Back to Blood Ties

I have an idea for the ongoing Fiction Fridays, but I didn’t have time to implement it this week. If I’m really on the ball I’ll start it next week, but no promises. In the meantime, I thought I’d change things up a bit and give you an excerpt from Blood Ties, the third (and last) of the Moonstone Chronicles.

This scene takes place near the end. Howard and Jessica are prisoners in Anakaron’s lair and they’ve been separated. The last Howard had seen of Jessica she’d fallen under a glamour cast by the evil wizard and he’s about to attempt to use his elemental magic to rescue her.

Howard paced in his room, more worried than he’d ever been before. He’d tried to get back to the throne room, but the heavy doors were closed. If there was another way in, then he couldn’t find it.

If Anakaron convinced Jessica to join him, whether she was under a spell or not, they were all screwed. He had to get the moonstone to her, even if he died trying. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. He pushed the table and chairs away, making a clear space in front of the fireplace. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but figured he’d need space to do it. Howard sat down cross legged in front of the fireplace.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” he muttered, and closed his eyes.

At first he focused on his breathing, in and out, deep and slow. When he felt centered, he looked inside himself for that beautiful colored strand that was his magic.

The elemental magicks were easy to find, they were twined around each other, brighter than all the rest. It was so amazing that he’d had that inside all these years and never known it.

Basking in the feel of the magic, he sent out a call – fire, water, wind, and earth – humbly asking for a boon. Howard had no idea how long he sat like that, but a breeze caressing his face brought him back to himself. He could feel the warmth of a fire on his face and his eyes snapped open.

There was a fire in the fireplace, where none had been before. A small, grey, moisture-laden cloud hovered to the right while a wind imp sparkled as it hovered on the left. Between Howard and the fire was an earth entity.

Howard decided he’d be awed later, for the moment he cut right to the chase. “Thank you for answering.”

A face appeared in the fireplace. “The time foretold has come.” It hissed and crackled as it spoke.

“The dwarves and other magickal beings stand ready,” the earth entity said.

“What would you have of us?” the wind imp asked in a high, piping voice.

“I have to get into the throne room to give this to Jessica, the *champion*,” he said, lifting the moonstone pendent up with one hand.

The wind imp darted towards the pendent. “It is too heavy for me to carry,” she said in his head.

The fire hissed and snapped while the cloud rumbled for all the world like thunder. The imp darted over to them, flashing brightly.

“I will spread the word that the time has come,” said the earth entity, sinking between the cracks in the stone floor until it was gone.

The fire flared up to get Howard’s attention. “The wind blows a fire hot; the rain cools quickly enough that metal cracks; the door will be opened.”

“You can really do—”

Before Howard could finish his sentence, the three were gone. Scrambling to his feet, he hurried out of the room and straight to the throne room. By the time he reached it, the locking mechanism was blackened. He tried the door and it opened easily.

Howard sidled into the room, keeping to the shadows. To his astonishment, it looked like his help wasn’t needed after all. Jessica apparently broke Anakaron’s spell all on her own. But it also looked like she was in serious trouble.

Blood Ties

Did you really think I was going to get any prompt story writing done this week? Well don’t you feel foolish? :-)

Today’s excerpt is from the beginning of the final book in the Moonstone Chronicles, Blood Ties. This is also the final excerpt I’ll be posting from it, at least for a while. NaNo begins on Sunday, so hopefully next week I’ll be posting a excerpt from my NaNo novel. This year I have two challenges ahead of me – writing a novel in 30 days, and editing one in the same amount of time (or less, even).

Howard Ruskin stared at the object that rested dead center on his work table. It looked like an adder stone, or hag stone. He’d awoken to the sound of a thunderclap and the vision of that very object. It had hovered over his bed and then floated slowly out of the room. He’d followed it, and only when it settled gently on his work table did he realize he wasn’t dreaming.

“Howard . . .” a disembodied voice said. “Activate your scrying bowl.”

A few months ago, Howard would have been horrified at objects floating around his apartment and disembodied voices talking to him. He would have thought seriously about getting some psychiatric help.

But that was before he’d learned that real magic was possible and learned how to use it himself. Before he’d accidentally sent his best friend into a magical realm in another dimension. Before he’d talked with wizards from this other realm by way of the scrying bowl.

With a yawn he went over to the book case and pulled down the bowl he used for scrying. Using his sleeve, he wiped the dust off of it - it had been a while since the bowl had seen any use. His friend Jessica preferred using a mirror to communicate, while Paranithel, the wizard teaching him magic, was in the midst of the Trials - the final examinations for the senior students at his wizard school.

He fingered the moonstone pendant hanging around his neck as he waited for the oil in the bowl to settle. At one time the pendant had been a link to his friend Jessica.... There were actually two parts to it and they each had half, but hers had been lost somewhere in the magical realm.

Jessica, it turned out, was not a native of earth, but of the magical realm. She’d been sent to earth as a baby for her own safety and had grown up not knowing she was adopted nor her magical heritage. Unbeknownst to Howard, when he used Jessica in a teleportation experiment to prove magic was real, her father and grandfather cast a spell at the same time to bring her back to her own universe.

Unfortunately, the spell worked better than anyone had expected and she overshot her mark. Instead of landing in the southern lands close to Thackery and Paran’s magic school, she’d ended up in the Kingdom of Ghren where she met up with the dastardly Prince Ewan.

She escaped his clutches with the help of the bard Sebastian, and was making her way southward when she accidentally turned a thief into a dog and was forced to wait a month before she could change him back. It turned out that Dominic, the thief, was an old friend of Sebastian’s, but before they could continue their journey, Jessica was kidnapped and ended up back in Ghren.

Dominic also turned out to be Ewan’s older brother, who had, thanks to Ewan, disappeared many years before. With the help of some ghosts from the past, Jessica was able to stop Ewan once and for all, and since Dominic didn’t want the job a new king of Ghren was installed.

The last Howard had seen of them, Jessica and Dominic had been getting quite cosy. As for Jessica’s father and grandfather . . . now that he was no longer needed to act as a go-between with Jessica he rarely saw her father, Thackery. But Paranithel, her grandfather, kept the promise he’d made to teach Howard the rudiments of magic that would make the most of what little power he had access to.

The oil in the bowl churned and then cleared to show the face of a beautiful woman with brilliant blue eyes, silver hair, and slender, pointed ears.

“Aracelia!” Howard said in surprise, then added, “Ma’am.”

The Lady Aracelia was Jessica’s fairy grandmother, or to be more precise, her elven grandmother.

“Howard, you are looking well, my friend.”

“Ah, thank you. You’re looking well too. How may I help you?” he asked politely.

“Paran has told me what a promising student of magic you are, but he finds your world’s lack of magic most frustrating.”

“As do I,” Howard admitted. Truthfully, he found it far more than just frustrating.

“I have sent you a talisman imbued with elven magic that should aid you in your lessons. It should last for several months, at which point you have only to contact me and I will re-energize it for you.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Howard said, astonished. “Your generosity humbles me.”

She smiled gently. “You have been a good friend to my granddaughter and I feel somewhat responsible for the loss of your connection to her.”

Unbeknownst to Howard, it had, in fact, been totally her fault. She arranged for Jessica’s half of the amulet to be stolen in order to test her magical abilities. Unfortunately, the amulet, along with the young elf who’d been drafted to steal it, had been lost and Aracelia had been shouldering a double burden of guilt.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

If you want to find out what Howard really does with all that power, you’ll have to wait until the book comes out. :-D