The tale of Myranda Celeste, a young woman orphaned by a century long war, and her chance discovery of a fallen soldier's priceless cargo. The find will change her life, sending her on an adventure of soldiers and rebels, wizards and warriors, and beasts both noble and monstrous. Each step will bring her closer to the truth of her potential, of the war, and of the fate of her world.
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The end of an era is always a time of great importance. Sweeping change. Advancing into a new age. These are surely things worthy of a place in the memory of a people. Too often, though, it is a single event that brings about the most direct change that receives the attention. The blow that ends the battle, the last brick to fall. In our worship of these moments, these endings, we neglect the journeys, the trials, the hardships, and the battles endured to make them possible.
Whosoever is fortunate enough to find this book shall finally hear the greatest of these tales. I have spent much of my life piecing together the words that follow. Most of what you shall read comes from the mouths of the people who lived it. It is my hope, in recording the path taken by these heroes, that those in the years to come will not be blind to the dangers that threatened this world once before. If the unthinkable is once again allowed to come to pass, perhaps the knowledge and the deeds of the heroes of old will stir others to their greatness.
The tale you shall read is of the Perpetual War. If you live in a time or a place that has allowed you to forget this dark era, consider yourself fortunate. To be ignorant of these events is a blessing. However, knowledge of the evils of old is the only protection against their return.
The Perpetual War, at the start of our tale, had been plaguing the world for one and a half centuries. It was a conflict that divided our people. The large farming kingdom, Tressor, formed half of the conflict. It was a land of fertile fields, a land of plenty, that covered most of the southern part of the continent and was home to more than half of the people of the world. They opposed a union of the three remaining kingdoms--Kenvard, Ulvard, and Vulcrest--that had come to be known to its people as the Northern Alliance, and by its enemies as the Nameless Empire. This was a land of snowy fields, dense forests, and icy mountains. Despite a vast disadvantage in strength and size, this Alliance had managed to withstand decade after decade of battle. This conflict was a constant part of the lives of all, and is the reason that what follows must be told.
My place in this tale is small. There are others better suited to put to words what came to pass, but most have taken their final steps down their own paths. Thus it falls to me, lest the tale go untold. I shall endeavor to recount the events in as straightforward and impersonal a manner as possible. Do not imagine this as a tale told by a man. It is merely a record. Words on a page. Words that tell of the most unlikely of events, beginning in the most unlikely of places. . .
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The end of the fall had only just come, and already the air could chill one to the bone. Of course, this far north, one could seldom expect anything else. It was not the cold that bothered her, though. She'd dealt with that all of her life. Pulling the tattered remnants of her uncle's old cloak closer about her, she pressed on.
As Myranda strained her eyes against the blistering wind, she saw nothing more than horizon. It would likely be another full day of walking before she saw anything but the unbroken field ahead of her. She shook her head, a faint frown cracking her dry lips.
"I should have known, " she said aloud to herself. "He seemed a shade too eager to give me directions."
Myranda had taken to talking to herself to fill the long, lonely, and all too frequent trips like these. With no companion, the only thing likely to interrupt the ceaseless howl of the wind was the periodic noisy complaints from her stomach. That much concerned her. She could afford to buy no supplies in the last town, and no tavern or inn had been willing to serve her thanks to a simple yet disastrous slip of the tongue. Anyone could have made the same mistake. In another time, it might have gone unnoticed--or, at least, unchallenged--but in the world of her birth it was inexcusable.
Two older women had been standing in the street, discussing the most recent news of the war. These days one would be hard-pressed to find a different topic of discussion. In this instance, it seemed that the Northern Alliance had pushed back a rather sizable advance. After three long, bloody days of battle, the Alliance troops had managed to take back the very same piece of land that they had started on. The cost of this maintenance of status quo was the lives of the better half of the troops in the area. In and of itself, such a tale was anything but notable. Indeed, a day without such a battle was rarer than a day with one. The difference on this day was that the Tresson army had lost even more.
The two women cackled and bragged over the victory, each telling exaggerated tales of their nearest war-going relative. "My boy promised to kill three of those swine just for me, " one would say. Another would respond triumphantly that all four of her children had made the same promise. It was during this exchange that Myranda made her fateful slip.
"All of those lives. . . wasted, " she had said with sorrow.
Wasted! Having your child give his or her life for the cause was the greatest honor a mother could hope for. To speak of such noble efforts as a waste was tantamount to treason. How dare this wandering woman speak ill of the war! After countless generations, it had ceased to be a simple struggle between two lands and had become a way of life. Those who opposed this sacred tradition of noble battle were unwelcome. That one word--wasted--may as well have sealed the poor girl's doom. It had kept her from filling her pack and from filling her belly. Worse still, it had led a seemingly good man to send her through this frozen waste, claiming it to be the fastest way to the next town.
She shook her head again. It was one lesson that she could not bring herself to learn. If someone was going to tell a lie, they would tell it with a smile. Now she found no less than a day of solid travel between herself and another human being. The cold was tightening its grip on the icy field with each passing moment. In perhaps an hour, the last glow of the sun would leave the sky, taking with it the meager warmth it had cast upon the world. The cold of the day was unbearable, but the night was unlivable. Worse, there was a darkness due to the impenetrable sheet of clouds overhead that warned of a snowfall in the coming hours. She had yet to find a replacement for her thin summer blanket, and she could neither afford nor carry a tent. If Myranda was to survive this night, she would need a fire.
Alas, there were but three types of terrain in this land: vast, treeless fields; dense, forbidding forests; and rocky, impassable mountains. She found herself in the first, an icy, barren stretch of land with not a plant to burn for warmth save some sparse grass and tough lichens. Neither would be good for producing anything more than smoke and ash. She scanned the endless horizon for a tree, a bush, anything that could yield a flame. Finding none, she made ready to bed down where she was and hope for the best.
Just as she stopped, the last rays of the setting sun peeking through a rare break in the cloud cover reflected their crimson radiance back from the east. After squinting, rubbing her eyes, and blinking only to find the fading twinkle still present in the distance, she was convinced that whatever it was, it was real.
"It was probably nothing, " she said. She glanced back in the direction she'd come, then in the direction she'd been heading. "Which beats every other direction, where there is certainly nothing."
To fill the time as she approached the mystery object, and to take her mind off of the rather dire position she found herself in, she busied her imagination with thoughts of what it might be.
"Shiny. . . a mirror. Perhaps a caravan of nomads came by and dropped wares. Or perhaps it is a jewel. A dozen or a hundred jewels. And gold, too. A king's ransom left behind by some daring thief where no one would ever find it, in no man's land. Ha, that would be my luck. To find a pile of treasure when all I need is a pile of wood, " she said to herself.
The time passed quickly as she dreamed up objects and ways to explain them. She'd not yet reached the object when the sun's rays failed, leaving her without a reflection to guide her. Her sense of direction was nearly flawless--a fortunate fact, as it was all she had left to lead her to the mysterious object. The sunset-painted clouds gave little in the way of light, but night brought utter darkness. Neither moon nor stars could hope to break through the solid sheet of gray overhead. That was no different from any other night, though. Even without the stars to follow, one found ways to stay on course in this land.
In the thick blackness that surrounded her, she literally stumbled over what she was looking for. There was what seemed to be a large mound of rocks surrounded by a liquid that was sticky, despite the cold that would have frozen most things. There was also a bundle of irregular metal plates that she heard clang and crunch as she stepped on them.
"What happened here?" she asked no one in particular as she tripped blindly through the obstacle course she'd found. Two more steps, though, brought a squeaky crunch that made her heart skip a beat. It was the sound of icy wood. She must have stumbled into the remains of a camp site, and now stood ankle-deep in her salvation.
She knelt by the fireplace and began to pull away the icy crust that eventually formed over anything that remained outside long enough. Soon all that remained was the powdery remains of the fire that had occupied this place not long before. It was bone dry and better than kindling. A single spark and she would have a fire in no time. The overjoyed young lady pulled her flint from one of her tattered pockets and reached blindly for one of the metal plates she'd heard clang free when she'd nearly tripped over it. She struck the flint to the metal and in moments had a warm bed of embers. A few moments more and the largest of the charred pieces of wood had caught, casting a delicious warmth and light on her immediate surroundings.
Now, with light enough to see what she held in her hand, she looked over the piece of metal. It was oddly shaped and not nearly polished enough to have caused the reflection that had led her here. On the curved interior of the metal plate, she found a few torn leather straps bolted to it. The outside bore an embossed symbol that looked to be a crest--one that she did not recognize.
"It must be a piece of armor, " she decided, turning it about one last time.
Satisfied that the fire was in no danger of going out, Myranda stood to inspect the strange place she'd wandered into. She found the bundle she'd stepped on and could now clearly see that it was indeed a full suit of plate armor. It appeared to be badly damaged and fairly frozen to the ground.
"Why would an empty suit of armor be in the middle of a field?" she wondered aloud. The answer came quickly and brought a chill to her spine that the iciest of wind never could. It was not empty.
In a distant future, Trevor "Lex" Alexander was shaping up to be the next great race pilot until a fixed race got him banned from the sport. Reduced to making freelance deliveries, he thinks his life can't get any worse. That's when a package manages to get him mixed up with mobsters, a megacorp, and a mad scientist. Now his life depends on learning what their plans are, and how he can stop them.
"The islands of Caldera are a shining jewel in a rather bleak world. A terrible calamity in the past had blanketed much of the world with a toxic ""fug."" Those who survived were forced to take to the mountains and the skies in wondrous airships. Life has since been a struggle, with only the most ruthless and crafty able to survive. To spare themselves the same fate, the Calderans erected a battery of guns to fend off the airships of the mainland. They isolated themselves from the madness of the world, choosing instead to focus on the pursuits of art and creativity. Few believe the technologically advanced but socially barbarous outsiders have anything to offer. Amanita Graus, though, is hoping that they do. Nita's mother has lost her livelihood and perhaps soon her life to a terrible disease. Already the black sheep of the family for embracing engineering rather than art, Nita resolves to leave the safety of her home and do whatever it takes to find a cure. For a price, the bizarre crew of an airship called The Wind Breaker are willing to grant her a meeting with their mysterious benefactors, and thus a chance to procure the one thing with a chance to save her mother. Free-Wrench follows Nita’s adventures in a steampunk world of airships and lunatics. Helping her in her journey are an eccentric crew of smugglers; the gruff Cap’n Mack, the simple but enthusiastic Lil and Coop, the arrogant marksman Gunner, the surly surgeon Butch, and the irritable mascot Wink. To survive and find what she seeks she’ll need to earn their trust, follow their rules, and meet face to face with the people who pull the strings of their society."
After three loveless years, Neil's betrayal deeply wounded Katelyn. She wasted no time in getting rid of that scoundrel! After the divorce, she devoted herself to career pursuits. Rising to prominence as a top designer, skilled doctor, and brilliant hacker, she became a revered icon. Neil, realizing his grave mistake, tried in vain to win her back, only to witness her magnificent wedding to another. As their vows were broadcast on the world's largest billboard, Vincent slid a ring onto Katelyn's finger and declared, "Katelyn is now my wife, a priceless treasure. Let all who covet her beware!"
"Sign the divorce papers and get out!" Leanna got married to pay a debt, but she was betrayed by her husband and shunned by her in-laws. Seeing that her efforts were in vain, she agreed to divorce and claimed her half of the properties. With her purse plump from the settlement, Leanna enjoyed her newfound freedom. The constant harassment from her ex's mistress never fazed her. She took back her identities as top hacker, champion racer, medical professor, and renowned jewelry designer. Then someone discovered her secret. Matthew smiled. "Will you have me as your next husband?"
After hiding her true identity throughout her three-year marriage to Colton, Allison had committed wholeheartedly, only to find herself neglected and pushed toward divorce. Disheartened, she set out to rediscover her true self-a talented perfumer, the mastermind of a famous intelligence agency, and the heir to a secret hacker network. Realizing his mistakes, Colton expressed his regret. "I know I messed up. Please, give me another chance." Yet, Kellan, a once-disabled tycoon, stood up from his wheelchair, took Allison's hand, and scoffed dismissively, "You think she'll take you back? Dream on."
For seven years, Jillian pursued Bryan with unyielding passion, but he remained distant, his emotions tightly sealed. Disheartened, she left for overseas after graduating from college. Three years later, Jillian, now a successful attorney, sat provocatively on the lap of Bryan's competitor. She flashed Bryan a playful smile and taunted, "What's wrong, Bryan? Are you impotent?" Bryan's restraint shattered in an instant. In a swift motion, he scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed. The next morning, as Bryan woke up, Jillian flashed a mischievous smile. "Let's keep things casual, okay?"
Rejected by her mate, who had been her long-time crush, Jasmine felt utterly humiliated. Seeking solace, she headed to a party to drown her sorrows. But things took a turn for the worse when her friends issued a cruel dare: kiss a stranger or beg her mate for forgiveness. With no other choice, Jasmine approached a stranger and kissed him, thinking that would be the end of it. However, the stranger unexpectedly wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear, "You're mine!" He growled, his words sending shivers down her spine. And then, he offered her a solution that would change everything...
The day Lilah found out that she was pregnant, she caught her fiancé cheating on her. Her remorseless fiancé and his mistress almost killed her. Lilah fled for her dear life. When she returned to her hometown five years later, she happened to save a little boy's life. The boy's father turned out to be the world's richest man. Everything changed for Lilah from that moment. The man didn't let her experience any inconvenience. When her ex-fiancé bullied her, he crushed the scumbag's family and also rented out an entire island just to give Lilah a break from all the drama. He also taught Lilah's hateful father a lesson. He crushed all her enemies before she even asked. When Lilah's vile sister threw herself at him, he showed her a marriage certificate and said, "I'm happily married and my wife is much more beautiful than you are!" Lilah was shocked. "When did we ever get married? Last I checked, I was still single." With a wicked smile, he said, "Honey, we've been married for five years. Isn't it about time we had another child together?" Lilah's jaw dropped to the floor. What the hell was he talking about?