Legends III - Legends of Life by Nicole Mayer

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Legends III : LEGENDS OF LIFE (1/5)
by Nicole Mayer
December 1996 and October 1997.

In memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The night was cold and black, and Gillian Brody could not sleep. Knowing what she knew now: the tragedy, the pain, and the trapped spirit, she could not rest until she did all she could, to help Devon Adair. Even if it meant the woman's death.

She was supposed to die a long time ago. Only a freak of nature brought on by the misguided actions of her friends had trapped her soul between the worlds of the living and the dead, not even part of the Dreamplane, but in a state somewhere on the edge. On the outside, where it was cold, and dark, and full of terror. Gillian knew this, because she had felt that fear and anguish herself, when Devon's spirit had reached out to the land of the living.

Gillian had finally accepted that it *was* Devon who haunted the wind. It was the only explanation that would fit, and Gillian had fought her disbelief. G889 was a magical planet where strange things were normal, and maybe, just maybe, that included trapped spirits as well.

Slowly treading across to the window, Gillian stared out into the moonless night. The sky seemed empty without the friendly orbs she had become used to in only the few weeks she had been on planet G889. A tear trickled down her cheek as she recalled the tragedy of Bess Martin's story. Through reading it, and then accessing all visual records of Eden Advance's historic trek across the planet, Gillian couldn't help but feel as if she knew the people intimately.

It was crazy, she realised that. Recalling her earlier conversation with her family, she wondered why she had even bothered trying to explain her feelings.

"It's just so sad!" Gillian had protested.

"Gill, you didn't even know these people! How can you possibly be upset over their deaths that happened more than seventy years ago?" reasoned her mother.

"Yeah, Gilly, who cares about a bunch of dead people anyway!" her brother Lukas laughed.

Gillian's father's tone had been even more serious. "I think you're becoming obsessed with the past," he said gruffly. "You need to make some new friends. Lukas has fit right in at school, but you, Gillian, haven't even tried!"

She made one last attempt. "But they're not all dead! Devon's spirit is trapped, and we should help her!"

"That's enough of this nonsense!" snapped Gillian's father, and the girl had despondently gone to her room.

"I'll help you, Devon," Gillian whispered onto the wind. An idea suddenly struck her, a plan that entailed more risks than she ever had taken in her seventeen years. What if she were to go out into the desert, and find the place where Devon's body was trapped? That region of the planet was still wild and mostly unexplored, but surely she could retrace the original route. She could make a difference....

"Gillian!" A low voice below startled her from her reverie. Surprised, Gillian looked down. It was Jessie Solace. One of the Transformed. And a girl about whom rumours abounded, yet that never seemed to bother her.

"Uh, hi..." Gillian called down uncertainly. She'd never truly spoken to Jessie before, although Jessie had made eerie predictions about Gillian's life. The two girls had been curiously watching each other, and now Gillian wondered if finally some answers would be revealed.

"The Terrians want to talk to you," Jessie instructed. "We need you to come with us right now!"

Indecision flickered across Gillian's face. She'd heard the few vague rumours about Jessie and her friends, about rituals and weekly communals with the planet through the Dreamplane. Many of the other kids thought they were weird.

But as Gillian looked down at the earnest face before her, she sensed a kinship through their respective obsessions with the unconventional. Not allowing herself time to change her mind, Gillian jumped down from the window and felt Jessie grab her hand. The girls raced off into the night.

...great sadness...the trapped dark...crying...end it now... The images of things unknown swirled past Gillian in a whirlpool of colours and sounds, but two pictures kept appearing in Gillian's mind. The first, of an ancient space ship in a barren landscape; and the second, Devon Adair's haunted face.

...stop the pain... and those were the last words Gillian caught before the dream ended and her consciousness flew back to reality. Jessie's expectant face hovered before her. "Did they talk to you? What did you see? We couldn't get anything from the Terrians, except your picture and that it was of great importance." These were more words than Gillian had ever heard from the mysterious Jessie Solace, but she was too confused to marvel over the fact.

Gillian shook her head tiredly. "I don't know what I saw," she said weakly. "It was all too fast." She looked around at the gathering of teenagers, and wondered if their parents were used to them going out in the dead of the night to a deep cave and communing with Terrians through and with the Dreamplane.

A boy from the back of the group spoke up. "The first Dreamplane experience is always traumatic," he said with authority. "I'm not sure we did the right thing by bringing her here so soon."

"We *had* to," Jessie said vehemently. "It was the proper thing to do. Remember, I told you about Gillian years ago. We just didn't know who she was."

Feeling obligated to at least attempt to explain some things to her new friend, Gillian began, "It was like a distorted kind of reality, and I kept seeing two pictures over and over. A ship out in the desert...."

"Let me see it," instructed Jessie. Placing a hand on Gillian's temple and guiding her other hand to a wall, Jessie closed her eyes. Gillian almost gasped aloud as she realised she was touching a Terrian, now part of a Terrian ...and the sadness was coming again... but this time, Jessie's reassuring presence kept Gillian focused. This time, she saw. And she knew.

"You must go there." Whether it was Jessie, or Gillian herself who said the words, both girls knew the truth in their hearts that Gillian's destiny lay out there, with those who were meant to die a long time ago.

She dreamed. She knew she wasn't supposed to, she knew she shouldn't even be aware that she was alive, but her mind would not rest. In any case, the dreams were better than the terrible wakefulness where she was trapped forever.

In her dream, she could see the past. Close to two hundred years ago, she had taken her last breath in the living world. For all intents and purposes, she was dead, even though she wasn't ready to go.

So when they placed her lifeless body into stasis once again, the final flicker of determination - the fighting spirit for which she was so famous - did not let her die. Caught between the worlds of the living and the dead, her mind was trapped until she finished her quest.
One more moment was all she had asked. A few precious seconds to tell *him* what she should have said long ago, if only she hadn't been so stubborn. And the tragedy of events had ruined everything.

She knew that he, too, had not been able to tell her everything that he needed to. Perhaps now it was too late. For the years had passed and it had been too long. He lived on while she was still trapped until the years irrevocably tore them apart. No man could live so long, even if he was bound by love.

Now their story could never be finished. And she, the one alone, was destined to be trapped in darkness forever.

Jessie Solace walked the Dreamplane. Not in the literal sense - for there were few physical constants that applied to this realm. However, Jessie felt at home in the whirling whites and shifting scenes. She adored the Dreamplane and had been visiting it ever since she was born.

Yet there was something missing from Jessie's life. She had always felt apart from the other children, even those who were Transformed like her. Others spoke of a spiritual relationship with the planet, and sharing with the Terrians. There were no secrets.

But when the Terrians talked to Jessie, they told her things she did not want to hear. Showed her things she did not want to see. And always, but especially of late, the problems manifested themselves on the Dreamplane.

There was a hole in her mind. It had been there ever since Jessie was born, one of a long line of Solaces born on planet G889. And on the Dreamplane, this hole was so much clearer.

There was sweetness and light on the white plains. But in one corner, shadows loomed. Jessie never feared the shadows, yet she could never penetrate them either. There were secrets locked from Jessie Solace.

And as she walked the Dreamplane this night, Jessie wondered if maybe Gillian, the one prophesied, would also help Jessie conquer her own demons.

It was a heartening thought. She reached for the Morganite nestled near her heart, and it seemed to pulsate with a new beat that promised, "Soon."

"You hear me, Lukas? *Don't* give Mom and Dad this message until tomorrow night, okay?"

Lukas looked up at his big sister with his soulful brown eyes. "Are you running away?" he asked.

"No! I just have to see something, do something...I'll be back as soon as I can." Impulsively, Gillian leaned down and gave Lukas a hug. He squeezed her back, an action he had avoided ever since he started school, but now he seemed to realise the seriousness of the situation.

"Bye, Gilly..." he whispered as he watched her crawl out the window. Lukas fervently hoped that his sister would be alright. Slinging her pack over her shoulder, Gillian waved and slipped off into the night.

Jessie Solace was waiting for her behind a tree growing near the statue of Devon Adair. It was the statue that had begun the entire crusade and Gillian had decided it was an appropriate place to begin her quest. Besides, people rarely visited this place, a fact obvious when looking at the statue's state of disrepair.

It was a situation that Gillian intended to fix. But not now. Now was the time for running, for escaping into the darkness and chasing the figure of her dreams. To finally learn of the truth. "Gillian!" Jessie whispered, stepping out from the shadows. Weak moonlight played down across her face as she tossed her thick blonde hair behind one shoulder. "Over here!"

Gillian followed the voice, glad to see that Jessie had not backed out on her word. "Did you manage to borrow a vehicle?" Gillian had recently discovered that Jessie's parents were very rich, which was understandable considering the vast empire of the Solace Transport Corporation.

"Yes," replied Jessie, her solemn eyes showing an unusual hint of excitement. "It was no trouble. Have you heard anything else from the spirit?"

Although Gillian was now quite convinced that it was Devon Adair who was trying to contact her, or more accurately, screaming for help to end the torture, she was still unsure about voicing her beliefs. Especially since Jessie and the other Transformed children had such strong links to the Dreamplane whereas Gillian had only experienced the edges of it once.

Yet through all this, Gillian knew that Jessie believed her, and this gave her the strength to go on.

"I had another dream," Gillian began. "More images of Eden Advance."

"What time period was this?" Jessie asked. Gillian had told her of the dreams which brought into stark reality the story Bess Martin had written; and revealed so much more.

"It was the later years, I think. John Danziger was quite old, and I could see that he was, I hate to say it, crazy. It must have been some time close to the fire that destroyed his house, because I saw him shuffling to the statue and talking to it.

"Do you think," Gillian asked suddenly, "that the dreams are beginning to focus on Danziger for a reason?"

Jessie nodded slowly in agreement. "Perhaps you will also discover his fate," she said wisely. "It could be *your* fate to finally lay his bones to rest."

Gillian shivered. She didn't know if she could handle coming across a dead body, or, more correctly, the sun scorched bones of a man out in the desert.

Jessie stared into Gillian's serious face. "Don't worry," she said softly. "I know that everything will be fine."

Gillian wished she could believe that. A sudden thought struck her. "What about you, Jessie? Have you heard anything from the Terrians lately? Or the planet?"

"The Terrians are not involved," Jessie reminded. "Yet I can pick up fragments from the Dreamplane. You are the one who has been chosen to complete this quest."

Nodding, Gillian impulsively gave her reserved friend a hug. "Well, I guess I'd better get going," she said. Then Jessie surprised her once again.

"*We* had better get going."

"You're coming with me?"

"Yes."

"But why? It's not your problem, and it's dangerous out there...."

"More dangerous for a girl alone," Jessie reminded. "Did you really believe I would let you travel halfway across the planet by yourself?" Jessie did not mention her own reasons for accompanying Gillian - to perhaps learn the truth about her own heart. She felt an overwhelming sense that she, too, was meant to be a part of this quest no matter what.

The shard of Morganite around Jessie's neck flashed suddenly in the moonlight and Gillian was sure she could see a small glow. Looking up into Jessie's eyes, she suddenly had the sensation that Jessie was not just an ordinary girl. There was age in those blue eyes....

"Come." Jessie interrupted Gillian's reverie and took her hand. "Destiny awaits."

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