by Duncan Pile
Nature’s Servant
Duncan Pile
Published in 2013 by Duncan Pile
Copyright © Duncan Pile 2013
First Edition
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements and Forward
Praise for Nature Mage
Synopsis of Nature Mage
Prologue
Section One
One
Two
Three
Four
Section Two
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Section Three
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Section Four
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Sixty-Four
Sixty-Five
Sixty-Six
Sixty-Seven
Acknowledgements and Forward
There are several people who deserve thanks for their help in getting this book ready for publication, so in no particular order, I’d like to express my appreciation to: Kim Cleland, for her unfailing support in opening the door to author visits at Ockbrook School in Derby; Dejan Davidovic for his extraordinary cover art; my fantastic test readers, whose eye for detail and suggested amendments have made Nature’s Servant a better book - Jon Prince, Richard Pile, David Shorto, Rob Illingworth, Jenny Hayward, Arianne and Siobhan Weekes, Milica Stakovic, Dejan Davidovic, Anna Norris and Caren Hattingh; Neels Hattingh for generously creating my website for free; and last but not least, the many readers who contact me through facebook or my website, hassling me for a release date. I can’t tell you how gratifying that is, and have been working hard to get this to you as soon as possible.
There are so many stages to writing a book. The first is the initial writing of the manuscript, and during that period I keep everything to myself – plot, character development, pacing…everything! Taking this approach maintains the integrity of the creative process, or at least it does so for me. When the writing is complete, I print off the manuscript and scribble all over it, making major revisions and hunting down errors. After at least one re-write, I then give the manuscript to trusted test readers, and wait on tenterhooks for their verdict!
That’s the tough bit! Having kept the book to myself for nearly two years, exposing it to the search-light gaze of my volunteer-pedants is both nerve-wracking and humbling. It’s like revealing a carefully guarded secret that may earn you either acclaim or scorn.
Thankfully, my test readers came back with universal praise for Nature’s Servant, which was a tremendous relief, because it is a complex and ambitious book. It is much longer than Nature Mage, and weaves up to eleven threads of storyline together, tightening them into a single cord by the end of the novel.
So here it is; the second part to the Nature Mage trilogy. If you enjoyed Nature Mage, I am confident you will be more than satisfied by Nature’s Servant. I would love to hear your thoughts about either book, and if you wish to share them, please contact me through my website: www.duncanpile.com.
Praise for Nature Mage
Alex: "I got Nature Mage a while ago and I've just reread it for the 5th time loving the book !!!! When will there be another one?"
Josh: "Just finished reading Nature Mage ... OMG I loved it! It's a really good book and I couldn't put it down, the only time I did was when I fell asleep reading it ... I hope the second one is out soon and I will deffinately be buying it :) hope I can get that one signed too so I can have a signed collection :)"
Selbelle: "When in my local Waterstones with my mum and younger sister recently we had the pleasure of meeting Duncan Pile. He spoke to us about his book and we were all intrigued by the idea of a Nature Mage and a school of magic. I read the book first and thoroughly enjoyed it, reading it in just one sitting! My 13 year old sister was next to read the book and also loved it. My Mum also read it and she enjoyed it too...I for one can't wait for the sequel!"
Emily: "it is a great book full of adventure. Am in the middle of reading it. When is the next one coming out?"
Hayley: "Hi Duncan! Nice meeting you the otherday in waterstones. Just started Nature Mage and I'm loving every page!"
Dee: "Hi Duncan. Met you in Stockport yesterday, started reading last night &have just finished the book. Couldn't put it down - thoroughly enjoyed it & very much looking forward to the next one! Keep us posted as to when it'll be out. Cheers, Dee :)"
Emma: "I loved your book. I couldn't put it down. Lots of my friends liked it too."
Kevin: "Just finished the book after meeting you at Loughborough loved every minute of it gutted when I had finished reading when is the second book released ?????"
Synopsis of Nature Mage
Gaspi is an ordinary fourteen-year-old boy growing up in the mountain village of Aemon’s Reach. His life revolves around his two best friends, Taurnil and Emea, and his reclusive guardian, Jonn. He is picked on by the village bully, Jakko, who is jealous of Gaspi’s friendship with Emea.
Gaspi has started to have confusing feelings for Emea, and at the village dance they kiss, sparking a confrontation with Jakko. Later that night Jakko’s drunken father attacks Jonn on the way home from the dance, and in angry defence of his guardian, magical power erupts in Gaspi. He discovers that he has the ability to command natural forces and creatures, but his power spins out of control and he nearly kills Jakko and his father before collapsing, so drained by the magic that he is left at the brink of death.
The village healer restores Gaspi to health but tells him that his magic is rare and dangerous, and that he will have to travel to the city of Helioport to study at the College of Collective Magicks. The healer’s wife has a prophetic dream, revealing that Taurnil is destined to be Gaspi’s protector and that Emea has a latent healing gift, and so when Gaspi leaves for Helioport, he is accompanied by Jonn and both of his best friends.
On the journey they meet Lydia, a gypsy girl also travelling to Helioport to study magic. At he
r camp they are attacked by a terrifying creature that Gaspi uses his powers to defeat, but again he is left unconscious, and Jonn rushes him to Helioport, riding through the night and arriving just in time to save his life.
Jonn meets the charismatic chancellor of the college, Hephistole, and tells him about the attack on the road. Hephistole identifies the attacker as demonic, and begins to suspect that an old adversary, Shirukai Sestin, who had long been thought dead, is behind it. As other similar attacks happen in the surrounding countryside, always targeting magic users, he begins to prepare for what looks like it might be an attack on the college itself, though the reasons behind it remain a mystery.
Gaspi, Emea and Lydia begin their studies, and though Gaspi overcomes his difficulties and learns to control his powers, Emea struggles with her confidence and fears expulsion from the college. Meanwhile, Taurnil enrols as a city guards and starts training in earnest, determined to be ready to protect Gaspi when the prophesied time comes. When Taurnil is mortally wounded in combat, Emea discovers unknown depths to her magical talent and performs a miraculous healing.
Gaspi’s experience as a student is plagued by the attentions of the most popular boy in the college – a privileged magician called Everand who is jealous of Gaspi’s superior arcane strength. The conflict between the two boys escalates, and when Gaspi finally stands up for himself and fights back, Emea is upset and they nearly break up. Their relationship survives the crisis, however, and when tensions break out between Everand and Gaspi once more, Emea discovers that the conflict has been stoked and manipulated by Everand’s scrawny side-kick, Ferast. When she publically confronts Ferast about it, Everand rejects his former friend and apologises to Gaspi for how he has treated him.
Gaspi enchants a staff for Taurnil’s Nameday gift, imbuing it with several magical properties, including the power to harm demons. In the weeks that follow, the demonic attacks increase and Hephistole decides to bring the local populace into the city. At long last, the dreaded attack happens; a force of demons and magically warped wolf-like creatures called wargs enter the city at night. Gaspi is forced to fight four demons at once, killing two of them before being overwhelmed by the others. Taurnil rushes to his aid, destroying the remaining demons with his enchanted staff and saving Gaspi’s life.
A secondary force of wargs erupts from an unknown portal in Shirukai Sestin’s abandoned pyramid deep within the college, and they face a battle on two fronts. Hephistole and Gaspi become trapped in the chancellor’s office, blocked from using magic. After making a daring escape, Gaspi brings help and they corner the last of the attackers. It uses an enchanted device to escape but fails in its mission, which was to capture Hephistole and take him with it when it transported out of the college. The battle has been won but Hephistole thinks it is only the beginning of what is to come. Gaspi and his friends travel back to Aemon’s Reach for the summer, wondering what dangers await them on their return.
Prologue
Rekkit rode wildly through the woods, cursing loudly as low hanging branches snagged in his hair and ripped at his clothes. The sounds of thudding hooves just behind him told him that fat Olaf still kept up with him, and the distant sound of angry shouts told him that the villagers hadn’t given up the chase. He cursed again as the gradient steepened and his horse’s breathing became even more laboured, its sides lathered with the froth of exhaustion. If they carried on like this for much longer its heart would fail and it would die right under him. It wasn’t actually his horse, but one he’d stolen from the very people who were chasing them up this god-cursed hill. The gradient steepened again and he could hear Olaf’s horse slowing down, unable to bear the fat man’s enormous weight. Desperation threatened to overwhelm him as he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, pushing his failing mount to go just that little bit further.
Rounding the trunk of a large conifer, he saw a low, broken wall blocking his path. There wasn’t any time to change direction, and he could feel the horse’s muscles bunch, preparing to leap. Its powerful haunches sprang beneath him, and for a moment he thought he’d cleared the wall but a sickening sound that was half thud, half snap told him his horse had caught its hind leg. A great spasm went through the beast as it landed, and it was all Rekkit could do to throw himself off as it screamed and rolled to the side. He hit the ground hard, and one of the horse’s flailing hooves caught him heavily in the ribs. Rekkit grunted, feeling like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer, but managed to roll out of range of the horse’s agonised thrashing.
His first thought was of the villagers, who’d been close behind them right up to the bottom of the hill. They were sure to catch him now, and who knew how they treated horse thieves in this god-forsaken backwater! He tried to stand, but sharp pain lanced through his side, leaving him gasping.
“Dumb beast,” he muttered to himself. What was the point in stealing a horse that not only goes and breaks its leg but then goes on to break your ribs? Gingerly he pushed himself up so he could peer over the wall. He looked back down the trail to see how close the villagers were, but to his amazement all he could see was fat Olaf, huffing and puffing up the slope on his own two legs. Rekkit scanned the trees for as far as he could see, listening intently for sounds of pursuit, but apart from Olaf’s laboured breathing there was nothing to hear at all. Rekkit didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. Why would they let them go like this, when they’d spent hours running them to ground?
Pushing aside that worrying niggle, he watched Olaf struggle up the hill. Rekkit sighed. The fat man had been with him for five years now. Rekkit had thought of abandoning him more times than he could count, but Olaf had his uses and for some reason the partnership seemed to work. Olaf was as loyal as he was fat, and he was almost supernaturally quick with his hands. He could pilfer small items or even slit a purse and pocket its contents better than anyone Rekkit had ever met. Yes, he whined like a woman and spent too much of their hard-earned money on food and ale, but his skills had kept a roof over their heads many a time when some of Rekkit’s grander schemes ended in disaster. Much like this one, Rekkit mused irritably.
When Olaf finally reached the wall he pushed his sweating bulk over it and collapsed red-faced onto the ground, his huge chest heaving in massive gulps of air.
“Where’s the horse?” Rekkit asked harshly.
“Died,” Olaf gasped. “Back…down….there,” he said between breaths, gesturing feebly towards the trail with a fleshy arm.
Rekkit cursed and drew his hunting knife from its scabbard with a loud rasp. Olaf’s eyes flew open in alarm, eyeing Rekkit’s knife with fearful uncertainty. Rekkit laughed harshly and stepped around the fat man towards his horse, which was still thrashing, but only feebly.
In one swift motion Rekkit reached down and drew his knife across its throat - bright red blood fountained across the ground. Rekkit stepped back to avoid the blood, but some of it spattered on his shoes and leggings. Cursing again in disgust, he lowered himself carefully to the ground next to Olaf, wiping his knife clean on a long tuft of grass. Shimmying backwards till he was resting against the wall, he stared accusingly at his partner in crime, but try as he might he couldn’t find a way to blame this on Olaf.
It had been Rekkit’s own planning that had gone awry. He’d watched the villagers go about their business, seen who stabled their horses at the inn and how long they left them for. He’d rushed the job, choosing to go ahead and steal the horses when he should have waited another couple of days to make sure of peoples’ routines, and the angry owner of one of the horses had spotted them as they were trying to sneak off into the forest. His shout had roused the villagers, and the rest was history.
Rekkit scratched his chin thoughtfully. Given how badly things had gone, they should have been caught by now. They should be being dragged back towards the village to wait for whatever they called justice in these parts, but amazingly, here they were, still free. They’d gained nothing from the robbery of course, but things could be much
worse. That worrying niggle returned to Rekkit again. He didn’t like things he couldn’t make sense of.
“Where are the villagers?” he asked Olaf roughly, voicing his uncertainty.
Olaf’s face had lost some of its redness and his breathing, though still heavy, was back under control. “Dunno,” he said. “They were righ’ behind me and then they weren’. Guess they stopped.”
“Yes but why?” Rekkit snapped impatiently. “I mean, they had us, and they must have known it, but then they turn back and let us go?”
Olaf frowned in concentration, clearly grappling with the difficult concepts Rekkit presented him with. Rekkit didn’t expect any pearls of wisdom from his partner, and accepted that, as usual, he’d have to make sense of things himself. He pushed himself up as delicately as he could, wincing at the pain in his ribs. He’d have to find somewhere to rest up for a bit until that healed, but first they needed to get away from the village. They couldn’t go back the way they came. During the chase, they’d been funneled up a steep-sided gorge into the hills, and the only way back down led to the village, so they’d have to go forward.
Rekkit took a few dozen paces further up the hill and stopped in surprise as the path flattened out. The wall his horse had broken its leg on was an outlying boundary of a much larger series of buildings. Between the trees, spreading away on all sides, were tumble-down old buildings and walls of all manner of shapes and sizes. Despite their crumbling condition, Rekkit could see past the obscuring layers of ivy clinging to the long-abandoned structures. The stone had a marble-like quality, shaded in faded hues of pale rose, gold and ivory. The rooftops had mostly fallen in, but here and there a dome topped the delicate constructions. Finely carved traceries covered many of the walls, and through the distant trees he could see elegant spires and domes rising dreamlike into the late evening air.