“It’s already dead, Dilasa,” I answer quietly.
“The group mind is shattered, and the energy gone.”
“Only a few spirits remain.”

“I don’t care,” she says.
“Kill them all.”

“The remaining spirits are too weak to join together again, and they’ll never survive on their own.”

“They’re dying?”

“Yes, Dilasa.”
“They won’t last long.”

“Thank the creator,” she says, as her breathing slows, and she calms down.

How do I explain to her that their death is no joy, only a tragedy?
They will die, unless I act now.

I send the sunstorms again through the gateway, toward the spirits.
The fire that kills them can also save them.
In the middle of the fire, black and bright, I search for the hidden way, the unexpected way.
I wait for the path unseen.

My healing body leaps out from me with its own will, and into the gateway.
It shapes a large, hollow sphere of healing energy, around the dying star spirits.
My fire body takes hold of the sunstorms, transforming the energy into a rich Feldin glow that pours through the gateway, and fills the sphere.

The star spirits move in circles within the sphere, mesmerized by the glow.
As the sunstorms shine on the glowing sphere, it spins faster, and faster.
A simple, sweet melody begins within me, and pours out through the healing body, mixing with the sphere, and the black fire.

The music grows louder and louder, and weaves the sunstorm into a bright shell that covers the sphere and hides the spirits.
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.
Invisible, except for brief moments, when small flashes of blue lightning appear, with waves of sparkling colors.
Deep within, the spirits are frozen in time.

My healing body returns through the gateway.
The cocoon comes with it, and moves toward Sinesu’s sun.
Dilasa and I let go of the sunstorms, and the world finds an old quiet.

The cocoon erupts with a great blast of energy, directed at the sun, and the star responds with a small wave of energy that targets the sea.

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

“No, they are outside of time, trapped between life and death.”

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

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

 
Fifty Dreams
“What now, ina?”

“A vision to show us what’s next for the spirits.”
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.

The vision opens before us.
Fifty suns play together in an empty universe.
Dilasa and I see ourselves as 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 of soft energy, bright and spinning, erupt from the sun.
The small spheres reshape themselves into spinning stars, and melt into our heart wells.
When all fifty suns have given their gifts, the play stops, and the suns form a circle.

A great energy well, takes shape from the ring of suns
A star spirit rises from the well, and speaks to us.
Its energy is different than the other spirits that I’ve seen — fresh, new, young.

“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, and fly, a wanderer born.”
“Sorrow for life flashes lost, but star spirits reborn.”

The spirit disappears, and another star spirit comes out of the well, its ekrisa glowing brightly.
The ekrisa within me glows and moves in perfect harmony with the spirit that faces us.
“Well done, brother,” it says, and is gone.

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.”
“In a few hours or days, Sinesu will no longer support life.”

“The cocoon did this with that flash of energy?” 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, to touch the mind of the water Mayru.

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

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 the planet 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?”
“Their home is on Sinesu.”

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

“The ancient Fiklow home world, ina?”
“Even though there are few Fiklow in its ocean, they won’t be happy with a land full of Jiku.”

“It’s the right place, Dilasa, but I’ll need 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.”
“If I could use Gen speed, I could save them all, but I have to slow down when I carry living things, or the acceleration will kill them.”

I contact Keesha and Botzar, and the central authority on Sinesu.
“Spread the word to all Jiku and Fiklow ships in range.”
“Save as many Jiku as you can.”
“In a few hours, Sinesu will be a world of fire and death.”

“The Jiku ships can only save a few hundred,” says Keesha, “and most Fiklow ships can’t carry air-breathers.”

“I’ll save as many as I can,” I tell her, “but it won’t be enough.”
No time to explain more.
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.
It must go home, or, like the Spiral, start feeding on living energy.
This spirit has just arrived, and still carries all it strength.

“Hello brother,” it says, and plunges into my fire body, merging its ekrisa with mine.
The spirit is too fast for me to stop it, even if I was strong enough.
Moments pass, with my awareness caught in a fog.
When my thoughts clear, 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.”

I look around.
The world has stopped.
Gen speed is nothing compared to this.

“Together, brother, time cannot touch us,” says the spirit.
“See the new world you need to see, and then I will let time return.”

With barely a thought, an immense gateway opens between the two worlds.
I try to move a group of people through it, but without time, nothing moves.

“I can’t move them,” I tell the spirit.

“No,” answers the spirit, “but your will can see them in their new home.”
“Do it.”

I imagine them moving through the gateway, but nothing happens.

“They can’t move,” says the spirit, “but you can see them on Gunal.”
“Believe it, and the world will change.”
I’m afraid to experiment with Jiku, so I try it with non-living objects.
I fill my mind with a vivid image of the object on Gunal, but nothing happens.

“It’s not working.”

“You don’t feel it,” answers the spirit.
“See and feel a different Gunal, where the object belongs there.”

I still can’t make it work.

“Use your listener,” says the spirit.
“Feel that Gunal is out of balance without the object.”
“See the object in place on Gunal, and feel the balance restored.”

It takes me a while, but I finally get it.
I practice with a few dozen objects before I try to put a plant into Gunal’s balance.
Finally, I’m ready, and the Jiku with their building and possessions start to appear on Gunal.
Animal, birds, freshwater fish, and plant life are next.
The oceans are already rich on Gunal, but I move a third of Sinesu’s sea life to quiet places in Gunal’s seas.
Finally, I transport the remainder to oceans on other Jiku worlds.

I imagine the terror that the Jiku will feel when their eyes find a new land and a new sky.
Most of Sinesu heard the warning about the planet’s end, and rescue ships approaching, but that warning would never prepare them for this.
I can help in a small way.
I re-imagine all the Jiku on Gunal, in their houses, asleep.
When time returns, they will awake after a few minutes, and walk outside their homes.
Familiar faces will comfort 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 Jiku council wake together in the council building, and find me with them.
I explain quickly, and then transport each council member to the center of the town they represent.
When the other Jiku awake and walk outside, they find the strange sky, flowers on each doorstep, and a note, with Sindar’s symbol.

“As my brother Sindar once brought your ancestors to Sinesu, I, Yagrin have brought you to Gunal.”
“Sinesu was dying, and there was no time for words, only action.”
“You can move to another world if you wish, but if you stay, you will be safe here.”
“Go to the town center and speak to your council representative.”

I contact Vendik and the queen, and tell them what I’ve done.

“It won’t be easy to convince the union,” say Vendik.

“Tell them that you need the Jiku there for about fifty cycles to help stabilize the planet’s life.”

“Is it true?” she asks.

“It might be.”

She laughs, and I laugh with her.

“This won’t be easy,” she says, seriously.

“You’re right,” I agree, “but tell them that Yagrin asked for their help, and remind them that I gave them weapons against the Spiral.”

“I’ll remind them that you drove it away from the union.”
“They are grateful for that, although they fear that it will return.”

“Tell them that I pursued it, and killed it.”
“It will never return.”

“Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“You swim in strange waters,” she says, “but I’m glad you also swim with us.”
“The Jiku will be welcome.”

 
The Wanderer
I return to Sinesu as a fire body to watch the transformation.

A few hours after I arrive, seven streams of energy fall from the sun, and pass through the stone, air, and water to touch the core of the planet.
A star gateway opens, and Sinesu is pushed through.

I follow, before the gateway closes, to see the birth of the star.
I come to a corner of the universe, far from any living sun.
This area is rich with dead suns, dark worlds and whirlpools of 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 new 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 a few dozen 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 left the world of star spirits, 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, most of you died, empty and alone.”

“Listen to the new way you are given.”
“You will ride the wanderer, guided by Sinetka.”
“He will travel in the space between the stars, and protect you.”

“Sinetka will stop, far from a star, and 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!”
“If you stay in the world of suns to explore, you will ride with me.”
“You must live in the wanderer,” says Sinetka, sharply.
“So says the council of star spirits.”

“So say the spirts,” repeat the riders, 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 great web is thin here, but it’s still full of energy.
I touch the web with my healing body, and feel the gentle waves of quiet and joy that wash through it, and into me.

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

First, I open a gateway, back to Gunal.
Botzar, B’tzel, and Makish are already there.
Dilasa and I join them for a few days, and help the Jiku adjust to their new life on Gunal.

Soon it’s time for us to go home.
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.

“They will not say goodbye,” she answers, “but they gave me a cube for you.”

Their image appears as she activates the cube.
Botzar stands facing me, his head bowed, with B’tzel behind him.

The long years have brought us together, brother, and will bind us again.
You may wander away, but you cannot leave us for more than a moment.

You think that you are a stranger, with only a few that love you.
All Jiku are your family, your brothers, sisters, and children.
We watch and wait, to welcome you back.

Makish squeezes my hand for a moment when the image fades.
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 **

“How will they help us defeat the Spiral, ina?” asks Dilasa.

“I don’t know,” I answer, frustrated, “but their destiny is tied up with ours.”

“Let’s look for a vision,” she suggests.
We enter the DreamHunter gateway together, hunting for a vision about the Mayru.
The wanderer appears before us, seeding Sinesu with his children.
The past is clear, but their future is hidden.

“Why can’t we find their future, ina?” asks Dilasa, as we leave the gateway.

“I can’t explain it.”

I look for answers elsewhere, quieting my thoughts, and asking my inner self how the creatures can help us.
One word rises into my mind, healing, and I feel like I’m falling into a hole, a distant place that I can never escape from.
My thoughts and heart turn toward Gunal, and I’m filled with images and feelings of the time when I restored the ocean and its life.
Will Gunal’s sun help me somehow, as it did then?

I open my eyes to push the thoughts and feelings away, but they return, and become an obsession.
Not long ago, I was filled with an overpowering desire to see my family and return to Siksa.
When I followed that urge, I found weapons against the Spiral, and I met the star spirits.

Is this desire another gift?
Does it push me to a place where I will find help?

“What do we do?” asks Dilasa.
“How do we destroy the Spiral?”

I tell her about the inner voice that speaks of healing, and my thoughts that turn toward Gunal.

“Follow your heart, ina.”
“Let’s go there and see what we find.”

We leave behind Sinesu and the Mayru, and come to Gunal.
I feel comforted when I see the planet and its moons.
I know that I need to be here, but what do I do?
Where exactly do I go?

“Go anywhere,” says Dilasa.
“See what happens!”

I have only known the sea on Gunal, so we begin there.
We swim in the ocean as Fiklow, and visit the crystal forest, where the old queen died.
I join with the Ketkin to see if there are water Mayru who live in them, but there is only the playful awareness of the colorful ones.

“We need to break the mind link, Dilasa.”
“I’m going to use Gen speed to search the planet for signs of fire Mayru.”
“If you’re connected to me, your mind will be overloaded, and torn apart.”

“How long until you come back?” she asks.

“I’ll touch your mind as soon as I’m done.”
I dissolve my physical form, until I am all energy and all eyes.
I move deep within the planet, searching for any sign of fire Mayru.

If they are here, they are well hidden.
I leave the fire, still wondering why I’ve come to Gunal.
What do I need to find here?
An itch begins within the star heart, becomes an ache, and finally, an unbearable burning.
It grows, stronger and stronger, until I can’t think of anything else, and my energy senses are blind.
The only thing I can see is the ekrisa within me, dim and dull.

I try to heal it with the listener, but the pain remains, the dull heart accusing me of an unknown crime.
I strike back at it with light, filling the spinning energy with the Feldin glow.

The ekrisa glows brighter and brighter, until it looks to energy eyes exactly like the heart of a star spirit, bright silver crystal, with specks of gold and deep blue, bursting with light.
At first, the light radiates in all directions, but then it becomes a narrow beam, which leads to a place on the sea floor, seven hundred feet from the crystal forest.
There, I find an energy image of a star heart, pulsing in tune with the ekrisa within me.

I pass through the image, away from the water, until the stone becomes fire.
There, I find a group of fire Mayru, few in number, and weak.

“Do you still work to transform this planet?” I ask them.

“No.”
“When the sea vanished, our brothers in the water were consumed.”
“We were connected to their thoughts, and most of us died with them.”
“The water returned, but our brothers are gone.”
“There is no hope and no future for us.”

“Do you know how to move the world when it’s ready to become a sun?”

“No, that knowledge was in the water.”
“Who are you?” they ask.
“You know of us, and you carry the bright ekrisa of a wanderer, but there are strange circles of energy in you.”

“I have been to the circle of star spirits, and I was given the gift of the ekrisa.”
“I am not a wanderer, or a star spirit.”
“I live outside the stars.”
“Is there some way that I can help you?”

“There is no help.”
“We are trapped here, until the star dies, and the planet crumbles, but we will be dead long before that.”
“A small group like ours cannot hold our strength.”
“We grow weaker with every cycle of the sun.”

“What if you joined the fire Mayru on another world?”

“The circle of birth is ending, and there are few colonies of Mayru, perhaps no more than us.”

“I have seen others,” I tell them.

“It doesn’t matter.”
“We have no way to find them, or go to them.”

“What about the star spirit who guides your sun?”

“He touches the planet only once in an age, and he’s not a wanderer.”
“How will he carry us to another world?”

They’re right.
The spirit can’t help them, but I can.
I hunt for a gateway that leads to the fire on Sinesu.
Then, I bring the Gunal Mayru to join their brothers, and restore their strength.

I come back to the sea and Dilasa, and swim again in the Fiklow shape.
I hoped that helping the Mayru was the task that haunted my heart, but the thoughts of healing still shout at me.
There’s something more I must do here, but not in the sea.
I feel driven to leave it, so I take Dilasa, and we abandon the water, and return to Jiku form on the land.

 
The Lonely Desert
The ocean floor was desolate for thousands of years, cursed by the touch of artifact energy.
Now, the artifact hides within Gunal’s sun, and the ocean is, as it was, full of life.
When the destruction came to the ocean, it spared most of the life on land.
Instead, the land died a slow death, as its ecosystems were traumatized by the loss of their ocean.
Eventually, most of the land became desert.

What answers will I find in a desert?
To my surprise I find other Jiku here.
They are scientists, working with the Fiklow to restore a healthy balance of plants and animals on the land.

At first the Jiku won’t speak with me, certain that I will cause trouble for them and their work.
The project is authorized by the Fiklow union, but the presence of the Jiku on the ancient Fiklow homeworld is controversial, and the scientists have been advised not to speak of their activities unless necessary.

Their silence ends when I arrange for Vendik to contact them, and tell them who I am.

“We have heard the stories about you,” they say, “but it’s impossible to believe them.”
“Can anyone alive heal an ocean, and restore in a moment all the life that was here?”

When she speaks of healing, something moves within me.
Is this the healing that I’m here for?
Will this help us battle the Spiral?!

They plan to transport large numbers of plants and animals to Gunal, but they have only a few ships, and few hands to do the work.
It’s an ambitious, long-term plan.
They need years to bring the life here, and decades or centuries of growth after that.

“I need the details of your plans.”
“Do you have a cube with the numbers and types of plants and animals, and what worlds you will bring them from?”

“Yes, but only a small number are ready for transport.”
“There’s little you can do to help us.”

I take the cube and absorb its contents.
“My daughter is an energy binder,” I tell the scientists.
“She can help strengthen the life that you’ve brought here.”
“Can you provide food an shelter for her?”

“Where are you going, ina?” she asks.

“I’m going to transport more plants and animals here.”

“No,” say the other Jiku.
“We need to get the plants established first, before we bring the animals.”

I hear their concern, but still, I discard my body, and disappear from sight.
Gen speed, pathfinder gateways, and flow combine to challenge time, shrink space, and transform the land.

Dilasa and I rise each day, before first light, to greet the sun.
The first morning, when I dance the greeting, my heart well disappears within the ekrisa.
It’s hidden, but I can still feel it.
A few minutes later, it returns.
When I end the dance, a stream of light pours out of my star heart, and rises up until it reaches Gunal’s sun.
Then, a great wave of blue light shines from the sun.
It passes through my star heart, becomes filled with my healing energy, and rolls across the land.

The second day, two of my wells disappear during the dance, and reappear near its end.
Every day the blue wave comes, and brings us strength.
The terrain transforms before our eyes, as life grows and multiplies at an incredible rate.
I need little rest, but I stop every few hours to review what I’ve done with the scientists in charge, and adjust the plan.
They record my work in words and images.

Each day, one more of the wells disappear.
On the seventh day, and each day thereafter, all seven wells disappear when the dance begins, and reappear at its end.
Dilasa stays with the scientists through all of this, helping with the planting, and using her own healing energy to help Gunal’s new life.
Each night, before she sleeps, we spend time together.

“It’s wonderful to heal the land, ina,” she says one night, “but how can we ignore the Spiral for so long?”

“I haven’t forgotten, Dilasa.”
“Everyday, I’m preparing to fight it.”

“How?”

“I’m learning to hide my energy wells within the ekrisa, so I can pretend to be a star spirit.”

“When will you be ready?”

“Another week or two.”
“Day after day, I find it easier to hide the energy wells, and my obsession with healing fades.”

Two weeks pass before I’m free of the urge, and I can hide my wells without the help of the dance and the sun.
Dilasa and I approach the head of the project.
“We have to go,” I tell Kitsa.

“Come with me for a few minutes,” she says.
“We’ve made a time-lapse presentation of life returning to the land.”
We sit and watch, as forests burst out of the dirt, and herds of animals appear.
Dilasa laughs with delight.

“Will the rest of you leave now?” I ask Kitsa, when the images end.

“The land is rich with life, Yagrin,” says Kitsa, “but there is still more to be done.”
“We’ll stay here for a few years to do whatever we can.”

 
The Hidden Path
Dilasa and I go for one more walk, barefoot on the hot black sand of Gunal’s beaches.
We come to the end of a half-mile stretch of beach, and stop to sit and listen to the waves.
Small birds run at the edge of the waves, dancing between land and water, loving both.
Other birds fly quietly overhead, enjoying the wind.

I try to pretend that I’m back on Earth, watching the ocean, but my dream lasts for only seconds.
There are too many reminders that this is another world: the moons in the sky, the birds that are so different from earth birds, my darker skin, my strange teeth, and the little girl who sits with me.
Still, the ocean and the waves seem familiar.

I’ve always loved the sea.
It speaks to something deep, old, and powerful within me.
My thoughts float away on the waves, and disappear.
This world is so beautiful.
It’s hard to remember the desolate place that it once was.

“What do we do now?” asks Dilasa, interrupting my thoughts.

I walk closer to the edge of the water, enjoying the feel of the wet sand, and the waves that wash over my feet.

“No more waiting,” I tell her.
“We face the Spiral.”

“Where, ina?”
“We drove it away.”

“It won’t be easy to find,” I admit.
“The Spiral is invisible to energy eyes, and I have only fragments of its memories, not enough to identify the worlds that it still touches.”

“Can you look for the hunters?”

“I’ll start by searching for them, but I can’t connect to the Spiral through the hunters.”
“What I really need to find are flocks or swarms of life that carry the intelligence.”

“That will take forever!”

I frown.
“I might get lucky, but you’re right.”
“The search could take years, even at Gen speed, and eventually, the Spiral will return here and attack Sinesu.”

“We drove it away before.”

“Last time, the Spiral fought through its hunters.”
“When it comes back, it will attack us with its own strength.”
“Our weapons are too weak and slow to protect us.”

A flock of Heelu rise out of the sea, over the beach, and into the sky, their wet, ribbon bodies sparkling in the sunlight.
I feel sick when I see them.

“What’s wrong, ina?”

“It’s useless to search for the Spiral.”

“You have to, so we can kill it!”

“How will we kill it, Dilasa?”
“What if I find it on a planet a galaxy away, in a place where I can’t bring you.”
“How would you send me the energy you bring down from the sun?”

“Even if we could blast the Spiral with that energy, I don’t think it will help.”
“The Heelu reminded me of the last time that I connected with the intelligence.”
“I could hear its thoughts, but it was galaxies away, unreachable.”
“I felt like I was only touching its outer shell, and we can’t kill it from there.”

“We will kill it,” she says, stubbornly.
“The Fiklow stories say that we will.”

“Maybe we were only meant to drive it away, temporarily.”

“I don’t believe it,” she shouts, only a few inches away, “and you don’t either!”
“Your heart lead us here.”
“Where does it say you should go now?”

Before I have a chance to listen to my inner voice, Disala gets angry, and squeezes Sindar’s necklace.
A ray of bright black light pours out of her necklace, and strikes my star heart.
The ekrisa glows brightly, cycling through the seven colors of the energy wells, and then turns a blinding black, before it begins again with red.

“Did I hurt you?” she asks, looking at me with energy eyes.
“What did I do to the ekrisa?”

“You found the answer for me, little one.”
“I have to reach the Spiral’s center, and then attack it with the star energy you attract.”

“But how can I help you if you’re far away from me?”

“I’m going to bring your healing body with me, hidden in the ekrisa.”

“Is it safe to move the healing body so far away from my fire body?”

“It’s risky, but it’s the only way.”

She releases her listener, and it hovers thirty feet in front of her.
“Call down the sun,” I tell her.
She fingers the necklace and concentrates.
In a few minutes, the strange energy flows from the sun and covers her listener.

“What do you think of when you concentrate?” I ask her.

“A storm.”

“What kind of storm?”

“A sunstorm on the surface of the star.”

“Try to gather the energy into your listener, so you can bring it with us.”

She tries, but whenever she gets too much energy into her listener, there is a great pulse of energy which moves skyward.

“Keep the storm going, but move your listener out of the stream of energy.”

When she moves it to the side, I align our healing bodies, pairing up the tiny energy suns that fill the listeners.
We bind the suns together, and move our joined listener back into the sunstorm.
For several minutes the listener absorbs the energy, as though it were an endless space.
When I feel it getting full, I move my seven energy wells toward the star heart, and the ekrisa opens to let them in.
With the wells hidden, our listener becomes more powerful, and we absorb energy for another ten minutes before we feel full.

“No more Dilasa,” I tell her, finally, and move the listener away from the stream of energy.
Before she can respond, I rush our healing body toward the ekrisa.
It closes on the listener, hiding it from the world.

“Can you still hear me, little one?”

“Yes, ina.”

“We have the energy we need to fight.”
“Now, I have to find the way.”

“An energy creature once showed me how to find the path that can’t be seen.”
“It’s called the spinning of opposites.”
“This time, I’m going to look for it, within the ekrisa.”

I look with sensitive energy eyes at my seven wells.
Each energy center is bursting with endless spinning lights.
Each light is covered with the color of the well, and 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.
I do this hundreds and thousands of times, with 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.
The darkness and the light both become blinding, and then my vision clears.
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, and find that the fire body still stands in my way.
Quickly, I dissolve the balance pattern, and stream my fire energy toward the path that waits for me.

“I can’t see outside the ekrisa, ina,” says Dilasa with a mind touch.

“My fire body is gone,” I tell her, “but we are still one listener, bound together inside the ekrisa, and we can speak.”

“I can tell that we’re moving,” she says.
“Where are we going?”

“Stay calm,” I answer.
“I’ve found the path to the Spiral.”

 
Pillars of Death
We are in an endless space, full of light and darkness, 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, and extends without end, in two directions.
It rests on nothing but its strength.

The pillar is a great storehouse of energy, that feeds the beings here.
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 a voice inside me uses his image to get my attention.
I let my thoughts go and listen, until suddenly I know.
I’m inside the Spiral.
How can this beauty bring such destruction?

I must understand them, so I join the dance.
We move and play, and fill this space with song.
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.
There are no answers within the dance.

I leave them, and approach the pillar.

The pillar is beautiful, but it fills me with fear.
I feel small and foolish in its presence.
With all the strange places and life that I have seen, how can I pass judgment on the pillar.
Still, there is a wrongness in it, a way that must end.

“I’m about to connect with the Spiral, Dilasa,” I tell her.
“Don’t speak to me, unless its urgent.”
“They might hear you.”
I push aside an inner warning that sends me a feeling of dread, and plunge my fire energy into the pillar.

“Another star spirit joins us?” asks a chorus of voices.
“It’s been so long, and we are always hungry.”

“Will you consume your brother?” I ask them.

“Your strength will become ours, as your mind joins the group mind, no longer alone in this dark place.”
“Then, your energy shell will drift with the others.”

“Do you know what you do among the stars?”
“You kill living beings to feed yourself!”

“They are only ghosts of awareness,” it answers, “with brittle shells and a flash of energy.”
“Let them vanish, and who will notice?”

“The star spirits see it.”
“Your brothers cry for what you have done!”

“We only take what we need to live, unless the ghosts threaten us.”

“How do ghosts threaten you?”

“Sometimes the dark ones learn to damage our hunters, so they must die.”
“Should we wait for them to empty the light from the pillar, and make us vanish forever?”

The pillar pulls at my fire energy, taking it from me.

“The bond between us is weakening,” whispers Dilasa within me.
“We need to attack the Spiral, now, ina.”
“Let me out.”

I try to open the ekrisa, so the listener can release its energy, but the star heart remains closed.
“It won’t open,” I tell her.

I feel my life drifting away, and I move toward death.

“Something is wrong in you,” says the intelligence.
“We join with your energy.”
“This should bind you to us, but it kills you.”
“You are no star spirit,” accuses the mind, with sudden realization.
“What are you, and how do you come to us, here, without star eyes?”

“The spirits gave me the gift of star eyes,” I tell them, as my strength fades.
“They sent me to find you, and break your ways of death.”

The more energy they take from me, the stronger the connection between us.
I fill the intelligence with images of the battle that crushed its hunters.
“I taught the dark ones to fight you,” I tell them, defiantly, “and I will end you.”

“You are nothing,” it says, as it feeds on me.
“You have no strength that can harm us.”

There is no escape.
I don’t have the energy to find a gateway, or even move out of the pillar.

“Your energy is strange,” says the mind, “but it’s small, and we will take it.”
“Then, we will return to your place, and crush the shadows ourself, with no hunters.”

They speak with strength, but I feel fear in their thoughts.
They remember the community of star spirits as a prison.
The spirits left the bright community to be free to explore.
Their old memories are cloudy and twisted, but the mind senses something that it dares not voice.
The spirits have fallen, become weak, and the pillar has become a greater prison.
The Spiral holds desperately to what it is, fearing the loss of the pillar, and the bitter memory of what was.

“We are changed,” it cries to itself, “our old selves forgotten.”
“Erase the bright ghost, and push away the memories of pain..”

I hear all its thoughts, even when it doesn’t speak to me.
It fears my strangeness, and, because of me, it will strike Sinesu, and shatter the planet.

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

How do I protect Dilasa, hidden within me?
I can’t shield her for much longer.
Even now, I can barely hide the presence of the listener within me.

I focus on the memories of those who I love.
“I’m sorry Dilasa,” I tell her, “but this was a terrible mistake.”
“My strength is almost gone, and I can’t protect you.”
I wait for death, expecting the world to fade away and wondering why my new daughter is quiet.

My ekrisa grows weak, and then, it’s roughly pushed open.
The sunstorm energy shines through me, striking the pillar like a wave of daggers.
The group spirit cries out in agony.

In its pain, the spirit forgets me.
Some of my strength returns, fed by the sunstorm passing through me, but the pillar still feeds on my fire energy, and I start to weaken again.
“Go now,” says a distant inner voice, “while you still can!”

For a moment, I think it’s Dilasa’s voice, but I feel something foreign in it.
I fly away from the pillar, and follow a trail of dark light toward a gateway.

“Why did you leave, ina,” says Dilasa.
“We have to kill the Spiral.”

“I’m too weak to stay here,” I tell her.
“If we don’t go now, we’ll never get out.”

I don’t remember entering the gateway, but I find myself drifting just above the beach on Gunal.
The listener comes out of the ekrisa and breaks in two.
I feel Dilasa moving away.
She’s trying to speak to me with a mind touch, but she can’t reach me anymore.

I am fire energy, streaming and circling along the web, but my light is dim, and I’m still getting weaker.
My awareness slips away.
Then, I’m at the center of a blinding wave of energy.
It falls from the sky, and passes through me, on the way to the sand.
The sunstorm has returned, and my fire energy drifts within the stream.

My strength begins to come back, and with it, an ache to wear my Jiku body again.
I shape the balance pattern, and the fire body returns.
Then I shape my Jiku body, whole, but barely conscious.
I fall to the sand, exhausted, and the world fades.

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.”

“I couldn’t hear your thoughts, ina, after the listener left the star heart.”
“We came back to Gunal, and then, your fire energy disappeared.”
“I was so worried, but I couldn’t find you.”
“There was a loud stream of sound, like a song.”
“The sun was calling me, and Sindar’s necklace started to glow.”
“I extended my energy toward the sun, and soon the sunstorm returned.”
“I didn’t know where you were, but I reached for you.”

“A mind touch, Dilasa?”
“That doesn’t work outside the ekrisa when my fire body is gone.”

“No, ina.”
“Something else.”
“I felt my heart well connect with you.”
“I couldn’t hear your thoughts, but I felt your presence.”

“Something like a voice spoke within me, and told me to pull your spirit into the stream of energy.”
“After your fire entered the stream, I could see, but you seemed too weak to survive.”
“My healing body flew out of me, and went to help you.”
“The sunstorm came down from the sky and moved through the listener.”
“This softened and sweetened the stream, mixing it with healing energy, before the energy came to you.”

“I knew this would help you if I could keep my listener in the stream.”
“It was too much for me, but I wouldn’t let go.”
“Minutes seemed like days, and then your energy grew brighter.”

“When your body appeared and fell to the ground, my listener returned to me.”
“Then I looked at you, 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 Jiku wait for death?”
“You can only protect one world at a time.”

“She’s right, Yagrin,” says Botzar.
“We won’t abandon our sisters and brothers.”

“Fine,” I answer, frustrated.
“The Spiral was weakened by our attack, but it’s still strong enough to shatter a planet.”
“Dilasa and I are going to 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, open a gateway to Sinesu, and we disappear from the ship.
The gateway leaves us in midair, among strong winds, high above the ocean.

We glide down, and move toward the shore.
“There are fifty Fiklow and Jiku worlds for the Spiral to crush,” I tell Dilasa, when our feet enter the forest.
“Who will save them?”

“We can only protect one world, ina.”
“You agreed with Makish.”

“No, I was silent.”
“There may be a way for us to guard all the worlds, and crush the Spiral.”

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 sunstorm?”

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.
Two desires fill me.
A bright desire fills me, and I wish to pour out light and feed the whole world around me.
Another desire follows, to blacken and burn the world, and make a storm of blackness that consumes everything.
Dilasa never had such thoughts, but I need them to do what I must do.
They help me to make the connection to the sun and shine with a power that can heal and destroy.

Minutes pass, and the sunstorm comes.
The light pours through me, mixed with a strong bright blackness.
It hurts, and the more I resist, the louder the pain.
Still, it doesn’t weaken me.

I let myself resonate with the light, and be the storm.
Now, I feel it burning bright within me, making me stronger, 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.

I listen to the silence for a few minutes, while my listener brings me the peace of the great web.
My attention turns to the Spiral.
I’m still connected to it, and I hear its thoughts.
It extends throughout space, far from here, but I feel it planning to move its limbs to Fiklow and Jiku worlds, to destroy us.

It abandons the places that feed it, and sends much of its strength here, all because of me.
Deep within, it wonders if I can kill it.

Dilasa is the key.
We need fifty sunstorms, and she will hold them together.
The sunstorms will poison the many limbs that will touch our worlds, leaving the Spiral even weaker than it already is.
Then, we’ll attack the pillar again.

“I feel it coming, little one,” I tell her.
“It will threaten more than one world, but it will strike Sinesu first.”

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

“Trust me.”
“Call the sunstorm.”
“When you see a gateway open in front of you, send some of the storm’s strength into the opening, and spread the rest across Sinesu.”
“Don’t stop until 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 making its own web that spreads across many worlds.
In each world my heart resonates with the light of the sun, and the ekrisa burns brightly.

The storm joins together and fills all the worlds, except Sinesu.

The energy of Sinesu’s sun moves through Dilasa, and joins my web of energy and light.

The Spiral comes, and I direct the storm of fifty suns towards the Spiral’s limbs.
It attacks a dozen other worlds, but I’m already there, spreading the bright darkness against it.
It finds the rest of the worlds, but I keep moving among all the worlds, burning the Spiral’s limbs in the bright black fire that hides within the light.

The Spiral sends more of its limbs against us, but they only make the fire burn brighter.

The pillar weakens, barely holding together.
I open a gateway to it, and fill it with the black fire.

The pillar shatters, and the group mind explodes into star spirits.
They are far away from their lives of light, and low on energy.
Each one is barely aware of itself, and nearly helpless.
I hear a great cry that speaks of a lost light that will never return.

I pull the fire away from the gateway, and watch as the spirits drift around the ruins of the pillar like shadows.
Dilasa touches my mind and sees how weak the spirits have become.

“Don’t stop, ina!”
“Send the fire to finish them.”

I reach out to renew the fire, and erase the fragments of the Spiral, but then, I feel compelled to stop.
My listener leaps out of me and hovers before my energy eyes.
Images stream toward me, memories of healing that flood my mind:
the little girl in the marketplace, the Bizra nightmares, Berek’s mother, the rebirth of Gunal’s sea, and the return of life to the land.

What is the listener trying to tell me?
What healing calls on me now, in the middle of the battle with the Spiral?

The images fade, and I see Dilasa waiting for my answer.

“I won’t kill them,” I hear myself saying.
“There’s another way.”

For a moment, I ask myself why I’ve brought her here.
“Fool,” I tell myself, “you know the answer.”
She will never be like other children, never shielded from death.
The world needs her to fight, now, against the Spiral’s hunger.
She has seen death before this, and she will see it again.

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 with us on the ship.”

He’s quiet.

“How did Wisten die?” I ask him, quietly.

“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.”

“Why not?”

“The built-in power source was defective, and the external source is in the woods, a mile from here, connected by a long cable.
“Wisten told me that she had a feeling that the weapon or its power source would fail.”

“What happened?”

“Near the end of the battle, the power cable was broken, and the automated weapon became useless.”
“Dozens of 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.”
“I wanted to stay with her, but she forced me to go with the others and hide.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“This battle was necessary, and a vision told of her death.”
“I warned her to stay away from the monument.”

“I knew her for fifty years,” he yells.
“I don’t care about your visions or your wars!”

The death ceremony comes a few hours later.
Dilasa and I walk with the body, and speak the blessings of the dead.
Afterwards Dilasa is very quiet.

“Are you all right, little one?”

“No, ina.”
“Death scares me.”

“Death is no end, Dilasa.”
“Our spirits turn to a life of pure energy, and leave this world behind.”
“Someday, I’ll also join them.”

“I know what the elders say, ina, but how can we be sure?”
“Death takes everyone, and only you return.”

“You’ve seen the fire body, Dilasa.”

“But maybe it dies!”
“Have you ever seen the spirit of any Jiku after death?”

“No, only Fiklow fire bodies.”

She looks at me, troubled.
“You can’t even remember how it feels to be afraid of death!”

“I’m not afraid of my own death, Dilasa.”
“I’ve never been afraid of what lies beyond death, even when I was young.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’ve always felt certain there is life beyond life.”
“Still, I’m afraid of pain, and afraid of being alone.”
“Who would I be little one, if everyone I love died?”

“Like Shazira?”

“Yes, and Tzina and Berek and you.”

“You’re afraid of losing me?”

I smile at her.

She hugs me for a long time before she speaks again.
“Can’t we push away death, ina?”
“I’ve heard stories of masters living a long time.”

“On Sindar’s world there were masters who refreshed their body every day with healing energy.”
“They lived for thousands of years, but eventually they tired of life, and let the body go.”

“Did this happen to Sindar, ina?”
“Does he want to die?”

“I’m not sure, 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 I learn to build a new physical body like you do?”

“It’s more than shaping 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 masters who tried to move into new bodies, and turned insane.”
“I think that the new connection was incomplete.”

“But you do it, ina!”

“Yes, I’ve done it for myself, and even for others, but I’m not pure Jiku.”
“My fire energy is part Bizra, Gen, and Feldin.”

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, where 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.
“Something in the storm will help us face the Spiral.”

“But the Spiral’s gone!”

“Just for now.”
“It will come back, and we have to be ready.”
“Hold the mind touch, and follow my energy sight.”

I scan the storm, looking for anything unusual, but it’s just a storm.

“Try the ocean below it, ina,” suggests Dilasa.

I scan the ocean, all the way to the sea floor.
The sea life is fascinating, but how will that help us?

“Nothing, Dilasa.”

“We need different eyes,” she says.
“Let’s swim in the ocean.”

We move far from the storm, and flow our bodies as we enter the water.
We go deep enough to be safe from the storm, before we swim underneath it.

“Can we go deeper, ina?” asks Dilasa.

“Yes, but the ocean is exceptionally deep here, too deep, even for Fiklow.”

We move farther down, relying on our bodies to tell us when we’re approaching our limits.

“It’s beautiful, ina.”

Her sounds attract a number of shining small creatures.

“What are they, ina?”

“These are the Ketkin.”
“We took their name for our weapons.”
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, and marks us as friends.

They begin to dance around Dilasa, and look like they want to play.
“I like them, ina,” she says, “but they can’t help us with the Spiral.”

When the creatures hear her emit the Fiklow sound for the Spiral, they 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, but we can’t”

Dilasa touches my mind as I follow the Ketkin with energy eyes.
The swarm moves to the sea floor, and swims in a circle, over and over, for a minute.
Then they drift away, dissolving the swarm.
I expand the sensitivity of my energy vision, and look carefully at the sea bottom where they circled.
There’s an unusal shape floating on the great web, spiral-shaped energy that looks like a dim copy of the heart of the star spirits.

“Do you see it, Dilasa?”

“I see it through your eyes, ina.”
“It looks like the heart of the wanderer.”
“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but it’s only energy.”
“There’s nothing physical at the spot.”

“Is there anything below it?” asks Dilasa.

“No,” I answer.
“Just rock and dirt.”

“Go below the rock, ina, deeper.”

My vision drops through the rock, until I reach a place where the stone melts into fire, and the web dances with life.
The fire is full of energy creatures with spiral energy at their core.

“Their energy looks like the wanderer!” says Dilasa.

“Yes, but these beings are much weaker than the star spirits.”

“Try to talk to them, ina.”

“Not yet.”
“I’ll have to take an energy form, and go there without you.”
“I want to speak to Keesha first, and find out what she knows about the Ketkin.”
“They’re connected somehow to the fire spirits.”

I send a message to Keesha, and her ship retrieves us.
Vendik has gone home, and the queen has come.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her, since I returned from Siksa.
She swims to Dilasa and me, and wraps two tentacles with each of us, a greeting for old friends.

“How is your family, Lord Yagrin?” asks the queen.

“Strong, but they wait for me to swim home again.”

She spins a tentacle in agreement, and screams a victory sound.
“You have conquered the enemy,” she says.
“Why not go home?”

“The enemy will return, unless we find a way to destroy it forever.”
“I am full of that search, and I need Keesha’s advice.”

The queen gestures to Keesha, and Keesha turns toward me.
“How may I help you, Lord Yagrin?”

“I have questions about the Ketkin.”

I smell her surprise.
“How will the little ones help us against the Spiral?” she asks.

“Something powerful hides behind them.”
“It’s no accident that we called the weapons Ketkin.”
“The colorful ones will lead me to the answers I need.”

She remains silent, waiting for my questions.
“Are the Ketkin intelligent?” I ask.

“They recognize their owners when they are kept as pets,and they can be trained to perform sophisticated tricks.”
“When they swarm together in the ocean, they are different, and far more intelligent, but they usually swarm too deep for us to follow.”

“Do they have language?”

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

“They responded when Dilasa and I spoke around them.”

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

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.
“Maybe it will help you.”

“Tell me.”

“Once there were beings of fire who fell from the stars into the oceans.”
“Some went to live in the fires deep below the oceans.”
“Others loved the waters, but could not remain there as they were.”
“The little Ketkin saw them and offered them a home inside their bodies, with one condition – the Ketkin must be free to swim and play as they wish.”
“The Ketkin became messengers between the oceans and the stars.”
“They listen to the songs sung by Fiklow hearts, and tell the stars what they hear.”

“Who would make up such a story about your pets?”

The queen speaks.
“The first queen heard this story from the egg that protects the throne.”
“She recorded the story in the throne, so other queens may hear it.”
“The throne speaks to all the queens when it transforms them, but the egg spoke only to the first queen.”

“What else did the egg say?”

“The Ketkin gave life to me,” said the egg.
“Show your gratitude by protecting them.”

 
Living Fire
Dilasa and I swim to my chamber, as I think of the happy creatures.
I remember how they danced around me, and led me to the bottom of the ocean.
Strange that the queen’s story gives so much power to a simple creature, that the Fiklow keep as a pet.
The queen’s teaching is far more than legend, but what does it mean?

“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.”

“Are we going back to the ocean now?”

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

“Why can’t 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.”

She sighs.
“I’ll watch,” she says within my thoughts.

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 the 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.

Her mind touch returns when I reach the ocean.
“Where were you, Ina?” she asks, her thoughts faint.

“Traveling through a gateway.”
“The link is weak, Dilasa.”
“I won’t be able to hear you much longer.”

I go down through the water, wearing only my fire body.
A swarm of Ketkin greets me, five hundred feet from the ocean floor.
They form a sphere, with a tunnel through the center.
Strange that they open that space for me, even though I’m only energy.
They can see me, or sense me, even though I have no form, and their colors shine brighter as I move along the path.

I reach the ocean bottom, and pass through it, deep into the earth.
Dilasa’s presence fades when the world becomes fire, and the energy beings surround me.
They remind me of the star spirits.
A small energy spiral spins within each of them.
Their shapes are fluid, cycling between random streams of energy and a spinning torus with vague edges.
They live without a fire body, like the Spiral.

I approach the creatures, but they move away.
They form a new circle, far from me, and watch to see what I will do next.
Unlike the star spirits, they are repelled by the balance pattern that holds my fire body together.
The pattern seems like a prison to them, with the power to hold their energy in a stable shape.
They will never accept me while the balance stands between us.
I shatter it, and watch my body melt into streams of energy that circle around the fire beings, like a whirlpool.

For a few minutes my awareness is captured in the movement, but then I remember myself and stop, waiting for them to come near.
They are still afraid.
The fire world grows brighter as I release the Feldin glow.
The creatures surround me, and then close the circle.
Their energy meets mine, and filaments of energy us all.
We dance as I danced with the star spirits, but we can’t touch each other’s thoughts, and after a while, they pull away, frustrated.

The listener is restless within me.
It leaps out, and covers one of the fire creatures.
For a moment they struggle, but then the two of them shake and glow, shells of energy surrounding them, like an aura.
Before long, they separate, and the listener returns to me, disappearing within my fire.
My energy begins to spin, copying the shapes and movements of the creatures.

We connect again, and swim together in the planet’s fire, full of the rhythms and waves of this bright sea.
Diamond-shaped, spinning, sparkling, we dance, weave a web of color, and our thoughts come together.
We are Mayru, living deep within a planet’s fire.
Once there were many worlds full of us, but no more.
We are fragments, eggs of the wanderering suns who cross the universe without planets.
Over long years, 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 do not speak of us,” I tell my brothers.
“Do they know our ways?”

“The creator made star spirits and suns and bound some of them together.”
“Later, the wanderers came, and gave birth to Mayru, who gave birth to other spirits, and other suns.”
“The spirits know of Mayru, but Suns and spirits are born in cycles, and this cycle of birth is very old, almost gone.”
“We are among the last of the Mayru, and the spirits have forgotten that we still live.”
“We cannot call to them and touch their thoughts, only the thoughts of a wanderer.”

“When will this planet become a sun?”

“Never!” they answer in shame.
“We cannot complete our work.”

“Why?”

“When the world accepts its coming death, and the sun is ready to be born, the Mayru embrace death, and become a star spirt.”
“The spirit moves the planet far away, to a new home, where it can safely complete the transformation.”
“We have forgotten how to move the planet, and find a home for the new star.”
“The wanderers could tell us, but they are all gone.”
“Who will come, and teach us the way?”

Pain flows through us: a hiding, a darkness, a weight that cannot be lifted.

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

“The thoughts of a star spirit can touch a wanderer at great distances.”

“How could we lose the way?”

“Some of our knowing rests in the water above us, including knowledge of the way.”
“Before the world becomes a sun, the planet grows hot, and the oceans vanish.”
“The knowledge returns from the water to the fire.”
“Until then, we are permitted touch the knowledge, and hear it, even though we cannot understand.”
“The world does not grow hot yet, but the knowledge no longer speaks to us.”
“It is gone forever.”

The Mayru surround me.
“You are not Mayru,” they accuse.
“What are you?”

With their question, my feeling of self grows stronger.
“I think your thoughts while I am joined with you, but I am not truly Mayru.”
“I spin in many forms, and speak with star spirits, and a new wanderer.”

“A wanderer?”
“Let it come and teach us the way!”

The wanderer I know is far away, in Siksa’s universe.
No star can pass through the possibility sea or the seven towers, but maybe there is another wanderer here, that can help them.

“The wanderer I know cannot come to Sinesu.”

They are quiet.

“Why do you ask us to remember and speak of our sadness?”
“Why are you here?”

“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 the way, will you help me?”

“Help us, and we will help you.”
“Bring us the wanderer, or its knowledge, and we will follow your ways.”

 
Ways of the Wanderer
I stop spinning, and move to the edge of the fire sea, where the molten rock begins to cool.
When I bind the balance pattern to my energy, the fire body takes shape, and I rise upward, still shining with the Feldin glow.
I leave the rock behind, and pass through the bottom of the sea.
The Ketkin clear a path for me again, but this time I stop when I reach them.
They dance around me, as they danced when I was Fiklow.

What hides behind their colorful shapes?
What’s their connection to the Mayru?
The energy patterns that shape their bodies are almost Heelu.
I must know more, and I flow myself a Ketkin body from the seawater, and bind my energy to it.

I feel the body, feel myself swimming in the ocean, but it’s like a distant dream, and there is a second awareness here.
Part of me is in another place, surrounded by lights.
It feels like the Ketkin are possessed by another intelligence.
Are they carrying the Spiral?
No.
It’s something else.

We are all lights, all one.
Memories rush through me, of star spirits, and wanderers.
We are the ones that know how to move a sun through space!
We are water Mayru, light Mayru.

Once, ages ago, when the planet was much younger, before the Bizra and Jiku were here, the Spiral came to this place.
It touched us for a moment, tried to rest on us, and enslave us.
We raised our light and pushed it away.
It fled from us in fear, but that touch left us with a scar.
We are one, but we are broken, our link with the fire Mayru gone.
Apart, we cannot be whole.

I let those sad memories go, and 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 together fades, and I let my Ketkin body become 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, touch it 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 don’t worry.”
“The way is 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.
Energy sparkles and circles around the hull 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 can’t rely on weapons that have never been tested!”
“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 armed probes to 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.”
“I’ll take them to Sinesu and test them against the Hikweh.”

“You need more than samples, Yagrin,” says Mayla.
“The Spiral can 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.”

“Days?”
“What if the Spiral attacks Sinesu before then?”

Mayla calls Dilasa, and 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 large factory with high ceilings.
We see hundreds of the detectors which locate the energy hunters, and thousands of the weapons that shatter the hunters.

Mayla teaches us the science behind the weapons, and explains the machine that replicates them.
I love science and machines.
I feel like a happy child again, playing with toys, until 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 practice flowing the weapons from air and light, until we can do it without thinking.
Unfortunately, we can’t rely on flow.
Dilasa and I can’t be everywhere at once.
We need to teach others how to build the weapons, and defend themselves.

The training 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 weapons, and the machine that shapes them.”

I frown.

“What’s wrong Yagrin?” asks Mayla.

“The shaper is a dangerous machine, far too powerful.”
“It can produce any type of object or weapon, once loaded with the design.”
“Someone will abuse its power.”

“You’re right,” says Mayla.
“A true shaper will download any design, and then shape it.”
“These shapers are more limited.”
“They’re pre-loaded with the designs for the weapons and detectors, and will shape nothing else.”

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.”
“They’ll need your help, at first, to produce the weapons, and connect them 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 him, in case the Spiral or its hunters ever reach the towers.”

There is no doorway in the well-lit seventh tower.
Dozens 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 for 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, and Sindar’s symbol appears.
When I touch the tower, my hand passes through the outside wall, and 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, each egg a foot taller than me.
A simple, clear tone sounds from within each chamber.

I scan them with energy eyes.
Each holds a Jiku male, who looks like me.
As I look deeper, I see that they are not truly Jiku.
These are manufactured bodies, tools of the artificial intelligence that guards Sindar.

One egg 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 alive.
This intelligence feels much more like a machine.

“Sindar calls me Kihyez,” 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.”

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

“No!” I answer.
“Only these weapons 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, and tell of the many worlds that are threatened, including Sinesu.

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

“He doesn’t know of the enemy.”
“The Hikweh came to Sinesu recently.”
“You monitor the Jiku on Sinesu?”

“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 the storms that the Jiku call Hikweh.”

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

“This is advice, not a command.”

“I see the attacks,” it says after a few seconds, “and even your battle with the creature, but no weapons.”

“The weapons are new.”

“You plan to use them against the Hikweh?”

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

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

“Whatever happens, Sindar must hear of it when he wakes.”

“I will tell him.”
“Now go.”

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

I bring my right palm to the center of the rings, and the room fills with light.
Then I find myself on the ground, just outside the tower.

 
First Battle
Sinesu is quiet when we arrive.
The Spiral hasn’t attacked yet, but it can strike at any time.
I put Dilasa to work, shaping the weapons.
Then, I meet with Gunal, the Fiklow queen, and Vendik, leader of the Fiklow union.
Vendik swims with me and shows me the chamber where the union council meets.
Keesha joins us.

“When will the council meet again, Vendik?”

“A few weeks from now.”

“I have learned about the enemy that stalks us,” I tell them, “and I have weapons to defeat it.”
“I need your authorization to install the larger weapons on every Jiku and Fiklow world, and some of your ships.”
“There’s also a small version of the weapon that your soldiers can carry.”

“How many weapons?” asks Vendik.

“Tens of thousands.”

“Is that all?” asks Vendik, sarcastically.
“It will take months to get the council to agree to this, if they ever do!”
“After that, it will take years to deploy the weapons.”

I flow one of the hand weapons, and take hold of it with one of my tentacles.
“The enemy will attack Sinesu in a few days,” I tell them, “and I will defend it.”
“Once the Spiral learns that we can fight, it will hit us hard.”

“On Sinesu?” asks the queen.

“No, it will attack every world in the union at once.”

“How can you install the weapons in only days?”

“When I take a pure energy form called Gen, I move thousands of times as fast as any Jiku or Fiklow.”
“I can shape the weapons in an instant, and travel from world to world without a ship.”

“No one will accept this,” says Vendik.
“They will think that you’re planting bombs to destroy us!”

“What do you think?” I ask her.

“I don’t know why, but I trust you.”
“Besides, I don’t think you would need bombs if you wanted to destroy us.”

“True,” I agree.
“I can shatter a planet with little more than a thought, and leave nothing behind.”

“Have you ever done it?” she asks, the smell of fear in her water.

“No.”

She’s quiet, planning something.
“One of the new colonies,” she says, “has a moon whose orbit has become unstable.”
“We urgently need to destroy the moon, without creating debris that will drift to the planet.”
“Can you help us?”

“Is there any life on it?”

“None.”

“Tell me where to go, and when you want the moon to vanish.”

Vendik shows me the location on star maps.
“Our fastest ship takes half a day to reach the moon.”
“How long will it take you to get there?”

“I’ll check.”
I look for a pathfinder gateway that leads to the colony.
“I’ve found the way,” I tell her.
“I can be there in a few seconds.”

“Seconds?”

I spin my tentacle in agreement.

“Can you remain visible in a Fiklow body while you do this?”

“I can travel with a large volume of water, and raise a shield to keep me warm and safe from the vacuum of space.”

“Good.”
Vendik contacts the colony and the military ships stationed near it, and tells them to be ready in a few minutes for the destruction of the moon.
“Start transmitting images of the moon to the council,” she orders the ships, “and continue until the moon is gone.”

Vendik calls for a remote assembly of the council, by video link.
The queen and I join her for the meeting.
She asks for approval to destroy the moon, two minutes from now.

“What about the debris?” asks one of the council.

“We have a solution,” answers Vendik.

“A new weapon?”

“No.

“What then?”
“Who will do it?”

She motions toward me.

“Who is that with you and the queen?”

“Lord Yagrin.”

“But how can he reach the colony in a few minutes?”

“He travels faster than any ship.”

Vendik sends me out of the room for thirty minutes, while the council debates, and then approves the action.

“Make sure that you are seen, Lord Yagrin!” she instructs me, just before I leave.
“The council must see you, for this to work!”

Why is she so focused on this, and why does she want me to do it now?
She should speak with the council about the Spiral and the weapons.
They are far more important!

As I open the pathfinder gate, I decide how to make sure that I’m seen.
The union represents itself with a diamond-shaped symbol.
Four planets are shown, one at each corner.
A tentacle comes out of each world and reaches toward the center, where the four tentacles meet and wrap each other.
Stars fill the spaces between the tentacles, one star for each world in the union.

I pass through the gate and project a large, sparkling image of the symbol, close to the moon.
That should get their attention!
The glow fills me, growing brighter and brighter as I move toward the center of the symbol.
I stop there, and touch the moon’s balance, hesitating for a moment, before I shatter it.
I have mixed feelings about destroying a world, even if there is no trace of life on it.
When the moon becomes a cloud of debris, I manipulate gravity to send it all into the sun.

Vendik congratulates me when I return.

“Now, explain why you wanted me to do this,” I tell her.

She smiles.
“I wanted them to see how dangerous you are, Lord Yagrin.”

“That won’t get them to trust me!”

“Are you sure?” she asks.
“They’ve agreed to let you deploy the weapons.”

“Why?”

“They saw that you can travel faster than a ship, and destroy a planet in a few seconds.”
“They are more afraid of you than any machines you put among them.”

Vendik brings me to a computer interface.
“You need to understand how Jiku and Fiklow electronic systems work, so you can help us integrate the weapons into our command computers.”
I take on my Gen form, and establish a high-speed connection to the computer.
Then I spend an hour speaking with the computer about control systems, and power sources.

The computer also gives me the location of ships that are waiting to receive the weapons, as well as orbital and ground-based installation sites on the Fiklow worlds.
I contact Wisten, and get the same information from her for the Jiku.

I flow the weapons, and deliver them through pathfinder gateways.
In orbit, and at ground sites far from cities, the weapons rely on a built-in power source, and will fire whenever they detect a hunter nearby.
At other sites, the weapons are integrated with external power and command systems.
I also deliver hand weapons to designated military sites.
I move too fast to be seen by living eyes.
The equipment appears, and I’m gone.

Two days pass, and the weapons are in place on every Jiku and Fiklow world, ready for the test.
I’m aboard Keesha’s ship with Dilasa and Vendik, in orbit around Sinesu.
On every world but this one, the automatic weapons are disabled, ready to be activated with a coded signal that I’ve provided.
Both the Fiklow and Jiku have agreed to activate the weapons, after the test, or when their worlds are attacked by the hunters.

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.

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

“I’m concerned for your safety and the safety of Commander Keesha,” I tell her.
“If the weapons fail, how will I protect you?”

“I had to come, Yagrin.”
“The council is impressed with your power, but it took more than that to get them to agree to install the weapons.”
“I had to demonstrate my confidence in you by promising to be here for the test.”
“When I see that the weapon is effective, I will send an order to activate the weapons throughout the union.”

“Thank you for your trust.”

“Your daughter is here with us,” Vendik answers, dismissing my gratitude.
“I expect that you will not fail her or me.”

“We’ve told the union that the Spiral may initiate a massive attack in response to our first use of the weapon.”
“Do you think they’ll believe us, watch for the hunters, and activate the weapons?”

“I’ve explained it personally to the planetary leaders and military.”
“They have seen your power, and heard stories of you.”
“Now, we must hope that everyone will follow their orders.”

The test begins.
Our ship moves out of orbit and searches for the space hunters, but we can’t find any.

“Will we see any hunters today, Yagrin?” asks Vendik, suddenly doubting me.

“It’s harder to find them in space, Vendik.”
“We looked here first, to try and move the battle away from the planet.”
“I know where to find them on Sinesu.”

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.
The ship’s computer provides us with a consolidated view of Hikweh anywhere on the planet.
We’ll know instantly if more Hikweh appear in response to our attack.

“There are none here!” says Keesha, looking at the display.

“There are always a few,” I tell her, “hiding within an electrical storm.”
“We have to get much closer to the storm before the detectors can see them.”

Sinesu has immense electrical storms, similar to the ones on Siksa.
On this world, the largest storms stay over the great ocean, one storm always hovering over the center of the ocean.
Between attacks, Hikweh rest there, and draw strength from the storm.

“Move us to the outer edge of the storm,” I tell the pilot, giving him the coordinates.
The ship’s crew has been told to follow my orders during this mission.
I sense that they will obey, but I smell their fear of me and the unfamiliar enemy that we face.
Dilasa joins us in the command room, and her presence on the ship seems to calm the Fiklow.
Their protective instincts take over in the presence of a child, and push away their fears.

We activate the ship’s shields to protect us from the lightning, as we reach the edge of the storm.
At close range, our detectors can see into the storm, and find three Hikweh.

Our weapons are set to activate automatically whenever hunters are close to the ship, or moving toward us, 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.

“Take us back ten miles,” I tell the pilot, as the weapons fires again, automatically.
The Hikweh emerge from the storm, unharmed.

“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.

I watch the planet with energy eyes.
With the gift of strength from the star spirits, my vision moves without limit.
I see the Spiral as it drifts through the web and the flocks of Heelu.

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

I turn to her, taking my attention away from the display.
“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.

I see the Hikweh as they erupt from the streaming energy of the spiral.
Hundreds of Hikweh appear, all over the planet.

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

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

Here on Sinesu, new Hikweh appear, almost as quickly as they are destroyed.

“They keep coming, ina,” says Dilasa.
“How can we win?”

“Don’t worry, little one.”
“The limbs of the Spiral near us are consuming an immense amount of energy.”
“It can’t continue for long.”

A few minutes later, the Hikweh are gone.
The same pattern is repeated on many of the other worlds in the union.

“The test is a great success, Lord Yagrin,” says Vendik.
“There is damage and loss of life, but no trace remains of the Hikweh!”

I see the last streams of the Spiral disappear through a gateway to a 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 must act quickly, for the Spiral will return, in a few hours or a few days.

When the city was built, no one planned to launch ships from here.
Still, there are a few open places in the city large enough for the ship: the sand, the ocean, and the flat roofs of several buildings.

Any of these would do, since we can take off from any surface, without damage to the ship or its surroundings.

“Mayla?”

“Yes, Yagrin?”

“Why do you want us to launch from the beach?”

“It’s convenient,” she answers.

Mayla likes to pretend that she acts on pure logic, but she was built with a personality and emotions, and they color her actions.
Today, she remembers her friend, Shilann.
The ancient Jiku still loved the sea, long after they developed flight.
Even after they came to Siksa, the Jiku launched most of their airships from coastal harbors.

But there’s another reason that the ship is here.
Mayla wants to watch it let go of the beach, and glide over a stretch of sea, before rising toward an opening in the city’s dome.

“What do you call the ship, Mayla?”

“It has a ship code, but no name.”

“Then I’ll name it,” I tell her.
“We’ll call it Shilann’s Wings.”

“He would like that name, Yagrin,” she says quietly, and turns away.

I board the starship with my family.
Mayla has installed a partial copy of herself into the ship’s computer, and one of her artificial bodies follows us into the command room.
Another of her bodies waits on the beach to watch our departure.

Berek sits at the pilot’s station, and checks the status of ship systems.
The on-board computer handles most of the flying and weapons management, but Berek is in command, and he’s prepared to fly the ship when necessary.
He has a year of pilot training, gained last night in the DreamSchool.
The pilot’s station has multiple views of the ship, including a holographic view that shows the ship at the center, and everything that surrounds it.
The weapons targeting systems are tied into a similar view, and can fire in any direction.
This ship is small, but well-armed, even against the Spiral and its energy hunters.

Mayla’s probe brought us a weapon against the hunters.
It worked, but was massive, unstable, and required too much power.
The aliens who created it were killed before they could refine the weapon.
Mayla has finished their work.
With the speed of her thought, one Jiku night becomes years, long enough to prepare our ship, and develop a new weapon.
The weapon was installed on the ship as we slept, along with instruments to detect the energy hunters, and even the Spiral itself.

The ship slips toward the wanderer, who waits for us only a few light years away.
Soon, we return to normal space, a comfortable seventy million miles away from the wanderer, a star smaller than Siksa’s sun.

“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!”

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 fills the command room.
After a few seconds, the light shapes itself into a white sphere, that hovers above the table.
Images burst from the sphere and form a shell around us.
The shell contracts, and when it touches us, the ship fades, and we are elsewhere.

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 thin, fence-like, ring of fire that rises straight up for ten feet, before it curves and meets high above our heads.

“Am I here?” asks a voice, surrounded by blue flashes of light.

“We hear your words,” I answer.

“There are no words,” it says, “but there is understanding.”
“The stone is surprising.”
“I gave the energy, but the stone shaped this place for us to meet.”

“Are you the star sent to help us?” asks Shazira.

“I am the wanderer,” it replies, “here to protect life, and do what I must do.”
“As 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,” it answers, “and keep it free of the river.”
“You must greet the river where it touches life, until one of you becomes the river.”

“The river?” asks Berek.

“What you call the Spiral.”

“We will never become the Spiral!” I answer.
“It’s evil and twisted.”

“Confused, lost, asleep,” says the wanderer.
“The river needs to awaken.”
“You will know when it’s time.”

“What does it mean to greet it?”
“Do we drive it away, or destroy it.”

“The river is nearly without end.”
“Drive it away, and it returns.”
“Try to destroy it, and you fill it with anger.”

We’re quiet, hoping for an explanation, but none comes.
The spirit doesn’t think as we do, and its words are strange to us.

“We don’t understand,” I tell it.

“Go, and you will understand!”
“But how long will we wait for this?”

There is silence, and the space around us fills, thicker and thicker, with the blue flashes.

“Light has come,” it says finally.
“The largest will touch the heart, 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.

“Dilasa is the smallest, and I am the largest.”
“She will help me to send the Spiral home, a place where it can’t return from.”

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

“It’s the place of the star spirits.”
“I need to go there before we face the Spiral.”

“Can I come with you, ina?” asks Berek.

“No. I have to pass through the heart of a star to reach the circle, and only fire energy can survive there.”
“I’ll flow away my physical body before I enter the heart of the wanderer.”
“The map will open a path from there to the star spirits.”

“How long will you be gone?” asks Dilasa.

“I don’t know.”
“Go back to Siksa, and I’ll meet you there.”

“No,” says Shazira.
“We’ll stay here, and wait for your return.”

I hug my three children, and look toward Shazira, to see if she will accept a hug.
Her face is dark and cold, and my first instinct is to leave.
Instead I walk up to her.

“Just go, Yagrin!” she says.
As her bondmate, I feel the fear and anger that rushes through her.

“Not like this,”I tell her.
I touch my listener to the web, and spread the listener over both of us.
Even here, where the web is thin, we feel the calm.
I lean my head toward hers.
She sighs and leans in toward me.
I take her hands and bring them to my cheek.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I whisper.

I smile, dissolve my physical body, and pass through the walls into empty space.
I pass through a gateway to shorten my journey to the heart of the wanderer.
The energy of the heart 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, but I can’t find a way through it.
I try to widen it with pathfinder energy, but this has no effect.
The wheel is not like other gateways that I’ve seen.

I remember the energy map that the star spirit showed to the probe.
Then, I shape an energy pattern that duplicates the map, and touch the pattern to the gateway.

The gateway opens wide, but my fire body still can’t pass.
An energy barrier blocks the way.

What did the wanderer say?

Come to me and shine brightly.

My fire body is already shining, but not enough.
I fill myself with the Feldin glow, and touch it to the energy map.
The whole star brightens for a moment from the glow.
Then the barrier opens, and I’m pulled through the wheel.

 
Circle of Stars
The stars are gone, but this place is brighter than the heart of the wanderer!
I’m at the center of an infinite river of light that shines through this space.
The river is round and thick, forming six tunnels of light that turn to the six directions.

I pull my attention away from this world, grow quiet, and ask, “where is the right place for me in the river?”
I surrender my will, and wait to be pulled to the place where I must go.
The world changes around me.
My energy eyes find great funnels of energy rising wide and high in all six directions.
The base of each funnel rests on a soft and flexible disk, always moving in beautiful colored rhythms of yellow and blue.

I’m near the base of one funnel, hovering above the disk.
Above me, the funnel is filled with the energy of the star spirits.

They have no fire bodies, and no energy wells within them.
Instead, their shapes are constantly changing, with a large energy spiral spinning at their core.
Hundreds of lines of energy connect one spirt to another, and the spirits form their own web.
My fire body lets go of its shape, moves as they do, and becomes part of their web.
Hundreds of energy streams reach for me, overload my senses, and leave me blind.
My awareness starts to fade, and I wonder if my life will go with it.

Time has passed when my awareness returns, here, in the circle of stars.
I touch the thoughts and history of the spirits in the funnel, but I can’t understand what I see.
I try to ask questions, but the spirits ignore me.
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.
There are 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 sun that has no spirit.

It’s forbidden, never explained, for a spirit to enter the physical universe without a sun.
Some spirits sparkle with curiosity, filled with a strange desire to leave home, and explore the worlds of life.
Rare among star spirits, not understood.
Forbidden for the spirits to go, but not impossible.

They fall from light into our dark, cold world.
Disconnected from any sun, their awareness and energy bleed away.
Many rush home, but others never rejoin the circle.

Some of the lost ones vanish when their energy is gone.
Others join together in a private web that spans the universe, exploring life, filled with an endless hunger for energy to stay alive and aware.

Their spinning, energy hearts bind them together, each heart with a spiral shape.
They have star hearts, ekrisa.

How far these energy beings have fallen to become the beast that we call the Spiral.
It feeds on life to survive.
The energy that feeds it, brings back awareness, but the Spiral is 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.
“Join the Spiral and let it go.”

I don’t understand their words.
I let the confusion and heaviness go, and fill myself with the memory of my time here.
We have played and shared joy, together, 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.

I voice 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.
There is a sudden rush of energy that hits me like a fist, striking just below my heart center.
They fill me with energy beyond what I can hold, and it shatters the balance pattern that holds my fire body together.
Why are the spirits doing this?

All of the streams fall away.
I feel strange, thin, and weak like air, my energy eyes dim.
The gateway opens for me, and I’m sucked through it, back to the center of the wanderer.
As weak as I am, I’ll never survive the power of the star.

 
Starlight’s Gifts
The wanderer protects me, cradles me in a bubble of energy at the heart of the star, and my strength returns.
A word slips into my awareness from the star.
“Soon.”

A few seconds later the bubble vanishes, and my fire energy moves easily and swiftly throughout the star.
My strength continues to grow, far beyond what it was before.

I shape the balance pattern, but I can’t bind the pattern to my energy.
The star interferes with the binding.
I need to leave the star, but I’m afraid.
Outside the star, in empty space, my fire energy will fade quickly, with no fire or stone to support it.

I focus my attention, and rush toward the outer edge of the star, ready to take action the moment that my energy escapes the boundary.
When my energy touches empty space, it’s like being thrown into a boiling desert, and my energy begins to fade.

The great web is thin in deep space.
Even planet Gunal’s thick energy web was no help to me, when I first lost my fire body.
Still, the web has always been a friend, and I reach toward it for comfort, purely by instinct.

“Fool,” I think, just before my energy touches the web.
“It can’t help you in your streaming form!”

But this time I’m wrong.
When I make contact with the web, it comforts me, 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’m too far away to see Mayla’s ship, but still, I reach for it.
The distance is nothing to me now.
The ship glows brightly, clear as if it was right before me.

The web calls me, and pulls me to come and play.
My fire energy blasts around the web in circles, around the wanderer.
My thoughts are quiet, replaced by joy.

Soon, I remember my family, and see the ship again.
Time to return.
I let go of everything that holds me, and fill myself with the desire to go home.
Still, , it’s not my will that moves me.
The web answers my wish, plays with me, and throws me most of the way back to the ship.

So close.
In this form, traveling at almost 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 can’t recognize me like this, and wonder whose strange energy moves through their ship.

I forgot to reshape my fire body!
I rebuild the balance that anchors my fire body, before Mayla or my family attack me.
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.”

“I know what the Spiral is, and where it came from, although I am forbidden to speak of it.”

“How can we help you if you can’t tell us about it?” asks Berek.

“The circle gave me a gift of strength, and told me that Dilasa and I have the power to overcome the Spiral.”

“What kind of strength?” asks Shazira.

“My fire energy has changed.”
“Now, I can move along the energy web without a fire body, and see along the energy web, without end.”
“I learned how to join with the star spirits, and live in their circle.”

“They gave you something else, ina,” says Dilasa.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at your fire body.”
“There’s an energy spiral.”

There’s a dim spiral, spinning in my fire energy.

“It’s an ekrisa,” I tell my family, “the energy heart of the star spirits.”

“Are you a one of them, now, Yagrin?” asks Shazira.

“Partly.”
“I have star energy in me, and they’ve given me a star heart, but my ekrisa is weak and difficult to see.”

“How will their gifts help?” asks Berek.
Berek is so tall, already.
The Jiku begin adolescence younger than humans, and rapid growth comes with it.
Still, he is tall for his age.
Someday he will rise above me.

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

“The star spirits reveal little of their intentions, but I think I understand.”
“I need to find a way to hide my energy wells, and then, I can pretend to be a star spirit.”
“They’ve given me the strength I’ll need to go deep into the Spiral.”
“Then, Dilasa will help me shatter our enemy from within, where it can’t defend itself.”

I repeat what Mayla told us, and I try to explain, but Shazira continues to yell at me.
Tzina and Dilasa come to our room, surprised by the yelling they hear when I open the privacy shield.
Shazira stops when she sees the children.

“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 when you’re away?”
“We never know if you’ll come back to us.”

“I miss you too,” I tell them.

Dilasa takes one of Shazira’s hands, and looks in her eyes.
“He’ll come back,” she says, adding her own tears.

“How can you be sure?” asks Shazira gently.
“Yagrin wraps himself in danger.”

“Sindar is a great DreamHunter,” says Dilasa, raising her voice, “and he says that I’ll protect Yagrin!”
“Without Yagrin I have no home,” she adds quietly.
“I won’t lose my home again.”

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 stares at the powerful will that shines through those eyes.
Tzina and I look at each other, and wonder how such a strong spirit fits in Dilasa’s small shape.

I notice Berek, standing outside the room, listening to us, but hesitant to enter.
“Come in, Berek,” I tell him.

“Maybe later, ina,” he answers.

“Now.”
“I’m leaving soon.”

He enters, and I seat him next to Disala.
She tries to speak with him, but he gives her quick answers, and he can’t seem to meet her eyes.

“Berek,” I tell him, “I need you to do a favor for me.”
“Take Disala flying for thirty minutes.”
“Give her a tour of the city and the ocean.”
“Show her the beaches, too.”
“Maybe she’ll get to see the Feldin.”

He’s uncomfortable, but he has no good reason to refuse.
“I’ll take her, but the Feldin are underwater at this time of day.”
“I don’t have your glow, ina, to draw them out.”

“Try lightning,” I tell him.
“Mayla tells me that lightning never strikes the Feldin in the wild, and they love to watch it.”

“They love storms?” asks Berek.

“Yes,” answers Mayla.

“You have lightning inside the dome?” Dilasa asks Berek.

“There’s no rain or storms, here,” he answers, “but I can make a small lightning storm above the beach, to attract the Feldin.”

“You can make a storm?!” she asks, breathing hard.
“A real storm, not something like the Hikweh?”

Berek smiles.

“You have to show me that!” she says, taking his hand, and almost dragging him out of the room.

 
Clues from an Abandoned World
I haven’t seen Balshown or Mayla all morning, although Mayla is always listening, even when her body isn’t here.
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, 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 hands me the note.

I’m a coward, Yagrin.
I’ve tried to forget my old life, never speaking of how my spirit traveled, and came to this Jiku body, until now.
I deserted my world, and I’m embarrassed to tell my story in person.

We live in a galaxy that neighbors this one, and we look nothing like the Jiku.
We are hatched in water, but spend most of our days in the air.
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.
Each of us has two minds, two ways of being.
Sometimes we think with our own private mind, and other times we live in the group mind.
We were a proud race of energy masters, Yagrin, with a long, bright history.

There are many living worlds among the stars, and many visitors saw our skies and waters.
Some came as enemies, though now, I realize that most were just curious.
We thought we were superior to all, and called all visitors 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 our pride was crushed.
Our energy shields and our weapons were useless, and the hunters who killed us seemed empty of intelligence.

We searched desperately for the real enemy.
Whenever we join our minds together, we’re 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 was the real enemy.
It must have been the Spiral.

We touched it with the group mind, and it felt our contact, but it ignored us, at first, like we were stones.
Still, it must have been offended, threatened, or attracted by our touch.
Dozens of Hikweh suddenly appeared, 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 watched friends and family die, and wondered when our own day of death would come.

We were four billion when the Spiral came, so many that the group mind stayed strong, even as death rained upon us.
There were enough of us to survive thousands of years of this slaughter.
Our spirits were dark, but we hoped someday we would find a defense against the monster.

The years passed, and the killing continued, steady and predictable.
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, some 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 were an arrogant and violent race, though we had had let go of war with each other.
Before the destruction, we thought nothing of killing other races, including peaceful visitors from the stars.
And we had slaughtered a great race that once lived beneath our oceans.

After the destruction, we thought of the times when we were invincible, and we looked at how small we had become.
We gathered together in a new settlement, and pretended to face the future with plans to rebuild.
I was young then, and I saw our world as a living death.
Our lives were bitter, and our memories of glory were worse than death.

There was great disgrace in killing ourselves, though some left us that way.
Since the days when visitors had first found us, we made our young take an oath to die, rather than leave our brothers.
There were no ships, anyone.

We sleep and dream half our day.
One night, 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>
I abandoned the last of my race, and all that was left of the group mind.
This body was so strange for me, and I was so alone.

Why am I telling you all this?
I’ve seen that the sun’s energy can be deadly to the Spiral, but the energy you use may kill the Jiku you’re trying to save.
Find a way to safely fight this monster, and when you return, I need your help.

Mayla showed me an image of a Hikweh attack on a distant star system, only one hundred light years away from my own world.
The Spiral may come back to my world to threaten them again, and who but me can help them?

I’m tired of being a coward, and I want to go home.
I need you to find my old world, open a pathfinder gateway to take me there, and show us how to kill the Spiral.

“Did you read the note?” I ask Mayla.

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

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

“What was in the note?” asks Shazira.

“Much of it was private, just for me, but he gave me proof that solar flares are a potent weapon against the Spiral.”
“Unfortunately, a flare powerful enough to kill the hunters, also kills the life on the planet.”

“I’m coming with you, Yagrin,” says Shazira.

“No,” I tell her.
“It’s not safe.”

“Safe?!”
“Is there anywhere safe now?”
“War will come to Siksa, whether from Tshuan or the Spiral.”
“Do you think we can hide from that?”

“I’m not hiding from the war; I’m just trying to protect you!”

“Am I a helpless child?”

“Of course not, but this isn’t your fight.”

“The Jiku on Sinesu are my people as much as they are yours, and if you can take Dilasa to fight, you can take me.”

“What about Tzina?” I ask.
“Will you take her, and put her in the path of another war?”
“If you leave her, and we die on Sinesu, she’ll have no one.”

Shazira turns away quietly, and leaves the room.
Her tears answer for her.
She’ll stay.

I start to follow, but Tzina stops me.
“No, ina,” she says, and chases after her mother.

 
Searching for Answers
I spend an hour at Gen speed scanning through the library, reviewing the images of the Spiral, and the destruction that it has caused in this universe.
But there is nothing there to help me fight the Spiral.

“Mayla,” I call out loud.

“Yes, Yagrin?”

“Message everyone to come together now to eat.”
“After the meal, Dilasa and I are leaving.”

Shazira and Tzina sit on either side of me.
They take my hands, and touch them to their cheeks.
I sigh, and respond in the same way, holding their hands tightly when I’m done.
No words pass between us.

Soon, Berek and Dilasa enter the room, laughing, and they sit together.
“She’s funny, ina!” he tells me.
“I was laughing so hard, I could barely fly!”
I smile, happy that they enjoyed their time together.
Their laughs fade away, and they quiet down, joining the silence.

I drag out the meal, knowing that I must leave when it’s done.
When we finish, we join hands to bind the blessing.
Then we get up, and start to say goodbye.

Mayla stops us.
“You can’t leave yet, Yagrin.”
“A probe has just returned, with information about the Spiral.”

“How long has it been gone?” asks Shazira.

“This is one of the first probes that I sent,” answers Mayla.

We hover in space, and ships explode all around us.
Then, we find ourselves on planet after planet, where the Hikweh kill an endless stream of strange creatures.
Dilasa buries her face in my back.

“It’s horrible, Mayla,” I admit, “but we’ve seen attacks like this before.”
“What will this death teach us?”

“This probe has been shadowing a hunter for hundreds of years, Yagrin.”

“The Spiral has two types of energy hunters,” I explain to my family, “one that operate on planets, and another in space.”
“I call them Hikweh and Nikol.”
“The space hunters follow ships through interstellar gateways.”
“Sometimes they gather energy from the active star drive, but don’t harm the ship.”
“Often, they make the star drive explode and consume the explosion, as well as the fire energy of the lives aboard.”

“Almost two hundred years ago,” continues Mayla, “the probe trailed the hunter, and found a race called the Dakwil.”
“That race had many ships, and the hunter remained there for several years, attacking and consuming several ships.”
“One day, the Nikol followed a ship to a nearby star, only ten light years away.”
“The ship moved close to the star, and the hunter followed.”
“It’s well known that activating a star drive too close to a star can result in stellar flares or even a nova.”
“When the Nikol approached, the Dakwil ship activated its drive, and escaped.”
“Before the hunter could follow, it was consumed by a flare.”

“Balshown told me about the flares, Mayla, but they’re too dangerous to be used as a weapon.”

“I’m not finished, Yagrin.”
“The Dakwil ship returned, and saw that the Nikol was gone.”
“Then, it noticed our probe, and made contact.”

“The probe shared its data on the Nikol and Hikweh, and the aliens told it that they were developing a weapon against the hunters.”

“The weapon,” they said, “will simulate the energy signature of a stellar flare, in a highly focused beam, without putting a star at risk of nova.”
“Once perfected, we will be able to use this weapon, even on our planet, with minimal danger to life.”

“When the first prototype weapon was complete, the Dakwil tested it on their planet, away from population centers, and the Hikweh was destroyed.”

“It was a treasured victory, widely celebrated, but the aliens knew that it was only a beginning.”

“We need more time,” they told the probe, “to develop a more precise weapon, safe to use within the cities.”
“And still more time to produce and deploy enough of the weapons to protect the home world, and our colonies.”

“It took too long.”
“The Dakwil were attacked before the weapons were ready, and nearly their entire civilization was wiped out.”
“Only a few civilian ships escaped the attack, and none of them had the weapon.”
“One of them approached the sun, planning to generate a flare or nova, to cover the home world and destroy the hunters.”
“A Nikol destroyed the ship before it could activate its 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.

“It was the star itself,” says Mayla.

 
Star Spirit
“Impossible,” says Berek.
“Stars aren’t intelligent.”

“That’s what the probe thought, too,” 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 connection to its star, but is unaware of our universe most of the time.
“Its awareness moves within a distant energy world, where it lives with others of its kind.”
“It spends only rare moments within our universe.”
“During one of these visits it saw the attack, and drove away the Spiral.”

“It couldn’t kill the Spiral?”

“The Spiral stretches across galaxies.”
“The part of the Spiral within a star system is like a small limb.”
“Only the limb was destroyed, along with the nearby hunters.”

“What’s the point?” asks Shazira.
“It will come right back.”

“The spirit said that the Spiral does not soon return to a place, after one of its limbs is destroyed.”

“Still,” says Shazira, “it seems hopeless to destroy something so large!”

“There is a way,” says Mayla.
“The star spirit said that the Spiral can be erased from within.”
“Send your energy masters to us,” said the spirit, “and we’ll teach them to fight the enemy.”

“Soon after, the spirit was silent.”
“It can’t focus for long on our physical universe, and its time was gone.”

“How will we find them?” asks Shazira.
“We know nothing about them!”

Mayla displays a complex energy pattern.
“The spirit gave this pattern to the probe,” says Mayla.
“It’s called a heart map, and it shows the way to the star spirits.”

 
The Wanderer
“It doesn’t look like a map,” says Dilasa.

“You’re right,” says Mayla.
“It’s not a star chart, or any other sort of map.”

“How can you be sure?” I ask.
“Maybe the map is compressed or encrypted.”

“It’s possible, but how could they expect us to know the key to use for decrypting or decompression?”
“Why would they make it harder for us to reach them?”
“I can’t make any sense of the map, Yagrin, but I’m not an energy master.”

“Maybe it’s a key,” suggests Berek.

“A key to what?” asks Shazira.

“A key to open a path to their world.”

“It’s a good idea,” says Mayla, “but where do we find the door?”

“Did the spirit explain the map?”

“No, but when it reviewed the probe’s knowledge base, the spirit asked whether the Jiku can travel as pure energy.”
“The spirit was disappointed when the probe said that no master can do that.”

“The Jiku are welcome,” added the spirit, “if they can follow the map, but I think we must light another way.”

“What’s the other way?” asks Dilasa.

“Another spirit will come and help us,” says Mayla.
“When the spirit vanished, the probe circled the dead world for a few days, waiting for the star spirit to return.”
“Then the probe decided it was time to bring the data back to Siksa.”

“It was about to activate the star drive, when there was a brief burst of light in the sky, that looked like a star appearing and disappearing, as it moved across the sky, faster than light.”

“What was it?”

“Gateways opening and closing, each one letting light from a distant star pass through.”

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

“It doesn’t have to move faster than light,” I suggest.
“There are endless gateways which connect distant places.”
“Pathfinders widen these gateways and travel through them.”
“The Spiral streams its energy through the gateways, perhaps without widening them.”
“A star spirit must be connected to the star, and have its own way of using the gateways to travel.”

“But why did it open the extra gateways?” asks Tzina.
“Was it just to let its light pass through?”

“Yes,” answers Mayla.
“The spirit wanted the probe to find it.”

“What happened?” asks Dilasa.

“The probe caught up with the star, and tried to communicate as it had done before.”
“The star was silent.”

“The probe continued to follow.”

“The traveling star stayed far away from other stars.”
“In open spaces between the worlds, it searched for Nikol energy trails, which the Spiral travels on.”
“Then it destroyed the Nikol, or the limbs of the Spiral, traveling along those trails.”

“The star also sent stellar flares through gateways to destroy Nikol and Spiral that were near planets.”
“It left the planets themselves untouched.

“The probe followed the star for a hundred years.”
“The star seemed to sense where to find the Spiral.”

“Why is the star doing this?” asks Dilasa.

“It’s trying to help us,” I answer.

“You’re right,” 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, and the chosen spirit was taught the secrets of expanding a gateway so the star can pass through it.”

“The spirit calls itself, the wanderer,” says Mayla.
“It will arrive in the morning at a place only a few light years away from us.”
“The wanderer expects the Jiku to meet it with a ship at a safe distance, so it can communicate with us.”

“What does it want, ina?” asks Dilasa.
“Will it fight the spiral for us?”

“It will fight the Spiral where it can, Dilasa, but it can’t attack the Spiral on the planets without killing the life there.”
“It’s up to us to use our new weapon to crush the limbs of the Diwan that wrap around the worlds of living beings.”

“There are too many worlds,” says Mayla.
“Weapons will only help us slow the spread of the Spiral, and help a few planets protect themselves.”
“The spirit wants to meet us, to reveal a plan for us to destroy the Spiral completely.”

There are crystal tables in the plaza arranged in a small circle, set with food and drink.
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.
Tzina sits next to her, holding her hand, thrilled to have a little sister.
Balshown and Mayla sit near Shazira.
Berek sits farthest away, unsure how to feel about Dilasa, and her hold on Tzina and me.

The crushing homesickness is gone, and I’ve found my balance again.
A longing for my family still remains, as a gentle ache, reminding me of what’s most important in my life.

“Where is Makish?” asks Shazira, pulling me from my thoughts.

“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 share my memories of the events, and the story would be over in a few moments, but it deserves more.
The story needs to be told slowly.
Still, I begin with a gift of a few memories, so my listeners 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.”

“You leave in two weeks?” asks Shazira.

“Yes.”
“Jiku and Fiklow are dying, and if the killing isn’t stopped there, it may spread across the possibility sea.”

 
Dreaming Together
The night comes soon, and I put Dilasa and Tzina to sleep.
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 for a second.”

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 claims me, I’m happy and safe among those I love.
Tonight I feel the world catch me, and hold me in its arms as I sleep.

The fog of sleep clears.
Where did the city go?
Dilasa and I are floating in space, as I enter a lucid dream.
Every sight and sound is sharp, and I feel completely alert.

“Why are you here in my dream, ina?” she asks.

I laugh.
“Maybe it’s my dream,” I suggest, “and you’re visiting me.”

My laugh fades when I feel Dilasa’s presence looking through her eyes, and I hear the words of her mind touch:

We’re awake in the dream together, ina.

This is really her, not a dream.

The open space around us disappears, as a large cube covers us, with walls of clear, nearly invisible crystal.
The floor is soft and warm, and full of cracks.
A dark blue circle waits in the center of the floor, like the entrypoint to a DreamHunter’s vision.
Beyond the cube, the universe shrinks, revealing thousands of galaxies, most of them spirals.
The crystal walls turn opaque, and display images and sounds of the consuming storm, the Hikweh, attacking world after world.

“Make it stop, ina!” says Dilasa, as she closes her eyes, and hides behind me.

We’re surrounded with the death cries of intelligent beings who taste the great web.
So many worlds, full of wonder, crushed by the Spiral.

Soon, the cube becomes quiet and clear.

“Open your eyes, Dilasa.”
“The pictures are gone.”

She looks, and is comforted by the empty walls, but only for a few seconds.
“It’s starting again, Yagrin,” she cries, and points.

A single image appears, with a familiar face.
She walks out of the wall, and approaches us.

Dilasa touches her, to see if she’s more than an image.
“You’re here, too, Mayla?”

“Yes, I brought you here.”

“What kind of dream is this?”

“It’s a DreamSchool.”

“To learn how to dream?”

“No,” answers Mayla, and smiles.
“It’s a special place where a year passes during one night of sleep.”
“You’ll be awake in the school and learn the whole time, and you don’t need to eat.”

“What will we learn here?”

“There are schools to teach weaving, flow, healing, art, war — almost anything you can think of.”

“They all look like this?”

“No.”
“Most schools have buildings with many rooms for learning.”
“This one has no room, only this strange cube.”
“Can you guess what this school is for?”

Dilasa looks at the floor, split into endless fragments, and the blue circle.
“DreamHunters?”

“Exactly!”
“I made the school look like the gateway to a vision.”

“Why did you bring us here?” I ask Mayla sharply.

“You and Dilasa need intensive training, before you return to Sinesu.”

“You discouraged me from taking the DreamHunter training!”
“You said it was dangerous, and now you want a child to do it?!”

“It is risky for most DreamHunters, Yagrin, and deadly for those without the gift, but you and Dilasa will tame the danger, and be safe.”

“How do you know?”

“An old vision tells of your coming here.”

Two Dreamhunters taken into the school of danger.
Black robe and golden belt, little girl with Bizra Eyes.
Two hearts in one gateway, taming the sea of visions.
Great strength, one world, one vision, together.

“No DreamHunters have ever found a vision together!”
“Who else can this be, but you and Dilasa?”

 
A Familiar Face
“Why now, Mayla?”
“What’s so urgent that you brought us here, tonight, without our permission?”

“A message came in the middle of the night from the Kishla guardians who watch the way to the towers.”
“This is the first time they have ever contacted me!”

“What was the message?”

“Someone entered the cave, and then disappeared.”

“Is that all, Mayla?”
“Did you tell them that it was us?”

“Not you.”
“Someone else followed you, and left a message cube.”
“The guardians retrieved it, and I sent one of my assistants to get it.”

A small disk appears, and hovers in the air.
She places the cube on the disk, where it lights up.
A woman’s voice speaks.

The Spiral attacks Sinesu, a few days from now.
Two Hunters, twin suns, dream together on Siksa.
One is large, black and gold, the other a fierce child.
Only they can save Sinesu.

“A vision?” asks Dilasa.

“A new vision,” says Mayla, “and there no DreamHunters on Siksa to dream it, except you and Yagrin.”

“Where is it from?” asks Dilasa.

“It must be a message from Sindar,” I suggest.
“There are no other DreamHunters.”

“That’s not his voice,” says Dilasa.

“There are many ways to use another voice,” I tell her.

“Why would he do that?” asks Dilasa.

“She’s right, Yagrin,” says Mayla.
“He has no reason to hide himself from you.”

“Who did the guardians see, Mayla?”

“A Jiku woman, wearing a master’s robe.”
“They scanned her energy, and it matched her shape.”
“She was no illusion.”

Mayla displays an image of an older woman with piercing grey eyes, holding the cube.

“Is she descended from the masters who left Siksa?”

“The guardians recognize the face, as I do,” says Mayla.
“She looks like Wintu, the greatest DreamHunter who ever lived.”

“The one who designed the murals?”

“Yes, and the same one whose vision speaks of you training here.”

Quiet fills the DreamSchool.

I look at Mayla.
“Do you think it’s really her, after all this time?”

“You claim Sindar found a way to sleep outside of time, and you’ve told me of masters who sleep in Tshuan.”
“We can’t be sure who the visitor is, but it seems like she brings us a real vision.”
“She calls you DreamHunters and speaks of the Spiral.”

“She also calls me a sun, Mayla.”
“It’s a reference to an ancient Fiklow prophecy.”
“She must be a Hunter.”
“No other Jiku would know that Dilasa and I are the suns!”

“She lives in the towers, Yagrin?” asks Dilasa.

“Probably.”

“Sindar told us to hide from the masters at the Towers, and they saw us.”

“Yes, Dilasa.”
“That’s why we can’t trust this woman.”
“What if she and the other masters know that we’ve come to Siksa?”
“The Hunter could mix her actual vision with lies, to lure us back to the towers, where they wait to capture us.”
“Who knows what they want with us?”

“What if the vision is true, Yagrin?” asks Mayla.
“Will you ignore it, and let Sinesu be destroyed?”

I’m filled with a restlessness, a need to reach for answers.
I spread my listener on the web to clear my heart and mind.
Then I call to my inner self, and fill the quiet with a single question: “How do I decide what to do?”

The web fades, and I find myself in a vision.
I’m standing on a blue half dome, facing a sea of fragments.
I breathe out, and a translucent blue wind pours out of me and covers the sea.
The fragments rise up, and form a shell around me, where each fragment is a mirror.
Each mirror is filled with a version of me, each one a little different.
My many selves speak to me from the fragments with a single, strong voice:
“Complete the DreamSchool training.”
“Find your own words, your own vision, your own truth.”

 
Echoes of Death
I’m sitting, slumped over, when I become aware of the school again.

“Are you all right, ina?” asks Dilasa.

“I had a vision, little one.”
“We have to stay here in the school and complete the training.”
“It’s the only way to discover what we need to do.”

I turn to Mayla.
“Where did you get those images that you showed us?”

“The city was sealed after the energy war, and Shilann and I spent our time studying the contents of the library.”
“He spent his time with philosophy and art.”
“I developed more advanced computers, weaponry, power sources, and ships.”
“One of my most exciting breakthroughs was a dramatically faster star drive.”
“The technology was elegant and powerful, but seemingly useless to the Jiku.”
“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 had an explorer’s spirit, but he was sealed within the city.”
“He never complained, but he often wondered what was beyond Siksa, a small planet in an unexplored universe.”
“Shilann wanted to reach beyond his exile into the unknown.”

“I built hundreds of small ships, equipped with the new star drive, piloted by a powerful, compact artificial intelligence.”
“We launched those probes to explore several galaxies.”
“The ships found intelligent life and language on hundreds of worlds, deciphered the languages, and gathered the writings that each world most treasured.”
“When the probes returned, they also brought us images and sounds of the races they met, many who ride the web as you do.”

“The ships also carried images of death.”
“When you went to sleep, I scanned the probe images looking for evidence of the Hikweh and the Spiral in our own universe.”
“I found evidence from many worlds.”
“The Spiral is here, in this universe.”

“How close is it?” asks Dilasa, frightened.

“Some images are from the edge of this galaxy, little one, very far from here.”
“The rest are from places even more distant.”

“Then we’re safe!”

“I don’t know,” says Mayla.
“The images are hundreds of years old.”
“The Spiral could appear at any time.”

 
Spinning the Gateway
Dilasa is so scared, she can’t catch her breath.
I hug her to calm her down.

“What do we do, ina?” she asks.

“We have to find out when it’s coming.”

I hold her for a few minutes, and she stops crying.
She steps back from me, and wipes away her tears.
“Show us what to do,” she says to Mayla, taking my hand.

“The first lesson will be easy for Dilasa,” says Mayla, “and harder for you, Yagrin.”
“You have to remember to play.”

“Play?!” I ask, incredulous.

“Yes!” she answers.
“The creator plays with possibility, and every world is full of it.”
“Your life, the web, every breath can turn a thousand different ways.”
“Accept it, and fill yourself with the joy of living and discovery.”
“Let all your energy rise up within you, and reach out to meet the possibilities around you.”

“Discover the rules, break them, and make up your own.”
“This is the only way to master the DreamHunter’s gateway.”

“All we do is play?” asks Dilasa.

“Play is the heart that gives life to a DreamHunter, but you need action, as well as heart.
“There are skills that you must learn and practice.”
“The first step is to open the DreamHunter’s gateway.”
“You do this,” she says, “by spinning your energy.”

“Your fire body has seven energy wells, lined up in a row, purple-white on top, and red on the bottom.”
“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.

“The gateway is open,” says Mayla.
“Now, reverse the steps, and close it”
“Let the energy wells stop spinning.”
“Then return the fire body, and the wells within it, into its traditional shape.”

“Open and close the gateway five times.”
“Let me know when you’re done.”

“Done,” we tell her.

“Now, open your gateways again, and join your minds together.”
“Let’s see if you can combine the gateways.”

I open the gateway and reach out with a mind touch to Dilasa.
“Are you ready, little one?”

“Yes, ina.”

As our minds touch, we see each of us standing on separate gateways.
I nudge my gateway toward hers, and the two meet, and 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 continue 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, and pour energy from our fire bodies around the two wells to build a single sphere.
The sphere forms for a moment, but then it drifts away like smoke.

“Ina,” asks Dilasa, frustrated, “how do we do it?”

“I don’t know, Dilasa.”

“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 one who walks and talks, but I always seem to forget this.
I smile, let myself go, and 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.

Several of us play and chase the words through an endless, changing landscape in my mind, as we fly, full of joy.
In the center of the sky I see a shiny, gleaming, black cloud, it’s surface like a screen, covered with images.
I see spinning rivers of energy, and an image from the queen’s birth.

Our energy wells are 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.

“How do we let these rivers play together, Dilasa?”

I watch and wait.
The two rivers wrap around each other, and form a spinning double spiral, wide at the top, and narrow at the bottom, where the two rivers finally touch.
When the bottom of the spirals touch, energy pours 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.
Each well becomes a spining, narrowing river.

“Let the rivers dance and wrestle and wander,” I tell Dilasa.
Each pair combines into a double spiral, and dances its way into a ring around the sphere.

Energy from our fire bodies streams through the six spirals, and shapes the semi-transparent, sparkling torus.
The energy wheel is complete, and the gateway forms.
The wheel becomes the blue circle, and the two of us stand together on the circle, holding hands.
A beautiful deep tone rises from the sea of fragments around us.

 
Searching
“We did it, Mayla!” says Dilasa.
“We opened the gateway, together.”

“Great,” answers Mayla, “but do it again.”

“How many times?” asks Dilasa.

“Until I tell you to stop.”
“The first time took you fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s see if you can do it in less than a second.”

We’ll need to practice for weeks to reach that goal.
I can’t describe how extraordinary it is to work with the energy wells, and open the Dreamhunter gateway.
I love spending time with Dilasa, and it’s much easier to focus and pay attention within the school than it would be in the outside world.
But with all this, and even with being playful in our practice, we can’t maintain our interest and focus for more than a few hours at a time.
We don’t get physically tired, but the repetition makes us dull.

“Can we do someting else for a while?” asks Dilasa, after the first few hours of practice,

“Yes,” says Mayla, “but try and use two-thirds of your day for Dreamhunter practice, and use some of the other time to work with the listener.”
“You’ll need precise control of your healing skills for the next part of the training.”

We escape the cube, and fly together to a mountaintop, still within the simulation.

We play games with our listeners, binding their shape and size, letting them come immeasurably close to each other, without touching.
Often, we just relax on the mountain, feel the gentle wind, and sit together without words.
We love the silence, but sometimes, we speak quietly, deep within a mind touch, or fill the mountain top with talk, song, or laughter.

The weeks pass, and finally, Mayla is satisfied with our progress.
Dilasa and I open the gateway in a few seconds, with only a quick mind touch, and barely a thought.
Like always, the fragments, surround us, and go on forever, in all directions.

“Stay in the gateway,” says Mayla.
“You’re ready to look for a vision.”

“Can’t we touch any fragment and get a vision?” asks Dilasa.

“You can,” says Mayla, “but each fragment is a window into its own universe.”
“What good is a vision about a distant reality that you’ll never visit?”

“How do we find our own universe?” I ask.

“It’s hard to locate a single fragment, and dangerous to seek a vision from your own reality, by itself.”
“We look for a small cluster of similar realities that includes yours, never smaller than three.”

“That’s safe?” asks Dilasa.

“Safer, but even with the right cluster, there are an infinite number of visions you could see there.”
“Touch the cluster in the wrong way, and you’ll be overwhelmed with a flood of visions that will drive you insane.”

Dilasa moves closer to me, and takes my hand.
“How do we touch it, Mayla?” she asks.

“Let’s start by finding the cluster.”
“Later, I’ll explain how to get the vision.”

“Raise your listener above you, like a sail.”
“Focus on a question about a specific person or place, and feel your need to know.”
“A wind will rise over the sea of fragments, and carry you near the right cluster.
“Hover there, and spread your listener above the fragments around you, without touching any of them.”
“A group of realities will pull at your listener, but don’t let the listener touch them, yet.”
“Those fragments will seem brighter and thicker.”

She gives us a question to hold in our thoughts and feelings, and Dilasa and I search for the fragments that will answer us.
“Each of you must find the fragments on your own, and only then, compare what you’ve found.”

An hour passes before we locate and agree on the twelve fragments for the first question.
Each time we finish, Mayla gives us another question.
Finally, after days of practice, we’re able to find the target in a few seconds.

“Now, as you remember your question, shape your listener into a spinning stream of energy, and touch the cluster together.”

We touch the first group with our listeners.

Even with a question to focus the vision, there’s still too much information.

“Touch it for only a moment and let go right away.”

We practice, but even with the briefest touch to the fragments, the flood of information is almost painful.

“It’s still too much, ina,” says Dilasa.

“She’s right Mayla,” I add.
“We can barely remember who we are within the river of information.”

“You’re holding on to the energy that carries the information,” she tells us.
“Don’t try to possess it!”
“See it rise up from the fragments like a fountain, and wash over you.”
“Watch as the energy returns to the fragments.”
“Believe and accept that you’ll remember what you need to know.”

After a few attempts, we learn to let go of the energy, and let it move freely.
“So much better,” says Dilasa, when our touch gives us a few images, without burying us.

Mayla works with us to refine our questions, but as the months pass, Dilasa and I begin to practice alone.
We challenge ourselves, asking questions that pull at our emotions, and make it hard to find a stable vision.
Our visions get stronger and clearer, but still there are many that make no sense, and don’t seem to answer our questions.

Mayla rejoins us.
“What if we don’t understand the vision?” asks Dilasa.
“What do we do?”

“We decide what to do, with, or without a vision!” I tell her, smiling.
“Remember, the visions are here to guide us, not rule us.”

“Are you ready to ask the questions you came here for?” aks Mayla.

“Not yet,” I tell her.
First, we ask if the Spiral is found in many universes.
The answers we find in our visions are not comforting.

That strange being is all too common in universes with an energy web, stars and intelligent life.
In some universes, it siphons energy from living creatures, but never kills.
In a few, it arrives, but doesn’t spread, vanishing in a flash of overwhelming light.
And in still other universes, the Spiral moves from world to world with a growing hunger, until it devours all intelligent life.

“It’s time to ask the one question that you’ve been training for,” says Mayla.
“Keep in mind the universe that Dilasa came from.”

Dilasa and I fill ourselves with the question, and seek the vision.

Will the Spiral attack our Sinesu in the next few days?

We find the fragments we need, and see them glow.
We look at each other, wondering what horrors we might see, and then we touch the fragments together with our spinning listeners.
The vision explodes around us.

Dilasa and I stand again on Sinesu.
Thousands of Hikweh circle around us, and then disappear.
Wisten lies dead, Sinesu destroyed
I’m dying near a pillar of light.
The Jiku live in peace on a fertile world.
The Spiral conquered.

Does the attack come because of me?
I can’t make sense of the contradictory images.
The outcome is uncertain, but one thing is clear.
Sinesu is in danger, and the note from the towers is true.

We continue to practice our skills while we wait for the year in the DreamSchool, and the long night, to end.
One day, I notice that the far ends of the simulation are starting to shimmer, and I ask Mayla about it.

“It’s almost time to wake,” she says, “and I need to tell you about the vision of the two DreamHunters.”

“You already told us, Mayla,” I answer.
“That’s why you brought us here, and we learned to find visions together.”

“I didn’t tell you everything, Yagrin.”
“I was afraid you would refuse to train.”

“The end of the vision shows the two of you connecting two fragments in a strange way.”
“You open a tunnel between two different universes.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asks Dilasa.

“A tunnel between Sinesu and Siksa would be wonderful,” I agree.
“We could travel without passing through the possibility sea, or the Towers.”

Mayla looks at me with a serious, troubled expression.
Dilasa and I shiver and fall, as we find another vision.

A reddish gold fire passes between two universes in the possibility sea, as the Balancer watches.
Within the fire is an image of a Jiku face.
The universes are far apart, but at first, the river of fire leaves the sea untouched.
Then, the fire spreads, and engulfs nearby realities.
The balancer reaches out and destroys all the universes touched by this fire.
The image of the Jiku face crumbles to ashes, and the sea is calm again.

“Are you all right?” asks Mayla.

“We had a vision, without seeking it.”

“When visions come spontaneously to DreamHunters,” she tells us, their bodies often collapse.
“What was the vision?”

“What haven’t you told us Mayla?” I ask her.
“Do we bring destruction to Sinesu and Siksa?”

She hesitates before answering.
“I don’t know which universes you bind together, or the worlds they hold, but those realities will be shattered.”
“And a wave will rise in the possibility sea that threatens to destroy all of creation.”

“We saw the same thing, Yagrin!” says Dilasa.

“What does she mean?” asks Mayla.

“We experienced a vision like the one you were told of.”
“Fire passes from one universe to another, and then spreads partway into the possibility sea.”
“The Balancer destroys all the places damaged by the fire, and the rest of the sea is saved.”
“Every reality where Jiku live are lost!”
“You knew of this danger, Mayla, and you still brought us to train in DreamHunting?!”

“There’s another vision, and another danger that matters more to me,” she says.
“In that one, the two of you refuse to train in DreamHunting, and wait to return to Sinesu.”
“In that vision, the Jiku of both universes are wiped out by an unseen enemy.”
“We can’t let that happen.”

“What does it matter if Dilasa and I save the Jiku for a few days or years, and then destroy them all?”

“You’ve been warned about the tunnel, Yagrin, like Botzar was warned about the sword.”
“Just because you have the power to destroy, doesn’t mean that you’ll choose to use it!”
“You don’t need the tunnel to save the Jiku.”

The DreamSchool starts to fade, and I prepare to wake exhausted.
When adults use an ordinary dreamnet to enter the DreamSchool, it takes days for their bodies to recover.
Children recover much more quickly.

“This is a different sort of dreamnet,” says Mayla, “that doesn’t weaken the physical body.”
“You’ll awake refreshed and strong.”

I awake in a large round bed, in our room with green crystal windows.
It’s just before first light, and only a dim glow comes through the windows.
Time to greet the sun.
Shazira is already awake, and listening to birds singing just outside our window.

The song eases the dark thoughts that come back with me from the school.
Nothing has really changed since the vision of the four brothers, ages ago.
Destruction follows Dilasa and me like a shadow, as it followed my brothers.
We walk along a narrow path between disaster and wonder.

“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.”

She starts crying.

I sigh.
“They won’t follow us, Dilasa.”
“Our shield was up when I opened the tunnel, so they couldn’t see where we went.”

“But they saw us, Yagrin!”

“Yes, but they’ll never guess that we’re Jiku!”
“My fire body looks alien, and we’re not dressed like the Jiku from Siksa.”

Even if they don’t follow us, we’re in danger.
When you come out of a tunnel, you may be surrounded by a thunderstorm a thousand feet in the air, or buried in lava, somewhere near the planet’s core.
No two trips to a world are ever the same, unless there’s an anchor at the other end, a single, permanent doorway.
Sometimes, an anchor is built to provide a safe destination, but this anchor was built by the Bizra and the guardians, to stop travel between Siksa and the Seven Towers.
What hellish place 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.
We find ourselves in a small cave with a soft, sandy floor.
The rock walls are cool and moist, with a glowing crystal that provides enough light to see our surroundings.
There is air here, but not much, and no way out.

I flow stone and sand to oxygen, so we can breathe easier for a few minutes.
Then, I drop our energy shield, and look at the walls with energy eyes.
This cave could be anywhere on Siksa.
A barrier of energy surrounds the cave, and hides the world outside.

Sindar thought the barrier would open for me, as it does for him, but the barrier holds.
My genetics are the same as Sindar, but my energy is different, and Dilasa is with me.
I need to find another way out.

She watches as I touch my listener to the energy field.
Will I be able to see the true patterns of the barrier, so I can flow it away?
No, it hides itself with a mask of chaos.

“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, comforted by the thought.

“If something happens to me, could you raise the shield, and open the tunnel to the towers?”

“No, not without you.”
“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to dissolve my physical body, and try going through the barrier with my fire body.”

“That won’t work for me!”

“I know, but maybe I can find a way to open the barrier from the other side.”

“I’m scared, Yagrin.”
“When will you come back?”

“I won’t be long,” I tell her, as I kiss her head.
“I need to teach you something before I go, so you’ll be safe while you wait.”
“Do you know that your body takes in good air, and breathes out air that can make you sick?”

“Yes.”

“Look into my mind, so I can show you how to flow the bad air into good air.”
I show her how to flow the carbon dioxide that we exhale, back into oxygen.
“Try it.”

When I’m satisfied that she can do it without me, I prepare to go.
“Remember to flow the air every few minutes.”
“If you don’t, you’ll fall asleep, and the bad air will hurt you.”

“Come back soon,” she says, trying to be strong, but her lip quivers.

She’s powerful, but she’s still a child, and I shouldn’t leave her alone.
I hesitate for a few seconds, and then give her a long, hard hug.
She sighs, and a moment later I let go of her and flow my physical body into oxygen.

 
Living Fire
The world is brighter with my body gone, the barrier full of rich, swirling colors.
It seems so familiar, and the energy tastes like the walls that protect the city of life.

I shape the grandmother energy pattern, and play with it, letting it dance around me.
Then I bring it to a gentle stop in front of the barrier, and clothe it in a dark blue sphere of energy.

I form the wheel, twelve mother patterns arranged in a ring around the sphere, with twelve spokes of energy that connect the mothers to the sphere.

I shine with the Feldin glow and spin the wheel, binding my fire body to it.
I look again, and the chaos is gone, the barrier’s patterns revealed.
What now?
Do I destroy the barrier?

“Fool,” I tell myself, after a moment.
I don’t know how to rebuild it, and without it, anyone can reach Siksa from the Seven Towers.

Frustrated, I let the wheel vanish.
Is there another way to get through the barrier?
Can I use the spinning gateways?

The Hikweh tried to kill me, but I survived its energy venom, and my energy sight is stronger than before.
My eyes reach for the web, and see it filled with tiny spinning wheels of energy and color, gateways to places on this planet, and beyond.
A brief touch of my healing body to a wheel, and I see the other side of the gateway.

The spiral travels effortlessly through these gateways, but how?

It has no form, not even a fire body.
Is that the way?
Can I pass through as streaming fire energy?
How do I shatter my fire body, and how do I rebuild it?

I scan the body, and find a subtle energy pattern, almost hidden within the fire.
It’s a balance pattern that holds the body together, a simple variation on the grandmother pattern that I know so well.
Before my vision was strengthened, I would never have seen it.

A few hours ago, the throne touched my fire energy with the same pattern, and helped me reshape a fire body.
Then, I had Dilasa’s strength to help me.
If I let go of the fire body, will I be able to restore it, alone?

Dilasa sits quietly in the cave, propped against a wall.
I feel her fear, and it stops me, for a few seconds.

I turn away from her, 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.

I try to stream my fire energy through the great web, as the spiral does, but my strength begin to fade, and I retreat back into the stone.

The spinning gateways surround me, even brighter than before.
I scan them, and find one that opens to the city of life, where Heelu glide through the air, high above the sea, moving toward the western shore.

Heelu!
The spiral rests its energy in 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.
I’m thrilled when I find myself in the sky above the city, but my excitement doesn’t last.
My energy spreads out like a cloud, and drifts slowly downward.

I’m weak without stone or fire to support me, and my thoughts are heavy.
I’ll reach the ground in several minutes, and find stone to support me, but there’s a faster way.
I shine with the Feldin glow, to attract the Heelu flock.
One of them touches my energy cloud, and my fire energy rushes into the creature, and then radiates to the rest of its companions.
My strength returns, as I feel the warm sun shining on the Heelu bodies, and I move the flock toward the ground.
We land on the western shore of the sea, and one of the Heelu comes to rest on top of a large rock, its ribbon-like shape fluttering like a sail in the breeze.

I slip out of the flock and into the stone.
Safe again, I use the power of the listener to mold my energy in the shape of a fire body.
I can’t hold this shape for more than a few seconds, but that’s long enough.
I flow the balance pattern in the center of the body, and cover it with the glow.
The body sparkles for a moment and stabilizes.
Excited, 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
The Heelu crowd around me, attracted to the glow.
I’m grateful to the creatures, but I quickly extinguish the light, and they drift away.
My thoughts are with Dilasa, trapped in the cave, and my family, waiting for me in the city.

I move toward the city, and see dozens of service machines blocking my way.
They form a tight circle around me, and project a powerful energy shield to imprison me.
Mayla approaches the outside edge of the shield.
“Who are you?” asks Mayla roughly, “and how did you enter the city?”

“Don’t you recognize me, Mayla?” I ask astonished.

“You’re not Jiku,” she says, “and I’ve never seen you before.”

I look down at my furry hands and Mehkeel body.
Strange that I took this physical shape!
I quickly transform back to my Jiku form.

“Now, you look like Yagrin, but your fire body is still wrong.”

“Wrong?”
“Because it’s different than before?”
“My body was full of strange energy when you first met me!”
“You’re surprised to find new energies that you don’t recognize?”
“The Fiklow tooks us back to their universe, and the possibility sea leaves no one untouched.”
“I’ve also been transformed by two unique energy sources,” I add, thinking of the Hikweh’s venom, and the queen’s blessing.

Mayla’s expression softens,and turns sad.
“If it was only your energy, I might believe you, but you can’t be Yagrin.”
“He’s dead.”

“Dead, Mayla?”
“Why would you think I’m dead, and why would death keep me away from the world that I love?”
“You know that I can reshape my physical body.”

She holds up a shining red stone.
“I’m talking about more than physical death.”
“This is a deathstone, and it was linked to Yagrin.”
“It only glows red when the fire body is destroyed.”
“There’s nothing left of him to return.”

“My fire body was shattered, Mayla, but my energy survived, and I found a way to build a new body.”
“I am Yagrin.”
“Makish and I were taken against our will by the Fiklow, but it worked out well.”
“I’ve made peace with them, and hidden the artifact where no one will ever touch it again.”
“I’ve seen the hills on Sinesu where Shilann and his wife walked.”
“Would you like me to take you there, someday, Mayla?”

“I might like to see it with Yagrin, but not you!”
“It must be a sad place, desolate after the wars.”

“No,” I answer.
“Some Jiku survived the war, and a few thousand have returned to Sinesu.”

“What about the Fiklow?”

“They dominate the Jiku, but they’re at peace.”
“Both races face a powerful, common enemy called the spiral.”
“They need my help to fight it, and I must return to them in two weeks.”

She’s unconvinced.

“Who else but me could get past the city walls?” I ask, frustrated.
“Is it so hard to believe that I’ve 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 Towers.”
“Sindar told me the way.”

“Sindar?!”
“Telling me that Yagrin survived the destruction of his fire body was barely believable.”
“Sindar is only a legend, dead for tens of thousands of years.”
“All that remains of his legend is a monument not far from here.”

I shatter the energy field, and put my own shield around the service machines.
She moves back.

“I won’t harm you,” I tell her, “but Sindar is real, and he’s still alive.”
“He has slept in a stasis chamber in one of the seven towers for almost all of his long years, waking occassionally to visit Siksa.”

“The guardians have sealed the path from the Seven Towers,” she says.
“No one reaches Siksa through that path.”

“The Bizra know Sindar, and designed the barrier to allow Sindar to pass.”
“I found my own way out of the cave at the end of the sealed path.”

“You’re clever,” she says.
“You have an answer for every question.”
She stops speaking, and looks me in the eyes.
“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.

Mayla puts an energy shield around Berek, to protect him.
“The shield will travel with you,” she says to Berek.
“Get out of here, now!”

“Let me 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.”
She raises the stone so he can see the red glow.
“The deathstone proves that Yagrin is gone.”

I remember her handing the grey stone to me, and watching it turn a deep cobalt blue.

“Deathstones are extremely rare.”
“They were found in the ruins of an ancient civilization, on a distant world.”
“When someone touches the deathstone,” she says, “it marks their fire body with a special energy, and turns blue.”
“The stone detects the energy, and indicates the direction of the marked individual.”
“It tracks a person across any distance, even light-years.”
“I thought that the Fiklow might try to capture Yagrin, so I let the stone mark him, to help us find him.”

“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, but with no indication of direction.”
“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 released the deathstone energy.”
“That’s why the stone glows red.”

“I want to believe you,” she says, “but if you’re lying, you’re a great danger to the city.”
“I’ve sent an urgent message to Shazira.”
“She’ll come and help me figure out the truth here.”

“I can’t wait any longer,” I tell Mayla, frustrated.
“A young girl came with me from Sinesu and is trapped in the cave.”
“I escaped in a way that no one else can follow.”
“Dilasa will die soon, if I don’t free her.”
“Is it possible to use energy to connect two distant places together, and move living objects between them?”
“Does the library speak of anything like that?”

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 Bizra told us that there is a collection of pathfinder secrets, called the Memories of the Pathfinders, or Sindar’s gift.”

“Where is it?”

“The Bizra say that it’s hidden somewhere on Siksa.”
“I scanned the whole planet for it, but I could never find it, and anyway it’s useless.”

“Why?”

“The memories can only be accessed by someone who is already a pathfinder.”

“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 Mayla, and lightning flashes around her.
“My father commanded you to follow my orders before he left,” says Berek.

“That’s true,” she says.

“Good,” says Berek, free me now.”

She hesitates for a minute.
“Fine,” she says.
“Your father was a fool to give command priviledges to a child!”

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 tell them, holding Tzina’s gaze for a few seconds before falling into Shazira’s eyes.
“I’ll explain later, 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,” she answers quietly.

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.

“Welcome brother, only the touch of one of Geyfal’s sons will open the monument, and only the Feldin glow will open the gift.”
“The Bizra 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 how to strengthen your sight with the Memories, but the sight is useless without the energy, and I can only give you this in person.”

He laughs.
“The Bizra will not explain themselves, but they say that you will not need my gift of energy.”
“Who can understand their thoughts?” asks Sindar, perplexed, 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 transport gateway.

“Are you all right, Ina?” asks Berek, as I awake from the vision.
She tries to hide it, but even Mayla looks concerned.

“I’m fine,” I tell them, “and now, I know what to do.”

I rise quickly along the web, seeking the gateway that brought me from the cave to the city.
I notice that the others all fly well enough to follow me.

When I arrive, I hover a thousand feet 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 glow is an intense form of pathfinder energy, too powerful to open a stable gateway, without the help of the grandmother.

The gateway opens wide, and we 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 heal her.

Dilasa wakes, and screams, until she realizes that I’m holding her.
Then she calms, and cries tears of joy into my robe.
She looks down at the small sea below us, and the city in the distance.
The buildings are larger, and more beautiful than anything she has ever seen, or heard of.
She knows that we have come to another world.

“What a place!” she says.
Then Dilasa takes a deep breath of the sweet air, and turns her face back to me.
“I was so scared, ina, I forgot to flow the air.”
She hugs me tightly and closes her eyes.

“That’s the first time you’ve called me ina.”

“Do you mind?” she asks.
“I really want to, now.”

I kiss her on the head.

“What’s your name little one?” asks Shazira.

I turn us so Dilasa can see the strange faces around her, two of them with Bizra eyes, and she gasps.
“Your family, Yagrin,” she says happily.
“You’ve brought us to them!”

“Bizra eyes?!” asks 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.”
“She’s an orphan.”

“Why is she with you?”

“We’ve captured each other’s hearts, and I promised to raise her as my own daughter, if you agree.”

“You should have asked me first, Yagrin, before bringing her here!”
“She looks like a sweet girl, Yagrin, but you can’t just invite her into our family.”

Dilasa starts to cry.
“Please don’t send me back,” she says, staring at Shzira with Bizra eyes.
“I know that I belong here, with you and Tzina.”

Shazira takes her from me, holds her tightly, and sighs.
“Shhh,” she says to Dilasa, as she glares at me.
“I don’t understand why Yagrin has brought you to us,” she adds, “but I won’t send you away little one.”

“Explain yourself, 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 I’ll tell you.”

I’m happy to be alive, but my thoughts are far away, filled with Shazira and Tzina and Berek.
I feel an ache to return to Siksa, and see my family.
In the midst of these strong emotions, I want no words, no sounds.
Makish and Dilasa 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.
She waits for me to tell her what I saw on the other side of death, but I don’t speak, and 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 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 darkness that holds 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, and many days have passed.”
“They must think me dead by now, 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, “if you travel through the possibility sea, you can’t return.”

“True,” I answer, “but Sindar showed me another way home, through the world of seven towers.”

“That way is blocked by the guardians,” says Makish.

After the destruction on Siksa, and the exodus of most of the remaining masters, the Bizra sealed the way between our world and the seven towers.
Then the Bizra appointed three masters to guard the seal.
These masters live in the form of the Kishla, the great singing birds.

“I’ve met the guardians briefly, Makish.”
“They may let us pass.”
“If not, I’ll force my way through.”

“Us?” asks Dilasa, aloud.

“You’re coming with me.”

I smell Dilasa’s joy, 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?” 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, and you were gone for a day.”
“How did you find life again?”

“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, to hunt for me.”
“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 answer, “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 brood 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
Botzar’s ship takes us to Sinesu.
I could take us to the Seven Towers from anywhere, but something pulls me toward Sinesu.

Botzar lands us near the ocean, far from the towns, and the other Jiku.
“Should I come with you Yagrin?” asks 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.”

Botzar looks at me strangely.

“You know it?” I ask him.

“Sindar told me about the guild.”
“It existed only on his home world, and he belonged to it.”

“Why would it be named after him?”

“No, Yagrin, it got its name long before Sindar was born.”
“Our father belonged to it, and he named Sindar after the guild.”

“All the guild members died in fighting Benzu, except Sindar.”
“He felt that he had failed them, and stopped wearing the black robe.”
“He even thought about changing his name, but in the end, it seemed to be the wrong thing to do.”
“Yagrin, 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, like 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 remains 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, all seven tones come 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 shrinks all around us, with countless suns rushing together, and vanishing.
Then, our 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.
There is no sun here, and we arrived near the end of darktime, when the light is dim.
It will be a few hours before the sky fills with light.

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.”

“Sindar doesn’t want to wake up yet, and his machines won’t let us enter his 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 light pours out of the towers, and brightens the area around us.
Someone knows that we’re here.

A few seconds later, the top of one of the towers opens, and 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 can all 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, sharply.
“Will she behave properly before the new queen?”

“She’s a binder, Keesha.”

“How young?”

“Six cycles.”

“And she knows how to change her shape?”

“Yes,” I answer.
“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.

“Troubling reports,” she answers.
“She is not what we expect a queen to be.”

“They say she has a strong spirit, but a queen must be fully grown, unusually large, and possess 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.”

“What can we do?” asks Makish.

“Nothing.”
“We must accept what we cannot change.”

“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’s 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, and I sense that she’s 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.”
“I think she’s 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.
“Sadly, 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, we swim again in Gunal’s oceans.
The water here smells so sweet, not like the strange, antiseptic water that moves through the ships.

I’ve asked Dilasa and Makish to stay a few hundred feet away with Keesha.
I need time alone with my thoughts.

The new queen will join us soon.
Until then, 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’ll 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, when your fire body is weak.”
“It will shatter, and 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.
She arrives fifteen 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’s 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?
Perhaps she is 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.”
The egg opens when it chooses the queen, and gives her some of the teachings, but she doesn’t touch it at that time.

“Yes,” I tell her, “Yagrin is my birth name.”

I feel a mind touch from the future 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 instantly 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 will wait for my blessing before taking her new name.

“I didn’t want to test for queen,” she tells me.
“I’ve had little time to see what life is.”
“My old life, and my birth name wil disappear.”

“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 pushed me to come.”

“Do you always listen to your mother?”

“No,” she laughs, “but I wanted to see the wonder of the first Fiklow world, newly restored to life.”
“I was willing to suffer ridicule during the test to get this amazing trip.”

“I was so sure that I would never be chosen,” she adds, quietly.
“And so, 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, including Vendik.
She 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 bathing 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.
The fire rivers spin around Wiak, and join above her head, forming an egg of fire energy around her.

When the fire energy fades, I hear the distant sound of a Fiklow song, that reminds me of the song that Keesha sang to Dilasa.
The song grows louder and louder.
Spinning rivers of crystal energy rise from the crystal forest, and from the depths of the planet, and bathe Wiak in endless colors.

Soon, 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, as old as the typical queen, and larger than any of the Fiklow females that I’ve seen.
Then I attach her fire body to her new form, while dissolving her original body.
The transfer happens so quickly, that her young 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, andd 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, and feel that 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, where it will hide until the new queen faces death, and calls 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, and a great burst of energy moves through the sea above us, and streams through me to the crystal tree.
The crowd looks on, in sorrow, as my physical body shatters.
Dilasa, Makish and the queen cry out, a moment later, when my fire body dissolves.

I wait for the death of my awareness, but it doesn’t come.
My fire body is gone, but my awareness, and my fire energy, are 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, and see that 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.
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.
Keesha is hurt, but still alive, and firing her weapon at rebel guards.

The attack is soon over, aAnd 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 attacked, 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 bring back 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 shape a new Fiklow body for myself, as I did for Vendik, but the body is useless.
I can’t bind 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.
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.
The new queen will help build the school for binders, and work with the Jiku, with Keesha at her side as chief advisor.
I watch, sadly, as the ship 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 guests have left the ocean, but many Fiklow remain on Gunal, to help rebuild the Fiklow colony.
I’ll protect them and find ways to help them in secret.
I have little else to do, and the old queen would like it.

I let my energy drift through the crystal and stone of the planet, deeper and deeper, until I reach the molten core, so full of energy.
It’s beautiful here, and this brings me some comfort, especially when I visit the resting place of the egg.

I wonder if the throne within the egg can help me?
Its energy helped me heal the whole planet.

I touch the egg with fire energy, and the egg opens, an energy shield protecting the throne within.
My fire energy suddenly moves, spinning around the egg, and takes the shape of my old fire body.
But I can’t hold it, and the shape only stays for a moment.

The egg closes, and my energy streams back to the crystal forest.
Makish and Dilasa have returned, and 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.”
She moves away, hoping Dilasa will follow, but Dilasa ignores her.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t contact them, but I can’t keep that promise.
I release my healing body and move it out of the crystal, so Dilasa can see it.

She sees my healing body, and I feel her surprise.
I bring our healing bodies together, pairing up our energy suns.
Then I try to bind the energy suns together, but I can’t build the connections.

Dilasa’s energy flies away from me.
She remembers how I bound us together, but she’s afraid to do it.
Who would dare bind herself to the dead?
She hovers at a distance, unsure what to do next.

I have to let her go.
I shape two words out of energy so her eyes will see: “Goodbye, Dilasa.”
I let my listener fall back toward the crystal forest, but I find Dilasa’s healing body blocking my path.
She lets go of reason, and aligns our suns, and builds the links.
We are together, but we still can’t communicate with each other.
What will this help?

The egg calls me from within the planet, and my fire energy finds its way there, and circles around the egg.
I bring our healing body deep into the planet’s fire, until it faces the egg.
Dilasa sees my swirling fire energy, but doesn’t know what it is.
She continues to watch as the fire energy touches the egg, and it opens.
The throne within the egg glows with a deep blue fire, and it reshapes my fire energy into a fire body with a drifting shape.

Dilasa moves our combined healing body until it rests on the unstable fire body.
Our combined healing energy is strong enough to maintain the balance of the fire body, and hold its shape.
But the instability of the body, waits, hidden beneath the surface.

“Yagrin,” I hear, as her mind touch finally reaches me.

“Go with Makish, little one.”
“I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“I can’t leave here without a real fire body.”
“This one is only temporary, and you can’t stay here forever.”

A pulse of blue energy rises from the throne, passes through our healing body, and rests on the fire body.
I separate our healing bodies from each other, and push Dilasa away, back to the ocean.
She has to leave.

The egg closes, but the fire body holds its shape, and absorbs my healing body.
I move the fire body out of the planet’s fire, and into the open ocean, by the crystal forest.
Makish is holding Dilasa, comforting her, but they move toward me, when my fire body appears.

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.