This is a description for Pivot of Fate, written by Lela Markham. The short can be found in Breakwater Harbor Books' newly released anthology, Gateways!
In a medieval world, history and literature are transmitted orally by bards and folk sitting round fires in the evening. Imagine a group of travelers in a caravanserie in the east of Celdrya in the world of Daermad. The travelers take turns telling tales while they digest their evening meal. The bard’s work next falls to a young teamster with wide shoulders and a pleasant smile. Duglys leans back against a log as the fire light washes his face and he launches into a controversial tale of racial and religious integration attempted and lost.
The rig of Clarcom said the neighboring and now-hated Kin massacred peaceful Celts at Ama’na, but Duglys was there and tells a different story involving some of the main characters of the Daermad Cycle.
An excerpt...
Pivot of Fate
by Lela Markham © 2015
I mean to tell the tale of Ama’na, what the Kin called Peace River – for that was what they hoped to find there – peace with the Celt over a subject we could both agree upon … horses. It became much more than that, much better if not for … where people are involved you can never find paradise.
My name is Duglys and my father was a horse drover who took us to Ama’na when I was 12, hoping to breed better horses. Our family tumbled about for a good many years before we came to roost. I lost my taste for the rambling life at Peace River, but you do what you have to do in this world.
The Celt call it the Southern Confluence now, but the Kin – what the Celt call the Fey -- called it Peace River. That’s what Ama’na translates as, you see. That were the hope and it started well enough. The community had been growing for a few years when we arrived and they’d settled the worst of the conflicts.
When I say conflicts – you shouldn’t confuse the way it turned out with how it started. It were a beautiful place and beautiful people.
We called it Peace River because that were what we were after – peace. I don’t think anyone were looking for paradise, but they were hoping for a place where Celt and Kin could be friends and raise some wonderful horses. My mam would have said it were a good place to raise children – a place where young ones could run freely and even strangers wouldn’t harm them.
It were a wondrous place to raise horses. Ama’na were on the other side of the lake from Clarcom … far enough from civilization that there were no uninvited noses to enter our business, but close enough that we could take horses to market when we like. It were right at the end of a Kin trail … they’d used the meadows between the two streams for generations. Some of the early Celt settlers called it the confluence because the two streams – small rivers really – came together just off the mountains and then spilled toward the lake as one. The grass grew lush and green and the lake was filled with eating fish. It had everything a drover were looking for to raise horses and a nice community besides.
In a medieval world, history and literature are transmitted orally by bards and folk sitting round fires in the evening. Imagine a group of travelers in a caravanserie in the east of Celdrya in the world of Daermad. The travelers take turns telling tales while they digest their evening meal. The bard’s work next falls to a young teamster with wide shoulders and a pleasant smile. Duglys leans back against a log as the fire light washes his face and he launches into a controversial tale of racial and religious integration attempted and lost.
The rig of Clarcom said the neighboring and now-hated Kin massacred peaceful Celts at Ama’na, but Duglys was there and tells a different story involving some of the main characters of the Daermad Cycle.
An excerpt...
Pivot of Fate
by Lela Markham © 2015
I mean to tell the tale of Ama’na, what the Kin called Peace River – for that was what they hoped to find there – peace with the Celt over a subject we could both agree upon … horses. It became much more than that, much better if not for … where people are involved you can never find paradise.
My name is Duglys and my father was a horse drover who took us to Ama’na when I was 12, hoping to breed better horses. Our family tumbled about for a good many years before we came to roost. I lost my taste for the rambling life at Peace River, but you do what you have to do in this world.
The Celt call it the Southern Confluence now, but the Kin – what the Celt call the Fey -- called it Peace River. That’s what Ama’na translates as, you see. That were the hope and it started well enough. The community had been growing for a few years when we arrived and they’d settled the worst of the conflicts.
When I say conflicts – you shouldn’t confuse the way it turned out with how it started. It were a beautiful place and beautiful people.
We called it Peace River because that were what we were after – peace. I don’t think anyone were looking for paradise, but they were hoping for a place where Celt and Kin could be friends and raise some wonderful horses. My mam would have said it were a good place to raise children – a place where young ones could run freely and even strangers wouldn’t harm them.
It were a wondrous place to raise horses. Ama’na were on the other side of the lake from Clarcom … far enough from civilization that there were no uninvited noses to enter our business, but close enough that we could take horses to market when we like. It were right at the end of a Kin trail … they’d used the meadows between the two streams for generations. Some of the early Celt settlers called it the confluence because the two streams – small rivers really – came together just off the mountains and then spilled toward the lake as one. The grass grew lush and green and the lake was filled with eating fish. It had everything a drover were looking for to raise horses and a nice community besides.
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