Revary Read online

  Revary

  Abigail Linhardt

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1. Our Kingdom is Being Destroyed!

  2. The Institution of Fog

  3. The Nether Plane

  4. Zane’barren

  5. The Kingdom of Calimorden

  6. Real Life

  7. Home

  8. Return to the Planes

  9. The Star and The Oracle

  10. Secrets Released

  11. Fantasy Warriors

  12. True Friends

  13. The Witch of Decay

  14. The Beast

  15. Halloween

  16. Revary

  17. The Earthling Warriors

  18. Captain of the Sky Plane

  19. The Beast and the Witch

  20. The Golden Son and Desolation of Calimorden

  21. The First Death

  22. The Power of Corruption

  23. The Sundered Planes

  24. A Dragon of Many Worlds

  25. A Kingdom Like Heaven

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Text Copyright 2019 © Dragon Soul Press & Abigail Linhardt

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under the international and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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

  Editing & Formatting by Dragon Soul Press

  Cover Art by Salvation Creations

  Acknowledgments

  For David. Scout ahead.

  Chapter 1

  Our Kingdom is Being Destroyed!

  Her eyes darted over the map in a panic, looking for the weaknesses she must have missed when building the defensive wall. “Send all the elfin sorcerers up north. Take an army of footmen to the northwest and follow that up with the knights and priests to the north east.”

  An explosion from the south alerted her, the master, as cries rang out from the left and the sound of crackling fire erupted louder. “Where are my workers? Send them to fix that! We cannot let the enemy behind our walls!”

  The army moved out as instructed as she looked around in a panic to find the workers.

  “They’re destroying our village!” the mayor cried out again from the town hall.

  “Defend yourselves!” she cried, calling all workers to take up an ax and act as a militia. That would only work for a little while; she had to find a way to save her people.

  “The army is under attack!” an elf called out to her from a distance.

  She looked up to see the elfin army was being slaughtered by undead warriors from the north.

  “No!” she cried. “Save the elfin forest before the undead take it,” she commanded her knights. It would take several minutes for the knight army to reach the elves in time. It would never work. She’d have to invoke the ancient words. Forbidden magic. The only way to ensure her elves would not be killed was to do the ultimate sin. They had to have immortality.

  The cries of her villagers were deafening as she stalled, her hand poised to make the spell. Her city was lost. Her army was only safe for now. All she had left was the elfin forest. She could not let it fall to the undead.

  “Love never dies,” she whispered the incantation as her fingers moved, spelling out the words. A chorus rang out and cymbals clanged from nowhere. A white light shot up around her army and engulfed it in little twinkles and stars.

  “Cheat enabled,” it read on her chat bar.

  Then “Clare, U cheated!!!” from her opposing team.

  Clare smiled, pulled her large headphones off, and slicked the microphone back into place. With the noise gone, her invincible army slaughtered the undead before the same cheat could be used by her opponent.

  “Victory!” scrolled across her screen in a matter of seconds. She put the headphones back on and accepted the voice-chat request from username lordalfred89.

  “Hey, my lady, you cheated and then cut me off!” His voice was pouty and angry. “I thought we were supposed to uphold our rules. No cell phones, no internet searches, and no using cheat books for six months. What’s up? Changed your mind?”

  “I couldn’t let my elves die, Al,” she said. “That forest was the last thing I had. You destroyed my city and Max took over my castle yesterday. I’m practically sunk.”

  “Sorry you have to lose at your own game.” He did sound sorry. “But that’s how it goes. Besides, I still have to face Stella and the others. No one is easy to beat in this little shindig you put together. Why couldn’t you recruit a bunch of newbies?”

  She laughed and took a sip of her grape juice. “Too hard for you, Al? Think of it as growing pains.”

  “You’re a pain alright. I’ve got sweat on my glasses!”

  She stopped a laugh by pinching her lips together in a hard smile. “Ahem, Al?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Never confess to breaking out in a sweat over a game.”

  Al’s voice picked up a sarcastic tone. “This from the girl who cried when her favorite warrior went to the dark side in the last expansion? Ha, I don’t think so.”

  She pursed her lips and smiled in embarrassment. At least Al couldn’t see her. “I’m saving and quitting. Are we all still on for this weekend?”

  “Yeah, we have a lot to discuss at the meeting.” Al’s voice had dropped down a few octaves of excitement. “Can we add midterms to the list to discuss? I mean, these really count. And did you hear the school is using semesters now? My mom said that’s to prepare us for college life. Don’t you love private schools?”

  Clare smiled at the worry in his voice. The change of pace for senior year didn’t bother her at all. She was excited to take on that change. “Of course, we can talk about that. Stella asked me that too.” She watched her game’s home screen as the animated rain fell on the flag of her people, the mouse hovering over the exit button. “Hey, Al?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Senior makes us sound old. We’re not old, right?”

  “Claredy-cat, we’re only eighteen. Still kids.” His voice had perked up again. His did that whenever hers went down. It was why they were best friends. He was always supportive to her when she was not. “Don’t you think?” That didn’t sound so sure.

  She sighed. “Nah, we’re not. We’re adults now. We have to grow up and stuff. I mean, can we even play this game and have our weekends after high school?”

  “Save it for the meeting,” Al said in a final tone. “I have to clean out the litter boxes for my mom before my dad gets home.” She could hear how much he didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Chores.”

  “You have them too, as I remember.”

  “You know, we’re the only kids on this block—us, Stella, and the others—who have chores?”

  Al smiled over the microphone. “We’re awesome for it.”

  “See you later then.”

  She pushed out from the computer table and rolled the keyboard closed. The temptation to open up her favorite social media sites crept up on her like a flea. She had the itch, but had sworn a pact with the others not to use it. Her parents had grounded her from cell phone use for using up all the minutes and her friends, wonderful warriors they were, had sworn off using theirs
until she had hers back.

  “When one of us suffers, we all do,” Al had said when they all turned off the phones. It had all been very touching, but the parents of the not-grounded friends had been furious about the safety issues of not having a phone, until they explained the humane benefits of not talking and using the phone all the time.

  Going up the stairs, Clare was greeted by the smell of her mother cooking some cheap Italian food. The scent of red sauce from the jar was strongest even over the out-of-the-bag garlic bread. Must have been really old. She entered the kitchen to see her mom frowning intensely over some bills, unaware of the boiling pasta.

  “Uh, mom? Can I go across the street to Stella’s?” She knew her mother wouldn’t even hear her, but if she asked, she’d be above reproach later when she was discovered missing. “I’ll be right back to help with the rest of dinner.”

  “Mmm,” was the only reply. She was in a mood and that needed avoiding.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  Slipping on her flip-flops, she jogged across the street in her jeans and dark red camisole without a second thought. Stella’s mom, Mrs. Hart, had been in the garden as usual. Newly planted hydrangeas were meticulously lined up on either side of the door and every weed was torn up and all the soil tilled to perfection.

  “Pink this year,” Mrs. Hart said as she came out of the house in gardening gloves and an armload of baby hydrangeas. “I don’t suppose you can talk Stella into wearing any, can you?”

  “The powers of forcing pink on strong-willed women are beyond me.”

  Clare laughed, but Mrs. Hart was not amused. She was a woman who had struggled for years to tame her wild daughter as much as she could tame her garden. Unlike the garden, Stella just needed room to grow.

  Taking the front steps two at a time, Clare went inside and straight up to her friend’s room. She knocked once on the door then opened it without a reply. Stella’s room was a disjointed attempt on her mother’s part to keep her “normal to society” and Stella’s sadly humble attempts to show off her individuality. The walls were white, but the bookshelves were black. The ceiling fan was a hideously swirly white thing, but draping purple lights hung on all the walls. Her wardrobe was just as discombobulated.

  Stella sat hunched over her laptop, black fingernails stroking the keys as she commanded her own armies across virtual planes. Her hair was long and un-dyed out of respect for her mother but her clothes were, not quite loud, but definitely an attempt at the dark subculture she yearned to be a part of.

  “Al tells me you cheated,” she said, her black-rimmed eyes not missing a move on the screen. “I would have too, don’t worry.”

  She sat up after exiting the match. “Max whined the whole time we were playing. He didn’t even try to beat me. I hate him for that.”

  “No, you hate him for being able to wear and decorate as he pleases and his parents don’t stop him.” Clare took her seat in her favorite chair of Stella’s: a big, black, velvet-covered beanbag. Stella had made the cover herself when her mom had brought back a big teal-colored one and placed it in her room while she was at school.

  “True, but look at it this way.” She put on her narrow black-rimmed glasses. “He says he brings home good grades, is respectful, kind, and helps out a lot at home so his parents let him do as he wants because they see what a good kid he is. Now, I do the same thing. But still, I get no slack.”

  “You’re a girl?” Clare offered, knowing full well the tirade she was going to get back.

  “That shouldn’t matter in this case!” Stella exclaimed and leaped up to tidy her room. Everything had to be just right. The curtains had to fall a certain way, the desk objects had to be straight. “I’m safe. I never stay out late. I don’t do anything!”

  “Okay, calm down. I’ve heard this all before. And remember, Max has a way more strange family than you do. Can we talk business for a second?”

  Stella flopped onto her red and gold bed with purple pillowcases and moaned. Clare took her silence as consent to speak.

  “Thanks. Meeting this weekend? Are you free?”

  “You know I am. I claimed I can’t work on Sundays due to religious obligations.”

  “Right. We need to set up this semester’s laws and boundaries. Do you still want to play the sorceress? Because Al said he may have a female friend coming in from another clan from Arizona or something. She’s moving here and is a hardcore LARPer.”

  Stella raised her arms above her head from where she lay and said in a dramatic voice and accent, “I will kill her to keep my place as magic master and rule with her blood in my river.”

  “Oh, okay, so that’s a no.” She grimaced.

  Stella shot up, a coy grin on her face. “How do you know she plays female roles?”

  Their eyes met and they burst out laughing.

  “You are desperate for someone to play Count Graph, aren’t you?” Clare giggled. “You’ve had a crush on that imagined character for as long as I can remember.”

  Stella pretended to swoon to the floor, tossing her long hair elegantly. “Ugh, I long for my count,” she gasped, clasping her heart. “I need him to go on living!”

  Clare stood up and walked to the door. “Tell Max to come at eleven then. We’ll get lunch after.”

  “Wait!” Stella stood up, her count forgotten. “Can we talk about school? I know it’s forbidden to speak of the outside world at meetings, but…”

  Clare sighed. “I know. I told Al you asked me last week. We all have a lot to say on that point. See you Sunday then. Full dress?”

  “My new costume isn’t done. I ran out of money.”

  “Wear the old one?”

  “I will do as I must.”

  Stella was always so dramatic.

  After a quiet and awkward dinner with her dad coming home late, her mom in bad spirits, and her younger brothers fighting like rats over the food, Clare went to her room. She turned off all the lights and ignited her dozen electric candles. After spilling a red candle all over the carpet a while back, her parents didn’t allow her to burn anything. The soft glow of the electric ones was not as romantic as real ones, but it had to do.

  Glancing around at her many posters, play swords, maps, and ships in bottles, she suddenly understood Stella and Al’s fears. They weren’t kids any more. When she had had to get a job, she was excited to spend money on more DVDs, music that inspired her role-playing, and accessories to accent every costume, and fantasy decorations for her walls. But that had never happened. When she drove the car to work and school, it suddenly needed gas and she had to pay for it. When the oil went out, she had to pay for the change. Before she knew it, she was fighting to save money for one season of her favorite show. But for her, that had somehow made those things more precious. They had increased in value rather than vanished.

  She flopped down on her bed and continued to gaze around her sacred sanctum. How much of it would change when she left for college? How much would she change?

  Pulling the yearbook out from under her bed, she flipped to the pages she had marked. No one had said very nice things about her or her friends. She was the most normal of them all. She had written for the school paper, volunteered for the drama club once, and done a few other after school projects. They used a bad picture of her though. Her signature pigtails were lopsided and the photographer hadn’t told her when he was ready.

  Stella had many rude comments written in about her. Max had more. Mostly from the boys on the sports teams as usual. Clare didn’t care one way or another about Stella and Max’s style choices. What she cared about was how they were treated based on outside appearance.

  Al was the only one with mostly positive reviews. Voted “Cutest geek of the junior class” and at the same time “Most likely to be the forty year old virgin.”

  “Stupid people,” was all she muttered.

  The newest addition to their circle of friends was a larger boy named Jeff who could do almost anything with a compute
r. He had moved to their school too late to be in the yearbook and finished out the year being homeschooled. He was shy and quiet, but Clare had liked him right away for his technical powers.

  She tossed the book aside and fell back on her bed to look up at her ceiling where her glow-in-the-dark stars were just starting to appear in the dim light. The only constellation she had taken the time to make was Draco and he was right above her.

  “What am I supposed to tell them?” she asked her dragon. “It’s like they don’t know I’m just as scared as them to be eighteen. Help me?”

  Without so much as changing, she drifted off to sleep, making plans in her head of what to present to her fellow role players that weekend. Much to her disappointment, she did not dream.

  The weekend came with typical end of summer weather for the Midwest. The skies began to turn grey earlier, even after promising sunrises and clear mornings. The humidity stuck around and still made it so that Clare’s hair couldn’t be styled in any other way than a braid and bandana around her head. She put on her brown leggings, tall boots, and green dress, which she had slit all the way up the front of the skirt and back in order to ride horses better. Not that she had a horse, but it was the look that counted. After lacing up her corset and strapping her short sword to her waist, she took her magical staff and left the house where her dad was arguing with her brothers.

  Across the street, Stella’s car was already gone. She got into her own old Mustang and pulled out of the driveway gratefully.