Bits and pieces of the novel come together and fall apart. Just writing some of it down.
The setting is many millenia after The Breaking. The first novel will entail how a summoner and enchanter, a Catran and Eowastan reunite the two halves of magic. Once the Guren begin to learn what is happening they work feverishly to stop it, for fear that reawakening the old magics will further destroy the world.
Need more on the story of what happened after/during The Breaking. At one time, the world, Athoria we’ll call it for now, was a typical round sphere. Wizardry was at its peak. There were even chant summoners born, those who could both call and harness the natural engergies. A great war broke out. Elementals of fire and ice were summoned. Huge dragons and stone giants were enslaved and the very earth itself flew apart as spells went back and forth. Finally, though the exact details are not completely known, a massive summoning of fused elemental powers tore the earth to shreds, banishing pieces of it to the darkest planes.
Hurriedly, one woman, a Saeirfish woman with long silvery hair, crystal blue eyes and translucent wings quickly gathered the remaining mages of nearly every race together to help stabilize the world, as vast storms tore the newly born skylands to shreds. One race stood apart, though they had not done so during the war. The Guren. They refused to participate and only watched as the woman, Gayara, the Ice Princess as she was known for her crystalline ice blue eyes, pulled the pure energy through every summoner to her. Being a chant summoner, she used the strongest incantations to bind every chanters powers to her as well. Thus, every bit of magic in the land outside the Guren was inside Gayara.
Gayara, thus empowered with the magick of an entire world, stabilized the skylands, halted the storms, and restored order. But just as she was finishing, Henos, an Obsidian Guren, encapsulated Gayara in a magical aura and thrust her into a huge diamond crystal, to be her eternal coffin. This he embedded deep in the stone of a mountain. Using the Guren’s own powerful magics, he summoned a stone jawartha, a flying tiger-like beast of burden to lift the mountain and carry it into the skies.
The Guren then descended on the Saeirfish and ’sorted’ them, slaughtering any chant summoners and their kin. Most of their hearts were good, though their actions were abominable. They wished only to prevent such a disaster again and swore three things: 1) To never let Gayara’s hold on the Saeirfish magic go, 2) To never allow summoners and enchanters to join again, and 3) To care for the descendants and skylands, ‘protecting’ them.
Millenia later, the enchanters ritualistic prayers hold almost no power. Spoken with deep fervor by many, they can reflexively use the energy embedded within nature or a creature and turn away a phaerloc, a vicious half man, half lion winged creature that sometimes plagues villages. Or, they can call the energy of a rainstorm towards their parched farm lands. The summoners frolic with their amusing displays of summoning powers of various nature for brief moments, and can sometimes help the body heal itself faster from minor wounds.
There are Guren however, who have begun to question their approach. Is it right to deny these people their heritage? On one trip to a Catran skyland, a female Amethyst Guren again discusses things with a middle-aged priest she has befriended. Her name is Eret Ke’Rahn of the sky castle Rahn, an old and venerable Guren estate. She befriended the priest, now a High Speaker (the order is a Silent One, Speaker, High Speaker, and True Voice…their belief system is highly structured around language, the voice, and incantations…a desparate attempt by their ancestors to not forget their spells) when he was just an acolyte, a Silent One who should not speak but only listen. As was Eret’s curious nature she had been exploring in the ruins and had run afoul of an old weapon still cursed with ancient magic and it had scraped her thick violet hide. Belnas, the acolyte, had broken his sacred code to speak to her and help her, even stepping into the edges of the forbidden ruins to take care of her. They’d made a pact to never discuss the event with others as it would endanger them both and had since grown into friends.
Eret could never fully reveal to Belnas the truth of things, but she encouraged him to think outside of the strict teachings of the Catran way. One day they are discussing the prophecy that finding the Ice Princess and releasing her from her diamond prison would bring forth powerful forces. Even amongst the very long-lived Guren, the Ice Princess was nearly a myth, a near-deity who held on symbolic meaning. Belnas had read ancient texts of other peoples, some of which the Guren told them about even currently, but wondered about the Eowastan upon whom the Guren would only tell cursory information (yes, they are thinner and live on other skylands. Here’s a very nice Eowastan fabric…)
Belnas apprentice Chathik overhears him and is concerned, for Chathik is very obedient to the faith. Belnas decides to sneak away with the Guren when they depart through the ruins to the portal. Chathik has suspected it so he follows along as well. They find each other, to the other’s chagrin, and make their way through the hellish MoonPlane to another skyland.
At the same time, there is a rather stubborn, rude, greedy queen who gives the Guren grief when they visit and they have essentially decided to leave her fairly self-sufficient skyland for as long between visits as possible. This woman is aware of the prophecy as well, and interprets it to mean she will receive all the power as well (though really it just means the power will be released amongst the land again). She has spies even amongst the Guren and is preparing a team to make their way into a Guren castle and determine the location of the princess. Queen Megwyth will make it there, but find she needs a summoner and enchanter to open the tomb. She has also discovered Chathik and the girl he meets and brings them there to force it open (this is at the end of the first novel).
So, a very basic storyline is:
*Hook: Megwyth and her advisors, in a dark and evil court reviewing the prophecy and how she plans to gain power over the skylands
*Eret and Belnas talking (introducing more history), up to Chathik and Belnas sneaking along behind the Guren into the ruins. After the Guren go through the portal (but they see how they did it), they face something in the ruins (a bizarre spider-like creature). The Catran priests are wise, but not overly peaceful and are trained in defense and basic weapons.
*Summoner peoples (where we’ll meet the girl and how she starts to fit into all this)
*Belnas/Chathik’s trip through the moon plane (where they make an unlikely friend)
*Arrive on Summoner skyland, befriend girl, discovered and all four (Chathik, girl, Belnas and MoonPlane friend) are exiled for betraying the Guren’s instructions. They are tempted to just fess up and be ‘punished’, when they discover how livid the Guren are and plan to kill them, so they escape.
*They’ll make it through several skylands, seeing how different the people are and how they reactly differently to outsiders, and encounter bizarre creatures. I want them to meet the Rock people who live on the underside of the skylands in caves, the Asori, and more. It will have a good dynamic of chase as the Guren are after them, Megwyth is after the Ice Princess, and slowly the heroes decide to be as well when they learn of Megwyth’s plans and what the prophecy could do, then Megwyth is after them to harness their combined abilities