Howling at the Moon

By D. H. Schneider

Mortimus howl is a mage that has been under a curse for 300 years, and though he has not always made the best decisions there comes a time in every mans life when they have to decide what's more important: the people he has come to care about and trust or whats left of his own misbegotten life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496943620

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© 2014 D.H. Schneider. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/08/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4361-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4363-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4362-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917433

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Contents

Chapter 1 Peaceful

Chapter 2 Of Pizza and Women

Chapter 3 Foggy Memories

Chapter 4 Golden Radiance

Chapter 5 Willow

Chapter 6 The archives

Chapter 7 Sanctuary

Chapter 8 Sweat and Blood

Chapter 9 Standing Your Ground

Chapter 10 A Child’s Cry

Chapter 11 The Hunt

Chapter 12 Betrayed

Chapter 13 Rage

Chapter 14 Choice

Chapter 15 Gungnir

Chapter 16 Final conflicts

Chapter 17 Bargains

Epilogue

Warning to those who wish to proceed

Hello dear reader,

My name is Mortimus Howl, and yes I know it looks weird but I assure you that is my real name. What you are about to read will be viewed as a work of fiction by most but to some of you, whose eyes are open to the more supernatural things in the world, I hope you will take what you read for what it really is. For those that fall into neither category and still have not formed an opinion of the world at large there are a few things we need to discuss.

First off.

Magic is real.

You heard me, real.

Get over it and move on.

There are things in this world that exist far beyond the fragile edges of the human mind. As such, most of humanity has deemed these creatures as myth and legend. After all it’s much easier to disbelieve something horrifying and pretend it doesn’t exist than deal with it. Especially, if you don’t encounter it every day like I do.

But forgive me, I am rambling.

Magic, you see, is just energy.

A man, whose name slips my mind at the moment, stated that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form to another. This is how magic works.

You see our world…scratch that… our universe is one huge, big, living entity. Running through this living entity is energy called elemential. It flows through veins called leylines which, on our planet, is a complex network of ethereal tubes that give the world the energy needed to survive.

In some areas of the world certain leylines are in abundance while others are not, creating different environments such as deserts, oceans, and mountains.

You are probably wondering by now how I know so much about this stuff. Well, dear reader, I am what is known as a mage, wizard, warlock, witch, sorcerer, or magician; whatever you want to call it they are all the same. See, mages are human beings who can tap into the leylines that run through our world and change that energy into something else. For example, if someone wanted to create a fireball all they would have to do was tap into a nearby fire leyline, take the energy into themselves, and craft it into a flaming ball. It’s harder than it sounds believe me.

Now as mages go, I am not the most powerful one around. Hell, my talent has no elegance to it whatsoever. I am going on three hundred years of age now and the sheer power of my abilities is not what it used to be. Hell, when I was young it wasn’t anything to brag about either.

As you might expect in this day and age there isn’t much call for mages. No kings in need of a sage or any knights in need of help defeating any evil. So I have turned my abilities to something that can be of use.

Alchemy.

No, not the type of alchemy that can turn led into gold. Alchemy in the magic world means a combination of magic and ferromancy which everyday people call technology and science. I take everyday objects and add a little magic to them. Maybe I make something more energy efficient, or I will enchant something with the power of steel to make it sturdier and less likely to break. Either way, I use my magic to better the lives of those around me which in my view is how it should be done.

Anyway, I am finished with my babbling it’s time you heard the story I have to tell you. If what you have read seems too unbelievable then rest assured you aren’t the only one to think so. That is after all why you found this account of my life in the fiction section. However, if my words have touched you, sparking the flame of magic within your soul, then read on brave reader… read on.

Sincerely,

Mortimus Howl

Chapter 1

Peaceful

I t was Monday morning in the town that I lived and worked. A dreadful day in general but that’s beside the point. A small scenic almost picturesque place that was bigger than a village but smaller than a city. The kind of place where the houses were old as were the ways of life, with some tweaks here and there like electricity and cars and the other modern advancements of the time. It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else, where a friendly greeting always met you, because the people who lived there had no reason to be anything but nice. The sky was blue and clear of the smog you usually find in the city.

Personally I liked it, after all my business was sort of strange in the modern day. I owned a house, nothing too fancy just an old two story house built on the sweat, blood, and tears of someone hundreds of years before I lived there. I had bought it at an affordable price which was way below the market value of the place. You see strange things happened in the house; rumors were that it was haunted but that was silly. The explanation for the weird events is much simpler than that, you see the house was built on a strange occurrence.

A convergence is when several leylines, the veins of the planet through which the life blood of all things elemential flows, all converge in one place. The house was built on a convergence and as such the buildup of energy caused things to happen. Naturally now that I live here the events stopped. You see I am a mage, a human with the ability to tap into and use the energy flowing through the planets leylines. People nowadays would call what I can do magic but really it’s just supernatural science.

When I moved in I immediately tapped into the convergence and channeled the energy into various enchantments and defenses for my home. I won’t go into the details, but trust me my home is a lot more defended than it looks. To make money I work as an alchemist, someone who works to combine magic with ferromancy, and I make enough to get by. My alchemist shop is on the first floor of my home, while my living quarters are on the second. The people in the town aren’t brainwashed by modern times enough to feel embarrassed about coming to me, so I do what I can to help make their lives easier.

The wooden outside of my home is painted white with green windowsills and a blue roof. On the roof is a brick chimney through which my fire place can filter out the smoke from my fires. My front door is a large wooden one with my name and profession printed on the stained glass in bright glowing letters. My hours are listed on the card hanging below the words as are the services I provide.

Like I said it was a Monday morning, the worst type of morning in my experience as nothing good ever happened on a Monday, and as usual I got up stretching feeling younger than I was as usual. I walked to my bathroom and washed my face examining myself in the mirror. I looked young, no more than twenty seven years old; my black hair was unruly and wild before I combed it into submission. When I finished, it hung down covering half of my face hiding one of my two deep blue eyes. I tried not to stare too deeply into my own eyes not particularly wanting to see what I was deep down. I had rugged good looks and wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Although with any luck I’d get a date sometime before my four hundredth birthday. I examined my body in the full length mirror, I had to my left, seeing the muscles I had developed from three hundred years of working out four times a week.

I slipped into a pair of work jeans, a three button shirt of a sickly green looking color, and put on my socks and shoes. Satisfied with my appearance for now, I headed downstairs and changed the sign in my window from closed to open; then went to my workbench where my latest personal project was waiting.

It lay in pieces waiting to be put together, a weapon with which I could defend myself and others should the need arise. The town may have been peaceful but the world sure as hell wasn’t; the supernatural world that these people weren’t aware of would probably eat them alive if I wasn’t here to keep it from happening. Things were in such a state, that before I went to sleep at night I closed all my windows and locked them sealing them shut with magic. I sighed and took a seat looking to the metal cylinders I was trying to craft. They would need extra reinforcement if they were going to do what I intended them to.

Closing my eyes I cut off the world around me, first the light disappeared, then the sound, and finally the feeling of the cool shop as the crisp country breeze blew in through an open window. I furrowed my brows and concentrated on one of the leylines that flowed through, around, under, and over my home. The energy of steel, of strength, and sturdiness, was there waiting for me as it always was. I reached out one hand and directed the flow of that energy, ever so slightly, so that some of it would flow into me. Carefully, I channeled that energy into my hands, changing its shape and how it worked. I could feel it buzzing in my hand, eager to please and mold to my will. It wanted to join with me to make me