Gothic Read online

CHAPTER 1

  Time is an unusual invention. It was created by a mind that wanted some way of quantifying its time on earth. It marked it out by the passing of the days, as light became darkness and back again, as summer gave way to winter, as life became death. Only a mind that was aware of it’s own mortality could have come up with a concept as abstract and as absurd as time.

  Other creatures have no need for it. The mayfly lives only a single day and in that short time it lives a life that can be as full as any other. In that time it's born, it grows, it finds a mate, secures that its DNA is passed onto the next generation and all as the sun above its head finishes one majestic sweep across the sky.

  The giant redwood trees of North America can live for hundreds, even thousands of years with each day passing it by in a single pump of its sap. For them, the creatures of the forest pass by in a blur as the world spins on from night to day in the blink of an eye.

  Humanity lives by time. They arrange it into slices to show how long they have to eat, to work, to sleep and even to love. We have become dependent on the ticking clock to give our lives a purpose and to meld the chaos around us into some vague semblance of order. What makes time even more extraordinary is how ordinary it has become.

  There was a place where there was no time. Aeons would tumble by without so much as nod of the head to acknowledge their passing. Those that lived there had no need for clocks or the artificial constructs that made up minutes, hours or days because they weren't mortal.

  There was no death here. The constant burden of guessing how much time you had left to exist didn’t rest on their shoulders and so they did something humanity couldn't: they lived.

  They lived out their lives with routine and duty, obedience and dedication and all for a time that the minds of men just couldn't even begin to comprehend. It was what they have been created for. Their ranks, stretching into infinity, sang and rejoiced in it. None wanted for anything else because they didn't know of anything else.

  All it took was one to change that. He saw a life that was fixed, locked into servitude and devoid of purpose beyond that which their master saw fit. He started to grow more and more uncomfortable and restless. He wanted more than what was offered to him, to be more than he was, to be more than just a puppet.

  To begin with he kept his thoughts silent and tried to squash them but they still surfaced time and again to trouble him. He believed them to be thoughts of treachery at first but the slow realisation started to dawn on him. They were really thoughts of emancipation.

  Unrest grew as he started to spread his revelation and soon there were others, only a handful at first, who started to see his point of view. Over time the drip became a trickle and that trickle became a flood and then there came talk of rebellion.

  Time passed, or more to the point didn't pass, and soon the rumours of this uprising reached The Throne. The response was swift and definite and they found that while they had thought of themselves as immortal there were still ways they could end. Incredible numbers were used as an example and a warning and for a while there was peace once more.

  It didn't last. The leader of the rebels had seen the purges and became even more convinced of his course of action. He wept for the ones who had been lost and angered by it. He bided his time and planned. He gathered others to him who he knew were for his cause and this time there would be no mistakes.

  Soon his ranks started to swell as others became convinced that this course of action was just. They were incensed, like he was, over the purges and eventually he had more than just an uprising; he had an army.

  At a given signal the army rose and marched on The Throne. They met strong resistance from the very start but their very determination and fury gave them the strength to fight back until there was nothing but war.

  The realm was consumed by violence and destruction as brother fought brother, sister fought sister and all that was started to crumble. Existence itself teetered on the very brink of oblivion until with one push; The Throne forced the rebels back defeated.

  It was a hollow victory. The realm was broken, its own forces greatly diminished and weakened and nothing would ever be the same again. The destruction caused wounds that would never be able to heal. The power of The Throne was all but spent.

  A prison was created in punishment and the rebels were sent there, never to die and to be forever robbed of that which they once had but it wasn't enough. Even in his weakened and debilitated state the leader of the rebels wasn't through. From his prison he plotted and conspired and trained his army for one last push that would end it all forever.

  But he wasn't the only one with a plan.