Myth

by Terri Todosey

  Todosey

  FOR YOU THE READER

  May your journey within these words be filled with adventure.

  It was never meant to be easy, but I assure you

  the story ends well.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  The Primer

  Chapter Two

  A Hundred Years Pass

  Chapter Three

  One Simple Task

  Chapter Four

  And So It Begins

  Chapter Five

  Green Of Evoluii

  Chapter Six

  The Craving Tree

  Chapter Seven

  Demoror Ari

  Chapter Eight

  A Beautiful Deception

  Chapter Nine

  Lily Palus

  Chapter Ten

  The Boy

  Chapter Eleven

  Greater of Fears

  Chapter Twelve

  Forest of Saltus

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Fate of Three

  Chapter Fourteen

  Montis

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Temple

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lockhart at Last

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Winds Eye

  Chapter Eighteen

  An Earlier Time

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Maker

  Chapter Twenty

  Spiritus

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Masquerade

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ludo’s Fate

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hello and Goodbye

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Surprise

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Narina Caravel

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Myth

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Worlds Apart

  Chapter One

  The Primer

  It didn’t seem long ago when the skies were blue and easy to breathe and the land was thick with dewy grasslands that rolled out as far as the eye could see; like an emerald elixir promising good things on its horizon. It was a world where good things happened, and bad things too. Where deepest dark nights collided with brightest days, and good was set against evil.

  It was an ideal world for Henry Thorpe - a wealthy importer who wrote stories of uncharted lands and encounters with ancient civilizations that few believed existed. Chronicling his own adventures, he shared them with anyone who had ears to hear and eyes to see.

  I imagine such adventures would have been remembered well into today, if it weren’t for the fateful events that brought about the destruction of all his books. Thought to be filled with lies, his books were burned by fire, never again to be read and never to be remembered. They were all destroyed. All that is, but one.

  —

  Mr. Thorpe looked at his pocket watch, something he had done every five minutes for the last hour. Alfred was late. Again. Henry Thorpe placed his fountain pen gently down on the desk just below the last paragraph he had written, and closed the large, leather-bound book.

  ‘Tap, tap.’ Henry heard a knock on the window and looked up to see a figure dash by, followed by a sharp blast of cold air as the front door opened and closed.

  “Ah, Henry, good to see that you’re up and about. Much to do today, much to do!” said Alfred, bounding into the study. His thick glasses steamed up with the rush of warm air.

  Alfred was an aged man like Henry, yet short, stout and much more energetic. He hurriedly threw his snow-covered overcoat onto a hook and took a seat behind his desk in the study. Once thick, dark and long enough to be pulled back into a braid, Alfred’s hair was now white and wildly unreserved as he shook off the remaining wet snow.

  “I was getting concerned you had gotten yourself distracted again and forgotten about today, what with you being so late,” sighed Henry, as he grasped the handle of his cane and eased himself slowly out of his chair.

  “Yes well it’s a good thing I’m not a fair bit later with all the snow that’s been falling on us,” said Alfred.

  Some objects clanked around inside a metal box on his desk, as his pudgy hands dove in trying to find something.

  “Did you manage to find the... the... whatever it was you were after?” asked Henry.

  “The reducer? Yes,” he said, pulling a bobby pin out of the box and slipping it into his vest pocket. “It was rather difficult finding one that would match up precisely with the power wheel.” Alfred scuttled over to a vertical row of shelves. “I finally found one at Squibb’s Carriage House that I think should do the trick.”

  “And no one asked any questions?” Henry looked intently at his friend.

  “The last time Jonathan Squibb showed any interest in what I was doing, I gave him a two and half hour lecture on magnetic forces. It pretty much shut him up about nosing into my business,” Alfred chuckled, as he grabbed a few items from the study shelves and proceeded back to his desk.

  “You always were a man of many words, which seems to be in your favour today,” smiled Henry, as he placed the leather-bound book into a black bag that slumped over his shoulder.

  “Ah yes, well we had better get on with it,” said Alfred. “I’ve yet to check over some last minute things on my list before we send you off.” Shutting the drawer, he spirited Henry out of the study.

  “You know, Alfred...” Henry said while struggling to keep up with Alfred’s quick pace. “I’ve been meaning to discuss some last minute details with you.”

  “Ah yes, the details are coming along quite well. We should have you on your way soon enough,” said Alfred. “Have you said all your good byes then?”

  Henry paused. Reaching into the bag on his shoulder, he pulled out a handful of envelopes held together with a knotted piece of thick twine. “I finished the last of them this morning,” he said. “I was hoping you could mail them out sometime this week so they’d get them before Christmas.” He handed the bundle to Alfred who immediately began flipping through, examining the names on each envelope.

  “You haven’t forgotten about Lady Amelia have you? You know how upset she can get, and the idea of you running off again without even a goodbye...” He stopped to pull out an envelope addressed in decorative hand writing to Lady Amelia.

  “No, as you can see...” Henry snatched the letter and squeezed it back between the sandwiched stack of envelopes. “I haven’t forgotten and would ask that you’d wait until I’m at least gone and no longer aware of your prodding into my personal affairs.”

  “Perhaps your leave should prove fruitful for the ladies and myself?” Alfred mused, smiling as he continued towards the front foyer. “It has always been a mystery as to why the ladies flock after men who seem far less interested in them.”

  “Yes, well if you do recall, Amelia did marry a fine man and had five children of her own, so it seems these ladies that you claim flock about me are nowhere to be seen.”

  “Well if you gave them half a minute to convince you to stay home for longer than six months at a time, I’m sure you’d have a house full of young Henrys running about and a sweet wife that would be chasing them all while caring for you and your nasty, aged disposition.”

  “Of all the caretakers in the world, there are none quite as honest as you dear Alfred.” Henry cocked his brow. “Although a pretty maiden’s face would be a welcome change to your menacing white-haired and wrinkled one,” he chuckled.

  “Yes, well take a look in the mirror old man. You’re not exactly the
doe I had been expecting to have breakfast with each morning,” Alfred grunted. “But alas, perhaps I should finally find me a bride after your departure.”

  “You know Alfred,” said Henry pausing at a small panel door that would be easy to miss if you didn’t already know it was there, “I still think Ms. Ethal Rose makes the best apple strudel.”

  “Apple strudel hmm?” Alfred huffed and then whisked Henry down a narrow flight of stairs hidden behind the panel door.

  The stairs opened below into a small, dank room that smelled of moist dirt and mothballs. While in fact somewhat larger than it seemed, the room had a low ceiling and was filled with so many books, pipes, bottles, springs, scrolls, maps, widgets, gadgets and dust, that there was barely enough room for the two men to stand in one place. Hence the small, somewhat claustrophobic feeling.

  “We really should discuss those last minute details,” said Henry somewhat breathless from all the scurrying. “Sooner rather than later I would think.” Henry stopped. Where had the man disappeared to? “Alfred?”

  “Yes, yes, go on,” Alfred popped his head out from behind a tall pile of books before bobbing back down for the item he was after. But it was Alfred who continued in a much louder voice from the back of the room. “I’m still listening!” He cleared his throat. “Just looking for my list. I have to check it over to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.”

  “Oh yes, good enough,” said Henry, waiting patiently.

  “Aha!” Alfred shot a waving parchment scroll above a screen of boxes. “I’ve found it!” Alfred’s voice drew closer and finally through some coughing dust he appeared. Still sputtering, he invited his friend to examine the find. “Come now, look.”

  With a sigh, Henry leaned over a workbench that was set up as a table. Its worn wood surface lit up brightly as Alfred placed a glass oil lamp on it. The reflection of the glowing light from the lamp now flickered off his thick-lens glasses, which magnified his brown eyes into round saucers. He rolled open the stiff parchment scroll, revealing some sketched diagrams along with a list of items and some scribbled down numbers that seemed to form some sort of an equation. His pudgy fingers moved smoothly over the paper as he began muttering while he read.

  “Yes, yes, the magnetic energy should build up in this containment area, yes like so. And the conductor should guide the build-up of excess energy here.... Oh, now where did I put that thingy?” Alfred was off again shuffling through some boxes in the back.

  Alfred had been Henry’s good friend since their school days at Oxford, where they met as first years in Natural Science class. Sharing a love for philosophy, chess and all great adventures, they soon became friends and eventually roommates. Although both had their share of encounters with women, neither settled down long enough to marry, having found their true love in exploration and invention.

  Now years later Alfred had grown increasingly scatterbrained with age, and Henry wasn’t entirely convinced that his friend was of mind enough to safely carry out this one last, but by far not least adventure. Worries aside, Henry knew that if this voyage was to happen, he had to go now.

  “Alright then, here we go,” Alfred returned with a highly polished silver ball about the size and weight of a five-pin bowling ball. “Okay Henry, stand on this spot over here.”

  He led Henry over to a small area at the far side of the room that was cleared of all items except for what looked like a crude, odd looking contraption that appeared almost too simple to do anything extraordinary. To one side was a large, iron-bound wooden wheel with a handle attached on the outer rim and hundreds of small magnets lining the full circle of the inner rim. Connected with some gears at the centre of the wheel was a small metal box that stood on a stand about three and a half feet from the floor. One could only guess what was enclosed in the box, but coming from its top were two springs attached to one wire, which drew upwards towards the ceiling and strung through a ceramic ring. From there the wire proceeded downward only two feet and ended as a point that hung directly over an area of the floor that was marked with the letter X, where Henry now stood.

  “Alright now, where’s the book?” asked Alfred.

  Henry reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out the large book he had brought from the study. It had nothing more than a tree and the word Myth embossed into the heavy leather on the front cover. “I trust you should be able to get me in by the end of it?”

  “If my calculations are correct, it shouldn’t take too long once we’ve got this thing humming,” Alfred said, fiddling with some wires and the reducer.

  “Very good, but about those details I’ve been wanting to discuss with you,” said Henry. “You must not forget, Alfred, to close the rift. Remember to write the words The End on the very last page, as we’ve discussed.” Henry paused for a moment to look sternly into the eyes of his friend before continuing slowly and clearly, “Once I’m in, you must not forget this most important step!”

  Alfred’s round eyes for the first time locked on Henry’s, as though for a moment his mind was clear and focused on the reality and importance of what they were about to do. Then in an instant, the moment was gone.

  “Alright then Henry, you’ll need to hold out this ball in one hand directly above the marked X while holding open the book in the other hand as you read.”

  Alfred paused and pinched his nose with a perplexed look on his face, “Hmm, that book is going to be very awkward to hold, with it being so large. You know, we should have calculated the best size for the book. A six by eight or five by nine would have worked quite well...”

  “Alfred!” Henry’s voice drew sharply impatient.

  “Alas, no worries, here we go then.”

  Alfred shuffled back to where a set of work gloves rested on a box, and putting them on he took hold of the handle on the outside of the heavy wheel. Slowly he turned it using most of his upper body in making the first round. “Ahh... if this wheel doesn’t kill me first. My strength isn’t what it used to be Henry!”

  Alfred’s hair looked like white-feathered wings flapping up and down with every rotation, as he continued to build up speed. He struggled with the wheel and the very real fact that his body was short and old, but with every turn the wheel spun faster and faster, until there came a point when the wheel itself seemed to overtake Alfred in its quickening spin.

  It was then that Henry opened his book and realized that Alfred was correct in predicting the awkwardness of its large size. He mustered the determination to hold both the ball and the book steady, as he waited for Alfred’s command.

  “On my mark Henry...” Alfred now hollered above the whir of the wheel and the crackling hiss of energy that was building and sending sparks off the tip of the coat hanger. The sparks increased in tempo and stretched into long wavering strings of bright energy that jumped the gap between the coat hanger and the metallic ball. The ball responded by surging with brilliant flares of colour - changing from its original silvery hue to deep blue, then purple and now fiery red.

  “NOW, Henry! Start reading!” hollered Alfred.

  Henry looked down at the first page of his book.

  “The Primer,” he began in a soft voice.

  “LOUDER” yelled Alfred.

  Henry took a deep breath and continued.

  “It didn’t seem long ago when the skies were blue and easy to breathe...” WOOOSH - A blur of blue flew past Henry’s head. Quickly looking up, he tried to see what it was that had startled him, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Alfred was still madly turning the wheel with sweat beading off his brow, so Henry turned his attention back to the heavy book that he struggled to keep open with his one hand and continued to read.

  “And the land w a s thick with dewy grasslands that rrrrrolled...” WOOOOSH - A green blur of light whizzed across Henry’s peripheral, and again he glanced up from the page, however this time he noticed that Alfred appeared further
away than seemed before. He was hollering in the distance, but it was hard to make out as the entire room was buzzing with noises and had filled with a strange green fog and everything had become muddled. He could faintly hear his friend yelling, “Read! Keep reading!”

  “Yes” he thought; his mind now confused, frightened and excited all at once. He looked back down at the words his own hands had written.

  “The land was thick, with dewy grasslands that r o l l e d outttt as f a r as the eye ccccould s e e, like an e m e r a l dddd elixir promissssing g o o d thingsss o n it’s horiz o n.....” As Henry tried to focus on reading, the space between the words began to shift and widen and his voice began to echo and stretch in odd places, sounding very strange. It made it all the more difficult to read, but before he could continue, there pierced through the metal ball a bright and excruciatingly white light. It shone so brilliantly that he had to squint in its glory and everything around him became white.

  WOOOSH! “What was....?” he spun around to look over his shoulder, but it was at this moment that the white world around him started spinning in on him. It was as though he was falling backwards with his head becoming very light and all he could feel was the ball slipping out of his hand. Then there was silence.

  —

  “CRASH!!!” The ball came crashing down, splintering into a million pieces as the book followed with a sudden thud on the floor and its pages fluttered to a close. Alfred now sweating, from both exertion and stress, stood back from the wheel and gazed blankly at the book now lying on the ground.

  Henry was gone.

  The high-pitched whir of the wheel slowed down to a rolling hum. Alfred still panting, said to himself, “Why... I forgot to say goodbye.” And just like that he stepped over the crunching sound of metal shards now lying everywhere on the floor and picked up the book.

  “I must not forget...” Alfred paused and scratched his head, “yes, very important to close the book.” He looked around the room, “Now, where did I put my pen?” Shuffling around, he placed the book on top of an already tall pile of books and looked for his pen. “It must be here somewhere. Oh drat it all, I think I left it on the desk upstairs in the study.”