The Eaorl (The Casere Book 2) (12 page)

‘Truly amazing; she is as beautiful as anything I have ever seen – but does such a thing exist?’

‘It does – one just like it will arrive tomorrow – another will be ready by winter. Eggar tell me you are ready to command your own ship, and I’ll like you to get a crew of twenty of your best and brightest young men – men you think are capable of being captains and get them ready to take this ship to sea in a week.’

‘You want me to captain one of these? Surely Captain Eggar or one of your other Captains has privilege over the next ship?’

Conn shook his head. ‘It requires them to learn something new – Eggar is happy to take the next one. He recommended you for this one.’

Njil shook his head. ‘I still don’t understand why you would do such a thing – this ship is worth a fortune. I could go to Rakia and sell it for more money than I would ever need.’

‘True – but you would be deserting your people – and it is very cold in Rakia in winter. They would also not let you sail it – you would have gold but no ship of any significance – and if you did, I would hunt you down and send you to the bottom of the ocean.’

Njil thought for a moment. ‘You make some good points – particularly about the winter. I don’t like cold winters.’

Conn’s other major objective was to start exploring the mountains and coastlines of Kuita for the Cirice – and it was early autumn before he was comfortable in leaving everyone behind and go looking – just him and Derryth – and they spent three weeks riding over every valley and exploring every crevice.

After many fruitless days, Derryth suggested that it was nowhere to be found.

Conn was not so sure. ‘No – I know it is here – I’ve got a feeling. It is not in the ancient stone donjon where I thought it might be – it has been dismantled and put back together again.’

‘But we have looked everywhere.’ They were riding along the side of the mountains at the furthest tip of Kuita; to their right the snow tips mountain was started to get more snow and winter arrived.

Conn reached into his pouch and brought out a leather pouch. He opened it to reveal a bright yellow gemstone, some two inches in diameter. It was the heart-stone of Lilith. Derryth was still bemused that Conn was carrying around two heart-stones.

‘Is she telling you anything? Could she at least say “warmer”, “warmer”, “colder” or something?’

Conn laughed. ‘I don’t think she works like that. Anyway, without Folgere she is voiceless. I also got this.’ Conn folded out a piece of parchment. ‘This is a copy of something that was found in the library. It speak of the first Aebeling of Trokiak. There are just bit and pieces of information as the original documents are unreadable BUT what we can determine is that the original Trokian Aebeling was based in Kuita but was usurped by the chief of the village that we now call Trokiak. It speaks of the original Aebeling sitting by as their town disappeared under the water.’

‘Didn’t the oceans rise gradually?’

“I don’t think so – I think they rose pretty quickly – but most of that happened in the first three hundred years, and the Trokian arrived about four hundred years ago – a hundred years after the oceans had stabilized – and after the Ancuman had been expelled, and after the Mini Ice age…’

Derryth nodded. ‘The time that we call the Great Darkening?’

‘Indeed. I assume that the Trokians would have found a town left behind by the Ancuman – and in that town they would have found a deserted Cirice – also left behind by the Ancuman. They would have devoted that site to Lilith.’

All document that Conn had found that spoke of the first hundred years of settlement mentioned long winters and poor summers – many people died and the Silekians that ruled Meshech were unable to prosper and settle all of Meshech. Consequently when the Trokians and the other tribes arrived, they found plenty of places to live in deserted Ancuman settlements.

They had finally arrived at the day’s destination. They had stayed overnight in a small fishing village and one of the villages – and old fisherman – and mentioned that there was a very large lake somewhere to the north. He recalled seeing it as a kid, and with that knowledge they had headed north rather than turning around.

As they crested a mountain range they stopped their horses, and were confronted by a hug lake that was only separated from the ocean by a thin mountain range; it was an ancient but small caldera that had fed a river into the ocean. With a surface height of water some fifty yards over sea level, less than a hundred yards from the ocean itself, it was surreal.

‘This must is the lake the old man mentioned… it’s magnificent.’

Conn agreed and looked at it intently for some time. It was a very strange site; water cascaded over the huge wall of soil and rock and down into the ocean. It looked to all intents and purpose to be a dam wall. In his “old” life Conn had accumulated a number of degrees – one of which was in geology. Nothing in front of him felt right.

‘Derryth, there is also something wrong here. Tell me, if you removed that wall that has the waterfall, what would we have here in front of us?’

Derryth looked around as the rest joined them, ‘A bay I guess – a small one – but I don’t know what you mean.’ Derryth was no geologist.

‘Remember the mountain side that collapsed to close the road between Zedah and Kuita – we determined that it caused by an earthquake.’

‘I do.’

‘Well, perhaps it was another earthquake – some time before that caused the mountains here to collapse and block off the entrance to this bay.’ He pointed out the features to Derryth. ‘See those peaks there – both have been sheared off – both halves have come down and closed off the entrance in a single motion – an event so severe that the entrance to this bay was completely closed off. And with the high mountains behind and a lot of snow melt, it wouldn’t have taken long for this valley to fill with water. That is why the Troakians watched their town disappear under the water.’

‘Here? At the bottom of this lake?’ Derryth was not convinced. ‘You want me to believe that there is an ancient town under that lake.’

‘I do – they left here and moved to Kuita. The old stone castle was certainly not built by Ancuman…’

‘Twacuman you mean – the Ancuman never do anything except fight and fornicate – they have slaves for everything else.’

Conn smiled. ‘Indeed. And after the road were closed and they were usurped, everyone forgot about this.’

Derryth finally conceded. ‘What you say sounds reasonable – I’ll tell my grandchildren the story even if it isn’t true. So how are we going to find out?’

‘I don’t think you are going to like my plan.’

‘If it doesn’t involve sheep and goats, its fine with me…’

‘Well, it is going to take a lot of black power – and I hope that I don’t wipe Cyme off the map doing it.’

‘But that is all in Halani….’

‘I’ll send Eggar to Atrak – and we’ll send a pigeon to Caewyn and she can send a company of wiga to guard it as it is brought here – in fact I’ll get Eggar to take it to Cyme first.’

‘Black powder in operation … that is something I am going to want to see.’

Back in Kuita, they waited for the arrival of the Twacuman and Fiona’s two babies – making Conn’s increase in children that year to be eight – his best effort so far – Halla, Jofrid, Fiona, and Aisly all having twin daughters. As well as continuing to work on the development of Kuita, Conn spend some time over the winter to devise his plan and he made sure that the only people who understood what he was going to do would be the Twacuman and the Valkeri.

Cyme had to know because a potential tsunami was going to head their way, and on the set day, Sibbe needed to ensure that there was no one on that side of the island, just in case. Conn went and visited to explain, and with Jofrid and her babies back in Cyme, he was able to arrange things without too much discussion. Jofrid was the heir now – without Halla, she was Sibbe closest living relative. He needed their assistance in his subterfuge.

Eggar brought the components for the black power, and the squad of Twacuman, from Halani to Atrak to Cyme; they were then carried across the island to be placed on small costal traders that then carried it across to a small bay near the lake. There the Twacuman unloaded the ingredients and Conn mixed them into his black power – Conn had a ‘degree’ in Chemistry as well, and placed them into a series of caves that had been dug into and under the vast wall that held back the lake.

The day before the spring equinox was the day chosen for the event; all of Cyme had been invited to a special spring celebration while everyone else would be preparing for the festivities. Very few would be out on the ocean or unnecessarily working in the fields.

Conn took three small fishing boats with just a few Twacuman and Priecuman with him – the latter were there as witnesses to the “magic”. Beaching the boats and pulling them to safety on higher ground, Conn climbed a mountain that was positioned perfectly between the wall of the lake and the sun, and he brought out his special “Gyden” focusing instrument – a burning lens – a large specially built convex lens that would concentrate the sun’s rays onto a small area at the base of the wall. Specially designed to ignite easily, the resulting fire and small but colourful explosion would light fuses that would lead to ten specially placed piles of black powder – otherwise known as gunpowder.

The resulting explosion should cause parts of the wall to collapse, and hopefully break the integrity of the wall to the extent that the massive weight of water behind it would break through and carry it all away – in a tidal wave of water thirty yards wide and thirty yards high.

Conn was safe where he stood – the water was rushing out towards the open sea or the island of Cyme. As for it working… all he could do was hope; he suspected that the sudden large amount of soil that had been placed there – and the slow and gradual filling had created the perfect lake. He was going to do the opposite. Create the perfect storm for a dam busting. If he wasn’t right, it was a serious case of environmental vandalism, but luckily there was no one to bring him to account.

He assembled the two pieces of the burning lens onto its frame and moved the frame into position, and then waited for the sun. The day was perfect – there was not a cloud in the sky and as the sun moved across the sky the moment became imminent. The highest temperature created by the lens would only last for a short period of time but it would be sufficient for the show. If it didn’t work, Derryth was concealed with a bow to ensure the explosion occurred.

As he waited, he watched the sun move across the lens until a beam of sunlight passed through both lens and became a bright ray of light that beamed down to the wall; almost instantaneously, the fire caught light, a red flare exploded and then all hell broke loose.

It was at first just a series of muffled explosions – not sounds that anyone in Meshech knew – followed by a deep rumbling and then the wall started to crumble in minor places – the waterfall started to expand and deepen and then in almost slow motion the entire wall collapsed; spouts of water appeared first as a trickle and then started to gush. With that the end was neigh, and the wall broke apart in chunks.

Conn then watched the increasingly huge body of water carry away the wall; digging deeper into its sides and head out to sea as a tsunami. Still very high, but not as high as what Conn had calculated to be possible. In what seemed to be a ridiculously small amount of time, the bay was almost devoid of water – until a reverse tsunami of water rushed back to fill in the space left by the departing wall; and what was once a beautiful body of fresh water had now becoming a sea of dirty churned up salty water.

Conn felt physically and emotionally sick – in a single act of environmental vandalism that took less than 30 minutes, he had destroyed a four hundred year old lake, and an entire ecosystem of life had been wiped out. He stood for a while contemplating the ugliness f what had happened, and taking a deep breath, he packed up the lens, and re-joined the others. They then all looked down the bay where five hundred years of water had just been forced out to sea. They were all silent for some time.

Derryth finally shook his head in astonishment. ‘That is certainly not something you see every day – and something I never want to see again. It was simply horrible – as well as spectacular. Will Cyme be okay?’

Conn nodded. ‘Probably, it wasn’t as bad as I thought; hopefully by the time it reached Cyme it will be half the size it was now – which should not be too bad. We will know when we get back to Kuita – the messengers will have arrived by then.’ Derryth scanned the bay with a telescope,

‘Well, was I right?’ Conn asked.

Conn knew he was already; as soon as the water had left the bay – the noisy silence that he had heard once before – in his head in Lykiak – was suddenly in his heard – the noise of a Cirice without haligdoms. It was however an odd noise – not exactly the same as the sound in Lykiak.

‘I think you might be – there are signs of lots of old stone building on the far horizon – the donjon itself must be four stories high. This definitely looks like an Ancuman settlement.’ He handed the lens to Conn. ‘How long do you think before we can go in?’

‘Weeks if not months – depending on how much rain we get and how long it takes for the ground to dry. Are the sentries in place?’

‘Indeed they are; no one will get into Kadash without your permission.’

The island of Cyme had indeed been spared significant damage – at around the same time as the explosion under the dam wall, a severe storm developed to the north of the island that counteracted again the force of the tsunami and managed to mitigate the severity of the body of water that Conn had created. This was followed by a period of excellent weather, and after several weeks, workers were sent in to start building new docks – building them from barges floated into position; and from the completed docks they started to explore the ancient town. It was almost pristine – albeit all the timber and anything dissolvable by water was gone, but the stonework of the five hundred year old town was in perfect condition. Being so close to the water’s edge and given that it had taken very little time for waters to enter the buildings, the town would have been deserted very soon after the event itself – not more than a year after was Conn’s estimation.

With regular rain washing the streets and building clean, it wasn’t long before a further avalanche of workers arrived to work on residential buildings. With accommodation, even more workers moved in with the daily deliveries of building equipment and supplies. Everything had to be delivered by boat or ship – Kadash was not really accessible by road – even without the water; it was essentially just a harbor.