As of September 2025, Sorcerers Reborn: Orighen has now been published.
This is just a teaser, the first chapter and a half.
This is just a teaser, the first chapter and a half.
Sorcerers Reborn
Orighen
PART 1: TORAVESON
CHAPTER 1
Seting the Stage
-->
Sky took charge of the flow of magic before anyone could intervene. A flash of blue light surrounded the closely gathered group, and in an instant they were gone, leaving a slightly charred open space in front of the barn. Jason tried to think of anything to stay conscious, but his thoughts scattered before him. As he drifted into the void of unconsciousness, he wondered if this was the end.
A meteor shot across the night sky and vanished into the heavens. The darkness faded to an unusual gray fog.
The fog in front of him dissipated. Jason was standing in a canyon. The walls were about sixty centar apart and one-hundred centar high. Looking at his surroundings, he realized he was holding his staff, but the hand that held it was that of his former self, Dewayne. Looking down at himself, he saw Dewayne's long white hair and beard. Jason felt the weight of his two swords, quiver, and the bow on his back. A sound coming from farther up the canyon alerted him. It sounded like a marching band without the music. Soldiers marching four abreast rounded the bend in the canyon two-hundred centar away. When they noticed him standing there, they stopped!
Jason watched as a black-robed man pushed his way through the soldiers. The soldiers spread out, forming twelve lines, and drew their swords. The hooded man held his hand out, and his fingers curled back toward his palm. A ball of reddish-orange energy began forming just above his hand. Jason knew what was coming and lowered his staff. With a thought, he sent a
1
RICHARD B.
bolt of blue energy at the man's hand. When the two powers met, they exploded, killing the hooded man and the soldiers surrounding him.
The remaining soldiers began running toward Jason, and as he reached behind himself, he changed back into his Jason persona. The ring of his swords as they slid from their scabbards was the last sound he heard, before everything went black once more.
Samorjet left the council chamber and stopped at her apartment. She put what she would need for her journey into a backpack. She donned her dark travel cloak and went to the transportation grounds. Samorjet did not tell the council everything about her quest to find the Book of Sorcery. She was sure she knew where it was—on Orighen. Her primary concern was finding the Sorcerer who had picked up the book on Earth. Geldania would be the continent he would go to. The book had been replaced; however, the council still wanted it back.
Traveling requires sufficient energy to get you where you were going. Sometimes, you had to hop from world to world to get to the one you were going to, resting for a heclon or two before your next hop. Time was not a factor when you went on quests like the one she was on now. The first dozen times she had traveled were hard on her. She had arrived at her destination unconscious.
However, that diminished with each trip she made until she learned the nuances of how to store enough energy before her journey began. Samorjet had been to Orighen before and knew a place she could travel to safely. She fixed the image in her mind; a shroud of blue-white light surrounded her, and she vanished.
Samorjet arrived at the location she had locked in her mind. She would stay there for a heclon to regain the power she had spent getting there. She would find the one she was looking for and confront him.
2
Sorcerers Reborn
Binling followed the trail he had followed a thousand times before. He was going to Tay'Ronic from the city of Tay'Ron. Binling spent two or three haclonas every winter in the three major cities. He did not see eye-to-eye with the current High Priests sitting on the thrones of the three cities, not that he had ever agreed with any High Priest since Tay'Ron had fallen to the Geldanian Sorcerer at the end of the Great War.
Binling looked up at the moon, Menta, the smallest of the three. His gray skin looked silver in its light. Traveling at night was safer for him because of who he was. He was a Southern Sorcerer, and few others traveled at night. He came to a resting place and consumed a cold meal. That is when he felt something he had not felt in thousands of winters: Someone–or something–was coming to the Southern Continent.
Binling rose and looked to the northeast. He sensed the meteor as it rushed toward him, growing stronger with every helecna. When it entered the atmosphere, it turned a brilliant blue, with a matching tail trailing behind. Binling followed its slowing path southwest. It fell below the horizon, and in a dozen helecna, he saw the dim light of its landing. The feeling was gone. It had to be a large group of people or something huge for him to sense its magical powers at this distance, or he would never have felt it.
Binling sat down and considered whether it would be in his best interest to search for this new magic or to leave it where it was. He made up his mind to leave it. Depending on the weather and other travelers, his journey to Tay'Ronic would take him three or four heclona.
Standing in the southwest tower of the castle in Tay'Ronic, watching the night sky, Zakhar felt a strange tingling. The sensation grew, and then a bolt of blue light appeared, rushing,
3
RICHARD B.
southwest until it vanished below the horizon. A few helecna later, he saw a faint flash of light. He looked at Yegor, his head advisor.
“Did you see that, Yegor? Did you feel it?”
“I saw and felt it, My Lord,” Yegor replied.
“What do you suppose that was?”
Yegor scrunched his face, thinking, “It could have been magic, My Lord. I have seen many falling stars, My Lord and felt nothing coming from them.”
“If the star possesses magic, Yegor, it must be found and brought to me. I am, after all, the High Priest of Tay'Ronic.”
“Interim High Priest, My Lord.”
“Once that star is in my possession, I will be the supreme High Priest of Toraveson, Yegor. Send Flo'Ron to me in the throne room. I need to have a patrol on the road by sunrise.”
“Is that necessary, My Lord? Gornag's patrol did not come back last harvest season. He would be closer to the crash site and is probably already searching for this magic.”
“Gornag has already tried to kill me once, Yegor. I doubt he will willingly turn the magic over to me. I trust Flo'Ron. Do as I ask, Yegor.”
“As you wish, My Lord.”
Olaf jumped out of bed, grabbed a robe draped over the back of a chair, and ran through the hallway and up the stairs to the top of the southeast tower in the castle in Tay'Ron. His trusted advisor, Anu, was standing beside him, looking toward the south.
“I do not know what it was, My Lord, but it was a bright blue ball of fire. It may have crashed far to the south–in the mountains, perhaps.”
4
Sorcerers Reborn
“I have felt this before, Anu. When we first came to this world, it felt like this. I felt it again when the Geldanian soldier killed Tay'Ron. With his last breath, Tay'Ron obliterated the six sorcerers and their cat. They vanished right before our eyes. This ball of fire possessed magic, Anu.”
“We must be the first ones to find it, My Lord. Nagor is down there, somewhere. Perhaps he has felt this magic falling star and is looking for it? Or do you wish to send another patrol to look for it?”
Olaf considered Anu's suggestions. “Nagor is an idiot, Anu. This is not the first time he has failed to return home from his patrol. Maybe he enjoys spending time amongst the villagers. Find Tolar. Tell him to take two of the younger sorcerers and twenty soldiers and inform him I have ordered this patrol to only look for the fallen star. Do not gather any recruits or go on a killing spree.”
“I will see to it immediately, My Lord,” Anu said.
Usman walked into the throne room and sat in the gilded chair of the High Priest in Tay'Ronis. He looked at the maps, reports, and battle plans scattered on the table before him. What he felt while on the southwest battlements disturbed him. He had only sensed sorcery that powerful when Tay'Ron had met his end at the hands of that Geldanian soldier during the Great War.
“Gogol,” he called to the thin, pale sorcerer at the other end of the table. “Find Belden. What we experienced tonight on the battlements was something of great power. That power belongs to Tay'Ronis, the first line of defense against an attack on Toraveson. Tell Belden to take twelve soldiers and an apprentice. He is to go southeast toward the mountains in the province of Tay'Ron. Explain to him the importance of his mission. He will bring whatever magical artifact he finds back here to me.”
Gogol bowed to Usman, “I will send Belden on his way by sunrise, My Lord.”
5
Richard B. Ogle
Chapter 2
Home of the Freeborn
Riesa and her patrol walked through the sparse forest, looking for the southern soldiers and their masters. She was tense, knowing what the southern Sorcerers would do to them if they found her and her soldiers before they found them. A southern Sorcerer stepped out from behind a tree, forming a ball of fire. She raised her bow and fired just as he released the fireball. She saw her arrow strike the evil one in the chest. As he fell to the ground, Riesa turned to see the fireball strike Winona. There was nothing Riesa could do but watch as Winona burst into flame and was consumed.
Riesa sat bolt upright in her bed, throwing the covers off and standing up. The nightmares continued to haunt her. That wasn’t what woke her. “What is that?” she said aloud. Riesa concentrated on the thing that woke her. It was just a feeling, but it was intense and getting stronger. The curtain to her sleeping quarters muted the light from the other room. She went to the bathing room to freshen up and get dressed in full armor.
Riesa pushed the curtain aside and went into the living area of her apartment. She pinched two leaves from the alova plant and popped them into her mouth. They dissolved and filled her mouth with a sour-sweet flavor as she chewed them. Riesa grabbed her sword belt from the hook by the door and strapped it around her waist, adjusting it accordingly. She pulled the six braided lengths of her blond hair from under the sword belt and entered the hallway where two soldiers stood at attention by the entrance to the corridor, a dozen metra away. Riesa walked up and they saluted and stepped aside, giving her room to pass between them.
“Something feels off this morning,” she said, looking at the two.
“It is the middle of the night, General,” Darian said.
“Did you have another nightmare, Sir?” Tania asked.
“It was not the nightmare that woke me, Tania,” Riesa replied. “It was something else I cannot explain right now.”
Riesa gave Darian a disapproving look, “Do either of you feel that something may be out of place? Do you sense something or someone in the large cavern at the top of the stairs?”
Tania spoke first. “We did feel something strange, Sir. I felt it first a while ago, and Darian also felt it. Should we rouse the others and prepare for an invasion?”
Riesa shushed her. “Not right now, Tania. I need a mug of tack to shake off the drowsiness of sleep. Go and find the healers Annabel and Gwyneth. Darian, wake commanders Megan and Crispian and have them meet me in the dining hall.”
“But your guard, Sir…” Darian began until he saw the stern look on the General's face. The two saluted her and left to do her bidding.
Riesa walked down the hall, wondering, as she often did, about the lights in the center of the arched ceiling that came on as you approached them. They do not give off smoke as a torch does and go off after you pass. She shook her head at her obsession with the strange lighting in the Freeborn's home. She came to the stairs that led to the dining hall. She entered the hall where the usual off duty workers and soldiers sat with their meals and drinks.
Riesa walked up to the serving counter that separated the dining hall from the kitchen, picking up a plate with sweet rolls and a mug filled with the dark, bittersweet brew called tack. The tacken plant grew to about five metrae tall and was harvested after it flowered, then hung
6
Sorcerers Reborn
upside down till it dried. The leaves were steeped in hot water to brew them, and the seeds were planted to ensure they always had future crops.
A young woman in the kitchen, who was forming the dough into loaves, stopped what she was doing and began walking toward her, wiping her hands on her apron. Riesa waved her off, indicating that all she required was the mug of tack and a couple of rolls. She sat at an empty table with her steaming cup and waited for Annabel and Gwyneth to arrive. Annabel arrived first and motioned to Riesa that she would be right there. The healer had probably worked all night. Annabel picked up a mug and a jug of wine and sat facing Riesa.
“Gwyneth will be along shortly; she was in the middle of delivering Viola's baby. Nightmares again, or do you feel something has come for a visit? Both Gwyneth and I have felt it, too. I am sure that all the healers have felt the same.”
“Yes, Annabel, the nightmares continue. That is not what woke me this night, my friend. I am not a healer, Annabel, so why do I feel it?”
“That is simple, Riesa. When you came here so many years ago, I was told that your mother was a healer before a Sorcerer took her life. You forget you served with us as a healer until you decided to join the army. You may be the General now, but when you came here, you were a healer, Riesa. That is why you feel it, too.”
Riesa didn’t want to admit it, but Annabel was right.
“Whatever it is, it is above us now. I would guess it is in the large cavern at the top of the spiral stairs. We are going to have to go up there to look around. I have felt this kind of feeling before, Annabel, out on patrol. This reminds me of our enemy. Sorcerers feel a lot like this when they are close by.”
Gwyneth walked into the dining hall with Tania, and they went to the serving area and picked up mugs. As she sat beside Annabel, Gwenyth said, “We have another male child born to us today, and it appears we also have something or someone upstairs?”
Thats all folks.
Richard B.
Home
Forward
Back
Copyright © 1998 by Richard B. All rights reserved.
Pages, graphics, and code on this web site are the property of Richard B.
Any other content found on this website may not be
reproduced or redistributed in any way, shape, or form
without the EXPLICIT, WRITTEN permission of Richard B.
Failure to do so is a violation of copyright laws.
This website was built and designed by: Richard B.
Sky took charge of the flow of magic before anyone could intervene. A flash of blue light surrounded the closely gathered group, and in an instant they were gone, leaving a slightly charred open space in front of the barn. Jason tried to think of anything to stay conscious, but his thoughts scattered before him. As he drifted into the void of unconsciousness, he wondered if this was the end. A meteor shot across the night sky and vanished into the heavens. The darkness faded to an unusual gray fog.
The fog in front of him dissipated. Jason was standing in a canyon. The walls were about sixty centar apart and one-hundred centar high. Looking at his surroundings, he realized he was holding his staff, but the hand that held it was that of his former self, Dewayne. Looking down at himself, he saw Dewayne's long white hair and beard. Jason felt the weight of his two swords, quiver, and the bow on his back. A sound coming from farther up the canyon alerted him. It sounded like a marching band without the music. Soldiers marching four abreast rounded the bend in the canyon two-hundred centar away. When they noticed him standing there, they stopped!
Jason watched as a black-robed man pushed his way through the soldiers. The soldiers spread out, forming twelve lines, and drew their swords. The hooded man held his hand out, and his fingers curled back toward his palm. A ball of reddish-orange energy began forming just above his hand. Jason knew what was coming and lowered his staff. With a thought, he sent a
bolt of blue energy at the man's hand. When the two powers met, they exploded, killing the hooded man and the soldiers surrounding him.
The remaining soldiers began running toward Jason, and as he reached behind himself, he changed back into his Jason persona. The ring of his swords as they slid from their scabbards was the last sound he heard, before everything went black once more.
Samorjet left the council chamber and stopped at her apartment. She put what she would need for her journey into a backpack. She donned her dark travel cloak and went to the transportation grounds. Samorjet did not tell the council everything about her quest to find the Book of Sorcery. She was sure she knew where it was—on Orighen. Her primary concern was finding the Sorcerer who had picked up the book on Earth. Geldania would be the continent he would go to. The book had been replaced; however, the council still wanted it back.
Traveling requires sufficient energy to get you where you were going. Sometimes, you had to hop from world to world to get to the one you were going to, resting for a heclon or two before your next hop. Time was not a factor when you went on quests like the one she was on now. The first dozen times she had traveled were hard on her. She had arrived at her destination unconscious.
However, that diminished with each trip she made until she learned the nuances of how to store enough energy before her journey began. Samorjet had been to Orighen before and knew a place she could travel to safely. She fixed the image in her mind; a shroud of blue-white light surrounded her, and she vanished. Samorjet arrived at the location she had locked in her mind. She would stay there for a heclon to regain the power she had spent getting there. She would find the one she was looking for and confront him.
Binling followed the trail he had followed a thousand times before. He was going to Tay'Ronic from the city of Tay'Ron. Binling spent two or three haclonas every winter in the three major cities. He did not see eye-to-eye with the current High Priests sitting on the thrones of the three cities, not that he had ever agreed with any High Priest since Tay'Ron had fallen to the Geldanian Sorcerer at the end of the Great War.
Binling looked up at the moon, Menta, the smallest of the three. His gray skin looked silver in its light. Traveling at night was safer for him because of who he was. He was a Southern Sorcerer, and few others traveled at night. He came to a resting place and consumed a cold meal. That is when he felt something he had not felt in thousands of winters: Someone–or something–was coming to the Southern Continent.
Binling rose and looked to the northeast. He sensed the meteor as it rushed toward him, growing stronger with every helecna. When it entered the atmosphere, it turned a brilliant blue, with a matching tail trailing behind. Binling followed its slowing path southwest. It fell below the horizon, and in a dozen helecna, he saw the dim light of its landing. The feeling was gone. It had to be a large group of people or something huge for him to sense its magical powers at this distance, or he would never have felt it.
Binling sat down and considered whether it would be in his best interest to search for this new magic or to leave it where it was. He made up his mind to leave it. Depending on the weather and other travelers, his journey to Tay'Ronic would take him three or four heclona.
Standing in the southwest tower of the castle in Tay'Ronic, watching the night sky, Zakhar felt a strange tingling. The sensation grew, and then a bolt of blue light appeared, rushing,
RICHARD B.
southwest until it vanished below the horizon. A few helecna later, he saw a faint flash of light. He looked at Yegor, his head advisor. “Did you see that, Yegor? Did you feel it?”
“I saw and felt it, My Lord,” Yegor replied.
“What do you suppose that was?”
Yegor scrunched his face, thinking, “It could have been magic, My Lord. I have seen many falling stars, My Lord and felt nothing coming from them.”
“If the star possesses magic, Yegor, it must be found and brought to me. I am, after all, the High Priest of Tay'Ronic.”
“Interim High Priest, My Lord.”
“Once that star is in my possession, I will be the supreme High Priest of Toraveson, Yegor. Send Flo'Ron to me in the throne room. I need to have a patrol on the road by sunrise.”
“Is that necessary, My Lord? Gornag's patrol did not come back last harvest season. He would be closer to the crash site and is probably already searching for this magic.”
“Gornag has already tried to kill me once, Yegor. I doubt he will willingly turn the magic over to me. I trust Flo'Ron. Do as I ask, Yegor.” “As you wish, My Lord.”
Olaf jumped out of bed, grabbed a robe draped over the back of a chair, and ran through the hallway and up the stairs to the top of the southeast tower in the castle in Tay'Ron. His trusted advisor, Anu, was standing beside him, looking toward the south.
“I do not know what it was, My Lord, but it was a bright blue ball of fire. It may have crashed far to the south–in the mountains, perhaps.”
Sorcerers Reborn
“I have felt this before, Anu. When we first came to this world, it felt like this. I felt it again when the Geldanian soldier killed Tay'Ron. With his last breath, Tay'Ron obliterated the six sorcerers and their cat. They vanished right before our eyes. This ball of fire possessed magic, Anu.”
“We must be the first ones to find it, My Lord. Nagor is down there, somewhere. Perhaps he has felt this magic falling star and is looking for it? Or do you wish to send another patrol to look for it?”
Olaf considered Anu's suggestions. “Nagor is an idiot, Anu. This is not the first time he has failed to return home from his patrol. Maybe he enjoys spending time amongst the villagers. Find Tolar. Tell him to take two of the younger sorcerers and twenty soldiers and inform him I have ordered this patrol to only look for the fallen star. Do not gather any recruits or go on a killing spree.”
“I will see to it immediately, My Lord,” Anu said.
Usman walked into the throne room and sat in the gilded chair of the High Priest in Tay'Ronis. He looked at the maps, reports, and battle plans scattered on the table before him. What he felt while on the southwest battlements disturbed him. He had only sensed sorcery that powerful when Tay'Ron had met his end at the hands of that Geldanian soldier during the Great War.
“Gogol,” he called to the thin, pale sorcerer at the other end of the table. “Find Belden. What we experienced tonight on the battlements was something of great power. That power belongs to Tay'Ronis, the first line of defense against an attack on Toraveson. Tell Belden to take twelve soldiers and an apprentice. He is to go southeast toward the mountains in the province of Tay'Ron. Explain to him the importance of his mission. He will bring whatever magical artifact he finds back here to me.” Gogol bowed to Usman, “I will send Belden on his way by sunrise, My Lord.”
Richard B. Ogle
Chapter 2
Home of the Freeborn
Riesa and her patrol walked through the sparse forest, looking for the southern soldiers and their masters. She was tense, knowing what the southern Sorcerers would do to them if they found her and her soldiers before they found them. A southern Sorcerer stepped out from behind a tree, forming a ball of fire. She raised her bow and fired just as he released the fireball. She saw her arrow strike the evil one in the chest. As he fell to the ground, Riesa turned to see the fireball strike Winona. There was nothing Riesa could do but watch as Winona burst into flame and was consumed.
Riesa sat bolt upright in her bed, throwing the covers off and standing up. The nightmares continued to haunt her. That wasn’t what woke her. “What is that?” she said aloud. Riesa concentrated on the thing that woke her. It was just a feeling, but it was intense and getting stronger. The curtain to her sleeping quarters muted the light from the other room. She went to the bathing room to freshen up and get dressed in full armor.
Riesa pushed the curtain aside and went into the living area of her apartment. She pinched two leaves from the alova plant and popped them into her mouth. They dissolved and filled her mouth with a sour-sweet flavor as she chewed them. Riesa grabbed her sword belt from the hook by the door and strapped it around her waist, adjusting it accordingly. She pulled the six braided lengths of her blond hair from under the sword belt and entered the hallway where two soldiers stood at attention by the entrance to the corridor, a dozen metra away. Riesa walked up and they saluted and stepped aside, giving her room to pass between them.
“Something feels off this morning,” she said, looking at the two.
“It is the middle of the night, General,” Darian said.
“Did you have another nightmare, Sir?” Tania asked.
“It was not the nightmare that woke me, Tania,” Riesa replied. “It was something else I cannot explain right now.”
Riesa gave Darian a disapproving look, “Do either of you feel that something may be out of place? Do you sense something or someone in the large cavern at the top of the stairs?”
Tania spoke first. “We did feel something strange, Sir. I felt it first a while ago, and Darian also felt it. Should we rouse the others and prepare for an invasion?”
Riesa shushed her. “Not right now, Tania. I need a mug of tack to shake off the drowsiness of sleep. Go and find the healers Annabel and Gwyneth. Darian, wake commanders Megan and Crispian and have them meet me in the dining hall.”
“But your guard, Sir…” Darian began until he saw the stern look on the General's face. The two saluted her and left to do her bidding.
Riesa walked down the hall, wondering, as she often did, about the lights in the center of the arched ceiling that came on as you approached them. They do not give off smoke as a torch does and go off after you pass. She shook her head at her obsession with the strange lighting in the Freeborn's home. She came to the stairs that led to the dining hall. She entered the hall where the usual off duty workers and soldiers sat with their meals and drinks.
Riesa walked up to the serving counter that separated the dining hall from the kitchen, picking up a plate with sweet rolls and a mug filled with the dark, bittersweet brew called tack. The tacken plant grew to about five metrae tall and was harvested after it flowered, then hung
Sorcerers Reborn
upside down till it dried. The leaves were steeped in hot water to brew them, and the seeds were planted to ensure they always had future crops.
A young woman in the kitchen, who was forming the dough into loaves, stopped what she was doing and began walking toward her, wiping her hands on her apron. Riesa waved her off, indicating that all she required was the mug of tack and a couple of rolls. She sat at an empty table with her steaming cup and waited for Annabel and Gwyneth to arrive. Annabel arrived first and motioned to Riesa that she would be right there. The healer had probably worked all night. Annabel picked up a mug and a jug of wine and sat facing Riesa.
“Gwyneth will be along shortly; she was in the middle of delivering Viola's baby. Nightmares again, or do you feel something has come for a visit? Both Gwyneth and I have felt it, too. I am sure that all the healers have felt the same.”
“Yes, Annabel, the nightmares continue. That is not what woke me this night, my friend. I am not a healer, Annabel, so why do I feel it?”
“That is simple, Riesa. When you came here so many years ago, I was told that your mother was a healer before a Sorcerer took her life. You forget you served with us as a healer until you decided to join the army. You may be the General now, but when you came here, you were a healer, Riesa. That is why you feel it, too.”
Riesa didn’t want to admit it, but Annabel was right. “Whatever it is, it is above us now. I would guess it is in the large cavern at the top of the spiral stairs. We are going to have to go up there to look around. I have felt this kind of feeling before, Annabel, out on patrol. This reminds me of our enemy. Sorcerers feel a lot like this when they are close by.”
Gwyneth walked into the dining hall with Tania, and they went to the serving area and picked up mugs. As she sat beside Annabel, Gwenyth said, “We have another male child born to us today, and it appears we also have something or someone upstairs?”
Richard B.
Home Forward
Back
Copyright © 1998 by Richard B. All rights reserved.
Pages, graphics, and code on this web site are the property of Richard B.
Any other content found on this website may not be
reproduced or redistributed in any way, shape, or form
without the EXPLICIT, WRITTEN permission of Richard B.
Failure to do so is a violation of copyright laws.
This website was built and designed by: Richard B.