Flight 1846

See The audio version ald all informations on the audio

Music fit for this part of the story: (⚠pub) In These Whispered Halls by Fire Side Chants.

Short summary for non-goers: This story happens in a double world, the Nyidiath, the Human's world, and the Dauriath, where the Elves were expelled seven centuries ago in an event known as the Exodus. The two worlds touch each other and communicate by a dangerous passage: the Horiathon. Today, the governments of the Nyidiath have reached the stage of modern technology, so that they decided to invade the Dauriath, that they thought was still in the Middle Age. Bad idea, the Elves were actually more advanced, and incomprehensible weapons led to a disastrous rout: the Horiathon Battle, in the year 3896. The resulting treaties barred the Humans from building weapons or nuclear plants. But they also offered peace and new technologies like the Internet, cures to diseases, green energies, and so on. The context of this story is a rapidly changing world, with new technologies spreading fast and opening new ways of life. There also is a rise of positive views about the Elves, instead of the previous racism. Still it is a complex world, with many countries, groups and political parties. We just have a glance on that, as the context of the story. It starts four years before the Horiathon Battle.

This is the account of Matt Kierkehard, at the first person, in modern times, about the strange events he witnessed following Flight 1846.

«Me: First of all, I want you to know that I am a Human, not an Elf. We too can do important things and have interesting experiences. Although we do them more roughly.

This day of the year 3892, four years before the Horiathon Battle, my father Arno Kierkehard took his F33 fighter aircraft, flight 1846, in a reconnaissance mission over the Dauriath, the world of the Elfs. Everybody in the Monatar Republic knew without euphemisms that it was in preparation for an invasion. But when my father came back, he slammed his aircraft in the building of our Ministry of Defense, right in a meeting, killing the minister and nine top military officers.

I warned you: we are rough.

The motive of this incredible treason was totally unundesrtandable, since our father was a very trusted army member, and a firm believer in the authoritarian values or our country. What could he see in the Dauriath, to turn him so drastically against everything he had faith in? This incredible twist made an awful fuss, everybody screaming in rage, as if we had trampled on a wasps nest.

In the huge media roar which followed, we, his family, looked of null importance. Until my mother Rosa Kierkehard went to the ministry, to claim the body, for the funerals. What happened then was as horrible as unexpected. The brunt of the repression fell on us, his family. My father was posthumously ejected from the army, while my mother was fired of her high accountancy job in the government. Even us young children were insulted in the television: «sons of a traitor». Started five years of humiliation, poverty and misery for her, me and my elder brother Hita, until the change of government in 3897.

Barred from every employer, she had only the family allowance, and a small apartment lent by her sister Aunt Leena. We had one small bedroom for us two brothers, while Mother slept in the salon. Useless to say, we were not making big poops, and our growth was stunted for 10cms. She sewed all our clothes, and I had only the one of my elder brother Hita when he was growing. So always wearing worn clothes with patches, I was ostracized by all my school mates. Idiots.

And we were never been given back the corpse, without any explanation.

Later, in 3897, one year after the Horiathon Battle, the new government passed a large amnesty law. Normally, it could not apply to us, since there was no official condemnation. Still, Mother was granted a job in the administration again. Better, our father was reinstalled in the Army, so that Mother got a war widow pension. All this was still without any contact or explanation, but at least we could have a normal life and schooling. I even went to the university, to get an associate degree in computer science. Hita preferred to learn wood craft, and he is now having a shop, which looks successful. He does custom furniture, but also spontaneous art creations of an unique style.

In 3903, the end of the two years associate degree involved two months internship in a computer lab. The ambient was cool there, and we spent a lot of time discussing freely of a lot of subjects.

One day, though, one of my fellows realized that I had the same name as the pilot of Flight 1846. I admitted that I was his son, but reluctantly, by fear of restarting those terrible discrimination. Instead, they all looked prodigiously interested, wanting to know a lot of details. In fact, they were parts of an informal club of urban explorers and amateurs of mysteries, sometimes posting strange accounts on the nascent Internet.

«Engineer in white blouse: At what hour was he supposed to come back from this mission?

-Me: I remember Mom expected his phone call for telling his safe return, when we went back from school. That was about 16 hour, then.

-Engineer in white blouse: Phieww this is strange. The crash occurred at 22 hour. By the time he should have been out of fuel for 4 hours, 3 at best.»

I felt my ears tightening. That was indeed strange. By the time I did not realized, not knowing the aircraft. But later I checked on Nyidipedia, and indeed it could not fly so long, even with supplementary tanks and no armament.

«Me: Now I remember. There was something else I did not understood by the time. When my mother asked for the corpse of my father, for the funerals, she was denied. We never had any information on the corpse, where it was, why it was retained. All our demands were replied by silence.

-Technician: There is only one explanation. They never found any corpse.

-Me: How so?

-Technician: That means your father was not in the aircraft.

-Me: UUUh? How is it possible? Who piloted it, then?

-Bearded technician: That is ZE big question. In more it hit precisely the meeting room, which place was secret. Your father could not know it, and even not that there was a meeting to start with. It was top secret, nobody was in the know, actually.»

There was a long silence, vibrating with mystery.

«Technician: There is something else. When an aircraft crashes, the fuel in the tanks is pulverized, making a fireball. But there was no fire at all. We one day found one of the firemen, he confirmed. But he added something even worse: in the shock, the engine detached and careened through the internal walls beyond the meeting room, until a cafeteria, where many workers saw it. And it was cold. Not running since at least one hour.

-Me: Eeeeeh?

-Technician: this is coherent with the absence of testimonies of the sound of the aircraft. Out of fuel since hours, it was gliding without anybody aboard, yet at an incredible speed and accuracy, to be able to go through the thick brick wall of the Ministry of Defense.

-Engineer: they also checked it was really Flight 1846, from serial numbers on instruments. This was in all the newspapers and in the official inquiry report.»

Useless to say that I was troubled by this discussion. But I could not involve in any inquiry, with all the work to get my associate degree. I soon understood why it looked so difficult: one of my teachers was systematically giving me bad marks. I one day heard him speaking of me as «the son of the traitor». So this is why all those people were so bad with us: they considered us as guilty! While we had absolutely no idea of what had actually happened, what our father did or did not. Or, well, somebody else. Despite this awful pull down, I finally got my associate degree diploma, just above the minimum mark, thanks to an excellent mark from the computer lab internship. This proved that I was very capable and the bad marks were unjustified. I always regretted not to have kept my homework with the tampered marks, but well, how to get justice of that? No teacher will speak, by fear of being accused in turn.

The changes which occurred after the Horiathon Battle in 3896, severely impacted our choice of jobs. We were barred from anything related to armament or nuclear power. There were several years of rearguard fights of some industry leaders and big fortunes trying to water down the measures, which resulted in unemployment, even for an university degree! Fortunately, smarter business people quickly found that there were a lot more opportunities opening, in civil aviation, computers, Internet, green energies, health, building, arts, and so on. This allowed the economy to restart, and me to find a job related to my training, finally.

I landed in an Internet infrastructure company. With the opening of the common Internet with the Dauriath, there was a lot of upgrading to perform in servers and in routers, and I was busy at this.

But the mystery of my father hit again. Wherever you find Internet geeks, you get hackers. By the time the danger of hackers was not yet understood, and it was still considered as a sort of sport to enter in government servers, not really protected anyway. Nobody yet was thinking at stealing personal data or making other idiot uses of their troves. Today what they did would be impossible, and they would pay it with many years in jail anyway.

Of course Flight 1846 was a very popular target for hackers, hunting and sieving any information on this fascinating mystery. This is how, one day, two job mates, learning that I was «the son of the pilot», passed me a floppy disk with... no less than a record of the transmissions of this fateful day! How they got a hand on this heavily guarded military secret, I prefer not to ask.

All the approach phase and silences were cut, to fit on the small floppy disks we had by the time. But the essential part was here. So, this very evening, I listened at it. It was a throat microphone voice, but still the voice of my father, so deeply moving. But what he said was so extravagant!

Useless to say that I was dumbfounded, and I had trouble sharing this strange record with my mother. She cried, hearing her beloved husband. But when we came at somebody in the cockpit, she just shook her head as to say no. Then she muttered «Can you find more?» I had to reply that I would try, but I did not insisted, since she looked badly shaken.

My brother Hita was skeptical, saying that such a record could be faked in multiple ways, especially with the newly appeared sound processing software. How to trust hackers? Still he seemed troubled too, without wanting to admit it. The voice looked so real, projecting us back in our best childhood memories of our father.

By the time, our Nyidiath Internet was still not much efficient. It was difficult to seek information. Happily, Nyidipedia is very prolix on war planes: the cockpit of the F33 is indeed very narrow, even a child could barely sit on the knees of the pilot, and there is no room at all on the sides. As to enter in a pressurized cabin without explosive decompression, it was impossible.

On the other hand, it took me several years to finally find out what MAN, YUL and ITA were meaning. It was an ancient map system for the Nyidiath-Dauriath, called Semerov projection, created twenty years ago for the invasion forces. It was secret by the time, and mostly forgotten since. There were very few reference on it on the Internet, and even Nyidipedia was not complete. So that I had to superpose manually the Semerov waypoints on a modern map of the Dauriath, with the Hilan-Bates projection. The one used today by aviators, created by the Inter-World Air Flight Normalization Committee, after the Horiathon Battle.

The place where there was «somebody in the cockpit» was in the middle of a large nature reservation, the Brunevald forest. Impossible to locate it more accurately. The Internet had only sparse information on this place. The Dauriath Internet had a site and more search results, but still in reserved access from the Nyidiath.

Well, at this point, I had no choice but to move my inquiry to the Dauriath, in hope to find out something there.

However this would not be easy, given the history of anti-Elfs sentiment in our family.

We are now in year 3909, I am 27 years old, and still unmarried, despite two flirts with work colleagues.

I must tell a bit of the Nyidiath politics here. The small Monatar Republic was, as most, resolutely anti-Elfs, and well decided to take its part in the planned invasion of the Dauriath. Well, «liberation» some said. Let me laugh, we all knew very well that these stories of gorgeous blonde hostages were, well, stories, just good at attracting men with big muscles and small brains to the recruitment bureaus. The real reason for the invasion was our cramped country, exhausted coal mines, dwindling farm lands to feed an increasing population. The vast expanses of «useless» nature in the Dauriath were felt as a provocation by most. Indeed, few people realize that, with less oceans, despite its smaller size the Dauriath has more land than the Nyidiath.

My family was no exception. I remember Father especially, with his rants against these useless wimpy Elfs, even in front of us young children. This deeply marked us, our opinions and feelings. Mother never contradicted him on this topic, and usually remained silent. Our family at large was not better, if we except my cousin Aran who recently made noisy pro-Elfs wiews. «Adolescence opposition crisis» said his mother Aunt Leena, sister of my mother.

The awful defeat of the Horiathon Battle, and the humiliating Surrender and Contrition Act which followed, somewhat pushed anti-Elfs sentiments in a shameful background. Especially since people realized that the Act was in fact a win-win deal, allowing for the emergence of many novelties: Internet, jet aircrafts, new medicines and cures to old diseases, efficient contraception, green energies solving the energy crisis, virtual worlds, and many more. The anti-Elf feeling is still here, but silent, implicit.

Personally, what irks me the most, is the idea that Elfs would be superior. More mastery, from some psychological training, I can admit. But they have to have the same basic biological motivations than us: money, power, domination, fame, women. I do not believe in angelic Elves without ordinary feelings like anger, jealousy, greed. They just better control their expression. As to immortality, there are no proven cases in the Nyidiath. Of course, they say that they flee in the Dauriath before their age attracts the attention. That is easy.

The most difficult point to swallow is their supposed ability to manage large endeavors with a minimum hierarchy and no financial incentive. We are perfectly able to do so, us Humans. Just that we are discouraged by all the corruption by our leaders. Or by the extreme left, who make entryism in any attempt for a better social life, and make drama until everybody leaves. Still we are able to undertake large projects, like building airliners, suspension bridges, large hospitals, etc.

As to their inenarrable kindness and gentleness. We are able of it too. Just that some do not deserve our kindness: the extreme left, the corrupt politicians and the venal business people.

Oh, their magic. Even some Elfs do not believe in it. In any case, it passed no scientific tests. I remember that Rendi, an illusionist, proposed a high money prize, for anybody capable of proving him he has magical powers, in his regular TV show. No Elf ever came. And scientists have explanation for all their supposed tricks.

I finally decided to write to the Elf Embassy in the Nyidiath. They even opened a bureau recently in Monatar City, but I did not dared to show up in town with Elfs. I explained them that I was in search of my father, disappeared in a plane mission over the Dauriath. We never know, I gave no other details than his name and the date of the mission.

Well, I hoped for no replies at all.

Still I quickly got one, saying that they took my demand very seriously. But they could not reply simply, so that they invited me in a meeting in a virtual world.

Now, with Internet becoming stronger and able to cope with larger files, virtual worlds are becoming practical. Still the media have mixed views on them. When they started, the media were very enthusiastic, saying that it was a new social life, and an incredible opportunity for businesses. Even Monatar had its virtual embassy! Then the tone changed, first with stories of pedophilia in these worlds. Then without we really knew why, the interest vaned, the businesses left, the embassies closed, and the media started ridiculing and despising virtual worlds. But it turned out that the Elfs already have a sophisticated and extensive network of them. They need them less, but they use them on the point. And they are unfazed by all the wrong accusations. The Nyidiath is not their world.

One of the common use is long distance meetings. I have a powerful computer from my job, with already their viewer installed. It is fast, powerful and intuitive. In more, our outfit and large part of our inventory are stored in our personal vault on the Internet, so that in wherever world we go, we immediately appear with them. Copyrighted items are stored in their creator's vault, where a licensed user can access them, from licensed worlds. Dialogues and groups also happen on their own servers. The result is that any new world is instantly part of the network, instead of a separate entity where everything has to be recreated.

When the day came, I took a general Human outfit. I wondered how theirs would be. Bad expectation, apart of long hairs and colored robes, there was no extravagance.

They were three, in a place looking as a clearing in a beautiful forest, looking elvish but we also find places like this in the Nyidiath. Only curiosity was thick patches of dark red flowers, large as plates. Strange.

A gorgeous blonde Elve, Teryel Hamaleen Siriel introduced herself as a representative of the High Elf Council. No less!! This was credible, since nobody else than their bureau knew about my demand.

A forty looking Elf, Heptapolis Variasin Santem introduced himself as a priest of MakTar. I sometimes heard this name, as the Elf war god. Probably this guy is in the military, I thought.

Then an adolescent looking Elf spoke as Bronklyn Molnye Hanka. I found curious that a teen had the same social level as a representative of the High Council.

«Me: Bronklyn? Heptapolis? These are names of places in the Nyidiath? I started.

Santem: Indeed, they are. We added these tribe names as rally signs when we arrived in the Dauriath. We could not control exactly where the Horiathon crossing ships were landing, so that we had to find a system for people to find each other.

Me: So that you are descendant of the people in the Exodus. Well, you all are.

Santem: Actually only me and Hanka were in the Exodus. Siriel was born later.

Me: You mean, you were already living in the time of the Exodus? That makes seven centuries old. I cannot believe that.

Santem: Oh, we do not ask you to believe anything» he smiled.

Curiously, I was more flabbergasted than skeptical. For me, the long life of the Elfs was a matter of television debate. But actually encountering this phenomenon was totally different. Of course they could lie, and anyway in this meeting their appearance was just computer generated. Still their melodious voices were matching it. I had a feeling as if the sunrise light was starting to break through the windows in a dark room. And if it was the television who lied?

«Santem: We just want to fix this affair of flight 1846. You are the son of the pilot, aren't you?»

He did not needed to ask, probably my Internet connection had been checked by the Elven intelligence services. The server for this world was in the Dauriath.

«Me: Yes I am. But well, we never got the corpse. So we have no idea of what actually happened. Maybe... is my father still alive?

Santem: Well, I would say... No, and yes.

Me: How come? He is dead, or he is alive. He cannot be both. Are you kidding me?

Santem: We are very serious, and we do not want to play with your feelings. But it is better to start explaining from the beginning, isn't it?»

He seemed very polite, even a bit obsequious. But something in his tone also was very authoritative.

Suddenly my brother Hita appeared in the virtual room, awkwardly standing in the middle looking in the wrong direction.

There was a silence, and two other persons appeared in turn: my mother Rosa, and her sister Aunt Leena!

«Siriel: Well, everybody is here. Just your cousin Aran is missing. You shall soon see why we did not invited him. It may be delicate. But he is nearby adult now.»

Things were getting even more strange. But well, whatever was taking place now, the whole family had to be told. Just that it was the Elfs who summoned them.

«Santem: You understand that the whole affair had long been a military secret. But comes the time to disclose. Save one thing precisely, that we shall see.

Santem: Your father already flew three recon missions over the Dauriath. Useless to hide it, as we followed any aircraft with hyperfrequency radars, that you Humans could not yet detect by the time. These three missions went well, although he could not find any hot target, only farms and fields. Of course, everything of interest was thoroughly hidden.

Santem: The fourth mission was different, though, because your father had to choose another route, his usual route being blocked by a storm.

Santem: And this is why that fateful day he flew over the Brunevald forest.

Santem: And well, it happens that this forest is the living place of a spiritual entity.

Me: Spiritual entity?

Santem: Yes. A Goddess of the Void, arrived on the Dauriath well before us. We only very recently found Her origin, and it is incredible. She is very powerful, but still in a way very fragile. She had never experienced any evil, and this is very dangerous, as we never know how such entities can react and evolve when confronted to evil. They can turn into powerful demons. There has been several cases in the Nyidiath, when our elven lands were destroyed: three or our local egregores, unattended, having lost their nature and forest bases, became dark spirits of revenge, making life very difficult for the local Humans, and creating several dangerous diseases.»

At this point, all this was so alien to my usual world, that I was as if watching a movie, in full suspension of disbelief.

«Santem: So that, a noisy fire breathing metal thing flying above Her sacred land, in more containing a Human imbued with hateful ideologies, for Her it was as if we dragged a bramble stem on Her body: no permanent damage, but a painful sting. She went to investigate what it was, and She entered your father's mental landscape. Poetry and flowers versus authoritarian military, an awful clash was inevitable.

Santem: The next day we found your father wandering in the Brunevald Forest, in a state of sheer terror, unable to articulate a single word. The plane, you know what happened with it: return to the sender. We never guessed that, angry, She would be able of such a terrifying power. We sincerely hope that this never happens again.

Santem: You must know here how we can communicate with such abstract entities. We can do that with meditation, and in dreams of course.

Santem: But there is a third modality: sleep paralysis. There is a lot of falsehood in the Nyidiath about this phenomenon. It is basically a dream, save that it is produced by the consciousness itself, instead of the brain. And of course from a dream, its content is not real, just imagination. You will not hear much on this, or hidden into unclear names like incubi or succubi, which are the visions which happen in such dreams. A recent fashion too is people who think they are abducted by beings from other planets.

Me: Nyidipedia says Incubi and succubi are demons.

Santem: Ha ha ha! This is an old religious sadistic play, to make innocent people feel guilty. It is funny for an atheist site like Nyidipedia to endorse this demons fallacy. You should consult our Margom sites instead, written and peer reviewed by specialists using primary sources, instead of an amateur site like Nyidipedia where anybody can write anything anonymously.

Santem: Actually, there is a very simple method to control the content of sleep paralysis: in your bed, before falling asleep, you meditate that the phenomenon happens, and it shows you pleasant and positive visions, of your choice. Especially, you think that you feel no fear, but instead safety and confidence. This is fast and efficient to control the visions, but very few know this.

Santem: This is what Hanka was doing, meditating to control his dreams. He was having very nice experiences, but imaginary. Until the Brunevald Fairy entered in his flow of consciousness for real. It was a wonderful experience for him, despite its asymmetry. And very useful: thanks to Hanka, we were able to communicate with Her. Several High Elves have also managed to do so since. On Her side, She learned a lot from him, about how our material world functions.»

Hanka was not speaking, but still he was smiling. I learned later that evening that their virtual worlds viewer uses the camera of their computers, to analyze their facial expressions and display them in the virtual. So Hanka's smile was for real, with even exquisite nuances, like being somewhat dreamy. That must be incredible, to meet a goddess!

«Siriel: Unfortunately, most people having sleep paralysis, of so called Alien abductions, do not understand that they can control them. So that they are just scared, and the most they cultivate fear, the most frightful the visions become. Indeed, the control works too in the reverse way: fear makes the visions look terrifying. This is what people call nightmares. And, admit, your media do not help, speaking of demons or showing horror movies. So that most people having sleep paralysis make themselves see terrifying demons, government secret agents, invading aliens, or other horrible things, not realizing that these visions are created by their sole imagination, motivated only by their own fear.

«Siriel: This is what happened to your father, suddenly confronted to the phenomenon, as She entered his consciousness flow. His extreme fear totally distorted his perception, making Her look terrifying to him, a nightmare of black hairs and purple haze filling his cockpit entirely, while others would have had a very sensual experience. She was baffled on why he was scared of Her, but She understood that it was better to leave him. This is how he landed on the ground, terrorized as if he had discovered an awful underworld threatening to reappear at any moment.

«Siriel: And, well, sorry, but he committed suicide two days later, despite our watch. This is why we said that he is dead. But this is not the end.»

There was a deep silence in the virtual room. But well, everybody expected some bad outcome.

«Siriel: In the Dauriath, we have powerful teams of psychopomps, always on the lookout. The radar operators had warned them of the possibility of some death. So they tackled your father immediately. Left to his own devices, in such a state of terror no doubt he would have experienced a very long hellish afterlife experience, screaming and wriggling in horror. They tried to attract him to the Shelenaë paradise, but this did not worked. What saved him in the end, is that he was very pro-family. He found a womb to enter in, of a woman who did not knew yet she was pregnant.

«Me?» jumped Aunt Leena, despite nobody hinted at her.

«Siriel: Yes, you. This is how Arno the pilot is still alive, as your son Aran.

«My mother Rosa: I somewhat... expected this. He has some attitudes of Arno, my husband. Despite there can be no genetic transmission.

«Aunt Leena: But, how can he be pro-Elfs now, he who was sternly against them to the point of preparing a war?

«Siriel: Ideologies and prejudices are constructions of the brain. They rot with it in the tomb. Arno was totally free to build a new personality, the one of Aran. It was all the more easier that he grew up in the times following the Horiathon Battle, very optimistic times where people were understanding their mistakes and wanting to restart on better bases.

«My mother Rosa: is he remembering?

«Siriel: No. As most, he does not remember any past life. That is better for him, because he had a very difficult experience. And he would not be good if he falls in love again with his former spouse, who is now his aunt. Same for you, Miss Kierkehard, you can still love him, but as a nephew, not as a husband anymore.

«Hanka: The Brunevald Fairy does not speak, but that does not mean She has nothing to say. She is still feeling sorry for what happened. But greater good may emerge. Aran's stream of consciousness kept a deep impression from Her, a connection. More, he tasted the Void, and this makes that he is now open to spirituality. This is still dormant, but with him becoming adult, in a more open society, he may become, if he wants, something like a spearhead of the spiritual into politics (Note of the author: as Gandhi was).

Hanka: She also says that studies are just bothering him. He is not needing any for what he will do. Just let him free of that. He will probably escape home and spend several years exploring, doing experiments and blunders. Let him do. He is an assertive and independent personality, this did not changed. She will protect him, and provide him with what he needs.

My mother Rosa: If he needs money?

Hanka: Ha ha ha ha! Humans! The Brunevald entity is a dweller of the spiritual worlds, not even knowing what money is. If ever She finds out that you condition the happiness of people to this thing, She will erase all the memories of the banking computers and financial system. So better not to even mention money anymore in Her presence.

Hanka: Oh, She is speaking through me again. She is saying now: do not speak about Her to Aran. He will find out by himself when time comes. The less interference, the better.»

There was a moment of silence, then:

«My mother Rosa: what became of the corpse?

Santem: Well, we know the value Humans give to dead bodies. For us, a dead body is just matter. When an Elf dies, we incinerate the body, or we put it in a special compost. We do not have this cult of corpses. But well, we do not see any reason to fight against Humans about that. Your husband's body was placed in a bag, and thoroughly kept in a fridge. About one year after the Horiathon Battle, with the political normalization process, we surrendered all the Human remains we could find in the Dauriath, to their respective governments. Arno is now buried in the National Cemetery of Fame in Monatar City, with all the war heroes, under an «unknown soldier» label numbered «Z44U». You can easily find the grave, it is in the section open to the public. This return is the reason why you were no longer considered a traitor. But well, they were unable to admit their error publicly.»

Soon, my mother, my brother and my aunt left. I was alone again with the Elfs. Something was growling inside me, and I had to let it out.

«Me: I am bothered, by the idea as what the Elves would be superior to Humans, have different motives than natural motives, and incredible capacities. We Humans are very capable too.

Santem, smiling: I do not doubt that. We won the Horiathon battle because we were in advance on you. But it was the only occasion in History where we outsmarted the Humans so much, and only thanks to seven centuries of a relentless race in science, including terrible efforts, discipline and a lot of sacrifices.

Me: You will not be astonished if I do not believe in magic.

Santem: Well, after seeing such a strong telekinesis as projecting a three tons aircraft at thousands of kilometers, with a meter precision, what do you need?

Me: Well, yes. But it was the Entity.

Santem: I admit that She is stronger than us. We need to be thousands to do that. In ancient times in the Nyidiath we had powerful defensive egregores able to do things like that. My favorite is stones flying straight for kilometers just to behead invaders. But today, we think that violence is a thing of the past. So that we want to neutralize all these defensive egregores, which are still active without control. But it is very difficult, we would need to inhabit again these places, which today are occupied by other people. One of the most studied case is the Shamal Humak plateau, where local Elfs had established a defensive egregore against horse thieves and slavers. Today this egregore is still killing several cow farmers and tourists per year, that it considers as invaders. But to neutralize it, we would need to first... expel the cow farmers and replace them. Useless to say, we even not asked. We gave them the instructions to do so themselves, but they replied that they would not adhere to our cult, ha ha ha ha!

Santem: There are worse cases, where derelict egregores became evil. Already the Brunevald entity needed weeks to recover from the shock, and we feared that she turns evil. There is one such egregore turned bad in Monatar City itself, and it is fueling your hateful «National Guard» party, and all the troubles it creates. At this point, even us can no longer retake control of it. Even forbidding this party will have no effect. You have to totally burn and destroy half of the Maria Novam District. We did not suggested that either, you will understand why. The whole list of unattended egregores, more than 60, is on the Dauriath Internet, accessible to all who want to know, with the meditations to control them.

Me: Well, I am still... skeptical. I already have trouble to integrate the Flight 1846 data, and how it ended. Telekinesis... egregores... all things I mocked only some hours ago.

Santem: do not hurry. Nobody is wanting to force you.

Me: Well, I have trouble to accept that you Elfs are impervious to natural desires like power, fame, women, jealousy, greed, and so on. I think you just harness these motives, using psychology training to save the appearances.

Siriel: Oh you do not have a high idea of us, ha ha ha!

Santem: Well, those are the basic desires and motives of the ego. Simple meditations show how they are obvious traps. Basic spirituality is to stop identifying ourselves with them, to stop grasping at them, so that they little by little lose their grip on us. With more training, you can let arise the real motivations of consciousness: life, love, enjoying life, knowledge, happiness. In facts, they already are here, just hidden by the ego agitation. Stop this agitation, and the true purposes of life arise. You do not even receive them: they are already here, in the very nature of your consciousness.

Me: Yes, but we do not need to be an Elf for that. We do not need magical powers. Since years I am training, to be ready for when I meet a wonderful spouse. I already eliminated racism from my mind. Less egoism, less anger, more kindness.

Siriel, smiling softly: Do you think you are successful?

Me: well, it is difficult to say, but I think I am in progress. But I do not need to wear long hairs and colored tunics for that.

Santem: well, this is how you are starting to become an Elf yourself, ha ha ha ha!»

I remained flabbergasted for some seconds. Then I concluded:

«Shit, you got me» and we all laugh.

This is the end of Matt's account.

The origin of Alaysha

As promized, we are now to see the origin of Alaysha, the entity of the Brunevald forest. Please fasted seat belts, it is a totally different story, and very brutal.

See the audio version and all the informations on the audio

For what follows, it is recommended ot hear at «Last minutes of a dying star», with the amicable permission of Algol Stuzha

Modern science allowed to understand Alaysha's account of Her origin. But this was the most extraordinary thing the Elfs ever heard of. The place with the merry weasels had been a planet. A very nice form of animal life had developed here, the weasel-shaped creatures. They were kind and happy, eating only plants. Although intellectually they were very simple. Nice animals, but just animals. Alaysha took life as their planetary Logos. Of a world totally ignoring evil, it was a fantastic happiness. She could grow unhindered, powerful, happy and above all extremely pure.

Alaysha's planet could have evolved much further, toward intelligent life. But then happened the most incomprehensible and inexorable catastrophe a planet can encounter. A slow, sneaky, invisible, silent catastrophe, but totally unstoppable. I leave you some minutes to guess what could fit this awful and enigmatic description: «the stars moved, and then the horizon started to change shape. Their paws left the ground, and their screams could no longer make sound.» Normally even with such an elliptic description you have the elements to guess. I let you try a moment.

...

Did you found?

...

What killed Alaysha's planet was a wandering black hole.

Useless to say, in those ancient times people had no idea that such a strange and terrifying thing could even exist, and its consequences looked incomprehensible, magical, as of some biblical punishment.

The cosmic monstrosity mercilessly plowed through their solar system, in only some years, slinging away all its planets like billiard balls. This is how «the stars moved». The planets actually, but the weasels ignored the difference. They could not see the black hole itself, but when it passed by their planet, its invisible but powerful gravitational force tore their world apart. This is how they saw «the horizon changing shape»: their planet deforming, becoming elliptical, until it was stretched into rubble, and ejected too. The air dispersed first, making them «scream with no sound», until they all choke to death. For some days, the black hole shone like a sun, while absorbing some debris of Alaysha's planet, but there was nobody left to see it.

The Incomprehensibility of such a catastrophe made it more frightening than anything else. A supernova, at least we figure it, since stars are made of fire. But an invisible hand slowly kneading their world like dough, that was beyond any bearability.

Then, for 2.2 billions years, Alaysha, the Logos of this planet, wandered in the cold and darkness of space, grasping at the rocks remaining of Her world, spread over hundreds of light-years. Maybe she had still some influence on them, as one landed on the Dauriath. Being just a pile of rubble, it dispersed with the complex gravitational field of the double world, spraying the place where the Brunevald Forest would be. This is how formed the patches of orange sand, and the reason of their magical connection to Alaysha!

By the time the Dauriath was still a bleak world without air. Only slowly air flowed through the Horiathon, then water, then birds, plants and life. Alaysha could then gather all her bits here.

She had landed on a large lava field, strewn with small mini-volcanoes which formed during the cooling of the main flow. The lack of the usual regolith layer did not allowed for any cultivation. This strange landscape was to become the Brunevald forest, flat with its thousands of odd bonsai volcanoes.

On her planet, Alaysha had lived using the bodies of billions of creatures. But animals, not understanding what She was doing. She could not do that with the Elves, who are free and intelligent creatures. This is why She instead focused on a single person, entering in Hanka's dreams, and taking the appearance of a nice Elve with long black hairs, to appeal and please him.

Today She is still not speaking. What for, meditation is so much better. But, taping in Hanka's mind, She has developed the reasoning abilities of a 12 years old, in progress. This is how She could finally help solving the problem of Her strange origin.

She allowed the High Council to take a sample of the orange soil to the express condition of bringing it back. It was carefully ferried to a laboratory in the Arlit, and analyzed. It was dated 2.2 billions years since solidification. Its composition was compatible with the deep mantle of a stony planet, but its mineralogy had never been seen before: it had experienced a sudden decompression, followed by a rapid cooling, making it resemble a fine grained ultramafic lava. In any case it had a different isotopic makeup from the Dauriath.

This incredible cosmic origin, in more of its magical qualities, explain the huge value of this sand, which must even not leave the forest.

Alaysha

What became of Alaysha, the Fairy of Brunevald,?

See the audio version and all the informations on the audio

It is recommended to hear this music while hearing this story Fairy Lands, FANTASY MUSIC in a Magical Forest par FanTaisia Ambience.

A spy plane above Her sacred forest was not the lesser risk. The Horiathon Battle was a planned invasion, using powerful military means, to seize the Dauriath entirely. While no naval force succeeded in crossing the Horiathon, massive air raids did reach the first elven lands. Despite this, the Horiathon Battle was a terrible failure for the Human governments, who had to submit to the Surrender and Contrition Act. This treaty was in fact very advantageous for the peoples of the Nyidiath, with a broad peace plan and massive technology transfers.

The Elves successfully shielded Alaysha from the war and from the Horiathon Battle. She lost her pristine ignorance of evil, but at least She has fully recovered Her purity and benevolent strength. What was trouble and pain is now experience. Alaysha passed from not knowing evil to being above it, so that She is now an entirely positive and safe entity, which cannot switch to the dark side anymore

Brunevald

The Brunevald forest has become a place of retreats and communion with nature, receiving tens of thousands people each year. Well, the outer parts of it. The inner parts are still forbidden, with incredible stories going on aboout what takes place there. This mystery and these tales increase its powerful magic ten folds.

Some may think at visitors making some mindless tourism. But it is totally the opposite: in meditation and in respect, people receive instead of taking, they increase the vibes instead of destroying them.

This year save the first Humans staying in the small Elven hongar huts. A baffling and unforgettable experience, they said. In more these things are very comfortable, keeping the body heat, while letting in all the wonderful vibes of the magical forest. Seen from outside, they look like rough branches hut, covered with leaves. But inside, they are finely sculpted, wainscoted and inlaid with varnished wood of various colors. Add to this beautifully colored bedding perfumed with dried flowers, cosy thick rugs and stained grass windows!

These villages are in the margins of the forest. It is possible to go a bit further, until the first mini-volcanoes. The forbidden zone starts just further. And the strange stories...

Each of these villages has a temple, with a flower pot filled with the orange soil, and Alaysha's big garnet red flowers. This makes that all the visitors can see these, even if they are not allowed to the real patches of orange soil further in the heart of the forest. They can meditate on Her, and perhaps have a glimpse of personal contact, and in any case Her benediction. Indeed, in some mysterious way, Her magic goes through the flowers and trough the sand, and all the visitors leave with each a dried petal! Not the sand, though, as it is in very limited supply.

Some even state they felt «Alaysha's kiss». They give varied descriptions, from a fresh kiss to a deep warm hug. In any case, they come back strongly inspirited and committed to their life purposes.

The Elven Council discussed the advisability of rendering such a cult to a deity like Alaysha. Officially, the Elves recognize only MakTar and Shelenaë, who have had a physical existence and who appeared on numerous occasions. However, the Elven world is a free world, with no prohibition on the worship of other deities. There have been many precedents in the Nyidiath, of local deities or spirits of places, even of Humans who became Elves and continuing the worship of various Human gods. Alaysha was just more powerful, and more visible in Her way.

The present

Today, the Brunevald forest is still here. The magical clearing is still going on with its secret life. The heart of the forest is still tended by spiritual persons living in Central Point. Its magic had become very powerful, and it even is overflowing in the surrounding regions. The Elfs had found a way to reconcile the forest magic with more prosaic places like roads, farms, fields, villages, and even «industries» like water mills and forges. They just have to keep patches of forest, large enough for prosaic sounds not to reach in their heart. Then the magic uses these places as stepping stones, and it is in the process of expanding. It would do until it meets other sources of magic. Indeed the Elfs are reluctant to depend on a single source, which can falter at any time. Alaysha understood that. Having no ego, she made no difficulties to allow the overflowing magic to be controlled by other persons. But she steadfast kept Brunevald in its entirety. Today it is said that the overflowing magic even reached the Arlit, the part of the Dauriath where the Elfs developed modern science and technology.

Matt had read on sleep paralysis, the real thing on the Margom, not on Nyidipedia. Everybody says how the experience can be intense, more than physical love, some even say violent. Santem had told him that in facts Hanka had been the shakta of the Goddess. What an incredible fate!! Did he felt only emotions, or something more fleshy? In sleep paralysis we can have both. Why did the Goddess chose him? There were many other Elfs, and even High council Elfs or priests. Instead She had chosen a discreet young Elf, still shy from a bullied childhood. Perhaps because he loved so much Her Brunevald forest? Or his slender nimble body and fast undulating walk reminded her of her weasels?

What happened some day, is that Alaysha ended feeling Hanka frustrated of something. In love we have pleasure, and emotions; but we also have a daily life and adventures shared together, each being the witness of the other. This cannot happen in a disembodied relationship. Especially, Hanka ended feeling the desire to explore other places in the Dauriath, to study, to have projects. Alaysha could not understand this part, but She felt his frustration. She asked the Council what was the cause of his mood.

What She did then was wonderful.

Nobody guessed She would be able of that.

What persons without ego can do is simply fantastic.

One morning, Hanka felt that Alaysha was besides him, telling him to meet a physical Elve! Then she just disappeared.

Only five days later, a small group of mystical Elves arrived in Central point. Among them traveled Shani, a wonderful young Elve still celibate, with mate skin, finely frizzy long black hair and a dark red robe adorned with embroideries... It could not be at random, she looked just like Alaysha made flesh! She was not Alaysha, but soon there was a marriage ceremony, Hanka and Shani, on the orange beach of Central Point, among Alaysha's flowers. This is how the Fairy of Brunevald kindly released Hanka from his companion role, while ensuring him an unsurpassable happiness!

So, Hanka was able to study sciences, and he was part of untangling the mystery of Alaysha's origin.

He is still looking as an eternal adolescent, as much at ease among computers and machines as into the magical forest with hongar huts and exotic garnet red flowers. But sometimes he still senses Alaysha besides him, encouraging him or warning him of some danger. She never forgets Her former loves!

For some weeks, nobody had any news of Alaysha.

Until one evening, an unknown blonde slender young Elf arrived in Central Point from the forest, disheveled, wet from rain, and totally disoriented. He thought he had had hallucinations, but his description of Alaysha's clearing was unmistakable. And what She did to him... He was Her new shakta!!

The Fairy of Brunevald had used the infallible love matching system of the Elfs, to find another young Elf like Hanka, who would love what would happen to him... once he understood! Because, well, being taken in a spiritual realm is quite surprising...

So, this is how the story was told. Brunevald is a magic forest, protected by the High Elven Council. Deep in its heart, lives a wonderful Fairy called Alaysha, an abstract entity all in black hairs and garnet robe. And She uses to select young elves as Viryas, offering them a voluptuousness far surpassing any physical experience! This is fine for Her, since, as a planetary Logos, She is much more than a lone individual: a whole people in a single flow of consciousness, encompassing all the possible styles and tastes.

But this kind of relationship is not really fit for a physical person. So that She keeps them for some times, usually some years. When they start getting tired, She releases them for another. In more, still using the magical love matching system of the Elfs, She always arranges for the released shakta to literally fall in the arms of a physical love. In more, Her former lovers have tasted the Void, so that they can become high magicians. They also keep several abilities, like communicating with Her, sometimes to visit Her in Her secret lair!

But above all, love pleasure remains much stronger for them... and their partners!

This is how Alaysha feeds on all the pleasure and happiness She offers to all the lovers She helps...

Useless to say that this strange and very romantic turn of events attracts a lot of fantasizing, with many young Elfs hoping to be the next shakta! This makes that a lot do the trip with this hope in a corner of their heart! But She chooses Herself, and there is no way to know who will be the next, and when. She still has well defined tastes, for slender young blonde ephebes. But She makes exceptions, and once She even got a wonderful Mowgli with matte skin and a large tuft of discheveled black hair! This uncertainty adds to the fantasy, instead of quenching it.

So is the magic of Brunevald, attracting lonely hearts. Few become shaktas, but none returns frustrated: not only they all find a match, but the Fairy arranges things for the new couple to start well and to be happy. Very happy even, since they bring back a petal of Her garnet red flowers, to put it under their pillow! A magical talisman of happy love. Some already married couples do that too, and they all say that this increases a lot their pleasure and happiness.

This makes that Alaysha is also called Gunma of Brunevald, among many other ways.

The forest also attracts people interested in high magic. But most of the visitors are happy just to enjoy the communion with nature...

The Elfs found out that no electronic devices are working in Brunevald. Even airliners have to make a detour. Apparently, Alaysha senses electronic data processing as if it was some thinking. But though without consciousness irks Her.

Some crafty ones tried to locate Her place using classical geodesy, cameras, or taking accurate notes of their path. Just to find out that none of these works either. Uninvited visitors simply never engage in the right path. And they can never find or remember where they went wrong. Even advancing straight with a simple compass is doomed to failure: they were still in the right direction, but in a totally unexpected place. We cannot catch a fairy so easily! And certainly not with such trite material means. On Earth, none was ever found with these methods!! Still there are many...

Unless of course if we look for them for THEIR purposes.

Alaysha's remarkable flowers attracted the attention of botanists and scientists from the early times. Which family were they belonging to? They have the characteristics of several!! Nobody was understanding. Until Modern Elven scientists found that they are a chimera, that is a mixture of three plants from totally unrelated lineages. As is a rose had cross-bred with a tulip and an orchid. This cannot happen in nature.

When asked how She did that, Alaysha never replied more than «I mixed three seeds in the magic». That looked as something very simple and totally obvious to her. Yes, but what that was meaning?

Her flowers were growing vigorously in the orange soil, but anywhere else they remained puny. Scientists found that the orange soil, moving remnant of the depths of the ancient world of Alaysha, had a high content in metals like nickel, titanium, vanadium and chromium, making it toxic for most plants. This is why these places remained bare and free of plants, even deep within the forest. But the Fairy arranged so that Her flowers grew well in there.

Modern genetics found that indeed their DNA is a mixture of the DNA of three other common plants of Brunevald. But large swaths of the code had been swapped or displaced, and whole sections duplicated or quadrupled. This could not result of an evolution, but of a single merging event. A physically impossible event.

This singular event could be understood only with the Logical Self-Generation Theory. Three very ordinary seeds of common Brunevald flowers had be brought in an immaterial state, into the Fair'ys intense love energy, a whole planetary Logos focused in some millimeters. So this is what «in the magic» was meaning! Probably She had tried many times, as the spiritual state often loses the «DNA structure» information, so that the return to the ordinary material state just produces a goo of random molecules. This information had to be preserved, so that when returning to the material state, it is still a seed with working DNA. The same problematic appears in pure physics, and for the same reason, when we form a Böse-Einstein condensate: despite atoms have lost any individuality, separate atoms reappear in the end, because the information on their structure was still present.

She finally succeeded her mixing, save that, when returning to the material state, this DNA had no reason to be in the same order! This is how three complete genomes were mixed in a way no biological process can do.

Thus the Elf scientists had a direct hint on how magic actually operates. At first, it was very frustrating, to find only dreary equations where we expected marvel, specks of golden light, etc. As Elfs, they know that magic needs emotion, beauty, vibes, and no ego.

Then they realized what they really had found. Nobody knew how magic actually works. So people imagine forces, light, angels, divine intervention, magic wands, incantations... as the actual cause of magic, without explaining how it really operates, just repelling the mystery further under the hood of those ad-hoc causes.

What they had spotted was totally fantastic, well beyond any of these fancy explanations: the very moment where reality changes state all by itself, from its own laws, when suitable conditions are gathered. People usually live in a prosaic and noisy world, dumbly submitted to their egos, mindlessly running after frustrating purposes, or suffering from disputes and scolding. In these situations, nothing spiritual happens, and reality stubbornly behaves after the laws of physics, as if only this was possible.

In the base state of consciousness, undisturbed by all the previous, magic happens spontaneously, as it also is the normal operation of reality in these conditions. It is not something alien or difficult: it is the very nature of existence, which makes no hierarchy between physical causes and spiritual causes. The only difficulty, but a daunting one for most of us, is to be in the right state of consciousness...

This makes that, when the appropriate spiritual conditions are gathered, reality changes states by itself. In fact, in magic, we do not «do» something, as if we commanded with our ego and our intents. There cannot be «magicians» with «spiritual powers». On the contrary magic simply happens when our ego stops grasping at a purpose or an expectation. Those conditions are very simple, but very hard to realize for the neurotic creatures we are: humor, absolute kindness, not grasping at our purposes and vision of things.

Alaysha being a spiritual only creature, these conditions are always spontaneously gathered for Her. Hence Her incredible power. There is no force or power in fact, She just had to dream at Her garnet flowers, thinking those seeds would merge in some way or another. For a brief moment, the seeds existed in Her dream, and merged as She wanted. Then She stopped Her meditation, and the merged seed returned to the material state, all the genome blocks being mixed at random by lack of any defined position for the new plan.

On Earth, physicist also produced such a «magical moment», in the RHIC experiment in Brookhaven, breaking the «law of physics» of matter and anti-matter symmetry. They needed relativistic energies for that. Magic works the same way, but with spiritual causes, without requiring huge energies. Or huge energies of love and happiness! This is why Alaysha has such a need to make Her love servants as happy as possible.

All this makes that us Humans on Earth are not so far from magic! Only materialism still prevents our science from finding.

The Elf scientists also realized that the resulting flowers, and even the orange sand, were in fact in a different logical self-generation process than the ordinary matter. They had spiritual properties in more! This is a rare occurrence, although we sometimes see it in nature. This is how keeping a petal under one's pillow can make love much stronger!

Unfortunately, such a process is highly unstable, and a single prosaic visitor can make it lose its magic, and revert it to the ordinary material state. Among the Elves, it is relatively safe, but on Earth such things must still be protected in secrecy and privacy, so much so that they must not even be mentioned.

The future

The only but important concern the High Elf Council had with Alaysha, was that She may some day compete with their own planetary Logos.

Actually the Nyidiath-Dauriath common Logos existed well before the first Elfs, and it evolved quite a lot since. However by the time of the Exodus, it was mostly Human. Indeed the contribution of the Elfs was spoiled with all the fighting and persecutions: many good things were destroyed before being registered in the Logos, or they were not safely secured.

The separation of the Elves in the Dauriath allowed them to live happily, and to develop their own features and civilization, free of sorrow and conflicts. In this way their contribution to the Logos became the majority, without the Humans realize it. This is why some Humans were still becoming Elves, despite the repression.

What the Return of the Elves did, after the Horiathon Battle, is that Humans born from this date will grow in a mindset of peaceful cohabitation and collaboration. Not all, of course, and violence would still need some centuries to disappear. But more and more will go toward the good side. Instead of a minority becoming Elves, the majority would slowly rise to elvenhood.

What would be the contribution of Alaysha in this regard? As they have no ego, the two Logos would slowly merge in a single entity, instead of competing. But Alaysha would bring a much more luminous and colorful touch to the Elf civilization. This trend is already visible today in the Arlit, breaking with the habit of the Elves of just imitating their ancient life in the Nyidiath. We see this process starting to happen in the story of Iraen in modern times.

The Fairy of Brunevald would remain, though, as several others also existing in the Nyidiath. But Her power would express in a much more specific frame: Gunma of Brunevald, Fairy of the enchanted forest, Magician of the lovers.

It is estimated that the merger of the two logos would be complete nine centuries after the Horiathon Battle, and it would result in an event defying all descriptions: the Great Marvel. The total realization of the potential of the two worlds. The definitive end of evil. The strongest and unbreakable Happiness. There is a lot of speculation of what the Great Marvel would be, and we do not have yet all the elements to comprehend It. Some think the two worlds will change to a spiritual state entirely, some think they would remain in this universe, but transfigured by magic. This prospect makes that more and more people want to be still alive when it happens. For this they must become Elves!

Audio reading and musics

I am working to create the audio for this 😀

Recommended background music:

First part (beige background): (⚠pub) In These Whispered Halls by Fire Side Chants.

Second part (black background): «Last minutes of a dying star» by Algol Stuzha

Third part (garnet background): Fairy Lands, FANTASY MUSIC in a Magical Forest by FanTaisia Ambience.

Music plays an important role in these stories: to give the vibration. For this reason, I recommand hearing some while reading or playing the audio. Some were the source of inspiration. However few musicians allow derivative works. I then gladly tell how to hear these music, with links.

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Scenario, graphics, sounds, colours, realization: Richard Trigaux (Unless indicated otherwise).

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Modified in 2024

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The Elves of the Dauriath