Under the Green Sun of Slormor

by Bertil Falk

Chapter 4
Part 1
Part 2
appear in this issue.

Chapter 4:
The Moons’ Play of Colors
on the Opal Lake

part 3 of 3

The cave walls glistened with water condensation. Wrapped up in our beds we sat quietly and looked at each other. Neither of us felt like talking. The euphoria that had hit me when we met the fresh air and looked across the clear water of the volcano-lake had been replaced with the reflection that was created by new problems.

When the sun set and disappeared behind the edge of the crater, the dusk arose that never really disappears but is kept alive by the moons reflecting the verdure of the emerald-colored sun. From the opening we looked out on the remarkable display of color when the moons mix kinolin-yellow with alkalin-blue into methyl-green that refracts the opal tinges of hyacinth, wine-yellow and apple green in the water. The water was glowing.

Below on the strip of land, running inside the crater wall, fires were lighted. Strange songs ascended from many throats. Sometimes it sounded like an East Indian raag, sometimes like a mountain girl calling her cows, sometimes like a recitation of a Japanese Noh play, everything interspersed with sudden pauses, phrases and screams that seemed to stiffen in the air, where they would never cease.

“Are the Belyrs having a party?” I asked.

“No,” said Parvrin. “They always sing after sunset. Ancient songs sung for the glory of the sun, the moons and the holy lake. They sing and promise to protect the holy lake. And they send thanksgivings to the powers because they’ve succeeded in salvaging the triple-headed dragon before the lake became too polluted.”

“Too?”

“It was somewhat polluted, and they will now perform a purification ceremony.”

Fascinated, I saw a big gateway being opened in the slanting crater-wall. I had not seen that gateway before. Inside it glared glowing lava. The volcano I had thought was extinct was active. It had fire and heat hidden behind the giant door the Belyrs had opened.

The songs, which up to now had been slow, grew in swiftness and strength. Drum-like sounds of unusual kinds supported the change. Forms moved faster and faster below us in the dusk and collectively created more and more complicated figures. A multistory wooden tower on wheels was rolled forward to the gateway, and a couple of beings climbed with agility up to its peak.

“They are purifying the crater valley and themselves,” Parvrin whispered.

“How?”

She did not answer.

The voices were getting harder; the songs cut frightening signs in my ears. The sound of drums rumbled like a thunderstorm across the opal lake. The beats were in different parts and mixed into a mosaic of sounds together with the singing voices. Now it was all about ecstasy, a cruel craving, which was developed ghastly in space and filled the whole cathedral.

And then a cacophony returned from all directions when the rumbling sound rolled across the lake and hit the walls of the circular crater funnel. It hit like a ball bouncing back and forth across the lake in a crescendo that became an ear-splitting roar, where no longer any individual sound could be discerned, just a violent and vaguely outlined crash.

Suddenly, the singing and the thumping down on the shore came to an end, but the furious bellowing continued screamingly, bouncing back and forth until those echoes, too, died away with the sounds.

And then dead silence.

At that, the first being threw itself straight into the burning lava. It was immediately followed by another, and then another one. Six beings in a row straddle-vaulted into the fiery red glow. I saw the ultramarine bodies with their violet auras catch fire even before they were swallowed by the lava, a thousand degrees hot.

I understood now that this was indeed a purification ceremony, and I also understood that we were in a bad position.

“Who are they who commit suicide?” I whispered to Parvrin.

“The two who fished up the cadaver and the four who buried it,” Parvrin whispered back. “They did their duty. Now they have to purify themselves, the tribe, and the crater lake of the volcano.”

“Will we meet with the same fate if they find us?”

“No,” said Parvrin. “If we’re thrown into the glowing fire through the holy gateway, we will pollute the god of the volcano. No, we won’t meet with the same fate. We’re too unclean and dirty.”

“We’ll be buried alive,” I whispered.

Parvrin nodded. Her face was tensed. It had taken on a mature look. I took a step backwards. She had grown. She had changed into a young woman. Appalled, I looked at my own hands. They had not changed. Even so, there must have been something somewhere that had caused the change in Parvrin.

She was smiling a friendly smile at me. “Yes, I’ve changed. I’m more grown up now, thanks to you. I had not been able to do this quick change on my own.

“But we’re far from accomplishing what we have to do. The Invaders are waiting for us. They don’t care about you any more. They attack me incessantly. They’ve realized that I’ve outgrown my former self and that my power to resist them means that I will soon be able to counter-attack their minds.”

I could not say that as a young woman Parvrin was beautiful, but she was imposing. By the old-fashioned standards of beauty from the days and times of Reubens, Zorn, and Marilyn Monroe, one could describe her as shapely. Her blue lips reminded me of death. Her yellow eyelids, too. Her green complexion now undulated in different green shades. And she seemed familiar in a way I could not explain.

Parvrin saw that I did not quite appreciate her new image. “I am what I am,” she said simply. “Li’l Parvrin is now what she was from the beginning created to become. My gur...”

Yes, her gur. I had forgotten to ask her about her gur.

“My gur would be happy if he were here. But he’s far away.”

At that moment we were overpowered by a horde of ultramarine beings streaming like ants from all sides.

And the moons mixed their verdure with the opalescent water.

To be continued...