2nd and 3rd chapters of the First Book of Serinity

[SerinitysChild]

Chapter Two

Two weeks prior to Serinity’s decent on Milesport, in the misty jungles half a world south, a hairless ape lifts his snout and sniffs at the rain washed air. Damp earth, rotting leaves, and a strangely familiar scent wafts along ancient trails. One odor, hidden in the others, draws the ape’s attention. Moving silently through the forest, the ape hurries to inform his master that the ‘soul stealing’ sword Ascension has returned to the world.
Ancient basaltic rock lifts skyward from the center of a volcano’s caldera. Long before the ancient forest rose to dominate the surrounding countryside, arcane powers formed the liquid glass of an erupting volcano into a platform three hundred feet high and six hundred feet wide. One winding path leads from the forest floor, over the crater’s edge and up to the mesa’s top. Atop the platform powerful spells built a castle of the same black glass. As the basalt hardened, lesser spells formed minarets, spires and crenelated curtain walls, Lastly the weakening spells formed the inner and outer buildings. Soaring higher than the outer ring of the volcano, the central keep stands defiantly, reflecting the sun’s light blackly.
Pushing open the sally port that leads into the ancient castle’s courtyard that now belongs to the Sorcerer Darkling, the hairless ape’s eyes are drawn to the sight of several slaves pulling an iron cage on a wheeled cart out of the main keep. Seated inside the cage of iron bars that surround the cart, a young woman quietly weeps.
Before the ape can get a good look at her, she, and the cart she’s a prisoner in, vanish, leaving not even so much as a puff of smoke to mark her passage. From where the young woman vanished, the hairless ape can almost hear the silent scream of her helplessness.
Shaking his head in wonder at the great Sorcerer’s powers, the ape moves quickly to the Keep’s central hall and awaits his master’s command. Only once in his eons long life did he disrupt his master’s work. His punishment for doing so was submergence for six days in an acid bath, breathing through a steel straw. Each night his master lifted his lifeless body from the acid and with mystic powers brought it back to life. With the dawn of each new day the Sorcerer replaced him in the vat. His hair never regrew, and only his master’s forbearance allowed him to keep his sight. Never again would Adam interrupt his master, no matter how great the provocation.
After delivering his report, the ape returns to his forest home, never seeing the look of avarice that crosses his master’s face. Nor does he hear the gleeful words Darkling utters. “At long last I’ll lay my hands on Ascension and become the ruler of this pitiful world. I’ll show those fools who the coward is. Finally, vindication for refusing to join in their war against the snake noses of the north. Once I find the spell to activate the sword’s power, I’ll sweep away the petty rulers and take my rightful place as emperor of all.”

**********

In a lonely white-stone tower standing near a restless sea, the Wizard Euriptus pauses in his experiments on a stolen dragon’s egg and stares off into the middle distance. Someone has revived a familiar force from long years of silence. Placing a stasis spell on the egg, the wizard hurriedly summons half a dozen of his slaves. Quickly he gives them orders to retrieve the blade called Ascension. Failure to return the blade means death for the slaves, and more irritation for the master.
Once the slaves are on their way, the wizard removes the stasis spell and returns to his experiment. As he utters the last incantation, the dragon’s egg splits down one side, then crumbles, exposing a pure black dragonling. Smiling at the results of his experiment, the wizard opens an iron gate that leads to an open pen outside his laboratory. Even as the youngling waddles out of the laboratory, its size doubles. With the coming of the twin moons fullness next month, an event that happens every five years, the dragon will reach full size. Shortly after that Euriptus will release him to rain havoc on the cities that threaten the wizard’s tower, not to mention his life.
Chuckling to himself, Euriptus comments to no one, “After all, what can be worse than a hungry dragon? Especially when it’s a hungry black dragon that feeds at night.”
Walking swiftly across his laboratory, Euriptus opens a cupboard and pulls out an intricately carved wooden box. No larger than both his hands cupped together, the box’s silk lining holds a fragment of crystal. The cost of that fragment is more than a hundred lives and ten thousand gold coins, a price the wizard feels is a bargain. The stone can store living souls, allowing Euriptus to draw on their power. He knows this from his experiments. He also knows who has the spell that will allow the stone to store more than the smallest of souls. Soon he’ll have that spell, and then . . .

**********

Deep within a great glacial wall of ice and snow, far north of Milesport, an ancient monster rouses herself. From far away her soul’s child calls to her, and this time she’ll not allow it to wander off with the strange little beings that, thousands of years ago, stole it from her.
Long unused muscles protest as she forces her body to stand. Using magic she stored in minor crystals she pushes hundreds of years of ice and snow off her massive body. Zarnar warms frozen air by drawing upon the life force that floods into her from the great crystals in which she stored her soul. Her yellow eyes peer at the glacier that’s covered her since the last war with the little magic men. Magic flows from her and the snow melts, flooding nearby lakes with ice chilled water. Power floods her body as well, lifting her spirit.
In times long past, the beings that inhabited her world called her Earth Mother, and later they called her Earth Shaker. They sacrificed thousands of little men and women to her on the twin altars of her ivory tusks. Her four tree-sized legs smashed through the walls of the enemies of her subjects, while she used her long trunk to pull screaming victims from their wood and stone homes, devouring their life’s force with great gusto.
Before the coming of the magic men her race ruled this part of the world. When the wizards came to destroy the mighty Afridale race, Zarnar joined with her people in a hate filled battle that reduced her race to one lone survivor. At last, by sucking the life force from the attacking wizards, Zarnar managed to destroy the interlopers whose spells had raised mountains and twisted them into monuments of unleashed magic.
After the war, the mighty Zarnar required thousands of live offerings from the defeated cities that had supported the wizards. These offerings restored her magic, giving her dominance over the nearby countries.

Time flows slowly in Zarnar’s country. Eventually she allows her subjects ever more freedom. Great cities rise and fall in her shadow.
As often happens with bored gods, the lonely goddess let the tiny people go about their business, if they sacrificed the many lives she required of them. A thousand years after the Wizard Wars, Zarnar had the sword Slayer created to be used for sacrifices, saving her magic for more important things. Zarnar had Slayer built to transfer the life force of the sacrifices into great crystal storage stones. When the little magic men made war on her again and then stole her sword, they managed to imprison her in an ancient glacier. Luckily for her they didn’t know the spells needed to use the sword as she’d intended it to be used. Had they uttered those spells, Zarnar would still be a great power but that great power would be no more than a part of the crystals instead of now being free to draw her power from then. After the long darkness of sleep, she’s now free to exact her revenge upon the little people.
Days of pulling life from the stones have revived her to the point that she’s ready to start the long trek south. Zarnar lifts her trunk and gives a triumphant trumpet. Today she’s a goddess reborn.




























Chapter Three

Sunlight pours through unglazed windows, casting its brightness onto Serinity’s scrunched up face, waking her to a new day. Rolling over, so the sun’s light is lost in her mass of dark hair, she snuffles a couple of times and then stretches.
“Goddess,” she mutters in disgust as she tosses back the bed’s sheets. “If the gods want me to get up so early, they should send me to bed at a decent hour.”
After her set to with the local bully, everyone in the inn wanted to buy her a drink, or so it seemed at the time. Beyond the fist eight or ten all she could remember was staggering up the stairs and falling into bed. Now, it seems the gods are taking great pleasure in tormenting her by presenting her hung over body with cheerful sunlight.
Dropping her feet to the wooden floor, Serinity sits up and scratches at her right side in a vain attempt to frighten off an invading pest that came free with the bed. Evidently this pest has been scratched at before as it simply moves to another spot and drinks its breakfast from her left side.
While sitting on the edge of the bed, her mind returns to the thoughts of her first attempt at retrieving Ascension.

********

“Okay, now, if I read these inscriptions correctly, then pushing in this stone should free the lock and the door should swing open.” Carefully Serinity pushes on the key stone and listens as ancient gears mesh and the stone door swings open on rusty hinges. Pushing her torch into the opening she’s suddenly glad that she hadn’t stuck her head around the corner as a green patinaed sword blade slams the torch out of her hand, leaving it guttering on the dusty stone floor.
Bracing herself for the fight she knows is coming, Serinity pulls a steel two-handed broadsword from it’s scabbard on her back and steps into the open doorway. Facing her across the torch are the remains of the six guardians set to hold the inner temple inviolate. Ancient skeletons dressed in ragged robes and ancient bronze armor hold equally old bronze swords in their skeletal hands. Without a word of command, they charge.
Two swings of her sword scatter the bones of the first guardian across the floor as the other five moves away from the doorway and form a semicircle facing her. Voicelessly, their swords raised, they wait patiently for her step into the inner sanctum. With a yell of pure delight, the young quatra steps into their trap and immediately regrets her haste in attacking.
Before she can dismember more than two more of the skeletons, she sees the first one reassembling itself and retrieving its sword. “A girl just can’t get a break,” she mutters as she slams eight pounds of sword through the arms, rib cage and backbone of another skeleton. Before her latest opponent scatters across the stone floor, the first skeleton she’d dismembered has reassembled itself and is advancing on her, a battered bronze sword held at the ready.
Seeing that, by herself, she’s no match for magically enhanced skeletons, Serinity retreats through the doorway. The feel of ancient bronze against her polished bronze-scale and Elfin-steel cuirass brings her to an abrupt halt. Turning quickly she smashes the hilt of her sword into the skinless face of another skeleton then reverses her sword, smashing the blade through fragile bones, giving her time enough to run from the ancient temple before the guardians gather themselves together and pursued her.

********

Dressed only in thin linen under garments, Serinity staggers over to the wash basin and splashes water on her face. Feeling a bit more like seeing what this new day holds she grabs a wash cloth, strips the sweat soaked underclothes from her hard body and takes a quick sponge bath. As she’s hanging up the cotton cloth that serves as a towel, she hears the sound of someone moving their feet to a more stable position outside her window.
“I’ll never get used to civilized ways,” she mutters. Dropping her towel on the floor, Serinity hopes that her uninvited visitor will pay more attention to her still damp body than he, or she, does to what Serinity is doing. She moves about the room picking up this or that bit of clothing and then tossing it down in disgust. Finally she’s worked herself around the room to the bed and manages to toss a bit of fluff over Ascension.
Quickly she draws the steel blade from its black lacquered sheath and pokes a dozen inches of sharply pointed blade through the thin outside walls of her room. A startled scream of pain, followed by a heavy thump, is her reward for the voyeur.
Leaning out her window she nearly loses her head as a second attacker takes a swipe at her with a very big axe. Ducking back into her room, she pokes at a spot above the window’s top edge. The would be killer’s payment for his effort with the axe is a bloody blade sticking in him and h is body falling, landing with a thump.
Leaning out of the window a second time she pauses to take a good look at the roof, making sure there are no more attackers lurking there. Finishing with that she turns her attention to the pair of men laying limply on the ground under her window.
“I’ve had men climb lattice work and even bare walls to court me, but none of them tried to lure me into their arms with an axe.” Chuckling at the sight of her two assailants helping each other up, she suddenly realizes that she’d seen neither of them in the common room last night.
“Oh gods,” she whispers more in frustration than in prayer. Pulling her head back into the room Serinity hastily finds clean under clothes then dons her leather breaches, wyvern boots and slips into a jerkin that’s silk lined and cotton-padded to protect her from the blows of those that want her dead, for one reason or another. Over the jerkin she straps on her scale cuirass and then, pulling her hair into a padding top knot, she places a steel pot-and-snout helm on her head pulling its chinstrap tight. As she buckles on her wide leather belt, she makes sure that she securely seats the dirk in its sheath and that her alchemy bag is tightly closed. No sense in having bits of mushrooms and blood leaf plants falling out and slipping under her heels. Next she straps a wide belt covered in gold rings over her cuirass. Lastly she hangs Ascension behind her back so that the hilt is above her left shoulder.
Fully dressed now, and completely awake, Serenity moves over to the window, looks up at the roof, then, seeing no one there, she looks down on empty paving stones.
“Wouldn’t you just know it? Here I go to all the trouble to dress for our date and the beggars slip out after the first dance.” Shaking her head in disappointment, Serinity drops lightly to the ground, following the bloody staggering footsteps her assailants leave behind.
Half way across the stable yard she sees her quarry hesitantly mounting horses while four more men hold the reins for them. One is bleeding from a belly wound while the other is hobbling on his left leg, holding his bleeding right leg with his right hand. Because the party will make good their escape before she can question them about the attack, Serinity pauses in her pursuit and mutters, “Always the bride’s maid, never the bride. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll throw another party for me, and the next time I’ll be sure to bring a few gifts of my own for them.”
As she turns in her tracks, a furry head bumps against her left knee. Looking down she sees a disreputable Shadow staggering against her. Although the cat’s ready to fight beside her, it’s obvious that any mouse in poor health can beat her two out of three falls. Reaching down, and placing her hands fore and aft under the cat, she lifts a body half her own weight, then, staggering a bit Serinity walks the short distance to the Griffin Inn’s front door.
Thankfully the inn’s door is open, saving her the effort of balancing the cat in her arms while kicking open the heavy wooden doors. Stomping into the common room, Serinity gently lays her companion on the nearest table and glares at the soldier who’s about to object to her putting a mountain lynx next to his breakfast. Looking up at the angry armed and armored quatra he rethinks his objections, picks up his plate and cup, then moves quietly to an empty table across the room.
While Serinity examines her friend, a plump woman in patched, but meticulously clean, clothing slips up behind her. Quietly she lays a damp cloth across the cat’s eyes, and then opens a vial of nasty smelling ointment.
“It looks like your friend has been poisoned. If you’ll hold her still, I’ll try to get a pinch of this down her throat. It’s not the best cure in the world for poison, but it’ll keep her alive ‘til we can get the local apothecary here to give her a drought of whatever evil smelling stuff she’s selling today.” Years of hard work have callused the woman’s hands and yet, they’re as tender as a mother holding her baby when she pries open Shadow’s mouth and drops a small amount of paste on the cat’s tongue. The potion’s effects are nearly instantaneous. Once Shadow is breathing easily, and no longer shaking like a leaf in a storm, the heavy woman wipes her hands on her apron, then offers her right hand to Serinity.
“Celin. I’m Roun’s wife.” Seeing the question in Serinity’s eyes Celin tries the introduction again. “I’m Celin, Roun’s wife. Roun owns the Griffin, and takes care of the bar. I do the cooking.”
With thanks in her eyes for the woman’s kindness, as most people would rather see her friend die than get within an arm’s length of her razor sharp fangs, Serinity offers her hand in exchange. Before she can withdraw her hand from Celin’s, the heavy set woman turns it over and looks at the calluses formed by years of swinging a sword.
“I was in the cellar last night when Malas was trying to give ya a hard time. Roun told me all about it later. Wish I coulda seen the look on that ruffian’s face when you dumped a jack of ale on his head.” Casting a serious eye Serinity’s way, Celin releases her hand, then adds, “I think Malas will be looking for payback first chance he gets, so you watch yerself girl.”
Nodding her head toward Shadow, Serinity comments, “I’m hoping that the boys I prodded this morning suffer a bit before they get to a proper healer.”
“What?” Celin’s eyes open wide in surprise. “Malas tried to get his friends send you to Hel’s gates without you having a proper breakfast? We’ll just see about that.”
Watching in awe as the plump woman sails across the common room’s floor like a ship of the line under a full rig, Serinity smiles when Celin grabs Malas by his left ear and drags him protesting all the way back to Serinity.
“Now, you shiftless no good, you apologize to this fine woman afore I swat ya where your britches are tightest.” Giving Malas’s ear another tweak, she hurries him along. “Go on, apologize.”
“But I didn’t do nut’in. I figured me and my boys’d catch her outside town and then see if she’s as tough as she pretends to be.” Malas’s story has the ring of truth to it, so Celin releases his ear and sends him back to his table with a hard swat to keep him moving.
Returning her attention to Serinity, Celin shakes her head in consternation. “Well I’ll be a squid’s supper if I don’t believe he’s tellin’ the truth. Looks like you’ve got more than one enemy in town lass.”
Looking closely at Celin, Serinity suddenly realizes that the other woman is at least twice her apparent age. The way she pulled the local bully across the room by his ear meant that she was both much older than him, and held in awe by him.
Shrugging her shoulders to settle the scale cuirass, Serinity reaches across her stomach, pulls her dagger and cuts off a single gold ring from her wide belt. Handing the ring to Celin, Serinity smiles. “I don’t have any of the local coinage, but I hope this will pay my way for a couple of days. If you need more for the apothecary, let me know.”
Turning the ring over in her hand, Celin hefts it to test its weight, then tosses it into an apron pocket. “Girl, that’ll keep ya in bed and board for a year around here.” Suddenly the older woman chuckles, “even at Roun’s prices for wine.”
“I’ll keep this for ya until it’s time to settle, but, if yer going to be staying in town for any length of time I’d suggest renting a place of your own. It’s cheaper, and so many strangers won’t be wandering in trying to make mischief for you. If you’re interested, I know a place that’s pretty well protected. It sets between the town’s guard station and the governor’s private army barracks. Most of the boys are all right, just a few hard heads, but I’ll give them the word if you rent the place.”
As Serinity ponders moving into a house, or staying in the inn, Celin grins and pats her on a shoulder. “While you’re a thinkin’ on that, I’ll go fetch the apothecary.” Before Celin steps out of the inn’s front door she adds, “Oh, did I mention that the owner has furnished the place, even has a full staff. The rents fifty crowns a month, in advance, and that pays for both the house and the staff. Victuals are your problem, and I’ll expect a month’s notice if you decide to move on. We’ll call that bit of gold you gave me two months rent in advance.”
Before Serinity can say yes, no, maybe, Celin is off at her usual rapid pace. “I wonder how a woman that size can move that fast, and keep her weight on?” Chuckling to herself, Serinity adds, “I wonder if the locals will let me live long enough to find out?”
Returning her attention to Shadow, Serinity smiles down on her long time companion. “Well youngster, looks like we’ve got a place to call home, for a while.” As she strokes the cat’s fur, she can remember the first time she laid eyes on her companion.

********


High on the mountain above Serinity’s hut the snow seldom melts in summer’s heat. This year has been hotter than most years, and the melting snow from the permanent ice pack has brought more wildlife higher up the mountain’s side. With the spring’s thaw, predators followed their prey up the mountain’s flanks to new pastures. Among the predators that climbed the mountain was a female mountain lynx gravid with this year’s crop of kittens.
Serinity noticed a mother lynx’s passage on the first full moonlit night of spring. Two weeks later she found the fur and blood of a large rabbit near a small cave. Knowing that the lynx was near her birthing time, Serinity laid two more rabbit carcases near the cave’s entrance so the lynx wouldn’t have to hunt for a couple of days.
Three months would pass before Serinity thought about the lynx again. Her arcane studies took up all but the briefest of time for anything else. She only has time to hunt small game for quick meals, a bit of time to sleep and a hasty bath in a near by stream to cleanse body and soul.
As the twin full moons of summer chase each other across the midnight sky, Serinity walks past the lynx’s cave. Inside the cave she can hear the tiny mews of a scared and lonely kitten. Studying the tracks in front of the cave she can see that the lynx moved her kittens, probably because a male lynx has invaded her territory.
Squatting down in front of the shallow cave, Serinity casts a small fire spell and by its light can see that there’s one kitten left. Studying the lynx’s tracks, she decides that this one kitten, for reasons known only to the lynx, has been left behind. Sticking her hand into the shallow cave, Serinity receives a shape nip from the kitten for her efforts to pull it out. Grunting at the cheeky beast, she reaches in again and grabs the kitten by the scruff of its neck.
Holding the struggling baby lynx by the scruff in her left hand, Serinity points her right index finger at the kitten to admonish the little monster for biting her, only to be bitten by her hard enough to draw blood. As the blood seeps from the tiny wounds, the kitten hungrily laps at it.
Smiling down on the starving kitten, Serinity comments sagely, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Wiping her bleeding finger on her pants, she holds the kitten a bit further away from temptation, and then reaches into her scrip where she’s stashed a few bits of meat for a late light snack. Carefully she pulls a piece of meat out and offers it to the kitten. Raging dragons have nothing on a starving kitten, as she quickly finds out. In rapid succession the eight bites of meat Serinity had planned to eat vanishes down the kitten’s throat.
When the last of the meat is gone, Serinity slowly brings the pop bellied baby closer to her and then lets it rest on her right arm. For a wonder, not only doesn’t the kitten try to escape, it snuggles into the crook of her arm and starts purring contentedly as it drifts off to sleep.
“Momma always told me to stay away from strangers,” mutters Serinity. “So, we’ll call you Shadow, and then you’ll be no stranger than any of the rest of us critters on this mountain.”
Today, the bond that they formed that night is as strong as ever, Shadow still gets first choice of any meat that comes their way.

********

The return of Celin with the local apothecary interrupts Serinity’s thoughts. She’s almost as tall as Serinity but reed thin. While Serinity holds Shadow, the local medicine woman studies the cat, then, reaching into her purse she pulls out two vials of liquid. Pulling the stoppers from the vials, she waits for Serinity to open Shadow’s mouth. With the precision of years of practice, she pours three drops of pale yellow liquid into Shadow’s mouth then quickly follows it with two drops of a clear liquid that smells of lavender and cloves.
The mountain lynx struggles against Serinity’s hold, then slips into a fitful sleep. Stroking her friend’s fur, she looks up at the apothecary with an unasked question in her eyes.
“Whoever tried to do your pet in used a local poison. I’ve needed to treat this poison over the years and keep a stock of anti poison potions.” The medicine woman’s voice is high and squeaky as she says this. “Usually it’s a local big shot that needs my potions and not an animal.”
Suddenly she grins and adds, “Actually I prefer tending to your pet over keeping some big shots around here alive. The potions should make her sleep for a day or so. When she wakes up give her lots of water to drink and as much meat as she cares to eat. If she sleeps longer than two days come get me.”
Turning to Celin, she holds out her hand while the older woman counts out three silver coins, then adds a small copper coin ‘for luck’. Nodding her thanks, the medicine woman leaves the two women.
“Looks like you’ll be needing to stay a couple more days,” comments Celin. “I’ll have a girl clean your room and then have a tub filled for you. Oh, I’ve got a groom looking after your horse. Poor thing looks half dead. You must have been in a dreadful hurry to get here to push the beast that hard.”
“Thank you,” Serinity says. “Those words seem so inadequate for the help you’ve given us.” Looking down on her sleeping friend, the quatra strokes the cat’s fur, deciding.
“My name is Serinity.” Watching Celin’s eyes open a bit at her name, the quatra grins and nods. “Yes, I’m that Serinity. I’d like to keep that bit of information just between us, if you would please. If the word gets out that the duke’s daughter is in town I’ll have more than just a couple of people trying to get to me.”
“People will figure it out sooner or later. Few women who aren’t Orc have green tinged skin and none of those have red eyes.” Shaking her head in wonder, Celin adds, “I’ll not tell anyone who you are. However, you really should consider renting that house. When people find out who you are you’ll be needing high walls and a strong place to stay.”
“Okay,” sighs Serinity. “I’ll rent it for six months. Hopefully by then I’ll find a ship and be long gone before Milesport’s citizens try to use me to get to my father.”
Looking down at Shadow, Serinity adds in a small voice, “Thank you.”
Celin grins, pats Serinity on her back and says, “Once ye’ve settled in, maybe you’ll tell me if some stories I’ve heard about you are true.”
The grin on Serinity’s lips reaches her eyes and she nods. “Come by any time. Friends are always welcome.”

[nightlock]

Do not mistake the lack of comments for a lack of interest; you write well. You mentioned previously that you are looking for a co-writer, but after reading this, might I suggest you need an editor instead? Any issues that might have come up here are better remedied by an editor, pointing out any awkwardness or grammar issues, instead of a co-author who might try to adapt your style (for the worse).

[SerinitysChild]

Thank you,
After receiving a large stack of rejection letters from my other writings, I gave up on publishing. Two of my friends convinced me to give it another shot. So, I'm "testing the waters" so to speak. If this goes well, I'll try to find an editor hungry enough, or silly enough, to work on/with me.
Before it goes public, so to speak, I'll at least post the first half of Book One here.
Sleep well.