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.
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