Forgotten Palace

Luke Aylen

Description

'Luke Aylen is a brilliant storyteller.' - Patrick Regan OBE, CEO and founder of Kintsugi HopeDeep in the heart of Presadia's Great Forest lie many secrets, including the ancient ruins of a once-magnificent palace. A chance encounter with a bedraggled stranger and the discovery of broken shards of a magical mirror lead Antimony, an unusually tall dwarf, on a journey of discovery. Amazingly, he soon finds himself in charge of a growing community, which is determined to bring restoration to the palace. Can Antimony juggle the responsibilities and disagreements that have suddenly been thrust upon him, while also confronting shocking truths about his own complicated past?This unexpected adventure brings the oversized dwarf face to face with a mysterious elf known as the Usurper, a violent opponent of the exiled king. Antimony and his unlikely group must overcome tremendous odds if they are to restore what was broken and bring peace back to Presadia. Will they succeed, and will the king ever return to his rightful place?Revisit the magical world of Presidia, which is full of elves, dwarves and dragons in this exciting sequel to The Mirror and the Mountain.

Sujets

• Children's

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781782642800
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

T HE F ORGOTTEN P ALACE
"An intriguing, whimsical, and insightful read that draws you in and takes you on a special journey. Luke has a great gift of storytelling that speaks to the heart."
– Christy Wimber , pastor, speaker, and author
"A magical book. The characters fizz with
personality. I particularly enjoyed Antimony’s Ma – an armoured dwarf with a prodigious beard. Young readers will feel for Antimony’s search to discover who he truly is."
– Fay Sampson , author of more than fifty books including The Sorcerer’s Daughter
"In The Forgotten Palace , Luke Aylen weaves an
engrossing tale filled with wonder. Fans of C.S.
Lewis’ Narnia series will love this superb blend of fascinating allegory and beautiful storytelling. It’s delightfully imaginative and brilliantly enchanting."
– Dayo Benson , author of the Crystal , Beauty for Ashe s and Pure Passion series

Text copyright 2019 Luke Aylen
This edition copyright © 2019 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Luke Aylen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by
Lion Hudson Limited
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park
Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 1 7826 4279 4
e-ISBN 978 1 7826 4280 0
First edition 2019
Cover image acknowledgments
Palace © Slava Gerj/Shutterstock
Eye © Refluo/Shutterstock
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
C ONTENTS
1 Glitter and Dust
2 Rescue
3 Beauty in Brokenness
4 The Mirror Puzzle
5 The Missing Shard
6 The Forgotten Palace
7 The High Council
8 The Portal
9 Myth or Majesty?
10 Stone by Stone
11 The Usurper
12 Many Hands
13 Attack
14 Friend or Foe?
15 Ambush
16 The Silver Handprint
17 The Great Silvers
18 The Music of the Masons
19 Raid
20 The Fire
21 The Deepwood
22 The Moonlight Wanderer
23 Light and Colour
24 From the Ashes
25 The Gathering Storm
26 The Vision Chasers
27 Ladders
28 Mud and Water
29 Knight of Presadia
30 Fire and Honour
31 For the King
32 The Throne Room

1
G LITTER A ND D UST
"O pal, over here!" Copper’s voice echoed down the left-hand fork of the tunnel. "The sound is coming from down this passageway."
Opal hurried after the distant glow of her husband’s magma-worm lantern, holding her own lamp high. Again, she heard the strange whimpering sound. It was high-pitched and awoke inside her a feeling of longing, as though a fist were clenched around her heart.
What was making the sound? These tunnels were long abandoned. The densely cobwebbed entrance proved they were the first to venture down these passages in many, many years. Soot lay thick on the floor. The only tracks in the dust were their own and the little footprints of rats or cave crabs.
Cobwebs broke against her face as she neared the glow of her husband’s lantern. The tunnel curved suddenly to avoid a glittering deposit of crystal like material in the wall ahead. It was majis-glatheras – king’s glass – the strongest material the dwarves had ever found. It wasn’t particularly rare, but no tools the dwarves possessed would cut through it, although once upon a time, supposedly, people had been able to work it. Legend said that the old king himself had been a master of crafting the beautiful mirrored crystals. Whatever the case, now the knowledge and tools were long gone. When the tunnels hit a particularly large deposit like this one, the miners were forced to chisel their way around it before carrying on.
It sparkled in the lantern light in flashes of vibrant colour as Opal hurried past. Her husband was just around the bend, framed by glittering king’s glass.
He was stooping over. The whimpering sound that had led them deep into the abandoned tunnels was coming from the bundle he was lifting carefully.
Opal stopped in her tracks as Copper straightened up.
"Great bronze beard of Boron, Opal, it’s a baby! A little baby!" Tears glinted in his eyes. "Our prayers have been answered," he whispered, staring down in disbelief at the tiny face peering back at him.

"Is anyone there?"
The muffled cry sounded again.
Antimony was getting closer. His eyes scanned the tumbled-down remains of the freshly ruined castle for any sign of the survivor.
"I’m down here."
The voice came from Antimony’s left.
He clambered over some smashed timbers and a large section of wall that, until only recently, would have stood upright. Now it blanketed the ruins like a strange cobbled road, bulging and breaking but still remarkably complete.
"Hello? I can hear you! Keep shouting. I’ll find you," Antimony called.
To his surprise, the trapped voice started singing in a crisp and melodious voice. It was a silly tune, such as one might sing to a small child. In the desperate and harsh surroundings of the ruined castle it felt entirely out of place, but Antimony supposed it would be as effective as anything else. He turned toward the voice and picked his way between wood, stone, ash, and dust.
"There was a young dwarf from the hills,
Who was scared, for the dark gave him chills.
But his beard was so long
That the people all thronged,
And made him their Lord ’gainst his will."
Antimony skidded across a precarious pile of huge bricks as he followed the sing-song voice. Perhaps the singing man’s wits had cracked. Antimony had heard that could happen to people when they went through dreadful things. And what had happened here, in this castle, must have been pretty dreadful.
It had been Salt’s idea to come back here. They had been heading home to the dwarfish city of Val-Chasar and the castle had been only a little off their route. Antimony and Salt both felt partly responsible for the damage that had been done here.
"They took the young dwarf to their mines,
But he hated the dingy confines,
So he lit up a lamp
In the gloom and the damp,
And it blazed out a glorious shine."
How much could change in such a short space of time! At their last visit, only days ago, Lord Raven’s castle had stood undamaged and proud, looking out over a valley of fields and woodland. It was unrecognizable now. Where once-elegant towers had soared beside mighty walls, there was heaped rubble. Where fields of crops had blanketed the valley, there was mud and rubbish and the smouldering remains of farms and houses.
"Now the dark and the light are not friends –
They hide from each other round bends.
In the deep dwarfish mines
They draw battle lines;
Light attacks where the darkness defends."
The castle and surrounding areas had fallen victim to a great battle; a battle that had been stirred up by the dwarves so they could make money selling weapons to both sides. Antimony had been there when the siege started. They had been selling a final shipment of supplies to the desperate defenders for a hefty profit. Desperate people paid desperate prices.
If it hadn’t been for the bizarre meeting with a strange girl from a completely different world, Antimony would probably never have thought about the castle again.
"The young dwarf with light on his side
Realized that darkness would hide,
So his fear disappeared,
And by great Boron’s beard,
He found courage from deep down inside."
Antimony squeezed through a half-collapsed doorway into the hollow shell of a destroyed tower. Was the voice coming from in here? Square walls still rose above him on all sides, but instead of sturdy ceiling timbers above his head, stormy clouds billowed in an angry sky, framed by the jagged edges of the broken tower. The floors of the tower had collapsed beneath the onslaught of the catapults and the weight of falling masonry, filling the basement with a mishmash of rubble, broken furniture and splintered floorboards.
"The young dwarf had come to see clear
That, though darkness oft stakes its claim here,
Goodness and light
Amidst darkness is bright,
So he shone out his light without fear."
The man’s voice was very close now – just below him, in fact. Antimony peered down into the dusty shadows of the basement below him, searching for the poor soul trapped beneath the rubble. A glitter amid the filth and rubble caught his eye. Crouching to get a better view, he saw shattered shards of a mirror among the wreckage.
The shards flickered like a broken rainbow and reminded him again of Summer, the girl from another world who had turned the dwarves’ lives so completely upside down. She had arrived in Presadia through a magic mirror.
"Hello?" Antimony called into the silence after the curious disembodied voice had finished its silly rhyme.
There was no response – just the twinkling of shards beneath the rubble.
After Summer, her friend Jonah had arrived. It was Jonah who had seen how the dwarves were taking advantage of others to make their money. The two children had challenged the dwarfish high ruler Tin, who had been so moved and horrified that he had declared, there and then, that the dwarves must change their ways and do everything in their power to aid the people who had been hurt by their actions. He’d pledged to help the children find a way back to their own world; a promise that had led them high into the mountains to seek the wisdom of Khoree, an ancient and terrifying dragon.
One thing had led to another, and before Antimony could say "great beards below", Tin, his high ruler, had been flying off with the dragon and children on a grand quest to find the long-lost king, to see if he knew a way to get the children home. Antimony, Salt, and the others had waved goodbye in a state of befuddlement, wondering how so much could have happened