A Knight's Pledge

A Knight's Pledge - Prologue

A Knight's Pledge - Copyright (C) 2013 by Amanda Pederick. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.

First Edition 2013

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's overactive imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is highly unlikely and entirely coincidental.

Prologue

In a deep recess, between the skirting board and a bookshelf, a particle of dust was found by the barest whiff of breeze.

It did a slow swirl, collecting other particles in its wake. When the breeze abated, a dust entity was forming.

Over days, weeks, months and years, the dust entity grew in density. The collective consciousness of the microscopic particles became cohesive. A faulty power point behind the bookshelf sparked one day, bringing the collective into sentience.

It learned how to think. The Collective didn’t like that it was confined to the skirting board and tried to venture out. It was unfamiliar with the smooth and shiny landscape beyond the bookshelf, the barren and uncluttered surface. The Collective poked its upper parts around the edge beyond. A large being passed it by, collecting some fallen particles. Horror swept through The Collective at the loss and it shrank back into the shadows. It watched as horror turned into anger and anger into rage at the particles being swept away. The Collective began to plot against the thing that had taken parts of itself.

It gathered more particles of dust from deep in the shadow of the bookshelf. It tumbled out into the night shadows where an abundance of dust languished beneath a bed and next to that, a wardrobe.

The Collective growled in pleasure at its find and gathered the particles around it. All through the night, The Collective worked. One by one, they took shape. As each was complete, The Collective took them back to the bookshelf and lined them up in front of the faulty power point.

As dawn broke, The Collective smiled.

And flicked the faulty switch.