Lee Wanaselja

Chapter 1

 

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The Horn of Summoning

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Were all the things which appeared as mythology on earth, 

                                                 scattered through other worlds as realities?           

                                                                                                                                           ~ C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

 

 

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     On the surface of Aanoth, on a high bluff overlooking the Great Eastern Sea, stood a centaur. In his right hand he held an ivory horn banded with brass which he had been sounding up into the heavens and in his left, he gripped an ash-wood straight staff.  

     Shaking his shaggy beard and mane, Keiron the centaur looked up at the deep red sky as the two suns began to set.  The smaller yellow dwarf sun, Asaa, orange now, was in front of the larger red giant sun, Adaa and higher on the horizon. But as they set Adaa seems to expand along the horizon until it fills up the curvature of Aanoth completely.

     Keiron stamped his front hoof impatiently. His shimmering silver forelocks quivered. He pounded the ground with the butt of his staff in frustration. Startled, a band of fair faë folk flew up into the air on filmy wings. They had been gathering the evenings dew that lay on the grass in small buttercups and were disturbed by his stamping and shaking the ground. They buzzed around the centaur scolding him, then flew off to find a less hazardous field. Keiron took no notice of the fairies. 

     He looked up at the suns. His bronze-colored face and upper human body and the brassy flanks of his lower horse body were all painted with the colors of the sunset: red, orange and gold. He looked to be on fire. But there was no fire in his face. It was lined and weary with too many ages of living. Seabirds glided on a cool sea breeze that blew off the water but he didn’t take notice of them or the breeze. This evening he was tired and down-hearted. He leaned on his staff heavily and sighed.

     How many days has it been now? He counted a score and one since he dreamt of the boy. Why the delay? Why had not the gods responded? Had his horn gone amiss? Had he misunderstood Master Aurelius’ instructions: to seek out the Horn of Summoning? - as it will allow them to pinpoint the one they seek.

     Looking up into the darkening sky above the red giant sun, he glimpsed the flicker of a distant star. One he knew well. Sol. The sun of his home planet—Earth. It had been nearly two thousand earth years since last he stepped hoof on its green hills.

     He closed his eyes and imagined himself back there. Before him lay the hills of Thessaly and the distant shimmering Aegean Sea. He felt the single eye of Sol gaze down on him and caress his then young face and limbs with her warmth. A smile spread across his lips. He reared up on his hind legs and shouted in delight. Then he saw a young man coming toward him, Jason, smiling proudly with the golden fleece draped over one shoulder.  The lad he had tutored. One of many. He reached out to greet him but just when their hands would have clasped, the vison faded. As did his smile.

     Jason would be in Valhöll now. As would most of the others he had mentored over the ages and across many worlds. And to what purpose? At one time he fancied he knew the answer.  But now he just shook his beard and mane again unsure. Then he refocused on the distant star.

     “I would come to you, O sun of my youth,” he said, “Once more. If you will have me. Before I too am summoned to the Halls of Valhöll. I would have my bones laid to rest in the soil of Mount Pelion.”

     He half expected to hear Sol reply. With a sigh, Keiron turned to leave. He would try the horn again on the morrow as he had done every day since the dream. He was a teacher, an oracle and seer. He knew when a dream was prophetic and when it was just a muddle of images caused by a sour meal. This dream was prophetic. Nay, it was more. It was a response. An answer to all their prayers. This other boy in his night dream was the one they were waiting for. The one he was waiting for. His last student.

     A movement caught the corner of his eye. He looked up at the big red sun again. Something was shimmering in the midst of it. Or was it just his weary eyes?

     A vast spray of light particles burst out of the sun and arched down toward the planet. Like a bridge of light, it continued to shimmer and form and grow down the breath of the sky and towards him. As the bridge extended closer to him, he could just make out a small figure with four legs and a tail running along the light bridge and just behind its forming. Keiron gasped as the light bridged came down and stopped just short of the bluff he was standing on. The running creature hopped down and stood on its hind legs and bushy tail in front of the centaur. Over his shoulder was slung a large fiery horn.

     “Hail Master Keiron.” said the creature.

     The centaur backed up instinctively.

     “Fear not. I am Lightleaper, messenger of Zuus, High Steward of Auldfyir. I have come in response to your sounding the Horn of Petition.” Light particles and smoke steamed off of him and swirled in the air looking as if he had recently been burning. His eyes glowed with a green fire.

     Keiron looked down at the horn in his hand then went down on one knee, laying his staff aside to show respect to a herald of Auldfyir.

     “Bend not the knee to me my friend,” said Lightleaper as he helped Keiron back up on his feet, “I am as you are. A bowl for the gods to pour into and spill out as they wish—to further the will of Ellovah.”

     Now in his true size, Lightleaper was about the same height and stature as the centaur.

     Keiron stamped his foot and said, “You are late.” 

     Lightleaper smiled, paused a moment and replied, “I was waylaid. But know this,” he continued, “that from the first time you laid lips to your horn and petitioned Ellovah, I was dispatched to you. It was He who poured the dream of the lad into your sleep.”

     He unslung his horn and offered it to Keiron. “I give you the Horn of Summoning. You may use it to call the lad hence. Or go to him yourself.”

     Keiron looked at the horn and hesitated. The instrument was still smoldering and glowing hot.

     “Fear not,” said Lightleaper, “it will not harm you. You but see the last flicker of the fire we have passed through. Which was our trial and not yours.”

     True to his word, when Keiron took the horn, it burned him not. But he suddenly felt a great longing surge down his arms and into his breast for the Elorium realms and the far heights of the Shining Leaves.

     When he came to himself again, Lightleaper was already bounding back up the light bridge. Keiron cried out, “Wait. There is more I would ask of you.”

     “I have other matters to attend to Master Keiron,” replied Lightleaper over his shoulder, “urgent matters.”

     As Zuus’ herald ran back up the light bridge, it dissolved behind him leaving the sky empty again, save for the burning orbs of Adaa and Asaa. They now seemed pale in their glory compared to what he felt in Lightleaper’s presence.

     When Lightleaper and his bridge had disappeared back into the red sun, Keiron looked down at the Horn of Summoning in his hands. The other Horn of Petitioning now seemed pale in comparison. He shook his mane to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, then slung the lesser horn over his shoulder. Cautiously he held the Horn of Summoning to his lips and blew a long deep blast.

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     Earth. Staten Island, New York. In the year 1936 by earth reckoning.

     BA-RUUUUUUUU.

     Twelve-year-old Karl Valgekivi, son of Estonian immigrants sat up in his bed.

     Was that a horn?  

     He rubbed his ears and eyes and looked about his small second floor farmhouse bedroom. His younger twin brothers were still sleeping in the bed against the other wall. They must not have heard the horn.

     The walls of their room wore a faded paper print with drawings of Paris, the Eiffel Tower and a great Ferris wheel.  His mother thought it would be good for Karl and the twins to see other places and maybe instill in them a sense of how big the world was. Well, it did. But Paris was too small for Karl. That place was still on earth. He wanted to fly up into the stars. Like Buck Rogers, his hero he read about every Sunday in the funny pages and the series he listened to on the radio when they could go next door to the Silversteins who had a radio. He reached down and picked up his toy Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol he kept by his side as he slept. With it he could disintegrate anything. Including that notorious pirate Killer Kane. He pointed the weapon at one of the Eiffel towers on the wall and squeezed the trigger. In his mind the tower fizzled and melted away.

     He thought of the horn again. It sounded strange. Not like the one Joey played in music class. Squeaky and screechy. No. This horn was deeper. Older. Very old. Maybe even ancient.

     Karl got out of bed and crossed the worn wooden floor to the partially open window. A late summer breeze from the distant bay blew the sheer thin curtains in. He looked at his reflection in the dirt-stained glass. He was tall for his age with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. He pushed aside a curl of hair on his forehead. Then he focused past the glass and looked up into the clear night sky. They were far enough from the lights of New York City that the night was filled with the twinkle of stars.

     Probably just a dream, he thought. But it sounded so real.

     Karl opened the window fully and leaned out. He looked up at the stars and began to distinguish constellations. There was the Little Dipper and the “W” of Cassiopeia. And lower on the horizon he could just make out the constellation Pegasus. Four stars that formed a box. That would be its torso. And then two legs that stood up from the upper left corner of the box like a V. That would be the constellation Andromeda. And the star in the corner where the V met the box, where Andromeda’s head was attached to the belly of the horse, what was that called again? Alpha something.

     He went to a shelf and took down a book, A Field Book of the Stars that was next to his Buck Rogers wind-up spaceship and leafed through the pages until he came to the star chart that showed the Pegasus constellation.

     There that’s it. Alpheratz. “Also called Sirrah,” he read, “from the Arabic name, surrat al-faras, meaning the ‘navel of the mare.’” But then he remembered his dad called it something else. Something like, Neli-kanda, the “Square.” No Pegasus or horse constellation. Just the Square. He should know. Pa was a sailor who navigated across the ocean by the stars. But Karl couldn’t remember what the Estonian name for the star Alpheratz was.

     All thoughts of the horn faded.

     He went back to the window and looked up at Alpheratz, it seemed to get brighter. Karl rubbed his eyes and looked again. No, it wasn’t his imagination. It was getting brighter and bigger. It was now the size of a nickel. How could that be? To his astonishment the star grew rapidly. It was expanding. Was it going to explode? And just as the thought crossed his mind the light of the star did burst with a flash and what sounded like someone punching through a paper bag. Karl jumped. As he tried to refocus, he could see that where the star had been there was now a hole. A hole in space? And standing in the hole looking up at him as if from a great distance he could make out a man on a horse. But as the image grew larger and clearer, Karl realized that the man wasn’t sitting on a horse. He was the horse. A centaur. And he was looking right at Karl and gesturing wildly. In his hand he held a great fiery horn.

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     On Aanoth, Keiron was looking up at a portal in the sky that had opened when he blew on the Horn of Summoning. There in the shimmering opening was the boy from his dream standing within a structure. He was sure of it. And he was sure the lad could see him. But then he saw two other boys come into view standing behind the lad.

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     Karl was aghast. The centaur man was waving at him. Beckoning him to come. Come to where he was. But where was he? And how could a kid from Staten Island get there?

     He slowly stretched out his right hand toward the centaur. The shimmering hole seemed to be hovering right in front of the window. Maybe if he reached out, he could go through the hole and touch the man. As Karl’s fingertips touched the hole they began to shimmer and go through like he was sticking his hand into a pool of water.

     “Who is that?”

     Karl whirled around startled to see the nine-year-old twins standing there looking up at him.

     “You scared me.” cried Karl.

     “Who is that man on a horse?” asked Johan, the older of the twins by ten minutes. He was pointing out the window.

     “He’s not on a horse, he is the horse. A centaur. And he is waving at me to…”

     Just then the house seemed to shutter and sway slightly.

     “Whoa,” exclaimed Karl. “What was that? Earthquake?”

     The twins stood transfixed a minute then ran out of the room crying, “Mama! Papa! Earthquake!”

     When Karl looked back out the window, the portal was breaking up and dematerializing.

     “No wait.” He almost leapt out of the window to try and grab it but the hole had gone, leaving only the faint flicker of Alpheratz. “Ohhh!”

     Clenching his hands in frustration, he waited to see if there was any more to the earthquake. But when all remained still his thoughts went back to the centaur outside his window. That was certainly more interesting than a little earthquake. He glanced over at his book on astronomy lying open on the bed with his ray gun. His Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol. A thought started to take form in his mind. He turned and looked up on the shelf at his Buck Rogers space ship—Karl smiled. Buck Rogers is right. There is life on other planets.