Dylarian Chronicles - The Tale of Karryn

 by Paul H. Kogel

The story is about a notorious outlaw, a brigand as they are called in Dylar. Teahl, the High Wizard of the Guild in Ryviton, did not know that this brigand was of his own blood, the son he thought long dead. His relationship with the Lady Kartyn was little more than a drunken fling. She gave birth to the child, whom she named Karryn, without notifying the father. Teahl, however, due to his wizardry was able to discern the truth in the end.

The ghost of Nemond the Green tells The Tale of Karryn - the events that set the stage for two Dark Wars of Dylar.

Karryn and his Phantom horde are unmatched among the brigand bands of the northwest. Soon they would rule them all. Could be that Karryn would rule the very guild that Dylar the Grey himself had commissioned.

Teahl, High Wizard of the Guild, must learn to his horror that Karryn is the son he never knew.
Will Teahl commit a seat on the Guild to Karryn, or will Karryn’s dealings with the black arts disqualify him? Will Karryn fulfill the prophecy of the Estern Forest Priest, and will the witches of the Coven of Seven realize their darkest dreams by his hand?

Find the answers to these questions and much more in this explosive book in Paul H. Kogel’s new fantasy series called The Dylarian Chronicles.

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The story is about a notorious outlaw, a brigand as they are called in Dylar. Teahl, the High Wizard of the guild in Ryviton, did not know that this brigand was of his own blood, the son he thought long dead. His relationship with the Lady Kartyn was little more than a drunken fling. She gave birth to the child, whom she named Karryn, without notifying the father. Teahl, however, due to his powerful magic, knew of the birth but, since he had not been contacted, ignored it. He did not wish to complicate Lady Kartyn’s life nor cause a scandal to fall on the house of the Guild.

Upon one dreadful and stormy night, when the child was still a babe and Lady Kartyn was traveling with her entourage to Seabra, a band of brigands attacked. They killed her and the guards and stole away her beloved child, which they took back to their layer to raise as a member of their brigand band. They were unaware that a member of the Coven of Seven had witnessed their crime. They did not know the child’s name, so they called him Palamay, after Palatach, the leader of the brigand horde. When the carnage was discovered and the upturned carriage inspected, the child could not be found among the bodies of the dead. Therefore, it was reported that the child had been washed away in the nearby river or carried off by wolves. Now Teahl believed the child to be dead and that, he thought, was the end of the matter.

But the child grew up strong and was trained as a brigand by his captures. He was told that he was abandoned as a child and that Beatria, a member of the band, found it in her heart to raise and care for him. Palamay was taught to read by a member of the band when he was just a young boy and he read everything he could get his hands on about battle tactics, stealth and strategies.

It was not long before he discovered within himself rudimental mage powers. They were crude powers at first, but with practice, he soon mastered them, as much as one could without the aid of the Guild, that is. Before long, with the aid of his best friend Dalloch, Palamay wrenched control of the band, now called, The Phantoms, away from Palatach and his horde.

Therefore, the new Phantoms rode with a different tactic in mind. Palamay set himself up as the King of the Brigands and demanded a fee from any brigand band operating in the Northwest. The Phantoms enjoyed the best of both worlds. They became the wealthiest outlaws ever and seldom had to take the risk of being captured by the patrols.

So all went well for Palamay until one day, Sestia, a member of Coven of Seven, lured him to her cave in the mountains. She offered him a deal that was too sweet for him to refuse. She would give him her power of witchcraft, and reveal to him his real name if he would retrieve the Blood Sword of Baine from the Bogs of the Sinking Sand in the heart of the Forest of Shadows.

Through much travail and bloodshed, which includes a battle with Barrows the Wolf Rider and a horde of his wee people, that also road upon wolves, Palamay succeeded at this task and returned with the Blood Sword of Baine. He desired Sestia’s powers but had no real interest in knowing his real name. He supposed that Palamay was as good a name as any. However, all that changed when he learned that his father was none other than Teahl himself, the High Wizard of the Guild in Ryviton.

Sestia’s plan for Palamay/Karryn was to claim, by right-of-birth, a seat in the Circle of Mages. He was to seize control of the Guild and eventually all of Dylar -- if not Karryn himself, than his ancestors. But one day, eventually, all the power in Dylar would be wrenched away from the Guild of Mages and placed into the hands of the ones who have been chosen by the Coven of Seven.

Sestia said to Karryn, “Dylar the Grey was the sworn enemy of our coven. He thought he had destroyed us, but one day we will destroy his island namesake. You and your ancestry will be the hands by which we will make it so.”

Things so often do not turn out the way we expect them to, and so it was with Karryn’s attempt to gain control of the Guild in Ryviton. He confronts his father to no avail, kills his father’s successor and even destroys the Forest of Shadows all in his attempt to gain a seat in the Guild.

The reckless use of the dark arts had caused him to slip into the Courts of Chaos on several occasions and finally, upon destroying the Forest of Shadows, he lost his mind completely and became a madman who was a danger even to himself.

This book was written for readers who love lots of fast paced action with clashes between mighty warriors and mythical creatures, or those who love magic wielded with reckless abandonment. It was not written for those who like rosy endings, or those who like to read about how the bad eventually become good. This just doesn’t happen in this book. In the “Tale of Karryn”, the reader will virtually enter into the life of a young boy who seems to be reasonably human, with the capacity for love and caring. Instead, the reader will watch, with a pointblank view, as he grows increasingly wicked. Finally, the evil within turns on him and leaves him a stark-raving madman with no redeeming qualities.

If there is a moral to this story it is this: If you practice evil deeds, you can be sure that you will suffer evil’s effects in your body, mind and soul.