Golden Age: Chapter I

[Corile]

Golden Age
Χρυσά Χρόνια

Chapter I

It was a hot March morning of 824 A.S. The maglev train was speeding through a vast wasteland of Crete. The only line connecting equatorial Crete with Attica. With home.

Icarus stared out of the window. As far as eyes could see, sand. Sand, dust and rocks, all melting together in a yellow-orange-gray palette. Far away, on the horizon, monolithic peaks of the Divide, crowned by rays of rising sun.

A few minutes later, a change in the landscape started appearing. First, some low and daring shrubs. Draining the last drops of water from the ground, somehow defining the border of the desert. Then, ugly and yellow grass. The train was closing to the Divide pass -- a gap in otherwise solid mountain range. He felt the elevation changing.

Soon, the yellow grass started giving way to more green. Low bushes and even a couple trees signaled the proximity of the Divide pass -- kept alive by the life-bringing humidity of Haliacmon and her few tributaries, gingerly leaking out of the Attican valley.

What first seemed like a distant wall of mountains -- the eastern part of the Divide -- now started closing in. The highest of peaks of the Divide were invisible beyond the dust clouds, but the mountains were no longer just silhouettes. The impenetrable wall of sand-covered rocks symbolised the differences between the peoples living on either side of the range. Thus, the name -- Divide.

The train climbed higher, through the only pass between the northern and southern ranges of the Divide. On either side, sky-high mountains. However, the ground was no longer bleak. Low trees with green leaves, in one of the few places on Crete with vegetation was higher than a human, ornamented the pass.

And then, it was as if they entered a new world.

* * *

Heraklion was blinding. The white walls of its buildings pierced eyesight like snow on a sunny day. Icarus left the train at the last stop, in Meletis, and immediately headed home. The next day would be laborious.

The election cycle in Attica lasted eight years and every time a new Archon was chosen, it almost felt like a national holiday. Elections for the office of Archon attracted the interest even of citizens who normally didn't engage in the rich political life of Heraklian aristocracy.

He already announced his candidacy, last time he had visited the capital. According to his rudimentary knowledge of local affairs, four other candidates planned to stand for the office. He was regardless noted as the favourite, and endorsed by the current Archon, Aesop.

He entered the front garden in front of his family's manor. Just a few hours with his family, another few hours of sleep and he would have to give his all to sway the Custodi people -- and their votes, more importantly -- to his side.

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