The Seventh Egg is the Egg of Destruction

Chapter 1

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She warped to distant Hafren, the twin of Luna, on her way to Estrildis, the Second Earth—the second that yet begat the first.

The traveler's name was Marmalade and she had a twin of her own named Alabaster whom she'd spotted as she was in the middle of the leap and a long way up, and before she'd even landed it was already clear to her that Alabaster was in a foul mood.

He sat under a tree in the center of a beautiful garden situated at the base of an impact crater roughly ten miles in diameter and a thousand feet deep. The garden was a verdant oasis shining splendidly against a sandy sea of swirling silver desert winds that blasted against the crags of the crater, accomplishing nothing.

Alabaster's eyes burned with infernal energy, and he said, "Guess what we're going to be doing for the next couple of weeks?"

"It's a joke," said Marmalade.

Alabaster said, "No it isn't. To him it's everything."

The two sighed and their minds went into a dismal and cantankerous lock-step precipitating in a thermonuclear event.

It razed the lakes, the streams, and the creepy crawly things off the map in an instant, and the flash startled nighttime revelers down on Estrildis who gazed up at Hafren and the stars, feeling curious, but also somewhat fearful.

Though most of the witnesses would remain uncertain of what they'd seen, one man, sitting alone at a crowded restaurant situated on a rusted barge that floated tranquilly in the middle of the round bay near Castle Marmalon, knew exactly what he'd seen, and during the event he had smiled and sipped his drink as the great light flashed and dimmed.

His name was Klearvius Kern, and he had a plan.

* * *

Unfortunately for Klearvius, he soon hit a snag. For the next day, he felt something was off. At first he couldn't quite make out what it was. He thought maybe it had something to do with the oysters he'd eaten last evening as he watched his will acted out against the backdrop of the night sky. Maybe the meal simply hadn't agreed with him, but no. That wasn't it. He didn't feel sick. This was something else. Maybe he was dehydrated.

He drank a glass of water, and yet, he did not feel any better. He decided that whatever the problem was, he'd ignore it, and maybe it would go away. Since he had no real way of classifying the phenomenon there was nothing he could do about it. The only symptom he felt was that he was drained of all enthusiasm, which made no sense, considering that he'd had a full night of dreamless sleep following what to him had been a tremendous personal victory.

But a second later, a fighting-spirit named Bombarella ripped the door off its hinges and marched her way into Klearvius' study, and somehow it was precisely at this moment that the magician realized he'd lost the will to live. Even still, he found himself smiling, because the situation fascinated him.

Behind Bombarella a young woman hovered two feet above the ground, caught in a constricting cloud of purple ectoplasm which had enveloped her from her neck down to her navel, and held her suspended in the air. The cloud trailed behind Bombarella as she moved, so from this Klearvius inferred that the woman was Bombarella's hostage.

Klearvius said, "Is that you, Jane? Of course it is. Hello, Jane. Hello, Bombarella."

Jane said, "Kleary, you are a liar, a fraud, and a scoundrel. I've lost control of her, and this is your doing. Fix it."

Bombarella said, "Give me the 'Heresy of The Once and Future Past.' Do this, or I'll kill the girl."

And with that, she snapped her fingers, and put her hands back on her hips. Then the cloud of ectoplasm began to tighten its grip around Jane, who seemed to be struggling to breathe.

Klearvius said, "You are the girl. You're one and the same."

To which Bombarella replied,"That's the problem. Give me your book on Alchemy. Give me 'The Heresy of The Once and Future Past.' I want autonomy. I want the freedom you promised. I'd rather die than go on this way."

"Ok," said Klearvius. And he walked over to his bookshelf, pulled down 'The Heresy of The Once and Future Past', and then sat it flat against his desk.

Next he waved his hand over the book, then brought it to Bombarella, but the fighting-spirit hesitated to accept it.

"What's the matter?" asked Klearvius.

Bombarella said, "Why did you wave your hand over it?"

To which Klearvius replied, "I was just being stupid. You wanted the book, so here it is."

Bombarella said, "You're trying to trick me."

"Maybe," said Klearvius. He set the book at Bombarella's feet and walked over to Jane.

After thinking it over, Bombarella decided to pick up the book and flip through its contents. Following a quick inspection she turned to Klearvius and said, "I don't know what you're trying to---"

But before she could finish her sentence, Klearvius struck Jane with a quick chop to the back of the head and caught her as the ectoplasm dissolved. Meanwhile, Bombarella reverted to a cloud of energy, and was sucked back into Jane's crown chakra.

"Sorry Jane," said Klearvius, and he laid her down on a nearby couch and covered her with a warm blanket.

Next he surveyed the damage to his apartment, made a note of everything that needed fixing, then went downstairs and brewed some tea. As he prepared to take the tea upstairs into his study, Klearvius thought to himself:So I've lost the will to live, and yet, somehow, I'm still curious enough to figure out why that is. Could this be some kind of curse? We shall see.

Later, over tea, he asked her, "When Bombarella took you hostage, how many witnesses were there?"

Jane said, "None that I know of. Although, your neighbors are going to wonder why your front door has been broken into."

Klearvius said, "Don't worry about them. Just tell me how it happened."

"Bombarella was nowhere to be seen, but she had me in some kind of trance all the way up to your front door. Then I snapped out of it. For a second I thought I'd overpowered her, but then she physically manifested and wrapped me in that cloud of hers. Then she kicked in your front door, went up to the study, and kicked in that door as well," said Jane.

Klearvius said, "Ok. So maybe nobody saw that. Not that it would matter. These kinds of incidents are becoming increasingly less rare."

"I'm mad at you," said Jane.

"Why?" asked Klearvius.

Jane said, "If knocking me out caused Bombarella to disappear, then I was never in any real danger of suffocating. Which means you didn't have to chop me on the back of the head."

"We don't know that for a fact. Ever heard of sleep apnea? I mean, you can't be attributing that chop to personal malice," said Klearvius.

"More like criminal negligence," said Jane.

Klearvius said, "And what if the ectoplasm had detonated? What then?"

To which Jane responded, "That's another thing. You told me that freak was out of my life for good. What went on during those hypnotism sessions?"

Klearvius sighed, and said, "During that last one, I talked to Bombarella directly. It turned out she was blowing things up because she wanted to be free. The only freedom I could give her was to integrate her into your psyche. So I compelled her, using magic, to integrate. It should have worked. And I'm sure it did work. But something seems to have changed."

Jane was silent for a moment, then she said, "If you want to make this up to me, I'll tell you what needs to happen. And you should want to make this up to me, because my father is incomprehensibly wealthy, and with his wealth comes a kind of power that would supersede your little magic tricks."

Klearvius said, "So...then...a refund?"