The War of Spring

I still remember that day, very vividly. A day like another, eyes locked on my music sheet and on the moving piano keys. It was pretty cold outside, but no wonder: it was July, ergo midwinter in southern Australia.

Out of thin air, someone appears next to me. It’s a girl I’ve never seen before, wearing a whimsical flannel dress that resembled a scholar uniform, and a wide-brimmed black hat with a ribbon cascading on its side. With a bit of hesitation—I can tell it’s probably the first time she speaks English—she presents herself as Micole Kemm, student of the “Great Fort Piano University”.

“What’s that?” I ask. The name genuinely sounds like a joke, but she widens her eyes, baffled to the fact that I don’t know anything about it. She’s serious. Her big black eyes are stunned.

“It’s the Great Fort Piano University,” she repeats, as if the name makes perfect sense and doesn’t sound ridiculous at all, “in Fort Piano, capital of Klavinia… Hertzia.” there, she rants out names that are just gibberish to me, but I get curious, and listen through.

“We’ve been researching other inhabited earths.” she proceeds, as if this were totally normal. “Despite our calendar and yours flowing at different paces, this specific year—2025, if I’m correct—” she looks at me awaiting an approval, I nod. “coincides with year 2025 in Hertzia. That made my calculations faster to reach out to you. Your coordinates also kinda match those of my dorm, give or take a second of latitude.”

With that, she turns her head toward my piano. “what’s that?” she asks.

I am more and more confused. She can apparently contact people from other planets, talk about time and space coincidences like it’s nothing, yet she doesn’t know what a piano is… despite living in a city called Fort Piano.

“This… is a piano.” I answer, as I wave off my negative thoughts and explain it with passion: “you can play music with it.” and as a demonstration, I press repeatedly on the A4 key, then play a chord, then read a couple bars from the piece I’ve been practicing.

She is struck.

Has she actually never heard a piano in her life?!

She scoffs. It’s probably too much to handle, a sensation so immense that she can’t explain it.

She then begs me to go with her. “Where?” I blink, “on your planet?” I don’t even know what is real and what isn’t, But she’s too strange, too specific, to be telling lies. And if this is madness… well, it’s a kind I wouldn’t mind exploring. This world, that she’s talking about, intrigues me, in some way. “How do we even get there?”

She doesn’t hesitate, and immediately gives me an answer: as she opens a rectangular door of light out of nothing. Beyond it, I could see a cozy room, filled with books, the screen of an awaiting, slanted computer monitor.

We cross a border between worlds.

At first, I thought that I would have come back in little time, but that place, Fort Piano, spoke to me like no other city ever did. I decided to stay, and they let me, as the first earthling living on Hertzia, their world. I learned about their magic, despite not being able to perform it—though Micole kept calling “magical” the piano I was playing in my room when we met, and she more than once told her friends about this black and white boxy thing capable of producing frequencies. I learned about their technology and customs.

I learned that Hertzia is a world that bears striking similarities to our own, yet the differences are impossible to ignore. Here, a single day and year last precisely five-thirds of their terrestrial equivalents, a fact that left me thoroughly bewildered the first time I encountered it. The realization that forty-hour days existed made me question everything I thought I knew about the passage of time. And yet, that was only the beginning, as to know what year it was on Hertzia starting from Earth years, I have here described an approximated calculation: (where Ey indicates an Earth year and Hy a Hertzian year). Hertzian years are, alike ours, divided into twelve months, each of thirty Hertzian days, plus four “beginning of season” days—essentially equinoxes and solstices—and a leap day every four years.

I learned about Hertzian people, who aren’t all one and the same. They like to distinguish themselves into three main groups, all with distinctive characteristics: Lyrs, with their vertical pupils, Eolans, with their long, pointed ears, and Vidhams, known for an impressively tall stature and large, circular freckles on their face. With time, they separated, subgroups emerged, but also merged with one another to form unique species.

“What are you, Micole?” I ask, as she doesn’t have any clear indication that she might be any of those.

“I am a Mallelyr, a hybrid people of Lyr and Vidham descent, the people who founded Klavinia.”

“How long do Hertzians live?”

“On average, around two hundred and fifty years, but some can make crazy exceptions.”

“Where do Hertzians go when they die?”

“There are many theories.” her answer is blunt, but then she softens: “Some say that there is nothing after death, some say that they reincarnate as other beings, others believe that the moons hold the answer,” she pointed at two orbs in the sky. “That over there, in violet, is Ulter. A theory says it’s a place where blessed souls are rewarded. That other one, in red, is Infer, where some believe that those who chose evil are punished. There is another theory, however, much more fascinating: the souls who aren’t born yet reside in Ulter, while those who leave their life go to Infer.”

I gaze up toward the sky. Two moons, one smaller, but closer, the other larger, but distant. A perfect illusion, making you think they were equal in size. And bizarrely, that was roughly the same size of the sun too, seen from Hertzia.

“I can only imagine how complex eclipse paths would be.” I point out, carelessly.

Micole freezes. “There is a piece of history about that.” she says. I can notice a saddening shift in her voice. “An epochal event that signed the end of Hertzia’s postmodern age and the beginning of the contemporary one, just a little more than a century ago. Some speak of divine intervention, while others insist that there is no trace of it.” she takes a breath. “Do you want to know more about it? Maybe you can retell it to the people of your planet.”

“Why not.” I reply.

Micole and I go to the Meta Interactive Dimensional Infinity—a special room in the university dedicated to holographic simulations. One inserts a chip, either borrowed from the chip library or even self-crafted, into a machine that lets you visualize specific events from the past or alternative timelines. That’s how I got to know about the War of Spring.

The only record that the university has comes from a translation of a report written in Old Rhedan, one of the languages of the Eolans. It’s most probably a fictionalized version of the truth, but we don’t know for certain.

Through these pages, I will guide you. I will be adding notes, explanations, and insights into the intricate world of Hertzian culture. Whether what follows is a retelling of truth or legend, I leave for you to decide.

Enjoy your journey.

— Ollie Dan Revenand