Jonathan Moeller Novel Excerpt Tuesday: MALISON: DRAGON CURSE
It’s Jonathan Moeller Novel Excerpt Tuesday! This week’s excerpt is from MALISON: DRAGON CURSE.
The idea behind the MALISON series is simple. Usually, in a fantasy novel, only a few people have magic. But in MALISON, everyone has magic. For that matter, magic overuse causes transformation into an insane dragon, which goes on a homicidal rampage before getting enslaved by a dark elven lord.
It’s been fun to write the series and explore the implications of that idea.
MALISON: DRAGON CURSE is available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Smashwords.
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“My father?” said Tyrcamber, and to his annoyance, the resentment steeped into his tone. “I am the youngest of six sons. My father is more interested in his heir and my sister than anything I do. He is more interested in marrying me to some suitable noble than in anything else I must do.” He shuddered. “I hope he doesn’t saddle me with some buck-toothed cow of a woman.”
“So long as she has a kindly heart,” said Rilmael, “that would be better than marrying a woman with a fair face and a rotten soul.”
“You’re thousands of years old,” said Tyrcamber. “You can say those things.”
Rilmael blinked and then laughed. “That is correct. I can remember what it was like to be nineteen…though it’s been long enough that I must concentrate very hard. A worthy duty and a good wife at your side? There are worse ways to spend a life. The first Emperor Roland thought the same.”
“But he was the first to become a Dragontiarna,” said Tyrcamber.
“Yes,” said Rilmael, his expression going distant. “He was. It wasn’t something he sought, wasn’t something he desired, but it happened nonetheless. The first Dragontiarna and he saved his nascent Empire from destruction at the hands of the dark elves. He was horrified by the transformation, but he bore up under his abilities nonetheless, for he thought it his duty to defend his people.”
“He hated it?” said Tyrcamber, uncertain whether or not to be angry. He had always heard that the first Emperor had nobly embraced the power of the Dragontiarna, taking the power into himself to defend his vassals and subjects.
“Intensely,” said Rilmael. “Remember that he was born on Old Earth. He had never seen magic, let alone a dragon of any kind. But he bore his duty well.”
Tyrcamber frowned. “Why have I never heard this before? The histories I heard said you appeared to our ancestors when they reached this world, and you taught them the Seven Spells and how to resist the Malison. I never heard that they panicked and slew each other and succumbed to the Malison. Or that the first Emperor wished that he hadn’t been a Dragontiarna.”
“History is like that,” said Rilmael, his voice quiet. “It has been…mmm…seven hundred years since your kindred arrived on this world and founded the Empire? Yes, seven hundred. Think of how many generations have come and gone since then. The first Emperor and the founding of the Empire of the Franks must seem like a myth to the humans living today. Yet your ancestors were men of flesh and blood, and I saw them and spoke with them.”
Tyrcamber watched the Guardian, again feeling a chill as he thought of that vast span of time. His childhood felt as if it had been a very long time ago, but as Rilmael had pointed out, he was only nineteen. Seven hundred years, to have met and spoken with the first Emperor and the founders of the Imperial Orders…
“Why are you telling me this?” said Tyrcamber at last.
“I think a significant destiny may lie before you,” said Rilmael.
“Destiny?” said Tyrcamber, surprised. “Is there such a thing? Or does God guide all our fates?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Rilmael. “But consider this. The Sight allows me to glimpse something of the true nature of time. The past is like a carven statue, fixed and unchanging. The present is a burning flame, constantly changing and altering. The future is the shadow cast by that flame.” His silver eyes seemed to weigh Tyrcamber. “And I look at the shadows of your future, Sir Tyrcamber, and I see that for good or for ill, you will change the course of the Empire.”
-JM