BOOK SIX




ANNULUS OF CONCEPTION


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CHAPTER I


WAITING IN DOUBT




	"Krystan," came the sad voice from the veranda, "my heart feels heavy."

	"Trajan, please come in and sit down at the table.  The hour is late although one could 
hardly make a distinction between night and day in the Smaze."

	The dark hooded figure turned away from the balustrade and walked with slow steps to 
the door through which shafts of milky twilight streamed into the warmly lit hall.  The Lord Laris 
entered and his gloved fingers drew the curtains across the doorway. 

	"Krystan," he said, "this waiting and inaction over the long years is working like a curse.  
How can we be sure that we are taking the right course?" 

	"Trajan," said Krystan Schurell who stood by the mantelpiece, contemplating the hooded 
figure pensively with his deep-blue eyes, "we both agreed that this is the only course we could 
take.  Remain in the Smaze to guard the only IsoMén portal that is still working.  And wait and 
see how events develop, wait and see if and when your Other, Irwain, can turn himself around." 

	"But I cannot help asking myself again and again," Lord Schurell spoke heavily, "if I 
have done the right thing.  Whether it was a wise decision leaving Starglory in Iucari-Tres, 
whether Iucarians would heed my warning.  Only the One who can take it in his bare hand.  
Manipulating Starglory, without the power to control it, is like setting yourself on fire."  

	"I would have stayed in Iucari-Tres," Krystan said earnestly, "if I was not injured when I 
fell off that cliff in Mount Argento.  No matter the vehemence of Dama Lisaloran, I still regard it 
as an accident no one could have foreseen.  I owe it to Irwain for finding and rescuing me."

	"But he wouldn't listen to you," Lord Schurell said, seating himself slowly.  "Instead of 
telling you where he had hidden away Starglory, he brought you to Evening Star and led people 
there to believe that the old mariner whom he buried on the shores of Red Lake was him.  
Stubborn as I once was he refused to believe your arguments and you were too weak from your 
injury to resist him.  He forced you to take him to Lumentor instead through the power of your 
Star Essence, Starwind, and even then when he was told the truth, my mutilated being filled him 
with loathing.  How could he understand the graveness of our situation; his memory is totally 
gone of what he once was.  That is his curse.  My curse is carrying all the memory of the past but 
not the physical appearance.  One split in two by Starglory's Ejector Energy, the Energy of 
Peregrination.  The Purists sought to murder me but they wanted to capture Starglory for their 
own means." 

	"Could they have captured it?"

	"No, but they could capture my father and hold his family hostage, forcing him to use 
Starglory for their own interest on the threat of murdering and torturing his family before his 
eyes.  That was their plan but their timing was disastrous.  But how could they have known 
otherwise, how could their spies have known?  It was my father's decision that Starglory could 
not remain on Earth and that his children would always be in danger.  So he was going to send 
me away but not before I became a Peregrinator.  The Purists made their strike into Lumentor 
during a stage of the Annulus of Conception when my father, Lord Filimon, had already 
embodied me with all his knowledge, experience and wisdom necessary to control Starglory and 
the Core of his Essence was in the course of being transferred to me.

	"I hardly need to repeat to you what happened, Krystan.  The Annulus was brutally 
interrupted.  Starglory was in a state of raw fury before it was absorbed by me.  It broke loose, 
incinerating friend and foe, and hurled part of me, along an energy path through the voids of 
space to a distant sector of the galaxy.  But the other part was stranded here among death and 
destruction, between the rising walls of Smaze.  ME, scorched and mutilated, but alive, and so 
shall we both live on, amnesiac, tinged with madness, and crippled, deformed until we are both 
reunited in One Essence or in death.  This misery has gone on for too long.  It must end and I 
have lived too long in sorrow: I have nothing left."  

	"You have your son," Krystan persuaded gently, "the son you begot by Vereina's love, 
and whom I have adopted as my own.  She saw through your disfigured face and took you as 
who you really are.  She chose to remain at your side when you decided to leave Evening Star 
after the birth of your son and return to Lumentor."

	"Vereina, the guiding light of my life!  She wanted to Take me but I said that I could not 
Give.  She Took me nonetheless and I saw a miracle happening as I saw her body swell and 
blossom.  She bore me a child, the greatest gift she could ever have given to a wreck like me. 
'Trajan,' she had said to me, 'look upon your child and see how beautiful he is.'  And looking at 
him, he filled me with joy and grief for I knew even then I would not be given the chance of 
seeing him grow up.  I knew I have to return to Lumentor and destroy all IsoMén gateways so 
that my son, and your son, Krystan, will be safe in Iucari-Tres.  I said then: 'Trajan, he shall be 
named, Trajan Schurell, as remembrance of my shattered self.'"  The Lord sighed heavily. 
"Vereina wouldn't let me go back alone.  The Smaze ultimately killed my Lady.

	"But already I was too late," Lord Schurell continued speaking bitterly.  "And ever since 
I am asking myself, where did I go wrong and could I have done better?  For seventeen 
earthyears after Devolution I saw my handful of faithful Adherents being hunted down by that 
merciless leader of the hard-line faction of the Fraternity of Terra Reform, the Purist Carlvan.  
His father was killed by Starglory's explosive fury and he took his own rage on the Adherents, 
persecuting, torturing and killing them.

	"And I had to know where Starglory had gone.  For seventeen years hiding in the border 
region of Geosphere D'Or I worked at a solution, the IsoMén Equation, through which I could 
take my Adherents into safety.  However only a few of my Adherents remained to follow me 
into Iucari-Tres, onto Aberon, and they soon died of their injuries.  Death and pestilence seemed 
to follow me everywhere.  And even though I had brought the drawings of my design with me, 
the IsoMén Equation itself fell into the wrong hands, and brought great disaster into Iucari-Tres.  
What have I done?"

	"But you made it through the Terahydra Forest, into the river Town of Shantelar where 
Vereina's parents through the kindness of their hearts took you in.  Think of their daughter, think 
of Vereina's love.  Think of your son, Trajan!"  

	"Trajan," sighed the Lord. "What can a boy like him do, without proper guidance of the 
Peregrinators?  Even if he were to find Starglory, and Starglory were to integrate with him, he 
still would not know, could not understand what awesome forces he has absorbed.  He is too 
young, too inexperienced, he was not raised to become a Peregrinator!"

	"You were young when the Devolution occurred and you have made it so far.  I have 
arranged for Trajan to be trained as a commander, he will have the skills of a fighter, if need be.  
I know my old friend Captain Guillen will keep his promise."  

	Krystan walked to the table, laying his hands gently on the shoulders of the hooded 
figure.  "Do not put so much blame on yourself.  This is not the first intervention done by the 
Peregrinators.

	"When the Peregrinators looked upon this planet, they saw a world on the brink of 
extinction.  They also looked upon the beauties of this world, and what potential it could offer if 
it were guided in the right direction.  They decided to choose Earth for a place to procreate a 
new breed of Travellers.  It required gigantic amounts of patience and discipline and for once we 
thought our interference was somehow a worthwhile measure.  We did not anticipate the 
earthlings could be corrupted by the desire to become powerful.  Mere happiness and prosperity 
no longer seemed enough, it was the wish of many to also rule.  Could we have granted them this 
wish?"  

	"Yes, we could, but not their wish to become Lords Laris.  If they want to rule 
absolutely, we will give Earth back to them, but they also desired the power of the Lords and 
that we cannot give.  Because we Lords Laris have been disciplined to use our Cores only to 
perform life, not to destroy it.  Starlight Essences are not tools of destruction and they are still far 
away from gaining this absolute self-control.  But here we are, surrounded by the ruins of our 
failure.  Extinction has become a matter of choice, and howsoever noble our intentions were, our 
intervention had driven this world back to the brink of extinction.  And it pained me to think that 
through our noble measures a far, innocent world could have become tainted as well." 

	"A far world where the intervention was successful," Krystan said with a pensive smile, 
"You saw the peculiar hereditary markings on the skins of their backs.  Markings of the Exiles 
whom we thought lost in antiquity."

      "I saw those markings myself but it was not an intervention but rather an experiment that 
began in Phylee-Patre.  So the Exiles came, saw, threw their seeds of new beginnings into the 
winds of fate of the planet and left.  It was Iucari-Tres that succeeded, not us.  And that was 
what my father should have done, according to many voices of dissension among the 
Peregrinators themselves.  Throw the seeds and leave but not settle down.  That was the worst 
interference my father committed, settle down and raise a family."

      "Interference or rather deep-seated desire to become committed to a world rather than 
itinerant among stars?  I have committed my own interference in wedding dear Norielle, who, I 
did not know at first, is a far kindred.  I will never forget the moment when I saw her on the 
shores of Red Lake, after arriving in Iucari-Tres on my quest for Starglory, nearly forty-one 
earthyears after your arrival but you have already induced Irwain to find it."

	"Dear Octavyn had done well in sending you away in good time, Krystan.  Thinking of 
you, away safe as the last Schurell, has often kept me going, but your Core, Starwind, would not 
be strong enough to control Starglory.

	"At that time influencing Irwain to find our Core and bring it back to civilization seemed 
to me the only course.  Irwain was Lar Protector then and I thought Starglory would be safe with 
him.  I had hoped that he would be able to tame it as well but it appeared that We, as Two, 
cannot handle it.  We have to become One again, but meanwhile Irwain prefers the pursuits of 
battle and government, and you and I can only sit here and wait for Fate to put the pieces 
together." 

	Lord Schurell left his seat, pacing the room with laboured steps.  "Trajan, as my firstborn, 
is our only hope, although I fear the boy is too fragile to handle such a difficult task, and we 
cannot leave Lumentor without the protection of Starwind.  The Unliving have been waiting for 
the right moment ever since to raze Lumentor to the ground and seize the portal that leads to 
Aberon on Evening Star."

	"Maybe," Krystan said, "we have to make a hard decision.  We have kept the portal open 
because we both hope that one day we may return to Iucari-Tres and be reunited with our loved 
ones.  But perhaps the time has come to seal off that access to Aberon to protect them."

	Lord Schurell turned to Krystan abruptly.  Although Krystan could not see his misshapen 
face under the black shade of the hood, he could hear the voice of the Lord speaking with 
stirring conviction:  "No, Krystan!  These past days I've felt something and it grows stronger as 
the days go by.  Now I know what it is.  My son has arrived in this Sphere!  I have felt his 
thoughts and emotions beating and pulling at me, reaching towards the Smaze and towards 
Lumentor.  You are right, Krystan, he has great forces of his own, he has the inborn power of his 
Noetic Transmittance!  If only he could learn to use this power in the right way.  If only I could 
be there standing at his side for his enemies are many and strong, and treachery is rampant.  But 
what am I saying?  His path will cross that of Irwain.  I am sure of that, and Irwain will do 
everything in his power to protect Trajan, who in essence is his son too!"