Gathering of the Chosen
Read Gathering of the Chosen Online
Authors: Timothy L. Cerepaka
Tags: #epic fantasy gods, #sword and sorcery gods, #sword and sorcery mage, #epic fantasy series magic action adventure, #epic fantasy series sword sorcery, #sword and sorcery magic series, #sword and sorcery mystery mage
Tournament of the Gods Book #1
by Timothy L. Cerepaka
Published by Annulus Publishing
Copyright © Timothy L. Cerepaka 2016. All
rights reserved.
Formatting by Timothy L. Cerepaka
Contact: [email protected]
Cover design by Elaina Lee of
For the
Muse Design
(http://www.forthemusedesign.com/)
No part of this publication may be
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mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to the above
contact.
***
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***
B
raim Kotogs—a tall, green-eyed,
red-haired mage who had been told that he was a necromancer—was
pretty sure that he had been resurrected wrong.
It was a feeling that had plagued him for
the past couple of months or so, ever since he had returned to life
in the graveyard of the Arcanium, the main campus of North Academy,
the most prestigious magical school in the world, which was located
in the Great Berg, well to the north of the Northern Isles. He had
at first tried to ignore it, thinking it might just be a normal
part of the resurrection process (although, being the first human
to come to life, he had no idea what was 'normal' about coming back
to life). But it seemed to follow him wherever he went and whatever
he did, like his own shadow.
Yet Braim had said nothing of it to any
his friends. He had not mentioned it to Darek Takren, a fellow mage
who specialized in pagomancy, or ice magic, nor had he mentioned it
to Aorja Kitano, yet another fellow mage, although that was
probably because she had vanished a couple of months ago and no one
knew where she was. He was glad that she wasn't around anymore,
however, because the others had told him that Aorja was an escapee
from the most secure prison in the world and very violent.
And he still said nothing of it as he
walked through the pure white streets of the island city known as
World's End, or the Throne of the Gods, along with his friends.
Darek Takren was in the lead, wearing the pure white robes that all
Xocionian Monks—that is, mages who served the god Xocion, God of
Ice—did, in conversation with Jenur Takren, the current Magical
Superior of North Academy and Darek's mother (or adopted mother,
according to Darek).
Jenur was a middle-aged woman, though her
dark, curly hair made her look a bit younger to Braim. According to
Darek, Braim had once known Jenur prior to his first death thirty
years ago, when the two of them had been younger. Or, rather, when
Jenur
had been younger, because Braim's body was still the
exact same age as it had been when he had died years ago.
Although Braim had had his old body back
for a few months now, he still looked down at it every now and then
to make sure it looked normal. He was wearing the black-and-red
robes that all North Academy students wore, not because he himself
was a student of that school, but because it was the only clothes
that they had on hand for him when he returned from the dead. When
he had been a ghost, Braim had worked entirely without clothes, but
Darek had reminded him that nudity was generally not tolerated
among the living, so Braim had agreed to wear the robes in
public.
Even so, Braim found them stifling. While
the robes kept him quite warm up in the freezing north, World's End
was located in the warm southern seas, and the sun was out today.
He tugged at the collar of his robes, trying to let his neck
breathe, but that did little to cool him off. It didn't help that
the huge skyscrapers that towered around them reflected the sun's
rays and increased the intensity of the heat, but neither Darek nor
Jenur seemed to notice or care.
As for walking, it was a task that Braim
had learned quickly, but still he found it harder to walk with a
solid, flesh-and-blood body than with a ghostly one. As a ghost, he
had been very light, able to jump great distances with ease. As a
human, however, he was largely restricted by physics and his own
weight. Magic wasn't of much use to him, as he no longer remembered
what specific branch of magic would allow him to jump like how he
did as a ghost.
As a result, Braim was highly aware of how
awkwardly he walked. He was made even more aware of it by noticing
how naturally Darek and Jenur walked. The two of them certainly did
not give much thought as to how they walked, which made Braim
slightly jealous, despite the knowledge that he would learn how to
walk more naturally with time.
Another thing that Braim found hard to
deal with were the intense sensations that assaulted him from every
direction. As they walked through the streets of World's End, Braim
heard the odd clicking sounds that the native katabans—minor
spirits who served the gods and who called World's End their
home—made as they walked among themselves, smelled his own somewhat
sweaty body and the delicious scents wafting from what appeared to
be a katabans bakery as they passed it, and was aware of how
tightly his shoes clung to his feet. He supposed he had gotten used
to these strange sensations prior to his first death, but even
after two months of living, Braim was sometimes still overwhelmed
by the information that his body's senses fed his brain at all
times.
Stop thinking about yourself so
much,
Braim thought.
You're a living being now, not a ghost.
Every other living being on the planet doesn't think about walking
or any of this other stuff. Go with the flow. Take it easy.
Of course, whenever Braim did that, he
became aware of all of the dozens of katabans watching him and his
two friends as they made their way through the city's streets. The
katabans
looked
human enough, except for their wild and
crazy hair colors and styles that no human had. One katabans in
particular had hair that looked like the remains of a hair
explosion, sticking up in every direction and looking like a
mess.
But even if the katabans had normal hair
and hair colors, Braim could have told that they weren't human
right off the bat. The way they stood, the way they watched him,
Darek, and Jenur walk … it wasn't the typical way some humans might
view foreigners in their midst. No, these were the eyes of
completely alien creatures watching intruders on their domain,
intruders who they could do nothing about.
What a silly thought,
Braim
thought.
Us, intruders. Don't these katabans know that we were
invited to World's End by the gods themselves?
That was the truth. Only a week ago, a
messenger from the gods—some horrific titanic creature, its head
covered in smoke and its body constantly oozing the worst smelling
slime that Braim had ever had the displeasure of smelling in his
life—arrived at North Academy with an invitation to World's End for
Darek Takren, Jenur Takren, and Braim Kotogs. Braim recalled it
because he had been standing in the sports field, watching the
students practice makhaimancy (a magical discipline that combined
magic with swordplay), when the titanic messenger appeared out of
nowhere and invited Braim, Jenur, and Darek to World's End.
At the time, Braim hadn't understood why
the titan had come to him with the message first. Jenur was the
Magical Superior. Surely she should have been the first to receive
the invitation, shouldn't she have?
But now, since he and the others arrived
on World's End about a day ago, Braim finally understood why. The
three of them had been met by a katabans named Hashan, a chubby
little man with long, purple hair that looked like snakes. Hashan
had told them that he was going to be their guide, as none of them
knew their way around World's End very well, which seemed like a
good thing at the time.
Until Hashan began grilling Braim on
questions about the afterlife. The questions had been rude and
invasive. In fact, they had been so annoying that Braim had pulled
out his wand and attacked the katabans with a fire spell. Braim
barely remembered it, mostly because his memory as a mortal was
poor, especially whenever he was under any kind of stress.
All he remembered was Jenur stopping him
before he could kill Hashan, and Hashan himself running away for
his life. After that, the three humans received yet another message
from the gods informing them that they would not be receiving
another guide and that they could simply go straight to the Temple
of the Gods the next day.