The Andrakis Trilogy
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The Andrakis trilogy was first published in 1992-3 by Pan Macmillan Australia as Guardians, Kingmaker, Dragon Lords. The series had moderate sales success, remaining in the top ten sales lists for several months after release. The cover artwork for the Pan Macmillan publications was created by Mike Worrall.
The tale follows the fortunes of two central characters:
The novels contain many traditional fantasy tropes - dragons, magical swords and artefacts, different magical races, elf-like Aelendyell, dwarf-like Dwarven and orc-like Haagii - and feature the ethical/moral codes of courage against adversity, loyalty and betrayal, and heroic sacrifice. Altair Australia released a Print-on-demand update of the trilogy in 2006, using the original manuscript titles for the three books - The Waking Dragon, Maker of Kings and Dragonlord War. The artwork for the Altair POD re-release was by Kirsi Salonen. To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary since the trilogy was originally published, a remastered publication of Guardians, Kingmaker and Dragonlords was undertaken by Millswood Books in 2024. The 2024 release covers were a combination of Kirsi Salonen's 2016 art embedded within digital images using Photoshop to blend the various sources into the final design. Print copies at $30 each plus postage can be ordered directly from me by emailing [email protected]. I will provide an invoice with details for payment and, upon payment, I will send you the books you order. Depending on the printer, the turnaround is usually 2-3 weeks. Currently, the three books are also available through Amazon Australia in ebook and print version via the following links: GUARDIANS KINGMAKER DRAGONLORDS |
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Original Pan Macmillan Covers 1992-3
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Altair Covers 2006
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Sample chapter
One
He waited, listening. Satisfied he had evaded his pursuers, he slipped between the pale green saplings and emerged at the far end of the glade. A shower of pebbles clattered through the leaves. Hands on hips, he stared with insolent grey eyes at a pack of younglings, shook his long silver braids arrogantly, grinned, and asked, ‘Looking for something?’
‘Man-spawn!’ the tallest youngling yelled. The pack started gathering stones. The same taunt, the same stupid accusation. Would they never leave him alone? He spat contemptuously and vanished between the trees before the younglings could launch their missiles.
Breaking out of the green foliage, he sprinted along the fringe of the village, racing past broad, grey elmoak trunks that soared from their gnarly roots into the dense forest canopy. In the village centre, where swaying ladder vines dangled from the entrances to living and sleeping quarters, he slowed to a jog. Giggling childlings played spell games between the great elmoak roots, and supervising adults chatted while they worked. He passed the Warming Stone and the Meeting Ground, and entered the Spell Grove, where the bending tips of giant trees formed a vaulting arched roof. Within the Grove, nine Chosen listened attentively to the Chanter, the Elder responsible for teaching Aelendyell lore to the Lore Bearers. They turned, as Terin entered, and the Chanter paused, his dark blue eyes patiently waiting for Terin to settle in his appointed place among the Chosen. ‘So, we know and speak of four Ki of power,’ the Chanter continued, ‘but only two are bestowed upon our people - one by our heritage, one through our learning.’
Terin’s interest was immediately aroused. If there are four sources of magic, and only two belong to the Aelendyell, what happened to the other two? Why did they only have access to two of the four Ki? he mused.
‘We draw the First Ki from the Genesis Stone,’ the Chanter explained. ‘At the Time of Making, our ancestors were fashioned from the earth and forest of the First Land by Wynowyth and Laeocon, Earth Mother and Sky Father, and in their souls were sealed the Land’s secrets and strengths. To these things were wedded the ancient power of the Genesis Stone which came to our people from the sky when the land was still forming. These are the essence of the First Ki, passed down through generations of the Alfyn Great Ones to the Elvenaar, and from them, in recent times, to our people, the Aelendyell. All things have, within, their own energy, their own latent magic. As descendants of the Alfyn, we have an innate link with the earth and the forests, a link that inspires the essence of pure magic in us - the First Ki - though what we can do with this source of magic is but a shadow of our Great Ancestors’ powers. The First Ki is the magic of Being and Shaping.’
Only a shadow? Terin wondered. Why only a shadow? Where had the old power gone? What happened to the Genesis Stone?
‘The Second Ki was formed by the great sorceresses of the Elvenaar who discovered links of power existing between Nature and the fragments of the Genesis Stone that survived the Time of the Great Dragon Burning. This is the magic of Linking and Recreating. More potent than the First Ki, it requires greater discipline and responsibility.’
‘And that’s the magic I want to learn,’ Terin whispered. ‘Powerful magic. Then they’ll respect me. Then they’ll leave me alone, once and for all.’
‘Shh,’ a Chosen Aelendyell hissed, and glared at him. Terin frowned.
‘From the writings and wisdom of the Elvenaar sorceresses, the Chosen in every generation are taught the Lore of Magic. When your lessons are complete, you will carry with you, and in you, the First and Second Ki - the strength and the knowledge of every Aelendyell who has passed before you, and of those who will come after you. You will carry great power, and with it even greater responsibility, for the Keepers of the Lore of Magic must be wise in thought and in deed.’ The Chanter’s resonating voice belied the frail, bent figure from whom it came, and Terin was fascinated by the ancient Aelendyell’s clever disguise of his deep well of power under a mask of age. He gazed absently into the Chanter’s dark blue eyes before he realized the Elder was staring directly at him, following the flight of his words to their mark, as if they were especially intended to target something in Terin. A message? Or a warning?
Lesson ended, Terin bolted from the grove, before anyone could talk to him. He skirted a pack of younglings huddled about a hollowed ash, moving with the stealth of a forest cat, a skill he necessarily mastered during his childling and youngling years to avoid trouble. Teasing and hatred, directed at him, made him develop abilities he might never have fostered had the Aelendyell community openly accepted him. They despised him because he was different. He was a bastard child, bred from the rape of an Aelendyell maiden, Solweonyn, who unwittingly went to the aid of a human warrior lost in the dark glens of Meerash. Taller than his peers, as tall as his human father might have been, his eyes were rounder, less almond-shaped than the eyes of a full-blooded Aelendyell. The avenging Aelendyell slew Terin’s human father as he staggered from the site of his brutality, and his Aelendyell mother died from a fever contracted during his birth. Village adults and Elders fostered the orphaned Terin through his childling years. He knew little of his origins, although he recognised, early, that he was different because his peers taunted him. At first, it was because he looked a little different. Then they taunted him because of his increasing height. Finally, somehow, the older ones learned why he was different, and deeply scarred him with their barbed insults. ‘Man-spawn,’ they whispered. ‘Half-made.’ He hated them for it, hated them all. When the taunting became unbearable, he lashed out. His size and strength made fighting easy, and he quickly punished individual tormentors, but they resorted to gang attacks to counter his physical superiority, and the adults always sided with the smaller younglings.
Recognising how to avoid confrontations, he rejected his foster adults’ attempts to appease him, and resorted to building a sleeping place beyond the village at the end of his youngling years, driven out by sneering contempt. He lived apart, and practised silent movement, speed, efficiency, and spells. Taunt as much as they might, his tormentors would never catch him. He could hate them with passion, loathe them, return taunt for taunt, appear and disappear in the forest at will, and always be one step ahead.
Female Aelendyell avoided him, warned by others that their status in the village would be ruined by a relationship with the half-made being, so he watched jealously as his peers partnered and crept into the forest to enjoy the pleasures of sexual exploration. Aelendyell custom forbad full sexual relationships until both partners were of age, and the pairing approved by the Elders, but there were no restrictions on sensual pleasure, at any age, so discrete liaisons were overlooked as long as the major taboo was heeded. For Terin, it was yet another form of deliberate torture devised by his tormentors to make him suffer for being a bastard. As he matured, he wanted to touch and be touched by a female, fascinated as he watched them bathe naked in the stream, but they shied away and ignored his advances, so his frustration took darker paths.
When the Elders ranked him among the Chosen to learn the Lore of Magic, his antagonists were more shocked than he was. Not only did his human body size and strength mark him as a potentially powerful Weapon Bearer, there was the matter of his impure blood. Lore Bearers were always the purest Aelendyell because they were entrusted with the duty of maintaining and passing on sacred lore. No one dared to protest his selection, because the Elders’ choice was final, but he knew, from his peers’ spiteful stares, that silent discontent brewed.
He relished the Elders’ choice. As much as he despised the contemptuous Aelendyell society, he wanted to acquire magic because magical skill was more highly respected than a warrior’s prowess. Lore Bearers rose ultimately to the highest rank of Elder, and it would give him the greatest pleasure to have authority over those who tormented and mocked him.
His selection was no accident. He meticulously learned every lesson Aelendyell childlings and younglings were expected to know. He revelled in exploring the intricacies and variations of simple spells that sprang naturally from his Aelendyell heritage. He mastered their power and experimented with embellishments, until none of his village peers could perform spells to match his flair and accuracy, or ease. He knew the Chanter couldn’t overlook his potential. The Elders couldn’t ignore it either. What they didn’t know, when they presented him with the amber ring of the Chosen, was that his prowess stemmed from two inner needs - a deep and driving fascination for magic, and a burning desire to heap calculated revenge upon his peers.
Beyond the village margin, Terin left the narrow pathway to the Meeting Stone, and travelled a hundred paces deeper into the forest, following his own path, artfully hidden in the treefern groves. At every turn, he paused to listen, in case others were following - a habit grown from his mistrust and hatred of the younglings. He knew his Chosen peers could find his sleeping place, if they really wanted to track him, but he knew their arrogant disinterest would keep them distant. Silly younglings were the real threat, and although they lacked the finer tracking skills of their Aelendyell race he made certain he was safe. At four points along his faint path, he moved and replaced camouflaged false trail endings, and listened.
He had fashioned his sleeping place from the heart boughs of an old ash-elm, a tree smaller than the lofty elmoaks of the Aelendyell village, but thicker foliaged, and much better suited to hiding. At its base, between roots that twisted and groped at lush grass, he listened a final time. Then he conspiratorially whispered, made an upward motion with his hands before his chest, and rose gently from the ground as his spell took effect. A moment later, he disappeared into the midst of the ancient tree, ten spans above. He cupped his hands before his face in the darkness and saw their heat as his eyes adjusted to nocturnal vision, a trait common to all Aelendyell. The sparse interior took form, in the darkness and shadow, before he spoke softly, ‘Leoht.’ Heat quickened in the curve of his palms. An opalescent sphere shimmered into existence, lingering briefly in a ghostly half-world of faint luminescence, before expanding, in depth and brilliance, to become a floating ball of soft white light spreading its mantle across the leafy sleeping place interior.
Terin smiled, pleased with his magical talent. He nudged a rolled light green parchment back into position on a branch shelf with his fingertips, before leaning forward to draw a small dark wooden casket from behind a wall of leaves. His eyes rested on the intricate laurel leaves and vines, intertwined with figures of ancient tree giants, carved in the casket’s lid, whose knotted faces were textured with character. A magical emanation tingled along the nerve webbing in his fingers, and down his spine, and he drank in the magical sensations as he lowered the casket to the floor. Squatted on his haunches, he reverently opened the lid to gaze on the object within - the sacred Aelendyell Book of Lore. If the Chanter or Elders knew he had the book - he couldn’t imagine their response. But he had the Book of Lore, and every Aelendyell secret of the Second Ki.
Terin’s eyes ached from poring over the ageless arcane enchantments, painstakingly written by a hundred hands, committing to memory what he could; committing to parchment what he could not remember. Sheets of scrabbled notes lay scattered about the floor. The floating light sphere waned with his exhausted energy.
When he first opened the leather-bound text, and felt the silken touch of the first page, and smelt the fragrance of time smoothed into the ancient script, he was disappointed by the volume’s brevity, its lack of bulk. Instead of a mighty tome too great to comprehend at a cursory glance, the Book of Lore was lightweight and thin. But as he read, moving cautiously through the word currents, the pages seemed to expand, to grow in number as he turned each one, unfolding fluidly before his seeking eyes, exposing theorems and truths, names and relationships, strengths and weaknesses, histories, secret words and combinations, the heart of the Second Ki, until he was adrift in an ever-expanding sky of knowledge, with no guide for direction, no promise of end, no rookery for rest.
Terin closed the book. The weight of exhaustion pressed in. He slumped against a cool bough, tucked his knees beneath his chin, and let the last theories wash over his mind. On the floor, the Book of Lore was reduced in stature again to a thin text, but he knew its secret, the strong illusion binding the expansive Aelendyell knowledge within the tiny boundaries of green leather. And it held a mystery he had never imagined. The First Ki, the source of Aelendyell magic, was dependent not only on their heritage as descendants of the Alfyn Great Ones, but also on a tiny sliver of the original Genesis Stone embedded in the amber ring each of the Chosen received when they were named. And there was more. When the Chosen graduated to become Lore Bearers, they received a silver necklet with another sliver of the amber Genesis Stone embedded to enhance their magical powers. He wanted a necklet now.
Beyond the leafy walls of his hide-away, faint fingers of light traced soft golden patterns across the forest. Terin flicked back his silver locks and concentrated on the will-o’-the-wisp rays silently dancing on their leaf and bark stages, and the empty beauty soothed his tired mind. He flinched into sharp awareness. Light - morning! He scrambled to his feet, snatched up the Book of Lore, and returned it to the casket. He had tarried too long. He had to replace the casket in its niche in the Chanter’s Well before the theft was discovered.
It was still dark at the forest floor, as Terin ran along the invisible paths, silently racing towards the village. He veered off the path, near the outer fringe, startled by a sound to his left, but a glance told him a nocturnal creature was scurrying home to beat the light. Relieved, he continued, cautiously traversing the village centre to the Spell Grove.
Beyond the Spell Grove, he melted into the forest to let two Night Watchers pass, and he smiled smugly as they passed, their patches of body heat shimmering beneath their jerkins and breeches. Less fortunate than he, because they hadn’t been chosen to carry the Lore, they were warriors, condemned to a life of training and toil in the physical arts of fighting. A Lore Bearer carried far greater respect into old age among the Aelendyell than a Weapon Bearer. He was chosen to hold a position above them, and they hated him for it, and that pleased him.
Once the Night Watchers passed beyond vision and hearing, Terin slipped across a tiny clearing to the base of a thick elmoak, whose twisted roots gripped the earth like wooden anchors. The old tree boughs cradled the tree-home of the Chanter and guarded the Chanter’s Well between its roots. He scanned for warning sounds from the lodging overhead in the last moments of darkness. High in the forest canopy, sensing the approaching sun rising, beyond the curve of the distant peaks forming the ragged spines of the Andrakian and Ureykyeu mountains, the first tentative bird calls invited others to join them in songful appreciation of impending day.
Terin momentarily listened to the birds, and then slid between the great roots to find the Cover Stone.
The Stone sat in place, guarding its secrets from everyone, but the Chanter and the Lore Bearer Elders. And Terin. He focussed on the dark circle on the ground, and deftly ran his fingers across its polished granite surface, tracing the finely chiselled rune in its face. The Cover Stone was heavy, too heavy even for a team of warriors to dislodge, and it was held in place by a spell, recreated anew by successive Chanters. The sealing spell was kept secret from those who sought to learn the lore without authority, but he watched and waited, patiently hiding for several afternoons to observe the Chanter work his magic - and then he practised the opening spell so that he, too, could draw from the Well.
He placed his palm firmly over the rune, once he finished tracing its form, and whispered, ‘Un-tynan stith stan sinc-gyfa ond mund-bora.’ His flattened palm became warm. When he lifted his hand from the Stone, the rune glowed white in the semi-darkness. The flat disc of granite slid silently, gracefully aside, uncovering a well, two spans wide, descending into the earth beneath the tree. He took the small casket from under his cloak, his fingers tingling with memories of potency as he caressed the carved wood. It was his to have, his to use. No one could deny him. Lying on his stomach, his heart racing anxiously, he lowered the casket into the well, found the niche in the granite wall, and slid the casket into place.
As his fingers released the forbidden object, a deep, resonating voice filled the darkness - a voice of authority, tinged with sadness. ‘Why, Terin?’
There was no escape. The Chanter was too powerful to fight. The sheer shock of discovery rooted him to the lip of the Chanter’s Well and stole his initiative. He was caught. He had to bear the consequence. What he hated most was knowing those who taunted him for his difference would gloat at his capture.
He waited, listening. Satisfied he had evaded his pursuers, he slipped between the pale green saplings and emerged at the far end of the glade. A shower of pebbles clattered through the leaves. Hands on hips, he stared with insolent grey eyes at a pack of younglings, shook his long silver braids arrogantly, grinned, and asked, ‘Looking for something?’
‘Man-spawn!’ the tallest youngling yelled. The pack started gathering stones. The same taunt, the same stupid accusation. Would they never leave him alone? He spat contemptuously and vanished between the trees before the younglings could launch their missiles.
Breaking out of the green foliage, he sprinted along the fringe of the village, racing past broad, grey elmoak trunks that soared from their gnarly roots into the dense forest canopy. In the village centre, where swaying ladder vines dangled from the entrances to living and sleeping quarters, he slowed to a jog. Giggling childlings played spell games between the great elmoak roots, and supervising adults chatted while they worked. He passed the Warming Stone and the Meeting Ground, and entered the Spell Grove, where the bending tips of giant trees formed a vaulting arched roof. Within the Grove, nine Chosen listened attentively to the Chanter, the Elder responsible for teaching Aelendyell lore to the Lore Bearers. They turned, as Terin entered, and the Chanter paused, his dark blue eyes patiently waiting for Terin to settle in his appointed place among the Chosen. ‘So, we know and speak of four Ki of power,’ the Chanter continued, ‘but only two are bestowed upon our people - one by our heritage, one through our learning.’
Terin’s interest was immediately aroused. If there are four sources of magic, and only two belong to the Aelendyell, what happened to the other two? Why did they only have access to two of the four Ki? he mused.
‘We draw the First Ki from the Genesis Stone,’ the Chanter explained. ‘At the Time of Making, our ancestors were fashioned from the earth and forest of the First Land by Wynowyth and Laeocon, Earth Mother and Sky Father, and in their souls were sealed the Land’s secrets and strengths. To these things were wedded the ancient power of the Genesis Stone which came to our people from the sky when the land was still forming. These are the essence of the First Ki, passed down through generations of the Alfyn Great Ones to the Elvenaar, and from them, in recent times, to our people, the Aelendyell. All things have, within, their own energy, their own latent magic. As descendants of the Alfyn, we have an innate link with the earth and the forests, a link that inspires the essence of pure magic in us - the First Ki - though what we can do with this source of magic is but a shadow of our Great Ancestors’ powers. The First Ki is the magic of Being and Shaping.’
Only a shadow? Terin wondered. Why only a shadow? Where had the old power gone? What happened to the Genesis Stone?
‘The Second Ki was formed by the great sorceresses of the Elvenaar who discovered links of power existing between Nature and the fragments of the Genesis Stone that survived the Time of the Great Dragon Burning. This is the magic of Linking and Recreating. More potent than the First Ki, it requires greater discipline and responsibility.’
‘And that’s the magic I want to learn,’ Terin whispered. ‘Powerful magic. Then they’ll respect me. Then they’ll leave me alone, once and for all.’
‘Shh,’ a Chosen Aelendyell hissed, and glared at him. Terin frowned.
‘From the writings and wisdom of the Elvenaar sorceresses, the Chosen in every generation are taught the Lore of Magic. When your lessons are complete, you will carry with you, and in you, the First and Second Ki - the strength and the knowledge of every Aelendyell who has passed before you, and of those who will come after you. You will carry great power, and with it even greater responsibility, for the Keepers of the Lore of Magic must be wise in thought and in deed.’ The Chanter’s resonating voice belied the frail, bent figure from whom it came, and Terin was fascinated by the ancient Aelendyell’s clever disguise of his deep well of power under a mask of age. He gazed absently into the Chanter’s dark blue eyes before he realized the Elder was staring directly at him, following the flight of his words to their mark, as if they were especially intended to target something in Terin. A message? Or a warning?
Lesson ended, Terin bolted from the grove, before anyone could talk to him. He skirted a pack of younglings huddled about a hollowed ash, moving with the stealth of a forest cat, a skill he necessarily mastered during his childling and youngling years to avoid trouble. Teasing and hatred, directed at him, made him develop abilities he might never have fostered had the Aelendyell community openly accepted him. They despised him because he was different. He was a bastard child, bred from the rape of an Aelendyell maiden, Solweonyn, who unwittingly went to the aid of a human warrior lost in the dark glens of Meerash. Taller than his peers, as tall as his human father might have been, his eyes were rounder, less almond-shaped than the eyes of a full-blooded Aelendyell. The avenging Aelendyell slew Terin’s human father as he staggered from the site of his brutality, and his Aelendyell mother died from a fever contracted during his birth. Village adults and Elders fostered the orphaned Terin through his childling years. He knew little of his origins, although he recognised, early, that he was different because his peers taunted him. At first, it was because he looked a little different. Then they taunted him because of his increasing height. Finally, somehow, the older ones learned why he was different, and deeply scarred him with their barbed insults. ‘Man-spawn,’ they whispered. ‘Half-made.’ He hated them for it, hated them all. When the taunting became unbearable, he lashed out. His size and strength made fighting easy, and he quickly punished individual tormentors, but they resorted to gang attacks to counter his physical superiority, and the adults always sided with the smaller younglings.
Recognising how to avoid confrontations, he rejected his foster adults’ attempts to appease him, and resorted to building a sleeping place beyond the village at the end of his youngling years, driven out by sneering contempt. He lived apart, and practised silent movement, speed, efficiency, and spells. Taunt as much as they might, his tormentors would never catch him. He could hate them with passion, loathe them, return taunt for taunt, appear and disappear in the forest at will, and always be one step ahead.
Female Aelendyell avoided him, warned by others that their status in the village would be ruined by a relationship with the half-made being, so he watched jealously as his peers partnered and crept into the forest to enjoy the pleasures of sexual exploration. Aelendyell custom forbad full sexual relationships until both partners were of age, and the pairing approved by the Elders, but there were no restrictions on sensual pleasure, at any age, so discrete liaisons were overlooked as long as the major taboo was heeded. For Terin, it was yet another form of deliberate torture devised by his tormentors to make him suffer for being a bastard. As he matured, he wanted to touch and be touched by a female, fascinated as he watched them bathe naked in the stream, but they shied away and ignored his advances, so his frustration took darker paths.
When the Elders ranked him among the Chosen to learn the Lore of Magic, his antagonists were more shocked than he was. Not only did his human body size and strength mark him as a potentially powerful Weapon Bearer, there was the matter of his impure blood. Lore Bearers were always the purest Aelendyell because they were entrusted with the duty of maintaining and passing on sacred lore. No one dared to protest his selection, because the Elders’ choice was final, but he knew, from his peers’ spiteful stares, that silent discontent brewed.
He relished the Elders’ choice. As much as he despised the contemptuous Aelendyell society, he wanted to acquire magic because magical skill was more highly respected than a warrior’s prowess. Lore Bearers rose ultimately to the highest rank of Elder, and it would give him the greatest pleasure to have authority over those who tormented and mocked him.
His selection was no accident. He meticulously learned every lesson Aelendyell childlings and younglings were expected to know. He revelled in exploring the intricacies and variations of simple spells that sprang naturally from his Aelendyell heritage. He mastered their power and experimented with embellishments, until none of his village peers could perform spells to match his flair and accuracy, or ease. He knew the Chanter couldn’t overlook his potential. The Elders couldn’t ignore it either. What they didn’t know, when they presented him with the amber ring of the Chosen, was that his prowess stemmed from two inner needs - a deep and driving fascination for magic, and a burning desire to heap calculated revenge upon his peers.
Beyond the village margin, Terin left the narrow pathway to the Meeting Stone, and travelled a hundred paces deeper into the forest, following his own path, artfully hidden in the treefern groves. At every turn, he paused to listen, in case others were following - a habit grown from his mistrust and hatred of the younglings. He knew his Chosen peers could find his sleeping place, if they really wanted to track him, but he knew their arrogant disinterest would keep them distant. Silly younglings were the real threat, and although they lacked the finer tracking skills of their Aelendyell race he made certain he was safe. At four points along his faint path, he moved and replaced camouflaged false trail endings, and listened.
He had fashioned his sleeping place from the heart boughs of an old ash-elm, a tree smaller than the lofty elmoaks of the Aelendyell village, but thicker foliaged, and much better suited to hiding. At its base, between roots that twisted and groped at lush grass, he listened a final time. Then he conspiratorially whispered, made an upward motion with his hands before his chest, and rose gently from the ground as his spell took effect. A moment later, he disappeared into the midst of the ancient tree, ten spans above. He cupped his hands before his face in the darkness and saw their heat as his eyes adjusted to nocturnal vision, a trait common to all Aelendyell. The sparse interior took form, in the darkness and shadow, before he spoke softly, ‘Leoht.’ Heat quickened in the curve of his palms. An opalescent sphere shimmered into existence, lingering briefly in a ghostly half-world of faint luminescence, before expanding, in depth and brilliance, to become a floating ball of soft white light spreading its mantle across the leafy sleeping place interior.
Terin smiled, pleased with his magical talent. He nudged a rolled light green parchment back into position on a branch shelf with his fingertips, before leaning forward to draw a small dark wooden casket from behind a wall of leaves. His eyes rested on the intricate laurel leaves and vines, intertwined with figures of ancient tree giants, carved in the casket’s lid, whose knotted faces were textured with character. A magical emanation tingled along the nerve webbing in his fingers, and down his spine, and he drank in the magical sensations as he lowered the casket to the floor. Squatted on his haunches, he reverently opened the lid to gaze on the object within - the sacred Aelendyell Book of Lore. If the Chanter or Elders knew he had the book - he couldn’t imagine their response. But he had the Book of Lore, and every Aelendyell secret of the Second Ki.
Terin’s eyes ached from poring over the ageless arcane enchantments, painstakingly written by a hundred hands, committing to memory what he could; committing to parchment what he could not remember. Sheets of scrabbled notes lay scattered about the floor. The floating light sphere waned with his exhausted energy.
When he first opened the leather-bound text, and felt the silken touch of the first page, and smelt the fragrance of time smoothed into the ancient script, he was disappointed by the volume’s brevity, its lack of bulk. Instead of a mighty tome too great to comprehend at a cursory glance, the Book of Lore was lightweight and thin. But as he read, moving cautiously through the word currents, the pages seemed to expand, to grow in number as he turned each one, unfolding fluidly before his seeking eyes, exposing theorems and truths, names and relationships, strengths and weaknesses, histories, secret words and combinations, the heart of the Second Ki, until he was adrift in an ever-expanding sky of knowledge, with no guide for direction, no promise of end, no rookery for rest.
Terin closed the book. The weight of exhaustion pressed in. He slumped against a cool bough, tucked his knees beneath his chin, and let the last theories wash over his mind. On the floor, the Book of Lore was reduced in stature again to a thin text, but he knew its secret, the strong illusion binding the expansive Aelendyell knowledge within the tiny boundaries of green leather. And it held a mystery he had never imagined. The First Ki, the source of Aelendyell magic, was dependent not only on their heritage as descendants of the Alfyn Great Ones, but also on a tiny sliver of the original Genesis Stone embedded in the amber ring each of the Chosen received when they were named. And there was more. When the Chosen graduated to become Lore Bearers, they received a silver necklet with another sliver of the amber Genesis Stone embedded to enhance their magical powers. He wanted a necklet now.
Beyond the leafy walls of his hide-away, faint fingers of light traced soft golden patterns across the forest. Terin flicked back his silver locks and concentrated on the will-o’-the-wisp rays silently dancing on their leaf and bark stages, and the empty beauty soothed his tired mind. He flinched into sharp awareness. Light - morning! He scrambled to his feet, snatched up the Book of Lore, and returned it to the casket. He had tarried too long. He had to replace the casket in its niche in the Chanter’s Well before the theft was discovered.
It was still dark at the forest floor, as Terin ran along the invisible paths, silently racing towards the village. He veered off the path, near the outer fringe, startled by a sound to his left, but a glance told him a nocturnal creature was scurrying home to beat the light. Relieved, he continued, cautiously traversing the village centre to the Spell Grove.
Beyond the Spell Grove, he melted into the forest to let two Night Watchers pass, and he smiled smugly as they passed, their patches of body heat shimmering beneath their jerkins and breeches. Less fortunate than he, because they hadn’t been chosen to carry the Lore, they were warriors, condemned to a life of training and toil in the physical arts of fighting. A Lore Bearer carried far greater respect into old age among the Aelendyell than a Weapon Bearer. He was chosen to hold a position above them, and they hated him for it, and that pleased him.
Once the Night Watchers passed beyond vision and hearing, Terin slipped across a tiny clearing to the base of a thick elmoak, whose twisted roots gripped the earth like wooden anchors. The old tree boughs cradled the tree-home of the Chanter and guarded the Chanter’s Well between its roots. He scanned for warning sounds from the lodging overhead in the last moments of darkness. High in the forest canopy, sensing the approaching sun rising, beyond the curve of the distant peaks forming the ragged spines of the Andrakian and Ureykyeu mountains, the first tentative bird calls invited others to join them in songful appreciation of impending day.
Terin momentarily listened to the birds, and then slid between the great roots to find the Cover Stone.
The Stone sat in place, guarding its secrets from everyone, but the Chanter and the Lore Bearer Elders. And Terin. He focussed on the dark circle on the ground, and deftly ran his fingers across its polished granite surface, tracing the finely chiselled rune in its face. The Cover Stone was heavy, too heavy even for a team of warriors to dislodge, and it was held in place by a spell, recreated anew by successive Chanters. The sealing spell was kept secret from those who sought to learn the lore without authority, but he watched and waited, patiently hiding for several afternoons to observe the Chanter work his magic - and then he practised the opening spell so that he, too, could draw from the Well.
He placed his palm firmly over the rune, once he finished tracing its form, and whispered, ‘Un-tynan stith stan sinc-gyfa ond mund-bora.’ His flattened palm became warm. When he lifted his hand from the Stone, the rune glowed white in the semi-darkness. The flat disc of granite slid silently, gracefully aside, uncovering a well, two spans wide, descending into the earth beneath the tree. He took the small casket from under his cloak, his fingers tingling with memories of potency as he caressed the carved wood. It was his to have, his to use. No one could deny him. Lying on his stomach, his heart racing anxiously, he lowered the casket into the well, found the niche in the granite wall, and slid the casket into place.
As his fingers released the forbidden object, a deep, resonating voice filled the darkness - a voice of authority, tinged with sadness. ‘Why, Terin?’
There was no escape. The Chanter was too powerful to fight. The sheer shock of discovery rooted him to the lip of the Chanter’s Well and stole his initiative. He was caught. He had to bear the consequence. What he hated most was knowing those who taunted him for his difference would gloat at his capture.