The Spell of Binding. Part One: The Gathering

By Glen Johnson

THE MAGIC

The World was almost destroyed by science – billions died. The survivors gave up looking for God and looked within themselves. They could hear a new song emanating from the ruins of the past. An ancient song, older than religion and time itself – they heard the magic.
THE DEMON ARMY

But the holocaust caused a spell uttered eons ago – when the magic was strong – to weaken. A spell that now released unmentionable creatures back into the world; creatures their ancestors had banished. Science failed to destroy humanity, now it’s the powerful Demon Kings turn to try – back with vengeance and a vast army.
HOPE

Powerful sorcerers could stand in his way, but they have grown old and tired with time, leaving the hope of all New Mankind on the shoulders of a female magus, a slaphappy, lovesick human, a drunken whimsical elf, and an ambitious dwarf, all looking for a Spell that has been hidden for a thousand generations.

PART ONE

Simeon, the head of the Council of Magi, has spent decades deciphering an ancient leather bound book. He sends word to Minika, a sorceress close to where he believes the Spell is hidden – a female magus who is not quite what she seems – and with the aid of a human, an elf and a dwarf, she heads out into the barren wasteland to try and reach the Spell first before Vorr, the demon king and his vast army. But the demons are the least of Minika’s worries. Someone else seems hell bent on stopping her – someone who is manipulating magic that hasn’t been used for thousands of years. Also the Great Prophetess has just announced the prophecy that Vorr has been waiting to hear for over two thousand years: “In a time of great sorrow seven will heal the world.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glen Johnson
• Release date: Sep 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310590269

Glen Johnson

Glen Johnson was born in Devon, England in 1973. He is the author of 55 fiction and non-fiction books. In August 2014, he gave away all his belongings and bought a backpack and he started travelling around Southeast Asia. While he travels, he helps charitable organizations, writing and releasing books about their foundations, leaving them with all the royalties. His first charity book is called Soi Dog: The Story Behind Asia’s Largest Animal Welfare Shelter and it’s available in ebook and paperback worldwide. He has also started to release a series of books about his travel adventures as they unfold, and Living the Dream: Part One – Khaosan Road, Thailand, and Part Two – Krabi, Thailand is available from all good ebook retailers. He also loves to travel and has spent over eleven years living and travelling around the world – so far, he has explored forty-three different countries. At present, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand, but he has also lived in Mexico, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, and Singapore. He is also the lead writer on the development team for a new computer game called The Seed (2018), from the creators of the award-winning S.T.A.L.K.E.R Misery mod.Why not add Glen as a friend on Facebook. From his author’s page, you can keep up to date with all his new releases and when his kindle books are free on Amazon. He checks it daily, so pop on and say hello. Don’t be shy, he’s friendly and accepts friend requests.www.facebook.com/GlenJohnsonAuthorwww.facebook.com/RedSkullPublishing and all good ebook retailers.Glen has published 174 books worldwide (via two publishing companies he owns). 55 are his own work; the other 119 are modern-classic-fiction books that can be found on all good eBook and paperback retailers.Books Released by Sinuous Mind Books, and Coming Soon –Books released under his real name Glen JohnsonNON-FICTION BOOKS –CHARITY BOOKS (with Gary Johnson)Soi Dog – The Story Behind Asia’s Largest Animal Welfare Shelter (2015)BEES Elephants Sanctuary: A Haven for Old and Retired Elephants (Coming Soon)TRAVEL BOOKS (with Gary Johnson)Living the Dream 1 – Khaosan Road – Thailand (2015)Living the Dream 2 – Krabi – Thailand (2019)Living the Dream 3 – Penang – Malaysia (Coming Soon)FICTION BOOKS –APOCALYPTIC/DYSTOPIAN/HORRORTHE SIXTH EXTINCTION SERIES (A #1 Best Seller on Amazon UK Horror Short Stories)The Sixth Extinction 1 – Outbreak (2013)The Sixth Extinction 2 – Ruin (2013)The Sixth Extinction 3 – Infested (2013)The Sixth Extinction 4 – The Ark (2013)The Sixth Extinction 1-4 – Omnibus Edition (2013)THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: THE FIRST THREE WEEKS SERIES (A #1 Best Seller on Amazon UK Horror Short stories)The Sixth Extinction Series: The First Three Weeks 1 – Noah’s Story (2013)The Sixth Extinction Series: The First Three Weeks 2 – Red’s Story (2013)The Sixth Extinction Series: The First Three Weeks 3 – Betty and Lennie’s Story (2013)The Sixth Extinction Series: The First Three Weeks 4 – Doctor Lazaro’s Story (2013)The First Three Weeks 1-4 – Omnibus Edition (2013)THE SIXTH EXTINCTION & THE FIRST THREE WEEKS SERIES OMNIBUS (A #1 Best Seller on Amazon UK Horror Short stories)The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks 1-8 – Omnibus Edition (2013)The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Sixth Extinction America 1-12 – Omnibus Edition (2014)The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The First Three Weeks The Squads Stories & The Sixth Extinction America & The Seven Seeds of the Gods 1-23 – Omnibus Edition (2017)THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: THE FIRST THREE WEEKS – THE SQUADThe Sixth Extinction Series: The First Three Weeks – The Squad – Echo’s Story (2014)The Sixth Extinction Series: The First Three Weeks – The Squad – Coco’s Story (2014)THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AMERICA SERIES (A #1 Best Seller on Amazon UK Horror Short stories)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part One: The Black Spores (2014)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Two: False Hope (2014)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Three: The Pods (2014)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Four: The Long Road (2014)The Sixth Extinction: America – 1-4 Omnibus Edition (2014)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Five: No Turning Back (2015)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Six: A Friend in Need (2015)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Seven: All Aboard (2015)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Eight: New Hope (2015)The Sixth Extinction: America – 1-8 Omnibus Edition (2015)The Sixth Extinction: America – 1-20 Omnibus Edition (2016)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Nine: Keep Running (2016)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Ten: Don’t Look Back (2016)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Eleven: Resurrection (2016)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Twelve: Alliance (2018)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Thirteen: Abandon (2019)The Sixth Extinction: America – Part Fourteen: Burn (Coming Soon)THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: BOOK EXTRASThe Sixth Extinction: The Seven Seeds of the Gods. Book One – Ancient Egypt (2016)The Sixth Extinction: The Seven Seeds of the Gods. Book Two – Ancient Mayan (Coming Soon)The Sixth Extinction: One Year On (England) (Coming Soon)The Sixth Extinction: Clarkson’s Discovery (Coming Soon)THE ENDLESS SERIESEndless: Part One – Sorrow (2019)Endless: Part Two – Fear (Coming Soon)Endless: Part Three - Anger (Coming Soon)THE EVENT SERIESThe Event: Part One – The Last Hope (2019)The Event: Part Two – Crashing Down (Coming Soon)THE HUMAN NATURE SERIES (A #1 Best Seller on Amazon UK Horror Short Stories)Lamb Chops and Chainsaws – Vol.1 (2012)Lobsters and Landmines – Vol.2 (2012)French Fries and Flamethrowers – Vol.3 (2014)The Human Nature Series 1-3 – Omnibus Edition (2014)Backpacks and Body Bags – Vol.4 (Coming Soon)THE EXTREME HUMAN NATURE SERIES (Extreme Horror Short Stories)Condoms and Cabbages (2015)GHOST (Short Stories)Sea of Trees (2017)Child Angels (2018)Tall Ghosts (2020)The Lost Cat (2023)HORROR (Short Stories)Quarantine (2020)Laugh Out Loud (2021)Secrets and Lies (2021)Blood Lotus (With Hathairat Phuekhiran – 2023)HORRORThe Watchers (2014)THE WAR OF THE GOD’S SERIESWar of the Gods 1 – The Devil’s Tarots (2012)War of the Gods 2 – Lilith’s Revenge (Coming Soon)THE SEVEN WORLDS SERIES (with Gary Johnson)The Gateway – World One (2014)The Keystone – World Two (2015)Even Jewel – World Three (2017)The Sleeping Gods – World Four (Coming Soon)The Turquoise Abyss – World Five (Coming Soon)Oceans of Fire – World Six (Coming Soon)Journeys End – World Seven (Coming Soon)THE SPELL OF BINDING SERIESThe Spell of Binding – Part One (2012)The Spell of Binding – Part Two (Coming Soon)THE PARKINGDOM SERIESParkingdom – Book One (2012)Parkingdom – Book Two (Coming Soon)OTHER BOOKSTales from the Lake Vol.2. Short Story: Prime Cuts (A mixed horror anthology with 18 other writers – published by Crystal Lake Publishing. 2016)Books released under the pseudonym J.G. NewtonEROTIC PLEASURES SERIES (#1 Best Seller on Amazon USA and UK Erotic/Suspense)Guilty Pleasures: Erotic Pleasures Series (2014)Dirty Pleasures: Erotic Pleasures Series (2014)Secret Pleasures: Erotic Pleasures Series (2014)Kinky Pleasures: Erotic Pleasures Series (2014)Erotic Pleasures Series 1-4 – Omnibus Edition (2014)EROTIC MONSTERS SERIES (#1 Best Seller on Amazon USA and UK Erotic/Suspense/Horror/Humorous)Frankenstein’s Monster: Erotic Monsters Series (2014)Dracula’s Lover: Erotic Monsters Series (2014)Mummy’s Desire: Erotic Monsters Series (Coming Soon)Werewolf’s Lust: Erotic Monsters Series (Coming Soon)COMPUTER GAMETHE SEEDGlen Johnson is on the development team as the lead writer (eight writers) for a new computer game series called The Seed. The Seed is a story-driven post-apocalyptic video game set in Eastern Europe in 2026. It’s a single-player 2D interactive novel, deeply rooted in HEXACO psychology – it showcases the gravity of choice. It’s by the same team that created the award-winning game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Misery mod.The Seed: Act 1 (2018)The Seed: Act 2 (Coming Soon)The Seed: Act 3 (Coming Soon)If you need to get hold of Glen Johnson, email him on: [e-mail]

Book preview

THE

SPELL

OF

BINDING

Part One

By Glen Johnson

www.sinuousmindbooks.com

Published by Sinuous Mind Books Publishing at Smashwords

www.sinuousmindbooks.com

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Glen Johnson 2014

Cover image: Shutterstock

Glen Johnson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead is entirely coincidental.

Typeset: Times New Roman Std/Italic

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

William Shakespeare

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my older brother, Gary Johnson who went over the raw manuscript with many read-throughs, editorial help, and suggestions. And for being my travel companion around Asia – you’re a great wingman.

Also to Matthew and Kate Chilcott, Anthony Pike, Victoria Tamkin, Sarah Shapter, and Rachel Shapter.

For my brother

Nigel Johnson

Prologue

THE GREAT WAR AND THE VOICE

The Great War of man has ended. Billions were killed by the weapons of science.

Thousands of years, and generations, pass.

This is the history of what mankind has done to Mother Earth.

The earth has re-cooled; the polar-shift has halted, the polar geomagnetic reversal complete; the tectonic plates have realigned; reshaping and shifting the continents, some disappeared completely under the towering tsunamis that touched the sky. The mountains that toppled finally lay at rest, others pushed thousands of feet into the air. The world expanding cloud of ash circled both hemispheres, choking life from the world, killing everything green and beautiful. Eventually, after many generations, the ash fell to the earth, the sun could once again be seen. The ash built up, blowing across the reshaped, scarred world, accumulating in vast dirty black deserts that hold only death.

After thousands of years of earths reshaping, something unexpected happened – the magic was reawakened. Forgotten for eons as if sleeping until the time was right. Now the magic has been reestablished.

A new age of mankind was about to begin.

*

No one knows what year it is. No one really cares. What is known is back at the end of the 21st Century, mankind, with the aid of science, almost succeeded in destroying themselves. Few survived the chaos they unleashed. Nine-tenths of the world’s population was simply wiped away by nuclear fire and radioactive winds that battered the land, air and water. Those that survived wished they had perished along with the others. They had to struggle with what was left, with what managed to pass through. What was later referred to, rather ironically, as Armageddon, because God certainly had nothing to do with it. No one ever uttered the word Rapture.

Mankind gave up looking above for a God they decided didn’t exist, who stood by idly as billions were slaughtered, as they screamed and begged in multiple languages his or her many names. Instead, they looked within themselves. Then they could hear the ringing, loud and clear. Realizing it was there all along. The word God became just another word, a word spoken with scorn and a sense of betrayal.

The people that survived the End of Days, wandered for generations. The human race became a nomadic collection of individuals and a splattering of tribes. They had to travel to find anything edible; all their time and resources spent scavenging the remains of the old world. Nothing new was harvested from blackened fields, full of burnt stumps of crops. Ash covered the sky; the sun went unseen, and nothing grew.

Mankind started to devolutionize. They went back to their most primitive origins, which was required if they were to survive in the new hostile world that they had created with their science. However, people started to turn from science – the cause of their pain – back to the earth, to what is natural, to what has always been.

After sometime those that did survive could hear a new song emanating from the ruins of the past; a new Voice – that of magic. Long forgotten, hidden beneath layers of science and multiple religions, the sound drowned out. Some humans heard the Voice louder than others; they became powerful sorcerers. Was it because of evolution or the radiation or the Voice, no one knows?

Once again, the Voice prevailed. The magic became strong.

From the rubble came new races. From the darkest, thickest forests they creped, and from the deepest tunnels, they climbed. Some say they were there all along; hidden, fearing reproach. Dwarves and elves now walk the land, crawling out from their hiding places. New Mankind they were called.

The radiation eventually disappeared leaving behind twisted deformed patches of land and strange deformed creatures. In hindsight, these new beasts would prepare New Mankind for what was ahead.

The earth changed with its new residents. The past was forgotten; the old world became nothing but a distant, unused and uncared for bad memory.

Then came another cataclysm, one of a different nature, not from the machines of war but from the very magic that had been awakened.

A dimension, which had been held back for eons, spilled fourth into our own. Later all made sense. The sorcerers studied long and hard, and they say they found the answer.

Amazingly, many manuscripts survived the holocaust of the distant past, (some believed the time and effort spent to protect them was worth more than human life). One was a simple book, which was found not too far away, between two ancient rivers that once ran across the landscape: the Tigris and the Euphrates. In this book (it was buried in a thick lead box, completely sealed to the changing world), which was in two parts, similar to the ancient Rosetta Stone, but instead of being carved in Egyptian and Greek, it was written in Babylonian and Assyrian, from the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Neo-Babylonian Empire, from the same time frame as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Whether the Great Spell was uttered then, or passed along through time and eventually written down at a much later date, is unknown. However, what is known is that it told of the time before the Great War. A time before science, when the Voice was as loud as it is now. In that time, all the great sorcerers came together, forging one Spell; to be the most powerful ever uttered or used – the Spell of Binding. All the vile creatures that walked the earth, creatures later only referred to in stories and myth, were torn from the world, thrown into a prison; a dimension, where they waited, poised. Always ready. Always waiting.

The power released from the weapons of science weakened the Spell; cracks appeared. They started to seep through (some whispered that this is where the dwarves and elves really came from). Then eventually it crumbled completely and the beasts of nightmares, from the darkest parts of the imagination, returned. The vile floodgate of hell was reopened. It became hell on earth.

Another new chapter in earths history had just been opened. New mankind had survived the buckling and rearranging of the world’s crust, now they had to learn to survive the creatures their ancestors had banished.

The small book gave hope. The great magi of old wrote down the powerful Spell; engraved it on stone, then placed in a sacred place of keeping, inside the legendary Temple of Time; locked away for eons until it would be needed again.

The time is now, if it can be found.

A small group consisting of a female sorceress, a human and a dwarf, along with an elf are being gathered to head out across the wastelands, towards hope; so they believe. They have been pulled together by fate. Their guide is a small leather-bound book, and they will have to travel through what has been released.

Will they survive long enough to find the ancient carved stone that rests in the great temple? A temple