Book Three of the Naxos Island Mages: New Worlds

By David Scott Webster

Again, Stephunos is confronted with reality-a reality that six months ago was inconceivable. New Worlds! People from other planets! Stephunos again has a secret.

It's not the first secret that the twelve-year-old Stephunos has had to keep. Now that he lives on Naxos, the strange island where intelligent dragons, unicorns, and other mystical creatures have been rediscovered, he no longer has to hide being a mage. Others now know of his apparent friend-the Vampire Razvan. But he and the people of Naxos must hide their new discoveries for not everyone can handle the news and not everyone should know.

Old enemies still long for the destruction of Naxos. Enemies that have knowledge of things they shouldn't. Despite his defeats Cosmin still has plans for the violent demise of the nobles of Naxos. He longs to see Duke Belen dead. New allies might give him the chance.

Still, life must go on. Despite the sudden addition of life altering facts, Stephunos and his group of friends must learn to deal with new technologies while continuing to live as they always had. Journey along with Stephunos and his friends as they make new friends, face old foes, and make new enemies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 23, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595805372

David Scott Webster

David Scott Webster was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1971. He has lived in Mesa as well as Clearwater and Orlando, Florida. He holds a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and has worked many years as an instructor. He currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

I didn’t do it! Nikoloas innocently exclaimed as he grabbed ahold of Ste-phunos’ arm. As the initial terror that had gripped Stephunos began to pass he realized that they didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. While his eight-year-old brother might be professing his innocence Stephunos knew that once again Nikoloas had got them into some sort of trouble. Stephunos couldn’t help but think he should have just stayed home and enjoyed his family reunion, after all it really wasn’t that bad to become an Earl. His father wouldn’t allow too many more responsibilites to be added to his already full plate.

What should we do? Aetos calmly asked from the back seat bringing Stephunos thoughts back to the situation he was currently in.

I think the boat is taking us somewhere! Stephunos nervously answered without really knowing why he felt that way.

Where? Aetos absently asked as he turned to reassure his younger sister who had a vise grip on his arm, We’re okay!

We’re not okay! We’re underwater! We need air, we’re going to drown! Anthea replied, as she gripped her brother’s arm even harder, trying in vain not to panic.

I don’t know...but we are safe, I’m sure of that! Stephunos said trying to sound reassuring.

Anthea’s right, we’re going to drown! Nikoloas screamed.

Don’t even! Stephunos immediately replied as he grabbed hold of Nikoloas’ chin forcing him to look into Stephunos blue eyes. Look at me! We’re fine! Do not try any magic! You don’t know what to do and you might make it worse!

I wouldn’t make it worse, it can’t get any worse! Nikoloas whined as tears started streaming out of his own blue eyes.

Let’s just calm down, sit back and see what happens before we try anything rash! Aetos said as if they were just out for a nice afternoon ride.

Nikoloas! Try to tell mom, Volta, or anyone else what’s happening! Ste-phunos said trying to get his brother to calm down.

In the few seconds that it had taken for the four children to have their quick conversation, the boat had gone so deep that they couldn’t see any sunlight coming from above. As the boat somehow drove itself deeper into the extremely dark sea the boat began to glow. In a matter of seconds the only light in the sea was coming from nearly ever inch of the boat itself. Nikoloas had stopped crying and was trying extremely hard to telepathically talk to anyone in the outside world.

That’s neat! What type of magic did you use to light the boat? Aetos excitedly asked, as Anthea, having not drowned, seemed to be calming down.

I didn’t do it, the boat is doing it! Stephunos replied in shock.

Boat’s don’t just drive themselves and light themselves up! Anthea blurted out starting to return to normal.

I managed to tell Volta! She is going to tell mom! Nikoloas happily stated.

For the next few minutes no one said anything as they waited to find out what was going to happen. The boat having dived to the bottom of the sea continued traveling along the ocean floor. Outside the boat they could see all kinds of weird looking plants. Even with the complete lack of sunlight, or any other kind of light for that matter, the plants looked to be thriving. While the plants were basically all red, their shading varied drastically giving the impression there were hundreds of different colors. The children were transfixed, trying to study the plants, when suddenly the boat slung to the right to avoid what looked like a sunken ship. Some sort of loud annoying noise accompanied this sudden turn. Then the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started as the boat passed the wreck and turned back to the path it had previously been traveling.

I will say it’s definitely taking us somewhere! Aetos said, noting the sudden course correction.

Yeah, It somehow avoided the wreck and then found its way back to the same course! Stephunos replied in shock.

It must be alive! Nikoloas blurted out.

It can’t be! Can it? Anthea wondered out loud.

As much time as we’ve spent in it, I think we would have known if it was alive, Stephunos said only half believing it himself.

Then what is causing it to do this? How did it know to avoid the wreck? Anthea skeptically asked, but before anyone could answer something new grabbed their attention. The boat had just come over an extremely large patch of red plants and started to descend into an incredibly large canyon. It wasn’t the red plants or the canyon that made them fall silent, it was the incredibly large extremely bright dome straight in front of them. Looking at the dome nearly felt like looking at the sun.

I think that is where we’re headed! Stephunos half whispered. Nikoloas gripped his brother’s arm even more firmly, while Anthea tightened her death lock on her own brother’s arm.

It’s amazing! Aetos said in awe as the boat sped towards the fiery bright dome.

While Stephunos and his friends were once again getting themselves in some form of trouble on Naxos Island, the homecoming celebration was going strong. Well at least until the dolphin Volta telepathically relayed Nikoloas’ message to Cassandra.

We should get one of the other boats and see if it will take us after them! Duke Belen exclaimed upon receiving the news from his wife.

Is Volta following them? Theron asked.

She didn’t say! I can’t communicate with her! Cassandra replied.

We need to get one of the telepathic animals to relay messages for us! Duke Belen instructed.

I’m on it, Chara said as she ran out of the room. Chara wished she had went with them, she couldn’t help but think she should be with her friends, but she had wanted to stay home and spend some quality time with her father and brother who had just returned from the war on the mainland. She raced outside looking for one of the winged horses or another telepathic animal. Chara wish that she was telepathic and could do it herself, but as far as she knew Nikoloas was the only telepathic human around. Well at least he could communicate tele-pathically with his mother, brother, or any of the telepathic animals. Upon spotting one of her animal friends, the winged horse named Elijah, she ran over to him and put him to work.

Stephunos, Nikoloas, Aetos, and Anthea are in trouble and we need your help! They are in one of the strange green boats, underwater!

Anything I can do to help! Elijah projected.

We need you to keep us in contact with Volta! She is currently looking for them!

After a few seconds Elijah responded, Volta has asked the dolphins to search and is currently talking to Youngblood, who had flown out to join in the search. As Chara and Elijah started back towards the house where everyone else was, Aaron came running up.

Good, you found him, Aaron exclaimed them added, Duke Belen needs a couple of winged horses to take him and Cassandra over to the cave to fetch another one of the boats! He also need you to ask Dragos to meet them there!

I have asked Dragos to go to the cave, but since he isn’t telepathic I don’t know for sure if he got the message! Other winged horses are on the way! Elijah projected. As Aaron turned to head back inside, he suddenly realized the air was filled with howling. Howls of wolves that sensed something wasn’t right and knew they couldn’t do anything about it.

Chara you go on in, I’ll see if I can settle down our wolves a little, Aaron said.

While Aaron went to settle down the wolves, Chara and Elijah went inside the house. Cassandra normally would have had a fit about having a dirty horse, no matter how intelligent, in her house. On this occasion she was too glad to see him to even care. After a few quick minutes of debate, suggestions, and planning, they finally settled on a course of action. Duke Belen and his mage wife, Cassandra, were going to get another one of the strange boats and see if they could get it to take them where their sons had gone. Lady Litsa was going to travel with them since her son and daughter were also in danger. The adults including Marquess Basil, Viscount Andreas, Earl Sergius, Sir Leonidas, Sir Theron, and Lady Tala were going to fly over to Naxos Port City and get some ships to search with. Lady Theodora was going to stay home to keep control of the three children that were not involved in this particular crisis even though they all wanted to be. Aaron, Chara, and Prisca were going to have to sit this one out, or at least that was the plan.

CHAPTER 2

Mitch was having dinner in his personal dining room when the door suddenly opened. His good friend Nathan came walking in.

How’s the food tonight? Nathan asked as he walked over to the table and sat down.

I don’t remember inviting you, Mitch replied with a smile and then said: The food is great as always, after all I cooked it myself. On the table set a rather badly burned steak, dry lumpy mashed potatoes, a pan of slightly burnt green beans, and some burnt bread.

I think I’ll just have a drink, Nathan said eyeing the disastrous meal that was before him.

If some people could leave me alone and actually let me cook without interruptions, then maybe it would be better, Mitch jokingly said knowing too well he just couldn’t cook, even though he enjoyed trying. His wife never allowed him near the kitchen when she was around, and if he tried to sneak into the kitchen his son would alert his wife. Since both his wife and son were not currently around, he had tried to make his favorite meal, with very little success.

I could get the cook to bring you something, Nathan said while pouring a little wine into a glass.

Stop critiquing my mess and tell me what’s up, Mitch said.

We have some new orders, Nathan said.

What are they now! Mitch said. He no longer got excited when new orders arrived. Over the last six months every time new orders arrived, he had thought that they would now do something important only to open the orders and read some overly boorish assignment that didn’t amount to anything of any real importance.

Seeing the skeptical look on Mitch’s face Nathan said, I think you might actually like these orders.

Well read them to me, so I can finish eating, Mitch said.

To Captain Mitch O’Donnell from United Earth Space Command Headquarters. You are hereby ordered to proceed to sector twenty-eight and determine the source of an unusual signal radiating from the fifth planet. The signal is thought to be from the supposedly extinct and highly advanced Vicarian race. Be on your guard, this mission will take you very close to Maculan territory and they or other races might be sending their own teams to investigate. Signed Admiral Tyrone L. Jones.

Now that is something! Have the course plotted and proceed towards sector twenty-eight at our best possible speed! Have everyone on heightened alert! I will join you on the bridge shortly, Mitch ordered. Nathan rose to his feet, put down the glass of wine he had only been messing with, saluted his Captain, and headed back out the door.

Mitch recorded a short message to his wife explaining his new orders and saying he would see them later tonight. He hated to leave them a recording but his wife and son were somewhere in the civilian research part of the ship, doing who knows what. His wife was a very attractive thirty-five-year old woman that just happened to be one of the best known scientists of her generation. She had flowing black hair and brown eyes. Mitch was no slouch himself but he kind of paled in comparison to his wife. He had military style blond hair, green eyes, and the look of someone who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it. He was five-foot-eleven inches tall and weighed around one hundred and eighty pounds. At thirty-two years of age, Mitch was the youngest Captain in the United Earth Space Command, a fact he knew only too well. He knew he was more than a capable Captain but suspected he had received this assignment due to the fact that his wife was the chief scientist and headquarters felt he would stand the best chance of keeping the peace between the military and the scientists. Onboard the Earth Ship Fahrion there was a crew of two thousand military personnel, one thousand scientific personnel, five hundred children, and one thousand five hundred assorted personnel whose job was to make everything run smoothly. This last group of people included cooks, teachers, janitors, entertainment specialists, and other similar positions.

Commander Nathan Bliss returned to the bridge and quickly executed the Captain’s orders. It had given Nathan a great deal of joy to see the fire come back into his good friend’s eyes. The Captain had been so down lately, a fact he kept well hidden from everyone on the ship, but Nathan had known him too long. He knew that the Captain was born to command a spaceship in action, not to sit around and micro manage a small scientific outpost posing as a space ship. Nathan was thirty-one, six feet tall, weighed around two hundred pounds, had brown eyes, and military style red hair. He had never really been an ambitious man, he had always followed in his best friend’s footsteps, and now he was the second in command of a space ship and married with five young children. He was by his very nature a very happy person no matter what he was doing.

With the Captain’s orders executed on the bridge he needed to execute one more order, an order he wasn’t really looking forward to giving. Commander Bliss left the bridge and started for the civilian research part of the ship.

CHAPTER 3

Red beams blazed out of the sky nearly incinerating everything they hit! Explosion after explosion rocked the city causing it to rumble as if they were having a major earthquake! The weak wood and clay houses collapsed into heaps of raw materials as another volley ofred beams pierced the bright orange sky! people ran everywhere trying in vain to find someplace safe, someplace that could stand up to this fierce attack from up high!

Kizaca, get down here! Mizar yelled up to his daughter from a nearby drainage ditch.

Dad! Where are you? Kizaca yelled, I can’t see! Mizar rapidly climbed out of the ditch and scooped up his daughter.

I’m here! Mizar said as he carried her into the filthy water filled ditch.

Something hit our house and then I couldn’t see anymore! Kizaca said between whimpers. She was trying to be brave but the horror-filled screams that were piercing the air in every direction could make anyone whimper. To one blind terrified eleven-year-old covered in wastewater and tucked in her father’s arm, it seemed as if the world was coming to an end.

On the other side of the same city, a similar scene was unfolding. Red beams were raining down even thicker onto the much stronger metal buildings that formed the very heart of the city. These extremely strong metal buildings blew apart as if they were nothing more than clay structures. people were running everywhere, some trying to find shelter, some trying to help, while others were just standing around in shock. The city was being systematically destroyed from orbit and this was only one city of thousands that were sharing the same fate.

The attack had been such a surprise, not totally unexpected, but a huge surprise none the less. The Tygerians were a peaceful race, but they knew they were on the outskirts of the territory hungry, material consuming Maculans. They knew that one day the Maculans would attack them. They had done everything they could to prepare for that day. The Tygerians had sacrificed, going without everything unnecessary for survival, in order to build a massive early warning system, planetary defense platforms, and a huge space fleet to turn back any Maculan invasion. The early warning system failed, their fleet, caught unprepared was quickly destroyed. The planetary defense system was barely activated before the platforms were blown out of the sky.

They opened fire with every ground cannon they had. Knowing they were defeated and knowing how their people would be treated, the military fought the hopeless fight until the bitter end. The Maculan would have another planet, another system, to control. They would strip the planet of everything of value, of all usable resources, enslave its people until they were finished then they would leave a dried out dead husk of a planet behind, with whatever was left of its people. This process might take hundreds of years, but it was the fate that lay in store for the Tygerian people unless they managed to escape to the stars.

„The air assault has ended! Proceed quickly to your evacuation sites!" A prerecorded message blared out of the few speakers remaining. Mizar crawled out of the ditch with his daughter clinging to him, took off running for his prearranged evacuation site! He knew as all Tygerians, that if they ever heard that message, their planet was doomed. He also knew that if his assigned evacuation site hadn‘t been destroyed he and his daughter would join a few hundred other people boarding one of billions of especially designed fast escape vessels. Everyone knew that these ships were cheap and prone to mechanical failure, but they were their only chance to escape. It was also widely known that it would take about a minute to launch the vessel into space and make it up to an escape speed, making them extremely vulnerable to the enemy. Nearly two thirds of these vessels were expected to be destroyed.

Mizar reached his assigned evacuation site. The ship was still there, it was in one piece, and a long line of people were already boarding. Mizar, cradling his daughter in his arms, joined the people in line.

„Step aside, You‘re not assigned to this ship! If we have room you may get to board before we leave!" A heavily armed well-trained soldier calmly informed the man a few feet in front of Mizar. The man stood there for a second as if thinking about trying something foolish, then stepped aside to quietly wait as the others continued to board. When Mizar reached the front of the line, the soldier scanned his hand, and then his daughter‘s.

„You‘re both free to board!" The soldier said politely as he turned to scan the next person in line. Mizar and his daughter then walked into the ship where another soldier directed them to the next two available seats. Mizar and Kizaca both sat quietly in a state of shock as they waited to see what would happen next. After another five minutes the man that had been one of several denied access to board was allowed to board. The doors were closed and the ship took off. The ship was filled with a nervous anticipation as it rapidly made its way into space.

CHAPTER 4

The boat began to slow its descent as it approached the bright dome.

What is it? Nikoloas asked. No one answered, no one knew the answer. The boat finally reached the bottom of the canyon giving the children their first close up view of the dome. It looked like half their sun sticking out of the ground with lush red plants everywhere. As the boat started to circle around the bottom of the extremely bright yellow dome, something that looked like a large arm began to extend from the dome.

Is it time for magic yet? Nikoloas impatiently asked.

We’re fine! Just wait! Stephunos immediately replied trying to delay his brother’s inevitable attempt to save them. Stephunos was trying to think of something he could do if things got worse. The boat was headed straight for the strange arm. Upon reaching the arm, the end of the arm, where a hand should be, opened up allowing the boat to enter. The boat stopped moving as the end of the arm close behind it.

Something just ate us? Aetos quizzically asked with such an amused expression on his face, Stephunos had a hard time not breaking out laughing. Anthea was not amused, seeing as she was quite certain they were all going to