New Kindle SF/alternate history novel

[Vicariot]

Hi all,

I invite you to check out my just-published novel, The Destiny Fog, about love, war, and the control of destiny, available on Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Destiny-Fog-ebook/dp/B006QBRNA2/

Borne and Trieste are young lovers from radically different backgrounds, on a world shaped by mysterious entities known as the Guardians. These guides established a stable and prosperous path for humanity to follow, but are now gone, and the world faces its greatest crisis in history -- a catastrophic volcanic eruption has led to famine, disease, and war. Borne is wounded on the field of battle and struggles to survive. Trieste, torn in multiple directions, must choose between following her heart and following her sense of duty. And the leading adherents of the Guardians struggle to keep global society from collapsing entirely.

If you are looking for something different, please check it out. 

Thanks!
A.A.

[Ann in Arlington]

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[Vicariot]

A brief excerpt from The Destiny Fog (see link below):

PROLOGUE

As it had done ceaselessly since birth, the terminator marched westward across the planet, shrouding its surface in darkness. Clusters of feeble lights winked on just ahead of the terminator line, as if to deny it complete victory, and struggled for a while behind it. The lights were a recent phenomenon, beginning in the latest millionth of the terminator’s existence.

Some two hours after one of these terminator passes, an orange spot appeared on the darkened planet. The spot grew brighter and brighter, quickly dwarfing the other lights distributed nearby. Such spots had appeared countless times during the terminator’s long existence, but this one appeared brighter than most.

Ten hours later, returning illumination revealed a thick, dark grey cloud billowing from one of the larger islands in the great ocean. The cloud drifted east across the island and over the water, gradually broadening and diffusing. The plume continued to grow with each cycle of darkness and light, forming vast swirls over the oceans and continents. The swirls multiplied, forming bands across the equator and latitudes near either pole. These thickened and coalesced, until eventually, the entire planet was shrouded in grey.

[Vicariot]

Another excerpt from The Destiny Fog (see link below):

     Borne lay face down on the hillside, blood pooling beneath him and staining the snow red. At first, he wasn’t sure where he was, or even if there was a “he” that existed. Lights danced meaninglessly in circles, followed by burning waves of fire. The biting cold of the snow snapped him awake. F- it all! I’ve been shot! What happened? Where is everyone?
     Borne looked around him. He was on a forested mountain slope. Steep, rise equaling the run. The snow wasn’t too deep where he had fallen, just a few centimeters. Borne thought he could see the ridge above, but knew such sights could be misleading. Often enough, just as you thought you were nearing the top of a mountain, there was a whole section beyond, and you discovered you still had a long way to go. The spruce and fir trees were large, maybe forty to fifty meters tall, and well over a meter in trunk diameter. He wasn’t alone after all; there were corpses sprawled under the trees. His comrades. The 5th Legion, 2nd Group, 1st Detachment, 1st Unit, 6th Squad. And maybe some of the other squads. That looks like Sgt. Krint up ahead. I thought she was indestructible.
     Borne’s stomach burned. He looked down and saw blood seeping from beneath his jacket, and out of a hole in the middle. Suddenly, it began to hurt a lot more. Borne tore his clumsy gloves off, unbuttoned the heavy grey jacket (why couldn’t they issue white ones?), and opened it. His shirt was soaked with blood, and he began to panic. This can’t be good. Ok, ok, focus. Relax. Focus. Borne felt his mind ease a bit, and pulled up his shirt and undershirt.
     There was a circular hole in Borne’s abdomen, just above and to the right of his belly button. Blood trickled out in an unbroken stream. The panic returned. He clamped a hand over the hole reflexively.
     Well, at least the bullet missed his lungs, and hopefully the liver and stomach. He could live with shorter intestines. They can fix that. He reached around back and felt the exit wound, bringing on paralyzing spasms of pain. Bigger than the entrance wound, as he expected. What kind of damage had the bullet caused on its way through, cavitating through his intestines and turning them to liquid? He stopped. This was fruitless.
     Borne pulled off his backpack and rummaged through it until he found the medical kit. Basically some ointments, bandages, and a painkiller to keep you from screaming your head off.  Borne washed the wound from his water bottle, trying not to use too much. He could see the entrance hole clearly now, almost perfectly round. He opened the antibiotic ointment bottle and started to rub its contents onto the wound. Blinding waves of pain told him that was a bad idea. Tossing aside the ointment bottle, Borne opened the bandage roll and wrapped the entire thing around his stomach, covering both entrance and exit wounds, and fastening the ends with pins. It wouldn’t stop the bleeding, but it would slow it at least. He tore the painkiller out of its paper wrapping and swallowed it, following it with a sip of water.
     Borne lay back, exhausted. His head ached too. He probed his forehead with his index and middle fingers, finding a large knot on the right side. There was blood on the fingertips when he pulled them back. Must have hit my head on something. Probably the tree trunk. He silently cursed at the fir tree next to him, then berated himself for being silly.
     There’s got to be more soldiers up here. Borne called out for help. Hearing no reply, he tried again. Again, nothing. His stomach groaned with the pain from exercising his diaphragm. When is that painkiller going to kick in? Borne looked around again, carefully in every direction. He could see dozens of comrades, more than just his squad, motionless on the steep hillside. Also, rifles and other gear apparently dropped in haste. What… what happened?
     What would he do now? He couldn’t get back down the mountain, not like this. A signaling device would be nice, even a mirror. But they hadn’t thought to include that among the gear for mere squaddies. At least there was plenty of snow if he ran out of water.
     Borne turned his attention to the locket around his neck. The locket, now defiled in blood, had been expertly crafted, and looked expensive. A palm-sized silver disk hung securely from a double chain, also of silver. A crest was engraved on the outside of the disk, depicting a leaping dolphin and a giant elk surrounded by abstract wind gust flourishes and a twining wreath of grape vines and olive branches. Borne wiped the blood off the locket, carefully twisted the latch, and swung the front back on its hinges, revealing a highly detailed color photograph laminated to the inside back surface. He twisted the chains to orient the photograph upright.
     Trieste’s beautiful green-brown eyes gazed longingly at Borne from the photograph in the locket. Her long, dark brown hair swept to either side of her face and cascaded down her shoulders, obscuring one of her elaborate silver earrings, but leaving the other to accentuate the tip of her left earlobe and her smooth, light olive cheek. Her face was tilted very slightly downward, and her faintly pink lips were partly open, as if beginning to say, “I love you.”

[Vicariot]

Another excerpt from The Destiny Fog (see link below):

      Percifal Elder, Primary of Gyllene, sat in his office in the Palace’s Advisory Building, staring beyond its glass-fronted oak bookcases, searching for something that eluded his grasp. The leather-upholstered swivel chair behind his polished teak desk was perfect for reflection: comfortable, but not so plush that he might fall asleep, yet another problem he had to worry about at his age. Percifal was thinking about The Drift, the changes in attitudes and power structures in the thousand years since the Guardians had last appeared. It was slight – the People still followed the original Teachings. And he doubted rural life had changed much. But the concentrations of power and wealth, among the ruling Ithego family of Gyllene for example, had never been seen before. Nor had the sense of national pride, gnawing away at the pillars of Family and World. The Drift was like being caught in a rip current and pulled inexorably away from shore. It was hard to notice day by day, but over the past millennium, society had moved well away from the Path of the Guardians.
      The Guardians had always been with them before, even if only appearing once per century or so at global Conclaves. The first Teachings had been intensive, guiding the People from primitive nomadic hunter-gatherers to an enlightened agricultural society, and setting the stage for today’s industrial world. But after a hundred years of teaching, the Guardians had departed, only reappearing periodically to impart what seemed to be critical knowledge at just the right time. No one knew where they came from, since written records began only after their arrival, and they never volunteered the information, even when asked. Likewise, no one knew how to contact them. It had been a one-way relationship.
      About a thousand years ago, the Guardians had announced that the People were ready to stand on their own, and had not been seen since. Percifal was skeptical. He did not like the little signs of instability creeping in, like the increasing resource extraction, the border incidents, the power asymmetries, the elaborate parties the nobility liked to throw... Some even questioned the existence of the Guardians, claiming they were an elaborate ruse by the nobility and Teachers to control the Folk. Percifal supposed there had always been skeptics, but the number was growing.
      And now, they faced upheavals following the greatest disaster in recorded history. The eruption of Mount Pagkawasak, the darkened skies, the long winters, and the cold, rainy summers had been followed by famines, pestilence, and violence.
      A low beeping noise and the flash of the code light on his wirecom jolted Percifal out of his thoughts. He had been expecting the call. Percifal flipped a switch, punched in a long code on the 10-digit keypad, and removed the heavy black headset from its cradle, placing the sound pads over his ears, and swiveling the voice transmitter in front of his mouth.
      “This is Percifal,” he answered, forgoing the usual formalities.
      “Kitava.” Her voice sounded tired and resigned. Not good. Kitava Elder, Primary of the Equatorial Islands, was perhaps the Conclave’s top expert on timeline prediction. “We’ve run the scenarios ten thousand times each, and get convergences with extremely high probabilities, followed by chaotic phase shifts.”
      The computational modeling center in the rainforests of far-off Roghaqua utilized a parting gift of the Guardians, the Mathematical Assistant, used to perform computations too difficult or time-consuming to do by hand or with mechanical calculators. Only a select, dedicated few knew this machine even existed, but they found it invaluable.
      “So all the scenarios point toward catastrophe?” Percifal asked.
      “Yes, the conflicts will multiply, many realms will collapse, especially on your continent, and ripple effects will undermine confidence in our institutions and end worldwide cooperation. Recovery will take between 500 and 1000 years.”
      “And what is the nature of the phase shifts?”
      “There is a high likelihood the People will abandon the Way, and follow different historic courses, all with chaotic undercurrents. It is hard to predict the nature of these courses, and what their relative probabilities are, and the further we project into the future, the less certainty we have.”
      “Then what do we do?” Percifal asked. “Certainly we cannot just sit back and watch. The Guardians set us on a predictable course for a reason, to prevent chaos and disasters.”
      Kitava replied, “Whatever we can to minimize the area, duration, and intensity of the disturbances. If we handle things correctly, this is also an opportunity to correct the Drift.”
      “I wish the Guardians would return,” Percifal said. “They would know what to do, and the rulers and people would listen to them, probably follow whatever they recommend. Like in the past. We lack that kind of influence.” The Conclave’s influence has been waning steadily, and the People are losing their way. “And we don’t even know what the Guardians foresaw for us.”
      “We can guess where they wanted us to go, based on past history, the Teachings, and what they’ve said to Conclaves. But it is probably safer just to correct the drift, and put the People back on the course we were on when the Guardians left.”
      Percifal asked, “What if we have reached a nexus? A transition point? Perhaps the Guardians foresaw this crisis and expect major changes in human society and development. If we don’t know what the Guardians had planned, our actions could be counterproductive.”
      “If we are indeed at a transition point, the Guardians would come as they have before, to help steer us. We do not even know if they’re still watching. They’ve never been gone for so long before. Perhaps they meant it when they said we were ready to stand on our own.” After an awkward pause, Kitava’s voice resumed. “The Northern Realms will go to war. There is no avoiding it. What will Gyllene do?”
      Percifal thought carefully, and replied, “Gyllene is allied with the Low Kingdoms. King Olan is a warrior at heart. I think he will want to participate. Especially if it means regaining long-lost territory.”
      “Ah, pride. Have you not counseled your King to follow the Way?”
      “I have done my best, but my influence is limited.”
      After another pause, Kitava said, “We must confer further. I will call again in two days, same time. Rotate the code.”
      “We shall speak then.” Feeling anxious, Percifal added, “We need the Guardians.”
      “The Guardians are gone.”
      “May the Eternal bless us, and light our path.”
      “May the Eternal bless us.”
      Percifal replaced the headset on its cradle, and flipped the switch to the “off” mode. He sighed, and began meditating to calm his feelings of panic.

[Steverino]

Nice to see some more alt hist around here!

The prologue is from the point of view of a terminator line... the boundary between light and darkness.  I've never seen a writer try that POV before.   

Congrats on your first.  Hope you're working on your second!

[Vicariot]

Thanks, Steverino!

I'm working on second and third simultaneously. The second, The Drift Horizon, is a "sidequel" (a parallel timeline) to The Destiny Fog. And I'm working on a cyberpunk thriller set in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2020.

cheers!

[Vicariot]

Another excerpt from The Destiny Fog (see link below):

     Borne hadn’t always wanted to be a Teacher, or been fascinated by books. That had been the doing of his grandfather’s brother, Arbetare Pith Elder. The Arbetare family had been mechanics and small business owners for generations, but Arbetare Pith had followed a different path, becoming a Teacher.  He was now the highest ranking Teacher in Ironton, and had served on the city’s Advisory Council before retiring to a quiet life of contemplation. Borne had been immobilized by an accident on his tenth birthday, but his granduncle’s visits had turned misfortune into a blessing.   
     Like Heddi, Borne’s brothers loved the outdoors. They were avid hunters, and took Borne on a hunting trip on his tenth birthday. Because it was the middle of summer, deer, boar, and other large mammals were out of season. Vicariot theorized this was because the meat was likely to spoil in the heat before it could be eaten.
     Jono disagreed. “No, it’s ’cause it’s easier to see in the fall and winter, after the leaves fall.”
     “That doesn’t make it any easier higher up, above the hardwoods.”
     “Maybe it’s to cull excess animals before the winter, then?”
     Vicariot spread his fingers and turned to Borne. “Whatever, forest grouse are in season, so forest grouse we’ll hunt.”
     “So where do we find them?” Borne asked.
     “Well, the forest grouse prefers old coniferous forests with a sparse canopy, open understory, and a dense ground layer of blueberries. That’s their favorite food. I know just the wilderness area with plenty of grouse and open for hunting.”
     As they began gathering their wilderness gear, Vicariot told Borne, “We’re only allowed to take males during the summer. The females are still raising their chicks. So most hunters wait until the autumn dispersal to take their yearly allotment. But it’s your tenth birthday and you’ve got to shoot something. Just make sure they’re males.”
     Leaving before dawn, Vicariot drove the rehabilitated family vehicle as far into the mountains as the roads would take them, climbing above the beech forest and into the conifers. They parked at the end of an unpaved road, got out, and grabbed their gear.
     Vicariot handed Borne his Nedis 77 rifle. “Father taught you how to shoot. Let’s see how good you are.”
     The rifle was a little big for Borne. He practiced shooting a few rounds until he felt comfortable. Then the three brothers headed up the mountain, through stands of tall pines, firs, and larch.
     Once the slope began to level, Vicariot whispered to Borne, “Start looking. Move slowly and quietly. Don’t hurry. Look and listen as you go. Think where your quarry might be.”
     After a while, they found their first grouse. A solitary dark-feathered bird stood in a large patch of low blueberry shrubs about fifty meters away, eating berries nonchalantly. It was big, maybe a meter long, had a white spot on each wing, and bright red eyebrows.
     “A male,” Jono said. “Too big for a female.”
     Following Vicariot’s instructions, Borne braced the 77 against a tree, aimed at the bird, held his breath, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The crack of the rifle and the jolt against his shoulder startled him despite the practice shots earlier.
     A puff of leaves erupted behind the bird. Startled, it flew off awkwardly.
     “You missed,” Jono said.
     “Let’s go find it,” Vicariot suggested.
     The grouse did not fly very far, up to the top of a tree about a hundred meters away. Borne approached the tree silently, then aimed carefully.
     He squeezed the trigger. Feathers flew off the grouse’s back, it flapped its wings wildly, and dropped to the ground, hitting with a thud.
     “Good shot!” Vicariot said, clapping Borne on the back.
     The three brothers bagged their limit of grouse, two each, and set back down the mountain.
     Going back down, the brothers became separated. Borne was slower than his older brothers, and lagged behind. There was no path to follow, and he couldn’t remember exactly the way they came.  He found himself on a slope that grew steeper and steeper. Eventually, it became a sheer cliff, or close to it. But he could see the road below, tantalizingly close. Borne didn’t want to go all the way back and try to figure out another way down. Vicariot and Jono had the guns and the birds, and Borne was pretty agile, so he decided to climb down.
     Once he began climbing down the cliff, Borne realized he had made a mistake. It was a lot harder than he thought it would be, and the prospect of falling down to the road frightened him. But he was committed now, and climbing back up would be harder. There were small trees and shrubs clinging to the side of the cliff, and Borne used these as handholds and footholds when he could, elsewhere clinging to the rocks and pressing his body against the cliff. He prayed to the Eternal, the first time he had ever done so, to help him down safely. 
     Borne was over halfway down when he got stuck. The next handhold, a shrub growing out of a crack in the rocks, was further than he could reach. He would have to jump for it.
     Borne counted to three; then jumped with all his strength laterally toward the shrub, reaching out with his fingertips as he sailed through the air.
     Luck! He reached the shrub and grasped onto its stems, holding on for dear life, his heart pounding wildly.
     Then, to his horror, the shrub began to pull free from the rocks. It wasn’t strong enough for him. He realized there was nowhere else to go, and panicked as the shrub came out by the roots, branches breaking in the process. He screamed as he fell downward, nothing but air beneath him. Then he hit a pile of scree, heard a snap, and felt a blinding pain in his right leg. He tumbled further downward, bouncing off rocks and through spindly trees, grasping at anything he could to slow the fall, until he finally came to rest. The pain was overwhelming, but mercifully faded to blackness.

[Vicariot]

Another excerpt from The Destiny Fog (see link below):

     The sky had been dark grey and overcast as Borne’s unit set out shortly after dawn. The trees were dark, colorless silhouettes. The sun, only a few degrees over the ridge to the north, shone as a diffuse blob no brighter than the moon. Only the snow was bright enough to see by, reflecting the pale light of the feeble sun.
     The whole 2nd Group, over 5,000 men and women, was headed up the hills to the south of the valley, to clear out the enemy forces that had been harassing 5th Legion over the past month. Borne had no idea what strategy they were following, but that was what brigadiers and generals were for. His unit, the 1st Unit of the 1st Detachment, seemed to be in the center of the Group, with the 2nd Detachment to the west and the 3rd to the east. As he walked, following Sgt. Krint and the footprints of the 2nd Squad, Borne exhaled wispy clouds into the frigid air.
     The sky grew a lighter shade of grey as they approached the stream. Looked like more snow on the way, but the legion’s meteorologist must not have forecast anything worth calling off the attack. The tree silhouettes resolved into greens and browns.
     The hills, which started steep, and then got steeper, were covered with tall conifers. Beyond, Borne could see tall, rugged mountains, the Gerincre range. He saw no signs of movement on the hills except for birds circling overhead. The birds were too far away to see clearly, but if they were ravens… shoot them and make a lot of noise, or risk letting them get close?
     The stream, whose name no one in the squad seemed to know, was about fifteen meters wide. Borne would have called it a river. It was too deep and fast flowing to wade across, but engineers had laid prefabricated steel and wood bridges across in places. First Unit crossed a bridge laid upstream of a bend, and clambered up the opposite bank.
     The snow on the hillside was not very thick for the most part, easily traversable with just boots on. Dead grass protruded from its surface. Sixth Squad, in a spearhead formation with Sgt. Krint in front, followed Second Squad, with others of their unit on the flanks or behind. They followed a drainage swale uphill. Because Borne was accustomed to mountainous terrain, he was in the front of the pack, just five meters behind Sgt. Krint, with the other seven squaddies behind him or to the sides.
     Borne wondered what the day would bring. Contact with the enemy? An all-out battle? Harassment by a few snipers? Or the usual long patrol with nothing to show for it except tired feet? That would be fine with him. But with the entire 2nd Group advancing, he was sure the commanders wouldn’t be satisfied until they had a nice battle on their hands.
     Borne then wondered why he thought of the Mountain Kingdom troops as “the enemy.” Just repeating what everyone said all the time. But they were people just like him, and they were defending their homeland. If anyone was the enemy, it was him. Or more to the point, his country of Gyllene, and especially King Olan. He would protect himself and his squadmates, but wouldn’t do more than that.
     After about an hour and a half, Borne’s squad was about two kilometers past the stream, and had climbed over 700 meters. Alone, Borne could easily have shaved half an hour off this time, but coordinating the advance of 5,000 soldiers was scarcely a trivial task. The ammunition and heavy weapons sleds had slowed them further. The soldiers tried to move silently, relying mostly on hand signals, but with this many people stepping on branches, slipping on icy rocks, losing control of sleds, and occasionally cursing, they might as well have been banging on drums the whole way.
     Borne couldn’t see the top of the hill yet, but thought they were close. That was when the enemy had opened fire. Second Squad, Sixth Squad, and probably the other squads in front, had been decimated before they even knew what was going on. The explosions, probably remote-controlled mines, had done the rest of the damage. Borne didn’t blame the unit for retreating, if that was what you wanted to call an all-out flight back down the hill. Live to fight another day.
     In his case, Borne wanted to live to live another day.

[Vicariot]

Another excerpt from The Destiny Fog (see link below):

   Borne remembered when Trieste gave him the locket. It was the last time he had seen her, and he had replayed the scene over and over in his mind, deriving comfort from it, and his other memories of her, during his darkest hours.
   Trieste and he were standing in a small meeting room of the Hestia Army Station, which was as spotless and nondescript as the rest of the station. The room contained only a varnished pine table to one side, with no chairs. Borne was flanked on either side by a guard, although he didn’t know why they were bothering.
   Borne had a new uniform on, bearing a patch with the Fifth Legion’s golden eagle. The bruises had gone away, but he felt drained from his long ordeal. Trieste, on the other hand, looked stunning. Her tight-fitting top and long skirt accentuated her curves much more than her uniform had, and revealed her lovely cleavage, shoulders, and back. And it was clear she had gone out of her way to make herself attractive, wearing lip and face coloring and her favorite jewelry. She smelt of jasmine and rose blossoms.
   The guards had tried not to stare when Trieste entered. She strode quickly across the room and embraced Borne. They kissed passionately, and held each other silently for a long time. Borne could feel her breasts pressed against his chest, and despite the layers of clothing in between, could sense her heart beat, alive and powerful. 
   At last, Trieste pulled away and spoke. “You’re looking better.”
   “Thanks. You look… well, amazing.”
   Trieste blushed slightly. After a pause, she pulled the locket out of her carry bag, and draped the chains over his neck, following the motion with another kiss. “This is so you don’t forget me.”
   Borne opened the locket for the first time, looked at her picture inside, upside down from his perspective, and closed it again.
   “Thank you,” he said.
   “I love you, you know,” she told him.
   “I love you too. I’ve missed you. More than anything.” 
   Borne turned to the guards. “Can we have some time alone? Maybe an hour?” He looked at Trieste again. “Make it two.”
   The guard on his right, a middle-aged reserve sergeant, laughed. “Not a chance, lover boy.”
   His companion, a young, unsmiling corporal with a deep, branching scar on his left cheek, added, “Come on, hurry this up. Time to go.”
   Trieste kissed Borne again, caressed the side of his head, and gazed into his eyes. Her green-brown eyes fluttered, then focused, and he could sense the depth behind them. “Don’t worry, you’ll be ok,” she whispered. “We’ll see each other again, and until then, remember our best moments together. They’re a part of the Eternal, and will exist always. We’ll be together always. I’m so happy I met you; you’ve made me a different person. I am sure a future exists where we are together again, and our troubles are gone. If we believe it, and act on it, we can make it happen. Everything will be ok.”