Chapter 1:

 

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The Spark

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Cold, shearing wind burns my face. I take a breath, take a draw of warm spicy air from my cigar. I let it roll off my tongue and around my mouth, warming me. The smoke moves in the air making my eyes tear as it hits. The fog is dense with a moonless sky. I imagine the beach looks dark with just this hovering ember.

 

A chill run through me as I stare at the shadow of the great rocks. I leave the cigar in my mouth, clap my hands together in the stinging wind to generate sparking warmth in them. The ocean waves fill my ears. I bring my hands to my face and smell the cigar and salty air. Unbidden, I hear my wife’s voice in my head and imagine her scowling face. Anticipating an inevitable event her voice ringing out, “That smell is everywhere, not appropriate for the grandchildren!” 

 

I look down at my boots and stamp them watching the wet sand making lines around their base. I pull my blazer tighter. Breathing has become a ragged struggle in the blustering wind and my cigar smoke doesn’t necessarily help. I remove my tie. I mumble a spell and the warmth from my cigar runs through me. I cough inhaling smoke. Wind streams my hair back from my eyes constantly watching the ragged, conical stones. 

 

I adjust my vision so I can see the aether. Aether is the by-product of life and the fuel of magic. As a Heska, a wizard, I know how to harness aether. There is a complicated spell that I am looking at. I had constructed it around these stones years ago.

 

I chuckle. She had been busy. Millions of subtle slight changes. 

 

I take another puff of the cigar to keep it lit. Then stick it back in my mouth. I stomp my feet while I wave my hands to unlock the spells. The huge boulder shuddered, and a piece recedes like an eyelid revealing a huge reptilian slit eye specked with iridescent gold. The pupil narrows in on me. A plume of water from beneath the tide shoots high in the air. As one, the gigantic rocks began to move and twist. The sand beneath my feet sinks. The terns and seagulls that had nested on the stones take flight and caw out in anger.

 

The rumbling movement creates a storm of moving sand, rock and bird feathers that ends within an inch of my nose. I can reach out and caress the storm of sand. I jerk my hand back from the abrasions on my fingers left by the fast-moving particles. In a matter of heart beats the wall of debris falls and standing before me is this......