Prologue

           

         

Prologue

I

            Nineveh, Assyrian Empire, 2212 B.C.

 

Ashur bent low, lighting the small lamp that sat on the dirt with his sputtering torch.  The wind fought with his hair, whipping the curls about like flailing limbs for a moment before contenting itself with whistling across the ground.  The lamp sputtered to a hazy, glowing life, casting a struggling orange sheen onto the dark dirt.  He stood and stared at his youngest son’s grave, a look somewhere between fear and anger on his face.  He’d heard it said that no father should ever bury his son.  But he had.  All three of them.

            He looked up at his surviving family.  All of his sons had sired children save one, and the five of them looked at their grandfather, suspicion in their eyes that pricked his heart like the wind should his skin.  Not the cold, analytical suspicion one received from magistrates and tax collectors, but the fiery suspicion born out of lost love and fed by rumors.  They all resembled him to some extent, and he wondered idly if any were like him—whatever he was.  A cold fear gripped him momentarily and the urge to kill all of them clawed up his throat, gibbering insanities into his mind.  They should be given their due end if they were like him.  Let death welcome them before its claim became impotent.  He blinked the urge away.  It would do no good if they were like him.

            Ashur’s eyes flicked to the grandson his eldest son had named in honor of him.  The young man could have been his brother, even down to his strong nose and broad shoulders.  Was his grandson like him in other, more subtle ways?  Less subtle as the years stretched, he knew; as their uncanny resemblance began to make others wonder about Ashur the elder’s true nature.  Who looked as young as their grandson after 77 years?  Certainly nobody normal.  Certainly no other Assyrian.  Men aged and wrinkled and grayed and yellowed.  Ashur did not. 

            Perhaps that made Ashur something other than a man.

            His voice choked out dry and croaking as he began to give his last son’s eulogy.  They all waited while he spoke hollow words about his son’s life and how deserving his son was of the blessing of Ashur—the warrior god he himself had been named after.  He spoke from somewhere else, though, not from here.  He had loved his son and was intensely proud of him, but when his last son died before he did—before his hair had whitened or his joints grown weak and swollen—it was like the crumbling of the final strand of brittle faith they had in him.  His own grandchildren now wondered as the others did.  Was he a demon? A god?  A stealer of life?  And if so, who among them was next?  How many would he murder to keep his hair dark and his eyes sharp?

He finished paying his respects to his last son and watched the rest of his family with eyes wide—a madman waiting to be overrun and killed by a witch-hunt of kin.  A cough fought its way nervously out of his throat, a reflection of his desire to say something, his desperation to be the trusted head of his family like he once was.  But faith was not in their eyes, only fear and suspicion and the hollow blame that comes from those things.  They didn’t know what he was, and ignorance bred fear; fear bred spite; spite, aggression.  Tension fell on them like stone slabs that pressed the lungs and crushed breath.  Then it released and Ashur nearly gasped aloud.

Almost as one, his family turned and walked  back to their homes, pressing near to each other as if to warm the cold thoughts of suspicion and betrayal that crept through their bones.  Light was slipping away on the purple skies to the west as night bloomed alongside Ashur’s desperation.  Some part of him knew it was the last time he would see them.  He wanted to kiss them, tell them he loved them and hold their warmth one last time; wanted to see the love they had once had for him in their eyes.  But he knew his kisses would meet cold acquiescence; that his hugs would only be welcomed by stiff shoulders and rebellious submission.  So he watched them walk away in their hearts, knowing he would soon do the same in action.

 

II

Mojave Desert somewhere southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, 2007

The soft click and whir of the tiny motors buzzed loud in Alexi’s ears and he winced slightly, even though he knew the volume was an illusion.  He knew he could only hear the noises so well because of the direct contact with his skull.  But the part of him bred to do everything in silence couldn’t help but react to the pseudo-noises.  Neither of the men sitting calmly in the shadows of the old farmhouse had seemed to notice the mechanical buzz, though.  The goggles settled in front of his eyes, turning the world a bland portrait of greens and blacks that revealed far more than the moonless night and her lightlessness.  He counted four guards, now, not two.  The other two waited patiently inside the yawning doorway.  Both had night vision goggles similar to his own, but he had taken care to hide in a spot that hid him from real and technological eyes.  He waited motionless for a full ten minutes—if Alexi was anything it was patient.  His instructors had verbally beaten into his brain that rushing things killed more in his profession than bullets or blades.  He could wait.

It was a full 20 minutes before his patience outlasted the guards’ vigilance.  He saw one of the guards inside stand and stretch, waving at one of the others as he walked out to one side of the house.  Alexi slid sideways behind the small hillock he had been using as cover and quickly moved around the side of the house.  The old house was set in the hollow of a small ring of four foot hills and rises, giving it cover from nearby roads, but also allowing Alexi to skirt the perimeter unnoticed.  He crept around one such mound and peeked, watching the guard’s back as he stood facing the wall.  Alexi could hear the sharp drizzle of the man relieving himself on the desert floor.  The guard sighed as the wind pushed his back, the sand skittering over the hard-packed ground to brush his feet.  He glanced down as the wind breathed another gust at him, harder than the last.  Marveling at the pointed blade that he could see coming from his throat, he briefly wondered if the blood sliding from the blade in the night was his.  Had someone just killed him?  It didn’t matter.  Sleep called; pure, restful, eternal sleep.

Alexi held the body up and stood motionless, senses crawling for signs that the others had noticed anything.  Silence and gloom held a grip over the farmhouse, only broken by the ever-present wind.  Confident nobody had noticed, he lowered the body to the ground, extracting his knife as he did.  He dropped into a low crouch and pressed his back nearly against the old grey wood of the wall, careful not to press into it and risk the creaking wood revealing him.  Stepping quietly across the sand and near-dead grass clumps, he quickly moved to the front corner of the house, ducking his head as he passed by a window he knew was being watched.

The moon sat high, threatening with a cold glare to reveal Alexi’s position if he peered around the corner to gauge the distance to the pair of guards in front.  He was confident in his ability to dispatch them, but he could raise no alarm this night.  To do so meant failure.  He closed his eyes to focus, but popped them open again, annoyed at his falling back into habit.  Only those weak of mind needed to close their eyes to stretch.  He drew his thoughts in, again, tightening his will into a ball before expanding into it, ballooning it until it stretched out, touching everything around him for thirty yards.  A flood of images came cascading into his mind: a rat under the floorboards; four guards—which meant there was one he had not seen; a chair; one guard’s daydream of his girlfriend.  Images swirled chaotically, slammed home into his mind in the span of a second.  He breathed deep and everything coalesced, the psychic visions falling into order, lining up as told, becoming a single, perfect vision in his mind.

None of the other sentries had moved, and a fourth apparently waited just beyond the door, out of sight from the front.  None had shown worry at their missing companion, but that would change soon enough.  Alexi knew his time was short before he must act to avoid the guards becoming aware of him.  He held the vision, memorized it as his hands fell to the two long metal rods at his hips.  He tugged them smoothly from their holsters, letting them float in front of him as if held by ghosts.  His mind snapped back as he exerted energy into the mental ribbons holding the metal shafts aloft.  He peeked up and to his left, smiling as he noted no glass in the window pain set in the wall.  He saw his way to success, now.

            Standing and spinning on his heel in one smooth motion, Alexi sent the small metal rods darting forward.  The one on his right shot through the window, moving unerringly towards the guard hidden on the inside wall, making no more sound than the wind as it sped towards him, mirroring its twin on the outside of the house as it was driven to its target tip first: the only female sentry at the place.  Her eye caught a glint of moonlight from the metal shaft a split second before the tip exploded into light.  A white hot shaft blinked into existence at the tip of the metal hilt, a beam of nothing but energy 3 feet long.  It slid through her helmet, splitting her surprised face with a clean, cauterized cut even as its companion blade lit up inside the house, severing the hidden guard’s head from his shoulders without so much as a noise or a stutter to its deft glide.

 

Like a macabre composer, Alexi twirled his batons in a symphony of silent death, setting them spinning as they arced at the remaining two guards, set to behead them before their partner’s corpses had finished slipping down to the ground.  Outside, the sentry had time to begin to enunciate his defiance before the blade spun twice, making looping circles as it burned through his neck and chest.  Inside, the guard had a split second longer, his chair being at the far end of the hall.  The weapon sped towards him in twirling arcs that wrote death in bright, spinning lights through the desert air.  His eyes widened in horror but he couldn’t move, frozen by the sight of the mindblade’s trail of light.

Then as if some sort of string had been sent to its length, then snapped back, the blade stopped in the air and dropped, clattering to the floor in front of the guard and bouncing up and spinning, the glowing blade slashing through his leg and the chair’s as it clattered to the floor.  He screamed and tipped forward, grabbing his smoking leg just below the knee.  He slammed into the ground, clutching the blackened stump.  Alexi’s eyes widened.  He had lost his grip on the blade.  Drawing and throwing his knife in one motion, he sent it twirling through the glassless window.  It whistled as it spun and ended its journey with a sickening thud as it buried itself into the guard’s head.

Alexi stood still, grimacing as he watched blood leak onto the floorboards of the house from the dead guard.  He idly wondered if they would consider his outcry an alarm or not.  The purpose of the mission was to kill the guards without raising an alarm.  There wasn’t even a true target.  He continued to stare at the bleeding guard until the corpse flickered and faded along with the rest of the house and desert.  An image of a large square room became clearer as everything else faded.  The walls, floor and ceiling were slick black metal broken only by small, glowing white circles patterned in a grid, the circles about a foot away from each other.  Alexi stood in the center, the desert scene fading completely, only his mindblades and his real knife staying whole as the training hologram faded.

A soft hiss from behind him let him know his instructor—Captain Rusal—had entered.  Alexi spoke without turning, “Did I pass?”

“What do you think, Alexi?”

“I think all but one guard was dead when the last one cried out.  An alarm doesn’t do much if there is nobody to hear it.”

“And what of the target?”

“There was no targ…”

“You’re not stupid, Alexi!” Rusal yelled as he came around to face Alexi, “Don’t play word games.  You know we would never send a blade to kill a group of guards without a target.  Don’t let the parameters of the test make you lose sight of the seriousness of your actions.”

“The seriousness of my actions?  That I failed?”

“Again, Alexi.  You failed again.  But that’s not what I mean and you know it.”  He paused, his voice calming some with a few deep breaths, “You’re extending too far Alexi.”

Alexi rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation, “Not this again.”  The lifeless hilts of his mindblades leapt from the floor to his outstretched hands, where he sheathed them at his hips even as his knife spun through the air, gripped by his mind, to land in its own sheath.

“Yes, this again.  What do you think caused you to fail?  You were too far out and you lost your grip.  The blade fell short of its target and you fell short of success…again.”

Alexi turned from the captain, walking towards the door silently as he was berated.  The captain spoke louder at his back, “How many times do you think you can blatantly ignore the rules before you’re expelled, Alexi?  How many times?  And what of the dangers of extending your will that far?  How long until your mind holds its grip on the blades but loses its grip on you?”  Captain Rusal grimaced and trotted after the failed apprentice, catching up to him just before the door.

“You may be able to do this, to extend farther than any, even Rhistal.  But that doesn’t mean it is going to work; or that it’s even safe!  You’ve already failed your exit test three times trying it this way.”  The captain said, laying a hand on Alexi’s shoulder, his face showing concern, “When is the price too high?  When you’re expelled?  When you kill yourself?”

“No price is too high.”  Alexi said coldly, flat.

“Then for your sake you’d better not fail again.”

Alexi continued walking.

 

III

London, England, 1898

Rain poured in torrents on the city.  Small rivers chased the wind through cobbled streets, flowing around garbage and the occasional booted foot that managed to splash through their course.  The old man stepped lightly, coat cinched up tight to ward off the cold and wet.  His large top hat fended off the rain from above as his boots sloshed in the water, a worn cane clacking on the stones as he made his way through dark streets.  The sky pulsed with lightning every so often, followed by the deep cackle of thunder.  Few were out this night as he walked through London’s poorer sections, ignoring the rain and cold for the most part as he made determined progress.  This had been a dark night; something as trivial as weather could be ignored.

His path wound into a dark alleyway between worn brick buildings, the trash and overhanging roofs combining to give the impression that the homes on either side leered over him as if huddled in secret conversations.  The rain barely sputtered here, driven by the wind as it was.  His footsteps went from splashing to clicking with each step, echoing back from the darkness ahead.  Lightning flashed, lighting the alley and the worn wooden door with chipped red paint covering almost half of its surface.  He stopped and breathed deep, considering his course one last time before he committed to it.  His cane tapped the wood twice, the echoes scurrying down the alley like fleeing footsteps. 

The door creaked open and the old man’s eyes met the other’s.  Wordlessly the man left the doorway, allowing the old man entrance.  The old man walked in, his cane clicking even as he nudged the door shut behind him.

The room was small—just large enough to fit a small wooden table and a pair of mismatched and unstable chairs.  A dingy cot sat in one dim corner with the opposite corner occupied by a thin countertop covered in half a dozen mostly burnt candles and some cupboards.  The table was cluttered with a dirty lamp and a plate and fork with food from hours ago marring its surface.  Thin smoke wafted up from the tiny flame and greasy yellow light tried to flood the room, but only managed to splatter onto the walls.

“Honestly, old chap, I don’t know why you live here.  You’ve the means for a nicer place.” The old man spoke first, settling precariously in one of the chairs.

“What need have I of anything more than this?” the other said solemnly.

The old man nodded sagely, “True enough.  But I fear I won’t be able to live here.  I doubt I’ll be able to stay in London at all, come to think of it.”  He said, drawing a pipe from his coat and stuffing it full.

The other man’s eyes flicked to the old man.   Annoyance played games with his mouth and brow, tweaking them this way and that, “So it happened again?”

"Mmh." The old man made a noise of affirmation in his throat as he puffed the pipe, a small burning stick setting the insides into an orange hum.  “Indeed, and it was far more vivid than last night.  I fear my fears have become more than fears, and are in fact reality.”

“Stop it.  I hate when you talk like that; all circles and mazes.”

The old man smirked, “And yet, I continuously continue to do it.  Enjoy it as I am enjoying it.  Soon I doubt I will be doing much of it.  I won’t be doing much of anything familiar to you.”

He gave the old man a sideways glare, “That will be a welcome reprieve.  I may even be able to have a normal conversation with you.”  He smirked at the long-standing joke, but his mouth went straight and thin again, “I still think I’m the wrong person for this.”

“If not you, then who?”

“Your apprentice?  Someone with knowledge of how to undo it should the need arise?”

A long draw on the pipe.  A shake of his old head, “Nonsense.  While there are others I trust with my very life, my soul, there are none I can trust to be here when the time comes to end it.”  He pointed his considerable gaze at the man, white eyebrows furrowing over his ancient grey eyes.  “But I know you’ll be here when the time comes.  And I know you of all people understand the importance of waiting and have the patience to wait.  You’ll not be hasty in it’s undoing.  I need that, as well.  No, you are the one for the job…and you know it.”

A long silence followed, the only sounds that of the old man puffing on his pipe while the other man slowly mulled the options in his head.  Even the rain seemed to respect their need for silence, slowing to a soundless drizzle outside.

“Very well.  It’s not the first burden I’ve bore unwillingly.”

“Nor will it be the last, old friend.” The old man consoled, sympathy in his eyes.  “I have prepared everything as we discussed, all that is left is the doing.”  He drew one long, last puff of his pipe and then set it down.  “Are you ready?”

The other man hesitated one last time then gave an almost imperceptible nod.

The old man stood and, raising his cane high, took a deep breath. He began speaking into the greasy and cramped air of the small apartment.  The air hummed.  Dishes rattled, sounding their protest to the very air as the pressure built.  The storm coughed thunder as the room tensed with power.  Then suddenly, it stopped and silence filled the room.

Across the city, in the small mansion the old man kept as his home, the young girl he had taken as his apprentice sat upright in her bed.  Eyes wide with horror and disbelief, unaware how she knew what she knew--but not doubting it for the briefest of moments—she whispered, “Master.  Where have you gone?”

IV

City of Troy, 1250 B.C.

The Mediterranean moonlight spilt from the tip of his blade as he swung it in an arc, missing the arm of his dodging opponent, but continuing on to his true goal: the man’s exposed leg.  Blood fanned the air and left a grim trail across his armor as the man screamed and buckled, falling to one knee.  Ashur continued his spin gracefully, bringing the sword around in a pirouette of sorts and down again to bite into the man’s neck.  The warrior fell to the side, bending over the edge of the high walls of Troy.  Ashur kicked the man hard, and his near-headless corpse tumbled into the mass of invading Greek soldiers below.

The Myrmidons flowed past him, a river of certain death bent on flooding over the few Trojans on the wall who stood to oppose them.  Easier to oppose a flood than my Myrmidons, he thought, but no less deadly.

He watched them for a moment before turning to observe the flood of Greek warriors through the gates he and his men had opened.  Soon the night would be filled with the blood and screams of Troy.  He would have vengeance; glory; power.  He would have purpose.  Then, perhaps, he would understand what he was.

A scream of warning sounded and he registered it only faintly, unable to move before the sword slammed into his neck—a killing blow that slammed him into the wall as it struck, bending him over the precipice to stare below.  His body pressed to the wall, he saw the faces of scores of Greeks staring in horror at him as he was struck with what was surely a killing blow.  No man, no mortal could survive such a savage sword stroke to the neck.

But Ashur was no mortal; no man.  The rumors had begun among the Greek army.  They believed him immortal; a god.  He could not die by anything as trivial as a sword’s bite.

Of that, at least, they were not mistaken.

Ashur spun to his assailant stonily, death a cold, certain promise in his eyes as he moved, sword flashing to clang against the Trojan’s, slapping it to the side.  He drew his arm back and struck fast, arm pumping like a coiled snake, slamming repeatedly into the horrified soldier’s shield.  The man stared in disbelief at Ashur.  His sword had not killed him.  Had not even cut him!  He retreated frantically, wanting any foe but the one who pursued him across the wall.  Ashur dipped low, spinning on one heel and throwing a backhanded slash at the Trojan’s leg.  The warrior brought his shield low to deflect the blow, Ashur’s sword scraping across as the immortal continued his spin, shoving his shield arm out to catch the other’s shield.  He continued his spin, his shield shoving the warrior’s shield wide, pushing it into his sword arm even as Ashur finished his spin, turning completely, his sword arcing into the void left by the man’s shield, interlocked with Ashur’s own.  Blood erupted from the Trojan’s stomach as Ashur’s sword tore through leather and skin; the flesh of cow and man.  Both so much alike, he mused into the spray of gore.  The man tumbled back and collapsed dead on the high Trojan wall.

Ashur held his last form, breathing deep as he slowly stood and turned to the Greeks who watched.  Watched as he did not die, but instead killed the one who had landed the supposed death blow; watched as the hero of the Trojan War stood tall on the impenetrable walls of Troy.  They chanted in exultation over their victory, a victory he had brought them, Agamemnon be damned.

 “Achilles!   Achilles!  Achilles!”

The crowd chanted the name he had taken, exalting him as a god.  They had seen his glory; witnessed his divinity.  He could not be harmed, had no equal in battle, and had lived longer than any of their fathers, yet looked young as any of them.  He smiled darkly.  What was he then, if not a god?

He lifted his sword in triumph and they shook the walls of Troy with their cheers.

I am Ashur of Nineveh.  I am Achilles the immortal.  Let them worship me.

And worship they did.

 

Reviews

[The Rooster]

@Johnzo: I posted this a long time ago, and after getting so few looks, I stopped. I've revised much of the first chapters and am currently in the middle of chapter 22. If you have interest in the book, PM me.

[Johnzo]

I can't believe you don't have more reviews on this so far. It's genuinely good stuff. Intriguing multi-faceted story, varied sentence structure, great scene/setting descriptions, overall a very a nice piece.

It reminds (in concept only) to season one of the tv show Heroes. A group of exceptional individuals, strewn about the world (in this case, time), mostly unaware than any of the others exist.

There's enough potential here in any one of the threads to be it's own story, and yet the most exciting bit is probably yet to come as these different characters meet or somehow else influence a single chain of events over time.

Now for the constructive part (thought there's isn't much to say here).

"Annoyance played games with his mouth and brow, tweaking them this way and that,"
-This line didn't quite flow for me. I wasn't sure what exactly you were describing here.

"A long draw on the pipe. A shake of his old head,"
-There are some sentence fragments here. Sometimes they are more effective (though grammatically in error), but having two right in a row stands out a bit.

"Ashur spun to his assailant stonily, death a cold, certain promise in his eyes as he moved, sword flashing to clang against the Trojan’s, slapping it to the side."
-The clause "death a cold" didn't really make sense to me. Also i think this sentence is a bit of a run-on, could be broken up a bit.

I noticed the verb "sputtered" several times in this chapter to describe different things, twice very early on in the first scene. I have a personal thing about not using the same word too close to another usage, but perhaps that's just me.

Truly well done. I'm glad to see you are several chapters into this story already. Keep it up!

[fallen_sueanne]

Pretty long, but I like it ;)