by F. E. Arliss
Allowing her focus to drift back to the present, Juls opened her eyes and dragged the small, yet heavy, crate towards her. Laying her palm once more over the lock, she sent her energies pulsing into the lock, keeping the focus of all she loved in her mind … Freux, his powerful frame, long silky hair, piercing amber eyes, chiseled jaw … her children and her dreams for their futures … her nest … and Geboren, as it had been and what could still be. Juls was aware suddenly that the latch had sprung open. Laughing, she applauded the makers of the sceptre and its case … love, only love, opened the lock. A clever way to keep it from an enemy. Enemies were full of hate, not love. Hate and fear would keep it locked forever. Only love loosed the power of the sceptre.
Lifting the lid, Juls peered at the ornate handle that lay inside the box. Laying in a molded bed of some sort of shiny black substance, the sceptre’s handle had the look of wood, it was almost inconceivable to recognize it as metal. It had an organic look about it. Coils of some unknown metal surrounded the handle and acted as a grip guard.
Juls gently lifted it out of the crate, gripped the surprisingly comfortable handle in her right hand, and thought of Freux. Nothing happened. It had lain too long without energy, without love. It needed to be refueled, re-loved. She could do that. Maybe slowly over time. But it would be better if she could jump start it with some kind of larger energy source.
All she needed was to find that energy source. One powerful enough to jump start the sceptre as she held love and the pure crystalline intent to do so.
Explaining one night to Cat that she needed to find the massive source of energy she could feel roiling beneath the surface of the planet, she detailed her plans. Telling Cat about her life, the betrayals, hopes, losses, and plans for protecting those she loved, helped her clear her mind and see various opportunities. Still, she needed the energy to do those. Would she be able to contain and control those large amounts of energy? That was the question. Settling down to sleep with Cat curled against her stomach, Juls didn’t know the answer to that.
The following morning Cat persisted in yowling at her in a commanding and annoyingly loud voice. Finally, in exasperation, she said, “What? What do you want?”
He simply turned his back on her and walked further out of the den, casting his head back over his shoulder to see if she was coming. “Fine!” Juls shouted after him, “I’m coming.”
Following the slinking cat for several hours, Juls was beginning to get discouraged when he suddenly disappeared into a depression between two clumps of ratty-looking scrub brush. The depression turned into a deep gouge. Looking up as she tried to keep from tumbling down the deep crevice, Juls could see that the scrub brush actually clung to a shell of rock that formed a roof over the descending trail that disappeared into the planet’s yellow crust.
Clicking on the one small solar light source she’d found clipped to the edge of the eject parachute a few days after salvaging it, she proceeded into the dark belly in front of her. As always, escaping the heat was a welcome distraction.
The crevice flattened out, then dipped again. This time Juls could begin to feel waves of energy and heat rolling up at her. Stopping to sense the energies, Juls gasped at the varied strengths the energy ahead was generating. It was strong, very strong. A little kick of hope sparked inside her. Perhaps this was the great battery of energy that she imagined would help her gain the edge in her search to protect her family. How, she had no idea.
The crevice continued on. At one point Cat sat down and refused to go any further. Juls nodded, then proceeded. What seemed like hours later, Juls emerged onto the ledge of an enormous pit. She felt like Jules Verne’s protagonist in Journey to the Center of the Earth. The heat emanating from the pit was intense, though it wasn’t the heat that kept her at bay. The platform above the pit was not the end of the journey. A set of narrow steps was carved into the side of the pit. It was possible to descend even further.
Heaving a sigh, Juls proceeded down the steps. If she fell in, she’d fail her family. If she fell in, she wouldn’t be able to find a solution for their safety. If she fell in, she’d be dead, so what the hell.
The steps seemed to get narrower. Twice she stopped and clung to the wall, practically burning off her fingertips. Good thing she could send energy to shield them, which she did after the first time. Still learning the hard way, she scolded herself. Eventually, the steps stopped. Through the great roiling and boiling of the energies around her, Juls could see nothing. Putting her senses out in front of her, Juls pushed energy through the gloom until she could finally feel a ledge. It was perhaps three feet in front of her. Closing her eyes and building her energy of confidence, Juls leapt. A leap of faith, she thought, in the truest sense.
Landing awkwardly, Juls was propelled forward and smacked hard into a rock wall. “Ouch! Shit! Dammit!” She exploded, then calmed herself. This outburst of tension was followed by a giggle. She’d made it! Hot damn!
Feeling along the wall in front of her, Juls finally found an end to it. Still barely able to see through the gloom, she redirected the light and then ground to a halt. It was a large open room. Through slits in the side of the room she could see the rolling energies of the pit twisting and writhing.
The center of the room held a dias. Nothing appeared to be carved on it. It was just a slab of rock, held up by two other slabs of rock. Moving forward slowly, Juls clicked off the light and let her eyes become accustomed to the dim light. It was only then that she began to see the carvings on the wall. They were very simple. Not detailed like the early cave paintings on Earth, or the mosaic ruins of Dosqualete on Uzi that she’d seen pictures of.
Following them around, she tried to find a starting point. Eventually she realized that there wasn’t really one. It was the same series over and over. It seemed to show a stick figure laying on the dias. Then lightning bolts seemed to hit the stick figure. The final of the three symbols was the stick person again, only this time larger, thicker and with little squiggles emanating from it like antennae.
There was one more symbol that seemed thrown in at odd times. It appeared to be Cat. Large ears, bigger claws, the same striped fur. Hmmm! Was Cat a pet of the stick figure? Maybe. So Cat was actually a domesticated animal. Well, you sure could have fooled her! Grouchy, growling thing that he’d been at the beginning.
The chamber seemed to ooze energy. Juls felt tremendously well, as though she could jump through the walls. She’d come for an answer to her questions and now wasn’t the time to chicken out. Nearing the dias, she placed both hands on top of it. Nothing happened. Looking at the symbols, she then pulled herself up and laid on it. Still nothing.
It was damn uncomfortable too. Spiny ridges seemed to grow and dig into her skin, almost like she was laying on a bed of nails. Blood from the gash in her forehead stung her eyes. Reaching up she swiped at the blood, then laid her hand back down onto the dais. Suddenly the spiny ridges went berserk. They clearly were not just natural ridges! Ouch! Shit! Juls thought, I need to get off this thing. But by then it was too late. Her blood had activated something in the slab.
Juls wasn’t sure exactly what happened then. What she did know was that the planet’s name was Caloon. Its inhabitants had been wiped out by war. War on each other. Just like Earth.
They’d tried to harness the energies of the planet to make war on each other. The planet itself finally intervened. The planet, it seemed, had a soul. Most likely the roiling energy she could see outside the cavern.
A cataclysmic explosion had rendered the planet barren. Burning all its vegetation and life away. All that had survived were those things smart enough to hide underground. It was basically the Bible story of the ‘great flood’ in a way. All cultures had a destruction tale, it seemed even ones in another galaxy. Interesting. How she was receiving this information, she didn’t know. The slab seemed to be communicating with her.
Among those things smart enough to hide underground had been the Etherie. A group of entities that
worshipped, as the Creator, the roiling pit of energies that powered the planet. Having survived by going underground and into their temple, they hadn’t planned well enough. Even though they had hidden great caches of food, the cataclysm had wiped out their food sources.
Over centuries, they began to die of starvation. Eventually, a few of them learned to sustain themselves on the energies emanating from the planet’s core. Those that could not, died. Those that could, eventually had a choice to make. Continue to evolve and become pure energy, or leave the temple and live on the surface as sentient beings. Seeing the destruction their sentient counterparts had wreaked on the planet they loved, none chose to become the larger, thicker stick person from the drawings. All of them chose to become energy. The Etherie were now actual ethereal beings. If any of them had chosen to become synthesized and corporeal, they would have become Osmir. The Etherie who chose to become pure energy remained Etherie. Those who chose a corporeal form, became Osmir.
The only living beings left on the planet were small animals and microcosms hidden beneath layers of dirt, or sheltered in caves. Eventually, over millennia, the planet slowly began to sustain life. Cat was one of the few descendant animals that had taken shelter in caves and preyed on small animals similar to bats and mice. Its species hunting instinct had allowed it to survive through the millenia. He wasn’t the only one of his kind, but they were scarce and his loss of a competition for one of the few females had given him his outcast situation.
Cat’s kin weren’t the only mammals on the planet, but close to it. There were small things that were like moles. Some snake and frog-like things. Lizards and toads. Most of the plant life was cactus-like or other drought-tolerant plants. Water bubbled to the surface in only a few locations such as the one in Cat’s den. Most beings got their moisture from the walls of caves.
It seemed Cat’s kind had been the familiars of the people living in the caverns. Many had developed close, almost symbiotic, relationships with members of the highest council. Since the population now consisted of only energy, most of Cat’s species were now primarily feral.
As the spines cut into her skin further, Juls realized that she had to make a decision. Leave this life as a sentient being and become pure energy or choose to stay in her current form and synthesize into something far different. It was only a split second decision. She had a family to save and protect. She would synthesize. She would grasp this chance at gaining energy to save her family with both hands, literally.
Lifting herself up by her palms, already pierced in several places by the growing spines, she slammed her body back down on the dias, impaling herself with hundreds of ridged spines. Pain flooded in. Her mind imagined she was Odin on the tree Yggdrasil, hung by his heels as his life flowed from him. No wonder she had Norse runes on her forehead. Time passed, then ceased. Blackness did not descend. It was, instead, all color, light, sounds, exploding in her spinning brain. She knew things.
She had no idea how long it was until she crawled back to Cat’s den and laid face down in the pool of water. When she finally raised her face from the water and allowed the ripples to die down, the face that looked back at her was still her own. But it wasn’t. She could feel that. Inside and out. She was completely different. Physically she was indeed larger, just as the stick picture had showed.
She was monstrously muscled, taller, wider, and her hair was like a mane of wild horse hair. It was still white-blonde, but now thick, slightly wavy, and wild. The tattoo on her forehead had changed as well. It was darker now. She knew without explanation that what she initially imagined it meant, was truly so. She was now ice, cold, impenetrable. Like water, she flowed everywhere, Her power was everywhere and through everything. Exhausted for some reason, she wrapped the parachute around herself and slept the sleep of the dead. Once again, she had died.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Osmir
When she woke, Cat was snuggled once again against her abdomen. There was no hesitation now. She knew what she was and what she was to do. Rousing Cat, she crawled to the locked crate of Queen Altum Vis’ sceptre. Reverently, thinking of her love for Freux, Juls channeled that energy into the lock. It snicked open. Cradling the sceptre against her chest, she left the den and burst towards the Osmirian temple. Sliding into the narrow opening, she practically hurled herself through the twisting labyrinth towards the dias chamber.
Once more she lay upon the dias ancient surface. Slowing her breath and concentrating her energies upon her connection to the Osmir, the planet Caloon, and those she loved, Juls sent those loving thoughts deep into the dormant sceptre laying in her arms. Time ceased to exist, only love and its goodness. Her thoughts focused on the sceptre, seemed to expand slowly to encompass all of Caloon, then the galaxies between Caloon and Geboren, then out, out, out, until her consciousness knew no bounds.
Time passed, whirled, spun lazily without meaning. Juls kept the focus on love. The only point of contact was the sceptre in her arms. Aside from that, her consciousness journeyed. She wondered at the beauties she saw and felt only awe and love for the amazing technicolor show passing through her mind. It ended suddenly with an explosion of light that caused the dormant sceptre to galvanize into action. It expanded, giving Juls a glancing blow to the side of the jaw as its shape extended into a staff nearly seven feet long. It pulsed with energy. Juls laughed in delight. The sceptre was awake.
She could feel its power. Rising slowly from the dias, Juls looked at the sceptre. What had been just an an ornate handle with a spiraling metal grip guard, was now a staff topped with a glowing orb of orange light. A long, almost gnarled looking staff protruded from the lower end of the handle grip. It oozed power and felt as though it had been made precisely for her hand.
As she journeyed back to the den, Juls experimented with the staff’s power. Its abilities were amazing and a little scary. Twice she almost blasted herself into orbit with a carelessly framed thought. She would need to learn to control her thoughts more tightly and accurately when holding the sceptre. She could see why the heavily reinforced case was needed. This was too much power to let lay around, accessed by anyone without enough mental focus to control it.
For the next several weeks Juls did nothing but practice with the power the staff gave her. It became clear that it could perceive threats. A great sand-storm rose one evening as she journeyed back to the den from one of her exploratory hikes. As the sand began to swirl around her, she pulled a piece of the parachute silk over her mouth and nose, trying to keep the sand from smothering her breath. Even as she despaired of ever seeing her family again, she began focusing on her love for Freux.
Suddenly, the sceptre sprang to life, an invisible shield of energy cutting off the howling winds and cutting sand. It was as though a small dome of stillness and oxygen had been settled gently over her form. Thanking the sceptre with a surge of warmth towards it, Juls journeyed the rest of the way to the den enjoying the awesome spectacle of the madly swirling sandstorm without feeling any of its ferocity.
Reaching the den, Juls sat contemplating weather the sceptre could be used against her enemies. She assumed it could somehow. She would have to experiment. Slipping into a deep sleep, Juls focused on her memories from Queen Altum Vis and willed herself to remember the sceptre’s full powers.
When she woke, she knew Exousia. That was the sceptre’s name. Exousia, an endless source of focusing power. She was the power. Juls could use Exousia in whatever way she desired. As long as she drew power, Exousia would live and serve her.
Juls roused Cat and set off for the repaired but inoperable sloop ship. It was inoperable no longer. It had an engine. Her. Queen Altum Juls of the Osmir.
That was what the planet’s inhabitants would have been, if any of them had elected to live. Osmir. She was now Osmir. The one living Osmir in all of space and she could pass that energy on to anyone. Unlike the Reiki symbols she had given her children to conduct energy through themselves, Juls was now pure energy in sentient
form. She looked human with Idolum clothing, but she wasn’t. She was Osmir.
As long as Caloon existed, and the powers of the Etherie twisted in its core, Juls could bring those she loved here to transform. They could choose to be Etherie or they could choose to become Osmir. Only they could decide. Only Juls could decide if they were ready. It would be tremendously important to choose only those who could be trusted. Only those who would use their new strengths wisely.
Gingerly deactivating the sceptre, Juls locked the small crate and heaved it behind the pilot’s seat in the sloop. Levering her long form into the small space and making room to cradle Cat against her turned out to be a greater undertaking than she had anticipated.
Finally, in exasperation she simply focused her mind, spread a hand and elongated the ship. Cat hissed and ran. Juls stepped in, tore the mask from the decking and held it out to Cat. “If you’re coming, this is for you. I don’t need it. Make up your mind,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s now or maybe never.”
Cat growled, hissed, then slunk to the side of the ship. Sniffing it suspiciously, he finally leapt in and wedged himself between her neck and the bulwark. She reached up, grasped his head gently in her hands, and pulled the mask over his hissing face. Once he realized that he could breathe just fine, he stopped caterwauling and settled down, though it was too late for the seat, it was already shredded by his wildly flailing claws. Heaving a sigh of relief at having succeeded in getting the obstinate cat into the sloop, Juls laid back, focused her mind and powered the ship. It leapt to life, rose from the surface of the planet and within seconds had disappeared into the ether.
Two days later, Juls latched her small sloop onto the docking tube of the lazily swirling ship Talio. Once again Talio was lolling in the never ending change of the patterns of the knotted abyss, as were the Labrys and the Centurion. Originally they had planned to mass on General Monsav’s home planet. But with the erroneous jump caused by damage to their Queen’s sloop as it jumped, General Freux had made the decision to have all three ships enter the abyss.
