The Ageless One: Beginnings by The Ageless Author (early reader chapter books TXT) 📖

fountain behind him, and suddenly getting the feeling that it wasn’t right. He looked at it, a simple stone column with water pouring out of it, and somehow it felt like the fountain itself was a not really there.
And then he’d started seeing things, things that couldn’t be real. Now he no longer thought he imagined it, but wished he imagined it. If the kinds of things he had been seeing were indeed real...
And it was getting worse.
He was starting to see gislers in tattered animal skins that didn’t fit properly, using pickaxes and shovels and other tools, or carrying wood or other objects. He would see the inside of houses or buildings look like caves.
And of course he was still seeing goblins.
Anywhere, everywhere, goblins just watching, waiting, while no one else could see them. They had begun to truly make Doelan terrified. He had never liked insects to begin with, but these goblins were still horrible.
It was like that time he had run away from Halhor, convinced that goblins were chasing him. He didn’t remember what he had done in that week he was gone, just that he was scared of goblins. All he knew was that he thought he had seen those things in Halhor. Afterwards he figured he imagined it, but this time he wasn’t sure, and this had been going on for a year by now.
Still, there was one thing that helped, for now he could see, or stop himself from seeing them by concentrating. But whether or not he ignored them, he couldn’t tell if they were real.
Either way, they were not something he wanted to see.
There weren’t any at that moment. He wasn’t trying to find them. He was just imagining them as he looked about, huddled up just a little. Still, even as he shut things out, it was getting worse. The way he saw gislers in different clothes was new. He knew it was a problem, but there was one thing he didn’t know.
Should he tell someone?
Naturally, the first person he would have told was Liri, but Liri was off on one of his family’s trips, seeing parts of the world. He would have told Liri before he left, especially when he started seeing goblins, but it still seemed so unimaginable, how would Liri believe him? Now though, he found he had to ignore the goblins more and more to not see them. It really was getting worse, and he had to tell someone. The question was, who?
Erid, the head of the orphanage, was...well...sensible. Doelan could imagine him saying, oh you’re imagining things Doelan, or, it’s probably nothing Doelan.
Not exactly what Doelan needed now.
Just then, behind Doelan, an announcement was being made.
“People of the city,” shouted a boy Doelan recognized as mayor Aralor. He stood on a pedestal as he spoke. “In a few weeks I will be journeying to Linicai for our first political negotiations with the Ciniceros Empire since we negotiated our independence from them. As such I will need volunteers for ambassadors, whom will be selected before I make the journey. That is all. Good health to you all. Thank you.”
He turned and walked away. He had been making that announcement regularly now, and it seemed so trivial compared to the problem Doelan had; and Doelan still thought it funny that a fifteen year old, or one who looked like it, was making decrees for people who looked the same age as him. Still, the mayor was smart...Doelan didn’t know whether to call him a man or a boy, but he was smart, and if there were goblins in the village, he should know.
He turned away and saw, leaving the marketplace, Neron, a boy he had grown up with in the orphanage, and he was with a gisler girl. The first thing Doelan remembered was how Neron had teased him about the way he didn’t understand the defining feature of gislers; eternal youth.
But then he hadn’t been doing that so much lately, not so much this year. Neron, at that moment, even glanced at Doelan for a second, but there was no teasing, not even a smirk before Neron just left. Doelan figured that even though Neron had teased him before, and actually ignored him now, he still didn’t deserve whatever the goblins had in mind for all of them. Still, he was the last person Doelan would talk to, not the first. Neron probably would call him crazy anyway.
Then there was the girl Neron was with, Ailean, who recently seemed to make friends with Neron, so maybe he was less of a jerk now than before. After all, she seemed nice, the few times Doelan had heard her speak, but Doelan hadn’t actually spoken directly to her and wouldn’t know how to bring this up.
If he was considering her, someone he hardly knew, he must have been getting desperate to tell someone. Anyone.
It was at that moment, when Neron and Ailean disappeared around the corner that Doelan asked himself why he even wanted to talk to someone else about this. Liri was his friend, and the others were just people he knew.
Maybe he just wanted to be ready, to know what to say to Liri, because every time Doelan put his problem into words, it just sounded crazy. He wanted to tell Liri, but he was truly...
Afraid. And somehow, he knew his fear would only get worse.
…
It was a horrible dream. Doelan was being dragged away by goblins! Their clammy hands clinged to him, taking him away from Halhor, and Liri watched.
“Liri!” Doelan cried desperately. “Liri!”
“Where are you going Doelan?” Liri called back.
“Help! It’s goblins! They’re dragging me away!”
“There are no goblins in the villiage. There never have been. You’re imagining again.”
“No! Liri help!”
“Bye Doelan,” said Liri. Walking away.
“No! No! Help! Liri!”
Doelan awoke with a start. Giving a gasp! He breathed heavily as the other orphan gislers in their bunks moaned and told him to be quiet. Then Doelan gasped again when he saw a goblin in the room! He dove under the covers, remembering that trick Liri had taught him.
“One…two…three…four…five…” he counted, concentrating as hard as he could on those numbers, and when he finished he looked out. The goblin was gone.
He stayed under the covers. He was thankful he could still shut the goblins out, but knew he would see them again. It made him cry. He tried to keep quiet, and did. He couldn’t let the other orphans know. Someone would start teasing him again, and he couldn’t bear that. Not now.
There was only one thing to do. He had to tell Liri. He was afraid Liri wouldn’t believe him, but he had no other choice. He was seeing goblins more and more.
And he was no longer convinced that they weren’t real.
…
It was five days before his birthday, before he came of age officially. Doelan was anticipating the ceremony of the hourglass. He held his small, simple hourglass in his hand, looking at it; it still flowed sand for him, showing that he was ageing. On the big day, at midnight, he would hold it up, turn it over, and at the stroke of twelve the sand would stop moving, much like his age. This hourglass would be his keepsake, signaling that he had achieved eternal youth as all gislers did.
However, that wasn’t why he was looking at it. It was because Liri was returning today, returning from one of his family’s trips to see the world. Liri, before he had left, had promised to be at Doelan’s ceremony.
But the ceremony wasn’t important now, not really, so he put the hourglass back into his cloak. What was important was that Doelan had decided he needed to tell Liri something, and that Liri was the only person he could tell, at least for now.
It was about his feeling, and what those feelings made him see. Horrible things he saw...
Doelan waited near to the border guard huts carved from marble and spaced all in a line with fences connecting them. It was set in that bright field full of very colorful flowers and on the opposite side of the border was an old, twisted oak tree.
Waiting anxiously, Doelan saw in the distance several figures approaching. Doelan counted in his head and it was probably Liri and his family. About six gislers, and judging by the height of them it would be Liri’s parents, Liri’s sisters, his brother, and him.
As they approached, Doelan could see Liri. They waved to each other and Doelan even got a few waves from the others. He had to wait for them to be detained by the border guards and take the hourglass test. Gislers as a general rule were the only ones allowed into Halhor apart from guests, ambassadors, or rulers. They had, of course, just managed to gain independence from the Ciniceros Empire and were just learning to defend themselves. It showed too.
Doelan still thought the armor looked a little silly on the border guards. He had only ever seen armor on grown men of humans. To see people who looked like teenagers wearing it and standing guard was new to him, though he was the only person who felt that way.
Yes, coming of age apparently hadn’t changed him one bit.
He still would rather wonder at children in armor than think about what he knew he had to do. Would telling Liri the truth drive him away? Doelan didn't know.
Doelan saw Liri take the hourglass test, show his hourglass to the soldiers, and then run up.
“So how was it?” asked Doelan as Liri stopped.
“Well, I can say that both myself and my family are glad we’re home now,” said Liri. “That being said, it was fantastic! The cyclopses really do have clothes woven from metal. Look.”
Liri pulled out from his pocket a silver cloth that shimmered and he handed it to Doelan. Doelan looked at it with a grin on his face similar to the one on Liri’s face. The cloth was metal, but felt as warm as any fabric Doelan had ever felt. As the two of them studied it they began to walk with Liri’s family not far away.
“That’s steel,” said Liri. “Steel wool of the highest purity.”
“Brilliant,” said Doelan, handing it back to Liri, who put it back into his pocket. “It’s even as warm as real wool. What else did you see there?”
“Their soldiers,” said Liri. “They have the finest armor there is.”
“Is it really indestructible like I’ve heard?”
“No. That’s just a rumor, but from what I saw it’s pretty close. It does come with a drawback however.”
“What’s that?”
“Well it’s only a drawback if you’re a cyclops. Their eye is still exposed. They can’t wear a visor since they only have one eye; not having very good vision and all. That’s why they don’t sell their armor to outsiders.”
“That makes sense,” said Doelan, the grins had disappeared from their faces but both were still just a little exited. “What else was there?”
“I learned a lot about their history.”
“We already learned about that in school,”