakes.
We hover a thousand feet in the sky, and Dilasa looks down in wonder at the small sea below us.
The city buildings in the distance are larger, and more beautiful than anything she has ever seen, or heard of.
She knows that we have come to another world.

She takes a deep breath of the sweet air, and turns her face back to me.
“I just couldn’t leave without you, ina,” she says.
“I was so scared, I forgot to flow the air.”
She hugs me tightly and closes her eyes.

“You called me ina, Dilasa.”

“Is it ok?” she asks.
“I really want to, now.”

I kiss her on the head.

“What’s your name little one?” asks Shazira.

Dilasa turns to see the strange faces around her, two of them with Bizra eyes, and she gasps.
“Your family, Yagrin,” she says happily.

“Bizra eyes!” says Shazira.
“Where is she from, and why does she call you ina?”
“Except for the eyes, she looks just like you.”

“Dilasa’s a DreamHunter, born on Sinesu.”
“And she has the potential to be a great master someday.”

“But there is no one in the other universe with the skills to teach her.”
“And she’s an orphan, with no family at all.”

“We’ve captured each other’s hearts.”
“And I promised to raise her as my own daughter, if you agree.”

“She looks like a sweet girl, Yagrin, but I can’t answer so quickly.”

Dilasa starts to cry.

“Please don’t send me away,” she says, staring at Shzira with her Bizra eyes.
“I know that I belong with you and Tzina.”

Shazira takes her from me and holds her.
“I won’t send you away Dilasa,” she says, “but I want to know more about you.”

“Yagrin,” says Shazira, troubled, looking at me and Berek.
“Why does she look so much like you?”

“Tell them, ina,” says Dilasa.

I sigh, and say: “Dilasa is my sister and my twin.”

“Born on Sinesu, only a few years ago?” asks Shazira.
“How?”

“It’s a long, strange story, that begins with Sindar’s birth, one hundred thousand years ago.
“Let’s return to the city, and sit, and I’ll tell you.”

I smell the Fiklow pilot’s fear.
And I can’t help but touch his thoughts.

He wonders what I am.
A Jiku wearing a Fiklow body.
Shadow to the queen.
A spirit from the world of the dead, come to consume the living.

I shake off his thoughts.

Makish stays close to me.
And Dilasa holds me with two tentacles the whole time.

I still remember the Fiklow language.
And I have complete control of my new Fiklow body.
But it’s hard to think straight.

I’m happy to be alive, and with beings who care for me.
But my thoughts are filled with Shazira and Tzina and Berek.

I want to return to my own world.
And I feel an ache to see my own Jiku form.

In the midst of these strong emotions, I want no words, no sounds.

Makish and Dilasa seem to smell my need for quiet.
And we ride together in silence.

Keesha and the queen are waiting when we leave the transition chamber.

The queen greets me with the wrapping of tentacles.
And she waits for me to speak.

But then, she smells that I am troubled.

“Thank the throne, you have returned to us, Lord Yagrin!” says the queen.
“We thought that your spirt was carried away by the waves.”

“I am here, queen Gunal,” I tell her.
“But I am not quite whole.”

“Death caught me, but it seems she did not like my taste.”

“Will you still help us plan our battle against the spiral, Lord Yagrin?” asks Keesha.

“I must break free from the shadows that hold me, commander.”
“I will be little use in battle as I am now.”

“Where will you go?” asks the queen.

“I will swim in my own waters.”
“And see my mate and brood.”

“I was taken from them without words.”
“They may think me dead.”
“And I can’t bear such a thought.”

Dilasa has held back her mind touch to give me silence, until now.

“Will you return, Yagrin?” she asks with fear.

Makish speaks before I can answer Dilasa.
“Yagrin,” says Makish softly, “you know that if you pass through the possibility sea, you can’t return.”

“True,” I answer.
“But Sindar showed me another way home, by passing through the world of seven towers.”

“The way from the seven towers to Siksa is sealed.”
“The guardians will not let you reach Siksa.”

There are three ancient masters on Siksa, who live in the form of the Kishla, the great singing birds.
They were appointed by the Bizra to ensure that no one will travel to the Seven Towers, where they believe the sword was shaped.

“I have met the guardians briefly Makish.”
“I think they will let us pass.”
“If necessary, I can force my way through.”

“Us?” asks Dilasa, aloud.

“You’re coming with me.”

I smell Dilasa’s happiness, and I wrap a tentacle with her.
My feelings for her, and my desire to protect her, clear my head slightly.
And weaken the opressive homesickness that rests on me.

“When will you return to us?” asks the queen.

“Botzar will pick us up on Sinesu in two weeks, and we will join you soon afterwards.”

“Lord Yagrin,” says the queen.
“I must ask.”

“Your energy was scattered.”
“How did you return to us?”
“And why did it take you a day?”

“My fire body was shattered, but my energy lived, moving through the stone and lava of the planet.”
“I still held much of my power, but I was trapped there, and I would have remained there forever.”

“My daughter returned to the crystal forest.”
“She is stubborn, like me, and would not accept that death had taken me.”

“We could not speak, but I made my presence known.”
“She gave me her healing strength, and the throne gave me its blessing.

“And here I am, swimming before you.”

“Come eat with us, lord Yagrin,” says Keesha.
“We can’t have you telling your mate that the hunting is poor on Fiklow worlds.”

“Forgive me,” I say, “but all of my hunger for food is gone.”
“My body will not accept food until after I return home.”

“And my daughter swims too long in your shape.”
“She must change back.”

The queen and Keesha swim ahead of us to the entrance to the transition chamber.
They stand at the sides of the doorway, and wrap tentacles with us, as we pass through.

“Watch over your father,” says the queen to Dilasa, giving her an affectionate rub.
“And bring him back to us.”

“I will,” she answers.

After I swim into the chamber, I turn to face the queen who still waits by the open doorway.

“Good hunting, my queen,” I tell her with a mind touch, and press the panel to close the doors

“Swim well, and good hunting,” comes the voice of the queen in my mind, just after the doors close.

 
Sindar’s Guild
We travel in Botzar’s ship to Sinesu.
I could transport us directly off of the ship, but something pulls me toward Sinesu.

At my request, Botzar lands us near the ocean, far from the towns, and the other Jiku.
“I could come with you Yagrin,” suggests Makish, as we stand on the shore and listen to the great waves greeting the sand.

“No,” I answer.
“What if we’re delayed?”
“Your strength is needed here if the spiral attacks.”

“You were powerless against it, Yagrin,” she answers.
“Why do you think that I will do better?”

“You’re meaner than me,” I say with a straight face.
She laughs.

“Find the Jiku with the greatest energy skills and teach them whatever you can.”
“You or another may discover a way to fight the spiral.”

I flow my robe from white to black.
And wear a golden belt.

“Why the change?” asks B’tzel.

“An energy being called Nival told me of an ancient pathfinder’s guild who wore black with no master’s bands.”
“They hunt for the light in places where others see only darkness.”
“Nival called it Sindar’s Guild.”
“The name meant nothing to me at the time.”

Botzar looks at me strangely.

“You know it?” I ask.

“Sindar told me a little about it,” he says.
“It existed only on his home world.”
“And he belonged to it.”

“Why would it be named after him?” I ask Botzar.

“No, Yagrin, it got its name long before Sindar was born.”
“Our father belonged to it.”
“He named Sindar after the guild.”

“Our father led the guild members in fighting Bentzu.”
“When they all died, Sindar felt that he had failed them, and stopped wearing the black robe.”

“He told me that he thought about changing his name.”
“But in the end, it seemed to be the wrong thing to do.”

“How did this creature, Nival, know of the guild?”

“I don’t know.”
“But he told me that I would know the right time to wear the black robe.”
“Now is the time.”

I take Dilasa’s hand, and we fly several hundred feet out over the open sea.
And I open my energy eyes wide.

I let my energy sight grow more and more sensitive, as though I am all eyes, and the world flows through me.
The web glows brighter and brighter around us.

Soon, all I see is great spinning rivers of energy, with our two glowing fire bodies shining within the river,
I let the energy moving within the body fade away from sight, until all I see of our fire bodies, are two sets of seven sparkling spheres.

Each fire body has seven colored energy wells which appear as spheres.
I take energy hands, and bathe them in the topmost wells – Dilasa’s and mine.
When I withdraw the energy hands, they are dripping with a whitish-purple energy

Then I use those shining hands to strike the top wells.
Each well sounds a perfect tone that spreads through all seven wells.
And through our physical bodies.

The vibration is wonderful to see with energy eyes, and the tone is beautiful to the ears, but the physical sensation is unpleasant.
It reminds me of of fingernails on a blackboard.

I repeat the process with each of the seven wells, first bathing my energy hands in the wells.
And then using those newly colored hands to sound the next tone.

Each tone continues as I sound the next one.
I can hardly bear the sensation in my physical body when the first six tones are sounding.

When I strike the seventh sphere, there are seven tones sounding together.
And the unpleasant sensation disappears.

I grab Dilasa, and surround us with an energy shield just in time, as we disappear from the air above Sinesu.

 
Unseen
The trip lasts less than a minute.
The universe seems to shrink all around us, with countless suns rushing together, and vanishing.
Soon the whole universe shimmers and fades, and we stand on the world of seven towers.

We’re covered in a shield that makes us invisible to energy eyes.
Sindar taught me how to raise this shield.

“Pass through the world of the seven towers as quickly as you can,” he said.
“There is great danger there, to you, and to all of Siksa.”

“What kind of danger?” I asked him.

“There are others besides me who sleep there.”
“Ancient masters who left your world after the destruction.”
“It’s best if they never return.”

The sky is clear, dark, and empty of stars.
There is a dim glow that fills the world around us.

In the distance are two sets of three towers, with a seventh tower at the end of the two lines, forming a point.
Dilasa and I glide on the web toward the towers.

A path of blue crystal, six feet wide, and three feet high connects the doors of the second tower of each row together.
At the center of the blue path, another path of red crystal begins, and continues to the door of the seventh tower

We stand on a small, round platform, made of yellow crystal.
It rises six feet above the ground where the two paths meet.

The seventh tower is straight ahead of us, with one row of towers to our left, and the other to our right.

“Do you see the seventh tower that stands alone, Dilasa?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“That’s where Sindar sleeps.”

“Let’s wake him, Yagrin.”
“He’ll want to see us.”
“And he can help us fight the spiral.”

“Dilasa, Sindar doesn’t want to wake up yet.”
“And his machines won’t let us enter the tower.”

“What is this place, Yagrin?”
“What’s in the other towers?”

“Sindar said that ancient masters sleep here.”

“Did they build the towers?”

“No.”
“The masters came from Siksa after the destruction.”
“The towers were here long before that.”

“One legend says that this place was built by the Balancer.”
“But the legend says nothing more than that.”

“What does Sindar know about it?”

“He said that each tower is sealed, and impenetrable, except for a chamber at ground level, and another chamber at the top of each tower.”

“Can we look inside?”

“No, Dilasa.”
“Sindar told us that we must not stay here.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

I laugh.
“Yes, I’m very curious, but even without the danger, now isn’t the time to explore this place.”
“We’re going to Siksa.”

“Can’t we just look at the tower with energy eyes?”

“The shield around us blocks our energy sight, just as it hides us from the energy sight of anyone outside of the shield.”

“But no one is awake,” she says.
“Let’s just drop the shield for a minute, and look around.”

The shield falls, as she reaches into my mind, and sees how to raise it and release it.

“Leave the shield alone,” I scream at her in an angry voice.
She has never seen me angry before, and it frightens her.

I restore the shield, only a few seconds after she releases it.
But suddenly, the land is lit up.
And I feel that someone knows that we’re here.

There is no sun.
But light pours out from the seven towers.
They remind me of the watchtower on Siksa.

A few seconds later, the top of one of the towers opens.

Two men and a woman fly toward us.
They look like Jiku, and wear master’s robes.

But I don’t wait to see if they’re friendly, or what they want.

I slip us through the pathway that leads to Siksa.

 
 «Read Part 3: Paths of War

The three of us seem helpless as we stand here.
But we all can bend the energy web to our will.
Even little Dilasa is more powerful than the greatest Fiklow binder.

And she is well-protected.
As we flew here in Botzar’s ship, I taught her to raise an energy shield.
And I helped her build a wintzal that will protect her mind against any attack.

Botzar and B’tzel remain on the small ship.
They refuse to take the form of the Fiklow, the Jiku’s ancient enemy.

I touch Dilasa’s mind, as the water reaches her chin.
It’s strange to be able to touch another mind with both our wintzals in place.
But it’s part of our unusual connection.

She’s nervous about the transformation.
“Are you ok, little one?” I ask.

She answers me by taking a deep breath.
Then she goes underwater and transforms into the squid-like Fiklow.

Makish and I must wait for the water to rise higher before we transform into Fiklow.
Our adult Fiklow bodies will be almost three times the size of Dilasa’s body.

Dilasa pulls playfully at our legs with her tentacles as Makish and I wait.

When the water reaches our shoulders, we complete the transformation.
Soon after, the chamber is full of the sweet smelling sea water, and the door opens to the hallway.

“I absorbed some of your memories of being Fiklow,” says Dilasa with a mind touch.
“But it’s not the same as feeling it myself.”

She jets in circles around the chamber.
“It’s exciting and frightening being so different,” she says.
“But I love how I feel when I move.”
“It’s like flying.”

We swim into the hallway, and I smell commander Keesha’s presence before I hear or see her.
She’s happy to see us.

“You swim with us, again,” says Keesha, wrapping tentacles, first with me, and then with Makish.

Dilasa is shy of Keesha and her crew, and swims mostly within my tentacles.

“Who is the child?” asks Keesha.
“Will she behave properly before the new queen?”

“She’s a binder, Keesha.”

“So young!”
“And she knows how to change her shape?”

“Yes,” I answer.
“Dilasa is only six cycles.”
“But she has great power.”
“Someday soon she will be as strong as me.”

Dilasa sticks her head farther out.

“She hides in your tentacles, Lord Yagrin, like you are her brood-father.”

“We share blood, Keesha, and she is an orphan.”
“I have declared her my daughter.”
“And she has chosen me as teacher and brood-father.”

“Have you taught her our sounds, Lord Yagrin?”

“She understands us, Keesha, but she’s cautious, still tasting her new body.”

Keesha extends a single tentacle toward Dilasa.

When Dilasa moves away, Keesha looks at her, and sings to her.

I’ve never heard a Fiklow sing before.
But it sounds sweet to my Fiklow ears.

“Don’t be afraid of me, young one,” says Keesha, when the song ends.

“I’m not afraid,” says Dilasa loudly, wrapping a tentacle with Keesha.
Her voice echoes through the hallway.

Keesha laughs.
“She has spirit, Lord Yagrin.”
“Who among us would have courage to swim in a new form, at her age?”

“Grown up, she would make a great queen.”

“What do you hear of the new queen?” I ask Keesha.

“Strange reports,” she answers.
“Not what I expect a queen to be.”

“They say she has a strong spirit.”
“But a queen must be fully grown, unusually large, with great physical strength.”
“She must command the attention of all who meet her.”

“The new queen is young and weak.”
“Not even old enough to make a small brood.”

“Still,” I suggest, “the egg chose her.”

“Yes,” says Keesha, moving a tentacle nervously.
“It opened for her when she came near.”
“And lit up the crystal forest.”

“Will the Fiklow accept such a queen?” asks Makish.

“I don’t know,” answers Keesha, “but I think many of the traditionalists will reject her.”
“And the anti-queen faction will laugh at her weakness.”

“But we must accept what we cannot change,” adds Keesha

“Come Dilasa,” says Keesha, lifting the dark mood, “let me show you my ship.”

I feel Dilasa’s mind touch as it penetrates my wintzal.
“You trust the Fiklow, Yagrin?”

“I trust some of them, like Keesha,” I tell her.
“But keep your wintzal in place at all times.”
“There are some here who might listen to our thoughts, and use them against us.”

“What is it like to touch their minds, Yagrin?”
“Are they so different from us?”

“Not so different,” I tell her.

“May I touch the minds of some of the Fiklow?” asks Dilasa.
“They won’t even know that I’m there.”

“No,” I tell her.
“Never touch a mind without permission.”
“Unless there is a great need.”

“Besides, some of the Fiklow are binders who could feel your presence.”

Dilasa’s mind is quiet.
I sense that she is troubled.

“What’s wrong?”

“I touch your mind all the time,” she says.
“And I never ask permission.”

“With me,” I tell her, “you don’t need to ask.”

When Keesha’s tour ends, she brings us into a private chamber, and leaves her crew behind.

“We’ll arrive soon,” says Keesha.
“We’re using an enhanced version of the star drive.”

“What’s our hurry?” I ask her.

“Vendik has heard rumors of a plan to kill the new queen.”

“Are you suprised that Vendik is helping us protect the queen?”

“She doesn’t believe in the old ways,” Lord Yagrin.
“She seems more interested in protecting you, than in protecting the queen.”

“Vendik is a pragmatic leader,” I tell her.
“She understands that the queen can strengthen the union.”

“I haven’t shared my thoughts with Vendik about the new queen,” says Keesha.
“But I believe that this queen will tear the union apart.”

Before long, we circle Gunal, the birth-planet of the Fiklow race.
In Fiklow legend, the planet is the mother of all Fiklow, and their first queen.

So all queens take her name.

Soon after, I swim again in her oceans.
The water here smells so sweet.

Not like the strange, antiseptic water that moves through the ships.

Dilasa and Makish are a few hundred feet away with Keesha.
For I need time alone with my thoughts.

The new queen will join me soon.
She is well-guarded in a secret place.

While I wait, I return again and again to the crystal tree where the old queen died.
And I think of her.

Soon I will play the role of the queen’s shadow.
And help the new queen to be born.

All shadows before me have died.
Gladly serving as a bridge betwen the old queen and the new one.

I can reshape a new physical body.
And return to life.

I’ve done it before.
And I’ve been so confident that I will cheat death again.

But what if my fire body is damaged?

“The sea is so big, Yagrin,” says Dilasa’s mind touch, interrupting my thoughts.
She swims with me.

“I know you want to be alone, Yagrin,” continues Dilasa.
“And I’m sorry for hearing your thoughts.”
“But I have to tell you something.”

“Dilasa…”

“Helping this new queen will kill you,” she says.

“Yes,” I agree.
“But I can make another body and live again.”

“You don’t understand,” she says.
“I’ve had a vision.”

“You will be attacked at the end of the ceremony.”
“Your fire body will be weak.”

“And it will shatter.”
“Even you can’t return from that.”

 
Young Again
“Did you tell Makish?”

“Yes,” answers Dilasa.
“And Makish warned Keesha.”
“Makish will try to protect you, and Keesha is doubling the guard.”

I’m quiet.

“You’ll still do it?” she asks, knowing the answer.

“The queen will help stabilize the union, and help the Jiku.”
“They all must work together to defend against the spiral.”

“You and I will fight the spiral,” says Dilasa.
“If you’re killed, there is no hope for anyone.”
“And I’ll be alone again.”

“I have to do this,” I tell her.
“I feel the danger, but somehow it will be all right in the end.”

She doesn’t believe it.
And swims off to stay with Makish.

I swim to the egg, and wait for the new queen’s arrival.

The new queen arrives about 15 minutes later, surrounded by guards.
Keesha leads the group, while Makish and Dilasa stay in the back.

The new queen smells nervous.
She is so young and small.

“This is Lord Yagrin, the old queen’s shadow,” says Keesha.

The new queen approaches me, and we wrap tentacles.
“Leave us,” I tell the group.

“The queen and I will prepare together for the ceremony, in private.”

They all move away from us, and I shape a transparent barrier around us to block the sound.

I smell her confusion.

“I’ve heard of your power, Lord Yagrin,” she says.
“But why do you imprison me?”

I laugh.
“This is no prison, my queen.”
“The barrier will block our sounds, so we may speak freely.”
“No one will be able to hear us.”

“I can answer the questions that you are afraid to ask.”
“And tell you of things that no other Fiklow are blessed to know.”

She is quiet.

“You have no questions?” I ask.

I smell her fear of me.
Is she afraid of my power as a binder?
Or does she fear the alien in me?
Or is she simply afraid of my large adult body?

I transform myself into a smaller Fiklow body, about her size.
“Now I am young and small, like you,” I tell her.

She swims around me, wondering if she can trust her perceptions.

“Is Yagrin really your name?” she asks at last.
“When the egg opened for me, it taught me the traditions, including the story of Gunal and Yagrin.”

“Yes,” I tell her, “Yagrin is my birth name”

I feel a mind touch from the queen.

I open my wintzal.
And build a temporary mental barrier around us.

“Our thoughts are private, surrounded by a mental wall,” I tell her.

“Are you truly Jiku” she asks, “travelling from another universe?”
“And a more powerful binder than the old queen?”

“Yes,” I tell her.

“What is it like to change shape, and live in different forms?”

“I can give you memories,” I offer.

I share some of my memories as a Jiku, a Bizra, and even memories of the furry Gen form.
And I give her some memories of my time with the old queen.

“Wonderful,” she says.
“Can you teach me to change shape like you?”

“We have little time together,” I answer, “before the ceremony.”

“My brood mother is a powerful binder,” she tells me, “and I have some of her power.”
“But I am still young.”
“And small for my age.”
“How will anyone respect me as queen?”

“I can make you slightly older, and much larger,” I tell her.
“I’ll do it during the ceremony.”

We speak for a time about family and dreams and distant worlds.
And we review what will happen during the ceremony.

I like her.
She has a strong spirit, and a great thirst to learn.
Her birth name is Wiak.

Queens abandon their birth names.
But she is not queen yet.

“I didn’t want to test for queen,” she tells me.
“As queen, I will serve all Fiklow.”

“I’ve had little time to see what life is.”
“And that old life, and my birth name wil disappear.”

“And no child has ever been chosen to be queen before.”
“I knew that everyone would laugh at me when I came to test.”

“But my mother told me to come to Gunal.”

“Do you always listen to your mother?”

“No,” she laughs.
“But I wanted to see the wonder of the first Fiklow world, restored to life.”
“And I was sure that I would never be chosen.”

“And so,” she says, “here we are.”

“Yes.”

“I release you from being the shadow,” she says, making a formal declaration.
“It’s within my power to do so.”

“The throne will transform me into a queen without your help.”
“I will let go of the old queen’s blessing that you carry for me.”

“I don’t want you to die for me, Lord Yagrin.”

 
Bound
“No,” I answer.
“You need this blessing, so no one can question your right to be queen.”

“And you will need the extra strength.”
“No queen has ever faced so many enemies.”

“And you?” she asks.
“You say that you can survive physical death.”
“But what if your fire is also broken?”

“Do you abandon your people and family so easily?”
“And the young daughter who waits for you?”

“My service as shadow will bind the Jiku and Fiklow together,” I tell her.
“It must be done.”

“Bring your daughter,” she says.
“I want to meet her.”

I call to Dilasa with a mind touch, and ask her to come.
I open the barrier to let her pass.

Dilasa is only a little smaller than Wiak.
They speak for a few minutes about binding, and me, and what will happen.

Keesha approaches with the guards.
The transmission equipment is in place, so the Fiklow worlds, and the Jiku may watch their new queen.

I dissolve the barrier.

“Dilasa,” says Keesha, “move to the back now.”
“Only adults may be near the queen during the ceremony.”

Wiak wraps a tentacle with Dilasa to stop her.
“It’s my right,” says Wiak, “to choose who will swim with me as I become queen.”

“My old self must die for the queen to be born.”
“Even as the shadow swims to his death.”

“As the shadow swims with me at this time, let his daughter, and the binder Makish swim with him.”

“Yes my queen,” answers Keesha.

There are many visitors, including the leaders of all the Fiklow worlds.
Vendik is here, and catches my eye.
But according to protocol, I may not greet anyone, only speak according to the needs of the ceremony.

Wiak and I stand on opposite sides of the egg.
Makish and Dilasa stand next to me.
Keesha and Vendik stand about five feet from Wiak.

The guests and guards form a thick circle around us.

Wiak touches the egg, and it opens.
The throne, the necklace of blue pearls, rises from the egg, and comes to rest around Wiak’s neck.
The crowd sees light batheing the new queen.

But I have energy eyes.

I see great spinning rivers of energy, greeting the queen.
It’s all energy, yet it has the taste of the four elements.

First, I see spinning rivers of water energy, like great whirlpools, form around her, and surround her on all sides.

Next, spinning rivers of air energy, like tiny tornados, form at the surface of the ocean.
They drop quickly through the water, until they surround Wiak.

When the air energy fades, great spinning rivers of fire energy burst forth from the sun.
They move quickly down through the water, leaving a trail of light.
Then the fire rivers spin around Wiak.
They join above her head, forming an egg of fire energy around her.

When the fire energy fades, I hear a distant sound.
It’s a Fiklow song, and it reminds me slightly of the song that Keesha sang to Dilasa.

The song grows louder and louder.
Then, spinning rivers of crystal energy rise from the crystal forest, and from the depths of the planet.
And bathe Wiak in endless colors.

The energy rivers fade, and the necklace returns to its resting place in the egg.
She is truly a queen now.

I shape a new body for her, slightly older, and larger than all the Fiklow females that I have ever seen.
I disconnect her fire body from her old form and bind it to the new one.
The transfer happens so quickly, that her old body seems to age and grow.

She shines with a queen’s bright light.
“Queen Gunal,” I say, using her new name for the first time.

I pause for a moment, and then I touch the egg.
And let the blessings of the old queen pour out of me and rest upon the new queen.

She reaches out with that energy of blessing, and spreads blessing upon everyone that surrounds us.

I withdraw my hand from the egg.
Most of my strength is gone.

The ground begins to soften beneath the egg, and we all swim away.
The dirt and stone seem to melt into a mist, and the egg disappears.
Deep within the planet, the egg finds its resting place.
It will be hidden until the time when the new queen will face her death, and call the egg to return.

I can barely swim to the crystal tree that grows where the old queen died.
Queen Gunal swims with me.

I touch the tree according to tradition.
A great burst of energy moves through the sea above us, and flows through me to the crystal tree.

My physical body shatters, and my fire body with it.

My fire body is gone, but my awareness, and my fire energy, is here, within the crystal forest.

My energy rushes freely throughout the forest, and deep below the ocean floor.
I move easily through stone and fire, even to the center of the planet.

But I can’t move in water or air.
And I can’t bind my energy into a fire body.

I’m trapped here.

I give thanks that I still have the energy sight that I call energy eyes.
I will not be blind in my prison.

For a moment, I’ve forgotten about my family, friends, and the queen.
I turn my sight to look at the Fiklow.

The queen is under attack.

About half of the guards are firing upon Queen Gunal and the crowd that surrounds her.
A dozen small ships hover above the crowd, and join the attack.

The loyal guards try to defend the queen, the guests, and the crowd.

But the Queen needs no protection, safe behind her powerful energy shield.
She and Makish attack the ships, and the rebel guards.
Dilasa rests on the ground by Makish, unhurt within her shield, but unable to think of anything but my death.

The water is clouded with Fiklow blood from the dead and wounded.

Captain Fwitay falls and dies, defending Keesha.
I will miss him.

Keesha is hurt, but still alive.
And firing her weapon at rebel guards.

The attack is soon over.
And I scan the dead and dying, looking to see who I know.

Vendik is badly hurt.
She will not live long enough for a healer or doctor to reach her.

Without thought, I release a healing body to help Vendik and the other wounded.
It’s only after the body forms, that I wonder how I can have a healing body without a fire body!

My healing body rests upon Vendik, and the healing energy streams into her.
But the damage is more than regular healing can help.

I shape a new Fiklow body for her, and bind her fire body to it.
Vendik awakes suddenly, and feels around her body, expecting to find wounds.
She remembers being hurt, and is suprised to find herself whole.

I leave her, and continue to focus on those who are badly wounded.

Then I attend to Keesha and those with lesser wounds.
Finally, I dissolve my healing body, and return my attention to my fire energy that moves through the crystal forest.

“Who heals the wounded?” asks Keesha.
“Is it you, my queen?”

“No.”

“Makish?”
“Dilasa?”

“Not us, answers Makish.

Dilasa straightens up.
“Yagrin,” she answers loudly, not believing her own voice.

 
Magical Child
“I wish it was true Dilasa,” says Makish sadly, but he’s really gone.”
“We saw his fire body destroyed.”

“I don’t know how he lives,” answers Dilasa, “but no one else here could heal so many, so quickly.”

“Can you touch his mind or see his energies?” asks Makish.

Dilasa tries to reach me with a mind touch, but she finds nothing to connect with.
I can hear and see what takes place through energy senses, but I can’t touch her mind.

I used flow to heal Vendik.
So I shape a new Fiklow body for myself.

But the body is useless.
I can’t bind my fire energy to it.
And my fire body is gone.

I hesitate, but finally I let the Fiklow body dissolve into water before anyone sees it.

Makish and Dilasa scan the ocean around them, including the crystal forest, but my energy is hidden within the crystal.

“He’s not here,” says Dilasa at last.
“No,” says Makish.

I could flow energy into a familiar shape, and let Dilasa and Makish know that I’m here.
But what good will come of it?

There’s nothing they can do to help me.
Better that they forget me.
Why should we all be bound to this place?

The guests return to their ships, eager to escape their memories of the attack.

Makish and Dilasa travel with Keesha and the queen on the scout ship.
I watch it as it rises through the water and then the air, and docks with Keesha’s main ship, still in orbit.
In a few hours, Botzar’s ship will return to pick up Dilasa and Makish.

The new queen promised me that she will visit both Fiklow and Jiku worlds.
I hope the energy binders will greet her warmly.

I told the queen that Keesha can be trusted with all of her thoughts.
Keesha will take my place as the queen’s advisor, and accompany the new queen as she travels.

The guests have left the ocean near the crystal forest, but still, many Fiklow remain.
These are the ones who rebuild the Fiklow colony on Gunal.

Perhaps I will help them in secret.
I have little else to do here.

I let my energy drift through the crystal and stone of the planet.
Finally I direct my fire energy deep into the planet, and explore the inside of Gunal for a few hours.

It’s beautiful here, and this brings me some comfort.
I even visit the resting place of the egg.

I wonder if the throne within the egg can help me?
Its energy once helped me heal the planet.

I touch the egg with fire energy, and the egg opens, an energy shield protecting the throne/necklace within.
And I watch, as my fire energy takes the shape of a fire body for a moment.

But I can’t hold it.

The egg closes, and my energy streams back to the crystal forest.

I look around the forest.
Makish and Dilasa swim near the place where I died.

“It’s time to go, Dilasa,” says Makish.
“You can’t help Yagrin by staying here.”

Dilasa ignores Makish, and releases a healing body, that hovers above the crystal tree.

Makish sees the healing body.

“Stop it, Dilasa,” says Makish.
“You can’t heal the dead.”

“I miss him too, but we have to go.”
Dilasa ignores her.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t try to contact Dilasa, but I can’t keep that promise.
I release my own healing body and move it out of the crystal, so I can hover near her healing body.

She sees my healing body with energy eyes, and I feel her surprise.

She brings our healing bodies together, pairing up our energy suns.
I try to bind our energy suns together, as I did once before, but without a fire body, I can’t do it.

Dilasa waits for me to bind us together, but soon sees that I can’t or won’t do it.
She is afraid to bind us together.
Who would not fear binding herself to the dead?

But she remembers how I bound us together.
And lets go of reason, and builds the links.

When she’s finished, our two healing bodies are fully joined.

Each of us can move our combined healing body, but we still can’t communicate with each other.

I feel something pull at my fire energy that rests within the crystal.
The egg calls me.
My energy rushes deep into the planet until it finds the egg again.

I move the healing body to follow my energy into the planet, until the healing body also faces the egg.
Dilasa can see my swirling fire energy, but she doesn’t know what it is.

My fire energy circles around the egg, and with a brief touch of the energy, the egg opens again.

The throne within the egg glows with a deep blue fire.
And reshapes my fire energy into a fire body.

But what good will this do?
I can’t hold the fire body together.

Dilasa acts, and moves the healing body until it rests on the unstable fire body.

Our combined healing energy is strong enough to keep the balance of the fire body, and hold its shape.
But I still feel the instability of the body, hidden beneath the surface.

Dilasa can’t stay here forever.
And without the strength of her healing body, the fire body will dissolve again.

A pulse of blue energy rises from the throne, and penetrates the fire body.
And restores the forces of balance that hold the body together.

The egg closes.
I move the fire body away from the egg, and into open water near the crystal forest.
A moment leater, Dilasa brings our healing body to the same place, and disconnects us.

My healing body disappears into my fire body.
Makish and Dilasa are near, completely still, as they watch my fire body with energy eyes.

I shape myself a new Fiklow body, and bind the fire body to it.
And, I awake in the Fiklow body, to find Dilasa and Makish wrapped around me.

The sea is sweet, and quiet.