The Allyen (The Story of the First Archimage Book 1) Read online

  The Allyen

  The Allyen

  The Story of the First Archimage

  Book 1

  Michaela Riley Karr

  Rye Meadow Press

  Copyright © 2017 by Michaela Karr.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Rye Meadow Press, based in Emporia, KS. [email protected]

  ISBN (paperback): 978-0-9986065-0-7

  ISBN (hardback): 978-0-9986065-1-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017900578

  Cover designed by Magpie Designs, ltd.

  Photo credits: Pixabay

  Textures by Sascha Duensing

  Author photo by Jordan Storrer Photography

  Interior map by L. N. Weldon

  Printed in the United States of America.

  First Edition, 2017.

  Dedication

  You would not be holding this book in your hands if it were not for one Rachel Evans. This is for you, Rachel, my sister in Christ. Thank you for seeing me through to my dreams and for never allowing me to give up.

  Table of Contents

  The Map of Nerahdis

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Acknowledgments

  The Map of Nerahdis

  Prologue

  H e walked slow, full of purpose through the woods. He knew this path, these trees. It was not the first time he had owned the night here, nor would it be his last. Walking calmly, his mind replayed the vision that brought him here to this place, his mission.

  The sun was setting on the Kingdom of Lunaka, the prairie country of the continent Nerahdis. Twilight fell to the earth while the two Lunakan moons rose into the dimming night sky, their pale faces full.

  Clouds traveled over the sorcerer in this small forest, there in the southwestern part of the kingdom. Trees rustled in the dying wind. No sound echoed upon the landscape. Not from the branches or leaves on the trees and certainly not from the lone traveler.

  The sorcerer continued his mission with steps light as a deer’s, his face and body vaguely masked by the silhouette of his cloak and hood. He was careful where he trekked. If he was heard, animals and other needless annoyances would be alerted. If he was seen, everything would be ruined.

  The black trees loomed around him, isolating him from the rest of the world and possible observers, yet something seemed wrong. There had never been another time like this – when something felt skewed and out of order. He did not know where to look or who to blame for the discomfort. The sorcerer knew his magic was undoubtedly powerful enough to never allow for such anxious feelings. That thought alone made the queasiness remain. Still, this very night was the beginning of everything to come.

  The sorcerer continued on beneath the silent leaves toward the clearing where the visions had displayed a nine-year-old Lunakan girl appearing. This child in particular was one of two that he had waited, watched, and planned for. She possessed the first key he aimed to obtain. After he claimed her, a Lunakan boy and his portion would be next. The second journey would be longer through the mountains and into the Kingdom of Auklia.

  As the wanderer’s thoughts turned towards the prize of this mission, the wooded landscape broke and revealed the same clearing the visions depicted, surrounded by silent, towering trees, the sentries of the forest. He closed his eyes, bringing to the forefront all the frustrations and plans that had grown for nearly three hundred years. Just for this night. Just for this girl. Finally, all that was left was to wait for a few mere moments. After that, she would be his. It was simple really, she would walk straight into his arms, and then onto the Kingdom of Auklia. All of his plans would work. All the waiting would be–…

  The sorcerer’s thoughts were interrupted as his ears picked out the small, rather loud, steps of a tired, slow little girl. A dark tree branch bent to the side as her tiny body meandered into the meadow.

  The lone wanderer was alone no longer as he stood, waiting, in the center of the space with her a mere ten paces away. The twin moons’ light reflected in the child’s eyes and revealed the glittering gold specks, the sign of what she truly was. An Allyen.

  The earth-haired girl was barefoot and blank-faced while trudging on in a dress far too big for her petite body. For such a diminutive frame, her face spoke volumes as her eyes fluttered open and closed. After a day full of adventure, she was ready for bed and a night full of rest.

  However, that was not within the sorcerer’s plans. To him, the most important objects were the silver locket around her neck and the slumbering power she possessed. In a few brisk steps, the sleeping child was gathered into his arms as the duo headed towards the Lunaka-Auklia border to the south. His young, new passenger merely settled her head on his shoulder, believing that he was taking her home and soon she would be tucked safely away under her covers.

  As the sorcerer walked with the child, he became keenly aware of footsteps. These were not his footsteps, yet they seemed to be going the same direction. They were being followed, but by who? If the person or persons behind him had even a smidgen of magic, his own great power would have sensed them much earlier. If the person or persons did not have magic, then they had to be within his field of sight with no physical objects between them in order for him to sense them. No exceptions.

  Since he had to wait to hear the physical footsteps, the sorcerer judged the trespasser to be of little threat and assumed that these were not mages following him. The wanderer’s reasoning went little beyond his own enormous confidence in that, since he could not see them, it was reason enough for why he could not sense them. The young Allyen must have someone protecting her, and, if her guardians had no power as he suspected, they would be easy to handle. He was, after all, the most powerful sorcerer on the continent of Nerahdis, he thought, smirking in confidence. Nothing could get in his wa–…

  Instantly, without finishing the thought, the sorcerer found himself surrounded for the first time in his very long life. Ten or so cloaked figures had swiftly come without as much as a brush of the green grass beneath their feet. Their heights dominated the meadow and seemed to rival the trees for control of the sky. These uninvited guests were here to stop his mission; that much was clear.

  The sorcerer was quickly confused, and his pale hand tightened on the child he carried, shifting her to his hip. The figures were now directly in his line of sight, and still he sensed absolutely nothing.

  This was utterly impossible, but the sorcerer’s rolling thoughts were interrupted by a foreign voice, not of any Nerahdian, or human for that matter. The voice stretched into strange pitches as it spoke, not its native tongue, and yet was completely coherent, “It is not time. You shall not succeed. Give us the child.” A sword hilt appeared out of the towering dark cloak, whose hei
ght easily measured seven feet tall.

  The sorcerer calculated the stern, accented voice, still contemplating why he could not sense the intruders, but nonsensical strangers were not going to be enough to stop him, whether they had magic or not. Without a single word, the sorcerer and the child vanished from within the circle of figures. His magic took them a few miles south, closer to the marshland kingdom of Auklia where the Allyen boy awaited, and he began to walk again. Although they moved no faster than before, this time his gait was steeped in arrogance.

  The young girl began to stir in her slumber, perhaps unconsciously sensing his use of magic. Her own magic had not awakened yet, but it was still possible that she was sensitive to others’ powers. She looked up at him and snuggled her head in closer on his shoulder, her voice tiny and sleepy. “Are we there yet?”

  “No, child.” The pale man glanced back over his shoulder, skeptically analyzing the dark trees. “Please sleep, everything is fine.”

  When he looked again, the ten figures were advancing from in between the trees, in full view now, at a speed no human could maintain. As they approached him, he studied the strange forms that were humanoid, yet not. Their limbs were much longer, and they towered over him even more than he’d previously thought. Now they stood facing him in a strategic line, a much tighter formation than before, and the sorcerer knew that he could not simply whisk himself away again.

  The one who seemed to be the leader, took two or three steps more forward than the others, a brightly colored tassel hooked at the clasp of its cloak on one end and wrapped around its shoulders with the other. It pulled its sword from the hidden sheath slowly, letting the gleam of the silver catch the moonlight, and angled it at the pale man who had dared to kidnap one of the future Allyens. The same voice from before spoke, its Nerahdian clear but pulled in odd pitches that turned the words even more threatening, “Give us the girl.”

  The pale, hooded man smiled back at this creature, arrogantly assured of his own vast power, “That is not an option.”

  Since he really did not know what these creatures were, the sorcerer remained on the defensive as he ensued with all ten or so towering things. His left arm around the young girl tightened into a rock, and she awoke with a scream. She only clung to him tighter, believing the sorcerer, of all people, to be her protector. If only she knew.

  The creatures were extremely skilled, pounding at him in turns utilizing a strategy that seemed to have been executed hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Strangely, the sorcerer was never touched by their foreign fists or weapons, as he fluidly dominated the battle with the help of the limitless magic he housed. It wasn’t even a struggle for him, outnumbered ten to one, as he lifted his pale hand and shot bursts of electric violet at the unknown creatures.

  One fell with the first bolt. Then two. The sorcerer could feel the fire racing through his veins, the force of every shot along his long arm. It was pure ecstasy to him. But soon, he found that the girl was no longer in the crook of his arm, only her tiny hand in his grip. Her other was held by a large hand with extremely long fingers, the leader itself. She screamed and cried, tears leaving tracks down her round cheeks from the gold speckled eyes as she tried to get back to the sorcerer, still believing him to be a friend instead of the enemy he was. Using this to his advantage, the sorcerer enacted a new plan and shoved the child several feet away from him toward the end of the meadow grass.

  Although the leader quickly bounded after the tossed girl, the other nine unknown things remained entangled around the sorcerer as they continued fighting. In the blink of an eye, the nine around him fell to the ground dead after a surge of purple-shaded magic, their cloaked bodies turned cold and their limbs twisted together.

  The sorcerer’s pale lips merely grinned, until he searched for the girl and found her sitting on the ground where she had been improperly flung.

  The future Allyen’s eyes were huge in horror after witnessing his murder of so many people. She shrunk away from him until her back hit a tree, and once there, she flattened herself against it as much as she could, attempting to get away.

  The leader of the strange humanoid beings was about to reach the little girl when she swiftly stood and ran as fast as her scrawny legs could carry her away from both the last intruder and the shadowy man. Before she could get very far, she tripped over a tree root and fell hard to the ground between the Lunakan trees. She turned to see the towering figure still advancing, getting closer to her, the colored tassel dangling from its cloak and its face hidden by the huge dark hood. It cornered her against a tree, and then it happened. The event the wanderer had been waiting for and the event the young Allyen did not understand.

  The forgotten Allyen locket around her neck began to glow softly and its face began to shine brightly. It grew even brighter as the leader continued to get closer, the shrill air becoming fingers of wind that tore at the being. The hood was ripped from its head, and the girl saw a face that was not the monster she had expected. It was structured similarly to her own, although it was longer and more defined. Thick brown hair flew about his face in the magical wind, brushing across the extremely high cheekbones. Those foreign cheekbones paled in interest compared to its eyes. They weren’t human at all but reminded her more of an animal’s, with pupils narrowed to slits and a fierce golden color she had never seen before.

  She began to fear again as it continued toward her. Its paces became slower and slower as he, indeed the creature was a he, attempted to draw closer, against the screaming wind. He gained less than an inch with each step; the Allyen locket’s magic was too powerful to enter. The creature spoke as he forced his way toward her; the strange accented voice struggled. “Do not be afraid. Nothing is going to hurt you. We are here to help.”

  The magic shut off abruptly, under no control of the girl, and she was scooped up into the creature’s gentle arms. She had been wrong. The strangers were the friends, and she clung to him, crying.

  When the sorcerer saw that his ruse as her friend had ended, he knew what had to be done. His smile faded, and he calmly aimed a thin, pale finger at the revealed creature. A bolt of violet shot out as another invisible wind ruffled his cloak and the symbol painted onto it, one of a hollow golden flame with a red circle in the middle.

  Residual magic in the air from the spell the girl had unwittingly used previously intervened with the deadly sorcerer’s shot, yet the violet burst eventually found its way to the target the sorcerer had intended: the creature’s heart. Although it did not die instantly, the sorcerer knew it was doomed, so he was patient and waited, yet again. Once all these impertinent creatures were gone, he could proceed with the Allyen girl as planned.

  The creature shouted and jolted in pain. Now he lay on the hard, cold ground with the child crying over him. He took a deep breath as he tried to speak. “Do not cry, young Allyen, only remember…” – the voice began to go hoarse – “Someday…you will understand…”

  The girl’s cries became even louder when the creature closed his eyes for eternity. Her weeping echoed off the trees around her as she was left alone, once again, with the sorcerer. As she turned to face him, she discovered that his hood had fallen off. The pale face was revealed. It was a smooth, young face framed by midnight black hair that hung around harsh, glaring amethyst eyes.

  The sorcerer wiped his pale hand over the terrified girl’s forehead, erasing the majority of that night’s events. She fell to the ground unconscious, and he prepared to scoop her up off the ground and proceed with her, assured it would be simpler with her mind a blank slate.

  He pulled his hood back on as something reached his ears. More footsteps. Again, no presences to be sensed. The pale man now had a difficult decision to make, but this time he chose wisely.

  He left the Allyen in the dark forest, knowing that more of the creatures he could not sense were coming. They posed no threat to his own life, of course, and while he had not succeeded in taking the Allyen’s locket, he had done all he could for
this night.

  The sorcerer left the Allyen with no memory of him. He would return once her magic had awakened. It was useless to take the locket now, seeing as it only worked to protect her since her magic still slumbered. He cast his transportation spell and disappeared.

  More of the creatures began to arrive. This was the group assigned to protect the sorcerer’s second target, the Allyen boy. The creatures had picked him up in Auklia once they realized the sorcerer was after the two young children. Now that the danger had passed, the creature who was carrying the sleepy little boy himself quietly disappeared to take him home to Auklia before anyone realized his absence. The strange beings ensured the unconscious girl was unharmed.

  Before they began to take their own dead home with them, the guardians inconspicuously led a normal human boy from the nearby capital town to the girl. The creatures could not be seen, but the boy was only a few miles away and would serve as a good escort for the girl back to her home. Their tasks complete, the visitors vanished to mourn their lost ones.

  The blackness was suddenly dizzy and wet. The girl’s mind did not want to work. Someone was shaking her, back and forth, until she thought she would be sick. “Hello? Are you okay?” A boy’s voice asked.

  The girl’s brown eyes fluttered open, the golden specks reflecting the moonlight, and at first, all she saw was the clouded sky above her and the raindrops that fell. Her dress was soaking wet causing her to shiver uncontrollably. Her head felt like it might split in two, but for the life of her she had no idea how she had arrived at this place.

  Her eyes finally focused on the boy’s face above her, probably ten years old or older. He was so tall. Auburn hair stuck out from under a starred bandana tied around his head, and he wore a tunic that was much too big for him.