Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 49 - Build it Back

"So long as memory remains, one can never truly die." Anrus Anree

In the space around Krist, the nothingness shifted and wavered. Blue and Nami had taken a landcraft to the crash site - there were no telecasters on Krist, it was not a superplanet that would need such devices.

Xerath and other survivors cleaned up the small village, pulling various races of men, women, and children from the wreckage. Only a small number of people had died, and that had been those who were sleeping, and those who's mastery over Jhiva did not allow them to overcome the landburst.

A large number of acolytes were gathering at the village called Morlax, more arriving each second in their crafts or even on their animals as some preferred. This was the closest living settlement to the crash and had taken the worst hit.

Xerath wore a simple homespun brown cotton robe with a hood, his reptilian facial features obscured as he had tied a piece of cloth around his face so as not to breathe in too much of the dust which was still swirling around.

The acolytes had come to him for answers, and he had explained, because he felt what was happening. "Destiny is coming to a head." he would say, and though vague and esoteric, the crowd nodded their heads because they understood - they had felt the faint shiftings and pullings of Jhiva, the unknown energy, pushing fate in its own way.

"We have lost few, but Morlax is destroyed, so let us begin its repair for when our guests return." he said, raising a scaly right hand up as a salute to the gathered crowd. There were a few cheers, but more mourned the small loss of life that the crash had instituted.

Ever person on Krist was special in one way or another; there were Outsiders from the fringe planets, the monstrous crablike Crux people were there and so were the Saurians, few of many that the Emperor would have put to death just for setting down in Imperial territory.

But they had been pulled to Krist, and to Jhiva energy like a magnet because fate had led them there. And amidst that place of learning, humanoids and non-humanoids looked at each other on even terms; helping each other in all possible ways, even sometimes in marriage.

A large number of acolytes broke off and began to make a perimeter around the village, the upheaved earth making a tough climb as the sun sparkled down upon them. But with all of them in place, they each kneeled and placed their hands upon the earth, eyes closing, tapping into the unalterable flow of Jhiva, the earthmoving force.