Forest & Kingdom Balance (40 page)

FAR LANDS: The intense personal training given to
his agents allows the Red Knight to sense their deaths. He only
knows that they died violently somewhere in the mountains. He
resolves to solve this riddle personally, but first he needs to
deal with Kale’s plot to overthrow him.

The Red Knight invites Kale and Kalibra to his
citadel to celebrate her successful military campaign as well as
her 21st birthday. When Kalibra arrives virtually unguarded and
without her father, the Red Knight knows that Kale will attack
almost immediately. He imprisons Kalibra and prepares for open
war.

FOREST: After the fact, the Caretaker pieces
together who the agents were and how they came to be in the
Kingdom. He perceives the Red Knight’s interest in the Warded
Mountains and buys time by interfering in the Red Knight’s war with
Kale. For the next 4 years, the Caretaker subtly supplies Kale with
all of the Red Knight’s plans and knowledge of his tactics as well
as unmasking his spies. Time and again the Red Knight and Kale
battle to a stalemate.

YK 3357

KINGSPORT: The Caretaker and Catherine enlist
Tressan’s help to keep an eye on Kingsport. Between manipulating
the Red Knight’s war, instructing Dionara, John’s Sentinel
training, and the normal tasks of Sentinel duty, they have their
hands (minds) full. Tressan joins the Palace Guard in
Kingsport.

YK 3358

FAR LANDS: Yamikura kills the entire Crimson Guard.
When the Red Knight arrives, he bargains with the warrior, and then
offers him the post of captain of the Crimson Guard.

YK 3359

FAR LANDS: Frustrated and baffled by his inability
to defeat Kale, the Red Knight offers Kalibra the leadership of his
army and the prize of her mother’s lands and title if she defeats
her father.

FOREST: Kalibra’s intuitive methods and erratic
behavior neutralize any help the Caretaker can give. Despite his
best efforts, Kalibra is able to defeat her father. It only takes
her two years.

YK 3361

FAR LANDS: With the Kale’s final stronghold taken,
and Kale himself dead, the Red Knight turns over his affairs to his
steward and makes preparations to leave for Kingsport. During the
war he has taken Kalibra as a lover and asks if she would like to
accompany him. She agrees.

YK 3362 MAY

KINGSPORT: The Red Knight and Kalibra arrive in the
new lands to find their task complicated by an idiot king, a
duplicitous High Councilor, and a slave population with stronger
flames than the citizens.

FOREST & KINGDOM: Shortly before her 21st
birthday, Dionara takes a trip with her friend Froggy to visit his
mythical ‘Enchanted Forest.”

V

About the Author

Hello,
(and thank you!)
I
hope you’ve enjoyed the story.

I am a visual storyteller by trade. I’ve created
imagery in one form or another most of my life as a photographer,
graphic designer, and motion graphics designer. I grew up
enthralled by classic science fiction. McCaffrey, Heinlein,
Herbert, Dickson, and E. E. (Doc) Smith were a few of my favorites.
As science fiction matured through the second half of the twentieth
century, I found myself longing for an earlier style that seemed to
have gone out of vogue. The solution was to write the story I
wanted to read, which happened quite by accident.

I started writing for recreation in 1993. One day in
1999 I sat down to write an e-mail to a friend and have a little
fun. My thought was to give the ‘princess and the frog’ fairytale a
playful twist. Okay, she was a cute friend and my intent was to
flirt with her shamelessly. However that is beside the point. After
all, many great endeavors have begun with nothing more than a
little harmless flirting. Just ask Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and
Queen Isabella of Spain to say the least!

I never did send my friend an e-mail that day
because fourteen hours later I found myself still writing. For the
next fifteen years I made a hobby out of contemplating what the
world of ‘Forest & Kingdom’ would be. Over the years the story
world became richer and deeper as my life experience grew.

The overall story arc has two more parts. Hopefully
they will come to fruition a bit quicker than the first. I have the
story arc’s general direction, but I’m quite content not to know
the details until they wondrously appear in front of me as I write.
I believe that the first rule in life is this:

Always leave a little room for magic.

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