The Myth of Kalvartr:
a Tale of Samples
&
Early Introductions
Sandra Harvey
Copyright © 2013 by Sandra Harvey
All Rights Reserved
Note to readers
First off, I would like to thank everyone who downloaded a copy of this e-book. I am very grateful for the support of all my readers.
Secondly, this is not a full e-book but an introduction to my upcoming fantasy novel “The Myth of Kalvartr”. In this e-book, you will read the first four chapters of my story, which are also the first four viewpoints of my main characters. I hope you will take a liking to them and eventually love them as much as I do.
Lastly, please enjoy the sample version of my book! Much research was put into making the five provinces of Asarelith and all of its inhabitants. I sincerely hope that you like what you read and are satisfied enough to come back for more when the full book is released later this year. You can find more information about “The Myth of Kalvartr” on Facebook (The Myth of Kalvartr Fan Page), my Twitter account (@Sandrasstories), or my blog (Sandra’s Stories on Wordpress).
Thanks for reading!
- Sandra Harvey
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Children of Destiny
Viewpoint of Annabelle Roman, resident of Eldras, capital city of the Zhan Kingdom
Chapter Two: The Great Hunt
Viewpoint of William Snowbourne, resident of Stormhaven, capital city of the Frozen Lands
Chapter Three: The Realm of Darkness
Viewpoint of Miles Fenrir, assassin working for the Nameless
Chapter Four: The Eternal King
Viewpoint of Jesse Lennox, resident of Riverwood, capital city of the Vale
Chapter One: Children of Destiny
The room itself was frightening, filled with half-melted candles and eerie shadows that bounced from one wall to another every time someone moved. A middle-aged man lay in a bed, the blankets covering him old and tattered. His face was lined with worry marks, his eyes closed. The town’s physician was bending over the sleeping man, studying the problem at hand. After much confusion and shaking of head, he turned and left the room, leaving two children alone with their father.
The boy was older, taller, with dark hair and fiercely bright, green eyes. His boots were dirty from wandering the outskirts of town, having stick fights with the other boys in the muddy yard, and catching minnows in the streams of the forest. He wore not an expression of sadness, but of genuine fear, perhaps thinking that someday this would be his fate.
The girl was younger, shorter, with light-coloured hair, like strands of sand upon a beach. Her eyes were the same emerald colour, shone with the same fierceness, although today they were dull and hopeless. Her boots were clean, scrubbed vigorously to remove all traces of filth, to hide that she was also wandering, stick-fighting, and playing in the forest streams. Her expression was full of sadness and despair, knowing that perhaps this was the last day her father would live.
They held hands as they sat on the wide chair by the bed, each silently praying that their father would come back to his senses, that he would suddenly sit up and be well once again. Though, they both knew that would not happen. He had been sick for a very long time, so long that neither of them could recall when the illness struck. But it came suddenly and without warning sometimes, as he would not remember who they were, or throw things about the house in wild anger that frightened the two children.
It was not a sickness that any physician knew how to cure, either. Some said his mind was tainted with some sort of disease, others claimed evil spirits had possessed his body. In every examination, no remedy was provided. He was simply doomed to die.
Thomas Roman did not believe so. In his hand he held an old book, pressed against his chest. The spine was full of veins and the cover aged so much that it was impossible to tell what colour it had been originally. Although within the holey, yellowed pages were written strange words that perhaps only he could understand was not foolishness. The diary spoke of magick and curses, sickness and cures. He was not sure what magick was, but the man who wrote the diary seemed to think that it was something good that could save his son. If only Thomas could have found this “magick” to save his father!
Annabelle didn’t know where her brother had gotten that book, only that one day it wasn’t there and the next it was. His strange ideas frightened her sometimes. He talked about many evil things, things that hardly made sense in her head. Some days it angered her that he believed their father was cursed. Other days she would retire to her room and cry because Thomas already showed symptoms of the illness. Sometimes she thought he was right, and their family really was cursed. Sometimes she just wanted to run away from it all.
‘Thomas, Annabelle.’
Their uncle’s voice came from the other room, and they slipped quietly out of the dark room into the kitchen, where the physician was speaking gently to the other man. Isaac Greer was older than his brother-in-law, with black hair that was slowly fading into grey, and a short beard of similar colour. His brown tunic was dirty from hours of gardening, repairing the damage the frost had done to his late wife’s flowerbeds.
Catherine Greer had passed not yet a year ago, struck by a fever that did not leave. It had not only been hard on Isaac, but on the children as well. She had been the closest thing to a mother they had ever had. After their real mother – Isaac’s sister – died giving birth to young Annabelle, Catherine took it upon herself to take care of the kids, even if the only connection she had to them was through marriage. Unable to bear children, she had none of her own, so she treated them as such.
Now their father was also on his deathbed. Isaac would be their only living family left. He could have hated that man, loathed him for allowing his sweet sister to bear another child, and then hate that child as well. But he could not. Annabelle was a precious gift, a reminder of his sister. She had her hair and eyes, and that glower when her brother did something wrong or irritated her. How could he bear anything ill against her?
‘Our father … he is going to die, isn’t he?’ asked Annabelle very quietly after the physician had left. Her lip quivered.
Isaac patted her hand gently and then held it. ‘Yes, my child. I am afraid so.’
The blunt answer brought tears to Annabelle’s eyes and she looked away from her uncle and towards her brother, who was standing by the window with a harsh frown upon his face. He turned his attention outside and ignored them both, clutching his book more tightly than before.
‘It’s probably for the best anyway,’ he said brusquely.
‘Thomas!’ cried Annabelle, shocked that he would say such a thing.
‘It’s true.’ Her brother’s voice rose with each word. ‘He has been sick for years. It’s about time his suffering was over.’
Annabelle burst into a fit of crying and fled the room, her feet pounding hard against the stairs as she vanished into her room above. Thomas again scowled at the window and his uncle crossed his arms, irritated at the youth.
‘Thomas, mind your mouth,’ he said sternly. ‘You are older. You are supposed to be comforting your sister, not distressing her more.’
‘We are cursed,’ said Thomas, ignoring what his uncle had told him. ‘Cursed like rats in street gutters, filled with diseases, while sniffing around for food until some cart goes astray and crushes us, ending our pathetic existence.’
‘Thomas!’ bellowed Isaac. ‘What nonsense this is! Stop with your foolishness!’ Isaac inhaled deeply to calm his anger. ‘Now go upstairs and apologize to your sister. I will have no more talk of curses. Do you unders
tand, young man?’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ murmured Thomas.
He sulked away from the window and towards the stairway, while Isaac stood near the table, shaking his head in disbelief at the child. He was a young man, nearly three and ten years of age. By looking at him you could see that he was a strong youth, able to help with physical labour and hunting, but the foolish ideas that swam in his head devolved him into just a mere child.
Isaac looked back to the dark room that contained the dying man. He stepped away from the table and towards his brother-in-law, a sudden feeling of reminiscence washing over him. This was the same room his sister had died in.
Terryn Roman was as still as a summer's night, his face a shadowy pool. His eyes had come open from their slumber, the pupils fixed on the ceiling. Isaac moved his hand over them, closing off his friend’s sightless gaze. His skin was cold, like the first touch of frost.
‘May you finally find peace.’
The candles were very near their ends, flickering against the melted wax, trying not to die. Isaac licked his index finger and thumb, pressed them against the flames, and then vanquished them forever.
The Myth of Kalvartr: Sample Edition Page 1
