The War Chamber by B. Roman Page B

as it had whipped up. The air is as still as before. Not a whisper of a movement is felt.
    Sokar flops down on the rowboat bench, stunned speechless. Then with a sudden revelation, he grabs up the oars and rows with fierce determination and strength.
    “We have to tell Bianca,” Sokar exclaims. “She'll never believe this. No one will.”

Ten
    “Is this the ship you told me about, David?” Bianca asks, her voice edged with a mix of excitement and dread.
    David nods. “Yes. The Moon Singer.”
    Sokar is amazed that Bianca is not surprised. “You know about this ship?”
    “Yes, Sokar. It's time you knew the truth. David, too. Come with me.”
    The bewildered boys follow Bianca to her bedroom. She takes the lacquered jewelry box from her dressing table drawer and removes the wood sculpture.
    “Let me see your Singer, David.”
    David opens his pouch and gives Bianca the crystal, which she lays side by side with the little wood ship.
    “They look exactly alike,” David says, “like the same person carved them both.”
    “Many centuries ago,” Bianca begins her story, “a cataclysmic event was prophesied and it was feared that all the great knowledge that had been acquired would be destroyed if it were recorded in books. So, the very wise scholars programmed a large vein of crystals with all their knowledge and all the knowledge of the Universe, then rematerialized the crystals into the earth. They trusted, when the time was right, that the crystal would surface and be attracted to the people who would use this wisdom well.
    “Many years later, this vein was discovered by my father and my husband. Like the wise, uncorrupted men and women before them, they recognized both the potential for greatness and the potential for evil in such power. My father and my husband broke up the vein of crystals and fashioned it into the three masts of the Moon Singer, which represent Love, Wisdom and Truth.
    “They set the ship adrift on a pre-programmed course to another dimension where she would be safe from unscrupulous men. Before they did, however, they chiseled a bit of crystal from each mast and fashioned the chips into the Singer crystal, which they named The Record Keeper. Some people also call it the Crystal of Wisdom. The Singer is the only crystal that can activate the ship's many powers.
    “When my father knew he would soon die he wanted to give it to my husband. But my husband knew that the secrets of the Moon Singer were in danger of being revealed, for his work had been ransacked more than once by thieves in the night looking for the Singer. To protect it, we buried it with my father so that even in death he could direct that it be found by the right person. As a remembrance, my husband carved a replica of the Singer out of wood and gave it to me.”
    “But if the Singer was buried, how did my Aunt Dorothy find it?”
    “You said she brought it back from one of her archeological digs. She must have found it unwittingly. Some burial grounds that were destroyed after the Great War have been unearthed recently.”
    “What war?”
    “The war that my people fought with an invading army who came to Coronadus.”
    “Are you saying my aunt was digging here? In Coronadus?”
    “No, no. The earthly counterpart to Coronadus.”
    “Earthly counterpart? What does that mean?” David was now feeling like the little ball in a ping-pong game, being whacked not with a paddle but with startling information he couldn't comprehend.
    “It's too complicated to explain now. This is why Ishtar and I were separated. I wanted him to save our daughter, Saliana –”
    “Wait – wait!” David interrupts her. “Saliana is your daughter?” Another astounding whack of information sends him reeling. “You mean Ishtar is your - ?”
    “Yes, my husband. Ishtar took Saliana away to the Island. I stayed behind and joined the underground to help save our people. But most of them died, brutally, savagely. Only a few of us survived. The