Fallen World Read online

  Fallen World

  by

  Ben van Eijk

  Contents

  Prelude

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Prelude

  A loud crash echoed across a mountainous landscape as a large object flew into the rocks at unfathomable speed. The body-shaped object straightened up with little indication it had just performed a deceleration that would reduce most people to paste. It stood — a white man.

  His grey beard was one foot long and thinned out into a braid at the end. He was wearing a leather outfit with many buckles and straps containing jewellery of every kind — some just dull rocks, some exquisite and multi-coloured. Some of the rocks were of a blue so pure they looked almost two-dimensional; only the slightest shadow revealed their third dimension. Surprisingly, none of the jewellery had taken damage after being hurled into the side of a mountain.

  The man hunched over suddenly and his whole body twitched slightly as he tensed his muscles, causing two wings to spring from his back. The wings were white-hot tentacles of plasma, as thick as an arm and increasing in size towards the wing’s apex. Another object crashed into the winged man, pushing them both flat against the crater of his previous impact.

  A woman had just collided with the winged man. She placed her foot on his chest. Her hands doubled in size and turned a shiny grey metal texture, then clamped on to his wings. She pushed his body down with her foot while ripping the wings from his back with her huge metallic hands, screaming sadistically as she did so.

  Her long brown hair flicked back and revealed her face; she was rather attractive with a small, hooked nose. Her eyes were quite big and she had small, pouted lips — although right now, she was snarling. Black luminescent fluid spewed from the tear where the man’s wings had been torn asunder. The bearded man began laughing as the black fluid spewing from his wounds began reshaping into another version of him, and then another, and then more until the woman was surrounded by bearded men, all of them laughing. The one she was pinning to the ground with her foot fell limp, and she turned around just in time to defend herself from one of the men as he slammed into her. The woman picked herself up, quick as lightning, also showing an affinity for indifference to high speed collisions.

  The female’s long red cloak flapped in the wind as she quickly ascended to avoid the twenty bearded men flying towards her. Some began firing beams at her, but she was too quick and could easily dodge the white-hot rays of plasma as they flew past her. As the bearded men below fired ineffectual beams her left arm began transforming into a pure black tentacle, extending so far the other end could not be seen. She held the tentacle out straight and began spinning around, faster and faster until just a low buzzing could be heard. She started to angle her body horizontally. The tentacle was now acting like a propeller; it started grinding the top off a nearby mountain. Rocks, trees and chunks of mountain began flying in all directions as it took pieces of mountain away, layer by layer. The woman became more and more horizontal, her tentacle cutting deeper into the mountains as it became increasingly vertical. All the bearded men began flying away from the oncoming destruction; all of them failed to escape. They were instantly churned back into the black fluid from which they were born. An entire mountain range was torn up by the spinning tentacle while clouds above were expelled from the atmosphere by the wind.

  One bearded man remained, standing inside the huge canyon left in the spinning tentacle’s wake while stones and dirt were still falling toward him from all sides. The woman slowed her spinning when she saw him, and cursed. As she was decelerating, she suddenly felt his arm around her neck. He had snuck up from behind.

  He hissed into her ear.

  “You know you won’t kill me, and I won’t kill you. Why –” The woman’s elbow morphed into a giant spike and went straight through the bearded man’s stomach. The end became hook shaped, and she began to pull it back to cause even more damage, but the man split in two at her point of penetration. His two halves were now each growing into two more clones of the bearded man.

  “Look how much difference you make! We destroy universes just by taking a step — stop this futile activity!” said both bearded men simultaneously. One grew a set of white wings, while the other sprouted black ones. The woman held both arms out, pure blue plasma columns spewing from her hands, luminescent beads splitting off like a viscous fluid as they collided with the bearded men.

  ***

  Chapter 1

  The young man suddenly jerked his whole body before it went limp from nearly falling asleep while standing up. He had gotten little sleep the previous night (for the last six years) and the circles under his eyes were already permanent at the age of twenty-two. His sudden movement caught the attention of a few other people in the crowd; those who knew him had a small grin on their faces, comprehending his small spasm. He had managed to catch himself, but due to the nature of the speech being given in front of the entire population of the city, it was sure to happen a few more times.

  Every year the city of Swevender underwent a magical ritual consisting of three major spells. The people of the city believed it was to keep them from floating into the great abyss. Such a belief stemmed from ignorance, but it is not the people’s fault; they had no way of learning the truth about the world in which they were living. Swevender was actually a gigantic floating city, artificially created, and thousands of years old. The entire city was made from 1,943 segments and each segment was made from a porous concrete. The top part of a segment on which the residents walk and live was typically a flat crescent of grass, or sometimes in the form of a rounded pyramid. The underside of each segment ended in a tapering point five metres beneath the surface.

  When Swevender was being constructed, enchanted and assembled, each segment was filled in with nutrient rich soil or water. Now a simple cycle of evaporation, precipitation and maintenance sustained the Swevender inhabitants. Where there are no buildings, the city was covered in thick vegetation and crystal-clear waters.

  The city was constructed and raised by three powerful conjurers, thousands of years ago. Io was the youngest of the three and was worshipped for his creativity and unceasing productivity, be it art or labour — he was never standing still. The spell of Io concerned the accumulation of water vapour. It kept a cloud just beneath, and constantly within reach of, the city. Swevender used water in many different ways to support itself. It was the city’s main energy source, and many citizens were adept in the art of ‘water wielding’, a technique from the three conjurers that had been maintained throughout the lifetime of Swevender.

  Kern was the genius of the three, recognised for his diplomacy and brilliant mathematical abilities. He was the one to sew together the complicated puzzle of the 1,943 pieces of Swevender into a wonderful self-sustaining masterpiece.

  The last of the three was Marsa. Marsa was known for her compassion and strength. It was said that she could have easily destroyed the other two magic wielders. While all three wizards were regarded as the most powerful in their entire history, Marsa’s spell was what held the city up. Only someone with a great abundance of power could cast a spell to hold so much weight for years on end.

  Swevender had roughly three thousand citizens. The city achieved perfect balance due to its complex yet efficient design. About twenty percent of the city’s segments were dedicated purely to farmland. Most people grew their own food and livestock. Some houses would p
ool their resources and have a small farm between multiple families. The farmland was maintained easily, as the soil was rich in nutrients and rain occurred in ample amounts on a regular basis. The entire city of Swevender had a thick cloud layer just beneath it; the lifeblood of the city. During the creation of the city, the three magic wielders, Io, Kern and Marsa taught the people of Swevender how to wield water and exploit its almost endless energy. They spoke of how everything is made up of smaller particles, and how each particle is sacred; if one was to be destroyed it would release infinite energy, destroying everything.

  The citizens believed water contained the highest level of energy and, unlike every other kind of matter, that its wielding held no risk of destroying the universe. Water was easily accessible, as the permanent layer of clouds cradling the city thanks to Io’s spell provided more than enough water to supply any magical needs. Any excess water in the soil evaporated into the cumulus nimbus attached to the bottom of Swevender, thus continuing the cycle that helped it flourish.

  The clouds extended about one kilometre beyond the radius of the city, obscuring the residents’ vision of what could lie beneath their city. To the residents of Swevender, they were floating on an endless sea of fog and anything that fell over the edge of the city was lost forever: nothing lived out there. There was no fate worse than falling over the city’s edge. The body would be lost forever, and the person’s essence would never become part of the city, providing nutrients and perpetuating the cycle, contributing even in death.

  Swevender had a tight knit community, since their whole world was the three thousand people in the city. Connections between people were valued highly and rumours travelled fast. If people had problems with each other, they generally worked out a solution involving the two being kept together, encouraged by the philosophy of the three water wielders from so long ago.

  The young man attempting to stay awake during the yearly speech was someone without a single one of these connections.

  He became a self-styled rebel at a young age and seemed to be stuck in that phase still. He always had something important to do — he didn’t know what, exactly, but it was forever urgent and prevented him from fulfilling other obligations. He was quite smart, but disappointed many people around him by wasting his mind and (admittedly excessive) energy on trivial pursuits. This was clearly evidenced by the inside of his house: neglected and half-finished gadgets were scattered everywhere. His garden had three humongous trees, planted by one of the previous owners of this segment, which he allowed to grow forty metres high. There were small rope bands around the trees’ branches, providing places for bromeliads to plant their roots and suck moisture from the air. A few small ponds lay between the trees. All of them had a green surface of algae and were mainly used to provide a bit of humidity to the surrounding trees and plants.

  Despite the untidy look of the garden, it was actually well maintained. The sleepy young man loved to garden and found it one the few things he could do at an easy pace without rushing himself to finish; since it had no end it couldn’t be rushed. The garden was like a small rainforest with a canopy in the middle where the three trees overlapped, blocking out ninety percent of the sun.

  The young man’s name was Seth Cost. He liked the peace of mind provided from being surrounded by plants, finding inspiration for other projects. He also had an immaculately maintained vegetable garden since eating was one of his passions and he refused to compromise in this matter. Despite his love for food and eating, he was still a rather skinny guy and would always get comments on how thin he was. His long limbs didn’t help decrease the attention he got in this matter either, although soon after meeting him most people were too distracted by his inability to listen and his direct manner to comment on his appearance.

  Seth saw himself as honest, merely speaking his mind — which was true to a certain extent, but most other people saw it as being rude and blunt. Seth also tended to ignore someone’s offense at his remarks, just seeing it as a hindrance to the conversation. He had dark brown dreadlocks hanging just past his shoulders, well maintained sweet smelling. He had a pale complexion and his nose was a little more bulbous than most. His eyebrows were quite thick and gave the initial impression that he was up to no good, although some saw it as a nice frame for his piercing green eyes. He could not grow a full beard and the whiteness of his facial hair made it practically translucent. His favourite outfit was a dark blue robe over loose clothes with as many pockets as possible. This allowed Seth to always be over prepared for any situation, stuffing his pockets with things that maybe had the potential to be useful.

  Listening to the droning speech, Seth shook his head sharply to stay focussed, while the head of Swevender University orchestrated the annual ritual. Each year, three of the best students of water wielding were chosen to help perform the ritual. This year, Seth, Kurt Scutt and Stacey Linster were chosen. Kurt was another pale young lad, with jet black hair combed to one side, and a weak chin. Most of his features were quite small, giving his face an even paler look as his cheeks and forehead dominated his features. Kurt was chosen as his family was one of the oldest and most influential in Swevender, occupying five percent of the city’s segments.

  Seth was amazed he had been chosen this year. His theory was that one of his teachers saw some potential in him and believed he would show more motivation and focus if given some responsibility. Seth was more enthused that someone was thinking of him at all. He always assumed he was passing just under the radar, but now he was casting Io’s spell — someone had definitely been paying attention to know Io was the wizard he most identified with.

  Stacey Linster was going to be casting the spell of Marsa. She resembled the female water wielder’s statue quite closely: a heart-shaped face with a gently pointed chin and nose. She had freckles dotting her cheeks and nose and was almost always smiling. Long lashes hid most of her eyes, but what peeked through was shining with energy. This left the spell of Kern for Kurt, a coincidental similarity of names he had found very appropriate.

  The ritual was always followed by a celebration. The celebration was also practical in that it was used to consume any excess food and water that had been collected throughout the year, helping keep the balance maintained by Swevender for thousands of years. The euphoria in the air always caused people to act intoxicated — although the alcohol also helped. Every year there was drama that would be spoken about for weeks afterwards. This year, Seth was predicting it would involve him punching Kurt in his stupid face. Seth had been regarded as the most gifted student in his water wielding class, gaining admiration from his fellow students — until Kurt Scutt transferred into the class.

  Once Kurt arrived, Seth was forgotten. Kurt, being of the famous Scutt family, gained admiration for just being born, it seemed to Seth. Although he shunned attention when he got it, deep down Seth actually enjoyed it. His regard for Kurt was lessened further still, since he had heard Kurt was only allowed into the water wielding class due to his inheritance, not his skills or endurance. Seth now silently cursed Kurt, not only for stealing his spotlight in class, but for sneaking his way into participating in the ritual too.

  Soon the ritual master would call the three students the main crowd to step forth from the crowd and reveal who was casting which spell. Seth felt a gentle tap on his shoulder and turned to see Mrs. Scutt, Kurt’s mother. She had the same jet-black hair, long and straight, and skin even paler than her son’s. Her eyes were a dark brown that was almost black. She had such a serious face that when she smiled, everyone smiled with her; her whole face changed, dismissing any negative feelings someone might have had about her. It was hard to believe she was Kurt’s mother, since she was about half his height and – Seth thought – much more pleasant to talk to.

  “Have you prepared everything?” she asked Seth with genuine concern.

  “Of course, I was ready a few days ago. I read the scroll a few times last night to practice, but it should be fine,” Seth answered, a
little directly, suspecting she was one of the many people who believed he was incompetent. She smiled, mistaking his tone for friendly.

  “It’s going to be a nice ritual this year I think, this year’s class has turned out

  some great water wielders.”

  Seth was a little disarmed by her friendliness and determined to respond more amicably.

  “Yeah, I think so too. This ritual will make next year’s celebration bigger than ever.”

  Seth looked at Mrs Scutt and let his eyes wander over her body. Seth thought she had maintained herself quite well over the years; he could see himself trying more than one stupid thing at the celebration tonight. He wasn’t usually someone who pursued older women, but the bonus of irritating Kurt made her look even more attractive.

  “I probably could have left the ritual scroll at home. I know the whole thing backwards.” Seth laughed a little as he bragged to Mrs. Scutt, wishing he knew her first name. His smile suddenly disappeared as he realised that he had indeed left the scroll at home.

  He looked a little guiltily at Mrs. Scutt and excused himself.

  “Sorry, I have to go grab something.”

  “Don’t tell me you forgot the sacred water!” Mrs. Scutt was almost laughing.

  Seth pulled out his vial with water blooming with algae.

  “No, of course not, but it turns out I actually did leave the scroll at home.” He turned to run but she grabbed his arm and pulled the water vial from his hand. She inspected the scum-covered water.

  “What did you do with your sacred water?” She asked Seth, looking skeptically at the vial. He began inching slowly away, eager to retrieve the scroll before he was called before the crowd to recite Io’s spell.

  “Nothing, it’s still sacred — in fact, algae makes it more sacred!”

  Mrs Scutt laughed again.

  “Uh, sure, but you are supposed to remove the algae… Look, you go get your scroll and I will go get a vial of sacred water. Kurt had a few extra ones made in case something like this happened.”