by James Erith
Power & Fury (2020 edition)
Eden Chronicles, Book One
James Erith
One
The Route To School
Archie’s cupped hands cascaded cold water onto his face, the shock waking him. Wincing, he touched the mark, the nerve endings raw and sharp. A quarter of an inch, perhaps, as neat as a red underline.
The blade!
Memories rushed in. Archie stared at the rouge on his fingers, mesmerised, and rubbed till the stain cleared.
It can’t be. His initial reaction.
How come? His second.
Archie crashed into the wall, then righted himself and spewed into the toilet.
Why? Why me?
He heard the others, but their words died before his brain could register what they said. He tried to speak, but the sounds reverberated back, spiralling as if he were in a tunnel.
In the kitchen, the sink and table spun around the room, along with the outline of his sisters and Mrs Pye.
Tinkling glass? Raised voices?
Grabbing a jacket, he weaved to the door. He needed to breathe, clear his head. He needed to run.
Archie tore across the courtyard to the track and cut down towards the river. He hurtled along animal tracks, weaved through long grass, leapt over fallen branches, jumped foxholes, and untangled brambles from his clothes as he ducked, crashed, and sped through thickets and bushes.
In the semi-darkness beneath the rusty canopy, he approached a huge round boulder three times his height. In his mind’s eye he measured the distance and set off at a sprint. At the last moment, he sprang up and grasped hold of a stony outcrop just high enough to haul him to the top. He sat down and reached into his bag, drank from his water bottle, and swirled the liquid around his mouth.
Breathing hard, his heart thumping in his chest, Archie watched the sun rise like red-hot coals burning under the base of the vast black cloud jettisoned above.
He’d dreamt repeatedly that he had to do something horrific, something beyond imagination.
But why him?
Then, last night, he’d met a ghost.
And it really had happened.
He fingered the nick on his chin. How else could he have received such a neat cut?
He stared out over the valley, his eyes drawn to the candy shapes in the village of Upsall, perched just above the floodplain at the foot of the Yorkshire moors. He noticed the rugged, menacing, dark forest and jagged rocks that jutted out of the steep slopes like gnarled, angry faces. In contrast, manicured, cartoon-coloured, stripes of light and dark green highlighted the school playing fields on the valley floor.
Man’s doing down below, he thought. God’s above.
More questions crowded his brain.
What if he didn’t survive? What if he couldn’t find the stupid cave? Who was this ancient woman?
The ghost said it would return. It didn’t mention a time, or a place, only that it would be back. Soon.
Great.
Archie cast his eye over the large old oaks that marked the position of the meandering river. To him they guarded the village like sentries positioned at perfect intervals. Upsall looked stronger, and more important, than the old, monastic-looking school buildings whose distinctive, high, square tower rose up into the heavens. It felt like a perfect contrast to the river curving elegantly in front.
In the distance, the soaring cliffs protected the village like a shield. He saw how Upsall had fostered a sense of security with its toffee-coloured chunks of masonry and loophole arrow-slit holes. Balancing this were subtle lines of symmetry; the intricate round, rose window pixelated with stained glass resting above a meaty, carved oak door.
Right now, he needed a shield of his own. But where would that come from?
He looked to his right towards the sheer rock face that climbed high above him, dwarfing all things below.
No eagles. No hawks or harriers circling or soaring like model aircraft.
He listened.
Strange.
An almost intolerable silence.
He flicked his wrist, glanced at the dial and sighed. If he didn’t get a move on, he’d be late again.
Standing up, he extended his arms wide before sliding down the stone curvature and tumbling over and over until he collided with the thick trunk of a larch.
Archie brushed himself down, feeling a multitude of soon-to-be bruises birthing in the tissue under his skin.
Then he heard the noise, a rustling of leaves close by. A mild thrashing sound followed by a soft thumping, just beneath him down the slope.
Archie readied himself to run when he heard a yelp.
He reached in to the brambles and looked over the bank into the bushes below.
‘What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be in the forest, not a little leveret like you,’ Archie said, his eyes fixed on the scared animal.The baby hare thrashed harder, rearing up and trying to get away only tying itself up more.
Archie held onto a branch, lowering himself into the brambles.
He spoke evenly hoping it was soothing enough not to frighten the creature even more. ‘If I don’t get you out, you’re going to be the easiest meal old Mr Fox ever had. You mustn’t go crazy. Understand?’
Even if the leveret had no idea what he was talking about, speaking to it felt like the right thing to do and Archie watched calmly, never taking his eyes off it, as the leveret once again tried to break free.
Exhausted, the baby hare soon fell to the ground. Archie noticed how its chest pounded from the exertion.
Unpicking several brambles caught in his clothes, Archie sneaked closer, the leveret’s large brown eyes studying his every move. Archie reached down. Both hind-legs, as he suspected, were bound by thorny tendrils, an ugly gaping gash prominent on its hind-leg.
‘You poor thing,’ he said. ‘Here. I’ll cut you out… if you’ll let me.’ He hoped the animal understood.
With great care, Archie reached down and stroked the leveret behind its ears which were tucked flat into the animals head.
Archie pulled out his penknife and, keeping the blade out of sight, moved it towards the leveret’s snared legs knowing full well that a sharp kick might damage both of them.
When the barbs were free, Archie noticed the cut was deeper than he’d previously realised and, instead of dashing off at high speed the leveret lay still.
‘You can’t stay here, little hare. You and your family belong up on the ruin or on the playing fields. Get away. Run off to your nest or wherever you want.’
Archie sensed the hare was somehow waiting for him. He leaned down and petted it again. ‘I think I’ll call you Rocky, little hare. I might have to carry you.’
Archie gathered the leveret into his arms carefully tucking-in its legs but cradling the animal’s body all the same.
Ripping his jumper and shirt on every conceivable variety of thorn, Archie fought his way onto the makeshift path and from here he weaved through the undergrowth towards the silver band of the river that cut through the red and yellow apron of autumn leaves towards school.
Archie walked as fast as he dared along the towpath, over the bridge, and onto the playing fields. As he neared the chapel steps, he caught his breath.
Isabella saw him coming and ran over to intercept.
‘Where have you been?’
‘In the forest.’
‘That’s an understatement. Most of it’s on you.’ Her face twisted. ‘And what is that?’
‘Oh. This is Rocky. Rocky’s a leveret. I found him trapped in the bushes on the way down—’
‘Archie! Not another animal. You’ve got to stop this insane wildlife rescue mission crusade. It’s becoming a joke.’ She looked at him. ‘You look a wreck.’
> Archie shrugged. ‘It wasn’t my fault. I fell over a couple of times and I couldn’t leave Rocky. It’s a baby—’
‘I don’t care,’ she stormed. ‘Put that fluffy thing down and get inside!’ She stopped and crinkled her nose. ‘Oh my Lord! You stink, and you’re covered in blood,’ she said. ‘Actually, you can’t go in there.’
Archie scratched Rocky’s head, moved to the side and set the leveret down watching it limp away. Archie stared at it with a smile on his face. ‘I hope he’ll be all right.’
‘It’s a hare, Arch.’
‘Actually, technically it’s a leveret.’
‘And the smell?’
‘Big deal, Bells. It could be Rocky, or I might have landed in something.’
‘Archie. Go home and change. You’re so embarrassing.’
‘No way,’ he replied defiantly. ‘I want to know if Daisy made the team. It’s unmissable.’
He pulled a sock up for her benefit, wiped his brow with a cuff and lamely brushed himself down. Then he sprinted towards the chapel door, Isabella chasing behind, slipping in moments before the door boomed shut.
He ran, head down, almost bent over double, across the flagstones until he found his row, squeezed in to his class position, and sat, conscious that others were almost certainly staring at him.
Further along, he noticed his twin, Daisy, chatting animatedly to her friends, others turning off their phones. He caught her eye.
She frowned back, and mouthed something at him.
Was it about the team?
She jabbed a finger.
Or about him? Was she having a dig as well?
He smiled back, weakly, and put his head in his hands.
For a brief moment, he experienced the intrusion of being watched, similar to the sensation he’d felt the previous night with the ghost. His instinct was right. On the platform at the far end of the hall stood Mr Solomon, the headmaster, whose eyes bored into him like lasers.
Archie’s heart sank. Those who had even the tiniest scuffs, or tears, or missing buttons, were being entered into his dreaded red book. Maybe Isabella’s warning wasn’t so petty after all.
He gave himself a quick once-over. Utterly appalling. He had about three-seconds to get up and sneak through the side entrance.
Instead, he grappled with his tie, drew up his socks, and dragged a hand roughly through his hair, removing the tendrils of a creeper, several strands of grass and a piece of bark. Then, before he could tidy himself further, a familiar voice boomed through the hall.
‘Good morning, school,’ it said. ‘Please rise.’
Two
The Fate Of Worlds
With a tiny flash, a dreamspinner, spider-like in form with a delicate, smoky textured outline that melted into the atmosphere around her, uncurled from a fiery, electric blue midriff known as an “maghole”.
Genesis stood on six long, thread-like, spidery legs and looked out over a desolate landscape through ovate black eyes. A soft wind brushed through her.
She sniffed at the stale air and remembered how, long ago, grasses, trees, and beasts filled the pink, green, and ochre-coloured landscapes of the planet of the Garden of Eden.
Carpeted in spiders, this area of the Garden of Eden had been a vast area of mixed terrains filled with insects and spiders, known as the arachnid lands.
Dreamspinners had harvested spider webs in these lands and from these spider silks, they had fashioned dream powders, or dusts, and turned them into dreams of love, kindness, and inventiveness. Dreams crafted for all living things.
These lands, though hostile to most and rarely visited by other species, had been bountiful to dreamspinners and beneficial to all living creatures, notably humans.
On this exact spot, an area had once been cleared and a tall, open-roofed structure had been hastily constructed. Its outer perimeter was like a giant wooden palisade, and from afar it looked like a fortress with outer walls high enough and thick enough to shield it from the lurking eyes and ears of the tallest and craftiest of beasts.
Genesis remembered how the Council of One Hundred had debated the fate of the worlds around a huge circular table made from one slice of the trunk of a pink mammoth tree. Here, the humans and animals and trees had argued and raged before finally putting their differences to rest.
Nestled on the rim of her mother's electrical midriff, Genesis had sat in the sky above the Council, invisible to all except other dreamspinners, bathing in the warm blue energy currents that splayed over her, watching the drama unfold below.
She recalled the desperate faces of the Founders of the Garden of Eden as they listened the charges against them. These five, four men and a lady, moulded by the irresistible energies of the universe, forged in birth from the collisions of sand and water and gas at the very beginning, were found to be guilty of corrupting all life.
The Founders had yearned for forgiveness, demanding an end to magic, begging them to find a way of destroying their immortality. They did not seek pity, just atonement for their part in the destruction. Tears had rolled down their cheeks, Genesis remembered, as they accepted their punishment; all bar one.
That man was Cain, from the planet of Havilah. Cain, who threatened to freeze every human being on Havilah if he was burned. Cain, whose light blue eyes exuded a dark, menacing power, and who held a magic beyond that of others. Cain, who felt his fate did not justify his actions.
Genesis uncurled a long leg, turning the tip into a needle and then a pincer before dipping it into her fizzling maghole, feeling the soothing mass of energy swirling within. The old memories were returning.
Cain had delivered on his promise.
The moment flames had licked at his flesh, his spell cast all Havilarian people into domed, crystal-like puddles exactly where they stood.
And now, devoid of form and starved of magic, Cain—to this day—had never been able to turn the Havilarians back.
Genesis had often watched the Frozen Lord, as he was now known, roaming his palace as a burnt spirit. Always looking, never giving up his futile search to find and restore his power. A desperate hope burned from within his spirit-shell, although, as millennia after millennia wore on, she’d noted how his vibrations had moved to frustration, and then to anger.
Genesis glided like a ghost, her limbs floating on particles of air. At the top of the great stone she stared over the wastelands of the desolate planet.
Strange how events had turned out.
The world of the Garden of Eden in front of her devoid of life, while Havilah, not even visible as a pinprick in the sky, was starved of people. All the while, Earth had trudged on, oblivious to the planets they had yet to discover, oblivious to the wars which had destroyed so much and oblivious to the machinations of the other worlds.
For this reason, dreamspinners were deeply associated with Earth. Nothing thrilled Genesis more than to sneak away and watch a human dream. It thrilled her to see how they twisted and reacted, how the dusts filled them with hope and creativity and gave their world meaning.
And, now, as if out of the blue, the mysterious energies of the universe had reawakened.
The inscription on the huge rock beside her had the instructions.
Genesis held her old, wiry legs out into the sky, scanning for vibrations, for answers. There was no point in denying these forces, these changes.
The fate of dreamspinners, the destiny of animals, plant life, and every living being on Earth was about to rest in the hands and minds of three humans under the protection of Adam, the elder of the Founders.
When Genesis gave the final part of the Tripodean Dream known as the Gifts of Eden, these three humans would be named as the Heirs of Eden. They would have seven days to fulfil their tasks and demonstrate the success of the current human race.
Fail, and all life on Earth would perish.
A new epoch would begin.
Now, only two parts remained to be given.
Three
Good And Bad Ne
ws
Mr Solomon patted the breast pocket of his coarse tweed suit and raised his thick eyebrows. Twenty-five years he’d been at the school, almost to the day. Twenty years as headmaster, and his performance every morning was the same now as it was then.
‘Quiet... please,’ he said.
Wasn’t it strange, he thought, how noise levels always seemed to rise as conversations rushed to a conclusion?
He removed his glasses from his round, ruddy nose and inspected the students.
‘Thank you. Sit down.’
Two hundred and seventy-two pupils parked on the hard, wooden benches lined up row upon row, the noise whispering into the safety of the huge, vaulted ceiling above. From weighty cross-beams, large chandelier lights dangled from thick, black metal chains, illuminating those below with a dim, almost church-like glow.
From their tall portraits on the sides, former headmasters eyed this generation of children sternly. While etched onto dark wooden panels running around the perimeter of the hall, the names of former scholars, captains, and musicians reminded the children of past glories.
Solomon stared out over the throng and cleared his throat.
‘School dress!’
Archie audibly groaned. He had a strong urge to disappear.
‘I see some of you shaking,’ Solomon said, smiling and staring around the room. ‘And rightly so,’ he continued. ‘Standards have deteriorated since the beginning of the term. After leave, those who fail to comply with every part of the school uniform code will discover the joys of detention. Now, to show you what I’m talking about, no one is quivering more this morning than our school goalkeeper, Archie de Lowe.’
A cheer went up.
‘de Lowe, please be upstanding.’
Archie sat stone-still in disbelief.
Not again.
He felt a jab in his back and another from the side.
‘Come on, Archie. Up you get.’
Archie regarded his worn shoes, and, taking a deep breath, rose from behind the significant frame of his friend Gus Williams. Every single pair of eyes stared at him. Archie heard girls giggling nearby. His face reddened, the heat of his blush growing by the second. He didn’t dare look up.
