Scorched Earth: A Future History of Planet Earth

Copyright (C) 1980, 2004 by Walter D. Petrovic.

SCORCHED EARTH
A Future History of Planet Earth

By: WALTER D. PETROVIC

walter.petrovic@3web.net

(c) Copyright 1980 + 2004

Note from Author: April 2004

This was my first novel committed to paper during my initial year of college 1979-80. I was studying Film Production with the goal to becoming a screenwiter/director.

Life rarely allows most of us the opportunity to achieve our life-long goals but this did not stop me from pushing-on with my writing. I recently realised that the real joy of writing was not in the money and fame that comes with publication but the thrill that comes with the appreciation of something that is a monumental undertaking - such as, that of writing a book.

I do aspire to be published at some point, but for now I wish to have the world-at-large read my works and hopefully to enjoy them.

I only request this one thing from the reader - please drop me an email to let me know that you have looked at my work and your honest (and critical) opinion of my material.

Please enjoy, and I thank-you.

Walter D. Petrovic

THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF OUR WORLD

APOCALYPSE - THE BLUE INFINITE

The idea simply was. The single Spirit had begun what was to be the test for its being-its endurance and tolerances. It was set into motion by great hands and the power of will, churning the infinite matter and energy and bringing into being the stunning light of a living state. Matter collapsed into itself, separating from chaotic waters the vapours, the gases and ice-imploding into a bottomless abyss that collected everything into one single focus-and not excluding the pureness of the energy itself.

Everything was brought together at one point and at one instant-fire and the waves, also. Everything was made grand and rock hard, held together by their infinite natures and limits.

The Universe simply was. All its heavenly bodies were compelled to turn and to make their way into infinite end, while they grew in nature and in kind, making their firmament and their gleaming lights to be awakened at their first moment of life-their first day. Time had begun, and with its cycles of night and day, seconds and light years, stellar light joined the spheres in moments so brief as to deny comprehension, in a time that spanned infinite dreams.

Light was life. With this life, the ages passed into a third order. As if a single day had passed twice from awakening, the heralding joys of this new-found life had permitted growth to those things named leaves and trees-the fruits by which the life to come would consume and hitherto live.

Perpetuation . . . assurance by tiny seed that beat with life in a harmonious pulse, the genesis of a new life within the ground that would grow to feed the firmament with breath and thus tempting more life to be.

The further ordered time had lapsed. In passing as if five thousand, thousand years flashed by instantly. In these times the Universe was seen as it reeled and smiled, content with the pleasures of being. Freedom had taken its accounting. Life left the dark waters for the light of land. Propagating in their kind they were of dual sexes, soon to cover the expanse of their terran home.

The Thought knew itself. The Thought was life. The Thought prompted into Its Being the struggle to survive in the harshness of its new awareness and substance.

Flesh came from the earth. Blood coalesced from the dew of morning and eyes that could see the new wonder were carved from the Sun's own rays. Intelligence sprang from the swiftness of the clouds covered by the veins and hair, born from earthly grass and breathing with the life of the wind's own spirit. Each substance could feel and find meaning for its life. The flesh heard, the eyes saw and the souls could smell the life to its fullest beauty. The veins of life knew the touch of life, and the currents of blood tasted life's sweetness. Bones claimed life's stature through endurance while new thoughts explored their cravings and their urges. They knew their pleasures and their joys.

Man was the life and death that followed. The thoughts that served him well in understanding his infinite life had set him to prey upon his own kind and in falling from his cosmic grace, he found mortality through his love for woman.

He cleaved only to her. He obeyed and honoured only her. He permitted his gift to fail him for a suggestion that there was more to life than the bliss of a simple and peaceful being.

There was more than long life and contentment in a world of fruitful abundance, to use at their slightest whim. Yet, all this was to pass away from sight when they allowed their manners to fail them. Whims of habit overtook them and tore them from the eternity of the Universe and its Grand Thought. The Grand Thought that no longer would care for them, but indeed set them onto a path of struggle for survival.

Impatience reigned on a tiny speck of universal dust. The Earth suffered from that day when curious questions began to jab at its Heart, and to tear into the very atoms that insured existence. Life was aware of impending mortality and that life, which called itself Intelligent and Humanity, had turned its struggle to live into one of greed and self-fulfilment.

Millennia passed, witnessing countless struggles between the intelligent human beings who warred over arid and barren parcels of land which could be traversed by foot in a fraction of a day.

Love was locked out of the hearts of men, and hate was to ravage the civilized. Hate and greed tempted all whom were alive to hurt their own kind, and to hurt their stellar home, as well. Through six thousand years, minds and souls searched for truth but turned their hearts away, from the few which had come to help them. They allowed their violations to stain and bloody their souls. They carried on as if nothing could touch them in life, or in death.

Mankind took command of everything and like maggots devouring rotting flesh, grew in knowledge and in material things until the very essence of life itself was at their command.

It became an unsure and frightening time in the Earth's history. Mankind had now realised that the total destruction of everything that they knew, and craved for, could happen within minutes. It was destruction that they, themselves, could cause through the slightest whim ruled by hate. Through pangs of anxiety, the Earth itself spewed forth fire from its bowels. The land shook and called its children, that circled close to her, to come and fall to her bosom and to cry with her.

Even the Earth, the mother, waited anxiously for the Idea and the
Essence to intervene.

GINN-JULY 2011

A MOVEMENT TO FINALITY

The Twentieth Century was ravaged by bloody wars and more people lost their lives than in all the wars and all the murders that took place since the dawn of history, and the ancient account of the first murder.

Paranoia reigned on the Earth. Great multitudes scurried about in panic searching for shelter and trying to live without substance or material things. Individuals watched the great Nations rise up against each other 3/4 pulling in all smaller nations to fight beside them, thus perpetuating the global conflict. Twice were such great wars. Many smaller wars were the same, though thoughts in such conflicts were suppressed by being called "police actions!"

Tensions formed between all peoples.

Politics, economics and retarded beliefs set the course for the world to crumble.

Latent barbarism that peeked through the veneer of intelligence and civilisation was set to push the world to its final conflagration. Then, at the verge of bloodshed and misery, nature itself began its assault. Dozens of man named Apollo Asteroids, which circles the Earth, had been moving closer and closer over the millennia, unseen by the naked eye. Ignored by the stupid and the intelligent alike, these rocks fell to the Earth in great fury, blasting the entire surface of the great home.

False prophets cried to the people to repent of their sins, for God had come. They hid themselves in shelters and in mountains afraid of mortality, to be punished for being hypocrites while hoarding and hiding great wealth for use in later times.

When all was done great cities were laid waste and disease moved across the land and seas to visit all people. A billion individuals perished in the cosmic catastrophe. A billion more dropped dead from the diseases that could no longer be controlled.

When normality finally returned those who remained alive united to rebuild the planet. People of absolute opposing views on Politics, Religion and life in general, let their hate go from them and so began civilisation anew. However, each of the sides still had their own future plans and desires. Soon thereafter everything was rebuilt and they resumed in their previous and hateful ways. The people, called Communists, still had cravings to rule the entire world. Those, called peaceful and democratic, were not far from similar aspirations. In utter stupidity, arms were again manufactured for defence.

Trusting no one, the people called 'Americans' resumed in their secret building of great subterranean cities across the face of the North American Continent. These were the cities that were conceived and under construction since the great destruction of two Japanese cities during the period called World War II. Having been the wealthiest of the Earth's nations, the Americans continued with their early nuclear war survival plans, designated as "Proposition Blue". It was this proposal that expedited the construction and populating of those cities named the Omega Sub-Ground Installations: (O.S.G.I's).

Constructed near more populous areas and connected by underground pneumatic travel tubes, each city was designed to host some one thousand individuals made up of the chosen elite. These were the scientists, artists and other members from the intellectual community. The 1950's through the 1980's saw the building and populating of seven O.S.G.I's at the following locations across North America:

OMEGA 1 - SOUTH: Near Eldorado, Texas

OMEGA 2 - NORTH: Near Burke, South Dakota

OMEGA 3 - WEST: Near Pioche, Nevada

OMEGA 4 - EAST: Near Toronto, (Canada)

OMEGA 5 - CENTRAL: Near Manhattan, Kansas

OMEGA 6 - ATLANTIC: Near Atlanta, Georgia

OMEGA 7 - PACIFIC: Near Vancouver, (Canada)

Greatly endangered in the asteroid disaster of the late Twentieth Century, most the cities still survived. Only two cities were utterly destroyed: OMEGA - 2 and 5. These cities were amongst America's greatest achievements, next to their endeavours in space. All the cities were under strict military control, watching the intellectuals and providing them with necessities, to keep them content.

In the first years of the 1990's, however, many of the scientists in these cities were made aware that a nuclear war was inevitable. Unable to control their own consciences and knowing that billions would die, so that they could live, they rose up against the military and passed out of these cities and into the public. They published a document which they called their "Blue Prospectus". This "Blue Prospectus" revealed their government's survival intentions. With adverse feelings towards their respective government, the masses marched on their capital demanding equality to enter these, but nothing was accomplished. The solar catastrophe had occurred and the reasons for their mass discontent were subsequently forgotten.

By the end of the 1999, just over a full year following the asteroid destruction of the Earth's surface, mankind had managed to rebuild their cities and start life anew. Enjoying totally new styles of living, no individual was really poor. The technological advancements during that year of peace were astounding and the entire world now benefited from them.

New sources of power were discovered following great tectonic upheavals caused by the impacting asteroids; small, crystal-like minerals were pushed to the Earth's surface. Their properties were pure and vigorous. Their radiation became useful for everything imaginable.

Remaining secret, those Americans that survived on the surface and those from the O.S.G.I's, converted their power sources to utilise the new crystals. Entire cities were powered by two crystals, no larger than walnuts.

Plans were formulated to build colonies in space, beginning with orbital stations and finally lunar and Martian colonies. These colonies were to be powered by the new crystals and materials for building the colonies would come from the asteroid belt; the very origin of the Earth's cataclysm.

Laser instruments, of innovative design and use, were built to take advantage of this new crystal power. Many of these lasers were used for medicine, however, and only a few thousand weapons were developed, for the police. The police rarely used them, having been given electrostatic guns that inhibited nerve synapses, and in that manner had several non-injured reprobates to their list of captured. The laser weapons that were not used by the police were channelled into the O.S.G.I's, to be taken care of by the city administrators.

During these years of revived human civilisation and technology, there came a movement of great intensity that called for the disarming and dismantling of all destructive weaponry around the world.

The Communist nations were prepared to agree with America and its allied nations. Although there were internal conflicts within the Communist nations, leading to their eventual fall, the governments that emerged from the revolutions eventually fulfilled many promises and commitments to which they were previously committed.

Both great nations dismantled their arsenals and the Americans remained quiet regarding their O.S.G.I's, never recalling those who were assigned to live within them. Not many years following the fall of the Communist Nation, called The Soviet Union, another Communist nation called China, started to experience similar internal problems. Young people and those wishing to have an easier life for themselves, rallied and called for their nation to be more democratic and capitalistic. By the turn of the Twenty-first Century new borders were drawn all about the planet. New cooperations and friendships were formed, even between those people that were considered as past enemies.

Religious societies began to gather strength about the planet, and new societies formed daily. Their influence and power started to influence the politics of the nations where they formed and soon many of these people were in control of those nations. Religious dogmatism had overtaken the sensibilities of most people that were alive. The polarisation that had formed in religious belief was greater than any political ideology. Fighting had ensued everywhere and lead to another great war.

New weapons were produced utilising the new found crystal energy.
These new weapons were used.

Violence and war waged on. In the final year, the religious societies openly confronted the politically controlled military, everywhere. Through subversion, propaganda and assassination, these societies panicked the world's population, further forcing the planet's people to take sides.

Every group called themselves "The Saviours Of The Earth," believing that they were sent by God Himself, to turn the planet into a second Eden.

Not a single soul was saved.

Millions died, and many more perished in subsequent plagues and famines, which spread throughout the entire world.

The surface of the planet was virtually destroyed. Only those people that had some natural protection, and those who remained in the O.S.G.I's survived.

For many centuries the survivors, underground, were put into cryogenic suspension to await the day they may walk and live upon a newly healed Earth.

GINN-NOVEMBER 2027

THE NEXT AGE: THE PREDECESSORS

A thick mist encircled the Earth for many years, slowly dissipating as it radiated out into space. The greater portion of the world was devastated; a population of billions, reduced to several million score. Once great cities were wiped clean from the face of the earth. Those that were spared stood like majestic mountains. With time, they also crumbled away, turning into gigantic mounds that were loosely held together by rusty girders, brittle concrete and broken glass.

Bands of strange-looking humans roamed the face of the land foraging for the scarce and much-valued commodities of food and fresh water.

In the years following the deluge, the surface dwelling survivors died out from exposure to radiation and to the adverse climactic conditions that were inherited from the global fall out.

The progeny of the survivors became strange in appearance and behaviour until they all became new forms of humans, evolved from mutants, to small hybrid races which soon became as distinct and individual as those humans that lived in the late Twentieth Century. The amalgamation of these races found that great tension had formed between them, due to their differences in appearances and forms of speech, and so they broke away from the main body of humanity and headed for their own select areas of the continent.

Many of these new races of humans ventured forth and eventually established unique civilisations. One race went to the extreme western part of the North continent. Everywhere, they found small pockets of survivors and conquered them. They looted their food stores and used those people as slaves; so becoming a feared band of humans that resembled upright, and very dark featured, apes. They called themselves the Teniqués. Those in the east were afraid that the Teniqués would begin to move back their way but although they were warlike, they stayed put and were soon forgotten.

Concentrated cells of normal humans were still alive. They were the ones who lived in the mountainous regions of the continent and although most became larger in size than normal humans, they were the most in resemblance to the people living during the Twentieth Century. They were hunters and gatherers, moving from valley to, in both the eastern and the western mountains. These were amongst the first people to be conquered by the Teniqués, in their move westward. In the east, there was also a race of perfectly normal looking humans called the Sëdash. They were a group of hermaphrodites that were compiled and exiled by the rest of human mutants, who disliked them, since they most closely resembled the previous normal humans. The hermaphrodites wandered for many years until a place to settle was found. They began to build a culture that they based on total equality between individuals.

Yet, the Sëdash soon became intolerant to any other forms of human. They developed a belief that they were divinely chosen to be "superior and perfect," and so they enslaved and mistreated those who happened to trespass on their city boundaries. For mating, only the true hermaphrodites were allowed to propagate. After several generations of regulated breeding, a pure-bred race of hermaphrodites was formed.

There was another similar band of humans in the eastern part of the northern Continent. They called themselves the Palatkans. Their appearance was much like that of lepers. They had segregated themselves from the main stream years before the great cataclysm. They congregated in long strips of semi-fertile land on the floor of lengthy canyons.

Following several generations of their offspring, they bore a race of ugly and canker-covered beings that developed a culture of cannibalism.

They believed that all the other humans were left on Earth for them to sacrifice to their gods, then to feast. They were aware of a life force that permeated everything and that was significantly concentrated within the flesh of humans.

Many such bands of human beings were alive, over the entire face of the Earth. Most of these peoples contained and confined themselves within special areas of land and rarely ventured out.

Six centuries passed since the cataclysm.

Lack of productivity and raw stock caused the remaining human people to further mutate into odd looking things. Civilisation had also regressed into a primitive form. Much of the Earth reverted into the appearance of the primitive and the primordial, awaiting the moment to be reborn.

The Earth was not alone in its anxiety for rebirth. There were nearly one quarter of a million true humans that waited, also, to be reborn craving to, once more, walk the mother Earth's surface, and to begin life anew. In six hundred years of waiting, the population of the Omega SubGround Installations grew. To extend the food and water rations, the major part of the personnel was placed in cryogenic suspension vaults upon attaining the age of thirty-five.

Most, of age, personnel stayed to be suspended in animation but some were granted the permission to leave the cities and try to reestablish life wherever they could find hospitable environments. Contact was not kept with those who had left. Only on hearsay did anyone know how these people fared.

Many headed towards the eastern shoes where they successfully took up oceanic livelihoods, and so began the city, later to be called, Besten. Others made their way to the mountains and met up with other bands of self-exiled people. They took to herding goats, and sheep; and whatever other animals that were left alive, they could catch to domesticate.

The people took to catching and taming the Continent's greatest animal mutations: gigantic eagles that were as high as trees. These people learned to fly them and use them as beasts of burden. These agrarian peoples were called the Krolalins and the Virunese.

The time had come, in the O.S.G.I's, where all those people in cryogenics were awakened. They organized into groups of thousands then left to set up individual and distinct villages, towns and cities.

The Earth was becoming clean again. Air and water sparkled with freshness and the entire world returned to green.

The only people to stay in the O.S.G.I's were the scientists, carrying on with their work (in every field), as it was done in the Twentieth Century. With those that left and built cities, these cities adapted to a simpler way of life and craved not to progress much in their technology. They did not crave to progress very much in their technology. They did not want the responsibilities that went with having technology. They found that they were just as happy without it, and their attitudes were civilised enough to accept and give their blessings to those still utilising the ancient ways. By 2500 C.E., many of the O.S.G.I's were back to a comfortable size of around four hundred people. Some O.S.G.I's lost people so readily and quickly, that a few had become abandoned and forgotten.

All those who left the cities tried to track down some of their old comrades, heading in the direction of newly established settlements and subsequently joining with some of them.

The surface cities began to grow and the O.S.G.I's were beginning to be emptied, with only a few hundred older people remaining in some of them.

In those Omega cities, that were still densely populated, power struggles often took place. Some of these people who became the leaders, by force or otherwise, set up a form if thought that denied the life and events of the Twentieth Century. Some even went as far as stating that the Twentieth Century never happened, and so proclaimed themselves as Kings, Queens and other types of monarchials because they were descended from the intellectuals who "made the world" what it was. During this period, everyone that was a descendant of these people was given the title "BLUE" — from the old Proposition Blue code since they were from the Great Line of Knowledge.

There were men, in the BLUE, who disagreed with the idea that the Twentieth Century never happened, and long debates were engaged to discuss it.

These debates and periodic skirmishes were the original cause for the initial emigration from the cities. Similar events sparked moves in each of the Omega S.G.I's.

Reginald Jones was a BLUE who opposed the "never happened" dogma, and his life was, at several times, threatened.

Reginald was suppressed from speaking in the city parliament and seeing that he lacked any other option, he removed himself from politics and searched for a wife.

He wasn't successful, though, since his public image had made women avoid him, for fear of being ridiculed. As it had happened, many centuries and aeons ago, a man had been denied comfort for-want-of a fundamental principle way of thought. Reginald became lonely.

Then in 2542 C.E., Reginald found a baby boy abandoned in a genetics lab when he was going to work. Announcements were made for the parents to take the boy back but soon it was found that the two teenagers responsible for the child had run away from the OMEGA 4 EAST City.

They were never found and Reginald's need for companionship made him adopt the child and so he became responsible for him. He gave him the name of Hosea, who grew up to be a brilliant man and a great political leader in the OMEGA 4 EAST City.

Hosea became the most powerful man in the city's parliament, keeping tensions at bay, but allowing the people to think freely. He had allowed debates to continue, concerning the existence of the Twentieth Century and he had, himself, held to the belief that there was a civilisation that they had descended from. He had computer disks and video tapes, books and photographs all showing the life as it was in the ancient past. This was proof. It was proof that could never be used but Hosea was the kind of man that was eager to see what conclusions would be brought by his colleagues by just using logical reasoning.

A conclusion, of sorts, had been found. It was a forced conclusion and had occurred at a time the people of the city were looking for some real direction.

Hosea had been electrocuted at age of ninety-six, while he was trying to make improvements on solar-electric power sources. He was well known for this pursuit within his city.

Hosea's first son was named Cano and when he was young he exhibited a strange spiritual aura and it was an unanimous decision, by the city fathers, to have him trained at the Monastery of St. Tobias, outside the city.

In 2580 C.E., at eighteen years of age, Cano completed his studies of religious history, and other related topics, at the monastery. He became a spiritual healer and a leader, and he later changed his name to Canon Di'Vaticanus.

He was a well-liked man, at first, who seemed stable and secure considering that his mother, Hosea's first wife Anna, deserted both of them when Cano was only twelve.

She had travelled to BanGor where she had become the High Priestess of the Cults, since she was able to endure the rains, without allowing herself to fornicate. All her daughter-descendants replaced her as the High Priestess. Anna was an ecologist while at the OMEGA 4 East City and she had developed a counter-agent that let her and whomever else took the drug, capable of tolerating being caught in the rain without having instantly become sexually deranged.

In 2600 C.E., Hosea married his fourth wife (having lost both his second and third to early death). Her name was Ruth and she was regarded as the best in her field of Aging research. In fact, in the same year of their marriage, Ruth had made a break-through by perfecting a drug that retarded the ageing process.

The first human to test the drug was Hosea when he became mortally ill and with the taking of the drug he miraculously recovered.

The drug was primarily kept for those in the Line of Knowledge but Ruth had sold some to other people in the city for certain favours and services.

In 2601 C.E. Ruth bore Hosea's second son named Gavin. During the same period when Ruth was giving birth, Canon spoke out against the age retardant drug calling it "evil", and in late of the same year, Canon disappeared with a stock supply of the developed drug.

A few years later, Ruth was imprisoned by Hosea for infidelity and he took her formula away from her. When Gavin turned sixteen, he left the OMEGA 4 EAST City and travelled to the southernmost part of the continent where three huge highlands surrounded a lush valley that was the city of Pomperaque, in Lower Phoride. He made his home on the highest mountain and changed his name to the name of the mountain and became, for the city of Pomperaque, a great oracle. A seer and a prophet whose visions always came to pass. He never seemed to die or grow old; he never had a wife or children, abstaining from all sexual contact. He kept himself pure in mind and body, while he prayed to the one great Living God, to which the majority of Twentieth Century man prayed.

The years passed, then in 2630 C.E., Hosea married his fifth and final wife, Margaret, who in 2635 C.E., gave birth to twins, Richalé and Dioneza.

The following year, Margaret died trying to give birth to a premature baby that also died, and two years after that, Hosea was killed in an electrical mishap. During the subsequent years, the twins grew and each had entered their own peculiar studies. Dioneza studied telepathy and when she turned fifteen she was asked to join the OMEGA operations Council as a reward for her progress, unsurpassed by anyone of her age. She, like Hosea, kept the title "BLUE" from her name.

When Dioneza received her appointment to the council, the Canon Di'Vaticanus returned from his forty-nine year trek in the wilderness of the Northern Continent.

He was eighty-eight years old but he only looked like he was approaching forty. He met his pretty half-sister and immediately began having sexual designs on her, wanting to procreate with her and to have her carry out many of his strange requests.

With her telepathic ability, she saw into his mind and knew exactly what kind of a man he was. She saw in his mind the memories of the forty-nine years that he spent away from Omega 4 EAST city. She had seen that he studied ancient prophesies and obtained his fulfilment from history but she also saw the destruction of his spirit with his fall into accepting all forms of depravity, especially those of a sexual nature. She had seen his encounters with men, women, children, animals and all manner of mutated freaks — all in his attempts to reach total spiritual awareness. After Dioneza had asked a friend to be her protector, the Canon turned to hating her and cursed her with a violent death. He had no problems finding other diversions. Young companions he desired came to do his bidding, and soon he had the young Janis Topler beside him, wherever he went.

Janis soon became pregnant with his child and eventually gave birth to him in mid-2651 C.E.

Soon, thereafter, Janis was banished from the city and Canon took the boy into his care, baptising him as Canis Topler. In late of that year the Abbess Mariot, from the Abbey of Our Holy Virgins, brought to Omega 4 EAST an eleven year old girl, with a story about finding her as a baby during a sojourn at a distant Hermitage. It was a beautiful baby girl, wrapped in elegant and costly cloth, and resting within a cradle overlaid in gold.

She had named the child, Sunshine, since there was the glow and light of life which shone from the child's face. She now had brought the girl to the city to have the child tested.

It was a brilliant child. She could not speak, however, and this bothered the Abbess Mariot. She also wanted an explanation for the child's speedy growth. At eleven years of age, the child already had the appearance of a full grown woman.

Canon lusted after her.

Soon, Sunshine gave birth to the Canon's son. He was called Daey and he proclaimed the boy as the long-awaited Saviour. He pronounced that the new promised millennium had finally begun. This was the new age of humanity; the year he called "ONE".

Canon compiled a book of Laws that he had told everyone was given to him by the great God, Himself. He called the book "The Canon's Laws", and announced that with his receipt of this book, that all which had occurred in the "pre-history", had never happened:

"The Past is nonexistent. This is never to be questioned, and no investigation is permitted to be conducted, in pursuit of the question of history. History begins with "ONE". Only that which, henceforth, occurs from the year ONE will be recognised as history. Death, by torture, is the punishment for this Law's transgression."

(CANON 3:18)

This passage was of the first of Canon's Laws: These Laws, to be followed to the letter, were to be punishable upon the fear of the most imaginable painful torture. No Law was more, important than that of the CANON. All were the Prime Law, and all punishment was eventual, excruciating, death. As the child, Daey, was reaching his first year of age, Canon sacrificed the most beautiful and the most precious of his possessions, in honour of the child's birth. This most precious possession was the child's own mother, Sunshine. In the weeks that followed, the child weakened and also died, and the death was kept from the people. There was a great fear that the population may panic if they were to hear that their "Saviour" had died, while still in infancy.

While Dioneza studied telepathy and tried to avoid Canon, her twin brother, Richalé, studied many subjects but he mainly concentrated on the forbidden topic: History.

Richalé wanted to compile facts to prove, without doubt, Canon's claims to creating the Universe, the Earth, and all of existence.

In 2660 C.E. Dioneza had found repulsion towards all men, and although she had yearned for children, she wanted no man to bed with her.

Due to her status, in the city, she was given the permission to be artificially inseminated from her choice of genes, preserved from the time of Omega 4 - EAST's construction. She had chosen a sample which was labelled as "David Sannstein: April 1995". The city's parliament had overwhelmingly accepted her choice and granted her the permission that was necessary, for her to use the sample. All the records that were kept in the gene bank were obviously ancient. From what was understood contained within the ancient records, David Sannstein was an Engineer, some 650 years ago. This was several hundred years before "ONE".

Dioneza presented her brother with this fact but nothing ever came of this knowledge.

Richalé married a girl that he had studied with, at the beginning of the same year that Dioneza was artificially inseminated.

Months before Dioneza's birth to Dorin, Richalé and his lovely wife,
Dianna, had quadruplets.

Just after Dioneza bore Dorin, Richalé left the Omega 4 - EAST City, with Dianna and his children: Roman, Daphne, Tatum and Wind. They journeyed for the city of Besten, on the Eastern seaboard of the continent. During this century few of the O.S.G.I's were still inhabited. All but the Omega 4 - EAST city and the Omega 7 - PACIFIC city were abandoned and were utterly forgotten.

In the East, Canon's personal religion had subdued the people's belief and knowledge, and everyone in the Omega 4 - EAST city began to think that their city was nothing more than a temple built to Canon.

There were a few citizens that opposed Canon's Laws and some of these were publicly tortured to death, but some had escaped the wrath of, the now-hated, Canon.

Many people, dissatisfied with Canon's rules fled the cities to settle in the small villages and towns that dotted the land. Canon, however, sent emissaries to all of these surface towns and cities, and soon they began to rule over them. Most of these places submitted to the ways that Canon had forced upon them. Only Besten kept up with the rebellious stand against the Canon, but soon, only underground cells of rebels fought the new rule.

Richalé's daughter Daphne became involved with the rebel leader Montgomery Bartlett and married him. Later, the Bartlett line was to become the strongest in Besten.

Dioneza had avoided execution by the Canon, her half-brother since she had the favour of the city parliament and since she had told Canon that if she dies, her protector would surely kill him.

Canon did not have her killed, yet he had prevented her from ever speaking in public by having his men begin riots whenever she called a public audience.

In 2676 C.E., her son Dorin, who was now fifteen years of age, had illicitly procreated with a thirteen year old called Bernice. Soon after the birth of Martin, however, Dioneza had the two youngsters married and they had no more children.

At seventeen years of age, Bernice was put into cryogenic suspension when it was discovered that she had developed a terminal blood disease.

That same year, Martin, who was four years old, wad discovered to be a genius and Dioneza took to training him in the ways of biology and true history. To Canon's disapproval, Martin began to delve into the study of the real past, utilizing Dioneza's computer library.

In 2683 C.E., Dorin made a break-through in light energy emission and began to improve the old police stun weapons, enabling them to utilize a laser capability, as well. This study also infuriated the Canon but he did nothing.

Just after Dorin's break-through, Dioneza, who was now forty-eight, was raped and brutally murdered by Canon's bastard son, Canis Topler.

When Martin was nineteen, in 2695 C.E., he became a top-ranking scientist in the areas of anthropology and archaeology, after graduating from Advanced Technical Training in the Sciences. Martin headed an archaeological expedition to Alugean and there uncovered a huge computer library complex. He ordered his team to keep the find secret from anyone at the Omega 4 - EAST city, in the event Canon was to find out and have the library destroyed.

Martin received the title of "Blue" after his name, because of his great intellect and he did not abstain from using it.

Four years after his discovery, Canon disappeared and his Monks announced to everyone that they saw him turn into a being of light and that he ascended to heaven in a golden chariot.

Canon Di'Vaticanus was declared a God and the monk that was his second, named himself the ArchBishop. His name was Morgan.

Morgan had the same powers as the Canon Di'Vaticanus and only answered to the Canon, for his decisions.

Martin was married three times in his life, though he only had children with his second and third wives.

With his second wife, Lilian, he had a son called Carter and with his third wife, Joan, had triplets: Liona, Aria and Thirst.

In 2760 C.E., Carter went to Alugean, following his father's, directions and found the computer library. He stayed there for several years and studied, alone. Liona, Aria and Thirst left the Omega 4 - EAST city for BanGor when they were twenty-three, so that they could learn the ways of the world, but they never survived. Only one of the three reached BanGor, having met up with a wandering tribe of Teniqués. Only Liona, made pregnant by a Teniqués, arrived in BanGor and was granted an act of abortion by the High Priestess (the great, great granddaughter of Hosea Jones's first wife, Anna).

In 2780 C.E., Carter left Alugean and wandered about the continent, going through Laurentine and then through BanGor in 2785 C.E., where he sojourned for a short time. He represented himself to the High Priestess Lucaea (the third generation granddaughter of Anna), with whom he became close and eventually sexually coupled, unaware of their near relation by blood.

In 2801 C.E., they produced Smith and before she exiled Carter from BanGor, she charmed from him a quantity of the youth drug — the formula which was passed down to him through his father.

In his exile, Carter went to Virune where he later met and married his first wife, Dee'inth, who was seventeen. Carter was seventy-four at his first marriage, but he only resembled a man of twenty-four, having taken the youth drug for so long and he manufactured more after Lucaea took his supply away. There, he became a most important man, organising and turning the city into a powerful city state.

Jessuum Benitar came down off the mountain and told Carter that they were related, that both came from the loins of Hosea Jones. Jessuum told Carter that his real name was Gavin Jones, the son of Hosea; the fourth generation great-uncle to Carter.

Jessuum told Carter that Lucaea was his relative, as well, and that
Smith was a product of an incestuous coupling.

When Carter heard this, he was determined to get Smith back. In 2817
C.E., Pomperaque split in two, and was engaged in a civil war.
Dee'inth and Carter's son, Calvin, left for Virune.

A few years later, Carter unified and strengthened Pomperaque, and then proceeded to invade BanGor.

Carter executed the already dying Lucaea and Smith came along willingly, back to Pomperaque.

Dee'inth and Calvin were sent for in 2822 C.E., but they refused to come. Dee'inth had married again, to a man called Balfour (who had a grown son called Empal).

Two years later, carter married his second wife Freida Dilaano, who had a daughter Miri. Carter and Freida had no children, and after a year of marriage, Smith took her daughter Miri as his wife, and they went to the Virgin Mountains for their honeymoon.

Several years of peace in Pomperaque went by and in 2900 C.E., Carter died. Soon after Carter's death, Smith headed a campaign to unite Lower Phoride and in short of a decade, succeeded.

In 3001 C.E., Smith and Miri went on a vacation to the Virgin
Mountains, while she was pregnant with their first child.

They were both fairly aged in years, although their physical and mental make-up was still fairly young due to the age retardant drug which was passed down to them. Smith was one hundred ninety-eight and Miri was one hundred ninety-four, but both looked to be only in their mid-thirties.

On their return, Miri had experienced the pains and when they rested, one afternoon, she gave birth to Smith's first son, Manguino.

During the birth, Smith was walking about in the woods, following the distant crying sounds of a baby. He soon found it. It was a baby boy, swaddled in a sackcloth and left in the skull of a lion, by small stream.*

So it happened that Smith gave the child the name, Brook Scullion-Blue (because of the circumstances surrounded the foundling). *The baby was left there by the great, great-grandson of Wind Jones (one of Richal's daughters). Guiness, and his wife Joanne, while trying to escape from a band of Plains slave traders, left their baby to Fate's caring heart and Smith was led to it.

Testament of Ginn 10:17

Miri accepted Smith's request to adopt it as their own, since it was similar in age to their own first born, Manguino.

When Smith returned to Pomperaque, Jessuum Benitar once again came down from the mountain and revealed to Smith who the child really was.

Since the foundling was from the same line as Smith, Smith regarded it as a son, as equal to that which had come from his own flesh.

At his deathbed, Smith gave his blessings and the land to both of his sons to rule.

A promise was made by both sons, to rule the land with a strong hand and a kind heart, and they received Smith's blessings of material and spiritual power.

The birthright and the sceptre continued with the BLUE.

"… and it came to pass, that in a time,
one was chosen as the one favourite to live
with love, whilst the other died; and in the
eyes of God"
PILLARS 93: A 11

PART I: THE SCORCHED EARTH

CHAPTER ONE

Another day ended. Sol, once again, retired its eternal radiance from man, as it has in its never-ending cycles of dawns and dusks, witnessed by all the generations. In its greatness, it survived all of Terra's hardships and afflictions and it was a living monument to forever.

No one seemed to look to it for comfort any more. The faces of women and children didn't reflect its brilliance, since no one had reverence for its good any more. It was a mindless disregard that was sustained and nurtured by the generations of man that survived. For almost a millennia they forced themselves into ignorance and then blamed it on the chaotic destructions that scorched the earth and that burned the human spirit. Nowhere, it seemed, was there anyone of power willing to point-out a way to betterment.

Trust knew not any man who was strong enough to deny the utter discontent that trembled in the hearts of men without freedom. To almost every man, innately loomed a feeling of utter hopelessness.

In a dark room of the Blue Mountain, atop Bimini Hill, sat a middle-aged man of high station. He was a man richly endowed with great wealth, majesty and power, and he held the people's respect. This man had taken pride in his accomplishments but he had become saddened by his inability to present himself to the citizens in the way that they revered him; as living strength.

Brook had long since known the problems of the noble land in which he lived and reigned. He pondered its past and its future while he aimlessly stared out of the window at the warming sunset. In his mind flashed a memory of an old writing that expressed in an awesome detail the fear and the agony of oppression that the whole world must have felt in the final days, when the prophesied great abolition had come to pass.

Entranced, his thoughts were prolonged as he sat and watched the sun disappear into the earth; its light casting a reddish hue over his light beard and reflected cooly from his vacant blue eyes.

His mind embraced time. It drifted along its tenses, all at once, as if they were all merged into one music; a music that played continually, along with the troubled voices that cried, only to him, for help.

Caught up within his own thoughts, he payed little attention to the servant boy that set a drink on the table by his chair.

Without a word the boy flamed the gas torches and the room no longer remained dark. Quickly, he left the room.

"The sun was resting," thought Brook, as he reached for the chalice of ale beside him.

He took a drink and the ale soothed his soddy thirst, and his parched manner, much like the milk of a mother's milken breast soothes a distressed babe, thus letting it sleep. But Brook could not sleep.

Brook waited for the moon and he finally welcomed its cool radiance at midnight when he saw it rise over the junipers. Its silvery light reflected its beauty off the scanty layers of the farming terraces.

Brook's eyes were fixed on the view outside his window. He tried to envision himself living a thousand years ago gazing out of the same window, marvelling at the sights that may have been there. In his heart, he recited a badly remembered poem that was written just prior to the War of Wars:

A torn heart dying within the mind
A failure to the reckonings —
Yesterdays, todays and tomorrows."

He lifted the palms of his hands to his sweaty face desperately trying to keep from screaming out his tortured agonies. He believed that he couldn't tell a soul about the truth concerning the past. He knew that the Law was explicit:

"The Past is non-existent. This is never to be questioned, and no investigation is permitted to be conducted, in pursuit of the question of history. History begins with "ONE". Only that which, henceforth, occurs from the year ONE will be recognised as history. Death, by torture, is the punishment for this Law's transgression." (CANON 3:18)

He turned his eyes away from the window and rose out of his chair. He slowly paced to a large cabinet beside the huge entrance doors. From around his neck, he brought forth a key and placed it into the slot of the cabinet door then slowly opened it. Inside this cabinet Brook kept, what he liked to call, "his gadgets." There were rows of buttons glowing like coloured embers. Brook applied pressure to several of the buttons.

Quickly, long drapes on the far wall rolled away and revealed a blank, white, wall that soon began to produce pictures that moved like life itself.

The images were of fire and of raging destruction. There were scenes of huge cities that stood majestically on the horizon one moment, then falling into mountainous piles of rubble, the next. More pictures showed fat people, conspiracies, death and misunderstandings. Every kind of unimaginable horror played upon the wall.

Brook sighed to himself, as he remembered the rest of the poem:

"His music ends …
His silence devours his soul,
Caging his ever-diminishing days
In a way that any man could lose
His assurance in himself,
And 'why?' he is!"

Then he slowly repeated to himself the words that were the Law: "The Past is non-existent", but he couldn't allow himself to believe this, especially with the truth revealing itself in front of him, at this moment.

He felt a cold tightness within his chest when he let himself think about his ancestors and the way that they destroyed themselves. Their greed for wealth and their crazed megalomania was the cause for the deaths of millions. He saw these men die, in the pictures that played-out right before his eyes. Once more he slowly breathed out the words: "The past is non-existent."

He cautiously looked around so that no one would hear him, if only by chance, as they passed in the hallway.

He remained in private thought.

He sat back down in his chair and closely watched the horrific and colourful images that danced on the wall. "How can a truth be hidden for a thousand years?" he wondered. "For a thousand years no one has even imagined that the very fabric of life itself, had nearly become death for every living thing beneath the sun." He looked at the fiery scourge projected onto the wall, then lowered his head and pondered heavily. How could he tell his people in Phoride, the truth about the past. That the knowledge about it was subdued by fanatic religious rulers, in their attempt to subjugate total control over them. Fear for the Divine Punishment made them surrender their faith and submit to the worship of a handful of man, as their gods.

Brook had long been a powerful man. He was one from the Great Line of Knowledge, yet he wasn't like most of those other men. In his heart he heard the multitudes of voices that screamed and cried out their pleas to him, to reveal the truth and thus lift the burdens from their backs and let them live in peace.

His soul embraced everything that he knew was right and to himself, he nodded an agreement. The time had come to be strong again and to no longer sit idly by and watch evil, as it has its own way in his land.

He moved back in his chair when he heard the sounds of the Monastic Guard, marching in the city square and the painful screams of men and women, that echoed between the buildings and out towards the hills. Brook knew that these people were being blasted by with the lightning-like bolts from the Guard's electrophoric weapons.

His strong and gentle hands slowly rose to his face as he sank down into his chair. He set his elbows on his knees and he cleaved to the thoughts within his mind, trying to force himself to remain in the deepest meditation. He felt the hours pass, until dreams soon began to visit him, making him lose himself and his worries to the mask of the night. With the coming of his last conscious breath before sleep, he recalled some of the words that his father said to him, upon his deathbed.

"Brook, my son … do not let the land become troubled. Don't be afraid to fight because the horrifying torments of war can become a tool that may prevent future afflictions."

Brook was asleep and everything in the room was left unveiled for any eye to see. Although the pictures on the wall had ceased, everything was left in open view. Each thing presented a danger to Brook's rule and power.

The cool breezed night soared into dawn's amber glory. The sun slowly began to illuminate the room and a robed figure carefully crept in, much in the manner of a thief, yet it didn't take a thing. It had moved softly and with purpose towards the white wall, where it drew the drapes shut. Then it moved towards the cabinet where it closed its doors with a faint click, and again left the room in much the same manner as it had entered.

The sky was cloudless and the sun warmed the land with its radiation. The sparrows outside the window chirped their hellos, while they basked in that life giving light, before they took to flight for the day.

Boy, the servant, carefully walked into the room and looked about in wonder; this was his usual facial expression, before he drew on enough courage to wake his lord Brook. He carefully delivered a pewter basin full of water, for his master's morning washing.

He called to Brook several times in a meek tone but with no response. Moving closer, and touched his master's forearm, again calling Brook's name. This time, however, the boy called in a much louder and demanding tone of voice.

Brook quickly stirred from his deep sleep and for several moments just stared at the boy with an indifference that somehow seemed to be forced from himself.

Brook cleared his throat and sat up in his chair. He prepared himself to play the Lord once again, but on this day he had decided, that the long and horrible game would come to an end and that he would truly be master, as it was his right.

He sat up in his chair and in his usual manner coughed a few times before he spoke. Boy stepped back a bit when Brook coughed but he quickly returned to him, and slightly bowed his head to him.

Brook coughed once again then took a deep breath as he looked about the room then back at the boy.

"What is this call, Boy?" boomed Brook.

"Pardon, Sir, but the lady had asked me to wake you." answered Boy. "I have brought water to wash the sleep from your eyes." He lifted the basin up to Brook where, after a moment he splashed the scented water up into his face then dried himself with the towel that hung over Boy's arm. "Your wish — my Lord!" uttered the boy, obediently leaving Brook's presence as the Lady entered the room. She carried a large cup and as Boy passed her she smiled at him and told him that he could go into the garden until he was needed again. He smiled in reply and thanked her, then hurried away.

Lady Dearborne was in a happy mood. She smiled warmly at her husband as she approached him with the cup full of broth. She extended to him her fair hand and when in reach, he took it gently into his own and guided her to his side. Her smile beamed as she bowed to him then sat down on the floor by his feet. She gently placed her head against his knee after giving him his broth. He drank it and sighed, and stroked her hand as she hummed a lovely tune for him.

He looked at her, taking in all her beauty, regarding her many years of love and loyalty with much pride. He believed that no man on Earth, in the past, present, or likely to in the future, felt as he does.

Dearborne was a vibrant woman, twenty-nine years of age, with beauty unsurpassed by any other in Phoride and the surrounding kingdoms. Her long brown hair ended in curly locks that fell in front of her and that decorated her creamy neck and shoulders, enhancing the fair, light smoothness of her bosom, which emerged from her low cut gown like the pinkish eggs of the great Kenttitian Eagle. Her totality glistened like the polished marble god-statues from Laurentine.

When she spoke, her voice was reminiscent of a loon gliding over still water, during an early morning mist. Her words displayed generations of knowledge which she had taken to her heart and mind, over her seemingly few but happy years of life, with her Lord Brook.

She ceased her humming as she ran her hand across her husband's calf. With affection, he returned the caresses to his love; his hand gently rubbing across her silky hair.

She spoke without looking up at him or breaking the rhythm of her strokes.

"You were not to bed, again, last night. I was worried and came down here to call you. You were asleep. I didn't want to disturb you — but it doesn't matter." she said, then she looked up at him and smiled. "I know that you were not keeping yourself apart from me." Brook moved his hand to her glowing face, stroked it and smiled at her. He gave her a longing kiss.

"I'm sorry, my sweet." he finally said as he helped her up off the floor and onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she put hers about his neck. They kissed one another, and held it for the longest time. "Did you close the drapes over the wall, and shut my cabinet door?" he asked her.

"Yes!" she answered loyally and put her head on his shoulder.

"You've done that so many times, and yet you have never asked me anything about their nature. Somehow you seem to know they should not stay exposed, for the random eye to see!"

"It's not my privilege to question what you do, or why you do it. My place is here, at your feet, my love!" she told him in a voice that assured him of her potent and loyal love.

Brook kissed her hand.

"No, my love! Your place is not at my feet, but at my side. Even so, my place is your place. It has always been and always will be. I love you, Dearborne!"

"And I love you, my dearest Brook!" she responded and his trembling heart was calmed by the tranquillizing inflections in her song-like voice.

An hour passed by as they sat together. Dearborne was on Brook's lap. Neither one said very much of anything to the other. Only in touches, kisses and embraces, and the volumes of thought that passed between them, did they say anything.

They kissed each other again and she turned her body to converse with him more directly. She told him that the ArchBishop sent a messenger earlier in the morning before he was awake, with a request that she would try to get him to the Cathedral, to speak with him.

"The ArchBishop," she told him, "wonders why you haven't answered his calls to a conference, earlier. It's been weeks since he asked you to the cathedral. This morning he sent word, to me, to persuade you to see him."

Brook instantly became disturbed and let her off his lap. He stood up and slowly walked over to the window. After a few moments of silence he turned to her and in a loud, angry, voice spoke his mind.

"I do not entertain business with such a man. I hold no men like him, in regard, as friends _ or anything else. I shall not go to him, from my own will, and if he cannot move his bulbous body to come here, I will not exert myself for him." Brook's voice echoed about the stone room, its bass quality full of contempt and hate. Then he noticed that he had frightened her, because her face became drawn and startled. After a moment, she spoke in an uneasy manner.

"My love, that … that's not proper. The ArchBishop cannot be treated like that … He's the —"

Brook quickly stepped towards her and put his hands on her upper arms, interrupting her train of thought.

"— He's the biggest hypocrite that has ever lived. He's a megalomaniac who has always taken advantage of these people in Phoride. Yet, I have stood by and watched it, and allowed it. What's to become of it all?"

He dropped his hands from her arms and embraced her. Then, in a breathless whisper, while his eyes were closed, committed himself to subdue the powers that the ArchBishop thought he had under his command.Dearborne, worried and confused by her husband's quickly changing moods, held him closely to herself.

"What is wrong, Brook? I feel like something severe bothers you. Tell me what trouble's you, my love." she pleaded in a concerned voice but, for a while, he did not answer. He stepped away from her and moved towards the window again, and said nothing. Dearborne thought that Brook was going insane and she prayed to her fullest ability that she was wrong, and that she was just entertaining foolish and childish ideas.

On the streets were the sounds of people; talking, laughing, buying and selling, and going about their daily routine; which, in more cases than not, was just trying to survive. In the distance, from the direction of the Cathedral, came the horrific buzzing sounds of the Monastic Guard's electrophoric weapons. The sound was like the drone of a million panicked mosquitos, swarming in a mass confusion.

Brook's eyes filled with tears and Dearborne looked towards the window. Silence took command of the room. Dearborne slowly moved towards the window, touched Brook's forearm and looked at him with her big brown and compassionate eyes. He placed his hands upon her, then they embraced until the nightmarish sounds of the ArchBishop's weapons died and the sounds of the children, playing in the streets, filled the air in its place, again.

Dearborne knew that there was a change in Brook. Never before has he cringed under the sounds of the ArchBishop's weapons, and the results of them thereof. Soon, Dearborne cried, too.

Brook eased his embrace on her. He stroked her hair and kissed the tears from her eyes until she stopped crying.

"It is time, my love." Brook finally said in a low tone. "It's time for me to tell you about all these things here, with me." He motioned to her the whole room and what it contained: the shelves of books, the cabinet, the small statues, the white screen and the musical instruments beside it, in the corner. "After all our years of marriage, I will tell you about these things that my father, Smith Blue, left for me to use, to keep my rule strong in Phoride."

She dried her eyes with a handkerchief that she took from her sleeve.

Brook guided her to every part of the room and explained to her the uses which every item had during the time of the Twentieth Century, over a millennia ago. He explained to her that the statues were the likeness of the rulers during that time. He told her about how these men's search for wealth and power plunged the whole world into a bloody conflict that escalated into a cataclysmic holocaust, that almost wiped-out every living creature from the face of the Earth. He had let her know of how only a few handfuls of people survived and how they were able to rebuild the world and civilisation, to what it was now.

He disclosed how these people took the best of both simple living and great technology, to make a better and more ordered life on Earth. And he recounted to her how he was descended from a line of knowledgeable men called "scientists", and how the idea of such men was lost over the passage of a thousand years, that eventually became thought of as a royalty. The faction name, "THE BLUE" had become thought of as nobility and so was its adoption for a surname lineage, to which was now his.

Dearborne asked questions about many things. Things that even Brook had long ago asked himself, because he was never able to obtain the answers after his father died, and there was no one else to ask.

All he could do was speculate and read some of the old texts, that explained some questions but never in enough detail to warrant full understanding and satisfaction to his churning curiosity.

Dearborne now understood why Brook kept this room so private, allowing only the two people closest to him, in his life (she and Boy), to enter it. She now knew why she thought it necessary, those many times, to close the cabinets, and drape-over the wall, when Brook fell asleep and left them in the open. Brook was aware that all this knowledge would be misused if it were in the hands of someone like the ArchBishop and his puppet legions.

Brook had mixed emotions about his life and his own power. Although he and Dearborne had been married for thirteen years, this was the first time that he divulged so much dangerous knowledge to her. In Phoride, as elsewhere in the world, the way of life has been one of mistrust and suspicion. Yet, Brook knew that she would tell no one because there were many things that they shared and neither one has revealed them to anyone else.

When Brook finished telling Dearborne most of the important details about the gadgetry, they stood at the window for a long time and just stared at the town, and its people.

The Monastic Guards patrolled the streets while the people went about their day-to-day activity, buying and selling items that they took to the market.

As far as the eye could see down the street people were busy making their livelihood. They talked and laughed with one another and rarely, if ever, paid any mind to the black-clad, helmeted guards that policed the area.

Children played in the streets. Some of the daring one tried to actually annoy the guards who, like zombies, went on their way without showing the slightest hint of aggravation. Afraid of being punished for their children's misdeeds, parents beat their children for everyone to witness. They did not want the "Almighty's Angels" (as they guards were often called), to pour their wrath upon them. They felt that their children's bloody noses and cut lips were enough to show their respect, and submission, to the rule of the Almighty.

Brook put his arm over Dearborne's shoulder and stroked her hair. He set her small and delicate hand into his other, and held it tightly.

Turned towards her, he saw a few shiny tears slide down her rosy cheeks. "They are the ones that I must now tell." he said, pointing out the window at the children.

CHAPTER TWO

The streets were alive with people vending their goods.

The mid-morning was always the busiest time of the day in Pomperaque, and should it have been anything else? Afterall, this city had been the capital of Phoride for some five hundred years. The routine had always been the same. At sunrise the people brought their goods out into the major streets, where they bought and sold amongst one another. When noon-time came around they all gathered their things together and returned to their homes and rarely, if ever, emerged again until the evening when they made their way to the taverns and theatres.

But even in the evening the city wasn't as alive as it was during mid-morning. This was a time when people spoke to one another and laughed at little humours that they created and therefore strengthened the social bonds between themselves. Men drank and talked at the cafes while their women stayed by the stands and kiosks, exchanging goods and talking also.

Sometimes someone came along and bought something with gold bits, which was surprising and not very common, since the usual manner that the people carried on their business was in barter and in copper. However, the attainment of gold was short-lived.

Every day at noon, one of the ArchBishop's tax clerics went amongst those who received gold and exchanged it for copper bits. Usually, the exchange wasn't just or fair. The town's people were most often given two bits of copper for every one bit of gold. Rarely they received five bits to one of gold: that was a great achievement in everyone's eyes if someone were capable of bringing it about. This was dangerous, however. If someone haggled for anything over five bits of copper to one of gold, they were threatened with Divine Punishment — for their sin of greed — unless they payed a fine, which always equalled the exact number of gold bits that the merchant possessed. Thus was the usual mode of business and economics for Pomperaque, and the rest of Phoride. All this was the common practice of the surrounding provinces, and kingdoms; which the ArchBishop directly influenced.

It was one such morning that Dearborne went out into the streets with Boy, to do her marketing. It was the third day of the week and not the second day, which she usually took to do her marketing, and everyone was happy and pleased to see her because they all thought that something bad had happened to her. The merchants weren't prepared for her absence on the second day and all of them questioned her for a reason why she missed her usual day. She just smiled and told them that she wanted to be with her husband, and they sent their heat-warming greeting to him.

For the thirteen years that she had been married to Lord Brook, she always marketed on the second and fifth days of the week. The sudden change in her market day created a great stir in the hearts of the people. Now that they could see that she was well, they rejoiced and treated her with sweets and fruits, and gave her things to take to their Lord and sovereign, Brook Scullion Blue.

Like every day, the streets were filled with people. Their goods were spread about the ground on blankets, or on top of carts, or set on and around the kiosks in the city square.

Dearborne and Boy made their way down the street towards the square, which was the liveliest part of town during any time of the day. It was here where the best produce and meats were to be found during the morning market hours. It was here that the highest quality foodstuffs were brought in from every part of Phoride and elsewhere.

Also, in the city square, jewellery and fine garments were sold and there were amusements for the people. There were games and story-tellers, and machines were there to thrill the children. All these amusements carried-on throughout the entire day and night.

Boy carried a large basket and was slightly ahead of Dearborne. They both walked slowly and looked around the different stands, at the various things of interest.

Dearborne smiled her greetings at some council men that sat at tables outside the café. Business carried on in its usual manner, the sounds of livelihood resounded throughout the streets and into the other regions of the city, out towards the Hill People, who were the free farmers of Phoride. There was some kind of commotion down the street but it didn't appear to be any different than usual to Dearborne, and she paid little attention to anything but her own thoughts, anyway.

She had never known about the holocaust that had occurred over a millennia ago. She had known that something cataclysmic happened but no one could ever find out the whole story because it was a taboo topic, according to the written Laws of Canon; which denied any kind of knowledge about the past.

She was confused by the Canon's Law, which said the past was a disillusionment. Afterall, there were history books and subjects at the Blaisaman, right here in Pomperaque. The Blaisaman had, at one time, been one of the largest learning institutions of its kind, anywhere on the Northern Continent. This was the very place that Dearborne and many other "Prominents" completed their studies. She remembered the extensive teachings of history and how it had influenced and changed life in Phoride. Only now, four years after she had received her Darmaclust, she realised that even in the highest levels of study, no one knew, or at least there was no one who would disclose their knowledge, about the history prior to a thousand years ago.

She never questioned why this was so at the time and apparently, no one else questioned it either. She hadn't realised that there was no written or taught history, concerning that period before the officially declared beginning of the world. The only stories that were told to the scholars, about the before-time, was that there was a fiery chaos in the cosmos, before the Almighty created the world and its first earthly family. But anything that was taught to the student-scholars, even concerning this, was very limited. Still, there were no questions.

Dearborne couldn't believe that anyone, not even she, thought to pursue the topic any further than that which was told to them.

She came out of her thoughts for a moment when she noticed that Boy had wandered-off somewhere and without her permission.

She reconnoitred the square; the different stalls and the kiosks then saw him standing with some pretty town's-girl, of the same age. Both watched some dark-skinned woman, with golden hair and sapphire-like eyes, levitate herself and many other weird things, including some of the audience, on the fringes of the stage.

About to call on him, she heard some quick steps behind her and a familiar voice that calling her name.

"Lady Dearborne! Good morning, my sweet friend." said the voice.

She turned quickly to the caller and smiled as he reached her, and kissed her hand.

"Miel, my dear friend, how are you?" she asked him in a surprised and happy manner.

"I am fine. My wife is well, too! She just birthed our twelfth child a son!" he beamed with pride.

"My, my! You do keep yourself active!"

"Yes! That is why I could not answer the invitation to your anniversary celebration."

"You are coming, are you not?"

"Oh, yes! Of course, I'm coming. I wouldn't miss it for anything." he assured her.

"And Aria?

"I don't know yet. She doesn't recover from child baring as quickly as she had at one time. Nevertheless, I will be there."

"Well, thankyou … Brook and I shall watch for you!"

"Goodbyes till then!" he exalted, then after he kissed her hand again, he walked off in the direction of the café, and shouted greetings to some men sitting at the nearest table.

Dearborne turned and called to Boy. He glanced over his shoulder to see her waving him in with her hand. He motioned to the girl to stay where she was and ran over to Dearborne.

They strolled over to Empal; the biggest seller of fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices, known on the face of the continent, and perhaps in the whole world.

He greeted her and Boy with the usual good-hearted smile, and warm hello. Then as always, in his brawny Virunese accent he asked about Brook, his favourite Lord, while he slowly filled Dearborne's basket with the best of his produce. In turn, Dearborne asked about his family — his daughter in particular, and unobserved slipped several gold bits into his hand when they shook.

Dearborne wasn't the only one of the nobility to do this. Many others had done it, as well. Not because of pity or any such sympathies but rather s a show of respect for his strength and his odd position in their society.