by Shea Meadows
Okay everybody. By some chance is Sam with us? No answer from Sam and a chorus of “not near me” from everyone in the group. Ricky sighed, it looked like Sam’s long struggle with the Soul Stealer had ended.
Let’s all send love to Sam wherever he may be. None of this was his doing. He was a victim of Primean warfare.
Ricky could see and feel the love generated by everyone in the circle. Even those who might have started out angry with Sam soon were inflated with love. As they sent love the light level increased so it resembled the sunrise, just before the sun peeks over the horizon.
Let’s all call out to Moon and the guides. Maybe that will help them find us, wherever it is we are. Gimma’s voice suggested.
A chorus of “Moon can you hear us? Guides can you hear us?” reverberated within the quickly expanding space that was evolving from dark to light. Thirty points of consciousness were calling for their guides.
A joyous sound like the clanging of a gong shook the circle.
There you are! It was Moon’s voice. We’ve been looking for you in multiple frequencies. You’ve been found.
Maggie is so worried about you. She went to the pavilion to find out why you weren’t coming back to the Inn and found your unconscious bodies. Not unusual with a group who does out-of-body work but the bodies had been uninhabited for over a day. She called Stan Jacobs who forwarded funds so your bodies will be cared for.
Sam is with me and the guides. He’s feeling guilty, but we all know he had no control over what happened. We have your coordinates now and will be configuring a release. We can take you back to your bodies very soon be…..
Whatever else Moon wanted to tell them was drowned out by a grinding, screeching sound that vibrated through their oasis and brought in a storm of lighting, thunder wind and acute disruption. Within the center of it were two familiar faces attached to two disproportioned bodies which had planted themselves in the middle of the circle.
Titian-as-Roy was applauding them, turning around in the center of the group, looking at each person with a smug look of superiority. Charisa-as-Julie just looked bored and pretended there was no one worth acknowledging. Moon’s voice was no longer audible.
“Blah, blah, blah. Moon talks on and on and on and says nothing. She is better off dead for sure,” Roy said with a laugh. “I must say though, she’s a half way decent teacher since she trained you half-wits well enough be able to slip out of your skins and have adventures. But you noticed, didn’t you, you’d unlink them, and we linked them again, so nothing you did really mattered.”
Ricky could feel anger tugging at her energy field. Clusters of scalding energy darts were trying to form and she could feel a snake twisting around in her etheric gut. David smiled at her and sent love energy through his eyes, and Ricky calmed the urge to blast Roy with venom from all the wounds he’d created.
“We have accomplished a great deal,” Ricky said, her voice steady and authoritative. “We know who you are, where you’re from and why you started this whole damn thing in the first place. That counts for something doesn’t it?
“After years of doing just about anything you wanted to do, there are now people all over the world resisting you. You thought you’d get it done in five years and there are literally millions of people in our reality that remain unlinked. No matter how many people you recruit, there are hundreds who are unlink-able and many more who are willing to risk their lives to save their friends. Seems like an undoable task to me.”
Charisa-as-Julie’s hair had turned into serpentine tendrils and was moving around her head, over her shoulders and down her arms. She watched placidly as a hair-snake slithered over to the group, elongated itself and attached to the ankles of one person after another in the circle.
“Talk, talk, talk,” she said. “She’s still miffed because you chose me over her. Doesn’t she get it? You were the piece of cheese that trapped her stupid sister, now she brought us all these fresh recruits. What say we stop arguing and do what we came to do?”
Titian-as-Roy reached to the center of his forehead where a metal spike was evident. He pulled on the spike that turned into a zipper and unzipped his Roy persona which covered his Titian form, which looked even uglier than it had on the hologram. There were large areas of burnt and blistered flesh, oozing wounds and mingled images. One hand had talons and claws, the other arm ended in an elephant’s trunk. One foot looked human, the other Primean. The rippling muscles in his face moved up and down and spewed out slimy oil that percolated out of his eyes.
“Wow, Roy” David said with a snort. “Looking good. Julie’s right; you are definitely the better man. Don’t know why Ricky settled for me.”
A Primal scream reverberated from the top of Titian’s head. “Be quiet. I am about to invite you to a gathering. I will ignore your disrespect since you are too stupid to know better. You are all summoned to the Cusp of Lamon where we will determine whose cause is worthy. Do you accept the invitation?”
“What if we say no?” Shri questioned.
“Good question,” Charisa said, suddenly interested in the conversation. “We would then have a new supply of advisors for the egg tenders, or the ditch diggers or the food generators. Think you could handle an important job like that? Oh and yes, it would be in your present form. You’re not getting back anything that looks like a body.”
“I imagine you’al are forcin’ not askin’, so not much we can do about it,” Cynda Lu opinioned.
“Brilliant woman,” Charisa answered. “You get to advise the keepers of the animals. Cool minds are always needed there. We are bringing you to the Cusp of Lamon and your transportation is manifesting in four squeezes.”
Ricky felt the snake-hair tightening around her lower leg as Titian and Charisa shouted “one”. The tightening progressed upward and latched around her stomach as the Primeans shouted “two. She looked over to see David trying to remove the constricting hair but it seemed to get tighter as he attempted to remove it. Now it was around everyone’s chests as the dynamic duo shouted “three”. Ricky could feel it strangling her ribs and arms.
“And here’s what you’ve all been waiting for, the final squeeze,” Charisa said as Titian laughed at their struggles. The snake-hair surrounded their necks and heads as Charisa shouted “four.”
Ricky felt the sensation of suffocation and panic setting in, and then she realized: her etheric body didn’t need air. It could not be deprived of oxygen, in fact, it couldn’t be confined. “Everybody, this is an illusion, relax and it will go away,” she said as she followed her own advice. The snake-hair disappeared around all of them, much to the disappointment of the Primeans.
“There you go,” Charisa said as she wrapped her long hair into a stack and returned it to the top of her elongated head, “ya just spoiled our fun. We were teasing a little. So here you all go to the Cusp.”
It was like the bottom dropped out; a sensation of being flushed down a toilet or rinsed down a drain. They swirled in a conglomeration of energy, each separate but congealed into a mass of thoughts and feelings, some afraid, some enjoying the ride, some curious as to what would come next, some calling for Moon and the guides.
After what seemed like seconds or maybe centuries, they landed with a very earthly-feeling thud. The sky was a pale green around them and they appeared to be on a treeless plane of orange grass with large mounds of purple dirt that were being created by ant-like creatures the size of small dogs that skittered away when the new arrivals fell near their territory.
Titian and Charisa were standing on a rocky prominence a few feet away, watching the group dust off their etheric bodies. All in the group were dressed in the clothes their bodies had been wearing when they were abducted and now were thick with purple dirt.
Truman picked up some dirt and examined it, rubbing it together between his fingers with a quizzical look on his face and strangely enough smiled after he did so. He leaned over and said something to Jeff who looked also and nodded in agreem
ent.
“Enough socializing,” Titian rumbled from somewhere in his stomach. “You must walk seventeen clicks. The elders are waiting for your trial at the top of the Cusp. Go that way.” He pointed the hand that had once looked like an elephant’s trunk, but now resembled a lizard, then he and Charisa disappeared.
The group gathered. “So what do we do know people?” Ricky asked. “I think before we go another step we should send another rescue beacon for Moon and the guides. Then we decide if we are all that anxious to walk seventeen clicks, whatever that is, so we can be condemned by a group of Primean-biased judicial types.”
“I agree,” Beth Ann said, as she leaned into the solid-feeling frame of Jim and he leaned into her in return. “This seems real although we know it’s an illusion. The question I would like to ask is, if we are killed here, do we go back to our bodies or does our body die at the same time? Does anyone here know for sure?”
Katera shook her head. “I can only suppose. I think if we are killed here our body won’t survive. It also wouldn’t survive if we are gone long enough so that it has permanent damage. It needs food, water, elimination of waste, and anything else that is usually done for people when they are in a coma. I’m glad Maggie contacted your lawyer.”
George nodded. “Chester was in a coma for almost six months, and he spirit walked the whole time. He was prepared though. He made sure he was in a medical facility before he started weaseling into situations all over time and space.”
“I found something interesting,” Truman said, “did anyone else besides Jeff and me look closely at the dirt?” Everyone shook their heads no. “Pick up some and look closely.
“It’s not just strange looking dirt; I think it’s an amalgam of amethyst and water. I am a geologist and have looked at amethyst under a microscope and it doesn’t present like this. This is more like a snowflake made of silicone dioxide, the main chemical in amethyst, along with some type of iron. It may be naturally occurring in this form on Prime. Shri, Mel and Ben any thoughts on how we could use this to our benefit?” Truman concluded.
Shri was holding the dirt between his palms and feeling its impact. “It would make an excellent amplifier for the beacon we’re sending to Moon and the guides.”
“We better get going on that fast,” Ben contributed. “Remember the ant-things we disrupted when we landed? They’re watching from behind those rocks and might figure out that they outnumber us.”
Shri walked over to the rock pile where Titian had appeared and picked up one of the smaller geodes, examined it and struck it hard on a larger rock, breaking it in two. The inside was green.
“Raw emeralds,” he said. “Sam might have been programed to destroy all that we had but that doesn’t mean we can’t create more.”
He set about breaking several more that looked like the first one, coming up with a small hoard of twelve stones. “I am in the etheric frequency and have the intention that they will act in the same way as their predecessors so that makes them etheric emeralds. Let’s make the grid.”
The breaking of the rocks had frightened the ant-things for the time being and they had skittled back about a mile, so everyone could gather dirt into piles in a pattern that was determined by Mel, Ben and Truman. Ricky and Shri went from mound to mound and charged each of the grid elements with the intention of broadcasting the groups’ location to the spirit world frequency.
When this was accomplished, the group surrounded Ricky who was in the middle of the amethyst-dirt grid holding one of the new etheric emeralds. Everyone extended their hands toward her, and she established the beacon that would be sent to the guides.
It is Ricky and the group. We have changed locations. We are now in an etheric reality chosen by Titian and are going to a place called the Cusp of Lamon that is seventeen clicks from the location of this beacon. We are going to a trial set up by the Primeans. Please come to us quickly. We await your arrival.
This message would continue to repeat in a loop until Moon established their location or the grid was disrupted.
“Shri, is the grid protected? Can the ants disturb it?” Ricky asked as she carefully left the circle.
“It’s shielded for now, but I can’t say for how long. Hopefully, Moon and the others will hear us before the ants want their playground back. I suggest we shapeshift into birds and fly the seventeen clicks. We can always hope we’ll see something that looks like a cusp,” Shri answered.
Quickly, all of them changed into a gigantic flock of eagles and several people volunteered to carry the emeralds. Katera modified the feathers on twelve of the birds, so that a small poach was formed to hold the stones, freeing both beak and talons in case of attack.
Ricky was placed in the center of the flock for protection, surrounded by the bigger male birds. Shri flew out in front, having the most experience in etheric reality terrains. The smaller, more aggressive females surrounded Ricky as well and more of the males flew at the rear of the flock.
As they flew through the green-tinged sky, Ricky’s eagle eyes viewed the landscape before and below. The orange-grass plane changed to a forested area of grey-trunked trees with orange leaves covered in deep blue fruit planted in rows. Ricky could make out movement but was unsure if it was a Primean. Was this even Prime or just a neutral reality in a frequency higher than Gaia?
In front of the group, a cloud of red was visible off in the distance. It was difficult to tell if it was a benign cloud or the beginning of a storm. The wind was increasing in velocity.
Shri’s voice raised an alarm. That red cloud is a flock of flying creatures not a weather pattern. It’s moving towards us quickly.
Shri lead the eagle flock to the right at a forty-five degree angle in hopes of preventing a head-on collision, but the red cloud flock matched them and continued to move purposefully at them. He corrected course several times with the same result. What do you want me to do? I’m thinking of landing it….
Before he could finish, they were beak to beak with a flock of about twenty flying red lizards with gnashing teeth and large glowing eyes. Katera’s voice from beside Ricky: Change to large fire breathing dragons.
No time to wonder if it was possible to morph, fly and defend themselves all at the same time; they just did it. They did not look exactly alike but they all breathed fire effectively. The flying red lizards screamed in surprise and many dropped to the ground, dead or injured among the trees. Those that remained veered away, the group seeming to have lost its bravado. Soon the remaining lizards were left behind, fumbling about in the green-tinged sky.
It was an obstacle. They are testing us. David’s voice came from the front of the dragon flock. Let’s keep flying toward the Cusp; I think we’re making a strong case for our worth.
Shri’s voice: I see a building with a tall spire at the edge of a cliff, see, to the left?
Ricky looked to the left and saw a lake of purple water surrounded by steep rocky cliffs and slightly inland, a massive building cut from brown stone with a spire rising above it. As they moved closer, it was evident that there was a courtyard within a high-walled enclosure and many Primeans, looking up into the sky, awaiting their arrival.
I think we should land outside the walls. This from Bob Reynolds. I don’t want to start out with them in charge. We came to the Cusp. Titian never told us how close we had to be.
There was much discussion flying back and forth, mind to mind, and the general consensus agreed with Bob.
Fine with me. Ricky contributed. We’re just making it up as we go along. Wondering: what next? Should we stay dragons?
Katera’s response: Good vehicle unless we find out otherwise. Everyone be ready for some instant morphing.
They all angled down to the ground, landing in a clearing between the edge of the trees and the side of the enclosure, which had barely enough room to accommodate the bodies of thirty dragons. Some had to shrink down slightly to fit. Ricky was in the middle of the pack, protected by her friends, all looking for th
eir next move. They didn’t have to wait long.
There was a rustling of branches and a swaying of tree trunks, and the first long spindly legs of a troop of creatures that were about half the size of their dragon bodies but twice as ugly. They looked like a cross between octopi and spiders with scales that looked like the armor of an armadillo. They sported large yaws with dagger-like teeth.
Job, who was the closest dragon to the approaching creatures, sent a blast of fire to detour them, but the crawlers shrugged off the warning and continued to advance; about fifty coming toward them out of the woods.
Ben took one massive dragon foot and stumped one of the creatures close to him and it seemed he was successful for a minute. The creature unfolded from its smashed state and popped back to normal with only the tip of one of its eight legs missing and now, very angry, spitting venom.
Gimma took action. She created a long stalk that projected from her left eye socket and brought that eye to a point under the belly of the crawler nearest her to get a good look.
They have no armor on their underside. We need to work in teams. One to flip one to burn.
Quickly the dragon clan followed her suggestion. Gimma flipped the one she had inspected and Bonta breathed fire. The crawler evaporated. All around the Radiant Sisters the other dragons followed their example. After the first ten crawlers were dispatched the rest skittered back into the woods.
Either that shows intelligence or as David said, we just passed another test. Martha commented as she watched the last crawler retreat.
The dragons looked around them and above them, wondering where the next challenge would originate. Perhaps we should go inside the enclosure. We are mushed together in a little place and probably will have to defend this clearing in the near future. Shelia said.
And there’s the other consideration: unless we change shape it will be difficult to get over the wall, but I may have a solution to that. Julia said. I think our dragon larynxes can make some tones familiar to me. Let me try.
