Somewhere in the Taklimakan Desert, the Yongheng Temple had been laid to ruin. Centuries of history gone in an instant. The only survivor returned to the temporal plain and saw his colleagues and family slaughter among the ruins of the temple. Just before the entrance to the temple, there was the broken pieces of a ring. A new ring-bearer would need to be found to protect eternity.
And stop the old ring-bearer.
The survivor delicately put all the pieces of the ring in his hand then clenched his fist. Upon opening it, the ring was whole again. He closed his eyes and looked at everyone in the world. He saw one--14-years-old, brown hair, green eyes, outgoing, and someone who cares about history, the Earth, and humanity in general.
He closed his eyes again and he was gone.
Cory Buchanan and Chase Cannon walked through the small rutted road through the woods. From the school, it took them nearly 40 minutes to get through the woods. When they emerged, they were at a sparkling pond in a clearing. They had found this pond over the summer and had went numerous times to swim. It was a sunny and warm March day and this was the first time in the year they’ve been able to swim. Cory was excited for this.
They figured they were trespassing but they had never seen anyone else out here nor had they been harassed. Cory and Chase stripped off their clothes and dove into the water. It was crisp and cool and felt good on their skin. They swam for a bit before climbing out and relaxing on the dock, letting the sun dry their bodies. They laid out on the dock for nearly ten minutes until Chase got up.
“I’m gonna go diving,” he said and began walking to the other dock on the other side of the pond.
“Okay,” Cory sighed and went back to sunbathing. Cory heard a splash then silence. He heard Chase climb out and then dive back in, then silence. The silence lasted longer than the last time. After about a minute, Cory sat up. “Chase?” He got up and looked into the water. Seeing nothing, Cory dived in.
He found Chase under the water. He grabbed Chase around the waist and pulled him up out of the water. Cory struggled to swim to the dock. He pushed Chase onto the deck and, exhausted, slipped underwater.
He hit what he thought was the bottom but he was no longer in water. He sat up and saw a man standing with him. “Cory Buchanan,” the man said.
“Yeah…” Cory was suspicious as he got up.
“The new ringbearer,” the man said. He held out the ring that he had repaired earlier.
“What?”
“I am Yoshi C, the last surviving member of the Yongheng. You have been chosen as the next ringbearer, a protector of time and space.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought I was dead.”
“You are.”
“What?”
“Ringbearers have to be dead since they are required to go back and forth through time and space and face constant danger.”
“I guess that makes sense. So I drowned? I don’t even remember it,” Cory said.
“Not here, no. But when we get into the land of the living, you will.”
“Ooh, fun. So I’m a ghost?”
“No. It’s hard to explain but even though you’re dead, you are still alive. You will continue to live and grow but...again, it’s hard to explain. I’ll explain everything to you later. We need to get you back to the surface.”
Cory awoke back in the water, coughing it up out of his lungs. He swam back up to the dock and pulled himself up. Chase helped him onto dock and Cory vomited up more water and coughed endlessly.
“You were underwater for so long. I thought you were gone,” Chase said. “You really scared me.”
“You scared me, too,” Cory coughed.
“Sorry about that,” Chase said. “I got a cramp and couldn’t push myself up.”
Cory noticed that he should’ve been sweating but wasn’t. He also felt colder than he should’ve been. He noticed the ring on his right-hand ring finger. He casually felt his chest where his heartbeat should’ve been. There was none.
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Isabella ran up to Cory in school and gave him a big hug.
“Yes. Why?” Cory asked.
“You nearly drowned yesterday.”
“You told her?” Cory turned to Chase.
“Yes, he did. And I’m glad he did. We’ve been friends since Kindergarten. I wouldn’t know what to do without you,” Isabella softly touched Cory’s cheek. She smiled at him and walked away.
“You shouldn’t have told her,” Cory said to Chase.
“Who cares? You got a big hug from her. Full chest,” Chase said.
“Please don’t talk about Izzy’s chest like that,” Cory said. “I also didn’t want to tell anyone because of what happened.”
“What happened?”’
“This!” Cory held up his right hand with the ring on it.
“Yeah...I still don’t quite understand what that means.”
“I don’t know either. Yoshi said he’d explain it better but I haven’t seen him since we were at the lake,” they stopped at their lockers and grabbed books for their first hour class. Cory saw a note taped to his book. “Ah, speak of the devil.”
Things are afoot in the Old West.
Find a private location and think of 1874.
The ring will do the rest.
-Yoshi C.
“‘Things are afoot’?” Chase chuckled.
“He’s, like, a billion years old,” Cory said. “Hopefully this will explain everything better. I don’t know how I’m supposed to think of 1874 but whatever.”
Cory went to an area past the cafeteria that led to another side of the gym but had no classes along that hallway so no one ever went that way. He looked at the ring, clutched his fist, closed his eyes, and thought about 1874. A bright light appeared and he was instantly transported to 1874--or at least that’s what Cory assumed. Yoshi had been apparently waiting for him. “Right on time.”
“Okay,” Cory breathed. “So what’s up?”
“What is up is Fred Miller. Before, he was just an unlucky criminal who has been in and out of nearly every jail between the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies. We wouldn’t be here normally but August Rhoodie has supplied him with a semi-automatic weapon,” Yoshi explained.
“Who’s August Rhoodie?”
“A servant of Sepulcher. He was the Ringbearer before you. He usurped all the power from my brothers for himself so he can control all of time.”
“If he’s so dangerous and can travel through time, then why have this August guy?” Cory wondered.
“Fred Miller has practically wiped out Canyon City and is on his way to Phoenix. We can worry about August Rhoodie later.”
Cory and Yoshi flew just a few miles, finding Miller easily, riding a stolen horse down a trail. “Hold up, cowboy,” Cory said, landing in front of the horse, startling it.
“Get out of the way, kid,” Miller growled.
“Look, I’ve leave you alone but I need your gun,” Cory held out his hand.
“This?” Miller pointed the weapon at Cory and began shooting. Cory was barely able to get a shield up in time to protect himself. “Some kids in strange clothes isn’t going to tell me what to do.” He continued shooting, some of the bullets cracked and went through the shield.
“Don’t get distracted,” Yoshi began. “Being distracted can weaken the ring’s power or create the wrong thing.”
“Oh, good. On-the-job training,” Cory said. Instead of focusing on Miller, he turned his attention to the horse. He created a large fire in front of the animal who then reared up. Miller dropped the gun so he could use two hands to hold the reins. Cory ran and grabbed the gun from the ground and then used the ring to put a jail cell around Miller and the horse. “This will hold you until the proper authorities find you,” he looked at Yoshi. “It will, right?”
Yoshi nodded.
“Wait. This still alters time. He murdered a lot of people. He’s going to get hung. Won’t his death alter time?”
“Ah, good. You’re thinking about stuff like this. With everything we do, we have to be concerned with changing time. The more you do this, the more you know what will create a big change and what will cause a small change. You also look at whether the ends justify the means.”
“Huh?”
“For example, Miller murdered two dozen people with a semi-automatic weapon. He has changed the time stream much more drastically for hundreds of people in the future and himself. That kind of change is much more severe than him dying at a different point in his life,” Yoshi explained.
“And we can’t change what happened. Stop Rhoodie from giving him the gun?”
Yoshi shook his head. “We could but it takes a certain kind of precision,” Yoshi quickly turned. “A posse. We need to go.”
Cory held out the ring and the two of them returned to the present. “This is so weird,” Cory said. “There’s so much to understand about this.”
“I’m sure you will do fine, Ringbearer,” Yoshi said. “All the others did.”
“The others? What happened to them?”
“I’ll tell you more later. You need to get back to school,” and Yoshi was gone.
