Chapter One.

The June sky was bright blue and the wind gently lifted 16 year old Jacob's dark hair off his forehead. Only moments earlier he had been busy cleaning out the chicken coop that was in his back yard. He had stopped, however, to stare intently at the forest that the edge of his family property touched.

"Hey, Jake, Mom wants you," his 11 year old brother, Josh, said as he ran up behind Jacob. Jacob jumped at the sound and jerked his head to look at Josh.

"Shhhh!" Jacob turned towards the forest again. "I just saw something moving in the bushes over there," he said, pointing. "It was too big to be a cat or a dog. Can you see it?" Jacob crouched in the chicken coop, pulling his brother down with him.

Josh started for a moment at the forest where Jacob had pointed and shook his head. "She wants you to come help unload the groceries from the car."

"I know I saw something," Jacob said. "It was dark and about the shape of a bear but not so shaggy or fat."

They peered at the forest through a small ventilation hole in the chicken coop. After waiting for several moments, they heard a slight noise, and a dark shape formed in the shadows and moved slowly along the edge of the brush that bordered Jacob's backyard. It turned its face towards them and they saw the glint of green eyes.

The hairs on the back of Jacob's neck started to prickle. He and Josh looked at each other. "Jake, what is that?" Josh said, whispering.

"I don't know," Jacob said, also in a whisper. "It looks like a wolf." As they watched, it slowly disappeared back into the shadows. The feeling that they were being watched went away and they stood up slowly.

"Wow. That was kind of scary," Josh said.

"Yeah, it was," Jacob said, releasing a breath he had been holding. "What did you say Mom wants?"

When 16 year old Jacob Clark enters the forest near his home he finds himself in a land he didn't know existed, is asked to embark on a journey of life or death to recover a stolen and potentially dangerous artifact, and begins a personal quest to discover powers he doesn't yet know he possesses.

Jacob is a normal 16 year old who likes camping, cars, and sports. After entering the forest near his home, the first thing that alerts him to the fact that he's in a different dimension is his encounter with the Makalos, a species almost completely destroyed by a war that occurred several years earlier in their own land. The Key of Kilenya has just been stolen from them by the evil Lorkon, a small group of immortal creatures that are about nine feet tall, have blood red skin and bright green eyes. The Makalos, a small and physically weak species, ask Jacob to help them retrieve the Key, and send Akeno, a 13 year old Makalo, with him. Akeno has special powers, including the ability to shrink and enlarge objects, render living things temporarily unconscious, and use his Makalo magic, Rezend, to sense living things around him. Together Jacob and Akeno encounter things that Jacob had never imagined existed, such as piranha-like fish that can leave the water to seek their prey, storms that are alive, trees that try to kill all that is good around them, little creatures that can travel at the speed of light, and the fact that Jacob possesses abilities that will be necessary to save the world of Edana from the Lorkon.