Guardians of Aandor Book III
Blood of Ten Kings
©2018 Edward Lazellari
CHAPTER
9
A prince among men
Daniel
awoke in a dark wood. The queasiness, aching joints, and vertigo were
bad...worse than the morning after he and Adrian snuck off with Mr. Lutz's pint
of Jägermeister--which he and Adrian surmised must be the German word for
Nyquil.
Daniel
tried to stand up, but his head weighed fifty pounds and pressed him back on
his ass--the world was two sets of swaying phantom images attempting to
converge into a single picture. He closed his eyes and put his head between his
knees for a moment. Then, slowly, he lifted his head and looked around.
The
brush was dense and riddled with thorns and thistles that threatened to scratch
out an eye and scar you like a rabid coon. A smoky haze softening the edges of
the world reminded Daniel of old Hollywood movies that used nylons over the
lenses to soften actresses past their prime. The forest smelled of bacon.
The
last thing he remembered in the meadow was trying to help Seth and then a
searing light. Then just infinite blackness--he and his friends were specks of
dust flying through an immeasurable vacuum. Daniel couldn't gauge their
velocity, but millions of lines of light, what he could only imagine were
entire universes, riffled past like the edges of discs in a cosmic jukebox--in
the deep reptilian recesses of his mind, he knew that if they'd collided with
so much as a stray proton, they would be obliterated. And then they fell toward
one disk...and then they were pulled toward the darkest pool in that light,
like a still lake as seen from the air. It drew them like a beacon in the
storm. Lelani did something--though how she could move or think in that state
was beyond comprehension--she changed their course. The wizard found a stream
away from the dark spot and diverted them all--but it was rough...literally
fighting momentum and thrust from midair.
And
then he woke up here...alone.
