The Raie'Chaelia (Legend of the Raie'Chaelia, Book One 1)

by Melissa Douthit

  Chalice leaned over the fence to peer down the tunnel from which the water flowed and noticed the trough was a manmade watercourse that purposefully channeled the water into and out of the room. To her surprise, she realized it had been engineered this way. Opening a door to the left of the fence, she peered into a large room that seemed to be made to hold livestock. She noted that the same stream of water flowed into and out of that room as well. Then, she closed the door.

  Sighing in relief, she led the horses into the stable, unburdening them of the saddles and bags, which she placed on the stone table in the tack room. As soon as they were released into the pasture, the horses ran playfully, bucking and kicking. She remembered how happy Sunny and Banner had been in stable room before and smiled. What a relief it was to be there, away from the dangers that lurked on the land above. After Kirna and Tycho had finished with the other horses, they left the room and saw Ben and Jeremiah approaching.

  “How is everyone?” Kirna asked.

  “I’ve done everything I can. Bunejab is doing the rest,” Ben said. “Many of them are extremely malnourished so we need to find the green room soon.”

  “The green room?” Tycho asked curiously. “What’s that?”

  “You’ll see,” Jeremiah said. “It’s pretty cool.”

  They searched around, checking each chamber as they went. They found many rooms that had no doors, just archways, and seemed to have been used as various shops. One was clearly a bakery, with a wide stone oven and rusting metal utensils for baking. Another was a huge kitchen and dining room combined, large enough to seat and feed a small village. The chamber next to it was a huge round room with a vaulted ceiling and an enormous round swimming pool of hot water located in its center. Tendrils of steam rose from its surface and flowed out of the vents above. Chalice noted that water flowed in and out of the room in the same manner as the stream in the stable room. When she asked why the water was so hot, Ben explained that there must have been a naturally occurring hot spring nearby.

  Continuing their search, they found a large, oval room that appeared to be a theatre. The stone seats sloped downwards to a stage where plays and musical performances could be held. They didn’t find any musical instruments, however. The only remaining items they could find were either made of metal, stone, or fireclay, such as the jars and pots they took with them to fill with food. Everything else had disintegrated into dust, even the mattresses in the apartments. All the stone bed frames were filled with soft sand that had accumulated over the eons that Barenthren had lain abandoned, and thick layers of dust and cobwebs covered almost everything.

  Then, they discovered doors that opened into strange rooms. One had a tall stone altar in its center. The altar, shaped as a hexagon, was completely flat and bare except for a small, circular basin in the middle. Strange marks and inscriptions were etched into the walls all around it. Another room they found had similar inscriptions cut into the stone and led to a chamber that contained a large sarcophagus. Apparently it was a tomb. Chalice stopped and walked into the vestibule. She recognized one of the markings. It was a circle with five lines extending from its perimeter and connecting in its center. She knew it immediately.

  “Ben, why is the Star of the Ielierian here?” she asked as she looked around. There were stars all over the walls.

  “That is not the Star of the Ielierian,” he said and she stared at him in confusion. “Well, to us it is, but when these inscriptions were made, that symbol did not mean the same thing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Barenthren was one of the cities that was cut off from the underground world after the great quake. After that, the people living here developed separately from the rest of our civilization.” He paused and pointed to the symbol. “You see, this symbol we inherited from the people of the Ancient World. To them, it represented the heavens and the place where souls go after death. That is why you see them in this tomb.” They were all staring at him, listening intently as he spoke.

  “This is the tomb of an ancient king of Barenthren. These texts describe the journey of his soul into the afterlife, a place that they associated with the heavens and the stars. For the ancients, the afterlife was not a place of darkness or death, but a place of great light, joy, and immortality. They thought that calling people who have passed on ‘the dead’ was a mistake because according to them, the dead are more alive than we are. This antechamber we are in is a sort of … chamber of knowledge, if you will. Etched into these walls are some the oldest surviving scriptures of the Ancient World, symbols from original manuscripts, which now exist only in fragments. This is knowledge from the ancient traditions of the Golden Age stretching far back beyond our collective memory. We’re looking at the legacy of a time long gone, of the people of the Ancient World and of the early Terravail.”

  “These stars are very similar to the ones we saw in the astronomy tower.”

  “Yes, they are the same, in fact.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because we’re not permitted to talk about what’s in the underground cities when we leave them. We are made to swear an oath.”

  That’s strange, Chalice thought. She pointed to another marking she recognized in a different set of inscriptions. This one she knew well.

  “Why is my birthmark here?”

  “I wondered when you were going to notice that,” he said. “In the Ancient World, that symbol represented a concept that was a combination of enlightenment, wisdom, and knowledge. Today, it means something else.”

  “So, both these symbols, they have a different meaning now? They have evolved?”

  “Yes, with what we know today through the Readers, they have a completely new meaning.”

  “Which is?” she asked.

  “Shouldn’t we get going?” Tycho interrupted.

  “No, Tycho, this is important. Please, just be patient,” Ben said. “The Star of the Ielierian was coined by the Reader, Lavoan Todorine, one of your ancestors, Chalice. It is the symbol for an entity that has no true name, but has had many names given to it throughout the ages. We call it the Ji.”

  “The Ji, what is that?”

  “In their search for knowledge, the early Terravailian Readers discovered it. It is the source of all things and of all worlds, the source of the entire multiverse. It is the place we come from when we are born and the place we return to when we die. It is also the source from which the avie flows and gives us our power, and as I said before, although we call it the Ji, it is nameless. That is, there isn’t just one name for it. There can’t be, for all things are born from it, even names. The Ji is the One, or the Omni, or Other. Some have also called it God. Throughout time, the sages of the world have had many descriptions for it. There have been those who have attributed human characteristics to it, either by personifying it as one human, a triad of humans, or a pantheon of them. Then, there were those who thought it was more abstract and nonhuman, like a great spirit they attributed to the land or the sky.”

  “So, they were all wrong, then.”

  “Well, you might say that. They were all wrong, but then again, they were all right, as well. You see, the Ji will assume the form of whatever a person believes, whatever they are most familiar with or understand, and that is what they will experience when they die.”

  “That’s convenient,” she said, not really knowing how to respond. “But what if you don’t believe in any particular one of those things, like us?”

  “Ah, that is the question isn’t it? We are lucky. We know that the Ji is not describable by language, so we have more control over what we will experience when we return to it. We will make our own heaven, or if we choose to, come back into this world or go into other worlds. It was a difficult concept for people to grasp because many needed to view reality as something solid, something on the exterior, outside of themselves. They felt the need to have something ‘real’ to hold onto. They didn’t realize that true reality is inside you.”


  “But what if you believe that when you die, you cease to exist and you become nothing?”

  “Chalice, think logically about that question for a moment. How can you become nothing?”

  “Umm, I’m not sure.”

  “It’s not possible because there is always something. There is always the Ji. Those who believe in nothing after death are confusing their experiences in the physical world with that of the spiritual world. If we lose our connection to others, or our connection to the land, we feel alone, or cut off, and our souls experience that which we call the nothingness, or the emptiness. This feeling is the result of our spirit, which is profoundly connected to the Ji, experiencing what it’s like to be temporarily lost from that to which it belongs. When a person who believes in nothing returns, they are quickly disabused of this notion of nothingness. Does that make sense?”

  “Hmm, kind of,” she said. “You keep saying multiverse and talking about other worlds. I don’t understand what the multiverse is.”

  “The multiverse was discovered by Reader, Raegalia Svadir, another of your ancestors, and is the word we use for the collection of all worlds that are created by the Ji. You see, from the Ji flows the intelligence that we call life, or the avie, as I said. This intelligence condenses and forms the elements that create our multiverse. From it streams the magic that allows your soul to manifest into this world. Therefore, it is the source of all things and of all worlds. Eons ago, the ancients called our multiverse the ‘Universe’, or the ‘One World’, since our physical world here was the only one they could see visually, looking out into the stars at night. Thanks to Raegalia’s discovery, we now know there are a countless number of other ‘Universes’, other physical worlds that exist inter-dimensionally right next to ours. Before the Ice Age, the ancients were beginning to wrap their minds around this concept and understand it mathematically, but they had no means of proving it through their own methods. They didn’t have what we do now, which is the insight of the Terravail.”

  “I don’t get it. How do the Readers know this?”

  “Because there is a world that connects all the physical worlds together. It runs through all of them and binds them to the Ji. We call it the True World or the World of the Sylphen. This is the symbol for it,” he said as he pointed to her birthmark on the wall.

  “But that’s my mark! Wait a minute,” she said, frowning in thought.

  “Exactly. Now you are beginning to see. This is why this conversation is important. You need to understand what your title means. You see, you’re not the Raie’Chaelia because you have a rightful claim to your father’s throne. If that were the case, both your sisters could claim the same thing. No. You’re the True Princess because you’re connected to this world somehow and what that connection is, we have yet to discover. A part of it, I believe, has already been revealed.”

  “Which is?”

  “Your telepathic abilities.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I mentioned that the True World is also called the World of the Sylphen because there are beings in the True World that can communicate mentally with those in the physical worlds. We call them the sylphen. They are the ones who make telepathic communication possible. They tell us information of happenings in the present, remind us of mistakes we have made, and warn us of things to come. They can guide events and keep a record of history through the collective conscience and memory of humans. The Terravail, like you, have special ways to contact them, but all humans in every race have a link to them through their connection to the land. The ancients could feel the sylphen as well, but they didn’t know what they were sensing. They had a word for it, but since this ability didn’t fit the criteria for their particular type of knowledge, given that they placed their faith only into that which they could physically observe, any claim to it wasn’t considered true knowledge or true insight. So, they scoffed at it and ridiculed it.”

  “I see.” She paused. She had always believed that the people of the Ancient World were so intelligent and enlightened, but in this regard, it appeared that they hadn’t been. There was something else that didn’t make sense to her. “So, why is it also called the True World?”

  “Because it is a place of justice and redemption. It is a place to which you go before you return to the Ji, that is, if you return at all. If you’re not redeemed, then you don’t. The True World is a reflection of your own true inner being. Not much is really known about it, but what we do know is that when you go there, either in a dream or in death, what you experience there is what you truly are inside. For example, if you are someone who likes to hurt other people, then that is what you’ll experience there — pain and suffering. But if you are someone who is the opposite, then you’ll experience something completely different.”

  Chalice just stood there, staring at the wall, at her symbol etched into it. She reached up and stroked her hand over it.

  “How do people know this?”

  “Mostly from the Readers, but also from those who have died and come back to life.” As he said this, her eyes and mouth gaped astonishment. “Some have, Chalice. It’s a miracle when it happens, but it has happened in the past. You see, death can’t normally be healed, but sometimes, for some reason, people have come back.”

  “Woah, trip on that!” Tycho mused.

  Ben smiled wryly. “Instead of tripping on it, Tycho, maybe you could try to learn from it a little.”

  “I would, but my brain is full. Can we leave now? This room is creeping me out.”

  “Alright, let’s go,” Ben said, motioning for them to follow. “Chalice, if you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

  She nodded. They all left the antechamber, except for Chalice who stood in place, staring at the symbols on the wall. Just outside, Jeremiah stopped and turned.

  “You coming?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied and with that, she pulled her eyes away from the wall and followed him out the door.

  At last, they found the green room where Kirna and Tycho stood, gaping. Like the green room in the Chinukan village, it was enormous, but it was wild and unkempt. Various vegetable plants and shrubs were overgrown and deserted, and many crop fields lay barren and untended for years. There were, however, a multitude of different trees that offered a plentiful supply of fruits and nuts. Chalice noted that there was a stream moving through the dome, similar to the stable room. She also saw that this green room sported the same irrigation system of the Maehbeck farm.

  “This watering system,” she said to Ben, “I saw it on the Maehbecks’ farm. I also saw it in the green room in Bunejab’s village. There are so many similarities between the Maehbecks’ farm and these underground dwellings. Did the Terravail engineer them?”

  “No,” Ben answered. “They are crafts we learned, or I should say we inherited from the people of the Ancient World.” He paused, then added: “Nathaniel shouldn’t be employing them on his farm. I will have to talk to him about that when I see him.”

  “Why not?”

  But the reason why Chalice didn’t find out because, at that moment, Tycho exclaimed: “This is the green room?!” He looked over at Ben and motioned toward the trees. “Can we?”

  “Be my guest,” he said, motioning them forward.

  They scurried ahead with the fireclay pots that they had collected from the kitchen and began to fill them. When they were done, they left the room, made their way back to the villagers, and began to distribute the food. Kirna stopped by the water fountain, where she filled jars with drinking water.

  The villagers who were strong enough were directed by Ben to the kitchen to collect pots and then to the green room, where they gathered food for their friends and family. A baby’s hoarse cry caught Chalice’s attention and she looked over to find the woman she had seen earlier in the tunnel who had been clutching the baby to her breast. Bunejab was there, spooning something into its mouth.

  It’s not dead after all! Chalice smile
d. Thank heaven for that little Chinuk.

  Chalice sat down at the base of the tree, next to Aemis. The villagers of Branbury who were well enough had left the group to head for the green room. Only a few of them remained, huddled around the tree.

  “How are you?” she asked him. “You look better.”

  “Good! I feel so much better. I think everybody does,” he said as he took a bite of an orange that he had just peeled. “It’s awful what they do to people. You have no idea.”

  “Oh no, we do,” Jeremiah said. “We know exactly what they do, believe me. They don’t just torture people, they terrorize them.”

  Aemis nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. How do you know?”

  “We’ve had a few run-ins with them,” Chalice said, looking up at Jeremiah. Just then, her heart skipped a beat when she looked past him and saw a tall, thin woman with long, dark hair who was standing in a crowd of people, handing out fruit. She knew her. She knew all of them. Leaping from the ground, she bolted over to them.

  “Marie!” she shouted. Kirna and Tycho followed close behind her, rushing to their parents and embracing them in a tight hug.

  “Chalice!” Marie exclaimed and set down her pot, rushing over to hug her. “We saw you in the tunnel, but we didn’t want to interrupt.”

  Chalice glanced around furiously, searching for every familiar face she could find.

  “There are so few, Marie. Where is everybody?”

  Marie shook her head. “When the village was attacked, many tried to fight, but they died. The village was completely destroyed. The Draaquans don’t like it when you fight back. Once we realized we weren’t going to win, we didn’t see the point. Luckily, we managed to get all of the children out of the village before we were loaded onto the ship. Then, we had a few die in the prison.” Just as Marie had finished, the face Chalice had been waiting to see for a long time appeared in the crowd and walked up to her, smiling.