The Dou-Jin Apprentice of Monsters and Men

By S. Cary Strasse

The Dou-Jin Apprentice of Monsters and Men is about a young boy who lives on a farm and avoids being kidnapped by the evil Roda-kian evil order of mystical warriors, mages, and assassins that want Stephanous, the boy, for their own nefarious deeds to bring down the Dou-jin empire.

Stephanous, at the age of fourteen, is taken in by the Dou-jin, who are the good and enlightened people of Theara. They are the guardians of the good and the law and order. They help protect the people of Theara from the monsters of Thearathe real and the mythical.

Unbeknownst to Stephanous, he has a great power in the spirit and has attracted the vile power of the second-most-powerful demon of the underworldLilith. She wants to turn him into Roda-ki, and when he dies, she wants to harvest his soul to a soul cube to have forever. Lilith wants to break the eighteen seals that hold the entire demonic forces in the deep and her lover, Luciferous. She will do anything to free him, and that means anything. She spends her time invading Stephanouss dreams and life, trying to kidnap him. The Roda-ki, Crimson Sanhedrin, and monsters are set against Stephanous and his friends, but his friends turn out to be more than a match for whatever comes up against them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984541031

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Chosen One

T he heavy-laden pregnant late-afternoon spring rain clouds hung in the sky, ready to give birth once again after the morning downpour of rain had hit that day, leaving the day dreadfully icy cold, extremely chilly and soaked. Some of the clouds still hung severe in the sky, where they reached down and tried to scratch the crust of Theara, only to have their misty fingers buffeted by the solid ground of the farm that acted as armor to protect the planet from being scratched by the treacherous clouds. The five people were moving, doing chores, doing something, as they would have frozen in place if they had stood still. They were garbed in rain gear and doing farmwork that kept their blood circulating and kept them from freezing in the crisp air. Even though it was near midspring, it felt more like midwinter for the people of Zephyr. The day was near the lower forties when it should have been in the fifties this time of year.

A tall fourteen-year-old Zephyrion boy named Stephanous Dragonsbane was human in all appearances, just much larger. He had a broad chest and had muscles much larger than a boy of fourteen should have had. He was about a foot taller than the average human male child of fourteen, and six inches taller than the average zephyr boy of his age, which made him about six and a half feet tall. He was quite handsome, as was common among Zephyrion men and women, but Stephanous had even more than his share of good looks. He had short spiky snow-white hair, he had deep violet-colored eyes that all the girls in Dallon loved and admired, and he had well-developed muscle definition for a young man who was covered with sweat. The cold didn’t bother him. Some people teased him and said he was part ice giant the way he worked out in the icy environment and didn’t seem to be bothered by the weather no matter how wet, cold, or hot it became outdoors. He never caught a cold or the flu. He also worked in the summer the same way and that earned him the name of half-breed fire giant.

He was good-natured about the razzing that he got from the other kids his age and the ones that were older as well. He was extremely careful in some of the things that he did because of his size. He always picked his way through a crowd carefully so that he wouldn’t charge through a throng of people, upsetting anyone or stepping on a child who was trying to get a look at something. Or he gathered eggs with extra care so as not to break the fragile shells with his strong fingers. Yet with his strong form, he could wrestle a half-grown calf down to the ground with little effort for branding when that time of year came around.

Sweat streamed down through his hair and over his overdeveloped chest and thick back, soaking the waistband of his trousers. He had inherited his father’s size as he was a huge zephyr as well when he was alive. His large hand grasped the splitting maul handle, his biceps flexed as he picked the maul up and his back slammed it down on the wood. Stephanous was always chopping wood even though there appeared to be no need for wood. Since he had piled up wood to the eaves of the house in six rows, it would have lasted any home in Dallon three winters and still have some left over, but the Dragonsbanes were always prepared for everything, especially since the winters were clinging so long.

He had made four rows of fir wood for fast hot burning fires, a row and a half of oak for a long-burning fire that would keep the large home warm, and half a row of starwood with which they would bank the fires at night to keep the house warm throughout the bone-chilling cold nights.

Starwood would burn for nearly twelve hours with just one chunk and the Dragonsbanes had some old dead trees of starwood on their property that they had cut up for keeping their home warm through the icy winters. The young man had to use special royal elf tools to cut the starwood, and the equipment was really exceedingly rare and had to be kept in a chest in the house so that no wandering eyes and hands would steal their precious belongings from them. Stephanous found that he had to cut the trees in sections in order to get any firewood out of the huge trees they had cut down.

All the girls in Dallon swooned over Stephanous whenever he came into town to buy whatever was needed for the farm, but Stephanous was oblivious to all the gawking and stares of the girls. Stephanous didn’t know what they were hooting and hollering about. He would look around but he never seen anyone and the girls that had made the catcalls had vanished from embarrassment as well, so Stephanous never saw anyone. Even when they hooted at him and called his name, he just smiled and waved at the girls, thinking they were just being friendly, and made his way to school or to do whatever business his mother had sent him on.

Stephanous was always down to business when he came into town to get items for the farm. He would throw one-hundred-pound bags of grain in the back of the family wagon as though they were ten-pound bags of rice. He never noticed the girls cupping their hands over one another’s ears and whispering about how much they admired him; he never noticed them leaning on their elbows just staring at him, dreaming what it would be like to have a boyfriend like him to have to walk around with, and the older girls thought about how they would like to get him alone and teach him how to kiss the way they would like to be kissed, if not more, and he never noticed anything about the girls, even a girl nearly six years older, noticing him.

Stephanous’s deep dark, stormy lavender eyes were the talk of the town, as no zephyr or any other boy or girl had ever had such beautiful eyes, but Stephanous’s mother was the town whore and that forced all the mothers to keep their daughters at more than an arm’s length away from Stephanous. It also kept girls from talking to him. Some rebellious girls who didn’t care what their mothers had to say talked with Stephanous anyway, but no matter how rebellious they might have been, they never spent time alone with Stephanous.

The few that managed to get him alone for a conversation caught Stephanous off guard, and the young man became tongue-tied and didn’t know how to talk to girls like the heroes he had read about in the books he read at home like Stephanous the Great, Aaron the Brave, Carson Hazard Deckard, Scrott The Charmer Cinco, and Daniel The Enchanter Topher.

Now they all knew how to woo a girl, not like Stephanous who couldn’t woo anyone.

How many white-haired boys with lavender eyes were there in the world? He was considered a freak by the adults in the town and by most of the older boys, which earned him a lot of fights that he never lost no matter how old the boys who challenged him were. Stephanous had the uncanny ability to know where the other boys and young men’s attacks were coming from and knew where to dodge when he was fighting. He knew what areas were going to be open, and he attacked there the second they appeared.

The fathers just made sure that Stephanous stayed away from their daughters. They didn’t want some weirdo of a boy being around their daughters. Stephanous was all kinds of strange to them, and they didn’t want him rubbing off on their precious daughters.

The fathers always gave Stephanous deathful glares whenever they caught their daughters talking to him. They threatened him with a good beating if they ever caught them with the girls again, but Stephanous didn’t know how he could stop the girls from talking to him since they were the ones who found him. Their fathers just gave him glares and dirty looks if Stephanous happened to be glancing in their direction, even if the girls were protesting. After all, he was a dirt-poor farm kid and he had ragged clothes compared to the village kids, and nothing to offer the girls at school in the way of flowers or anything.

He was considered a cursed child because of his mother, but that didn’t stop Stephanous from going to school, going to town or to the blacksmith shop to do his work. He had an apprentice job with the blacksmith in town and he was always at work on time and he never left work early unless the blacksmith let him go. He was a hardworking boy and put his heart and soul into every job that he did. The owner of the blacksmith shop considered Stephanous a natural with a hammer. He could make just about anything and was on his way to becoming a master blacksmith, and Ruben the blacksmith knew it and wanted to keep the lad working there for as long as he could.

Stephanous was a hard, dedicated, and honest worker. If someone in town gave him silver to go buy something, he got it as fast as he could and gave them the proper change back, not keeping any for himself like some of the other kids did. Stephanous thought that some of the girls were pretty and even liked one or two of them at the school, but he never talked to them because he was too bashful and he didn’t think that they liked him anyway. The fathers made that obvious, so Stephanous just kept his distance and did his work the best he knew how. He put the girls out of his mind when he worked with the metal that the blacksmith gave him. Stephanous always took his time and never rushed his work, and all the things that Stephanous made were of great quality, and the blacksmith always to credit for Stephanous’s work.

He was a poor farm boy and the girls that lived in town were wealthier than him and their fathers wanted them to marry into more money. Stephanous dreamed that one day his farm would be the best farm in the region and he would have the best horses, cattle, herds, and produce, but with the winters lingering on, he had his doubts about that coming true. So he just kept his head down and did his farmwork, his schoolwork, and his blacksmith duties and never said anything about his dreams.

Girls would have to be shooed away from the smithy, from watching Stephanous work, but Stephanous was too focused on his work to even notice them. The blacksmith used to kid him about the girls, but whenever Stephanous glanced around, there were never any girls, so he figured the blacksmith was just pulling his chain for fun.

The young girls would stare in wonder at him. Most of the girls from middle school through high school would just lean on the huge double doors of the railing and just admire Stephanous while he worked. The blacksmith thought that it was cute and let the girls marvel at his muscles as he worked but when Ruben said anything to Stephanous about getting a tool that was close to the door where the ladies were hanging out, the young women would run and hide.

When his mother sent him to do a task, he got right on it and got it done and was on to the next task, unlike his brothers and sister, who never did anything without being told several times or being threatened with a spanking with a switch. He was Mr. Goody Two-shoes to his siblings, to his face and behind his back. He was always doing the right thing all the time, and that only infuriated his siblings. They figured they had to live up to their big brother’s example, but most of the time they didn’t.

They made sport of their brother all the time because he was always doing the right thing. If Stephanous was told to do something, he did it right away, and that made the siblings irritated with their older brother. Stephanous couldn’t help but do the right thing. It was just ingrained in him to follow orders given to him by older people, unless it was to do something against the law, then he’d report it to the town constable. Chester, Cameron, and Debriela couldn’t wait for Stephanous to move out!

Stephanous was working on chopping wood. He methodically chopped and stacked, chopped and stacked, without even thinking about what he was doing. Chop and stack, chop and stack—it was all second nature to him. Chop and stack, chop and stack—his mind numbly wandered from one of the village girls, named Veronica. She was a beautiful girl with soft curling black hair and the softest face in the world; he would have loved to kiss her lips and go for walks with her, holding hands. Stephanous knew he’d never have a chance with a girl like that. Her daddy was one of the richest men in all of Zephyr, and he protected his daughters with a fierceness that could rival Luciferous. Besides, she was too pretty and too nice for him. He could dream though. One day, he’d find a nice girl to have and to hold, but that day wasn’t today.

Then Stephanous remembered that Veronica’s father had told him never to talk to her again or Stephanous would get the beating of his life. Veronica was spoken for by a boy named Jason White, a shopkeeper’s son, and Stephanous left it at that. He couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to another boy’s girlfriend; it just seemed wrong to him. He wouldn’t want some guy trying to steal his girlfriend.

Chop and stack, chop and stack—the swimming hole was about a hundred yards from the house where he went and chased frogs and fished, although chasing frogs didn’t seem as much fun anymore as it used to. It just didn’t have the glamour anymore. A lot of things had lost their glamour: playing tag, hide and seek, teasing girls and pulling on the pigtails. They just didn’t appeal to him like they used to.

He still liked swimming in the water on hot days, but the hot days were fewer and further between as of late. The hot weather would only last a month or two and then it would start cooling off, and it was affecting the crops. Chop and stack, chop and stack, and so his mind went on wandering from one thing to another.

Evening came, and it was time for dinner. The thick stew had finished cooking, and the children and Inger had finished cleaning up for dinner. They had gathered around the table and Inger had dished out the stew, and they said grace; it was Cameron’s turn. He said the prayer too fast, and Inger slapped the back of his head.

Say the prayer with more respect to the Creator or you won’t be eating dinner, Inger warned. Now say it again.

Cameron said the prayer again, but this time, he said the prayer more deliberately and with respect.

Even the nights were freezing cold in the country of Zephyr. Zephyr was a fairly rugged country, but it did have spots of good farmland in the river areas, which was where Stephanous lived. The rest of Zephyr was rocky and dirty for its terrain. It was mostly desert country except for the valley oases that followed the three rivers. The Humbug, Boulderado, and the Walking River were the main rivers, but there were other small creeks and streams that ran through the Zephyrion lands that allowed farmers to grow a family’s crops and water cattle and livestock.

Stephanous thought about what it would be like to adventure out into the country and kill orcs, slay goblins, slaughter kobolds, destroy hobgoblins, eradicate gnolls and such. He was always daydreaming about going on an adventure and carving up some useless kobold with a magic sword.

He wondered about the dou-jin and the adventure they must have. The Bible was full of the adventures of Samson the destroyer, Noah and the ark and adventures beyond that, Isaiah the Prophet, Saul the King, and David the Mightier King; his imagination ran wild with thinking about it.

He then thought about more recent heroes like Stephanous The Great Lionel, Aaron The Brave Stormblaze, Christopher The Bold Daniel, Rebecca The Valiant Denise, Teresa The Heroic Gay, Tony The Daring James, April The Fearless Dawn, Roxanne The Gallant Lynnette, Scott The Courageous Clinton, and Anita The Epic Starwise.

Stephanous had memorized the name of each dou-jin from the start to the present day. There hadn’t been a true hero for nearly three hundred years with the absence of Aaron Stormblaze.

He even listed all their triumphs and failures if they happened to mention them, like David the king having sex with Bathsheba, both of them married but not to each other.

Samson threw his religion in the face of his fellow Levites and ended up with Delilah cutting his hair and lost all of his strength, yet when it came down to it, the Creator gave Samson his strength plus some back and he destroyed the temple of sin and debauchery and killed everyone in it, including himself.

Even the fallen heroes were inspiring to the children. To have great powers given to you by the Creator to do his work was everything the children could hope for. Stephanous wanted to be like his namesake, but Chester wanted to be like Samson and Cameron wanted to be like King David, only without the cheating on his wife. Debriela wanted to be a princess and have boys chasing her all over the country, seeking her hand in marriage. Chester and Cameron thought that was stupid until Inger thumped them both in the head with her middle finger causing an "Ouch!" from each boy.

Mom? Stephanous started.

Yes, dear? Inger said to Stephanous.

Was it good being married to Da? Stephanous asked. Did you really love him?

It was a good marriage, Inger said, pausing for a moment and staring off into space. Your father was a good man and a wonderful husband.

Do you think I’ll ever get married? Stephanous asked in concern. None of the girls’ fathers like me—they don’t like any of us. They won’t even let Debri come into town, or you either.

That’s their loss! Inger said a bit more ferociously than she meant to.

When you find the right girl, you’ll know, Inger had told him.

Stephanous highly doubted it. He was too much in love with too many girls in school to settle down with just one of them. He just couldn’t see himself with just one of them. He had a crush on a couple of the girls that went to school with him and one of them was a senior in high school and he was only in the eighth grade, but that didn’t stop his emotions.

To weed the garden along with their mother Inger, Stephanous took out the special splitting maul to begin chopping the starwood into burnable chunks of wood. Starwood was an extraordinarily strong, dense wood that had to be worked with special tools that had to be used to break the wood down into smaller pieces, and Stephanous’s dad had worked with the royal elves and had received the tools of the trade from the elves, as payment for his service in cutting down the dead starwood trees on his land.

Stephanous’s mother, who was named Inger, was a tall woman only three inches taller than her fourteen-year-old son Stephanous. She was a woman with golden-blonde hair pulled back, bound into a wrist-thick braid that hung down to her waist. She had the braid tied to the back of her work dress so that she wouldn’t get her hair all muddy from the sodden soil. She had a beautiful but strong face; with her loving emerald-green eyes, she watched over her children like a mother hen watching over her chicks. She casually leaned on her worn wooden hoe made smooth by years of use of her hands working the soil and pulling out weeds with deft perfection.

She and her children were experts at working the land, and pulling weeds from the large garden was just one of the many chores that she needed to have done. For today though, the garden needed to be tended to this morning, and they would have several more to do later on the rest of the day.

The farm was only full of almost half of the children the Dragonsbanes wanted, but the children she did have were enough for now. The Dragonsbanes had wanted eight to ten children in their family, but her husband had died and it took everything Inger had to raise the four arrows she had in her quiver now. The children made her life worth living. She didn’t know what she’d do without them. She couldn’t help but smile at each of them as she glanced around the farm, watching them. Her eyes began to well up with tears the more she thought about them. They were more precious than rare gems to her.

She was so proud of her arrows in her quiver. They had all turned out to be such wonderful children. A mother couldn’t have asked for better. Sure, they got into more than their share of troubles at times, but they all had good tender hearts. All of her children had learned to love, be kind, share, help others, be brave and bold, and many other wonderful attributes that their mother had taught them.

Stephanous’s thirteen-year-old brother Chester, who was a foot shorter than Stephanous, was hoeing as though he were going to beat the weeds to death, and Inger had to tell him to be a bit gentler with the hoeing or he might end up killing the vegetables. Chester had flaming crimson hair that appeared like lava rolling down the back and sides of his head. His face was full of freckles it was hard to tell if there was more tan to his face or freckles. He had a determined gaze upon his face as though he held something personal against the weeds and they were going to pay for whatever it was they had done wrong to offend the young boy. He had stopped hoeing and was chasing a butterfly with his hoe until Inger told him to get back to work and to stop goofing off.

Chester worked in the five-acre garden with his younger brother Cameron and younger sister Debriela pulling out weeds that poked through the soil. The recent rain made pulling the weeds a lot easier, but it was messier. Even though they were young, the boys and their younger sister Debriela had done the job many times before with their mother and could tell a vegetable plant from a weed. They had been doing the chore for many years. If they couldn’t tell a carrot sprout from a weed, then they had no business eating at the dinner table.

Stephanous’s youngest brother was twelve years old and was named Cameron. Cameron was six inches shorter than Chester and had bright orange hair and appeared as though his head were on fire. His flaming red hair made him easy to spot in a crowd and made it extremely difficult for him to hide from anyone because his naturally long braided hair always gave him away.

Cameron was picking his nose and looking at his boogers. He couldn’t help but wonder how they formed in his nose, before he wiped the crusty thing on his pant leg and started digging for another one. Then Inger had to get onto him about hoeing weeds in the garden as well and to keep his fingers out of his nose or it might get permanently stuck there.

The younger boys were covered in dirty, muddy soil, despite their special shoes, though as they weren’t exactly the most organized or cleanly about the task. It was extremely hard to tell where the boys ended and the garden began.

The mud in the garden was thicker than a manure pile and as hard to wipe off as tree sap from your fingers. The boys just couldn’t stay halfway clean when working in the garden and sometimes started mud-ball fights that Inger would have to physically get involved in by smacking each of them upside the head with her hand to get them to stop making a mess.

Each child was in charge of cleaning their own work clothes at the end of the day so as to encourage them to work more cleanly and better. It took the boys nearly three hours to get their clothes clean, but it didn’t seem to teach them to work more cleanly or more productively.

Last in the family was the boys’ half-sister Debriela, who was eleven years old and was average height for a human child of eleven as she was half human. She didn’t have the height of the zephyr people, but she held their beauty with elegance and perfection.

Stephanous’s father had passed away when Stephanous was three, by an attack of a saber-toothed tiger, while defending the livestock. Stephanous’s father was carried off and eaten while the livestock was left alone.

Shortly thereafter, their mother was raped by human and zephyr raiders that came to rustle livestock on the farm. Inger had tried to fight the men off, but there were twelve of them and she was all alone with only her three toddlers to help defend her. The twelve men had pinned Inger to the ground and made it so that Inger couldn’t move and they each took their turn with her. She screamed and fought while the men violated her, but they just punched her in the face to get her to shut her mouth until one of them had knocked her unconscious.

The boys cried while sitting around their mother’s beaten body while the twelve men got away with rustling Inger’s livestock.

With the livestock gone, the town refused to help find the rustlers because Inger hadn’t fought the raiders off, but Inger was part of a large family; she had seven brothers and six sisters who were all married on her side of the family, and on her husband’s side of the family were five men and seven women and all zephyr. They were the ones who went out searching for the rustlers, and when the brothers found the rustlers, they were dealt with accordingly. The rustlers were skinned alive, and their skins displayed outside the farm to scare off any other raiders from trying to steal from the farm.

The only part that wasn’t skinned was the rustlers heads as they were put on spears with their mouths wide open and a look of sheer terror upon their faces when they knew what was coming. None of the rustlers escaped justice that day, and neither would any other rustler that thought this farm was easy pickings for anyone or anything.

Inger had become pregnant with Debriela, and she carried her to term and took care of her instead of leaving her to die in the wild to be eaten by coyotes, wolves, or mountain lions as was the custom of the Zephyrion people. The village banished her and her daughter Debriela from ever coming into the village for goods, so it was up to her sons and extended family to do all the shopping for her.

The young mother worked in the muddy garden. They all wore special shoes that were built on thick dowels one inch in diameter, and there were six inches long as well that went along the edge of the shoe and kept their feet out of the mud. The chores of feeding the cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs had been completed for the day, and the evening milk wasn’t due for a few hours. Inger kept a close eye on her children, like a mother lioness. Her children were her life, and she didn’t know what she would do without them or what they would do without her. They were already fatherless; she didn’t want them motherless as well.

The young girl, Debriela, had golden hair and had golden eyes that set her apart from everyone. Golden eyes were a mark of true utter beauty to the entire zephyr community. It was so rare that having golden eye gave you a place of royalty in the community in which you lived, and there were no golden-eyed children in any Zephyrion communities for over five thousand miles. However, since she was a bastard child and half human, she was overlooked by the village council and the village community. She would have to marry outside the village if she married at all. Otherwise, the village would have honored her greatly, and young boys who would have been betrothed to her the mother picking the richest and most worthy, which meant royalty.

Debriela had gotten bored and was now walking around the yard with a sheet she had gotten from the clothesline over her head, pretending to be a ghost. She chased the chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys—that is, until Inger told her to get back to work picking weeds out of the garden and to stop playing. She told her there would be plenty of time for playing once the chores were done. Debriela reluctantly pulled the sheet off herself.

Inger never remarried, and no self-respecting zephyr man would have taken her as a wife since she had been defiled by a human male. Inger was considered a weak woman because she had not fought off the multitude of rapists like a good strong Zephyrion woman. Any Zephyrion female worth her weight in silver would have either killed her attackers or died trying to kill them, but no, she had lived and not only that, she had kept the bastard child.

The house of the Dragonsbane family was made out of lengthy lodgepole pines that extended thirty feet to either side of the front door with two glass windows centered on each side, which had flower planters lined beneath each of the four windows in front of the home as well as the sides and rear of the log house. The wood that formed the building was lodgepole pines that had stood nearly two hundred feet high, and the children’s father had cut them down with the help of their mother and the rest of her family and his family as well. With both families working together, the house and the back were built within two months.

The home structure was thirty feet wide and twenty feet tall for the second story, not counting the eaves and the roof. The bedrooms were upstairs, and the living area was downstairs. Their father had built the house because he had wanted a very large family and hadn’t anticipated dying so young.

In the living area, there was a sizable library that held about one hundred or so books that Mr. Dragonsbane had collected since he was a teenager and had received from his father. The library was the third largest in all of Zephyr. The books were a variety of sizes and bindings. Some were cloth bound, some leather, and some wood bound. Mr. Dragonsbane loved to read and had a large library for a farmer. He had such books as the Seasons of the Dragon series, the Adventures of Stephanous The Great Lionel series, the Journeys of Aaron The Brave Stormblaze series, the Dou-Jin Bible, of course, and prophesies of the Dou-Jin series that was read out of every night to the family, and many other books that were always ever so captivating.

Inger and her children kept the house incredibly clean for living in a dirty environment. They cleaned and dusted the house before dinner every evening so the house was always in pristine condition if any of Inger’s brothers, brothers-in-law, sisters, or sisters-in-law stopped by.

There was a lengthy porch that ran all along the front of the home and a comfortable wooden plank porch swing held up by sturdy chains on either side of the pine log house. There was a swinging bench that hung on the outside of the window that Inger loved to sit in and swing in and relax while she did knitting, darned socks, or any other crafty things that needed to be done. She was always busy. The roof of the long cabin had slate shingles upon it that had been bleached out by the sun but still did a wonderful job of keeping rain out of the home. Every now and then, there was a shingle or two that appeared fresh as it had been replaced from the wind blowing it off or it let water into the house.

A light cool breeze blew was the only sign that it was early spring in the area. The blankets and sheets on the clothesline billowed out like sails on a ship as the breezes passed by. The rest of the laundry danced like puppets upon the line as the light winds drifted by. Pants and shirt appeared as if they were dancing on the clothesline to a whimsical song being played at a barn dance on a Saturnday night.

Inger just watched her children working and pride swelled up in her and she began to cry with pride and love for her kids. She felt like the luckiest woman in the world. The world might have dealt her a crappy hand, but she was content with what she had from the Creator, at any rate.

CHAPTER 2

Brady Tunage

A tall coal-colored black Zephyrion man, three inches taller than Inger, rode a massive, sleek black Tektaran horse. The horse had the height of a Morgan but the sleekness of a thoroughbred. The horse could be heard coming because of its size and the squishing of the mud by its hooves. The horse was of the best stock, and the man had another horse the same size, only it was an earthy brown color, in tow. Both horses were in prime shape and condition. They were far better than the farm horses Stephanous was used to riding bareback. The farm horses were bulky and used to pulling a plow; these two new horses had never seen a plow a day in their lives. Stephanous was taken by the beauty of the horses. These new horses were groomed, were in perfect shape, and were taken care of with pride.

Stephanous sensed a vast evil exuding from this rider that was leading this extra horse. His insides churned as though he were going to vomit. A salty taste was filling beneath his tongue and he was sure that he was going to spew his breakfast, but he managed to hold it back. Stephanous didn’t want this man to see him getting sick in front of the lofty stranger. He didn’t know anything about this guy except that he wasn’t an honorable gentleman and he was there to hurt his family. The strange thing about the tall dark man was that he had pale brown eyes and they weren’t kind eyes either. Stephanous noted that the man’s eyes held a stormy evil to them, and he didn’t know what else he could do about the stranger. The stranger exuded vileness and contempt through his skin like a pile of manure expelled stench.

Be careful, Mom, Stephanous whispered only for her ears to hear as he put himself between his mother and the dark ebony man.

Inger backed her family away from the man, as she had no trust of strangers and men in particular. This man-made Inger afraid just by his presence. She didn’t need Stephanous telling her this as she could see it just by looking at him.

What are you doing here? Inger asked as she brandished her hoe and positioned herself with her staff that she knew all too well how to use. She knew that if he tried to rape her, she and her children would die, but Stephanous was in between his mother and the dark rider. He knew his mother’s fear, as he had seen the look on her face before and he didn’t like seeing his mother in these situations, because it made her look inferior in front of her children.

All Stephanous had in his hand was the splitting maul. It had a heavy blade on one side of the head of the maul and a weighted hammer on the other side meant for driving wedges into particularly hard-to-split chunks of wood, and it would make for a clumsy weapon if he had to use it, but use it he would if this stranger meant ill for his family. The maul he had did have one advantage: it was the maul used for splitting the chunks of starwood. Stephanous had fought boys bigger than himself, but this guy exuded evil like an onion brought on tears.

The man gradually dismounted his enormous steed and approached Inger and bowed before her as if she were of royal blood. He had ebony hair that was braided with beads. He had light amber eyes, a broad flat nose, and thick full lips. He acted friendly, but that was all it seemed to Stephanous; and Inger sensed something not right about the dark Zephyrion man standing before them, and that stiffened Stephanous’s resolve.

My name is Brady Tunage, he said in a deep rumbling voice like thunder as he introduced himself. And I have come from the dou-jin temple. You must be Inger, the mother of Stephanous Dragonsbane, the one whom I seek to join our ranks in the temple. You must be Stephanous. It is good to see that you’re brave and willing to protect your family as it will bode well in your training and loyalty to the dou-jin.

Then Stephanous’s brothers stepped forward with their hoes whirling like they knew what they were doing, and Debriela came out with a stick and pointed it like a spear at the man.

You want Steph? Inger said with a surprised question, trying to get in front of her children but not having any luck as they kept themselves in front of her. She didn’t trust any men after her rape, and any male strangers were scarcely tolerated on her property. She held the hoe in her hand like a staff warding off the tall man, and she knew how to use the hoe if she had to. She had chased off strangers before, and this big black man was going to be no different.

But he’s just a boy. Why would the dou-jin want him? she asked suspiciously, still sizing up the dark man standing before her.

Brady pondered for a moment and stroked his thick black goatee over and over as another light breeze caught his beaded hair and made clicking sounds with the hair ornaments. He made no advances toward the woman, sensing that she was fearful, and he wanted to gain her trust. Trust was what the roda-ki needed from people in order for them to take control of a situation or of people, and Brady was an excellent man at doing so.

The prophets of the Dou-Jin say that Stephanous Dragonsbane must one day face, fight, and defeat Lilith, he said plainly and directly, not trying to hide anything from Inger.

The goddess of destruction? Inger said in disbelief, still not trusting the man. But she is the mother of the seven deadly sins, the cofounder of the twelve Fallen, and the goddess of hideousness. How does he fit into this picture? Will he have to fight the other gods as well?

The prophets have only told me this, Brady answered truthfully. All I know is that we must train and prepare him for this purpose.

Inger put her thin but strong fingers to her mouth as she gazed upon her eldest son. How could this young man have to do such an enormous task when so much of life had already had asked so much of him and her as well? He had to be the man of the farm, he had to do the man’s work around the property, he had to fight off the wild animals that came to the ranch to steal sheep and cattle, and he had had to fight off strangers as well, and he had done it like a full-grown man. That was how Inger knew that he was a special boy.

He is a descendant of Stephanous the Great Lionel, and the duty is his and has been given to him by the Daughter, Brady added, trying to make his argument even stronger for his position for Stephanous. He knew that he needed to make every lie count in order for this woman to believe him, and Brady was the master of lies and deceit. The Daughter will be with him. You couldn’t ask for any greater power to be with him on this journey.

But why my son? Inger pleaded, her eyes brimming with tears. She didn’t want to let her son go and lose him like she had lost her husband. I’ve lost my husband, I’ve been shunned by the village, and we’ve had one hardship after another. What more must I endure? Why do the dou-jin and the Creator want more from me? And why does he want my precious son?

It is the age the dou-jin must start their training, Brady Tunage said to Inger. I’m sorry, but your son must come with me. It is his duty to the Creator.

Stephanous had never spent a day without his mother. His thoughts of leaving her unnerved him, and he felt extremely anxious. He didn’t want to go with this dark stranger since he felt ill around this man. This stranger was bringing nothing but ill to the place he lived, and going with this man was going to be nothing but trouble; but Stephanous foresaw that if he didn’t go with the man, he would destroy the farm with fire and slay his family.

He could feel maggots crawling beneath his skin with this stranger, and a dou-jin shouldn’t cause that kind of sensation in a person.

What are the dou-jin? Stephanous asked curiously. I mean, we have a Bible, but I have never heard of a monk coming out of the temple except to make peace treaties or to settle other disputes. He moved himself in between his mother and the man as though he were going to protect her. His face was determined and stern, not letting the man see the fear that was inside him. His uncles had taught him that. Why are they so important? I’ve heard people in town talk of you, and they say you are trouble at the best of times. Why should I go with you if you could mean my family harm?

Stephanous was stalling for time. He didn’t know why, he just knew that he had to make the stranger wait, for some reason. Stephanous could sense something getting closer, and it was a good feeling, not the feeling of bile in his stomach. Why haven’t my uncles and aunts ever been trained in the matter of the dou-jin? Why have they been overlooked in the matters of the way of the dou-jin?

That is a good question, Stephanous, Dou-jin Tunage answered. "We are the peacekeepers of Theara. We make sure that truth and justice are done. We are not only the peace and justice of the world but we are also the providers of mercy and grace. I don’t know where you heard these rumors or even if you actually heard them, but rest assured your family is in good hands. I don’t have all the answers to all your questions, but the elders of the dou-jin do have the answers that you are looking for. I assure you, they have what you’re looking for.

"Right now the dou-jin are in turmoil and we are hoping that you will set things right. I know that’s a lot to ask of a boy, but the prophets have foreseen that you are the one to bring peace, order, and respect back to the dou-jin throughout the world.

"You are also at the age that we recruit dou-jin to begin training. Your training will not be easy, but it will make you strong in the Spirit, and you will achieve many great things while being dou-jin. You will bring peace and harmony to the dou-jin once again.

"Lilith is going to try and break the eighteen seals that hold Luciferous in his infernal prison. If she breaks the first six seals, then she breaks out and the twelve Fallen come with her, the demons that helped Luciferous turn a third of the gods against the Creator and were able to unleash the demon armies upon Theara.

The rulers of Theara have been warned, and they are beefing up their armies because the prophets say within the next several years at the most, Lilith will break the first six seals.

Stephanous gazed upon the ground as if looking for answers. He dug the toe of his leather boot into the ground and made the symbol of the dou-jin. It was a circle with an S in it; the top and lower portion of the circle was made up of the S. Then he turned to his mother. He looked at her with his haunted shadowy amethyst eyes welling with tears. He just stared at her and wasn’t sure what to say to her.

Mom, he started. I don’t want to go, but if the prophets of the Creator have said it is so, then I have to go. You have always said that the Creator is the most important being in our lives and he is the one that we should follow.

Stephanous then turned to Brady. Let me get my clothes and I will go with you.

There is no need, Brady informed him in a hurried tone. I have everything you will need, and what I can’t get you the dou-jin school will supply you with their goods.

Stephanous knew that he had to stall, but he didn’t know how much longer he could stall the ebony zephyr. There was something not right about him, but Stephanous couldn’t put his finger on it. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up and the he heard the rumbling of hoofbeats.

The drumming sounds of a multitude of galloping hooves were heard rapidly approaching from the south. Three men on horseback dressed in a same manner as Brady. Using their dou-jin powers, they vaulted from the saddles of their steeds into spinning and rolling in the air and landed firmly and perfectly upon their feet. They had brilliant light/flame weapons and yet were neither. The blades were aglow with the blaze of the sun yet with a variety of color.

Old roda-ki scum! one of the three horsemen yelled. He was a graying crimson-haired dwarf with a thick graying strawberry-colored beard and an even thicker accent. He had a gruff visage, and he looked as if he could chew through an iron spike. He had an axe of crimson that burned with neither flame nor light but it burned all the same. J. D. hated Brady for all the evil he had caused to make the dou-jin appear evil and corrupt. He could have taken Brady on himself, but he had his two companions with him to help him with his burden.

The other two men, a tall black man with silvery chain mail beneath his robes, landed on his feet, with a deep amethyst-colored light/flame long sword, yet it was neither light nor flame. He had a disturbed look upon his visage as he knew who he was looking at. Brady Tunage! He had faced off with Brady before, and they were evenly matched in power, Brady with the power of the demon’s son and Michale with the daughter of the Spirit.

The last was an average royal elf. Ronaldo stood at the ready to take on Brady, with his azure staff that was aglow. Even Ronaldo had had his run-ins with Brady. Brady had been slipperier than an oiled snake to catch and put down, but now there were three against the one, and this was going to be the best shot that they were going to get at him.

You’re not going to get away so easily this time, Brady, Michale, the tall ebony human, said. You’re coming with us to the dou-jin prison in Lost Vargas. Now surrender and come along quietly or face the wrath of the dou-jin.

A beautiful black woman sat upon a chair at a makeup mirror as she brushed her ebony silk hair and gazed at her beauty with both vanity and disgust. She loved her shadow-elf form and could look at herself all day as long as she was in her shadow-elf figure, but when she transformed into her medusa/recluse spider physique, she wanted to break every mirror she could find, and had on a few occasions.

Lilith had a man entrapped in a soul cube, and she loved gazing upon him in triumph. He was a tall Zephyrion man with pale skin due to the fact that he never got any sunlight in his cubical prison. He had long flowing black hair that hung just past his shoulders. He had his hair held back by a braided leather cord half an inch wide. He had a sprinkling of gray hair upon his scalp, but not enough to notice at a passing glance. He had a dismal look upon his visage and rested his face upon his hands that rested upon his knees. He hated being in his prison.

He paced back and forth like a cat in a dog kennel, trying to escape his confines as he did most days, the boredom just about killing him, but he had no way to end his life here. Every time he thought of a way to kill himself, the object would disappear from the room until the urge went away. If there was nothing to kill himself with, his body would go rigid, and he would stay that way until the impulse ebbed away from him.

She could feel the change coming on to herself, and she dropped the box back onto the table. Her upper body was growing scales and her face was hideous and it was a mixture of shadow elf and cobra. She hated being known as the medusa, one of the most loathsome creatures known to man. One glance from her brutal eyes and a person was turned to stone and their life was ended. Her lovely locks of ebony hair turned into wriggling coal-black asps and her face was like that of an abomination: the forehead and eyes of a woman and the rest of her face was that of a serpent.

The lower half of her body was that of a brown recluse spider. It glowed in the dim light of her chambers and she stood with her head brushing the eight-foot-high ceiling. Her skin or shell was like full plate armor that left her protected from attacks to her body, but her underbelly was vulnerable to attacks as it had no protection in battle.

Lilith had been looking for something that had happened nearly fourteen years ago, and she knew that it would be her downfall if she didn’t stop whatever it was that had caused this anomaly. She had to kill it or destroy it before it killed or destroyed her. She had an idea of what it might be, but she wasn’t sure. She had an inkling that it was a male child that was born that would grow to be a man and would make sure her work of taking over the world of Theara would never come to fruition.

She thought of killing every male child that was born, but she didn’t have that much influence over the world, and the task would drain her of too much vital energy and kill her. So she passed up the plan and just kept her network of spies on the lookout for just such a boy that might have the ability to do so.

The lab had many tubes, coils, and magical ebony boxes of electricity. There were potions brewing and elixirs blending as well. Christar was an ancient, elderly man that moved with the speed of a crippled snail on the outside, and he kept up the facade for good reason. He used a gnarled cane that fit him perfectly. He checked a particular potion he was brewing, hoping for the best outcome possible. He twisted knobs and handles to shut off and start other projects. The cloudy blue potion bubbled, and he put out the fire beneath the potion and took it down and placed it on a thick cloth pad.

He let it set for an hour and then picked up one of his rats, grabbed an eyedropper and placed a drop in the rat’s mouth, and set it down in a pen and observed the rodent. The tiny creature began to run the maze with speed and agility, and Christar was happy that he had coupled two potions and didn’t make a poison this time. He had made a potion for speed and dexterity.

Christar went to check on another potion he had high hopes for. The potion was a clouded purple color. He blew out the fire and took the flask off the bracketed stand with a pair of tongs and set it on a cloth pad. He waited another hour to see if this potion would work. The hour passed by, and he took the rat and put a drop in its mouth and watched its reaction. The rat expanded with muscles and kept growing until its skin began to split and the rat squealed in utter pain. The rat turned into a muscular dead hulk and it left a huge puddle of blood for a rat. His second trial had failed. Well, that just meant he had to try again. After all, they were just rats; it was not like he was using this on people … yet.

Zartan was a short Zephyrion male—well, short for a zephyr. He was six foot three, but don’t let him hear you say that or you’ll be dead before your next heartbeat. He was a pale white man in a shadow-elf city, in charge of the roda-ki men and women. He was especially pale for a white man. That came from living underground in the city of Talcoma’De’Shore, the city of the shadow elves. He sat at his desk and studied the papers before him. The paper that interested him the most was the possible kidnapping of Stephanous Dragonsbane. To grab him would put a great prestige upon him.

Brady had better do his job right; there was a lot hanging on this mission. Brady shouldn’t have any problems capturing Stephanous, since the dou-jin had no idea that the roda-ki had knowledge of him. Stephanous would never know he was being kidnapped according to the soothsayers, because he had never been to the Dou-Jin Academy. So leading him astray would be easier than leading sheep to the slaughter shed.

Zartan was especially looking forward to meeting this young man, because he was going to be the messiah of the roda-ki. He was to bring glory to the dismantled roda-ki, thanks to the goody-goody dou-jin who had nearly decimated them. Zartan was ready to take the ultimate weapon of the dou-jin and make it become the roda-ki’s ultimate weapon.

The next second, four weapons were drawn and ready for battle. Brady’s blade was pitch-black light and a strange fire that wasn’t fire, revealing his sinister and vile heart, for black in the league of the roda-ki meant pure vileness, and it had flecks of black sparkling within the blade as well let out sparks coming off a fire. Brady Tunage was the vilest of all evils. He would as soon kill you as look at you.

The three horsemen had different colored spiritweapons as well. One man, Michale Brody, a tall human black man who had thick dreadlocks and a goatee, had a spiritsword that was of a light and flame was violet in color. J. D. Petro, the short dwarven man that had halted the roda-ki, had a battle-axe of light wavering crimson, and the third, a slender elf named Ronaldo Silverleaf, had long flowing silver hair that he kept neatly in seven braids and tied together at the back of his neck. He had a starwood staff as strong as high-grade steel, but it glittered like a rainbow when its power was being used. It had the color of the rainbow because it was a reminder that the Creator would never flood the world again.

Brady hissed at the newcomers. He took a swing at Stephanous, trying to end the young man’s life so that the true dou-jin couldn’t have him, but the boy’s natural agility dodged the attack with little effort and stepped away from the tall Zephyrion black man.

Ha … you missed! Stephanous yelled at Brady. If you were a lumberjack, the only thing safe in the forest would be the trees!

Brady saw that he was vastly outnumbered by the dou-jin that he had faced before. He might have been able to dispatch one of them, but not all three. Brady quickly vaulted onto his saddle and rode off, leaving his extra horse behind. The boy will never make it to the temple! the roda-ki yelled to the true dou-jin over his left shoulder in a bold manner.

Oh, don’t go away mad! Stephanous yelled at Brady’s back. Just go away!

The dou-jin will fall! We have spies everywhere! You arrogant fools don’t even know that the dou-jin are falling apart at the seams! He laughed hysterically, and within seconds, he was swallowed up by the nearby small forest.

Shoulda we send someone after ’im? J. D. said in his thick dwarven accent.

No, Ronaldo said. We came for the first son Stephanous Dragonsbane.

Michale stepped forward shook Stephanous’s hand.

You ever wanted to go on adventures?

Yes, the three boys answered, as Stephanous’s two brothers set themselves in front of their mother, thinking it a real treat that not one, but three dou-jin were standing before them.

That is good, but you two boys will come to the Dou-Jin Academy next year. He pointed at Chester. And in two years, you’ll go to the academy. And he pointed at Cameron.

And who is this beautiful little girl? Wait, let me guess. Debriela. Well, Debriela, I’m sorry but you won’t be going to the Dou-Jin Academy.

He stood up and turned to finally talk to the children’s mother. Does she have the same father? I’m not judging but entire families go to the academy. I don’t understand why she’s not going as well.

"I’d rather