From Today’s Edit—Shadow’s Rise

Among the tasks I need to do is to provide each title with new back matter—and some titles with a new cover. This is Shadow’s Rise. It is one of those titles needing a new cover. I’m editing it, before this happens, and I came across this scene, and it struck me as one of the more powerful scenes in the book:

Gilzereet’s Rejection

As a high priest of the Goddess of Shadows and Night, Gilzereet Urkhrist has as strong a relationship with the goddess as any—and, yet, she puts him aside, as only a goddess can. Here’s how it goes down:

In the city of Escar, well away from where Beresia’s temple burned, Gilzereet knelt in Berveragna’s inner chamber. He was praying to the goddess, and finding her strangely silent, given that Misrandar was dead. He had been praying for most of the night.

One of the acolytes had summoned him when they had found Misrandar’s body in the hall outside the chamber, but Gilzereet had been unable to sense who, or what, had caused the priest’s death. The entire corridor was sterile, void of any hint as to what had happened—good or evil, the area was too clean for him to tell. Instead of being able to track the murderer down, the high priest was seeking his goddess’s guidance on the matter, and receiving nothing. It was as though she had shut a door between them.

Having sent the acolytes to the outer temple with instructions to pray, Gilzereet had closed the inner chamber’s door behind him, and knelt before the nightstone. Around him, the candles he had made and dedicated to Berveragna’s service had remained dark; before him, the nightstone’s veins glowed with sullen light.

At last, when the goddess had refused to respond to any of his prayers, Gilzereet stood and approached the nightstone altar. He could think of only one thing more to try. Reaching out, he placed both hands on the silver-streamed, blue darkness of the altar’s surface.

At once, he felt Berveragna’s attention on him but, instead of giving him comfort, it generated unease. As he held his palms against the stone, its blue-lit veins dimmed. Around the walls, the blue-flamed candles flared to brightness, only to go out, one by one, around the room.

“Lady?” Gilzereet cried, startlement and confusion apparent in his voice. “What have I done?”

Her reply was an almost unintelligible growl.

“Nothing.”

But she continued to extinguish the candles around the chamber walls until, with the wavering of the last one’s flame, Gilzereet felt the nightstone drawing his power into itself. He cried out, again, but felt only the wall of his lady’s rejection. Instead of leaving the chamber as he sensed she wished, Gilzereet pressed himself harder against the altar.

“Please, answer me, Lady. Do not send me away,” he begged, almost weeping with frustration.

“You are not mine,” she spat in reply, and black tendrils disentangled him from the altar and threw him towards the chamber’s door. “Now, go!”

“But I have served you and you alone,” he argued. “You took me in when everyone else had turned their backs on me. Who else is there? You have favoured me with your power, and given me a home. I will not leave you, though you should curse me to death.”

The goddess snarled, until Gilzereet was surrounded by the sound. He felt it vibrating against his skin, and heard the door shatter behind him. Before he could protest any further, the black tendrils had thrown him from the chamber and into the hallway beyond.

“Enter not again,” he though he heard her say. “I will not curse you to death, even should you beg such an undeserved fate from me.”

Dazed, Gilzereet watched as a patterning of static blocked the inner chamber from the hall. He pushed himself upright, leaning against the wall, noting how Misrandar’s body lay between him and the entrance to the inner chamber, noting the crackling barrier that kept him from the lady’s inner sanctum.

Unable to bring himself to quite believe what had happened, Gilzereet reached out in prayer, trying to draw the goddess’s attention. He received no reply, and, even though he tried to reach out again, he did not expect one. He might hope, but the goddess had rejected him and she refused to tell him why.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Would you like to read more? 

This book, Shadow’s Rise, and the other two titles in the Shadow trilogy: Shadow Trap and Shadow’s Fall, are currently available for individual purchase.