Best Laid Plans (56 page)
Authors: D.P. Prior
Shadrak!
Shader rolled to a sitting position and tried to screen out Dave’s shouting.
The assassin dived for the statue as the man on the throne stood. The air rippled and some invisible force struck Shadrak, hurling him back across the ridge. The man stooped to pick up the statue and held it like a parent with a newborn child. The light faded enough for Shader to see he was dressed in a tunic and trousers of grey, with polished black shoes and perfect hair. The face was waxen and bloodless, the eyes cold and clinical. He caught Shader looking and glanced down at the remains of Cadman’s skeletal body.
‘A host body, no more, but it served its purpose.’
‘Gandaw.’ Shader struggled to stand, but slumped back down again. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘Oh, but I do, you pathetic little insect. I’ve waited a long time for this.’
Sektis Gandaw resumed his place on the throne and the aperture sealed, leaving only clear skies in its place.
‘You have failed Nous!’ Dave screamed. ‘You are cursed forever. You have doomed us!’
Shader’s skull was a nest of stinging insects. Coppery blood was on his tongue, and his heart ricocheted around his ribcage, threatening to burst from his chest.
Voices. He could hear voices—Dave snarling, Barek telling him to back off. Someone was calling his name.
‘Rhiannon, is that you?’ His own words were a drowning mush. Their sloshing echo passed deeper and deeper into the heart of a black abyss, met with a rising stream of speech, coiled about it, became as one.
‘Not good.’
‘Aristodeus?’
‘Not good at all.’
Shader has failed and Sektis Gandaw now holds all the pieces of the Statue of Eingana. Despair hangs like a pall over the battered armies of Sahul and Aeterna. It’s now just a matter of time… A sliver of hope comes in the form of Shadrak the Unseen who has the means to travel to the source of the coming cataclysm, the black mountain at the heart of the Dead Lands on Aethir. But Shader, Shadrak, and Rhiannon discover that Aethir brings a new set of challenges: the Sour Marsh—an oozing malignancy from the nightmare realm of Qlippoth; an arrogant Senate that seeks to appease rather than fight; and a volatile secret at the heart of the ravine city of Arx Gravis, a dwarf with no name who could prove the most stalwart of allies…or the deadliest of foes. Old love has turned sour and regrets run deep. Shader is sick of killing, but can see no other way. Rhiannon’s last defense against all she has lost is a self-destructive rage; and Shadrak’s niggling conscience is causing him more trouble than he needs. Loyalties are called into question, yet all three must bury their differences if they are to find a way into Sektis Gandaw’s impregnable base and prevent the Unweaving of all things.
COMING SUMMER 2012
It is always helpful to independent writers if you take the time to leave a short review on Amazon or other sites like Barnes & Noble or Smashwords.
Your feedback is vitally important to me. I would be extremely grateful if you would take a few minutes to record your impressions of
Cadman’s Gambit
—what worked for you; which characters you enjoyed or identified with; your thoughts on style, pace, plot…
There’s no right or wrong way to write a review. Just look at the different styles of reviews you can find on any major bookseller’s website. Ultimately it’s about how you found the book and whether or not you enjoyed it. A review might be a single line or it could be a veritable essay. Either is fine; both are of inestimable worth to writers.
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Photograph by Theo Prior
D.P. Prior
read Drama, Classics and History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He studied Mental Health Nursing at the University of Sussex and read Theological Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Western Australia. He is the founder of the online discussion community Mysticism Unbound. He works as a freelance editor and author.
Please let me know what you think!
You are welcome to contact the author with any feedback at:
The Unweaving
(
coming summer 2012
)