The Morningstar Brigade

Chapter 2

II

URIEL

165 A.E.F.

Sanctuary Chapel

Eight-year-old Uriel cocked his head, watching curiously as Eli meticulously placed colorful pieces of translucent blue, green and black glass into a window frame. "What is that?" Uriel asked impatiently, jerking his thumb in the direction of the glass.

Eli set another piece in place and then sat down on the smooth, wooden floor of the chapel. The light wrinkles around his eyes deepened with a restrained pride as he looked over the image. "That," he said, pointing to the half-assembled green and blue circle at the center of the glass, "is our home."

The young child frowned and glanced around the chapel. "But I thought this was our home?" Uriel asked, perplexed.

"Well, yes, it is," Eli began to explain, scratching his head, "but it isn't our home."

Uriel stared blankly at Eli and then nodded dumbly, feigning comprehension in the same charity that so many children offer the hapless adults around them.

The Fisher let out a labored sigh and rubbed his temples. He crouched and placed another piece into the stained-glass window as he thought through his words. "Think of it like this: there's two kinds of homes. One home is where you come from. It's where you spend your time, where you eat, where you sleep. That's here, the chapel," Eli explained, motioning to the humble wooden room around them.

Uriel nodded. "Then what's our other home? It's on that picture?" he asked, pointing to the glass curiously.

Eli chuckled. "Not quite." He brought Uriel over to the side of the glass and pointed to the unfinished blue and green patchwork. "You see that little circle?"

"What is it?" Uriel asked, looking intently at the frame.

"That," Eli said, putting his hand to his chin thoughtfully, "is called a planet. It's kind of like a big ball of the stuff that makes up Eden. It's a bunch of dirt, water, grass, rock and trees, floating out in the middle of..." Eli's voice trailed off as he struggled for the right word.

"Of what?" Uriel pursued.

The man wrinkled his nose. "Well, nothing, I guess. Or everything. It's complicated."

"A big ball of stuff, floating in the middle of nothing? How does it stay there?" Uriel asked, crossing his arms skeptically.

Eli shrugged, admitting defeat. "Honestly, I'm not really sure. We call the 'nothing' that's all around it 'space'." Eli ran his finger along the black portions of the glass. "That's what this is. It's the nothing that's between all the planets."

"Planets? With an 's'? There's more?" Uriel asked, shocked.

Eli smiled and scratched his head. "Lots more. So many that when you would look up at the sky, you could sometimes even see other planets thousands of miles away from you. You couldn't even name them all if you wanted to. And, of course, there's the Sun."

Uriel groaned. "There's even more?"

"Mmhm," Eli replied. "You know how Eden gets brighter in the morning and darker in the evening?"

Uriel nodded.

"Well, on a planet, the day gets brighter and darker based on whether or not you're on the part of the planet facing the Sun." He paused, observing Uriel's eyebrows as he threw out yet another unfamiliar celestial term. "The Sun, you see, is a big ball of fire constantly burning and exploding, making light so bright it can be seen from the other end of the universe. These planets are always spinning, so sometimes you might be facing the Sun and other times you might not."