A Tale of Telbereth

By Bethany Bellemin

Sometimes there comes a time when reality fades and the unbelievable happens. Such is the moment when Levi Reid walks into Telbereth, a land of fantastic talking creatures, adventure, and a touch of whimsy.

Transported through the magic book in his grandfather’s study, Levi finds himself faced with the greatest challenges he has ever encountered. In Telbereth, stars share wisdom while evil plots in the shadows; centaurs walk through ancient forests; and fauns live in forever summer.

This world is divided by alliances and loyalties, and Levi is caught up in the conflict. Despite his fear, Levi finds that in the midst of these challenges, true friendship and loyalty provide the hope and courage to keep going. Journey into a land filled with fantastic creatures where griffins and unicorns wage war while Levi determines where he belongs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Apr 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781489741110

Bethany Bellemin

Bethany Bellemin lives in Louisiana with her dog Indiana. She loves to read and her favorite authors are C. S. Lewis and Louisa May Alcott. Her hobbies range from photography to Tai Chi.

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Copyright © 2022 Bethany Bellemin.

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Scripture quotation marked (KJV) is taken from the

KING JAMES VERSION, public domain

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4110-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4109-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4111-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022906099

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 04/22/2022

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Author

Chapter 1

L evi Reid was spending the summer at his grandpa’s. The sunlight seemed to be mocking him as he sat on the front porch of his grandpa’s house. The small garden surrounding the house was immaculate and orderly, another mockery of his life. Everything Levi knew seemed to be falling apart. His parents had left on a business trip to Europe that would last all summer, and he was left behind. This past year of school had been filled with bad grades and embarrassing attempts on the basketball team, and his older brother had gotten married and moved away. So here he was, feeling very alone and miserable.

His grandpa had always been a pal, but still, it looked like a rather lonely summer was ahead. Levi got up slowly and ambled through the house, passing the imposing library whose walls were flanked with hundreds of books. Levi was especially fascinated by the large one on the fabulously carved mahogany desk, and by the swords and some particularly odd weapons that he had never seen in any history book. He moved past the little bedrooms with the patch quilts and into the hallway that led to the kitchen. His stomach said it was high time to find something to eat.

His grandpa was in the kitchen making a ham sandwich.

Want one? he asked, raising the sandwich.

Levi shrugged and nodded. Sure. I’ll pour us some lemonade.

They took their lunch back out onto the porch and ate in silence for several minutes. A red bird flew by and chirped lightly as it landed on the railing. Levi watched his grandpa whistle back to the bird and toss it a piece of bread crust. He couldn’t understand this, and it had always bothered him. His grandpa had such a calmness and peace about him. It seemed like he could really understand the critters that came through the garden. Grandpa could make friends with anything. Levi sighed, unconsciously.

Something bothering you, sport?

Levi jumped and looked back to see his grandpa smiling over at him.

You seemed a bit put out with that blue sky.

Levi laughed and shook his head. Just feeling quiet, he answered.

His grandpa took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. For a minute he was silent, then he mused, You know, I think it’s high time you went into the library.

Levi glanced questioningly at the face lined with wrinkles of humor and wisdom. I’ve been in the library several times before.

His grandpa smiled. Yes, but I don’t think you have really seen the library.

Now he was thinking his grandpa must not be wearing his hearing aid. He responded, I’ve always enjoying going in the library, looking at all the books and staring at the weapons, and especially that one thing, that whatever-it’s-called—

The cane ring rod, his grandpa interposed.

Yeah, that’s the thing.

Grandpa smiled broadly. "Now there’s a story in that, for sure. But really, Levi, you ought to go into the library and really look."

Sure, but what exactly do you expect me to see other than books?

There’s more to a book than meets the eye, his grandpa responded, his blue eyes looking very distant. Sometimes he got like that, quiet and thoughtful, and if you interrupted him, he would seem as if he had been away, somewhere else.

Finally, he looked at Levi. Just think about it, he said, stepping inside. The screen door slammed and a fly buzzed, perturbed at being foiled in his plans to get into the cool interior.

A few days crept by, and Levi still couldn’t shake that idea of really seeing the library. He had walked into it several times since their discussion, but it still looked the same. Finally, a day came when his grandpa had gone to town and rain had ruined any outside plans. That day he decided he was going to try to see what his grandpa had meant.

He felt very silly as he walked into the library. It looked to the same: same books on the shelves, same swords, and the same whatchamacallit hanging in the same places on the walls. The one stained glass window on the far side of the room filled the space with a surreal glow. He muddled around, pulling books listlessly and returning them to their posts on the shelves. The one big book still sat out on the big mahogany table. He ran his hands across its navy-blue leather cover. No title on the book, and all the pages were blank. It was weird, his grandpa keeping a book full of blank pages for all those years.

He opened it and thumbed through; each page seemed emptier than the last. He sighed, closed it, and looked up at the small glass mirror hanging beside the giant broadsword. His reflection looked back at him thoughtfully.

There has to be more, he said aloud. And his curiosity told him he had to figure this out. He began looking high and low, under the bookshelves, in all the desk cabinets, even behind the mirror. After an hour he flopped down in the overstuffed red chair by the window.

Whatever he sees in here must be invisible, he said, annoyed and lonely and frustrated.

And then something strange happened.

The leather book on the table with blank pages began to glow. He stood up; it must be the light shining through the window. But glancing back at the window, he saw it was still raining; the sun was still hidden behind a layer of clouds. He slowly approached the book and wiped his hand across the cover. Gold scroll began to appear and rolled across the leather into little swirls and calligraphy. And everywhere the gilded adornment settled, a bright light shone through it. Almost without realizing it, Levi opened to the first page, and here writing was appearing, stretching and filling the blank space with dozens of words in a language he could not read. He flipped through the pages; each was becoming a map of intrigue. Eventually he came to a page where a picture was unraveling. Colors and shapes unwound under his gaze into a land of unfathomable beauty. Trees and waterfalls and flowers filled the space—he even thought he could hear the water flowing and the birds singing in the trees. Then he realized the page was growing. The book was getting bigger. He stepped back as it swelled, and the picture began to fill the entire library. The shelves vanished beneath a cloud of green, which became grass and bushes. He turned and watched the library door melt into a dogwood tree. It was breathtaking and terrifying all at once.

Now he was completely surrounded by a wood, with nothing that looked like a library in sight. Fear suddenly grabbed him. His throat tightened, and he felt a panic. What had happened?

He looked every which way, but all he saw was this strange wood. No, there must be something logical to this; it had to be that he was dreaming. Of course, he was dreaming. He had fallen asleep in the big chair in the library and was dreaming. He even laughed aloud at the thought.

Glancing down, he saw a smooth, sandy trail leading off to the east. Well, if it was a dream, what could possibly happen? Might as well explore and see what could be seen. He struck off along the path, amazed at the colors of the flowers. And what flowers! He had never seen anything like them; there was even more variety than his grandpa grew in the garden. He went on admiring the surroundings till he came to a fork in the trail. One way veered off deeper into the woods; the other showed patches of blue sky where a clearing must be. He chose the path leading to the clearing and meandered on.

As he walked, he gradually became aware of a rushing sound, and it was growing louder, drowning out the sound of the waterfall. Then the wood suddenly ended, and patchy grass covered the ground. And there, a hundred feet away, was an ocean. It shimmered and rolled and glowed in a stunning array of green and blue. He couldn’t resist running forward, kicking off his shoes, and jumping into a frothy wave. That’s when he realized it. He wasn’t dreaming.

He backed up onto the sand and stared at his bare feet. He splashed his face and tasted the salty tang on his tongue. He was wide awake. This wasn’t a dream.

He looked down the length of the beach: nothing to be seen but seagulls, and nothing to do but walk till he got somewhere. He tied his shoelaces together and swung them over his shoulder. The thing that bothered him was how to get back. And what was he going to eat until then? He walked along for an hour or so until he came to a pile of rocks taller than he was. It jutted out into the ocean, letting the water tickle it with each splash and swell. He dug his fingers into a ledge on the rock and pushed up with his feet. With a slight scramble he got to the top of the little mountain. It was only ten feet high or so, but he felt like he could see for miles up there, with the wind whipping his brown hair across his forehead, the sand hitting his face with a slight sting. Then he saw something that froze him to the marrow.

A large silvery creature was sitting just on the other side of the rock. He wondered if it had been sitting there watching him as he walked, and he shuddered.

It was an intriguing beast. Shaped like a giant seal, it was lean and sleek, with skin glistening smooth in the bright sun. And the skin was truly silver in color, as shiny as a newly minted coin. It had huge wings rather like a dragonfly, clear and sparkling. He thought that surely those delicate wings could not lift such a large animal. A tail: long, smooth and split at the end, with two sharp points trailed onto the ground. Its head was crowned with a large fin-like thing that waved and moved in the wind like a fish’s tail moved in the water. And it was rubbing its nose along its muscular shoulder. Levi took this all in rapidly and wondered about slipping back down the way he had climbed up and then running like mad as far as he could away from the creature. He also wondered with a sick squirm if the thing was hungry and if it ate people.

Before he could act on any plan, however, the creature stopped its preening and looked up at Levi. It had large blue eyes and heavy lashes, and its nose was soft and velvety, like a horse’s muzzle. For a moment they both stared at each other, then to his very great shock the creature said, It’s very rude to stare. You might have at least said hello.

Levi almost fell over. I—I am very sorry, I don’t usually stare, I just—I was walking—I didn’t see you … He stopped, at a loss how to get out of this scrape.

The creature looked very grave for moment, and then smiled kindly. I knew you were there, but it’s a custom among whimsels to let the visitor speak first. Levi noted the deep treble to the creature’s voice, and yet it was gentle and flowing like the ocean. Words seemed to flow and ebb out of him like water.

Levi hesitated then said, I have never been here, I didn’t know of any Whimell custom. He stopped as the creature chuckled. It was a nice warm laugh that seemed to bubble out from its long throat. Whimsel, I am a whimsel. I know you have never been here before, but I would advise you to learn of the others here, some would be very grudging if you called them by a wrong name. The grishnahs, for instance, are not very good-humored. The creature, or whimsel as it was called, looked out over the ocean for a moment. Then, slowly, it murmured, I was told to be on the lookout for the Warrior of this time. You are a bit later than expected.

Levi listened intrigued and lost. He felt so ridiculous. Just a little while ago he had been in a library, now here he was on some unknown beach with some unknown creature, and it had him confused with some unknown warrior. How did he get into something so unbelievable? He shook his head, bewildered.

The whimsel stopped talking and stretched. Levi noticed the long claws in the lion-like paws, the white teeth that sparkled as it yawned. Teeth like a panther too. This was the most unusual creature that ever was dreamed up.

It snorted loudly then, like a dog waking in the morning, and arched its back.

Care for a ride? it asked in its musical voice.

I can walk thanks.

The whimsel laughed, "Yes, but can you fly?"

Levi looked startled. Do we need to fly here?

Only if you wish to get to Caltinae by dark.

Is it so far to a town?

"Three hours as the sun moves, and Caltinae is the only town near enough to