by Sarah Stribley

Created on: August 15, 2009   Last Updated: September 30, 2009

Excerpt From: "The Snake Heart"

They were known for their magical strength and wisdom; a powerful alliance of murderers and thieves, forgers and maverick sorcerers. No woman had ever participated in the Council's decisions or warrings; they were supposedly unworthy to discuss such magic, let alone use it.

By now, twelve generations of shamans and prophets had usurped control over everything that happened. Mostly they, in turn, looked to the White One for assistance. They believed that his individuality made him the wiser and more susceptible to enlightenment.

He was the only one who had ever crossed all of the Deity Gates. The simple fact that he crossed the first one when he was but a child, seemed to anchor their beliefs.

Tellings and retellings had subtracted years from his age, making him a mere infant in swaddling clothes, who crossed the Endurance Gate on his satiny little hands and knees.

Another fable, told of how the great star god, Myniitsu, had looked upon the White One using his third eye. The magnificent light that shone out from it bleached his skin and hair, burning his pupils an eerie translucent blue, and searing into his soul and mind every moment that was to come and had been.

A second man held a place of leadership amongst the Council. This one they called 'Iceling' for he was lacking in any warm emotion. His motto was, and would forever be, "True power lies within one man in thousands; death follows all beneath his worth"

Only his worshippers new his name, and they never dared use it.

He was born Zbynjae Nabokov, son of Yace Nabokov and Teamahr Urtziin Nabokov. His mother spent her days at a great wooden loom, its hypnotic clicks and chinks lulled him to sleep and woke him at day break. His father was head foreman at a lumber industry, the backbreaking work he performed each day was everything they depended on.

Zbynjae still remembered the copper glow of his father's skin from the hours of work out in the sun. The thick coils and sinews of muscle that wrapped around his arms and legs; the rough cracked surface of his father's palms that so reminded him of hard baked earth, all split and abrasive when it came in contact with your skin; the callouses, the black five o'clock shadow that refused to be shaved away, the occasional sunburn...

But most of all, he remembered his eyes.

Two emeralds revealing his soul, two expressive glowing eyes that said, "Son I love you and I want what's best for you...I won't interfere with your life to the point

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 7
• Next Page >>