The Star Plume (2 page)

From where they stood, Princess and Wrangler
could not see the threat. Then, as the volley cleared, Wrangler Zav
swore under his breath. Princess Cressida looked at him. His eyes
were fixed on a distant point. She followed his gaze.

Princess Cressida watched as a massive being
approached, sliding slowly across the sky. It was as tall as the
Red Giant star, with roughly defined edges that went in and out of
focus. In its hands was a massive weapon.

“Is that a star?” asked the Princess.

“No, ‘fraid not. Just the opposite, in fact.
Ain’t never seen one in person.” Wrangler Zav lifted his silver hat
to give his head a scratch. “It’s a Time Fiend. Nasty things, I
hear. Made of mutated time, all backwards, a trash heap of
mistakes. I can’t think what he wants with this crew.”

The Time Fiend approached. It surveyed the
gathered stars then with a low roar, shot the gun towards the
gathered stars.

The charge from the gun moved slowly, tracer
lights from the charge leading its way to the huddled stars.

Princess Cressida watched in horror as the
stars in front took a direct hit. The charge hit and the stars, so
bright, grew dim and then fell dark, extinguished like the dead
star the Princess and Wrangler hid behind. Watching the sudden
destruction, Wrangler Zav muttered to himself. Blaise lowed in
reply. At least twenty stars now lay dark and cold.

“What was that?” Princess Cressida asked in
horror.

“A time burner. The charge is eons of
compressed time.” Wrangler Zav wiped away a discrete tear. “When it
hits a star, it ages it to its death, burning it up from the
inside. What would normally take billions, maybe trillions, of
years happens in seconds. It’s a nasty weapon. I’ve never seen one
used.”

Wrangler Zav looked mournfully at the newly
dark stars. The remaining bastion had quickly retreated, their
light and color shifting, a thick cloud of stardust stirred up. The
halo above changed colors from red to white.

“Is there no defense against it?”

Wrangler Zav shook his head. “No. Thankfully,
it can only carry two charges. The time charge weighs a lot, all
those years compressed into a single charge. It takes an age to
make a single charge.”

Princess Cressida looked at the Time Fiend
morphing in and out of focus. “So he has one more.”

“Yes. But I doubt he’ll use it. Still don’t
know why he’s here causing such trouble. Maybe just sending a
message.”

A small white star broke from the huddled
defensive pack. It moved toward the time fiend without regard.
Princess Cressida watched in awe.

“Look, that little star is moving towards it.
What’s he doing?” she asked breathlessly.

For a moment, the bright star faced the
massive being, taunting him to shoot his last charge. The Time
Fiend eyed him.

“He’s a brave one. He’s trying to save the
others, take that last charge for himself.” Wrangler Zav watched
helplessly. His job was the wrangle unruly stars into order and he
felt a deep kinship with them, the young ones especially. So
fearless. So much potential.

Watching the young star and the Time Fiend
face off, Princess Cressida felt an immense pressure building,
first in her ears, as if she was plunging into the deepest pit.
Then the pressure moved onto her entire body.

“Something is happening. I feel like I’m
being compressed,” she said to Wrangler Zav. “It doesn’t feel
right.”

Wrangler Zav stared hard into the distance.
He could see nothing. But the pressure was unmistakable. “I feel it
too. This is not good.”

Without warning, the Time Fiend fired the
second charge at the white star. Its starlight burned fiercely for
several seconds. Such a young star would have lived for ages. Then
with a final flare of light, it fell still and dark. The huddled
stars made a collective low tone.

Princess Cressida’s face was scrunched up
with despair, her eyes red. She turned to Wrangler Zav. “But at
least now the others are safe? Right?”

The pressure all around continued to
increase. Wrangler Zav looked through a single ocular night scope
into the distance, to better see the light wavelengths. But where
he would normally see a full spectrum, all he could see was
darkness. He looked more carefully. The darkness, a slightly deeper
shade than the night, was moving towards them.

He dropped the scope, his mouth open in
shock.

“It’s a whole dag-burnt army. What in the
blazes do they want?”

Princess Cressida peered into the night but
saw nothing. “What army? I can’t see anything.”

“An army of Heat Leeches.  You can’t see
‘em exactly, only the outline. But they’re dense, so you can feel
‘em. That’s what you felt.” He looked again through his scope at
the approaching shapes. “There must be thousands of ‘em. They
invade a star like a virus and quench the light.”

“Why are they here? Where do they come from?”
Princess Cressida longed to be back home, with her horse Flyer and
her hummingbirds.

Wrangler Zav’s face was dark with worry. The
twinkle in his eyes had gone, extinguished by fear. “I don’t know
why they are here. But I know where they come from. They come from
the Dark Spectrum, his emissaries. Which means the rumors I heard
are true.”

He looked back at the approaching mass of
Heat Leeches, which took their place by the Time Fiend. The stars
shifted uneasily, not knowing the true danger they faced. The sky
was filled with blue light.

“What rumor did you hear?”

“That a Night Prism has been found and the
Dark Spectrum has come to claim it.”

Princess Cressida knew about prisms. She had
several herself. She used them to measure out colors. But a Night
Prism? That was new.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Wrangler Zav said, “The way I understand it,
darkness has wavelengths, like light.” He nodded at the bag of
colors Princess Cressida carried. “When darkness passes through the
Night Prism, the Prism breaks the bonds of darkness forged to keep
the universe in balance. The Night Prisms were locked away long ago
to prevent this.”

Wrangler Zav stopped to watch the Heat
Leeches. All around them, one by one, stars went dim, as the Heat
Leeches bled them of light.

Zav turned to Princess Cressida. “These Heat
Leeches will take these stars hostage. They can be recharged but
only by an internal infusion. There is nothing we can do to help
right now. We must try to find the Night Prism before the Dark
Spectrum does.”

“If the Dark Spectrum finds it first, it will
break the darkness into wavelengths. “

“What will happen then?” asked the
Princess

“It’s only on the longest wavelength of
darkness that true evil can travel. If the bonds of darkness are
broken, the Dark Spectrum will come. And if that happens, the
universe will have no chance.”

Chapter Three

The three traveled toward the realm of the
Dark Spectrum. They rode the Star Plume for what seemed like hours.
It was dizzying, the speed at which Blaise could gallop. Cressida
clung to the cow’s rough coat.

It was quiet on the Star Plume, no other
travelers. Princess Cressida had never known such silence. It grew
colder the deeper they went into the pitch. Princess Cressida
gladly took the heavy silver coat Wrangler Zav offered to her.

As Princess Cressida peered into the darkness
zooming by, looking for something, anything, she felt vaguely ill.
Her sun, the sun that warmed her home planet, was nowhere to be
seen. Strange rocks whizzed by them, some dangerously close. There
was no starlight and no star song. The only light was from a sickly
lantern worn around Blaise’s sturdy neck. As the lantern rocked
with movement, it cast a pale light ahead, barely illuminating the
Plume ahead.

On they rode. In the darkness, it felt like
they were climbing a steep hill. Princess Cressida could hear
Blaise’s labored breath. Then, a small faint light appeared some
distance ahead, like a flashlight shining in the night. Blaise
galloped toward the light. Eventually the light grew larger and
brighter. When they went around a sharp curve on the Star Plume,
the light disappeared. Princess Cressida felt despair. Somehow the
light had buoyed her hope on this journey.

Around the dark bend Blaise galloped and then
there the light reappeared, almost directly in front of them.
Princess Cressida saw that it was a lamplight, serving as the
beacon for a massive stone boulder, two stories high, in front of
which stood a tall sign: “Igneous”.

Blaise slowed her pace and Wrangler Zav spoke
quietly: “We’re here.”

Several saddled animals waited outside the
boulder, grazing on tall sea grass growing in a shallow moat at the
rock’s base. There, by the unfamiliar creatures, Blaise stopped.
Wrangler Zav hopped down.

Princess Cressida turned to face him as he
hopped off of Blaise. “Where is ‘here’? This looks like the end of
nowhere.”

Wrangler Zav smirked. “Nope. Just the
opposite. It’s the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“Of nowhere.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I agree.” With that, Wrangler Zav helped
Cressida from the saddle to her feet. He surveyed the waiting
animals, nodding at one creature that blinked rapidly on seeing
him. Wrangler Zav approached the open doorway, through which
yelling and smoke spilled. He turned back to the Princess.

“They don’t much mind their manners in there,
Ma’am. It’s a rough place.” Zav scratched his chin, his nose and
his forehead in succession. “It’s not a place for ladies, is what
I’m trying to say.” He tipped his hat at Princess Cressida out of
respect.

Princess Cressida sniffed in displeasure.
“I’m sure I can take care of myself. Remember I run a Kingdom of my
own. I’ve had troubles to sort out.” She sniffed again. She didn’t
care for being told to wait in the wings.

Wrangler Zav narrowed his eyes. “Alright,
we’ll give it a whirl. I can’t leave you out here anyway. That
Celestial wind might pick up and when it does, it blows everything
away.”

“What about the animals? What about
Blaise?”

“Blaise always finds her way home. She’d got
one of those honey beacons in her head. Like a bird.”

Princess Cressida looked at Wrangler Zav. “A
honey Beacon?” Do you mean a homing beacon?”

“That’s right. Works like a charm. Blaise
ain’t never been lost more’n a year.” He bobbed his head several
times, remembering. “Enough talk, let’s do this.”

He led the way through the arched doorway
into the cavernous bar, ducking his head, too tall for the doorway.
Inside, the ceiling was so high, it seemed barely visible. Then
Princess Cressida realized there was no roof. The bar opened
directly onto the sky.

The patrons sat on rough stone benches around
the circular bar, talking. They stared and grumbled as Wrangler and
Princess Cressida walked by.

While she ignored the men’s stares, Princess
took discrete note of the different galaxies at the bar. A clear
man from Hedrion - Cressida had a distant cousin there, it was
always off-putting to stare right through someone, with only the
eyes, lips and heart opaque enough to see. A few Blues from Zarvis.
The Grass Men, there were several, glared at her. On the edge of
the bar, she saw the X-rays, from Xreesa.

“An assorted crew out this way,” she said
quietly to Wrangler Zav.

“It’s a trading route and it’s always open.
I’d say ‘24/7’ but that doesn’t mean much out here. No 24 and no
7.”

As she walked the last seats on the bar,
Princess Cressida sensed others. She looked at the bar stools but
saw only half-empty glasses being lifted and set down. There must
be either Infrareds or Gammas, she thought, but she wasn’t sure
which. Always hard to tell until they spoke.

No bartender manned the bar. People helped
themselves by pushing a button. A glass descended from the ceiling
and on its way down, was filled by the stream of liquid from a
large central unit.

Princess Cressida followed Wrangler to a
square table in the back, with a clear view of the bar and the
door. As Wrangler walked he glanced side to side at the seated
patrons. He spoke quietly, with a nod of his head to the right.
“There he is, the fella who told me the Night Prism rumor. I
thought he was foolin’, tellin’ tales, like you do. I'm gonna find
out where he heard those rumors.”

Princess Cressida looked at the man. He
looked average in most respects, human like she was. His eyes,
which she could see from a distance, were ice blue and slightly too
large for his face, like he was constantly surprised. Something was
off. She looked again and saw he had no whites to his eyes. Just
the blue. He looked familiar.

A bosomy middle-aged waitress appeared at
their table, all blond curls, long red nails, pink uniform, and
chewing gum. Her nametag read, "Flo," in curly cue script.

“What do you want, Wrangler?” she barked.

“Hey Flo. Nice to see you too. It's been an
age. How's the boss?”

“You know Per, he's the same grumpy old
goat.” Her voice dropped to a raspy whisper. “Only now he's older
and grumpier.” Flo snapped her gum in protest. “So, come on. I got
other customers, so whaddaya want?”

“Two Solara punches.”

“Coming up.” She waddled away to the bar,
ignoring a Grass Man who pinched her ample bottom as she passed
him.

Wrangler Zav turned to Princess Cressida.
“Have you got anything to trade? Any jewelry you can part with? A
bangle? I’m going to talk to our rumor-mongerer over there but I’m
running low on Celestial Coin. This fella drives a tough bargain
and if he knows anything worth telling, I’ll have to pay for
it.”

Princess Cressida touched her gold earrings.
“Well, I have these.” She looked at her simple skirt and shoes. She
wasn’t much for flash. Then she had a thought. She put her hands on
her burlap bag. “Of course, I have the colors, do you think he
might like any of those?”