Chapter 1 excerpt

The Mageblades

The first scream broke the stillness of the dawn and brought back the vivid memory of a morning long ago. Daren turned away and stared grimly out to sea while the chosen children were roused from their sleep, torn from their tearful families and packed into the boats.  He turned again and looked past the close-packed warehouses and taverns to the high granite sea defences.  Behind them he could make out the slate roofs of the row of fishermen’s cottages where he had spent his early years.  

The fourth bollard from the right, presently being used to secure the aft mooring rope of a small crank-looking fishing boat, had been his.  Daren had been sitting there fishing, shrouded by white mist, when the tall ship had ghosted silently into the bay.  He remembered feeling no fear despite the fact that there was not a breath of wind to move a vessel of such size.  It moved nonetheless gliding silently between the moored merchant shipping, fishing craft and naval stores ships.  He had hardly been able to make it out, just a vague shape in the whiteness. Occasionally, dark figures could be seen about the deck and rigging.

Silence. That was what he remembered.  Never a call or a shout. No bell sounding to warn other shipping as port regulations required.  Even the anchor had slipped into the still water without a splash as the shape came to a halt in the centre of bay. 

He’d glimpsed the single boat for just an instant in a temporary opening in the mist with its cargo of cloaked figures being rowed steadily to the shore.  Daren had not waited for them to come up. Even at the age of ten he’d known what an ordeal it would have been for his mother.  He’d left his neatly coiled fishing line by the front door and trotted down to the main wharf with just the clothes on his back where he’d arrived just in time to tie up the boat for “the gentlemen”.

And now he was returning on a ship of his own, some twenty years later, with the same gentlemen on the same mission.  He had no stomach for what was to follow and his presence was a mere courtesy.  The sun was barely above the horizon before today’s boat, crammed with youngsters aged between 9 and 18 years of age, left the quay and their sobbing parents behind.

As for the cloaked men, their task had only just begun.  Within the hour the ship had weighed anchor and was already moving on to the next port down the coast.  In a few days time they would start to move inland.

Building A World

Storm on the Cathe is a fantasy but I want to create a world that doesn’t slip neatly or comfortably into a fantasy stereotype.  That’s partly a desire on my part to create something obviously “mine” but it’s also about giving the reader something new.  Of course I’m influenced by writing I’ve read and writers I admire.  I’m not sure any writer comes up with an idea that isn’t influenced just a little bit by someone or something else.

I’m trying to create a world that, whilst different from our own, is sufficiently comfortable that the reader can quickly feel at home there.  I want my world to be an interesting and colourful backdrop to the story and characters.  I don’t want it to “get in the way” or assert itself too strongly (except when it benefits the plot and reader of course).  Being comfortable in the world, the reader will be comfortable with the characters and that’s one of my main goals.

The first premise for the Storm on the Cathe world is that magic is commonplace.  Almost everyone has some ability and “craftsmen” routinely use enchantments or “blessings” to improve and protect what they create.  Medicine is as much about magic as science.  What is rarer, though, is The Gift.  Those who have a higher then average ability to change, control and manipulate their world using magic are said to have The Gift. It is these people the Mageblades seek out at the start of the book – because such potential cannot be allowed to develop without “correct instruction” and “guidance”.

Developing that premise, I have tried to imagine a world where the industrial revolution would not be necessary – because of the presence of magic.  Technology has only advanced so far because it is less necessary.  Steam power is not needed when the wind can be controlled, for example, so the society exists in a pre or very early industrial state.  Water is harnessed for wool and textile mills on a small scale.  Mass transport does not exist and the horse is still the beast of burden and transport.

If you imagine the early Napoleonic period, with a few Victorian elements intermixed, you’ll be about right!  It’s an interesting period to draw upon and the class structure and complex social etiquette that accompanies it features strongly in the story and influences the characters greatly.

It seems to be a world in which there are a lot of possibilities, for the writer and the characters!