Orb Of Zorn #1
Fantasy
Date Published: 05-24-2023
When Elcon is heard reciting a cantrip in the magic-averse village of
Walsz, he is put through a trial by ordeal. Plunged into the Nom River, he
barely survives the swim. Leaving behind the angry mob on the shore, he then
runs away from home. Out on his own for the first time in his young life, he
meets a stranger who gifts him with a stone that has mystical powers.
Accompanied by the mage, Dras, the young apprentice goes on a quest to save
the world from the return of the Shadowlord.
A classic epic fantasy adventure with swords, sorcery, orcs, elves, and
outcasts. The first book of the Orb of Zorn Trilogy. Grab a cloak and join
the quest.
EXCERPT
Elcon hadn’t seen one since he was a child, and its mysterious presence came from out of nowhere. On that day, he had been bitten by a snake. No more than five at the time and off playing by himself when it sprung out after him. He never felt the pierce of the fangs. He froze up. It left him in a woozy state on the verge of feinting. Then the healer came from out of nowhere— not Oana Loi— this one was some kind of mystic. He believed her to be some sort of pixie. She spoke in a foreign language he had never heard before and spread a cool ointment on his wound. He owed his life to her, and for some strange reason he felt like this stranger was her again.
Now, as a young man, he had come face to face with another one. And yet she looked so familiar. He felt he knew her, too. She never gave her name. Nor had she declared her affiliation, but there was no mistaking that inimitable garb, the refined cloak was exactly from what he recalled from childhood. She was definitely Lef Sagori, and yet she didn’t seem much older than he, though she carried herself in a much mature manner, dignified, and wielding immense power. Her brilliant amber eyes had a world of knowledge rippling in them that he yearned to get a glimpse of. He was too bashful to stare. Something beyond the charm of magic, she had a charm of an exalted being, though she did not lord it over him. It emanated from her aura as if donning a special coat of shimmering armor made only for her. The immaculately embroidered shawl slung over her shoulder an extension of her inner armor. He caught a glimpse of the tattoo on her hand, the green wing of a dragon. It was terribly puzzling because if this was all true, then the healer who took care of him all those years ago had not aged a day.
Startling as this seemed, Elcon was not frightened by her presence, though he was curious as to why she had come all this way again. The Lef Sagori were said to hail from behind the Spine way off near the Tri-Realms. Nobody he knew had crossed paths with one. As he washed his face in the brook, he thought he still saw her image. It gazed deep into his eyes, and he saw a finger reaching out to him. It dripped from the babbling brook, and as he grasped for it, it vanished.
He still had this on his mind when a strong chop walloped him from behind. Elcon turned abruptly, ready to strike his attacker. His cousin, Tren, stood their grinning like an overgrown imp. “Rot and swine tails,” Tren piped. “You’d think I was the Shadowlord creeping up to you. Bah. You should see the wild rage in your eyes.”
“Well, it’s no wonder with you sneaking up like the very thing you said.” Elcon did not share his cousin’s wicked sense of humor, nor did he ever make light of the Dark One. He never made reference to it and sometimes chastised those that did, as though he were a sage and not a gangly youth of only seventeen.
“Show some respect,” Tren implored. “You’re now looking at a fledgling member of the Night Watch.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I did.” A wide grin stretched across Tren’s lips. “Marlon, too. While all the sheep were still chattering about Brother Nolan’s stump speech, we bumped into a man from the crown guard. He told us they were looking for brave young bucks. That’s what the recruiter said, and Marlon ribbed me that I wouldn’t take to the late chill on the night lookout, and then I told him he couldn’t be a lousy scarecrow on his daddy’s property. And then the next thing I know is that we were both signed up.”
“I don’t believe it,” Elcon said with a hint awe. “Maybe Marlon, but not you.”
“What do you mean? It’s all I ever talked about as a lad, the swordplay and defending the keep. And where were you? When I turned around to get you to sign up, too, but you were gone.”
A wash of fright overcame Elcon. He trembled a little and didn’t break from the daze until Tren shook him out of it.
“How will you ever break it to Uncle Gorb?”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Tren said. “But can you believe it?”
It hadn’t occurred to Elcon, and his previous encounter with the Lef Sagori still weighed on his mind, and the finger that reached out to him was not his cousin. So then, where did it come from, and why was it reaching out to him?
“I’ll be stationed up by Gol. I’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow.”
“So soon. I don’t believe it.”
“You should be coming with me. Imagine the three of us together up there?”
Elcon didn’t have the heart to spoil his cousin’s mirth. The Watch was not something he wanted anyway. He was built much differently than Tren. From the outside he was lanky and slope-shouldered, while Tren had a wider chest and corded, muscular arms. He didn’t even have a wisp of hair above his lip or chin, while Tren almost had a full beard. Something else ticked from his core being, a connection to the elements. Sometimes strange words escaped from his tremoring lips, and he did things he had no control over. At times, it frightened him. Once Uncle Gorb bore witness to it and flogged him with his belt. He didn’t do it to torment the boy. He did it out of love and maybe fear. Magic was not accepted in Five Towns, and the last person suspected of having such ability was burned at the stake.
The people from Walsz might have been different from the rest of the folks from the western rim, but they still had a deep-rooted disdain for the unexplainable. A respect for nature yes, and its unpredictable elements they may have had, but not for those rogues that purported to shape the world to their whims. The village healer may have been the only exception.
That night at dinner, Gorb remained quiet as his son carried on about his newfangled opportunity. Chosen for it was how he put it, never mentioned anything about Marlon’s dare. The story was more embellished now, and Elcon seemed to enjoy it better with a full belly. The smith cleared his throat a few times between bites but didn’t say a word. It was hard to get one in edgewise with Tren rambling on, and even Elcon had to sit back and watch. He had a frazzled look about him, perhaps hoping his uncle would bang the table or else let out a steamy bellow, anything to make Tren come to his senses.
Not until Tren rose from the table in the middle of the meal did Gorb say a word.
“You haven’t finished yet, and you didn’t touch your soup.”
Tren waved it off as a burden. “I need to pack.”
“There’s time for that. Sit with your cousin.”
He shook his head. “Too much to do. I’ll be gone the day after tomorrow.”
As if it all had suddenly begun to click, Gorb got to his feet and marched across the room. The joy on Tren’s face turned to stone, and the boy girded himself for his father’s wrath, though it never came. This appeared to have him befuddled. Unable to stop the rush of nerves coursing through his veins, Tren barked at his father.
“My mind is made up, and you cannot stop me.”
The smith scoffed at the lame decree. His heavy-lidded eyes slid back on his ruddy face. The years of toiling at his forge had given him patience with heat, a love for it, no, but a deep understanding of how things were forged, and yet his relationship with his son had never been as solid as the things he made. Maybe it had all gone sour when his wife died. Didn’t blame her, and he didn’t blame him. This was the way of things. While he stood stolid and implacable, a rueful eye gleamed under the candlelight.
Gorb offered his hand to his son, and the boy waited a moment before accepting it.
“Far be it for me to stand in your way. You’re a man now, so you do what you must.”
That rendered the son speechless. The smith had never referred to him as a man before. It had an odd ring to it. It kept Tren from packing properly, and he had difficulty sleeping that last night in his childhood home. Elcon curled up on the cot beside his cousin almost spilled his guts about his sighting, but he couldn’t do it. Not that night at least, perhaps when he walked his cousin off to the cadet station for the Watch, perhaps then.
* * *
It had been a full week since Tren had left for the Watch, and already Elcon was missing his cousin. He could tell that Uncle Gorb did, too, but the smith was too busy training his new apprentice that he didn’t let on. Elcon knew, though, and he wondered when he would see his cousin again. His antics, his brotherly bullying. It was strange for him to wake up in a half-empty room. Sure, he had more space, but part of it was empty.
“Get your head out of the clouds,” Uncle Gorb barked, “Or you’ll lose your hand. I’ve seen it before.”
The blast from the furnace threw Elcon back. He’d never felt that unbelievable blast of heat before. Hot enough to fry his skin and roast his gizzard.
“If you’re not going to take this seriously, then I won’t waste my time.”
“I am serious,” Elcon retorted as he reached for his tongs that had fallen onto the floor.
“You don’t have to do this to impress me, you know,” Gorb said, resting his thick hand on his nephew’s shoulder.
The gesture urged a smile. Elcon could only share a lopsided one. It was hard to be a fill-in. For the workshop, he’d give it his all, but a son he could never truly be.
“I didn’t love this when I started either. Not in the least. Had a dream to sail a tall ship across the Elbion Sea, but that quickly faded.
“You never mentioned this before.”
“Bah. Ancient history. That was before I got hitched when I was greener than a tomato bud on a twining vine.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder about those faraway lands?”
“Of course, I did, even went down to the docks at Shallawad to see about an enlistment. There were many lads out there with that very same nutty idea. Most of them willing to do just about anything for an adventure.”
“But you never did.”
“Once, yes. And it was an eye-opener. Gut-spewer was more like it. Even set out on a course to Niperth aboard a cargo ship. They needed strapping young lads to lift and load. That’s what I did. The lifting and loading. Had no problem with the grunt work, but the sailing was torture. I found out rather quickly that it wasn’t for me. Got seasick that very first night and the next, and the one after that. By the time we got to the port, all we had time to do was unload the cargo. A dozen stupid lads with a thousand dreams and a taskmaster of a skipper who had no time for any shenanigans. One night on the lousy spit of shore, and then we set sail the following day. The way back was even more turbulent. We hit a bad storm, tore the topgallant sail right off the foremast. The wind whipping us like wet dogs at sea, but we hung on, barely. We were lucky enough to make it back. So, I had my fill with the boundless blue. When I got back to shore, I got on my hands and knees and kissed every inch of that dry dock.”
Elcon clutched the back of his elbow. The mighty gust from his uncle’s tale seemed to muss his hair. He had moist, rueful eyes, and he nodded.
“You miss your cousin, don’t you?”
Elcon nodded again.
“Well, that’s only natural. What do you say we take ourselves an early lunch?”
“Can we?” Elcon asked.
“Rot and swine tails,” Uncle Gorb piped. “Who runs this shop anyway?”
Apprenticing under his uncle helped Elcon see the man in a whole new light. He saw the smith and what drove him to perfect his craft. Gorb was a stickler for details, but generous with mentoring his nephew, and Elcon did not feel as a fill-in for his cousin, but he still did not feel like a son. Still, the lessons that the smith shared were invaluable.
A few weeks into the stint, the smith left his nephew behind to mind the workshop. With some urgent business in town for the smith to attend to Elcon took care of a new batch of orders. He had gotten the hang of the work and had even begun to enjoy it, melting down hunks of metal and shaping them into useful objects. It gave him a sense of accomplishment.
For the first time in his life, he began to feel normal. This was it! He could make a go at it. No need to jump tall ships for adventure. He had no passion for them anyway. The sea was just a big river. Well, he really did not know much about it, but he did feel something like wild joy rippling inside of him when he shaped something out of nothing. He placed a horseshoe on the workbench, and his thoughts wandered for only a few seconds.
Then a strange thing happened. As he smelted a slab of metal, a finger came slithering out of the furnace, a hideous curling finger rising from the licks of flame. It beckoned him to draw near.
“Who are you, and why are you disturbing me?”
It did not respond. Then moaning ensued in a low, gravelly tone. The garbled words in an old and incomprehensible tongue. It made the hairs curl up on the back of his neck. He scoped the space for anything to defend himself. Off in the corner he spotted a pitchfork resting by the wall. Elcon made a mad dash for it and returned to the furnace with a wild rage in his eyes.
The moaning grew louder as a full hand appeared betwixt the licking flames. It goaded the young man into the fiery pit, but Elcon stood back and stabbed with his pitchfork. Sweat poured down from his face in heavy beads. The roiling fear compelled him to fight back, but its will seemed stronger than his. Come hither it hissed, and right then, Elcon felt as though he were sinking into an unescapable mire. He shut his eyes from the flickering fingers, and the hiss still invaded his being.
He almost submitted to its will when strange words poured from his lips. He stood trembling, never uttering them before. They were almost as frightening as the wraith that beckoned him. He cast the words with reckless abandon, a cantrip, and slowly, the hand began to melt, one finger at a time, back into the furnace.
Still clutching the pitchfork in a vise-grip, Elcon turned and saw somebody from the corner of his eye. It was Brother Brent. The man had a look of horror on his sunken cheeks. Elcon dropped the weapon and went toward the cleric, but Brother Brent shouted at the top of his lungs. As Elcon pleaded with the cleric to listen to him, Brother Brent turned yellow and ran. He ran right out of his monkstrap shoe, dashing off down the winding path and didn’t look back.
About the Author
Still a rogue at heart, John has spent most of his life making stuff up,
mainly to fill in the gaps of an otherwise untidy CV. He’s taught
tennis, sold wine, hustled a few chess games, and babysat for numerous scaly
and furry creatures. His stories, essays, and articles have appeared in over
50 journals worldwide. He’s the author of the humorous fantasy books
The Acolyte And The Amulet and Beyond The Vicious Vortex (Nebilon Series).
He lives with his wife and daughter.
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