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    The Naming of Kinzel
    The Naming of Kinzel
    The Naming of Kinzel
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    The Naming of Kinzel

    By Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Three stories of power, innocence, and magic.

    Kinzel the Foolish:  Meet Kinzel, 'prentice to Mad Siljan the herb lady.  Not quite the village fool.  Not quite.  And does it take a fool, or a wise child, to bargain with a unicorn?

    Kinzel the Innocent: Against his master's -- and his own! -- expectation, Kinzel has won a wizard's staff, and, having done so, he can no longer stay in his master's house.  So, he sets to see the world, finding it as wondrous as the world seems to find him. It's a good life, but it may be a short one, for Kinzel has made powerful enemies.

    Kinzel the Arbiter:  Two wealthy townsmen vie for the affections -- and the gifts -- of the grey crow.  But to whom does the crow belong?  That is the question the traveling wise man Kinzel is called upon to decide.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPinbeam Books
    Release dateJul 22, 2016
    ISBN9781935224150
    The Naming of Kinzel
    Author

    Sharon Lee

    Sharon Lee has worked with children of various ages and backgrounds, including a preschool, a local city youth bureau, and both junior and senior high youth groups. She has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and also in psychology. Sharon cares about people and wildlife. She has been an advocate in the fight against human trafficking and a help to stray and feral animals in need.

    Read more from Sharon Lee

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      Book preview

      The Naming of Kinzel - Sharon Lee

      Copyright Page

      Pinbeam Books

      http://www.pinbeambooks.com

      This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fiction or are used fictitiously.

      ––––––––

      THE NAMING OF KINZEL

      Copyright © 1984, 1987, 1990, 1998, 2011 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. Please remember that distributing an author's work without permission or payment is theft; and that the authors whose works sell best are those most likely to let us publish more of their works.  First edition collected stories published in 1987 by General Avocations.

      The Naming of Kinzel: The Foolish originally appeared in Fantasy Book, June 1984

      The Naming of Kinzel: The Innocent originally appeared in Fantasy Book, December 1984

      The Naming of Kinzel: The Arbiter originally appeared in The Naming of Kinzel Midnight Edition, June 1987, General Avocations

      ISBN:

      Kindle: 978-1-935224-15-0

      Epub: 978-1-935224-16-7

      PDF: 978-1-935224-17-4

      Published April 2011 by

      Pinbeam Books

      PO Box 1586

      Waterville ME 04903

      email info@pinbeambooks.com

      Cover Copyright © 1987, 1988, 2011 by Colleen Doran. All rights reserved.

      Mages and Magic

      It was the time of the mages and the magic, of the herb ladies and the witches, of striving against a world running downhill toward a chaos of Power against Power.

      In those days, as in these, many had forgotten the legends of the original magician who stole the Branch of Power from the Unicorn Clans who had kept it - key to their power - hoarded and secret. The first magician used the Branch to create the first Staff and thereby the first Clock, releasing magic, and the means to control it, into the worlds of men.

      It is said that somewhere in the depths of the Large Continent there are still these things: the magician's hut, of stone cunningly piled; the Clock which stands behind each and every device of man; and the Branch cut for the first Staff and which converts the Power of worlds into the Power of Life.

      One tends to believe only in what one can lay hand to. So it is with common folk, so it is with magicians. Belief in things measured and ground and distilled is much easier to hold down the centuries than belief in a Power that flows in all one sees. Thus the Clock was revered among the learned magicians; and the Branch dwindled from solid reality to legend to childish superstition....

      KINZEL THE FOOLISH

      It was far too hot; the boy kneeling in the dust in the leafless thicket shifted his position slightly so his shadow fell more squarely on the luckless rabbit beneath his hands. The beast thanked him with a bare twitch of an ear.

      Heartened by even so slight a motion, the boy moved his hands gently over the rabbit's body, frowning in fey concentration.

      The wrongness was - here ... and here.... The boy bit his lip. It was so very hot. What use if the poor beastie were healed when there was no water to be had?

      He put such thoughts firmly from his mind, concentrating on the rabbit he'd found motionless and weak on the high hill path, concentrating on summoning the health that would banish the illness he sensed.

      How good to be a rabbit, how free. How easily the sweet air enters one's lungs; how gently, how smoothly expelled - so.

      The boy's hands moved instinctively, his plain round face blank with the effort. So fine to be a rabbit, to dream while the sun is in the sky; to father a dozen rabbit-kits and teach them the good leaves to nibble when the purple evening falls....

      Suddenly the rabbit twitched an ear, wrinkled its nose, and twisted free of the soothing hands. The boy sat back, bewilderment replacing concentration in his face, exhaustion showing in the corner of his eyes.

      The rabbit regarded its savior for a long moment, then used its back foot to scratch one ear, and reared up high to sniff the air. It cocked a last bemused rabbit-eye at the unmoving boy and hopped off, not very quickly, for the relative coolness of the inner wood.

      With a sigh belonging to a much younger child, the healer slumped and sagged edgewise. Dimly he recalled Siljan's admonitions: only heal the deserving; never boast of the power; only heal where someone can watch over you afterwards.

      Too tired to care, he let his head fall the remaining few inches, and slept with his head cradled in the dust.

      The rabbit peered out from the shade of the wood at the strangeness of a human child sleeping in the wild, and then, recalling from deep in its brain that humans were to be avoided, edged into the dimness.

      ***

      The boy awoke at sundown when an almost-cool breeze entered the thicket and ruffled his tangled, light ginger hair. Stretching and smiling, he regarded the world with sleepy approval through half-slitted eyes.

      Then the significance of the long shadows struck him and he jerked himself upright, slapping the fingers of one hand to the side of his face in a characteristic gesture.

      Late! Oh, late.

      His father would beat him sure, for the sunset chores undone, and his two brothers would mock him for his tears and his stammering, unheard explanation. But the rabbit's life was worth far more than any punishment that might be meted out to him, and it had been his own folly, to sleep....

      He was up and running before thoughts of punishment were complete, his feet following an invisible path. The path forked, and he paused, face screwed up with tight remembering.

      Oh yes, that was the other thing. Tonight there was to be a town meeting to decide what could be done to save themselves from this unnatural drought and the unseasonable, impossible heat. He had to be there; the meeting was his reason for not attending Siljan this very night as she gathered moon-herbs.

      Well, and if you must, you must, she'd sniffed in her grumpy way, though what good you think to do at that fool's congregation is more than I can see. Each of 'em 'spects they should get all the help they want but not one of 'em wants to hear word one 'bout Balance! If you don't help 'em they blame their troubles on ye, and if you do they get afraid and want more at the same time! Like me and you they don't think, boy. They think we do wizard's work! Ha!

      She'd stopped then and looked hard at him, almost like she was seeing him for the first time.

      Well, might be you could do wizard work one day, but I'll tell you Kinzel, they think we do this because we want to - they can't see a proper Balance if it stares 'em in the face - and they want help they don't need and they 'spect help they shouldn't get. Me an' you, boy, me an' you, we gotta help the Balance, when we can, don't we boy?

      The whole time she'd spoken the herb-lady had sorted herbs by touch, not missing a single beat as she'd gone through a sackful of night-gleanings.

      Kinzel had nodded slowly. He'd never had a lot to say when Siljan got to talking like this. He did what he did because it was right, not for the goodwill that rarely came from his efforts. He'd thought for a moment about his brothers' reactions when he'd done some small healing: each acting as if he'd done something wrong, jealous - condemning him for being such a show-place fool.

      Kinzel had been startled as Mad Siljan momentarily acted mad. She'd thrown a handful of pop-flowers at him to get his attention, and then she'd flapped her arms at him like some mountain bird. Well? Be off if it's off you're being! And mind me now, Kinzel, mind you take the high hill path when you do.

      He had to be there - he had determined he would be there three days ago when Mad Siljan had given him her secret.

      The boy shrugged, grinning in self-derision.

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