Yngve, AR - Darc Ages Read online

  6. DOUSE THE FROZEN BODY IN...

  The small type did not end until five steps later. The instructions were lengthy, but clear enough. Librian read quietly for a long while, with increasing wonder. Tears came to his pale eyes.

  "Thank Goddess," he mumbled to himself. "I was right... what wonder this is!"

  Bor Damon tried to read over the older man's shoulder; he could understand the words "CAUTION!", "RICHLY REWARDED", and "NON-INFECTIOUS DISEASE" without asking. The small world-map engraved next to the text was marked with an "X" at the artefact's country of origin.

  "England," Bor read to himself. "I know it only from the oldest maps. The Eternal Ice covered it long ago. According to family legend, my red-haired ancestors came to Castilia from the northern part of England, called Scot-Land ... and fought many great battles, until they settled in Castilia."

  Librian looked up at Bor Damon with a pleading expression.

  "My lord," he stuttered, "it is safe to do it! The frozen man inside dates back from before the two Great Wars, before the Plague - he has been forgotten for nine centuries! We can cure this man now, bring him back to life! Imagine what we could learn from him!"

  He held up his hands, trembling with excitement. Bor gave him a grave look - and took off his gloves. He ran his bare hand across the smooth surface of the message plate, and shut his eyes.

  Yes, Bor Damon thought, I can imagine what he could teach us. The same things that the ancients used to destroy entire cities in the wink of an eye; the forbidden knowledge that created the Plague; that turned the great plains of Juro into a wasteland, where we huddle together in our fortified cities at night, fearing the Lepers that haunt the land and our nightmares. Or - maybe a way to free ourselves from disease, from Lepers, from all our troubles. Is it worth the risk? Goddess; Singing King; give me strength! This responsibility is too heavy for just one man.

  Minutes went by; Librian sat down and rested his legs. Surabot excused himself - he was powered by a radioactive battery, and ran without recharge day and night.

  "My lord, it is six in the morning. I must attend to my duties, and report to my overseer."

  Bor dismissed him and the other servants with the waving of a hand.

  He scratched his stubbly chin and yawned, and told Librian: "So be it, then. We revive him. But keep quiet about it, and let me arrange the procedure with my most trusted men."

  Bor locked the catacomb doors. The two men and the robots walked up the stairs, returned to the elevators, and went up. Around them, castle and city had already awakened. Thousands of people and a handful of robots busied themselves, washing, cleaning, dressing, ploughing, watering, harvesting, cooking, building, repairing, checking, going to school, going to morning mass, saying their prayers, living their daily life of toil and dreams.

  Little did they expect their way of life would soon change profoundly, nor that their lord, Bor Damon, would be the instigator of change.

  Chapter 3

  It could not remember its name, or even if it really existed.

  All that it was - all that was - was a white, numb blankness suffused with an existence; an existence that perceived itself as a soundless yelp, a needle-point of being balancing on a pinhead of reality. It did not move, breathe, or eat; it merely was (though it did not know what it was, having no memories or impressions to compare itself to). It did not think, it just existed.

  And suddenly, there was a difference: it did not understand it at first, having no reference-points. Then the difference became stronger, split up into separate impressions:

  Sensation ... Tiny stings of feeling, multiplying, defining a shape; it became aware of the fact that it had a body.

  Memory ... It became aware of its name: David. David Archibald. It was a he , a man.

  Emotion ... David felt pain, increasing heat, rising fear. Then he realized that the heat was decreasing cold; he was freezing to death, and he could not move or see - he screamed. There was no sound, because he did not yet breathe. He was suffocating! Yet something supplied his brain with oxygen.

  The recall rushed through David's mind now, bits and pieces of memories: His ex-wife and two children, hunching over his bed; the little girl crying as she tugged his hand.

  "Please don't go away, Daddy."

  He said: "I promise."

  His ex-wife's eyes, looking away. What was she hiding?

  Another memory: Dr. Takenaka speaking to him.

  "The organic anti-freeze liquid was extracted from Antarctic fishes. It will prevent your cells from bursting during the delicate thawing processes. But the cancer... well, that's up to the future to solve. Do you believe in life after death, Mr. Archibald?"

  A flashback: David seeing himself in a mirror as a small child, dressing himself up as king, with a paper crown and a red tablecloth for a mantle. The feeling of power! brought by the robes of office. The shame and littleness when his mother, so much bigger, discovered him and smiled.

  The cold. The cold that crushed his bones, clawed at his heart. The pain was growing unbearable. David was dying, and he understood it now. A tunnel of light opened in the darkness, and he approached it faster and faster. At the end of the tunnel he discerned a shadowy figure, stretching out its arms to welcome him...

  And the figure vanished before him. His body was jolted by a burning shock - air was pressed into his lungs and forced them to move. His heart took a first, numb beat - then another, and another. His vision went red as blood streamed through his eyes. His aching ears were suddenly attacked by a torrent of sounds, a world of noise crashing onto his heavy head.

  David opened his eyes.

  First, it was all a blur of light and shadow.

  The light stung, so he shut his eyes for a while. The noise settled to a murmuring of wind in his ears. Time passed. David breathed and blinked and ached. Gradually, the blur grew more focused: he was looking up at a dark ceiling, while surrounded by monstrous figures that hunched down over him. David could taste blood in his mouth, and feel the tubes stuck into his mouth and up his nose. The figures above him were wearing some kind of coveralls, and face masks with visors over their eyes.

  David tried to move his head, but the effort almost caused him to faint. With another effort, he sucked in extra air to talk. A wheezing sound escaped his throat. Someone removed the tubes from his mouth, and he tried speaking again.

  "Bhhh..." he whispered, until the pain in his throat stopped him. The words he was striving for were "Bloody hell!", but they didn't come out quite right. He lay still, and let them tend to him.

  One of the figures bent down close to his ear, and asked in a muffled voice: "Can... you... hear... me? Do... you... understand?"

  A foreign accent, David thought sleepily. Italian? German? Asian? He wheezed a pained "yes".

  "Remain... still," the voice said soothingly. "You... need... rest. Blink one for yes... or blink two for no. Do... you... understand?"

  David summoned all his strength and blinked once, with one eye. There were cheers from somewhere in the room. He was too tired to feel happy or angry, but he was awake. And he remembered something else: The cancer! They woke me up in the future, but I'm still sick. I must tell them! He tensed with panic as he tried to gasp a few words, then sank back exhausted. The men in coveralls surrounded him again, injecting him with something. The calming voice with the heavy accent explained that they knew about his disease, and that he was already being cured.

  David fell asleep, thinking: Kids, I'll see you again as I promised.

  Bor Damon's team of trusted physicians and technicians were keeping David in a specially equipped, sealed chamber of the castle hospital. Librian left the isolated chamber by way of the double-door and entered the observation room, where Bor had been watching the revival of the man from a window. Librian pulled off his rubber face mask, his face red and sweating.

  Bor turned from the observation window and addressed him impatiently: "Well? Is he recovering as he should?"

  Th
e old man sighed heavily, sitting down: "Yes, my lord. His spinal cancer was no great challenge, the doctors have had cures for such ailments for centuries. What I worry about is his will to live. He is still very weak and thin, and must work up his strength. It will take all his willpower."

  Bor made a sly face: "That does not seem to be a problem. The fellow has spirit - he fought to speak almost as soon as he woke up." He frowned, and added: "But why is his hair so white? He is supposed to be in his prime."

  Librian began wiping the moist off his glasses, and did not listen. A physician who was entering the observation room, pulled off his face mask.

  He had overheard Bor's question and eagerly fell in: "Perhaps a side effect of the long freezing period, my lord. We have not come across such a case ever before. If you, my lord, would permit me to take the patient to my laboratory for further study..."

  The doctor looked hopefully to the feudal lord, who restlessly moved about the small chamber in his rough hunting-clothes of leather and felt.

  "Your wish is denied," Bor said curtly. "You will keep silent about this for now, under penalty of death."

  A stern gaze from his blue eyes silenced any objection the doctor might have made; the physician went pale and bowed obediently. The next moment, he left the room. Librian put his cleaned glasses back on his head and continued talking, absent-mindedly.

  "Yes, he has great inner strength, my lord. But bear in mind, that he surely was not meant to sleep for nine hundred years! To him, it must be as if he fell into sleep only yesterday. When he understands that the ancient world, his wondrous Golden Age is gone... then he might lose his will to live."

  "So what will you tell him?"

  "Nothing, my lord. I will just keep him from the world, until he is strong enough to face it."

  Bor Damon seemed content with this solution: "Good, good. Besides, it would look bad to show him in this haggard state - I would risk becoming the laughing-stock of the nobility. Keep him from my sight - and especially my family. I will be away hunting in the castle gardens for the rest of the day."

  Bor strode out, leaving the old scholar and his new guest from the past.

  Chapter 4

  Lord Migam Pasko was not pleased.

  His spies had just returned to his castle with the latest news from Damon City. The spies had prowled the city disguised as flying trade officials on a visit; gossiping with the locals, bribing the servants of the castle, handing the Damons' maids a pearl or a ring. They stayed for two days but flew back in their airship to Pasko City a month later, having been forced to take a longer three-city route to avoid suspicion. That Bor Damon's quarterly harvest of food crops were turning out fine, while Pasko's growing ranks complained over sparce rations, was bad enough news. But the spies had picked up a persistent rumor, too: of a mysterious, white-haired stranger who had come from nowhere to visit lord Pasko's neighbor and rival. A stranger who was said to be immortal.

  Lord Migam Pasko listened to his agents' report with ever increasing gloominess. He was a fat nobleman like Bor, but Migam's fat spread all over his body, making his soft face look too small for his round head. He tugged nervously at his stripy, black whiskers as he asked the spies: "What is his name, the name of this mystery man with the white hair?"

  "They call him 'Darc' , my lord."

  The city lord's wife Lady Tresa, who sat next to him at the dinner table, sneered at the spy: "Is that a name? It sounds more like a mistake to me!"

  Migam's adult son, Sir Tharlos Pasko, did not laugh. He sat up from his chair and paced the royal hall restlessly. Tharlos was a gaunt young man, almost twenty years old. His naturally black hair was long and dyed pale yellow, in the fashion of the worshippers of Koban-Jem. He stopped at his mother's chair.

  "The Damons are conspiring against us," he complained loudly, "and what do you do, my esteemed parents? You sit and wring your hands! We should strike now, while our forces are still strong!"

  His father looked up at him with a little contemptuous smile, and said in his calm, studious manner: "You still cannot forget that Bor's son beat you last year - can you?"

  Tharlos gave his father a furious glare. His long-fingered hand reflexively moved toward his behind, where he still had the scar from the last summer joust. Bor Damon's son, Dohan, had fired a laser pulse through a weak spot in Tharlos' armor and burned his right buttock. Tharlos had screamed out loud, and the audience had laughed at him - even his mistress, Lady Okono had laughed. That day, Tharlos had secretly sworn to kill Dohan. Lord Pasko made a slight nod, silently confirming that he remembered the occasion too.

  The young Tharlos put his hands on his mother's velveteen-covered shoulders. She was still attractive for her age, but her cruel character gave her eyes an ugly slant.

  "My dear mother, mistress of our house," Tharlos said with exaggerated sadness, "it pains me to see your beauty wither away in this dreary place, with no hope of it ever becoming otherwise." She stiffened in her seat, looking down on the broidery in her lap. "Pity my poor father, dear mother. Comfort him, and support him, because what would you be without him?"

  The lord's spouse stared at her master with cold, spiteful eyes. Lord Pasko knew what that look meant, and the personal misery it implied for him - especially if he would try to sneak into her bedroom that night. He took comfort in another pint of strong wine, the product of his own vineyards. At least I have the wine, thought Migam Pasko. It brings the city good trade, and it brings me oblivion. Thank you, bountiful Goddess, for the gift of wine!

  But Tharlos could neither forget nor forgive, ever. An obsessive pride drove him to avenge every slight, real or imagined.

  He left the hall with the spies, humming a ritual chant to himself: "I-eee-e-e-ee-ee, I-eee-e-eee..."

  The spies were working for his gold too. And he had plenty of work for them, with the Summer Joust approaching. Let us see just how immortal this Darc is, he thought.

  Chapter 5

  David thought his new epithet "Darc" sounded a bit silly.

  But he accepted it as a courtesy to his hosts. After all, had they not saved his life? He promised himself to donate a handsome amount of his stock portfolio to Bor Damon - as soon as he got in touch with the Rocke Foundation, which had administered his company during his long absence. Was there a chance, he asked himself, that Dr. Takenaka had also had himself frozen with his own method? David could thank him, they might both get to meet his children...

  Christ, the kids! Eileen and Powers must be at least in their fifties by now - older than himself! But he must not rush ahead of himself - he was here in Bor's estate to relax, restore his former self. Was it really only a month since they thawed him out? David had been well treated by the servants. And the translator Librian had improved his broken English a lot since they met - a funny old geezer, treating David almost with the respect of a king. He had brought David some very, very brittle books to read - Gulliver's Travels and Adam Smith's The Wealth Of Nations - but someone had torn out the year of printing. Odd.

  What year was it anyway?

  David quit his brooding and sat up from the wooden wheelchair, supporting himself on a walkingstick. He walked through his spacious room - it was furnished with heavy oak furniture and colorful painted tapestries - out onto the stone balcony. David breathed in the clean air, savoring the scents of spring. So much cleaner the air was in the future, unlike the stink of London or Brussels!

  From his viewpoint at the eastern wing of Bor's mighty castle, David could overlook the entire town below. It stretched out at least two kilometers away in all directions, surrounded by the sloping, twenty-meter-high circular wall that ran unbroken along its rim. The town itself consisted mostly of a maze of narrow streets, and old three-story houses with sloping tiled roofs and large, well-kept back gardens. Several houses also had gardens growing on the very rooftops. The brick walls of the houses were just being re-painted in celebration of spring; a bright mosaic of red, white, and blue patterns was replacing the pale colors
of yesteryear.

  David looked down the smooth, round, sloping concrete walls of Bor's fortress. A beautiful walled park surrounded the castle at the center of the village, where men and women strolled about - hanging up loads of clothes and linen to dry, dancing and playing, singing, listening to the flutes and strings which even David could hear from his balcony high above. He tried waving at a woman below - she saw him and waved back, urging her friends to do the same.

  "Hi there!" David shouted cheerfully, waving for a while; his arm soon got too tired to continue.

  He leaned out to the north, trying to get a glimpse of the huge church which lay on the west side. But the castle hid the sight of the oval cathedral and its exotic, ornamented spires. David gave up the attempt, and made a mental note: Ask Bor to go to church for Mass as soon as you are strong enough to walk outside the castle. I got to get a closer look at those strange church ornaments - there's something familiar about them, if only I could remember what?

  Then he raised his gaze to the streets outside the park. There was much movement of people; the distant clatter of electrically powered carriages rolled across the cobblestone paving. He also saw a few horses and some cattle. No smoke rose from the chimneys; there was obviously a central power plant located somewhere below the city. And behind his range of sight, he knew, there were the enclosed fields of soybeans and potatoes which, according to Librian, bore harvest four times a year.

  And beyond the city walls - the blue haze made it hard to discern the details of the landscape, but it was obviously a wide valley with very few trees, and heavily eroded hills. Something far to the south might be another city... Madrivalo of North Castilia, they called this land. Picturesque, thought David, how provincial-minded these future people seem - they don't react much to the word "Spain" at all. And they look like a mix of all the world's races too - Bor Damon and his family are the spitting image of Irishmen or Scots. But of course, he assured himself, I should have known - in such a peaceful world as this, who cares about national borders?