The ground raced up. He closed his eyes, spread his arms.
Then was thrown forwards to smash his head on the console. Deceleration, the likes of which he had never known, driving the wind from his lungs, rippling his vision. Yet this deceleration wasn’t over in an instant, not like he’d expected. It dragged on. With arms of lead he strove to push himself away from the hard, unyielding buttons and switches that pressed harshly into the soft flesh of his cheek, but he couldn’t, the force of deceleration driving him hard into the console.
He screamed. What was happening? This was no crash…
Finally, after moments that seemed to stretch out to eternity, the incredible pressure began to ease off, his vision slowly returning to normal. Dizzy, confused, he pushed himself upright, blood pouring from his broken nose. He stared out of the cockpit window. He stared.
And he stared.
And for the first time in his life, he knew what it was to be truly, deeply afraid.
***
Silence. Utter, back-of-the-library, bottom of the mausoleum silence. Nobody moved, nobody made a sound. Nobody dared even breathe. The cars in the streets, stopped. The buses, parked up, passengers staring from the windows. The television crews, the crowds, the cabinet ministers. The visitors aboard the London Eye. The boats upon the Thames. The unwashed masses, the tourists, the shoppers. The mums, the dads, the children. Those at home, at work, in the office, in the pub, watching the unfolding events on the TV. Coffees went undrunk. Work undone.
They stood, they sat, they stared. No noise. No, not a sound.
For the impossible had happened, right in front of their eyes. And life would never, ever, be the same again.
It floated there. Nay, didn’t float, for that would imply at least some motion, some bobbing up and down, some swaying in the breeze. No. It hung there, motionless, utterly transfixed. A five-hundred ton butterfly, impaled upon an invisible needle.
The Airbus had halted, still pointing nose-down towards the gathered crowd outside the Houses of Parliament, barely fifty feet above the ground. It loomed above them, vast, imposing and wholly intact, its overloaded engines slowly winding down.
As one, the crowds that stared at this impossible spectacle turned, their attention now held by the blazing figure of light that stood there, towering beside the Prime Minister. At a mere gesture from this man, that stricken airliner had halted its descent, defying all laws of physics. This titan of a man gazed about, surveying with dazzling green eyes those that in turn watched him. He placed those crystal swords point-first into the ground. Then he spoke, his voice echoing out with such power that perhaps even without the television cameras, the people of Britain would still have heard his words, from the furthest highlands of Scotland, down to the wave-lashed cliffs of Cornwall.
My name is Stone, he told the world in tones of thunder. And everything your Prime Minister has told you is true. Britain and, indeed, the world, is to face great challenges in the years to come. But I am here to make sure that when those challenges come, you will be ready to meet them with fire in your heart. Eyes of blazing green stared out, reaching through the television sets to hold the rapt attention of everyone that watched this address. This world is going to change and, I’ll kid you not, it will be scary. There’s evil out there; forces that seek to destroy, to spread terror and disorder. Forces like the terrorist that hijacked this very plane. He gestured to the suspended airliner that hung there like an attentive and gravity-defying whale, watching proceedings. But while I draw breath, those forces shall never prevail. This aircraft shall remain here, unmoving, till the end of days; a testament, an everlasting reminder of that promise. And of my power to protect. The titan looked about, surveying the crowd, making eye contact with each and every scared and awestruck person. Your Prime Minister is handing authority over to my people with immediate effect, that we may start rebuilding Britain, making it a safer, greener, more prosperous realm. To ready it for the times to come. But I cannot – will not – force you to follow me. I can only ask, humbly, that you place your trust in me.
Silence greeted his words.
Was this too much? Was the sanity of a nation about to break? Was chaos and civil war about to descend? By the titan’s side, the Prime Minister gazed up. The giant looked down, met his eyes. The British leader smiled. Nodded.
Then took a knee.
After but a moment’s pause, his Cabinet ministers followed in his example.
As did the crowd before them.
As did the people in the streets.
The people in the homes.
The people in the offices and the pubs and the factories.
From behind the giant, a petite woman came near; red, wavy hair; eyes a green that echoed his own. She reached up, whispered into his ear.
“What now?”
He looked down at her with a smile, his eyes glistening with amusement, caution and relief, that he had finally set things in motion.
Now is where our story begins.
Epilogue:
It’s been ten years now, since that day. The airliner, EA2317, remains exactly where Lord Stone promised it would. The grateful passengers were rescued within a couple of hours. The two pilots were buried with dignity.
Of the terrorist, there was no sign.
There’s a great garden around the plane now; the buildings of Parliament are empty, unneeded, merely a museum, a reminder of the way things were. People still visit that site, walking beneath the ever-still, ever-transfixed aircraft, wondering how on Earth this five-hundred ton plane remains in the air.
Even I’m still awestruck whenever I see it. And I’ve known Lord Stone longer than most.
It’s only British people that come to visit it, of course, no foreign tourists. Our borders are long-closed to the outside world now. Lord Stone wasn’t kidding when he said we’d become insular, focused on getting our own house in order. Those first few months were difficult times. You have never seen men and women as stressed as the Prime Minister and his aides during those early days; the bureaucratic nightmare of untangling Britain from its many ties – the UN, NATO, the EU, trade, defence, immigration – was enough to drive the man nearly to tears at times.
Those other countries had seen what had kicked off on the television that day. They demanded answers. What strange, new technologies do you possess, they’d asked? Reveal them to our inspectors or face sanctions. Sanctions? I remember Lord Stone’s great, booming laugh the day he’d heard that. What sanctions could they impose upon a country that sought its own self-exile?
No. The world could do nothing more than watch as we retreated into our shell.
It was our power trio that led the way in those early days; the Woodsman, Gwenna and Lord Arbistrath.
Gwenna toured the countryside with her troupe, calling upon the spirits of the land to bring forth new growth. Forests, long-since hacked down, began to sprout up anew. Wild animals, once thought died out, began to reappear. The landscape of this fair isle changed a lot during those early years; and it needed to. The more it could be restored, the happier the spirits. The happier the spirits, the more willing they were to lend their powers. We would need their powers, in the years to come.
Lord Arbistrath and the Woodsman, with the help of the previous administration, took over the people element, recruiting workers to help build. Those people that didn’t wish to swear fealty, to place their trust in Lord Stone, had the option of leaving the country. There were few such people. Most found this time of change as exciting as it was scary. It was as though a people long-downtrodden, thinking themselves stuck in a rut, had suddenly been given a new lease of life.
When the London Spire project was revealed to the world, we had expected protests, marches. We had thought that people would fight for their old homes, their old way of life. But no; they embraced the change. When the call went out for tradesmen; for carpenters, stonemasons, plumbers, engineers; it was answered. Skilled men and women arrived in droves, seeking to hel
p.
They wanted a hand in building this bright, new future.
How Lord Stone managed to keep the population happy, I’ll never know. Cut off from the rest of the world, the economy was thrown into turmoil. Some people no longer had jobs, the world-wide chains that employed them simply amputating those divisions that existed in Britain. Factories that once exported things to Europe and beyond, halted production, with no-one to sell to. What little fuel we could produce ourselves went towards heating homes and powering machinery, rather than running cars.
This time of change was a strange period. A tough one. But the people of Britain, to their credit, struggled through with only their customary grumbling.
Lord Stone did what he could to provide. Food was no issue – about the capital, great fields were cleared. The powers of the shamans summoned forth food that grew quickly, tasted great, and could be sold cheaply, keeping fed the hungry millions. Fuel and water were made free, that the turbulent economy of this time might not cause undue suffering.
Most of the efforts in the early years were focused on London itself and the completion of that first Spire. If you’d visited the far flung reaches of the country back then, in the beginning; the highlands of Scotland, the valleys of Wales, the coasts of Cornwall, perhaps you would have been hard pressed to notice any changes at all. Yes, the large chains might have gone, or more usually, been made into locally-owned businesses, but other than that, life went on for most.
There were changes beyond the skin-deep, however. So great were the powers at work in the land, that the very country itself had become restless. The shamans, I remember Gwenna telling me, could feel long-dormant spirits stirring beneath the Earth. Lines of spiritual energy, long-thought stagnant, had burst into new and vibrant life. Was it the power Lord Stone had unleashed that day, when he had stopped the plummeting behemoth with but a crossing of his swords? Gwenna thinks so. In fact, she shortly afterwards sent her best shamans off around the country, to find those native Brits with the gift and train them in the ways of the shaman, to help keep these unruly and newly-awakened spirits under control.
Pol took my advice and left the herd at the first opportunity. Went to Cornwall to help train a trio of girls. It didn’t go well. But that’s another story for another day.
In the meantime, there’s a frisson in the air; an excitement that the future is going to bring great things. We’re entering a golden age – and I’ll admit, I’ve had some part to play in it myself – and this great, buzzing feeling of positivity is infectious. The Woodsman was right, all that time ago, on that rooftop above London; we’re going to be an example to the rest of the world of how it should be done. Of course, we have advantages that they do not.
Draconis, for one.
Britain is a small isle, of limited resources. So how are we building this vast and towering London Spire that’s going to replace the sprawling metropolis of old? Where do we get the raw materials? These are questions the other countries of the world must be puzzling over, even as they strive to watch proceedings through their strangely-blurred spy satellites. They would never believe the truth, even should they learn it.
A pack mule, that’s all these dragons are used as by our enemy. They chain them with collars of brass and iron, wrought with infernal magicks that limit their power and bring their minds under control. They use these magnificent and ancient beasts as no more than troop carriers to ferry their hellish minions from world to scoured world. For so proud, so intelligent a creature, it must be humiliation itself.
So how awestruck am I that Draconis willingly soars through the void, seeking out great asteroids of ore and hauling them home for us to hack at, refine and use in our construction? How humbled that he would lower himself to hoisting our cloaked solar-satellites into space, to beam back clean and limitless energy, now that the fuel reserves are running low?
Yes; we have advantages alright.
One day the other countries of this world will join us and we will welcome them into our fold. Perhaps Lord Stone will show their leaders the truth, as he did with the people of Britain? Or perhaps our people, content, fed, marching towards the future with hope in their hearts, will shine as a beacon to the rest of the world? Who knows how it will pan out? Draconis probably does, though if he does, he hasn’t told me. He’s content to whisper me the secrets of technology, revealing to me how to create clean power, anti-gravity motors and weapons for our military to use in the wars to come.
Nikki, the reporter, the one that had been caught up in this all that time ago? She’s still around, providing us with the thoughts and feelings of the real people of Britain, not the politicians. Her and Alann are close, now. I’m happy for the man. If anyone deserves happiness, it’s the Woodsman.
Times are still changing. Things are always in motion. What’s the British saying? No rest for the wicked? With the initial administration out of the way and the Spire nearly complete, Lord Stone has set us a new task, the Foresters, the Shamans and even us, the Tulador Guard. We’re to create an institute of learning, a school, where we will take the youth of Britain – and eventually, the world – and forge them into paragons of virtue. Knights, if you will. The world needs people to look up to, he tells us. And not us – for we’re not of this world – but individuals brought forth from their own ranks.
He calls it The Academy. In its halls we’re to take the brightest and most promising youth of tomorrow and teach them, instilling them with everything we’ve learned. He wants these children to grow up wise, tolerant, chivalrous and determined. He wants them to be martial gods, wielders of technology and spirit-craft alike. Yet at the same time, he doesn’t want them to lose touch with their humanity.
They’re to be the best of us and the best of Earth, combined. A shining example to their fellow man.
It’s a big ask, I think, but Lord Stone sees it as essential to the future. At the end of the day, the people of Earth have got to save themselves, he says. We’re just here to help that happen. Makes sense, I suppose.
He has a great many plans for the future, our Lord Stone. He wishes to free more of the Time Dragons. How, I haven’t a clue. He also wants to make a trip back to our homeworld at some point; to see whether it really was lost when we fled. He has a twinkle in his eyes whenever he mentions that. It’s as though he suspects something we do not, yet doesn’t want to let on.
The Brotherhood of the Veil are still out there, plotting, scheming, striving to turn the nations of the world against us. But the Woodsman’s Trio, Narlen, Naresh and Elerik, are out there even now, hunting their operatives down, thwarting their plans.
We’ve a century or so until the enemy set foot in our galaxy. Who knows what we can accomplish in that time? Perhaps, with The Academy being built and British people with the Gift being found all the time, the future will be filled with heroes and tales to surpass even our own?
I, for one, am looking forward to finding out.
Enjoy the Graeme Stone Saga?
Follow the further adventures of a changing Britain in The Knacker, book one of the Cornish Guardians series. This dark and bloody horror tells the tale of an ancient spirit of the mines, awakened from its long slumber. Can moody teen Kyle, who has recently moved to Cornwall, and his young would-be witch friends Alice, Gem and Lou survive the horrors to come? What is the mysterious secret behind handyman George? And is there any force in the land that can finally put a stop to the bloodthirsty rampage of this spirit as it hungers for ‘tribute?’
Find out in The Knacker! And its forthcoming sequel, Redcap!
Coming Soon from Gareth K Pengelly:
The Academy, Book Six of the Graeme Stone Saga.
In the near future of New Great Britain, the youth of today are the Knights of tomorrow. Promising young individuals are taken, honed into weapons of war and paragons of chivalry by the very heroes of legend, that they might inspire and protect like the Knights of old. Their teachers are mighty figures, straight from the pages of history; Al
ann the Woodsman, Admiral Marlyn and Gwenna the Mistress of Magic.
But life isn’t easy for new recruits Teanna, Kel, Yukio and Mia. The Brotherhood of the Veil have eyes and ears everywhere and a poisoned knife is never far away. The invasion to come grows closer by the year as New Great Britain prepares itself for the war to end all wars.
Plus, there’s the midterms to revise for…
Follow the continued adventures of the Graeme Stone Saga in The Academy!
Bloodless Revolution (The Graeme Stone Saga Book 5) Page 17
