Gods Awakened: Timura Tril - Allan Cole - Mass Market Paperback - 1 ED

PROLOGUE Escape to Syrapis ... And so they flew away on bully winds blowing all the way from far Kyrania ... It may have been the strangest, the saddest, voyage in history. The People of the Clouds mourned the loss of their leader, Safar Timura, who had guided them over thousands of miles of mountains and deserts and spell-blasted blacklands to the shores of the Great Sea of Esmir. A paradise awaited them across that sea: the magic isle of Syrapis, where they would make their new home far away from the evil beings who had driven them from their mountain village in Kyrania. Safar Timura--the son of a potter who had risen to become a mighty wizard and Grand Wazier to a king--had sacrificed his own life so his people might escape. And now a thousand villagers were packed aboard a ragtag fleet of privateers, sailing to Syrapis and safety. High above them a marvelous airship flew over the silvery seas, pointing the way. For many days and weeks the skies remained clear, the winds steady. At any other time there would have been cause for a grand celebration. A feast of all feasts, with roasted lamb and rare wine, children playing and lovers sighing. The world should have been a bright place, full of promise and joy. After months of terror, the Kyranians were free of Iraj Protarus and his ravening shape-changers. But hanging over them was the Demon Moon--an ever-present bloody shimmer--reminding one and all of the doom Safar had predicted would befall the world. More haunting still was the memory of Safar, the handsome young man with the dazzling blue eyes and sorrowful smile. Everyone wept when they learned he had been given up for dead. The mourning women scratched their cheeks and tore their hair. The men drank and regaled one another with tales of Safar's many brave deeds, shedding tears as the night grew late. Lord Coralean, the great caravan master who had hired the ships so they could all escape together, spoke long and memorably about the man who had been his dearest friend. Aboard the airship the circus performers--among them Biner, the mighty dwarf, and Arlain, the dragon woman--worked listlessly at their tasks. They did only what was absolutely necessary: feeding the magic engines, adjusting the atmosphere in the twin balloons that held the ship aloft, manning the tiller to keep them on course. Meanwhile, the decks grew shabby, the material of the balloons drab, the galley fires cold. It seemed impossible to them that Safar would no longer be at their side, amazing the circus crowds with his feats of magic. Sadder still were Safar's parents, Khadji and Myrna, who, even in their deepest night terrors, had never imagined they would outlive their only son. And his sisters mourned Safar so deeply they could not eat or sleep; if their husbands hadn't begged them to desist for the sake of their children, they surely would have died from sorrow. Only four outsiders--a warrior woman, a boy, and his two magical creatures--prevented the voyage from becoming a disaster. When the privateers, seeing the poor morale of the Kyranians, conspired to seize them and their goods--planning to sell the people into slavery--the woman overpowered and slew the raiders' captain. The boy--Safar's adopted son--combined his powers with those of the magical creatures to cast a terrifying spell that paralyzed the pirates with fear and forced them into obedience. The woman was Leiria. The boy--half human and half demon--was Palimak. And the creatures, Gundara and Gundaree, were twin Favorites who had lived in a stone turtle for a thousand years. Then one day the lookout in the airship shouted the joyful news that land was in sight. The little fleet had finally come to the shores of fair Syrapis: the promised land. Except, instead of milk and honey, they found an army waiting on those shores. An army intent on killing them alCole, Allan is the author of 'Gods Awakened: Timura Tril - Allan Cole - Mass Market Paperback - 1 ED' with ISBN 9780345401816 and ISBN 0345401816.