Time of the Stonechosen (The Soulstone Prophecy Book 2)

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Time of the Stonechosen (The Soulstone Prophecy Book 2) Page 5

by Thomas Quinn Miller


  Muk screamed as he was thrown back, landing hard on the beach among scattered pebbles. He sat up and shot Ghile a withering glare.

  “That no way to treat dream teacher! I not teach stupid boy nothing.” Muk got up and adjusted the rags he was wearing as if they were the finest festival clothes.

  Ghile couldn't help but chuckle, which only set the goblin cursing in his own tongue and bouncing from one foot to the other again.

  Another gift of the soulstones was Ghile could understand every word of the goblin tongue. He blushed.

  “He is right, Brother. That is no way to treat your teachers,” Adon said.

  Ghile wasn't sure when Adon had arrived or if he had been there the whole time. His face reddened and he immediately felt foolish. Ghile rose off the beach and ran his hand through his tangled curls.

  “I'm sorry, Adon. I wasn't trying to hurt him. He was hitting me on the head.”

  “I can't really blame him, what you did was foolish,” Adon said.

  Ghile's brother was tall, just like him. He looked the same as the day he failed the Rite of Attrition in Lakeside all those years before. The same dark hair as Ghile's, same high cheekbones. Even with everything that happened, it was still a mix of joy and confusion whenever Ghile saw Adon, joy at being reunited with his brother and confusion because Adon had been culled by the dwarves. Yet here he was.

  Muk walked up beside Adon and stood next to him, barely taller than Adon's knee. The obstinate goblin purposefully crossed his arms over his chest and added a harrumph for good measure.

  “You look well, considering,” Adon said.

  With a start, Ghile remembered the flames as they leaped from Riff's hands. He felt his flesh scream with the kiss of fire. The fight in the Ghost Fens!

  Ghile thrust his hands before his face and examined them, followed by his arms. There were no burns. He remembered with relief the wounds he suffered in Allwyn did not follow him into the dreaming.

  “Wait, how do you two know what happened? Can you see into Allwyn?” Ghile said.

  He never really thought on it before. Adon never said he could see what was happening when Ghile was awake. Ghile couldn't decide if the idea of them being able to see things he did was something he liked or not.

  Adon walked over and put a hand on Ghile's shoulder. “Be at ease, Brother. We can only sense when you call upon the powers of the soulstones. And then, it is only the briefest of images. Much like seeing the dreamings of the other sleepers,” Adon said.

  “What sleepers you mean?” Muk asked. He looked between the two humans in confusion.

  Ghile recalled Adon sharing his experience after he was culled, after he died. At first Adon was reluctant to talk about it, but over time, he finally shared his time spent floating in a dream like sleep. He had compared it to laying in a pitch black field surrounded by others. He could sense their presence, but not see them. They all were speaking at once, sharing stories of their lives, their experiences. Over time, Adon was able to single individual stories out from the others. Then, he could start to see what the others had seen, experience what they experienced. It was how he had learned the old ways from the ancestors. How he had learned to use the powers forgotten by humans since the Great Purge.

  “Who sleeping?” Muk said. He appeared to be getting agitated again.

  Adon, made a calming gesture with his hands. “I will explain it to you later, Muk. For now, we need to focus on Ghile and his training.”

  Ghile shook his head and sat back down, crossing his legs.

  “Adon, I cannot stay. There is a battle in the Ghost Fens. We were attacked by these black cat-like creatures. They came from the water. I must return.”

  Ghile tried to relax. He focused on returning to Allwyn. The last time he was in the dreaming, Muk taught him how to wake up. He had to relax and focus his mind. He had eventually felt his feet sink into the earth and spread out like roots, his head and hands rise up to become limbs of the Great Oak that occupied the center of the island.

  Nothing was happening. Ghile opened his eyes to find Adon watching him with a concerned look while Muk stared at him like he was an idiot.

  “Ghile, you have been hurt. I'm afraid you cannot leave until you have healed,” Adon said.

  “But, it was the swamp creature who was burned not me.” Even as Ghile spoke, he could vividly remember his fur and flesh melting under the heat. He shuddered and tried to shake the feeling off, like it was a wasp that had landed on him.

  Muk poked himself in the head. “You hurt here. You go too deep in swamp cat. Become cat. Dangerous. Only control one that way. No have control of your body. You stupid boy. Why you no come here to learn new powers sooner? You stupid boy.”

  “All right, Muk. That is enough,” Adon said. He stepped forward and extended his hand to Ghile.

  “Come with us, Brother. You are here for the time being and you need to learn how to use your new powers.”

  The three of them made their way through the island forest. Ghile tried to take everything in at once. He had not been in the dreaming since he defeated Muk and the worgs on the Horn.

  The forest seemed to be in a perpetual state of summer. The green leaves hung thick above them. The sky was cloudless. Only once had Ghile seen the sky anything but clear. On one of his visits, he arrived to a brewing storm. He searched through these very woods looking for Adon. He'd been angry then and wanted to confront Adon. He accused Adon of being the god, Hungering God. Even now, walking behind Adon and Muk, he was not really sure who they were. This dream Adon looked like the Adon he remembered. He spoke like Adon and acted like him. He stared at the back of Adon's head, as if the answer could be found there.

  Muk scampered along, taking two to three steps for every one of theirs. Ghile had not known the creature before he died, so didn't know if this Muk was the same one who captured his Uncle Toren and used him as bait to lure Ghile to that cave.

  Regardless, this goblin had been stonechosen, like him. But, now, Muk's soulstone was in Ghile's chest, next to the one Ghile had found in the ruins at the base of the horn. He absently ran his hands along the two soulstones, now embedded in his chest, just beneath his skin.

  Ghile ducked under a low hanging branch and recognized this part of the forest as where the shadow creature had once tried to lure him away. He looked around, expecting to see the skulking creature peering out around one of the trees, wringing its hands, watching him.

  Adon said the creature was here when he first arrived. For what purpose, if any, Ghile didn't know. All he did know was the creature tried to attack Adon on numerous occasions and tried to lure Ghile away from Adon, deeper into the forest. Adon said the shadow was trying to isolate Ghile so it could attack him.

  If Ghile was being honest with himself, he wasn't entirely sure that was true. He wouldn't admit that to Adon. Adon had seemed quite sure that was the reason and told him on a number of occasions to be wary of the creature. But, it never openly attacked Ghile.

  He felt more than confident enough to protect himself from the shadow now. He decided the next time the shadow showed itself, he would follow it and see where it lead. Maybe he would finally start to get some answers about this place.

  The trio entered the large clearing which surrounded the huge oak tree which grew from the center of the island. The tree made the surrounding trees look like shrubs. It reminded Ghile of the way the Horn towered over his valley home. But where the Horn was dark and ugly, the great oak was majestic and full of life. Ghile found he missed the big tree as much as the rest of the place. This place, this dreaming brought him comfort, relaxed him. He could think of no better place to learn.

  Adon turned around before one of the great roots of the Oak. The roots easily rose twenty feet in the air. Ghile and Adon had spent many evenings sitting on them, looking up into the boughs of the oak, talking.

  “So, let us begin with what you already know,” Adon said. He pulled a handful of stones from a pouch on his belt and toss
ed them towards Ghile. As soon as they left his hands, they raced towards Ghile.

  Ghile focused his mind and brought the image of the force wall from his mind and into reality. The shimmering wall stretched out from his hand. As he had done in the past, he did not make the wall solid to just reflect the stones. As soon as he felt the pressure of them impacting his shield, he allowed the shield to give under the force. The three stones slowed and hovered before momentarily before being shot back towards Adon.

  Adon smiled and redirected the stones with a wave of his hands.

  “Good. Now follow me.” With that, Adon turned, took two steps and then soared into the air to land lightly on top of one of the Oak's enormous roots.

  Ghile nodded and ran forward. He focused and pushed his force shield out from the bottoms of his feet with as much power as he could and found himself vaulted into the air. He easily cleared the height of the root and as he felt his speed slowing he waved his arms to keep his feet beneath him. He continued to hold the image of the force extending out from his feet and allowed the force shield to absorb the impact of his landing. When the pressure was too much, he release it and landed lightly on the top of the root, next to Adon.

  “Well done,” Adon said.

  Adon stepped off the root, but instead of plummeting down, he raised one hand and floated forward through the air. He glided down to land gently next to a clapping Muk.

  Ghile jumped off the root and followed. He extended his force shield out from his extended hand. He stretched it wide and thin until he felt it catch the air. He used this trick to clear the chasm during his manhood tests. He thought of Gar then and could see his cousins accusing eyes as Gar fell to his death. Ghile felt himself falling too. He had lost his concentration and with it, his force shield. He brought up a shield beneath him and only just broke his fall, tumbling to the ground.

  “Ghile, you must maintain focus. The shield is an extension of your mind,” Adon said.

  Muk was clapping even harder and even making a sinister wheezing sound Ghile took to be laughter. In all the other training sessions with Adon, he never had an audience. The addition of Muk was not going to make these sessions any easier.

  “I'm sorry, I pictured…I will maintain focus,” Ghile said.

  Adon nodded. “Now, I know you used the force power to fill that worg's mouth and break its jaws. You need to continue to think of different ways to use it. There are no limits, except for those you impose on yourself.”

  “Well, there is the limit of how far I can extend it. That and I can only extend it from my own body,” Ghile said.

  “Your own mind,” Adon corrected. “You extend it from your own mind. But now you can touch other minds.”

  Muk stepped from behind Adon. The little goblin's demeanor had completely changed. He had his hands behind his back and wore a somber expression.

  Ghile couldn't help but grin when Muk stated, “now Muk teach.”

  Adon cleared his throat and shook his head when Ghile looked up. But, Ghile could see Adon holding back a smile of his own.

  Ghile cleared his throat and listened attentively to the little goblin.

  Muk walked around him slowly. “When animals near you feel it. In here.” Muk poked his head again. It was apparently a gesture he was fond of. He did it with more force than was necessary and Ghile couldn't help but wince each time he did it.

  “The closer the animal, the easier it be to sense and control,” Muk said.

  Ghile looked around the clearing and for the first time realized he had never actually seen another animal in the dreaming other than those in the clearing and the shadow creature. Of course there were other animals, he thought. He had heard the birds singing from the nearby trees many times.

  Muk was still speaking, but Ghile had already closed his eyes and focused his mind. He reached out, mentally searching. From the experience he had with the swamp cats, he was a little more cautious. It reminded him of when he woke in the middle of the night back in Last Hamlet and had to find his way out of his father's roundhouse without stepping on someone or knocking something over.

  He sensed a number of small, for lack of a better word, bubbles, there. The bubbles were small and if he had eyes in his mind, he would say they glowed slightly. They were a short distance away from him. He tried to focus on one of them and was disoriented when he felt is conscious rush towards it, closing the mental distance in less than a heartbeat. He fought the forward momentum and stopped abruptly.

  The small bubble of light floated there. He could sense it was a bird, one of the house swallows which made their nests among the rafters of his people's roundhouses. He loved watching them swoop in through the windows and doorways in the spring, back from wherever they had been through the long winters.

  He felt another presence beside him and felt more than heard Muk's chastising voice.

  “You too hasty. I not finished. Why you focus on one? Try sense others, all at once,” Muk said.

  Ghile nodded and then thought how useless such an action was given the circumstances. He relaxed and was jolted back away from the single swallow and could again sense the others.

  “Good. Now reach out and see yourself grasping each ball of light and crushing it like egg.”

  Ghile didn't know if he was more disturbed by the image of crushing the minds of these small birds or by the sound of glee in the goblin's voice.

  “Are you crazy?” Ghile said. He opened his eyes and glared down at Muk.

  The little goblin opened his eyes, a genuinely confused look on his face. “No. Why ask?”

  “Why would I want to shred their minds? They are harmless swallows,” Ghile said.

  A wind rustled through the trees and the clearing. Ghile brushed a loose lock of hair from in front of his eyes.

  “This is what you want to teach me? How to crush creatures' minds?” Ghile looked to Adon, who stood a short distance away watching. “Adon, I won't do it.”

  Adon looked at the trees and nodded to Ghile. “He is right, Muk. There is no need to kill these birds. I think Ghile has enough control to try something a little more complex than attacking their minds.”

  “But Ghile,” Adon added, “there may come a time where you are in danger and understanding you have the ability to perform such an attack may be the difference between life and death.”

  Ghile sighed. He ran his hands through his hair and nodded to Muk. “Teach me how you controlled the worgs.”

  Muk stared at him for a moment before answering. It was obvious he didn't appreciate being told what he was to teach. It was also obvious he was a little disappointed in not seeing the swallows having their minds shredded.

  “Reach out to birds' minds. Feel they should listen to you, feel they need to do as you say. My dream teacher explain it to me by describing how we speak to young,” Muk said.

  “Your dream teacher?” Ghile had not considered it, but it made sense Muk, as stonechosen, would have had a teacher.

  “What do you think happened to him once you, um, you know, died?”

  Ghile didn't want to upset Muk, but he was curious how this all worked. Adon had been here when he first came to this forested island. Muk appeared after Ghile joined with the second soulstone. If he was killed by another stonechosen as Muk was. Would he appear in their dreaming to teach them what he knew? He wasn't so sure he would be inclined to teach someone who just killed him.

  “I not know,” Muk said. If it bothered Muk, he didn't show it.

  Adon cleared his throat. “Ghile, focus on your training for now. We can discuss this later.”

  Ghile again wondered if this was indeed Adon. There were so many unanswered questions about all this.

  “Alright, the swallows,” Ghile said. He reached out with his mind. This time, he did not close his eyes. The small bubbles appeared there in his mind as little floating lights. He did as Muk said and thought of how they should listen to them, how they were supposed to listen to him.

  Nothing ha
ppened. The swallows were still in the trees and didn't seem to be any different.

  “Now call them,” Muk said.

  No sooner had Ghile thought they should come to him, than one of the little blue colored birds swooped down and landed on his shoulder. It tilted its small delicate head and stared at him expectantly. It was soon joined by the others. They swooped in, chittering away. They were hungry, Ghile realized. They had not told him, he had just felt it. The first one to land on him hopped closer to his face. Ghile could sense its mind, that little bubble of energy, floating there in his mind's eye. He had the urge to push his consciousness against the bubble.

  Ghile was instantly staring at his own enormous face. He was hungry and he could feel his tiny heart fluttering incredibly fast in his chest.

  His human face had gone slack and emotionless. His eyes were open, but blank, empty. It reminded him of the way some people looked when they were daydreaming.

  The urge to fly filled him and he took to the sky. His sharp angled blue wings cut through the air as he swooped across the clearing. He began beating his wings furiously and rose with each downward thrust. It was an incredible feeling and he couldn't hold it all in. He shouted. The sound that came out of him was more of a cheerful warble followed by a “slee-plink”.

  He banked sharply to his left and circled around. Some of the other swallows had also taken to the air. He must have lost control of them when he entered this one. He could see Adon and Muk were talking to his human form, but he couldn't hear them. He thought about the swallow he was “riding”. Where was it? Was it in here with him? He tried to sense it, but couldn't. It must still be here with him, he didn't know how to fly, yet he somehow knew what to do. He hadn't thought about what he needed to do, just what he wanted to do and he had done it.

  He circled around again and rose higher. He had a clear view of the clearing. What an incredible feeling it was to fly. He would definitely be doing this again.

 

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