Hello!
In this week’s Wednesday Words, get a glimpse of three powers. Three people important in The Sun Child Chronicles, book 1, Key of Behliseth. Three people whom, whether they’re good, bad, or ugly, fifteen year-old Lucky might wish he’d never met.
Good: Thurlock Ol’Karrigh, Premier Wizard of the Ethran Sunlands
You’ve already been introduced and seen that in addition to being very powerful, he’s extremely grumpy, no doubt owing to his great (seriously great) age. Of course, no one can rack up a thousand years of life without gathering regrets. And some of the most troubling of Thurlock’s regrets center around main character, Lucky—or Luccan as those in his home world know him.
Thurlock’s sorrow—a memory
It was Luccan’s twelfth birthday, the day he should have received his cardinal name so he could begin to gather the strength it would impart. Knowing a little of what his fortune might hold, the wizard thought surely the youngster would soon need all the strength he could find.
Across the vale stood the neat, sunlit windows and varnished logs of Sisterhold Manor, Luccan’s home. Beyond that, in the near distance, Oakridge rose form the hillside like a monument to history. When Luccan was only two hours old, Thurlock had brought him out into the summer dawn and fumbled him into his father’s strong but equally fumbling hands. The man had carried his child to the sun-sparked granite on the ridge and whispered a name into his ear. A powerful name known only to them. Witnessed solely by the wind.
And now, his birthday would pass without its most important gift. Because of what Thurlock had not done on Luccan’s first day, disaster threatened. For Luccan, for the Sunlands, perhaps for all the world of Ethra.
The infant, of course, had forgotten the name. His father had become lost. And the Gods’ Breath, fabled dawn wind of the Sunlands, kept its secrets.
Bad: Isa, The Witch Mortaine
Yes, you’ve met her too. She’s thoroughly unpleasant. You saw her before launching a more-powerful-than-most minion on an unsuspecting Earth. But here, listen in on her thoughts on his twelfth birthday. Thurlock had regrets. Isa has plans. And for Lucky, they spell doom.
She’ll let him live—for now
Privately, Isa thought it would be best to kill the boy and have done. Granted, the recent strange behavior of time brought opportunity. And true, the boy’s unformed powers might boost her own—in the service of her master, of course—if she could subvert them.
Yes, she would bow to the wishes of the Lord Mahl, and alter her course. The boy would live, long enough at least to determine if he could be put to use. If the costs in time and effort then grew too vast, the boy’s death would destroy the enemy’s hopes, and Mahl would be appeased.
She took tock of her image in the looking glass. The light filtering through the icy walls fo her keep lit her eyes with blue fire and emphasized her long bones and sharp angles. The reflection pleased her . Gone was the soft-faced girl of ages past, the girl who had been a fool. Staring back from the silvered glass was a woman of power, a witch who could wait for reward.
Yes. She would sow seeds now for the Sunlands’ defeat. Later, when she reaped vengeance against the one man who mattered, the fruit would be that much sweeter.
Form glass shelves holding bottles, boxes, and vials, she gather the bits she would need for the spell.
Midsummer stood on the cusp. The moment for cold, hard magic had come.
Ugly: He’s called Hench…
…but who is he really? And why does he matter?
Hate is a larval vampire
The walls of the Witch-Mortaine’s tower, glass colored blue like deep ice, stole the last of the day’s light from dusk. A man with heavy chestnut curls and a scarred face limped along the crow’s walk, circling round and round. His steps fell as listless as his greasy hair, and his mangled left hand dragged along the thin rail that separated the pinnacle from the clouds it speared. The cold steel burned and he pulled the nearly useless limb against his body, trying to rub life into it with his better hand.
The tower rose from a boulder strewn plain below the twin pillars of Death of the Gods, rooted between high-ridges, veiled in spells. At this hour the entire crater lay in shadow. But even with one eye, Hench’s vision was sharp. He could see cars sliding along Valley City’s roads trailing columns of red and white like snakes of light.
He imagined the people piloting them, tired Earthborns who wished they’d already arrived wherever they were going.
He wondered about their lives.
Did they have any kind of magic? Had they ever had it? Had any of them possessed magic and love and a good life and lost it all? He wondered whether their cars would pile up in a panicked crash if they but once saw through the magical veils and glimpsed the deadly crystal beauty of the spire from which he gazed.
He worked his shoulder into a painful shrug, wishing he could rid himself of the black shadow that weighed him down. A shadow he himself had created out of anger. And hate. He shook his head in persistent disbelief that it had overtaken him so easily, so fast.
He’d committed himself to vengeance, and the shadow had been born. A larval vampire that fed on his spirit, consumed his strength, crushed all joy. It grew stronger with every cruel choice, every time he lashed out burning with rage. It fouled his every step, turned even his best intentions to evil end, drained him of substance as surely as if it had torn his heart and bled him dry. The remains had become a joke, fool to a fiendish witch, tool in the hands of the person he most hated.
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