The Loss
This is a sample chapter from a project I'm working on. It is the first two chapters of a fantasy story. I hope to get some feedback and ideas about what works and what doesn't.
They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.
I don't know if that is true, but as I find myself running out of choices and approaching a time when there may be no more left to make, I am filled with the urge to go back and examine those I made on my journey to this point.
The most sensible way I can think to do that is by starting at the beginning of my story and working forwards.
I will attempt to truthfully document my perspective on the events of my time, and their tragic culmination.
Who are you, oh reader of my story?
Will you understand the world I lived in, or the people and places that existed there? Many are now gone, and in the future, there may not even be a memory of their existence.
Now is a time of collapse. And that is something that spreads. Small failures that cascade into big disasters. A personal crisis that becomes a cultural extinction.
Maybe no one will be left to read my testament, or care what it contains.
For want of a nail, a horse loses its shoe. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For lack of a horse...
I read that story somewhere, in a library now buried under a mountain of rock and history. A short, sad tale of cause and effect that moved me, as a reflection of my times.
The funny thing is, I don't even know what a horse is.
I found an old dictionary, even older than the book containing that once famous account of cascade collapse. The entry on horses was unfortunately not at all enlightening.
Horse:
Noun. Everyone knows what a horse is.
And of course, in the writer's time, I'm sure everyone possessed intimate knowledge of the animal. But the world turns and what was once common knowledge fades into legend and myth.
We have knowledge of the Byahipah; the winged horse gifted by the gods to a mighty hero.
And I remember reading the story of the Veednoh Dahp Tiji; the thousand stride horse, which could travel over whole continents in a single day... but no record of what a regular horse looked like or how they acted.
We have an animal called a Kip Tiji; The water horse. It is about 3 dahp in length, with spines running down its back to its tail. It has a long, tapered jaw with many sharp teeth and enormous, almost luminous yellow eyes. It is a mean-tempered beast, and I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough to ride one into battle.
Did they really wear shoes? One for each of its six, clawed feet, perhaps?
Dear reader, so as not to burden you with a similar sense of confusion, I will attempt to illuminate your journey through my memory, which even to me is rather dark and jumbled, by assuming you know nothing of my land or its cultures and various creatures.
I can't help very much with the first steps though.
My earliest memory is well worn, but ill-defined. It is a memory of a memory of a story that I was later told, about how I was found and adopted by the Culture.
That's what they called themselves; The Culture, or Yii Tok-en-giid in their own language.
That's a "y" sound, followed by a long "i", as in "rice". Then three syllables, tok with a short "o" sound, like "pot", then the en from "pen" followed by another long "i" in giid. Which sounds just like "guide".
Yes, I know about rice and guides. Though my knowledge of both words is as patchy as my understanding of horses, coming from the same source as it does. Did the ancients eat similar food and have the same jobs as us? Undoubtedly, their world was much different to ours, but it is impossible to by how much it differed by reading the few remaining patchy records.
I digress.
Let's return to the Tok'engiid, before we get off track.
They called my people the Adeeki, or simply barbarians. But then for those of the Culture, that was a name that covered anyone from outside their borders.
I use the past tense, because my people and the Culture are both gone now. They live on only in writings like these.
But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's always best to start at the beginning.
As I stretch back through my memories, the first one that I can grasp with any clarity is one of bone-deep terror. It comes back with depressing regularity, whenever I am stressed, or when I feel the weight of decisions pressing down on me.
I'm lost in the ruins of an ancient city.
Once it must have been a grand place. The ancients had mighty magic that we can only guess at today. How they raised buildings so high, or delved tunnels so deep is a mystery that I've never heard a good explanation for.
It was magic, of course. But as I've had a chance to experience, magic can have both bad and good aspects. Intentions matter, and there is always a price that must be paid whenever magic of any kind is employed.
The ancients paid their price.
I will recount the dream, as it always occurs, since the original memory is now lost.
I am wandering in the ruins. Around me are the other members of my clan; my Nonoo as we say in the barbarian tongue. I don't remember their names or faces. In my dream they are just shadows cast on the deeper darkness of the ruins.
I am always my current age in the dream. Whatever I would be if I were awake. My body is the same, with all its proud collection of scars and injuries.
But when my clan was lost, I was barely hatched. Or so it felt.
The Raedwilush Nonoo, or Firewater Clan, raised their children to be independent from an early age. There were no useless mouths. Everyone did their part.
I don't know what part I was playing that night. Carrying firewood or collecting vines for making rope? Perhaps I had a bag of unbroken paving stones for repairing our simple houses. Our distant ancestors made things to last, and there were plenty of things that would make a good harvest. Mostly I was just walking in wonder.
The other members of my clan must have been busy though. The Raedwilush made a living from stripping the bones of the ancients. And they often trekked to the most dangerous and isolated of the ruins to find the best pickings.
I've seen the ruins on a map, and even revisited them once. They are both terrifying and awe inspiring.
My people are very superstitious. We have a strong taboo against magic in all its forms. We don't trust it, or we know well enough the price it exacts on its users. But everyone has to find a way to earn a living.
My relatives surely wanted to collect their harvest of junk and trinkets and get out as quickly as possible.
I have met enough scavengers since to get an idea of their general character. People who make a living through this dangerous occupation always dream of stumbling across some secret passage or hidden door. An undiscovered portal to thousand year old riches. But most of them are smart enough to leave such doors firmly shut.
That night, someone ignored their good sense. They opened some hatch or gate that never should have been breached. And they released a last remnant of the ancients.
In the dream, I'm alone when I realize the danger. I must have foolishly wandered away from the others and I'm not sure which way to go to find my way back.
Despite being just an infant, I know enough not to cry out. Even the mundane beasts that can be found in the forests of the north or among the ruins scattered in the tundra can be a hazard that you don't want to attract.
So I look for signs of light. A torch or a lantern. Why were they working at night? That's something no one has ever been able to tell me. It was as foolish as it was inexplicable.
I spot something gleaming in the darkness.
It is coming slowly towards me. Several twinkling pinpoints hanging in the darkness. They move with a hypnotic regularity. Radiant lights of many colors. Getting bigger.
I freeze. Those lights look like the focus Stones that magic users power their spells with.
Magic is danger, and that danger is advancing on me.
I turn and I am about to run. Behind me the air is filled with a metallic sound which is part bellow and part scream. It starts off with a bass rumbling and quickly climbs the scale to a sound that would shatter glass.
"Hooourrraaiii!"
It fills me with terror. Just as it does on the dozen times I've heard it since.
Sometimes, when listening to music or songs which really grip me, I can feel the sound creep across my skin, tickling my nerves, stroking along the length of my whiskers. It traces an electric current up my spine to the base of my neck.
The beast's scream was like that, but with the intensity of summer lightning.
It comes again. Getting closer now.
I'm gripped by an invisible hand, clutching at my heart. The hair on my head stands on end. I can't move, not even to turn around and look at the thing. But I can feel it getting closer.
It's at this time I find myself presented with two options.
On my left, an ancient building has half collapsed against its neighbor. A tight, ragged gap is present between them. Small enough for a child to squeeze through. But maybe too large to admit a monster.
To the right and just ahead is a drainage hole. A rectangular opening even smaller than the gap between buildings.
There's nothing to recommend one choice over the other. They both present a difficult squeeze and a leap into darkness. Maybe neither will be enough to save me. What if I become stuck, half in and half out?
Ahead the wide open street is lit by moonlight. It invites me to try and outrun my terror. But I instinctively understand that it is no real option. Who knows what the beast is capable of in a fair match of speed?
I know I can't stand still either, as I listen to the clinking footsteps coming nearer. The scrape of metal on stone sends those tremors of electricity tingling across my skin.
In a flash, I dive for the drain.
The scream splits the air again.
"Uuughhh---rraaaiiik!"
Powerful limbs rend and crush the stone entrance to the drain, enlarging it, bit by bit. I wriggle further into the damp darkness. I tunnel under rotting leaves. An arm extends in to the hole behind me. Talons reach out leave a tracery of blood across my back and leg as I slither into the pitch-black of the ancient sewer.
I still have those lines etched faintly in my skin. A reminder of how lucky I was to make the right choice.
Sometimes I don't get it right.
In the dream there are times when I'm not quick enough, or I dive for the wrong goal. I sometimes dream of other options. A barred gate or a high fence. There are times when it is the correct choice and others when I am eviscerated by the beast's awful claws before I can reach safety. The most common end to the dream is to wake in the darkness, covered in a cold sweat, no decisions made at all.
But in reality, luck was with me, even as it abandoned everyone else. The night was long and filled with horror. The mechanical screams echoed between the buildings, joined with more recognizably human voices. I heard them raised in surprise, anger and fear. Cut short or drawn out in gurgling last breaths.
The Raedwilush were erased from history that night. But I survived.
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