Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  Uncle Carl took a step back. He took another.

  “Your face was red. You screamed, ‘This is private land!’ and your voice was so loud that I could hear you from where I was.”

  “The Rangers shouted back at you that it was park land now, and they had their guns pointed at you. I heard them yelling about the protection of the wildlife and the park plants."

  “And I had to hold onto the Anders’ dog. The Rangers’ dogs were snarling and snapping, and I was afraid he’d go over to them. I was holding his collar so tight it cut into me.” Sol glanced down at his palm, long healed.

  “You all started moving forward, and I remember that I thought it looked like two waves pushing toward each other.”

  Sol took a long breath. “And then I saw Dad moving to the front. He was so much smaller than all of you. I remember that he put his hand on your shoulder, and you were mad at him, too. I knew he was trying to calm you down.”

  Sol looked at his mother. “Then I saw you. Your eyes were so wild. You were clawing your way toward Dad.”

  “And there was that Ranger with the gray beard. I saw him step forward, clear of the others.”

  Sol’s mom turned away. He should stop talking. He shouldn’t tell the whole thing. But Uncle Carl’s eyes were on him, and he wanted to see some shame in them, some sorrow. When he looked into them, he found it. “That Ranger aimed at Uncle Carl.”

  Sol trailed off a bit, and the next part he said softly. “It was just that one Ranger, on the edge of the crowd. And I screamed to warn Dad, but nobody heard me over the sound of the gun.”

  When he stopped talking, the bright colors of Molly’s quilt on the table seemed to have faded. Everything felt gray and dark.

  His mom stood still, her eyes closed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you had seen that?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

  Sol sat down at the table next to her. “Because you were both so sad and angry.” He glanced up and saw that the anger had gone out of Uncle Carl for now, but he remembered the rages that had followed Timothy’s death.

  His mom’s eyes were wet when she looked up. “All these years. You carried that alone.”

  “Not alone. You were here. You were carrying it, too.”

  She reached across the table and touched his cheek. “Honey, Yellowstone is a dangerous place. I don’t want you in there.”

  “And I don’t want you around those Rangers.” Uncle Carl said bluntly.

  An uneasy finality settled over the kitchen. Sol knew he couldn’t defy them now, not with the memory of his father, whose life had been about uniting people, casting its shadow across the three of them. Sol stood.

  “I’m going to bed.” He said. He saw them exchange a look of relief.

  Sol had taken two steps when the window glass began to rattle.

  Uncle Carl strode out onto the porch. Sol followed, arriving just in time to see the form of a Cascadian litecraft streak over the house. It banked and headed for the far field. Under its transparent dome, he saw a kid about his age. Uncle Carl swore and reached for the radio at his hip.

  “Alvin, get your squad in the air. We’ve got a vulture out here,” he barked.

  The nasal voice of Alvin Montgomery filled the porch. “We’re on it.”

  “What are they doing?” Molly asked.

  “Likely they’re scouting new routes.” Uncle Carl didn’t turn to look at them, just kept his eyes on the craft. He swore again. “They just keep getting more cocky. It looks like they’re heading right towards town.”

  Sol could see the pale lights of the craft dancing away over the pasture.

  “Why are they coming in so close?” Sol thought his mom’s voice sounded a little shaky.

  Uncle Carl spun toward her. His voice was impatient. “I’ve been tryin’ to tell you, Molly. They want this whole region. We have good intel that Cascadia and Harvest are planning to move in from either side and take over Liberty.”

  Sol didn’t ask, but the question sprang immediately to his mind. Why would they even want Liberty?

  His uncle answered it as if he’d heard. “I keep tryin’ to make you both see that this area, and the cows, are valuable. The east of Cascadia has all the fruit production, and the west of it has all the seafood production, but they don’t have the livestock like we do. And Harvest has all the grain production. Harvest and Cascadia want to split Liberty right down the middle.”

  The image of the split open cows was still fresh in Sol’s memory, and it came again now. He blinked to rid himself of the thought.

  “They can’t just come in and take things.”

  “They can if we don’t stop them. Ever since the Opening, we’ve been the only ones who can protect what’s ours.”

  The Opening had happened long before Sol’s birth. After the governments of the world had tired of fighting one another, and after the resources had been divided and divided again, and after the Terrene War had left countries decimated and people despondent, a new Consolidated World Leadership had been formed. They had aimed to govern all the countries under the same system. They had merged the military operations and given them new orders: instead of defending against each other, they had the primary function of defending against possible alien invasion.

  But the new Leadership had challenges. There were problems with enduring nationalism. People couldn’t stop thinking of themselves as American or French or Samoan or Chinese.

  So the Leadership had voted to dissolve the borders and open the countries. There would be no more nations. They had erased all lines drawn across the face of the globe. They had ordered that people be allowed to move freely throughout the world, to settle where they wanted and to come and go without interference.

  The thought was that people would mingle and create a new, open society.

  But in many places, the opposite had happened. In many places, like here, enclaves of like-minded people had formed.

  Sol was watching at the moment the litecraft was joined by three Liberty Spinners. It banked and streaked back toward them, the way it had come, but the spinners opened fire and Sol watched as the Cascadian craft spun and fell. He tried not to think of the kid inside.

  Molly turned away and went back into the house. Sol glanced at Uncle Carl. To Sol’s surprise, Uncle Carl looked disturbed, too. But it wasn’t about the kid.

  “Awful luck. I just put cows in that pasture today.” He shook his head. “Guess I’d better go check the damage.” He thudded heavily down the front steps, then called over his shoulder.

  “Come on, Sol. You go with me.”

  Sol cringed. It was late, and he was exhausted. But Uncle Carl was already on edge. Defying him now would be a bad idea.

  The air lay warm and close around them as they walked. Sol was uncomfortably warm in the jacket. But he couldn’t take it off now.

  The craft had finished burning when they arrived, and the three Spinners had landed in a half-circle around it. The Cascadian pilot lay unconscious, blood streaming from his head.

  Uncle Carl glanced at him, then walked around the debris, shining a powerful flashlight off into the pasture. The beam streaked across the hides of the restless cows, huddled against the far fence. They were fine.

  “Call Murphy and get this mess out of here,” Uncle Carl barked at Alvin, who was leaning against his Skimmer. “Take him to the armory and find out what he was doing here.”

  “Will do,” Alvin said, and Sol could tell he was used to taking orders from Uncle Carl. That always seemed strange to Sol, how respected his uncle was in the Milguard. Juice had once revealed to Sol that it was because when Uncle Carl was young, he had been the most ruthless recruit the Milguard had ever seen. That part made sense.

  “You want us to take him to Molly to get stitched up?” Alvin asked.

  Uncle Carl’s voice was stern. “No. I don’t want him around my place at all. Call Jalloh to come down to the infirmary.”

  Uncle Carl turned away and walked
back toward the house. He didn’t look at Sol, but as they walked he said, “You come on down to the armory with me tomorrow. It’s time you got to know some of these guys.”

  Sol didn’t argue.

  In the kitchen again, Sol could see that his mother had been crying. She pasted on a smile for them, though.

  “Sol’s going to miss school tomorrow,” Uncle Carl said as they came in. “He’s coming with me to the armory.”

  Molly didn’t look jubilant about that, but all she said was, “We’d better get to bed then. We all need to get some sleep.”

  4

  Zyn’dri lay in her mother’s arms a long moment. “I was searching for you in the registry room.” Her mother murmured. “And when the ship pitched I heard your cry.”

  Zyn’dri opened her eyes and smiled at her mother. Her mother blinked back surprise. Quickly, Zyn’dri made her face smooth. As she did so, she was surprised to see Meir, the regal leader of the Stracahn, watching them from the doorway across the hall.

  “Is the child hurt?” he asked her mother. His voice was kind and calm.

  “Only a little, Vanquis.” Her mother used his formal title. It meant teacher, leader, guide.

  “Please,” he said, “bring her in and rest here.”

  Zyn’dri’s mother stood and kept close to her as they entered.

  Avowed filled the room. The chief delegation of the Avowed sat around a large table in the center. Zyn’dri saw by their brilliant orange robes that they were all Mentors, the highest class of the Avowed.

  Farther back, along the walls, more chairs were filled with the lesser Avowed, the Observers, in their dark blue robes. Meir directed Zyn’dri and her mother to two empty seats.

  The Avowed paid little attention to them, and Zyn'dri curled up and listened, rubbing the new bruises on her knees.

  Meir sat slowly. When he spoke, his voice was measured, but Zyn'dri was surprised at its intensity. "This is a disaster." He said, in the humans’ language.

  "I'm sorry." That voice was different, and Zyn'dri noticed for the first time that there were two humans at the table with the high Avowed.

  "We must return," Meir said. "We must."

  A burly human named Wilson, whom Zyn'dri had seen before, back on Empyriad, spoke up. "It's impossible. We're already en route, and we’ve got just enough fuel to slow us down when we get close to Earth. Even if we could stop in a reasonable amount of time, we wouldn't have enough fuel to go back and then start out again. None of us would get out of there."

  "Then we are not meant to!" Meir's voice was strained. "We are lost anyway, without him." Meir spread his hands on the table and dropped his head to them.

  A dread began to grow in Zyn'dri. Surely they were not talking about the Mubareth Ola'an. She studied Meir. Was he praying or was he desperate?

  He spoke without raising his head, which muffled the sound of his voice. "Please," he said, "Check again."

  The humans consulted their screens, then spoke to each other. "The kid's not on any of the red ships."

  "Not on blue, according to the readings."

  "Not purple or green."

  Movement outside the door caught Zyn’dri’s eye. Ormes was passing in the hall. Wilson called out to him. “Ormes,” he called, and Zyn’dri noted that it was pronounced Or-mz. She shrunk toward her mother as the man walked into the room.

  “Did you find him in the records on this ship?” Wilson asked.

  Ormes shook his head. “No magic kids that I could see.”

  Wilson spoke forcefully. “Sit down, Ormes. And have some respect.”

  Zyn’dri was glad Ormes sat with his back to her.

  Wilson was watching Meir carefully. Zyn'dri thought she saw the human expression of concern on his features. "I'll contact the other ships directly," he said kindly. "They've been doing a manual headcount to back up the ships' manifests. And they’re still updating the registry. That could take several hours. No reason to give up hope yet.” He spoke into his communication device.

  "Are you finished with the passenger counts?"

  Several crackly voices came through.

  "Finished."

  "Yes, sir."

  "All passengers are entered into the computer."

  "I don't see the Ola'an on the counts," Wilson explained. "We need to make sure he's on one of these ships. His people are anxious about it. Can you check for him again? He's dressed in deep purple robes. About nine Earth years old. He should have a delegation of Avowed with him, all dressed in yellow."

  The line was quiet for a moment; then a single voice came on. "I know the Ola’an isn’t here, sir." Zyn'dri felt a sudden chill in the room.

  "How do you know that?" Wilson asked.

  Again, the long pause. "I saw him, below, on the ground, as we launched. I saw the yellow-robed Avowed all surrounding him. They were looking up. I don't know how he didn't make it on. I know he was on the ground when we took off."

  Zyn'dri gasped, her breath making the only sound in the room. Her mother reached for her hand. The Ola'an, their purest connection with the Allbeings, was not with them. Surely someone would go back for him.

  Meir stood. "We must return."

  Wilson, his big hands clasping each other, shook his head quickly. "We can't." Zyn'dri couldn't believe he would say such a thing.

  "Then we are lost." Meir looked around at the Avowed, and his voice was solemn and dark when he spoke, "We are lost."

  Wilson let the sentence hang there for a moment, then spoke quietly. "Things will improve when you can reorganize on Earth. Just hang in there until we land." Zyn'dri felt irritated. Why did he keep saying things?

  Meir didn't betray any emotion. "You are ignorant of our ways. I know this."

  Wilson sighed. "So do I. I just want you to know that we will help you set up a new government."

  Meir moved forward, and this time, there was an intensity in his voice as he spoke, "A mere government does not guide the Stracahn. The Unity of the Avowed is not simply a political leadership. Nor is it merely a religion, as your species understands it. It is—we are—dependent upon both the wise, but mortal, Avowed," here he swung his hand in an arc to indicate those around the table, "and upon the immortal Allbeings. Our Ola'an is the culmination of thousands of years, thousands of generations of spiritual leaders. He arose after the tenth Darkness because this tragedy—the loss of our planet—was coming to the people. He is our only direct tie to the Allbeings. He is the Child Prophesied, the one we found after generations of prophecies and seasons of searching."

  Wilson spoke humbly. "I see that he holds a special place in your society. I don't know about it, but I want to learn more. Would you tell me about the prophecies?"

  Meir sat, straight and dignified. "Since the first Stracahn breathed we have known he was coming. Alandra, our first woman, went to bathe in the sacred river Traithe. She immersed herself in the clear water, and when she arose, she found that the water had turned to liquid gold all around her. She knew it was an omen. She returned to her husband, to tell him of her experience. Scithiva, seeing her coming, fell at her feet. She had turned golden as well."

  Zyn'dri loved this story. She loved the excitement of it, and she loved the images that played in her mind when she heard it.

  "Alandra's first words were, 'We will have a golden child.' And at that moment they knew that she was pregnant with the First Child.

  "But the First Child was not golden. She was a girl the rich green of sea trees, and they named her Selana. The second was pale blue as a simeas fish. The next, violet, and the next warm orange as cupflowers. They were powerful and beautiful, and Alandra and Scithiva soon forgot the prophecy in the joy of their children. Five beautiful girls came.

  "One day, five strong men came from over the mountains. They had no language, could not speak, so where they came from remains a mystery. Their hair and eyes and skin were rich, warm hues of burgundy and saffron and indigo. They became the husbands of the five daughters of the first man a
nd woman. Together they had many children, who were of every color in nature, a festival of hues. Those generations spread out over Empyriad and made the Stracahn.

  "But still, the golden child that was to be born to Alandra and Scithiva did not come. The Child Prophesied did not arrive. The First Parents got old, and they died.

  "Selana, the First Child, was very wise. She knew that not all events happen quickly. She believed that her mother's prophecy must someday come to pass, that a golden child would be born from the descendants of the First Parents. She gathered her own children and called them to watch for the coming of the Golden Child, the Mubareth Ola'an. They took a vow to find him, and they spread out among the generations upon Empyriad to search for him."

  "The task was, at first, insurmountable. The many continents of Empyriad were difficult to traverse, and the Stracahn people had filled it. They did not know how they would ever find the Ola'an.

  "But they began to discover that their paths were not entirely without direction. They found certain gifts that aided them as they traveled. One Avowed found that a red bird led her to specific paths. Another saw visions of dangers on the road ahead and successfully avoided them."

  "Did they find him?" Wilson was leaning on the table, taking in the story eagerly.

  "No. The Avowed found other signs. They found clues about the future of Empyriad. Over the ages, the Avowed better recognized their gifts, and they used them more deliberately. This opened up a new level of knowledge. They were able to speak any language they encountered, they saw impending wars and averted them. We lost track of how many prophecies, large and small, came about."

  "Have you seen prophecies fulfilled?"

  "Yes. In my generation, we prophesied that the humans' ships would come, and we knew we would have to leave our home. But we were promised that the Ola'an, if we could find him, would know where we could go when Empyriad was decimated. He would lead us to a new refuge, and he would protect us on the journey. So the Avowed searched for him with increasing intensity.