Quest for Knowledge (Volume 1 of the FirstWorld Saga) - Christopher Jackson-Ash (black female authors .txt) 📗

Quest for Knowledge

Being

Volume 1 of the FirstWorld Saga

by

Christopher Jackson-Ash

ISBN 978-0-9873300-5-5

Published by Christopher John Allen

Copyright 2013, 2014 CJA

For further information on the FirstWorld multiverse including free downloads please visit www.FirstWorld.info

The FirstWorld Saga - Quest for Knowledge

Volume 1 of the FirstWorld Saga

Acknowledgements

Foreword

BOOK 1 The Search for a Legend

BOOK 2 A Test of Courage

BOOK 3 Back to the Beginning

BOOK 4 The Sundering

Afterword

FirstWorld Time Line

To follow

Volume 2 Aftermath of Armageddon

Volume 3 A View of the Past

Volume 4 A Vision of the Future

For further information on the FirstWorld multiverse including free downloads please visit www.FirstWorld.info

Acknowledgements

Fictional universes or multiverses have long offered alternative realities that may seem preferable to our own lives. Growing up, I escaped from a troubled childhood into J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnificent creation of Middle Earth and was inspired by Elves, Dwarves, and Wizards. Later, I discovered the Sword and Sorcery of writers like Michael Moorcock. Moorcock wrote about the various manifestations of the Eternal Champion and his companion roving the Multiverse in an endless battle between Law and Chaos. I was always intrigued by the possibility of time travel and the paradoxes that it threw up. Many writers, from H.G. Wells forward have explored these and I have enjoyed them all.

It was always my hope that one day I could create my own multiverse to escape into and I have done so in FirstWorld. If you perceive echoes of Tolkien or Moorcock in my work, you are correct. They were my inspiration and I thank them and honour them. You’ll find others there too, from Arthurian legend through T.S. Eliot to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. My multiverse is big enough to contain them all. Is it infinite? That’s the $64,000 question.

Foreword

The device on the table looked for all the world like a soothsayer’s crystal ball. The cloaked old man with flowing white hair and matching beard would have looked like everyone’s favourite soothsayer were it not for his eyes. Coal black pupils floated in a sea of blood. They were locked in an unblinking stare into the heart of the ball. His hands were fixed on either side of the object, as if they were glued there. The veins in his neck pulsed in purple profusion and his brow was creased in fierce concentration.

Whether he heard the communication via his ears or whether it was spoken directly into his mind, he didn’t know. The voice boomed and resonated in his skull. It was deep and old and seemed to carry an authority and purpose that sapped his will to gainsay it.

“Somewhere in the multiverse, a child has been born. I can feel him everywhere, but I cannot locate him. He has been born in many dimensions but only one of him will rise to challenge me. He will appear to be weak but he will be able to wield the Sword. He is Gilgamesh reborn.” It sounded like he spat at the name of the ancient Hero. “Like the one who came before, he cannot destroy me but the Sword can inflict terrible wounds. I would not like to feel it again.”

The listener felt incredible pain as if his head were going to explode. He would have removed his hands from the ball, but he had no will of his own left.

“You must find him and destroy him. Our enemies will seek him too. They would have him become their Hero. The Sword has been lost for many ages. Seek it out and you will be handsomely rewarded. Fail me and I will destroy you.”

The old man was flung backwards from the ball, blue flashes of electricity jolting from his hands to the crystal. He finished up in a crumpled heap on the floor. He took his time to stand and brush himself down. He covered the strange device with a black cloth and let out a deep breath.

“I will serve you as long as it suits my plans. Elannort though, will be all mine.” He let out a low growl, which sounded more like a dog than a man.

Map of Central FirstWorld

Please visit http://firstworld.info/firstworld-and-the-multiverse/firstworld-maps/ for a free PDF copy of the FirstWorld map.

Book 1 The Search for a Legend

In which Simon Redhead discovers some strange facts about himself and the history of FirstWorld.

“When the two who are one

Return to the sun

When the flame-haired child

Is first become

While the guardians sleep

Humankind will weep.”

Ancient Prophecy

Revelation

Melbourne, Republic of Australasia

5th February 2043

At first light, the Jihad armies of Islam swept across the southern borders of Europe and Central Asia. Italy, Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan bore the brunt of the first attacks. Within hours, thousands of square miles of territory were in enemy hands.

Simon Redhead stumbled out of bed, oblivious to the world's impending doom, and observed himself in the bathroom mirror. Not a pretty sight, he thought. Pale green eyes stared back at him from a drawn and puffy face that showed all the symptoms of lack of sleep. I must get a haircut. His orange shoulder length hair hung in long, lank strands, in desperate need of a wash.

His thoughts returned, as they often did, to the childhood taunts and the way his ‘mother’ would soothe his anguish. She was all he had had in the world. His stepfather, or rather his mother's husband, had run off with a ballet teacher when he was six. Simon couldn't remember much about him, and didn't want to. The bastard!

Simon emphasised his thoughts with an open handed smack that shook the mirror. The outburst released some of his pent up anger, but it did nothing for his frustration. He ached for love and companionship. Not for the first time recently, he decided to give the first lecture a miss, and went back to bed. He let his mind wander through a favourite fantasy, involving a fellow student in his class. The feel of Julia’s soft body in his arms; the smell of her perfume; the taste of her kisses; finally exploring a woman’s body. He was just reaching the part where he removed her panties, when his body beat his mind to the finish. The physical relief eased the ache in his body, but did little for the anguish in his heart. Damn, wish I could last longer. How will I ever satisfy a woman? I may never get the chance to try.

In his melancholy, his thoughts returned to the funeral just three years before and the two strangers who had haunted his dreams ever since.

****

Simon Redhead slumped on his bed, crumpling his newly pressed best suit, his only suit. He tried to distract himself by listening to the modern history module he had received on his E-Pod. It played on the view screen that made up one entire wall of his room, but he closed his eyes and let the words wash over him. He should really concentrate, because he had to pass the general part of his degree before he could begin to study his chosen subject, medicine. The speaker droned on and Simon’s thoughts continued to wander. Some people now had their E-Pods implanted in their bodies, so they would never leave home without them. You couldn’t exist in society without your E-Pod. You couldn’t even take a train or buy a simuburger, so it made sense. Simon wondered whether he should have it done. Some words in the monologue from the screen snapped Simon back to attention.

“The decade was given the name the terrible teens. It began with the great global depression that lasted until 2017, which threw millions of people worldwide into unemployment and poverty. In module seventeen, we will study the causes of the depression. Its results however are considered by many to have saved humankind from extinction. The climate change tipping point had almost been reached. The balance almost tipped into total chaos.”

The words made Simon shudder. His dreams flashed vividly into his mind. He had been having the dreams as long as he could remember. As a small child, his mother had taken him to see a psychiatrist, so worried had she been about his nightmares. Despite all of his probing, the doctor had been unable to find the underlying cause of the problem. Eventually, Simon had managed to control his fear. The dreams had never gone away, though he had led his mother to believe they no longer troubled him.

Simon sobbed and wiped a tear from his cheek. Despite her not being his real mother, she had loved him as if he were her own flesh and blood. The last few months of her suffering had been terrible. It had reinforced his desire to study medicine and to make a difference. In the end, despite the black void it had left in his guts, he felt it was a blessing that she had taken the euthanasia option and ended her agony.

“Australia was badly affected by climate change. Drought, firestorms, cyclones, and floods ravaged the continent. Another type of flood, refugees from the now submerged Pacific Islands and Bangladesh, threatened to overwhelm society. It was only with the election of the first Green government in 2022 that a political solution to the problems facing the country was finally grasped. Along with like-minded governments in the rest of the developed world, they finally provided the leadership necessary to make people realise that their materialistic life-style was unsustainable. They led society to find a new balance.”

There was that word again. The one that he heard repeatedly in his dreams: balance. Except that in his dreams, it somehow had more importance. It was The Balance. Simon didn’t like to think of himself as a wimp, but there was no doubt he was a quiet and gentle character. As a small boy, he remembered breaking down in inconsolable grief when he had found a dead bird on the side of the road. When his school friends captured flies and removed their wings, he would cringe and look away, riven with horror.

Yet in his dreams, Simon killed; not birds and flies but people. Hundreds of thousands of people died at his hands, so that his pale skin was stained red with their blood. The same colour as the ruby, which had been burned into his mind by the nightly visions. It called to him, promising him that he would unlock a missing part of himself if he would only come and find his true destiny. There was a sword too. It was a big jet-black broad sword and it was the cause of all the bloodshed. In reality, Simon could barely swing a golf club, even a left-handed one. In his nightmares, he wielded the black sword and scythed down his enemies as if it were second nature to him. This was the one thing that frightened him more than anything else. He so desperately wanted to take the Hippocratic Oath and do no harm, yet every night he seemed to enjoy bringing death to his seemingly innocent victims.

A knock on the door brought him back to reality. The door opened and Uncle Jack poked his head in. “It’s time to go, Simon. Are you ready?”

How can you ever be ready for your mother’s funeral? Nevertheless, he stood up, looked in the mirror and brushed down his suit. It hung off his skinny beanpole frame in ripples of black crinkles. His pale, almost white complexion matched his shirt and was a total contrast to the suit.