02 March, 2014

#GuestPost by Welcome Cole : The Evolution of the Blood Caeyl Memories





Title: The Pleasure of Memory, Volume One of the Blood Caeyl Memories
Author:  Welcome Cole
Publisher:  Caelstone Press (2013)
Length:  526 pages
Sub-Genre: Fantasy/Adventure 






Book Blurb:

The Pleasure of Memory is the first volume of three in the Blood Caeyl Memories fantasy series. The second volume, The Burden of Memory, will be coming out this spring.
Beam is a thief, rogue, and murderer. He takes his gold wherever the path of least resistance offers it. Orphaned in early childhood by the death of his parents, and reluctantly taken in by his extended family. However, the stigma of a half-bred child eventually becomes unbearable to them. Late one night, his uncle hitches him to a horse post at the steps of a rundown priory in Parhron City. He is discovered there the next dawn by Brother Dael, an elderly monk and Prelate for the Priory of Saynfyl, a priory dedicated to the housing and care of the mentally ill. Dael takes him in without question or judgement, and eventually raises him as his own.
Years later, when Beam reaches young adulthood, he inherits his deceased mother’s estate. Along with a generous quantity of gold, he receives some of her personal property, including an elaborate puzzle box of ancient design. Confounded by his repeated efforts to open the complicated box, he eventually tucks it away and forgets about it.
Years later, long after his mother’s gold has run its course, and desperately in need of funds, he searches through his belongings in search of something to hock. Among his things, he rediscovers the old box. He instinctively makes another attempt to unravel the secrets to opening the complicated panels. This time, the box simply falls apart in his hands. Inside, he finds a note from his mother, and an ancient map. Intrigued, and having little to lose, he determines to follow this direction from his lost mother and pursue this gift. It eventually leads him to a cemetery the size of a small city tucked away deep in the southern scrubs.
The cemetery resides on the reservation lands of the Vaemyn, a savage race forced from their homelands by the Allied Nations for crimes against humanity. Due to their ability to track their prey by listening to the earth, they are extremely difficult to evade.
Beam spends the next two years prowling through the cemetery, evading the savages by day and picking his way through their dead by night. Eventually, he discovers a secret chamber that leads to a maze hidden beneath one of the crypts. Beneath the lid of a dusty stone sarcophagus, he finds a brilliant red crystal. The blood-red gem is the size of a small apple and carved in the image of a sensuous, lidded eye. Believing he has found the treasure his mother’s map sent him in search of, he flees north across the lawless Nolandian frontier and back to civilization with the Vaemyn in tight pursuit. He believes this gem will bring him the riches that will afford him the life of leisure and lavish indulgence he so richly deserves.
What Beam doe not know is that this crystal is actually a Blood Caeyl. This was the most dominant of all the stones of power, with influence over the forces of life itself, and one believed to have long ago vanished from the world. In time, the caeyl begins to alter him, gradually awakening the memories of a thousand lifetimes. Under the stone’s influence, he eventually evolves into something far greater than a mere mortal.
His metamorphosis arrives just at the beginning of the end of times. A Fire Caeyl mage has created a rift to the Wyr, and has summoned an army of Wyrlaerds, Divinic Demons with an instinctual desire to rule all mortal life, and the ability to possess the mortal flesh of living souls. The changes Beam endures lead him to the edge of his mortality, to the portal between the corporeal world he was born to and a labyrinth of memories spanning thousands of years and endless lifetimes. There he learns that his birth was never by chance, but rather part of an elaborate scheme to end the threat of the Wyr for all time.

Guest Post: The Evolution of the Blood Caeyl Memories

The Pleasure of Memory was born from a dare. Or perhaps challenge is the better description. Years back, I was discussing the art of writing with a dear friend, a fellow devotee and author of fantastic fiction. We were discussing the evolution of The Story. The conversation was something akin to a literary version of the creation versus evolution debate. Did the best stories evolve through careful structuring of the plot and characters prior to the actual writing, similar to God’s Seven Day Plan? Or did they grow organically from the kernel of a planted idea, flowing initially as a kind of free association that gradually evolves into a life form?

I clearly favored the latter.

To prove his point, my friend then initiated the challenge. He provided me with an opening sentence, and double dog dared me to grow it into a story. The opening line he graciously delivered to me was “It’s a good day to be you,” written as a quote. Looking at that seed, I was pretty certain it wasn’t an acorn that could grow a mighty oak. I figured I’d be fortunate if it grew a milkweed.

After several fruitless months of writing, wadding, trashing, writing, wadding, and trashing, I decided to take a more scholarly tack. I cheated. I took a concept I’d been playing in my head for about a year, but hadn’t yet started on, and I placed the dare sentence at the beginning of it. Now, in all fairness to myself, I have to say that I still wrote this story organically from a simple premise and without benefit of a storyboard, but while starting from a different seed. However, in using his second dare seed, the concept of my original premise was dramatically changed. You might say this story arose from genetically modified stock.

Three books later, the project has evolved into a complex story of good versus evil, of a man forced outside the comfort zone of his own greed and self-importance, of the allies he unwittingly finds among his enemies, of his metamorphosis into the human and, ultimately, god he was destined to be.

Excerpt from The Pleasure of Memory:

Beam landed on his hands and knees in the wet, muddy grass.
It was dark. Shadowy figures encircled him, but he couldn’t make out the details through the pouring rain and cloak of night. He tried to stand up, but the pressure of a sharp point in the back of his neck convinced him to stay where he was.
He grudgingly settled back on his knees and gave a silent curse. He didn’t need to see anything. He knew exactly where he was. The bastards finally had him.
He squinted up through the hammering rain. A clap of thunder rocked the night, followed by a several brief pulses of light. He couldn’t make out their faces, but the shimmer of their mail against the distant lightning was unmistakable.
He dropped forward and slapped the wet grass. “Stinking savages!” he cursed into the rain.
“Stand up, skeechka!” someone called over the crackling roar of the downpour. The voice was female. This warrior was a Vaemyd, a female Vaemyn, though there was nothing feminine in her tenor.
Beam spit some water back into the grass and again squinted up into the rain, aiming in the direction of the voice. “I’m comfortable right here, thanks,” he called back, though he could barely see her.
“I told you to stand up!” she yelled, “I’m not inclined to tell you twice!”
The sword point twisted viciously against his neck. Beam disappointed himself by wincing. He was confident it’d drawn blood. His mind drifted back to his own sword nestled snugly in its scabbard on the stone floor of the tunnel five minutes below him.
Another peal of thunder rocked the night. A lingering flash of lightning briefly unveiled the silhouette of the Vaemyd standing directly above him, illuminating her long enough to reveal her sleeveless armor and her bare, muscular arms glistening against the rain. He tried to look off to the sides, to evaluate the odds, but the sword in his neck convincingly dissuaded him. Still, he was certain there were at least three others.
He again slapped the wet grass. “Bad bloody luck!” he cursed.
“Nay, you’re wrong there,” she called through the rain, “Luck isn’t even in the equation.”
“Get that damned blade out of my neck. I'm unarmed.”
An explosion rocked the night. Beam flinched. It was too loud to be thunder. Despite the sword pinned to his neck, he managed a peek back behind him. The savages had opened the other half of the lid to the tunnel. The open round hatch gaped up into the dark rain like a radiant, mocking laugh.
A second sword found his right flank, and a third dug into his left. The blade on the right twisted a little harder than it needed to.
“Easy!” he yelled up at the offending savage, “Do that again, and I’ll slap you back into diapers!”
Something struck the back of the head. He collapsed into the grass. He wasn’t sure if he was hearing another peal of thunder or just the ringing in his ears. Before he could recover, the warriors dragged him up to his feet. His skull was throbbing. His legs felt weak as wind.
The Vaemyd pressed in close. “You’re damned mouthy for a man with three blades against his flesh,” she said into his face, “You’re either fearless or stupid. Which is it?”
She was nearly his height and as solid as an oak. Another rip of lightning threw her wet face into light. Her features were chiseled and commanding, betraying neither compassion nor humor. She wore her pale hair bound back in the severe Vaemysh tradition, laced up so tight even the rain seemed unable to penetrate it. Water streamed down her face and dribbled from the sharp horns curling up from under her earlobes, but it did nothing to diminish the malice in her eyes, which were as blue and cold as ice.
“Strange,” she said to him, “I’d expected you to be bigger. All this fuss about such a little man. I find it rather disappointing.” Her eyes looked almost serpentine in the greenish light radiating from the open hatch behind him.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Beam said back, “A Parhronii dandy could’ve evaded your girls.”
“Have your laugh, skeechka. It’ll be your last pleasure.”
Beam shook the rain from his face. “I’ve heard that from your kind before,” he said, “You threaten and threaten but never seem to follow up. I was beginning to think you weren’t really trying.” He spit more water into the grass.
The blade on his right twisted into his ribs again. This time it stole his breath away. He tried to turn on the man, but was quickly subdued. The bastards had a solid lock on his arms, cocking them mercilessly behind him.
“Keep it up, you savage prick!” he snarled over his shoulder, “I’ll feed your jewels to you before we’re done!”
“You’ll have to excuse their zeal,” the Vaemyd said, “My trackers thirst for your blood. You’ve been a monumental irritation to them these past months, jh’ven?”
Beam again flipped the rain from his face, but said nothing.
“However, I do have an offer for you,” she continued, “I give you my word that if you answer my questions directly, I’ll make your death quick and painless.”
“And if I’m stubborn?” he said through the rain.
“I let my warriors have their way with you. You look strong enough that you might last a week or more before their fires.”
The fear that statement left in its wake disappointed him. “Do you really think I’m intimidated by you?” he forced himself to say.
She smiled at that, and leaned closer, whispering, “I’m confident of it.”

About the Author:

Welcome Cole is a writer of fantasy, contemporary novels, and urban fiction. He spends his time in the lakes and forests of Traverse City, Michigan and in the desert and mountains of Castle Rock, Colorado. He has degrees in Nursing and Business Administration, and writes at every opportunity. His book, The Pleasure of Memory, will be followed up shortly with his contemporary fiction novel, Henry’s Re-entry. The second volume of the Blood Caeyl Memories, The Shadows of Memory, will be released in early 2014.


No comments:

Post a Comment