Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
It would be alright. I was safe. This world of living memory wouldn’t hurt me, because I wasn’t an intruder. I belonged. I had a right to be here. This was a legacy gifted to me by my mother, and her mother before her, on and on, stretching into the distant past. It felt at once strange and yet fitting, as if I was a lake at the end of a long river. I was sadrin.
The ghost of my new mother whispered something soothing and reassuring. Strange energy pulsed from her, suffusing me. For a moment the world went white, and then my vision returned, and she was gone.
The transfer was complete. The gem, and everything within it, was now truly mine. I took a deep breath. She had been so kind, my new mother. If only we’d had more time.
I started walking. One step, two… Too slow. I moved the world, spinning it toward me, covering dozens of feet with single step, then hundreds. I walked and walked, tireless, over the ridges of rock and soil that smelled of tar until I climbed the hill in front of me.
A taller hill waited behind the first. A cluster of six dark towers thrust out of its apex. They were glossy and black, like crystal points of obsidian that had grown ninety feet tall. Time and the elements had eroded their surface, leaving it pockmarked where age gnawed on the stone. No windows interrupted the solid walls.
I walked to the tallest tower. Rock flowed like water, allowing me to pass, and I entered. The inside of the tower lay hollow. I was on the bottom floor, on a narrow ledge guarded by a stone rail. The black walls, solid from the outside, turned nearly transparent from within, tinting the sky and the burning flow of lava but not obscuring them. Above me, stone balconies ringed the perimeter, six levels. The bottom three were filled with male gress in dark robes; the top three held female gress with veils of chainmail, clothed in garments made from many layers of diaphanous black cloth.
Below my ledge, lava boiled in a round pit. A narrow stone path protruded above it to a round platform fifteen feet wide carved from a glossy black crystal. It looked like volcanic glass, and yet it wasn’t, because lava would have melted it into nothing. In the center of a platform, a rectangular table stood.
The body of a female gress lay on the table. She wore the same garments as the watchers on the upper levels, and a chainmail veil hid the lower half of her face. I moved along the ledge to take a closer look. The skin around her closed eyes was lined and wrinkled like old leather. The life within her barely shivered. She was taking her final breaths.
A tall male gress strode to the dais, walking above the churning lava. A priest of his people. He reached the body and thrust his four arms up, metal bracelets sliding down his narrow limbs with a gentle chime. A long wail erupted from him, solemn like a hymn. He reached down and sliced across the garments, exposing her torso. A metal amulet lay on her chest, a dark ring with five moons etched on it.
The female gress exhaled, and the last of her life rejoined the cosmos.
The priest reached for her amulet, touched it, and uttered a sibilant word. The amulet turned red, then yellow. The body of the gress began to disintegrate around it, her skin turning black.
The temple was completely silent. The mourners stood still.
The amulet blazed with white. The clothes of the deceased caught fire. For a breath she shone like she was woven from living flame and then the fire went out, leaving behind a corpse of ash. The priest touched it, and the incinerated body fell apart, raining down into the lava.
Another priest approached, carrying a naked gress baby. The child mewed like a kitten, waving its six limbs. The priests placed it on the table and raised their arms. A spark burst above them and coalesced into an amulet on a thin chain. The first priest reached for it and gently placed it around the baby’s neck.
A commotion broke out behind me. A male gress entered the tower. The two priests hissed in unison and three male gress responded, barring the intruder’s path. The newcomer shoved at them, trying to force his way in. One of the defending gress slashed at the invader. The dark garment of the intruder fell open, revealing his bare chest with no amulet.
The entire gathering hissed. The sound was so loud, it drowned everything.
The lead priest waved his arm, and everyone fell silent. The priest opened his mouth, showing jagged teeth. Alien sounds flowed and turned into words.