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Moonlight filtered through Janus's window. Beside the window, the boy's bed was unmade, bright-pattern blankets rumpled. Silence drifted through the night as a feather in the air. Janus was not asleep, though the moon was approaching the midpoint of its nightly journey over Tasia. He stripped out of his pyjamas, a lightweight green robe that had no sleeves and extended down to his ankles, and quietly dressed himself in a heavy black shirt and black pants. To muffle sound, he also covered his feet in thin black socks. As he moved to slip out the door, he grabbed a purple cloak and donned it, as well. Janus crept down the hallway, moving in silence. As he approached the end of the hall, a small voice drifted to him. "Janus, where are you going?" Elix was standing in the doorway to her room, rubbing her eyes. Janus's pulse quickened. His little sister could get him in big trouble. "I can't sleep. I'm going out for a walk." "Where?" "Just around." "'Kay, g'night." The girl yawned and shuffled back to bed. Janus walked out into the foyer, and gently slid the door open. The slideway was well-greased, so the door glided into the slot in the wall soundlessly. The late summer air danced into the simple home, and blew Janus's hair back. Outside, the stars hung over Tasia, so many jewels over the sleeping heads of the last hiers to its' splendour. Nobody was in sight, so Janus slipped outside and carefully slid the door closed. Moving from shadow to shadow in the moonlight, he crept all the way up to the Library. As usual, the Library was dark and quiet. Janus walked through the eastern half, row upon row of books untouched for a generation. A particular title caught Janus's eye, in black lettering on a moss-green spine. The Beginning, by a sage by the name of Rayne. The first pages gave a detailed explanation of how it was written by one of Kitir's greatest sages, Rayne, a century after Kitir's creation. Rayne wrote the first recorded history of the cities, and even gave insight to the people prior to the founding of the Thirteen Cities. After Rayne's passing, the book had been carefully preserved and recopied, through the generations of City dwellers. This copy, written seven hundred years before Janus's time, was the fourteenth edition in three thousand years. Janus sat down with The Beginning. "We were once a lesser people. Before the enlightened discovery of the plane of Estra, we were a race that lived on the ground, bottom-feeders in an ocean of air. We lived, worked, and breathed the air that settled on the bottom. With the discovery of Estralite's latent power to focus the energies of Estra, we transcended that feeble existence and rose to our rightful position in the skies. No longer were we slaves to gravitational shackles." As Janus read, something in the way the words flowed from one sound to another was familiar to him. Rayne's discourse on the newfound freedom of the people continued on for several pages, before taking a different angle: "There were some who refused Estra's ways. They were the ones who so vocally denounced our progress and did their best to hinder our efforts. On the Day of Launching, when all thirteen Cities rose to the sky at once, we left them behind forever. Now, a lifetime later, they have taken full reign on the old settlements we once had. Estralite plants have been dismantled, and all remaining records of the Thirteen Cities, save one, have been destroyed. The Pact of Seris, a document that took a generation to complete, is universally kept and preserved." Janus yawned. It was going to be rough staying awake in class tomorrow. Abul, Janus's teacher, hated it when Janus had trouble staying awake in class. It didn't help that what he taught was usually boring, though. "It seems that they are determined to forget about us, going beyond the agreement of the Pact. However, with the exception of the destruction or abandonment of all Estral technology, it appears that very little of their organizational structure has changed. Perhaps the coming years will show a trend. One thing is certain, however: Our lives are forever airborne, from that moment when the crystal lattices first lifted our homes into the air." Rayne's account then went on to describe the individual histories of the thirteen sky-cities, detailing major events that occured in the first century of their existence. The Week of Mutiny on Ind. The Great Fire of Kolar, while it only burned for twenty minutes, destroyed half the island's structures; fortunately, there were few injuries and fatalities. Balata's month-long fiftieth-year celebration, which became a tradition among all thirteen islands for the seventy-fifth year. Tasia's Star Festival, an event Janus had never heard of. The Unshrouding of Kitir, when its' cloud-cover generators failed, and a group of extremists on the ground launched a salvo of rockets at it in warning. The moon traveled through the sky outside the Library, and the night wore on. Janus put the book down, and stretched. It was time for him to go back to bed, and his feet had fallen asleep. He replaced the book on the second shelf and stretched again, yawning. He padded back through the Library, along the eastern wall, carefully weaving a simple trick to re-settle the dust and mask his footprints. Walking along, he noticed a gap in the endless wall shelving. Out of the gloom, a door stood in the gap, a door he had never seen before. The handle was some kind of brilliant metal, though it seemed that age had tarnished the gleam quite a bit. The handle was smooth and cold to Janus's hand, but the bolt tumbled open as easy as the deadbolt on Janus's small case of treasures, in his room. The door opened inward, to a flight of stairs leading down into placid darkness. The stairs spiralled their way down, apparently into a basement. Janus led himself down, following his glow light. Every soft step the boy took echoed for a short distance. Stair after stair, the flight continued to go farther into the earth. Janus began to get dizzy. The stairs ended, opening to a wide dusty floor. Janus squatted and ran his finger across the floor. Under a thin layer of dust, a mosaic appeared as the boy cleaned it off. Under his fingers, a blue tile, surrounded by green ones, unhid itself. The mosaic seemed to be as old as the one in the Library upstairs, smooth and faded. Janus stood, and walked into the room. Out of the darkness, two long shelves grew along the walls. A sparkle in the depths bought Janus's attention. He wasn't sure what it was, and stepped forward with some hesitancy and care. The twinkling grew brighter and more frequent as Janus approached. The boy's pulse quickened and adrenaline flooded in his veins. The sparkles flickered and danced in a tight area, moving in and out of reality at random. The colour of the sparkles seemed to change slowly, shifting through the spectrum. Janus's fists were clenched and the light hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The sparkling drew to a single, pulsing point. Janus stopped a few lengths away, feet ready to move. In a bright flash, the sparkle manifested itself into a glowing robed figure. The shock and flash propelled the boy backwards, off his feet and onto his rump. Before his eyes, the robed figure came into detail. The indefinite glow grew solid lines of texture and flesh. Ragged long black hair flowed around a compact woman's face. The robes were patchy and ephmerial blue. Janus backpedaled across the dusty floor, the scream held out of his voice for wanting of air to power it. The glowing figure, like a wingless angel, floated down to the ground, opaque feet reaching out from misty garments to touch the floor. The garments flowed over the woman as if liquid, but light as a daydream. A hand reached out to beckon the terrified boy. Janus scrambled to his feet, already in a dead run for the stairs. "Janus, wait." Janus's feet came to a stumbling halt. The boy stood, fear preventing him from turning around, but also caging him in place. The figure again repeated its request. Slowly, looking over his shoulder for fear of meeting death's jaws alone, Janus turned around. The figure was as it was, one hand reached out, open, palm up. "Janus, do not run. I have been waiting for you." "Since?" Janus managed to stutter, after several false starts. "Since the day you snuck into the Library and found the book of magic." Janus stood, stunned. "Come, come closer, my child. There is much I must tell you." "About?" "About the world we live in, and your role in it. It's very important that you listen." "About my role? Wait, how do you know my name? Who are you?" Janus's heart had stopped bruising his ribs, and he had regained a bit of his composure. His mind was still arguing with itself whether to stay or to run away, however. "Of course I know your name. I know the name of all of my descendants." "Your 'descendants?' You mean, you're in my family?" "Yes, my child. From very long ago." "How long ago?" "Very long ago. I once lived in Kitir." "But Kitir fell out of the sky ages ago." "I was born ages before Kitir itself fell, child. Just now you read my work." Janus sputtered at this. "You don't mean..." "I am Rayne, Janus. Your ancestor." |
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Spirits of Blue and all characters contained within are © 2002, Simon Knowles. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. Email me if you want to reproduce this somewhere for any reason. It's mine, mine, all mine! |