I stand outside the void. The part of the void that stretches through the frozen planet, that connects it with all the other planets that the void stretches through. I take a deep breath. And I swallow down the twinges of fear that I feel. I long to be in the void again. I long to have it plunge into me as I plunge into it. I long to thrum with it, as it vibrates, not vibrates, but that’s the closest thing, as it vibrates through every part of me. 

I take a deep breath. And I step in. 

Immediately I am overcome by the dark nothingness, by the vast everythingness. But I do not get lost in it. Now I know how to find the threads that make it what it is. Now I know what the void is made of and I know how to pull myself through it. So pull myself through it I do. And I flow through the past, through the present, through the future of countless, infinite lives. And I find my way to a new planet. 

——-

I am in the hot, hot lands of Darai now. Still in my Savelian form, for this is what is safest for everyone. If the Empire catches me, they will be content to catch only me, and will leave the colonized planets alone. 

The air around me in this darkened metal hut is burning with heat. I have a slight headache because of it. But at least I am not aching and wearied out from a long day at the power plants. I wish I could go with the people. I wish I could hurt and burn alongside them. But it’s too dangerous. I’m not accounted for in the census. The Imperials will open an investigation into me. And we all know that we can’t have that. So I take care of the children while everyone is gone, 

I take some sick, twisted solace in the fact that I have my own demons to fight anyways. My past haunts me fiercely. 

Right now though, I am surrounded by loved ones. Loved ones I have not known for long, but loved ones anyways. Three-year-old Morell and baby Araldo and young Zara. Youths Aricio, Drayo, and Griali. Armie and the elder Zaberi. We are discussing the World Stones, we are discussing how important it is to keep them secret, we are discussing how much of a game changer they are and how we can hopefully one day win, if we organize ourselves in secret, if we all help each other through the everlasting war. 

“I don’t see how it’s worth it though,” Aricio starts. “We should just give back the Stones. It’s the best way to keep us all safe.”

“Give back the stones?” My voice is startled. “But we can keep them safe. We can keep them secret. The Empire doesn’t know about them.”

“But still,” he says, “what if they find out? They’ll destroy us. It’s too much of a risk.”

“They won’t find out,” Zara tells him, “they have no reason to even suspect that there is any chance the Stones are in our hands. And there’s no way anyone would give them a reason to suspect it. We’re not stupid.”

“But what if on the off chance they do find out?” Aricio demands, “What then? We’d all be dead.”

“But is this a life worth living?” Armie asks. “Sure, we’re alive. Our kids are alive. But the Empire, they keep taking everything from us. They keep taking the very essence of who we are. Is that worth it? Living like that?”

“Exactly,” Drayo adds, “what do we have to hope for? Years upon years of the Empire’s exploitation? An early death so that we may finally find peace? Grief that never ends? What do our children have to hope for? The same lives that we have had to live? We have no hope. We don’t even have life. We barely have survival.”

“Exactly,” Zara agrees. “We have nothing. Without hope we have nothing. Isn’t hope worth taking risks for? Isn’t hope worth risking everything for? Because even if we die, we die on our feet. And that’s better than living on our knees.”

“I get it. I get that even death is better than living like this. But I can’t put the children at risk.”

“The children are already at risk,” Zaberi tells him, “they’re already at risk and the only way we can give them anything worth fighting for is to give them hope.”

“The rock is nice,” Morell exclaims, “it’s nice and happy. And it can make us happy and fun!”

“You’re sure right, little one,” I tell them, smiling. 

“I agree with you guys, I really do,” Aricio explains, “but I’m afraid.”

“Then let us see the power of our magic. Let us see it for ourselves. And then you will see that there is no reason to fear. You will see we can be quiet under the noses of the Empire until it’s time to destroy them once and for all.”

“Alright. Prove my fear wrong. Please.” There is a pleading sort of desperation in his voice. I can tell that he wants to believe. I can tell that he really, truly wants to believe.

So we all hold hands. We create an unbroken line twisting and snaking its way through the room. The people on each end of the line put one hand on the hot metal walls around us. We are unified. We are united. We are one. And not only are we one with each other, but we are one with everyone outside the hut, everyone outside the neighbourhood, everyone everywhere on the planet and everyone beyond. I can feel our line reaching out, reaching out, lacing in all the people who are under the boot of the Empire, all the people everywhere. I can feel us all coming together and joining hands within the silence of our hearts. And it’s magnificent. 

We hum softly, melodically, quiet in the sweltering heat all around us. Slowly, one by one, we start chanting. The chant of Darai, the chant passed down from generation to generation, the chant that was not forgotten even though the World Stone had been lost, had been captured, had been enslaved for hundreds of long, devastating years. The people still remember the chant, and the generations before them still made sure to pass down the chant, because they clung to hope. They clung to hope and hope is something worth clinging to and now their hope is on the verge of coming to fruition. 

“The galaxy, the galaxy, it lives in me it lives in me. The galaxy, the galaxy, it lives in all of us,” we speak, over and over again. 

I feel the power blooming to life within me. It is such an utterly glorious sensation. I am at peace. I am at home. The entire galaxy is my home. All the huts of all the slaves are my home. And we are all at home together. We are all at home within each other. And we are, all of us, one big unending family reaching out throughout all the eight planets and forwards and backwards in time for eons. The World Stone binds us together. It binds us together, and it shows each and every one of us how we are bound together, in love and in pain and in joy and in fear. In hope and in promise and in longing. 

With all of us bonded together, we can rely upon each other for strength and support and power. We all have an infinite source of power within ourselves. And we are, all of us, all the time, loving each and every one of the slaves scattered throughout the galaxy. And that love multiplies our power infinitely. It multiplies our power exponentially. And here, holding hands with my comrades, I can see it. I can see it. We can all see it. And hopefully it’s enough to uproot the most stubborn of our fears. 

I allow myself to fall into the visions that the World Stone is granting me. The visions of Darai, the desert planet, as it used to be before the Empire came, before the Empire took over, before the Empire destroyed. For, as we all are coming to see, the wildness and the freedom of Darai, of all the planets, still exists under the surface. It still exists under the surface of industrialization and domination and desecration. And it is just waiting to be unleashed into the world. 

In front of me a desert stretches. Vast and bright and glaring. Hot. But not in a painful way. Not in a discomforting way. Hot in a way that is overwhelming, pressing, holding. In a way that is almost too much and not nearly enough both at the same time. The sky is bright blue. It is eternal. It goes on and on infinitely in each and every direction. The ground is bright brown, a lightened colour made from eons of the suns glaring down. And the suns themselves, they are glorious burning fires above everything. 

A desert falcon soars above me, regal and untamed and magnificent. 

The suns set, coating the sky and the earth in fire. They coat the world in colours. And the shadows become longer and longer, darker and darker, deeper and deeper, as the sunset goes on. The cacti stand strong and tall and unbowed, full of thorns to protect themselves from the bite of any predator. They hold the water and give it to the people. The sand glows orange. And then, when twilight graces the sky with its deep electric blue, it seems as if the world is coated in fire smoke. 

The stars reach on for miles and miles every which way above me, as far as the eye can see. I see the trail of lightness in the sky, the subtle, ever-so-slight lightness that each planet calls a different name. And I see millions of tiny beacons of hope, beacons that still exist in the darkness to this day, no matter how much the city lights have caused them to fade from our view. I see what our ancestors, the ancestors of Darai, the ancestors of all the slaves here, saw. And I see what the descendants of these people will see. 

The sun comes up again, once again coating the sky in light and colours, and I am one with the way that time turns as the planets themselves turn. 

“Do you have faith now?” I ask our nonbeliever once the trance is over.

“I do,” he answers, eyes and voice full of awe and wonder. 

“We will make it all nice again!” Morell chimes. 

The Stone is on fire in front of us. It is on fire but it is not consumed. 

———

I am in the dark planet now. Velasi. The planet on the edges of its solar system, far from its sun and bathed in shadows. It’s beautiful here, though. Even though it’s dark, it’s beautiful here. Even though it’s desecrated with power plant after power plant after power plant, landing pad after landing pad, military base after military base. It’s still beautiful here. Because the people gather together whenever they can, in tiny huts and narrow streets, and they give each other hope. 

Which is exactly what we’re doing right now, in a crowded room of ten people, three children and two babies amongst us. 

“Here, take the child.” Siell, a young mother, hands her infant to me. I make sure to hold him strongly and gently. I make sure to keep him as safe as I possibly can. She has entrusted me with a secret. A secret who looks out into the room with large, dark, eyes with golden glowing irises. A secret who is so incredibly beautiful, and who deserves every freedom in the world. Who deserves every good thing. Who will hopefully live a better life than his parents live. A life free of the constant pressure and poverty and inequality. 

“What are we going to be able to do with this Stone?” young Liselm asks, holding the dull little rock in their hand. 

“We’ll be able to channel our magic through it,” I answer. “We’ll be able to use our magic and do all kinds of things. We’ll be able to fight good and strong when our time comes to fight, and we’ll be able to weaken the Empire and its enforcers.”

“That’s really cool!” little Olemm pipes, “it can help us win!”

“It can,” I agree, “and it will.”

“So we use our magic to power the Stone?” a man named Fliemm asks. 

“Yes, we power the Stone and the Stone powers our magic. It makes miracles happen.”

“But how will we have enough magic to do anything substantial?” A young woman, Maell, asks, her voice full of concentration and deep thought.

“We have enough magic to do great, great things,” I answer her. “Our magic is inexhaustible.”

“Is it really?” she asks me, eyes darkened in concern. Her dark blue face is etched with worry, but there is also hope there, and that is promising, is glorious, is beautiful. 

“It is,” I answer her, “Why do you think it is not?”

“Because they take everything from us,” she replies, “you know that as well as I do. They take our magic and use it to power all their exotic technology. They take so much from us. So much. How would we have anything left over after that?”

“I understand where you’re coming from. I really do. But our supply of magic is so much greater, so much deeper, than the Empire has ever known. It’s inexhaustible. They might take from us and take from us but they’ll never be able to take it all. Don’t you feel it thrumming to life inside of you?”

“It’s easy for you to say that. You’ve never had to give as much magic as the rest of us have.”

“Now, Maell,” the teenaged boy Sarvemm starts, “that’s not nice. You know that’s not nice.”

“I’m not accusing her,” she responds, “it’s just true.”

“Well,” an older person named Avelilm begins, “even if they take magic from us, we still have so much magic left inside of us, and more being generated all the time. I feel it thrumming and growing inside of me. I’m sure you all feel it too.”

“Exactly,” I agree, “Let’s feel it all together.”

We hold hands again. This ritual always requires the holding of hands. No matter what Stone we’re using. No matter what planet we’re on. Because holding hands gives us a sense of connection. And it represents for us the connection that we all have with each other. It’s a small symbol. A subtle symbol. And like all good symbols it is not very fine or intricate. Unlike the grand displays of wealth the Empire calls symbolic. But it’s a symbol that takes all of our being anyways, a symbol that is laced in so much meaning that it turns us all into meaning ourselves. 

We chant, and once again it’s a chant that is as old as memory itself. “May the power heal our souls, may we make the galaxy whole.”

The magic thrums and glows and dances and grows inside of me. This time the energy feels like healing. It feels like solace. It feels like eternity. The magic feels the same and it feels different each and every time that it gets called upon. It has so many infinitely different elements to it, and each element contains all the other elements within it. Each time the magic is called upon, each time it is used, it highlights a different one of its substituents, though all exist equally strongly within it. 

It hides and brings to light both at the same time. It teaches and baffles simultaneously. It veils and it makes clear. And it defies all logic, all meaning, all reason. And yet it makes perfect sense in my heart, in all of our hearts. It’s obvious and glorious and completely ours. No-one who is not one of us, who is not a slave, will ever be able to understand even a fraction of this magic that is flowing through us. No-one will understand its power. They won’t believe it. They will underestimate it. And that is one of the very many reasons that it makes us powerful.