Esmerelda and the Bard's Lament (eBook)

Andy Smullin (Autor)

Andy Smullin (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
271 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
979-8-89852-039-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Esmerelda is only a fledgling wizard who has recently escaped from a dismal existence in a desolate, forsaken, and lonely corner of the kingdom. In the process, she has gained the company of some new friends, but with that freedom, she has also inherited several gut-wrenching challenges demanding her devotion.

First, she has been reunited with a sister whom she long thought was dead. Unfortunately, it has not been a happy reunion because her sister has turned demonic and is now imprisoned within a magical rod. She contemplates rescuing her sister from her horrible fate, but she has only rudimentary wizardly skills to work with.

In the course of her sister's imprisonment, a young gypsy bard has been magically released from his imprisonment and claims the rod. He has a most wondrous tale to tell of shadowy intrigue involving a terrible, mystical, shape-shifting creature called a doppelganger. He also claims to have consorted with some magical, fun-loving blue giants and to have narrowly escaped a fire-breathing dragon. On top of that, he claims to have been tragically parted from his family and requests aid to help him reunite with them.

Textauszug

Chapter 1

Her Sad, Sad Tale

 

Gaining her composure, her elf side began, “When I came to myself again, my father was desperately holding on to me and a log as we floated down a swollen stream.” She paused, and when there was no interruption, she continued, “He told me that the log had struck me on the head, but that he had been lucky enough to scoop me up. He had barely caught the log at the same time. I felt pain at the back of my head where I found a handful of blood.” Subconsciously, she reached around to feel the back of her head and even yelped, “Ow!” Then she blushed at her foolish reaction.

“Papa tried to calm me down by telling me I would be alright and that it was not bad. He said that we were lucky to be alive. He also had several gashes, one of them being just above his eye. Had it been any closer, he would have lost that eye. It only comforted me a little because my pain still hurt badly.”

"He tried me to get me to help him paddle with our hands to steer the log to the shore. I tried my best, but the current was too strong. But just when we seemed to be making headway, we heard a loud roar which continued to get louder. When we looked in front of us, we saw that we were approaching a huge waterfall. It was all that papa could do to keep me from panicking. Nevertheless, I did my best to help him and we stroked even harder. Just as we were about to go over the waterfall the log jammed between two large boulders jutting out of the water.”

"Papa tried to comfort me and said, ‘See, because we tried, we struck the boulders instead of going over the waterfall.’ Since the shore was not far away, we let go of the log and swim to shore by ourselves. Just as we reached the the shore, we heard a loud crack. As we looked back, the log broke loose and plunged over the edge. The rain had stopped, and the sun was out. We were so tired that we just lay down and fell asleep.”

The doppelganger seemed to be engrossed in Castelia’s story. He sat and leaned against the partition, sword in hand. He never let go of it.

There was a long pause, so Castelia’s devilish side drolly interrupted with a complaint. “Your delivery is a little slow. You might wish to speed it up.” Then, she insincerely remarked, “But don’t let me interrupt you by any means. Continue.”

Her elvish side sighed as she began again. “I don’t know how long I slept, but I was the first to wake up. It was getting late because the sun was low on the horizon. I woke Papa and complained that I was hungry. Though I was very hungry, my curiosity was stronger, and I just had to look over the edge of the waterfall before leaving. It would have been a huge drop, and the height made me dizzy and frightened. I ran back to Papa, and we trudged off to find help.”

Castelia, the elf, interrupted her own tale, saying, “I had always thought that Momma and Esmerelda had gone over that waterfall ahead of us and perished.”

“My dear…” devilish Castelia unsympathetically commented, “A flood of that size can have any number of currents taking any number of unexpected turns and carrying her one way and you in another. Don’t be surprised. That’s just the way it is.”

“Oh!” said the elf side with a sigh and continued. “Papa and I plodded on for what seemed like hours until the sun had nearly sunk beyond the horizon. We saw what appeared to be a settlement on the horizon. Our hopes were dashed when we got closer and found it was a vast wasteland of crumbling ruins. We were amazed because it seemed to go on forever. We wondered at how such a metropolis could have been brought to complete extinction. It was also evident that it had been that way for a very, very long time.”

“It was so eerie and formidable that we wanted to run away, but it was so late that we sought shelter there for the night anyway. An hour or so passed while we searched through the war-torn remains before we found a halfway suitable place that offered shelter and a place to hide.”

“As we searched, we discovered the skeletal remains, armor, breastplates, shields, and rusty weapons lying everywhere in bizarre and twisted postures. It almost made us consider going anywhere else but there. In many instances, the remains were only partial and crumbling into dust. Papa grew so nervous that he picked up a rusty sword, the pommel of which had long rotted away leaving only the metal grip to hold it. He feared that something might spring up and attack us, so he thought that it would be good to have it should we have to defend themselves.”

“The location we had found was an edifice with enough of its walls still standing that the floor of the second story provided a covering from the weather. Only a corner of the lower floor was left, but it was enough to give us some hope of safety. The interior of the walls were decorated with badly weathered murals which had been stunning in their day but were now merely remnants of their former glory.”

“We found it hard to get to sleep, never mind our tired state. Also, the night was sweltering just as the day had been hot. The sounds of the night critters did not help to lull us off into sleep either. Suddenly, there was total silence which caused me to listen more intently. As I did, I thought I heard something moving around outside accompanied by heavy breathing. I became afraid and gently shook papa.

“Slowly, curiosity overcame me and I peaked out the one window left intact but, except for the faint moonlight, I couldn’t see in the pitch-black darkness. I was about to lay back down when something loomed out of the night shadows. I couldn’t make out what it was, but it was definitely huge and stalked around on all fours. I was about to whimper as tears welled up in my eyes. Papa carefully put his arm around my neck and gently clamped his hand over my mouth. He softly whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t look and keep quiet,’ He pulled me gently back down to the floor of the shelter.

“Papa gripped the hilt of the sword tightly as we lay motionless, listening to the monster’s heavy breathing. We heard what sounded like sniffing and it got louder as it wandered up close to the window. I sweated and worried that my pounding heart was so loud that it would alert the hideous beast to our presence. The sound of a wolf pack bayed in the near distance. The creature paused, growled, and then bounded off after the howling. We continued to lie sleepless for the rest of the night.”

Castelia noticed the doppelganger's fixed stare in her direction. Its bland features made it hard to tell what it might be thinking, but its attention had not wavered the whole of her narration. That fact alone made her nervous and apprehensive.

Her devil side cut in once more with a snide remark, “I am sure that you realize what that creature was now, but we will keep it a mystery for the benefit of our doppelganger companion. Let's not spoil the ending for him.”

The elf in her was not sure what, if anything, that comment had to do with anything. Anyway, she made the decision not to make a big deal of it.

“When there was enough light to see by,” she continued, “we cautiously made our way out of the shelter with the intention of getting away from there as far and as fast as we could. We also realized that we could not remember which way we had come. One street looked like another. Rubble littered the ground everywhere, and the streets, in many places, disappeared beneath ages of overgrowth. Papa found the beast’s tracks and decided that we should head off in the opposite direction.”

Castelia wished that she could forget what had happened so long ago. Retelling her ordeal was not pleasant, but her devilish overlord was forcing this upon her. She was reminded of how she and her father had stumbled around, lost in the vast wilderness of a great city that once teemed with life. They had no idea where they were until they came upon a marker bearing the name “Merisha.”

“This is not good. This is not good,” Papa kept saying over and over.

I was alarmed and asked, “What’s wrong, Papa? What’s not good?”

“I had not heard any of the famed tales of the most notorious city of all time. It was not something that Papa thought was pertinent or applicable, but most of all, he did not like scary stories, and he did not want to frighten us. All he would tell me at this time was that this was a very bad place and that we needed to get out then. Of course, I was frightened all the more.”

“The further we traveled, the more lost we became. The ruins seemed to stretch out forever and on and on. We were also famished with nothing notable to eat until we happened upon a berry bush. We tried to keep an eye on our surroundings as we ate the berries by the handful. That was a short-lived effort when a bush that looked to be dead pulled itself up by the roots, formed into a humanoid shape, and attacked us.”

“Papa grabbed his rusty sword and swung at the bush. I cried and wiped blood from the scratches I had endured. Five more of the nasty critters sprang from the ground and attacked Papa as he fended off the first one. Seeing my father in danger, I forgot about myself and picked up rocks, which I hurled at them. I was good at that and missed only a few. But it did draw their ire. They split up, and three of them surrounded me. I had just picked up a rock that was hot from the sun, and I had to drop it.”

“I cried and shook my hand in pain. The hot rock reminded me of the spell my grandmother...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.7.2021
• Reihe/Serie: Esmerelda
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: Bard • Devil • Dragon • dwarf • Fantasy • Witch • wizard
• ISBN-13: 979-8-89852-039-7 / 9798898520397