Chapter One 

Report Overview:  February  8, 2291.  Planet X54-P12ß, 13.6 x 103 ly from Earth, designation “Ogma” has been deemed suitable for colonization after analysis of fastprobe’s second survey.  Details to follow.

At first, Virgilia didn’t remember that she had died.  It took even longer to realize she was in a flying castle, though that should have been obvious.

Consciousness slowly returned, accompanied by memory.  She remembered the smell of incense, sweet and smoky and strong. She remembered the chanting of monks, rising and falling, harmonious deep voices, singing of gods and paradise and the long sleep of death. She remembered someone holding her hand and someone weeping. Were they the same person? She could not recall.

Virgilia remembered the pain, the weakness, the distance, and the longing for greater distance yet. She had collapsed one morning while knitting a baby's blanket, and they had taken her to the hospice in Ansa's temple complex, in Meron. Who took her? One of her daughters? Beatrice. Yes, Beatrice the worrier, of course. No doubt Beatrice would have splurged and rented an autodrive, as if such comforts could matter at Virgilia’s age.  

She did not remember the trip, but she remembered the temple, dim and sad, yet through the sorrow: a hint of peace. It was time at last, after all the years, all the work, all the prayers. Her duties were at an end, and she could rest. 

Her heart had beat fast, feebly, fluttering like a baby bird too small to fly, too weak to do any good. Her breaths came slower, shallower, more and more distant. The pain which had wracked her joints, her stomach, her head, for years past counting, faded to a dull ache, and then to nothing. The voices grew faint. She no longer felt anyone holding her hand, or calling her name, or singing Ansa's praises. She had felt nothing at all. 

Then.  

Then... what? Was there something in the stillness as her life ebbed? 

Whatever may have touched her, it was gone. Now she lay, painless and whole, apparently, on her back on a soft, warm bed. A musical voice spoke, "Virgilia Cohen, awaken now and receive the reward your virtue has earned." 

Virgilia opened her eyes. 

"Welcome to paradise," the angel said. 

She sat up. While the room was immense and splendid, Virgilia could not stop staring down at herself. Her body was young, perfect, and beautiful, surely more beautiful than it ever had been before she'd... died. She ran her soft, unwrinkled hands over her smooth arms and legs. Nothing hurt. Everything was strong and fit. 

She was dressed in a flowing robe of pale blue silk, and lying on a huge, plush canopied bed, within a vast vaulted room made of deep blue sapphire with gold trim. 

Ansa must have known that her favorite color was blue. 

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and tried to take it all in. The huge bedchamber was at least thirty meters wide in each direction, with an arched golden ceiling, a dozen meters high at peak.  A diamond chandelier hung there, casting rainbows over the sapphire walls.   

Enormous windows punctuated the far wall, showing bright sky but no direct sun. In the center of the room was a fountain surrounded by several white velvet sofas.  As she watched, the water in the fountain shimmered, sizzled, and turned to molten fire.  Virgilia stared, transfixed.  A while later the liquid fire returned to water.   

In another corner an archway offered a glimpse into a massive dressing room, filled with enough clothing to outfit a whole town.  It would take days just to explore the bedchamber.     

Before she began that, she wanted some basics: what kind of place this was, where it was located, and who else was here. The angels watched her with shining jewel-tone eyes, but she didn't want to speak to them. She wanted to explore and be surprised. 

She wondered, with a sudden surge of joy, if Ansa himself was here. If she would at last meet the god she had loved forever. 

Virgilia left the bedchamber and explored halls and ballrooms and theaters and wide beautiful spaces whose function she could not discern. All the while calm, beautiful angels trailed behind. When one was very near, she felt warm and tingly, and seemed to sense a melody in her mind. 

After wandering for hours and finding no answers, only room after room of amazing beauty, Virgilia turned and spoke to the angel behind her. "What is this place?"  

"It is a paradise created for you, Ansa's loyal follower, to delight in forever."

"Are there other people here?" 

"No." 

"Is Ansa here?" 

"No." 

Virgilia suppressed her disappointment. The angel was bland and without personality. It had a lovely voice and it looked kind, but the answers it gave were like referencing a book, and they weren't the answers she longed for. She would have no real conversation there. She walked on. 

A large pool of steaming water. A large pool of cool water. A fountain. A stream of rippling water and a waterfall. A huge greenhouse, with every variety of garden flower, all simultaneously in flawless bloom. A zoo with animals of every kind, both garden and wild.  There, a zebra, three mudbirds, and an unfamiliar, horned, cat-like beast came over and vied for her attention before she moved on.  Beyond the zoo a long hallway full of mirrors reflected Virgilia's beautiful young countenance back at her a thousandfold.She found that a little disturbing, to be honest. At the end of the mirrored hall, an archway revealed bright sky. At least, she would get a view of where she was.

The hall opened to a large -- everything seemed large here -- sapphire terrace with a golden railing. The air was clear with a few puffy clouds on the horizon. As she stared, a huge, glittering ruby structure, all crenelations and thick walls, flew past, vivid against the bright blue of the sky.  It was a flying castle, as close as she’d ever seen one. 

The castle drifted away, silent and swift.  A brisk wind blew, and while Virgilia perceived that the air was cold, she felt no discomfort. She must be up on a high hill then, perhaps even a mountain. 

She looked over the balcony. Below she saw wisps of white cloud, and beneath that a patch of violet forest, and next to it a vast plain of yellow grass. Among the grass she saw a tiny green square: a town with spokes of train lines radiating from it.  She couldn’t tell which town it was. This was a flying castle, too. Not just a mysterious, rare, awe-inspiring sight in the sky, but her new home.   She’d died and come back to life on a flying castle.

Virgilia didn't know whether to delight, or panic, or despair.