The Werewolf King, Ryan Matthew Harker [best novels to read in english TXT] 📗

water.
“You feel it too?” Random finally broke the silence of their heavy breathing and crunching footfalls with his question.
Sefu stopped and scrutinized the brook more closely. “Yeah,” she replied as she let her intuition soak in the subliminal details. The longer she looked the more certain she was and finally it came to her. “This brook isn’t very old!’ she declared.
“What?” Random asked still not getting it.
Sefu looked at him with a patience she rarely felt and explained, “This brook hasn’t been here very long. As fast and as narrow as it is if it had been here for a prolonged period it would have carved itself a deeper bed. Look at it,” she crouched down next to the water and gestured towards it’s edge with one of her hands. “It’s barely carved an ledge here at all. The water’s pretty much flowing over the ground still.”
“Hey you’re right!” Random saw that she was correct in her analysis of the situation and it was exactly this that had triggered his own instincts. “So what does that mean?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said and stood up. “C’mon let’s keep going.” She took off upstream again.
Having been born and raised on a world where magic was a way of life both Sefu and Random were possessed of an innate sensitivity to the stuff. It was this sensitivity that warned them both that they were quickly approaching their destination, ground zero.
Sefu raised a closed fist and stopped, then opened it, reclosed her last three fingers, dropped her wrist so that she was pointing forward and proceeded to slowly move again at a slight crouch. Random took note of her hand signals and followed her lead, keeping his rifle trained forward and off to the left of her.
Sefu stopped just shy of breaking out of the treeline and dropping to a full crouch, leaned against a tree and survey the area from down the barrel of her rifle. Random did the same from a tree opposite her.
“Looks clear,” he whispered.
Sefu agreed but there was only one way to be sure. “Cover me,” she whispered back and breaking free of her concealment she moved clear of the treeline.
Random followed Sefu’s every move while he covered her with his rifle. The brook flowed down towards the trees from a small rise about one hundred yards away. Sefu crept up the shallow incline keeping the brook to her left as she did so. When she reached the top she hesitated before turning full circle in contemplation of the surrounding tundra. Satisfied that the area was secure she signaled Random from his place of concealment and turned her attention to the source of the brook.
Random joined her at the top of the mound and what he saw was a hole in the ground approximately four feet across from which the crystal clear spring water of the brook flowed. The walls of the hole were completely smooth and it appeared to be bottomless. It was as if someone or something had bored a tunnel with a giant laser straight to the planets core. “This is definitely not natural,” he commented.
“Definitely,” Sefu agreed. “This has to be the work of magic.”
“What’s the point though?” Random pondered the purpose of creating a spring way out in what was essentially the middle of nowhere.
“I’m not sure,” Sefu was equally stumped. “Let’s split up, canvass the area, and see what else we can find.”
“If anything.”
The assassin ignored the mercenaries pessimism and began a methodical search of the surrounding tundra. Shrugging his shoulders Random headed down the opposite side of the mound and began a search of his own.
Forty-five minutes of intense scrutiny turned up little more than a half a dozen incomplete footprints which honestly could have been anyone’s if not for the fact that they knew they had to belong to Neferious and the spy. Sefu was just about to call it quits when Random called her name from a few hundred yards off.
“What is it?” she responded.
“I’m not sure,” he yelled back. “Maybe you should take a look.”
So she tromped over to where the mercenary stood scowling down at the ground between his feet. “What is it?” she repeated and he pointed at the ground.
Sefu looked at where he was pointing and saw a small, white stone about the size and shape of a bird’s egg. Wondering why Random was wasting time on a rock she knelt down and picked it up only to immediately drop it again. As soon as she had removed it from contact with the soil it had changed from white to translucent and begun to glow with a green spark at its center only to fade and turn white again when it hit the ground.
“See,” Random said excitedly. “That’s what it did when I picked it up. What is it?”
“I’m not sure,” Sefu told him but her mind was racing. She reached out and touched the stone again. Nothing happened so she again picked it up. As soon as it left contact with the soil it turned from white to translucent and began to glow with a green spark at its center. She dropped it experimentally and this time she saw that it continued to glow until the very moment that it touched the ground. She picked it up again but this time she stood up with it.
Random had been watching closely and had noticed the pattern. “Pretty neat,” was all he could think to say.
“I think it’s an earthstone,” Sefu told him.
“Really?” Random had heard of these rare stones but had never seen one and he would not have thought to find one on Earth.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think they existed anymore,” Sefu mused thoughtfully.
“On AnEerth maybe,” Random suggested.
“Good point,” she conceded as she tucked the glowing stone into a pouch and secreted it into her backpack. “Keep looking, maybe there’re more.”
They resumed their search but after another three hours of back breaking, eye straining fruitlessness Sefu did call it quits and rejoined Random on the mound. Over the course of the last four hours the both of them had become convinced that the area was thoroughly abandoned and they were completely alone so it was there by the brook that they decided to make camp for the night. They had every intention of heading out after a hot meal and a good night’s sleep, however intent is not always enough and sometimes easily thwarted.


The shift felt from a temporal/spatial displacement has been described in many ways by thousands of different travelers. Some have compared it to canon-balling into a pool and the way the water displaces around you, others have said it felt as if a tremendous pressure was pressing their bodies from all sides. Some have mentioned the feelings one might experience when you float down a gentle stream, some have described this stream as turbulent and others still have said that it was as if they had been swallowed by an immense vastness and then spit out again. General consensus is that travel by this method varies individual to individual in both effect and unpleasantness. Dr. Max Kimbal belonged in the latter category.
“Oh my lord,” Max’s temples throbbed as he wiped a sleeve across his mouth. “I swear it gets worse the more I do that,” he complained and then shivered as he felt the wind.

Imprint

Publication Date: 02-26-2012

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Dedication:
This is for everyone who lives on the other side!