Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy

by Poole, Jeffrey

  The concussion knocked both Steve and Sarah well into the lake. The flash of searing fire and heat instantly vaporized the arrow in mid-flight, reducing it to ash where it floated away in the breeze. Their former captor, now wearing nothing but a light dusting of ash in front, while the clothing covering his now retreating backside still remained intact, turned tail and ran for all he was worth. With nothing to keep the clothes in place, they caught on little bits of shrubbery, or flapped away in the breeze, and generally fell off. The bare-assed thief disappeared into the woods, stringing curses behind him as he ran. No prize was worth this.

  Coughing and spluttering, Steve and Sarah surfaced.

  “What the hell was that?” Steve coughed up water. Being thrown into the water unexpectedly was akin to getting a healthy dose of water up your nose and in your mouth. “Are you okay?”

  Sarah coughed. “He blew us up? How’d he do that? What happened to the arrow? I saw him shoot an arrow at us!”

  “Yeah, me, too. Better question is, what happened to him? I don’t see him anywhere.”

  They stumbled out of the water and collapsed onto the shore. Steve rolled onto his back, continuing to cough up water while Sarah, also struggling to remove all the fluid from her lungs, scanned the shore, looking for some signs of their pursuer. Her gaze fell onto their pack and her purse, still sitting where she dropped it by the brook. Then she noticed that the trees and plant life in the blast zone (as she called it in her head) had all been deeply singed. The trees all bore black scorches, but only on their eastern sides. Nothing on the west, from the direction of their assailant. If the pack, which was on the ground, was still there, that could only mean that whatever detonated did so in the air, not on the ground. But to have the vegetation burned on their side, the east? But that could only mean…

  “I think the blast came from our direction, and it happened in mid-air.”

  Steve looked behind him. “From the water? Why did it blow us into it then?”

  Sarah’s mouth closed with an audible snap. “Good one. Well, if it came from this direction, yet didn’t come from behind us, then that would suggest that it came from us!”

  “You mean you did something to protect yourself from that guy?” Steve was both proud and jealous at the same time. “Babe, that’s awesome!!”

  “I don’t think it’s me. I think it’s you!”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything! Why do you say that?”

  “Well, the only thing I did was scream. Nothing remarkable there. Can you remember if you did anything?”

  Steve thought a moment. “It all happened so fast. I had actually stopped worrying about that guy. I let my guard down. I’m so sorry, babe.” Steve held his wife’s hand. “I heard a snapping noise; I looked up to see what it was. I heard you scream, and I saw that guy point his bow at you instead of me. My heart stopped dead. I just knew I had to get in front of you to somehow block the arrow, but deep down I knew it just wasn’t possible. You were too far away. I think I threw up my hands and the next thing I knew I was inhaling water.”

  “You gestured with your hands?”

  “I wouldn’t call it gesturing. More like helplessly flailing my arms.”

  “No you didn’t. I remember now. You put up both arms as if to brace for some type of impact. Remember?”

  Steve thought a moment. He did, in fact, remember putting his arms up in a defensive position, as if he’d be able to prevent the arrow from reaching its intended target.

  “Well, maybe…”

  “Honey, that’s got to be it! You generated some type of blast that knocked us into the lake, out of harm’s way. And,” she eyed the vegetation, “it was a rather intense blast at that. It must have burned that arrow up completely!”

  “Did it incinerate the thief, too? That’s who I’d like to take out,” Steve muttered.

  Sarah walked around the clearing, noticing bits of fabric here and there. She bent to retrieve a fluttering piece of cloth and held it close to her face for inspection. Her eyes opened wide. The giggles started bubbling out of her until she was laughing so hard she had tears running down her face.

  Steve, baffled at his wife’s behavior, came up next to her and just stared at her.

  “What’s so funny? What are you holding?”

  Sarah handed him the fabric. “This. This is a piece of his clothing. You can see it was once part of his trousers. The back side, if I’m not mistaken.” She chortled again. “This leads me to conclude that the front half of his clothes were flash-burned. Look, you can see the singed edges here. This half of his clothes were burnt off him, and the rest just fell off. That means he’s now running around buck naked!”

  Steve held the fabric close to his face. Yes, he could see the burnt edges. He could even smell the burnt fibers. This piece of fabric had been burned recently, and it did match what the robber had been wearing. So that meant that he was indeed running around in the buff.

  Whenever he started to heartily laugh, and then made some attempt to hold it in, Sarah had always told him that his laugh sounded more like a donkey’s bray. That’s what came out of him now as he pictured their former captor high-tailing it back to his place.

  “That’s too good to be true! Serves his ass right,” Steve muttered, his mood quickly turning dark again. “Punk. I just wish I could have burned something else off besides his clothes.”

  “It was better than that,” Sarah pointed out. “Do you really think he’ll bother us now? He probably wouldn’t touch us with a ten foot pole!”

  Steve chuckled. “True. If that blast truly came from me, then I need to figure out what triggers it and how to bring it back and control it. That would be invaluable here.”

  They started putting their belongings back into their pack. Sarah repacked her purse (properly) and stowed it in the knapsack. Steve checked their food stores and with a shout, pulled out a large leather pouch he hadn’t noticed before.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is a bouda bag.”

  “A what?”

  “A bouda bag. It’s a leather bag used for holding water, I’m sure of it. At any rate, I’m going to fill it up at that spring.”

  “Is there any water already in it?”

  Steve pulled the stopper out of the bag and squeezed. A small jet of water whooshed out of the bag and splashed him squarely in the face.

  Sarah laughed. “Yep! Now that you’ve emptied it, maybe we should fill it back up again.”

  Steve ran his hand down his face, pushing the water off of him. Well, it did feel good. He hadn’t realized he was this hot. Probably tasted good, too. He took a long drink and offered the bag to Sarah. She drank deeply as well and passed the bag back to Steve, who proceeded to fill it from the spring.

  As Steve was placing the leather canteen back into the pack, Sarah, who had been standing off to the side, walked up to him and ran her hands down his back, feeling his clothes.

  “You’re dry! Completely! Even your hair is dry!”

  “What?” Steve felt his shirt, pants, and then his hair. His clothes were dry already? How’d that happen so quickly?

  Sarah extended her arms, palms facing Steve. “Do you feel how much heat you’re generating right now? No wonder you’re dry!”

  “You always tell me that I’m warm. No big surprise there.”

  “Enough to dry clothes? A body generates heat, yes, and given enough time, will dry your clothes, but not in five minutes!” She stared at her husband. “What are you thinking? Right now?”

  “Honestly? That I could go for a double western bacon-burger from Carl’s jr.”

  “Okay, before that. What were you thinking? Was it about that creep?”

  “Yeah, I just wish I could have inflicted some pain to him for all that he’s done to us. He tried to kill you. That sort of thing is hard to forget.”

  “So you were thinking about him, probably getting angry, right?”

  Steve nodded. “What’s your point?”

  S
arah smiled. “We found your trigger. Anger. You get angry, you get hot. You get angry and protective, God forbid, and you blow away the surrounding vegetation.”

  “Anger? You think my trigger is anger?”

  “Yes, I do. And the same the-stronger-the-emotion-the-stronger-the-magic bit is probably in place for you, too. The angrier you are, the more your jhorun will manifest itself.”

  Steve laughed as he thought about that. “Just so long as I don’t turn green.”

  Sarah giggled.

  “Do you mind if I test this? I’d like to think that I can control my anger. If I can find out what works and what doesn’t, it’ll make me feel a lot better.”

  Sarah looked at the nearby lake. “Test away. Better here where there’s water than out in the middle of a forest where there isn’t any.”

  “Oh, ha ha ha. Think I’m going to burn down the forest, do you?”

  Sarah turned and looked at the burnt trees.

  “Okay, bad example.”

  He sat down on an overturned tree and started thinking. How do I start this, he thought. Anger. If I explode every time I get mad, then that isn’t gonna work. I’m going to have to be able to rein in my emotions so I don’t hurt anyone. Well, anyone that matters, that is. What can I start with?

  His eyes started roaming the ground in front of him and alighted on a small branch that had broken off from one of the tree branches far above. He picked it up. Okay, this’ll work. Let’s start imagining that I know that the mugger is coming back. He obviously wants to harm us. Am I going to let him?

  Steve gripped the branch tightly in his right hand, his left balling into a fist.

  More than likely, that creep wanted to kill him because he probably would cause problems during the attempt at apprehending them again. Probably wanted Sarah for himself.

  Wisps of smoke started to appear.

  Standing quietly by the safety of the water’s edge, Sarah said nothing. She was too far away to see the tiny tendrils of smoke appearing over Steve’s hand.

  The robber wanted to kill him and take his wife away, to make her a slave, to make her subservient to whoever “purchased” her. It was intolerable. Unthinkable! Not while he breathed! Not while he was able to fight, able to protect her, able to-

  Now Sarah noticed the smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be fire! Concern for her husband had her reaching for the lake water. She scooped up some water and paused.

  “Steve! Whatever you’re doing, stop! Snap out of it!” Sarah flung a double-handful of water in his direction. The few drops of water that made it to him hissed when they landed. Her husband didn’t react. Oh, boy. More dire action was needed. Reaching into the pack she grabbed the bouda bag, uncorked it and gave a mighty squeeze angled in Steve’s direction. The spray of water nailed him square in the face.

  Steve jerked, looking over at Sarah. “Wha’? What happened? Why did you do that?” Wiping the water out of his eyes, Steve looked at the branch. No flames. “Something wrong?”

  “I see smoke! Something is smoking over there!”

  Steve looked at the branch in his right hand. No smoke there. He looked at his left. Smoke was indeed emanating from his clenched fist, which had turned a dark, mottled red.

  “Well, would you get a load of that!” Steve opened his hand. More smoke was billowing from his hand. A detached part of his brain thought maybe he should be in pain, but nothing registered.

  His hand was tingling, as though it fell asleep. Still no pain. Was his hand going to literally start combusting, right before his eyes? He eyed it, waiting. Luckily, no flames appeared. However, his skin was still an angry red.

  “Okay, now what? How do I make it stop?” Sarah shrugged; she didn’t know. Now what? Not really wanting his hand to burn, he rushed over to the lake and thrust it in. Steam hissed up from the water, coalescing around his face. After a minute or two, the clouds of vapor drifted away, and he pulled his hand out.

  Sarah rushed up to him. “Are you hurt? Are you in pain? Let me see your hand.”

  Steve held up his left hand. It was back to being a healthy pink. He wiggled his fingers. No discomfort anywhere.

  “Everything in good working order. But we have a problem. Scratch that. Lets back up a bit. First off, I’m thrilled that we know the nature of my jhorun. And I’m ecstatic that I was able to prevent that arrow from reaching you. However, what happens if there isn’t water around? Why wouldn’t it shut off by itself?”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t give it enough time. It might have reverted back to normal after a few minutes.”

  “I’d like to say that I didn’t panic, but in my defense, for all I knew, it did look as though my hand was gonna catch fire.”

  “When your hand was all red like that, did it hurt? Could you have gone longer with your hand that hot?”

  Steve thought back. “It didn’t hurt at all. In fact, it felt all tingly, like when your hand goes to sleep. Something like that. But no pain, and I certainly couldn’t feel any heat whatsoever.”

  With their gear all stowed back into the pack, Steve refilled their canteen (again) and proceeded on, heading northwest along the path. Sarah walked quickly in front, with Steve bringing up the rear. Since their adversary had caught them unaware for a second time, especially when he had vowed not let that happen again, Steve was now on high alert, constantly listening for any sounds of pursuit. The only thing he could hear, however, were he and Sarah’s labored sound of breathing.

  This was so cool! Talk about being straight out of the comic books! Now that he knew the nature of his jhorun, he wanted to do what any kid would want to do with a new toy: keep playing! He wanted to experiment! How strong did his anger have to be in order for it to manifest itself? Did he have to focus on a specific item? Was it only pertaining to anger? Could he summon the heat if he concentrated hard enough?

  He had generated a flash of heat so intense that it burned trees and completely incinerated an arrow that was shot at them. The level of heat that was necessary to flash burn a speeding arrow was unimaginable to him. Scorch marks on the trees… Wouldn’t that suggest fire as well? Where there’s heat, there’s fire, right? Did he generate fire? Could he actually summon fire?

  That, Steve thought, was critical, need-to-know information! Wouldn’t it be fantastic if, at just a whim, he could conjure a fireball out of thin air and hurl it at a bad guy? Think of the ways he could protect Sarah in this strange world! God forbid he encountered any other muggers now!

  That was something he was going to practice until he had all the specifics down pat, Steve vowed to himself. How to activate, how to control the intensity, how to target different objects, and most importantly, how to turn his ability off. Without water present, he needed to be certain he wasn’t going to harm Sarah in any way. That was critical.

  So while the two of them tried to retrace their route back to the enchanted road, Steve mentally practiced summoning his jhorun. He focused his mental anger at passing rocks and twigs. He even picked up a small branch while Sarah was walking in front of him, but was unsuccessful in generating so much as one joule of heat out of himself.

  Wait a minute. If he couldn’t detect any heat coming from his hand, would he be able to tell if he was heating up? If his power was heat and/or fire, wouldn’t he be immune to its effects? Wouldn’t make much sense generating the heat if he couldn’t handle it, would it? Wait a minute, what about his clothes? They weren’t going to be able to insulate him against the heat, so they were liable to burn off.

  Got it. No getting mad at himself. Wouldn’t want to be running around out here in the buff, either.

  But what is the key to activating this? How could he tap into his magic just a little bit without igniting everything in a fifty foot radius? He needed to be able to focus his energy, thus focusing the intensity of heat emanating from him. Once he had the intensity down, then he would work on his aim.

  Clenching the twig tightly, Steve focused all his mental energy on t
he small piece of wood. He could clearly imagine it bursting into flame, rapidly reducing to ash. Only, he didn’t want ash, he wanted the thing to burst into flames. Not scorching heat that would hurt anyone, just a little flame.

  He looked over at Sarah, still walking along the path ahead of him. His mood instantly softened. There was his one true love, his soul mate. The bond that he shared with Sarah couldn’t be described with just mere words. He would do anything for her, and that included dying, if the need arose. She was his inspiration. He needed to master this skill. Since they needed to find a suitable place to camp for the night, he needed to master it quickly. He eyed the twig and ordered it to ignite.

  Much to his amazement, the small twig burst into flame. He stopped dead in his tracks and watched the twig burn.

  Sarah, alerted to Steve’s absence, looked behind her. She saw her husband holding a burning twig. He was just staring at it, holding it this way and that, admiring it from different angles.

  “What happened? Did you just make that fire appear?”

  Steve nodded. “I essentially ordered it to burn. And it burned.”

  Sarah clapped her hands. “Good job! Did you focus your anger on it?”

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t think anger is my trigger.”

  “Really? Why do you say that? What is it, then?”

  “I tried getting angry,” Steve explained, “only that wasn’t working. Care to know what I did?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “For a lack of a better word, its chivalry, or a sense of protection. I think about you, protecting you, making certain you’re safe, and I can sense this, uh, presence, if you will. Like something is about to happen. I think at that time my jhorun is ready to emerge, and I just have to tell it what to do.”

  Sarah blinked. Was this her husband? Since when did he become so damn good at interpreting his emotions? They only had just taken their “swim” in the lake about an hour ago. How could he have figured out so much in so little time? Was he right about his magic?