Mahryn Chronicles (eBook)

Adira

J Harold Williams (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
244 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8988-5 (ISBN)

Infos

This enthralling dystopian journey follows the life and heroic struggles of Adira as she grows and transforms from a fearful, traumatized, innocent Mahryn girl into a ferocious, defiant force. At times edgy and uncompromising, the story of Adira rages in its righteous struggle against the evils of despotic authoritarianism and the moral right to be free.

A gratefully contented husband and proud father, J. Harold Williams lives in Massachusetts where he enjoys daybreak sips of coffee, long walks with his wife, and doting on his two gloriously inspiring granddaughters. Retired from careers as a nurse anesthetist and ventures in the world of business, J. Harold let go his stethoscope and spreadsheets to find enrichment in the joy of penning high fantasy novels. 'The Mahryn Chronicles: Adira' is J. Harold's debut novel.

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Never again. Adira had made her choice. She had awakened. Never again would she bow her head and meekly accept the cruelty and exploitation that had been so callously thrust upon her. No matter what the cost. This enthralling dystopian journey follows the life and heroic struggles of Adira as she grows and transforms from a fearful, traumatized, innocent Mahryn girl into a ferocious, defiant force. From the time she came of age, she was missioned into servitude as a Domestic Comfort slave for the powerful Wasak. Now, she has become a force that would rock the very foundation of her tormentors' world. At times edgy and uncompromising, the story of Adira rages in its righteous struggle against the evils of despotic authoritarianism and the moral right to be free.

Textauszug

3

Baqara

Year of Sultani Rule 111

Too anxious and preoccupied to eat, Adira had yet to start the meager meal Sadiq had prepared for them when she heard the commotion mounting at the doorway. The rising timbre intensified and swelled flowing quickly throughout the resonating hut, heralding the beginning of the ceremony she had been waiting for and dreading. As if choreographed by a shared understanding, every eye old enough to grasp the consequence of what was to come followed Adira’s apprehensive gaze toward the entrance. Baqara, the region’s Mahryn boss, had arrived.

As the most senior of the hovel’s two elders, Eajuz bore the responsibility of greeting Baqara on behalf of the shelter’s uneasy young boarders. The state owned all structures in the barrio, and dwellers occupied the housings only by the government’s largesse.

“Welcome and admiration, most venerable leader. Thank you for honoring our most humble abode with your esteemed presence. Our hearts brim with grateful pride.”

Gaunt and frail, with sparse, stringy dangling gray hair, Eajuz had beaten the odds and managed to endure late into her forties by bestowing unto the rulers what was expected, what was demanded. Bent nearly double by the degenerative pain and stiffness brought on by a lifetime of unbroken toil, Eajuz somehow managed to kowtow and bend even further, touching her forehead down upon the earthen floor in a well-practiced and oft repeated gesture of total subservience and submission. The boss was not a person to be trifled with, and Eajuz was shrewd enough to know how to elude the boss’s annoyance, or much worse, his vengeance.

Baqara recognized and valued the homage Eajuz paid him as she groveled prostrate at his feet. The aged female would not have survived as long as she had without employing this cunning and without forsaking any residue of honor she might once have possessed. Her behavior did not irk or disgust Baqara; in truth, he was pleased. Every breathing creature possessed the innate primal urge to continue living. Baqara understood this and exploited the stark truth for his own ends. He did not mind tolerating Eajuz’s deferential routine, even though it was so obviously stained with her own self-interest for survival. To Baqara, it was simply the opening act of a familiar drama. A passion play Baqara had been the leading actor in so many times before. Eajuz’s performance was merely the introductory scene in his visit to this hovel tonight, helping to establish the intimidating backdrop of fear and obedience he desired and needed. These were emotions Baqara knew how to intensify and exploit for his own ends.

Laying his hand upon Eajuz’s unwashed head, Baqara suppressed his reflexive desire to recoil and pull back his appendage from her overwhelming greasy filth. The show must go on, he prodded himself. Looking down at the elder, but speaking to the intended broader audience of the overcrowded shack’s developing captives, Baqara spoke with a practiced, affected inflection of caring that belied his disgust and impatience. He harbored no affection for the riffraff before him, and he was impatient for tonight’s ritual task to be hurried along and finished.

“Rise up Mother,” he said with false compassion.

Extending both arms outward in a benevolent spiritual-like gesture of embrace, Baqara reached down and accepted Eajuz’s bony, disfigured hands tenderly into his plump, well-nourished ones, and helped raise her gently to her feet. Continuing to speak in a soft voice, but loud enough for everyone in the collective to hear, Baqara engaged with Eajuz, feigning warmth and concern.

“Tell me about your children, Mother.”

His skillful voice, radiating outwards with contrived sympathy, enveloped the gathering with a convincingly genuine sincerity that further helped facilitate the fraudulent scam the boss was conning the onlookers with tonight.

Eajuz delighted in the opportunity to tout her achievements and display her wares to the boss, an occasion to emphasize her continued importance.

“Thank you, my leader,” she said. “Your interest and concern for our community is most welcomed and well received. If it pleases Your Grace, and for the benefit of our benevolent state, I am gratified to report that our community boasts thirteen infants, still dependent on this mother’s care and feeding; nine middlings, all striving to learn our ways and prepare for their missions; and five olders, nearing their Mission Day. One mature female older, Adira, for whom you honor us with your presence here tonight, will receive her mission from you this very evening. Praise be the Sultani state and may health and glory continue to rain upon you, our beloved boss, and on our magnificent Wasak masters.”

Carefully concealing his disinterest behind a facade of grateful appreciation, Baqara endured the mother’s prattling with a hidden aloof disinterest. How often before had he heard these same tiresome tributes? These identical monotonous and dreary dronings. Smiling mechanically at Eajuz so as to maintain the pretense of attentiveness, Baqara allowed his thoughts to drift far afield. He fell to contemplating this repeated cycle of Mahryn existence and his perceived self-important role in it.

Void of any manner of rigorous and truthful introspection whatsoever, the boss’s musings were narcissistically self-deceiving. Having obtained a position of inordinate wealth and privilege for his kind, the boss deluded himself into believing he rightfully deserved the immense comfort and prosperity he enjoyed. He held to this deceitful lie even in the face of the persistent abject poverty that surrounded him and the numerous untimely deaths inflicted on the Mahryn children every day. Who else, he misled himself into believing, could manage such demanding responsibilities for keeping the established process of succession operating with such orderly efficiency? I keep more people alive, he fooled himself into believing, than would otherwise have survived without my leadership. Certain of this heartless, self-fabricated conviction, Baqara suffered no guilt, he harbored no shame, he felt no sense of responsibility for his part in the Mahryn’s immeasurable suffering. The boss’s superego inhabited a grandiose fabricated world, a blind of ultimate denial and self-absolution.

Lacking honest insight, Baqara puffed up the importance of the role he would play in this hovel tonight. Such tasks were vital, he thought, for continuing the imperative cycle of worker replenishment in our society. He knew the process well. Guided by an “inventory of needs” list provided by the state, all regional bosses were required to assign elder Mahryn children to their life’s “mission” on the week prior to achieving their twelfth birthday. Once assigned their mission, the Mahryn children, now deemed to be of working age by the Wasak, would be posted away to one of the multitude of compulsory labor sites in need of workers. In a seemingly uncharacteristic gesture of Wasak thoughtfulness, the newly posted workers were granted a week’s time to prepare for the transition and say their goodbyes. In actuality, the pause was merely a logistical interlude, providing bosses the time they needed to arrange for transport.

Once shipped, from that fateful date forward, the lives of Mahryn workers would descend into an even deeper hell. Every day, from long before dawn until famished and exhausted far beyond sunset, workers would shoulder a heavy yoke of unrelenting drudgery. Ultimately, the Mahryn workers, with the exception of a scant few older females reassigned back to the barrio of their youth as ‘mothers’, would either take their own lives out of despair and desperation; or they would simply die prematurely, succumbing to the unbearably harsh conditions and never-ending exhausting toils.

Miraculously, even under such horrifying conditions, Mahryn life did nonetheless renew. Despite all odds, closeness and affection still occasionally kindled and were ultimately consummated in sensual, devoted love. Sometimes casual liaisons would find temporary solace and release in each other’s arms, sharing a fleeting occasion of closeness and intimacy. At other times, more impulsive unions would occur driven solely by a dispassionate but profound inherent biologic compulsion to couple and procreate. Irrespective of the impetus or the impulse, resulting Mahryn children would still be conceived and be born.

This natural inherent urge to pair and reproduce suited the Wasak overlords just fine. Newborns were welcome, a necessary asset for the Wasak. Although many Mahryn females died alone and unaided in childbirth, perishing from what could have been treatable complications, the indifferent Wasak didn’t care. It was simply chalked up to a tolerable loss. Unavoidable shrinkage they were willing to absorb in order to continue the flow of future workers into the system. Besides, it was generally accepted that within the more physical missions, Mahryn females delivered less work product than their male counterparts, thus diminishing the impact of the spoilage loss. Dead females during childbirth were just an unlucky, but routine, price that had to be paid in order to spawn the new workers that were indispensable for maintaining the way of life the Wasak had grown accustomed to. Grist for the mill.

Once born, in what...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.2.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8988-5 / 9798350989885