by Arwen Jayne
Joining the jungle with the land of faery. Where was this going? Everyone seemed to know what the idea was except her but she guessed that didn’t matter as long as someone knew what it was. “Um, we’ve only got one great being here.”
“No you are wrong blue star goddess. It is only you do not yet recognise who you are. You birthed onto this planet for this purpose. To heal the DNA of this planet and to consummate the union of the eagle and the condor. You were born in northern Europe, the land of the eagle and given a great mind versed in science but your heart was chained by circumstance. Only by freeing it and uniting it with the great peace maker, the messenger from the angels, can your heart be freed for you to become all you were meant to be. Do you choose great one? Do you choose to save these people? Do you choose to remember all that you are? Do you choose to love this man?”
Helena looked around. While she’d been talking with Oghma the whole town had stopped and were now assembled, watching her and the others. She had no doubt they couldn’t see the fairy but she sensed they knew that something was going down. They watched her expectantly. The universe, or whatever Simon called it, the all-spirit or something, was backing her into a corner. It had to know she loved Zex. It had to know she wouldn’t let these people down if there was a way to help. “Damn. Okay, how do we do this union? I assume there’s a bit more to it than just me and Zex having sex.”
Yaguar came forward. “Forgive me lady. I cannot see who it is you speak with but if it is a formal union you need to perform there is a sacred place not far from here. There is a sinkhole filled with crystal clear water, fed from an underground spring. The glade around it is blessed. You must come and then you will see what I mean.”
Oghma seemed pleased with the shaman’s suggestion. “That is one of our most treasured places around here. It should suffice. Ask the shaman to get the townspeople to form a ring of power around the outside of the site.”
Helena took a moment to relay all that she and Oghma had discussed.
Zex smiled quietly to himself. Simon’s prophecy from long ago was coming true, exactly as he had foretold.
Kit pulled him to one side and whispered in his ear. “If you are going to do this right for Helena you are going to need a couple of things and a quick 101.”
Zex was surprised but knew that whatever Kit was up to she was doing in her friend’s best interests. “Okay. Tell me.”
Helena followed Yaguar down to the sacred glade. “Aren’t we going to wait for Zex?”
“No Kit took him down there. I saw her come back a few minutes ago.” Yaguar stopped just before the brow of the ridge. “Just follow the path down. He’s waiting for you. I’ll go and organise the townsfolk to form a loose perimeter up here. We will give you privacy that way.”
Helena blushed. “Ah, thanks for that. How are we going to time all this?”
“Don’t you worry about that. You go follow your heart. If I concentrate I can see and hear Oghma the same way you can. He will guide me.”
“Good luck Yaguar. I haven’t a clue what I’m doing but whatever it is I hope it works.”
“Me too.”
Helena walked to the pool and paused at the sight before here. By the edge of the tranquil pool was a large boulder. Someone had driven a spike into it and attached a light chain. The other end of the chain was attached to what looked like a dog collar around the neck of a man. A beautiful naked man who at this moment was kneeling, sitting comfortably on his heels as if it was a natural everyday pose. Back straight but not rigid. His hands were loosely clasped in his lap. His eyes looked studiously at the ground but she knew somehow he was aware of her presence. He was the picture of peace and poise. He had done this for her. “Zex, I never meant...I would never have asked this of you.”
“May I speak mistress?”
“Hell, yeah, of course.”
“I will not be your slave or your submissive in our everyday life but from time to time I think we can play. If you will teach me that is.”
Helena walked towards him, till she could nearly reach out to touch him. Tears streamed in her eyes. “I am truly honored.”
“Then take me mistress, take the gift I offer you, take the love and the power. I am yours.”
Her hand stroked his face and then lifted his chin so she could see his eyes. “ I accept the gift you offer but know that I will always give you the freedom and respect you give me. I will never belittle you or demean you. I could never do that to you. I will however enjoy the control you offer, the exchange of power and love. You are not less than me and I am not more than you. Our play will be a worship of each other.” She kissed him. Gently at first then harder, grasping his hair and pulling him more tightly into her embrace. Then she began to lick him, thoroughly. First his face, then his neck, slowly working her way down.
Zex groaned as he felt her accept what he offered, himself.
“Did I say you could groan.”
“No Mistress.” He shuddered as her tongue lapped his nipples.
She paused to remove her clothes then offered each breast to his tongue. “Suck! Yes, like that.”
Zex obeyed, using his tongue to caress before he sucked hard. Each nipple swelled under his attention, until they were both rigid and flushed. Like ruby jewels decorating a dessert.
Helena groaned, she was allowed to. “Lie down Zex. I want to ride you.”
His cock liked the sound of that. Not that it hadn’t been rigid from the moment he heard her footsteps down the trail. It just got worse. His blood went south, swelling his engorged cock to its fullest size. He wasn’t small. For a moment of worry he feared he’d scare her off. That was until she reached down to take him in her hands. The lust in her eyes and the quick flick of the tongue as she wet her lips letting him know that she was not put off.
Laying prone he watched her with awe and joy as she lowered herself onto his cock. Disbelief shook him for a moment as he realise she was a virgin. How had this amazing woman lived half her life and worked in sex clubs, yet never taken a man. He held his breath as she paused in her descent. Then she took a breath and let it out as she took him the rest of the way. Pain streaked her face for a moment then faded. She’d made him hers.
Leaning forward she kissed him again. “Fuck me now.”
Oh he intended to. He pushed up with his hips, timing his thrusts with her downward descents. They synced and it became a dance. A fluid dance that joined their bodies as one. It became a motion without end, beyond time and space. The universe alive in play. Their united bodies became one with the environment around them. Bliss waxed, starting as a ripple on the still pond of their joined minds but growing until became a great wave. It came to shore, driving all in its wake. The orgasm rippled out from their centre, blessing the land.
High on the ridge above the people rejoiced as waves of blue and red butterflies descended in clouds onto the trees and the birds broke into a crescendo of chorus.
26
A light blinking irritatingly on his desk console let Sakla know he had a call waiting for pick up. He read the screen readout identifying the caller. It was the commander from their moon base. He flicked a switch and took the call on speaker phone. “You’d better be calling me to say you’re ready to launch Bates.”
“Yes Mr Sauros. We’re ready for your command.”
“There’s no chance this thing will miss?”
“Not a chance in hell Sir, we’ve double and triple checked all the calculations.”
“What about the danger of it being picked up on surveillance and intercepted?”
“We thought of that Sir. We’re using a special technology that will absorb any signals that might otherwise bounce off the rock. It won’t appear on any radar Sir, not until it’s too late. They’ll never know it’s coming.”
Sakla relaxed a little in his chair. “You have a go for launch.”
27
Simon teleported to the hill above the town, followed in short order by Thex, Tyra, Arion and t
he others from the South American expedition.
Thex knew something major was up but hadn’t managed to pick it from Simon’s brain yet. “Why are we here Simon? We all felt your panic?”
“Sakla’s launching his asteroid.”
“Asteroids don’t get launched. They roam around the space neighbourhood until they fall on some luckless planet.”
“Well one’s about to fall on Boswell and believe me Sakla launched it. He has a base on the dark side of the moon. He launched it from there. In truth it is a weapon but as he has no wish to start a war an innocuous looking rock is his cover story.”
“Shit. Well we better launch the spaceship. It’s still parked at the bottom of the lake but we can get it up and running quickly and blast that sucker out the sky.”
Trust Thex to want to blast it. “We don’t have time and even if we did it would only break the rock into smaller chunks that would cause chaos and destruction over a much wider area. We need to contain the damage to as small an area as possible.”
“How much damage. How big is this thing?”
“Big enough to take out the town, lake, surrounding forest including your old crater survival training camp.”
Arion calculated a few sums in his head. “That big?”
“It’s not so much it’s size but its velocity that’s the problem. It’s coming in a lot faster than any normal asteroid I know of. Really we don’t have a lot of time. We need to get the townsfolk up here now.”
But people were already materialising “We’re here.” Doc pointed out.
Simon relaxed visibly and did a mental head count. “Okay. Listen up folks. The enemy is about to attempt to wipe us out. We’re safe up here. It’s a protected zone my mates and I created the other day but it’s not big enough to protect our homes, the land, the plants and the wildlife that will be affected by the asteroid coming our way.
Little Tommy gave out a cry “But my pet skink Freddy is down there.”
Simon felt for the little boy. His issue was minute on the scale of things but to the boy it was his heart. He knelt down until he was Tommy’s height so he could speak to him man to man. “That’s precisely why I must ask you to join with us. Are you prepared to do what is needed to save not just your lizard but everything else down there.”
The boy still looked stricken but he nodded. “Yes Mr Simon.”
Simon gave the boy a hug. When he drew away the boy’s pet was in his arms. The boy’s jaw dropped. Speechless he cuddled his pet to him like it was the most precious thing in all the world and raced over to show his mother.
Simon straighten up and looked around again. He needed some others. He sent out a mind link to his mother who promptly materialised before him. “I’m sorry mum but I need you to do something for us.”
“Whatever son. You know I’ll do whatever is needed. This is my land too.”
“I need you to mate Meta.”
Ma choked a cough, in shock. “Um well, I should have known we’d need a rite to protect the land but um, I’m not sure Meta has ever fancied me.”
Thex’s father morphed from his usual tabby cat form to the image of a rugged twenty something man and made his way to the front of the crowd, nude. He looked offended. “That’s simply not true. I’ve idolised you for like forever. You were the one that was unobtainable.”
Ma couldn’t help raking her eyes over Meta’s rugged well-honed body but was completely perplexed by his statement. “Why unobtainable?”
“You were the mother of the seer. That you gave birth to someone so powerful daunted us all. Why would you want me?”
“Silly man. Do you mean that all this time I’ve lusted after you we never managed to read each other’s thoughts and feel how we truly felt about each other?”
Simon cleared his throat. “We’re running out of time, can you possibly discuss this after you’ve mated?”
Ma grinned at her son. “I think we can. But just one thing. Could we have a little privacy for this?” She asked sheepishly.
Simon was a bit bemused at his mother being the shy maiden. He guessed it had been a while for her. “We’ll form a circle around you and turn our backs, that’s about the best I can do at short notice.”
“That’ll do.”
“Right, well...” There was only one other person they needed and that was Eadaoin and then he saw her, him, her...er, whatever, soaring down through the trees until she landed in front of the crowd. “Greetings Eadaoin. You know what I am asking.”
“You have our permission. Proceed.”
At least the Feya cut to the chase. “I’ll need you to stand with twelve or us who represent the assembled beings here.”
“That will be fine.”
Simon called over Sally, John, Doc, Ally, Melissa with Adin in her arms, Rob her husband by her side and a rather surprised Sarah Brown to form the circle with him, Eadaoin and his mates. Turning to the crowd he addressed them. “Everyone, close your eyes. See yourself as you are, without judgement, without praise or recrimination. Become aware of the space around you. The space between you and your friends and love ones. The space between you and you home, the land you love. Be the union of yourselves and that space. Become one with it.”
An eerie calm settled over the crowd. A wash of boundless love and light and power connecting them. They were doing it. This had to work. He joined his mind with theirs. One mind, a mind without limit, space or time.
In the centre of the circle Ma shed her clothes and kissed Meta, wonder warming her core. “I’ve been wanting you for so long.”
Meta swept a stray hair from her brow. “Shush, later...” He kissed her brow, then the place on the breast bone above her heart, her solar plexus and her womb and then prostrated himself, reverently kissing her feet.
Ma lifted his head in her hands staring with awe at the ritual homage he was paying her but she wasn’t having any of it. This was her chosen mate. A man she’d craved since time immemorial. “No Meta. I will have you as my equal, not my servant.” She found a patch of softer ground and lay down on the gentle earth, scented eucalyptus leaves tangling with her hair making her look like some primal beauty born of the very soil. “Come take me Meta. In our union let us become as one.”
High overhead a large burning object broke through the atmosphere
28
Sakla looked up from reading the morning stock market reports and pressed the red button to release the locks on his office door. “Enter. It better be good news.”
Smith paused on the threshold. It was good news but he was fearful anyway. A crawling sensation ran down his neck as he entered the room. “It is Sir. The asteroid hit its target just as you ordered.”
Sakla leaned back in his green leather chair. A slow smile forcing his resolute mouth into muscular territory it was entirely unfamiliar with. “Did it now? Well that is good.”
Smith wasn’t sure what was so good about wiping out an obscure rural Australian town. “There’s something strange though Sir.”
Sakla frowned. “And what would that be Smith?”
Smith took a deep breath and steeled himself. “We can’t find the remains of the town on any of our satellite photos this morning. There’s just a grey splodge. We’ve had agents go out there, to the rim of the crater where it landed but you can’t see past the edge. There’s just this thick mist. And there’s something else Sir.”
Sakla felt an edge of discomfort creep over him and take hold. “What?”
“Well we were about to evict some indigenous folks down in South America. The geologists found a large vein of indium beneath some out of the way jungle there. We’d just moved the bulldozers in ready to clear it today but...um...it’s gone Sir.”
“What the hell’s gone Smith? You’re not making much sense.”
Smith paled, sweat beaded on his brow as he anticipated his probable doom. “The town Sir. And all the jungle around it. Even stranger is what shows up on the satellite photos Sir. Another indistinct grey splodge.�
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“What about the people we had on the ground there? We must have had guards stationed there.”
“They were found wandering around in a daze, just outside the affected area. They’ve been taken back for debriefing but so far we haven’t been able to extract anything useful out of them. Just something about a great surge of love swamping them, the jungle erupted into a crescendo of bird calls and then the thick mist came. We’ve tried sending people into the mist but they just become disorientated and walk out again a few minutes later.”
Sakla drummed his fingers on the table. It could just be coincidence but something told him it wasn’t. Those damned Malakim had done something, he just didn’t know what. “Run more scans. Ground penetrating radio, infrared, whatever the scientists can throw at it. I want to know what’s in that fog.”
“Very good Sir.” Smith saluted. Relieved it looked like he’d live another day. He slowly backed out of the room. You never turned your back on Sakla.
29
Removing her helmet Phoenix shook her flame red hair free. She switched off the engine of her 1200cc factory black Ducati Diavel. As a graduate-entry base grade journalist she didn’t earn a lot. She shared a rented Federation house in the city with a few of her colleagues. She might live in heritage listed dump but what cash she did have she prefered spending on this beauty. The payments were costing her a mint but she didn’t care. Every time she stroked its carbon fibre body, admired its Marchesini forged wheels or took it for a burn she felt alive. The life of a junior journalist was a lot of kowtowing to editors and seniors, dodging flak from the public and staying alert for that one story that might give her a break. Out here on the road she was free of all that, unchained, unbound, totally unstifled... She could breathe.