Italy Webster wants to believe her life is normal, but can't ignore the horrors of living under the Realm. A journey to the free city of Caldair, and chance encounters with some of the fabled (and notoriously dangerous) Fallen, teach her the value - and the cost - of truth.
Our would-be saviour didn’t scream as we burned him. Even at a young age—I must have been . . . what? Five?—I had been taught that Fallen don’t feel pain, they pretend to when it suits them. This was one of the fallacies I had to unlearn when I grew older, when I met a Fallen named Andreas and he taught me the truth of things. Andreas told me that Fallen do feel pain, but have more control over their reactions. This Fallen who had tried to save us suffered unimaginable pain in total silence, because he refused to lose his dignity.
He had warned that Llangour’s crystal Shimmer Barrier would kill us. Mum and Dad had said that was a lie, but I wondered if maybe he was being honest. Maybe he knew more than we did. I’d cried when we’d killed him, a deluge of tears. The Procurator conducting the ceremony had glared at us from under his black feathered cowl until my parents scolded me.
“Shush, Italy,” Mum said. “You’re showing us up in front of everyone!”
“I had to shake a lot of sweaty hands to get these seats,” father chimed in. “Don’t ruin this.”
The vaulted ceiling, ivory with gold swirls, was obscured by smoke until I could barely see the glow of the chandelier.
“Mummy, it smells. Why do they have to burn him?”
“Burning will purge the Ruiner’s demon that’s keeping him ‘alive’. You don’t want him coming back to drink the soul from your blood, do you?”
I kept quiet and shut my eyes, and focussed on the chants of the Procurators and tried not to breath too deep.
Years later, Andreas said, “Demons don’t exist. That’s superstition. Fallen are kept alive by our own minds telekinetically stimulating and regenerating our cells. We heal quickly so long as our brains and circulatory systems are undamaged. Burning destroys the whole body, gives us no chance to heal.”
According to him, there’s no such thing as souls either, and that was hard to accept.
But Andreas wasn’t right about everything. I’m not sure he was right to form the Sanguinem Mittere.
*
My family were well off but weren’t extravagant with spending. I never knew any other place than Llangour, never went on trips, and for a while I thought that beautiful city was all I needed. The glass towers of Llangour put all other Realm regions to shame. They were the tallest, the most modern, the safest against undead Fallen and mutated Baneful. The crystal Shimmer Barrier that extended over the city cast an iridescent glow over everything, creating auroras even at night. In the right light, it conjured a halo over our statue of the Exalted, and at sunset it made the statue of the Phoenix ignite.
The streets were paved in marble, opal and peridot, and everybody was immaculately dressed and groomed. But people walked past my home on their way from watching ritual combats where warriors killed each other without spilling blood. These people were thrilled to their fingertips and the roots of their hair, drunk on wine, high on vapours and gorged on sweetbreads.
*
I used to dream of romantic adventures when I was growing up; far-fetched tales of distant lands and brave rebellious heroes. When I was little I saw a story-book full of knights and wizards– that must have been what started it. Dad often had things like that around because it was his job to study art and literature and music and ensure it had no dangerous hidden meanings. I was lucky, I was being taught to read because I would be an Educator, like father.
Dad wasn’t around much. Mum loved me, I know she did, but was always distant. Audrey Webster would always sit or stand just so, with never a strand of auburn hair out of place. We’d bicker and she’d shut down. I’d cry over something and she’d have no comforting words. I’d get excited over a new toy and she’d sharply tell me to calm down.
The things I’d do to get their attention—I’d sneak a read of any books within reach, and make up my own stories of magical creatures. I also loved to draw. I could create all the wonderful things inside my head, but I only had a pencil, so none of my creations could have colour. I believed these things were real, and that my stories could come true . When my teachers, and life, dispelled those illusions, it was a devastating loss.
I was always punished for doing these things—“We won’t let you do that in our house!” (It was always their house). I’d run away, to my room when I was little, or out to the hills when I was older. Nature fascinated me. My parents had never taken me anywhere, so my storming off almost became an excuse to go exploring. But I never dared venture across the canyon into the city of Caldair.
*
I was sent to boarding school when I was six. St Deloun’s was a sprawling manor with engraved banisters, expensive rugs and enormous portraits of former headmasters. They trained us to do the jobs we’d do when we grew up, and how to worship the Exalted.
They taught us that the Fallen were undead monsters that had no conscience because they’d lost their souls. They drank your blood, and then you became a soulless fiend too. Everyone knew that your soul lived in your blood, so if you lost your blood you lost your soul, obviously. Some of the other girls used to have nightmares and wake up screaming, but I didn’t.
We were taught about the Baneful too—they lived in slums because they were too lazy or stupid to improve their homes. We were shown pictures of disfigured half-humans. I felt sorry for them, but didn’t dare say so.
We were told of the brave Purifiers who protected us with guns that shot fire and silver. White powder used to pour down from the sky, always from the north, and my classmates and I would play in the ‘snow’ as the black trains chugged past. Later, I found a massive chemical crematorium north of St Deloun’s, where Purifiers took the condemned.
One day, my favourite teacher never came to class, and a different teacher came in her place and told us that Mrs Heegen had gone to live in a mansion. This was true , but I soon discovered that she’d been sent there to be a Procurator’s slave, as punishment for some crime. On my way to the dorm I lingered near a Staff Only door, entranced by voices on the other side.
“They told her not to take any possessions, so she went with just the clothes on her back. When she got there, he took those away from her too. Cut them right off her with scissors.”
I ran the rest of the way to the dorm, where I lay on my bunk with my head buried in the pillow, shaking.
We were told a lot of white lies at St Deloun’s. It wasn’t until I met Andreas that I learned how deceived I’d been, and how valuable truth is.
*
I calmed down when I became a teenager, but was still a secret rebel. The resistance in the disputed countries was romantic, and the Fallen were intriguing. They challenged everything we believed, but everyone that age wants to rail against the established order, and the Fallen did that, constantly speaking out against Realm policies.
When it was announced that the canyon between Llangour and Caldair would be filled with flowing blessed water, to keep the Fallen at bay, there was more talk about them than ever. The Educators kept trying to justify it.
“The Fallen cannot know the Exalted’s love.” Mrs Davenport told the class. “Symbols of our belief harm them, because they are corrupted by dark forces. Fallen cannot cross blessed water when it flows, so Llangour will be safer than ever.”
“But where’s the water coming from?” I asked, not expecting it to be a delicate question.
“That’s beside the point,” she replied. “You’re not here to learn geology.”
“I was just wondering. It has to come from somewhere. We’re not close to the sea, so where could it come from?”
My classmates looked at me like I smelled.
“A river will be diverted, or a lake will be siphoned. It doesn’t matter, Italy.”
But doubt welled up inside me. Try as I might to dam it up, I could feel the pressure building.
My hand raised once more. Mrs Davenport suppressed a flicker of weariness, and hid it by straightening her silver hair. “Yes, Miss Webster?”
“Why keep the Fallen out of Llangour? Aren’t they a threat to Caldair too? And, well . . . can’t we make friends with them? Reason with them?”
My classmates sniggered.
Mrs Davenport sighed: “The Fallen are not capable of abiding by laws. They see themselves as superior. They have no souls, and no conscience. They are incapable of goodness because they reject the Exalted. Even if we formed a pact, they would find some apparently logical reason to break it.” She took off her glasses to rub her brow. “As for the wretches in Caldair, they are a threat to each other already, and almost as dangerous as Fallen. A lot of them worship the Ruiner. We do what we can for them by sending Purifiers to keep the peace and save the souls of those who have strayed.”
*
When I was sixteen, my classes changed. I tried not to worry, everyone’s classes changed a little at that age, but I went from learning about art, music and literature, about Realm Lore and politics, to learning how to handle explosives, how to assemble shell casings.
After graduation, I was sent to work in a munitions factory. My life became drudgery, gruelling work, thirteen hours a day, with barely a break. I’d make bombs for the Realm to drop on people who didn’t deserve to die, and then I’d go home, eat whatever I had the energy to make, then collapse into bed. Most people in Realm cities work as hard, it’s considered the right thing to do, but I hated it. It was like slavery!
People said I was childish for thinking that, but years later Andreas said the same thing in a way: “Wage labour is exploitative. People have to work for their masters instead of themselves, starve while their ‘superiors’ live in luxury. The only way to survive is by being of use to the people who have money.”
The manager was a pervert whose eyes squirmed over me. I had a boyfriend at the time, my first, named Phillip. He was older than me, but it was perfectly innocent . . . and boring. There was no attraction or feeling.
“Please, speak to him,” I asked him one day. “Ask him to treat me with more respect. He’ll listen to you.”
“Maybe he isn’t doing what you think,” he whined, “maybe he’s just watching you work.”
I called it off. I was still making up stories about brave, righteous heroes who would save me from bad men. My parents were furious. Looking back, I’m not sure I blame them. If I’d stayed with Phillip I’d still be more like who I was then. That girl had seen horrible things, but she’d never seen wars, or explosions or throats torn out by teeth. She’d still been able to believe in an afterlife. She’d still been able to believe in heroes.
*
One night, I sat at my window too tired to sleep, watching the sunset, breathing the colours of the Shimmer Barrier, and the most heartfelt music trickled out of Caldair; A violin, a guitar and a woman’s voice.
Hear me sing, traa lala,
The bells, hear them ring, tra lalalaa.
I’ll take you away, singing traa lala,
I’ll take you home and I’ll traa lalalaa.
The words weren’t special, it was the tune and the vocals. I’d never known music could be so emotional. In the Realm, the only songs allowed were hymns. I sang along, but shut up quick before anyone could hear. I wanted to be with the musicians.
The music came night after night, haunting and invigorating, an aurora of feelings. I sat at my window listening every evening until the music stopped, not wanting to miss a note, feeling the ecstasy and pain and melancholy and excitement in the music. I couldn’t tear myself away, in case it suddenly stopped forever.
*
My parents invited me to the execution of a man who had spoken out against flooding the canyon. He was sentenced to death by a thousand cuts, the worst punishment the Realm inflicted. His blood would slowly be drained and his soul would drift away into the ether. I hadn’t attended an execution since seeing the Fallen burned when I was a child, and I refused to go. It was horrifying, and I needed to stay home and listen to the music in case it stopped forever.
“How dare you?!” my mother snapped, her control wavering for the first time. “How dare you act like you’re better than us? You can’t stand to see an evildoer delivered to the Exalted, but you’ll sit and listen to those deviants? You’re disgusting!”
My father watched with disdain until she’d finished, then stepped forward and spoke to me quietly and firmly. “We are going to this event, Italy, and you can stay here and listen to your friends one last time. In the morning, I will report to the head of my department and Purifiers will be dispatched to Caldair. The next time we invite you to spend a night with us you will graciously accept.”
“Come along,” mother sighed. “Stop giving her attention.”
Dad turned, put his arm round my mother’s waist and they walked out. That was the night I left for Caldair.
Continued in 'Facade of Evil', available FREE on Smashwords.
Part mystery, part fantasy with a twist of science fiction, Clues of Chaos is brimming with suspense and adventure that will have you racing to the end yourself.
Winner 2016 Pacific Rim Book Festival in Science Fiction category. Honored as
Sixty-seven days after departing Flores Island in Europe’s westernmost waters, the schooner Heimdall and her stalwart crew has finally arrived at the mysterious Isla Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelagoes. The discoveries they make are astounding
Our would-be saviour didn’t scream as we burned him. Even at a young age—I must have been . . . what? Five?—I had been taught that Fallen don’t feel pain, they pretend to when it suits them. This was one of the fallacies I had to unlearn when I grew older, when I met a Fallen named Andreas and he taught me the truth of things. Andreas told me that Fallen do feel pain, but have more control over their reactions. This Fallen who had tried to save us suffered unimaginable pain in total silence, because he refused to lose his dignity.
