The Mimic Blade E-Book

Jesse Wilson

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Pen Kenders is a dishwasher in the Kingdom of Antacia, and he likes it that way.

But on Blade Day, the unexpected happens. Pen is chosen to become the Guardian of Tinea - The Mimic Blade - in an ages old ritual. No one knows why he is chosen, and no one knows what would happen if a Guardian refused the call.

Pen reluctantly accepts, not knowing the full consequences of his decision. Freeing the blade from its sheath, he unknowingly changes the course of the realm forever.

How can he protect the world from forces he can hardly even understand?

Leseprobe

The Mimic Blade

Kingdom Chronicles Book 1

Jesse Wilson

Copyright (C) 2018 Jesse Wilson

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter One

It was Thursday, the 14th of Yulex. The winter months had been settled in for some time, and the snow fell on the majority of the Antacian Kingdom, as it had for generations this time of the year. Everything was normal.

Everyone in the Kingdom was excited for the upcoming festival that was due to take place in eleven days. The Festival of the Blades. This year it was their turn to host the great exchange as one year faded into the next.

Deep within the bowels of Lom Castle worked at least one man who was not excited for this, or any other festival.

He is a dishwasher by the name of Pen Kenders, as miserable as being a dishwasher sounds this was a job he actually didn't mind. Pen drained the last sink and sighed.

“I hate the holidays, his royal lordship seems to have some kind of ritual feast every day, it's enough to drive me insane,” Pen said to his long-time work partner as he dried his hands with a clean towel, then threw it in the large black basket by the door.

“Yeah, you complain every year, the same old thing. Yet you keep coming back so it's obviously not enough to make you quit,” Shane replied to him with an annoyed tone.

“I guess you're right but still, I hate the holiday seasons. I mean they don't even make any sense,” Pen said the same thing he said every year around this time. He closed the door to the dishwasher and backed away as it turned on by itself to avoid the blast of steam to his face.

A few seconds later Shane opened the metal door, pulled out the rack of plates and did his best to avoid the steam but it was nearly impossible.

“You should lighten up and enjoy it, it doesn't do you any good to be so bitter about them,” Shane said as he stacked up the clean plates.

“We'll talk about it later. I just want to go home. Let's clean this place up and get out of here, tomorrow is another day after all,” Pen changed the subject, tired of talking about it.

“I can't argue with that,” Shane said with a knowing smile as he picked up the stack and walked off to put them away. Pen just shook his head, grabbed his metal scrubbing pad to begin cleaning the scum that built up in the past six hours.

Shane and Pen worked well together and the cleaning up took only twenty minutes.

“See you tomorrow Shane,” Pen said as he put his jacket on over his soaked black shirt.

“Yep, see you later,” Shane replied and left the room. Pen looked around the place, after all these years being here, as miserable as it was sometimes, it was a second home. It was a place where he was in charge, it was safe. He shook his head, breaking out of the daze.

“Good night,” he said to no one, shut the lights off and left the room.

Pen walked outside and was discouraged. Snow was falling and the cold air caused his warm, wet clothes to steam. He stumbled through the fresh snow to his car. The castle walls usually broke the wind but tonight the wind was blowing in his direction.

The snow felt like tiny blades as the wind whipped them in his face. Shane was gone, he could see the tire tracks leading away and now he wished he would have hurried out of here, too. He walked to his car and brushed the snow off of it to get in.

He put the keys in and turned them, but the engine barely turned over.

“Oh, come on, don't do this to me, not tonight,” Pen said desperately and tried again. He sighed in relief when the engine came to life.

“Thank Taro,” he said quietly and got back out of his car with the brush to get all the snow off the windshield and the rest of his car. Pen brushed off the powdery snow as fast as he could, got back in his car and turned on his wiper blades to do the rest of the work.

“Alright, let's go home,” he said, talking to himself. Pen pulled out of the parking lot and drove very slowly to the exit. He pulled up to the guard post and stopped, rolled down his window.

“Finally leaving today, Kenders?” Dan asked him the same thing every day. Pen found it annoying but dealt with it anyway. “Yep, another day, another coin, you know how it is,” Pen replied as he handed his ID over.

“I know who you are, you don't need to show it each time,” Dan said, glanced at the laminated card just to make Pen feel better.

“Old habits and all, anyway, stay warm tonight,” Pen replied and retracted his arm and rolled up the window. The guard pressed the button and the gate lifted, then he waved to him as he left. Pen drove through the gate and pulled onto the road.

It was abandoned but that was typical on a night like this. He felt lucky that he didn't have to drive too far from the castle. Normally working as a dishwasher would put you on the bleak side of town. Since Pen worked for the King and the royal family, it paid much better. He always considered himself lucky but knew luck had nothing to do with it.

Pen drove down the road slowly with the radio off to make sure he wouldn't be distracted in the winter weather. The trip home was lonely and uneventful just how he liked his trips home.

Soon he pulled into his garage and shut the door behind him. He got out of the car and made his way into the house. The house was pretty big but he lived alone, in fact he only ever used four rooms in the place regularly, the other three remained empty. The minute he walked inside he peeled off his grease soaked clothes and threw them in the basket.

It was something he'd done by heart for about fifteen years now.

From here it was straight into the bathroom to take a shower to get the feeling of being grimy and coated with slime off of his skin. This was always a quick process because his feet were always so sore by the end of the night that standing became difficult. Standing in six hours in one place all night did a number on him.

He got out of the shower and put his night clothes on, a pair of gray shorts and a black t-shirt. With that he hobbled into the kitchen to grab his half gallon jug of water from the refrigerator and right to his favorite recliner. Sitting down in it was always the best part of his day, leaning back and doing nothing was something he looked forward to each and every night.

Pen reached for his remote and turned on the television. It was EFF news network that came on.

“Well I wonder what happened today,” he said to himself and watched.

“Today a necromancer raised three ghouls and used them to attack Desert Wind Elementary School, thirty are dead in this horrific, but all too common place event. It has brought up the topic of magic control once again in the courts of King Lom,” Pen turned the channel.

It was tragic but he didn't care about things like that because there was nothing he could do. He only worried about the things he could change and he knew nothing about magic.

“Just a dishwasher,” he said to himself. There was a time in his life when he could have made that jump into the magic world, but that was long past. Nearing thirty years old and magic users often started at fifteen. No, Pen knew he was stuck doing this and would likely do this job until he was dead. He didn't mind that idea.

Pen turned to another news network.

“And the royal families are coming to Lom castle, preparing for the blade celebration, each family is bringing their sacred blade as it's been eight years that the families have been gathered here,” Pen turned the channel again, he was sick of holiday stuff and wanted to avoid it whenever he could.

He turned the channel to Sinistars and one of his favorite movies was on.

Delta Squad part three. It was better than holiday stuff and it would make for great back ground noise. Pen rarely watched television directly. Most of the time he spent his nights connected to the Internet. Pen was an avid player of games.

His favorite online game was World of Snowcraft. It was a roleplaying game for millions of people from all eight of the kingdoms. It connected ordinary people across The Distance as he called it, others just called it the Outside.

Pen picked up his laptop, turned it on and quickly logged into the game. His character was nothing like his real life identity. In real life he was content to be a nobody, a small cog in a massive machine, just making the thing go.

In Snowcraft he was a level one hundred Dreadknight of The Blue Ice clan and he went by the name of Sir Kenders. In truth, this was less about him and more honoring his father. In the game, he kept it secret who he really was, and if anyone ever asked he would just say it was an homage to the real guy, nothing more.

“Hey there, Kenders welcome back,” A voice came out of his speakers, he turned down the television a bit.

“Hey, glad to be back Iceshaper, any good raids today?” Pen responded with a voice that was just a tad bit deeper than his normal voice. Iceshaper was someone Pen always had a bit of a crush on. She was a high level cryomancer.

While they were common in the game very few people had the patience to play the job to be really effective, just like in real life, warrior types were much more common.

“Yeah, the frost giant's lair is opening up in celebration for the blade festival. The clan is going to raid it and beat the boss sometime tonight, we're just early,” Iceshaper replied with that sweet voice.

“Oh good, more holiday stuff. At least we'll get to kill something,” Kenders responded, and smiled at the thought.

“It's still hot down this way, I suppose it's snowing where you are by now,” Iceshaper replied with a laugh. “You know it is, cold as a, well, frost giant's breath,” Kenders said and laughed at his lame joke, Iceshaper laughed too, she must have thought it was funny.

“Hey the rest of the group is logging in, let's go to the home base,” Iceshaper said to him as they teleported to the home base.

The next few hours were spent with him and six other people rampaging through the lair of an evil frost giant. The enemy at the end of the dungeon faded away at last and the clan was rewarded with special holiday themed gear.

Pen looked at the clock and it was about three in the morning.

“Sorry guys it's about three my time. I gotta get going. I'll talk to you later,” Kenders said, the rest of the team said their goodbyes before he logged out.

He had been sitting in one spot for hours and this was just as hard on him as working was. He closed his computer and slowly started to stand up from the chair, putting the computer on the arm of a couch he never sat in and shut the television off.

He slowly made his way to his bedroom.

“I've got to quit doing this to myself,” Pen said to himself, but knew it was a lie. He said the same thing just about every night as his stiff body struggled to move.

He made it to his ice-cold bedroom, he left the window open before he left today, but it wasn't snowing then and he'd forgotten about it until right now. He tried to close it, but it was frozen shut.

“Come on, you can do it,” Pen said and pushed a little harder, the ice broke and he was able to shut it. Pen fell into bed and looked straight into his ceiling. Sleep never came easy for Pen. He was always thinking of vast things, ideas that came from nowhere.

Tonight however, he turned his head and looked at the picture, the last picture that was ever taken of his father and sighed.

“It's been three years, where are you?” Pen asked that question sometimes but didn't know why anymore.

It was hard on him but much harder on his mother whom Pen had no choice but to have committed, driven mad with a wicked kind of guilt that came on when they got the news that someone they love had gone missing.

Pen shook his head and cleared his thoughts. There was no need to be thinking of things he couldn't change or do anything about. These were words he'd lived by for ages and they haven't failed yet.

Life could have been so much worse right now and he had the news to remind him of that fact every single day. This was a day in the life of Pen Kenders. He shut off the light with a push of a button, lay there in the dark only to drift off to unknown dreamscapes.

Chapter Two

One day before the festival of the blades was set to commence, Pen was doing what he always did at the castle. Working like hell to keep up with the demands of all the royal families and all their guests.

Pen needed a break so he exited the dish room without telling Shane and leaned against the wall, trying his best to straighten out his raw, waterlogged hands.

He'd never used gloves. He tried once but the water always found its way in. It just made the skin worse. He was tired already but there were many hours to go, the three days of the festival had begun and his normal six hours could easily turn into twelve if royalty decided to party a bit more than usual.

“Are you alright?” a female voice asked him.

Pen didn't look up he didn't recognize the voice, but likely it was just one of the servers hired for the extra traffic of the season.

“Yeah, I'll be fine. Just taking a quick break,” Pen replied, he looked up and his eyes widened and he stood straight up immediately.

“Princess Tatiyana, I didn't realize it was—“ she cut him off. She was a high elf, from the Kingdom of Vanir in the south, tall and as beautiful as Pen had always seen her on television. He expected a different personality, but never had any real opinions about her.

“It's quite alright. I just couldn't stand all the royal arrogance in one room and I too needed a break,” she replied to him with a smile. In all his years, he'd only been in the presence of King Lom and he'd never once spoken to him, this was new, he was stunned.

“Call me Sarah, the princess thing is for the knights and royal subjects, I'm a guest in your house,” Sarah said to him and looked him up and down. It was hard to miss that he was a walking wet disaster.

“I'd shake your hand or something but I'm quite the mess as you can see, um, hi,” Pen replied, nervously trying to keep his cool.

“You look like you know his place pretty well, is there a good place to get a better internet connection, the guest room sucks in this castle,” Sarah said to him and Pen was still stunned, but he shook himself out of it.

“Yeah, actually the break room is pretty good, just down the hall. I use it to play Snowcraft sometimes on really slow days,” Pen said and Sarah's eyes lit up. “So, you play too, well that's cool. Look me up some time,” she replied when someone came running down the hall.

“Princess, thank Loa I found you,” the man said and he was out of breath.

“The King requests your presence in the hall, the ritual blessing is about to begin,” he said urgently.

“It was nice meeting you,” Sarah said to Pen as she turned and followed the man out, down the hall.

“She plays Snowcraft, and I didn't even get her account name. Man, you're an idiot, Kenders,” he said and smiled.

“Oh well, it was for the best anyway,” he said as she turned down the hall and disappeared. With that, it was time to get back to work. He hoped they were about halfway done with their work for the night, at least he hoped. He opened the door to go back inside.

“Hey Shane, you're never going to guess who I just met, not in a million years,” Pen said, excited to tell his dish partner about his brush with greatness. “Yeah, who did you just meet?” Shane asked him as he closed the dish machine.

“Princess Tatiyana, she was right outside,” Pen was overly excited. “Dude, that's awesome, did you ever think about introducing me, too,” Shane took a good thing and twisted it as soon as he could.

“Well, no it was not a long visit I didn't really have time,” Pen replied to him and Shane just shook his head.

“Alright, let's get back to work so we can get out of here at a decent time, anyway,” Shane was feeling left out.

“Yep, we're totally going to do that,” Pen agreed with him and knew now that it was a bad idea mentioning anything at all.

Chapter Three

The night after work, he was restless. He wanted to log on to Snowcraft and tell everyone that he met her and brag about it, but part of him knew this was a bad idea. Pen was confused on what to do exactly. He logged into Snowcraft after doing his nightly ritual and was met by his clan.

“Guys you're never going to believe who I met tonight at the castle,” he said to the others, deciding to go for it.

“Who was it?” Forge asked him along with the others. “Princess Tatiyana, I met her tonight,” Pen said and there was silence from the other members of the clan.

“Really, was she as hot as when she was in the magazines?” Iceshaper asked him. “No, it was way better in real life. She was totally cool too. Nothing like you'd think a princess would be like and, get this, she actually plays Snow,” Pen said.

“No way, really, that's awesome, but let me guess she didn't give you her in game name,” Flake replied.

“Well, no. We didn't talk that long, but if we meet again I'll be sure to ask her, I promise,” Pen said and was sure he'd never see her again, but if he got the chance he'd take it.

“Yeah, do that. I'm sure you can sweet talk a real life princess into joining our little club here, that'd be great,” Forge said and laughed about it. “Yes, I'll see what I can do, because, yeah,” Pen trailed off with a sigh. “Sounds like you've got a crush,” Iceshaper said with a laugh.

“What can I say? I guess I have a soft spot for rich, hot princesses who play Snow. Call it a character flaw if you want, but I don't care. It was awesome,” Pen replied to her but tried not to sound defensive.

“Alright, cool story but can we please accomplish something before we waste the whole night here, I don't like doing nothing, if I wanted to do that I could just play Alternate Life,” Forge complained. “Yeah, yeah stop complaining, we can do a raid on the fire trolls tonight. I'll be the healer. You guys kill everything else that moves, if win we'll get a high leveled item we can sell.” Flake said, everyone agreed.

“At least it's not like that game Fate, where no matter how good you are its random luck if you win anything useful or not,” Iceshaper replied.

“Yeah, I hear that, Fate is a terrible game that people just can't stop playing, it's very weird,” Pen agreed with that. With the excitement of Pen's story behind them, the small group proceeded with the game.

Hours past and once again, the ritual continued as it had for years. It was three in the morning again and Pen needed to sleep.

“Guys, I hate to do this, but it's time for me to go again, good game and I'll see you later. I don't celebrate it but, happy Blade day,” Pen said to this team.

“Aww, look at that, someone is trying to be nice, it's appreciated anyway. See you later Pen,” Forge replied.

“I'd get into it with you, but I'm too tired, see you all later,” Pen said again and logged out. Once again, he pulled himself out of his chair and did what he did every night.

He was not looking forward to tomorrow, it was going to be miserable for him, but the party was all that was important. That and the ritual they did every year to celebrate Blade day.

Pen lay down in his bed and passed out in the dark just like he did every other night. Tonight, his dreams took him to a strange desert. Sand as far as the eye could see and the sky was black but the sun still high in the sky, everything was wrong.

“What, where am I?” Pen asked, his voice echoed in all directions.

“Son, you're not supposed to be here, how did you get here?” Pen looked over and saw his Dad standing there, looking like he did the last time he saw him.

“Must be the season, sometimes dreamers venture into this cursed desert,” he said to him. Pen was still shocked that any of this was going on.

“Desert, what do you mean, what's going on?” he was confused. “If you're here that can only mean one thing,” his dad said and Pen was lost. “What do you mean by that?” Pen asked, but as soon as he did the sky above him erupted in emerald green fire and it shocked him awake.

Chapter Four

The sun was streaming through his window, but his cell phone alarm wasn't set to go off for another ten minutes. He hadn't felt like he slept at all and awoke with such a start that he was full of energy.

“Damn, what was that all about?” Pen asked as he sat up.

“Just a bad dream is all, shake it off and get ready for a rough day at work. One more day is all you need to do, you can do it again,” Pen encouraged himself to get to work, stood up and faced the most hated of all holidays.

It was Blade Day again.

The day wore on quickly as it always did when you were anywhere else but working. Soon it was time to go in and face reality. He was tough, he could handle it and he knew it, as long as Shane showed up there wouldn't be a problem for anyone.

He drove to the Castle. Now it was all decorated in the traditional gold and silver lights of the holiday. It made him cringe a little bit. Thankfully enough, the castle only decorated for the day of the event, not a month before like most of the local stores in Antacia did.

He ignored it as he parked in his spot and did what he always did. Shane was already in the room getting stuff ready, but he usually was there before Pen was.

“Hey man, are you ready for one hell of a night?” Shane asked him.

“You bet I've done this a couple times before, remember,” Pen replied to him.

Thirty minutes later the rush began, the place only had so many plates and forks to go around and these two were responsible for every single one got recycled back into the kitchen so they could be used as best as they could. For hours the rush continued with no signs of stopping. Then at seven pm, the rush started to slow down.

“The ritual must have started, lets catch up while we can,” Shane suggested. “I heard that, let's do it,” Pen replied and the two of them started to break down the mountain of dishes from the kitchen and the party alike.

In the middle of doing this, there was a loud knock at the dish room door. This was unusual to say the least. Shane was closer so he opened the door.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Yes, is there a Pen Kenders in the room, King Lom requests his presence immediately,” a man dressed in a very expensive suit said to him.

“Pen buddy, you sent a dirty plate out and the King got it, you're going to be, for the lack of a better term, terminated,” Shane said and ran his thumb across his own neck to Pen as he dropped the plate back into the soapy water in shock.

“But I'm a mess I can't go out there like this,” Pen tried to find an excuse, but the man at the door didn't buy it for a second. “Please, sir, come with me. It's very important,” he insisted again.

Pen shook the soap off his hands and despite being soaked walked to the door.

“Alright, lead the way,” Pen said and the man began walking down the hall, Pen's legs were stiff from not moving for so long that he was having trouble keeping up with the guy, every step felt like fire moving up his legs at this pace.

Pen was scared, he had no idea what was coming next but knew that it couldn't be good for whatever reason to be summoned by the King on such a big day.

The direction they were going. Pen knew it led right to the main hall of the castle, he couldn't imagine any reason for him being summoned like this but when the King called your name saying no was always a bad decision.

Chapter Five

Pen and the thin man in the suit walked down the path that led to the Main Hall. Each step was making him more nervous that the last and he didn't know what to expect. He wanted to ask questions, but at the same time didn't want to be annoying.

Whatever his fate was to be, he'd face it with all the courage he had. The thin man pushed open the door and stood to the side of it.

“Walk straight ahead and remember to not look at anyone else, go straight to the King,” he said in a whispered voice. Pen swallowed his emotions and walked out into the hall, smelling like dishwater and still being soaked by it.

Against the polished surface against his wet shoes he found that gaining traction was difficult, it was almost like walking on ice. He felt eyes on him as he walked down the center of the large ball room. Surrounded by tables of knights, royalty from all the kingdoms. All the world's power was right here and in the middle of it all, a dishwasher. A nobody in the scheme of it.

Everyone was watching him, he didn't know why. Pen walked until he made it to the steps of the throne, he didn't dare look up.

“Do you know why you were summoned?” Lom asked him in a voice he'd become used to from the television, but something about it sent chills down his spine. “No,” Pen replied, still not looking up at him.

“Uh, why are you looking at the floor, do you like your own reflection?” Lom asked him. “No, I was told not to look at anyone,” Pen replied.

“Look at me, Pen, we have a dilemma,” Lom said and Pen couldn't believe or understand what kind of problem he'd could be involved in when it came to the issue of royalty, Pen looked up at the king. An older man, clean shaven but eyes of blue that felt like they were looking right through him.

“In the ritual of Loa, as you and everyone knows, eight names are burned into the sacred pages of the book of names, as to the will of each deity of the guardian for each sacred blade,” Lom paused and continued.

“Normally the names are that of accomplished knights, and seven names proceeded as expected. The last name that was burned into the page was yours first and Sir Galia's name second. This happens sometimes and the tradition is clear. We must ask if you would accept the responsibility of being the Guardian of our mimic blade for the next year,” Lom finished.

The air was tense, Pen could feel it that something had happened here just before he arrived. Everyone was seeing what he would do. Galia was there and his eyes burned into him most of all.

Pen hated the holiday. He hated the story and didn't believe any of it. Here he was standing in front of all eight of the kings, their families and the knights expected to be the new protectors of the blade as it had been done for thousands of years.