Cataclysm, p.1
Cataclysm, page 1
part #1 of Rebirth Series
Cataclysm
Joseph Hansen
Cover by
Dusty Crosley
Contents
Cataclysm
An Age of Legend
Introduction
1. Lemure
2. Visitors
3. Festival
4. Open water
5. Twins
6. Bone Spires
7. Har Karoome
8. Juil
9. Drick
10. Slavers
11. Alliance
12. Evanescense
13. Paths
14. Stew
15. Lilieack
16. Tekundralokai
17. Passage
18. Mourning
19. Full ship
20. Sluice Gates
21. Set up
22. Unlucky
23. Silence
24. The Gardener
25. Connection
26. Muridai
27. Three Kings
28. The Trail
29. Runes
30. War
31. Intervention
32. Princess
33. Sheriff
34. Humble
35. Breeds
36. Drick
37. Slaughter
38. Return
39. Recovery
40. Renewed
41. North
42. Shaken
43. Wilderness
44. Power
45. War
46. Ice King
47. King’s Highway
48. Princess/Cobbler
49. Elves
50. Tia
51. Arrived
52. The time is nigh
53. Lancers
54. Call to arms
55. Nigel
56. Missing:
57. Lost homes
58. Making of Martyrs:
59. The thousand
60. Labyrinth
61. Misery
62. Recompense:
63. Ugly Wood:
64. Vengeance
Epilogue
Thank you for reading
Cataclysm II: Untitled
Copyright
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author
Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Hansen
Cataclysm
An Age of Legend
Joseph Hansen
Where fairytales, get real.
An Age of Legend
The cataclysm broke the world, tectonic plates shifting for several millennia’s before forming the new continents. Humanity and all life reduced to the barest minimum, dying the slow agonizing deaths of starvation or exposure in this barren yet violent world. They took refuge in cave or crevasse with the hope that another day may yet be seen. The age of sentience faced annihilation and barely survived to wait once again evolutions process. Not as it had once been, for everything and everyone had split many times since the world was whole.
Mattic Rowe was an educated man for one so young. His life and future already mapped out through his education and family business that had occupied most of his childhood. Surprisingly he was comfortable with this and looked forwards to a life of wealth and hard work, never having to play his own hand or make nontraditional decisions. It was a life made perfect for the man people knew as Tic and he looked forwards to it, however those who knew him better than he knew himself had other ideas.
His sister Tia was of a different mind, she would never be satisfied with the status quo and longed for life of adventure, a life where she could rule her world and not be forced under the thumb of a so called husband. She was determined to create her own destiny and she was going to do it on the opposite side of the swirling sea in a stolen ship. Unfortunately she was Tic’s only true friend. The idea of her alone in a strange land fending for herself might be just enough tear him away from his idealistic dreams and throw him into the melee of the unknown world.
Introduction
Mattic Rowe smiled as dappled sunlight splayed across his features. A gentle breeze flowed between straight rows of trees bordering the path, creating a feeling of… satisfaction. He could have said comfort or refreshed, or even en rapt with joy, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Satisfaction is what he meant because that is what he felt, satisfied by what the day had dealt him. He paid his dues, did his time, and finally, after many years, he was free. Well, sort of. Truth is, every second of free time he had from the university, he worked at the family business. Yet now he was free to pursue what he desired, though he still had to keep it secret and only in his spare time, for there was still the business, always the business.
Tic—the name he has been hailed by his entire life—wasn’t willing to give up his shares in the business while he went to school. He needed that money. These were the years where he could build his personal wealth without expenses while still being on the family ticket.
We support our own through the University. Tic thought of his father saying it as if it was the greatest expense ever, it wasn’t. In fact, since Tic is the accountant of the family, he knew for a fact that they make thousands more off the institution in sales than tuition could ever cost.
The spiked athletic shoe Tia and I designed, more than covered both of our college years, Tic reminded himself.
His sister, Tia, whom he was meeting as soon as he made his way to the library, was an absolute genius when it came to design, she simply needed Tic to make the mechanics of her plans work.
He took the long way to the library because he liked the way the wind and sun made him feel, and on the off chance that while he was alone, he could take the time and make it dance. Or that was what he had liked to call it, dance… that is what he did and it was fun, at least for Tic.
Today was one of those days, so he stopped where a small glade widened off the path. He went and sat down in the center cross-legged and placed his hands flat on the ground. He was always careful not to let anyone know that he could do things like this or that he even had interests in the arcane arts, else he would be dubbed a magician or trickster…possibly even a charlatan which would sincerely hinder his negotiation effectiveness. It might even be cause to change his position within the family business.
Maybe what most street magicians were doing was nothing more than sleight of hand, as it was rumored to be, but what Tic was doing was much more than that, much, much more. He lifted his hands, holding them out to his sides, his body seemed to levitated just inches from the ground and he slowly started to spin. He reached for the talisman in his pocket to draw more power and focused upon the equations that made it possible. He spun until his equilibrium leveled out and he was no longer dizzy from the momentum. He began to project the energy of his motion out through his hands and into the area surrounding him, swirling the leaves and twigs into a cyclonic dance. He brought his hands together in a clasp above his head, bringing the debris into a closed shell, swirling around him and creating an impenetrable cocoon. He no longer moved intentionally, instead allowing the force of the mini cyclone he created to propel him in a tight turn while holding a lotus position.
He brought his hands down, forcing the cyclone to rotate around him at waist height as he straightened into a standing position his body slowly coming to a stop. He started spreading his hands out in a wide flat pattern until the debis compressed and followed his will encompassed the entire glade with the whirlwind. He started to wonder if he could tighten the outer most point sharp enough to actually ‘cut’ into the trees that ringed the glade but then thought better of it. By doing so he would be ruining the very spot where he liked to practice and hone his newly acquired ability. Chances were that deadfall leaves and twigs would hardly be enough to damage living trees and shrubs anyway.
A rustle from the hedge row at the back of the glade broke his concentration and the swirling debris dropped instantly to the ground. The glade was empty, or so he first thought. However, something was different but he couldn’t say what it was. The hedge that lined the far portion of the glade was seemingly changing its shape. It was still the same height and length, but there was something within the pattern of leaves that was drawing his attention. He focused, ignoring the feeling of trepidation that started to flow through him, there was something there.
Movement caught his eye and he tried to focus on it harder, struggling to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. It was like a ball within the leaves themselves that rolled one way and then another before rolling up then down, and he realized what he was seeing, or at least what he thought he was seeing, a face? It was when the heavy foliage closed and then opened that he actually believed that he was seeing a giant eyeball in the center of the hedgerow spanning over half the length. Suddenly the green leafy iris settled upon him and he felt the energy. Raw power, much like what he had just been wielding, but but of a magnitude more than he could comprehend.. This was a power that was beyond him and exceeded anything he could ever imagine. It was real, or so he thought…yet at the same time, it wasn’t real at all. There was something about it that just didn’t feel quite real, at least not in the sense he was accustomed to.
What Tic knew was that he borrowed energy from the ground itself in order to manipulate the l eaves and twigs the way he did. He could pull it easily from the dirt or stone and even standing water with his talisman, but this power was different. This power was owned by whatever was staring at him now and Tic would never have access to it no matter how close it was. It felt dirty…or somehow, wrong.
“This?” a female voice sneered, startling Tic from his observation of the shape within the hedge. “You summoned me here to see this?” Tic gasped at the incredible creature that now glared upon him with a disdainful eye.
“Hello,” Tic said to the stunning woman who had simply appeared in the glade. He thought that she must have walked in, but he didn’t know for sure. He didn’t hear her or actually see her walk in, he would have noticed that he thought. Her skin was dark as night and flawless, shimmering the sun’s light from every accentuated curve. She wore very little in the way of clothing to the point where some would deem her a harlot or worse, but Tic didn’t see it that way. In his mind she was a vision of man’s ultimate desires, and beautiful beyond words. His eyes drank her in and he blushed at the imaginings she stirred within him.
“Stifle yourself, boy…you will be told when to speak.”
Tic nodded and bowed his head while struggling to keep his eyes upon her. She was a goddess and he would devour as much of her with his eyes as he could. Her costume looked like a web woven by a thousand spiders with the finest of silk strands glaring in contrast to her ebony skin. Her irises were colored with the gentle brown of a spring fawn mingled with flecks of white as to appear golden.
He took a step back, suddenly noticing how close she was to him, in fact…she was right next to him. She was across the glade without any sign of movement, she was instantly face to face. She was about his height and smelled of something wickedly sweet like honey or lavender still on the vine…he could feel the heat from her breath as she spoke, her eyes sucking him into endless pools of what he hoped was ecstasy.
His heart sped up and he started to sweat. He didn’t know if he should try to run or fall at her feet. She was here to be worshiped, she had to be…and Tic wouldn’t feel like less of a man for doing so. Fact was, he would be grateful if she would allow it. Then she suddenly graced his ears with the melody of her voice and Tic knew that whatever she said would be right and wondrous.
He shook his head, wondering what was wrong, he was never one to fawn over a beautiful woman. He saw her speaking, insolence in her eyes, but he couldn’t hear the words. Then he could feel it, there was a struggle going on inside of him. The power that he was holding while spinning the debris was still with him and it was trying to block some…thing…that was trying to…all he had to do…was, give it some? Guidance, a purpose? She…she was that purpose, and he could now see that she wasn’t as she seemed. The unseen air that could be viewed only when he was using the talisman waivered and Tic recognized it for what it was, a glamor. She was casting a glamor on him and the fact that the words were mysteriously blocked from his ears, more than likely protected him from fully submitting to her charms.
His head cleared and the woman’s lips stopped moving, her skin slowly shifting to a dark blue green and her eyes began to shift to yellow her hair matching her eyes.
Her lips changed to a wicked sneer and faded to a devious smile.
Her skin and her eyes change…how? It’s not possible. Tic’s eyes grew wide as he witnessed her entire being shift in color.
He focused again, reveling in her skin being such a perfect depiction of dark blue and shadowed green that it practically dropped him back into a trance. Then, she just wasn’t nearly as stunning as he had first thought. He could feel his vision being cleared for him once again and he embraced the internal force when realizing that he was actually in trouble here. Beautiful? Yes, she was, yet not what he had originally experienced. Her skin however was flawless to the point where it didn’t look real to him and it kept changing hues.
She smiled as if she realized that whatever was within Tic shattered her compulsion.
“Who is training you, young man?” Her voice purred with a tone that surrounded his face and gently penetrated his ears, almost dragging him back again.
“No one, I mean I just graduated from the university if that is what you are talking about,” Tic said, knowing that his own voice made him sound like an impish worm to this luscious creature.
“A university…for the arcane? I find that very hard to believe on this side of the Swirl.”
“Ah…the arcane? No, it is for physics mainly, but it has the other focused studies as well.”
“No, boy, your magic. Who is your master?”
“Magic? I would hardly call it magic.”
“Do not toy with me, boy, I would not have been summoned all this way if there wasn’t something about you that I should know.”
“I don’t know who summoned you or why, I just know that you’re here.”
And thank the gods that you are or I would have never witn—
“Stifle yourself, boy, so if it isn’t magic, what is it?” she demanded.
“I guess it is a type of physics, a way of utilizing the natural world through enhanced symbolism,” Tic replied honestly.
She laughed. “What kind of fool do you take me for, you little imp?”
“I don’t have a bloody clue what you are talking about. You asked and I answered, if you don’t like answers then don’t ask questions,” Tic replied, quite impressed with the way he was able to stand up to her, now anyway. He attributed it to his ability to negotiate for the family business, which he had been doing quite well for as long as he could remember, and not the energy from the stone that still had not left him and he knew would not leave him while this woman was here. He realized that he would have to ponder this later, providing he survived. It seemed strange that the talisman he carried and the force within the hedge knew each other or recognized what the other was.
Tic could sense the giant eye upon him, studying him and trying to see what exactly he was capable of, which of course was sadly very little against the creature before him.
She stared at him, unflinching, for what seemed several minutes but was in truth only seconds
“What was that thing you tried to do to me and how did you move so freaking fast?” he asked, wavering, his courage starting to dissipate, his body unconsciously pulling away from her.
“That was no spell, man child. I don’t dabble in the paltry tricks like the rest of you ignorant heathens, it was an ability, a test…you passed, but only just barely,” she said then turned away from him and strode over to the hedgerow which still had the mobile likeness of an eyeball etched within it.
“What is your deal?” She spoke directly to the hedge. “He is a punk. Would you like me to take him under my wing and train him? I could find that to be most enjoyable and his training could become very extensive.” Her voice purred once again and Tic felt a stirring start to build from within but he couldn’t discern it from lust or dread.
She stopped moving as if to listen to some inaudible voice before she looked at Tic incredulously.
