And the conclusion....
Chapter VIII: The Shadow Departs
“It is time to awake.”
I slowly opened my eyes to reveal a vast room bathed in bright light surrounding me. The room seemed to stretch into eternity in all directions. I had distinctly heard a voice and yet saw no person or being anywhere.
Besides my strange surroundings, I seemed to remember being fatally stabbed only moments before.
“Hello?”
“Peace, Eratan. Welcome to my home.” From nowhere appeared a woman, if you could her that, clad in the brightest white linen, with sparkling golden hair, illuminating silver skin and eyes that were more vibrant than the bluest sapphires. “I am Nenya, one of whom you call the Mithrilar. Our time has come and yet is not upon us, and there is much I cannot explain to you due to your nature.”
“Am I dead?” I asked softly as I rubbed my hands over my chest searching for a wound, I found none.
“If you were no more then I would not be able to converse with you. Just accept that you are no longer part of where you came.” Nenya quickly looked away, a glimpse of sorrow and sadness etched across her beautiful features. “Dark is the reason of your coming, and darker still is how it fits into the sadness that is the universe.”
Nenya waved her hand in the air and a map of the galaxy appeared overhead, with all the stars shining brightly as they rotated slowly around the core. “This was our creation, it was to be glorious and filled with harmonious life. Unfortunately, that was not to be. Many, many, millennia ago, a Great Cataclysm led by one of our own changed the universe permanently. Even with all my power, or the powers of my brethren combined, we could not prevent this from happening.”
I was confused. “But I thought you were the creators of the universe itself, how could you not have the power?”
Nenya looked almost close to tears. “How can one best one’s self? How can you both create and destroy simultaneously? I know it may seem simple in your mind Eratan, but what you ask is the impossible. But the sorrows of the universe, and of all creation, are not why I brought you before me. I know many things, knowledge and power as infinite as the universe itself, and yet the smallest pebble is the beginning of the greatest mountain.”
“I know why you all did what you did. The darkness that your people were left in after the Thalan traveled backwards in time and across dimensions was no life at all. But that darkness is nothing compared to the Great Void awaiting all of us.”
Now I was getting concerned, if a being of this power, a true god, was showing fear of what will be, what hope do any of us mortals have? What take any action at all in our lives?
Nenya laughed. “Fear not! The time has not yet come for that particular darkness to fall upon the skies. No, Eratan, I have brought you here to remedy what you have done and hopefully mend some hurts along the way. Your traveling backwards in time is even more consequential than that of Thalans and I am afraid must not be allowed to happen.”
“So you brought me here only to tell me that you’re going to send me and my people back into the Shadows? How is that right or fair?”
“I have told you there is much you don’t know, and there is much I cannot tell you. Just know that is vitally important that the Thalans travel back in time and that they meet the Humans. Time is flowing everywhere at once, already I have altered it back to before you appeared in this time and galaxy. I have done one other thing. I made it so that the Thalans will not cause the catastrophic ripple effect when they depart. In the end it will not matter, but don’t worry Eratan, that will be long after you and your descendants have walked that plane.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to feel. We didn’t stop the Thalans and yet, our galaxy was no longer in shadow.
“So what now?”
“Now you will awake in your own home. Farewell Eratan.”
And I knew no more.
In a flash Eratan was gone and Nenya was alone in the great room. Suddenly, the light in the room dimmed, like as if someone put a shade around a bright light. Nenya turned to face another that had appeared.
Genuine fear crept across her face. “Draginol.”
Covered in shadow the being called Draginol spoke. “It matters not that he has been returned, nor that you altered time, or that his people no longer live in shadow. No, Nenya, his time will come. Unfortunately, your time has come now.”
...
A cool breeze whistled through the crumbling remains of the abandoned city that was once the capital of a powerful empire. Pulling his cloak closer around him, the one that others called Eratan, looked at the sky above. Once, in a time only he remembered, it was dark with only a few dim lights, but now a great multitude of stars shone down upon this world and reached his eyes. A single tear streamed down his cheek. He continued on in this fashion, walking down with his cloak pulled tight what may have been a wide boulevard in its past, toward a large palatial building ahead with a dome facing the heavens. Dark were the days that had been, but at least he, and his people no longer lived in shadow.
The End
