And then there's this one.
I should have known I was in trouble when I handed the first ten pages of Shining Deep to my father and he read it, then said, "It's good, but there's about twenty-three different names in there that you'd have to define for the lay-reader."
What can I say? I'm a sucker for complex Elwen societies.
This craving hadn't really gotten satisfied in my last two novels, stand-alones between the end of the Silver Unicorn Empire and the beginning of this series. The two stand-alone novels I wrote in that gap, Middleman and The Sign and the Emblem, either didn't take place in Elwen society at all or lingered there for only a small part of the book before going out in open country (or ocean, for the second of those two). I had been writing about loner characters.
The Swordwarder Trilogy's heroine, Meylona, is a loner, but not by choice. She's just had the Lifesword, an intelligent weapon capable of making its bearer immortal and curing disease and all of that, dumped on her, and she's been told to control the magic, resist using it, and incidentally save the world while she's at it, with enemies chasing after her trying to get their hands on the damned sword. The Lifesword is a force for 'good,' but it doesn't mind achieving 'good' ends by 'evil' means. Sapphiro Azurefire, the sapphire Elwen who gives the sword to Meylona, thinks she may be the only one who can control it.
So the story begins.
This is another series, like The Silver Unicorn Empire, that I like while at the same time being unsure of it. It has its faults. Meylona wasn't perfect like Maruss, the hero in Silver Unicorn, but she was whiny. And sometimes stupid, though usually by necessity of the story. And by the time I finished the books, I had written four in a row using female viewpoint characters and was restless to return to the comfortable, known territory of the male.
On the other hand, Meylona's story did give me a sense of grand, sweeping pageantry on a manageable scale, nothing like the great overgrown scale it grew to with Silver Unicorn, and which I almost believe would kill me if I tried to do it again. (With Elwens; in my other world of Arion I'm trying it again). And it introduced me to the character I wrote my next stand-alone novel, Lord of Starfire, about.
Not bad for a little thing.
(All prologues and chapters linked off this page copyright 1996-2003 by Anadrel).
Shining Deep- Faced with the problem of the intelligent Lifesword, which can confer immortality and do a number of other "good" things," the Councilman Sapphiro Azurefire decides to give it to a young churni named Meylona, thinking she might possibly be able to control it. Meylona doubtfully accepts the sword and flees across the continent towards possible safety with the gull Elwens, while people chase her demanding the sword back, and the sword itself tries to persuade her to do good, even if that is in an 'end-justifies-the-means' way.
Once She Rose- Meylona has reached the sanctuary of Feathergem Isle, but even here she is not safe. Black gulls attack her, and foreboding visions of the future force her to return to Arcadia and the Falchian Plains. There she finds that Sapphiro has roused war to reclaim the Lifesword, believing he has entrusted it to the wrong person, and Meylona's people as well as her life are in danger.
A Sound of Bells- The Council of Arcadia will not stop hunting Meylona, so she decides to face them at their source. However, nothing turns out to be simple when she gets to the Council building; the Council members are too caught up in their own relentless intrigues to address her problems, and more would make the Lifesword part of their intrigues. And the Lifesword is now very close to the place where it was born, and close to being set free of Meylona's hands...
