Legion's Riddle Trilogy Box Set

by K R Sanford

  Then, searching like the lightning trace,

  defying life to show its face,

  Thought; mortals plans will fall to waste.

  Then shuns: to think his own disgrace.

  A sigh he breathes with deep embrace,

  Truth; proves itself with trust in grace.

  And the motions of the waves moved on.

  The pier stood sound in celestial song.

  Then looking to the stars, he mused,

  And wished a place among them,

  But he was sobered by those specks of light,

  Now filling the bellows of the sky,

  That vault of black.

  And, his destiny awaits him,

  Out beyond the shimmer of the horizon,

  Where he saw,

  The ocean had its own message.

  Its voice was deep.

  But he grew tired of these incoming thoughts.

  Life was all around him!

  Then, his thoughts dissipated,

  Like the mist off the breaking swell,

  For, he was overwhelmed.

  Captain Marco W. Miller turned on his heels. He picked up the crutches off the rail, placed them under the pits of his arms and hobbled back along the pier. He walked through the sand to the door of the snack shack. He pushed the buzzer on the entry pad and the door hissed open. He stepped inside. The magnavator shot up to the first level of the ship. He stepped out into the hallway and went to his quarters. He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. He turned over and fell into a deep sleep.

  Hours later he awoke to a soft white light. The light emerged around his bedchamber. He felt its presence with a familiarity to its composition. He stirred and tried to focus on its source but the light drew away. It lifted above him. It formed itself into the brightness of a star. He watched as the star moved higher above his bedchamber.

  As the star radiated a soft glow, it draped a translucent veil down around his bed. He lay astonished, fascinated with the beauty of its subtle salutation. The veil closed in and isolated him with the star fixed within the center of his chamber.

  He studied the light. Its presence had a life, a feeling, a comfort and an ease within its unifying source. He felt the dimension of time and space slip away from his conscious thoughts. His body felt weightless and he lifted up from the lap of his luxurious bedchamber. The pain in his body and mind began to fall away.

  The star moved higher in his quarters. Its light opened through the ceiling of the ship. It rose still higher beyond the ship's upper bulkhead. It traveled up through the dark expanse of space. As the star broke the barriers of the universes’ womb, he felt a comfort. He felt the ease of its truss move in unison through his body and his mind. Marco, curious for exploration, relaxed to the invocation of the guiding light.

  He moved upward through the beam of veiled light. As he traveled, the presence in the veil stood him upright. He was standing on both feet and the pain within his body had vanished. He traveled beyond the upper bulkhead of the Eagle. He could see below to the charring of Bradley's torpedoes where they struck the outer hull. He watched as a brown haze enveloped the composite sides of his starship. The haze appeared as a cloud of cosmic dirt. It was the symbol of the worthless value of a universe gone astray.

  Marco compared his ascended view of the Eagle to the ultra-dimension of the veil. It appeared like a force field. It was a barrier to the cold outer darkness. He placed his hand against the force and felt its substance. It was soft and warm. As he pushed deeper into the veil, a cold resistance warned him of the consequences of his own self will. The more he pushed the more he felt the cold beyond the force.

  He could imagine himself pushing through the veil into the dark unknown. As well, he could imagine himself trapped outside in space, lost with no way back and no return. He had enough miscalculations for one day. The boundaries of his judgment had lapsed too often for any more of his sophomoric tests. He pulled his hand back inside the veil. And he surrendered to the receptivity of his new exploration.

  At that instant, he watched the brilliance of the star lead to an upper place beyond his universe. The star was traveling at terrific speed. He looked around and saw he was on a course through the outer cosmos, racing outside the parameters of light. He was moving in a direction leading far into the unknown. His body grew frail, yet powerful. His mind became unencumbered, his thoughts began to streamline. He was holding to his memories with a single thread.

  His last memories of his life only moments ago vanished. He expected the darkness to cover him up. He felt a renewing, like a new beginning and a new transformation.

  As he looked at his arms and legs. He noticed his clothes begin a transformation. His coat and slacks changed to a finer material. His clothes morphed to a radiant blue fabric of no seams or wrinkles. They fashioned infinite reason by a tailor of immortal understanding.

  He looked up within the veil to where he saw the star had stopped. The star set itself in place and held itself on top as if subsisting from a nest. It sent veils of light upon their journey to a concert with its young. It was a place that appeared to Marco as the end of his life long journey. It's final resting place.

  Marco moved still higher through the veil. It came closer to the star. It raced forward to a place of primordial existence. He grew more and more uncertain of the star's true intended purpose. He could not help desire the power of its brilliance. Yet, he could not help admire its authority to divide the darkness from the light. He could not desire its place at top of its infinite nest and would not desire a share of its unique and mighty power. His mind quickened and he sensed its true intentions. His journey had corrected by an energy that went far beyond him. Even more, his journey had corrected from a design that established before time.

  Marco was not prepared, not well enough to take its place. That would be the dimension of unimaginable demise. He did not know or understand its symbolic meaning, only he was certain, the star was not his home.

  Marco began the deceleration in his journey. He continued moving toward the great star, indeed a great and wondrous star. It had journeyed through the cosmos. Marco was not at one with the greatness of its brilliance. He did not comprehend its composition, but strange as it may seem, he felt born within its source. He moved closer and closer, until finally, fear seized him at his core. He determined in his mind, and by the sheer might of his will, he would turn from this thing he was not. Then, at that same moment, he slowed in his ascent until he stopped.

  He was standing on solid ground, secure in the veil of soft white light. He took a deep breath. Marco looked to his right and saw a mirror. The mirror was set in a gold frame of French provincial. It was from the fourteenth-century Earth. It was an odd mirror, thought Marco, for being way out here in the far-flung reaches of space. He tested the mirror to see if it gave the reflection of him. It was, in fact, the perfect reflection of a perfect face with perfect skin. It had the perfect nose and the perfect features of a man. Then, as he examined the eyes, upon close and careful inspection, he discovered they were his own. And what was stranger yet, he surmised, was that his hair had been combed with perfection. As he studied the miracle of his perfect hair, a hat appeared resting on his head with the fine exactness of a dream. The hat was that of a prince, he deduced, and it was okay with no one around. Besides, he did not fear or care. How could it matter? How could it matter after he had traveled the full depth of the universe?

  Marco looked beneath to the framework of the mirror to where he saw a golden knob. He put his hand on the knob and gave it a turn. The mirror moved back and a door opened. It opened out from the veil into another compelling dimension.

  He looked into this new dimension and saw it was a fine place. He saw a floor he recognized. It had the same substance he found in the Lord Legion's temple. Marco was not shocked or surprised and yet he stood in the doorway in wonder. He wondered at the familiar immortal construction. He wondered at the flat open portal that lay before him.

/>   It was a launch pad to anywhere he could imagine. He stepped out of the veiled corridor and walked across its surface. He walked until he came to the edge. He looked over. There were no stars extending a tiny universe as the Lord Legion's temple. Likewise, there was no dome overhead with the intelligent life of the Emperor. There were no walls of gold-scaled armor. There was no temple of cerebral convolutions. There was only the glazed floor of transparent gold.

  Marco continued along its edge to where a rise of three steps fashioned at a corner outcrop. The steps, constructed of the same immortal substance as the floor, were unbroken. It was the expression of an untraceable builder. He mounted the first step, then the second. At the third he waited. He looked out to the deep void of space and saw only stars. No moving objects were in the distance to absorb his isolation. No moving starships were below him to witness his occurrence. There was only the black abyss below and the stars.

  The stars like all other stars were in the expanse of their own spacetime. He waited for a voice, a voice that would grant him an acquaintance. He waited for a familiar voice, a voice that did not come. Marco did not so much expect the adoration of the universe to launch calibration of his arrival. But as he turned to carry on his exploration, he saw a figure, a ghost-like apparition. Still, Marco was not surprised or in fear of his life. He was now pleased to see a being standing on the same immortal floor as he. Things were looking up, he thought. Then, the apparition motioned with outstretched arm. Marco looked to see four spirits sitting around a table, a table he did not see before the appearance of the figure. He gazed in veneration upon this new audience.

  Marco recognized the spirits as the archetypes of the ancients. They were the four spirits with bodies of beasts. The spirits confronted him as if judging his performance. Each held a separate but equal perspective in their faces. One; possessed the face of a lion. The other, the face of an eagle, the next, a face of an ox, and the other, had the face of a man. Each face; having its own separate and unique personality and powers. They made their perspective clear in the different directions they faced. They instructed Marco to the vast reservoir of their powers. The four spirits showed him the thread that bound the will of their hearts and minds. The thread bound them in a unifying demonstration of their purpose.

  Marco listened to the expressions of the beings. He replied with a posture of receptive affirmation. The four spirits acknowledged the will of their purpose through telepathic utterance. They had opened themselves to Marco. They made known in their innermost thoughts. They transmitted their faculties and capacities, talents and intentions, gifts, aspirations and desires. He experienced their message and the significance of its depths in the whole of his body, mind, and spirit. He had gathered and understood the fullness of their enlightened message. He knew them as created from the hand of time.

  Marco reflected on the totality of their significance. He turned and gazed upon the guiding figure behind him. The figure, Infinite in its being, beckoned with the offer of its hand.

  Marco stepped closer in an attempt to know the intent of the Infinite. The Infinite held him back with the power of its compassion so great that Marco froze where he stood. In that instant, Marco received a telepathic utterance to: Hold where he stood. This is the distance established by the unifying spirit.

  There in that moment, he understood the guiding friendship of the Infinite. The Infinite again impressed upon Marco that it was a fellow traveler. He could not embrace him at that moment in any closer approximation. Marco, aware of the reverent power of the limits, complied. As he did, he recharged with a quality that he accepted.

  Marco experienced an invigorating essence emerging in his being. He was conscious of the fact his experience increased the permanency of his life. He saw he could take in and be the quality of what he lived as if it were the gift of universal power. The power was far beyond his self-made universe. The essence revitalized his spirit. Its quality was the same as the four archetypes of the ancients.

  He grew more and more solid and felt more and more the fiber of his surroundings. He could see with new sensations. He could understand its dynamics and intentions, its magnificence and importance.

  Marco was eager for his next lesson in infinite indoctrination. He looked to the Infinite for a newer and still greater revelation. The Infinite guided Marco's eyes to the starry expanse of space. He looked to where a star surged above all others in its brightness and independence. The star dislodged itself from its position. It drew forward on a course to where Marco stood with the Infinite. As the star drew closer it evolved from its single point of light. It evolved to a massing of clouds rolling forward through space.

  As the clouds charged in, Marco's body began to tremble. He could hear their thunder roaring and he could see the clouds abounding. The roaring thunder quickened every cell in his being. He welcomed the celestial drama unfolding before him. Then as the morning light brings calm for a bright new day, the clouds stopped in front of Marco.

  They cleared away their misty cover. Marco could see the spire-capped turrets and dazzling rows of rooftops. He could see enchanted courtyards and cobbled streets of gold. He could see the clouds surrounding castle walls and inside he could see a beautiful city. Above the beautiful city, stars appeared that gave their light as bright as day. The beautiful city was great and built with flawless grace of days gone by.

  Inside the city were lands of rolling hills with a river flowing through the center. The castle nestled within the city walls and beside the flowing river.

  Marco turned to the Infinite to inquire about the purpose of the astronomic spectacle. The Infinite impressed within Marco that he was being offered a perpetuating option. Marco saddened because although no words were spoken, he knew the choice he would make. He would either; enter ultimate contentment and arrive in a place where dreams come true. Or return to his ship with his own separate and unique life-long destination.

  That destination was the mission for building value in his own character. He would commit to that choice for when his time in mortality expired. It would be his most important venture, but one that would win a victory for himself and civilization.

  To do that would mean living as a mortal once again. Marco would live in a high-maintenance body for an unspecified length of time. But, after that he could return through the veil of soft white light and accept his place with dignity. He would be deserving of a sphere of influence like the Emperor Lord Legion.

  Marco knew he must leave the beautiful city in the clouds with its rolling hills and vivid splendor. And most of all, he would lose his sense of connected fellowship with all he had surveyed. He felt it worthy of himself to return through the dirt and the troubled confusion of the universe. He knew he could have that infinite life at that very moment. But as he thought, he made his decision. He would set his infinite life aside and take up the challenge of the ages. This, he thought, would be his own answer to the Emperor Lord Legion's most difficult of riddles.

  What is everyone’s?

  And what is no one's

  And, has the power to generate a universe?

  Marco knew upon his return to his universe he could call upon the stars if that was what he desired.

  The Infinite bid Marco farewell. Its mission was complete and its place was with the spirits of the stars. Marco was again saddened. He would separate from the Infinite and the beautiful city for a short time. But, the revelation was more than enough for the journey that lay ahead.

  As the city in the clouds lifted away, Marco descended back to the Eagle. He watched in amazement as the city disappeared from sight.

  The stars that gave the city their bright illumination, shined one last time in unison. Their unbroken goodbye would be the power to bring them back together. Marco looked on. His heart leapt in his chest. Then as if a silent call went out; one third of all the stars in the celestial theater fell away after the great city.

  Marco felt a great loss. He did not realize their presence had t
he conscious power to make him feel the way he did.

  As the stars left him far behind; he began to lose his insights and the ability to speak without the use of words. His instinctive knowledge of the universe faded from his memory. Marco felt disadvantaged. Still, he had his experience, and that was certain enough. What else he would keep from the power of the vision only time would tell.

  Then as he held the vision clear within his mind's eye, the words of the Emperor Lord Legion came ringing in his ears. It gave him courage. He would know; when he heard the suns of thunder. Marco heard the sons of thunder, as he had seen the clouds rolling with magnificent sublime. Now he knew what he would do with the length his time.

  C H A P T E R 13

  _________________________________________

  THE KING'S GAME

  Marco lay on his bed refreshed. His Infinite clothes were gone. His trousers ripped and bloodied from his ordeal the night before. He lifted his battered leg and winced. He was once again mortal. He touched the sensor by his bed and spoke.

  “Captain to bridge:”

  “Yeah, Marco,” replied Hector. “What's up?”

  “Hector,” said Marco. “Ask Devin to meet me in the conference room with his game, I want to learn to play.”

  “Well okay,” replied Hector, “I’m going to put some breakfast together soon, would you like some?”

  “That's not a bad idea. Come on down. You can play, too.”

  “Yo righty,” sang Hector. “We'll time it for T-minus thirty minutes.”

  “Good,” replied Marco. “Captain out.”

  Marco pulled himself from his bedchamber. He stripped the soiled clothes from his body and stepped into the shower. After a long hot soak, he dressed and installed new bandages. He repositioned the tibia splint so it would not slip, and headed for the door.

  He stopped short at the mirror in the entry. His face still showed residue of his astral manifestation. He passed his comb through his hair and decided it would not lay straight while he was human. He went back in his mind to the images of the beautiful city in the clouds. He recalled the stars escorting the celestial wonderland through mysterious dimensions of spacetime. It was a perpetual mystery that seemed to invent itself at will.