by Lisa Lowell
Epilogue
Vamilion walked through the winter above the mountains and pounded on Owailion’s door with a fist. He alone would make this trek, for someone had to do it. Someone had to get through to his old mentor that the world still needed him. And besides, he had a gift to bring the hermit of the north.
He should have known better than to believe that Owailion would open his door for him. Vamilion crafted his own door through the stone wall and walked into the warm environment on the other side where the King of Creating did his magic tinkering. Vamilion wove his way through the growing mess of broken projects and then to the inner door of the palace and let himself in. The cold, icy world was reflected in the gray and misty inside of Owailion’s palace. No one met him here either, but that didn’t matter. Vamilion had only come to deliver good news. The King of Creating probably didn’t keep an eye on the rest of the Wise Ones or the Land, and this kind of news should be delivered in person.
“I care,” Owailion snarled into Vamilion’s mind but didn’t bother actually making an appearance.
Vamilion had expected some reluctance, so he didn’t anticipate his old mentor doing more than ignoring him. “Well, then I have news. We have found the King of the Plains, and the Queen of Growing Things. He is going by the name of Yeolani, which is his real name. He’s an idiot for doing so, but I can’t talk him out of it. Maybe he’ll use another name with regular people, but with Wise Ones, he insists. She is going by Rashel.”
“I heard.”
“They’re going to go slow with magic for a few years, build up a town they have founded called Halfway. It’s out in the middle of the plains. There’s a great big tree there now, made like the Talismans. The two of them will stay there to help the settlers until their son is raised, but they have already helped us repel two invasions. You should come out and meet them.”
When that news got no response, Vamilion sighed and finally turned to leave again, not looking forward to a long walk back to the mountains from this summer-forsaken land nearly at the top of the world. Then he added one more piece.
“And the King of the Plains has encountered something he has named a Siren, a lady made of the mist, with coppery hair. The Siren lives in the marshes of the Lara River. She magically lured him in and almost drowned him.”
For the longest time, Vamilion let his message hang in the chilly air, knowing it would have special meaning to the first Wise One. When Vamilion turned for the door, he finally heard a comment from the King of Creating.
“A son? And a Siren? Perhaps I will come.”
GLOSSARY OF PEOPLE IN THE WISE ONES
SERIES 1-3
Arvid – Logger, Rashel’s brother
Bowdry – Leader of a wood crew in the Fallon Forest
Demion – Kingdom directly east of the Land
Drake – sorcerer from Malornia
Elin – Evric’s daughter
Emmi – Evert’s wife
Enok – EE-nok – Priest in Malornia, Owailion’s Door Steward
Evric – A settler on the southern coast of the Land
Evert – EH-vert – Honiea’s Door Steward
Gailin – GAY-lin – Original name of Honiea
Gilead – GIL-ee-ad – Original name of Vamilion
Goren – GOR-in – Door Steward at Vamilion
Hodge – A settler in Edgewood
Honiea – Ho-NEE-ah – Queen of Healing, wife of Vamilion
Imzuli – im-ZOO-lee – White dragon, Mohan’s daughter
Jonis – JON-is, farmer who loves Gailin
Jonjonel – JON-gen-el – Volcanic mountain in the northwest of the Land
Kail – KAY-l, draftsman in Gailin’s village
Kreftor – Sorcerer of East
Lani – Lahn-ee – Yeolani’s mother
Malornia – Ma-LOR-nee-a - Kingdom west, across the sea from the Land
Marit – MAR-eet - Yeolani’s dog
Marwen – MAR-wen, Kingdom south and east of the Land
Mohan – MO-han – Golden Dragon, mate to Tiamat, guide to Owailion
Mohanzelechnikhai – Mo-han-zeh-LECH-nik-HI – Mohan’s true name
Neeorm – NEE-orm, original name of Drake
Nevai – Nev-eye - Changeling child
Nevia – Ne-VAY-ah - Yeolani’s sister
Norton – A settler in Edgewood
Owailion – Oh-WALE-ee-on King of Creating, husband of Raimi.
Pajet – PAJ-et – Non-magical first wife of Vamilion
Raimi – RAY-mee – Queen of Rivers, wife of Owailion
Rashel – Rah-shell - Queen of Growing Things
Sethan – SETH-an - Innkeeper at West
Stylmach – STEEL-mak – Outlander Sorcerer
Tethimzuliel – Teth-im-ZOO-lee-el – Imzuli’s true name
Tiamat – TEE-a-mat, three-headed dragon.
Vamilion –Vah-MI-lee-un – King of Mountains, husband of Honiea
Yeolani – Yay-oh-lahn-ee – King of the Plains, husband of Rashel
Yeon – Yay-on – Yeolani’s father
About the Author
Lisa Lowell was born in 1967 into a large family full of hands-on artists in southern Oregon. In an effort to avoid conflict, her art of choice was always writing, something both grandmothers taught her. She started with poetry at six on her grandmother’s ancient manual typewriter. By her teens, she moved on to pen and paper and produced gloomy, angst-ridden fantasy during adolescence. Her mother claims that Lisa shut the door and never came out until she left for university. During this time, she felt compelled to draw illustrations throughout the margins that helped supplement her neglect of adjectives and consistent storylines.
A much-appreciated English teacher, Mrs. Segetti, collected these moody musings and sent them in to scholarship foundations. Lisa got a scholarship for that rather poor writing, escaped Oregon, and went to university. While she loved her family, her only requirement in a school was anywhere too far away to come home on weekends. She got as far as Idaho, Utah, and then even Washington D.C. before she truly launched. She traveled to Sweden (Göteborg, Lund, and Sundsvall) for a year-and-a-half during college where she also reconnected with her heritage.
During college Lisa also fell in love and then had her heart broken. Suddenly she had something to write about. Every story written since harbors a romance and a tangled journey, a saga as it were, where the tale comes back to the start. She started to tap into Scandinavian myth and overcame fears of writing conflict. All her earlier failed starts and fascinating characters now molded into an actual story. Completing her degrees in Secondary Education and Masters in English as a Second Language at Western Oregon University, Lisa continued to travel and read favorite authors: Lloyd Alexander, David Brin, Patricia McKillip and Anne McCaffrey. She graduated with a teaching degree in 1993.
Then, when she came back to Oregon, like a fairy tale, she met Pat Lowell. They met on Sunday, played racquetball on Monday night and were engaged by the end of the date. The sense of peace in meeting someone with the same goals and values made it right. Four months later, they were married. Lisa began reworking childhood manuscripts into credible stories, and this was when Sea Queen began. When children did not arrive as expected, the Lowells adopted three children, Travis, Scott and Kiana. At that point, Lisa chose to ease off writing actively for a time to focus on her family. However, she kept all the ideas and honed her skill while teaching Middle School English. Storytelling remained her true talent and made her a skillful teacher. In 2011, she was named VFW Oregon Teacher of the Year.
In 2012 a friend asked for manuscripts so he could learn how to get a book onto Amazon in e-book form. As she had several half-finished works she could contribute, Lisa gave him one, and when she saw how easy that seemed, the idea of publishing snuck up on her again. Her children were moving on, and she felt she could again begin to write. She reworked the first book in the Wise Ones series, Sea Queen, and began sharing it with beta readers. However, her friends wanted to
hear the back-stories of some of the other characters, so she started writing those into full manuscripts and realized that a series was born.
Publishing became more important when Pat had a terrible accident and developed Parkinson’s. Lisa had to stay closer to home to help him, and he encouraged her writing. She continued to teach English in middle school (someone has to) and blogs on a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/vikingauthor/. At present she is maintaining a website at www.magiccintheland and tinkering with her next novels, Markpath, a set of sci-fi novels. She loves to write but also experiments with drawing, dances while she writes, sings when the radio is on, and reads a great deal of poorly written essays by thirteen-year-olds. She still lives in Oregon, near waterfalls and Powells, the best bookstore on earth. She is still in love with her husband, Pat, and still loves writing tangled journeys.