Alrin (The Alrin Series Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One - Alrin's Puzzle Box

  Chapter Two - Everglen

  Chapter Three - The Magic Guild

  Chapter Four - Verindi Trials

  Chapter Five - The Trace

  Chapter Six - Legend of Visarga

  Chapter Seven - Into the Void

  Chapter Eight - Two Birds with One Stone

  Chapter Nine - When You Pass through the Water

  Chapter Ten - He's Coming

  Chapter Eleven - Trail of Destruction

  Chapter Twelve - Into the Darkness

  Chapter Thirteen - Jorund's Puzzle Box

  Chapter Fourteen - Moltrix's Birthday

  Chapter Fifteen - The Warrior Within

  Chapter Sixteen - Rorrim's Lens

  Chapter Seventeen - Truth in the Impossible

  Chapter Eighteen - Whispers in the Dark

  Chapter Nineteen - Distracted Power

  Chapter Twenty - Unspoken Truth

  Chapter Twenty-One - Stay

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Hidden Power

  Chapter Twenty-Three - The Dorekstone

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2016 Kyle Alan King

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced. All rights reserved.

  Chapter One

  Alrin's Puzzle Box

  Two-thirteen. To everyone in Everglen, that was his name.

  It wasn’t his actual name, of course. His name was Alrin Turner, but the 2-1-3 on the back of his hand made them care about little else, least of all his name.

  Staring up from his bed, he listened to the wind’s one-note melody whistle through the branches and followed the two-step dance of their shadows across his ceiling. His mind gripped him, for something incredible had happened that day. The trouble was, the last thing he could remember was falling.

  He and his older brother, Thrain, had spent a generous part of that day tracking a large whitetail deer deep into one of their favorite parts of the Tatra Mountains. Throughout much of the year, melting snow from the surrounding peaks funneled into a small hidden-away valley, gifting it with sparkling waterfalls that misted down into crystal-clear pools below. During the warmer months, Alrin and Thrain often dove from the hundred-foot cliffs into the safety of their brisk depths. But with winter already making its yearly descent back into the valley, the ground below had been nothing but a blanket of stone such as you would find at the bottom of a dried-up creek bed.

  Alrin had no memory of landing, nor any clue how he’d survived, but however he’d managed it, it had to have been nothing less than magical. And that was the problem. Alrin couldn’t use magic. No one could at level one.

  Searching the ceiling for answers was only making falling asleep harder when, from across the room, the silence was dampened by a light tap against Thrain’s wall.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  They often did this when one of them couldn’t sleep and wanted to see if the other was still awake. And the tap always came in twos. Like a heartbeat.

  “Can’t sleep either?” Alrin called out into the darkness of their room, relieved to hear something other than the pounding in his ears.

  “Nope,” came an airy breath.

  Silence filled the next several moments, but it was a different kind of silence now.

  “What happened today?” Thrain finally asked.

  Alrin took a deep breath and watched his words rise to join the dancing shadows across his ceiling. “No idea…”

  Each waited for the other to speak again, but neither of them did.

  Alrin rose just before the sun the next morning. Flashing images from the day before had consumed his dreams until he woke with a jolt as if falling out of a nightmare. He looked out of his frost-glazed window and saw the faithful border of the Tatra Mountains beginning to part from the horizon just as the stars were starting to turn out their lights. There was rarely an uninspiring view from that window. It never mattered what greeted him from the other side. It was home.

  They lived just outside the border of Everglen in a small three-room cabin, only a ten-minute walk from town. “Close enough, but far enough,” their mother, Aurora, would say. Their cabin was dug into the side of a hill, making three of the walls and much of the roof obscured from view by the surrounding embankment. There was a single solid-oak door and one much-too-small window—the one next to Alrin’s bed.

  Alrin and Thrain shared the smallest of the rooms. Aurora’s was on the opposite end of the house, and between the two was the family room. Alrin always rolled his eyes when someone actually called it that—as if being in another room would somehow magically make them less of a family. He had always wondered if its being called a “family room” was a constant reminder to those who lived alone that they didn’t have one. How terribly insensitive, Alrin always thought to himself. He often daydreamed about such things, possessed by the uncontrollable need to defend those who didn’t need defending (more often than not when they didn’t need defending because they didn’t even exist).

  A faint glow from the dwindling embers in the fireplace joined the growing light from his window, allowing Alrin to make out his brother as he lay in bed. Alrin turned over and knocked their secret heartbeat pattern against the wall, but when Thrain didn’t answer, he decided not to rouse him and instead reached up to his windowsill where he kept a small wooden puzzle box. His mother had had it specially made one year for his birthday by someone in town. Jorund Ashcroft was his name—he was Everglen’s guild leader of wisdom, and among his many talents was the ability to craft nearly anything requested of him. Wooden toys, ax handles, rocking chairs…you name it. But by far his favorite thing to make was puzzle boxes.

  They were strange little trinkets, no larger than Alrin’s fist, and nearly impossible to open. Each one Jorund made came with several hidden prongs or intricate grooves that needed to be maneuvered or aligned into just the right position for the lid to unlatch. It took Alrin weeks to figure his out, but once he did he was finally able to open it and find the prize that each of the boxes came with—one of Jorund's infamous riddles etched under the lid.

  Like the boxes themselves, the riddles were all different, but each one Jorund chose was undeniably placed for a reason. A sort of hidden meaning within its hidden meaning.

  Alrin twisted the lid clockwise a quarter turn and slid a few pieces that jutted out along the sides to the positions that only he knew, and the box clicked open. He raised the lid and read the inscription beneath it just as he had so many times before.

  At the end of a blade, I shall be found. Through halls of stone, I grandly resound.

  His was about glory, of course. Not too difficult to figure out once you realized that it was all anyone cared about.

  Alrin didn’t actually keep much inside the puzzle box, mostly just ordinary rocks that happened to out-sparkle their neighbors as he walked through the woods, but it was the one thing in their tiny cabin that he didn’t have to share with anyone else. It was his.

  He spun the box over in his hand and listened to its contents tumble softly against one another. Something about it had always fascinated him. It wasn’t what he kept inside, or even the riddle under the lid; it was the box itself. Every part was intricately crafted and flawlessly smooth. All except for a tiny bored-out hole that made it seem as though a knot in the wood had fallen out. At first that’s precisely what Alrin had thought, until the day he learned that everything Jorund made ca
me with the same tiny hole. Another hidden meaning, no doubt.

  After several forcibly patient minutes of waiting, and not sensing any end to Thrain’s snoring, Alrin worked up the nerve to leave the cocoon of warmth that he’d carefully concealed with him under the blankets and set the puzzle box back on the windowsill.

  The room was frozen. The fire must have died out earlier than usual in the night.

  Reaching down by the foot of his bed, Alrin fumbled blindly for his jacket. He usually tried to keep it over his legs as he slept because its added weight was comforting and it helped to combat the chilled air that easily found its way through his single-paned window. Somehow or another it always seemed to end up on the ground, which was right where he found it. Slinging it over his shoulders, he tiptoed into the family room and over to a large lumber pile stacked neatly in the corner. With a few handfuls of kindling and two quick breaths, the wood began to crackle, instantly warming his face and hands.

  There, Alrin thought. Hopefully that keeps them warm. He made his way to the door, quietly unlatched it, and slipped outside into the darkness.

  The morning’s chill covered the valley, and a thin layer of frost coated the ground, creating a strangely satisfying crunch as it gave way under his feet. He took the dirt path away from their cabin and went over to sit on an old moss-covered stump. When he and Thrain were younger, they had both taken turns chopping at the immovable nuisance, but had been unsuccessful—which was fortunate, because it now served as the perfect place to watch the sunrise. A light fog flowed out of the trees and over the glasslike surface of a pond, making it seem as if even the forest itself had woken up and joined him in watching their breath plume out into the cold mountain air.

  Alrin knew every ridge and every peak of the Tatras from that stump. He’d never been more than a few miles outside of town, but he was certain that even if he traveled the entire world, there would be nothing else like them.

  He’d always found comfort in living in the shadow of the mighty giants. At any moment he could close his eyes and paint them in his mind—each peak a softer shade of bluish purple than the one before it, until the last finally blended into the color of the crisp morning sky. They almost felt like blankets wrapping themselves around Everglen, protecting it from the outside world.

  Alrin brought his knees to his chest and tucked his feet up under his jacket to keep warm. But even though each breath of the mountain air awakened his senses, he couldn’t remember much from the day before. It was worse than trying to remember a dream. He removed his arm from his jacket and stared down at his ensignis as if they somehow held the answers.

  His stomach turned a little every time he looked at them. Most people were obsessed with their ensignis. Alrin hated them.

  He’d first learned their meaning when he was younger, from Halvdan, Everglen’s guild leader of magic. Of course his father would have been the one to teach him, had he not died shortly after Alrin was born. Halvdan had once been a close friend of his father’s, though he rarely spoke of it (despite Alrin’s incessant prying), and Alrin would visit his guild as often as he could to hear of their great adventures. And, if he was lucky, to see Halvdan use magic.

  Every town had three guilds and three guild leaders—one for each of the three ensignis. Whoever held the highest level in each skill was appointed the town’s guild leader, so being one was an extremely prestigious position, and competition was stiff. Being in Halvdan’s presence, let alone asking him questions, was a rare privilege. Alrin looked up to him like family, and visiting him never failed to be both enlightening and inspiring.

  One morning at the age of six or seven, Alrin visited the guild in hopes of seeing the students practice their magic, as on any other day. But this time was different. This time he finally worked up the courage to ask Halvdan the one question he knew he should already know the answer to.

  The magic guild was a magnificent stone building at the northeast corner of town. At its center was a large, uncovered courtyard that opened up to the sky, where many of Halvdan’s students studied or practiced their spells. Making his way down several long corridors and past countless unwelcoming stares, Alrin came to the small wing of the guild where Halvdan always worked.

  It was there that he sat, his back turned at his desk. The air smelled of thick pipe smoke and old parchment. Every time Alrin stepped into that room, he was inspired and intimidated. Shelves upon shelves crammed full of books lined every wall, but the good stuff was always behind Halvdan’s desk. There were the oddest-looking stones with strange glyphs on them, countless vials of spell components, and even stranger plants that Alrin swore would turn toward him as he walked by. It was organized chaos to Alrin’s eyes, but he loved it.

  “What are you working on?” Alrin asked, announcing his presence.

  “Ah, Alrin…just sharpening the tools in the ol’ noggin, really. What trouble are you getting into today, I wonder?” Halvdan smirked as he glanced at Alrin out of the corner of his eye.

  “None yet,” Alrin answered. “That’s why I came here, of course.”

  “Bah! Quick-witted, I see—very quick indeed.” Halvdan continued to write feverishly. “I admire that in you, Alrin. Don’t ever lose it.”

  Alrin paced slowly around the room, admiring scrolls and old maps of distant places that he’d heard of only in very old tales. “Can I ask you something?” Alrin finally asked, lowering his eyes to the ground.

  “Of course, my boy. Ask away.” The pace of Halvdan’s work was unbroken. The smoke from his long wooden pipe billowed around him. He had a gentle face, small beady eyes, and a thin beard that was beginning to turn gray. Alrin could always tell that he wished it were longer, because he tugged on it incessantly with the tips of his fingers.

  “What do the numbers on my hand mean?” Alrin asked.

  Halvdan choked back a burst of laughter, trying his best to disguise it as a sudden cough, as if he’d accidentally inhaled too much smoke. “I do suppose you were too young for your father to teach you that before he…” Halvdan paused. “What do you know about them?”

  “Nothing, really,” Alrin said, somewhat embarrassed.

  “Mmm.” Turning around in his chair, Halvdan looked Alrin over and combed his hand through his scraggly beard. Alrin knew he was choosing his words carefully. As a guild leader, he knew the importance of the question, and the deep impact his response would have.

  “Sit, won’t you?” he requested, sliding several stacks of books off a bench beside his desk. He pushed back into his chair and filled several moments of silence with deep drafts from his pipe.

  “I will tell you only what it means to others,” he finally said. “What it means to you is for you alone to decide.”

  Alrin hung on every word as Halvdan reached out and took Alrin’s right hand.

  “The numbers on your hand…or your ensignis,” Halvdan explained, “show how powerful you are. Every person on Dalroth, myself included, bears the markings of the three ensignis.” Halvdan pointed to each number on Alrin’s hand, starting closest to his knuckles and moving in a triangle. “They are read in this order, and in none other, so listen well: strength, magic, and intellect.

  “Strength, as I’m sure you know, represents your physical power. The swiftness of your sword, how deadly your arrow, your endurance, and, yes—even the strength of your body. Your magic level, or mana as some would call it, shows how proficient you are in the wondrous arts of magic. Every potion, spell, and magical ability you attempt requires you to reach a high-enough level to successfully cast or master it. Even King Abaddon, the most powerful man in all of Dalroth, is limited to the extent of his magic level.

  “And finally intellect,” Halvdan said, pointing to the final number on Alrin’s hand. “Although I am Everglen’s leader of magic, intellect, in my not-so-humble opinion, can be the most useful level to advance. It measures what others cannot see—wisdom, perseverance, and determination. This ensigni is not to be taken lightly, you see, because
no matter how powerful one may be in strength and magic, one is limited to the extent of one’s cleverness and mental swiftness.

  “Your ensignis are your legacy, your pride, and if you let them, they can lead to your downfall. What you do as your profession, down to the very people you can associate with, is all decided by the levels of your ensignis. From the moment you are born, they track your every move. Every ounce of energy used, every spell that you cast, and any knowledge you obtain, your ensignis remember.

  “As you become more powerful, your ensignis reflect it. They start with the ones you are born with and go all the way up to ninety-nine. Some keep them visible at all times, some choose to keep them hidden. But be warned, for many regard hidden ensignis as a sign of weakness or deceit…but to each his own, I suppose.”

  Sparked by a sudden curiosity, Alrin shifted his gaze to Halvdan’s right hand and saw that his ensignis were concealed under a brown leather glove. Remembering why his attention had moved there to begin with, he looked up to find Halvdan’s eyes meeting his own.

  “Ah, see what I mean? Having access to the strengths and weaknesses of those around you rouses curiosity, doesn’t it? Being privy to an individual’s most cherished possessions can be dangerous, so be ever cautious with how you use it. You are forever bound to your ensignis, Alrin, and they to you. Leveling their ensignis is what drives people. From the moment they wake up until sleep subdues the obsession, it is all everyone thinks about…”

  Hearing the latch of his front door shook Alrin from his memory. He glanced back to the cabin and saw Thrain slowly making his way over. Seeing him awake heartened him, for the longer Alrin had to sit and think by himself, the more uneasy he became.

  Thrain wore nothing more than what he slept in, and as usual was remarkably unaffected by the frigid morning air. He had always been more tolerant of cold weather than Alrin, likely because he nearly doubled Alrin in size.