Epic Fantasy Novel.. Not like anyone will read this..

Vanoch, Van, Malorad, Huballa, Billington, Striyah

Chapter 1

The crystalline water flowed out of the mountain and down a narrow stream where it met the edge of the forest. Here it flowed to and fro around different conglomerations of trees, rocks and mossy mounds to form a deep, snaking path through the wilderness. The sun shone through the treetops in spires of bright white, casting a curtain of luminous strings, hanging at an odd angle and aperiodically shifting in the slight breeze. The river flowed out into a grove where the sky opened up suddenly through the canopy. Here it pooled in a shallow pond with a small marsh on one end where the catfish liked to congregate.

A boy crouched here at the edge of the pond, watching the fish seem to hover, suspended in the clear water. He noted the slight oscillations of their fins as they gently maintained their position, while the water slowly undulated around them, lapping at the shore. Although he studied the motion intently, his mind was blank. The sun on his back felt warm and comforting. He was content to sit on his heels all day and watch the simple, natural display of the fish in the water.

He stayed in the grove for hours, moving from place to place and generally just observing the fine weather, serene landscape and dispersed wildlife. He didn’t do much aside from watch, listen and occasionally poke or prod something with a stick. He wasn’t bored, despite the lack of activity. In his own naïve way he sat and pondered the implacable sensation of nature’s intrinsic majesty. As the sun began its slow descent towards the horizon he bid farewell to his habitat and trodded through the forest to find the path back home.

A thin line of dirt traveled in a zig-zag pattern through the denser parts of the forest, where the trees were all large and had gnarled roots shooting up from the earth like the knuckles of a fist. The undergrowth here was mostly ferns and other leafy plants, covering all the space not occupied by the thick trunks of the trees. Eventually the thin path found its way out into the lighter, newer growth forest, the trees being only a few decades old. The undergrowth also started to thin into grasses, mosses and infant trees, grown from seeds dropped in last years fall. Here the path widened and eventually became a road. Finally breaking free of the trees, the path lead through a large field of wild grass and wheat.

His parent’s house was nestled into a soft grassy hill, using the landscapes natural formations both structurally and as protection from the harsh winter weather. Built mostly of wood and clay, with a thatched roof, it was a modest domicile. There were two rooms, the first being under the thatched roof with a hearth and table. The other was attached by a slight ramp in the floor. The den was entirely underground, burrowed into the hill itself. Here there was a modest, straw-filled bed, a chest and some shelves. Dark, smoke-tanned wooden boards encapsulated the house in a uniform tableau of wise old wood.

His mother was standing just outside the front door staring out at the tree line with abject abandon. A stew had been cooking at low heat over the hearth for well over two months, slowly accumulating new ingredients as the old ones were consumed by the broth. Tonight a handful of wild rooty vegetables were making up the bulk of the new material, cut into off-white chunks which were just starting to fall apart in the slow boil. The boy’s appetite bloomed as he traversed the last legs of the path through the field and caught his first whiff of the stew. His mother did not look down at him as he approached but instead continued to stare off into the distance, apparently lost in thought.

The day ended in seeming silence. His mother spooned some hot stew into a wooden bowl. The boy leaned over it and inhaled its vaporous bouquet. He ate quickly and happily, absent of his mother reminding him to practice good table manners. His last task for the day was to practice his numbers and his words by reading from the only book in the house, the Book of the Ancient Rites. Once he was finished and the sun had receded under the tree line, he lay down on the family’s hay-filled mattress in the den and drifted slowly into a quiet sleep. He struggled to keep his eyes open, trying to focus on the outline of moonlight around his mother’s silhouette as she waited for his father to return for the evening. The boy would learn in time to appreciate this simple, familiar chain of events with great passion. This was the last day of his life that would be without magic.

Chapter 2

::cathartic foreshadowing dream::

A great and terrible darkness pervaded everything: a void, an absence of substance, a shadow, a cold. This darkness hung on the horizon like a black moon, but its tendrils probed wisply into everything in some horrible intangible way. A tree grew with no branches, a river ran dry, a cliff face tumbled into the surf. The world eroded into a featureless mass of gloom, reseeding and unraveling. Buried deep within this morass was one point of light; one pearl of wisdom in a sea of madness. The contrast of its brilliance was blinding. And then as quickly as it was revealed it was swallowed again by the horrible darkness.

۝۝ ۝۝

The morning broke and his father had still not come home. His mother slept only restlessly and rose early in the morning. She set about her normal chores with mute apprehension. Her mask did not show her worry, but the motions of her deft hands belied her normal, calm demeanor. His father didn’t always come home from his misadventures in one day. The worst parts were not what he were up to in his absence, but what he returned home with; tales of dragons and sorcery, magic and mystery. Old yarns spun up over grog in the town watering hole. His mother secretly harbored concern that he was becoming unhinged and that it would ruin the family. She was just pondering this when he burst in the door with the dim gloom of the morning sun. His eyes twinkled in the shadow of the modest house.

“Vanoch, get up, quickly” His father said. He barely glanced at his wife, his intensity focused purely on his son. His hair and beard were scraggly and unkempt, still damp with dew. Van sat up in bed and his father hurried over, sitting next to him and grabbing his arms. He seemed mad, deranged, scared. He stopped as if he did not know at all what to say next. He pursed his lips and gazed bewildered into Van’s eyes before caching himself, his eyes flashing with purpose. He felt about his pockets and found what he was searching for in the left inside breast, wrapped in a tattered rag. He pulled it between Van and himself and started to unwrap it.

“This is for you Vanoch. You must treasure this item. It does not look like much but it took great pains to appropriate it.” He unfolded the last flap of fabric to reveal a very simple stone. It appeared to be mostly crystalline, with some encrusted sandstone around the rough edges. The longer he stared at the mystery item the more it seemed to glow from within, that it was breathing. Then as quickly as he had revealed it, his father covered it back up and dropped the bundle into Vanoch’s lap. Van pulled it in to his chest and stared up vacantly at his father. He was spellbound, confused and bewildered. He could not tell if the heavy beating was his heart in his chest or in the stone clutched against his breast. His father didn’t explain any more. He stood and walked to the hearth. Van’s mother portioned him some stew and put a blanket on him. His father stared into the flames and didn’t speak for a long time.

The rest of the day was very quiet. With a simple nod to signal his father’s consent, Van tucked the bundle containing the precious stone into the family chest. This chest held all that the family held dear, their meager savings, dried medicines, letter writing supplies, an old short sword that belonged to his grandfather, the Book of the Ancient Rites and various other sentimental bric-a-brac.

Van busied himself helping his mother feed the animals and clean up outside. He hewed brush back from their small yard and widened the path into the forest a bit more where it met their land. After he had toiled enough and had his lunch, his mother let him out to wander about the forest again. He headed straight for the clearing and the pond, excited to see if anything had changed since yesterday. Fall was coming on slowly but surely and the change in seasons brought an equal change in the ecosystem he studied so intently.

He stopped just at the edge of the clearing to see a little girl crouched right where he was the day before. She too was bent down at the edge of the water watching the baby catfish float in the gentle waters of the pond. She had a dark green hunter’s hat on that was far too big for her and flopped down on all sides. She had a very boyish figure but her straight, light blond hair flowed very femininely out from under her cap. Her slight frame was wrapped in a leather tunic and emerald green pants. She would have blended right into the common shades of the undergrowth, dressed in such earthen tones. He started to walk over and she noticed him and stood abruptly, causing the fish to scatter into deeper water. Her arms snapped straight down by her sides and a sour look replaced the glow of her childish inquisitiveness.

“What are you doing here?” Van asked pensively. The girl said nothing and stood stoically as he slowly approached. As he got closer, she tilted her head up slightly and flashed gigantic green eyes, full of scorn, upon him. The look made him catch his breath in his throat. “Not that I mean you shouldn’t be here… The forest is for everyone… and this place is very pleasant… in fact it’s even my favorite… though I haven’t been very far from home…” Van sputtered out run on sentences as he became more and more nervous. He stepped up to the other side of the meter wide bay that the catfish liked to harbor in, facing the girl over the small divide. She was very thin and small but she her demeanor beamed a hidden energy and purpose.

Now that the motions above the water had calmed the fish started to return, one by one, into the shallow water and the light. Van knelt down and watched intently. After a few minutes the girl seemed to relax a bit, unclenching her tiny fists. She looked about the clearing like a prairie dog searches for predators, but no one else was there. Forgetting herself she too bent down and resumed watching the fish across from Van. The silence of the moment was suddenly pierced by a loud screech, which shot through the woods and out to the children in the clearing. Her head shot up, her eyes wide with recognition and panic. She leapt to her feet and charged for the edge of the woods.

“Wait! Who are you! What’s your name?! I’M VANOCH!” He shouted after her, but she didn’t hesitate. Silently and with catlike grace she bounded over a stone and out to the edge of the trees. She stopped just before the wall of thick green leaves, hesitated, turned and shot one coy smirk in his direction and then she was gone. Van stood for several minutes staring into the forest, hoping he would get another glimpse of her. A dread stillness settled into the clearing as though she had never been there at all. Eventually he snapped out of his trance and walked to her side of the shallows. He stared down at her footprints for a few minutes to affirm to himself that she was real.

He lingered about in the clearing for a while longer, but eventually he grew restless, kicking sticks around and throwing stones into the water in his frustration. His mind was preoccupied with the girl and he couldn’t clear it. He had so many questions and so few answers, it was maddening. Eventually he decided to head home. He slowly plodded along the familiar path back to his house. His mother and father were sitting in the front yard, having pulled a few simple wooden stools out onto the short grass. They weren’t talking now, but by their knowing silence Van could tell they had been.

“I saw a girl in the forest! She was small and lithe and she didn’t say anything. We watched the fish together and then she ran off when a bird screeched!” He panted out all the words in his excitement.

“Now Vanoch we already get enough stories from your father. You know there’s no one around these parts except the hunters from town, and the fur season hasn’t come yet. No little girl would wander this far alone.”

“But I did see her, I did! She wore a big floppy hunter’s hat and had huge green eyes!” He pleaded, but his mother shook her head dismissively and pulled him into her arms. She kissed his forehead and reminisced about the last time her imagination was of such great strength and character. He gave up arguing with the simple calmness of his mother’s embrace.

“Vanoch, perhaps you would like me to further stimulate your young imagination with the tale of how I came upon that stone I gave you last night?” His father offered.

Van’s eyes lit up. “Yes, yes! I’d like that very much!” Just the thought of it evaporated any last remnants of desire to talk more about the girl he had seen in the forest.

“Well come over and sit here by the hearth and I will tell the tale.”

Soooo… how did his father get the stone?

1) A scraggley beggar comes into the bar and wants a drink and only has the stone to pay. The barkeep refuses. Van’s dad trades a beer for the stone.

2) Van’s dad finds the stone when he gets lost after a drunken binge. A man and some horrible beast both lie dead in the forest, both clutching the stone, both dead, both impaled on each other’s weapons and talons.

3) A gift in return for an act of charity to a scraggley beggar.

There was a brawl in the bar.. his father tells of how he accosted the fellow and chased him out into the woods, only to have him be slain by a mythic beast.. really his father fled the fight but ran accross the man anyway as he fell to his death.. he took the stone afterwards..

those who posess the stone unvirtuously will find great peril

The two sat across from each other on the simple wooden stools placed around the fireplace. His father put on his story telling face, which involved getting very serious, gathering the mood and preparing to spin his yarn. He knitted his fingers together and looked into the fire, occasionally glancing up at Vanoch to see how attentively he was listening.

“I had been at the tavern, as is my custom on Friday nights –“

“Or Thursday or Monday, for that matter, Gereald.” His wife interjected from across the room, mocking his seriousness.

He was not deterred by this poke at his drinking habits and forged on with a sidelong glance in her direction. “A strange man had been there for most of the night and worked up a heavy tab from mead and mutton. When the last call bell was rung, the barkeep approached him and asked for payment. The man stood up, wiped his hands on his shirt and made motions in his pockets, searching for his coins.”

“The barkeep stood waiting when, quite unexpectedly, the man turned and bolted straight out of the bar! Now all the regular patrons were quite flabbergasted by this and some of us made pursuit. Since we all had a few pints in us as well, this was no easy task. Three of us charged out into the center of town when we saw him break off to the left down an alley and off of the main street. We decided to split up and hoped not to lose him. I went to the south and Wrigby went to the north, while Horrand went straight through the alley after the man.”

“It was a dark misty night so it was hard to see much, but his haggard panting and shuffling made him fairly easy to track. The alley turned into a path which ran off the road, through a short brush field and into the forest. I charged through the underbrush stopping occasionally to hear the steady, panting breath, the rustle of leaves and snapping of twigs to guide me towards the fleeing scamp.”

“I had been running for a half hour when I heard the panting and shuffling getting closer till I felt it was just around a bend. I dashed through a large shrub and came upon Wrigby, hands on his knees, spit leaking from his mouth, completely out of breath. He looked up at me and we both burst into hoarse laughter over how far we’d gone chasing each other. We caught our wind and started back towards town, hoping Horrand was luckier than we were. I figured I had traveled kind of due south of our house and thought I’d save some time to go diagonally through the forest. Wrigby wished me a good evening and we parted ways there.”

“The exertion must have taken something out of me, because I grew tired quite quickly after that. I plodded along slowly for an hour or so before I stopped and wondered where I might be. I thought I would have hit the trail for the house long ago.

…. :/ runnin out of steam …

Van woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. He tried repeatedly to fall back to sleep but his tossing and turning was bothering his parents, spooning each other on the bed next to him. He couldn’t get the stone out of his mind. He had such a brief look at it before. He barely got to explore the intricacies of its surface. The image in his half-asleep mind kept morphing, changing from one form to another, varying in preciousness and brilliance. He remembered the glow, the pulsing. He felt a pulling in his chest, as though the stone and his heart were pulsing together and longed to be close again.

Eventually he couldn’t bear the fantasy of it any longer. He absolved himself to allow for a single look, a quick peek at his new treasure. Carefully, he slid out of the bed, taking care not to bring the sheets with him and wake his parents. His warm, naked feet hit the packed, cold earth of the floor. A rogue piece of straw, dislodged as he left the bed, poked sharply into his foot before bending under his weight. He caught his breath, careful not to make any noise and brushed the reed from his foot as he finished dismounting. He crept over to the chest and slowly turned the old iron key in the old iron lock. In the deafening silence of the house the mechanism turned and ratcheted in its housing. The teeth of the key and the cogs of the lock ground away until all the receiving teeth of the lock were properly aligned to spring the latch.

With a soft crack and creak, the chest was opened. Van leaned in and searched blindly, by sense of touch, for the small cloth wrapped stone. Retrieving the bundle he pulled it into his chest and made for the living room. In the dim moonlight coming through the one window of the house, he carefully unwrapped the bundle. He removed the stone and began turning it over in his hands, getting a good look at all of its surfaces. He thought for a minute about how it felt heavier than it should for its size. The stone was an opaque crystal of a soft brownish orange color, about the size of an apple. The crystal formations were three or four small shafts, kind of merged into a more or less uniform blob of stone. In the irregular crevices made between the shafts were bits of sandstone, some of which crumbled easily to the touch.

[the sandstone is there because the rock was buried in a hideaway for thousands of years]

The stone seemed brighter than it should from the weak reflected light of the moon into the house. Van couldn’t tell if he were feeling the pulsing breath of the stone again or if his own excitement were making his heart leap in his chest. He was very happy to have it, and his mind raced with fantastic stories of its origins. In his breast a strange urge was brewing. He felt like something needed to be said. It was an autonomous urge he couldn’t place. He closed his eyes and focused on the strangeness welling up within him. He held the stone in both hands and concentrated.

“Idim.”

[emerge]

The word was past his lips before he even knew what had transpired. It was as though someone else spoke with his mouth; someone deep and ancient. If he hadn’t heard it ring out in the silence with his own ears, he would never have believed it. Van had no knowledge of the word he just spoke, but he had no time to dwell on it. The stone was feeling very heavy and hot in his hands now. He opened them and a slight red light was growing inside the stone, getting gradually brighter. His first thought was not to disturb his sleeping parents. He ran outside with the stone in his outstretched hands, holding it away from his body as though it were about to explode. The light from the stone turned a dark crimson and it was getting very intense, casting a red glow about the grass around him. The wind had whipped up out of nowhere, as though a storm had fallen around him. The moon was becoming obscured and the contrast of the darkness and the crimson light cast an even more sinister hue onto the features of the surrounding landscape.

Van was truly starting to panic, he had no idea what to do. He looked around wildly to see that there was no storm, the tree line where the path met the forest was still eerily calm, only 50 meters away. The wind was centered around him, and the light, and the stone. The stone was getting incredibly hot, he was just about to drop it and run for his life when a large pale hand came down over the stone in his palms like water onto a hot coal.

“Gidim túkur arhuš ašte ù.” His words rang through the air as though spoken from the heavens themselves.

[ Spirit Silence Compassion/Womb Need/Desire Sleep ]

The words blew the wind and the storm out of the fields like the last flicker of a candle and suddenly all was calm and quiet again. Vans parents had woken in the turmoil and come to the front door to see their son in the middle of this divine fury, and the robed bearded man who had come and saved him. The man calmly removed the stone from Van’s hands and began to study it, holding it up between thumb and fore finger in front of him. To get a better look, he pulled back his heavy hood to reveal a familiar face. It was a local wizard by the name of Malorad.

Van’s parents slowly and fearfully crept over now that the cacophony had died down. Van was speechless, as though in a spell. Malorad had to push the boy’s arms down, for they were still outstretched, palms up, though now his expression had melted from complete horror to a slack, dumbfounded gape.

“Where did you find this stone?” Malorad spoke to Van, but he could only look vacantly towards his father as he approached.

“I gave it to him as a gift. Is it cursed? Are we doomed? What in blazes happened?” His father was clearly as awed as Van at what he had just witnessed.

“Nay, yee are not doomed, but you do have an unusual predicament.” As he spoke he knelt down in front of van and looked him in the eyes.

“My son, how did you know to unleash the fury of this stone?”

Van blinked momentarily and then started to come back to reality. Shakily, he gave the best explanation that he could. “I didn’t! It was as though something spoke through me! I was concentrating on it and suddenly my lips and my tongue moved on their own and then everything went mad! I didn’t mean to. I didn’t…” He broke off and tears started welling up in his eyes at the shame of almost exploding himself, or worse.

“Very curious indeed. Fear not my boy, there was no harm done. Though, had I not interrupted you when I did, I’m sure the powers of this rock would have overwhelmed you and caused considerable damage. No telling really what would have come about. Had I not been coming back from a journey on the road past your house, I wouldn’t have been here to prevent it.” The wizard rubbed Van’s tears away with one rough swipe of his long floppy sleeves and messed his hair in a comforting fashion.

“I have two requests for you. Sir Striyah, Madame Striyah. You have been in this town for on near a decade now. I know your grandfather was a revered man in the Great War, and though you may not know much of me, I know you are good honest people. Your son here, what is his name?”

“It’s Vanoch.” His mother chimed in, still slightly choked from the experience.

“Yes, Vanoch.” He continued. “Your son has a gift very few people possess. Whatever is in this stone had caused a fire to rise inside your boy, to fester and grow and to ignite an ancient word inside him. Unbeknownst to him, a powerful experience was taking place. There is magic within him, and it is now awake. This is remarkable, for he is quite ahead of his time, and for whatever reason, I think it has much to do with coming in contact with this stone.”

The mage began to pace back and fourth in a small oval, raising one hand and gesturing as he explained. “Boys do not usually exhibit their power until they are sprouting their first beards, usually thirteen or fourteen. Vanoch is a remarkable case and I’d like to offer my services in this matter. My two requests are that you let me study the stone and tutor your boy in the ways of a mage. I must warn you that if left unchecked, his magic could just as easily be used by the forces of evil against you and your family and the world itself. All sources of power are tempted by the sins and evils of the world. But, with proper training, there is no limit to his potentials.”

None of the family members could believe their ears. Van’s father stood for a while pursing his lips, mulling it over before he responded.

“Well, I can’t see any harm in it. I would really prefer that damnable rock be in safe hands. What say you, Vanoch? Would you like to learn about magic from Malorad?”

Van was starstruck. “Yes! Wow that’s just incredible!” He could barely contain his excitement over the prospect. He knew nothing about mages and sorcery other htan his father’s stories. Already his head was swimming with imaginations of his becoming a great wizard and slaying mythic beasts.

“Then it’s decided. Vanoch, every day when you are done with your chores you can come study with me. Come to my shop after you’ve had your lunch and we will begin your training. In the mean time I will study this stone and its properties. Very curious indeed.” He turned the stone in his hand and finished the motion by pocketing it in his massive robe. “Now, you all go get some rest, it is a horrible hour to be up and about.”

The family wished Malorad off and slowly crept back in to the house. Van felt very weak like his legs could barely hold him up. He couldn’t tell if it were the shock of the experience or if it were the magic that took place itself that had drained him so. His mother and father were also still quite shaken up but eventually everyone did get back into bed and eventually they did get to sleep. Van stared into the dark until his eyes closed all on their own. He was too excited to go quietly but soon enough his exhaustion overtook him and he drifted to sleep.

The first year of tutelage

"A great power comes with even greater responsibility, Vanoch." This was one of the first lessons, which was conducted traveling lazily about the outskirts of town between Malorad's appointments. "If one can make a difference, that difference can be positive or negative. There are great forces at work in the world which would do harm to gain in strength. Their power seeks out other powers to absorb and twist to their wicked ways. You, Vanoch, will come to be tempted by these enemies in the future. That is unavoidable. But, if you believe and you are true of heart, you can persevere and not only foil their ill gotten plans, but leave some good behind as well." He trailed off just as he reached the next household desiring his handiwork.
Lots of the jobs Malorad had around town seemed like busy, thankless work.

Malorad had a very Montessori approach to teaching. Every day when Van finished his chores he would hop along to the wizards shop, set off to the side of the town, in its own little dead end street. Though there were regular lessons for tediously memorizing runes and incantations, getting lectures on history and battles and language and so on, much of the time was spent traveling the nearby countryside and practicing the craft in the wilderness.
Coming upon a withering sapling in the forest, Malorad knelt down and gently cupped its dwindling twigs in his hand. He closed his eyes and tilted back his head and the small plant shot out new leaves and bloomed, quickly rising into a well on tree an inch thick. Malorad sighed and stood admiring his craftsmanship. He taught Van the spell slowly, explaining each word by itself and what it meant.
After several attempts reciting the incantation together, van finally got it right and the tree slowly grew a new shoot at the top and fattened up about its roots. It was a slight improvement but it drained Van terribly. The feeling was very hard to place. Like he had given a part of himself, his essense to the little sapling.


at night Malorad studies the stone, reading ancient crumbling text, contemplating and smoking a long curvy sherlock pipe. Eventually he figures out what it is and makes it a staff for Vanoch once he has graduated from the academy. It takes that long for him to figure out its true nature..



The academy

Possible : the stone goes crazy and kill Van’s family.

The mages trade spells, countering each others advances. Heat vs Cold light vs Shadow a flying beast and a net. Eventually they focused on one area between them, one battle of enchanting and engaging this one spell, adding more ffects as the other increased his power. Finally Van got an idea, he dug on his deepest powers, to his most fundamental spell, grow. He chanted grow grow grow in his mind, a vine coming form the earth toreout to his enemy. He burned it, froze it, chopped it, but more and more it grew, new tendrils appearing. Finally it clasped around his neck, in a last ditch effort he tried to free himself but to no avail. The vine wrapped up around him and smothered him while his previous enchantments and creatures began to fizzle and fade away.. van had won the battle.

Ušum - Dragon

Idim - emerge

ù

Should I use Sumerian words for spells?

http://www.sumerian.org/sumlogo.htm

Van should be getting taught to read and write reguarly.

He goes out into the forest to play and comes upon an elfin girl (but he doesn’t know that yet). Her family is actually marauding through the neighboring countryside and she had strayed too far and was lost. He tells her the city is this way and she goes the other. He tells his parents he met a snotty girl in the woods and they don’t believe him because there is no one around these parts except the people they know from town.

At night he wakes up late and wants nothing but to look upon the stone. When he gets it out of the cloth and into his hands it starts to ignite the magic inside and just as something horrible is about to happen a crazy wizard from town is in the doorway to slap the stone from his hand and say a soothing prayer to the magics within it to calm.

The mage takes the boy under his wing to study magic while he grows up before leaving for mage school at 12.