Returning Chapter 01

Hi all this is my first story her and I am looking for honest helpful criticism. If all you have is hateful comments please keep them to yourself. If you see I have misused a word then please tell me, that is how we learn. Don’t be surprised if I comment back to learn more about your opinion.

This chapter starts the adventure of Rhys David Cain, Yes there will be lots of sex in his life but there may not be sex in every chapter. (The first name is pronounce Reese for those who want to know.)

Enjoy or not that is up to you.

Thanx


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I guess you could say I was born when I was 20 years old. I know that sounds odd but in a way it is very true. The first thing I can remember is waking up in a hospital, I did not know who I was or where I was, I knew it was a hospital because there were nurses and doctors everywhere.

I was informed by the doctors that I was suffering from amnesia, in other words I couldn’t remember anything. Apparently I had been found in the water off the coast of main by a fishing boat, the fishermen told everyone I had fell out of the sky into the water. No one believed them.

The doctors did what tests they knew how to do back then but they said there was nothing they could do for me and the only thing they found on me was a necklace with a copper pendant on it. The pendant had two names engraved into it; Morgana Wynnifred Oakbloom and Rhys David Cain. They assumed I was Rhys since I did not look like a Morgana.

I seemed to be better educated than the average person and none of my education had left with my memories. That was 80 years ago.

At 100 years old I am still a fairly active person if private. My son owns a ranch in Texas and I had gone down to his place to go kill some feral hogs on his ranch, I loved to hunt and I had agreed to go readily. That is how I found myself walking through the woods on that day.

I was walking tracking a hog that I had wounded trying to follow the blood trail. I had my big hunting rifle on my arm and a pair of Ruger Super Blackhawk Hunter edition pistols on my hips. My backpack had a few boxes of ammo for each and a lot of my survival gear. I also had my big survival knife tucked into a sheath in the middle of my back. The knife was one of my favorite possessions; it was a hand forged Damascus steel blade with a hollow ivory handle.

I had been tracking the hog for about an hour when the radio on my pack squawked and my son asked for my location. I told him I was about five miles north of camp along the creak. He told me I might want to head back that a bad storm was on the way in. I told him I would head back in a few I was tracking a wounded and needed to finish it off at least.

Another hour and the wind and first drops of rain started hitting me, still no hog so I turned to head back to camp. As I turned reaching for my radio I stopped moving in a little bit of shock. Standing twenty feet behind me was a beautiful woman she was about five foot eleven inches tall had midnight black hair all the way down to her waist and some how she was very familiar to me. The pointed ears peeking through her hair on the sides about an inch were very noticeable. Her skin was pale and her eyes were light green. The most striking thing was how narrow her features were. I would almost say she looked like and elf.

The woman looked at me a spoke in a very musical sounding voice “Rhys it is time to come home we need you.”

The lightning bolt struck me dead in the top of the head as I screamed out “Morgana!” and the world went black…

I felt stiff and sore, I thought heaven was supposed to be an end to all pain; maybe I went the other way. As I opened my eyes I had to blink a few times, it was just as dark with them opened as it was with them closed. I was sitting up with my legs folded in front of me Indian style. I reached back and pulled the flashlight off my backpack and thumbed it to life.

I was sitting in a stone walled room. There seemed to be several pieces of stone furniture sitting around the edge and a fire pit in front of me. There was no wood in the pit and I suddenly realized how cold it was in the room. I could see my breath reflecting in the beam of the flashlight.

I got up to see if I could find any wood in the room, but as I stood the fire pit suddenly burst into flame, no wood, just flames dancing over the pit. I could feel the heat coming off the fire almost immediately. That was when I remembered the radio.

I reached back and pulled the mike around and pressed the talk button on the side. I called out to my son to report that I was still alive and got no answer, not even static. I pulled my back pack off and set it around in front of me to pull the radio off. The power light was still on but there was no sound coming out. I turned the squelch all the way down and flipped through the channels. There was no chatter or static on any of them.

I thumbed the radio off to conserve the batteries and got up to walk around the room. As I walked along, torches flared to life along the walls of the room. I stepped in front of a mirror and dropped into a crouch as I spun drawing one of the pistols on my hip. I had seen someone in the mirror but there was no one there. I stood up and turned back to the mirror. There was a young man looking at me, he had jet black hair and a small goatee on his chin. His eyes were a deep brown that women would call dreamy. His face was ruggedly handsome but had a scar that ran from just below his eye all the way to his lip it was a thin scar just a hint of one.

I recognized him I had last seen him eighty years ago, the very first time I could remember looking in a mirror. I had shaved off the beard that day and never grew it back.

As I continued to walk around and look I came across a doorway that was completely blocked by rubble but I could feel a cold wind leaking in around it. Towards the back of the room I found another doorway, this one was dark. As I touched the door frame to look in the torches in this small room flared up. Inside there was a large black horse and a white wolf. The horse was dressed in armored barding with packs on his rump and an odd looking saddle the likes of which I had never seen. It stood at least six and a half feet high at the shoulders and was wider than a large man across its chest. The wolf was large maybe two hundred pounds and all white with sparkling blue eyes.

A heard a female voice, “It’s about time Rhys.” I turned to look for the speaker and the wolf trotted past me to walk over to the fire and sit in front of it. Then the horse walked by me and stood by the fire as well.

I shook my head and continued around the room. A third doorway was there this one also dark, I reached up and touched the doorframe and the torches inside flared to life. Inside was a dummy with a set of light armor and weapons. The weapons were a pair of short swords on the hips, a pair of long swords on the back and a bow across the chest with a quiver of arrows on the back between the swords. There was also a buckler type shield on the left arm and a cloak draped across the back. The armor looked like it was lacquered black. The bow was made out a strange black and white striped wood. The swords all had black lacquered handles.

“Will you quit screwing around and put your gear on those clothes look ridiculous.” The female voice said.

Again I turned to look for the speaker and so no one except the horse and the wolf, the wolf was staring at me. “Did you just speak to me?”

The voice was in my head not my ears. “Of course I spoke to you that is what familiars do, now get dressed and get us out of here, we have been in stasis for six thousand years and I am itching to hunt.”

I stepped backwards into the little room as the wolf spoke in my mind, as I entered there was an odd tingling sensation and I stepped forward again in reaction. As I looked back in the room the clothing I had on was now on the dummy and the armor was on me weapons and all. I looked down the guns were on my hips with the short swords laced under them.

I looked at the wolf, “Where am I, who are you and what is going on here?”

As I spoke the dark haired woman appeared but I could see through her to the wolf on the other side. “Likka He cannot remember anything from before, something went wrong with his crossover, it is for the best. If he does not know, his enemies will not know it is him. I brought him back because the Calin are on the move again. The mage kings are trying to crush all hope from the people and he is the only one that can stop them.” She then turned to face me, “My love I cannot stay long this drains me to project like this, you must travel east from here to the town of Quinn. There you will find answers, talk to the one the town’s people call Father.” With that she faded from view as if she had never been there.

“Who was that?”

“I can’t tell you Rhys, she told me not to.” The wolf said in my head.

“You’re my familiar right?”

“Yes Rhys but please do not do force me.”

“Why?”

“Because while you were living in the lap of luxury for six thousand years in another world she stayed behind to keep the people safe, because you had to leave she ended up… I can’t tell you. Please Rhys trust her and I, she knows more than we do.”

I walked over and knelt in front of the wolf, “Likka?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me one thing and I will let it go.”

“If I can I will tell you anything.”

“Did I trust her before?”

“Rhys you trusted her with your life and your dearest secret.”

“Then let’s get out of here so we can travel eastward.”

The horse snorted in agreement and the wolf laughed in my head…

I had spent the better part of an hour looking at the rocks in the doorway out, from as many angles as I could, trying to figure out if I could even work one of them loose. I somehow got the feeling the wolf was laughing at me behind my back. I had finally gotten annoyed with her enough to turn and say something, as I put the hand on the doorframe to stand up the rocks just disappeared. I turned to see the wolf rolling on the floor with her tongue lolling out.

The wolf looked up at the horse, “This is going to be so much fun” as she continued her wolfish laughter. The horse just shook its head.

I put my backpack on and picked up the rifle. I slid the rifle into the spear quiver in front of the saddle on the horse and led it out into the cold morning air. I mounted the horse and pulled my survival knife out. I unscrewed the base of the knife to look at the little compass inside. “The road heads east so we will follow it.”

We made it down out of the mountains by nightfall into a little glade. As I stopped to look at the area as a possible campsite the wolf wandered out of the woods carrying two rabbits in its jaws. I busied myself looking through the packs on the horse and found a small tent and some blankets. There were even two pillows. I set the tent up and set a ring of stones to start a fire. I used my knife to shave some dry wood to make kindling and then opened the handle to pull out a match. Nine left I thought to myself need to get some more at the store when we get to town. Soon I had a cheery fire going and set about cleaning and skinning one of the rabbits. “Do you want me to clean and skin your rabbit too?”

“Just skin it please I hate getting the fur in my throat.” Likka replied.

“What is the horses name anyway?”

“Reaper.”

“Reaper do I need to tie you up or do you stick around on your own?”

The horse shook like he was trying to get water off.

“I didn’t mean to insult you, just trying to get to know you again.”

I unpacked and unsaddled the horse while the rabbit cooked over the fire.