Prologue: Apocrypha

We open with an old man's struggles against the ravages of time and something worse.

"A new world struggles to be born, Hildebrand!" a feminine voice, thick with insane fervor, cried out. For the first time in nearly half a century, Hildebrand Ernst heard a voice echo from the last cell beneath Castle Elrich and, with an awful suddenness, all else failed to matter.

Struggling with his cane, the time worn elder maneuvered over ancient pavers at a pace far too brisk for a man of his advanced age. Harsh features like eroded stone scrunched and shifted with the strain. A white beard, cut flush with his face, did little to protect against the cold darkness of that place. 

He stumbled in his hurry, catching himself before the floor could greet him with an embrace of broken bones. Despite the weight of years, he would not give up so easily .

"You cannot snuff it out!” It continued “This world will drown under the weight of gilt."

"Speak plainly!" he yelled, his voice sputtering with frustration and desperation, as he closed the distance.

The voice laughed�"a hollow, fractured sound too malformed to be fully human. It reverberated down the old dark corridors, striking the old man with a wave of malice laced with mirth. Hildebrand’s breath came in ragged gasps as he finally reached the cell proper. 

It was not a cell in the traditional sense; the thing within had been walled away with brick and mortar  ages ago. Twenty such cells existed on this corridor, just one of many worming its way beneath the ancient fortress.

 The only opening left to the prisoner was a small dust strewn gap at eye level. Hildebrand saw nothing but the blackness of shadows within, a small mercy.

"I speak plainer than you realize," the voice whispered from the darkness beyond the wall. "You and your ilk have struggled against the beauty yet to come for so long. Rejoice�"you might yet live to see what comes next." In that dank chamber, where the old man's breaths spilled from his lungs in long white wisps, his blood ran even colder. Still, despite his senescence, despite the cold, despite knowing better, Hildebrand still had fire in him.

"So, is this it?" Hildebrand spat, his words laced with the bitterness of impudence. "You tell me of the coming end only to mock me with it?"

"I thought it might be fun," the voice replied with cruel amusement.

"Where then?" His utterance was sharp and demanding. "Where is the new world's birthplace?"

The pause that followed was long and deliberate, a silence meant to infuriate and frustrate further. 

Finally, the voice returned, low and tinged with something almost like pity. 

"Someplace beyond even your reach, child of entropy."

Hildebrand’s grip tightened on the head of his cane, his knuckles whitening. He leaned closer to the small opening, his breath brushing against the cold stone. "You lie," he hissed. "You things always do. If it’s beyond my reach, why tell me at all? Why whisper riddles from your tomb?"

The prisoner chuckled, the sound jagged and broken like glass underfoot. "Oh, Hildebrand," it crooned, the prisoner’s tone dripping with mockery. "Because it's no fun if you don’t squirm."

"Then tell me where!" he barked, his old throat finding the brass lungs that had once commanded formations.

It paused as if savoring the moment, letting the tension coil tighter around his throat. The old man’s fist slammed into the wall. Hildebrand had no patience for its coyness.

"A valley far from here, a place you fear," it finally whispered. "It shall be a cradle carved from the bones of the old world."

 Madness, that's what he wanted it to be, that’s what he needed it to be from the depths of his soul, but the old man knew better. As mad as the thing in the cell was, its words held weight. Hildebrand's heart pounded in his chest in a staccato of despair. He knew the place it spoke of and realized he’d enacted his own damnation.

Its laughter bubbled up again, soft and menacing.  "Now you understand… Do you still think this is a game you can win?" The prisoner leaned closer to the small opening, its breath frigid and sweet like vanilla tainted with corpserot. 

"Don’t give up yet, Hildebrand.” It whispered with a lover’s hiss. “The fun’s just beginning."

The prisoner’s haunting laughter chased him down the hall as he pulled away, its ghastly echo gnawing at his resolve.

His thoughts churned as he ascended the winding stone staircase that acted like the inner keep’s spine. Its worn slate steps had seen over a thousand years of footfalls most mundane, but a few belonged to things best left forgotten in the darkness below. There was no forgetting the prisoner’s words though. 

He couldn’t deny it�"he knew of that place. 

The Prismat Valley. 

It was far, practically at the northern edge of the empire. From what he’d heard it was an uninhabited rend in the earth carved in an ancient era by glaciers and long since left untouched by mankind’s machinations. That wasn’t the part that bothered him though.

A short month ago, Hildebrand had sent an expedition there, ignoring the old warnings to stay away. If the group were on schedule, they would have just arrived.

He wanted to believe this was merely a coincidence or a trick of random timing, but such beliefs were luxuries he could ill afford. Those were the thoughts of an old man seeking to shirk responsibilities�"and Hildebrand had done enough of that already.

No, this was his doing. His fault. 

His choices had paved the way for whatever horrors awaited in the Valley. And now, he could do nothing but languish in his ignorance, haunted by the knowledge that his was the hand that began the avalanche.

Reviews

[JayG]

• "A new world struggles to be born, Hildebrand!" a feminine voice, thick with insane fervor, cried out.

Right here is where a publisher would reject this. Why?

1. The reader has no idea of where and when we are. They don't know what's going on, or, whose skin we wear. So as the line is read it's meaningless.

2. What's "insane fervor" and who declares it so? Unless we know why it was said, and what it means to the protagonist, our avatar, it's just words uttered by an unknown for unknown reasons.

For you, who begin reading already knowing all the above points, every line acts as a pointer to images, ideas, and intent, all in your mind waiting to be called up. So it works, and you see no problems. And given that no one addresses the problem they don't see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

But pity the reader. For them, every line acts as a pointer to images, ideas, and intent, all in *YOUR* mind waiting to be called up. But with you not there to ask...

• For the first time in nearly half a century, Hildebrand Ernst heard a voice echo from the last cell beneath Castle Elrich and, with an awful suddenness, all else failed to matter.

Who in the pluperfect hells is Hildebrand Ernst? And why does, "all else fail to matter?" You're talking about things for which the reader not only lacks any trace of context, you've not made them WANT to know.

So...you have a story meaningful to you. But the reader? They have meaningless, to them, words. And a confused reader turns away right then, because you cannot retroactively remove context.

Here's the deal. While I fully support your desire to write, you've fallen into the trap that catches over 90% of hopeful writers. You've forgotten that the skills of the Commercial Fiction Writing profession has been under refinement for centuries because NOTHING ELSE WORKS. And in school, all ewe learn are the nonfiction writing skills employers need from us.

Like so many hopeful writers, you're transcribing yourself telling the reader a story. But that cannot be made to work.

Think about it: Can the reader know what emotion you'd place into the words, or the visual elements, like gesture, expression, and body language? No. But what you gave them is your storyteller's script. And there ONLY way to make that work is to perform it as-you-would—which is impossible.

So...you have the desire, the perseverance and the story. And given that the story deserves a setting to which the reader will respond with enthusiasm, dig into the skills the pros feel necessary to give your words wings.

Grab a good book on the basics, like Jack Bickham's, Scene and Structure, or Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. You'll be amazed at how often you'll be moved to say, "But that's so obvious. How did I never notice that?

Jay Greenstein

Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
~ Sol Stein

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain