by Gloria Mur
- “Well, that's the whole story," said Doro, and looked askew at his sister, "did that jog your memory?"
- "Doro, if we are defended from Groix, why must the Queen of Lemuria be married to a sorcerer?"
- “The island of Groix has solar metal. The sorcerers give it to us in exchange for our princesses."
- "Why do we need gold that bad?"
- "To leave our wisdom to our descendants. We store it on solar plates. This metal is eternal. Our predecessors left knowledge about themselves and we are doing the same thing. Because the Flood is already approaching..."
- "The Flood! So that's why they were talking about an ark!"
- "Yes, we are building a huge ship. All the people are taking part in the works."
- "Hold up, I don't get it. We give the sorcerers a Princess for solar metal. But why do the sorcerers need to marry their heir to a Lemurian? Don't they have enough women?"
From Doro's wordy answer, Nastia was able to determine that the sorcerers get married to the Lemurians in order to dilute their blood. Sorcerers degenerate, and lose their abilities when they only marry among themselves. They have already lost almost all their powers, apart from petty witchcraft. And only the rulers of Groix have retained their full power, because of their wedding Lemurian princesses. Children of mixed marriages are often born sorcerers. But not always. Magic babies stay among the sorcerers. Normal ones are brought to Olmolungring."
- "How can they tell what kind of baby has been born?"
- "It's very easy. Blue eyes- Lemurian, hazel- sorcerer."
- "And where are our parents, Doro? Building the ark?"
Doro lowered his eyes.
- "Are they dead?"
- "No, Yuma, they are alive. They are in Groix. Our mother is princess Yala, who is married to Gorr, the ruler of Groix. We are children of a sorcerer and a Lemurian. We were born blue-eyed. And we were sent to Lemuria. But mom stayed in Groix."
- "Doro! Does that mean that the heir of Groix is our full brother?!"
- "We only share a father with Grino. He has another mother- Gorr has many wives."
- "They wanted me to marry my half brother? It's not surprising that I refused."
- "That's not why you refused. You love Aleur," said Doro, giving her an adult smile.
Chapter 11. Aleur
Olmolungring was deserted. Only the blue-white sheep, grazing near the road and the birds chirping in the trees. Doro and Nastia went out onto the street. Walking through the streets, Nastia was endlessly surprised at the beauty of the city. Every home, even the most modest, was a treasure of architecture, decorated with frescoes. Each drawing was different from the last. There were both great works of art, and drawings made by children's unsteady hands. But all together, they created the surprising sensation of a celebration. She couldn't stop her eyes from enjoying the bright colors and various shapes. There was not one lonely house here. Babbling brooks played on the leaves of a lilac. The intoxicating aroma of flowers hung in the air. And all around were the most beautiful gardens. And anyone who wished could enter the gardens. The Lemurians had never heard of fences. The Queen and the Prince set off down the road. After two hours, they had reached the sea.
Nastia stopped in amazement. She had supposed that the Ark would be very large. But this...this surpassed all her wildest fantasies. The huge wooden behemoth towered on the shore. It was so big that if Nastia had wanted to walk around it, she would take at least an hour, and the shadow of the boat, covered the whole beach. People fussed all around. The shape of the Ark wasn't like a ship, but more like a submarine, with the captain's bridge at the top and windows on the sides. There were wooden chamber doors with wooden sets of stairs next to them around the outsides of the ship. Lemurians were walking up them, like a swarm of small insects, taking various necessities into the ark. Nastia noticed that the citizens were working ignoring ranks and insignia. Judging by clothes, there were commoners working alongside inhabitants of the palace. There were people hammering, people painting, and people sawing. It smelled of freshly-cut wood. On the captain's bridge stood a gray-haired main in blue clothes. From time to time, he spoke into a large trumpet, giving orders to the builders.
Huge tents were spread out in the shade on the beach. In one, kids played in the sand under the careful gaze of the older nannies. And in another there were huge pots in which something boiled. Nastia, looking upon her "subjects," did not cease to be amazed, there was not one unattractive person among them! The Lemurians were all good-looking, without exception, neither for sex nor age.
When Queen Yuma and her brother approached the shore, the work stopped as if by the wave of a magic wand. A deadly silence set in.
- “What happened?" Nastia asked Doro.
- "I said it wasn't worth coming here," answered the prince.
- "Their Majesties, Queen Yuma and Prince Doro are here!" came someone's voice.
- "Hurray! Long live Queen Yuma! Health to the young Prince!" cried the people from all sides.
The gray-haired old man in blue raised his hand and suddenly... took flight. No one acted surprised, except the newly-made Queen. When he descended to the shore, Nastia saw his means of transportation. It was a board. The exact same as the one Andrei had chosen in the museum of Shambhala. Only there, it was much larger.
With an open mouth, she stared at the amazing machine- it looked like a normal strip of wood, but it could fly silently. On the side was drawn a large, dark-blue triangle, encased in a circle, in the center of the circle, there was a dark-blue crystal. There were two metallic cylinders attached to the sides.
- "Your majesty," said the gray-haired man, and bowed, "why are you here? You are interrupting the course of work, and we have little time left."
- "Shonith La!" – interrupted Doro, "Queen Yuma wanted to see herself that the ark is almost ready."
- "How does it fly?" - asked Nastia, pointing at the board.
- "Vimana? You'd have to ask Aleur about that- he invented it," said Shonith La, shrugging his shoulders, taking frequent glances at the Queen.
- "Ah. Of course, Aleur. Where is he then?"
- "He's set off into the forest, beyond the woods, he should be back soon."
- "Yuma, we'd better leave," whispered Doro to Nastia, "Shonith La is right." "Let's go."
The old man bowed to the queen and the prince, and twiddling one of the cylinders on the board, he flew off for the captain's bridge.
- "What an incredible machine!" whistled Nastia.
- "That's a vimana. A small vimana. Every Lemurian has one. There's also big ones for ten people. Aleur made them according to ancient blueprints."
- "How do they fly?"
- "I'm not really sure. I do know that only people with clean thoughts can pilot them."
- "So sorcerers don't have them?"
Doro explained that sorcerers also have flying apparatuses- iron balls. And they "eat black stones." It became clear that the sorcerers' vehicles were stronger because they demand only refueling. And there was more than enough coal on the sorcerers' island. Vimanas can't float in the air for long. It's too difficult for a person to always hold their mind at the needed concentration level.
- "Doro, why did we walk then? Where are our vimanas?"
- "The Council has forbidden members of the royal family to fly. They drain our energy. It will be needed to run the ark. Shonith La says that without us, the ship won't be able to move from that place."
- "So, the ark is also steered with thoughts?" asked Nastia in surprise.
- "Not only with thoughts, but with the energy of clean thoughts. Those aren't the same things," explained Doro. "Aleur will tell you everything."
They returned through the forest. Nastia was looking around in curiosity, trying to determine what part of the world Lemuria was in. It looked like the tropics. The islands were somewhere near the equator. The lush vegetation, the bright colors, and the fruit trees with amazing leaves and colors. Yellow, green and red lianas.
The piercing shrieks of brightly colored birds. The air was heavy with humidity, and smelled of rotting leaves and tulips. Animals ran freely around the forest. Some of the animals were strange to Nastia. A small rodent, that she almost stepped on looked exactly like a kangaroo. Another looked like a mixture of an anteater and an echidna. The largest animal they saw was the twing, a fluffy, black elephant, the size of a large dog. Doro showed it to his sister, quietly parting the shrubbery. The animal raised it's trunk, nervously trumpeted and ran away.
- "sorcerers hunt them, secretly sneaking onto our island". Twing liver is a delicacy in Groix. And although Lemurians never touch animals, twings try to stay away from two-legged creatures," explained the Prince.
- "So, what, Lemurians don't hunt?" inquired Nastia, raising her eyebrow.
- "For crying out loud!" - exclaimed Doro, wrinkling his nose, "how could you think such a thing! Only sorcerers kill living things. We only eat that which the forest gives us. Cursed Aveduk! He has driven you mad!"
- "Well, what does it give us? The forest?" asked Nastia, feeling the emptiness in her stomach and imagining two juicy steaks on a plate.
- "Yuma! Oh my, we haven't eaten a thing!" exclaimed Doro.
- Absolutely," agreed Nastia, "it'd be nice to have a bite."
- "We should get a move on, Tina's probably already tired of waiting for us! We've been walking for too long"
The sun was already setting when they were approaching the city. Olmolungring was already within view from the edge of the forest. The pink royal palace, drowning in thick tropical greenery, and lit by rays of the setting sun was almost at the top of a lonely mountain, standing directly in the middle of the island. Above the palace, there was a mountain lake, invisible from below, feeding a river. The river ripped from the cliff side in a waterfall, turning into a lake again down below. And from that lake, flowed the moat which surrounded the palace. Small streams flowed from that moat, and went on to form another, larger moat around it, and from that moat, came even more streams, which formed the largest moat, at the foothills of the mountains. The peoples' houses were scattered between the moats. Water divided the city into three levels, and reached all of its corners.
- "What an original water distribution system," said Nastia in surprise.
- "The moats defend us from the sorcerers."
- "So the sorcerers are afraid of water?"
- "Nothing of the sort, in fact Shonith La dips the Stone into the spring in the palace each night. Chintamani charges the water. This charge lasts one night. Well alright! Let's eat!” Doro skipped off to the palace. Nastia followed after him.
- "You should get changed! You're covered in the juice of mycenae." - said Doro, pointing to the blue stains on his sister's dress. – "I'll also change my robe and come to you," and Doro ran off.
Nastia was quickly lost in the palace corridors. Before finding her way, she suddenly heard a voice. A man was softly singing a happy song. The Queen went to the sound.
She found a small room in disarray. Telescopes, test tubes, books. Some strange devices. There was a young man sitting at the table. Nastia caught herself thinking once again that Lemurians are a strikingly beautiful people. This stranger was so absorbed in his work, that he didn't notice his guest.
- "O she was a beauty, but he loved the sea more than she..." sang the man, drawing on the paper with what looked like a compass.
His short, blond hair was tousled. Judging by his white shirt with a patch of mycenae, he had also been in the forest. He was built like a Greek god. “I wonder who he is?” thought Nastia, when she was finally noticed.
- "Your Majesty!” the man pronounced, jumped up, and began to bow.
Nastia nodded, not knowing what to say.
- "Are you alone, your majesty?"
- "Yes," muttered Nastia before being cut off by the man's embrace.
The Queen almost toppled over in surprise. Nastia smelled the slight hint of bergamot. She tried to tear herself away. But he hugged her stronger.
- "Yuma, my love, how I have missed you!"
- "Aleur?" guessed Nastia, and, somehow freeing herself, looked into his blue eyes.
- “Your Aleur has gone mad missing you, Yuma!"
So this is who Aleur was. Her fiancée. Her beloved. Her future husband. Interesting! And terribly stupid.
- "What happened, Yuma? You're as cold as ice! Are you healthy?"
- "I'm healthy, Aleur," pouted Nastia. He shyly lowered his eyes. His face was shining with tenderness and admiration. He truly did love her. "I'm just a bit tired. Doro and I walked around the forest all day.
Aleur pressed his lips to her palm. Nastia jumped on the inside. He tenderly brushed her cheek. He leaned his lips in towards her face. His eyes were right up close, his every breath scorched her skin. She didn't know what to do. She just stood and waited for what would happen next. He touched his lip to hers. And suddenly... Nastia shook, just as if she had touched a live wire! A hot lightning struck her chest. Her legs instantly became cotton and buckled. Nastia gasped and swayed. Aleur caught his beloved and kissed her once again. Her head thundered and spun. Colored spots drifted before her eyes, some kind of faces, sounds, smells... her body was filled with the delightful feeling of uniting with something close, and dear, something you can't live with out.
"What's that?” came a voice in her head. "What's that with me?" Nastia opened her eyes.
- "Aleur! Aleur, let me go! Are you listening to me?" whispered the Queen. "Let me go, people are waiting for me. I need to go."
- "Will we see each other tonight, Yuma?"
Giving an ambiguous nod, Nastia left the room, barely moving her legs.
The Queen asked Tina to set a table in her bedchamber. Doro united with his sister, and they had dinner together. Despite Nastia's concerns related to the food, the royal dinner was not bad at all and very diverse. Nastia's favorite drink was the juice from an unknown berry, the mileoki.. She had drunk perhaps half a jug by the time Doro stopped her.
- "Be careful with the mileoki, sis!" - he smiled.
- "What is it exactly?"
- "It will put you to sleep if you drink too much."
- "Well, I guess I'm in for a good night of sleep tonight," chuckled Nastia.
- "How was the date withe Aleur?"
- "Date?"
Doro said that Yuma and Aleur meet in the royal garden every evening. That they masquerade as servants and hide themselves. All the same, there wasn't one person in the city who didn't know about these meetings. Nastia remembered the conversation that she overheard this morning. Yes, it seemed almost everyone with a pulse knew about the affair between the Queen and the engineer, then told a friend.
- "Doro," asked Nastia, her heart palpitating, "what do we do there, in the garden?"
- “Well … you kiss…," Doro blurted out in shame.
- "You were watching!" reproached Nastia, and her heart began to beat all the faster.
- "By accident!"
- "Do we only kiss?" - she asked again.
- "Well, you also… hug," said Doro, looking away.
- "And... that's it?"
- "Well, what else is there?"
Nastia sighed in relief.
“I should go to that date," confirmed Nastia, following Doro to the garden. "He's waiting."
Every part of her was irresistibly drawn to the garden, but Nastia would rather have cut off her own tongue than admit itW. When they had gotten to the small gate, Doro stopped:
- "I hope you remember him!"
Nastia descended down the stairs into the dark alley.
- "Yuma!" - came a whispering voice.
Nastia's heart sank down. "What's this supposed to be!" - she fumed. I've known this Aleur for no more than a few hours. "She's gone completely mad..." came a voice in her head, saying the same words she'd overheard this morning from her window..
- "Yuma, my love!" - his strong arms dropped around her shoulders. She turned around and immediately was
drowned in beautiful blue eyes, full of tenderness.
- "Aleur!
- "My beloved, my wonderful, my Queen!"
And not waiting for an answer, he began to cover her face with kisses.