78

Lifestoned

Even for madmen like Beilla and Abzeig, it was a terrible fate. But the Breimas had little time to reflect on that. The power of the Kareima finished carrying Deilune and Linda to the upper pool of water lit incandescently blue. They descended gently into it. Hawk wheeled their way. It alighted on the edge of Deilune and Linda's pool, the pendant with the Fareima still clasped in its claws.

Lottica stared at the glittering eyes of Hawk. "Lebreima lumeinatus de Kareima," she whispered, because it seemed the only thing worth saying in that incredible moment.

In response, Hawk dipped its head forward as if to take a drink from the pool Deilune and Linda stood in. To Lottica’s disbelief, its two glittering eyes, long-ago dusted by the Kareima, fell into the pool.

The creature then walked to the adjacent lava pool and deftly flung the Fareima into its glowing mass. Finally, the Breima family tracked its miraculous path, Hawk reached the edge of the lower lava pool next to where Nick and Lottica stood.

Without hestitating, Hawk hopped into the molten lava.

Quickly the blackened iron began melting and sloughing off. The Hawk’s once textured features became a smooth ovoid. As its dark exterior melted away, a radiant light began to shine through the rapidly thinning ore. The singular brightness grew until a definite shape emerged.

Lottica recognized it. A shape she’d seen many times before in her astronomy books and through her telescope. Within the cold iron of Hawk, a star was emerging.

The Astreima.

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Her grandparents and Heidein had told her. Hawk knows.

She turned to Nick. He was smiling. They watched as the brilliance of the Astreima burst through the remaining metal, more breathtaking than anything they had seen before. They shielded their eyes as the gemstone became fully exposed, but only for a moment before its brilliance folded into the lava.

The lifestones of Lebreima, the Kareima, Fareima and Astreima, were in place. The ancient Tireima had been reformed in the heart of Mount Breima and the world waited to be remade.

It didn’t take long.

Mount Breima jumped like it had been shocked with high voltage. The jolt knocked the children and their parents to their knees in the two pools. From each pool, the light intensified, suffusing their bodies and beings. Indeed, Lottica felt as if she was diffusing into the light intself. She watched as her hand became translucent, the capillaries and bones becoming faint lines in the torch her hand had become. She looked to Nick, who was now floating in the pool, his hands raised like two fantastic glow sticks.

Her parents were enveloped in light as well, but in a blue light that made them appear to be under water. They went rigid as a deeper blue emerged from their beings.

The Kareima!

The Kareima was part of them. It had brought them life again, like Feodeim. Was it leaving them now?

She tried to move, but she had become like air without form or direction. There was nothing to move. Around her the light strengthened and the lava pools became chaotic, a volcano of color. Indeed, it appeared to Lottica the entire chamber was about to erupt.

Nick recognized it, too. The pools began an alternating surge. A heart pumping. The heart of Mount Breima come alive. Right atrium to right ventricle to left atrium to left ventricle. Faster and faster. The sequence repeating until Nick could no longer perceive the separate beats. Nick wondered where this manic process would take them.

The light around them grew stronger and stronger, the beams shooting from each of each of the four pools widening until they coalesced into a single blinding entity above them.

The combined force of the Kareima, Fareima and Astreima heaved against the cavern's towering roof. The pressure built. The mountain groaned, trying with all the might of its mass to hold itself together. But the Tireima would not be held.

In brilliant finality the cavern roof gave way. The blast knocked the Breimas to the bottom of their pools of water. And the reunited Tireima shot forth like a supernova, blowing open the suppliant hands of Mount Breima.

Into a very different world, the lifestones were remade and unleashed into the dark Lebreiman skies.