Lords Of The Dark Fall - Fabian (42 page)

He can do that. By the time he’s finished with her, she’ll be a believer.

She’s so many things to him, wife, lover, mother of his children, but most of all, she’s his joy and his anchor. The place he gets to lay down his head and rest. All his former wealth pales to nothing compared to what he has now. 

A man who’s lost everything can only gain. He still doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve such redemption, but he thanks every god he knew for it. And will continue to thank them for the rest of his mortal life.

The End

Thank you for reading Lords of the Dark Fall, book one, Fabian. For a first chapter preview of book two, Marcellus, please read on.

Prologue

The museum was quiet today. Just the two of them and one other visitor peering into a display case on the other side of the marbled hall. Cassandra Evans spared the man only a fleeting glance before following her excited nephew to his favourite exhibit. The culmination so far of her life’s work.

“The falling man plates. I want to see your falling man plates.” The small child could barely see into the display case. Eagerly he rose on tip-toe, pressing his nose to the glass. Behind him, his aunt looked on indulgently. 

“They’re not my plates, sweetie. Wish they were. Aunt Cassie was just lucky enough to be the one to find them. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Cassandra fingered the glass reverently. Looking beyond the chipped ceramics with their faded paintings, she could only imagine the lives touched by this story. “He was a warrior, a true hero.”

“The warrior who fell from the sky.” Solemnly, the child picked out the words of a story he knew by heart. The legend of the man who came from nowhere and became a great leader. Who showed the people that by working together, they could rebuild what had been lost.

“Did he really come from the sky? Was he an alien?”

Cassandra tousled her nephew’s hair indulgently. The one person guaranteed to listen without question to her outlandish theories.

“You’re too young to understand, sweetheart. We’ve found no life in our solar system but ours. And yet…” She turned to gaze at the plates and the etching of a man hurtling to the ground without the aid of parachute, micro-flyer, or power-wings. And yet why were museums across the world full of artefacts that said otherwise? Throughout the ages pictures had been etched onto cave walls, pottery and standing stones showing visitors arriving as if from nowhere. The falling men, she called them. She’d made it her life’s work to find out whether the legends surrounding them were true, who they were and more importantly, where they came from.

“I believe there is life out there. And the falling men are the key.”

“Fabian had a key?” The child understood more than his years. One day he might take on her research and perhaps be the one to find the elusive key that unlocked these enigmatic stories once and for all.

“Just a figure of speech, sweetheart, but yes, his story may well be the key. We should know more. It’s so frustrating.”

The child returned his attention to the display. Beside the plates sat a small portrait etched on bronze. The stern expression frightened him a little. He reached for his aunt’s hand.

“Fabian looks cross.”

“What did he just say?”

Cassandra moved protectively to shield the child from the tall man who’d crossed the hall to stare alternately at the display and then at her nephew. A vagrant by the look of his dirty rain-coat and matted hair hanging in strings about his face. And what a face. Stunned by the mixture of elegance and strength, the eyes dark as a midnight sea, she was unable to look away. Had they met before? He looked familiar.

For a split-second, the hall disappeared and it was just the two of them, staring in surprise into each other’s eyes. Blinking, heart beating a little too fast, Cassandra found herself just as suddenly back in the museum hall and reaching for her nephew’s hand. 

A vision? She took in a steadying breath. Not here. It never happened this far from the dig-sites.

“He was commenting on the etching of the warrior who fell from the sky,” she said, gathering her scattered senses. “If you’ll excuse me, we were just leaving.”

“I think not. Enlighten me. What do you know of this warrior?”

Despite his poor garments, the man commanded attention in the way he stood, the way he spoke. When he grabbed at her arm to keep her in place, she shook him off, wondering where the security guard had disappeared to. A druggie who'd wandered in out of the rain, no doubt. He stank of some cheap liquor.

“Aunt Cassie knows everything about Fabian Lucim…Lucimanticus the Great. She found him,” the child announced with pride. “Didn’t you, Aunt Cassie?”

“Lucimanticus?” Shock, relief and hope. All three emotions flitted across the man’s face. He took in a deep, heaving breath, as if to steady himself. His fingers curled into tight fists. “What do you know of Fabian Lucimanticus? Tell me, tell me now.”

Cassandra stepped back hastily, dragging the child with her. Spotting a security guard, she motioned him over. The guard frowned and made his way across the museum, footsteps echoing on the marble floor.

“I’ve called security,” she said, motioning to the advancing guard with her chin. “Scat before he gets here and throws you out.”

The man followed her gaze. “You don’t understand. I’ve been looking for him for so long. Fabian Lucimanticus, where is he? I must know.” He glanced again at the security guard. “I mean you no harm. I only wish to know where my brother can be found.”

Stunned by his words, she looked him up and down, suddenly realising where she’d seen him before. The etching. There was the resemblance. The man could be Fabian’s twin.

If they hadn’t been born hundreds of years apart.

“Your brother?” She arched an eyebrow. “Go back to wherever you call home and lay down your head for a while. Sleep it off. I need to get my nephew home and you need to go sober up.”

She waved away the security guard. Whoever this man was, he didn’t feel a threat. He’d merely startled her by looking too much like a living version of the man she’d been studying for so long. She cut him a break because anyone that passionate about her beloved Fabian, deserved a break.

“He’s in there,” she said pointing to the display case. “That’s all we have of him. If you want more information, my book is available at the gift-shop downstairs.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, his flat palms pressed against the glass, as if he needed to be close. He scanned the words, the etching. “You wrote a book about my brother?”

“No,” she said patiently. “I wrote a book about him. Fabian Lucimanticus. My special field of study.”

“And you say he cannot be my brother?” The vagrant looked affronted. As if no one had ever dared question his word. “This is my brother. What makes you say otherwise?”

“Because Fabian Lucimanticus the Great lived over seven hundred years ago, that’s why. I’m sorry about your brother. There’s a police-house on Great Norton street, two blocks along. Maybe they can help you.” Bored, the child tugged on her arm. Time to go.

The splintering of glass nearly stopped her heart. Before she, or the security guard could react, the man punched a fist into the display case, grabbed the etching and then to the sound of alarm bells ringing, barged his way past the guard and disappeared through the exit.

So much blood, already forming a dark stain on the thin binding. If it continued to bleed, would he die here in this squalid room in this strange land? Who would find him and who would care about his passing? Reaching for the bottle on the dresser, he wondered if there remained enough of the coin he’d stolen to buy himself a willing woman for the night. Of all the things he’d expected to feel during and after the fall, loneliness wasn’t one of them. In this city heaving with people and vehicles that moved as if by magic, he, who had commanded awe and respect, felt invisible.

Taking the liquor to the window, he twisted off the cap with his good hand and lifted the bottle to his mouth. An immortal did not pay for sex. He’d vowed never to stoop that low, no matter that he ached for some comfort and warmth. Hell-fire, never mind the sex. He’d pay someone merely to talk to him in a civil manner. In a city of noise and perpetual motion, the silence was sometimes deafening.

The purple haze of dusk shrouded the city, and yet the infernal growling of the land-vehicles and the high-pitched whine of the airships did not abate. Humans moved with a restless energy towards goals he could not imagine. Perhaps because their lives were so short they felt the need to make use of every moment? At this time of night, the whole world seemed to be on the streets, moving purposely towards home from their places of work. Tomorrow morning they would do the same in reverse, spilling back into the underground passageways and trains that would shoot them through tunnels to their destinations.

He’d walked the streets for the waxing and waning of three moons, watching the crowds, always hoping for the impossible. Despite jumping less than a heartbeat after his brother there had been no sight of him, no word of him, until today. On the dresser lay the best evidence yet that he had at least landed on the same world as the author of their misfortune.

Fabian, his brother and now long gone from this world. Dead and buried here? Or had he managed to go home as he’d vowed at their banishment? 

Turning to the dresser, he decided that tonight he would remain sober and exchange the few hours of oblivion the amber liquor afforded him for a clear head. A twinge of resentment soured his gut. So typical of Fabian to land on his feet and immediately set to making himself the top dog. No longer immortal, he’d nevertheless managed some semblance of immortality. Seven hundred years later and they were building shrines to his memory.

Should have informed that woman the shrine wasn’t nearly big enough to contain his brother’s ego. She’d been as moon-struck by the man as all women were. As eldest he’d been prime in everything and had never once let anyone forget that. Never listened to any advice that contradicted his own desires. The Imarna would capitulate without a whimper. Fabian had been so sure that he’d taken only a token army to annexe a strip of land he didn’t even want.

And lost them everything.

Hard to forgive and yet Marcellus knew he must find a way to reach that place of forgiveness or risk being eaten alive by regret that he did nothing to avert the disaster that befell them.

The Fall had changed more than location and life-span. Now he ached for too long when hurt. The room spun after a mere six shots of the whisky. And women, when they saw his dishevelled appearance, either ran from him or demanded coin for the privilege of his body. Hell, they should be paying
him
.

All because of the arrogance of a man who’d brought down a dynasty.

Cassandra Evans. He fingered the name on the book he’d stolen from a local bookstore. Turned it over to read the words inscribed on the back cover. The Fall had at least equipped him with the language of this world.

Fabian Lucimanticus, the most exciting link to date in the quest to unlock the mystery of the Falling Men. Who are they and why do their images appear throughout the ages? Dr. Cassandra Evans believes…

So the woman was doctor as well as historian? And more astute than most mortals inhabiting this world. Above the words he saw her picture and the hint of challenge in the casual stance, as if daring people to have the courage to believe her outlandish theories.

The question posed beneath her picture. Why, in a society capable of building space vehicles to explore other worlds, was it so difficult to believe in time-travel and magic?

Had she not worked that one out? Industrialisation was the death of magic. The more people understood about their world, the more they expected everything to have a logical explanation. His world had been walking the same inevitable path towards a day when even the Dark Fall would be viewed as nothing more than a crack in a rock containing, somewhere deep below, the decayed remains of those who had been forced to jump.

In ten thousand years' time his world would resemble the one outside the window. And unless he found a way to return, he would not be there to see it.

Did he even care any more?

The throb in his hand told him he did. After three months of despair, the surge of hope at hearing Fabian’s name had endowed him with a strength and speed he’d not commanded since the Fall. No matter that he’d almost broken his hand smashing the glass and possibly broken some kind of speed record escaping from the museum guards and into the crowds. Cassandra Evans was the link he’d despaired of finding. Someone who wouldn’t think him insane for claiming to be a former immortal prince who’d fallen through time into her world. Her knowledge could see him reunited with Fabian, or returned home to regain what he’d lost. In exchange, he’d give her the whole story. The truth she so desperately sought about the falling men.

Fame and fortune, validation from her peers, all would be hers. A bargain she couldn’t resist.

First a wash and shave, then procure new clothes and seek her out to present his bargain. The stolen card that magically produced money from a hole in the wall no longer worked. No matter, there were shops a plenty that would not miss an outfit or two.
Shoplifter
, an irate store worker had screamed after him the last time he’d availed himself of products without bothering to pay. But what was he to do when he had no identity, no trade? Thievery at least provided a little excitement to this dull existence of his.