Quote:
Book one
The legacy of swords
A wise man once said “We write what we know.
We know what we read...”
An even wiser person said “Don’t believe everything you read,”
Its either real or fantasy...
The question is,
What do you believe?
-Shane Johnson
The legacy of swords
A wise man once said “We write what we know.
We know what we read...”
An even wiser person said “Don’t believe everything you read,”
Its either real or fantasy...
The question is,
What do you believe?
-Shane Johnson
Precursor:
Soft pensive wide set blue eyes hide behind a mop of soft earth coloured hair, pale pink lips curve down in a soft considering frown, the jaw is squared and strong, his nose is just long and straight, his skin is soft, smooth and gently tanned golden. (His face has all the markers of being Japanese, but he’s not.) Long fingers on a smooth right hand drum a desk, an ink well, left hand gently holding a marbled cobalt-and-gold fountain pen, poised above paper.
His eyes land on a picture of two smiling and laughing youngsters framed on the desk. Twins, with the same long brown hair, soft blue eyes, bright with youth and joy, long fingers and porcelain skin. From the photo you’d never guess that they were both sickly, or that the one on the left of the photo was the female, and the right the male. You could tell however that there was some sadness in their lives by the way they clung to each other in the next photo. His eyes come to rest on one he had taken not long before his wife, the twin’s mother, had died of the same ailment the twins now bore. His heart wrenched at the thought of loosing them as well.
No amount of money will be spared to save them he declares, as much to his late wife as to himself.
His name is Adrian Johnson, A.J., but he wasn’t always called that. No, decades before he was a corporate executive he was a prince. Not just any prince, the prince of an entire world. That was a long time ago. He doubts he remembers what it felt like. If he had to today he couldn’t, and wouldn’t go back to it…
The Clevernais(the country of the north on the world of Elese’rash, not to confused with the people of Hoparish, the southern country from which came the twins’ mother) were a people of war, not that the young prince knew anything of it. He and his twin were content to just be in the castle. They were waited on hand and foot
Then the fated day came, the young prince, then called Azrion, was called to his fathers study. With his magic, his father the king showed him what his people did, he showed him the world they were conquering… let him here the cries of the world as it was destroyed, he told Azrion that this was power, and that the world was needed for its resources.
Azrion was horrified, the powers he had inherited from his mother, empathy, and telepathy, had allowed him to feel what the people and animals of the world felt. Unable to stand the knowledge that this was what his people did, Azrion took his guardian, and his best friend to a safe place, a world not un-like his own… Earth.
On that planet the three of them created lives for themselves, changing their names and appearances so that they could not be recognised should anyone from their birth-world come for them.
Azrion became Adrian, Graycon became Julian Grayson, and Soren became Seth Anders, each working their way into society their own way. Adrian, having come from the upper crust in his own world, became and executive in a company that built colonies on and under the water and in space. Julian became Adrian’s right hand and bodyguard. Seth had a tougher time, having come from a lower standing in the world, he found work where he could, refusing to be held up by his friend any more than he had to.
Eventually they drifted, a result of, in part, Seth’s stubborn nature, and developing criminal record.
Ten years after the initial drift of their relationship Seth showed up at Adrian’s door, holding the hand of a dark skinned female child of six, with knowing grey eyes and long soft black hair. From behind Adrian’s legs came a squeal of delight, and his sandy haired daughter popped out grabbed the girls hands and danced her around the room. Adrian then realized that this was the friend from school Shane had been going on about, and he was amazed that after all the time that had passed it was their children that brought the trio whole again.
Seth confided in his friend that he had divorced his first wife after she told him that she would not have children, and that they were to different any way. He married the young girls mother because she was pregnant, but she had died in child birth. Some how his first wife had discovered that he had remarried, and had called his home two days before, leaving a message swearing vengeance on him.
Not a day after leaving his daughter with Adrian, Seth was murdered in his home by his ex wife.
Julian married as well, his first wife Ana, a tall slender pale skinned woman with long red hair and bright green eyes, died of complications due to birth, when Gideon(his nerdy oldest son) was born. Gideon was a genius, by the time he was three he was taking apart electronic mechanisms and figuring out how they went back together, nearly always doing it right. The oddest thing discovered about the youngest child was that he was obsessed with penguins…
The second woman, a tiny Japanese woman, Yuko, returned home, abandoning him and their son Jonas. Jonas was never hurt by it, as he spent most of his time with Adrian‘s twins, Shane(a little girl) and Sean(the boy). Jonas was a mathematical wiz-kid, and a remarkable athlete, sure he needed glasses, but then, who didn’t? He was on the little league team at the age of four, and track at nine.
Julian fell in love a third time, and married Shay, a beautiful black woman with high cheek bones, dark brown eyes and long black hair. She was the love of his life, and she loved his boys. They had a child in the second year of their marriage, he was named Elliot, after her favourite poet. Elliot was a happy, healthy, normal little boy. He was also artistically inclined, but that was discovered long after his mother‘s death.
When Elliot was four years old when it happened. He was walking on the sky walk to the elementary school with his mother when a man ran by in a wild rage and tried to shove Shay over the railing. Shay released Elliot’s hand and starred gasping at the man before her. He shouted something about her betraying him, and marrying another man while he was in prison. He hadn’t even spotted Elliot. The man pulled out a knife and stabbed Shay through the stomach. She cried out and the man ran like a coward. She had been three weeks pregnant at the time… she was planning on telling Julian and the boys that night, but she died in the arms of her four year old son.
Elliot was still in shock when the police got there, he was covered in Shay’s blood… he never properly recovered, and developed what the doctors had called ‘split personality syndrome’. A word would set him off into a blind rage, or lock him so tight within himself that he didn’t speak for days. He took to calling his other self Andrew…
Elliot would be sitting at the table doing a column of numbers his father had given him to practice, and one of his brothers would mention how much they missed Shay or her cooking… maybe a song she sang to them once, or how she had been in a band before she came to them… then Andrew would attack his brother’s with knives like Elliot had seen the man do… Often times the boy could be sedated and then Elliot would come out. At the realisation that Elliot would never be a normal child, Julian had Elliot staying with a doctor on the main land in a school for children like himself, children with mental disabilities or ailments… Julian took his children to visit every two months, so that Elliot would know that even though he was sick, his family missed him and loved him. On occasion Adrian his wife and children came to visit to, but them being there almost always caused an attack…
Adrian married Elise Cambridge, a remarkable young woman with a soothing voice. She was a famous singer with Mythic, a famous band that her family had been with for three hundred years, and remarkably, they were still going strong. But soon after they were married she was struck with a mysterious illness, like I said before, the very same one that I mentioned his twins fell victim to.
He had two seemingly healthy children, a boy and a girl. They looked identical, to tell themselves apart Shane wore her hair long, and Sean wore his short. They had all the same friends, went to the same school, and even seemed to communicate silently.
Elise died on the fourth of January 2295. She suffered a sever seizure, which cause her brain to bleed. The doctors said that it was the last strain on her fragile health. She was anaemic, among other things, and it was an anaemic faint that caused the seizure that night. Adrian always suspected that the children knew when she passed. They didn’t speak for months, not to each other, not to their friends, and not to him.
From the day Elise died on Adrian lived in fear that his children would go the same way, and on this night it is this that he dwells on, pen in hand. Right now, all that’s keeping his twins alive are transfusion’s from his guardian’s middle son Jonas. Both he and his friend Julian suspect that it’s because the two of them are from the same place that Jules’s child’s blood is able to sustain Shane and Sean.
Adrian stares at the paper before him and begins to write to a doctor he knows of who might be able to help… Gideon Grayson is his children’s only hope. At twenty-four he is the youngest doctor on the main-land, and the only one Adrian would trust to keep the secret of his origin. Right now he has taken responsibility for Elliot/Andrew, but he expressed a willingness to care for the twins. Adrian’s only wish is that they survive, both the illness and the coming onslaught of his people…Gods help us all if they use the gas. Please let my children survive, if nothing else, please.
Soft pensive wide set blue eyes hide behind a mop of soft earth coloured hair, pale pink lips curve down in a soft considering frown, the jaw is squared and strong, his nose is just long and straight, his skin is soft, smooth and gently tanned golden. (His face has all the markers of being Japanese, but he’s not.) Long fingers on a smooth right hand drum a desk, an ink well, left hand gently holding a marbled cobalt-and-gold fountain pen, poised above paper.
His eyes land on a picture of two smiling and laughing youngsters framed on the desk. Twins, with the same long brown hair, soft blue eyes, bright with youth and joy, long fingers and porcelain skin. From the photo you’d never guess that they were both sickly, or that the one on the left of the photo was the female, and the right the male. You could tell however that there was some sadness in their lives by the way they clung to each other in the next photo. His eyes come to rest on one he had taken not long before his wife, the twin’s mother, had died of the same ailment the twins now bore. His heart wrenched at the thought of loosing them as well.
No amount of money will be spared to save them he declares, as much to his late wife as to himself.
His name is Adrian Johnson, A.J., but he wasn’t always called that. No, decades before he was a corporate executive he was a prince. Not just any prince, the prince of an entire world. That was a long time ago. He doubts he remembers what it felt like. If he had to today he couldn’t, and wouldn’t go back to it…
The Clevernais(the country of the north on the world of Elese’rash, not to confused with the people of Hoparish, the southern country from which came the twins’ mother) were a people of war, not that the young prince knew anything of it. He and his twin were content to just be in the castle. They were waited on hand and foot
Then the fated day came, the young prince, then called Azrion, was called to his fathers study. With his magic, his father the king showed him what his people did, he showed him the world they were conquering… let him here the cries of the world as it was destroyed, he told Azrion that this was power, and that the world was needed for its resources.
Azrion was horrified, the powers he had inherited from his mother, empathy, and telepathy, had allowed him to feel what the people and animals of the world felt. Unable to stand the knowledge that this was what his people did, Azrion took his guardian, and his best friend to a safe place, a world not un-like his own… Earth.
On that planet the three of them created lives for themselves, changing their names and appearances so that they could not be recognised should anyone from their birth-world come for them.
Azrion became Adrian, Graycon became Julian Grayson, and Soren became Seth Anders, each working their way into society their own way. Adrian, having come from the upper crust in his own world, became and executive in a company that built colonies on and under the water and in space. Julian became Adrian’s right hand and bodyguard. Seth had a tougher time, having come from a lower standing in the world, he found work where he could, refusing to be held up by his friend any more than he had to.
Eventually they drifted, a result of, in part, Seth’s stubborn nature, and developing criminal record.
Ten years after the initial drift of their relationship Seth showed up at Adrian’s door, holding the hand of a dark skinned female child of six, with knowing grey eyes and long soft black hair. From behind Adrian’s legs came a squeal of delight, and his sandy haired daughter popped out grabbed the girls hands and danced her around the room. Adrian then realized that this was the friend from school Shane had been going on about, and he was amazed that after all the time that had passed it was their children that brought the trio whole again.
Seth confided in his friend that he had divorced his first wife after she told him that she would not have children, and that they were to different any way. He married the young girls mother because she was pregnant, but she had died in child birth. Some how his first wife had discovered that he had remarried, and had called his home two days before, leaving a message swearing vengeance on him.
Not a day after leaving his daughter with Adrian, Seth was murdered in his home by his ex wife.
Julian married as well, his first wife Ana, a tall slender pale skinned woman with long red hair and bright green eyes, died of complications due to birth, when Gideon(his nerdy oldest son) was born. Gideon was a genius, by the time he was three he was taking apart electronic mechanisms and figuring out how they went back together, nearly always doing it right. The oddest thing discovered about the youngest child was that he was obsessed with penguins…
The second woman, a tiny Japanese woman, Yuko, returned home, abandoning him and their son Jonas. Jonas was never hurt by it, as he spent most of his time with Adrian‘s twins, Shane(a little girl) and Sean(the boy). Jonas was a mathematical wiz-kid, and a remarkable athlete, sure he needed glasses, but then, who didn’t? He was on the little league team at the age of four, and track at nine.
Julian fell in love a third time, and married Shay, a beautiful black woman with high cheek bones, dark brown eyes and long black hair. She was the love of his life, and she loved his boys. They had a child in the second year of their marriage, he was named Elliot, after her favourite poet. Elliot was a happy, healthy, normal little boy. He was also artistically inclined, but that was discovered long after his mother‘s death.
When Elliot was four years old when it happened. He was walking on the sky walk to the elementary school with his mother when a man ran by in a wild rage and tried to shove Shay over the railing. Shay released Elliot’s hand and starred gasping at the man before her. He shouted something about her betraying him, and marrying another man while he was in prison. He hadn’t even spotted Elliot. The man pulled out a knife and stabbed Shay through the stomach. She cried out and the man ran like a coward. She had been three weeks pregnant at the time… she was planning on telling Julian and the boys that night, but she died in the arms of her four year old son.
Elliot was still in shock when the police got there, he was covered in Shay’s blood… he never properly recovered, and developed what the doctors had called ‘split personality syndrome’. A word would set him off into a blind rage, or lock him so tight within himself that he didn’t speak for days. He took to calling his other self Andrew…
Elliot would be sitting at the table doing a column of numbers his father had given him to practice, and one of his brothers would mention how much they missed Shay or her cooking… maybe a song she sang to them once, or how she had been in a band before she came to them… then Andrew would attack his brother’s with knives like Elliot had seen the man do… Often times the boy could be sedated and then Elliot would come out. At the realisation that Elliot would never be a normal child, Julian had Elliot staying with a doctor on the main land in a school for children like himself, children with mental disabilities or ailments… Julian took his children to visit every two months, so that Elliot would know that even though he was sick, his family missed him and loved him. On occasion Adrian his wife and children came to visit to, but them being there almost always caused an attack…
Adrian married Elise Cambridge, a remarkable young woman with a soothing voice. She was a famous singer with Mythic, a famous band that her family had been with for three hundred years, and remarkably, they were still going strong. But soon after they were married she was struck with a mysterious illness, like I said before, the very same one that I mentioned his twins fell victim to.
He had two seemingly healthy children, a boy and a girl. They looked identical, to tell themselves apart Shane wore her hair long, and Sean wore his short. They had all the same friends, went to the same school, and even seemed to communicate silently.
Elise died on the fourth of January 2295. She suffered a sever seizure, which cause her brain to bleed. The doctors said that it was the last strain on her fragile health. She was anaemic, among other things, and it was an anaemic faint that caused the seizure that night. Adrian always suspected that the children knew when she passed. They didn’t speak for months, not to each other, not to their friends, and not to him.
From the day Elise died on Adrian lived in fear that his children would go the same way, and on this night it is this that he dwells on, pen in hand. Right now, all that’s keeping his twins alive are transfusion’s from his guardian’s middle son Jonas. Both he and his friend Julian suspect that it’s because the two of them are from the same place that Jules’s child’s blood is able to sustain Shane and Sean.
Adrian stares at the paper before him and begins to write to a doctor he knows of who might be able to help… Gideon Grayson is his children’s only hope. At twenty-four he is the youngest doctor on the main-land, and the only one Adrian would trust to keep the secret of his origin. Right now he has taken responsibility for Elliot/Andrew, but he expressed a willingness to care for the twins. Adrian’s only wish is that they survive, both the illness and the coming onslaught of his people…Gods help us all if they use the gas. Please let my children survive, if nothing else, please.
