This week 4 more of my Forgotten Realms novels were released in e-book format: Thornhold, The Magehound, The Floodgate, and The Wizardwar. All four are available at Amazon.com’s Kindle bookstore and Barnes & Noble’s Nook bookstore. Links follow!
Thanks to all who entered! The random generator at www.Random.org has spoken. The winning number was 4, which corresponds to the email send by Kenneth Goad. A copy of Winter Witch will be on its way Monday morning!
I haven’t held a contest in ages. This was fun. Let’s do it again when the print version of the Tales of Sevrin “Thorn” trilogy ominbus is available.
Sevrin is a land of islands, and many of its people make their living from the sea. Two fishermen called Askur and Bejarki live in Whalespout, a small village on the island of Heartstone, not far from the port city of Sevrinspire. The village’s name comes from the geyser that bursts from a rocky hillock overlooking the village. Legend has it that the hill was once a living whale, turned to stone by dwarven magic in a time before humans came to the islands. The geyser is evidence of a spark of life in the stone creature. If its struggles to free itself succeed, or so the story goes, it will roll back into the sea, crushing the village in the process.
Of course, the only time anyone even half believes is when tales are told around late night firesides, or when they’ve indulged a bit too freely. A great deal of mead is required to bring a man to that point, and there are many states of inebriation between sobriety and credulity. Along the way a man is likely to become boisterous and pranksome. So it was with Askur and Bejarki, who after several mugs decided it would be a fine jest to fashion a whale out of the abundant new snow.
They set to work, rolling large balls of snow over to the base of the hillock and shaping it into flukes and fins. The top of the hillock stood bare, snow melted away by the steam, but at night the pale rock gleamed in the moonlight and the whole blended together well enough. After an hour or two of labor, Askur and Bejarki fell back to admire the results, chuckling over the start this apparition would give to those who beheld it.
A soft hiss warned of rising steam. The friends’ grins widened, for they’d had experience enough with steam and spray and winter chill to know how quickly ice crystals formed. Their handiwork would be nicely encrusted and would last for many days.
Just as they were turning to leave, a patch of snow fell from the lower part of the hillock. As Bejarki leaned forward to pat it back into place, a stone eyelid flew opened. A dark eye, big as a barrel’s lid, glinted in the moonlight as its focus shifted toward the slack-jawed fishermen.
The monstrous eye narrowed, and the snowy tail rose from the ground and swept back like a cocked fist. Azkur and Bejarki shrieked as they turned their own tails and half ran, half rolled down the hill to the village.
Behind them, the snow and stone appeared as it always had, though glistening now from mist falled from the geyser. A dark-eyed girl rose from behind a nearby thicket, The Book of Vishni’s Exile tucked under one arm. The young man with her leaned against a tree and folded his arms.
“Nice illusion. But if you keep tormenting these two fools, sooner or later they’ll either go mad or figure out there’s a fairy at work.”
“Not when there’s a simpler explanation.” Vishni stooped to pick up an empty jug. “Come morning, they’ll blame the mead. And when do you suppose they’ll give that up? Sooner, or later?”
******
For more Askur and Bejarki tales, see Winter Wolves and Fairy Paths.
Sevrinspire, the port city of Heartstone, Sevrin’s central and l
argest island, is a haven for artists who work in stone. Over the past ten years, dozens of commissioned statues have taken up residence near public buildings, along busy streets, and beside the harbors. All are carved from blocks of dull grey stone, provided by the adept Rhendish, who also pays the sculptors and provides the pedestals on which the statues stand.
One of Rhendish’s most closely guarded secrets is the nature of this stone, and the purpose of the clockwork hidden in the pedestals. The stone is a strong, selectively porous mineral that becomes highly magnetized when it absorbs a certain oily substance, one of Rhendish’s alchemical creations. Inside the pedestals are clockwork pumps that will force this oil up into the stone. This enables Rhendish to turn these statues to powerful lodestone guardians, capable of bringing clockwork devices to an abrupt standstill. It’s a secret line of defense, protecting Heartstone against possible attack by his fellow Adepts’ clockwork warriors and war machines.
This also explains why Adepts avoid protective armor and wear loose, simple garments without metals trim. This was not always the case. The Adepts led a successful war against the sorcerer Eldreath, and for years they wore clothing that mimicked ceremonial armor. Rhendish was wearing just such a garment when he discovered, quite by accident, the substance he later named Lodestone Oil.
One of the tables in his workroom was topped by a slab of stone mined on Skyorn, of the the small islands on the northeastern side of the Sevrin archipelego. While he was working at this table, a vial tipped over. As Rhendish moved to wipe up the spill, it seemed to him that an invisble hand reached out of the stone, seized him, and slammed him face-down onto the table. When he recovered consciousness, he found himself securely pinned to the table by his decorative breastplate and bracers. Wriggling free of these garments cost him an entire night’s sleep and more than a little skin. The only garment Rhendish that could comfortably wear over his scrapes and scratches was a loose saphire tunic. This new “fashion” immediately caught on and very quickly became the Adapts’ standard wear. To this day, Rhendish seldom dons his Adept garb without remembering the origin of this “tradition” with a small, wry smile.
Nimbolk is an warrior of Mistheim, the elven settlement hidden deep within the mainland’s northern forests. Though he has never set foot on Sevrin, he is well acquainted with one of its current residents. He grew up with the elf who calls herself Honor. Throughout their youth they were friendly rivals who competed at arms, feats of skill, and nearly everything else. But the thing Nimbolk most desired, the role of queen’s champion, went to Honor.
Honor was raised to be a warrior. Her twin-born sister, Asteria, was destined to be queen and had a very different training. Though the sisters did not spend as much time together as they might have liked, theirs was a close and powerful bond. When Honor disappeared from the forest, Asteria kept searching for her and refused to name a new champion. Nimbolk acted as Asteria’s unofficial champion. His hope of gaining that title were shattered last midwinter, when Asteria received a message from Honor urging her to call a tribunal in the Starsingers Grove and bring the Thorn, a ceremonial dagger capable of unveiling an elven traitor.
Nimbolk was numbered among the elves who gathered in the Starsingers Grove. According to the adept Rhendish, Honor was the only elf who survived when the gathering was attacked by a band of rogue Gatherers. If Rhendish is mistaken (or if he lied), Honor’s old friend could be her most implacable foe.
I spent a good chunk of the day proofing, formatting, and uploading a new version of Honor Among Thieves, the first book in the Starsingers trilogy, to all the usual e-bookstores.
Why?
Every writing book advises you to start en media res–in the middle of things. The trick is deciding how much should happen before the story moves onstage. I usually start too early and often end up tossing the first chapter or two. This particular story, however, started a little later than it should. I wanted to see the caper that went wrong and resulted in Delgar’s capture. And as it turned out, the new chapter sets out the characters’ motivations and the stakes involved, right up front. And since most of the chapter is written through Vishni’s point of view, it’s lots of fun. I think it’s a big improvement, one that warrants a ”second printing” reboot. It should be available at the various e-bookstores by Thanksgiving weekend.
If you’ve already purchased the story, I’m pretty sure you can download the new version for free. If you’d just like to read the new chapter, follow this link.
If you haven’t read Honor Among Thieves yet, this chapter is a good place to start. The second story, Honor Bound, will be uploaded next week and should be available by the following weekend.
In Sevrin’s folklore, moonbeams and sunbeams provide pathways for the fey, who travel quickly and invisibly along the beams of light. The young, the highly credulous, and the intoxicated have been known to take to the woods with fairy sieves–wooden hoops that resemble hand drums, but with fine mesh rather than solid hide–in hope of capturing a traveling fey in mid-slide.
The pixie folk find it both amusing and insulting that humans believe they can be trapped in this fashion, and they are not above messing with those who attempt it.
Askur and Bejarki, two fishermen who recently ran afoul of the Winter Wolves, found themselves in need of gifts to sooth over a certain misunderstanding with their wives and sweethearts. They discussed their problem over a supper of soup and berry tarts at their favorite tavern, and they stayed to share a pitcher or two (or possibly three) while they listened to the tales of a certain dark-eyed storyspinner. One of these tales convinced Askur that a caged pixie would be just the thing to restore him to good odor with his mistress. And what better time to hunt? A full moon had passed its zenith and would soon send long rays slanting through the pine forest on the village edge.
The friends fitted some herring net to the rim of an old drum and took to the forest. Promising moonbeams abounded, and they soon had the trap strung up so that streams of moonlight passed through the net. They settled down in a nearby thicket to watch and wait.
No more than a minute or two passed before something hit the trap with a sharp thwap. To the fishermen’s horror, the fey traveler passed through the net and splashed into the snow in a tangle of crimson wreckage.
As they stared, a tiny, winged skeleton rose from the snow and darted toward their hiding place. A chorus of tiny voices filled the clearing, shrieking the fishermen’s names and promising vengeance. The men leaped up and fled the forest as fast as their shaking, ale-soaked legs could carry them.
Behind them, a dark-eyed winged girl fluttered down from a pine tree, followed by a small flock of snickering pixies. The illusion surrounding the skeletal pixie faded away, and she joined her friends in their moonlit feast–a berry tart, sliced into pixie-sized bits by its encounter with a herring net.
Wolves were last seen on the islands of Sevrin at least two centuries past, but stories persist of a pair of white wolves sighted during the first winter snow. Legend claims that any wish overheard by these Winter Wolves might be granted, but it’s more likely to be turned upside down. As a result, people throughout Sevrin have a deeply ingrained superstition against making a wish, even one made in jest, during the first snowfall.
Even so, the first snowfall brings hunters out in great numbers and festive spirits. No one actually expects to find the Winter Wolves, but the hunt is a fine excuse for spending a few hours in good company, either tramping the woods or sharing a flask and a few tales in one of the hunting huts built on high wooden platforms or into ancient trees.
One year Askur and Bejarki, two fishermen known for their mischievous ways, left off mending nets at the first sign of snow and took to the forest with a jug of spiced mead. They found a hunter’s hut in an old fir tree and settled in. As the hour grew late and the jug grew light, a very tipsy Askur raised his cup and said, “To our wives and sweethearts!”
“May they never meet,” Bejarki said with a grin.
A sharp woof! came from the forest floor, a sound that, though canine in nature, sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter. In the clearing below sat two snow-white wolves, tongues lolling from what could only be called wolfish grins.
The fishermen exchanged a look of sheer panic. More worried about wishes than wolves, they scrambled down the ladder and raced back to their village.
Behind them, the illusion of fur and fangs melted away to reveal a slim, winged girl with short brown curls and laughing dark eyes. She settled down on a fallen log and opened a leather volume that proclaimed itself The Book of Vishni’s Exile. She wrote Winter Wolves at the top of the page and began to record the unfinished tale.
The ending would have to wait until tomorrow. First, she had some introductions to make.
