To Linda Funnell
whose guidance and support
I have cherished over the past decade or so …
I will miss your beautiful self!
CONTENTS
AMIE Layout
List of Characters
Characters from Being of the Field
Prologue: Across the Universal Divide
Part 1: Esh-mah ‘the Divine Inside Place’
Chapter 1 Escape From Esponisa
Chapter 2 Blackout
Chapter 3 Age Before Beauty
Chapter 4 One Planet Too Many
Chapter 5 Allegiance
Chapter 6 The Being Within
Chapter 7 No Avoiding Destiny
Part 2: Maladaan ‘Planet of Secrets’
Chapter 8 Back Home
Chapter 9 Past Lives — Future Loves
Chapter 10 Remote Sabotage
Chapter 11 The Old Crew
Chapter 12 Mind Mending
Chapter 13 The Truth Hits Everybody
Part 3: Crossroads ‘of Time and Place’
Chapter 14 Limbo
Chapter 15 The Maladaan Solution
Chapter 16 Time’s Up
Part 4: A.M.I.E. Astro-Marine Institute Explorer
Chapter 17 All Things Unexpected
Chapter 18 An Unacceptable Loss
Chapter 19 The Decoy
Chapter 20 Dubiety
Chapter 21 The Juju Stones
Chapter 22 Elucidate
Part 5: The MSS: The Maladaan Secret Service
Chapter 23 Time-cheats
Chapter 24 Two Days Before …
Chapter 25 Assassin
Chapter 26 One Hour
Chapter 27 The Pivotal Moment
Bibliography
Planets of the United Star Systems
The Powers
Being of the Field
The Ancient Future Trilogy
The Celestial Triad
The Mystique Trilogy
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Books by Traci Harding
Copyright
LIST OF CHARACTERS
Head of MSS on Maladaan — Zelimir Ronan
Science Advisor — Telmo Dacre
Ronan’s Attaché — Phendi Norward
Electro Design Engineer — Eleazar Kestler
Escaped Psychic 1 — Vadik Corentin ‘the hurricane’
Escaped Psychic 2 — Jazmay Cardea ‘the shape-shifter’
Escaped Psychic 3 — Fari Doon ‘the thrice strong’
Governor of Kila — Rhun Gwynedd
Rhun’s wife — Sybil
Vice-Governor — Cadwallon
Head Technoligist on Kila — Floyd
Head of KEPA — Rhiannon
KEPA Base Control — Jenny Pearce
Head of Marine Department — Robin
Son of Cadwell and Neraida — Jahan
Lord of the Otherworld — Avery
Avery’s wife — Fallon
Lord of the Inner-world — Sacha
Head of Defence on Kila — Asher
Captured MSS agent — Agent Juna
President of Maladaan — Woodford Tallak
Healers on Kila — Cadfan and Hatty
Historical Advisor on Kila — Noah Purcell — En Noah
Heir to Tarazean throne — Ibis-Swan
Orion Leader — Yahweh Shyamal
Orion second-in-command — Zeptu
Chief Ronan’s son — Yasper Ronan
Time-cheats Strategist — Mythric Zeon
CHARACTERS FROM BEING OF THE FIELD
Ship — AMIE — Astro-Marine Institute Explorer
Anomaly Expert — Taren Lennox
Captain — Lucian Gervaise
Project Manager — Swithin Gervaise
Lucian’s Personal Assistant — Aurora (Rory) DeCadie
Pilot — Zeven Gudrun (Starman)
Co-Pilot/Navigator — Leal Polson
Ship’s Doctor — Kassa Madri
Botanist/Horticulturist — Ringbalin Malachi
Marine Botanist — Ayliscia Portus
Marine Biologist — Dr Amie Gervaise
Head of the United Star Systems — Jabez Anselm
Anselm’s Viceroy — Khalid Mansur
The Being of the Field — Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi
Phemorian Queen — Qusay-Sabah Clarona
Phemorian Viceroy — Jalila Lamus
Queen’s Guard — The Valoureans
The Grigori — Azazèl, Armaros and Sammael
PROLOGUE
ACROSS THE UNIVERSAL DIVIDE
Rest was not essential to the inhabitants of the Otherworld, but they could choose to nap and dream about life on the Earth plane — past, present and future — for the Otherworld was beyond the constraints of time, space and physical reality.
The Lord of the Otherworld, who could frequent either the physical or subtle realms of existence, usually chose to sleep in the realm he ruled, as in his dreams there he could revisit the years he’d spent under his parents’ roof, with all his siblings close at hand. He had only come to appreciate how special and fleeting his childhood had been after his parents had departed this universal scheme to join the ranks of the Grigori — a causal race of beings frequenting a level of awareness beyond even that of the astral realms of the Otherworld. Over a century had passed since his parents’ ascension, and still the Lord mourned their company, counsel and the tight-knit family life they had created for himself and his siblings.
Blissfully snoozing through the memory of one childhood New Year, which the Lord had relived many times in his dreams, his recollection of the event unexpectedly altered.
He was seated around a table with his brothers, Rhun, Zabeel, and Sparrowhawk; his brother-in-law, Cadwallon; his sisters, Rhiannon and Lirathea; and Rhun’s wife, Sybil; when the sound of his mother’s voice called him from the table.
‘Avery. Avery, I need you, sweetheart.’
Her voice led him into the kitchen, out across the back veranda and into the darkened backyard. This never happened. Avery was quite aware that his psyche had broken loose from his memory and was now ad-libbing.
His mother was not hard to spot, for as she gazed up at the night sky she glowed with the light of the full moon. Her entire presence radiated a celestial brilliance far greater than it had in life, thus Avery considered that his dream was venturing from the past to the present and maybe even into the future.
‘Mother?’ He announced himself as he approached. ‘You called?’
She looked to him and smiled warmly, her face that of a young woman, although the soul-gaze behind her violet eyes showed the being of infinite wisdom that she now was. ‘There is about to be a cosmological event,’ she said as Avery came to a stop alongside her. ‘This event cannot be avoided, but with your help the Grigori hope to prevent more destruction.’
‘Kila is in danger?’ Avery clarified, wondering if this dream was a premonition.
‘Yes … and not just Kila.’ She held a hand to his forehead, which shot the Lord’s consciousness into outer space, where he drifted calmly for a moment.
The silent vacuum of space was shattered by the loudest crack the Lord had ever heard, and the sound shot fear, like icy daggers, through his entire being. ‘What the …?’
‘It’s a space-quake,’ advised his mother’s voice inside his mind, as a dark cloud, seething with electromagnetic activity, erupted and billowed out horizontally to the left and right, rumbling loudly as it did so.
A tear, like a giant eyelid opening inside the universe, ruptured space and the dark clouds parted to reveal a bright blue ball of light — like a huge glowing iris — that was growing larger.
The giant sphere of light seemed to be shrouded by a celestial mist, but as Avery watched the phenomenon he realised the sphere was not shrouded in mist, it was being dragged along in its wake — the sphere was not growing larger, the sphere was getting closer! This revelation came as the celestial cloud reached the Lord, and as the high-speed force moved through him, he felt the auras of all those souls dearest to him merge with his being. Sacha, they called him by his Grigorian name, and a wonderful feeling of being at home, at peace and at one with all creation, sent Avery into a complete state of bliss.
This mass was not a mist, but an entity. It was what the ancients of the Earth scheme called an arupa-deva — a divine architect of the multiverse. Avery knew this as, beyond his soul-calling in the ranks of the Grigori, beyond where his soul group merged into a silent watcher, there was this being, Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi, who was the highest manifestation of himself and all his kindred.
Once the deva passed by, Avery’s attention turned back to the sphere that was almost upon him. Its bright blue illumination had gone and left a massive, dark planetoid hurtling through Kila’s solar system on a collision course with the sun of his home planet.
The Lord of the Otherworld willed his perception closer to the surface of the unknown sphere where he found not the barren surface he had expected, but a globe covered with darkened cities, the buildings of which were littered with human bodies.
‘Are they dead?’ Avery wondered.
A pressure lifting from his forehead returned Avery’s consciousness to the backyard of his childhood where he stood alongside his mother.
‘Only sleeping,’ she advised.
‘Then the planet must be stabilised and placed in a suitable orbit around a star,’ he concluded rationally.
‘Only you can command the elements of the physical world, and only they can place this planet safely in orbit around your sun.’
Avery nodded to accept the task being assigned to him, although he had never attempted to command the elements in space, and he’d never summoned the kind of massive elemental support that he was going to need to perform a feat of this magnitude. ‘But how could this happen? Where did this planet come from? What shall become of them?’
‘What has been done can be undone, we are seeing to that personally,’ she advised, stroking his hair, proud of his level head in the face of such adversity. ‘We are coming back to your aid and —’
‘You and Father?’ Avery had to butt in to clarify, and when his mother nodded to confirm, his heart near exploded in his chest. ‘When?’
‘Very, very, soon … we are on our way to you as we speak.’
The news was music to Avery’s ears and filled him with the optimism to face the coming challenge.
‘Understand that the people of this planet fear psychic power: they have little concept of spirituality and have no idea what has happened to their planet.’
‘What did happen?’ Avery was horrified by her brief.
‘All the answers await you in your near future.’ His mother kissed his forehead and whispered ‘WAKE.’
The Lord awoke with a start in his marital bed; his wife, Fallon, still swathed in a silken sheet, sleeping beside him. He kissed her shoulder and prepared to leave their Otherworldly palace.
‘My Lord might wish to explain what compels him from our bed at this odd hour …’ Fallon said to forestall his departure, ‘… if my Lord does not wish me to wonder if he has found himself a mistress?’
‘Now why would I do that?’ Avery returned to her side to kiss her properly and afterwards she smiled, but not sincerely.
‘You know why,’ she uttered softly, for in one hundred years of marriage they had yet to conceive a child. Immortal, as they both were, the Chosen were not as fertile as mortals and they were destined only ever to produce a few children, but rarely did a Chosen couple never produce a child at all.
‘We are no longer entirely of the physical world,’ Avery told her, ‘and maybe that is the price we pay to move between dimensions. Would you give that ability back in return for a child?’
Her expression was pained. ‘To give that up, is to give you up. So the answer is no, I would not.’ Fallon’s kiss was impassioned and left no doubt in Avery’s mind that she still adored him after all this time.
‘And that’s why I would never need a mistress.’ The Lord freed himself and backed off the bed, whereupon Fallon raised herself to a seated position.
‘So where are you going?’
‘I have an errand to run for the Grigori,’ he explained as he stood. ‘There is going to be a very loud bang! It’s nothing to be worried about really, but you might want to make the governor of our fair planet aware of the fact. Tell him that I know the cause and that there is no need for anyone on Kila to be concerned.’
‘You want me to wake the governor, Avery?’ Fallon knew instinctively that dawn was still hours away for the residents of Kila’s only city, Chailida.
‘Better sooner than later,’ he suggested, manifesting an organic fibre suit to cover his naked body.
In the Otherworld Avery would not be physically affected by the vacuum in space, but this event was taking place in the physical world, so he would have to conduct his mission in that plane of existence. In the physical realm even an immortal would experience all the symptoms of exposure to space: air would rush from the lungs, whereupon a mortal human would lose consciousness and die of hypoxia within minutes. As Avery was not mortal, he would remain conscious as his blood pressure dropped and his blood began to boil, causing his body to expand to twice its normal size as his circulation slowed. Then the rapid evaporation of his bodily fluids would cause a frost to coat his skin. Fortunately the Lord of the Otherworld had a secret advantage that none of the other Chosen Ones had — unquestioned command of the elements of nature. And as all of these repercussions of physical exposure in outer space could be staved off with a little oxygen, Avery teleported himself to a more natural setting to enlist the aid of the elementals of the air.
‘I seek air’s shield for the task I face,
Come dance around me in outer space.
Aid this new planet to orbit our sun.
In the name of Grigori I beseech you, come!’
From the four cardinal points wind came rushing to whirl around Avery like a twister. The nymphs of the air were beautiful when they were in good spirits, he considered on the quiet. At a distance they appeared like tiny spheres of golden light, but as they drew nearer, their muted temptress forms flew around Avery, blowing him kisses, caressing his face as their element played with his hair and lifted him clean off the planet.
When the deep space cruiser began vibrating violently, the Orions thought they were under attack. The commander of the vessel was already scampering to reach the bridge, having been jolted from his deep slumber beneath a sunlamp by a huge booming sound.
‘Yahweh Shyamal.’ The second-in-command, Zeptu acknowledged, making the rest of the crew aware of his presence.
‘Are we under attack?’ the Yahweh demanded.
‘No, my Lord,’ Zeptu advised. ‘We have been hit by the shockwaves of an astronomical event.’ He gave a nod to the communications officer, who raised the soft-light screen in the middle of the bridge so that their superior could view the footage that their telescopic cameras were picking up.
When Shyamal saw the huge electrical cloud erupting in space, he was concerned — he’d been adrift in the universe for countless thousands of years since escaping the last of the great Pyramid Wars on Earth and he had never seen anything like this before. ‘Is it a storm?’
‘The quantum readouts we are receiving seem to indicate activity akin to the birth of a wormhole, or a white hole,’ the communications officer advised.
‘I strongly suggest that we move our craft as far from the immediate area as possible,’ Zeptu concluded.
Hearing a ping from the radar console, the officer there advised that they were picking up a life form reading in the
area. ‘But we are not detecting any craft,’ he added, bemused.
‘A life form?’ Shyamal was doubtful as he approached the console to see the readout himself. ‘Out in space, unprotected?’
The Yahweh was about to say that nothing could survive in space without life support until he remembered that was not the case. Back on Earth there had been a human demi-god who had such ability and had foretold that many more of his ilk would be born into Earth’s evolution.
‘Taliesin.’ The Yahweh said his name with spite and relish; could the Lord of the White Lodge have succeeded in creating his ‘Chosen Ones’?
‘Pardon, Captain?’ As long ago as their Earth life had been, Zeptu recognised that name. ‘We are a long, long way from Earth, I doubt very much —’
‘It’s been a long, long time since we were in this quadrant of the galaxy,’ Shyamal hissed, ‘anything could have transpired.’ He looked from his 2IC to his communications officer. ‘I want a visual on that life form.’
‘Yes, Yahweh.’ The communications officer zoomed his telescopic cameras in on the reading.
‘We should retreat —’ Zeptu insisted once more and got a claw in the face when he was shoved out of the way as Shyamal rushed back to his position before the soft-light screen.
‘We find out if it is human first,’ Shyamal insisted, stroking his scaled belly, which was leaner than it had ever been. ‘If we don’t feed soon we’ll perish anyway.’
‘But it can’t possibly be human.’ Zeptu frowned, and then was stunned to see a human form floating alone in space on the soft-light screen, unprotected by so much as a helmet. ‘I could be wrong of course.’