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  GUARDIAN

  By Thomas F. Monteleone

  Digital edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2013 / Thomas F. Monteleone

  Copy-edited by: Anita Lorene Smith

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Tom Monteleone has been a professional writer since 1972, and four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He has published more than 100 short stories in numerous magazines and anthologies. His stories have been nominated for many awards, and have appeared in lots of best-of-the-year compilations. He is the editor of seven anthologies, including the highly acclaimed Borderlands series edited with his wife, Elizabeth. Borderlands 5 won a Bram Stoker Award in 2003.

  He has written for the stage and television, having scripts produced for American Playhouse (which won him the Bronze Award at the International TV and Film Festival of New York and the Gabriel Award), George A. Romero’s Tales from the Darkside, and a series on Fox TV entitled Night Visions.

  Of his thirty-six books, his novel, The Blood of the Lamb received the 1993 Bram Stoker Award, and The New York Times Notable Book of the Year Award. His four collections of selected short fiction are Dark Stars and Other Illuminations, Rough Beasts and Other Mutations, The Little Brown Book of Bizarre Stories, and Fearful Symmetries (2004), which won the 2004 Bram Stoker Award. His novels, The Resurrectionist and Night of Broken Souls, global thrillers from Warner Books, received rave reviews and have been optioned for films. His omnibus volume of essays about the book and film industries entitled The Mothers And Fathers Italian Association was published by Borderlands Press (www.borderlandspress.com) and won the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Non-Fiction. He is also the author of the bestseller, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel. His books and stories have been translated into twelve foreign languages.

  Book List

  Novels

  Between Floors

  Eyes of the Virgin

  Fantasma

  Guardian

  Lyrica: A Novel of Horror and Desire

  Night of Broken Souls

  Night Things

  Night Train

  Ozymandias

  Seeds of Change

  Serpentine

  The Blood of the Lamb

  The Crooked House

  The Magnificent Gallery

  The Reckoning

  The Resurrectionist

  The Secret Sea

  The Time Connection

  The Time-Swept City

  Collections

  Dark Stars and Other Illuminations

  Fearful Symmetries

  Rough Beasts and Other Mutations

  The Little Brown Book of Bizarre Stories

  Borderlands series

  Borderlands

  Borderlands 2

  Borderlands 3

  Borderlands 4

  Borderlands 5

  Dragonstar series

  Day of the Dragonstar

  Night of the Dragonstar

  Dragonstar Destiny

  Non-Fiction

  The Arts and Beyond: Visions of Man’s Aesthetic Future

  The Mothers and Fathers Italian Association

  The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel

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  GUARDIAN

  This is for ROGER ZELAZNY,

  Creator of worlds.

  It can also be found in the very ancient murmurings of the ancients of even the First Age that there was a bird-thing called the Feeniks. It was a creature which was immortal—dying in a burst of flame, then rising up from its own ashes to live again. So say the writings of Garon and Deldayna of Cairn; it also appears as an analog to the prophecies of Narin, who told of the rebirth of the killer of the Riken. Perhaps the world still waits for that mighty one’s return.

  —MONOLOGUES OF POULE VI

  Yet it is still difficult to accept that the Earth once flowered like the thickest forest of the Scorpinnian, even into the regions of the Manteg Depression. There were men walking the Earth in those days who were different from ourselves. If you ask how this can be, I can only say that they were different in spirit rather than the flesh, but how it can be so, I sadly do not know. As my proof I have only the testament of their machines and the still unturned stones of their once great cities. It is true that we find none of their bones and there are colleagues of mine who say that any bones would have long ago turned to dust. But I disagree.

  I fear that they have gone, those great men, to another place. I fear that they have left this world, cleaning up their mess behind them, sealing off any entry to their world, wherever it might now be. For if they were as wise and powerful as I imagine, they most likely saw our “rise” to civilization, and vowed that we would never follow them.

  —MANNEN’S The Perversion

  There is an aspect of death which suggests the infinite, the never-ending, because there will always be death, and Death. The reality of the former, the concept of the latter. And, since there is much now to suggest a never-ending cycle of existence, the world must depend upon death as the catalyst, the prime mover, to ensure a continuation of the cycle.

  Thus are we not concerned with the deaths of men—who are by nature insubstantial and generally contemptible—but with the deaths of ideas. For it is the ideas which live and give breath to the future generations, the future eons.

  Concern, sadly, is not enough, and the wars continue. The unrest and the petty scratchings of men for power and control continue to poison the earth. It is like a foulness which stains so deeply, spreads so relentlessly, that there is no preventing it. As long as there are men—and it seems that that is part of the curse, i.e., there always will be—there will be the terrible fighting, the maiming death, and purging fires.

  —FRAGMENT OF A FIRST AGE MANUSCRIPT

  The Great Library at Voluspa

  PROLOGUE

  There has been a recent period of peace in the World. The temptation exists to say there has also been prosperity, but this would be a falsification of a harsher reality. As in most times, only a small and privileged group ever prospers, and this particular time is no different from any other in that regard. It is even a “bending” of the facts to say this is a time of peace because of the continual engagements of the loosely formed countries of Pindar and Eyck.

  But the combatants are thankfully small and operate on the easternmost fringes of the civilized World. To the east of the borders lies the Baadghizi Vale, an enormous cawl between the Grayrange Mountains, in which a giant forest of thick, black trunks and thorns like spearpoints flourishes. It is such an impenetrable maze that no man, or fool, ever attempts to pass through it, although it is said that strange creatures have evolved within its confines, having learned to navigate the bolestrangled land and to brachiate daringly across the tops of the great forest.

  And so it is possible that Pindar and Eyck shall never be at peace. The claims of rightful borders are always a delicate subject, especially among nations who have a not-very-tenacious grasp of their true self-image. Such is the pitiful state of Pindar, and of Eyc
k. Neither possesses a governmental system that is much removed from what one might call “musical assassinations.” In fact, one of the perennial political jokes in G’Rdellia, a neighboring country of some culture, asks the question: Who’s running Pindar this week?

  And since the only viable exports of these two nations may rightfully be termed unrest, hate, and distrust, it is easy to ignore them when considering the general state of the World. Pindar and Eyck are thus the clubfooted stepchildren of a world that is only marginally more fortunate but chooses not to recognize that basic truth.

  It is a world of gross ignorance, galloping pestilence, petty injustice, unrelieved famine, early death, and meaningless existence. It is a world in which the spirit of humankind—that sometimes brilliant, sometimes infamous, driving force that fuels civilization’s furnace—has departed. And perhaps the most dismal testament is that the departure has been a slow and ugly thing. It did not leave in a flaming burst of glorious war, but rather it slouched away during the long nights of ignorance and fear. It did this thing so slowly, so insidiously, that no one—or practically no one —even noticed it was missing. Until, of course, it was too late.

  But this is not to say that the World is dying, for it is certainly not. More precisely, one might observe that the World survives in spite of itself, and will continue to survive.

  And there are the bright spots, the untarnished bits and pieces attempting to escape the corrosions of time. There exists a great, capricious body of water. It is as blue as the eyes of a Vaisyan maiden, as fierce and unpredictable as her mother, and as faithless as her father. Storms and calms walk hand in hand across its shimmering surfaces, courting no ship, no country, and wanting no quarter. It is a vast, moody sea misnamed the Gulf of Aridard. It is surely no gulf—having none of the connotations of serenity and placidity which that term may possess—and almost qualifies as a small ocean. It is a surly, waspish mistress to the nations of the World, which huddle like tramps about a bright fire along its broad shores. The Gulf of Aridard: focal point of the World.

  Due west of the Gulf is the Sunless Sea—so named because of the cold mist and rolling fog which ever obscures the setting of the sun on its farthest horizon. It is a monstrous ocean with shifting, rolling waves thirty ems high, valleys equally deep, and the grayest, coldest skies west of the Ironfields. Several expeditions from the maritime nations have attempted voyages into and across the Sunless Sea, but none of the great ships have ever returned. Some of the more optimistic ship captains have described their missions as “crossings,” but we historians have cautioned against this kind of positive thinking because it presumes the existence of a landmass, a shore, a something on the other side of the Sea.

  There is no record in the modern era substantiating the presence of anything beyond the Sunless Sea.

  Legend, folktale, fragments from the First Age, the oral tradition at large: all these sources speak of other landmasses—Continents, as they were called—but the names of such places, the locations, the sizes, and all other authenticating data have been lost or, perhaps, were never known.

  Continuing the geography lesson, one may find to the extreme northwest of the Gulf a very large desert area, lying primarily below sea level and set off by a colossal mountain range known as the Haraneen Divide. This great arid expanse is called the Manteg Depression, and it is generally avoided by most of the World. Fierce sand and dust storms stalk the Depression with an almost cyclic frequency. The intensity, the sheer viciousness of the storms are enough, it is said, to strip the flesh from a man’s bones with the clean, crisp efficiency that a surgeon’s scalpel could never rival. There are levels of radiation in the Manteg Depression which are still surprisingly high, considering the unknown number of years since thermonuclears may have been employed in the region. Some legends say that there are still silos and installations within the Depression, still cradling rusted and/or scorched ICBMs, although, again, such claims are totally unsubstantiated by the record. (It is hoped that the pictographic or, as some insist, photographic technique will soon be perfected so that such claims can be proven without reasonable doubt.)

  The temperatures in the Manteg Depression may get as high as 50° Centa. The amount of rainfall the area receives is little more than two cees per year.

  And yet there is life in the Depression. A nomadic tribe called the Idri roam about its fringes and high elevations. They ride an indigenous animal called the loka which has evolved an outer hide of such thickness and durability that the sandblast of the storms is nothing more than a refreshing shower. It is cautioned, however, that a beast of such physical toughness possesses a disposition to match. The Idri are a foul-smelling, sun-bleached, and leathered lot, who are neither pirates, nor traders, but a band of simple, breeding scavengers who repopulate themselves to continue a basically meaningless existence. But they bother no one and will probably survive in the Manteg long after the rest of man has finally gone away.

  There is vegetation in the Manteg that resembles steel chips and shavings; there are mutant things that might have been men at some point in their ancestors’ dim past; there are crawling things that live beneath the oven-baking sand and come out at night to suck the fluids from anything which might be sleeping or resting upon the gritty desert floor; there are flying things that ride the ever-present thermals.

  But there is little else.

  On the eastern slopes of the Haraneen Divide lie two nations of disparate personality. To the south, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Aridard, lies the enlightened realm known as Nespora. Not a large country by World standards, it is not small either. Enjoying a moderate climate and a very fertile agricultural river valley, fed by the clean waters of the Cruges River, Nespora is a prosperous place. At the river delta into the Gulf, the city of Mentor flourishes like a well-kept orchid. It is a cosmopolitan port of call for statesmen, traders, sailors, adventurers, educators, and rulers. A majority of the city is given over to the wealthy controllers of finance and World trade, thus forming a vast, complex center upon which the economic stabilities of most of the other nations now hinge. And so Nespora’s nation of traders and businessmen have come to provide a built-in national security system for its people. As the focal point and the kingpin for the World’s economy, Nespora is almost unequivocally safe from aggression by anyone. They keep no standing army and do not fear rule by anyone; they are the experts in what they do and no one wishes to usurp their unique position as clerks to the World. While its other principal cities of Elahim and Kahisma (a fortress-city guarding an ancient pass out of the Divide) are not as large nor as opulent as Mentor, they are nevertheless comfortable, clean, and possessing some of the finer amenities of modern civilization.

  North of Nespora, contained in the west by the Cruges River and the Black Chasm, and to the east by a ragtag “empire,” toils the no-frills Shudrapur Dominion. Almost as an afterthought left over from the jagged realities of the Haraneen, the terrain of Shudrapur is rugged, unyielding, and full of rock. The land rolls on relentlessly, as if unconcerned with the legions of peasants who yearly plow and plunder it. There seems to be an independence which permeates this nation. It is a feeling that begins in the land itself and spreads out to the populace, which is mostly represented by thousands of small, pastoral villages, each governed by a small, rustic council of elders—men who became wise because they lived long enough, and vice versa. Agriculture is the key to life in Shudrapur, a fact reflected in the low profile of its only two cities, Ghaz and Babir. Although there is no real politics, or even a strong current of nationalism among the giant, amorphous collection of peasant-citizens, there is a government in the Shudrapur Dominion which is based in the eastern city of Ghaz. The city is large and spread thinly across a floodplain, where the summer rains are an invitation to the flowering of a million buds. Its architecture reflects the national weltanschauung: functional, simple, but without the cold severity of a totally ascetic personality. The country’s art and music and literature are c
onservative, at times moralistic, and, in the final analysis, dull; however, it is a respectable country, a responsible country, and not without its unseen wealth. Its unspoken dedication to the land pays off in a great agricultural surplus which is shipped throughout the northern countries as a desirable trade entity. There is no one of culture and taste who does not delight at the flavor of fruit from Dominion orchards, wines from its vineyards, grains from its waving, rolling hills.

  Indeed, if there is anything truly negative to be said of the Shudrapur Dominion, then it must be the Black Chasm. It is a wound in the earth that stretches for more than one thousand kays, and plummets jaggedly into its depths more than twenty. Leaning out over its edges, one stares into infinity, the true bottom of the Chasm lost in the hazy mist which huddles near the deepest regions. The walls are scored and sliced as if from a monstrous cutting tool, the natural rock a blend of basalt and granite and lignite. It is an evil-looking place. No one of sane mind and valued life ever enters the Black Chasm, although in past eras there have been stories of explorers who have attempted it. No one knows whatever became of them; more ever returned or exited from the opposite end. Many Shadrapurians believe that if there exists an entrance to Hell on the surface of the earth, then it is surely here.

  Prior mention of an empire to the east of the Shudrapur Dominion can be none other than the Scorpinnian Empire. Easily the largest nation of the modern World, the Empire is a vast land of untilled meadows and uncut forests so thick that it is almost impossible for the summer’s light to penetrate. There are huge prairies which roll uncontested from the Eban flood-plain north and east to the borders at the Kirchou River; and the soil here is rich and black as night. Legend says that once great battles were fought on this land, and it is the millions of corpses that have, over the millennia, made it so fecund. Irony is often high in the most acrid of cases, and so it is with the Scorpinnians: they are not the World’s best farmers, and the majority of their marvelous land passes unused from one generation to the other. The same may be said of the immense ore and other precious metal deposits which abound throughout the Empire—iron, bauxite, thorium, uranium, manganese, silver. They are literally everywhere, waiting to be mined, refined, employed. But they are also untouched, save for a few subcontracts arranged by Nespora which litter the “Emperor’s” coffers but do little to enrich the country’s standard of living. The foreign mining concerns then ship their ores to the World’s industrial centers in Nespora, G’Rdellia, and Zend Avesta, where small, crude factories fashion poor replicas of First Age genius. The state of the nation is not, however, a great concern of the general population, which is scattered throughout the vast countryside in small, towns and villages and administered to rigidly by a caste system of governors and other ranks of hegemony. There is a quasi-military aspect which blankets the people like a shroud, and imparts a pallor to their lives, adds to the already dreary regimen of their existence. There is little art, practically no music, and rampant illiteracy. They are a plain, ignoble folk whose best virtue can be described as “dependable,” but then the same may be said of horses and oxen. In time of war, they serve their virtue best, having been known to march into the face of overwhelming odds, be slaughtered to the last man-jack, and not sully the battle with one creative protest. The principal city is Calinthia which is settled comfortably, like an obese man in an overstuffed chair, in the geographic center of the Empire. From this spot, the Emperor “reigns”—a duty which is largely concerned with hour upon endless hour of courtly foolery and de rigueur obsequiousness, parties, alcoholic drinking bouts, and dancing girls, preferably naked. Naturally the second level of advisors, chancellors, and viscounts have maintained close ties with Nespora, using that nation’s worthy emissaries to make use of Scorpinnian’s natural resources and continue at least a semblance of commerce and stability. While it would be unfair to say the Scorpinnian government is corrupt, a close look at its two chief ports along the Gulf—Mogun and Talthek—would convince the wary observer that this nation is at best running a treadmill to oblivion.