Post by redsycorax on Aug 23, 2020 3:12:45 GMT
Earth-64 might be conceivably classified as a 'backwater' to some. This world is medieval and remained so when others closer to the datum started their Renaissances and Reformations. In England, Eleanor IV has just succeeded her father, Edward IX as Queen of England. The Russias, Germanies, Iberia, and Frankia are all balkanised realms in a Europe where nation-states never emerged. While the Cabots did discover the Americas, there were not enough Europeans to colonise the New World or Australasia due to high maternal and infant mortality, subsistence agriculture, lack of urbanisation, strong feudal decentralisation and weak central authority. The total global population is a mere five hundred million. China and Japan are hermetically sealed off from the western world, while the Aztecs, Mayans and Toltecs dominate Central and South America, and the Confederation of Tribal Nations dominates North America. The Papacy is similarly hamstrung by the presence of conciliarism as a backward force. More than five centuries after the Reformation in other worlds, De Haeretico Carborendo is still law across most of Europe. Religious and scientific dissidents are burnt at the stake.
This world does have non-metahuman superheroes, although they do not match those on other alternate Earths. Krypton-64 still combusted into radioactive fragments while survivors made their respective escapes- but here, Jor-El and Lara decided to send their son Kal-El to Laakshm, the third planet of Epsilon Eridani, where he became that world's greatest superhero, Apexman. They observed Earth's inhabitants but judged its civilisations too "primitive" to risk his existence there, so decided against it. Bruce (Batman) Wayne was the son of Lord Thomas Wayne, one of Edward IX's Chief Councillors, but chose holy orders. In the Year of Our Lord 2020, he is Cardinal Wayne of the Province of Britannia and Hibernia. He did not lose his parents as a child, but as an adult, to a smallpox plague, a disease almost wholly obliterated on other Earths of the same chronological age. Cardinal Wayne affects night-black vestments.
Lady Dinah Drake is a member of the Order of the Black Bird, dedicated to the protection of the English royal family, against those that beset it in a world where life is too often nasty, brutish and short. She is the lover of the Paramount Archer, Duke Oliver Quean, commander of the nation's armed forces.
Why would anyone want to invade or subdue such a technologically impaired world?
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NEW AMSTERDAM COLONY, 14 SEPTEMBRE, YOL 2020:
Unrepentant, the shaven headed savant stumbled along the pathway, with the smell of cordite strong in the air. Atop an adjacent dias and throne, Cardinal Bruce Wayne looked away from the impending auto da fe, wishing that he was anywhere but here. As the figure was prodded by the arquebus tips of the guards, his hood fell from his face. Even given his blackened right eye, broken teeth and relative filth from the dungeon where he had been kept before sentence had been pronounced under the penalties of De Haeretico Carborendo, it was still recognisable as Abbott Alexander Luthair of the Baconian Order. His eyes met those of the Cardinal and he scowled:
"My Lord Cardinal. Are you here to witness "justice" being done?"
"That explosive device would have shattered Mamucium into poisonous fragments. Your malice is reason enough for your execution, Abbot Luthaire. You would have killed over three thousand people, the entire population of this realm's largest city."
"And so I am to be tried and executed unseen in this distant realm? Not in England itself?"
"You were entrusted with finding a cure for the Magnacorona Plague. Instead, you perverted the sum allocated to you into development of a prodigally destructive armament."
"It would have enabled us to take back the Holy Land."
"And would have encouraged the Saracens in Egypt and Turkey to develop the like. Our world would have been burnt to a cinder. Humanity is not mature enough for the spawn of atomie."
"Such arrogance, My Lord Cardinal."
"You were known as a humanitarian and savant, Abbott. Yet you wanted to start a grim race of armaments and terror that would end in the incineration of our world."
"There is too much damned placidity and obscurity here, Cardinal Wayne. You were once known as an ally of the new learning and invention. I am not the only one here who betrayed his early promise. Was it politick, my lord?"
"Enough, Abbott." But Luthaire only grinned, albeit in a rictus, as he shook aside the guards, pointedly ignored the chaplain other than through perfunctory answers to questions. He allowed himself to be bound to the stake, convinced to the end of the righteousness of his objectives and policy. He had been provided with an anesthetic from a Baconian physician savant, which had specks of nightshade mixed in with it. Cardinal Wayne hated this.
De Haeretico Carborendo was over six hundred years old, first devised in the reign of Henry V. Originally, it had sought to forbid variant Christian theological perspectives, but over the course of the ensuing centuries, its categories of interdiction had expanded. There was criticism from distant dissenters away from the main centres of global Christianity in Europe that it was enforced unevenly and that a poor technick or engineer was likelier to be burnt at the stake than the likes of the brilliant Abbott Luthaire. The auto da fe ("act of faith") today sought to end such misconceptions. Only, reflected Cardinal Wayne to himself bleakly, the corruption within Holy Mother Church was rooted deeply and virulently. He looked briefly in the mirror, reflecting that he was fast approaching forty, a greybeard in a world where thirty was the maximum extent of most mortal lives- even less for women, who died after multiple births and postpartum infections, which also often took the lives of infants and small children. And then there were the plagues- 1348, 1360–63; 1374; 1400; 1438–39; 1456–57; 1464–66; 1481–85; 1500–03; 1518–31; 1544–48; 1563–66; 1573–88; 1596–99; 1602–11; 1623–40; 1644–54; and 1664–67. Then 1758, 1760-63, 1784, 1800, 1848-9, 1866-67, 1891-95, 1900-03, 1918-31, 1944-49, 1963-66, 1973-88, 1996-99, 2005-11, 2013-16 and now 2020. In Europe, Cathay, the Saracen Empire, far Cathay, Nippon and the Mughal Empire, the contagion had kept the population from rising much beyond a million in most countries, had retarded trade, had struck most bitterly at the new universities that held so much promise before the world soured and cankered. Oh, there had been some advances- some curatives were able to retard the spread of contagion, but it was a trial and error process. But not smallpox, the sickness that had claimed Lord Thomas and Lady Martha Wayne as their son reached maturity at sixteen. Had he been bereaved by criminal acts, he might have turned into a vigilante. However, he had turned instead to the Church as a centre of learning, however hesitant.
LONDINIUM:
As Queen Eleanor IV travelled across the sprawling if fetid city of Londinium within her carriage, Lady Dinah Drake, La Canari Noir, kept a sage eye out for challenges to the health and safety of the queen of all England. She caught sight of the raised flintlock a moment before it lifted to fire a predatory shot at her sovereign: "Down, Your Majesty!" Grateful as ever for her boon companion and bodyguard, Eleanor IV complied. As she did so, metallic panels slid up to shield the carriage from further firearm attacks. Lady Dinah abandoned her skirts and somersaulted out of the carriage doors, making the distance between the carriage and assailant in rapid order. With her booted foot, she slammed the flintlock away from its wielder and cannoned into the assassin. As she did so, the assassin's mask flew off- and was revealed as a woman. And also, a combat proficient one, Lady Dinah realised as the assailant parried her next kick. Effortlessly though, Lady Dinah pinioned and thrust with her leg into the other woman's midriff. The other woman scowled at her, but she was visibly tiring. However, she plunged an anaesthetic needle into her shoulder and Lady Dinah went down. But the assailant had reckoned without a verdant arrow as the Queen's other champion came to his comrade's assistance.
Lord Oliver Quean, the Emerald Archer, bowed to her as she applied curative salve to the affected area:
"Lord Oliver. I am, as ever, in your debt."
"None of that now, my lady. You are easily my equal in combat proficiency and the Queen could not have a more disciplined and adept bodyguard."
"I suppose I should not be surprised that this would-be assassin was female. Unfortunately, treason is not limited to the male line. You. Speak. What is your name and what reason motivated your attack on our liege lady?"
"You'll get nothing from me, lickspittle."
"You do realise that this is a capital offence and that you could be executed? That the realm could be plunged into chaos, dwelling as it does on a precipice?"
"I serve chaos, not order. I welcome the onset of darkness and anarchy."
Lady Dinah narrowed her eyes: "Why? What could possess you to act like this?"
"Do not patronise me. Is this world so precious and immaculate that it must be preserv'd intact like this? When women die routinely from their fourth or fifth pregnancy at twenty five, and their babes with them? When we execute those of other faiths to our own, save Islam and Judaism? When all technik that could lead to breakthroughs in healing, hale life and the quality of the masses is suppressed or meted out glacially slowly?"
"It will change. But anarchistas like you do not value the wisdom of such gradual transformation, do you?"
"And you do? Not all of us are the progeny of the elite, my Lady Drake."
"Have a care, anarchista. Being of the ermine did not shelter my mother, the first Canari Noire, from death by explosive when she protected the late King Edward's consort, Queen Marguerite of Blessed Memory, from the Ranters gunpowder assault. Ah, is that it? Are you a Ranter?"
The other woman only grinned: "No, my lady. But I will tell you this. I am Tara of the Assassins. And your time is limited. Sooner or later, this corrupt regime will crash around you and your people will rise up against the tyranny you serve." With that, she bit down on a concealed gelatin capsule concealed in her mouth and slumped to the ground. Lady Dinah tried to prise her mouth open, but failed to revive her. The Emerald Archer nodded to the Royal Guard as its members ran toward him. He had been guarding the royal carriage from any further attack.
"The Queen is safe. Escort her under guard to Hampton Court. Take this offal to the Royal Surgeon, that we may probe her corpse for what it may disclose to us."
"Well met, Lord Oliver. But why was there a mere single assailant? And why did she come so perilously close to plunging England into the time of troubles once more?"
Lord Oliver remembered. When Edward IX had succeeded to the throne of the childless Edward VIII in the Year of Our Lord 1972, he had been the grand-nephew of the previous sovereign and many had died before him- the Prince Charles of Lancaster, from septicaemia shortly after he had turned twenty one and a chance encounter with a rusty nail and tetanus and gangrene ensued. His mother, Princess Elizabeth, from giving birth to Prince Edward, her fourth child, in childbed. Anne, the Princess Royal, had died with their father Prince Phillip of Macedonia, leading the English border defences against the avarice and malice of Scottish borderers to their untamed north. Andrew, the Prince of York, had fallen to piracy on the high seas and had his throat slit. With the late king's immediate relatives all but extirpated, other conniving nobles sought to place themselves on the throne during the rest of the seventies, causing endemic civil war during that period. In 1979, Edward had finally triumphed over his rebellious minions, but was then plunged into a a period of latent hostilities with the other fragmented powers of Europe, especially the distant lands of Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania. Then, though, the Year of Four Tsars intervened, and Mikhail III and Boris V after him had proven humanitarian and pragmatic. Unfortunately, that ended with the accession of Tsar Vladimir III in the Year of Millennium 2000.
England had been at an uneasy peace during the intervening five decades of its history, despite the odd border skirmish with Scotland or Wales and more distant adversaries from the Saracen Caliphate and Principality of Muscovy. So much so that Edward IX had been able to hand over his sovereign crown to the Lady Eleanor when he died from canker of the prostate in the Year of Our Lord 2016. But more recently, there had been effective assassin assaults against the principalities and duchies of Europe from an organised source- a fabled League of Assassins, which had fused with the post-Christian Knights Templar when the Holy Land Wars had shuddered to a halt in the thirteenth century. King Louis XXIII in Isle de Paris, Holy Roman Empress Anne-Therese in Vienne, Duke Pieter of Burgundy, King Olaf of Scandinavia, Queen Sophia of Naples, all fallen within the course of two years.
In its wake, Lord Oliver had recommended escalated security and protection for Queen Eleanor and had been vindicated. However, the question of the would-be assassin's motivation remained dark. Perhaps Chief-Surgeon MacNider could elucidate. Then the gleam of silver caught his eye and he picked up a guinea coin from the ground:
"Ah. A thread of the mystery resolves itself."
"Markovia? But they are allies of the Crown of England."
"It has not been that long since the Protectorate of Lord Grigori was overthrown, Lady Dinah. The slain Tara may have been a henchwoman of that regime, disinherited from her homeland. So why target our queen, in particular?"
HAMPTON COURT:
Queen Eleanor sat on her throne, overlooking her court, flanked by Lady Dinah and Lord Oliver. She was unsurprisingly pensive after the news from distant New Amsterdam Colony, on the other side of the Atlantic as well as the assassination attempt. It was a shame that Abbott Luthaire had had to pay with his life for his prodigality with forbidden weapons research. But she had seen those nightmare images of an alternative twentieth century where technik had not been as restrained and was horrified by what High Sorceress Alura had revealed to her. She came away convinced that the restraint and glacial pace of technological change served her world well. Better that than the slaughter at Passchendale, Auschwitz, Hiroshima and the ultimate obscenity that had wiped the planet clean of life. And yet, she had warred within herself at the questions that raised. Would it do any harm to introduce mass vaccination programmes, or blood transfusions or liberalise restrictions on the use and speed of internal combustion engines and allow other than engineless glider flight? Was it really necessary to deny humanity this much of science's bounty, given all the lives that denial cost in its turn? And yet, if she moved this mere fraction, there would be immediate retaliation from the traditionalists, who accepted progress with reluctance and often fierce resistance?
"There can be no doubt, Lord Oliver?"
"None, my Sovereign. Tara was a natural child of Lord Grigori and sister to the recently deposed Lord Grigori. Certain genetic markers match."
Abruptly, the doors to the throne room opened and Cardinal Wayne swept inside, with his staff of office:
"My Lord Cardinal Wayne. I bid you welcome to our court."
"I am here for a purpose, Queen Eleanor. You have heard that the Abbott Alexandre Luthaire had to be put to death for forbidden technik?"
"I have, and I must confess that disturbed me. Until he had become corrupted by the implications of the sinister research that he had chosen as his new work, he was a humane man. He is still remembered fondly here for his discovery of the yersinia pestis bacterium that originated the scourge of the plague that afflicted Europe for so many centuries."
"We have evidence that there were collaborators in England itself."
"No! I have seen the Congregation for Defence of the Faith at work. You will not deploy it here. I will not be party to torture of my subjects. I refuse to grant permission for any such presence within these borders."
"You have the steel of your father within your bearing and mind, Queen Eleanor. I will not compel you. Unfortunately, in Avignon, there are many factions clustered around the Papacy and the Council of Cardinals and I cannot speak for them. However, you have seen the Secret of the Divergence and you know the brutality and severity of the weapon that Luthaire developed. You have trusted men and women around you. Let them be your watchdogs and guardians in this. Let them and I locate this bolthole for infinite destruction and malice."
Queen Eleanor relented: "Very well, Your Eminence. I confess, the prospect of that weapon's presence in our unstable Europe and our factionalised world makes my blood run cold, especially the holocaust that I have seen its use elsewhere provoke. Be it as you desire."
DEEP SPACE: VICINITY OF ASTEROID 99942 APOPHIS:
Discovered in the Year of Our Lord 2003, the minor planet 99942 Apophis was classified as a Near Earth Object. It aroused concern from some astronomers on the basis that it might experience gravitational peturbation in 2036 that would lead the three hundred and seventy metre asteroid toward a cataclysmic Earth impact three years later. Unfortunately for Earth-64 and its posterity, there had been either a miscalculation or deliberate intervention in its trajectory. From nowhere, a yelllow lance of energy focused on the tumbling pinnacle of rock and gradually altered its orbital path. It took effort and discipline, but ultimately, the minor planet's journey was recalibrated.
THE VATICAN:
On Earth, the Vatican Observatory brought the news to the Pope and Cardinal Wayne:
"There can be no doubt?"
"None, Your Holiness. Some malign agency has forced the passage of the minor planet Apophis to intersect with Earth's orbit. It will impact on our world."
Cardinal Wayne's brow furrowed: "This should not be happening. Our scientists calculated its orbit. It might have collided with our world one day, but thousands of years in our future. If and when that happened, it would strike our world with the effect of twelve hundred million tons of gunpowder. The effect would be apocalyptic. Where will it impact?"
"Southeastern Cabotland, Your Eminence."
"It would obliterate the surrounding landscape and cause a three mile depth crater. Tidal waves would sweep Northern Cabotland, Nippon, Cathay, Terra Australis and the Isles of Aotearoa. And conceivably, it might carry enough mass to similarly devastate the Christian and Muslim lands of Europe and Africa."
"There is nothing we can do, Cardinal Wayne? Nothing that would deflect this oncoming doom from its deadly path?"
Cardinal Wayne said nothing, but slowly walked away. Trembling, Pope Fransciscus knelt, clutching his rosary and earnestly bowed his head, seeking the intervention of Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Calendar of Saints. But deep within his heart, a festering node of doubt and fear started to spread, despite his determination that it be buried beyond human scrutiny.
HAMPTON COURT:
Queen Eleanor swayed as she read the papal diplomatic letter:
"It is the end for us all, my boon companions. Doom is coming from the skies and naught can deflect it."
"Have faith in Cardinal Wayne, Your Majesty. He has never failed us before."
"He is but a mortal man and this onrushing hell mountain is a thing of the celestial heights, beyond human resort to rescue."
"There must be something that can be done. We cannot blindly accept this as fate."
"As ever, Lady Dinah, your courage and fearlessness is inspirational and a source of strength. But before this, we may all be powerless."
The Emerald Archer replied: "We will serve you until the end then, Your Majesty."
"Was ever liege served by two such valiant, noble chevaliers?"
GOTHICKA CITY, VOVODJINA:
Cardinal Wayne's departure had not been motivated by despair and impotence over the probable fate of the world beneath his feet. He had lied to the Congregation that he led, to the Council of Cardinals and to the Holy Father Himself. He felt like a hypocrite when he remembered the glowering face of Abbott Luthaire as he was fed to the flames of the auto da fe in New Amsterdam. He was a hypocrite, he knew that much, and wondered if God would absolve him of the taint of deliberate deception that had been necessary. But he had no option. When he had conversed with the Papal Astronomer and Pope Franciscus a week since, he had not quite shared all his information with them. He rode into his castle and looked up at the bulk that towered above him. Several months from now, he would reach the point of no return and betray his vows of poverty, obedience and loyalty to the Holy Father as an ebon black projectile- Myotis -would climb into the skies above the Magyar Territories and Holy Roman Empire.
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As time went on and the news spread, chaos inexorably spread across the civilised globe. Apocalyptic, millenarian movements broke out within Christianity and Islam alike, and overthrew established governments. Flagellant groups swelled in size, hoping that their self-mortification would allay divine wrath, much as the whirling dervishes hoped for the same within the dar al-Islam. And, unfortunately, scapegoating and brutality arose, as with pogroms against Jews within Christendom and Bahais within Islamic dominions. Piracy expanded too, as did peasant and noble rebellions against the weak centralised monarchies of that alternate Earth. As for the Catholic Church, the long-suppressed anger of religious dissidents suppressed by De Haeretico Carborando surged into fury as Anabaptist mobs reappeared from their catacombs and proceeded to rape and pillage everything in their path, like a swarm of human locusts.
In the Vatican, Pope Franciscus was poisoned, and his place taken by Cardinal Joseph Ignatius, nicknamed "Dark Benedict" or Benedictus Tenebris. Unlike the more gentle, humane and altruistic Pope Franciscus, Pope Benedictus was every bit as machiavellean as his ascension to the triple crown of the Papacy indicated. Rather than relaxing the sanctions against technology and invention that might have saved the situation, the aptly named Benedictus Tenebris promptly ordered another Crusade to take back the Holy Land from the Muslim "infidels", prompting mobilisation against Christendom from Muslim nations from Algiers to the Mughal Empire in far India. Queen Eleanor declared neutrality and urged peace, but the malignant pontiff promptly mailed a Papal Encyclical, Non Obedientes Contra Principes, or Against Disobedient Rulers. However, England and the Frankish realms were used to autonomy and their Anglican and Galican churches seceded from the Vatican and there was no rebellion against someone who was regarded as a just, wise and prudent queen.
When Cardinal Wayne's rocketry plans were disclosed, in fury Pope Benedictus declared him excommunicated from his ailing, collapsing church within another blistering encyclical, In Inuentione Usurpat, Id Artefice Et Machinas, ostensibly for Cardinal Wayne's 'heretical' misuse of technology. Dispatched by Queen Eleanor, the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire fought their way across the dissolving fabric of Europe and after a month, finally arrived in the stern edifice of Castle Wayne. Clad as if a creature of the night, Cardinal Wayne had already boarded Myotis, and a counter board clacked down as the two heroes kept the hordes of papal loyalists and acolytes from aborting the launch of this world's first spaceflight. Ultimately, they were successful, as the rocket rose into the sky like a blinding torch while they watched from shelter. High above, it built velocity as Cardinal Wayne gritted his teeth and his vision blurred, then recentred on the oncoming mass of Apophis. Thirty five seconds later, the Myotis impacted on Apophis, shattering it asunder into harmless small, albeit incandescent debris after a blinding flash lit the skies. Cardinal Wayne had died, but the knowledge that he had sheltered and protected for the last four decades of his life were now available to a world that urgently needed it and the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire had been given authority to use it.
In distant Rome, awaiting apocalypse, Pope Benedictus Tenebris was hauled out of his deep cellar shelter, the patience of the people of Rome and his church exhausted. Amidst the threatened but now averted end of that world, he had cared only for avarice, war and persecution and now paid the penalty for it, with his fine robes ripped from him, cast out into the wilderness of Italy. Three months later, the forgotten pontiff died of cholera in Naples. One wishes that this story could therefore end immediately and happily, but for months afterward, there were coups, rebellions, outbreaks of plague and international conflict, because once set in motion, they are difficult to contain. Little by little, though, harmony and stability emerged. And for the first time, so did the technology and invention and expertise that had been withheld for so many centuries. Apart from Cardinal Wayne, venerated as a martyr and liberator, and ultimately a saint, the church was reviled as authoritarian and debased and corrupted. In time, Queen Eleanor married and would reign for another sixty years, long enough to see her great-grandchildren assembled around her. So did Lady Dinah Drake and Lord Oliver Quean, with the Black Arrow their insignia. And ultimately, lives lengthened, or were saved in surgery, or were healed from formerly inexplicable diseases, and women did not die in pregnancy or childbed as before. Parliaments and legislatures imposed their democratic rule on monarchies and aristocracies, and some republics were born as well. The debris of vanquished Apophis still fell on Earth during periods where the former asteroid's orbit intersected that of Earth, but due to Cardinal Bruce Wayne's courage and sacrifice, no more would humanity fear the adjacent rocks that looped around the Sun, tangled in its orbit.
THE END
This world does have non-metahuman superheroes, although they do not match those on other alternate Earths. Krypton-64 still combusted into radioactive fragments while survivors made their respective escapes- but here, Jor-El and Lara decided to send their son Kal-El to Laakshm, the third planet of Epsilon Eridani, where he became that world's greatest superhero, Apexman. They observed Earth's inhabitants but judged its civilisations too "primitive" to risk his existence there, so decided against it. Bruce (Batman) Wayne was the son of Lord Thomas Wayne, one of Edward IX's Chief Councillors, but chose holy orders. In the Year of Our Lord 2020, he is Cardinal Wayne of the Province of Britannia and Hibernia. He did not lose his parents as a child, but as an adult, to a smallpox plague, a disease almost wholly obliterated on other Earths of the same chronological age. Cardinal Wayne affects night-black vestments.
Lady Dinah Drake is a member of the Order of the Black Bird, dedicated to the protection of the English royal family, against those that beset it in a world where life is too often nasty, brutish and short. She is the lover of the Paramount Archer, Duke Oliver Quean, commander of the nation's armed forces.
Why would anyone want to invade or subdue such a technologically impaired world?
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NEW AMSTERDAM COLONY, 14 SEPTEMBRE, YOL 2020:
Unrepentant, the shaven headed savant stumbled along the pathway, with the smell of cordite strong in the air. Atop an adjacent dias and throne, Cardinal Bruce Wayne looked away from the impending auto da fe, wishing that he was anywhere but here. As the figure was prodded by the arquebus tips of the guards, his hood fell from his face. Even given his blackened right eye, broken teeth and relative filth from the dungeon where he had been kept before sentence had been pronounced under the penalties of De Haeretico Carborendo, it was still recognisable as Abbott Alexander Luthair of the Baconian Order. His eyes met those of the Cardinal and he scowled:
"My Lord Cardinal. Are you here to witness "justice" being done?"
"That explosive device would have shattered Mamucium into poisonous fragments. Your malice is reason enough for your execution, Abbot Luthaire. You would have killed over three thousand people, the entire population of this realm's largest city."
"And so I am to be tried and executed unseen in this distant realm? Not in England itself?"
"You were entrusted with finding a cure for the Magnacorona Plague. Instead, you perverted the sum allocated to you into development of a prodigally destructive armament."
"It would have enabled us to take back the Holy Land."
"And would have encouraged the Saracens in Egypt and Turkey to develop the like. Our world would have been burnt to a cinder. Humanity is not mature enough for the spawn of atomie."
"Such arrogance, My Lord Cardinal."
"You were known as a humanitarian and savant, Abbott. Yet you wanted to start a grim race of armaments and terror that would end in the incineration of our world."
"There is too much damned placidity and obscurity here, Cardinal Wayne. You were once known as an ally of the new learning and invention. I am not the only one here who betrayed his early promise. Was it politick, my lord?"
"Enough, Abbott." But Luthaire only grinned, albeit in a rictus, as he shook aside the guards, pointedly ignored the chaplain other than through perfunctory answers to questions. He allowed himself to be bound to the stake, convinced to the end of the righteousness of his objectives and policy. He had been provided with an anesthetic from a Baconian physician savant, which had specks of nightshade mixed in with it. Cardinal Wayne hated this.
De Haeretico Carborendo was over six hundred years old, first devised in the reign of Henry V. Originally, it had sought to forbid variant Christian theological perspectives, but over the course of the ensuing centuries, its categories of interdiction had expanded. There was criticism from distant dissenters away from the main centres of global Christianity in Europe that it was enforced unevenly and that a poor technick or engineer was likelier to be burnt at the stake than the likes of the brilliant Abbott Luthaire. The auto da fe ("act of faith") today sought to end such misconceptions. Only, reflected Cardinal Wayne to himself bleakly, the corruption within Holy Mother Church was rooted deeply and virulently. He looked briefly in the mirror, reflecting that he was fast approaching forty, a greybeard in a world where thirty was the maximum extent of most mortal lives- even less for women, who died after multiple births and postpartum infections, which also often took the lives of infants and small children. And then there were the plagues- 1348, 1360–63; 1374; 1400; 1438–39; 1456–57; 1464–66; 1481–85; 1500–03; 1518–31; 1544–48; 1563–66; 1573–88; 1596–99; 1602–11; 1623–40; 1644–54; and 1664–67. Then 1758, 1760-63, 1784, 1800, 1848-9, 1866-67, 1891-95, 1900-03, 1918-31, 1944-49, 1963-66, 1973-88, 1996-99, 2005-11, 2013-16 and now 2020. In Europe, Cathay, the Saracen Empire, far Cathay, Nippon and the Mughal Empire, the contagion had kept the population from rising much beyond a million in most countries, had retarded trade, had struck most bitterly at the new universities that held so much promise before the world soured and cankered. Oh, there had been some advances- some curatives were able to retard the spread of contagion, but it was a trial and error process. But not smallpox, the sickness that had claimed Lord Thomas and Lady Martha Wayne as their son reached maturity at sixteen. Had he been bereaved by criminal acts, he might have turned into a vigilante. However, he had turned instead to the Church as a centre of learning, however hesitant.
LONDINIUM:
As Queen Eleanor IV travelled across the sprawling if fetid city of Londinium within her carriage, Lady Dinah Drake, La Canari Noir, kept a sage eye out for challenges to the health and safety of the queen of all England. She caught sight of the raised flintlock a moment before it lifted to fire a predatory shot at her sovereign: "Down, Your Majesty!" Grateful as ever for her boon companion and bodyguard, Eleanor IV complied. As she did so, metallic panels slid up to shield the carriage from further firearm attacks. Lady Dinah abandoned her skirts and somersaulted out of the carriage doors, making the distance between the carriage and assailant in rapid order. With her booted foot, she slammed the flintlock away from its wielder and cannoned into the assassin. As she did so, the assassin's mask flew off- and was revealed as a woman. And also, a combat proficient one, Lady Dinah realised as the assailant parried her next kick. Effortlessly though, Lady Dinah pinioned and thrust with her leg into the other woman's midriff. The other woman scowled at her, but she was visibly tiring. However, she plunged an anaesthetic needle into her shoulder and Lady Dinah went down. But the assailant had reckoned without a verdant arrow as the Queen's other champion came to his comrade's assistance.
Lord Oliver Quean, the Emerald Archer, bowed to her as she applied curative salve to the affected area:
"Lord Oliver. I am, as ever, in your debt."
"None of that now, my lady. You are easily my equal in combat proficiency and the Queen could not have a more disciplined and adept bodyguard."
"I suppose I should not be surprised that this would-be assassin was female. Unfortunately, treason is not limited to the male line. You. Speak. What is your name and what reason motivated your attack on our liege lady?"
"You'll get nothing from me, lickspittle."
"You do realise that this is a capital offence and that you could be executed? That the realm could be plunged into chaos, dwelling as it does on a precipice?"
"I serve chaos, not order. I welcome the onset of darkness and anarchy."
Lady Dinah narrowed her eyes: "Why? What could possess you to act like this?"
"Do not patronise me. Is this world so precious and immaculate that it must be preserv'd intact like this? When women die routinely from their fourth or fifth pregnancy at twenty five, and their babes with them? When we execute those of other faiths to our own, save Islam and Judaism? When all technik that could lead to breakthroughs in healing, hale life and the quality of the masses is suppressed or meted out glacially slowly?"
"It will change. But anarchistas like you do not value the wisdom of such gradual transformation, do you?"
"And you do? Not all of us are the progeny of the elite, my Lady Drake."
"Have a care, anarchista. Being of the ermine did not shelter my mother, the first Canari Noire, from death by explosive when she protected the late King Edward's consort, Queen Marguerite of Blessed Memory, from the Ranters gunpowder assault. Ah, is that it? Are you a Ranter?"
The other woman only grinned: "No, my lady. But I will tell you this. I am Tara of the Assassins. And your time is limited. Sooner or later, this corrupt regime will crash around you and your people will rise up against the tyranny you serve." With that, she bit down on a concealed gelatin capsule concealed in her mouth and slumped to the ground. Lady Dinah tried to prise her mouth open, but failed to revive her. The Emerald Archer nodded to the Royal Guard as its members ran toward him. He had been guarding the royal carriage from any further attack.
"The Queen is safe. Escort her under guard to Hampton Court. Take this offal to the Royal Surgeon, that we may probe her corpse for what it may disclose to us."
"Well met, Lord Oliver. But why was there a mere single assailant? And why did she come so perilously close to plunging England into the time of troubles once more?"
Lord Oliver remembered. When Edward IX had succeeded to the throne of the childless Edward VIII in the Year of Our Lord 1972, he had been the grand-nephew of the previous sovereign and many had died before him- the Prince Charles of Lancaster, from septicaemia shortly after he had turned twenty one and a chance encounter with a rusty nail and tetanus and gangrene ensued. His mother, Princess Elizabeth, from giving birth to Prince Edward, her fourth child, in childbed. Anne, the Princess Royal, had died with their father Prince Phillip of Macedonia, leading the English border defences against the avarice and malice of Scottish borderers to their untamed north. Andrew, the Prince of York, had fallen to piracy on the high seas and had his throat slit. With the late king's immediate relatives all but extirpated, other conniving nobles sought to place themselves on the throne during the rest of the seventies, causing endemic civil war during that period. In 1979, Edward had finally triumphed over his rebellious minions, but was then plunged into a a period of latent hostilities with the other fragmented powers of Europe, especially the distant lands of Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania. Then, though, the Year of Four Tsars intervened, and Mikhail III and Boris V after him had proven humanitarian and pragmatic. Unfortunately, that ended with the accession of Tsar Vladimir III in the Year of Millennium 2000.
England had been at an uneasy peace during the intervening five decades of its history, despite the odd border skirmish with Scotland or Wales and more distant adversaries from the Saracen Caliphate and Principality of Muscovy. So much so that Edward IX had been able to hand over his sovereign crown to the Lady Eleanor when he died from canker of the prostate in the Year of Our Lord 2016. But more recently, there had been effective assassin assaults against the principalities and duchies of Europe from an organised source- a fabled League of Assassins, which had fused with the post-Christian Knights Templar when the Holy Land Wars had shuddered to a halt in the thirteenth century. King Louis XXIII in Isle de Paris, Holy Roman Empress Anne-Therese in Vienne, Duke Pieter of Burgundy, King Olaf of Scandinavia, Queen Sophia of Naples, all fallen within the course of two years.
In its wake, Lord Oliver had recommended escalated security and protection for Queen Eleanor and had been vindicated. However, the question of the would-be assassin's motivation remained dark. Perhaps Chief-Surgeon MacNider could elucidate. Then the gleam of silver caught his eye and he picked up a guinea coin from the ground:
"Ah. A thread of the mystery resolves itself."
"Markovia? But they are allies of the Crown of England."
"It has not been that long since the Protectorate of Lord Grigori was overthrown, Lady Dinah. The slain Tara may have been a henchwoman of that regime, disinherited from her homeland. So why target our queen, in particular?"
HAMPTON COURT:
Queen Eleanor sat on her throne, overlooking her court, flanked by Lady Dinah and Lord Oliver. She was unsurprisingly pensive after the news from distant New Amsterdam Colony, on the other side of the Atlantic as well as the assassination attempt. It was a shame that Abbott Luthaire had had to pay with his life for his prodigality with forbidden weapons research. But she had seen those nightmare images of an alternative twentieth century where technik had not been as restrained and was horrified by what High Sorceress Alura had revealed to her. She came away convinced that the restraint and glacial pace of technological change served her world well. Better that than the slaughter at Passchendale, Auschwitz, Hiroshima and the ultimate obscenity that had wiped the planet clean of life. And yet, she had warred within herself at the questions that raised. Would it do any harm to introduce mass vaccination programmes, or blood transfusions or liberalise restrictions on the use and speed of internal combustion engines and allow other than engineless glider flight? Was it really necessary to deny humanity this much of science's bounty, given all the lives that denial cost in its turn? And yet, if she moved this mere fraction, there would be immediate retaliation from the traditionalists, who accepted progress with reluctance and often fierce resistance?
"There can be no doubt, Lord Oliver?"
"None, my Sovereign. Tara was a natural child of Lord Grigori and sister to the recently deposed Lord Grigori. Certain genetic markers match."
Abruptly, the doors to the throne room opened and Cardinal Wayne swept inside, with his staff of office:
"My Lord Cardinal Wayne. I bid you welcome to our court."
"I am here for a purpose, Queen Eleanor. You have heard that the Abbott Alexandre Luthaire had to be put to death for forbidden technik?"
"I have, and I must confess that disturbed me. Until he had become corrupted by the implications of the sinister research that he had chosen as his new work, he was a humane man. He is still remembered fondly here for his discovery of the yersinia pestis bacterium that originated the scourge of the plague that afflicted Europe for so many centuries."
"We have evidence that there were collaborators in England itself."
"No! I have seen the Congregation for Defence of the Faith at work. You will not deploy it here. I will not be party to torture of my subjects. I refuse to grant permission for any such presence within these borders."
"You have the steel of your father within your bearing and mind, Queen Eleanor. I will not compel you. Unfortunately, in Avignon, there are many factions clustered around the Papacy and the Council of Cardinals and I cannot speak for them. However, you have seen the Secret of the Divergence and you know the brutality and severity of the weapon that Luthaire developed. You have trusted men and women around you. Let them be your watchdogs and guardians in this. Let them and I locate this bolthole for infinite destruction and malice."
Queen Eleanor relented: "Very well, Your Eminence. I confess, the prospect of that weapon's presence in our unstable Europe and our factionalised world makes my blood run cold, especially the holocaust that I have seen its use elsewhere provoke. Be it as you desire."
DEEP SPACE: VICINITY OF ASTEROID 99942 APOPHIS:
Discovered in the Year of Our Lord 2003, the minor planet 99942 Apophis was classified as a Near Earth Object. It aroused concern from some astronomers on the basis that it might experience gravitational peturbation in 2036 that would lead the three hundred and seventy metre asteroid toward a cataclysmic Earth impact three years later. Unfortunately for Earth-64 and its posterity, there had been either a miscalculation or deliberate intervention in its trajectory. From nowhere, a yelllow lance of energy focused on the tumbling pinnacle of rock and gradually altered its orbital path. It took effort and discipline, but ultimately, the minor planet's journey was recalibrated.
THE VATICAN:
On Earth, the Vatican Observatory brought the news to the Pope and Cardinal Wayne:
"There can be no doubt?"
"None, Your Holiness. Some malign agency has forced the passage of the minor planet Apophis to intersect with Earth's orbit. It will impact on our world."
Cardinal Wayne's brow furrowed: "This should not be happening. Our scientists calculated its orbit. It might have collided with our world one day, but thousands of years in our future. If and when that happened, it would strike our world with the effect of twelve hundred million tons of gunpowder. The effect would be apocalyptic. Where will it impact?"
"Southeastern Cabotland, Your Eminence."
"It would obliterate the surrounding landscape and cause a three mile depth crater. Tidal waves would sweep Northern Cabotland, Nippon, Cathay, Terra Australis and the Isles of Aotearoa. And conceivably, it might carry enough mass to similarly devastate the Christian and Muslim lands of Europe and Africa."
"There is nothing we can do, Cardinal Wayne? Nothing that would deflect this oncoming doom from its deadly path?"
Cardinal Wayne said nothing, but slowly walked away. Trembling, Pope Fransciscus knelt, clutching his rosary and earnestly bowed his head, seeking the intervention of Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Calendar of Saints. But deep within his heart, a festering node of doubt and fear started to spread, despite his determination that it be buried beyond human scrutiny.
HAMPTON COURT:
Queen Eleanor swayed as she read the papal diplomatic letter:
"It is the end for us all, my boon companions. Doom is coming from the skies and naught can deflect it."
"Have faith in Cardinal Wayne, Your Majesty. He has never failed us before."
"He is but a mortal man and this onrushing hell mountain is a thing of the celestial heights, beyond human resort to rescue."
"There must be something that can be done. We cannot blindly accept this as fate."
"As ever, Lady Dinah, your courage and fearlessness is inspirational and a source of strength. But before this, we may all be powerless."
The Emerald Archer replied: "We will serve you until the end then, Your Majesty."
"Was ever liege served by two such valiant, noble chevaliers?"
GOTHICKA CITY, VOVODJINA:
Cardinal Wayne's departure had not been motivated by despair and impotence over the probable fate of the world beneath his feet. He had lied to the Congregation that he led, to the Council of Cardinals and to the Holy Father Himself. He felt like a hypocrite when he remembered the glowering face of Abbott Luthaire as he was fed to the flames of the auto da fe in New Amsterdam. He was a hypocrite, he knew that much, and wondered if God would absolve him of the taint of deliberate deception that had been necessary. But he had no option. When he had conversed with the Papal Astronomer and Pope Franciscus a week since, he had not quite shared all his information with them. He rode into his castle and looked up at the bulk that towered above him. Several months from now, he would reach the point of no return and betray his vows of poverty, obedience and loyalty to the Holy Father as an ebon black projectile- Myotis -would climb into the skies above the Magyar Territories and Holy Roman Empire.
++
As time went on and the news spread, chaos inexorably spread across the civilised globe. Apocalyptic, millenarian movements broke out within Christianity and Islam alike, and overthrew established governments. Flagellant groups swelled in size, hoping that their self-mortification would allay divine wrath, much as the whirling dervishes hoped for the same within the dar al-Islam. And, unfortunately, scapegoating and brutality arose, as with pogroms against Jews within Christendom and Bahais within Islamic dominions. Piracy expanded too, as did peasant and noble rebellions against the weak centralised monarchies of that alternate Earth. As for the Catholic Church, the long-suppressed anger of religious dissidents suppressed by De Haeretico Carborando surged into fury as Anabaptist mobs reappeared from their catacombs and proceeded to rape and pillage everything in their path, like a swarm of human locusts.
In the Vatican, Pope Franciscus was poisoned, and his place taken by Cardinal Joseph Ignatius, nicknamed "Dark Benedict" or Benedictus Tenebris. Unlike the more gentle, humane and altruistic Pope Franciscus, Pope Benedictus was every bit as machiavellean as his ascension to the triple crown of the Papacy indicated. Rather than relaxing the sanctions against technology and invention that might have saved the situation, the aptly named Benedictus Tenebris promptly ordered another Crusade to take back the Holy Land from the Muslim "infidels", prompting mobilisation against Christendom from Muslim nations from Algiers to the Mughal Empire in far India. Queen Eleanor declared neutrality and urged peace, but the malignant pontiff promptly mailed a Papal Encyclical, Non Obedientes Contra Principes, or Against Disobedient Rulers. However, England and the Frankish realms were used to autonomy and their Anglican and Galican churches seceded from the Vatican and there was no rebellion against someone who was regarded as a just, wise and prudent queen.
When Cardinal Wayne's rocketry plans were disclosed, in fury Pope Benedictus declared him excommunicated from his ailing, collapsing church within another blistering encyclical, In Inuentione Usurpat, Id Artefice Et Machinas, ostensibly for Cardinal Wayne's 'heretical' misuse of technology. Dispatched by Queen Eleanor, the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire fought their way across the dissolving fabric of Europe and after a month, finally arrived in the stern edifice of Castle Wayne. Clad as if a creature of the night, Cardinal Wayne had already boarded Myotis, and a counter board clacked down as the two heroes kept the hordes of papal loyalists and acolytes from aborting the launch of this world's first spaceflight. Ultimately, they were successful, as the rocket rose into the sky like a blinding torch while they watched from shelter. High above, it built velocity as Cardinal Wayne gritted his teeth and his vision blurred, then recentred on the oncoming mass of Apophis. Thirty five seconds later, the Myotis impacted on Apophis, shattering it asunder into harmless small, albeit incandescent debris after a blinding flash lit the skies. Cardinal Wayne had died, but the knowledge that he had sheltered and protected for the last four decades of his life were now available to a world that urgently needed it and the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire had been given authority to use it.
In distant Rome, awaiting apocalypse, Pope Benedictus Tenebris was hauled out of his deep cellar shelter, the patience of the people of Rome and his church exhausted. Amidst the threatened but now averted end of that world, he had cared only for avarice, war and persecution and now paid the penalty for it, with his fine robes ripped from him, cast out into the wilderness of Italy. Three months later, the forgotten pontiff died of cholera in Naples. One wishes that this story could therefore end immediately and happily, but for months afterward, there were coups, rebellions, outbreaks of plague and international conflict, because once set in motion, they are difficult to contain. Little by little, though, harmony and stability emerged. And for the first time, so did the technology and invention and expertise that had been withheld for so many centuries. Apart from Cardinal Wayne, venerated as a martyr and liberator, and ultimately a saint, the church was reviled as authoritarian and debased and corrupted. In time, Queen Eleanor married and would reign for another sixty years, long enough to see her great-grandchildren assembled around her. So did Lady Dinah Drake and Lord Oliver Quean, with the Black Arrow their insignia. And ultimately, lives lengthened, or were saved in surgery, or were healed from formerly inexplicable diseases, and women did not die in pregnancy or childbed as before. Parliaments and legislatures imposed their democratic rule on monarchies and aristocracies, and some republics were born as well. The debris of vanquished Apophis still fell on Earth during periods where the former asteroid's orbit intersected that of Earth, but due to Cardinal Bruce Wayne's courage and sacrifice, no more would humanity fear the adjacent rocks that looped around the Sun, tangled in its orbit.
THE END
