Tag Archives: The Shifter

Obstacles

[This story takes place between The Mage and The Shifter.]

“It is not working!” Cassie yelled, breaking the spell. She picked up one of the rune stones in front of her and threw it. It was part of a set Ice had given her to help her study the runes and get comfortable with them.

He looked at his pupil with a mixture of sympathy and irritation. “Do not throw them.”

She turned toward him. “I cannot feel them the way you said I would! There is no magic!”

It was an effort to stop himself from yelling back. “You are already familiar with the runes, you just need . . .”

“No, I am not!”

“Yes, you are. When we first met, you used some runes, do you remember?”

“When?”

“You put them on your parents’ pyre.”

“Those? They were just traditional symbols.”

“Do you know what they mean?”

“We just put them there so that the souls of the departed make it safely to the next world.”

“The first rune was protection. The second means journey. And the last one stands for joy. You already have a connection with . . .”

“I do not want to talk about this anymore.” She stood and ran from the room while tears streamed down her cheeks.

Ice picked up one of the stones and absentmindedly rubbed it between his fingers. He wanted to go after the girl, scold her for leaving, but he could almost hear Krina admonishing him not to, reminding him of his failures when he had taken her on as an apprentice.

Perhaps he was not meant to instruct others. The girl did have a natural talent for the runes, but the memory of her parents seemed to serve as an obstacle. There was something else, as well, some other power in her, the reason that the Terrgat had sought her in the first place. However, he had been unable to identify it. Perhaps that power, whatever it was, prevented her from touching the magic of the runes.

As much as he wanted to push her past these obstacles, the memory of his missteps with Krina gave him pause and undermined his own self-confidence. Maybe he should not teach Cassie. Yet, she needed some means to protect herself. If he could not teach her his magic, he needed to find a way to unlock her own power. If he did not, she would be vulnerable the next time the Terrgat came for her.

Character

I knew I should be working, but I was on my computer, scrolling through the same Facebook stories I had already read several times that day. It was then that a person walked into my office and sat down in the other chair. Their features, really any distinguishing characteristics, were difficult to make out. They just sat there, waiting.

“Who are you?” I asked after a moment.

“I am waiting for you to tell me.” The voice, too, was indistinct, as if the words were just there without having been spoken aloud. Neither young nor old; neither soft nor harsh.

“How should I know who you are, if you don’t know yourself?”

But the figure did not respond. It merely looked at me with eyes I could not clearly see. I wanted it to leave, so that I could go back to doing nothing. It stubbornly refused.

Exasperated, I said, “Fine. You are a young woman, around 20.” And she was. “You are five and a half feet tall, and thin. Sharp, almost regal features, with a fierceness behind them, yet a kindness, too. Shoulder length brown hair, and hazel eyes.” Those eyes looked back at me.

“Your name is Cassandra, but only your parents ever called you that. They passed away many years ago.” An old sadness, deep inside, could only be seen by those who knew her well. “You have studied under a mage, a strange old man who calls himself simply ‘Ice.’ You want to find your own path now.”

Cassie smiled at me, a look of gratitude. “Thank you. Now, please, write my story.”

Unable to deny her, I shut down my computer and picked up my pen.

Escape

Today was a bit more hectic than normal, and I didn’t have a chance to write something brand new. So I thought I would share another passage from the novel I’m working on, The Shifter. Looking at this excerpt with the previous one, it would seem Cassie spends the entire novel getting attacked and knocked out. I swear that’s not the case.

Cassie walked into the general store. A bell rang, but there was no one in sight. Looking around, she saw various tools and cooking implements. Perhaps this was merely a store front for the blacksmith. She wandered around a bit and found some sacks of grains and flour: food, but not what she needed.

She was headed to the door when she spied a small rack of dried meats near the counter. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. She was counting out strips when an older woman appeared through a curtained doorway.

“I hope you’re planning on paying for those.” The woman seemed preoccupied and barely gave Cassie a disapproving look.

“Of course.” She hadn’t been planning on stealing the food, but Cassie felt guilty anyway, as though she had been caught somehow. “How much?”

The woman looked at the strips of meat and opened her mouth to answer when she finally really looked at Cassie. “I don’t recognize you.”

“No, ma’am. I’m just traveling and stopped to buy some supplies.”

“Traveling? Alone? A young girl like you? That is… unusual.”

“Well… I… Um…”

“Wait. Were you traveling with a boy? Weren’t you at the inn last night?”

Terror overwhelmed Cassie’s attempt to find a believable lie, and she ran out the door. She couldn’t know how the woman would react, but she didn’t expect it to be good. All she wanted to do now was to get out of the village before anything else went wrong. She was still holding some of the dried meat, so she shoved it into a pocket before running down the path.

A voice shouted after her, “Hey! Wait! Come back!” But she didn’t slow down to look back.

As she neared to the edge of the village, she saw a horse with a rider headed towards her. Immediately, she recognized the man’s colors: Terrgat. Her terror increased, and she ducked behind the nearest building.

Had he seen her? Did he know who she was? There was nothing to be gained in finding out the answers. She started running again, making for the trees behind the building.

Blood pounded through her ears, covering any sound of pursuit. She didn’t dare slow down to look behind her. There was no goal, no destination; she just ran, barely noticing anything around her. The trees might provide cover. It had to be better than running out in the open.

She felt someone behind her. Whether it was paranoia or real didn’t matter; she simply ran faster. And it made her reckless; he first misstep was nearly her undoing. Somehow she managed to keep from falling down. She was not so lucky the second time as her feet flew out from underneath her, and she sprawled out onto the forest floor. Expecting to hear her pursuer or even find herself being grabbed, she scrambled back to her feet and began running again.

Her body ultimately betrayed her. It couldn’t keep up the pace, and she fell again. Still feeling urgency born of fear, she forced herself back up, more slowly this time. The next time she fell, however, she hit her head on a branch. She tried to hang on to consciousness, to keep moving, but this time the blackness took her.

Attack in the Woods

I am finally getting back to working on The Shifter, the sequel to The Mage. I don’t want to give too much away, since I left some things hanging at the end of the first novel, but I also want to give people a taste of what I’m working on. I hope this is coherent enough to stand as an engaging excerpt.

The woods were quiet. Only now did it seem unnatural to Cassie. No song birds called out; no insects buzzed. She felt a chill inside as she tried to locate the source of the strange silence.

There. She could sense a kind of emptiness off to her left. Whatever it was, it eluded her senses. There was no smell nor sound. Instead, it was an absence that she noticed, a slippery nothingness that she could not quite locate. She turned to face it directly, but it seemed to slide away from her attention.

Curiosity fought with primal fear, and that froze Cassie in place. She wanted to know what was happening, what was causing this strange occurrence, but she also wanted to flee and find a place to hide. Unable to decide in favor of one impulse or the other, she simply stood transfixed, staring deeper into the woods.

A deep growl behind her broke the spell, and she spun around. A wolf stood several feet away, teeth bared and hate in its eyes. If it was the same wolf she had seen earlier, it had shed all pretense of friendliness. Again she was caught, unable to react. This time it was broken when the wolf’s growl increased and it leaped on her. The force of its body crashing into her knocked her to the ground. The wolf stood, snarling over her. Terror choked her, making it difficult for her to breathe. The world began to fade to black.

Something struck the wolf and knocked it off of her, relieving some of the pressure on her chest. The smell of burnt hair replaced the weight in causing her to choke. She tried to sit up, but she had been too close to losing consciousness. Blackness began to take over her vision once more. She fell back to the ground. There was growling nearby and the sound of running, but it seemed to be away from her. She dared to hope she might be safe just before finally blacking out.