Yanti

Chapter One The night sky was a vast black curtain littered with a thousand frozen sparksthe stars so far away, their light so feeble, that if the constellations did indeed have stories to share, then they could only relate to ancient gods, whose names had been forgotten. To the bulk of humanity, the threat from invaders beyond their world was a silly idea . . . Yet there was one, in the night, who did worry about the beyond. What might come out of it. What might kill the Earth. In the midst of the dark sky, high above a snowcapped peak, there floated a warm green emerald. Egg-shaped as well as transparent, it was roughly seven feet from top to bottom; and it emitted a soothing green light that eclipsed handfuls of stars as it slowly, but purposely, drifted across the heavens. At the heart of this egg stood a thirteen-year-old girl, with flaming red hair and mighty green eyes. It was almost as if the light that shielded her from the nightand the planet's gravityemanated from her eyes alone. For there was something so potent about them, so deep . . . that they could not be called human eyes at all. The girl's name was Ali Warner. Yet Ali had other names as well: Geea, Aloshatitles that had been bestowed upon her by members of a race of elementals that lived alongside humanity. These latter usually went about their business unseen by mankind, because they lived in a dimension close to us, but also far away. The elementals were like characters on a TV program that were separated from the Earth by a single channel. Many elementalselves, dwarves, dragons, trolls, leprechaunsknew that Ali Warner was the queen of the fairies. That she had in fact chosen to be born as a human being in order to stop a war that was coming between them and mankind. Ali, however, knew that was not the complete truth. For even though the elementals were only two or three days away from invading the Earth, the real enemy of mankindand the elementals for that matterwas a creature called the Shaktra. It was concerns about the Shaktra that had brought Ali to this unique placefloating above Pete's Peakwhen she could have been at home, warm in bed, asleep. Her single most disturbing problem related to a remark her sworn enemy, Karl Tanner, had said moments before she had killed him. That gruesome, and somewhat satisfying eventshe had broken every bone in his neckhad happened only five hours ago. As if it had been written in the sky with stardust, she recalled every word of their final exchange . . . "I want you to tell me something." "You're going to kill me!" "I have this question. I want you to answer it." "Geea . . ." "Who is the Shaktra?" Karl, knowing he was doomed, had laughed at her then. "You fool, she's your sister!" And she had replied, just before she had killed him: "I thought so." That final remark of hers had been something of an exaggeration. The last few days, while traveling in the elemental kingdom, she had picked up a wide collection of hints that indicated she was related to the Shaktra. But in her heart of hearts, she had never truly accepted the possibility. Ali tried to laugh at the irony of the situation, but failed. The sad truth was, Karl's words had thrown her into a mass of confusion. For the last monthever since she had learned she was not a normal teenagershe had been bracing herself thaPike, Christopher is the author of 'Yanti ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765349620 and ISBN 0765349620.