It has been sung that the maxim of all existence is held within each note, each brush of a chord, reaching into humanity. To those who can hear, song is the substance of the universe. She thought about that, thought about the beings out there, out at each point before her, waiting for the music to touch them. She could hear the music that formed each solar system, its unique series of chords in spectrums of sound that rang throughout the universe, revealing each system’s course and promise. She had visited many of these planets—some remote, some well known. Then there were those that were still a wilderness. She was eager for these in particular, eager to see what symphony would unfold.
There had been much to plan, much to prepare for the long journey to a tiny planet in the farthest reaches. It had a particular kind of liveliness in its music that declared its place in the universe. She didn’t remember seeing it before, but the enthusiasm to know who lived there, to hear their songs, made her eager to go. She had never considered any other vocation than fostering planets into harmony. Harmony was a very extensive kind of magic, a science that required much study and understanding, and she loved being one of those who taught it.
The High Priestess told her once that she was tall among the Great Ones of harmony, having sung her own mix of notes that had already touched many lives. Queyanna had laughed, and thought it strange.
The High Priestess was her great-grandmother. Queyanna was born third in the line of the Promised Ones, who had been prophesied to bring harmony to every corner of the universe. Having the title proffered many opportunities to Queyanna, including the calling of admiral to her mother’s fostering group. It was a wonderful privilege, most of the time.
She was an independent soul, much like her mother, a Horse Charmer who rode the free herds that roamed near her home. The winds knew her name, and had carried her song to the ends of the planets she had visited.
None questioned her fortitude held in her hazel eyes that demonstrated her resolution. They were eyes that had seen much, eyes that had known the bitterness of pain and the elation of achievement, eyes that had cowered in shame and rose in triumph, eyes that held a deep secret.
Practicality was paramount in everything she did, even in the arrangement of her long, wavy dark hair that was always kept in a braid. Let those women who wish to portray fragility have their hair ornaments, their baubles, she thought. Let them deceive their suitors with painted faces and flowing gowns, with their cunning acquiescence, hiding their manipulative natures, their utter discord. Queyanna was no such woman. She was a woman of lucidity, a woman of reason. She was proud and strong. She had walked the halls of powerful men, and met them squarely as an equal.
She was a woman of stature; a woman who knew that one day the Promise would be fulfilled. One day, worlds upon worlds would hear the song of harmony, all would sing their songs in one accord, and she would be there when it happened. Queyanna would be there to make sure every person’s song had an opportunity to be heard, that everyone would get a chance to add his or her unique set of chords. But that time had not yet come; the universe was still troubled with discord. She could see it in the flickering points.
The tiny planet had its own troubles. Its song was marred by the corrosive tendencies found on such magic worlds. Printia was a world split between order and chaos—a planet in a race against the inevitable, destruction or harmony.
She stood before the lush grasslands of the Embarking Zone, watching as the dots swirled until they coalesced into a haze. At the center, a misty point of light developed, and grew in a circular motion until it was a large luminous sphere that barely touched the ground. The wind from the sphere brushed the grasses, releasing their tinkling notes. Music filled the air with such sweetness and serenity that even the ancient oak and maple trees beyond chimed along with the trembling of their springtime leaves. The smells of lilacs and fruit blossoms mixed with the more predominant rose fragrances from bushes that dotted the vast compound in clusters, giving the sense of strings being gently caressed. Petals emitted delicate high notes that played fluid scales in time with the steady low melody of the earth. Pigeons cooed, larks sang, and robins called in exultant rapture. Bees were already buzzing from flower to flower, working in a systematic rhythm with the environment. Everything moved with the true clear notes of harmony, notes that echoed against the glittering granite walls of the naturally integrated superstructure behind, its own music adding breadth to the symphony. It was the planetary capital, home to the High Council, and the School for Cadets. The sun peaked from the tips of the nearby evergreen mountains to the east, adding warm flats to the music. Shadows willingly drew back like wisps of yawning fairies ready to slumber.
She turned to the couple singing. They were Linkers, the connective power between the home planet and other worlds. The couple’s song moved and drove the music in a duet that rose above all other sound. The song was one Queyanna knew well. At times, she would even sing quietly along. It had a bittersweet melody that always touched her deeply. It was an ordinary song, really. Common enough. With a steady movement, and only one key and one tempo change. Within the notes was the long nights of loneliness to come, the pang for the desire of a touch. It also held the elation of achievement, of the joy knowledge could bring. It was a portal-jump spell song.
Some portal-jump songs led to other places on the planet, those were merely a duet singing melody, and some even led to other dimensions, which required multiple voices singing complex rhythms and chords. This portal-jump song simply led to another world.
The luminosity of the sphere, and the music peaked at a forte. Mists inside the orb cleared to reveal a dry and arid landscape within. The key changed and the tempo slowed.
Next to Queyanna stood her mother, the Ambassador Rhiona. She was the epitome of grace and beauty. Few women possessed a greater command of the feminine spirit, as this woman did. She was almost a head shorter than Queyanna, but dwarfed her in strength of magic. Everything about her was harmonic. Down to her lithe hands and her warm brown eyes that held quiet understanding. Her innocent smile had softened even the most rigid hearts. She was the granddaughter of the High Priest and High Priestess, and second in the line of the Promised Ones. Queyanna glanced at her own masculine hands, noting the contrast to the supple hands beside hers. She moved her hands behind her, and bit back a sigh.
Rhiona turned and gently nodded to Queyanna to prepare for the portal-jump. Queyanna scanned the fostering group just behind the two women. In all, there were a total of fourteen individuals in the group. Each stood ready, wearing their tan uniforms and an array of weapons. At their feet were their large duffel bags, filled with items they would need for the mission ahead. Several individuals were doing some last minute reviewing of the planet’s cultural report that contained political, social, and cultural information. This was her mother’s group, a group that had had success on previous missions introducing harmony to other worlds. Now it was Printia’s turn.
The baldric sat comfortably over her shoulder. Queyanna’s fingers touched the familiar smooth wooden grip of the harmony-blade at her side. The cool sharp notes of the steel resonated with her, keyed to her inner-song. She was rather fond of her leaf-bladed sword, as she had forged it herself with the help of her great-grandfather.
As the winds grew from the opening portal, long chestnut tresses lifted into the air, forcing Queyanna to step aside to keep from swallowing them. Rhiona was the only one in the fostering group allowed the luxury of loose hair. Everyone else wore their hair in a braid or had it cut short for practical reasons.
As admiral, it was Queyanna’s duty to pass through the portal first. She waited and watched the orb until the figure of a man could be seen within. He walked to the center of the orb, and then waved. She recognized him; he was her father’s brother, Ean. She had called him Uncle Ean, as well as other things. Ean had been sent to Printia to scout any prospects, and ultimately was the one who had prepared the cultural report. She waved back.
Anticipation welled within her; a tense sort of excitement that made one forget what difficulties lay ahead. Each planet was unique, and offered its own blend of music that impressed her. She loved meeting new people, intelligent people who were the movers and shakers of a world, and discovering what motivated them. She had been fascinated by the tenacity of these individuals that struggled against so many odds. These men and women were their own symphony—their own motive power—and she had always felt the most at ease with them. This planet promised to be special, a combination of adventure and intellectual stimulation, according to her uncle’s report. It was the kind of planet Queyanna had hoped to foster since the beginning of her calling.
The time had come to for her to pass through the portal. She picked up her mother’s duffel and then her own. She sang a climatic transitioning spell under her breath, in order to acclimate her body to tolerate the higher temperatures at the location where they entered Printia. With deliberate care, she stepped towards the orb, already feeling the heat radiating from within it. This hot already, she thought. It was staggering to consider it, especially since it was still morning where her uncle stood.
As she crossed into Printia, the sound of the music from the couple warped until she emerged on the other side, where only the faintest melody could be heard. She surveyed the desert-like canyon that stretched out for miles in all directions. The orange wind-eroded formations that surrounded her offered a breathtaking contrast to the azure sky. Pungent smells of sage filled her nose, threatening to make her sneeze before her nose could finally adjust to the aromas. The same wind that swept the desert in a relentless, steady motion, made her braid whip about. She stood still, absorbing the music of the planet.
The flat notes of the desert rocks moved with an unbroken drone, as if it were reaching into the depths to find relief from anxiety. Violent sharps from the winds abraded against the flats with opposite purpose, its screeching sounds were arrogantly proud, rolling in a blatant gratification of its own. At times, the sharps and flats joined in a symphony that made one feel a sense of calm, a sense of progression towards an achievable triumph. But then it was gone before it could be reached, and the forces of music returned to their contest of ability, waging a battle that, had it form, would have been brutal indeed. The music was unbalanced, a combination of noise and drums that held no cohesion.
Queyanna could hear the off-key notes from the dying brush. Sage lay like skeletons scattered throughout the desolation of dirt, brittle remnants of what was once a vibrant valley. It became clear to her, as the dull screeching off-key sharps reverberated from the vegetation, the rocks, and the dirt, that the land was slowly dying, dying from order and chaos poisoning. A cracked and dried riverbed snaked around the nearby ridge, appearing like the shed skin of a reptile left to rot with the rest of the desert. She could hear the quiet moaning of chaos magic from the crusted sand that once sustained life.
The rocky ground was drenched in a liquid heat. Wallowing flats of chaos bulged and bubbled, exploding into licks of air that distorted the horizon. Down below, where earth and fire melded as one, chaos magic moved with reckless abandon, its monotonous thrums threatening to burst into the sky with blazing fury.
It wasn’t the evidence of order and chaos, but rather the extremity present that bothered her. It made her listen with anxiety.
Off-key sharps of order pealed from the west, screaming in a rage that struck her inner-chords like a hammer. She winced from the impact and the discordance it caused within her, clenching her teeth as she began shifting the notes of her inner-song, adding on-pitched notes where the threads of a chord had been ripped away, until finally she was back to some semblance of inner-harmony. She turned to her uncle with an incredulous expression. He offered a rueful smile, and then shrugged.
She approached Ean as the flats of chaos rumbled through the ground, quaking in a release of energy that this time plucked her inner-chords, shaking them until her inner-song wilted to discord once again. She blinked. It wasn’t possible, she thought to herself. How could a planet still exist with this much order and chaos? Quickly, she worked on harmonizing herself as the dust settled back to the ground. With this level of order and chaos, destruction would not be long in coming.
She thought that there was something peculiar about the corruption of the planet, as though the slow deterioration reached a certain point, and was stayed by some unknown force. It was a momentary notation, something she knew she would have to think about further later.
“Are you alright?” Ean asked with a lopsided smile that was the man’s signature.
Queyanna looked at him, realizing that she had forgotten he was there. “Yes, I think,” she said.
He chuckled, his eyes scanning the scene. “You’ll get used to it.”
Her eyes followed his. “Is it like this everywhere?”
“No, only here, in the Great Desert in Tervelvan. It’s much less violent in Lenkinar, where we are headed.” He glanced at her jacket, decorated by a single golden ring around the left cuff. “You’ve gone up in the universe.”
“I received my calling as admiral for Mama’s group nearly fifty years ago.” Queyanna turned back to him. He still had the sparkle for the love of life in his dark-blue eyes, the same attentive awareness in the muscles of his face. He wasn’t tall, nor was he short, however, his manner suggested a presence great and soaring, as to incite one to match it.
One side of his mouth inclined once more. He offered her a hug. She knew by the delay of his release that he had missed her. “I’ve been on this planet for almost seventy years, and have not seen you since I was at the cliff-house you and your mother share.” He stepped back, taking a good look at her. “It is good to see you, and to see what you’ve grown to be.” She could hear the pride in those words. He turned and swept his hand over the scene. “Welcome to Printia, Sunshine.”
Her eyes bore the gleam of a smile on an expressionless face. She remembered the name with a fondness from the days when she was a little girl, riding on his back as though he were a horse. “Thank you,” she said, her tone as serious as her uniform. “However, I would prefer if you refrained from calling me that in front of the fostering group.”
He laughed. “Of course, Sun…I mean, Admiral.”
She shook her head, chuckling. A thought entered her mind. She frowned, her eyes searching. “Where are the wagon and horses?”
He pointed toward a small ridge. “There, on the other side. I have someone waiting with them.”
Queyanna nodded, and then gestured for the rest of the fostering group to pass through the portal. She and Ean watched as the group filed onto the planet, each one experiencing the environmental music much as she had.
Within the orb, back home, were families and friends that had gathered to see them off. One member of the fostering group had yet to enter Printia. It was the Linker, Sabia. Queyanna saw that tears were streaming down her face.
Sabia was tall, like all the Yuley people, with tan skin and thick muscular tone. The cropped, black hair fell barely above her shoulders. Usually, the woman had quite a formidable presence. However, now, there was a soft sadness to her appearance, one that touched all that watched her. Her consort, and fellow Linker, a man equally tall, stood before her, also with tears on his cheeks. The two looked into one another eyes as their mouths, fully open, sang the climax of the song. For that moment, Queyanna knew that more than just glances were exchanged. It was the intimate thoughts between lovers as well. Sabia reached out, and held up her palm to him. He reached out in like manner, pressing his palm on hers. Their fingers interlinked momentarily in a symbol of their union, and a parting gesture. She let her consort go, and touched his face one last time, before turning and stepping onto Printia. Queyanna put her hand on the tall soldier’s shoulder. Her dark-skinned hand met Queyanna’s, and the two lifelong friends stood gazing at the tall, burly Linker waving the circular gesture of harmony to his wife. She waved back, and then nodded. The bittersweet song of the portal-jump spell had finally reached the coda. The Linkers sang two notes that faded into a pianissimo and left the end open, summing the prodigious opportunities and the anxiety of what lay ahead. Then, the tranquil vision of Queyanna’s home world gently faded as the portal collapsed and the mists dissipated.
© 2012 by RM Brand.
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