Category: Fantasy Publisher: Vanguard Press
ISBN-10: 1843864290
Type: Fiction
Pages: 340
Copyright: January 2009
ISBN-13: 9781843864295
The journey to a renewal of hope for the Shaihen dream is a harrowing one, but while the first book in the series ended with everything coming apart, Staff of Power tells the story of how it all begins to come together again.
“Ours. This is ours. Our land. Our people.”
Bloody war is raging through Shehaios. The violent death of the Shaihen King has compromised the power of the Magician and shattered the balance which united the land. It leaves Caras, Chief of Oreath, alone to confront the historic forces combining to destroy his heritage.
As Caiivorian tribal violence drives Caras ever further into the ruthless political embrace of the Empire of the Sacred Union, even his own daughter turns against him. As everything he has worked his whole life to build for his children begins to fall apart around him, Caras is forced to contemplate sacrificing everything, and everyone, he has ever loved. If he doesn't, nothing of Shehaios will survive.
But Kierce the Magician has yet to play his final hand. Can he yet reclaim the Staff of Power and keep alive the dream of Shehaios? Who will be the final winners and losers in the battles between the tribes of the north and the Empire of the south?
"A powerful and unsettling story that grips you all the way." -John Timbers
Excerpt
They fell on us. There is no other way to describe it. Chiefly, I believe, they fell on my two merescaii companions. I was lost beneath the melee, I covered my head with my arms, curled myself into a ball and lay in the snow while they surged around me. After I had been trampled on twice and kicked a dozen times, sheer desperation drove me to try and drag my damaged body to the side of the track. Little by little, I reached it. It was almost a sheer drop over the edge, and I had no idea how far it went down, but it was the only place to go. I rolled over and let myself fall.
I recall waking in light, and seeing nothing but snow around me, hearing nothing but my own blood pumping around my body. The next time I opened my eyes, it was dusk.
I felt no great pain, but I could not move. I could not even remember what moving involved. I lay waiting for the cold to lead me into my Master’s warm embrace.
The human mind plays strange tricks in extremis. I could have sworn I saw a bird of prey perching on the snow in front of me in the moonlight. I even remember looking into his yellow eyes and thinking to myself, at least my death will go to feed another of God’s creatures in this hungry wilderness.
The next thing I remember is being smothered in a warm, pungent embrace. I remember the heat of my own breath, damp against cold fur, but most of all I remember the smell. Raw meat, rank sweat, and the unmistakeable odour of corrupt flesh.
I believe he did, physically, embrace me. I felt the healing warmth spreading from somewhere deep inside me, but I felt it coming from his body, too. I remember lying wrapped in those furs and that smell under eerie blue light, with the wind shrieking nearby, but not touching me.
I awoke in a shallow cave of snow, with furs piled over me and a fire blazing outside its low, slit-like entrance. The light beyond it was brilliant and clear, empty at last of falling snow.
My body ached with exhaustion, but it was warm. It was whole. When I stirred, my limbs moved. That was not how I remembered it. I looked out past the fire at the figure crouching beside it. At first glance, I thought I had awoken to the mercies of a small black bear. It was only as he moved and turned his head towards me I realised it was a man, wrapped in a bear’s skin.
I knew without question it was the man who had saved my life. The frost on his beard made me think for a moment he was immensely ancient, but as my vision settled down I realised it was only the ice, and the drawn lines of pain on his face, that made him look old. The hair of his beard was in reality jet black and although he was older than I am myself, I think he was still a relatively young man.
He smiled at me, a very weary, resigned sort of smile.
“Welcome back, priest,” he said. “If you wanted to come back. I’m afraid I have an irritating obsession with saving lives, despite the fondness you Sons of Tay-Aien seem to have for throwing them away.”
I struggled with his accent. He was very Shaihen, and I was half conscious. As I worked out what he had said, I tried to speak my gratitude, but nothing got past the raging dryness in my throat.
“Don’t worry,” he said, as if he had heard the words that had never got beyond my head. “It’s enough to know you’re grateful. Gratitude is not generally an as-caii trait. Though I must admit, most of you have little enough to be grateful for.”
How did he know I was as-caii?
“Are you as-caii?” he said, with mild interest. “I just assumed you were, because I could read you.” He met my startled gaze with wry amusement, and touched his head with a fur-wrapped hand. “Read you. Kierce ti’ Turloch, Lord High Magician of Shehaios.”
I started up, half in horror and half in delight, an inarticulate croak of astonishment in my throat.
“Pleased to meet you, too - .” He broke off as my tongue wrestled with my name. “Well. That’s a name to conjure with, Son of Tay-Aien. What in confusion have I rescued now?”
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