Stavius

by Gregory Cholmondeley

  STAVIUS

  THE CHRONICLES OF MEARTH

  VOLUME ONE

  GREGORY CHOLMONDELEY

  Cholmonco, Inc.

  2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cholmonco, Inc.

  www.cholmonco.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Gregory Cholmondeley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in a book review or scholarly journal. For information contact Cholmonco, Inc. at www.cholmonco.com#books.

  First Printing: 2019

  Visit www.cholmonco.com#books for more information about this, and other Cholmonco books.

  Dedication

  To my wife and family.

  Thank you. This undertaking would never have been possible without your understanding, encouragement, and support.

  And to my father, Matt Cholmondeley.

  Thank you for always motivating us to attempt more. Happy ninetieth birthday, Dad.

  Books by

  Gregory Cholmondeley

  Books are available on Amazon.com with new novels continuing to appear. Search for Gregory Cholmondeley.

  Nakiwulo and the Circle of Shiva, 2017

  A near-future science fiction novel following a group of technologists who develop a real-world superhero in preparation of battling a sociopathic environmentalist.

  Princess, 2018

  A historical novel set in 600AD England about a 13-year-old girl who faces wolves, bandits, and ruthless tyrants in her attempt to save her people and to follow her love.

  The Chronicles of Mearth: Stavius, 2019

  A group of teenagers share a common dream of a magical planet called Mearth in which they fight dragons, werewolves and evil rulers in an attempt to fulfill an ancient prophecy.

  The Chronicles of Mearth: The Lachians, 2019

  The Mearth saga continues as the Prophecy Heroes fight to free an enslaved people and build alliances with a race of dragons and the Lachians to prepare for the coming war.

  The Chronicles of Mearth: Prophecy, 2019

  The saga concludes as the Prophecy Heroes meet the gods and engage in the final, epic battle to restore Mearth’s magic and fulfill the prophecy.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Staven

  Chapter 2 Marius

  Chapter 3 Staven & Mark

  Chapter 4 Stavius

  Chapter 5 Illusions

  Chapter 6 Magic Lessons

  Chapter 7 School

  Chapter 8 Separation

  Chapter 9 Battle Magic

  Chapter 10 Leaving the Valley

  Chapter 11 Prairie

  Chapter 12 Awakening

  Chapter 13 Equous

  Chapter 14 Satyrsday Night

  Chapter 15 Jarius

  Chapter 16 Journey’s End

  Chapter 17 Clothton

  Chapter 18 Septumcolis

  Chapter 19 The Marketplace

  Chapter 20 Preparations

  Chapter 21 Hosts

  Chapter 22 Luna Fest

  About the Author

  Gregory Cholmondeley grew up on the eastern side of Cincinnati, graduated from Walnut Hills High School, and vacationed throughout Kentucky and West Virginia, which he drew upon for the settings in this series. He is currently married with three children, and living in Florida.

  When Gregory is not writing, he is President of Cholmonco, Inc., and PRINTelligence Consulting, which provide technical writing, video production, and sales & marketing training services with a primary focus on workflow enhancement software.

  Mr. Cholmondeley finds that, while there are many ways in which fictional and technical writing differ – they are also surprisingly similar. Both require a tremendous amount of research. Both need to have the stories coaxed out of the data. But, while a marketer can ask supporting questions during a case study interview, a novelist needs to create and populate a believable world to find those answers. Writing is a process where the author is often as surprised by the results as the readers.

  Most important, however, is that he finds writing fiction novels to be as much fun as reading them

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my reviewers for their insightful comments on the early drafts of this story. The reviewers with the most significant contributions include middle-grade readers such as Tarun Cholmondeley, Ava Johnson, Sarah Goldstein, and Arielle Fishman, and my dear friend, Jim Mayer.

  I would particularly like to thank Ryan and Reid Snider, who are two thirteen-year-old boys with boundless energy and ideas. Your comments about confusing paragraphs and erroneous sentences vastly improved the story. More than that, however, I found your enthusiastic response, including the dozens of sticky notes highlighting the funny parts, to be motivating for me as an author as I continued with volumes two and three. I think you will like how the story evolves and, yes, all your questions will be answered!

  I would also like to express my sincere gratitude for the visionary and artistic abilities of my graphic designer, Lily Garnaat. Lily read the novel and designed a cover which captures the spirit and essence of the tale.

  And, I would like to thank my second-grade daughter, Anoushka, who wasn’t supposed to read this but did. I loved your questions and comments and am overjoyed at learning that you snuck a copy out of my office to secretly read it. Please, never cease being inquisitive.

  As always, I appreciate the support of my family in my writing endeavors. Thank you, Preethi, Anoushka, and Tarun for your patience and understanding while Dad writes and edits again, and again.

  Author’s Note

  This tale takes place simultaneously on two worlds. One is a fantastic place where magic and magical creatures exist. The other is contemporary Earth. My central characters exist in one world while dreaming and live in the other while they are awake.

  I was inspired to write this after a conversation with an avid, teen reader who shared that she particularly enjoyed reading fantasy stories which just might be possible. Her comment made me wonder what amazing possibilities might occur if our dreams were more than just our imagination.

  Thank you for the inspiration, Ava.

  - Gregory Cholmondeley, August 2018

  Chapter 1

  Staven

  JULY 2, MEARTH

  Staven crouched behind the tall plants watching his quarry. It had taken him a half hour to creep this close, and his wait was nearly over. The creature was only a few yards away, upwind, eating a pumpkin, facing away from the hunter. With any luck, Staven would be able to leap on its back and truss it up to be carted away and released far from any towns or farms. If not, well, things can get ugly fast, and it would be better to not dwell on those possibilities.

  His sword was at his side, but he hoped it wouldn’t be needed today. Staven had a fondness for these creatures, despite his occupation and the fact that most people considered them pests. He silently grasped his coiled rope and rose up to get a good look at the chigon he was stalking. It was about five feet tall, with scaly, leathery skin, fierce talons on long, sturdy legs and eight feet of leathery, lightly-feathered wings. Staven froze as the creature lifted its head from the melon it was eating and looked off into the distance. The afternoon sunlight glistened off the slimy seeds and pulp hanging from its beak with its twin rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  Someone shouted, “Oh crap, that’s a dragon!” and the voice echoed across the valley.

  The chigon, a small breed o
f dragon, leaped up, saw Staven standing little more than an arms-length away, squawked and spun around to face him. Both froze for a moment in utter confusion.

  Staven was trying to figure out what idiot had shouted at this most inopportune time, when Mrs. Marilin yelled, “Of course it’s a dragon, you moron! That’s why you’re here. You’re the pest exterminator!”

  Staven hated that term. He preferred to be called Dragon Hunter, but that was neither here nor there. He suddenly realized that the exclamation responsible for destroying his hunt had erupted from his own mouth. He knew this to be true, but it felt as though someone else must be guilty. Being possessed was a terrifying thought to Staven, but he had more immediate issues: A powerful, upset dragon was a mere four feet away trying to decide how to react to this newfound threat. They stared at each other for a few more seconds and simultaneously made their decisions.

  “SQUAAAAACK!”

  “YAAAAAAAAA!”

  The dragon attacked as Staven dove into the underbrush.

  Staven had noticed the way the dragon’s head turned before his attack and dashed to the right as the dragon’s beak flew inches to the left of his shoulder. He dove low so that only the soft, back edge of the creature’s wing brushed him rather than its bony forearms, which were attached to powerful chest muscles. He tumbled through the plants and turned to see the dragon struggling to pry the massive pumpkin it had skewered off of its beak in place of Staven’s head.

  Staven couldn’t help laughing at the miserable and confused dragon. The creature was thrashing about, bashing the pumpkin on the ground but each crash seemed to push the melon farther over its beak so that now it nearly covered its entire head. For a moment Staven thought it just might be possible to tackle the creature. After all, he was seventeen years old, six feet tall and powerfully built. Then the dragon’s head smashed into a nearby mango tree, and the pumpkin exploded off its face.

  Mrs. Marilin was shouting advice like, “grab its leg” and “get around behind it” and “don’t let it trample my azaleas.” This advice was anything but helpful and must have annoyed the beast as well because both of them turned and screamed at the woman at the same time. There was momentary peace in the garden as she scurried off, but then the two combatants soon faced each other again.

  Now, everyone knows that nobody outruns an angry dragon; however, nobody in their right mind would just stand there.

  Staven ran.

  He zig-zagged across the garden as the enraged beast attacked again and again. Dragons will always attack when cornered or startled, but they usually avoid fighting once there is a way out. Not this one. Perhaps he had eaten some of Mrs. Marilin’s hot chili peppers, or maybe her screeching commentary was getting on its nerves (she was shouting instructions and insults again, from a safer distance). Whatever the reason, this dragon was angry, and it didn’t care how much of Mrs. Marilin’s garden it destroyed in its attempt to get Staven.

  Down went the string beans. Crash went the papaya tree. Squish, went the strawberries. “Nooooo!” went Mrs. Marilin.

  The same blueberry bushes and large pepper plants that had masked Staven’s approach were now making it difficult for the dragon to get a clear shot at him as he scrambled across the garden. However, Staven realized he wasn’t going to get away when he became entangled a large mass of zucchini and pumpkin vines. It was time to make one final stand.

  The dragon leaped in another thundering charge as Staven drew his sword and rolled away. He meant to sever one of the beast’s legs to stop its destructive rampage before killing it, but the dragon tripped on a vine and Staven’s sword connected with the top of its long neck as the creature fell forward. The long, heavy, enchanted sword decapitated the poor animal, and its head flew off into the tomato patch.

  This was a most unfortunate result.

  Chigons are not the brightest of creatures, and much of their bodies can continue to function for a surprisingly long time without the use of their pathetically small brains. In fact, chigons can aimlessly run for hours, or even days, with their heads cut off, which was what happened today. For ten minutes a slightly less than five-foot-tall dragon stomped, trampled, dug, tore and utterly destroyed the rest of Mrs. Marilin’s garden until its random path managed to take it through the garden gate.

  Chigons can run far faster than any person in the open and are impossible to catch until they tire or somehow manage to trap themselves. Staven sat among the smashed vegetation trying to catch his breath and figure out what had just happened. The screams, crashes and general sounds of mayhem and destruction echoing from the nearby farms and gardens were not helping. Meanwhile, Mrs. Marilin was shrieking about Staven being an incompetent idiot. He was hired to protect her garden, after all – not to destroy it. She was demanding that he pay for the damages and threatening to engage the town constabulary in enforcing her demands.

  Staven was silent as he sullenly retrieved his rope and slunk out of the remains of her garden with his head bowed. There was nothing he could say to this woman in her hysterical state and of course, there was no way he could pay for the damages. Pest extermination was not a high-paying occupation. He was counting on this job to reduce his sizable debt – not to increase it.

  He bumped into another problem before he was even out of range of Mrs. Marlin’s screeching voice. Randy, the centaur Staven had hired to haul the chigon away, was standing by his wagon with his arms folded informing Staven that he still expected to be paid.

  Staven gave Randy a withering look and assured him that he’d bring the money tomorrow. At least Staven hoped it was a withering look. It’s hard to act tough around someone with a bad attitude who is, quite literally, as big as a horse. And for those unfamiliar with the species: All centaurs have bad attitudes. Staven was going to have to quickly and quietly leave town. Not only were centaurs large and grumpy; they also tended to hang with herds of their large and grumpy friends.

  Yet, despite all of this, Staven had larger concerns on his mind. Something, or someone, had caused him to shout during the hunt. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, and he was scared. He was afraid that he might have a demon in his head. Staven pulled his hood down and stared at his feet as he shuffled towards home. Head demons attracted Soul Reapers, and well, no one wanted a Soul Reaper around. Staven shivered, despite the hot, summer weather and quickened his pace.

  It was a long walk home, but Staven had so much on his mind that he was startled when he realized he was already halfway there. Most people would still be shaking with the terror of barely surviving hand-to-hand combat with a dragon. He could be expected to be depressed about losing everything he had worked for and scared of the angry mob that would likely appear at his home by morning. He should be stressing about how he was going to disappear and where he was going to go. Instead, he was consumed by his unexplained outburst.

  The more he thought about it, the more he recalled feeling as though someone had been watching him over the past few weeks. It was as though somebody was there but wasn’t. He couldn’t explain the feeling, but his anxiety grew with every step.

  Finally, he reached a secluded stretch of the road, far from any prying eyes or ears. He set down his satchel, rope, and sword, spread out his arms and said with trepidation, “All right. Come out and talk to me.”

  He heard nothing but the sounds of the forest.

  Staven felt a little more confident and raised his voice to say, “I mean it. I know you’re in there. Say something!”

  The woods grew slightly quieter, but there were still no voices in his head or emanating from his mouth. Staven was feeling better. Perhaps there were no demons in his head after all. Maybe he was just imagining it, or perhaps he was just crazy, like those two old ladies in town. That’s it! There were no demons. He was merely hearing voices because he was going mad.

  Staven didn’t really want to go insane, but it was far better than the alternative. He might become an annoyance to everyone else, but those ladies with t
heir imaginary voices seemed happy enough. No one, not even the Soul Reapers, bothered them. He jumped up and down laughing and began dancing and singing, “There are no demons in my head. I’m going crazy nuts instead!”

  Not even crickets were chirping by the time he finished, and he saw two small, terrified animals staring at him from the shadows of the trees.

  “BWAAAAH! What are you looking at?” he shouted while waving his arms at the rodents.

  The two squarells disappeared in a flash of smoke and sparks as crackling static charges on their bushy tails erupted from their fear.

  “What the heck were those?”

  “Squarells, of course.”

  “No, man. Those were no squirrels. They looked like they were electric!”

  “No, they’re squarells, not squirrels. What are squirrels anywAIIIEEEEEE!” yelled Staven, as he jumped up, flailed his arms and searched for the person he knew, wasn’t going to be there.

  “Get out of my head, demon!” yelled Staven.

  “I’m not a demon. I’m a boy, and you can’t tell me what to do. You’re my dream,” he replied to himself.

  “Oh no, this is my life, and you’re my nightmare,” answered Staven.

  “I am not a nightmare,” he yelled back at himself. “And you just shut up!”

  Staven felt as though he were going to cry, which was not a sensation he could recall feeling in years. It was as though he had just insulted himself. He wasn’t sure what part of him was real and what part was the demon, so he just sat down on the ground in silence to try making sense of it all.

  A few minutes later he said, “Is it my imagination or is our butt wet?”

  “Yeah, it rained this morning, and I must’ve sat in a soggy spot. Hey, you can feel my butt!?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. That’s kind of gross, isn’t it?”