Chapter 29: Crystal

-- Crystal --

I awoke depressed.

Another day to get through. I rolled out of Kegan’s arms and moved over so I could flop back onto my back. I thought about Vaughn and Harmony. It has been nearly three months since my portal book said he had connected to a portal on another planet.

He has tried to send me there, but for some reason, the portal on the other side refuses to let him send me. ‘I didn’t meet protocols’, were the replies that Vaughn got. He even connected to the portal on Lindeman Island in Queensland, but it too refused me.

He told me it was December 2101 on Earth and that Earth, Harmony, Utopia and Amity were in time sync. He had even synced to six other planets and their operational portals. But each time he tries to send me to any of the portals, we’d get the same responses.

The damage to my magical items and me has me trapped here. I don’t feel that I’d gotten a lot sicker in the last six years, but I’m not getting better either. It was as if I had an incurable cancer and it liked to remind me every so often that I still had it, despite my efforts to eradicate it. Each time it ate a little more of my soul.

I’d recently turned sixty-one years old in Earth years. If Daniel still lived, he would be twenty-three. I giggled and said allowed, “I wonder what he would say if I told him that if he’d come back here with me, he would now be forty.”

“What?” Kegan said looking at me bleary eyed. She was being cuddled from behind by Targe. She was as sexy and as handsome as the day I had met her. Targe was even more so and seemed even younger than before he put the bling on.

They were both very considerate lovers and reacted to my moods better than the other two couples did. I smiled at Kegan, then leant over and gently kissed her. She happily kissed me back. I did love my consorts in my own way. I had learnt that there were different types of loves.

They had been putting up with my crap for twenty-five years. I knew they loved me in a similar fashion. They were more in love with their partners than me. While they all still join me in bed regularly, they preferred to be with their partners. Even Dane had settled down in that respect.

Dane was always happy to fuck me, but he was Merry’s girl the rest of the time. I think he liked to let his male side out and I was the outlet he liked to use. He was still more open to our once a month free for all than the others without any pushing from me.

If he found me feeling low, or in need of a magical boost he’d happily give me a good reaming. It’s hard to be sad after Dane’s finished with you. Kegan would do so, as well. Merry and Targe not as much unless their partner was included. Nonetheless, if I indicated that I needed them, they always complied and did their best to please me.

Rene and Reed tended to stick to the schedule. They rarely interacted with the other four unless it was the monthly fuck fest. If I wanted more than one couple, it was a good idea to swap them for the other two.

It wasn’t that they said no or that they didn’t participate, but I got the impression that they felt happier if it was just we three on their nights. They liked to work as a team, and I did enjoy the way they made love to me.

After we had stopped travelling so often, I’d instigated tenth-day as the consorts’ day off. They didn’t have to join me. I’d put a big bed in the portal room, and I slept there. I found I often woke in a better mood if I did. Since Vaughn told me about the propagation of the portal books, I’d been sleeping in this room every night.

This morning though I was just off and felt unsettled. I’d enjoyed having Targe and Dane with me the night before, but I was depressed. My moods still oscillated. I’d found they weren’t as manic as they had been when I was travelling.

Sleeping under the crystals seemed to help. I likened it to getting my dose of chemo. If I went to long without it, I really suffered. Veldor, as I called my entity, wasn’t getting better and he really worried me. He pined for his lost love, and either didn’t want to or couldn’t move on.

I’d been thinking a lot recently about how I affected my consorts. I’d felt for a long time that I was using these wonderful people, and I hated that I had to use them to stay sane. I hated that they were tied to me and that I couldn’t free them to live their lives without me intruding. I was a parasite on them.

I knew that I just hated myself the most.

The day started out slow.

My shifter consorts have all had three kids each, and they are even grandparents. Interestingly they had only birthed kids to their partners, and all fell pregnant while in a session with me. I was always most welcome if one of them was in season and wished to fall pregnant. They were some of the good times that we had.

Rene’s oldest kid had married Kegan’s, and they had a two-year-old child. Reed’s daughter has married Dane’s daughter and had given us the second grandchild. Dane’s next oldest had married Kegan’s second child and was pregnant.

Renee and Reed’s next oldest kids had married kids from two other towns. Reed’s second kid had even married one of Colin’s kids making him and his people happy. We’d had a bit of an explosion of kids in the last twenty-five years. With different communities interacting more, more people had gotten married.

Since I wasn’t expecting my consorts to entertain me, I made Tenth-day, family day. We opened up the big diner, and everyone turned up. The consorts’ and their kids’ extended families were also invited. They all loved spending Tenth-day together. They made a big happy and loving family.

Despite my deficiencies, our city ran well these days. Many of the smaller Shires were working together, and we were a happy island community. I’ve spent a lot of time making sure each town had good roads and electricity. Merry has been encouraging ships that visited to come back and bring their friends to increase trade.

I was always included in family days, and I loved all their kids and even the grandkids, but I was more the benevolent aunt than a parent that they loved. I’d supplied all eight of the oldest kids with two gem boxes, and they helped a lot with keeping the other towns happy.

I have noticed that the gem sets the consorts wore were a lot healthier these days. They still had the odd dark spot in their auras, but they didn’t seem to affect them with pronounced mood swings as mine still did to me. I suspect that their love for each other and their kids help keep them on the straight and narrow.

Veldor still had sulk sessions and occasional outbursts of anger that affected me, but it was getting harder to feel him most of the time. His lack of interaction with me was just as worrying. I often felt as if I was living in a bubble and only observing life and not living it.

I stayed at the get-together long enough to eat lunch with them and admire their off-spring, but I pleaded tiredness and left early. This had become more of a habit too. Kegan, bless her, gave me a worried look. She, being a Physic mage, seemed to pick up on my moods faster than the others did.

I gave her a kiss and a hug. I told her, “I’m just going to go talk to Vaughn. I don’t feel sociable today.” I know they were worried about me, bless them. If anything, their worry only made me sadder.

I made my way to the portal room. I’d added a comfortable lounge chair near the book, and it faced the Ring. I’d even added what I still called a small fridge for drinks and snacks. I used the top of it as a side table. I’d often giggle and called the cave my ‘man cave’ as Mike used to refer to his special place where he vegged out.

I wondered what he and Michael were doing these days. I hope I hadn’t screwed their lives up too badly. I hoped the spells I’d put on them that relegated me to a distant but pleasant memory still worked. I pushed the thought away. It wasn’t productive and only depressed me more. I tried to think about other things.

Oddly, I suddenly thought about that strange android that had visited here. Silver, yes that was what she called herself. I wondered if they did get that controller working. Olive had been able to give them a node, but we couldn’t activate her fully. She’d said the controller would be confused if she didn’t find systems attached.

Silver hadn’t thought that her city on Federation would let me in. She was very sorry that my items were damaged. She told me her mage had fixed his items and he had four gems. She called him a High Mage and said he was a very accomplished mage.

I had six High Mages by her reckoning, but they hadn’t fixed me. I wonder what he did differently. Silver had recommended that I should go visit him as his city didn’t have shields and would let me in. I never did get to Green Island.

On a whim, I asked Vaughn to pull up a map of Amity. I sat and stared at it for some time as I replayed in my mind where we did go. We went to a lot of places over the fifteen years we travelled. I then realised that Green Island was the only large Island we didn’t get to visit.

We were going to go there, but we had hit storms when we were in the Nut Islands and had ended up heading for Saran’s east coast to outrun the storms. We’d found several deserted cities there and even a shielded one that had that nasty android, but no help for me.

“Vaughn,” I said looking at the book. I had to smile, as I’d have truly gone nuts without him to distract my mind. I considered him my best friend, which was a sad indictment on my part that I related to an inanimate object rather than people.

“Yes, Mistress,” he replied.

“Is there a portal on Green Island?” I asked.

He took a little while to answer. Then he finally said, “Yes. That was odd. It wasn’t on my list until you asked and I scanned for it. Another oddity is that I now seem to be able to access one that had been in a section of Torus that is on that island. They have both accepted a portal book,” he replied happily.

“Does Green Island have a shield over either of the portals?” I asked in excitement. I hoped that the mage hadn’t erected one since I’d met Silver.

He took another couple of moments to answer, “Not both. It has an unshielded city called Horn City, and it has a controller called Candy. The ship does have a shield and a controller called Toffee. I have informed Olive that she does have a daughter and that Candy then provided the node for the ship.”

“Candy said that their High Mage, a Bull Bron Horn was able to activate her with the help of his other mages. The knowledge that you and Olive had added helped enormously. Olive is now linked to her daughters and very excited to learn of them.”

He sounded very pleased to have this information. He was the most inquisitive book, and I often thought he worked outside the bounds of being just a portal book. He seemed to do it as much for me as for himself.

I think he has a bit of soft spot for me and that he felt responsible for me being stuck here. I’d tried to tell him many times it wasn’t his fault. Nonetheless, he seemed bound to help me as much he could, even if only to act as a sounding board and keeping me informed of trivial things to entertain me.

“Mistress, I seem to be able to connect to new systems. For some reason, I’d not had access to the protocols to the new probes. The fact that they don’t come from this planet could be why. My latest query seems to have instigated the old probes to try to connect to newer ones. Olive can also now access these systems.”

He paused and then said with excitement, “A controller called JJ, who is on an orbiting ship, has been trying to probe our shield to connect to Olive. She is delighted to find us. She’d not been able to connect to the controllers on Green Island either. It seems that whatever code deficiencies we had, she has been able to rectify.”

“Crystal I have excellent news for you. JJ says the decad of wizards has been completed. It happened just after I was able to connect to Harmony. She says a new Lord Wizard came here just over a year ago and had been looking for his people.”

“We also have a full sextet of Pix Wizards. The people who came here from Earth six months ago on JJ had a set of boxes. They completed their sextet when the second ship from Earth turned up here five months ago.”

I sat there in shock. I wasn’t the only wizard anymore. We had two sets of wizards. I can finally get someone to help me. I stared at the map. Where should I go? My box is a Pix box. Surely a sextet of Pix wizards should be able to fix another Pix box.

“Where are the Pix wizards, Vaughn?”

I had to smile at Vaughn’s smug answer.

“They are in a shielded city called Nickel City in Federation. It is in the mountains at the end of the Slit. You won’t be able to enter there, but JJ says that she can send them a message to come and visit you unless you prefer to go visit them.”

‘Damn, ‘ I thought. I can’t teleport that far, I’d have to go by ship. I couldn’t chance that they would ignore my request. I’m sure they were busy if they hadn’t been on this planet long. They probably had their hands full with dealing with Domo Ethan.

I’d only met him once. He wasn’t a very pleasant man. We only traded with Domo Leslie. Captain Peters who currently traded with Merry’s ship has recently said things were getting bad in Garson. They seemed to have a lot of bad magician’s, and Ethan was giving Leslie a lot of grief.

At least I knew I wasn’t responsible for them. Well, I hope not. Ethan and that Aunt Di of his had both made my skin crawl when I had met them. Ethan hadn’t been the Domo then, but his mother had been very sick.

I’d tried to heal her. I suspected she was being poised and knew she was in good health when I left. She had even gotten pregnant again before I left. I heard a few years later that she had sickened again and died, and I knew she shouldn’t have done so. I realised it had been nearly twenty-two years since I had been in Federation.

I also suspected Di had come from Topaz Island and was related to Colin’s lot. I don’t know where she had gotten the High Mage bling from, as my items were all here. I then realised I’d not fully searched the ship I had here, fully before I left the first time.

My current Colin had mentioned some years ago that his ancestors had searched the ship. I know they hadn’t found my stash, as it was still there when I came back. They had damn near ripped the ship apart though. I wasn’t happy when I found it like that.

He’d also mentioned they had found some odd magical items in some of the bedrooms. If my items had been corrupted, I wondered what state those items would have been in, and possibly were still in.

If Colin’s relatives had claimed them, then it was possible Di had learnt to make new magical items. Silver had said that her High Mage had. So why couldn’t Di do it too? And she has been around a lot longer than Silver’s Bron. At least several hundred years that I knew of. Shit! I had to go to Federation.

I wasn’t sure how I could help, but I knew that I had to go.

It would take me close three weeks to get there.

That’s what I believed anyway. I headed to the wharf. I need to see which ships were here. I was sure Captain Peters wasn’t here so I’d need to find another ship, a fast one if I could. I didn’t come down her often. If I saw the ships, I wanted to get on one, so I’d stayed away. This time I needed to get on one.

While the years of travelling had been frustrating, I love going to new places. This time was different. I felt that I really had to go. I looked at what was on offer. I walked down the main jetty looking at the six ships we had in port. It was the last one that halted me.

I could see that she was a magical ship. I really wanted to get on that ship. She was sleeker than the other ships. She could still haul a decent amount of cargo, but the set of her sails and her pristine hull told me she was fast.

A young man came down the gangplank. He looked at me quizzically and came over to me. “Can I help you? Are you lost?” he asked politely.

“Yes, but I doubt you can help with that,” I replied as I looked him over.

He was a real honey. He had long sable hair that was tied back. His skin was darker like mine, and he was nearly as tall as I was. His looks were Genteli but not pure. I knew he was a shifter. He was also wearing magical items. I looked at him in surprise, “Four gems? A High Mage?”

He gave me a cheeky grin and replied, “Five Gems? A Wizard?”

I chuckled and bowed my head, “G’day, I’m Crystal. Who are you?”

He bowed more deeply. “Sable Horn at your service, Wizard Crystal. I’m sorry Silver couldn’t come. She and my father wish to thank you for your help several years ago. Candy has been a great asset to us. She was even able to supply a bud for our spaceship and Toffee is doing well.” He pointed over to my spaceship.

I think my grin went from ear to ear. “Now isn’t that odd. I was only thinking about Silver not an hour ago,” I told him.

“She is very happy. She gave up sailing and lives with Rose and my father now. So do you like my ship? I have a zooid crew of six and three other shifters. Captain Rita retired, and I have been trying my hand at being a ship’s captain,” he said gesturing at his ship.

“Yes, she is a fast looking ship. Where are you going next?” I asked, as I looked the ship over with a critical eye and couldn’t find any faults with her.

“Galina. I decided to stop here on the way to say thank you,” he told me.

“Any chance I can hire you for a special charter?” I asked.

He gave me a quizzical look, “Where to and why?”

“Federation, I must go and see Domo Leslie,” I told him.

He grimaced, “Not a nice place these days. Although I’ve heard Domo Leslie’s side of the Slit has become a lot safer. We haven’t been sending ships to Garson or even Federation for some years. My father won’t deal with them. Pirates tried to board one of our ships, so he told Domo Ethan all trade agreements were cancelled.”

“Can they board this ship?” I asked with interest.

He gave me another one of his cheeky grins, “Not a hope in hell. My father put the original spells on this ship, and I’ve added a few of my own. Anyone with desires to do bad things will not be able to cross the gangplank.”

I frowned at this. I really wanted his ship. My itch to go, now also included him. He was very special and one of those odd little premonitions I get said he had to come with me. I’ve learnt never to ignore them. I intuitively knew coercion wouldn’t work on Sable and his ship would know.

“Can I buy you dinner? I have a story to tell you, and you will have to judge if I worthy to help,” I said.

I could see he was intrigued, so he agreed. We went to one of the better taverns, and I was immediately shown to a private dining room. We soon had drinks and nibble food to keep us entertained, while we waited for the main meal.

I placed a sound shield spell in the room and started my tale. I was brutally honest about my history. I knew that with Sable only honesty would work. He had this way of looking at me with his cat’s eyes, which told me when I had first locked eye with him, that lying was a waste of time. He seemed a lot older than his looks said he was.

When I told him about Michael, he took my hand and held it firmly. Tears fell when I told him about Mike and Daniel. I still miss my son. I explained my problem with my entity and my bling and my other box and my search for a wizard to fix me. Lastly, I told him about Di and explained that I had to go and warn the new wizards. I was exhausted when I finished.

I’d had to stop and start several times when food and fresh drinks arrived and when I needed to gain my composure. It was odd; I’ve never really told anyone about my past, not as I just told Sable. Once I started, it just seemed to explode from me.

Sable rarely interrupted, and he asked me few questions. He wanted to hear it my words, and I knew that he had paid attention to every word I said. He sat back from the table, and I felt him judging me. His expression was neutral, and he had the best poker face I’ve ever seen, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and I didn’t dare probe.

“Fuck me!” he said while shaking his head slowly. “You’ve had had one shitty life, Crystal. Crystal, I believe at heart you are a good person. I noticed the dark spots in your aura. But they are different from ones I’ve seen on people who have deliberately corrupted their items. They are like the spots I saw on mother Greta’s blink before father, Bea and Cora fixed them.”