Chapter 3 - There Was Trouble Too In Paradise

WHEN THE FACE of the World was tilted more fully towards the sun at a certain time of year it bathed certain lands in a warm glow that enlivened the spirits and brought joyful benisons of welcome to the surface.

 

It was the time of the Summer Pause for many, a time to relax, to take things a little easier. It was a time of optimism.

 

Curiously this particular year the season seemed somehow dampened by an indefinable tincture of dread even though it was also the enlivening Era of the Dove Star.

 

That particular sparkling light in the night sky was a fiery orb an unknown distance away and during a certain astronomical period it would for several summers in a row dominate the night sky and bathe lovers and late convivialists in its pink flames, though by the time they reached the Face of the World the heat of them had diminished to unfeeling cold. It was the thought that counted.

 

Of course in places like Greetiyah where heat was an everyday occurence summer time was more about digging deeper caves to keep cool in and planning journeys only at night where the Dove Star might act more as a guide in the desert. In the Highly Romantic Wilds of Xenia summer was about fewer snow flurries and weird light shows in the sky as well as the great skating competitions on frozen lakes made accessible by spring storm scourings unburying their slick surfaces.

 

The sight of the Dove Star in such cloudy skies was a rare thing but one night that fateful summer a brief glimpse of it was to be had on the peak of Mount Icicle which sent Informers scurrying around to the various fortresses to tell tales of what they saw, but also of course to enjoy the warmth of roaring fires.

 

"The sky!" an eager Informer informed his audience as he thawed out gratefully. "I saw the sky!"

 

"What was it like, old man," one of the gathered notables in the crowded hall asked in breathless tones.

 

"Hey, what's with the old man stuff? I'm only thirty. Had a hard life is all." It was the vocation of Informers to bring knowledge to benighted and snowdrifted settlements for in such a land travelling was a near-death experience for some.

 

"As have we all," came a rejoinder from a graceful lady who no doubt had been born and brought up next to roaring fires for she looked her age, a serene and flawless ice princess.

 

"Enough banter," a stern individual cut in with dagger-like viciousness. "Tell us what you saw, or I'll skin you where you stand."

 

At this the man sat down upon a bench provided for him, as if defying the angry speaker, but he knew well enough not to cross him. This was after all, a highly romantic scene where anything could happen, even crimes of passion or melodramatic face offs. Such were the people of Xenia.

 

"It was," the Informer gulped, for the other had produced a knife and was scraping his thumb with it noisily until an accidental nick made him suck on it in sullen silence. He was after all only a boy. "It was dark, with sprinklings of diamond dust to point the darkness."

 

"We get that a lot at night," someone observed. "Darkness."

 

"No, sire, this was a darkness of another order. A black darkness, a darkness so without light, so cold and frozen and infinite it hurt the eyes to focus upon."

 

"Tell us more of the diamonds," the serene lady inevitably said, leaning forward so the light of the fire shone through her hair, seemingly setting it aflame in a way that made the Informer gasp. He must remember to write that impression down somewhere, for someone was bound to be impressed by it, such as that rather buxom and splendid kitchenmaid he saw briefly when he staggered into the fortress on informing intent. He'd like to share a bun with her later.

 

"They were tiny points of light, alive with distant fire. So delicate and impossible to envision as anything but infinitely small living flames, restless yet perfectly still. And amid them was their courtly queen, the Dove Star. A pearly iridescence seemed to crown her rosy majesty in a nimbic glory, though that was probably high altitude ice crystals refracting the light a little."

 

"Huh?" someone said, waking up suddenly for the fire was warm and sleep-inducing and even the voice of the Informer, though droning in highly romantic style as expected, added to the soporific effect. Except just then, when a little hard science was thrown in mischievously to make sure everyone was listening.

 

"And then," the Informer said, standing again, having forgot the former skinning threat in the heat of the moment.

 

"And then what?" the lady gasped breathlessly, almost consumed by flame by this time, so eager was she to hear the Informer's words.

 

"And then the clouds passed over again and the vision was gone."

 

Everyone visibly deflated at this anticlimax.

 

"It was good, though, while it lasted," the Informer insisted cheerily, partaking of a goblet of wine without ice.

 

"What say you this vision, so briefly glimpsed and so inadequately described, might foretell?"

 

"End of the world, probably," the Informer said offhandedly. "Usually does. Lot of that going round, so I heard tell. Any more of this wine? Tastes good. Might not have long left to enjoy it though."

 

And that was the strangeness of the Era of the Dove Star during this particular Summer Pause.

 

It was the most optimistic time of the year in an era blessed by a glorious night time delight, yet people across the Face of the World felt some dread, some foreboding that it would not last, not just the summer, but the whole world itself.

 

***

 

ADAPTABILITY WAS one of the survival traits of any species. Find a difficulty and seek a means to obviate it. How though to adapt to the unseen, barely felt, but all-pervading sense of dread which crept into the bones and made more frequent visits to the water closet inevitable?

 

Have lingering lie-ins perhaps, ones that might linger long enough to discover doom had been missed, prompting a desire to roll over and get back to sleep.

 

Or there was the possibility of induced hallucinations. Popular one that, for somehow the future seemed more comical and less threatening under such derangement. Safety seemed less important too. After all what could possibly go wrong if one were to step off a cliff ledge or lean too far out of a window to admire distant vistas whilst dreaming of the power of flight?

 

Finally there was the option to make stuff up. Self-delusion, so beloved by certain popularity-seeking souls, was a transferrable skill if the financing was done well. Thus there was a roaring trade in amulets to ward off evil. And in the Highly Romantic Wilds of Xenia it really was a roaring trade.

 

"Get your Stare Down Eyeball amulet here!" a vendor roared in a snow-choked settlement surrounded by great granite mountains. "Guaranteed to glare at doom and send it scurrying back to wherever it is doom hangs out when not being glum in merry company."

 

"That'll be Tolly Dodge's Beer Cellar," a passerby shouted back while wading through summer drifts.

 

"Oi! I heard that," Tolly Dodge responded defensively from his recently cleared doorway. "I'll have you know doom only shows up at closing time in my popular and welcoming establishment."

 

"Looking remarkably like your wife, so I understand," came another rejoinder.

 

"Oi! I heard that too."

 

Any continued protestation at the disparagement of the Beer Cellar of Tolly Dodge was drowned out by something else. A great rumbling from on high. All that roaring was bound to have an effect in the deep valley below spring snows in Xenia and an avalanche duly wiped everyone out.

 

Once the great white mass of crystals had ceased to move a fist thrust up from a drift near where the amulet vendor had been standing.

 

"Get your Snow Tumble Guardian amulet here!" came a slightly pained chant. "On a discount. Guaranteed to protect against avalanches from just about everywhere."

 

There was no response to this except some residual drifts on a ledge near the settlement had felt itself tickled and teased by the additional sonic vibrations and so joined the rest of its fellows down in the valley to complete the obliteration.

 

Of course, the Highly Romantic Wilds of Xenia in summer was a place of numerous avalanches and the population was well versed in dealing with them. Tunnels were dug, shelters improvised and drift parties started so that anyone passing by a freshly snow-choked valley might be witness to the strange sight of coloured lights glowing beneath the snow and the sound of music making loose crystals dance to a jaunty tune.

 

Which is still a long way from explaining why this Summer Pause of all others seemed a great deal more doomladen than heretofore.

 

Nowhere across the Face of the World was immune to its sinister influence. In the happy land of Gloriosa people threw coconuts at each other in fits of despair and in the desert wastes of Greetiyah someone could be heard beneath the shrinking shade of a rock deploring how much more dry the sand seemed to be than usual. In Evernight someone even complained it was rather dark. Then there was trouble too in paradise.

 

***

 

FRANGEA WAS paradise.

 

Honestly. It was. It said so in the brochures to be found at all flitterports across the Face of the World. Frangea knew how to put itself out there.

 

With one of the most pleasant of climates all year round, beaches a hundred miles long in great scallop-shaped bays, a restless sea with booming surf and the freshest of sea breezes, a healthy lifestyle was hard to avoid. It was a land of opportunity. It was also a land of opportunity's very near but slightly shady relative opportunism.

 

Octogenarians with perfect teeth and tans jostled with flawless beauties along boulevards brimming with luxury and impressively unnecessary must have goods. Very large men walked very small dogs and frisbee throwers could bring down seagulls with but a flick of the wrist, so practised were they, for leisure time seemed to be available all the time, if one sat around long enough to observe such things.

 

Most Frangeans were too energetic to do this however. If not group jogging, they were buying and selling, making and borrowing, and doing a few other things as well, for Frangea was the land of the free and easy.

 

And yet.

 

There was something in the air this particular Summer Pause.

 

Something other than the heavy aroma of burnt meat and melting rubber, salty beachcombers and spicy sponge cakes.

 

Something difficult to pinpoint, something frustratingly impossible to bottle and sell on a pop-up stall on the beachfront of Blossom Bay.

 

"Another bloody day in paradise," Smudge tried to sum it up as he ransacked a waste bin for residual beer sippers. Like his fellow beachcombers he had a sensitive skin to the pervading atmosphere and as his small gang worked a section of the sea wall, they all of them sniffed the air with a certain apprehension.

 

"We missed a handout?" Glasseye croaked out. Her throat had been ruined by a lifetime of voluntary indulgence and enforced abstention but that did not prevent her having opinions even if they were devoid of depth perception.

 

"Nope," Smudge assured her, then doubt assailed him at the thought. "Hey, Crackey, we ain't missed a handout, have we?" he shouted across to a third colleague who resembled a bundle of animated seaweed as he rummaged among driftwood tossed up by a high tide.

 

"What's that you're saying?" the shambling figure responded, quivering a little as a jellyfish made a tentacled lunge at him from a tidal pool. There was an epic battle which the other two combers watched in complacent safety until the creature resumed its temporary home, leaving the stunned Crackey to stagger away in search of meaning to his life, his ganglia having been fried for the thousandth time in a long and weary existence.

 

"Still," Glasseye said with a pained sniff that resembled a whistle, "feels like something's missing hereabouts."

 

"Know what you mean," Smudge agreed in the way one befuddled individual might acknowledge the wisdom of another merely because words had been spoken in their hearing.

 

"What we need is a really good bonfire. Burn up all that driftwood. Hop and hustle round it in carefree delight and then sleep till dawn," Glasseye croaked out with appalling enthusiasm.

 

"Didn't we do that yesterday?" Smudge said, trying to count things on his fingers.

 

"Bugger. We did."

 

"Like I said, another bloody day in paradise," Smudge admitted resignedly.

 

For some in certain staggers of life misery could take up home quite comfortably, put its feet up and relax, to all appearances as if it had been there all the time. Joy and gloom danced merrily hand in hand, inseparable partners. That helpless feeling could only be managed by a contrived sense of hope, self-delusion through therapy, or a highly lucrative life style.

 

There were Tinkers abroad that particular summer who subscribed to all three.