The Inner Realm Read online

  The Inner Realm

  Book 2 of the GodSword Chronicles

  by

  DALE FURSE

  Copyright © Dale Furse 2015

  All rights reserved. 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 permission in writing from the publisher.

  The Inner Realm Book 2 in the GodSword Chronicles

  Published in 2015 by DCF Books

  Cover design by Laura Wright LaRoche

  Interior layout and formatting by Polgarus Studio

  Catalogue-in-Publication details available from the National Library of Australia

  Catalogue-in-Publication details available

  from the National Library of Australia

  ISBN 978-0-9923287-6-4 (ebk)

  Also available in paperback

  ISBN: 978-0-9923287-7-1

  Copyright © Dale Furse 2015

  This book is a work of fiction and all characters and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or any events, past or present, are purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  A Note from the Author

  Chapter 1

  Mike grinned as he made his way through the scrub separating the town centre from his family’s home. He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes and snorted. Who would have guessed girls liked messy hair and sweat-soaked martial arts uniforms? He was glad his friend had suggested they go to town after practice, although he really needed a hot shower. He must have smelled to high heaven.

  He thought of all the girls in town wondering if he wanted a closer relationship with any of them. He found all of them charming but none of them seemed right. He drew in a noisy breath. Was he too fussy or did he just get bored easily?

  Mike was so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed how dark it had become until he tripped over a loose rock in his path. He stumbled forward, trying to regain his balance, but his foot found a hole in the path. He grunted as his legs crumpled underneath him and as he fell onto the ground, something burned the top of his outer thigh.

  More worried about the state of his foot, he sat up and enclosed his hands around his ankle. Please don’t let it be broken or sprained. He had his black belt grading coming up and he had to be at his fittest to pass. He squeezed and prodded, but it didn’t seem injured in the slightest.

  The burning in his thigh grabbed his attention and he twisted his lower body, but could not see anything. Thinking it must have been a bite; he rubbed the spot and found his uniform had a rip in it. He pressed his hand on the painful spot and wet covered his palm. He peered at his hand. Although he could hardly see, he knew it was blood. Carefully, he searched the surrounding area with his hands for the instrument that had cut him until he picked up a short, rusty saw. He groaned. He could not remember the last time he had a tetanus injection. He hated needles.

  He fingered the wound. It wasn’t very deep, but he had to get home and clean it.

  Glancing about at the near-complete darkness surrounding him, a chill ran down Mike’s spine. He held his breath as his heartbeat quickened. A gushing sound floated through the darkness, making the small hairs on the back of his neck stand tall. Mike stood up and scanned the area.

  The town centre wasn’t far, so he figured it was just some kids looking for some fun. He grinned widely and stepped into his fight-ready stance. He wouldn’t mind some fun himself.

  A minute later, he realized he could no longer hear any sounds. He frowned. There was no one within shouting distance.

  The bushland wasn’t dense, but he couldn’t make out a single shrub or tree trunk. Wind whooshed through the top of the trees, rattling the leaves. It must have only been a gust because it passed by, leaving the trees quiet and still. It was strange that not a breath of wind had touched his face as it passed.

  He wet his finger and held it high in front of him. Not a wisp of breeze, no cicadas, frogs, possums, not even a curlew. Nothing. A shiver ran up his backbone.

  He gazed up at the sky. The wind must have brought clouds in because he couldn’t see the moon. Eyes wide, he twisted his head in all directions. Fog surrounded him.

  Summer in Trevel was hot, but the foggy mist chilled the droplets of sweat still on his skin. He shivered again and stretched out his arms, fingers becoming lost in the murkiness.

  He stumbled over the uneven ground again, sensing the moon’s glow trying to penetrate the mist.

  Sometimes the moon’s rays pushed through the fog. The light cast peculiar shadows across his way. Something to his left loomed towards him and he started. With his heart pounding in his throat, he peered across his shoulder. His legs tensed, ready to fight.

  Focusing his sight, he chuckled at the tree stump, misshapen in the weird light.

  Branches on either side of the narrow path stretched out and over him like ancient, gnarled fingers. Witch’s fingers, he thought. He took a deep breath and laughed at a seventeen-year-old being afraid of a few trees. “Witch’s fingers,” he said to the emptiness. Lucky no one was there to witness his antics. The girls wouldn’t think him so cool if they saw him at that moment.

  He waved his hands in front of his body, fingers outstretched in search of any obstacle in his path. Keeping his eyes down, he picked his way along the track. The fog was so dense it crawled over his face and settled in his hair.

  Hissing sounded to his right. He stopped. Great. A snake. Tree snakes were probably hunting frogs near the shallow stream running parallel to the path. He stomped on the ground and moved forward. He couldn’t see a thing, so if it was a snake he wouldn’t know until it was too late.

  A noise came out of the silence ahead of him. He frowned trying to place the sound. What kind of animal sobbed? He tilted his head toward the sound and crept forward. The fog was no longer pea soup, but more like weak chicken broth.

  Another sobbing sound.

  And another.

  The sobs ran together. He scratched a wet itchy spot on the side of his head. It sounded like a child crying, but what would a child be doing out in the bush at that time of night? He almost laughed and continued on his slow, but tentative, way. Lots of animals made noises like tha—probably possums.

  He rounded a ghost gum tree and wondered if a pixie sat on the ground before him in the hazy light. An arm enclosed in an oversized, purple sleeve covered its face. Mike stepped closer and gazed down at the child. “What are you doing out here?”

  The child dropped his arm from his wet face. Big, almond-shaped blue eyes stood out on his dirt-smudged face. “I’m lost.” He hiccupped.

  Mike snorted. His mother and stepfather recently had a baby. All it did was eat, cry and poop. Baby Derek took up all their time and Mike was left to his own devices. Not that he minded. He liked not having to answer to them for his every movement.

  He regarded
the boy for a moment and guessed he was about six or seven. A blind man on a galloping horse could see the boy was scared. Bloody kids, who would want them?

  He sighed. “What’s your name, kid?”

  The kid hiccupped again. “Terni.”

  Weird name. Mike moved closer. He crouched on his haunches in front of the child. “Where do you live?”

  A faint rumbling sounded behind Mike. The noise grew so loud Mike ducked and covered his ears with his hands.

  Once the sound faded, he asked the boy, “You okay?”

  The boy’s hands still covered his ears as he gazed up with scared blue eyes blinking, but he nodded.

  Mike shook his head and looked around. The frothy haze rose until it hung low like a roof making the top of the tallest trees invisible. “This is like something out of a horror movie.” He spoke more to himself than the boy.

  He took a deep breath. None of it made sense. Even if the fog had disappeared altogether, it still would not have made any sense. He shivered his shoulders, trying to get rid of the alarm in his mind.

  He had to get home. Dan would explain what happened.

  Peering at Terni’s blotchy face and wide eyes, the thought struck him they were the same color and shape as his uncle’s eyes. The painting of two men, twin brothers, his mother had given him for his eighth birthday came to mind. Mike’s father had the same black hair and brown eyes as Mike, and his uncle Ternith’s features were similar to the boy’s fair-haired looks.

  Mike figured his father would expect him to help the kid. At least the man in his mother’s stories would have expected him to.

  “I want to go home,” the boy said.

  “Of course you do, kid. Believe me, so do I. Which way do you think your home is?”

  The boy stood up and pointed behind Mike in the direction of the chicken farm. Mike nodded.

  Curly, fair hair flopped over the boy’s ears. A red cord hung from the neck of his oversized orange shirt with purple sleeves. Mike thought it looked like something hippies wore. The boy’s green shorts stopped below his knees and he didn’t wear any shoes. Terni, or someone else, had glued little white wings to the back of his heels.

  Mike pointed to the wings. “Were you going to a fancy dress party?”

  “What is a fancy dress party?”

  “It’s a party where you get dressed up.”

  “I’ve been to parties, and we wear our best clothes. Is that what you mean?”

  Mike shook his head and frowned. “What’s with the wings then?”

  “I’m a messenger.”

  “Of course you are.” Mike laughed, he had read stories of the Roman god, Mercury, and assumed that was the boy’s costume. “The wings make you run faster, don’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, little messenger, let’s get you on your way. Your mother will be having a fit by now.” Mike straightened.

  Mike was tired and he still had to wash his dobok for the grading on the weekend. He might scrape through with a pass again, but if it wasn’t for the girls liking his uniform, he’d probably give Taekwondo up so he could go to the rifle range with his stepfather more often.

  They had gone about ten paces before a shadowy, stonewall loomed under the ceiling of fog and blocked their way.

  “Huh?” gasped Mike. “Where did that come from?”

  “It’s how I got here,” Terni said.

  “What?” Mike asked the question but didn’t listen for an answer. He was too busy unscrambling his brain. It had been two weeks since he walked the path to the farm. Could someone have built the wall in two weeks? He didn’t know. Maybe.

  Or this boy, who looked so much like his long-lost uncle, wasn’t from Earth but from his parents’ world.

  Hang on. Imagination overload. They were made-up tales: stories his mother had told him since he was kid.

  His mother had said she arrived in Trevel after she had escaped Zandell by going through a door in a wall of doors. For some reason his father’s painted image popped into his mind again. He had never thought about Micah so much. His mother had never told him the real story of how Micah was lost. As he got older, he began to think it must have been a horrific accident—so bad, his mother had blocked out the whole event and replaced it with the fairy tale.

  Mike threw his head back and gazed up. The fog had drifted away. Moonbeams, free to travel to the earth, shone and shimmered on metal hinges. He peered up, but couldn’t see the top of the wall, nor could he see where it ended in either direction through the dark. He laughed silently at how everything seemed exaggerated at night. The wall wouldn’t look so big in the daylight. Groups of three wooden doors separated by stone lined the bottom of the structure.

  He pointed at the wall. “You came through there?”

  Terni nodded.

  “Which door then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’s got to be one of them.” Mike gripped Terni’s hand and studied the wall. Maybe the owners of the farm had sold it and a developer built the wall to stop people from using the track. He guessed all the doors opened up to the same block of land.

  Mike tried to pull Terni closer, but the kid didn’t budge. “Now what’s the matter? Scared there might be a big dog behind the wrong door? Don’t worry kid, I can handle dogs.”

  “I don’t know what’s behind the other doors.” Terni, pale as the moon, tried to back away. “I was lucky I found you, but there could be scary creatures in there.” He peered at the doors one by one.

  “Now you’re just being silly.” Even his mother’s made-up stories never mentioned scary creatures. He yanked Terni toward the nearest door. “We have to try one of them.”

  “No!” Terni yelped.

  “Do you want to get home or not?” Mike pulled the handle on the middle door of the first set of three. It did not budge. He twisted up then down. Still nothing. “Oh, well. It can’t be this one. Let’s try this one.” He tugged the handle of the door on the right. It opened.

  Sunlight poured through the opening. He blinked and spun his head toward home. Night. He peered back through the door. Day. Impossible. He gaped at the rolling green plain before him. Terni ducked under his arm.

  “It looks like my home.” The kid barreled through the doorway.

  Mike stepped through after him. “Wait.” He stalled and glanced over his shoulder. Night and his familiar bush, still there. He threw his head back to take in the sky. Clear blue. He couldn’t see the sun, but knew it had to be there somewhere.

  It crossed his mind he hadn’t gone for a walk. He must have gone to bed and he was dreaming but he still wore his uniform. Dreams were always weird.

  Happy to think he was dreaming, his imagination and curiosity got the better of him, and he moved away from the door. A bang sounded behind him.

  Wheeling on his heels, Mike fell against the closed door. There was no handle. His heart skipped a beat. The surface was hard, but smooth under his hands as he trailed them over the door. There was no indentation or sign of a handle anywhere. He fisted his hands and punched the door. “Ow.” He tried to shake the agony out of his hands. He couldn’t lose it now. He just had to figure out how to make the door open again.

  Shoulders slumping, Mike stood back and took in the length and height of the wall. Clear in the sunlight, its height stretched up and into the puffy, alabaster clouds. To his right, it appeared to shrink toward the horizon, but to his left, the wall disappeared into the bush. He turned away from the wall to find Terni, but snapped his head back toward the forest of trees. He frowned. The trees had pink trunks.

  He stared. The near uniform trees were tall and straight with pale green sprouts of foliage bursting from pink branches. Iridescent purple and green shrubbery filled the spaces between them. He wondered if he was seeing things. Had he hurt his head somewhere?

  Chapter 2

  Hankley strolled through the artifact rooms. Things, the Inner Realm God had taken away from his Realm’s worlds, lined
row after row, room after room. His gaze slid past statues of humans and beasts, deadly weapons of all sizes, and pieces of bizarre technology.

  At the end of the first row, he pulled the Sword of Dragonlee from its stand. It had come from the world Etarnees, where knights fought dragons and jousted in grand tournaments.

  With his brown robe swirling, he spun full circle and raised the sword above his head, coming within a breath of the goblet of fire. Keeping the sword moving, he twisted and turned, imagining he was fighting a great beast.

  He was surprised at the steadiness of his feet. With the sword in his hand, his balance was perfect—so different from his usual clumsiness. He hadn’t struck or knocked over one artifact.

  “Ah,” he shouted. “You have had enough, great dragon of Etarnees.” He bowed to his invisible foe. “Thank you. I enjoyed our fight this day.” He saluted the dragon in his mind. “Until we meet again.” He turned to replace the sword in its stand.

  Oln’s voice boomed behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Hankley pushed the sword into place harder than he meant to. The stone stand wobbled and struck the glass statue standing behind it. He scrambled behind the statue of Azu and caught it. With slippery hands, he jerked it back into place.

  Heat filled his cheeks as he side stepped out from behind Azu’s likeness and faced the God of the Inner Realm.

  Oln was magnificent. Even his black robe glowed in the presence of his heavenly brilliance. His smooth, hairless face was serene, and his blue, diamond eyes twinkled.

  In all the centuries he had served Oln, Hankley had never seen his god angry, irritated sometimes, but never angry.

  Oln’s voice lowered to a friendly tone. “Shouldn’t you be training the Shanks?”

  Hankley bent forward in a deep bow. He did not want to train Shank One and Shank Two. Although Two was more intelligent than his brother, he still wasn’t the cleverest being in any of the realms, not by a long shot. He had no idea why Oln wanted them to train as wall keepers, and he doubted he could ever achieve the feat.