Wednesday 1 June 2016

The Conjurers - Release Day Alert + Excerpt

This sounds like it's a really good read!
It's releasing today, so get your hands on it asap.


The Conjurers
by David Waid


The knowledge of magic that returned with crusaders from the Holy Land has spread among the learned few. The world stands poised on a knife’s edge between two futures—science or sorcery—and a cabal of ruthless wizards pursues three young people who can tip the balance forever.

A war for magic in the Middle Ages.

Orphaned in the year 1380, Eamon and Caitlin flee their home in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland. The siblings can pacify savage wolves and control forces of nature, but only the murderers hunting them know why.

As Eamon and Caitlin fight for survival, Teresa de Borjas, the spirited daughter of a Genovese nobleman, develops an inexplicable ability to move objects with her mind. When her brother is murdered and her father imprisoned through machinations of the reclusive alchemist, Maestro Lodovicetti, her sheltered life changes forever.

Journeys of discovery and the pursuit of blood vendetta bring Eamon, Caitlin and Teresa together across the stunning backdrop of medieval Europe. The three must master their powers and defeat a cabal of the world’s greatest magi or be killed as the Age of Kings comes to an end and a tyranny of sorcerers begins.


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Excerpt:

The fatigue of sleepless nights and the end of so many terrors created a soft void Teresa yearned to fall into. She fought it, however, sitting cross-legged on the bed with her damp tresses, rubbing her eyes to keep them open. The Maestro’s heavy tome lay on her blanket and for a long time she sat staring at it, gooseflesh rising on her arms. People had been burned for possessing books like this. Words of condemnation warred in her mind with the urgings her brother’s shade had spoken in her head.
Finally, taking a deep breath, she leaned forward and drew the libram into her lap. She traced her fingers over the intricate weave of designs stamped on its leather cover. In places the beige had worn smooth and glossy. In others it was darkened from what seemed to be the fingers of a thousand centuries. The thing had brass corner bosses and two intricately worked metal clasps, cold to the touch. She closed her eyes, undid the clasps and gingerly opened the cover.
The parchment pages were old, yellow and dry beneath her fingers, with a thick, musty smell. The words were in Latin, a language Father Hugh had taught her well. She began to turn the crackling pages, looking at the illuminations, studying the carefully written words.

There is no title for this work. Its forbears were scrolls of brittle papyrus, destroyed in the burning of Ptolemy’s library after my copies had been made. Yet through these copies, and by my hand, the unaltered, unbroken lineage of their knowledge is preserved.

It is said that this is first of the seven volumes of the angel, Hocroel, originally spoken to Avichai of Tyre and scribed in the city of Tanan so that certain secrets might not perish and man not forget the one hundred sacred names of God the Creator.

Teresa read on, hands shaking, unable to take her eyes from the book. It purported to contain signs and rituals that could be used to control the elements, summon or constrain spirits, augur the future and make mutable the shape of all things. As she read, the fatigue she’d been feeling sank deep in her bones. Her face became warm as if she had a fever and the sockets of her eyes grew hot.
The book claimed knowledge from a time when the Witch of Endor summoned a dead seer for King Saul in Gibeah. It was knowledge that had been passed down through the kings of Israel and Judah and no one, it said, should fear taint from such powers as Solomon himself was said to wield.

No evil is in this name, Magien, for this same signifies in the Greek tongue a philosopher, and in the Hebrew tongue a scribe, and in the Latin tongue it signifies wise. There is no thing or art in this world that is not created by God’s hand and it is by His art of Magick that man is brought closer to His wisdom.

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DAVID WAID is the author of the historical fantasy novel, The Conjurers, which releases through Amazon on June 1st. He has also published the fantasy short stories, Wicked and Loving Lies and The Festival of Rogues. David lives in Arizona with his wife of 22 years, three kids, and a craven, food-obsessed puggle whose name means “Battle Lord” in Gaelic.

Find David online:
website - Amazon

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