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...
"Decidedly not sylvas, these picture windows so tall,
Yet representeth the spirits I serve, baleful boggis, one and all!"
Echoing throughout the jeweled castle of Kaleidoscopia resounded Gorchen's wicked, booming laughter.
As the heat rose, so did Rene and Nariah, grasping hands, raise higher and faster, toward the jeweled sloped ceiling of the castle. The extraordinary heat made their hands very sweaty, very quickly.
As the blue lava rose, it melted the stained-glass windows, and boggis of different colors went flying out and swirling up, flying around the room.
"Daddy, hold my hand! Keep holding my hand!"
"Back! Back!" Floating up, Rene kicked at the flying evil spirits as the boggis taunted him, flying up at him and around him and past him.
"Daddy! Listen to me!" Nariah screamed. "You have to calm down! The sylvas will protect us! You just have to hold my..."
Rene delivered one last kick to a boggi flying at Nariah, but the strength of his kick was too much. His sweaty fingers came loose from Nariah's.
As soon as his hand was free from hers, Rene's purple balloon stopped glowing. Nariah screamed, "Daddy!" and from a windowsill, where Gorchen perched, Gorchen threw one of his medals, which popped Rene's balloon, and Rene Naza went falling down, down, down toward the deadly blue lava—toward hurt so big there would be no bouncing back.
From his perch, Gorchen guffawed, "Dinner is served."
In one swift pull Nariah grabbed the top purple bead and yanked down so hard that all seven rainbow beads came off in her hands. She shouted her prayer, "Save my daddy, sylvas!" and she threw the seven glowing beads down toward her father. Rene's hands did not grab for the beads, but he blew her a kiss.
Rene Naza disappeared into the blue lava in a splash of blue fire and was gone. The rainbow beads, into the lava, disappeared, too.
Nariah's lip trembled. She bit onto it to make it stop. What just happened? Was she watching that wrong? No, no. That did not happen. Her father was gone. She had to keep looking to make sure. That bubbling blue. Hot and evil and death. How could this be? How could this happen? Gone. Gone. "The golden chain, our golden chain," she sobbed.
Was this what death was? Someone who is a part of you goes down into fiery blue and you watch, and you hope, but he doesn't come back up. Why wasn't he coming back up? Nariah did not understand. This was all wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't how Ophiuchus said it would go. The sylvas were supposed to save him.
As she held onto her glowing pink balloon, which was now flickering, losing its power, she drifted toward the sides of Kaleidoscopia's walls and windows. Gorchen leapt from windowsill to windowsill. He was heading for her. He shouted, "I have to finish you off, now, girl. I have my Black Banquet to attend."
The evil wizard plucked a medal from his chest and hurled the medal at her pink balloon, but it bounced off. Gorchen tried to grab at her, swiping with his green-gloved sharp fingers, but she floated away, sobbing and clutching onto the string of her flickering pink balloon. Gorchen kept hopping around the room from windowsill to windowsill, chasing after her, snarling, "No sylvas to save you now. You're mine, girl. All mine. No one escapes Tetrapolis and lives."
Nariah's balloon hit the sloped top of the ceiling and she hung there. Gorchen leapt onto the nearest jeweled beam and holding on with one hand, shimmied across to her. In his other hand, Gorchen held his black spiked mace, which swayed from its chain and glowed with thousands of evil boggis within. He began spinning it over his head.
"Let's see if my mace's malice is stronger than your poor, poor pink balloon, shall we, my dear?"
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