Things Natures

A multi-layered, psychedelic experiment - a taster for a unique, vibrant fantasy world.

At once a sequel and an introduction, Things Natures concerns Rentishi, a legendary witch who long ago was confined in a Realm of Storms but has been inadvertently freed from confinement. It comprises a pair of short stories that reflect each other as cause and effect of this reckless event.

One arc follows Suriya and Amadli - young, newly arrived strangers in the Lands commonly known as Marash, both lost and alone, in unfamiliar surroundings. They find their way together at first, but steadily their paths diverge as they are driven by incompatible impulses. Suriya, by a yearning for the sense of belonging she lost when she became exiled from home. Amadli, by the rumour of ancient and forbidden knowledge hidden beyond the distant, cloud-veiled mountains.

Another arc follows Boussa, a Sentinel returning home after a devastating event in a place she calls the Lands Beyond. She carries three voidstones that each hold an echo of Rentishi, which must be returned to the confine in the Realm of Storms. She personally must undertake this, to make amends for assisting and not preventing the release of Rentishi in the first place. She believes she is willing to accept any consequences - but the actual consequences for her are unimaginable.

A third arc punctuates these two. Verses from a legendary epic poem called Things Natures (from where the book takes its name) tell of a merchant driven mad by desire for a rare and precious gem, who commits a murder to get and keep it. He escapes into the wild and travels as a vagrant under some influence he does not understand, to return the cursed stone back from where it was once stolen.

The book as a whole deals with themes of growth and change. At its heart lies a question that must be expressed in various ways. What is self? How can it be known, how can it be expressed, how important is it? It could be said that Things Natures tells the same story three times: each main character faces a loss of self, then through some kind of trial each regains it - or at least, something like it.

While forming a sequel for two books, Things Natures also serves as a good introduction to the world in which all these stories are set. It shows how that world came to be, and why aenimus - so fundamental to the lives of the characters who live there - came to pervade and saturate everything.

All this in just forty thousand words!