Category: Fantasy Publisher: M.S. Fowle
Type: Fiction
Pages: 93
Copyright: Jan 18, 2013
He who finds The Sire will either end the war… or the world itself.
Enter a realm of magick mirroring Europe in the late 1930s, locked in a repressive government where a girl struggles to see beyond prejudice and a boy has lost faith in humanity.
The era jives with jazz and swing, war divides the land and its people, and the Monarch seeks any with the gifts of magick: the Mages. Fifteen-year-old Claire Royce hates magick, but not as much as her ruthless king's war. As fate would have it, she ends up stuck in the company of a powerful young Mage, Walter Tully. And when they learn the Monarch is searching for The Sire, the creator of all magick, they know someone must stop him. But are they really up to the task?
Excerpt
Imagine all our tales of history woven with the fantastic threads of magick. That was Claire's world – and at just fifteen years old, she already resented it.
The jive of jazz had created swing, motion pictures found color, and worldwide controversy had erupted over the Mages. They were the users of magick and many believed they wielded too much power. As more and more arguments roared from all sides, Claire was convinced the world was cursed. She could sympathize. She had lost her mother at birth and her father when she was still a little girl. She was then sent to live with her estranged grandfather in Becca City. It all took some getting used to, but in the past seven years she had never made any real friends. She spent most of her spare time in her grandfather's auto shop, eager for him to teach her how to repair motorcars. He was, after all, the only family she had left.
Claire was stuck in the curses of her life and it made her feel helpless to have to watch the whole world fall apart around her. She had her own reasons for hating magick, but she knew what her king was doing to the Mages was wrong. The Monarch had declared all users of magick outlaws and was leading a crusade against every last one, all while controlling his people with fear. The few he did allow to practice magick were his Royals, elite Mages under the direct command of the Monarch himself. They wore finely tailored suits and an engraved golden bracelet as a badge of their high rank. Their appearance alone was daunting enough. They stalked the streets with uniformed soldiers, out on patrols that were growing more frequent as they enforced mandatory curfews that came earlier each night.
As the twilight dimmed outside the shop window that evening, Claire didn't really care. She had promised her grandfather she'd be home once the shop was clean, but she was running late. Looking dapper in her stained boy's knickers and button shirt, she tucked her shoulder-length hair up into a tweed flat cap and casually headed home, quietly following the alleyways. She hadn't spotted a single patrolman. She just needed to get across the next open street, cut through the park and she would only have her grandfather's lecture to deal with.
The street was empty aside from a few laborers allowed to pass after dark, so she dashed to the opposite passage unseen. Then, dread swooped in with the whistles that cut the air, reeling her around in panic. Sprinting from an intersection less than a block away, she spotted a boy rushing across the street, his adolescent arms filled with ripe red apples. As he ran into an alley, more whistles blared as a squad of soldiers gained on him. Right then, Claire felt a heat rise up inside her, causing her fists to clench hard at her sides. She was fed up with the way the soldiers treated everyone. Before she knew it, she was running to try and cut them off.
As the worn soles of her ankle boots skidded to a stop in a quiet brickyard, she feared she had lost them. That was when she gagged at an awful stench and turned her watery eyes up at a tall wagon mounded with fertilizer. A few faint laughs and a stampede of soldiers caused her to duck behind it. The surprisingly giddy boy bustled on by without a clue. Then, just as the whistles screeched behind him, Claire hauled the release cord of the wagon's dump gate, spilling a flash flood of filth to trample the patrolmen. She couldn't help but let out a few giggles of her own.
"Hey, you!" a man shouted.
Claire gasped. The reinforcements were on their way, letting out another sharp call of their whistles to alert any others nearby. She suddenly couldn't believe what she had done. This was exactly what she was trying to avoid.
"Don't move, kid!"
Claire was already racing down the nearest alleyway. Frantic, she changed direction at random to confuse them, but another set of soldiers tried to block her. She rushed to get away, only for her heart to stop with her strides. A well of defeat washed over her as she took off her cap, letting her brittle hair fall around her face. Her gaze frowned as she looked straight up at the dead end wall towering four stories above her. When the charge of boots arrived, she slowly turned around. Seeing those two soldiers smirking back at her only stiffened her with fear.
Clutching her cap, a flurry of wind suddenly roared in from every angle, before the runaway boy miraculously appeared right in front of her. With a simple grin on his charming face, a delicate ring echoed as he flipped a silver coin into the air. The moment he caught it, he snatched his arms around the speechless damsel and flares of purple shimmer fired from his feet, launching them both towards the sky. In her shock, Claire spotted more trails of violet lights shooting up behind them, no doubt from the Royals now chasing them. Just then, she heard a strange dialect mumbling from the boy's lips. She felt chills as the ghostly tones echoed over one another. When she dared to look, she lost a breath as his eyes brightened with a striking light from within. A golden orb then swelled at his feet, before they both latched on tight just before it burst, rocketing them from Becca City in a brilliant flash.
Careening over fields and rivers, suburbs and farmlands, they soared at blinding speed towards a dense forest in the distance. With their descent just as fast, the boy quickly tucked and rolled mere moments before they pummeled into a slide along the ground, before stopping in a cloud of dust. A bit dazed, he sat up and regained his bearings. Then, he beamed at the sight of the tiny cottage nestled under the growth of a giant oak tree, ever proud. When he looked down, however, he found the oddly dressed girl was out cold, still with a tight clasp on her tweed cap. He was confused. He couldn't even guess what had possessed her to try and help him. Even though it gave him a laugh, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the cottage.
In this episode of the Dragoneer Saga, the kingdom is beginning to find its roots as trade ships and men travel and barter with the Old World Clover mapped for them all. Banished King Richard finds an adventure of his own; One that might just lead to
