The Night of Tears, New Daria, 137 years after the arrival of the Morning Star Cirres snuggled into his nest of tangled blankets while his mother playfully tugged at them. “You don’t need this one, do you?” Cirres giggled and pulled at the blanket. “I need that one.” “Oh, well then you don’t need this one.” His mother tugged at another blanket. “That’s my favorite one,” said Cirres, pulling the blanket back. “Tell me about Great-Grandpa Cirres.” “You’ve heard the story a thousand times,” replied his mother. “I was named after him.” “Yes, you were. Grandpa Cirres was the last Senior Master Chief of the Morning Star, and though the Morning Star was terribly damaged, he never gave up and brought us all the way to New Daria.” “He kept the engines running,” said Cirres. “He did, and he was a brilliant physicist.” Cirres nodded. “He wrote the formula for a dimensional wave engine, but nobody can figure out how to make it work.” His mother gently stroked the fur above his brow. “Maybe you’ll figure it out when you grow up, my little angel.” Cirres’ eyes sparkled in the dim light. “That’s what the humans call us, they’re silly.” “Time to sleep my litt…” A violent tremor through the ground caused Cirres to bolt upright in his bed. “Mama?” “Stay calm, it’s probably just an earthquake.” A second tremor ripped through the house, and the windows exploded outward from a sudden increase of air pressure inside the room. Cirres’ mother grabbed him from his bed and held him. His father rushed into the room. “We need to go now, take nothing,” shouted his father. “Maikel, what’s happening?” Cirres’ father took him from his mother and ran out of the room with his mother following behind. The three of them ran out of the house. “Leika, fly straight up, and don’t stop.” Maikel wrapped his arms tight around his son, then bent his knees, and launched up into the sky. The wind was like a hurricane as they climbed, but what was causing such wind? A storm? But, why would they fly in a storm? Cirres peeked out from between his father’s arms, his mother was just below them as they climbed. The wind increased until it was a deafening roar in his ears, and then he saw it… a mountain was coming right at them… no, not a mountain, the dark shape was a wave – a wave easily over a mile high, and moving so fast that it was pushing the air in front of it at gale force speeds. The beating of his father’s wings increased. Cirres could feel the power his father was putting into the climb, but it would be like a human sprinting a mile on land while carrying a fifty pound child in your arms… the humans! They would have had no place to run to, no way to escape. Cirres knew the human settlement was already gone, all of them crushed under the wave. He saw others climbing into the sky, also carrying their children. How many would make it above the wave in time. The wave was nearly on them now, and they weren’t high enough. He felt the spray of the water all around him – they were going to drown… and then his father shot out of the wave and into the air. Cirres looked down. “Where’s Mama?” He felt his father’s fingers dig into him. “She’s gone.” Cirres screamed as if someone had just cut the soul from his body. They flew on through the night with the others that had made it above the waves. The wind changed direction and gave his father a much needed rest as he glided on the air currents. Cirres offered to fly solo, but his father said no and for him to save his strength. He sipped water from the water bottle he always carried when working the big cranes. The night became day and Cirres could see the extent of the flood. There was no land visible, and so many desperate people in the sky, it was impossible to count them all. The first casualties came just as the sun reached its highest point in the day. A Jacarion man shoved his infant child into the arms of his wife before tumbling out of the sky and disappearing beneath the angry sea. The woman struggled to stay aloft, but it was obvious she too was at the end of her strength. A Holentite man swooped in and took the child. The woman caressed her child’s face one last time before she too fell and disappeared beneath the waves. Cirres buried his face into his father’s chest so not to watch as people fell from the sky. Night came and the wind changed again as it was pulled back into the vacuum created by the outgoing wind. His father fought the gale force winds through the night, but still wouldn’t let Cirres try flying on his own. Sometime after midnight Cirres felt something in his father’s right wing snap; the winds were too strong to safely fly in, but his father never complained and continued on. Just before the dawn, the winds calmed and his father settled onto a warm thermal and glided. He woke Cirres from his restless sleep where he’d clung to his father’s back through the brutal night. Fear stabbed through him when he saw the blood frothing out of his father’s mouth. Maikel pulled a bottle of water from a pocket and made Cirres take a drink, then shoved the bottle into a pocket on a belt Cirres wore around his waist. Next he produced an energy bar and made Cirres take a bite, then shoved that also into the pocket. “Listen to me now, son. I broke my wing in the wind last night. The bone punctured a lung, I have carried you as far as I can.” “You can make it, father.” “Son, listen. Drink and eat only at night when the others can’t see you. The others are desperate now, they will kill you for what you have. And, do not fly with anyone. Get away from the others, they will drag you down into the ocean in their panic to survive. Fly alone, do you understand.” “Where do I go?” “Keep flying north, we’re only 500 miles now from the North Mountains. You will find the peaks of the mountains above the water. Stay there and wait.” His father paused and coughed a spray of blood before he was able to continue. “There is a… maintenance crew aboard the Morning Star… they will send rescue ships.” Cirres clutched his father closely, it would be the last time. “How’d this happen, Papa?” “We… got a warning… from the Morning Star.” The man was barely able to speak now. “An Atan ship approached… but wouldn’t answer hails… the Morning Star put up the orbital defenses… but as the Atan ship approached… our defense system was deactivated… the Atan… dropped a bomb… a planet killer bomb… there’s a traitor… someone helped them.” The man’s eyes closed and his wings collapsed. Father and son began to fall from the sky. “Papa! Papa!” screamed Cirres, but his father was already gone. Cirres let go, and as his father fell towards the waves below, the last thread that held Cirres to rational thought was severed as he watched his father disappear beneath the waves, and between clenched teeth Cirres screamed an oath of revenge. “I’ll find the traitor, Papa, I’ll kill him, and I’ll kill the Atan, I’ll kill them all!” The Daiami, Seventh of the Origin Species Cirres bolted upright amidst the dust and rock falling from the ceiling while people shouted and ran past. A human carrying an armful of blankets tripped over him and shouted. “Get out of the middle of the road.” Cirres scrambled to the side wall and pressed against it. “You’re safe,” said a voice so calming that Cirres felt like a deep fog had surrounded him. He looked up at… not a man, but a demon… or a demon-man. Cirres shook his head to clear the fog. The demon had a deep reddish-brown skin, boney protrusions on his head, but not horns, just a bumpy skull devoid of any hair; and a face that could have been chiseled from stone. The creature stood at least seven-foot tall and wore deep red robes, like a monk might wear, and behind the creature swayed a rope-like tail with a dangerous looking barb at the end. He looked very much like the demons of legend. Cirres’ eyes swirled with confusion. “What…? “Is this your group?” The demon-man waved at a group of mini-demon hatchlings, human children, and what might be Daria hatchlings, though they bore very little resemblance to Cirres, and for some reason, were wearing fake bird wings attached by a leather harness. “I… umm…?” The creature smiled a smile that to most would seem a grimace of terrifying sharp teeth, but to Cirres it was as the very smile of a loving father. The demon-man knelt and tapped a claw on Cirres’ breast plate. “That’s fine armor, you must be from one of the Daria colonies out on the fringe of the galaxy. What’s your rank?” “Umm… I’m Maintenance…” “Ah, a young army engineer apprentice; a fine and honorable profession.” Cirres’ eyes widened in shock as the demon-man reached through the liquid metal of his breast plate and retrieved the stun gun he had hidden there. The demon-man inspected the gun briefly, then pushed it into Cirres’ hand. “This will only slow a Cettise for a few seconds, you’ll need to follow up with your blade.” “A wha…?” The demon-man stood and motioned to the hatchlings behind Cirres. “On your feet and pair up with a buddy, and stay close to your group leader.” The demon-man lifted a tag on a string around the neck of one of the hatchlings, then turned back to Cirres. “Follow this tunnel up to the airfield. Your group is assigned to the Riptide. She’s a fast cargo ship with a fine pilot, he’ll get you through the blockade and out to the Morning Star. From there, you’ll make a run for deep space.” A series of explosions on the surface rippled down through the rock and a crack appeared in the ceiling of the tunnel. The demon-man put his hands up against the collapsing rock. Cirres could see the demon-man’s muscles straining to hold the ceiling. “Run!” shouted the demon-man. Cirres didn’t hesitate a second longer. He grabbed the hand of the hatchling behind him and shouted. “Follow me!” The lights in the tunnel flickered as other groups also ran from the impending collapse of the tunnel. A rumbling sound somewhere behind them fueled the panic until many of the groups fleeing began to come apart. Cirres looked back and saw hatchlings that had fallen and were now being trampled over by the others. He stopped and turned around. A boy around his own age, but of the same species as the demon-man grabbed his arm. “Save yourself,” shouted the demon-boy. “Get to the evacuation ships.” Cirres nearly turned back around. He was just as terrified as everyone else, but something inside him – the barest whisper of his father’s voice. That’s not who you are, son – Cirres shook free of the demon-boy. “Take my group, I’ll meet you outside.” The rumbling sound from deep in the tunnel grew louder; the tunnel was collapsing. Cirres pushed, dodged, and jumped around the panicking crush of people trying to escape. He reached a boy that had fallen and had already been stepped on several times. Cirres flared his wings and bared his fangs in a hiss to make the crowd part to the sides. The boy climbed to his feet and ran around Cirres to continue his run to safety. Six more times Cirres repeated the maneuver to give a fallen hatchling enough time to get back to their feet. More rock and debris was falling from the ceiling now, and the wind rushing ahead of the collapse was like a tornado sweeping through the tunnel. The crowd was gone now, leaving hatchlings scattered everywhere – some frozen in fear, others crying because they were unsure if they were hurt, or simply because they were too young to make a rational decision and run. Cirres ran from hatchling to hatchling, lifting them up, pointing them the right direction, telling them to run – he could see the collapsing tunnel ahead of him, the dust in the air clung to his fur until he was only a gray winged-specter coming in and out of the darkness like an angel whispering the promise of hope where all hope had fled. Even his Rositite eyes, evolved to see in the darkest places, could no longer see through the cloying dust. He tapped his breast plate to deploy his raven helmet and sucked air into his starved lungs. The helmet light did nothing but blind him. He switched to infrared and saw one last hatchling, the heat of its body glowing like a prayer in the night. A deafening thunderclap of cracking stone reverberated through the rock as the barrage of bombs from orbit dropped on the mountain. Massive slabs of the ceiling fell all around Cirres, and that he wasn’t crushed then was a miracle. He ran through the maze of falling stone to the last hatchling. Cirres looked up at the ceiling. The bombardment above had paused; the battleships far above were probably reloading for their next rain of death. The hatchling wasn’t responsive and had curled into a ball with its eyes squeezed shut. Cirres knelt next to the hatchling; its breathing was shallow and ragged in the suffocating dust. He deployed the rest of his armor so he could access the emergency breathing mask in his battle armor. He placed the mask over the hatchlings face – the frightened child gasped at the fresh air. He stood, and clutching the hatchling to his chest searched for the path back through the fallen rock, but he had become disoriented and couldn’t find the direction he’d come from. He took a few tentative steps, but was no longer certain he was going towards the entrance, or walking in circles. The darkness became an almost palpable thing around him, almost as if it were a living creature. He became so certain someone was there, he called out. “Hello, is someone there?” Cirres startled as he felt something brush against his shoulder. And then a whisper from the darkness. “Her time is done, leave her and I will guide you from this place,” whispered the voice. Cirres’ head whipped back and forth, looking for the person in the dark, but his infrared showed nothing was there. He held the hatchling tighter. The voice said ‘she’, the hatchling was a little girl. “No, I won’t leave her.” “Who is she to you?” whispered the voice like a wraith in the darkness. “She’s a little girl, she deserves to live,” replied Cirres. “You cannot change her fate,” whispered the voice. Cirres shook his head. “I don’t believe in fate, the future is whatever we make it.” “Do you still cherish life?” asked the voice. Cirres’ breath caught in his throat. He knew who was there now. “I know you. You said you wouldn’t come for me unless I call to you.” “I have not come for you, I have come for her,” whispered the Lord of Death. “Now tell me, do you still cherish life.” “Yes, of course I do… I… I… cherish life so much I’ll give mine for her,” replied Cirres. Cirres felt strong hands on his shoulders spin him around. “The path is in front of you, but to change her fate is to change your own.” The tunnel shook as the bombardment from above returned, and with it stone fell around him. Cirres sprinted through the darkness as the mountain above collapsed. Twice he was knocked to the ground from the falling stone, and twice he got to his feet and ran. He was so close, he could see the airfield beyond. Another barrage of missiles shook the mountain. The stone was falling like rain now, and as sure as he was of anything before, he knew they wouldn’t make it – there was only scant seconds left before he would be buried under the rock and within a stone’s throw of the exit. He tapped his breast plate to retract his armor, then fell to his knees and ripped the breast plate off his body. He slipped the breast plate over the hatchling, and tapped the armor to deploy over her body. “You have at least a week’s worth of air, they’ll dig you out,” he shouted, then stood and defiantly spread his arms and wings out as the mountain crashed down on him. Kingdom of the Night The scrape-click, scrape-click rustling under the leaves was barely audible, but Cirres could hear it, creeping closer. He watched from the corner of his eye as he made his way through the dark leafless forest silhouetted only by the moon above. The barren branches of the forest swayed in the damp breeze while they twisted and reached out, searching for their next victim. A low hanging branch brushed against his shoulder, then wrapped itself around his neck. Cirres put his finger to his lips and whispered. “Shhh… Grudu is about to attack.” The ground in front of Cirres exploded as a worm-like creature with stubby legs, fangs dripping with venom, and tiny little black eyes like beads of coal jumped out of the ground. “RAAWWWRRR…” Cirres jumped back, the trees flinched, and even a couple Long Fanged Rabbits spun around dramatically and fell onto their backs. Cirres clutched at his chest. “Oh, Grudu! You scared me, I thought I was a goner for sure.” The Fanged Night Worm grinned from ear to ear. “Really, I did? It was a good roar, huh?” Cirres fanned his face. “Even the trees are shaking.” The trees shook their branches in compliance. One of the Long Fanged Rabbits opened a single eye. Cirres held his hand down at his side and made a shaking motion. The rabbits all began twitching their legs at Cirres request. “I’ve been practicing my roar,” said Grudu proudly. “It was a good roar, very scary,” said Cirres. “You better go check if any new souls in need of torment have arrived. You can practice your roar on them.” The Night Worm nodded excitedly and dived back into the ground. Cirres took a step to continue through the forest, but the tree branch was still wrapped around his neck. He reached up and tickled the branch with a single claw. “Who’s a good manchineel tree, who’s a good manchineel tree, you are, yes you are.” The tree shivered with pleasure and unwound itself. Moonlight fell on the ground and illuminated a path through the forest to a meadow. He stopped and stood under a tree, its branches dropping down to drape over his shoulders. Each of the trees that bordered the clearing had moonbeams tied to their branches and swayed to an ethereal divine music. In the middle of the clearing a goddess dressed in silver moonbeams danced. The tree he stood under whispered to him, “Go dance with your mother, Prince of the Night.” The tree pushed him out into the clearing. Cirres could hear the trees whispering on the wind to each other as he spread his wings for the dance. “The Night Prince is going to dance with the Moon, come quick.” The trees jostled and pushed against each other to find a good spot to watch. Younger saplings darted between the trunks of the larger trees to find a spot up front. The smallest of the saplings that couldn’t get through were lifted up by the older trees so they could see. Even after a month in Death’s Realm he still hadn’t gotten used to being called the Night Prince. But, the Universe had a way of correcting itself, and it had. For eons there had only been a Prince of Light, and in his self-righteous and hypocritical pursuit of blind justice, had plunged the Universe into the chaos of constant war. Cirres was the promise to bring balance back to the Universe. He beat his wings and lifted up to dance across the pedals of nightshade flowers covering the meadow, and where his feet would touch a flower, the flower burst into a brilliance of purple while the Death Fairy that lived inside exploded up into the air and cried out, The Night Prince danced with me. The Night Prince danced with me. The fairy spread her tiny wings and arms out and fell back dramatically as if fainting in ecstasy from his passing. He continued the dance, spinning around the Moon Goddess before flaring his wings and bowing low to his new mother. She leaned over him and kissed him lightly on the head, then quickly tied moonbeams to the offered wings. The ribbons of moonbeams flowed over his wings like glistening waterfalls as together they leapt into the night sky to begin The Dance of the Night Prince. They danced upward on celestial winds until the moon filled his vision. He turned towards the source of the moon’s light and could see the sun over the horizon being carried across the sky by a Titan, and then in a gentle falling arc, he dived toward the moon’s surface. He pulled up in his dive at the last moment, and sailed across the surface of the moon with the tips of his wings grazing the silvery terrain. A spray of moonlight rose behind him and formed into droplets to fall to the Kingdom of the Night as a summer rain shower of silver light. The children of the Kingdom ran out into the downpour to catch droplets of moonlight on their tongues, or to jump in the puddles of light covering the ground. The Lord of Death stood next to other Gods of the Night and looked up at the spectacular display his adopted son was creating. Akur, the God of the Forges of the Underworld held out his newly made creation. “My Lord, it is finished.” The Lord of Death turned his gaze to inspect the new breast plate forged to replace the one Cirres had selflessly given before his sacrifice to change the fate of another. It was that sacrifice that had allowed Cirres to ascend to the realm of the gods. The Lord of Death ran a hand across the carefully sculpted relief on the front of the breast plate. Cirres old breast plate had been two crossed daggers, and while the new breast plate had two crossed daggers also, these daggers were the divine weapons of a god; it would be foolish to think Cirres would not need his weapons to defend himself, or to battle evil when it reared up against him. The Lord of Death continued his inspection of the armor. The crossed daggers on the breast plate lay across the perfectly sculpted image of the moon, and above the moon were a field of stars. On the right of the breast plate was the Cup of Knowledge, and on the left the All-Seeing Eye of Truth. Once donned, the armor could not be removed by man or god. “You have done well, Akur,” praised the Lord of Death. “This armor will make him stronger than Jon Black,” noted Akur. Death turned an eye back to Cirres still playing with the moon. “Even without the armor he is still far stronger than Jon Black will ever be. Jon Black is a demi-god created on the stolen bones of a dead god, and as such has immortality only through the casting off of his corporeal body again and again in an endless ritual of death; and that is a bitter existence. Cirres is an immortal boy-god born of a living god, and will never again know the sting of death. He is the eternal boy, never to know the hate, or pettiness, or lust of a man’s heart. His body and heart will remain eternally pure and innocent as it is now.” “Such a creature has never been made before,” said Akur. “And yet there are now two of them,” said Death. Akur turned his head in surprise. “Two?” “I would not make him walk eternity alone without another of his kind.” “I have never seen you show affection to anyone before,” said Akur. “The boy was a lone egg of the last clutch of a Daria woman beyond her child bearing years. There are rumors that…” The Lord of Death’s eyes shifted to lock onto Akur’s eyes. “Speak of such rumors again and it will be the last thing you ever speak of.” Akur bowed his head and turned away before the fear could show on his face, the Lord of Death did not make idle threats. He would stay silent; it wasn’t worth speaking of his suspicions again and being turned into stardust and scattered across the universe. But, others would gossip in private, and the rumor would spread that Cirres wasn’t just a mortal the Lord of Death had adopted like a pet, but that Cirres was the true son of Death born of a mortal woman. Darian Heavy Crane Ship, The Aurora Cirres tossed fitfully in his nest of blankets stretched between two of the three crew chairs in the cupula above the cargo bay before deciding he couldn’t sleep anymore. He pulled the blanket over his head away and looked out through the cupula’s domed glass at the vast space beyond. “Gah, I have the craziest dreams,” he mumbled to himself. “HI,” said a girl’s voice. Cirres bolted upright; there was no way the humans could make it up to the cupula. The search for the source of the voice didn’t take long. Sitting in the third crew chair was a Daria girl, and she looked to be the same age as himself. “Hey, who are you, and how’d you get here?” asked a startled Cirres. The girl giggled. "I'm your sister, Lady Death." "What? When did I get a sister?" The girl rolled her eyes. "Have you met our Father? He's not the type to explain much. I only found out I have a brother ten minutes ago." "Well, I don't need any help, so you can go home." "I'm not here to help you. You take the guilty, and I take the innocent." Cirres gave her a horrified expression. "Do you know how horrible that sounds?" "Don't be naive. Do you really want the innocent to be in the darkness without someone to guide them to the Land of the Ancestors?" Cirres shook his head. "No, I don't want that. But, how am I supposed to explain suddenly having a sister?" "You broke the time-paradox, so as far as everyone knows, I've always been your sister." "How did I do that?" "You sacrificed yourself for another and changed their fate." "Oh, I wonder what happened to that girl?" "You're looking at her." "But... then I didn't really...." "You did. You changed my fate. I made it to the Morning Star, and for five years I went to the Temple every day and lit a candle and begged the Moon Goddess to tell me the name of the boy that saved me. She answered my prayers. There was an accident with an airlock, and I did what you taught me to do. I put the armor you gave me on a hatchling and changed his fate. And so, here I am, and I got the brother I wanted." Cirres grinned. "Okay, I'm glad you're here... but... are you sure this isn't a dream?" The girl shrugged. "Maybe it is, you do know there's no air in this cupula." The girl nodded at the window. "It cracked when you pulled the human's ship out of the way. Maybe you died in here not realizing all the air leaked out and this is your final dream." The girl held her hand out to Cirres. "You wouldn't want to be in the darkness alone, would you?" End of Chapter 15