Human Page 3

  There are not enough Haillar worlds to use all our star’s energy. We only take what we need, a tiny part of it. The rest gathers inside the Origin, a vast reservoir of power packed in a sphere the size of our lost planet’s orbit. Enormous as it is, sometime in the future the Haillar-made construct will not be enough to contain all the accumulated power. But this will happen millions of years from now.

  “Welcome, Avatar!”

  An adept wearing the Spirit symbol greets me. He arrived from a short corridor to the right, connecting the great Origin Hall and the Haillar habitat. There aren’t now many people living in our home system, less than ten thousand engineers, most of them Sen’Diessa, either Spirit or Matter.

  “Greetings, Adept!” I respond.

  “I’m Hendir Sen’Diessa, master of the guest chambers. Your House announced your arrival, and we set up the Ascension Ceremony. After the ordeal, you can rest and refresh in your apartments. The chambers have been prepared.”

  Each of the Great Houses has quarters next to the Origin Hall, but we rarely visit them. There is little for us to do here other than the occasional ceremony. I love Ka Loren, but I associate the Origin Hall with sadness, a vast monument for the dead. I fought together with people whose names adorn the walls. I laughed and cried together with them.

  The adept leads me into an alcove facing the fiery storm that is our star. The light is subdued, filtered through tinted panels; otherwise, we’d be blinded in an instant. The only furniture in the alcove is a comfortable armchair with three sets of straps. I take a seat, and the adept secures the belts at feet, hips and head level. All fastenings are in the right place, adjusted for my giant size.

  The Ascension Ceremony is not a pleasant one. The belts are in place to keep the Avatar from hurting herself. I have bad memories of the last time I had to go through this, less than thirteen cycles ago. If death is not a strong enough deterrent to avoid unnecessary risks, the Ascension Ceremony definitely is.

  I’m watching Ka Loren’s furnace and empty my head of all thoughts. My consciousness detaches, and oddly I can see myself strapped in the chair, still serene and motionless. I project myself to the other side of the panel, then slowly descend in the ocean of flames.

  There is nothing to be seen while I journey to the star. I move between flames, I become a flame myself. It is slightly amusing like chasing the clouds, not uncomfortable at all, not yet. I fall further down in the gravity pit of the star. I pass layer after layer of super-heated gases until I reach its plasma core. Pressure and temperature don’t bother me, as I have no body, only spirit.

  The terrifying part is yet to come. I expand eka to gauge the pulse of our star. I feel my core vibrating with Ka Loren’s throbbing heart. Slowly, I attune my vibration with the sun. I don’t know how long it takes, because I’m outside of time. Maybe a moment, maybe a cycle.

  I become one with Ka Loren, and at that moment a fiery pain scorches every atom in my phantom body. It’s like I’m ripped apart in elementary particles.

  Reality shifts.

  I stand on the bridge of the swarm-carrier ‘Light of Bellona’, side by side with my fellow officers and friends. Verdid’s pack of hounds, the best crew in the entire Haillar fleet. Six pairs of matched female adepts, all of us cocky hotshots, proud of our record of victories over the samun. Pretty typical for a carrier bridge crew, be it an all-male or an all-female one.

  This time around, the dice are cast against us. We were scouting the Origin, the Ka Loren system when we were ambushed by emperor Sarissar’s entire fleet. Three Haillar swarms against over five thousand battleships and assorted support vessels. Unless we find a way to retreat, we’re finished. Already ‘The Haillar Sword of Vengeance’, our sister carrier, is slowly disintegrating into pieces.

  I’m covering the port side, together with Reith, alternating blasts of Order with lances of Chaos. We cut paths through the approaching samun ships. Entire squadrons of fliers disintegrate after one or two blows. We are well balanced, but our reserves are falling slowly. Behind us, Faun, our Spirit adept continuously harvests eka from space, from our star, and helps all the others. Next to her, Ethun of Life monitors our vitals and heals us when physically harmed by the increased strain.

  The swarm-carrier shudders.

  “An unlucky blast went through the shield and hit the rear sectors. We lost one hyperspace generator”, reported the youngest member of our war-band. Favriel joined us fresh from the Academy two cycles ago. She’s in charge of defences, together with Lorien of Darkness, who masks our presence or at least fools the samun targeting systems.

  Losing a generator means we cannot port out of Ka Loren, we cannot run. It is effectively a death sentence to all of us, as sure as a photon blast obliterating the bridge.

  “We are running out of eka,” grunts Turin of Fire, who defends the starboard together with Asturien, the adept of Light. Both have a crazy look in their eyes, the beginning of madness. Their matching sisters are on the bridge but performing unconnected tasks. Unlike Reith and I, their pairs have no way to balance their eka use completely, so the strain takes its toll on their minds. It is the fate of any adept overusing eka for destructive purposes unless offset by an opposed affinity.

  “I’m feeding you all the eka I can get,” answers Faun equally exhausted.

  “It’s not enough, here goes the second portal generator.”

  A second shudder and our floors remain tilted port-side. We can’t continue this way, we are being blown to pieces bit by bit. Already our two-seater squadrons are decimated. Friends and family are dead or dying. My husband is there. He’s still alive, as I would have known otherwise. I’m not entirely sure I’m not deluding myself.

  I don’t often think about Telmand Deluan. We were together seventy thousand years ago, so nowadays he’s only a distant memory. But on the carrier’s bridge, it’s different. I’ve only parted with him this morning, and I’m worried sick.

  “‘The Wind of Freedom’ is finished. They’ve just exploded”, announces Verdid in a flat tone. ‘The Wind of Freedom’ is the third carrier in our group. We are the last one left fighting, together with the rapidly dying fliers still out there.

  “At least we took several hundred battleships out,” boasts Favriel defiantly. Most likely less than two hundred ships of the line and several thousand fliers. A dent in Sarissar’s fleet for sure, but hardly a serious one. He’ll have his ships replaced in no time.

  “Join me in a circle,” asks Faun of Spirit. To form a circle means all twelve of us melding our eka together, a rather unstable combination, very short-lived and prone to explosive blasts. At best, it can be used for a single task only. After that, it unravels, and we are left with nothing. I wonder if our Captain, Verdid identified Sarissar’s flagship, and we plan to take it out with a bang. I wonder if it warrants the death of our three swarms. The next mad samun warlord will make himself emperor in less than a day.

  I feed my eka into the circle. Next to me, Reith does the same. Our blasts of Order and Chaos become intermittent, weaker. It doesn’t matter, we are doomed anyway.

  For the briefest moment we are one, all twelve of us merged under Faun’s will. At that moment, Faun hurls herself, hurls all of us, not towards the samun fleet, but in the opposite direction. Towards our sun, towards Ka Loren. She was in sync with the star, she had to be to harvest eka during the battle. And now all twelve of us become one with the Fountain of Life.

  I feel my eka core shatter. I’m drowning. I feel eka filling me, like an instantly overflowing vessel. And immediately after, our meld disintegrates in a titanic solar flare that washes the entire system in a sea of fire.

  Vaporising Sarissar’s entire fleet. Vaporising all our surviving fliers.

  I’ve just killed my husband and everybody I knew on our carrier!

  Reality shifts.

  I am overflowing with eka. Elizabeth Ashar Sen’Dorien has become one with Ka Loren, one with the star.

  The shock had made me relive th
e moment that transformed me into what I am now. My first death, the death of Ashar Deluan, officer in the Haillar fleet on the swarm-carrier ‘Light of Bellona’ and Chaos wilder in Verdid’s war-band.

  I remember being born as the first Avatar, back on Tao Bellona, and not understanding who I am and how I got there. I remember the limitless energy at my fingertips, the immediate descent into madness. I remember extending my mind and meeting a spirit of equal force, quenching my thirst for power, anchoring me in reality. Reith’s mind.

  But I can say for sure that my last moments on the bridge were gone. No memory of Faun’s circle, of our impossible plunge into the sun, of the enemy fleet’s demise and of the death of my husband. Even now, seventy thousand cycles later, the fate of the last samun emperor, Sarissar XXIII, remains a mystery. Our greatest victory in the Annihilation Wars destined to be forever forgotten.

  Oddly enough, amongst all these impossible revelations, the most surprising one is Faun’s role in our last stand. For eons, I had to work with Faun Sen’Diessa, the Queen of Spirit, and I cannot say I liked her. I always regarded her as being a traditionalist, averse to any risks. She was always the one opposing a new race joining the Dominion, always advising us to exercise caution, even when most agreed boldness was required. And yet, when all was lost, Faun was the one who took a terrible gamble, a gamble so insane that in seventy thousand years nobody imagined it could be taken. Not even us.

  This was the origin of the Avatars, a desperate act of madness, from the last person I expected to be prone to impulsive actions. This also explains the nature of the Queens, we have become pure eka beings. I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense, but in a very practical one. Any Haillar adept has an eka core, some bigger than others. But we are effectively made of eka, and this explains the disparity in power. When we are destroyed, we use eka to create new bodies, to give them life. We spend most of the energy we have in the process, so we come back to Ka Loren to replenish.

  For all our ageless existence, we cannot have children, we cannot cheat death, we cannot create life in any other way. But we can regenerate our bodies and infuse them with life, again and again.

  My newly found memories are not here to stay. I’m aware that when I wake-up, I will remember nothing. For some reason that I cannot even begin to comprehend, the Fountain of Life decided to keep its secrets, and it only allows us to glimpse them briefly each time a new Queen is ascending. Or more appropriately, each time an old Queen is reborn.

  Reality shifts.

  I’m back in my body, a bundle of pain strapped in the armchair. My last memory is attuning with the star core and disintegrating. I focus and push the pain aside, then gather my eka. A sea of power awaits me, for my Core is back to what it was before the Scourge assault on Aldeea. I’m back being a queen.

  I can’t escape the feeling I lost something, that part of me is no more. It’s a baseless feeling, I know. Yet every time I ascend, I’m left with a strange aftertaste, a melancholy I cannot explain. Well, soldier on Elizabeth Ashar, you have work to do.

  CHAPTER 4 (PETER)

  Aleen opened the door and smiled sadly.

  I was once again surprised by her soft expression, her big questioning eyes. The large irises rimmed with green gave her face a childish, almost innocent appearance, yet now I knew she was a fully grown woman probably my age or close enough. The Haillar physique had played a trick on us from the very beginning, so we always underestimated them. We regarded them, especially the women, as little more than children. Ellandra has shown us the error once and for all, and I don’t think I’ll take a Haillar lightly ever again.

  “Greetings, Peter!”

  “Greetings, Aleen!”

  “I’ve heard about Liz. I’m sorry! She was a good friend and a wonderful person.”

  I swallow, but I can’t utter a sound. She was indeed a wonderful person, but for me she could have been so much more than a friend. But now it was too late. She was only a memory, a shadow.

  “I’m sorry about Ellandra too! She was …”. I couldn’t even express what Ellandra was. A friend, a queen, a force of nature.

  “It’s not the same, Ashar Sen’Dorien will always protect us. She will be reborn as a new Avatar.”

  Here I came again across this firm belief in death and reincarnation, in the Haillar queens’ eternal existence. Since Ellandra’s death, each and every Haillar I met seemed utterly convinced of her immortality. I wonder if talking religion with people from Earth’s medieval past would have been a similar experience. Except the Haillar were not middle-age peasants, but the driving force behind a galactic empire. I still had difficulties reconciling the two sides of their society: their apparently naïve and rustic ways, and the military fighting machine able to obliterate enemies the size of a small moon.

  “Yes, she will be reborn…”

  I wondered if I would make it to the Haillar homeworld and if I’d ever come across this new Ashar Sen’Dorien queen. I had a strong feeling that if I do, she will fall well short of her predecessor, my little violet-eyed friend.

  “Aleen, can I enter?”

  The Lore Mistress stumbled back mortified.

  “Of course, Peter. My deepest apologies, keeping you at the door was very inconsiderate. Please come by and take a seat. I’ll join you in a moment, as I bring in the tea.”

  I would have gladly skipped the part about her bringing in the tea. I swear to god, if I would never taste tea it would be not a moment too soon. It might sound like blasphemy for a Brit, but I was always a coffee person. On top of this, Haillars’ propensity to serve their bland tea at every social occasion was bound to cure me of any desire to taste plant infusions ever again.

  I took a seat in a small alcove by the window, harbouring two armchairs and a low table. It looked almost like a small interior balcony facing the magnificent view of the Aldeean coast. Aleen joined me a moment later, with a pot and two cups.

  “I hope you and all other humans are well.”

  “We are, indeed.”

  No need to mention that Christine couldn’t join me because she was still under medical care, after poisoning herself with local booze, spiked with god knows what.

  “My Captain would want to meet the Warden. We are stranded on Aldeea, with no way to go home. Human and Aldeean leaders should come together and define our place in your world.”

  “Of course. I’m sure Alon would have visited you earlier. However, we are still transferring troops back to Shahar and Dorien, not to mention supplying the fleets in orbit.”

  “There is also the small matter of our sustenance. We will run out of human food in a few months, less than a half cycle.”

  “Subsistence shouldn’t be a problem. Our Life Chapter can adapt Haillar plants to your physiology, as they’ve done before for other species. We can’t guarantee the taste though, I am told it’s nothing like the original.”

  The prospect of forever eating the culinary equivalent of the awful Haillar tea was filling me with dread. I guess beggars can’t be choosers, but I still hoped Ewan and Charles would be strongly incentivised to come up with something better. I politely suggested they should work closely with Remelda, and Aleen promised to arrange their introduction to the Healer Academy, which doubled as a biology research centre.

  Time to move to the second part of my agenda.

  “Aleen, Ellandra mentioned we were here at her invitation. We never properly understood what her invitation implied.”

  “Ellandra’s message was signed with the Chaos symbol, so it was a formal Sen’Dorien invitation. This made you her wards. You were placed under her House’s protection, but she was also personally responsible for your behaviour.”

  “In front of the Warden?”

  “In front of the entire Dominion. Peter, I’m not sure you realise: The Warden is the highest authority on Aldeea, the queens are the highest authority in the Haillar Dominion.”

  “Am I allowed to ask how many queens you have?”

  �
��Twelve.”

  “So, the entire Haillar Dominion is led by twelve queens, and Ellandra was one of them?”

  “Correct.”

  Blimey.

  “Are we still under House Sen’Dorien’s protection?”

  “Indeed you are, why wouldn’t you be?”

  “Ellandra is dead.”

  “She may be dead, but Ashar Sen’Dorien survives.”

  “Does this mean the new queen took over Ellandra’s commitments?”

  “The new Avatar is Ashar Sen’Dorien. She will respect her word. How can she do otherwise?”

  We were getting nowhere fast. I decided to take Aleen’s statements at face value without entangling with their religious beliefs.

  “Under these circumstances, can some of us leave Aldeea? Can we travel to your homeworld?”

  “You can, but our Home World is no more, it was destroyed by the samun 80,000 cycles ago.”

  This was new and unexpected.

  “Who are the samun?”

  “An enemy we vanquished ages ago. A really long time ago, before the Dominion even existed.”

  Good. At least this meant that there wasn’t a second murderous alien race around to threaten Earth. Though, the Haillar completely destroying another race wasn’t exactly reassuring either. Our galaxy was rapidly becoming a very complicated place to live in.

  “Ellandra said she was born on Haillar’s homeworld. How is that even possible?”. Please don’t feed me another bit of religious dogma!

  “Not even Ashar is old enough to have lived on Oedir, our lost world. What exactly did she say?”

  “That she was born at the Heart of the Haillar Dominion.”

  “That would be Tao Bellona, the Mirror World. The place the Council rules from. The place the first Dominion accords were signed.”

  We finally had a name for the Haillar capital. We now had a destination for our pilgrimage, but not yet a way there.

  “Would we be allowed to visit the Mirror World?”

  “I don’t see why not. The Sen’Dorien have holdings there. In fact, I believe that Ashar’s new Avatar will arrive there soon.”