Kareen Aldona added a white highlight to the orange flank of a boulder, considered a moment, enlarged it a bit, then set her brush aside with a sigh. She had hoped to finish the painting that day, but shadows were lengthening in the canyon, and it would take her most of the two remaining hours of daylight to get back to the colony.

She stood, stretching, then moved back from the easel to compare her creation to the real thing. Not bad, she thought, but the light still isn’t quite right…. She shook her head. The sun, slightly more orange than Earth’s, had a subtle effect very difficult to capture. “Next time,” she promised herself. She cleaned her brushes, then packed them, her palette and her paints into her metal art case, which she stuffed into her backpack.

She stored the painting and easel inside the nearby cave she had discovered on her first visit to the canyon, then filled her canteen at the gurgling spring further inside. When she returned to the cave’s mouth she saw the alien for the first time.

Though slim and no taller than she, its thick, black fur made it look much larger. Eyes of brilliant, liquid yellow gleamed from its long-muzzled face as it picked its way on broad, clawed feet through the rocks. It wore only a thin gray belt, from which hung a knife and a leather pouch. A slender rod of crystal glittered on a silver chain around its neck.

Kareen’s breath froze in her throat, and at the same instant the creature looked up and saw her, and stopped. Even across the fifty meters separating them, she heard its low, menacing growl.

It can’t be real! her mind kept insisting, despite the evidence of her eyes. There’s no intelligent life on this planet. Dad’s the colony biologist, he should know, right? The survey showed nothing. No cities, no villages, not even cave dwellings!

But the impossibility of the alien’s presence didn’t make it go away. It stood its ground, staring at her, the growl rising to a cat-like moan that made the hair on the back of her neck rise up.

Kareen wanted to turn and run, but had nowhere to go. The only way into or out of the canyon was the slippery, rock-strewn slope above above the cave, and the thought of attempting it with the alien behind her was too terrifying to contemplate.

Never taking its eyes from her, the creature slowly sank crosslegged to the ground. It drew its knife and thrust it into the ground close by its side.

Kareen tried to swallow with a throat suddenly as dry as the canyon floor. The alien’s message seemed obvious; “I’m armed. Come no closer.”

Why doesn’t it just attack? she wondered sickly. I couldn’t fight it. I don’t even have a club.

She sat down on a large rock before her trembling knees collapsed, wrapped her arms around her legs and bleakly met the steady glare of the alien. But it doesn’t know that, she thought suddenly. It doesn’t know what kind of weapons I’ve got. It doesn’t realize I’m helpless…

She tensed as the creature reached into its pouch and took out a transparent, glassy cylinder. Still staring intently at Kareen, it took the crystal rod from around its neck and touched it to the cylinder.

Light flashed and Kareen jumped to her feet. Now what? A gun? A grenade? I have to convince it I’m dangerous, too!

She struggled out of the straps of her backpack, and opened it to take out the art case. The alien hissed softly when it saw the silver box. “Same to you,” Kareen whispered.

Holding the case on her lap, she took out a sketch pad and a pencil, carefully keeping the lid of the case between her and the alien, so it couldn’t see exactly what she was doing. “This ought to puzzle it,” she muttered. And at least she could leave a record of what killed her for the rest of the colonists…

…for her parents…

Blinking back sudden tears, she rummaged in the pack again and pulled out her binoculars, hoping to make out what the alien was doing with the cylinder and rod. She had the satisfaction of seeing the alien snatch up its knife as she pointed the binoculars in its direction, but even through them the cylinder was only a meaningless, light-filled tube.

The creature watched her a moment, then thrust the knife into the ground again–a little closer, this time. Good, she thought. Let it worry for a while.

Taking an occasional look through the glasses to get the details right, she began to sketch, while the alien continued to work on the glowing cylinder Kareen was convinced was a weapon. She only hoped the alien believed her imaginary weapons were as real as its own.

When the alien became hard to see, slowly disappearing into the gathering purple haze of twilight, Kareen put her sketchpad away. After the first few minutes when her hand had been inclined to shake, she had drawn well, better than usual, capturing a good likeness of the alien, even forgetting her fear for minutes at a time…but somehow her artistic success didn’t seem nearly as important as it usually did.

She had decided what to do. Though for all she knew the alien could see in the dark, she had to try to sneak out of the canyon in the night. She couldn’t just sit there, fighting sleep, picturing the alien creeping closer and closer…

She put the sketchbook in an outside pocket of the backpack and took out her canteen, taking a much-needed drink of water. Her stomach growled, reminding her of her missed supper. Her parents would be beginning to worry. Within an hour or two they would be organizing a search party.

Too long, she thought, waiting for dusk to become full night, watching the constant flickering glow that marked the alien’s location.

Abruptly the light vanished. Kareen gasped, then scrambled up, listening.

She heard nothing but the faint whisper of wind across the stones.

Now, she thought. Wiping sweaty palms on the front of her shirt, she began picking her way over the stone-strewn canyon floor toward the slope behind her.

Her progress was agonizingly slow. Every few seconds she froze, listening for the clicking of claws on the rocks or soft, hissing breathing. But hearing nothing did not calm her fears. When she couldn’t hear the alien, it could be anywhere.

When at last she reached the canyon wall, the first part of the ascent proved no problem. The gentle slope at the bottom base was no harder to traverse by darkness than by daylight.

But halfway up the slope steepened. Flat, slippery rocks shifted treacherously beneath her feet, and as they crashed down behind her, Kareen realized all hope of slipping out of the canyon unnoticed was gone.

Heart pounding with fear and exertion, she reached the last stretch of the climb, four meters of nearly vertical rock. She had climbed two meters when, as she reached for a new handhold, she heard rocks she had not dislodged crashing down into the canyon.

She jerked her head around to look, though there was nothing to see, and her feet slipped. For a moment she hung desperately by the fingers of one hand, scrabbling with the other, and then the rock gave way and she fell.

Agony stabbed her ankle as she hit the slate-strewn slope and rolled, gaining momentum, in a growing avalanche of rocks, down to the very bottom of the wall she had so torturously climbed.

As she lay dazed, bruised and bleeding, the rocks gradually stopped shifting and silence returned…or near-silence. Then the sliding of the rocks resumed. Someone–or some thing–was coming down the slope.

Kareen rolled over and sat up, but when she touched her ankle pain lanced through it, and she knew she couldn’t run, couldn’t even stand. Dust ground between her teeth, and she felt for her canteen, but the backpack that contained it had vanished, torn off somewhere during her headlong plunge.

Now she heard what she had only imagined before, the click of claws on rocks. The sound stopped. Light flickered up the slope as the alien bent over something wedged between two boulders…her backpack. She watched it paw through her belongings, sniffing the brushes and paints, paging through her sketchbook. It bent down and picked up the pack and the light went out again.

By the time it reached Kareen the pounding of her heart in her ears was as loud as its claws on the rocks. Finally it loomed above her, a blacker lump in the darkness. It tossed something at her and she almost screamed, but it was only her sketchpad. Light suddenly glowed from the crystal rod around the alien’s neck, and Kareen saw the sketchpad was open to her drawing of the alien.

From its pouch the alien drew out the glassy cylinder that had so frightened her, and, kneeling beside her, touched it with the crystal rod. A soft glow suffused it, and Kareen gasped.

Her own figure appeared in three dimensions inside the cylinder’s walls, rendered in perfect detail and color, sitting on a rock with her art case open and a pencil in her hands.

The alien made a sound like a soft purr and set the cylinder on the ground beside the sketchpad. Then it took Kareen’s canteen from the backpack and, supporting her head with its warm hand, trickled cold water between her lips.

Chane created a fascinating and unique world in Magebane, a stand-alone fantasy novel. There is a little predictability with the main characters’ story lines. Neither the romance between the sheltered girl and the worldly boy nor the prince who wishes for a more meaningful life are unexpected. Readers are likely to overlook this, however, as they race to find out what happens next in this fast-paced, action-packed book. This is an excellent recommendation for fantasy-loving teens looking for something out of the ordinary.

Read the whole thing.

Here’s the “high-concept” description from my proposal:

In a tyrannical land where obedience is ensured by magical Masks that all must wear, a renegade girl must learn to harness her own magical abilities to defeat oppression at home and invasion from outside.

And, just for fun, here’s the opening (as it stands now):

A week before her thirteenth birthday and her Masking, Mara sat on the city wall, bare legs dangling into space, and looked down past her dirty toes at the crowds milling around in the Outside Market.

From forty feet above, the brightly colored awnings of the vendors looked like a patchwork quilt, seamed with moving rivers of humanity. Masks of white, silver, red and blue glittered in the late-day sun, jewel-like beneath the elaborate headpieces favored by City women, in stark contrast to the unadorned hair of the country folk. If they wear a headscarf above their Masks they think they’re a poppinjay, Mara thought scornfully.

Mara herself was a City girl through and through. She couldn’t imagine living in the country, out in those green fields that stretched away from her toward the distant blue line of the ocean to the south, or in the forested hills that rose ridge by ridge toward the mountains to her right, the westering sun hanging just above their snow-capped peaks. What is there to do out there? she wondered. Play with cows? Dig holes?

She glanced over her shoulder into the city of Tamita, built in terraced ranks up the flanks of Fortress Hill. Directly behind her, Maskmakers’ Way, straight as an arrow, climbed through a series of stone steps all the way to the North Gate of the Autarch’s Palace, a vast many-towered pile of white stone, aflutter with blue and gold pennants. She could see the green tile roof of her own home up there on the final terrace before the long stair leading to the Palace. She could see her parents’ bedroom window. She wondered if her mother were looking out.

Dung, I hope not! She’d throw a fit if she saw me sitting up here, looking like this.

Now, here’s the fun part: since “Edward Willett” is a science fiction writer and “Lee Arthur Chane” writes adult fantasy and how well his book Magebane is going to sell is still an open question, Masks will be written by…someone else. Which means I need a second pseudonym. Nothing figured out yet, but it’s a lot of fun trying out various possibilities. I mean, how often do you get to name yourself from scratch?

Stay tuned!

This is the first book in the Shards of Excalibur series. And it’s going to be a good one-series I mean. Loved the first and how Arthurian legend was woven into a troubled teens life. A character who drove the story, which is always a favorite for me. I liked her a lot–especially in once scene where the bad guy (er, girl) gets a taste of–well, I shall say no more. This is also a favourite of one of my book club kids. He’s twelve and a voracious reader who loves 39 Clues, Rangers Apprentice, Percy Jackson. The sad bit about lending him the ARC (thanks to  Lobster Press!) is he read the book good and early. He’s anxious to (read) the second.

Nice!

By way of reminder, here’s the synopsis of this upcoming (though probably not until next spring, I’m told now) sequel:

In France, archaeologists have begun to investigate newly discovered cave paintings…but deeper inside the cave, resting below a pool of icy black water, lies a different treasure: the second shard of Excalibur.

Ariane may be on a quest to stop Rex Major—Merlin’s modern-day persona—from taking over the world, but she still has to deal with high school. Wally’s sister, Felicia, and her clique have vowed to take revenge, but with Ariane’s newfound powers and the first shard of Excalibur by her side, the fight takes a dangerous turn. After Felicia is gravely injured, Wally begins to question his loyalties. Can he trust Ariane or the Lady of the Lake, the woman who gave Ariane her dangerous powers? Rex Major is more than willing to take advantage of Wally’s doubts.

Ariane must recover the second shard–but this time she may have to do it alone.

I did like the main character, Ariane, and her “sidekick” Wally. They were both developed well, and they felt well-rounded. Wally is particularly interesting as the nerdy kid who attaches himself to Ariane. There’s a nice dark side to him that comes out every once in a while, and it added depth to what was happening.

And the story got interesting about halfway through. Once the action actually got started, I was invested, and wanted to know what would happen. The tension turned on and was only interrupted again once by an explanation of something. Then, I was pleasantly surprised when the main character was thwarted again near the end, making the last bits unpredictable.

Read the whole thing here.

If you think you know Arthur, Merlin and the Lady of the Lake guess again. Ariane is a troubled teen, starting a new life with her aunt in Regina. A new school would be hard enough, but learning you’re a descendant of the Lady of the Lake too?

And ends:

You can’t always judge a book by its cover–but in the case of Song of the Sword, you can. Its stunning cover is the door to a unique, clever, and beautifully modern retelling of an old legend.

Read the whole thing!

Here’s how it begins:

A week before her thirteenth birthday and her Masking, Mara sat on the city wall, bare legs dangling into space, and looked down past her dirty toes at the crowds milling around in the Outside Market.

I’ve finished the first scene (about 1,200 words so far) and looking forward to carrying on with it as I can, although time is in short supply over the next little while. But as it proceeds, it will give me new fodder for my ever-popular (with three or four people, anyway) “The First Sentence I Wrote Today” feature!

Oh, and you know what’s really cool? When I posted that first sentence on Facebook earlier today, another author commented, “Great opening.”

The author? Orson Scott Card.

Gotta like that!

(The photo: A winter’s night from my office window.)

So, this is short. Today is all about Blue Fire. With any luck, I may finish it up today.

(I feel like the Little Engine Who Could. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”)

Just for fun, though, here’s the opening of Blue Fire as it currently stands:

The night dripped, and Petra dripped with it.

Water poured off his steel helmet and down the back of his neck. His blue woolen cloak hung heavy as lead from his mail-clad shoulders. His boots squelched with every step and his damp leather trousers chafed his thighs.

Despite his gloves, his fingers had gone numb on his third circuit of the Fire Curtain surrounding the Grand Temple of Vekk–and he was currently completing his fourteenth.

They’d be warm if I could wrap them around Cort’s neck, he thought. His roommate and fellow Priest-Apprentice had gotten him into this mess by trying to smuggle a girl into the Temple. Cort had promised the girl he’d “show her the sights of the Temple.” But one of the Temple gate guards had seen a bare foot protruding from under the cabbages Cort and Petra had been sent to the market to fetch, and so…

…so, here Petra was, cold, wet and miserable. He’d originally thought a week of midnight guard duty was better than the week of kitchen drudgery to which Cort had been sentenced. But Cort was warm and dry in his bed right now. And probably laughing at me, Petra thought gloomily.

He swiped his sodden arm across his runny nose, turned the corner to start his trek down the backside of the Temple for the fifteenth time…and stopped.

The Temple’s stone wall, black and blank, loomed to his left. From high above flashes like distant lightning occasionally lit the gloom, stray bits of the mystical Blue Fire that poured from the Temple Spire into the magical Hearths all around City Primaxis, which in turn poured Blue Fire into sparkglobes for light and stoves for cooking and heat.

To his right ran the Curtain, shimmering blue like an aurora brought to earth, interrupted every twenty feet by a thick square post of black wood. Each post bore, on the side facing the Temple, a magical sigil, a complex symbol laboriously carved by hand, then filled with molten gold.

A crosspiece topped each post, and from each end of the crosspieces, one inside and one outside the Curtain, hung sparkglobes, glass spheres containing bright fluttering tongues of Blue Fire.

In the rain, the sparkglobes quickly devolved into a double row of misty blobs as they marched away from Petra down the two-hundred-yard length of the Temple’s backside…a double row interrupted, two-thirds of the way down, by a patch of darkness…

It is my sincerest hope you may one day get to read the rest. But first, I’ve got to finish it!

So…back to work.

The photo: Ferry at Horseshoe Bay, B.C.