Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1)

Stars of Charon

A novel by Sam Coulson

Cover Art by Erik
Castellanos

Thanks to my
wife Allison for everything, and Carley, my oldest friend, for always being
there, and always pushing me.

With a
Special Thanks to:
Ben
“Loid” Burns, Hillary Wilkerson, and Claire Beganz Bone for helping me develop
and edit my tale.

Chapter 1.

Every
organic inch of me was frozen solid, melted into to vapor, and flash-forged
into something new a million times a second. The chemical fires roared around
me in the dark as the final war raged out under the light of the sun. The air was
charged with lightning and thick with the scent of sulfur. I was everywhere and
nowhere. The winds of the apocalypse blew across the blue-green forests. They
devoured the tide-less oceans and the freshly plowed fields. My family, my
friends, the trees, and the beasts were all ground into dust by the torrent.

As the
wind continued to blow, the dust was lifted and remade.

I was
left with sensation only. Without thought there was no time. Only agony, and
the agony was infinite. It took my body from me. It held my memories up as if
written on a glass, and shattered every moment of my life into fragments that
rained down around me. It was the end of a world, and I alone lived through the
fires of the apocalypse.

And
then, after time unknown, the apocalypse ended.

Somehow,
I remained.

When I
awoke there was no light.

All I perceived
was the directionless dark.

Slowly,
my mind returned.

I could
think.

Feel.

Reason.

I knew
which way was up.

I knew
that I was lying on large, smooth stone.

Cold.
Yes. It was cold.

I wiggled
my fingers and toes. Moved my arms and legs. My body was responsive and lithe. Though
I fit into it perfectly, there was foreignness to the movements. My legs bent
as they should. I stretched and flexed and felt my muscles respond readily and
automatically. They were like the varied components of a mill, or the perfectly
aligned mechanics of a clock. My body did what it should, but I couldn’t
understand quite how.

I sat up
and pulled my legs under me.  I felt the elasticity of skin stretching over my
knees. It was an odd sensation, one that I knew I had never felt before. But
still, I could recall nothing else.

I sat in
the dark trying to gather the few slivers of my memories that were still whole
enough to grasp. Words were the first thing to come to me. I used my tongue to try
to give shape to the sounds in my mind, but the sounds were wrong. The deep
vibration of consonants that echoed in my mind were slurred and ugly as my
tongue tripped over the forms.

I do not
know how long I sat there in the darkness making silly noises and marveling at
how my muscles moved. I do not believe I slept. Although my body felt new and
untried, it knew its business. I could stand, walk, and balance on one foot. My
mind recalled the world around me. I knew I was deep in a complex of caverns.

My throat
was dry and the soft skin on my lips was cracked and parched. The taste in the
back of my mouth was bitter and acidic. I was thirsty. Very thirsty. I heard
the trickle of water in the distance, and crawled slowly in the dark to find
the outlet. I tasted the water. Somehow I knew from the taste that it was clean
and safe to drink. Time passed, and as it did, I knew that the wrenching pain
in my stomach was hunger. I’m not sure if I should call it intuition or
instinct, but I knew that if I followed the stream to its source it would take
me out of the caves to the surface where I could find something to eat.

So I
climbed. Climbing out of the cave was easier than I had expected. As I
continued followed the sound of water, a dim and distant light began to
illuminate my path. I found my body was agile. My arms were strong. The
strength felt like it was part of a dream or an old man’s long-forgotten
memory. When I encountered a steep slab of stone, I found that the tips of my
fingers and toes could easily find a hold. My arms were able to swiftly pull me
up. My fingernails and toenails were black with mud. It felt good.

As I
leapt from stone to stone, I felt an incredible freedom. It was as if someone
had loosed bindings from my feet and hands. I knew a word for what I was
feeling: it was youth. I knew I had felt this way before, but the memory was
old, so, so very old.

Chapter 2.

The
memories come unexpectedly, like the bite of a small piece of glass that gets
stuck in the sole of your foot. When I try to ignore them it only delays the
inevitable. Their intensity grows like smoke, smothering my mind. Sooner or
later I must stop and face the shades.

Sometimes
they are images: a blue-tinged sunset in a soft gray sky, or the stars sliding
across the night. Other times a tune will fill my head. I try to whistle or hum
the tunes, but my tongue and mouth cannot mimic the sounds. Other times I hear
voices that are alien to my ears and mind. I see faces that are, pale,
grotesque and frightening. But when I look closer, the faces fade into
shapelessness. Like shadows cast across an uneven stone.

The
memories are more than just images and sounds. They are full of muddled and
chaotic feelings. A joyful song inexplicably brings me to weep. The image of a
desolate plain of green-crystal sand leaves me longing for something lost that
I can never find or even remember. The dark faces with dim purple eyes, and
thick calloused skin make my blood rush and my face flush red with physical
desire.

There
is an echo of something else deep inside me.

I clearly
remember my first step from the cave into the light of dawn. The mountains in
the distance were familiar. I knew the jutted points of each of the seven
peaks. Their shapes made me feel safe. I saw the sea to the west, calm and
still on a moonless world. The lines were familiar and comforting. Familiar,
but somehow out of place. There was a thick grove of deep green trees where I
expected to see light blue grasslands. The vast river delta in the distance
leading to the sea was eerily empty and vacant. The birds in the sky make foreign
calls.

I
blinked, and, for a moment, other images bled through. For a fleeting moment I
saw a village. It had low-profile buildings, half buried in the turf. The walls
and roofs were made of beautifully polished greyish-blue wood. Above the
buildings were banners in the air, shadows of figures walking, and lumbering
creatures in the field. My heart leapt. I took a step forward, but the ghosts
left as quickly as they came. All that was left was an empty field with shallow
waves of deep green grasses.

I looked
behind me. The opening to the cave I had come through was a narrow natural
cleft, hidden in the shadows of large stone on the slope. As I stood on the
verge of the cleft and looked out, the world around me was a paradox: familiar
yet foreign. It was as if I were returning to somewhere I had once lived, but
someone else had moved in, gotten a new table, and turned the bed against the
other wall. The vague familiarity of the place felt ancient and unsettling.

I did not
like the sensation.

I took a
few steps into the light and looked down at my reflection in a pool of water.
My eyes were almond shaped, and skin was tan with a pinkish hue. My eyes were
cloudy green like the frothy sea, and a wild growth of short sandy-blonde hair
sat untamed upon my head. The face I saw was unfamiliar. Though I couldn’t
conjure an image of myself in my mind, I knew that the face looking up at me
from the still water was not my own.

My
stomach growled, reminding me of my hunger. I shaded my eyes and started to
look around. I was standing on a hill. Below me at its base was a dense stand
of trees with a broad river running through it. I could see a flock of birds
flying from limb to limb. At the edge of the forest there were few bushes with
what looked like berries. I set off hungrily toward them.

I was
halfway down the slope when I heard something roaring over the western horizon.

Though
moments ago I had been driven by clenching hunger, the deep and otherworldly
rumble made me forget. My sensations felt distant and small. Fear and awe
weighed down my feet. The sound came from behind the little hill where I stood,
heading toward where the delta met the sea. It started as a low growl in the
distance and grew into a roar like thunder. Unlike the stone of the cave, the
sound of water, and the shape of the mountains, which had a veiled aura of
familiarity, the thunder and fire in the sky was like nothing I had ever seen
or heard before.

I stood
with my wide eyes transfixed on the shape as the minutes passed. The sky grew
louder and brighter as the mass of silver and thunder slid across the sky,
leaving a wind-swept path of smoke in its wake. It was low enough that I felt
the searing flames. My naked body flushed red from the heat as I scurried to
the nearest rock to shield myself from the worst of the heat.

The birds
were nowhere to be seen.

As the behemoth
passed I could see that at its head was a shining cylinder sliding on its side
with a tail of fire and a path of smoke. The whole thing slowed. Smoke was
everywhere, and fire spewed from it like geysers in all directions as it slowly
descended on a flat stretch of grassland at the heart of the lowland delta. The
fires grew as the thing lowered. The grasses beneath it were incinerated and
the soil turned to ash. Finally, after a slow, smoking, lumbering decent, it
came to rest in the middle of the lowland field.

The fires
went out and the smoke cleared. It had landed further down the grade. It was
huge and angular. I could see that it wasn’t all silver. There were paintings
and symbols along the sides, and a series of onyx-black panels around the sharp
point that seemed to be the front of it. It was not a meteor or stone. The
shapes, the lines, were too clean and purposeful to be natural. Something in my
memory named it. A ship. I recalled a small sailing vessel floating on an
ocean, driving forward under the power of the wind and sun. But this was a ship
of the sky, not of the sea.

The
grasses were still smoldering when the ship’s smooth silver sides began to
split apart and open. Great lumbering machines, black and silver, groaned and
began to spill out of the fire-ship in every direction like insects from a
nest. Among the huge metallic shapes, I saw people. Most wore dark blue, and I
could see the color of their faces and their hands: shades of tan and olive. I
looked down at my own hands and legs. Whoever they were, they were something
like me. But I wondered: if they are like me then why did they look so strange
and so unlike the faces and images in my mind?

Forgetting
my hunger, I hid and watched. The morning hours passed, and the fire-ship
continued to empty. Eventually, the largest of the machines began to return,
leaving huge crates and people behind. The people drew back beyond the ring of
blackened grasses.

It was midday
when the fires began again. The fire-ship disappeared behind smoke and flame
until it began to rise swiftly into the air. After a few deafening moments, it
was gone, leaving a streak of smoke drifting off into the sky. The smoke faded,
and a tribe of people and piles of equipment was left behind. I crouched lower
in my hiding place, afraid, and watched them late into the night.

I awoke
the next morning voices. One was high pitched, the other low. I tried to listen
to the words, but the sounds rose and fell without meaning. Their voices were
soft and nasal like my own.

I lay
without moving under the bush where I had fallen asleep the night before. They
were somewhere behind me. Maybe I was lucky and hadn’t been discovered. I
cautiously opened my eyes to see if I was in danger, and if escape was
possible.

I slowly
turned my head to see the two shapes speaking with animated gestures and angry
intensity. The one with the low voice had slick black hair, and was the taller
of the two by a hand span. His face was red, and he held some sort of weapon in
his left hand. The other had a slight build and long brown hair, and small,
quick, shifting feet. Though her hands were empty, the larger of the two seemed
to back away from her as they argued.

The
exchange was intense. They didn’t seem to notice me. I quietly began to move backwards,
as silently as I could, not taking my eyes off of them. Crawling face-up on
all-fours on my heels and hands, I slowly crept toward the deeper forest.

I’d made
it about seven meters when my hand landed on something cold and metallic. I
turned to see the shining tip of a steel-toed boot.

“Eh-hem,”
a voice above me was dry and rumbling.

I looked
up to see another person. A man. Tall. Greying. Muscular. He had an air of
authority.

The two
who had been arguing were immediately silenced as they looked over and saw me,
huddled at the other’s feet, naked. The newcomer spoke toward me, his tone was
questioning, his stance aggressive. Further off, the slight one laughed. The
sound was harsh and mocking.

Again,
the voice of authority spoke. After three short words, the other two fell
silent. I looked back up at him as he reached down to his belt, drew out a
smooth object, and pointed it at me. I saw a flash of light followed by
darkness.

I awoke
in a firm bed with stiff, starched, sheets. I was surrounded by motion and
voices. Soothing, quiet voices. I tried to sit up but the movement was cut
short with a static crackle as I struck something I could not see. I opened my
eyes but saw nothing but open air in front of me but a stark white ceiling. Again,
I tried to lift my arm slowly, ten centimeters, twelve, fourteen, sixteen-the
air crackled again and an unseen force pushed my hand back down.

“Now,
now,” the voice was reassuring. I looked to see another face wreathed with long
brown hair and soft, caring eyes. Her smile put me at ease.

She
continued to talk. Her speech was slow and kind. As she gestured toward things,
I was able to discern the meanings of some of her words: bed, hospital,
blankets, drinks, and force field. Her name was Kella.

She reached
through a segment of the force field and pushed a small device against my arm.
There was a small click and I felt a pinch of pressure on my arm.

“Sleep,”
she said.

And I
slept.