Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen (17 page)

Quade squeezed her hand and shook his head. "I know it's hard for you to realize, Trina, but even the worst on Bethel is paradise compared to the best on many other worlds." She looked up at him, a curious expression on her face.

"Clea said that very same thing this afternoon," she said, and laughed. "Oh Quade, sometimes I wish I could travel the stars with you. I know there's so many things out there to see, places to experience." She thought for just a moment then started to turn. "But enough for now. Tomorrow comes quickly when one stays up so late."

Quade still held onto her hand as she walked, and stopped her as he pulled it to his lips to plant a kiss on her fingers. She looked back at him as he released her.

"Good night my love," she whispered, "see you in the morning?"

"Of course," he replied with a slight gratuitous bow, and the last thing he saw as she disappeared around the corner was the wide smile that spread across her face.

Quade walked across the grounds to where his land craft was waiting, looking over his shoulder occasionally until he saw a dim light go on inside of Trina's bedroom. Then he turned his back to the castle and let a deep frown settle in his expression. He felt nauseated; the same cold, frighteningly familiar nausea that he'd only felt once before in his life, once before only days ago. The memory of the Bet/Kos nexus filled his mind as the tingling burn of his nerves swept through his skin. Why should he feel such a way here at home? And why was the feeling diminishing with every step he took away from the castle? As he boarded his land craft, Quade wondered why a night so perfect as the one he'd just had, should be tainted with a memory so wretched as that.

CHAPTER 12

Q
uade walked in the door of his house and closed it behind him, leaning against it and staring into the darkness. He felt better now, felt normal, even though it was late and he was tired. The nausea had passed, and being inside his home once again gave him hope for some level of normality. He reached to the wall, pressed his hand into the illumination panel and prompted the lights on.

There, in his house, in his entry room, were the two creatures that had been on his ship, and that had again showed themselves when he'd been speaking with the Keystone.

Quade jumped from surprise, but managed to suppress a startled shout. He covered his eyes with his hand, tilted his face to the ceiling shaking his head and simply said, "Why?"

After a moment of silent prayers wishing that when he again opened his eyes that the proof of his insanity would have disappeared, he looked through his spread fingers and saw the blue creature, saw the gold creature and let out an exasperated groan.

"What?" he demanded, feeling a little more in command now that he was in his own home. "What is it that you want from me now? To further shred my peace of mind? To tell me again that the fate of the world lies in my hands? Or perhaps to tell me why it's true that someone close to me knows of this place that doesn't exist, this place called P'cadia?"

"So you have found one," said the blue creature, taking flight, as she now assumed a similar, though slightly larger size that she had earlier that day, that morning as the two of them flitted around the Keystone's head.

"Found one? Found nothing! She gave me no vital information! And then she left."

"The Risk, no doubt," said the gold creature, floating in the air to hover beside the blue one. Quade looked at them in disbelief, then advanced to where they were hanging, midair, standing as though suspended.

"How can you be real?" Quade said it more to himself than anything, and the blue creature spoke.

"How would you wish for us to be more real than this, Quade?" she asked. "Perhaps we owe you an introduction. We were somewhat unceremonious in our initial appearance. I am Echo, and she, my counterpart, is Mimic."

"What are you?" Quade asked, studying them more closely than he had before. They were just like tiny little human girls. Except that one was blue. And one was gold.

"To you Quade, we are emissaries."

"Emissaries? To whom? Nothing that's ever come from Bethel is a creature of your variety."

"That is because we are not of Bethel."

"We are messengers of the gods." The blue one, Echo, still spoke, but now the gold one finished her sentence.

"And therefore, serve a higher purpose than anything of Bethel," said Mimic.

"Ever so mighty, she," said Echo.

"And ever so hopeful, thee!" Mimic countered, kicking at the air, sending a dust of glimmering gold powder in Echo's direction.

"This is impossible," Quade said. He looked back and forth at one, then the other. Echo and Mimic. Was that supposed to mean something? They spoke like humans, and had a strange accent the likes of which he had never before heard. But their coloring and the dust that fell lightly from their strangely colored skin made them otherworldly. Though shaped like children their faces were ageless, and much as they confused him with their ambiguity, they carried on their words a wisdom that would lend them to be much older than they appeared.

"Still you've said nothing! I ask again what are you?"

"We have already told you," said Echo. "We are emissaries."

"Alright, then. Emissaries. I'll give you that, for what it's worth. But what I meant, is… what are you? Fairies? Cherubs? Nymphs? Surely some form of mythical creature, in keeping with the spirit of this cruel scenario that you plague me with!" Mimic turned circles in the air, laughing as if Quade had said something incredibly funny.

"Ha!" she chided, "Cherubs! As well we might be! Cherubs to some sarcastic imitation of our own flawed superiors!
 
A cherub, dear Echo! Forgive me while I turn inside out with laughter!"

"A cherub? Mimic? 'Tis my turn to laugh!" Echo swirled her hand in the air, creating a tiny air funnel of blue dust and sending it smattering into the side of Mimic's face. "A cherub of some fiendish demon, perhaps, she!"

The fighting began. It was the same fighting that Quade had heard in his head, which further leant him to think his insanity true. But seeing it played out in real life was a truly bizarre experience. They became a blur of blue and gold as they squealed and shrieked, a twirling cyclone of tiny arms and heads, reminding Quade of the fluttering motion butterflies made as they mated, except…violent and very loud. They suddenly bounced apart, each one shooting to one side of the room and brushing the offending dust of the other off her skin. They slowly floated back together, scowling as they did, and Quade just stood, speechless, then he walked past the sulking creatures and into his bedroom. Once at his desk, he took out some old discs and dropped them in his reader, and he noticed that they had followed him.

"Alright then. Unidentifiable beings of the violent variety. Messengers of the gods no less! Add that to my list of validating insanity! So then,
 

what message have the gods for me today?" The creatures, Echo and Mimic, floated to the screen of his reader, appearing right at eye level, and Quade found himself strangely fascinated with the oddity of their presence. "Maybe you'll tell me that I'm really not insane, that all these things that have been happening to me are for a reason, a truly higher purpose?" His words were dry and sarcastic as he reached a hand toward the two small beings that sat perched before him. It was as if feeling their substance would somehow make them real, no matter how invasive that might be. The gold one floated backward as she saw what he meant to do, but the blue one watched calmly, and when his hand came within touching distance, she bounced her feet off his index finger and floated backward, a light trail of her dust raining on his skin. He looked at his hand, rubbed the dust around between his thumb and forefinger, shaking his head slowly. How could he deny what he saw on his own flesh, what he could feel with his own touch? Quade looked back to the two emissaries who stood together again, floating just above the viewscreen. They watched him in silence, letting him come to terms with this realization in his own time. They were real. Truly, absolutely real.
 

"Why is this happening to me?" he whispered.

"It is your destiny, Quade," said Echo gently. "The fate of all you know lies in the carrying out of this plan."

"This plan you speak of…what plan? A plan, a quest! Why do you use such cryptic words?"

"It is the plan the gods set forth so many ages before, to fix the flaw that lives to consume all, to defeat the evil that moves transcendentally, which goes galaxy to galaxy devouring and destroying. Those Chosen must band together, and only then can there be success. But your time is short and days are now numbered. You have much to do, Quade. And many things to seek."

"Seek?" Quade threw his hands in the air. "What more to seek with the things you've told me? Dreams of P'cadia…how did you know of my dreams? And on a wild whim I followed your words, took heed of your advice, and found out someone else does know of this place…this place that doesn't exist! And so it is Clea, what luck. She'd have no part of this, wouldn't even listen when I tried to speak with her."

"'Tis typical," said Mimic with a shrug and she looked at her hands, seeming disinterested.

"But she did say something." He paused, remembered that morning in the hangar. "Something about a place, like she knew about a whole other part of this tale you continue to torment me with. When I mentioned P'cadia, it was like she knew I needed to go there, just like in the dreams. As though she had some knowledge that I don't even know about yet." Quade analyzed his words as he said them out loud, as if making sense of them for the first time.

Both emissaries looked up with surprise at this revelation, and Mimic advanced on him slowly as she began to speak again.

"What did she say, Quade? Must we remind you continually of the relevance of all that is told to you?"

"She spoke of a place, a place with shimmering seas and liquid sun." Something tickled at the back of his thoughts as he said this aloud, but was too hazy to come into view. "She called it a riddle, but somehow I knew it had a deeper meaning than just an ambiguous play on words. But I don't know how to go about this, how to go about what she said I must do! Seek the Avè…indeed! I could no more seek the Avè than I could seek the very gods themselves! And how would Clea know where to find him? And through a riddle no less!"
 

"Ah, finally we make some progress." Mimic crossed her arms over her chest.

"Tis the next thing that you should seek"

"More foreshadowing, more doom and more confusion! If this is truly real then how do I know if the Avè will even allow me an audience with him? No common man can seek the Avè. And how would I even know how to find him from the wisps of information that I've been told?"

"You will know, Quade." Echo spoke again, floating forward and shouldering Mimic out of his line of vision. "You will know, but perhaps not tonight. Sleep now and come morn there will be a revelation…of sorts."

"It occurs to me," Quade said, thinking aloud, wondering why he hadn't considered the idea before. "Why should I be so trusting of your words? Maybe I should talk to the Keystone when he returns."

"No!" Both emissaries shouted it in unison, and it startled and intrigued Quade.

"Why not?" He remembered how he'd given in to their bidding earlier, as they'd flitted about Keystone Aushlin's head. "He's the Keystone of Bethel. He may have some advice that would prove useful. And at least he is a man who is in the position to seek the Avè, if that is what I'm truly meant to do."

"No Quade," Echo was insistent. "You must not speak of this to anyone except your Chosen. To mention it to others puts them in mortal danger. We have told you this before! You must seek the Chosen, and seek them carefully. Do not spread knowledge of this to others."

"Well, maybe he is one of the Chosen. What better man to offer salvation to our galaxy than him? And how can I know if he is without asking?"

Mimic spoke, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Alas, not the Keystone, Quade. That much we can tell you."

"Well then, who? Guide me to them, if that's truly your purpose. Guide me to the Chosen and I'll take it from there."

"We do not know who they are Quade, that is for you to find. But we do know who they are not, and we will tell you again…not the Keystone."

"Sleep now, Quade and we shall be here when you seek our guidance. Until then, rest. For rest will be a luxury that you have little time to indulge in from here forth."

Quade scowled. "How am I to know it isn't you who I should be rising against? You who are the ones who bring this destruction you foretell, and the end of all things? How am I to know that you aren't demons polluting my mind, that you yourselves aren't part of the evil that you keep alluding to?" Quade stood abruptly, paced across the room. "In the middle of space I get attacked by some…entity! And then you show up. Walking from the castle tonight I feel the same sickness as then, the burning of my nerves, and here you are now! Coincidence?" He reeled around just in time to see the two figures begin to spin slowly.