Zian and the Sacred Realms Epilogue 1

Kirsty Canillo

Wild, vine-entangled rainforest rolled on by. The bus slowed and sped, uphill and down, not unlike a boat on the waves. Zian rested against the window, peering out at the palm-ferns and tropical trees quite contentedly. She was enjoying the view while many of her classmates leaned heavily on motion sickness and ginger medications.
___“Are we there yet?” the worst-affected of her classmates cheekily called. Tobby, his wide- rimmed glasses abandoned at the top of his mop of black hair, tried to keep up a positive attitude while he bent over a paper bag.
___“Hang in there,” their teacher, Professor Peria Wendelin laughed. She was standing up front by the driver, currently taking a break from her secondary role as tour guide.
___The beauty of the forest concealed the battle between the sweltering, humid heat outside and the bus’s air conditioning unit. A girl moved into the seat next to Zian. “How are you doing?” her friend, Karena, asked, plonking herself down. She had just returned from dispensing ginger lollies to the students. Her frizzy, auburn hair was tied into a thick bun at the top of her head. For her, the aircon was losing the battle; she had beads of sweat all along her neck.
___“I’m fine, I don’t get travel sick,” Zian answered.
___“Lucky you.” Karena popped a few ginger sweets into her mouth.
___Lucky was certainly how Zian felt, but not because of her sturdy stomach. “I still can’t believe we’re here,” she said.
___“I know. We can thank Peria for all the strings she pulled.”
___Zian had to agree. The university allowing second-year students to go on a field trip to such a scientifically significant site was nothing short of a miracle. The previous years’ students taking Archaeology of the Sacred Realms had at best been allowed to handle and analyse artefacts from the World Culture Museum.
___“I’ll be sending her flowers and chocolates every birthday for the rest of her life,” Zian answered wistfully.
___Karena laughed. “I am starting to agree with Tobby though. Are we there yet?”

Eight hours later, they were finally ‘there yet’. Even Zian had to admit sleeping in a bus was not for her.
___Grumbling and groaning, the students dragged themselves out of the vehicle while their teacher spurred them on in between yawns, “Come on now… you’ll have to get used to worse if… you want to do field work.”
___Standing up and stretching her stiff legs properly for the first time in hours felt amazing and excruciating all at once. Zian leaned backwards, then forwards, her hands on her aching back, then shook it out and grabbed her pack. Her stuffed-full camping backpack was the maximum luggage she had been allowed to bring. For the umpteenth time she ran through her head: pencils, notebook, laptop, tooth and hairbrush, change of clothes, rain jacket, torch, first aid, sunscreen, bug spray. She was sure she had everything.
___“Alright everyone! Here’s home for the next week!” Peria announced. It was pitch dark and Zian couldn’t tell what ‘home’ was until Peria flashed her torch onto a row of petite, well- kept cabins slotted in amongst the trees.
___“Where exactly are we?” Zian asked Karena.
___“I don’t know, I can’t see the Temple.”
___She joined Karena in craning her neck for any sign of a stone monument over the tree line, but in this dark, the Temple could have been right in front of her and she wouldn’t see it.
___A drip, a splash, and without any further warning, the clouds broke. Rain bucketed down and Zian joined several of her classmates in screaming.
___“Quick, get inside!” the teacher laughed. “The weather gets like this out here!”
___‘Get inside,’ Zian thought dryly. It was a bit late for that. She was already drenched to the bone. “I’ve never seen rain like this!” she cried.
___Karena just grabbed Zian’s hand and they dashed through the wall of water towards the cabins.

The cabins were as cosy as Zian could have hoped for. Against the teacher’s advice, her classmates had stayed up instead of sleeping. While they played truth-telling games, Zian started to tire and left them to begin her night-time routine.
___Combing her hair after a hot bath and applying several layers of a deliciously perfumed moisturiser – the only one she had room for in her luggage – she was surprised to find such a modern bathroom out in the middle of nowhere. She supposed it was because of how much research was conducted here.
___Exiting the bathroom directly into the small, comfortable bunk room, Zian instantly had a question fired at her from her classmates.
___“Zian, first kiss?!” Tobby cried.
___She smiled wryly. She was fairly sure Tobby wanted to ask her out, so this kind of question hardly surprised her. “A boy in one of my classes last year.”
___“Oo, was it someone we know?” Karena asked.
___“Probably not.”
___“How did it happen?” another girl, Rowenia, pried.
___“Nothing exceptional. We just dated for a while and while we were out at a cafe, in a private booth…”
___Her classmates laughed. “Well, that’s not all that romantic,” Karena snorted.
___Zian agreed. “It was nice enough though.”
___“I’m surprised you made it all the way through high school without so much as a kiss, Rowenia said. “A pretty girl like you.”
___“I think that’s part of the problem. Too many boys like me just because I’m pretty, so I have to be choosey,” she said coolly. She saw Tobby flush bright red.
___Yawning, she hoped this game would wrap up soon. They had work to do tomorrow. Heading to the bunk ladder, she was glad when she saw Karena take the hint.
___“Alright, boys, get out! It’s time to sleep,” Karena ordered.
___“But I’m not tired!” Tobby whined, mid-yawn. Karena threw a pillow at him.
___Laughing, he and the other boys finally retreated to their cabin.
___Zian flopped down on the stiff bunk bed. It felt utterly delightful after the bus journey. It took a while for the rest of the girls to finish up in the bathroom, but eventually the lights went out. The darkness was absolute. The cabins didn’t even have lights by their doors. Zian could barely tell if her eyes were open or closed.
___“Big day tomorrow,” she heard Karena whisper excitedly from the bunk bed opposite.
___“Today, actually,” Zian snorted.
___Karena giggled. “Can’t wait.”
___“So get some sleep and it’ll get here faster.”
___“Nah, I’d rather keep pestering you.” She could imagine Karena’s tongue poking at her right now.
___“If you don’t shut up, we’ll exile you to the boys’ cabin,” Luelle, their classmate, grouched from the bed below Zian.
___“Yeah, and I’ve heard Roffer has a snoring problem,” Rowenia tittered.
___“Bet it’s not as bad as my talking problem,” Karena retaliated.
___“Right, that’s it!” Luelle stormed out of bed and began trying to wrestle Karena out of hers. Zian burst into laughter.
___“Girls, really!” The door banged open and a tired, grumpy Peria appeared with one hand on her hip and a torch in the other. “I’m two cabins away and I can still hear you!”
___“Sorry…” they chorused, muffling a few last giggles. Luelle slunk back into bed and silence finally fell.

Daybreak mercifully brought clear skies, but the ground outside was sodden. Zian was grateful for her parents’ advice to buy the best-quality tramping boots she could find. She was already squelching two inches deep in mud and the terrain was proving difficult.
___“Right, it’s just twenty minutes’ walk from here to the site,” Peria said. “Fabrian, you’re the fittest of us, so you take the lead and tread carefully. Don’t get too far ahead of anyone. I’ll go last.” Fabrian, their resident athlete, led the way onto the well-flagged path, his long legs bounding over the bogs like they were nothing. The rest of the students weren’t so lucky. High spirits, more than agility, got them through, and by the end, Zian was splattered in mud.
___“I think my bug spray isn’t working,” Karena grumbled, slapping herself at yet another possibly-imagined insect.
___Zian was about to offer hers when she was stopped speechless. The tree line had opened up into an enormous clearing of an ancient plaza.
___The ground was so flat here it looked man-made, and the space was so breathtakingly large an entire village could have lived here. Supporting her suspicions, Zian noticed the ruins of stone walls poking up here and there above the verdant grasses, but in the centre lay the still-beating heart of this space. The tiered Temple to the Sun God Entes rose proudly over its surroundings, culminating in a silver and diamond sun-disc that glittered with sunlight. The Temple was the only structure still left in one piece, and to Zian it felt distinctly alive, as though Entes himself was still guarding this sacred place.
___Tingles scattered across her skin and her hairs stood on end. It was an exhilarating and awe-inspiring sight, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that each step she took from here required the utmost respect.
___“Alright, class, we are extremely privileged to have this site more or less to ourselves for the week,” Peria said. “So, let’s refresh the rules. Ask before you touch anything. Pay attention to all signs and tapes – you’re not to enter any red-taped area, this is where the building is crumbling and unsafe. Above all, treat this site with respect. As exciting as it is, this isn’t a playground, and the scientific world is counting on all visitors to preserve it. Don’t let me down – or I won’t be able to take field trips like this again.”
___They smiled, but Zian knew she was only half-joking.
___“Always stick together. In the case of an emergency, proceed calmly out the front entrance of the Temple. You know what number to call if something happens to me. Any questions? No? Well then, let the tour begin!”
___Peria marched ahead and Zian scrambled to get out her notebook and pencil before she followed.
___“So what we see here surrounding the Temple complex are the remains of the township that used to be here, dated from around 1500AE…”
___Zian walked and scribbled. “1500AE, that’s about two thousand years ago…” she calculated.
___“The town could have housed up to six thousand residents and relied heavily on trade with other towns, who grew irrigated maize crops and also gathered from the rainforest…”
___Taking a quick glance around, Zian hastily sketched out the environment and noted ‘no agriculture’.
___“Entes-ma, which means ‘Entes-town’, was actually still active until relatively recently in our history, lasting more or less until the start of the Modern Era. The reason so little of it remains is largely due to its waning use over time, and the fact that, with the exception of the Temple and the stone foundations of the buildings, the rest of the town was constructed from perishable materials which have not survived the climate. The relative longevity of Entes-ma compared to other ancient townships has been attributed to the topic of our field trip…”
___Zian fluttered with excitement. She couldn’t wait to get to that part.
___Peria paused her lecture and continued the hike through mud in silence, allowing them all time to catch up with their notes and take sketches. It took a surprisingly long time to reach the Temple. It was so much bigger than Zian first realised that it seemed almost to recede as they approached. Not far from the Temple, there was a group of busy archaeologists, but their interest was in the township rather than the Temple. They greeted Zian’s group cheerfully in a language none of them knew, except Peria, who replied equally cordially.
___Finally the group came to the paved stone steps that led into the Temple. Peria stopped them on the grass just at the edge.
___“Before we enter the Temple, Entes-en, we have to put our shoes through this cleaner here…” Their teacher demonstrated this process, lifting and rotating her feet so that the mechanical scrubbers could clean every corner and crevice, then stepped up onto the stone steps.
___One by one they followed suit and took their first steps onto the complex. Zian had never seen a stone building this large. Even the individual stone slabs holding up the entrance dwarfed them. It was a marvel that it was built so long ago.
___“Alright, are we ready to begin?” Peria continued, making her way towards the entrance. They followed, tittering with excitement. “Welcome to Entes-en!”

“Whoa…”
___“Oh, my lord…”
___“This is…”
___“Incredible…”
___It was one thing to see photos of an ancient building, but to stand within it, feel its magnitude and witness its beauty was an experience that couldn’t be expressed in pictures or words. Zian took a deep breath and soaked it all in. Still-bright colours of the glyphs and pictures sprawled along the walls, and immaculate stonework loomed around her. Zian was giddy with awe – and they were still just in the antechamber.
___Eventually, after they had had time to admire the entranceway, their teacher continued her lesson. “So, the purpose of the antechamber is basically to tell all who enter that this is blessed and hallowed space, that none can enter with ill-intent, and to list the various gods and goddesses of the Inyavan pantheon who are helping to protect the Temple. Those are the figures we see lined up here, facing the door through to the Temple proper…”
___Squatting in a side-on depiction were these very deities. Most of them looked more or less human, but some had wild, frightening faces, and all of them had strange hair.
___“What’s the meaning of the hair?” Zian asked.
___“The hair always indicates the most prominent domain of the deity. So here we see water- hair, that’s a goddess of the river, then we have tree-hair for the god of the forest, earth-hair, stone-hair, fire-hair, and then even more abstract styles like basket-hair for the goddess of weaving, or arrow-hair for the god of the hunt. What hair do you think the owner of this Temple has?”
___“Sunlight hair…” It hit her like a pulse. Peering through the door into the main chamber, a beautiful, sculpted relief of Entes faced Zian, staring right at her. His arms were widespread, his strong, muscled form painstakingly depicted, and his hair, blazing with gold, streamed like a river of sunlight from his head, stretching from corner to corner across the walls. There was such power even just in this image, for a wild moment Zian felt like she was observing the sunlight-haired King of the Fairy Realm again.
___“That’s right. Entes was a solar deity, and like many solar gods, he was also a warrior. But perhaps his best-known role is his part in an ancient love story that is still told today by the people of this region.”
___“Oo,” Karena cooed, giving Zian a nudge. Zian tried not to smile too much. The rest of the class had suddenly fallen dead silent, their eyes fixated on their teacher.
___“But we won’t get into that today,” Peria said with a grin.
___“What?”
___“No!”
___“You have to tell us!”
___The teacher laughed. “Of course I’m going to. It’s most of the reason why we’re here,” she teased. “But can you remind me again, what is the reason that we’re here?”
___The class pondered this. “To study the archaeology of the Sacred Realms,” Tobby said.
___“Well, yes, that is the course title,” Peria laughed. “But what does that mean?”
___“There’s some connection between this Temple and other Realms,” Zian suggested.
___“Exactly. Few ancient peoples had integrated the beings of another Realm so fully into their own mythologies as the Inyavans. Every single god and goddess we see lined up here, protecting Entes’s Temple, is a well-documented other-Realm being. So of course is Entes himself. Which brings me to our case study for this field trip.”
___She paused, lowering her voice as though she too felt the chill that had passed through Zian and her classmates. “Here, written on these very walls, is Entes’s love story, part of the collection of stories that introduce who he was to the Inyavans. The question we want to answer is, was his love story created by the Inyavans, or was it his own story?”
___Touching her fingers to the topmost glyphs, Peria began to translate.

Once, long ago, there was a star people, who flourished under the light of a mighty blue star. Vast was their knowledge and the wealth of their achievements, and peaceful was their world for many ages. But, as the stars turned in their cycles, the great blue life-bringer began its death throes. Its mood became tempestuous, its weather violent, and it threw out wave after wave of death-bringing energy.
___The people who lived in the light of the blue star began to suffer under these harsh rays. At first the energy merely damaged their bodies, but over time, it wore away at their minds. The star people began to fall into chaos and degeneracy, until their world descended into an all- consuming war. Many of the people began to harvest the death-energy of the dying star to create weaponry that devastated all life that it touched. Empires collapsed until just a few fortresses remained, islands defending the former glory of the star people. One such empire was ruled by a Star Queen.
___Mighty were the walls of the Star Queen’s empire and great were her armies. Greater yet was her will to uphold the splendour of the past, however weary in body and spirit the long wars and slow poison of the dying star made her. All who set eyes upon her said she was like the queens of old brought back to life, except she had not their joy.
___Alas, in time the Queen’s stronghold also crumbled. As the violent hoards poured across her kingdom and reduced it to ash and rubble, their star finally perished. A terrible explosion rent the cosmos and scattered what life was left on their world far and wide, flinging the Star Queen into the black void along with many others. She sailed through the nighttime world for longer than can be told, then fell at last onto our Earth as a shooting star. One of her enemies fell with her.
___Mighty Entes was in his glade, when he heard a woman’s scream and a blast like fire and thunder. His swift feet barely touched the ground beneath him as they carried him fleetly to the scene. There he saw a wicked man bearing down upon an unconscious woman, the man’s fire- weapon aimed at her chest and one devastating wound already festering in her shoulder. Faster than the snake strikes, Entes slashed the man in the side of his neck and ended his life, then knelt down to heal the woman.
___At once he could tell the woman and her assailant were not of his people. They were fallen from the stars. The woman’s hair shone with the blue light of the star that had once nourished her world. He examined her wound and knew a special magic was needed to heal her. If the wound closed without magic, a cancer would soon grow in its place and drag her to an untimely death. So Entes, the healer, sang the songs of his Solar home as he mixed together the secret herbs of his gardens.
___Yet, as he sang, the star woman began to shine with the warming glow of the Sun. Never had he seen one of the star people take on the energy of his home, and in that moment, he fell in love with her. He healed her, brought her into his halls and tended to her every need, learning who she was and the tragedy that had befallen her people. In time, she fell in love with him also, and found rest in her new home. She became his Star Queen, the goddess Impaia, and she and the Sun God have been united in love ever since.

Somehow, the air in this stifling Temple seemed to blow cold as Peria finished reading the tale of Entes and the Star Queen. Zian shivered and held herself, feeling as though they were not the only ones listening to this retelling.
___“So, that is our subject matter,” the teacher said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s continue on through the Temple, and I want you to start thinking about how we could go about answering our research question.”
___Without further ado, Peria led the way into the main chamber. As Zian filed in after her, she saw a shadow shifting along the wall to her left. She froze, watching it. It had the vague shape of a person, and slowly melded into the natural shadows on the walls.
___“What is it?” Karena asked, following her gaze.
___She shook her head. “Nothing,” she answered. It wouldn’t do to spook her classmates. Karena was the only one who even knew about her gift for Travelling to Sacred Realms and the visions this often brought with it.
___“This is the main chamber where all the cult rituals occurred,” Peria continued, unaware of Zian’s distraction. Zian returned her attention to the lecture and hurried to catch up. “Every other room in this Temple was made to house and serve the priests and priestesses who lived and worked here – in this Realm and in Entes’s. Which brings us to one of the key rituals involved in his worship.” She strode to the centre, where a grooved stone altar was illuminated by an opening in the ceiling. “Human sacrifice.”
___Without hesitation, Peria placed her hand upon the altar where dozens of humans must have been killed, while Zian and her classmates baulked.
___“This wasn’t ordinary sacrifice however,” Peria continued, unfazed. “Entes was not a vicious being who demanded blood. Rather, his human worshippers considered it a great honour to send the chosen among them to dwell with him in his Paradise Realm. They sent only young – and virgin – priestesses, and these priestesses also had to be gifted Travellers.”
___Zian and her classmates nodded, still trying to swallow the rather macabre ritual. “Why virgin?” Zian ventured to ask.
___“Chastity was a requirement in the priesthood,” Peria answered. “It was part of their cultural idea of purity.”
___“Did the ritual actually work?” Karena asked incredulously.
___“Yes,” Peria answered, to everyone’s surprise. “This wasn’t simply murder. The Inyavans devised a way to send gifted Travellers permanently to their gods’ Realm. Their success has been attested time and time again by accounts of historical Travellers entering the Deity Realm and encountering the priestesses who were sacrificed. We lack more recent accounts of this Realm, but the veracity of the historical sources is uncontested.”
___“How did they do it?” Zian asked. She shuddered to think and wondered what on earth her ancestors would have had to say about this.
___“There were specific magic spells uttered in both our Realm and the Deity Realm, all of which can be found carved into the stone of the priests’ workrooms. But the most important part was for the chosen priestess to intentionally Travel to the Deity Realm as she lay upon the altar. As you know, a Traveller’s physical body disappears when they Travel, but the Inyavans became proficient at extinguishing the body just at the point of Travel. The priestess’s body would be destroyed just as she separated from it, leaving her to enter Entes’s Realm with no vessel to return to.”
___Stunned silence followed this, until Tobby idly broke it. “Cool.”
___Several of her classmates laughed weakly, but Zian ignored him. Her mouth hung, aghast. “If they don’t have a body to return to, they’ll have to stay in that Realm forever. They’ll never die!” This was what her ancestors believed.
___“That appears to be the case. The accounts we have mention priestesses who were at least a thousand years old, but still appeared as youthful as the day they left in service of Entes.”
___“That’s awful…” Zian murmured.
___“I don’t know. If the other Realm really is paradise, maybe it’s not so bad?” Rowenia suggested. Zian couldn’t agree. The idea of becoming stuck permanently in another Realm was horrifying, even if it was a blissful Realm. She had already come too close to it herself in her search for the Fairy King all those years ago.
___“Either way, it’s what the Inyavans believed that matters to us,” Peria said. “Now, open your books and start sketching and taking notes. I’ll give you twenty minutes here, then we’ll move on through the rest of the Temple.”
___The students made themselves comfortable, and Zian started off by sketching the altar. Soon, movement at the top of her vision caught her eye. The shadow she saw before reappeared, sidling along the far wall until it reached the relief of Entes. There it stopped. The Sun God’s eyes were still upon her, watching her.
___“I think I’m in for an interesting night…” she muttered to herself. Averting her gaze, she returned busily to her work.

It was hard to settle that night, knowing what was coming. Zian’s classmates continued to talk in whispers long after the lights were turned out, but she feigned exhaustion and pretended to sleep. Every time she drifted off, she felt as though she was falling and would snap awake. The Deity Realm was encroaching on her, and she could now see more than one shadow shifting in the darkness in her mind’s eye. There was no fighting it. She would have to let it take her. So she allowed herself to go limp, body, heart and mind, and imagined herself finding her feet on that silver thread through the darkness.
___Her eyes opened, her body relaxed as though she was exhaling all her air, and she reminded herself not to try to breathe in again. There was stone beneath her feet, and surrounding her the familiar walls of the antechamber to Entes’s Temple. It was dark now except for the flickering firelight of torches lining the walls. Who had lit the torches, she didn’t know. She appeared to be alone.
___She tiptoed forwards, making no sound with her energy-body, drifting like a ghost into the main chamber. Except for the fire-lit torches, everything looked the same, from the great carven relief of Entes, to the sacrificial altar, to the glyphs covering the walls. As she scanned the room, she saw it again: the shadow shifting along the wall.
___Holding her nerve, she kept still as the dark shape moved back towards Entes’s statue. But this time, it did not stop there. It emerged, stepping forwards from the carving into the air, approaching her. She waited edgily, prepared to flee the Realm if she had to.
___A blinding blast of light exploded through the room, then dimmed again. Of course. The Temple was suddenly bathed in daylight and the Sun God stood before her in the flesh, his hair a river of sunlight, just as the Inyavans depicted him. His similarity to the Fairy King struck her again, but the semblance soon seemed superficial. Other than the hue of his hair and his obvious strength, he didn’t look anything like the King at all. He had the copper features of the Inyavans and wore nothing more than a ceremonial cloak and beaded belt. Her lingering trepidation melted away. He was smiling gently upon her.
___“Hello…” she said, unsure of how to greet him. He didn’t answer, just smiled a fraction wider, then turned and walked away. Perplexed, she saw no better plan than to follow him, so she did, several paces behind.
___He left the main chamber, entering the part of the complex that housed the priests and priestesses. He passed these rooms and came to a stand at the back wall of the Temple. He gazed outside, so she cautiously came to his side.
___Zian could barely make sense of what she saw. Outside was the forest – sort of. It looked as though it was made of sand, and a raging wind threatened to blow it away altogether. Not in any of the Realms she had Travelled to had she seen anything like it.
___“What is this?” she asked Entes. He looked at her but didn’t answer. She supposed he didn’t understand her.
___Tentatively, she stretched her fingers out towards the window, wondering if she could put her hand through. Entes stopped her quite suddenly, firmly returning her hand to her side and looking down gravely at her. A definite ‘no’.
___She retreated from the window, wondering what other strange things she might find here. She was rarely called to other Realms for no reason, so she suspected there must be something here she could do.
___“I’m going to look around,” she told the Sun God, though he didn’t respond. She looked right, then left, back the way they had come, and was stopped short by the appearance of another shadow form standing in the corner as though watching them.
___It was always a little unnerving encountering these sorts of beings, since she could never quite tell what they were unless they took a form. But Entes approached without hesitation and placed his hands on the shadow. A flash of light and the shadow revealed itself as one of the young priestesses. She wore only a beaded skirt and necklace, and looked in the prime of her life. But soon she collapsed as if from exhaustion. Entes caught her, keeping her on her feet leaning wearily against him.
___“Is she alright?” Zian asked, alarmed. No answer, of course, but the priestess looked sadly at her, utterly fatigued. Being kept for so long in this Realm must have taken a toll.
___“OK, I’ll see what I can do to help…” Zian said softly, wondering if there was anything she could do. Turning around, Zian strode away, looking for further clues to her purpose here. There were two more shadows gathered in the corridor now, she guessed more priestesses. Maybe they were curious, maybe they were desperate. She wondered how long it had been since new Travellers had come here.
___In and out of all of the rooms she poked her head, seeing nothing new until she came back around to the Temple entrance. There she noticed something she hadn’t at first.
___The door to the outside world was a door to nothing. Out there, where the ancient town was supposed to be was nothing but an endless blackness Entes’s Temple was suspended within.
___“This doesn’t seem right…” Zian muttered wryly. It was hardly the kind of sight she would expect for a ‘Paradise’. She would have to ask Peria what the other Travellers had said about this Realm and whether it was always like this. The only explanation Zian had was what her ancestors told her about Realms on the brink of closing.
___“Entes and the priestesses are still here, but they appear to be stuck in the Temple…” Zian mused.
___She turned back round, thinking hard, then screamed in fright. A bright light had appeared right in front of her, revealing a doorway to another space. She had seen phenomena like this before. It was a portal to another Realm. Calming herself, she stepped forwards cautiously. The light moved back. If she wanted to enter, she would have to will herself through it.
___“Hmm.” Zian scanned the portal thoughtfully, peering inside to try and see what lay on the other side. For a long time she couldn’t see anything, until the faintest outline of a form appeared. She squinted and the figure grew slowly clearer, approaching her. It was a tall woman, with long hair she could only just make out against the light of the portal. Her hair had a slight bluish glow.
___“You must be the Star Queen…” Zian said, recalling her from the story written on the Temple walls. The pieces seemed to be coming together. The Realm was closing, but here was a portal to a new Realm and Queen Impaia was waiting on the other side. Was she waiting for Entes? But why hadn’t he joined her?
___Closing her eyes, Zian focused for a second on stepping through the portal. Opening her eyes, she looked straight ahead and marched determinedly forwards. The portal stayed put and she promptly bumped up against it as though she had walked straight into glass.
___“That’s odd.” She tried to push her hands through but couldn’t. She felt like a mime fumbling at an invisible wall.
___“Well, this has never happened before,” Zian muttered aloud. She’d come across several portals in her Travels, but she’d never been forbidden from passing through.
___“So I can’t go through for some reason, but the Star Queen can. Entes probably can, but hasn’t for some reason…” Zian mused. Then she gasped. The priestesses. Perhaps the portal was only for beings of this Realm, the deities themselves, and not Travellers like herself or the priestesses.
___It was all becoming clear. The Realm was closing and the Sun Temple was the only thing left. But was that only because Entes was still here? If he left, what would happen? If the Realm closed altogether, what would happen to a few stray priestesses, stuck without bodies to return to?
___The light went out and she slipped away.

It was morning when Zian awoke. She had gone straight to sleep when she returned from the Deity Realm, but the night’s events were crystal clear.
___Her teacher and several of her classmates were already camped outside around their breakfasts. Avid discussions about their research topic were already well underway.
___“The explosion of the star sounds like it could have been a supernova,” Tobby said. “But do other Realms have the same stars as we do, and if one explodes there, does it explode here too?”
___“Research does suggest the star systems are the same in many Realms,” Peria answered. “And as it happens, a supernova was recorded around the time that Entes and Impaia’s story first appears in the archaeological record.”
___This sounded to Zian like fairly compelling evidence, and her classmates seemed to think so too. She ladled herself a bowl of cereal and fruit salad and joined the conversation.
___“But how can we tell if the story didn’t just arise from the Inyavans’ own imagination after witnessing a supernova?” Peria countered.
___Her classmates fell into silent thought, but Zian answered quietly, “We could ask Entes.”
___Peria laughed, “That’s certainly one way of going about it. Any Travellers among us?”
___Karena looked at Zian. “I’ve Travelled before,” Zian confessed. “My ancestors were actually Travellers.”
___Her teacher and classmates stared at her, shocked.
___“Well… could you Travel to the Deity Realm?” Tobby asked.
___“I actually already did, last night… I don’t think Entes or the priestesses could understand me though.”
___“What?”
___“Oh my god, you actually saw them?”
___Zian blushed at the outcry. Travelling had become so normal for her, but for many others it was little more than a long-forgotten experience from an imaginative childhood, if that.
___“Yes, I did,” she replied, regaining her composure. “Entes reminded me a little of another being I met once, whose hair seemed to shine like sunlight. That being also had a mate whose hair shone like starlight…”
___“Well, stellar and solar beings are common in Sacred Realms. Their resonance is clear in the energy residuals,” Peria said, looking at Zian somewhat quizzically. “Well then, what should we do with this new account from a Traveller to the Deity Realm?”
___“Let’s hear it!” Karena blurted from behind her coffee mug.
___“I’d love to share…” Zian replied hesitantly. “But I’m a little concerned about what’s going on there… Do all the other accounts of Entes’s Realm suggest that it was… a complete world?”
___“There haven’t been any undisputed accounts of the Realm for a while, but yes. Even those from the Modern Era have called it, by and large, a reflection of the rainforest and its temples,” Peria answered.
___“It’s not like that anymore,” Zian said. She was still unsure of how much to share. To her ancestors, the Sacred Realms were like gardens to be tended, which meant helping the beings inside when necessary. When it came to the conflict between scientific method and the approach of her ancestors, Zian was always on the side of her ancestors.
___“Tell us what you saw,” Peria said softly, as though sensitive to her concern.
___She dallied, unsure, but it couldn’t really be helped. She was going to have to learn to negotiate between science and traditional practice sooner or later. “Alright… But it might disrupt our research topic…”
___Her classmates stared agog while her teacher furrowed her brow in thought. Lowering her empty breakfast bowl, Zian told them everything she remembered of the fading Paradise.

Zian’s story brought fascination to her classmates and shock to her teacher. The news that the Deity Realm appeared to be closing was something the entire scientific world would want to hear.
___“It’s a good thing we come prepared for these situations,” Peria said while the last of them hastily finished their breakfast. “We’ll need to set up energy residual trackers, and I hope at least some of you took a transcript of Zian’s retelling.”
___Only two of the more diligent students, Fia and Sebasto had done this. Everyone else merely looked sheepish.
___Peria ploughed on. “Now, I understand you’d like to do something to help out, Zian, but unfortunately it isn’t the place of scientists to interfere, even though you can Travel. We don’t want the rest of the scientific world to miss out on the research opportunities this situation affords.”
___This was where she and her teacher would always disagree. “I understand that, but not interfering isn’t always an option,” she replied. “Once Travel starts like this, it doesn’t usually stop until some situation or another is resolved.”
___“Oh.” Peria looked somewhat startled. “Well, if you could hold it off for as long as possible…”
___That was about as likely as trying to will herself not to have dreams. It was an unconscious process that she had to allow rather than one she could strictly control.
___“I can’t really stop it, to be honest. Perhaps I should contact my sister? I know she’ll have plenty of advice if we need to work in a hurry.”
___“You mean Nairose? Absolutely, if you think she would have time to pitch in!” Peria brightened.
___“Great, I’ll call her now.” This was exactly what Zian wanted. Peria was excited by Nairose’s celebrity within the field. Scientist though she was, Nairose was first and foremost Zian’s sister, and she had the authority to tell Peria what to do, to let Zian do what she needed to do.
___Scuttling back into her bunk room and sitting on her bed, as private a space as she could get, she pulled out her laptop and started a call. Normally she wouldn’t get through to her sister; Nairose was always too busy giving lectures or researching, having meetings or just generally being mobbed by excitable students and teachers alike. But now wasn’t one of those times.
___“Hey, hey, Zizi, how are things?” Her sister’s blue head of hair appeared on screen, her voice sounding far more animated and lively than she looked.
___“I’m good, great, and how about little Muina?” This she had to make time for.
___“You called at a good time. She’s just woken up… Hey little girl, come say hi to your auntie…”
___A tiny, delicate newborn popped onto the screen, her dark eyes not really sure what she was looking at. She had the milky skin of her mother, Nairose’s wife Charmine, mixed with the darker skin of the Ossyrian donor who had fathered her, giving her a light tan complexion. On top of her sweet little head was a small tuft of black hair.
___“Aw, how gorgeous! I’m surprised you haven’t dyed her hair blue yet,” Zian teased.
___“I haven’t managed to get Char to agree to it,” Nairose replied cheekily. “Anyway, I thought you were on a field trip to Entes-ma or something?”
___“I am, but there’s been a development concerning the Deity Realm…”
___“Of course there has: you’re there.”
___Zian laughed, somewhat flattered by her sister’s regard. Nairose winked, then, with sudden sternness, said, “You know, Zizi, I promised Char I wouldn’t do any work for at least three weeks after Muina’s birth, and we’re right in the middle of week two.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “So don’t tell on me.”
___“I won’t, and I promise I won’t keep you long! Or I’ll try not to… I know Charmine’s doing the hard yards with feeding and everything.”
___“Yes, exactly, so she’ll kill me if I get myself preoccupied with something other than motherhood.”
___“Well, helping your sister’s not really working, right?”
___“I can try to sell it that way.” They joked, but Zian really did hope to take as little of Nairose’s time as possible. Charmine already had to battle for Nairose’s time in ordinary circumstances, but now of all times she needed her support.
___“Anyway, I’ll be as quick as I can.” Feeling like a recording on fast-forward, Zian spat out her experience in the Deity Realm.
___There was a pause as Nairose pondered, then she replied wryly, “I know what you want to do, and it’s exactly what I wouldn’t do. You want to figure out how to help the priestesses before the Realm closes altogether.”
___“Exactly. I’ve read about closing Realms in our ancestors’ works before, but I don’t know what will happen to the priestesses if the Realm closes while they’re still in it. It might kill them, but even worse than that possibility, they could get stuck indefinitely in an in-between space.”
___“Something which science is yet to confirm the existence of,” Nairose contested.
___“I know, but our ancestors believed they were real and that’s enough for me. Getting lost outside formed existence sounds hellish. I wouldn’t want to risk anyone going through it.”
___“But how exactly do you plan on getting the priestesses out of there?”
___“I don’t know. I still need to figure that part out…”
___“Well look, you don’t know where this is going yet, but if you put me onto your teacher, I’ll tell her every single basic test and reading she’ll need to set up. That way she can get her data before you change things up in there.”
___“Thank you!” Zian chimed. Now she wouldn’t have to feel too guilty about interfering.
___“No problem,” her sister said. “We’ll talk again soon, alright?”
___“Of course.”
___Cautiously, Zian jumped down from her bunk, laptop in hand, and called out to Peria.

The rest of the day was a buzz of activity. Zian and her classmates had a crash course on a range of scientific testing that was well outside the scope of their course, and soon the Temple was under siege with equipment. Even the archaeologists studying the town got involved, and by the end of the day, several more teams had helicoptered themselves in to set up their own devices.
___Night fell, and Zian and her classmates were all in suspense. She suspected she would Travel back to the Deity Realm that very night, but by morning she had no exciting stories to share. It had been very much an ordinary sleep.
___“Can’t you Travel at will?” Tobby asked as they all headed back into Entes-en.
___“Not really. I have to wait to be called.” She was a little disappointed that nothing had happened overnight. She just had to be patient.
___“It’s alright,” Peria said, looking, in contrast, pleased Zian hadn’t Travelled again. “We’ll get back to our research topic and let the professionals handle the tests.”
___And that was just what Zian and her classmates did. Over the day, more and more scientists flew or drove in. The Temple was crawling with people, but Zian’s class kept to themselves, trying to date the story of Entes and Impaia; discussing the cultural context it emerged within and the level of interaction between the gods and Inyavans. They tested as many of their theories as they could with what they found within the Temple. Entes-en only got busier over the week, but by the end, despite the bustle they had the bare bones of the reports they would write up once they were home. And just like that, they were bidding Entes-en goodbye. No more Travelling. Not even dreams or shifting shadows.
___“I guess it was just a flying visit after all,” Zian sighed to Karena as they got back on the bus, packed and ready for the ride home.
___“You’re not kidding. I can’t believe we’re going home already.”
___She huffed. “That too.” Visiting the Temple had been an extraordinary opportunity, but Zian couldn’t help but feel it would have been more incredible if she had actually been able to accomplish something in the Deity Realm.
___“Cheer up,” Karena said. “I’m sure if there was anything you could do to help, you’d be back in. That’s the way it works, isn’t it?”
___“Usually.” Nothing to do now but say goodbye, Zian thought. This was just going to be one of the ones she had to let go.
___More than twenty-four exhausting hours of travel later – by bus, then plane, then Chute – Zian found herself far from the humid heat of the tropics and standing instead in the biting cold in pitch darkness, on a station platform with a fair view of Priad. The white metropolis glowed against the black backdrop of night, but many stars could still be seen glittering above it. She shivered, admiring the spectacle, but nonetheless hoping she wouldn’t have to admire it for long.
___In the carpark, an unseen car turned on its lights. She got her wish. Her sister Issy was already there waiting for her.
___Jumping into the heated car, she gave her big sister a hug.
___“How was it?” Issy set them in motion, the gentle rocking of the car lulling Zian into a soporific state.
___“Yeah, good…” She couldn’t manage much more, just a few bumbling statements about massive stone buildings and an instance of Travel.
___By the time she got home she felt dead on her feet. Issy mercifully offered to carry her luggage in while she staggered inside and briefly hugged her parents and Issy’s husband, Sairis. They wanted a breakdown of the trip, but she couldn’t oblige just yet. Dragging herself upstairs, she face-planted on her bed and fell asleep.

It was a whole month since Zian had left Entes-ma. She couldn’t believe it had been so long already. Last week she had handed in her report on their research topic, her conclusion leaning towards the love story coming from Entes. Whether it was true or not – the dead world and the journey of Impaia across the cosmos – she didn’t know. But at the very least, she thought there was significant evidence of story-sharing between the deities and the Inyavans, and this one had the hallmarks of the deity culture.
___Freed from all essential study for a few blissful days, Zian sat at leisure in her family library, enjoying her solitude in the temperate, quiet space. She was reading an old adventure of her priestly ancestor like it was a novel, learning as she went. Soon, she was stopped short by a sentence that needed a second look.
___It was then that I formed a portal and urged the fleeing animals through to spare their lives from the rampant spreading hellfire…
___On the opposite page was a description of the magic used to form the portal and where he had sent them. He had used an ‘untethered portal’, a portal not connected to his home Realm, in order to send the animals to a safe space elsewhere in their Realm. But how then did one create a tethered portal? Zian wondered.
___Flicking urgently through the pages, Zian realised she might already have answered her own question about how to free the priestesses she encountered in Entes’s Temple. When she encountered the portal during her Travel in the Temple, she couldn’t cross through. She remembered how odd that was, but it was so obvious now. Surely all she needed to do was create a portal they could cross through, one that would lead back to their mutual home Realm.
___“Tethered portals, tethered portals, aha!” Later in that same volume, the priest described how to make them.
___“Well, I’ve never really tried magic like this before…” she muttered. “First time for everything, I suppose…”
___She read the steps over and over, burning them into her memory. Connect to her tether. Will a space to open around it right through to its endpoint within her home Realm. Hold it open as long as needed. First attempts would require significant concentration. At the end, will the portal to close when no longer needed. Never leave it open.
___She had no real idea if it would help the priestesses, but if she had the opportunity to try, she might as well. If, being the most important factor. She hadn’t had any sense of the Deity Realm since that night during the field trip.
___“Perhaps this little piece of magic will change that,” she mused. Stretching out her legs, she decided to call it a day. By now the sun outside had long since set and a wintry night blanketed Priad and its surrounding farmland. Time for something hot next to the the fireplace, she thought.
___She left the library and strode towards the kitchen. And there, a welcome if spooky sight, was a disconnected shadow, sidling silently along the wall beside her.

The shadow vision heralded a call back to the Deity Realm as certainly as the sun did dawn. Though thousands of miles away from Entes-en, Zian found herself Travelling to the other- Realm Temple as readily as she had on her field trip. Once again, the Temple was in shadow and wouldn’t awake. She supposed it would not until Entes did.
___“I guess I’d better get their attention first…” Zian mused. “Hello?!” She called as loudly as she could bring herself to within the sacred place. Her presence hadn’t gone unnoticed. Soon, the shade of Entes emerged from his relief and awakened, bringing day to the Temple.
___“I want to help the priestesses,” she said plainly. He smiled serenely, giving no response.
___“I guess I may as well just go ahead then… ” Her early experiences in the Fairy Realm having her tether severed had encouraged her to learn how to connect to and heal it herself. Connecting was no trouble at all. When she willed the portal to open around it, just as she had read, she saw it in her mind’s eye, spinning like a Catherine wheel from where she stood in the Temple all the way to her bedroom, creating a fluid tunnel from the Temple to her home Realm. It swayed and swirled like the funnel of a whirlpool, but it felt stable.
___Opening her eyes once she was confident she could hold the portal open, she locked gazes with Entes, hoping her magic was visible to him. His demeanour became thoughtful, then softened into a broader smile yet. He spoke for the first time, in a language Zian couldn’t understand. His voice sounded as though it came as much from the Temple space as from himself. A procession of shadow-shapes answered his call: the priestesses, filing towards him and revealing themselves, far more of them than Zian had seen previously, their exhaustion one and the same.
___“Go through, if you will…” Zian told them. She could see the portal hovering in the air right next to her. Stepping back, she pointed towards it, and the priestesses approached curiously. The first girl’s eyes turned to bittersweet exultation. With a cry, she cast herself through, tears on her cheeks, and promptly her energy dissolved as though she had turned to ash.
___Zian watched this sombrely. The priestesses had given their lives to this Realm, and now, after centuries of extended life, they could rest. It was time to return home for their final goodbye.
___The majority of the priestesses appeared beyond relieved to embrace this last journey. One by one they ventured through the portal, some tearful, some serene, many of them bidding the Sun God a heartfelt farewell before they took their road to the afterworld. Zian kept her focus, trying not to get distracted by the tempest of emotions passing in front of her, determined to do her job as a Priestess of the Sacred Realms.
___When the last young woman passed through, Zian closed the portal, and found herself surprisingly worn by the effort. She turned to Entes, whose happiness shone from him with the full force of the midday sun. Behind him, the portal where his lover, Impaia, awaited him appeared. Finally, he was free to follow her. Placing his hand on his chest, in what Zian presumed was a gesture of thanks, he turned around and took Impaia’s outstretched hand, at last leaving the Deity Realm behind.
___Zian flushed with joy at what she had achieved. However, when the portal to Impaia’s Realm closed, Entes’s Temple began to crumble around her. Darkness consumed the walls with the speed of a shock wave, and she was suddenly yanked backwards by her tether, carried safely back to the comfort of her bed.

“So, I take it you’ve gone and closed the Deity Realm?”
___On Zian’s laptop screen, Nairose was staring down her nose at her. She looked considerably better rested than she had on their last call.
___Zian giggled. “What makes you say that?”
___“All of the energy residual readings abruptly stopped yesterday,” her sister answered accusingly.
___“Well, technically I didn’t close it. I just helped the priestesses leave!” she laughed.
___“Nah, it’s all good,” Nairose said, returning to her usual jocular tone. “It’s actually really interesting seeing the energy residuals at the Realm closure. A lot of people are going to want to put those under the microscope. What happened, anyway? All the priestesses left, and presumably…?”
___“Died,” Zian confirmed.
___“And they left how?”
___“I opened a portal back to our Realm for them.”
___“Of course you did.” Nairose winked, continuing sarcastically, “Why didn’t I think of that? And Entes? What happened to him?”
___“He went through the other portal to the Star Queen.”
___“Right. And then?”
___“Everything fell apart and went dark and I returned home.”
___“I see. And you didn’t happen to speak to any of them while you were there?”
___“We couldn’t understand each other.”
___“Well, you know, sis,” Nairose said mock-reprovingly, “you really should have studied their language instead of how to free the priestesses. Then you could have interrogated them about the Realm’s closure and whether it coincided with the end of the Inyavan culture on our end, and who was the last priestess to come through, and so forth.”
___“I thought that approach would be too interventionist for a scientist like you,” Zian teased back.
___“It is, but I trust you to bring back reliable data, so it’s OK.”
___“Sure,” she laughed. “Anyway, how are you? Has Charmine allowed you to return to work already?”
___“Not entirely. I’m only allowed to work from home. Speaking of which, I’d best get back to it before Muina wakes up. Char needs a break and I’m on duty.”
___“Alright, I’ll let you go then, if there’s nothing else you need to ask?”
___“Nope, we’re all good. I’ll take a closer look at the closure residuals. Interesting stuff, sis, interesting stuff…”
___“Good luck!” she smiled.
___“See ya.”
___The call ended and Zian closed her laptop lid. On her bed next to her lay an open notebook, a story scrawled over several pages and at the top the words:

The Priestesses of the Sun

___“Another entry for the library,” she sighed contentedly. Glancing one last time over the manuscript, she swung her legs off her bed and carried her latest adventure down to join her ancestors’.

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