Am really not precious about this at all. Have done considerable work on Erlos in last few months and wonder if it reflects in the synopsis ...
Douglas Perry was born somewhere in South Africa with a chunk of the back of his brain missing. The back of his skull looked strangely caved in. His breath did not smell good and his eyes were small black pebbles that glittered with intensity...
Moody, 250 year old Eldrinda Benkilte is hauled out of his mental obsessions to become the new ruler of Erlos after his father is killed fighting the enemy with whom Erlos has been at war for 600 years. But Eldrinda has scarcely ascended to the throne when a jealous and implacable enemy poisons his wine with the ceisorundra virus of madness. Although the doctors catch the virus in time to save his life, Eldrinda’s brain is damaged and so he must abdicate in favour of his sister, Auldrius.
The Erlotian civilization inhabits seven cities in space above the planetary world of Elotia. The populous city-dwelling Erlotians share ancient ties of blood with the surface-dwelling Elotian races, from whom they are originally descended and who still plough their fields with oxen, but with the passing of so many generations the link has become a distant one. Indeed, the punishment of ‘earthdeath’, or banishment to the surface of Elotia, is the worst an Erlotian can receive.
Eldrinda, after his abdication, chooses voluntary earthdeath. He retires from the Erlotian stage to the surface of Elotia, to become a hermit in the mountains while, upon the surface of Elotia, the peaceful garden kingdom of Aazyr is invaded by barbarians.
“And I cannot leave my husband or my people,” said the queen.
Kierien pressed a glass phial into her small hand: “It's painless, even sweet.”
She passed her baby son into Kierien’s arms.
“Take good care of him.” ...
The baby Sorac is spirited away to safety and raised as a shepherd, in an increasingly unsettled and barren land, until the night he learns of his noble birth from the sage who carried him away as a baby, and who now convinces him to embark on a quest for the weapon that will enable him to overthrow the Ukonaai invaders and restore the fertility of the earth.
With the passing of years Eldrinda Benkilte has now recovered from the ceisorundra virus and changed his name and become father upon Elotia of a daughter, Tyl, now in her twenties, who lost her mother when she was three. Sorac’s road leads him to meet Eldrinda and to learn from him the story of Erlos.
Their conversation lasted late into the night, until at last Sorac could not keep his eyes open any more and rolled himself up in his blanket by the fire. Outside the wooden walls of the house, the treetops swayed and sighed in the wind...
Eldrinda now returns alone to lead Erlos in a desperate dash through fifth dimensional space to surprise and destroy their ancient adversary, while Sorac and Tyl become lovers and Tyl later gives birth upon Elotia to a son, Jac, of mixed Erlotian and Elotian blood, and heir to Aazyr’s throne.
The victorious Erlotians end up inheriting an empire of a hundred thousand broken, damaged worlds which they must heal, in return for the terrible cosmic debt which they have incurred upon themselves by having destroyed a world.
But Eldrinda’s private obsession with our own blue world has never been far from his thoughts and now, with the end of the 600 year war, he becomes free at last to visit our planet. However Eilderoess, the enemy who poisoned his wine, has also never been far away. Just at the moment of Eldrinda’s greatest triumph, Eilderoess sabotages his atmosphere craft, causing him to crash upon the earth, and forcing him to make use of the rebirth chamber, a ‘lifeboat’ device with which all Erlotian atmosphere craft are equipped.
The rebirth chamber will choose, for the doomed occupant of the craft, an unborn embryo of the highest life form on the world where he is going to have to crash or make forced landing, an embryo that would otherwise be stillborn, until perhaps Erlos can one day invent a technology to rescue him.
It chooses for Eldrinda the body of Douglas Perry while, upon Elotia, Sorac of Aazyr has just escaped after 12 years slavery in Llozd’s brutal emerald mines only to begin a terrible journey across the desert of the Naar where, driven mad by sun and thirst, he experiences a complete psychic breakdown that transfigures him into something greater.
Naked, the shepherd climbed the towering cliffs, he knew not for how long. His hair grew wild upon his neck; his nails were hard and broken claws...
Erlos does find a way to rescue Eldrinda Benkilte as back on earth the poor, misshapen body of Douglas Perry dies. Eldrinda’s ‘essence’ is taken back to Erlos, to be reborn again there as the baby Obekallah -- having now lived in three different bodies. When Obekallah grows to maturity his own life’s purpose will become to return again from our own future, to teach us how to building floating cities, and so ourselves to become the Erlos which, having changed it’s own past, can never return to Elotia and must forever roam space, healing other worlds like our own. The cultures of both Erlos and of the old Aazyrian garden kingdoms are explored in depth throughout the book, which becomes an allegory of the spirit's journey.
The book ends with Sorac’s grand coronation upon Elotia. There is a final twist when Sorac, exhausted, decides at the last moment to pass the crown of Aazyr to Jac, the hot-tempered thirteen year old son he has never had a chance to get to know:
“It’s heavy,” Jac said.
“Yes. You will have to grow a strong neck,” Sorac said.
He turned and walked out through the huge hall, and all the people there parted to make a way for him. He stood in front the great doors as they opened for him, and then he walked out through them and on into the mountains ...
Douglas Perry was born somewhere in South Africa with a chunk of the back of his brain missing. The back of his skull looked strangely caved in. His breath did not smell good and his eyes were small black pebbles that glittered with intensity...
Moody, 250 year old Eldrinda Benkilte is hauled out of his mental obsessions to become the new ruler of Erlos after his father is killed fighting the enemy with whom Erlos has been at war for 600 years. But Eldrinda has scarcely ascended to the throne when a jealous and implacable enemy poisons his wine with the ceisorundra virus of madness. Although the doctors catch the virus in time to save his life, Eldrinda’s brain is damaged and so he must abdicate in favour of his sister, Auldrius.
The Erlotian civilization inhabits seven cities in space above the planetary world of Elotia. The populous city-dwelling Erlotians share ancient ties of blood with the surface-dwelling Elotian races, from whom they are originally descended and who still plough their fields with oxen, but with the passing of so many generations the link has become a distant one. Indeed, the punishment of ‘earthdeath’, or banishment to the surface of Elotia, is the worst an Erlotian can receive.
Eldrinda, after his abdication, chooses voluntary earthdeath. He retires from the Erlotian stage to the surface of Elotia, to become a hermit in the mountains while, upon the surface of Elotia, the peaceful garden kingdom of Aazyr is invaded by barbarians.
“And I cannot leave my husband or my people,” said the queen.
Kierien pressed a glass phial into her small hand: “It's painless, even sweet.”
She passed her baby son into Kierien’s arms.
“Take good care of him.” ...
The baby Sorac is spirited away to safety and raised as a shepherd, in an increasingly unsettled and barren land, until the night he learns of his noble birth from the sage who carried him away as a baby, and who now convinces him to embark on a quest for the weapon that will enable him to overthrow the Ukonaai invaders and restore the fertility of the earth.
With the passing of years Eldrinda Benkilte has now recovered from the ceisorundra virus and changed his name and become father upon Elotia of a daughter, Tyl, now in her twenties, who lost her mother when she was three. Sorac’s road leads him to meet Eldrinda and to learn from him the story of Erlos.
Their conversation lasted late into the night, until at last Sorac could not keep his eyes open any more and rolled himself up in his blanket by the fire. Outside the wooden walls of the house, the treetops swayed and sighed in the wind...
Eldrinda now returns alone to lead Erlos in a desperate dash through fifth dimensional space to surprise and destroy their ancient adversary, while Sorac and Tyl become lovers and Tyl later gives birth upon Elotia to a son, Jac, of mixed Erlotian and Elotian blood, and heir to Aazyr’s throne.
The victorious Erlotians end up inheriting an empire of a hundred thousand broken, damaged worlds which they must heal, in return for the terrible cosmic debt which they have incurred upon themselves by having destroyed a world.
But Eldrinda’s private obsession with our own blue world has never been far from his thoughts and now, with the end of the 600 year war, he becomes free at last to visit our planet. However Eilderoess, the enemy who poisoned his wine, has also never been far away. Just at the moment of Eldrinda’s greatest triumph, Eilderoess sabotages his atmosphere craft, causing him to crash upon the earth, and forcing him to make use of the rebirth chamber, a ‘lifeboat’ device with which all Erlotian atmosphere craft are equipped.
The rebirth chamber will choose, for the doomed occupant of the craft, an unborn embryo of the highest life form on the world where he is going to have to crash or make forced landing, an embryo that would otherwise be stillborn, until perhaps Erlos can one day invent a technology to rescue him.
It chooses for Eldrinda the body of Douglas Perry while, upon Elotia, Sorac of Aazyr has just escaped after 12 years slavery in Llozd’s brutal emerald mines only to begin a terrible journey across the desert of the Naar where, driven mad by sun and thirst, he experiences a complete psychic breakdown that transfigures him into something greater.
Naked, the shepherd climbed the towering cliffs, he knew not for how long. His hair grew wild upon his neck; his nails were hard and broken claws...
Erlos does find a way to rescue Eldrinda Benkilte as back on earth the poor, misshapen body of Douglas Perry dies. Eldrinda’s ‘essence’ is taken back to Erlos, to be reborn again there as the baby Obekallah -- having now lived in three different bodies. When Obekallah grows to maturity his own life’s purpose will become to return again from our own future, to teach us how to building floating cities, and so ourselves to become the Erlos which, having changed it’s own past, can never return to Elotia and must forever roam space, healing other worlds like our own. The cultures of both Erlos and of the old Aazyrian garden kingdoms are explored in depth throughout the book, which becomes an allegory of the spirit's journey.
The book ends with Sorac’s grand coronation upon Elotia. There is a final twist when Sorac, exhausted, decides at the last moment to pass the crown of Aazyr to Jac, the hot-tempered thirteen year old son he has never had a chance to get to know:
“It’s heavy,” Jac said.
“Yes. You will have to grow a strong neck,” Sorac said.
He turned and walked out through the huge hall, and all the people there parted to make a way for him. He stood in front the great doors as they opened for him, and then he walked out through them and on into the mountains ...
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