Uncle Warlock and the Realm of Fire

By Solomon Broadstone

A great destiny awaits... Johnny Smith thinks he is just another orphan with a tragic history, but a fiery dragon haunts his dreams. An unknown uncle shows up to adopt him. Wealthy and eccentric, he is often gone on mysterious trips.
The mansion begins to reveal its magical secrets, and Johnny sets upon a path of training in magic with a guide from the ancient past. He meets beings from other worlds and realms.
Once again, he finds himself face-to-face with the dragon, in the Realm of Fire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359460212

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Uncle Warlock and the Realm of Fire

UNCLE WARLOCK AND THE REALM OF FIRE

__________

Solomon Broadstone

Uncle Warlock and the Realm of Fire

Copyright © 2019 by Solomon Broadstone

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-0-359-46021-2

Printed in USA by Lulu.com

Dedication

For Hon and Poopah; everything I do - I do for you.

I would like to thank Rostyslav Balash for his excellent work on the cover art for this novel. 

I would also like to thank Jacquelyn Lancaster for her hard work, advice and guidance as she edited this manuscript. Her dedication toward seeing this project through, as well as her thorough knowledge and insight into the publication process helped tremendously.

Chapter One

The Group Home

Johnny was suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by a tumultuous noise. It was as if fifty loud voices at once screamed his name into his ear; he sat straight up. There was a crackling roar outside his room, and he could hardly breathe due to the heavy black smoke flowing into his bedroom. He jumped out of bed and threw open the door which made the roar of the fire even louder. The walkway outside his room was a balcony with a bannister on one side that looked down into the living room of his two-story house.

He could see the stairway that hugged the opposite wall as it came up from below. Fire was everywhere. Through the thick smoke, he saw what looked like some kind of gigantic flaming serpent that lay on the stairway with its head at the top of the stairs. He could see reddish-gold scales and that the creature had great leathery wings, as well as sharp teeth and claws. The creature turned its head and looked toward him, and it began to move in his direction with a throaty growl. He realized the face did not look like the face of a snake, but like a dragon. He jumped back slamming the door closed; his heart felt like it was pounding out of his chest as he coughed from the acrid smoke. As flames climbed the wall and door just outside his room, the heat burned his face. Even though he felt as if his skin would peel off, he kept telling himself it was a nightmare, but he couldn’t wake up.

Then he suddenly remembered a school lesson that was once taught by a fireman. Crawl out of a fire because the good air is down near the floor, the fireman had said.

He threw himself down and began to crawl. The carpeted floor felt hot. The only normal way out of his room was through the interior balcony outside his door, but it was engulfed in flames, and that was also where he saw that dragon. He knew he could not go that way, so he turned to the window.  Somehow in the blackness he managed to find the window near his bed and stood up with his hands on the glass. He heaved open the sash and rolled out onto the cool sloping roof. He continued to cough the smoke from his lungs in the chilly night air. He scooted across the roof to the edge and then was able to climb down his mother’s rose trellis. The thorns cut his feet and hands, but he barely noticed the discomfort compared to the flames and the dragon above. Johnny knew he had to get help for his parents.

To his horror, he realized that the house was fully ablaze. Not just one or two rooms, but the entire house was burning. Flames were coming out all of the windows on both floors. Every single room with a window seemed to be belching out fire. Even his room, from which he so recently escaped, now had flames licking outside the window toward the roof. Black smoke was boiling out into the cool night air. For a moment, he thought his father and mother might come bailing out of the house, but he did not see them. He began to scream: Mom! Dad! he yelled with everything in him, his voice hoarse from the smoke. Tears streamed down his face while he ran back and forth in the yard in a panic, screaming for them over and over.

A neighbor, awakened by his screams, ran down to him and covered his shoulders with a blanket. Johnny cried for hours. Soon sirens could be heard coming down the street to their home. The fire department sprayed water streams onto the house. However, it was too far gone to save. In a few hours, it was a pile of smoldering, blackened rubble, despite the best efforts of the firemen. 

Johnny sat in the back of an ambulance wearing an oxygen mask. He was not badly hurt, but he would cough for several days after the fire. They said they found his parents’ remains in what had been their bed. They had passed away in their sleep. A fireman tried to explain that sometimes fire will remove the oxygen from a room and people do not wake up.

He patted Johnny on the shoulder and said, They didn’t suffer.

It was little comfort for him. Johnny wondered what would happen to him. He could barely breathe due to grief more than the smoke.  He would have cried, but he had no more tears and felt numb all over.

After a few hours, a social worker arrived. She asked neighbors about relatives and discovered that Johnny Smith had no other family members as far as anyone knew. She talked to Johnny at the hospital, and he claimed that he had no relatives; his parents were all the family he had.  She then had no choice but to place him in a state facility. He had lost everything in one fell swoop. He had gone to sleep with loving parents, with a home and a room full of wonderful things. He woke up to an inferno that consumed everything but him and the soot-covered pajamas that he wore. Sometimes, Johnny wished he had been consumed by the fire along with them. He wished that he had stayed asleep and never knew that a fire had destroyed them all. Perhaps they would be together in heaven, he thought.

Johnny Smith was eleven years old, and he felt that he was average in every way. He was not tall, nor was he short. He was neither fat nor thin. His hair was medium brown, and his eyes were gray. He was not the best student, nor was he the worst in his class. Though he was quite intelligent, it never translated into good grades at school. Johnny knew he was too much of a daydreamer for that. He figured that nothing he did stood out in any way. 

Social services placed Johnny in a group home for young boys that had either lost their parents or could not remain with their parents for one reason or another. The orphanage was a large three-story building that was quite old, but it was clean and kept him warm and dry. Johnny shared a dormitory room with three other boys. The beds each had a nightstand and a small chest of drawers, but those were the only other furnishings in the room. Social services had provided him with a few clothing items, but he did not own anything else. He had no toys that belonged to him alone; he shared items with other boys that were the property of the institution. Before the fire that killed his parents, he had plenty of toys; his room was full of all sorts of fun things. Everything burned.

However, Johnny survived. Almost two years had passed since the fire, and somehow he knew that he had to carry on. He was determined that he would make it, and that one day he would grow into someone that would have made his parents proud.

The social workers and counselors wondered about the sadness that lingered in his eyes. He had learned long ago to cover up his pain, but he could not hide those sad gray eyes that betrayed his real feelings. When he first came to the home for boys, he would be overcome with sadness at night, and he would whimper and cry in his bed. Some of the older boys made fun of him.

One night an older boy named Bill, who was a bit of a bully, heard him crying in his bed.

You are such a crybaby, he said in the darkness. 

Johnny’s just a little sucky-baby, he said mockingly.  This made Johnny cry harder. 

Some of the other boys chimed in.  Sucky baby, sucky baby, they teased laughing from their beds. 

Finally a house parent yelled up to the room. Be quiet and go to sleep!

He eventually figured out how to cry quietly. He would lay there in the dark and clutch his pillow and let the tears flow silently. He missed his parents horribly. His heart felt as if it would rip in half, and at times he felt so sad he did not know if his body could take another breath, but he kept breathing, and his heart kept beating. 

He sometimes prayed that God would take him in his sleep, he was miserable. The sadness and loneliness was not the worst thing in his life; the fear was the worst. Johnny still had fire dreams; often dreaming that fire was raging up toward his bed. He sometimes dreamed that a fire dragon was chasing him. Johnny had woken up screaming several times. When that happened, he was threatened by some of the other kids and told to go back to sleep. He learned how to get by, how to survive, and learned to do what he had to do to make it through it each day. 

Not all of his dreams were bad. Sometimes his mom and dad were still alive in his dreams. He would run to them, and they would all embrace. At other times, he would dream that he was at home in his old room and he was happily playing with his toys. He never wanted to leave those dreams that truly made him feel happiness again. Invariably, he would wake up and would realize that he was still in the orphanage and that his parents were truly gone. The anguish of losing them all over again was almost more than he could stand.

Johnny stopped trying to tell people about seeing the dragon since the week of the fire. If he started talking about it, people would look at him like he was crazy. He remembered trying to tell the firemen and medics the night of the fire that he had seen a fire-breathing dragon in his house, and that it had caused the fire.  They patted on him and told him to relax as he sat there covered in soot with the blanket around his shoulders.  He could tell they didn’t believe him. Besides, he had nearly convinced himself that the dragon was his imagination, or a trick of the fire and smoke. Johnny knew when the firemen were plundering through the ashes and rubble of the house fire, when it was simply a blackened smoldering mess, that they would find the dragon, or at least the charred remains of one.  However, nothing like that was ever found.

Johnny was upstairs on his bed reading when he heard a commotion downstairs. He heard staff members talking excitedly. The director, Mr. Burns, a short, balding and heavy-set man, was announcing that someone was coming to pick up one of the boys. It was an adoption. Johnny heard him say that the paperwork was already done and signed by a judge, and it was most unusual.

Soon the small herd of orphanage staff was on the stairway coming up to the floor where Johnny lay on his bed. They virtually burst into his room. 

Mr. Burns talked both fast and loudly, Johnny, get yourself ready, pack your things.  You have an uncle that has only just found out that you are here. He has filed all the proper paperwork; you have just been adopted! It is highly irregular; I have never seen an adoption approved so quickly without as much as a visit. He is on his way here to finalize everything and pick you up. Try to clean yourself up a bit, look presentable, so he doesn’t try to give you back to us. Mr. Burns half smiled at him about the last comment to let him know that he was joking.

Johnny’s heart lurched with excitement, He’s coming now?

Yes, right now, he should be here within the hour. He just called from his attorney’s office. 

Johnny thought hard, neither his mother nor father had any brothers or sisters. He was not sure how he could have an uncle. 

Mr. Burns looked frustrated, Stop sitting there looking stunned, move boy!

Johnny got up from the bed and collected his meager belongings from his nightstand. He went to his closet and collected his clothes, putting everything in a small plastic shopping bag. Even Mr. Burns was surprised how little Johnny actually had. His worldly possessions were in such a tiny bundle that they could be gathered together in just a couple of minutes.

Mr. Burns was briefly reminded of an old image of a hobo that had a long stick with a small bundle of clothes on the end of it. The hobo would throw the stick over his shoulder and carry his clothes and possessions in that manner. Burns thought to himself, If Johnny only had a stick he would look the part. 

Johnny was ushered into the bathroom to wash his face and comb his hair, and the four of them went down to the ground floor to the main administrative offices for the group home. He sat on a bench in the hallway nervously swinging his legs, which didn’t quite touch the floor. The other boys came up to him and wished him good luck. James and Doug, his closest friends, told him how lucky he was. Even those boys that had been rude to him seemed to be happy that he was being adopted out of the orphanage, though he thought he detected a little jealousy from some of them. Johnny did not like to be the center of attention; it made him feel a little uncomfortable. He normally just stayed in the background and remained quiet.

Soon vehicles could be heard arriving in front of the orphanage. Many of the boys ran to the front door peeking out of the windows.

Holy crap Johnny, the car is huge and fancy. You’ve hit the lottery! One of them yelled.

Mr. Burns came out of his office, shooing the boys out of his way as he made a path for the front door. He gave them a stern gaze and warned them to be quiet. He waited until the appropriate moment and opened the door widely.

Welcome, welcome, please come into our facility here.

All the boys stood aside and lined the walls to make room for the small group that came in the door. A heavy-set man in a suit came in first.

He shook Mr. Burns’ hand, I am James Nelson, I am the attorney in this matter.

Stepping aside, he introduced the lady immediately behind him, This is Karen, my legal secretary and notary public.

Following her, a very tall man in a dark suit stepped into the doorway and seemed to fill the opening. The man was slender and had mainly dark hair with some gray streaks at his temples. His eyes were gray and piercing. He glanced at the bench where Johnny sat for the briefest of moments. Johnny thought he had the look of an eagle that was getting ready to pounce on a field mouse. It was the most intense, piercing stare he had ever seen.  His brief gaze was so penetrating that Johnny felt a bit of fear and intimidation.

The lawyer spoke, This is Mr. Warlick, the uncle of young Mr. Smith.

Mr. Burns shook Mr. Warlick’s hand firmly.

The lawyer continued, I have prepared all the paperwork, and the custody order has been signed and issued by a judge. If we could step in your office and take just a moment to make sure that everything is in order?

Mr. Burns’ motioned the three of them into his office. 

A few of the boys walked up to Johnny and gave him high fives. One of them smiled widely and said, I think you are rich now.

Johnny heard the conversation from outside in the hallway.  It must have been his uncle talking; his voice was deep and firm.

I did not know about this fire or the fact that my nephew was forced to stay here due to having no other relatives. I came as soon as I found out. I have not been active in his life, but I have no children of my own, and I can provide for him a very comfortable existence.

Mr. Burns interjected, I am so happy to hear this, so many of our boys are at the age where there is not a good chance of being adopted. Many parents that look into adoption want infants or toddlers and are not willing to risk an older child; they feel they have behavior issues that might be difficult to handle. I am just glad that a family member came forward. 

There was a discussion about more paperwork, and then even more documents were signed. The notary public witnessed the signing of the papers, and then she signed and stamped the paperwork herself.

Mr. Burns exclaimed, That’s it, congratulations to you Mr. Warlick! You officially have a son now.

As the group came back out into the hallway, Johnny’s uncle looked down at him with that hard stare, the look made him feel as if the eyes were looking right into his soul. Stand up and let me look at you boy. He stared at him for a few moments and then said, Mmmmmmmm.

Johnny’s mind raced, what did that mean, did he approve or disapprove?

"We have a long way to go this