The Shadow Lord’s Son
Two years ago I posted a series of stories on Gaydemon that created the three parts of “The Shadow Lord’s Son.”
The book has been revised and edited to suit the needs of commercial publishing, and new introductory chapters have been added. I will post more chapters.
This excerpt is from "To Take Away His Voice."
From an honoured bard to a Warlord’s sexual slave ...
Brannan Marec Mavrenn, master Bard and keeper of the possessed harp, Mavrenn, endures untenable imprisonment under Samir, the ruthless Warlord of Torrent Mountain, for aiding in Samir’s wife’s escape after she was accused of sorcery. Torture threatens Brannan’s hands, his voice, and his mind, and sexual subjugation awaits him. Only after he and the Warlord discover a secret love and Brannan is proven innocent can he disclose, with the aid of Mavrenn’s irresistible power, the dreadful secret he has harboured.
The Bard faces a race against time after Samir tasks him with finding a solution to the planet-wide threat descending upon them. Sharing their friendship and their bodies, Brannan starts his travels with a mysterious Alsar Guardian and an old Warrior to his homeland in the North, seeking proof the Warlord’s allies will accept.
But a terrifying heritage will haunt him, for when you are descended from the Shadow Lord, all doors are open, even the gates of Death.
The first part of my tale, “To Take Away His Voice,” is now available on Amazon and other platforms.
Some new chapters were added at the beginning to set the context, others were replaced, and details were clarified. I appreciate the support from all of you who read my writing, and with our administrator’s blessing, I now present to you the first few chapters from the book, posted here one at a time. I hope you enjoy them.
Further information and purchase links can be found on my author website, voronforestauthor.com
Chapter 1, The Lullaby
Brannan Marec Mavrenn, Ruithin Master Bard, arrived at the door to Lady Mara’s study and, setting down his harp case, pulled the chime rope. He heard
the jangling bells echo inside. One of Mara’s ladies-in-waiting answered: a young woman with dark red hair in a thick braid threaded with a golden cord. A smile lit her face.
“Lady Mara,” she called over her shoulder, “It’s the Marec Mavrenn who has come to grace your chamber with his harp music, I hope.”
Brannan heard Mara’s mellifluous voice answer. “Granya!
Don’t keep him waiting—”
Entering the study, he saw Mara ensconced in her favourite chair, its arms carved in the likeness of fantastical beasts. Today, she wore a long coat of dusky blue wool over a white linen gown. Her garments looked plain, but she had accented them with a patterned, woven silk shawl in rainbow colours. Her only other adornment was a silver chain around her hair with a clear, sparkling, teardrop-shaped blue gem on the front, touching her forehead.
The Bard said, “I have come simply to play for you, Mara verch Carwyn. Nothing more serious than that. No instruction today.”
“Good,” she said and laughed. Turning, she instructed her other lady-in-waiting, a dignified-looking older woman with silver hair in an elaborate bun. “Eydis, pull out the low bench for Brannan to sit on.”
She looked at the Bard with a hint of mischief in her midnight eyes. “My work keeps me busy enough. I am compiling a list of fungal spore sizes I observed. But I must ask the Master Lens Maker for a more powerful lens for my ‘scope. The reproductive elements of the Archeosporales are very small. I believe they were a holdover from the First Landing when most of the native species on the planet were supplanted by the Eleuthera’s stored specimens. This one survived. But come—you are here to gift us with your and Mavrenn’s voice, not listen to me indulge in a favourite subject.”
The Bard smiled with affection at Mara’s evident enthusiasm for her work. Sitting on the low bench of black wood, he opened his harp’s case and removed the precious instrument, setting it before him. Brannan leaned the harp into his shoulder and touched Mavrenn’s front pillar where the bone carving of a woman’s face and shoulders emerged from the purpleheart wood, its ruby eyes glittering. He took a moment to centre himself, communing with the treasured artifact of his people.
‘Do you yet sleep, my harp, Queen of Ravens? Awake and let your spirit sing. Perhaps your soul, sheltering in the Shadow Lands, can hear us.’
And the harp answered, whispering in his mind, ‘My Servant, I was not sleeping. I was listening to the time winds blow.’
The Bard let his fingers touch the strings, and a ripple of sound ensued, filling the space around them like a lover’s caress. He began with a ballad from his and Mara’s homeland of ArMorica, far to the north of their current residence in Torrent Mountain.
Mara smiled at him as she listened, the scroll she had been marking lying forgotten on her lap. Her loose, hip-length black hair fell like silken water down her back, and her delicate features belied an inner strength of character. At the age of twenty-five Turns, her beauty remained breathtaking, and her intelligence had only enhanced her reputation as a scholar in the ancient sciences. She looked content, for she had come to love Samir, her lord. Now that she was pregnant for the first time, her happiness overflowed.
Looking at her, Brannan reflected on her changed circumstances as Lord Samir’s wife. It had a contentious and dramatic beginning.
The Warlord and his troops had been traversing the High Plateau at the edge of the ArMorican border when he’d encountered her. Dressed in Ruithin garb and masked, she had fought him after one of his men slew a shepherd of the hills. Samir had overcome her, but as his sword swept in a final blow, Mara’s black leather mask fell, and he beheld her face. At that moment, he’d turned the blade, knocking her unconscious with its flat side.
At her marriage to Samir, forced on her by his threat of invasion of their land, Neven-Tanet, the Grand Master of Brannan’s bardic order, had assigned the Bard to be her guide, counsellor, and priest. In addition, he served in whatever capacity the Warlord deemed fit. The ArMorican King, Cyndyllan, in his high seat at Yrys, had reluctantly allowed it, as the alliance would prevent a further threat to his lands. Thus, Brannan had accompanied Mara to the Warlord’s city-state of Torrent Mountain, and for seven whole Turns, seven summers, his music, wit, and wisdom had graced that court.
Although his joy was in his harp, his early training at the ArMor-ys Ruithin College had equipped him well for his other duties as envoy and ambassador whenever Torrent Mountain’s ruling Council of Seven or the Warlord required it. But today, he relaxed in his Lady’s chamber, sharing his rare talent.
Brannan again spoke to his harp, projecting his thoughts to the spirit inhabiting her. ‘Mavrenn, listen to me and blend your voice with mine. Let us please our Lady. Play a song for her child.’ ‘I shall, my Servant, if you ask it. But do you not feel the currents of time swirl around us? Something draws near that is not peaceful.’
‘I sense nothing, my harp, but I planned to sing “The Wolf’s Call.” It is not the gentlest of children’s songs. Mayhap that is the unease you feel.’
The harp did not answer, but she softly responded as Brannan plucked the strings, crafting the lullaby’s tune.
Brannan began:
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“Sleep safely, my darling one,
Wolf is hunting, but not for you,
The old deer has fallen asleep,
A night of sleep longer than yours…”
He employed the Shadow Singing technique, which directly influenced the listener’s emotions and was only taught to the Master Bards of ArMorica, his and Mara’s homeland in the north. Coupled with the unique living spirit in his harp, it was a powerful tool. The skill had proved vital in his negotiating ability when he was sent as an ambassador to other places. But this time, he simply used it to please the Lady. He wove feelings of contentment and peace into the lullaby, with undertones of nostalgia as it related to the wild forest of their past, and he noted Mara’s expression of longing.
When the song finished, Mara looked at him, her gaze soft and empathetic. “That was lovely, Brannan. It took me back to our land. You have been Mavrenn’s Servant for a long time, haven’t you? Already, when I first knew you, I was told that your harp, herself, chose you as the Marec Mavrenn. It filled me with wonder, distracting me from my grief.”
Brannan recalled their first meeting when, as a child, Mara had stood beside her father’s funeral pyre and flung the torch upon it. Her bravery impressed the young Bard, who attended with his master and the Ruithin priests. A wind from the sea had rapidly spread the flames, and he had pulled the child back from the intense heat. Brannan loved Mara as a little sister; he would do anything to keep her safe.
* * *
Several hands of the sun later, Brannan visited the stabling area in the lower levels of the Redoubt to see his horse. As he drew close to her stall, he heard her call. He smiled. She always knows when I am coming to see her.
Rhiannon hung her noble head over the stall door chain and shook her silver-shading-to-black mane. The Bard scratched her ears and fed her the treat he had brought.
“We’ll go out tomorrow, cariad,” he told her. “Just you and me, a nice run in the forest. I promise.” Brannan stroked her pale grey neck, patterned with darker grey dapple markings. He had ridden her on the long journey from ArMor-ys in his homeland, accompanying the Warlord’s army as they returned to Torrent Mountain, Mara with them.
Rhiannon’s head swung up, and she let out a low neigh, as she would for someone she recognized as a friend. Brannan felt something brush his mind like a cloud shadow sweeping over sunlit hills. Looking up, he saw someone approaching—a man with tanned skin, shaggy golden hair, and striking green eyes edged with gold. He looked fit and moved with animal ease, like a lion. Brannan’s breath caught in his throat.
“Nijal Silverhand! I did not expect you here. I thought you were travelling.”
“I was. Now I have returned. I stopped at Xylon on my way back, but it was too peaceful a city-state. There were no battles for me to ply my trade—no injured warriors that needed my surgeon’s skills.”
“Thus are you well-named Silverhand,” Brannan said. He clasped Nijal’s wrists in greeting, but Nijal responded by hugging him tightly.
“What brings you here?” asked Brannan, returning the embrace.
“You do,” replied Nijal. “I have little time to spare and won’t be staying. I’m heading to the East Garrison. I’ve been asked to attend to a gravely ill commander of horse troops.”
“Then say your piece, dear friend.”
Nijal cocked his head to one side, staring at Brannan inquisitively. Again, the Bard felt something brush his mind, almost like when another Ruithin priest wished to communicate. Nijal sighed and said, “Have you had a chance to speak with Lord Samir yet on the matter of our—message?” “No, I have been waiting for an opportune time.”
“Don’t wait too long. I have heard from my brother Alsar in the Fanged Mountains.”
“The Alsar Guardians’ Listening Station! Is something wrong?” Brannan queried, feeling a troubling touch on his mind. “Wronger than it already is? We caught another message from the strangers. I believe they are much closer than we initially thought. Have you heard from the head of your Ruithin order lately?”
“What do you mean by ‘closer’? And no, I have not heard from the Grand Master.”
“Strange. You should have. I sent him the new information. And by closer, I mean that we don’t have the luxury of many Turns left.”
Nijal’s tone alerted Brannan. “Before, you said ‘half a lifetime,’” he objected.
“As you humans recognize it. It’s much less than that now. The soul of our planet, the Mother-of-All, hears the strangers, and we, her children, hear the Mother’s voice. It may be only a matter of a few Turns or even less before they arrive now,” Nijal said soberly.
“Then that means I must act and inform my Lord Samir as soon as possible. I will have to use all my powers of persuasion if I am going to make the Council listen,” Brannan replied.
“You have your harp and your singing to help convince them.”
“Yes, you are aware of her power, although I strive to keep it secret.”
“Sometimes, I can touch your mind, Brannan. You know that, my friend.”
“It’s fortunate that I trust you with my life. You come in and out of it like a storm wind bringing much-needed rain. No matter what news you carry, it always gladdens my heart to see you, Nijal.”
“Then I hope to visit you in the future, bringing happier news. I have known you since you were a boy, Brannan. You had already been apprenticed to a master and had won the keeping of Mavrenn, your harp.”
“I was raised in the College at ArMor-ys. My father abandoned me there at a young age after my mother’s death.” Brannan cast his eyes down as the memory took him.
“Then better news would be even more welcome. Alas, it won’t be for now. We have a serious challenge before us. Truly, there is a margin for error in our calculations that might bring the strangers’ ship to our planetary shores even sooner. When will you see Samir about it?”
“I have delayed long enough. I will see the Warlord tomorrow. He will not believe it at first. I wish you could come and lend your voice to mine,” Brannan said, sighing.
Nijal raised a skeptical eyebrow. “If he finds out who his battle surgeon really is, he may deny everything, thinking it an Alsar plot. A pity you cannot use the spirit in your harp to persuade him.”
“No. No arcane powers, so there can be no accusations of coercion. Samir knows me well. He must simply accept my word as it is. We greatly regard one another, so perhaps he will listen.”
To be continued...
