The Black Book of Wisecraft

By Connor Kerns

Blackburse is a young wiche with a desperate plan to save her world. She alone foresees what will happen if the Blue and Red Books of Wisecraft are brought together with the Black Book, which has been found in the far south by Zo's cult. Mottle, her father, and Heloniss, her adoptive mother, have agreed to journey there with the Blue Book while Kadge Goodfellow takes a separate road with the Red Book. It is a long and dangerous journey to the far end of Globe by land and sea. Agents of Zo harass and torment them along the way. Can Blackburse and her allies bring the books together so she can try to win her gamble? The Black Book of Wisecraft blends elements of fantasy, science fiction, romance, and the flavor of Shakespeare's dialogue. It is the third in "The Three Books of Wisecraft" series, which began in The Blue Book of Wisecraft and continued in the Red Book of Wisecraft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Connor Kerns
• Release date: Dec 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005368685

Connor Kerns

Connor lives in Portland, Oregon. He started writing poetry at the age of 11, and his first published poetry book was Image Made Word (1990, Roan LTD).He got up the nerve to start e-publishing novels in 2020, and the following titles are available: The Hero of Houston, an eco-thriller; Measure Her, a comedy-romance; Blue Blossom, a historical memoir set in World War II; and a sci-fi/fantasy trilogy, The Three Books of Wisecraft series.Premieres of play adaptations of Jane Austen novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, were produced by Quintessence: Language & Imagination Theatre, where he was Artistic Director. Other productions of his plays include: Pride and Prejudice, The Child is Father of the Man, Face Reader, and Treatment (Quintessence); A Bawdy Tale (Montgomery Street Players); Zaney (Arts Equity); I Go to War and Vaward of Pallas 3 (Epicurean); The Folio (CoHo) and Where No Storms Come (Stark Raving Theatre).He is also a director, having received his MFA in Directing at the University of Portland, and he taught acting for 24 years. His book Imaginative Doing, Collected Essays on Acting was published in 2013.

Book preview

The Black Book of Wisecraft

Third of The Three Books of Wisecraft Series

Connor Kerns

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2021 Connor Kerns

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. The Black Book of Wisecraft remains the copyrighted property of the author, Connor Kerns, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoy this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy. Thank you for your support.

Part First: GrassyCross, Globe Year 1778

"Ur pulled Ske

Through a tear in the dark behind the sun.

And by his fire

Gave she both water and life."

(Creation Myth translated by Deed the Miner)

Chapter 1, Blackburse in the Library

BLACKBURSE uncurled from the safety of a tight ball. She stretched out her limbs. The wooden bed frame and cloth blanket, coupled with the room's past, sealed the room still as a sanctuary, so it was only reluctantly that she left her cozy womb with an effort, crawling onto the floor, dragging drowsiness, reaching the foot of a stool and, grabbing hold, pulling herself up. She had to lean against it to keep from falling. She caught her breath and looked around at the walls of her father's dark little library world. Melancholia seeped back in, displacing part of the weariness. Slaves, she had dreamed, slaves had been hidden in this room before they could be released to freedom. She wasn't clear how long ago but she was sure it was truth, not dream. Her ancestors saved slaves. Memory, she realized as her body sagged against the stool, was another weight to carry.

One candle still burned but it was low. She would have to rally the strength to strike another when it went out. She felt a sturdy beat within, the ghost contraction of her heartbeat, and it revived her. Exerting, she perched on the stool. Head and eyes darting, she re-surveyed the piles of books, sheafs and folios strewn on the table and floor in her father’s library. There was so much to do with the packed-up fruits of her intense study, but her mind was afraid to do it!

The beat came back, an invigorating dance inside, complex but free. For the first time in her life, she was free--no one commanded her. Free in this sanctuary, free in her father's mansion outside of Wayfair, free and away from the Hectan Temple and the stiff-backed chair in the windowless, breathless schoolroom. Free from the old prison. Free to dance her own dance!

Resolutely, she picked up the scattered volumes and, walking heavily but with more liveliness, replaced them one by one on the shelves, filing each in her mind. When she finished, and the shelves stood full again and the table bare, she swayed back and forth, letting her arms make shapes in the air. She let the dance continue for a long time until her body was satisfied. Then, lightly, she settled back on the stool. Her feet pressed into the floor and her head was at liberty to float on top of her spine. She reached with her thought upward, closing her eyes.

Despite the residual heaviness, her thoughts roved and then, with an excited act of will, pointed inward toward the danger. Decisively, her mind cut the string on the tightly-packed new knowledge. Immediately, impulses scattered madly like horses careening down a steep hill or glass shards exploding. But her body flowed, and, patiently, she gathered and coaxed the many glittering packets, the treasures of her father's library.

Body and mind moved together. She imagined countless punctures and cuts, links shattered and rebuilt. It was like a game of chase and catch with numb fingers, but she realized she couldn’t grasp anything unless she yielded. So, she dropped everything--she let the reins go! Immediately, thoughts galloped off the track and tunneled and curled up in a thousand places--somewhat like folding paper and folding again—but with each new crease and acceleration she navigated (not a road but) currents. She could ride these waves, her muscles knew how, and she followed them, until word-strings appeared—

‘Life power he’s a good man men have choices they don’t have to women don’t they’d be easier or the other but she could ruin himself I am loved by someone love is sacrifice no one was selfless death power that is why I’m never-sleeping-reaching life he is a good man I must learn what does good mean or is it mere survival mutability death when tickle enemies come power and suspicion follows prejudice against will they live or die?’

As if riding churning swells, her thoughts spun up and down, seeming to build an internal lattice-work structure, moving in many directions. She might have been talking out loud, Tear and repair wings gruth them all higgling cogitate one thought one breath.

She must confine a few ideas before she lost the map. Confine, observe. She couldn't tell if she was speaking inside or outside: Hot and dense, everything buzzes. Bounded and boundless. I see it, like at cockshut, the port or portal or opening; sometimes it seems to iris but it is merely not yet undone; nothing sure; people aren’t where it lies. No wights. I must try that. I wonder if I could have left locked my own remote regions. I wonder will Mythmaker tell the death story of the allchemist or the long story? Nothing sure. If I can laugh still I will feel wellbegone…laughter means life.

The horses and the road and the waves were gone and she was floating and tilting, taking in and releasing, talking inside or outside, How to explore without reference points, for there are too many paths? How to keep quiet when the senses scarce satisfy? At least, no wights to curry favor…carry? I’m hungry. This must be like nourishing a fetus, but, no, dangerous patterns and don't get lost, we must not destroy them, Mothers!

Panic! It was like unfolding in hot sun! Observe, ride it out....Forget my fingers my limbs my hair. They are homing-coming, I am broom, sweeping valya, I cannot hide here, yet, I cannot find where to go, yet. This now, my spine is on fire, it pulls me in, farewell, breathe, I see it all curled up—uncurl and open it! How? I don’t know how yet. I could learn, but…should I?

It was like vowing underwater. However-be-it, serve. We all must serve. Nothing sure yet I will serve: Father; that dear woman; cousin. I will seek the one of the three of the seven, the key, I will seek the key when they are together, though it brand me forever.

It was like flying headlong without wings, eyes closed, toward the side of a mountain. She opened, listing or tilting or spiraling and off-center, the mountain approaching, death, smashing, she couldn't move her arms, she couldn't breathe she had to straighten / she was upside down, right the ship-the-self, grip her seed-center, squeeze, tilt a little, a little more, even more...now she was straight but the mountain was upon her but she softened and the mountain slowed and waited and she melted, to the bottom root, centered-safe.

I see the outline, the opening, smell it. To take the key I must go to the bottom to the tunnel lock and that will open the port the portal the bound door to another tunnel and who knows what will occur in the unbounded boundless? I may be assailed by specters from the other place…I may burn my body away. Can I, mortal, open the portal?

She heard a knocking. Ohhhh…cousin?

More knocking. More…

Blackburse opened her eyes. The shelves, the walls, the table, the stool. Solid ground, her father’s library. All in order, complete quiet. This place was secret. This place was sacred--the candle winked out. A burning dot and smoke and then darkness. No more knocking. She tried to laugh if off but the smile was already shrinking on her lips. So quiet except her insides rumbling with hunger.

She knew she could hide here longer...safe and still...cherishing her freedom...a short while...here was tempting dry comfort instead of tossing upon the burning undersea...sanctuary, until new slavers came...

Chapter 2, Heloniss by the Sea

Lady HELONISS Prose forced the last petticoat atop all the clothing, cloaks, extra shoes, foodstuffs, medicine pouches, and travel tools. Shaking her head, she hoisted herself up onto the trunk lid and, using her weight, forced it closed. Strapped it. She stood up straight and looked about. In one corner of her chamber in Lease's mansion at Grey Cross there sagged a small leather travel pack. She picked it up. With the touch, she remembered how it alone had served her travels on board ship, to Sir Lake in Weki by carriage, on foot and horseback over the mountains, the river boat, Sut, then aboard ship again across the Breathing Sea, over land to the pyramid, under siege, until finally the treaty with the Trigons and home again. Home? She caught herself: ‘Grey Cross is home?’ She blinked--her eyes had gotten moist. Home? Well, this is no time for sentiment!

I don’t trust ships, she muttered aloud, still holding the weathered pack and squeezing it against her chest. Impulsively, she released the strap and stood back as the lid sprang open; she laid the pack on top, knelt on the lid, shut it and strapped it again decisively.

Smoothing her dress, she went to the lone chair, which had been repaired, and yielded her body to it, hearing it creak. A critical eye surveyed the chamber. Pieces of the desk lay piled beside the cot the housekeeper had found for her. A nib, nestled among a few scraps of parchment, winked. Little else could be seen, except a nearly-empty wardrobe, where hung a single torn bodice. Here, and all about inside and outside the estate, were signs of destruction or hard use: the disguised Trigon attack, when Davy the stable boy had been slain and the chapel burned; the second Trigon pillaging, finally ending when Tamoar’s Dian army drove off the muddyed; and lately, Tamoar’s long occupation before Lease rallied her troops to lift the siege at the pyramid. The land and the people here were dead, diseased, or damaged. A week’s time had been enough to make ready to travel south to Trigon but not to heal. Could this be home, the cherished place to return to after journey's end? Regardless, it was agonizing to go off and leave it all torn apart. Her body melted into the chair, like from a tunneled candle, and she wondered if she could ever get back up.

What would become of the place? Who would tend the people and lands, including her garden, while they were gone to the south for months, perhaps a year? Only a few of the household remained: Hine the housekeeper; Ing, the secretive lieutenant; the stable hands; and the chapel priests. Through the window she could see the trampled fields and orchards. No crops had been sown. The weeds had run wild in her garden. A walnut tree, uprooted, cut the view on a dead diagonal; black leaves lay about it.

A ruined spring.

She sighed, no more time for regret. She called out. Hine appeared, visibly struggling not to weep. We will return, Heloniss reassured the housekeeper, springing up and putting a hand on the older woman's shoulder as she babbled through tears about dangers, changes, and the evils of war. Even so Hine, you will endure, for you are tough as cord. She forced a smile and Hine smiled back—it was one of the housekeeper’s sayings. My trunk is packed as you see, Heloniss said firmly. Let it be taken to the lord’s wagon.

Hine called for assistance, then burst into another flood before embracing Heloniss. The Great Mother preserve you, my dear lady, could be discerned among the heaves and snuffles. Heloniss held the good woman’s hand, felt its hard ridges, patted it and smiled.

When trunk, servants and housekeeper were gone, she crouched by the broken desk and picked up the nib, thinking: No one for me to write a letter. My family all gone from Prosper Isle and from Globe. My friends far away at Flordell. I must make my own way.

Yet, she didn't, she went to the casement again and regarded her garden. How carefully planned, laid out, and