The End Begins: Square Root of Time, #1

By Leroy Nichols

Josanin the Heartless just wanted to conquer the world, not save it.

Josanin has been an ambitious schemer all his life—a calculating wizard who has matched wits with countless heroes over the years. Dwarves, humans, halflings and elfin folk have all borne the brunt of Josanin's desire for power. But an accidental discovery reveals that the Free Folk are the least of his worries. A terrifying legend out of antiquity, Alimnazer the Hearteater, is real and about to unleash total annihilation on the world. Much to his consternation, Josanin must play the hero for a change.

Josanin may be the chosen one, but he can't stop an evil of such magnitude alone. To succeed, he'll need the help of his most resilient foes, the fire paladin Prince Wilelm, his equally fiery wife, Princess Ambre, and all the champions with whom they've surrounded themselves. Unfortunately for him, these battle-tested heroes will never believe a word their old enemy Josanin says, much less volunteer to help.

Against such impossible odds, only a truly heartless manipulator like Josanin has the evil cunning to bend the champions to his will and set up a final battle that gives the world a sliver of hope against a would-be god.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leroy Nichols
• Release date: Jul 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386679851

Leroy Nichols

Suffice it to say, I have had a variety of jobs, some longer than others. Among the ones I most enjoyed was being a sports writer for the local newspaper, The Washington Daily News, and working in a computer tech-support role for an Internet company back in the dark ages of “dial-up is pretty much it” days. I am a life-long reader, since learning how by reading the comics every Sunday with my father as a little bitty fella. Being as that was around age four, it was six decades ago. My first real book that I read all on my own at the tender age of seven was “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne. The school librarian really didn’t want to let me check it out but finally gave in. When I brought the book back the next day, she asked, “A bit too hard for you, wasn’t it?” To which I replied, “Oh no ma’am, I finished it and I want another one like it.” And I have never looked back since.

Book preview

The End Begins

The End Begins

A Square Root of Time Novel: Book One

Leroy Nichols

THE END BEGINS

Copyright © 2017 by William Leroy Nichols.

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All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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For information contact:

[e-mail]

Website:

http://www.squarerootoftime.com

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First Edition: July 2017

Contents

Author’s Note

The End Begins

Prologue

1. In the Beginning

Interlude A

2. The Heartless

Interlude B

3. The Unseen

Interlude C

4. The Djinn

Interlude D

5. The Opening Move

Interlude E

6. The Path is Marked

Interlude F

7. The Pair of Prophecies

Interlude G

8. Partners in Peril

Interlude H

9. Out of Time

From the Author

About the Author

Dramatis Personae

Bonus Chapter From Book Two

Zero

Author’s Note

The spellings in this series differ in places intentionally. For example, elfin and elven, and elfs and elves, are both used, and both are correct in their usage. Elfin denotes a smaller, man-sized—or slightly smaller—mortal with a life-span which would be considered extended by human standards. Elven refers to the taller, immortal—or effectively so, barring accidental death—version. There are other instances where a modern word such as Sergeant is spelled as an older version of the same word, i.e. Serjeant. The reasons why one spelling is chosen over the other hopefully will be evident in the story itself—or at least that is my intention. Some characters are able to speak telepathically, and I have set that speech inside asterisks—*—to differentiate it from regular speech or internal dialogue .

This book would not have been possible without the collaboration of my wife and the many people who played in the Square Root of Time roleplaying campaign. The list is too long to give credit by name, but those who played know who they are, and I hope their input is appropriately recorded.

The End Begins

Prologue

In the beginning, everything was nothing. Space and time did not exist. There was no color, there was no sound. There simply was an absence, infinite in size and in duration. It was timeless. It was beyond the meaning of even that word .

Then—a most fruitful word is then, for when nothing was, it established a reference point that did not exist elsewise--then somehow without an explanation possible for mortal nor for immortal, existence occurred.

First was a single low note; not heard, not felt, but nevertheless there. And in that single low note, every possibility was present. Another note occurred. Then another and another until a full symphony was occurring.

There was a slow resonance in that one single point of existence; humming, full of all possibilities. Swelling in power, gathering in strength, the first notes of the music of the spheres rolled and filled the only point of existence. Rhythm, melody, and harmony grew in dynamic grandeur of purpose and power.

Finally, that single point could no longer contain, could no longer hold all the music. Then, in an amazing burst of light and energy, the music poured out. In so little time that it was nearly not measurable, the music of the spheres became creation. And so it was, that the multiverse came into being.

1

In the Beginning

ACROSS THE SPACE-TIME CURVES OF the multiverse, in an age when humanity was the newest race to awaken on an Earth much like this world a hundred thousand years ago, a fateful birth occurred on a rocky mountainside. A woman struggled to bring her child into the world as her sister Leup crooned encouragement. With a final scream, the baby's mother pushed for the last time, her last breath coinciding with the child’s first before the last echo of her cry died into silence .

Leup wept as she tended to the infant, and through her tears said, Orbh is your name, for the orphan that you were born. Orbh did not make a single sound, and had not since breath first entered his body. But, unlike other newborns, his black eyes glittered with awareness.

The ground began to rumble and shake as if the mountain itself was trying to fling them from its back. Leup screamed as she clutched the newborn child. She turned to run somewhere—anywhere she could find safety on the mountain. In her panic, she equated movement with survival. Then one of the first of the rocks bouncing down the mountain smashed her leg. She crumpled, throwing out her left arm to soften her fall while her right arm still gripped Orbh tightly.

The other members of the People were screaming, scrambling to gain footing on a landscape that insisted on moving. Just as the headman of the hunters finally stood up, a boulder the size of a mammoth bounced on him, leaving nothing but a bloodstain on the rock as it bounced again, onward down the mountain. Ever more rocks, boulders, and pebbles whirled a deadly, mad dance through the shattered remnants of the People.

With a sound so strong it could only be felt and not truly heard, the whole of the mountain top broke free just as the quaking ground finally stilled. Leup, still clutching her dead sister's baby, had just managed to kneel using her good leg, when she looked skywards and saw death tumbling down the mountain.

Then Orbh spoke his first words: GHEU ALU STER!

And the sliding mountain-top vanished.

Time passed for the tiny remnant of the People. Orbh was the talisman of the tribe. If he said food was in the next valley, they would find a herd of one type or another, and there would always be one or two old herd members that served as easy kills for the People's remaining four hunters. Herbs, tubers, and other edible vegetation were always at the place Orbh told the five women to search. No matter where the People wandered, Orbh always found water and shelter.

Life regained a semblance of normalcy as one day followed another into one moon after the next. The last baby of the People grew physically as would be expected. His mental growth was another matter altogether. So tiny an infant that he must be carried, Orbh still ruled the People. His simply speaking was enough to overawe his People, who had never dreamed of such a magical gift which Orbh had obviously had been born with. But as the moon waxed and waned its way through the seasons, the females began to lament the lack of new babies.

How can the People survive? said Bhel loudly enough to carry around the group as they huddled around the fire waiting for the sun to sink below the distant mountains. We have had no more babies since Orbh, and he is long since past being a baby.

Leup always had a ready reply. I know it has been two cold times since the last baby, but Orbh was such that has never been born before nor will ever be born again. Surely the spirits must take a long rest before putting another baby in one of us.

After a while Bhel and the other women would agree. They could all still remember that rolling wall of sound when the mountain broke, and somehow—impossible to explain or understand—somehow Orbh's voice sent it all away.

Eik, the oldest of the women, recalled there had been other years when no children were born. And mind you, that was with more mothers in the People than all my fingers for three of my toes.

Yet, each of them wondered in their secret heart as to why Orbh did not answer their laments. Surely such a magical person as he could intercede and ask the Spirits to bring them babies. If one of the women asked Orbh a sly question to bring up the subject, he would just smile and say, The People will never die.

Orbh grew to become a young man, and the numbers of the People became ever less. A misstep while crossing a high mountain pass sent two of the women plunging to their deaths. Orbh watched in silence, listening intently to their screams. He later told Leup that the deaths had been foreseen and could not have been avoided.

One of the hunters was trampled to death when he fumbled during an attempt to hamstring an old elk. A venomous snake killed another. The numbers of the People diminished as Orbh grew, and after each death, Orbh would repeat, The People will never die.

By Orbh's thirteenth summer, Leup was the only other left of all the People, save for Orbh himself. Her body hurt constantly, especially the leg that had been crippled by the boulder so many seasons earlier. The deaths of all her family and friends had left her with only Orbh. Her devotion had blinded her until Bhel died and left her alone with the object of her devotion. She began to fear him. So many bad things had happened to the People since his birth, and for every good thing Orbh had caused to happen, he had directly benefited. Yet, he was of the People, so she stuck by him, knowing no other course to take. Even so, Leup withdrew into herself and spoke briefly only when it was necessary. It was easier just to think about the pain in her leg and around the rest of her body.

It was in just such a state of withdrawal that Orbh found his aunt one summer morning. Leup lingered by the glowing coals of the fire, taking what comfort she could from the heat as it soaked into her throbbing bones. Orbh’s shadow fell across his aunt and she gazed at him dully, not bothering to speak.

Rise, Aunt, he said. The sun is well up and we have a long walk before us.

I am too tired to walk today, said Leup in protest. These old bones ache and keep me from sleep. Surely we can rest for one day?

No, get up, you can rest soon enough, said Orbh. We must get there today.

But my leg hurts so much I can't put any weight on it, Leup said. Anyway, what does it matter when we get anywhere? There are only the two of us left. When we die, all of the People will be gone.

Orbh's black eyes stared at his crippled aunt, who for all practical purposes had been his mother. Softly, in a whisper, he said, Get up. Your leg will last until I tell you different.

The agony coursing through her limb began to lessen as Leup stared into the endless depths of his eyes. Picking up her crutch, she forced herself to stand while never taking her gaze from Orbh’s focused stare. She felt like she was drowning in the gaze he used upon her, going downward, ever downward in a lost, bottomless whirlpool.

Wake up!

Leup opened her eyes, confused. Had she dozed off? Immediately she felt the cramped pain of her crippled leg return, suddenly and violently ripping through her body. She tried to sit up so she could massage her leg. She could not. The reason wasn't the pain in her body. The pain encouraged her to bend double, clutch her leg and cry but there were leather thongs around her wrists and ankles, curiously knotted and decorated, and tied firmly to the stakes that left her spread-limbed on the ground.

The pain, the stakes, and the leather thongs all overwhelmed Leup. She whimpered. A stray tear rolled down her left cheek. What had happened? Where was Orbh? Was he dead? Why was she strapped to the stakes that held her on the ground? Had some other tribe captured her and killed Orbh? Why could she remember nothing that had happened since morning?

Orbh moved into sight. He stepped across her waist and sat down on her stomach. He had his flint knife in his right hand.

Leup, the People will never die, for I will live forever.

Despite the heat of the summer sun, Leup shivered. She tried to speak, but her voice made only a short, hollow croak.

Orbh continued speaking. I was born here on this very spot. When I slice open your chest and pull your beating heart out and eat it, I will start the next step in my growth to godhood.

With his aunt's blood drying around his mouth, Orbh stood up. His cold, black eyes stared out in a furious, greedy look as he scanned the land around him. Leup's dead, glazed eyes stared sightlessly upward at the sun.

Raising his arms up above his head, Orbh made the first sound heard since his aunt's last scream.

Orbh was my name when I was a mortal. Now that I walk toward eternity, my name is Alu-Em-Nau-Ser. Magic Death Protection. I will become the only spirit, the only god of all time. Let all the demons, spirits, gods, and mortals beware. I will triumph!

His boast bounced off the boulders and rang across the land. For a moment silence prevailed. There were none left to reply to or deny his claim. Then his laughter rang and rang.

An ice-age gripped this version of Earth, slowly warming as one year after another crept past. Living creatures were few and very scattered, but increasing in numbers as the years warmed. At this time, there was a wide variety of upright creatures with intelligence.

Beyond all these groups, there was Alu-Em-Nau-Ser: The Shadow in the Dark, the Eater of Hearts. He was the Hunter Who Walks Alone, the Dark Hunter Out of the Night. From the northern shore of Atlantis where the ice-wall stood, to the far south of endless sunny days, he climbed every mountain range on the continent, and he swam in every river that flowed from each of them.

The other intelligent creatures were the prey he sought. When he found them, it was always the same. Living hearts fed his hunger for immortality. Never once did he consider any of these creatures to be of any more importance to him than a herd animal. They were merely creatures to be culled when he needed to pull another beating heart to his lips.

Time passed and slowly he came into his full manhood. The ages of his life followed the same pattern as any normal and mortal man, but the span of years in the period that equaled his adolescence was extended by hundreds and thousands of years. His obscene magic held those passing days at bay in a manner unduplicated by any other living thing. Yet even so, he still aged albeit slowly until finally he came to be a full-grown man.

The passing of time also brought him fame and dread among the beings in this stone-age world. He became the Hearteater Who Walked Alone. He was the spirit shaped like a man who gave true meaning to the terrors of the night. Every single one of the sentients knew of, and feared, this solitary figure slipping from shadow to shadow in the dark of night.

Sometimes it was a single victim found with his or her chest cut open and the heart gone. At other times, it was a whole tribe of victims found by some other innocent hunter or wanderer. Rarely, very rarely, a single victim might escape when a whole tribe was sacrificed to Alu-Em-Nau-Ser's bloody magical rites. From the few such victims who managed an escape, his name gradually became known.

Eventually the stone-age passed away into the mists of history. The elfin folk were the first to create a