The Exodus Chronicles: Prologue (862 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.73 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Axolotol (View user info) at 2005-06-25 21:03:34 EDT
Frederick Wehrstadt peered out the mullioned windows of the inn over the top of his newspaper. He was only pretending to read it; he had never studied French, and hadn't bothered to pick up a German edition of the Geneva Herald. Outside the snow fell thickly onto the cobbled streets where Swiss citizens excitedly discussed the new discovery just outside the city in one of the building projects that was being demolished to make way for a hospital. That discovery was the reason that Wehrstadt was here, along with his companion Conrad Haraldsson.
Conrad read the headline softly aloud, to no one in particular. "Des Laboureurs Découvrent une Ange en Geneve...I don't suppose you have a clue what that means, do you?"
Conrad, for the five days since they had set out from the base at Berlin, had been speaking to Frederick in this condescending, holier-than-thou tone. He suspected it was of the fact that he was a mere German, and Conrad was from the Empire of the North.
The Northern Empire had held the world in its fist since its formation in 1066. Harold II of Angleland, overjoyed with his victory over William the Bastard, a minor Norman lord, had invaded Normandy and proclaimed his right to the throne of Denmark through his Viking mother. The Empire gradually gained pieces of Sveden, Norway, Friesland and the eastern Baltic, eventually
drawing Germany and Russia into its sphere of influence.
"No, I don't," Frederick replied, slightly annoyed at Conrad's callousness.
"It says that some workers discovered an angel in Geneva," Conrad said with a smile. "Quite a controversial headline, no? But then, the 21st century even now in its early years has seen a great deal of controversy. This mission won't exactly bring people together...will it?" he addressed softly to the young woman sitting beside him.
Frederick was unsure of who she was, but her extraordinarily green eyes and strange, effervescent hair made her seem almost like an angel herself. Her hair was at first glance blonde, but when studied seemed to be a silver-white.
"What's her name?"
"None that was given to me," Conrad replied brusquely. "She's just a tjener."
Frederick winced. A tjener was a class in North society even lower than slave. They were cannon fodder for Emperor Eirik VII Bloodaxe (of the semi-Irish house of Dublinia) and were servants in the halls of the Norse lords and thanes. Often they were given no name; even more often they had a device inserted into their ear that jacked into their brain and made them follow all orders given them. She seemed to be looking into Conrad's face, but when he moved her eyes didn't follow; they were blank and half-closed.
"It's ten o'clock," Frederick remarked. "We should go."
Conrad folded his paper and left it on his velvet seat. The oak-paneled lobby was host to many different peoples, some checking into the inn and others just relaxing. A family from the countryside was here in the city, as well as Italian and German tourists. In one corner a group of Africs from the southern lands was conversing amongst themselves. Conrad, Frederick and the female tjener were clustered around an inconspicuous table near the doorway, right next to the ornately carved window frames and the marble stair leading up to the hotel's rooms.
Conrad surreptitiously checked that the knives and pistol beneath his green cloak were there, and Frederick hastily felt his belt for his sword. Turning to the tjener, Conrad said, "Come. We go to the site."
As if woken from a dream, life flooded into her pale eyes and she walked slowly behind Conrad as he bustled past the crowd. Frederick walked behind.
It was the thirty-first of March, and High Street was decorated with spring flowers hanging from the lampposts. These had been met with some dismay from the populace; they seemed a bit ironic in the cold weather. The trio walked past couples arm in arm plodding through the snowy streets, and past the motorcars that the rich and wealthy used to move through the city.
The hotel was on Le Place Saint-Jèrôme, the main market center of Geneva, where in the summertime the Fontaine des Chiens was used to spray water all down the cobbled streets for the young children of Geneva to play in. Further north of the square was Lake Leman, where barges sailed downriver to Lyons and even longer down the Rhône to the Mediterranean, where they bought and sold Swiss and French goods all over north Africa and Italy.
It took ten minutes of walking through the blizzard to reach the site. A building had been being knocked down when, apparently, a mummified body was found, a body of the greatest controversy due to the fact that it was perfectly preserved and, strangest of all, seemed to have wings. The construction site was in the form of a gap between an apartment complex and an office building, a tarpaulin stretched overhead from the adjacent roofs. Below, the workers had some respite from the snow and elements, protected by stone walls on three sides and by a fifty-foot high canopy above.
They entered into the shelter from the street only to find three Swiss guards standing on the brink of a twenty-foot deep crater: the excavation site. Two had rifles, but one had a long sword, drawn and at the ready. Standing slightly behind his two companions, he nodded slightly as Conrad, Frederick and the tjener entered.
"Halt," whispered Conrad, and the tjener immediately stopped, and the lifeless reverie reassumed her spirit. They stood at the brink of an abyss, and the ground six feet before them dropped away into the darkness of the former building's foundations.
"I'm sorry, sirs," said one guard in broken Latin, the universal lingua franca of Europe. "Apologo tibi. The site is closed off to all civilians. Military or scientific personnel only."
Conrad smiled, showing all his teeth, then winked; at that signal the third Swiss guard raised his sword and drove it between the other guard's shoulder blades. He pulled it out with haste, and silently dispatched the other. They fell heavily to the muddy ground, and their blood ran down into crater, mixing with sewer water.
"Good, Wilhelm," said Conrad.
"I hope you have the money," said the guard, drying the blood from his sword. "They'll be after my head."
"All in due time. Where is this angel?"
"Come with me," Wilhelm said, beckoning with his hands and walking sideways down into the crater. There was no real path, so much care was in order.
"Follow him," Conrad instructed the tjener, and she walked somewhat robotically down the slope, followed by Frederick and Conrad.
Frederick was astounded; he knew there was an agent in Geneva, but he hadn't realized that murder would be part of the plans. Two men lay dead on the ground, bleeding heavily, their major nerves severed. His mind turning to his own wife and child back at home, he wondered if these young guards would be leaving someone behind.
"Frederick!" snapped Conrad. "Get down here!"
At the nadir of the pit, which stretched down deep into the earthy soil under Geneva, was the upper torso of what looked like a young man. His hair was short and blond, and he had a pale complexion. Though evidently dead, his eyes weren't glazed but deep and richly colored. He was naked, and beneath his body lay folded two great wings, silver and feathered. His lower half was buried in the wall of the crater, and his skin was coated in dirt and the city's underground filth.
"Good Lord," said Frederick in amaze. "The wingspan must be fifteen feet at least,"
"Do you know what the Vatican says about this?" asked Wilhelm, nudging the angel's head with his shoe. Frederick felt a flutter of silent guilt over his chest, but it passed, giving way to a sense of duty.
"What they always say," laughed Conrad. "No comment! I mean," he continued. "This must be the greatest week in the history of the world since Creation! Imagine, another humanoid species, an angel! Right here in an urban city!"
"Bullshit. Angel indeed, I suspect it's a practical joke. Some petrified corpse with sewn-on feathers."
Conrad stopped. Something had happened that surprised him almost more than a discovery of this magnitude. The tjener had knelt down to the angel's side and was stroking its soft, curly hair and whispering something. In the musty darkness of the pit, a strange foreboding fell over Frederick's heart.
"I thought they only move when you give them orders..." asked Wilhelm shakily.
"Shut up!" hissed Conrad. "The neurosis probe must be malfunctioning."
Undaunted by Conrad's shock and anger (two of his emotions that didn't bode well when combined) Frederick knelt also down on the dirt next to the tjener and asked quietly, "What are you saying?"
She turned and made true eye contact with Frederick and her lips moved silently.
"What?"
"Alexander," she whispered in a melodious and enchanting voice that made Frederick
tremble. With that, she laid a palm on the angel's smooth chest and in that deathly quiet space underneath the tarpaulin and within the crater's walls, the angel's chest rose and fell and his eyelids opened and closed a few times.
* * *
"Lord, the bodies..."
"Cut to ribbons, lying around the crater. Three Swiss Guards, two of which with sword wounds, and the other one looks like he was incinerated. The two unidentified men are missing their heads," the sergeant replied.
"I wonder if the rumors were true."
"What, you think some being from the sky killed these men? Just file the report and be done with it. The two unidentified men were seen previously with a young lady. Be on the lookout for her."
"Right, sergeant."
User Reviews
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-02-14 17:19:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Aztune (user info) at 2006-02-14 14:20:39 (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good start. Long, but good.
You should take a picture of yourself drunk and call it, "Axolotl: Tanked"
-----------------------
Axolotl tanked? Don't rightly get it, but i've already got an Uberdirectory pic. And Full Frontal/Retrospect finds me aesthetically deficient.
Submitted by Aztune (user info) at 2006-02-14 14:20:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good start. Long, but good.
You should take a picture of yourself drunk and call it, "Axolotl: Tanked"
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-02-14 14:08:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, I wrote this a while ago. I wasn't as good/experienced a writer, and I've revised a lot of htis in the 8 months since I posted it.
Submitted by richsghostdog (user info) at 2006-02-14 13:16:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Decent story line but hard to read in places, descriptives are sometimes too muddy/wordy making it difficult to evoke imagery. Overuse of punctuation(colons, semicolons,commas)to compensate for poor sentence structuring.
"A building had been being knocked down when, apparently, a mummified body was found, a body of the greatest controversy due to the fact that it was perfectly preserved and, strangest of all, seemed to have wings."
sug:"Rumour had it that during demolition the body of a mysterious winged creature, perfectly preserved,had been found interred in the building's foundation. "
You asked, I told....
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2005-07-31 23:28:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great opening. I'm glad I read the Encyclopedia before I started the series. I feel like I understand the whole "world" better.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2005-07-30 13:16:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.ubersite.com/m/72066
The Exodus Chronicles Encyclopedia
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-07-26 16:28:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice, NICE set up. Though I was confused with the timeline a little...clearly it's some sort of alternate Earth where the Norwegians rule us all, but I would have liked to have seen some sort of explanation as to why they're carrying swords. And why carry swords if pistols are available?
Maybe this will be answered for me in subsequent posts. I'll check them out.
Submitted by doctorj24 (user info) at 2005-06-30 11:26:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oohh, oh! YUMMY!
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-06-29 21:51:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah...this is good 'stuff'.
By the way, I like your user name.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-06-28 10:41:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-06-27 17:22:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-06-27 08:24:32 (#)
Ranking: 2
alternate history-based present-day science fiction?
auto +2
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2005-06-27 08:41:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Please don't tell me this is a tribute to http://www.ubersite.com/u/exodus
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-06-27 08:24:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
alternate history-based present-day science fiction?
auto +2
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-06-26 19:06:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is cool. Continue, please.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-06-26 04:17:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by the_sociopath (user info) at 2005-06-25 23:13:47 (#)
Ranking: 0
Be careful! Don't put too much work into Uber posts. Most people will either ignore you or send a "WTF? I'M NOT READING ALL THAT" -2 your way.
Nice effort, though, Jeeves.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2005-06-26 00:44:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
as the vatican would say:
No Comment.
Submitted by the_sociopath (user info) at 2005-06-25 23:13:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Be careful! Don't put too much work into Uber posts. Most people will either ignore you or send a "WTF? I'M NOT READING ALL THAT" -2 your way.
Nice effort, though, Jeeves.
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2005-06-25 21:42:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Now, I'm not one for all that fancy book learnin', but I think "prolouge" means that there will be more, and thats a good thing.