nap with a snake coiled up in my bedThat experience had left animpression on me even at an early ageand I was eager to be out of the atticeven as I was frustrated with not havingfound anything of value This was thelast house on the list and it was a flopjust as the other eleven had beenI stood up forgetting the low angledceiling and cracked my head off of arafter In place of a choked back curse Ikicked the old trunk at my feet savagelyI abruptly forgot the pain in my head andmy frustration with the dayThe old trunk had barely moved whenI had kicked it
The trunk was sturdilybuilt, but not that sturdy The ragscouldnt be weighing it down that muchQuickly I knelt down and reopened thelid of the trunk i had been so excited to
find the trunk in the first place, becauseit had matched the time era perfectly thatI was interested inI pulled the rags and the even moreraggedy underwear out to spillthesides I was already relishing the hotshower I would have after i was clear ofthis place and its musty remains of pastparanoia
The trunk was clear of the rags and Ifelt along the bottom of the trunk It had afalse bottom and i found the cleverlyconcealed release mechanism to eitherside Excitement built within me as Iflipped the levers and released the falsebottom of the trunkId done it!Id found the orlanis starThe false bottom clattered to the floors I stared down into the trunk at what I
had revealedThe star resembled the pedals of asunflower, but were broken apart intoindividual pieces laid out on a strip ofblue velvet with the center array stone inthe middle that looked to be made ofpure crystal surrounded by a shiny alloyof metal infused along its edges
Thepedals and the outer rim of metalsurrounding the crystal were studdedwith what appeared to be gems ofpriceless valueThe star was beautiful, but it wasn'twhat I had been expecting at allI had thought to find a cleverlydesigned mechanism to help me findwhere the wealth of the South had beenstored offshore during the civil Warawaiting a British convoy, but what Iwas looking at was a piece of art crafted
into a form that hinted at a symbolic useof which I could only speculateThe pieces of the star at the bottom ofthe trunk looked nothing like what i hadimagined the american Civil War eradevice to appear as, instead it seemedlike I was looking at something thatdated far older than the civil war Thelevel of craftsmanship and the gemlikecrystals bore no relation to a piece thatwould have been crafted as amechanical map to find treasureoffshore without the use of charts thishad to be the Orlanis Star though
This house was one of the twelveplaces known of that Captain RogerJamison the sole survivor of the missionto enlist britain's aid to coming in on theside of the confederate south hadstayed at during the remaining years of
his life This trunk had to have been hisand if it had been his than this must bethe fabled orlanis starI got a feeling as if someone hadwalked across my grave as I stared atthe curiously designed petals and itscenter stone of pure crystal at the bottomof the trunk
there had to be more to thestory than even I had known, but what itcould be i didn't knowIn 1864 the Confederate Southdesperate for british aid in their strugglefor survival against the Northsadvances had enacted a desperatestrategy that little was known of Beforeand during the civil war the south hadtried to enlist the aid of the british tojoin in on the war against the North, butthe british continually refused becausethey did not support slavery There were
many though that wished to aid theSouth because england was the mainbuyer of the Souths cash crop, cottonThe rumor was that a deal was struckfor England to come in on th
e Southsside although widely criticized bhistorians as simply not true
But the factremains that under great secrecy a largeflotilla of ships was congregatedtogether in one of the few port citiesremaining to the south Details of thisarmada were very sketchy as in the factthat there were practically noneThe fighting was expected to getworse before it could get better with theelp of England so the wealthiestplantation owners and financiers packedtheir wives and children along with allthe wealth meant as a payment toEngland for joining the war, onto the
ships that made up the armada gatheredin the harbor as an added bonus it wasrumored that the ships were piled highwith the cotton that had been stacking upon the docks for yearsOne day the armada was at anchor andthen in the midst of a foggy overcaststorm system the armada haddisappeared from port
It was commonlybelieved that the Union commanders ofthe Yankee navy blockading the harborhad been bribed to let the armada passUncontested, but there was no proof toback that up From there the armada hadsimply vanishedAll of the ships had been steampowered, but navigation had still beenan issue which is where the orlanis starhad come into the legend It wasrumored that the South had made
Words of actionCopyright o 2014 by Guy S Stanton, IllAll rights reserved No part of this publicationmay be reproduced, distributed or transmittedany form or by any means, includingphotocopying, recording, or other electronic ormechanical methods, without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher, except in the caseof brief quotations embodied in criticalreviews and certain other noncommercial usespermitted by copyright lawPublisher 's note This is a work of fictionNames, characters, places, and incidents are aproduct of the authors imagination
Localesand public names are sometimes used foratmospheric purposes Any resemblance toactual people, living or dead, or to businesses
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KoboGoodreads and Create SpaceAuthorsWebsitewwwwords-of-actioncomJourney into the Deep/ Guy S Stanton, III
Table of contentsWarning GivenTough loveThe shadow beckonsDecision madeFaithful servantThe stormStrength of the seaLandfallInto the forestDarkness ResistedThe childrenAdriftGoodbyeInnocence preservedGlory to God!Something of valueFire!!
Chapter OneWarning giveni blew the dust off before I unsnappedthe clasps of the old trunk caseAnticipation built up inside of me atwhat I might find within
My hediscovery took a nose dive though as thelid of the old trunk came upNothing but musty smelling underwearand piles of rag cloth The GreatDepression era of the nineteen twentieshad been bad, but had people livingduring that timeframe really needed tosave their old ragsandragged
underwear? Apparently they had thoughtI let the lid fall back closed andooked around the attic of the old housein disgust what a waste of time!Not to mention risking my life, Ithought darkly to myself, as I noticed yetanother old dry snakeskin laying on thegrimy wooden floor of the attic So far Ihadn t come across any live ones whichwas good, but just seeing the evidence ofprior existence had put me under strainall morning as I had worked atdiscovering the pastI had jumped at every sound omovement
I wasnt overly afraid ofsnakes, but the philosophy of the onlygood snake is a dead one was a tenant ofbelief that I had adopted sincechildhood when I had awakened from a