Evacuation Read online

  Contents

  Evacuation

  Dedication

  Legal

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Social List

  Evacuation

  The Deyarian Universe Book 2

  Sherry Foster

  DEDICATION

  To the family I adore,

  my friends who keep me sane,

  and the readers who love to read.

  A special thanks to Michael Anderle,

  who convinced me to 'just write;'

  Justin Sloan, T.S. Paul, and Craig Martelle,

  who inspired me.

  To keep up with what is going on in the Deyarian Universe be sure to like our page on FaceBook:

  https://www.facebook.com/DeyarianUniversebooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, events, and places

  portrayed in this novel are products of the

  author's over active imagination.

  Copyright © 2019 Sherry Foster

  DAS Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means without

  express written permission from the author.

  Chapter 1

  “If the dragons don’t help us what are we going to do?” Darian sounded worried. With good reason, the other three men in the room with him were worried also. For almost three thousand years the dragons the four men were bonded to were constant companions, if not physically present at least mentally connected. That had changed just a couple of weeks prior when the portal had been discovered by the Lyra. To be more specific it happened after the dragons had gotten the memories of the portal from Malory.

  Darian looked around the spacious room the four men were currently sitting in and with a sigh motioned to the others he was going out onto the balcony. Normally the four men enjoyed coming to the lodge they had high in the mountains but lately all the visits seemed to be filled with the stress of meetings concerning the evacuation of the planet. Not that the meetings were helping them to plan. Kane, Patro, and Sarian followed Darian outside to the balcony. The view from the mountain was truly breathtaking but the four were in no mood to enjoy the sight.

  Kane looked at Sarian for a moment before asking, “I thought the Lyra Brycentia were going to come today? Or did I misunderstand what you were talking about earlier?”

  Sarian, one brow beginning to raise, raked his hand through his jet black hair and taking a deep breath shook his head. “They are going to try meeting with their dragons, not us. Hered thinks he may can get more information from his dragon than we are getting from ours.”

  Darian snorted, “If she acknowledges he exist he will have accomplished more with her than we have with ours.”

  Patro had been quietly standing at the rail looking out across the valley. “Do you see the valley? Even our beautiful valley shows the ravages of this blasted climate change. Where the flowers once bloomed by the stream it is just bare now. I miss the fragrant smells the of the flowers drifting across the valley.” Patro hung his head briefly before tossing his shoulder length white hair with the blue streaks out of the way to look over his shoulder at the others.

  Kane moved over to stand beside Patro, “The stream is not even there anymore. How can we leave this place for a strange new world when our whole life is here. And how can we convince others to leave when I can not bear the thought of evacuating this planet we call home. All we know is Kardan, but even Kardan is not the planet it was three years ago. The flowers do not bloom as they once did, the crops do not grow as lush, the rivers and streams have either altered course or completely vanished. How can we stay but how do we leave?”

  Darian shrugged his shoulders but no one was looking at him to see. He shook his head and stated the obvious, “If we can not get the dragons to help it will not really matter. We are running out of time but one portal will not move a world of people.”

  Sarian left the railing to sink down into his favored chair, “We do not have to move a world, we only have to move part of the world. That is one of the things I wanted to meet with everyone about. The Versioameni have refused to leave. They say they were born to this world and with this world they will die.”

  The three others on the balcony turned startled faces toward Sarian. The valley with its lack of flowers and loss of stream quickly forgotten as the men began to pepper Sarian for more information about the race of water people they called friends.

  There was not much Sarian could tell them though, “It is not just the leaders who refuse, anyone I approached refused. I do not know why. They would not say. I was kind of hoping when we had more information about the new planet we could approach them again. Maybe if we can find out if it has oceans and massive waterways. I don’t know. They claim this water suits them, but maybe if we can get samples of the water from the other planet it will suit them, what ever that may mean.”

  Patro sighed, “They may not be able to leave. We know the Lyriants and Deyarians are not native to this planet but I think the Versioameni are native to this planet. They have stories you know.”

  Kane, eyebrows raised, looked at Darian then Sarian then back to Patro. “Pretend we do not know. What makes you think they are native and we are… oh, well I guess the portal is proof we are not native. But what makes you think they are?”

  Patro took a deep breath, “Three thousand years and you still do not listen. I just said they have stories.” Looking over at Sarian he asked “I did say they have stories right? You heard me say that, I know.”

  This time it was Kane’s turn to take a deep breath before repeating the request through clenched teeth, slowly, pausing after each word. “Pretend. We. Do. Not. Know. Tell us of these stories.”

  Patro gestured around at the others, “If you read as much as I do I would not have to tell you,”

  Before he could finish his statement Darian cut him off to exclaim, “No one reads as much as you do.”

  “Ha, that is where you are wrong, Elite Bryol reads as much,” Patro started before he was interrupted by a flying cushion one of the men had just thrown at his head. “Fine, the stories, they are children stories but we know even children stories can have some truth. They have stories of strangers with great magic coming to their planet through colored doors. Ah, and it seems the magic wielders had slaves who could not do magic. I am thinking the stories are about when our two races came to this planet. Through colored doorways would probably be portals.”

  “Slaves? We do not keep slaves.” Darian snorted his disbelief and with a look of disgust on his face he muttered “Slaves.”

  Sarian, eyebrow slowly rising looked at Darian. Patro and Kane, noticing the look on Sarian’s face decided silence might be in order for a moment. After a few moments of silence from the others Darian noticed Sarian looking at him. “Why are you all staring at me?”

  Sarian told him, “The Lyr
iant race has stories too, stories of slavery. I thought it was just stories because no one could ever give more information about it. No one seemed to know much about the early history of the race. But it would make perfect sense. Let me ask you something, If the Lyriants refuse to leave, knowing our Shadow Walkers must come from that race, what will we do to move them?”

  Darian and the other two looked perplexed at first then angered that anyone, even one of them, could think they would enslave another race to move them. Finally Darian had to admit, “We need them, you know better than anyone how much we need the Lyriant race. We will do what ever we have to do in order to bring them with us.”

  “No, we will not enslave them. We have seen what slavery does every time a pirate ship takes another ship, or rather, every time we rescue people who have been captured by pirates. We will not go that route. It would be too easy to keep them enslaved to help rebuild. We will not do that. We can not do that.” Sarian was emphatic.

  Darian shrugged, “At this point we can not even get off the planet so does it really matter?”

  Kane looked at him, “We can leave, we just don’t know much about where we would end up.”

  “How long do you think it would take us to get off this planet? Not just get us off, but all the belongings we could carry. Our people are scattered across this land. Not everyone can just step from where they are to the port city of Decca. And only the oldest or most powerful of the race could carry more than a light burden. Only Elites or Lyra could even think about moving a child through the void to Central. We will need those portals scattered across the land in key points.” Darian offered this bit of wisdom just to have Kane roll his eyes at the obviousness of the statements. Statements which had been made at various times in various ways for the last two weeks.

  “We have to get the Lyriants involved at some point.” Sarian, after thinking, continued, “If Darian had not insulted and offended King Crisnos we might have a better chance but I am not sure how we are going to manage to get them involved while we are at war with them.”

  Darian shrugged, “It was not my fault. I merely said,”

  Sarian interrupted him, annoyance obvious in his voice, “We know what you said. Everyone knows what you said. We also know that instead of apologizing you shot a fireball at his guards.”

  “Of course I shot a fireball at his guards, he ordered them to throw me out.”

  Eyebrows raised almost to his hairline Kane snorted, “It was his castle you were visiting, he can throw anyone out he wants. He is their king. That is how it works. His castle, his rules, why are you having a problem understanding that?”

  Darian looked at Kane in disbelief, “He invited me. You can’t just throw someone out of your house when you invite them to visit. Especially not the ruler of another race. That is just, unleaderman like.”

  Patro, rubbing his face with his hands, looked down at the floor to gather his thoughts. “First off, unleaderman is not a word. Second, it was his house. He is their king. You can not go to another kingdom and order the king of that kingdom around. Nor can you tell him how to run his kingdom. Nor can you tell him what he is doing wrong. Nor…”

  Darian interrupted Patro before he could finish. “If he was a good leader I would not have had to correct him.”

  Sarian and Kane broke into laughter at that declaration. Patro could be heard to faintly mutter, “Three thousand years and I still pity us more than the rest of our race.”

  Kane could not prevent himself from pointing out to Darian, “You are constantly being corrected by the other three members of this Lyra. Furthermore a good leader would not have two races at war.”

  Eyes narrowed Darian, in an attempt to defend himself, haughtily said, “I never claimed to be a good leader.”

  “Truer words were never spoken. So, don’t you think, since even you admit you are an idiot…”

  Before Kane could finish his thought Darian, furious, rounded on him. “I never said I was an idiot!”

  Sarian and Patro, almost in unison, could be heard to say, “You never had to say it.”

  Before Darian could make a retort Sarian, shoulders drooping as if a heavy weight sat upon them, sagged back into the chair and asked the question all the men had asked many times in the past two weeks. “Why won’t our dragons talk to us? What did we do?” Turning to Darian he continued with the one question both Kane and Patro thought but were afraid to ask. “What did you do to alienate our dragons?”

  Darian heard the words but could not believe them. “What did I do to alienate the dragons? What did I do? I did not do anything. It was that blasted sorcerer that did it. Whatever it was. Now maybe you will believe me when I tell you they are evil, vile creatures who should be destroyed?”

  Almost before Darian had finished talking Kane had, in a state of fury common when dealing with Darian, rushed from his seat to where Darian sat. With no pause in his motion he proceeded to grab Darian and throw him from the balcony. Patro and Sarian never moved from their seats as they watched Kane toss Darian over the railing. With a heavy sigh Patro looked from where Darian had just gone over to where Kane stood vibrating with anger and said, “You know Darian is trying to arrange for workers to come increase the height of the balcony railing?”

  Sarian, disappointment on his face looked at Kane, “Do you have any idea how long it will take to get him to come back and finish planning? Why do you always seem to think that the way to get him to listen is to throw him over the side of the cliff?”

  Kane, calmer now that Darian was gone, looked at Sarian, “If you had ever, even one time, thrown him over a cliff, or off a ship you would not say a word to me about it. You have no idea how good it feels to throw him off of something. I am telling you, you should try it one time, just once. The satisfaction is enormous.”

  “Well, since I am sure he stepped home and will not be back here today I suggest we make what plans we can without him. Since I was born Lyriant I am going to try to see if I can find some allies in the land and possibly try to get this senseless war ended so we can work together to get both races off this planet, if we can get off this planet. We may find the only allies are the trade captains who continue to secretly trade with us despite the war. Patro, try to talk to the watchers again, or at least find Hered and find out what his plans are while Kane tries, again, to find our dragons.”

  Kane looked startled, “I have absolutely run out of places to look for any of our dragons. But I do have a suggestion about how to handle King Crisnos. Kill him and get a different ruler in his place.”

  As both Patro and Sarian looked at him in stunned disbelief Kane began to shift from foot to foot. “You don’t need to look at me that way, it was Darian’s idea, not mine.”

  Blinking a few times as though that would make what he had just heard sound better Sarian finally shook his head and asked, “So you actually think we should fix the situation Darian created by killing the king? The king that we would not be at war with if it had not been for Darian?”

  “Ah, well, it was just a thought. I mean, we could wait for him to die of old age, that was plan A, but, we have to get them off the planet so Darian thought we should have a plan B. It sounded a lot better when he told it to me.”

  Patro, who had been silent found he could no longer keep quiet, “Darian is an idiot, you know he is an idiot, we know he is an idiot. In fact, most people who know him knows he is an idiot with the exception of his daughter and bonded mate and I am not too sure they don’t know. What, in the name of all you hold holy, makes you believe that any idea from Darian could possibly be a good idea? A good idea would be an abject apology from Darian to King Crisnos, but that is about as likely as me being able to shoot a fireball at you.”

  Sarian, just before he stepped away to try to find a way to end the war with his homeland muttered, “The gods hate us, there is no other explanation for Darian. I do not know how this race alienated your gods and goddesses but someone clearly did before I joined the race.
And I have to tell you it is unfair for me to have to suffer Darian for some unknown reason.” Looking at Patro he continued, “You should be figuring out what the race did to anger the gods, first Darian, then a comet. You should have spent your time reading up on the gods to regain favor.” Then he was gone.

  With a snort Kane volunteered, “We could try sacrificing Darian to the gods.” With that last comment Kane stepped away to reappear outside of Trista’s home, leaving Patro alone on the balcony.

  Chapter 2

  As Hered looked around the valley he could not help but be confused. For the first time in almost six thousand years he could not find his dragon. He could feel her but only faintly. She would not talk to him. Apparently none of the dragons were talking to their bonded riders. He had no idea the dragons were capable of hiding from their riders. He had spoken with Trista, the fire walker for his Lyra, and Kervin, who, being the oldest living fire walker should, in theory, know more than the others. It seemed that even in the nine thousand years Kervin had been alive the dragons had never disappeared before. At least, Kervin had qualified, not that anyone had noticed.

  Hered had wondered briefly how Kervin could be unsure but realized there were sometimes days at a time he did not see or hear from his dragon. He could always sense her, he could even now. He just could not find her. It felt like he had searched half the planet for her. Heaving a sigh Hered headed back to the watch tower to talk to the watchers. It was too bad they could not just pull up a map of where everyone was instead of a tapestry of how everyone was woven together.

  It was too bad Darian was such a idiot. What ever the problem was with the dragons everyone agreed it seemed to start when the dragons accessed Malory’s memories. If Darian had controlled his temper maybe the dragons would not have gotten involved in the situation they way they did. Hered wondered again, as he and others had many times before, what game their gods were playing to give them a Fire Walker such as Darian.