Guest Post, Excerpt and Giveaway Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) by K. Gorman

Description:

Secure under its Mage-powered shield, Lyarne ignores the war that has taken the rest of the country.

Inside its borders, refugees are first pitied, then assimilated.

Mieshka knows this well. Coping with the loss of her mother and the grief of her father, she keeps her head down at school and maintains a neutral stance with her new Lyarnese friend.

Things change when she meets the Fire Mage. There's a lot more to this city—and herself—than she could imagine.

And Lyarne's shield is not as impenetrable as the city would believe…

GUEST POST:

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.”

The above was said by Shirley Jackson in her opening of The Haunting of Hill House. A grand old book I turn back to every so often, just for a dip. It's the kind of book that never quite lets go of you, even after it's finished. In it, the main character always questions and over-analyzes the reactions of her peers, and the fantasy—real, hard, Paranormal-Activity kind of fantasy full of blood-painted rooms, cold spots, and the mother of all creepy houses—does less to alleviate her paranoia than it does to heighten it.

Granted, the character was not reading the fantasy. She was experiencing it. I, who read the story rather than experienced it, had a rather different reaction. By distancing myself and experiencing it through her, I was allowed to ride the waves of panic, fear and hysteria to the end where the author provided me with a clear conclusion that allowed me to close the book and mark the story and all its emotions as 'done'.

As a form of escapism, it is a very effective method of dealing with stress. By living vicariously through Eleanor, I could experience her stress vicariously. I did not have to react or make decisions—that was all done. All I had to do was trust that the author would deliver me to the end. It's a kind of therapy.

I've always felt better after reading a book (sleep-deprived, but better. I'm one of those read-all-night kind of girls).

That vicarious experience, however, can be true of all fiction. Why, then, do I turn to a fantasy book when I could pick up a normal, non-fantasy mystery or thriller or romance? I have nothing against non-fantasy books. I read them too, albeit a lot less. There isn't too much different in them—the rules of plot, story, and writing apply to all genres.

Maybe I just need to dream. Reality-based stories are too confined for me. While they hit all the main bits, the dream I have with them is restricted. The 9-5 world where I work, live, fail to go to the gym, stress out over deadlines—I live that every day. I get enough of the normal. I'm unsatisfied with the normal.

Sometimes I don't want to be normal.

For me, becoming a special agent and fighting spies and criminals is, although high-octane excitement, not a big enough dream for me. I start doing the what-ifs.

What if the special agent came across a demon?

What if her boyfriend was kidnapped by faeries?

What if she landed in Narnia one day?

What if she was a vampire?

(Yeah. I know. Twilight jokes aside, sometimes I just want to be a vampire. Even with today's oddly teen-idol version of vampire. I've been secretly hoarding a book idea about vampires, actually. Maybe I watched too much Vampire High.)

So sue me. I want something more. I will have the cake and eat the whole damn thing, floral arrangement included.

Fantasy, after all, is not just one genre, it is all of them.

And that ain't the only reason we need it. I could bust out any number of Einstein quotes about the need for creativity, but I think this one states my case the best.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

We read fiction to escape. We read fantasy to dream. And to be very, very intelligent.

Right? Right.

We are not children anymore. Our fairy tales have grown up and we've sunk our teeth in deep. Our Greats follow in the footsteps of Beowulf, the Ramayana, the Odyssey and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Journey to the West keeps us thinking, the Mabinogion keeps us dreaming.

Fantasy may not be able to answer all our what-ifs, but its libraries will give them a good run, leaving us hungry for more.

And sometimes I just want to be a sassy vampire.

 Tour schedule

EXCERPT:

Aiden, the Fire Mage, has drawn a transfer mark on Mieshka’s hand to help her get used to magic. It leeches off of any nearby magical sources.This is her first time in the Underground--the city that is buried underneath her city.

“Guns, huh?”

She’d wondered when Jo would bring that up. Dusty naked bulbs strung along a bundle of wire at the top left corner of the brick-and-concrete tunnel. Two pipes ran along the floor, also to the left. A leaking joint in the smaller one had resolved any unasked questions about Underground plumbing. Mieshka tried not to think about the larger one.

“Yeah. Guns.” Except for the tread of their boots and the click of Jo’s mint, the tunnel was quiet. “I don’t know why. My mom was shot, but…”

Her throat clenched around the sore topic. She’d read somewhere that muscles clenched up around injuries. She suspected something similar happened in the mind.

The mint stopped clicking. Jo stared ahead, eyes unreadable. Her jaw muscles tensed.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Mieshka heard that a lot.

Silence thickened, each carefully not looking at the other. The tunnel was full of echoes. Some lights hummed in their sockets.

“So, Meese, huh?”

“Yep.”

The tunnel shifted, angled down, and ended in a dim doorway. A draft drifted past her cheek.

“City’s getting close,” Jo said.

They entered an old shopping mall. The lights and wire stretched along the right wall. They disappeared into the distance, gleaming off empty display windows. It was cavernous. The lights only lit a very small portion. The rest of the space was lost in darkness.

Mieshka clicked on her flashlight and flicked it left. Their path was edged by a grimy guard rail. Across a shadowy chasm, a second path hugged the opposite side. Escalators descended into the gap, dusty, dark, and dead. On the floor below, a vacant concierge advertised a long expired sale.

Mieshka and Jo followed the string of lights to the right. The occasional mannequin loomed inside shop displays, their clothes long stripped. The quiet was palpable, and smothered Mieshka’s senses like a pillow.

She tried not to think of how far down they were.

They began to hear things. Sounds. Echoes. Mieshka gripped her flashlight hard again, wide eyes trying to pierce the dark. Jo noticed.

“Spooked? It’s just the city. Weird acoustics in here.”

Mieshka nodded. Still, she didn’t linger.

Eventually, the middle chasm ended, and the two opposing paths angled together into a foyer. Four large doors were boarded with plywood. There was nowhere else to go.

Jo held one open for her, revealing a sidewalk on the other side. Mieshka stepped out into the city under the city.

It was a normal, night-time street. An eclectic mix of buildings crowded either side; the oldest were made with brick and wore decorated trims; the mall they had left was an anachronism amongst the century-old community. Bright storefront displays cast squares of light onto the sidewalk, mixing with the diffused glow of streetlights.

A displaced hydro pole stood in the middle of the street, the concrete around its base newer than the road. Mieshka looked up, and her mouth went slack.

Much like the spaceship’s underground hangar, this underground city had a framework to support its roof. It was a hybrid of steel and timber beams, crossing the street midway between the second and third floors of the buildings. The beams rose into shadow. Mieshka couldn’t see the ceiling.

She turned to Jo. “How far—”

“Ten storeys in some places. Here it’s more like five, ground to ceiling.”

Jo’s face was shadowed by the overhang of the mall. Mieshka toed the curb, her eyes following the line of hydro poles down the street.

“Do people drive down here?”

“No. Carbon monoxide isn’t so good. Lots of bikes, though.”

Shops lined the street: groceries, DVDs, clothes. Across was a café, its brickwork a black and red checkerboard pattern. People moved inside. She smelled fresh baking and coffee.

If it weren’t for the ceiling and the antiquated buildings, Mieshka could easily have believed she was in a less-populated section of Lyarne. There was even a draft.

“How big is it?”

“If you include all the outlying tunnels? Big. It’s quite elongated, but the Core itself is roughly seven square blocks. There are other sections—residential, mainly—around the Core: Eastside, Westside, and Southside. We entered near Westside.”

Before the mall, the tunnel had branched several times. Most of those arms had looked rather well-used.

Jo stepped onto the street. “There’s about half a million people down here.”

Mieshka followed. The street curved away from them to the right. The mall’s exterior ended with the city block. Shops had moved into its prime retail space. Farther down, she spotted a cathedral. A light burned outside its door. Supports encircled its spire.

“Let’s eat. This petty cash is burning my pocket.”

They drifted more than walked, Jo quietly letting Mieshka take the lead. A number of people greeted Jo, giving Mieshka curious looks as they passed. Mieshka intuited that she must be well-known down here. After a few blocks, Jo turned her down a cobbled side street. The support beams swooped lower, hung with naked bulbs. The brickwork on either side was black with age. How old had this place been before it was buried?

Jo led her into a café parked on the corner of an intersecting alley. Soon, Mieshka found herself staring out from a lace-curtained window, her shoulder pressed to the glass. Jo sat across from her. A pot of green tea sat between them, with promises of cake to come.

“You’ve been quieter than I expected,” Jo said.

Rather than pester Jo for answers, Mieshka had been figuring out the mechanics behind the place for herself. She stared at the writing on the café’s window.

“There’s a lot more Chinese writing than in Uptown.” She’d been noticing it for a while.

Jo also glanced at the window.

“There’s a lot more Chinese down here. Higher density, anyway. Bit of a racial thing.”

“Racial thing?”

Jo’s chair creaked as she tipped it back.

“The Chinese were the first to be refused housing. Other minorities followed. It makes sense that there’s a large group down here.”

“Why were they refused?”

Jo didn’t answer. Mieshka tried not to move under her stare.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I wouldn’t bring it up down here, though. Bit of a sore topic. Ah,” she said, her eyes lifting up to look behind Mieshka. “I was wondering if he’d show.”

Mieshka looked behind her. The man by the doorway was about as tall as Mieshka, dressed in black, and had a wide-brimmed hat that put shadows onto his face. He looked Chinese.

Mieshka hoped he hadn’t heard their conversation.

“Long time no see, Joanne.”

Joanne? Mieshka hid a smile. As the man drew closer, that smile faded. The back of her hand tingled. Mieshka tensed like she’d seen a gun.

“Not long enough.” Jo’s voice had teeth.

“You wound me.”

“As I recall, we were both wounded last time.”

“An accurate recollection.”

Mieshka felt she was missing part of the conversation. She didn’t have time to dwell on it: her attention was pulled to the edge of her senses, where she’d felt the fire before.

“Is that a transfer sigil?”

Mieshka blinked. He’d come closer while she’d looked away. He stared at the mark.

“It is.” Jo’s voice was vaguely triumphant. “And you can tell your boss that, too.”

“She’s new, isn’t she? What is your name?”

Mieshka didn’t want to tell him. The energy through the mark felt taut, like the spring of a trap. She forced herself to stay calm.

“I don’t believe you’ve told me yours, yet.”

His expression was unreadable. After a moment, he held out his hand.

“Roger.”

“Mieshka.”

When they shook, it felt like a weight dropped into place.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Mind the tea.”

She looked back at her cup. The liquid spilled above the brim, floating in the air.

She let go of his hand. It fell back with a soft plop.

“Are you the Water Mage?”

Jo snorted into her drink.

Roger looked amused. “No. I’m her apprentice. I assume you are Aiden’s?”

Was he the water elemental Chris had talked about? Her jaw tensed. She found herself nodding. He seemed friendly enough now, but it was clear he and Jo had a history.

“That explains the rumours, then.”

Rumours? There were rumours about her?

“Word spreads awfully quick down here,” Jo commented dryly.

“It does.”

Mieshka tried not to look worried.

“I expect we will be seeing more of each other, Mieshka.” With a tip of his hat, he left. He waved through the window as he passed.

Jo and Mieshka watched the transfer mark. They did not speak until the glow had gone.

“So you’ve decided? You’ll be his apprentice?”

“Maybe. What did you mean by ‘wound’?”

Jo took a sip of her tea. “He likes to pick fights.”

Perhaps he wasn’t as amiable as he seemed. Mieshka rethought his last words to her. She decided that she didn’t particularly want to see more of him.

A moment later, the cake came.

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About the author:

After a year spent living in South-West China, K. Gorman has returned to her life as a university student in Western Canada. During high school, she spent her days ignoring classwork to focus on reading or writing. She has been a voracious consumer of Fantasy and Science Fiction for as long as she can remember. When not reading or writing, she moonlights as a horse-drawn carriage driver, combining her love of history with her long-time passion of working with horses.

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