Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set
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Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set
P.E. Padilla
Copyright © 2017 by P.E. Padilla
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Art by Damonza (https://damonza.com/)
Published by Crimson Cat Publishing
Copyright © 2017 by P.E. Padilla
All rights reserved.
Created with Vellum
For all those who dream of the worlds and universes that may be out there, regardless of whether they are reached by science or magic. Keep dreaming, for dreamers are the architects of our future.
Contents
PEP Talk
Foreword
Map of Gythe - Overview
Map of Gythe - Detail North
Map of Gythe - Detail South
Vibrations
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Epilogue
Gray Man Rising
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Harmonics
Intro Quote
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Epilogue
Resonance
Intro Quote
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Epilogue
Glossary
Newsletter
About the Author
Also by P.E. Padilla
Foreword
This boxed set contains all three books in the Harmonic Magic series. It also contains the companion story Gray Man Rising, one of the books in the Tales of Gythe collection. The stories are presented in the suggested order for reading, with Gray Man Rising in between Vibrations and Harmonics. The Tales of Gythe story Ix: Legacy of Honor, which is available only to subscribers to my PEP Talk newsletter, should be read after Gray Man Rising and before Harmonics.
Another feature included is the glossary at the end of the boxed set. It explains words that may be unfamiliar to readers and defines significant terms used throughout the series.
I hope you enjoy your travels in Gythe.
P.E. Padilla
Map of Gythe - Detail North
Map of Gythe - Detail South
Prologue
Gone. They’re all gone.
Grayson Wepp tried desperately to suck air into his lungs. With each gasping breath, he knew he was going to die. Just as the rest of his expedition party had just died scant moments ago in a flash flood that ripped through the shallow valley they were traversing. Scrambling through the vegetation, searching for higher ground, he stumbled and fell, picked himself up, and carried on, breaths coming in stuttering gasps.
“Have…to…find highe
r…ground.” He forced the words out through gritted teeth.
The opening in a nearby rock formation beckoned him, and he slipped and slid toward it, crawling on all fours like some kind of lost, pathetic animal. His salvation, the opening was large enough for him to enter standing almost erect. While it wasn’t necessarily high ground, it did appear to slant upward a few feet from the opening, making it higher than where he currently was. He would take his chances here.
The wind was a beast on the hunt, the rain tiny meteors flying at him at such odd angles that they seemed to curve upward into his nose and mouth from below. Staggering, sputtering, and spitting water, he plunged into the darkness. He stopped just inside the cave and fished his headlamp out of his backpack, the one remaining possession he had. With trembling fingers, he snapped the strap to his forehead and turned it on.
The world spun dizzyingly as, by the wavering light, he made his way deeper into the cave. Tiny stars danced in front of his eyes and for a moment, he tottered, dangerously close to passing out from exhaustion and lack of oxygen.
From where he stood, the cave did not seem to slant upward as sharply as had appeared from below. In the back of the chamber, at the very edge of the headlamp’s beam, Grayson saw only the shadows of four dark openings, darker than their surroundings. Their blackness was so complete, it devoured the headlamp’s light, causing the beam to shrink and flutter as the darkness battled with the light.
Grayson stumbled, the wind ripping at him. It was a banshee come to steal his soul, pursuing him, trying to trap him. His ears pounded with every heartbeat as he wrestled to draw in air thick as molasses.
His voice was meager and almost unheard in the gale. “Must…go…further in…above water.”
Fighting toward the back of the cave, he lurched through the opening on the far right side. I’ll choose the right fork every time so I don’t become hopelessly lost.
As he made his way deeper into the cave, the level rose, then dipped, then rose again. Am I above the rising water level, or below it? Four times he had to backtrack because the passage he took shrank to a size that was impassable. After almost an hour, he finally reached a dead-end and stopped to think.
Now that the immediate danger was past, his breathing more normal, he noticed for the first time the intricate crystalline formations in the cave. There were web-like structures, fans, pillars, and fantastical shapes that he could, if he cared to, imagine as likenesses of animals or people, even faces. At the moment, these things were not important.
The wind was whistling and rushing through the passageways still, even this deep in the cave. In their journey from the cave mouth to their unknown destination, the winds began to pick up speed, started to create a different sound. This new sound was not so much the howl of wind rushing through a passage, but more of a hum. Grayson heard several different humming sounds, coming from all directions, but that soon changed. The humming became more unified, as if being made by thousands of people just beyond the headlamp beam. People who were trying their hardest, and finally succeeding, to get in time with each other to produce a harmonious humming of some unknown, and unknowable, tune.
Ears buzzing, Grayson felt more than heard the pitch change in the humming, the intensity increasing. The sounds began to vibrate his bones. He felt like he was going to shake apart. The feeling was what he had felt at concerts when he was young and got as close to the massive speakers as possible, but this was much stronger. It was, he thought off-handedly, probably the result of the wind channeling through the intricate crystal designs and the spaces in between. It was hauntingly beautiful, but it was also chilling. Even wet from the rain and chilled from the cave’s underground temperature, he felt colder as the sound grew, as more goose bumps raced up his back and neck.
The sound and the vibrations began to cause him pain with their intensity. He stumbled, found the wall, and slid down it to sit, leaning against the stone. Covering both ears with his hands and closing his eyes, he prayed that the sound would stop. The pressure from it continued to build and change, making the pain jump from one area of his body to another, but always remaining strong on his head and brain. For a moment, he again believed that he would die, but this time he believed it would be from his being shaken apart. Huddling against the wall and whimpering, he waited for death.
Whooommn! Whoooooomn! The sound oscillated at a faster and faster rate and became even more intense. Whooomn-whooomn-whooomn! He could feel his body shake violently with every boom and crash in the eerie song.
Grayson put his hands to his head and squeezed to keep his skull from splitting and his brain from exploding from the punishment. He saw a bright light flare through his closed eyelids, like he was looking at the sun. Thoughts of stories he heard about people seeing lights when they died flooded his mind. I’m dying. Oh, Stephanie! Why did I survive and you didn’t?
And then…silence. It took a moment for it to sink in, his body still trembling with the powerful vibrations they had been subjected to, but it was true silence. The sound, the pressure, the vibrations, they were all gone. Slowly, he lowered his hands and opened his eyes.
“Good, he survived,” a deep voice said, a voice like the growling rumble of some dreadful beast. The language seemed a crude variation of ancient Aramaic, which Grayson had studied in school. He could barely pick out the meaning through his clouded thoughts.
Grayson saw twelve cloaked and hooded figures surrounding him in the chamber, which was now lit by candles and torches. The massive cavern, much bigger than he thought when seeing it by the weak headlamp light, contained beautiful crystal structures that were all reflecting the firelight and sparkling like red diamonds. The hooded figures, in a circle around a central area in the cavern in which Grayson was hunched, were motionless in their black cloaks made of some type of heavy woven fabric.
“Perform the transport,” the voice spoke again. Grayson could not tell which of the figures the voice belonged to because their hood-shrouded faces couldn’t be seen.
Rough, powerful hands grasped Grayson Wepp, tying his hands behind his back and gagging his mouth. They dragged him to his feet and pulled him into the very center of the chamber, where several strange implements that looked like bells of different sizes were arranged from largest to smallest. One of the cloaked strangers struck a series of them and then clasped hands with another of the figures, who clasped hands with another, all the way through the chamber, until the two who were holding Grayson were grabbed by the shoulders by two others already in the chain.
The figures emitted sound in perfect harmony. It was not quite a chant, but it much more than simple humming. A few of them appeared to sway slightly, but otherwise there was no movement except for the one figure with the striker for the bells. When the figure tapped one more bell, a clear, perfect note sounded. And then the entire room lurched and spun and Grayson lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a room with walls made of black stone block, warmed by a fireplace and lit by torches and braziers. A figure stepped forward and pulled down his hood. His skin was pure white, lighter than any albino Grayson had ever seen in a picture, and his shiny, completely bald head reflected the light from a nearby brazier. He looked like nothing so much as a worm. No, a maggot.