by David Wind
When Areenna stepped forward, she heard Enaid within her mind. Gifting is the sharing of abilities. Select the one you feel will aid her best and offer it freely.
She stared into Laira’s umber eyes and within a heartbeat knew what to do. Reaching out, she placed one hand over the young woman’s heart and the other atop her head. She closed her eyes and pushed. Light rose quickly to encircle them in a globe of shimmering blue. Seconds later, the light was drawn into Laira.
Areenna stepped back.
“I shall stay and wait,” Atir said, breaking the silence.
“And I with you,” Ilsraeth added.
Startled, Enaid took in a short breath. “A word,” she said to Ilsraeth.
When they were far enough away for privacy, Enaid said, “When I bid Timon farewell, I was caught in a foretelling. You cannot stay here. You must return to Northcrom. Your husband… He has been hurt. You must go now.”
A flash of concern sparked in her eyes. “How? What?”
Enaid shook her head. “I saw not what, only that it is bad and you must hurry.”
“The black witch…she has—”
“No. Although I was given only a small glimpse, I sensed nothing unnatural.”
“I will leave now.”
“Leave with us. It is safer through the ruins if we go together. I will tell the others.”
Ten minutes later, their goodbyes said, Roth, Mikaal, Areenna, Enaid, and Ilsraeth started their kraals up the winding road leading to the top of the palisade while Laira climbed down to the skiff to begin her trip across the water.
Atir alone remained on the Landing with her treygone and Laira’s ret, watching as her daughter began the crossing.
They stopped two hours later, and a half mile away from the ruins, through which they had passed safely. There, Ilsraeth took her leave and, with her black rantor loping along next to her, pushed her kraal into a cantor and headed north across the wasteland toward her home.
“She will be fine,” Enaid assured Roth, who watched the woman ride off. “The rantor and her magic are more than enough protection.” Then she looked at Areenna and Mikaal. “You two have been withholding something. Speak now.”
It is time to tell them, Areenna pushed to Mikaal.
Yes. I leave it to you.
Areenna could not stop the short laugh from getting out. Coward.
“What?” Enaid asked anxiously.
Areenna cleared her throat. “Mikaal and I decided to wait until we were alone with you. When we were on the Island, when the cloaked ones gifted us, they also gave us instruction.” She paused to look questioningly at Enaid.
“Continue,” Enaid said.
Areenna took a slow breath. “They told us we are to go to the far northwestern mountains—to the Frozen Mountains. We have been given an undertaking that must be done before the dark ones cross the seas and reach us here. Without accomplishing this, they said, Nevaeh will fall and we will be overcome.”
“The Frozen Mountains,” Enaid whispered, her voice a breaking croak. “What are you to seek in that frozen desolation? Nothing lives there.”
“Something does. Something that must be awakened,” Areenna said, her voice low, but the words resounded loudly in everyone’s ears.
“You will have to wait. It’s a two month journey to that region, in the best of weather,” Roth said. “No man or woman can survive the mountains in winter.”
Mikaal nodded in agreement. He took Areenna’s hand. “We have preparations to make. We only know a little of what they gifted to us. We know we must learn everything before we leave. And we will leave a month before spring thaw.”
“You have a full three months before you leave. It will be enough time to learn and make you ready,” Enaid declared. But her words did not reflect the overwhelming sensation of fear tying her thoughts into knots.
She knew whatever they had been charged with, would be fraught with dangers none could imagine.
“Until then,” Roth said, cutting into all their thoughts, “we work and train and prepare, not just the two of you, but all of Nevaeh. If war is coming, as you have been told, then such will be met by the power of all the peoples of Nevaeh.”
Epilogue
She lay on the cavern floor, unmoving, her twisted limbs spread awkwardly as she stared at the high ceiling above. She had failed, and with failure came fear. Her masters would soon know of this failure, if they did not already have the knowledge.
Trembling on the rock floor, exhausted from the battle fought with the forces she had never encountered before, she pleaded with her masters even as she sent the message of her failure to them.
She was explicit within the message, sparing no detail of what had happened and filled the mist-carried winged messenger with her impression of the powers that had defeated her creations and herself. At the end of the woeful tale, she added her plea for mercy, knowing full well it might never be answered.
But there was no choice. There was no one other than her dark masters, the rulers of her world, the ones who had entrusted this part of the world to her with the most important task of all. To destroy Roth, his woman, his child and the woman-child called Areenna, just as she had killed the woman child’s mother with a lingering painful death.
She dragged herself from the floor and half-walked half-scuttled to the cavern’s opening, where the winged mist awaited. She drew into herself, all the strength she could muster and once her message was complete, and the mist swirled about her impatiently, she would either live or die at their whim. Yet, until that day came, she would not cease her attempts to finish what her masters had commanded.
“I will destroy them, I will do as you have commanded. Or I will give my life in the attempt.”
A rush of confidence filled her when she swirled her hands and called up the formula to send the message on its winged way.
She completed the formula and the mist disappeared. She looked up into the sky and saw not the cloud-filled heavens above, but the faces of the four she had sworn to destroy. From within the black remnants of what once was her soul came a haunting laugh, for she knew what was coming.
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The End
Tales Of Nevaeh, Volume I
Born To Magic
Tales Of Nevaeh
Prelude To Nevaeh
ROTH
The Backstory
By: David Wind
The Prequel to Tales Of Nevaeh
A Novella
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From The Author
PRELUDE TO NEVAEH is the back-story of Tales Of Nevaeh. I wrote this short story prequel to give you, my readers, a better understanding of how and why Nevaeh came to be, of how Roth found Nevaeh, and of how the people and animals of Nevaeh evolved.
I recommend that this prequel be read AFTER reading Born To Magic, Tales Of Nevaeh: Volume I, so as not to diminish the impact of Born To Magic.
David Wind
March 2016
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This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places or incidents are coincidental and not intended by the author.
—The short stories, Prelude To Nevaeh I & II Copyright © 2015 by David Wind, are included in this novella. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Prelude To Nevaeh, Roth’s Story: Copyright © 2016 by David Wind. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact David Wind.
PRELUDE TO NEVAEH
Chapter 1
4048 AD
The great seal of the office of the President of the United States of the Americas filled the screen. Five seconds later the screen flickered and the president came into focus. The date appearing in the lower right corner of the screen read April seventeenth, two thousand, one hundred and
thirty-seven.
Watching the playback from his chair, the viewer scrutinized the image. Deep concern etched the president’s features. His face was a taut canvass of beige toned skin accented by pale blue-green eyes set above a sharp aquiline nose. His short curly hair was more salt than pepper, and his usually full lips were set in so tight a line they were barely visible.
“In the one hundred and thirty-six years leading to this point in time the world has not just imploded, it has divided into two separate entities: the Americas and the rest of the world.
What started as a horrible terrorist attack in New York City in 2001, escalated into a war we have had no choice but to endure. But I am not here to repeat to you the history lessons we are all too painfully aware of, nor of the mistakes made on all sides; what I am here to tell you about is the future.”
The president paused; not a single line of tension had slid from his face. “There are now two parts to our world: theirs and ours. The unified terrorists known as the Circle of Afzal, led by Afzal Mahmud Terak, have played the part of destroyer. What was a once great world, which our ancestors built into a multitude of nations spread across the globe, is no longer so.
Yet, there is still hope. Three years ago, nuclear war raged across Asia and Europe and reached down to the tip of South America. Moreover, while no nuclear bombs have detonated within our country, we must live in a world filled with radioactive fallout. Nuclear winter is coming. The sun is fading from our skies. The contaminating radiation has all but destroyed agriculture. The world is beginning to starve: our animals are dying and the ones strong enough to survive are changing in ways that stagger our imagination. Our children are being born—those unfortunate enough to live—physically and mentally mutated.
Yet there is still hope. A year and a half ago, the Council of the Americas voted to find a way for our civilization to continue. Some scientists believe it will take tens of thousands of years to recover from the nuclear devastation working its way around our planet. Other scientists have theorized that it might be as short as three thousand years—thirty centuries—for the earth to rid itself of the worst of the fallout.
Yet there is still hope. Twenty-nine years ago, our space program built a starship intended to discover other habitable worlds. The program ended eleven years after it began and two years after the ship was finished, for reasons of which we are all aware. The ship has been in high orbit, twenty thousand miles above our planet. For the past eighteen years, it has been orbiting under our full control. The ship’s cameras are the finest ever produced and give us pictures of the world, every day. Sadly, these pictures speak of a dying planet. Most of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa are now desolate radioactive wastelands with clouds so thick the land is barely discernible. It appears no people have survived.
Yet, there is still hope,” the president repeated again. “Over the past year and a half, we have been conducting a search for people who—for whatever reason have been lucky enough to have not succumbed to the fallout—those who are still one hundred percent biologically human without any genetic mutations, either physical or mental, induced by radiation. We have found two hundred qualified men and women.
While two hundred is a small number, our scientists calculate it will be enough to repopulate the world, thousands of years from now. The technology to put people into ah…a form of ‘suspended animation’ came about at the same time as the ship’s construction.
The method our scientists discovered to put a human body into a state of stasis has proven successful on both animals and humans. While it is not the stuff of science fiction—freezing a person to keep them preserved until awakening—it follows a similar principle. The body stops functioning within the stasis field. The scientists explained the theory behind stasis, but I will not try to explain it to you, as I do not understand the science. What I know, is exhaustive tests have been made over the past twenty years for both long term duration and waking/sleeping durations, and the stasis fields work!
Animals who live only a year or two have been awakened ten, fifteen and twenty years later, showing absolutely no changes from the day they had entered stasis until the day of their revival. The scientists awakened several every few months to see the effects of waking and reentering stasis over a long period. Again, there were no negative effects: no muscle degeneration, no brain degeneration and no cellular aging. Anyone entering stasis can come out of it at any time in the future; I repeat, at any time!
Therefore, mankind’s greatest hopes rest on the two hundred men and women who have volunteered to keep humanity alive. Allow me to introduce the flight crew.”
On the screen behind the president was a photograph of a group of six men and women.
“From the left to the right. First is Admiral Theodore Wingate, Mission Commander—” the president began. The first picture filled the screen while the president’s voice emanated from the speakers. “—next to him is Commander Andrew Tibbett’s, Chief Navigation Officer. Captain Carol Cantor is our Chief Pilot and the officer next to her is Commander Solomon Roth, Chief Scientific Officer and back up pilot. Dr. Simon Marks is the Chief Medical Officer and Dr. Samantha Calloway is the Assistant Chief Medical Officer.”
The images faded and the president came back into focus. “These six men and women are the crew of the starship aptly named, Mayflower. Their passengers, culled from every area of our country, are a full representation of our civilization. They are comprised of scientists, medical practitioners, teachers, engineers, military and technology specialists. The Mayflower is also an Ark, carrying the cell tissue of our world’s animal life.
The shuttles to the Mayflower took off early this morning. As I speak, the crew and the 194 passengers are preparing to depart orbit. When the ship returns to us, three thousand years from now, and if our world proves habitable, those two hundred men and women will herald mankind’s rebirth. If not, the crew will set course for one of three planets identified as habitable and begin a search for a new home.
Thank you and bless you.”
The monitor went dark, flickered, and the president reappeared. This time the emotions playing across his features all but reached out through the scene and into the Mayflower. “That speech was broadcasted to the world this morning. Now let me tell you six of the reality of our situation. For the past eight years, ever since the fall of China, our scientists have been working on a project to protect the planet from the heavier wave of radioactive fallout heading toward us."
A map filled the screen behind him. “This is the projected path and timeline of the oncoming radiation. As you see, it has already begun to affect us, years ahead of schedule. However, in thirty days, our scientists will release a strain of bacteria, one that has been developed—and believe me when I say I know how strange this will sound—to eat radioactive fallout and render it harmless. At least that’s how they summed it up after trying to explain how the bacteria surrounds each radioactive isotope and neutralizes it. We have seen promising results at the strike in the Falklands. This is our hope for you and your mission; but it will not happen immediately. In fact, the sad truth is it will not stop the radiation from destroying all life. The scientists believe the bacteria will work within the projected time span of three to five thousand years and remove the radiation from the ground and the atmosphere. This way, when you return, it will be to a clean but barren world, a world ready for you and your passengers. As you know and as our tests keep reaffirming, over seventy percent of the people remaining in the world are sterile and the number is growing.”
All that remains is to wish you good luck and for you to remember one thing: humanity depends upon you.” The president looked to his left, and then back at the camera. He started to speak, swallowed hard and shook his head. “I was about to say, all our prayers are with you, but given the reality which has brought us to this point in time, those words seem more a curse than a blessing. So instead, let me simply say, goodbye, good luck, and thank you.”
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Solomon Roth shut off the monitor, ending the two thousand year old recording and turned to the controls. It had taken almost an hour for the fogginess to depart and another half hour for him to shower, dress and hydrate. He would hold off eating for a few hours until his body adjusted to full consciousness. When he’d stepped onto the bridge, the first thing Commander Solomon Roth had done was to turn on the monitor and play the president’s final transmission.
Each time he had been awakened, he’d played the recording to re-acclimate himself to the purpose of his new life. Now fully awake, he looked at the surrounding screens. There were no windows on the ship’s bridge, located in the center of the ship, because the center was the safest place: protected by layers of hull and decks made of the strongest metals ever discovered.
The Mayflower’s elliptical orbit traversed the solar system without coming too close to the sun. The ship came into Earth’s view every fifty years. It was the crews’ job to monitor and review the files of those passages and to scan the earth.
This was Roth’s fifth duty round since take off. Scheduled for duty every four hundred years, he was out of stasis for two months each waking period, which translated into two duty periods every millennium.
During his last awakening, four hundred years earlier, he’d read the alert files left for him. Thirty-two travelers had died during the three rounds of duty preceding his, and another seven had died in the years between the previous stasis period and now.
He’d found the problem had been stasis equipment failure. Unfortunately, he had been unable to find the cause. To find the reason, Roth had set up monitoring instruments and cameras in all stasis areas so he could see what was happening when awakened for his next duty tour.
Turning the command chair to his left, Roth activated the cameras in the stasis rooms and inspected each stasis chamber. When he pressed the button for the fifth chamber, his heart skipped.
