Sharmarak

I have long wanted to write Sci-Fi but never took the plunge. This has hung around for a while and I will not rest until I start on it to see if I can master a new genre. Here is the introduction and preface.

        Toward the end of the twenty-sixth century, a ship carrying one thousand pioneers discovered a new galaxy trillions of miles from a dying Earth. A planet, supported by a sun and two moons became their home. They found the remains of a long dead civilization and the remnants of a manufacturing process that purified sea water with a white crystalline substance. On a wall in an ancient mine some hieroglyphics were uncovered. Unknown to the pioneers, the symbols depicted a mighty battle between good and evil and the end of the ancient civilization. They also warned of the return of evil. A thousand years went by before the symbols meant something to a handful of worried leaders. The meaning remained secret and the mine was blocked and declared unsafe – but not forever.

Interior Committee Findings.

Ref: Hieroglyphics – mine DR2790

Strictly non-public domain

The following is as near as possible a complete transcript of the hieroglyphics on the wall in DR2790. I have no hesitation in recommending we seal this mine and make it government land. Whether the prediction is true or not, I see no reason to follow this line of enquiry any further.

Senator G.S.Swift

Committee Chairman.

 Starts – King Lam fought a war with Lord Grondal, an ex-faithful advisor to the King. Grondal had recruited an army from the distant Marsh Uplands where the hostile warriors and their leader, Prince Hragg, had always been in dispute with the king over territorial rights to Sharmarak. Grondal wanted to seize power from the King and in order to do this he needed control over the vast desert called the Merindil Sea. Potar crystal mines situated on one side of the desert supplied all the water purification needs of the king’s people and the Marsh Uplands. Without the crystals, both would perish.

The mines formed an important part of Grondal’s plan to rule and enslave the inhabitants of Sharmarak. Once accomplished, his next objective was to seize power in Asima, which lay a great distance to the south of Sharmarak, rich in minerals and inhabited by a peaceful race of people. Having promised the Prince and his marsh warriors one of the outposts and its inhabitants as slaves, Grondal set up his headquarters in the Prince’s ‘Uplands Castle’. After declaring war on the King, the two forces met to do battle in the middle of the Merindil Sea. The onslaught from the Marshland warriors killed all of the Kings army, driving the King and a few followers back across the desert and into the foothills and the mines.

In a last ditch effort to stop Grondal, the King ordered all the mines except one to be spelled poison by the court sorcerer, Roderick the Mighty, thus ensuring enough crystals to keep his own followers and the inhabitants of three outposts alive. The King retreated to the last mine which lay hidden in the Kasben foothills. Leaving a small band of men to work it, he sought out Grondal and died heroically in a dual to the death after refusing to reveal the location of the mine.

Grondal sent his armies to find the last mine that would keep them alive but, unable to find it and without pure water, the men of evil perished. Before facing death, Grondal’s sorcerer, Zarden, entombed him and Prince Hragg plus one hundred of their best warriors in the vaults beneath the castle and spelled the last mine flooded. Zarden also made the entombed men immortal so that on awakening, they would be able to exact their vengeance and rule the kingdom. But they would awaken only when the mines started producing Potar crystals again.

Unable to thwart Zarden’s powerful spell, Roderick the Mighty conjured a potion that if mixed with the immortals’ blood in combat, would bring instant death. Roderick knew that it would take a special warrior to defeat Grogan. And so he safely hid the potion in a secret place at the mine with instructions that could only be understood by such a man; instructions that would only appear when that man entered the mine.

Following these instructions closely the warrior would have to overcome many dangers before finding the potion. Even then, he would still have to enter the dark Marshlands and travel through the Festoid Forest before reaching the Uplands. Once there, he and his followers would have to kill the immortals by running their potion covered swords through the enemy and save the kingdom from tyranny and destruction. – Ends

We then come forward to modern times and the hero of the story flying a load of crystals back to the city - but a violent sand storm forces him to make a landing near the foothills and so the great adventure begins........

copyright - Raymond B. Stone 2013