Chapter Two -- conclusion

The Sport of Gods and Titans, part two

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Thunder boomed around him, is if he were in the bosom of the storm itself. He felt the hair rise on his nape, and along his arms. Weird sparkles danced around him like fireflies in response to the shock. Galen would have been furious to see them -- Faunos was supposed to have learned greater control. But fear, shock, pain and even great pleasure made control slither from his grasp and defy him to recapture it.

And there was no one to see, Faunos told himself. The old city was underwater while the newer parts of the city -- built on the higher slopes and in the hills -- had tumbled town, and the people were gone. Many were dead. He saw limbs protruding from the wreckage in odd places, but nothing moved, and he heard no voices calling out for help.

Lightning forked once more as clambered up a boulder-strewn slope, and instinctively he ducked into the lee of a wall. The bellow of thunder came almost at once -- he felt it in his chest and bones, and flung both arms over his head. Again, the sparklets of gold and white danced around him, casting tiny rainbows in the rain, and he swore at them, glared at them.





In the gray-green twilight of the storm, he felt along the wall, found a corner and looked up. The eaves were still sound above his head, and an arm’s length from the corner was an open doorway, facing opposite the driving angle of the rain. Inside was only utter darkness, which told him the roof was sound.

He shuffled in, blinked until his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and saw the bar on the shutters. It slipped free with a squeal of dry wood, and a crack of light shafted into the cottage. He smelt sheep, goats, and knew it for a shepherd’s hut.

The floor was scattered with straw, the walls were grubby, the door hung from only one hinge, but the building was sound -- Faunos did not care to look past this. The inside was dry, he saw firewood stacked in the corner, and a bundle of old sheepskins and hides.

It was shelter Galen needed, and quickly. He was too old, too frail, to last long in the storm. With grim determination, Faunos drive the bar back into place, locking the shutter closed, and stepped back out into the rain. It was a mile back to the cave where Galen was huddling, watching the seawater rise with the tide and the battering of the ocean. Hurucan and Peseden were so furious, only blood would appease them -- and of that, there had been plenty. They had no need to take Galen's too.

The ruins were full of the dead. In a few days, when the storm had passed over and the summer heat returned, it would be dangerous to remain here. Zeheft was not merely dead, it would soon be rotten with the contagion that had bedeviled Ilios since the earth shook there, not a month past.

Old or not, frail or not, Galen must get up on his feet and move. Faunos’s belly tightened as he grappled with the future. In these latter years the old man did not move so easily, and even if he did, where would they go? There was only Vayal, on the other side of the long, dolphin-shaped island, and for Faunus, the city of Vayal would surely mean death.

Obdurate, too stubborn for his own good, he butted into the rain, one arm up to shield his eyes from its stinging needles, and hurried his pace.

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About Legends...

This story has its roots in the 1980s. About the time I signed with GMP, I was kicking around the idea for a massive novel -- the problem being, I had no time to develop it. At the time, one of my "literary friends" was Lane Ingram, who passed away some years ago. When Lane volunteered to develop the narrative from my storyline, I was surprised and very agreeable; and a version of it was circulated on a small scale, to a very appreciative audience!

Lane had no aspirations to be a professional novelist, which meant writing was fun, and remained fun, while I did battle with "style" and "technique." And then one day Lane was gone, without leaving much of anything to mark the place in the world which had once bee occupied by an individual who was large in every sense of the word.

Let's change that. I'm bringing LEGENDS "to the screen" in a form which preserves as much of Lane's input as I possibly can, while at the same time properly developing it, bringing it up to full professional standard ... cutting and trimming, correcting the errant, though enthusiastic, amateur ... polishing it to the professional sparkle you've come to expect from Mel Keegan.

LEGENDS will be Lane's memorial. Here's to you, kiddo, wherever you are: enjoy.

Ebook screenreaders:


Downloading LEGENDS and reading from the computer screen? Join the club! Most people are stuck in the same situation ... and it's a right-royal pain. At this time, MK also is still trying to make the transition to one of the ebook screenreaders. The price of most of them is still high, but in the course of shopping around, Mel has found two that are coming under extremely close scrutiny. The Bebook and the Sony look like being the best deals at this time. In due course, we'll be reviewing them right here. Mel Keegan has decided it's going to be one of these two -- but they're very comparable, so ... take your pick. Either one would be perfect for reading LEGENDS, or other digital novels.

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ABOUT THE LEGENDS ART...

The art appearing on this site, illustrating elements of this novel, is by Jade, my cover artist from DreamCraft.

Soon you'll be able to order prints, treeshirts, mugs, mousepads and a lot more, featuring this artwork and manufactured in the US by Zazzle.com.

The portfolio is still growing, and a gallery is online. Return to this page now and then to see new addition...

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Research Tales

A great deal of research for this novel was done, and subjects Atlantean most often begun with a study of the Trojan wars.

Why? Because the iLiad is one of the very oldest bodies of writing which is also extensive enough to be useful. The problem with the iLiad is -- unless you're fluent in Ancient Green (and who is?) you'll be working from the translations ... and the "disagreement" between them is counfounding for one who's not a Homerian scholar!

The solution? Track down a book that translates the translations -- gets them out of the rich, ripe, flowery language of poetry and into a solid historical context. And in this, MK lucked out. Such a book exists: The Trojan War by Barry Strauss. It reads like a novel, and if you wanted something to get your teeth into ... perhaps after watching the movie, Troy, or after reading Legends -- this is the book you've been looking for.

There's another very scholarly work, The Flood From Heaven by Eberhard Zanger, which "deciphers the evidence" and places Atlantis at Troy! Now, Legends is about five thousand miles from Zanger's work (literally -- due west!) but having said that, Zanger is to Plato what Strauss is to Homer, and the work was extremely helpful.

Now, working even further back through time, you want a "scholar" (and note the quotation marks on that word) who spent a lifetime researching (ouch!) Atlantis. And again, MK lucked out, because there is such a man. A very brilliant man by the name of Ignatius Donnelly, whose "pop-science" book, dating from 1882, is still in print today, in several editions! It's thorough, it's astonishing, and it makes ... quite a case for Atlantis. Not that anyone believes in such things. Right?

There are also some good documentaries on DVD, if this is altogether far too much reading!

And of course, if you want to get into the spirit of the thing (!) you can always put on Troy and let Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana and company provide the inspiration! Speaking of which, have you seen the director's cut? Highly recommended.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION: Legends is copyright 2009 by Mel Keegan. Please do download the whole novel, which is in HTML format, compatible with your screenreader, PC or Mac. However ... please don't gift it to your friends. Instead, give them the url of this page and recommend that they download it for themselves. The reason is simple: author's income is earned via the adverting on these pages. If they're not loaded, nothing is earned. MK has bills to pay too, and for your cooperation ... thank you kindly!

Note that Legends is NOT covered by the "Creative Commons." This work is the intellectual property of Mel Keegan. If you would like to use parts of it elsewhere, please contact MK via this blog.






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