Medieval Musings:

Your Newsletter from Paul J Bennett

"Hard to put down, I read until I fell asleep, and then finished it the next morning. ." - Kathy

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Scattered throughout the lands of Merceria and beyond, are magic circles. These structures are built to amplify and enhance the magic that is cast from within their boundaries. Earth Mages use circles of stones, literally stones covered with magic runes that form a rough circle. These are nowhere near as impressive as, say, Stonehenge, instead, they are about five feet high.

For most of the other schools of magic, their circles are usually created on a floor, made of stone and then inlaid with precious metals and gems. These valuable materials are used to host the magic that will empower the circle. The typical construction will consist of two solid loops of stone, one within the other, with magic runes between the two of them. Inside the innermost one is where the casting will take place. Water Mages tend to use magic pools, but still, they must be built to hold the water, and are of a similar construction as the other schools.

A stoneworker is needed to chisel out the stone markings along with a master smith or metal worker who can inlay the gold and/or gems. Once this construction is complete, the circle needs to be empowered, which requires a mage to carry out a special ritual that can take hours. The actual time varies with the strength of the circle.

Once empowered, any mage that has studied the circle can use it, though there are a few restrictions. Mages cannot utilize circles of an opposite school, so a Fire Mage cannot use a magic pool, for example. Also, any mage of a different school will receive less of a boost to their magic. Thus if Aubrey, a Life Mage, uses the circle of stones in the Whitewood, she would gain less of a bonus to her spells that would Albreda, who is an Earth Mage.

In addition to adding power to spells, they have one more important feature: they allow the use of the recall spell. Recall is a type of teleportation, or instant travel, but the destination must always be a known magic circle. More detail on circles, including a description of how they are empowered, will appear in Burden of the Crown.

Why do I find military history so fascinating? That’s an excellent question. There’s something about the technology of war that I find intriguing. When I was a kid, lots of boys my age were building model cars, but I always favoured tanks, ships and, perhaps most of all, aircraft. Such was my interest that I later joined the Air Force. I should mention that my father had been in the Royal Navy during World War Two, so he may have been an early influencer. He’s also the one that encouraged my hobby, primarily by buying me the model’s that I used to build.

My bedroom had aircraft hanging from the ceiling, with shelves full of ships and tanks. I’d always found the British vehicles the most interesting, I suppose due in part to my heritage, I was born there after all. I can still remember building the Wellington Bomber, and my joy when my father bought me a plastic Lancaster. It was not a normal Lancaster, but the Dam Busters version, with the special rotating bomb mounted underneath. This led me down a whole new avenue of investigation as I strove to learn more and more about these technologies.

I don’t build models anymore, I have other interests to keep me busy, but I still enjoy military history. My focus these days tends to be the medieval and dark age periods of history, but I’ll still occasionally find something of interest concerning the World Wars or Victorian era. Since my military service, I’ve taken a stronger interest in Canadian history, even becoming, at one time, a War of 1812 re-enactor with the 8^th Kings regiment. (I still have the tunic that my wife created for it.)

On that topic, if you want to see an interesting war movie with a distinctly Canadian feel, I can heartily recommend Hyena Road. It was written and directed by Paul Gross, who also produced Passchendaele, another great Canadian production.

This week I’ve been delving into the last 1/3 of Burden of the Crown. Although it primarily deals with a conspiracy among the nobles, there are other forces at work and the return of an old foe. This story is shaping up to be focused on Aubrey as we see her spell repertoire expanding, soon eclipsing that of Revi Bloom. Don’t worry, though, Revi’s still around and dealing with his own problems. In a lot of ways, Burden is similar to Servant of the Crown in that a lot of groundwork is established for the books that follow. As many of you know, I like to use things like foreshadowing, so there are some clues as to what might come in the future.

I expect to finish the first draft of Burden of the Crown by the end of next week, give or take a day or two. After that, we’ll have to see. I’m already 2/3rds the way through plotting out the detailed outline for the next Athgar and Natalia story (even though Ashes hasn’t been released yet) and I’m considering another origin story, possibly about Baron Fitzwilliam. It seems the more I write, the more ideas I have for future stories!

The next Frozen Flame story is tentatively entitled Embers, and it will be a full-length novel. After that, it’s on to Defender of the Crown. I’ve already developed numerous subplots that for that book but I may decide to push a few of them to the next story, Fury of the Crown.

Until next time,
Happy Reading!

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Check out these featured books that are free, discounted, or new releases. The authors are returning the favour by sharing my books with their readers.

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Happy reading from Paul J Bennett,
Author of Epic Fantasy in the Land of Merceria and beyond!