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    Guardians of the Rasselas
    Guardians of the Rasselas
    Guardians of the Rasselas
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Guardians of the Rasselas

    By Arwen Jayne

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    About this ebook

    In a world run by those driven by greed a few brave souls still work on the side of the planet and its inhabitants. Long ago Eleni's family were entrusted with the guardianship of the knowledge and sworn to keep it secret. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family Eleni's brother Yiannos has inherited the role from his psychic grandmother. But all is not well in their small family. Eleni opts to avoid the dubious pleasure of Christmas with the family by camping out at her favorite lake only to be faced with a shocking discovery. Having dropped his retail addicted wife and cousins at the airport, to do even more shopping, Eleni's father JJ realizes the time has come to make a life changing decision. Eleni's discoveries at the lake will change all their lives. And while Eleni and JJ might not be the guardian it is their affinity with stone that will reawaken more than just a parched landscape.

    Guardians of the Rasselas is a novella set loosely within the world of the Left Hand Adventures series but it can be read independently. It contains adult references, diverse sexual relationships and some Australian slang.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArwen Jayne
    Release dateMar 10, 2015
    ISBN9781311336552
    Guardians of the Rasselas
    Author

    Arwen Jayne

    My passion is writing paranormal fantasy romance with a metaphysical twist. When I'm not writing I'm either reading other people's romance and erotica novels, gardening or learning about the myriad of things that interest me: meditation, brain change, metaphysics, linguistics, genetics, myths, magic and the odd bit of science and engineering.

    Read more from Arwen Jayne

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      Guardians of the Rasselas - Arwen Jayne

      1

      The flat tray Nissan Pajero rattled down the old boat ramp road. Few people came down this track. Few even knew it had ever existed. Fifty years before it had been a popular fishing spot and a place for tours to launch their boats, taking wealthy Japanese tourists out onto the pristine lake where they could do two things they couldn’t do back in their home country; experience pristine wilderness without hordes of other tourists and get photographed catching their own trout.

      Not that there were many trout in the lake anymore. They weren’t a native fish and relied on a regular release of hand raised hatchlings into the waterways to keep their population numbers up. But the government didn’t have the money for that anymore so they marketed it as a wild fishery, in other words, the trout were scarce. All except the introduced red fin perch that thrived on the lack of competition. Declining fish numbers, rising fuel prices and a different market in tourists, city-loving Chinese, meant the lake had few visitors these days. Even the canoeists bypassed it on their way to the more famous World Heritage listed lake up the road.

      It was nearly Christmas and not being a great fan of the annual family get together Eleni had come out here to hide from it all. Baring a freak summer storm front she knew it would be utterly peaceful out here. There was no-one, absolutely no-one to destroy her peace. Her cousins could compare their latest handbag and shoe purchases over a four course, silver serviced Christmas lunch. He older brother could ramble on about his latest apps on his iPhone. Mum could glare across the table at her vacant seat and her father .... Well her father would be wishing he’d escaped too and was out here with her. One year she might just do that, kidnap him and give him the Christmas he’d always wanted, instead of unwrapping another pair of jungle green acrylic bushwalking socks he didn’t need. Eleni felt a moment’s twang of guilt for leaving him there but then again, he had married her mother. She admired his balls of steel, for sticking by her mum’s annual play at ‘happy families’. But admiring his sense of duty didn’t mean she felt so compelled. Every third year she’d turn up to one just to keep the peace but this year was most definitely one of her years off from the hell others called Christmas.

      Not far now. Another couple of bends in the road, skirting the fallen trees, driving under the fronds of giant manferns, roadside leatherwood and myrtle. She changed down a gear to take it nice and slow across the old creek where only a fool charging through to show off to his mates would get bogged. She could just about hear her late grandfather in her head, advising her as he had done all through her childhood. She missed him dreadfully, mourning the day ten years ago when he had quietly died in the backseat of the car, on his ninetieth birthday, as they came back from his picnic birthday party. Nice way to go though. Yet even now part of him lived on in her, in his words of wisdom. How she drove, how she camped, even how she fished, all were in ways her grandfather had shown her.

      As she turned the last bend, preparing to scope out a suitable campsite she braked and stared, stunned at what she saw. The lake...well it had been a lake two years before when last she’d camped here. Now it was a vast desolate wasteland of white quartz rock, fallen trees and dying vegetation. Hell! Were there still people who didn’t believe the climate was always in a state of flux? This was drastic on a scale she couldn’t imagine. She took her camera out, determined to capture the reality of the lake so she could share it with her friends on social media. No one would believe her otherwise.

      Would she even bother to stay and camp here she wondered, but then she shrugged her shoulders. Well she wouldn’t be fishing but it was certainly an interesting landscape to explore.

      The lake surface was of compacted quartz sediment that was now bone dry. There was little danger of getting bogged. She scanned the desolation and spied a path of sorts down to what looked to be a fast flowing creek. The creek must have once fed the lake but now it meandered through the bottom of the old lake bed. She’d take her old ute down there, at least as far as she could go, and find a sheltered spot out of the wind to camp. No red fin perch for dinner tonight it seemed but she had enough makings with her to come up with something. She’d set up camp tonight and tomorrow she would go exploring. Loving both rocks and photography she was sure she’d easily spend at least a day here, maybe more. The local white version of a grey goshawk quietly flew overhead. Well, she’d have someone watching her it seemed. The bird was company she’d enjoy. It certainly wouldn’t be asking for a positive comment on its latest handbag purchase.

      This end of the year dawn broke early. It would be another hot one. Out here the weather liked to be extreme. Even in summer you could have floods, hail, snow or a scorcher up in the high 30s, scraping the old hundred on the Fahrenheit scale. Fortunately the water from the stream she’d camped by was amongst the purest in the world. A bit of brown tannin in it but that wouldn’t kill anyone. It was bloody cold as water went though. She’d wait til after midday before she took a skinny dip to have a wash.

      Breakfast was simple. A bit of hot water from the billy can, poured onto some quinoa flakes and stirred into a makeshift porridge. She picked a bit of the pretty, purple flowered self-heal and made a passable tea. Eleni knew she’d always like too many of the comforts of modern life to be a freegan but sometimes she liked to pretend. Even in the bush out here that was plenty to feed you if you knew anything about the bush tucker the early colonists had used. They in turn had acquired much of that knowledge from the native peoples they’d nearly wiped out. The local berries and tubers, while not always the tastiest were nourishing and were easily supplemented by the weeds that had made their way even to this far corner of the world. So she used all that knowledge to pretend she was the lone survivor from a world gone mad but at the same time enjoyed the comforts of her feather down sleeping bag, her large four man army disposal tent and the little gas stove she used to boil her billy. The tent was a bit excessive but she had long ago mastered putting it up and it was a welcome refuge from the midday march flies and the evening onslaught of mozzies. She’d set up her toilet tent a little bit away from the rest, just because it seemed the thing to do. But she’d made sure it wasn’t so far she’d stumble in the dark if she had to use it in the night. She’d hung a black water bag on the side of the ute in case the river water proved too cold to bathe in. She didn’t fancy washing her hair in the cold anyway. It was always good to have backup plans. That’s what her granddad had taught her.

      Duly fed and watered she brushed out her hair, grabbed her mini backpack, compass, bottle of water and her camera and headed out onto the lake bed. But not before locking her truck. Even out here it paid to be sure. It would be a hell of a long way back to civilisation if someone pinched it. She’d hedged her bets though, by making sure her father knew where she was. She’d come to no harm out here, not at this time of the year, but if she didn’t surface in a few days someone would come looking for her. Since this was a dead spot as far as mobile phones it was all she could do as a safety plan, that and her trusty multi tool knife she always carried with her.

      She spent the morning photographing weather and wave worn pieces of driftwood. She even found a small piece of huon pine. She’d scratched the outer layer and then held it to her nose. Yep, the genuine article. Not that she would take it with her. There were hefty fines for anyone found illegally fossicking the precious stuff. This piece could be five years old or a thousand. It would never rot. Its honey coloured aromatic wood had been used in its time to build some of the finest wooden boats to ever ply the waters in the Southern Hemisphere but these days there was that little of it left you were lucky to find a piece big enough to make a sugar bowl. A plantation of seedlings would take at least four hundred years to reach minimum harvestable size. Not an investment that even the government was prepared to make. So people retrieved old fallen logs from around lake shores and river ways, legally or illegally, and stockpiled them like diamonds hoping to corner some future market at enough of an inflated price that they could retire on the proceeds. There was no doubt that some commercial operation would soon swoop on this lake bed for what

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