Rachel Starr Thomson - Seventh World Trilogy 01, page 26
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he had said, faltering. “He was a brave man.”
Maggie had not answered.
“Anyway, I’ll be going,” Nicolas had said, his tone deliberately light.
Maggie had turned with tear-filled eyes, but Nicolas was already nearly out the door. At the last minute he had turned and looked at her, and she had heard anguish in his voice.
“He loved you very much,” Nicolas told her. “I heard the love in his heart. It was beautiful.”
And then he was gone. “He will be back,” Huss had said when she told him.
“You sound very sure.”
“The world is taking sides,” Huss had said. “Soon even the most determined wanderers will have to make a choice. And I am sure I know what side he will choose to take.”
The long procession reached the bottom of the hill. The men came and lifted the coffins, laying them on the ground beside the open graves. High on the hill behind them Pravik stood mournful watch, and the wind sighed up and down the sides of the valley.
Maggie stood near Jerome’s coffin as the Ploughman stood in the midst of his people and spoke of the battle and the courage of those who had fought. More, he spoke of the future, in which their toils would be rewarded. A future in which Athrom would hear them and they would be free.
Libuse spoke also, of days gone by, and of the faded glory of the Eastern Lands which once more was beginning to shine. “In the Hall of Kings there does not lay one man of more worth than we lay to rest here today,” she said. “This day we say farewell to the truest sons of the East.”
At the last Huss stood and spoke a blessing over the burial grounds, a blessing pronounced in the name of the King. Maggie stood and sang her lament once more.
Finally the last moment came. Maggie’s eyes clouded with tears as the men came and began to lower the coffins into the ground.
She stayed near as they took up the body of Jerome, and her eyes widened. A large white seabird flew down and perched on top of the coffin. It smiled at her with knowing eyes and bobbed its head once. Then it spread its wide wings and soared away.
Maggie watched it go, and she called after it. The bird bore her last farewell along with it to the southern sea.
That night Maggie ate for the first time since the battle had ended. She sat on a cushioned seat near the fire in the house of Libuse and let her eyes trace the outlines of the faces that sat at the table with her. The Ploughman and Libuse; Mrs. Cook and Pat; Huss and Virginia. They were a strange little company, Maggie thought, but a smile came to her as she reflected that they were no stranger than another council that had met, forty years ago, to dream dreams that would lead to this day.
Pravik was taken, but the battle was not over. Athrom would not hear them yet. Even now High Police were marching from Athrom. The Emperor roared in his den, eager to avenge the death of his Overlord and teach the rebels a lesson. In the city, the people were moving underground. The tunnels through which Maggie had run from the guards what seemed like an eternity ago were only one level of a great web of tunnels and caverns that led deep down into the rocky foundations of the city. The High Police would find nothing but mystery when they arrived.
Soon they would go, too, but the little company wished to eat one last meal above the ground. In a way it seemed that they were still sitting in the old Pravik: the Pravik where Libuse had longed for the days of her ancestors; where the Ploughman had lost his brother in a riot sparked by hopelessness; where Huss had battled the Empire by teaching secret truths to all who would listen. It was the Pravik where the old Maggie still lived, the Maggie who had ridden over the Guardian Bridge with Nicolas and shivered at the sight of the pleading statues, before love and truth and song had changed her forever.
But it was not the old Pravik any longer, no matter what illusions and memories the night whispered to them. When Maggie took Huss’s arm that night and left the house of Libuse, she stepped into a new world.
Book 2 Now Available at Smashwords.com
or order in paperback from your favourite online or brick-and-mortar retailer
Burning Light
After five hundred years, the Seventh World is beginning to wake to the realities of the unseen world behind their own. The rise of the Gifted portends the coming of the King of ancient days-but evil is also waking. Aware that their control is beginning to slip, the Order of the Spider sets out to convert the
Gifted or destroy them. Among those caught in the conflict are Nicolas Fisher, a young Gypsy running from the past, and Maggie Sheffield, driven underground in the city of Pravik. Others also stand against the Blackness: the young chieftain Michael O’Roarke, the mysterious healer called Miracle, and the indomitable rebels of Pravik. Together, they will unearth a terrible plot and stand against the greatest evil their world has ever known. As the world takes sides, their lives will play an integral role-in the coming of light, or the triumph of darkness. Burning Light is the second book in The Seventh World Trilogy.
Book 3 Coming for Christmas 2010 The Advent
The Veil is torn; five hundred years have passed. Morning Star, ancient bane of the Seventh World, is poised to take control. He fears only the Gifted, six whose joining is prophesied to bring back the King. Virginia Ramsey, the blind seer of Pravik, sets out on a journey to find the King and bring him back to the Seventh World before Morning Star asserts his rule-but she may already be too late. The final installment in the Seventh World Trilogy.
Connect with Rachel Starr Thomson at
Chapter 14
www.rachelstarrthomson.com on Facebook
or on Twitter @writerstarr
Other Books by Rachel Starr Thomson
Taerith (Online Fantasy -
www.rachelstarrthomson.com/books/taerith-a-novel)
Tales of the Heartily Homeschooled (Humour/Memoir)
Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord’s Prayer (Inspirational/Devotional)
Letters to a Samuel Generation (Inspirational/Devotional) Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe (Juvenile/Humour)
A free ebook from http://manybooks.net/
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: A Shadowed Past
Chapter 2: Run, Boy, Run
Chapter 3: When They See Beyond the Sky
*
*
Once again I have been thinking of the day of his return. I will not be here to see it, I know that well. I must pass through the borders of the world and join my exiled Master. When I do, light shall be my companion again, for the Blackness has no place outside this universe. When I have passed beyond the sky I will not spare much thought for this earth, where now I sit by the dying embers of last night’s fire and write.
Yet it troubles me to think that I will be forgotten to this world, for I have loved it, though it bears no love for me. I leave this journal, then, for those children of men who will one day be; and I hope that they will remember me.
My name is Aneryn. I am a Poet, and I am a Prophet. I fought beside the King in the Great War. The Brethren of the Earth-spirits of wind and tree and beast, of water and of fire-fought alongside me. There were men on our side as well. Few they were, and weak, as I am, but nobility and courage were in their hearts. This skeletal world without a heart and without flesh does not know what it means to feel courage, or to feel love. They, my sword brothers, knew. And I know. I alone know.
*
Tonight the moon burns red. I have seen it thus before: in the days of the Great War, the anger of the heavens burned in her face. Such a world she looks down on must kindle great wrath! Evil walks among men, though the Blackness itself is kept away behind the Veil.
It is a great mystery, the Veil. I will tell the tale of it, for it is a thing of mourning and of wonder.
There once walked among us a race of beings called the Shearim, the Fairest of Creation. In them was great wisdom, great beauty, and great strength. They took what shapes they wished and moved about clothed with the forms of men and women and children. Men sometimes called them the Virtues, for they took names to themselves after those qualities which men most honoured and revered: Justice and Wisdom, Harmony,
Innocence, Hope, and Beauty. The child-hearts among the Shearim were called Merriment, Laughter, and Melody.
Some kept to themselves, but many were dear to men, for they would often come among them, easing burdens with their touch
*
*
This day I stand most alone of all living things. This day I have seen Blackness, and there is no power of good beside me to fight it; this day I have seen treachery, and I have not the strength to speak out. My pen must do what my arm cannot; it must say what my tongue cannot. These words on paper must inspire men to return to the high things and turn away from the evil that drags and sucks and covers with filth.
I, Aneryn the Prophet, have seen a great Spider in the Blackness beyond the Veil. I have seen a great treachery. In this moment I wish for the tongue of the Shearim, that I might sing out against evil; I wish for the strength of the Brethren of the Earth, that I might battle it; I wish for the companionship of men, that together we might form a fortress of hearts which the Blackness cannot penetrate. But none of these things is given me; I am alone; I am forsaken; and in darkness and sorrow I see…
The Spider weaves a web and its strands pierce through the Veil, joined to the souls of men. Men themselves have called it to them. They have reached for the Blackness, and the Spider has answered them.
*
Hear the call of the Huntsman’s horn; Dawn will come though night is long;
*
*
The smoke rising around Virginia drugged her senses. She heard cries as though they were very far away-men’s cries, death cries. The guards? She smelled blood and heard the hiss of liquid and fire, and beneath it chanting.
She heard rippling laughter inside her head. He was inside her head.
“Find the scroll!” Skraetock commanded, his voice ringing through her mind like the painful sound of a bell in a closed space. She clenched her fists and thought back.
No.
Pain washed through her, and she cried out. In a moment it was gone. It left her panting for breath. Still fighting.
“Find the scroll,” commanded the voice again.
*
Chapter 4: Brightly Coloured Paths
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Worlds Unseen, Rachel Starr Thomson - Seventh World Trilogy 01
