The Dragon Orb (The Alaris Chronicles Book 1)

by Mike Shelton

  Bakari moved his head down in embarrassment. “I’m just a scholar, Harley.”

  Harley laughed. “That’s like saying the Dunn River is just a stream. Mark my words, young wizard; you are destined for far greater things than being a scholar.”

  “I agree.” Kharlia reached over and put her hand on Bakari’s forearm. Warmth spread throughout his body, and he didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Bakari?” Harley asked. “Are you ready?”

  Bakari shook himself out of his thoughts. “Sure.”

  “Oh, young love.” Harley smiled at the two of them. “Such long days ago for me. Come on, now, let’s get this over with. I don’t like heights, and I hope you got it all figured out right. Not the place I would choose to die.”

  The three walked to a place where a strong, straight cedar tree stood next to the edge of the cliff. Bakari tied one end of a rope around the tree, then coiled the middle up and tied a grappling hook onto the other end.

  “Looks kind of short to me,” Harley mumbled. “How are you going to throw that thing across and hit your target there?” He pointed at a tree on the other side.

  Bakari chuckled, and, with secret amusement flashing in his dark eyes, he threw the rope up into the air. At the same time, he brought his hands up and guided the rope by magic across the ravine.

  “Well, I’ll be…” Harley stared in astonishment. “You wizards do have a way of making things easier, don’t you?”

  Bakari continued to direct the rope to the other side and around the tree. “Magic’s a gift, Harley. I don’t take it for granted. But it does come in handy sometimes.”

  The rope, now attached to the other side, held tight. Bakari got out the other hook and hung it over the rope. “Now we can grab the hook and slide across.”

  Harley rolled his eyes and patted his stomach at the same time. “Will it hold me?”

  “Of course it will, Harley,” Kharlia said, putting her pack onto her back. “Bakari knows what he’s doing.”

  Bakari hoped Kharlia was right. Every time he drew on his extensive, but unused knowledge, Bakari felt nervous. What if he had miscalculated something? What if he remembered something wrong? It was a lot of pressure to always know everything.

  Sometimes he wished he could rely on someone else’s experience to guide him. But, lately, his adventures were so new that no one else was there to teach him. He wondered what Roland would do in these situations. Bakari laughed inside and smiled. The poor man wouldn’t always be able to get by on his arrogance and good looks.

  “What’s so funny, Bakari?” Kharlia asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Let’s go.” Bakari grabbed his own pack and looked at the other two travelers. “Harley first, then Kharlia, and I will come last.”

  Harley got his pack onto his back and grabbed the hook. The line sagged considerably. “Are you sure this is goin’ to hold me, young wizard?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. It needs to sag a bit since it’s going slightly downhill. It will carry you down fast. As soon as you clear the cliff on the other side, drop off the line and roll. You should be fine before the hook hits the tree.”

  “Should be?” Harley arched his eyebrows.

  With that, Bakari gave him a shove, and off he went, sailing high over the river. A loud whooping noise came from Harley’s mouth, but, in a matter of moments, their guide hit the other side, rolled, and landed safely.

  Bakari used his magic to pull the hook back. Next, he got Kharlia ready. He stood in front of her, standing a few inches taller than she. Without much notice, she leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she let go of him and swung down the line.

  Bakari stood there with a silly grin on his face. His heart almost burst with giddiness. He brought his finger to his lips and held it there for a moment, relishing the memory and wondering at his luck in having met her.

  “Bak. Bakari!”

  Hearing his name, he looked back across the ravine. Kharlia had yelled his name from the other side. How had she gotten there so quickly? He shook his head to clear the fog of love from his brain.

  Pulling his pack on he grabbed his bow with his left hand. Reaching up for the hook with his other hand, he heard Kharlia scream. Bakari looked back over and saw a medium-sized, but fierce-looking creature loping up the hill behind Kharlia and Harley, leaving their backs to the ravine with its forty-foot drop.

  The creature resembled a cougar but with coarser fur, a spiked tail, and larger fangs. It paced back and forth in front of the two, coming closer with every turn. Bakari wondered if his sliding over on the line would distract the beast, scare it off, or make it attack his friends sooner. He reached out and tried to push air at the animal. Nothing happened. Bakari was too far away to try fire and wasn’t very good at it anyway. Then he tried shooting an arrow, but it just bounced off the creature’s rough hide.

  Taking a deep breath, he reached out toward the creature’s mind. He knew what to look for and how to do it better now. But, in this case, he met with a formidable barrier. Evil pushed back at him, forcing him to stagger backward.

  The animal must be hungry. Maybe he could find something for it to eat. Pushing his senses outward, away from the creature, he tried to find something else close by. It was more difficult, being farther away on the other side of the river.

  Finally, he sensed a deer on the other side but couldn’t see where it was. He lifted his bow, pulled out an arrow, and tried to shoot it toward where he felt the deer was hiding. It landed in a thicket, and he thought he heard a noise. So did the cougar. It growled and turned away for a moment. Then, turning back toward Bak’s friends, the cougar took a step closer to them with another vicious snarl.

  “I think you only made it mad!” shouted Harley. “Don’t you have any more tricks up those wizard sleeves?”

  Bakari couldn’t stay here and watch his friends die. So he grabbed the hook in his right hand and swung down the line toward his friends.

  The cougar turned its attention away from Kharlia. At that same moment, the deer ran out of the thicket, and the cougar turned toward it. Seeing the deer as an easier target, it pounced.

  Bakari knew, though, they were just putting off that fate. The cougar would be back, and then they wouldn’t be able to travel safely. Before hitting the other side, he once again reached his mind out to the animals.

  First, he felt the mind of the deer, a simple brain with only one thought at the moment—to get away from the cougar. Bakari only had to nudge the deer away from them, and it turned in that direction.

  Bakari hit the ground on the other side and rolled. The cougar took his attention off the deer for a moment and considered this new option. Bakari gathered his powers, gritted his teeth, and brought himself once again to the border of the evil creature’s mind. This time, he tried to push only one single thought deeply into the cougar’s mind. Deer. It worked. The cougar turned and took three giant leaps toward the deer. The deer, however, moved closer to Kharlia in its effort to run away.

  “Kharlia, move!” Bakari sprinted toward her.

  The cougar turned also and took a giant leap toward the fleeing deer, missing Kharlia by mere inches.

  “Bak!” Kharlia screamed.

  Harley tried to reach over and help her, but she stumbled and fell. Then the cougar looked between the fleeing deer and Kharlia, lying on the ground, and turned back to the girl.

  Scooting backward on the ground, using her hands and feet to move away from the crazed beast, Kharlia screamed.

  The cougar let out a low and menacing growl and stalked closer to Kharlia.

  Bakari, ten feet away, tried to grab the creature’s mind again. Once again, it pushed back against Bakari’s mind. In the corner of Bakari’s vision, he watched Harley move backward, farther away from the creature. Reaching down, the woodsman grabbed a long stick. Bakari understood.

  Harley moved in closer to the beast, the stick held out in front of him. The creature turned its head toward the large ma
n and growled again. This distraction afforded Kharlia time to stand up. However, the beast still stood too close to allow her to escape. She paused, frozen in fear, tears streaming down her face, mere feet from the ravine.

  Bakari continued to push against the cougar’s mind, distracting it. Its coarse fur standing up on end, the cougar snarled at the young wizard. Harley moved in closer, and the cougar took a few steps toward the man and away from Kharlia. Then Harley hurled the stick like a javelin.

  “Kharlia, run!” Bakari yelled.

  As Kharlia took a step, the beast moved away from Harley’s javelin throw, its spiked tail whipping around and catching Kharlia’s leg. Kharlia screamed, then tripped and fell down, with one leg falling over the edge of the cliff.

  “Bak, don’t let him kill me! Please, Bak, do something.”

  Tears clouded over Bakari’s vision. This was all his fault. He screamed and ran straight toward the creature, not knowing what else to do. He hoped the distraction would allow Kharlia enough time to stand back up. However, the creature stood its ground in front of its fallen prey, reaching its paw out and swatting Bakari back.

  Once again, Bakari summoned fire and air and anything he could think of, to push the creature back, but none of the magic worked—it just slid around the creature.

  Kharlia tried to bring her leg back onto solid ground and brought herself up onto her hands and knees, with her feet still dangly off the side. The cougar turned, mere feet away, opened its mouth and growled. Fangs dripped with saliva as the creature took another step closer.

  “Bak! Bak!” Kharlia screamed hysterical. “You can’t let it eat me. You can’t!”

  “Kharlia!” Bakari screamed in fear. “I don’t know what to do.” Bakari tried to move through his mind to find a solution, but he couldn’t concentrate with Kharlia kneeling so close to the edge of the ravine’s cliff.

  The cougar now took one last step toward Kharlia, his hungry and vicious face only a short distance from her. She swung her knees back over the cliff’s face, now only hanging on with her hands, forty feet above the roaring Dunn River.

  “Kharlia, what are you doing?” Bakari shrieked.

  She just looked at him. “I won’t let him eat me!” And she let go from the top of the ravine. “I love you, Bak.”

  “Noooooo!” Bakari screamed.

  Harley ran to the edge of the cliff with another stick and swatted the creature away with a blood-curdling scream. The cougar roared and moved closer to the two men, ignoring the stick in Harley’s hand.

  Bakari snapped. He turned to the beast and dug deep into its mind, pushing aside any blocks the cougar had put up. Bakari didn’t care. He pulled all the magic he could into himself and grabbed hold of the creature’s mind. He felt the filth of its evil and didn’t care. He let the creature’s basic instincts wash over him as he became one with its mind. Bakari grabbed the center of that mind and tore it apart. The creature howled in agony and jumped toward Bakari. But Harley used the stick to swat it back, and the creature turned toward the older man. Then it howled and rolled on the ground.

  Bakari stood over it, his face twisted with rage and revenge as he ripped the creature’s mind from it, piece by piece. He let the pressure build up inside the cougar’s head, pushing all the power he’d amassed into the animal. The cougar’s skull shattered, showering bone and blood over Bakari. He left the cougar’s body lying on the edge of the cliff.

  Bakari felt something touch his shoulder, and he turned and pushed his mind into the new threat.

  “Bakari, no!” shouted Harley. “It’s me. It’s me. Bak!”

  A hand squeezed harder on his shoulder, then something big and thick hit him across the jaw, and he fell to the ground, all his magic withdrawing, leaving a sudden void.

  Bakari lay on the ground, breathing hard as he tried to remember who and where he was. Kharlia!

  “No. No. No.” How could she be gone? “Kharlia. Kharlia.”

  Harley put an arm around Bakari and helped him sit up. Then he wrapped his burly arms around the boy, and Bakari wept until there were no tears left.

  Leaving Bakari alone on the ground for a moment, Harley moved over to the fallen cougar. He pushed it toward the edge of the cliff.

  “No, Harley. I couldn’t stand knowing the beast was down there, with her.”

  Harley turned a grave look to the young wizard. “I’m so sorry.”

  Bakari only nodded. After a few more moments, he rose weakly and walked to the cliff’s edge. Harley came over next to him and put his arm around him. Black dots swarmed his vision and he held on to keep from fainting.

  “She was a brave girl,” Harley said, “and a fighter. Maybe she’s still alive.”

  “Maybe,” Bakari whispered, grabbing a hold of that thin thread of hope. He reached out with his mind to see if he could sense her. But he could not. He didn’t expect himself to; it wasn’t a skill he was overly powerful in. “Harley, I need a few minutes alone.”

  Harley nodded, tears in his eyes. “I understand.” The man walked away, back toward the trees.

  Bakari knelt on the cliff’s edge and stared down at the roaring river. In a matter of weeks, Kharlia had changed his life. He knew they were both young, but he loved her.

  He continued to gaze down. If she had landed in the water, she might have survived. He would go after her. Yes. That’s what he would do. They would hike south until they were able to get down to the river’s edge, and then he would follow it until he found her, one way or the other.

  He sat still for a moment, deep in thought. Then another thought intruded upon his grief.

  Come to me, the voice pleaded. Come to me.

  Bakari lifted his head and scanned the area. He had definitely heard something. He closed his eyes and moved his mind deeper. He felt a presence, strong but distinct.

  Come to me. Alaris needs you, the deep, quiet voice said again. Come to Celestar.

  “No,” Bakari said out loud. “I need to find Kharlia.” How could he leave her and go to Celestar?

  He knew what he was doing was important. The Chief Judge had counted on him. Bak might be the only one who could discover the secret of the barrier and help to avert war. But, what about Kharlia?

  Bakari, I need you, the voice spoke again. This time, it spoke with such longing that Bakari sank to the ground. The call was so tender, yet compelling, and he felt an instant connection to the speaker.

  Harley came back over to Bakari. “Bak, we need to move. There may be more of these creatures around.” He shivered. “And one is enough for me to ever meet.”

  Bakari stood up slowly, painfully, like an old man. He glanced south, down the river, once again and groaned.

  “If you want to go after her, Son, I will go with you,” Harley said. “But you have to know the Dunn flows fast, and it will take weeks or months to fully follow it. And there’s no guarantee we will find anything one way or the other.”

  A lump formed in Bakari’s throat. He knew what Harley said was true. With the books he had studied, he knew full well the lay of the land, the dangers that existed, and the slight chance of finding her.

  He could hardly tear his sight from the river, but he finally did. “Something calls me to Celestar, Harley. Something that needs me – though it pains me to say - maybe even more than I need to find Kharlia. Something that would help all of Alaris.”

  Harley only nodded. Picking up their packs and weapons, the two men walked away from the edge of the ravine and back into the trees. At the edge of the trees, Bakari turned his head back longingly one more time.

  “Kharlia,” he whispered so softly that he barely heard it himself, “I will find you again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Gorn had stayed asleep for the entire previous day. Alli had hardly left his side. Today he had been awake for most of the afternoon, but he could not regain his strength.

  “You need to eat, Gorn,” Alli told him for the third time in the last hour.

  “I d
on’t feel like eating. I just want to sleep,” Gorn mumbled and tried to close his eyes.

  Alli leaned over him with a piece of cheese and stuck it between his lips. His eyes popped open in surprise, and he glared at her. Alli had never known Gorn not to be hungry. She knew his wound still ached from the arrow and he must have taken quite a bit of river water into his stomach, but it had been almost two days since her mentor had eaten anything substantial. So she glared back at him until he took a bite out of the block of cheese.

  “There, are you happy now?” Gorn asked.

  Alli touched her hand lightly to his arm. “I want you to get better, Gorn.”

  This tenderness was not lost on Gorn. He took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “You must go on without me. I am not going to heal quickly enough, and we need to find out what is going on in Celestar.”

  “I can’t leave you here.” A few tears came to her eyes, and she brushed them away, hopefully before he saw them.

  Gorn reached his hand to hers. “You must, Alli. This is much bigger than you and I. I will be behind you shortly. This is what wizards do. They do hard things sometimes.”

  “But I am not a wizard yet, am I?” Alli said with a slight grin, though her eyes still held tears.

  Gorn started laughing, but then his laugh turned into a cough. “You are more wizard than many of us are. Don’t let the title stop you from doing what needs to be done.”

  The herb woman walked back into the room. “I see he is eating something.”

  Gorn rolled his eyes. “Why is everyone so worried about me eating?”

  “Gorn,” Alli said. “This is Mags. She is going to take care of you when I leave.”

  “So, I see you already decided to leave me?” Gorn said with a pout, followed by a twinkle in his eye.

  Alli’s eyes filled with tears again. “Don’t make this harder than it is.”

  Mags leaned over Gorn. Her hair was gray and her skin a little wrinkled, but her eyes sparkled, blue and bright. She brought a bowl of soup up near him.

  “Now, sit up, and I will feed you,” she said with compassionate authority.