by Josh Webb
Finally, on one of his forays he ventured into a large room that was definitely different than the other ones he had visited before. A giant thick tree stood at the center of it, with bark the color of chocolate and blue-green leaves covering its branches. The tree itself must have been over thirty meters tall. What was most interesting for Benjamin however, was the thing sitting on one of its branches.
The creature was humanoid, its tall slender frame that of a beautiful young woman. She seemed to be wearing the same type of bark from the tree as armor, Benjamin noticed the armor was very form-fitting, covering her torso arms and legs, but still showing off her shapely body. A long mane of blue hair cascaded down her shoulders reaching the base of her spine, her skin was light-grey and her pupil-less eyes glowed the color of sapphires, a thorn circlet adorned her forehead.
"You have finally returned." The beautiful woman said in a musical voice, her blue lips curling upward in a smile, Benjamin blinked.
"Returned? I've never been here before lady, you must be on something." The red-haired youth replied. The blue-haired woman shook her head.
"I can assure you my mind is quite clear young one, I suppose I should clarify." She told him, "My name is Celara and I have been waiting a long time for the return of your bloodline."
"My bloodline? You mean I had family that used to live here?"
"Yes, but they left just about two decades ago. You are the first I have seen since."
Benjamin took this information in. Two decades ago, that would mean that his parents must have been here before! His mother must have been pregnant with Rebecca around that time. So then why did they leave? Food, water and shelter, three big things that were hard to find all at once in the wastelands. Why would they throw it all away?
"Any idea why they left, uh Celara was your name right?" Benjamin questioned, Celara shook her head, gracefully leaping down from the tree to land in front of him.
"You are correct in my name young one, as for the reason for your predecessor's departure, I am unsure, but that matters little. You are here now." Celara answered, reaching up with her left hand to caress Benjamin's cheek and the young necromancer-apprentice found himself at a loss for words.
"Yeah...good thing I'm...here..." The flame-haired youth replied, up close Celara was only slightly taller than him and her hand was really soft. Benjamin found himself staring at her perfectly oval face and full blue lips, she was definitely a beautiful specimen, "Uh... what exactly are you anyway? No human I know has blue hair or grey skin."
Celara kept caressing his cheek for a few more moments before turning away, heading down a passageway Benjamin hadn't noticed, the youth followed her. "I will reveal all in time, but first there is something you must see." She explained, her swaying hips were very distracting and Benjamin found he had to use all his willpower to focus on the task at hand.
The passageway eventually led into a massive room with a surprising lack of green. What was even more shocking was that the room was lit by a glowing white fungus attached to a grey-stone ceiling. The ground also did not have the dark green stone floor he was familiar with, instead it was full of sand, not the yellow-gold sand that made up the Desert of Despair, this sand was a lighter shade of yellow, almost white in color. Large dark-brown thorn bushes the size of small buildings littered the room, so much so that Benjamin found there was very little room to maneuver.
"Do not touch the thorn bushes, they are very sharp." Celara's musical voice sounded from ahead of him, she was easily traversing a path through the bushes, a path that was barely wide enough for the average person. Benjamin noted some human skeletons impaled on the thorn bushes as he walked past them, the skeletons had obviously been there for some time with tattered remnants of what was once clothes adorning their bony bodies.
"Sharp thorns, no shit." The red-haired youth remarked sarcastically, Celara said nothing more as she continued to weave through the narrow path of sand, she nonchalantly ducked under or leaned away from any stray branch the path threw at her. The grey-skinned woman was traversing the terrain like someone who knew it like the back of their hand. Benjamin began to wonder just how long Celara had lived down here to achieve this feat.
"Here we are." She suddenly announced, standing before a large thorn bush that looked no different than the rest. With a wave of her hand, the bush parted into two halves, revealing a blue glyph about three meters in diameter. Celara stepped into the center of the glyph then turned around so that she was facing Benjamin and smiled. "You might want to hold your breath when you step on it." She said to him with a wink of her right eye, in a flash of blue light she was gone.
Hesitantly Benjamin approached the blue glyph. Celara could be leading him to his doom. Looking around, he realized that he forgot to keep track of all the twists and turns through this damned thorn bush forest she had led him through. He was lost, with very limited supplies on his person, the flame-haired youth doubted he these thorn bushes were edible and he couldn't drink sand. His only choice now was to follow Celara.
So Benjamin stood upon the blue glyph held his breath per Celara's instructions and waited, the change was faster than he expected. One moment he was standing on solid ground and the next he was underwater, traveling fast down a circular dark-green tunnel. It twisted and turned, sloped up and down until finally the red-haired necromancer-apprentice was spat out into yet another large room.
He landed in a pond of some sort, surfacing for some much needed air, his eyes feasted on the sight before him. This room was easily over the size of one of those rundown stadiums his dad had told him about. There was a dark-green stone pillar every twenty meters, which reached up to a ceiling that might as well have been reaching for the stars. The pillars were positioned so that they were about four a five meters from the walls. The space between the walls was occupied by basins of water, the blue liquid contrasting heavily with the dark-green stone the rest of the room seemed to be made of. Between the pillars was a stone bridge wide enough to allow three people to walk alongside each other. The bridge led to what appeared to be a coffin of some sort. Upon a closer look, Benjamin realized the coffin was made of gold.
A grey-skinned hand wearing a dark-brown vambrace made from bark reached down toward him. "Do you require assistance young one?" Benjamin grumbled and climbed onto the stone bridge of his own accord.
"I have a name you know, it's Benjamin." The youth informed her, Celara placed a delicate hand on her chin, her blue eyebrows creased in thought.
"Apologies Benjamin I do not mean to offend." She replied, staring into the water of the basin as she collected her thoughts, "I may be mistaken, but humans have two names do they not?"
"Carmichael's my last name." He told her dismissively, turning in a full circle and drinking the room in with his eyes.
"Carmichael, the one who was here before had that as their second name as well." She mused, Benjamin immediately snapped his attention to her.
"What was his first name?" He inquired, Celara made eye contact.
"I believe it was Edward." She answered, Benjamin's jaw tightened, that was his old man's name all right, so he was here after all. The question on his mind was, why the hell did he leave?
"Yup that was my dad." Benjamin said to Celara, he began to walk towards the golden coffin at the end of the bridge. As he got closer he noticed that the coffin began to glow at his proximity "What is this place?"
The blue-haired woman smiled a very wide smile. "This is where you will remake the world."
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT BOOK:
Rend Hope: The Cursed Tomb
Author’s Note
Once again, thank you very much for purchasing and reading my first book. I hope you found the story entertaining and interesting. Through much support from my family (My dad especially) and friends and even using motivation from naysayers who laughed at me and said I couldn’t do it. Rend Hope has found it’s way into the hands of you, the people who have went out on a limb to give it a
chance.
I have not been idle since my first book’s publishing, I am hard at work on the second book as we speak and hope to have it done before 2014 ends. Here is a small sample from my second book, Rend Hope: The Cursed Tomb…
Rend Hope: The Cursed Tomb Preview
Bultbury, that was the town’s name, situated a short distance from an ancient observation tower that once stood high in the sky. In present times though, the tower was a rusted and warped version of its former self, the top having long since toppled over into the streets and buildings below. It was raining again, which was not unusual for the citizens of Bultbury, rain was as common as breathing for them. It was a good source of water anyway.
Dedrah happily ran through the cobblestone street, the nine-year old girl loved the rain. The sensation of raindrops hitting her face was always exciting and the rain also seemed to keep the bad men away from their town. Sometimes she’d go to the lake not far from Bultbury with her friends and go swimming, having splashfights was the best, well, until their parents or caretakers came to collect them anyway.
She was on her way to her secret meeting place with her friends, a place where the grown-ups couldn’t find them. It was a place just on the outskirts of the town, a large tree with broad leaves that would give them a reprieve from the rain and bore fruit for snacks. It was the perfect place for them, a little escape from worrying about grown-ups, the bad men, and the mean wild animals.
As Dedrah neared the large tree that was their hideout, she noticed something strange, at first she thought it was two figures standing in front of the tree, but as she got closer she realized that they were in fact statues sculpted from ice and they looked very pretty too, their resemblance to an actual person was almost perfect! Something cold dropped onto Dedrah’s nose, curiously the little girl looked up to see that the rain was gone, it was now snowing. She found that even more odd, winter wasn’t for another few months, how could snow already be falling?
Not that she minded the snow, far from it in fact. Dedrah loved snow, balling it up in your hands and hitting one of those snotty grown-ups in the face never got old. Making snowmen, snowhorses and other things with her friends was also usually the highlight of the year for her. The smile of delight that appeared on Dedrah’s face at such an early snowfall would have to be surgically removed, she could already imagine the possibilities!
“Do you like the snow?” A voice said from behind her, an old voice. Surprised, Dedrah turned to face the stranger, only to see his back. The man’s hair was grey, verifying he was old and his body was covered by a beautiful violet cloak, his hands were covered in metal gauntlets which shined even when no moonlight pierced the sky.
“Yes I do.” Dedrah answered the man, “Do you like the snow too, stranger?” The old man chuckled slightly.
“I do indeed little girl. There’s little in this world that is more pure than the snow.” He replied, “Come stand next to me, you’re about to see the most beautiful snow ever to descend from the sky.” Dedrah hesitated for just a moment, her parents had warned her about trusting strangers, but this man’s voice was so warm and friendly. He was so different from the bad men that would try and attack the town now and then, they yelled a lot and smelled like dead fish, this old man smelled nice, like a pine tree.
Her mind made up, Dedrah walked up to the old man’s left side, passing the ice statues she had seen earlier. They seemed familiar somehow, but she couldn’t quite place it. The old man placed his left hand on top of her head and pointed to the sky just above Bultbury with his right hand.
“Here it comes.” He stated, and right before Dedrah’s eyes came a huge torrent of snow that descended from the sky, more than anything she had ever seen. The specks of white contrasted sharply with the black of darkness as they rained down upon Bultbury.
“It’s so pretty!” Dedrah squealed in delight, the old man smiled as well.
“It is, isn’t it?” He replied and sent a burst of magic energy through his left palm and into the little girl. In an instant, her flesh, bone and blood were frozen solid, the change happening so fast that she didn’t even feel it, her now lifeless eyes were now forever staring at the spectacle she had last seen. A quick and merciful death, there was no better way to go.
The old man sighed and raised both his hands above his head, preparing to utilize one of his stronger spells. The snow falling on Bultbury turned back into rain, but the deluge was much stronger now, it was as if a waterfall had been conjured in the clouds and it was draining into the town. The poor people in Bultbury didn’t stand a chance as they tried in vain to keep dry by staying in their homes. The old man’s smile became twinged with sadness, it wouldn’t do them any good.
Once he felt enough water had fallen on the town, the old man executed another spell and all the water transformed into ice. He further manipulated the frozen water, making it form spiky protrusions that breached into the houses the people were cowering in. The spikes impaled and tore them to pieces and within a handful of minutes the town of Bultbury became a frozen tomb.
The old man dropped his hands and stared at his handiwork, what was once a collection of rundown houses was now an icy ruin, large spikes of frozen water jutted through the homes, most of them running red with the lifesblood of human beings they had destroyed. He let out a long sigh, his name was Nobellus and he had once protected people like this, in a grand city called Havenway, but that was before he learned the truth, the truth that the human race was doomed. Now the only thing he could do for these poor oblivious people was grant them a swift death, it was far better than the alternative.
Nobellus frowned, he had heard rumors from a band of bandits he had killed, they were probably just cheap talk, but he couldn’t afford to ignore it. The bandits had told him that some giant underground labyrinth had been found somewhere on the west coast and that could mean only one thing, someone had found Solomon’s tomb. He didn’t want to believe it, but if by some slight chance it was true then that meant he had a responsibility to find it. Nobellus had been searching the towns he had come across, looking for an entrance into the labyrinth, but he had come up with nothing so far. Bultbury would be the third town he’d check, perhaps the third time was the charm.
The old magi placed his right index and middle finger onto the back of his left hand, where a small glyph was adorned, it glowed a dark blue for a brief moment and then Nobellus extracted his staff from it. The staff was as long as he was tall, made from gold and reinforced by glyphs, the top of it had a blue gem which crackled with power. Gripping the staff with his right hand, he swung it at the frozen statue that was once the little girl, shattering it into dozens of pieces. The beauty of a frozen winter was indeed breathtaking, but the ice would melt and winter would eventually yield to spring, nothing lasted forever in this world, trying to savor things like this was pointless.
Staff in hand, Nobellus began making his way to the now frozen town of Bultbury. Perhaps this town would have an entrance into Solomon’s tomb, he certainly hoped so. Time was of the essence.
The end was coming.