Skybreach (The Reach #3)
Read Skybreach (The Reach #3) Online
Authors: Mark R. Healy
Mark R. Healy
Copyright © Mark R. Healy 2015
markrhealy.com
Cover Art Copyright © Mark R. Healy 2015
Terms and Conditions:
The purchaser of this book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Jozef Gudbrand stared out through the dusty window slats of the old workshop, the watery yellow light from outside scoring his face with neat horizontal lines in the gloom. Beyond the window, Gaslight was slowly stirring into life, its first bleary-eyed denizens emerging into the marketplace to set up their stalls and arrange their goods in preparation for the day ahead. For all they knew, this day was just another turn of the endless wheel that represented the drudgery of their existences, another unremarkable span of their unremarkable lives.
In reality it was so much more.
How little you realise
, Jozef thought to himself.
Take heart, my fellow sufferers. The cycle is at an end.
He derived no pleasure from
the burden of his knowledge, no satisfaction. He did not feel superior to these others for simply knowing what was about to take place. He was merely the man on top of the mountain, the first to see the sunrise.
These others, too, would soon see for themselves.
After today, nothing in the Reach would ever be the same again.
Jozef breathed deeply as he
thought of how far he’d come. He cast his mind back to the beginning, when he’d first walked the streets of Link preaching his ideals, offering his vision of the future to any who might listen. Very few had given him the time of day back then. He could almost read their minds as they walked past. T
heir disdainful gazes had spoken louder than words.
Crazy man. Crackpot.
That’s what they’d thought of him.
He’d borne it all with good will, never losing faith, never giving in.
Slowly, he had found the ears of his first precious followers. They were meagre urchins, the hopeless and the downtrodden, those who had nothing else in which to place their faith, but they were enough to make a start. Over the months and years that followed, Jozef’s followers had swelled in numbers as others came to understand the truth in what he preached. Once the balance had eventually tipped in his favour, things had happened quickly, and then his destiny had been assured.
Now, all these years later, Jozef was ready. He’d waited a long time as he’d drawn his plans together, gathering resources, assembling the people who would carry out his vision. He’d overcome setbacks that would have destroyed
most others.
He’d come through it all, stronger and more resolute than ever.
It’s time.
He turned away from the window and looked around the darkened workshop. Dust motes swam in the slanting beams of light, stirred by the shuffling of his feet. He remembered this place from the old days, when men and women had once busied themselves for hours on end, hammering away at machine parts that had been strewn across the benches, toiling through the day until their hands had become calloused and their fingernails clogged with grit. It had been a
recycling plant of sorts, taking in old, broken mechanisms and reducing them to their individual parts, then reassembling and forging them anew into functional machines.
How fitting, Jozef thought, that the Earth’s new beginning should start here, in this place that had once created promise out of hopelessness, purpose out of dysfunction. Today, the Reach itself would begin this same process of renewal, undergoing a transformation from a ruinous waste into something of worth.
The path for the Reach was the same as that taken by those
old damaged mechanisms. The first step was always to destroy. Only then could one begin to reassemble anew.
Joz
ef walked across the room and stepped through the doorway, into an adjoining room where almost thirty men and women crouched silently in the darkness. He stood before them and looked at each in turn, first at their eyes and then at the circles that had been etched on their foreheads, knowing that this would be the last time many of them would hear his words. The last time they would even draw breath.
Jozef felt their loss keenly, even before they had gone, but he knew that he could not turn back now. He had to press on, give them the courage to carry out what had to be done.
He slowly raised his hands and closed his eyes, bowing his head. The throng responded immediately, climbing to their feet. Their garments rustled softly and their boots whispered and scratched against the floor, and then they stood, silent.
They watched him intently, waiting for his guidance, and Jozef slowly raised his head and opened his eyes to behold them once again. He was a tall, thin man with long, spidery
fingers, and now he brought those slender digits together before his chest as if in prayer.
“Children of Earth,” he began, “we stand on the brink of a momentous occasion, a battle that will be remembered down through the ages. The tale of this day will be retold many times, and the names of each and every one of you will be amongst those that are uttered by the storytellers, the keepers of history. You will be remembered. You will be revered.”
Jozef looked out amongst them and he could see the trepidation, the uneasiness that was bubbling just below the surface of their outwardly calm expressions. He stepped forward and began to walk among them.
“I know that there is fear in your hearts. I do not begrudge you that.” He raised his voice. “But let there not be doubt. Let there not be hesitation. This day, you must find the courage to follow the path that has been laid out before you, and you must tread upon it with clarity, with surety in your heart.”
As he passed along the rows of his followers he looked each of them in the eye.
“You know what is at stake when you step outside this room today. You know what will be lost if we fail.” He passed a boy, no more than sixteen years of age, and saw the anxiety in his young face. He sighed and reached out a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “Let me tell you a tale of long ago, a memory of when I was but a young boy, much younger than you.” The boy glanced at him and Jozef smiled reassuringly. “There was a bazaar not far from my home, and one winter morning there appeared a performer, an entertainer with a long, thin moustache and a tall black hat upon his head. He had brought with
him a narrow
tent, taller than a man and not much wider. Beside it was a brazier of dazzling blue flame. The showman waited there patiently while the crowd around him grew, a mysterious little smile on his face. Other children gathered around me, and we asked of him, ‘What is it that you do?’, but he would only smile back at us, never offering an answer. Finally, when the crowd had swelled to a dozen deep on all sides, he disappeared inside the tent. There was silence for the longest time. Anticipation. It went on for so long that the crowd grew restless and began to cry out, and some began to leave.
“Then the blue flame suddenly died, and with a flourish a window opened in the tent. There appeared within two small figures – two magical creatures – a glittering, golden horse and a silver man with a head like the crescent moon. The two of these creatures cavorted about before our very eyes, hovering in the air as if by magic, and a tale began to unfold, a story of love and friendship, of betrayal, and then friendship lost. It was captivating, enchanting. Neither I nor those around me could tear our eyes away from it, not even for a second. While those figures danced, there was nothing in our worlds but the spectacle before us.
“But then, something happened. Something awful. As the tale neared its conclusion, the figures became entangled. They could no longer move freely. There was a snapping sound, and the creatures jerked violently and then slumped as if they were dead.
“In that moment, the illusion was broken, and I understood. There was no magic, no wonder. These were merely puppets suspended by thin black strings. When the strings became entangled and broke, everything fell apart, and I saw the truth behind the illusion.”