The First Candle

By Eric B. Swanson

Martin Longbow is a content village minstrel, in a post apocalypse world, ignorant of the most important millennium mystery. An ageless dark Demon prince Agares (Agoth) and his legion of lesser demons are the anathema to humanity. Martin is introduced to the new reality by the savage torture of his best friend and must gather with allies both physically and spiritually to try and redress a lack of wisdom. His quest will start with a flight to an unexplored monastery where he will be both saved and abused. Ignorance is a shield against the very real creatures set out to kill him. He is not the great planner, fighter or leader but a servant candle that good men and women rally to aid: Alison,a maiden of wood lore, Mist a savage fighter, Sam a village leader, and Alex a black Sheik of the desert. Even the bold leader of the Hamstrut dwarves, Bromsten would offer aid, for which many brave friends would perish in the swamps of the demon Shigatsat. Some would take a voyage across an unknown sea to find the mythical Touljeane knights and Princess Lorna. The allies must defeat the teeming minions of Sax Mantis. Ultimately they will try to humbly enlist the aid of the mighty Cherubim and Seraphim to help forbid the growth of the unworldly demon menace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490733777

Eric B. Swanson

Eric lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with his beautiful wife, Alison, their four lovely daughters (Jean, Wendy, Leslie and Joleen), two swarthy son-in-laws (Kurt and Bobby), and two fantastic grandchildren (Noah and Keira). Eric retired in 2014 from the National Research Council of Canada. As a scientist he worked with companies to develop new medical innovations. He has published numerous scientific articles and patents. He helped develop Canada’s nanotechnology strategy and has traveled widely for International projects and conferences. Eric is a follower of Jesus.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Contrasting poignantly with an otherwise barren planet, a cluster of brightly painted houses highlighted the centre of a small patch of lush green, high in the Fission mountains. A nearby sparkling creek attested to fresh water and possible trout. There was the sound of music and children’s singing drifting in the air around the village square of Nooncrest. Not far off, unseen by all except one, a thick grey vapour crept silently up the mountain toward the village. The powerfully built figure of a large man watched its approach and then slipped unnoticed back into the village. He paused momentarily to glance back over his shoulder and smile.

The famines during the last few decades had decimated those areas where mankind had been able to survive in any number. A bleating cry for help had not even gone out for this last remnant of mass humankind which had simply perished in huge numbers. Now all of mankind existed in small pockets, as our once-teeming species was disappearing from the universe. We had lived this way for more than two centuries, but man’s final hosts were gone; death was everywhere, and survival was pitiless.

The population in the North American continental protectorate had begun to drop drastically from epidemics of disease, chemical toxicology and cancer, which developed after a brief but decisive limited nuclear exchange. Who had been involved was long forgotten, and no one cared to remember the rationale. Yet it was not the nuclear radiation that had sealed man’s fate. The environment had been saturated with pollutants from factories and mindless consumerism for decades, and the water, air, and land were no longer capable of buffering this final insult to nature’s balance. The chain reaction which erupted through the biosphere left no escape from the sickness. Some scientists had been warning humanity, but life had enforced a new reality that rewarded the selfish. When the end came, even the scientists were shocked at the suddenness of man’s demise. More than a third of the world’s population had died within the first year. Within ten years more than 90 percent of mankind had perished from the various states of slow death which lingered in the air, land, and water. There was very little arable land on which to scratch sustenance for those that endured and much that remained was crowded into patches around the small area where this story begins. The change in consumer patterns had come far too late. More than two-thirds of the earth’s flora had been consumed and withered as if by fire, and in many of the seas fish had ceased to exist. Much of what little living water was left had the bitter taste of heavy metals and sulphur. Many were dying the terrible death from drinking it too carelessly. The past few decades had brought mankind perilously close to extinction.

The beautiful separation of day and night was no more, as the earth was entombed in a hazy, polluted, and nuclear cloud. That was not to say there was not beauty, as the irradiation in the night sky could be spectacular. Unfortunately this beauty was linked directly with toxic radiation raining down from the upper stratosphere and therefore was beautiful only in signifying our doom.

It was in this atmosphere of dread that the Sumbas had become prominent. Under the absolute authority of their high priests and leader—a man called Sax Mantis—a large number of adherents had joined this fiercely ritualistic sect. The Sumbas had to their credit consolidated a certain amount of order to a few small oasis of green they had restored for the luxury of Sax Mantis and his various indulgences. The price of admission to this sect was simple, absolute submission of one’s being to the mores of Sax Mantis. Most of the deeper rituals were cloaked in secrecy; however, the twisted remains of men, women, children, and animals in mass graves close to the greenbelts, attested to a carnality beyond any that human history had ever recorded. Fear bred veneration, and many had joined the Sumbas, too many.

Another group of people who had escaped the most fiendish effects of radiation sickness and the environmental poisons had banded together in fortified compounds. These compounds were created by what was left of the wealthy gentry to plunder nature’s fragile resources and hoard it for personal consumption. The compounds were garrisoned by harsh militia who were dedicated to denying their puny bounty to any. These people were called the Insiders. Their cities were impregnable warrens of buildings and tunnels filled with sudden death for the unwanted. To them the lessons of man’s existence did not matter. Their concern was as it had always been: that they should survive as comfortably as the world could provide.

The third group of survivors survived wild in various states of deformity. As a group they were recognizable as emaciated bipedals which scratched a meagre and terrible existence from what was left of earth. These man-creatures were poignantly and pathetically called the Mutans. They were the largest human group on earth and were inescapably the most diverse. Their single binding similarity was that they were all in a very non-palliative process of a slow death.

The small group of humanity to which I belonged were the Minstrels. It was to this group that I had become attached as an apprentice medical practitioner and juggler. The Minstrels had chosen a path of survival which required they wander between the Sumba’s greenbelts and Insider fortresses providing entertainment and medical help. It was pathetic that the creatures that raped the earth so entirely still required bits of gaiety, ballots of bravery, compassion and laughter, no matter how harsh. We were treated shamefully but tolerated within strict codes. If we wandered ever so slightly from these restrictions our benefactors seemed to take some joy in our killing. Our great asset was that we alone could survive in the land of the Mutans, if only barely.

As far as we could determine, every Minstrel band had acquired a monk of the Order of St. Agnasis. These monks were a mystery, very self-reliant, peaceful to the point of being obnoxious considering the harsh times, and professed beliefs in rebellion from God, prophesy, ultimate truth, and the ultimate return of a long-dead saviour. Exactly why they lived with us, was known only to them, but they were tireless workers and therefore not a burden. Their lives emulated a peaceful existence that became pervasive to all Minstrel bands. The deepness of their beliefs was both a solace to our band and an area in which we derived a certain amount of mirth. However, it must be acknowledged that the Minstrel troops would not have developed without the quiet persevering support of the monks, also called the Blue Robes for the ubiquitous blue cassocks of their order.

Outside of a few isolated individuals and some nonaligned mountain settlements these group represented the entire compliment of humanity. Since the Minstrels provided the primary intercourse between the various groups we were frequently accused of being spies. The consequences of these accusations having even a hint of credence was severe.

Our band had lived peacefully for more than a century in a small hanging valley, high in the Fission mountains in a community we called Nooncrest. This pristine valley was to the best of our knowledge at the centre of the largest remaining mature forests on the face of the earth. We were within a few weeks’ march of two different Insider and Sumba encampments, which by the current standards made our area like Grand Central Station of Old Earth. The proximity of these settlements should have made our existence impossible. However, while we built little in the way of fortifications or even a stockade, our independence and survival was assured. The Mutans inhabited all the lands between, and neither the Sumbas nor the Insiders were tolerated by the Mutans. The Sumbas and Insiders took all that they could through the fiercest of savagery; however, the Mutans were undeterred and virtually weaponless would attack any marauding incursion of their territory by these other groups. While they inevitably paid a horrible price in lives, they willingly sacrificed themselves for ultimate victory. The Insiders and the Sumbas knew the Mutans welcomed death and cannibalized the uncontaminated dead. So unspoken fear resided thinly beneath their false bravado when venturing into Mutan land. Oddly, while the Mutans were not exactly friendly to the Minstrels they seldom attacked them and seemed to savour the small ministrations. They would share their meagre supplies willingly for music and song. It was difficult not to feel guilty that our valley could be pristine and alive with song and love when surrounded by a sea of desolation. The Mutans, however, had never entered our valley, though this was certainly within their power.

This story begins in the last year of our existence. Unknown to the people in our protected valley, the battle for the dominion of the earth had commenced many decades earlier. The fighting had been intense but isolated. The monks of the order of St. Agnasis were losing, and no one seemed to care. The year had begun ominously. The foundations upon which we had built our quiet refuge had begun to tremble, and our lives were not prepared for the quake.

CHAPTER 2

It had been the appearance two days earlier of three Mutans who had talked adamantly with our leader Sam Grester, which had many apprehensive. For many years the increasing tales of the approaching terror had seemed only to be stories of fiction. Now we feared that while our valley had hidden well, the hoards of the ever-hungry Beast had finally found it. To add substance to our fears, last night in the full of the evening, an Ellwolf had been heard howling when Ellwolves had not been seen for more than hundred years. While none of us had heard wolves, the loud howl was of such baleful hunger that everyone recognized with shivering reality that the terror on which the Beast fed, was close at hand.

Paradoxically it was also only last week that Jack Caulker, a skilled juggler and friend, had told me how his happiness had been fulfilled by Anne Shee, who had accepted his proposal for marriage. She was petite, quiet, and passionate, and I was not beyond showing a little bit of envy at his good fortune. It was he who had approached me only the other evening to insist that I meet him after supper down by the old stone bridge over Haven’s creek. He wanted to show me something that had caused him to wonder whether the time was right for marriage. That was the reason I found myself on the very well-trodden path that led down to the bridge over our only fresh water supply at Haven’s Creek. The path didn’t end at Haven’s creek, but if followed up the other side, led ultimately to an ancient monastery high in the mountains. We had oft’ said we should explore it, but never seemed to find the time, since it meant a trip beyond the security of our valley and Brother Peter, our resident monk, always found a good reason why we should wait. Unfortunately, I was already a little late and knew that Jack might take his impatience out on me by a thorough pasting (which was his wont when kept waiting). I was not exactly a weakling by any means, but Jack was as strong as an oak and as large as a mammoth. He was the perennial winner of our strong man contest and liked to pride himself as our champion-at-arms.

I had just crested the hill which separated our cosy village from the creek and had taken my customary last look at the twinkling lights of our village, when I felt a sudden chill at my feet. The soiled murkiness of a thick fog was oozing up from the creek and reaching with cold diaphanous fingers for my ankles. Fogs were uncommon in our valley, and this was not the season for fogs. Something else bothered me; the fog hung on all the bulrushes down by the river, and much of what should have been familiar was lost in shadow. My unspoken talent, which few knew I possessed, was that I was a sensitive clairvoyant. Therefore, perhaps better than any other members of our band, I knew the fog was unnatural.

I called out for Jack, but all was quiet. The creek was usually alive with frogs, crickets, birds, and other wildlife, but I heard nothing. I knew Jack had preceded me because I had seen him slipping out of the camp right after supper. I descended the path toward the creek and let the fog envelop me. The gloom tested my nerve and every one of my senses was on alarm, yet I knew Jack was here. It occurred to me at that precise moment that I was much more prescient when under stress.

A surge of panic crept up my spine as I rapidly lost my orientation in a wood that had filled with ghostlike penumbras. I heard something large moving through the shallows, so I called out again and all went quiet. Bile welled in my throat as I realized the size of the thing in the shallows would have had to be far larger than a man. There was new movement from several different directions. Sounds were returning to the creek, but these were not familiar noises. These were ones that elicited terror in all that were sensitive enough to feel it. That explained why the animals were gone. A large number of sounds could be heard now, closing on my position. My courage left me, and I turned in absolute terror to flee. I had crashed through only the first few paces of the alien gloom when I struck into the remains of an antelope. Delimbed and shredded, the beheaded effigy of this now precious specimen starred at me with eyes, stark, in what must have been its moment of death. I felt the thorns of bushes I had grown up to love tear at my face as I tried to make my way up a slope I hoped was the one I had recently descended.

Just as the fog was beginning to thin, I saw him. Pinned to a tree with claw marks over much of his body, was Jack. Upon reaching where he hung I saw that he had been strung up crudely by twine. His wrists had been badly chaffed by what must have been a superhuman effort to escape his bondage. His hair was matted in blood, and his eyes were imploring, yet his bloodied mouth moved only in the silent mimicking of speech. In horror, I realized that his tongue had been torn out, and in his shock, he had not yet realized he could no longer tell me his message. However, his eyes told me volumes as I untied him, and we struggled to the top of the hill. The fog though thinner still hovered over everything, and the trees now stood ghostlike around us.

A scream of animal rage erupted from the valley below. I surmised that the creatures pursuing us had discovered their captive had been freed. It was then that I realized I had somehow come up on the wrong side of Haven’s Creek. The scream below was closer now and was answered by a chilling howl which came from somewhere ahead of us. Fortunately for us the moon’s baleful light was out and provided enough visibility for me to find a worn path on which Jack and I fled. We knew little of this side of the creek but knew we must flee or perish. The trees flashed by us as we half ran and half staggered down the dimly lit path.

Both Jack and I were good runners and under optimal conditions could run miles. However, Jack was running on nerves alone and I was not much better. A cri-wolf (or so I presumed it to be from the descriptions I had heard from woodsmen who had travelled through areas far to the north), so large it dwarfed even my greatest expectations, rose up on the edge of the path only yards in front of us. It attacked instantly. I reached for the knife that hung at my side but knew my gesture would be too late. I held my hands out in front of my face in an instinct to protect, at least temporarily, my exposed throat from the powerful fangs. A flash of metal slipped by my left side in the same instant I realized that the fangs had not reached me. The wolf lay to one side, convulsed momentarily, and then lay still. It had a sword buried to the hilt in its throat. Jack, dazed as he was, had been wiser than I and had carried his sword in his free hand. His reflex had saved my life. I glanced a last time at the cri-wolf, mentally noting that only Jack’s enormous strength could have driven the sword so deeply. There was no time for thanks as the howling now sounded all around us and was joined by a far greater guttural cry from the pursuit closing from behind us.

We ran on and on uphill and down small depressions but always steadily climbing. However, the pursuit did not slacken and closed on our heels. Finally, Jack, his condition sorely weakened, sprawled facedown on the ground. I stopped and could hear the beasts raging around the last bend we had passed. Jack looked up and his eyes pleaded with me to go on alone. I lifted him and knew instantly that I could not support his massive frame. We staggered on a few more yards before we saw the red eyes of our pursuers racing through the trees on either side of us, waiting I presumed, for the last fractions of our resolve to capitulate to the inevitable. The screams of the creatures pursuing from the creek were now very close, and I saw in Jack’s eyes, terror deeper in a man I had believed feared nothing—even death.

A faint glow appeared from a clearing ahead of us, but soon after reaching the clearing, our strength left us, and we collapsed onto an unexpected solid granite surface. I looked up to see that we had fallen at the base of stone steps that led up to massive wooden doors. I crawled up the first few steps pulling Jack behind me, when the pack of cri-wolves entered the clearing and began to close in on our position. It was obvious that the chase had stimulated the wolves as most were heavily salivating.

Now new creatures entered the clearing. The first were large, pale, vampire-like humanoids with fangs that hung menacingly from their deformed and powerful jaws. Yet the creatures appeared in no hurry now, as if waiting for the beasts that pursued from the river. Just as the first had crept to our flank and was preparing to bury his teeth into my calf, we were suddenly bathed in light. The wooden doors swung open and a stooped frame of a man cowled in a grey-blue robe stood at its entrance holding a nine-pronged glowing candelabra.

The animals immediately sank back, and some even began to whimper. He reached down and helped us up to the entrance, while always keeping his eyes fixed on the creatures in his courtyard. The cri-wolves cowered while the vampire-headed Mutans stood their ground. The scream from the creatures of the river was now very close and appeared to vastly encourage the surrounding beasts, who suddenly rushed up the stone steps. The courtyard erupted in bone-chilling screams from confident new arrivals, which sped directly at the monk (for that surely was what he must have been from his manner