She growled and slapped Caina across the face.
"But you're useless," she said. "Not a spark of arcane talent. Utterly useless. How I wish I had never had you. I should have purged my womb of you, spared myself the bother."
Caina's fury writhed inside her like something alive.
"And your father," said Laeria. "I cannot believe I let myself be chained to that sniveling weakling. It is not fair! I was meant for so much more. For greater things than to waste my life with a useless child and a pathetic weakling of a husband..."
Caina's rage flared.
And she felt her mother's spell shiver.
"Don't talk about him like that!" Caina shouted. "He's better than you!"
Laeria flinched as if she had been slapped.
"Don't talk!" she said, making a clenching gesture, the chains of her will tightening against Caina's mind. "I command you not to talk!"
But Caina's anger could not be denied, and she thrust it against her mother's will.
The spell shivered again, and then shattered. Laeria stumbled back, eyes wide with shock, and perhaps a touch of alarm.
"I hate you!" said Caina, clawing at her mother's skirts. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you..."
"Get off me!" said Laeria, shoving, and Caina fell to the floor.
"What is this?"
Sebastian hurried towards them, expression thunderous.
"Husband," said Laeria, voice heavy with contempt. "You've returned early from town. I suppose the rigorous duties of the Count of the Harbor cannot fill your entire day."
"You were casting spells on her again, weren't you?" said Sebastian, placing himself between his daughter and his wife.
Laeria lifted her chin. "What if I was? The little whelp is useless for anything else."
"Enough," said Sebastian, voice quiet. "That is the last time you will cast spells upon her."
Laeria laughed. "Or what?"
"Or I'll report you to the Magisterium for practicing unlicensed sorcery," said Sebastian.
"You wouldn't," said Laeria. "You're a Loyalist, not a Restorationist or a Militarist. You hate the Magisterium, and won't have anything to do with it."
Sebastian took a step towards Laeria. "Cast a spell my daughter again, and you'll find out just what I'll do."
Laeria met his gaze for a moment, and then stalked away.
Sebastian sighed and scooped up Caina. "Did she hurt you?"
"She didn't hit me," said Caina.
He carried her to the library, sat upon the couch. Caina leaned against his shoulder, crying softly.
"Why does she hate me so much?" said Caina at last.
"I suppose you're old enough to understand now," said Sebastian. "Do you know what the Imperial Magisterium is?"
Caina had read about it. "It's...the brotherhood of the magi, the sorcerers. The only ones allowed to use sorcery inside the Empire."
Sebastian nodded. "Before I met your mother, she was a novice of the Magisterium. The novices take a seven-year course of study before they become full magi. The Magisterium expelled your mother in her fourth year. She was simply not strong enough with sorcery to become a full magus. When she married me, I thought she had gotten past that, but I was...I was wrong."
"Why did she marry you," said Caina, "if she hates you as much as she hates me?"
"She thought I was a different kind of man than the one I really am," said Sebastian. "I am the Lord of House Amalas, and a Count, besides. Do you know the difference between a Lord and a Count?"
Caina thought back to her reading. "A Lord is a noble of the Empire," she said, remembering. "But a Count...a Count is a noble appointed to an office by the Emperor himself."
"I was already appointed Harbormaster of Aretia when I met your mother," said Sebastian. "I think she hoped that I would rise higher, become the commander of a Legion, or maybe the Lord Governor of an important province."
"Someone powerful enough to force the Magisterium to take her back?" said Caina.
"Yes," said Sebastian. "Very good. But I am not that sort of man, Caina. I have no stomach for Imperial politics. Aretia is my home, and I am content to stay here."
"And Mother hates it here," said Caina.
"Yes," said Sebastian. "She would rather return to Artifel and the Motherhouse of the magi, but they will not take her. So she takes her frustrations out upon me...and upon you."
"Do you wish you had never married her?" said Caina.
Sebastian smiled. "How could I," he said, touching her hair, "for without her, I never would have gotten you."
Caina smiled.
"But this has gone on for too long," said Sebastian. "I am ashamed that I let it go on for so long. If she strikes you again, tell me and I will put a stop to it. And if she uses her sorcery against you, tell me...and I will go to the Magisterium."
"I don't think she will," said Caina. "I made her stop. I got angry and pushed her out of my head."
"You did?" said Sebastian, surprised. "That takes great mental strength."
"She said bad things about you," said Caina. "I got angry."
"You defend me more than I deserve," said Sebastian. "But if Laeria lifts hand or spell against you, tell me. I will not let it pass."
###
But her mother left them alone after that.
Perhaps Sebastian's threat daunted her, or Caina's unexpected resistance alarmed her. After that day, Laeria ignored them, spending almost all her time shut away in her rooms, practicing her spells, or corresponding with the few magi who did not ignore her. She emerged only to appear with Sebastian and Caina at public functions, and left as soon as possible.
As Caina grew older, more than once she wondered why her father simply did not divorce Laeria. The gods knew he had endured enough. Perhaps he thought Laeria could change. Perhaps part of him still loved her.
Caina did not love her mother, not even a little.
Eventually, she realized that her father preferred reading and thinking and writing to any sort of action, and would put off confronting Laeria as long as possible.
She loved him nonetheless.
But Laeria left them alone, and Sebastian continued with his duties and his scholarship, and Caina worked her way through his library. Sebastian hired new tutors for her, and she began learning new languages.
It was a pleasant enough life.
###
Night had fallen by the time her father finished meeting with the decimvirs, the ten magistrates who governed the town of Aretia.
Caina let herself into the library after they left. A bright fire crackled in the fireplace, covered by a bronze screen to protect the books and the carpet from any sparks. Sebastian sat at his desk below the windows, fiddling with a pen, his expression distant.
He smiled as she approached.
"How was your meeting with the decimvirs?" she said.
"Simple enough," said Sebastian. "Not a major criminal matter, thankfully. A smugglers' ship ran ashore a few miles south of here, and the smugglers fled before the militia could take them in hand."
"What were they smuggling?" said Caina. "Not slaves?" Slavery had been banned in the Empire for a century and a half, since the War of the Fourth Empire, but Istarish slavers still sometimes raided the coasts.
"No, nothing so grim," said Sebastian. "Spices, mostly, from the Cyrican plantations. Some Anshani silks. And scrolls."
"Scrolls?" said Caina.
He beckoned her closer. "Come look at this."
A tattered scroll lay across his desk, the thick papyrus yellow with age. An intricate diagram filled most of the scroll, an elaborate sigil of swirling lines and crossing circles. Lines of strange characters filled the rest of the scroll, the symbols resembling birds and animals and men.
"I think it is a Maatish scroll," said Sebastian. "What can you tell me about the land of Maat?"
Caina smiled. Her father was a scholar at heart. Had he not wed, she supposed, he would have been quite happy as a priest in the Temple o
f Minaerys, tending to the collections of books and scrolls the priests kept in Minaerys' honor.
"Maat was called the Kingdom of the Rising Sun," said Caina, thinking. "Its pharaohs ruled a great empire long before our Empire arose. The Maatish priests were all powerful sorcerers and necromancers, but grew too proud, and destroyed the Kingdom of the Rising Sun in their folly."
Sebastian nodded. "Much as our Empire's own magi almost did, during the War of the Fourth Empire. Caina, I think this is a genuine Maatish scroll."
Caina blinked. "But...I read that the Kingdom of the Rising Sun fell thousands of years ago. All that remains are stone ruins in the desert. For a scroll to have survived..."
"It is rare," said Sebastian. "And incredibly valuable. The smugglers must have looted it from a Maatish ruin and hoped to find a buyer for it within the Empire."
"What will you do with it?" said Caina.
"I will study it, make certain it is authentic," said Sebastian. "If it is...I think I shall make a trip to the capital, to the priests of Minaerys at the Imperial Library."
Caina's eyes widened. The Imperial Library was the Emperor's own library, the largest collection of books in the Nighmarian Empire.
The thought of all those books made her hands tremble.
Sebastian laughed. "Would you like to accompany me?"
"Yes," whispered Caina. "Yes, I would."
"Then it is settled," said Sebastian. "If the scroll proves authentic, we shall go to the capital and the Imperial Library. Now get some sleep, daughter. You're still too young to stay up half the night reading."
"You do, father."
"Yes, but I'm old enough that it doesn't matter. Now, off to bed."
Caina smiled, kissed his cheek, and left for her bedroom. Though she doubted she would be able to sleep. The Imperial Library!
She entered the hallway, and stopped.
Laeria stood at the end of the hallway, staring at her.
Caina stopped and stared back, readying herself to fight, if her mother tried to invade her mind.
But Laeria only smirked, and walked away without another word.
You can get the rest of Child of the Ghosts for free here.
Bonus Essay - The Writing of THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS
It has taken just about ten years to write these books.
In 2002, I took a class on the History of Rome. One part that stuck keenly in my mind was the account of the Roman Civil War. Of course, ancient Rome went through any number of civil wars, but this was THE Roman Civil War, the big one that turned Rome from a decaying Republic to an Empire ruled by the Caesar Augustus, who issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. It is a fascinating and dramatic historical period, and so it is not hard to see why so many works of fiction are set in the period - William Shakespeare's plays about Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, HBO's graphic ROME series, and innumerable historical novels.
Inspired by that class, I bought a book by Stephen Dando-Collins called CAESAR'S LEGION, about Caesar's elite 10th Legion. I was reading it when I came home to my parents for the summer, and I had gotten to the chapter on the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, specifically the part when Caesar's army almost starved to death due to want of supplies before facing Pompey's legions.
While I had been gone, the local town's Wal-Mart had been upgraded to a Super Wal-Mart, the kind that carries groceries and food in additional to the usual dry goods. I remember, very distinctly, walking into that Super Wal-Mart for the first time and being stunned at the sheer quantity of food available. What would Caesar have done, I wondered, if he had had access to that kind of food? Or to canned food - he needn't have worried about spoilage on the march, and he could have fed all his men.
Then I wandered past the sporting goods section, and wondered half-jokingly what Caesar would have done with a shotgun. Or with fifty shotguns. Or AK-47s. With fifty AK-47s, his men could have mowed down all of Pompey's army.
The idea percolated.
That weekend one of my brothers had a graduation party, and as the festivities wound down, I slipped away to my computer and wrote a story about the idea. In the story, a Chicago politician running for Congress makes a pact with a renegade from another world, a world with a medieval level of technology. The politician will provide guns the renegade can use to take over his world. And what would the politician get in return? Well, I like fantasy novels, so the medieval world had magic, and the renegade was actually an evil wizard. And in exchange for the guns, the wizard taught the politician magic he could use to win his Congressional race, and maybe use to reach even higher office.
So Lord Marugon, last of the Warlocks, and Thomas Wycliffe, Congressman from Illinois, were born.
At the time, I belonged to an online writers' group, and they really liked the story. So I began to write more short stories using the setting and the characters, and by the end of 2002, I had a chain of them coming to about 30,000 words or so.
I decided I would turn those short stories into a novel. I realized it would be a really, really big novel. But that it was okay - it would be a huge epic story, and wouldn't that be easier to sell? I started writing it on January 1st, 2003, confident I would finish by early summer or so.
I typed the final sentence on September 1, 2003, finishing this huge monster book of 339,000 words. Now, of course, writing 70,000 or 80,000 words in a month seems trivial, but back then it was the most I had ever written in so short a time, and it had been such an effort that I didn't write anything new for almost four and a half months after.
I wasn't entirely sure what to do with the thing - most publishers wanted books around the 100,000 word range. After thinking it over, I realized that there was a natural stopping point at about 95,000 words in, after Conmager fakes his death to save Lithon, Ally, Simon, and Katrina from Marugon. I would edit, revise, and proofread that section and submit it as a book. Then I could sell the rest of it as one or more books to the same publisher. And if that first 95,000 words sold well on their own, well, that would make it all the easier to sell the rest, wouldn't it?
Though I didn't know it at the time, this was remarkably naive.
But the first part of the plan went well, and the first 95,000 words, which I had entitled WORLDS TO CONQUER, found a small publisher in August of 2004. Triumph! I sold my novel DEMONSOULED in April of 2004, and it came out in May of 2005, so I figured I could expect roughly the same turnaround with WORLDS TO CONQUER.
Time passed. From time to time I emailed the publisher, wondering when I should plan to do edits.
Soon, they said.
More time passed. I wrote a sequel to DEMONSOULED, called SOUL OF TYRANTS, and abjectly failed to sell it. Eventually I quit graduate school, moved to a different state, and got a different job. I kept writing novels, but none of them sold. Eventually I realized I could make more money blogging about computers than by writing fiction, so I started to do that.
Then, out of the blue in May of 2008, a galley proof arrived for WORLDS TO CONQUER. Sweet! I dutifully filled out the proofs and sent them in, and the book appeared for sale on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in August of 2008. I did my best to promote it. I gave away review copies and babbled about it incessantly on my blog for weeks.
And it sold...well, let's just say it sold well enough that I could afford a Whopper and fries. Specifically, one Whopper. With cheese.
It was delicious.
And after I ate it, that was that. That was all the money I saw from WORLDS TO CONQUER. The book faded away, and I moved on.
More time passed. I wrote other books, and did other things. I sold short stories every year to Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD & SORCERESS anthology, occasional short stories to small presses, and had some success tech blogging, but that was it. I never again sold a novel or got another book contract. Bit by bit, I began to reconsider writing books. If I couldn't sell them to publishers, was I wasting my time? Had I been wasting time, all those years, trying to write and sell nov
els? Maybe it was time to let go, to move on to other things.
Then in November of 2010, I got a third-generation Kindle ereader.
"There has got to be a way to make money using this thing," I thought to myself.
Accurately, as it turned out.
I didn't realize it at the time, but 2010 was the year that ebooks started to make their way into the mainstream, and I was in the right place at the right time with all these unpublished novels I could turn into ebooks. In April of 2011, I came across a post by thriller writer Lee Goldberg, describing his experiences self-publishing one of his books as an ebook. What caught my attention was that his book (THE WALK) had originally be published by Five Star, which had published DEMONSOULED back in 2005. Following Mr. Goldberg's advice, I got the rights to DEMONSOULED back and turned it into an ebook in April of 2011.
Just as an experiment.
To see what would happen.
Fast forward to April of 2012, and I had sold just under 23,000 copies of 19 different ebook titles. I realized that a whole new paradigm for writing and reading had been created. No longer was it necessary to find a publisher to sell a printed book. Now, with ebooks, I could write as many books as I wanted. The readers, not the publishers, would be the final judge of quality.
I pulled out my old contract (now 8 years old) for WORLDS TO CONQUER from my file cabinet, and saw that as of May 2011, I could claim the rights back to the book, allowing me to self-publish it as an ebook.
And in 2012, I got the rights to WORLDS TO CONQUER back from the publisher.
The Destroyer of Worlds Page 22