The Promise of The Orb
Book One of The Ascendancy Series
Marshall Cobb
Cerro Plano Press
Copyright © 2018 Marshall Cobb
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Published by Cerro Plano Press
ISBN:
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Cover art by Jeff Brown Graphics
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Dedication
To Things #1 and #2 -- Every day is an adventure with the two of you.
Prologue
I have long been intrigued by Buddhism but my interest should not in any way be confused with knowledge. The idea of weaving a group of Buddhist monks into the narrative came from a desire to show attributes wildly different from those displayed by the group of teenagers who serve as protagonists.
I have shamelessly borrowed from the various branches of Buddhism in my depiction and focused on Tibetan names for the monks. The meanings behind these names are shown here:
Chime: Immortal, Eternal
Dawa: Moon, Monday
Jetsun:Venerable
Jigme:Indestructible
Pelden:Glorious
Any reader interested in an explanation of the terms utilized within the story should please go to www.marshall-cobb.com and use the search bar on the home page to look for article entitled: The Promise of The Orb Additional Information
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: Discovery
CHAPTER TWO: Introductions
CHAPTER THREE: Missions Impossible
CHAPTER FOUR: Negotiations & Rescues
CHAPTER FIVE: Delivery
CHAPTER SIX: Homecoming
CHAPTER SEVEN: A Whole New World
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Quest Begins
CHAPTER NINE: Real de Catorce
CHAPTER TEN: Recharged
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Costa Rica
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Game
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Trials
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Matt
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Eli
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Jenny
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Peter
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE: Discovery
Peter scrambled across a long, narrow stretch of round rocks, then bent down and used his dirty hands to pick up a small stone—the kind he liked to skip across the water. The top of the stone was dried out from the sun. He turned it in his hand and found the bottom was still damp. A few tiny red worms clung to the moist underside, trying to escape the heat.
He scraped off the worms and gently put them on the ground, then turned, drew back his arm, and threw the rock toward a muddy area behind him. It landed with an audible plunk.
“I can’t believe it’s all gone,” he mumbled to himself as he wiped his wet hand on his filthy shorts.
Peter was a miniature version of his father, though like a puppy, his body had yet to grow into his oversized head, hands, and feet. His father, known in the community as “Big Ed,” had frequently responded to Peter’s complaints about his height by patting him on the head and assuring him that he too had once been short—so short in fact that his own father (Peter’s grandfather) had given him a long talk about how life as a short person was going to be okay.
At the age of fifteen Big Ed experienced a growth spurt that added a foot to his height. By seventeen he was six foot five and Big Ed deserved his nickname, though he never forgot that for most of his childhood he was anything but big. The time he spent being the smallest and weakest probably led to his kind, protective nature. Big Ed looked out for everyone, which is why Peter was standing alone in the dried-out river bed.
Big Ed and many of the other fathers in the area had gone to Little Rock to protest the damming of the river. He left Peter, thirteen, and his brother, Eli, sixteen, alone to look after their small farm. Big Ed and the other protesters had been gone more than a week, but he had not answered any of Peter’s calls for the last two days.
“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me with the weeding?”
Peter looked up the river bank and saw Eli, who had grown to a respectable five foot ten but would never be called “big,” looking down at him with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face. Unlike Peter, Eli was hard-working and dependable and tried his best to do all his chores while also maintaining close to straight As in school. Also unlike Peter, Eli had no intention of being a farmer and told anyone who would listen that he was destined for college and a life as far away from the country as he could get.
“Hello? Are you listening? We need to do the weeding. Then we have to pick the berries and clean out the chicken coop.” Eli frowned at Peter even more intensely until he saw that Peter was climbing up out of the river bed, picking his way among the stones with his big, bare, dirty feet.
As Peter climbed up the grassy bank he asked, “Did Dad call?”
Eli flipped his overly long, brown hair out of his eyes. “Dad’s probably in jail, Peter. Matt’s mom said that the police were arresting the protestors.”
Matt’s family lived on another, even smaller farm about a mile farther down the river. Eli and Matt had once been good friends until very recently when Matt started dating a girl, Irene, and had time for nothing and no one else.
“But why wouldn’t he at least call?” asked Peter, drawing even with Eli.
Eli turned and began walking toward their large rice field. Eli snorted and threw his hands up in the air. Without bothering to turn around, he kept walking and said, “You know Dad. He’s probably on a hunger strike, or he’s looking after all the others. Dad can take care of himself.”
Peter followed slowly behind, looking briefly at their small house set among tall pine trees and the empty garage where Big Ed’s truck was normally parked. It had been bad enough when their mom passed away four years ago after a long, horrible fight against cancer. Now with their father gone for who-knew-how-long and the primary source of the farm’s water dried up, Peter felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life.
As if he sensed Peter’s thoughts, Eli spun and wagged his finger at Peter. “Why don’t you try to help for once? I don’t know when Dad is coming back, but I do know that this is likely the last rice crop we’ll ever see. We ought to at least take care of it so we have enough money to move.”
Eli turned back around without waiting for a reply and picked up a hoe already sitting at the side of their small vegetable garden. He began angrily chopping at the weeds while Peter stood, chewing on his bottom lip, trying to figure out if Eli was serious. Peter couldn’t handle any more change. He loved his farm. He loved his life, and he missed his father. Why was Eli always so mean, bitter?
Peter slowly walked closer to Eli. “Why do you think we’ll have to move?”
Eli stopped chopping and gestured toward another hoe. “Get serious, Peter. Help me.”
Peter clenched his large, dirty fists. “Why, Eli? Why do we have to move?”
Eli sighed and leaned on the long handle of the hoe. “Gee I don’t know, Peter. How many rice farms do you know of that don’t have any access to water?”
Peter stole another glance at the dry river bed, but Eli was just getting warmed up. “And how long will Dad’s job at the farming cooperative last when there aren’t
any more farms?”
It was no secret that their small farm made very little money. The family depended on Big Ed’s job as the head of the local farmer’s cooperative. Peter usually became drowsy when his dad tried to explain what he did, but it had something to do with “pooling resources.” There was even something to do with “trading futures”—whatever that meant. Peter picked up another of the hoes and slowly began working alongside Eli, wondering about his own future.
Later that night, after eating a bowl of Rice Krispies cereal for dinner, Peter slipped out of his room and tip-toed towards the back door. Eli sat at the breakfast table working on his geometry homework and eating tuna fish straight from the round can. He chewed absently on the end of his pencil—which had been part of their mother’s small collection of art supplies—as he tried to make sense of the squares and circles in his textbook. Peter had wanted some of the pencils (a set with different numbers branded in white on the back end that indicated the width and depth of the impression they made) but Eli had taken them all for himself.
Perfect, Peter thought . He’s so wrapped up in his homework that he’ll never notice me.
Peter took another step and the floor creaked. He tried to find another spot that didn’t make any noise, but this was practically impossible as he was wearing rubber mud boots and carrying a bucket, a fishing net and an oversized flashlight.
“Where are you going, Peter?”
Eli hadn’t even looked up. For a moment Peter thought he might be hearing things, then Eli repeated, “Peter!”
Since there was no longer any point trying to be sneaky Peter noisily walked past Eli, the bucket banging into the back of Eli’s chair, and he tried to wedge the flashlight under his chin while he opened the door. “I think there are probably a lot of frogs, maybe even some fish trapped in the rocks. I thought I’d pick them up and then tomorrow morning we can release them at the tributary.”
Peter was fond of the word “tributary” as he felt that using it made him sound smart. Big Ed had told him their river was actually a fork of a larger river. The water that had flowed past their farm eventually rejoined the larger river, which was actually a tributary that fed into an even bigger river. Their fork of the river was now dry because it had been dammed to increase flow in the tributary to support the large, new commercial farm planned for the fields beside it.
“We’re not doing anything tomorrow except working around here,” Eli declared with authority—though he didn’t sound particularly happy about his statement.
His hand on the door, Peter looked back at Eli. “But tomorrow’s Saturday!”
Eli turned a page in his textbook. “Uh huh. And I’ll be stuck here working with you all day because Dad’s not here to do his share. We don’t have time to walk an hour each way just so you can dump frogs in the river.”
Peter grimaced but went ahead and opened the door, inviting in a host of moths that had been waiting for just this opportunity. Walking out the door he called back to his brother, “You may not have time but I’m going to save some frogs.”
Eli, still not looking up, called out, “Watch out for snakes,” just as the door closed behind Peter.
Peter clicked on his large flashlight. Technically he liked snakes, but Eli had a point. Not everything roaming about their land was friendly.
Using the round beam of light as his guide, he picked his way along the path to what used to be the river. He couldn’t quite figure it out but something was off. He put down his net and bucket and again played the light around him. There were plenty of insects making noise. He looked up and found that the moon was right where he had left it the night before. A soft wind gently moved the tree branches and leaves around him. What was missing?
Peter moved the beam of the flashlight towards the river bed and then understood what was wrong. For the first time in his life he wasn’t hearing the soothing, but very loud, sound of water rushing along the river bed. It was unsettling; and sad.
He gathered up his equipment again and slowly marched toward the river bed, the bucket occasionally banging against his knee. As he reached the edge of the river bank he again set the net and bucket down, turned off his flashlight, and tried to concentrate on sounds that might indicate frogs, lizards or other creatures trapped in the small remaining pools of water.
He closed his eyes to help him focus and stood still, listening to the world around him. Eventually he heard what he thought might be the warble of a frog to his right. He opened his eyes, looked to his right, and tried in vain to see what might be making the noise.
Awkwardly putting the looped handle of the bucket over his left arm, he used his left hand to cup the front of the flashlight in his right hand, which he turned on as he started to clamber over the rocks. The light from the flashlight came out red as it passed through his hand, but he hoped it was not bright enough to scare away the creatures he wanted to help.
He found no frogs, but did come across a small number of tadpoles sharing the last bit of water in a muddy pool between some of the river rocks. He scooped them up the best he could and put them in the bucket. They wriggled unhappily against the circular plastic bottom. Peter wondered how long they could stay in the bucket and if anything else he found would consider them dinner.
He moved on from the muddy spot, stopping every so often to listen, still searching for the potential frog, and eventually turned off the flashlight altogether.
It was then that he realized much of the red light was actually coming from underneath the rocks directly below his feet. He crinkled his brow and bent down to stare at the rocks. He set his bucket down quietly, then his flashlight. What could it be?
He grabbed the net out of the bucket—just in case—and used his free hand to move away one of the smaller rocks beneath him. The red light became even stronger and he scrambled to move away more rocks. He lifted away two more rocks, one large enough that he had to put down his net so he could use both his hands, and found himself staring at a small, fiery red, glowing ball sitting in a pool of mud.
He shook his head a little, still not understanding what he was seeing. The ball was about the size of an egg, except perfectly round. Now that the rocks that had pinned it down were gone, it almost seemed to hover just slightly above the mud.
He cautiously reached his hand down, about to touch it, when a voice spoke to him from inside his own head. “Thank you for helping me. We have much to do.”
CHAPTER TWO: Introductions
Peter strode past Eli, who was still studying at the table. Peter walked towards his room with the ball in his pocket. As he walked he cupped the ball, which was oddly slippery in his hand, to keep the red light from seeping out and alerting Eli of his find. He did not know why but he felt it important to keep this discovery to himself. Keeping secrets was unusual for Peter and he felt a strange bit of pride at his new-found self-control.
“Peter,” Eli called to him, “there had better not be any frogs in the bucket you left by the door!”
Without turning Peter replied, “No, there was nothing out there.”
Peter had dumped the tadpoles back into another tiny pool of water after he found the glowing, talking ball. He had no idea what was happening, but it appeared likely that the tadpoles and other creatures still lingering in the river bed were going to have to take care of themselves.
Peter closed his door behind him, carefully pulled the ball out of his pocket and set it on his bed. Among the tangled sheets and blankets of his never-made bed the orb glowed even more intensely. Peter felt a strange tickling inside his head as the orb once-again spoke to him.
“You were right not to tell your brother. Please don’t tell anyone about me. Yet.”
Peter struggled to figure out if the voice sounded like a man or a woman. It sounded like both at the same time, but since he was hearing it inside his own head without any actual words being spoken, it was all strange and new.
He kneeled next to his bed and stared intently at the or
b. “I won’t tell. But can you please tell me who you are?”
He felt a twinge of amusement coming from the ball. “Or what I am?”
It was now clear to Peter that the ball was able to see his thoughts. He had just been thinking whether it was polite to ask something what it was. What seemed to say that the ball was a thing. That seemed rude. Then again, it also seemed a little rude that the ball was reading his mind.
The red light pulsed strongly. “I apologize, Peter. I did not mean to intrude on your thoughts. I just wanted to make sure I understood your intentions.”
Peter felt embarrassed, then hoped the ball had stopped reading his mind so it would not know he was embarrassed.
“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have any intentions. I just found you.”
The ball pulsed again, then the voice returned in Peter’s head. “I apologize again. You must please understand that I have suffered for some millennia due to the foul deeds of a usurper. I can see that you are pure of heart.”
Peter had never had anyone describe him that way and did not know exactly what to say. He also had no idea what a usurper was but thought it might have something to do with betrayal. Big Ed often told him that he had a kind heart, and absolutely no self-control, but “pure of heart” sounded a lot better. He then recognized that his original question had not been answered.
“Thank you. Who are you?”
The ball pulsed again. “I have gone by many names in my time. You initially thought I was a ball, but that implies that I am not alive, sentient. I understand your tendency to name me based on how I appear. Why don’t you call me Orb?”
Peter laughed, “Okay, Orb it is.”
A loud knock came at the door. “What are you doing in there, Peter? You didn’t swipe my cell phone to call someone did you?”
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