Prologue

-PROLOGUE-

The man was sitting in a warm, comfortable leathern armchair with a bible in hand. Its elegant script and impassioned message never failed to move him. Though not overly religious, he could still appreciate the beauty and art of such a creation. Pausing for a moment, he took a draught of rich, dark brandy, letting the fiery liquid flow down his throat with a satisfyingly smooth aftertaste. He’d bought it in The City not a fortnight past. In that time, he hadn’t left his country house. Illness had left him bedridden for far too long, and today was the first time he had managed to draw himself downstairs.

With not a little sadness, he stared at the back of what were once fine, strong hands. Now into his 70’s, arthritis had set in hard, and the wrinkles that coursed his body made him feel ancient and worn. His eyes had begun to go years past, but with eye glasses he could still see just well enough to read. Soon though he knew even that would fail him.

Fortune had given him a beautiful wife, Mariana, and even in her dotage she looked every bit the elegant beauty she had in her youth, at least, to his eyes anyway. Even now, some 50 years on, he saw her eyes light up when they rested on him. He was truly a very lucky man, and daily he thanked a likely non-existent deity for it.

While he reminisced, he slipped into a soft sleep, wherein he snored peaceably. It was such that his butler found him, and it broke his heart. Dale had worked for the man more than two score years, and had grown to love him as a father.

Until last week, he had even dreamt of being allowed to stay on after the frail old man’s passing, but now, everything had changed.

His face was drawn and pale, haggard in the flickering fire light. It was time, and he knew it. The news had arrived more than eight ago and each day, his worst fears were confirmed anew such that he couldn’t bring himself to break it to his friend and master. In his hand, he had a soft down pillow. With an aching heart, he pushed it towards the man’s face. His arms strained, and hisbreast beat as a sparrow’s tiny muscle. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he stood holding it for some minutes.

‘What are you doing Dale? Why are you holding that pillow like that, just above my face? Do you mean to give an old man a fright! Goodness, I thought I was the one turning senile,’ called a cheerful voice from behind the pillow.

Dale dropped it with a sigh. He wasn’t strong enough to save him from the suffering he was about to experience. Killing simply wasn’t in him.

‘There has been news sir-Roger.’

Roger’s face clouded over. Dale knew that his tone of voice had alerted him that something was wrong.

‘What is it Dale? It’s not Lily, or Sally, or little Reg is it?’ There was real fear in his voice. His three grandchildren were his pride and joy. Together with his wife anddaughter, Anna, all had been told to stay in London, to avoid contracting whatever chill had infect him. Dale had of course stayed, he wasn’t worried about such things, and besides, someone had to take care of him.

‘I-I think I had best show you.’ It was the best Dale could think of. The words he had thought to give Roger in sweet lie simply wouldn’t come.

So saying, he helped the decrepit old man into a gown, and some outdoor slippers and the two of them moved carefully out the back door of the house.

The morning was overcast, and a strange dust filled the air. Having forgotten his glasses, Roger followed the blurry shape of Dale ahead. His fear was still there, but somewhat abated now. Whatever was in the garden couldn’t be too terrible. Besides, his family was nowhere near. Simple though the logic was, it gave him a sense of peace, soon to be shredded beside his still brilliant mind.

Roger followed Dale on through the extensive gardens, now shades of gold and brown in the Autumnal weather; meandering between the ancient oaks that shaded the old goat trail that led out into the meadows. Nettles snagged at his legs, stinging him softly, but at his age, it was more of a numbing sensation than any real pain. Brambles coated the path, and Dale had gone on ahead. As he picked his way through thorns, he wondered what had happened to undo Dale’s normally very calm demeanour. It worried him. Particularly as now, the dust in the air had begun to thicken, and the sky he had at first thought overcast was actually dark, a turgid mass of billowing black clouds. He hadn’t seen their like before, or to his knowledge anyway. A frown passed across the wizened face as he thought back to the days when his mind and memory had been widely acclaimed throughout the Empire. Without his glasses, they appeared almost a shapeless mass in the sky, hanging low and menacing.

After a half hour or more, he reached a cleft in the path where Dale waited, apparently shaking. It certainly wasn’t cold today, and Roger’s senses pricked up. Something was definitely wrong.

‘Whatever is the matter Dale? Why have we come all this way out? I am not in a healthy enough state for any japes today.’

‘Just a bit further sir. We’re going up the hill.’ It wasn’t really a hill, so much as a mound created when the Romans had conquered the land. They had turned into a wooden hill fort to protect them from the British savages.

Roger held out his arm, which Dale grasped in one of his own, and half dragged, half led him up the steep, rocky slope. The summit was a wide circle around, with stone ruins indicating where buildings had previously been located, failing utterly the endless tests of time. Lost to them along with so much knowledge. He wondered, not for the first, nor hundredth time, what had led to the place being abandoned.

Roger coughed heavily. The air up here was thick and heavy, motes floating through the air, and a mix of smells assaulted him. Some were cloyingly sweet, others were dark and harrowing.

His coughing intensified, and soon, he was wracked by painful spasms from the Sulphurous air. Once done, he looked up, and frowned. A pillar of smoke was rising nearby.

‘Dale, why the devil did we come up here? Whose house is that burning? Why aren’t we going over there to help them rather than gawking from a hill…’He tailed off quietly, his frown deepening.

Even without his glasses, he could see that the fire wasn’t close by. He concentrated harder, and gasped.

‘Sweet Jesus. Dale. Is…Is that Cambridge?’ Far off into the distance, the smoke was billowing up in huge plumes in the direction of the great University City. Inky black clouds spread forth like massive cloaks, covering the land. Suddenly he understood the source of the dust in the air. His knees shook, and he paled as white as snow.

As he looked on in horror and terror, his eyes started to take things in around him. Those plumes bursting into the sky over Cambridge weren't the only ones. As he struggled to focus his eyes, he saw another, then two more, and all of a sudden, he saw there were dozens of them. Great columns of oily smoke drowning the sky in darkness. The ground glowed like the wrath of God across great swathes of land before him.

A fear like nothing Roger had ever experienced before gripped him then, and he spun around, already knowing what he was going to see.

A wail escaped his throat, and he fell then, as great sobs burst forth from his withered chest.

In the distance, hell itself had consumed the land. From horizon to horizon, the world burned. Even from here, he could see the sheer scale of the fires and destruction. It was all aflame.

London was burning. All of it. He spun around. Everywhere he looked, great mountains of black were devouring the sky. A thousand mighty tendrils writhing in the air, as if the world itself were consumed. Above him, the atmosphere was a whirling madness that boiled and burned as would a nightmare made real. The ash of a thousand lives raining down around him like some hideous parody of snow.

‘Dale, this, this can’t be happening! It’s not possible. Tell me! What has happened!’

Dale, whiter than winter itself, replied in a voice bereft of life or soul in an almost silent whisper.

‘England is gone. They came from the North in their thousands. All our armies are across the empire, spread thin. There was nothing to stop them. The whole country is gone. The British Empire is finished. The world burns and the end has come...’

Roger, now taking huge, heaving breaths, grasped his chest. Mariana, Anna, the children. All of them were gone. Everyone was gone. His heart broke then, his mind shredding apart like ancient parchment, and with one, last shuddering wail, he folded up into a foetal ball. Soon, his juddering breaths faltered, failed, and after much of a century of life, the great man died of heartbreak so terrible as to bring a man witnessing to his own mirrored fate.

Dale though looked down on his beloved master, so kind and gentle. He looked so peaceful in death. The smile which crossed his face would have drowned those few who remained to insanity. After a moment, he staggered and what was left of his mind fell away. He drew forth the serrated kitchen knife he had brought with him, and looked over the well-used and dented blade. With eyes dry after over a week of terrible sobbing, and without a moment’s hesitation he dragged it across his own throat.

Blood spurted forth from the ragged wound in a dark tide to soak the earth, and the country drowned.

The end had begun, and chaos ruled the world.

Reviews

[James Hanna-Magill]

Dear C. L. Aemon

In reaction to your recent email, I thought I would start to address the only writing you have on here, which is this book.

I shall follow it chapter by chapter given time.

As you may know, my reviews are often quite long and detailed. But if that is so, it is for two reasons:

a) If a writer has devoted so much time and imagination in writing, the reviewer should return the compliment with a duty of care; and

b) To help the writer, rather than hinder or just give a 'gloss' review, a degree of detail is required.

I can structure my reviews in many ways.

But let me just do this in the way it comes most naturally having read it by making numbered comments.

1) Tone of the piece: We are clearly here in the world of the landed gentry, but you do not say when.The words sound like somewhere between nineteenth and twenty-second century. That is there is an air of the old in words and feel, but at the same time a fantasy world of the future.

Although I am not sure it is essential, I feel it might help the reader if you gave this a date or a timeframe. It could be a specific year or something like 'In the future' Just a thought for you to consider.

Your call. it is always the writer who has to make the difficult decisions. Jump this way or jump that.

But as I say at the end, see how HG Wells, Daphne du Maurier and John Wyndham do it. It's been a while since I read them. But your reading them closely might give you a steer.

2) Location: You do not make this clear. Perhaps it isn't necessary. But when on the ridge the ability to see fires in Cambridge and London at the same time, I wonder if it doesn't push the imagination a little. Whilst they are not that far apart, they are not that close either having been a Cambridge University passing through Heathrow at various intervals.

I dislike, as you can see from the first point, querying something without giving a possible answer. It is an old maxim from my days in business: 'Never present your boss with a problem without providing a solution!' What you might do here is locate the scene and / or mention the relevant distances which emphasise the extent of the destruction.

3) Perspective: There are at least two ways of writing in the third person (he / she) and they are:

a) Writing as if seeing through the eyes of one protagonist at a time, in different chapters. You can do that in each chapter, but not in one.

That you do not 'head 'swap' in this style. If you see the world only through the eyes of one, you cannot tell us what the other person is thinking, only what the main protagonist imagines may be the case; and

b) Writing as 'Author God' By that I mean the whole scene is written through the eyes of the author only. He / She can tell you what everyone is thinking. This is a rather less common approach. It was frequently used in the 19th century, but less so these days. Perhaps given the sense of the past in here, it is a good way to approach it.

However there is a way in which you are obliged to follow this approach. Whilst Roger is asleep, Dale is awake. And when Roger is dead, Dale is alive until he commits suicide. Do you follow my logic?

4) Use of English: It is quite luxuriant, using diction no often used these days. But its suits the feel of the past in the future if you will. I like what you do here. Words like: 'dotage' 'motes' 'cloyingly' by way of many examples.

5) Dialogue: Flows easily. I do not find it stilted.

6) Description: I feel you could extend and build on what you have done to help the reader better see for example the house, what the gardens look like, what the rise looks like, what Roger looks like and Dale (your playing author God).

7) Plot and impact: You pack into the prologue many dramatic events:

a) An attempt at euthanasia;
b) A death from shock;
c) A suicide; and
d)The whole of England going up in flames.

It is essential at the start of any book, in the first line, the first paragraph and above all in the first chapter (for you here prologue) to grab the reader's attention to want them to read on.

You certainly do that here and some!

There are authors like you, who will jam pack their opening piece in such a way as to grab the reader by the lapels in full force.

There are authors like me in Split, who will certainly grab the reader's attention but limit the shock value to one event and not in your case four. That is just my personal taste.

Both work.

Were I to write this myself, I would lengthen the whole piece by building in more description and dwelling more on what is actually happening rather than rushing it and then divide the whole into at least two pieces if not many more. Do not rush it.

Just an idea from personal taste.

But as I say, both approaches do work.

8) Overview: Subject to the ideas for you to consider in edit (unfortunately as writers we do have to do that and I hate it) I find this a well written opening, which in no small way shocks the reader, and has what I consider a sort of HG Wells 'War of the Worlds' feel about it, if not also Daphne du Maurier's 'The Birds' or John Wyndham's 'The Day of the Triffids'.

I shall be fascinated to see how you develop the story as I move on.

I hope you find this review of some help to you

With my best wishes


James Hanna-Magill

[Diane Lockard]

Very intense, grips my attention and carries me along with the old man struggling to the top of the mound... Descriptions are vivid, and definitely, whets the appettite for more!! A contender for First Place...
Good Luck!
Diane

[Zachary_James]

This is extremely well vomposed, and very well thought out. I really enjoyed this.

[Todd Mc' Callough]

This definitely peaked my interest. Keep it up.

[Craig2591]

Definitely makes me want to read on. Very rich descriptions in this.

[A. H. Pinley]

Well you have my interest. Well done my friend.

[C. L. Aemon]

Glad to hear it. I can only but hope you find the time to approach the rest! Thank for reading. C.L.Aemon

[A. H. Pinley]

I'll begin reading the following chapters tomorrow.

[char]

Normally I hate prologues and when I see them, I think, "Argh...another f-ing prologue?!" But when I read this...I got hooked. Damn good job! The only exception to my prologue avoiding wierdness. Very good! :)