Fire - Betrayal

by Amelia Grace

The Warrior’s partisans listened carefully, and did as he suggested. Each of the vortexes revealed the same tunnel, the same low wind noise rushing through.

  Ben meticulously recorded every detail about each of the vortexes, and then it was time, time for all of them to enter the red vortex together.

  Ben closed his eyes and visualized the next step that they would take. The step where they entered the vortexes together.

  Shocked, Ben opened his eyes quickly. What if they all entered the vortex, but then could not return to this dome, the meeting place of all vortexes?

  Ben brought his question out in the open to consider the views of his partisans.

  Jazz, who considered herself to be the least of the partisans, volunteered to be the living sacrifice of the vortexes. She would enter alone and completely to the other side, and then attempt to re-enter, to see if it could be done successfully.

  They all bowed their heads towards Jazz in respect for her dedication, and bravery.

  Jazz stood, while the others watched on, and walked slowly towards the red vortex. She hesitated briefly, calling upon her courage before stepping into the vortex, and completely disappeared.

  No-one spoke a word, but waited with bated breath, unsure of the outcome of her bravery. They all prayed that she would re-enter without trouble, but were also prepared for the very worst, that she would not return.

  The Warrior’s companions looked at each other, losing hope, and then looked to the floor. The journey that they were undertaking was unpredictable, and dangerous. But they must do it to save Une Autre Terre.

  Ben looked up towards the dome’s centre, where the sun’s rays entered the perfect octagonal structure, and where the purest droplets of water fell to the glass bowl below, breaking the eerie silence.

  Then, first, they saw her hand poke through the vortex, and disappear again. Next it was her foot, then her hand and her foot. Jazz pulled them back in and poked her head out smiling at them, and then jumped through as if she were playing a game.

  They all stood and applauded when Jazz returned, unharmed, and happy, and listened intently as to what she had to say about her experience beyond the vortex.

  “Ben, I feel the vortexes here are just a gateway leading to the portals, which lie beyond the tunnel. There was no effort on my part to pass back through to return. There was no resistance, no change in any way, shape or form. In my opinion, it would be safe for us all to go through the vortex to the real portal. But I am very happy to test out the other vortexes here in this dome, before we make a final decision.”

  Josiah spoke, “I agree with Jazz. She must test out the other six vortexes here before we make out final decision. I bow down to you Jazz for your bravery.”

  The six companions were not nearly as nervous this time that Jazz entered the other vortexes, their confidence was high that they would all be the same, and they were.

  Now, they would all enter the red vortex to see where it led to, and then find the portal and observe how it behaved, and test how the opal seeds interacted with the power of the portal. Now was their moment of challenge, deep thought, powers of observation and thinking outside of the square. If there was an answer, they would find it.

  Jazz entered the red vortex first, closely followed by the others.

  It was exactly as Ben had described earlier, a very dark tunnel with a low level rushing wind sound.

  Ben found his solar torch and engaged the power. It worked effectively, lighting up the area in which they walked.

  As they looked around in their new environment, they discovered that the walls were made of a dark clay type soil, with the height of the cave about twice the height of a man. The floor underfoot however, was most unexpected. It had been carefully constructed of large flat, square sandstones, forming a pathway.

  They walked in the darkness of the tunnel, with a torch lighting their way for approximately 15 minutes, until they came to a dead end.

  To the untrained eye, it appeared as if the tunnel ended there, and the only way out was to go back to the vortex.

  But, to the Terreans,it was a cleverly disguised portal. It had shimmers of blue and green in amongst the imitation brown clay, and occasionally, mist would swirl out from the wall.

  The Warrior and his partisans stood back. They needed one of the clan to test the portal to see if they could move through it.

  Without even hesitating, Jordan volunteered to aid the experiment.

  “Jordan, approach the portal, I want to see if it opens up to let you through,” said Ben.

  Slowly, but steadily, Jordan walked towards the portal. Nothing happened. He placed his hand on the portal – nothing happened.

  “Thank-you Jordan, now everyone of us needs to do as Jordan has done, to see if opens at all in our presence. Let’s go female, male, female, male until we are done. I will go last,” Ben instructed.

  At the completion of this part of their journey, they had concluded that the portal was closed at this time, and that, simply their presence, be it male or female or any of the numberous combinations of these made no difference to the behavior of the portal.

  Due to the results of this first test on the portal, Ben decided to approach the portal with one opal seed. No change, the portal did not open.

  Ben returned to his bag and reached in and took out another opal seed. Two might do the job.

  As he stood up, he hit his funny bone against the wall of the tunnel, instantly affecting his reflexes in his hand. His hand quickly jerked open, and one of the opal seeds fell to the ground, smashing.

  Ben looked up and breathed in loudly, angry with his clumsiness. He bent down with his torch to pick up the pieces. It was then that he was flabbergasted. The opal seed had not split as large chunks, but had shattered into perfectly shaped heptagons – seven sided polygons. And the number of them was inconceivable. He carefully picked them up and placed them into a large container that he had in his backpack. Then he reached into his backpack and took out another opal seed.

  He carried the two seeds carefully towards the portal. Nothing happened. He tried three opal seeds. Still nothing occurred. Ben continued on testing the portal with the opal seeds until he had carried twenty over to it. Again, nothing happened. He was perplexed. At the old farmhouse, when he had the back pack on, the portal opened.

  Then instantly, like a light turning on in his head, he realized that, in his backpack he in fact had twenty-one opal seeds. After shattering the other one, he now only had twenty opal seeds. He stood up and paced back and forth with his hands behind his head, frustrated.

  “Ben, you are troubled. Please talk with us about what is going on in your head. If you throw it out in the open, perhaps we can help to find an answer,” suggested Jack through mind communication.

  Ben looked at Jack, breathed in deeply, and nodded. He gathered his six companions and communicated to them without talking. He went over his observations here and back at the farmhouse. He expressed his anger at dropping one of the opal seeds, and his companions felt his frustration.

  “My Warrior, I believe that accidently dropping the opal seed and seeing it shatter into a zillion heptagonal pieces was extremely significant. Here we have seven portals, and the heptagonal shapes have seven sides. Can you see the pattern that I am seeing?” asked Julia.

  They all looked at Julia considering her theory, based on number patterns. It seemed very logical.

  “Perhaps we need seven opal seeds for each portal?” spoke Jared.

  “No, that won’t work Jared, we don’t have enough opal seeds for each of the the seven portals,” added Josiah.

  “I’m working with the number seven for each portal from Josiah’s idea, but, using carefully cut opal seeds and a heptagonal shape. We are meant to use the heptagons, otherwise we would not have witnessed such an amazing event,” suggested Jade.

  The men started with working on formulations with numbers to find a solution to opening the portal, while the women tackled the problem by draw
ing patterns and shapes involving seven.

  After two hours, they stood back and presented their ideas to the others. All ideas were well thought through and deserved some merit, but it was Julia’s simple six pointed star drawing with a heptagon in the centre that stood out from all of the others. Her suggestion was to divide each of the opal seeds into thirds, each portal would have two opal eggs cut into thirds, making six pieces and then the heptagon in the centre making the seventh piece.

  Her work was well drawn and simple enough to replicate for the seven portals.

  Ben looked closely at each person’s ideas, and decided to test each one. It would take time, but they had to solve the equation to open the portals.

  The six companions were very pleased with the decision to test each idea out, and helped Ben eagerly in preparing, testing and writing anecdotal records on each one.

  To their disappointment, all ideas failed. Their morale was low. Julia was frustrated that hers could not be tested because they had no way to carefully cut her opal seeds into thirds.

  “Ben, I request from you that we still test my theory, but with two whole seeds and one heptagonal polygon. I am curious to see what happens,” said Julia.

  Not wanting Julia to feel unworthy to the clan, he agreed to go along with her request, confident that it would not work.

  “Ben, I will hold one of the opal seeds to the front, while you hold the other opal seed towards the back, and I will then place the heptagon in the centre. I feel that the arrangement, or positioning of the seeds is important for some reason,” explained Julia.

  Julia held up her opal seed, then Ben held his about half a metre away. There were absolutely no signs of anything about to happen, as with the other ideas. Then Julia placed the heptagon piece in the centre of the two opal seeds, and to their astonishment, the portal opened.

  They were suddenly hit by a wave of strong rushing air, attempting to suck them through the portal. Mist filled the tunnel, and the Terreans became terrified of the power that they had unleashed.

  Using all of his strength, Ben pulled his hand away that was holding the opal seed.

  And then, abruptly, all of the sucking air ceased, and the tunnel was peaceful again, except for the low rushing wind noise.

  Immediately, the Terreans looked at each other, shocked by what they had just witnessed. Ben calmly walked over to his laptop computer and entered the data about what they did, observed and felt.

  Ben walked around shaking his head. He could not believe what had just happened. It was indescribable.

  Jazz was so hyped up about the discovery, that she wanted to open the portal again and go through it to see if she could come back.

  “NO!” Ben said assertively and immediately upon the suggestion.

  “We must enter into the other vortexes and test our theory to see if it works on each and every one of the portals. And we must do it now, while it is still fresh in our minds. Then we can return to our pods back at the village and sleep, while our minds work on the information and formulate a plan for us to follow,” he added less aggressively in mind communication.

  Ben gathered all of their belongings, making sure that he had all of the opal seeds, and briskly walked back to the vortex, with the six companions in tow.

  They entered each of the vortexes, testing Julia’s formula, and found that it succeeded in opening every one of the portals.

  The Terreans left the dome structure and ventured back through the cave to the waterfall, where they carefully walked along the fallen trunk that lay over a deep ravine, and back to the village, feeling pumped at the success of their days work.

  For the next week and a half, the Warrior and his partisans worked endlessly on cutting the opal seeds with intricate detail and precision. They laid the opal seeds on tables in the shape that Julia envisaged, with the heptagon in the centre. Then they brain stormed how they would assemble the configuration around the portals so that it was disguised or camouflaged from all. After a great think tank, and many drawings and designs, they finally agreed on one blueprint. They would have to construct a frame to hold the opal seeds in place. They surmised, for the energies of the opal seeds to operate the portal on both sides, that they would build two frames, one for the Terrean side of the portal, and one for the earth side. The only part of the design that was not revealed to them was how the heptagonal polygon would play its part in the scheme of things. How would it be held in place? Would it get lost as you entered through the portal? How would they store the heptagon? These questions were yet to be answered and solved.

  Forming and molding the frames out of natural, but permanent materials took a lot of time and patience. Each person with the Warrior helped in some way, encouraging and supporting, refueling and cleaning up. And finally after two months, the frames and the opal seeds were constructed and ready to be transported to the portals.

  Twilight was their signal to begin transportation each day. In pairs, they carried the frames with the opal seeds to the dome. It was a journey that was perilous, especially the challenge of the tree trunk that lay across the ravine. It would have been so easy for one or two of them to fall and lose their lives.

  They all worked diligently at the highly important task of installing the frames into the walls surrounding the portals on the inside of the tunnels. They got the installation down to such a fine art, that they learnt how to camouflage the frame exceptionally well.

  They worked well into the night, until all seven of the Terrean side frames were in position, then they would return the next day to start the unknown territory of installing the frames on the earth side of the portal.

  This task was looked at with trepidation. They didn’t know what to expect. Beyond doubt, they would be entering a highly dangerous zone into the unknown. They did not know where the portals led to. What part of the earth they would be at, what type of terrain would be located around it, or whether it be in a populated area. They had no ideas about what to expect.

  Ben decided that they had all worked so hard that they deserved some rest and relaxation before they embarked on the next part of the journey. He gave them two days off. This would also help Ben to prepare for what he knew of the earth, so that he could help his companions, and protect them if need be. This part of the operation would be delicately balanced. He knew that no mistakes could be made whatsoever.

  Chapter 25

  A Chance Meeting

  The walls were a brilliant white. One window opened out showing the view of a pretty english garden. The bed was uncomfortable, and the beeping of machines were intruding on my pleasant dreams.

  I opened my eyes. Was I dead? Was I alive? Was I dreaming?

  I was disorientated, but not alone. My mother was there with me, smiling into my face.

  “Welcome back Cate, my sweet, sweet girl,” my mother said with tears streaming down her face.

  “Ma? Where am I?” I asked.

  “In the hospital. Some hikers found you in an old ruined Farmhouse. When they came across you, you were hardly alive, and the doctors here did not expect you to live. But it’s a miracle Cate. You have been given back to us! We were told that you had died in the house fire. We had said our goodbyes to you to let you rest in peace. We would never have dreamt in our wildest dreams that you had survived and would come back to us again. It truly is a miracle!” my mother said, emotionally distraught.

  I realized that I had survived my farmhouse death wish. Then my heart ached as I remembered leaving Ben in Une Autre Terre, forever, never to see him again, my soul mate, the man of my dreams.

  “I want to go home mama,” I cried.

  “I’ll take you home my sweet, sweet girl!” promised my mother.

  ***

  I more frequently than not, lay on the sofa, with my head on my mother’s lap, enjoying the comforting stroking of my hair and forehead, staring at the nothingness.

  “Why does it hurt so much Ma?” I cried, “When will I stop missing him? When will my heart
stop aching for him?”

  “All in good time dear Cate. Time heals all wounds. You will never forget him, but it won’t hurt as much when you do think about him after a while. Just be patient while your mind and heart grieves for him. In the meantime, the best medicine is to get on with your own life. Get out into the real world. Go back to work. Socialize with your friends again. It will do you the world of good Cate. I know that you can do it. You are a strong woman. You are a great person. You have so much to give to others. Don’t waste your gifts and abilities. You will find happiness again Cate,” she reassured.

  The rain beat down on the window pane of my bedroom. I watched as the rain drops became heavy and then went running down the glass as if in a race.

  Then I stretched and walked over to the window. It was a miserable day if you liked sunshine, but an awesome day if you liked the rain, and I loved the rain.

  Today was my new beginning. I planned to start moving forward with my life. I knew that I could be strong. Ben wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around for the rest of my life because of him. He would’ve wanted me to live my life to the fullest. And that is what I planned to do, slowly at first, until I had weaned myself from the chains that bound me to Ben.

  As I walked into the entrance of my Interior Decorating business, unannounced, my employees stopped and clapped, and some cried, acknowledging their respect for me, and welcoming me back from the dead!

  I was embarrassed at first, but then began to accept that they too had been through an ordeal. They would have grieved for me when they heard of my death. They would have gone to my funeral service, be it without a body there to bury.

  I thought about making a long speech of thanks, but decided against it, and hugged each of my employee’s warmly, and said a heart-felt thank-you to them.

  Finally, it was good to be feeling alive. I did not realize that my life did in fact mean a great deal to many people. I had been blinded by my love for Ben, and did not see those around me who depended on me in any degree.