Title: Shadow And Light
Author: K.R.R. Brigstreet
Genre: Realms
Heat Rating: 4
Publisher: Breathless Press
Formats Available In: All eBook formats
Word Count: 20,625
Release Date: 17th May 2013
ISBN: 978-1-77101-140-2
Blurb: A strange phenomenon casts unending night and irrepressible
feelings of lust over Kaliana. She must discover the cause, but she can't seem
to stay focused...
When night falls over Meso and does not
end, Chancellor Kaliana and Master Ganshi must find the cause. As they search
for the truth, they discover more than science can explain. Within the night
lives a boundless sexual energy, turning scholars into seducers and musicians
into man eaters. Beneath the earth a fire moves and rumbles, bringing forth a
creature that will envelop and consume all that call it. In the endless night,
all boundaries are broken. Can Kaliana and Ganshi overcome the onslaught of
lust long enough to restore the balance between shadow and light?
Book Links:
Excerpt:
When the sun shone, it flooded the valley
with a beam that struck and splashed between twin mountains. It danced outward,
skittering through the mountain valley toward opposite civilizations advancing.
The peoples moved each to the other, slowly, like seeds in the earth waiting
for the right combination of warmth and moisture to coax their substance from
the soil.
To the east, light meandered over green
terraces that descended between rock-lined funnels, joining the streams that
irrigated miles of pasture, and wound a slow and steady route to the geometric
city of Meso. A solar system of paved streets orbited a central blinding
compound of glass, stone, and steel. The people of this city reflected their
own reverence for the aesthetic machinations of the universe they tried to
emulate. Their lines were sharp. Their angles pristine. Their movements
productive and efficient. Sunlight that did not succumb to the walls of glass
enclosing the structure melted over the bodies of these people. The rest flowed
over the sharp angles and refracted, fractioning crystalline and settling over
the far eastern forest, where it disappeared into the maze of trees.
Light spared none in the west. The earth
cracked beneath its weight, crushing moisture from rocks and opening the veins
of plants, desiccating. It painted self-portraits on jagged sunset bluffs,
gazing into the mirror of dominion. The light enveloped completely any river
that once shaped the red and orange cliffs, leaving a dusty trail for rodents
and lizards dashing in and out of shade. Men and women scratched hoes in the
dirt, pulling free meager crops that seemed as if they sprouted old and worn.
The men and women lived, and the children played and learned, among a vast
cornucopia of poisons and potions.
They were hard, shaped by the same wind
that aged the banks of empty riverbeds. The people's hard-bought respect
approached religious devotion to the dry land. Sobered by the relentless light,
the people of the western border mercilessly clung together, commanding of the
earth just enough to survive.
This is the light from which the young man
traveled.
It happened at Two Mountains Standing,
under the moon of the summer solstice. Presiding over the ceremony, the moon
bathed the dancers in the pale white reflection of the sun. The dancers
disappeared and reappeared in flickers of shadow and light, reflections of the
red and yellow fire surrounding them and within them. Their bodies surged,
throwing black shadows across the sacred fire circle and onto the two mountains
framing them. The moon smiled down on the shadows looming giant on the
mountainsides, mimicking their owners' frenzied movements.
The shadows came together and parted, came
together and parted, circled and leapt over the fire, leaping from mountain to
mountain. Sweat ran down the dancers' arms and legs and they pounded it into
the packed earth. A turbulent, wordless harmony brought forth the incantations.
Curved backs raised heaving breasts higher, spines rippled, and hot, slippery
tits bounced in the bodies' rhythmic undulating.
In the center of this frenetic circle a man
lay, immobile. He was a stranger to this place. A solid short mound of earth
covered each of his arms; his legs extended toward the sacred fire and also
disappeared into the earth. When dancers leapt the fire, they sometimes landed
on his submerged arms and legs, pounding them deeper into the ground. The man's
eyes stared unblinking up at the moon. No lines marred the man's face, which
was dark and unmoving. A braid ran down the back of his head, and the tail of
it fanned out loose behind his shoulders where he lay. His eyes were fixed on
the moon.
There was no telling how many dancers
circled the fire. Sweat poured from their bodies, turning the packed earth to
mud. The mud splashed with each pounding step, covering the dancers' legs and
the silent man with specks of reddish brown. Sweat turned the specks quickly to
streaks, which ran down their bodies like tears. Harmonies rose in pure
ecstatic emotion, and hands began to smear rivulets of mud over the arching and
writhing bodies.
About The Author:
Between writing and slinging organic
veggies at local farmers' markets, K.R.R. Bridgstreet teaches English
Literature and Composition to unsuspecting college freshmen. Bridgstreet and
her partner live in the woods in central New York with their cats and chickens.
Visit krrbridgstreet.com for news on latest releases and upcoming books.
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