Astra

Chapter 1: The Prince

Chapter 1: The Prince

Two Years Earlier;

“I hope that you, whoever you are, that ends up entrusted with this will honour and respect the sacred trust you have been thrust into” I began and then I paused. “Are you sure this will work?” I turned to Enoch, the Offeiriad, a historian-seer that was attached to the royal place on the ice planet. “Are you sure that this is the only way?”

“My liege, I don’t know if even this will be enough to keep our world alive, but we have to try. Surely we have to do everything we can.” Enoch turned his blind eyes towards me, his stiff white robes rustling. Enoch always assumed that he could get away with anything when it comes to me; and he is generally right. I have fondness for my old teacher that others simply cannot reach. On our planets all seers are blind. It is said that the natural eyes interfere with the visions that they receive and that children who are so gifted are taken to the temple of Elalgane, the goddess of the future, and blinded so that they can develop their talent without distractions.

I looked back at the transmitting crystal in front of me and muttered. “I suppose so... I see no other way to at least preserve our culture.”

Taking a deep breath I continued with the script we had worked out. “I, the prince Calysted of the four worlds of Astra, do today request a service of the receiver of this message. I request that you record the words I am sending you and will keep our histories secret until such a time as it is fitting for them to be revealed. If you have received this message it means that my sphere has picked you as likely candidate and hopefully has managed to translate this into your language.

“Let me begin by explain my world to you. Astra is a combination of five planets; several thousand years ago there was civil war amongst what is now my kingdom. The people who lived on each planet resent the fact that they were reliant on the other plants for life. The war was horrible with many dying of heat, cold, thirst and hunger. Only our capital plant was relatively untouched.

“The reason we are dependent on each other is that our five planets consist of fire, water, earth, ice and solid air. I know that this communication is headed for earth and perhaps you will not understand how air can be solid but allow me to assure that you compressed air can become very solid indeed. Our fire planet is called Tận, the water planet is Dŵr, the earth planet Ddaear, the ice planet Iậ and the air planet, our capital, is called Anadl.

“We are an interconnected system. Fire cannot survive in our world off Tận for longer than a few hours no matter what fuel we add to it. We all need water to live but it must either be melted from the ice or taken from Dŵr, all our minerals and useful materials come from Ddaear. The only semi-superfluous planet is Anadl. But Anadl is the centre of everything. All the other planets orbit it and Anadl is stationary in relation to our sun but still spins, clockwise for half the year and anti-clockwise for the rest of it. Perhaps you are getting bored with the physics of our world but if we are to preserve our culture for future generations an understanding of our world is vital.

“To continue, the people in our world are lucky in that we have a wide diversity of skins. Those from the earth plant are mostly green and brown in colour, those from Dŵr are generally azure, those from Iậ are white or have slight blue or gray tones to their skin. Those from Tận are beautiful red, orange and yellow in multiple shades, their colours changing with their moods; and us from Anadl are golden, silver or bronze in colour. Mixed breeds result in colour changers. They can decide what colour they would like to be or stay the mixed colour they are born with. Thus we get purples, olives and other between shades.

“Our world is a peaceful one. We have had contact with your planet before when an ice age was threatening the extinction of life on your planet, Earth I believe you call it, we decided to help your civilizations survive. From that we helped establish several centres in Egypt, in Sumeria, in India, we even taught the people of Ur the value of running water. The people of your world called us gods but we are merely mortal, just more advanced than your young world at that time.