CHRONICLES OF AN AGE OF EMPIRE - this file is a partial plan (of uncertain vintage) for a series which would have been called CHRONICLES OF AN AGE OF EMPIRE. It includes a brief coherent fragment featuring the Rovac Warrior Morgan Hearst. Note that this was one of a number of different ways in which the CHRONICLES series could have been developed.


         Chronicles of an Age of Empire
        
        The Titles


        Each new title will begin with the last word of the previous title, eg:-


        Thrones and Powers
        Powers and Dominions
        Dominions and Empires


         Chronicles of an Age of Empire
        
        An Overview


        The CHRONICLES OF AN AGE OF EMPIRE series tells of the years after the fall of Drangsturm. The Skull gains true intelligence and awareness, and endeavours to abolish humankind, enslaving humans to achieve this purpose. We see the fates of:-
        (i) characters from the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness;
        (ii) the Nine Immortals;
        (iii) the Dissidents, wizards who broke away from the Confederation of Wizards.
        The books in this series run in strict chronological order, and they move very fast indeed. Volume 1 opens roughly thirty years after the fall of Drangsturm, putting characters such as Morgan Hearst and Yen Olass Ampadara in their sixties. People seen as children in the Age of Darkness series (such as Monogail) are now of course about the age of thirty.
        The twenty volumes of the Age of Empire series each cover one year. The action is tense, bloody and heroic, until the final volume, for details of which see below.


         Chronicles of an Age of Empire
        
        An Outline


        
         Volume 1


        The Age of Empire series starts with a bloody horror story. The keynotes are blood, death, demons and demonic possession, Things, mystery, menace, unknown enemies, vampires, incubi and succubi. It centres round the destruction and rebuilding of Morgan Hearst.
        We open some thirty years after the destruction of Drangsturm. The continent of Argan has been sunk, and new empires and alliances have arisen. Morgan Hearst is high in the military hierarchy of one of these power structures.
        We see Morgan Hearst prosecute war on behalf of this power structure, and start to have qualms about what he is doing. What happens is that he is placed under terrible pressure where he is sorely tempted to break his oath.
        He yields to that temptation, and, with that previously unthinkable step taken, his worldview crumbles. His sense of meaning and order disintegrates. As his insight into his own problems is just about zero, he finds it impossible to articulate his problems, which express themselves as:-
        (a) a recurrence of the paralysis he suffered in the Cold West, which he always thought of as arthritis consequent upon cold weather;
        (b) an episode of hysterical blindness;
        (c) memories and nightmares which properly belong to the wizard Phyphor, which terrify him (for he has a lingering fear of being one day possessed by that dead wizard) and which he does his best to possess.
        He is invalided out of the army and placed in charge of a labour camp. He comforts himself with the certain things: order, discipline, routine. Then he comes under a terrifying attack from the unknown, which starts thus:-


        Excerpt from Age of Empire, Volume One


        Blood.
        There was blood in his dreams. There were claws. There was a scream. He thrashed awake, the scream his own, and screamed again for the claws were at his throat. Jaws snarled, a rape-weight smothered him, and desperate he clutched and clawed, finding thick limbs cold and gigantic.
        Then armoured guards smashed through the lightweight door. Wood splintering, lamplight gleaming on -
        Smoke bruising and boiling, and blood, blood, gouts and sheets of red blood red, blood spurting and thrashing, the bed awash, and Hearst -
        Alive?
        He was alive, and the thing which had attacked him was gone, boiled away to smoke. Gone. But the stench of it remained. And the blood? Everywhere. Clotting already, turning green, turning black, settling in lumps, filth, mire, stink, a nightmare of goo he could touch, prod, poke, palpate.
        "My lord?"
        This from one of the guards, a thing of metal, iron shins, iron knees, iron thighs, iron cuirass, iron skull, iron arms brandishing blood-blazing steel. But a man within the thing. Surely? Surely!
        Hearst wanted to weep, to cry, to give way to shock, to collapse to a quivering heap. To be held, to be comforted. But these were soldiers, and he was what he was, so hold tight for the moment, hold tight and -
        "Search!" said Hearst, managing that one word. Spitting it out. Fast, tight, fierce. Voice near breaking with the strain. Deep breath, deep breath now, and:
        "Some blood-fuck thing was here! Find it! Kill it! Men, lights, dogs, the lot. What was it? How did it get here? Where did it go? I have to know!"
        So the men searched, sought, looked, hunted. All to no avail. They found no footprints. The dogs picked up no scents. No doors or shutters had been tampered with. But the blood was still there, blood everywhere in Hearst's room, and he himself was unwounded so it couldn't be his.
        "Right," he said grimly, toward dawn. "Tear apart the walls. And the ceiling! I want it taken apart, the lot."
        By dawn this had been done. Broken lathe and ruptured plaster. Dust layered on coagulated blood. But walls and ceiling, though fragile, had proved honest.
        "The floor, then," said Morgan Hearst. "Dig up the floor."
        And they did.
        Finding rock, rock, solid rock, unbroken granite, and when he had this rock itself wrenched up there was solid mortar beneath, a generation old if it was a day.
        By which time it was mid-morning, and Morgan Hearst was reeling with exhaustion, feeling nearly disembodied.
        "A succubus," he said, deciding. "That's what it was. A rape- spirit. A thing of meat-lust. Bleeding from its desire, no doubt, but appetite strong regardless."
        And he slept thereafter with lanterns burning and armed guards posted round his bed.


        
         [excerpt ends]


         Outline of Age of Empire Series [Cont'd]


        
         Volume 1 [Cont'd]


        This is part of an attack launched by the sorcerers of Yestron, who have combined their abilities to first weaken then rule certain key figures in the power structure Hearst is serving. The demolition job proceeds apace.
        Hearst comes to believe that the spirit of the wizard Phyphor is attacking him and trying to take him over. A crisis arises, its nature both military and political, and makes it difficult for him to fight the occult onslaught he is enduring.
        Under pressure from within and without, certain fetures of Hearst's character are accentuated; some would say he goes mad. He protects himself with the only mental resources at his disposal; to preserve himself, he stereotypes himself, becoming the ultimate fighting machine, the ultimate beserker warrior.
        Then disaster strikes. He loses a great battle, falls ill with malaria, and is taken prisoner by the sorcerers from Yestron and the Power they serve. However, they are not in a position to do much with him.
        The Power served by the sorcerers of Yestron planned to attack the bloc which Morgan Hearst was serving, and did just that. But the conflict has escalated, and now the Power in question is in direct conflict with the Dissidents.
        Hearst, ignored and defeated, lies in a dungeon, forgotten. He despairs. He yields to Phyphor's attempts to possess him. There are in fact, of course, no such attempts, but this decision allows Hearst to fully explore Phyphor's memories.
        Finally, under pressure from within and without, Hearst goes mad. Allies capture the dungeons and tell him he no longer feign madness, but as he is truly mad he ends up being consigned to a lunatic asylum.
        There he slowly integrates himself, and undertakes a long labour of humility, working within the lunatic asylum itself. He becomes, in due course, the head of the asylum. This takes years, but in the book should take but a single chapter.
        Hearst, who has now integrated both his own memories and those of Phyphor, is then faced with fresh challenges, and the remainder of the book concerns their resolution.


        
        
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