Brian Rathbone - The Dawning of Power

Mother Gwendolin looked up from the messages and handed one to Brother Vaughn. "I think this will be of most interest to you. It would appear a landslide in southern Faulk has uncovered the skeletal remains of a giant winged beast. The message indicates the beast would have been larger than a warship-incredible," she said. "There is also word of Zjhon troop movements. Several large detachments are converging near the northern tip of the Inland Sea in Lankland. I suspect they will be bound for Ohmahold by the spring melt. It would appear the Zjhon have reason to believe Catrin is here."

The news gave Catrin a cold feeling in her stomach. Now Ohmahold would be subjected to a siege simply because she was there, much as the Godfist suffered because of her. She tried not to castigate herself, knowing, deep in her heart, it was not her fault, but that failed to lessen her anguish. It was difficult to sit near Brother Vaughn, who could barely contain his excitement. The discovery of the winged beast clearly had his imagination running wild, and she tried to draw from his enthusiasm rather than dampen it with her melodrama.

"Do not be overly concerned," Mother Gwendolin said, sensing her thoughts. "Ohmahold is well defended and well provisioned. We can be completely self-sufficient in the event of a siege, and the Zjhon will have to battle the Wastes. When they launched their attack on the Godfist, they sent nearly two-thirds of their strength, and now they are left with insufficient troops to hold lands only recently conquered. I'm told the armies are now conscripting young women into service. These nations have already lost most of their working-age men, and now the Zjhon are sapping them of young women as well. The rural farmers have been the hardest hit. The Zjhon come unexpectedly, and the farmers have been ill prepared to defend themselves. The Zjhon take their young folk and livestock, and they make notes of any small children, so they can return for them later.

"In the meantime, the elderly and the very young are left with all of the work of growing food and caring for what remains of their livestock. The Greatland is on the cusp of famine and a full-scale revolution. I fear there are dark days ahead of us, and there is little we can do to stop it."

"I must accept the things I cannot change and focus on what I can do, I suppose," Catrin said, trying to find some escape from the futility. She glanced at Sister Hanna, who had not said a word since their introduction. "Sister Hanna, perhaps there is something you can help me with. I've been trying to translate a phrase from High Script. Do you know what Om'Sa means?" she asked.

Sister Hanna appeared impressed that Catrin would attempt to translate High Script. "I've seen that phrase only once in all my studies, and that was in one of the oldest texts we have. High Script evolved over the centuries, and the earliest versions are the most difficult to translate. From the context in which I saw the phrase, I interpreted it to mean departure or exodus of the first men. I cannot be certain my translation is correct, for phrases in early High Script can have many meanings, depending on the order of the words and their context, which makes the translation more art than science. In what context, may I ask, did you see this phrase?"

"Om'Sa is the name of a book that was given to me. It's very old, and I could not translate much of it. It's in my room at the First Inn, perhaps we could ask Benjin to bring it with him this evening," Catrin said, and Sister Hanna seemed genuinely excited about the prospect.

Mother Gwendolin added the request to her missive and sent the young monk to deliver the message.

"I know this has been a trying day for you, Catrin, and for me as well, but I sense events are beginning to accelerate. I'm sorry to bring this up, but I think it will be important for you to understand the nature and properties of noonstone," Mother Gwendolin said, and Catrin wondered what noonstone was.

"From what we know, the fish figurine you found, Imeteri's Fish, was carved from noonstone. Noonstone is very rare, and as you found, it can be used to store a finite amount of Istra's energy. In truth, noonstones are actually crystals that only form under the most rare circumstances. The old texts say they only form during the Istran noon, when thousands of comets can be seen in the skies at any given time. Even then, it is written that they only form under deep salt water and only when the wind is blowing east."

Catrin found it hard to imagine anything could be so rare, and again she felt the sting of having destroyed Imeteri's Fish. "How did the ancients find and retrieve the crystals if they were under deep water?"

"We don't know," Mother Gwendolin admitted. "While that remains a mystery, there are some things I do know. Noonstone is clear and shiny when it is fully charged, and it becomes chalky and porous when its store of energy has been depleted. When energy is drawn from the stone, it grows warm to the touch, and if you draw too much energy too fast, then it will get hot. If you continue to draw upon a depleted stone, it will eventually disintegrate, and the crumbled remains will no longer be viable. The stone will be destroyed."

Catrin nodded in acceptance. Much of what Mother Gwendolin said confirmed what she had deduced on her own-only too late. It was good to have the information confirmed, but Catrin doubted she would ever find another noonstone, which made the discussion seem pointless.

"What is Istra? Is she a goddess or a bunch of rocks in the sky?" Catrin asked, partially in an attempt to change the subject.

Mother Gwendolin laughed and shook her head. "You've a talent for asking questions that are nearly impossible to answer," she said. "Again, understand that this is my opinion. I believe the ancient peoples had no way to explain heavenly bodies, so they made up stories of gods and goddesses to define the unknown. Istra was their personification of the comet storm that lasted for over a hundred and fifty years. And comets are not big rocks in the sky; those are called asteroids. We believe comets are made of ice and they radiate their own energy. It is this energy you feel, much like you feel the warmth of the sun.

"If you explore ancient legends and stories of the gods and goddesses, you will find all the major heavenly bodies represented in some way or another. The sun is known as Vestra, the periodic comet storm is known as Istra, and the moon is known as the Dead God, father of the gods and goddesses, who was said to have been killed by his children. Groups of stars were given names and attributed grand deeds. It was even believed that great kings and heroes would become chains of stars upon their deaths. I believe the comet storm is a very natural occurrence, and some of our order have even hypothesized that comets may have been the very source of life itself. If comets are truly made of ice, then it could have been a comet that collided with Godsland and provided her oceans."

Catrin watched as her simple world of gods and goddesses dissolved into a highly complex universe of endless possibilities. If the gods did not really exist, at least in the form of omniscient super-beings, then who decided fate? Could life possibly be nothing more than a series of random occurrences? The evidence pointed toward something even grander than predestination and far more logical than random chaos. Life seemed to consist of many patterns and appeared to follow certain rules. The rules allow for a certain amount of predictability, whereas the complexity of the interacting forces provide entropy, resulting in a constantly changing universe based on orderly precepts-order within chaos.

The thoughts were as confusing to Catrin as they were revealing, and she had a difficult time coming to terms with the multitude of possibilities. She sat quietly for a time, simply allowing her thoughts to flow.