PREVIEW CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (Excerpt)

​

                                             The Looking Glass and the World Between Worlds

 

 

The siblings paused, feeling the planate begin to shake before hearing what sounded like intermittent peals of rolling thunder, distant at first, but rapidly drawing nearer with each beat. Avri’El stayed behind with Gavri’El, watching helplessly while Da-Heti sank into the well. Immanu’El and Rafa’El dragged Iago behind Mikha’El, leading the Ne-Teru up the passageway to the entrance.

       Outside, the Ne-Teru unsurprisingly found their Ntchr standing as though dazed, staring out at the horizon. “Something very large is approaching from the east,” He-Ru said, perched high atop of the citadel, looking across the planate. A loud crash, exponentially heavier than the slow, pulse-like rumbles, shook the earth, unlike anything that came before.

      Mikha’El grabbed Iago by the collar and pulled him close enough to reveal the stars forming in his fiery eyes, “Iago, what have you done?” Mikha’El growled.

      “Nothing much. I made a new acquaintance recently, looks like it decided to join us,” Iago smirked.

      “It decided? Are you suggesting those, are footsteps?” Dijana’El asked, feeling the tremors shaking the planate as it drew closer.

     “Unfortunately, yes,” He-Ru replied, using his hawk vision to observe the dark mass beyond the horizon. Another ear-splitting crash prompted the most far-sighted Ne-Teru to glance at one another before taking to the air, rocketing up into the stratosphere. Mikha’El, Immanu’El, Uriy’El, Rafa’El and Nekh’El watched with eyes widening in confusion at the sight of the top of an AgarthIshed poking out of the miles high dust cloud quickly lose its brilliant shimmer. Disconnected from the vitality of the planate, the massive tree’s silicate structure transformed into stone before it toppled forward and crashed, shaking the entire earth.

       What is it? Dijana’El thought, observing the enormous dark mass rolling towards them. Nekh’El raised the western wind and directed its might to clear the massive field of dust, revealing a ruddy-haired mass of a man momentarily stepping out of the bank of cloud.

       It’s a supergiant, Mikha’El replied.

       “A supergiant?” Mattyahu’El repeated, “How tall is a supergiant?”

      This one looks to be thirty miles high, Immanu’El offered.

      “Thirty miles?” Dijana’El exclaimed, “Is that even possible?”

      “Not from this plane,” Nekh’El added. The Ne-Teru watched the supergiant use its gigantic ax, slicing clean through each massive tree it passed with a single swing. The planate quaked for several minutes with each AgarthIshed crashing to the ground, sending plumes of dust into the air like a massive sand storm.

      “I don’t understand,” Rafa’El said, returning with his siblings, “There’s been no aggression between the Ne-Teru and Nephilim for eons… why would they break the treaty after all this time?”

      “I may have inferred you’ve developed Ntchr technology and that you plan to use it to finally eradicate their species once and for all. They were rather easy to convince given your turbulent past,” Iago shrugged, “They are inordinately sensitive when it comes to their gigantism,” Iago chuckled.

      “And impossibly difficult to reason with once they begin the march to battle,” Avri’El added.

      “But it’s destroying the AgarthIshed, you think they would have more care for the last vestige of their primordial age,” Dijana’El said.

      “The last vestige desecrated by the human occupants they see as being no different from termites,” Iago chuckled.

      “It’s destroying the AgarthIshed because it knows we used silicate to build the Ntchr,” Uriy’El offered.

      “Look closer,” Mikha’El said, watching the behemoth take a gluttonous bite out of the giant fruit.”

      “Giants don’t usually eat fruit… do they?” Mattyahu’El asked.

      “This one must be looking for one fruit in particular,” Iago glared darkly at the fruit on Persephone’s topmost branches, “If he eats of that tree—”

      “We won’t let that happen,” Immanu’El interrupted. The supergiant then hurled the half-eaten fruit at the wall, which smashed through the gates as though ant-sized beings had built the city in a sandbox.