Ghosts of Avernus: The Epic Adventures of the Cleric: Eleazaar Oman

By John Hamilton

Everyone has those certain days when you get up; the sun is shining, there's a nice breeze under a blue sky and everything seems like a perfect day with endless possibilities. Then, something off-the-chain happens. Events turn and suddenly the day goes straight to hell in a hand-basket.

What began as a beautiful day of traveling while on assignment for the cleric, Eleazaar, and his dwarven acolyte, ends up in an epic struggle for survival for themselves and thousands of others. With time running out, he must draw upon all of his skills, knowledge and faith to overcome an insidious foe bent on vengeance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499082531

John Hamilton

JOHN HAMILTON was born in England and migrated to Western Australia with his family. After serving in the Royal Australian Navy he worked as an award-winning reporter and foreign correspondent for more than forty years. His interest in Gallipoli began in 2000 when he was assigned to cover the 85th anniversary of the landings at Anzac Cove.

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Copyright © 2014 by John Hamilton.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014918379

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-8252-4

                Softcover        978-1-4990-8254-8

                eBook             978-1-4990-8253-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/13/2014

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Foreward: A History Of Zygia And The O.i.l.

Chapter One: The Rise Of The Cleric

Chapter Two: A Town In Trouble

Chapter Three: Portents Grim

Chapter Four: The Monastery

Chapter Five: Dead Storm

Chapter Six: Where There’s Lightning

Chapter Seven: Road To Ruin

Chapter Eight: Monastic Aftermath

Chapter Nine: Hadley’s Woods

Chapter Ten: Symbol Of The Past

Chapter Eleven: The Wages Of Sin

Chapter Twelve: Imperare Diabolo

Chapter Thirteen: Precipice

Chapter Fourteen: Foxfire

Chapter Fifteen: Hell Never Forgets

Chapter Sixteen: Judgment

To Misty Short-Hamilton

In the hope that whatever plane you now roam is better than the cruel one you left behind. You are missed.

And to my youngest, Olivia

For putting up with dad being so busy writing

Acknowledgments

As with all creative works, there are people which deserve to be recognized for their contributions, assistance or services related to its completion. The Ghosts of Avernus went through a long process of versions and revisions before becoming a book, as it originated as a screenplay.

The screenplay version went through readings that were very helpful and insightful to the story and the actors and other professionals who assisted in any facet of those readings have contributed to its success. Among those who contributed; my colleagues Tracy Gray, Kim Wood and Mary Patton, and readers Gary Schmidt, Cora and John Williams, Bob Rayhart, Frankie, Josh, Brandon and Patti. Also to be mentioned are those others who offered publishing advice, such as author Sean Dever, and the ever-amazing Rick Boesenberg for providing illustration for the book. A special thanks to Michael Carrozzo as well for his advisement on historical languages.

Author’s Note

The Ghosts of Avernus is the first in a planned series of novels about the adventures of the cleric, Eleazaar Oman. He originated while I was in college in 1988 as a fantasy roll-playing character whose success was so unprecedented and phenomenal, he took on a life and voice all his own. Like the character in these stories, his remarkable luck and sometimes inadvertently great decisions led him to great achievements and long life, when all others were felled around him.

His penchant for survival never came at the cost of courage, a trait which remains consistent in the novel here and those to come subsequently. When he faced an impossible situation, he just faced it and death with courage (and usually a smattering of dark humor). In every one of those instances, and there were many, he walked away to face the next challenge fate had prepared for him.

The adventure in this novel and any subsequent works are original stories that draw upon experiences in the adventures of the character while gaming in college. They are not reproductions of those adventures, nor are the stories lifted from any game. Certain particular experiences or encounters of the game character were taken in creating settings for these stories, but are completely original renditions based on the unique world created by myself while in school, Zygia (ZI-ja). Any similarities found in these stories to the works or creations of others are entirely and completely coincidental.

The screenplay versions in which these stories originated provided the foundation for the books and, ironically perhaps, the books are now the basis of modification to the original screenplays. With any luck, the adventures of the cleric will find their way to the big screen one day. The next book in the series, The Insignificance Paradigm, which I am already working on, will take readers back in time to the character’s beginning.

In the Ghosts of Avernus, the cleric is thirtyish and has earned his stripes, often referring back to his adventures of the past. His personality is largely set in stone. But, every character becomes who they are over time and he was no different.

The next book places him in seminary school at age 17, a mere acolyte scribe, just before he is sent out into the real world to find his way. Being young, socially awkward and bi-racial in a harsh and intolerant world that frowns upon the different, readers will experience what early events shaped who the character became in this first book, many years later. I hope you love the series and adventures as much as I do and have while writing them.

–– John Hamilton, December, 2013

Foreword

A HISTORY OF ZYGIA AND THE O.I.L.

"In the beginning there was the void, and the spaces within the void were filled with gases of the elements. It was said that God drew the gasses together and formed the planes and the world from the material in the void. This forming began what was known as the First Dragon Age and the new world burned hot with great fire and was devoid of life.

As the world cooled, solid rock was formed and the waters also upon the surface of the rock. The Second Dragon Age thus began with the breath of life as the first dragon arose from the sea and walked upon the rocks therein. The dragons populated the world and flourished from the mountain tops to the great depths beneath the waters.

In the Third Dragon age, God created new life and the world was covered by plants and animals of every kind upon the rock and beneath the seas. The dragons were set above them as caretakers of the new world, but some despised the new creations and rebelled against God. Pestilence and war covered the land and the God of Creation was displeased. Thus, the dragons in great number were made to sleep within the world for a time and God took upon his own caretaking thereof. In the years which followed, the humanoid races evolved and multiplied in the dragon’s absence, coalescing into clans, conquering the rock and building the foundations of the first formal humanoid societies."

Eleazaar Oman - Excerpt from Essay on the Origins of Life: Pre-history – 1592 DA4

Society in the Fourth Dragon Age had evolved from the barbarian clans and primitive kingdoms of the former age over the past thirty thousand years. Along with it, the church too had arisen from the primitive pagan practices of superstitious folklore and evolved into modern institutions of canonized faiths and formal practice. Modern provincial kingdoms, their armies and standardized systems of economics spread throughout the land and the populations therein flourished in great numbers.

In 723 DA4, Vicar Gotlieb first founded the Order of Infinite Light. A progressive religious order for the times, it permitted individual understandings of the god almost universally associated with goodness and creation, known to them as Youja Shilud. He was a god of all things and the early churches of the order promoted enlightenment through education for the study of all things under heaven. Unlike other orders, it embraced the emerging ideas of science and learning as a way to better understand this God and the world of his creation, not as a tool of his refutation.

There were many variations of faith in the worship of Shilud. The Hrazda Temple was a restrictive fighting order with a commitment to combat and healing. Like all institutions they made adaptations to their practices over time, but fell far short of being progressive with ideas. Their cleric’s choices of weapons were limited in combat, beholden to ancient traditions that few could even remember the origin. Still, they were regular participants on the fields of battle that shaped the kingdoms and respected for their contributions.

They tended to see all other orders beneath them, however, a holdover of the conservative fundamentalism of their teachings. It was an arrogance that occasionally led to conflict as only their true church was seen by them as legitimate.

Shard of the Mosque was fundamentalist too, but each church of the faith varied in the specific practices outside of their core beliefs to some degree. Some were very conservative and others less so, but they all tended to distance themselves from other faiths. They could be fiercely combative as well and there were great clashes over the centuries with Hrazda Temple. One redeeming quality in particular, however, was their sense of honor. The clerics, Salis (paladins) and Markuts (caveliers) of their order were fiercely loyal and dependable to those whom their word had been given or who had gained their respect. Their clerigo (clerics) were respected men of knowledge and leadership who, while not so socially progressive as O.I.L., held similar ideas of science and learning.

Many monastic and lesser orders dotted the land as well, but it was the Order of Infinite Light that would dwarf them in a few hundred years. In their love affair with God and science, O.I.L. had learned to master the elements around them. The order built seminary schools and its many members were well educated in diverse and expanding areas of knowledge.

Like their God, Shilud, it was an order of everything and open to the multitude of things which could be learned and taught; outside of sorcery, of course. Although it had begun as a peaceful, non-combative order with an emphasis on learning, that all changed permanently in 769 DA4.

A wicked and brutal barbarian horde, known as the Sechuwan Ildai, swept down across the land from the far north on swift and mighty horses. They spared nothing in their advance, burning villages and temples to the ground, stripping the land bare and slaughtering the peoples they encountered in horrific ways. The peaceful Order of Infinite Light was given no more mercy than any other; their temples and centers of learning burning to the ground with those others around them.

By the time the horde swept down into the Uradie Valley, it seemed there was nothing that could stop them from sweeping through the whole of the land; not even God. Their cavalry-based army was very fast, well trained and could be scarcely opposed in the field by the sluggish and heavily armored provincial armies. When fortifications stood in their way, they could live off the land and starve out the defenders by cutting them off from supplies.

What could not be accomplished on the field of battle, however, could be done by other means. Two clerics of the Order of Infinite Light used their acquired knowledge of alchemy to set a trap for the horde. There was a narrow point at one exit from the Uradie known as Cadaver’s Pass. It was prone to landslides; particularly during the spring thaw but it always represented a danger to those passing through. The pass had to be cleared of fallen rock yearly to allow caravans and travelers to continue to pass through it.

With the help of Lord Chamberlain Wain and his provincial army, the narrow exit from the Uradie was blocked off by heavy infantry. While such forces were normally vulnerable to cavalry, they were superior in the confined space which negated the horsemen’s mobility. The clerics, Falko Heilbronner and Emilio Abrantes, combined combustible materials into explosives and set them strategically among the rocks on the steep walls ahead of the soldiers.

Lord Wain sent his horseback archers into the Uradie Valley to taunt the enemy and draw them into the narrow pass. Getting the barbarians to take the bait posed little problem. They were fearless and had, to such point in time, been almost invincible. There was little invitation needed to arouse their desire for battle. They were found resting in the ruins of Kaleth, having sacked both the town and the Keep there the day before.

Lord Wain’s horse archers, about forty in all, rained arrows down upon the encampment, killing the horseback guards patrolling the flanks. The archers were unarmored and very fast in their own right, so they fired as long as they could and then raced away with a mobilized and angry hornet’s nest of enemy cavalry in pursuit.

Around the bend at the most narrow point, the archers dashed out of their pursuer’s sight and rode through the lines of heavy infantry. There they stopped and readied their bows for the chaos which would come next. As the horde of riders came to the narrow point, they slowed as they squeezed through the constricted space.

Their leader, Xian Qui, seemed hesitant, perhaps suspicious that something was awry. He looked about at the high walls, but saw nothing suspicious. He ordered his army ahead, but he did not join them himself. Instead, he trotted slowly towards the rear, suspiciously scanning the rocky heights around them.

The barbarian cavalry squeezed through the narrow bend and seeing the infantry as they came through the other side, they re-formed into a group and began to charge at them. Pikemen came forward in front of the infantry and planted spears to receive the charge. The cavalry engaged, leaping into the ranks, some evading the pikemen’s spears and some not. Then, a series of mighty explosions rocked the pass, shaking the footing beneath them all.

The ground rumbled and shook like an earthquake and the echo from the explosions reverberated throughout the whole pass. Rocks and boulders of varying size began to bounce, roll and tumble down the steep walls into the pass below. Then, a large section of weak rock snapped. A massive chunk of the stone wall began to slide and break apart. It all came crashing across the floor of the pass, hurling and crushing man and horse alike as it flowed into them, dividing the enemy forces into two parts; one on one side and one on the other.

Xian Qui sat angrily upon his horse, separated from the head and likely half of his mighty army. The mass of fallen rock could not be traversed by horses and there was no possibility of making such a path in time to help them defeat Lord Wain’s forces. But, he saw Hielbronner and Abrantes as they fled away from the ridge. Thus, he retired with the remainder of his army and set off to track them down and take his revenge against them.

Meanwhile, Wain’s infantry forces and archers squeezed the barbarians ever tighter in the narrow space until they had slaughtered them to the last. It cost Lord Wain nearly half of his own soldiers to do it, but the mighty enemy was now significantly less mighty. They could, at last, be successfully challenged by the superior combined forces of the local Lords of the Uradie and beyond.

Both Heilbronner and Abrantes were indeed captured by the Ildais. Heilbronner’s body was found headless with his limbs all crudely cut from his body. The body of Abrantes was never found, though a hand believed to be his was found clutching a holy symbol of Shilud at the edge of a cliff overlooking the Little Corona River.

It took three more years of intense fighting as the barbarians were hard for the slower armies to corner, but their losses still mounted and they eventually withdrew back to the expanses of the north. A wounded Xian Qui managed to escape with them, but was never seen again and the barbarians did not return to the land of the south or the Uradie Valley. The Order of Infinite Light was hailed for breaking the enemy’s back and its two fallen clerics would become martyrs of the order.

Forever tied to such legendary heroics, the order exploded in size over the years that followed. After their experience with the invaders, the order changed its practices and transitioned to a fighting sect, encouraging and developing the broadest range of fighting styles and weaponry amongst all of the orders across the land. Each ambassador still specialized in a particularly narrow array of weapons, but was encouraged to train in many and choose whatever weapon class best suited them, in spite of the traditions of the past. In the years that followed, they would produce some of the most elite fighting clerics in all of the world.

Then, in 1591 DA4, a thirteen year old boy miraculously appeared in the gardens of Lord Alcantara; the lord of Lochston Province. He was naked, confused and afraid with speech that was strange. It was said that he had appeared out of thin air and so the Order of Infinite Light was summoned to examine him.

Under testing, the boy proved to be well educated, possessing of skills and bore certain mannerisms typical of the nobility. It was clear to them that he was not entirely human, but there was no fault of evil found in him. The order thus made the secretive decision to spirit him away. The boy they called the Parvulus Sanctus Unus was subsequently moved to the St. von Claus Seminary School in the town of Warfall. Under the tutelage of the priests of the order, the boy excelled and exceeded expectations as he grew.

The boy did also have a penchant for finding trouble. He became friends at the school with a nobleman’s son who studied there as well, and the two of them together seemed to make trouble a habit. The boy followed his friend on explorative adventures outside of the school that sometimes became quite dangerous.

One weekend they had snuck out and ventured to old ruins some miles outside of town. They were nearly killed by a bugbear that day and created a panic by their absence from the school. Notwithstanding, he learned much from his studies and escapades and was growing up to be a fine cleric.

In 1594 DA4, the Spotted Plague swept through the Uradie and spread rapidly across the lands beyond. Like the barbarian hordes before, it spared no person, rank or profession. The order was hit hard as the clerics selflessly served to help the sick and the dying throughout the land.

The boy’s mentors, however, were careful not to expose the boy by sending him out to help fight the plague. He was deemed, in a word, special; too special in fact to risk his future in such a time as this. He had appeared under peculiar auspices and that made him a child given for great purpose. Even if no one knew for what purpose it was, they believed the boy had been placed here for a reason; by Shilud himself. The boy’s name was Eleazaar.

Chapter One

THE RISE OF THE CLERIC

A light gust of wind rustled the tree tops in the darkness of the woods. The song of crickets and frogs pierced the night like any other, reminding any who might hear of the teeming abundance of life obscured beneath its shroud. Below the canopy of green, fog had begun to rise and drift across the ground.

The sound of footsteps cracking upon fallen leaves and twigs arose as a robed figure scurried through the woods. The figure stopped at last and knelt down, his breath strained from running. He pulled back his cloak and grabbed a pouch that hung from his belt.

Opening the pouch, he thrust his fingers inside and took a pinch of a white powder, which he rubbed between his fingers. The figure scanned the moist ground that lay before him, calculating the dimensions of the task at hand. He then began to sprinkle powder from the pouch in a wide circle on the ground.

Completing the circle, he made a hub in the center and sectioned the circle off with the powder into eight separate sections. Within each section, he made symbols with the powder until each was similarly adorned in their proper sequence. After completing the last one, he stopped to look at them for a moment and then pulled something wrapped in cloth out of his cloak.

Pulling back the folds of cloth revealed a shiny metal plaque covered with engraved markings. In the center of the plaque, a Spanish Blue, oval stone was embedded. He leaned across the circle, careful not to damage it, and laid the plaque down on the hub in the center. He stroked his hand across it and then stood upright as he began an incantation.

Eswim achfoola ut krow suffont, he declared commandingly in demon-tongue. Mroot entrow disrem.

He waved his hands in the air, as if drawing unseen forces to him while the echo of his words faded into the darkness of the woods. Slowly, the blue stone began to pulse with light from within and grew brighter as the pulsing became more rapid. The figure knelt back down before the circle and looked around, waiting for something to happen.

The pulsing light made a low humming sound that pulsed with it and shortly, all other sounds seemed to cease in the area. The woods all around began to distort, like a disturbed mirror image cast upon the water, itself seeming to almost pulse as well. Then a dim, bluish sparkle appeared in the air and began to glow above the center of the circle he had made.

Once forgotten, ghost of time; the figure chanted softly, a slight neigh remembered, vengeance is mine…………..as we agreed.

That blue sparkle began to expand, pulsing as it grew like a beating heart. Then a dark center appeared and grew with it, like some dark window to another world. The figure leaned over and picked the metal plaque back up again.

Quickly, he returned it to the cloth and wrapped it up as before. He returned the item back into his cloak and took a last, long look at the sparkling oval now forming above the circle. He turned away and dashed off into the woods again in haste as the oval continued to grow behind him.

At last, the oval formed fully and glimmered in the darkness. A bright, blue ring of light shimmered around the edges of it, while the center and largest part of it was as black and lightless as the dullest coal. It was then that new noises arose from the blackness therein; horrible, snarling and grunting noises.

A ghoulish, toothy head of a demonic creature suddenly emerged from the dark center of the oval. It cocked slightly to the left as it looked around with beastly eyes withdrawn into its mottled flesh. After a moment, a full body emerged and it rushed away into the damp and misty darkness of the woods.

Behind it, more equally grotesque and frightening creatures emerged, one-by-one at first from the blackness, until there was a flood of them pouring out into the woods. Many of the creatures were but simple undead, but others were not. Rutterkin, Dretch and other minor demons shambled along in the nightmarish pack; a virtual army straight from the mouth of Hell.

As the creatures reached the edge of the woods, the town of Trill could be seen as it lay quiet and asleep across the fields of beans and wheat. The creatures erupted from the foliage of the forest into the fields beyond like a pack of wild dogs on the hunt. Seeing and smelling the town before them, they moved increasingly faster toward it with a ravenous hunger.

Across the fields they came, groaning and grunting into the night air. A night watchman of the town stopped as he walked down the street, faintly hearing these odd and disturbing sounds. He looked off between the houses to the moonlit southern fields and the sounds unabated