Dedication
To Casey Ball, the heart, soul and muse for these very words. A special friend, staunch ally, and lovely young woman all the way around the board.♥♥☺
“Heart in heart, hand in hand, your sweet love will heal our land.”
Over the vast reaches of Endless Space and Infinite Time rests the scientific phenomenon known as the Dark Gate, which can lead even the most experienced star traveller anywhere he can end up; for the Dark Gate chooses its eventual destination at random.
In this one instant the Dark Gate set itself in the orbital plane of the lush, rich world known as Laseria, with its jeweled twin moons and her quaint, almost hedonistic lifestyle. Those very twin jeweled moons also aided in fueling the very power needed to maintain life itself.
For the most part, the citizens and sundry dwellers of this glittering world decided to remain blissfully unaware of the future, and the past they once celebrated gradually fades into the dim recesses of legendry, myth, and fantasy. It’s only the matter of their present pursuit of pleasure and unending ease that fills the Laserians’ days and nights lit only by the jeweled moons.
However, there are always exceptions to every rule . . .
BOOK I
The Fencer’s Tale
ONE
“I came alone and yet so strong; nature was my only friend. Still I yearned to right every wrong, and win till the very end.”
Night falls on the land of my birth, and the warm winds blow all over me as I wake from the day’s sleep. Above my head, the light from the Jeweled Moons glistens from my long brown hair, cascading down the rest of my body, as though a baptismic rebirth arises in my soul.
I rise to my feet, turning my focus to the Jeweled Moons themselves, their soft glow intensifying in power, filling my heart with desire such as I never experienced before in all the long, long centuries I’ve walked the green grassy lands outside of Laseria’s main citadels. For I have never felt a greater yearning than that which I hold ever in my womanly essence.
My mind drifts between realms of hope and futility with each and every passing moment of every day that passes by me. Chief among my desires is the need to leave Laseria, much as it might pain me to even consider, much less actually do so. Another wishful dream is to find the one true love to have, hold, and cherish but that, I’m afraid, is a rather hopeless endeavour, from the mindset of our communities.
Taking up the scarlet cloak that serves as both blanket and covering, I turn away from the Jeweled Moons and with my silver foil-sword in hand, slowly stroll down the grassy knoll that was my bed, mind filled conflicting thoughts and ideas. But I know deep, deep down inside me that my wishes and desires must come above all else that shapes itself on the grounds of Laseria.
As I walk from my grassy knoll-bed, I grow distracted by a minute streak of greenish light far above my head yet visible to my eyes. What that illumination holds for me as a woman is anybody’s guess; however, suffice to say it may hold the key to all that I yearn for.
One milli-second later the green light races back into the starry nighttime skies, swallowed up by the cascading glow of the Jeweled Moons. Not only does this bear change for my heart, it also arouses a great and even somewhat frightening curiosity. From whence did it come, and when shall it return to my eyes?
