DUEL OF SHADOWS

EGYPT

{Courtesy Tim Bradstreet}

   Before there was Man, the Black Land existed.

      And the Black of that Land was not soil ...

          It was the ABSENCE of Light, of Mercy, of Life itself.

Call it Anti-Life for want of a better term that your primitive minds might understand.

I call myself ...  DayStar,

that last burning ingot in the dying night that rails at the coming of the Light.

Do you dimly sense the vast epoch lurking behind the East of the early ages?

Do your souls shiver at the murmur of that once lurking Night behind the dawn of Egypt and Babylon?

And when you dream fitfully on nights of new moons, do you glimpse flashes of gigantic black cities from whose ruins the first Babylon rose,

a last mirrored remnant of an age lost in the deep gulf of prehistory's endless night?

Now
it is the year 1895 in Egypt.

The nations play at what they pathetically call the
Great Game,
vying to see who will dominate the world.

But Others in the Shadows, born of my Darkness place a pawn here, sacrifice a knight there.

Though but hundreds of years old, they have grown smug in their supposed power.

Not knowing that they, themselves, are being played.

The Seed I sowed 3000 years ago has just been harvested.

Man is about to taste her bitter fruit.

The board is set.  My pieces are in place.

Now, after so long, my Adversary moves his knight:

{Courtesy Tim Bradstreet}

Samuel McCord --

 

One Lone Knight Against the Shadows in 

THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT

{Coming Soon}

 

Its Prelude:

DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE

http://www.amazon.com/DEATH-HOUSE-LIFE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B00HIU5O38/

Sean McLachlan's short story The Scavenger will be free August 14-18.
Give him a neat birthday present and download it, will you?

 

DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE

{Cover courtesy of the genius of Leonora Roy}

It is the time of death, disease, and war in Egypt --

normal conditions for all of its 5000 year history.

The year is 1895.  Ten years earlier General Gordon died in the seige of Khartoum, fighting alongside McCord-Pasha. 

Six months later,  Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi died mysteriously.

Many whispered, "McCord-Pasha still lives."

In 1895, cholera has killed 150,000 -- among them those who would enslave the peasants and seize the land for themselves.

The whispers increase, "McCord-Pasha is angry."

Lady Meilori Shinseen, millennia ago called Sekhmet, merely smiles.

It was said that her breath formed the desert. As a Ningyo, able to manipulate all fluids, Sekhmet and her people happily drained the land dry.

Now, Sekhmet has returned for her aegis and should she succeed, nations will tremble before her and thousands die.

And with the genius, Nikola Tesla, at her side, Sekhmet may well possess her aegis again.

McCord-Pasha has to think of a way to save the world without destroying his marriage

while keeping British operatives from re-capturing Oscar Wilde, whom he and Samuel Clemens just broke out of Reading Goal.

But beneath the ruins of Tanis slumbers Something that should never be awakened.

Once again, the world is on the brink of Chaos with only the wits and courage of McCord-Pasha to push it back.

This November I will be working on this novel.  Not for NaNoWriMo. 

This novel has seized me, and it will not let me go.  Wish me luck on it.  I will still write my posts never fear.  :-)