[The White Raven, Chapter 19, Hidden Truths] [Eagle Province, Planet Darai] “There is only one Goddess, and it is I.” The world shifted in Ring’s eyes, a fiery wavering of frozen flames passed over his vision. He stood alone with the Eagle Goddess on the cliffs over-looking the ocean, and his eyes were truly clear for the first time in his life. Ring saw the boundless teeming life of the planet around him, and he felt alive. Ring watched the Eagle Goddess’ form shift and she became the terrifying figure of the Raven Goddess, and then the small child Goddess of the Sparrows, and yet again to the warrior Hawk Goddess… then the sharp-eyed all knowing Grackle Goddess… and the fierce primal Cassoway Goddess… and even the sandy haired and free spirited Struthian Goddess. Her form continued to shift as she showed Ring each of her thousands of incarnations. “Enough,” begs Ring. “I am only mortal, we have always known there is only one Goddess, though only at the deepest point of our consciousness, but seeing them all at once in one form is too much for me.” “Oh, my son, you are so much more,” says the Goddess. “Why have you come to me?” asks Ring. “I am not worthy of your attention, you should be speaking with Raen.” “Child, you above all others have bathed yourself in the darkest shadows of a Raven, and embraced the darkest pleasures of the night.” “I was a drug addict, nothing more,” says Ring. “No, my dark son,” says the Goddess. “You were a true Raven and pursued the darkness as you were intended. And, I suspect that you will now be driven with a single minded obsession to soar the greatest heights as an eagle.” “What do you want of me?” asks Ring, his dark sunken eyes flickering in the sunlight. “The Demonians are coming, and with them the end of our world, the end of the prophecy.” “The Demonians are going to destroy us?” asks Ring incredulously. “No, it is the Demonians and the Daraians being together again that will bring the Corax.” “I don’t understand,” says Ring. “What has the Daraian Bible got to do with the destruction of Darai?” “Are you ready to walk with the gods and accept the fate of all creation on your shoulders?” asks the Goddess. “Heavens and Ancestors… No!” cries Ring. “I am no fool, my Goddess, I do not know what you plan, but I do know you are about to drop the world on me, and you have the wrong avian.” “You, and only you, can lead the next fight that is coming,” says the Goddess. Ring shakes his head and drops his eyes. “An eagle would have accepted the challenge without question, but you are not yet an eagle, therefore I will speak to you in a language you can understand, my beautiful Raven boy. You will obey me or I will rip the wings off your eagle hatchlings one by one and toss them over the cliffs.” Ring turns even more pale than normal and his dark sunken eyes narrows, but he drops his head, defeated. He knows the Raven Goddess would do such a thing. “I will obey,” whispers Ring. The ground spins away, and then Ring is above the planet, and that spins away too, and then the galaxies are moving and he is moving with them and across the endless space of the universe. A billion years pass, or a single moment, it is all the same, and he is looking down on a planet he has never seen before. The stars are not in any formations he knows, and great ships that would dwarf even the largest Daraian Battle Carrier are hovering in orbit around the planet. “That is Corax,” says the voice of the Goddess. Ring is standing in space above the planet alone, the Goddess is not with him, but he can hear her voice. “Corax?” asks Ring. “As in the Corvus Corax?” “A misprint long ago,” explains the Goddess. “You have never seen an original manuscript of the book, the last one faded away with time long ago. The book is called ‘Corvus ae Corax’.” “Corvus of the Corax?” replies Ring in the modern tongue of Darai. “Yes, I am Corvus, and that planet was the birth place of my species. It is gone now, destroyed in a civil war, the Corax live on many other worlds now.” “A planet of Gods,” whispers Ring. “No, child, we are not gods, though our technology is so advanced that to you we would seem to be.” One of the ships passes close to Ring and it is as if a continent just passed by him. Ring suspects the ship is a war ship. “The Universe has only given birth to two species, all other species are descendants of the Corax and the Aedi.” “Aedi sounds familiar,” observes Ring. “Yes, it became the root word for an early Daraian language, the word you are thinking of is aedificentium,” explains the Goddess. “That means ‘The Builders’,” says Ring. “Yes, and true to their name they were,” says the Goddess. “The Corax excelled in building of machines, primarily war machines, and expanding their Dynasty through conquest. None could stand against the Corax. The very core of the Corax is to destroy all life not worthy of existence, but the Aedi developed along a different technological path. The Corax never unlocked the secrets of creating life, we are masters of genetic manipulation, and social engineering, but we can not create life.” “And the Aedi could?” asks Ring. “Yes, they created nearly all the habitable planets of the Universe, and every species, sentient and non-sentient, that exists everywhere in the Universe. They were driven in their single minded pursuit to populate the Universe with life.” “I’m guessing the Corax didn’t like that?” says Ring. “The Corax considered it an abomination to bring unworthy life into the Universe.” The planet below Ring spun away and again he was traveling across the far reaches of space until he was standing above another world, a world of beautiful greens and blues. “This was the Aedi home world,” says the Goddess. “Their technology was far superior to the Corax in all ways except one, and even then the war to destroy the Aedi took nearly two billion years.” Ring couldn’t even conceive of a war lasting two billion years, the concept was too far beyond his understanding. “The Corax eventually discovered a weakness, and released a plague that turned the Aedi mad, and they destroyed themselves.” Ring watches the planet below him erupt in flashes of nuclear detonations until the planet was blackened and dead. Ships, even larger than the Corax war ships fled away from the planet. “Some of the Aedi survived,” says Ring. “No, my son, those are bio-teraformers, sentient machines the Aedi created, they are fleeing to the furthest reaches of the Universe.” “I want to go home,” says Ring. “I’ve seen enough, what does any of this have to do with Darai?” The planet spins away and the Goddess takes Ring across the Universe again until he is standing on the burned out world of Demonia. “Why are we here?” asks Ring staring at the barren wasteland of Demonia. “One of those Aedi machines came here and began re-seeding the Aedi species, and then the twenty-eight child races of the Aedi.” Ring puts his hands on his head in shock. “Oh ancestors, the Demonians are the re-creation of the Aedi species.” “You are partially correct,” says the Goddess. “The Aedi were two races of the same species, co-evolving on their world.” Ring bends over and puts his hands on his knees, his head is swirling, everything he thought he knew was coming unraveled. “The Daraians, we’re the other half of the Aedi,” cries Ring. “We originated here on Demonia, you didn’t create us, you stole us.” “No, child,” says the Goddess. “The Corax pursued that Aedi machine here, but I had already seen the hatching of the first Daraian, and fell in love with your species. I pleaded with the Corax for your lives, and they agreed not to destroy you until you had advanced enough to be a worthy opponent. But, under one condition, the Demonians and the Daraians could not live on the same planet. I took you from here to the Eagle Cliffs of Darai and you flourished.” “The Dragon is real,” says Ring. “She’s our true Goddess.” “Yes, child, she is real,” admits the Goddess. “But remember, I am the one that nurtured your species, not her. She was a young newly sentient being, and she violated the doctrine of the Aedi by becoming emotionally attached to her creations. She was so grief stricken when I took you away that she withdrew to a hiding place and went to sleep. I knew where she was once, but she wakes in a dreaming slumber and moves occasionally, and I no longer know where she is sleeping.” “And now the Demonians and the Daraians are on the same world together,” says Ring. “Yes, the Corax will be coming, as I have laid down in the prophecy.” “I’ll need to begin producing the Naylocliano seed right away and repair Demonia so they can go home before the Corax arrive,” says Ring. “No, my son, when the Dragon went to sleep, there were still several worlds she had not yet completed. I tried to reproduce the Aedi technology and was unable, but I did manage to produce the Naylocliano seed, and that allowed me to finish what she started. But, the Naylocliano seed is not strong enough to terraform an entire world.” Ring stands, closes his eyes for a moment, and then looks at the Goddess. “Then there is no hope,” says Ring. “Perhaps you are not our true mother, but will you stay and fight with us to the end?” “Do not give up so easily, child,” says the Goddess. “I am not so weak as that, I held the first Daraian egg, and I will not abandon my children. But now, I have given you the entire truth, and that brings us to the two things I require of you.” “You have a plan?” asks Ring. The Goddess holds her hand out. Ring looks down, and in the palm of the Goddess’ hand are three seeds. “I stole these from the Dragon long ago,” says the Goddess. “There were four, but I destroyed one making the Naylocliano seed, these are the original seeds the Dragon used to create Demonia.” The Goddess takes Ring’s hand and places the three seeds in his palm. “I am trapped by my own technology,” says the Goddess. “But you may be able to unlock their secret… you must unlock the secret, and produce more.” “How much?” asks Ring. “I watched the seeding machines working when Demonia was created, the skies were filled with endless clouds of these seeds.” “At least it’s hope,” says Ring nodding and closing his fist around the three seeds. “You said you needed two things, what is the other?” “My own self-preservation,” says the Goddess. “Would you deny me the chance to save myself if all is lost in the end?” “Of course not,” says Ring. “Just… umm… if it comes to that, take two eggs and flee, save our species.” “That is not as easy to do as say,” says the Goddess stepping to within a breath of Ring. “I have some limits with what I can do with this illusion of a body. Carina solved it by having a son, Jon Black, to protect him and carry his Orb to safety. I ask for you to give me a daughter that will protect me, and carry my Orb when the time arrives.” The Goddess wraps her arms around Ring and presses her lips to his. Ring’s eyes widen as he understands what the Goddess requires. Ring opens his eyes, he’s lying on his sleeping mat under the stars. They don’t have any cabins built yet and… wait… what? The memories flood back and Ring is unsure how he got here. Vel is next to him and… crying. “Vel, what’s wrong?” asks Ring. “Oh Ring, I don’t know how it happened?” “What happened?” asks Ring. Vel rolls over and looks at him, her face is streaked with tears. Ring gently lays his hand on his dearest mate, there is no finer mate. She has stayed with him through the worst horrors of the Temple, and now traveled with him across the ocean to a strange new place. “I’m carrying an egg,” says Vels. “That’s wonderful,” says Ring. “No, you don’t understand,” sobs Vel. “The egg is fertilized, I can feel it growing, but I swear I haven’t been with anyone else. And we haven’t… you know… because we’ve been too busy with everything. I don’t know how this could happen.” “Oh my darling love,” says Ring stroking her hair. “I have an unbelievable story to tell you.” Ring opens his hand and Vel looks down at the three seeds in the palm of his hand. ***** [Demonian Evacuation Fleet, Interior of Struthio Continent] Cody was stronger than he appeared and carried the sleeping Zan from the transport ship. The eighteen minutes of descent had rapidly used up the precious oxygen the Darts had provided. Cody didn’t understand how so much oxygen could be put inside an oxygen bottle, but he did know that when the little red needle got to the red area on the dial that the bottle was almost empty. “Red on Red, it’s time to change the bottle,” Cody sang the little jingle Gaevin had taught him. Only there were no more bottles left, and Cody decided it was time to go. The Demonians were pushing and shoving towards the hatch and the first breath of fresh air in over a month. A few Demonians shoved Cody in their near panic for the fresh air, and Cody shoved back. He made it down the ramp, but then had another problem. Gaevin said there were snakes. Cody scanned the ground and didn’t see any snakes, but snakes live underground, one might come up and bite Zan. Knowing nothing else to do, Cody remained standing and holding Zan. He was strong, but the weight of his friend was beginning to get to him, and it was hot. His arms were starting to shake and he was sweating terribly. “What are you doing?” asks Zam walking up to Cody. “Papa said there’s snakes,” replied Cody. Zam puts his arms under his brother and takes some of the weight off Cody’s aching arms. “I was wrong about you,” says Zam. “Most people just want something from us, but you were just going to stand there and hold him because he’s your friend. It’s okay, Demonians are immune to everything venomous, set him down.” Cody scanned the ground again just to make sure and then lowers Zan down to the ground. “Your father’s looking for you,” says Zam. “I’ll take care of my brother now.” Cody drops his head and takes a step back. “No, I’m not chasing you away,” adds Zam quickly and rolling his eyes. “You’re going on a mission, we need water.” “Oh, okay,” says Cody. Cody takes a good look around for the first time. With all the ships landing, it’s a little hard to really make out their surroundings, but he can see there aren’t any trees, just a lot of bushes, and many of those are on fire from all the ship’s engines. He finds Gaevin near the front of the transport ship checking an access panel in the side of the hull. “What are you doing, Papa?” asks Cody. “The fuel was too low for the sensors to give a reading, I’m looking to see how much we actually had left.” “How much was there?” asks Cody. “Fumes, we couldn’t have flown for another hour,” says Gaevin. “Zan’s idea to speed up the convoy probably saved everyone’s life.” “I helped,” says Cody proudly. “Yes you did,” says Gaevin pushing the access plate back on the ship. “Your mother is bringing our Dart ship, we are going for water. The Demonians haven’t had water for a month, and that’s a stretch even for them.” Gaevin turns to Cody, and freezes in shock at the sight of Cody’s wings. “Winged ancestors,” curses Gaevin. “I would never have thought to see such a thing in my lifetime.” Gaevin comes close and inspects the wings, and the harness disguising the wings. “Clever idea, who did this?” “Zam,” says Cody. “First name bases with the Prince now, are we?” says Gaevin. “Well, he did good, I don’t think anyone that doesn’t already know will notice.” Gaevin runs his hands along the wing, and then down to the wing blades. Cody giggled a little, it tickled. Gaevin pressed his fingers into Cody’s back and then down his side and around to his chest. “We’ve got it all wrong,” says Gaevin. “You have four extra support bones in your back, not two, and you have an extra rib here, and here, and another here. And what is this?” Gaevin pushes against Cody’s chest again and follows around to the back support bones. “I’ll be damned, this isn’t muscle, it’s cartilage, and the cartilage doesn’t wrap around to the back, it runs down the rib cage. You have to understand, we only have a few petrified remains of early Daraians, everything was just guess work.” Cody wiggles his wings. “Papa, it tickles, stop.” “Wait, do that again,” says Gaevin. Cody wiggles his wings again. “Oh ancestors, we really got it wrong,” says Gaevin. “We’ve based everything off bird wings, but these… these are something completely different. Your individual feathers appear to be able to independently rotate, the control you would be capable of during flight will be amazing. I wonder if you can create enough lift from a standing position for a vertical take-off. Beat your wings, I want to see what happens.” Cody spreads his wings, gives a little hop timed with the downward motion of his wings, and then he’s in the air. Gaevin realizes his mistake too late, Cody has felt the air for the first time and beats his wings harder and is gone into the sky. Thankfully it is night, and with the confusion of all the ships landing, nobody is paying attention to the first flight of the Eagle. Gaevin is a Hawk and can see well at night, not as well as a Falcon, but almost as well. Cody beats his wings and gains altitude, easily dodges a few landing ships, twists and turns, and then in a maneuver no glider wing could perform, spirals to the ground as if he were holding a pole and spinning around it as he descended. “Was that good,” asks Cody landing nimbly on the ground. “Yes, but from now on, watch how other Daraians fly and don’t do anything they can’t do, or they’ll know those aren’t glider wings.” “Okay.” “Here comes your mother,” says Gaevin. Mae lands the Dart ship and Cody has to endure the poking and prodding again when Mae sees his wings. “The harness is a good idea,” says Mae. “But we can improve on it a little, we’ll dye his wings Hawk brown and the leather harness will blend better.” “We need to get going,” says Gaevin. “I’m told there is a House nearby willing to share their water.” “That is very kind of them,” says Mae. “I like it here already.” ***** [House Eagle, Struthio Continent, Eagle Cliffs] A long line wound from the camp to the small shallow river that ran to the cliffs and spilled over into the falls. The eagles were passing buckets, containers, water bottles, and just about anything else that could carry water to a large collection pile. “Keep it moving,” shouts Raen. “We have an entire fleet of Darts on the way to get this water for the Demonians.” “Did Lord Struthio say how long before we can get some real Water Transport ships?” asks Vas. “Maybe by tomorrow afternoon,” replies Raen. “We’ll just make due for now, our cousins haven’t had water for a month.” “We need to build some water-sheds to collect water so they can come get what they need any time,” says Vas. “Here they come,” shouts Ring. A line of landing lights from several dozen Dart ships could be seen on the horizon. “Where you been, Ring?” asks Vas. “I’ll tell you later,” says Ring. “Oh, and see those tall green plants over there.” “Yea,” “I can show you how to put a tap on them,” says Ring. “They are full of water. Doesn’t taste great, but it’s drinkable.” “Really, I thought they were just prickly tree things,” says Vas. “They’re called cactus, and they are all over the place,” says Ring. “Grows in abundance here on the Struthio continent.” The first Dart ship lands and Raen runs over to greet it. A large middle-aged Hawk jumps out of the cockpit and is joined by a Hawk woman and a small Hawk boy. “Greetings, I’m Raen of House Eagle.” The Hawk freezes and has an expression as if he just saw a ghost, but the Hawk recovers quickly and holds his hand out to Raen. Raen figures they will probably get that reaction for awhile until people get used to there being a House Eagle. “Greetings, I’m Gaevin of House Hawk, and this is my mate, Mae, and my son, Cody, hope you can spare some water.” “We’ve been filling containers for a few hours, you can start with that pile over there,” says Raen. “Would your son like to join with the eagle hatchlings and help pass water?” The boy looks up at his father and nods his head eagerly. “I don’t want him to be a bother,” says Gaevin. “He’ll be fine,” says Raen. “Was he with you in the rescue fleet?” “Yes, he was,” replies Gaevin. “Then I’m sure he would like to be around some other hatchlings after that ordeal,” says Raen. “Go ahead, son,” says Gaevin hesitantly. “Your mother and I will be making several trips, you can stay here and help, and mind your manners.” “Yes, Papa,” says the boy and runs off to join the other hatchlings. “Fine looking boy,” says Raen. “It’ll be morning in a couple hours and our cook will have waffles for the hatchlings.” Raen watches the Hawk hold his hand out to his side and Raen knows he has discovered the strange air currents. “It’s the thermals off the cliffs,” says Raen. “After breakfast the hatchlings usually take a flight, I’m sure your boy will enjoy stretching his wings after that nightmare rescue you just came from.” “Yes, I’m sure he will enjoy stretching his wings,” says Master Gaevin. Raen thinks the Hawk has a reserved expression, perhaps he’s just concerned about his boy flying so close to the ocean. Raen shrugs it off and leads Master Gaevin over to the water waiting to be loaded.