Ashes Under Uricon (The Change Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

course. He simply dismissed what I was saying. He told me that he was going to write a report to my teacher telling him that I had gone off drinking and come back with a fantastic story about a house with a library that didn’t exist in the area. And he did. I really got into trouble when I went back to school. The accusation of drunkenness stuck while I was in school and it made my last years there rather miserable.

    “I know I was in that house. And I know what I saw there. And I know it existed. And I know it was your mother who invited me in. I have spent my life living down what everybody presumed was a pathetic excuse to cover a drunken escapade. Until now. Until I found these papers.”

    He picked up the sheaf of papers and waved them at her. “These are real, aren’t they? Well, aren’t they, Mererid? Or are you going to tell me that I’m delusional?”

    “You’re certainly not delusional, Richard. We are going to have to find out why, aren’t we?”

    I was by now completely baffled. Taid had told a story that was apparently about a house and a library that did not exist. I was sure that he wasn’t lying, or inventing the story. He wasn’t like that. But houses don’t just disappear, do they?

    Do they?

Chapter 9

    “What you have to realise, Richard, is that the Change did not happen quite as suddenly as everyone is led to believe.”

    Mererid had moved away from where she stood next to Taid and had quietly opened the door. Outside it was now daylight, just. After leaning out, stretching her hand to check for rain, she had turned back to face us.

    “It took many years to lay the foundations. Many years. To ensure that when it happened there could be no going back. Your experience was one of those foundation stones. A very small one amongst thousands upon thousands of others. The plans were devised before we were born. They knew from the beginning when the Change would take place – the exact day, even the exact hour. The planning and preparation was meticulous. Meticulous.”

    She drew out the last word. At the time I was not sure exactly what it meant. I didn’t really understand what she was saying at all. ‘Foundation stones’, ‘plans’, ‘meticulous’. I knew what the Change was, of course. Everyone did. The whole country. ‘Before was Chaos. After was Order.’ It was written on the wall of every classroom, every gathering place.

    We feared Chaos. We knew that it was to be avoided at all costs. Whatever it meant. It was difficult for my generation to understand how Taid’s generation had survived it. Whatever it was. The Change was the miracle that saved us. We all knew that. Everyone did.

    “You did visit Plas Maen Heledd, Richard. That was no delusion. No delusion.” She had acquired a curious habit of repeating words and phrases. It was beginning to irritate me.

    “Is your story something to do with Chaos?” I asked Taid, interrupting whatever she was trying to say.

    She laughed. A short, bitter laugh.

    “There was no ‘Chaos’, cariad,” she said, with a sardonic emphasis on the last word. “Disorder, why yes. Much disorder. Perhaps too much disorder. But Chaos? No. Not chaos.”

    She was beginning to frighten me.

    Taid, always aware of my feelings, intervened. “You can’t say these things to her, Mererid. She does not understand.”

    She whispered something under her breath.

    “Speak up. I can’t hear you,” Taid said.

    “She must understand. Must understand.” She paused, then shouted, “She must understand!”

    She turned and went out through the door. Taid got up and followed her. I could hear him calling her name outside, his voice dwindling as he moved further away from the hut. For a while I was almost afraid that I would never see him again, that he had gone back to Chaos, led by this woman who spoke of there never having been Chaos.

    What did she mean by saying that? Why did she repeat those words ‘She must understand’? What must I