Wake
Wake
He paid me to spy on you.
I rolled aside and threw up. The sour smell of vomit made me gag. I tried calling water to rinse my mouth, but nothing came. I pulled harder. My vision flickered. Pain burst through my head and the world went black. A scream wrenched out of me.
“Scream all you like” came a dull voice.” No one will come.”
I froze. “Where—?”
“Are we? Ingdanrad’s dungeon.”
“Where are you?”
“A few cells down, I think. I could not see where they left you.”
The voice sounded painfully familiar. Quiet, deep, a thick Sverbian accent—but hoarse and flat. Like every drop of life had been squeezed out of it.
Hardly daring to breathe, I spoke into the shadows. “Tiernan?”
Wake is the fourth volume in “The Call of the Rift” fantasy series with an imaginary world setting similar to the geography and waterways of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. The land is filled with competing indigenous tribes, refugees, and settlers from other lands, magical beings and creatures, and a pre-steamship level of technology. The heroine, Katiko Rin, now 18, is a warrior with the ability to summon water into shapes, and, besides battling an assortment of villains and mages, she is struggling with her sexual awaking with feelings for both a slightly older girl Tsiala, a professional bodyguard, and Tiernan, an older man, mage and mercenary.
Told through the eyes and point of view of Kaitiko, also called Katja, she is in search of Tiernan, once a friend to her, and now perhaps something more. Together, they had been trying to stop the group known as the Ruonbattai and their mysterious leader in order to defeat them and end an on-going war that could destroy their world. She joins up with a mysterious woman, Neve, who is a sometimes spy, and her bodyguard Tsiala, and they travel together to the distant city of Ingdanrad, the city of the free mages, located high in the mountains. After a series of adventures, they free Tiernan, overthrow the villains, and flee the city. This book ends when Katja discovers that the man of her dreams, Tiernan, is not from her world, but another that split off in the distant past. Tiernan now wants to go home, and they must part. This volume ends with the ominous sentence, “Death is coming.”
The volume opens with a two-page map titled Kateiko Rin’s Travels and a second one-page map of the City of Ingdanrad. The story is divided into forty chapters and an epilogue. Included at the rear of the volume is a seven-page glossary containing: a listing of Gods, Spirits, Mythology, Phrases, Slang and Profanity, and Cultures, plus a seven-page section titled: “A Brief History of Eremur and Surrounding lands.” There are two pages of the author’s acknowledgments.
With such a dense and complicated tale about a young girl’s wanderings, amidst the unusual names and large cast, a reader like me would find a character guide of great help. Well-written, and complicated, with magical characters, villainous villains, and a growing awareness of herself, Wake is a detailed tale with a large cast and shifting motives. This book should appeal to fantasy readers who enjoy magical adventure, complicated motives, and touches of the problems of growing to an adult, all set in a complex, vividly described world.
Ronald Hore, involved with writer’s groups for several years, dabbles in writing fantasy and science fiction under the pen name R. J. Hore in Winnipeg, Manitoba.