Amaranth

Amesh lives on an island.

He has never known fear.

But his entire world changes one night when a giant stone falls from the sky containing a golden disc inscribed with a strange markings.

Amesh's quest for knowledge leads him on a journey where mysterious figures and frightening creatures help him discover the truth.

_________________________

Read Chapter 1:

Twilight was his favorite time of day.

When the day-circle rolled into the sea and the whole world was a deep violet. When the tide whispered quiet words that no man understood, and the wind tickled thousands of feathery palm leaves. When it was neither day nor night but the short time in between when all shadows were soft.

Amesh sometimes came to this beach just before nightfall. A cool breeze caressed his bare copper skin. He loved to lay in the white sand and wait. He opened his dark eyes slowly to gaze at the night-circles just beginning to rise above the trees to the North. The sky would soon turn an inky black. It was time to go back.

He sat up slowly, taking the time to stretch his long bones and breathe in a deep gulp of salty air. He let his eyes roam lazily across the horizon until he saw something in the water. At first he thought it was a silvery fish coming towards the shore whose body shone so bright it sparkled on the surface. But as it came closer, he saw that it was not a fish, but a reflection.

His eyes flew upwards and were met with a sight they could not understand. Moving across the sky, and growing brighter every moment, a ghostly light approached him. He stared in awe and wonder. He was not afraid. He had never been afraid.

He got to his feet.

The white light was blinding now, and with it came a low rumbling sound. Suddenly it soared over his head with incredible speed and a loud whistling howl until it disappeared over the tree-line behind him. A moment later a green flash erupted from the forest and the sand shook slightly beneath his feet.

Amesh was curious. He wanted to go back, to tell the others, but they would not believe him. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. The air was silent now and eerily still. The sky was empty where he had seen the green flash.

He stepped into the trees.

Twilight was disappearing, and the dense wood was lit only faintly by the rising night-circles, filling the jungle with strange shapes and shadows. He could only walk in the direction where he thought the flash had been.

The wind was growing stronger, and the jungle came alive with dancing limbs and crying leaves. He felt his heart beating faster than ever before, and the hair on the back of his neck growing rigid. He didn’t understand the changes his body was going through, or the unpleasant feelings swimming in his mind. They were brand new.

Up ahead he could barely make out a soft green glow through the web of leaves. He could hear a soft hissing sound. As he approached the glow, he noticed there were no trees around it, only a large circle of blackened earth. Amesh was puzzled. What had happened to the trees?
He stepped into the clearing. The hissing was louder now, and he could see that the thing was taller than him and wider than his outstretched arms. White smoke was floating upwards from it in a thin column. Would the others see the white smoke? He looked to where his home was in the east, and was grateful to see the Black Hills, tall enough to block their view of this part of the island.

Amesh stepped even closer to the glow, and he began to see that it was not pure light, but something hard, not unlike a large rock. And not only that – it was hot. So hot that he could feel its warmth from where he stood. The surface of the rock was covered in a thick layer of something clear like water, but it didn’t move like the water he knew. This water was still, and looked as if it was as hard as the rock itself.

He was so startled by the sudden sound that he spun on his heels as if someone had spoken into his ear. It was the distant sound of the white sea-stone, the Pancha, coming from his village to signal the Fourth Council, to mark the day’s end.

And so he took one last look at the rock, and then turned and made his way back through the jungle and onto the beach, where he followed the shore home. He did not go back because he had to. There were no rules to force his return at the sound of the Pancha. He returned without thinking, as a man does when he blinks to moisten his eyes, or breathes to freshen his lungs. He returned out of habit, because the sea-stone’s call had always told his body that it was time to retire, to succumb to the lure of a blissful, dreamless sleep. Blissful, for Amesh’s life was one without worry. Dreamless, for Amesh had never dreamed.