Once upon an orbit of planet Fait, a playful young girl and her flustered yet resourceful single father must endure sickness, encounter exotic creatures, escape a predatory government, and outwit a wicked wizard to survive just one more day. Having...
Her father comforted her, shouting over the sound of the loud wind, "Remember, just a big sculpture."
The infamous Front Gate of Tetrapolis was misleading, in nature, for a "gate" is usually a double door that both opens and shuts, that offers both ingress and egress. This Front Gate stood massive, extending from North Tower to West Tower, facing out to the vast black sands of the Western Wilds. Designed like a spider-web made of crystal, covered in a thousand spikes, and, unfortunately, and unlike other gates, it never opened. Rather, this Gate was built by Gorchen as a kind of cruel joke and forever reminder to all who dwelled within Tetrapolis that none would ever leave, that none would ever be free, and Gorchen had even inscribed, "NON EST QUI EFFUGIAT" in the most ancient human language, meaning "NO ONE ESCAPES," across the back of a downward-facing black crystal spider, as big as a Second World house, positioned at the center of the gate. This aragoyle was called Arachnor, and this was the terrifying gate that Rene and Nariah, upon Io, were presently racing toward.
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The Sirens in pursuit, not obeying Scythia's frantic command, were firing their blasters full power at Io. The wind rushing over her face, even with her hands covering her eyes, Nariah kept her eyes shut tight in terror, whispering under her breath, "Sylva dust, sylva dust, sylva dust," and she did not know that her rainbow braid was glowing.
The Sirens' dozens of deadly laser blasts—each one aimed at Io—were bumped off-course in midair by various glowing orbs of light, and each bump served to redirect the laser blasts away from Io, and over to Gorchen's Gate. There was a red orb, an orange orb, yellow, green, blue, and violet, of course, for, yes, it was a whole shoal of sylvas, come quick to the Nazas' aid.
Determined, Rene trained his eyes on the inscription on Arachnor's blasted, cracking, massive, spiked back, and smiled with hope. "Hold on, my love. We're... going... through!"
High above, in the Jade Pyramid that topped North Tower, General Gorchen strolled out to his patio and overlooked the scene. He was wearing a long fur robe, and, as ever, his golden helm. In his right hand he held a golden goblet. In his left hand, he held three black marbles. He cast these marbles to the floor, and they cracked open on impact. From them, three red, crooked lights shot up into the air and squiggled down toward the Gate.
At this point, with a shudder off of long-caked black dust, Arachnor lifted its head and roared, opening its six massive tusk pincers, and torrents of green slime casting down. Its eight eyes opened and were jewels glowing red. The aragoyle was bossessed!
"Daddy, what's that sound?" As Nariah lowered her hands from over her eyes, her father clasped his right hand back over her eyes, while he himself gazed in horror.
"Don't look!" Too late to pull up, fast as they were flying, father and daughter were flying right straight into Arachnor's open mouth, and all the beast's eight thousand sharp black teeth their pathway to certain doom.
Her father's hand over her eyes, Nariah screamed. Her father did, too. As the jaws of the massive spider shut down over Io, the seven orbs of light were following fast, flying right behind them. These seven orbs of light disappeared into Arachnor's jaws, swallowed by the beast.
Red-eight-eyed Arachnor lifted its massive head and roared its sinister shriek of triumph, while the four supertowers shook and swayed.
Atop the Jade Pyramid's balcony, its tower now swayed to the left, Gorchen smiled his lizard lips, and took a deep, long drink from his golden goblet.
But that was no shriek of triumph from Arachnor—it was a shriek of pain. The back of Arachnor exploded and out flew Io, with Rene and Nariah alive and well, preceded by their protective rainbow blasting its colored road through the sky.
Eyes bulging behind his golden helm, General Gorchen spat out his drink in a huge fast spray. Meanwhile, North Tower swayed right.
At long last, the first two ever, Rene and Nariah Naza were free from Tetrapolis, and Mount Veda awaited on the black horizon before them, the tallest black mountain of all, and in the shadow of which, as Ophiuchus had prophesied and charged Rene with his final mortal breaths, Rene and Nariah would find Redemptor, the only hero on Planet Fait who was destined to defeat Gorchen and his evil spirits and bring again to all of Tetrapolis that rarest of treasures, freedom.
