Elementos: The Five Rings

By Aryan Awasthi

Upon the brutal murder of their parents, Five children discover the truth about their lineage.
To protect their homeland, Land Of Moco they enter a world of magic, gods and murderers. They have to take on their destiny and fight the Elementos, the darkest people to walk their land. Whatever the consequences, this fight will happen.
Will the sacrifices made by them to stop the Elementos bear fruit, or will it turn them into something darker and more evil than even the Elementos?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Sep 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482835397

Aryan Awasthi

The author, Aryan Awasthi is himself a teen and a student of calss IX . He is an avid reader of similar genre books, which enables him to have a unique insight into the teen mind, something no adult has succeeded in!

Book preview

About the Author

Aryan Awasthi’s intense interest in the supernatural, mystical and literature led him to conceptualise the plot of this book when he was eleven. Juggling his responsibilities and the interests of an early teen in India, it took him three years to polish it into a novel. Aryan is a class 9 student at the Bombay Scottish School and lives with his fmily in Mumbai. His other interests are gaming, kick-boxing and food.

ELEMENTOS

The Five Rings

Aryan Awasthi

9781482835397-6.png

Copyright © 2014 by Aryan Awasthi.

ISBN:      Hardcover     978-1-4828-3538-0

                Softcover      978-1-4828-3537-3

                eBook           978-1-4828-3539-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Partridge India

000 800 10062 62

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1   The Great Escape

Chapter 2   The Raiders

Chapter 3   The Eggs of the Steed

Chapter 4   Child of Elementos

Chapter 5   The Prophecy

Chapter 6   Death of the Last God

Chapter 7   The King of Moco

Chapter 8   Hell’s Gate and the First Ring

Chapter 9   The Mountain, the Ring, and the City of Ashes

Chapter 10   The Death of a Mountain

Chapter 11   The Jheno River and the Third Ring

Chapter 12   Torn Map, Last Ring

Chapter 13   The Imposter and the Traitor

Chapter 14   A Heavy Price to Pay, Ioe

Chapter 15   Gone, Forever

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Foremost, my sister, Nitika, for everything she has done, right from encouraging me to write, then pushing me to complete the manuscript, and finally designing the cover page.

Then, my best friends, Anish, Kashish, and Zara, the ones who taught me the meaning of friendship and gave me support and encouragement when I most needed it.

Prologue

All was quiet in the village of Evlareeg. Five people descended onto the deathly quiet main street. These people wore black robes, and each of them carried a white bundle. One of these bundles started to cry, the one holding him tried to calm the baby, but he started to cry louder. One of them, a female, handed the baby she was carrying to the man and gently took the baby he was holding. In a few minutes, she had calmed the baby. The leader smiled, it had been a wise choice to bring her. He turned and swiftly moved over to a house and placed the baby he had been carrying on its doorstep. The others went over to some other houses on the main street and quietly did the same. Then, as the first light crept through the houses and onto the main street, three of these people rose up and, in a swish of their black cloaks, disappeared. The leader and the woman stayed behind. The woman looked at the man, her boss and husband. ‘We must leave, the General is beginning to sense our presence, to stay here any longer is to beckon trouble.’ The man stayed poised on the doorstep. ‘You know’, he finally spoke, ‘for so long had you and I taken care of them, I had forgotten that they were to go one day.’ The woman took her husband’s hand and the two looked down at the peacefully sleeping baby. ‘What’s worse is’, the woman began, ‘that of the five, whoever is in their life will die and … this quest of theirs will destroy their souls as well.’

‘Goodbye, Elementi’, the leader began, ‘we shall meet again. Until then, work hard and’—the leader paused and chuckled, not happy, a sad one—‘and try to stay alive.’

*

One of these doors opened, and a big, burly, and sleepy man came outside. His foot gently nudged the cloth, he looked down and saw, fast asleep, with a look of complete innocence on him, a baby covered in white cotton cloth.

‘Katrina!’ the man yelled as he stumbled backwards. This cry woke some others as well, and as they came out, they saw the five new children left alone to face this world.

Chapter 1

The Great Escape

Thud!

A knife embedded itself in a small and worn wooden target. A slim, slightly muscular boy of about 15 walked over to the target and pulled the knife out. ‘Well, the target is gone now,’ Raph said.

‘Forget the board,’ a small chubby boy said. ‘There is something I want to talk to you about. I was walking over to the outhouse for something to eat when …’

He was interrupted by a tall boy with spiky blond hair. ‘You don’t need any more food, Ioe!’ Raph and another boy with sea-green eyes and black hair laughed along with Nyle.

‘Quiet, you three,’ a girl with curly brownish hair said.

‘Yeah,’ Raph said, quickly stopping his laughter. ‘Quiet.’

The boy with sea-green eyes and black hair, Maif, looked up; his eyes twinkled mischievously as he softly spoke up, ‘Oh, I am sure, Raph, that for you, everything Felina says is right, the rest of us can only wonder why you agree with everything she says.’

Both Felina and Raph looked at the laughing pair of Nyle and Maif murderously. They slowly moved towards the laughing pair and, as they neared the duo, started running towards them. They started chasing each other and then fell tumbled together laughing. Ioe sighed, looking up at the sky exasperatedly. He then got up and went over to Raph, who was still on the ground. He bent down and whispered, ‘Our parents are looking for a job for us and a suitor for Felina.’

Raph’s smile vanished as quickly and randomly as it had come. He got up and yelled, ‘What?!’ The others stopped laughing instantly.

‘What is it, Raph?’ Felina asked.

‘Our parents have decided that we should get a job and that you should get a husband.’

‘What?!’ Felina, Maif, and Nyle yelled simultaneously.

‘Yeah,’ Ioe said angrily. ‘They think we are old enough. Well, sorry to break their little bubble, we aren’t! I’ve still got my baby fat!’ Ioe stopped to take a deep breath.

‘Face it, Ioe,’ Nyle grabbed the chance. ‘You’ve got fat everywhere.’ Everyone smiled at that, even Ioe.

‘Stop messing around’, Raph said, ‘we have got a huge problem.’

‘No, we don’t.’ Maif looked up. ‘They always think about us getting a job, but in the end, they do give up.’

‘Maif’s right,’ Felina said, twisting her hair as she did when she was nervous. ‘They always do this, and we shouldn’t worry about this.’

‘Well’, Raph started, ‘let’s talk to Gruber about this.’

*

Gruber was the oldest man in the village, next spring he would be turning 97, but he looked much older than that. Legend says that Gruber was right beside King Hauser, the then king of the land they lived in, Moco, when he fell in battle. King Hauser’s grandson now held the throne of Moco, the kingdom where the five had been born and raised. Gruber was at that moment playing with Pakhren, the youngest person in the village, about two weeks old. Together, they formed the opposites in the village, old and young. ‘Hello, Gruber,’ Raph said as they walked over to him.

The old man looked up and his face cracked into a slight scowl, but it seemed he was resisting the urge to smile, the five could still see his white and shiny teeth. He gave a grunt like a wild hog. ‘Oh, it’s you lot, your families let you out after the New Year firework incident, huh?’

‘Yeah, Gruber,’ Raph said as all five winced. ‘Thanks for reminding us of that.’

‘No problem, I wanted to thank you lot for the most entertaining New Year I have ever had.’ He smiled and laughed heartily, his voice echoing off the houses around them.

‘Gruber’, Felina interjected quickly, ‘we wanted to talk to you about our parents.’

Gruber stopped laughing instantly. ‘What do you mean?’ he said quickly.

‘The jobs and the suitor,’ Ioe said.

Raph stared at Gruber with his frighteningly sharp blue eyes. Gruber sighed, and then slowly getting up, he put the baby in the cot and got up, grasped his knobbly wood stick, and said, ‘You better come with me, you lot.’

Gruber’s house was a small wooden shack away from the main town. Inside were trophies from his various campaigns, a broken sword, a dented helmet, and lastly, a banner forming the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Nom, Moco’s neighbour. They had fought their last war seventy-four years ago, when Gruber was around 23 years old. Gruber opened the lock with a rusty key, which was made of tarnished silver. ‘Make yourselves at home,’ he said as the five entered. He left the door ajar, the five settled down on the floor, and Gruber began to speak, ignoring them as he filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove. ‘Who told you this?’

‘Ioe was walking past the house when he heard them talking,’ Nyle said.

Gruber turned to Ioe, who was stuffing himself with the food he had found in Gruber’s house. ‘Confound it, boy!’ Gruber yelled.

‘What?’ Ioe said. ‘Should I offer it to you guys? You guys want this?’

‘No, boy’, Gruber said, ‘you should not eavesdrop like that boy.’

‘Two things’, Ioe said, ‘actually three. First, stop calling me boy, second, do you have any more of this stuff? It’s delicious, and third of all, I wasn’t eavesdropping, they were talking very loudly,’ he finished.

Gruber raised his eyebrows, the kettle whistled. Gruber trudged back, dropped something in the kettle, and poured it out onto six cups, handing one to each of the five. The five sipped from it, the tea was basically some awful-smelling mixture and boiling water that scalded their tongues instantly. ‘Fine, but now, what are you going to do?’ he said, turning to the others.

‘I have no idea,’ Raph said, shaking his head. The others looked at each other.

Suddenly they were interrupted by an absent-minded Ioe. ‘Well, we could always run away.’ There was silence for a moment. Then, all of the four looked at Ioe incredulously. Raph, Felina, Nyle, and Maif looked at each other. Slowly a smile spread across all faces, even Ioe’s. ‘Why are we smiling?’ he asked, his face covered in crumbs.

‘No’, Gruber said, ‘no, no, no, no, noooo. I know that look very well, you lot are not doing anything like that, got that?’

‘But, Gruber—’ Maif began, but he was cut off.

‘I said NO!’ Gruber yelled.

‘Fine,’ Raph said. ‘Have it your way! But we are not staying here! Let’s go.’ The five kept their cups on the ground and, with Raph in the lead, walked out the door, and away from the shack.

*

Raph sat down on the boulder and spoke angrily, ‘I don’t care what Gruber says, I am not taking a job, and if the only option is running away then, I will take it.’

‘We are with you, Raph’, Nyle said, ‘but we will need provisions and weapons, clothings, stuff like that, and a lot of planning.’

‘He’s right, you know, Raph,’ Maif said. ‘Running away is not easy.’

‘Yeah, I know where we can find clothes,’ Felina said.

‘Where?’ Raph asked, curious.

‘There’s this old hut near the forest, I used to play there when I was a kid, and it’s filled with clothes and blankets, enough even for the coldest winter night.’

‘Good.’ Raph said. ‘And the food?’

‘I’ll take care of that.’ Nyle said. ‘I’ve seen a small granary down by the river, the bandits used to fill it with food and money for a long winter. Whatever they did to preserve the foods, it worked, it’s still fresh and we can use the money they had hidden.’

‘Great, so we have everything.’

‘Wait,’ Ioe said. ‘What about weapons? So we can defend ourselves and hunt? And rides? You can’t expect us to walk the entire length of Moco? We are with you, Raph, but some more than others … just saying.’

Raph smiled and replied, ‘We can go to one of the abandoned fortresses and collect weapons from there, there are plenty of those. As for the rides, we can walk to Burin and buy horses from there.’ Raph finished, ‘I think we covered everything, so tomorrow, me and Nyle are going to go to the granary and get as much as we can, I’ll find something to carry all the sacks. Meanwhile, Maif’, he said, turning to Maif, ‘you and Felina go to the house and get the clothes, me and Nyle will put our sacks in that hut, meanwhile, Ioe will keep a lookout on our parents. If anything happens, come over to the hut and tell us everything. If we are not there, wait until dusk and then go search for us, check the granary first,’ Raph pondered for a moment, trying to see if he had forgotten anything, he wondered if he was being too hasty with this, but he knew each of their parents. If their mind was made up, they would have very little time to escape. ‘Well, that’s it,’ he said finally. The five then slowly trudged home saying goodbye to each other as one of their houses came in sight. Raph’s house was at the end, he and Felina were now alone, walking towards her house, and ‘So’, she began, ‘why are you doing this?’

‘Doing what?’ Raph asked.

‘You know, running away.’

‘Oh’, Raph said, ‘so I don’t have to do work.’

‘Please don’t lie to me, Raph, the money will run out eventually.’

‘Then,’ Raph said looking away. She was too beautiful, it was distracting. He couldn’t think straight, much less talk sense. ‘I guess …’

‘I know why, you fool, you don’t need to say anything, and I know it is so that I don’t get married to whichever rich pig my parents choose for me.’ Felina looked away for a moment.

Raph hadn’t heard anything, but somehow he saw a strand of hair fall across her face and she tucked it behind her ear. ‘C’mon, Raph’—he tried to get his brain in place—‘stop acting like an idiot.’

‘I just want you to know’, she started again, looking at him again, Raph froze again, ‘that it means a lot to me, you doing this for me.’

Raph couldn’t think. Did it mean what he thought it meant? It was no secret that he had a soft spot for her, a really soft spot. As he looked down to see her, he looked right into her eyes, he froze. They were at Felina’s house. Raph knew just how protective her parents were, his mind going back to that one time when her parents had openly scolded him for hugging her.

Suddenly, she reached up and kissed him.

Raph froze. His body felt numb while his lips tingled slightly where she had kissed him. Then, without turning back, she walked into the house. Raph’s mind was still frozen; it took him five minutes to realise that Felina had kissed him and another five minutes for him to accept it. Then, slowly, he turned and walked home. All the way back, he tried to figure out what that was; did it mean she was reciprocating his feelings? Or was it just her maintaining her stance of ‘just friends’? Or maybe it was just impulsive? Raph was so deep in thought that he didn’t realise he had reached home, until he smacked into his doorway. Raph’s house was at the end of the main street, near the farms. He slowly opened the door into his house and it opened noisily.

His parents were waiting for him.

Raph’s father had been an army captain and had still got his scars from a military rebellion; his mom was a beautiful woman who worked in a small poultry and dairy farm that she had built up from the gifts she had got for her marriage to Raph’s father. ‘So, son’, his father began softly, ‘we have decided that you four are old enough for a job and Felina, old enough for a suitor, so we have decided that you lot will go to Burin for trading while Felina will marry Mescal.’

‘Mescal.’ Raph’s worst fears had been confirmed. He couldn’t control his emotions. ‘That obnoxious, self-centred, pampered creep?!’

‘Don’t call him that,’ his father said, smiling. Everyone knew how much Raph’s father hated Mescal’s family. He had, in fact, called Mescal’s father those exact things. He went up to Raph and said, ‘He’s from a good prosperous family and she will be happy there.’

‘By good prosperous family you mean stinking rich!’ Raph said, and he continued, ‘She won’t be happy there, and what else do I call him if not what he is? Plus, he looks like a cow with bad gas.’

His father smiled even broadly, proud that his son had inherited his verbal abuse tactics. ‘So if you think that he is not good for her, then who could be good enough for her? Then who would be? Maybe there is only one person who surpasses all the standards you have set for Felina, and would that person would be you?’ Raph was shocked for a moment, and then he started to say something when his father cut him off. ‘Son, I know you like Felina, but the family has chosen a suitor for her, and even though I don’t know their intentions, whether good or bad, we must respect them.’

‘But, Father, she doesn’t like him, and there are other options.’

‘Like running away?’ his father whispered. He had just guessed but the surprise in Raph’s eyes gave them away. His father grinned even more, proud of his son, over to Raph’s mother and said, ‘Katrina, could you make me a cup of tea?’ Raph’s mother noticed the look in Raph’s father’s eyes. She nodded and went out. His father quickly turned to Raph and spoke quickly, ‘If you are hell-bent on running away, then you will need something to hold the supplies. Take Mitring, he can carry the supplies, and do it tomorrow, when all the adults have gone for the prophecy ceremony, okay? And also, son, take this with you,’ he said, producing a medium-sized sword with a thin straight blade and leather wrappings on the hilt. ‘It’s my sword from my time in the army, it saved me a hell lot of times, let’s hope it does the same for you.’ He gave Raph the sword and sheath, a leather pocket inlaid with cotton, and a leather cord with several hoops for tightening and keeping the sword in its place. Raph grasped it and put it on him, then he put the sword back in its place and covered it with the fold’s hanging of his shirt. Then he went up to his room. Raph’s room was a simple bare room with a rickety bed, a cupboard for his clothes, and finally, a small ebony box inlaid with soft red velvet and magnificent carvings on it covering the carvings was pure ivory. Raph had seen it in a fair and had instantly fallen in love with it, and after convincing the man who owned it to keep it for another year, he saved up every little penny and bought it the next year. He was 7 then. Eight years later, he had saved many precious stones, money, jewellery, and other items of considerable worth. After looking at the box and its contents, Raph examined the sword; even though it was rugged and worn out, it had a certain aura of power around it, as if it had sworn to protect his owner even if it meant certain destruction for it. Raph looked at it for a while longer and then put down the sword and then went off to sleep.

*

Raph woke up an hour before daybreak; he quickly finished his chores and then, taking the donkey, went over to Nyle’s house. There, Nyle was waiting for him. ‘Let’s go.’ Silently they walked until they were at the outskirts of the village, and ‘So’, Nyle began, ‘so, what happened after you and Felina dropped me off at my house?’

‘Nothing,’ Raph replied all too quickly.

‘Please don’t insult my intelligence, Raph.’

Raph shrugged. They were going to find out anyways, so what was the point of not telling them? ‘We kissed.’

‘What?’ Nyle said as if Raph had attempted to kill the king. ‘What?!’ he repeated.

‘Yeah, we did, so what?’ Raph said, his tone challenging.

‘No, nothing, no big deal.’ And yet all the way to the granary, Nyle was shaking his head.

The granary was a small oval structure twelve and a half feet high. It consisted of four rooms, three rooms were on the ground and held food, there was a trapdoor that led to the fourth room, and this one consisted of money. They quickly took one of the rucksacks and went down to the money room. They filled four rucksacks with money and then went to the other rooms, and there they filled up the rest of the rucksacks up till the brim with food.

‘There’, Nyle said, heaving the last sack on to Mitring, ‘that should last us until we get to Burin; also, the money can buy anything we might need and a bit left over for starting a business if we want to.’

‘Fine,’ Raph said. ‘Let’s go to the house.’ The house was a small ramshackle building made by a mad hermit. It was said that people temporarily stayed here to see the mad hermit, and then they discovered the huge forest and its wealth and made the place their home. Because of this nuisance, the hermit had to leave and the house was left alone. Raph and Nyle entered carrying all the backpacks in, they gently eased the packs onto the floor, leaning against the wall, and then they waited to see if they fell. When they didn’t, they sat down and then waited for Raph to speak. ‘Well’, he began, ‘if things go well, we will leave tonight, when all the adults are at the prophecy ceremony, me and Maif live closest to this house, so we will take my donkey to this house and collect everything from here, the rest of you, get out of the house, and meet us at the great oak, from there we will go to Burin.’ The great oak was a massive oak tree near the end of the forest. It was left alone five days prior, and after any religious function, the people thought of it as sacred thing. This would work for them; they would not be disturbed. ‘Okay.’ The others nodded. Gradually, the five of them left the house. Raph headed to his house, there he went up to the loft and to see what he had not seen ever since that night.

Raph was 5 when he had come up to this loft, even when his father had forbidden it. He had hidden behind a chest, giggling uncontrollably every time his father called his name. Raph had been both smarter and more mischievous at that time than any other person his age. He was laughing so hard that his shoulder bumped into a shelf and a letter fluttered down. Curious, Raph picked it up and read it. It went:

Dear Raph,

If you are reading this, then I have no doubt that you are old enough to know the truth. Your friends probably already know this, but I wished to tell you this personally, but then something must have happened to me to prevent me telling you, so this letter. You are probably wondering why I did not address you as ‘son’, that is, because, you are not my son.

Do not misunderstand me, I love you very much, always will, but you are not my flesh and blood. Years ago, early one morning something or somebody had left you and four others, one on each of our doorsteps, we and the others were shocked but still took you in