| Excerpts from Freeman. A
fantasy novel
First Chapters
Chapter One
Freeman and The
Sprite
"Go away pestering midget, I'm trying to sleep!"
"You must awaken, Freeman - spring forth and flee!
Time is short, ever so. They are coming for you clutching the pointed
and the sharp and making uncivilised noises of every kind!"
The Sprite hovered near Freeman’s face. His beard
itched with the flapping from its wings. Swatting blinding at the
creature, he groaned and buried his head under a huge, gold-trimmed pillow.
"Hastness and rushing!" the Sprite insisted.
"Who will be here? Clutching what? Why
can't you ever speak plainly?"
"The Palace Guard, grim and determined, marching
and advancing. And the dungeon is beckoning; that stinking hole of despair.
So familiar and cosy to you but what will I do amid odours and
foulnesses of every kind?"
"The Palace Guard are coming for me?"
Freeman baulked. "Now, why on earth would they do that? I mean, I'm
only Lord High Imperial Protector. Don't you suppose that if the
Guard were going to put me in the dungeon I would know about it? I certainly
don't remember asking them to do it, and if I had, I think, after a night
like that one, I would have told them to wait until the sun is more than
a miser's donation over the horizon."
"As you wish, but I did warn you, with words clear
and urgent, of imminent perils!" it complained.
"Will you go away, Sprite!"
And Fighter Freeman, sliding just a little upon the
satin sheets, pulled his pillow back into shape and found thankful comfort
in its depths.
The buzz of alcohol was still in his head and pleasant
echoes of the party in the banqueting hall the evening before were buoyant
within it. Now he wanted sleep: long hours of blissful slumber. The Sprite,
of course, disapproving of many of Freeman’s pleasures, had other
ideas. It was a magical creature, but it also suffered delusions of grandeur,
and it's frequent ‘feelings’ about things more often than
not led to nothing.
But then, there had been occasions ...
Suddenly angry and sleepless, he sat up. Squinting
as he found the luminous creature before his nose, he yelled at it with
full passion:
"Get out of my face, flying rat!"
The tiny winged human figure obliged, darting out into
the bedchamber so that its glow cast a silvery sheen over the vast guilt
bed, elaborate architraving and frescoes of imperial splendour upon the
walls. Below, in the lily pond surrounding the bed, a goldfish plopped
to the surface and a strange hooting call came from some exotic creature
in the Imperial Menagerie that lay close to his chambers.
After several moments had passed and his ears detected
little sign of peril, he considered an attempt to catch and throttle the
Sprite, but was stunned to hear advancing footsteps and curt cries. They
were still distant, but rapidly approaching.
"What's happened?" he demanded.
It shot up to his ear.
"What hasn't happened!" it squeaked dramatically.
"The Emperor is in a death-sleep, pale and perilously-poised. The
Imperial Princess is flitting and flowing in fine dresses and utmost distress
and the Lord High Adviser Pompflutter is shrieking and hopping happily
because he thinks he will be rid of you once and for all ... because ...
because that jewelled knife the Emperor gave you was found protruding
from his Imperial belly and glittering in the light so sadly."
Pompflutter! The name of the Emperor’s closest
aide struck him with abrupt dread. The fellow had been looking for an
excuse to do away with Freeman for months.
"Muck, Muck, MUCK and Miasma!" he swore,
letting each word hit the ever-sensitive Sprite like a shock wave.
Springing from the bed he crossed the short bridge over the lily pond
in a single leap. The room reeled before him and his head thumped as he
reached for his tunic and hose, hastily donned them and staggered over
to the window.
He wanted to go right back where he had been, in fact, he felt
like sleeping for a month. Nevertheless, if something was really afoot,
he would have to act swiftly, leaving the Palace and gathering together
the Cursed House, his old comrades at arms.
It was depressing really, because, after the debacle
with the Pledging ceremony none of it was going to be easy. It was six
months since he had walked away from the threshold of the glittering Pledging
Hall, leaving Dawn of Gilt House, his young high born fiancee, waiting
in vain before the long-robed celebrant. He hadn't spoken to Dawn
or any of the others since, but he knew that they were unlikely to be
pleased with him.
He starred out of the window while he tried to drive
the haze and reluctance from his head. The moon-sheened shapes of Palace
buildings reached as far as he could see, backed by the faint glow of
the restless city that lay far below the cliffs of the Palace Plateaux.
And there it was - not 500 paces across the Imperial gardens - a glowglobe-bearing
detachment of 20 Guards.
He hesitated - not quite ready to believe what was
happening - until a voice became clear in the warm night air: "I
always thought 'e was rotten that Fighter Freeman. All that bloody drill!
None of the rest of 'em ever gave us drill did they?"
"Quiet there, man!" It was the effete,
dandy voice of Lord Pompflutter, the Imperial Lord High Advisor.
Freeman slapped his hand to his forehead and sighed.
In a moment he felt high office, wealth and prestige flicker, melt, then
vanish, leaving him where he'd always been: proud, penniless and blamed
by everyone for everything, while he laboured once more to save the faltering
Empire with inadequate resources. With a new urgency he strapped on his
sword belt, thrust his feet into worn leather boots, grabbed a pouch of
coins and slipped out of the window onto the ornate ledge that ran just
below.
He was almost away when he remembered the coin medallion
his first love - Meg Allbright, the pirate’s daughter - had given
him so many years before. He had taken it off during intimate moments
the evening before. He stepped back to retrieve it before finally leaving
with a new flourish of curses.
An early career as a thief had left him with an easy
head for heights, but as he moved the first few feet along the ledge,
the past night's excess begin to churn and seethe within. Saliva welled
in his mouth, a pale weakness come over him and he clasped the wall tightly,
gasping for air.
With a thin faith he focused on the edge of morning
freshness and pushed himself a little further. The danger, he knew, was
very real. He was still training the archaic, ceremonial Inner Palace
Guard. They were a sorry bunch, but there were a lot of them, and there
was plenty of ground to cover before he could escape the Palace complex.
And perhaps saddest and most crucial of all, he found the idea of harming
any of them repugnant, because slaying opponents was beyond their area
of expertise and probably bad for their nerves.
"Get out of my face, miniature winged vermin!"
he hissed, feeling the faint buzzing of the Sprite near his face.
"So many weary years being together and
still so much rudeness, insensitivity and heartlessness! The emitting
of smells and odours of every kind, even now with access to the most beautiful
baths in the land, deep, warm and bounteous baths: Even now!"
"Would you like me to perfume myself and prance
about like Pompflutter?"
"A least he tries to be a gentleman."
"Do you think ..." Freeman said then faltered
as he felt the blackness almost sucking him from the ledge - before regaining
his balance and inching on. "Do you think, minuscule tormentor, stealing
from the Treasury to fund exclusive parties for his lurid friends is what
a gentleman does?"
"Perhaps ... But then he has style. What do you have beyond drinking, whoring and spilling blood?"
"Style," Freeman panted, listening carefully
to the sounds of the advancing Guard below. "I've got style, its
called 'common sense'. I find out what's wrong then put it right with
the minimum of muck."
"Muck, yes muck. You are good with muck."
The Sprite twittered, always at its most obstinate when he needed it least.
Thankfully, Freeman had reached a convenient point
of descent. He clambered down the elaborately carven facade of the building
and hang-dropped with the lightest thud to the marble paving below.
Chapter Two
The Thing in the
Alleyway
As the fellow passed by he nimbly stepped out, grasping and spinning the
figure by the shoulders before drawings its weight back into the alley
way, arm locked at its unsuspecting windpipe.
"Good morning, o lurking apparition," he
whispered slowly. "I am going to let you breath just long enough
to explain yourself."
"Don't Lordsir... please, c-can't breathe,"
the shape choked.
Freeman released his grip and stared bemused at Kestrel
Brightstrider, a young trainee officer of the Palace Guard. His
green and gold Palace uniform was crumpled by the manhandling and he held
his throat as he coughed and gasped.
"No! Not another one! What is this, Fiddler stalking
mice in the kitchens and you, young Undersir Brightstrider, wandering
around the Gutter District in a sparkling, smart Imperial uniform? What
a fine beacon for any cut throat who fancies a high-class nose-rag or
a clean cadaver for the Prodders. What are you doing here... no, it's
alright, I know! You are looking for me, which I find vaguely understandable.
What I am interested to hear is how you found me."
"What was that?" the youth flinched and peered
cagily into the tunnel-gloom of the alleyway behind Freeman.
"Pay attention when I'm talking to you, guardsman!"
Freeman barked.
"Oh... sorry Lordsir... I thought I..." He
stood stiffly to attention. Freeman could just make out his soft, boyish
features - he even had a forelock with a puppy-like spring to it.
He was an enigma, of a prestigious high born family he could have had
a position in any of the City’s respectable institutions, but for
some reason had elected to join the guard soon after Freeman had arrived
at the Palace.
To take the youth across the City with him was madness.
The odds were slim as it was. However, to leave him wandering in the Gutter
District, a coddled younger son from a high born family - it was almost
murder. He doubted if the lad had ever talked to a poor person let alone
been murdered by one.
"So, how did you find me?" he asked in a
softer, calmer tone.
Triumph lit the youth’s face. "You told me how, Lordsir!"
"I did?" Freeman baulked. "I can't say
I remember doing that, but please, do remind me."
"Well, I mean, Lordsir... w-when you said a good
guardsman knows his way around the P-Palace passage... Well, I-I spent
off-duty time exploring the passages we haven’t mapped properly
yet ... When you went into the pantry passage I knew that it led out to
the Gutter. And anyway I knew you had to be coming here. I mean, now the
Empire is in peril again you'll have to get the Cursed House together
again, won't you? And they've always said your secret base was here somewhere."
Freeman smiled. So those false rumours were still
circulating. Of course they were all untrue. The Folly, the cavernous
unfinished palace that had served as the base for the Rebellion, actually
lay under a single crumbling tower in a run-down suburb on the outskirts
of the city. Before long they would be there, at least he hoped they would:
his chances weren't exactly improving with time.
"Freeman!" It was the Sprite and its tone
was urgent.
"So now you've found me," Freeman ignored
the Sprite. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Oh, you didn't think? I mean... of course, I
didn't want to capture you. I wouldn't dare. I know you didn't try to
kill the Emperor. You would never do that! I've heard all the stories
about you, Lordsir. You want nothing but peace for the Empire you saved
it before and I know you will again."
"Freeman!!" It was the Sprite again.
"Quiet!" He snapped at the Sprite, pondering
fleetingly why the breeze from its furiously beating wings was uncharacteristically
strong.
"Oh, yes... sorry, Lordsir." The youth's
eyes flared wider.
"No, not you."
"Er... yes, Lordsir. Who..?" The youth hesitated.
"Never mind," Freeman sighed, "go on."
"I want to help you, Lordsir, I want to learn
everything about being a fighter. Tell me what really happened... when
you and the Cursed House defeated the plot of Sterling House and the Murg-na.
I mean I've heard all the stories..." He trailed off and shifted
uncomfortably, rubbing his nose with a trembling hand. "Sir, I mean
no disrespect but there's something strange..."
"FREEMAN!" The Sprite bellowed.
"What, Sprite!" He turned to face the tiny
figure, ready to chastise it, regardless of the disputable value of the
boy seeing him bellow at empty air. But no sound passed his lips and his
mouth froze in mid-cry while his throat tightened and something too like
weakness swept through his body.
With a stunned, questioning whimper, he watched something
stirring in the refuse and dust at the rear of the alleyway with the rather
perplexing feeling that there was nothing there to see. He was almost
fascinated as the sheer iciness of it overtook him and left him paralysed,
but just swaying in time with the increasing beat, beat of his heart.
He listened stupidly to a growing predatory howl and became faintly aware
that the youth was also transfixed and helpless before the thing that
was slowly advancing, still with no apparent form but with an undeniably
dangerous and malignant sense of presence.
Shadows! Suddenly Freeman was surrounded and beset
by shadows. They were heavy with menace, throbbing and growing…
utterly alive yet filled with the promise of death…
He sensed something like a buzzing massing and seething
somewhere that was not quite in his body, but not quite outside it either
and abruptly it rushed upon him. It brought a swarm of thoughts,
each one carrying a sense of absolute hopelessness. His mind came
alive and its images expanded around him; he saw Dawn’s face looking
at him. Why hadn't he Pledged to Dawn. Would it really have been
that hard? He could have put up with her love of magical things and high
born family. It all could have been so different.
A tiny point of light flared in the final blackness,
reaching sudden daylight brilliance and resolved itself into the tiny
winged sprite.
“Go!” it screeched.
Chapter Three
Meeting the Haak
Large brown eyes regarded Freeman
affectionately from within a mass of black curls that hung to shoulder
length. The eyes were set deep behind the almost Neanderthal ridges
of a powerful but benign face that swelled with jawbone and the undeniable
majesty of a flat, bulbed-nostrill nose. A leather harness strained against
a chest that seemed to expand in muscular ripples before Freeman’s
eyes, and sunlight sparkled on its rings and buckles as the giant drew
breath. The well-used battle-axe, that Freeman doubted he could
even lift, swung at the man’s side. The leather of the harness creaked
with the motion of the weapon.
At first Freeman tasted relief and elation: finally
he had found a Rebellion comrade; the search to clear his name had begun.
Apprehension, nevertheless, swiftly followed as he recalled the pledging
hall where he had last seen the giant, standing a head taller than the
other members of the Cursed House, all of them eagerly awaiting Freeman’s
arrival to claim his high born bride, Dawn of Gilt House.
The Haak was a man of mysterious origins and simple
but passionate intentions. A pillar of muscle with a heart larger
than his strength, he experienced no apparent ambition, was celibate as
far as Freeman could tell and disdained wealth, but his life was far from
purposeless. First and foremost, he championed the welfare of wildlife,
particularly creatures with ample fur, though he didn’t seem exactly
unappreciative of frogs and lizards.
Very much more relevant to Freeman’s current
predicament was the giant’s secondary mission in life – the
policing of fair, considerate and honourable behaviour in anyone who crossed
his path. The Haak seemed to have forgotten about Freeman having
abandoned Dawn for the time being, but it would not take long for him
to remember. To make matters worse he had a special fondness for Dawn,
who he called the ‘Sister-treasure’ and whose bodyguard he
had once been.
"The Freeman!" The Haak repeated joyfully,
having waited in respectful silence as Freeman properly found his feet.
Immediately he advanced, stepping over two of the fallen Bookburners in
a single stride. He grasped Freeman by his tunic with the iron swell
of his hands, hoisted him clear from the ground and began to lecture him
at point blank range. "The Freeman is The Haak’s friend.
The Freeman and The Haak have fought together and sent many bad men to
the dessert time. But The Freeman is now the bad man.
“She is well-done, The Sister-treasure.
She not look like the womanly persons that the Freeman is liking:
She not have little turned-up nose holes. She not play games with
the powders and silly dressing-up stuff. She not have the big boobers
wobbling – but her eyes are polished with big love and her head
is filled with proper knowings. She is also nice to the animals
and polite to all the persons. This is good in the manly and the womanly
persons for the proper society. The proper society is good."
"I know Haak. It's not as though I intended to
cause her… distress." Freeman faltered, darting nervous glances
at the dust below his gently swaying feet. At the limits of his
vision he caught sight of Brightstrider poised motionless and uncertain,
rendered slight and impossibly young in the big man’ sheer physical
presence.
"Then why The Freeman not Pledge to The Sister-treasure
with the big heart and the happiness of all the animals? Why? The Freeman
go off to the silly dressing-up Palace where is the Pompflutter man making
the voices to frighten the chickens to dying. This is not the proper place
for the Freeman. This makes The Haak unhappy. Also is The Sister-treasure
unhappy. …."
The Haak shook his head slowly and seriously, frowned
deeply and tightened his grip on Freeman’s tunic, “also is
the animals unhappy.”
Abruptly, a cold anxiety shot through Freeman, and
his heart set off like a sprinter, a flurry of fatal images in its wake.
He had seen men left bruised and whimpering because Haak was convinced
they had upset the animals, not to mention the doomed Murg-na platoon
they had once found torturing a dog. Over the years Freeman had
got the impression that it was all tied up in some kind of moral religion
The Haak followed because he seemed adamant that his quest for animal
dignity was a grave matter. It wasn’t that The Haak didn’t
eat animals, he did, and even had elaborate, almost loving rituals he
followed before killing a creature for the table, but he wanted them treated
with respect and love. It was a bit of a worry really.
He swayed in the big man's grasp like a slowly ceasing
pendulum and, in the end, decided it was better to say nothing.
At least he couldn’t make it any worse and sometimes The Haak’s
mind ... wandered.
His chest constricted by the Haak’s grip on his
tunic, Freeman was finding it difficult to breathe and he watched hopefully
as indecision played in The Haak’s face. For long seconds
his brows remained wrinkled and stern but as his large eyes studied Freeman
sadly, he seemed unable to prevent affection bubbling up again.
"The Freeman will promise the Haak to be nice to The Sister-treasure
and also be nice to the animals?"
"I promise, Haak. The animals will be very happy,"
Freeman admitted.
“Then is alright, but the animals and The sister-treasure
must not be made unhappy any more times. This is the best thing
for The Freeman. This is the best thing for all the persons.
This is the best thing for the proper society.”
Abruptly, Freeman was released. He sighed with
the feeling of contact with solid ground, ruffled himself and breathed
again. That wasn’t too bad; if only he could believe seeing Dawn
again was going to be that easy… or for that mind, Petal.
The Haak was infinitely more forgiving than either of them.
The riots were distant now, but faint moans came from
the fallen Bookburners. The Haak regarded Freeman expectantly, as
though awaiting instruction and Brightstrider hovered some distance from
the two legendary figures, standing with a silent and awkward rigidity.
“I’ve been trying to get to Ronni’s
place all morning, but it seems half the City is looking for me.”
Freedman explained.
“Yah, the Ray-man is having a good business now
with the information of what the persons is doing and has said about this
thing with the opening knife of the Emperor’s writings.”
“It was a dagger, not a letter opener,”
Freeman stated coldly. If he was going to be blamed for a botched assassination,
he was not going to stand for his weapon being described as letter opener,
even it actually had originally been one.”
“Yah, was not proper knife for sending the person
to the dessert time… Now, the Freeman comes with The Haak
the secret way and The Ray-man tells The Freeman all that The Haak has
forgotten and not know how to say in the words that all the animals understand.
The Ray-man is liking the talking almost as much as the peeping smoke.”
With that The Haak fell silent. He turned his
meaty frame towards a nearby alleyway and abruptly moved off with long
thumping strides, leaving behind the scene of his casual destruction without
further consideration. |
Raised in a small town not far from Brighton,
and schooled in London, Kevin lived most of his adult life in Australia,
a country whose easygoing lifestyle, large open skyscapes and sense
of space, he often pines for. Presently he lives in Maidenhead in Buckinghamshire,
a 10 minute walk from the local cinema and next to a high speed train
line whose locamotives rattle his desk throughout the day.