INTERLUDE I

The Guardian grazed on sweet grass and buttercups near the lake in the company of several of his Brothers, his mind drifting easily along with the Congregation his heart pumping with an ecstatic rhythm in sync with his near brothers and those further out, in tune with the cosmos, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planet, the glittering shimmery ripples dancing across the water. The sky was azure; the wind a timpani. A tiny wink of energy interrupted the flow of worship, a rift opened, carrying the signature of the Orphan King, but the song coming through was neither his nor that of his queen, but of another source. It was dissonant, a tremor of discontent – a human foible. Thoughts filtered through: thin, indistinguishable, as were all human thoughts.

A request – no, a demand – distinguished itself and the Guardian passed the information on to his Brothers, the custodians of planet Mnerothnim. From their myriad locations around the planet they turned their collective thoughts to what was, from the Guardian’s location, the southwestern sky 30 degrees east of the Equator, their attention drawn to a stellar point far beyond the rim of Mother Moon and her tumbling Twins. Backtracking along the path of the flow of stellar light to its point of origin, they followed the signature to its source in long ages past, out beyond the edges of their star system, Pnuethmin, beyond the edges of the asteroid field surrounding her. Their thoughts passed through neighboring star systems through space and time, bumped against the edge of the near binary cluster called Ghutmanha, skidded beneath the more distant White Giant, Phluthher, passed many other star systems, nebulae, red dwarfs, skirted the distant pull of a black hole, heard the static emissions of a quasar; sifted through the cloudy mist of nebula B-33 and came out on the far side, further, further, faster, faster, where they located the distraction on a planet in a singular star system as it was remembered by contemporary humanity as First Earth, Tera, Home, back to a quadrant in space where human thoughts had disappeared in milenia past to be scattered among its nearer stars.

Bhria, the guardian of the Orphan King turned to the fissure. The mind of the human had to be tested, the body expunged and fortified, the thoughts sifted and searched and righted, undertakings that required time. Time was relative. To the human, the journey would take an instant, but the work – from Bhria’s perspective – required vitality, diligence and struggle. The human would come to realize this slowly, would feel the effects of Bhria’s labor slowly, would awaken to the yearnings of the soul slowly. Unrest was the human malady; the cure surrender.

Bhria and his brothers gathered their combined will and with one collective mental pull sucked the human into the rift, carried it back along the original trail and expelled it nearby, not where the human wanted to go but where she was needed most.

The Guardians gave a collective mental sigh of relief when the rift winked shut and left the matter to be manipulated by their brother.

Next Chapter: Chapter Five