Lord of Stone by Keith Brooke

Author:Keith Brooke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-09T05:11:13+00:00

1

'When all affiliations to false Gods and Idols have been repent, then shall the true Saviour, Jah'veh, God, Son of God, be reborn to walk among His children.'

- The Holy Word of Jah'veh, bk. 5, l.184.

Bligh sat on the terrace, looking out across the abandoned valley which had become their home. Already, the cold winds of winter were coming and the streams had dried up as the upper reaches of the Ephedreal Hills froze dry.

Dona-Pasja was a magical place, in a world without magic.

Natural caves, dissolved out of the limestone hills over centuries of seepage of groundwater from above, had been tamed and sculpted by the Traian people, more than five hundred years before. The village had grown, since then; when the supply of natural caves had run out, new caves had been excavated, their interiors cut square with the straight walls and angles of modern living.

Bligh preferred the older cave-houses, like the one he sat before today. From the outside, they looked the same as the newer ones: the cave-mouths had been filled with shaped rocks and local lime mortar until only a doorway and a few narrow windows remained. The walls were so thick that the temperature inside stayed constant throughout the year. Each room in the older dwellings had walls that curved, polished smooth by generations of bodies brushing past, until only the ceilings retained the roughness of the original stone. Seats had been carved into the walls and fresh water flowed through channels that linked each house of the village with its neighbour. It felt an appropriate place to settle, Bligh had thought, when they first arrived here.

Through the open doorway, he heard the voice of Aline Fulke but her words were unclear. He did not stir to find out what she had said.

Salas Benjennery had chosen not to leave Anasty. "Things are changing again,"

he had said. The Landworkers' Alliance was still technically illegal, but it was re-emerging as an influence in Traian politics. "I have to play my part -

you must understand that." Bligh had.

Divitt Carew had driven them up here into the hills in an Army truck he had requisitioned amidst all the chaos that followed Domenech's demise. But he had chosen not to stay. "I'm not the worthy type," he had explained, just before he left. "And there are stories to be written all the time - this could be my big chance."

Bligh looked up from his reverie as Madeleine - so statuesque at this stage of pregnancy - came out to join him. She smiled tiredly and sat nearby.

"Are they all right?" he asked, and she nodded. Inside were the three survivors of the Council of Six. They had been here for over two months, but little progress had been made. Sadiq Phelim had been virtually catatonic for the entire time, unable to cope with the shattering of his illusions. Alderas Aldivine was an enigma, apparently rational at times, but unable to talk about anything that had happened; Bligh thought Aldivine might be the sickest of them all, but he knew he should leave such judgements to Aline.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.