Duality of Airn

Duality of Airn

Eve Tracy Coker

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Eve Tracy Coker

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Table of Contents

Part I: The Hundred Year Dream

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Chapter 2: The Moonlit Planet; A Dark World

Chapter 3: The Sunlit Planet; A Bright World

Chapter 4: Snowbird Anya of the Ankara / The Bird People of Gia Three V

Chapter 5: Nameless Lives / To Live and Be Alive

Chapter 6: Everything is All Right / Even When It’s Not

Chapter 7: Cruelty in Space

Chapter 8: Darker Days

Chapter 9: The Labyrinth of Each Mind

Chapter 10: Secret Endeavors

Chapter 11: Reunions, Secrets, and Pain

Chapter 12: Existence Rewritten

Chapter 13: New Lives

Chapter 14: Discovering New Meaning

Chapter 15: The Plan Creates Itself

Chapter 16: To Die, To be Held, and Then to be Re-Born

Part II: The Joyous Rebellion

Chapter 17: Peace Reborn

Chapter 18: The Allure of Peace

Chapter 19: The Death and Rebirth of Peace

Chapter 20: Rebirth of Airn

Epilogue

Part I: The Hundred Year Dream

Chapter 1: Beginnings

My darling Riel,

Even though it has been a week of travel to the darker planet, I dearly miss you, little sister. My archeology team is in high spirits, and my fiancé Durie is enjoying the trip so far. It was gracious of her to leave her friends and family to accompany me on this six month trip. By the way, Durie says hello! She has already found a little gift for you, but has forbid me to hint as to what it is- but she couldn't stop me from mentioning it! I'm sure you'll like it. Durie has been so patient and supportive of this consuming occupation that you and I adore- the anxiety of the dig, the thrill of discovery, the butterflies in your stomach with every clue that one stumbles across... and don't worry, little sister, there will still be plenty of newly discovered sites left for you to explore after this! Just study hard during your last year of education left and you will soon be joining my team's archeological expeditions. I can assure you that I will teach you everything I know- but of course that cannot substitute for your learning at the institute. Continue to make good grades, young lady!

You can tell that I am excited. I plan to tell you of my progress, and I occasionally work myself into a bit of a shaking mess just thinking about it. Our society has always been at a loss to explain its beginnings, or at least what happened during the Dark Years that myth and legend continually distort. Oral tradition and clashing personal accounts of that period have been our worst enemies, Riel! But here in my pocket is a scroll that I must continually touch to make sure it is still there, and that it has not fallen out nor that it is a dream which has vanished from the waking world. This scroll is the best investment I've made in my life, even if that Erusian trader was doing his best to make a small fortune. Oh Riel, I'm glad I had dropped you off at your dormitory that day, before he stepped into my path to make his intentions known... his ship smelled funny and I was surprised to learn he actually traveled between planets with that clanking, dingy thing. He smelled worse than most Erusians ever do. And I knew it was dangerous to go to an Erusian ship unarmed with a full credit bundle, but his promise was worth it; the scroll is undoubtedly the lost Scroll of the Moonlit Planet. The legendary scroll itself! As dangerous and secretive as the trip here has to be, it was easy to find a team of willing souls to follow me to this quiet, foreboding place.

I can both understand and pity why our civilization abandoned our darker sister planet; it may be in a constant state of night here, but it is a far cry from disturbing. You know that it is a smaller planet always blocked from our sun because its orbital path keeps it directly behind our beautiful, sunny homeworld of Airn, but educational discs never show what it actually looks like on its surface!! Perhaps my discoveries can be used to help educate our people... especially since no transports are ever going to and from Airn to here. It's so strange that it's not commonly known how amazingly luminous and beautiful this place is. I must ask, why is it forbidden to come here? The five small moons illuminate this planet's dark sky like bright lanterns, and the swaths of stars dance around them like bright, unblinking eyes. Our geologist has confirmed that the lava creeks are stable, both underground and above ground; I plan to take Durie to a hot spring for a romantic night this week. Oh, and the vegetation! Most of the flowers and many types of grass have adapted a phosphorescent glow in order to attract their desired insects. It's positively stunning, and I cannot wait until you have the chance to eventually come here yourself. Why have the wonders of this planet not been heralded back home? Why is this planet so reviled in our mythology? I hope to find answers.

Hopefully that mystery will end once we can produce further documents and clues about our peoples' past. This scroll should lead us to a structure containing documents, hopefully even visual depictions, of what happened so long ago in the history of Airn.

All my love, your brother,

Ellian

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There once was a dream called the Kingdom of Airn, and it was awakened from for one hundred years. The dreamers never knew they had slept, until they had been awakened a second time.

It begins with one kingdom that existed on two planets. These two planets orbited the same sun, so very close to each other. Both planets remained at a constant speed which kept the outer planet hidden from the sun by the inner planet; it was known as Airn of the Dark. The other was Airn of the Light.

Airn of the Light was a lush, green planet that had plenty of sunlight and pleasant precipitation. Sometimes it would storm roughly and sometimes it would even snow, but it was fairly normal as far as planets habitable by carbon-based life forms went. Its night sky was almost always filled with the presence of its sister planet.

The darker planet, Airn of the Dark, had five moons which gave it a beautiful, continuous glow, and the nights and days were defined by how many moons were visible at a time. By day, the lighter planet hung in its sky as one of the most visible heavenly bodies because it was lit brilliantly by their sun. The plant life had adapted by creating phosphorescent characteristics to attract their bugs of choice and to detract their predators, and the bugs reciprocated by creating their own biological light production. At night, these creatures would turn off their lights and sleep. The animals themselves were more reflective than light-producing when it came to identifying each other, but the reflective fur, or skin, was easily concealed under non-reflective fur, for their own protection. Most of them simply relied on scent and advanced night vision. After millennia of development, the ecosystem relied on the light traveling or reflecting off distant heavenly bodies. Fortunately and wonderfully, the stars were always bright and beautiful for either planet.

It was the stars which brought a greater sense of peace, and many of the more superstitious people believed it was their searing power which united the people of the two planets so easily. The cultures of each planet were complete opposites- the ones of the darker planet enjoyed their quiet, shadowy peace. The ones of the sunlit planet reveled in their boisterous and lively days.

In the time before spaceflight was invented, the people of each planet would stare at the other orb and contemplate what life must exist over there. They sent each other signs and, as technology progressed, communications. It drove them (mostly the eager inhabitants of the sunlit world) to finally create a method of traveling between the two planets- and then the rest of space. When this finally occurred, an agreement was struck between the two friendly civilizations- a new kingdom would be born, with goods, technology, and labor to be exchanged freely. This new era heralded an explosion in commerce and culture for this corner of the cosmos. With the newly named King Obleo of the sunlit planet and his sweetly dark bride Queen Lein of the shadowed planet, even the dissenters of the Newly Bound World soon could see no reason to argue with grand progress. Both planets rejoiced at the birth of their twin daughters.

Contact with other civilizations was also eventually made, such as that with the great and wise Sulin race. Finding the people of the Kingdom of Airn to be good and full of life, this race did not want to inundate their new little brothers and sisters with their advanced technology too quickly, but lent them helping hands and warm smiles. They had advanced past their own primal struggles; war, famine, and pestilence. All too well did they know greed, hate, and lust for power. With this knowledge, they carefully and slowly allotted information to the people of Airn; their desire was to aid the culture's development at its own healthy alacrity.

But with great advance comes the chance for great evil. Men and women of science arose, some of whom felt as though their own personal progress was more important than that of their civilization- even if it was of unscrupulous gain. They stole secrets from the Sulin, reverse engineering their technology into instruments of harm and control. In secret, their power grew and their hideous experiments remained hidden - experiments taken out on their fellow Airnians and the innocent creatures of both worlds - until these corrupt individuals were finally discovered in their lair on Airn of the Dark by curious officials. The news swept across both planets like a storm of comets, casting shadows upon the scientists who did work for the good of the many. It immediately became apparent that there had been too much trust placed upon them, and many of these experimenters utilized their discoveries upon themselves; they became mad god-scientists which fled into space on drifting laboratories. King Obleo publicly swore to destroy them for their many horrors they committed against their own race, and destroyed all of them - save for one.

This one madman became obsessed with her majesty Queen Lein. He was, perhaps, the maddest and most powerful of all the god-scientists; Minot. A despicable and amoral creature that barely resembled a man, Minot had crawled and slashed his way to the top of the god-scientist hierarchy with his own claw-like gnarled hands in order to command chaos against his own home. Lein would not even humor his demands, and this only enraged the horrific madman.

The Knight Rein, a suitor to one of their twin daughters took it upon himself to chase the madman and destroy him. He succeeded in cornering Minot in a dark corner of the god-scientists' floating platform and with his sword left a hideous slash across his lips. It eventually became a monstrous scar that scowled with his scowl. Unfortunately, cornering and slashing him was all the Knight Rien managed to do- for just before he was to emerge victorious in his death-bound duel against the madman, he was captured by the madman's deformed servants. ....And he too became a slave to the whims of the mad god-scientist.

Now considering himself a revolutionary that was meant to be king with Lein supposedly as his wife, the madman Minot unleashed the dual Murk devices and hid them in the most clever of places. These devices were constructed to control the thought waves and patterns of their peoples- not to completely control them, but enough to change their opinions and loyalties. It was brilliant and disgusting.

With the Murk devices on each planet, both civilizations were controlled by Minot, and King Obleo was brought to his knees. With Minot's manipulations, a bitter civil war erupted between the two planets. The King's people revolted against him, and he and the queen acted to flee, far away. The madman's pet creation- The Voice- was dispatched to capture the king and the queen. And he did quite well: He captured them before they barely left their fortress on Airn of the Light. He took them to the fortress on Airn of the Dark.

This part of the story ends in the highest tower of the Moonlit Planet's main fortress. The madman watched as The Voice stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword. The Voice stared at the King Obleo, who was on his knees in front of him. It was disgraceful, yet the king kept his head high and his face was stoic. The queen stood next to the madman himself, her wrists bound, her face also stoic. Moist lines revealed where tears had quietly run down her cheeks.

The Voice noticed all of this and contemplated it. He was still young, and this situation was fascinating to him... but then it was obvious that the time for contemplation was over. As he moved to slay King Obleo, the Queen Lein tore free of her own chains, her hands still bound, and leapt in front of his blazing saber. Her heart was torn, destroyed, from the weapon; her last breath escaped from her as she landed in her beloved husband's lap, blood pouring down the front of her dress. The mad Minot screamed in frustration, for his plans for his lovely dark bride had been destroyed. The King Obleo finally looked broken, and the Voice finished the job; the king's heart was torn, physically, at last.

The madman hissed curses and turned his back to the bloody scene; Lein was supposed to be his. It consoled him little to know that the king and queen's twin daughters, as well as the Knight Rien - all thought to be safe- were already in his clutches. He had already decided to re-educate them and place them in the rabble of his controlled societies. His dual Murk devices were in place, and his societies were churning as though they were little schools of fish in his aquariums.

Without Lein, his initial object of desire, he suddenly did not want to take an active role in his plotted dictatorship. He only wanted to watch. This would be until one day, the one day he would stop playing with poor creatures and place himself in his own twisted machine. He would force the peoples of both orbs to bow to his cruel will. He decided... someday. When he felt like it. But for now, he would rather sit in his floating tomb high above both planets and watch. Airn of Light and Airn of Dark were no more: They were again two nameless worlds, yet with identities of Minot's design.

My dear Riel,

We found it. We stumbled across the entrance to a vault of sorts... the entrance is a courtyard with amazing bright yellow luminescent wildflowers... but the walls were overgrown with thick foliage and vines, covering up any entrance we have yet to find. After searching with our own equipment and our own hands, we found an entrance into a quaint old building; it almost resembled an antique house. Its windows were matted with dust on the inside, and vines and trees on the outside. A beautiful group of hand-carved timbers provide structure and support beams, but carefully laid stone comprises the rest of the walls.

Upon entering the room, we were all stunned into silence; upon the walls and tables lay book after book, all in a language that, as we have already discovered, was a precursor to our current one. My assistants have combed the room, finding ancient tools and portraits as well; at this moment they are working hard to decipher the language and decrypt the documents. As interested as I am in the outcome of the translations, I sought a higher prize, and found it; the Jade Manuscript. Upon finding a strange half-hidden door in the corner floor of the quant old building, I kicked through it to find the entrance to the ancient vault which held this most mythical of writings. The Scroll of the Moonlit Planet did not lie.

This manuscript is a work of art unto itself. Our dating equipment places it around 2000 years old, yet the thin sheets of jade still smell fresh and almost alive. Yet...I almost doubt my sanity here...for upon first opening the book, I felt an odd chill; then the letters on each page seemed to arrange themselves before my eyes into something close to our present language, close enough for me to read and understand everything. As you can tell, it is an obsessed archeologist's dream come true! Using a bit of my knowledge our past languages, I finally deciphered these pages. Not as old as the books in the antechamber that my assistants are relegated to, this book is a third person account- suspiciously all knowing- of what actually happened roughly two thousand years ago. I cannot place whom the author would be, but it appears as though she or he tried to write this in an unbiased manner. As you will see, there are still certain biases and personal feelings that show themselves through the author's descriptions. The events portrayed in this manuscript were obviously the most important in Airn's history... obviously. But the author is not named.

It frustrates me- I want to find the author! I must know. I have briefly looked through the other chapters and saw mentions of The Voice, so I know they are of the same thread. Apparently, our unified kingdom once experienced a civil war! But there's something odd, something not right... it's not just a civil war. There is something deeper here. Whoever wrote this had intimate access to our sister world, this Moonlit Planet. This is the chapter that I have recently finished decrypting... I am sending it to you.

After explaining what happened to King Obleo and Queen Lein, the manuscript jumps forward in time! A period of unrest and dissent are described very quickly in first person (in the first part, which I am sending you), before jumping to the details of what happens a hundred years later. Perhaps there is another manuscript that explains this in fuller detail? The Scroll of the Moonlit Planet does not mention one...

I can find no other documents that mention this King Obleo or Queen Lein.

The jade tablets are so easy to delve into... I should have two chapters ready for you by next month. You will love this, Riel, it's amazing. You need to see these jade tablets for yourself. Sometimes I sleep with them at night, the tablets next to my bedding, my hand placed over their surfaces. I would kill anyone who came and tried to take them while I slept....

I must return to my work. Once again, please safeguard these writings. I fear that someone may take them away from us.

Your loving brother,

Ellian

Chapter 2: The Moonlit Planet; A Dark World

2000 years before

Ellian's Discovery

Nameless, close the doors.

The King of the Dark sat brooding on his throne, glaring into the distance with a fierce intensity. His dark pupils looked so viscous in his irises that one would think they were ready to ooze out of his eyes and down his face like oily black tears. His messy and long black hair hung in his face like marionette strings and he pawed at his armrests anxiously. He wanted to be alone after the Lady of Pain and the fighter Durn had given him news. Apparently, their ever effervescent foe the Sunlit World had new information about the special canister and its whereabouts. It was the very same canister that the Moonlit Planet could not find. It frustrated him to no end.

Both sides had been informed that this canister held a spirit which would end the war, bringing power and knowledge to whichever entity possessed it first. And now, it seemed as though the Sunlit Planet was closer than ever. They had been at war for one hundred years... he had been king for one hundred years. No one lived as long as he did, which no one seemed to notice.

With this on his mind like a dense and suffocating fog that spread through a deep valley, the king stared into the darkness as if it had no end. He brooded on his ornate and cold metal throne as he watched the dim light from the hallway slowly fade.

Close the doors, he muttered again impatiently to his servant, a slimly muscular but somewhat mechanical man called Nameless. With a programmed air about him, Nameless was still struggling to push the heavy iron doors shut. Their rusty hinges shrieked terribly, slowly and hesitantly closing until the only source of illumination in the room was the moonlight which seeped in through the cracks of the black paint on the two opposing windows. The grey stone room was as barren and cold as the throne upon which the man sat, and the detail of the old and faded stones could be seen only when the moonlight dared to show through those cracks in the paint.

Nameless turned his body and his blank eyes toward the king after he bolted the doors, and stood with his usual expressionless stance. A few flecks of refugee light bounced off his lustrous skin to reflect that he was completely shaven and gleamed most in the places where he had not been tattooed or branded with the contemporarily recognized symbols of pain and bondage for that era. He had a horrific scar across his lips. The tattoos were deep, dark blue and black mars of ugliness, and his brandings resonated with a secret ache. If anyone actually touched the man, if he even dared touch himself, then fingers would move across his skin to find a forgotten history of torture and conversion as if he were a book of Braille. Regardless of any inflictions that had affected him, he stood stiff and upright as he always did, as if he had been programmed to do so. Aside from his mindset, his movements were just as stiff and mechanical- something between human and machine. Only a few individuals knew how much of each this man actually was, but they were not telling any souls. It was their dirty, nasty little secret.

Regardless of what he was, Nameless continued to stare straight ahead into the darkness, his blank eyes listless and dull.

What you YOU staring at, you piece of garbage? the King of the Dark sneered. Every day, you look at me with those white, white eyes... we took away the color of your eyes but you continue to stare at me with those white within black lines within white... STOP IT! STOP IT! TURN THE OTHER WAY!!

As with all the other unsolicited rages of the king, Nameless turned to the right to stare at the wall.

*

The Lady of Pain was a twenty-seven year old leader with dark hair, dark eyes, and a regal stature. The fighter Durn's age was not known, but he was a large yet eloquent brute who appeared to be around the same age. The pair did not look back when they heard the terribly squeaky doors closing at the other end of the hallway behind them, and they hid their secret flinches when the doors slammed shut together. They shot each other uncertain glances as they walked down the long, echoing hallway that lead from the chosen throne room. The walls were bare stone where pictures of history should have rested, and possibly did at one time. A carpet the color of blood was centered down the length of the hallway, leaving a foot of dull grey stone flooring visible on either side. Tall and slender windows revealed a misty, calm night in utter contrast to the chaotic and malevolent energy that often burned the air around their king.

Both turned to the left once they reached the end and proceeded through a doorway leading into the courtyard of the king's building, which was the magnificent stone and metal fortress used as the place of government for the Moonlit World. The courtyard was a mockery of a garden with its dead fountain, empty vases and bare benches. Only the hardiest of plants- some vines and a few weeds- lived and climbed from a time long ago when the courtyard garden was tended and meant to flourish. Even in their struggling, even these plants emanated faint glows of light.

The fighter Durn watched the Lady of Pain walk elegantly to the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. She sat down on the edge of the fountain which had not spewed water for many years, and she looked at her own lovely and dark reflection in the rainwater that had accumulated in the bottom pool. Frowning, she disturbed the reflection with a disdainful flick of her hand; the ripples took her reflection to the stone edges of the pool and dashed it there, as if upon her bequest. Sighing, her shoulders sank and she felt so numb inside- as usual. She then turned to the fighter Durn, who stood before her with his body in a posture which expressed openness and firm understanding. He always did for her, but only her. For anyone else, that posture was eerily brimming with hidden and foreign emotion. For anyone but her. And with his attention on her like a silent lover in a cold night, she batted her eyelashes and needlessly brushed her lovely dark hair back with her long, pale fingers.

Durn, my darling... obviously our king is as disturbed as we are about the news that our spies have reported. Although it was odd for her nature to touch another being, she gently took one of his veined, scarred hands and patted it, as if the gesture was equivalent to holding him to her naked bosom and running her fingers down his back. He shuddered with a subconscious delectation; she had only touched him once before. You have been a wonderful advisor and bodyguard to me, but the time may soon come for you to leave me in order to follow other orders. We must find that canister that was lost to us all, else all hope be lost.

The fighter Durn nodded. The brute killer's face remained stoic and still as he answered, If we cannot find the location, but can only follow our garish enemy in their quest... then the best thing to do is be prepared to overpower them. We will fight our way to that which they don't want us to have.

If we let them get it first, added the Lady of Pain, delicately holding a finger up to help make this point.

If they get it first, was the matter-of-fact reply of the fighter Durn.

The king is becoming weak, said the Lady of Pain more softly, her eyes darting around to catch foreign ears. I feel as though he is softening. He is not of the hard and rigid mettle that he used to be. Instead he would rather give into fits of anger... or search foolishly for hope. Doesn't he know there is none? We must make our own...

She suddenly quieted. A shuffling from one of the outer passageways was heard, and both the lady and man quieted, pricking their ears to define this new sound in the