Andromeda

by Glenn Jackson

  55.341.12

  As soon as they arrived at Castle Immoria, Kare and Edric departed with all the collected items to Roselid Monastery. They hoped to search the archives, which had all been gathered there from all over Quadlibet and Shirfalla, to find some clue of the nature of these items.

  “Do the monks from all across the kingdom come here to study?”

  Bishop Joshua responded, “Yes, Edric. All the monks come here for their final development and training before they are sent out to help the people. As a matter of fact, the last act a monk completes is the building of their staff.”

  “Oh really? What is so special about the staff?”

  Bishop Samantha said, “Each candidate must select a branch from the trees surrounding this monastery and hone it into a staff. But the hardest and most important step is to create a hole and dig out a space inside, nearly the length of the staff, where they can insert Melandite wrapped with the root of the Freedinoran Tree. This fills the core and gives the staff its strength. Each monk is then taught hand to hand combat using the staff, so they can protect their flock in time of need.”

  “How many monks have completed this training?”

  “All of them, some few hundred.”

  “Interesting. Thank you for that information. Now, how do we go about understanding these items?”

  “Well,” said Kare, “I would suggest no one puts one on their head to see what happens.”

  Everyone laughed at that but agreed.

  They studied each object and looked for anything in their documents that might mention anything like them. They spent hours in the evening looking at any writings they thought might say something about these objects. They reviewed as much history as they could, looking at their oldest writings. But to no avail.

  “This is so frustrating.”

  “Yes, I agree. Not to mention, I’m tired. Maybe we should take a break and start again in the morning?”

  “I’m with Edric. I need some rest.”

  “Very well, let’s stop and get some sleep. We can start again in the morning.”

  55.342.11

  In the morning, they ate and then began a continuation of their search. They had gathered to discuss their findings, when they were interrupted by word a messenger from the King had arrived. He was ushered into the study, and said, “Prince Edric, Princess Kare, King Solon requests your immediate presence at the castle. We have discovered yet another island.”

  It took two days to put things in their proper place and get back to the castle, but eventually they made it back. They went to the private quarters of the King.

  “Kare, Edric, welcome.”

  Kare hugged her brother. “Hi Solon. So, another island?”

  “Yes. Tabitha’s fleet found yet another island, this time due west of here. It doesn’t seem to be a very big island, nor does it look as hospitable as the island of the Holdren, but still, it is another one.”

  “Is this island settled?”

  “We don’t know. I ordered her to not send anyone ashore or have ships search to make contact, but to let us know of any new islands and we could decide how to proceed. I don’t want us to lose anyone accidentally, like we could have with the Holdren.”

  “Good plan.”

  “We seem to be finding islands far too often, Solon. Yet we never found even one for so many years.”

  “I know, Edric. It is really interesting, but with our newest ships able to go further and further, it makes it possible. Plus, we never searched for a new island before.”

  “True. So, what is the plan?”

  “I don’t know. I believe we need to explore this, but don’t want to put everyone in danger like I did last time. I was wondering if you and Kare would lead an expedition to this island. Helen wants to return home, and there are a lot of things I need to take care of here in Quadlibet.”

  Edric looked at Kare, and they nodded. “Of course, we can depart within a week.”

  “Excellent. Now, since you are both here, and before Helen departs, may we have a royal feast?”

  “Yes! Oh my, it seems like such a long time since we had everyone here for a party.”

  There was a loud knocking at the door. Solon said, “Come!”

  Tabitha entered, nearly out of breath. “Your Majesty, we have received word of ships approaching Shirfalla by a fleet we have never seen. They have massive ships many times larger than ours.”

  Helen said, “Then I must leave at once.”

  “You will not travel alone. Tabitha, mobilize the fleet, we sail immediately for Shirfalla.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “You two, go ahead and go to this new island. Try and figure out these new devices we have discovered. Hopefully we can all return here safely soon. In the meantime, I believe we will need to postpone that feast.”

  “Yes, and we will only take one ship, so the rest can support you.”

  “Very well, good luck and Godspeed.”

  “And to you, Sire.”

  55.345.15

  A few days later they met at the dock. Kare gave her brother a hug, then she and Edric boarded their ship and departed on their journey to a newly discovered island, while he sailed to join the fleet in a journey to possible war. Edric and Kare sailed on a calm sea. Eventually they arrived at this new island and approached it. The island didn’t have any significant features. No mountains, forests, even color for that matter. It seemed to be a rather dull looking, plain island.

  “This island is different, Edric.”

  “Yes, it seems to be. There are no mountains, and the trees are not quite as green as the ones on the other islands. The trees look almost like shrubs.”

  “The water is warmer than home, but not as warm or blue as the southern seas.”

  They sailed around the southern end of the island, and upon rounding the peninsula that pointed south, they spotted a town in the protected bay behind it. They sailed towards the town.

  An alarm bell sounded, and they could see quite a lot of activity around the dock. A ship tied up at the dock raised its sail and began moving out towards them.

  “Lower the sails. Drop anchor. We will stay here and show them we mean them no harm. But have your swords at the ready.”

  They waited. The ship moved closer toward them, then it too, lowered sails and dropped anchor. A small boat was lowered into the water, and a lone sailor paddled over to their ship.

  “Hail! Who are you and why have you come to our town?”

  “Hail to you. I am Prince Edric of Azulon. We are seeking others in this endless sea. You are the second civilization we have found we did not know about until recently.”

  “What island are you from?”

  “We call it Quadlibet.”

  “The big island east of here? Large range of very tall mountains run through it?”

  “Yes, you know of it?”

  He laughed, “Oh yes, I know of it. I have been there many times to shop. You are Princess Kare, sister to King Solon. And you were King Edric of Azulon. But now you are a prince?”

  “Yes. We have united the island. Kare and I married, and I renounced my throne and favored Solon as the only king.”

  “Ah yes, I had heard there were some changes taking place over there. So, what do you hope to find here?”

  Kare spoke up, saying, “We have found some things, items we do not understand. We are searching to find out if anyone does understand them.”

  “What kind of things?”

  She held up one of the Tolnets they brought. “This item, for example, is one we found on an island southeast of here. They said it was from a demon cave and used it to kill people by putting on their head. We found it is not, but we do not know what it is.”

  “That is a rotational stabilizer controller.”

  He watched their confuse
d faces for a moment, then laughed. “I see you do not truly know. Very well. Sail over and tie up at the dock and we will discuss this and other items of interest for you. By the way, my name is Randolph.”

  Once they were secured, Randolph and several others came to their ship. “Why don’t you show me all of the items you have found so far?”

  They led them to a cabin and showed them all the items they had found. Randolph and the others were very excited for a couple of them. “These are parts from the vessel we are working to re-build. But I think we need to take you to one of our discovery rooms and help you understand what we are discussing. I warn you, what we, the Reivers, are going to tell you will shock you. So, be prepared.”

  Eventually they entered a room in one of the houses.

  “We call ourselves the Reivers. That is, we believe, our family name. We named our island Reivers Island. What we do is very different from what others on the planet do; we try and remember our past and understand the technology of the past. I am going to tell you a story that you will not believe. However, the story is the truth, so I ask you to indulge me. Afterwards, we are going to show you things and explain things, providing you a new vocabulary and understanding of the universe we live in.”

  Randolph gathered his team, then had Kare, Edric and the others sit down facing him. He waited a moment, then began. “A very long time ago, there was an Empire in the universe, in the stars you see in the heavens. The last known true empire was the Decarthy Empire, which fell roughly eight hundred years ago, give or take a few hundred years. During that time, there were pioneers and people looking to escape the hardships that existed. Some of them came to the Outer Sea system, which is where we are, a system of stars located along the outer rim of the galaxy, at the very tip of a spiral arm. Our planets are mostly water, which makes them far different from all other star systems known to humans. Our system sparkles like diamonds in a black velvet sea.”

  “The humans who arrived in these systems years ago realized they had found a unique treasure but reported back false information about what they had found. They made it sound like it was unfit for human colonization and that they were shifting to another location in a search of a habitable world. They did this because they had lived through the devastation and torment that lack of water had caused to their home planet, Trenpoor, and knew that if an abundant supply was known to exist, they would stand no chance of holding their claim. Selfish, yes; but to the ones who escaped, it seemed a prudent step to take at the time. They could not have known what the future held, regardless of their decision.”

  “It is interesting that no one tried to follow them all those years, nor suspected anything awry, but since this was a journey to a remote outer-rim system, it is not surprising. After all, most colonization over the past thousands of years has been inward towards the galactic center and the larger volume of star systems and planets, not outward to remote star systems on the fringe.”

  “Our ancestors who arrived in Outer Sea were only a few thousands of people escaping from the cramped and chaotic systems of a collapsed Empire. When they left in their starships, they felt they were escaping from a bad situation more than exploring. Truly, most of them did not have the adventurer’s spirit, but they survived.”

  “After they discovered the Outer Sea and effectively hid their location they were forgotten and thought to have perished. After all, there were so many people leaving to escape to new systems and spread out in the migration that one lost group was not important enough to follow.”

  “So, these new and unexpected pioneers settled on the planet they called Pelipatia, the one we are on. It contained several large islands and many small ones. As they began to establish their lives on this planet, the colonists also sent their ships to the other stars and planets in the Outer Sea systems and settled other islands on various water covered planets. There are fifteen water planets that are habitable, but only five are inhabited, and another forty or so that are not, spread out between nine stars within a two light year diameter sphere.”

  “For some time, they maintained trade between the systems, but over time the equipment began to fail, repairs were ignored or became too difficult to complete, and eventually, they were not only cut off from the known universe, but even from each other. From there, communication and contact between various peoples continued to decline, until finally even each planet became divided into separate families and tribes who did not necessarily like each other or ignored each other. Technology was lost.”

  “Eventually, the state of affairs was that no one knew about even other islands or people on their own planet, much less that there was a larger group of stars in a system called Outer Sea. No one had any thought that they were not part of the known universe, because they thought the known universe was only them and the talk of anything else was imagination, not history.”

  “This is where we find ourselves today. We, the Reivers, have rediscovered our history, and are trying to bring the knowledge of our past alive. We seek and sometimes find, pieces of our past technology. We have been able to re-build some parts and pieces, but still know there is more.”

  He paused for a moment, seeing that his guests were overwhelmed with these ideas.

  “So, let me get this straight; you are saying that we once traveled the stars?”

  “Yes. We traveled the stars, we traveled in the air around our planets. It is only since we have fallen so far away from the technology and knowledge we had, that we returned to sailing ships.”

  “How do you possibly travel in the air?”

  “That is what we are going to teach you. Over the next few days we want to show you all that we have found, all that we understand, and all that we suspect. We will do this because we are too few to significantly search for additional parts. Right now, we need a power supply, but we do not know where to find it. Maybe, if we work together, we can find it. Then we can really see how this technology works.”

  Edric and Kare spent days learning about this past. They discovered many things. One day, Randolph said, “Come, I want to show you something.” He led them through the hallways to the largest room in the building. When he opened the door, they saw a silver ship.

  “Oh my God!”

  “That is incredible. Does it work?”

  “We have spent generations rebuilding this craft. We believe everything is prepared. What we are lacking is a power supply.”

  As they were walking inside the ship, Edric asked, “So what does the power supply look like?”

  “I am not sure, but it would fit right here.” He showed them a space that was about eight feet wide, two feet deep, and six feet high.

  Edric and Kare looked at each other, and Kare said, “We know where it is.”

  “What? Where?”

  “In the cave of the demons at the top of the mountain on the island of the Holdren.”

  “You have seen this?”

  “Yes, it glows constantly and is exactly the size you mention. There are dials, switches and control mechanisms on it. I am certain that is what it is.”

  “Oh my, can we get it?”

  Edric said, “Yes. We sail with the tide to the island of the Holdren.”

  Randolph was very excited and told the Reivers of this discovery. They began preparing for a possible change in their world.

  55.350.09

  At dawn, Solon and the fleet neared Shirfalla. “How many ships do they have?”

  “From what we have heard, they are a large fleet of some one hundred ships.”

  Solon said, “That is as many as we have with us.”

  “Yes, but we couldn’t bring every ship. Then there would be no one to defend Immoria or Azulon.”

  “Yes, I know. But still, this means we will not arrive with superior numbers.”

  “Yes, Sire, and also, this is old news. We have not heard from anyone on the isl
and in over a week.”

  As the sun rose, they could begin to see ships in the sea ahead of them. They could also see smoke rising from the island.

  “We have to get to the island.”

  “Sire, the only way to get there is through their fleet, and looking at it in daylight, they have more ships than we.”

  “We must try. Our people need our help.”

  “Then we go straight at them and hope to split them apart to get through.”

  Tabitha then began coordinating with her crew and spreading word to the fleet. They prepared and sailed straight at the enemy fleet.

  “Captain, unknown ships are approaching from the west.”

  “How many ships?”

  “It appears to be about one hundred.”

  “Very well, I will inform the Admiral.”

  “Admiral, there is a fleet of one hundred unknown ships approaching from the west. They appear to be in attack formation. I believe they are of this island.”

  He walked over and looked in the direction of the ships. He raised his spyglass and could tell that these ships were just like the others they had fought and defeated. “Turn the fleet, prepare to repel these invaders. Bring the galleons to the front.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “I must inform His Majesty we are being attacked from the west. Perhaps that is the direction we should sail once we defeat these ships. I will seek his guidance.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “Tabitha, have you ever seen ships like those?”

  “No, Sire. They are much bigger than anything we have built.”

  “What are those windows on the sides? They seem to have some type of pipe poking out the sides.”