In the lawlessness, the fleet did not notice the escaping figure until he had made his way across their formation. Responding, the Com Omega craft sent out fighters to hunt him, but Tom Bell-Tower evaded their fire. The frog atop his umbrella shot out its tongue, sticking onto a fighter and swinging in down into another, destroying both. More fighters fell until the prey slipped away, vanishing from their sensor range. Etheria and Emzeser stood side by side, regarding the constitution of the deceased. Red continents drifted and crashed indiscriminately, and the pounding in their chests of being the witnesses of the finality was deafening. “What do you suppose that is?” Emzeser said, thrusting his hand towards a nebula of crimson dust where the heart of the planet had once occupied. Both ventured into the pandemonium until seeing up close what was so peculiar. Etheria crept closer, and gasped when she saw it, “This must have been buried in the core itself. It looks like … a matryoshka dol … but it’s made out of clay, and its partially cracked. How could have this thing survived?”. The object was almost the size of a three-story building. Fragments of it were broken off, and fissures lined its surface, but for the most part it was intact. Emzeser noticed an engraving on the surface and wiped away the dust with his hand. “This says Wheel Spinner. Sister, do you know what this means?”. Reacting to his touch, the first layer detached. Both of them backed away, waiting in frightful expectation as each layer separated, until the lid of the final piece undid itself. As air escaped from between the two clay segments, with them came rushing out the color purple. “These are orchids, brother”
Etheria panted, then cautiously approached the matryoshka. Hands on the edge, they both looked into the interior where there was what looked to be the mummified remains of a once brawny man, maybe a mountain-man. “Looks like there is one of these orchid flowers coming out of his mouth, like it was growing in him and burst out, kil ing the poor bastard” she realized.
Emzeser saw that his left hand was stretched towards the interior, and brushed off the space, then looked back up at her. “Patroness. I found another message. It says ‘follow the arrow’.
What do you suppose that means?”. “Haven’t a clue. Let’s take this back to Phantomess for study. She knows more than we do”, she answered, surrendering to the mystery. Later on, the remains of Mars continued to propel themselves across the solar system towards Sol itself, threatening to crash through the thin membrane. The Couple and patrons tried to stop their assault, but the chunks continued their stride unabated. At the moment of impact, pixels spread across the surface of the meteors, and they became downloaded into the corona. A week passed, and the patrons returned to the surface of Com Omega, to the city of Elm-Meldala, where security forces had apprehended an echoian native of the restful daytime solutions corporation post city Tray-Fournine who provided the alliance with security codes to bypass their detection and plan the strike on gale force wind. Idea arrived personally with the prisoner.
Crowds gathered to watch as the conspirator was paraded. The facility within gale force now lay in ruins, the work of half a century for the Com Omegans to construct an energy apparatus that could enhance the rings of Saturn into a viable weapon. “The crowd needs something to cheer for” Idea said to the patrons, as they looked on, seeing the man, both hands and neck chained to three poles behind him, and to the right and left. City streets gushed and overflowed with onlookers. Signaled by the Omegan directors, Idea took the stage, and performed a spell, summoning a troop of French maids who went to the prisoner, and stood all around him. Roars coursed through the crowd, growing louder and louder, and as they reached their pinnacle Idea gave the order, and the French maids took out their feather dusters and brushed them all over his body, and on the sides of his face. Etheria and Emzeser looked into the eyes of the man, as a whisper through the fiefdom came to them, “You all don’t even know my name, do you”. The maids did not stop, but continued to feather dust him, and his material body slowly turned to
dust, and was carried away by the wind. Etheria tried to remember who he was, but just as she almost recalled, his face turned to dust, and he was gone.
CHAPTER 20 – IN HER ROOM
Second Age, Echo Realm
“It’s about that time” thought Echo as she sprawled across her bed, rifling through the rubbish and piles of clothes scattered through the room with her eyes. Leaning an arm underneath the bed she grabbed hold of her cd player and earphones. “Before I go, I might as well listen to this one, it’s the best” she thought, and played a single from Nomi’s album, “I’m Just a Book Bum”. A disgrace that an artist like her had passed while so young. Soon she was tossing across the bed, pressing the earphones against her ears to get the most of the beat. “I’m nothing but a book bum!” Echo sang as the chorus repeated hypnotical y. Thoughts of other worries became extinct, and before long she rose and started jumping up and down on the bed, shouting at the top of her lungs. Things began to die down as the song finished, but she was still going at it throwing off the body heat with dancing as the bed underneath groaned with displeasure. Just at that moment the door burst open, and her parents walked through seeing the spectacle.
“Honey, it’s time to go to the meeting” Melina said, stopping her daughter in her tracks. “This wil be their last stand, all we have to do is defend” Linden added, as she jumped down from the bed. Echo was vaguely embarrassed at being interrupted and felt like a little kid that had just been caught doing something awful like stealing from a cookie jar. That fleeting feeling soon dropped away, and she steeled herself, joining her parents as they made their way from there to the outdoors. Linden took his daughter aside. “Is there something wrong, dear. You’ve been looking at me differently than you normally do”. “No, dad, it’s just nerves” Echo said. Linden didn’t buy it, “obviously, we’ve never looked at you differently, even when we crossed over.
you’ve got something on your mind, and we can talk about it afterwards”. Then they went through the Atmo and approached the swirling alabaster gateway of the Soul-Shell framed against the churning ocean of flame that is the brittle sheathe of Sol and their home.