The First Spark
Page 1
The Dark Energy Chronicles
The First Spark
The First Book
T.J. Trapp and Japhet Owens
Copyright © 2018 by T. J. Trapp and Japhet Owens
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, stored, or used in any form, including mechanical or electronic means, without the express written permission of the authors; except a reviewer may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.
For permissions contact: tj@thedarkenergychronicles.com
Visit our website at TheDarkEnergyChronicles.com
Cover by the authors.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7323253-0-2
Authors’ Notes
Map
Prologue
Part One
1 – First Encounter
2 – Preparations
3 – The Nomad Camp
4 – Crossing the Grasslands
5 – The Inn
6 – The Aldermen
7 – Captured
8 – Escape
9 – Rescue
10 – Freedom
11 – Medallions
12 – Consort
13 – Coming Home
Part Two
14 – Winter in Theland
15 – Touring Theland
16 – The Alder Road
17 – Winding Pass
18 – Gott
19 – Treachery
20 – Lord Rawl
21 – Raner Pass
22 – Battle
23 – The Black Wizard
24 – Decisions
25 – Transporter
26 – Portals
27 – Through the Grasslands
Part Three
28 – Elf Mountains
29 – The Elves
30 – New Haven
31 – The Disca
32 – Concentrator
33 – Backtracking
34 – Dragon
35 – Amelia
36 – The Grotto
37 – The Queen Returns
Lists
A Brief Discussion of Dark Energy
A Brief Discussion of Elves, Orbs, and Other Beings
Authors’ Notes
The Dark Energy Chronicles
The First Spark – The First Book
A young research scientist, Alec, is suddenly transported into a different world after one of his experiments with dark energy has unexpected results. On this alien planet he encounters a young woman with a regal bearing but wearing a slave collar. Is she a slave? a princess? or both? While trying to reach her homeland, the two find themselves inexorably drawn into an ancient war between the elves and the orb that has been raging across the multiverse for millions of years. In addition to learning how to fight with sword and staff, Alec must learn to use his medallion in new ways to harness dark energy and stave off certain destruction.
Zero-Point: Beyond the Five Moons – The Second Book
The story of Alec and Erin continues. Alec and Erin are forced to flee the elves and return to Alec’s home world, Earth, only to discover that it has become engulfed in the war between elf and orb. Alec finds that he was declared dead years ago and has no identity, and Erin struggles to understand this strange world of cell phones, frozen pizza, and automobiles. Working against time, while struggling to find a new source of dark energy, Alec and Erin must pierce the elves’ cover and thwart the secret plans to enslave Earth – and find a way home.
The Dragon of Nevia – The Third Book
The elves are winning their dark quest to overrule the Earth and have unleashed sinister creatures from another galaxy to subdue the human population. Alec and Erin are torn between two worlds – Alec’s homeland, and Erin’s land that he has come to love. Both worlds are in peril. Only a dragon – the ancient weapon-beast of the True Dragon Queen – has the power to defeat this new onslaught. Before they can capture the dragon, Alec and Erin must restore the dark energy balance on Erin's home world, or risk defeat on both worlds.
What readers are saying about The First Spark:
“Wow! Once I picked this book up, I couldn’t put it down! What will the next chapter bring? Such a great plot!
“A great story, in the tradition of Tolkien, with many parallel messages for today’s society.”
“Sort of a scientific ‘whodunnit.’ Technically complex, but very understandable, even if you never took high school physics.”
“After reading the first few chapters, I was begging for more.”
“Can hardly wait for the next book in this series.”
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Amazon Categories: Science Fiction, Science Fiction – Adventure, Action & Adventure, Aliens, Colonization, Epic, Fantasy, First Encounter, Sword & Sorcery
Map
This small map was derived from the larger maps of Theland that the scholars shared with Alec.
Prologue
They tell me it is not always as it seems, but this is the story as it was told to me. The war between elf and orb has been waged for a thousand generations, maybe more – fought across millions of worlds in this multiverse. It has consumed so many.
I tell this story now not to boast, but to inscribe it beyond the frailty of memory. My narrative is first about two people on an insignificant world so far on the periphery of the multiverse that they were not even aware the great war existed. These two people were my mother and father.
As it was explained to me, the elves claim they are the elder race – the first beings – and that they created the orbs to serve. The orbs did not agree that their purpose was merely to serve. Over the millennia some bands of orbs escaped the elves’ control and formed their own societies – some great, some small – eventually spreading to many worlds. But when elf and orb meet, wherever they may be, in whatever form and on whatever world, they fight at every contact, each trying to subvert the other. The elves try to again force the rogue orb into domestication, to transform them into a herd of drones programmed to serve their every need. The wild orbs, however, view the war as a fight for freedom from oppression and unjust subservience.
I, myself, am a cross-breed with the blood of both the elf and the wild orb. I am told that my father, Alec, came from a rogue outpost of orbs, called ‘humans,’ who long ago lost touch with the multiverse and the true place of their planet, ‘Earth,’ within it. My mother, the Queen, was also a cross-breed with an ancient elven bloodline.
I write this story now because many people are aware of my parents’ undertakings, and even my later deeds, but few are aware of my parents’ early life. This account of their awakening is as correct as I could make it, based on events they told me as I was growing up. Some of the events were so horrible they would not describe them in detail to a child. In those cases, I have filled in what I think happened, but wherever possible I have faithfully scribed the story they recounted to me.
I hope this narrative provides valuable insight about my parents and allows a better perspective on the events that the three of us later came to be so well known for.
Remember that the greatest of fires first starts with a single spark. This book is about that first, single spark.
Alecder Leon of Theland
Part One
1 – First Encounter
Shake.
Shake and roll. All around were multicolor flashes. Red and yellow. Neon green. Light and dark, dark and light.
Alec grittted his teeth and the flashes slowed; then a wave of nausea
swept through him. Breathe. In and out. In and out. The nausea subsided, but the world around him seemed to shift – a strange sensation of time and space realigning.
Alec opened his eyes, still shuddering. What just happened? He could feel the ground beneath his feet pitch violently. Or was it him? He could no longer stand – he let his body accept the inevitable and collapsed to his knees, landing on all fours.
I was inside, in the Lab. Now … where am I? His fingers reached tentatively towards his neck, and he could feel the medallion on his chest pulsing slightly with dark energy, confirming there was still a concentrated dark energy field around him.
Feeling was slowly returning to his body. He could feel his extremities – nothing appeared to be broken.
Am I still wearing my medallion, outside the Lab? Alder was hard on researchers who took a medallion outside the Lab, especially new members of the team. Like me.
He had just been in the concentrated dark energy field in the Lab’s experimental chamber. He was certain he hadn’t left the room, but now he was lying in an open field. The ground beneath him was soft and slightly mossy with an almost purple tint. Around him were clumps of shoulder-high grasses intermixed with low dark bushes. Wherever he was, it didn’t look like New England.
✽✽✽
Mid-autumn was the best time to be in the Northeast, he had decided. It was the perfect season to be at the North Atlantic Institute, set in the foothills of the Northern Appalachians. The maples, first to turn, were beginning to reach their peak colors and the afternoon sun highlighted the brick-and-stone buildings of the campus quadrangle nicely against the backdrop of red and orange. Alec walked rapidly along the main sidewalk headed towards the research complex on the south side of the campus, cell phone to his ear, oblivious to the students around him.
“Hey,” Alec said with a start, as he dodged a young man coasting by on a skateboard, earbuds flying. Watch where you’re going, he thought.
“What?” said the voice on his cell phone.
“Some kid just tried to knock me over,” he answered. “Must be an undergrad. Just zipped by me on a skateboard of all things! Good thing I have the reflexes of a cat or he would have bowled me over!”
“So, am I going to see you tonight or what?”
“Look, Sarah, I told you I’m not sure. I’m still the new guy in town here at the Institute. I’ve got to put in my time at the Lab, and the project needs to show some real progress here before the end of the month, or our funding report won’t look too good. We’re just about to make a breakthrough. I’ve got to put in at least a few hours today, and I don’t want to skip another workout, so I’m thinking …”
“Well, Doctor,” she said, cutting off his explanation, “I don’t understand why it’s so important for you to be there today. Your experiments can wait. It’s Saturday, for cripes’ sake!”
“Sarah, I’ve told you. The project doesn’t work on a fixed schedule. You know that. Your research doesn’t either! What I’ve got to do today shouldn’t take too long. And then I’ll call you. You know I can’t take my cell into the Lab, so when I get done and get my cell out of my locker, I’ll call.”
“The last time you told me that, I waited until past midnight for you. What is it that you need to do?”
“Sarah, I’ve told you. It’s classified. It’s a discovery that could …”
“Change the world?”
“Well, yes, maybe, yes. And I need to be there, this afternoon, to finish some calculations, and try out something there in the Lab that I just thought of.”
“Well, Doctor Wizard, you just go do that. And when – if – you’re done, you can call me, and – if I’m not busy – maybe I’ll answer – and maybe I won’t.” The connection went dead.
She didn’t even say goodbye, he thought, staring at the small screen.
✽✽✽
Alec winced. A bright, midday sun shone on his face. He rubbed his eyes. Strange, he thought. It was after 3:00 when I got to the Lab. He sat up in the spongy dirt and leaned against a clump of the stiff wiry grass. Every muscle in his body was sore. He felt like he had just finished a grueling workout, and his stomach was still rebelling against whatever had happened. Alec shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz from his brain. He could feel a slight wave of heat from his medallion, almost as if he was still in the Lab with the dark energy concentrator active.
Gingerly, he stood up and looked around. In every direction as far as he could see were rolling grasslands, with the coarse gray-green grass flowing endlessly in wind-swept waves, punctuated with the dark bushes. Had he been here before? Looks sort of like the high plains out West, he thought, where he had hiked last summer before he met Sarah. Except this grass was much taller, and coarser. And the purplish ground was soft, not like the high desert floor, and punctuated with rocks scattered across the surface. Where am I? He had no idea.
His first thought was that he needed to get the medallion back to the Lab before Dr. Alder noticed it was missing. With no better alternative, Alec slowly made his way to the top of the nearest rise. There must be a road somewhere, he thought. Find a road and then hitch a ride to civilization and figure out what is going on. As he walked his legs gradually regained strength, and his body began to feel more normal. Too bad my cell phone’s still in my locker. If I had it, I could GPS my location and call for a ride. The medallion continued to pulse, oddly soothing, feeling like it was feeding dark energy into his body.
Alec reached the top of the rise. A slight breeze caught his hair as he looked slowly in every direction. All he saw was the swaying sea of grass, covering rise after rise to the horizon, losing definition in shimmering mirages. There was no sign of a road, or a fence, or a building, or even a path. Nothing. He let out a long sigh.
Then, he paused. What’s that? On a far hill, near the horizon, something moved. One, two, three, four figures appeared, taller than the waving grass. Were they people – on horseback? They must know the way out of here, Alec reasoned. He waved and yelled. At first, they continued their slow lope across the shimmering hill. Alec yelled again. Then the riders saw him and changed their direction to head towards him.
As they moved in his direction, they gained pace, coming into focus. The riders were people, but their mounts were – different. Alec was not fond of horses, but at least he knew what they looked like, and how they moved. These animals were the size and dun color of a horse but looked more like a cross between a horse and a lion – even though they had riders, they had cat-like heads, a shaggy mane and a substantial tail. As they moved smoothly through the sea of grass, Alec could make out their long narrow feet, and as they came even closer, he could see that they had fangs, like saber-toothed tigers of old, and prominent claws, almost like a large raptor.
The riders continued to approach him. Three of them were men, stout and coarsely dressed, each with something that looked like a sword strapped to his side. The men rode the lanky beasts with an ease that could only come from years of experience. Last was a woman, younger than the others, with a slender athletic build, barefoot, and oddly dressed in what looked like a hopsack shift. Like a flour sack with a neck-hole and arm slits. It barely came down to mid-thigh and was awkwardly bunched up for riding. She was not riding the same kind of animal – her mount looked more like a cross between an ox and a camel, with a long neck but a flat back. Maybe a giant llama, he thought. Her animal lumbered through the grass, but she rode with a grace that made the men look clumsy.
She’s quite attractive, Alec thought. Her dark hair was tangled but flowed mid-way down her back. She had a snug metal band around her neck. Odd jewelry – looks too tight. She raised her eyes and looked directly at him, and, for the first time, he noticed that her hands were tied together and attached to the pommel of her saddle.
Quit looking at the girl. The riders had slowed their pace as they came near.
“Hey!” Alec called. “Am
I glad to see you!”
The riders co
ntinued to move slowly towards him, step by step.
“I’m lost,” Alec said, holding out his hand in greeting. “Can you tell me where I am?”
The riders stopped. Did the one on the left reach for his sword? Suddenly Alec felt very uncomfortable, and his stomach clenched. Where am I and what have I gotten myself into?
“Hey,” said Alec, weakly, dropping his hand. One of the men responded in a guttural language that Alec had never heard before. From grad students at the Institute and professional meetings, Alec was familiar with the sounds of Spanish, French, German, and a few other languages. This didn’t sound like any of those.
The three men goaded their animals forward, leaving the woman behind. She looked at Alec with concern in her eyes. Somehow, he could tell it wasn’t concern for herself; it was concern for him. His apprehension heightened. Just want to go home and soak out these aches in a hot bath.
The three stopped about twenty feet from him. Alec noted they were dressed pretty much alike, in dark, heavy clothes. They wore thick boots, leather vests, and ill-fitting leather helmets. They were shorter than Alec, bearded, hairy, and peered up at him intently from under thick eyebrows; their weather-beaten skin was the texture of worn leather, with old dirt tracing the creases. From their dusty appearance and odor, Alec guessed that they had not slept indoors, or taken a bath, in a very long time.
The middle one said something in his guttural language.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak your language. I am lost. Can you take me to your officers?” Alec asked.
The middle man motioned to the man on his left and uttered a brief word in a brusque tone; the girl flinched. The man dismounted and with a couple of steps, he cut the distance towards Alec by half and drew a crude sword from his side.
He is about to attack me! Alec thought. The girl cried out in warning as the sword rose and began a long high sweep towards his neck. Only Alec’s athletic reflexes saved him. His body instinctively dodged under the sweep and he rolled on the ground to the right. He came up on his feet. The assailant looked surprised that he had missed. He came forward and swung again. This time Alec backed away. A third and a fourth swing. Each one was getting closer, and any blow that connected would be death. What can I do? Running wouldn’t work. The men with their mounts could quickly catch him.