[New Voices] The Lazurai Emergence
What happens when you push a person down so much, they just disappear into the background? But when they still have old friends around to remind them of their humanity...
Short story fiction by C. C. Brower & S. H. Marpel
I HAD BEEN IN THAT stone wall for decades, alone on purpose.
Not lonely.
Waiting.
Humankind needed to evolve past what they had done to create me. I was willing to wait - as long as it took.
Because to re-emerge would mean to again threaten all humans I contacted.
The very reason all of my kind had submerged into hiding was to save humankind from ourselves, from the virus within us.
While that virus had saved us from certain death, and evolved us into an immortal state, we were still human enough to care for the rest of the race we used to be part of.
And that is the risk, like all evolution:
Is this an quantum-leap of genetic improvement, or a dinosaur extinction event?
I
WHEN THE LATEST THREE visitors arrived, I greeted them as usual with a dust cloud and wind. Dust devil turned cyclone.
They responded by putting up a force shield. I countered with hurricane-force winds.
But one of them got sick. He fell down and clutched his stomach. I felt sorry for him, but he's "only human" and so I wasn't too sorry. The other two weren't human, although they looked it. They had my respect. A couple of good-looking young gals, as far as humans went.
We were at a standoff. It was all they could do to keep their shields up, and I didn't want to increase my wind forces any more, nor decrease them any less.
Then a red-haired, hazel-eyed young woman appeared and walked through my dust storm and their shield like they weren't even there. She crouched over the sick man at the bottom of their shield, then looked up at the two gals who were generating that force shield with their concentration.
All three disappeared with a shimmer, and I was left alone as a dust cyclone.
And that's all I wanted.
“I’ve never liked visitors.” I said to no one nearby. “I came here to disappear, but people keep finding me. Well, to hell with them. They never cared, they don’t now.”
The whirlwind of my form twisted in the middle of a vacant desert, just a dozen yards away from the sheer cliff side behind me. At my base, little dust-devils spun off to ride small drafts out for a short distance and then dissipate back into the dust and air that formed them.
This wasn’t happiness I felt, but when I had my solitude, that was something that comforting to me. Something I depended on for so long to be the same.
I only wanted quiet after all my disappointments. Humans had always disappointed me. Ever since they created me with their poisons, their bombs, bullets, and gases.
In the silence I could sleep, without dreams, without cares.
Alone.
So I sank back into my cliff side, the petroglyph glowing momentarily as the rock absorbed my energy.
With no wind, the desert dust returned to coat the blank floor by the rock wall, leaving it again the featureless canvas it usually was.
And I slept again, as I waited.
II
"HERE'S THE SPOT, MARI. I think we can find one here." I pulled my smartphone from the inside jacket pocket of my three-piece wool-blend suit. The tracker program was working and pinpointed this spot.
Mari came over to look at the screen next to me. She preferred her tight black leather outfit in situations like this. It allowed her movement and protection, as well as various pockets and holsters for the weapons she carried.
I carried no weapons other than my own intellect, which you would say was a double-edged blade - able to creatively solve problems as well as take them apart. But we had been raised in different times, literally. Her own insistence on training and her martial arts exercises always endeared her to me.
But then I loved her more each day, and it wouldn't matter if she was any other shape. I liked to watch her beautiful form, and she appreciated my attention. We made a good team.
A beep alerted me to a match. On the tiny smartphone screen, it was clear that the weather disturbances were local to this specific desert area. The GPS gave us a very precise location that matched up with the satellite imagery.
And my calculations showed that this precise time-space location was key to later developments.
All that was here was a very solid canyon wall that faced a long plain in front of it. Just a portion of a butte leftover from ancient magma eruptions. Long ago, some Amerindians had drawn petroglyphs into it's flat surface, and these had eroded with the weather until only one remained. This last one was faded and almost illegible as a drawing.
But that faded petroglyph drawing had to be the focus point for the entity causing these weather disruptions.
So I began a conversation.
"Hello, great one! We come to thank you for all you've done, and admire your abilities." I talked loudly toward that petroglyph in the canyon wall. "And I've come to ask your advice."
Silence.
Mari whispered to me, "I thought you only practiced your flattery on me."
"All good flattery is just an obvious exaggeration of known truths. And these beings deserve our admiration for all they've been through." I whispered back. "But you deserve all the flattery you can get, after all, there are a lot of outstanding truths about you the world should know." And I winked at her.
Mari blushed slightly at that, and kept quiet any witty repartee’s - as she knew our work here was key and precise.
Soon the being in the petroglyph "spoke" to me, some rumblings in the ground and canyon walls, and the winds increased. The voice in my mind was clear, though.
"Why do you come to 'suck up' to me and bother my solitude?"
"I come with my friend here so we could ask you about how you are doing, and if you are ready to emerge."
"It is curious to me why you would be interested in my welfare. No human has been interested in me other than my own kind for decades. And my 'own kind' isn't exactly human or treated with anything but fear by humans. Riddle me that."
I smiled at the rock entity, facing that chosen petroglyph as a focus point, and no longer having to shout. But did talk out loud so that Mari could at least follow my end of the conversation. "That is exactly why we are here. We have met others of your kind, and talked with them, some. They led us to find you. We came to let you know some do appreciate all you've been through and to ask for your advice."
"What possible advice could you get from me what would be worthwhile? I know only death and destruction. And to emerge from this wall would only kill you both."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. One single question and we will leave you to the great solitude of this desert and all that live here."
The entity was silent, considering this. These two humans were not afraid. They knew the risks I posed, but stood there and wanted my help. Most curious. "Ask me your question, and I'll answer as I can. One question, as you promised. Just one."
I cleared my throat and whispered to Mari, "It says one question, only."
Mari nodded and looked to the petroglyph, which had begun glowing.
"If you had the opportunity to do things over, to change how you had acted, would you take that opportunity - and how would you do things differently?"
The petroglyph glow now began irregular pulsing, as if considering a reply. The question was carefully phrased to encourage thought.
"You ask a good question. And I thank you for it. I've not had a real conversation for decades. The ones I had last wound me up here as their result. The logic I followed showed no other outcome possible. My life had been depressing, and death was not an option. Isolation and waiting was.
"Of course, you are asking me to use what I know now to consider what I've done up to this point. The short answer to the first part is - nothing."
The petroglyph took on a steady brighter glow now.
"Your second part to your question asks what are my intentions for the future. And the short answer to that is: I don't know."
I simply waited, patiently as I could in the hot desert as the sun rose higher and the heated winds began to move with greater strength around us. This entity wanted to say more, but interrupting its thinking would get me nowhere. Asking another question would be risky.
Finally, I had to take that risk. "But your long answers would be...?"
The petroglyph seemed on fire, radiating heat toward us.
"I do not know if you have heard the story of how I was created. I won't repeat it here. The poison gases, the radiation, the explosives, the diseases - all those things we were administered in an attempt to destroy us. All from humans, just as we once were. But the worst weapon they used - far beyond the suffocation and bullets and bombs - was their shunning.
"They called us Lazurai, and determined that we had somehow been infected with a virus. And it cost them the lives of those researchers to find that out. For they were fully-grown adults, and to them, that virus was certain death. None of them or us ever knew how we got infected originally. It was supposedly in the dirty bomb that destroyed the hospital we were in. But those same researchers told us that those terrorists all died from handling that virus and weaponizing it.
"Because we killed everyone, we were shunned. When we escaped to find out more about the world, all its humans ran from us. So these remote areas far from humanity became our homes. After long lives in isolation, we became the rocks and water and even the wind. Some descended into the molten planet core and live there yet.
"For we have none to talk to except the natural forces. Humans who find us die. But all I've learned doesn't change that fact. At least in these rock formations, we can have visitors safely, such as you two. Yet I dare not emerge, for your safety.
I nodded at this. "We thank you for your consideration." After an appropriate pause, "And could you tell us the second part of your long answer?"
The petroglyph again returned to an irregular pulsing.
Mari and I waited, keeping our faces attentive and patient.
"A lot depends on what humanity is doing now. Whether they have been able to study our condition and provide us a way to safely interact with them, much as we've been doing today. From childhood, I've only known rejection except from my own kind. Some tried to give us love in their clumsy hazmat suits, but even these eventually got sick and died. And we loved them, but could do nothing for them. Because they loved us - but also could not cure us of that virus."
Again, the voice paused, the rock image pulsing more slowly.
"I don't know of anything I could do differently. All we wanted was to give and receive two things: love and respect. If that were possible to do then or even now, then things could be different, I suppose."
The voice went silent at that, the rock walls now their natural color. No glow remained. Only the dust and wind, which had decreased as well.
I thanked that entity with a mental thought. And wished a better future. But of course, received no response.
Our job done, we phased back to our own time and space.
IV
ROCHELLE HAD LEFT HER “beater” truck way out in the boonies. She had told me a bit of the story, how she had come out here to find someone she was supposed to help, only to find a cyclone with some clear sphere inside it - but a sick man on the floor of that sphere.
When they returned to Hami's saloon to get him treatment, she left that truck of hers out here.
Curiosity, as well as my own generous nature brought me back out here to see the scene and recover that truck.
I'd come as far as I could using the roads and old riverbeds and washes. Then simply translated back to human form to walk the last few yards.
The truck was no worse off than usual. Of course, she hadn't rolled up the windows, so there was a layer of dust inside it that matched the outside. Must of been some storm there.
But before I got it started again, I wanted to see the location where she had rescued that guy. The flat wall of that old canyon wall wasn't too far away. So I walked there.
The scene was familiar to me somehow. Not that I came from this kind of country, but the isolation and pureness of Nature on its own seemed to resonate somehow. The faded markings on the canyon wall were something I'd read about in those travel magazines, but never been up close to before.
I walked over and touched the ancient markings. That touch told me more than anyone could have known. It felt eerily familiar to me. Something was connected with this brought recollections of my own painful past to light. A very bitter and savage sacrifice had been made here, one of little choice, but logical necessity.
There was something else to this, something tragic.
However, it wasn't the time for me to investigate. Something wasn't right, but I'd have to make time to come back for this later.
Retracing my steps, I returned to the truck. First was to blow out and off all that dust by bringing in a little windstorm of my own. Then I raised the hood and looked it over. Touched the old distributor and it's spark-plug wires - and felt Rochelle's essence still there. That's why this truck still ran as well as it did - and why she trusted me to come and retrieve it for her.
I knew it would start for me as well. Love gives you that certainty.
With that thought, I felt a change in the atmosphere around me. The air seemed more dry, and the wind picked up. Since I didn't want to have to clean everything out again, I shut the hood and made my way over to the driver's side door. Opening it, I slid in and turned the key, then pushed the ignition switch on the floorboard. This truck was a real antique.
It turned over and caught, rumbling into a smooth hum. I had to smile. Never lost my touch after all these years.
Looking around, I could see that the ground had plenty of flat ground behind it to turn around in safety. Easing into reverse, it smoothly backed and turned. Before I took off back to that tiny oasis where Hami's old saloon-building stood, something caught my eye. Something back at those canyon walls.
A large dust-devil was turning right where I had stood in front of those canyon wall markings. This one wasn't moving in any direction, but just turning there in one spot. Natural, yet under someone's or some thing's control and direction.
That brought a smile of recognition to me. I saluted the dust-devil through the windshield. "Some other time, old friend." I thought to it. "We'll meet again, I'm sure."
First gear was a bit slow, but I wanted to make sure of the way before I put that truck into anything like a road gear.
I and the truck slowly made our bumpy way out of that remote desert spot.
In the mirror, I saw that dust-devil dissipate. With that canyon wall in shadow, something seemed to make those markings glow. But the bumps and twists in that rutted road soon took that canyon wall out of sight...
V
SOMEHOW, I RECOGNIZED that last human form that visited me.
I've had to start referring to them as "forms" because they way they acted was like no human I've ever encountered, even those of my own kind.
First the two girls who were apparently immune to illness that the male caught. Then the third girl was even unaffected by my dust storm. And how did they all just disappear like that?
Next, that suit-wearer and his partner with the black leather also seemed to appear out of nowhere. And talked to me like I haven't ever been talked to in this existence. With respect. And I had so many things to think about as a result. But they, too, simply disappeared.
This last one came from that old truck, I guess. Wasn't really paying much attention.
And yet his touch was too familiar. Something I haven't felt in a very long time. Like I might have known him. And he called me "old friend."
This was becoming too much of a coincidence. And that many visitors in just days was more than I have had in a whole year before. It wasn't making my sleep come any easier, all these interruptions.
And that made me wonder if it was time for me to stay awake...
VI
WITH THE RESEARCH AND talking to those Ghost Hunters, I understood more about what and perhaps who I had encountered submerged in that rock wall.
I came with them as they phased into view about a quarter-mile away - for their own safety. Rochelle came with us.
"Uncle Jean, you be careful there." Rochelle had a rare worried look on her face.
"I will, Rochelle. But if it goes as I suspect, I may have met another old friend I haven't seen since we were kids." I smiled to reassure her, then evaporated...
...to re-form as a water spout in front of that canyon wall.
I tried to communicate directly with the being in that wall though elemental channels, but without any response.
So I transmuted back to human form, crossed my arms and started talking at that petroglyph. "I think I know you from a long time ago. But I need you to come out so we can have a talk. I'm not here to hurt you, I just want to know how you are doing and if there's anything you need that I can help you with."
I only waited a few minutes. Then a dust devil started up and grew to a large size quickly. I matched it with my own water spout and merged into the space it was using.
Then we started talking in a way its even hard to write down. Because our thoughts merged, and we were able to complete conversations on a conceptual level, beyond pictures or words.
She was someone I had known when we were both the original Lazurai. We'd both been attacked and infected in that hospital, then grown to teenagers and survived all the various attempts the government used to try to control us and even end our lives.
Of course, there was grief at remembering and sharing all these old memories. I'd lost track of her after we both escaped and went our separate ways.
I had submerged into an old deserted building far away from any humans, just as she had done with her canyon wall.
But one of our relatives had found me. A third generation Lazurai called Rochelle. This was the red-haired woman she had met that first day.
Then I had to tell her all I knew about Rochelle and my own learning-journey. That learning resulted in finding I could control my own powers enough to walk and behave around humans in the way they considered "normal." And without killing any accidentally.
Time had no hold on us. We shared so many things during our conversation - until I had little to share she didn't already know.
She told me the long stories of waiting and sleeping in the rock that had become her home. Until she had nearly forgotten what it was like to have a human form. Her life had been spent more as rock than anything else, and she had traveled its routes deep into the earth, in all the different formats. She had met the subterranean waters, and deeper still into the magma.
Not too surprisingly, she told me of meeting other elementals. A few she recognized as the original Lazurai, but more who were of a very old age, even beyond what we could consider measured time.
But all these travels raised other questions. And she always returned to this spot, as somewhere she could think and consider and understand all that she had found out in those travels. While she understood much about the planet and the rocks, she had stayed away from living things as she could trust herself to not accidentally kill them.
As one, we realized that Rochelle was the answer, or could help her find it.
So I left her and returned for Rochelle to bring her and her answers back.
VII
JEAN HELPED ME TAKE on a water elemental form as he was used to. And this being came out to talk to us.
The funny thing was that Jean knew her and had grown up with her, but couldn't remember her human name. Mainly because she no longer used it. So it made introductions awkward.
I'm translating this into human so you can follow our discussion, but what took place was timeless, outside of what you would consider was our space-time. We “spoke” in pure concepts, more like your dreams, take place in your mind and you assign the time it takes.
I'd told the Ghost Hunters that day that it might take awhile. The truth is that we needed some privacy where their thoughts wouldn't interfere. I didn't understand how that worked, only that it did. When I got near larger cities, it was harder to sort things out and to focus on just what I wanted to create or transform. Because of the interruptions from others thoughts. Weird, I know. Just the way things are.
. . . .
"Hello, my name is Rochelle. You've been talking to Jean and he's told me some thing about you. What name can I call you?"
"That's an interesting concept. I haven't had use for a 'name' in so long. Just call me 'Betty'. I don't know if that's what I used to be called when a human, but it has a nice sound to it, a rhythm."
"Betty. Sounds good. So Jean tells me you have questions."
"Many. How did you find Jean before he was emerged?"
"Well, I'm asked to go places and when I do, I then find whoever it was that I am supposed to help. In this case, it was a deserted old building some distance from here, also in the desert."
Jean provided the concept of the exact location where he had submerged himself, and his view of my arrival when I visited him.
Betty then traced a subterranean route there, through the rock seams - much more direct than the highways and roads that I had to drive.
Jean teased me at my idea, that I had to learn how to travel as an elemental to "save time." I teased him back about time being a sixth element, and space being a seventh, so his concept was itself outmoded. And we all chuckled at that impossibility. Time and space are simply human constructs, after all.
"How did you get him to emerge and what did you have to help him with?
"I came there as he did to you, sat down facing the wall he had submerged himself into and asked if I could help him in some way. He was curious at that, since no human had asked to give him help since he was born, other than the nurses in their hazmat suits.
"At first he was reticent to come out to talk with me, as his experience with other humans besides the Lazurai were always death. But I told him that my parents had been raised by the original Lazurai, so Jean could very well be my grandfather for all I knew. The point of this was that we had learned to control the poisons and toxins that we'd ingested. To turn them into other materials. Then I picked up a rock from the ground and turned it into a shiny hand mirror, then reflected the sunlight against the wall where he had entered.
"This was a metaphor he could understand, since the sunlight could be moved through a mirror almost anywhere I wanted it to go."
Jean gave us both the feeling of how amazing that was for someone to show him a solution after all those decades of hiding for fear he'd hurt someone with his condition.
"I understand," Betty replied. "This is the curse of the original Lazurai which you have undone. We were fed poisons and destructive substances and absorbed them, but only knew how to return in kind, instead of transmuting them. Somewhat like the old 'eye for an eye'. We simply didn't know better."
Jean confirmed that idea as true. That was all they knew at that time.
I continued to explain. "There are other later philosophers who told of 'turning the other cheek' when struck. That is a simple view of transmuting what you are given, but the same basic principle.
"So, next I took my hand and stuck it right into the wall where he had submerged, dissolving the rock and mortar, and absorbing it through my skin. Then I made a concrete plug out of that material, exuding it from my skin to fill that hole again.
"Jean then made that same hole open again, and extruded a square brick from the wall. It landed on the dirt below that wall, but left no hole behind it.
"In turn, I picked up that brick and turned it into a marble bowl. Then pinched a bit of the hole I had originally filled, so that it had a spout on it. I moved the marble bowl just below below that spout. Using both my hands, I scooped up a pile of dust from the ground and absorbed it. Then I took a deep breath and blew into my cupped hands. Finally, I put both my hands flat against that wall, and water flowed out that hole through the spout to drop into the bowl below it."
Jean gave us his concepts of surprise when he saw this.
"At that, Jean made water pour out of the hole and more than fill the bowl, so much that I had to stand and move away from the mud puddle he was creating. Yet the water remained in a perfect circle on the ground. Next was a bit of rumbling and a muddy figurine emerged, of a girl sitting in jeans on the ground, just as I had moments before.
"The mud then turned to pure water, and the water figure raised it's arm to wave at me. She gestured for me to have a seat, which I did. And then we shared thoughts as I'm doing with you."
Betty was silent for a time, taking this all in. "How did you help Jean to learn to become human again?"
I smiled in my thoughts to both of them. "Lots of practice. Lots. But we both had plenty of time. And since neither of us had to really eat or sleep, we kept at it. He eventually simply touched my skin and felt my hair, then made these into forms on his own body shape. Finally, I let him share the space of my body as we are doing with you now. And he understood again the human form from its inside out, and then recalled being a human baby and growing up as a teen-ager. I also gave him my memories of this. And eventually, he simply moved out and formed up the body you saw up there earlier today."
Betty shared her happiness for Jean at this, as well as her own excitement about trying new things like forming a human body again. But she also expressed some doubts.
"Of course," I replied. "You don't have to do this all at once. And it didn't come back to Jean for quite a long time. Please take all the time you need and practice all you want. There is no rush at this, no goal we need to achieve here. I just came to share my understanding with you, as well as Jean's."
Betty was grateful and happy, for the first time in decades.
That seemed like a good time for Jean and I to take our leave, to tell our guests and friends the stories we had learned today.
So I told Betty, "We both need to go visit our human guests again. But just call us and we'll return as quickly as we can. We are only here to help you, in any way we can."
Betty gave us both a great hug and disappeared back into her canyon wall, making the whole wall glow as a show of appreciation.
- - - -
Jean and I returned to the front porch outside Hami's saloon building. It was as clean and sparkling as ever.
I've told you most of this story part before.
Jean had other business to take care of and left in his own elemental way. I then entered the old saloon-building and briefed the Ghost Hunters and Hami about what we'd found.
At the end of that sharing, Sal and Jude left John here to write while he finished his treatments.
And I told him this entire story, everything that we had talked to Betty about. I answered all of John's many questions, and he promised to write it down as factually as he could, but of course omitting some of the more boring details so that it would "read better".
I guess he likes mysteries, their entertaining plots, and leaving them solved neatly at the end. Everyone likes an entertaining read.
Since he's the one that writes a lot, we let him do it his way.
Later, when he needed more inspiration, we told him more of our other stories when he asked.
Jude came one day to borrow him for another adventure.
At least she left a stack of his books for us to catch up John's stories about them. And we put another desk in that corner, as close to the one he used as we could, so he can come back and write up more stories anytime he wants.
Since there are far more where this came from. And we got used to having cute hunk sitting there typing...
VIII
HAMI AND I WERE ENJOYING another night in the solitude of her saloon. The dishes were all done and put away. Except for the plate of Hami's delicious toll-house cookies and two tall tumblers of iced coffee. These sat nearby us on one of her round four-legged tables. We each were relaxing in our own ever-comfortable "caboose" bentwood chair, just reading from one of that tall stack of books Jude had left.
No one else around, just the tables, chairs and the long bar with it's mirror on the wall behind it.
Other than the way we were dressed and the paperbacks in our hands, the whole scene could be out of an 1880's Western tin-type photograph.
Our quiet was interrupted by a large dark winged form like a condor as it swooped down - a huge, fast shadow that dove across the front of the saloon windows. Soon following was the sound of scratching at the screen door. I was halfway out of my chair to open it when a large, white-maned coyote managed to get that screen door open and squeeze through.
She took a few steps inside, looked at both of us, and then put a big smile on her face.
With a shimmering, she turned into a tall dark-tanned woman with long white-blond straight hair halfway down her back, dressed in a tan buckskin dress beaded with turquoise and shell.
"Hello, Rochelle. It's been awhile. Remember me? Betty?"
I almost ran toward her to give her a hug. We both laughed at each other as we stood back at arms length and grinned at the sight before us. She had come so far in such a little time.
"And you must be Hami. How's Chaz? I learned so much from Jean and Rochelle about you."
Hami nodded and was about to reply when Betty took my arm again, a serious look on her face. "I'm sorry, and I'm probably being rude or something - you can help me with human manners and now-we're-spozed-to's at some point. But I really need your help. Can you come with me now?"
I turned to Hami and she understood completely. A big smile on her face.
Because when you're called, you've got to go.
I put my arm around Betty's waist. "Ready when you are."
The room shimmered as we turned to dust and seeped through the cracks in the floorboards into the dirt and gravel beneath the floor, then on into the subterranean depths...
Notes: I’ve included these Book Universes Notes from the original Ghost Hunters Primers. Here you can see how this universe has grown, and why we are jumping ahead to introduce main characters…
YOU MAY NEED TO REVIEW "The Lazurai" and "Case of the Forever Cure" as this is right into the original Lazurai existence. Another book is "Ghost Hunters", which explains that reference in this one.
We see Peter and Mari (of “Mind Timing”) show up in the second chapter again, talking to the Lazurai in the rock.
Next, we see reference to Rochelle (from "The Lazurai" and "The Lazurai Returns") and Hami (from “Ham & Chaz”). The opening chapter speaker is Jean, also from "Ham & Chaz”. The next two chapters tell his origin story, and that of the Lazurai in the rock. It also reveals that elementals are Lazurai - except for the very old ones she's met in traveling through the earth.
There is a more Ghost-Hunter-oriented version of these same events, called "The Spirit Mountain Mystery" This story is from the Lazurai view of those same events – and adds a lot more background.
Rochelle and Jean both meet with this original Lazurai, who's picked the name Betty as her own in Chapter Seven. They then enable Betty to discover that she can return to co-exist with humanity, be treated with respect and not hurt the humans with her virus infection.
The last chapter is Betty herself showing up at Hami's restaurant as a shape-shifting elemental, finally assuming human form to talk with them briefly – before taking Rochelle with her on an adventure - that starts in the next story (“For the Love of 'Cagga”)…