The Hickory Staff

Steven Taylor is bored. As assistant manager at the First National Bank of Idaho Springs in Colorado, he finds most days tiresome: he's marking time in the foothills and waiting for opportunity to come calling. A new romance inspires him - but not as much as the unexpected discovery of a 135-year-old safe deposit box he finds while wading through a basement full old ledgers. Finding the key should be difficult, but it is not as arduous a task as deciding whether he should breach the bank's code of ethics and open it.

The safe deposit box has been locked tight since 1870, when the lone miner who rented it arranged for its security with a fortune in raw silver, then disappeared less than a day later. And when Steven does succumb to his overwhelming curiosity, he finds far more than he could ever have anticipated - not least a portal to the mysterious world of Eldarn.

He and his roommate, Mark Jenkins, drawn inexorably into this land filled with magic and mysticism, discover Eldarn is wild and beautiful, rich in culture and traditions - and oppressed by Nerak, a monstrous dictator with a lust for power. In their search for a path back to Colorado, the pair join forces with Eldarni partisans struggling to battle the ancient evil behind Nerak's reign of terror. And all too soon they discover the fate of Eldarn hinges on them - and their ability to find a way home.

Join Steven Taylor and Mark Jenkins in their journey back to Colorado as they battle demons, homicidal wraiths, ravenous beasts and an occupation army of soulless warriors sent after them by the creature plotting the annihilation Eldarn and its inhabitants.


Genre: Fantasy