The Light Barrier Child Up to Chapter 4

[Sqorrox]

Heya, came up with basically the prologue and some of the 1st chapter at the end of my General Physics exam (the easy paper that I didn't care about) and, as I had oodles of time left, started to write this in the back of the answer book. I then came up with a VERY rough outline of kinda where I wanted everything to go at the end of my Credit history (the one I did care about but still had time over!) exam. I enlisted the help of my friends to supply to illustrations for certain characters because, although I know what I want, it's easier to write a description if I have a picture infront of me! Unfortunately they've been very slow due to both perfectionism and laziness on different parts. I myself haven't quite decided on some of the details so there are a few gaps for which I apologise most whole-heartedly and will be rectified ASAP. Meanwhile, if you would like to puruse the story then read on! Please comment and ask any questions as it will all help me improve both my writing and your enjoyment! And, not to be a spoil sport, but even though it is in its infancy, as I will eventually hope to get it published, it is copyrighted so please don't steal my ideas! Not that I think you will, just covering my back so to speak!

The Light Barrier Child

PROLOGUE

Saiyoon-Anne Thali was a girl with her whole life ahead of her. Her eyes were a bright, shining blue and her hair fell just past her shoulders in soft, chestnut, ringlets. At ‘school’ she had always attained good grades in everything and she could turn her hand to anything. In her old home she had felled all the necessary timber and carved, chipped and sawed until she had made every wooden object in it: bowls, shelves, cabinets, tables, ornaments, even an intricately carved and inlaid chest that she kept her clothes in. All electrical appliances could be rewired and the car never had to go to the garage to get fixed. In the house hung paintings of such diversity and skill that all the great painters would have wept with joy to have but half her talent. Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, all would have never played another note after hearing her play any instrument she chose to pick up. Yet this nothing directly connected to what she would end up doing.

She lived in her new house with her ‘parents’ Anyei and Yjon Machen. They were kind people who had taken her in after her parents’ sudden deaths.

And it wasn’t until her hundredth birthday that she discovered the truth about why her parents died and an explanation for why she was how she was.



CHAPTER 1

Anyei and Yjon sat Saiyoon down to explain why she was so special and why her parents had died at such a young age.
“As you know, your parents died at the age of two hundred and fifty. We were good friends with them in the old days but managed to drift apart as the years passed by. They were two of the first people to break the speed of light barrier. Unfortunately Shess, your mother, didn’t know she was pregnant and it wasn’t until after the flight that she found out and your parents over the moon – quite literally; they were living on the seventh moon colony at the time – when they found out about you.” Anyei explained.
“I know all this already!” Saiyoon exclaimed.
“We know you do,” came Yjon’ reply, “but you’ve got to let us explain what that means. You learned how walk and talk long before your peers could. Your parents, fascinated by your above average attention, took you to the doctor and the local mage. Neither could understand why you were so attentive but the doctor said you had an increased number of synapses in your brain and the mage said that he could feel the energy coming off of you. The only reason anyone could come up with for this was that your DNA had been changed by going through the light barrier whilst still a foetus.
By the age of twenty you understood: advanced physics, metaphysics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, history, law, medicine, space travel, you could speak ten modern languages fluently and fifteen dead ones, you could fix any machine put in front of you and had grasped all the visual and performing arts. On top of all that you are an amazing cryptographer! Any code placed in front of you can be cracked and you can make codes for any type of information.
Yet there are more pressing, more important changes that have occurred and have to be addressed. As you know, most of us have a life span of five hundred years give or take but you are ageing at a tenth of the rate of us – you’re likely to live five thousand years. You have a connection to the Earth and Air spirits and, when you’re angry, magic crackles off and around you like a shield. You will have to learn how to control it but that will probably happen in time. The last and possibly most important change is that you are slowly evolving and it has been calculated that it won’t stop until you reach your three hundredth birthday. Your body is already stronger, more efficient. You can almost breathe underwater and can run faster and jump higher than anyone else ever has been able to.”

Saiyoon just sat still and stared at a spot somewhere in the middle distance of her mind as she tried to compute everything that she had just been told while her mind screamed “It can’t be true. I’m just good at picking stuff up. I’m not a mutant; I’m just Saiyoon-Anne Thali!” Once the mental protests were over and she had regained control of herself she asked shakily, “Why didn’t my parents tell me this?” Anyei looked distraught and glanced at Yjon before she caught hold of Saiyoon-Anne’s hands and spoke in a soft, slightly strangled voice of what had happened to Saiyoon’s parents. When the tale was over Saiyoon was like a statue – hard and cold and with glassed over eyes. She didn’t blink or breathe or move a single muscle for almost half an hour and then she calmly got up and walked out of the house. Anyei and Yjon knew well enough to let her go and wait for her to come home to them but she wasn’t planning on coming straight back, instead she left for the hide tent the local mage lived in.
(647)



CHAPTER 2

The mage’s voice drifted out of the tent into Saiyoon’s waiting ears,
“I’ve been expecting you to come looking for me for ninety years. I’m glad you finally know the truth. The question is – did you come looking for me for the right or for the wrong reasons? Please, do come in.” She didn’t know quite what to do; had she come here for the right reasons? Steeling herself, she entered the world of the Mage.

A stew was sitting cooking in a pot over an open fire that appeared alive and the local Mage slipped out of the shadows. He was an old man she knew of 500 but he seemed to radiate an almost effortless energy. He shook his greyish white hair out of his eyes and Saiyoon gasped – his eyes were a deep grey but at the outside of his iris there were coloured rings of brown and turquoise and red and blue. At her gasp the old local Mage smiled, dished up the stew and told Saiyoon to sit down. He explained to her about the elemental spirits. Earth, Water, Fire and Air each represented by the colours brown, turquoise, red and blue. The Earth and Air spirits exist everywhere and are often seen. The Water and Fire spirits are rarer but will still often be seen. “That fire behind you is alive and if you look carefully into the flames then you will see the shape of a woman.” The Mage said, “but you are not connected to the Fire spirits or the Water ones your link is with the Earth and Air spirits, the most common. The strongest and the weakest. If you want, I will teach you how to how to control your magic and connect properly to the Earth and Air spirits. This will take you on a journey a long way from your home and it will take all your strength to succeed.” “Anything, I’ll do anything” came Saiyoon’s reply.

Over the next fifty years the Mage taught Saiyoon all he knew of magic and the spirits. He taught her how to control the store of magic within her and replenish it, how to contact and connect with the spirits and how to utilise their skills, he taught her how to listen to the things unsaid and read in people’s eyes their intentions. Along with all this, he taught her how to use her magic; to make indestructible items, piece together shattered fragments of material items and emotions, to hone her evolution and her learning. The old Mage in his tatty maroon robe of coarse cloth that he tied at the waist with a peach coloured cord – he couldn’t afford anything better – cared greatly for Saiyoon and often asked the spirits in his soft, sultry voice to watch over her in all her endeavours. He had, in passing, mentioned a lost tablet carved by the Spirit Master Ethian that had been lost many moons ago but was believed to be somewhere in the Glub-Dak forest on the outer reaches of the Southern side of Fansta, the other half of their almost egg-timer shaped moon. At the mention of this lost tablet Saiyoon became instantly interested. It was almost as though some switch had been flipped inside her brain and some other part of her self had awoken. She made a pact with herself – once she was finished with the Mage she would go in search of the tablet. And so she did. At the end of her training she set off in the night to find the fabled lost tablet of Spirit Master Ethian.




CHAPTER 3

Leaving through the colony’s Southern gate Saiyoon walked out onto the Great Plains that cover most of Bashkanna; her home. She had taken with her some slight provisions, knowing that it was far easier to live off the land than it was to carry your food. She made good headway that night and, once out of sight of the colony, she settled down and made her camp. Using her Mage Magic, she made a fire and erected the canvas she had brought into a tent. Then, spearing one of the dough balls she had brought onto a stick and wrapping it in grass from the plains, she set about cooking her meal. After eating she curled up inside her make-shift home and fell asleep to the sound of the air whispering to the grass beneath her. What she didn’t see was the Fire Spirit rise from the glowing embers outside her tent and envelope it in her fire before blinking out and leaving a much darker night behind.

Saiyoon woke early; just a little after dawn. Taking the stick she had eaten from the night before she scratched a hurried map of Bashkanna with its two halves; Fansta and Langasta. Marking in the mountains, lakes, marshes, forests and desert she planned her route. She would go between the Havgin mountain range and Gleshtik Lake passing through the Shebdil desert at its narrowest point and winding past the Floompa marsh into the Glub-Dak forest where the Prophetic Tablet is supposed to be. She knew that she would have to gather food on her way to the border and the Shebdil desert that would not fester in the heat or the length of the journey.

Setting off she fashioned her canvas into a bag that could hold her both possessions and provisions and be slung over her back leaving her hands free. The colony she had been living in, the ninth was the closest to the border between the two halves of their moon of Bashkanna and yet it was still hundreds of thousands of miles from the Shebdil Desert. Saiyoon had to walk for ten years to get to the pass between the Havgin mountain range and the Gleshtik Lake.

Little happened in those years but two incidents always worried her. One was when she had been walking past a clump of bushes and some sort of animal ran out and nearly bit part of her foot off as it hurried to get as much distance between the bush and itself. But when she looked into the clump there was no sign of any other animal or an entrance to a burrow or any other form of hole. The other was when she was bathing in a deep stream after washing her clothes and there being a shadow pass overhead but it was too big to be a bird of prey, far too big. As it passed overhead the water rippled and surged surreptitiously around her as though unsure of its purpose and her reaction

It then took her another five years to get through and onto the edge of the Shebdil Desert. Although not strictly a pass between the Lake and mountains Saiyoon felt as though the mountains were towering on either side of her. Their slopes treacherous and their crevices deep. What made this feeling even more disconcerting was the fact that instead of their peaks and some of the lower lying areas of their craggy sides being covered in snow they were blanketed by a foot of cloud that outlined every nook and cranny of the mountain it covered. It even gave shape to the boulders that poked the tops of their round heads above the cloud.

Saiyoon was by now one hundred and seventy five but she pined for home and all its comforts. Fortunately she felt an almost inexplicable pull towards the Glub-Dak forest and the place of the Spirit Master’s Tablet. It was pulling her ever closer, strengthening as she neared her goal and increased her resolve. She passed glades of yellow and pink and purple flowers, their petals entwining in beautifully intricate shapes. She had picked some the day before and plaited them into her hair; now reaching down to the small of her back in their loose, flowing curls. The sun never seemed to blind her with its harsh glare and she was almost enjoying herself. Then she came to the hard slog across the shifting sands of the desert in front of her; the scorching heat of the day and the freezing chill of the night. So little food and almost no water could be seen and, though they weighed heavily on her back and shoulders, she was glad of the skins full of water she had taken with her. Although rather disorientated by the constantly changing nature of her surroundings, Saiyoon managed to pass over the Shebdil Desert in five years and land in Fansta considerably more tanned and subtly more muscled than before.

She now had to traverse the winding path that followed the more stable areas of the Floompa marsh. This was a precarious stage in the journey; if she should falter or fall from the path, no one would be around to pull her out of the glutinous sludge that made up some parts of the marsh. That, though, was not strictly true. Feeling that time was slipping by, Saiyoon hiked along the uneven path in the failing light of evening. Mist or similar was rising off the marsh and parts of the path were obscured from her view. She lost her footing and tumbled, hands scrabbling for a purchase she could use to pull herself out, into the squelchy mud and reeds and rushes of the marsh. No one to pull her out. A hand reached down from above, and another one. Their strength was amazing and Saiyoon was soon safe back on the path. Looking for her rescuers she saw two shapes in the mist, they looked like people with dresses of the finest material on and yet their silhouettes were subtly wrong. They came tentatively forward and Saiyoon could see just what they looked like.

They really did look just like people only their hair, hanging straight down, revealed long, pointed ears that had curled round at their tip like antennae. Their eyes were larger than Saiyoon’s and flicked up at the outer corners. Their faces were quite slender and sat perched on long, thin necks. Yet Saiyoon’s eyes, though noticing the strangeness of their appearance, were drawn to the spectacular nature of their clothes. Although their clothes were almost identical she could tell that the one on the left was male and the one on the right was female, their clothes hung subtly differently to make the difference noticeable. The cloth of these clothes was made out of what looked like silk, yet somehow she knew it wasn’t. This cloth was draped delicately over and around their supple willowy frames. It . The colouring of their clothes was magnificent; shades of blue and turquoise and purple all blended perfectly into one continuous ripple of colour. And their faces were full of a hope and expectation she could not place the origin of.

They spoke and their voices were as soft and sugary as syrup. They introduced themselves as Basquin and Shang of the Butterfly People. After thanking them most sincerely for saving her life, Saiyoon asks them to stay and eat with her. Sitting down around the fire they find that conversation happens easily.
“Why have you come so far from your home Saiyoon?” Was one of the first questions broached by Shang. “I was taught by my local Mage and one night he told of the Spirit Master Ethian,” came her reply and at the mention of Ethian’s name her two new friends tensed slightly and leaned in, “and the Tablet he carved his prophesy upon. I am coming to look for it; it is something I feel I must do.” At this the two Butterfly People exchanged and meaningful look with one and other.
“We know of the Tablet you seek. It is in the Forgotten Temple and has been placed under the care of the Creatures, us included. It alludes to things that should not be viewed by anyone but the person stated in the Prophesy. If you wish, we will take you there but the others will have to decide if you are the one who is meant to read it.” Basquin informed Saiyoon but she could sense there was something more and she would just have to play along to find out what. Slightly uneasily she fell asleep, after the conversation had died down, to the sound of her companion’s frantic whispering.

By the time they had finished crossing the marsh Saiyoon was one hundred and ninety and the Butterfly People accompanying her and acting as her guides were slightly anxious about that which puzzled Saiyoon greatly.

The Glub-Dak forest is a massive area of dense growth to the South West of the sun side of Fansta. It was rumoured that strange beasts lived inside that had powers given to them by the Elemental Spirits. The dark, thick undergrowth proved problematic when the three of them struck out for the Forgotten Temple. The delicate nature of the Butterfly Peoples’ clothes/wings meant that progress was slow and only the wider paths could be taken. They trudged through the forest and every night picked twigs out of each others’ hair. It was five years of picking through the forest until Saiyoon’s friends, Basquin and Shang, had to take to flight; their wings allowing them to soar up into the sky above the tree tops and lead Saiyoon from above as they could no longer traverse the paths.

Five more years it took for the traveller with her two guides to arrive at the Forgotten Temple. Basquin and Shang landed and entered, instructing her to stay outside while they spoke with the other creatures.

Inside the Forgotten Temple, Basquin and Shang spoke to those who guard the Tablet: Alna, their Queen; Banshalink, a Slelk; Horba, a Drugnal; Feeignyaiial, a Cashangua and Seng, a Passana. They explained about finding Saiyoon crossing the Floompa marsh and falling in, how they had helped her, the fact that she is connected to Air and Earth Spirits. Ethian had told the Creatures more details than were carved in the stone Tablet and they included everything that Saiyoon had told them of herself and the situations that unfolded while she was travelling alone and with them. “She is two hundred; has lived, so far, a hard life; it is said she will live for five thousand years; she is a she; already her bond with the Air and Earth Spirits is phenomenally strong – not even Ethian had such a strong bond; she can already manipulate the other elements and you can see in her eyes the turquoise and red rings beginning to form. I am sure she is the one the Spirit Master promised us.” This was Shang’s quick spoken inventory of Saiyoon’s qualities and the conviction with which he said the last sentence swung those who had doubts.
“Bring her in; show her to us.” Came Banshalink’s order; he was the highest ranking Creature there, even topping Alna.

Tentatively, Saiyoon crossed the threshold into the grand hall that held some of Creatures that protect the Tablet. Basquin and Shang came through behind her and took their places either side of Queen Alna. It was Basquin that spoke first and those that had known him since the beginning, before the Great Battle, noted a soft tenderness in his voice that they had never heard before. “You come seeking the Prophetic Tablet of Spirit Master Ethian. Do you have a reason for this?” “Yes, at first it was because I had heard tell of it in the colony and the Mage I had trained with told me the story of it one night. Then, as I was approaching the Shebdil Desert I felt a pull that I could not explain. It strengthened as I neared my destination; step by step. I couldn’t understand it or explain it but it felt as though a part of me was yearning to arrive here. Does that make sense?” Saiyoon’s voice was small but gained strength as she spoke of the inexplicable pull and was almost defiant in her question. “It does little one. I believe every word of your story and it is very hard to trick a Slelk, especially me. We are the Creatures that Ethian left to protect the Tablet by making sure only the person it was meant to be read by would ever see it. There are others scouting out for those that try to find, as you have, the Tablet and the rest make sure that nothing befouls the Tablet and that it is kept safe. Horba and Seng led Saiyoon through a door at the end of the hall and into much smaller room that contained only two items – a wooden table standing against the far wall and sitting on it, propped up against the wall, was the Tablet Ethian carved.