Winds of War
Page 1
Volume 5
ALLIANCE OF THE QUAD:
WINDS OF WAR
A Novel by
Dennis L. Morrow
Published as an eBook on Kindle, 2019
Published as a Paperback, 2019
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morrow, Dennis L.
Alliance of the Quad: Winds of War
Copyright: TBA
ISBN-13: 978-1-074-60945-0
ISBN-10: 1-074-60945-0
Copyright © 2019
Dedicated
to
Linda
Cover Illustration, Design and
Interior Illustrations
by
Jon Gerung
Links
Website: www.allianceofthequad.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/allianceofthequad
Twitter: www.twitter.com/dennislmorrow
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoMfJafoOJI
Notes to the reader:
Because it can be confusing at times with all the new names, I have included a glossary at the end.
Table of Contents
Prologue What Happened?
Chapter 1What’s the Right Time?
Chapter 2Easy Peasy
Chapter 3This Is All on You
Chapter 4Dead is Dead
Chapter 5Torron’s Secret Weapon
Chapter 6Haste Makes Waste
Chapter 7How Did You Do That?
Chapter 8Zolog
Chapter 9Alpha-6 Team
Chapter 10The Test
Chapter 11Jade
Chapter 12UFO
Chapter 13Caroline
Chapter 14Next Time, I’ll Kill You
Chapter 15Trojan Wheelbarrow
Chapter 16Haven
Chapter 17Locals
Chapter 18Revilo & Oar-7
Chapter 19Outgunned
Chapter 20Pirate’s Cove
Chapter 21The Alliance Dies Tonight
Chapter 22Four Hundred Years Old
Chapter 23Surrender
Chapter 24Rocket-Propelled Grenades
Chapter 25No Way, José
Chapter 26Back to Gandoral
Chapter 27The Situation Room
Chapter 28Wand of Wongate
Chapter 29We Stand and Fight
Chapter 30I’ll Go
Chapter 31Revilo—Harbinger of Death
Chapter 32Oar-7 Attack Fighter
Chapter 33The Bridge Is Out
Chapter 34The Shields Are Down
Chapter 35Fifty-Mile Limit
Chapter 36Hagred and Margot
Chapter 37Friend or Foe
Chapter 38Who’s Who?
Chapter 39Ensnaring Cord
Chapter 40Smalik (T-Bone)
Chapter 41Small Red Vial
Chapter 42Red Balloon?
Chapter 43It’s Not Over Yet
Chapter 44Four Peaks Island
Chapter 45Cotton
Chapter 46The Mayor
Chapter 47The Celestor
Chapter 48Between the Eyes
Chapter 49Acid Bath?
Chapter 50Battle for Gandoral
Chapter 51Shield of Innocence
Chapter 52Wicked Witch of the West
Chapter 53Gates of Horgon
Chapter 54Celebration
Chapter 55Rules versus Principles
Chapter 56Oliver
Chapter 57Kate and Jane
Chapter 58Adaeze
Invitations
Glossary
Prologue
What Happened?
Nothing was out of place. The Safe Haven had somehow replenished all the supplies. Even the milk was fresh. The WindElys were still spinning, their colorful reflections dancing around the room.
Steve was the last to be seated at the Visualizer.
“You took more than your share of cookies,” Matt said to Steve as he sat down.
“First come, first served,” Steve responded.
“I’ll make more after we get done here,” Matt said.
When the new Alliance—Matt, Steve, Jeremy, and Jesse—put out their fists, thumbs up, their knuckles touching, the first Alliance appeared. All four of the little men had serious facial expressions.
A tall, thin man with long white hair and a beard that hung down on his deep purple satin robe, Ishmon looked like an English lord. He wore an ornate gold chain around his neck and a thin gold crown on his head with an amethyst set in the front.
Oar was dressed in a Persian outfit, a ruby-red robe made of fine linen. Of average height and build, with short black hair and a beard, he looked like he could have been Aladdin’s father, headdress and all.
Gaska was a black man of average height and weight who sported an exotically sculpted beard. He wore royal blue silk covered with elaborate animal skins. A tattoo covered the back of his head and continued down the back of his neck. It looked like it might be the top of a colorful cross, but most of the tattoo was covered by his clothing.
A short, stocky man with a clean-shaven face, Lindau wore a fur hat and an emerald-green robe of satin and wool, suitable for the depths of a Russian winter. The sash around his waist, made of finely woven strands of gold and silver, glittered and reflected light from every source in the room.
“We have some questions for you,” Jeremy said.
“Before you start, we need to complete the synergistic ritual,” Gaska said. “Stand up.”
The first Alliance stood up behind the four chairs fastened to the floor. When Gaska waved his hand, the Quad appeared in the center of the table. The short, squatty pyramid was always impressive. Made of polished, pure black granite, it reflected images from around the room.
Oar stepped up to the pyramid and pointed at one of the cavities. “Sit in the seat across from the cavity that matches up with your Symbol,” he said. Once the new Alliance settled in, he said, “Place your Symbols into the cavities on the Quad.”
As they took the Symbols from around their necks, all four Symbols turned pure white, and when they placed them into the cavities, a small notch appeared at the bottom of each cavity, making room for the gold chains which lay on the table. Once the last Symbol was in place, they all turned back to their brilliant color and began pulsing—bright and dim, about one pulse per second.
“You must now put your knuckles together thumbs up, right over the top of the Quad,” Lindau said.
The four put out their fists, touching knuckles together, with thumbs up. The Symbols began to pulse faster and faster until, after some thirty seconds, they were pulsing so fast the pulses became steady bright lights, so bright they were difficult to look at. Then the Symbols dimmed to their original brightness and stopped pulsing.
“Put them back around your necks,” Oar said.
When they took them from the Quad, the Symbols didn’t turn back to white, but rather continued to glow normal colors. They put them around their necks, and the Quad disappeared.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Jeremy exclaimed, pointing at the floor around the tree trunk. “The hatches on the floor . . . they’re all gone.”
Steve jumped up from the table and ran around the tree trunk. “The only one left is hatch number one.”
“What happened?” Matt asked.
“Oops,” Oar said under his breath.
“Oops? Oops?” Steve said as he sat back down. “I thought we were going to use the hatches to return back to the times and places for each trek. What do you mean, oops?”
Oar held up his hands. “Okay, okay, we should have explained before we finished the synergistic ritual. The hatches have no further use. They were placed there by your fathers to guide you to the Symbols. We’ll explain how you return to those locations once we explain the synergisti
c effects of the Symbols.”
Lindau stepped into the center of the table. “Let me explain what has happened to your powers. First and most important is that you may not have found all your powers. You may have more to discover. Each Alliance is unique, so the powers you get are highly dependent on the individual Alliance. You’ve already demonstrated that the rules of past Alliances don’t apply any longer. The four treks you went on were training treks. Your powers came to you as you experimented and tested them. You could get more once you exit the Safe Haven back into present time.”
Ishmon joined Lindau. “Second, the powers you already have will now be enhanced. Because the four Symbols together boost the powers of all the Symbols, you’ll be stronger, quicker, and more capable with each of your powers.”
Oar walked to the center of the table as well. “Now that your powers have become synergistic,” he said, “you’ll share, to some extent, each other’s powers. But there’s no guarantee that you can use one of the other powers, and if it turns out you can, there’s no guarantee how strong it will work for you. Our recommendation is for you not to use a power that isn’t yours unless it’s an emergency. If you do use a power that isn’t yours, there are two caveats. First, the power is diminished quite a bit for you. For example, if Jeremy uses Steve’s power of upper-body strength, he’ll be stronger than he was before, but not nearly as strong as Steve. Second, because the power isn’t yours, you’ll be somewhat unskilled. This in itself could have unintended consequences.”
“You must be extremely careful when using each other’s powers,” Ishmon added.
“We have questions about the four trips back in time,” Jesse said. “When we went back, we change the history of the world, right?”
“Yes, every trek into the past changes the future from that point in time forward,” Oar answered. “Think of it this way. The only ones who know that history has changed are the four of you. For good or bad, the history of the world changes. Most of the time, the larger picture—the major events in the world’s history—don’t get affected.”
“Have you given any thought to our dilemma?” Matt asked. “We have to save our fathers, and we will. We also want to go back in time to bring our loved ones with us to present time. Do you have any idea how this might be accomplished?”
“We’ve discussed this problem and have given it a great deal of thought,” Gaska said, shaking his head. “We see no way to get this accomplished. The Safe Haven has only gone back in time four times for each Alliance since its creation. We see no way to change its foundational principles. It is what it is.”
“When was the Safe Haven created, and who was the creator?” Jeremy asked.
“It was created by Cetrekap, the Grand Wizard of Gandoral, around 915 AD as a way to escape Gandoral. He couldn’t get it to work for several hundred years, but right before he died, he found the necessary combination of magic and potions. However, Torron captured him and executed him before he could use it. The Alliance that was active at the time had helped him to get the Safe Haven activated, and they began using it from then on. At first it was used as a place to go to be safe from Torron. It wasn’t until the fourteenth century that the Alliance realized it could actually move through time. By trial and error, we learned how to use the Safe Haven to our advantage.”
“So there are no rules written down anywhere, only rules handed down from Alliance to Alliance?” Steve asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” Oar said.
“So you may not know the full potential of the Safe Haven,” Matt said. “Right?”
“That’s an accurate statement,” Ishmon said.
“There you go,” Steve said. “Again, you don’t really know. You only know what you know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. Do I have that right?”
“Yes,” Ishmon said. “You’ve already pushed the boundaries way beyond where we believed them to be. You’ve discovered more Symbols and more magic than any other Alliance before you. It’s our opinion that if there is any way to discover how to use the Safe Haven as a time machine, you’ll be the Alliance to do it. However, you’ll be on your own. We don’t have the knowledge or experience to assist you.”
“Okay, what do we do to go after our fathers?” Jesse asked.
“There are two clocks above hatch number one. One keeps track of the time since you first entered the Safe Haven, Alliance time. It will run until you pass the responsibility of the Alliance to the next generation in twenty years, after seven thousand three hundred five days have passed. The second one displays the actual date, year, month, day, and time on Earth, Earth time—what you call present time. The moment you entered the Safe Haven, Earth time stopped. Before your second trek when Steve left the Safe Haven, it started back up. When all four of you were back in the Safe Haven, the clock stopped.”
“I have a question,” Jeremy interrupted. “Did you say that the present-time clock starts and stops only when the first person leaves or last person enters the Safe Haven?”
“Yes and no,” Lindau said.
Steve grinned and shook his head.
Looking at Steve disapprovingly out of the corner of his eye, Lindau continued. “Yes, under normal circumstances, it stops when the last one enters the Safe Haven and starts when the first person leaves the Safe Haven. The only exception is when one or more of you are no longer in the Alliance. You’ve either left of your own free will or have been killed.”
“Above the two clocks,” Ishmon added, “there’s a panel with four slots in it. Remove your Symbols and insert the Symbols into the slots with the chains hanging down. Once the last Symbol is in place, a drawer will open below the clocks. Inside the drawer, you’ll find a third clock. It’s set with all zeros. There are dials to set the time and date on the clock: one for the years, 1228 as an example; one for months, one through twelve; one for days, one through thirty-one; one for hours, one through twenty-four; one for minutes, one through sixty; and one for seconds, one through sixty.”
Oar stepped forward. “You’ve been keeping a record of the times you left and returned from your treks. The date you put into the clock in the drawer is the date that you traveled back from your trek in Alliance time. You must calculate that time by using the time on the stopped present-time clock and add the days and hours you were away. For example, if the present-time clock said January first and your Alliance time clock showed you were gone for sixty-two days, you would dial March third into the clock in the drawer. You would dial in the time and exit through hatch number one to return to the place where trek one ended.”
“If we dial in a time to go back to get our fathers, what happens to the present-time clock?” Jesse asked. “Does it start up?”
“No, the only time it starts and stops is when you enter or leave into present time,” Oar said. “If you’re using the clock in the drawer, the present-time clock doesn’t move. You’ll have to put in the location you’ll be going to. Any one of you can do this by placing your right hand on the black stone to the right of the time-travel clock and either say out loud or think in your mind where you want to go. Try to be specific. If you say ‘Phoenix, Arizona,’ you could end up any place within the city limits of Phoenix. If you say ‘my home,’ it will know where your home is.”
“We can put in a date, and if we’ve been someplace on that date, it’ll take us there, or if we haven’t, we need to place our hand on the stone and tell it in our mind where we want to be,” Matt said. “Did I get that right?”
“No, you have to say where you want to go each time you travel,” Gaska said.
“Before we do anything else, we need to go get our fathers,” Jesse insisted. “We should do that right now.”
“Remember, you can only bring back one at a time,” Gaska said. “You must be careful not to go back to the camp before you left. We don’t know what would happen if you were to meet up with yourselves at some distant time. You could be caught in a loop where you leave and come back, leave and come back
, and never get out of the loop. We recommend you be careful how you set your times for traveling.”
“One last thing,” Gaska said as he motioned for Oar to talk.
“Oh, yes,” Oar said. “There has been a significant change since you went on your first trek. That Saturday when you left your fathers in search of the Safe Haven, Torron was entering the area near the lake in one huge black cloud. She had a goal of stopping you before you could reach this place. However, you made it here and embarked on your quests to retrieve the four Symbols. Something dramatic changed while you were gone. As you already know, you’ve brought back into the Safe Haven more magic artifacts than any other Alliance. To some extent, you’ve changed the magic of this place. You must have changed something with Torron as well. She’s now coming into this world with the largest and most sophisticated army in the history of the Alliance.”
“We’re quite concerned about the future of the Alliance,” Ishmon said. “You’re now embarking on the most dangerous trek of all . . . present time. You will be facing Torron in your time, and she’s determined to crush you and take your world.”
“What’s so different?” Steve asked. “She’s had her eye on this world for centuries. Why is this any different from when our fathers entered back into present time?”
“We have little to help you with, except to say that something happened in Africa that changed her,” Lindau said. “She has somehow multiplied her power and strength. She’s never been as confident about taking over the world as she is now. She’s pulling out all the stops, and you’ll be facing a power that has never been seen before.”
“What do we do to fight her and win?” Matt asked.
“Remember the basic truth,” Lindau said. “Her power, her army, the destruction she leaves in her wake are dangerous and intimidating. She may kill, she may destroy, she may use her magic to battle with you, but as always, she’s the weak link. You must find the way to get to her and destroy her. It’s the only way to win.”
“Again, you have no solution for us,” Steve said. “All you can do is state the obvious. That’s not a lot of help.”