Lives of Lythe: A Ruler Rises

Lives of Lythe: A Leader Rises

CHAPTER 1

EIRA

The transfer of power began.

Inside the enormous geode of the Great Lythe Crystal, its colossal stalagmites and stalactites glowing violet, Eira faced her mother, Bryndis. Bryndis stood tall, imposing, her regal stance had a powerful force behind it. Eira recognized her own features in her mother’s face: strong aquiline nose, silver hair, and clear alabaster skin. Both wore their ceremonial battle armour: deep, pearlescent violet with gold inlays. But resting between her mother’s collarbones hung their family’s five-thousand-year-old heirloom, the Lythe Crystal’s Pendant. This small, living shard had passed from mother to daughter leaders of the Sovereignty since its inception. Eira had just turned thirty-one; it was time for the Pendant’s transfer. With it would come the responsibility for three-hundred thirteen worlds with billions of lives, and the title of Lithura.

“You must not disappoint me,” Bryndis said, her strong aquiline features made harsher by her cold, dark eyes. “Our connection to the Lythe Crystal, our synergy, has grown so weak, the Pendant has become dull. I often wonder when our connection to it will end altogether.”

It was a barbed statement; her mother was intimating that their family’s synergy might end with her. Eira felt tightness in her chest. It could be true; she might have no synergy at all. Ancient Lithuras had used mergings with the Pendant to access previous rulers’ memories. Over the millennia, her ancestors had lost so much of their ability to connect to Lythe energy using the Pendant that their only remaining ability was to access a feeling or memory from their mother during the Pendant’s transfer. Would she be passed a memory today? If not, her family’s synergy with Lythe energy, and therefore their rule, would end with her.

“Encouraging words, Mother. I know I must not fail.”

“What do you hope to receive?” Bryndis asked.

If only she could access the ancient Lithuras’ knowledge, strength and insight. “I am a realist, mother. I hope to merge and receive a memory of yours. I am ready.”

Eira and Bryndis walked along a flat, horizontal stalagmite towards Pangea’s Gate, the interworld portal hovering mid-air in the great cavern, its violet light emanating out in a spherical pattern. Together, they stepped into its rays. Violet light shone so brightly that Eira’s eyes took a moment to adjust. She felt the Lythe Crystal’s raw energy. It was alive. She took strength from it. “Transfer the Pendant,” Eira said, standing erect, still, waiting.

Bryndis hesitated, then her expression became blank, unreadable. She placed her palm under the Pendant. Its clasp automatically unlocked and it fell into her hand. Then, she pressed the Pendant to Eira’s collarbone. Its golden, braided cord wrapped around Eira’s neck, clasped, and locked.

Immediately, Eira was overwhelmed by her mother’s profound love for her younger sister Mirri, and her desire to transfer the Pendant to Mirri instead of her. Eira felt echoes of her childhood hurt, but also elation. She had merged, even if only briefly. But Eira didn't need to see her mother’s expression to know the Pendant remained as dull on her as it had on her mother. “Mirri is blinded by power, Mother. A Lithura’s duty is to protect the Sovereignty.”

Bryndis bowed to her new Lithura. “Duty has always been your finest strength, Eira the Pure.”

Thunderous applause erupted as Eira stepped into the ancient, stone arena of her LytheBlood Contest. It was twilight. Wearing the shimmering gold and violet Sabaqua Cape, crafted from a single lizard skin, Eira took her place on a flat-topped, opalescent obelisk in the centre of the arena. From where she stood, the ancient arena looked spectacular. It had been built within a huge natural amphitheatre near the Lythe Crystal on the city’s Eastern Canyon. The arena rose up thousands of feet, with jagged, sharp opaline peaks tallest at its edge. Over the arena, hundreds of bright, shimmering, violet, oval slip portals, shortcuts through space, dappled the sky. Some were high and dangerous, barely glints, flickering in and out of being, unstable. Death awaited competitors who misjudged them. The first contender to draw her blood would win the High Command of the Lithian military and claim a union with her to sire the next Lithura.

The Pyrani royal family–Bryndis, her sister, Mirri, with toddler Agni–sat in the front row of the imperial balcony on the area’s north side. Behind them sat Kenarri Killmorn, the most powerful man in the Sovereignty, then the nobles of each House in order of rank. The nobles’ faces were tense: the outcome would determine which Houses got promoted, which demoted. Her subjects, creatures from hundreds of worlds, were camped out, up to the amphitheatre’s peaks, to witness the end of the race in the arena, nobles racing through slips to draw her blood.

Eira raised her arms, signalling the start of the race. After a boom of cheering, she dropped them. Half a planet away, the race began.

The two moons of Lithia rose and fell. It was barely dawn when Eira caught sight of a twinkle from a slip high above the arena. She searched the sky for movement. Glimpses of a man appeared between the slips. He chose an almost impossible route; the most direct, the most dangerous. From slip to flickering slip, he did not misjudge a single one. His mastery was breathtaking. Who was he?

On his final approach through closer slips, Eira caught clearer glances. Broad shoulders. Tall and lean. Violet hair! No noble she knew had violet hair, theirs were all silver, like hers. Eira looked for him to exit another slip, but before she found him, she felt a nick on her cheek as he silently landed beside her. Immediately, the Pendant brightened and she felt a tingling where it touched her collarbone.

Thunderous applause filled the air. With his thumb and forefinger, the violet haired stranger gently wiped the spot of blood from her cheek and rubbed it between his fingers. “I hope I didn’t hurt you, Eira the Pure.”

Eira pushed his arm away. “Who are you?”

“Tirth Killmorn – one of Kenarri’s Bastards,” he said, his voice deep and soft, his almond-shaped violet eyes sparkling.

“Kenarri’s Bastard?!” How had this happened without her knowledge? Law dictated that Kenarri’s Bastards were not only banned from LytheBloods, but executed for competing. But this man had powerful synergy: no one had made the Pendant shine so brightly for millennia. “You have made my first decision as Lithura, a challenging one. We must leave immediately. Law dictates I execute you, but duty demands I bear your child. I must hide you.”

“I don't need to hide,” Tirth smiled easily. “My father has prepared me my entire life to win your LytheBlood. The law will not apply to me as the Pyrani Line, the next heir, desperately needs my synergy.”

Eira looked to the imperial balcony. Both Kenarri and her mother were gone. “The only reason your father would support you is if he desires a power grab to place the noble men above me and my Line to control both the government and military.”

A second barrage of cheers broke out as Enris D’Vordin, in silver and blue, entered the arena and raced towards her. Eira needed to hide Tirth’s identity, quickly. “Follow me.” It was an order.

Stealthily, secretly, Eira led Tirth to her private quarters in the palace, its antechamber tastefully appointed with warm organic tones mixed with the Pyrani gold and violet. Her mother would know to look for her here. Her fingers brushed over the top of a soft leather sitting chair as she walked to a large, arched window. Eira looked out past the palace gardens at Lia, her capital city. The ancient city had been built on a mountainous rock formation surrounded by a deep-set turquoise river, and had multi-coloured desert canyons all around, magnificent in their immensity. Although Lithia now had advanced technologically, all of Lia’s buildings were still carved from the orange, red ochre, violet, blue and green coloured stones mined from these canyons. Iridescent purple and blue wildflowers grew in the deep valley. Lithian condors with wingspans up to ten feet soared above on rising thermals.

In the window’s reflection, Eira saw Tirth had leaned against the long stone counter of her dressing table and was watching her closely.

He caught her staring at him. He had a curious, lingering way of looking at her. Unabashedly. As if she were not his Lithura. “Please turn around and look at me directly.”

Eira turned around.

“Why are we hiding?”

“My mother, and I presume your father, will be here shortly. Allow me a private moment with you before they arrive.”

Tirth smiled broadly, seemingly pleased with her request. “Of course.”

“What do you feel when you are close to the Pendant?”

In his long, relaxed strides, Tirth walked to the window to stand next to her. The Pendant’s glow and the tingling she felt from it intensified. She must not let it distract her.

“I feel an internal vibration and a strong desire to protect you.”

“Why didn't you visit me before my LytheBlood, in secret if need be? I imagine you’ve known about your extraordinary synergy yet you deliberately choose the most public entry, in full display of the government, the military and the populous to expose it. You must understand the danger you’ve put me and my family in? Protection? Really? You're either a fool or a liar.”

Tirth looked like he’d been slapped. “I would never allow the nobles to use me to their ends. They’ve devolved into bickering divisions…”

“Don't be naive! Your synergy is incomparable. If you remain here, the nobles will immediately promote you to the High Command. Once installed, they will argue that you are superior to me and demand the Pendant be transferred to you, and by proxy, to them. The Pyrani’s five-thousand-year reign, my family's reign, my reign, will be challenged and lead to civil war. I will do nothing to incite such conflict, especially as the Sovereignty heads into a multi-world war against its ancient enemy.”

Kenarri’s foot-steps, then shadow, then the man appeared, dressed in his ceremonial Killmorn armour as he strode toward his son in his usual, dominant gait. His hooded, grey eyes matched his full head of long, slightly wavy, silver, braided hair. The deep lines on his narrow face spoke of wisdom and weariness. “You will not be executed!”

“Executed?” Tirth looked surprised, moving to greet his father. “Have you declared me High Commander?”

Kenarri seemed like he was about to say something, then stopped. He was an enigma to all. He’d been Pangea’s husband five-thousand-years-ago, yet he wasn’t immortal. He’d been the husband of her ancestor Pangea, the founder of the Sovereignty, five-thousand-years-ago, but he wasn’t immortal. Kenarri lived in a secret, remote dot in space. It contained the usual three-dimensions of width, length and depth, but it folded back on itself, like a sleeve. The Sleeve didn’t contain time. Kenarri aged only when he ventured out so he left only when necessary; for his progeny’s births, ascensions and deaths, to wield influence within the Sovereignty, and today for Eira’s merging and LytheBlood.

Kenarri approached his son. “I raised you to win the LytheBlood and sire Eira’s Heir. Never to have power. You are my bastard; you cannot take the High Command.”

Tirth pressed his finger against Kenarri’s chest, his expression an mixture of hurt and fury. “You’ve spent my life training me to win! Now you deny me? Are you mad!? You fucking manipulator! How can I protect my family without the High Command!? What deranged lie have you sold me?!”

Eira stepped in between them, forcing them apart. “You have both hidden information from me, your Lithura. You, Kenarri, have lied to me by omission and blatantly lied to your son. What about you, Mother?” Eira turned towards her chamber’s entrance. Her mother had followed Kenarri in, but stopped in the shadow of the doorway, looking at the Pendant’s glow, listening, observing their interactions, as was her way. “Did you help plan this?”

“No, Eira. You must make a decision.” Bryndis said. “There is only one to make.”

Eira turned to Tirth. “You will consummate our union immediately then prepare for our exile…” Eira held up her hand to stop his interruption. “...on a non-Sovereignty world whose species haven’t yet discovered portal travel. There must be enough Lythe Crystals to train our daughter but not so many that someone looking for us would easily find us in exile. As is tradition, I will incubate my heir in the rays of Pangea’s Gate. You will return for her birth. We will leave for exile together. That is, if I am to believe your declaration of protection.”

Bryndis closed the large double doors, shutting them all inside the chamber’s thick walls. “If I publicly support your exile and allow you to take the Pendant off-world, I demand the role of Regent. Once in exile, you must never travel as the Pendant can be tracked in the interworld portal tunnels. I demand your sister’s daughter Agni be trained as Heir if your child does not manifest her father’s synergy. If your child doesn’t, she will remain in exile and Agni will become the next Lithura.”

Eira was as resolute as her mother. “If our daughter inherits her father’s synergy, on the day of her Naming Ceremony when she turns sixteen, we will present her in Lia as Heir to the Sovereignty. Until then, Sovereignty rule will stay in the hands of a leader I admire greatly, you Mother. You will continue to prepare for war. That is my order. That is my order to you all.”

Nine months later, Eira followed Tirth, exiting out of a small interworld portal, holding her sleeping newborn, Fia. The Pendant illuminated a shop the size of a tiny antechamber in her palace. Short walls were covered with shiny, dark wood while the longer walls were covered in red brick. Dark, wooden beams crossed the ceiling from which hung a large chandelier. A labyrinth of aisles, full of objects Tirth had collected from dozens of worlds as well as bric-a-brac and old paper publications that she didn’t recognize, probably from this world, filled the space. This small antique business, the Curiosity Shoppe, was her new home. Shop owner and mother her new identity. Earth her new world.

CHAPTER 2

PAYMAN

Payman and Giver had been on the planet Salve, crawling underground in the Sloberynth’s mud tunnel to get to the hibernating beast, for hours. The air reeked something terrible, a good sign the Sloberynth’s nest was near, but time was running out. The portal back to their home world of Shi was tricky; it didn’t sync with their home planet’s time cycle. If they were late, there was a danger that the portal between worlds would shift and they’d be stuck on Salve for the equivalent of three Shi years.

Normally, him and his twin Giver worked good together–tracking, gutting, smuggling and bribing, but hunting was a competition and Payman was two kills behind. He couldn’t let that stand. No nakin’ way was Giver gettin’ to the Sloberynth before him. Time to make his move. Payman pushed his boots hard against the small of Giver’s back. “Take this,” he hissed, knuckling him in the scalp, then farting as his groin past his brother’s head.

“Ahhh! Sick fuck!” strained Giver, wrestling a hold on Payman’s leg and twisting it, stopping his advance.

Payman hated being the smaller twin. Born first by twelve minutes, he’d started out as the bigger one. Now, fourteen years later, Giver had shot up like a giant and fancied himself Ra’s gift to girls. Giver deliberately framed his light brown face with his dark ringlets so girls would like him. And girls liked him. Payman kept hoping he would grow and fill out, but his balls had dropped over a year ago and he was still thin as a twig. Wiry but strong—he could withstand boys twice his size. He could be vicious. Didn't mind getting hurt or hurting people who threatened him or Giver. That gave him his edge. He shaved his scalp every morning to make his narrow face with its sharp features look mean.

Suddenly, three gravely croaks bellowed out in front of them. Both brothers stopped dead still. The entrance to the tunnel had been big enough that they’d assumed it belonged to a large male Sloberynth, but this didn’t sound like a male. The pitch was off. But it didn't sound like a female neither. Instinctively, Payman drew his hand down the long shaft of his stabber, feeling the familiar, smooth knots in the wood that he carefully rubbed with oil every night after grub. Tightening his fist around its handle, Payman pictured the tip; hard, sharp, deadly.

Giver clacked twice with his tongue, signalling a truce. All smugglers from Shi learned to sign and to mimic the sounds and movements of creatures native to the terrains of the planets on which they hunted. This allowed them to communicate without scaring off prey. It also kept them alive, hidden from the LytheGuard, the Sovereignty’s military. If any of their species, the Sadayshi, were caught using portals or spotted outside Shi, their home world, they were executed immediately.