~
I heard a melodious voice, I initially thought it was singing, but then realised that actually the voice was only talking, but in so singularly a beautiful voice it sounded like a song. Beckoned by Solin, my companions and I moved up to stand by the side around her chair, it was then that I realised the words were coming from the figure before us. The language spoken I did not recognise and the figure was staring through all of us to a space beyond where we stood. Several times the figure closed its eyes and opened them again, saying one word or phrase, I couldn’t tell which for I had no knowledge of the language used.
Eventually the figure remained quiet, and slowly lifting its slender arms it removed the hood from around its head. I gasped as did others as we now gazed upon a female face, slender and proud were her features, and at the same time hauntingly beautiful. Not a hair was upon her head, but to my awe her ears were long and pointed – like mine, Serinae’s and Solin’s. But my wonder was interrupted as she lifted her hands in front of her and seemingly looking at each of us in turn she then spoke in the common tongue.
“Welcome, welcome. You are all most welcome my children. Every one of you. I am so very pleased to be in your presence and to be able to welcome you at last.”
We were all transfixed, I wanted to ask a million questions but kept myself silent for I do not want to miss a single word the figure uttered.
“My name is Venetra. I am spokesperson for my people. My reason for being here is to explain many things. I do not know how long it has been since we left you on your own, but I am so pleased that now I am able to address you face to face at last.”
Some of us started to open our mouths ready to ask any one of many questions that balance on our lips and tongues, but before we could utter a sound the figure held up her hand, palm out in a gesture of silence. “I am so very sorry, please understand that what you see before you is not really me in person, present in this world you inhabit. What you see is a message crafted by me many, many ages in the past for as I pointed out, I have no way of knowing exactly how long the intervening time has been, I only know that it must be a great many ages. I am sorry for I cannot hear you and sadly I cannot see you, and for this I apologise. I’m afraid my friends that questions and answers will have to wait for another time and place, one that I hope you may find and reach eventually.
Please let me start with some history and as you listen hopefully some of your questions will become united to answers. I hope you do not find what I have to say too taxing, much of it I’m sure will seem beyond belief, but know this, what I say is the truth.”
Then lowering her eyes she clasped both her slender hands in front of her, and began to speak. “We, that is my people, came to this place from far away across the open void. We started visiting this world as was the will of our master, before the beginning of time, before any race or even any creature was here. You must have learnt by now that this world upon which you live is a sphere floating in the vast open void, it is kept in its place amongst the nothingness of the void by the force of the sun and balanced in some part by other forces from other suns. You may also know that the stars are in fact other such suns. Some of these suns also have worlds similar to this one and are also floating in the open void, but so far away from this place that it would take many thousands of lifetimes to even reach the nearest one unless you have discovered the knowledge and understand the sciences that make this means of travel a reality.
Some millions of years after we first arrived here, there evolved on this world the race of human kind.”
I glanced at Jondris, his eyes were bright and on hearing this last statement he lowered his gaze from the being to look at the floor.
“At the first they were wild beings of which there were very few, fighting for their existence, then slowly to start but with increasing speed developing over many millennia, they spread all over this world and dominated it. They grew in power and with that power some started to grow in greed, for this was the way of human kind who are short lived and do not seem to care for the future, or what legacies they leave for the following generations. Many, many millions of years in the past human kind in their brilliance and greed for knowledge and power turned their thoughts away from this world and through their own voracious desire wished to see what lay beyond. The humans of this world had split by then into many different factions, for many believed in the older ways and hung on determinedly to older traditions and thus sort to dissuade those who believed in taking this step to explore beyond this world. Through whatever cause, exploration was stopped, an impasse occurred and frustration boiled over into irrational thought and before it could be stopped there was a war. A devastating cataclysm of a war that nearly destroyed the race of human kind and nearly destroyed this world. What few were left had little to sustain them and it seemed to them that they had returned to a similar era long lost in ancient times, everything that human kind had invented, all power that they held slipped away and much of the natural resources blessed to this world had been wastefully used up, for as I say human kind had little thought for the future and only lived with their own selfish short lived moments in time. What had taken time immeasurable to create and evolve had been destroyed in but a moment, a brief spark that had burnt for a period and then died.”
There was a brief pause as the figure leaned forward and extended her hand once again beyond our field of view. Once seemingly satisfied with whatever she did, she continued.
“My people saw an opportunity, for we had been quietly observing human kind as we had other races for all eternity, many races on other worlds faced a similar fate, although not all for the same reasons. Humans had all but destroyed themselves and their own world; other races had lived in true harmony with their world, but still faced extinction for other, more natural reasons. We call these naturally occurring catastrophic events ‘Twists of Eternity’ for they are unforeseen in the most part and seem to us to be unfortunate events not caused by any device or design but just by the overarching natural laws that govern the universe and everything within it. All these things are a natural cataclysm the cause of which cannot be reversed, for even the greatest powers also must obey rules and are subject to natural laws laid down at the beginning of time by the ultimate source of knowledge and design.
Thus we are normally forbidden to interfere with the course of things, but our leaders decided to make an exception in this case. Many meetings and calculations were made designed to quantify the risks involved in our becoming involved in this way. Finally the risks were minimised and the unwanted effects calculated as minimal. We decided that we wanted to offer all of those races we knew faced extinction at that time a new start. Offer an opportunity for survival an escape from their own particular Twist of Eternity.
So we gathered what beings we deemed necessary to save them from extinction and brought them here to share the new start with the diminished race of humans. We hoped that no race or being would be dominant and all would live and work together in harmony for the good of all. Yes, I know what you think, you are wondering where each of your races comes from and why you were brought here. Well, although all of you have lived here on this world for millennia beyond count, only the race of human kind is native to this place, for originally each of the other races had existed on another such world.”
There was a period of silence, none of us spoke.
Then she continued, saying, “yes all the races, all were brought here by us, on one hand to save each race, on the other hand to save all races. It is because your races are durable beings with individual long life that we were able to travel with you over the great distances across the void and your peoples survived.”
There was another pause of what seemed like hours but could only have been a couple of minutes, we were allowed some time to take in this knowledge, I looked around at my companions, each of which were also looking around at each other, trying to discern some new meaning in each face, but no one spoke. I t
hink we were all stunned by this knowledge, all wondering perhaps about the place where we originated from. I was shocked, I never once thought that my distant ancestry came from another place, somewhere beyond imagination that may not even exist any longer. This place upon which we stood, this world had been the only home I had ever known, all the home my parents, and their parents, my ancestors going back I don’t know how many years and generations had known. Why did we not know this, why had we not kept any record. I was stunned.
I and everyone else were then brought back from their thoughts by the figure standing before us who had started to speak again.
“Please my friends do not take this new-found knowledge too hard, for there is purpose behind all of this, a greater purpose, a design that has been laid down for time beyond history, a design with one thought in mind, the thought of survival.
Unfortunately, it is the way of all created beings to be suspicious of difference, you may think that you are successfully sharing this world, but I am sure that your history has shown that each race at some time has thought itself superior or outraged or cheated in some way. I suspect that each of your races has caused indeterminate damage to other races throughout history. Please my friends do not take my words too harshly, we expected this and had planned for it.
But, the time has come to forget your differences, to forget your own racial pride, your individual priorities, for we have also given you a gift if you choose to discover it and use it, for it is a legacy left behind for all equally. Sadly, my race, my people, are dwindling. We have almost run our course in history. For all our knowledge we cannot save ourselves from our fate for the irony in all this is that we face our own Twist of Eternity and from this there is no escape. But we are resigned to this fate, the details of which are unimportant, for what causes more pain to us is that we leave you alone and can no longer help you in times of need.
So we had decided to leave you two things, firstly we have used our knowledge and ingenuity to protect the world on which you live and secondly in fear that all the knowledge we have gained should be lost after we have passed into history we have given you the ability to regain this knowledge, we give it to you freely. Some of it you may already possess for it was necessary to impart such knowledge to aid you in your quest should you choose to accept it, but the remaining clues are at hand should you choose to find them and of course are successful in doing so.
At this the figure dropped her gaze downwards and seemed to lean forward slightly and then extending an arm she again looked up saying, “farewell my friends, when we brought you here it was with great confidence that you would each fulfil your part in this tale, we hold each of you in high regard, and we are confident that each of you will hold true. Then combined, you will take the power to combat the inevitable dangers that face this world, your world. I do not know what these dangers may be, but my people have lived long and seen much, we know that these dangers will present themselves. So we hope that by gifting you our knowledge, it is in each of you we place our faith, in each race we place our hope and confidence that you will survive all ills that befall you whether from within or without and thus you will go on and prosper. So until we may meet again perhaps, I wish you a fond farewell.”
Then again looking down to where her hand would have been at the end of her extended arm she disappeared and the room was plunged into darkness, for unnoticed during the time we had listened to Venetra the sun had gone down and the lights in the room had not been lit.
We all sat there motionless in the semi-dark, stunned silent by what we had just heard, none of us wanted to believe what had been said. I thought this a dream, that I would wake up in a minute, but I knew this was not going to be the case. Solin rang her little bell and soon Jonas had returned and lighting the lamps in the room retired once more leaving us alone. I looked around at the gathered faces, all it seemed were shocked into silence. I wanted to say something, but what could I say? I had just discovered that I did not come from this world; did that mean I did not belong to it? I was a refugee; I couldn’t believe that our race did not know this. Not only that, but we were rescued as a race from certain doom, how had Venetra put it, rescued from a Twist of Eternity, that was the phrase she used. She then hinted that perhaps we were to face a similar doom now on this world. Venetra had told us that we could save ourselves and our world, but how? What did we have to do, what did we have to accomplish to even start to go down that path? I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t even know the nature of the first thing we needed to find out. I began to feel depressed, let down, alone and very vulnerable.
All of these things were discussed at length, over the next hour or so, but I didn’t hear much of what was said. I spent the time in my own thoughts, but unable to come to any conclusion. The time was moving on and so in the early hours of the following morning tiredness overcome us and the talking stopped.
Solin, standing broke the silence, “perhaps we should all get some sleep. Think on this again tomorrow, sleeping on it will hopefully clear our minds and better prepare ourselves for tomorrow’s discussions.”
At this she gestured towards Jonas who came to her side and helped her make her way from the room. Before she disappeared through the door to her chambers, she turned and bid us all a good night and hoped that we would all sleep well. Sleep? Even though I knew I should be tired, how could I sleep? My body felt weary but my mind was racing, my thoughts confused and without any clear direction. How could I deal with such overwhelming discoveries?
I followed Serinae who had stood after Solin’s departure and exited the room, I caught up with her and we walked along many corridors within Solin’s house. I asked her what she thought about all that we had heard. She said that she had to think, she didn’t know, as any of us didn’t know, what this all meant. The only point that worried her was that Venetra had told us of some kind of protection that she, or her race had ensured for this world. Yet there were a lot of indicators pointing towards destructive forces being at work, the equilibrium seemed to have been upset at least this was her perception of changes in natural phenomena such that she had been observing. I asked her when she had first noticed the changes she had described during our time in the forest outside of Corbond.
She thought for a while and eventually said, “my guess Mini is over one hundred years or so have passed since I first noticed the changes, the trouble is I can’t be sure. When these things first started they were very subtle and I didn’t really consciously take a lot of notice in my ignorance. It was many years perhaps until I started to hear others tell of such things and all of a sudden I became more aware of what I had been witnessing.”
By this time we had entered a large room. I gasped as I looked around at the many shelves that lined the walls. This must be the library, every wall was given to shelving that stretched from floor level to ceiling. The ceilings in this room were higher than a single story, in fact I thought that this rooms ceiling had been removed to make a double height room. High above there was a glass dome through which I could clearly see the stars, I wondered if any of them were close to the world in which we the T’Iea had once inhabited. Lower down a galleried landing ran completely around the room at about the height the ceiling would have been if there had been one. I gasped at the number of books represented here. The door clicked shut behind us and I turned noticing that even the door on this side had shelves with small books upon them. In the centre of the room were a couple of comfortable looking padded chairs and between these chairs a small table on which stood a silver tray of glasses and a crystal decanter full of clear liquid, I assumed this was water to satisfy the thirsty reader.
“I am going to see what information I can gleam from Solin’s library Mini, stay if you want to, I would welcome the help. I don’t even know really what I’m looking for but if there is anything useful recorded anywhere in the world it is most likely to be found here. I sat in one of the chairs, Seri walked over to one wall and I noticed there mou
nted on a sloping podium was a large book that lay already open. She started to look at this book which I realised must be a compendium, listing many if not all of the books that were in this room. She lifted all the pages on the left hand side of the open book and sought the very first page; she then started to run her finger down the list of books I knew was listed there. I stood and walking over to Seri looked over her shoulder. I was right, there in some order were lists of books with information pertaining to what they were, who wrote them and other such listings. I didn’t have the heart to go through the many hundreds of pages that lay within so with a sigh I bid Seri good night.
She didn’t look up from her work she just said quietly, “ok Mini, rest well, I expect I’ll be going up myself before too long.”
I turned back and finding the door once again left the library. I made my way to the stairs to go back to my room. The thought on my mind as I walked up them was that if Serinae had just noticed changes a hundred years ago then it could be that subtle effects were occurring prior to that, maybe years prior. I had a fitful sleep that night for my mind churned continually with the information I had heard. I dreamed I was facing an open doorway, darkness lay within and written across the top the words ‘A Twist of Eternity’ but try as I might I could not make my feet or legs move to walk through it.