The Tales of Kamaran Vol. 2

By Ethan Kane

A fantastical story about intriguing mysteries: the year 3000 BCE, the Akhenaten Revolution, Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle. The Tales of Kamaran is an epic adventure set in the stars, chronicled and narrated to an inquisitive young man, centered around 'Kamaran' and spanning countless eons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Mulberry Books
• Release date: Jun 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781952864308

Ethan Kane

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The Tales of Kamaran

BOOK 1

LOCATION UNDEFINABLE:

A TALE OF THE SKY

So this is truth of Kamaran, he speaks,

The young, sarcastic, disappointed mind:

Great truth as never Earth has heard.

This is the truth, surpassing and explaining all,

Declares the desert wind from far away.

He laughs:

"Such truth deserves but trite attention,

"For so close to ignorance it is.

"It is a mental waste and once more

"Must I journey to a place of facts

About the Earth.

You have not heard the truth in total that we have to tell,

Bemoans the desert sand.

The truth you tell is very old and stale,

The mind replies.

"I will depart, but first for my enlightenment

"Will I demand to know:

What, on the face of Earth, is Kamaran?

The truth must be revealed in steps, explains the cloudless desert sky,

"So you may safely learn. For Kamaran is not on Earth.

If you would hear of Kamaran, listen…….

CHAPTER 1

I

At Level Three it grew pronounced:

Distortion spatio-temporal, advancing with his speed.

It was a mere annoyance, more than covered by the ship’s

Technology, but contemplating it afforded him respite

From matters much more pressing, weightier.

He thought of early days of youth, when being

Much too bright, he and his friends constructed

Idle models mathematical, containing n-space and k-level

Fields, approaching infinite proportions.

Still did they know despite their foolishness that there were

Only seven levels and that n was limited to three

(The constructs that depicted time as yet a fourth dimension

Were a means explaining physics to the ones without requisite

Mathematics, an embarrassment when spoken in

The presence of professionals).

Just seven levels, numbered zero down to six.

And Level Zero was the mystery, though through every age

Had brave Marinzians ventured, seeking truth of it.

The level known to him most intimately

Would be One, for that was where he lived for most his life:

Within Marinz the planet and Marinz the Federation.

But they were now in Level Three.

The implications of that fact, both physical and social,

Were of great import as well he knew.

He was a thin man, mostly like a pane of glass,

Translucent and approaching full transparency.

And twenty parts of every twenty-one that constituted him

Could be described as energy, with only the remainder,

Miniscule, considered mass.

This was the being heading up the mission most important

That had brought his massive ship to Level Three.

The problems based on physics that he dealt

with were but small

Compared to all else on his mind,

but they were problems nonetheless.

II

With seven levels and with three dimensions,

It was understood there were three hundred ways

And forty ways and three ways more in which the particles

And units of pure energy were formed.

Each particle, within its space, was counterbalanced

By its natural force opposing:

As though one electron fitted with

A single proton in its space.

But at the meta view, seen from perspectives of the live

Marinzian who observed, there was a semblance,

An illusion, as though many protons from their many spaces and respective,

Packed together tightly in a single space,

and with electrons counterbalancing

In orbitals around.

And it was in this meta view that people

gained affinity to their illusion

Of a single level, with its three-dimensioned

length and width and height.

Marinz, like all the peoples and the ancient cultures,

lived in darkness,

Lacking understanding of reality, until a scientist,

soon to be famous,

Stumbled on a means dispelling all illusions,

slicing and successfully

The great façade.

And it was frightening to Ndrlu when he first

beheld the spectacle:

The universe and vast and seeming infinite,

reduced to but a ball

Within his grasp;

The galaxies innumerable, as mere specks.

Before he made it public, he was seized by the authorities Marinzian,

Locked away behind a special wall,

afforded all the luxuries and implements

To do his work, refining and perfecting what he found,

Because the royalty Marinzian saw immediately the vast potential

For this knowledge in the field of war.

He was a prisoner in all respects,

but still Ndrlu labored all his life

To find the means elusive that his government demanded:

A novel way traversing through the universe, immersing into

Finite and accessible, the ball of space.

He died without the victory, but so close he came,

That barely fourteen kahs transpired since his death,

Till those inheriting his work, uncovered that device most powerful

For slicing into space and pulling others downward into the

Impossibly diminutive contraption they now called a Model Ball.

And in the honor of the pioneer and brilliant

Who had paved the way, they called the implement

A tendrl. It would be many kahs experimenting

And encountering much failure and much death,

Till they uncovered all the truth and mastered all

The methods that transported objects or inanimate or live,

Or massive or particulate, to anywhere desired.

And still another thirty kahs and five would pass before the theories

Would emerge that full explained the practical and advantageous

Method that Marinz now held within its grasp.

But that was ancient history:

Now it was a natural thing, all traveling through a Model Ball,

With no one dreading how propelling through the many kahahs

(Which was measured as the distance light would travel in a single kah)

Of ordinary flight, especially within the lower levels, where

A higher speed was an impediment because it so distorted time and space.

Now he selected Xeltid on his screen,

And having her attention,

He conveyed the methods he required for adjusting

To their state in Level Three.

She was perplexed at his commands, but knew from

Past experience that he knew in deepest detail what

He planned.

And so she simply punched out his instructions on her

Prototype, then verified the simulations, turned to face him

And replied:

It shall be done, Lord Aten.

III

Lord Aten.

Yes, Lord Aten. The Lord Aten.

Two thousand years ere Akhenaten, in a place

Remote from Akhenaten’s home.

And so unlike what we on earth could know,

The dislocation could not be described, or near or far.

So most appropriately we name his place:

Location Undefinable.

Lord Aten did they call him, and a Lord he surely was.

No, recently had been.

One thousand and four hundred and then forty nine star clusters

All had been the territory of his realm.

The Federation of the Myriad Stars, they called it.

And with him as Ruler of the Myriad Stars

(Though not in strictest form or sense a ruler),

Had he lived atop the most attractive and most perfect

Construct that the universe had ever seen,

Would ever see.

Now all was lost, and if but not his plans succeeded, lost forever.

It was difficult, uncovering those steps and many

That had led to ultimate disaster for Marinz.

Foremost among the causes that he counted:

First, The Limitation of Two Thousand Kahs, Four Hundred Kahs And One;

And next, the Geralud Controversy;

The Promulgations of Nadharen;

The strange, unorthodox ascension of the brilliant Tixhenec;

The strange Decision of Enquirex to Withdraw;

But proximate and obviously clear, the chief fault lay with Axenuk.

With Axenuk, in love with dreams while living out a nightmare

And interminable in his every waking day.

Yes, Axenuk attempting the impossible, and reaching for illusions

That he knew before he started, could not be.

With Axenuk who, having lost his way,

determined that the world entire

Should choose to lose its way with him.

If he were simple-minded would he say the cause of all the evil

That transpired should be blamed on Axenuk.

IV

There was much work, a lot to do aboard The Werxalz,

Which Lord Aten had renamed Marinzian

In the memory of their world and beautiful now lost.

And so much work,

It was uncertain they would get it done on time.

And this despite there being a little more than sixteen thousand

And eight hundred souls on board, with three times more

As many servicers.

It was the kind of work that lent new meaning to priority,

And all aboard were conscious and most keenly so, that

Their decisions and their actions would decide the future of

The myriad worlds within the realm Marinzian and without.

But none who understood it more than Aten and the crew of six

That came as his lieutenants and commanders of the various factions

Of his ship:

Old Xanctor, an irascible and most unpleasant man,

But expert in logistics, and a genius with a sense of process

Far beyond the mean.

Then Satchyr, young, reserved, a woman confident

She had the answers to all challenges. She was in charge

(And rightly so) of matters programmatic and related to

The systems that controlled and ran the ship.

Gaszep was counterpart to her, responsible for the

Hardware and materials that their vessel vast demanded.

Gaszep spoke most often and he said his piece most forcefully,

But mostly he spoke sense.

Then there was Harlmeh heading up the medical

Facilities. Middle-aged and energetic and dogmatic and insistent

That all members (Aten even, no, especially) conform to

His decrees, since without health could none achieve

The grand scheme Aten had in mind.

In charge of matters relative to personnel interactions

And their social health was Chirlex, young as Satchyr

But with much less confidence.

And Xeltid finally, the most important of his special group.

If any could be deemed a second in command to Aten,

Xeltid certainly it was.

She was in charge of all the rest, and she possessed much knowledge

Of the technical and detailed facts pertaining to each faction.

But she brought as well a knowledge close and intimate,

Of Axenuk and Aten too, and of the conflict deep that

Started this controversy now threatening all the world.

And she was most devoted to the ship’s commander who

She chose to call and even now, The Ruler of The Myriad Stars.

These were the people Aten summoned to a meeting regular, routine,

Assessing progress and to plan the phases of his great design.

V

And knew a traitor came with him.

Among his six, a person working for Lord Axenuk:

A servant of the new regime, the evil order diabolic

Passing now for government within Marinz.

And which? He could not just then know,

So careful and intelligent, this spy for Axenuk.

It could be anyone, and any one it was would be

A disappointment.

But anxiously he hoped and wished that it would not be Xeltid:

Xeltid was too special and had come to mean too much.

And yet, were she the spy, then must he do his duty

For his country and its future hope for peace.

And it was grievous, knowing that the only hope for goodness

Could be jeopardized by someone sitting close with him

In meeting, while preparing to convey his plans

Most secret to the current ruler and tyrannical in charge

Of what was once a Federation of the highest good.

And Aten felt the burden of the many thousand kahs

Descend on him, as if the history of Marinz,

From deepest its antiquity, had been manipulated

And especially for him, to act and move at just this time.

Chapter 2

I

Almost five thousand kahs ere Aten’s birth,

His brave Marinzian fathers had embarked

The road of conquest that would make them

Into rulers of the world.

They learned from new, discovered tendrls,

Slicing through the starry night and bearing death,

Surprising all the enemies wherever found,

And overcoming all defenses with much ease,

So feeble those defenses proved.

It was the age of exploration:

Nations that had managed landing on a nearby system

Several kahahs distant were considered geniuses.

And few had ventured far enough to find miraculous,

A star or system with a life form different from their own

Although intelligent.

And all endured the long and tedious journeys

Of their interstellar flights, and by the laws of physics

that they knew,

Considered it the only way.

But now a force most sinister arrived within their midst

Unheralded, defying all their warning systems,

Taking over all that they had built, and with such ease.

Yet even so, the conquered learned the mode imperial

Of their masters was peculiar, for Marinz was quick

To offer friendship and make citizens of all

If they would only fall in line.

And most were skeptical at first until they saw the virtue

Of complying and the great advantage that it was

To be a part of this Marinzian world.

And thus it was that after just one-seventh of a kah,

Marinz had grown to fifteen planets,

With three planets each within a sector (five in all)

Of stars. And on Marinz, the master planet, was each sector called a cusp,

But all else called the cusps star clusters, and in time

They shortened it to clusters only, as the Palityn Star Cluster

Or the Trabvolon Star Cusp or Cluster Amynil.

Then rapidly they grew, a strong empire and unbeatable

That after seventy kahs controlled two hundred clusters

And then thirty more, each cluster having several stars,

With planets full of people most interesting, from all modes

Of evolution, that now came to call themselves Marinzian.

And though Marinz adopted true to form the way imperial

And imposed its culture on the conquered,

The Marinzians were intelligent in forging of a single outlook,

Blending all the different ways of life that came

By psychographic means and study, followed by much education,

To be called Marinzian thought.

And swiftly and relentlessly the great empire grew,

For none but they had learned the ways of tendrls

And could understand the slicing process overcoming

All the barriers and obstacles of space.

And though the knowledge was passed on to all the conquered peoples,

(For they were, once conquered, all Marinzian),

It was thought a crime unthinkable to pass this central information to outsiders,

This advantage of Marinz that saw the tendrls as real,

And space-time an illusion.

But then a thousand kahs saw most Marinzians rich and prosperous,

And with more riches grew their greed and selfishness, until

Inevitably came the point where some saw more their

Own advancement than their country’s good.

And such a one was Tralityn, a man who ventured far from home

And many thousand kahahs, seeking wealth.

And wealth such as he found was in the hands of people shrewd

And calculating, who discerned how much he sought their gifts.

They promised him more riches than he ever hoped to spend,

Though he should live forever.

In return they asked that he reveal the secret of that way most magical

That sent him moving through the deepest space so easily.

And it was no hard thing for him, for wealth was foremost in his mind,

And he betrayed his country to the wily people who inhabited

This planet known as Titn.

And from their tiny planet did the Titnehs too expand,

And dreamed of building an empire that would rival the Marinzians.

And at first they ventured opposite the path towards Marinz,

But there was much that they could gain from parts

Of the Marinzian realm, and so they set their feet upon

The road of war and confrontation with Marinz.

And never was a man despised as Tralityn,

And though they executed him, it proved still insufficient

For Marinzians. He became a byword and

An object of derision and of scorn.

And soon his name was changed, and throughout all Marinz

They called him Tralityn-Ham-Sharek, Tralityn the Traitor.

But war was imminent and war was more important to the times

Than hatred of the one who made it possible.

And well they knew within Marinz

That Titn could inflict on them precisely what Marinzians

Had inflicted on the world in kahs gone by.

So all the royal house convened a meeting of the brightest minds

And offered them rewards beyond their dreams if they devised

A means ingenious that decisively restored the edge Marinz had lost.

And like Ndrlu were they locked away, afforded all they needed,

And encouraged all the way (and constantly reminded of the need for speed).

And some among them thought they had three-sevenths of a kah, but then

When twice that time elapsed and Titn still restrained itself,

They counted it their fortune and they worked at twice the pace,

And gravitated round a new approach to war that, could it work,

Would cripple Titn’s might forevermore.

And after one kah and two-sevenths, Titn made its move.

It made a claim upon a lone and useless system called Rachavt.

The Titnehs had not claimed it hitherto; Marinzians had not

Bothered conquering the cluster, for its planets were the most part barren,

And the few with people were of backward culture and evolving still from ignorance.

But now to yield Rachavt would bring the Titnehs to the doorsteps of Marinz,

The very outskirts of the country, so to speak.

And so officially the royal house replied: Annexing any portion of Rachavt would be

An act of war, to which Marinz would quick respond.

The lines were drawn, and yet so awful was the prospect of this war,

That one more kah would pass with nothing warlike to report from either side.

It was the extra kah the scientists Marinzian dreamed and hoped to have,

But never thought could be. And in that kah they learned perfecting

Their approach, and all the means productive in Marinz were set to make

And manufacture their device, while hoping there was not another

Traitor in their midst.

Marinz prepared itself, and now most confident,

It moved a large fleet to Rachavt, declaring it within Marinz’ protection.

The Titnehs saw it as aggression and they launched their arsenal against the

Obstinate and stupid foe that risked its vast possessions

Over something useless and irrelevant.

And as predicted, they attacked the major clusters of Marinz:

Their ships of war appeared and suddenly around Gabrase,

And Koa, Aldrycx, and Marinz itself.

Vast fleets, all threatening death, all meaning war.

But when they fired all they had, or pulse of energy or missile mass,

They found to their dismay that all let loose were quick returned precisely

And exactly to the place from which they came.

And Titn was destroyed and swift.

For not discerning, they increased the volume and the frequency of their attacks

And lost more vessels than before.

And for they had designed a plan coordinating, synchronizing all they did,

The fleet entire that assailed Marinz was wiped away and in an instant dead.

The Titnehs had destroyed themselves, by their own weapons, their own hands,

Without a single missile from Marinz.

It was the greatest victory that Marinz had known.

And though the royal house desired moving on to conquer Titn,

Their advisors, diplomats, and academicians declared it were disaster,

For too deep the hatred now, that none in Titn ever would perceive

Themselves Marinzian. And Marinz had prospered and advanced

Because it made each conquered people one with them.

Not so the Titnehs: They would fight and sabotage and tear apart

The nation from within. So best to leave them to their own devices

And their ways most separate, provided they did not attack Marinz.

Their victory formed an unofficial date of marking time,

So people spoke that this or that event had happened ten kahs

Ere the war or twenty kahs and eight since they

Defeated Titn and its hordes.

And when, a hundred kahs and thirty kahs and three kahs later,

Vast deposits, pure of kayx, were found on Elge,

A planet deep inside the Kamaran star cluster, it was understood

That nothing, no one, known or otherwise could ever challenge

Or defeat Marinz.

For it had just been shown that kayx possessed this property

Of being converted purely into energy.

And so would kayx, and effortlessly, fill the need

For power to the ones possessing it.

And there was Elge, a planet made entirely (almost entirely) of kayx.

On Elge was energy enough to serve Marinz for forty thousand kahs

The scientists declared, and they were most conservative.

So it was clear Marinz had won its fight against the world.

It could not lose so long as Elge was deep inside the Kamaran,

And Kamaran was deep inside the vast empire of Marinz.

II

He saw her once again.

He could not anymore keep count.

He saw Dizaix, and time did not erase

The feeling, nor intensity nor tenderness

That overcame him at the sight.

She seemed so real, and yet he only saw her now

In dreams.

And all the beautiful and overwhelming episodes of loveliness

They shared and took for granted, now returned for him

To treasure, cherish, hold as life’s most precious gem,

Though nothingness, an empty figment of his sleep.

How complicated now his life:

Dizaix forever in his heart and Xeltid always

On his mind.

But never once since they departed from Marinz

Did Aten dream of Xeltid, whereas now, he woke

From every sleep a clearer picture of Dizaix

Imprinted on his soul.

And had he told her often, and had he shown her in sufficient ways

That she was all he loved?

He told her now, but only in his dreams, and found the words

Escaping him when he awoke, but it was useless gesturing.

Dizaix, the stubborn, beautiful, determined, lovely, firm,

Attractive, contrary, desired and unwavering Dizaix.

So easy had it been to love her, and so hard to part

That first and fatal time. But they had parted

Though impossible it seemed to all.

And then two lives, designed by nature to be one,

Went separate, divergent roads,

A tragedy to worsen what befell them on Marinz.

He felt that nature, history, and his culture had prepared him

Just for tragedy and darkness that would always plague his way:

He was the Ruler of the Myriad Stars, and was the last one

To achieve that honor.

Was devoted to his country more than most,

But now that country of all countries was a graveyard.

And he lived at Level One, the pinnacle of all worlds known

(For Level Zero was a mystery, though through every age

Had brave Marinzians ventured seeking truth of it)

And now his journey led but one way, downward,

To the lower and yet lower levels of the universe.

And he had loved as never any could with such totality

Have loved, and given all there was of him to her, Dizaix.

And now Dizaix was dead.

III

Prosperity arrived and stayed for many kahs.

It was the hallmark and distinction of Marinz.

A thousand kahs would pass, till it became the symbol

Of that galaxy (the galaxy of Thye):

To speak of power, riches or accomplishment,

Would bring to mind Marinz.

It ruled a nation spanning systems that two thousand

And a hundred kahahs measured at their farthest distance.

And its scientists designed, invented and devised new ways

Of pleasure and indulgence till their lives, and how they lived,

Became the envy of the world.

But