Everyone knows Lifekeepers, the warriors of mercy, those who bring light and justice to the darkest corners of the world where even stable magic does not reach. But few know the Order of the Hot Obsidian, a small but ancient group of cultists running the Lifekeepers as a mere facade for their own agenda. Well, this book is about them. Them and the ten boys they send on a mission, knowing that only one of them will survive in the end.
We will learn about Kangassk’s father and mysterious the Hora thief along the way as well.
“Hot Obsidian” is the second book of Obsidian Trilogy but, since it explains the same events from the other side of the conflict, you can read it before “Cold Obsidian” just fine.
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Read the book with the author’s illustrations here: https://mildegard.ru
All poems in the book were translated from Russian by Alan Jackson. Visit his site as well: https://www.cosxhyp.xyz
To the outer world, domain of cruelty,
No warmth I yield, no due from my hot core;
An outcast spirit my true security -
Ill upon ill my gift, as herebefore.
When I was born, my fire, my heart-light glowed
Red through my dark volcanic glassy skin:
My frame, my prison, body, and abode -
My truth; hot fire in hard obsidian.
In the outer worlds, domains of cruelty,
No love I find from folk in either realm.
Have you the courage to take hold of me?
And in that throng of foes be overwhelmed?
No miser I, no niggard hoarding gold;
To you, whose brave heart or whose mind insane
This challenge takes, I will repay ten-fold:
A world I’ll give to you, in fief and main!
A human life a ripple is in the stream;
A thrush’s song, a snowflake in the spring.
My bearers fly, forgotten as a dream
At dawn; and I forgotten lingering.
So has it been, but now a promise sure,
Wrought by a sage, of immortality
For you, my bearer-youth, my end, my cure,
My heart-beat’s beat, my own eternity.
So take me, boy, your panoply of war,
Take me, your deathlessness, your hope, your crown,
Take me, and rule the world you’re destined for,
Take me, your power, your Hot Obsidian.
