Part 1 (1/2)

Planet X.

by Michael Jan Friedman.

Prologue.

”I WILL BE a new person,” Erid Sovar told his friends, savoring the warmth of the afternoon sun on his face. ”I will be a person this world has never seen before.”

His companions laughed good-naturedly and reminded him that everyone is like that-a person the world has never seen before. And they said that was true even before a person went on his adulthood quest.

But Erid wouldn't have his enthusiasm dampened. ”I will be truly different,” he said. ”I will be so different from anyone else, you won't know me when you see me again.”

They laughed again. And this time, he laughed with them.

Over the next several hours, Erid and his friends completed their hike into the barren highlands of Ra'ad Cuhloor. At the doorstep of the gigantic Vuuren Pa.s.s, they paused to eat something. While Erid prepared himself for the task ahead, his friends traded scandalous stories about him and laughed even harder than before.

Then, as the sun began to set, he hugged each of his companions and said goodbye to them. After all, he was certain they would never see him again-at least, not as the Erid Sovar they had known.

Continuing his journey on his own, he mused that one other should have been there to say goodbye to him. Unfortunately, that one was gone from his life forever. It was best to forget about him, the youth told himself, and to move on.

Without benefit of food or water, Erid made the long climb up to Otros Paar, the legendary Field of Heaven. When he got there, he saw the dozen tall, lonely stacks of rocks that awaited him.

Erid chose the pile farthest from the ruddy light of the setting sun and, therefore, nearest the light of the sun that would rise the next morning. Then he climbed the rocks, laid one on top of the other in ancient times, until he reached the highest and most precarious of them.

Sitting, he crossed his legs. Then he took a breath and composed himself, his light clothing barely any help against the cutting lash of the wind. Putting aside all thoughts of the life he had led to that point, thoughts both good and bad, he began to sing.

It was the way it had been done by his ancestors for the last seven hundred and fifty years. It was what tradition demanded of him. And Erid was only too eager to comply.

So he sat there, alone under the terrible and unexpected brightness of the stars, and sang psalms to the inclinations of his spirit. Nor was it like any other spirit in all the universe-his elders had a.s.sured Erid of that again and again.

All he had to do was sing the song, they had said, and he would find the elements that made him unique ... the elements that finally and irrevocably made him Erid Sovar.

For a brief time, the stars were obscured by a herd of gray clouds. Erid felt a cold, eventually numbing sizzle of rain, but he sang his way through it. Then the rain stopped, and the clouds dissipated, leaving only a few breeze-rippled puddles as evidence of their pa.s.sing.

As he sat there s.h.i.+vering, he was again haunted by thoughts of the one who should have been with him at Vuuren Pa.s.s. Anger and resentment rose in him. And pain as well.

No, he told himself. You must clear your mind, driving away such thoughts as the clouds have been driven from the sky.

Closing his eyes, Erid dropped deeper into his song, seeking solace. He wrapped it about him like a cloak against the chill, and in time his thoughts became pure again.

He pursued mystery after mystery, seeking who he was and who he might yet be. He came up with questions, a great many of them, but nothing at all in the way of answers.

Not at first, anyway.

Then, with the first pale hint of dawn, a change began to take place in Erid. As the wind lost its edge and the land grew still, the answers he craved started to come to him, one after the other-slowly at first, and then in a dizzying, breathtaking rush.

The youth felt a rush of confidence, a heady unfolding of grand potentials and possibilities. With great satisfaction, he realized that he was doing what he had set out to do-shedding one existence and donning another. Finally, the song having served its purpose, he stopped singing-but the feelings of joy and transformation continued.

Now the sun was rising over the uneven line of the horizon, its warmth moving down Erid's body like a lover's caress. It immersed his hands and his feet, then took the chill from the stone surface beneath him. He breathed deeply again and at last opened his eyes.

The world was ... beautiful. Even this place, with its dark, graceless flats and slopes and rock piles, with its stubborn refusal to support lif-it was as beautiful as anything he had seen.

His teachers were right, Erid thought. There had been a new way of seeing things locked inside him, a way that belonged to him alone. And all he had needed to do to find it was to follow their path.

Wis.h.i.+ng to share his feelings with his friends, knowing how glad they would be to see him, Erid uncrossed his legs and tried to dismount from the rock pile. However, his limbs wouldn't cooperate. They were stiff and awkward from his long night's vigil.

He had to go slow, to allow his feet time to find the niches between the stones. As the light moved down the ancient pile, so did he-little by little, rock by rock, his legs tingling painfully as the circulation began to return to them.

Then one of his feet slipped and missed its niche, and the rest of Erid followed it with amazing quickness. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, the side of his head feeling raw and bludgeoned.

He touched his fingertips to his temple. They came away with a purplish smudge on them. Blood, he thought vaguely. I'm bleeding?

But even that couldn't dim Erid's jubilation. Rolling over onto his belly, he raised himself on his hands and knees. Then, laughing at his helplessness, he hauled himself to his feet.

Turning, he saw the place where Otros Paar descended into the Vuuren Pa.s.s. With his back to the rising sun, he set out in that direction.

At first, it got easier and easier, as the blood rushed back into his legs. He made his way past one stack of rocks and then another. But after a while, Erid's legs began to feel heavy again.

Sensing that something was wrong, he looked down at them. Was it his imagination, or were the veins in his legs swelling?

As he pondered the question, feeling a tiny trickle of fear running down his spine, he realized it wasn't just his legs that felt heavy. His arms felt that way too.

Weighted down. And thick. Swollen, somehow. And their veins were popping out as if they wanted to burst through his smooth bronze skin.

Erid shook his head helplessly. It didn't make sense. There were no poisonous animals lurking this high up, no toxic plants he might have brushed against. And if he had eaten something bad for him the day before, he would have known it long before this.

It didn't make sense at all. And yet, his veins and arteries were swelling before his eyes, standing out under his flesh like metal cables.

But, strangely, Erid felt no pain. Even the numbness had gone away. The only discomfort he felt was the sensation of weightiness.

He swallowed, his throat dry with fear. He could feel the vessels in his neck and his temples were swelling, too, now-and that wasn't all. His flesh was beginning to darken around them, turning a hideous shade of purple-except in his fingers, which remained their natural bronze somehow.

What's going on? Erid wondered, his heart pounding savagely against his ribs. What's happening to me?

At that moment, he chanced to look into one of the puddles left by the night's rainshowers. In it, he saw his reflection, almost as clearly as he might have seen it in a mirror.

He was hideous, his blood vessels enlarged and darkening all over his face, his long, narrow brush of blue-black hair starting to thin and fall out. As he staggered away from the sight of himself, repulsed beyond words, he heard someone screaming.

It took Erid some time to realize it was him.

He fell to his knees, too weak and scared to support himself any longer. Only his fingers remained normal, resisting whatever had befallen him. Staring at them, he tried to hang on to the remnants of his sanity. Then something happened to his fingertips as well.

They began to glow with a pale, hazy light. Erid studied them, wondering what would happen next. He wasn't left wondering for long.

A brilliant white beam shot out suddenly from one of his fingertips and struck a nearby stack of rocks-shattering it with explosive force. He stared at the stunted pile that remained.