Some birds chirped outside, perched on the branches of the giant
junipers, hidden by the shadows of the leaves, hiding from the heat of
the afternoon sun.
A breeze gently sighed through the window, the lace coverings flapped
about their hangings, animating them into a lively dance and scattering
the shy sunlight that intermittently peaked into the room.
The room was large and fragrant with exotic incenses. The blue and
white of the polished Lazurite walls pleased the eye, as did the
intricately carved sandalwood furniture and bed frame. All of this
added a most natural aura to the naked smoothness of the marble and the
stone, utilized throughout the building.
In the white, fur-lined bed lay a man. His upper torso was propped up
by blue satin pillows, stuffed with fluffy swans down. The pillows
showed the unmistakable signs of dampness, from his sweat. He lay
still, tiny beads of sweat streaming from his brow. His nostrils
flared with each painful breath that he took. A blanket was drawn up
to his waist. His arms rested on the blanket's end and to his side.
His chest was circumscribed by clean bandages that held a herbal
poultice against the wound in his side -- an attempt to relieve his
pain.
The sounds of people outside returned to normal. Business carried on
in its usual way and the people carried on in their usual disarray.
Outside the room, in the hallway, was heard the whispering voices of a
man and a woman. The woman was describing an incident that had
occurred within the city square, that had injured their guest.
Within the room, the man on the bed stirred and woke up. He tried to
sit up quickly but let out a deep, painful groan as he again lay back.
His pain subdued him in silence. The voices outside the door hushed
for a moment and the man's voice was heard again. It speculated that
the injured man, in bed, may have regained consciousness.
The man in bed touched the bandages and grimaced in pain. He was
motionless in the bed and looked about the room. The exquisite,
luxurious beauty of the walls and patterned ceiling, with the many
crystals hanging from it suggested "home". He looked towards the
window, just in time to see a tiny swallow turn and fly from the ledge,
and a red-breasted Bourbon, was balancing on a branch and singing its
aria to him.
The latch on the door clicked as it was opened. The man in bed, lifted
his head for a moment and watched three people approach him; the
smaller one carrying a tray of food and drink.
For a long time, silent looks were exchanged between them all.
The cautious servant placed the tray over the man's lap and helped him
to sit up. He placed another cushion at his back.
The man looked at the food and at the others, until finally, the host
smiled and took a bite from the food and sipped the drink.
"Eat, my friend! You will not heal quickly if you do not eat." he
said, then stepped away from him.
The man in bed devoured the food as if he has never before eaten. The
host and his wife glanced at each other as they watched him.
After a minute, the injured man suddenly stopped and looked at the
others who stared at him while he at. There was thick quiet until the
injured man spoke, with a serious mistrust, in the tone of his voice.
"Where is my book?" he asked.
The host smiled at him and looked over to his wife. "Your encyclopedia
is safe, my friend." answered the host, as he slowly neared the bed.
The servant helped him sit up more comfortably in the bed when he
showed too much pain, trying to so do by himself.
Suspicion burned in the injured man's flaring eyes. He questioned his
host further.
"Who are you to know of such books?"
"I am the sovereign of Phoride -- I am called Brook Scullion. This is
my wife, Dearborne and our ... servant, Boy!" said the host, the Lord
Brook. He continued. "We know of that book, and about much more!"
There was quiet again for a few moments as their injured guest drank,
his thoughts and fears sculpted across his wide hirsute face. "No!"
said Brook. "It happens that we have common interests and like goals.
You, however, have a strange courage, trying to speak out your
knowledge. This is dangerous! -- No, my friend, if I were to kill you,
it would be like preventing a cure for a rampant plague!"
Dearborne neared the bed and looked at him while she explained to him,
how he came to be there, in the room.
"I was in the market today. When I was leaving I saw you, shouting and
waving a book over your head, but no one listened. I did not leave,
for the sake of curiosity, then after you were hurt, Boy and I brought
you back here." when Dearborne finished, a small, thankful smile
drifted across his face, then finally grew into a sincere completion
when Boy added his thoughts. "You're heavy!" she said, rubbing his
arms.
Brook stood right up against the bed and checked the bandages. He
sighed and shook his head in disbelief.
"You are a very fortunate man. Never before have I seen anyone
survive a blast from those --- "
" -- Electrophoric guns!" interrupted the man.
"Yes! You know much of the last millennia!" he smiled.
"I do, sir! So do others from where I come. I am Lloyd Bartlet, and I
am from Besten."
Brook turned to Dearborne. They looked at one another, their
expressions bordering on apprehension, puzzlement and a somewhat odd
pleasure.
"Besten?!" Brook ejaculated with surprise.
Lloyd nodded his head and with a smile, he detailed.
"Besten, the 'Hopeless City', as the ArchBishop calls it. We have no
tyrant rulers there and no monastic institutions, and because of this
we are called 'evil', by him. Well ..." he shrugged at his
thought.
"Why are you here, if Besten is so free?" asked Dearborne, confused and
now becoming interested about his motives.
Lloyd took another drink from the goblet on his lap tray while Lord and
Lady Scullion waited, in anticipation, for him to explain why he had
come to Phoride.
Boy stood by. He watched and listened. His face showed its usual
bewilderment. He handed Lloyd a large napkin and Lloyd wiped his
mouth. After the wiping he sighed and finally explained his presence
here in their land.
"My people (my father, Harvard Bartlet, especially), had sent me to try
to alter the ArchBishop's trade embargo on Besten. I suppose that I
went about it the wrong way by trying to talk to the people first!"
Brook put his hand on Lloyd's shoulder and assured him that he made no
mistake. Dearborne agreed with her husband's opinion and she released
her suspicions.
"It wouldn't have made much of a difference. Actually, avoiding the
talk, directly with the ArchBishop probably saved your life and I
believe that you may be fortunate enough to have created a question in
some of the citizen's minds. Your injury, I suppose, may be considered
a payment for giving men new ideas!"
"I think it to be a little too expensive!" added Lloyd, with humour,
laughing at his own pains and inequities while he touched his bandaged
chest.
They continued their palaver throughout the afternoon and into the
early evening. They learned many intricacies about one another; about
their individual lifestyles and their social ideologies.
They discussed the progress that had occurred through the many
generations that grew and nurtured along with it the disease of
corruption and immorality; the same diseases that were present in all
civilised peoples. These powerful progression had meant the inevitable
downfall of all the great Empires which once reigned on the Earth.
From the first humans that walked upright, to the last of the brave
that went into space, in the late Twentieth Century, it had been the
same until the fall of man, in his greatest conflagration. Brook and
Lloyd exchanged little bits of knowledge about the Twentieth Century
and the three great wars that were fought. There were endless columns
of living flesh, where people were herded like animals by other people,
and transported to large camps. While there, many who were not
fortunate enough to die, were made use of in the endless experiments of
new drugs, surgical techniques and endless studies of the individual's
body tolerances to torture.
The atrocities, that every war carried with it, seemed to grow and
spread. They were pandemic. Yet, these atrocities were allowed to
continue, where social morals degenerated further with every proceeding
conflict and the outrageous brutality that was let to worsen, by the
lack of authoritative controls on those madmen. They spoke of the
GREAT NATION's 'Proposition Blue'; devised in the last half of the
Twentieth Century, to preserve human life, in the event that global
annihilation would become reality. Learned men and women were chosen
and assembled, and were taken to subterranean cities. There, they were
to carry-on with their work and with their lives, in the perfect safety
of their restraint.
In the years that proceeded, and no major wars were fought, the young
chosen became old and were replaced by newly chosen young
intellectuals. They too, continued in the sealed cities.
Lloyd reached for his book and opened at a particular spot. He had
read aloud to Brook; Dearborne and Boy listening:
"Two generations of the Proposition Blue personnel lived-out
their lives, underground. In the Omega 1-SGI, restless
dissention had spread when the time of the last global war
had finally come to pass. When the news of war spread
through the ranks of The Blue, many scientists forcibly left
their protective cities and went out into the world to let
the common people know of some meagre ways to protect
themselves during the inevitable nuclear strikes and the
subsequent fallout.
Some scientists published papers, that they called "The Blue
Prospectus". It told the world about their government's
secret cities and it made demands for regular people to be
admitted into them, also. The people then rebelled, all of
them wanting in. In the Far and MiddleEast, the Red Forces
fought. They had left death and destruction in the wake of
their advancement towards (what was then) the world's
greatest, and most Holy of cities.
The masses were terrified.
At home, people fought amongst one another, crying at the
terrible lies that the men in power told to them. They
desperately tried to understand why some of them were not
allowed into the "Proposition Blue" standards. The final
chance to allow one young worker from each of the State's
counties, an admission into one of the seven Omega SubGround
Installations.
FLIGHT FOR SALVATION
GINN -- 2030
At dusk, as the twilight colours gave way to darkness and the pulsing
stars, Brook and his guest had sup and continued with their exchange.
Dearborne and Boy attentively sat by one another for many of those
passing hours. They said very little but listened a great deal.
Lloyd told Brook of a great vault that was uncovered in the centre of
Besten by historian scholars, many years ago. The vault contained a
great number of books, journals and visual ribbons which showed the
dire panic of the masses when the first bombs began to fall upon their
cities.
Pictures showed masses in exodus to the mountains just before the
escalation. Those people who left early, during the desperately
unsuccessful peace negotiations, had made it to the safety of the
mountains, where they hopefully found some degree of protection from
the deadly fallout. Those who waited and moved too late, perished in
the desolation that came to pass. And the world cried, for the final
prophesy was not fulfilled. The Son of Man had failed to return and
put a stop to the killing, the persecution and the corruption. Some
people died from their lack of Faith, while other stayed with the hope
that His return was still to come upon them, a little while later.
Their talk lead them into their own historic backgrounds, to the sum of
knowledge which was allowed by the original Canon Di'Vaticanus, in the
middle of the Twenty Seventh Century. He declared that this two score
and eleventh year (2651 C.E.), was the beginning of the long-promised
millennium, as heralded by the ancient prophets. His declaration was
made after an eleven-year-old girl gave birth to a son. The
eleven-year-old was a foundling in an abbess hermitage, left there by
someone who could not care for her.
"She was found, wrapped in richly garb and placed in a golden cradle.
As the girl grew she became beautiful, like the sun. She shone with
inner light. Her hair was white -- shiny like snow and iridescent like
the moon. Her olive-skin flesh colouring contrasted her naturally
reddened mouth and she possessed dark, almost black, almond-shaped
eyes. Her beauty was near Holy and many men felt a jealousy within
themselves when they just looked upon her. Then, at eleven, she was in
size and stature, and appearance, to that of a full-grown woman; she
birthed a son. This son, the Canon had proclaimed as a "Saviour" and
sought to conduct a sacrifice in honour of the child, but he told the
world that nothing was precious enough for this. It was soon
determined, however, that there was one thing of great value, in all
the land; the boy's own young and beautiful mother. In the shortness
of time, and as if for the redemption for her death, the boy became
weak and also died. The child's milk of life was taken from him and
nothing else would sustain him.
The child's death was hidden from the ignorant masses and all the
people believed in a falsity for nearly a half millennia." Lloyd
recounted the story about the foundling that came to be called Sunshine
by the old Abbess Mariot, in the common year of 2640. This was the
same little girl that resulted the subsequent formation of the
spiritualism that has been followed for the last four hundred years.
As the twilight evening gave way to the dark of night, Brook told
Lloyd about his own lineage, following it as far back as he was able
to, and confessed to him the peculiar ancestry that he had with the
Canon Blue. He explained that his father's line originated with the
woman Dioneza, the half-sister of the Canon. In 2660 C.E., she had
agreed to be artificially inseminated with Twentieth Century seamen
from a physicist, who was called David Sannstein. He confessed to
Lloyd that this wasn't really his own line and that he didn't know
from where his line actually stemmed. Brook admitted, truthfully,
that he was a foundling.
He spoke about that one day, long ago, when Smith Blue and his wife
Miri were returning to Phoride, from the Virgin Mountains. Miri was
heavy with child and in that mid-summer's afternoon in 3001 C.E., she
gave birth to a son and called his name, Manguino. In a thankful rest,
while his wife nursed the newborn, Smith Blue walked in the woods,
following a babbling stream and a strange distant sound which was like
the crying of a babe. And in his curious search, he came upon a
hollow, where there was a child, wrapped in a sackcloth and left within
a lion's skull. Smith gave the baby to his wife; seeing the baby
abandoned and crying from hunger. And upon seeing the unfortunate
child, Miri brought it near to her milk-laden breast and let it suckle
beside her own son. Having hearts of gold, they accepted the babe to
their bosom as their own, and Smith called his name, Brook Scullion;
after the fashion that he had been found -- by a stream, lying in a
lion's skull.
As midnight approached, they talked of their governments. Lloyd
proudly explained to Brook, Dearborn and the quiet Boy, about the
Democratic system of government that his people accepted from the
ancient Twentieth Century. In Besten, the people found it the most
suitable form of rule for a civilized people. And even though, in the
beginning there was corruption and immorality, their land had
eventually overcome it all and soon gleaned a people of extreme honesty
and cooperation. It had made Besten a very powerful, and important,
centre on the northeast coast of the continent.
Lloyd became depressed when he thought about the Phoridenes closing
their minds to the knowledge that he tried to give to them, and he
experienced repeated visions of the monastic guard's electrophoric guns
wallop him over and over again with their charges.
"My people hoped, that if the Phoridenes were to know the truth about
the past, they would rally to oppose the ArchBishop. Maybe then, he
would resume trade with Besten and the other territories so affected."
Brook thought that Lloyd's people had a logical plan but he also saw
they were too innocent of the facts about the man in the great Halls
Cathedral.
"The hopes of your people are too great!" Brook prepared an
explanation that shattered any hopes that Lloyd may have had for the
success of his mission to Phoride. "These people of Phoride ... they
are ardent followers of that weasel at Halls. They follow him as if he
is a god. It has been that same way, since the time of Canon. This
following has been an deviation, in this land; this worship of him as
some Almighty, who is nothing more than a man -- a madman!"
Dearborne now broke her long silence and also commented about the
people.
"They are all children, in mind, and follow the ArchBishop as if he is
their father. To keep this maniacal worship, he has banned citizens
from acquiring knowledge; limiting their scholastic learning to the
monasteries and to the Blaisaman, and limiting only this to his own
supporters' children. These places and their people are controlled by
him. He prefers to keep the people as ignorant as he can, for his own
ease to rule them." her voice quivered from her constricted soul.
Then, to Lloyd's amazement, Boy joined the conversation. His
bewildered expression left him, as his hopeless and saddened voice
carried right into the hearts and minds of the adults, in the room with
him.
Brook turned to Dearborne, surprised. His eyes questioned her for a
reason for Boy's interjection. "Everyone does what they are told or
they are made to suffer!" said Boy. He rose to his feet, looked at
Brook and Dearborne and walked about the room. He continued to speak
his mind while the others quietly listened. "Not long ago, the
servant-girl of one of the Cardinals -- she was just older than me --
refused to bare the Cardinal's holy child. With that refusal came her
death, because the Cardinal declared that she will, therefore, never
have children ... and in the view of all the people at Halls, and the
Phoridene Council, the Cardinal had his vicars cut open the girl and
all she had inside was pulled out and thrown to the floor. She did
not die right away. The Cardinal wanted her last sight to be the
death of her entire family." Dearborne turned away from what Boy had
described. The horrible sight of the execution had returned to her.
She and Brook were required to attend the execution -- as was their
slave, Boy.
Brook went to her and embraced her. As he consoled her, Boy continued,
his eyes on the brink of bursting into tears.
"Then, they said that she was a demon and impure, and displayed her
naked at Halls, for all of Phoride to gawk at."
Boy stopped and lowered his head but his expression showing a
determined refusal to cry.
Lloyd was horrified by Boy's story and under his breath he could just
sigh, "Barbaric!"
Brook and Dearborne held each other, tears slowly dribbling down their
cheeks as Boy went to them for comfort, as well. To Lloyd's surprise,
he watched them embrace the child.
"But why? -- " Lloyd pleaded. "Why, my Lord, would such an atrocity
be done to so young a girl? What was there to be gained by such
barbarity?" he wiped his eyes as he thought of his little sister,
still in Besten, and imagined that this could also become of her, if
they lived in Phoride.
"Lloyd, my friend ... the ArchBishop has made some strange laws, that
I could not veto. One such law was that the refusal to bare a child
by a monastic was a sin, punishable by death. Nothing could be done
and fear prevented me from asserting what powers I do have over him,
at Halls. More of Phoride follows his words and requests than they
follow mine. My power is possessed just out of respect for my Blue
heritage. He, with whom I had ruled, died early in our lives. Our
co-sovereignty, that we promised to Smith Blue, died as well. It was
I who united Upper and Lower Phoride but that Almighty ass of
hypocrisy and immorality, took hold of my people's hearts."
Brook became very angry and felt so vulnerable and alone. He stood up
and moved away from Dearborne and Boy.
"He banned all forms of learning, unless all the teaching was conducted
by his monks, in the monastery. I tried to oppose him with all my
power on that resolution. All I accomplished was the formation of our
small Blaisaman. The masses listened to him when he told them _ "The
Devil is in Knowledge, unless that Knowledge was conveyed by a
righteous man of the Almighty" ... but as you see Lloyd, we know the
real devil."
Lloyd came to realize Brook's thoughts and confirmed them with a nod.
He could see that Brook had some real influence in the local government
but no real power.
For the first time since the afternoon, there was a still quiet in the
room. A morose presence hung in the air and it felt cold and ugly.
Outside, the people began to yell and scream in ecstasy as the warm
drizzles finally began to pour on them. Their moderate prolificacy
grew stronger with the coming of the rain; where the men chased their
wives and daughters, their mistresses and their whores, out into the
streets. In their uncontrolled lust, they rolled around in the mud,
like swine, and fornicated with anyone or anything nearby. It mattered
very little to them whether it was man, woman, child or animal. That
rain was the ill-begotten legacy of the Twentieth Century war. The
rain fell only once or twice a year in Lower Phoride. It was the same
rain that caused the beautiful vegetation to grow into its remarkable
splendour. Throughout the year, the green would survive by the
watering from the artesian seas beneath the ground, until the next rain
came. Some citizens eagerly waited for the rain to come, on that one
day or night, where they believed that the evil within them would be
fully satisfied and would leave them if they allowed themselves to be
fully indulged in whatever manner of perversion happened upon them,
during that season.
There were those who were afraid. Mothers, who didn't want to see
their innocent ravaged, hid in their homes until the rains passed, and
after the rain, those who hid came out into the streets. They wouldn't
be afraid of the pools and puddles because the rain lost its strange
properties shortly after touching the ground.
When the rains eventually ended the hiding people would emerge to see
their naked friends and relatives in their frenetic prurience. They
would walk amongst them, covering their mouths and noses from the stink
of the forced orgasms produced by their uncontrolled reaction to being
caught in the rains. They would gather-up the injured and cart-away,
to the incinerators, those that had died from their over-exertions.
The legacy of the rain was a strange one caused by the chemical
intermixing of, the now weakened, radiation and the bacterial layers
that encircled the world high in the atmosphere, released by that
unspeakable war so many years in antiquity.
Several hours passed in conversation within Lloyd's room.
Dearborne cradled Boy, now asleep.
Brook and Lloyd devoured the contents of the book Lloyd had brought,
and Brook reciprocated by showing Lloyd some of the materials and
relics that he had in his possession.
The rain, stopping not long before, had resumed. This time it was
coming down harder, stealing the attention of the two new friends, as
they read.
Dearborne, quietly sitting and relaxed, was jolted by a flash of
lightning and a loud bang of thunder that quickly reported itself.
Boy awoke, startled. He looked at his surrounding then jumped from
Dearborne's lap and ran towards the window. He pulled a large panel
of wood over the open window to prevent the rain from entering the
room. But the rain fell of him.
At once, Brook commanded him to lock himself in his chamber and slide
the key out beneath the door. The boy quickly ran from the room, in
haste to follow what Brook had instructed.
Lloyd, Brook and Dearborne were silent in their concern.
They exchanged several glances of worry about Boy.
"These rains are an evil necromancy over this entire continent. We
also experience the rains, in Besten; although, my people do not go
into it willingly. We have set aside gardens, throughout the entire
city, for those to go, if caught in the rain. We are compassionate
towards the cruelty of the madness."
Dearborne looked worried. She touched Brook's hand and questioned him
about her fears for Boy. "Will he be alight?" she asked, as he face
lost its flushed highlights.
A pounding sound was heard down in the distant hallway. It was coming
from Boy's room.
"He made it to his chamber in time. Now he tries to come out. He will
have to struggle with the rain's curse until it wears off. It is good
that Boy is young and he was not fully soaked. Fortunately, the
recovery should not take long."
Dearborne worried for Boy, since he had never-before been touched by
the rain and, as far as she knew, he was far too young to have
experienced any of extreme, or absurd, sexual drives.
The rain caused his body's glands to react by generating vast hormone
secretions, and he convulsed in an insatiable erotic lust, while he
poured out on the floor, by the door, by his own hand.
To calm Dearborne and suppress her worry for the boy, Lloyd and Brook
continued to talk. Brook told his guest that he recently taught his
wife all that he knew about the Twentieth Century, revealing to her the
secrets from that now forgotten time.
"Have you taught anyone, other than Lady Dearborne, about the past?"
inquired Lloyd.
"Not as of yet, Lloyd! But I am prepared to teach the boy, for I
believe that he is ready to understand." Brook answered. "We have no
children of our own and though it would be wonderful, without is truly
best. Our lives are too short and petty in the existence of this world
of miseries. Dearborne is also spared a terrible fate by the monastics
who are not permitted their lustful intercourse without the potential
of a birth."
Lloyd did not believe in Brook's notion of life being so miserable. He
tried to give him a small dose of Bestenese faith.
"That is the very same way that the Old Ones had spoken in Besten, but
they found that our lives could be as long as we wished. And our lives
could be worth while, too! This may even be our religion. If not, is
at least the attitude that we possess!
Lloyd closed his eyes and yawned. The talk that they have had, since
that afternoon, was tiring even though it was fulfilling. Now he was
weary. A need for rest could be seen in Brook's face, as-well-as in
Dearborne. They glanced at one another with tear-soft eyes that craved
sleep.
Dearborne checked Lloyd's bandages before they prepared to leave him.
"You will be fine. You are fortunate to survive those evil
electrophorics. Maybe the true God is watching over you!" she said as
she took Brook under the arm.
"Rest ... tomorrow we will talk some more." Brook commanded.
"Tomorrow, if you can move around, I will show you more things that you
may not have seen before."
"Thanks to you, both _ my friends." exclaimed Lloyd.
Lloyd fell to sleep once he lay back, and his saviours left the room.