Vega's Lullaby
Aros sped along the winding mountain pass on a black, stripped-down looking motorbike, making his way toward the summit. It was a warm summer day and the cool patches of air hiding in the shade of the huge redwoods blasted the fully protected rider, cooling him after the stretches of bright sun. The way was wide, but the road twisted on its bridge-like path through the forest. The natives of North Colombia had allowed roads to be built through the protected lands, as long as the wildlife would not be cut off by unnatural boundaries.
Aros loved this part of Tellus. It was still wild, with cities like islands nestled in the untamed country. Like two ribbons winding close and again away from each other, a tram, for those who did not dare brave the uncertainties of manual road travel, paralleled the raised highway. This was the natural west, governed by the native councils of the people that had lived here for generations before the Europens had come to the continent. Now cities and development were limited to select areas, unlike on the eastern coast, where the fifteen states managed their land much more loosely.
The fresh air made Aros smile as he sped along on his cycle. Presently, he reached his exit, rounding the small off ramp to a gravel road past the exit sign that marked the summit. He road the ridge top road for half an hour, until he reached a parking area that marked the end of the way. He cut the engine and coasted to a stop. Aros dismounted his bike, adjusted the straps on his pack, and left his full-faced helmet behind as he walked up a path toward the mountain top temple.
The way was difficult and took some time. It was made to detract all but the most serious visitors. The somber, yet beautiful Asian temple was built high upon the granite peaks. Narrow paths, rope bridges and tiny steps cut into the stone comprised the way to the front gates. Aros, dressed in black leathers, knocked with a gloved hand on the wooden door. A monk with a shaved head and green wrapped robe answered.
"I have come to meditate," Aros said in the Chinese dialect of the monks' order. He was sure the gatekeeper would know Latin, but this would impress upon him the seriousness of his request.
"We do not take guests. Please go away," The monk responded and stayed in place.
"I have come a long way to center my mind," Aros argued.
"We are not a place for tourists."
"I have trained my body at Shaolin on Mount Song years ago. Now I wish to realign my mind."
"You would not like it here. There is no speech inside these walls. The beds are hard and narrow. Food is meager and tasteless. Can you say you want this?" the monk said.
"I know how the Chan like their beds hard and narrow. I would relish it."
"Fine," the monk said without expression, and opened the gate to the visitor.
Things were stowed on a promised bed. Aros clothed himself in the garments of a visitor and went to the stone floored meditation room. On the walls, written in the flowery language of the monks, were message and principals of meditation. Aros sat and began to unwind his mind. It had been a long time.
He had been through a lot, and meditation in a place such as this helped to bring him back to himself. After all the distance he had come, sometimes he forgot his past, the achievements, trials, and wisdom he had gained. In this type of environment he could bring it all back. It was a revitalization of the soul that few other places could facilitate. Aros cleared his mind, followed the words of guidance written by the silent monks, and let come what needed to come.
A time from his recent past surfaced. This was not something that he needed to dwell upon and he attempted to clear it, to let his mind sit empty for the first span of meditation, but it would not go. Rather than fight it, he let it wash over him. He accepted it as part of the process. This retreat had no agenda anyway...
They had just made it out of one war and found themselves thrust into another. Vega did his best at the controls, but the spacecraft was intent on going down hard. Aros, shut down the damaged central reactor and prepared for the crash landing. In all the chaos, Vega shouted over to Aros, showing him his upturned hand crackling with electricity, "Look! My magic works here!"
The fiery heap of spent metal made a brushstroke of red across the light blue sky. They crashed into white sand; a plume of dark smoke marked the place. The two men crawled from the wreckage. They were unhurt but stunned nonetheless. Vega sat on the ground as Aros mutilated his thick armored uniform down to something more functional and comfortable in the humid desert landscape. Vega got up and dug into the wreckage, bringing out a few emergency supplies and a blocky rifle. He tossed the firearm to his partner and they departed the site of the crash.
The landscape was flat. Hard packed white sand spread in every direction with the occasional mountain of clumped stone peaking up in isolation. Aros and Vega made their way to the closest island of brown stone and attempted to gain a view of their surroundings from higher ground. The view was much the same.
"Where do we go?" Vega asked.
"Food, water, shelter, people, whatever we can find. Did you get anything on this planet before we came down?"
"No. I'm not even sure how far between Thraz and the In Base that we got pulled from the stream. I wonder what happened to the rest of the battle group..."
"Over there," Aros pointed out. "You see those dark spots? They are moving slightly."
"Yeah, I have no idea what they are. Go around?"
Aros nodded and they went back to the rippled surface. They made their way to the next island, looking for signs of people or anything else of use. Vega stopped after an interval to cast a spell which would search for anomalies. The orb remained pink without a hint of blue on an edge indicating something of interest. Vega was happy to be able to cast again. It was strange though. His abilities had been inaccessible while in this universe, but now on this planet it had come back? They walked on.
Reaching the next island, the two skirted around the base. Aros slowed down and signaled Vega to stop. They did this wordlessly for they had been traveling together for long enough to not need words. Aros peaked around a outcropping. They had run into one of the swarms they had seen.
Crabs.
Huge crab-like creatures, with flat brown bodies supported by six spiked legs and large pincers, swarmed the area. The individuals in the pack were of varying sizes and shades of brown, but they were all easily larger than the two former spacemen. One look at the beady black eyes told Aros all he needed to know about the creatures sifting through the white sand beyond.
"Beasts. We need to remain clear of them."
"Too late!" Vega shouted as several of the invertebrates became alerted to their presence and started to attack.
Aros put the rifle to his shoulder in an attempt to cover Vega as he started to climb the stone structure. White tracers leapt from the gun, striking at the oncoming onslaught. The high velocity metal ricochet from the sand crabs chitin exoskeleton. Secured in place a ways up the mountain, Vega reached out with a thin blue arc of electricity. The bolt split the air, setting the small hairs on Aros's arms on end as he scaled the smooth brown stone. The struck crab collapsed to the sand from the sudden shock, but the others swarmed past him; the crabs were great climbers. The two men raced for the higher ground while passively attempting to push back the creatures hunting them.
"Great," Aros said, joining Vega on the summit. He let the rifle crackle away, aiming for the presumably vulnerable eyes.
"Plan?" Vega said between bolts.
Aros kicked a stone downhill that was dodged.
"Hmm..." he answered.
Song came from below the defenders feet and a large stone rolled a single turn. A pair of children came up from where the boulder had been, motioning for Aros and Vega to follow them. Without a better option, the two men leapt away from the incoming tide of hungry creatures.
There was a girl and a boy. They had washed out hair and golden skin. Vega faced the entrance, concentrating on defending the opening when another song rang out. The stone rolled back into its place. The group wa
s left in darkness.
"Did they just do that with the music?" Vega asked his companion. Aros gave no reply, as they were lead down the meagerly lit tunnel, deeper into the mountain.
Vega despised this part; he never knew what was going on when it was happening. He always had to get second hand information from Aros, who had to translate what was going on to him. Vega was at his mercy until he could learn enough words to get by himself, if that happened at all. Listening more to the children talk back and forth with Aros, Vega came to the conclusion there was a slim chance he would pick up any of this language. Hitting patches of light, he saw both carried musical instruments, and their language sounded like a song to match.
They arrived at a well-lit cavern and the children ran off, leaving Aros and Vega time to converse as they walked down into the dwellings.
"All I see are children," Vega pointed out.
"I notice that too. Those two do not act like children in their first few years. They may be in the peak of their lifecycle."
"What else did you find out?"
"They are really excited to find us," Aros said. "They seem stoic enough, but I could tell they were almost relieved to see off-worlders. I just know they are going to ask us for help of some kind."
Once on the cave floor, many more children, all looking similar to the pair they had first encountered, came out from various styles of apartments to view the much larger newcomers. Despite Vega's own young age and appearance, he felt like he and Aros were now the only adults surrounded by a children's refugee camp. An apparent leader came forward, wearing a blue long stocking cap. Aros spoke with the group and Vega observed.
There were two dozen of the youngsters, all in pairs. Two held infants wrapped in cloth slings and carried on their chest. Vega smiled to himself at this, as he had been told that this was the way Tarkin children were carried for the first three years of their lives, until they were ready to start walking. The faces were young, but held great intensity. Vega began to like these people already.
One more thing he noticed, they all carried some sort of musical instrument. There were pan flutes, straight woodwinds, stringed harps, small guitar-like creations and everything in between. Some even had a second or third holstered in a rig on their person. Vega started to reach out to a nearby child in a questioning gesture when Aros drew his sidearm in deliberate demonstration and shot the tip of a hanging stalactite. The children all nodded somberly, and Aros spoke to Vega.
"Show them your magic. Something simple."
Vega nodded and extended an arm up to the ceiling. With fingers held like picking fruit from a branch, he sent out a stream of fire into the air. His audiences' eyes went wide and they clamored around him after he put his arm back down. Little hands looked over his body for clues to the trick, but none were found. The leader took a pan flute from a pocket and played a song. Several notes into the song a ball of fire erupted well above his head and grew in size as the song progressed. With further notes, the flames shot up into the air similar to the way Vega had done, and the song came to an end.
"They use music to summon magic here," Aros said. "You don't, and they find that really interesting."
"So what's going on? They looked strapped for war. Is it more than just the crabs?"
"Yes. Some sort of invaders have been hunting them to extinction recently. They fly and can also cast magic. I'm not clear on all they mean, but they have offered us protection from the outside for our help."
"Any clues about exits?" Vega asked. The crowd broke up and they were lead to an empty apartment. The beds were too small but the food was edible and very tasty.
"Not yet," Aros said. He sat and worked on his rifle, checking ammo and brushing off the sand. "They have no written books. I gather that histories are made into song and turned into spells. The more meaningful, the more powerful."
Aros and Vega enjoyed the company of the colony of musicians for three days until they had the chance to pay for their keep. In those three days, the two travelers found out much about their hosts. Once, the people were far more numerous and could be found across the land. Then the invaders arrived and could not be stopped. This group was surly not the last, but they knew of no other. As a human species, they grew from infants to children and had a life cycle of around fifteen of their planets years. At the end of their life, they became like young again, helpless and wrinkled, like an old baby. They called it their arc.
And now they were afraid that their kind were reaching the back end of their arc. With the arrival of Aros and Vega, a brief hope was gained, but they were still not sure it would be enough to ensure their survival.
Aros tried to get a better picture of the foe they were up against. A transparent floating cup was the best he could translate to Vega. It was soon that they got to put a 'face' to the unclear description. The invaders attacked in the middle of the day through the small passages that gave the main cavern light and air.
Open air jellyfish, was the thought Aros had when the first swarm squeezed down into the cave. The creatures closely resembled the sea animals Aros had seen before on another world. The half-sphere bodies pumped through the air and long translucent tentacles streamed behind until they were used to attack a victim.
The first minutes of the attack were madness. Clashing music calling forth roaring magic filled the cavern as the musicians retreated from their overrun home. The explosions of Aros's firearms added to the confusion and many times broke the concentration of the musicians’ spells. Noticing this, he refrained from firing unless it was in time with the tune of whatever musician was performing.
Vega also let loose with more of his exotic magic, mostly in defense from the summoned creatures called by the Jellies. The invaders had their own songs, songs produced from some unfathomable organ. They called forth creatures from the rocks and sands that would subdue their prey while they swooped in to finish them off.
Many of the musicians fell to these attacks, being gripped by the tentacles and life drained from their bodies. The initial battle was spectacular but brutal, full of dazzling effects and harsh realities. More than half the group escaped with the aid of the new fighters, and they began their retreat down escape tunnels to the barren surface of the world.
The group of musical children streaked across the sand, seeking refuge in a distant smaller island of stone. Aros was amazed when the crabs reappeared and were easily turned away by a focused sandstorm. Halfway to the destination the Jellies emerged from the musicians’ previous home and came in pursuit. Vega accompanied the main body while two guitarists and Aros laid down suppression. With the sandstorm protecting the main group, Aros and his two warriors had their hands full repelling a two-sided assault of flying Jellies and scuttling crabs. When Aros ran out of ammo, he dropped his rifle and they took flight.
Vega had everyone in the cave when Aros brought up the rear. A small girl was tugging on the non-musical magician's sleeve, trying to communicate, when Aros arrived. The group was exhausted and scared. They feared this was the end.
"She wants to know if you know anymore magic. They don't know anything else to do," Aros translated. They were effectively trapped in the cave, with only one entrance and no exit. They had chosen this fall back position as a last resort due to its lack of porous entry. One of the dozen played a tune lighting the room, while the rest took turns keeping the sandstorm raging in front of the entrance.
"As long as they keep that up, the Jellies can't get through," Vega pointed out. "Bet you wish you had that key again," he said to Aros who was studying the solid cave walls.
"I do, indeed. I don't think they can keep that barrier up forever. They will grow exhausted after a time. We can only hope the Jellies will relent."
"They will not," the blue hat told Aros. "Look, even now they make sand monsters to attack our shield. They have our taste in them and will not stop until they finish us this time. And the crabs wait as well..."
For hours they held off the attack. T
wo musicians at a time had to play to keep the spell working. Everyone took their turn and rested, but the group was running on a negative spiraling loop of hope and energy. Aros was out of personal weapons and was unsure what to do next. There was always the purple cloud...
In his desperation, Vega looked for comfort inside himself and thought of other options. He found little, but began to hum the lullaby his mother had sung to him as a child. It always helped him make up his mind. The musicians turned to him in wonder.
They caught the idea and played along. For them, music was as natural as speaking or walking, and so they expounded upon the melody and the song grew. Soon it was a wall of power and the ground in the middle of the cave floor grew a pool of water. Aros stepped to the edge once it stopped growing and peered inside. It was deep. He touched the surface and his fingers came back dry.
"Everyone in!" he commanded.
The song continued but dwindled in intensity as the musicians jumped into the pool and out of their world. The two guarding the entrance were the last musicians to leave. That left Vega and Aros to jump into a shrinking pool, leading to a dimension that existed between worlds.
Aros opened his eyes. It was dark in the hall. He sat in the same position on the floor, coming back to himself. Rising to his feet, his joints creaked and popped as he exited the hall. He rubbed his right thigh absentmindedly, and got moving. He felt infinitely tired as he found his way to the promised narrow bed. There was a meager bowel of rice and wooden cup of water by the head of the bed, but Aros ignored these things. He lay down and felt the enormous weight of his body holding down his tired limbs. He slept without dreams until he was met by the dawn.
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