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Shadewright

djutmose

Dreamer
SHADEWRIGHT, the first novel in my new series The Shadewright Cycle, is now available for .99 on Amazon for Kindle:
Shadewright (Shadewright Cycle -- BOOK ONE): Dean McMillin: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

I'd post a cover image here but I honestly haven't figured out how to yet ...:(

SYNOPSIS:
From the author of WHITE FIRE WAR:
A unique gothic fantasy epic begins here …

Born with grey skin the color of lake clay, Phantist is an outcast from birth, shunned by the other children in the Orphan Asylum where he is raised. Then, during a solar eclipse, he witnesses a magnificent performance by Lasander Shadowmaster--a shadewright, sculptor of shadows.

When Phantist discovers that Lasander is a fellow greyskin, he finds his goal: he will become a Shadowmaster himself. His dream is to make an entire city hold its breath as his idol Lasander has done.

This quest leads him to the isolated village of Half Oak, where a strange cult holds sway, worshipping a voice in the earth: the Earth Darkness. The cult’s leader relays a deadly prophecy from his god-master:

“Everything you care about will be destroyed, greyskin. Everything and everyone. And it is all because of you. He wants you to know that. Because of YOU.”

Soon, Phantist is drawn into a web of plots and ambitions. He finds allies: Despanya, a greyskin who has forsaken shadow-sculpting to become a soldier; and Arick, a yellow-skinned master of lightning power whose childish nature belies dangerous abilities.

But the ever-present threat of Earth Darkness pursues them across the countryside. The very ground beneath their feet turns against them ...

In the end, Phantist will face a grim choice that will determine the course of his life, and the fate of his world.
 
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djutmose

Dreamer
EXCERPT:
I was raised in the house of an angel.
True, the angel of the Benevolent Hand Orphan Asylum wasn’t really an angel, neither winged nor divine. Her smile was a lopsided grin, her bosom ample, her cracked stone face splattered with bird droppings. She stretched her arms out over the entrance to the Asylum, a long structure of mossy stone that had once belonged to a repentant nobleman, who’d donated it to the church in his dying days.
Still, when I thought of home, I thought of that angel, and the Asylum with its yard full of pear trees, not far from Arlandia City’s high Old Wall and the whispering ghost-holes of the Forgotten Smooths. Her smile was an idiot’s, but the welcome seemed genuine.
My earliest memories were of the Ladies of the Benevolent Hand Order, bustling about in their ash-grey robes with sky-blue sashes; myself and the other children, clomping around in the sandals and plain cotton shifts we wore. A brightly lit, clean but crowded place, little bodies always in motion, always a squabble or fuss or game. From an early age, I often felt the need to seek a quiet place apart. Perhaps this was because the other children weren’t always kind to me, grey-skinned and odd as I was. But I also liked to think, and needed peace for my many long ponderings.
One child often shared my quiet places. She was a shy girl my age, always wearing a white linen blindfold tight on her face, her long strawberry-blonde hair falling wildly down over it: Cleosole. I remember sitting with her under the pear trees on a hot summer day, when I suddenly found the courage to attempt to lift the blindfold. As I reached for it, my fingers brushed a few dangling forelocks of her hair. She shook her head violently, and I jerked back.
“No eyes,” she whispered calmly. “Not nice to look, I’m bad. No eyes.”
I turned meekly back to her, expecting some sign of upset. But she reached out until she found my knee, patting it in reassurance, and her tiny mouth broke into a nervous smile.
Cleosole and I remained constant companions throughout our youths, and I never tried to lift her blindfold again.
#
When I was eight years old, there came an autumn day when two words, mysterious and enticing, were repeated over and over by the Ladies in grey with the blue sashes:
Eclipse.
Lasander.
They took us outside into the pear orchard, and we were each given a few pieces of dried, honeyed apricots to eat, a rare delicacy. I wondered if this was some strange holiday we’d never celebrated before, but something was quite odd about the whole affair, and I saw no banners, lanterns, or bright decorations. The Ladies shared guilty whispers, like children planning something naughty. Young Lady Gaiety waved an arm in worried protest, saying something about “blighters” and “heresy.” But kind, plump Lady Amity took her arm, and I overheard her soothing words to the younger woman. “Just a show,” she said. “There’s no more Keepers to raise a fuss.”
Suddenly, the whispered murmurs became shouts, excited and yet strangely fearful. There was a dark disc creeping across the sun, and I heard that word again: Eclipse. Then, eager eyes began searching the horizon. We children were told not to look at the sun or the darkness slowly covering it. Instead, they directed us southeast, towards the Lagoon and a place I knew only in name, Arliss.
The horizon darkened, as if a storm was approaching. But this storm had wings, so clearly defined that I could discern the feathery edges from miles away, and a haughty beaked head that swept back and forth, as if scanning for prey. The great wings flapped silently, the hunting bird climbed in the direction of the darkening sun, then dove, beak open, towards the city. It made no cry, but there was an inhuman breathy whisper as all the city gasped as one ...
And then, the great bird simply froze in its dive and faded into nothingness, its proud body joining the shadow-twilight under the darkening sun. There was a long moment of silent bewilderment; then, applause erupted from the city center like low thunder rumbling in the distance.
Lady Amity bent low, looking at me strangely, and for the first time I recognized fear in her eyes. But she forced a smile, patted my cheek. “Lasander Shadowmaster,” she whispered. “Greyskin. Like you.”
The disc crept further across the sun until it blocked it fully, but few seemed to notice. Normally noisy children and their fretting elders alike were now frozen silent, still in awe of that bird. In a few moments, everything had changed, a rumbling city made quiet.
Lasander Shadowmaster, I thought. Like me?
Like me. And he could quiet an entire city. Make it his, if only for a short time.
I knew little of him, but at that moment I knew one thing for certain: I wanted to be Lasander Shadowmaster.
After the shadow-bird from Arliss, my interest was piqued.
“I’m like Lasander?” I asked Lady Amity soon after.
“Well, yes.” She hesitated a moment. “I mean, you are grey-skinned and so is he.”
“He made the bird?”
“Yes.”
“How did he make it?”
“Well, he ... shapes shadows. Something like sculpting clay, I suppose.”
I had worked with clay; a few times we Asylum children had been brought some from the riverbed. I’d once tried to make a tree, but fashioned the leaves too delicately, so that they kept falling off.
“But he made it move?”
“Well ...” she looked around, as if she were about to say something she shouldn’t. “Well yes, it’s a talent some greyskins have, to give the appearance of life to the shadow.”
“I want to give shadows life,” I told her solemnly.
She stared down at me nervously, an awkward half-smile on her face, as if she couldn’t decide to encourage me, or warn me to forget the notion. She wrung her hands together, and her big eyes darted about as if to make sure no one was watching. Then she bent low and close, hand cupped to her lips.
“We will see,” she whispered. “We will see.”
#
One night, a few weeks later, I lay awake in bed and thought about shadow-shaping. Bright moonlight streamed in from the high window opposite my resting spot, and my arms cast sharp-defined shadows on the white covers in front of me. When I held them up, they made longer, more exaggerated silhouettes on the headboard.
I brought my arms down again, tried to grab the shadow of my left arm with my right hand. I was certain I could feel something there, silky and elusive, but I could not snag the edge. After repeated tries at this, I grew weary and started merely to play, clasping the fingers of each hand tight so that the shadows of my arms looked a bit like two opposing snakes. I waved my arms slowly, imagining the shadow-snakes slithering ... Relaxed, just letting my imagination reign, two hissing serpents dancing on the headboard.
Then, in an instant, one snake reared on its coils--not my elbow-shadow, but real writhing coils!--shadow-tongue flickering in a silent hiss. It sprung at the other, shooting across the gap between them.
My back arched, body went stiff with surprise. My right hand was clasped firmly around the other arm in a painful grip on myself. I looked, and the snakes had become simple arm-shadows again. But I knew what I had seen!
I laughed softly and beat my fists rhythmically against my blanketed thighs. The boy in the next bed made a groggy moan and looked at me questioningly, and I laughed again.
To give the appearance of life to the shadow ...
I had done it. Like Lasander. Met the real challenge!
Shadow was my clay, and I would be a Shadowmaster!
 
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