Charles king lonely hope part 1
Chapter 1

My mother was once the most powerful and famous mage in the entire world. I can say this from personal experience; so, making her angry is an unbearable thought... she can blast a car down our driveway that is well over one hundred yards for example. She had done this after my Auntie’s husband “accidentally” knocked out my older brother Lincoln; something that is very hard to do might I add, Lincoln is tough! We all are in our family, but I have been taught to fight and use magic for as long as I can remember.

I got in trouble in school for fighting with Craig, the giant foreheaded idiot and his two bubble-headed followers. I have lost count of the number of times my mother has told me not to fight with kids in school as they haven’t been taught how to fight like me, but Craig is a bully, who likes to pick on anyone smaller than him. Boys, and girls, he doesn’t care as long as he is ahead. His pig-nosed mother takes part in insulting the other mum behind their backs. I have overheard her a few times.

‘Look at her, I bet her whole outfit cost £1’ she would chuckle to her friends.

If anyone ever confronted her, she would call for her wardrobe-sized husband. He would barrel over and point his hairy finger in the face of anyone who upset his wife and would subtly threaten them. He tried to do this to my mum once, a big mistake on his part! My mother shook the entire school in anger, reminding everyone present that she’s Isabella king.

Luckily, that was the last day of school of the year, and the last time we would see anyone from that school in a long time, we are moving to London, today!

I woke up earlier than I normally did today, I listened to my Mum and dad banging about downstairs. Dad is moving boxes around, and Mum is cooking breakfast. The smell of her cooking is wafting upstairs, I think I can smell it more because I can’t see anything. I like my room to be dark, I can’t sleep otherwise.

It’s my birthday today too. I turn 13 today, I get my grimoire too! I don’t know what type of grimoire it is yet as I don’t know what my natural element is. Your body only starts to develop its natural element when you turn thirteen, so I will replace out on the reveal day, Oh the reveal day; The day that every 13-year-old looks forward to the most. It happens once a year in high schools up and down the country. The school that you will be attending that year invites you to attend their reveal day. I don’t know what they’re like. I’ve never been to one before. I didn’t get to be there for Lincoln’s reveal day at the high school he goes to now, they didn’t let anyone other than the student, and one parent go.

Lincoln found out he was a fire mage that day, the same as our father. If I ever get cold, I will go and hug my dad, it’s like having a large heater that walks around and thinks he’s funny. My mother, on the other hand, is a water mage, I have never once seen a drop of any liquid touch the floor in her presence. She will catch it every time just by delicately pointing her finger at it.

Lincoln and I tried dropping multiple bottles of water before her, but she caught them all and even managed to throw two hands out of the water to slap us both.

I laid in bed for a while wondering what element I would get, it’s fun to ponder the possibilities. Last night I was told not to get up too early, as my Mum likes to make a special breakfast in bed for someone’s birthday, and I don’t want to chance my luck with her on any day, never mind my birthday, it has gotten me into some trouble recently. I can smell the bacon, the toast, and the eggs, especially poached for the occasion; I just know the birthday presents are down there too. I rolled onto my side and got comfy again before staring into the darkness of my room, amongst the aromas, and letting my mind wonder about what mage I would become.

My mind got to the image of me being an ice mage, forming ice swords from each hand before my door opened filling my room with light and quickly followed by my mother carrying a tray with my birthday breakfast on it. I could smell the food before I could see, my eyes needed to adjust to the light, the tray had Bacon, eggs, beans, toast, and a glass of orange juice. My mother placed the tray on my lap as I sat up.

My mother grinned at me and said, “Happy birthday son” Her voice was her normal soft tone with her slight Liverpool accent, “I’ll be downstairs when you have finished, your dad has just nipped out, an urgent call about a solo minotaur causing havoc in Cumbria.” When I finally regained focus, I saw my mother, the famous Isabella king! Looking down at me lovingly, she isn’t as tall as some people think only about 5 foot 4, but she is still the scariest person in any room, and the most beautiful, her emerald, green eyes and high cheekbones make the other mothers at school jealous, some of them even wondering if she’s had work done, the only downside to my mother is she accidentally leaves bits of her hair everywhere.

Mum left and turned the light on before she left, I ate my food and looked around my baron room the only things in there were me, my bed, chair, and today’s clothes on them. I finished, brushed my teeth, dressed, and took my tray downstairs. My brother Lincoln was sitting on the couch.

“Happy birthday,” he said with a mouth full of toast, we don’t look that much alike. He is a foot taller despite only being one year older than me, both have dark hair but that is a family thing, we all have dark, and our parents and our sister Madison too. Thankfully, his head is larger than mine because my mother likes us to get similar haircuts, shaved sides, and longer on top. He has our mother’s green eyes. With a button nose and square jaw, no one can mistake us for not being brothers.

“Thank you,” I said walking past and into the empty kitchen and placing the tray on the counter.

“Ay, Dungeon Dash is on you know” Lincoln called from the living, Dungeon Dash is my favourite show, it’s a show where contestants compete to see how far they can get through a dungeon but there are monsters and traps in the dungeons. I ran into the living room, taking my glass of orange juice with me. “it’s a guy called Steven from some guild in Manchester.”

Steven had thinning hair that hugged the side of his round head, a stumpy guy, “how has he done?” I asked taking a seat on the same brown and super comfortable three-seater next to Lincoln.

“He has done all right, got past the first floor fine but on the second floor he got stung by a clown bee, so he was laughing his swallow head off until the medic got him all patched up.”

Steven entered the third floor, it didn’t end well for him, he got chased by a giant scorpion down a tunnel then tripped over a rock tumbling face to face into a goblin and he and the goblin fell off the cliff edge spinning like a Chinese death star holding each other tightly screaming as they fell before landing with a loud plop into the water at below.

“That’s hilarious,” Lincoln said slapping his knee and letting out his laugh, very distinctive to him, loud and sharp “HA” then repeats on itself like a broken track, HA, HA, HA, HA. “I don’t think I have seen anyone do that before.”

“Yeah, same here” I replied, it was true that was a first for me too, “do you remember...” Before I could finish my sentence, my younger sister Madison banged open the living room door, walking in and dragging a brush through the dark hair, dressed in jeans and a jumper, she is the image of our mother, with dark hair slim, and green eyes. Shorter than other kids in her class in school but don’t let that fool you she can be terrifying when she wants to be.

“Happy birthday,” she said, pausing to smile with the brush firmly wedged in her hair before walking off into the kitchen, I could hear muffles of talk, but I was more interested in Dungeon Dash, the new challenger was ready. Stacey from Aberdeen has red hair and a thick Scottish accent, she was pretty I hope she does well.

Madison came halfway through Stacey’s attempt on the first floor, her hair was now without a brush and all straight and smooth, she had a hot drink and bacon on toast, “Mum said when we have had our breakfast would we all run the shop for her?”

“No problem,” Lincoln said.

“Okay,” I said wiping my face of toast crumbs. I nicked one of Lincoln’s pieces that he didn’t want. We finished our breakfast and watched Stacey play cat and mouse with a troll, Mum came in and talked about what she should have done to beat the troll.

“She needs to use fire,” Mum said, “any spell will do the troll will run off.”

“What if she isn’t a fire mage?” I asked.

“Even if you aren’t a fire mage you should be able to use at least a low-level fire spell by the time you finish your school... oh never mind she’s finally done it” Stacey let rip with a decent fire spell scaring off the troll. That was the highlight for Stacey though it didn’t get better, she was soundly beaten by walking trees, horrible things, scary to look at too, always makes you wonder if there is any close by, it’s hard to tell, and our house is a 5-minute walk into the village, no houses in-between us and the village it’s scary of a night, add on to that that we are surrounded by trees and our driveway is a long walk with no lights.

My father burst through the door covered in mud from head to toe carrying a plastic bag. “That was not fun! At all!” He said he has a well-spoken accent, he was raised in London, the posh part according to my mum. “Bloody minotaur! Bloody by the way” My father took his mud-covered coat off to reveal his shirt was even muddier, my mum caught the coat before it hit the couch and pointed to a spot on the floor, he must have understood what that meant because he moved forwards and began his rant again with his arm flailing about telling his story, my mum raised her hand white orbs floated out and hit my dad clothes cleaning the mud leaving a giant wet patch that instantly heated up and dried off.

“So, I get there and it’s eating the leg of some old bloke.”

“How do you know it was an old guy’s leg?” Madison asked, a good question if you ask me.

“When I got to its hideout there were a few dead people on the ground I had to get IDs to take back to the police station and guild so we can inform their families, anyway only one person was missing an old blog...” Dad spat out water.

Mum had already cleaned his clothes, he scrunched up his face as she pelted him with water balls that shot out like bullets she meant to hurt and he knew it, “funny” he said to her, it always tickles me how my dad looked just like a mixture of myself and Lincoln, I know he is our dad but come on, my browns eyes, same dark hair, even the same square-jawed face, was taller and more well-built compared to us.

“Happy birthday, boy” he reached into the bag he was carrying and pulled out a dirty horn “I took this from the minotaur, you know, for proof that the job was done, and they told me to keep it and thought you could have it.” Dad tossed the dirty horn to me. I caught it and found it heavier than what I would have thought it would have been, it wasn’t broken off, it was cut off, clean.

“What do I do with it?!” I asked before Mum took it from me and began to examine it, she sniffed it and knocked it against the wall.

“Could use it as the hilt of a custom sword” Mum said, “it’s sturdy enough I’ll give it a proper going over and see if it has any magical properties, while I do that and some other things, you three can run to the shop for me one last time.”

Dad told Madison and me more about the minotaur while Lincoln was getting a list from our mum in the kitchen. “They are strong, and fast but dumb and not very agile, if you can jump out the way fast enough it will run into whatever is behind you and boom that’s when you attack” Lincoln walked in just as Dad was waving his arms about showing off his moves, Lincoln shook his head disapprovingly but smiled and said.

“Ready?”

“Yep,” I said, Madison nodded, and we both followed Lincoln outside. Past our father’s pride and joy, his old beat-up blue 4x4 and down the Stoney path shadowed by large trees on either side, it’s a good minute walk before you make out it of the trees and onto the main road that leads into the village which is a five-minute walk to the village.

Once you walk past a few rows of houses, you make it to the shops, a pub, then a hair salon and finally Paul’s, it’s the closest shop to my house. The shop is named after the guy who owns it, A nice guy, not the tallest, rather chunky around the middle and he makes jokes about how he only has hair around the side of his head. We talk about recent events and celebrities that I read about in the magazine stand when Lincoln is grabbing the shopping.

“Hey kids,” Paul said cheerfully as we entered the shop.

“Hey,” Lincoln said, before disappearing into the isles, Madison followed him.

I made my way over to the magazine stand, next to the counter, First Mage News had the image of Louie Allard, the number 1 guild member in the world, he was a handsome man, with eager eyes that made you judge yourself. With high cheekbones and perfectly combed dark hair, he could be a model.

“He is everywhere lately” Paul said leaning over the counter, “I’m not a fan if you ask me, someone that good looking, something has to be wrong with him. But if you still plan to be number 1 you have to be better than him”.

“Easily done” I joked “I still have to be better than my mum and dad” I glanced over the other magazine, a horde of goblins crushed by the all-female guild violet garden. Ten spells to impress your crush. Before picking up a newspaper with the headline “rebellion incoming?” rumours of rebellions and mass murders in some of Europe’s biggest cities.

“I’m pretty sure your mother is stronger than Louie and your father is up there too” Paul eyed the newspaper up, “I heard you’re moving down south, and your mum is going back to the guild, which might be what they will have to deal with soon.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, eyeing up a photo of a blown-up building.

“For once, it sounds like the newspaper has it right. there have been some shady goings on, I don’t know all of it, but it sounds like some countries are using evil guilds for dreadful things, and their people don’t like it.”

“What bad things?” I asked.

“What bad things do evil guilds do?” said a voice behind me, I turned to see Craig that meatloaf head and his two servants sniggering behind him, how can someone with such a big head and wide eyes like a frog be a bully? “Are you that stupid? They kill people! Duh. I heard you’re moving. you and your loser family are moving to London. Thank God, we will finally see the back of that weird family” I wanted to say something back, something mean. I wanted to hit him too more than once but, he didn’t see who was behind him.

“What was that?” Lincoln said coldly, his lip curled. Madison popped out from behind Lincoln with a look that could kill. I don’t know who Craig would be more scared of. Madison? or Lincoln?

“Ermmmmmm...” Craig mumbled, his face was priceless, frightened, and silent, if only I had a phone to take a picture of it. All three of them ran out the shop door seconds later.

“Why don’t you just beat them up?” Madison asked putting milk and bread on the counter, “You can easily do it; it wouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“I don’t see the point in it,” I said, truthfully.

“It wouldn’t be a fair fight” Paul said, “You three have all been trained like ninjas since you were young, I wouldn’t be surprised if you three could beat up grown adults” All of that was true we have been taught how to fight, with magic, hand to hand and swords, magic was my favourite. Less tiring and has less chance of ending up on the floor.

We said our goodbyes to Paul and told him if we were ever up here again, we would visit. He gave us some magazines for free and waved us off. We made our way back, it felt weird to know that we would be leaving Caster, this village has been home all my life. Madison kept saying that I should have beaten Craig up at some point. We finally got home. The TV was gone, the couch was gone, and nothing was in the living room it was completely bare, with some holes in the walls from the old photos, and the difference in colouring between where the couch and TV stand used to be compared to the rest of the floor was shocking, mum appeared in front of us and said “thank you” took the bag and went into the kitchen. Dad came through the front door clapped his hands and asked “Ready?”

“For what?” Lincoln asked,

“We are leaving, like now. Well, I am and the three of you are, Mum will transmit herself and a few other things over, while I drive you three down” Transmission was a tricky spell according to my mum it’s the art of disappearing and reappearing, they call it teleporting in movies, but my mum says it’s harder than that, it’s not like snapping your fingers.

“Go on get going, I have some stuff I need to move” Mum said, ushering everyone out the door, “see you all soon love you” She closed the door behind us.

“She’s in a rush,” Madison said shaking her head.

“You know what she’s like, she likes to get things done,” Dad said, “come on jump in” he climbed into his driver’s seat, I joined Madison in the back, Lincoln sat in the front, my dad’s car seats are worn out, and the whole thing smells like old car parts and dust.

Strangely, I feel both sick and sad to be leaving, looking back at my childhood made me want to cry a little. It felt safe and homely, I hope this new house will be the same. It is London, and it’s close to my parents’ guild, so I can visit that, I can’t wait there are so many famous people in it, including my god-father Marvin. He is one of the coolest people on the earth always bringing me face-changing sweets, it drives Mum mad. We passed through the village in silence, I think everyone was having a silent moment to themselves. Then I saw Craig coming out of Paul’s shop, then I remembered what he said.

“Dad? What is it that evil guilds do?” I asked, I think I took him by surprise from the look on his face and the tone of his voice.

“What?”

“It’s something Craig said in the shop, I was talking to Paul about the news on Rebellions in some countries and I asked what it is they did. But Craig interrupted us and called me stupid and said that they kill people...duh” Dad didn’t answer for a moment, it seemed like he was weighing up what to say.

“Erm... Firstly, saying they just kill people is childish, I mean they do, but there is a bit more going on than that, let’s put it this way, those countries that are using bad guilds. why would they only use them to kill people, when they would have spies and stuff like that”?

“Have you come across any bad guilds Dad?” Lincoln asked.

“I have,” Dad said as he drove out past a set of trees and alongside a stunning lake shimmering brightly in the sun, he drove towards a tunnel, three signs above the largest one at the top said in bold letters MOTOR VEHICLE TRANSPORTER. The other smaller two, on the left side, were outgoing, and the right was incoming.

“They aren’t nice, if you ever come across them, Run.” Dad had a strange tone for him I think he was super serious, which was weird, he is never like that. “No, you can’t fight them” he says getting a quick look at Lincoln who slumped back into their chair. “They don’t fight fair, and they fight to kill, it’s very rare they will keep anyone alive” We drove into the tunnel. Nobody had anything to say, I know I didn’t, the thought of these bad guilds isn’t a particularly pleasing one. We drove further into the tunnel I had never been through before; the only light source came from above from what looked like the bottom of a swimming pool, it suddenly hit me, we must be underneath the lake. Dad pulled up to a toll booth that was in the middle of the tunnel.

“Malcolm, how are you?” Dad greeted him with a fist pump. A perfectly round face appeared in the window. No hair at all apart from his eyebrows and even though they were thin, he reminded me of an orange.

“These your little one Nick? they look like you” I didn’t expect the thick Yorkshire accent.

“No mate, no idea who they are, I’m joking they are mine.”

“Hey kids, how are ya? Are you all gonna become guild members too? like your mam and dad.”

“Yeah,” Lincoln and I said together.

“Might do,” Madison said.

“That’s good then, I expect big things, this is for you” Malcolm handed Dad a piece of paper, “good luck in London, bye kids.”

He fist-bumped Dad again and we drove off down the tunnel. Moments later we came to two separate tunnels, shining lights came down from the one on the right and got brighter by the second and a car came out of the tunnel next to us and then slowly drove past us. Further down the tunnel was a dead end but it had two men standing on either side of the tunnel, they were leaning on the dead-end wall next to what looked like a steel pipe that arched across the wall. One of the men pushed himself off the wall and shouted.

“Where to pal?” the one on the right shouted.

“London, Queens Station” Dad shouted out the window.

“No problem” he shouted back and turned to face the wall, the other man had pushed himself off the wall too and turned to face the wall, they both placed their hand on the wall. Nothing happened for a moment, but suddenly silver liquid started to crawl its way across the wall from both sides eventually meeting in the middle, a silver wall stood before us waving like the sea. “Go on” the man waved us on.

It took me a moment to realize what was going on. we were driving into the wall slowly, I looked over at Madison her eyes were wide open, she must have had the same realization I did, I turned to look to the front of the car slowly disappearing, Dad looked at me and smiled at me before his hands on the steering wheel was gone too, not long after so was he, I put my hands up to get a quick feel of what was coming, I didn’t like it. Cold and felt like water but not wet and the strangest feeling in the world seeing your hands disappear. I leaned back as the wall closed in on my face and closed my eyes.

“Can you stop pushing my chair?” Lincoln said, I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me giving me the, what are you doing look, I quickly put my down and tried to act normal.

“Don’t worry son, it’s your first time using the transporter, everyone does something like that,” Dad said making me feel a bit better, out of the corner of my eye I saw Madison put her hands down too, “It’s awkward, feels cold and sometimes slimy don’t know why that is, but you’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lincoln said and shuddered.

“That’s how you’ll be getting to school,” Dad said with joy.

“What? Why? Wait, you’ll be driving us?” Lincoln remarked in horror.

“Oh no, this is how most people get around in London they have all replaced trains, and there are some buses for people who don’t like a transporter, but you get a ticket at the station and walk through a wall, your ticket has a magic signature on it, and it will take you to the place you need to go to.”

“And what if you need to get back?” Madison said in a kind of sarcastic tone, I didn’t think about that, I was more worried about having to do this daily.

“It removes the signature on it when you get to where you’re going and replaces it with a signature of where you had just come through, I have a friend who works in magical transport” Dad looked in his rear-view mirror grinning at Madison.

We stayed in a tunnel for a few moments nearly identical to the previous one, only this one had actual lights on the roof, not glass holes with sunlight coming through a lake.

We arrived at the toll booth Dad gave the man the ticket and left the tunnel, it was like an explosion of light and sounds, cars honking, more people than I have ever seen before and more buildings too!

“Does that guy have a parrot on his shoulder?” Madison said, hitting me and then pointing out of the window with the same hand, he did. A bright yellow bird with a red mohawk. No one batted an eyelid at him, a pretty well-dressed woman walked past him with her arms full of shopping bags, talking into a phone that was hovering by her ear. Everywhere I looked there was something new, new shops, for weapons, clothes, and magical potions, one just had a sign saying get your three-tailed cats here, I never knew that was a thing.