Black Magic ~~ Shapeshifter!

Goran uses shape-shifting to visit

the other 'powers' who dwell on his mountain

  

           Goran turned and found himself standing on a high rock shelf above a hollow filled with thorns. He saw the eyes, gazing out at him. Glowing, bright living eyes, green fire! He’d only thought of the Great Boar, the eyes in the thicket down in the oak woods—and suddenly, he was there.

            I thought you might be here.

            And so I am, Great One.

            What is it about that particular rock, Lord, that you like so much?

            Wanting to make some sort of an answer, Goran gazed down at his feet and then rather wished he hadn’t. It was shocking to see what they had become, his legs ending in the talons of a bird of prey. The rock below was ordinary granite, dotted with a few white flecks of marble. As he did this, a little puzzled, a buzzing rush of energy blasted into his feet.

     Aha! This rock is an excellent place, full of power!

                               

~ Juliet Waldron ~

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Cave of the Red Horse

November Sale: 

RED MAGIC, Book 1 of the Magic Colours series: 

 $.99 at most e-book retailers:

 

 

The enigmatic, treacherous Rossmann shows Caterina a magical place, one that he has known since his childhood...

 

His tone was encouraging--and his light was receding--so, having no other choice, Caterina dropped to her knees and followed.  After a few twists and turns of scuffling, claustrophobic crawling after his outline, she saw him get to his feet.  When she reached the same spot, he extended a hand to help her up.             

The candle flickered. Caterina saw that they were at the bottom of a dripping, and, except for the dim candle light, utterly black, fissure.  Rossmann was turning, shining the candle on the walls, seeking and finally finding the mouth of yet another hole.    

"Inside of this one is what the old ones painted.  It's just as I told you the night Star dropped her foal.  You‑‑of all people‑‑must see."

"What?  I thought you were showing me an escape."          

"It's through here."  On hands and knees, neatly balancing the light, Rossmann disappeared again.      His enthusiasm for the tour they were making seemed high, innocent.  Cat swallowed back her fear, got down on her knees again and awkwardly followed him.   

After a blessedly short crawl, she found Rossmann and the light again.  He had already got to his feet and held the candle high.     

As soon as Cat looked up, she forgot her fear.  The walls of this tiny space were covered with paintings, paintings of animals.  The colors were bright and fresh, the execution spirited.    She recognized cattle, elk, deer and horses, but besides these more ordinary creatures, there were animals she'd never seen before.  One, very large, was bulky, furry and seemed to be sporting a trunk.  "An‑‑an‑‑elephant?"  She'd had to make a brief mental search to find the name of the creature.  "Here?  On these plains?"           

"Yes," Rossmann answered.  "So it seems.  It must have been much wetter then.  Elephants are very big, you know, eat very much."    

"Have you seen elephants, Herr Rossmann?"

  "Yes.  They are wise, perhaps the wisest of creatures, and they are very, very dangerous to their keepers."      

"Where did you see them?"   

His small bright eyes turned on her, dark and sardonic.  "In Africa," he said.      

"I thought these lands were your home place."        

"They are, but I've traveled." The mystery of Rossmann seemed never ending. 

Cat returned to studying the beauty and energy portrayed on the walls, tried to ignore the persistent unsettled feeling she'd had from the moment they'd entered the cave.        

Among, and sometimes atop, the gamboling animals were hand prints, spirals and squiggly lines.  In spite of the fresh, bright colors, Cat instinctively felt that this had been painted a very long time ago.

"This is the Cave of the Red Horse," said Rossmann.  "It's a place a woman with your gift should see."    

He raised the candle high and threw light upon a painting Cat hadn't noticed.  Almost directly overhead, a huge red  horse galloped.  A long legged foal was in full stretch, close by its mother's side.    

"Oh!  She's beautiful!" Cat exclaimed.    

After a moment, Rossmann's eyes lowered from contemplation of the ceiling. 

"Yes.  She's the guardian of the cave, the center of power.  Long ago a witch lived here.  It was said that if a man took her, he'd be a Lord with many sons, many cattle and horses.  If her magic resisted him, though, he must die..."      
       

 

 

Red Magic

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WHITE MAGIC ~ excerpt

And to follow RED MAGIC and BLACK MAGIC is WHITE MAGIC, which is still in progress.

The MAGIC COLOURS series will highlight a different sort of "magic" in each story. In WHITE MAGIC, we'll hear from young teen Charlize von Hagen, who is taken from Austria to England when her mother, Mina, who is Goran's twin, marries an English gentleman.

 

Red Magic

 

 

 

 

 

"My name is Charlize von Hagen. I live in England now. Sometimes I miss Austria where I went between two big houses. The first house was really Grandma’s, down in the green valley of the River Inn. The other, my favorite, was on the high mountain manor of Heldenberg.

 

We left because my mother got married. Lord Thomas is a nice man, an English gentleman, and because Mama wasn’t married before he came along, she was happier afterward because she was almost respectable again. You see, all her friends had turned against her when she had a baby - me - before she had a ring.

 

I was happy too, when she married Lord Thomas. At first, mostly because she was happy with him and then because I learned he understood me. He still does, although he sometimes also says I’m ‘wayward’ and that most people would have me beaten with a strap every day in hope it would make me act like a lady and not a “like a two-legged mastiff puppy.” He doesn’t spank anymore, although he did sometimes when I was younger. He hit especially hard the time I was playing with Mama’s spaniels and we ran into the maid so that she dropped and broke a very fine tea set. Mama says he doesn’t beat me because I act better now and because I am older and because he is a kind person. Besides, he thinks I can’t help myself because I am a little bit mad.

 

Truly!

 

This is not rude of him. I am a little mad, because I see things and hear things that other people do not. I get scared sometimes about what I see and what I hear, those things that others can’t.  What’s scariest of all is when I try to escape from all of that and then realize I can’t, because the things I’m most scared of are “in my head” and part of me. That’s what Thomas, who is a doctor, understood about me. He said that it sometimes happened to him, too, after he’d spent years and years in the dreadful wars and 'seen too many terrible things'. 

 

He and my Mama, too, appreciate what I feel, but I don’t make them happy when I panic. My fear scares them as much as it scares me.

 

English people just say it’s all “Germany” where we are from, but that’s only the language. We are not Germans, anyway, my mother says, but Austrians, and so that makes us more refined. We  have an Emperor. All the Germans have is a lot of little bitty countries like Saxony,  Westfalia, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, Wurttemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, and also some cities that are ruled by archbishops. The land of the German-speakers is a patchwork.

 

My mother is very beautiful, a twin, and born into an old and noble Austrian family.... 

My baby nurse, Trudchen, remained at Heldenberg with my Aunt Birgit, who is like a sister to me because we were only born a week apart.  At first I really missed her terribly and cried whenever I thought about her. My Mama had taken care of both of us after my grandmother was killed in the great avalanche, the one which came during the year with no summer. Uncle Goran, Mama’s twin, still lives on the mountain. He stays there all the time now, although he too was once a handsome, brave soldier, in the wars with Napoleon for years and years, just like Lord Thomas.

 

But Uncle Goran has changed.

 

 

Black Magic

 

 

It’s not his fault, but now he’s Krampus sometimes and a stag sometimes. Mama says he can be any kind of animal he wants, or bits and pieces of several, all stuck together. Thomas says that’s what the ancient Greeks called a chimera. But Uncle Goran’s other selves are a black secret.

 

 

I’m really not supposed to talk about any of it. Sometimes, though, if I want to sound crazy to someone I don’t like, I talk about it anyway...

~~ Juliet Waldron

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BLACK MAGIC

#frifreebits

To follow last week's excerpt from RED MAGIC, here's something from the sequel, BLACK MAGIC, a shape-shifter adventure, in the MAGIC COLOURS series.

Goran, a newborn at the end of RED MAGIC, is now a man grown, confronting a dangerous adversary, an sinister, predatory neighbor.

 http://amzn.com/B00P9TW046

 

            Goran rode to the Raptor’s Nest like a mad man. Bem struggled to keep up. About a half mile from the place, in the hollow below the rise from which he and Thomas had surveyed the house just two weeks past, he drew up.

            “My Lord?” Bem, when he arrived, shouted over the blowing of his horse and the restless stamping of Turk.

            “I want you to take Turk and then ride like a wind out of hell back to Heldenberg House.”

            “What?”

            “Yes. You don’t need to be here. It’s going to be dangerous—more than you know.”

            “I’m your man, sir! I belong at your side.”

            “If I can’t deal with this by myself—you won’t be able to do much besides accompany me to death’s door. I want you safe and at the house, because someone will have to account for all this to my sister and to Lord Thomas. If I don’t return—everyone must clear out of there at once.”

            “I won’t be able to account for anything if I’m not present.”

            Scowling, Goran swung down. He handed Turk’s reins up to Bem.

            “Damn you! Do as I say! If the Count’s as powerful as I fear, he already knows we’re here.”
            “I swore to your sister I’d stick with you.”

            “Bem! Obey me!”

            Bem could only stare, for as he spoke, Goran’s long proud face started to flow. Horns white as bone, emerged from his high forehead. As the change began, both horses snorted, reared, and then plunged away from the fearsome chimera now taking shape.

 

***

 

            Bem was gone, clinging to his horse’s mane for dear life, now gone out of sight over the ridge. Turk had high-tailed away it even faster. Goran had stood and watched them go, sending feathers of terror to chase after them. He wanted to be certain that all were well away from The Raptor’s Nest before he entered. 

 

            No reason for any more deaths, except, perhaps, for mine, which is, the last ten years considered--probably overdue.

 

            For some reason, the thought calmed him. He could feel the horns retracting, his jaw and teeth returning to normal size. He had swollen inside his clothes and burst a button here and there, but after a few minutes, he was simply a man again, a gentleman in an old riding coat.

 

            It was as Goran von Hagen that he would enter the Count’s home.

 

            The Count probably realized that his new neighbor was more than he seemed, but there was no need to show it immediately. The Count liked games, liked to play with his victims before he killed!

 

            Well, Goran thought, two monsters can play at this game...

~~Juliet Waldron

 

See all my historical novels at

http://www.julietwaldron.com

 

and

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet

 

http://amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS