Gallel's Heir

Chapter 1.1: Hallel's Star

"Bless my soul and my resurrection," gasped Gizelle. "The baby."

Dylin laughed with surprise. "Lianna!" The baby's eyes glittered with wisdom, excitement. Dylin trembled, reaching out for her. "What...? Lianna...? How?"

"He's born, Mama," said Lianna. Her clapping continued. "I'm going to see him someday. I'm going to help him. So is he." She pointed to Canúden and his jaw dropped. Lianna swayed to the Ancestors' song. The music clarified. Canúden felt it with the dizzying sensation of brilliant thought rather than the vibrations of sound. The words came in that unfamiliar language he recognized anyway, something about a newly-born Creator... Hallel? Canúden hadn't understood the words until Lianna spoke them. Something about mortality, and love, beauty, and hope. Freedom. Freedom for the world. Freedom from darkness and anguish.

The little heir had been born only four months previously.

"Lianna! You'll never marry a kel!" said Dylin. "Not when the Ancestors sing like that! How can you marry a kel when you'll see this Hallel?" Whoever that was.

Dylin picked up Lianna and joined Canúden and Gizelle to spin, to join the Ancestors, to sing with all Creation. They laughed, ran in and out of the trees. They spun like the undulating rays of the Object in the sky. Everything brightened until Canúden could see nothing but white and Dylin and the baby, whom Dylin had placed back in the sling in order to free her hands.

The three existed in a void. Everything but the Ancestor's song disappeared. Canúden and Dylin stood as tall as a mountain, taller, and the earth fell away from them as they soared up to the Ancestors. One Ancestor in the sky reached out her hand to them and smiled.

The ocean roared beneath them and they continued east. Islands glittered in the water, and the world continued beyond the map in Canúden's classroom. Rock as wide as the horizon loomed ahead. Land, green and gold and sandy. They descended gradually and the ocean disappeared behind them as a yellow desert spread beneath. Smiling at Canúden, Dylin stood at his side, with Lianna watching intently from the sling, as though she knew what to expect. Lianna patted her mama's arm.

The sky darkened. Canúden and Dylin, with Lianna in the sling, stood in a billowing sandstorm, but the grains of sand missed them in the chaos of wind.

A couple huddled on the ground in front of them, the angry knives of sand beating them from every direction. A young woman clutched her belly and screamed. Scanning the dimming land, panic struck the man's eyes and he covered the woman, who was likely his wife, with his arms and cloak.

Another man in a concealing hood touched the husband's arm. The stranger wore a crimson cloak over loose saffron pants and top, which swayed only slightly in the wind. He glanced at Canúden and Dylin and nodded, then spoke to the couple in distress. He unrolled a canvas liter, and the men helped the woman onto it. The hooded man lifted the front, the husband lifted the back, and proceeded down a rough path.

Canúden and Dylin followed down a crack in the ground, which widened to a cave. The ground looked soft with lichen and grass. A stout woman stood there, as though she'd been waiting for the distressed couple; she gestured to a birthing pallet of grass and blankets, water, and a fire in the cave. The men helped the mother to her feet, then to the inclined pallet. Hefty stones lay at the mother's feet.

The Object exploded into the sky as soon as the baby crowned, and everything brightened as he screamed life into his lungs.

Canúden gasped and saw Dylin's eyes widen: That baby was Hallel.

"Who is Hallel!" Canúden scanned the scene in search of purpose, the reason he and Dylin were being shown this, any clue as to why all the singing and fuss. "No one has ever heard of him!" he yelled.