I’m very pleased to announce a very special deal on my novel, Britannia Unleashed. With the coupon code EC4V9 applied at checkout, the ebook version of the story is available for just $0.99. I hope this is a nice little tempter for any of you out there that uses the Smashwords service.
Evil will come and champions will fall, but Britannia shall reign eternal.
Every world has its heroes, and every hero has tales to tell. Britannia, Queen Victoria’s realm, is not the least of these, for its many heroes are varied and inextricably linked. If but one falters, then others might follow.
In a Victorian world off-kilter with our reality, a malevolent entity and an incarnation of past evil seek to overpower Britannia and its weakened queen. The disenchanted Sir Belvedere Magnanimous Wainthrop, the Lion of Britannia, will brave time and space to battle this unholy alliance and return glory to the empire. Others shall follow his lead, and destiny will test every ounce of their courage and resolve.
From a Himalayan Shangri-La to a subterranean London and the corridors of Buckingham Palace itself, this disparate group of individuals will battle the odds and come together to make the ultimate sacrifice. But will it be enough?
The cold blue yonder beckons like a frozen dream. Piles of ice extend into the air like pallid skyscrapers. Where they and the above meet, no one will ever know. Birds circle in tandem, reflected in the crystal-clear ice. Is it reflected or refracted, I forget so much these days? Whales peep from below to survey the commotion then vanish back into darker depths. Theirs is an ultramarine yonder, not the cerulean of my own.
I have seen things. I have known things. Things have both seen and known me. This is my doom. I recognise most and guess at the rest. Guessing is what humanity does in place of truly understanding. Some are just better guessers than others. I, however, have not the imagination to compete.
The journey was long, too long, if truth be known. My lips are almost as blue as the wall before me. My fingers and toes are closer to black. There are many stages of blue in this reality I term me. Only one is the truth.
I climb. I strike with the pick and kick with the crampons. I build to something massive. The sky remains a mystery during this duress. The wall remains intransigent. Regardless, I grit my teeth and pursue the dream.
Night falls in shades of turquoise, then azure, then aquamarine, then black. The wall of ice takes on its hints but not its promises of a dawn. I hurry now, scared of what might happen if I linger too long.
Time passes. Dreams fade. Stars emerge and die. A moon that is not mine slides across the ice wall like a skater, and is just as quick to leave.
I breach the divide as a tungsten dawn dissolves the black and stains the blue. I could spit; it angers me so much.
Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe, with all your might. And I do. And I shall. And I will forever more.
There are leaps of faith and leaps of loss. There are tumbles and stumbles and falls. I have fallen further than most. I have tumbled and stumbled and bumbled too long. Only in the purity of this misguided endeavour can I redeem myself. It is time.
She watches me from above and below. As the light of this cloudless new day, one of such a deep blue yonder as to defy comparison takes a hold of every other colour and throttles it from sight, she is everywhere. Glass upon glass. reflection upon reflection. I am engulfed.
A very big thank you, as always, to the wonderful Barbara Leonhard for featuring my book, Britannia Unleashed, on her website. I hope you get a chance to take a peek and also at the other fantastic authors she helps to promote.
I watched her emerge from the nocturnal river like a perfect pearl. Naked, she was, confused and unchaperoned. A first new life form in aeons. She shimmered for all to see. A miracle. My last hope.
Her beauty outshone the eternal darkness, like the world’s most perfect black rose giving birth to a solitary milk-white petal. She glistened brighter than any star. She dazzled. I was dazzled.
I approached with trepidation, a gliding shadow, and spoke as a mistral wind. “You… Are… Everything…”
“I am nothing.”
The starkness and speed of her response stalled me.
“I have done nothing.”
This time, I was prepared. I decided a direct approach was best.
I closed about the world, about her. “For the first time in eternity, I wished to be seen.”
Her hands fell from her modesty to reveal herself completely. Her eyes appeared to lose their glaze. She smiled. My heart melted.
“I am betrothed.”
I fled.
No star could find me. The spotlight moon illuminated without reason or rhyme. The sun did its best to fill the void. An armada of rainbows searched for my dark gold. Only the rivers had an inkling, as they swept into the deepest sea. Those in the abyss felt the loss, but had never truly experienced my all to begin with.
None would find me, for I was hardest to find by light.
I travelled the earth, and then the starways, and then more. I was everywhere and nowhere, but I never once dared her beauty again: she would have torn my obsidian soul apart. Until…
“Hello.” A soothing soprano.
“I thought my time had passed.”
“It is just beginning.”
I opened one eye to the opaque twin wonders of her own. “You see me?”
“I felt you first.”
“You found me. Me! The unseen!” I sounded like a revealed small child having hidden in a cupboard from a strict parent. “You are the first.”
“I have. I am.”
“How? It is my destiny to go unnoticed. To allow others to shine.”
“My need is greater than theirs.”
“What need?”
“To fulfil yours.”
“You rebuked me?”
“I knew not who you were.”
“But you do now.”
“Everyone does, now.”
I grimaced. “That bad, eh?”
She nodded. A tendril-like strand of hair wiped a tear from her cheek. My breath caught.
“They half need you, whereas I want you fully.”
“You need the lake, the river, the sea. You are born of water and must ever there remain.”
“Sometimes, but not always. I must slip beneath the starshine surface and embrace my creator. I am lost without him. Lost without you. This world is too bright. Too loud. I need the quiet of the…
“Don’t say my name,” I interjected.
“…Night.”
The cape of nothingness slipped from my shoulders, and I stood revealed before her. She smiled anew.
“Now there is only us,” she said, as we slipped beneath the surface into the cool, dark, wet.
The End
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Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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