The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending

by Steven J. Carroll

  She hurled her pack with all her strength, and it landed safely, in a puff cloud of gravel dust.

  ���At least something can make the distance,��� she thought.

  And then Barbara did what had seemed impossible, and in a normal circumstance she would have never worked up the courage enough to take such a leap, but she knew what not jumping would mean; And to a greater degree, she had absolutely abhorred any thought that she were a coward, and she wanted to settle this notion once and for all, proving she would be worth her salt on this trip, and able to be brave on her own.

  Twenty paces back would do it, she thought to herself, making sure her coat was buttoned and shoelaces tucked in. Nothing could snag, or trip her up. There was no retrying something like this; Either she made it soundly to the other side, or else she’d grievously misjudged her abilities and there was no coming back.

  ���Tim?���

  She did not give him time to answer.

  ���If you die here, do you die for real?��� she was quite a distance down the road, and had to speak this more loudly than I’d imagine any normal person would have wanted to.

  ���Let’s just say you do,��� Timothy answered. It was not at all comforting, but honest.

  ���Now!��� she yelled within her head.

  And before she could know why, she was sprinting: Faster, faster, being careful to keep her footing on the uneven stones. The last step, with all her resolve, like a bird across the canyon, and her toes just reaching the other side. For a split second she teetered, toes on the ledge, heels out over the empty nothingness. Then the gravel gave way, falling.

  ���Ahh!���

  She just managed to catch the ledge with her arms, and her upper torso, but her lower half dangled off the edge. No foothold, nothing but loose coarse sand to grab onto.

  ���Help! Timothy!��� she screamed, with all she could pull from her lungs. There was no cry more terrible.

  Clunk.

  A sword clanked over her head, and a satchel with a heavy coat tied around the strap. The ground beneath her hands began to pull from her grasp.

  ���Hurry! Hurry!��� she yelled.

  ���I’m coming,��� shouted a voice from far behind her, but rushing closer.

  Footsteps.

  Faster, faster, faster.

  A cry of desperation as he leapt from the other side and landed, rolling on the dirt and being bruised across the cobble stone. And a dirtied hand with blood on the knuckles reached out, while supporting against the old pillar, and helped to pull Barbara to safety.

  The two sat dumbfounded, looking out over the edge where they had so nearly lost their lives.

  ���Thank you,��� Barbara sighed earnestly.

  ���You almost had it,��� he let out, giving a pat on her back, like he’d been completely unstartled the entire time, which made Barbara altogether grateful and painfully infuriated, all at the same moment.

  ���Oh look, horse tracks,��� Timothy said, breathing heavy, peering over his shoulder at the mountain road, which continued on behind them.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Mountains

  A single imprint of something that might have been his grandmother’s boot print. Of course, given the general uniform nature of boot prints, it could have come from anyone. Yet, in their hearts, they were sure of it, that that massive unearthly-sized giant must have carried Mrs. Wolcott away, captive from the burned city of Hrim, and had delivered her to some mysterious horse rider. All the slimly discernible facts seemed to point to only one conclusion: The Queen of Earth would be found somewhere within the belly of those ominous and gnarled black mountains.

  It was barely enough to raise any hope, but what other choice had they, so that under those presumptions they continued, following the mysterious horseman’s tracks, knowing that they could never safely return the way they had come, for it was only by an undeniable miracle that they’d even both survived thus far.

  This mangled highway curved and skewed along the edge of many more such deadly cliffs. On the road, many of the original paving stones had dislodged overtime, and portions of the trail were washed away, leaving only thin strips of loose gravel, falling off into voids of black nothing, or worse, sharp and jagged pits. However, amazingly, the mysterious horseman was somehow able to maneuver across even the thinnest slivers of trail, and continue on, into the misty dark grey and black clouded spiraling range.

  Sunlight began to fail them, and around them it grew more difficult to tell the exact reason for this. Could it be that the ceiling of fog and clouds overhead had finally surrounded them? Or had the sun grown more frightened of these grotesque peaks, and had refused to share its light with them?

  Icy vapors began to solidify around them, and Barbara had begun to think it wise to have already used up the last drops in her water container, before it froze up for good.

  Yet, before the light had drifted away completely, their path widened into a sheerly walled canyon, and they made camp by a swelling waterfall. The ground was scattered with heavy rocks, but they were able to clear enough away, to make for a softer sandy bed, and with a little hunting they were able to find some firewood along a nearby steep hillside, some of which that appeared to have already been burned. And all night long the flickers of their campfire would reflect off the waterfall, moving in and out like a breath through the cascading waters, and obscured at times by the rising mist.

  In the morning, very stiff and irritable, and with grumbling stomachs, Timothy and Barbara awoke to realize for themselves this simple truth: that a camp made near a waterfall makes for a very soggy bedroll. During the night their fire had burned away, little by little, and now all their feet and hands felt like icicles, and Barbara was sincerely aware her nose had never been so cold, and she rubbed it ferociously with the palm of her hand to try to warm it.

  But one good thing about a damp bed is that you will waste no time in getting up, and so Timothy began to scour through his satchel in search of those mysterious jars of food he’d rescued from the ashes of Hrim. They opened a few of these scorched black mystery containers and found one of them to be a jar of pickled eggs, and the other a jar of soured potatoes. (And as much as it may surprise you to hear told about, both Timothy and Barbara eventually agreed that the pickled eggs were actually quite good, and that they had just needed salt. Which would be preciously hard to come by during their travels, but still they didn’t see any harm in wishing for it.)

  ���Even the embers are freezing,��� Timothy said with a moan, prodding through the coals to see if any would reignite.

  He’d been crouching with his back to the waterfall, and had been also in a rather foul mood, because his water ration had frozen shut during the middle of the night, and now he was keeping it tucked into his jacket pocket to thaw, but that only made him all the more cold, and crankier still.

  Barbara was, as well, crouching down beside the ashes of their paltry fire, examining it to see if she could be of any help, but had all of a sudden, and curiously, stood up, with the most flustered appearance burned upon her face.

  ���Timothy, Timothy…��� she repeated, saying his name over and over again, until he’d finally given her his attention.

  ���What?��� he said, not looking up, still staring at the gone out coals.

  Her voice shook slightly, ���You know that reflection in the waterfall… [not giving him time to answer], well I don’t think it’s a real one.��� (And she was speaking of course about the flickering reflection of their campfire in the midst of the waterfall, that had burned steadily all through the night.)

  ���No?��� he questioned, looking up at Barbara, who was now beginning to show her real fear.

  ���What if there’s someone else here?��� she whispered, not taking her eyes away from that puzzling flame.

  And with these hushed words, Timo
thy could now see the full extent of his traveling companion’s fright. Though, being contrary to her, he wanted to show himself to be completely unfrightened, thinking it brave, or heroic, to do so. So that, in like manner he arose, falsely confident, up from his poor job tending their own sickly campfire, and he yelled out to whatever stranger was there tending to his own fire, there through the blanketed waterfall. However, this was of course horridly foolish of him.

  He took a half-step forward, yelling, ���Hey, you there?���

  Vanished, the fire was snuffed out completely. Too quickly to have been burning wood or charcoal, like the flame on a gas burning stove top, which can be outed suddenly, like it had never burned at all.

  Rustling echoed out, as if from the mouth of a cave, and a giant figure moved behind the veiled water like a shadow. Rocks toppled, thrashed about by something very massive and certainly terrifying. Whatever had lain behind that misty water was something instantly known to be unfriendly, and Timothy felt now perhaps the most foolish and brazen as he’d ever felt in his whole life, and rightfully so.

  The breadth of those falls parted through the center, and that something, that had lain in secret now emerged, dark and evil black-green.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Beasts

  A dragon.

  If you’ve never before seen a dragon, then you will not begin to know how to imagine such a monster. (And by this I mean a real dragon, not those passive imitations you might find in a Hollywood matinee.)

  Real dragons are slithering and lightning fast as serpents, with putrid tar black smoke in their nostrils, and not those fairy wings over their backs, but dagger-sharp black bat-like wings, that stretch out almost infinitely to either side. And to this you may begin to say, ‘Well wait, that was the sort of thing I’d imagined all along.’ Which may be a partial truth, but trust me when I say that, whatever thoughts you may have held regarding dragons, if you have not seen a real one, in the flesh, with its iron-like scales, then I assure you, the creature of your own imagining will be in no part as wild or as beastly as the true monster.

  And so, for that reason, it should be no wonder why our forefathers, from every corner of our world, had feared them as they did, each framing them into their own myths and legends, even long after their armies and knights had, with much sacrifice, finally slain the last of them, and had ridded them from our world altogether. But not from all worlds. The beast, as tall as a spire, leapt through the air, out from his craggy lair, splitting the cascading falls in half. Boiling hot mist struck off its wings. Its mouth opened with a set of double rowed teeth, and let out a shrill and deathly biting cry. A flash of incendiary flames burnt out its throat. Wings beat slowly and forcefully, to keep it above the icy pool at the base of the falls. Neck lurching, it glared, voided dark eyes, at the children.

  Timothy drew his sword, and rushed up to stand between Barbara and the monstrous dragon. With one hand brandishing his emerald and silvery sword, and with the other bracing, trying to keep Barbara back behind him, or to be whatever barrier he could between her and the beast.

  These were just the sorts of things he’d dreamt about several nights before, laying wrapped up safely in his comfortable palace bed, and there, with his new sword propped upon a cushy feather pillow. Except that, in his imaginations that night, those monsters, and beasts, and dragons he’d vested and slain were, all of them, much more tame and simple, and he himself had been many times more valiant and strong.

  However, those elusive dreams were not this present true reality. And like with most things one might envision, as with this: It is that when the true monsters come, they are often more wild and more savage than our thoughts of them. Being as it is, that imaginary dragons are most always easily slain.

  The monster cried again with a fire in its voice. It mounted upward, beating its sharpened wings, the tips of which spread out, filling to the edges of the canyon where they’d made their camp in the night before.

  ���Run,��� Timothy said turning to her. ���I’ll stay here, and fend him off.���

  But Barbara could not bear the thought.

  ���No!��� she answered loudly.

  And reaching into her pack she drew out her own dagger, and she held up her knife to the beast. She then came to stand alongside her partner, and brushed the hair from her eyes, casting a glance at Timothy. By a look, the two knew instantly that whatever fight they might make now would be insignificant, but that it would be wrong not to at least try.

  Flushes of wind, both icy and steaming hot, flew through the canyon, as the creature beat its wings, mixing with the mist from the waterfall. Its chest began to swell, as if building a fire within itself. It screamed with all violence, preparing to lunged at the children. But, at the same time, there was another scream, seemingly just as violent, from high atop the canyon ledge.

  It was a man. A fearless knight with long raven black hair and beard, he was leaping from off the high canyon wall, a long sword clenched tightly in his fists, and speeding through the expanse, over the waterfall’s edge and the icy pool, as if arriving from a dead sprint.

  He soared through the air, over the body of the beast, and in the last second spun his sword, and pointing it downward, gripped in both hands, he drove its razor sharp blade through the top of the vile creature’s skull.

  In the blink of an eye, the dragon’s body was lifeless. Its wings folded under, and both the beast and its vanquisher fell with an uncontrollable force into the shallow pool at the base of the falls. A blast of flash boiled water exploded upwards out of the canyon, and rained down like a hot geyser.

  A very audible sigh of relief left Timothy’s lips. They were saved. And just as he was realizing that the knight had not yet come up for air, out upon the rocky bank of the pool emerged a recently familiar face, water dripping off the chin of his beard, and some of it puddled in the cuffs of his pant legs. It was Asa, the King’s son.

  He wiped the wet hair away from his face.

  ���What? No thank you?��� he said, as if joking to himself.

  For the children had been caught speechless, but this only lasted for a moment. Soon they were congratulating Asa, thanking him profusely for rescuing them; And ���so heroically,��� as Barbara began to say (and what became more frequent than Timothy eventually cared for).

  The majority of the dragon’s carcass had fallen below the surface of the water, but its grotesque, charcoal black and greenish head, and a quarter portion of its neck had fallen onto the bank of that small pool. With all his strength Asa heaved his sword out of the creature. And then, seeing Timothy’s noticeably poorly unlit fire, he told them to stand aside as he pressed his hefty leather boots against a set of folds on the dragon’s neck, and with that, one final funnel of flames scorched out of the beast’s open mouth, setting ablaze the coals and any damp firewood that had remained unburned.

  As the fire kindled, they became warm again, and with that, Timothy was quite sure this was going to be a much better adventure, from now on. Although, he’d been fairly convinced that he hadn’t needed any real help with starting a fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A Story

  ���The watchmen had heard the noise of an army in the open field, and had seen torchlight off in the distance, on the night before the attack, but nothing could have prepared us for the dawn, and an army of a thousand giants.���

  Asa was recounting his story of the attack on Hrim, while leading them on a single filed march, further up into the clouded, foreboding mountains, and he continued:

  ���Giants, on their own, are menacing and formidable in battle, but to our benefit have been historically unimaginative… not unintelligent; But better put, as a culture, giants do not tend to share well amongst themselves, and so while you may have several bright or prominent giants within a generation, very often those giant leaders will die off, or will be viciously murdered, taking their discoveries with
them. And therefore, leaving each newer generation with only the basest forms of government and rudimentary tools.

  And so you can imagine our utter shock and horror, to awake to find a sea of enormous catapults and a more than sufficient army. When all they’ve ever had, in recent centuries, were bands of lawless giants, with clubs and blunted amateurish swords.���

  ���Do you think someone was helping them, then?��� Barbara interjected, as the three were making their way along a narrow winding trail, being sure to stay at all times several paces away from the deadly cliff���s ledge to their left, away from that haunting drop into the murky chasm below.

  Timothy had been taking a gulp from his water container, that was by now thawed completely, when he suddenly had an idea mid-drink.

  ���Ooh,��� he gargled. And then skimming away the excess water droplets from his chin and lips, he said more clearly, ���Like maybe this mysterious horseman.���

  Asa smiled a deep bearded grin. ���Ha,��� he laughed. ���Well done, but you tend to ruin a story when you spoil its ending like that,��� he said, as if falsely stern.

  And to that the children apologized directly, and asked him to continue. However their guide had not been so easily offended, and was actually quite impressed by their ability to reason, and so he never acknowledged their apologies, but continued on.

  ���Nearly an hour after sunrise, a younger giant, a scout, came to the gate to warn us that Hrim would be ‘desolate and burned with a thousand fires’, to quote his words exactly, if we did not immediately deliver to them the Queen of Earth. And they launched a warning shot into the center square of the city to demonstrate their severity.���

  ���And… did you hand her over?��� Timothy interrupted, beginning to sound offended for his grandmother’s sake, and for her safety.

  ���Was not necessary,��� Asa answered, and Barbara saw his face as he said this, and thought that this had not been his first choice either.