Peering out through the crystalline canopy, Ananda was enthralled by the glowing aura of light cast by the wayward planet. So preoccupied was he that his senses soon betrayed him. As it turns, he had not done as thorough a check of the ship as he had imagined. For with knife ready, behind him crept a lone enemy. With all the courage he could muster, young Leif moved stealthily toward him. With one last leap he flew through the micro gravity. In an instant he was on him. He was determinedto strike the blow that might end, once and for all the endless conflict. In a fierce stroke he plunged the jeweled obsidian dagger deep into the back of his enemy. As the blade came down he cried out, "Die Hector."
Had he been wearing his armor he may have been spared, however he had not. He sensed the danger a mere moment too late. The piercing blow found its mark, sending a shock wave of pain throughout his body. With arms desperately wrenched out toward the source of the stabbing pain, he let out a primal scream. With lightning speed Ananda's reflexes sprung to defensive action. To Leif's astonishment Ananda leapt into the air performing a low G somersault. As he tumbled through the air he pulled the knife from his back. In an instant Ananda was in a position to strike back at his bewildered attacker. With blade in hand Ananda stood in position to strike. Though adrenaline coursed through speedily beating heart his zeal for revenge was then stifled as he caught the gaze of his young assailant. In his eyes there he saw the youthful light of life clouded in desperate fear. His rage somehow was tempered by the sight of this child, for he felt a small measure of pity. He threw the knife smeared in his own blood back into the far end of the cabin. He grabbed the young prince by his throat and lifted him up level to his position. "Who is this fool who would try to kill me?" Gasping for air Leif defiantly spoke, "Go ahead Lord Hector you can kill me if you like, for I like my fathers before me shall be enshrined in the temple." Ananda threw the boy down onto the hard cabin floor. "What is your name boy?" asked Ananda. "I am Leif, son of Aaralaat, prince royal of Nibaru." In fear he looked into his dark eyes as he stood over him. There he could see the wheels of his mind turning. "No my prince I shall not kill you today. I think you shall be far more useful as a hostage."
Chapter 8
Once the meeting at the great hall had ended, there about was a flurry of activity. From there those in attendance had dispersed out through the citadel gates, energized to continue their assigned duties. Some of them followed Landaus and Ananda toward the air field to requisition a ship while others began to gather together all manner of material that may be needed for their journey up the ragged mountainside. Xora was determined to stay behind at the citadel. Xora for her part, was a bit curious about the sudden need to move now with such haste on information that was until recently not worthy of discussion. Her intuition set her now seeking answers. She knew however that she would not find her answers there among the wreckage. So while the others had gone off to commandeer an air ship, Xora would look to the crystal room for guidance. She would not as of yet let on to her suspicions. She made the excuse that despite the excitement of late, there were her many others duties that still required her full attention.
From the gates of the great hall she made her way on foot to the temple where the library and the crystal room resided. Though her journey would be perhaps less hazardous, it would be in no way any less meaningful. It would be then and there that within the crystal room itself, she was to make some unsettling discoveries that could have far ranging consequences. For frozen there within the crystal matrix these discoveries had long remained there unnoticed. Their superbly timed discovery was fortuitous for it would not have made a bit of sense until that moment.
As she made her way to the crystal room she recognized that she would need to put her growing anxiety aside for the moment, for there was much to be done. On her way to the great library she passed through the high arched door and into the ornately decorated chamber where the crystal room resided. Once there within the ante chamber her instincts had confirmed what she already knew. She knew immediately that something was not quite right. It was nothing overt like a ringing bell that set her on edge. It was more akin to an unseen aura, a shadow presence of something far more subtle and strangely menacing. Whatever it was, she could not articulate it in words. To this strange intuition she was both uncharacteristically alarmed and drawn toward. Despite these mental diversions, without any further hesitation she moved through the entry and into the inner sanctum. She sensed there now a dreadful pulsing energy emanating from within the room's crystalline lattice. This expression of pulsating sound, and light was something she had not ever seen during her tenure as keeper of the books. It seemed as if she were meant to perceive this display as an omen, or some sort of warning. She wondered if this were so, how was she to respond?
Searching for answers she spoke cautiously, calling out to James. "James, it is I, Lady Xora. To what warning have I come to receive? I fear it must involve some foreseeable danger." As she waited for a response within the lattice, a glowing color changed from orange to blue. A transparent ball of blue light appeared before her. After a moment this glowing transparency morphed into the form of an avatar representation that though she had not before seen such an apparition she intuitively recognized it to be that of James. Though this image was startling she kept her cool as the mouth on the avatar moved mimicking human speech. From somewhere behind a voice attemptedto sound in time with the image's movements.
"My lady", James spoke. "There is perhaps, grave danger contained within that which I dread to tell you. Tell you however I must. Since your last time here, I have learned much about our traveler. There as well I have found something of my own origins and also that of Breideblic." Xora's eyes widened with anticipation. She wondered what revelations may be contained within his statements.
"First tell me James, how have you come about this information?" Though he felt the need to communicate the emergency, he respected her wishes and answered her question first.
"It was not so much of a how as of whom." She looked at him with a puzzled expression as he continued. "My Lady, yesterday after you left here, there was a message that came through asking specifically for you. I was puzzled when I discovered that the message had originated from the same temporal coordinates that were recently accessed by our guest Ananda. She said she was Queen Samantha of Atlantia, wife of King Hector."
Her expression went from one of bewilderment to amazement. For a moment she wrangled with the probabilities and the possibilities involved in what he had told her, and then she asked him, "Are you sure she asked for me? How could that be? She would have had to have independently possessed knowledge of me prior to my existence. That doesn't seem likely. But for that matter nothing I've seen today has seemed even possible. I fear we may not understand this machine of ours as well as we have imagined." She paused for a moment contemplating by what scenario such an event would have taken place. "We must learn the truth. Play that message for me. Perhaps we shall gain something by hearing it directly."
James accessed his memory and began playback of the recording. There summoned before her an image wrought of light appeared in the likeness of Queen Samantha. There like before, the image came to life and she spoke. This time however the context had changed for the transmission was live. The voice that spoke through the ages, spoke to her. "Xora, keeper of the books, It is I Queen Samantha. Finally you've found me." This Image was a far cry from that of the raven haired beauty she had seen previously. This was a pale and grizzled facsimile, worn by a lifetime of travails. Xora was confused and a bit startled. "I don't understand how can you be here talking to me now? I always believed the interactions within the crystal room were an illusion, a very sophisticated party trick. I see now that things are perhaps more complicated than they first appear."
"Why Xora, I'm surprised that you haven't already learned this truth. The fact is Xora that in my life time I have spoken to you many times. What makes this so amazing to you is that it is only the first time in your lifeti
me that we have spoken. For all I know this may be the last time I speak to you in my lifetime. However there may come a time in your life time when we will be fast friends. That conversation however, is for another time. I have reached out to you to warn you." For a moment she paused and her face took upon a grave expression. Then she spoke, "You and your entire world are in grave peril. You will be soon besieged from beyond by an ancient enemy. We in our time knew this enemy. We were besieged for a months of relentless battle. Many were lost, though that was just the beginning of our troubles. In a desperate gamble to gain victory the Earth and most of its inhabitants were laid to waste in a firestorm the likes of which are beyond description."
Xora tried her best to absorb her words and reconcile them with what she already knew. It would have seemed all too fantastic a few days ago. It as if they had passed into a different kind of reality, unlike anything she had known previously. There were many questions that arose in her mind. "How do you know these things will come to pass? And how is it that Ananda has managed somehow surviving the passage of time untarnished?" Samantha searched for the right words then spoke. "I know this may be difficult for you to understand, for I was once in a place as you are now. However the true will soon be revealed and an understanding of it will be forced upon you by cruel reality. There out in the universe is a cycle of events that exists just beyond our capacity to remember them. The human mind is a fragile thing. Paper lasts only so long and machines are subject to failure. All that is left is our primal fear and mythology born out of biological necessity. It is only by the use of this machine in which you now stand that we are made able to see beyond the corners of the unknown. This cycle, whose beginning is marked by the relative position of Nibaru to Earth has arrived. Though you have no record of it, this cycle has gone on unhindered for untold millennia."
"And what then do you tell of Ananda?" "Ah yes, Ananda. That was the name he possessed in his youth before he became king, before he became my husband. He is not what he seems to be of course. This you will be grateful for when the time comes for you will be joined in battle by Hector my husband. To survive you must allow him to defeat your enemy. But while doing so you will have needed to make plans. He can never be allowed to complete his victory, for his planis nothing short of genocide. If he is allowed to bring his plans to fruition, the Earth itself will be turned to ash. For he is an anomaly, from the same din of battle that makes men grow weary, he takes sustenance. With every engagement, he will grow more powerful and vengeful. In the end he will have become completely consumed by it. It is then that he will become so unpredictably dangerous. He will sacrifice all in a mad attempt at victory."
Xora drank in the information she was being told. However it seemed unbelievable that such things were possible from the man she knew as Ananda. "How could it be possible? I have sensed his quiet and gentle soul. How can it he so?"
Samantha looked on at her kindly and said, "The things you say of Hector are not untrue. However there is much about him that you do not know. First among these is that he is the last of the guardians, the race of super beings who in the darkest depths of time had come from a faraway world. They came and terra formed the Earth making it the green paradise it is today. And ultimately they set the human race in motion. Though in form he is human he is in fact an immortal construct forged from the basest powers of creation."
"How can it be then that he has a history here among us scattered through time. At once you call him your king, and then he is an abomination. He is the savior and a destroyer how can these things be reconciled?"
"To answer your first question is a challenge for me for I am not a scientist. But suffice it to say that this same crack in the fabric of time that allows this conversation to take place is what allows it. All of this, the multiplicity of his existence and the appearance of our celestial nemesis are manifestations this rooms power. Within its facets are reflected entanglements that reach out into the cosmos and down the long corridors of time."
"Surely there must have been an origin for this could not always have been so." "There are some who say this arrow of time to which we affix our lives is no more than illusion in itself a construct of consciousness. However for the sake of understanding one must abide by this construct. The most accurate description that meshes with our frame of reference suggests that this object is a projection from the future. And as such it has created some anomalous circumstances by it mere existence here."
Showing some frustrations at what she perceived as double speak Xora asked again, this time more insistently. "You have not answered my question. Everything must have a beginning. From where or whence did this room originate?"
"As simply as I can explain it originated far along on this line of transit at a point in the far in the future. Take this information carefully because here there are as many facets to this reality as there within the crystal itself."
"Ok if what you say is true how can it be that Ananda can not know these things as you do?" "That’s an easy one. He can not know these things because he is a temporal being. Though he lives in incrementally throughout the greater arc of this timeline, He like you is tied to this momentary existence."
Samantha through the lens of the matrix observed as Xora struggled to digest facts as they were presented to this rather complicated circumstance. So she spoke to ease her mind. "Lady Xora, do not trouble yourself with such questions for time is growing short. The raiding ships will soon cross the space between your two worlds. Your people must begin to make the preparations. You must warn them about Hector. But more importantly there is another who even now is within your midst. His Name is Amida. He is Hectors brother and he is there to help. Soon he will make his presence known to you. When he does, I beg you allow him to help."
Xora as the story unfolded recognized there was truth in what she had been told. She was already well aware of the alien presence on the Earth, as well the new planet in the sky.
Even those things said about Ananda she knew deep in her heart were true. She admitted as much. "There is a storyin our mythology called the "Song of Hector". It's a story I've known all my life. From the moment I first laid my eyes upon him, part of me not only knew but hoped it to be true. I have it on good authority that these enemies you speak of already made landfall and the first blood of this conflict has already been spilled." There upon Samantha's face came a look of concern. Then she said, "In that case there is much for you now to do. I wish you luck, till we meet again my friend, good bye."
"One last question if I may ask? How is it that you can know these things?"
"Xora, as you now know me I can exist only here, otherwise I am long ago dead."
As these last words were spoken, the image crackled and faded and then it was gone. The swirling ball of light once again appeared in midair. Before her James's image again coalesced from the light and tried to speak but his voice was hampered by a wave of technical messages. "Accessing, record not found. Reference page number is redundant." Xora had never heard James speak in a machine cadence before. She tried to interrupt what she rightly interpreted to be a technological glitch. "James, end this search reference new catalogue."
"Last request is voided, redundant entry is null. How may I be of assistance?" Again she spoke. "James, can you replay that last message again?"
Though James had held what had just happened as an occurrence in his active memory of the moment, all reference to its previous incarnations had inexplicably disappeared. "My Lady I apologize for though I do possess a record of our interaction, there are no referenced files associated with it. My active recorders did record a disturbance within the matrix just as I had begun to play, accessing, accessing."
Again its mind stumbled upon the temporal hole that now existed where the message had resided. To her surprise the message once revealed, had somehow disappeared from the data base as if it never existed. Wishing to cause James no additional stress she asked to hear what he had discovered.
"James yo
u have something for me?" "Why yes, I must have forgotten. Let me tell you what I have found?" Though her head was still reeling from whatshe had learned she was ready for anything.
"Yes please proceed." She said softly. "Thank you my lady. Firstly I am at a loss to explain why only now these things have been revealed. As I had previously alluded to, there is much here hidden within the deepest memories of the crystal room. These memories have long lain forgotten. Pieces mostly, like shards of pottery they tantalize the imagination. These pieces may intrigue us; however they may forever deny us their full narrative. Until now the origins of this very room, have been the stuff of this missing history. What I'm about to tell you may seem unbelievable but its truth, you shall see is undeniable." It was clear to Xora that James was somehow disconnected from what had just taken place, so she made a point to remind him.
"That may be true. However I'm of a mind to think that your perceptions are being subtly influenced by these temporal transmissions. By receiving these warnings we may be unintentionally recasting our fates. Its very use may have been a factor in much of what is now happening. So it is possible that what you have learned has been subtly altered or even erased as if it never happened. I give you this warning for we may not have been meant to learn such things."
A Paradox in Retrograde Page 15