D. T. Kane reads chapter 18 of his epic fantasy fiction novel, The Acktus Trials, and discusses the chapter with his audience.
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The Acktus Trials, an epic fantasy novel, available now:
https://dtkane.com/books/the-acktus-trials/
https://books2read.com/theacktustrials
Part II of The Spoken Books Uprising, Declaimer’s Discovery, now available!
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Map of Oration: https://dtkane.com/resources/map-of-oration/
Characters in this Chapter:
Baztian (Baz): Our main character
Rox: Deliritous’s Harbour (bodyguard)
Deliritous: Baz’s master, heir to Torchsire Library
Hellar Xavier: One of the competitors in the Acktus Trials
Trunnel: Hellar’s Influencer (Speaker)
Below are my notes/script for the episode, not a verbatim transcription:
PERSONAL UPDATE
Welcome back to D. T. Kane’s Epic Fantasy Book Club. Today is Saturday, April 16, 2022 as a record this, episode 14.
It’s release weekend for Declaimer’s Discovery and it’s been a success so far. The Acktus Trials has hit the top 20 of classic fantasy eBooks on Amazon and Declaimer’s Discovery is selling well too. If you’ve been waiting to grab an eBook copy of The Acktus Trials now is a good time because it’s currently only 99 cents!
My work also continues on new writing. After a down week getting everything ready for the Declaimer’s Discovery launch, I’m back into full writing mode now and plugging away at Part IV of the Spoken Books Uprising. Part III, Declaimer’s Flight, is also now officially with my editor and on track for its June 17 release date. It’s officially available for pre-order, so get your order in now if you’re eagerly awaiting the third installment of the story.
I had a nice birthday last weekend and thank you to all of those who wished me a happy birthday. I spent the day in Buffalo, NY with my parents, sister, her boyfriend, and Mrs. Kane. We went to the Botanical Gardens, which was lovely, then visited a couple breweries and then had a nice dinner. And I did get my new pair of running shoes! And they’re orange, which is awesome.
ANAYLIS CH. 18
Careful what you wish for
We open with our trio traveling on through the Reach, a rather uneventful journey for them. Rox spends his nights creating a necklace from the teeth of the wyrm he killed, which forces Baz and Deliritous to talk to one another. And Deliritous really seems to be coming around to Baz, admitting that even if they don’t win, he’s going to start using Baz more than he was in the past. Deliritous seems to have overcome his fear of Baz, even if he is still a bit nervous around him.
This troubles Baz–he wonders if he can really trust himself if Deliritous starts putting all this trust in him. He hasn’t forgotten what Deliritous did to his brother. But just the fact that Baz is troubled by this and uncertain shows change, right? At the beginning of the story, Baz certainly wouldn’t have been troubled by the prospect of being in a position to carry out revenge on Deliritous.
Bog Bubbles
A few days pass and out travelers reach the Inkwell River. Baz had been hoping for a bath, but it seems “inkwell” is actually a pretty apt name for the water, as it’s brackish and discolored, certainly not something one wants to swim in.
The Firelands certainly don’t sound like a pleasant place. “A boggy wasteland” and bubbles of gas that pop into gouts of flame. You have to stick to the road or worry about being sucked under to your death, and there’s a constant sound of swishing water, pulsing like a heartbeat. Baz even tells us a legend that the gas is caused by all the dead bodies beneath the bog left over from the Burning. It’s a decaying, dead place.
This area is definitely inspired by the Dead Marshes in The Lord of the Rings. I wish my prose was a tenth as good a Tolkien’s. Here’s a quick passage from Two Towers describing the Dead Marshes:
“Dreary and wearisome. Cold, clammy winter still held sway in this forsaken country. The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters. Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed up in the mists like ragged shadows of long forgotten summers.“
From <https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Marshes>
Man, what description. You can see the similarities, if not in the writing, at least in the image it’s portraying.
I knew there was a problem when I heard the roars
So they travel on through the Firelands. Not much problem initially, other than a gas bubble popping and covering them all in slime, which sends Baz into a laughing fit, and even Deliritous and Rox join in with him.
They reach a rock formation that Deliritous calls Torchsire Roost, apparently a famous landmark where his ancestor rested on his way to Tome to begin the Second Burning, which we previously learned was when he either destroyed or confiscated all the Books he could find to consolidate their power amongst the Readers of the three remaining cities of Oration.
Deliritous goes off to do some sightseeing and Baz tries to catch some z’s, but Baz, never the one to accept a good thing, worries that perhaps he’s being lulled into a false sense of security. Which actually turns out to be entirely accurate, because what does he find perched on the giant rock formation when he turns around? A BIG dragon. And not just a dragon, but a dragon with two men riding it–Hellar and Trunnel, his Influencer Speaker. So we see the great power of having an Influencer on the Trials now. No Harbour or Speaker is going to stand up to a dragon! Apparently they saw smoke from their fire and Hellar decided he needed to properly take Deliritous out of the Trials, or at least get back at him. An eye-for-an-eye so to speak. Hellar reveals that he believes Deliritous somehow Read a spell to Baz and that’s what killed his Harbour, so now he’s going to repay the favor by killing Baz.
But all the change we’ve seen in Deliritous comes to a head here. He isn’t just going to stand by and watch Baz get fried. Obviously Rox tries to stop him, but Deliritous isn’t having it. He has Rox help him onto his mount and gallops to try to save Baz, shouting out a spell for Baz to cast as he does so. It’s that spell he’s mentioned before, the one that sucks the oxygen from the air. Baz uses it and it’s semi successful, deflecting some of the dragon’s fiery breath, but it’s not nearly enough. But Deliritous reaches Baz just in time, shielding him from the blast. Except, that means Deliritous instead takes the brunt of it. Baz is knocked down and plays dead until the dragon flies away with Hellar and Trunnel still on its back.
Baz crawls over to Deliritous. He’s burned all over, his clothing melted into his skin. And his chest isn’t moving. Baz sort of goes into shock. Deliritous sacrificed himself for a Speaker?
CONCLUSION
Homework: Next week we’ll read chapters 19 and 20. Is Deliritous really dead? Rox hits us with some deep Enigman philosophy. And our heroes run into yet another obstacle. Man, it just gets better and better for them. Tune in next week!
Listener Question:
Quest: What’s your favorite book 2 or sequel? Could be a book or a movie. Send your answers to dtkane@dtkane.com and I’ll share some of your answers next week.
Quote:
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination
Until next time, this has been D. T. Kane’s Epic Fantasy Book Club.
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