This preview was available at the end of the eBook version of the previous book "Gamic Throes" found for free download at www.lillith.com.au/free.html (Gamic Throes will not be available for download from there after July 15th, 2012).
Chapter One
This is my account of the Twelfth and Final Erdad War, I say, final, though it still rages around me. The city within which I write is besieged, and will doubtlessly fall, for the man opposing it knows no limits to his power. Even I cannot fathom it. But perhaps, if some are left to read these words, they may know, and may remember of the ancient power with which once we lived without fear. The First of the great wars, the Erdad Wars, was lead by the Princess Eliza, a woman who has so much power at her command, but at the very end, not enough to save her own life. She was abused, molested, and her fury grew to the point where gamic hung around her like a cloud, the life force itself sympathising with her, and she took it and forged a weapon, not so crude a construct as ice, or fire, as Rife and Sactle Eci once forged there, though those powers are fearsome in their elemental states, but she took a power even closer to the true nature of gamic, she took emotion and forged her rage and terror into Dread. She took it in its gamic form, erdad, and set out to destroy our world, still broken from the time when we all lost immortality, back when the force of gamic itself struck back in the face of its wielder and buried him, thought to be for all time. But the Erdad Muhmen, the wielders of this new weapon, grew more and more in power, and seeing what the world had become, Eliza fled into hiding. Emperor’s rose and fell, the Five Emperor’s of our little world, and then a forced peace came to us. No one could stand the slaughter, the pointless violence, anymore, and even the knowledge of the ways of gamic had been lost in our countless battles. Two Universities survived, taking in those with a spark of power, and training them to use it, until it was discovered that an Arocle, someone who could see the past and future, not dimly as an Eser could, but perfectly, in vivid form, was found. That was when we discovered the third university... And the rising of the man who called himself the Emperor Sixth.
But can I really argue that title? Can I wrest it from his grasp? He ruled his tiny little island of Nald with an iron fist, punishing the usurper’s by casting them into Lboivion, and fusing lava into their flesh as a permanent punishment, the lava did not cool, kept burning by the same gamic force that kept the bearer of that cruel mark alive. This Emperor Sixth sleeps comfortably, if he does sleep – (for who truly knows?), outside the walls of this city, knowing that he can have it if he wants it. His own mastery of gamic kept his army hidden from the rest of the world, obscured the tongue of Epsak, a language that can command gamic, hidden from us all till we could barely remember it. Only the few, the warriors who rose throughout the time of the Empire to conquer it again and again could even stand to oppose it, but what are we? Mist in times gone past.
My very name strikes fear into my allies, for I am Lacvin, Cnaient, the human who met Eht Epsaker in the mountains and was taught Epsak and became the first true master of gamic power. Yet even I cannot stand when the Emperor Sixth asks us to sit. I am a flee beating against a rabid wolf.
Do not be depressed by these words, for if you read them, then your world has not been destroyed, it lives on without the blessed pain that passes my day to day. For in my world, we have but one hope. The one calling himself the Emperor Sixth is not the one decreed to be the heir. The heir was prophesied a thousand years before, by the Emperor Fifth at his death, and now he lies somewhere between life and death. He is caught outside of time, placed inside a crystal coffin, lying deep inside a fortress forged from gamic itself by the Princess Eliza, merely hours before her death. His army, trained by the Grand Akaia himself, his own ancestor in Radk Ticy, the cursed place, stand outside, ready to fight, and ready to defend. No one can enter. Only Eliza or I can open that fortress, but I cannot go to it, not whilst the usurper stands so close, and so ready to destroy us all. And Eliza... She lies dead, buried outside the remains of Sactle Eci, where Akaia found her, his love. Though almost five thousand years separate them in age, they found each other, and peace with each other, but Eliza died burning the armies of the Emperor Sixth, stopping their crusade for one night... Akaia killed almost all that remained of his army, sucking their life force to give it to Eliza, and for a brief moment she came back, and knew that he loved her and came for her, and then she retreated back into death’s embrace. Akaia told me this himself, and since has spoken not a single word, merely aided me when required, and that is how we survived. With both our masteries united, we have taken this place, the Twice-Blind University, and cast it outside of time, so that it cannot be taken as easily as any other, but daily I feel the strain, and impossibly, I can feel the usurper battering against my defences. We have little time left.
