Episode 44
Octave of Stars Theme Song:
Welcome to the serial version of Octave of Stars! Episodes will release every Monday and Thursday. If you’re finding this story for the first time, be sure to start at Episode 01 for maximum comprehension, or check out The Index for all available Episodes.
I highly recommend you read this on the Substack website or app, as this serial is a multimedia experience. You’ll find many audio embeds below that score the story, and they won’t function as intended in your email client. Only one track can be playing at a time, so when you reach the next one just start it and they won’t overlap. If you like the music you hear, please consider supporting the artists as well.
____********____
The Fire and Water Stars rose into the air, flanking the terrible Starlight Prism, as Gayle watched from the top of the roof. "Now that is really and truly somethin'," she said.
"Oh my gosh, it's working!" Azalea called from the edge of the roof. "Look!" Gayle joined her, followed by Rand, who still stood a safe distance away despite their truce. All three observed with gratitude how the world was returning to normal. Rainfall ceased, snowfall halted, the sun returned to its normal warm shine, helping to dry up and melt the precipitation, the winds died down to a more comfortable level, blowing away the snowdrifts.
"Praise the Lord," said Rand, which surprised both Gayle and Azalea.
Gayle nodded. "Thank you Jesus," while Azalea made the Sign of the Cross.
Yin was sitting near Frost in case he could be helpful, when the gentleman hissed his name.
"Boss?" Yin whispered back.
"Now, while they are distracted, take those metal bars from the collector and bind them up."
Yin glanced between Frost and Lumina, who was sitting close enough he was sure she would overhear, despite her sitting calmly with her eyes closed. "But Boss, what about the deal?"
Frost scowled and Yin felt himself recoiling. "The deal was I would have the Prism, and I currently don't, so they are still active threats in my building. Deal with them accordingly."
Yin studied all the assembled threats in their various positions on the roof. "Okay, Boss, I'll go… talk to Rand."
Frost nodded and leaned back against his makeshift pillow.
Yin stood up and rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt back down. He passed Gayle and Azalea on their way back to Lumina, then reached his partner, still at the edge of the roof.
"He wants us to do what?"
"Capture them still?" Yin grimaced.
Rand's fury softened quickly, as truth and clarity dawned on him. Maybe he had been praying for it, he was still new at this. "He's just grasping. They honored the bargain, and I've had a long day. I'm done fighting."
Yin flipped his hair over his shoulder. "Whew, I'm glad you and I are on the same page. I mean, what could we even do? Gayle would just blow away a tranq dart, and they don't even work on the girl. The guys downstairs saw her get hit by the bots and not even get sleepy."
Rand gazed out at the vista of the city again, a strange feeling settling on him. The last stone was laid into place. "Not to mention Mrs… Ms. Brighteye. No, I think if he wants it that badly, he can get it himself…" It was like he had unearthed a precious gem in the soil of his heart, a rare treasure he had not observed before. It had always been there, he knew, it just required some excavation to retrieve.
Rand pulled out his phone and examined it, before handing it to Yin. "Here. You're going to need this."
Yin stared at it, then at him. "What? How come?"
"It's a company phone. The Chief Security Officer's dedicated line." Rand turned around and walked toward the rest of the group.
"But… you're the…" Yin's eyes narrowed. "Hey now, big guy," he said, starting after him.
Gayle and Azalea had been chatting with Lumina, still seated in her makeshift chair. The tall woman was pointing up at the sky. "See, it'll be easier to get 'em down than up, right? I figure if I have one under each arm, I can slow us down enough not to drop too hard."
Rand stood next to Frost, Yin catching up to them. Frost peered up at his very tall employee. "Rand? Did Yin discuss the matter with you?"
Rand looked down at the man on the floor and shook his head. "Yes, he did."
"Then let's begin."
"No," Rand said, "let's have an ending instead. I'm giving my resignation, effective immediately."
"What?" Frost sputtered, then coughed, holding his bandaged hands to his mouth. Yin helped him to a sitting position so he could recover.
By now the ladies all wore expressions of concern, Azalea's including her slingshot. But they relaxed when Rand walked toward them with an expression of determination, not anger. And perhaps even a smile.
"So," he said to his previous foes, holding up the gem he had uncovered in his heart to the light, the wind blowing away the dust and polishing it with a leaf. "How can I help?"
____********____
From an airplane, the world was an enormous quilt, different patches of green and gray and blue and brown all spread out together, stitched together with roads, power lines and other such infrastructure. It was usually a pleasant sort of existential experience, with the added assurance of a metal fuselage in between the observer and the wild yonder.
While being suspended in the air by a super-powered Starlight Prism, the experience was somewhat different. Ash and Cascadia were not hanging on for dear life like he had expected, instead it felt like the walkway was still underneath them, they held their arms at a comfortable level, and simply sailed upward, wide-eyed with the wonder of it all.
"Wow…" Cascadia said, beholding the sky around them.
"Look, I think we did it," Ash said, only able to point downward with his nose at the clouds that were dispersing over their beloved city. He could see the patches of white snow melting and the rain drying up. The scattered swaths of destruction were disappearing entirely.
"Thank God," Cascadia said, with conviction. "The others can handle it from here, I think." She glanced around again. "It's not as cold as I expected it to be up here."
"It's keeping us in the air, so it's probably helping us stay warm too," Ash said. "And we can still breathe, so that's important."
Cascadia took some experimental breaths. "Seems like it, yes. Wow, this would be a lot of fun if it weren't so serious."
"Yeah. How high are we, anyway? I can't tell if we're even still going up."
"I don't know—wait, I do know!" Cascadia said, then moved her shoulders around. "Hmm… oh, that's it." As she concentrated, the tube flipped itself over her shoulder and a thin line of water came out of it, which she used to work open the zippered pocket of her bag, retrieving a silver, circular device.
"Why do you have Gayle's altimeter?"
"It fell out of her pocket when I helped her lay down, and we got so busy afterward I didn't give it back. But, here we are at…" she studied the meters in front of her face. "Six thousand feet, I think?"
"Geez, that seems like plenty. We'd better stop."
"Okay, let's try. Ready?" He nodded and they focused on the concept. Cascadia kept an eye on the altimeter as it slowed, then halted altogether. "And… we stopped."
Ash shook his head as Cascadia returned the altimeter to her jacket pocket, the water returning into the reservoir on her back. "Oh my gosh, Cas, what do we do now? This is just so crazy…"
"Yeah, it really is. At least, though, we get to do it together, right?" She looked into his eyes, the soft smile on her face spreading to his.
"You're right." He glanced down at the Prism again. He had been avoiding eye contact with it, mostly because it was pretty terrifying. It was difficult to describe exactly what it was like in a few words, since it was literally everything, all matter and energy compressed down into a small space. His body reacted to it in strange ways, making him feel comforted and scared, peaceful and anxious all at the same time. It reminded him of sandy beaches, sunlit forests, swimming in the river, watching the stars at night, but also forest fires and earthquakes and tornadoes. Smells and flavors and sounds all swirled together in his senses. He wasn't sure if the Prism actually smelled like fresh tortillas or if he was just remembering the aroma.
He straightened up. Cascadia had been staring out at the clouds and smiled at him as he spoke. "Ugh, that's really distracting."
"I know what you mean," she said. "It's hard to look at Him for very long."
Ash smirked. "Him? It's a boy? Did you name it too?"
She grinned back. "No, I don't mean the Prism, I mean God."
"Huh?"
"He's right here, in our hands."
"Well yeah, God is everywhere, right?"
"Of course, but the Prism is like… condensed everywhere, if that makes sense." She brightened, her eyes opening wider. "Oh, it's like that show we watched about Saint Thomas Aquinas. God is the act of being itself, and the Prism is more… 'being-y' than anything else that could possibly… be."
"Wow," Ash said, "that's pretty deep." He wasn't being sarcastic.
"It is," Cascadia said. "Remember the vision that caused him to stop writing, too? Everything else was like straw. Maybe some medieval Star alchemists cooked up one of these and he got a peek at it."
Ash chuckled. "Maybe… But now what? We're still six thousand feet in the air."
"Right," Cascadia said, her face hardening. "First of all, we can't just leave this thing here, Frost could pop by in his private jet and pick it up again."
"Yeah…"
"So we need to send it up even higher, but without us still attached to it."
"How do you figure we do that?"
"I was thinking we could sort of… throw it? Tell it to go up and then let go of it. It'll keep on rising, I think."
"But we'll fall, and Gayle's not here. Maybe we should have had her and Rand try this instead…"
Cascadia shrugged. "Well, we have to do our best, right? We have to trust in God. He put us up here, there has to be a way for us to get down."
"Maybe Gayle can catch us somehow?"
"But how can she know where we are?"
"…Maybe I could shoot off some fire to get their attention?"
"You'd have to do it away from me…"
"Yeah… Well, they're probably trying to figure this out just like we are." Ash squinted down at the ground. "I still see the Tower there, I think, so let's aim toward it, alright?"
"Alright." Cascadia nodded. "Whatever we do, we'll do it together."
Ash let himself get a little lost in her eyes, the sea of kindness, of patience, and of faith. There was nothing to do but trust. He closed his eyes. "Lord, thy will be done."
"Amen," Cascadia said.
They both concentrated, willing the Prism to keep rising, but also to release them. It was working, they could feel the rush of air again and their stomachs dropped. Their right hands came free from the face they were holding. Quickly they reached out to take hold of one another, half-suspended and lurching. Their left hands felt like they were slipping, then they were free as well. Ash reached out for her. They were falling freely for a moment, able to behold the wonder of the sky for a few seconds more. Then, it felt like a cloth was being pulled across their entire bodies, a sensation of pressure and texture that left quickly. The pleasant ascent immediately became a violent descent.
The still air was gone, cold rough winds taking their place. Ash tried to pull Cascadia closer, fighting against the harsh wind.
She was thinking out loud as they struggled: "There must've been some kind of bubble around the Prism, now we're just falling in midair!"
Ash kept pulling, grabbing at the sleeves of her jacket, as they tilted from the heaviness of their upper halves. "Okay, just hold on to me, my coat'll keep the heat off you!" He deployed one launcher, ready to start signaling, when an aggressive gust cut through the two of them, pulling apart their unity once more.
The instant stretched out; Cascadia slipping away, her eyes wide in fear. She was barely holding on by her fingertips, but had enough time to say what needed to be said.
"Ash, I love you!"
She was gone, blown away on a current.
"Cascadia!" Ash yelled, losing his sense of direction and spinning around, untethered and lost. "No, no!" He was falling, but where was she, how fast was he going, how close were they? Too many unknowns, not enough to work with. He let off a few blasts from his launchers anyway, hoping it would do some good, that he could somehow find her and fix all of this and get her home safely and…
And there was the prayer he had said before letting go, before beginning this leap of faith. Ash closed his eyes and let himself fall, let himself drift, let himself trust.
By the time he finished his second deep breath, he felt something cold on his face. It felt like raindrops, but he was falling. He opened his eyes and saw her.
He was pretty sure there weren't many natural objects that were red and sea-green, especially up here. She was falling head first, below him and… away from him, he didn't know what direction was what right now. Her braid was whipping against her back, dress held tight against her legs. She had adopted a spiraling trajectory, a trail of water corkscrewing after her. At first he thought it was her tears, but saw the tube of the hydration pack spilling its contents after her. Providing him with a trail to follow.
Thinking quickly through the prayers, he tried to swim or move to get closer, then remembered he had packed his own rocket boosters. His firebrand was still jammed in its ring, so he wrenched it free, quickly attaching the fuel tube to his wrist pack. He unstrapped it so he could ditch it as soon as he caught up to her. It was about to get very hot. It sparked to life and he turned up the heat as high as it could go, continuing to twist the control ring around the hilt, past the maximum. The top of the pipe popped off, all the flame directed in a stream. With his other launcher he adjusted his course, and through this new propulsion system, he guided himself closer, ignoring the rapidly approaching ground.
In a few more moments, he was near enough to see her face as it rotated into view. Her eyes were closed, her face serene. Ash threw the blazing torch away from him, twisting around and grabbing Cascadia around the arms, holding her tighter than ever.
Cascadia smelled heat and oil. The scratchy material of his shirt pressed against her face. "Ash?" She hadn't opened her eyes. "Are you in Heaven with me too?"
"Not yet!" Ash yelled, praying the whirling torch would attract Gayle's attention, or anyone's. They were directly over the Tower, which was greener than when they left. They would be touching down in just a little while, one way or another.
"Oh good," she murmured. "We still have time." They passed through a line of clouds, momentarily losing sight of the sky, but the cloud followed. A disc of water quickly formed below them, which expanded into a bubble. Ash held his breath as the water enveloped them, and he lost his sense of falling, or rising, or anything.
____********____
Yin closed the bottom panel of his phone, ending the call and slipping it into his shirt pocket. "The helicopter's on its way, it's coming from the hotel, which is about fifteen minutes, but they hafta stop by the hospital for a stretcher for the Boss, so it might be longer."
"Still, that sounds so great," said Azalea, crouched next to him with her hands in a patch of soil. "I've never ridden in a helicopter before." She stood up and brushed the dirt on her pants, which blended in well with the khaki color. "But… is Mr. Frost gonna be okay with us all riding along too?"
Yin chuckled. "No, he'll probably complain, but guess what?"
Azalea looked around, amused. "Umm… what?"
"I'm the Head of Security now, so I get to decide how best to secure things. The entire building is wrecked," he gestured down to said edifice, "I can feel all the metal is out of place."
"Really? All the way down to the ground?"
"Well, mostly."
Azalea nodded. "I know what you mean, I once felt a tree with roots that had to be a mile deep."
"Yeah, you get it. Anyway, the whole thing is too risky to try and get down on our own. The power's out, so we'd have to take the stairs, if they're all clear. It's way easier to just take the helicopter."
A rush of wind preceded Gayle landing on the rooftop. She stood up from her crouch and turned around. "They're comin!"
Azalea ran over to her. "Awesome!"
Gayle continued: "The winds are too squirrely, just like I thought. Must be mad after all that ruckus. I saw 'em headin' down, though, and pushed 'em right above the net."
"Thanks Gayle," Azalea said, taking her hand tightly and turning to the rest of the group. "Thanks everyone!"
Rand nodded, feeling a solid sense of peace. The hole in the middle of the tower had been repurposed into an enormous mesh of sturdy vines, planted by Azalea, in dirt furrowed by Rand, in a channel cut by Yin, and nourished by light directed by Lumina. Rand poured the rest of the water from Yin's artistic watering can onto the soil, then set it down and turned to his old partner.
Lumina sat near where Frost lay still on the floor. "Look, Drake," his wife said, pointing upward. "How often do you see two falling stars at the same time?"
Frost didn't answer.
Gayle alighted again, marshaling the surrounding air into a cone, a funnel to guide the ball of water that was carrying two of her closest friends. Azalea said a prayer for their safety and jumped with joy when the water hit the net; the fluid pouring downward, through the gaps in the vines, but leaving the passengers swaying in the green embrace.
Azalea nimbly scrambled across the thick vines to reach them, while Gayle flew over and hovered nearby. "They alright?" Gayle asked.
Azalea saw something something strange, yet perfectly fitting. A shimmering bubble encased both Ash and Cascadia's heads, which were close enough that their foreheads touched. Azalea reached out in curiosity, and at her barest touch the bubble popped, leaving Ash blinking and gasping at different air. Cascadia wasn't gasping, but she was definitely breathing, her eyes closed like she was sleeping peacefully.
"They're both fine!" Azalea cheered, through the tears in her eyes.
"Thank you Jesus," Gayle said, lowering herself to get her arms under Cascadia's shoulders. "Thank you Jesus."
Octave of Stars is currently airing on Substack for free, with two of the 45 total posts per week. It’ll be fully released at the end of April 2024. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can get the entire story right now, in either Ebook or paperback. Every purchase supports the ZMT Books mission of family-friendly entertainment.
Like the story so far? Let me know either with a comment here or in the official chat thread. Subscribe, share, do what you like!