KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Six

“This game!  Who came up with the idea of playing hunters and wolves?”

Karux hesitated.  “Amantis.”

“Amantis?  Since when did you and your friends do anything he told you to do?”

Karux blushed and looked away.  “He was just trying to help.” It killed him to defend Amantis.  Who would have ever guessed this could have happened? 

“Help?  How is beating up little children trying to help?”

“We weren’t beating anyone up!  Can you not understand that?  We were trying to learn how to fight wolves.”

“Fight wolves?  As in real wolves?  Why would you want to do that?”

“Because if we don’t people will die.”

His father seemed taken aback by this, but after a moment’s thought, Karux could see understanding dawn in his eyes.  “Is this about your visions?  Because we still don’t know that those are—”

“It’s not just me.  Amantis has seen it too.”

“He’s having visions as well is he?” Arrain said in a derisive tone.

“Well, not exactly, he found a stone in a cave of the sacred mountain that tells him things.”

“And you believed him?  You know how much of an attention seeker he is.”

“I wouldn’t have believed him except that his stone told him where Bazma’s lost goat was.”

Arrain gave him a skeptical look.  “And you’re sure he didn’t steal the goat himself?”

“You sound like Theris,” Karux sighed.  “The goat looked like it had been torn up by some animal.  I don’t think even he would do something like that just to show off.”

His father sat on a short stool and scooted it up next to him.  He leaned over and looked Karux earnestly in the eyes.  “I know these dreams or visions or whatever they are must be confusing, but the High Lord gave us minds and he expects us to use them.  It is our ability to reason that separates us–even protects us from the beasts.  If we give that up we’d be no better than the beasts themselves and perhaps even more dangerous.

“What happened today happened because nobody was using their head.  I want you to promise me, when you get an idea, that you’ll ask yourself if this is a reasonable thing to do.  Is it something you think I might do?  Can you do that?”

Karux couldn’t speak.  He felt like he was being asked to make an open-ended promise without knowing all the implications, yet he couldn’t say no.  All he could do was nod his head.

“Do you still have that stone with you?” He looked at Karux’s clenched hand.

Karux nodded again.

“Do you always carry it with you?”

Karux nodded.

“Perhaps that stone is part of the problem.  By always carrying it with you, you remind yourself of those scary dreams, so you can never escape those thoughts.”

A cold chill ran down Karux’s spine.  Surely he couldn’t mean—

“I think you need to give me the stone.”

“No!”  The word leaped out of his mouth before he’d even thought about it.  His father looked as if he’d been slapped.  Karux swallowed and begin rapidly back-tracking.  “I mean.  I don’t want to lose it.  It came from the sacred mountain.  I’m sure it must be very valuable.”