When I Tell You A Story: Book 1 (Black River Trilogy)
Page 1
The Sun,
the Moon,
and the Muse
________________
A story by
Himalaya Goswami
Hello,
Welcome to the galaxy. .
I am a ghost. And my name is Stretto. I am not from around here (don’t tel anyone).
I come from a planet cal ed Odysseus, one of the 7 realms in the galaxy. Yes, we share
the same galaxy, and that can be an acceptable reason for both of us to kick out al
the bul shit, and become friends. And life is unpredictable, anyways.
Aliens exist. It's the first truth you must realize, because you may know it already.
But just knowing won’t be enough. You must realize. So, Earthmen, sit tight,
because i’l take you on an adventurous ride across the galaxy, and teleport you to
the times as old as the time itself.
Before we begin, let me tel you a bit about major civilizations in our galaxy. We
refer to them as ‘Realms’, environments which can sustain multiple life forms. Earth
is the realm of mortals, one of the 7 kingdoms in the Black River galaxy (yes, that’s
it's real name). Where i come from is a place around 3000 light years away from
here, the kingdom of Odysseus.
It is the empire of King Suran, the God of oceans and life underneath. It is under his
watch that aquatic life survives and flourishes, and his mighty shield $#$@%$
defends al the peace loving aquarians al over the galaxy against those who desire
disruption of peace.
The superintendent of the 7 realms is God Indra, the king of Amravati. Oh, mortal.
Amravati: the paradise.
The city of Amravati is a city always seen for the first time. The entire city is made up
of white stones that shine like pearls, it is a never ending panorama of beauty.
Amazingly beautiful angels, music that can revive the dead. Lord Indra lives in his
palace at the centre of the city. No outsider is al owed in the city except on a
previously scheduled appointment.
Planets are different from realms. They can sustain one just life form. There are lots
of establishments in the galaxy that i am aware of, but not al . It is, indeed, a vast
stretched space.
There’s a planet in our galaxy where rock monsters live. They’re huge, and they don’t
talk much. And there’s a planet where you can find cyborgs. Yes, those
trans-humanoid creatures exist as wel . There is a treasure planet beyond the
horizon, and there’s a planet where time flows backwards. As a result, they’re born
old and die young. And their life is ful of surprises.
Now, let me tel you this. There isn’t just one world that we see around us. It is just a
part of the complete world. The other half is a world that co-exist with the external
world. It is the world of mind.
There was a time when the world of mind was a routinely visited place by the
mortals. The cafe of muses, which was once overfil ed with humans looking for
remarkable ideas and inspiration, is an empty place now. Now, they are mostly
involved in the world of brain.
Ah, one thing remains. I forgot to tel you about me. I am an Orr, a tiny creature
made up of super condensed plasma extracted from the black hole near Odysseus. I
am a shapeshifter, and my real shape is a mystery to myself. If you’ve seen an
amoeba (more probably an image of it), you won’t find it difficult to imagine how i
look like. I look like a black amoeba with a tiny white dot flowing around my stature.
That’s my eye. I can change my appearance upon my wish. And i got my powers
from the dream realizing stone. Yes, that exists as wel !
My most favorite shape is of a water bubble. And of a spoon. If you ask me how i
forgot my genuine self. I would start crying and blabbering about how i ended up
sweeping my own subconscious memory. And my master built the machine that
made me forget my own bloody form and color. But i could not forget who my
master is. A Strange world.
I am a slave. Yes. you heard it right. But I am a different kind of slave. I am an almost
free Orr, answerable to no one in the universe but my master.
My master is the muse of science. It is under her gentle shade that scientific
advancements are made in the galaxy. Unlike the mortals, gods prefer to have
telepathic conversations. But this accomplice isn’t limited to the divine. Even
mortals have the capability to transmit thoughts through the mind. A mind is the
door for the other world, the one that completes the external world. And that is why
the mind was made. You see, every invention was a thought in the beginning, an
idea in the mind of its inventor. From a simple stool to the revolutionary network of
the networks, it was my master broadcasting ideas into the galaxy which found their
way of manifestation through the mind.
But soon, the sweet days turned sour, and a dark shadow fel upon her destiny. A
series of tragic events occurred to her one peaceful life and blowed off the light of
innovation. And in the darkness, terrible things happened to her. She was flamed,
scorched by evil spirits, and caged in an object without any way out.
We tried to find her. We spread in the vast stretches of the galaxy. But we could not
find any traces of her, not even with the divine eyes. And al this because of a wish
she wished. A simple as simple as a woman could wish: to spend her life with the one
she loved.
The galaxy is ful of mysteries and strange things. There’s a river where molten gold
flows, there’s a garden of the dead souls. There is a tower where al the black magic
spel s are inscribed, and a mil ion evil souls are sealed inside the wal s of tower. I can
go on, and tel you of the 12 angry sisters, the 27 wives of moon, the incomplete
twins, the tree of life, and the wheel of time. But that would only distract us from
our motive. You want a story and i wil give you one.
And this is not an ordinary story. If you like light-hearted stories untouched by
suspense, lack of adventure or magic, and talks only about a happy couple and their
romance, then there are a lot of awful books about the same. They are just another
brick in the wal . But if you like stories about the universe and aliens, about clever and unreasonably attractive men who want to become gods, about the many worlds and
civilizations out there, about burning skeletons and witches, about a dream
fulfil ing stone, about muses, great inventions, heartbreaks and betrayals, about
black magic and disguised intentions, then stay. And keep on keepin on.
Our story’s humble beginnings stretch back to the time when the universe was stil
in its early years of development. It is said, the creator does not creates the universe.
He just makes everyone aware of it. And with awareness came the desire to know, to
learn, to realize, and to apply it for the upliftment of their races.
They were looking for knowledge. Without knowledge, there was no purpose of their
knowledge that would help them transcend the limitations of mortal form and fulfil
their destinies.
And the Goddess was pleased. She decided to show them the way of true wisdom,
and the path to discover their true nature. The devi asked her carrier, the white swan
to fetch three pearls from the ocean of milk. The swan dip its beak in the ocean and
picked three white gleaming pearls size of a tangerine. Then, she touched her lips
over those pearls and turned them into the seeds of infinite knowledge. The three
jewels were the pil ars of absolute knowledge. The first pearl became the beacon of
scientific knowledge, the second one became the infinite repository of music, and
the third became an infinite ocean of arts. Those were the three pil ars of knowledge:
Science was created for the brain. It was meant for the advancement of life. music
was created for soul. It was to connect with the divine. And arts were created for the
mind. They were meant to generate beautiful thoughts that spread love and beauty.
She dispersed them in the galaxy, to choose a worthy mind, body and heart who
would become a container for the stones. The container of the pearl would become
immortal. And the seeds traveled across the vast spaces of the universe to find their
mates, the ones who would become the light for al the seekers and builders. They
passed through many kingdoms, and at last, they final y made their choices.
A little boy who was about to kil himself because of his inability to speak was chosen
by one of the seeds, and he was identified as the muse of music. The other seed
chose a blind girl who became the muse of arts. Both of them were truly worthy,
because they had seen suffering and desired to end the sufferings of others.
But the third seed made a different choice. It chose a child who wasn’t born yet, a
royal blood who was already blessed with everything in abundance. The seed of
science entered the womb of queen Gemini, wife of King Suran, and after two
months, she gave birth to a lovely girl. They named her Vyana, and she became the
muse of science.
Like your parents, the parents of gods too take pride in their children’s
accomplishments. It was not very long that their daughter’s hidden powers revealed
themselves and her fame spread like scent. They wrote songs about her, and
mothers told her stories of inventions as bedtime stories to little kids who dreamt of
being inventors. The entire galaxy was undergoing a revolutionary transformation.
They cal ed it ‘The Era of Science’. And Vyana became the new god.
Vyana created a machine that could teleport a person anywhere in the universe with
the click of an instant, warping al the constraints of time and space. A distance of
mil ions miles could be covered within seconds. Her invention changed the way
people traveled across the galaxy, and it was now possible to reach the creators
without lapsing a time of mil ion years during the cosmic journey.
The good thing about the desires is also its bad thing. They keep growing, like a
never ending stream of water. After the invention of a teleportation machine, her
next ambition was to create new life.
You must know, even Gods don’t have al the answers. Even they don’t know it al .
But even after many cycles of the wheel, she could not create a machine that could
generate life artificial y. Her attempts to nudge the creators failed, and misery
entered her life through the back window. She was mocked everywhere, and turned
to be a synonym of pride and ego. She was given an example of what happens when
pride fal s. And her days of glory diminished like the sun at dusk.
And when she had lost al the hopes, she took shelter in the sacred temple of Odysseus, the Blue
Menhir. She devoted herself to the service of devi who resided inside the temple. It was an example
of immense beauty. 1313 stairs that led to an inverted hemispherical dome with four doors in four
directions. It was built to signify the balance between science, arts and music. And in the temple,
she found a way to end al her sufferings.
Our story begins the night King Suran dreamt an unusual dream. And this was his dream.
The King dreamt that he was on the way back to his kingdom after winning a war.
He had triumphed over Hyperion, one of the 13 realms of the galaxy, turning it into
the ground of death and blood of every man, woman and child. He himself had set
the kalpataru on flames. The tree of life turned to ashes, its gigantic trunk was
smoldering, and the smoke erupting out of it was reaching the sky. The black
smokes formed a cluster of blackness as if it was a black spot of shame.
He saw that he had j oined h
ands w
ith the chaos skeletons, t he vigilante of chaos and
death. The other kings and gods were cursing him for the treacherous deeds he had
done. And the king was was laughing at them, disregarding their implications. His
mouth was brimming with rum, potion of the devil.
‘What made a wise King so merciless that he turned to be a demon?’ one of them
asked. ‘Did you not think of your own when you butchered them al ?’ the o
ther voice
yel ed. ’Do not cal him a King. he deserves no more,’ an old voice asserted.
‘You can change your mind, but you cannot change the consequences of it,’ a voice
took over al the other hurles and curses, a nd silenced t hem a l . It was a clear, patient
voice with a sense of harmony. It didn’t complain, it didn’t praise. ‘The Wheel wil
not stop moving, and neither would the t ime cease. You have c hosen to b
ought upon
your kingdom the same fate you bought upon the divine Kingdom, Hyperion. You
wil lay on your bed the way you have made it.’
The king was yawning inside his royal chariot, bel y laughing at them. He swayed his
fingers to command his new army of smoldering skeletons to silence the infernal
voices. The smoldering yel ow ghosts made of mortal bones rocketed up in the sky
and burned al the impressions of kings with the beam of fire erupting out of their
chest. The last voices the king heard were of explosions, one after the other. The
silence prevailed again, and he dozed into the arms of sleep.
The King woke up with a shot, sweating from top to b
ottom, his h
eart reluctant t o b
urst o
ut o
f his
chest. He was breathing heavily, and took his time to realize it was not real. It was just a dream.
His wife, Queen Gemini was lying beside him, deep in her sleep, her face gleaming in the
moonlight from the window with flying curtains. He took a sigh of relief, and the desire for rum
urged inside him. A flying saucer appeared with two beautiful egg s haped s aucers, o
ne f il ed w
ith
water and the other with rum.
The king gulped the liquid, and it burned al the anxiety that had gripped h
im. T
he n
ext m
oment,
he was no more afraid. The act of siding with the sinful didn’t feel shamefaced to him anymore.
His cheeks touched the pil ow again, and the dream recurred as soon as he fel again i n the l ap o
f
sleep.
When he woke up, he found his chariot had stopped. A foul smel had fil ed the
closed chamber, and he rushed out of the golden cart only to see what he feared the
most.
He found himself at the foot of The Blue Menhir, the establishment as old as the time
itself, was now burst open from top. It had been demolished, its sky high dome
made of white marble was shattered and its withered pieces were scattered over the
1313 stairs to the temple. The 8 iron gates had been lacerated around the corners,
torn apart like pages in a notebook.
His eyes were fil ed with tears, and an unimaginable fear gripped him. He looked
around. Streams of smoke were erupting out as far as he could see. The sky had
turned black. And he heard nothing but cries of children and women, their screams
as they were burned alive. It were the chaos skeletons, the creatures who relished on
the flesh and blood of the innocent, and danced to death in the screams of women
and children. They had not just burnt his kingdom, the two faced skeletons were
more cruel than the imaginable. They had murdered the oracles, but they couldn’t
stop there.
The king’s body lost life for a minute as the treacherous thought of the stone being
stolen gripped his mind. He was shivering, and began climbing the stairs. Hopping
over the shattered stone pieces, he headed to somewhere only he knew the way to.
He kept counting the stairs as he climbed them up, looking for a specific mark that
would decide his fate for the remainder of his life. After a long hurdle of finding the
specific mark, a bird with one wing. He positioned himself at the mark, and
adjusted his height to see through a tiny hole at the wal of temple in front of him.
And as he found what he was looking for, the view chil ed his nerves. It was what he
feared. The oracles were lying dead, and the gemstone was missing. It was the
source of energy for Odysseus, one of the 9 stones of incredibility and immense
power.
The king woke up again, this time shaking terribly. His legs were dancing in fear. He looked
around again, satisfied himself of the dream and went back to sleep. But he had realized that it