Chapter I - The City of Castelmaine

In this installment, I show you the layout of the city of Castelmaine. I hope I got it across well enough. It's essentially a pizza that has been cut into quarters, with a tower at the middle. This whole arrangement is in the middle of a flooded crater. It's a bustling city, something I've never been too great at describing with my usual style of writing. I'm not a great descriptive writer. I usually prefer to just lay out the basics and let the reader fill in the gaps, but with this I'm trying to be a bit more descriptive than perhaps I normally would. I hope it's not too weirdly written.

For a long time I pondered on how to introduce a minotaur as a main character. I needed to make sure the readers understood that I meant 'minotaur' literally, not as some kind of term, but at the same time, I didn't want to give a huge description of exactly what I meant. For me, it's important that the reader understands what is 'natural' (insofar as the word can be applied) in a fantasy world. I felt that a large and detailed description would bog down the prose and detract from that feeling of 'norm'. Again, I hope I managed to get it across okay. 

I will sit down and write a decent chunk at some point - since getting back to Epsom I've not had much time to kick back and get on with it. As always, feedback and comments are greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy it!


High above the city of Castelmaine, two figures crouched on the crenelations of an obsidian tower, peering out across the districts. The city was circular, set on a raised island in the centre of a flooded crater. On all sides of the city was water, and in the far distance, almost at the edge of vision, red mountains crested the horizon. A single great bridge connected Castelmaine's northern district to the rest of the world. This district, the Trade District was populous and well maintained. Slate roofs of all colours capped buildings of smooth white rock, between ran streets of cobbled stone, clean and bright under the morning sun. After the Second Coming, the Trade District had been rebuilt quickly, and with new purpose, such it was that Castelmaine arose from the ashes as a city of peace and prosperity.

White walls divided the city into four quarters, each of these walls meeting at the foot of a great central spire known as the Citadel. The Citadel rose high into the sky, piercing the clouds with its tip, and was seemingly forever wreathed in a magical aura. In truth, none could enter the Citadel willingly, nor breach it by force, for its walls and halls were protected by a magical barrier of great potency.

To the west was the district of Old Town which had been hit hardest by the cataclysms of the Second Coming. Many of these winding streets were still in disrepair, and scaffolding dotted the streets below, the far western wall was breached and several buildings had slide into the water. Ironically, the locals had embraced this and turned it into a makeshift dock that doubled as a reminder of the troubles the people of Old Town had faced. Old Town was the poorest of the districts, and whispers spoke of underground guilds and fouler things still moving in the sewers beneath Old Town.

To the east of the Citadel lay the Glimmering City, spires of crystal, onyx, sapphire, emerald and a hundred other precious stones pierced the sky. Silhouetted, from the streets below they looked like dragons teeth. From above, the district looked almost like a meadow of tall wildflowers. The Glimmering City was home to the vast colleges and universities of knowledge and magics. Each of the vibrant towers represented a different study, each was home to untold mystic artefacts and arcane lore, each was connected to many others by a web-like network of bridges and walkways. Much of this district had been destroyed in the fires, precious magical tomes burnt to ash, powerful trinkets lost of damaged beyond repair, but the universities and guilds had corroborated and rebuilt almost as fast as the Trade District, but much of what was lost could not be so easily recovered. Lost lore would take generations to rediscover and write, but the mages had taken to this new challenge with a strange kind of zeal.

The southern district was vastly different to the others. Beyond the white walls that separated it from Old Town and the Glimmering City, the southern district spread out as an endless verdant forest garden. At this time of year the entire district was abloom with vibrant pink, orange and blue blossoms, with the soft scent of wild berries, a beauty possibly only matched by the endless blaze of autumn, when everything was fiery orange, rust brown and flame red. This was the Veo-Yan Monastery. Every now and then the ground was broken with little brooks and creaks of water that tinkled pleasantly over smooth grey pebbles. The occasional sandstone building rose from the soft grass, it's walls often vine-covered and hidden well behind walls of bracken and leaf. These buildings were the gates to the Monastery proper, a massive labyrinthine underground complex lit, rumour had it, by lines of the most rare and beautiful gems that reflected sunlight from the gates throughout the rest of the monastery. Deep at the heart of the monastery, in a chamber known as the Vault of Karvess, it was said a great darkness was kept locked away from the mortal world. The silent warrior monk elite of the Monastery took their charge very seriously, and none were allowed to set foot beneath the service until their family had spent generations in service to the monastery.

The two figures perched watching the city below like great humanoid ravens, their close fitting clothing a deep black with curved beak-like face-masks that left only their eyes visible, their faces had been blackened with makeup. They gazed down to the streets far below, mages wandering through the distant streets like multicoloured ants, and then back up at each other before silently leaping from their perch and plummeting head first, then spreading their arms out, revealing great leather sheets that created a wing between their wrists and waist. They glided silently far above the south-eastern division wall, circling the Citadel, barely noticeable black forms high in a sunset sky of salmon pink clouds. They came down without sound in a small clearing of trees, the grass below carpeted with silky blossoms of uncountable colours, their padded shoes barely crumpling the petals, so soft were their footsteps. As sudden as they had landed, they had vanished into the darkness of the north eastern verge of the Veo-Yan forest.



Silent though their flight had been, it had not been entirely unnoticed. Castelmaine had seen no war in generations, and the city guard were growing complacent, their armour and weaponry now seeming more ornamental than functional, a symbol of office rather than the tools of conflict. Most of the guard themselves, let alone the populace, saw them as aggrandised watchmen, sometimes called to intervene with small petty situations if required, but their actual post on the walls was viewed as an almost ceremonial tradition from a bygone age. But not all were so complacent.

Auden Marr had watched the two forms gliding descent over the walls and into the southern district where no other had, but then again, he had been looking for them. He stood watching the wall for a few moments, the cool evening air pleasant on his bare chest. He had almost missed them, they were good, granted, but there was very little that got past his eyes, bestial yellow and clear as a spring sky. Two large bovine horns protruded from just above and behind his ears, curving to sharp points just on the edges of his peripheral vision. His bare chest was broad and marked with several scars, old, but deep, and one drew a line from his muzzled face, tracing across his right eye, and down across to his left breast. Another, a deep set of four, tracked near horizontally across his waist. He shook his wild mane, small animal bones woven into his braids clattering delicately together, then turned and jogged swiftly down the cobbled street, hooves clacking against the stones.

"Marr!" came a voice from above. He stopped and looked around a moment before a figure in hooded robes, pallid grey, the colour of a snowy morning, dropped from the rooftops in front of him. The cowl did little to hide the mans face, youthful with bright green eyes and a thin stubbly brown beard. "Unusual to see you this far south. What brings you down to this neighbourhood?"

Marr's face twisted into a slight smile, "Business, Owin, nothing too pleasant." He said with a voice deep and warm, "Didn't realise I was being tracked by the Agate Tower."

"You're losing your skill in your old age, Marr." Owin responded with a broad and cheeky smile, "But you're not being tracked by the Tower, just me. Saw you at the Market Square, wondered what you were up to, thought I'd check it out and see if you'd spot me."

"You're improving." Marr conceded.