Today's Teaser is from author Jonathan Winn.
Enjoy & Comment!
Driven
to rule and afraid to die, a powerful Priest sacrifices all for "an end
that never ends" from a Darkness older than Time.
In The
Elder, the latest installment of The Martuk Series, Jonathan
Winn, author of Martuk … The Holy, digs deeper into the world of
ancient Uruk. A world of power and absolute rule. Of magic and
superstition. Of Dark Gods and mysterious Ancients, magical Immortals and
unseen Seers. Of powerful Priests cloaked in robes of red and gold and a
Man from the Mountains who has yet to arrive.
From
the innocence and depravity and blood-drenched chaos of The Wounded
King, we now follow The Elder, a Priest desperate to rule,
blinded by power, afraid to die. A man who climbs deep into caves beneath
sun-scorched mountains and sacrifices anonymous flesh in a blood-stained
Temple. A desperate soul driven by words whispered from the lips of a
doomed Child and haunted by the warnings of an Immortal buried in ash.
One who makes an impossible choice for the promise of Life Everlasting
and, riddled by doubt, chooses again, this final act of violent desperation
opening the way for an ancient curse from a Darkness older than Time.
From
the whispered pleas to the Darkest of Gods to the anguished screams of the
stolen innocent, this is … The Elder.
The Elder is the second book in The Martuk Series, an ongoing collection of Short Fiction inspired by the full-length novel Martuk … The Holy.
"Who
else?" he continued. "Who else
did you see? Who made you so nervous and
scared? Who? Because there was someone -- "
"No."
"Yes,"
he answered, "because since you've returned, out of nowhere, it seemed,
you've carried the weight of a thousand stones on your shoulders."
I closed my eyes,
the sudden memory of the warriors as they pushed their way from the stone, the
ash, the very ground at my feet, taking my breath.
He stopped and
watched me.
I opened my eyes,
the wine at my lips.
"Perhaps --
"
"No," I
interrupted with a swallow, the cup back on the desk.
"Yes, to hear
for myself --"
"Don't. Please," I insisted. "It's dangerous and I can't bear to lose
you."
"Yet you'll
send me into the wilds in search of some Man from the Mountains. Some stranger who may or may not be able to
speak with Those Beyond the Veil? Or
Call the Rain? Into the dark with the
beasts to bring back some boy?
Why?"
"I can't bear
to lose you," I said again.
"I need to
speak with the Gods," he added, ignoring me.
Then he turned and
quickly left the room.
I scrambled from
my seat and followed.
He rushed before
me down the hall, through the dark, past room after room, his goal the small
door at the end. A room where blood was
spilled and the Gods revealed our inevitable ends.
Pushing the heavy
wooden door open, he stepped inside.
As did I.
I found him gazing
at the small cistern.
The water in the
basin waited, clear, calm, powerful. The
polished stone of its base as smooth and dark as the shadows that surrounded
it, the charred and broken bones trapped within its perfection feeding its
power.
The water would
speak. Would foretell that which was to
be. Would show this man, this Tall
Priest, my beloved, the nightmare that awaited him.
It must not.
He circled it
once, twice, three times, the ritual begun.
"Please,"
I implored him, "don't."
I stepped toward
him.
A blade came from
his sleeve then, the metal at his wrist, his slender arm over the shimmering
basin.
"The Gods
wish to take me from you," he said. "And for what?"
"The
Darkness," I whispered.
He paused, his
eyes on mine.
"The
Darkness," he repeated.
"It knows my
heart."
"And is your
heart so easily bought?"
I couldn't
respond.
"Tell
me," he continued, "what does your heart say?"
Jonathan Winn was born in Seattle and raised in a
small town in Western Washington State. After graduating high school and then
living in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade, he moved to New York
City where he lived in Greenwich Village with his two dogs. But after
almost twenty years, the pull of family led him back to the Northwest where he
now lives. Again.
Like most writers, every word Jonathan writes --
whether it be screenplay, play or book -- is accompanied by endless cups of
coffee with lots of milk and sugar (the ratio changing depending on whether he
slept five hours or six hours the night before). He's also regarded as
politely relentless by his friends, unbearably annoying by his enemies, and
recently discovered he makes a mean fried chicken, often used to placate those
aforementioned annoyed ones.
The full-length novel "Martuk ... The
Holy" as well as "The Wounded King" and "The Elder",
both from "The Martuk Series", a collection of Short Fiction based on
characters introduced in "Martuk ... ", are just three of the books
in Jonathan's rapidly expanding bibliography.
