Home

12.25.2015

The ends narrowed to points as they went, until they were sharp. The lights inside the cylinders dimmed for a moment, and the opaque shells of the cylinders looked like glass. The standing static liquid stood at his feet and came to a rest. The surface mirror-like and reflected a clear image of the three light sources as their brightness increased again.

Powerful pulses of energy beat the surface of the cylinders outward as the light beams swung around faster now. Whomm. Whomm. Whomm. Tern felt it in his bones as he stood transfixed. The feelings of dread, excitement, and curiosity rose up in his throat and spread along both sides of his neck and rose to the top of his head where all they all met, mixed, and sat, tingling.

Dirt coalesced in the air and tumbled about. Grains bumping into one another and sticking or shattering into motes of dust. As more and more dirt appeared, clumps and clusters and balls formed. Pockets of solar systems gained mass and hardened into boulders. They orbited around one another in eccentric paths. The magic collapsed and the boulders rained down to the ground, pockmarking the ground as they sublimated on impact.

Whomm. Whomm. Whomm. The spikes in the air increased their rate of spin and drove down into the earth. They rest in the earth for a moment before they rose back into the air. Spinning and casing out their lighthouse signals. White to blue to red to yellow, spinning faster now too, and they drove into the ground again.

A cracking sound leaked through the air and a small set of splits webbed through the ground from the site of the impact and under his feet. The veinwork expanded and the cold static on his legs leaked down into the earth, leaving his legs chilly.

A flash spread through the web of cracks and the static liquid boiled off with a roar. The spikes rose into the air once again, now dripping static. They started a tumble, end over end. Like three propellers. Whirling in the sky, unsupported. The tips bulged on the propellers as the middles narrowed. THe middle thinned down until the tiny thread connecting the now-balls of light snapped, and sent each of the ends into an orbit around the world.

Several seconds later they all appeared in the sky, two sets of three. And they all impacted their twin with a shower of sparks and the sky gave a death rattle. From the three gouges in the ground leapt spotlights of ionized, electric static. The three beams shown into the air and obliterated the earth underneath it. Chasms widened as molten rock tumbled further down.

The wind buffeted Tern from the back again. A gust blew him forward and his legs moved to catch him, but his toe caught in a crack in the pavement and he pitched forward over the enge of the hill and tumbled down the static-slick ground.