Broken Earth

  Broken Earth

  C.M. Blackwood

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 C.M. Blackwood.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.

  Part the First

  Episode I

  I: The Beginning of the End

  The moon seemed too dim, somehow, when Lila stepped out onto the balcony. She fixed her eyes upon it and gripped the railing, searching for stars in the murky sky.

  “Is anyone up there?” she asked. She stared intently, directing her words to the Great Eye itself – mainly because there was nowhere else to direct them, without feeling as though their utterance was immeasurably pointless.

  “I need help,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to do.”

  She kept her eyes upon the faintly glowing orb, waiting for some kind of feeling, wondering how long it would take to feel anything – anything other than what she had been feeling for such a very long time, anything other than what was making her daily more crazed and desperate.

  Anything, anything at all.

  The skies seemed indifferent to her situation. The fog continued to roll, while the stars kept cover behind it. She longed for their brightness, for the soft twinkling that would turn her mind, perhaps, from the tugging in her heart.

  She tightened her grip on the rail, leant over it slightly and looked down. So very far down . . .

  “What are you doing?”

  Lila was frightened so badly, she quite nearly flipped over the rail. She turned to see her brother there, standing in the doorway of her own bedroom.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “My goodness, it’s absolutely frigid! Whatever are you doing out there?”

  “What is it you want, Antony?”

  “My word!” said he. “And you speak that way, to your own dear brother? Anyway – I only came to say goodnight.” He looked pointedly at the railing. “Do be careful, so close to that thing.”

  “As ever I do,” replied Lila.

  “Do you, really?” He tilted his head, and looked at her seriously. “You look sad.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He gave no reason, but only asked, “Are you really so sad, my sister?”

  “Not so sad, my brother. Perhaps only tired.”

  “Then pray get to sleep!”

  “I shall – if ever you do leave.”

  “Ah,” said he, stepping out onto the balcony. “Goodnight, Lila Bier.”

  He lowered his head to kiss Lila’s cheek. He made her a last smile; and then he was gone.

  ~

  Lila went downstairs early next morning, dreading the meeting with the Elders she was to attend. But she went anyway, forgoing breakfast in hopes that she might escape the old men’s disputes more quickly.

  She found them all, quite as usual, seated at the great round table in the Rally Room. They talked loudly, projecting their voices across the table so that their hearing-impaired colleagues might understand them better.

  The noise died down a little when Lila entered the room, and ceased completely when she took her place at the table. She could not really say that she sat at the head of it, seeing as it was round; but she did hold the place directly before the massive stone hearth, above which hung the famous Bier family portrait.

  When William Bier first married young Abella Aséa, daughter of the former Queen Anata Aséa, he had perhaps not anticipated that he would never be as powerful as his wife; and over the years, he had perhaps never grown either very used to it or very happy about it. Nevertheless, he stood there beside Abella in the painting, smiling as though he was not bothered at all. (Anyone who had known him knew much better than that, of course.)

  Standing directly before their parents, looking much smaller than they presently were, were Princess Lila (who now held full sway over the land) and Prince Antony (who continued to make just as much trouble with his small circle of rowdy friends as ever he had). Lila spent half of her time trying to dissuade the legislative body of Eredor – all of whom were sitting before her now – from turning Antony out, once and for all.

  “I trust you are feeling well, Princess?” asked Raymond Archer, leaning forward a little in his high-backed chair. He was of such a small stature that his head by no means cleared the top of it.

  “Yes, Raymond, thank you,” said Lila. “ And I do hope that your congestion has cleared itself up?”

  Archer nodded solemnly. “Yes, it has improved. I appreciate your remembering.”

  “Of course.” Lila looked round at the other eleven men, all staring at her, all waiting for her to speak. Their appearances were so similar, that it was sometimes difficult to distinguish them one from the other.

  “Now,” she continued, “it is my understanding that there is great concern about the situation in the West – namely Ademin. I shall listen to any thoughts you all may have.”

  “Thank you, Princess,” said Damien Locke. “If I may say so, I don’t think that there is very much to talk about. Southern forces have surged completely into the Bowl. Ademin is a great ally; naturally we must aid her in her circumstance. What other option is there?”

  “First of all,” said Lila, “we are the Southern forces. Those who dwell below us have no influence on our laws, or on our actions. If Ademin has sparked a conflict with the Southerners, we are not obligated – by either treaty or honour – to intervene.”

  “You seem to be forgetting about the Krasenian War,” said Locke. “If not for Western assistance, from both Ademin and Halju, we would have fallen prey to the Easterners. Onssgaard would not exist today.”

  “I understand that. But Southern and Western governments have signed numerous, specific treaties since that long-dead war. To send valuable men into Ademin would be against our best interests, especially at this difficult time.”

  “You say that it’s not, but it is a matter of honour. What sort of values would it seem that we hold, if we leave Ademin to her own plight?”

  “And what about the carts sent from the West?” asked Jonathan Payton, fixing Lila with his steely gaze. “Without the food and supplies that they send – which they do not have to send – we would have starved long ago.”

  “You speak as though we have men to spare,” said Walter Grewitt, looking darkly at both men. “And as if we could not purchase sufficient foodstuffs from the North!”

  “That is not the point,” said Locke. “And not all of our men are involved in the battle with the Dúnanen.”

  “Of course they are!” said Elias Hudgens. “And you certainly don’t see anyone from the West rushing over to help us with that.”

  “They are fully occupied with forces from the Rise.”

  “And we are fully occupied with the Dúnanen!”

  “We?” said Alsam Brown, casting a sidelong glance at Hudgens. “You talk as though you were fighting yourself, old boy.”

  Hudgens turned to commence a row with Brown, while Locke began the attempt to justify his own stance to the rest of the group.

  It was clear that many of them wanted not to say anything at all.

  Lila let this go on for several minutes, but eventually called the men to order by clearing her throat. A number of them, including Grewitt and Hudgens, shot her a sore look of irritation, before remembering that she was no longer the little girl that they had once ordered about.
/>
  “We apologise, Princess,” said Hudgens sheepishly. “I suppose that we only find it difficult to agree.”

  “That’s all right, Elias. It’s a touchy subject, I know.” She looked to each of them; and they turned their faces away, one by one. “Before I say anything else, there is one point I would like to make. It seems that you are differentiating the Dúnanen, and the men of the Rise, as two sets of forces. Nowadays, all who dwell within the Rise are members of the Dúnanen. They chased the rightful inhabitants from that land years ago.”

  Several of the more sensible men nodded in agreement; but the others grumbled audibly to one another.

  “And there is something that you seem to be forgetting,” said Lila. “I am the one who will decide whether or not there is cause to send soldiers into Ademin – and I am the one who must face the consequences of whatever action is taken. All of you should be directing your comments to me, not arguing amongst yourselves.”

  Several moments of silence followed this statement – but, of course, there were no grounds to argue. Yet it seemed that some of them did not think she could hear, as they mumbled curses beneath their breath.

  ~

  After she had finished with this unpleasant meeting, Lila went up the single flight of stairs to the sixth floor, and traversed the corridors in pursuit of her brother’s chamber. Thoughts she had had about Antony in the Rally Room prompted her now to seek him out, and to try just once more to talk a bit of sense into him.

  She knocked once on his door; and when she heard a round of coughing inside the room, as though several people smoking pipe tobacco had just been startled, she pushed open the door, without waiting to be invited to do so.

  She saw Antony sitting upon his bed, with three of his closest troublemakers seated round him in chairs. There were Deegin Bryte, Selly Finks, and George Etley, each holding his own pipe in his hand; but when Lila stepped into the room, Antony shoved something in rather a quick and guilty fashion beneath his pillow.

  “Show it to me,” said Lila.

  Antony frowned, took the object into his hand again, and then held it up for Lila to see. It was a little blue box, small and square. Lila had seen the like of it enough times to know exactly what it was, and exactly where it had come from.

  “Antony!” she said, striding forth to take the box from him. “You promised me that you would not do this again.”

  He chanced a smile. “Oh, come now! He has dozens of these sent in every month! He won’t miss one or two, every now and then.”

  “Or two?” said Lila, holding out her hand in request for the second box.

  Antony handed it over with a great sigh.

  “If Payton catches you stealing from his stores again, he will have you whipped – Prince or no. You have to stop this, Antony. How do you ever expect to change their minds about you, if all you do is behave in this way?”

  Antony only grinned. “Whipped!” he exclaimed. “Why, you wouldn’t let them do that to me, would you, Lila?”

  “I cannot save you from yourself, Antony.”

  “Surely you don’t mean that. I’ve not done anything so terrible!”

  “Maybe not so terrible,” said Lila; “but the repetition of a less-than-terrible folly eventually sums up to something worse.”

  Her brother glared at her. “You’ve become just like them. You’re no fun anymore! Why – you’ve become nothing but another spoiled old man! Are you trying for the beard, sister?”

  His friends began to snigger, but Lila silenced them with a warning look. “You may not care for the way I handle things,” she said to Antony, “or for the way that I have been forced to handle you. But I will tell you this once more, my brother, and it is only because I love you so. It is time for you to rise to your station – and to stop behaving as a boy of six.”

  She looked round at the other young men, and said, “I want not to see any of you in this castle – ever again.”

  They all looked to Antony. His sister may have been the one in command; but they would not leave unless he told them to.

  “Don’t look at him!” said Lila, snapping her fingers at them. A shower of hot white sparks fell from her hand, and into their laps; and they jumped to their feet with strangled yelps.

  “Get out, the lot of you,” said Antony – but he need not have bothered. After having had black holes burnt into the legs of their trousers, they required no encouragement to flee.

  “And are you now content?” asked Antony.

  “No, I am not. I will not be content – until you prove to me that you can change! You are turning this castle on its ear, Antony.”

  She shook her head at him; turned on her heel, and quit the room.

  ~

  When Lila was just a small child, her mother would take her often to the piano room (equipped with the piano to assuage her father, with keys that her mother manipulated to play during their lessons).

  Their lessons, of course, had nothing to do with music. In the piano room, Abella showed Lila how to wield the Power. They began with very basic lessons – and slowly moved on to more complicated things.

  When he grew of age, Antony was sometimes present at these lessons. He had the blood of his mother, and to that end it was believed that he had the ability to do as she did; but he was never very interested in any of it. After only about five lessons, Abella put his instruction aside, and dedicated herself to teaching Lila.

  But it was when Lila was still very young, and was learning to levitate objects inside the room (and one of those objects went crashing to the floor), that her father came bursting in for the very first time.

  “What is going on in here?” he asked, his face flushed and livid.

  “Oh, William!” said Abella. “You upset yourself over matters which you do not understand.”

  Now, to make it clear – it was never a very wise idea, to tell William Bier that he did not understand something. His pride was vicious, and he would leave no blow unreturned.

  “I won’t have you ruin her this way!” he shouted. “And I forbid you to taint my son.”

  “I would not worry about that,” said Abella. “He hasn’t the knack for it, anyway.”

  “The knack?” asked William. “You make it seem as if – as if this were some sort of hobby! It is evil, Abella!”

  Abella frowned. “Payton has been filling your head with all sorts of ideas, hasn’t he?”

  “This has nothing to do with Payton. I am fully capable of thinking for myself.”

  “I don’t mean to be harsh, darling – but sometimes it seems that you’re not.”

  William slammed the door so very hard, that it came loose from its hinges, and fell to the floor. Lila ran to her mother, and hid her face inside the folds of her dress.

  “Hush now, my love,” said Abella. “You’ve nothing to fear. Your father loves

  you! He just doesn’t understand what you are.”

  “What am I, Mother?”

  Abella smiled. “You are strong. Strong like me.”

  II: Circle of Wolves

  Lila slept fitfully that night. Again and again she woke; and the sleep which fell in betwixt the waking, grew gradually briefer. So, after she had come awake for the fourth time, she gave up on rest altogether. She went to the balcony doors, and peered out into the smooth, white land about the castle. The moon shone brilliantly, and fell like diamonds upon the glistening snow drifts.

  To Lila – pacing the floor of her chamber, and stopping once every so often to glance again out of the window – the night seemed to stretch on forever. She wished for dawn to hurry along.

  She was just considering returning to her bed, where perhaps the gentle pull of slumber might ease her troubled mind, when there came a sound from somewhere very near. She looked about, but saw nothing.

  “Antony?” she said. “Is that you?”

  Of course she would have liked to believe that it was he; but really she did not think so. It was rather late in the night, even for her b
rother’s singular brand of jesting. And after their altercation earlier in the day, she doubted, anyway, whether he were in a particularly jesting humour.

  And yet she said, “This is no proper joke, Antony. Do come out, if it’s you. Otherwise I shall singe off your eyebrows.”

  “Will you, now?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

  Lila froze. She looked round again, but could see nothing in the moonshine. The voice hid well beneath the distant shadows.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “I am come by the order of Dain Aerca.”

  She pressed her back against the wall, and took a moment to steady her breathing. Then she raised her right hand to create a small orb of white light, which she cast into the darkness.

  And she saw, then, the true state of her visitor. It was over seven feet tall, with most of its skin covered in a kind of thick, matted fur. Previously it must have held its eyes closed against her; for when the light of the orb began to fade, and the shadows settled again, the eyes glowed silver in the black.

  Its eyes had a yellowish appearance, with thin red veins standing out angrily against the whites. Its hands and feet were enormous.

  It resembled a lycanthrope; but most definitely was not. Lila had borne witness, once, to a werewolf – and werewolf this thing was not. It was something strange, something altogether heinous – which came as no real surprise, considering who had sent it.

  Lila cast the ball of light away from her. The room went dark, and the creature lunged; but Lila dodged out of the way. She created another Santra, and hurled it this time directly at the creature. It cried out in pain (Santras were exceedingly hot to the touch of any but their maker) and fell to its knees, giving Lila time to think of what to do next.

  “I am going to kill you,” said the beast. “You will die a slow, painful death – and then I will eat your remains. None will ever even know what became of you.”

  “The one who desires my death is no secret,” said Lila breathlessly, dashing across the room to avoid the creature’s clutches. Yet finally she paused, and raised both arms above her head. She closed her eyes, and whispered, “Comm Dya nan.”