Published @ MindSay 
Author Jack R. Sorenson
the Child of the shadows
The day before the Crux was a holiday, a time to spend with friends, but Elias Ward had no friends, and always spent the day alone.
Every year was much the same. In the morning, he sat in the uncomfortable window seat of whatever room he had been put in that year, slowly turning the pages of a book, or watching the way the antique glass in the window made the city outside look unreal and warped, like something from one of his dreams. Whenever he heard footsteps near his door, he held his breath, wondering if his master had decided to spend a few minutes with him after all, but the footsteps always passed by.
By the time afternoon came, he was always so stifled by the small room, and so weary of disappointment, that he ventured out into the Basilica. It no longer scared him much, the thought of all these strangers looking at him. He had learnt by now that there were some people who got noticed, and some who did not. Elias was one of the invisible ones. He could walk through the Basilica for days, and no-one would remember his face.
Wherever he wandered, he always ended up in the same place. There were dark corners in the cloisters, and it was possible to slip in, sit there for hours, and leave without anyone even seeing you. Elias had his own special place at the foot of an ancient statue of some hero whose name had been forgotten. It was in the shadows, but it afforded him a view of those who lived their lives in the light.
He called them the golden ones, these young men who would one day change the world. The open space at the centre of the cloister was their playground, where they chatted beneath the magnolia tree, or sparred together with their staffs. They were everything Elias would never be, and he had always been fascinated by them.
There were four of them there today. The only one whose name Elias knew was Joachim, who was handsome and gifted and destined for great things. Elias found it hard to look away from him, but as he stared, hidden in the shadows, Joachim seemed to glance his way and beckon him closer.
Elias hardly dared to breathe. No, he had misunderstood. It hadn't been meant for him. He pressed himself back against the wall, but then it came again, this time with a note of impatience. Elias clasped his moist hands together. Perhaps he should go back to his room. Maybe his master had decided that he wanted him after all. He was always irritated if he called for Elias, and Elias wasn't there, waiting for the call.
Before he could move, Joachim was on his feet, walking towards him. Even the sun seemed to love him. Light shimmered around his head like a silver crown, but then it was even more strange, for Joachim walked on, but the shimmering patch of light remained where it had been, hanging in the air beneath the magnolia tree. When Elias looked fully at it, though, it disappeared.
Joachim was already speaking to him, and Elias scrambled to his feet, hoping he could answer well. "Why don't I know you?" Joachim demanded. He looked at Elias as if he was to blame for Joachim's ignorance. "I know everyone."
"I don't..." Elias hadn't spoken to anybody in two days, and his voice was an ineffectual croak. He cleared his throat. "I don't live here. I'm only here for the Crux."
Joachim frowned, then snapped his fingers in triumph. "I know who you are! You're Ciaran Morgan's apprentice. You're..." He tried for Elias's name for a moment, then gave up. "Why haven't you come here before?"
"I'm Elias. Elias Ward." Behind his back, he pressed both hands against the cold stone wall. "I've come here every winter for ten years."
"How old are you?" Joachim asked. Two of his friends had joined him by now, just in time to see Elias's humiliation. "Seventeen? Eighteen? You're taking your vows tomorrow, like Caleb here?"
Elias looked at the ground. "I'm nineteen."
Joachim's eyes widened. "Nineteen?" His surprise said everything. At eighteen, all trainee Brothers made their vows of dedication, or else left the Order. Elias's master had never sat him down and said, "Elias, you haven't got what it takes to be a Brother." He had simply said nothing about it at all, and Elias had never dared ask, in case Ciaran just hadn't yet got round to casting him out as worthless.
The fair-haired young man called Caleb elbowed his way forward. "So what's Ciaran Morgan like? We're dying to know. We've heard all the stories, of course."
Elias pushed himself away from the wall. "It's not fair, how people talk about him. They don't know him! He's the best master. He's..."
"Easy." Joachim spread his hands and chuckled. "No need to leap to his defence like a faithful little terrier." He glanced over his shoulder at his friends, then back to Elias. "So, do you want to fight me or not?"
"Fight you?" Elias retreated back to the wall. "Over what?"
"Practice, of course. I've fought all this lot already today. Beat them all, of course. I need a new challenge." He leant forward. "Are you a new challenge, Elias Ward?"
Elias moistened his lips. He had his staff with him, of course, but he had no love of fighting. Ciaran was a good teacher, but he always struck at Elias as if he meant it, and his eyes glittered like chips of ice whenever Elias landed a good blow. Elias always tried to lose as soon as possible, so his master would stop looking at him as if he hated him.
Joachim tapped him on the chest in mock challenge. "Come on. Show us that you're right about your master. Show us that he's not been wasting his time in that backwater of his, but has produced an apprentice worthy of being called a Brother."
But he hasn't, Elias thought. His master had done everything he could, but not even the wisest man in the world could turn lead into gold. It wasn't Ciaran's fault if Elias would never amount to anything much, no more than it had been Elias's parents' fault that that he had been a child impossible to love.
"No?" Joachim arched one eyebrow. "Never mind, then."
How still it was, Elias realised. The old men on the benches had fallen silent, and Joachim's friends were just watching him, waiting. The shimmering was back beneath the magnolia tree, and suddenly it seemed as if the whole world had come to a halt, and everyone in it was waiting to hear him decide whether to fight or not. Then Joachim turned away, and the spell was broken. Noise resumed, and, somewhere far away or deep within him, something gave a little sigh of hopelessness.
He really didn't expect me to, Elias thought. He knows I'm a child of the shadows, not a golden one like him. But the sunlight was shining so magically in the centre of the cloister. How lovely it would be to have friends who smiled at you when you spoke. How amazing it would be to think that you could do something worthwhile with your life in the years to come.
Elias had lived his life in a shadowed room, looking through the window at the sunlight, but never venturing out of the door. He was invisible, but he had never tried to make himself seen. He had never tried to do anything, because he had always expected to fail. It was better that way, he had always thought. He was who he was, and he couldn’t change that. He would never be one of the great ones. All he could hope for was that he would always have a home, and at least one person who cared for him a little. All he could long for was that he would never again be truly alone.
Joachim was walking away. By tomorrow, he wouldn't even remember Elias's name. He would look at Ciaran during the Crux, and think, This is the master who raised the most worthless apprentice of all.
But maybe it didn't need to be true. If he never tried anything, of course he would fail. If he never spoke, then he never gave anyone the chance to listen. Nothing would ever change unless he had the courage to take the first step. The future had to hold more than this.
Elias made up his mind. Grabbing his staff, he stepped out into the light. "I'll fight you."
Joachim's face broke into a jubilant grin. "You will?" Something else seemed to say the same, raising its head in renewed hope, and catching Elias by the throat.
It left him off-balance, afraid to start. He slowly removed his cloak, and one of Joachim's friends reached out a hand to take it. Joachim was already bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to get started, but Elias hefted his staff in both hands, trying to feel the placid waves of Shadow that were deeply imbued in its smooth grain. I don't have to win, he told himself. All he needed to do was hold his own for a little while, enough to show Joachim that Ciaran Morgan was a good teacher after all.
"Ready?" Joachim sounded impatient.
Elias opened his mouth to reply, but something was there, striking him between the eyes, making him sway with dizziness. He almost dropped his staff as he brought his left hand up to his brow. When he lowered his hand, nothing looked quite real. Diamond needles pricked his eyes, and Joachim's face was a flimsy mask of paper that would tear apart if he reached for it.
"What is it?" Joachim was asking, but Elias was incapable of answering, and could barely hear him. Something was whispering in his mind, speaking words he could not hear. "Nothing?" Joachim's lips said. "Then we're starting. Now."
He lunged forward, and Elias parried it blindly. The voice was still there, and, I don't know what it is! he wailed. Where's it coming from? It swelled louder and louder, and it hurt, and something was tugging at him from the inside, and he thought he was going insane. Master! he pleaded, but he was on his own, no-one to help him, alone.
Joachim's next blow struck home, and perhaps that was the only thing that saved Elias. The pain was sudden and fierce, but it was a normal pain, and he understood the cause. As his elbow throbbed and his left hand went numb, the voice in his mind ebbed like the tide.
"That would have killed you," Joachim taunted him, "if we were fighting for real. What are you, boy? Are you a Brother?"
Elias clenched his jaw. "I am a Brother." He was saying it as much to the voice as to Joachim. I am a Brother, and you cannot claim me.
"Then act like one." Joachim tapped the end of his staff. "Strike me, boy."
He wanted to flee the cloisters and never go back. Nothing would follow him into his barren room, and there he would be safe, and soon his master would be there to tell him that the voice was just his imagination, and what had he been thinking of, to try to fight someone like Joachim? But he wanted to stay, too. He wanted to be a Brother, and to know what it felt like to have done something well. As long as the door was always open to go back, he wanted to stay in the sunlight for a little while.
Elias struck at Joachim, and struck him well. Joachim parried, but Elias attacked again. The other boy's eyes widened, and his face changed. Until now he had been toying with Elias, barely trying, but now he was fighting to win.
I've passed the first test, Elias thought, but then he shivered, as if his words meant more than he could ever know. Even as he had dared to think it, his vision wavered and something skittered across his mind like insects with sharp dark feet. He could still see Joachim's staff, but the cloister behind him was swimming with milky mist that pulsed with wild voices. The mist was smeared with blood and patches of darkness, like the discarded cloaks of dead Brothers, fluttering in a desolate wind. Far away, he heard a man's voice, speaking words he could not hear. Beyond that, and so distant that it disappeared as soon he sought it, a thousand people were screaming.
"Stop it," he pleaded. Joachim heard him, and thought he was pleading to him, but only smiled, and fought harder.
As if in response to his plea, something of the shroud lifted, and he could see again the magnolia tree, and the faces of Joachim's friends. Some of them were calling Elias's name, and telling him that he could do it, that he was doing well.
He feinted to the left, then struck to the right, taking Joachim by surprise and almost disarming him. The muscles around Joachim's eyes tightened with anger.
He could be an enemy, the voice whispered in Elias's head, terrible like your darkest dreams. Would you fight him then?
Fierce silver sheeted across his vision, then cleared. He found himself in another place. Joachim was still there, but his staff was set with sharp spikes, and a single touch of it would be agony. His dark hair was braided outlandishly, and his black cloak was clasped with silver, just like the villain in a story that had given him nightmares as a child. A girl lay at his feet, her face twisted with fear and pain. His eyes dared Elias to intervene and promised him an eternity of suffering if he tried to stop him, and failed.
"No!" Elias screamed, flinging himself forward. The studded staff twisted round, as quick and deadly as a coiling whip, and jabbed into his ribs. Pain grabbed him by the throat, and he cried out, but he did not retreat. The girl needed him, and the thought of failing her hurt far worse.
Even if he hurt you? the voice asked, very quietly.
"Of course!" he sobbed, as the blood flowed down his side. The girl screamed, and the silver light sheeted again, and he was back in the cloister, and Joachim was only a young Brother, and nothing more. Elias's ribs felt bruised, but there was no blood.
It had never happened. The vision and the voice were the symptoms of some delirium. There was something very wrong with him. He fell to his knees, and pressed his hands to his ears. He was dimly aware of Joachim crouching beside him. "Did I hurt you?"
"I'm not well," Elias whispered. He wanted his master. He should never have got involved in this fight. He would never be one of the golden ones, and it was wrong to pretend, even just for a moment, to be something he was not.
"I'm sorry," Joachim said, more in a taunt than an apology. "I thought you were stronger."
I'm sorry, something whispered in his mind, gentle and alien and horrible. It touched him, and it was like a stab of pain between his eyes. He moaned, but then the touch was gone, and the voice was silent, and he was free.
Free. He stood up, and flailed blindly for his staff. "I feel better now. Can we carry on?"
The voice was gone. He was like a man awakening from a sick bed, to find that spring had come while he had been confined inside. He could see everything a little more clearly. He could remember the reasons he had for fighting Joachim, and he wanted to do it. If he gave in now, the whispering voice had won.
For the first time, Joachim looked at him with a kind of respect. "All right. Call that one a warm-up. Now we fight for real."
Elias's palms were damp and he could feel a minute trembling beneath his skin. He held the wooden staff tightly, and willed himself to be calm. This time he would fight like a true Brother, with the full strength of the Shadow. There would be no more distractions and no more impossible voices. He had not been well for a moment, but that had passed, and the danger was over.
He would fight, and perhaps he would win, and perhaps he would lose, and maybe Joachim would respect him a little. He wanted him to, he realised. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to have friends, and to have the confidence to speak up. He wanted to become a Brother. He wanted his master to smile at him and say he had done well. He wanted to show Joachim that no-one could say bad things about Ciaran Morgan. He wanted to go to bed feeling that, for once, he had done something moderately impressive. He wanted to know that he had a future. He wanted to know that he would never be alone. He wanted things to be different, and he didn't want anything to change.
This was only one fight. It didn't need to mean anything. He would fight to the best of his ability, and see what he was capable of. That was all, and in a few minutes it would all be over, and everything would be grey and cold and safe and normal, just like it always was. But, because of the things he had wished for today, perhaps, one day soon, he would start to make them come true.
"Ready?" Joachim asked him.
Elias swallowed. "Ready." And perhaps, he thought, he really was.
Ciaran Morgan hated coming to the cloisters, but he had spent an unsatisfying day, stuck in a place far from home, where people whispered about him. Normally he endured the day alone, but he had suddenly felt the urge to see Elias, who always looked at him as if he was the most wonderful person in the world. But Elias had not been in his room, and that alone had made Ciaran frown, and stride off to find him. He had tried the garden and the public places, and had frowned even more. Surely Elias wouldn't have left the Basilica without permission? Surely Elias wasn't laughing in some young man's room, with friends he had never admitted to?
Only the cloisters were left, and if Elias wasn't there, then one of these things was true. As Ciaran strode through the archway, a young boy glanced up at his face, and shrank away. Ciaran glared it him, suddenly furious at whoever it was who had been telling such tales about him that even the children judged him.
Jack R. Sorenson
January 29, 2008
Filed under: Fantasy, Publishamerica, author Jack R. Sorenson — Jack Sorenson @ 9:42 pm
Fantasy —
thebookplanet wrote 1 hour ago : Description Harry Potter is a heptalogy of fantasy … Child of the Shadows, The Jack R. Sorenson This is a fantasy novel. …Metaphysical Novel…..
Jack Sorenson
the Washington Post.
writerJack: Harry Potter inspires special-ed alum to publish POD fantasy novel
David Rothman TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home July 15
Did you see the writerJack avatar in the right column of the TeleBlog this morning? Jack Sorenson, logging on from Los Gatos, California, is one of our more memorable visitors ... In Harry Potter and the Death of Reading in the Washington Post, book reviewer Ron Charles mentions “the static characters” and “pedestrian prose” and further observes: “Potter mania…trains children and adults to expect the roar of Jacks new book
The day before the Crux was a holiday, a time to spend with friends, but Elias Ward had no friends, and always spent the day alone.
Every year was much the same. In the morning, he sat in the uncomfortable window seat of whatever room he had been put in that year, slowly turning the pages of a book, or watching the way the antique glass in the window made the city outside look unreal and warped, like something from one of his dreams. Whenever he heard footsteps near his door, he held his breath, wondering if his master had decided to spend a few minutes with him after all, but the footsteps always passed by.
By the time afternoon came, he was always so stifled by the small room, and so weary of disappointment, that he ventured out into the Basilica. It no longer scared him much, the thought of all these strangers looking at him. He had learnt by now that there were some people who got noticed, and some who did not. Elias was one of the invisible ones. He could walk through the Basilica for days, and no-one would remember his face.
Wherever he wandered, he always ended up in the same place. There were dark corners in the cloisters, and it was possible to slip in, sit there for hours, and leave without anyone even seeing you. Elias had his own special place at the foot of an ancient statue of some hero whose name had been forgotten. It was in the shadows, but it afforded him a view of those who lived their lives in the light.
He called them the golden ones, these young men who would one day change the world. The open space at the centre of the cloister was their playground, where they chatted beneath the magnolia tree, or sparred together with their staffs. They were everything Elias would never be, and he had always been fascinated by them.
There were four of them there today. The only one whose name Elias knew was Joachim, who was handsome and gifted and destined for great things. Elias found it hard to look away from him, but as he stared, hidden in the shadows, Joachim seemed to glance his way and beckon him closer.
Elias hardly dared to breathe. No, he had misunderstood. It hadn't been meant for him. He pressed himself back against the wall, but then it came again, this time with a note of impatience. Elias clasped his moist hands together. Perhaps he should go back to his room. Maybe his master had decided that he wanted him after all. He was always irritated if he called for Elias, and Elias wasn't there, waiting for the call.
Before he could move, Joachim was on his feet, walking towards him. Even the sun seemed to love him. Light shimmered around his head like a silver crown, but then it was even more strange, for Joachim walked on, but the shimmering patch of light remained where it had been, hanging in the air beneath the magnolia tree. When Elias looked fully at it, though, it disappeared.
Joachim was already speaking to him, and Elias scrambled to his feet, hoping he could answer well. "Why don't I know you?" Joachim demanded. He looked at Elias as if he was to blame for Joachim's ignorance. "I know everyone."
"I don't..." Elias hadn't spoken to anybody in two days, and his voice was an ineffectual croak. He cleared his throat. "I don't live here. I'm only here for the Crux."
Joachim frowned, then snapped his fingers in triumph. "I know who you are! You're Ciaran Morgan's apprentice. You're..." He tried for Elias's name for a moment, then gave up. "Why haven't you come here before?"
"I'm Elias. Elias Ward." Behind his back, he pressed both hands against the cold stone wall. "I've come here every winter for ten years."
"How old are you?" Joachim asked. Two of his friends had joined him by now, just in time to see Elias's humiliation. "Seventeen? Eighteen? You're taking your vows tomorrow, like Caleb here?"
Elias looked at the ground. "I'm nineteen."
Joachim's eyes widened. "Nineteen?" His surprise said everything. At eighteen, all trainee Brothers made their vows of dedication, or else left the Order. Elias's master had never sat him down and said, "Elias, you haven't got what it takes to be a Brother." He had simply said nothing about it at all, and Elias had never dared ask, in case Ciaran just hadn't yet got round to casting him out as worthless.
The fair-haired young man called Caleb elbowed his way forward. "So what's Ciaran Morgan like? We're dying to know. We've heard all the stories, of course."
Elias pushed himself away from the wall. "It's not fair, how people talk about him. They don't know him! He's the best master. He's..."
"Easy." Joachim spread his hands and chuckled. "No need to leap to his defence like a faithful little terrier." He glanced over his shoulder at his friends, then back to Elias. "So, do you want to fight me or not?"
"Fight you?" Elias retreated back to the wall. "Over what?"
"Practice, of course. I've fought all this lot already today. Beat them all, of course. I need a new challenge." He leant forward. "Are you a new challenge, Elias Ward?"
Elias moistened his lips. He had his staff with him, of course, but he had no love of fighting. Ciaran was a good teacher, but he always struck at Elias as if he meant it, and his eyes glittered like chips of ice whenever Elias landed a good blow. Elias always tried to lose as soon as possible, so his master would stop looking at him as if he hated him.
Joachim tapped him on the chest in mock challenge. "Come on. Show us that you're right about your master. Show us that he's not been wasting his time in that backwater of his, but has produced an apprentice worthy of being called a Brother."
But he hasn't, Elias thought. His master had done everything he could, but not even the wisest man in the world could turn lead into gold. It wasn't Ciaran's fault if Elias would never amount to anything much, no more than it had been Elias's parents' fault that that he had been a child impossible to love.
"No?" Joachim arched one eyebrow. "Never mind, then."
How still it was, Elias realised. The old men on the benches had fallen silent, and Joachim's friends were just watching him, waiting. The shimmering was back beneath the magnolia tree, and suddenly it seemed as if the whole world had come to a halt, and everyone in it was waiting to hear him decide whether to fight or not. Then Joachim turned away, and the spell was broken. Noise resumed, and, somewhere far away or deep within him, something gave a little sigh of hopelessness.
He really didn't expect me to, Elias thought. He knows I'm a child of the shadows, not a golden one like him. But the sunlight was shining so magically in the centre of the cloister. How lovely it would be to have friends who smiled at you when you spoke. How amazing it would be to think that you could do something worthwhile with your life in the years to come.
Elias had lived his life in a shadowed room, looking through the window at the sunlight, but never venturing out of the door. He was invisible, but he had never tried to make himself seen. He had never tried to do anything, because he had always expected to fail. It was better that way, he had always thought. He was who he was, and he couldn’t change that. He would never be one of the great ones. All he could hope for was that he would always have a home, and at least one person who cared for him a little. All he could long for was that he would never again be truly alone.
Joachim was walking away. By tomorrow, he wouldn't even remember Elias's name. He would look at Ciaran during the Crux, and think, This is the master who raised the most worthless apprentice of all.
But maybe it didn't need to be true. If he never tried anything, of course he would fail. If he never spoke, then he never gave anyone the chance to listen. Nothing would ever change unless he had the courage to take the first step. The future had to hold more than this.
Elias made up his mind. Grabbing his staff, he stepped out into the light. "I'll fight you."
Joachim's face broke into a jubilant grin. "You will?" Something else seemed to say the same, raising its head in renewed hope, and catching Elias by the throat.
It left him off-balance, afraid to start. He slowly removed his cloak, and one of Joachim's friends reached out a hand to take it. Joachim was already bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to get started, but Elias hefted his staff in both hands, trying to feel the placid waves of Shadow that were deeply imbued in its smooth grain. I don't have to win, he told himself. All he needed to do was hold his own for a little while, enough to show Joachim that Ciaran Morgan was a good teacher after all.
"Ready?" Joachim sounded impatient.
Elias opened his mouth to reply, but something was there, striking him between the eyes, making him sway with dizziness. He almost dropped his staff as he brought his left hand up to his brow. When he lowered his hand, nothing looked quite real. Diamond needles pricked his eyes, and Joachim's face was a flimsy mask of paper that would tear apart if he reached for it.
"What is it?" Joachim was asking, but Elias was incapable of answering, and could barely hear him. Something was whispering in his mind, speaking words he could not hear. "Nothing?" Joachim's lips said. "Then we're starting. Now."
He lunged forward, and Elias parried it blindly. The voice was still there, and, I don't know what it is! he wailed. Where's it coming from? It swelled louder and louder, and it hurt, and something was tugging at him from the inside, and he thought he was going insane. Master! he pleaded, but he was on his own, no-one to help him, alone.
Joachim's next blow struck home, and perhaps that was the only thing that saved Elias. The pain was sudden and fierce, but it was a normal pain, and he understood the cause. As his elbow throbbed and his left hand went numb, the voice in his mind ebbed like the tide.
"That would have killed you," Joachim taunted him, "if we were fighting for real. What are you, boy? Are you a Brother?"
Elias clenched his jaw. "I am a Brother." He was saying it as much to the voice as to Joachim. I am a Brother, and you cannot claim me.
"Then act like one." Joachim tapped the end of his staff. "Strike me, boy."
He wanted to flee the cloisters and never go back. Nothing would follow him into his barren room, and there he would be safe, and soon his master would be there to tell him that the voice was just his imagination, and what had he been thinking of, to try to fight someone like Joachim? But he wanted to stay, too. He wanted to be a Brother, and to know what it felt like to have done something well. As long as the door was always open to go back, he wanted to stay in the sunlight for a little while.
Elias struck at Joachim, and struck him well. Joachim parried, but Elias attacked again. The other boy's eyes widened, and his face changed. Until now he had been toying with Elias, barely trying, but now he was fighting to win.
I've passed the first test, Elias thought, but then he shivered, as if his words meant more than he could ever know. Even as he had dared to think it, his vision wavered and something skittered across his mind like insects with sharp dark feet. He could still see Joachim's staff, but the cloister behind him was swimming with milky mist that pulsed with wild voices. The mist was smeared with blood and patches of darkness, like the discarded cloaks of dead Brothers, fluttering in a desolate wind. Far away, he heard a man's voice, speaking words he could not hear. Beyond that, and so distant that it disappeared as soon he sought it, a thousand people were screaming.
"Stop it," he pleaded. Joachim heard him, and thought he was pleading to him, but only smiled, and fought harder.
As if in response to his plea, something of the shroud lifted, and he could see again the magnolia tree, and the faces of Joachim's friends. Some of them were calling Elias's name, and telling him that he could do it, that he was doing well.
He feinted to the left, then struck to the right, taking Joachim by surprise and almost disarming him. The muscles around Joachim's eyes tightened with anger.
He could be an enemy, the voice whispered in Elias's head, terrible like your darkest dreams. Would you fight him then?
Fierce silver sheeted across his vision, then cleared. He found himself in another place. Joachim was still there, but his staff was set with sharp spikes, and a single touch of it would be agony. His dark hair was braided outlandishly, and his black cloak was clasped with silver, just like the villain in a story that had given him nightmares as a child. A girl lay at his feet, her face twisted with fear and pain. His eyes dared Elias to intervene and promised him an eternity of suffering if he tried to stop him, and failed.
"No!" Elias screamed, flinging himself forward. The studded staff twisted round, as quick and deadly as a coiling whip, and jabbed into his ribs. Pain grabbed him by the throat, and he cried out, but he did not retreat. The girl needed him, and the thought of failing her hurt far worse.
Even if he hurt you? the voice asked, very quietly.
"Of course!" he sobbed, as the blood flowed down his side. The girl screamed, and the silver light sheeted again, and he was back in the cloister, and Joachim was only a young Brother, and nothing more. Elias's ribs felt bruised, but there was no blood.
It had never happened. The vision and the voice were the symptoms of some delirium. There was something very wrong with him. He fell to his knees, and pressed his hands to his ears. He was dimly aware of Joachim crouching beside him. "Did I hurt you?"
"I'm not well," Elias whispered. He wanted his master. He should never have got involved in this fight. He would never be one of the golden ones, and it was wrong to pretend, even just for a moment, to be something he was not.
"I'm sorry," Joachim said, more in a taunt than an apology. "I thought you were stronger."
I'm sorry, something whispered in his mind, gentle and alien and horrible. It touched him, and it was like a stab of pain between his eyes. He moaned, but then the touch was gone, and the voice was silent, and he was free.
Free. He stood up, and flailed blindly for his staff. "I feel better now. Can we carry on?"
The voice was gone. He was like a man awakening from a sick bed, to find that spring had come while he had been confined inside. He could see everything a little more clearly. He could remember the reasons he had for fighting Joachim, and he wanted to do it. If he gave in now, the whispering voice had won.
For the first time, Joachim looked at him with a kind of respect. "All right. Call that one a warm-up. Now we fight for real."
Elias's palms were damp and he could feel a minute trembling beneath his skin. He held the wooden staff tightly, and willed himself to be calm. This time he would fight like a true Brother, with the full strength of the Shadow. There would be no more distractions and no more impossible voices. He had not been well for a moment, but that had passed, and the danger was over.
He would fight, and perhaps he would win, and perhaps he would lose, and maybe Joachim would respect him a little. He wanted him to, he realised. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to have friends, and to have the confidence to speak up. He wanted to become a Brother. He wanted his master to smile at him and say he had done well. He wanted to show Joachim that no-one could say bad things about Ciaran Morgan. He wanted to go to bed feeling that, for once, he had done something moderately impressive. He wanted to know that he had a future. He wanted to know that he would never be alone. He wanted things to be different, and he didn't want anything to change.
This was only one fight. It didn't need to mean anything. He would fight to the best of his ability, and see what he was capable of. That was all, and in a few minutes it would all be over, and everything would be grey and cold and safe and normal, just like it always was. But, because of the things he had wished for today, perhaps, one day soon, he would start to make them come true.
"Ready?" Joachim asked him.
Elias swallowed. "Ready." And perhaps, he thought, he really was.
Ciaran Morgan hated coming to the cloisters, but he had spent an unsatisfying day, stuck in a place far from home, where people whispered about him. Normally he endured the day alone, but he had suddenly felt the urge to see Elias, who always looked at him as if he was the most wonderful person in the world. But Elias had not been in his room, and that alone had made Ciaran frown, and stride off to find him. He had tried the garden and the public places, and had frowned even more. Surely Elias wouldn't have left the Basilica without permission? Surely Elias wasn't laughing in some young man's room, with friends he had never admitted to?
Only the cloisters were left, and if Elias wasn't there, then one of these things was true. As Ciaran strode through the archway, a young boy glanced up at his face, and shrank away. Ciaran glared it him, suddenly furious at whoever it was who had been telling such tales about him that even the children judged him.
Jack R. Sorenson
January 29, 2008
Filed under: Fantasy, Publishamerica, author Jack R. Sorenson — Jack Sorenson @ 9:42 pm
Fantasy —
thebookplanet wrote 1 hour ago : Description Harry Potter is a heptalogy of fantasy … Child of the Shadows, The Jack R. Sorenson This is a fantasy novel. …Metaphysical Novel…..
Jack Sorenson
the Washington Post.
writerJack: Harry Potter inspires special-ed alum to publish POD fantasy novel
David Rothman TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home July 15
Did you see the writerJack avatar in the right column of the TeleBlog this morning? Jack Sorenson, logging on from Los Gatos, California, is one of our more memorable visitors ... In Harry Potter and the Death of Reading in the Washington Post, book reviewer Ron Charles mentions “the static characters” and “pedestrian prose” and further observes: “Potter mania…trains children and adults to expect the roar of Jacks new book
Tags: jacksorenson
New Time Warner published authors' Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward
Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward, co-founders of Team, have invested several years studying and refining business principles in such areas as leadership, mentorship, process duplication, ethics, teamwork and goal setting. Chris and Orrin co-wrote Launching a Leadership Revolution to share business insights that they have learned and developed over the last decade while building a successful internet business.
Through their combined efforts in writing this book they have created a blue print for success. This book is a survival guide, a road map that has assisted thousands of business owners through out North America, Mexico and the Caribbean in the pursuit of their personal goals and dreams.
Time Warner has secured the rights to their book Launching a Leadership Revolution, which will be available in every major book store soon as their book is scheduled for release in September of 2007.
Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward were senior engineers in the automotive industry before connecting as business partners in an Internet commerce company. They have worked together for over a decade building a multi-million dollar business that has been recognized among the fastest growing in the industry for six straight years. They have spoken to audiences on four continents teaching business principles and success. Their first book, Leading a Consumer Rebellion, became a best-seller in its first year.
Articles published
¡Hola me amigas y amigos!
Now I've oficially had an article in print. As soon as Pecado magazine is in the printers tomorrow morning. Well, half of an article. The SYN FM people ran out of time to have me do all the reviews on their shows. Which is more just a conflict in deadlines than anything. So I co-authored an article for Pecado magazine (which means sin or syn in Spanish). I'm not being paid, but it doesn't matter. It's something for the writing port folio. That is mainly what I want now.
Yay! So there! Ha, ha, Mr. you-can't-write-articles-give-up-now tutor from TAFE. Guys from TAFE will know which non-fiction tutor I'm talking about. I can write and I have proved it, in print. :)
I proved it twice. I wrote an article review for La Remesta, Spanish student news which should be published online soon. It's small time stuff, but you have to start some where.
I've had a positive responce about my next article idea for Pecado. It's the kind of idea that won't be out dated. I'll let you know when it's published in next year's issue. Unfortunately Pecado doesn't have the funding for quarterly issues next year. So there'll just be a summer edition.
Sorry, I shouldn't boast in anything. But it is quite exciting to actually get something in print and online. Even if it's only on a voluntary basis. It will have a readership with my name and not a pen name.
Now I've oficially had an article in print. As soon as Pecado magazine is in the printers tomorrow morning. Well, half of an article. The SYN FM people ran out of time to have me do all the reviews on their shows. Which is more just a conflict in deadlines than anything. So I co-authored an article for Pecado magazine (which means sin or syn in Spanish). I'm not being paid, but it doesn't matter. It's something for the writing port folio. That is mainly what I want now.
Yay! So there! Ha, ha, Mr. you-can't-write-articles-give-up-now tutor from TAFE. Guys from TAFE will know which non-fiction tutor I'm talking about. I can write and I have proved it, in print. :)
I proved it twice. I wrote an article review for La Remesta, Spanish student news which should be published online soon. It's small time stuff, but you have to start some where.
I've had a positive responce about my next article idea for Pecado. It's the kind of idea that won't be out dated. I'll let you know when it's published in next year's issue. Unfortunately Pecado doesn't have the funding for quarterly issues next year. So there'll just be a summer edition.
Sorry, I shouldn't boast in anything. But it is quite exciting to actually get something in print and online. Even if it's only on a voluntary basis. It will have a readership with my name and not a pen name.
MindSay Article Published
The MindSay article has been published. Thanks Adam and my MindSay friends for all of you help!
MindSay, a Hybrid of Blogging and Social Networking
In Friendship,
~Jenn
Pet Butterflies
Check out my recently published content on AC: Review of the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Kit
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Re: The Evolution of Man and Woman: - women are just as sexual at men...due to society we have to hide it....
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