Half Discovered Wings Read online

  COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

  HALF DISCOVERED WINGS by DAVID BROOKES

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  © 2009 – 2015

  Reptile Books

  This edition published in 2015 by Reptile Books.

  1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the author.

  The stories and characters in this book are fictional only and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or situation is coincidental.

  For information about the author please see the back page.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY DAVID BROOKES

  The Gas Giant Sequence (shorts):

  Krill

  Split

  Tranquil Sea

  Tulpa

  The Professor Arnustace series (shorts):

  An Account of a Curious Encounter

  Iced Tea for Professor Arnustace

  Short story collections:

  Love is an Eye That Doesn’t See

  Novels in e-format:

  The Gun of Our Maker

  Novels in paperback:

  Half Discovered Wings

  CONTENTS

  1. Copyright and Disclaimer

  2. Also from David Brookes

  3. Introduction and Acknowledgements

  4. Map

  5. ‘HALF DISCOVERED WINGS’

  6. Glossary of Terms

  7. About the Author

  INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ‘Half Discovered Wings’ was many years in the making. I completed an early draft when I was 19 prior to undertaking a Bachelor of Arts in English and Writing at Bretton Hall University. It underwent numerous changes in the years since, including the title, characters and several major aspects of the plot. Although there are many traditional fantasy elements in HDW, later drafts attempted to make these as original as possible, within the confines of the novel’s world and the wider literary universe that I had just begun to create. HDW is a stand-alone novel, but fits into a vast timeline of interconnected stories that currently accounts for no less than 9 unpublished novels and at least 3 unwritten ones.

  For this reason, it was a big deal for me to land a publishing deal in 2009 (9 years after completion) with a traditional publisher who put a previous version of HDW on the shelves. Sadly it was not a company strong in marketing prowess or publishing clout, and so the book had a few months of modest success before being largely ignored. A few copies of the paperback edition still exist in warehouses and libraries across the UK and US, and I’m occasionally thrilled to see another purchase order drop into my inbox even after all this time.

  Many years later, long after the global economic downturn made publishing a distant dream for most unestablised writers, I decided to revisit my old world and characters. It happened not without a great deal of nostalgic love. I’m thrilled to now present what I consider to be the definitive edition of ‘Half Discovered Wings’, newly revised and enhanced, in e-book format for the first time.

  There are several people to whom I owe great thanks. The first must always be my mother Diana Smallwood, for her constant love and support even after I’m way too old to be dependant on it. I should also thank my small circle of creative friends who, without knowing it, encouraged me to continue with writing even in midst of abject hoplessness: poet Matthew Hedley Stoppard, writer/lecturer Andrew Palmer, actor/comedians Canan Cahit and Philip Mason, writer Angelin Sydney and writer/teacher Sarah Cason, amongst others. A special thanks must go to Gabriella Kakonyi, who devoted more support for my “talent” in one year than I ever deserved. Thank you all.

  The stylish original artwork for this cover was created by Vasco Duarte, whose beautiful work deserves to be checked out with close scrutiny. You can find him Facebook (“Duartemvasco”) and Behance (“Vascoduarte”). The far weaker map and and “Bronze Side” artwork is my own.

  For any editing, proofreading or ghostwriting work, please check out The St. Paul’s Literary Service at STPediting.wordpress.com.

  ~

  HALF DISCOVERED WINGS

  DAVID BROOKES

  I see silver and circuits and plastic and steel;

  — I see savagery: toothy and bloody and real;

  I see brightness in science and faith in machines;

  — I see darkness and remnants and scattered debris;

  I see Conflict, aggression and high-yield response;

  — I see pieces, what's left of the violent ones.

  Voices of the Ministrati,

  “Visions of the past — Visions of the present.”

  *

  One

  THE BLOODLESS BLADE

  The hunter wondered, not for the first time, if he preferred the company of creatures to people. His sometimes-unsavoury work as a factotum, which included everything from cleaning slop buckets to assassination, sometimes encompassed as a necessity those jobs in which a man must be killed. Joseph Gabel could hunt creatures alone and happily do so; but to pursue another person, particularly a woman, felt like torture to him.

  His raised a hand to shield his eyes from the pale spike of lightning rippling beneath the heavy clouds. It came with an immediate crack of thunder, tremendously loud in his ears and compounding the headache that had developed during this most recent sojourn into the forest. A fresh sheet of rain washed over him, drumming against the leather of his coat. When he looked up at the lightning, raindrops sprayed from his face and hair.

  Another crack of thunder could be heard, rumbling away into the night. From his position at the edge of town, he could see the old tree in the centre of the square. It looked like everyone else had gone inside. He made an uncertain noise to himself deep in his throat. His sigh turned to vapour in front of him.

  Then he turned his attention from the square to the distant wooden idol mounted on the top of the church. A bright streak of lightning burst across the sky, burning the image into his vision for a few seconds. Only when it faded did he look away. He saw colourful spots in front of his eyes, and blinked them gone.

  A dry figure walked through the rain next to him. It was a boy. Gabel nodded in greeting.

  ‘Hello, Samuel,’ he said.

  The boy stayed silent for a moment, looking down at his bare feet, then said in his deepening voice, ‘Why don’t you go and talk to her?’

  ‘She isn’t ready for what I have to say.’

  ‘She seemed ready enough earlier, Joseph.’

  Gabel looked down at the teenager. Samuel had shocking white hair that seemed always to be slightly luminous in the dark. His skin was pale, soft with youth, and he had striking blue eyes. His pearlescent features often gave off a sort of glow, like the moon, because his complexion was so smooth.

  ‘You seem older today, Samuel.’

  He looked up and peered toward the square. ‘Yes, I expect I do.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gabel said, freezing momentarily. ‘I don’t want to talk tonight.’

  ‘I’ll see you, then. Night, Joseph.’

  The boy disappeared through a fresh sheet of raindrops, his form
drifting through the darkness. The hunter nodded a goodbye.

  He looked sorrowfully at Bethany, who sat on the bench by the tree, in the rain. He could see even from this distance that she was shivering, and the shivering became more and more apparent as he approached.

  ‘Beth, it’s cold.’

  She jumped a little as she looked up at him; this imposing figure standing over her in the darkness, close enough to touch, yet too far away to hold. Water poured from his hat and pattered on his boots. Only now, when she looked, did she seem to realise how much it was raining.

  ‘I think I’ll go inside soon,’ she said simply. When she stood, he took her arms.

  She was soaked to the skin, long hair plastered over her face and neck, and hanging in limp curtains over her brown eyes. Her mouth quivered in an uncontrollable shudder from the cold, and he tried not to look down at her dress as it clung, completely soaked, to her body.

  He took off his jacket and put it over her shoulders, rubbed her arms through the thick material. He began to lead her toward the church, but Bethany wouldn’t move.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. He didn’t get a response. He repeated it, but she sat down and looked through him.

  ‘You’ll get ill if you stay outside,’ he said.

  She just sat, her brow slightly creased. Her lips hadn’t ceased quivering. He looked at her for a moment, troubled, and then asked, ‘Won’t you come inside with me?’

  She shook her head, and lifted her chin, saying, ‘I’ll go in a minute.’

  Then lowering her eyes, she once more stared through him.

  This was a typical response from Bethany, the sort of dazed, non-specific comment that Gabel had become used to. There was nothing wrong with her in her head, although others sometimes debated the fact. It was more likely that the problem lay with her heart, which had been bruised and deflated by years of neglect. Gabel had been forced to admit in the past that he had inflicted much of that bruising himself; the boy Samuel often berated him about it, accusing him of leading the woman on when all she needed was a firm word either way. The hunter was unable to supply such a word. The only time he ever truly felt fear was when he was in Bethany's company, and the fear was even more potent when they were alone together.

  For years they'd been something like friends, since he had arrived at the town as a young man and spent all of his time fixing fences for small change. When she was younger and more headstrong, Bethany would often confront him, but Gabel hadn't learned how to channel his emotions until the time he'd graduated from fence-mending to creature-hunting. From that point onward, he concentrated on protecting Bethany by protecting the town from the dark things that stirred in the woodland at night.

  Frustrated by the distance she often put between them, and at his own incapacity for direct communication, Gabel's usual response was anger. It was a trained response; although he considered himself fearless, he suffered from powerful bouts of anxiety that had much the same effect. Long ago he'd learnt to transform the anxiety into rage, and use that powerful weapon against the monsters that he tracked through the woodlands.

  He said, ‘I’m leaving,’ and turned around.

  ~

  He was stopped in the rain by a stranger: an old man with hair braided across his scalp and who wore a coat that stretched down to his boots. Back-lit by the glow from inside the inn, the figure didn’t move.

  ‘What is it?’ Gabel asked wearily. The inn was very close, and he was already getting that tickle in the back of his throat that meant his body was demanding succour.

  The man had freckles like stars on his dark cheeks, deep pockmarks whose scars reflected the pale light from the night’s sky. He narrowed his small eyes and said, ‘I’ve heard that you are a man for hire.’

  ‘I’ve finished my work for today.’

  ‘It’s not today I’ll need you, but soon.’ Now Gabel saw a brief touch of anticipation, even fear, on the old man’s face. ‘An important job that may take some time.’

  ‘If I’m interested,’ said Gabel, ‘and you have the money, then I’ll take your job. But tonight I need a drink.’

  He pushed past, and as he did so a hand fell upon his shoulder. Gabel turned and thought he saw green fire burning in the stranger’s eyes, its arcane glow glinting in every one of those pockmarks, drawing attention from everywhere else and into the old man’s tapered eyes.

  ‘Magus,’ Gabel murmured.

  ‘Yes,’ the man conceded. ‘but one who needs your help nonetheless.’

  The old man with the tightly-braided hair looked about himself in the rain, as if he expected some shadow-wreathed nightmare to land on him any second. The factotum took the opportunity to scrutinise the stranger further: heavy boots worn white on all sides; a fawn-skin coat bald in places, frayed or ripped or burned in others; and underneath it a brown tunic and matching trousers, pantaloons that had been carefully ripped and re-sewn in order to narrow the legs. The old man may have been a magus, but he was world-wise and adaptable.

  ‘Go on,’ said the hunter.

  ‘We are in an age of monsters and demons, Mister Gabel. A time is coming, a time before a year has passed, when the darkness will wax—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he sighed. He spent a lot of his time around rambling religious zealots.

  ‘We are in a difficult age,’ the magus said urgently. ‘The flagging end of a brighter era. I believe that we’ve lost that time altogether, and must now work toward maintaining what we have.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘Very little. But there are still people who work toward spoiling even that, my friend, and I would wish to conscript you to help me put an end to such interference. Six months of your time is what I ask.’

  ‘You’d need a lot of money to keep my services for half a year. And I would be paid at regular intervals.’

  ‘You’ll receive your payment at the end of those six months,’ the magus said. ‘At the end. And you needn’t worry about the amount. I’ll make sure that you get plenty.’

  ‘I haven’t agreed to anything yet,’ Gabel replied, shaking his head. Moisture spun from his hat. ‘Time is not an issue, but I draw my line at distance. I will not travel far. I have too much here.’

  ‘What do you have?’

  A good question. Gabel did not turn to look at the young town around him, but used his mind’s eye instead. He had lived in Niu Correntia for a long time. He saw the steelsmith, who’d hammered out his kris blade and gave him the moulds needed to make his pistol; he saw the inn, brightly lit and full of people who considered him a friend, almost, despite his job; he saw his grubby little apartment at the edge of town, unfurnished and filthy; he saw the church in which he’d slept many nights, comforted (though he would never have said so) by the proximity of the good Father and Bethany and her young adopted sister, Rowan; and, of course, he saw Bethany herself. He did not need to employ his imagination: She was right there, sitting on the stone bench beneath the tree, dripping in the rain.

  He returned his gaze to the magus. ‘I have—’

  ‘That will be gone before the night is finished,’ the old man replied. His black scalp gleamed with moonlight and rainwater between his braids. ‘It will all happen quickly, at once, and it’s already started.’

  Rising heat, like flaming bats, winged its way up inside the hunter and roosted hotly in his mind. It was a rage he was accustomed to, but not proud of; every now and again it seized him, blotting out all other emotions and logical thought.

  ‘You can forget your work,’ he snapped, restraining his clenched fists by sheer will. ‘Do it yourself.’

  He left abruptly and embarked on a night which consisted of drinks in the inn, an interrogation by the barman about the creatures he had successfully hunted, followed by being harassed by the dancing girls. Cul the bartender would never openly stoop to giving a factotum a discount, not in front of his other patrons, but he would sometimes slip Gabel a free refill when nobody was looking, smiling privately as he did
so. Wayne was at the honky-tonk piano, his “pee-anna”, and he was a fine and regular performer who secretly, almost shamefully, revealed sometimes that he had hidden talents in his secret blood, “mah nigger blood, just a drop, makes me musical”. The music he was playing that night was fine, and although the girls leaning over the banister were shouting for Gabel to speak of his latest and more glamorous exploits – the successful hunts, not the filthy jobs like scooping muck and bird-shit out of the gutters – his thoughts were still on Bethany: smoke in his eyes, fire in his stomach, and fog in his mind.

  Suddenly he was out in the rain again, looking toward the place where Bethany had been sitting. Lightning struck, making his hair stand up on the back of his neck, and his eyes went round as coins.

  ‘Bethany,’ he screamed, but the thunder drowned out his voice. She was standing, his jacket still on her shoulders, looking down at her feet, eyes glazed, lost in that same mist that had numbed her when they had last parted.

  And behind her stood a figure, clawed hands raised, mouth wide, iron teeth bright in the darkness. Hands the colour of coagulated blood grabbed her. She was shaken from her daze, and before either she or Gabel could move the creature sank its teeth into her shoulder. Lighting smashed down once more from behind, silhouetting them for a second. In the lingering after-image Gabel was blind to all but that silhouette, and he roared in anger and ran, semi-sightless, toward it.

  The theriope was large, perhaps eight feet tall, and its fur bristled with ire and stank of blood. Plates the colour of orange-peel crested its scalp and traced the curve of its spine. Its bear-like claws flexed in anticipation by its sides, a bald tail whipping circles about its calves. It pulled its head back and, in another flash, blood could be seen on its teeth. It plunged them into her shoulder again. Bethany’s knees buckled, thighs pressed against the creature’s crooked knees.