Through the Earth

Queen Gold and the man she was with took us to their house and the guy introduced himself as Ethan. He had light brown skin, black hair, and a very handsome face. Not only that, he was very kind and helpful when he helped me get Liam back on his feet. No wonder Gold fell for him.

Once we got to their house, Ethan led Liam to the guest bedroom where he could rest. Liam was all healed, but he was exhausted and just needed some sleep. While he did that, I explained everything to Gold; how I got to Earth, how I found her, and my visions about her and Silver. I even talked about my dream with Ruby, even though it hurt to reminisce. When I was finished, Gold looked at me thoughtfully as she took this all in.

Gold leaned forward. “I was hoping Silver would change her mind about wanting revenge. This is all my fault.”

“How is it your fault? Is Silver mad about you going to Earth all those years ago?”

“No.” Gold sighed. “She forgave me because I chose to stay but…” Gold trailed off. “I can’t tell you why she’s mad at me. You will call me a traitor.”

I sat there shocked. “I’ve seen you steal the Time Diamond, favor Earth over the core, and fall in love with a human, yet my faith in you hasn’t been shaken. There’s nothing you can say that will make me doubt you.”

“Okay, but you’ve asked for it.” Gold took a moment to think before starting her story. “When I first traveled to Earth I thought about the location I wanted to arrive at, not the time. I came to Earth in the year 1998 and that is where I met Ethan. The year right now is 2021, so Ethan was 20 years old and I was about 20,000. I told him about my life and he wanted to help me adjust to the human world. Silver didn’t create the tunnel that leaked magic to Earth yet, so it was strange adjusting, but I got used to life very quickly. After a month, we knew each other very well and started to fall in love. In the core, there is no romantic love because there are no men, just women, so I had no idea how to express my feelings, but Ethan did. After dating for three months, Ethan asked me to marry him and that was the happiest moment of my life. We decided to elope because I didn’t really care for a fancy ceremony, and we spent a whole month together.”

Gold smiled at these memories before a wave of sadness washed over her face. “One day, Ethan took me on a picnic to the woods. We were just sitting there enjoying each other’s company when an earthquake happened. It shook the ground for a long time until eventually a long arm of silver fire exploded out, wrapped around me, and took me back to the core. You know what happens next from your vision, but the thing that drove me and Silver apart happened about a month later. I found out that I…um I…” Gold looked really nervous now.

“What did you find out?” I coaxed.

“I...was going to have a child.” My jaw dropped. I was not expecting this. “I told Silver immediately and she was in complete shock. We both knew that giving birth to my child would be a sign to every goddess that I left the core. We had to get rid of the evidence that I’ve grown to like humans, but Silver and I didn’t want to take an innocent life.

“But we had to do something because it is against the law to use the Time Diamond the way I did and to befriend humans, much less fall in love with one. I asked Silver to look through her witchcraft spell books to see if there was a way to save my baby without alerting the other goddesses. It took a few months but Silver found a spell that would work. It works where it can take a human female soul and send it to the outer core. It would be covered in magic and would immediately come back to the core to be born as a goddess, then I could claim the new goddess and raise her.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “That plan has a few holes. First off, it would be impossible to know if the baby is going to be a girl and the spell only works on a human soul. Your child would be half-human.”

“Yes, I know.” Gold sighed. “But there was nothing else we could do, so I had to take the risk. When Silver was ready, we went outside to the palace grounds and she started the spell. It immediately worked so I knew my child was going to be a girl. The soul materialized in Silver’s hands and she started to raise it higher, but I could tell she was struggling. The soul kept going higher and right before it seemed to be close enough for the outer core to take it, Silver lost control and...her grip on the soul slipped and it disappeared into oblivion. I now realize that it was an accident, but I was so furious that I didn’t want to have anything to do with my sister. We didn’t talk for years. I wanted to, but I wasn’t ready to forgive her. Now I regret it, and now Silver is going to control all of the goddesses. They will suffer because of me.”

“Diamond wants you to die,” I mentioned, “so why would she send you to Earth?”

Gold looked down at her hands. “That’s enough talking for now.” She stood up. “It’s around noon. Let’s make lunch.”

#

I lied on the floor in the guest bedroom with nothing but a pillow and a blanket. Liam was still sleeping on the bed and even though it was big enough for two people, I didn’t feel comfortable enough sharing it with him. But that didn’t mean my back was comfortable on the ground, even if it was covered in carpet. At least I was letting Liam rest with no disturbances. It took a while, but eventually, the darkness relaxed me enough that I drifted off to sleep.

I had another dream, and it showed Sapphire and Ruby walking through the forest at night. Sapphire looked agitated.

“Are you still worrying about Emerald?” Ruby demanded.

“Of course I am. I’m the one who found her and took care of her, and I was only 4,000 years old. We’ve been together for a long time and it’s my job to protect her and you. It has been a week since she mysteriously disappeared.” I think my dream is taking place in real-time, but this time I didn’t have a physical presence that could walk around the dream. I could only see what I’m being shown.

“It’s alright, Sapphire,” Ruby said. “You were doing a conceal spell and I was guarding you. I didn’t think it was Emerald that needed my protection because she is always studying magic and fighting techniques.” Her last line was obviously a jab at me, but Sapphire didn’t know that.

“Look up ahead.” Sapphire pointed to a clearing filled with ashes and standing in the center of it was a group of goddesses. One was in her twenties with dark skin and purple hair. Another was a mid-teen with cream-colored hair, light tan skin, and almond-shaped eyes. The last one was maybe 10,000 years old with white skin and jade green hair. “Anthemist, Pearl, Jade. It’s so good to see you.”

“Sapphire!” Anthemist smiled at her with such happiness. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.” Jade ran up and gave Sapphire a hug and Pearl waved. Anthemist and Sapphire are good friends and sometimes we visit her in her hometown, Lakeside, which is by a lake. Jade is being raised by Anthemist and Pearl is Anthemist’s best friend. Those two are inseparable, partially because Pearl is deaf and Anthemist acts as her translator.

Jade was really excited. “We knew you were good,” she spoke with excitement.

Anthemist smiled. “Pearl did a wisdom spell to see which other goddesses were out there fighting werewolves. Sadly that vision only showed you, Ruby, and Emerald.”

Ruby stepped forward. “Wait a minute. All of the people that are defying Queen Silver are right here.” An evil gleam glowed in her eye as she held up her hand. Before anyone could do anything, Ruby projected a magical red forcefield around everyone.

Sapphire looked at Ruby in surprise. “Ruby. What are you doing?”

“Serving the one true queen,” she answered.

Anthemist stepped forward. “How are you using magic? You’re just like me and the other fifty percent of goddesses that can’t use magic.”

“Funny you should mention that. You know that half the goddesses can’t use magic. That is because they were created to use witchcraft. Queen Gold is the one that gives magic to one-half the goddesses, while Queen Silver was supposed to give witchcraft to the other half. But Gold didn’t want witchcraft to be a thing, so she forced Queen Silver to not fuel those goddesses with the power of witchcraft.”

“That’s right,” a calm disembodied voice said. A portal opened next to Ruby and out stepped Queen Silver. “There are supposed to be an equal number of goddesses that use magic and witchcraft, but Queen Gold has kept you all from embracing equality. Don’t worry. You will all be sacrificed so a new world can be created. One where all goddesses can use magical powers, there are no humans, and there is no Queen Gold.”

With the flick of her hand, Silver spawned about ten werewolves inside the force field. Caught off guard, the goddesses fell to the ground as they got bitten one by one. Before any transformations could happen, they were all teleported away.

I watched all this as tears threatened to come.

“Ruby.” Queen Silver turned to her as Ruby transformed into her werewolf form. “Our time is coming. Now that all the goddesses are under my control, in 24 hours, I will be able to have them destroy the gems or minerals they control on Earth. And you know what happens when that takes place?”

Ruby nodded. “They will all die.”

#

I woke up startled and confused. I tiptoed out of my room, and to my surprise, Gold walked out of hers at the same time. We sat in the living room and I explained my dream to Gold.

“What did Silver mean?” I asked.

Gold sighed. “To know that answer, you would have to know the creation of goddesses. I have never told this story to anyone, and I trust that you won’t freak out.” I got excited. No one in the core knew the origin of goddesses, and I was ready to hear it.

“Many thousands of years ago, even before I was born, there was a human that lived on Earth. She was different from all the humans because she was born with a gift. She had magical powers that were stronger than any other goddess today. She wanted to use these powers to help everyone around her, but all the humans shunned her because she was different. When she grew older, she went to live in solitude to see what she really could do. She discovered she had four separate abilities. The first ability was that she could use magic, which as you know is the ability to make spells that are powered by positive emotions. The second ability was that she could use witchcraft. This is just like magic except it uses spells that are powered by negative emotions. The third ability was that she could travel across space and time and alter people’s lifespan and the speed they age, and the fourth was that she could create living creatures with souls, not mindless ones like werewolves.

“She wrote down every spell she created into spell books and mastered them all. She eventually decided to shed her human name and called herself Diamond. Now that she mastered her powers, she wanted a home for herself away from humans. She took everything she had and teleported to the center of the Earth. Underneath the crust used to all just be the mantle, but Diamond created the core as her home. Inside the core she made it look just like Earth because she missed her home, just not the humans. Diamond did start to get lonely and created two souls that she made into the first goddesses. Can you guess who they are?”

Without missing a beat I said, “You and Silver.”

“Yes. She made us live for thousands of years with her time powers, but something bad happened around the time Silver and I turned 10,000. The mantle didn’t like being squished to make room for the core and it was going to explode. Diamond felt guilty that the whole world would be destroyed because of her, so using all of her power, she created diamonds in the crust of the Earth as a magical barrier that keeps the mantle from destroying the crust.”

Gold shuddered. “But that wasn’t enough. To enforce the barrier, she also created silver and gold in the crust, and to make it stronger she connected them to our souls. The crust was safe but not the core. Sacrificing her strongest power, the ability to create souls, she created it into what you know as the outer core.”

“Wow,” I muttered.

“Wow indeed,” Gold said sadly. “But using all this magic weakened Diamond. As powerful as she was, she was still human. I won’t forget the day when Silver and I leaned over our dying creator, but she meant more to us. She was our mother. With her last bit of strength, Diamond gave me her magic, Silver her witchcraft, and her time powers she forged into the Time Diamond. She told us that more goddesses would be created and their gems would strengthen the crust’s barrier. She made us promise that we would rule the core and pass on to the new goddesses the ability to use either magic or witchcraft. We swore to her that we would protect every goddess. I remember her final words, ‘Don’t let them know they were created by a human. Humans are bad. Always have been. Always will be.’ Then she died. It’s been 30,000 years and I miss her terribly, but a goddess can’t die unless all of their type of gem or mineral is destroyed, and that’s never happened.”

We sat there in silence for a moment, but then a question hit me. “Why didn’t you let goddesses use witchcraft?”

Gold looked down ashamed. “I was young and naive. Remember, I was only ten thousand years old, and Silver was upset that she was given witchcraft. That made me think, ‘How can I trust goddesses to not turn evil because they are gaining power through negative emotions?’

“Whenever a new goddess is born, either Silver or I would sense them and we were supposed to teleport to the goddess and bless her with magic or witchcraft, but I told Silver why she shouldn’t spread witchcraft and forbid her from giving half the goddesses their witchcraft. Silver agreed with me because she thought her powers were bad. She didn’t want to use her power, but after thousands of years, she eventually got better and more confident in her abilities. One day, she approached me and said that maybe it was time to start giving goddesses witchcraft, but I told her no and forbade her from practicing it in addition to not spreading it. I wish I didn’t because that fueled her anger towards me later down the line. I thought that no emotions are stronger than negative ones, but recently I realized that Silver had witchcraft but never used it for evil until I stopped loving her. Love is stronger than any emotion, so as long as witchcraft users feel loved, they won’t let those negative feelings control them.”

I had to disagree with the comment about love. Love isn’t an emotion and it can’t ever power my magic. Not even once, but I kept quiet as Gold’s eyes glistened with sadness as she fought back tears.

I couldn’t believe that the origin of goddesses came from humans, but I wasn’t mad. In fact, I felt honored that Gold trusted me as the first goddess to hear this story. I didn’t know how the other goddesses would react to this, but it wouldn’t be good since they hate humans.

“I think I understand Silver’s plan,” I said. “Only goddesses can completely destroy the gem or mineral they are connected to. If Silver controls all the goddesses, she can command them all to destroy their stones at the same time, which would...kill all the goddesses. Eventually, Silver would rule all of the new goddesses that spawn in the core. They won’t know of the massacre their queen did so they would all follow her blindly.”

“But it gets worse.” Gold looked at me with hopelessness. “When the crust’s gem barrier is weakened, the force of the mantle will push drastically, and it will break through the crust. Everyone and everything on it will be destroyed.”

“What!” I didn’t care that other people were sleeping. “This means that not just my friends will die, but so will Liam.”

Gold gave me a curious look. “We will die too, you know. The mantle will burn up all the emeralds and gold.”

“Oh, yeah...that. Wait a minute. Wouldn’t the mantle burn up all the silver and Rubies?”

“Yes,” Gold confirmed. “But I had a dream tonight and it showed that Silver created a piece of silver and connected her soul to it. She also did the same thing with a ruby so Ruby will be safe. It will be safe inside the core for them because the mantle is weak compared to the power of the outer core.”

“Ugg, they’ve thought of everything.”

“Well, not everything.” Gold showed me a cheeky smile. “Silver needs 24 hours to generate enough power to control everyone. That means we have one day to execute the plan I have in mind.”