“Why?”
“Well, imagine life here without technology. Imagine life without the technology that heats your buildings, helps grow food in abundance, makes your lights glow. What would your lives be like without your phones, your trucks, your medicines and cures, without the means to supply the people in your cities with goods and services?
“Imagine all the people in cities deprived of every kind of technology, technology that they use every day to survive. Imagine everyone suddenly having to find a way to grow their own food, to preserve it, to store it safely.”
“People are pretty ingenious,” Alex said with a shrug. “I’m sure it would be hard but I think they would cope.”
“Cope? Think of the reality of your world, tomorrow, suddenly stripped of your technology—no phones, no computer devices, no way to find out anything. Think it through, Alex.
“Without your technology the fabric of civilization itself would come apart within days—if not hours. Everyone would be on their own. One city wouldn’t know what the next was doing, or if they were even alive. There’d be no planes or cars or anything else. You couldn’t travel to other places unless you walked. Do you have any idea how long it takes to walk just a few dozen miles? A distance that in your cars takes a brief time would be days of hard travel on foot.
“There would be no way for people to know what had happened to their far-flung loved ones. No one would know what had happened to their government. No word would come about anything. Everyone—everyone—would be in the dark, literally and figuratively. You would all be sitting there with no phones, no electrical devices, no heat, no way to get anything or summon help. Your world would fall silent.
“It wouldn’t be long until supplies of food started to rot and run out. How long would it be until roving gangs started to loot what they wanted? Who would stop them? How would the police know when and where crimes were being committed? How would they hear anyone cry for help? How would they get there? Law and order would quickly become a thing of the past.
“When it turns cold, then what? Millions of people will rush to cut wood to try to keep warm, that’s what. Makeshift fires used to keep warm will inevitably get out of hand. Your technology to fight the fires would be gone. Once fires catch hold, they will rampage unchecked, growing to firestorms that will gut cities and leave tens of thousands homeless.
“Disease will spread like a plague with no means to stop it. Life will be not merely cheap but short.
“When all the food is gone you will begin dying by the millions. Those still alive will not have the strength or the will to bury all the dead. In the end, in the grip of starvation, the living will eat the dead.
“The only law will be survival.
“Those who once held idyllic notions of how simple and clean life would be without the demon of technology—like those in my world who believe the same thing about life without magic—will die filthy, terrified, and confused. Their idealistic notions will crumble in the cold face of reality. Like those in my world, they will be unprepared for the consequences of their pompous beliefs.
“What before had been simple will become tremendously difficult or impossible. The ignorant, the frightened, the weak, the criminal, will defecate in runoff areas, in streams, and in rivers, wanting their waste to be washed away. They won’t care about anyone downstream. Finding water will be a monumental chore. Finding clean, disease-free water will be impossible.
“Sewage and garbage will lie in the open. Vermin will multiply into a nightmare of filth. The stench of human habitation will be unbearable, but you will live in it, sleep in it, have sex in it, bear children you cannot care for in it. Without technology, the product of your minds, mankind will be marked by the stench of sickness and death.
“Schools, of course, will be a thing of the past. Learning will be stopped in its tracks; knowledge will wither daily. Survival itself will be an all-consuming struggle. As people die in droves the aptitude for technology, the skills, the expertise that was so common and taken for granted, will be lost. Without it your world will plunge headlong into the depths of a bottomless dark age of filth and misery. Millions upon millions of lives will be cut short as they are born into profound ignorance, abject poverty, backward superstition, and the rule of the most brutal.
“That is the reality of a world without technology—brief lives of unimaginable misery, filth, and savagery.”
Only the rain droning on filled the sudden silence. Jax sat quietly for a moment, letting it all sink in, letting the horror of understanding settle over him.
Alex knew that the Dark Ages had been a time much like she described. The knowledge built up by past civilizations had been lost as mankind plummeted into a black abyss. Survival was such a struggle that there were stretches of centuries about which next to nothing was known. That mankind emerged in the Renaissance was a testament to the nobility of the human spirit. It was only when mankind rose up and began to develop technology to shape the world that light came into their dark existence.
But it had taken a thousand years for that light to return.
“That is what Radell Cain’s ideas mean to our world, Alex,” she said softly. “That will be our fate. We will be stripped of everything we’ve made of our world and our lives.”
Alex sat sobered by such a description. He’d never really considered the far-reaching ramifications of such a thing. He now realized that Jax had. If anything, she was painting a kinder picture than what would be the horrifying reality.
If technology were suddenly taken away, the suffering and dying would be beyond imagining. Without all the factories and common technologies that people whined about, they’d be lucky to be able to grub enough worms to keep them alive.
Alex gestured vaguely. “You could use technology instead—build things, make things, create the things you need—just like we did. Mankind here developed what we have from nothing.”
She cast him a reproachful look. “And how many millennia did you live in a world of darkness lit only by fire?”
He knew she was right.
“It took the people here centuries to create, invent, and discover things to improve your lives. We, too, have spent countless eons developing parallel abilities that enable us to live without suffering the most common afflictions and wants. We use those abilities to tell us the best time to plant, the best time to harvest. Without those methods, thousands would starve. There are endless examples of how abilities developed over a long history help us live—help us live in an unnatural and evil way, according to Radell Cain.
“Because he wants to rule, because he needs something to blame simply so that he can gain power, everything we have will be forever lost, and once lost, it can’t be recovered.”
“But why would Cain want to do that? He would rule a wasteland.”
Jax arched an eyebrow. “You just said it. He would rule. He is willing to lay waste to civilization just to gain immense power for himself.
“If he really cared what became of people under his rule he wouldn’t incite such hatred for values, hold the victims responsible for the crimes against them, and shift blame to the innocent whenever anything goes wrong. He would work to solve problems instead of using them to seize complete power for himself.
“After Cain gets what he wants, no one will be able to challenge him. He will rule the world—a cold, dead, starving world—but he will rule it nonetheless, living in lavish excess with all the trappings his heart desires. What little of everything there is, he will control. That’s all that really matters to him. He is a man completely without empathy for others. It only matters to him that he gets what he wants. If a few million die he doesn’t really care—the dead don’t eat.”
Alex stared off as he listened. “It seems impossible to believe that people would go along with such a thing.”
Jax sighed. “I know. It’s hard for us to believe, too, but every day people willingly undergo a process called ‘the Cleansing’ to remove any gifted a
bility—that means magic. Afterwards, after this rebirth, the magic they were born with and learned to master is forever gone. They tell other people that they feel free for the first time in their lives and pressure them to give up their ‘tainted’ abilities as well. Crowds wait in lines to have it done, to go along with everyone else, to prove their virtue.”
Jax looked away, her eyes filling with tears. “That’s the worst part, that so many would not value their own unique abilities, not value themselves, much less respect those who have fought and died so that they could live free to make the choice to surrender that precious right of choice—along with their gift and their individuality.”
She gripped the blanket in a fist. “I often think that they deserve everything they’re going to get. I only regret that those of us who value what we have will suffer the same fate. They’re the ones I fight for. The rest of them be damned.”
Alex swallowed at the pain so clearly evident in her voice. “We have people like that in our world, too. People who say that freedom is no longer practical, that we must surrender it for a greater common good.”
“Fear them,” she whispered. “They are the heart of evil. They tolerate tyranny, excuse it, compromise with it. In so doing they always bring savagery and death upon the rest of us.”
Alex listened to the rain drumming on the roof for a time. There was something about the power in her voice, the fierce intensity, the conviction, the passion of purpose, that added to his impression that this was no ordinary woman. This was a woman who knew what she was talking about.
This woman was not a follower of anyone. She was a leader.
“If Sedrick Vendis is Cain’s right-hand man, and important in his own right, then why would he travel to this world and buy my paintings just to deface them?”
Jax glowered with dark thoughts for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “At the time I thought it seemed rather strange, to say the least.”
“So,” he finally asked, “you really think that Radell Cain wants something from me?”
Her eyes turned back up to lock onto his gaze. “The Law of Nines says that you are central in this.”
He didn’t budge from her steady gaze. “Bethany told me that you’re an assassin, and that you would kill me.”
23.
JAX DIDN’T SHY FROM THE QUESTION. “If I came to kill you, then why aren’t you dead?”
Alex didn’t like her evasive answer. He chose his words carefully, but kept it simple and sincere. “Back at the house you said that if I came with you, you had to be able to depend on me. I deserve no less, Jax. I think you owe me the truth.”
“Now you sound like a Rahl,” she said.
His voice took on an edge. “I am a Rahl.”
She let out a long, deep breath and looked away from his eyes again.
“Well, the truth is I did come here expecting that I might end up having to kill you.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise him, but it did surprise him that she so freely admitted it.
“But you said that I’m the one named in this prophecy of yours—”
“It’s not my prophecy. It’s an ancient core prophecy, well known in certain circles.”
“Well, if I’m the one the prophecy pertains to, then why in the world would you want to kill me, and why am I not dead?”
“You are not dead because I chose not to kill you.”
Alex decided to wait for her to explain. She picked at a loose thread on the blanket for a time before doing so.
“The prophecy says, ‘Someday, someone born not of this world will have to save it.’ That’s all that it says.
“Short prophecy, such as this, is often the most troublesome and the most dangerous. While it may sound simple, you can’t assume it is.
“Since it’s so obviously important, the prophecy has been studied extensively, but it still remains one of those great unsolved questions that frustrate the experts. From the beginning it’s been a prophecy associated with the House of Rahl.
“In certain circles it has been known for just as long that there are members of the House of Rahl in this world who—”
“How could there be members of the House of Rahl in your world and in my world? They’re separate worlds, separate places, maybe not even the same universe or dimension. How can there be the same line of people in both worlds?”
Her eyes had a timeless look of authority, or perhaps wisdom, about them. “Because your ancestors and the ancestors of a great many other people here once lived in my world.”
Alex stared at her. He wasn’t even sure that he had heard her correctly.
“That’s impossible.”
Her serious expression was unwavering.
“The ancestors of people here at one time lived in my world. This world was born from mine, or at least some of the people were.”
He had seen things that proved she was telling the truth that she had somehow traveled here from some other place, or time, or dimension. But this? This was just plain crazy.
Alex realized then that maybe he was taking her too literally.
“You mean that ancient stories say this. That it’s a legend, a myth, some kind of Dark Ages fairy tale.”
“It’s the reason that there are Rahls in both worlds—or, at least there used to be. There are no longer any Rahls in my world. At one time they were only in my world. Long ago some came here, to this world, to start new lives.”
He thought then that he could see how the whole thing had started and how it might have come to be misunderstood. “All right, I get it. All you’re really saying is that long ago some people named Rahl came to this world, much like you came to this world, and started lives here living among the people here. That’s why there are Rahls here. The Rahls here are descendants of a few people who once traveled here—sort of like you did.”
“No, it’s more than that. History says that long ago our world was engulfed in war. There were many people who didn’t want magic in their lives—didn’t want it to exist. They believed it was evil. They were adamant that they wanted to live in a world free of it. They were willing to die for that cause. They were unwilling to allow anyone with magic to live free. They were unwilling to allow anyone with magic to live at all.
“Because there could be no peace with them, because they refused to coexist peacefully with the gifted, because they were fanatically committed to killing any gifted and wiping magic from existence, they were granted their foolish wish to live in a world without magic. But they weren’t allowed to undo our world. They were all banished here, to a world where magic didn’t exist.”
“You mean, they didn’t want magic back then, either? The same as now? The same problem all over again?”
She paused for a moment, thinking. “No, it’s not the same. Before, it was a movement, a fundamental religious belief that was larger in its scope. It was a fanaticism that would not tolerate any other point of view. They believed that this was the will of the Creator and that they would be rewarded in the afterlife for killing the gifted.
“Now it’s nothing more than a cynical ploy Radell Cain is using to cover a grab for power. Tyrants don’t want their subjects to possess weapons. Eliminating magic takes a weapon away from anyone who might resist. That’s what Cain is really after—taking away the ability of people to resist his rule.
“Those who didn’t want magic back then got their wish; they were sent here. Some of the Rahl line who weren’t born with the gift chose to also come here to start new lives.”
“So we’re aliens? Our ancestors traveled here from your world?”
Her nose wrinkled as she thought it over. “They didn’t exactly ‘travel’ the way you’re thinking, the way I did or the way Cain and his people do. The worlds were said to have been joined together—at least for an instant they were at the same place at the same time—then they split apart, with the people who wanted to live without magic left in this world. I don’t know how many were banished, but va
st numbers, well over half the people in our world, were gone after the parting.”
He thought the whole idea was too far-fetched to take seriously, but he decided not to debate it for the moment. Instead he asked something else.
“How long ago is this supposed to have happened?”
“Our scale of time might be different from yours, so I can’t be certain, and we have only the bones of history left, but that history suggests that in our world it was long ago.
“There would be virtually no record of the event here in this world. The memories of the people who came here degraded. The breakdown of memory was part of the process. The loss of magic would have been for the most part instantaneous, though some of it might have lingered for a short time. After a while it would have faded, along with any memories of its origin.
“It would have been a very dark and terrible time for those who came here. Even starting a fire, which with our ability is simple, would have been a struggle.
“As a result, generation upon countless generation would have lived in savagery and ignorance that would have been ruled by superstition and hardship. Recording events would have been a luxury beyond the scope of people struggling just to survive another day. There would likely be no real record of it here.
“The era would now seem a black hole in your history.”
“So that’s why we don’t have magic and you do?”
“Yes. Your ancestors—like mine—were people who lived lives with magic as a routine part of everyday life. The difference is that the people in our world still have their magic; the people who came to your world don’t.”
Alex wiped a weary hand across his face. He tried his best to keep the impatience out of his voice. “I guess that I can imagine that there is magic in your world, Jax. It’s a different place. For all I know, the laws of nature could be different there. But here things don’t work that way. It isn’t just that magic doesn’t exist here—it can’t exist here. The laws of nature don’t permit such a thing.”