season avatars 01 - seasons beginnings (37 page)
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Authors: sandra ulbrich almazan
Gwen might be a Season Avatar for the Goddess of Spring, First of
the Four Gods and Goddesses of Challen, but by herself, her magic was
limited to healing. Linking with the other three Avatars—one each for
Summer, Fall, and Winter—would allow her to share thoughts with the
others, pool their magic, and spread it throughout the country. But there
was already a quartet of Avatars taking care of Challen. They’d been in
place for decades. Surely the Four meant for Gwen and the other Ava-
tars of her birth year to replace the current Avatars soon. After all, as
her father and aunt were fond of pointing out, she was already eighteen,
old enough to be married and start raising a family. They didn’t under-
stand she felt more ready to be an Avatar than a wife. She remembered
magic from her previous lives as an Avatar. As for what she remem-
bered about her personal lives...she’d been married to the Summer
Avatar more often than not. William was a sometimes childhood friend,
sometimes childhood tormentor, but he was no Avatar. Plus he wanted
her to start having children, and she knew she wasn’t ready for child-
birth, not after the way her mother died.
Gwen rubbed her head. This wasn’t the time to be fretting over the
wedding or children she hadn’t conceived. She had to learn what was
giving her a magical headache. Was it a Chaos Season, when all of the
seasons appeared at once, and the Avatars had to return everything to
normal? It had never given her a headache before. Besides, the flowers
around her were still normal. But the air felt cooler now, bringing up
goose bumps on her arms.
Gwen rubbed her skin, using her magic to feel warmer. As she did
so, she surveyed the garden. A brown form lying in the path several
yards away caught her eye. As she approached it, it resolved into a hu-
man figure. One of the gardeners, judging by his clothes and the trowel
by his side. He wasn’t moving, and the flowers around him were brown
and wilted.
A mini Chaos Season. Maybe this is why my head hurts. What hap-
pened to the gardener? I’d better check.
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs
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Gwen stripped off her gloves, then knelt by the prone man. He was
still breathing, but a gash on his forehead streamed blood into the soil.
Perhaps he’d been hit by a hailstone. If so, it must have already melted.
She pressed her hand against the cut, sealing it. Once that was done, she
focused her magic inward, checking for more serious damage. The in-
jury didn’t seem serious compared to others she’d healed during her
several lifetimes as Spring Avatar, but she would still recommend to
the butler—Lady Shellinda would consider herself too far above her
servant to be concerned about him—that the gardener be given a day or
two to rest. Since this was a head injury, someone should watch him for
any unusual symptoms so she could heal him again if necessary.
Not that it will be.
Gwen used a withered leaf to wipe some of the blood off of her
hands before she accidentally stained her silk gown. As she stared at the
soil, she noticed a pottery shard next to one of the frostbitten tulips.
What would something like that be doing in the middle of a carefully
managed flower bed? She pressed her lips together when she noticed a
rust-colored edge on the shard. No hailstone had assaulted the gardener.
But where had the shard come from? Maybe this Chaos Season had had
strong winds, strong enough to fling small objects about. That was quite
common. The shard, however, wasn’t. It was lighter in color than the
dirt, and it had marks on it that Gwen had never seen before.
Gwen picked up the shard to look at it more closely. The air was
still, eerily still. She was careful not to touch the edges, but it turned in
her hand as if it was alive. She let it go, but it clung to her.
By All Four…
“Get away from me!” She shook her hand, but the
shard bit into her palm. Gwen reached for it, then thought better of
touching it with her bare skin. She covered her free hand with part of
her skirt, then tried wrenching the shard free. The gardener stirred be-
side her, and Gwen wondered if she would need him to help her pull the
piece of pottery away. Then it snapped. She could tell that a corner was
missing—a corner shaped like the bulge in her skin. How had it slipped
in? More to the point, would she be able to get it out? Normally that
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S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
shouldn’t be a problem, but this Chaos Season, though small, was any-
thing but normal.
She drew a line over the bump, willing her skin to split. But for once,
her healing magic refused to obey her. Pressure built in her head. If she
wasn’t already squatting, she might have fallen over. Was the pottery
shard poisoned? She hadn’t detected anything unusual when she’d
healed the gardener. Still, something was interfering with her magic.
Have I ever come across anything like this before?
Gwen searched
her memories from previous lives. No, nothing had ever gotten stuck
under her skin—or anyone else’s—and refused to come out. However,
the farther back she went, the more familiar the pottery shard seemed.
She’d always considered her oldest memories the least trustworthy and
least complete, so even this information didn’t help her.
Goddess of Spring, what do I do now?
A trail of cold reached past her wrist and up her arm.
“Freeze it!” Never had swearing felt more appropriate. Gwen
grasped her affected arm with her other hand and pressed down, trying
to block the cold. For a moment, it seemed to work, but then the cold
shot past her elbow, then to her shoulder.
“What happened?” Finally, the gardener opened his eyes. “My flow-
ers! My precious tulips!” He blinked as he gaped at her. “Lady lo Havil?
What are you doing here?”
Cold squeezed her throat closed. She gestured toward the house,
even though no one there would be able to help her either.
Then the cold numbed her head, halting her pain—and everything
else.
Other Works By the Author
Science Fiction: Catalyst Chronicles Series
Fantasy: Short Stories
Poetry
Life at Seventeen Syllables a Day: A Journal in Haiku
Fantasy: Season Avatars Series
Scattered Seasons (tentative publication 2015)
About the Author
Photo taken by Aleks Bienkowska of Polka Photos, 2012
Sandra Ulbrich Almazan started reading at the age of three and only
stops when absolutely required to. Although she hasn’t been writing
quite that long, she did compose a very simple play in German during
middle school. Her science fiction novella
Move Over Ms. L.
(an early
version of
Lyon’s Legacy
) earned an Honorable Mention in the 2001
UPC Science Fiction Awards, and her short story “A Reptile at the Re-
union” was published in the anthology
Firestorm of Dragons.
Other
published works by Sandra include
Twinned Universes
and several sci-
ence fiction and fantasy short stories. She is a founding member of
Broad Universe, which promotes science fiction, fantasy, and horror
written by women. Her undergraduate degree is in molecular biol-
ogy/English, and she has a Master of Technical and Scientific
Communication degree. Her day job is in the laboratory of an enzyme
company; she’s also been a technical writer and a part-time copyeditor
for a local newspaper. Some of her other accomplishments are losing
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S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
on
Jeopardy!
and taking a stuffed orca to three continents. She lives in
the Chicago area with her husband, Eugene; and son, Alex. In her rare
moments of free time, she enjoys crocheting, listening to classic rock
(particularly the Beatles), and watching improv comedy.
Sandra can be found online at the following links:
website
(www.sandraulbrichalmazan.com)
blog
(www.ulbrichalmazan.blogspot.com)
Twitter
(@ulbrichalmazan)
Facebook
(SandraUlbrichAlmazanSffAuthor)
Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5282664.San-
Table of Contents
Book One of the Season Avatars
Part One: The Magicians ...................................................................... 7
The Meeting ..................................................................................... 9
Salth ..............................................................................................
An Apprentice? .............................................................................. 22
Breaking the Spell .......................................................................... 28
The Magic Institute ........................................................................ 32
A Midnight Visit ............................................................................ 41
The Golden Haze ........................................................................... 58
Part Two: The Avatars ....................................................................... 65
Pagli ..............................................................................................
The Four ......................................................................................... 7
Timeless Artifacts .......................................................................... 83
The Crystal House .......................................................................... 96
A House for Thirteen ................................................................... 107
The Avatars .................................................................................. 118
Chaos Season ............................................................................... 127
Spring Returns ............................................................................. 136
The Summer Avatars ................................................................... 143
Crystal, Gold, and a Shell ............................................................ 163
Departure ...................................................................................... 174
A Sinking Boat ............................................................................. 189
An Encounter ............................................................................... 196
Two Krons ................................................................................... 224
The Water Clock .......................................................................... 240
Afterword ..................................................................................... 250
The Season Avatars of Seasons’ Beginnings ................................ 251
Scattered Seasons (Book Two of the Season Avatars) ................. 252
Other Works By the Author ......................................................... 257
About the Author .......................................................................... 259
