The Crystal Walls

Neetra turned to the four farns and without the need for spoken words it passed between them that it was time. Flashthunder and the others stepped timidly to the sidelines. Much about Neetra had already won their awe and admiration, but to know she was able to address on equal footing the likes of Manual, Benmor, Prune and Albazorascabaranthi was something else again, and it made the Mini-Flashes downright shy of their new friend. All of a hush they looked on, as Neetra stepped to the centre of the cathedral floor and the farns formed a wide ring around her.

Our heroine drew in a deep breath. For one moment she knew nothing but the desire to throw her mind across the constellations and touch Joe’s thoughts alone, where she might find peace at last in his love again. This longing, this ache, this near-overmastering urge, Neetra felt and duly acknowledged. Then she fought it back. Having done so, she was ready. She clenched her fists, tipped back her head, and closed her eyes.

Celestial golden light, like that seen in the final minute of a sky-wide sunset, poured living and radiant from Neetra’s silhouette. Its opaque tint splashed luminously across the subtle mineral hues of Eshcaton, and in that moment the farns read instantly its rhythms and modulations and began to dance in time. Their whirling figures and gesticulations, spiralling round and around the resplendent girl, transformed the ether into a glowing aurora that struck up a dance of its own with the burnished gold. Streams of emerald and sapphire, shot through with ghostly white, encircled the stage in their brilliance then interwove like ribbons upon Neetra’s evening fire. A low eerie chanting from the farns was gradually building in tempo, even as the lightshow rose within the cathedral walls and the ancient air tingled with what was to come.

Neetra flung open her arms. The farns halted and did the same, chorusing a crescendo, as the mingled light dispersed into beams. Each of these struck one of the inclined crystalline faces of the temple wall and bounced back from it at an elevation, such that in the space of a blink the entire atrium had begun to fill with an ever-climbing web of diagonal rays. The Mini-Flashes could only stare huge-eyed as this prismatic filigree described its mind-boggling pattern on a course to the ceiling, but Neetra and the farns were preparing themselves throughout, knowing the climax would bring the most gruelling challenge of all. For even to the eight uninitiated youngsters it was already clear that the darting streaking lines of light were going to recombine at a point somewhere near the roof, merging at once to one again having amassed such magnitude and momentum from their lightning peregrinations that few forces in the universe could hope to rein them in.

There were however five who intended to try. The convergence came and its impact was like a tremor that acted on reality itself, somehow shaking the cathedral out of phase with its physical existence and revealing stars and planets wheeling beyond. Neetra threw one hand heavenward and stood firm, whilst upon her small palm with a hundred feet of nothingness between them balanced a colossal column of gold that was scaling at lightspeed into the universe.

The farns were chanting and dancing once more, this time a pounding primal refrain, stamping their feet and driving the ascension relentlessly on. Signs of effort were beginning to show on Neetra’s face, and although there should have been no wind, her hair and the skirt of her tunic were whipping as if blown by a gale. Still our heroine held her stance, still the farns slowly circled and sang, and still the pillar of light forged onward. Its summit was long lost in the cosmic void by now, a vanishing-point amid infinity.

Every part of Neetra trembled under the strain. Her quivering arm looked ready to drop, and the starry blackness was fading in and out of view even as the song of the farns dwindled to its hollow closing beats. With the last vestiges of all that was within her Neetra held on, and on, into the silence and materiality that ensued when it was over, and for one long second after that, then two, then more. And only then did she let go. Strengthlessly she fell, the pleats of her tunic fluttering behind.

Flashthunder rushed to her side and caught her before she hit the floor. Raising a weak hand Neetra pushed her hair out of her face, and gazed up into his limpid deep brown eyes. Apparently he was even prettier at close range. It was the sort of thing she couldn’t help noticing.

“The message was sent,” Neetra whispered to him. “It’ll take longer to get there than psychic signals usually do, because it’s got further to go...but it’ll reach Earth before the Solidity does. We made it.”