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Shard: Book One of Aetherworld

by Jane Senese

269 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0189; ISBN 1-55212-789-3; US$23.50, C$26.95, EUR19.00, £13.50

The new age of prosperity is threatened, and the entire Aetherworld is at risk. Shard, a misfit sorcerer, must harness his erratic powers to defeat a hidden foe and rescue the Aetherworld from chaos.

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about the book      about the author      Chapter Three      catalogue info

About the Book Four thousand years ago, the Great War raged across the Aetherworld, countless sorcerers battling to overthrow the golden age kingdoms. Then a formidable magic-wielder brought the war to an end with a cataclysmic weapon - the yúgure, a focusing crystal that laid waste to the entire continent and plunged the Aetherworld into the Dark Age. Now the kingdoms have risen once more, and the Aetherworld is united under the New Age of Celaeno, the Empress of Nations. Growing up under this New Age is Shard, Celaeno's adopted son: a restless magic-wielder whose origins are a mystery and whose powers are uncontrolled. But beyond the walls of the royal palace, assassins are gathering, and mercenaries plunder Celaeno's emerald mines. A conspiracy is brewing in the wild Den´ren Wastes: a race to uncover a hidden treasury - and to find a deadly artifact more valuable than all the plunder of the Golden Age. When Shard runs away from the palace life, he discovers a being from before the Dark Age: a fellow sorcerer trapped in a four-thousand-year-old sleep. In Sim Onmyóji, Shard finds a teacher who can offer him control over his wayward powers, and a companion who understands the restlessness within him. And together they must unravel the conspiracy before the treasury and all its secrets fall to the enemy; before the Aetherworld is once again forced into anarchy. Shard, book one of the Aetherworld series, is a daring fantasy, offering a rich world of adventure as well as a provocative look at gender and sexuality in fantasy literature.

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About the Author Jane Senese is a Greek and Roman Studies Major at the University of Victoria. While Shard is her first published novel, she has been writing all her life, honing her craft and experimenting with sci-fi and fantasy genres. A graduate of St. Margaret's School for Girls, she placed second in a writing contest sponsored by the Canadian Association of Independent Schools (CAIS). An accomplished scholar, she is looking forward to completing her Major at UVic, and hopes to become a career novelist. Jane Senese lives in Victoria, British Columbia, where she can usually be found at her laptop, working on her latest project. Visit Jane Senese's website at IntoTheAetherworld.com

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Chapter Three

3

    Varron Lehs drew his cloak more tightly about him as he waited with growing impatience. To his left was a large window, and through its tinted glass he could see the land of Níst sweep out below the citadel. It was a dark land; it always had been, even before the yúgure and the Winter of a Thousand Years had ravaged the world. Humid forests and murky swamps hugged the valleys that bloomed as crags between jagged black peaks. The Fang Ridge ran across the land like a scar, rising nowhere as menacingly as the peak upon which the citadel was built. A light shudder ran through him; he felt his symbiote's tentacles tightening within his skull in apprehension. This was a land forged of blood and warlords, spies and conspiracies. He appreciated the kinship of these people, but he had no wish to linger any longer than he had to.
    A silent man glided out of the shadows. A chimera, a thing of sorcerers' creation - once peri, no longer. A heavy ridge ran over his eyes, dipping down to the bridge of his cat-like nose. His cheekbones were pronounced, the grayish skin pulled taut over them as they swept down to meet his jawline. His eyes were a fearsome red, glowing in the shadows. He beckoned with a long black talon, turning back into the darkness, and Varron followed.
    The ghoulish creature led him through vaulted corridors and down deep stairways, past doorways guarded by black-robed spectres, their cowls framing a faceless black void. Varron avoided looking at them. He had heard stories of those who looked too long at the spectres, and though he discounted them as fiction, he was in no hurry to be proven wrong.
    At last they reached a gaping maw in the wall, the stairs disappearing into a darkness untempered by lanterns or candles. The chimera motioned for Varron to proceed alone. The man hesitated a moment, then grudgingly swept past the majordomo, turning a corner almost immediately as the spiral swept him deeper into the castle.
    He proceeded down the stairs, his eye suspiciously scanning the shadows for unseen ambushes. His last visit to Níst had been decidedly unpleasant. Winding down the stone steps, he kept his cloak tightly drawn about him. The golden glow of the private chamber beckoned him forward.
    An ugly little form leapt out at him and he recoiled despite himself. The gremlin bounded on the floor, his scraggly head just reaching Varron's knees. Laughter greeted him from the shadows. Varron scowled at the little vulture-like creature, potbellied and gangly-limbed. The gremlin cackled. Varron kicked at it and it went scurrying for safety.
    He turned the corner, stepping into the large chamber. Rich colours and fragrant perfume assaulted his senses. The room was dimly lit by low-resting lamps burning a faint incense, periodic sparks cast by the little fires. A thin wisp of smoke clung in the air and he grimaced inwardly at the sensation. Before him an immense dais spread out towards the wall, draped in costly silks that would make the richest despot blush. Gold chains dripped from the lamps, and jewels sparkled from the corners. An Alteri woman reclined on a set of cushions, her scanty body armour revealing the intricate tattoos wrapped about her limbs. A nobleman arrayed in rich robes sat in a corner, his hand protectively wrapped around his water-pipe. Kobolds huddled around the elaborate pillars, scrutinizing the intruder, their little faces glowing in the light. A chimera woman lounged across the silks, her features those of a leopard, her cat's eyes watching him intently. Peri maidens in wispy gowns clustered against the walls.
    A large divan sat in the center of the dais, next to which rested an immense ornate hookah. Seated on the cushions at the foot of the couch was a handsome peri dressed in costly garments, an ornate collar about his neck, a thin golden chain leading from it up to the couch. And draped across the divan throne lay the Empress of Níst.
    She wore a long indigo gown that swept to the floor of the dais; the skirt was slit high on one side to reveal a long shapely white leg. The material clung to her figure, emphasizing her every curve. Gold jewelry dripped from her body; finely wrought chains encircled her waist and throat; her fingers were sheathed in long golden claws. Her iridescent black hair fell in thick waves around her. A long black serpent wound about her wrist, disappearing into the folds of her gown. She proudly wore the Scorpion Seal of Níst on her forehead.
    She hardly acknowledged his presence as he slowly stepped forward, preferring to gaze off into space. When he stopped short paces from the couch she slowly turned towards him with a bored expression. Varron stared back purposefully, and she raised one eyebrow slightly. Slowly, deliberately, he sunk on one knee, keeping his eyes defiantly locked with hers. Then, with the maximum of scorn, he bowed his head low.
    "Varron," she spoke at last, a charming laugh issuing from her throat. "It's been too long a time," she smiled insincerely. "Last time I heard you were a half-mile underground."
    Varron smiled back tightly. "I have kept myself busy."
    "Still have that... worm wriggling about in your head?" she asked. She drew in a long breath from her water-pipe, then blew the smoke directly at him. "Why are you here, then?"
    His face darkened. "My spies are as reliable as yours, Seiren. I hear Celaeno's little son is to be married. I hear you have even sent your daughter Athyr to lead the Níst delegation to Amaru for the wedding."
    Seiren shrugged, stretching cat-like. "I wish to offer the young couple my best wishes. I want Celaeno to appreciate the friend she has in Niacute;st."
    "Níst never used to concern itself with 'friends,'" he sneered.
    Seiren rolled her eyes. "The same old refrain, Varron," she glanced over at the silent man at her side. "It really does grow tiresome, doesn't it, pet?" she asked, drawing on the chain attached to his collar. She bent her head down and kissed him long on the lips, an embrace he did not hesitate to return. She slipped her arms about his neck, and the snake slithered out of her sleeve, gliding down the man's back to disappear within the cushions. Varron struggled to keep his face emotionless, but a little sniff of scorn escaped him and a little muscle by his lips twitched once. The little gremlin, perched in the lap of a buxom peri maiden, cackled with delight at his discomfort.
    Reluctantly Seiren drew away and lay back on the couch, taking another long draw from her hookah. "The Dark Age is over, Varron," she continued, winding the gold leash about her wrist, drawing the all-too-willing slave nearer once more. "Chalandris is a shamble of ruins. Your followers are dead; your master has not been seen for four hundred years."
    "Your brother understood our ways," Varron growled.
    "My brother is dead," she informed him coldly. "I rule Níst now."
    "And you make treaties with the Amaru. You breed diplomats," he cursed. "Hairath's daughter has fallen from her proud heritage. Don't you ever long for something grander than these petty schemes of negotiations and alliances? Don't you look back on the old days and long for true power?"
    "You're a fool," Seiren snapped. "Your 'true power' as you call it, was nothing more than the brutal dreams of small minds, fools afraid of their own shadow. Favoring short-term solutions and power-mad reveries over rational strategy."
    "Like your brother?" Varron sneered. "Was he such a fool as I, Seiren?"
    "He stood in the way of progress, Varron," she explained. She glanced back at her "pet." "And I don't much care for those who stand in my way, do I, now?"
    "Then perhaps I've made a mistake coming here," Varron spoke, averting his eyes.
    "Perhaps you have," the man at Seiren's side spoke for the first time.
    "Now, now, Jinn," she reprimanded lightly. "Varron Lehs would never make a fool's errand, would he? You didn't come all this way just to reminisce."
    The entourage leaned forward in anticipation.
    "What would you say if I told you I knew a way I could regain my power?" he asked. "What would you if I told you I intend to recover all I lost during the past three centuries? Would Niacute;st take me so lightly then?"
    The Empress frowned skeptically. "Your armies are gone. Your kobold slaves rebelled and ran free. You have nothing but a handful of assassins and bounty hunters. What could possibly return all you've lost?" She lay back, slowly turning her long pipe in her hand. "You've said nothing to convince me that we have anything to say to each other."
    Varron spread his arms wide. "I only wish to serve Níst, Your Glory," he announced. "You are quite right: my master is gone, and I have lost much. But I don't intend to stay beaten down much longer. Soon I will be a position of great power. The kobold slaves that my men managed to hold for me are hard at work in my mines, and soon they will have uncovered for me a treasure from the Golden Age itself, a treasure which will purchase me the heart and soul of every warlord and bounty seeker in all the known Aetherworld."
    "What?" Jinn scoffed.
    "The Treasury of Ravanor."
    Seiren's eyes widened. "Ravanor?" she murmured. She sat up, then shook her head. "You'll never find Wyvern's Rest. Peri and kobolds have searched for it for over two thousand years. I'm not even convinced it was ever anything but a myth-"
    "Oh it's no myth," Varron interrupted her. "All the riches of Ravanor's decadent satrapy, the wealth of five hundred years of plunder and destruction, still lying undiscovered. They say he sealed six of his consorts in the tomb with his wealth, burying them alive, so their spirits could guard his riches. They say the jewels of his Great Consort Kishca alone are enough to sink three ships with their weight."
    "No one has ever found it."
    "I have already found it."
    Seiren sprang up from the couch, floating an inch above the floor of the dais. The sudden movement and the tightened leash yanked Jinn up on his knees. Openly disgusted by both Varron and her own impulsive actions, Seiren shook the chain from her wrist. "You've found... the Treasury of Ravanor?" she hissed incredulously, rage in her eyes. The sycophants clustered about her slowly eased back, recognizing the look all too well.
    "Oh, not the main chamber," Varron dismissed with a laugh. Crimson rage rose in the Empress's cheeks and her slave inched back against the couch in apprehension. "No, but my men have uncovered the first of the antechambers." He drew something from his robe and the Alteri was on her feet, her hand darting for her dagger. Varron held out his hand, opening it to reveal an exquisite gold brooch, in the shape of a roaring tiger's face, the reddish hue of the metal and the expert hand of the craftsman identifying it as from the Ravanoran Dynasty.
    "Intriguing," Seiren smiled, her eyes gleaming with greed. Then she laughed, her interest dissolving in an instant. She tossed her head back in laughter: the maximum insult. Varron sneered. "But you've still failed to convince me," she explained, her mirth only heightened by his anger. "Men have been uncovering 'antechambers' for years. True, your pretty little pin there seems to be from the right period at least, but it's a long way from the Treasury itself."
    "This is only the beginning," Varron insisted. "As we speak, my kobolds are digging further into the rock, unearthing more and more treasure." He lowered his head, staring intently at her. "Consider my offer carefully, Mistress. Even a small fraction of the rumoured wealth of Ravanor would be more than enough to tempt all the warlords in the land to my side. The Garthan Raiders themselves would be my personal bodyguards for the wealth I would promise them. Consider this, then, a gift," he reverently placed the brooch on the edge of dais as the Alteri watched him closely. "A promise, of what I could offer Níst, if it chose to accept my aid."
    "And sent men to die in your mines? And fed your fat friends and supplied them with playthings when one appetite is sated and another demands sustenance?"
    "A small price to pay for such an offer. Are you content with your little 'sister Celaeno' being the Silver Queen, the Empress of Nations? Wouldn't you like to see the world order tip in your favor? Wouldn't you like to stand in the central vault of the Treasury and see the fortune despots and tyrants died for?"
    "You're a fool, Varron." With a flourish of her claws, she floated back onto the couch. "A tired useless little man. You'll never find it. And whatever trinkets your slaves unearth will never be enough to buy back the respect you lost when your own kobolds turned on you." She blew a lazy smoke ring towards the ceiling, then set the pipe down, turning back to Jinn. "Still, he intrigues me, pet. What do you say? Oh, I forgot," she laughed lightly. "You were enslaved under him, weren't you, dearest? Why... I bought you from Varron himself. What did he say? 'That meat's not worth it'... why yes, that was it exactly!" She glared at Varron. "You were so weak you could barely walk for nearly a half-turn," she accused.
    Jinn too stared at the warlord, his copper eyes fierce with remembered pain and resentment. Varron felt the first flickers of panic, and his throat tightened against his will.
    Seiren slid on the floor of the dais next to Jinn, and he handed her the end of his golden chain, their fingers interlacing. "Shall I kill him for you?" Seiren purred, one golden claw tracing a line down his cheek. She cast one satisfied look at the now decidedly nervous Varron, before turning back. "Would you like that, my pet?" she asked, nuzzling his neck.
    "No," Jinn kept his eyes pinned on the warlord. "I think I like him like this."
    Seiren laughed, rising. "So do I. Broken, desperate, chasing dreams. One of his own men will stab him in the back late one night for far less than the Treasury of Ravanor. Or better yet, his slaves will turn on him again, only this time they won't be so merciful as to simply shut him up in his own mines."
    "Consider carefully, Mistress," Varron pressed. "This new order you cherish is a mere three hundred years old. Elória reigned for ten thousand years, but it was brought down by a single man."
    "Elória was brought down by a devil, whose power you will never possess," Seiren scoffed, her face a cold mask, her eyes glaring with ice-cold fire. "You have been underground for too long, Varron. And I've grown too used to thinking of your sulphur-bleached bones littering the cave tunnels. I don't want your pledge, or your treasure."
    "You may present the façade of supreme power, Seiren, but I know you have your rivals. Rivals that may be more interested in my offer than you."
    As swift as thought, a wicked spearpoint was at Varron's throat. But Seiren calmly waved the Alteri aside. "Then by all means, seek them out," she smiled. Her smile hardened. "But see you're beyond the Fang Ridge by Silver Moon's rise," she commanded. "You carry a certain... stink with you, Varron, one I'm not fond of, and I know many besides who wouldn't mind settling old scores. Be glad I find it more amusing to see you whither in your uselessness than to let my playthings in the dungeon have their fun with you. I doubt my brother would have been so merciful."

    He knew Varron had failed in his mission long before the man had cast himself to reveal the news. The peri sat back in his old throne, settling in the musty old fabric, aged and frayed with the passing of time. He ran his hand over the worn black metal armrests, scratched and tarnished. He had been asleep too long.
    It had been four hundred and fifty years since the kobolds had taken his satrap from him. Four hundred and fifty years since he had been forced into exile, forced into sleep.
    Far too long.
    He held his right hand into the faint light, gazing at the blood-ruby ring on his gnarled finger. Lightly his finger traced a circle around the perimeter of the gold-rimmed gem. He would have his lands returned to him. He would see his satrapy thrive as it had in the glorious days of the Dark Age. More, he would see it grow, until it spread across the land and enveloped the known Aetherworld. He would have all the wealth of the world in his hands. And at last he would have the pleasures and the peace he had butchered so many in the hopes of finding.
    Everything was proceeding according to plan. That halfwit cow Seiren's refusal hardly even mattered in the long run. He should have foreseen her rejection; she was weak, too easily wooed by her slave-mate and her addled-brained courtiers. But no matter. It only meant less power to share between pawns until his vision was achieved.
    Even the pawns would not matter in the end. He had his own plans for them.
    He was cold, the draft in the ruins ate at his flesh and chilled his bones. His joints ached and his breath came in short gasps and he huddled inside his black cloak to keep warm. But it was only to be expected. He was four thousand years old, after all.
    He was not yet to full strength. The sleep did that to him. He had not managed a safe hibernation. Dreams had haunted him, wearied him. But he would soon grow strong again. He laid his hand protectively over the red jewel, which began to pulse lightly, a rhythmic palpitation within the opaque gem.
    "Soon..." he murmured in a raspy voice. He raised his hand to his lips, laying a soft kiss on the gleaming ruby.

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Catalogue Information

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