Book of Worlds Lost

By Raymond Duane

Number 2 in the Quinine Adventure Series.
From Chapter 1
Quinine didn't like thinking about that mistake, but he wouldn't forget the reminder that he wasn't the most powerful Speller in the fight. He was still looking to make that situation right. In the meantime, he carried on with his job, as he called it, thrust upon him and no getting out of it. The Chosen One for Goddess, destined to capture Negative Spellers and deposit them in the Pyramid. The ones with souls so mutated by Evil they needed extra cleansing.
His task was supposed to save the universe, many spiritualists and mystics believed. Quinine doubted that potential outcome, but he was sure his work made things easier for Airtha.
A Frewigl interrupted with a question of her own as she took the open stool next to Quinine.
"How's your tail? Heard you got yourself banged up," said Thawk, commander of the Northern Training Command, where countless Frewigls gained the skills to be soldiers for Goddess. The best join the celebrated Library Guard. Quinine respected Thawk's deep reach into the Essentia. She held magick untouchable by most Spellers, including himself.
"I'll be all right. I'm fine."
"I hope so," unconvinced.
"What are you going to do with them, those things you're carrying?" Lucey was a bit nervous about the answer.
"I don't know. Never had to decide such a thing. Take them to the Library."
Thawk didn't like the sound of that. "The Library is a long way to go with that kind of burden."
Cryph agreed. "Negaters will be after you every step of the way."
"You worry too much." Quinine rattled his glass for more whiskey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raymond Duane
• Release date: Apr 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005897710

Raymond Duane

Born in antiquity, I was raised with Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott and Mark Twain. I'd spend Friday nights with my grandmother and she would read to me. With sound effects and excitement.All I've ever wanted to be is a writer and dreamed of being Ernest Hemingway. (I got the drinking part right.)I worked for the college paper; was founding editor of a weekly newspaper; and I did a lot of magazine work, including for adult entertainment.That experience formed the basis of Noodle Boy in Porn Valley, which is very blue and very "adults only."My fantasy books are for Jill, my wife, who loves dragon stories with strange creatures and magick. Sword and sorcery, with a blend of mystical philosophy about life and love. She and I wrote a dragon story titled Fort Jafra and we're working on a follow-up.She and I published Unfinished Faces, a book of my poetry and her art. I also have written a few cookbooks. My characters like to eat.These days, I'm in rural Central Valley, with Jill, three dogs and five kittens I found in a discarded box in the walnut grove.

Book preview

Book of Worlds Lost

A Quinine Adventure

Raymond Duane Copyright 2022.

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

Hello Pyramid …

He paid with more glitter …

He shed no tears, but …

Do you think Quinine is …

Livret had Wyscəns on his …

Livret, in almost a whisper …

It was the younger Airtha …

The Book has been stolen …

Three long days flying into …

Deep beneath Sindra's Castle in …

Music from the hairy Speller …

Livret took to having his …

A group of friends gathered around …

Out of the healing ward …

Quinine spent his mornings exercising …

If a city on Parallax embraced …

Quiet. The only sounds labored …

The attack came without warning …

Map …

Author info …

Hello Pyramid, Quinine said.

The Pyramid stood silent in a beachfront forest and didn't return the greeting.

Under a sky of stars where the West Ocean went north to uncharted waters, and surf crashed with a low rumble like distant thunder, Quinine maneuvered his ride around the three-sided peak. He gave the edifice a long look. He felt bad for the Pyramid, as if an old friend was sick.

Moonlight reflected in elongated white tendrils on the ice sheet that encased the Pyramid. His breath exhaled as moist fog. Such cold emanated from the Pyramid that too close and body hair started icing.

It had been a while since he'd seen the Pyramid, except in his mind's eye, and he had never pictured the crystal edifice frozen solid as it was that night. The Atrium at the top had never been dark.

He could examine the reason for the freeze, but didn't bother. He had more concern about not getting in the Atrium to make his delivery. His arrivals in Pyramid City tended to attract Negative attention, but he'd never before been stopped from finishing his business.

Nothing Quinine could do up there. He directed his deohgee toward the city and worried about what he had in his pocket. The load wasn't something he wanted to be carrying.

Pyramid City had started as a tent city and stretched through the years into the forest as a modern metropolis. From Quinine's altitude, the city looked like the Pyramid had spilled its crystal and jeweled life force into the trees.

From the moment the first pilgrims had arrived and the city was begun, the local approach had always been for the living space to be an extension of the Pyramid. Colorful rocks, magick or not, artistic or simple jewelry and glassware, all things crystal and glitter dominated the culture. Stones and crafted lumber formed the foundation of the city's infrastructure.

Pyramid City existed only because of the Pyramid, to worship Goddess at its base and to protect the Sacred Triangle from Negative forces. The locals supported Quinine's work, but weren't always happy about it.

How dangerous is what you're carrying? was the general concern in Lucey's cupper when Quinine walked in. He had stabled Shield and cleaned up a bit in his room at the inn before facing the tribunal.

Quinine stepped to the bar, which was redwood and polished. Its top was a thick sheet of glass. Underneath the glass, pieces of the shore, shells and rocks presented a colorful tableau of the beach.

He took his customary stool next to Cryph, who was the Reeve, the city's rule keeper and she ran the jail system.

Did anyone get hurt when the Pyramid froze? Quinine wanted to know. None of our friends are cold dead?

Cryph answered with a shake of her head.

Been expecting you.

Quinine gave the Reeve a once over, and it was always the same: Beautiful blend of forest and colorful reptilian. Green and red highlights in pale blue complexion, and all that black hair and smooth skin. Dressed for the beach, including a white sarong that tied at the left hip.

She wore the Reeve badge–a fist inside a gold triangle–with pride close to her left shoulder on an old canvas vest. Cool danger, Quinine thought.

You always know when I'm coming.

So does everyone else, a challenging tone in an otherwise friendly observation. My business goes up when you're coming to town. She spit air. Not so much this time.

Negater's don't like the cold, Quinine said. And the Pyramid's frozen solid. Good for you, bad for me.

Which means it will turn out to be bad for all of us, the bartender said. A happy bloke with oak in his soul, Lucey owned the place. He poured more whiskey.

Eventually for everybody if it goes that way, Quinine said.

Sooner or later, Cryph said.

Nothing has ever happened to the Pyramid before, Lucey said. You know why it happened?

Never has happened. I do know how it happened.

Goddess must be worried for that much ice. Lucey poured more whiskey.

It's Airtha, not Goddess, Quinine said. Airtha's in ice at the Library, restarting her world.

That's happened before. Nothing like this has ever happened before to the Pyramid.

Another Ice Age? That poor world, Cryph said. This makes seven Winters on that Earth planet.

Supposed to be a bandage against Negater. Fix wounds in the Creation Continuum. A cosmic balancing act.

Yes. Poor world. Quinine spoke with no enthusiasm. I worry about Airtha. This one is lasting a long time.

He worried more about the objects he was carrying. They were not supposed to be in his pocket. They were supposed to be inside the Pyramid.

How many do you have this time? Lucey knew the main reason Quinine came to Pyramid City. The whole city knew.

News about his coming would get to the city long before he got to the Pyramid. His coming arrival usually attracted a Negative welcoming committee, thankfully absent this trip. One good thing about the Pyramid being iced.

Quinine held up two fingers.

That's all? That's not too bad. Remember that time you brought in seven of them, I think, and that one got out of your spell and escaped. Caused quite a bit of damage as I recall.

Thanks for recalling. It was five, and I don't remember.

Quinine didn't like thinking about that mistake, but he wouldn't forget the reminder that he wasn't the most powerful Speller in the fight. He was still looking to make that situation right. In the meantime, he carried on with his job, as he called it, thrust upon him and no getting out of it. The Chosen One for Goddess, destined to capture Negative Spellers and deposit them in the Pyramid. The ones with souls so mutated by Evil they needed extra cleansing.

His task was supposed to save the universe, many spiritualists and mystics believed. Quinine doubted that potential outcome, but he was sure his work made things easier for Airtha.

A Frewigl interrupted with a question of her own as she took the open stool next to Quinine.

How's your tail? Heard you got yourself banged up, said Thawk, commander of the Northern Training Command, where countless Frewigls gained the skills to be soldiers for Goddess. The best join the celebrated Library Guard. Quinine respected Thawk's deep reach into the Essentia. She held magick untouchable by most Spellers, including himself.

I'll be all right. I'm fine.

I hope so, unconvinced.

What are you going to do with them, those things you're carrying? Lucey was a bit nervous about the answer.

I don't know. Never had to decide such a thing. Take them to the Library.

Thawk didn't like the sound of that. The Library is a long way to go with that kind of burden.

Cryph agreed. Negaters will be after you every step of the way.

You worry too much. Quinine rattled his glass for more whiskey.

Lucey poured. More orange mead for Cryph. Thawk liked lemonade.

Everyone knows you're connected to the Pyramid. Lucey thought a moment. Why aren't you frozen?

I have a cold heart.

Cryph and Thawk exchanged a knowing glance. The Reeve laughed.

Something about you causes problems.

Lucey poured himself lemonade. His acorn eyes sparkled with good humor and complemented his tree skin. Age wrinkles lined his forehead. The Pyramid sprang up the day Quinine was born. One morning it was at the beach like it always had been there.

That was true. No one knew how the Pyramid came to be, or if it was Quinine that caused it or the Pyramid caused Quinine. The natural construction did coincide with Quinine's birth, the only infant ever born in the Soul Pool far south at Eternal Spring.

Came into this world with a legendary shaker, too, the only temblor ever felt everywhere throughout Parallax. Thawk remembered thinking the mountain was going to fall. Felt like the whole of the Hand had risen and Fingers curled into a fist. Quite the entrance.

Thawk settled her brown eyes on Quinine, who had grown large and handsome. He was altogether too cavalier about his own safety. His immortality made him vulnerable. She had told him more than once that being able to live a long time wasn't the same thing as never dying.

The Frewigl leader adjusted her position on the stool. She tightened the belt of her linen robe. Robes were all Frewigls wore. The official uniform for the diminutive Spellers was brown and sturdy. Naturally bald, every Frewigl had a shiny pate, and their tree part showed as bonsai in the ears, which were hairy and had to be trimmed, often with personalized style. Thawk had hers closely cropped.

Can I see them? Lucey asked. I've never see them. You put them in the Pyramid before you come here.

That's my job, Quinine said.

He pulled two small orbs from his pocket and put them on the bar. Out of his hand, they grew to about the size of a grapefruit. One was colored as a blond mirror. The other was off-yellow and pale with what looked like a face of an insect. The outside of his Snare spell always depicted the persona inside.

Quinine pointed at the orbs as he spoke, The Mirror Witch and Vinşent from down at MisCal, he said. Nasty characters. The witch almost got Shield.

An attack on your deohgee is an attack on you, Thawk said.

Rydym yn hedfan gydag un calon, Quinine said in the old Mapper language. We fly with one heart. I love that animal.

Lucey wanted to pick up one of the orbs, but was too scared to do it.

Hope they don't get out.

Me too. Quinine looked at Lucey and pointed at his empty glass.

That was his last ration and he was off to bed at the inn. He walked by the barn on the way, but Shield wasn't there. Not unexpected.

The idea of stabling a deohgee was only a theory. In practice, it was neigh impossible to confine the soul blend of a wulf, grizzly bear and sea eagle. A superior escape artist, even for a deohgee, Shield seldom stayed where he was left.

Quinine knew, however, that the spot he left Shield was a hitching post, more or less, where the deohgee knew Quinine would reappear. A place to sleep and eat until his friend returned. No doubt, Shield was within earshot, but Quinine let him be. Plenty of safe forest around.

The animal was out of sync, too. On other trips, the habit was to sleep in the Atrium. Sometimes they'd stay up there for a few days. A watercourse that ran through it held magnificent salmon, which Shield gorged on. The deohgee was mad about missing the fish and having to stay at lesser accommodations.

Quinine felt the same way, only for different reasons. His room was simple and cheap compared to the Atrium, but the bed fit him and he knew breakfast would be good. The arrangement bothered him because the longer those Snares stayed in his pocket, the sooner some Negative was going to try to take them away from him.

Someone in the cupper suggested that Quinine stick around to see if the Pyramid would thaw. In response, shook his head. Not going to happen.

He knew that to be true because he and the Pyramid had a special bond through Goddess, their destinies interlinked. He didn't know why this was true. He figured he'd find out one day.

In the morning at the cooker, an ugly waiter with potato bug and grasshopper mixed awkwardly in his soul served Quinine with awe and deference.

Most of the world's inhabitants were born with forest in their souls, an always elegant but often less-than-attractive combining of people and Nature that created a race of beings found nowhere else. This was Goddess' way toward a Positive Outside Universe.

The table server had never before met the person many people called the Tree Warrior. The waiter's beady eyes took in the physical spectacle of Quinine, and saw that his skin did look like burnished wood, with lines that showed his travels and marked him as a Mapper. He