Between Darkness and Light Trilogy (9 page)

I was right, the chairs are very
comfortable. I look up and Aurora holds a beautiful violet crystal
for us to see, then holds out her other hand below it.

“Each of you take my hand and gaze into the
crystal. Share my vision of Novanus, concentrate on it, try to make
it come to life.” She catches my eye then. “Normally this is much
easier and requires only the crystal holder to envision the person
in their mind to be effective, but I have tried that already to no
avail. Something or someone very powerful is blocking access to
him, and we must find a way to break through that barrier. Now open
your mind to mine and concentrate.”

Her vision of Novanus is quite different
from mine! Where I see him as an overbearing exaggerated annoyance,
she sees a man wracked with the pain of recent loss. She remembers
the boy she knew with an infectious smile that she could not
resist. He is a man now, the most powerful sorcerer who walks among
the currently awakened family, highly advanced in all the
disciplines of this place, and more. He has walked among this
family for a very long time… He and Aurora have seen many
generations come and go; and yet they are ageless. He is a fierce
man, he does nothing half-heartedly… including love. He is
shattered by the death of his only son; they had been extremely
close for a very long time. Aurora sees… her brother. I have a
difficult time accepting her vision of him, so diametrically
opposed to my own, but then, I don’t really know him, and she does.
Her brother; she loves him deeply, much like I love William. If it
was William who was missing… I would tear the world apart to find
him. I must accept her vision as true.

I concentrate on her understanding of
Novanus, willing his image to come to life in my mind, but
something is missing. His…
song
, that which I
hear
and seemingly no one else does; his is intense, even for one of the
Imperial family. I had thought it was because of his overly
flamboyant nature, but now… it fits with Aurora’s knowledge of him.
His
song
is loud and exceedingly complex because there is so
much to him; he is astoundingly vibrant, very experienced, and in a
great deal of pain. I add his
song
to the image I hold now
in my mind and try to share my addition with the others. At first I
sense trepidation from them both, they probably can’t sense what
I’m adding, but finally they accept it. The
song
I’ve added
begins to change on its own somehow, the pain becomes louder, first
slowly and then with increasing intensity. The vision in my mind
changes as well, becomes thin and haggard, his eyes filled with
pain, then surprise. I feel as though I’m suddenly yanked forward
by Aurora’s hand, then my senses are assaulted by angry light,
shrieking disharmony and then… nothing.

~~~

Why am I lying on the floor? This isn’t the
padded floor of the room we were in, this is smooth, almost
impossibly so. I hear breathing nearby. “Celeste? Aurora?” Cloth
rustles in the darkness.

“Shi'ahn?”

“Celeste! Yes, it’s me. Aurora?” There is no
answer, just very slow breathing to my right. I move toward her,
find her neck and check her pulse. It’s very slow, but steady.
“Aurora, can you hear me? Aurora!” Celeste moves near.

“Here, let me.” She remains silent for a few
moments. “Physically she seems uninjured, but her mind… it has
taken a substantial blow – she is in a coma. I suspect we were all
intended harm, but that she blocked whatever it was that attacked
us.”

While waiting for her to assess Aurora, I
notice that my music sounds strange – muffled somehow. “Where are
we?”

“I do not know for sure, though I have a
terrible suspicion. Shi'ahn, I am unable to manipulate this place…
can you?”

I try to excite the air particles around us
enough to generate some light, but nothing happens. It’s almost as
if… there isn’t any air to excite; yet I breathe… what’s going on?
I try the same on a bit of my skirts, and they eventually glow
softly. “That took more effort that it should have – I am unable to
effect our surroundings, however. It’s almost as if there isn’t
anything there.” I send out a subliminal burst of vibration to
assess the boundaries of this place, but nothing comes back. I sing
out a note, but no echo returns. “I don’t understand, it's as if
our surroundings aren't real.”

Celeste’s voice sounds very concerned, “I’m
afraid I do. I suspect that we are within Aurora’s crystal.”

“But how could we be in her crystal?”

“There is a moment, while using a transport
crystal, when we become as one with it, in a sense passing through
it before taking form at the destination. In that moment we are
more than data, but less than matter, our mass having been
converted into energy. It is the transition state, and we, I fear,
are trapped in it.”

“I wonder…” I reach down to Aurora and find
her hand still cradling the crystal exactly as she did before we
ended up here. Celeste speaks urgently.

“Do not take the crystal from her – do not
break that contact – it may be all that maintains our reality in
here.”

“But… how can the crystal be in her hand
while we are in the crystal?”

She sighs, “We aren’t corporeal creatures
right now, Shi'ahn; we are beings of energy; representations of our
true selves without being the entire person. It’s rather like data
compression, coupled with energies commensurate with all that we
were and had with us when we entered the crystal.”

“How does one uncompress on the other
side?”

“As we pass out of the crystal it must
surrender all that it has taken in, re-assembling us according to
the data that is… essentially what we are right now.”

“Does it take any additional power to do
this?”

“Normally, no, the power needed for the
entire transfer is provided at the beginning by the mind in control
of the crystal. In this case, Aurora. In our current situation,
though… I’m not sure. Our momentum has been broken and it has now
taken us far longer than the entire process should have – more
power may be required.”

“Can we provide the energy needed?”

“No, I do not believe so – it must come from
the same source that started the process.”

“But… she is in a coma. Is there any way we
can get extra energy from her?”

“No. What energy and direction she already
provided should still be available, but she cannot provide more if
it is necessary.”

“Then how do we leave this strange
place?”

She shakes her head “I don’t know. I doubt
that it is actually possible, even if Aurora were able to help. You
see, sometimes people vanish and are never seen again, and this is
believed to be one of the ways that happens.”

“I won’t accept that! Tell me more about our
current state.”

“Shi'ahn, I don’t know any more than I have
already told you – this situation is as new to me as it is to you.
I’ve never heard of anyone escaping something like this. Of course,
that could simply mean that no one has shared the secret after
discovering it.”

“Well theorize, then. Tell me, how much
energy do you think it takes to keep us here?” She pauses in
thought before answering.

“Quite a bit, but I have no idea at what
rate it is drained away. I have heard of injuries occurring when
vast distances are crossed while using inferior crystals… when the
transport takes overly long to complete. Sometimes parts end up
missing; it can be fatal.”

“Is it known what the cause of the injuries
is – the distance itself or the time the transport takes?”

“It is theorized to be the time, that the
energies necessary to cross the distances dissipates quickly,
leaving insufficient power to fully re-create the individual at
their destination. It may also be the fault of the traveler – that
they may not have had a powerful enough mind to provide the
necessary energy for the transport. The fortunate ones have lost
only some belongings, while the unfortunate…”

“So, if we leave our belongings behind, we
may mitigate our potential losses.”

“That is assuming that we find a way out in
the first place.”

“You say we are more than data, but less
than mass?” I carefully inspect my hand, it seems normal. I wave it
a bit and it changes… pixelizes. As though it is insubstantial.
Unreal.

“Could it be?” Celeste waves her hand
around, then passes it through the floor.

“Shi'ahn, I believe it is our perception of
ourselves that holds us here! All we need do is convince our minds
that our bodies are insubstantial and we can escape!”

“What will happen when Aurora leaves this
place with the crystal in her grasp?”

She pauses in thought, “I suspect that this
place is a construct created by what currently passes as our minds,
made possible by the presence of the crystal, and will cease to
exist once our perception of the crystal has left.”

“Then we all must go at once.”

“Without our possessions.” We dare not waste
more time, we both reach down to disrobe Aurora. We have to tear
much of the cloth to keep from disturbing her hold on the crystal.
She has quite a bit hidden in her clothes, but hopefully she will
consider her life more important than physical possessions.
“Celeste, if we aren't physically real, why do we have to rip
Aurora's clothes in order to remove them?”

She sighs, “Think of our minds as programs.
The 'code' specifies the means by which we interact with
everything. In normal space, we would have to tear cloth to remove
Aurora's dress without disturbing her hold on her crystal, and so
we must go through those steps now to separate ourselves from the
items we wish to leave behind.”

I suppose it makes sense. Celeste and I
quickly disrobe ourselves, leaving almost all behind. I pause then,
holding three things, my transport crystal, my spell ring and the
pouch of food. Celeste looks at me questioningly. “We need to leave
as much as possible, Shi'ahn.”

I hold up the transport crystal, “But the
Emperor just gave this to me – won’t he be angry if I lose it so
soon?”

“Would you rather chance losing your head?”
She has a point; I toss the crystal onto my pile of clothing. It
hurts, but I also remove my spell ring – it is precious to me, but
no more so than my life. I keep the pouch. The look she gives me
clearly indicates that she thinks I’m making a mistake.

“I saw Novanus momentarily before we ended
up here, he looked emaciated, as though he hadn’t eaten in a long
time. I’d hate to have him die of hunger after all this.”

“You have food in there?”

I shrug, “You never know for sure what needs
the future will bring, but hunger is one of life’s constants.” She
grins as we lean down to pick up Aurora, linking our arms around
her back and supporting her weight. Celeste clasps her other hand
over Aurora’s crystal bearing hand, so I place my arm around her to
keep us from losing contact. It certainly is a new experience for
me, holding two naked women in my arms. I hope we don’t have any
witnesses… besides Novanus, which will be pretty bad on it’s own.
Well, even that must be better than the alternative. We spin around
as quickly as we can, until we get that odd, pixilated look, and
throw ourselves to the floor.

Chapter 6

Dungeon Life

We spin through the air and then hit
something hard. Actually, Celeste hits something hard, as to a
lesser extent does Aurora. My fall is broken almost entirely by
them, though it still isn’t something I would choose to repeat, the
arm I had around Celeste hurts. “Celeste, are you alright? Celeste?
Oh rats.” I feel for her pulse, which is steady. “Aurora? No, still
out.” Her pulse continues to be quite slow, but it remains
constant. Then I realize I should check us over to see if anything
is missing. My pouch remains in my grasp, and Aurora still holds
her crystal. I remove it from her weak grasp and place it in my
pouch for lack of a safer place. I suppose… feeling pretty darned…
odd, I frisk each of them to make sure no body parts are missing;
we’re mostly fine. Celeste has a nasty bump on the back of her head
and her back is badly scraped. So is the arm I had around her, for
that matter. Aurora is also rather scraped up, but I’m sure it
could have been worse. I turn my attention to our surroundings and
notice my music no longer sounds deadened, at least there are
proper acoustics around us. I inhale deeply in what I intend as
preparation for a sigh of relief, and notice something I’ve been
too preoccupied to catch so far. The air smells and tastes like a
waste pit! When I get my coughs under control, I hear a terrible
rasping sound only an arms length away, it sounds almost like
laughter.

“You… get… used to it.” Listening carefully
I
hear
a sad echo of his former song, there doesn’t seem to
be much life left in him.

“Novanus – you sound terrible!” I need light
to access him, but I don’t want to reveal much of myself… I cause
dim light to appear above and behind me after arranging my hair to
cover as much as possible, hopefully he will see only a dim outline
of my head. I can’t help my gasp as I see him. No longer does he
radiate brilliance and power, he is faded, literally wasted away;
his body is now only slightly larger than mine. His hair lies limp
and dull, his clothes are in tatters, and he has quite obviously
been extensively tortured, though most of his wounds have partially
healed. His eyes, at first dull and empty, widen as I lean toward
him.

“Clarice?”

“No, Shi'ahn – you’ve seen me from a
distance before, in…” He interrupts.

“Water?”

“I have none, but wait… this place is quite
damp.” I cup my hands and cause water to condense into them, then
hold what I have caught up to his lips. He catches nearly every
drop. His voice loses much of the dry rasp, but is still quite
weak.