The Dark Tower: Gemini Empire.
Long days and pleasant nights!
I'm currently working on a tribute to the Dark Tower, centered on a character of my own invention.
The idea is here to insert this new character among our favorite Ka-tet for a short period of time, during which they'll learn about his past and who he is. As Stephen King does it, I'll show his life through a serie of flashbacks showing the important moments of his life and the one who lived with him in the old days.
Like Roland, this new character is basically a lone wanderer whose world has been wiped away, leaving only ghosts and regrets.
The final version of this work features the original characters of the Dark Tower, to show the connection between the two universes. But to comply with he rules I will only post the "raw" flashbacks.
This may be a lot of mysteries to begin with, but on the other hand it will be very interesting for me to see what the readers can figure out.
/!\ This text is still in progress /!\
A lot of things can change. Nothing is definitive here, that's why I need some feedback.
I need some feedback about how I'm writting and what I'm writting.
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The following work is based on the fiction of Stephen King. It is for entertainment purposes only and will not monetarily benefit me or thedarktower.org.
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The story takes place in Halderon, which you can compare to a very big barony. Halderon is a prosperous city who's glory has been built on it's powerfull army and relentless sea fleet. But as everything else in this world, Halderon had to fall.
We're at the very moment of the fall, when everything gets out of control and the whole city is burning, killed from insisde. Commander Owen, the charismatic leader of the army, is the one built up a great part of Halderon's greatness, the one who defeated all the rivals of Halderon. He is then dangerous to the One who, these days, is taking down the whole world. That's why He decided that in order to prevent any resurgence from Halderon, Owen had to be killed. He gave this mission to one of his closest Wizard.
We're in Owen's office, the city is in fire, the wizard just stepped in...
In a glimpse he was standing one foot close to Owen, whose gun had nontheless been drawn in a blur. The wizard was grinning, his teeth shiny white and perfectly lined.
‘So, my boy, what are you going to do now?’ He asked with a powerfull voice.
‘Shhh, respect your last moments on this world.’ Owen merely answered, before poking his gun into the wizard’s chest.
He restained a gasp of suprise and horror, and tried as hard as he could to keep his face still: the robe was empty. The muzzle of the gun had met no chest, no nothing, as if it was poked into curtains. Terror and puzzlement growing inside him only were reflected on his face by a wince. The wizard’s grin grew wider on his head which was there, but with no body underneath.
‘Maybe there is still mysteries left around, huh?’ He said laughing. Owen said nothing and pulled the trigger. Or maybe that wasn’t excatly true. Owen wanted to pull the trigger, but before his finger could as much as twitch, the robe suddenly came alive and wrapped the gun like liquid crude oil. Owen eyes went wide, he tried to pull back but already the black tissu had swallowed its prey. The gun was gone, the fingers holding it as well. All the five of them snatched away with a clear and perfect cut.
Owen grunted and jumped back and -plan B- his saber was out. At this very moment he had no time to think about the blood pouring out of the stumps left on his hand. The fight must go on. The tip of the blade was lined with the wizard’s face, with the place just between the eyebrows.
‘Another foolish attempt, boy?’ He said willfully mocking. Then his arms stretched on his sides until his white sinuous hand jutted out of the loose sleeves. He stood there like a scarecrow fo a moment, then the gun and the fingers poured from his sleeves into small dices. Dices of metal sometime perfectly square, sometime more complicated as inner mecanisms had been cut through. Dices of flesh, red mucles still covered by a square piece of skin or pink meat around the white dot of a finger bone.
Owen looked them roll on the floor with intense anger. He glared at the wizard who answered by rising an eyebrow.
Try me. It said.
He did.
In a single and powerfull lunge he split the air from one side of the room to the other. The blade cut through the wizard’s dry and empty head, it cracked open in a hoarse sound that was eerily close to a laugh. Then his body struck the black robe, which desintegrated like ancient silk and slowly fell on the floor into dark flakes.
He turned around, the last pieces of the dark robe were silently stacking on the wooden floor. His golden eyes searched the room without finding any trace of the wizard.
Suddenly he was there, as if he’d missed him the first time. The wizard was standing near the windows.
Owen opened his mouth but something terribly wrong happened deep in his chest. He gasped, tried to reach for the wall but the wall was inches away. His hand only grasped the air and he collapsed.
‘Never hush up a wizard’s mouth, my boy.’ The calm and faintly mocking voice of the wizard said. He stepped forward and leaned so that Owen could read the words on his lips as he was saying them. ‘For that it says true.’ He went back straight and pretented to be surprised at Owen’s distress, as if he hadn’t noticed it.
‘Oh! Is something wrong? What is it my boy? Talk to me.’ Owen tried to speak but no word came to his mouth, his hand was frantically searching his chest under his uniform. The wizard frowned in the same comical way and then added:
‘Oh! I know! Is that what you’re looking for?’ Dangling from his outstretched palid finger, at the end of the rose-red chain, was the Divine Drop. Sweating and struggling for air, Owen rised two blank eyes to the small orb. It wasn’t glowing and seemed as dead as a stone sleeping on the side of a path.
‘Do not fear to look at it now, I don’t either.’ He obvioulsy looked at the yellow sphere, then turned to the window. ‘It left you, do you feel it? Do you feel how weak and naked you are? It lost your trail and won’t try to find it back. It doesn’t care about you, it’s gone!’ He suddenly opened the window. An acre smell of smoke and burnt flesh invaded the room. The light of the fire coming from the town was fiercly dancing on the ceiling, painting the fourniture and the walls with a bloody light.
‘I don’t need to add anything, do I? But don’t be mad, you’ve already lived too long for a bumbler!’ His grin was back.
Owen’s face had become a wrinkled mask in which were engraved rage, contempt and digust in equal measure. This was the very moment he became old, this was the very moment he fell from the divine edge. That was probably why he was furious, but if he had lived longer, he would robably have thought that dying at the very moment you became old wasn’t that horrible. His eyes glared as if he could kill the wizard with his look.
‘Now, let it be what should have been long ago.’ He turned to Owen who was nearly crawling on the floor, still wearing the mask of the ultimate outrage. It would, by the way, be his funeral mask. At the very moment the wizard faced Owen again, a gust entered the room, blowing in the curtains, sending papers flying all over and carrying whirling embers. Owen took a breath and it seemed the air was poisoned. It wasn’t though, this was just his last breath. His skin was pale, his eyes widened and his mouth went half open. His strengh left him at once and his head hit heavily the wooden floor. The wizard came near him.
Standing above the diyng man, he stretched once again the hand holding the golden globe and dropped it. The divine artifact bounced on the floor, and finished rolling inches apart from Owen’s eyes. He looked at it without seing it as his eyes grew blanker and blanker.
The light left his face.
As he was leaving the room, the wizard looked back and this time his face was nothing but serious. Maybe he was having a serious thought for the man that just died.
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Thank you for reading!
