Between Darkness and Light Trilogy Read online

  Between Darkness and Light Trilogy

  The Universe Cycle

  Book One

  Brianna Hawthorne

  Smashwords edition

  Copyright ©2011 by Brianna Hawthorne.

  Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and places are either the product of the author’s imagination, inspired by past gaming adventures, or are used fictitiously.

  For information about this and upcoming books, please visit my Author’s page.

  In Dedication to:

  First of all, my beloved husband, for over eighteen years of sharing ideas, role-playing scenes and eventually editing every word I have written.

  Secondly I would like to thank everyone that I have ever role-played with. You are far too numerous to list, and indeed many of the names have faded from my mind over the decades, but I thank you nonetheless for your inspiration. One name, however, I simply must mention – Mark Roemer, without whom I would never have learned that I have an imagination.

  And finally, to my parents, who have always believed in me.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1 - A Mystery Explored

  2 - A New Beginning

  3 - Meeting Family

  4 - Preparations and Formalities

  5 - Rescue Operations

  6 - Dungeon Life

  7 - The Love of Brothers

  8 - A Less than Warm Reception

  9 - Returning to Shiral

  10 - Interrogations

  11 - Making New Connections

  12 - A Day of Rest

  13 - Arrivals and Invitations

  14 - Journey into Chaos

  15 - An Evening in Chaos

  16 - Trial and Chaos

  17 - Out of the Frying Pan…

  18 - Imprisoned Again

  19 - Dream Interrogation

  20 - Status Report

  21 - Anger

  22 - Coming Out

  23 - Exiled

  24 - Return to Lumina

  25 - Darkness and Light

  26 - Battle

  27 - First Day of Negotiations

  28 - William and Novanus’ Revenge

  29 - Battle Renewed

  Character List

  Discography

  Prologue

  Before the dawn of Order, whilst Chaos rules the Cosmos unchallenged, an ancient being sits in trance. The Ancient One, the first to manifest permanency in the early days of the maelstrom that would become our Universe.

  She is troubled; she has sensed something she does not understand… something she must investigate. While her son watches over her still body, the Ancient One frees her mind to seek an explanation.

  She reaches out, listening, seeking, and finds herself surrounded by dissonance, by something that… does not belong, somewhere in the farthest reaches of space. Something is… no, something will be wrong. It is echoes of the future that she hears. A dark future, existence unraveled, consumed. Insatiable hunger… screams in the darkness. The Universe shrieks in agony as The All is torn asunder. It is the end, not even the echoes of life remain. She tries to follow the trail of death to its source, but there is no path, for it is both everywhere and nowhere at once.

  Muttering in a language that has not been spoken since time unremembered, she reaches out further, stretching the limits of what her mind can sustain. It is difficult to meaningfully scry the future, to discern true prophesy from that which is merely imagination. To recognize the difference between what is unavoidable and what is merely a possibility among innumerable possibilities.

  But this is the SeshHaud, she is unaccustomed to limitations. Her search seems endless, and still every possibility she follows ends in absolute destruction from something… she cannot comprehend. The circle of life cannot be broken thus… It does not make sense, and yet in every thread she examines, it happens. It is as though nothing done has any impact upon this doom; the Universe is powerless to save itself.

  She cannot accept that. Then she feels it, a glimmer of hope as she begins following what otherwise seems a rather undesirable thread. This one does not lead to total annihilation. A seemingly improbable scenario, and yet, concentrating on it brings into clarity the most beautiful creature she has ever heard. As she concentrates on the harmony of the wondrous being, the tenuous possibility becomes clearer. It would be dangerous, and difficult to navigate all the inherent hazards, but… it could save them from ultimate destruction. The question remains, though, from what? Who is this unfathomable enemy?

  She shifts her attention to the dissonance yet again and finds herself crossing a veil the living are not meant to cross; she is surrounded by… shattering, jagged screams of despair. Unnatural death. Not surrendering one's self to chaos and returning to the raw stuff of creation, but true, absolute ending.

  What hungers so? Their song is repulsive! Suddenly she understands.

  “ABOMINATIONS! Invaders from without; Defilers - Slayers of Creation!” As her mind flees back toward her body, she tries to envelop herself within the harmonies of the beautiful creature. She will be our salvation, but much must be done in preparation for the dark days to come; so many changes…

  ~~~

  A voice interrupts her thoughts.

  “Mother, Gorgotha Lagash requests an audience.” SeshHaud Draconae turns and gives voice to her vision:

  ***

  Daughter of burning light,

  daughter of fire,

  Universe Child,

  all must inspire.

  Stars shall know of her,

  their cold light will gleam,

  Her coming foretold,

  within the dark dream.

  The weaver of worlds,

  the singer of songs,

  Must stop that which comes

  and right all its wrongs.

  The Family together

  to face hunger great,

  On her and the balance

  rest life’s very fate.”

  ***

  With that she turns away as though she had not noticed their presence. Markoso takes Gorgotha’s arm and ushers her toward the door.

  “It is a dark time in her mind, Gorgotha, please do not find insult in her poor manners.”

  Gorgotha’s expression, though, is of amazement. “I had only hoped to know if another singer of worlds would be born to us – I never dreamed her destiny would be so great.”

  Chapter 1

  A Mystery Explored

  I awake to a familiar sound – two deceivingly gentle thumps that most would hardly notice, but I feel reverberations deep within the Shir… only one thing would cause that. As I open my door a tremendous roar shatters the early morning tranquility. For a moment I pause at the amazing sight, dragons in the first rays of morning light. The nearest a magnificent blue, the other is the largest dragon I have ever seen, a great golden.

  “Zah-Ha’Gor!” The blue lowers her head and I throw myself against the side of her face, stroking the comparatively soft scales beside her eyes.

  More roar like sounds; Dragon speech. We don’t know why, but William and I have always understood the tongue of dragons, even though we cannot speak it. “Shi'ah'i, it is good to see you again as well.” In a way I find it comforting that she cannot completely wrap her tongue around my name, in this one way we are equal.

  “Yaaaahhhhhnnnnn!”

>   Arms raised up in a stretch, William looks almost statuesque; a pale though handsome face surrounded by soft, wavy black hair that falls just short of his wide shoulders. It is easy to see why women are so fond of him. He shatters the vision by rubbing his eyes. When he opens them they are a sparkling, playful blue.

  “Good morning Puff.”

  That’s my brother; when we first met our dragon friends, he was too young to attempt to utter even a small part of Puff’s real name. Instead, he decided that since dragons are magical creatures…

  The large golden dragon nods and replies in his almost impossibly deep voice, “And to you, sleepy one.”

  I turn a questioning gaze to Zah-Ha’Gor, but I need not voice my thought, she knows. “I have found something that I think you and William will want to see. If we leave soon, you should be back in time for bed.” Her eye playfully glints toward William, who laughs and heads back inside to dress.

  “I’ll be out in a few minutes.” This could be an interesting day – I don a carefully fitted deep blue leather jumpsuit that’s been spelled to adjust for flexibility and other needs – it’s perfect for flying and blends beautifully with Zah-Ha’Gor’s iridescent scales. It sounds as though this trip is business, not play, but I’m sure she will still appreciate my wearing the amazing fire diamonds she gave me years ago, a full belt and necklace. I’ve never seen any that rival these, and the way multicolored lights flash within the depths of the jewels reminds me of Zah-Ha'Gor’s eyes, filled with power and mystery. I grab the travel rations bag I always keep on hand for just such occasions and tie it to my belt. As soon as I step out I see I have chosen my attire well; both dragons fix me with gazes of dragon greed and proud appreciation.

  I love flying! The wind on my face and in my hair feels like freedom, and the rhythmic, powerful beating of her wings fills me with anticipation. We almost always have exciting, fun filled flights; I’m especially fond of diving next to waterfalls, I never know if she will pull up at the last second or take us plunging into the depths. This trip is different; there is no play, only serious straightforward and breathtakingly swift flight. The feeling of anticipation that builds within me is very different from the lighthearted excitement I usually feel while flying, I can sense it; something important awaits us. After hours of flight we land in a clearing on the side of the mysterious Mount Luminos, named for the eerie light that sometimes can be seen emanating from it. It is feared, and generally considered unsafe.

  “Zah-Ha'Gor…”

  “It is safe at this time, I assure you, and I will know well beforehand if that changes. I am a dragon, after all.” Mirth sparkles within her eyes, then she turns serious yet again. “Come, follow me.” She leads us into a forest, and again her ability to utterly belong anywhere she goes amazes me. She moves so quickly, it is as though she follows a well-marked trail, and yet there is none; we are on land that neither man nor beast frequents. We come to the face of a cliff and she leads us along it until we reach a large boulder. She rolls it aside to reveal an opening in the rock face.

  “Go ahead, I shall follow.” Puff enters first, pausing as he assesses its safety. It doesn’t seem a very interesting cave. When Zah-Ha'Gor enters she allows the boulder to roll back into its place, plunging us into darkness. William summons light for us. I’ve never understood why he has had such a difficult time learning sorcery, and then he developed a completely new skill. It isn’t actually sorcery at all, and doesn’t serve any larger purpose that I understand, but… that’s my brother one of a kind.

  The cave his light reveals is really quite unremarkable and looks as though it ends fairly soon. Zah-Ha'Gor continues in a much quieter voice, “Follow me.” She leads us further back and slightly to the right, and I see it, to the left is an opening into another chamber; perfect natural camouflage. She leads us through many such chambers, until finally we come to one that truly has no hidden openings. Zah-Ha'Gor reaches up to one of many stalactites and with one great talon, pushes up on it. Something deep within the mountain shifts, then a section of rock drops back, revealing a far more interesting looking chamber.

  We enter a living rock cavern… it’s beautiful and I want to explore, but Zah-Ha'Gor continues moving. “Come, there is far more to see.” It seems as though we walk for hours, always going down, down into the depths of the Shir. I’m not bored though, the entire path is of living rock, and amazing collections of crystals are actually common. William experiments with different frequencies of light to make our surroundings even more breathtaking. At the end of that chamber we come to an odd opening in the rock, the floor drops away quickly on the other side; Zah-Ha'Gor explains, “You will like this, William. Follow me. She quickly steps through and begins sliding down! William steps forward, but I slip past him and follow my dragon-friend. The floor is slick! Very soon I reach an astonishing speed. We slide past several magical barriers, they sound as though they would stop just about any from passing, but not us. We must be terribly deep within the Shir, but with Zah-Ha'Gor before me and William following with Puff, I feel perfectly safe. Eventually the slope of the tunnel levels out and our rate of descent slows accordingly.

  Finally we are deposited into an almost sacred feeling cavern, a monument to the beauty of rock and crystal. The acoustics are phenomenal. I sense that the cavern is highly shielded from without, yet as I move across the floor I fleetingly hear snatches of life on Shiral – as though the entire world can be eves-dropped upon from here. In the middle of the cavern is a monolith. The writing on it looks strange, and yet I understand it. “Those of the blood, prove it.” I caress the words and a stone bowl forms along a corner, the edge just over it becoming razor sharp. The situation seems almost compelling and I see no reason to fight it; I reach out and draw my finger down the sharp edge and a single drop of my blood flows toward the cup.

  “Shi'ahn, what are you doing?” William sounds distressed.

  “Trying to learn exactly what this thing is, of course. Somehow… it seems the right thing to do.” The cup recedes back into the monolith as soon as my blood lies within it. After a brief pause, a section ceases to exist, creating a doorway of sorts – it seems unlikely, but I walk through, unable to resist my curiosity.

  “Shi'ahn!”

  That’s all I hear; the doorway snaps out of existence as soon as I am fully within. Odd, this place is far larger than it should be. The walls, floor and ceiling are of an entirely different rock than I just left – I've never seen such strangely colored stone before, and the light isn't right, it isn't blue at all. I scan for something, anything familiar, and finally I see it, a smaller monolith in the middle of this strange place, and this one already displaying the sharp edge and awaiting cup. Well, I’ve come this far; I see no reason to stop now. I walk directly up to it and once again I draw my finger down the sharp edge. No doorway appears this time; I'm simply… elsewhere.

  Chapter 2

  A New Beginning

  Nothing looks right! I stand at the base of the most magnificent structure I have ever seen. It's huge, fairytale-like in design – a citadel carved into the side of a tremendous mountain… I've never seen such stone - bluish quartz? Traceries of indigo and violet make it utterly beautiful; it’s perfect. Above the citadel a mountain stretches up, towering impossibly high – it seems to go on forever… It plays tricks on my eyes. The sky isn’t right, it stretches out below me at a 30-degree angle and continues above at an increasingly steep incline until… it ends in light. Never before have I felt so disoriented; has this place been set on its side? And the light… it's similar to the sun, but… more intense? Certainly more ultraviolet; it's the most beautiful light I've ever seen.

  “Shi'ahn, where are we?”

  I turn to see my brother at my side, but instead of wildly looking around as I have been, his attention is riveted on the light.

  “William? How did you get here so quickly?”

  He doesn't look my way, but he does answer, though somewhat distractedly.

 
“You didn’t think I would stay behind, did you? I was scared silly when you didn't come back out of the monolith. Puff didn't want to allow me to follow, in case it was a trap, but I assured him that I could feel that you were fine. That wasn't quite true, but I didn't feel that anything bad had happened to you, and you know I've always been able to sense your distress. Zah-Ha'Gor almost pushed me toward the monolith. Then you scared me again when you weren’t inside… but it seemed a good bet that you had given yet another drop of your blood to the second monolith. I tried to get back out to tell Puff I’d be following you further, but I couldn’t get the doorway to reopen. Honestly, Sis, one of these days this impulsive nature of yours is going to get you into serious trouble.”

  How could he have done all that, I just got here. Before I can ask him I hear heavy, running footsteps. Several men burst into sight, holding what may be weapons pointed directly at us.

  A deep, authoritative but not very pleasant voice calls out, “You there – I don’t recognize you… identify yourselves!” A guard? There is a flash nearby, like thousands of prisms simultaneously casting light next to me for the slightest moment, then I sense… greatness, aeon’s of wisdom. My vision clears and I see an old woman. William tears his eyes away from the light to stare with almost equal fascination at her. Physically she is just a very old woman, shriveled and stooped with age, but her eyes! Looking into them is like looking into the depths of time.

  “Stand down, Captain, I will take responsibility for these two – I’ve been expecting them!”

  The guards look at once shocked, awed, and quite uncomfortable. “Of course, your… ancientness. Our fault entirely.” His voice is weak with more than awe, far more.

  The old woman places her arms around us; my mind floods with music and everything suddenly sparkles. We are bathed in light, every frequency, infrared through ultraviolet, separated more precisely than by a prism or spell; I hear… something new. The balance of frequencies changes; stabilizes.