DISCLAIMER: I do own HDM and all the characters in them, including Will, Lyra and the incredibly romantic (sigh!) bench in the Botanical Gardens. I also exist in another universe and am sending this to the people of your poor, poor world so that you can enjoy my literary genius, of which you would not have been able to avail of otherwise. (It IS a possibility!)
Yeah right I mean, come on! Is there anyone, anyone at all, who can read the absolute trash that is to follow and think it actually comes from PP? Seriously?
Chapter 1- The Festival of Sant Elia
The setting sun shone down upon the cafes and terraced houses of Sant Elia, bathing them all in a warm red glow, and upon the gaily dressed people celebrating The Festival of Midsummer, the grandest, most important day in the Sant Elia calendar. The brightly dressed parade made its stately way down the Sea-Promenade, the King's float first, magnificent in purple and gold, followed by that of the queen and associated royal bodies. This was followed by the Jesters, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and many more besides, some on stilts, some as clowns, still others as creatures of snow or fire. This exuberance was looked down upon by the farmers' float which came next dull in earthy brown, exhibiting the fruit of the earth, without which there would be no life. And last, but surely the greatest of them all, eagerly awaited by the throng who crowded the narrow streets, was the Minstrels' Wagon.
The Minstrels were a most important aspect of Sant Elia culture, perhaps the most important, for they remind us of past mistakes and thus, lead to progress in the forward direction. The colourful wagon, striped all the colours of the rainbow where filled to the brim with gaily dressed performers, who instead of singing or dancing, weaved stories as they went, mysterious stories about the past that were no less fascinating for being true.
They told of The Ruin of the City of Cittagazze, one of the most intriguing tales they had to offer, telling a story of children from other worlds, soul eating spectres (now nearly forgotten, for bad things were forgotten much faster than good in this world), and a mysterious knife, of the great Renaissance, of the rise of Sant Elia as the Capital of the World. But, by far the most popular, was the story of their mysterious king, Lucien Julio Pastavros, who had initiated the process of rebuilding their world. He was said to be the sole reason for the renewed interest in the arts and sciences that had taken the world by storm, and led to its recovery in such a great way, but there was something decidedly strange about his origins.
As Giovanni Amicelli, Grand Master of the Jesters, so lucidly put it, he appeared to have, well, appeared from thin air. He was called "" or "Gift of the Angels" for he had just materialized one day at the Torre Degli Angeli in the city of Cittagazze, apparently cradled in the arms of the angel on top of the tower. How he got up there no one knew, but there were rumours...rumours that were strengthened by the fact that he had single handedly rid the world of all spectres, fighting them with his bare hands, thus adding "saviour of the world" to his numerous titles.
All this was belied by his physical appearance, for he was slight, pale and fair haired, with no great physical strength, for a king, and tended to merge into the background, except when he was saving the world, of course. These, then, were the paradoxes that surrounded the King of Sant Elia, but they were nothing, compared to those that surrounded the queen.
She was the exact opposite of the king in physical appearance, for she had an imposing stature that seemed to fill whichever room she happened to be in. With long, dark, thick, luxurious hair, fair skin and eyes like a placid summer pool, so large and deep were they, she was also extremely beautiful, and it was said that she had had some very interesting lovers. She was not the king's wife, oh no, he was too much of a recluse for that, but the original royal family of Sant Elia still existed, though only possessing token powers, but for one member, the present Queen, the daughter of the old king. She had always been strong willed, and always got her way, and so it was, even today, even with the New King.
The parade continued to make its stately way down the promenade, to the shining castle at the far end, situated on a little headland. It was made entirely of white marble, and seemed to be made of nothing but turrets and towers. It was said that, you could see all the way to Cittagazze from the tallest tower, which reached up like a great finger through the centre of the castle, seeming to touch the stars.
Lucien sat back upon his richly embroidered purple and gold velvet cushions and sighed, suddenly sick of it all, sick of the same old routine, day after day after day. He, the same man who had once traveled all over the world in search of action and adventure, was stuck in a great white marble prison, being inundated with everyday, ordinary things that bored the life out of him. How he wished he could return to his old life of excitement, of meaningfulness. Now the closest he got to that was through the minstrels' stories. Well, that was something to look forward to, at any rate. The minstrels' stories, after the feast, when all the townsfolk would gather in the palace gardens while the minstrels weaved their magical stories of wonder and awe, of mystery and excitement, some part of the history of the world that had as yet eluded study.
He smiled as he thought of the previous midsummer's story, about a young boy and girl who had somehow saved all the worlds from oblivion, by falling in love. Far fetched, to be sure, and if it hadn't come from the minstrels, hed've laughed it off. He wondered where they were now, and, more importantly, how they were. Was the same apathy and boredom that was gripping him affect them too? Or were they blissfully living together in some paradise-world, not caring about anything at all? He was interrupted in his thoughts by Senor Amicelli, who rode up to him and said "Sire, it is time."
And Lucien Julios Pastavros, New King of Sant Elia, heaved another sigh and said "Very well then, I shall make the speech"
And he got off his palanquin, walked towards the ornate marble podium, and stared back at the great hungry crowd that stood or sat before him in a great, heaving mass.
"Good evening", he said, with his best fake smile firmly in place, and then, without the slightest change of expression, keeled over and fainted.
Far away, across the Bay of Nayplus we come to another city. This one seems to be the exact antithesis of the shining city across the bay, for it is empty, deserted, soulless. Abandoned buildings, just dead shells rear up against the reddening sky, haunted by ghosts and spirits of happier times, remembering days gone by, when they were filled with hustle and bustle, laughter and tears. The old opera house, one of the few buildings left intact still seemed to shine with the glow of opulence, of rich jewelry and fashionable clothes, its grand double doors now hanging open, seeming to invite someone, anyone to come in and enjoy its grandeur. But that was not to be, for the soul of the place had left it, and there was nothing now for it to do but to die a slow and peaceful death, sinking slowly, majestically even, under the waves of time.
But wait, the city had not been given up on entirely, for in the topmost room of a square, squat undistinguished tower, a light glowed. This tower seemed to be beyond time, for it was as yet untouched by it, and it looked as though it would be for ever more. It was obvious, if anyone were to observe the layout of the city, and the place of the tower in it, that, undistinguished looking as it was, it once occupied pride of place, the most important object in a most important city. It was, as said before, square and squat, built of grey stone, with a statue of an angel atop it. This statue, unlike the rest of the tower, was made of white marble, though it had grayed due to dust and neglect, and was also fairly new. The townspeople had erected it only a few months before, to watch over them, guide them and save their dying city. It had failed in its task, as was plain to see, but it was nevertheless in the outstretched arms of this angel that the King of Sant Elia was found. Important as that event was, and the statues place in it, it had done nothing to slow the sudden death of the beautiful city by the sea.
By the light of candles in the topmost room of the tower, a man was feverishly tearing through books, looking up this here, and that there, every so often he discarding the book he was riffling through, and ransack the room in search of of another, all the while stealing nervous glances at a large red triangle drawn on the floor. The room was massive, it probably spanned the entire width of the tower, and was lined with wooden bookcases that reached up to the ceiling, all four walls, all around the room, save for a tiny space in which nestled a door. On a stone table in a corner, intricately carved with flying angels, stood three tall cylinders. They seemed to be candles, for they each had a wick, but they were shadowy and insubstantial, made of a material that flowed and writhed and twisted, while all the time maintaining its shape. These were each of different colours, indeed, as different as it was possible for colours to be, for one was white, and seemed to glow with a strange inner radiance, one seemed to contain all the colours of the rainbow at once, and the last, the third, was black. Black, but black only in theory, for it seemed, if an observer were to look carefully, to contain all colours, at one moment, and the next, none at all. It was, there was no other way to describe it, shadow coloured.
Besides the table and the books, the room contained very little else; the bare necessities of life for a single human being, presumably the one who was now running round the room at a frantic pace in search of an elusive book, a narrow bed, a rickety wooden table on which stood a pitcher of water and the remains of a hasty meal, a washstand and couple of chamber pots. Evidently, this man was not in the habit of leaving the room often. The man in question had dark brown hair, eyes of the same colour, and was very slightly built, around five and a half feet tall, and thin as a rake. His name was Cedwyn Peakesi, and he was what Lyra's world would call an Experimental Theologian, specializing in matters of Dust and human consciousness. He was brilliant, and had made some very important discoveries. So important, in fact, that these... curses in disguise, had led to his imprisonment in this lonely room at the top of a strange tower in an abandoned city.
He rushed over to the candles, his unruly dark hair falling into his eyes, when the door banged open and a hooded figure entered. At six feet tall, he towered over the little man who was now cowering before him. Nothing could be seen of his face, for it was covered completely by the hood, and, as his black cloak rustled about him, a shadow seemed to move along with it, a shadow deep and black and evil.
"Is it ready?" he asked, his perfectly ordinary voice, with a bite of impatience in it, something of an anticlimax.
"Yes, sire. But we must wait for the other two."
"Aye, that we must. But show me the candles."
"Sire, you really promise me freedom when this is done? I can return to my family? You promise to do me no harm?" asked Cedwyn uncertainly, for these were evil men, he knew, and he was also aware that he was buying precious little time by cooperating with them, for now. The figure laughed, a high, cold laugh that made the hairs on the back of Cedwyn's neck stand up.
"I see the doubts chasing through your mind, worthless one, but after we are done, we will have no use for you, none at all. Killing you would be only a waste of energy. Now, show me the candles!"
At that moment however, the door flew open once again, to reveal two cloaked figures. They walked (or was it glided?) swiftly into the room, and demanded, "Is it ready?"
"Yes. We were waiting for you", said the first to arrive; slightly reproachfully, "Now we shall begin. Peakesi, prepare it."
And the little man scurried all about the room, darkening the triangle with a fresh coat of a glutinous red liquid from a serpent shaped pitcher, and then placing the three Candles at the three corners of the triangle. He then retreated into a corner and blew out all the light, so that the room was lit only by the three Candles, all of which were pulsating with light, filling the room with uncertain light and ghostly shadows. Now, all was ready.
The three cloaked figures strode forward and took their places at the corners of the triangle. Then, they shouted aloud in quick succession; "Mind!" said the one next to the multicolored candle, "Soul!" said the one next to the white candle. The third paused a moment for dramatic effect, and said, in a deep, almost hypnotic voice, "Death".
The candles flared with golden light , and the three spears of light joined together to form a single, jewel-bright lance, that reached up high above their heads, through the ceiling of the room, through the roof of the tower itself, right up to the very stars. Cedwyn, who had thrown up his hands to shield his face, was knocked backward by the sheer energy of it, and hit the wall with a sickening crunch. A trickle of blood oozed out from under his dark hair.
The three figures, still at their positions, effortlessly, it seemed, started chanting, with a low, monotonous hypnotic rhythm, "Mind, Soul, Death, Mind, Soul, Death". And so it went, for what seemed like hours, but was, in fact, only a few seconds, until the Dust-lance retracted and became a triangular pillar as high as the room, twisting and writhing, which then resolved itself into a vaguely humanoid shape, perhaps that of man, perhaps of a woman, perhaps both, perhaps neither. It started writhing in agony, throwing itself against invisible walls put up by the Triangle of Blood. The first figure, seemingly unfazed by it all, spoke:
"Where is the Aeshaettr?"
They repeated the question twice or thrice, chanting again, until the answer came to them from the reluctant figure in the centre of the triangle
"Far away," it said, in the amalgamation of a thousand echoes, "out of reach."
"Liar," said the man by the Death-candle, in a voice that made the hairs on the necks of even the other two Ordrath stand up," Liar", he repeated, "You think it worthwhile to break your Oath for foolish, no doubt sentimental reasons, but remember this, we are in control, and we will not hesitate to..."
And he reached out with a gloved hand, of which two fingers hung limp, and held thumb and forefinger about the flame of the candle before him.
"No, no, no!" it screamed, in an agony that was terrible to behold, "I will tell you. I will show you!"
And the pillar before then became a series of images; the knife, secure in it's sheath, resting in a cheap plywood drawer being closed by a hand missing two fingers, a kind of zoom-out to reveal the shabby room in which the chest of drawers rested, an equally shabby apartment, a dull, squalid building, identical to others on a dingy street where half the street-lights had been blown out, a foggy, grey city with a haze of industrial smoke over it.
And the first man, with a triumphant smile, said:
"Take us there."
"No, no, please! I beg you! "Please! Anything but that!"
"Take. Us. There." said the man by the black candle.
The figure howled in agony, and dissipated in a golden mist that turned into three tornadoes flecked with gold that revolved around the three men, faster and faster and faster with their points becoming thinner and thinner and thinner until the moment when their points became infinitely thin, and with a minimum of fuss and noise, disappeared, taking the dust-wraith along with it.
All that was left was a red triangle on the floor and an unconscious man in the corner, overspread by a haze of gold.
The maid who had been sponging King Lucien's forehead jumped back in alarm as the he cried out in his faint, a bone chilling, heart wrenching cry that brought all the inhabitants of the great castle running, he cried out again, his body, twisting and convulsing, bending into shapes she had thought impossible. She backed against the wall, until its reassuring presence would let her go no further, and continued to watch as the king let out a final, guttural cry, bedclothes wound about him in tight knots.
When the Prime Minister and the Grand Master rushed through the door, it was to find an empty bed, its bedclothes on the floor, and a maid, starched uniform awry, maid's cap on the floor, in hysterics in the corner. All they could get out of her was,
"He just...vanished. Into thin air!"
AUTHORS NOTE: I do not possess a copy of any of the HDM novels (as much as I would love to), and read it quite a few years ago, so I might get a lot of stuff hopelessly wrong. Please, feel free to grill me over this. Don't forget to press the little button at the end of the page, you can't miss it, it's got Review on it. Even a little one would suffice, as this is my first fanfic. Pleaase? (looks at everyone with adorable, large brown eyes)