by Daniel Huber
"Ah Clea! Will you never cease to surprise me? Spent a little recreation time in the Vicarious Life arena, I'm guessing?"
"Surely you can't be serious Ryder. I could sell my own memories to the VL database and make plenty of money from them, rest assured! My life is rich enough, why would I ever want to experience someone else's?"
"Never participated, never sold…" Ryder puzzled, further amused. "Back to my original question then. "How would you know anything about dichondariel gas?"
"I always like to think it good to know a little something about everything." Clea ducked into a corner behind a support turret near the main public entrance to the hangar to keep away from a nearing crowd, took a broad glance about her surroundings. "So where do you have the gas housed Ryder?"
Ryder sighed as he leaned against the turret, resigning himself to the idea that he wouldn't pry any info out of this shrewd smuggler no matter how hard he pressed. "I have a base on Tiock 4. It's kept there, in a warehouse." She thought about the moon of Tiock 4, one of five small planetoids that orbited the nearby Medius system of stars. All the moons of this planet were used as storage facilities. She'd picked up and delivered to the various moons many times over the years. So involved in her thinking on the locations of the deal, she almost startled when Ryder leaned in and spoke to her in a hushed voice. "It's worth five thousand to you, Clea. Up front, of course."
Clea pulled back, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the man who stood so close. She frowned into his unshaven face. "It's too easy," she said. "There's no laws against moving dichondariel gas from Tiock 4 to Medius. Why do you want me for this job when you could get anyone else for half the price?"
Ryder shifted uneasily and even looked down for a brief second. "Part of the price is your silence, Clea. In my warehouse on Tiock 4 I have a lot of things housed, many of which are shall we say… unscrupulous to possess. It's all concealed, of course…but I can't trust just anybody to see what it is I have in there, on the off chance that they would. So it's worth it for me to know that it's you who would do the transporting."
Clea crossed her arms over her chest. This time it was she who was amused. "What sort of illegal things are we talking about Ryder?"
"It’s my turn to be coy, Clea. Just things. You may see them, you may not. It doesn't matter so long as my cargo gets to where it needs to be."
"Nothing sentient, I trust?"
"Of course not, Clea. Must I remind you again that I'm of Bethel? We're more the same than I think you care to believe."
Before she slipped into the trap of casual conversation and begin telling him more than he needed to know, Clea smiled and rolled her body along the curve of the turret away from her associate, taking care that she was still concealed from the view of any potential onlookers. "Okay Ryder, enough inquisition. When do you need this job done?"
"Tomorrow morning. I'd need the cargo to reach its destination on Medius by midday tomorrow." Ryder paused when he saw Clea bite her lip in hesitation before she could stop herself. "What's the matter, Clea? Do you have a standing engagement?"
Clea mulled over the offer in her mind. As long as she was back on Bethel by midday she would be fine, would have plenty of time to ready herself for the Twilight Bloom. And she and her crew would be five thousand chid richer. It was a good offer, one she shouldn't turn down. Though surly, he was a prolific trafficker, and willing to pay her what she demanded. A run to Medius was quick and no one would even have to know about it. She pushed aside the nagging thought of Quade in her mind. I make my own destiny!
"Deal, Ryder." She turned and circled to stand in front of him, squinting her eyes against the bright sun that poured in the hangar bay doors over his shoulder. "Name the hour, and I'll be here."
"I'm afraid you'll have to get up early for this one, Clea. Seventh hour." He reached into his pocket and tossed her a clear disc, which she caught but just barely, the gesture was so quick. "Your coordinates and liaison on both Medius and Tiock 4," he explained as she looked at the disc. "And no bugs this time." She smiled and pocketed the amber circle. "Seventh hour… do you think you can make it?" Clea had already flipped up the gauzy shawl that was draped over her shoulders and wrapped it about her head before she stepped away from the shielding bulk of the turret and into the throng of people.
"I'm sure I'll manage," she called, never once looking back.
CHAPTER 20
The planet was called Shescheri, and Quade had only a vague memory of going there years before, back in a time where his wanderlust was bit more unchecked and his sense of adventure was a bit more untamed. It was more of an escape back then, when Quade was a mapper; an escape from those who still treated him with suspicion, who still watched him with sideways glances as he passed them on the street. For awhile he thought he could make a name for himself by charting unexplored territory, and through that he would prove his value. But all it proved to him was that he missed home and he wasn't reckless enough often enough to jump into an uncharted nexus point, even on the rare occasions that he could find them.
Shescheri had been the singular exception to a couple of years that had been mostly laden with frustration. It was one of only a handful of planets that he'd found on the other side of unexplored leylines, and since it's route from Bethel was complex but entirely doable, he'd hoped that his discovery would be one of grand recognition.
Alas, that wasn’t the case at all. Upon closer inspection, Quade had found Shescheri to consist mostly of water and the landmasses to be much too small to inhabit any sort of an organized society. None of the little islands that dotted the planet's surface were ever any larger than the meadow that surrounded the castle of Sighs on Bethel, and would never have been suitable to build on. Worse, once he got back from his journey and took the time to check the historical logs of that area in space, he'd found that someone else had discovered the system long before Quade had. Years before Quade was ever even born some ambitious explorer had stumbled upon the tiny planet, and finding it useless had filed the records away, forgotten until Quade brought them up years later. But the one thing that Quade remembered now as he dropped from nexus point to nexus point on his journey to the amphibious land of Shescheri, was the way the sun looked as it set over the glassy water.
Like orange wax melting into the ocean. Liquid sun over a shimmering sea.
It was the third drop, in less than half that many hours. The leylines were short and erratic in this area of space, and Quade had to keep close watch on his course, making sure that his path was the correct one. Almost a dozen different nexus points had to be navigated to get to this uninhabited world, and though it was close to Bethel and close to the galactic center, its position left nothing for ease of travel, and its terrain made it even less desired.
He had perhaps a quarter of an hour before his next nexus drop and Quade had two ports on his information panel opened, each feeding him separate accounts of galactic legend. The Avè. Who was he to seek the Avè? He'd asked Clea the same question, and her vague answer had done nothing to answer his doubts. The Avè. The grand magic user of all, a timeless figure that had only come forth when a most dire situation was at hand. The most recent account had of course been the Circ war. Magic was fleeting and weak out on the Circ, and a group of malcontent nomads and wanderers had banded together in an attempt to infiltrate the middle worlds, to force high magic users to come to the Circ and bring with them their power. But disorganized and hostile, they began to fight among themselves before their plan was even realized, eventually causing ruin and chaos in their own worlds. When the battles looked to get out of hand a magical thing happened; a thing which became a legend of sorts. Each warrior's mind was touched by the Avè, each person involved in the conflict was shown the plan of the gods, the plan of the way things were meant to be. They were shown that the path of destruction they were on was not the correct path, and that by battling each other, they were destroying themselves in the process. The fighting ceased as all came to understand.
Their homeworlds were healed, cleansed of the destruction that had taken place, atmospheres that were threatened and compromised were brought back to their prior condition. The Avè's magic was so powerful and so encompassing, it was more than the warriors could retain in their thoughts. So although the evidence of his magic and his healing was all around them, no one could remember exactly what it was they'd been shown, only that the Avè had come and brought them to peace. Indeed peace had reined ever since because to defy the Avè would be as near to defying the gods as one might get.
It was only the most powerful and noble galactic leaders that held the exalted privilege of contacting the Avè; the Keystone, and the Macvaledens, the leaders of the three remaining galactic belts outside of Bethel's section of space. Even their access was a close-guarded secret, for the Avè himself was said to visit these leaders soon after their appointment, granting them the key that they could use to call on him. But no one besides these prestigious galactic leaders knew how the Avè was reached.
Them, and for some unbelievably strange reason, Clea Colletta.
Even now, Quade didn't understand how he was going to embark on such a task. Why to Shescheri? Why did this riddle bring images of this place to Quade's mind, how was it that the way the riddle was told matched so closely to how Quade had encountered the planet those years ago. A place forgotten but rediscovered. It clicked, it felt more right to him than anything he'd done in his life, though it still made little sense to Quade himself why it did.
But he was focused. Shimmering seas and liquid sun. He heard Clea's words over and over in his mind. In desperate times seek here, the Avè. He didn't know what he would find when he got to the planet, or even how he would locate P'cadia once he landed. In his dreams over the past several months, he'd seen places that he'd never been, all of them P'cadia, but none of them the same, and certainly none of them bearing resemblance to the wide-scoping oceans that he remembered from Shescheri. But inside he felt a determination and an assurance that was absolutely clear.
Quade scanned the database of the ship's systems, locked in to a central information hub that was connected through the leylines. From there he could access worlds of knowledge, could easily find data on legend and lore, on history and galactic maps. The Legend of the Chosen. All the versions he found were essentially the same, renderings so old they were in antiquated language, but still, the interpretation remained true. There was no mention of the Avè in any written version of this legend, but then, it was no longer a legend, was it? The irony was bittersweet, how over the course of his life he'd read of this story, as a child participated in games that acted it out, and now here he was, living it, though the version he seemed to be living now was somewhat skewed from the one he'd grown up knowing. He thought on all the worlds he'd seen fail in the vision, thought of all the countless people who'd tried and failed, many with no ease of communication or transportation. Some of the worlds didn't even have inter-planetary travel. How could anyone battle such a force with no means of traveling the stars? For the first time, Quade felt very lucky since he had something to compare himself to.
His final nexus drop was coming into view, the glowing green arc of his last descent to Shescheri now within visual range. A warning light flashed on his panel, and a screen readout displayed that the section of space he would come into at the end of this leyline was uncharted, and therefore posed a potential danger. Quade huffed a weak laugh. In the same way the original explorer had disregarded his findings of Shescheri as insignificant, Quade had never bothered to record his discovery into galactic travel logs, and therefore it was still considered unexplored. He bypassed the warning and guided his ship over the nexus arc. Shimmering seas and liquid sun. He kept repeating it in his mind.
CHAPTER 21
Clea was beyond annoyed. She was beyond unsettled, beyond bewildered, and far beyond discretion. Damn all the stars why was this happening to her?
She'd spent the afternoon alone in her house mulling over what to do, half expecting there to be a banging at her door that would be Quade, having tracked her down for another confrontation. Her next run was in less than twelve hours, and Twilight Bloom was that same day at dusk. No matter really, about Twilight Bloom; a run to Medius and back would take only mere hours, and there would be plenty of time to get back before sunset. She'd left word for Trina, a voice message that had been decidedly vague. But her mind was still reeling, her nerves still on edge over what Quade had said the previous day over breakfast. How could he know about P'cadia, and worse, from a dream! Finally she couldn't stand the noise in her head anymore, and so she went searching for some answers.
She walked a direct and hasty path deep into the forest and headed toward a spot she knew well. As she walked, Clea tried to remember the lyric from the legend that she'd read only once many years ago, and she began to recite it aloud, and with volume:
"It's said that throughout these trees does pass the vision of Avalon to those who beseech thee…"
She couldn't remember the words from there, so she improvised:
"I've rarely sought out this elusive Muse who travels by thought and drops destiny clues. To me, no less! Unsuspect smuggling hound…Avalon…Avalon…where might you be found?"
He had appeared at that very turn in the path and through her chidingly chanted poem, Clea was still startled to see him when she rounded the bend. He reclined against a low, sloping tree trunk which held him suspended at an angle, his head tilted back as though looking to the forest canopy.
"I thought we decided years ago that rhyme was not your gift," he said nonchalantly, not looking at her yet. Clea walked over to him and glared down, her eyes glittering with the look of someone who has many questions that needed immediate answers.
"Do these trees have ears?" she asked. He glanced up to her and raised a curious eyebrow at her serious tone.
"Perhaps," he replied. "What's happened Clea, to demand such a question?" He rose from his reclining position on the tree and began to walk a winding path that led deeply through the forest interior.
"I'd really be loathe to say that it's destiny, but I fear that will be what it is," she said. Avalon had been walking in front of her, leading her somewhere apparently, but at those words he turned around to face her and continued to walk backwards along the path. His amused expression faded quickly when he saw her face, saw how tightly knit her brow was, how her body language had none of its usual fluid qualities. She walked straight and determined, and she obviously had something weighing on her mind of great importance. He stopped for a moment and so did she, and he looked away, as though surveying the air for a stir.
"The trees do have ears, Clea. Come; someone approaches. Someone I will not see."
"Why won't you see them, Avalon?"
"Because," he took her hand and led through the thicket of the trees, off the path they'd been following and into the depths of the forest. "He seeks to use his gift to corrupt. Follow me. I'll take you to a place where we can speak freely."
Through the close-set trees and high vining plants he led her, stepping over large rocks and fallen branches, across a tiny creek and through giant holes in the towering trunks of ancient ash trees. A dozen different turns they made, and soon Clea held tightly to his hand because if she let go she would have no way to tell where she was.
After a time, he stopped in the middle of it all and Clea looked around. There was nothing for the eye to see except layers of foliage, hanging vines and long braids of succulent flowers, and a rock formation that was green with the thick covering of moss. The birds and wildlife had even come to a sort of still, their calls and their songs dwindling to few as Avalon turned around. He waved his hand briefly through the air and looked back to Clea, and what she saw surprised her more than she ever would have imagined, though she never would have thought to imagine this.
Although it seemed like nothing but a moss covered rock formation, and an unspectacular one at that, by the wave of Avalon's hand the wall warped and
blurred, then opened up as a passage.
"What's this?" she demanded, her voice a surprised whisper.
"A place to be," he replied, and again took her hand. "Now, Clea… tell me why you are so troubled."
She followed him through the entry of what, for all intents and purposes seemed to be a cave, and she turned to look over her shoulder as they walked inside. Behind them, the entry seeped shut, gelling and then appearing to be stone again. As she turned back around and followed Avalon's leading hand, she was led along a narrow tunnel, the rocky, uneven pattern of the walls black, but lit with the sheen and phosphorescence of glowstone, and speckled throughout with glittering crystals that were imbedded in the rock. The air inside smelled like fresh water, was clean and faintly mineral to the senses. After ten paces or so, the passage opened up to a huge area, through which trailed a faintly trickling stream that traveled out a low hole in the wall. There were smoothly polished rocks about the space, and thick tapestries and fringed textiles adorned the floors and some of the rock formations, making this hidden cave area seem like an otherworldly living room. As she looked up, the ceiling was far above them, much higher than the outside of the rock formation would have provided. So much higher, she realized, that its height and size wasn't possible. Not by secular definitions, anyway. It had to be some sort of magic, some sort of pocket universe.
"Do you live here?" Clea asked hushedly, walking the perimeter of the enclosure.
"I sometimes come here. To be."
In all her years of knowing Avalon, of being on the receiving end of his visits, it never occurred to Clea that he actually lived anywhere. Since he showed up at random and by his own will, she had never gone beyond the idea that he somehow existed in another dimension of some sort, although that never really rang true to her either, since whenever he was with her, everything about him was so very real, and such a natural part of Bethel.