by P D Ceanneir
THE
WAR
OF THE
PYROMANCER
P.D.Ceanneir
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Illustration of the Door
Dedication
Also by P.D.Ceanneir
Map of Tattoium-Tarridun
Family Tree of Vallkyte Monarchs
BOOK ONE: THE BIRTH OF A PYROMANCER
Awakening
The Keveni-Marinet Debacle
The Dark Seed
Harlequin
The Academy of Rawn Arts
The Hoydart Wreck
The Brethac Ziggurat
BOOK TWO: THE RISE OF A PYROMANCER
The Temple of the Insular Tabernacle
The Domain of a Dark God
Return to Tuen House
The Spark Ignites
Death at the Ancarryn
The Klingspur Campaign
The Battle of Glyn Brae
BOOK THREE: THE DEATH OF A PYROMANCER
The Door
The Battle of the Single Survivor
Arrival
Helbringer
The Battle of the Firelands
The Death of a Pyromancer
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This novel is entirely the work of fiction.
The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental
This edition 2018
1
Copyright © P.D.Ceanneir 2018
All right reserved. No part of this publication may be
Reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
In any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recorded or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that which it
is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
In memory of my Grandparents.
Much love to Margaret O'Donnell,
because you got through it.
and finally to my "Second Pair of Eyes", Cary Hughes.
Also by P.D.Ceanneir
The Rawn Chronicles Series
Book One: The Orrinn and the Blacksword
Book Two: The Warlord and the Raiders
Book Three: The Ancarryn and the Quest
Book Four: The Dragon and the Daemon
The Rawn Sagas Series
Dragor-rix
War of the Pyromancer
Rawn Novella
The Voyage of the Cybeleion: A Rawn Chronicles Interlude
May they always quibble, but never fight.
May they always laugh, but with no delight.
May they always remain, pure and strong,
yet always hold the tune of Nature’s Song.
Steadfast in glory. Painful in thought.
All that remains is what the Rage once taught.
“The Curse of the Pyromancer”
From The Realm of Fire: the Life of Baron Telmar
By Opeac the Historian
These are the tales of the My’thos. The old gods. The ones who were here before all others. Though they are long passed into legend, their influence on the world is still strong. They watch, they manipulate and they are the hands of fate upon the lives of the unwary.
Of the tales, there are many.
Of the players, they are watched.
Of the acts, they are played out and scrutinised.
Therefore, we begin.
Somewhere amongst the myriad of stories, there is a beginning of sorts...
BOOK ONE
THE BIRTH
OF A
PYROMANCER
Awakening
“Dreams can be incomprehensible...
But, by the gods, don’t ignore them!”
Treatise of the Mind: The Elder Ninnian.
1
I awaken from the dream about the strange Door. The silk sheets have twisted around my legs and my body is bathed in sweat. Beside me my wife stirs, then returns to her silent slumber in restful sleep. I rub the tiredness from my eyes, partly to wake myself, mostly to wipe the vision of the Door from my sight but it lingers still, burnt into my vision behind the wavering walls of the dream.
I quietly get out of bed. The cold marble floor chills my feet and I slip on my hose and leather sandals. I also have a royal purple robe with ermine collar and cuffs, a gift from my wife, but I feel it is a little ostentatious for me; of course this late in the summer it is too warm to wear anyway.
I move through our apartment rooms and enter my study; it is a small room with a large hearth on the west wall with tall patio windows opening out onto the garden balcony. I open the windows and the scent of summer flowers wafts through with the western sea breeze. The silken drapes shift listlessly as the wind lifts their colourful hems from the floor, I turn back into my study. Often, I have sat at work in here with the windows wide open so I could hear my children playing in the garden below.
Now my children have gone, some to their eternal rest, others go to do their duty.
I sit at my desk; a long piece of furniture made of red maple and polished to a beautiful shine. The mother of pearl trim on its edging and the gold gilded drawer handles gleam in the yellow glow from the candle that I light. It was a gift from the sultan of Tenk of Mubea to my grandfather, when he granted land rights to the desert inhabitants of the western tribes that live in Summerland Amon. The nomads may travel the dunes but it all belongs to my people. I was to notice, on one of my many visits to the sultan’s palace, that he has a replica of this desk in his own study. It puts me in mind of a desert saying. Be always respectful to your enemies, but do not give them gifts that you wish to possess, how true indeed.
I always keep a quill and parchment ready these days since the dreams became more intense. This way I am able to jot down most of what I can remember from the fragmented pictures in my mind.
I start with describing the Door:
It is a plain door, finely crafted in oak or ash with square panels in neat rows top and bottom. It is blue, or perhaps green, the colour shifts with every dream depending on the place I am standing in at the time. Tall white marble fluted pillars flank each side of the door and they each have a shield on the top depicting some sort of gargoyle or a black-winged dragon. Above the shield is a sphere with a Skrol symbol etched into it. The one on the left represents the All Seeing Eye and the one on the right represents volatile energy, often understood as the symbol of the Dark Force of the Earth. In between the shields, and directly above the door, is a black obsidian lintel which also has three Skrol etchings carved into it in silver; together they represent the Trinity of Spirit, Ether and Mineral. Above the lintel sit three urns in a row emitting tall flames of black and white fire. Above that is a Bluestone archway with a cased window at its centre. I cannot see beyond the glass because it gives off a dazzling profusion of colours that are so hypnotic and horrific that I dare not look for too long.
The door sits on four steps that are made of black marble and perfectly square cut at the edges. The steps are large, wide, and inviting. So enticing are they that I approach the door with childlike excitement, it is only then I see the door
handle.
It is a large round sphere made of brass and it sits perfectly in the centre of the door. Etched into the brass knob is a Skrol symbol and, no matter how hard I try to read it, I cannot understand what it says. This makes me wary and I back away.
I look again at the Skrol on the lintel. They are telling me something, warning me, but I cannot fathom what it is. A small part of me wells in anger, rules rarely apply to one such as I, and I have little reason to be afraid of such an object, yet I am. I focus on the Skrol and shape them into a coherent form of understanding. For I once had an analytical mind and was regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of my time.
Real and the unreal separate as I focus my mind. I see the world around me fading, but the door remains and the sensation of disjointedness makes me feel nauseous. I drag my eyes away from the door and find myself in a field of tall grass. The sky above me burns red, red as newly spilt blood, and some inner voice says to me that this colouring of the sky always heralds the coming of the Door.
The Door! I look back and, yes, it is still there. Sitting on its own in a small field of grass surrounded by shrubs with the arch and the pillars and the colourless flames issuing from the urns, and I am suspicious at how beautiful it truly is.
Moreover, I suddenly feel emotions build in me.
Anger rises in me again and I hear a voice shouting through gritted teeth.
‘I will not let you destroy us! You will not come into my realm; I will stand here and force you back into the pits of darkness where you belong, foul monster. Come and meet my Rage!’
The voice is coming from my mouth, yet it is not my voice.
As if taunted by the voice the Door opens and the vision of colours and demented shapes writhe and slither before my eyes. I know that beyond is the true image of madness, but that does not bother me, because madness is my bedfellow and I raise my sword and run towards the slowly opening Door and…
…and at that point I awaken. This time, gladly. I have no wish to see what appears beyond the Door, yet I know I must discover what lies past its opening.
The headache that usually accompanies these waking moments after the dreams abates, and I realise that putting the visions into words has rid my mind of the memories. I ponder on this for a time and think to ask someone about all that I have seen and felt. Lately, no medicine or sleeping draft can cure my insomnia and I am reluctant to explain my sleepless nights. Although there is someone I can talk too without apprehension. Someone that can understand what I see.
Because, in a cruel twist of fate, the dreams I have are his memories.
2
Dawn’s early morning light is creeping through the window and I am surprised at how long I have sat here. I rise and go to my dressing room and put on suitable clothes for a warm day. I look in on my wife, she does not move in her sleep; she is an early riser and will probably want to go to the same place I am heading to for breakfast. I make my departure quickly and offer rushed greetings to the servants and duty guards as I hurry through the carpeted corridors.
Soon I make it to the rear of the palace grounds. This section of the estate sits to the south of Naval Isle and faces west across the vast expanse of the Banding Sea. The Sea is so named for the bands of warm currents that travel from the large northern continents many miles away. The warm currents strike the north of this island continent, mainly the Sonora coastal area, which is always warm throughout the year, but they make our summers hot for most of the season and the Rose Garden benefits from the warmth.
I step out into the Rose Garden from the small stoop that juts into the paved courtyard from the rear cloister. I make my way around the many potted plans and through a wire mesh archway completely covered in honeysuckle. The smell reminds me of my youth when I once played in the same garden with my brothers, long ago in another forgotten time. My feet crunch through the plants seed cones as I walk through the arch and into the Rose Garden proper.
Originally named the Royal Gardens, but since my wife plunged her green fingers into the soil it has now been renamed after her favourite plant, the rose. Everywhere I look I see borders of these thorn stemmed plants with their splash of colourful heads. Some are climbers growing up the yellow stone of the palace walls or over pillars and man-made trellises; others nestle amongst bushes of giant poppies and hawthorns. My wife could spend a whole day in here, dead-heading the plants. The paved path I walk along branches off into several places around the short-grassed lawn, and I know they would take me to dark corners of the garden where shrubs, hedgerows, and statues are in abundance, though they will lighten up when the sun climbs higher. However, I head towards the centre of the garden where an old oak tree stands in the middle of a square lawn. On the path in front of me is the garden’s indigenous resident, the Haplann White Dove. These beautiful birds are a favourite of my wife’s, and she had their wings clipped to keep them grounded. They coo and swarm around the foot of the oak tree, which is old, older than those that grow in the Kings Park that separates Market Town from Baronstown to the south of the city. Its girth is at least twenty yards and the thick boughs on the lower half of the trunk hangs so low they almost touch the ground. Sitting on one of the huge branches is a dilapidated tree house where I, and countless generations of other royal children, have played. Palace carpenters have rebuilt the construction so many times that I have lost count.
To the left of the tree, sitting on a wrought iron and ash wood slatted bench, is the man I seek. Like me, he sleeps little and is occasionally seen in the garden attending to his sketches, some of which are on the seat of the bench beside him. He is an old man now, with wavy grey hair tied back into a long ponytail. Because of his noble blood he is allowed wear a gold cup at the base of his hair, but he chooses not to. He wears a tunic of light green, with white linen trousers and black sandals; his staff is propped against the arm of the bench, although he is a fit man for his age he has moments of weakness that necessitate the use of the staff to aid walking.
I approach quietly, yet the man on the bench has an unnerving habit of knowing who approaches by the sound of ones footsteps.
Without looking around he says, ‘Good morning Vanduke, you are up very early this morning.’
I sigh and walk around to face him, ‘Good morning Telmar,’ I say, and I smile when he flinches at his true name.
3
Telmar, Baron of Tressel and Lord of Dorit Lorne, and one time King of the Vallkytes, is still an impressive man to gaze upon in his winter years. Though creases and wrinkles furrow his forehead and rim his eyes, he still harbours a handsome face. His light blue, almost grey, eyes show me he is still a man of vast intelligence, and even though they are now beetled under his dark eyebrows, he looks worried.
‘What ails you, your highness?’ he asks me as he moves some velum off the seat so I can sit down. The sketches are of the oak tree to his front and they are very good. Drawing helps him to relax and concentrate.
‘Bad dreams I’m afraid,’ I say to him.
‘The Temperance League bothers you?’ He asks.
I shake my head. Nevertheless, the newly formed army of nobles at my command has been a trial to organise. Since I ousted my brother, Kasan, as a war criminal several years ago many of the nobles loyal to me, and more importantly, not members of the Brethac Ziggurat, have flocked to my banner and formed a political entity large enough to rival the Brethac Order. The next move in all of this is Kasan’s, and act he must, because my youngest son, Prince Magnus and the Lord of the Nithi, Mad-gellan, are fighting a small war in the Wildlands against Kasan’s closest ally, Mad-borath.
The man beside me knows all of this because, for the past few months, he has been acting as my unofficial advisor since I found out about the manipulations of the mysterious Lord Sernac, the unknown man who has single-handedly formed the Brethac Order and started the war against my people. It was Telmar’s idea to form the Temperance League as a “political blanket” for the forthcoming conflict. Sometimes, on thos
e occasions when I can appreciate him, he has moments of genius that I find appealing, though it was not always so.
For the past forty years many presumed him dead, but recently my eldest son, Prince Havoc, discovered him in a Dulan-Tiss dungeon and helped him to escape. How the man evaded death and became a prisoner remains partly a mystery, even Telmar remembers little of those years of confinement, and in that time he went by the nickname of Shanks.
His new name proved useful after escaping from prison and was brought here to Aln-Tiss. There are very few people left alive today who remember the features of his youth, and after his supposed demise there was a widespread iconoclasm, where angry mobs destroyed many paintings and effigies of him.
Now safe in a citadel that has more to worry about than a long dead mad king, Shanks quietly lives his life in peace and harmony and spends most of his time in the garden sketching. It is difficult to believe that many regarded the man who sits beside me as the most dangerous man in the world.
In his youth he was handsome and charming; a powerful Rawn Master and a great thinker of his age, but cursed with the power of a Pyromancer and he suffered the slow descent into madness. Now he is cured to a certain degree, I hope.
I return to his original question and shake my head, ‘No, I have left the finer points of mustering the League’s army in good hands. Our borders are adequately protected, so we wait for the Brethac Order to make the next move. No, the thing that worries me are my dreams.’
‘Ah,’ was all he said, and I felt that I could throttle him there and then.
‘Or to be more precise,’ I turn to him, ‘your memories.’
‘I see,’ he said.
‘Do you see, Shanks, do you?’ my voice was raising a little and I calmed myself. ‘If you could see then I would not have them stuck in here.’ I tapped the side of my head for emphasis.
He was silent for a time, then, ‘I must have put them in there for a reason, sire, you have to understand this. There must have been a time when I feared I was to die and the knowledge I had was precious. Even in my madness I was sensible enough to see it ensconced in a safe place.’ He spoke so pitifully that I felt sorry for him. There are moments in his life that even he has trouble recalling.
