Fire Child Part 8

Zendrius screamed as a billion sights, sounds and other sensations ravaged his mind. He had been in a peaceful dream one moment then awoke to his current state of intense agony the next, he could not see, hear or feel anything but he somehow knew Nessha was nearby.
“Are you alright, my lord?” asked the woman as she helped Zendrius to his feet when the paroxysm passed.
“Yes I’m fine,” said Zendrius as his senses returned and a peculiar clarity came over him.
“Welcome back to Los-Reinar, my lord,” said Nessha as she led him to a nearby balcony. “It means –”
“Realm of Strife,” said Zendrius as he regarded the plane of luminescent maroon rock with a sense of familiarity. There were no structures or any evidence of development for as far as the eye could see, no fauna or flora and the sky produced no celestial bodies. There was only darkness above, it continuously flowed and ebbed, baring a striking resemblance to Earth’s oceans.
“How did you know that, my lord?”
Zendrius turned to Nessha. “The same way I know that you are not originally from this plane, it is as if coming here somehow instilled me with knowledge.”
“I think you are regaining your memories, my lord.”
“Memories? You told me that I was taken as a baby.”
“You were my lord. But when you were still in the womb, your mother told us that you would inherit her knowledge.”
“What, like genetic memory?”
Nessha seemed to ponder the concept. “Yes, my lord.”
“While we are on the subject of my heritage, who exactly are my parents?”
“My lord, may we rather speak of this while we travel? I do not want to alarm you but this place isn’t supposed to be deserted,” said Nessha, her voice betraying her anxiousness.
Zendrius looked around. There were burns, holes and lacerations almost everywhere the eye could see. It didn’t take the skills of deduction of Sherlock Holmes to conclude that there was an intense conflict in the room. “I take it I was supposed to have gotten some kind of reception?”
“Yes, my lord. There were almost a thousand of us, something must have happened while I was gone.”
“What are you talking about? You were gone for maybe half an hour before we came back. What could have possibly happened in thirty minutes?”
“No, my lord. Time flows differently here, more than twenty years passed in Los-Reinar while I was on Earth.”
“What?”
“My lord, you might have lived eighteen years on Earth, but here you’ve been gone for more than fifty-seven omegia.”
Pain shot through Zendrius’ mind before he recognised the term for a billion hours. His thoughts raced as he remembered that Los-Reinar was not a planet, but a plane of existence and thus did not have an astronomical way of measuring time. Instead seconds, minutes and hours were used, with a cycle being a thousand hours, a genus a million and an omegus a billion. He was surprised at his sudden command over mathematics as he quickly did the calculations. “You’re telling me that I’ve been gone for over 6.5 million years?”
“Yes my lord, there is a time disruption between our realm and theirs.”
Zendrius did the math and said dubiously, “That would mean a millennium passes here for every day on Earth.”
“That is correct. My lord, I do not want to nag but we should relocate.”
“What about the rift? Are we just going to leave it open?” asked Zendrius as he pointed to the seemingly 4 ft static tear in space.
“My lord, at its current stage it barely has enough energy to shift a single entity. If we leave it, it’ll close on its own in about thirty cycles.”
Zendrius was about to object when he realised that for the portal to be open on Earth for a minute it had to be open on Los-Reinar for over eight months and that in effect, it would only be open on their side for another five minutes. “Ok, let’s go.”
Nessha led her lord out of the gigantic structure. Everywhere they passed signs of struggle and conflict removed all doubt whether the ruins were abandoned.
Zendrius turned back to the structure as they exited it. There was something inside of him that told him it did not belong, it not only appeared to be built from concrete but seemed a duplicate of what you’d find in the cities on Earth. “Who built this?”
“It was built several omegia ago by the people of Juria, my lord” said Nessha as started across the plane of rock.
Zendrius felt the intense heat emanating from the maroon stone as he followed. “I don’t seem to have any memories of them.”
“That would make sense, my lord. Juria was established after you were taken.”
“They are not from this realm, are they?”
“No, my lord. They are invaders.”
“Invaders from where?”
Nessha stopped and turned to her beacon of hope. “From Earth, my lord.”