Making It Home

By Johnson, Kevin, Wade

Book Id: WPLBN0100304445
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.1 MB
Reproduction Date: 5/12/2023

Title:	Making It Home
Author:	Johnson, Kevin, Wade
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Fiction, Drama and Literature
Collections:	Authors Community, Fantasy
Historic Publication Date:	2023
Publisher:	Self-Published

Member Page:	Kevin Johnson
Citation APA MLA Chicago Wade Johnson, B. K. (2023). Making It Home. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.us/

Description
A fantasy novel set in an alternate Europe, one where magic was discovered in prehistory, and one where, since the old Imperium fell, civilization has barely advanced, even in over a thousand years. Nor has magic advanced much either, with scattered spells found in old grimoires, or taught by a perhaps grudging mentor, being the state of the art.

Summary
Surrounded by geysers and fumaroles, Aelwin Seer is not just trapped in an inhospitable environment, but an unfriendly one: Seers are dismissed as useless. He cannot leave, since all mages must live where Archmage Domina can keep her eye on them. And yet, can he continue to live there, or even to live, once Domina discovers he has no loyalty to her at all? Taken from his family at the age of twelve, Aelwin hasn't been aware of how much he misses having a home. But when he escapes from Domina and the Council, he knows he cannot rest until he finds somewhere that will somehow be safe from the most powerful mage in the world. Can he find such a place of safety? And make it home?

Excerpt
I stole into Domina's private rooms through the secret entrance. I'd spent days scrying in my crystal ball to find the entrance and the passage through the red-orange sandstone that led to it. She sat in lotus herself, on a silken cushion, the only sign of self-indulgence in an otherwise ascetic room. The stone walls and ceiling were only marginally smoother than those of my chamber. The flame from a burning shallow bowl of oil provided the only light, reddening the stone even further. I ducked back, so if she should open her eyes I would not be seen. I spent a minute in total concentration, envisioning my own body in detail, the veins and the arteries in particular. In my mind I drew the Kenn, Sigil, and Mann runes upon my wrists and ankles. I had practiced Enflaumen many times over the decades, and it did not fail me now. My body burst into flames, and I charged around the corner at Domina, threw myself upon her as she opened her eyes, and enveloped her in immolation. She said, "Who taught you that spell?" I couldn't speak, but I could think. Protas, one of your…oh. "Fool," she said. "Aelwin, you are nothing more than a Diviner, with a spell or two for self-protection. What were you thinking?" Then she cried out in a throat-tearing shriek, "Iqbi-Damiq!" A monstrous, ghostly hand appeared, reached into my inmost self, and tore out my soul. Second Excerpt Tears would come for a long time, I knew, years and then some. Grief takes so much time. Loss of someone or even something you love rips out a piece of your heart. The hole it leaves behind is like when you lose a tooth, and you keep going back to touch the edges of the hole, feeling the absence anew. Feeling the lack of what you had. But just as the hole where the tooth was eventually heals over, so does the hole in your heart. The hole remains, because no one can ever fill the place that a parent or pal or pet once took up. No one can be that person for you. So the edges that once occupied so much attention gradually wear down, and aren't noticed as they once were. And though the holes and the absences never fill in, hearts can grow our whole life long, they can always make more room for more love and loved ones. The holes don't fill in. But hearts do fill back up. I gathered all the children to me again. They fill back up, and even overflow.

Table of Contents
One: A Wizard, I Two: Delved in Tomes Three: But Found Myself Fleeing Four: From Treatment Unjust Five: Naught I'd Been Seeing Six: Deserved Mistrust Seven: I Find Myself by Eight: Waterfall's Foam Nine: Afloat and Afraid Ten: Of That Which Pursues Eleven: Have I Now Made Twelve: A Path I Shall Lose Thirteen: A Refuge Foreseen Fourteen: Could It Now Mean Fifteen: To Stay There, I Sixteen: Never to Roam Seventeen: Someone to Love Eighteen: Sent from Above Nineteen: Have I Found My Twenty: Home, At Last Home