Something worth reading.
Here's a writing sample from one of my books. THE WHITE CITY is a 70,000 word young adult fantasy novel.
Lock wants to be the most powerful warlock in the world. But first, he has to raise the money for finishing school, save his lordship and learn to control his new found power, astral travel. If he can't control the nightmares it gives him and protect his body from hungry astral beings, he won't live long enough to do any of it. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.
“The miracles that magic will perform will make thee vow to study nothing else.” The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
One
Lockthorne Hellerson didn’t know what happened in the last few moments of his father’s life, but he had some very noble ideas. He imagined his father, Stonethrasher Hellerson, with his eyes closed in deep concentration and his hands poised to make the sign of power as the beast flapped its wings and lunged at him. The spell hit the dragon in its oversized belly and it fumbled backwards before it roared and prepared to attack for the second time. His father had taken his great sword Thorne with him, just for good measure, and tried to lodge it in the dragon’s mouth. It may have worked for a moment, but the large black beast (the dragon was always black in Lock’s imagination) broke it with a snap of its massive jaws.
His father then made one last attempt to get the thing he’d come for. He reached out his deeply scarred hand and grabbed for a scale. He got a hold of a large one, right on the side of the belly. The beast roared again, and Stonethrasher Hellerson pulled until the dragon took its fatal strike and he died in a blaze of glory.
Of course, Lock had no idea how any of it had happened. He only knew his father had left the castle one morning, telling them he was going to get a dragon’s scale. His mother had been cross at first, but they had kissed. Lock, being a young man with manners, hadn’t watched that part. Then his father said the last words Lock would ever hear from him.
“Merci, will the letters from Pembrooke will be arriving soon? Lock, watch out for the courier.” He patted Lock on the back, kissed his wife on the cheek and left while whistling a jolly tune.
Everything Lock knew about Pembrooke he’d learned from his mother. It would be his salvation from a life as an inconsequential warlock, one with fantastic ideas and no one to share them with. His father, in short. Pembrooke was a necessity for those who longed to work in a royal court, and Lock longed for it more than he could express, and he waited for the letter to arrive.
The day they got the word that his father had died Lock didn’t believe it at first. His mother stood still and prim, nodded and thanked the messenger. They brought the body and Thorne the next day, or what was left of them. The dragon had left everything besides a right arm and a rather large chunk of the mid section. The great sword had been snapped in two pieces.
Stonethrasher Hellerson was buried in the local cemetery with nothing but a wooden grave marker carved with his name and the date and circumstances of his death. Thorne was wrapped up and hidden by his mother. And, after everything was over, they set about putting their lives back together.
That had been nearly a year ago. It was early spring in Blackthorne. Butterflies fluttered from flower to flower, bees buzzed around the the blooming peach trees, and the steady croaking of frogs in the pond filled the air with a beautiful harmony. Overhead a few robins and sparrows were perched on the ancient oaks and cedars adding their own intricate melody to the song. Under the trees there were a few goats grazing on some dandelions. Buzz. Croak. Flutter. Tweet. Crunch.
Lock wasn’t paying attention to any to that, however. He was wrapped from head to toe in clothing, including gloves, and knee deep a particularly large patch of poison oak. He had an oversized bag with him and it was already half full. The problem with harvesting poison oak was the only useful part of it, for Lock, were the leaves. It was a slow and tedious process to carefully pull them off of each plant and throw them in the bag, not to mention hot and uncomfortable. But it was an indispensable ingredient in many a potion and spell.
The goats were wise enough to keep their distance.
“Lock,” a young man called from beyond the edge of the poison oak. He was dressed plainly, in an open shirt and breeches. He wore no shoes. Not that he didn’t have shoes but it was too nice of a day to wear them.
“What is it, Mathias? Did you want to help?” Lock smiled under the cloth mask at the look Mathias gave him.
“No. I came to tell you a courier came a few moments ago and gave your mother something. He had a coat of arms on his tunic I didn’t recognize.”
“What was it?”
“Purple with a black dragon and two swords crossed behind it.” Mathias rubbed his sandy hair. “One of the swords may have been a rapier and the other a claymore. Or, now that I think of it, they could have been sabers. Do you think that matters?”
Lock looked up from his harvesting. “Purple with a black dragon and two swords?”
Mathias nodded. “Yes, I’m sure of the swords.”
“What did my mother do?”
“I think she offered him water and maybe a biscuit,” Mathias said, and Lock watched as an orange butterfly fluttered over his head.
“No tea?” Lock asked. The bag of poison oak hung limp in his hand.
“No,” Mathias said and shook his head. “You know how her ladyship is with tea.”
Lock knew. “All right. I guess that’s enough poison oak for one day,” he said and clomped out of the bushes. “Tomorrow I’ll have to finish up here and start on the poison ivy.”
Mathias nodded and gave him a wide berth as they walked back to the castle together.
The Hellerson Lordship rested in a small valley in the country of Navedor. It was a good country to live in, Lock supposed. It wasn’t as prosperous as Katortin, but far more so than Anazarai, the desert country to the south. However, it was no where near as mysterious as the northern Suna, the home of Pembrooke. And it would never be as great as the Rookland Empire had been in her days of glory.
The center of activity in the lordship was Blackthorne Castle and the surrounding village. Although after many centuries the castle was really just a keep. The rest of the fortresses’ walls were crumbling and in various states of disrepair.
The village surrounding the keep was small, only a bundle of cottages and barns. The people who lived there farmed and raised goats, as was common throughout Navedor. Although the lordship had fine peaches and delicious wild blackberries during the summer, they’d had less of late. The spring rains had been light for several years. But Blackthorne, as the rest of Navedor, was hearty and survived.
When they arrived Mathias put on a pair of large leather gloves and helped Lock out of the wrappings and into a tub of water that had been left in the sun to warm. Lock scrubbed quickly and thoroughly while Mathias put the clothes to soak in another tub. Once he was done with his bath Lock dressed and went to find his mother.
“Make sure no one touches my bag of poison oak,” he called to Mathias as he walked inside.
“I will,” Mathias said, a bit unnecessarily. No one who lived there would ever want to touch something they weren’t sure of, especially a strange bag.
It was cool and dark inside the keep. Lock found his mother sitting at the kitchen table with the door open to let in the light and the breeze. She held a chipped tea cup in one hand. The kettle and a little bowl of sugar were set in front of her, and she wore a light linen dress that had been mended several times.
In her youth, she had been a lovely and stately woman and none of that had been lost as she aged. Her hair was tied back in an intricate bun with streaks of gray running through the light honey brown. Her face was barely lined and serious at the moment.
“Mother. I heard a courier came,” Lock said as he walked in.
“Yes,” his mother answered and pushed a letter across the table. The wax seal had been broken open already, but he was expecting that. She filled a second tea cup, put a spoon full of sugar in it and pushed that toward him as well.
Lock sat down and took the letter with trembling hands. He ignored the tea.
For a moment he stared at the fine parchment and the long elegant penmanship. The ink, he noticed, was a deep purple. He’d never seen ink that color before and wondered how they made it. Then he began to read. It said:
Congratulations.
Lord and Lady Hellerson we are happy to inform you that your son, Lockthorne Hellerson, has been accepted into The Pembrooke Royal Academy. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for your child, and we know you must be very proud and happy. Attendance means your child will meet and befriend the future kings and queens of our noble Far Western Lands. They will have the means to find work at a variety of royal palaces and a number of other invaluable opportunities. Acceptance is only good for this year, a golden moment when your child becomes an adult. We would like to aid that process as best we know how.
If you would like to accept this invitation please send a courier that will arrive at The Pembrooke Royal Academy no later than Elsa’s Day. The courier must have a letter of acceptance and half the years tuition with him at the time of delivery.
The academy’s first session starts in late summer. If the invitation is accepted your child must arrive no later than Elsa’s Fair Well. The remaining tuition is to be paid at that time. The cost for one years tuition is one hundred crowns or the equivalent.
We hope to see your child come late summer.
It was signed with a sprawling signature that Lock couldn’t make out. He put it back on the table and took a sip of his tea. It wasn’t hot and not quite sweet enough, but he didn’t say. He didn’t care at the moment. His hands still shook from nerves or excitement, he wasn’t sure which. His heart ached to travel, to meet new people, to enter Halbourgh Castle as a nobleman, not just in title but in presentation. He knew Pembrooke would give him all of that and more.
“Well?” he asked.
She shook her head. “We can’t afford it. Not after the way your father left everything,” she said like she’d bitten into a lemon.
Lock sighed. He’d expected this even before he’d asked. He’d expected it even before he’d come hurrying home with a bag full of poison oak.
“But it’s Pembrooke.”
“I know very well what it is. I read the letter,” she said and poured herself a second cup of tea. “I would happily send you there, Lock. But you know how it is.”
Lock did know. He didn’t know why she always had to say it in such a round about way. ‘We’re broke’ seemed to work just as well.
“What about the summer house at Elkhorn?” Lock asked and added more sugar to his tea.
Lady Hellerson shook her head. “Your father sold it a few years ago.”
“What?” he said and nearly knocked over his cup. “Why?”
She shook her head. “That’s none of your concern.”
Lock stared at the cup of tea. The light brown liquid sloshed back and forth like a lake in a storm. It looked like he felt. He’d spent many happy summers at Elkhorn. The house wasn’t big, more like a glorified cabin, but it had been a place he’d known as a home. Now it was gone. But soon the tea calmed down and Lock did too.
“Didn’t he have a few gold teeth?”
His mother shot him a look that could melt snow. “You are not going to become a grave robber, Lockthorne. I don’t care what you are as long as it’s not that.”
He didn’t quite believe her. There were a number of other things he doubted she wanted him to become. “I am a warlock.”
“I know. I think it is wonderful that you’ve taken up your father’s work,” she said and the corners of her mouth turned up a bit. “But no stealing his gold teeth. Knowing him he probably put a spell on them to keep them in his mouth.”
Lock smiled. She was probably right. “If only he’d gotten that scale.”
His mother frowned.
“Do you have any idea how much it would be worth?”
“More than your father’s life?” she asked quietly.
Lock hadn’t thought of that. He thought the scale of a dragon, even the smallest one, could have paid a years tuition at Pembrooke. It could easily have paid for five years tuition. But he didn’t say because she was right.
He sighed. “No. Not more than father’s life.”
“I should think not,” she said and turned the tea cup in her slender fingers.
“We could sell some things,” he suggested and took a sip of his tea. It was now too sweet but he finished it in one gulp anyway.
“What,” his mother asked and swept her regal hand around their kitchen, “shall we sell?”
To look at it Lock knew what she meant. It was sparsely furnished with only the barest necessities of a table and chairs. There was large cooking hearth and a wash tub for dishes as well, but that was it. The other rooms in the keep were just as basic. There were no sprawling tapestries or grand works of art, nothing of any value to anyone but his mother and himself.
Lock sank back in his chair. “I don’t know,” he said and thought.
Several minutes later he had an idea.
“Mother?”
“Lock?”
He kept his eyes on the dregs in his tea cup. “I could go through father’s old things. Maybe there’s something I could sell.”
“They’re of no use to me,” she said after a moments pause. She was right. She had never been interested in magic and most of the things in his workroom were only useful for skilled warlocks and any of the subdisiplines like necromancy or sorcery.
Lock smiled.
“But.”
His smile faded.
“Think of what your father would want,” she said and stood up. She gathered the tea pot and cups and put them next to the wash tub. Then she put the bowl of sugar away.
Lock watched her with barely disguised annoyance. She was right. He got up and left without saying a word.
Lock climbed the keep’s ancient stairs to his room and sighed. His dreams were falling apart around him. He looked out of the window at the valley and the sun as it lowered toward the Dragon’s Spine. In the distance he heard a goat bleat. Blackthorne had never seemed more like a prison than it did at that moment.
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