Outskirts Press, INC.

Far from our galaxy in a different time and place, within another multi-verse is a reality where Chancellor Masters for thousands of years have kept peace and act as mediators between numerous diverse species. Although highly trained in various forms of fighting and an ancient power, Chancellor Masters solve disputes with diplomatic aptitude. As if drawn, an insidious rift escalates among the three remaining Roshanian Guilds, weakening them further. The galaxy is partially recovered from the egotistical machinations of civil war when Khalon Grayson Loure, a Chancellor of noble character stumbles upon the first of five mysteries artifacts. These ancient holographic recordings were considered to have never existed. The artifacts change; the willing, into legendary beings of great power, long thought extinct. Among other secrets hidden inside the five artifacts, they indicate a new Guild, a new kind of Chancellor would arise out of the aged. Invading Lamian forces overcome a Roshanian Military Outpost located in their outermost galaxy, Binomi, the Unified system of Planets. The Lamia access top-level files and destroy the Military Outpost and enslave countless billions. The Lamia seek an artifact known as the Mantle, and its untold power locked within its core. Who are the Lamia? What and where is this Mantle? Why was it created, by whom, and why do the Lamia seek it? When unlocked, who or whom could wield such power? Will the Guild unite? Will their internal struggle end? Will they accomplish the impossible task of defeating the Lamia and return balance to the universe?

The muffled rumble of industrial generators resonated throughout the ship. Simultaneously, it traveled with a disengaged nucleon drive, and other than the occasional ping of space debris on the ship’s protective hull, the battered Invictus quietly glided in the vacuum of space. Reluctantly, he turned to his side, then stood, and before him were innumerable golden, sapphire, and crimson binary star clusters. The luminescence of the Quinari Obex galaxy cast his shadow, imbued through the reinforced slightly tinted glass window wall. “Magnify,” he paused, then added, “home,” in a deep monotone. A dimmed moonlighted glow was the scenery for the galactic interactive holographic imagery. Gazing deep into the intoxicating beauty of his galaxy, he recalled a distant memory, and a projector above cast the scene and setting. Swirling about him as a raging vortex were millions of holographic reflectors. These reflectors received their image from the projector above via Khalon’s memory, downloaded previously. “We are going to be late,” pleaded Ulissia. Khalon was dithering, as usual. But at a mere three standard years of age he climbed the bold narrow stairs to the rooftop as a proud mountaineer. “Hurry son, you don’t want to miss this one,” his father said standing on the upper deck taking his hand. “The best seat right here,” he pointed to the chair inside the box. Khalon ran to his father and embraced his leg, “Are you ready,” he asked. Khalon didn’t speak, but nodded. Khalon reached for the interactive projections as if to touch each wondrous star or planet, as if to hold it in his hand for examination. Little Khalon poked his head out of the box and had a look around, expecting the identical images to remain. Tulatio hoisted little Khalon into his arms, rubbing the slight chill out of his back. Their newly installed stargazing chamber stirred Khalon’s desire to communicate audibly. To his parent’s delight, Khalon pointed to a dis- tant star, stammering he said, “Home, Papa, home.” Tulatio held his son close to his chest closed his eyes and squeezed, Ulissia’s face was bright as their violet sun, but then it dawned on him. “Home,” he asked with a questioning brow, Khalon rested a heavy head on his fathers shoulder, then nodded. “We are home, little Khalon,” Tulatio stated. Nearly sleeping, Khalon nodded and quietly said, “Home.” Perhaps it was the inspirational experience of viewing the stars in the interactive chamber for the first time, or perhaps the sudden mood took Khalon. Or perhaps, Ulissia was correct when in times past she had explained to Tulatio, Khalon’s father, “Maybe Khalon hasn’t decided what to say.” Returning to the present, he stumbled and reached for the reinforced window. “End program,” he breathed, taken aback—specifi- cally by the memory of his mother. The computer, combined with an individuals entered memories of events, scanned photographic images, and voice data entry, created the interactive holographic image, as if happening again but for the first time. The digital image scattered what was order, be- came chaos, and formed into a cyclonic vortex, returning as it were into the projector above. After Khalon’s morning tea and toasted sweet bread he practiced the slow rhythmic movements of Pokt-tor, and after a short but welcomed shower sat quietly for several moments in a calm, dimly lighted room. He inhaled deeply and for a long moment Khalon was still and meditated on the Word of Yeshu. Steam billowed from a fresh cup of poured tea, Khalon inhaled its aroma three times. And when all was quiet the communicator exploded. “Excuse me, sir,” Khalon jolted, it shattered the silence and the calm of his mind and body. The pilot announced, “Entering Harvoris space, Master.” Scalding his left hand and nearly his face, he grimaced. Khalon masked his irritation and said, “Well done,” simultaneously he waved his hand. “Decrease our speed and access flight sequence,” he paused. Khalon squinted his eyes and massaged a square, whiskered chin, “Sequence as stated in tabellae file 4twz,” momentarily paused, then added, “dash 2. Bring the main engine back online; inform me if any problems arise or anyone contacts us. Until then,” he inhaled deeply, “I’ll see you on deck.” The intercom system crackled, “Affirmative, sir,” then faded with an electronic shriek that could split his head in two. His dissatisfaction with the Invictus’s poor condition boiled over. Releasing some of his mounting frustration, as a steam valve would a boiler, he slightly elevated his voice each time he repeated the phrase, “I know, I know, I know.” Khalon pinched the bridge of his slender nose and exhaled forcefully, adopting a sarcastic slumped posture. The pilot did as instructed with the click of several buttons, the turn of two dials, and an adjustment of the ship’s wheel; it lurched slightly. He then switched off the generators and brought the main engines back online. Lights flickered, computer trans-screens flashed, and monitors rolled as if they had been rebooted. Power surged throughout the ship as a plinora bear awakened from its slumber. On the exterior of the ship, abundant ice particulates on spherical exhaust ports broke free as the ship came to life and cor- uscated in space as sparkling calico jewels on black velvet. Khalon turned on the outdated computer and reviewed the nightly report, and as suspected, found it nauseatingly uneventful. Khalon forced air through puckered lips and agitated his head. It was three weeks to Harvoris II: no stops, no surprises, and no issues provided no complication developed with the dilapidated ship. Cautiously, he sipped the hot, unsweetened, slightly bitter amber- green tea and gazed once again into space. “Glad to see the end of this mission,” he quietly exasperated. Khalon pulled up his trousers. “Maybe I’ll get something more in- teresting,” he drolled and quickly threw on a loose tunic, “than quelling uprisings on Torgon III and tolerating the meaningless squabbling of others.” The tunic nearly concealed his swashbuckling figure. It also concealed a mysterious scar from what, at one time, was an immense gash. Khalon yearned for a mission with a dash of the mundane, inundated with intrigue, freedom from ob- scurity, and saturated with the grandeur of astonishment. Harvoris, Harvoris II, and its shared ovoid sapphire moon Mesan, commonly referred to as the Blue Egg, cast a serene silhouette deep into space. Mesan willingly followed, beguiled by the dual gravitational pull as if both planets pined for the sapphire moon, waxing and waning for its affection. Ahead, a violet sun and the golden, purplish-blue, and vibrant red-orange gases of the Harvoris nebula streamed gracefully into its center, never sating its voracious appetite. He observed the remains of Harvoris’s catastrophic event; it had occurred ten years prior to his noble birth. Explosive gases triggered a series of chain reactions of near-cataclysmic proportions, that resulted in a profoundly deep abyss and expulsion of its radiant metallic inner core to space. A great throng of rock, ice, and me- tallic material formed a wide hyperactive band that encompassed the planet. Donned in environment suits, the Sola mining company erected buildings, constructed roads, and established several colonies on large land masses left intact. What little gravity remained narrowly provided a suitable place to continue mining for a precious substance called sulfuric vandiphyrin. Stimulated by galactic bur-geoning demand, sulfuric vandiphyrin’s primary use was in the refinement of prolonging the consumption of inexpensive radioactive space fuel.