I have pretty much completed Age of Magic, and I am very pleased with the way the story worked out. I am toying with the idea of adding another two chapters, but I think it might be too much.
Below is a sneak peek at the opening for Age of Magic – and I hope you enjoy!
Prologue
The moon rose above the horizon, bathing the black sea in silvery light. A twin-masted galleon, with a figurehead of a maid, one breast wantonly exposed, her eyes blindfolded, her face blissful, and her arms reaching yearningly forward, moved into a cove enclosed by sheer cliffs. The sails silently dropped, the anchor plopped down into the water, and she came to a halt. The ship’s name was Mathilde, and she was a pirate ship.
A rowboat was lowered into the water, and several pirates climbed down the ship’s side and rowed ashore. The pirates made it to a small beach and began scaling the sheer cliffs towering above the sheltered cove below.
At the top of the cliffs, the pirates made their way along craggy goat trails cloaked in shadows and through a pine forest. The group paused, and one of them stepped from the shadows and into a shard of moonlight. The dark-skinned pirate wore a tricorn hat plumed with long feathers and had a handsome, bearded face.
Before the pirates, there was a grand white marble palace with a single domed tower perched on a cliff with the sea far below and surrounded by a curtain wall. The pirate smiled, exposing a gold tooth that glinted in the moonlight.
The pirates moved forward, darting from shadow to shadow, and were now at the base of the curtain wall. The pirates tossed grappling hooks to the battlements and silently climbed the wall.
* * *
Deep inside the palace, an opulent and lavish feast was underway. A long table ran the length of a palatial pink marble ballroom decorated with statues and treasures. Seated at the table were noble guests dressed in fine robes adorned with gold, jewels, and baubles. The table was filled with golden candelabras that illuminated an exotic and ostentatious arrangement of food and delicacies, and servants leaned between the guests as they spoke and laughed, filling golden goblets with rich wines. To the side, musicians played lively and pulsating music while scantily clad women, their skin oiled and glistening, danced and writhed for the guest’s entertainment.
Along the walls, guards stood smartly to attention, dressed in polished brass breastplates, leather skirts, and polished brass helms, each holding a long spear.
At the head of the table sat a fat, cantankerous looking man dressed in flowing turquoise robes embroidered with golden thread and adorned with jewels. Atop his head, he wore a large turban decorated with colorful and exotic feathers and a large canary yellow diamond centerpiece. The man was Sultan Ambassalladoon the Third, ruler of the Sultanate of Balqarith. He was at his summer palace on the Island of Maashraq, where the cool sea breezes aided his sleep.
The Sultan sat and silently and lustfully watched the scantily clad women dance for his entertainment, twirling his mustache and puffing a pipe, his eyes transfixed on their gyrating and lewd dancing as his guests ate and drank and made merry. Around the Sultan were servants fanning him and regally dressed attendants.
The doors at the end of the ballroom suddenly flung open with a bang, and there were gasps from the noble guests. The musicians halted, and the dancers stopped. The guards hurried forward, their eyes scanning the gloom, their spears readied for an attack.
A man walked out of the gloom and into the brightly lit ballroom, and the guests muttered and gawped as he appeared. The man had a neatly groomed beard, handsome, rugged face, and purple eyes. He wore a purple coat, tricorn hat, a white waistcoat with gold buttons, and white knickerbockers tucked into a pair of calfskin boots. A sword belt with a large gold buckle and a cutlass with a jeweled hilt in a polished brass scabbard hung from one hip and a long golden-bladed dagger on the other. On his fingers, he wore golden rings set with pink diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. His shirt he wore was open at the collar, exposing his muscular and hairy chest. He wore a thick gold chain around his neck, with a golden coin hanging from it, and he looked quite debonair and splendid.
There was a tense moment of silence.
“Who is that man…?” said the Sultan, confusedly, to an attendant standing beside him.
The attendant straightened up and looked disdainfully at the man and spoke.
“His Royal Highness, Sultan Ambassalladoon the Third, ruler of the Sultanate of Balqarith, and the richest and most powerful man in the known world, demands to know who intrudes upon his amusement?”
“Ho ho!” said the man, “I am Zola, Serpent of the Seas, and captain of Mathilde!” and he bowed flamboyantly, doffing his hat.
The Sultan looked confused. “What does this man want…?”
“His Royal Highness, Sultan Ambassalladoon, demands to know why you intrude upon his amusement?” continued the attendant.
“I am here, your most illustrious and majestic majesty, to be relieving thee and thy guests of much and all of thy jewels and gold,” said Zola, grinning, his gold tooth glinting, “For I am a wicked pirate!”
The fat Sultan’s eyes narrowed, “Seize this pirate and hang him in a giblet by the harbor, where the birds shall feast on his eyes!” he commanded.
The guards rushed forward as a dozen pirates swarmed into the ballroom behind Zola, swords drawn and screaming. Zola drew his cutlass, and the pirates and the guards began to battle. The noble guests gasped and shrieked as the guards and the pirates began to fight around them, their swords clashing against spears and breastplates. The Sultan watched, his face tense and angry. The scantily clad dancers cowered against the walls, and the musicians watched wide-eyed.
One by one, the guards fell, and the Sultan’s expression changed from anger to bemusement. As the last guard fell, he gulped nervously.
An eerie, nervous silence fell over the ballroom as the pirates fanned out and surrounded the guests, the guards dead and dying scattered around the ballroom. Captain Zola wiped his cutlass on a hanging tapestry, wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief, and straightened up, his wicked purple eyes turning to the table and the guests.
He walked to the table and regarded the feast and the anxious-looking faces of the guests. He leaned forward and took a lamb chop from a golden platter. He ripped a mouthful from it and then tossed it back onto the table.
He chewed and moved down the table, looking at the guests’ terrified faces. He stopped opposite a pretty woman in deep purple robes with a low-cut front, with a diamond necklace sitting between her ample cleavage. Zola leaned into the table and poured himself a goblet of wine, admiring the woman.
“M’lady’s jewels doth look most marvelous…” he said, bowing his head and smiling at her. She smiled uncertainly back, her face flustered, and averted her gaze.
Zola gulped back the wine, tossed the goblet back onto the table, and continued walking.
He stopped before the Sultan and took a pipe from his coat pocket, which he lit from a candle seated in a golden candelabra. The Sultan was sweating. Zola puffed his pipe, lifted his cutlass, and placed it under the Sultan’s fat chin. The Sultan’s attendants took a nervous step back, and the Sultan looked panicked.
“Where be the Sphinxes Tear?” said Zola cooly.
“W…what…?” said Sultan nervously.
“I will be asking only one more time,” said Zola grimly, “and after that, me cutlass shall be doing all the talking, your majesty!”
The Sultan gulped and trembled.
“Where be the Sphinxes Tear?” repeated Zola.
“M…my daughter, Princess Aldara, wears the Sphinxes Tear,” said the Sultan, his head leaking sweat and his twirled mustache wilting.
“And where be thy daughter?” continued Zola, pressing the tip of his cutlass a little deeper into the Sultan’s fat chin.
“Locked in her bed-chamber, in the tower…” the Sultan squeaked.
Zola raised an eyebrow.
“Why be thy daughter locked in her bed-chamber, in the tower?”
The Sultan gulped, “She defies me and will not bend to my will!”
Zola shrugged and retracted his sword. He turned to the guests, smiling a charming smile.
“Noble guests of Sultan Ambassalladoon the Third, me begs thy pardon for this intrusion, but the Sultan doth have something that me heart doth desire something awful”
He puffed his pipe and walked back down the table, all of the guests, dancers, musicians, and servants watching him with nervous, scared eyes.
“Now me lads will be amongst thee shortly, to relieve thou of thy gold and riches, and I recommend that thee be handing over whatever they be wanting, or else thou might be finding thyself with an extra hole in thy body where thou not be needing one!”
The watching pirates chuckled and leered, and Zola addressed them.
“Lads, get the gold and jewels, and I’ll be seeing yers back aboard Mathilde. I have a date with Princess Aldara!”
The pirates began shouting at the guests, and the guests shrieked and cowered as the pirates began robbing them. Captain Zola dashed from the hall, cutlass in hand.
* * *
Princess Aldara lay asleep in her bed chamber in the palace’s tower. Aldara was beautiful, aged about twenty, with olive skin and dark curly hair. Around her neck, she wore a large, deep blue pear-shaped sapphire attached to a golden rope chain. Her room was ornate and plush, lit with oil lamps and shards of moonlight that cut through the smoke that rose lazily from incense burners. The room opened to a large terrace overlooking the sea below, and the waves could be heard crashing into the cliffs.
There was the sound of shouting and a struggle and the clash of swords from outside the door of the chamber. Aldara’s green eyes snapped open. She leaped from the bed wearing a satin nightgown, tucked the jewel around her neck inside her nightgown, and waited, staring nervously at the door, waiting for whatever danger lurked behind it.
She heard the sound of the lock turning, and suddenly the chamber doors were kicked open. Aldara gasped and steeled herself for what was to come. Zola stepped confidently into the room, his cutlass in one hand. He stared at the princess and smiled.
“Ho ho! Your royal highness…” he said, bowing.
“What is the meaning of this…this intrusion…?” demanded Aldara, her voice angry and commanding.
Zola regarded her, and an uneasy silence filled the room. His purple eyes locked with the princess’s green eyes. He moved toward her, placing the tip of his cutlass over her chest. Aldara gulped, her throat dry, her hands trembled, her eyes unwavering and locked with the pirate captain’s. Zola hooked the rope chain around her neck with the end of his cutlass and slowly and delicately lifted it upward until the sparkling Sphinxes’ Tear was exposed. Aldara silently gasped. Zola smiled.
“Be that cutlass for me…Pirate?” she demanded, her body tense.
Zola admired the princess and the blue jewel she wore around her neck, and a faint, soft smile crossed his face. He sheathed his blade and walked to the dresser, where he poured a cup of wine. He lit his pipe from an oil lamp and smoked and sipped while he looked at the princess.
“I came here tonight, Your Royal Highness,” he said pleasantly, “because thou doth have something that I desired most dearly.”
“You come to steal the Sphinxes Tear?” she said, sneering and accusingly.
“Aye, Your Royal Highness, I came to steal the Sphinxes Tear,” he said, and he sipped his wine, and puffed his pipe, and continued to admire the princess.
“And thou will be raping me, and stealing my jewel, and slitting my throat…Pirate?” she replied sharply, her voice finding strength and dripping with disdain.
Zola contemplated this while he continued to admire the princess with his purple eyes as he sipped his wine and smoked.
“I came here as a man capable of doing all that and more. But, no, princess. Now, after gazing upon thy beauty and seeing the Sphinxes Tear worn betwixt thy most lovely bosom, I am thinking that it doth belong exactly where it be, and there will be no raping or robbing, and thy throat will not be slit by my hand.”
There was a tense moment of silence.
“Why be thou locked in thy chamber, princess?” asked Zola, sipping his wine.
“I shall not be interrogated by a…a pirate!” she exclaimed, her voice disgusted.
Zola shrugged and finished his wine.
“I am sure that the world of princesses and sultans is too complicated for a simple pirate such as I am to understand, so I shall leave thee and thy jewel in peace, my most beautiful princess…” and he bowed and turned to go.
“Who are you…?” Aldara demanded.
Zola stopped and turned back to the princess.
“Ho ho!” he said, grinning, his gold tooth glinting in the light. “I am Zola, Serpent of the Seas, captain of Mathilde, and aye, I am a pirate.” And he bowed flamboyantly, doffing his hat.
There was a moment of silence as Aldara studied his handsome, bearded face.
“I have heard of thee, pirate…” she said cooly.
“And what have thou heard of me, Your Royal Highness?” said Zola, his expression curious.
“I have heard that Captain Zola is a murderous, treacherous, and black-hearted bastard who would sooner slit a man’s throat than look at him. I have heard that Captain Zola is a filthy degenerate who rapes and steals and is a man with no honor and of low birth and character, who drinks too much rum and lays with women of equally low birth and character,” she said bluntly.
There was a moment of silence as Zola looked back. His expression now one of surprise, he was taken aback by the princess’s frankness.
“Guilty as charged, my princess…” he replied, smiling wickedly and doffing his hat.
More silence followed as the princess continued to study him.
“But I had not heard tales…” continued Aladara, and she paused, and smiled, and she seemed intrigued for a moment. “Of such a handsome man or a man who would treat a lady with such grace and honor when she was most vulnerable.”
“I am a complicated man, Your Royal Highness, but also a man that needs to be on his way, as thy royal father’s guard are soon to be upon me,” and he bowed again and turned and hurried out of the open doors to the terrace.
Zola hurried across the terrace to the balustrade, where he climbed over. He cut a rope from a flagpole and peered out into the darkness.
“Wait!” came a shout from over his shoulder, and he turned and Princess Aldara hurried toward him, now dressed in silk robes and slippers.
“Take me with you!” she said, embracing him.
Zola stared at her, his face confused.
“My father celebrates my engagement tonight to a man he chooses for me to marry…”
“And thou doth not wish to marry thy father’s choice of husband for thee…?”
“No, I do not!” snapped back the princess. “That is why I am locked in my chamber.”
She embraced him tighter, pulling him close.
“Take me with you…pirate…” she said breathlessly and leaned forward and kissed him.
When she pulled back, Zola looked at her in stunned silence. He lifted her over the balustrade, wrapped an arm around her, and she clung to him, and they swung off of the terrace and into the night.