Elf Realm , livre ebook

ABRAMS BOOKS - Kirk Daniel

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235 pages

English

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With The Low Road, Daniel Kirk has created a mystical world that will keep readers coming back for more.When Matt and his family move to a new neighborhood, they dont realize theyve inadvertently stumbled into the middle of massive upheaval in the fairy world. With the elves territory disintegrating and dark factions looking to seize control, apprentice mage Tuava-Li must defend her way of lifeeven when that means cooperating with Matt, a human and a natural enemy, as he may just hold the key to saving the Elf Realm from certain destruction.F&P level:Y F&Pgenre:F

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	19 décembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781613120538
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

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PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kirk, Daniel. Elf realm : book one, the low road / by Daniel Kirk. p. cm. Summary: When Matt and his family move to a new development, they stumble into the middle of massive upheaval in the fairy world, and as the elves territory disintegrates and dark factions try to seize control, an apprentice mage sees in Matt the key to saving the realms from destruction. [1. Elves - Fiction. 2. Faeries - Fiction. 3. Magic - Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K6339Elf 2008 [Fic]-dc22 2007039751
ISBN: 978-0-8109-7069-4
Text and illustrations copyright 2008 Daniel Kirk
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
Published in 2008 by Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialmarkets@hnabooks. com or the address below.
115 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011 www.abramsbooks.com
Contents
Prologue
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Acknowledgments
About the Author

IGHWAY 256 WAS A COLD, gray line that stretched through the night, splitting the blackness of the woods in two. An hour before dawn the hungry world was waking. A swarm of insects hummed along the paved shoulder. A pheasant, ruffled from sleep, turned a beady eye across the highway and toward the sound. The bird started across the blacktop. Whaaaap!
In a spray of blood and feathers the pheasant was hurled to the side of the road. The man behind the wheel of the passing truck glanced in his rearview mirror. Next to him sat his daughter, hunched down in her seat. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. What was that, Daddy?
Dumb bird, he sighed. Pheasant, I guess. Never knew what hit it.
Jim McCormack was tired. His son, Charlie, was sick and had spent most of the night throwing up in the bathroom. So Jim had endured the long hours stretched out on the living room couch with a blanket, while his wife tended to the boy. In the dim light Jim had watched the time on the wall clock crawl by, and at 5 AM he sat up, stalked to his daughter s bed, and gave her a shake. Get up, Anna, he said, you and me are going hunting.
Anna was not a hunter. She didn t even have a license, and her experience with a shotgun was limited to one botched session at the skeet-shooting range. The gun s recoil had slammed the stock into her chin and sent her crying into her mother s arms. But Jim wanted to go hunting, and he hated to hunt alone. So Anna would have to do.
Daddy, why are we stopping here? murmured Anna, when five minutes later her father pulled the pickup onto a dirt road next to a POSTED: NO HUNTING OR TRESPASSING sign.
Hunting? her father answered. We re going hunting.
But, Daddy, it s posted. No hunting. We can t-
We can do whatever we want here, Jim explained. This is our land. I bought this property yesterday at auction. Twelve hundred acres. Your mother s mad at me. She thinks we can t afford it. But now it s McCormack land, free and clear. Twelve hundred acres of woods, hills, streams, and all the critters that live there. This is the one place on earth we can do whatever we want. So don t mind the sign. From now on, that s for everybody else but us!
Jim cut the motor, turned off the headlights, and lifted two shotguns from behind the seat. Zip up your jacket, he said, stepping out of the truck. He pulled some shells from his pocket and slipped them into the trigger mounts of each Remington. Then he handed his daughter a shotgun, and led the way into the woods. This is your brother s gun, he said. Treat it like it was your own.
The forest was much darker than the highway had been. Entering the dense undergrowth, as vines, low-hanging branches, and cobwebs brushed their cheeks, Anna and her father moved slowly into the woods. They made their way by instinct more than sight, by chance more than vision, the girl staying close to her father s side. Their breath came out in puffs of vapor, instantly swallowed by darkness. Daddy, it s too dark, the girl whispered. Where are we going? I can t-
The sky s getting brighter, her father interrupted. Look up past the trees, over the hill, you ll see.
Anna looked, but remained unconvinced. Oh! she cried, stumbling on a fallen branch, and grabbing her dad s sleeve.
The pair wandered on for perhaps a quarter of a mile. The sky was brightening, just as Jim said it would, and a fiery splinter of sun edged up over the horizon. They trudged a little farther into the uninviting heart of the forest. But neither Jim nor Anna recognized the moment when they stepped across the boundary of their own world, and entered another. It was a place where few human feet had ever trod. Even in daylight the rupture looked like little more than a blur at the edge of sight. But now it was growing, shape-shifting, a gaping hole in the rugged density of the forest. It was a gash in the face of time, and space, and everything that was real. The trees on the other side of the opening might have appeared somehow taller, the air might have had a sweeter smell, but it was, at first, too subtle a difference to tell. Anna and her father would never realize that, as they stepped across the void, they had left the world they knew completely behind.
Anna heard the sound first. It was like singing. The voice was thin and high, but it was a real voice. Not a bird, not the whisper of the wind. And through sweet seasons spreads our joy, o er meadow, copse, and hedge, for thee, and this, our Woodland Home, undying love I pledge.
Daddy, did you hear that? Anna murmured.
Ssssh, hissed her father. I think I see something up ahead.
There was a dim flickering of light. It was like the glow of distant candles, or fireflies, untold scores of them. Hold up, Jim whispered, and reached an arm out to stop his daughter.
Suddenly the deer were visible. At first they were no more than ghosts, dreamy mounds of vapor, and a heartbeat later they were solid and real. There was an entire herd of them, albinos, with gleaming white coats, facing away into a clearing. Beyond them was a tower, nearly twenty feet high. Tiny creatures of flame danced on the spreading tips of antlers, which stretched out from the skeleton of the structure. The tower was wreathed in flowers. Little figures stood at the tower s apex and descended stairs along its side, joining a vast crowd. Not one of the beings would have reached higher than a human knee.
Jim McCormack held his breath and stared; yet all he saw were the deer, who were there to witness the Faerie wedding of Alfheim. Blind to the alien world and the ceremony taking place, he nudged his daughter s elbow. I m going to get the big one, he hissed.
Jim slid the barrel forward, closing the action, and squeezed the trigger. With a loud bang and a burst of sulfur the twelve-gauge shotgun loosed its fury. Anna, startled, dropped her own gun and pressed her hands to her ears.
The mighty Deer King turned his head as death sped through an open space between his antlers. At the top of the wedding tower the Elfin groom stepped forward to sweep his beloved out of harm s way, and the slug tore him in half. His emerald-colored Blood gushed out, and his body toppled from the back of the tower. Pandemonium erupted as the Faerie Folk snatched up their young and ran from the scene of horror. The deer leapt and scattered in every direction. The hunter raced forward. He pumped the shotgun, ejecting the shell, and dropped another into the slot. Get your gun, Anna, come on! Jim shouted. Let s bring home a trophy! Nobody s going to believe what we saw today!
When Jim reached the center of the clearing he bumped into something and fell. As he got to his feet he caught a brief glimpse of a toppled tower. Fire Sprites were leaping from the carved ramparts and disappearing in the air. Jim shook the vision from his head and charged after the buck. Daddy! Anna called with tears in her eyes, stumbling after him. Wait!
Suddenly something small, swift, and silvery made its way around Anna s legs. The creature was muttering words in a language Anna had never heard before. With her next breath her eyes rolled up in her head and she slipped to the ground. Though still conscious, the girl lay paralyzed, unable to move.
Anna s father was in hot pursuit of the deer. He was completely unaware of the Faerie Folk scurrying toward a slight bulge in a ravine just ahead. Down a short flight of moss-covered steps, the skin of a translucent tube, five or six feet in diameter, lay exposed. It resembled a root, or the ribbed back of a gigantic white earthworm. The Faerie Folk called it the Cord. Invisible to Human eyes, the Cord was part of a network that spread along the surface of the earth. It wove in and out of the soil, binding their world together like arteries that pulse blood through a living body. The Faerie Folk knew how to enter the Cords where they rose out of the ground and travel on the winds that blew inside them. Now the Cord was their means of escape. As the first Elves, Trolls, Pixies, Gnomes, and Brownies appeared, they used their fingernails to slice th