The White
The setting is jet black and Alia stands on a jagged rock that is suspended in the blackness. Before her are seven more rocks that are a considerable distance away, but they ascend in size the further away they are, so from Alia’s vantage point, they all appear to be the same size as the rock where she stands in a fitted, silver armour that covers her entire body except her head. There is an aura around each rock. Where she stands now, she is in a haze of swirling white light and the rock she stands on glows like it is illuminated from the inside.
Alia kneels, the metal at her knee clangs against the shining rock, and she yells loudly as she balls a metal fist and positions it over the rock in front of her. As she yells, a wind seems to pick up and causes her hair to flail up in the chaos. And then she punches the shining rock and her fist sinks down to her elbow as rocks and bolts of light explode around it. Then the glow of the rock dims as Alia’s fist is still inside and she yells until the rock is dull gray and lifeless. She stands and her hair is white, her eyes glow white and it is stark against the dark skin of her face. She turns and sees a chunk of rock with grass and trees on the surface and there is a horned man sitting there.
“Kazi Fandral said to master the feelings and emotions, and then I could find it,” Alia says to the horned man.
“What have you discovered, bright one, since you consumed all the stars and left this boring view?” The horned man stares out at the black as he speaks.
“The Ife-Osu is everything and nothing. To find a source for it within all that it is, is hard because it is everywhere. So I have to leave it to understand its nature and find its source. That Rainbow Road the Kazi speak of is the path out of Ife-Osu.”
The horned man looks at her with a smile on his face.
“You have taken a step, I can say that I feel you.”
Alia is happy. Since she created the construct of the man from Bromeran named Solse Prab to be her compass as she seeks to locate his actual consciousness in the physical world, he has indicated to her that she is not even close to finding him in the vastness of the mental realm. This is the first indication that she can at least detect his consciousness. Now she has to zero in and it makes her smile to know that her work on the mental plane is finally bearing fruit.
“What feelings and emotions are you channelling to conjure these rainbow rocks?” the horned man asks.
“The overwhelming feeling of accessing your consciousness and all of its memories and experiences in a body that looks like the one you were born into, but it occupies a different physical reality. There is the physical ability to let go of the consciousness to allow it to make the journey to the other body, and there is the sequence of emotional realizations that one experiences when they realize they have existed before or are existing somewhere else simultaneous to their native existence. First there is disbelief, and then acceptance of the truth, then overwhelming disorientation at the realization that our understanding of our own experience is so limited, and then acceptance again, and then a constant cycle between disorientation and acceptance while you inhabit that other body. I hold those feelings and sensations in me now, and the rainbow rocks manifested. I must drain them to understand their purpose and that is how I access the road. They will give me what I need to speak with Ife-Osu once I have traversed the road.”
“Why do you need to find me if you know the way?” the horned man asks.
“Because it is only through your memory, your guidance that I made it this far. You are my compass and this will go faster if you are with me.”
The horned man nods. The chunk of rock explodes in a chaos of red energy and Alia closes her eyes as the force washes over her. When she opens her eyes again, she is in space, there are stars all around her in the distance, and she is standing on a rock in a plane of rocky bodies that are various sizes.
“What is this now?” Alia asks out loud as she looks around. She still wears the silver armour and there is a large sword in her hand with a hilt like the horns of the man Alia had spoken with before.
As she looks around, a muscular man with orange-red skin and no shirt, just the pants and boots of an off-white spacesuit, and a fishbowl helmet that is completely blacked out, lands on a rock that is floating near her. He is taller than her and he has the muscles of a bodybuilder. His pants and boots are old and worn. He stands with his hands at his waist, chest out.
“Why are you here?” the man asks and he sounds like his voice is manipulated into three different voices that speak in unison.
“Where am I?”
The man shrugs, “I closed my eyes to relax, and this is my domain. It’s nice to see it free of chaos, so I roam here. This is my space. Why are you here? I don’t know you. The women of Wiis don’t have white hair and dark skin.”
“I should maybe not be here,” Alia says nervously and she is suddenly very self conscious about the large sword and she moves it behind her back.
“You are here to hurt me?” the mysterious man asks.
“Oh no. I was doing something else and then some stuff happened and now I’m here by accident. I know I shouldn’t be here.”
“But you are,” the man says. “Maybe you are Fun-phuen, the east-west star. Have you heard my prayers, mother? This life is difficult to navigate, this region is hostile. And I became the ruler by breaking them all. I did it to save the weak ones who couldn’t defend themselves. And now we are here on the brink. There is war brewing, I can feel it coming even here. And your dreadful daughters will bring it. Can you calm their rage?”
Alia stands quietly, listening very curiously. She is not at all who he thinks she is, but he is very earnest and it feels disrespectful to interrupt him.
“I guess you wouldn’t. This is all some test. A mess we made ourselves. But I can’t let it get here. These people of the safe zone have been through enough. You could stop this. If you were real. But you’re just an idea.”
The man jumps and lands on the same rock where she stands. Alia looks up at him and smiles. The black fishbowl looms over her.
“Please give me something,” the man pleads, “so many will die.”
“Whatever will happen, will,” Alia says, trying to sound cryptic to match his serious tone and desperate to maintain whatever encounter he thinks he is having. “You can only do your best. And trust that it is enough.”
The man kneels before her, and then Alia feels the sword in her hand pull her away. She speeds through the rocky bodies, holding the hilt of the weapon that guides her until she clears the field of rocks and comes to open space. The sword flies her out into the black and she sees a planet in the distance gradually approaching. It is blood red and surrounded by streams of red energy.
PRL Serials 