Cocoon
“Now, you want to let the Spiral go?!” yells Dilasa.
“It has to die.”
“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.”
Lost Mayru
I return to Keesha’s ship, and share my memories of the Mayru, growers of stars, children of the star spirits.
“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 Dream Hunter 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 … Read more
A Good Death
Dilasa and I walk again on Sinesu, among shattered, blood-stained pieces of Sindar’s monument.
Nearby, one of the large, automated weapons sits, quiet and dark.
Part of the vision has come true
Wisten is dead and the monument gone, but the town survives with little damage, and we’ve driven away the hunters.
Weapons
Shazira sits next to me as the ship returns to Siksa.
We’re quiet, and our spirits rest, together.
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, … Read more
Star Map
Morning comes.
I walk around the starship as it rests on the sand, not far from the waves of the inland sea.
Mayla’s new design is fast, elegant, and beautiful.
The ship is eighty feet in diameter, reddish-gold, black, silver, and green.
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 … Read more
Away
Shazira is furious.
“You’re leaving?!”
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.
Story
Music fills an open plaza near one of the river bridges, and bright spheres of colored ice dance in the air, fifty feet above the bridge.
It’s warm in the city, but Mayla spins cool breezes around us to mirror the ice above.
There are crystal tables in the plaza arranged in a small circle, set with food and drink.
We sit and watch and listen, and eat.
A New Vision
I have no flesh, but I still taste the sweet light of the sun.
The sun’s energy fills me with great waves of color, and the rhythms of the energy’s ebb and flow come to me as music.
The sparks of my strength rise into a great fire, and the Feldin glow grows brighter and brighter, until the last of the energy venom burns away.
The Heelu bathe in my glow, their bodies dancing in the air.
Bursts of color stream between us, and the Heelu shine.
An image calls to me.
An endless space filled … Read more
The Curse of Visions
Botzar sits, emotionally exhausted by reliving the memory.
“I faithfully followed my vision,” says Botzar, “and it destroyed my life.”
“Why was I given that vision?”
“Why did my life move that way?”
“Fate has cursed me,” he says.
“It led me to abandon Makish, and destroy the world.”
“Fate?” asks B’tzel.
“No one, and nothing forced you to do it.”
Another Warning
I grab Makish, to stop her from entering the tank.
“What?” she asks.
A wave of sadness comes over me as I think of death.
I imagine how close we came to the Jiku ship exploding and killing Makish.
Then I think of death taking the queen who I only knew for a day.
I need a good excuse to stay on this ship, and find out who is trying to kill us.
If I lie, the Fiklow will smell it, and the crew and killer will hear of it.
Perhaps he’ll flee, or try to attack … Read more
