available for preorder now!
The first book in my new series, The Elsewhere Riddle, is available for preorder now! It goes live December 1st, and the suspense is killing me. I thought I’d share a short selection from the book to celebrate.
from The Nicodemus Path, coming December 2021
When he stepped free from the column of light an instant later, it was to be assailed by a familiar roar. He hadn’t really known where he meant to go and paused a step beyond, where a curtain of crystalline spume made a second set of constellations across Telume’s pinprick points of light.
Then he walked forward to the margin where black substance gave way to glittering gauze. It was only standing at the verge, the ground fallen away before his feet, that the truth became visible: he stood above the broad and horseshoe-shaped womb of a vast canyon, into which a mighty river plunged. He watched it fall away for a long time, closing his eyes on occasion the better to feel the thunder of the river’s rage.
He turned left and followed the road that led from this overlook through the human community hugging the river’s banks. Beyond, a significant city clung to the many isles and rock-crags that thrust from the fast-moving water before it went over that mile-long crescent of cliff. He set foot on the graceful arch leading from the shore straight to the largest of them. Like all the bridges bounding across the seething river, its balustrades were woven with strands of tiny white lights, pearls that caught and held the sun’s radiance to guide the feet of city-dwellers at night.
Three bridges on, he stopped in the center of a park that could have fit inside most homes, a willow, a greensward, a few out-of-season lilies that were wilting and turning brown. There, he knelt, and drew in several deep, slow breaths to center himself. He placed one palm on the turf before him, placed the other on top of it, rested his brow on his hands. He breathed into the grass tickling his lips: “Please. I need.”
He remained that way for another hour, whispering and waiting and whispering again. It wasn’t a question of doing this correctly, but of getting lucky doing it. Asal adored her elder brother and lavished privileges upon his chosen, but she wasn’t her brother’s creation, let alone his servant. The goddess who was this world was so capricious that caprice was conversely to be expected, while consistency merited surprise. And although she gave them power with an open hand, right now he was asking for a favor, which was altogether a different thing.
About the time he had decided to give up until tomorrow and get some sleep, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Tal Vyuroth was at all times too noisy to hear something so subtle as a sneaky person sneaking up behind you, but Zikila trained all their senses, including those that had no name. Right now, his were warning him that someone dangerous was watching him.
When he glanced over his shoulder, a silver-swathed shadow stood on the pavement just beyond the grass. He wasn’t sure how long the man had been there, but the instant he saw he had been seen, he came forward. As he moved, the stirring of his densely-quilted cloak revealed a sword belted about his hips. He knelt in the grass before Isador, hands in his lap, and at first he said nothing, hood turning this way and that as he studied him.
At last, he said, “You called?”
“Does anyone have a dathan,” Isador said slowly, “they might be sending to Thesra?”
“Certainly not.”
“You’re so sure of that?”
“Well only Zenas even has an apprentice right now, and you know he long since passed this trial.”
Isador grunted.
“No one means to set foot in the place until you’re satisfied that you’ve learned what you can. No one else was wounded by this like you, but I think it’s fair to say the rest of us are just as curious and unsettled.”
He heaved a sigh, acknowledging that he had expected no other answer. It had been a weak straw to clutch at. Even had the answer been yes, it would have given him no better insight into what end that elf might be pursuing within a building they still had no conceivable cause to enter. “Hm?”
“I said, Did you really go to all the trouble to convey a message to me through our mother, in order to ask me a question whose answer you already knew?”
“I thought I knew,” he snapped. “None of us thought this could happen in the first place. Our assumptions obviously warrant reexamination.”
“Yet I note you summoned me here,” the man pointed out. “To a place that has more to recommend it than the scenery.”
He didn’t care to respond to this.
The other Zikila stared at him, thoughtful, maybe even troubled. Then he rose and moved closer, circling Isador at a measured pace. The second time he stood at his back, he stopped. He dropped to his haunches and leaned closer, his breathing heavy. Isador could imagine his nostrils flaring, a puzzled line appearing between his brows.
Abruptly, he sat back. “What have you done to yourself, Iso?”
“It’s a Servient Union.”
He could sense the man’s shock, but his voice was business-like. “The salafin?”
“There are two of them.”
“Hm.”
There was no possible way to deliver the news in a manner that might make it less shocking, so he said baldly, “Ankhumoses and the human he’s fallen in love with.”
“You formed a corporeal tandem with one of the Tet Ravos. And a human.”
The words were flat, uninflected. He cleared his throat.
The man’s response was exactly what he had feared and expected: with a whoop, he threw himself sideways into the grass, rolling about in a transport of hilarity. Isador watched him from the corners of his eyes, scowling. His companion laughed and laughed, and although his hood had fallen back slightly, he had both hands plastered over his face as if to hide himself from the full force of the revelation.
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