Spirit Seeker: The Kassandra Leyden Adventures
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Synopsis
The Leydens were people of extraordinary means. The father a well-known adventurer. The mother a spiritualist oft consulted by the government of New Britain. The daughter, Kassandra, inherent of both the skill and sense of adventure that made her parents great.
But when her mother vanishes without a trace, and her father turns toward spirits of a fluid nature as he loses himself in memory, Kassandra is left to find her own way and purpose. She quickly learns a sense of caution as she discovers there is as much intrigue as adventure about the world she lives in. And not all those she's had faith in are to be trusted.
With the whispers of spirits in her ear and unlikely allies at her back, Kassandra strives to defend both the living and the departed...after all...
It's the Spirit of the matter...
Release date: May 25, 2018
Publisher: eSpec Books
Print pages: 144
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Behind the book
On the world of New Britain :
From the introduction to Danworth’s History of Kings :
The Death did not change the world, as it was known so much as end it. While mankind survived many various plagues, pandemics, outbreaks and even ordinary diseases, the Death, as it was named, was on a different level. While outbreaks of the Black Plague were horrendously fatal, the disease had a tendency to burn itself out. The Death on the other hand killed eight of ten within three days of exposure. Of the remaining two, one was so weak that they often fell prey to other diseases or perished from inability to acquire food or water. The tenth victim was what made the Death so insidious. For up to a month, this person was a carrier and highly infectious. Traveling away from the horror of the effects of the disease upon others meant that there was a constant wave of expansion. Natural barriers such as mountains and seas could be overcome in that time and what would normally stop an outbreak was surmounted by the Death. Ships were found adrift with a few barely living survivors and the cycle began again. The Death felt inevitable. It felt like judgment. It felt like the end of all things, but fortunately some did not agree.
There are some stories about the origin of the disease that place its beginnings in the frozen north. Accounts report that the horseman of the steppes were the first to suffer and that even the swift passage of their mounts was not enough to escape the Death’s reach, but rather aided in its spread. There are tales of dead horseman, tied to their saddles to keep themselves astride their mounts in their illness that rode onto the lands of the Rus. From there the disease spread amongst its peoples. The Death flowed like a river through the Germanic tribes and south as well. It pushed a swell of the displaced before it as the news spread and the desolation was left behind. In the 1366 word of the Death came to the court of Edward the III in Britain.
A portion of the country believed that the channel’s separation from the continent would save them and were content to let the disease make an end of the rest. Fortunately their leader saw things differently. He understood what they saw in the miles of water separating Britain from Calais. But he’d listened to all of the stories and knew that the ships of the dead that were found around the Mediterranean meant that the Death could survive for long periods of time. It would take a nearly insurmountable barrier to be safe from the Death- a barrier like an ocean. Without two people all Edward would have done was hope, but Jamison Maxwell and Demetrios Kapernak had the solutions he needed.
Maxwell was a collector of the unusual and had many strange books, scrolls and maps. When he heard of Edward’s hopes to escape the Death, he knew he had the answer. He presented the maps of Saint Brandon the Navigator to the king with one request. If Edward were to venture to the lands that Brandon described, then Maxwell would go with him. Partly it was to save himself and also to placate an unfulfilled desire for adventure. Maxwell was a name that would go down in history as a family of inventors and explorers who would leave their mark on the New World as well as help conquer it. It was his foresight also that brought along the ancient document rumored to be stolen from the Library at Alexandria. A scroll that detailed a device called Heron’s Helper, the very forerunner of the steam engines that would come to power New Britain. But like a promise, it would lay for many years before another of the Maxwell clan would bring it to fruition.
Demeterios Kapernak sailed his small fleet of seven ships out of the Mediterranean away the remains of his homeland of Greece. He passed the Pillars of Hercules and a great storm caught them up. The ships were pushed farther and farther off course until they came upon the shores of Britain. The men of Britain were familiar with the hulks and cogs of the time, but Kapernak’s fleet was something different. Instead of the typical flat-bottomed ships these hung more sail and sat differently in the water. The caravels were a surprise and a timely one. These were the kind of vessel to cross the great expanse of water shown on Saint Brendan’s maps. Like Maxwell, Demeterios was a man of vision and not only did he help in the building of the ships for the crossing, but he made them larger and more stable. He too made one condition for his aid. It was not one that the king could have forseen. Demetrios required that Edward take as many as he could across the sea, turning none aside whatever their ancestry, unless they were infected. In the years that followed the landfall in the New World, Demetrios continued exploring further westward until he found the mouth of the great river known by the natives as the Mississippi. He founded his own city there, Amphyra.
There are many stories of the crossings. The first group of twelve ships that gained that far shore brought with them Maxwell and Kapernak. Together they both strode out onto that new beach and claimed the lands they found in the name of a New Britain and King Edward the III. When Maxwell set off to explore, Kapernak sailed once more for Britain. His next trip brought Edward and even more ships. In all Kapernak made eight crossings before passing the task to his sons. By then the Old World had fallen. Only a few more ships would come across. Two of Kapernak’s sons would never return. In the years that followed two cases of confirmed ghosts ships were recorded. The ships full of those killed by the Death were set a blaze with flaming arrows and beaches were quarantined there after. This was the closest that the Death ever came to New Britain. But there were rumors that not all respected the quarantines.
In the years that followed, Edward went north following Maxwell’s explorations until he came to a great bay formed by a river that reminded him of the Thames half a world away. There he founded Londinium, set down a throne and ruled New Britain as King. His people met the inhabitants of these new lands. Some they befriended and some they warred with. On whole though, the immigrants were a desperate people and they took the lands from the natives. They pushed them ahead of them until they were forced across the Mississippi. The natives stopped north of Londinium and stood their ground. There they forged a peace with the Britains. Their coalitions of tribes made their homes in these lands and they kept their ways. In the end, the Britains turned their ambitions south.
Edward sent his brother with Kapernak’s ships across the warm gulf waters to lands of the south and there he set about conquering all that he found. Eventually, he became known as Edward the Black. It was rumored that he even used the Death itself to defeat the tribes of the great stone cities of the south, to steal their gold, to take their lands and to bring them to their knees. While New Britain grew roads like the stretching branches of a tree, the lands to the south grew plantations of sugar cane, cattle and ranches to raise horses. While the people were not enslaved, they were instead caught up in indentured servitude. As the plantation lords grew richer and richer, they kindled the fires of resentment.
For a long time that was how things remained. Edward after Edward ascended the throne. Each took the same name to honor the visionary who led from the old world to the new. Roads were built all across New Britain and mines were dug. Cities and towns grew up. The country filled out. Ian Maxwell puttering through his ancestor’s holdings found the scroll of Heron. The first steam engines were built. Then the steam-powered ships ran up and down the Mississippi and about the coast. Railroads stretched across the country. Finally, airships and dirigibles took to the skies. It was a golden age for New Britain, an age that extended its beneficence to the south as well. Steam powered ships brought the cane and other riches to Amphyra where they flowed throughout the empire.
But gold tarnishes with time and great nations fall. New Britain did not fail but rather withered. The focus of its people drew inward. The expenses of running the plantations grew and grew. The unrest of the servants increased. The rebellious inhabitants of the Southron islands encouraged the plantation workers to rebel. Instead of taking on this challenge, the military retreated. New Britain shrank, pulled in on itself.
The Edward kings did not give up. They built new weapons, trained new armies and formed the Councils of War, Welfare and Trade to look after their people. Their people created the Directorate to watch over the kings. A fragile peace exists in New Britain with old enemies to the south and reluctant allies to the north. The new world is a second chance but it can be lost as easily as the old if its keepers are unwary.
