See. I told you I would get to it later. Let me pause my story for a moment so that I can tell you a little about myself. If I do, maybe you will understand why Nesbeth chose me for the task I have yet to mention. What Nesbeth, nay what all of the Minor Ones wanted was something so important that it would be a waste not to understand the circumstances that brought them to choose me for their savior. Me, a mortal to save a god.
I was born twenty-seven years ago in the dead epicenter of the Fifth War. Just because I told you my age, doesn't mean that we're going to be real chummy-like. Got it?
I was born in a small town called Haddock-Upon-the-Desert. At the time, the Fifth War raged throughout what had been called the Sandlands in what used to be called Texas. It ended when I was five, swallowing up the majority of the Sandlands into the Gyalt Empire. Oh, what an empire that was, lasting merely nineteen years. Not even the shortest one in history… But, I'll get to that in a moment.
Haddock was known as the secret capital of the Sandlands, seeing as all of its presidents and vice presidents hailed from this little patch of heaven in the sand. It was governed by its mayor-for-life, Thaddeus Wilfred Haddock, III, my weird great-uncle. The Sandlands and Haddock had always gone hand in hand. If something moved in the capitol, it was felt in Haddock.
My mother, San'jare, was an unmarried twenty-two year old socialite when I was born. Both she and I were named for her mother, Thaddeus' sister. She was a wonderful woman from what I can remember, always smelling of fresh baby's breath and had the longest blonde hair I'd ever seen. But, she died at the end of the Fifth War, leaving me in the care of my only relative. Uncle Thaddeus.
I knew nothing about my father. I never met him. What I do know is Uncle Thaddeus used to say he was a soldier on the front lines, fighting to keep our town safe. What a good job he did. Nilas' troops came rushing in over the Sandmarch into our town like a wave of the ocean. There I go on a tangent.
Then, there was Uncle Thaddeus. Trust me, I didn't want to be with him. He was one strange man, that one, dressing in Roman clothing and eating monkey brains for breakfast. He even tried to get me to eat them. Once. But, you don't serve a four-year old girl brains. You just don't. And, that is all I will say on the subject. Anyway, Uncle Thaddeus was also the head of the local church. Like Benny, he wore many hats. It was these hats that would spell the doom for the town.
I didn't really want to talk about the Fifth War. Hey, I was just a kid. I didn't really get it. You know what I mean? What really shaped me was the outbreak of the Sixth War. After six years of peace, the world as I knew it was thrust into war once more, just to satisfy the emperor's greed. So many people died.
Anyway, it began sometime in the fall of 2984, when I was only eleven. My father, who hadn't been home for the last eleven years because of the Fifth War and then the border patrols after, had been due to finally come back. It was then I heard the news. War was imminent. Invasions, robots, the collapse of all known civilization, and death beyond what anyone had ever seen. But, I'm getting ahead of myself again.
At first, the war didn't reach the Sandmarch. Nilas had reneged on a promise of his father, Georje, from what I understood and the Republic of Sonenburg-Brandenburg sought to make him make good on it. By force. The eastern coast was ravished. Much where Atlanta's Rest is now, and Old New York City. But, I didn't care then. It had yet to reach the small town I lived in. Perhaps, I should have been more diligent.
It would be two years before I would begin to feel the strength of the Sixth War. Nilas II of Rugyalt invaded the Sandlands, marking the second time the armies of Gyalt would make a stir in the Midwest. The Sandlands media began calling it the Second Gyalt War. Everyone had been optimistic. After all, Nilas had been at the head of the first invasion and despite being outnumbered twenty to one, the Sandlands had prevailed.
But, this would not go like the first time. Nilas had learned just how tenacious someone was when they survived in the desert. He learned his lesson well. I saw on television that Emperor Nilas II began working on automatons, to alleviate the deaths of humans in the war effort. Naturally, I was scared. After all, I was only a child. Something about those robots gave me the chills.
And, it was at that time my uncle Thaddeus died.
Now, naturally, I would not make such a big deal about this older guy falling down dead. I mean he was just over seventy and while that wasn't so unnatural for someone to die around that age, it was how he died that irked me. To this very day, it irked me. So much so, that I was kicking myself as to why I never made the connection before.
You see, I had gone to draw water from the well at the town square. Some war effort. Water was diverted from the town. Thank goodness, Uncle Thaddeus had invested in wells as emergency measures during the Fifth War. Anyway, Uncle Thaddeus went to the wall to speak to some of the men stationed there. The battles were getting closer and closer. Even President Lowry retreated behind our walls. The capital was lost.
As mayor, it was Uncle Thaddeus' job to oversee every part of the town. But, that was where the trouble began. It didn't end there either.
So, I was saying that I was off drawing water from the well when I heard a bunch of screams coming from the wall. Not women, not men, not even human screams. Of course, at that age, I didn't know there could be anything else. I rushed over to watch and find out what was causing the noise. I know, I know. You're thinking, what an idiot I was for going there. Every horror movie should have taught me otherwise. But, I was kind of an idiot back then. Very naïve.
As I reached the wall, I saw it. The soldiers were rushing down the wall and through the gates. They were scared. Scared, I said. Grown men and women that I thought would never run from anything, were fear-blind.
It was then I saw it. Taller than the mountains in the distance, crafted from something better than steel, slathered in red paint or at least I think it was paint. This thing was beyond my thoughts. An ungodly automaton. In one of its claws dangled lifeless and wilted like a dying fern was my poor Uncle Thaddeus. I watched in horror as it threw him to the ground. His dead body landed right in front of me. I vomited. I vowed in that moment those things would pay. By the end of the war, pay they did.