Synopsis
Everything Lauren thought she knew about her childhood and her family seemed so certain and secure, but that ends on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday. For the second year in a row, a curious package arrives by mail, from someone called Sister Enna at the Temple of Osdias. The first package had contained a leather satchel in which she had found a map of a strange land, a wooden box filled with small pottery jars, a dagger and two leather pouches. One pouch held some foreign coins and the second held two necklaces; one a key and the other, an amethyst point, both on gold chains. The satchel and its contents were forgotten, until a second package arrives at her sixteenth year.
Along with a second satchel, which contains a large book, there is a note from Sister Enna, calling for Lauren to return to her true home through a portal. The note prompts Lauren to ask her parents if she had been adopted. They confirm that fact. That same night, Lauren has a dream of exceptional clarity, which she remembers in great detail. It is a dream of people and places from her infancy, which affirms her belief that she is being called back to her true home and family. On the night of the full moon in July, Lauren follows the instructions that were in the note and creates a portal. With both of her satchels over her shoulders, Lauren steps into the portal and returns from exile, into Ecnelis, a world that seems to be as much a different time, as it is a different place.
Lauren arrives in the Temple of Osdias. She meets Sister Enna who answers some of her questions. Long ago, there had been a terrible war against an evil sorcerer, Serussaer, a Sagi, as they are called. Lauren’s parents are also Sagi, along with sixteen others in Ecnelis. Serussaer had discovered a means to enthrall other Sagi, and with it, he was slowly conquering Ecnelis. As the war raged on, eight Sagi came under his spell. They are the Thrallen. The nine Sagi, who were still free, feared this enthrallment. Fear prompted them to bear heirs as part of a desperate plan. Since a Sagi’s power is contained within their books that can only be passed on to blood heirs, they intended to forsake their books and their power by sending the books with their children into exile.
When their situation grew perilous and defeat seemed imminent, they executed their plan and sent their heirs and their books into a place and time, where even Serussaer could not find them. The time has arrived for the heirs to return from exile and Lauren is the last of the nine to return to Ecnelis.
Copyright 2007-2019. P M Christensen. All rights reserved.
