The writing adventure of Jason Self

...Nothing I say could wash away the shame I feel at my own actions, the pain is never ending and terrible. I have many regrets that have only come to the surface as a result of what I have done to this world and its people. My own vanity is pathetic beyond comprehension, how could I consider myself worthy to do this, what thoughts went thru my head to justify these actions. At the time it all seemed to fit into place, every moment lead to another and so my story was told thru time as it unfolded. Looking back now I realise that there were very few choices at all to be made, and when the time came to make a choice I made descisions based on only one goal, one obsession that drove me to throw aside reason and search the void for answers. Young fool...I could try to beg the forgiveness of those my choices hurt and waste my life in constant anguish over the cruelty of it all, but I will not, I must go out and find out how to stop what has come to pass. I see now that I cannot survive this trial, nothing I do will stop me from dieing in the end and I accept that, but should I fail there must be evidence to help whoever can, to find a way to stop this madness.First thing you must know is, I did not set out in search of magic, I came across the knowledge of magic by coincidence and was forced to learn it not of my will to learn it but by my will to live. If only I had known... Magic is not something you can avoid it is in the air where I have been, it seeps into everything wihtout bias, corrupting, changing, and worst of all magic gives men hope. A man who stands alone against impossible odds may fear death but most men will not dare to dream of victory, these men think not of the win but of the goal, in battle your goal is not to live but to take more of them with you than they take from you. It is not so with magic, impossible is not even a word in this land, a man against impossible odds is just a man who has no fear to unleash the magic inside him without regard for his own life, that man is as dangerous as any army.

Magic...

CHAPTER 1----A distance between

I was young when it happened, a young twelve and a half, my life up to this point had been filled with the desire to so few things, have fun with my friends and family, try not to anger my parents, and most importantly I wanted to be a tennis player. I dreamed of the court, I spent most of my day to day life either playing tennis with friends or watching tennis on t.v. I devoted myself without exception to being the best that I could be as a tennis player and an athlete. My father had played tennis as a boy, he told me of it often of how he had dreamed of being a proffesional tennis player and how he loved the sport. He had played thru highschool and into college, just after he left college he had taken a break from life to take a trip across the country, him and two friends with nothing but a car some clothes and the money in their wallets. They made it all the way from our home town in ohio all the way to the northern tip of texas, from what my mother had told me it was a driver on his cell phone. The crash hit my fathers car on the driver side, the pictures you couldnt even tell it had ever been a full car the front end was smashed in all the way to the doors. Noone else was seriously injured and uncle frank often came by to visit my father at our house even now 15 years later. But my father had been pinned in the car with a jagged piece of the car sticking into his side, when the fire department tried to release him from the car the metal gave way and pressed my father further onto the wedge puncturing his lung. He had barely survived, and even now so long since that crash he cant walk more than a half mile without a break and running is out of the question. We took up hiking every chance we could get once I was old enough, he liked the challenge that it signified, him railing against his condition in any way he could, I came just to be with him.

Most of our trips were to remote area's that were more woods than anything else, in these places you could come across some of the most amazing views on earth. Streams that wove in and out of mountain sides, rocks that defied the laws of gravity by pertruding out from the surrounding hills at odd angles. Things were simple here, far away from life, my fathers job couldnt call us this far out, school was a thought that rarely passed into my thoughts. Most of my memories of these little trips were of silence, but in that silence was the greatest thing my father ever gave me, peace. Hours on end we would walk thru woods, thru deep canyons, some of the funnest area's I found to explore were small streams. In the valleys they conquered you could always find hidden treasures, small swimming area's that noone else in the world knew about, caves that had been etched out of the hill side by running water. Endless little treats that you might come across in your time wandering thru its massive length.

Much of my mother was hidden from me, I remember talking with her when I was younger but I cant recall her face, when I think of her I feel like I should be happy but that only gets taken over by the sadness that she isnt around anymore. She left around a year after my father's crash, at least thats how I have heard the story told. She and my father fell upon hard times in their relationship and she decided to take a different path than the family life, last I had heard she was living in one of the carolina's. I got a card from her once wishing me a happy birthday, I got the card around 3 months after my birthday and my name wasnt spelled right, for the longest time I coulndt understand alot of what I heard about her, but in the end I realised that my father loved me and needed me more than I needed to search for her.

Life was good for me, I wasnt a genious in school but I could work my way thru enough to get A's and B's. I always did poorly on tests but I put in the effort on the homework and extra credit to keep my grades up, my father always pushed me to do better, it made me proud when I could show him a grade card with more A's than anything else. My best friend from school's name was Joe, we met when we were younger, he had climbed a tree and gotten his foot stuck when I found him it was getting dark and he was scared. After about 30 minutes of me and him working on getting him free his foot release all at once and tossed both of us out of the tree from at least 12ft in the air. We landed across eachother with me on top, the air rushing from both our lungs, we both layed there gasping for breath for a couple minutes but eventually the gasps of pain turned into luaghter at the situation.

His family was always fighting and there were days when his anger would shine thru his normal ease, often he would cause problems at school when kids talked about his mom or dad. These days were tough and often we would sit in a tree house off of the hill by my house and talk of what was going on in his life, I relished the chance to help him and the role of councilor came naturally to me. There were days when talking just wasnt what he needed tho, and on those days we would often sword fight with a couple of sticks that we had hidden in the tree house. I was usually the one on defense and more often than not I would get a lump on my head, I could out manuver him but he attacked without regard for himself and attacked so fast and often that I had no chance to change to offense. By the time we were 14 both of us had gained considerable amounts of muscle and the sticks no longer held up to the wieght of the blows. We moved on to playing tennis after that, he never really had the drive for it like I did but his speed and determination not to lose kept him game most times.

My father came to me late in my 14th year and we started talking about a family camping trip, he had heard a story about a group of men who had went to scotland hiking and had come across old ruins of the castsles of old. The men had spent days living in the ruins just searching for any odd objects, odd objects were my fathers favorite things, he lived to find another odd trinket that might in some odd way become useful later on. From old suitcases full of clothes or junk to dressers and beds he was always coming home with old things that as he explained might be old in years but were new to him. The promise of scotlands unexplored caverns and mass expanses of green were a luscious temptation that he just couldnt pass up.

For the next two months we spent a great deal of time preparing for the trip, the close the date to leave got the more excited we became. Father was so giddy about it that the very next day he had run out and bought us all new camping gear, including tents and water proof clothes, cooking utensils and everything we would need to start a fire. I myself was looking forward to going to scotland, I had always heard tales of the scotish kings and all the clans that had roamed the area in the old days. Proud people who bowed to noone, a people who stood together whenever there was something threatening their existence, imagine what a people like that could accomplish if ever they found the need to act, it was a people begging for a leader. History told of their struggles and how they often ended up fighting eachother which kept them from becoming strong enough to resist the armies of the british lands. Here often the legends became foggy as if told from a third person point of view instead of verifyed events that someone saw happen, tales of dragons and wizards, tales of great men coming out of nowhere to lead the clans for great victory's only to fade away or die before the goal could be completed. The tale of the scottish peoples was a noble tale, a tale of pride and strength, but also it was a tale of sadness a tale that spoke of lost hopes and of dreams long lost.

CHAPTER 2-----Falling thru rock

We left in late fall from our home in Ohio, the airport was crowded that day and for me it was a scary time, people rushed around from here to everywhere and nothing seemed to make any sense and yet each person had their own goals and to each of them only what they did made any sense. Our plane was on time and me and my father got too spend alot of time day dreaming about what we might find on our trip to scotland. My father seemed to be entertaining the idea that he might find a crown for himself there, he often talked of the kings of scottland, tho the one tale that always stood out to me was that of merlin and arthur, it always amazed me the imagination that a tale like that would take to invent. Just imagine the twists and turns that story would have had to of taken to become what it was today, it had gone from a creative bed time story told by a father or uncle to a tale of wizardry and magic that was known by almost every person on the planet. It had lead to the writing of millions of novels about magic, what was always odd was that all the tales of magic were always in such fantastic and far away lands, I suppose that it would be hard to imagine magic in our time where we use mechanics and science to do our magic for us.Then again what would we do with magic in this time, no doubt it would be used to start wars and mame and kill thousands, why would magic be any different than what we do with the rest of our resources.

When we arrived in scottland you wouldnt have thought we had left ohio, their airport was almost an exact replica of our own, people bustling about and trying to accomplish unseen objectives, family's meeting in jubilant embraces or other families saying heart felt goodbye's. We made our way outside and immediately you could tell the difference, the air was pure even here at the airport the sky was the brightest blue I had ever seen though in the distance you could hear the roar of thunder making its way across the open plains. Lightning could be seen in the deep distance tho matching the thunder to the lightning was amazingly difficult, the delay was so great that often you would see eight or nine lighting bolts flash before you would hear the first thunder. After around an hour of wandering around the airport looking for our rental car we finally made our way out into the open plains of scottland, our first night was too be spent in a hotel room around 5 miles from the airport in a small town where the hotel was the biggest thing happening.

The next day was a four hour drive thru the rolling hills and stony countryside, the drive wound its way thru many small villages and towns but for the last hour and a half we saw nothing but hills. They seemed to flow with eachother, with the long blades of grass dancing in the storms winds it looked as if the hills were a rolling sea of waves waiting to envelope the car. Three times in that span of hills my father told me that we were almost there, and around nine that night withe moon slipping in and out of the dark clouds we came upon a dark wood, the tree's were huge at least ten feet thick, standing tall enough to be put to test any building in any city I had ever been too. The tree line was amazingly straight as if the land dared not to push any further than that line of tree's, as if the tree's themselves were defying the rest of the world to enter its expanding darkness.

When we entered the woods the world that was behind us siezed to exist all that mattered inside this darkness was what was infront of you, the winding road made it very clear that noone had dared attempt to cut one of these tree's down instead opting to create the roads winding path's around the tree's. The car's headlights were nearly useless they only shined out about fifteen feet in front of the car until the darkness rendered it useless. At the slow speed we had to travel it really wouldnt of helped us to see further anyway, the road had so many twists that traveling any faster would have certainly left us off the road in in a ditch. While we sat in the car we talked about many things, my mother came up once and my father told me again of how they hadnt been able to hold their relationship together after his accident, how they had fought endlessly until one day she had just left. We talked about his childhood and what he had to go thru as a child, although his mother and father had stayed together they had done so for his sake alone and their marraige was bereft of love. The constant fighting and bickering had left his childhood filled with sorrow and a feeling of loneliness

The dark corners that never seemed to end became energy sapping, your mind always an inch from falling asleep as the car swayed to meet the next turn. A light drizzle could be seen making its way down thru the leaves of the giant tree's. By the time it reached the forrest floor the beads of rain were bucket size and hit the ground with a deafening thump that made conversation in the car harder and harder. As the sounds of the forest invaded the car and the talking died off the weight of sleep came over me harder than ever and this time I gave way, I faded happily to sleep my head resting on the window as the rain trickled down.

I dont remember much of the crash, I know that my father had screamed that there was a bear in the road as he swerved, but my head had fallen down to the arm rest as I slept and I did not get to see the great beast in the road. My father swerved to the right and the car slid sideways, the back end striking the bear in the side knocking it from the road, the frond end slamming into one of the great tree's. The cars hood smashed into the windshield spraying small bits of glass over both me and my father. I know I hit my head against something and I remember that somehow my head ended up in my fathers lap, his hand carressed my forhead brushing back some of the blood that streamed down over my face. I remember how good it felt for him to hold me, I remember falling in an out of sleep and the dreams of scottland dancing in my head. I remember when I realised that his hand had stopped moving and me thinking that he must have fallen asleep just as I had. I awoke with the sound of a beast in rage making my heart race at a speed I thought not possible, the fear in me kept me from moving when I felt my father jerk, the car leaned it seemed even more to his side. Without warning my father was torn from me, as I was flown back I cuaght a glimpse of the bear tearing at my father, a cry escaped my lips tho it was drowned out by the rain and the crunch of claws and bone.

Nothing in that moment mattered more than the one instinct inside me that was screaming at me too run, run from the beast, run from the pain, run boy RUN!! The lights of the car swirling thru my head as I opened the door to the car and flung myself away from the beast and into the woods. I ran for miles it seemed, the bear didnt notice me leaving or hear my heart beating so loudly as I would have sworn he would have. Tho the bear didnt follow me the fear wouldnt let me stop, I just ran and ran until my legs collapsed underneath me. When I looked up I saw thru a gap in the rain and woods that ahead was a clearing and at the center was a glowing light. I made my way thru the remaining brush and to the edge of the clearing, the lights source tho not visible was deep within a hole in a boulder in the center of the clearing. The rock was enourmous, the size of a large house and the shape was that of a great tear that had fallen from the sky and froze before it hit the ground. I took a few steps into the clearing, moving slowly to see if I would need to run again from some unseen danger. The rock loomed over me but the promise that the hole thru the rock gave me of safety and light was too much for me to ignore. The sound of a train crashing thru the woods erupted behind me as the bear had cuaght me finally. I took off in a run and before I had gotten ten steps a bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of me, no not just in front of me it was as if lighting had struck everywhere in the clearing. Small fires began to break out all over, spreading over the grass and tree's as if they were covered in gas. The fire jumped from tree to tree with little care for the destruction it was wreaking. As the fire spread I ran, as fast as I could towards the rock, the one safe haven from not just the flame that threatened to burn me but from the bear that stalked just outside the clearing edge. The bear feared the fire as much as I did, but that did not stop it from expressing its anger with a loud roar that shook me to my core.

As I reached the stones edge at a full run I tripped and fell cutting my palm deep on a jagged edge the blood instantly pooling in my palm as I winced against the pain. I fought thru the pain of losing everything, thru the pain in my legs and thru the pain in my hand, I climbed as fast as I could to the top of the first part of the rock and found a foot hold for me to get a hand inside the cave. My hand found many cravases to grab hold of, and when I pulled myself up into the cave I realised that they were not just gaps in the rock they were symbols burned into the stone. The entire cave was covered in them, on the cieling on the floor, they were everywhere. The exuaghstion of all that had happened hit me all at once, my heart racing and all the aches and pains coming back to me as my adrenaline faded, I lay my head down next to a pool of rain water that had gathered on the stones hard surface.

Slowly all thoughts and fears faded....his finger ever caressing the small groves all over the great stone. The heat from the blaze made it impossible to see anything outside of the hole in the stone where he now layed his head, small glimpses would come thru of the tree's colapsing after being licked bare by the incredible heat of the spreading flames. Everything was quiet, the only sound was the cackle of the fire as it played in the lush playground it had been released into. When the fire began to die and the heat began to receed, he noticed that he was drenched in sweat and he was laying in a pool of a strange silver liquid. It didnt seem to touch him as he layed in it, he reached out with his hand to touch it and it fled away from his finger as if it was afraid of his touch. As he pushed his hand to the bottom he noticed that the symbols found everywhere else on this rock seemed to be different under the strange liquid.

He traced his fingers over the symbol at the bottom, slowly at first as he could not see more than a quarter inch ahead of his finger before the liquid covered up the lines. As he continued his finger along the groves he tried to imagine the design in his head, it flowed smoothly without corners or sharp turns and yet it seemed to never cross itself. As he continued to examine the shape his mind began to piece together what it was that he was looking at, the design had a central point that was larger than the normal lines, there seemed to be multiple lines leading from the center and the all stopped just before a larger circle that embraced the entire symbol. Slowly the lines connected in his mind and he realised that what he was tracing was an imprint of a hand with a circle around it, only connecting just below the wrist. Just as the fog cleared in his mind at what the symbol was that he was looking at, he began to realise that it wasnt just this picture that connected, all of the symbols were connected to this one, the lines on the inner and outter parts of the stone were impressions of impact all resonating from the point where the hand imprint was.

He moved his hand above the imprint and went to put his hand into place when he felt a resistance, as if the imprint was denying his hand. The harder he pushed the harder the resistance became but slowly he made ground and now his hand hovered less than two inches from the print. He began to become aware that as he got closer to the imprint the stone seemed to change, not so much in shape but all of the symbols and cracks in the stone were glowing, faint at first but the more pressure he put on the print the brighter they became. The desire to touch the print became almost unnatural as he felt a great need to do so, he pushed with everything he had and gripped his right wrist with his left hand for more support. Then as he leaned in over the print putting almost all of his weight on that one spot the force dissapeared, as his hand fell into the print a great impact rebounded off of the rock and a great crack split the rock right down thru the print.

Without time to pull his hand away from the crack his weight fully carried him forward as he fell into the crack, but beyond the opening of the crack there was nothing. A great darkness that allowed for no intrusions of light collapsed upon the boy leaving him falling silently into darkness. The fall seemed to last forever, many thoughts crossed the boys mind not the least of which was whether or not he was already dead and this was a dream, or how he could be on a rock and fall thru it into nothingness. Just as he began to run out of questions he felt pressure on his hands and knees again, but there was nothing below him but darkness. Then as if it had always been there the ground appeared beneath him. Not all at once as you would expect but more in small sections, with tree's and animals popping up randomly in place after the ground had appeared moments before.

There were so many things he had never seen before, he realised that he himself was at the edge of a great forest that seemed to tower above him for miles, the tops of the tree's werent even visible from where he stood and the trunks couldnt have been any less than thirty feet thick. Great leaves scattered across the ground each and every one of them large enough for the boy to sit upon without even having to touch the grass. His eyes followed the tree's down to settle on the trunks and something became clear to him, he couldnt see into the forest, there were gaps between the tree's but it seemed that darkness swallowed anything beyond the first row of tree's. he approached the forest and reached out and touch one of the trunks, the feel was rough the pieces of bark strong enough to hold the heaviest of humans, and the pure size of it left foot holds everywhere, even a child could climb this tree without troubles.

He turned to look out over the hill sides that rolled out from the forest in layered waves, he saw dark spots on the hills the animals all seemed to avoid those area's. Just as he started to walk towards the first hill, a great wind came rushing from the forest, it was almost enough to take him from his feet. As he fought to keep his footing a shadow lept out from above the tree's to take flight at an amazing speed it soared out over the hills and it gave the boy his answer to the dark spots on the hills. As it flew low over a hill far in the distance it spewed forth a rolling ball of fire that slammed into the hillside shaking the ground even at the distance away that the boy was. He fell to the ground hard as the shock moved the ground underneath him and even shook the tree's great bases raining down a storm of leaves that were shook loose from the branches. This land was nothing like the flat lands of his hometown in the states, but even he knew what that creature was that destroyed the hillside, that was a dragon.