Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One (15 page)

Enoch slid backward, terrified and excited by its beauty at the same time.

Without warning
, the points of light reversed their direction and rapidly converged on the creature who seemed much taller than before.

Enoch covered his eyes and braced himself, expecting something horrible to happen. 
When nothing did, he
slowly dropped his hands from his eyes.

Where the animal stood only a moment before,
there
was now a magnificent creature that looked much more familiar.  In form, it seemed human.  But Enoch knew this
to be
impossible
for it
stood at twice his height.
 
Even in the darkness, he could see its beauty and gracefulness.

“What are you?” he asked
.

“
A Wandering Star of Heaven
,” he replied.
  “One of the
Myndarym
—the ones who
shape
creation.”

Enoch put a hand to his mouth as he realized he’d already delivered his message to one of the intended recipients.

“We have fa
rther to go, but
you’ll
n
eed to travel on foot,” he said, turning to walk up the path.

Enoch
quickly rose to his feet and ran to catch up, which proved difficult
with the angel’s long stride
s
.  He followed at a short distance, now feeling more awkward than he did sitting on the back of an animal.  They continued in silence for a while, until Enoch worked up enough courage to ask a question.

“What is your name?”  His voice seemed to violate some unspoken law of silence in this eerie place.

“
Ananel
,” the angel replied
without turning
.

Moments later, they rounded a
gentle bend
and Enoch found himself facing yet another extraordinary sight.  The path widened greatly, running
straight
into a sheer wall of stone that stood a hundred feet tall and many times as wide.  At each end, where the vertical s
urface met with the
jagged
protrusions
of the mountain sides
, the stone rose to a point.  Like two spines from the
back of those horrid reptiles, these structures looked just as deadly. 
E
ach had three faces, like an angular version of the Kahyin dwelling
.

“How could such a thing be crafted from stone?” he marveled.

Ananel
quickly looked back with a smirk on his face, then continued walking toward the center of the path where it led through an open section of the wall.

On either side of the path, two more angels stood
with arms crossed at their chests
.  They were easily three heads taller than
Ananel
, and their build
was wider and more muscular. 
They each wore a simple loincloth that fell to the mid-thigh, but were otherwise naked. 
Even beneath the night sky, Enoch could tell that their skin and hair were darker.  Their eyes, possibly black, remained fixed toward the distance behind him.  And Enoch was grateful, for his body was already shaking and he dared not think about what would happen if they looked directly at him.

As
Ananel
neared, the gaze of the taller angels turned toward him.

He simply nodded in acknowledgement.

“
Menn eru inte leyft i a stad
,” one of the guards bellowed.  Though loud and commanding, his voice sounded more human than
Ananel
’s.

“H
an ar med jag
,” Ananel replied, his voice sounding as though several people were speaking at the same time.

The guards looked down at the human intruder.

Enoch felt his legs go limp and he had to avert his eyes to keep from falling over.  From the corner of his vision, he saw the angels nod.  Ananel stepped forward and Enoch followed, keeping his eyes on the ground.  As he passed by the guards, he could almost feel heat coming from their eyes.

With the wall towering overhead, casting a shadow in the moonlight, Enoch followed his angelic escort through the passage until it widened at the crest of a hill.  Feeling confident
enough
to lift his head once more, Enoch looked out over miles of water encircled by jagged mountains that appeared as the teeth of a ravenous animal. 
If the mountains were
its
gaping,
deadly
jaw
threatening to rend the sky, the water was
its
endless throat
ready to
swallow it.

“The Kahyin call it
Mudena Del
-
Edha
, City of the Gods,” Ananel said, anticipating Enoch’s question.

Enoch just nodded,
struggling to grasp
the vastness of what his eyes were witnessing. 
Without being told, he knew that this place had been constructed, but he couldn’t comprehend how such a thing was possible.  Around the inside of the mountains, where they descended into the water, a wide road circled the valley and disappeared into the mist clinging to the shoreline. As his eyes followed the route that they were obviously taking, his vision settled upon something which exceeded anything else he’d yet witnessed.  Rising from the mist and water on the south end of the valley was a tower, shaped like those flanking the entrance they’d just come through.  Only this one was so wide and tall that Enoch couldn’t really tell how far away it was.  His eyes made him believe that it rose even above the surrounding mountains, but
the thought seemed impossible.

“…and that?” he asked the Ananel.

“
Aryun Del
-
Edha
.  Eyes of the Gods.”

Enoch was silent
for a moment, lost in the grandeur of the peak that seemed impossibly high.

“Let’s go,” Ananel said, interrupting the moment.

For the better part of an hour, the two walked along the road which traversed the base of the southern mountains.  The
wide lake
was still and menacing
.  Above its dark surface,
a
gr
a
y mist float
ed
, with
tiny swirls developing where it met the water. 
M
inutes passed
while
they grew closer and closer to the tower.  With each step, its height seemed more dramatic
;
less real. 
F
inally, they reached a narrow
peninsula
of stone that extended out into the water, connecting the tower to the
southern shore
.

As Enoch followed Ananel across the land bridge, he noted three lesser towers protruding from the water to the north, east, and west.  Each bore the same look, with three steep faces that eventually converged at a peak.
  Enoch thought about the simple habitations of his tribe, made of wood, thatch, and animal skins.  These massive structures were something entirely different.

The path on which they walked ran straight toward the southern face of the tower, into which was carved a gigantic doorway of the same triangular shape.  The path also diverged at this point and appeared to encircle the base of the tower, but Enoch’s attention was drawn to the guards posted at either side of the doorway.

This time, the menacing angels remained silent and still.

Ananel walked past them
without slowing
and Enoch followed as closely as he could, trying his best to look like he belonged in this foreign place.

The inside of the tower was just a
s
grand as
its exterior
. 
As he
looked
across the cavernous interior and to the ceiling far above,
Enoch thought that he might be able to fit the entire
Shayeth
village into the first level.  Fires burned in small bowls carved into the walls, casting a flickering
yellow
light throughout.  As he followed, he watched Ananel’s
shadow slide across the stone and land on numerous surfaces and
details graven into the rock.

At the
center of the room
,
a wedge-shaped wall rose from
the
floor to the ceiling.  Ananel circled it
and
Enoch hung back, afraid of what he might see.  To his astonishment, the floor on the other side seemed to rise in a series of platforms that extended toward a triangular-shaped doorway in the ceiling.  Just as confusion began to set in, Ananel stepped onto the first platform.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
  Then he turned and began to climb the stairs.

Enoch couldn’t help but be
afraid.  He’d never seen anything like it in all his years.

Holy One, go before me as I tread upon the path of the unknown!

Ananel disappeared through the doorway at the top
.

Enoch took a deep breath, then climbed quickly to catch up.
 
At the top of the stairs,
he
could see that the doorway was actually a tunnel twice his own height, which cut through the ceiling of the first level, and in turn, became the floor of the second chamber.  Sound moved differently through this level as the ceiling was nowhere to be found.  It might as well have been open to the sky above.  This chamber was more brightly lit than the previous one, and slightly smaller.  The walls and floor were constructed of a stone that Enoch had never seen.  They were almost transparent, like water, but with veins of different colors running throughout. 
All of this,
Enoch
noticed in an instant.  For an instant
was
all the time he had before a deafening noise
attacked him from behind
,
shattering
the silence
and
bringing an
end to all thought.

“
VAD
A
R
A
UTTRYKK
AV DETTA
VALDSHU
?”

Enoch
grabbed
his ears and fell to the
stone stairs
.  Already, his head was pounding in the aftermath of the
noise
. 
But t
hrough his tightly held grip, the muffled sound of Ananel’s voice could
still be
heard.

“The outrage is that your
supposedly
careful plans have failed.”

Enoch uncovered his ears carefully
and looked up to Ananel who had reached the top of the stairs and was facing the other direction
.

“
Hv
orfor gera du tala i a tunga av a
Shayetham
?” the voice replied, quieter this time.

Enoch instantly recognized the name of his tribe.

Ananel looked down to
him
.  “Get up and turn around.”

Enoch turned his head as he slowly rose to his feet
and climbed the last few steps
.  At the far end of the chamber, the floor was elevated by a
nother flight of s
teps.  At the top, a massive figure sat upon a throne carved from stone
darker than the night sky
.  Its surface was covered in facets, each reflecting the fire light
so that
it gleamed with a dark radiance.  The angel who sat upon the throne looked similar to the guards, but larger, with skin that held a reddish hue beneath its earthen tone. 
His black hair fell almost to his shoulders. 
His eyes burned with the color of the embers from a fire. 
And like the guards, he wore nothing except a loincloth of pure white, smoother tha
n
any cloth
ing
Enoch had ever seen.

As if the sight of this angel weren’t intimidating enough, he was flanked by four others.

Standing before the left side of the throne were two winged angels who appeared similar in height to Ananel.  Each had two massive wings sprouting from
his
upper back, and two smaller wings
below that.  The one whose skin was darkest had sleek, black feathers and piercing
,
red
eyes.  The other had a mottled brown appearance, with softer looking feathers.

Seated on the steps to the right side of the throne, were two wingless angels of brown and gray tones.  Their elongated facial features reminded Enoch of Ananel’s animal form.
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