The Games of Ganthrea Read online

  The Games of Ganthrea

  Andy Adams

  Classic Magic Press

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  The Games

  of Ganthrea

  ANDY ADAMS

  Classic Magic Press

  OREGON

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  THE GAMES OF GANTHREA. Copyright © 2020 by Andy Adams. All rights reserved.

  www.TheAndyAdams.com

  Cover design by Kim Dingwall. Edited by Tim Marquitz.

  Published by Classic Magic Press in Bend, Oregon.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Adams, Andy, 1986—author.

  Title: The games of ganthrea / Andy Adams

  Description: First U.S. edition. Oregon. Classic Magic Press, April, 2020.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020906055

  ISBN: 978-1-7346524-0-6 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-7346524-1-3 (ebook)

  For my Adams Adventurers—

  Avery the kind-hearted,

  Hazel the creative,

  Ben the imaginative,

  Ted the architect,

  & Andrea the amazing.

  With thanks to my favorite storytellers

  J.K. Rowling and Roald Dahl – for magic,

  Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson – for adventure,

  & Terry Gilliam and Bill Bryson – for laughter.

  Chapter One

  Windelm

  Like most parents, Windelm hoped camping would create lasting memories. In this case, he was sadly right.

  “Dinner’s nearly ready,” he said, standing next to the day’s catch: three pink trout sizzling in a frying pan, caught less than an hour ago from the river in southern Aquaperni. His young son, Seth, was sitting and pointing his mircon at boulders around their camp, using levitation spells to send them airborne and laughing whenever he uncovered an alarmed skink or lizard and sent it scurrying for the bushes.

  “I think I’ll try-out to be a healer,” Seth said, raising a rock and stacking it on another.

  “You’d have more fun as a knight,” Windelm said, flipping a fish and then cursing as bubbling olive oil spattered his hand.

  “Healers get to bring stunned teammates back to life,” said Seth. “They’re easily the most useful player on the field.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather capture glowbes and lead the charge? As a healer, you’d hang back for most of Zabrani.”

  Seth now had a small tower of stones six high. “Just ‘cause you were a knight doesn’t mean everyone wants to be one.”

  Windelm sighed. “You’re right. It’s your choice, Seth. I’ll have fun watching either—”

  What sounded like rocks cracking and a geyser erupting cut him off.

  “What was that?” Seth said, standing and flicking his brown eyes at his father.

  “I don’t know,” said Windelm, picking up his wooden mircon and walking lightly to the edge of their camp. Another rumbling sound came, and then their feet trembled. Seth’s rock column wobbled and collapsed.

  Windelm turned back to Seth. “I’m going to find out.”

  “I’m coming, too.” Seth marched next to him, mircon raised.

  “No, you’re not. You wait here.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad.”

  “We’re in wild territory. Could be poachers, or dragons, or who knows what.” Windelm put a hand on Seth’s shoulder before adding with finality, “Stay back until I come for you. Got it?”

  Seth nodded slowly, then looked at his feet.

  “Good. See you in a moment.”

  Windelm, himself an experienced sorcerer, felt his amulet warm as he engaged a flight spell with his mircon and whisked above the bushes toward the sound. After a few minutes, he came to the upper ridge overlooking a small, green valley. He dropped to the ground and crept behind a willow tree.

  Poking his head out, he saw at least a dozen spellcasters below, circled around a break in the woods. They were shooting their mircons into the ground, out of which rose a blue substance…is that elixir? thought Windelm.

  Like a fountain of navy-blue wine, the shimmering liquid gushed up in a column from the ground, then floated over and into a large black vault at the foot of a hooded man, who swiveled his head from side to side, keeping a look-out. It must be.

  As the blue elixir siphoned from the ground, a lifeless, gray color spread outward on the terrain, growing, in a matter of minutes, from the size of a pool to a pond to a lake. Along its path, trees and bushes shriveled like withered, old hands. Windelm sucked in his breath, his heart beating quicker. He had heard stories of elixir-draining, but as it was illegal in each of the seven biomes of Ganthrea, and permanently destroyed the land, he’d never seen it.

  If it were just a couple of spellcasters, Windelm thought he could stun and disarm them, but this was a small regiment, too many for him. And he was far from his home biome of Silvalo, or any city for that matter, so sending a distress spell into the sky would only make him an easy target. Better to remain unseen and return to camp, collect Seth, and fly home.

  He turned from the ridge and flew back toward camp.

  Where were these elixir thieves from? Who were they working for? His shoulders tensed when he heard a branch break somewhere behind him, and quickly thereafter a shout from the valley that haunted him ever since.

  “Oi! Got us a watcher!”

  Windelm whipped around, pointing his mircon toward the immediate trees. There was no one there. But that meant…Oh no…

  “Seth!”

  He raced back to the willow tree at the top of the ridge. Scanning the surroundings, he saw some of the men still draining the elixir. But suspended in midair by a spell from below, a look of terror on his face, was his son.

  “Kill him,” someone ordered.

  “Seth!” Windelm called, flying toward him, shooting a release spell at the cocoon wrapped around the boy—if I can just grab his hand and wrap an Aura around us both—

  His spell hit Seth; the cocoon broke. He was about to catch his son, about to get them both away to safety, when another spell ripped through Seth’s chest.

  “No!”

  Seth dropped, lifeless.

  Windelm caught him one-handed, and said the words to grow an Aura around them both, as more shots rang out from below and bounced off the shell. He flew fast and hard
away from the valley, as if he could take Seth somewhere to be mended.

  But this was not a stunning spell, he knew, as hot tears spilled down his cheeks, onto his tunic.

  This was death that even a healer couldn’t undo.

  It took days to get back to Silvalo, and more days until his wife said she forgave him, that it wasn’t his fault. But Windelm couldn’t forgive himself. He alerted the Silvalo Guard about the murder and the elixir-draining, but it was two biomes away, and they never found the men responsible.

  For the next couple years, it felt like cold, corroded chains hung from Windelm’s shoulders, and a permanent gloom enshrouded him. He let his hair and beard grow long, and felt aimless in work, marriage, everything. He came close to ending it all, and may well have, were it not for a timely message.

  A courier arrived on their doorstep one evening with a trunk. Windelm asked whom it was from, and was informed an old friend had passed on, and left this to him. There was a note. Opening it, he read,

  “Windelm, don’t let Seth’s death be the final chapter of your life. Find and nourish the good. Pick up where I left off.”

  When the courier left, he opened the trunk, finding an old violin, leather books, furry animal hides, and underneath those, sturdy tubes holding faded, rolled-up scrolls. He pulled one out. The words on it were easily hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old, neatly written in stanzas, and warning of a time where wars raged among the biomes, crippling the people within.

  All of which started with someone stealing the elixirs from Ganthrea.

  A note scrawled on the margin said, ‘there might be a way to stop it.’

  Something tugged within Windelm. He knew he couldn’t bring his son back, but perhaps he could honor Seth’s memory if he worked to prevent more deaths, to protect life.

  As he dove deeper into the scrolls in the coming days, he read about a hidden talisman. And when, two decades later, Windelm felt he may have found the very one, he discovered he couldn’t wear it. He needed someone else. Someone who didn’t carry his grief, who didn’t hunger for revenge, or power…who came from somewhere outside of Ganthrea.

  And he hadn’t been back to Earth in nearly fifty years.

  Chapter Two

  Two Colors in the

  Cottonwood Tower

  "Hey, Wheezeridge! Stop littering!”

  Book in hand, Brenner turned just as a red car zoomed next to him, a can hurtling out the driver’s window. Before he could jump to the side, it hit him in the shoulder, spattering soda on his shirt, backpack, and outstretched book. Brenner stood paralyzed.

  “Ha!” Stew Guffman yelled at Brenner as he flicked a finger out the driver’s window, his sleek black hair blowing as he drove off into the suburbs of Colorado Springs.

  “…freaking… jerk…” Brenner muttered as the car vanished past a bend. He tried, without much success, to clean the Coke off his shirt and book. What I wouldn’t give to watch him get pounded, Brenner thought. But that was a pipe dream. The older senior had what Brenner sorely lacked: size, friends, and the feeling that oftentimes accompanies those—confidence. He kicked at the can, angry at Guffman and angry at himself for being so engrossed in a story that he forgot to take a quieter route to the woods after school.

  As it was a bit over a mile to his tower, it would have been more convenient if he could run—indeed much of his social life would have been better if he could grow four more inches and run faster than a twelve-minute mile. But Brenner Wahlridge was short for a sophomore—short for anyone, really—and to cap it off had asthma, both of which the students at Clemson High kindly reminded him of in gym class…and in the cafeteria …and in the hallways...

  He sighed. He still had to survive another two years and three months of this before he could hit restart, and hope for something better in college. He buried himself in his book again and kept walking.

  Twenty minutes later, on a trail under tall pines, Brenner had mostly pushed Guffman out of his mind. He liked the afternoon soundtrack of the woods: the early spring wind weaving through the pines and through his short, sandy-blonde hair; chickadees chirruping in the canopy; and if he was lucky, deer brushing through the undergrowth.

  For the past six years, the thing that gave him pleasure was a self-made tree tower. Here was a quiet place to think and read away from school, away from bullies, and away from his house.

  Ever since he could remember, Brenner’s house was a cacophony of noise: his father claimed he didn’t have a hearing problem, yet always blared games of football, basketball, baseball, drafts, and any ESPN highlights on the biggest TV; his brother was in the bedroom next to Brenner’s, firing live rounds into enemy soldiers in his video games; and his mother (when she was home) added to the din with dramatic, breathless exchanges of her soap operas—turned all the way up to drown out the other two screens.

  Perhaps Brenner would’ve watched one of the TVs, but he grew bored whenever he was not actively doing or reading something, and more pressingly, he developed headaches whenever sounds grew beyond conversation level or too many noises jammed together, which meant he spent most of his time outside. Even still, there were suburbia sounds of the neighbor’s Rottweiler barking, lawn-mowers cutting or, more continuously, cars rumbling at 40-50 mph on the major street behind their fence.

  Then one summer before 4th grade, when his older brother was at football practice and his parents were working, Brenner was hiking along the public forest of his subdivision when he noticed a silvery-white tree (an Eastern Cottonwood, he later discovered), thick as a rhino, rising well over ten stories high, and probably old enough that early pioneers would have seen it while heading west.

  As he looked at it, an idea came to him for a building of his own. He started drawing an elaborate tower tucked away in the branches of the Cottonwood.

  After much asking, his parents, Albert Wahlridge, a no-nonsense accountant, and Miranda Wahlridge, a flashy sales executive, allowed Brenner to use a portion of the small backyard for storing free lumber he collected from the city recycling center—“So long as it doesn’t attract rats! This isn’t the old Plint farm!” More than once Brenner had overheard them complaining about how they were supposed to have zero children and live comfortably, but instead, wound up with a child, Jeff, whom they regarded as a one-and-done son, and then eight years later, had another setback: unplanned, largely unwanted, and peculiar Brendon, who showed little interest in watching either of the 70” TV screens, instead choosing to go read outside or fiddle with tools in the garage.

  For Christmas, they got him some nails and old wood, which would have been okay if they were sturdy, but judging from the dust and spider webs clinging to the boards, Brenner surmised were from the crawl space beneath their house. When the snow melted that year, he hauled wagonloads of his stockpiled lumber to the foot of the cottonwood. He nailed eight steps at two feet intervals on the lee side of the tree, but soon realized that lifting, holding, and fitting the crossbeams together would require another person.

  Promising to do his older brother’s scrubbing, vacuuming and laundry chores for a week if he helped lift boards for a day, Brenner persuaded Jeff to hold support beams in place while he screwed them to the tree. Jeff worked with him for a couple of hours, mostly muttering angrily to himself, and as Brenner was securing the last of the foundation beams, a horsefly landed on Jeff’s neck.

  “Ouch!” he yelled, swatting at the bug, “That’s it, I quit! Bye, munchkin.”

  “You can’t quit now,” Brenner said. “We still have to set up the floorboards and sides.”

  “No, you do. I’m going to go meet Steve at his house and throw footballs around with him.”

  Brenner frowned. “You didn’t stick out the whole day. That was the deal.”

  “Deal-shmeal, you still have to do my chores for a week.”

  “Two days.”

  “A week, or I pound you now before I go home.”

  Brenner glared at his older brother…but he still ha
d plenty of work to do without black-and-blue welts on his arms.

  “Fine, a week.”

  “That’s right,” Jeff said, then turned and stomped out of the woods.

  Brenner lost a couple hours assembling a pulley and rigging system, but moments like those taught him a useful skill: self-reliance. By the following week, on top of doing all Jeff’s chores early in the mornings, he had nailed down the floor section and created a trapdoor entrance where the tree trunk met the floorboards. Several weeks later he had four sides and the roof built, which he camouflaged with leafy branches. That summer he became fixated on famous inventors and explorers, reading about Benjamin Franklin, Lewis and Clark, Gaudi, Tesla, and Shackleton. Whenever the sun was out, and he wasn’t forced to do chores at home, he was either immersed in a book or adding to his tree tower.