Salak’patan Series

~* Book One of the Salak'patan Series *~ 'Truth is stranger than fiction', these words are an axiom on which a great many things may pivot. For Raven Sinclair these words have long since become a credo, a principle philosophy by which he has lived much of his life. As a creator of fiction, it might seem to some that these words would fade when faced with the realities he creates in his novels. But the Truth of his own reality is in fact stranger than the fiction he creates. Gifted with more than five senses, an outcast by choice, and someone compelled by a driving force he does not understand, Raven's truth is about to become a great deal more like the fiction he has created. A single decision leads to events he could never have predicted and shoves him into motion down a path that he has unknowingly been following even before he was born. And it leads him to the last thing he could have expected, the long awaited love of his life. He finds her in the very last place he might have thought to look, as part of a government conspiracy to capture and control people just like him. All too soon he must confront a government that wants nothing more than to make him a toy soldier, a past he knew nothing about, a reality far bigger than he could ever imagine, and forces that will alter him and the way he looks at the world around him forever. And even though for a time his changed life becomes quiet once more the forces of destiny are still guiding him along a path that leads right into the darkness. An ancient evil has been stirred up from the forgotten worlds and cosmic dust to strike at the very heart of his world, and it is not in his destined path to run from it.

~* Book Three of the Salak'patan Series *~ At the age of 25 Monorth's world was one filled with fevered dreams of far off worlds and fantastical creatures, until one day his narrow world of quiet contemplation was shattered for all of time. More than 25 years have passed since that long ago day when his world was changed forever, by a love he never expected. And in the passage of those years he has been a warrior, a scholar, a leader, a follower, a poet, a philosopher, a wanderer, an explorer, a criminal, and an officer of the law. Each time that his world seemed to crystallize and become stable, something has come along to break that world apart, leaving him to pick up the pieces. Often has he felt that he was merely a piece on the gaming board of the Universe always leading him towards a destiny he did not want, and often has he felt hatred for that unknowable game. Time has passed since he let his wandering ways lead him back to the hearth and home he left behind. And in that time that followed his world has become stable and peaceful once more, surrounded by the warmth and happiness of family. But with that peace comes the knowledge of all the things left unfinished, the knowledge of all that has been left unsaid and unseen. The knowledge of all those things that remained untouched that could end his peaceful world once for all, bringing death and destruction to all that he loved. This time he decides that if his world is at risk of being shattered once more, than his is the hand that shall break it. And if he is spend a lonely eternity as destiny's plaything than he must step forward and take control of the game. Or else there is no way to know what might happen to those he cares about. With these thoughts in mind, his imagination begins to stir and the need for a new journey begins to call to him. Thoughts of the Rim and all the untouched worlds still waiting out there begin to whisper to him. A new path seems ready to open up before him leading towards all that yet remains unknown. Only this time the path he feels compelled to follow is not one he must travel alone. It has been said that the more one fights the forces of destiny, the stronger destiny becomes when it choose to fight back. And Monorth is about to discover how true these words truly are, as destiny strikes back..

~* Book Two of the Salak'patan Series *~ The hands of the clock turn and life moves on, at least it does for most people. For Monorth there is always the memories of days long past and a pair of green eyes that will never fade from his senses. It was those same green eyes that changed his world forever, it is those same green eyes that his has missed every day since they were taken from his life forever. And though time has passed and the world has changed little by little, the memory of those eyes still haunts him. But even though the memories will not fade and the clock keeps ticking, the shadows that eclipse the souls of all people return to reek havoc upon his life once more. Though his career as an Agent of the Center seems all too ready to end, the need to honor those beliefs instilled in him by that long lost love compels him to take on one last mission. When he learns the truth Monorth is forced to betray the very thing he had willing dedicated his life too once upon a time, and he must turn his skills against the very people he once called friends. He must betray everything he believes in order to stop a war that has already happened once. When is it right to destroy a thing in order to save it? When is the end really just the beginning of something else? Question and doubts quickly consume his days and haunt his nights, filling him with nothing save an emptiness even greater than than what was left behind when the one he was meant to love forever was snatched from his life. With an aching soul and a broken heart, he follows a whisper away from the world he knows and out past the borders of what has been forgotten seeking an answer to a question he does not know how to ask. There beyond that edge, where danger and mystery lingers untouched since the end of the last great war, a path emerges leading him towards that unknowable future. He meets many a strange character, has many a secret whispered in his ear, and finds enough mystery to fill a lifetime with questions. And somehow, somewhere within that tangle of disconnected experiences the truth he wished for all along begins to emerge. While the path to the future is never clear to those who walk it, sometimes one needs to step through the gates of the past in order to begin the journey. The continuation of the Salak'patan Series, and the sequel to Once Upon Another World.

~* Book Four of the Salak'patan Series *~ For quite sometime the path Monorth followed was one that he traveled alone, but always there was the family he sought to protect lingering in his shadows. Always supporting him, always counting on him, and always there when he needed them. When he began his plan to return to the world's of the Rim and cast his eyes on those places left forgotten by history, he did not do so alone. This time his all important family came with him, leaving behind their lives to cast their fates into the unknown winds of destiny. Though doubtful they contained the strength and knowledge needed to become guardians of lost worlds and forgotten history, it was his guidance and confidence that lead them through those first shaky steps of that mysterious path. But that path lead them right into the heart of trouble and guided Monorth into the destiny he wished to avoid. Monorth has been captured by a trap none of them could have predicted, guided to that event by the fuzzy four legged chess piece of Fate. With him exiled into a swath of history long forgotten, his family has lost the force that has shepherded them beyond the Rim and guided them towards the once laughable goals or protecting the worlds of the Salak'patan from the unknown. Even as they were reaching that time when they might have believed such a thing might be possible they are deprived of the architect who first turned their thoughts to the distant stars in the heavens. It now falls to the family he left behind to try and pick up the scattered pieces left by his sudden absence, to seek the inner strength they need to carry on without him there, and to seek the clues he may have left behind. As they begin their search into the unknown seeking evidence of his fate, the course they follow leads them into encounters and events they might never have predicted. The evidence of his absence brings no small amount of heartache and worry to his family, but it also changes their future history in ways they could never have imagined as the unknown past brings a new path into being. And as if they find he is still there guiding them, his family is lead into their own understanding of what it means to stand at the gates of the unknown.

~* Book 4.5 of the Salak'patan Series *~ The civilizations of the Halls rose up from the ashes of destruction to begin anew after a terrible war devastated everything and left only the tattered remains of what had once existed. Historical records from a time before the war were lost and discarded in the struggle for survival and buried in the process of rebuilding. All that remains of that vast history for the new civilization of the survivors are the rumors passed down by their ancestors, the shattered remains of the old civilization, and the legends and forgotten fragments of an even older civilization known only as the 'Ancients'. For decades Monorth has been wandering down the path of discovery, slowly but surely uncovering the clues to that lost history and reawakening the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients. It was towards these goals he had decided to dedicate himself, with his family following along at his side. They had left behind their quiet lives as a part of modern society, so that they could step past the borders of what was known and into the far flung and forgotten realms beyond the Rim. And for a time their lives were peaceful and their future seemed bright, but what was supposed to be a quiet 'family outing' took them from their quiet sanctuary. It sent them wandering into the unknown, as they sought out the legends of a huge piece of that lost history. Far from the fringes of civilization they find a continent sized city, the ruins of the past, and proof of the vast knowledge of the Ancients. But when a hyper-active Fire cat, a forgotten city of the Ancients, and a lost seemingly impossible technology combine into a disastrous force. Monorth discovers that he has suddenly become stranded in those vast unknown spans of forgotten history. Now he has been caught in that Ancient history by a time machine, trapped far from home with no way to get back, and lost on a world and in a time-line he knows nothing about. To make matters worse Monorth has stepped into the black shadow cast by a cruel evil, the shadow of a monstrous ruler who delights in the torture and deaths of innocent people. That darkness not only threatens to make Monorth's future a short one, but has roots in the darkest moment of his own past. Can Monorth fight his way free of fate, or is he predestined to see his last days in a history that is doomed to be forgotten?

~* Book 5 of the Salak'patan Series *~ The clocks have turned and time has passed since Monorth was snatched out of their shared lives on the edge of the unexplored hallways, but for the family he has left behind, Hope is a thing both dangerous and all important. Though they have found proof of his journey through history and been reassured that his fate has not yet been decided as he tries to fight his way back through the quagmire of forgotten history to rejoin them, the answer to that all important question has not yet been written into that history. Will Monorth be able to navigate his way through the past or is it his destiny to be fade into annuls of forgotten lore, far from home and alone. Even though Monorth has fulfilled his promise to guide and nurture a being capable of making time-travel possible and see to it that she reached the future to fulfill an all important role for all the peoples of the Salak'patan, his fate remains in doubt. For the family he has left behind the Hope that keeps them moving forward even as it threatens to break their hearts, the search has been given a powerful new champion to aid them in their search for answers. Jynx, the Avatar who is the fulfillment of Monorth's promise and a being capable of making time travel a reality, has joined them in their sanctuary and become a part of their increasingly strange family, but she can only offer them hints of where her creator might have been. So it is that the search for answers goes on, and it leads all of them into the last direction they might have expected, into the very same history that has prevented Monorth from returning to them. Will they find the answers they hope to find or will they discover the truth that they all fear, only time will tell.

~* Book 5.5 of the Salak'patan Series *~ History is a strange and dangerous thing, especially when one is an outsider forced to navigate a path through it. For Monorth, a man who has been trapped in the past, his journey to return home has been far from an easy passage through that history. Terrible truths and strange encounters have punctuated his path thus far, but for all the dangers he has faced, nothing can compare to the darkness that lays ahead for him. The Mage war, the very words were enough to stir up the stuff of nightmares long ago and far into the future shaped by those terrible events. It was a time when the old civilization fell and the Monsters of that era tried to destroy any chance at a future, as they tore at the very fabric of reality. It was a terrible darkness that caused untold suffering, destruction, and death and left mental scars that had persisted through many dozens of generations, and it is that very same darkness that lays directly in Monorth's path. Everything he has been working for, everything that he hopes to achieve, lays beyond the Mage war that now blocks his path towards home. But there is more at risk from that looming shadow than just his own hopes and dreams, because the coming War threatens to destroy everything. Not merely planets and peoples, but the very legacy of the Ancients he promised to help protect and preserve for future generations, all that is and all that was is threatened by the war, and the monsters of the coming age. Though he could hide away from it, let history take its' course, Monorth can not take the easy way out, he can not allow the darkness consume everything he has worked for. If he is to reach home and fulfill his promise, Monorth now must take up the terrible mantle of the Monster and put his life on the line to insure that the future isn't lost, while everything descends into the most terrible madness ever known.