Book I in the Undying Series
Forward
*** The History of the World ***
The world is more than we see. I am not inclined to preface new series with world building information; however, this series requires some background before jumping in. There are infinite parallel universes. Each varies by an almost imperceptible detail as you move along them. Infinity is a mean bitch, however and the furth you get away from earth prime; the more variations are noticeable. Get far enough sideway and you can run into anything. The history of this story is an earth with some shared history and some major deviations. Magic exists. God exists, taking a more hands approach than our current dimension. When Christianity suffered a schism in 1521, things broke badly. The devil became involved and that age has gone down in history as the rise of the necromancers. The fey were pushed to new lands (our own North and South America) where they dream of empire once more, fighting their own battles with the dark forces, which have, thankfully been more focused on humanity than them. Soon after the dead were summoned the new world was ‘discovered’ and Europeans flocked to it to escape the marauding hordes. Eventually Europe stabilized and, yes, the dead migrated overseas. The fey relocated further into the interior of North America with ‘free fey’ spreading south among the native peoples. Central America became a stronghold of the necromancers, who launched a war on the colonies in the 1800’s devastating the new cities, which were ill-prepared for such a conflict. Technology split in different ways. The current year is 1955, gunpowder is progressing beyond black powder, steam engines, lighter than air ships and rail roads are the height of technology, with wireless radio on the rise, but still unable to cross the distance from North America to England reliably. The Catholic Church reunified once the extent of their foe was realized in the 1500’s; the heretics were forgiven and forces were rejoined. During the fifty-year war of unification, the protestant heretics used divine magic to uplift dogs (and rumors have it, some cats) and bred them as warriors and spies. It is said every dog in England and France was slaughtered at one point, an act that allowed the uplifted animals to move into the vacuum once the war was over. The church was too pragmatic to give up a weapon they could use against the dead, for the dead don’t typically assault animals.
Asia remains a land of mystery for the west, as much as the west remains a mystery to the exotic east. England did spread South, colonizing parts of Africa, Australia and some islands in the Pacific Ocean, but they never strong inroads in India and their middle east aspirations were thwarted during the wars by the rise of Islam. Australia was a dead free continent for nearly a hundred years; that is no longer the case, however many smaller islands (including New Zealand) are still ‘living only’. The church wields unprecedented power, attacked on all sides and is felt as a necessary evil by governments as they can channel divine magic to heal the living and destroy the walking dead. Necromancers, however, are their equal, with cults springing up wherever the light of God fades to shadow. Most European and Asian cities are walled and well defended. Those in Australia, Africa and North America tend not to be. In the north American colonies this proved to be a deadly oversight; the cities that had been founded near the great lakes fell in a few years as necromancers gained power. New York fell in 1929, and then most activity just stopped. The fighting resumed in 1965 and while the northeastern seaboard was better prepared, all but Boston and a few minor cities have fallen as of the start of this tale, September 1970.
This is what I am editing now, a new series, the book is written, 100% complete and I am happy with it. It should be up soon and I’ll post a few chapters here over the next few weeks.
