Age of War

Chapter 1

The rain fell in continuous sheets from a deep grey sky. The sun hadn’t shone upon Atlas in weeks, and the streets had turned to rivers of foul-smelling muck. In the more impoverished quarters with the oldest infrastructure, the sewers had already been overwhelmed. Whole sections of the city had been all but abandoned as the people fled pestilence by heading uphill to huddle in covered marketplaces or under makeshift tents in plazas. They were like refugees in their own home. The docks had been battered by storm after storm, with waves higher than buildings crashing over the quay, smashing wooden piers to splinters and scuppering half the fishing fleet. The city of Atlas, jewel of Atlantis, was drowning, and everywhere people looked to the Imperial Enclave and called out for their Emperor to save them. He did not hear their cries. He had heard nothing since the rains began, for with them had come an ague that no balm or poultice could shift.

Vion, his daughter, heir to the throne of Atlantis, watched the skies, feeling numb. Her diaphanous silks were covered with a heavy robe to protect her against the chill. It was winter, but Atlas had never known such cold. Winters were mild in this part of Atlantis, and though rain came and went, it was never as bad as this, never so constant, never so destructive to both body and spirit. Her father, before the end, had predicted a new age of the world – he claimed he had consulted with wise men who were knowledgeable in the rhythms of nature and that they had confirmed his suspicions. For reasons unknown, the world was growing colder. The icy north – nothing more than a tale to most Atlantians – was no longer content to squat on the roof of creation, but was advancing, inexorably, cataclysmically, and what could humanity do but retreat before it?

“My lady?”

She turned. The physician in her pale robes bowed her head slightly as she met her eyes and stepped back. Vion moved away from the balcony, stepping into her chambers. It was always cold. The palace that was at the heart of the Enclave was built almost entirely of white marble, an exquisite construction of fluted columns, curving linked balconies, intricately joined roofs of irregular shape and pitch and great halls and staircases open to the outside world. In late spring, with the trees in flower, it was as if the whole building was garlanded in living branches and blossom rained down on every porch and courtyard. Birds whistled in the trees and the warm air from the plains inland was tempered by the sea breeze. In summer one could sit at a table overlooking one of the dozens of gardens, picking ripe juicy plums from overhanging boughs while the distant sound of music from the city’s plazas drifted over the high white walls of the Enclave and the sun dipped low over the sea.

All that seemed a distant memory now. The palace was nothing more than a grey skeleton clinging to a terraced hill. The gardens were filled with dying plants and the lawns had turned to mud, or even flooded altogether. In every room, braziers were stoked hourly in a desperate attempt to retain some warmth. Most of the lords and ladies who made this place their home had retreated into the depths, as far from the grim reality of the outside world as they could. Vion would not turn her face away though.

“How is he?” she asked the physician as she held her hands up to the guttering flame closest to her bed. Dry firewood was getting harder to come by. They had never kept great stores, and the land for miles around was just as damp from the continuous deluge. Whatever fuel they’d found for this brazier gave off an acrid stink.

“My lady…I fear…” The woman faltered.

Vion looked at her sharply. “Speak.”

“I fear the Emperor will not recover from this latest malady. He has been delirious for more than a week now. The fever will not break. I’ve seen this before.”

“Where?”

“Here, and other places. It isn’t unusual when a patient is old and infirm. A fever takes hold, and the body no longer has the strength to fight it.”