Glimmer: Part One

“Nocterra is extinguished. No light of any sort can be detected there, and so the world has been plunged into perfect dark. Without contrast there is no perspective. There is no conflict and there is no becoming. It is known that life was prepared to exist, but without any driving forces it has been left in a form of perfect stasis.

“There is something else, too. Something deep and dark and hidden, an entity of nothingness that cannot be defined because it blends in perfectly with all the rest of the nothingness that surrounds it. It is what fuels the void there.”

The sentinel paused, and Reylim nodded to signify that she understood. In all honesty, she did not fully understand, but she grasped the main points at least. The land was dark. The people were frozen. It was the fault of that dark entity.

“You will be sent there to reignite the planet and allow the divine struggle to wage there. The light that you provide to it will serve as a catalyst towards virtue, whilst that dark entity will remain to pull towards vice. Evil will propagate, and so heroes will, of necessity, arise. You shall be the first hero, and the mold from which every other will follow. In time, they will be able to wrest the good out of the darkness, and secure their own peace and prosperity.”

Reylim nodded solemnly.

“And you will die.”

Reylim started at that, an involuntary shudder that encompassed her entire body. The sentinel must have noticed, but did not seem surprised or disturbed. Perhaps it was because her eyes held firm, even if now shining slightly, and she nodded solemnly once more.

“How am I meant to proceed?” she queried.

“The sanctity of your quest must be preserved,” the sentinel cautioned. “For it to mean anything, it truly must be your own. But, do not fear that you shall find your way. When you arrive you will know what to do.”

Reylim stared, the wetness in her eyes growing.

“What is it?” the sentinel asked.

“Might I fail?”

For the first time the sentinel dropped his severe tone and became the compassionate mentor Reylim knew. He bent down to lift her chin and stroked his other hand through her hair.

“For the sanctity of your quest, there must be an opposition. And if there is opposition there must be a risk of defeat…. But… you are ready.”

She smiled and blinked, the tears making marks down her cheeks.

“And you will not be alone.”

She furrowed her brow at that but the sentinel did not say any more. Instead he rose and began unbuckling his staff from his side.

“Reylim, daughter of the highest order,” he said impressively, twirling the white rod up and around before catching it firmly in his palms, “with your permission I will send you to the planet Nocterra, that you may bring fire and hope to all that live there.”

Reylim assumed a warrior’s stance and wiped the tears from her face. “I am ready.” She heard herself say the statement, and felt it ring encouragement into her.

“May your Glimmer guide you.”

The ball at the end of the sentinel’s staff glowed brighter and brighter, illuminating Reylim, and even overpowering her image. Her round face, still youthful and freckled lost its dimensions and became a white sheet. The raven tresses that curled under her chin glowed to the point of transparency, and all the loose folds of her ceremonial robes disintegrated into the scorch.

To Reylim, though, it appeared that it was the entire room that was bleeding into the white, every form and figure being consumed until all was pure brightness. Then, slowly, all began to fade in unison, passing through every shade of gray and finally to perfect black. She felt cold stone beneath her bare feet and a stagnant chill in the air. She was somewhere else.

Reylim shivered, unnerved by the stark transformation and unsure of what to do in such pitch emptiness. She brought her hands to her eyes but could not see them. She tossed her head around but could not even make out varying shades of black, only a complete and perfect void. Her lip was trembling and a faint whimper emerged from her lips. It was her first exhale into that strange world and it came out of her throat as a slightly glowing mist. She gasped in delighted surprise, and as her heartbeat quickened she noticed a soft illuminance about her core.

“My Glimmer!” she exclaimed. Though she had felt its stirrings within her at many times this was the first time she had ever been able to perceive it naturally. Perhaps it was faint, but it was hers, and she delighted to see that it was there. Slowly the light was spreading through her veins, each part of her becoming vaguely luminescent. Crouching down to the ground and placing her hand on the surface she was able to just make out the black stone that lay there, smooth and flat and slightly marbled.

In little grooves of the rock she could barely make out some tiny plants pressing out into the air. Her light was not enough to make out their proper color, but she could see that each had three round leaves that swayed ever so slightly whenever her light grew nearer.

So caught up was she with her little discoveries that at first she did not notice the pale gray light inching across the ground towards her until it crept across her outstretched fingers. Snapping her head upwards she tried to make out its source, but could not. The horizon was simply a dull gray in one direction, perfect black everywhere else. As surprised as she was by this development she was more so to find that her own luminescence was now pooling to the edge of her that faced that gray horizon, as if straining to meet it.

“May your Glimmer guide you?” she echoed. “I didn’t realize he was being so literal!”

She began making her way towards the source of light, but found the going very awkward. The sheet of rock she moved across was at times laid over by another slate of stone, a few inches higher than the previous. The first few of this transitions she tripped painfully over, before learning to feel the space in front of her before committing to the next step. It was hardly better than being completely blind, and her progress was incredibly slow.

At some points there were large gouges in the rock, too, depressions that dropped as her whole height and stretched twice as wide across. These she became even more wary of, dropping to all fours and feeling her way down into their recesses and then back up their other side.

With time, though, the going became easier. Slowly, but steadily, the illumination was increasing, by which she knew that she could not be too far from the source of the light. Before long the glow was bright enough to cast shadows. Very long shadows they were, too, strange and stretched forms that tangled together behind her. By this she knew that the source  of light must not be very high above the ground.

Between the clumps of light and shadow she gained a patchwork understanding of the terrain she traveled. It was a very long and flat stretch of land, extending far in every direction. And it was dry. She could see no source of water, and unsurprisingly no signs of animal life. The flora was almost nonexistent as well, only those tiny saplings that snaked out wherever the rock was cracked.

Most important, though, was the light, and soon she became aware of a single orb ahead, a concentrated ball that had to be the source. She was surprised to find that she could look at it directly. Indeed its core barely appeared any brighter than the splash of light laying across her feet. The light had a grayish-blue tint, and it was not perfectly uniform. Even from her distance she could make out little dark marks speckled around its surface, like little craters on a moon.

Of a sudden she realized that her perception of depth had been off, and what she had assumed to be a gigantic ball far in the distance was actually a very small sphere close ahead of her. All at once she was standing underneath it, close enough that she could reach up to touch it if she wanted.

It did not make sense that something so small and dim could have illuminated so great a stretch of land. And yet here it was, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand and gentle enough that she could stare directly at it.

Reylim slowly began to pace around it, taking it in from every angle and contemplating what to do next. Slowly, cautiously, she extended a hand out towards it, and as she did so a low hum emanated from the orb and the portion of it closest to her hand intensified in brightness. She drew her hand back again and it returned to normal.

She blinked a few times, then extended her hand out again, watching the sphere respond to her proximity once more. This time she also became aware that her own inner light was pooling up into her outstretched arm like a fluid, almost bursting out to meet the sphere.

Reylim paused, licked her lips contemplatively, then pressed her hand all the way to meet the orb. A crackling sensation rippled along her arm and small droplets of pure water began to shimmer along her skin. Then they ran down her arm like streams of pure liquid energy. Her own light had a yellowish tint, but it began to blend with the blue from the sphere, combining into a white that encompassed them both.

Reylim.

She was not startled, perhaps because she did not actually hear a voice. She only felt the words.

“Yes?” she responded.

I am glad you found me.

“Me too!” she almost laughed from relief. “It was quite dark here at first and I had started to think it would always be like that. They told me no light could be detected down here.”

It always would have been if you had not come. I had none to shine to.

“Oh…” she said, not really understanding. “And…what are you?”

You do not recognize me? Even though I am already a part of you?

Reylim paused to consider that. “Are you…one of the Glimmers?… My Glimmer?”

There is only one. ‘Your Glimmer,’ as you call it, and all others are reflections of the one.

Reylim’s heart pounded rapidly, and she began to shake. “You are the Glimmer?” she gasped. Of course everyone’s personal Glimmer was the mark of divinity, but this then was the divinity itself!

What you see now is, again, only a reflection. My entity is not constrained to a single place or time on your level. Though a sphere of light may appear here on Nocterra, and another on your own home-world, and still another within yourself, yet all are the same entity.

“Oh…” Reylim said slowly. “That is very different from what I was taught.”

You have been enlightened.

“I suppose I–hey!” she suddenly laughed as she noticed a pun in its declaration, then paused as she wondered if laughing was disrespectful.

I am glad you enjoyed that. Though she still did not hear an actual voice, she felt a warmth and even a mirth with the message.

She smiled, feeling the weight of formality relaxing from her. She allowed herself to pause just to let all of this information to sink in, contemplating what it meant. Glimmer did not try to interrupt her, and she felt certain it did not mind being patient.

“So…” she eventually spoke back up. “You said there was none other here for you to shine to? I was told there were people here, though. You can’t shine to them?”

No, the thought came heavily, I am not within them and thus cannot empower them. At least not now. But with your help that could be changed and I would very much like to shine to all that are here.

“That’s what I have come here for,” she exclaimed excitedly.

It is why you were sent, but is it why you came?

“What do you mean?”

Are you ready, Reylim?

She paused, the sentinel’s claim that she would die on this journey flashing painfully in her mind. Of course Glimmer would already know all of the hesitations in her heart.

“I–don’t know. I’m sorry.”

It is not wrong for you to be afraid.

“I am ready to have a quest, and I am ready to fight to help this land. But I do not know how far I am ready to follow that…” she felt both ashamed to admit it, but also relieved by the honesty.

Reylim, that is your quest and fight. To see how far your heart can go. It is good for you to be unsure, so that your journey may begin. But before we do anything else, I need to you to understand. You are not broken by being afraid. You are all right inside.

A bubble of pride swelled within her and tears moistened her eyes. “Then I am ready to begin.”

*

As I mentioned on Monday, sacrifice is a very powerful element to incorporate in a story. It is something that should not be played with lightly, and I specifically endeavored in this section of the story to give it the gravity it deserved. I think a good way to do that is with a character that does not want to be a sacrifice, that immediately makes their plight all the more pitiful.

One thing that I did intentionally was to spread Reylim’s hesitation to be a sacrifice across a two different moments in the story. In my experience if you want to stress a point, it is more impactful if you repeat it at a few different moments than to spend a long time on it only once. By this way you also create a layering effect, one where you introduce a concept, and then stagger its arc with others that are occurring beneath it.

That idea of layering plots, and particularly of staggering them, is one I’m going to delve into with my next post on Monday. I’ll also point out how I have been using this mechanic for each of  the stories this series: With the Beast, The Heart of Something Wild, and Glimmer. Until then, have a wonderful weekend!

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