Andromedum

By Sergey Brezhnev

Jack Philips is running, and he can't even remember why. Hunted through the remnants of a world where our past exists only as fractured clues, Jack has almost as little information about his identity. Only a sword too fine for any common soldier and flashes of memory telling him things that would get anyone else in the kingdom executed.

The kingdom itself is a mystery, its king determined to maintain that mystery by any means necessary. Knowledge is hoarded, the majority of the kingdom reduced to living in a world of swords and horses, kings and petty wars. Around them, steel and glass stand as half-remembered snatches of the past, but for most people they point to truths they will never be permitted to grasp.

When Jack meets Henry and Dahlia, a father and daughter dedicated to the preservation of the past, his simple sprint for the edges of the kingdom turns into something more complex. Henry wants to save as much as he can of what came before the kingdom. Dahlia simply wants to tear the kingdom down.

Ultimately, Jack must decide whether to keep on running, or finally make a stand for the world as it should be. Either way, the hunters are still coming. He might not remember them, but they definitely remember him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456625603

Book preview

[e-mail]

Chapter 1

I’ll make it, Jack told himself, the way he’d said it a hundred times now. If I keep going, I will make it through

He needed to believe that, even if there was a good chance it wasn’t the truth. Even if he couldn’t remember why it was so important anymore. The long run across the vast swathes of the fields around him was about more than just endurance. It was about tricking himself, chopping the distance into smaller pieces. About making it to the end of the row of wheat, then to the fence, then to the next. It was a trick he’d learned…

But no, there were some things he couldn’t trick his way around, and the vast empty spaces of his memory were one of them. They sat, as huge and open as the fields around him, hints of the past peeking through now and again like the ruined buildings that had dotted the way ever since the capital city. Memories retreated like waves when he reached for them though, impossible to grasp, impossible to even keep up with, too much hidden in their depths.

There were so few things that Jack knew. He knew that he had to run. He knew that hunters would be following, the same way they had been following ever since he had woken up in a cave full of bodies, back in the city. Jack had crawled out of that, clutching the short, stabbing sword he now held like a talisman.

And it might not even be mine, Jack said to the air around him. The sword was standard enough. A leaf shaped blade, as long as a man’s forearm, with a leather-wrapped hilt. Military issue, according to one of the corners of his mind that refused to give more when Jack turned his attention to it. The scabbard was more elaborate. It was red stained leather, worked with spiral patterns in what looked like silver.

Jack had clutched it to him as he’d risen from the grave they’d tried to put him in. He’d kept it with him even though it was probably the thing that most marked him as different. He’d treated it like it was special. His. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was really the property of some other poor soul from the cave? There had been plenty enough of those, after all. What if he was clutching some other man’s favorite weapon? Some fragment of another man’s past that had nothing to do with him? Jack laughed a cracked, broken laugh at that, before realizing that he needed the breath to run instead.

Keep going, Jack repeated once again. Don’t stop until you reach the border. It will be safer across the border.

The words were a certainty, made from stone as they sat at the heart of him. He probably sounded insane, talking to himself as he ran through an empty field. Perhaps he was insane, but there was no one else there to use for encouragement. There had been people here once. The burnt out buildings stood in testament to that. Some of them hadn’t even been finished before they’d been destroyed. Now though, there was just Jack, and the farmland, and the surrounding mountains.

Even the birds were silent today, the absence of their calls tuning the day to a tight stillness. Jack had vague memories of birdcalls. Something about seagulls cawing as they circled around a ship. No, below a ship, and that made no sense at all. What was the point of memories when he couldn’t trust them? When they betrayed him as surely as anyone else he met out there would.

A horse would make this a lot easier, Jack said, as much to break the silence as because the thought made sense. Where was he likely to get a horse?

Jack shivered slightly as he ran. The sweat from his running was cooling quicker now, and one glance at the sun said that night would be coming soon enough. He needed to find shelter before then. Real shelter, not just some burnt out husk of a place, where he’d be as likely to be crushed by falling timbers as sleep well. If he could make it to one of the mountains, there might be caves, but Jack knew that mountains had a habit of being further than they looked. Again, it was impossible to know how he knew it. Maybe it was simply something everyone knew?

There were things he did know. All the things that normal people needed to live in the world were still there, laid out as neatly as books upon a shelf. It was just that some things, like the reasons why it was amusing to think about whole shelves of books, eluded him, retreating into the dark corners of his brain. He knew enough to know the world he ran through, its coins and its people. He’d known enough to run every time he’d seen guards in royal colors, red and black compared to the dull grey of the peasant clothes he’d stolen from a line somewhere back in the city.

Jack ran on, past one of the old iron monsters sticking up from the fields. There were places, he’d heard, where these stood all in a row, wires connecting one to another like prisoners chained together. This one stood solitary, and Jack stared up at the metal framework stretching so far into the sky. No, he couldn’t believe that was true. The royalty of his own time ordered their monuments built out of stone, not caring how many people died building them. How powerful must the kings and queens of the old times have been to raise this thing of iron and steel? A whole string of them, forming lines across the land for no reason Jack could see, was too much to contemplate. The old civilization of the ancients might have done some strange things, but that would just have been insane.

Not as insane as still being outside at night, Jack muttered, and kept running. He needed shelter. He was still at least a week away from the border. He knew that with a certainty that he didn’t know anything about himself. That meant more nights out in the wilds, just himself, with little in the way of supplies. He had no water left in his water skin. He had the sword of course, and so far that had been enough to keep away predators of both the animal and human varieties, but the rest of what he owned was ragged now.

Jack smiled grimly at that. At least I fit in.

That was true. Away from the capital, the folk who worked the land were as ragged as he was, grubby with work and usually suspicious of strangers. It was a world where those in charge took what they wanted from the ones who worked the land. At least once on his run, groups of villagers had driven him off with shouts and thrown stones. Some nagging part of Jack said that they ought to be running from him, not the other way around. Yet from a distance, Jack looked like one of them. Only the sword, the sword that might not even be his sword, gave him away, and half of those he met assumed he had stolen it anyway. He hadn’t tried to explain what had really happened. It would have only have invited trouble for him, and when had the truth ever made a difference in this world anyway?

Jack stopped, resting on his hands and knees for a moment. The sun was closer to the horizon now and darkness would soon be following in its wake. Hunger gnawed at Jack, but he ignored it. He was stronger than that. Not much stronger, but stronger nonetheless. There wasn’t anything to hunt here, and he still hadn’t covered enough ground. He wouldn’t have covered enough until he finally made it across the border a week from now. It wasn’t safety, but it was as close as he was going to get with everything that was following him.

Jack rose to press on, but then stopped as he saw one thing that he hadn’t been expecting: an intact farm. Where the others were burnt out, this stood complete and untouched. It was a little ramshackle, with one shutter hanging off its window frame, the slow turning windmill above rickety in its construction, but it was there, and it looked too good to ignore. Especially since there was smoke rising from the chimney.

Jack hadn’t thought that there would be a working farm here. The capital stretched out its arms, but those outside its reach were prey to whoever came along. There were enough bandits and thieves in the world that a place like this shouldn’t have lasted long alone, even though it technically sat within the boundaries of the kingdom. Yet here it was. The smell of smoked meat came to him on the breeze and Jack felt his mouth watering.

Was this an oasis, or simply the next part of what he had to do? He’d been running automatically, without a plan or even real thought, but perhaps this was about more than that. At the very least, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Jack started to make his way towards the farm.

Hello there! he called out as he came closer. Is there anybody home?

The fire said that there was, but it was better to call out. Better to approach openly, rather than risk looking like he was trying to sneak in to steal from the place. If it had survived out here with nothing around it, presumably those within were capable of protecting themselves. Either that, or they’d been lucky in a way that people didn’t have a right to be.

Says the man who crawled out of a cave full of the dead, Jack muttered to himself as he got closer. He held the sword by the scabbard in his left hand, well away from his body. It was better to let anyone within see that he had it. Let them see that he could protect himself, but that he wasn’t trying to hide anything.

When the door swung open, he wasn’t expecting the combination of people who stood there. In a place like this, he’d been expecting strong young men, used to the backbreaking work of the farm, certainly coming out first when there was a man like him approaching. Instead, an old man and a younger woman came out onto the porch of the house.

The man had probably been strong once. In his youth, he might even have been in the royal army, judging by the way he held himself. But age had chipped away at him, shrinking his skin around his muscles while adding folds and lines around his face. His beard was broad enough that it was hard to get much of a sense of the man beneath, but the eyes there were intelligent, darting this way and that as they took everything in, obviously checking for an ambush.

Although how Jack knew what that looked like was anyone’s guess.

The woman’s eyes were hostile, which was a problem given that she was holding a loaded crossbow, the bolt unwavering as she pointed it straight at Jack. She looked like she was only looking for an excuse to pull the trigger, and worse, she looked nervous. An angry person might have shot Jack eventually. A nervous person might do it by accident.

Jack knew that his best option was to talk, and talk quickly. I’m not here for trouble.

Then maybe you should move on, the woman said. Her voice would have sounded pretty, but for the hard edge to it as she continued to keep the crossbow trained on Jack.

Dahlia, the old man said, that’s no way to talk to someone.

I’m just here looking for food and shelter, Jack said. I don’t know what you’re doing out here, but I’d be a fool to think I could try anything stupid.

Yes, the woman, Dahlia, agreed. You would.

Dahlia, the old man repeated with a warning note in his voice. He turned to Jack, stepping between him and the crossbow. You look like you’ve come a long way. I’m Henry, and this is my daughter, Dahlia.

Jack, Jack said, because he didn’t have any more than that to give them.

Just Jack? Dahlia asked. She’d moved around her father now. The crossbow wasn’t pointing at Jack anymore, but it was obvious that she could bring it right back up again if she needed to.

Jack shrugged. That’s all I remember.

And your sword? Henry asked.

All Jack could do was shrug again. It’s just a sword. I’m really just here for food and shelter. And a horse, if you have one to spare. I need to get to the border as quickly as possible.

"Oh, is that all you-" Dahlia began, but Henry raised a hand to stop her.

You’d best come inside then, Jack, and have something to eat, Henry said. He walked back inside as though there was nothing further to say on the matter. Dahlia watched him go in with obvious incredulity, but she followed a second later.

The door sat open in front of Jack, the invitation clear. He made his way towards it, and as he did so he found himself wondering what kind of man he was. There were men in this world, he knew, who would take advantage of an offer like this. Who, once they were close enough to knock the crossbow from the woman’s hands, would take what they wanted, from her and the farm. Who would probably kill both her and her father, leaving nothing in their wake but blood, emptiness, and one more burnt out farm.

Even thinking that disgusted Jack. What kind of man was he that he could think about something like that as if it were obvious? But then, it was obvious, because that was the world they occupied. Just as it was obvious that he was disgusted by it, and he wasn’t going to do anything there but eat.

At least I know that much about myself, Jack said. It wasn’t much of a start, but it was something.

He stepped into the house. It wasn’t in much better repair on the inside than the outside. It had the look of a place that had once been loved and well cared for, but now had seen a few too many seasons with no repairs. It seemed obvious that the old man and his daughter had done their best, but that there was only so much they could do as the years closed in on Henry.

Even so, it was comfortable in there. The wooden walls were hung with pictures sketched in charcoal, while there were rugs on the floor in bright colors. All of the furniture looked like it had been made by hand, probably a long time ago. A large table dominated the room, sitting in front of a fire on which a pot sat bubbling. Dahlia put a bowl of thick brown stew down on the table with bad grace. Her father sat at the table, opposite that spot, while Dahlia moved away a little. Still close enough to listen in though, Jack noted.

Sit, Henry said. Eat.

Jack didn’t need a second invitation, sitting and picking up the wooden spoon that went with the stew. A vague memory flickered inside him, a flash of silver. No, holding something silver. He’d been sitting somewhere, a silver spoon in his hand, eating… no, it was gone again as quickly as it had come.

I’ve seen that look in the mirror, Henry said. Usually around the time I’ve walked into a room and can’t remember why. You were serious before? About not remembering more than your name?

Jack nodded, but by then he was too busy eating to say anything. Another man would have been warier. Would have demanded a different bowl taken from the pot while he watched, but the truth was that he was too hungry to care. And anyway, there was a part of him that wanted to trust these two. He ate… well, like a man who hadn’t eaten properly since starting his flight from the capital, what seemed like an eternity ago.

He’s lying, Dahlia said from the other side of the room. Look at him. Look at that sword. It’s obvious that he’s a deserter.

"About as obvious