Chapter 1: Taban's New Invention
"Flare…"
"Flare…"
"Come on Flare…wake up!"
The young man grunted something that was still too sleepy sounding to be considered words as he rolled over in a futile attempt to ignore his waker. Unfortunately the girl proved to be persistent, more persistent even, than he was stubborn.
Flare brushed his unkempt, flame red hair out of his eyes as he gazed up at the girl who had just woke him from what was now a rapidly fading dream. His face brightened quickly once his mind had cleared enough to recognize her.
Gina stood beside his bed, arms crossed over her chest, a look of exaggerated motherly sternness on her pretty face. Her long ash blonde hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. She had on a plain dress, the same shade of blue-gray as her stunning eyes, if not anything fancy.
"C'mon now, you didn't need to wake me in such a rude fashion," he said with mock annoyance.
"And how else am I supposed to wake the deepest sleeper in all of Guardia?" she retorted.
"I am not the deepest sleeper in all of Guardia," he said. "In all of Truce maybe, but not all of Guardia."
She couldn't suppress her giggles or her smile. Giving him a quick peck on the cheek she started for the door. "Hurry up and get dressed. We're supposed to go visit Taban today, and we're already running late. I'll be waiting downstairs with Tai."
Flare gave a great yawn as he pulled himself out of his bed. As much as he wanted to slip back into his dream world, they had promised Taban that they'd come and visit today. Though he might not have been great at remembering his appointments, he wasn't one to break a promise. Especially not a promise made to a friend.
He got dressed quickly. After throwing on a clean pair of pants and a halfway clean shirt he wasted no time in lacing up his boots and tying his lucky white bandanna around his head.
Flare walked down the stairs to the bottom floor of the orphanage. For as long as he could remember he had lived in the Truce Orphanage with his best friend Tai. The two of them were both fast approaching eighteen, so they would have to leave soon. Not that it mattered much to Flare. To them the orphanage was just a place to sleep at night. They had spent most of their young lives hanging out with that egghead Taban, playing with Gina, or being trained in the way of the sword by Refla.
They had met Refla nearly eight years ago, and he had been training them ever since. Flare and Tai had dreamed of joining the Guardian Royal Army for as long as they could remember. They craved the excitement and adventure that came along with being a knight, and Refla had done everything in his power to help them reach their goal.
They planned to enlist later on in the summer, once they had both reached legal adulthood. With a little luck achieving even the coveted position of Royal Guard was a real possibility for both of the young men. Their skill was without question, and as they got a little real life experience they could go far in the military.
For the time being, all thoughts of becoming a soldier abandoned Flare. Right now all that was on his mind was visiting Taban, probably sitting through a drawn out explanation of whatever new invention he had dreamed up, and spending the day with his two best friends, Tai and Gina.
Even though Gina wasn't from the orphanage, she had befriended Flare and Tai when they were children, and throughout the years her relationship with Flare had grown beyond simple friendship. He planned on asking for her hand in marriage as soon as he was accepted as a soldier, giving him the means to support a family.
To Flare the future was indeed a bright and shining thing.
Tai and Gina were waiting for their sleepy friend at the front door. Unlike Flare whose red hair was long and routinely disheveled, Tai's own brown hair was cut short and easily maintained relative neatness. He was shorter and stockier than Flare, standing only an inch or two taller than Gina.
"It's already almost midday. How much does one guy need to sleep?" asked Tai as his friend rubbed the last bits of sleep from his eyes.
"More than I'm getting now," Flare replied through one final yawn. "Okay, let's go and see what our pal Taban has cooked up for us this time."
Taban Ashtear's house was south of Truce on a small island that had been connected to the shore by a long wooden bridge. Taban came from a long line of craftsmen. He claimed to be able to trace his genealogy back over four centuries to when an ancestor of his had crafted the famous Leene's Bell. Taban's father and grandfather had built the bridge that connected the small island to the coast, and now Taban had become a craftsman himself. Both a blacksmith and an inventor.
Even starting their trek from the orphanage, which was located in the southern reaches of Truce, the walk to Taban's house took over an hour. If it wasn't so far out of the way Flare supposed he'd end up visiting a lot more.
The house itself was a large two story building. Excluding the additions that Taban had made, the house had also been built by his father and grandfather.
The yard was cluttered with random gadgets and machines that Taban had built. For that matter, the house itself was just as cluttered with gizmos as the yard was. "It's amazing that Lara can live with this mad scientist pack rat," Flare grumbled as he stepped carefully around something that looked suspiciously like a giant mouse trap.
"Oh come on Flare, Taban's a really great guy and you know it," Gina scolded, wading through a pile of automatic shoe polishing dishwashers that Taban had made the year before.
"Yeah, I do know that he's a great guy. That's why I walk all the way down here and make my way through his maze of misfit inventions just to see him," Flare retorted.
Instead of knocking, Flare pressed the large red button that rang Taban's door bell. After a few moments of waiting, Flare pressed the button again. From the inside of the house they could hear the whine of Taban's large self made generator, and past that they could here Taban himself yell something that sounded a bit like, "Coming!"
The door swung open and the eccentric inventor walked out to greet his friends. Standing a couple inches over six feet, Taban was a tall man. He was several years older than his three young friends and currently had the startings of a beard, likely from staying up all night to work on his newest invention, growing on his face.
"Good to see all of you! I've got a great surprise today. C'mon you've got to see it," Taban said, speaking quickly.
The three friends followed him into the large living room where he grabbed a small square object off of his work desk.
"I call this a camera!" he said dramatically as he held it out towards them.
"And what exactly does it do, this camera?" asked Tai after a short silence.
"Well, it takes pictures of things. I can just aim it at what I want to take, and then I hit this here button. It's like getting an instant portrait!"
Flare and the others looked intrigued by this latest toy. "How's it do that?" Flare asked but then said, "Never mind. I don't want to know how it works. Just show us, okay?"
Taban ushered them next to the wall and walked across the room where he raised the camera to his eye. "Okay, now stand still."
When Taban pressed on the button there was a bright flash that left Flare, Gina, and Tai blinking and rubbing their eyes.
"What in the blazes was that?" asked Flare as he tried to blink the large purple spot out of his vision.
"Did it work?" asked Gina, but as soon as their eyesight had returned to them they saw Taban frowning down at the camera in his hands.
"It wasn't supposed to flash that bright. It busted out the entire bulb too," he muttered absently, having already taken the camera apart and tinkering with the insides.
"You mean it didn't work?" said Tai.
"Sorry, afraid not," apologized a rather down looking Taban.
Flare let out a low moan and slumped into a chair. "So what your saying is that you brought us out here just to blind us?"
"I'm really sorry about this. I honestly thought I had all the bugs worked out. Well since you're all here why not join me and Lara for lunch? Or are you too busy today?"
Flare's face lit up at once. "Too busy? I'll never be so busy that I'd pass up Lara's cooking!"
"Is your stomach all you think with, Flare?" Gina asked, throwing a sideways glance at his direction.
"I'm hungry, what's so wrong with that?" he asked looking a little hurt.
Taban laughed at the two of them. "The two of you fight more than me and Lara do, and you're not even married yet."
"Alas, why'd I have to fall for such a dope?" Gina sighed. "I guess Flare is right though. I'm pretty hungry too."
The others didn't argue as they made their way into the kitchen and sat down for lunch.
Flare dropped his silverware onto the table and sighed with contentment. "Wow Lara, your cooking never fails to impress."
"Why thank you, Flare. It's always nice to have your cooking complimented," Taban's wife said smiling.
"Yes, thanks for the meal, Lara," Tai added as he too finished.
Gina who had finished some time before was mildly impressed with the amount of food that her two friends could eat. It was a good thing that Lara had cooked a surplus amount of food. While Taban had also gone for seconds, Flare and Tai had finished nearly six helpings between the two of them.
"How can you two eat that much without getting sick?" Gina asked in amazement.
Taban gave a hearty laugh and slapped Flare on the shoulder. "Growing boys!" he announced. "I remember when I was their age, not that it was too long ago, I could eat my parents out of house and home."
"Well, at least you guys shouldn't be hungry again until sometime next week," Gina said with a laugh.
"Or at least until dinner," Flare compromised.
After the meal Flare and Tai insisted that Lara let them do the dishes. After a bit of resisting she agreed to let them help her out. Taban had already gone back to work on the camera and Gina wrapped the remaining leftovers in foil and sat them inside the fridge.
"Taban, I almost forgot. Do you have any of that shampoo left? My mother was wanting to buy a couple bottles of it from you," Gina said as she sat the last foil covered plate into the fridge.
Taban, who was just as good with inventing formulas and chemicals as he was at inventing machines, thought for a moment and then pointed to a large bookshelf that was full of various bottles and cans. "Yeah, there should be a bottle or two left on that shelf."
"Thanks," she replied as she began rummaging through the various containers.
"Wait, not that one, Gina," Taban said as she picked up a small red bottle. "That stuff is designed to kill hair at the roots. It makes you go bald and stay bald. Wouldn't want to give a bottle of that to your mom."
"That would be bad," she agreed, finally picking a green bottle that had the words Vitamin Shampoo written on it. "Is this it?" she asked showing him the bottle.
He glanced up from the camera just long enough to check out the bottle. "Yep, that looks like the right one."
Flare who had been listening to the conversation turned his head so he could look at the red bottle of hair killing solution. "What on earth would possess you to make something that makes you go bald permanently," he asked. "Who would even want to use something like that?"
"Well, your friend and mentor Refla for one," Taban replied. "Sometimes people just like the 'no hair' hair style. And I imagine shaving your head everyday can be a real pain."
"You'll never catch me using that stuff," Flare said, returning to the dishes.
Tai nodded his head in agreement then said with a chuckle, "But I can't really imagine Refla with hair. Can you Flare?"
Flare laughed too. He had the fleeting mental image of their fierce teacher with a head full of curly blond locks. Come to think of it, neither Flare nor Tai had ever seen Refla with hair. From the first time they had met the grizzly looking man he had been completely bald. He didn't even have eyebrows. When his students had asked him about it he told them it was to add to the fierceness of his appearance.
Not that he needed to look any fiercer. The man was covered from head to toe with battle scars. The first time that the two boys had seen him without his shirt they had gasped in shock. His upper body was a canvas of crisscrossing scars. The fact that he had sustained so many injuries and survived was evidence of the man's toughness.
After all the dish washing was finished, Flare and Tai bid their friends goodbye. It was early afternoon and Refla had been training them harder than ever in the recent months.
"I think I'll stay and visit a while longer," Gina decided.
"Okay, see you later," Flare said giving her a quick kiss goodbye, then he and Tai started the journey back to Truce.
The man sat beside a small grove of old elms, using their shade to keep cool in the midsummer sun. He watched the two boys leave the house. One of them had wild and messy red hair; the other had short brown hair. These two had accompanied the girl into the house earlier that very day.
It mattered not. Nothing that they could do would be able to stop him if he chose to kill the both of them, but for the time being he had no desire for either of their deaths. All that he wanted was the girl. She was the Key. A shiver of excitement ran down his spine as he thought of how far he had come. How very close he was! All of his planning and studying would pay off very soon.
The two boys passed in front of him, not twenty feet away. He didn't hide though. There was no need to hide when one could make oneself invisible.