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  The Tandro Series - Book One

  Naomi E Lloyd

  To all the diamond philosophers out there.

  Each and every one of you helped to make this book journey a truly enlightening experience.

  Join Naomi’s Tandro Diamond Team

  Members of Naomi’s Tandro Team gain access to the exclusive Tandro Diamond Energy Cave for free books, treasure hunt competitions, behind the scene photographs and unique items to accompany the books.

  Members are always the first to hear about Naomi’s new books and publications.

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  Contents

  Introduction

  Dreamscapes

  Part I

  1. The Escape

  2. The Cave

  3. The Lagoon

  4. Light

  5. Mint

  6. The Pyramid

  7. Games

  8. The Return

  9. The Reveal

  Part II

  10.Journeys

  11. Stones

  12. Beats

  13.Power

  14. Roots

  15. Mirror

  16. The Cabin

  17. Shivers

  18. Promises

  19. Facets

  20. Tears

  21. Blood

  22. Memories

  23. Revelations

  24. Findings

  25. Endings

  26. Confusion

  27.Vibrations

  28. Visions

  Part III

  29. Sacrifice

  30. Pomelo

  31. Perfume

  32. Vapour

  33. Pain

  34. Players

  35. Paint

  36. Candles

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Please Leave A Review

  Join Team Tandro

  Also by Naomi E Lloyd

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Most of us dream from the outside. Even in a nightmare we know we are observers. For as real as the bear chase, the passionate kiss, or the falling from a great height may feel, we know our mind is playing with the desires and fears we hold within. The reliving of what has already happened to us whilst we sleep.

  Tiegal did not dream in this way. She lived her dreams as though she were awake. Her dreams shared little connection to her personal memories, hopes, or longings.

  But they had everything to do with her future.

  These were auspicious dreams.

  The kind of dreams that filled her with desire and hope.

  But then came the portentous dreams.

  The kind of dreams you did not always want to believe in.

  Dreamscapes

  Tiegal inhaled the air inside the pink bubble which contained her, ever aware of her tendency to feel claustrophobic whenever her dreams placed her in this scene. It was imperative that she keep herself here – for as long as possible this time – hovering over this river in her energy capsule, where she could observe the fair-haired male she was so drawn to.

  A combination of pleasant tastes filled her mouth. They were delicious, but also, deeply unsatisfying. For she knew they were only her reaction to him, the sense of him - and not a real perception of substance in her mouth.

  “Honey,” she whispered. “And citrus, combined with damp wood.”

  He couldn’t see her. She knew that much about this dream. That she would be given a few minutes to watch him, from afar, as he played with some stones on the bank of the river, twisting his wrists back and forth to flick and catch them in one swift maneuver. It always fascinated her; such a carefree act, with no purpose other than pleasure.

  “Why do I keep coming here? You must mean something to me, to my future?” she announced. Her words echoed around her. The pink globe of energy that encapsulated her swirled its thin sphere of liquid, as though responding to her words. Tiegal sighed as the colours of her surrounding bubble grew denser. She hated it when her view of him was obscured in anyway. For once, she wanted to stay in the dream long enough to glean some clues. To finally understand more about her connection to this beautiful looking male from another world.

  Where is this? And what kind of being are you? You look like me and my kind. At least in body and form. Perhaps a bit shorter than the males in Tandro? But your frame is strong and muscular as theirs are. And you move and breathe just as we do. Still, I can sense we are not the same species.

  Your skin is different. So much lighter. Like pale sand, crushed shells, and cream. And yet you smell of wood and bees and the lemons that grow on the trees. A sublime perfume. It’s like none I have ever encountered. Even from this distance, you are filling my senses with your scent and the taste of your essence. You are familiar, but somehow not of my world - or even from my time.

  How do I know this? I don’t know. It’s a feeling. Perhaps it’s in the sights and the sounds that surround you? The rushing river, the strange upside-down trees, the sound of wooden wheels being pulled, and of animals working, rather than being nurtured.

  It whispers of an older world, one still full of variety, and of difference. One not yet aware of the power of energies and diamonds, or, how it is possible to rebuild again when all has been lost.

  Tiegal reached up to pull her dark hair away from where it stuck to her forehead as she waited for the scene to unfold. Although her naked skin was exposed inside this hovering colour surround, she was always warm when she experienced this world in her dreams. There was no question that this male, who she was so drawn to, lived in a hot climate. His skin gleamed sweat as he batted away flies from his face. He pulled at his cream cotton shirt to detach it from the sticky wetness of his under-arms.

  Her heart raced as she watched him. She knew there was not much time left here. The dream would soon end. Unless, that is, she was able to move her bubble a little closer to him. If she could just get near enough to see his eyes, then she would know, could finally understand, this magnetic force that existed between them.

  “Hello!” she called out to him.

  The colours intensified around her once more. Now a rich amethyst in place of the soft coral hue of before.

  “I want to see him! I need to see his face!” she demanded. Her right foot lifted and stamped down on the liquid substance beneath her before quickly disappearing from her view. She had to extend her arms to the side to steady her balance.

  “Please?” she tried again, not knowing who or what she was pleading with to change the course of her sleep journey.

  Sighing, she closed her eyes, accepting that her request would go unheard. She let her head fall back, preparing to transport to her world of awakening - to the world in which she never felt she truly belonged.

  Look into his eyes Tiegal!

  She gasped at the sound of her own voice instructing her from inside her head.

  “I can’t!” She pointed at the opaque colours in front of her.

  You can’t? Or you won’t?

  “I’m not in control of this though,” she spoke back to herself, annoyed that another part of her – one perhaps more in control – had a clearer perspective than she could see in this moment.

  The smell filled her nose again. Breathing him in, she smiled at the realization that she had somehow moved herself closer to him. With her eyes still closed, she squeezed her arms around her chest and willed the coloured fog to clear, even for a moment, so she could take a look at his face.

  1,2,3,4,5…

  Tiegal counted out loud. When the sense of him close to her threatened to overwhelm, she opened her eyes and gasped. It was just one look, a glance, but she saw it in the shape and colour of his eyes- a
large circle of green centered by a smaller circle of black. They did not flash out light from the pupils. These were gentler, slower, pools of colour. More like the eyes of an animal.

  Confirmation that he was a different creature than her. And yet, somehow, a new awareness, a promise that she would one day become just like him.

  Part One

  TANDRO

  2065

  1. The Escape

  “I am an Island.

  I am fire.

  I am light.

  No one can douse my fire.

  No one can dim my light.

  No one can enter my island.”

  Tiegal watched them all carefully, assessing each of the kimberlings as they chanted the morning mantra. They were all so trusting. There was not a hint of questioning from any of them. But then, this was all they knew; this was their way of life. They relied on this ritual to start their day. All the Tandroans did. It was their instruction, their purpose: to maintain their own fire!

  Tiegal recognised herself in each of them; at least, her younger self.

  These words were as familiar to her as her own breathing; their rhythm as recognizable as her heartbeat. They were imprinted into her brain like the strongest glue. Never to be removed. She had chanted them when she was a kimberling, and now, almost eighteen and a teacher to these young ones, she was hearing them chanted back to her.

  You learn what you live

  This thought came into her head, as she stood before them. They were all living like robots. It was the same, every day: arise, eat, chant, work, eat, chant, sleep and repeat.

  Every morning, her assigned group met on this large decked classroom, the eating and meeting place for this floating camp. They ate their morning meal in silence and then turned to face the rising sun, ready to declare their dedication: to preserve their own fire, their energy, their gift from the ultimate star in front of them.

  A doctrine that used to make sense to her when she was younger. It brought her comfort, security and purpose. But that was before. She was older now, stronger, and becoming more aware of her own power. After last nights’ dream, Tiegal was more determined than ever to find a way to reach beyond this ordered sameness. She had to find her destiny; one that she was convinced lay beyond this group of islands they were all confined to.

  The chanting stopped and the young kimberlings turned their attention from the sun to her face, staring at her with dogged intensity as they had been trained to. After all, it was their duty to assure her of their loyalty to the Tandro life.

  They waited for her to speak. She opened her mouth to start her talk but then had to steady herself on a nearby pillar in order to prevent herself from falling.

  One of the male kimberlings, seated at the front and closest to her, cried out to her:

  “Teacher Tiegal you are too close to the edge. You will fall in!”

  She looked over her shoulder to check her surroundings. The young male was right: she must have swayed a little during their chant, moved too near to the water.

  “It’s such a beautiful lake though. I am sure I would enjoy the dip!” she answered him with a smile.

  The young kimberling frowned at her.

  “But you would lose your sun energy if you got wet so soon after we…”

  “That’s okay, don’t you worry. I don’t plan to lose any energy at all. You have all shared plenty this morning with your dedication. Now it is my turn to extend some of my energy back towards all of you,” she assured him, moving herself forward, to a safer distance away from the edge.

  “Okay, you have five minutes to ask me some general questions and then we will move on to the procreation process. I know you are all so keen to learn more about this.”

  She was anything but keen on discussing this.

  A female kimberling put her arm in the air.

  “Yes?” Tiegal asked.

  “Can you tell me when we can be part of the Jarm matches?” the kimberling called out.

  Tiegal did her best to disguise her sigh –and her yawn –by flicking away the mosquitos that had gathered around her ankles. It was already stifling hot now the sun had made her appearance and everything else on the Kimberrago Island had burst into life in response. The cicadas were particularly excitable this morning; their noise seemed to have kick-started a gibbon monkey chorus in the jungle behind them. The urge to run up the hill to join them all was almost overwhelming. She had always believed that the jungle was where the real energy could be found.

  Abandoning the class was not an option though. She was here to answer their questions.

  “We will get to the Jarm Matches in good time. I just need you to understand the process of carbon donation first,” she explained.

  The kimberlings all looked at her, wide-eyed, each of them wearing identical expressions.

  We’ve made robots.

  “Okay then, first of all, who can name the two most abundant elements in our Tandroan bodies?”

  All twenty-five of them answered in unison:

  “Oxygen and carbon”

  Tiegal nodded. “That’s correct. Now, who can name a pure carbon substance?”

  “Diamond!”

  The young male nearest to her was the first to answer. She threw him a piece of dried mango in reward.

  “Very good! Now, who can tell me where this carbon came from, originally? And the first to answer gets not one, but two, dried banana pieces.”

  This was one of her favourite parts of teaching – throwing out rewards- because it was her invention. It inspired competition between them; something she was not supposed to encourage, which was exactly why she did it anyway.

  One by one the kimberlings responded with their theories about supernova explosions and the elements that are released from them.

  “We are like the ashes of dying stars! We must be, if we are all so abundant in carbon.”

  One male kimberling declared with confidence.

  “We are more than just ashes of dying stars. We are part of something even deeper. We are children of diamonds!”

  Silence.

  They all knew this – it had been drummed into them since their creation day - but just saying those five words always created a surge of vibrational energy underneath them. The decking on their floating island shook a little in response to their excitement. Tiegal glanced behind her to check the activity in the lake. As expected, a shoal of puffer fish had already made their surface appearance in response to the ripples in the lake.

  She yawned again, keen now to move to the next stage, so she could finally satisfy the kimberlings’ curiosity, and then get back to her bed. Her dream journeys to the other world and the mysterious fair-haired male were finally starting to catch up with her.

  Reaching behind her, where her favourite bamboo chair was tucked in the corner, she picked up a palm-sized device, octahedron in shape, and placed it on the table nearest to the edge of the decking. Careful to balance it so that its small lens faced the lake, she twisted her finger and thumb on either side of it as she had been trained.

  “Okay everyone. I want you to watch carefully. This here is a Holomac. It is an innovation in visual imagery that we have just received from the Rungar Island. The mechanical designers over there have distributed these across the camps so we can start using them for our educational needs. I am going to press this one more time now to prompt it into action. Please don’t be alarmed by what you see. The machine will project an image across the water and then you can watch a show! I think you will all enjoy it! It’s the story of our creation process. It’s called the Journey of Our Energies.”

  As expected, they all gasped in amazed anticipation. She pressed the Holomac firmly and stood back to allow them a clear view of the image that quickly formed into a suspended screen over the lake.

  Let them be amazed by this. It’s the best version of their life they will ever see!

  She was grateful that these young ones were not yet capable of accessing the thoughts
she still found so difficult to hide.

  A voice boomed out from the device; a narrative to accompany the moving depictions of bloody wars; chemical experiments; dark skies; icy, deserted lands – the days of destruction, when all who had survived made their way to the centre – to what became the bundle of habitable islands of Tandro.

  The narrator, was their ruler, Atla, of course”

  “For centuries a wider world existed, a species who spread themselves across the lands, divided in their desires, fighting to exercise their choices, often to the detriment of others. There was only ever going to be one ending to this way of life: destruction. Only the fittest could survive, and only the strongest did; the ones most adaptable to change.

  And so, they gathered together, the best of them, from each of the lands, to find the stable zone, where the sun could still provide the energy for us to survive and thrive.”

  Tiegal fought to prevent herself from rolling her eyes as the dark, grey images changed to reveal the bright blue skies and sprawling green jungle terrains of the Tandro islands.

  Here come the beats! She mocked the creators of the show inwardly.