Zafiil v.1: FireBorn UnPainted

Enter into the heart of an alien race in the first historical novel set in the Peltedverse...

Thousands of years ago, the God of the Faulfenza promised His people He would send a messiah to lead them into a Golden Age, alongside the Others: aliens who would be to them as brothers and sisters. Not a generation has passed without longing for the fulfillment of that Promise.

Zafiil Paidiiza Qodii has dreamed of finding the Others since she was a child, a dream that spurred her to train as leader of one of the Faulfenza's galactic scout teams. Against all odds, hers is the ship that makes the prophesied discovery--and reveals the cost of the God's promises, and the part she is destined to play in His designs...

Zafiil: FireBorn Unpainted begins the epic saga of the Faulfenza's first contact with the Pelted Alliance, and unveils at last the mysteries of one of the Peltedverse's most beloved alien races.

Genre (setting): space opera
Tags: aliens, first contact, religion
Rating: PG-13 for violence

Excerpt From Chapter 1

Zafiil Paidiiza Qodii stood at the observation porthole, one hand braced on the bulkhead. The cool from the elliptical overhead vent ruffled the black fur of her bare shoulders; she did not notice. She had eyes only for the stars, and in particular, the one star they’d been approaching for days now.

A contact, Neral had reported. Definitely not natural. No one had spoken in the ship’s fore, but they had shared the same breathless hope… that they had found the Others.

Zafiil studied the more distant stars beyond their target, and became aware, slowly, of her reflection in the window. A soft smile rumpled her muzzle. The weariness belied by the dip of her twice-tipped ears did not mar her posture, her pelt a brilliant black, crimson and white that floated on the window’s surface. Her tail twitched once behind her, its second tuft like a flare of fire. The Faulfenzair spread her fingers slowly against the glass and watched the reversed reflection detach into a silver shape, a shape that gained height and definition apart from hers… because of course, Feliiza would know where she’d gone. “ShipMinder.”

Her Faulpendai, the ShipMinder Feliiza, stepped out of the darkness of the ship’s corridor. The solemnity in her voice was as inevitable as the title Zafiil had addressed her by, rather than the more familiar name. How could they not feel their roles in this hour, when they were on the cusp of fulfilling their people’s prophecies? “The Emissary, on the eve of her triumph.”

The shiver that ran Zafiil’s back must have been visible, but she didn’t try to hide it. Not from her mentor, who had been through so much, and chosen still to accompany them on this journey. Was this the answer at last? The explanation for all the inexplicable differences in her life? That this might be ‘her’ triumph? “No,” she said. “If it is anyone’s triumph, it is Faullaizaf’s, for seeing it in our future, and preparing for us. We fulfill his prophecies, Feliiza-ai, but we aren’t… we’re not—”

“Special?” Feliiza snorted, joining her by the window. The older female looked out, too, eyes narrowed. “And yet, this has been your dream since the beginning.”

Useless to deny it. Her fingers tensed, curling involuntarily against the glass, and the MindFire woke enough to warm them.

“And if Faulza is omniscient, and has His plans, then this was His plan for you all along, wasn’t it?” Her teacher’s smile was the faintest of nose wrinkles. “It’s better to accept His plans than it is to fight them, I would say.”

“Yes,” Zafiil said, ruefully, and straightened. “But it is not just me, Feliiza-ai. It’s you and the entire crew of the Laizafzafiir. If we have indeed found the Others, then it’s all of us who’ve done it, not just me.”

Her mentor’s low noise was noncommittal. “And if it is the Others?”

“Then,” Zafiil said, “we bring them home to Qufiil.”

“To Daqan,” Feliiza said.

Zafiil glanced sharply at the other female, blue-violet eyes bright with the captured shining of stars. “No. To Faulza. To the God. This… this is bigger than any one Faulfenzair. Even a Voice of the God. By the time we get home, Feliiza, there might be a FireBorn to bring the Others to. There would have to be. Why else have we had a prophet to announce the coming of the FireBorn, if not for this pivotal moment in our history?” The idea flushed her ears with relief; if the messiah had come, then Daqan would have found his counterpart at last, which would free her of any further unsettling visits from him. She would absolutely not miss those visits. “We will come home to the Golden Age.”

“Maybe,” Feliiza said. “If this sighting of Neral’s is real, and not something that only looks like an artificial contact. Like the others we’ve seen, and approached only to discover they were anomalies.”

“This one won’t be,” Zafiil said. “Not this time.”

“Faulza’s will,” Feliiza said, philosophically, and rested a MindFire-warmed hand on Zafiil’s shoulder for a moment before turning away. “Make sure you get some rest. It’ll be hours before we’re close enough to this solar system to make any observations.”

“I’ll try,” Zafiil said, knowing it would be useless to do so. The other female knew it as well, because she sniffed before vanishing back into the corridor. But to rest now! So close to the culmination of all her longings? When she’d been given the Laizafzafiir and the mission to join the ongoing search for the Others and the Lost Kin, she’d been sure it would happen, and immediately; how nervous she’d been, torn between her hunger to see it happen and her memories of the few ominous premonitions she’d been positioned to notice. Some part of her had been sure, despite that—perhaps because of it—she would be the one to make the prophesied discovery.

But the years had passed, and then the decades, and she and her crew had searched in vain. They had mapped, dropped buoys, and returned to Qufiil to resupply and update the Hearth on their progress, only to resume their quest, and both her hopes and fears had dwindled. When she’d mentioned her frustrations, Feliiza reminded her that this was how all the Faulfenza’s missions had progressed since their landing on Qufiil. “The odds of us finding anything are against us, as they have been for thousands of Faulfenza before us, youngling. If nothing else, you must have patience. And take leave, once in a while. Get the grass beneath your feet.”

To leave the Hearth, though, was to expose herself to the tumult of their worlds beneath the culture-shifting influence of the prophet Daqan, the Voice of the God. She couldn’t bear it. This was her work; Faulza had called her, since the moment she could clearly see the stars. That fulfilling that call also excused her from confronting her worries for her people’s future…

She hadn’t watched a single one of Daqan’s Dances since she left for that first probe. No doubt he’d had new visions. Would any of them hint at the difficulties the two of them suspected lay between their people and Qiifaula, the Golden Age, when they, the Lost Kin from their birthworld, and the alien Others, would walk together into a time of glory and prosperity and peace?

But to find them at last! Surely worth any cost!

No, there would be no sleeping. Not well.

* * *

They conducted their approach to this most promising solar system the way they’d conducted similar approaches many times before. Despite their palpable anticipation, the crew went about their routines, one of which was the twice-daily Dance: a morning prayer, and an evening performance from the Greater and Lesser Wisdom Scroll rotation. The evening Dances were synchronized to the calendar on Qufiil, linking them to their homeworld, and though as Emissary Zafiil was considered the ship’s most trained Dancer, every Faulfenzair Danced, and every Faulfenzair did: two new people a day, moving through the entire crew, until they came around to the head of the roster again.

The evening before their formal passage over the heliopause, Zafiil sat amid her people, watching their navigator perform the Scroll of Quzen’s Cry. It had never been one of her favorites, but its poignancy struck her all the same:

And the land groaned beneath its burden, and

the people groaned beneath the weight of their hunger,

and all suffered, and strained, and cried out to the God:

how can love lead to pain?

How can we choose between our children and their children

for if the choice was between our mouths and theirs, we would feed theirs,

but we cannot force the land to bear,

this land given to us by a loving God,

this land that should have been enough, and isn’t—

Faulza! That we should be called to choose between our future,

and our stewardship of Your gift!

The Scroll of Quzen’s Cry was part of the cycle of the messiah Qufal’s ministry, and as the calendar incremented, it would be followed by the Dances that spoke of the famines that led to the FireBorn’s arrival among them. Until Zafiil had become a spacefarer, she’d felt little connection with that first messiah… now, she could look back at him as the source of the technology that protected her and her crew on their mission, the same technology that had enabled his successor, the second messiah, Faullaizaf, to lead the Faulfenza’s exodus from their birthworld.

Faulza, aid Your children! For we know not where to turn—

Faulza, we die, or our land dies, or our hearts die

and we cannot find the path between these choices

Faulza, help Your children! For You alone are our refuge.

Rescue us, for nothing is beyond Your power

Rescue us, for nothing is beyond Your wisdom

Feed us, for we are Your children, and we starve.

Delaiza formed the name of the God, finishing her performance, and was greeted by the approving cries of the onlookers. It had been Danced well, and Zafiil rose to tell her so, and to mingle with her people. They were so few, for their mission: all of twenty-two Faulfenza, and by now the years had made them as comfortable with one another as if they had been family. But they had been well-trained, which was how they restrained their enthusiasm and hopes, and Zafiil rejoiced again to have been blessed with such people to be her company. If they returned to Qufiil with the Others, it would truly be all their triumphs, not just hers.

As her crew dispersed, Zafiil remained in the ship’s place-of-Dancing, sitting on the soil that had been imported from Qufiil’s surface, smelling the fragrance of it and remembering so many nights spent dreaming, preparing for this moment. It was her habit to wait, in case someone needed her; it was rare, but sometimes one of the crew lingered to speak of some personal matter, or to ask advice.

Tonight, four stayed behind.

“What will happen to us?” Lepan asked, crouching in front of her. “If we find them. We’ve been talking—” He glanced up at his companions. “And we don’t know how to imagine, what it will be like to be…”

“Famous!” the female next to him exclaimed, nose wrinkling gleefully. “Just say it, Lepan. We’ll be famous. They might even mention us in scrolls.”

“They certainly will,” Zafiil said, remembering how much trivia was recorded, even if it was rarely shared. “Have no doubts.”

“I don’t want to be famous,” the retiring male in charge of their victuals said. His ears twitched downward. “But… I want to walk on other worlds. I want to befriend an Other. Do you think we’ll be able to?”

“I told him we must,” said the last of their group. “If they are to walk with us into the Golden Age, hand in hand, then it must because they will be….” She gestured her frustration with words as she settled on, “explicable. Relatable.”

“Lovable,” Lepan said. “Do you think they’ll be lovable, Emissary?”

“Do you think Faulza made them? The way He made us?”

“We’re special,” the second male said. “But I want to know what it would be like. To have a relationship with the Others. With one Other—I’m only one person. To befriend them.”

“If we find them, we’ll know, finally,” the last female said. “What do you think it will be like? To know them, and to bring them home? And to be famous?”

“I think,” Zafiil said, “it will be all that we dream.”

That satisfied them, because they withdrew, still murmuring. Zafiil suppressed a sigh. She could have told them that fame was uncomfortable, and that they should be grateful not to have it; that there was no knowing what it would be like, to finally meet the Others. That WisdomDancers debated to this day whether Faulza had made the Others or not, and whether that implied other gods, or worse, a vacuum of godhead, where people formed absent divine manipulation. None of it mattered in the end, as she had learned herself: all that did was faith in their future, because the God had made promises through His two FireBorn, and those promises had been fulfilled, each in their time, until they had brought the Faulfenza to this moment now.

If this was the moment, then all would happen as it should, and that was proof of a love divine. What could matter, beside that?

Alone in the place-of-Dancing, Zafiil rose and moved through prayers, improvising them from pieces of the scrolls, and from the confidence and hope in her heart.