The Wizardess

The story so far…-1

THE STORY SO FAR…

Book One: Bronze Magic

In Eskuzor, land of sorcerers, nineteen year old Prince Tarkyn is brought up on unjust charges by his twin brothers, the king and Prince Jarand. He throws up a magical shield and escapes, inadvertently leaving a trail of death and destruction. A family of thieves tries to rob him but then help him to flee the city of Tormadell.

After days on the run, Tarkyn wanders into the woodlands in the company of an old wizard, Stormaway Treemaster, only to find himself unable to leave. Woodfolk attack him and he retaliates with threatening displays of magic. But Tarkyn is then horrified to discover that he is the unwelcome, bitterly resented liege lord to these elusive people who fear sorcerers and whose oath to him has been spellbound to the welfare of their forest.

Before the woodfolk can take adequate measures to protect him, bounty hunters capture Tarkyn. In the chaos of his escape, the prince is severely injured. While Tarkyn lies unconscious, Stormaway, disguised as the prince, leads the bounty hunters far from the forest.

For more than a week, the prince lies unconscious, while one woodman, Waterstone, stays by his side talking quietly to him and bringing him back to an awareness of his surroundings. As he recovers, Tarkyn, raw from his brothers’ betrayal and wary of the woodfolk’s resentment, gradually develops an uneasy friendship with Waterstone.

Woodfolk can hold conversations and send images mentally to each other, an ability not shared by sorcerers and wizards. Gradually, Tarkyn discovers that he can receive and send images and feelings, but not words. In fact, sometimes Tarkyn’s strong feelings transmit to other people without his knowledge or control.

When a hunting party of the king and Prince Jarand enters the woods, Tarkyn’s reaction to seeing his brothers overwhelms Waterstone’s daughter, Sparrow, and she blacks out. Waterstone is furious, hurling threats at the prince and trying to attack him. His behaviour breaches the oath, causing an area of forest to be seriously damaged before Tarkyn curtails the destruction by giving Waterstone permission to attack him.

Tarkyn discovers that Summer Rain’s brother, Falling Rain, was exiled twelve years ago for revealing the woodfolks’ presence to the king. Some woodfolk wish him to return. Some don’t. Struggling with the politics surrounding the prince and the potential damage his own anger could cause, Waterstone almost abandons his friendship with Tarkyn

Tarkyn offers to help repair the forest, by holding up branches while woodfolk bind them, amazing Waterstone that sorcery has more than martial uses. Stormaway returns and rails at the prince for not behaving in a manner due to his station, until Tarkyn treats him to a dose of royal hauteur. Later that evening, Stormaway informs the prince that the bounty hunters who had captured him were Andoran and Sargon, Tarkyn’s erstwhile friends. As Tarkyn wanders down near the river thinking about this further betrayal, an attacking wolf is stopped by Waterstone’s arrow. Then, from a viewpoint above him in the trees, Tarkyn sees another wolf approaching behind the woodman. Tarkyn shouts a warning and uses shafts of magic to kill the wolf.

Because Tarkyn’s ability to trust has been damaged by betrayal, Waterstone allows Tarkyn free access to his memories to establish his own trustworthiness. However, Tarkyn delves too deep and when Waterstone has fled, finds himself confronted by Autumn Leaves who intervenes angrily on his friend’s behalf.

When Stormaway shows Tarkyn a little experiment that blows up, the woodfolk surround Tarkyn, arrows drawn to protect him, even though clearly resentful. Stormaway lets slip that seven years before, he had used mind power on Falling Rain when the woodman was held captive by the king. This knowledge expiates Falling Rain’s guilt and revokes his exile. As reparation for the wrong done by sorcerers, Tarkyn resolves to trek across the mountains to find Falling Rain and bring him back to the fold.

Tarkyn discovers that, unlike the woodfolk, he can also share images and emotions with birds and animals, and uses this discovery as a reason to approach Waterstone and repair the rift between them. As he talks with Waterstone and Autumn Leaves, it becomes increasingly obvious to Tarkyn that the egalitarian woodfolk have a very different concept of service from him and that he must work out how much to modify his expectations.

While he is mulling this over, an eagle shares with him its view over the forest of an impending, large-scale wolf attack. Tarkyn warns the woodfolk and allows them the use of his powers.

Soon after the wolf attack has been averted, Stormaway notices green shoots appearing on Tarkyn’s walking staff and upon investigation, finds that the trees Tarkyn helped to repair have recovered unnaturally fast. Much to his embarrassment, Tarkyn learns that his newly discovered powers of healing and communing with animals define him as a legend in the woodfolk lore; the guardian of the forest, who appears among the woodfolk to aid them in times of great strife.

Celebrations of the advent of the Forest Guardian go late into the night.

The next morning, Tarkyn and the woodfolk come back to the reality of considering where the source of the danger might be. The survival of the woodfolk depends on their ability to stay hidden. They realise that a hunting party will be coming to find the wolves they killed but instead, will find dismembered, cleaned wolf carcases that will betray the woodfolk’s existence.

As they prepare to face this threat, Waterstone’s resentment of the oath surges up, leading to a fight between Tarkyn and himself. As a result, one of Tarkyn’s broken ribs punctures his lung and only his healing powers as Guardian of the Forest, supplemented by the life force of the woodfolk, save him. Through this experience, Tarkyn discovers that he can also draw on the power of the forest itself through the trees to heal himself.

Having helped the woodfolk avoid the hunting party, Tarkyn becomes aware that his group of woodfolk has been concealing the existence of woodfolk who had not sworn the oath. He feels betrayed especially by Waterstone and using an owl as a guide, leaves them to find his way to a community of oathless woodfolk.

He offers this community of woodfolk, the forestals, the opportunity to kill him to release their kin from the oath and to ensure that oathbound woodfolk do not have to fight oathless woodfolk to protect him. Despite their initial hostility, the forestals decide it would be dishonourable to help their kin betray their oath, so they cannot kill the prince. During this confrontation, Tarkyn finds a feisty ally in a rebellious young woodman, Rainstorm.

Autumn Leaves trudges into the forestal’s firesite and with Rainstorm’s help, faces a resistant Tarkyn. When Autumn Leaves explains that all woodfolk are sworn to conceal their kin, Tarkyn concedes the need for their duplicity, but is left feeling separate from them.

Unwittingly, Tarkyn’s resigned acceptance of his isolation rolls around the woodfolk camp, causing the forestals to reconsider their attitude to him. During the following week, woodfolk gather from all parts of the forest to discuss the unknown threat. In recognition of his demonstrated commitment to them, the woodfolk decide to induct Tarkyn as a member of the woodfolk nation in a ceremony during which, by sharing blood with him through a long cut on his arm, Tarkyn becomes Waterstone’s blood brother and by association, Ancient Oak’s brother and Sparrow’s uncle.

During the ensuing celebrations, Stormaway arrives among the oathless woodfolk and Tarkyn rebukes him when he expresses his displeasure at the risks Tarkyn has taken. Lapping Water is surprisingly accepting when she catches Tarkyn retying the bandage on his arm, having rubbed dirt into the cut to make sure he bears a scar. They return to the firesite to find that Tarkyn’s unreserved acceptance by the woodfolk is short lived. As they discuss ways to meet the impending threat, including the woodfolk ability to ‘flick’ into hiding, resentment against the prince resurges and the opinions of the group who stayed with him, the ‘home guard,’ are not respected. When Tarkyn absents himself from the critical crowd, Ancient Oak follows him and gets to know him and a squirrel better in an old oak. Elsewhere, Waterstone is attacked by two mountain folk who are disgusted that he has befriended a sorcerer. Eventually, Tarkyn decides to assert his authority temporarily, but unequivocally, in the interests of protecting the woodfolk in the face of the impending threat, reasoning that he intends to leave the next day anyway so it won’t matter if he upsets a few people.

However, when morning breaks, an enormous magic-driven storm threatens to cause widespread flooding and to force the woodfolk onto open higher ground. Tarkyn harnesses the power of the forest to channel magic into Stormaway who orchestrates the dissipation of the storm. When his sodden bandage is replaced by Summer Rain, Tarkyn finds that his arm has healed with a long bright green scar. However his suspicions are aroused when Waterstone refuses to have his bandage changed and he discovers that Waterstone, too, has rubbed dirt in his cut to ensure he has a souvenir of their new relationship.

In the wake of Tarkyn’s suggestion of a stock take of people’s whereabouts, woodfolk establish that three of their kin are missing and are possibly being held by sorcerers. A power play amongst rival factions leads to decisions being made more on the basis of whether they support Tarkyn rather than on the issues themselves. Tarkyn confronts the worst of the factions and neutralises their antagonism.

Once the course of action had been decided, Tarkyn links his mind with a field mouse to reconnoitre the sorcerer’s encampment. The woodfolk are gravely shaken when he discovers that the woodfolk are indeed being held at the encampment and at least some people from outside the forest know of their existence.

With the aid of an eagle owl, Tarkyn spots a shadowy figure skulking in the nearby woods. The woodfolk capture the intruder, who turns out to be Danton, an elite palace guard and Tarkyn’s childhood friend. But having been betrayed before, the prince is wary of trusting him. Only after testing Danton’s loyalty to the prince, do the woodfolk allow him to stay in the woods with them. But Danton brings the expectations of the Royal Court with him, leading to disputes between several woodfolk and himself, and making Tarkyn re-evaluate his relationships with the woodfolk.

When the prince stops a fight between Danton and Rainstorm, the young woodman turns his attack on Tarkyn. The wind thrashing through the trees makes Tarkyn realise that Rainstorm and the oathless woodfolk have somehow become subject to the sorcerer’s oath. Despite their friendship with the prince, Rainstorm and Waterstone are horrified when they discover that the oath has spread and it is decided to keep it from the others until after the rescue of the imprisoned woodfolk.

The woodfolk all insist that Tarkyn should not take part in the rescue because they must ensure they protect him. Because Tarkyn has also vowed to protect the forest, he cannot risk them refusing his orders and destroying the forest. So he does not insist on going with them but reluctantly takes part from a distance.

As woodfolk flit through the trees reconnoitring the encampment Tarkyn, from a distance, playfully sends them helpful but unnerving images, which causes Tree Wind to concede finally that the woodfolk will be all right under his dominion.

Danton and Stormaway infiltrate the sorcerers’ camp, in preparation for the woodfolk mounting a rescue. They run into Sargon and Andoran, forcing Danton to assume the appearance of disloyalty to Tarkyn to conceal his role in the rescue plot. Once Stormaway is reassured that Danton is merely playing a role, the wizard and Danton concoct a series of unpleasant revenges on Sargon and Andoran, involving hallucinogens, itching powders and slow working non-lethal poisons.

Meanwhile Tarkyn discovers that Waterstone’s objections to using horses for the impending raid stems from his fear of them. In the ensuing conversation, Waterstone becomes aware that Tarkyn is distressed by Danton’s possible betrayal and the accumulation of people’s horrified reactions to the oath. He reassures Tarkyn of his enduring commitment to him, as both friend and brother, and Rainstorm bravely goes swimming in an icy creek with the prince to cheer him up.