The Oldest War (To Brave The Crumbling Sky Book 2)

by Matt Snee

  Captain couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic. He looked down and saw the lines of squat buildings.

  “You don't have to worry about pollution here,” declared Tess. “It's eradicated by the sun and the void. This is the kind of place factories should be.”

  “Yeah,” Captain was astonished by how many factories there were.

  “Sometimes men do things the right way, if you nudge 'em a little. It's been harder to nudge with Jon Jason in charge, though.”

  “He seems like a fair man,” Captain said, trying to be polite.

  “He is no fair man,” Tess retorted, her face (and hair and eyes) reddening. “He's a monster. Ask Jennifer. She'll tell you, now…”

  “And what about his father?”

  “His father is still a man,” Tess sighed.

  “Jennifer seems to like him.”

  “Jennifer does not have spectacular taste,” Tess complained. She smirked at Captain. “Not most of the time, anyway.”

  Plerrxx stirred, but did not awaken.

  “Honestly, I don't like Jon Jason,” Captain told her. “Something about him is off, really dark.”

  “You have no clue, my scappy friend.” Tess tilted her neck and raised an eyebrow at him.

  Captain's mind turned back to the situation at hand. Questions crowded his mind and he verbalized them. “Who are these people? How did this all happen with the train, and the Dunleavys? Who are the Delphiniums? How long has this been going on?”

  The red drained from the young Delphinium's countenance and was replaced by a soothing hospital green. “Easy, there, Cap'n,” she commanded, as if quieting a horse. “All this has been around for a long, long time. Since before the Iron Age the Dunleavys and the Delphiniums have waged war. From the forests of Ukraine to the deserts of the new world to up here, now, in this.”

  “And no one has won after all this time?”

  “The war cannot be won, Sir Captain.”

  * * *

  We know that the face of truth is hidden by the golden orb of the glorious sun. We know the night is truth. The stars are the truth. The blue sky is darkness, an amazing illusion of light.

  In the real sky, you can see the Night-Mother nestled in an impossible sea of stars stretched from here to the beginning. You can see the billowing invitation.

  Death is a superstition.

  One day in the youth of man and woman, the Delphiniums rode under banner on the final day of their forgotten age, the age of Silver, the age of the Moon. They met the enemy gladly, superbly, under that same false sky of ridiculous azure. Their Night-Mother hidden, the true light dispelled by the Day-Father. They rode passionate steeds that heaved and shivered beneath them but never cowered. They whipped across the ground at frightening speeds. The Delphiniums were astounding warriors, but it didn't matter.

  It was the bite of iron, one of the most common elements on the planet, that drew the last drop of blood of this civilization. Long have men known how to temper metal.

  The daylight was overpowering to the Delphiniums, who were out of their element when the Day-Father reigned. Delphiniums lived mostly at night and slept during the day. A lifetime of night had weakened their eyes; they might as well have come from deep in the Earth like the cowardly Druva the sages spoke of. As such, they were doomed for this reason, along with many others.

  The brave and beautiful Queen Eleanor led them; carrying her sword high in the front ranks of the cavalry. They were dressed in ceremonial animal pelts, leaving most of their athletic bodies bare and undefended. Their hair was tied and twirled around their heads so that no one could grab it. Their faces were painted red with a now extinct fruit that once flourished in the Delphinium lands—a small queendom in what is now known as southern Ukraine.

  This was the last stand of the Delphiniums. Everyone rode but for the youngest children, who had fled north with the Delphinium literatures held in their hearts along with the ancient traditions they continue to this day. This battle is naught remembered on Earth, but is not entirely forgotten in the foreign havocs of space. This is where the Delphiniums fell at last, just as Queen Eleanor's mother and grandmother had warned her.

  Now, imagine you could see them as they streamed across a grassless plain, the old battlefield where they had defended their honor successfully for generations. Horses at full gallop, the Delphiniums clutched the reins as they rode without saddles. Do not trust your own history. Woman tamed the horse with love before man tamed it with fear.

  Queen Eleanor held her breath and gripped her sword with her sweaty hand. Will I be the last? The thoughts flamed in her brain like horns. All she could hear was the rocketing hooves of their steeds. She looked to her sides and nodded at her best generals, who nodded back. Will they all die too?

  Queen Eleanor could see the Dunleavys and their allies on the hills in front of them. She urged her army faster. An army? She thought bitterly. These half-starved girls?

  The armies met.

  * * *

  “What happened?” Captain asked Tess, transported by the story.

  “First I have to tell you how it came to that.”

  “Okay.”

  “The Delphiniums are very old,” Tess said. “Are you familiar with the Ages of Man?”

  “A little,” Captain said.

  “Well, you know that the early times of man are called the Golden Age, right?”

  “Sure, but isn't that just mythical stuff?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway—the Golden Age,” Tess tried to get back on track, but her teenaged mind fought her all the way. “Men and women lived in peace, and there was bounty enough for everyone without fighting over it. The world was warm and there was no such thing as seasons yet; the weather was hot thirteen months of the year. Time moved slower and life seemed to last for hundreds of years.”

  “And then there was some sort of Fall, right?” Captain knew the myth.

  “Yes,” Tess said. “The Garden of Eden story is a version of the tale. There are many versions but the simple truth is this - we lived in paradise. Gods and angels walked among men and women, and no one feared death. This lasted for thousands upon thousands of years, until finally one day it all came to an end.”

  “Why?” Captain was aware of some of the answers for this.

  “No one knows for sure. Some people blame humankind. Some people blame the angels and minor gods. Others laid the blame on God himself. All we know is that it came to an end, and what was left is what we still have, the suffering, the despair.

  All of us have glimpses of this world in our collective memory; we all know its loss and the hole left in our hearts. As the legend goes, the sun grew fickle and then there were four seasons, half of which were too cold and half of which were too hot. People didn't live as long. Nature wasn't as giving. We suffered. We still suffer.”

  “That's real history?” Captain asked.

  “Believe it, honey.” She winked at him and popped a fresh piece of gum into her mouth; she was fidgety by nature.

  “Then what happened?”

  * * *

  The Silver Age came next. A lesser age, a harder age, where justice mingled with tyranny and blood spilled in the bonds of fellowship. Here great women came to power. Jelenestria, Avabore, Omeritra, Masta, and the list goes on. Great queens and witches that held the fragile peace of the age together. We—women, not men—invented civilization. Men think it's a tool. It's not; it's an art.

  For many thousands of years after the Golden Age, the Delphiniums and their sister tribes ruled upon the planet, for good and ill. While the queens kept the peace, it was at great cost to justice sometimes. The mothers who ruled society were not always just, but their love was always true.

  You must understand that women ruled all aspects of society. They were the queens, the senators, the generals, the warriors, and the hunters. Men were tradesman, or acted as laborers or sages. They lacked the innate ability to keep the peace. They
still lack it to this day.

  There was also our blood magic - power the men would never have. We could commune with the Night-Mother and become locked into the great wheel, in synchronization with all things. We bled, our bodies holy, in time with the moon and the waves. We had great power, power that men would come to envy, power that they could never have.

  We tamed the horse. We planted seeds. We invented the bow, and the wheel, which was just a reflection of the reality around us, a solution to a million puzzles. We were the first to build roofs, to cultivate the land, and to play music.

  The queens handed down control of society from generation to generation. Phiobia, Kalistra, Metipotoyelna—there were many, but we only remember a few.

  Finally, Eleanor - she was tall, fair, with white-blond hair and crystal-blue eyes, freckles running up and down her arms and back. She could be funny sometimes, despite her haughty voice and adamant demeanor. All the people loved her.

  Sadly, the age was waning. Tribes had fallen. Men to the east had invented a new, cursed magic that could compete with our blood magic. Chaos spilled across the world as the queens were usurped by power-hungry men. Like the angels before us, our queens had become unjust, and God and Earth moved against us. All things fall, and it was our turn.

  Two days before the last battle, the Delphiniums huddled in prayer to the Night-Mother. A cool rain fell. The Delphiniums thought it a good omen and went to sleep peacefully.

  Not Queen Eleanor. She knew what would happen if she rested. She lay awake, questioning the stars above. Her lover, the Sage Michael, tried to comfort her with words. “Let sleep take you,” he pleaded, “so you can know rest once more.”

  “I will know rest soon enough,” Eleanor replied.

  “Must you be so faithless all the time?” the Sage asked his queen.

  “I have faith in reality,” Queen Eleanor proclaimed.

  “But not your tribe?”

  “I have faith in the tribe.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I have no faith in the gods. They have betrayed us. All of them.”

  “You don't know that,” the Sage told her.

  “I can feel it. Deep in my bones. I can hear it in the wind. I can taste it in the river's water.”

  “You're imagining things.”

  “No. I can taste my own death. The future is poised.”

  “How can you know for sure?”

  “I am the queen,” said Eleanor. “My judgment is unquestionable.”

  * * *

  The Dunleavys were wizards from the west who lived in caves and predominantly hunted for their food, whereas the Delphiniums planted grains and vegetables. The Dunleavys had been around since the beginning and had created a complex magic based upon cave painting and religious ritual that allowed them to accomplish amazing feats in war.

  Quick-tongued and relentlessly determined, the Dunleavys and their “allies” gradually pushed east, where female-dominated agrarian society was the norm. The Delphiniums still hunted—they considered it a sacred activity—but more and more they cultivated their own food and domesticated animals like the horse, goat, sheep, and cow. It was their planting that the Dunleavys envied; they wanted this magic power for their own, not to mention the Delphiniums' huge stores of grain that sustained them through the long winters.

  The leader of the Dunleavys was a man by the name of Lawrence Lister. He was a master blacksmith and priest, dedicated to the Horned God and all his inclinations. This man did not pursue war just for its bounties, but because it was all he desired. He was mad for it, for its smells and utter disappointments; for its triumphs and vicious obstacles—which were negotiated by his underlings and never himself. This was in contrast to Queen Eleanor, who managed her troops from the front line.

  Two nights before the battle, Lawrence Lister dipped his hands in paint and drew his army and the Delphiniums meeting on the plain. In dramatic fashion, his army was claiming victory as they subjugated the women. He painted this in animal oils and dyed clay. When the time came, this magic would come to life.

  So the Dunleavys readied their iron and marched east.

  * * *

  “Iron?” asked Captain.

  “Yes,” said Tess. “It was the Dunleavys who had smelted iron and hammered the breastplates. “It was a new technology, cutting edge, and spelled the end for the Delphiniums and many other tribes, who still built their weapons out of bronze.”

  “I never understood the significance,” said Captain.

  “That's because you have been brainwashed by the Shadows. The Iron Age was an age of evil, an evil that has spread across the Solar System. The Iron Age is when the gods started to forsake us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have to stand on our own two feet. We cannot rely on the gods forever. If we want peace, we have to make it ourselves.”

  “Couldn't the Delphiniums have just given the Dunleavys the grain and the secret to planting?”

  “They didn't just want the grain and the secret. They wanted us, on our knees. They wanted to steal our power.”

  It made Captain angry. “They're nothing but bullies.”

  “And they've been doing it for a long time. They're good at it.”

  He could imagine what happened next, but he asked anyway.

  “What happened to the Delphiniums?”

  * * *

  On the day of the battle, Queen Eleanor rode before her soldiers—all female—and spoke to them for the last time.

  “Hear me, women!” She cried out, weaving back and forth on her horse. Her azure eyes blazed fearsomely out from under her painted-red brow.

  “Know that the Night-Mother watches! She can see us through the blue sky! She protects our souls, which these villains can never touch! We may die today, but we will never be defeated! Look past the rhythms of your bodies; there was no beginning! There shall be no end! Death is a superstition!

  “Our enemies were born with their swords! It is all they can think about! They want to destroy, not create! They find their births despicable; they see the planet as something they may conquer! Their women are slaves! Their children are fools! Their swords are small!”

  The Delphiniums laughed. It was one of their last pleasures.

  “I will lead you to the next world! When we fall we will rise! Their heavy souls will sink to the underworld—so kill as many as you can! They hate us! They hate themselves! They worship the horned demiurge! They imagine God to be as evil and petty as they are! They have no aspirations other than to destroy and take! In their greed they will cover the world with pain!

  “But that is not for us to see! We will close our age with a marvelous battle! And one day—the Delphiniums will rise again!”

  The army broke out into cheers. The time was now. Queen Eleanor bit her lip and looked toward the enemy, who progressed across the plain clad in iron and lost in its hunger for human blood.

  The Delphiniums rode out to meet them. The women fought, and fought hard. The young and old came together. They rode atop their snorting mounts, while the men they faced surrounded them with iron spears dipped in animal oils and lit a-fire. The Delphiniums fell one by one. Their steeds dying beneath them, until finally the afternoon was red with blood and Queen Eleanor stood alone with her personal guard. The savages encircled them and laughed. It was over.

  The Lord of the Dunleavys, Lawrence Lister, came to the scene and requested the Delphiniums' surrender; not as an offer of sanctuary, but to further demean them.

  “Never to a man!” Queen Eleanor yelled back. They were her last words.

  After it was over, Lawrence Lister took possession of the queen's body and defiled it in front of his men. He dragged her body back to the East where it was presented for all to see.

  * * *

  “That's terrible,” Captain said sadly.

  “That's how things were,” Tess affirmed matter-of-factly. “The Iron Age.”

  “But the Delphiniums survived! You're still
here.”

  “Yes. The sages and the children fled east, where they disappeared into history. We maintain the same bloodline. Queen Eleanor will not be the last queen. There will be another, again.”

  “Queen Eleanor had a child?”

  “Yes. With Sage Michael.”

  “And you've carried those genetics down through time, despite all the years?”

  “That's right,” Tess said. “We wait. Our queen waits.”

  “Who is your queen?”

  Tess smiled, bringing her finger up to her lips, which now glistened a sparkling gold.

  “Shhh.”

  11. Spirit Train

  Slither, shriek, the Spirit Train,

  Dunleavy done Devil tamed;

  tug, twist, the Spirit Train,

  never break its cursed chains.

  –Jupiter work song

  The Spirit Train rumbled through the permanent night, hissing and twisted, its wheels like talons, its skin scaled and perversely warm. Captain sat in a kind of stupor and stared out the window at the passing stars. Jupiter filled the top of the sky. Across the horizon there were stars and nebulae that shone through the super-atmosphere. They were close to the Death Dream. Very close. Captain could feel it in his heart like gravity tugging him downwards. It was the strangest thing, to want to plummet into that hell.

  Jennifer came back from wherever she had been, wearing a serious face. She nodded when she locked eyes with Captain and said hello to Tess and the Mmrowwr. Captain smiled.

  Tess looked up at her curiously. They had both shown respect and contempt for each other so far; to Jennifer, Tess was a child—so Tess acted like one in response. Plerrxx greeted Jennifer with a slight brush from his mind, like a soft wind that stirs for only a moment. She acknowledged him without speaking.

  Jennifer sat. They were all arranged in a circle around each other. They all turned inwards on the swiveling seats. Captain was glad not to have to look out the window anymore. He needed to concentrate on something outside his own brain.

  “So—where have you been?” Tess smirked.

  “Dealing with the future,” Jennifer replied. “Don't ask me about it.”