Chapter Nine

After the doorway had closed behind Dris and Shar'lee, they both took a very interested look around them. They were in an enormous room, alone with just the mystic and them. The room was almost blindly bright with very little other color around them, that color only from what looked like a sparce amount of decoration. Dris noticed that it appeared to all be carved of the same marble that the archway outside had been, only this had not lost it's color. It looked like it had just been finished recently. Along the walls were more of the markings that had been on the archway, but they were in intricate designs and did not cover the entirety of the room. They looked to specifically placed at each location that they were.
The mystic moved at a slow and steady pace to the middle of the cavernous room and then stopped, slowly turning to face Dris and Shar'lee. They both took a few more steps but stopped a fair distance away from the mystic who observed them. Dris remained slightly behind Shar'lee.
“Who was chosen?” Shar'lee asked, eager to know. It was unclear to who he had pointed to.
“Both of you,” the mystic answered. The mystic reminded Shar'lee much of Dris when she had first met him. His expression never changed and seemed to show no emotion. Dris was still very much like that to her, but at the same time was much more open.
“You choose outsiders then?” Dris asked, curious.
“We choose who is necessary. Gender or race is of no importance to us.”
Dris gave a slight nod, satisfied with the answer and pleased with how unbiased these mystics seemed to be. Dris felt comfortable around them, even knowing nothing about them. In this case, he did not mind.
The mystic first looked at Dris.
“You are clearly not of this world. Yet you hold some interest of its well being.”
Dris' first reaction to himself was denial, but as he thought about it for a moment, he realized that the mystic was correct. Somewhere along the line, he had developed some sort of care as to what happened. Dris did not know how the mystic knew of this.
“Your interest does not lie with our world, but rather something on it.”
Dris said nothing, but pondered the statement. He made no movement and had no reaction to the statement however. He seemed as if he were one of the mystics.
The mystic continued to look at him a moment, and then shifted his gaze to Shar'lee.
“You are not of this world either.”
Shar'lee's face turned stunned. What was he talking about?
“You are from this world, but should not be a part of it. Your destinly lies elsewhere.”
That statement made much more sense to her, and she didn't look quite as stunned, and changed to a bit of surprise that this mystic would know that without knowing her. Perhaps what others said about them was true after all. She always did feel out of place here and had a longing to move on.
“And you have a gift,” the mystic continued. “Yet, you avoid it.”
“A gift?” she asked questioningly.
“You are able to glimpse into the future. You have already done so, but you fight it. You should embrace it.”
“I would be rejected by everyone if they knew,” she said, feeling the need to explain herself. “Or I would be sent here because I am like you. Is that why you chose me?”
“No,” the mystic responded. “You are not like us.”
“Excuse me?” she said, her thoughts shattered. “Aren't you all able to see into the future? Is that not why people come to see you in a time of crisis?”
“We are,” the mystic responded. “But we ourselves do not see into the future, but rather the planet itself allows us to see thought it's eyes.”
“The planet?” she asked, confused.
“Tor'al, like all planets, is a living entity in itself, but it possesses so many more elements. It is able to see the vastness that is beyond it, and with its many different properties, it has the ability to see far beyond what we see. Tor'al simply allows us to see through it's eyes, and with it, we can see the future, here,” the mystic looked back to Dris once again, “and many other places if needed.”
Dris became quite interested in what these people had to say now. He wondered if what they said was true or if it was some false illusion that he had seen many other cultures suffer from. Fire being a living source that told all for instance. Able to make it's own decisions on what it burned and what it did not. He had been to planets that decisions on whether someone lived or not was determined by the flame. If they were menat to live, the flame would not burn them, but if they were meant to die, the flame would take that life from them.
“Do you know what is happening here on Tor'al?” Dris finally asked.
The mystic slowly nodded and responded, “we do.”
“You must tell us!” Shar'lee then burst out with excitement and joy, with the hope that all was going to be alright. “What is it? How can we stop it?”
The mystic slowly turned his head, looking directly at Shar'lee.
“You can't,” he answered, and Shar'lee's excitement immediately vanished and the look of all hope being lost emerged. Is was almost as if she had been told that she was going to die. And perhaps, to her, that is close to what was said. “What is happening must run it's course. Tor'al has known it was coming for some time and it has ensured it's survival. Do not concern yourself. All will happen as it was meant to be. After the disease has died out, the planet will once again begin to florish, and all life will return in time, and it will be more prosperous than it ever was before. Tor'al sees this as a clensing. You should rejoice, not mourn.”
“Clensing? Disease? What's to stop this disease from killing off everything so that there is no more life left on Tor'al.”
“Tor'al, having forseen this, has prepared. It enjoys having life on it, and it wants to keep that life on it. So, in it's time, it has taken the necessary means to ensure the safety of some of the life on it.”
“Ensure the safety? How?” Dris said, interested by this.
“It has built within some of the life on this planet the means to combat this disease so that that life will be safe.”
“You mean given them an immunity,” Dris clarified for his own sake.
The mystic nodded and said, “yes.”
“How was this accomplished when no one has been born on Tor'al in over a century?”
“It has it's ways,” the mystic answered Dris. “You have it, although Tor'al did not give it to you. It was given to you by other means. And you have it,” he continued gesturing toward Shar'lee, “given to you by all of your activities and zest for life. Tor'al is very impressed with you and flattered in how intersted you are in it. Wanting to learn about it's past when so many others choose to reject it. It was given to you through your many small journies.”
“But, what is this disease?” Shar'lee had shown signs of relief having heard that she would not be affected by all that was going on, but still wanted to know what it was.
“I believe you already know a portion of that answer,” the mystic said, as he slowly shifted his focus back to Dris.
“Accellerated aging,” Dris answered.
“In a sense, yes,” the mystic acknowledged. “It is a virus that defys all time and lives by sucking the time from other living creatures. It devours as much energy as it can and then moves on.”
“So it doesn't necessarily take all of the time from something living?” Dris asked.
“Correct,” the mystic once again acknowledged, “at times it finds something better to feast upon and leaves a living creature before all time has been taken from it.”
That explained to Dris why not all things deteriorated. He wished to learn more of this disease that the mystic spoke of.
“Where did it come from?” Shar'lee asked.
Dris decided he was going to take another stab at guessing the answer of this one.
“Did Tor'al create it to allow the clensing? Was it not completely satisfied with the life that lived upon it.”
“No,” the mystic answered, showing no reaction as to if he was annoyed, disappointed or otherwise. It was almost like speaking to a computer. Dris was reminded of his ship at that point, only his ship seemed to have more personality.
“Tor'al would never do anything to harm another living being. It simply knew it was coming. It did not create it.”
“So where did it come from?” Dris asked.
The mystic showed the first reaction that Dris had seen. He seemed to have been waiting for this question and was glad that it was asked. He slowly turned his back to Dris and Shar'lee again and held his arms high up and looked up as well. At that point, the room became less bright, all of it seemed to be absorbed into the mystic and then was redirected.
The room became very dark with little spots of light. Shar'lee recognized it as the night sky, while Dris recognized that it appeared as if they were literally standing in space. The room had become a holographic projection of it's own. The mystic appeared to have vanished as a show was displayed to them. Dris knew that he still stood there, masked by the images before them.
Shar'lee looked around and then said, “Dris, look.”
Dris looked to where she was pointing and was taken aback. He recognized the planet that she was pointing at. It was the planet that he had just visited. Dris realized this must be a look back in time because he knew that planet was no longer there.
Just as he realized that, he saw something emerging from the planet and recognized it as his ship flying from it. He saw the hole of the stardrive engines form in front of it and fly into it just as he witnessed something that he never would have been able to witness otherwise. The lines of fire forming upon the planet, the crackle, and he even heard the large bank that it created as it was blown into so many pieces. Just as the planet exploded, he saw something he never would have been able to see before. It would not have been wise for him to be there as his ship surely when have been torn to pieces by the shockwave created by the planet. But now he saw what appeared to be small swarm of little lights moving very quickly and dashed into the stardrive hole as it was closing.
The room then went black again and the mystic slowly began to reappear as light returned to the room. Dris, for the first time that Shar'lee had seen, stood shocked.
“What?” Shar'lee asked Dris. Dris just stood there, not answering. The mystic spoke instead.
“Just as this disease destroys some life, other life thrives on it. This you have seen.”
“The creatures on that planet...” Dris began.
The mystic nodded and said, “just as you suspected, they had been there only a short time, which is why they were so young and ignorant of their ways, which is why they destroyed themselves. This disease infected the small parts of life that were present on that planet, and created a society of creatures that evolved into what you saw in a mere two cycles around its orbit. This disease can be even more deadly to the creatures than thrive on it than the ones that die from it. And just as it did on that planet, once it is done here, it will move on to another. It cannot be stopped.”
“So, wait, you mean...”
Dris finished her comment.
“I am the one who brought it. It followed me here.”