by Jo Sparkes
Leah, standing arm in arm with Fallon, giggled. “I’d love to play Brista and come traveling with you,” she said. “Why did you not tell me?”
Fallon stared at her. “I did not think you would wish to leave the Agben School.”
“Now that Kirth is home, I can please myself for a time.”
Returning to the school with Leah later, Marra worried what Kirth herself would say to this scheme. She was startled to find the elder only smiled. “Thank goodness we have a new teacher starting next week.”
She presented Marra a tiny box carved of Sandalwood. When Marra lifted the lid, a silver dove gleamed within.
Leah hugged her. “You’re no longer a student,” she whispered. “You’re Agben!”
Marra stole a look at Kirth - surely there must be a mistake. But the elder actually smiled.
“You have earned this,” she said. “Marra, you are indeed a full-grown Woman of Agben.”
After the evening meal, as twilight sought to drive the sun from the sky, Marra stood on the balcony of her palace chamber. She’d come to retrieve a favorite mortar and pestle, and found herself lingering to enjoy the garden. With her new teaching duties, visiting the lovely grounds might be rare.
And she’d miss them, she realized. The palace had always felt too above her station - but perhaps that was a flaw in her mind. It was after all nature, like Agben’s gardens. Just more organized and less varied.
“Marra.” Karna, the young Skullan girl, appeared below her. “How nice to see you! Come walk with me?”
And despite the inelegance of the move, Marra climbed the railing to hop down beside her.
“I am in love,” Karna said.
A pang hit Marra’s heart. “With Tryst?”
The girl glanced at her before shaking her head. “No. He’s too short and too young. I prefer someone with authority. Him.”
Marra looked up to see Jason and Tryst approaching. “You mean…?”
“Yes,” Karna nodded, and skipped forward to wrap her arm around the Defense Master’s. With a giggle, she tugged the man down a different path.
Startled, Marra met Tryst’s eyes. His reflected the same surprise.
“I think Jason likes her,” Tryst said.
“It’s mutual,” Marra told him, and found herself laughing. “He has more authority, and you are too short.”
As soon as the words were out her cheeks flamed. But Tryst didn’t seem to take offense.
“Jason tells me there is a reason I am so short. One my Grandsire intended to keep from me.”
Marra turned to him, frowning. His hand cupped her cheek as if to keep her there.
“My mother, it seems, was Trumen.”
She gasped.
“My father and I share similar tastes.”
Gently, very gently, he kissed her again. As he’d done in the goss jungle on the Dim Continent.
“There is a way to end the tension between our two people,” he murmured. “Their prince could marry a Trumen apprentice.”
Marra stared up at him, her mind full of reasons to refuse, to push away. But her heart ignored them all.
“I am a Woman of Agben,” was all she said.
“So much the better.”
They were married in a royal ceremony that beggared all celebrations. Marra did not really like it, but Tryst explained that some things must be when one is a prince.
Drail and the Hand of Victory delayed their journey until after the wedding. “I am glad for you, little desert sister,” Drail told her before kissing her cheek. They hugged for a long time.
Marra kept her room at the Agben School, where she taught as well as continued her studies. She used the space to store Agben items. Tryst frowned at that idea, but Marra explained that some things must be when one is a Woman of Agben.
Tryst’s mother had indeed been Trumen, and had apparently kept a Trumen lady in waiting as her personal dressmaker. Marra wondered about her own mother, a dressmaker with skills far beyond the desert town where she grew up. But she could never find the slightest evidence.
Not that it mattered.
For they all lived, despite the tiny challenges life presents to each of us, very happily indeed. King Bactor welcomed her with open arms, and if King Ganny was not so inclined at first, he forgave all when the new prince was born. For the boy, he declared to the world, would grow to Skullan stature with Trumen grit. Providing the Empire a promising future indeed.
And no one dared argue with that.
End of Book 3 & End of Story
THANK YOU
To Annie Tapper-Blem for her beautiful cover art.
To Mike Terlizzi for his wonderful maps.
To Ian Sparkes for his enduring – and endearing – support.
And to you – for reading this book. May good fortune be yours.
The Legend of the Gamesmen
More than a sport, the gamesmen stand for an idea - that humble men can win the day. That the lowly are not so low, and the least of us may yet succeed. A fable told across the three continents.
This is the tale that launched the legend.
Book 1: The Birr Elixir
Book 2: The Agben School
Book 3: The Dim Continent
THE BIRR ELIXIR
Book 1 of The Legend of the Gamesmen
Marra never heard of Birr Elixir. But when Drail sees the potion in her dead mistress's book, she agrees to make it. Even lacking the right ingredient.
And after drinking it, Drail and his men defeat a Skullan team - something no one has ever done before. Marra is offered a place as his traveling potions mistress. Full of doubts of her own ability, she takes the chance to escape her slave-like existence.
Then her potions woke a man who was not supposed to wake.
Now every day draws more attention from the True Masters. And their motives – and morals – are not for the faint of heart.
If they discover the truth …
THE AGBEN SCHOOL
Book 2 of The Legend of the Gamesmen
It should have been a happy ending.
A Prince restored, victory in the black arena. Instead the band of friends shatters against an evil conspiracy.
Refusing to endanger one man or burden another, Marra flees to the Agben School. Agben, whose ancient walls have held for a thousand years, protecting those within as they sought to harness the power of nature.
But this evil is relentless, and the school may not be the safe ground she thought. In fact it may not be anything she thought. Cut off from the only friends she knew, Marra discovers more than her life hangs in the balance.
For the future of her race – of both races – depends not on a prince trying to save his people, nor the heroic men who’d brought them this far.
Everything depends on her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Sparkes, a well-known Century City Producer once said, “…writes some of the best dialogue I’ve read.”
Jo graduated from Washington College, a small liberal arts college famous for its creative writing program, and went on to study with Robert Powell: a student of renowned teachers Lew Hunter and Richard Walter, head of UCLA’s Screenwriting Program.
She’s won a Kay Snow for her comedy script, ‘Frank Retrieval’, a Silver IPPY for ‘The Birr Elixir’, and BRAG Medallions for multiple books. A member of the Pro Football Writers Association, she was (unofficially) the first to interview Emmitt Smith when he came to the Arizona Cardinals.
Jo served as an adjunct teacher at the Film School at Scottsdale Community College, and even made a video of her most beloved lecture.
Her book for writers and artists, “Feedback How to Give It How to Get It” has garnered strong praise.
When not diligently perfecting her craft, Jo can be found exploring her new home of Portland, Oregon, with her husband Ian, and their dog Oscar.
Copyright © 2018 by Jo Sparkes
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form, by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, to businesses, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
The Dim Continent - Jo Sparkes
ISBN 978-0-9853318-7-0
