by Rayner Ye
“What do you mean, Aedre?” Apek asked.
“I can only travel and shape-shift when it’s raining.”
“It’s not raining,” Apek said.
Aedre nodded. “It’s raining where my physical body lies.”
“Where’s that?” Apek asked.
“A place called Haunted River, in Monkey Forest, Giok.”
“Giok’s a nice place.”
“Sorry, Apek. But I have to rush.” Her body tensed, and she pointed at YuFang. “He’s a murderer. I want to take him to the police.”
“No. Don’t,” Apek said.
YuFang lowered his head, then looked up. “If it makes you feel better, once I’ve contacted these people I’ve been dreaming about, I’ll surrender to the cops.”
Aedre narrowed her eyes at him, then nodded. “Good.”
“Can you save my mother from Glass City?” Yasmin asked Aedre.
“And find out if these people from my dreams are real?” YuFang asked.
Her vision blurred. “I don’t know.” She blinked tears, which rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away. “I’m paralysed. Had an accident at the Yiksaan complex.”
“No!” Yasmin said.
Akachi’s jaw dropped. How the hell did that happen?
“It’s my stupid fault. Serves me right for getting three hundred people killed.”
“The androids did that, not you,” Apek said.
“I initiated it.”
Yasmin said, “A hundred were mobsters. Think of all those slaves you freed.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for those innocents I killed. A hundred party-goers and eighty slaves.”
“If it makes you feel any better...” YuFang looked at the tabletop, “I purposely killed as many innocents to save myself.”
Aedre cut him a stare. “I’d never do that.” She glanced at Apek and Yasmin. “Despite my paralysis, something good’s happened.”
“What’s that?” Yasmin leaned forward.
“I can go home to Nerthus and be with my dad and sister again. The Inarmuzzan government’s buying me a ticket home.”
Yasmin clapped. “That’s great news. Why are they doing that?”
“They think mining in their volcano may have caused my paralysis.”
YuFang’s face twisted. “You mined in a volcano?”
“I don’t have time to explain.” She looked at YuFang. “I’m gonna teach you how to travel by river and rain so you can do good to repay your wrongdoings, and so you can determine who those people from your dreams are.” She peered at Yasmin. “If you travel by river and rain, you can find your mum in that lunar slave camp. Glass City?”
Yasmin straightened and nodded.
“Don’t do what I did, though. Record footage and send it to the Human Trafficking Department at the Mayleedian Interstellar Police Station. I’ll tell you about that too.” She placed her hands on the tabletop and leaned in closer. “The first thing you do is give your intention to go where you want.” She looked at YuFang. “You can give your intention to be with a person you dreamed about.”
She spotted a mosquito drone on the teatable.
Her body tensed, and she pointed. “A mosquito drone!” She shuddered, then mindspoke, “Transform me as a ghost.” Invisible to the drone, she walked through the wall and found pen and paper in the office, then wrote a note:
River and Rain Travel.
- Find a magic river connected to an amethyst pyramid (has to be on an authentic site, though refurbished pyramids should work.)
- Find a location to lye on so the river runs under you or around you (some kind of platform, bridge, boulder, deck, or boat.)
- You need an aurashield.
- When it rains, lye on that platform with aurashield set on rain protection.
- Breathe for four seconds in, hold for two, four seconds out, and hold for two.
- Continue breathing this way and completely relax your body.
- In your mind, say what you want to be and where you want to go. You can travel through space this way.
- Be careful! Keep yourself protected. State you must be protected. You can be paralysed, like me, or worse.
She rematerialized in tearoom as Apek attempted to swat the mosquito drone with an electric racket. She pushed the note into Yasmin’s hand.
“Take me back to Hill Park.”
***
Why she’d chosen to come here, she didn’t know. But just in case she died before finding a time travelling, she could watch the sun set over Oxfire one last time.
Goosebumps tingled her skin. It’s summer! I can perfom union under the ork tree. She took off her astral shoes and stood. Grass cool and damp underfoot, she breathed a slow lungful of swett Enderland air. In fluid motions, she moved through different grounding postures, holding each stance for fifteen breath cycles.
She breathed like the ocean, and her body slackened into a relaxed state, even during strengthening, aligned postures. It was good to empty the mind from fear and grief.
But a cruel stranger shook her awake, and she returned to her paralysed state at the river. She gasped.
The man looked to be a Rinidean, with plain dark skin. He spoke in a deep voice, accented Mayleedian. “Aedre. I’ve been following you with my drone—”
She glared at him and closed her eyes. “Transform me into a muscular warrior with a laser gun on the riverbank.” She aimed the gun at the stranger who’d been spying on her. Who was he? One of Bamdar’s men?
The man held out his palms. “I mean you no harm. A volcano’s erupted—”
“Transform me to myself.” From the river’s edge, Aedre gazed at the sky. Her duplicate remained on the rock. “Who are you?”
“Someone on your side.”
“Who?”
“A humanitarian.”
Rocks and dirt fell with rain, and the ground rumbled.
Her blood pressure rose. “I can’t trust you.”
“Let me help. What can I do?”
Her voice elevated in pitch and volume. “You gather villagers. Take them to the amethyst pyramid. Somare will lead the way.”
“The pyramid? Praying to Sahas won’t help.”
She darted her gaze to her body lying mediatatively. “It’s a long story. The pyramid will lead us to safety.”
“If you keep meditating here, you’ll die.”
“I have to find a key.”
He nodded and sprinted up the river bank as more grit and stones fell like meteorites.
Catastrophe
Surrounded by the foul odour of volcanic fallout, Aedre fought to breathe as she prepared to visit the crow. “I intend to...”
She hesitated. What about the labourers? Their beach was close to the volcano. She opened her eyes. If they were alive, how could she help them evacuate? How could she go to the deadly north without getting killed?
The stranger with a drone in Apek’s temple returned. Rain bounced off his aurashield as he slipped down the riverbank. “You okay?”
Her gasps came sporadically as her diaphragm refused to listen to messages her brain tried to send. “Can’t breathe.”
“Got a ventilator?”
She shook her head, hyperventilating.
He gripped her hand. Her breathing came steadily again. “That’s better. Did you get the key?”
She rotated her head to the side, body useless. “No. Find Somare?”
“His son.”
“Gus. Is he collecting villagers?” If only she could sit up. It seemed wrong to lie there, conversing.
He walked across stepping stones, switched off his aurashield’s headlight, and crouched next to her. The whites of his eyes looked bright against his black skin and the night. “Yes. Gus is doing that.”
“They’ll take them to the pyramid?”
He nodded. “Gus will. Somare left two hours ago to drive to his labour camp.”
“I’m going there too.”
“But the key—”
�
�That’ll have to wait.”
“Can you get hurt?”
She nodded. “I became paralysed during my last venture.”
“At the Yiksaan?”
She nodded again. Oh, yes. He’s been following me. “Who are you?”
“There’s no time.”
“Your name?”
“Akachi.”
“I’m Aedre.”
“I know already. Listen, Aedre. That labour camp’s most likely destroyed. Pyroclastic flows could’ve cooked them alive. You need medical help with your breathing.”
Jaw set, Aedre shook her head. “I’m breathing fine now. The labour camp might need my help. I’ll go there first, then get the key.”
“But it’s only twenty miles from the explosion.”
The ground vibrated, and another explosion shook the island.
“I’m going!”
Akachi glanced at the sky towards ash and falling debris. “I have bullet and explosion protection on my aurashield. I’ll come with you.”
Her thoughts froze. Explosion protection? He’d come too? Not many would risk their lives for strangers. “Lie beside me.”
He pushed her to the side to give him space to lie down. He remained sitting. “Will my aurashield protect us?”
“Not our astral bodies. Only here at Haunted River.”
“If you could transform into a spider, can you give us safety clothing for this mission?”
She nodded.
“Choose Mayleedian Secret Service fire-suits and MSS aurashields for explosions and bullets.”
Her breath hitched, and she paused to examine his clothing. Casual, not hi-tech.
She explained the breathing technique, and he took her spare amethyst from her pocket. He held her hand, and they travelled from within each other’s aurashields.
They levitated above the ocean, upwind from the volcano. Brown steam exploded from seawater beneath them as a boiling mudslide with tumbling boulders gushed down its north face. A caldera shone bright red on the south side where it had blown. It spat lava, gas, and steam. The wind blew tumbling ash and hot gas south, devastating everything in its path. The pyroclastic flow rolled over forests, jungles and villages. Lava cascaded down river channels.
Unlike her numb physical body, Aedre’s spirit-body could move and feel. Her belly fluttered, and she clasped her hands in prayer. “The camp’s north-west, and lava’s flowing south-east.”
They flew farther north over the ocean, and increased altitude, remaining outside flying debris, lava, and gas. Their MSS-wear protected them from heat.
The west coast had been scorched black and grey like charcoal in a barbecue. Trees blackened like burned twigs, and sand transformed to molten glass.
Akachi seized her as they levitated above the area.
Labourers and guards with melted skin lay strewn amongst the wreckage. Bodies floated in the ocean like boiled meat in a Jerjen hotpot.
Aedre pressed a palm against her chest and gasped to control her breath.
They decreased altitude over the area until an MSS warning alarm rang out.
Akachi took her by the shoulders and pulled her around to face him. “If anyone is alive down there, they’ll soon die. Can you transport people with you?”
“No. It doesn’t work that way.”
“We don’t have long. You wanna save Gus and his villagers, we’ve gotta find that key.”
She nodded. “Hold my hands.” Then, she mind-spoke, “I intend to travel with Akachi to the crow woman in Eeporyo, who Roobish told Somare about.”
***
Astral body: Western Hearthrum, Planet Eeporyo
Biluglass glow balls lit a cavern from notches between stalagmites, stalactites, and columns. A six-foot-tall sat sharpening a knife on a swollen rock formation.
Apart from her human arms and hands, everything about her was birdlike. Nothing like Sharr Shuvuu—no human face, legs, or feet. On the ground beside her lay a jumble of swords, daggers, and arrowheads. Three amethyst stars sat on a stone shelf.
Aedre squeezed Akachi’s hand, moved closer, and reached out, but Akachi gripped her wrist and nodded towards the weapons.
The crow woman looked up. Her hands froze, then she continued to rub her knife with a whetstone. “Roobish, you returned. You’re much younger. Oh, Aedre, I mean. You came.”
“The volcano in Giok has blown ten years too early. I need that key. Now.”
The crow stood slowly and perched a taloned foot on the boulder in which she’d been sitting. Her wings covered her arms. “No. That was a ploy to bring you here. Roobish never truly planned to save the villagers. You need to collect my keys so we can destroy them.”
Aedre narrowed her vision at the crow. “If Roobish was me, I’m sure she did want to help them. I became paralysed by saving Bamdar’s slaves. Roobish would have too if she knew how to travel.”
“Rubbish. The Lass only had one intention—helping her stinking Satsang friends invade, until she met me, that is. I put her on the straight and narrow. Those Satsang are dangerous.”
“We don’t have time.” Akachi pointed at purple stars on a stone ledge. “Those are the keys?”
The crow nodded. “Three of eight.”
“Give us one,” he said.
“You can’t carry things by river and rain,” Aedre said. “But she knows where the key in Giok is hidden.”
Akachi glared at the crow. “Where’s the key?”
“I won’t tell you.” The crow pulled back her wings to exhibit daggers in a holster running down her feathered chest.
Akachi’s eyes bulged.
The crow closed her wings again. “If you let me tell you why we must collect all eight keys and demolish them, you’ll understand why no one should use those pyramids.”
Akachi’s aurashield shone, and a spear appeared in his hands.
Aedre tugged on his wrist. “Don’t.”
The crow clutched her chest, whipped it back, and hurled a dagger.
He grunted and stumbled backwards as it wedged into his chest.
Aedre screamed and dropped onto her knees, clutching his hands. “Take us to Haunted River.”
Holding hands, they flew through tunnels, and out a cave. As they lifted into a cloudless Eeporyovian sky, Akachi's grip vanished, and so did he.
White light flooded Aedre’s surroundings. “This isn’t the river. Take me to Haunted River!”
Two figures appeared before her. An identical Aedre held hands with Mum.
Her pulse raced, and she took deep breaths. “Mum?”
“Aedre. Sweetie.”
“I’ve missed you so much. What’s going on?”
Mum nodded at her look-alike, who responded. “Aedre. I’m Roobish. I lived an identical life until Bamdar bought me from Somare’s labour camp. Somare got you out so Bamdar wouldn’t buy you and discover time travel.”
With heat behind her eyes, Aedre swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “The volcano’s blown, ten years too early. Disaster’s striking Giok now. But the crow won’t tell me where the key is. She said you didn’t mean to save the villagers.”
“I was confused. Torn between humanity, my Satsang friends, and the villagers.” She nodded. “When you awake, moving your arms and legs will remain impossible, but I can help you keep your breath and voice. I’m giving you my memory too.” A pink light glowed from Roobish’s heart centre, surrounded by electric green. She touched Aedre between her breasts, and the colourful light moved through Roobish’s arm, left her hand, and swirled in Aedre’s spirit-heart.
Mum embraced Aedre. “I love you.”
Aedre’s heart ached, and she sobbed. “Don’t leave me again. Let me come.”
“You’ll join me when the time’s right. Take Roobish’s gift and use it to achieve your desires.”
Aedre’s physical eyes flashed open, and she rolled her head to the side. The rain had stopped, and the fumes intensified. Lungs obstructed with ash, her strengthened diaphragm reacted to her wis
hes, and she gasped for breath.
Akachi lay beside her, clutching his chest. The dagger had vanished, but not his wound.
Her brows pulled together. They had worn protective gear for the volcano, but not to see the crow.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his aurashield remote. The ash in the surrounding air cleared.
A rumbling came from downriver. She couldn’t move to look.
Akachi struggled to kneel. His head swung towards the noise. “Tidal wave!”
He scooped her into his arms and clambered up the river bank. His blood soaked her dress. He tried to run but gasped and struggled to stand.
Downriver, a tsunami roared. It knocked over trees and devastated jungle.
Her pulse pounded in her neck.
Akachi slowed. They reached a derelict house. He carried her into its concrete verandah, laid her on the ground, then he ran his hands around a sturdy column.
The rumbling intensified.
Aedre’s pulse raced in her ears. She was a burden, and he could scramble up the roof alone. “Leave me here!”
He ran away and returned, holding bamboo fronds and tangles of climbers. He tied the vegetation around her. He tugged, attached it to his belt, and then climbed the column. Her body moved a fraction when he pulled. So he scrambled over the roof and heaved again. Her upper-body lifted, and her face scratched against bricks. Finally, her lifeless legs followed as the tidal wave reached them and battered her feet.
A final hoist thrust her onto the roof.
The tidal wave smashed into the house.
Water thundered through the verandah, pounding the structure with stones and boulders. The house creaked and moaned.
Akachi hauled her onto the main building. But its roof inclined into a steep peak, so he sat on its edge with her in his lap.
Waves washed around them below, knocking over trees and gushing over smaller dwellings. Monkeys, goats, and dogs howled in distress, while dead bodies surrendered to the currents—humans too.
Aedre’s wails accompanied other screams which echoed through the village.
Protected in Akachi’s arms and aurashield, Aedre lost consciousness.