Fall of Mu (eBook)

Galactic Pact Book 1

R. Halderman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
428 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9780997911916 (ISBN)

Infos

The Fall of Mu is the captivating first book of the Galactic Pact series. This multi-generational epic blends science fiction and historical fiction to transport you to a pre-historic era where humanity built an interstellar empire. With vivid scenes, rich characters, and chapters that defy expectations, this book takes you on an exciting journey across the stars. Michael is sixteen when his homeland is destroyed in a nuclear attack, his parents are murdered, and he is the one responsible for ensuring his people's survival. Throughout Michael's struggles with alien overlords, apathetic allies and godlike creatures, we follow him as he discovers what it takes to lead in a dystopian universe and how hard it can be to cling onto hope in times of despair. But this is only the beginning!From shocking twists and turns to unresolved conflicts, The Fall of Mu starts off a series with interactions between good and evil on an intergalactic scale. Join Michael on his quest to save his people from tyranny and experience a new flavor of story-telling with this intriguing blend of science fiction and historical fiction literature! Pick up The Fall of Mu today - part one in an alluring new series that will have you asking for more!

Textauszug

CHAPTER TWO

A VISION OF
CRIMSON FIRE

GABRIEL FLOYD, the last Guardian of Mu, slept restlessly next to his wife. Dreams of crimson fire disturbed him. As dawn broke through the bedroom window, he awoke exhausted and covered in sweat. He removed his blanket to cool his long and muscular body and turned away from his wife. He closed his weary eyes and offered a silent prayer. Please, someone. Show me how I can stop the flames.

Darkness turned to light. He was standing in a dry and lifeless valley lined with sandy hills. The valley extended from mountains on his left to an ocean on his right. He looked up. The sun was orange and larger than it should have been. The sky was yellow with a hint of green at the horizon.

All was still until vines erupted from the parched ground around his feet. He jumped back and watched the vine spread across the valley in a matrix of crisscrossing lines. The vine completed its chessboard patterning of the valley and the hills. A gentle wind blew in from the west bringing with it a light, floral scent. He bent over and touched the stems of the vine and its heart-shaped leaves. It wasn’t the metallic vine he knew from the temple. It didn’t hum at his touch and its surface was as slippery as wet ice. But most of all, it wasn’t blue. This vine was green like the vines that grew in the forest outside the golden gates of his city.

The sun moved across the sky and disappeared behind the mountains. Stars appeared, moved across the sky, and were obscured by the rays of the returning sun. The cycle between light and dark continued and sped up until it was stroboscopic. Rain fell. The ground turned to mud, and the mountains became capped with snow. The vine used its leaves to till the ground. Two streams of water from the base of the mountains flowed past him and merged to form a river that flowed into an ocean.

Stalks rose from the intersecting points of the vine’s grid and produced buds of green and brown. The buds blossomed with white flowers that filled the air with an overpowering smell of gladiolus. The white blooms spewed seed and spores and returned to the earth. The vine dug into the ground and vanished. Fungi and grass grew followed by trees that towered over him.

The stroboscopic effect of the quickly passing sun and stars stopped. Gabriel looked down and could see crawling insects that moved in the grass and ate the fungi. Gabriel looked up. The sun hung at midday and illuminated the forest that had grown around him. Winged insects appeared and hid in the vegetation as twelve little people appeared from behind the trees. They were half his height, wore stone-pendant necklaces, and reminded him of the dwarfs from the ancient tales of his ancestors.

One of them came close to Gabriel and said, “We love you. Avoid amazement. Pay attention.”

“Who are you?” Gabriel asked.

“Your kind once called us the Crewyr, but we prefer a different name. We are makers of worlds and life,” the dwarf answered.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel said.

The dwarf smiled and said, “A little of this and a little of that. It all adds up. It delights us to prepare this place to receive your people.”

Gabriel said, “Why is the vine green and not blue?”

“This vine is different,” the dwarf said. “We’ve learned much and so has she. She is alive, a being of Maker and man! With this vine, we’ve fashioned many worlds for your kind. Soon she’ll have a voice familiar to you.”

Gabriel said, “You say you’ve prepared this place to receive my people. Why would they want to come here?”

The dwarf raised his right hand, so his palm faced Gabriel. “We love you,” he said and waved his raised hand. “Look at this.”

Gabriel watched as the forest transformed into a gloomy, red-lit chamber filled with monsters and men. Some of the men wore red, hooded robes and others white coats. A monster fell from a tilted table of metal and roared. The other monsters in the room responded in kind. As the chamber shook from their roars, he returned to the forest with dwarfs.

Gabriel was fearful of what he saw. “I don’t understand,” he said to the dwarf before him.

The dwarf repeated, “We love you. Look at this.”

The dwarf raised and waved his left hand. The landscape was replaced by chaos. A crimson flame burned his city’s temple and the blue vine that covered it turned to dust. Inside the temple, people screamed as they burned.

The chaos left. He was back in the forest with the dwarfs. Tears streamed from his eyes. He stared at the dwarf and said, “If you love me, why show me such things?”

The dwarf lowered his hands and said, “You can’t stop this, and our direct intervention would make things worse. Return to your kind. Save all that you can.”

The twelve dwarfs turned around and started walking into the forest.

Gabriel yelled, “Wait! I don’t understand.”

The nearest dwarf stopped, turned around, and said, “You will. Save all that you can.” He then spread his arms wide and said, “This place has been prepared for your people. We’ll help them for a time until another comes that’s worthy to wield our tek. He’ll show your people how to be keepers of their liberties. Then one from your line that knows the secrets of the vines will make the way everlasting.”

The dwarf turned around and walked into the forest.

“Wait!” Gabriel yelled.

White light blotted out his vision.

“Wait!” he yelled again.

“Wait for what?” a familiar voice said.

Gabriel opened his eyes. His wife’s smiling face was above him. She leaned over him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve dallied too long, my lion,” she said softly and stood straight. “It’s midmorning, Guardian.”

Gabriel sat up in the bed and placed his feet on the floor. He examined his right wrist. He had forgotten to remove his bangle before going to sleep. He touched the large bluestone embedded in the metal of the bracelet. Was this the source of my dreams?

He inspected his wife. She was dressed in warm colors and held a basket. Her eyes were jade green. Her skin and hair were golden from walks in the woods outside the city where she gathered medicinals to create elixirs for those that came for healing. He watched her pick up a teacup off the floor that had a tincture she had given him last night to help him sleep. She put her hands on her hips and said, “Well?”

“Sweet Azrael, love of my life,” he said with a grin. “Who wants to be a Guardian when they have a wife as beautiful as you? I’d rather you join me in the bed.”

Azrael pointed a finger at him and said, “If you don’t go to the temple, I’ll have fish hat priests at my door to cull. I don’t have time to hear them cry. I must go to the woods to retrieve herbs and fungi.”

Gabriel rubbed his eyes, put his hands on his knees, and said, “Rhyming already?”

Azrael returned her hands to her hips and remained silent.

A young man of sixteen years entered the bedroom. He wore a green tunic that stopped at his knees and a wide belt that held weapons that every defender makes for their training: a short sword and a kinetic sidearm. “I’m ready, father,” he announced.

Gabriel admired his son. He was tall and strong like he was at his age. Though only sixteen, Michael had a thin beard of red hair like himself. The hair on his head, however, was not brown like his. It was golden blond like his mother’s. His gunmetal blue eyes, a rarity amongst their people, radiated a sense of gentleness. His eyes will one day be green like ours when he takes the elixir from the vine.

Gabriel remembered the words of the dwarf in his dream. “Save all that you can,” he mumbled.

“What, father?”

“Something I heard in a dream.”

Michael stared at the Guardian’s stone on his father’s bangle and said, “Was it a vision?”

“I think so,” Gabriel said as he stood up and hastily put on clothes. He embraced his wife and kissed her. They parted and he said to his son, “Let’s go. You’re overdue at the gymnasium and I have a vision for the priests.”

Michael complained, “Today I study Lantaan. Why do I study them?”

Gabriel responded, “If you know the enemy and yourself, you needn’t fear the result of battle.”

Michael absorbed this silently and wondered at the words.

Azrael came over to her son, kissed him on the forehead, looked into his eyes, and said, “Beloved. Pay attention today and focus on the way.”

Michael blushed, went over to stand next to his father, and said, “Mother. I can rhyme too. To my oath, I’ll always be true.”

Azrael observed them together and heard Gabriel’s voice in her head. He’ll be a fine Guardian.

Azrael stared at her husband and sent words to him. I feel your concern for your vision, between us, there...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.1.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780997911916 / 9780997911916