3) Extracts from volumes 1-3
Extract from Book 1 Chapter 1 The Beginning Due to be published Oct/Nov 2005.
A tiny robin alighted on a moist stunted aspen and cocked its head to one side. It was a bird seldom seen, for it was at the extreme northern limits of its range. Subdued sounds broke the intense silence but were soon swallowed up by the immense plain that stretched as far into the thin mist as the eye could discern. The candlelight in the tiniest of windows was already diluted by the pale grey daylight. There was a brief cry and the robin fluttered to an adjacent branch. At the trickling spring that ran crystal clear down formations of icicles just outside the door, a bowl was dropped onto the rocks by a trembling hand. The bird flew away to a wall of rock that was still thick with frost and when the silence returned a dawn had taken place, marked by an event that will likely never be repeated in the whole history of mankind. A child had been born that would buoy up the spirit of kingdoms and save the very Earth from destruction. It was an unusually warm morning for she was born far in the north where the few inhabitants were used to ice for most of the year. Gentle rain dulled the rime of frost in the yard and pattered on the broken fragments of the bowl and washed away the blood into the earth yet left the new cobweb that delicately laced the twigs of the broom intact.
The father was already dead but now his cause lived on. He had left the child one instruction: never to yield. She never would. There would be many times during her extremely long presence in this world when she could, with all justification, have given way but it was in her nature as well as her promise never to give in. For those who would depend on her strength, she would be a refuge and a shining example. But who was she? Her name was Antonina Aurarmes. Antonina means "beyond price; a jewel beyond compare" and Aurarmes is derived from ancient words referring to "golden" and "prophetess". But her real name was seldom used and she was raised simply as ‘Debden’. The remote location for her early years had been chosen carefully for this was no ordinary child and she had to be hidden, for a while at least. Her mother was no less than the daughter of Erethe, Goddess of the Earth. So the child had mighty enemies before she was born and more when it was revealed what had been planned for her but her life would not follow the predicted course. When she knew who she was and what her purpose was she would continue to call herself simply "Debden". But events would occur that would confound the planners and the strategists amongst the deities and she would rise, in time, above them all. In fact, many of her opponents would be left in shame in her shadow. But for now, she snuggled beneath her reindeer fur, basking in the warmth from her mother’s body, not yet tormented by the responsibilities that would be heaped upon her without mercy.
2nd extract
Debden was absolutely white.
"It’s madness," she whispered, "madness." She thought her heart would stop as the shock of it steadily penetrated. The horror of it all was spreading through her veins. It was simply too great a message…too enormous to comprehend. She screwed up her fists in desperation.
"It’s completely mad," she repeated. "The world is mad."
"It’s why the other Gods will try to stop her."
"Which Gods?"
"Most, I expect." Debden peered unseeing in the direction of the Citadel in the Hyperions.
"Do I have to fight the Gods too? I cannot do such a thing mama. It’s too much…too much…for anyone."
"You are not anyone, child. You are the one, the greatest in the entire Earth. Within your little finger is more magic than can be comprehended by the whole of mankind and most of the Gods, perhaps all of them." Debden’s mead fell to the ground and her lips trembled and she looked away, completely and utterly at a loss. Arianell waited through minutes of total silence.
Example: Selection from Book 2 Chapter 1 From the four corners of the Earth
Debden stood at the Ice Field of Consideration. She had driven herself almost to death and was weary beyond belief. Her gums were bleeding and she peered through red swollen slits beneath eyelids that were almost frozen closed. Her breathing was just audible as short painful rasps above the hiss of wind-blown ice spicules and her magic sword Caliphray, weighed down by layer upon layer of ice, pulled heavily at her slender waist from an iron-hard buckle that she could no longer undo. For two days she had fought sleep, knowing that she might never wake. Her remaining food was lashed to her back and her fingers were buried within two pairs of mittens, the outer ones with fur on the outside. She clutched her staff and looked down briefly at the battered remains of her snowshoes. But she’d timed it well. The ice was soft and almost translucent. The rows of bodies were just visible less than a foot down, almost as white as the snow, and they stretched as far as the eye could see. They were supported by ice that never completely thawed and never totally froze so long as their souls stubbornly refused to leave their dead bodies. Here some might endure for a thousand years, steadfastly refusing their ultimate demise but most eventually succumbed to the endless repetition of days during which they watched the weak sun creep by. When they eventually gave in, then the ice would release them from its grip and their bodies would drift slowly down, spiralling into the deep black abyss of the Orbeyron Canyons, two thousand feet below. There, the lattice would inexorably absorb their souls and their memories would gradually recede into the blur that precedes ultimate extinction on the other side. For very, very few would there be renewal and the beginning of a new cycle.
Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the Keeper of Souls made his way towards her and she watched him stop and prod, here and there, allowing the intestines to trail down into the depths. He speared a swollen head through the eyes to let out the gas so that it would sink down into the long night. She thought she would actually collapse with fatigue by the time he reached her but eventually he came. His light grey eyes surveyed her without feeling, curiosity or care. His translucent, frosty form shuffled across the ice, his internal organs shrivelled and wasted and split and hanging like frozen rope inside his flattened abdomen. Speech had long since been abandoned by both. By him because he had no need of it and by her because her tongue was split, raw and swollen. She addressed him instead in the Old Tongue, which is a primeaval universal tongue heard within the head and accompanied by intense feeling and images. But in this case there was no immediate reaction. He continued the same relentless stare for his task was the only reprieve from the inexorable journey to oblivion that he saw every day. Eventually though, there was a glimmer of a response and then he replied. It surprised her that he still could.
"I don’t know who they are. Nor do I care. They never cared for me," was all she heard in her mind.
"But someone must have cared for you once? Your mother, perhaps, did care for you very much, long, long ago. I know people that love you still. Have you forgotten all that love?" The mention of the word brought just a flicker of recognition in his otherwise lifeless eyes. He studied her and thought for a while. Everything happened very slowly while steadily she was freezing to death.
"What point is there in that?"
"Because it is good to remember that at some point in your long life you have been loved as intensely as all others have been loved. That at one point there was no difference." She had aroused his curiosity. She spoke of things that he had long given up.
"You are strange but you will soon join the others in the ice if you linger here." She dragged her feet a couple of steps closer and looked right into his eyes.
"So! Keeper of Souls, you can still remember concern for another after all you have been through. I think that is remarkable. It makes me feel better."
"Makes you feel better?"
"Of course! Don’t you realise how remarkable you are? Don’t you see how your love has endured even this? You are such an incredible man!"
"Why awake such painful memories?"
"Is a second of joy not worth having, even here?" He looked down upon the frozen blood beneath her nose and lips.
"Who are you?"
"Don’t you recognise me really old friend? That is very sad."
The Rise of a Goddess Bk3 ISBN 1-4137-5192-X
sample: from Book 3 Chapter 9: Quicksilver
The enraged and bleeding Quicksilver, trained to perfection, on the last of an incredible forty miles, turned to his final task, the gruelling climb up to the ring. Debden was virtually unconscious and was dimly aware that he was beginning the climb. Behind him, blue bolts continued to fly, but he was pulling away. He was making his final effort for her. He surged up the frosty slope. She felt his spine flexing as he made a titanic effort up the last mile. His great heart was thundering between her knees, and she made the last effort and crossed the reins and crumpled forward and slid her roped wrists over his muzzle. She could think of fewer better ways to die than with this magnificent warrior and knew that she could die having given all she could. Images of Ballasteryne and the Guardians and her husband began to drift into her mind. Coloured bolts were now erupting everywhere as Amygdala and Aurora closed. Quicksilver, carrying the dying body of his mistress, was still actually accelerating up the slope. He had saved himself for his final battle. The brim of the ring was coming steadily nearer. The white stallion erupted over the brim and landed on his forelegs. The shock dislodged Debden, and she slid out of the saddle, and he dragged her along the frozen ground to her own stone and stopped, steaming, and pouring with blood from two bolt strikes. Amygdala was yards behind Deuteron and Aurora met them at the brim of the ring. Twelve hoof beats rang out as they followed Quicksilver into the ring, and as the black stallion crossed the brink, there was a cataclysmic extirpation of Deuteron, and the few tiny blazing remains of his horse were driven away by the freezing wind. Deuteron’s immortality had ended, and the cycle was broken.
