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...
Just as the swords' sharp points were about to reach Nariah and Rene's necks, Nariah's rainbow braid flashed and the swords transformed into long-stemmed flowers, which showered harmlessly to the floor behind them. Gorchen's reptilian eyes bulged in shock and fury.
Nariah looked back over her shoulder and found the hall floor covered in flowers. Quite the puzzling sight. Nariah noticed that the suits of armor no longer held their swords. A strange thing, indeed. And where was their host? He had been right behind them.
"Hurry right this way,
The Feast cannot delay."
Pseudo Redemptor's voice boomed from in the next room.
As Rene and Nariah exited the hallway, they came into a large, round foyer of stained glass windows, depicting spirits in various forms and amazing stories.
"Wow, are all these sylvas?" Rene marveled.
Echoing from somewhere unseen came Pseudo Redemptor's response—
"Sylvas, yes, good spirits, of course, are these,
From the center, see them better, if thou wouldst please."
Holding Nariah's hand, Rene led his daughter to the center of the room. Directly over their heads, high above, a large chandelier—all jewels, all sharp—with sixty-six candles burning—hung suspended from a chain. The candles' lights made the stained-glass windows' figures seem to be moving, as if alive. "See, Ria? These are like the obelisks, how they had the pictures of the sylvas and all the different stories from First World, but these are windows instead of obelisks."
"Where's The Cactus Prince?" Nariah asked, "Ophiuchus read it to me. I like The Cactus Prince."
"Hmm, I don't...where..." Rene turned and looked across all the windows, scanning for a green figure, as Nariah did the same. "Huh. I don't recognize any of these."
At the side of the room, in shadow, Gorchen flicked the chain that held the enormous chandelier suspended over the center of the foyer. The chain came loose, went zipping up the wall, and the chandelier came zooming down right toward Rene and Nariah.
Nariah looked up and screamed. Rene covered her with his thin frame, crouching over her, to protect her from the impact to come. But Nariah's rainbow braid flashed again and the chandelier itself flashed, transforming into sixty-six colored balloons. The balloons bounced over them gently, harmlessly, slowly, and zigzagged away.
Rene uncovered Nariah and knelt before her, "You okay?"
"I'm fine, Daddy. My rainbow braid protected us."
Rene hugged her tight. He turned toward their host, frowning, furious, and shouted, "So, hey, Redemptor, how old is this castle, and why's it seem like it keeps trying to kill us?"
Clutching Nariah's hand, Rene looked around the foyer, and kicked some balloons out of the way. The foyer floor was packed with them now.
"Here, Daddy."
With her free hand, Nariah held out to her father a purple balloon. "It's purple. Your favorite."
"Thank you," Rene took the balloon by the string. In return, Rene grabbed a pink one that went bouncing past and offered it to her. "Here's a pink one." Nariah took it by the string.
"Hey, hero," Rene shouted angrily to the foyer. "Where are you?"
"Daddy?" Nariah whispered, tugging on his hand.
"Redemptor?" Rene shouted again, searching and swatting balloons out of their way as they circled the room, looking for the door out. "We're going to pass on the feast. We're just going to leave."
"Why, yes," came the voice, with a slight chuckle. "Leave you are, though myself it grieves."
"Daddy," Nariah yanked on Rene's hand hard. Rene looked down to her. She smiled up at him, so beautiful and confident yet very serious. Her rainbow braid was glowing. She said calmly, "You need to hold on."
"What?" Rene said.
The floor dropped out from beneath their feet. All the balloons went tumbling down.
Nariah's rainbow braid flashed again. Her pink balloon and her father's purple balloon began to glow, and they hung suspended in midair, while their legs dangled high above the boiling, blue-lava heart of the inside of Mount Veda. The sixty-four balloons popped one by one as they fell and neared the heat of the violent blue core.
"Holy sylvas!" Rene exclaimed. They drifted there in the middle of the foyer with no floor. The blue lava was rising, rising, rising.
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