First Lines - The Infinity Mantle

This is the result of a fun exercise I did recently. I took all the first lines from every chapter to see how it would read. Writers are weird, I know!

(will probably do this for the other Lore books also)

Prologue

In a time now passed beyond memory, a man whispered over a golden disc as he set it into a vice.

Part I - Darkness

Rayne rested on the final descent from the high pass, sipping tepid water.

Aven was a self-proclaimed sorcerer.

Samson of the Mye dropped a hoe onto his foot, but that ache was as nothing compared to the one in his head.

With the Medaillon around her neck, Averroes retreated.

He stood on a brown square two by two feet and next to it a green square, then another brown, another green and so on … he was on a giant checkerboard!

Light filtered into the clearing in dancing sunspots.

It was hot and Taranis shifted in bed for a cooler region.

The Sagorin of Glorium lived and died in much the way as other mortals.

Margus paced his chamber, his haven of light in the darkness of the world.

Margus mulled over the news his spies returned with.

A stiff breeze swept the lake, raising white tufted wavelets.

Three thousand years before the present time the human population of Valaris was essentially decimated.

Using magic to travel via doorways through the spaces, insubstantial as a breath of wind, faster than light, they materialized in the clearing.

The five Guardians used the period of waiting to rest, acclimatise and renew in natural light.

He had her measure now.

Valaris’s period of darkness lasted twelve nights and the appearance of the new moon was reason for celebration throughout the land, therefore the capital letter title ‘New Moon’.

Dawn broke through the veil of night when Taranis mentioned it.

Fourteen diverse tasks; they had the essence of the game.

North of the clearing a track led through the trees to a picturesque setting where one of many streams lacing the Forest floor widened into a deep, green pool.

What lay beyond the Forest came as a shock to the northerners.

They started out early, hoping to make good progress before the heat of the day.

Captain Bertin was the complete opposite of his mother.

The horizon vanished in an enormous mass of dirty thunderheads, pressing down on the surface of the heaving ocean, rushing insanely closer.

Resourceful McSee was a hero.

The land was inhospitable; huge, windswept boulders, barren sand, stunted trees, grey and dun.

Margus left his citadel and world and transferred to the uninhabited moon orbiting the small planet the Valleur called Ardosia.

They left the turbulent ocean behind to enter the Gatherers’ Circle.

Situated on the western coast of Tor Island, Actar experienced the excessive heat of the summer season.

Actar, during the day, recovered from its nightly excesses.

They dispersed after the morning’s revelations, needing time away from discussion, debate and information, from knowledge.

Part II - Arcana

In the beginning, if there is a beginning, Mother Universe was empty and lonely; thus, children were born for her enjoyment, and her grief.

Two thousand years after the remaining Valleur settled on Valaris, a scant three years after the completion of Mantra’s palace, Vannis awakened from deep sleep in the dead of night.

Five hundred years later, Vannis approached his seven thousandth Naming Day.

The space warp was ensorcelled into Valaris’s atmosphere after Mantra, last to go, dematerialised.

From the main balcony, Vannis saw the hundreds of fires of the human encampment.

Part III - Rayne

Averroes huddled for warmth and comfort before her small fire.

Aven was full of questions, which Averroes answered simply.

A distinctive alteration to the horizon.

“I’ll not be joining you,” Aven announced. “I’ve decided to remain here.”

Varelie screamed and bolted from her warm bed into her father’s lap.

It gave him pleasure after all, taking on the Golden.

They waited for Vannis.

Vannis stared down at Dante.

When Vannis found the Centuar in a meadow a fair distance from the Palace, Belun was all he found there.

Vannis requested a space to find equanimity in before they rejoined the team and thus Rayne accessed an image in his mind of a clearing much like the one the team waited in.

Margus turned away.

Epilogue

Valleur possess added biology that allows them to breathe air alien to humankind, a fortunate situation given where the scatterlings of Ardosia were forced to ground.