Reno Charlton's Blog - Posts Tagged "dragons"
The Sceptre of Zanafiar: Chapter One
Chapter One
A GIFT FROM A STRANGER
In the early hours of the icy cold January morning, nobody was around to witness the arrival of the stranger. The cloaked figure materialised, seemingly from out of nowhere, halfway up the driveway of Little Burton Children’s Home.
He observed his new surroundings with a sense of wonder for a moment, as the wind danced around him, whipping the bottom of his cloak around his legs. Then, pulling his hood up over his jet-black hair, broken by just a single streak of silver near the front, and tucking the small parcel firmly under his arm, he headed determinedly up the driveway to the front door and raised his hand to knock, but then quickly lowered it again. He could not let the boy see or speak to him – Dravas had said that he must not know of their existence. No, the first thing to do was to ensure that the boy received this parcel…the rest would take its course naturally.
Taking it from under his arm, he frowned, focussing his bright green eyes intently on the parcel. He had to ensure that Darius – or William, as he was known in this world – was the only one who would find it.
After a few moments’ consideration, he took a small bottle from the pocket of his cloak. Unscrewing the cap, he dotted a little of the blood-red liquid onto the package, hoping fervently that the effects of the potion wouldn’t wear off before Darius came across the parcel. All would be lost if it was found and taken by anybody else.
Holding the package up to face level, he muttered, “Darius, son of Dravas.”
As he put the bottle back into his pocket, the package glowed momentarily and he smiled to himself. Safe in the knowledge that nobody, other than Darius, would now be able to see the parcel – for a while, at least –he placed it outside the door, propped up against the wall.
“Do not fail me, Darius,” he whispered into the wind.
Then he swung around and walked briskly back down the driveway. About halfway down, much to the alarm of a passing dog, he winked totally out of sight.
*******
William Dolman sat perched on the end of his bed, listening to the laughter of the other children from the garden, where most of them had congregated. They were just starting a Saturday afternoon game of football, and William, as usual, hadn’t been invited to join in.
He got up and walked towards the bedroom window, pausing as he passed the mirror on the wall and gazing at his reflection. Two deep-blue eyes stared back, set in a small, pale face with a rather too large nose and a head of unruly straw-coloured hair. A great fourteenth birthday this was going to be – just like all the others: stuck on his own all day, with no presents, no cards and no friends or family to celebrate with.
Having been found abandoned as a baby, William had been adopted at an early age. Things had been great for some years, and he’d loved his adoptive parents, Oliver and Susan Dolman. But when William was just seven, his adoptive father had died following a heart attack. A couple of years later his mother decided to re-marry, and that’s when things had started to go downhill fast.
Her new husband, Stuart, who wouldn’t even allow William to refer to him or think of him as a father figure, but insisted on being called ‘Uncle Stuart’, was a bad-tempered man, and spent most of his time drunk. A few days before William’s tenth birthday, his mother had walked out, leaving him to the mercy of Uncle Stuart.
Several months later, they had been contacted by the police, who informed them that Susan Dolman had been killed in a road traffic accident. William had been devastated – she had never even contacted him. He stayed with Uncle Stuart for a while longer, doing all of the cooking and cleaning, and generally running the house, whilst his uncle proceeded to drink more and more.
Later that same year, Uncle Stuart had decided to move away – making it quite clear that he had no intention of taking William with him. As a result, William had been put into care and had spent the last few years in various children’s homes.
He had been moved to Little Burton Children’s Home a little over a year ago. For some reason, the most popular boy at the home, Daniel Bentley, had taken an instant dislike to him, and had soon turned the other kids against him as well. They never asked him to take part in any games – in fact, most of the kids wouldn’t even talk to him unless it was to make some nasty comment. William spent most of his spare time hiding away in his poky bedroom, reading.
As he continued to the window he flicked on the CD player and the melancholy tones of Nirvana's 'The Man Who Sold the World' filled the room. This had been his mother's favourite band and whilst William wasn't old enough to remember them, he had kept some of her CDs and often listened to them in the confines of his room.
Gazing out at the large group, he wished that, just once, one of them would ask him if he wanted to join in. As he stood watching, Daniel Bentley suddenly looked up and pointed towards him. Then he turned and said something to the rest of the group, and they all looked up and began laughing and pointing. William quickly moved away from the window. He didn’t know what Daniel had said to the others, but he could imagine.
He stared down reproachfully at the webbed skin between the fingers of his right hand – the butt of many a joke amongst the other children, who had taken to calling him ‘freak’. They didn’t even refer to him as William any longer – not unless any of the staff were around, at which point they’d suddenly pretend to be well behaved and polite. Daniel had a particular knack of convincing the staff at the home that he was sweetness and light.
William had received many a scolding from the Senior Carer, Miss Westwood, who always seemed to believe Daniel over him – like the time when Daniel had decided he didn’t want to finish his history assignment. He’d intentionally spilled a bottle of ink all over his half-finished coursework, and then blamed William, saying that he’d knocked it over on purpose. Miss Westwood had refused to believe that William was innocent, and had forced him to do Daniel’s assignment for him as a punishment.
On another occasion, Daniel, and one of his friends, Neil, had been kicking a ball about in the garden, and put one of the kitchen windows through. They’d immediately run back inside, and then persuaded all the other kids to say that they’d seen William do it. Once again, Miss Westwood hadn’t believed William when he denied it, and he’d been duly punished.
It was the same whenever Daniel and his friends picked on him, bullied him, and blamed him for things, which was regularly. Miss Westwood always took their side, and seemed to think that Bentley couldn’t put a foot wrong – and William always ended up getting the blame.
The sound of the teatime bell broke into William’s thoughts. He didn’t particularly want to go down, but he knew that if he didn’t, Miss Westwood would come looking for him. She was a stickler for everyone being seated for meals on time.
He made his way downstairs, and into the dining room, where the kitchen staff was busy serving tea. The other kids had already piled in from the garden and taken their seats. Miss Westwood was nowhere to be seen as yet.
“Here he is, the guest of honour!” cried Daniel, as William walked over to the table. “Having a good birthday, freak?”
William glanced at the tall, dark-haired boy, and then looked nervously down. “The name’s William.”
“Ooh, I think you’ve offended him, Dan,” said one of the girls, Molly, giggling. “Why don’t you give him our present?”
“Of course, I almost forgot!” Daniel produced a small box from under the table, “Happy birthday, big nose!” As he finished the sentence he made a honking noise and squeezed his nose between his finger and thumb several times.
William stared at the box. He didn’t even like to imagine what was in it. “You can keep it, whatever it is.”
“Come on, freakazoid. Don’t be so ungrateful,” said Neil, snatching the box from Daniel and throwing it over to William.
It landed in William’s lap, and, trying to be brave, he picked it up and threw it back towards Neil and Daniel. Unfortunately for William, he was not a good aim, and the box sailed over the boys’ heads and straight towards Miss Westwood, who was just entering the room, armed with a silver tray with a sorry-looking sponge cake on it. As the box hit the cake, the lid came off, and William watched in horror as the contents spilled out all over the sponge. Worms. Lots and lots of worms.
“Aarggh!” Miss Westwood screamed, and dropped the tray, the worm-topped cake splattering all over the carpet. Then she glared up at William, her face red with anger. “William Dolman! How dare you!” She strode towards him, her eyes bulging with fury.
“I-I’m sorry, M-Miss Westwood. I didn’t mean t-to –” began William, at a loss for words.
“I suppose you’re going to try and pin this on poor Daniel as well aren't you? Well, you were caught red-handed this time. I go to the effort of buying a birthday cake for you” – Miss Westwood pointed towards the mess on the floor – “and this is the gratitude I get. Well, you can clean that mess up immediately. And don’t think you’ve heard the last of this, my boy.”
As Miss Westwood stomped back out of the room, the other kids all burst out laughing.
“Oh dear. That wasn’t very clever,” teased Daniel.
“Why don’t you go and scrape a piece of your cake off the floor? I’m sure it’ll still be really yummy,” said Neil. He got up and scooped up a handful of the mashed up cake, worms and all. Then he strode towards William and held it out in front of his face. “Come on, freak. Be a good boy and eat up your cake.”
William pushed Neil’s hand away from his face, tears of humiliation streaming down his cheeks. He ran out of the dining room and through the front door, onto the driveway. The sight of the wriggling, slimy worms had made him feel sick – and the sound of the other kids’ mocking laughter still rang in his ears.
He sank down on to the doorstep, wiping the tears from his eyes. Suddenly he spotted something, leaning up against the wall – a parcel. Still sniffing, he reached out and picked it up. It was wrapped in brown paper, but there was no name or address on it.
“There you are. Get back inside immediately and clean up that mess!” Miss Westwood, looking positively formidable with her grey hair scraped back into a bun and her lips pursed in anger, suddenly appeared in the doorway and began to drag William up by his arm.
“I th-think there’s a p-parcel for you,” stuttered William, hoping to take the woman’s mind off the matter of the cake. He held the parcel out to her.
Miss Westwood’s eyes darkened with anger. “You really are heading for trouble, boy. Parcel indeed. Get that disgusting mess cleaned up before I box your ears.”
The parcel still clutched in his hands, William was dragged back indoors and handed a bucket of water and a cloth by Miss Westwood. Glumly, he shuffled back into the dining room, and putting the parcel on the floor, began to clean up the mess under the beady eye of the Senior Carer and all the other kids. He could hear Daniel sniggering and whispering to the others.
Heaving as he scooped up the sponge and worms from the carpet, he finally managed to get the mess cleaned up and handed the bucket back to Miss Westwood.
“What do want me to do with the parcel?” he asked meekly, picking it up and holding it out to her again.
“Don’t start with that again, William. Just get up to your room and you can stay there until you’ve learned to behave normally,” spat Miss Westwood, striding back out of the room.
“But the parcel –” began William. But Miss Westwood had already disappeared.
“What’s up, freak? Are you having hallucinations? It’s an imaginary friend you need to get, not an imaginary parcel!” Daniel shouted over as soon as Miss Westwood had gone. “I always knew he was a nutter,” he added, turning to the others.
Amidst their bellows of laughter, William left the room and headed back to the sanity of his own room. He sat on the bed and stared at the parcel for a while. Who was it for? Why couldn’t anyone else see it?
Unable to stop himself, he began to tear off the wrapping. Within minutes, scraps of brown paper littered the bed, in the midst of which lay the contents of the package…a small, white book.
He gingerly picked up the book, scanning the front and back cover. It was blank – nothing to say what it was called or whom it was by. Puzzled, he opened the front cover. Still nothing – just a blank page. He began to leaf through the each of the pages, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. Nothing at all, not a word.
“What is this?” he muttered, glaring at yet another empty page.
Reaching for a pen, he tried to write his name on the blank page, but the pen didn’t mark the shiny surface at all – it was almost as though the pen and paper weren’t even making contact. He threw the pen across the room in exasperation. What good was a book that couldn’t be read and couldn’t even be written in?
Slamming the cover shut, he pushed the book under his bed, and within a few hours, began to forget all about it. And then the dreams began.
The Sceptre of Zanafiar
Read about Zanafiar at http://renocharlton.com/learn-about-z...
A GIFT FROM A STRANGER
In the early hours of the icy cold January morning, nobody was around to witness the arrival of the stranger. The cloaked figure materialised, seemingly from out of nowhere, halfway up the driveway of Little Burton Children’s Home.
He observed his new surroundings with a sense of wonder for a moment, as the wind danced around him, whipping the bottom of his cloak around his legs. Then, pulling his hood up over his jet-black hair, broken by just a single streak of silver near the front, and tucking the small parcel firmly under his arm, he headed determinedly up the driveway to the front door and raised his hand to knock, but then quickly lowered it again. He could not let the boy see or speak to him – Dravas had said that he must not know of their existence. No, the first thing to do was to ensure that the boy received this parcel…the rest would take its course naturally.
Taking it from under his arm, he frowned, focussing his bright green eyes intently on the parcel. He had to ensure that Darius – or William, as he was known in this world – was the only one who would find it.
After a few moments’ consideration, he took a small bottle from the pocket of his cloak. Unscrewing the cap, he dotted a little of the blood-red liquid onto the package, hoping fervently that the effects of the potion wouldn’t wear off before Darius came across the parcel. All would be lost if it was found and taken by anybody else.
Holding the package up to face level, he muttered, “Darius, son of Dravas.”
As he put the bottle back into his pocket, the package glowed momentarily and he smiled to himself. Safe in the knowledge that nobody, other than Darius, would now be able to see the parcel – for a while, at least –he placed it outside the door, propped up against the wall.
“Do not fail me, Darius,” he whispered into the wind.
Then he swung around and walked briskly back down the driveway. About halfway down, much to the alarm of a passing dog, he winked totally out of sight.
*******
William Dolman sat perched on the end of his bed, listening to the laughter of the other children from the garden, where most of them had congregated. They were just starting a Saturday afternoon game of football, and William, as usual, hadn’t been invited to join in.
He got up and walked towards the bedroom window, pausing as he passed the mirror on the wall and gazing at his reflection. Two deep-blue eyes stared back, set in a small, pale face with a rather too large nose and a head of unruly straw-coloured hair. A great fourteenth birthday this was going to be – just like all the others: stuck on his own all day, with no presents, no cards and no friends or family to celebrate with.
Having been found abandoned as a baby, William had been adopted at an early age. Things had been great for some years, and he’d loved his adoptive parents, Oliver and Susan Dolman. But when William was just seven, his adoptive father had died following a heart attack. A couple of years later his mother decided to re-marry, and that’s when things had started to go downhill fast.
Her new husband, Stuart, who wouldn’t even allow William to refer to him or think of him as a father figure, but insisted on being called ‘Uncle Stuart’, was a bad-tempered man, and spent most of his time drunk. A few days before William’s tenth birthday, his mother had walked out, leaving him to the mercy of Uncle Stuart.
Several months later, they had been contacted by the police, who informed them that Susan Dolman had been killed in a road traffic accident. William had been devastated – she had never even contacted him. He stayed with Uncle Stuart for a while longer, doing all of the cooking and cleaning, and generally running the house, whilst his uncle proceeded to drink more and more.
Later that same year, Uncle Stuart had decided to move away – making it quite clear that he had no intention of taking William with him. As a result, William had been put into care and had spent the last few years in various children’s homes.
He had been moved to Little Burton Children’s Home a little over a year ago. For some reason, the most popular boy at the home, Daniel Bentley, had taken an instant dislike to him, and had soon turned the other kids against him as well. They never asked him to take part in any games – in fact, most of the kids wouldn’t even talk to him unless it was to make some nasty comment. William spent most of his spare time hiding away in his poky bedroom, reading.
As he continued to the window he flicked on the CD player and the melancholy tones of Nirvana's 'The Man Who Sold the World' filled the room. This had been his mother's favourite band and whilst William wasn't old enough to remember them, he had kept some of her CDs and often listened to them in the confines of his room.
Gazing out at the large group, he wished that, just once, one of them would ask him if he wanted to join in. As he stood watching, Daniel Bentley suddenly looked up and pointed towards him. Then he turned and said something to the rest of the group, and they all looked up and began laughing and pointing. William quickly moved away from the window. He didn’t know what Daniel had said to the others, but he could imagine.
He stared down reproachfully at the webbed skin between the fingers of his right hand – the butt of many a joke amongst the other children, who had taken to calling him ‘freak’. They didn’t even refer to him as William any longer – not unless any of the staff were around, at which point they’d suddenly pretend to be well behaved and polite. Daniel had a particular knack of convincing the staff at the home that he was sweetness and light.
William had received many a scolding from the Senior Carer, Miss Westwood, who always seemed to believe Daniel over him – like the time when Daniel had decided he didn’t want to finish his history assignment. He’d intentionally spilled a bottle of ink all over his half-finished coursework, and then blamed William, saying that he’d knocked it over on purpose. Miss Westwood had refused to believe that William was innocent, and had forced him to do Daniel’s assignment for him as a punishment.
On another occasion, Daniel, and one of his friends, Neil, had been kicking a ball about in the garden, and put one of the kitchen windows through. They’d immediately run back inside, and then persuaded all the other kids to say that they’d seen William do it. Once again, Miss Westwood hadn’t believed William when he denied it, and he’d been duly punished.
It was the same whenever Daniel and his friends picked on him, bullied him, and blamed him for things, which was regularly. Miss Westwood always took their side, and seemed to think that Bentley couldn’t put a foot wrong – and William always ended up getting the blame.
The sound of the teatime bell broke into William’s thoughts. He didn’t particularly want to go down, but he knew that if he didn’t, Miss Westwood would come looking for him. She was a stickler for everyone being seated for meals on time.
He made his way downstairs, and into the dining room, where the kitchen staff was busy serving tea. The other kids had already piled in from the garden and taken their seats. Miss Westwood was nowhere to be seen as yet.
“Here he is, the guest of honour!” cried Daniel, as William walked over to the table. “Having a good birthday, freak?”
William glanced at the tall, dark-haired boy, and then looked nervously down. “The name’s William.”
“Ooh, I think you’ve offended him, Dan,” said one of the girls, Molly, giggling. “Why don’t you give him our present?”
“Of course, I almost forgot!” Daniel produced a small box from under the table, “Happy birthday, big nose!” As he finished the sentence he made a honking noise and squeezed his nose between his finger and thumb several times.
William stared at the box. He didn’t even like to imagine what was in it. “You can keep it, whatever it is.”
“Come on, freakazoid. Don’t be so ungrateful,” said Neil, snatching the box from Daniel and throwing it over to William.
It landed in William’s lap, and, trying to be brave, he picked it up and threw it back towards Neil and Daniel. Unfortunately for William, he was not a good aim, and the box sailed over the boys’ heads and straight towards Miss Westwood, who was just entering the room, armed with a silver tray with a sorry-looking sponge cake on it. As the box hit the cake, the lid came off, and William watched in horror as the contents spilled out all over the sponge. Worms. Lots and lots of worms.
“Aarggh!” Miss Westwood screamed, and dropped the tray, the worm-topped cake splattering all over the carpet. Then she glared up at William, her face red with anger. “William Dolman! How dare you!” She strode towards him, her eyes bulging with fury.
“I-I’m sorry, M-Miss Westwood. I didn’t mean t-to –” began William, at a loss for words.
“I suppose you’re going to try and pin this on poor Daniel as well aren't you? Well, you were caught red-handed this time. I go to the effort of buying a birthday cake for you” – Miss Westwood pointed towards the mess on the floor – “and this is the gratitude I get. Well, you can clean that mess up immediately. And don’t think you’ve heard the last of this, my boy.”
As Miss Westwood stomped back out of the room, the other kids all burst out laughing.
“Oh dear. That wasn’t very clever,” teased Daniel.
“Why don’t you go and scrape a piece of your cake off the floor? I’m sure it’ll still be really yummy,” said Neil. He got up and scooped up a handful of the mashed up cake, worms and all. Then he strode towards William and held it out in front of his face. “Come on, freak. Be a good boy and eat up your cake.”
William pushed Neil’s hand away from his face, tears of humiliation streaming down his cheeks. He ran out of the dining room and through the front door, onto the driveway. The sight of the wriggling, slimy worms had made him feel sick – and the sound of the other kids’ mocking laughter still rang in his ears.
He sank down on to the doorstep, wiping the tears from his eyes. Suddenly he spotted something, leaning up against the wall – a parcel. Still sniffing, he reached out and picked it up. It was wrapped in brown paper, but there was no name or address on it.
“There you are. Get back inside immediately and clean up that mess!” Miss Westwood, looking positively formidable with her grey hair scraped back into a bun and her lips pursed in anger, suddenly appeared in the doorway and began to drag William up by his arm.
“I th-think there’s a p-parcel for you,” stuttered William, hoping to take the woman’s mind off the matter of the cake. He held the parcel out to her.
Miss Westwood’s eyes darkened with anger. “You really are heading for trouble, boy. Parcel indeed. Get that disgusting mess cleaned up before I box your ears.”
The parcel still clutched in his hands, William was dragged back indoors and handed a bucket of water and a cloth by Miss Westwood. Glumly, he shuffled back into the dining room, and putting the parcel on the floor, began to clean up the mess under the beady eye of the Senior Carer and all the other kids. He could hear Daniel sniggering and whispering to the others.
Heaving as he scooped up the sponge and worms from the carpet, he finally managed to get the mess cleaned up and handed the bucket back to Miss Westwood.
“What do want me to do with the parcel?” he asked meekly, picking it up and holding it out to her again.
“Don’t start with that again, William. Just get up to your room and you can stay there until you’ve learned to behave normally,” spat Miss Westwood, striding back out of the room.
“But the parcel –” began William. But Miss Westwood had already disappeared.
“What’s up, freak? Are you having hallucinations? It’s an imaginary friend you need to get, not an imaginary parcel!” Daniel shouted over as soon as Miss Westwood had gone. “I always knew he was a nutter,” he added, turning to the others.
Amidst their bellows of laughter, William left the room and headed back to the sanity of his own room. He sat on the bed and stared at the parcel for a while. Who was it for? Why couldn’t anyone else see it?
Unable to stop himself, he began to tear off the wrapping. Within minutes, scraps of brown paper littered the bed, in the midst of which lay the contents of the package…a small, white book.
He gingerly picked up the book, scanning the front and back cover. It was blank – nothing to say what it was called or whom it was by. Puzzled, he opened the front cover. Still nothing – just a blank page. He began to leaf through the each of the pages, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. Nothing at all, not a word.
“What is this?” he muttered, glaring at yet another empty page.
Reaching for a pen, he tried to write his name on the blank page, but the pen didn’t mark the shiny surface at all – it was almost as though the pen and paper weren’t even making contact. He threw the pen across the room in exasperation. What good was a book that couldn’t be read and couldn’t even be written in?
Slamming the cover shut, he pushed the book under his bed, and within a few hours, began to forget all about it. And then the dreams began.
The Sceptre of Zanafiar
Read about Zanafiar at http://renocharlton.com/learn-about-z...
