Frost (19 page)
Authors: Harry Manners
He couldn’t help them, couldn’t even be among them. His punishment was to watch them struggle under the unbearable strain.
For evermore, he would watch.
“Not quite, forever,” said a voice.
Jack whirled to the darkness. For a moment, nothing. Then a figure emerged from the shadow as a magician steps from behind a curtain. A man, slim and tall and pale, his face a chimera of benign benevolence and predatory leer. Under each eye, dark streaks like ruined mascara marked his cheeks.
He bowed majestically.
“Who are you?”
“A friend. Call me Fol.”
“What kind of name is that?”
He smiled. “A bad one. Such is the nature of Highcourt—was.” A note of pain passed his face, fracturing his refined theatricality.
“You’re from Highcourt?”
A nod.
Jack waited.
“It’s all gone, now. Only a handful are left, hiding… out there.” He gestured skyward—what had been skyward, before the darkness.
Jack watched him for a long time, unmoving. “Leave me alone,” he said at last.
He turned to the writhing Vanished.
Footsteps behind him like pebbles plopping into a well.
Jack put a hand against the invisible wall separating him from his parents, family, childhood friends, everyone in all the world. “Who are you?”
A flash of something reached him, not spoken but thought. A transmission from the newcomer.
I still have it. Even now, I still have the power.
He glanced at Fol. “Jester? You’re a jester?”
Fol cocked an eyebrow. “You heard that?”
“I hear a lot of things.” Jack blinked. “You let this happen.”
“We had to. I’m sure you know by now, there are rules to abide by, unbreakable rules. Kaard was the only one close enough to get to you in time. But a lot of what happened could have been avoided. This has been a long time coming. We made mistakes, we grew lazy.” He paused. “
I
made mistakes.”
Jack turned away.
I don’t care. I don’t care. Just leave me be.
“I can’t help them,” he said hollowly.
“No.”
“I put them all here.”
“You saved so much more.”
Jack swallowed audibly, a golf ball blossoming in his throat. “I don’t care.”
Ponderous footsteps behind him. “What would you say if I told you there
was
a way…? A way to undo all this, to stop them for good?”
“I thought it was done?”
“You know they’ve changed things. The End was just the beginning.”
A long silence. “What can you do?”
“
We.
We can fight this. It’ll be a long road, and dangerous, and we’ll likely fail. But there is a chance.”
Jack sat slowly, crossing his legs, suddenly feeling very old. “I’m done being a pawn. He warned me this would happen, before it all started, he warned me that we never last. Us,” he spat out a bastardised laugh, “
creatures of destiny.
”
Fol gestured to the nothingness around them. “Yet here you are.”
“And where might that be?”
“Besides the point. The point is that you are. And the Web needs you just as much as it always has.”
“I saw what’s out there when I touched the tree. I didn’t understand, but I felt it.” He shook his head. “I don’t think even you really know how deep this goes. I can’t do anything against that.”
“None of us can ever do anything alone. That’s why I’m going to bring you together.”
“Who?”
“The End wasn’t total. The world goes on.” The man strolled around to his side, peering down with his head cocked to the side. “The ones we need are out there, somewhere. Like you said, Jack: creatures of destiny.”
Jack grunted, almost turned his back. Then an echo on the edge of audibility flickered way down in that secret place, where he had once travelled amongst the pages of so many books; the whispering echo of a bearded fool.
The Web always gives a way.
Jack turned his back instead on the Vanished. “What do we do?”
Fol took a step closer. In his sparkling lupine eyes blazed a flame Jack recognised. He recognised it well.
The Jester of Highcourt smiled wide, and leaned in close. “We’re going to save the bloody world.”
The story doesn’t end here.
The Ruin Saga
is a post-apocalyptic fantasy trilogy that follows on from where
Frost
left off.
Decades after the apocalypse, a heretical group of intellectuals, hell-bent preserving civilization and fighting the advance of a new dark age, inadvertently spark a war with a country in the grips of famine, and encounter supernatural forces that may destroy what remains of the Old World forever.
Get ready for post-apocalyptic mayhem, supernatural horrors, and a classic battle between good and evil.
You can get book 1 for FREE with just a few clicks.
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OUR FAIR EDEN
In a world wrought by climate change and international strife, mankind's last hope lies in the colonization of the deserts. Under the guise of last ditch efforts to save society, a totalitarian coup has established a new
status quo
of gentry and peasantry, eerie tea-parties, alienation, and a story of the darkness within.
Our Fair Eden
marries near-future dystopian with technothriller, in a tale that dives deep down a rabbit hole of nightmare.
THE HAPPY PLACE: A SHORT STORY
In the late 21
st
century, the first colonists on the planet Mars fight the rigours of extreme isolation, and the terrible knowledge that they can never return home. Their only solace is an artificial reality that draws on their memories of Earth: the Happy Place.
Frost
by Harry Manners
First published 2015 by Radden Press.
All characters in this novel are entirely fictitious, as are the events portrayed. Any resemblance to persons living, dead or imaginary is coincidental.
All rights reserved. This ebook is for personal use only; whilst the author’s works are published DRM-free, it is hoped that readers will purchase their own copies, and will not resort to unlicensed usage. Sharing books without purchasing may deprive the author of owed royalties.
Copyright © Harry Manners 2015.
Cover design by Levente Szabo.
Edited by Red Adept Publishing
Harry Manners lives in Bedfordshire, England. When he’s not writing, he studies science at university, reads anything he can get his hands on, and generally nerds out—for which he is staunchly unapologetic.
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www.harrymanners.com
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