"Do you know the song 'New World'?" asked Freya.
Motoi nodded. He sat on a prayer mat opposite the Valkyrie. It was embroidered with the Tria emblem and looked faded and old.
"I want you to play that song on your MP3 player. I want you to concentrate on it. Think only of the song. I'll help you."
He switched on his MP3 player and flicked to the song, then turned the volume up to full. He closed his eyes. Despite the brightness of walls, the darkness he was plunged into was total. The angelically serene music conjured up images of stars in the vastness of space, endless, mysterious, a heavenly sonata. He was drifting towards the stars, at one with the galaxy and its song, its story. Without words he understood. Without words he asked Tria and Tria answered. His mind buzzed with white noise as his consciousness left the confines of his body like a lucid dream. He suddenly felt afraid. It was so vast and impersonal and he was so small and alone. Lenneth's hand on his shoulder reassured him. He realised he could hear her singing the words, words ancient and alien, each syllable surging with power, the galaxy's secret knowledge. What they were doing... it was like hacking the galaxy...
Suddenly, he felt solid ground beneath him, wet, cold stone. He blinked. He was no longer floating in space but he wasn't in the room. This was a small corridor of blue stone with torches guttering on the walls. Four or five wooden doors led from it. The music was still playing but in the background, not just from his MP3 player. He felt odd, as though there was something missing.
"This is another time and place." explained Lenneth. He jumped and turned around. Just as with Gabrie Celeste, she could not be detected unless she wanted to be. "Everything else is already gone. Welcome to the Prophecy."
Motoi looked around, confused.
"Is the girl here?"
"Yes, somewhere. But I don't know which door she is behind. We must take each one in turn."
Motoi nodded. He pushed the first door and it swung open without resistance. Inside was another small room with desks and tables. It was completely ordinary-looking. Men and women in black suits sat at the tables, talking animatedly amongst themselves and working on the computers. Motoi gasped; they looked just like him. They were from his home planet!
"Hey!" he walked up to one and tapped them on the shoulder. He didn't even look around but carried on his conversation with the woman sat next to him. Motoi pulled on his arm.
"They can't see or hear you." Lenneth pulled him back, "Those people are the Programmers."
"Like the Eternal Sphere, you mean? Hey, my dad worked on that! Is that my dad?"
She shook her head, "Its best not to interrupt them. Let's try the next door."
The next door was empty. The one after that had seven stars on the wall and a trapdoor in the floor. Lenneth warned him not to go down it unless he felt like a painful death. The fourth door was covered in murals similar to the ones in the government building, and...
A girl in a simple white dress sat huddled in the corner, hugging her knees. A couple of years younger than Motoi, her hair was long, flaxen and braided like Gabrie Celeste's. Next to her stood a large, white fluffy creature that chirruped. It had long white floppy ears and comically oversized feet. Motoi walked up to her. She didn't look up but he could tell she had been crying.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I'm lost." she sniffled.
"Can't you just go back the way you came? How did you get here?"
"I don't know." she said, "And there isn't a way out. There's just these doors and these little rooms and that trapdoor I can't get open."
"Don't go down the trapdoor." Lenneth said almost automatically, "Gwesty, what you're experiencing is called a Prophecy of the Tenth Magnitude. Its a very, very powerful thing and you need someone to help you control it."
Gwesty looked up at her, her eyes wide and blue, and gave her a suspicious glare.
"You've got wings! You look just like the bad lady who tried to take me away and then cast a spell on me!"
"Gabrie Celeste didn't mean to scare you." said Lenneth, making her voice as soothing as possible, "She's not good at talking to people but she's very good at protecting them. She was trying to protect you, Gwesty."
"What from?"
"There's a lot you need to know. I would sit down. This may take a while." Lenneth crossed her legs and floated in midair. Motoi shrugged and sat down beside Gwesty. The Bunny chirruped and bounced up to him. It sniffed him. Intrigued, he extended a hand and touched one of its ears. It licked his face. Gwestia giggled.
"The Prophecy - the place you are in now - is an eternal message from Tria. It's here to tell you all the important things that Tria thinks that people need to know. Your power, Gwesty, is to read the Prophecy. You go here whenever you need help or advice, or you're threatened. Its like you're asking Tria herself for help. Motoi here..." she pointed to the boy, "Is a Bard. His power is that when he plays music, whatever the music is about becomes real. So, if we were in battle and he played a victory fanfare, we would win the battle."
And if I play a funeral march, he thought to himself, bowing his head, everyone around me dies.
Lenneth acknowledged Motoi's reaction with a frown of concern.
"Your powers are very important, Motoi." she said, "And not just for girl-finding. Why do you think your job was to play that music in the Flying Battery?"
"I was being kept away from the world." he said, "It was because I killed those people. It's like a prison."
Her eyes grew sad, "Is that what you thought? That you were in exile? No, Motoi, the Flying Battery is a special space station that can broadcast your music to the entire galaxy. People need background music to live. Like food, water and air... there's always been background music. There's always been a Bard."
"What are my powers for?" asked Gwesty.
"Well, to answer that question, you need to know why you have your powers." said Lenneth, "Its because your mother was a Valkyrie, like me or Gabrie Celeste."
"I haven't got a mother!" snapped Gwesty, clinging to her Bunny. It chirruped and nibbled at her hair.
"Everyone has a mother, Gwesty." said Lenneth, "Didn't you learn in school about how babies are made?"
"Not me. I've just got a father. The Innkeeper's my dad."
"Is that what he told you?" asked Lenneth, her smile sharpening slightly like a blade being prepared for battle, "I'm going to dunk him in a horse trough."
Motoi laughed. Gwesty turned around and slapped him. Startled, the Bunny jumped away to the far side of the room. Gwesty ran after it. Lenneth sighed.
"Gwesty." she called, "I'm your mother."
The expression on the child's face grew from one of incensed anger to one of outrage.
"I do NOT have WINGS!" she screwed up her face as though she was going to burst into tears.
"NO, the wings come later, once you become a fully grown Valkyrie." explained Lenneth, "And you will become a Valkyrie, Gwesty. You're the most talented fledgeling I've ever met."
"I don't want wings when I grow up either!" she bawled, "I just want to go back home. I want to see my dad and I want to see the Bunnies and I don't want any scary ladies with wings following me. Or stupid boys."
Lenneth sighed. How did you tell an eight-year-old child that if they remained on their home planet, it would be overrun by an army of XINE?
"Do you even know how to go back home?" Motoi asked. Gwesty shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes again.
"Well, we do. Don't we, Lenneth?" he gave her a look that said he wasn't quite convinced himself.
"Of course I do." said the Valkyrie.
"So, we do and you don't. That means you'll have to come with us, won't you?"
She screamed and lunged at him, knocking him to the floor, before punching him repeatedly. For a girl two years younger than him, she was as strong as a lioness. He couldn't even lift his arms to punch her back. Lenneth laughed. What a Valkyrie she'll make.
Motoi couldn't really think at all. His brain had frozen like a jolted CD. Up close, this girl was beautiful.
