Andrew Suzanne
The Towers of Adrala
Text copyright © 2013 by Andrew Suzanne
Published by Andrew Suzanne
Cover art by Andrew Suzanne
Saranodian Symbol Design by Zachary Downer (zackmdowner.deviantart.com)
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage without permission in writing from the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9891250-1-7
For information send an E-mail to:
[email protected] March 2013
First Edition
For Rachel, Cassidy, Devin, and Mom. My critics.
For Dad and my Family. My supporters.
For Zack, Johnny, and Greg. My bent of ear.
For Mrs. Frost and many others. My optimists.
And for Ian, who said the one word that started it all
`
The End
His waking thoughts brushed against the fragile world above him. Hurricanes spawned from clashing winds, tearing at the coastlines. Endless torrents of rain flooded the plains. Tornadoes cut through civilizations like twisted scalpels. Devastating thunderstorms, destructive eruptions. The inhabitants of this world were left confused and afraid for their existence, not knowing why their home tore itself apart.
But for the being whose thoughts brought catastrophe, he awoke without knowledge of anything at all.
He saw nothing, felt nothing except the vastness of himself. He hung in a stasis without any form of understanding. He was a mind lost in its own galaxy of thought. Then words, thoughts, questions he should know began to pull themselves from the turmoiling cloak of bewilderment. One question rose above the others, so it was this question he decided to ask.
His thought echoed throughout his prison. His answer came slowly, tantalizingly. When the answer came within his grasp it exploded into a myriad of images. Strange senses assaulted his confused self. Green fields, snowy mountains, the feel of water, the smell of autumn.
His confused mind only caused the images to come faster, stronger. Creatures flying amongst the clouds in neat formations. Cities carved into mountainsides. A strange rough noise, repeating tones and inflections. These spun around him until a slow dawning of realization swept over him. Those creatures were his kind, the cities were his cities, and that noise was his people's tongue. More scenes played before his astonished eyes. The more he watched them, the more he began to remember. Exhilaration sped through his veins when he recognized his first flight. He found his joy of a science that had many names. Manipulation. The Guiding. The Control.
The shadows his brothers casted were long, their brilliance always outshining him. But he was determined. He grinned at his many successes, his advancement in this science, this Magic. He watched his prestige grow, his fame, his greatness. He saw his brothers, whom he had fought so hard to impress, finally proud of him.
He had everything he ever wanted.
Then the images disappeared. They were replaced by ones of strange, alien creatures. They were small, two-legged beings that spoke their own odd tongue. Instead of impressive caverns they built huts of wood and stone. Their way was brutal and without direction. His people watched these fragile creatures in mild amusement, these barbarians, these aliens, these...
In the beginning his people shunned them, their culture strange and unrefined. They seemed so easily broken, their lives too short to properly live. But he was curious. He saw them account for their fragility with tools and ingenious innovations. Their lives were short but burned brightly. Even with their strangeness he found a strange familiarity with them. So he broke his people’s laws and gave him what he best knew. He gave them Magic.
And with Magic they burned so bright they outshone even him.
Their cities of wood and stone became metropolises of metal. Their medicines lengthened their lives ten-fold, even cured his own people of sicknesses long thought futile to mend. Their art, their language, their culture; it all began to creep into his own. They built the great towers, monoliths of science and Magic, and struck his people with awe in their power. They gained his people’s respect and even began to live among them.
An image struck through the rest, but only for a moment. A glimpse of the most terrible truth. A secret buried so deep that even they did not know, could not know. For it was their truth hidden as their lie.
He remembered as a shadow dominated his thoughts. He uncovered the lies and found the power they hid. The secrets he found changed him, twisted him. He saw cities razed, mountains disappearing in explosions that tore at the world. Quakes ripped across the land, great fires ate away at metal and rock alike. A terrible war that consumed both sides, that sunk continents and shattered cities. Again, a single image suddenly struck through the rest, an image of a black tower. A tower that parted the clouds and lanced through the heavens. A floating architectural wonder, nestled atop a fountain of energy that poured from the heart of the world. It had all the grandeur of an executioner’s blade, all the elegance of an assassin’s poison. It was the last tower, a sword poised above the throat of the universe. It was an abomination, blight upon existence, a curse against life. It was…It was…
He realized in horror that the destruction he had seen, the despair, that was of his making. Memories of human holocaust, of mass murder invaded his mind. The atrocities he had committed. The fear he had wrought.
Bodies. Craters that once were cities. He could not believe that he had ordered it done. Panic blinded him and he desperately searched through the memories, trying to find an image that would show that he was kind, gentle.
But he was not.
The images, his memories, fitted neatly together. He saw his tower being constructed, he saw its purpose. He saw the equations, the plans, and his masterpiece's completion. He watched with dread as his plan came to a close. The final trigger was in his hands. He gave the activating incantation atop the creation he both loved and loathed. When the words left his tongue he waited for the end he had worked so hard for, so long reviled. Then something happened, something he could not have foreseen, could not have imagined.
He failed.
Energy fell away from the tower and it sank into the chasm from which its life force came. His brothers, the same brethren who had supported every one of his designs, who had felt his sorrow and pain, who had helped him give rise to his tower, had betrayed him. They had stolen the tower's life, crippling it. His rage turned to annihilate their fleeing forms when the tower suddenly focused its remaining power onto him. The extent of his brothers’ treachery did not stop at the tower's lifeblood; they had tampered with its lines of thought. A seal came to life around him and he was imprisoned inside the structure that was falling to the center of the world.
He roared at his bindings. He tore through his memories, looking for his name. He paused when he came upon it. His name had been given to him in gentler times, a name that a monster such as he could not accept. He searched more and found something else, a title. With it his people honored him. With it their people branded him. It held terror to those w
ho knew its true meaning. To those who had forgotten it, the word still held some power.
A word that had become described as “loathing”.
A name that once was whispered in fear, the source of the most terrible war.
In his people's tongue it meant “the herald of truth”.
With this Scorn gathered to him all the power that once scarred continents and threw it against the seal that bound him.
Right before his attack struck, one last memory rose before him. This stirring, this awakening, it had happened before. Three times before. He remembered in horror the trap his brothers had placed in their seal. He tried to pull back his power but it was too late. The energy crashed against the bindings, swallowed into the hidden abyss. His exposed mind was assaulted by his own power until he collapsed into submission. He fell away from time once more. The hurricanes dissipated into calm breezes. The floods receded, the storms crackled to an end.
It was not all for naught. His assault was to be the last of many, the seal faltering as the mountain falters under the caress of the eternal winds. The seal no longer remained invincible, he had cracked it. The chains on his mind grew slack. A small crack, nearly impossible to sense. But it was a crack, it was a beginning.
His beginning.
The world's end.
End of the Prologue
The Stirrings
After his final words, spoken with sorrow and fury, his nightmare of humanity's extinction was almost realized. When the world was split and set ablaze, no city remained standing. Night turned to day and day to night in the barest of moments. The sky flickered from sun, to moons, to stars, and the infinity of the indescribable. The death of a world was survived by few and remembered by fewer.
Broken and thrown into a burning world, humanity still miraculously survived. Their weapons of war forgotten, their history wiped clean, they returned to an existence that eventually became civilization. They named the lone continent that had survived the onslaught 'Adrala', never questioning why there wasn't already a name.
To not ask a question, however, does not mean it will not be answered.
-Excerpt from the Book of Idusces
Pird bolted out of the alley in a flying leap, his heart beating furiously and enjoyably in his ears. He landed on the street and twisted deftly on his toes.
“Thief!” came the desperate shout of the guards that were still a safe distance behind. Pird bent his knees and sprang off in a dash. The cobblestone street, thanks to the celebration, was bare of the usual crowds. Pird glanced up and gauged the angle of the tower Saranoda’s arms that stretched over the city Eretia.
That’s the northern arm, Pird calculated, So home’s across this canal and down a few blocks.
Deeming the bridge not exciting enough, Pird instead chose to jump across. He landed in a crouch on one of the large barrels floating downstream, pausing only long enough for the disturbed cargo to right itself before he leaped again to the canal's other side. He quickly crossed the street and used a windowsill to boost up onto a low wall. He turned, sat, and waited.
They're slow today, Pird idly thought to himself, taking a moment to look up and down the wide street. Buildings and homes vied for space on the road, the sidewalks narrow and the architecture well crafted. Eretia’s style borrowed from everywhere; the narrow alleys of Benji, the open canals of the Delta, Bakaar’s pattern of coalescing streets, and Mirith’s attention to every carving upon every pillar. A distance behind the immediate buildings Pird could make out the tops of the grand, many-storied apartments of the white city. A canal split the street down the center, but the waterway was missing the normal stream of storage barrels and courier boats. It was a rare day Pird got to roam the city unhindered by people, so he was taking advantage of every street the celebration had emptied.
Suddenly Pird was oddly aware of the tower Saranoda's rumble. It disoriented him a little, as the deep resounding sound of the tower's massive waterfalls was a constant ambience that anyone who spent time in its shadow grew accustomed to. Hearing what was called Eretia’s ‘silence’ made Pird feel his senses heighten. He could feel the cool stone beneath his fingers, the crisp air against his skin. He could even feel how the great waterfalls made everything hum.
Must be the quiet, Pird assured himself when a shout caught his attention. A troop of guards poured out of the alley and dispersed along the street. Their armor was limited to some leather here and there and a plate on the soldier, as Eretians had better and more entertaining things to do than assault anyone.
“About time,” Pird muttered, standing up. He waited, but the men were obviously clueless so he gave a sharp whistle. Their heads snapped up in his direction and one shouted. Pird hopped down into the lawn the white stone wall protected. The stout mustached owner of the lawn looked up from his weeding only long enough to give Pird a wave. Pird, being mindful of the man's garden, scaled the opposite wall and jumped down into yet another street. He dodged through the stone parade of animal fountains in one of the empty squares and into another alley. Pird turned a corner so fast that he ran directly into the chest of a young man. Strong hands clapped down on his shoulders and turned him around, holding him firmly there. Pird made no attempt to break free, but struggled just hard enough to look like he was.
It wasn't long until the percussion of scabbards bouncing on their belts was heard. The soldiers turned the corner and skidded to a halt in surprise. They snapped off a smart salute and one shouted, “Prince Syrus Darvini, sir!”
Pird could feel Sye wincing at the sound of his full name and the effectiveness of which it was shouted, “What are you three doing away from the festival?” Sye asked.
“Sir! We were ordered to make sure no one took advantage of this occasion.”
“I assume this young man falls into that category.”
“Yes sir! Madame Canya reported that she was being robbed!”
Sye gave a quiet groan that only Pird could hear and gripped his shoulders a bit more painfully, “Well, I wouldn't want you away from your duties. I'll see that Madame Canya's possessions are returned and that Idusces above is satisfied with the following Judgment.”
The soldier looked uncertain, “I advise that you allow us to escort you, sir.”
Sye shook his head, “Duly noted, but I'm sure I can handle him.” Pird stifled a snort.
The soldiers looked at each other, then snapped off another salute and left. As soon as the clanking of armor was out of earshot Pird asked mischievously, “So, what is the 'Judgment' that you have planned, 'Syrus Darvini'?”
Sye pushed Pird away, “Why'd you choose today of all days to cause trouble?”
Pird merely shrugged. Sye sighed and held up a finger, “For one you weren't doing me any favors pulling me away from the festival. Two,” he held up a second finger, “It hasn't been long enough since your last run to avoid suspicion.”
Always the worrywart, Pird thought, “I always give the stuff back. Plus they looked like they needed the exercise.”
“It doesn't matter. Even if Madame Canya said in court she was playing along with you, one of those overzealous lawyers is bound to claim that getting the soldiers to go after you is a 'misuse of Eretian resources'. Emphasis on ‘Eretian’, we use few enough guards as it is.”
Pird rolled his eyes, “Then I would be sent over to Mirith for a high trial for the severity of my terrible crime and-”
“I'm serious, Pird,” Sye interrupted, “You don't know how bloodthirsty some of the people in court can get. They’re always looking to use somebody’s back to step up on. You're lucky my father thinks you're funny.”
“Last time I checked the good Mayor said I was 'hilarious'.”
“Yes, well, I just demoted you because now we have to visit Canya. What did you take this tim
e anyway?”
“Nothing really,” said Pird, taking a silver brooch out of his pocket.”
“Pird! That's pure silver!” Sye exclaimed, “The size of that ruby, tell me it's not a Luther company!”
“She won't mind,” Pird replied dismissively.