WE Shall Be As GODS: 2nd Testament - The Weaver and the Herder

By K.R. Columbus

Darkness has Fallen...Ludo the prophet warned the space colonies long before The Olden Shadows attacked, and because of this, he was imprisoned. Now the shadows known as The Asuras are destroying all humans that escaped Earth after the fall of The Tower of Babel. They are searching for a holy artifact,The Ilnosis; The Soul of the World.
A young man named Damien is found unconscious
in a world about to be destroyed by The Asuras,
at first he thinks he's part of the human colonies,
but the truth is far from being simple.
While on Earth, Endy is taken into an
underground facility for special individuals, with
the purpose to uncover the secrets of a mysterious
blue crystal, before The Olden Shadows reach
planet Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.R. Columbus
• Release date: Apr 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465738882

K.R. Columbus

Born August 4, 1982 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, K.R.Columbus [Kemuel Ríos Colón] is a prolific Puerto Rican Science Fiction and Fantasy author, with more than twenty novels, and young adult books sold all around the world. With novels that have reached the top 50 charts in England and Australia. Before becoming a writer, he trained to be a sumo wrestler for four years. Currently lives in Puerto Rico reading good books, drinking coffee, enjoying rare music, and obscure Cinema. To contact the author – [e-mail]

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We Shall be as Gods

2nd Testament - The Weaver and the Herder

Copyright 2011 K.R.Columbus

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Antiquarian Age Books

By K.R.Columbus

(Release dates and titles can change at any time…)

………….

(G) - Contains Gay Characters

(S) - Contains Strong Sexual Content

(M) - Contains Medium Sexual Content

(L) - Contains Light Sexual Content

(D) - Contains Disturbing Situations

(Ω) - Contains Speculative Religious Themes

-We Shall be as Gods Series- (L) - (D) - (G) - (Ω)

1st Testament - Vestigial Dream

2nd Testament - The Weaver and the Herder

3rd Testament - Shadows of Me

4th Testament - Children of Exile

5th Testament - Beyond Destiny (2014)

-Hyper Speed Inertia Series- (D) - (G)

-Yamato Trilogy-

Battle-Submarine Yamato

The Fires of Kawaita (Coming Soon)

-NOVELS- (Not part of a Series)

-MAGNA MAQUINA- (G)

-YAKUZA RONDO- (M) - (D) - (G)

-Sodom’s X Duology- (M) - (D) - (Ω) - (G)

-Hall of the Mountain King- (S) - (G)

-The Last Southern Mountain- (G) (Coming Soon)

-Young Adult Fiction-

-The Treasures of Shamarkand Series- (G)

Wanderers to Shamarkand

Daughter of the Gods

Carnival of Shadows

The Mechanical Labyrinth

The Mirror Tower (2014)

-Totemic Haven Series- (G)

Totemic Haven

WildChild

Father Sun, Mother Moon (Coming Soon)

Ps – To avoid confusion, character thoughts, important words, songs and messages are in ITALICS.

2nd Testament – The Weaver and the Herder

By K. R. Columbus

-The Legend of the Weaver and the Herder-

Long ago, in a distant kingdom lived a weaver of dreams, the prime heir to his house. As he came of age, The Great Father ruler of all that’s not seen decided for him to know love. The circumstances saw the weaver falling in love with a herder, the heir of the neighboring kingdom. However, when they saw one another they abandoned their duties, because in each other’s eyes they saw life fulfilled at its fullest. The Great Father, Magi of order and time, saw this as an abomination, and in blind rage estranged the lovers by an infinite sea of stars; the place we know as The Milky Way. The weaver and the herder came back to their duties, but something had changed within. The longing for one another remained; it couldn't be changed, because it was unbreakable. The Great Father mandated that once a year they would at least feel longing for one another. Nevertheless, a year was an eternity, because they couldn’t find each other even if the yearning was there. To feel and not touch became a trial of sorrow, and thus, time passed, so much time, that in the end they couldn’t remember the reason of their longing and they forgot it was ever there.

Chapter 1

-A Song of Ruin-

At times, our thoughts and dreams are overheard by powerful beings, ancient entities listening to our every word, and that wait for the time of our true awakening. They will wait until the very end of time, because those that sleep must awaken to gaze upon their creation.

Damien was reading a book at the edge of his bed, thinking about a series of recurring dreams he had been having since he was a child. He was thinking about someone he met in those dreams. To think of this person depresses him greatly, because when he's with that individual he feels complete. This is something deeper than love, a feeling so attached to animal instinct and genetic memory that Damien isn’t even sure of its origin.

When I think of him, it’s as if the stars are exploding all around me, telling me that there's something more out there. I want everything to stop. I want the universe to let me catch up with myself. Since I can remember, I’ve been plagued by a deep sense of yearning for someone that I haven’t met in real life, someone, who I've only seen in my dreams. At times, this yearning is unbearable. Even if I can't remember who this person is, I can sense the hole that was left in me by his absence. I wish I could see my life through two different visions, my regular life, and a life where I'm at his side. For some reason, it is as if I were two different individuals with the same mind. In my dreams, there's someone that cares for me. I feel at home when I'm with him. Is he real? Does he even remember who I'm? I end up crying, and thus I’ve come to be wary of my dreams.

How much is a fake smile worth to someone that’s lonely? I want to find a way to be at his side, but the rational part of me knows that the people that we meet in our dreams aren’t real. They're nothing more than parts of who we are. Yet, I know that he's different. I know that he's real, and that he's waiting for me. He's always there when the darkness comes, when the living shadows stand over me like vultures.

Damien felt his room tremble and then he saw an intense light coming his way. His book fell to the floor hard as he disappeared into that light. A distant horizon of light overflowed his vision. That night, Damien was spirited away from his house, from his life, from his world, and was taken into the unknown. He wasn’t aware of it, but he had asked for this all of his life. This was destiny intervening.

………….

Deep inside Eridu, an astrobiological research facility in planet Tagaloa.

Everything around him felt cold and alien.

I’m afraid of my dreams. There are dark entities inhabiting the dark corners of my dreams. Everyone is afraid of nightmares, but these things are different. I see strange shadowy figures gathering around me and a terrible horror overcomes me. This fear isn't normal, is almost as if they are feeding off my soul. It becomes hard to breathe. Those shadows want something I’ve, something we all have, but I’m not sure what it is. For a second I can sense and feel as they look at me. No light can be found. I run into the heart of darkness where they take me. They fall on me like crows. I know they’re there even if I’ve my eyes closed, I can feel a great coldness taking a hold of me, and then only horror remains. I’m powerless against them. Even if I scream for help, no one will come, because all there is to be seen is fear, and my beating heart slowly dying into silence. When this happens I wake up screaming or staring blindly into the dark, but there’s nothing there. They can’t touch me yet.

Now things are different, because I’m trapped inside a dream, a dream that I can’t wake up from, even if I try with all my will. Is it really a dream? Is this my reality? That uncertainty makes me feel like a butterfly in a killing jar, so powerless and lured into dying. I can’t wake up. How many days have I been trying to wake up? I don’t see an end to this. It is infinite.

As if materialized out of a dream, Damien hit a hard ceramic surface, and recoiled in pain. He looked around frantically; he was in a place he couldn't recognize, in a place he had never seen before. His whole body felt strange, almost as if every molecule and atom was momentarily unstable.

Where am I? My body feels cold and hot at the same time. Something’s wrong. I'm not where I should be. I know I should not be here. Who am I? I don’t seem to remember either. Yet, I've the feeling that I knew a while ago. I know I did. I’ll try to follow this to its end.

Damien tried remembering who he was. He knew a moment ago, but now everything was blank. Groaning, he saw thin lines of light between the corners of the walls. The walls of that room were made from floating panels held by some sort of energy, they seemed to shift and move slightly even if held together in one position. These panels looked ancient, like the building blocks of the ancient pyramids, only that very lean and adorned with beautiful line art that somehow looked like Celtic line art smashed together with Mayan symmetry art. One touch and Damien felt that they'd the feel of ceramic. The panels formed the room, solid, yet aloof and only separated by centimeters of blue shifting light between them.

Damien was almost naked, heavyset, strangely pale, and had short black hair, which was slightly longer on the front. For the longest time the silence and stillness of the place was only broken by the shifting colored lights, that were transferring information between the floating panels that form the walls, and from time to time, by the mechanical sounds coming from the machinery all around him.

The machines seemed to be computers with no holographic displays or monitors. There’re two doors on the small room, one of the doors goes to the right and the other to the left. The door to the left led to a mechanical stairway that goes down to the depths of the building, the other door seemed to lead to an ascending stairway. Both doors were protected by crystalline hatch doors.

Someone patted Damien’s cheeks. The pain was irresistible. He opened his eyes slowly, and he saw a husky man. For a moment Damien ignored him by letting his face tilt slightly to the left, he still was under the assumption that he was in a dream. He couldn’t compare the place with anything he had seen before. Everything was dark, except for lights of purple and blue color that seemed to blink and shift slowly, turning on and off. The husky man fell to his knees next to Damien, and then patted him again slightly harder. The husky man yelled something to an auburn haired woman that was next to a digital panel that seemed to be made of some sort of greenish florescent liquid. She shouted back at him, but Damien noticed with annoyance that he couldn’t understand their words.

Damien pushed himself against a wall and rested his head against its cold surface. That felt good for a minute, but he had the weird sensation of having two layers of skin. It was almost as if he had a second skin made out of ice, this was confusing, but then without saying a single word he looked at the husky man and the woman.

They’re dressed so peculiar. They are dressed in black jumpsuits, which seem to stick to the contours of their bodies. The material is so strange, like a mixture between velvet and leather, with the gleam of gasoline. Holy tomato! Did I die? No. I doubt that. Then, where am I? I'm dressed in shorts and a very loose shirt. I can’t ask them, but I doubt they can understand a word I’m saying.

The woman swung her hand across the liquid panel and made it disappear. She looked at the man in anger. He said something to her, and then he threw her a small metallic sphere that in just seconds after she caught it turned into a florescent knife, that in purplish oversaturated colors distorted the air around it.

With a single swift move, she pierced the spherical hatch door in front of her with the dagger, the terrible smell of melted plastic and metal fumes filled the air. Sparks flew from the place the knife had pierced the door. With the sparks, Damien noticed that the room looked like a computer room without monitors.

His second skin vanished, and his body became weaker. The husky man offered a hand, and then helped him to his feet, where he swayed for a few seconds and then looked at his surroundings. The room was no bigger than six meters in any direction.

The husky man was dressed in garments of black color made from a sort of cloth that Damien had never seen before; like leather, but at the same metallic. Both the man and woman looked very young and pale, as if they hadn’t been touched by sunlight in their entire lives. Their garments resembled a type of cape over a jumpsuit that covers most of their bodies. Something about them didn’t felt right; it was almost as if they could communicate without using words, because most of the time they acted without saying a single word. The woman had long auburn hair covering most of her eyes, making her already pale skin standout like a light in a pool of darkness. The husky man had short hair, and a semi triangular metal plate implanted on his head, next to his right ear, maybe the woman had it too, but her long hair covered it completely.

The girl extracted the knife from the door, and so plunging the room in darkness. Then she moved her hair away from her eyes. She looked at the man. Damien couldn’t understand a word they were saying, so he just closed his eyes for a few seconds.

My skin burns as if submerged in hot water, yet the air is cold and feels odd when I breathe it in. I’m trying not to panic, but this place feels familiar somehow, almost as if I had been here before, but I cannot place when. I can tell that they’re in some sort of trouble. They are running away from something. I’ve a dreadful urge to run away too, but I must control myself.

The lights in the room came back on, but this time they looked faded. They felt a change in the atmosphere. An alarm had been triggered. Out of the darkness came a sudden hit that made Damien jump, on the other side of the opposite hatch door stood a lean figure swaying inhumanly. The lights dimmed into darkness. Opening his eyes, Damien saw that the humanoid puppet move in spasms, it was trying to open the hatch door. The girl looked violently at the creature, and Damien could tell that she was afraid with a fear that won't go away.

She took out the purplish knife and thrust it into the circular door, so fast that the door was forced open. It started to open, making ill mechanical sounds. The hatch door only opened halfway.

The husky man grabbed him by his left arm and motioned him to continue. Damien was just a few inches away to the door. Then the humanoid puppet moved its hand across the hatch door, and from it a schematic pattern of intense blue light was drawn out, and so opening the door in front of it. When the husky man noticed, he yelled something to the woman, who was already at the other side of the hatch door. She came back, grabbed Damien and yelled at him to climb. He didn’t understand a word, but the urgency was logical.

As he was being led by the woman to the stairs, Damien looked back to the husky man, and the man smiled at him. It was a worried smile, but it was a smile, one big and reassuring smile. The husky man formed a fighting stance, and then took a small metallic ball from one of his pockets. It turned into a one-sided blade of blue flaring color.

Ascending the stairway, Damien lost track of the man. The man had stayed behind to let them escape.

They found themselves in a large hall full of sculptures that gave the impression of being made from stained glass. The crystalline sculptures resonated and hummed with colored light. The walls wore the designs of ancient Sumerian motifs, mixed with Egyptian and Mayan structures. Shadows hung to every wall, except for the crystalline structures that shed their own colored light, because of this, it took the woman some time to pinpoint the exit. They left the room behind and got to a small ramp like tunnel. Before going up the ramp the woman stopped, and looked back at the room she was leaving behind. Damien moved his face to see any remnants of feeling on her face; her eyes were full of tears that make her look beautiful even if vulnerable. For the longest time, she seemed to stay there, looking at the empty room. Then, just as Damien understood what was going on, she shook her head and climbed the ramp.

I could feel her sorrow burrowing a place in me, like a long awaited guest. That last look on his face, that smile, they were not meant for me. He was saying goodbye to her. I just happened to be there. I wonder what his name was.

As we came out of the ramp, I was blinded by the sudden light of a dark purple sky, spotted with blue falling stars. We were on a small artificial island not bigger than a small cornfield at the edge of a dark bay. Just next to the ramp, there was some sort of metallic building full of propaganda that I couldn’t understand; they seemed old and ravaged by the elements, on them, I saw the portrait of a dark eyed youth. For some reason the sad face of that dark eyed man caught my attention. It was almost as if I had seen him somewhere before.

Like a flag against the wind, the woman’s auburn hair danced frantically as she faced the sky, and the view of what lay yonder. Her tears were taken away by the wind as Damien stood next to her. The air felt empty and silent as a coffin, even their footsteps were muffled by the unseen energy in the atmosphere. For a slight second Damien looked at the woman, and then to the firmament, that quietly was turning debris into blue fire.

I'm not sure what happened to me, or why I'm here. I can feel everything dying, as raw as fire, but instead of being scared I find it almost poetic, painful, but poetic. The black jumpsuit the girl is wearing moves erratically in the same wind that stings my eyes. To me she looks like a crow, a raven overlooking the end of something greater than anything I can understand. I don’t have to be told that something is dying, because I can feel it inside of me. Standing on a dock that seems to be made of a ceramic like material, I can see the turbulent bay reflecting the sky, and its fiery color. The bay is wild and tumultuous, as if anticipating something that’s about to happen.

Beyond the bay there was a great city trying to steal the magnificence of the sky with its many lights, a witness to an uncertain end that was coming. One look and it was easy to see that the city was technologically advanced, yet all the structures had an ancient flair to them in both design and form. Gigantic buildings tore pieces of the sky with their forms, ziggurats, domes and pyramids sparkled with lights and technology.

The girl shouted something at Damien, but he couldn’t understand a word, so he just followed her to the edge of the docks. The young woman crouched on the dock, looked at the water and then at Damien, she was concerned.

My skin still feels like burning, and I’m scared that there might be more to it than what I’m aware.

Like in a nightmare that there’s no waking from, Damien turned his head, and noticed as the husky man ran to them, followed by the puppet like creature. Now outside, Damien noticed that the puppet had purplish skin. He could only feel his heart beginning to race harder and harder. The woman looked at Damien’s change, and turning noticed what was going on. She smiled and jumped in happiness when she saw that the husky man was still alive and well, but her happiness vanished when she saw what was after him. She took out her knife and aimed it at the puppet. The knife penetrated the puppet in the chest, thus making the thing lose control of its right arm momentarily, and then it’s left one, and so on until it fell to the floor. The husky man pointed at the city beyond as he explained something to the woman. In a hurry, the man ran and jumped over the dock and into the bay, while the woman dragged Damien along with her.

I knew something was about to happen, I could see it in their eyes and feel it in my soul. We swam towards that city as night plunged the purple sky into a darker tone full of purplish lightning, lightning that could be seen crawling over the clouds like spiders on a web. Most of the time I was being helped by the husky man, who seemed to get worried every time he saw a falling star paint the purplish sky with blue hues of color.

By the time we reached the middle of the bay, four hours had already passed, and my muscles couldn’t take it any longer. The burning feeling that had been plaguing me for hours now was inside my flesh, to the point that I could feel it in my bones.

Damien sank in the water unnoticed. Drifting deeper and deeper into the bay, Damien opened his eyes to face his end. He drifted to the very depths, where there was no salvation. Even under those dark waters, he saw the liquid purple sky distorted by blue streaks of light, being distorted by the movement of the waves. Damien drifted deeper into that dark bay, full of things forgotten, like the carcasses of old ships, fishing vessels and all sorts of things. The cold water massaged his hands as the air in his lungs became hot. When he was about to close his eyes, and let all oxygen escape, the purple lightning in the sky disappeared, thus plunging the night into darkness. All that he could see was the falling stars and their color, which for long instances illuminated the firmament and reflected on the surface of the bay in a retarded haze of color and light.

The lights on the city had vanished, and those lights had been the only guiding points for them to follow. In fear, the woman tried to fix her eyes where the city had been. The husky man noticed that Damien wasn’t at his side, and so he touched an unseen pressure-sensitive spot on his jumpsuit, and dove into the bay looking for Damien’s whereabouts.

The woman was left alone to withstand the cold night, feeling the wind howl like a dying creature. An unseen presence filled the night. She felt something circling above her in the sky. Like claws and talons in the night, something approached. Her oxygen froze inside her lungs. The young woman saw as two creatures of indefinite form descended on her like vultures, but to her surprise, they left her alone, and instead they dived deep into the bay, one on each side. As the creatures dove pass her, she felt the wind pressure on her face, making her hair move in one swift motion. Closing her eyes in fright, she felt the two splashes, and a second after, a cold drizzle of drops fell on her hair.

That moment between closing her eyes and opening them again took forever, but once she did, she thought of many things. Could she help his partner? She had no weapons at the moment, and even if she was great at physical combat, against these creatures that was nothing. She was the only one that knew where the city was, she couldn’t dive after. She had to stay where she was at all costs, and hope with all her will for their safe return.

A great falling star broke the sky in blue explosions of light, shedding its light on the city beyond and the clouds. All tales and legends foretold of this moment, that when the stars fall, a world is near its end, but for her, that blue light was a sign of hope.

Damien’s mind became numb.

The husky man swam with super human speed, unaware of the shadows that were following him in circles. His suit shed a very faint glow as he swam deeper, shedding some light on the sediment-filled objects that lay on the bottom. This gave him a slight hint of hope. He turned to the left, but only found chunks of rusted metal, not even a single fish could be seen, almost as if they all had died. He knew that Damien’s time was very limited.

Damien was on the bottom staring at the dark, and that was when he saw the dim light coming from