"The Lundari Witch: Book 1: chapter 11" by Lundarigirl

1. Once upon a time, the planet Ceaestene was ruled by the evil tyrant, the Dread Warlock, and his twelve Lundari Witches. They created warmongering, bloodthirsty goblins and heartless monsters called gratzki to do their bidding. They were eventually defeated, and their goblins fled into Diamageen Forest where a dark power kept them from being slain by anything other than a magical metal called caltic steel, and sunlight.

2. A thousand years later, three adventerers are hired by a knight to venture into Diamageen and retreave an important ambassador. They are Tobias, a loner bounty hunter searching for his kidnaped sister; Bree, who hopes to use the fame she'll recieve for completing the mission to gain knighthood; and Ankinon, a vagabond living for adventure and gold. Tobias is poisoned in battle with the goblins. Bree finds the antitode in a village of humans, who are slaves to the goblins. A strange blue-haired boy named Adrian helps her retreve the anidote, the tail feather of the rare peacob bird, and acompanies Bree back to her friends. He leads Bree, Ankinon, and an unconsious Tobias to the ruins of a castle. He asks Bree to use her caltic steel sword to kill the goblins and free his people, but though she wants to help, Bree tells him that one sword won't defeat the whole goblin nation. Disapointed, Adrian returns home. 

3. While Ankinon explores the ruins, Bree is left to watch after Tobias. Tobias calls out the name "Hadassah" in his sleep.

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5. Author's Note: Some people have been complaining about my made up words, so I'm including a short pronunciation guide with this chapter.

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7. Anchtriec: An-che-treak (rymes with creak)

8. Ankinon: An-keh-non

9. Ceaestene: Sea-es-teen

10. Diamageen: De-om-muh-gean. (rymes with bean)

11. Lundari: Loon-dar-ee

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13. Also, this chapter explains how the Dread Warlock and the Lundari Witches got their powers. I'd like to know what people think about said explanation. Is it too complex, too rediculous, or just right? Let me know.

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15. Chapter Eleven: The Secret of the Dread Warlock

16.             Tobias nearly staggered under the weight of the searing heat. He struggled towards the inferno that was his home.

17.             Amidst the flames belching out of the back door stood a man, dressed in a flowing black robe, and a cloak. The dark shadows of the hood concealed his face. In his arms, he held Hadassah, her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Neither person appeared to be affected by the heat, or the flames licking at them.

18.             “Let her go!” Tobias bellowed, forcing himself to increase his speed.

19.             Just as he reached the doorway, the man floated out of the flames and into the night sky, still carrying Tobias’s sister. Dragons circled overhead. Their wicked maws curled into mocking grins at Tobias. 

20.             “Hadassah!” Tobias cried. “Hadassah!”

21.             A voice answered him, but it wasn’t his sister’s voice, it was Bree’s.

22.             “Tobias, wake up,” she pleaded. “You’re having a nightmare. Snap out of it.”

23.             Tobias’s body jerked as his eyes sprang open. The burning house, the man, and his sister vanished instantly. It had all been a dream, one that had haunted him from time to time since the dragons took his family away from him.

24. He felt cool and a little stronger than when he was lying on that litter, but only a little. He didn’t think he could stand, but he was confident that he could sit up at least.

25.             The next thing Tobias became aware of was that he was lying on a bed of some kind. The mattress beneath him felt worn and thin from years of use. At the same time, he became aware of Bree who was standing over him with her hand clasped down on his bare shoulders. Why were his shoulders bare? he thought. Where was his shirt?

26.             Wait. His upper body wasn’t completely bare. Something soft was brushing up against the skin of his right arm, the one the poison dart had pierced. He looked down and saw a silver and gold paecob feather protruding out from under a bandage that was wrapped snugly around his right shoulder. It took a few seconds for Tobias’s tired mind to register that the feather had come from a legendary paecob. It took another second for him to realize that he was cured of the bioc venom. He was going to live. Relief washed over him like a wave of cool water on a blistering hot day.

27.             As he sat up, Tobias took in the rest of his surroundings. He was in what looked like a child’s bedroom, filled with antique toys and figurines. Odd; he never would’ve expected to find such a place in Diamageen.

28.             Feeling a little dizzy, Tobias pulled his worn pillows upright and reclined against them.

29.             “How are you feeling?” Bree asked.

30.             “Tired,” Tobias admitted, his voice sounding as weak as he felt. “Drained … and thirsty. Could you get me some water, please?”

31.             Bree handed him his canteen and he drank deeply from it. The water was warm, but it still quenched his thirst. Bree gave him some food, too, and Tobias’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since last night. But there was something he felt he had to say before he took a bite of his breakfast.

32.             “Thank you for finding the feather,” he said. “You’ve saved my life.”

33.             “You’re welcome,” Bree replied. “You know I couldn’t let you just die. If it weren’t for you, that dart would’ve hit me. But there’s someone else you need to thank more than me.”

34.             “Ankinon? Where is he anyway?”

35.             “Out exploring. He wasn’t the one I was talking about.”

36.             Bree proceeded to explain about a village of human slaves she had stumbled across while looking for a paecob feather. One of them, a blue-haired boy named Adrian, had risked his safety to get her one and to lead her and Ankinon to the ruins where they were now staying. Tobias had never heard of the goblins taking human slaves, but it made sense. Vile creatures like them and the dragons never passed up a chance to inflict cruelty on innocent people. Making the villagers of New Koraira live in constant fear while they shed their sweat and blood for the goblins was among the cruelest things they could do.

37.             Tobias ate his meal as he listened to Bree. His feelings were mixed regarding helping the slaves win their freedom. He felt sorry for them, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk his life for them. There was other, more important, things he had to do, and his brush with death reminded him of how careful he needed to be if wanted to achieve his ultimate goal. Still, how could he turn a blind eye to them, especially after one of them had saved his life?

38.             Bree had scarcely finished her story about the boy when Ankinon strode into the room. In one hand, he carried a fat, rectangular light blue object. To Tobias, it looked like a thick book, but he couldn’t see it well enough to know if that was what it was.

39.             Ankinon looked at Tobias and smiled. “I was wondering when you were finally going to wake up. Welcome back to the land of the living.” He rubbed his right arm. “Make sure you take care of that feather. We can make some wealthy lord pay an outrageous price for it when we get back to civilization.”

40.             Leave it to Ankinon to think up a scheme like that, Tobias thought, amused.

41.             He pointed to the object his traveling companion carried. “What’s that?”

42.             Ankinon held up the object and Tobias could see that, yes, it was a book. Parts of its thick blue cover had faded to grey and the binding looked worn and fragile. Attached to the front cover were a number of tiny turquoise clam shells that were arranged in an oval. Tiny grey stones formed the picture of a crescent moon in the oval’s center.

43.             Ankinon sat down on Tobias’ bed and carefully opened the book. “Something I found. This is worth quite a bundle, too.” He lowered his voice to an excited whisper as if he was sharing some great secret. “It contains the secrets of the Dread Warlock.”

44.             “What?” Tobias and Bree exclaimed at once.

45.             “It’s true. Look.” He carefully turned the fragile yellow pages until he came to an illustration.

46.             Tobias and Bree crowded around the book for a closer look. The illustration showed two moons hanging in front of a backdrop of bright stars.  The moon in the foreground was breaking apart after being hit by something big.

47.             “Is that the anchtriec language?” Bree asked, pointing to the hieroglyphic-like writing that flowed over the paper under the picture and on the opposite page.

48.             “It is,” Tobias said.

49.             He had learned a little anchtriec, the oldest known written language in the world, from his mother, but not enough to make out all that was written on the two pages in front of him. All he could translate were five words—“star,” “moon,” “world,” “planet,” and “machine.” It was clear to him, though, what the illustration was; it was the cursed moon, the orb of rock that once held all sorts of dark powers. Over three millennia ago, a falling star crashed into it and shattered it. The Dread Warlock gathered up the pieces that fell to Ceaestene, and it was from them that he created the Lundari powers.

50.             “What makes you think this book holds any secrets about the Dread Warlock?” Bree asked.

51.             “I’ve read it,” Ankinon said. “Well, what legible anyway. Most of it’s so faded and water stained, it’s impossible to make out.”

52.             Both Tobias and Bree stared at Ankinon in surprise. Tobias never would’ve guessed that he could read an ancient language that only scholars and sages ever bothered to study. But then again, there was a lot about Ankinon he never would’ve thought to find in some show-boat ladies’ man.

53.             “Where did you learn anchtriec?” Bree asked.

54.             “My mother,” Ankinon said. “Before I left home, she’d spend hours cramming knowledge into my head. She wanted to mold me into a strong and wise warrior who’d bring honor to our family.” He carefully turned another page. The fragile paper ripped, creating a long tear down the page near the binding. “Fire and fang. That’s gonna reduce the value.”

55.             “Never mind that,” Bree said. “Tell us what the book says.”

56.             While Ankinon turned a few more pages, Tobias wearily leaned back against his pillows. He still felt very tired, but he didn’t want to drift off to sleep yet. He was as curious as Bree about the contents of that ancient book.

57.             “This first chapter explains how the Lundari powers came to be,” Ankinon explained. “If this is true, then it disproves every legend ever told about the cursed moon and its powers. Those so-called dark powers weren’t so dark, and they didn’t come from the moon. They came from the star that hit it. And it wasn’t even really a star.” He paused. “It was...a machine,” he lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper, “from … another world!” He paused again to let his words sink in. “Another planet thousands, maybe even millions of miles away from Ceaestene. Pieces of its machine rained down from the sky along with the fragments of the cursed moon. They were found by the bedriene. They studied the pieces and discovered that this machine was built to sail the stars at an incredibly fast speed. It could travel over a thousand miles in less than an hour. Not only that, but it could transform a star itself into a stone of great power. The bedriene astronomers saw the machine do this as they watched the night sky. It was on that same night that Ceaestene’s second moon could be seen in the heavens, an event that happened only once in a century.  It was an ordinary moon—nothing truly special about it—until the machine crashed into it. The powerful star-stones shattered and the moon absorbed their energy as it broke into pieces. It was all the bedriene, not just the Dread Warlock, who gathered up and experimented with those pieces. They kept their findings to themselves, opting not to share them with the other races.”

58.             Tobias leaned forward a little and caught sight of a picture in the book of a flock of bedriene, creatures with human bodies and heads of birds of prey, flying through the sky and holding glowing moon rocks in their hands. The bedriene were famous for their ability to fly despite the fact that they had no wings. Tobias wondered if that was an ability they always had or if it was one they gained from the moon rocks. Legends said that they could fly since the beginning of time. It was the only way they could travel back and forth between Enchantell, their floating island and the world below. But astronomers and scholars had searched the sky for years and had found no trace of Enchantell. This led many to believe that the island didn’t exist. Despite that, sages, storytellers and, some historians believed in the island and claimed that the proof of its existence lied in the ancient records and stories concerning Marstan and the Dread Warlock.

59.             Ankinon flipped through a few pages that were so faded their words were unreadable. Finally, he stopped and gently ran his finger down a page. “This next section talks about how the Dread Warlock developed the Lundari powers and the first gratzki in secret. For years, he plotted and planned and grew in power. Then, finally, he turned his powers and his creations against his own people. The bedriene never had a chance. They were defeated within a few short hours. Those who weren’t killed fled Enchantell and never returned. And the Dread Warlock, he set his sights on the world below and all the people he could conquer there. The rest of the book pretty much sticks to the old legends of the Dread Warlock’s rise and fall as world dominator.” He looked up from the book at his captive audience and smiled. “Pretty incredible bit of information, huh?”

60.             Bree nodded slowly. “Uh-huh.”

61.             It was, Tobias silently agreed. Perhaps it was too incredible to be real. It was no secret that the bedriene had made amazing advances in science and magic, secrets that they refused to share with the majority of Ceaestene. But it just didn’t seem possible that the reason for their success was a machine that could make powerful stones out of the stars. What sort of people were these denizens of this mysterious other world that they could build a machine like that?

62.             “Does the book mention anything about the world where the machine came from?” he asked.

63.             Ankinon carefully flipped through the rest of the ancient book to show Tobias that the remaining pages were water damaged or faded to the point where their words couldn’t be read. “If it did, we’ll never know. What’s this?” He turned to the very last page, which was water damaged, but could still be read. The words were in the common language. It was written in a different handwriting than the rest of the book and didn’t appear to be as old.

64.             From the expression on Ankinon’s face, Tobias judged that he hadn’t noticed that page before. 

65. Ankinon smoothed down the page as best he could and began to read. “‘My ancestors wrote this history of my people so that others may learn from it. It is a shame that the one known as the Dread Warlock came from our race, but our crime was our pride. We exiled ourselves from the other races, believing that by not sharing our discoveries with them we would remain superior to them. The races distrusted us. Even the dragons who we once counted among our friends shunned us when we didn’t divulge our secrets to them. Perhaps that is for the best because the dragons are no longer the noble beings my ancestors knew. Over the years, they’ve taken pride in terrorizing the other races. They might be using our secrets to aid their vile campaigns today if we revealed them.’” Ankinon stopped reading for a moment. His face was grim. “‘When the Dread Warlock began taking over the world, the races’ distrust of us turned to hate. Those of us who fled from Enchantell hid in Aldawen, and for a while, we were safe. Then the elves learned of our existence and hunted us down out of retribution for all the Warlock and his creations had done. Very few of us escaped them and fled to Europa. There were whispers that we bedriene were not the bird-headed beings legends described us as, but thankfully, more humans were willing to believe we looked like monsters, rather than humans with blue hair. Some who we met were kind. Others shunned us, or drove us away because we were guilty of not having normal locks.’

66. “‘We did not have many children. Many of us believed it was a sin to bring bedriene children into a world where they were not wanted, and tried their best to prevent from getting pregnant. When I was born, my people were only a dozen strong. Now I and my daughter are the only bedriene left. I am nearing the end of my days, but my sweet child is still so young. Too young for me to teach her how to read the ancient bedriene language or pass on the knowledge of our people that was passed on to me by my ancestors. My baby girl will be taken in by a kind human woman after I die, but she will never know anything of her heritage beyond the dark stories the races tell. And she will be the last full-blooded bedriene that will ever walk in this world. I wish I could translate the words of this book into the common language for her, but my time is too short. My hand is already tired from writing these few sentences. So I will pray and hope that my girl will find someone to translate the words for her. My hope is that all those who read this will learn from my people’s mistakes and not consider themselves superior to their neighbors, but instead live with them in trust and friendship. Also, that they understand that the bedriene were not an evil race, just a prideful one. Weep for us. Weep for the laughter of a civilization that will never be heard again.’”

67.             Ankinon looked up from the book again with a somber expression on his face. Tobias and Bree stared back at him, their expressions equally somber. For a long time, none of them spoke.

68.             Tobias’s heart went out to the daughter mentioned in the text. She was the last of her kind with no parents and no knowledge of her heritage. And it was all because of the hate the world had for her people. An entire race nearly wiped out because the races believed their own prejudices over the truth. 

69.             Tobias was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn’t pay attention to the conversation Bree and Ankinon struck up when they found their voices again. He barely noticed when Ankinon left to check on the mare. He was drawn from his thoughts when Bree spoke his name.

70.             “You … um … talked in your sleep,” she said.  “You didn’t say much. And there was only one word I caught. If … if you don’t mind my asking, who’s Hadassah?”

71.             “That’s something I prefer to keep to myself,” he said softly. “Please don’t ask me about her again.”

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