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    Gathering of the Light: The First Chronicle of Kohlnar
    Gathering of the Light: The First Chronicle of Kohlnar
    Gathering of the Light: The First Chronicle of Kohlnar
    Ebook71 pages58 minutes

    Gathering of the Light: The First Chronicle of Kohlnar

    By Eric Alan Westfall

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    About this ebook

    Kohlnar: A land of dragon-shifters known as Kin, and the Folk whose love allows them to change, and patrol the skies while praising His Name. A peaceful country cut off from the rest of the continent by a vast mountain range known as the Spine of the World. A prosperous land, with deep mines and soil producing crops nowhere else can duplicate. A land desired by the Two Kings of Sirulan, who will stop at nothing, including use of the death magic of the Church of the Blood, to get it. These are the Chronicles of Kohlnar.

    Gathering of the Light: The war started by the Sirulani against the Dragon Folk and Kin and its aftermath.

    Taren’s Tale (excerpt): Neighboring Threld fights the Sirulani invaders and a traitor in their midst tries to kill their Senior Mage during the battle. Only the man who would be Taren’s can save him, but at what cost?

    bloodLight (excerpt): A thousand years after the Breaking of the Spine, a serial killer stalks the streets of Dialhon the City, while the Senior Healer desperately tries to find a spell to cure the unknown disease slowly killing his husband, the City’s chief detective and the man in charge of stopping the killer.

    The Dragon Winked (excerpt): Far north of Dialhon, a mage and the slave the gods forced him to buy, bound together by love they won’t or can’t admit, return to dead Kohlnar, determined to restore the Light, restore the Folk and Kin, even if they might die in the attempt.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEric Alan Westfall
    Release dateMar 7, 2017
    ISBN9781940935164
    Gathering of the Light: The First Chronicle of Kohlnar

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      Book preview

      Gathering of the Light - Eric Alan Westfall

      Gathering of the Light

      (The First Chronicle of Kohlnar)

      by Eric Alan Westfall

      Copyright 1998-2017. Eric Alan Westfall.

      All Rights Reserved.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR

      Gathering of the Light

      A Hearty Round of Cyber-Applause For:

      Roberto Quintero, for his absolutely perfect painting for the cover

      Samantha Lamb, whose artistry with words created the final version of the cover

      Ava Penn and Alexis for their beautifully brilliant beta assistance.

      (They said they liked it, so what could be a better beta than that?)

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Acknowledgments

      The First Chronicle of Kohlnar:

      Gathering of the Light

      The Second Chronicle:

      Taren’s Tale (Excerpt)

      The Third Chronicle

      bloodLight (Excerpt)

      The Fourth Chronicle

      The Dragon Winked (Excerpt)

      Author Bio

      Gathering of the Light

      (The First Chronicle of Kohlnar)

      The old city was dying.

      Each morning, the sun sent a tsunami of light across the continent from the Western Sea, surging past hills and plains, ancient forests and wide rivers, until it splashed against the mountain wall forming the Spine of the World. It roared upward, dropped back, and rose again to assault the peaks which thundered into the sky. Once, the light would have vaulted over the snowcaps to waterfall joyfully on Kohlnar. Now it merely crept across, oozed down to the lesser range of the Barrakech Heights, becoming trapped in pools and puddles by the walls and towers of the new city. Each tier collected more of the light as the tiers stepped down the mountainside toward the bay, until all that was left for the old city huddled at the base was a faint, thin haze barely illuminating the crumbling homes and businesses crammed against the shattered docks. New city and old, the light was now the color of bronze, the color of copper.

      It had not always been that way. Once it had been different.

      Before.

      * * *

      Moments frozen in time.

      A century and a quarter past.

      The men who were Kin called.

      Soft melodic voices drifted across the land like bubbles sparkling in the souls of all who heard. The Folk heard, the land heard, and hearing, gave, and in giving the Kin changed, rising on thermal updrafts and wing strokes from farm and palace, from school and court, from tavern and mine, from bakery and brothel, reaching for sky the color of molten gold. They swam through a sea of brilliant light in the bone-chilling air above the Heights and then up further yet, rising above the tops of the Spine, swooping and turning, rejoicing in His gift, His Light.

      Below, laughter and joyous calling drifted up from the city and the land to join them. When the Kin flew, not merely alone, or one or two on patrol, but when they all flew for joy, forming and re-forming in elegant three-dimensional hymns, the city and the land did not grind to a halt—they merely...stopped.

      Foreigners fumed, but silently, when the impromptu holidays began. They could do nothing, of course, but watch with varying degrees of amusement, anger, contempt or resignation as all Kohlnar moved outdoors. Ships drifted untended, only a mage’s hastily set spells averting disaster. Children with Kin-designs painted on their cheeks cheered, pointing upward as they ran and leaped on streets of mage-smoothed stone. Farmers lifted hand-shaded eyes to the glory in the sky. An elderly couple gladly paused in languorous morning love-making to experience a greater joy. Servants stopped the changing of bed linens, as each of the Folk answered the call of the Kin.

      Come, the voices of red and gold and blue, the voices of leaves and soil and water, the voices of hooves and drying wheat and stone, whispered to the Folk.

      Rejoice, the voices of white and black and grey, the voices of tears and tourmalines and stars, the voices of wings and sun and storm, chanted to the Folk in layered harmonies.

      Praise Him, the sky-borne chorus sang.

      And so they did.

      In quiet thought. In the laughter of children large and small. In joined hands. In flowers carefully laid in His myriad shrines, floating on pools of crystal water, waiting for a caress of light from one of the moons to open the petals to celebrate this day. The heart of the city pulsed, as the land pulsed, as the Folk gave, and His land gave, and in giving, the Kin soared.

      Great wings lifted on the gifts of Folk and land, a carillon of color and music cascading in intricate patterns, somehow visible against the backdrop of shining gold, until at last they spiraled back, changing. Walking once more among the Folk, cheek-dragons glowing, the Kin herded children back into classrooms to resume lessons, and led the afternoon prayers in His temple. They plowed a field and pleaded a case in the ducal courts. They hurried to get drinks

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