Merlin had eight sons. There is a very specific order when it comes to magic, when a man has children; his magic is passed on to each of said children. Not all of his magic though, a mere fraction for each child. They would be as powerful as their father together, but apart they would be weak magicians.
Millennia ago, there was a doorway between our world and another, a world of beasts and monsters, it was closed by Merlin, the most powerful wizard of his time, the only way to close the portal was to sacrifice himself and turn himself into an elm. His sons told the world he was an oak tree but that was a lie.
Someone is trying to reopen this gate and they will not stop until their blood is spilled, or their goal is achieved.
There is no-one who can stop this, as Merlin himself could not save the world and himself.
This is the way of things and why the world of magic is dying. The world that will never quite be the same. That was what they all said, all the magicians. None of them thought that it would all come back in a moment, a moment of hellfire and blood. But it did.
Bert Ackeran rolled out of bed on a rainy Tuesday morning. He had training last night, his father made him keep on trying until he could perform a specific task. He needed to get stronger and stronger. He wasn't nearly as strong as his father, not yet anyway.
Bert hated his name but apparently it was his father's name and his father's name before his. It evolved from something like Albert Ackeran. The family name went back about 300 generations. It apparently had some kind of spiritual link between your ancestors or something. And from what Bert had seen, he believed it.
He pulled on his school clothes and lumbered down the stairs. He was much larger than most of the boys his age. He played rugby, his dad said he always cheated but that didn't bother Bert. He knew he deserved to be good at something and be praised after all his dad ever did was criticise everything that he did.
He looked at himself in the hallway mirror and noticed that all of his spots were gone, he thought this was weird as he didn't use any cream last night. His hair also seemed to be a lighter shade of ginger than normal but he assumed it was just the new shampoo he got yesterday.
The next thing he knew his dad was shoving him outside and he was walking towards the bus stop. He was not the most hated kid in school but by no means did he have a lot of friends. His dad told him that seclusion was good for him and that he would have plenty of time of time to have friends later in his life.
He approached his one friend that truly knew him. He was called Zachary. They did a weird little handshake and Zachary asked him how he was doing.
"I'm doing okay, what about you?"
"Pretty good, man, you look tired!" he said "You might fall asleep at some point today!" He mimicked falling asleep on the bench and started laughing really hard. He doubled over and fell off the bench.
"Ha! Serves you right!", he struggled to get out through his bellowing laughter. As soon as Zachary had got up and brushed himself off, the bus showed up.
"All aboard!" said the bus driver. No one knew his name but everyone just called him the straw because of how skinny he was and nobody was brave enough to ask him his real name. They both got on the bus immediately because once the straw went on a massive rant when somebody took twenty seconds to get on the bus because they had a broken leg, and made everybody late for class.
Bert and Zachary went off to the back of the bus where nobody would pick on them, as you can probably already tell, they were picked on by bullies a lot and they tried to avoid them at all costs. They reached the back of the bus and sat down.
Suddenly Bert felt energised and fit, not at all like he did when he was walking to the bus-stop just minutes beforehand. He started to blame it on the coffee he had earlier, but realised that he hadn't drunk coffee but orange juice as they had run out of coffee. He couldn't find a reasonable explanation so blamed it on sitting down and conserving energy.
All Bert and Zachery did on the bus was mess about, quietly. If you made too much noise then the straw would flip out and start yelling at everybody, nobody knew why the school still hired him, everybody thinks it is just because he will work for a low wage.
The next stop was just a few minutes later which was weird as they hardly ever stopped off schedule. He saw a young girl step on the bus. She had jet black hair that was really greasy, she looked like she hadn't changed her clothes or washed her hair in weeks. She nodded at the straw and muttered a word of thanks that everyone was oblivious to other than her.
Often if people did not thank the straw, then he would flip out, like he does with so many other scenarios, but he felt this girl was worth avoiding, for now. And to tell the truth, so did everyone else on the bus. How right they were.
As soon as he got off the bus he went straight to his form room as he knew he would be late if he didn't. He fell asleep in form just like Zachary had predicted. His teacher threw water at him and ordered him to stand outside because he was getting the carpet wet. He cursed the teachers name even though he did do a good job of waking Bert up.
Bert was only allowed back into the classroom to get his things, the teacher said that he had a detention at lunch, if only Bert hadn't forgotten, if only he was a little less tired, then maybe they wouldn't have found him, maybe blood would not have been spilled later that day. Maybe some people would have lived a normal life.
But from what you have read of this book so far, I doubt you believe that this is going to happen, as you will see, this book is not quite what it seems from the beginning to the end.
