Free The Blood Line by Ben Yallop Page A

one of the Riven whom he particularly trusts, a man called Pech.
    One of the first things I learned from spying on him was the link between our world and this one. That this is our distant future. That was quite a shock I can tell you. The Riven King’s real name is Allende. He spends most of his time just sitting in a strange chair which he calls his throne. Often he doesn’t move, I think his mind is elsewhere, his eyes roll over and turn white in their sockets whilst he looks at something somewhere else. He is mad. There is no doubt of that. Whatever power he has absorbed it has driven him crazy. He is a psychopath on a grand scale. He wants to bring death to our time, the world that we know. In fact, he thinks he must already have succeeded because in this place, this future, he rules. He thinks the past must already be doomed to lose. It gives him the confidence that he is right to seek the death of mankind. For him, although he has yet to take action, he can already see the success of it. He wants a pure world, as he sees it, ruled over by the Riven, who he sees as superior to people without presence. I remember another mad man from our own time having similar plans. It took a world war to stop him and he was nowhere near as powerful as Allende.’
    ‘Hang on,’ said Sam. ‘The King, Allende, he doesn’t end the world. It’s a supernova or an asteroid or something.’
    ‘That’s not what Allende talks about. He talks as if he would take the action. Maybe he has tricked you. Or maybe whoever told you it was unstoppable is lying. The way I see things it is not just the Riven who have something to lose if Allende is stopped. None of this world, this Mu, would exist if we do not get blasted.’
    Sam spat out a name. ‘Tarak. He told me it was a supernova. He’s lying again. He doesn’t want me to stop Allende in my time. He just wants to stop him here. If he is stopped too early then Tarak won’t exist. That selfish…’
    ‘It sounds like you need a conversation with this man. I am not sure what the truth is. Perhaps Allende has created this misinformation.’
    ‘Yes. I do need a conversation,’ said Sam anger bubbling inside him. ‘So what else?’
    ‘Well, Allende had me in the mines as I said, digging for the crystal. He has fashioned some of the crystal into skull shapes, fused it together with presence somehow and put power into it. One I have seen he can use to kill, although I do not know how. He loves the crystal. I do not know where this crystal has come from. Perhaps from out there,’ Aleksy pointed a finger to the sky. ‘Many people dig for it. He keeps it in the throne room, plays with it, and spins it around using his presence like a whirlwind of glass. I guess he did not expect this piece to stick in me and did not expect that it would awaken something in me.’
    ‘I’ve heard of crystal skulls,’ said Sam. ‘I once saw a movie with them in. It was pretty awful though. There’s a bit in my grandfather’s journal about them too. How many people are in the mines?’
    ‘I am not sure. Quite a lot I think, although I was never allowed to see that many and we were divided into groups. So far as I know I am only the second person ever to escape.’
    ‘The second? Who was the first?’
    ‘I didn’t meet him. But I remember his name. My friends told me the story. He disappeared one night from a locked cell. Spirited away and through a line no-one had spotted. Somehow the Riven had missed it. His name was Hadan.’
    Sam spluttered in shock. ‘Hadan? Really? Wow. If he is the same person then he was my grandfather. Well, he eventually met me when he was not much older than I am now but then he was pushed back in time and got stuck there where he had a family which resulted in me. He died an old man having had a happy life.’
    ‘Well, it seems that you have a strange story to tell yourself, Sam. It is good to hear that one person at least had a happier life. But I fear that not all of us