Guardians of the Field

On the border of a ruined city a field of tall grass moves in the wind and time is erased. This is the threshold into the labyrinth of the Esarad, home of scryers, ageless ones who see both future and past at will–guardians of the field.

Some seek out the field as sanctuary and others have vowed to destroy it. Karin Anavid is determined to protect her young daughter, born a scryer, from those who would harm her. Maeta, a guardian of the Esarad, guides them both in a desperate race across a land gutted by war. They face a ruler obsessed with finding a hidden route through the ice mountains of Scrinac into the Esarad to annihilate it, and the betrayal of an old friend whose greed has consumed him into darkness.

And there is Yorajil, a child of mystic power, who is led by forces she barely understands to find her true home.

Each one is drawn inexorably toward the ruined city of Alcedama and a doomsday trigger that lies at the heart of an ancient prophecy.

EXCERPT . . .

I summon the memory of Alcedama as I saw it last. On a long ago night I walked through the city, its streets thick with the blood of the dead and dying, seeking an understanding that never came. Maybe if just once something had been said, or done, something brought into life by a single voice of compassion, by that one sound, everything would have been different. How can I know? Instead, I know that out of betrayal comes a feeling of loss that keeps us from the truth of who we are. We choose instead to hate. I received this knowledge into my own blood, and welcomed it, because then I was given a reason to live.

So long in this cell. Am I still a victim? Or has the sudden revelation of what I fee brought with it the end of fear? I wonder, too, how long they will give me something to write on, something, thereby, to remember. I need these words. They play with that, keeping it an unknown.

Beyond the narrow bars I see the pale yellow light that always comes before dusk, rectangular shapes of color, four of them, the metal rods between. The hills are shrouded in fog and the courtyard is still. The others are at supper. I am in another place that serves as both my refuge and my retribution.

They will read every one of these words and not comprehend. I shape the intent again and again, each time changing it, each time new, each time a distance from their truth, each time a way out into mine. These are my words, I, Karin Anavid, in the prison of Tamach.

Book categories: Fantasy