Ninety-Seven Provinces: Book I: Ari Anaustasha and the Band of Thieves

Full Title:  The Ninety-Seven Provinces of Azurma:  Book I:  Ari Anaustasha and the Band of Thieves

Prologue:  A Lesson in the State of Manners

Once upon a time, there was a room.  This room was a cylinder with a high-slopped ceiling.  The ceiling was of stained glass tinted blue, green, and yellow.  The light coming in from the glass made the dust particles in the air shimmer.  However, this story is not about dust particles, is it?

“Shimmering, shimmering, shimmering tower.  Defended by the flame and lightening thrower!  Find the path to the road, and slay the mighty beast of man.  Serve the king and poison the crooks.  Nail the dragon between the eyes; your hands and legs are bound with ties.”

My life sucks.  Royally.  I bet that someone out there just shouted:  “ANOTHER EMO PROTAGONIST!” and wandered off to rant once again about how Japan is responsible for the shitty excuse of winy, wimpy, usually male main characters that we have in most mainstream plots now-a-days.  Do not lie:  I knew that it was you just now.  (No, not you!)  You!  Yes, you!  Thank you for voicing your opinions!

What were we just talking about?  Oh, yeah…Well, I came into the world as most of us did, except for Joe over there.  (Sorry Joe!)  My mum was a stubborn ox in charge of the local training, as well as the manager of the War Games.  I can see her in my mind’s eye right now:  yelling out instructions until she’s blue in the face; waving her sword about and shouting at me to:  “get a move on, ‘ya lazy sack of oats!  I need an extra hand to saddle up the horses,” or something like that.  I would stare right back at her, like she dared to make me take care of the beasts that stand in their own waste!  As you can tell, I never cared about horses.  To think about it, I never really cared about war.

Yes, my Province is getting ready for a war.  See how I capitalized “Province” there?  We call ourselves a Province:  a self-governed stretch of land that doesn’t give a damn about the king.  Strong-headed and half-blind:  we lot are.  In fact, so blind that there are, in fact, ninety-seven self-governed stretches of land that doesn’t give a damn about the king.  I think that mum said something about how the Provinces were all created by the major and minor gods and goddesses up in the Congregation, once upon a time, and the humans that settled there treated them as the rightful rulers of the land:  instead of the King and Queen over at the Tower of Lilies.  Make sense that our history is coated in blood:  don’t it?

Yet, I suppose, that this history lesson is boring you and you just want to figure out the plot.  See?  I know you lot:  ignorant, rude, and stuffy.  That kind of state in the head will get you killed:  let me tell you that!

Anyway, the “plot” truly starts when I turned fourteen and my mum tried to teach me to wield a sword.