Yngve, AR - Darc Ages

by Darc Ages (lit)

"For ever and ever," he whispered to her.

  PROLOGUE TO BOOK 3

  BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR 940 A.M., THE MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE HAD EMERGED.

  From the most decadent and inbred ranks of the Castilian aristocracy, Tharlos Pasko swiftly rose to power and wicked influence.

  Gifted with ambition and ruthlessness in equal measures, and the eerie charisma of a man possessed, he was determined to steer the country onto a path of war and slaughter.

  At first only a few brave men and women dared to oppose him, and the Damon clan were the natural leaders of this opposition. Through the events of that fateful year the Damons came to be associated with greatness, courage - and self-sacrifice.

  But let us not forget the minor players on the stage of history, for there were many. From nowhere sprung names that would become legend, and had their mettle tested for the first time. And many were the villains great and small, who came to an ignoble end in 940 A.M.

  A bloody year it was, and one to be lived to the fullest...

  Excerpt from Librian's "Chronicles" (translated from the original language)

  Chapter 37

  Pasko City still stood well fortified and guarded, and had not once been attacked since Tharlos Pasko's failed attempt to take Damon City. The city's decadent elite remained in thrall to Tharlos's secret cult of Koban-Jem.

  Tharlos had gradually taken over the remaining authority of his weakening parents; his absolute rule was just one step from becoming official. But the young ruler, eager and anxious to stay in power, saw the need of a scapegoat for his failed campaign against the Damons.

  At previous times of crisis, the Paskos had used the ingrained fear of Lepers to manipulate their subjects. However, the Leper tribes were nowhere near Castilia.

  Tharlos had to resort to more readily available victims. He picked the city's most prominent minority as his target, and prepared a pogrom.

  Little more than a month after the Summer Festival which had started the war, Tharlos rallied his followers and the populace to the courtyard outside his castle. His father Migam Pasko, the official ruler, was "indisposed" and failed to show up.

  Tharlos merely found it convenient to have him out of the way. All was set; the public antipathy toward the city's heathens was as evident as ever - all he had to do was stir it up.

  Just as the sun set, he showed himself to the crowd from a balcony. Illuminated by dramatic torchlight, dressed in full mechanized battle armor and bareheaded, Tharlos's shoulder-long dye-yellow hair seemed to bring an aura about his gaunt, pale face.

  The crowd stopped murmuring when it saw him; thousands of eyes stared at him for an explanation of his recent defeat. He gave the crowd a long, grave look, and raised his heavy metal-clad arms.

  "My dear beloved people -" he shouted, voice amplified through the loudspeaker in his armor, "- it is my sad duty to announce that we have been betrayed. In the recent battle, our brave soldiers were within a hair's breadth of taking Damon City, this close to delivering us from the witchdoctor-friend, Bor Damon! But too late, we discovered that our weapons had been sabotaged - by a traitor in our midst! A wicked follower of Kristos he was, working for Damon and the witchdoctor Darc!"

  The crowd roared its resentment; Tharlos released its basest desires with great expertise.

  "Upon my return to Pasko City, I have investigated the affairs of the Kristos followers. And what have I found? That the fiend Darc is also a believer in Kristos!"

  The crowd gasped at this news. Tharlos's spies had reported, quite correctly, that Darc sometimes uttered the ancient name of Kristos. It was first now that Tharlos had found proper use for that knowledge. The mob was ripe; he ignited it.

  "Yes," he shouted, "those infidels, walking among us, are allied to our worst enemies! I urge you to go forth and punish the Kristoites - now! For the sake of our city, you must show no mercy! They would gladly expose your children to the evil that knows no name! Their destruction will herald our ultimate triumph over the Damons! This is our land, and it must be washed clean! Go forth and burn the heathens! The Goddess wills it! "

  The roaring crowd grabbed lit torches from a conveniently placed set of racks, and rushed out into the dark streets. The city's four hundred Christians - unarmed merchants and their families - would not stand a chance against the thousand-headed monster Tharlos had unleashed.

  "Bring out the wagons," he told his officers, "and collect all gold and valuables from the heathens' homes. Then bring it to my treasurer at once. Call it... a war tax."

  The highest-ranking captain bowed to him and replied: "As you wish, Lord Pasko."

  Lord Pasko. Tharlos smirked at the soldier's slip of the tongue, and gave him a slight nod before dismissing the militia. For the time being, the formal lordship of the city belonged to his father - but this might soon change. The drunken city lord was just past fifty, but who could foresee an untimely accident?

  As Tharlos watched the fires spreading from the distant Christian ghetto, he pondered possible ways of eliminating his parents. The distant shouts and screams from the burning houses served as fuel for his destructive imagination.

  Smoke from the fires drifted up to his castle balcony, and he whispered a prayer: "Koban-Jem, smell the offerings I so generously offer you. Help me destroy my enemies and I swear to please you, to wreak destruction and death as you demand. Death to all -"

  Suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Tharlos shivered where he stood. What error had he just made? He had felt belief in the power of human sacrifice. Before this pogrom, he had regarded the murders only as a means to control his depraved followers - not as a life-or-death matter.

  Tearing at his yellow-dyed hair, he cursed himself for falling for his own tricks. He looked away to the burning houses, traced the glowing smoke with his finger, up into the black sky.

  Tharlos found himself staring into nothing, and a terrifying insight came to him: There's no godly power in that stinking smoke, apart from the earthly power over people's lives. I know that. But if so, what magic is there in that infinite dark of space? Is there anything there at all? Black Sun, why won't you show yourself to me?

  And the black of the night appeared to him not as an embodiment of the Black Sun, his god of destruction, but as really empty . He was worshipping nothingness, and that was far worse than believing in an evil entity.

  The might of Koban-Jem dwindled away; it, too, became pointless. On an impulse, Tharlos whirled around to see if anyone had spotted him shaking with fear - but not a single guard or robot servant was in sight. Tharlos went inside, ordered his battle armor to be removed, then quickly retreated to his rooms.

  He felt a void grow in his soul; his body seemed to him a false thing, as if he was made of straw and might crumble at the poke of a finger. And then it occurred to him in a flash, that Darc must be to blame .

  Darc, his newest, most hated enemy, was out there somewhere and already winning. Tharlos knew it, but refused to admit it even to himself. He filled the inner void with more hate. He would form a new alliance of cities to crush Darc, wipe out the Damon clan, and remain victorious.

  And if he could not make Darc suffer, if the man was immortal as the reports and rumors suggested, then someone would suffer. A chambermaid, a mistress, a family member... a sacrifice. The Koban-Jem cult followers had to be catered to regularly, lest they grow uncontrollable and useless to him.

  His restless long fingers began to play with the cult's ritual dagger he always carried around, as he went to seek out new prey.

  Meanwhile in North Castilia, the days passed in an atmosphere more anxious and stressful; the war with the Paskos had merely entered a pause.

  Damon City and its neighboring city-states were being re-fortified and armed, and the citizens strained under the burden of added taxes and duties. At great cost, more mechanized armors, laser rifles, and jet aircraft were built than ever before.

  The armament frenzy was so intense, that the public electricity quota was
rationed to new lows - and the citizens' complaints grew louder.

  Lord Bor Damon, ever more isolated in his castle, returned the complaints with threats of punishment for "traitors". The people of his city began to whisper their complaints, fearful of eavesdropping soldiers.

  The word was passed on from mouth to mouth: Lord Damon banished Darc, the Reincarnated King. Everything went wrong since then, and the good Sir Dohan was chased away too. It is the punishment of the Goddess.

  Of all the Damon family - now isolated and increasingly scorned by gentry and commoners alike - only Lady Osanna took the prophecies literally. Secretly, she prayed forgiveness to the Goddess and begged for the return of her only son. She was not yet past childbearing, but so much had already been invested in Dohan, that she could not bear to lose him.

  No man knew that better than Bor Damon himself. He buried himself in the buildup of fortifications and arms, not quite sure what he was arming up against - the war with the Paskos, the vengeful return of his rejected son, or his own fears?

  Thanks to his reserve of inner strength, he kept balancing on the edge of self-destruction. The city lord's nights were spent in solitary drinking.

  The Damon family and its household held together in the absence of its beloved son, because the shadow of the unfinished war still loomed. Dohan's fate being unclear, Andon and Bwynn found themselves receiving increasing attention; the future of the clan might be in their hands, should Bor and Osanna fail to get another son.

  They were not happy about the prospect; they, as much as anyone else, had grown comfortable in the trust that Dohan would take over the city after his father.

  Bor Damon's former allies were in disarray, bickering when they should unite... and gave Tharlos the time he needed to lick his wounds from ther recent battle.

  The summer days in the Kap Verita archipelago passed, as they had been doing for thousands of years: indolent, dry, and hot.

  For the young lovers Dohan and Meijji, this became the happiest period of their lives. At daytime, they traveled by boat between the islands.

  In his beloved's company, Dohan could forget all thoughts of war or duty; they spent entire days just playing like children, or wandering aimlessly about. He left his weapons and armor behind, and came to resemble a simple young farm-worker in his straw hat and rumpled green pants.

  At nighttime, Dohan initiated Meijji in the mysteries of the Goddess - which he had learned from high-priestess Inu when he turned sixteen and first met her, alone, in her inner sanctum. Inu had taught him the ways of bringing a woman to a peak of ecstasy that allowed the spirit of the Goddess to possess her; and he had learned that the act of love was a sacrament, never to be treated casually.

  Meijji and her people confessed to a somewhat different, syncretistic faith - but in Dohan's more experienced arms, Meijji readily let the Goddess possess her and put her senses on fire. They shouted each other's names until their voices grew hoarse.

  Under Meijji's guidance, Dohan overcame his fear of the sea and learned its pleasures too. She took him diving and swimming; he discovered a whole new world of underwater life, unsurpassed in its beauty and variety. The couple basked in the glow of their own youthful energy, and during these fleeting weeks of high summer they knew only bliss.

  Also in Shara's and Darc's days together on Kap Verita, there was time for love and play; but their greater age and experience added to their days and nights. After their initial, brief youthful passion, there was now less novelty and more fond remembrance in their embraces.

  They could not forget their past - yet, they could live with it. The idea of marriage and family remained distant in their imagination. Darc had not cast off the haunting memory of his old, lost life - but in Shara's company, he at least tried to suppress it. They loved and expected little else.

  Eye-Leg, the newest guest in Mechao's mansion, remained emotionally shut off from most of the people around her. Mechao could, by scanning the Leper girl's brain with his instruments, prove that she was thinking just like any other human being - only, her grasp of spoken language was severely stunted.

  Mechao also proved certain knowledge far ahead that of Darc: he showed the parts of Eye-Leg's brain activity that indicated strong feelings of affection.

  "This activity," he claimed, "is that of woman who holds someone dear, such as a child or relative."

  However, they could not determine the object of her affection. Shara thought she knew what Eye-Leg felt, but said nothing of it. Darc found it hard to resist asking Shara just why she cared so much for Eye-Leg.

  He never asked her, though - Shara's concern for the Leper girl kept her closer to Darc and the laboratory, and he was happy for it. His ex-wife in his old life had rarely demonstrated a fraction of the attention to his work that Shara routinely showed.

  Shara's care for the Leper girl rapidly developed into something like a crude upbringing. She tried to teach Eye-Leg reading and simple mathematics, and often read stories to her from Mechao's library. The girl took great comfort in hearing the stories. Even Darc sat down to listen to Shara in the warm evenings, as she sat with Eye-Leg resting at her feet, the deformed girl clutching her long skirt.

  The girl could speak no words yet, only make faint clicking sounds with her tongue.

  Darc's project to understand and defeat the Plague went on - slowly and sometimes with faltering hope, just as he had expected. He sometimes argued with Mechao about how to cure Eye-Leg without killing her in the process; many conceits were tested and duly discarded, and Shara kept a watchful eye on how they treated the girl.

  Despite the difficulties new progress was made, in sudden leaps and bounds, and the hope of success never died...

  Chapter 38

  Of the many daily laser transmissions that zipped between the city lords of North Castilia, very few ever reached the ears of commoners - except as half-baked rumors.

  And yet one message from Lord Fache went to Lord Damon and then, as if by magic, slipped through his hands into the common mouth.

  Its crucial part read: "The noble Lord Fache's honored wife reported a vision, where Darc spoke to her. His words were: 'Fear not. The King can be killed, but he never dies.' Then Darc urged the good Sir Dohan Damon forth, and lo! he was dressed in the robes of a great ruler. Thus ended her vision."

  The quote from the dream was, of course, the words uttered by Darc to the soldiers during the battle of Damon City. This was generally regarded as a good omen in these dark times...

  "What is a 'ra-dio?' " Mechao demanded to know.

  Darc's inquiry about "radio equipment" bewildered Mechao and his assistant sons. At first, they confused the concept of "radio waves" with particle counters and radiation. Darc was forced to painstakingly draw diagrams of electronic circuits, electromagnetic waves, and explain the function of radio, before Mechao began to understand. This took a whole day.

  Only then, Darc could convey to them his new plan to spread the news of Plague Virus A vaccine to the world. Mechao judged the plan as doomed, insane - and brilliant. But their quest for a remedy against Virus B was not yet won...

  "My wife shall deal with the village council, so that you receive its permission to follow our next trade expedition to the mainland," Mechao told him as they left the laboratory for supper. "You cannot leave the islands without their consent, in any case. In a few weeks, perhaps, we..."

  The little old man stopped, when a passing servant whispered a message in his ear. Mechao chuckled, and nodded.

  "Darc, someone from the village wishes to see you. Perhaps not a man of great importance, but judging by what you've told us, you will want to meet him. I should say no more. Do go to the entrance hall."

  Slightly miffed by Mechao's playful secrecy, Darc went to see the visitor. The old man he found waiting there, with a small following of villagers, was a musician.

  It was evident from the guitar that hung from his back, and his colorful attire. Also, the man wore a pair of square, smoke-colored eyeglas
ses. He was dark-skinned, wrinkled with years of sun, and on every finger of his thick hands he wore rings.

  "Greetings," Darc said and moved to shake hands. The man stood up from his seat, and bowed his head. His dark glasses made it hard for Darc to figure out his mood. "You wanted to see me?"

  Darc had half suspected the man was mute, but he talked - and his voice was like gravel, words spoken in the rhythm of recital:

  "Greetings, Darc, this meeting makes me glad... Far the word travels, and I hear of a man, risen from the dead. Come from a Golden Age, when music ruled the world. And I hear, word of a song from long ago, yes I do, that my forefathers passed on to this day. Yay, this is a great day..."

  The musician picked up his guitar, an instrument with metal strings, and in his right hand glistened a tiny silver plectrum. Darc grinned: others who kept the music of ancient times alive! And on this isolated archipelago...

  "My name is known across these islands, my clan builds instruments," the man went on in his gravel-voiced sing-song, plucking improvised, twanging chords on his steel guitar. "When they shout 'Pop Shah is coming!' they know joy is near... I was away from here for many months, I was... then word reached my old sorry ears the Singing King had returned... I could not believe it, had to come and see... and now the legend's coming true, I know, I do, yay... the divine music will be released again."

  Though this po-faced old troubadour was a complete stranger, Darc still felt as if a long-lost friend had returned. Perhaps Pop Shah had that effect on everyone he met.

  "Come, honorable Pop Shah... let us drink, talk and sing. We have much work to do. Tell me, do you manufacture electrical instruments also...?"

  Days and weeks went by; the monsoon period approached the tropical islands of Kap Verita.

  The two biochemists were now compiling a detailed plan for the treatment of Eye-Leg. Parallel to that scheme, Mechao's sons were examining the DNA samples from the Lepers - a tedious, repetitive task, but of crucial importance.