Fantasty Fiction Story Elory's Joy by Silvia Hartmann

Elory's Joy

by Silvia Hartmann

Right here, right now, there exist many worlds and many foreign places. Amidst these worlds, some travel, and the most famous and renown amongst these, are the story tellers.

It is their job and purpose to weave all these worlds together, as they take a tale or an occurrence from one world and they take it to the next, or another. Here, they tell the tale and learn a fresh one, and so they move from world to world, and leave behind a silken thread of story and of information. Once such a thread has been created, the worlds are not alone any longer, for these fine first threads are channels, lines of communication, through which more and further stories and ideas then travel.

So the story tellers, they bind the universe and they are tradesmen, for it is often true that a story that is all too common on one world and deemed to be so ordinary, if told on another, will solve a puzzle of the ages, or be received just like the greatest and the shiniest of treasures.

But there are other worlds where evil lords and evil kings rule; and these do not want for the story tellers to come and bring their riches, bring their new ideas, their splendours or their tales of diamonds, sparkling beings that swim and dance in oceans of abundance, turquoise, light as light itself; for if the people who lived and suffered under their cruel treatment were to hear those stories, think about those things, they would begin to ask, "Why is our world so dour and so grey?"

For the evil lords in their stone towers, this would be disastrous; their reign and absolute dominion over the people who were nothing but their slaves would soon be broken and could never be repaired; and so on these worlds, it was very dangerous for a story teller to be seen or heard, and yet it was those very worlds the bravest and the best of all the story tellers would seek to find, for they well knew the suffering of those who lived there, and they knew that just a single tale, a single well thought poem or a song could break the night in two and start a revolution, an evolution towards a very different state of being.

The story tellers knew full well that they were risking life and limb and all the many years they could have spend in comfort and delightful exploration, but they were very brave and very honest men and women from across the range of beings that resided on the many worlds, and in the starfilled voids that lay between them; from the dimensions that are other than what we know now or have experienced, for each and every race of beings send their very best to be a story teller and to help bring light and wide expansion where before there was a prison made from stone and iron strong.

So the story tellers would sail their splendid ships across the endless seas of time and space and the dimensions, and they would look and seek and find another world, and they would bring their ships in orbit, matching the vibration and the resonance of that new world, and then they would begin to move into that world, re-shaping all they are so that they could then move amongst the beings there and look and seem the same as they; and first, they would make sure to learn the stories of that world, for in the stories of the world there lies the essence of that world; an understanding of those beings and their aims and plans, their dreams and their desires, their flaws and their misunderstandings, as well as any ancient curses they might carry still.

And when they had the measure of the world and all its stories, they would then know which story there to tell; which story there to speak or write or sing or dance to the inhabitants, a one that was the right one so that it would be remembered, taken gladly and passed on, from an elder to a youngster, from a youngster to a peer, and when the story had now fully taken hold, their work was done and they could leave, return to their proud ship, regain their shape of home and make their way to a new world, and on the way they would condense from all the stories they had learned a new one, one that would be added and now told again, so that the essence of that world was also now remembered and became a part of that most glorious web that they would spend a lifetime weaving, making wider, greater and still more profound.

But right at the heart of the web, in its very centre indeed, there lay a world that was the story teller's own.

And it was here that the story tellers would come for rest and relaxation; to meet their friends of old and to have festivals of joy and recognition.

Here too was a repository, a place where all the stories from all the worlds all the many story tellers had ever visited where brought together and shared and held, so that the story tellers did not just know the tales that they themselves had learned but all the stories that had ever been collected.

This was a most amazing place, a most holy place, of brilliant brightness for each story was a star of light and here, each one was placed within a many layered map that corresponded to the world from which it came, and so right here there was a true map of the living universe unfolding, being built a generation on the next, and getting brighter, getting more intense with every story added, and with every story teller who came home to add the treasures they had found, small stars of ruby, emerald, topaz, sapphire, amethyst and all the many colours of the planes and states of being to the universal map.

But more than light, each story was as well a song, and so the wondrous universal map did sing a chorus that was wonderful and strange, incredibly enlightening and healing too, and thus it was that not just story tellers visited here at the very centre of the web, but also many, many others - artists and healers, those who needed art or healing, lost ones, disenchanted ones and many, many others from around the worlds would come and be inside the universal map and leave, with a difference inside and out, having been most deeply re-aligned and stimulated by the colours and the feelings and the songs of all those many stories from across the times, the spaces and the manifold dimensions.

Wizards came, and scientists; farmers and engineers; beings of all kinds and many doing, thinking things we cannot know but all had questions, problems and conundrums of their own, and just being there inside the singing map of the known universe gave them an inspiration, maybe two or three, and even though the map did not exactly answer back when things were asked, it always helped them find new ways, try different things and generally, come back full of desire and of energy to return to their specific labours, tasks and works afresh and in a whole new way.

But there was also one more thing about the map.

It gave the bravest and the best of all the story tellers an idea just where to search for the forgotten worlds, the hidden worlds, the ones that sought to stay away and keep their people to themselves and in the darkness of their making, the ones that simply didn't know there was a web to join, and those who were all broken up inside for chaos or catastrophe.

The universal map of lights and sounds and all dimensions had a pattern, you see.

If you stood in the centre of the map and slowly turned around, there you would find some places, areas where you would know a light should be but it was missing; and as the map did correspond in shape and size to worlds and suns and stars, you could now take a craft and plot a course to take you there, right there where it was clear a world should be, but on the map, no star was shining softly, and there was no voice that told the tale or sang its song.

And on this day as we are here, we see a story teller and some say, this is the greatest of them all, a one called Elory from a race of beings that are rare, and old, and no-one knows quite where or when their home world was, a being smooth and radiant both of shifting shape, reflecting all the many colours and the lights as it observes the map around, above, below and searches for a dark world for that is its speciality.

Elory doesn't search with eyes alone, or ears or any sense that would be known in such a way; it knows that soon enough, if it is still and most attentive, some thing will draw its attention towards it - a ripple in the flow, a missing shadow, a minute disruption in the song, those are the clues for which Elory searches and wide open in acceptance, lets its finely tuned awareness do the work.

A group of young apprentices from many worlds in robes of white that seem so multicoloured here within the map is standing to one side, most quiet they are and most reverend, for they are learning from Elory on this day just how it simply listens, draws the patterns of the song and sound within itself and they, young as they are, indeed are fortunate as they perceive a shift in the most ancient story tellers states of being.

Elory has found a dark world.

All eyes, all senses, feelers and receivers tune towards that part within the map and once this first and clear direction has been set, there is no question - it is obvious that here within the grid, there is a missing link, a place that isn't there but it must be, for else the pattern would not, could not work at all.

A most communal shiver of excitement, tinged with just a little fear goes through the beings who are there as all tune in and focus on that old, forgotten world, but then Elory's joy and bright begins to resonate, and touch them all, and makes them wonder, hope and pray that once the day will come when they will too be able and allowed to seek and find, perform the greatest and the hardest of all service and bring home a long forgotten world and all its beings to the web of all.

Elory leaves and sweeps away, full of its purpose and with great delight, so forward pointing, not a doubt, and this is learning now indeed for all the young ones as they know and understand, feel right inside themselves Elory's joy - how could it fail? With such conviction and the wisdom of the ages, this one dark world was saved already with Elory for a champion, just the instant that the ancient story teller had there heard its call and went to answer it forthwith.

And so, and having learned this day what they did come to understand, the young apprentices are light and easy, and they take this opportunity to touch a star, to listen to a song and gain a story, maybe two, each one a gift and each one ready, waiting to inspire them and help them on their way.

© Silvia Hartmann 2003