Here is something I think people might enjoy. If a character is linked to a place, even by implication, it is needful to know extensive details about the aforesaid place to get a greater understanding of the character. Now did Merlin have a hand in the construction of Stonehenge? He was an enchanter by repute. Just how long did he live and was he human or not? Legends begin with some element of truth.
Oh, and the picture is my personal property taken on a visit over the pond. As I said, I believe in extensive research.
Fiction writing is making things up that aren’t true. This is another way of saying writing lies, but there are two sorts of lies, the simple lie and the compound lie.
Simple lies are those to be desired as they stick very close to truth wherever possible. One way to see this is in the world creation of the book. It can happen in a real place or a fantasy world but the important thing here is that wherever is chosen must seem real. In order for this to happen there are rules to follow. Simplistically, an orchid would not grow in a barren ice desert. Cheating by calling a bunny a floodle or a moopsie is still not going to change the fact that it is a bunny and will be constrained within the confines of bunny actions if it is to suspend the reader’s ability to disbelieve; really what all this is about.
Character are more complex, as they should be if they are to come to life in a sense. A character must have motivations and for those to form, he/she has to have a past filled with things that form the motivations and promote the actions resulting from them. A lot of research can go into the creation of a character, FREX, my futuristic King Arthur in the Shadow series has over 500k notes in files of things that are useful or critical to know. A lot of this goes back to the original Welsh poems and songs. It is interesting to note a lot of the accepted history of the king was invented by one Geoffrey of Monmouth, a misogamist monk who disapproved of any instances of women recorded as having any power. They had to be evil so he made up the entire incest story to discredit Morgan Le Fay. A person has to wonder how a celibate monk got those sorts of ideas, but there you go, the lie is told and retold. Of course, only a fraction of the research goes into the book so what is the purpose, you may ask? The writer has to know how the character ticks and which way they will jump. Does the person like beef or lamb and if so, why? It is not just looking out of their eyes, it is knowing everything.
Now we get to the compound lie and it is here books can founder. This lie starts off simple but then gets additions not attaching securely to the first because the original intention wasn’t clearly envisaged or has been forgotten. This is where the term plot hole originates. Someone has just done something or had something happen that should not have come to pass because this makes nonsense of what has gone before.
Example? How about the easy fantasy trope of a farmer’s boy needing to leave his farm to explore the world as he feels confined by his simplistic circumstances? Some threat is fine at this point and it is still a simple lie. Many chapters later this same character has lost the farm he owned valiantly defending it against a marauding dragon whose existence was never mentioned in the first part of the story. The character doesn’t seem to believe he is inventing things and nor do those around him, with him on his journey from the beginning. Here is an enormous plot hole. The story is going to fail at this point. Obviously, some plot holes are more subtle, but they are still the result of the compound lie, which always fails.
A good story should have the ability to make the reader both laugh and cry.
This is raw and has not been edited. I will fix it in the fullness of time.
***
A deer steak tasted different when cooked from frozen. For a start, the center was rare, while the outside was a tad overcooked. The really strange part was no vegetables, nothing, not even canned corn. Morgan guessed the guy lived off the wilderness and yet a pure meat diet wasn’t healthy. A good job she wasn’t a vegetarian or she would have been dead out of luck.
“Thank you for the food, but what should I call you? I’m Morgan.” She offered him her hand, which he ignored like she had tried to pass him a live snake. Did he hate women?
He looked up at her with winter in his eyes. “Rowan. My mother named us for nature.” Those eyes dared her to make a snide remark.
“It suits you. There is something inflexible and yet wild about a tree name.”
“So Morgan le Fay, I can’t see you as a wicked Arthurian enchantress somehow. Parents have a lot to answer for when naming offspring.” A slight smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
Morgan sighed. “It could’ve been worse. Her second and third choices were Mahitibelle after early pioneer names and Amaryllis, her favorite flower.”
His shoulders started to shake a bit until he got them under as much control as he had his twitching lips. “Morgan isn’t so bad.”
Now he was talking to her, finally talking and not just about her condition. Morgan had a pressing concern. “I’m deeply grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but now I am awake, I wonder if there is a bathroom I can visit when needed?”
Rowan got up from his place by the fire to place his hands on her elevated leg. He closed his eyes, concentrating. “Yes, you can come off traction now. I’ll fix up a crutch, although it won’t help you with the bathroom, which is outside. The snow is far too deep for someone unsteady on their feet and I think you would be too weak in any case. I can carry you there and back.”
Reality slithered sideways. No-one should be able to assess a break without an x-ray machine. “How can you know for certain the bone is set?”
“I have this talent.” The winter returned to his eyes. “Now about clothes. Are you happy with a pair of my boxers and track pants? I salvaged everything you had on above the waist, aside from the sleeve of your jacket, but the rest…the fire and blood took care of them.”
Blood? A compound fracture? There was nothing to show for it on the smooth skin of her leg. He couldn’t mean her cycle as she had accepted the need for a contraceptive implant when she went into the protection program. Male bodyguards buying feminine products would have been a dead giveaway. Something was out of kilter, here. “Again, thanks. That would be very kind of you.”
Bathroom visits became a nightmare with the nasty little hut a distance from the cabin and no more than a primitive earth closet at that. What proved a bigger hardship was not having a daily shower. While Rowan cheerfully obliged by boiling water for her to wash with a bowl, there was no way she could manage the tin tub. Even stranger, he didn’t use the tub, but he never gave off the odor of unclean. Yes, he washed their clothes to hang dry in a corner of the shack, but not himself. No adult man could go long without cleaning himself if he didn’t wish to stink. Rowan did neither. Morgan began to wonder if he washed outside and yet she had never seen him take out any hot water.
Their routine shattered some weeks later when Rowan barreled into the shack near dusk, back early from a hunting trip. His face looked like thunder, but he schooled it into a ‘be nice’ expression before he approached her. “There are men sniffing around your burnt-out car. They know there’s no corpse and are coming back in the morning with dogs. These guys are not cops. You need to level with me.”
This was the end. Morgan couldn’t run. She had no transport and how far would she get hobbling into the forest? The dull pain of hopelessness coursed through her again. “They’re here to kill me. If you have somewhere to hide out, then go to it until they’re done. I want no more blood on my head.”
Rowan sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand. “What is mine stays mine unless I say otherwise.” His eyes narrowed. “Why do they want you dead?”
What did it matter now? What did anything matter? “I saw a guy kill some people and I told the cops. That is when he had his friends murdered my family. I went into the witness protection program and he got convicted, but that wasn’t the end of it. He has people making me out to be a psycho. There are sworn testimonies from people I never met, claiming I’m a space cadet. If I don’t appear in his appeal, he will win. This is why there is a contract out on me and why you must let this happen. I have had four identities and three bodyguards blown away. I can’t live with a trail of death in my wake anymore.”
“Not acceptable.” Frost sparkled in Rowan’s eyes. “We will leave here now.”
“Get real. The dogs will track us.”
“Track you, maybe, if I were not going to carry you. Tracking me might prove more problematic.” He smiled, slow and wicked. “Finding me will be their last mistake.”
Rowan moved quickly, getting together clothes and a few essentials, which he stuffed into a backpack. He swaddled Morgan in furs to carry her in a fireman’s lift with the pack slung over his other shoulder, and then he set off into the night.
All the alarms went off in the moment he started his trek. She weighed about one hundred and fifteen pounds and yet he carried her as if she were a feather. His pace was a steady run, impossible for a normal man, and yet easy for him. Morgan didn’t fight. This was his choice, whatever he was, but she began to doubt if he were human as the hours wore on and still his pace didn’t alter, nor did he sweat, not that she could smell.
They stopped at dawn when they reached a cave next to a waterfall at the side of a hill. Morgan roused out of a doze to her new surroundings. The place gave shelter from the wind and fresh water, if little else. No normal person could hope to survive here in the depths of winter, so what was his plan?
“Rowan, it’s your turn to level with me.” She looked him in the eyes, but he wouldn’t hold her gaze.
“Leave it be. There are things better left unspoken.”
“This place will not support us.”
“Yes, it will. I’ll get a fire going, and then I must backtrack to take care of certain difficulties.”
“Those guys carry major firepower. I haven’t seen you with a gun before and nor did you pack one. You can’t take them on.”
He grinned, flashing his teeth. “I don’t share nicely.”
Once the fire was set he headed out, leaving her with a bunch of unanswered questions. She had deadfall to keep the blaze going and before he left, Rowan made a new crutch for her out of a tree branch with lashings holding together a bit that was wrapped in fur to support her weight. Alone now with her thoughts, she went over everything that had happened to her since she woke up after the accident. No normal man could have run that distance with her weight on his back. Even the iron man competitions weren’t so long or so harsh. No normal man could have fixed her leg the way he had. No normal man would hide in the woods with his looks. What, in the name of hell, was he?
Night clawed down into morning. Morgan kept the fire burning for warmth and to keep away predators. When the silvery lights of dawn streaked through the sky she heard yelps and snarls. Whatever was coming, she would meet it head on. The crutch worked well to get her out of the cave and then she saw a pile of clothes. Rowan’s clothes just left in a heap, right down to the underwear.
Men’s screams now sliced through the air until came silence. She didn’t wait long after. A large wolf ran into view, skidding to a halt in a cloud of snow when it saw her. It sat on its haunches, waiting her out. Morgan wasn’t backing down. She sat down awkwardly by the clothes.
The wolf tried growling and howling to make her move, but still she sat firm. The answer came in a shimmer of light, the impossible answer of the wolf dissolving into naked Rowan.
“You are not meant to see this,” he said, unembarrassed and not bothering to cover his private parts.
Not what she expected, thinking perhaps he was the product of some genetic experiment, one of the perfect soldier programs. Never had she considered something out of myths and legends. Her world tipped sideways. Whatever happened now was beyond her imagination. “But I have. If this means I need to die, do it quickly. I’m so tired of running.”
“The others will never let up until you are dead. This much I have learned. ”
She shivered, not just from the cold. “And you? Now I know what you are?”
Rider, this is not edited. I will go through the thing at the end of the month and fix errs then. It is as it is and if there are errs, I am not really bothered right now.
Driving through the fierce blizzard, Morgan struggled to keep her eyes open. Her hands ached from the biting cold, but she dared not turn up the heating again and risk dozing off behind the wheel. Somehow, she must find strength to have any chance at sneaking over the border into Canada on this dirt track of a back road. They would never find her there. They could never hurt anyone close to her again, for there would be no one. Images of blood and brains splattered across her retinas in endless replay.
No more deaths on her account, she wouldn’t, couldn’t handle any more pain and loss. Two new identities complete with birth certificates and passports lay safe in her purse for her next attempt at a new life. Who would she be next?
Testify against the murderer, join the witness protection program until he was convicted, and you will be safe, they said. Three bodyguards killed in a bloodbath protecting her were three too many. Those men had families; wives, children, parents. She didn’t have a soul; not anymore, thanks to the man she was supposed to help convict. Her parents went together when the assassin called at their home. The cops thought he was pretending to sell door to door and since her folk’s home was the first stop it wouldn’t have looked out of place, except he had a gun especially for them. Her granny hadn’t escaped, either; finding the bodies on her return from her hair appointment stopped her heart.
Someone had sold her new personae out twice already, hence the death of the guards, but one of the fake identities she had left was Canadian. She’d go to a small town, get a job, any job not computer related, for they would be watching for such, and disappear. Maybe she could retrain…a huge dark shape appeared in the beam from her headlights, blocking the narrow road. Morgan swerved; the road vanished in a tumbling, screeching roll. Pain, dark, and . . . nothing.
***
Sound came back first, followed by pain cresting. She whimpered, her strength gone, along with her courage.
“Stay still. You’ve been hurt, but you’re safe, now.” The voice was deep and rich, if distant.
Daylight hurt her eyes. The room swirled as black and silver motes danced in her line of sight. A man-shape gradually resolved into a person with overlong black hair, not wearing the white or blue scrubs of a hospital attendant. She must be dead, for he had the face of a fallen angel. This man wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans. The walls of a log cabin formed a backdrop. A good choice of hell for one who lived on the internet; trapped in pain with a hunk for a nurse and not a flicker of desire on her part. Was that what happened in purgatory?
She attempted to speak, emitting a dry croak. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and her lips hurt.
Responding, he slid a muscular arm under her shoulders to help her sip water from a cracked cup, patient until she had drunk her fill. This was real, not afterlife. In the back of Morgan’s mind, a little voice screamed at her not to eat and drink anything. She was hurt and by the grinding pain in her leg, she was going to need surgery. Morgan tried to push him away, only then becoming aware of the burn on her arm, a raw, red patch of angry outrage against her skin.
“The ambulance…when is it coming?”
“It’s not. We are cut off from the outside world until the melt comes in spring.” His black eyes sparkled with little flecks of amber while his mouth formed a tight, hard line as if he wished her gone. Behind him, a glow from a wood stove gave off the warmth he lacked.
“Did you call for help?” The pain built into waves of agony. A sweat broke out on her face and neck, and yet she shivered. She couldn’t bear this pain. A scream began to build.
“No phone.”
“In my jacket, I have a cell phone.”
He gently eased her down onto the bed. The room swirled again. A hard object was pressed into her hand. Morgan waited out the dizziness until she could focus. She flipped up the lid, to a blank screen. It just needed turning on; that was it? Nothing happened. The battery was dead.
“There is a charger in my purse. My cell needs juice.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry, just annoyed. “No electricity and I couldn’t save your purse. By the time I got you free everything else had gone up in flames.”
Her car, her identities, and all her clothes gone? The pain escalated and this time she couldn’t hold in a groan. “I need a doctor.”
He reached back for a metal mug. “Here’s something for the pain. It will send you to sleep.” Once more he helped her to drink; holding her up until the sharp tasting fluid was all gone.
“My leg . . .”
“I set it.” He closed his eyes as if he were enduring an exercise in extreme patience. “If it were possible to get you out of here, I would’ve already done so. You wouldn’t survive being dragged through the snow on a sled.”
A warm feeling flowed through Morgan. Her eyes wouldn’t stay open, and the pain receded into a dull ache, vanishing as sleep claimed her.
***
Sometimes a calm, deep voice would soothe her while she drifted in a world of dark and warmth. There were drinks of things that made her sleep again, but also those that stilled her hunger and thirst. Time hung, suspended until the day Morgan woke to find her leg up in the air, strapped in what looked like the remnants of a chair back, in traction with a large rock attached to the whole. She was also naked under a down quilt and lying on a mess of towels, something that brought an instant blush to her face. He’d put an incontinence pad under her and from the lack of stink, also washed her down very efficiently. So much for her shreds of modesty.
This one-room log cabin with a wood burner against one wall had a pile of pelts rested on the floor next to it, presumably where he had slept as she had the only bed. A table and one chair were against another wall. Herbs hung suspended from the ceiling rafters. An old tin bath was pushed into a corner, partially concealed by a modern bamboo screen. Aside from a few cups and plates on a dresser and a clothes chest, this was the most primitive dwelling she had ever seen. More like an old prairie house from a working museum. No curtains adorned the two windows. There wasn’t even a water faucet. Just then the door banged open, and a figure swathed in furs entered, carrying firewood, which he dumped by the wood burner before he threw off his winter gear.
He must have made a habit of working out, since his shoulders and arms stretched his sweatshirt, complimenting his slim hips and long legs. While his hair was overlong, his face looked freshly shaven. He was also drop-dead gorgeous, but not in a pretty way. This man was all male to the roots of his hair. He turned, as if aware of her scrutiny.
“How do you feel? Would you like more pain juice?”
Did she? No, it was a dull ache now. “I think I’m good for the moment.”
“In that case, I will get some food happening. You have lost a lot of weight.” He didn’t wait for comment; he just shucked on the furs to brave the weather once more.
Damn him, he was right. Her arms were like twigs. Every ounce of body fat had gone. Stars, she must look a fright. Her more immediate concern was how to get out of this place. He said all her stuff went up in flames. Was this true? She then wondered why a guy looking like he did would elect to camp out in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere with only the oil light fixtures. This place was a nightmare. What had he done that he needed such isolation? Was he on the run, and if so, for what?
Shadow Over Avalon
Beyond the mists of time, a dying warrior binds his soul to his sword with an oath to protect his people. His shade rides with the Wild Hunt while he waits for the call of greatest need, but when it comes, he doesn’t know it is a lie.
In the undersea city of Avalon, Arthur nears the end of his acolyte training. But he doesn’t want to spend his life serving the Archive, he wants to fight side by side with the air-breathing people to defeat the predators who are determined to ensure their own survival no matter the cost.
Ashira, War Maid princess of the surface-world, is ready to sacrifice her life to defend her kin, but when she is betrayed she must choose whether to die with honor or become one of the creatures her kinsmen fear and loathe.
Fortune twists in the strongest hands. This is no repeat; this is what happens next.
Following two threads of time, CN Lesley’s fresh take on the Arthurian tales of old delivers the perfect blend of science fiction and fantasy.
***
A small snippet of Shadow Over Avalon not available in the free extract on Amazon.
A vast cavern dripped with water that fell from fingers of calcified rock to land on matching ground structures. Plunk … plunk … endless tears. An old, young man dressed in a black robe sat across a fire from Arthur, watching, listening. Frost-white hair framed an unlined face, matte-black eyes windowed a soul as old as eternity.
“How much time passes between one pearl of moisture falling and another?” the man asked.
“Six heartbeats.” Where is this place?
“In time, the point of origin will meet the point of impact, and still drips will fall. Will the heart stop?”
“All hearts stop.” Arthur brushed an insect from his hand, noticing blond hair on the back of a swordsman’s callused hands, not young hands.
“Does life stop at the cease of a single beat?”
“Ask that question of the Great Mother.” Arthur frowned; impatient at stupid riddles, wondering why he had said such a nonsensical thing, not knowing of any called the Great Mother.
“Who are you now, Arthur? Much time has passed. How many heartbeats? Are you ready?”
“I’m dreaming. Why are these dreams disturbing my life? I need to serve my people.”
“That’s good, Arthur. The first lesson I taught you, that a leader is a servant to his people. When every lesson is remembered you will be ready.”
“Who are you? I’ve seen you before in my dreams.” His skin prickled with the power emanating from this individual.
“That will come to you at the appointed time. Sleep, child. We can visit again when you’re rested.”
Fortune twists in the strongest hands. This is no repeat; this is what happens next.
A man, once a legend who bound his soul to his sword as he lay dying, is now all but a boy nearing the end of his acolyte training. Stifled by life in the undersea city of Avalon, Arthur wants to fight side by side with the air-breathing Terrans, not spend his life as servant to the incorporeal sentient known as the Archive. Despite the restrictions put on him by Sanctuary, he is determined to help the surface-dwellers defeat predators whose sole purpose is to ensure their own survival, no matter the cost.
Ashira, War Maid and princess of the surface-world, is ready to sacrifice her life to defend her kin, but when she is betrayed and cast out of the life chosen for her, she must choose whether to die with honor or become one of the creatures her kinsmen fear and loathe.
Following two threads of time, C.N. Lesley’s new incarnation of the Arthurian tales of old delivers the perfect blend of science fiction and fantasy.
Book Review
Reviewed by Chris Fischer for Readers’ Favorite
Wow! I just finished reading Sword of Shadows, the newest book by author C.N. Lesley, and I can truly say that I was simply astounded by this work. As a lover of all things Arthurian, I was excited to read this story. Excited and a little apprehensive, as I’ve read so many other things that have pretty much crucified all I hold dear about stories of Arthur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. And it is kind of an audacious notion to combine the medieval stories of Arthur with such a fantastic world. But C.N. Lesley is able to do it, and so well at that.
Sword of Shadows follows our hero, Arthur, and his brother Kai, as they are thrust into life on the Surface World. No longer warriors, and living as exiles, they soon encounter Merlin, the legendary and untrustworthy magician, and learn that Arthur must find the sword in order to save both the surface, Avalon, and everything that Arthur holds dear.
Sword of Shadows is actually the second in a series of books by author C.N. Lesley. I hadn’t read the first, Shadow Over Avalon, but I had absolutely no problem following this storyline. I would highly recommend this book to any lover of science fiction or fantasy, and to any reader who would love to see a new take on an Arthurian tale. I am excited now to go back and read the first book in this series, and certainly hope that C.N. Lesley is already working on Book Three!
Check out Grimbold books for a whole lot more wonderfull books for #99c on the Amazons just for the weekend starting now until the 4th inclusive. Don’t miss out. hyperurl.co/GrimboldBooks
Forever and a Day is free on Amazon for June 12th and 13th only.
A last testament, or a lasting testament? What is the secret of Eleanor’s diary? Did Eleanor die in the throws of delusions, or did she find a gateway to the Hollow Hills of the Fair Folk. Jason Silver thinks he knows, for there was no body.
I am getting asked when the next book is coming out quite a bit now. ‘Serpent of the Shangrove’, book 2 in the Darkspires series will be live sometime in the fall of this year. In the meantime, here is something and with it comes a disclaimer. This is the first chapter and it has not been through my editor yet so may well be subject to change. Like Darkspire Reaches, this is a dark fantasy with romance. Enjoy the pictures. They are all mine. I live very close to the Rocky Mountains.
And to start off, here is a pretty trailer.
“Who let the half-breed in?” the cultured voice of a young female cut through the chatter. Her cruel words echoed to the ceiling in the vast mountain chamber.
Conversation trailed to an end. Faces at the long trencher table turned in one direction. All looked at Copper, his fork hanging, halfway to his mouth, frozen by those words. The celebration ended for him. Here he was at a feast for a hand-fasting, an invited guest and yet an outsider in this now festive main cavern. His friend, Strallen, newly joined to a lovely Drakken girl, sat red-faced with temper and yet said nothing.
Copper was grateful his parents were both absent, for this insult touched them closely. He didn’t think his mother would have let the moment pass, but he must for Strallen’s sake. He brought the lump of now cold meat to his mouth and chewed as if nothing had happened.
All the eyes switched to Rosella, an exquisite girl with long blonde curls sitting next to Lorien, the hand-fasted girl. Once, she had been his playmate before they had both matured.
She giggled, waving her hand in an artful little gesture. “Well, he is a half-breed. Why is he invited to such an occasion? It is not as if any of us would consider him for a mate.” She pulled her arm from Lorien’s sudden grip. “No, I will have my say. Copper is a nobody without pure blood. He has done nothing and he will never amount to anything.”
Strallen half-stood as he leaned over his new mate. “What do you suggest a person can do to change his standing in a world where we have no threats? How a person conducts themselves in company is more important than how pure their blood is. I am sure we will all remember this when you cast about for a mate, Rosilla.”
The girl’s rosy blush of temper paled to milk white. She pushed away from the table, marching towards the passage to the outside with a couple of her cronies in tow. Fitful conversation started amid nervous laughter. Eyes turned to Copper again.
He stood, bowing towards Lorien and Strallen with the intention of getting some fresh air himself. Two of the older Drakken males moved to block his path. The denial hurt more than the insult. How could they think he would go after that wretched girl? They did, so he turned to take a tunnel deeper into the heart of the aerie. His star sense kicked in, giving him private thoughts of the gathering and taking him off-guard. All the girls and most of them men felt the same. They didn’t mind his company as long as there was no chance of him joining their family. He decided right then that wherever he went was better than here.
A whir of wings, followed by a heavy thud on his shoulder pad announced the arrival of Kryling, the little firedrake. Trust that one to be lurking in the rafters. Now he couldn’t keep the ill-tidings from his parents. As fond as he was of Kryling, there was no denying the drake was a snitch.
“This is going to hurt mother. Can you at least keep it from her?”
Angry thoughts slammed into his mind. Kryling was in a fine fury and had every intention of telling Raven precisely who said what. The drake considered it would come best from him and not someone mean-spirited. Tendrils of sympathy began to seep from Kryling, along with a tail wrapped gently around Copper’s neck.
“Don’t worry about the girl. I wasn’t that interested in her,” Connor said, not a lie anymore as he found the thought of her made his guts churn in a sickly way. No, if he found a mate, it would be someone who cared for him as a person, not how pure his blood was.
Kryling sent pictures of hunting with an image of Copper in his wyvern form bringing back three bucks for the table and the girls crowding around.
Turning right at a junction, Coper headed for a lower exit, hoping he wouldn’t meet another Drakken on the way. “No, not everything revolves around who is the best hunter when it comes to getting mates.”
The drake puffed a smug smoke ring and countered with an image of his harem. Strangely, his mates seemed to glare in an angry fashion in this mind picture.
“Having a problem keeping peace amongst all those females?” Copper knew the little drake was trying to cheer him up, but this harem discord hadn’t been part of the plan.
Kryling snapped his wings shut and hissed.
Copper felt more like roaring and for that, he needed room to change to his other form. The back entrance offered a launch from a cliff side and at the same time triggered a faint memory of his first home on another world. He changed in free fall over an azure sea, exhilarated by the smooth shift in bones, muscles and tendons into something huge and very different. He cupped his wings and then a small thud hit him between his shoulder blades. Kryling was along for the ride wherever they were headed, a place far away from any Drakkens.
***
Thick blue mists rose off the shracken swamps as the first rosy light of dawn hit the water. Daybreak came welcome after a sleepless night outside, but he hadn’t wanted to be near others. Droplets of dew settled on the leather of his hide. He didn’t care as long as he was alone, and he aimed to keep it like that.
Launching from the ground, he flew high, working hard with his wings against the heavy air until he burst through the clouds. Far, far in the east, near a distant mountain range, a ring of light flamed and shimmered in the heavens, catching his interest. The middle of the ring showed up a stark black against the red of the dawn sky, like someone had burned a circle in the fabric and the night peeked through.
The sun was well risen by the time Copper settled on a high plateau after a long flight that had dried his wings of all moisture. Was this was the forbidden thing he was not to seek out if he ever saw it? None of the others of his contemporaries had seen the gate, if that is what it was, or he would have heard about it. What if he did something the others hadn’t? Would that make him acceptable as a Drakken? Now he missed Kryling as the little Drake had flown free soon after the outlands of the aerie passed underneath. Kryling knew what the gate looked like for sure, having flown through it as an adult.
While he would need his current form if he decided to go through the gate, he didn’t want the draconian tendencies to influence his judgment. Aside from that, his man-shape would be a lot harder to spot if the aerie noticed he had gone and sent out searchers. He drove the magic inward, and a second later a red mist enveloped his melting body. Bones changed; wings became absorbed; clothes regurgitated. A man wearing flying black leather gear now stood in place of the wyvern. A shudder of compression shook through him at the reduction in size, but then he threw it off to enjoy the sensations of a very different form.
Copper settled down amid the harsh tundra with his back against a sun-warmed rock, wondering why his sire and dam preferred this shape. He liked to fly, although he always reverted when he returned to the aerie, knowing his dam became irritated if he wore his wyvern shape in her cavern. She would be more than irritated with him if he followed through on this plan.
Long ago, in another world, he had a crèche mate. They shared the same hatching and then she was gone. Neither of his parents or any of the others from that time before would speak of what happened except to say the girl kit was dead. A part of him knew this for a lie. His star sense told him all believed they spoke the truth as they knew it, but underneath, in their secret thoughts, they believed she might have survived a little while in a hostile place.
Fourteen years of waiting for the star gate to return dimmed the memories of what happened until now. Anger surged through him again. Fourteen years was young for a man, but not for a Drakken. They called him a half-breed, and yet that was not quite true. His mother, Raven, was the half-breed, if not entirely, for she had magic of her own as well as that of the Drakkens. Her beast form, like his own, was massive. Fortunately, he had taken after his tall sire for his man shape, rather than Raven’s tiny frame.
A faint flash of silver caught his eye. He was too late to dive under a scrubby bush for cover. Kryling, zoomed into his position, chittering and grabbing at his tunic to pull him back in the direction of the aerie. Images of his mother blossomed in his mind from the drake. Kryling was doing his best to make Copper feel guilty enough to comply with wishes of family.
He almost started the change when he noticed something. The little drake wasn’t acting like he had just flown such a great distance, not looking the least tired. None of the other wyverns had appeared and they would have shown up by now if Kryling had caught a ride on one of their backs. The drake wasn’t here for him. Once again his star sense aided him. Kryling was running away from his squabbling mates and wanted the backing of a Drakken shoulder from which to state his case if they caught him. This was why he left the aerie with Connor the night before. Not out of solidarity, but out of the need to evade an angry confrontation of several irate females. He smiled, amused and then returned to his thoughts.
Out here, in the back of beyond, there were not firedrake colonies to report Kryling’s whereabouts. The empty lands stretched for miles as forest and plains, punctuated with a river, meandering as it gained distance from the mountain springs. This was a world lonely of higher species, so no habitations marred the land. Strange to find an inhabitable planet without an intelligent species and yet the Drakkens had done just that when they arrived through the star gate in the first wave. Not so with the previous shift, where two intelligent species were already present. Copper wondered if the ancestors of the fair Angressi folk had been the ones to travel to a new world or it if had been the dark-haired First Born tribe. With a name like that, he rather placed his guess on the tribes. How natural to name oneself in such a way to claim original ownership of a land where another was there before. Also, he knew the tribes to be migratory while the Angressi folk were territorial. Given the tribes had magical talent; it would make more sense for them to be the incomers. Although this raised the question of how land born creatures would get through a sky portal. They must have some way of making the gate lower to the ground, which further ruled out the Angressi, who possessed no magic.
Without the Drakkens, what had happened to the lost kit? Would the Angressi or the First Born kill such a one, helpless though she was? What was her name? Jazzler? Her fate bothered him. If he went through the gate he risked being trapped for years. No Drakkens now inhabited the other world. All hands would be turned against him. On the other hand, he had a few days to find a trace of the lost kit before the portal shut again. Do nothing, or know for sure? Maybe if he proved himself by a deed of courage he could gain acceptance. Rosella was right. He had done nothing, but he could alter that. Copper let the change come with his decision. Right or wrong, there was nothing for him here.
cnlesley 