Loracle's Wheel: Guardians of the Fate

By Rowan Lefwyn

The first Episode of the epic fantasy series, Loracle's Wheel: Guardians of the Fate

The dread pestilence of corrupt majik holding sway in the lands of Anatherea is augured to come to an end after two Ages of dominion. All nations wait in expectancy as the Loracle’s Wheel of prophecy rolls down its Pathe to its ultimate conclusion to bring forth the Promise of a silfen age. Yet, even as the Darkmoon rises on the horizon heralding the dawn of a brand new day for mortal and immortal alike, the enemies of prophecy continue to thwart the Guardians of the Fate who keep the Wheel rolling on the Pathe.

The machinations of the dark drui Dhrevehin have ever plagued the Wheel bringing shadow to the lands. Now that dark lord’s interference has caused the Moon Rhombic and Bride of Silfer to be lost from the complex scheme of Loracle’s Wheel. Still, the Guardians of the Fate stand faithful to the prophecy so all of Anatherea will not be plunged into the eternal darkness of Dhrevhin’s Abysm of Eyr without a fight.

One such Guardian is Captain Liiam Bladeswythe, the hand meant to cut the shadows of the wounded lands with the missing Moon Rhombic he seeks so futilely to recover. Even though the Pathe seems to be failing at this crucial point in its history, Liiam still trusts in the luck of his skill and cold hard steel. The warrior prince is less enamored about finding the missing Beloved of Silfer the Pathe has Promised him. Immortal to the core, Liiam dreads betrothal to a mortal woman from a wild, barbaric horse realm.

Unlike other Guardians of the Fate, Overlord Bhren views the prophecy with a fear bordering on hysteria. He’s terrified the dead Bloodstone he’s bound to will one day suddenly flair to life again with blood-wyte, a hereditary majik of old. The reanimation of this majikal article might just illuminate his dark past and the guilty secrets it holds.

After stealing the Moon Rhombic, Shay Shaelrider takes refuge in remote Khorrin among the brooding, barbaric Sentaurs, Sentries of the Pathe. She sees through the awful secrets of the Guardians of Fate. The halfblooded pariah paradoxically has the shine of the lost blood-wyte illuminating her eyes in spite of her corrupt blood.

Shay cares not for prophecy for it has Promised her nothing but exile. For the Sentaurs of Khorrin the Pathe ensures only enslavement if it should ever come to completion. An event that seems more unlikely with each passing hour. Shay knows as all of wild Khorrin knows: The Guardians covertly destroyed the bloodline of the Beloved of Silfer ages before. The Pathe and its Wheel is now only an elaborate charade, profiting only those who Guard it.

Haunted by a brutal past and an uncertain future Shay is bound only by the oath given to her insane, immortal mother. Even though the Pathe speaks against her half-blooded helvish nature, Shay vows to protect the Moon Rhombic from those who would extinguish the last remaining pure elven majik left in the world.

All might have remained in stalemate until Bhren and Liiam are sent on a fool’s errand into wild, forbidden Khorrin. There, some mysterious force intervenes and Liiam nearly succumbs to a nomadic, wandering madness. With the Moon Rhombic, Shay intervenes against this insanity. Now the three are drawn inexorably together to walk a faltering Pathe together.

Majik and mayhem follow as Bhren, Liiam, and Shay are thrust into an unimaginable twist of Fate. Dark secrets of the Pathe’s past are revealed, and the Mhysteria of prophecy begins to shine as it has not in an Age. Bhren despises Shay for her knowledge of his guilty secrets even as Liiam is spellbound by her raw immortal nature.

Now, to keep the ancient elven Moon Rhombic and her adopted homeland safe from destruction by the Guardians, Shay is forced to choose between eternal life in exile or certain death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rowan Lefwyn
• Release date: Aug 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310652998

Rowan Lefwyn

Rowan Lefwyn is an American Author and Philosopher of metaphysics, psychological social disease, and the complexity of individual self-empowerment in a collectively dis-empowered world. She speculates on these topics through the medium of fiction. When she's not writing, she gardens and horseback rides in Michigan where she lives with a petulant thoroughbred and two hens, Dory & Gray. Other titles by Rowan include Directive 303

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LORACLE’S WHEEL: Guardians Of The Fate

Excerpts from the Epic Fantasy Novel

by

Rowan Lefwyn

Other Titles by Rowan Lefwyn:

DIRECTIVE 303

Copyright © 2014 by Rowan Lefwyn

Smashwords Edition

Prelude…

Haste now. Flight, child! Wyte, child!

Carried on a swirl of white mists the loud voices sang in melody, a booming call between Shay’s ears as she fled through the dark forests of Ephomoiire.  Other voices—angry shouts—bore down on her from behind.  The chain leash dangling from her iron collar clanked and clattered.  Clutching it tight in her fist, she ran  faster until the heels of her boots tattooed the forest floor.  Now she wasn’t sure if she ran from those who hunted her or the haunting song in her head.

Gasping for breath, she slowed to a stumbling trot near a thicket beneath a towering laoden elm. Above her, the ominous weight of Elfenweire glowed dim in the moonlight. Behind her, the angry shouts grew closer. Within her, the voices took up their call again, gusting on a blaze of crystalline white, dulling her fright even as it fired her resolve to flee: "Wait now, wyte child," they sang.  Abide here for a time.

Hesitating for just a moment, Shay veered into the thick brush, batting aside leafy fronds and scrubby vines among the elm’s lower branches.  Heart hammering, she waded deeper into her hiding place.  Even the blazing torches of her pursuers couldn’t fathom these shadowy depths and those who chased her wouldn’t risk snagging their fine uniforms searching the brush for her.  Matters would have to grow much worse before the fastidious Watchwoode elves went so far as that.

After an endless passage of the time, the shouts of Lord Nherhon and his guards moved away. Shay allowed herself a deep breath.

Heed us, wyte one. Wait here. We’ve brought you here. We shall not fail you, came the voices again, relentless as the northern breezes shivering down from the sky spans of Elfenweire, the elegant main keep of Watchewood.

No! She covered her ears, refusing the song and the swirling, effervescent white. Providence, not the voices, left this area around the tree unkempt enough for her to hide in.

The voices faded to silence and so did their glimmering mists although she sensed both waiting in the back of her thoughts, holding her in expectancy.  Listening hard for her hunters, she knelt and loosened the trailing edges of her gown snagged in the prickly scrub. The chain attached to the iron collar around her neck rattled.  It seemed but another clamoring voice, this one beckoning to those who hunted her—She’s here, she’s here!

Shay unclipped the chain from her collar and stuffed it into a knothole in the elm’s trunk.  Her fingers trailed hesitantly over the heavy iron collar sitting rough and chaffing around her neck.  Whilst a means of controlling her, the collar could keep someone from cutting her throat.  Which is exactly what her hunters planned.  This time she’d strayed too far over the path they set for her to walk.

Wait here, and then north, north, north, the call within resumed, singing from the white inside, scattering her thoughts, interfering with her plans for escape.

Digging into the bodice of the despised gown—Lord Nherhon’s way of hobbling her—she drew out the Moon Rhombic.  Only the crystal could sooth away the lunatic urgency of the song.  She mustn’t lose her wits now.  Panic would mean her life.  Turning the Rhombic to the moonlight filtering through the branches, she listened with an inner ear to the crystal.  It sparkled in the dim light but the deva within remained silent, neither offering comfort nor making any comment on her theft of it.  On the rare occasions when Erril roused herself from gloomy reverie to speak, she told how a healing spirit animated the stone. Or her mournful mother would tell old tales about elf maji consumed by the stone’s spirit to the point where they could work rejuvenation majik with just a touch of their fingers.

Oh, Erril.  Shay stared into the crystal as if she could find her mother there.  Sudden grief clenched tight in her chest and she had to lean against the trunk of the elm, hoping the tree’s stately strength would steady her.  There was no surcease in its rough bark. The elm felt weighed too, not by remorse or regret like she but laden with the cold elf realm it supported.  Shay raised her head to look above, among the twisting tiers and skyways of Elfenweire. Somewhere, up there, her mother lay dead.  Erril, whose immortal soul should have shined forever, now flickered out, doused by shame. 

Shame of me, she muttered, fist clenching hard around the crystal, driving back mourning for the mother who’d fallen dead at her feet mere minutes before. Erril, a high-borne elven lady, bore Shay in shame and then lived a life of disgrace because of her daughter’s blunted ears and odd ways.

Witch ways, wicked ways, the elf folk of Watchwoode whispered. Although not outwardly or publicly acknowledged, Shay was neither mortal nor immortal, but something in between.  Abomination.

She tucked the rock into her bodice again.

Stealing is bad, she told herself. Abomination she might be, a grievous mistake of the natural order, but she knew thievery was wrong.  Ever since the voices began their siren call shortly before Erril’s death, Shay couldn’t care very much even though darkness lived in the song.  At least she thought they were dark voices.  The Hierophant Loran said goodness spoke to all; it didn’t single out one person from many to whisper secrets to.  Only evil did that. 

The snap of a branch sent Shay’s heart to her throat.  She spun to find a marmot staring back from a leafy limb, the little creature’s wide-eyed anxiety reflecting her own.  It scampered on with a flick of its tail, away from the uproar all around the keep.

Through the roaring pulse in her ears, Shay could no longer hear her pursuers nearby. She edged forward again, ready to break cover. The voices held her, blinding her in hazy white, urging her to remain in the thicket. Stay, child.

Shay rubbed at the druinmark nestled in the hollow of her throat, three tiny purplish dots arranged in a roughly triangular pattern.  The voices made this mark tingle every time they sang.

Wait here and then north. To the north, they repeated their litany.

North?  she wondered.  Surely the song did not mean for her to flee north to Khorrin.  Her father ruled those wild horse lands, but he’d kill her if she were to return to