To Elfenmere: Jimmy Pookly Adventures, #1

By P A Canella

A firestorm from the skies sends Jimmy Pookly and the fleeing town's folk of Modoria into the surrounding hills in search of Elfenmere. In between the town and Elfenmere lies treachery and a huge army, will they survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Place
• Release date: Jan 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497797628

P A Canella

P A Canella is the pen name of writer Alan Place. The use of the pen name is not designed to hide the identity of the author, he will tell you he wrote the book, The pen name is used purely because Alan thought a certain type of name suited a genre.  Other pen names used by Alan are Al Place and Lana Pawcel

Book preview

TO ELFENMERE

The man sitting at the back of the Mondoria Arms held the children’s imagination as he told the story of an ancient legend, A great fire from the sky will devour the city and the city shall be purged by the flames of Tallier’s Revenge, and as man flees the city, the denizens of the underworld shall feast upon the putrid waste of those who left.

Bill Marsh and his friend Joe Pearson laughed as Joe said, Those soothsayers never give up do they, Bill.

Bill glanced at the children sitting on the floor by the dying fire and replied, No, you’re right, Joe, I remember being scared by tales of fiery death when I was a little one, and yet here we are drinking, and they are still going on about Tallier’s Revenge.

Mondoria sat in the bowl of the Drachenweld Hills and had grown wealthy over the years, the reason being it controlled the vital sea trade routes to the lands of the far North and the West. With wealth came the pleasures of the flesh and as the city grew in size, the more people it attracted and the more sinful it became, until Mondoria was only spoken of in hushed voices.

The once powerful Convent of the Church of St. Tallier stood on a rock outcrop in the centre of the town and even though the church had a tiny congregation the church remained large in city life.

Like Joe and Bill, many of the people treated the soothsayer’s visions as a joke; until one night which changed lives forever.

The night watchman Phillip Johnson looked aimlessly into the skies above, nothing more on his mind than going home at the end of his shift, when suddenly the sky flared to a brilliant red and the streets became clear as day. As he looked up he saw the tail of a comet travelling towards the city, Look out, it’s coming! he yelled.

The comet didn’t miss the convent by much as it smashed into the bakery, setting the flour alight and starting a series of fires. The wooden structured houses daubed with wattle were soon ablaze, and the town became a raging fire storm as the heat from the comet caused fires to jump across the tightly packed streets. This once prosperous city was now becoming nothing but a burning shell of its former glories.

Where’s the town guard when we need them? yelled Helena Jacks, the barmaid from the Mondoria Arms, as she stood looking at the looters running through the city.

Phillip Johnson replied, They were sent to fight a big fire on the outskirts of the city, as he desperately fought to contain a small fire. The only thing he had to hand was a small pail. When he saw the blaze spreading, he yelled, "Can we have more help? Forget the houses on Armour Street, they’re