The Prologue To My Book: Colors Of The Mayhem
Tags: Magic, Authors, Fantasy, Books, Adventure

Hi reader! This is the prologue to my new fantasy book, Colors of the Mayhem. As a self-published author, I’m doing my best to market it and wanted to share a snippet on my Medium profile. I hope you enjoy! :)

Avora set down her feather pen and considered the words she had written. For decades she had wandered, yet despite all that time, she was still processing. She viewed that time of roaming as her penance. But after a while, each hill began looking familiar, as did each tree. She realized how enclosed she was, how small the world had become. She read the words she had just written:

The world was once a big place. It felt like you could walk endlessly on roads and trails, some old and some new, or off the beaten path. There was a feeling of empowerment and adventure. These might take you places you didn’t even know you wanted to go.

Things are different now. Paths are direct and succinct. They are practical, unambitious routes. Once, the birds heralded your coming and critters scurried to and fro, snapping twigs and scattering leaves. There was sound, there was life. Now, there is silence. Silence, except for the dull thud of your feet hitting the ground.

Avora rubbed her weary eyes and looked out the window of her shack. It was perched on a hill by the sea, but the window overlooked Rockton, a tiny fishing village. She was calling it home, for now. There were a hundred or so village folk and they were friendly enough, but they, like everybody else, were hardened by what had happened. Their faces were wizened by the sun, their hands calloused from their work, and their hearts scarred by what they had seen.

Now and then Avora would catch one of them staring at nothing, lost in thought. It was in those moments she saw the disbelief lurking in their eyes. They were questioning the nightmare they had all survived. She was not the only one still processing.

Avora supped with the villagers occasionally. They called her “Mati,” meaning “Mother,” in the Old Tongue. To think once she had been the feared Jade Knight; now she was a wrinkled, gray-haired woman the villagers fondly referred to as a mother. Avora sighed as she picked up her feather pen:

In the days after the Fall, the ash fell like snow. It coated the ground as if it were a comforting blanket after a traumatizing night. Humans, elves, dwarves — all creatures — reduced to pitiful twigs swept away by a powerful river of chaos. None could stop it. Steel was useless, Florica futile, magic ineffective; power meant nothing when the earth was burning. And, in the ashes, it still means nothing. We need healing; we need leadership; we need a rebirth. It’s an impossible endeavor. But if we don’t try, we will have nothing left.

Avora set down her quill pen and rubbed her eyes again. She couldn’t see as well as she once did. A small pair of spectacles sat on her nose. She had traded her sword for the glasses years ago. Her sword had been worth a fortune; its jade hue scourged many battlefields. In these times it was only worth a pair of glasses. How the times had changed. In all honesty, it surprised her the dealer had been willing to take her sword for the glasses. People had little use for swords these days, despite lawless bandits and rogues running rampant. Even those sordid individuals found swords distasteful. Most were focused purely on survival. People had lost their bloodlust, which was the only reason anarchy and barbarism hadn’t untied the last knot of humanity. In any case, weapon smiths were rare. Those that were left applied their skills to more practical tools like horseshoes or scythes.

There was certainly still a need for weapons. Avora had frequently been attacked on the road by roaming bandits. They generally used rudimentary tools: staffs, rocks, and occasionally knives. Such crude devices weren’t enough when they faced Avora. She was a former Master of Naturito. Avora always dispatched her assailants quickly and never felt resentment towards them, only sympathy. They were survivors. Once they might have been nobles, knights, tailors, farmers — regular people. The ash had snowed on them, just like everybody else.

Avora stood. Maybe a walk by the sea would help her think. As she opened her door, the creaking was louder than her back complaining. Avora stepped into the sunlight and practically sighed with relief. She was a creature of the wild; the outdoors was where she belonged.

Avora strolled down a winding path to the seaside and swept her hand through the long green grass, tinted with yellow. She stared over the water at hazy gray structures in the distance. They were vast buildings jutting haphazardly from the depths of the sea. Once they had been great towers soaring above a thriving city. Now, the fishermen of the village called them by several names: broken shells, empty skulls, tombstones. Otto, a fisherman of the village, came up with the last description because they marked the graves of his family. The sea had taken them during the Fall. In Avora’s opinion, it was the most apt description.

There were other places on the island you could see remains from the time before. In part, Avora was writing her book so nobody would forget what life used to be like. But far more importantly, she wanted to keep the smallest ember of hope alive. Perhaps one day it would catch fire and save them all. A second fire to take the earth; but this one to save. For now, the ember of hope was buried deep, but not extinguished. Avora had decided many times that she must write about the staff and what it could do, but every time she thought about chronicling it, she realized she would need to provide a broader context.

Her worn feet left a trail in the sand as she shuffled along. Over the years, relics of bygone ages had washed up on the beach — fragments of armor, broken chairs, mangled tools, and many other random pieces.

Avora saw a silver platter in the sand and smirked. There was no currency on the island yet, no use for the treasures that occasionally surfaced on the shore. One day they might be valued again, but for now, they were simply waste. Avora had even seen one of the village children using a golden bowl as a toilet. She pulled out her necklace and stared at the platinum piece on the end. It was shaped to look like an oak leaf. A gift, from long ago, worth nothing anymore, not even to her. Regardless, she carefully slipped it back into her shirt.

Once she had found an intact hairbrush on the beach. Now those were worth something. They were rare these days — very useful for bartering. In Avora’s opinion, hairbrushes were a waste of resources, even though some people insisted on owning them. Avora had traded her hairbrush for a cooking pot. She didn’t need one, she rarely entered the water and her gray hair fell in dreadlocks, tied together at the nape of her neck with some twine. Avora hated looking in the mirror because it reminded her she was old. She would die knowing she had failed this world. Many times she had wished for death, but she was afraid of it until she finished her manuscript. It was her attempt at some level of redemption.

Avora had walked for three decades, trying to help people recover. For all her efforts, healing was slow, and not just for mankind. Earth had been as wounded as its occupants. It had taken a long time for the farmers to till the ground and reap a harvest. First, they had struggled to find fertile soil, then they had lacked the tools to farm. That’s when Avora had helped start a carpenter’s guild in the south, the first of its kind since the Fall. They fashioned what tools they could with wood until they needed metal parts. That’s when she wrangled together the last of the blacksmiths and started the first blacksmithing guild. But for the blacksmiths to do their work, they needed their tools and metals; it felt like a never-ending cycle of lack.

People groups were forming on the island. Many would settle in a location together, but the villages or communities didn’t communicate. Avora had tried getting them to work together, but everybody was distrustful. There might never be a united island, only separate towns with their own cultures and hierarchies.

Avora took in a deep breath of the saltwater air and listened to the water wash upon the sand. Gulls cried overhead as they swooped low before swinging high again.

Avora gazed across the sea and wondered if their hope was over the horizon. Explorers were out there searching for habitable lands. Only one ship had ever returned, and that was five years ago with a quarter of its crew. Those who had survived were half-starved. They told of a greater land mass that many had dubbed the “Flaming Lands,” and of phantoms and demons that inhabited that place. They claimed it was the tormented souls of those killed in the apocalypse. They declared that to live there was death, and not just because of the monsters, but also because of green mists that killed silently.

Even if that particular mission failed, other ships and explorers might still discover more survivors. The islanders couldn’t be the only life forms left. Could they? Avora shook her head angrily and fingered the necklace around her neck once again. She had survived; she had to keep her own hope alive.

Avora turned back and headed up the path to her tiny shack. She would cook some fish stew, then she would sit down and write for a few more hours. She had walked for three decades, but settled here for the purpose of being able to focus on her book. It was important that the future generations of islanders would know what had happened, why it happened, and that there was a way to reverse it.