literature

Elements of Power- Prologue

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The rain began to fall harder as a lone man sprinted towards the large home, not even bothering to shield his head from the water. Instead he was using his trench coat to shield an item held against his chest. It was far too important to risk damaging.  He reached the front door and rapped on it urgently, tightening his grip on the object as the drizzle turned into a full downpour. Even the sounds of footsteps coming towards the door made a wide grin spread across his face. He was greeted by a man only a few years senior to his twenty-six with brown hair and a puzzled look on his face. Before he could even distinguish who was at his door, the younger man spoke, “It’s been a while my friend.”

“Whisman? …Perry, what’s going on?” he responded, moving aside to allow him in.

“Just thought I would stop by to visit.” Perry responded, stepping in the door.
“But at this time of night?”
“I was nearby, so I decided to stop by and visit an old colleague, is there something wrong with that?” he said, a hint of jest in his voice.
“No, but you wouldn’t be stopping by at this time of night if it wasn’t something truly important. So since there’s no sense beating around the bush, out with it.”
The grin swept across Perry’s face again, and he removed an old book from his trench coat, “I’ve found it!”
“Found what?” Lewis reached for the tome, but it was pulled away.
“How can you even ask that? The artifacts from our last expedition, I finally found the mythologies that surround them!”
“The pendants? Oh for goodness sake Perry, we agreed to leave that where it was when we quit, you’ve really still been looking for the answers to something so insignifi-“
“This is far from insignificant,” he opened the book to a page that also held a sheet of paper in it; “These are the translations of what we found this unknown text. See, right here. It says that in the legend, each pendant is a vessel of some sort for each of the sixteen elements in their myths. Seems to be that different groups of people studied each of these elements to gain control over them, before a war began between each of the factions…”
“Perry…”
“This part I can’t tell exactly, but from the looks of it, as time went on only women retained the ability to control the elements. Why though, I don’t know.”
“Perry.”
“The factions fought each other in order to obtain each other’s pendants so they could gain its powers as well.  The book doesn’t describe the main parts of the fighting at all, almost like that part is missing. And all it describes about the final stage is that many of them came together forming two groups, and then they just vanished. Even the writer of these tomes didn’t know what happened to them all. I haven’t even gotten into the truly interesting parts Lewis, I tell ya this is the break on this thing we were waiting for!”
“Exactly. WERE waiting for. Perry, we are done with that all.  We agreed when we closed the book on that case that we would leave it alone from then on out. We made more than our fair share of income on those expeditions, and now there’s no reason for either of us to risk our own well being playing a role reserved for Dr. Jones.”
“But…but I” Whisman was at a loss for words, stunned by Lewis’s lack of interest.
“We need to truly put this to rest here and now. Come, into my study.”

He followed his former colleague into the adjacent room, where many old books lined the walls. Lewis Alma stepped up to a spall safe embedded in the wall and began to turn the dials. “Tell me, how has it been going with Linda and the baby?”
Perry smiled humbly and reached into his back pocket, “It’s been great. They’re both happy and healthy.”
He produced his wallet and opened it to a photo of his wife holding their child, who shared her mother’s white-blonde hair.
“Now why would you not try and talk more about that, but you will rush here at night in horrid weather to show me a book about some old myths?” Lewis said, looking at the photo, “What did you decide to name her?”
“Noelani.” He paused, looking at the photo before putting it back in his pocket.
“Beautiful name. Carolyn is up in bed already. But I think my girls are still snooping around...” He removed a small box from the safe, and opening it, produced three wedge-shaped pendants, one gold with a pure white jewel sphere in it, the other two silver with a warm brown and a coral pink jewels respectively. “These need to be put to a better use than collecting dust in a safe. Girls! I know you’re there, come in here please!”

In ran two children, one six years old with her father’s brown hair, the other only four with deep blonde hair and glasses. The older sister spoke up, “Yeah Daddy?”
Lewis smiled warmly and patted them each on the head. “Avani, Chandra, this is Mr. Whisman, he’s an old friend of mine.”
“Hi.” The elder sister chirped, the younger began to suck her thumb and edged behind her sibling.
“She’s just a little shy. Here girls, there’s another reason Daddy called you in here. I want you to have these.” Lewis held the two silver pendants out to them. “You two keep these safe okay. They’ll bring you good luck”
Avani took the pendants from him, and after looking at them, and despite it having a more appealing color, gave the one with the coral gem to her little sister. “Thanks Daddy”
“Shang-ooh-pwa pwa” Chandra finally spoke, thumb still in her mouth.
“Now get to bed you two. Your Mom is going to have my hide if she knows you’re still up.” And with that, the children scrambled back out of the room and a moment later their soft footsteps could be heard going carefully up the stairs.
Lewis turned to Perry and held out the gold pendant, “Now, I’m pretty sure you know who I think deserves this.”
He obliged and took it, “I think I see your point Alma, but here,” he gave him the old book and translations, “if not for the discovery, at least it makes a good read.”
“In due time I’ll consider looking it over, but for now I think we have a little catching up to do.”
Prologue for that story I won't shut up about. Nothing worthwhile happening yet, its more there to set up some background info (even if its a little blatant).

Never said I was a good writer, but feel free to offer and tips you have. Heck ANY feedback is greatly appreciated.
© 2009 - 2024 Dagwam
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mquezada88's avatar
Ohhh shiz I finally get to see what I've been wanting to help on. XD A very cute beginning, I gotta say. I can't help but wonder what are all the 16 elements.