by Gene Stiles
Haleah listened to the soothing rhythm of his voice, repeating his words in her mind. She took slow, deep breaths as he commanded, feeling her concerns lifting from her and fading from her mind like morning mists in the bright sunshine. A soft glow rose up from the pit of her stomach, infusing her nerves and muscles with an inner strength she did not know she possessed. Every organ, every sense, every inch of her skin, even every strand of her hair felt vibrant and more alive than ever before. Another glow, different feeling and terrifyingly powerful, invaded her mind, threatening to take over her body and soul. It felt as if the fiery sun, itself, was exploding inside of her, alien yet strangely familiar.
The force swept over her like a tidal wave, tumbling her mind over and over until she lost all sense of perspective of time and place. It choked her as if the hand of a giant clenched her frail little throat and crushed. Haleah fought for air, struggling against the raw, animalistic energy infusing every fiber of her being with burning, screaming pain.
“Do not fight it, Haleah,” a calm, steady ethereal voice called to her above the storm. “Let it flow through your body as a sparkling river would pass through a narrow, rock channel. Let it pass from my hand to yours. Do not keep it within you. Let it course through your mind then empty itself into the vessel beneath you. Pour it out as you would liquid fire from a cup. Let your love of Morpheus be your guide, your strength, your safe harbor, your bright star in the darkest night.”
The voice was like an anchor to her turbulent mind, giving her something to hold onto in the midst of a firestorm. She heard the meaning of the words, but not the words themselves. They cooed soothingly like the unintelligible sounds of a loving mother to a newborn babe. Haleah breathed deeply, relaxing slowly in the comfort of those cooling arms.
Love. Love was the key. Think only of her love of Morpheus. See the midnight color of his long, wavy hair cascading over his wide, square shoulders as he lay over her naked, yearning body. Feel his serene heat filling her being, her very soul, with his passion. Hear his deep, gentle voice touching her as no other could. His ebony eyes filled with a million stars as they gazed into her ocean-blue sight. The swell of his muscle-defined chest drawing her into his loving embrace. His full, softly curved lips tilted in a mischievous smile. Picture him whole and strong, standing naked, silhouetted by the rising sun beaming through the open window of her bedchamber. His narrow waist and smooth hips. His massively powerful legs, silky and hairless, belying the fluid grace of a dancer. See him whole and unharmed, loving and happy.
Were these words her own or those of another? Haleah did not know nor did she care. Her mind overflowed with loving images. Her and Morpheus on the day they first met in Atlantis. Morpheus laughing as they dived from rocky cliffs into icy, cold waters of some woodland lake. The way her heart fluttered when he touched her flushed cheeks. How she floated above the clouds when they danced so very close together. The day he knelt before her in the damp moss beneath the gigantic boughs of the One Tree and told her how much he loved her. Memory after memory tumbling serenely through her mind.
Her left hand blazed brilliantly upon the brow of her beloved. The heat was not like that of a blazing bonfire, but more like the welcoming warmth of spring sunshine. It streamed from Haleah into the tattered form unseen behind her closed eyelids. Blood congealed on partly closing wounds. Muscles split by raking claws stitched themselves raggedly together. Severed tendons tentatively reached out for one another hoping to reconnect.
The eternal moment broke like the cracking of bolt of lightning. Haleah slumped to her side on the blood-soaked grass, drained as never before. Her limbs felt like she had succumbed to sleep after a raging battle, achy and numb, bereft of even a modicum of strength. Her half-lidded eyes fell upon the still form of her love surrounded by an aura of pure, shinning gold as if the orb of the heavens enfolded him in her arms. It hurt her eyes even behind her closed lids, but put a joyful smile on her sweaty, beautiful face. A cocoon of contentment surrounded her and carried her away into a peaceful, exhausted sleep.
“Haleah,” Lelantos called to her, gently shaking her shoulder, “we must move. We need to get Morpheus back to the settlement. Awaken, dear Haleah.”
She woke slowly, dragging herself from the deep morass of bone-weary, debilitating slumber. Haleah could barely open her heavy, bleary eyes. Every muscle felt drained and sapped of energy. She fought to raise herself on one trembling elbow, shaking her head to clear the fog from her enfeebled brain. She hissed through gritted teeth against the staggering pain that came along with her movement, snapping her instantly away and fully alert.
“Do not worry, Haleah,” Lelantos smiled kindly, placing his giant hands beneath her armpits and lifting her as if she were a child. He held her steady until her weakened legs quit quivering. “It will pass in a short while. You did well.”
“What in the name of the Creator was that?” Haleah leaned heavily against his towering form waiting for a wave of nausea to pass. Her long blond hair stuck to her vest in damp clumps and pulled when she moved sending sparks into her already shrieking head. “I have never felt such power!”
“That was a Lend. I am sure you have seen us do this before.” Lelantos let her go, watching her to make sure Haleah could stand on her own. He squatted next to Morpheus and drew him into his arms. With a grunt, he lifted the slowly breathing body of his friend, cradling the listless man tight to his chest and striding to the nearest Polaris sled. “Please clear the back of my sled quickly. What we did helped and stopped the bleeding, but Morpheus is still in trouble. We heed to hurry.”
“I have never participated in a Lend before,” Haleah said, ripping the bindings from the supplies and shoving them to the ground. “You must teach me more. I need to do this,” she added, brushing a lock of moist hair from the fevered forehead of Morpheus.
“Maybe,” was all Lelantos replied. Haleah said no more, helping to strap her love to the long bed of the sled. As much as she wanted to stay with him there, she knew they would move much faster if she boarded her own. She swung her leg over the padded leather saddle, whipping her ride into a tight, screaming arc to catch Lelantos as they raced for home.
Chapter IV
“You should have told us sooner, Cronus,” Themis stated angrily. “We had a right to know of this!” Her ocean-green eyes blazed at her brother as if she would set him on fire with pure sight alone. Her slender hands balled into fists as she leaned hard on the Table, her smooth, tan arms quivering with her fury. Her long, blond, tightly woven braid hung over her right shoulder, falling down the front of her forest-green, floor-length, sparkling gown and disappeared below the edge of the highly polished wood.
Cronus sat at the head of the Table, his fingers steepled before his pursed lips, carefully gauging the multitude of reactions on the faces before him. Red curls toppled over the top of the golden band around his forehead to just above his jade eyes. The fiery mane of his hair tumbled down the midnight black cloak he wore over an ebony vest and down to the middle of his broad, heavily muscled back. He did not respond to her onslaught as yet, simply waited out her rant and allowing her to get it out of her system.
“You are correct,” Cronus nodded once Themis cooled her rage enough to reseat herself. That she was still incensed shown in the rigidness of her back and the set of her tense jawline. Thea reached out to her twin sitting next to her and laid a calming hand upon her arm, but to little avail. “I should have. But what I see all of your eyes is why I did not.”
“Tell me, Themis,” Cronus continued flatly, staring into her glittering eyes, “why, exactly, are you so angry? Is it because I failed to inform you or is it because of how you now feel knowing the truth?”
“Both,” Themis replied curtly, biting her lower lip to keep from screaming at him once again. “Knowing the ancestry of the Izon would have changed how we all looked at them!”
“This is true, lovely Themis,” Coeus nodded sagely, stooped shoulders leaning heavily upon his long arm
s resting on the Table, hands clasped before him. His usually twinkling hazel eyes were filled with sadness, his constant smile now downturned in contemplation. Drumming his fingers rhythmically on the wooden table, he thoughtfully scanned the others in the room.
“The question Cronus asks is what that change is for those of us gathered here,” Coeus continued softly, “and what it would mean for the rest of the People. It is not such an easy question to answer.”
“It should be,” Phoebe stated firmly, placing a sallow, long-fingered hand upon her husband’s broad, bent shoulder as she rose. She gave Coeus a faint, warm smile before clasping her hands behind her thin, pastel blue robe of office. Her full, ruby-red lips, highlighted by her pure alabaster skin, were set in consternation as she addressed the council.
“If this Book is to be believed,” she said, her azure-blue eyes studying the faces of her brothers and sisters, “the Izon are the direct descendants of the People who gave their lives for us. Even their name - Izon - is in homage to Iaison, our brother whose ideas brought us to Terra in the first place. They are of our own blood and should be treated as such not as a separate, bestial species.”
“What would you do, Phoebe,” Iapetus interrupted gruffly, his deep voice rolling over her like a peel of thunder, “educate them how to speak properly, how to read and write? Would you teach them our technology and our weaponry so they could turn it against us as they already have?”
“The Izon only turned on us because of your treatment of them,” Hyperion quipped pointedly. He leaned back in his high-backed chair, one long leg crossed over his other knee, sitting sideways at the table. His curly, black, shoulder length hair was held back from his perfectly chiseled features by a thin crown of pure gold, peaked at the center of his forehead. His bright green eyes sparkled in the glow of the sunlight streaming through the windows of the chamber, his full, feminine lips quirked in a knowing smile. The gold, silver-leaf patterned robe his wore over his bright red Enviro-Suit was gaudy and ostentatious compared to the rest of the room, basking Hyperion in the attention he loved. He gave no notice to the icy stare of his brother, swinging his chair around to face the rest of those gathered around him.
“If we had seen the Clan as intelligent, capable people instead of stupid animals,” he added, “maybe they would have seen us differently. According to the Book and by their very actions in waking us, we were once revered by them. Now look at the mess we have made of that.”
“Though I agree with much of what you say,” Mnemosyne interjected, her thick, rich, auburn hair flowing around her like a living thing as she stood, “I do understand the wisdom of keeping such information from the People at large.”
The floor-length, green, gossamer robe she wore over her sparkling silver Enviro-Suit brought out the jade tinges in her light hazel eyes, which shone with a bright, blazing intellect. Mnemosyne swept her gaze over the room as she walked around the massive wood table. She took time to lay a soft hand on the shoulder of each member of the council, noting the myriad emotions playing across their features, before returning to stand next to her chair.
“The Izon may well be our direct descendants, but they have been physically and mentally altered by millions of years of evolution,” she said. “Without our technology to ease the burden of this world’s gravity, they have become thick-boned and shortened. Their chests and nostrils have expanded to breathe this heavy air freely. As far as we have seen, they do not even have the ability to heal themselves anymore.”
“They have forgotten much,” Oceanus commented, nodding, “but that does not lessen their heritage nor our responsibility toward them.”
“Yes and no,” Mnemosyne replied. “The Clan may once have been like us, but they are no more.” She raised her hand to the babbled responses her words invoked, waiting until she had their attention once again. “Physically, their bodies have changed to be as unlike us as the things they call apes are from them. Mentally, they are slower, almost dimwitted and I do not believe them capable of understanding even a whisper of our science. The very words, let alone the concepts, are simply far too foreign to their life experience. They have no basis on which to build.”
“Are you saying they are stupid?” Thea asked sharply.
“Not at all,” Mnemosyne replied, taking no offense at the sharp tone. “They are very smart in their own limited way. I am just saying it would take hundreds of years to educate the Izon to anywhere near our level. It would be easier to teach newborn babes.”
“If I may, lady,” Coeus interrupted, seeing the warning flare in Thea’s eyes. At a nod from Mnemosyne, he took the floor. He brushed his wild, brownish hair over his slightly pointed hair with both hands and took a deep breath.
“I do believe we are missing a vital point.” He felt heavy of heart at the words he must speak even though they spoke harshly of the People. Still, he had lived long enough to know how they would react to such a horrible revelation. “Think for a moment of how our kinsmen will take such news. If you knew your children could change into something so vastly different from yourselves, would you wish to bring them into this world? Right or not, most of the People view the Izon as little more than animals. Would you want your babies to look like that? Ugly and misshapen?”
“I understand now your hatred of the Clan and what they represent, Cronus,” Coeus lightly bowed at the Lord Father. “We are not so civilized but to react in horror.”
Cronus said nothing, only returning the nod. A vicious, self-satisfied smile hid behind his mask of silence as he listened to the heated debate that continued late into the night among the council. He watched carefully who broke into which groups when an evening meal of baked deer meat and roasted vegetables was brought in and laid out before them. Cronus barely picked at his food, his piercing green eyes surveying every face, his sharp ears listening to every muted conversation. He needed to know who would land on his side of the scales and whom he would have to watch closely.
By the time the council broke with little resolution as to a course of action, Cronus knew most of his brothers and sisters were with him. If not completely behind his unspoken plan of complete eradication of the Izon, they would not fight him as long as he kept his steps out of their pathetically self-righteous sight. His seething hatred still burned a hole in blackened soul, but he would seal it away until he could act unrestricted. All he needed was an irrefutable reason to rear its ugly head and, if it did not, he would engineer one to his liking.
He would not have to wait long.
Chapter V
Haleah found a small, secret clearing near a crystal-clear lake far from the growing settlement of Home and spread out a soft, blue blanket. With trembling hands, she pulled a picnic lunch from her old, worn knapsack and laid it out near where Morpheus lay. His hands were locked behind the mane of his wavy, black hair, cradling his head on the thick carpet of green grass. Basking there with eyes closed in the noontime sunshine, a contented smile playing across his thin, pink lips, Haleah thought him never so handsome. Her shimmering blue eyes took in every line of his muscle-defined body from his wide, square shoulders and narrow waist down to the bulge of his powerful calves. Like many of the ship’s crews now did, Morpheus was bare chested, his Enviro-Suit arms tied around his waist.
He seemed so pleased with life, all thoughts of Atlantis gone from his mind. Here there was peace and contentment. There were no dark politics to play, no unpleasant duties to perform. The People and the Izon worked together in perfect harmony with only minor disagreements easily resolved. He and his Aam did not have to concern themselves with policing a city that feared them. Instead, they used their skills not for battle, but for the protection of Home from the predators of the woods. Thanks to Haleah and the Izon, the Aam had become proficient hunters. Some joined the ranks of builders and farmers.
Morpheus seemed to have fallen asleep on the blanket, for which Haleah was grateful. It gave her time to contemplate how best to share the news she had for her love. She cou
ld not help but be a little frightened. She raised her face to the golden sun above letting the heat dry the bubble of tears from her eyes. She opened her senses to the land around her, seeking guidance from the whisper of the wind, the twittering sound out the songbirds and the babble of the brook that fed the lake.
Of his love, there could be no doubt. These last months together were beyond perfection. Haleah never though she would share more than stolen moments with Morpheus and now they lived in a beautiful home of hewn logs and high, vaulted ceilings. Each time he looked her way, she could see the sparkle in his ebony eyes. When she held him, her head snuggled in the strength of his embrace, she felt safe in a way she never had before. When they spoke, Morpheus treated her as an equal and important part of his life. And when they made love…no imagined paradise could possibly be better.
Haleah feared so to intrude on such immaculate bliss.
“What so troubles you, my love?”
So lost was she in her thoughts Haleah did not notice Morpheus had awakened. He lay on his side resting his head on his elbow and gazing at her with that same, sweet smile while she knelt beside him. He reached over and brushed her flowing, blond hair over the gentle curve of her shoulders, the better to see her radiant beauty glowing with a pink light on her high cheekbones. She relished the touch of his fingers on her face and leaned into his open palm, her eyes still closed so he would not see the worry written there.
