The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus

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(Newly updated cover art and title!)

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My debut novella, The Carver’s Gift, is available now for purchase from just about every major e-book platform – and quite a few minor ones, too.

Will Felton and Magretta reach the heart of the Carvers’ deadly mystery before it claims the lives of their masters – or their own?
Will Jorfindr manage to keep his head upon his shoulders? Or is there a darkness lurking behind the jester’s mask he wears, waiting to be unleashed?

Pick up your copy today (at an impulse-buy-worthy $0.99) and find out!

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A couple notes on the publishing process:

For this novella, I’m trying out the system over at Draft2Digital, a sort of one-stop-shop for e-book publication and distribution. There isn’t a whole lot in the way of design and layout customization available, but the ease with which they generate a fleshed out epub, mobi, or pdf from a word document or rtf file, and then publish to well over a dozen online marketplaces, is quite impressive. The purchase link generated leads to a unique book page where you, the reader, can choose which marketplace you prefer to use, taking a whole lot of work out of distribution across multiple platforms.

So far, I’m pleasantly impressed. Let me know in the comments if you’ve had any experience using Draft2Digital before, or the other systems you prefer for your self-publishing.

But for now, keep reading for the fourth – and final – chilling excerpt of The Rune-Carver’s Gift.

-KTL

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Felton led Carill and three of the townsfolk on the search, a fresh shortsword from the armory strapped to his belt. The trail of blood was sporadic, partially washed away in the rain of the previous evening, but it was not terribly difficult to track. It led them to the woodland grove that bordered the manor on the south. A few yards back in the underbrush they found the remains of the second guard, less one head.

Inspecting the surroundings, the squire realized that Jorfindr’s room was visible from their location; when pressed, Carill confirmed that they had set the dead guard to watch for an attempt at escape through the night.

“Did you think he was going to crawl through the window?” Felton asked sarcastically, gesturing to the narrow slit in the mortared stone wall. The cook’s tabby mouser would have had a difficult time fitting the gap.

“A Carver with his tools is hardly hindered by mere stone,” Carill replied haughtily. “Or have you forgotten what he did to the door this morning?”

The trail of blood continued on into the woods, and they followed it to a stream that bisected the grove. There it disappeared. Unsatisfied, they returned to the manor, where much the rest of the day was spent in preparation, digging graves for the guards in the hallowed grounds beyond the wall.

Magretta confirmed that her search had uncovered nothing incriminating on the part of any of the Carvers, and as supper time came around, Felton feared tensions were building back to a breaking point.

Most of the townsfolk who frequently dined with the Sword and Sigil had elected to stay at home this evening, just as much of the manor staff had elected to take their supper in the kitchens, leaving Felton and Magretta uncomfortably unsupported against the three Carvers at the table. Only the blacksmith Leifen and Anna, his half-blind wife, had joined them for the meal.

Thorn scowled at the squire and novitiate across the table, her arms crossed before an untouched plate of food. “Seeing as how your naive attempts at playing investigator have resulted in precisely nothing beyond a wasted day, I feel it is time to accept the obvious conclusion—that the known criminal and liar is the one who has committed these crimes.”

“A man who was locked inside a sealed room.”

“Sealed after he murdered my men, obviously!”

“With what? He had no weapons, and the both of them were well-armed and armored. Or would you have me believe Jorfindr is a master assassin as well as a revolutionary instigator, seditionist, thief, or all manner of other things?”

“You could gut a man with a Carver’s chisel,” Carill offered. Thorn blinked in exasperation.

“Could you remove a man’s head?” Magretta quipped. “Because I assume that would be messy with a chisel. Jorfindr only had one set of clothes, and they didn’t look bloody to me.”

“Nor did ours when you rifled through our possessions!”

“That’s enough,” the squire slapped the table, causing his own untouched plate of bread and root vegetables to jump and jostle. “As you have so helpfully pointed out, Master Thorn, we are no closer to the truth than we were this morning. The only option I see before us at this point is to wait until the Sword and Sigil have recovered.”

“Every plan you make is more foolish than the last, boy. We don’t know if your master will ever wake up. What then?”

“Then I will send word to the Council, and we will wait for them to send a new Sword and Sigil to investigate. Let us hope that does not come to pass.”

“Then you plan to hold us as prisoners?”

Thorn watched him carefully, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“No, I suppose that would be too presumptuous of me. However, as you are so adamantly certain that Jorfindr is to blame, I am afraid we will have to refuse him permission to leave until Sol’s justice is meted out.” They stared each other down over the table, waiting for the other to flinch. “Shall we expect your departure come first light of the morning?”

Thorn’s eyes narrowed. “No, I believe we will be staying right here.”

“Suit yourself. Sol’s hospitality is open to all who ask it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to deliver our prisoner his evening meal.” Felton pushed back his chair sharply and rose. Magretta followed suit, gathering up her likewise untouched plate.

“I’ll go relieve Lucia,” she murmured, and left for her mistress’ bedchamber.

“A word of caution, boy,” Thorn called out as Felton left the table, “I hope you sleep lightly tonight. That chain is unlikely to hold Jorfindr should he choose otherwise. Once he has killed you, who will remain to protect dear Magretta?”

“My name is Felton, old woman,” he shot back over his shoulder, and strode out of the hall.

Alone in the corridor and out of sight, the squire fumed to himself as he calmed his shaking hands. He needed to think. He continued down the hallway and took a passage to the side that would lead him to his novitiate counterpart in the west wing of the manor without passing back through the great hall.

“Any change, Maggie?” he asked quietly as he shut the chamber door behind him.

She looked up from where she sat beside Wymrea and nodded gravely. “It’s getting worse.”

Indeed, the black tendrils spreading from the sting had groped halfway up Hendall’s leg toward his knee, and the skin on his foot and toes had taken on a light purple shade.

“I don’t know how far it has to spread before… if the damage is irreversible…” She hung her head and let out a small sob.

He hesitated, but reached out awkwardly and placed his hand on her shoulder. He wished he knew what to say to make everything better, to reassure her, but none of his training or meditations had prepared him for the act of offering simple comfort.

To his surprise, she rose and pulled him into an embrace. She hugged him fiercely, and after a moment of shock he thought to close his arms around her as well. He felt the warmth of her body press against him as Magretta took a deep, even breath, and then she stepped away again.

“How much of your plan were you making up in there?” she asked.

“I don’t know, at least half?”

She gave a short laugh and blotted her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. They both turned back to the Sword and Sigil, serene and pale in bed.

“They’re not going to get better on their own,” the novitiate stated.

“In the morning I’ll send Liam to ride for Veilen’s manor to the east. He can fetch Sigil Justine and be back in five days – four, maybe.”

“You could make the trip in three.”

“I can’t leave these Carvers here alone with you. Any one of them—of all of them, for what we know—could be the murderer. As it is, I expect even with both of us here, they’ll be ignoring our demands outright by tomorrow morning.”

“You don’t have to protect me, Felt.”

“But that’s what Swords are meant to do: protect.”

“I can handle the Carvers if I have to.” There was iron in her voice, and he didn’t doubt she spoke the truth. He wondered at her past—at what she had seen, living in the north. Hendall never spoke of why she had relocated from her old manor, but he did know that such a relocation was quite unusual.

“Far better than I, I’m sure of it. They would have run roughshod over me by now if not for your support.”

“Well, that’s what Sigils are meant to offer: support.”

Felton furrowed his brow in thought.

“What is it?”

“I think I may have a plan that will get us out of this mess.”

“Should I be worried?”

Felton gave her a wry smile. “I suspect so.”

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A few minutes later, the squire descended the steps to the cellar. He nodded to Willem, who was keeping watch for the moment. The dead guard’s sword rested next to him, leaning in the corner.

“He give you any trouble?”

The stable master shuddered.

“Only that he’s been singing songs the whole time I been down here. Hasn’t repeated a one of ‘em far as I can tell, and I’ll be damned if they aren’t the filthiest lyrics I’ve heard all my life. I’ll be begging for the Lightbringer to cleanse my ears for weeks to come.”

He unlocked the chain as he spoke, and swung the door open. The cellar-turned-dungeon was dimly lit by three candles. Jorfindr sat at the far end of the room, propped up against a shelf with a bottle in his hand.

“Felton, my boy!” he called out merrily as the squire entered. “Good of you to join me. Care for some wine?”

The squire shook his head at the proffered bottle. Somehow the rogue Carver had worked the cork out of it. Felton closed the door behind him.

“Don’t worry, I only opened the one. Didn’t want to overtax your hospitality.”

Even knowing the very real possibility this man had brutally murdered two others and poisoned his master, there was still something comforting in his exuberant joviality. Felton prayed he was not mistaken.

“I brought you something,” he said, and tossed Jorfindr his pack. The Carver caught it and pulled it open eagerly, producing his carving tools.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he breathed. He slipped a thin, sharp chisel from its sheath and stepped toward the squire.

Felton jumped back, his hand darting to the sword at his hip—but Jorfindr reached past him, to the shelf beside his head. He grabbed a broken barrel slat and hurried back to his tools with it.

“What are you doing?” Felton asked as the Carver set to work on the oak with his chisel. He slowly let his hand slip away from the sword grip.

“I’m carving a light rune,” Jorfindr replied, absorbed in his work. “I got started on it earlier, but all I could find to carve with was a bent nail,” he nodded to an old square nail on the ground by his feet, “and that simply wasn’t good enough a tool to make the inscription take hold.”

Felton peered over Jorfindr’s shoulder. A long, intricate runeword had been scratched into the slat, its lines wobbly and shallow. Switching between his tools rapidly, the Carver retraced the inscription, replacing each scratch line with a crisp, deep groove. The squire recognized some of the symbols from their analogs in runic script, but others among the Greater Runes in the inscription he had not studied. Despite himself, his fascination began to get the better of him.

“What does it do?”

“Well, we Carvers can’t just produce light from nothing—your Sol pretty much has a monopoly on that, and he doesn’t like to share. What we can do is take the light that hits one thing, somewhere, and transfer it to be emitted from a different thing, somewhere else—minus a little bit for the gods, of course. We call that a sympathetic runic enchantment; the Guild is all about overcomplicated mouthfuls of naming. Anyway, in this case, I’m storing light in the runeword, to be used at a later time.” He paused from his work and gestured vaguely with the broken slat. “I suppose you could say, the ‘somewhere’ I’m taking the light from is ‘now,’ and the ‘somewhere else’ I’m transferring it to is, well, whenever I decide to activate it in the future.”

“So… you’re making a torch?”

“That would be an easier way to say it, yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s going to be dark soon, right? It must be after dinner bell by now.”

“The sun set around half an hour ago, yes.”

“Well then, I need to absorb as much of this candlelight as I can before night falls,” Jorfindr replied, like it was the most obvious reason in the world. As he put the finishing touch on the final line of the runeword, Felton could have sworn the light in the cellar dimmed ever so slightly.

“Jorfindr, you don’t need a torch to keep the light on in the cellar tonight. I came here to set you free.”

“Oh, it’s too late for that.”

“If you get a head start tonight, Thorn and the others will have to leave at first light to— wait, what? Too late for what?”

“For me to escape.” The Carver straightened his back and stretched his fingers. “Not that it was ever much of an option to begin with. Once the Sword and Sigil were removed from the picture, my options for survival were severely limited.”

“Listen to me; I know a hidden door that will get you out without being seen. They won’t even know you’re gone until—”

“You don’t understand!” Jorfindr barked. All the mirth and laughter was gone from his features; the man was terrified. “It was afraid of the Sword and Sigil, whatever this thing is that’s hunting me. That’s why I came to the manor in the first place. It wanted to kill me quick and quiet-like, without disturbing them—it could have broken through that seal on my door, but it would have been loud. I simply didn’t expect it would be able to incapacitate your masters though.”

“This doesn’t make any sense—”

“Felton!” Jorfindr grabbed him by the shoulders. The squire caught a faint hint of the wine on his breath. “It only hunts at night!”

The words had only just begun to sink in when there came a crash and a solid thump from the floor above, followed by the muffled sounds of frantic shouting.

“Who goes there?” Willem cried from beyond the door, and then he screamed—a scream that was cut short by a wet thud that rattled the heavy wooden door.

Felton’s sword clung to its scabbard for dear life, and it took him three tries to tug it clear. He pointed it at the door, the tip wavering crazily. Jorfindr grabbed his forearm and tugged him back into the far corner.

“When I say ‘now,’” the Carver hissed in his ear, “close your eyes!”

The door burst open and slammed against the wall, blowing out two of the three candles in the room. A dark shape filled the entryway. It had to stoop to enter. In the light of a single guttering candle, Felton could only make out its reflective eyes up near the ceiling, and claws, held before it, that dripped blood.

“Hello, Jorfindr,” it spoke with a voice that was not human.

Featured Image elements by Tanel August Lind on Unsplash, and Issara Jarukitjaroon on Vecteezy

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