Industry & Intrigue

INDUSTRY AND
INTRIGUE

Book 1 of

The Saga Of Industrial
Fantasy

Ryan McCall

Copyright
2014 by Ryan McCall

Smashwords
Edition

This is a work of fiction and deals
with fictional events in a fictional world. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the copyright holder. The author has asserted
the moral right to be identified as the author of this
work.

© 2014 by
Ryan McCall

Maps by
Joseph Freistuhler, Iconoclast Design

Cover by
Clarissa Yeo, Yocla Book Cover Designs

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of the
wonderful authors and storytellers whose work I have had the
pleasure of reading ever since I first walked into a library. All
of them have helped to inspire this work in some way.

I would also like to thank the
community on forums at www.alternatehistory.com, the amazing work
and discussions on there is what really fueled my passion to
write.

I would also like to thank
Sheila Haab for her excellent job as a beta-reader. She has her own
website,
www.sageediting.com, so if you’re need of her services, I
highly recommend it.

And
last but not least, the skilled
artwork professionals who did my cover and map, Clarissa Yeo and
Joseph Freistuhler, respectively. You helped to truly bring my
vision to life more than I could have anticipated.

Chapter 1

“
In the long ago days of our
world the
colossi had dominance over the world. In their heyday they
walked the earth like gods, massive creatures. When one of them
passed, the ground itself must have shaken like an earthquake. We
have only fragments from those days, samples from the fossil
record, but what we have found is impressive,” said Professor Ling
Xerin to her Zoology 110 class.

The first week of classes was
always interesting
, the new students fresh from high school, who were eager
to learn with the excitement that flowed through the Alkos
University campus. Then of course there were the looks she received
from the less cosmopolitan students. Drakons weren’t exactly rare
in the Alkon Empire, but they tended not to venture further than
the capital or the other major cities of Daltilloch and Arketh.
Drakons that conducted business or immigrated here found that a
bustling metropolis was well-suited to them.

So, of course those best and brightest
from the rural areas of the empire who graduated into the
university curriculum had rarely seen a drakon in person and they
gave her curious but intrigued looks.

One of her students had
once had the
audacity to ask if she could breathe fire. Xerin had laughed and
emphatically said no, contrary to whatever myths the girl had been
told. A bipedal species that breathed fire was unlikely to have
developed such an intricate voice-based language like that of her
native Weicarus. Though she wasn’t surprised at the question,
drakons were descended from common ancestors to dragons. In
appearance alone Xerin’s bronze-scaled skin, sharp talons and
reptilian shaped skull was testament to that.

She continued on with her lecture. “The
fossils that have been found give us an impression of the
incredible size of these beings.” She drew a chalk comparison on
the blackboard while she talked.

“
This is an average biped and
here next to it,” she drew a much larger shape, “is the original
colossi leg bone discovered by Sebastian Payne in 1702. Note that
the biped is only the height of one of the talons of the colossi
foot.”

“
A
nd now let us take a look at some photos
from recent dig sites.” She walked around to the back of the room
and turned on the optical projector. It made a loud whirring sound.
The noise was distracting but Xerin cherished the new devices
ability to show enlarged photographs to her classes.

“
Here you can see images of
fossilized colossi remains that were only discovered ten years ago
in the Crean Valley,” she said and clicked through the series of
images. In actual fact the Crean Valley find had not uncovered much
beyond minor limb and skull fragments of colossi fossils, but the
pictures from that dig were the most extensive. As the pictures
moved into the segment of artistic impressions of the colossi, one
student put his hand up.

Xerin didn’t like too many
inte
rruptions in her early lectures. She preferred to get the
baseline of the year’s material over with and move onto the more
in-depth material but she appreciated inquisitiveness enough to let
him ask.

“
Ah
, I see we have a question. What can
I clarify Mr. Galius?” asked Xerin. His name was Reese Galius and
both his surname and platinum blonde hair indicated Estaran
heritage, though when he spoke it was in flawless Alkon.

“
Well
Professor Xerin, these artist’s
impressions are good and all, but aren’t the people who drew these
simply adding whatever takes their fancy to a few bone fragments?
We only have a small sample of colossi fossils to examine and what
has been found is similar to primordial dragon fossils.”

Xerin grinned, he was
an astute student.
“Yes, you are correct Mr. Galius. Many of these pictures are vast
exaggerations of what these creatures would have looked like and
compared to the ancient dragons we don’t have much to work with.
None of you should interpret these pictures as real evidence, they
are only speculation. It is always good to be skeptical,
particularly when it comes to fossils, in the past there have been
numerous attempts at hoaxes for fame or profit. While it is true
that the colossi fossils do bear resemblance to the primordial
dragons there are distinct differences.”

She clicked the
projector
a
few times and pulled up a picture of a comparison of dragon and
colossi fossils. “Firstly the colossi fossils are far older, based
on their placement in the fossil record and their residual energy
dating. Secondly they are far larger than all of the primordial
dragons. Even Dragensis Epsis, the largest dragon for which we have
a full skeletal structure, does not come close to matching the
sheer scale of these colossi fossils. Thirdly, there are myths and
legends in every culture of the world involving gigantic monsters,
and the breadth at which these stories exist gives us an idea that
there may be a factual basis for them in history. And finally there
is the theory of biological diversion which supports the idea of
the colossi, which we will get into much greater detail further
into this course.”

She was about to continue with
the projector but the same student put his hand up again.
“Was there
something else Reese?” In spite of her appreciation for curiosity,
she wanted to move on to the next points of her lecture.

“
I
wanted to know what your own
culture’s take on colossi is?” he asked.

“
That…is complicated,” she
replied. That wasn’t usually a question she received in zoology.
Most drakon legends on colossi came under the folklore category,
not science. “I will only say that most drakons accept that they
exist but not directly in this world. It would take more time than
we have in class to discuss it in detail, so I won’t elaborate
further, but if you’d like to know more, my office hours are on the
curriculum. If that is all?”

Reese didn’t look entirely satisfied but
he nodded.

“
Excellent
,” replied Xerin. She was glad
he was done. She switched off the projector and headed back to the
front of the class. She re-focused the class’ attention. “Now let
us move on to basic classification and the three kingdoms of
life.”

***

After
class let out for lunch, Reese went
to meet his best friend Michael O’Daly at the university cafeteria.
The cafeteria was on the north side of the university, one of the
newest buildings on the campus, the last few years had seen student
numbers swell and thus the university council had deemed it
necessary to provide more on-campus facilities, although Alkos
City’s downtown was only a short tram ride away.

Reese passed the
shops and doctor’s
office they had added before entering the cafeteria and spotting
his friend. After sitting down, Reese described to Michael about
being shut down on his questions in class.

“
It sounds like she wanted to
answer your questions but didn’t want to get too far ahead of the
course. What can you expect, not all of the students are
whiz-b
iologists like yourself, the others need to get the
building blocks first,” replied Michael.

“
Whiz-zoologist, not whiz
biologist,” said Reese “I’m a specialist not a
generalist.”

Michael shrugged.
“
Whatever,”
he said.

Reese nodded while
pok
ing at
his lunch “But you’re right. It means I’ll have to visit the
professor in her office.”

“
Oh, listen to you,” Michael
scolded. “It’s the first week of university, pace yourself. We’re
not in school anymore, we made it. You don’t have to go nuts
studying right off the bat, we need to take our time and soak in
the university environment. We’re in Alkos City, the center of the
empire and the civilized world. I mean, sure we’re here to learn,
but we should enjoy ourselves too.”

Both Reese and Michael had grown up and
been schooled in a small town to the north east of Alkos City.
Michael’s father owned a large brewery and winery in their hometown
of Airdlagh and had frequently taken trips to the capital for his
business deals and occasionally taken his son and friend with him.
Reese had been born in Estara, a nation bordering Alkos’
north-eastern border and had been raised by his father’s cousin,
who was a jeweler and the current mayor of Airdlagh. The reasons
for his relocation and his parents absence was something he kept to
himself, although he had confided it to Michael and one other
person.