Star City - Chapter 1

Chapter One

The Diamond Prison

Tomorrow it would be her seventeenth rotation.

Koretta pulled herself up higher until she was perching precariously on the very tip of the solar ray. The air always seemed clearer up here. She could think. She wrapped her arms around her knees and craned her neck, gazing up at the dome. The great silver shield was one of the most incredible feats of Marlayan engineering of all time, the vast dome that held the glinting city in a perfect capsule above their star. But to Koretta... it was her prison.

She strained her eyes. Searing up from the horizon was the burning eternal light from the star, but at the top of the dome a watery patch of sinister darkness. And within that endless night, tiny pinpricks of a weaker brightness. The largest of Marlaya's three planets was almost centred above the dome, marking another rotation. She breathed out deeply, focusing on the faintest dots.

The other stars.

It was like trying to wade through something sticky and vile, like tar or rubbish slime, every time she tried to find out more about the other Marlayan cities. But she was long accustomed to such hostility. She got the same answer to every single question she ever asked regarding the stars, the 'outside', the Deep Gates, the mysterious 'Nexus'... the exact same one, every time...

That knowledge is for the Elders only...

Koretta pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Such a headache. The damned Elders. The thought knifed through her mind like a bolt of lightning. She looked up sharply, almost expecting the Elder Guards themselves to be standing on her father’s roof right below her. She had heard the stories about the great metal soldiers; the dead blue eyes, the mechanical hearts, but she had never seen them before. Tomorrow though, tomorrow was her chance. Her seventeenth rotation. She would be eligible to accompany her father to the annual communion.

The Great Council met once every rotation, forty-three dignitaries who convened in the glass observatory of the Grand Theatre to discuss Marlayan politics, essentially. They were meant to consolidate societal issues… or something. It was all bureaucratic nonsense. And the Chief Advisor? A man revered throughout Marlaya, almost worshipped, for his proximity to the Elders. He was responsible for communicating the Council’s thoughts to them, their requests… but it was a façade.

Koretta turned her face back to the distant cities. The Elders had such a hold over the people. She shivered… like Gods.

Everyone knew the story of their ancestors. At the beginning of time, the One was born, and from him grew Marlaya’s star. An immortal, omniscient entity, the One burned at the heart of the star, it had been for 13 billion years. The Marlayans had descended from his children, the children of light… Three Goddesses, and three Gods: Ona, Mye, Shaan, Durk, Jel, and Fae. But the Elders? She had even heard her father muttering darkly in the moments when he thought she wasn’t listening that he didn’t even know what they were any more.

No one had actually seen them in centuries… no one but the Chief Advisor.

The feeling was deep in her bones, the feeling that something was wrong. Inherently wrong. And it involved the Elders in some way. The Elder Secrets.

She shivered once more, rubbing her icy blue eyes. She was cold. And it was late. She glanced back up at the largest planet, so close to its zenith. She eased herself down the solar ray, her bare toes curling as they touched the diamond roof. She breathed in deeply through her nose, throwing a last glance over the city. Thousands of vessels were still soaring back and forth even though the curfew was rapidly approaching. The mighty Solar Ships dominated the sky, their billowing silver sails full and bloated. She gazed at the glinting spires and turrets of Marlaya… a city of diamonds. No, she quickly corrected herself, a prison of diamonds.

She sighed, hurrying down the spiral stairs within the central tower of their home, winding down towards the ground floor. The whole city was composed of diamonds, every single block, the legacy of the divine powers. Fresh air. She needed fresh air. Never mind if it was barely an hour until the ‘sacred’ curfew. She finally reached the hallway and was inches away from the door when he yelled.

‘Koretta?’

She closed her eyes, teeth gritted. So damn close.

‘Father?’ she said slowly, turning. He was standing at the entrance to the parlour in his council robes. Just seeing him draped in the thick red garment this late at night when he had clearly had ample time to change infuriated her.

‘Koretta do you know what day it is tomorrow?’ The words dripped with a paralysing calm. Her fists involuntarily clenched as she glared at him. She couldn’t even see his eyes, the shadows in the corner of the room staining his entire body. She was struck by a sudden overwhelming urge to hit him.

‘Why yes, father, tomorrow will be my seventeenth rotation.’

‘Damn it, Koretta,’ he yelled suddenly, slamming his left hand against one of the sparkling pillars. She flinched, but held her ground, unblinking. ‘Thousands of other children your age would willingly harm to have such an opportunity. When your father is one of the forty-three most important figures in the whole of Marlaya and you have the privilege to intend one of the Great Councils, you show some gratitude.’

The only sound puncturing the thick silence that followed was his heavy breathing, the wide grey eyes flashing in the darkness. But he had done it. Once again, he had done it. Firstly, was the reference to her as a child. It felt as though her blood was heating up, burning her veins, destroying her from the inside out. And secondly, was talking about himself in the first person. She felt the adrenaline coursing through her.

‘They’d harm would they, father? Would they kill?’ she murmured sardonically, ‘But this is the great Marlaya, a world of no crime, where everyone is equal, a city of mindless drones so naïve they are blind to the lies, the secrets… How are the Elders doing father?’

She could tell by the way he was standing the sheer intensity of his anger. But she couldn’t stop.

‘Oh that’s right… you don’t have the faintest idea. Above your pay grade is it? But then again… this is the great Marlaya, and everyone is equal. The same quantities of everything as your neighbor, that’s how the manifesto goes doesn’t it? Just get back before the curfew and don’t ask any questions and you might just get to lead a boring, perfect life.’

For several seconds she didn’t move, channeling all the pent-up frustration and anger inside of her directly towards him. Then she turned on her heel, pressed her palm to the door, and as it slid back with a serpentine hiss, she stormed out into the silence and the cold.

‘The curfew,’ she just heard him screaming after her but nothing could have stopped her in that moment of clawing fury.

She didn’t slow down until she had left the council towers far behind in the darkness and ascended to the upper walkways, moving deeper into the heart of the city. There were parts she still hadn’t seen. It would probably take several months to make it all the way around the perimeter of the dome, but there were seventeen different layers to the city. Naturally, the council towers could all be found on Level 1.

She finally reached the central core, leaning against the glistening railing and leaning out over the dark chasm. The dome’s light filtration was adjusted over the course of the day, and so was the temperature. Koretta had never fully understood why it was so necessary to have the world dark and cold while they slept. The shadows were so thick now that she could barely make out the Deep Gates. She narrowed her eyes. Level 17 was mainly storage and recycling… or something. Maybe the filtration systems, ventilation? Whatever was down there, it all spiraled out from the Deep Gates… the doorways to hell.

Or not. Again, one of these questions that received that infuriating reply. Why was it so damned important that they weren’t allowed to even understand the world they lived in. The general story was that the gates were a vast airlock system where their refuse was jettisoned towards the star. It would all glide right past the great fusion reactors that hung below the city before being incinerated in the One’s wrath. But she had a different theory… though of course she had never been able to discuss it with anyone. She had a clawing feeling deep inside of her that it was actually a great prison, a mighty jail where rule breakers would suffer barbaric torture before being dropped into the star.

Yes, this was the great Marlaya, and there was no crime, but no one ever seemed to be able to answer some of the most blindingly obvious questions. What happened if you broke the curfew? What happened if you openly denounced the Elders? And what if you did commit a crime? What if you murdered someone?

She yearned to know. The suppression of such knowledge was killing her. She was absolutely convinced that she was living in an illusion. A glinting diamond city of pure spirits and undiluted happiness resting on the eternal light of a beautiful star, ruled by an all-knowing group of anonymous leaders… it was all too fragile, so fragile. And the ironclad certainty deep in her heart was that one day, one terrifying and mighty day… everything would shatter.

She straightened, trying desperately to crush the sudden surge of dread within her. Almost directly ahead, in the centre of the vast cylindrical hollow core, was a square island. And resting on top of this illusion was the tallest tower in the city. At first glance it looked like it was a floating block of diamond, hovering over the abyss, but there were six glistening arches that stretched from the tower’s base, bridging the gap to the rest of Level 1… the Elder Tower.

And blocking the great pillared entrances were the Elder Guards, locked in within the high diamond walls until activated... it had not happened yet.

She turned her back on the looming fortress in disgust, sweeping her long silver hair over her shoulder. A sleek Solar Ship sighed past far above her, the triangular engine at its stern spewing a strange white fire.

That’s when the knife of fear sliced through her. She brought her left arm up to her face, glancing hurriedly at the inside of her wrist where a small silver gel panel rested on her skin. For half a second she just stared in an abstract shock at the flashing numbers, the small red light in the corner warning her of her mistake.

The time.

The curfew.

Three minutes.

She had three minutes to get back to the council towers or she would never even see that seventeenth rotation.

Koretta ran for her life.