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  Praise for Glyphbinder

  “...weaves a spell that captures the reader's attention and imagination and doesn't release them until the last page is read. The world ... is incredibly rich and well-developed. The reader quickly develops the type of intimate relationship with the characters that makes their hurts and joys, their triumphs and defeats vibrant and real.”

  —Ron Garner, Editor, Silence in the Library Press

  “Because of the cast of characters and the depth of the world contained within, Glyphbinder is an entertaining and memorable fantasy novel. The magic is set forth with rules and boundaries, so all of you fantasy junkies (myself included) don’t have to worry about cheesy characters with cheesy powers.”

  —Mike Cluff, Editor, Fiction Vortex

  “A solid debut. Great characters and wildly imaginative.”

  —Stuart Jaffe, author of The Majla Chronicles

  “Glyphbinder ... has engaging characters, plenty of action, and strong forward momentum.”

  —Laurel Anne Hill, award-winning author of Heroes Arise

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  GLYPHBINDER

  Copyright @ 2013 by T. Eric Bakutis

  www.tebakutis.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover artwork by Greg Taylor

  www.GregTaylorArt.com

  Interior Design by Eric Bakutis

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to

  Harold Mann

  dreamer, inventor, and grandfather.

  You taught me the value of never giving up on your dreams no matter what life throws at you—even when it throws a hurricane or two.

  Though you never got to see this book published, I know you’d be proud.

  Chapter 1

  Nineteen Years Ago...

  XANDER HONURON WOKE to arguing, two voices, male and female. Varyn and Melyssa. His father and grandmother. They had come to murder his unborn daughter.

  Panic gripped Xander as he broke out in a cold sweat. He couldn’t let them hurt little Kara. He tried to move and found his limbs lethargic, but they worked. Melyssa and Varyn could not know he was awake. If they did not know he might still save his family.

  As if the paralysis were not enough, Xander then discovered his hands and feet were both bound, separately. Tight knots — his father’s work. He grunted, strained, sweated, and finally rolled onto his side. Just that effort left him breathless, but he dared not rest.

  The scent of spice and wax filled Xander’s nostrils as he pushed across the paneled wooden floor like an inchworm, moving his shoulder, then his hip. Shoulder, then hip. The smell of their home conjured memories of Ona’s warm body wrapped in his arms, her knowing smile as he ranted about his latest glyph, the way she narrowed her eyes and frowned as she concentrated. Beautiful.

  Around him rose slim planks he had glyphed together to make walls and sealed with clay. This was their house, their safest place. Then Ona became pregnant, even though Xander had scribed a glyph to make sure that never happened. Now Melyssa had broken that glyph and would kill their unborn daughter because her blood wasn’t like Xander’s, or Ona’s, or anyone else’s.

  Little Kara’s blood was different.

  Xander’s body tingled as his exertion thawed what remained of Melyssa’s powerful blood glyph: the Forever Prisoner. A soul glyph that imposed paralysis. Melyssa’s glyph had dropped him as soon as he opened the door. Its effects lingered, invisible tendrils around his limbs as tight as the rope that bound his hands and feet.

  Melyssa had taught Xander all he knew about the dream world, about glyphs, about magic, but Xander still should have felt her coming. Melyssa had forced carrow root down his throat while he slept, a rare plant that polluted a mage’s blood. Any glyph he scribed now would knock him senseless, but he still had his wits. His muscles. His will.

  A lone oak dresser stood by the bedroom door, and that dresser became Xander’s whole world. His vision shrank to nothing but the dresser as he crawled on, heart pounding and chest heaving. The argument beyond the door grew louder.

  “Why, Melyssa? Why let her live?” That was Varyn, calmly discussing the murder of Xander’s unborn daughter.

  “Ending Ona’s pregnancy would change nothing.” Melyssa’s soft voice barely carried through the door. “The Mavoureen would simply change the next child, and we might never find her. They must think they succeeded. We must let her be born.”

  “So we take her and my fool son to Solyr?” Varyn never mentioned Ona by name. “We raise my granddaughter in a cloister? Is that your plan, Mother?”

  Xander’s head thumped against the paneled floor as his neck muscles spasmed. He ignored the spots before his eyes and pushed on, straining as he pulled at his bonds. Closer. Just a little closer.

  “Of course not,” Melyssa said. “The Mavoureen are tireless. Wherever we hid her they would soon find her, take her. The only way this child survives is if no one knows who she is.”

  Xander kept a small hunting knife balanced inside a thin shaft in one leg of his oak dresser. He slammed it with his forehead, and that knife clattered to the floor. He rolled onto his side and crushed his back against the dresser, straining with one bound hand. His fingers brushed the handle — maddeningly close.

  “And how,” Varyn asked, “do we ensure no one knows that?”

  “We obscure her heritage. We protect her, but never in any way she can see. The Mavoureen can invade dreams, draw secrets from people, but they cannot discover what no one knows.”

  Xander grabbed the knife and cut his hands many times as he sliced blindly at the rope. His eyes watered as each new cut stung, but he endured because each sting was one closer to stopping this. Even if they didn’t kill Kara, they were still going to take her away.

  “So,” Varyn said. “You are going to wipe their memories.”

  “Not wipe. Distort. Replace. Ona married a man and she had a daughter. But that man does not have to be Xander, and this child does not have to be his daughter.”

  The rope frayed, then snapped. Xander rose gripping the knife in one bloody hand. His chest heaved and his eyes watered as he gripped the handle of the thin oak door separating the bedroom from the main room. The only two rooms in this small cabin.

  To stop this, he might have to hurt his grandmother. His father. He might have to hurt them very badly, and that made his gorge rise. Could he jam a knife into Melyssa’s ribs if it came to that? Could he stab his own father in the gut?

  No. He would brandish the knife, threaten them, convince them he was crazy with fear. Then he would flee with Ona. Could they cross the half league of rough woods to Cyan with her pregnant? Could he keep both Melyssa and Varyn off their trail?

  No time. Those worries would come later. Time to save his family. He threw open the door and charged into the small living room with teeth bared and knife raised. Too late.

  Ona was already gone.

  Two wooden stools stood by the modest brick fireplace. A black pot hung on a chain of thin iron above smoldering embers. A small wooden table covered in wax held more of Ona’s scented candles, a book of limericks from Cyan, and a bowl of cold soup.

  Xander ran to the front door. He could track them through the woods. He had only just grabbed the handle when a Hand of Breath slammed him into the door. He la
nded on his back and dropped his knife as his arms and legs went limp as wet straw.

  New tendrils locked his limbs. His tormenters had felled him with a Hand of Breath followed by the Forever Prisoner. That meant they were still here, in this house. It meant Ona might be here too.

  Heavy footfalls thumped and then Varyn loomed over him. His father’s face was hard and square, like Xander’s, but Varyn had a thick black beard and ringlets of black and gray hair that fell to his shoulders. Xander wanted to scream at him.

  “Clumsy and foolish as ever,” Varyn said. “Have I taught you nothing, boy?”

  “Just leave," Xander whispered. “Let us go and I’ll never have the chance to disappoint you again."

  “Xander?” Melyssa knelt beside him, white curls dangling before her bright blue eyes. “Why are your hands covered in blood?”

  They must have used astral glyphs to hide themselves, a trick neither had ever shared with him. Of course, they had not shared much since he ran off to marry Ona. As if he’d ever be happy in self-imposed exile. That was their life, not his.

  “We're wasting time.” Varyn straightened. “Alter Ona’s memories. I’ll have Halde and Cantrall bring us a man from another town, someone without family. We’ll turn him into Ona’s husband.”

  “No,” Xander whispered.

  “If that doesn’t fool these demons nothing will."

  Xander found his wife propped against the table, fast asleep but breathing steady. Strands of raven hair fell across her heart-shaped face and her full pink lips were clenched tight. Her pale blue dress clustered around her round belly. Around their child.

  Melyssa would take her away tonight, take Ona and their daughter, and that made Xander’s chest ache and his eyes itch. There had to be something he could do. He had to stop this.

  “Why?” Xander whispered. “Why can’t you protect us?”

  “Oh my dear boy.” Melyssa tucked her ancient white robes beneath her knees. “You knew this day might come. We warned you.”

  She looked to Varyn. “I’ll start with Xander. When the others bring the man you spoke of, I’ll see to Ona.” She turned back to him. “I hate myself for this, but you must see why it’s necessary. If there was any other way—”

  “Don’t be such a coward. I’m strong enough to protect her. So are you. Give us a chance!”

  Melyssa kissed his forehead as Varyn watched, eyes dry. Varyn had not cried since Xander’s mother died giving birth, but he didn’t have to convince Varyn. Just Melyssa. Somehow.

  Melyssa sliced one finger with the nail on her thumb and painted complex glyphs on his chest with her own blood. “The whole world dies if they take your daughter. We can't take that chance, but I refuse to kill her. I love her too. She’s my blood and yours.”

  “Please.” As Melyssa’s magic forced his eyelids shut Xander clutched his memories of Ona — memories of her wide brown eyes and bright full smile. The scent of lavender in her hair. He sobbed as each memory melted away, as the woman he loved ceased to be a woman he knew at all.

  “Kara, listen to me.” Xander projected mindspeak to his unborn daughter as best he could. “I love you so much. Take care of yourself. Take care of your mother.”

  Then they were gone.

  Chapter 2

  Now...

  KARA TANNER WALKED a trail of dirt and stone blocked in by clumps of needle-thin grass, thorny yellow weeds, and sprawling patches of clover. The Lorilan Forest had never felt as empty as it did now. The late afternoon sun cut through the overgrowth, fingers of light on a carpet of leaves. Every patch of shadow felt like a threat.

  Kara was almost to the Thinking Trees, and her heart hammered in her chest. Those trees could kill her and would, if it suited their fancy, but they had what she needed to save her mother: a single glowing acorn ripe with Life's energy. Just the thought of watching Ona die in bed brought a lump to her throat.

  Kara picked her way through giant gray cedars, wide enough to offer passage but close enough to scatter the cold wind. Their branches rustled and shivered. A redbird called from above, a low, hopeful warble, but no others answered. It sang alone.

  Kara adjusted her gray cloak and remembered Ona hugging her, Ona setting a splint, Ona singing her to sleep, each word soft and perfect. She pictured her mother’s smiling face until her pounding heart slowed.

  Ona had raised Kara all but alone while her father sailed away on long voyages — Rance Tanner worked on trading ships for months at a time — but her mother had never complained. Kara had to save her. The wasting disease now eating her mother away grew more painful each year. Ona did not have many years left.

  At last the cedars thinned, vanished entirely, and only open brown ground remained. The Thinking Trees clustered in a grove all their own, surrounded by a circle of dead earth. As Kara entered the circle, her skin tingled and hairs rose on the back of her neck.

  The Thinking Trees were taller than the cedars, and vines of purple ivy wound around their bright brown trunks. Those trunks were smooth, unnaturally so, and the first sprouting branches hung higher than the tallest building at Solyr: the magic academy where Kara had lived and studied for almost twelve years.

  The tingling on Kara’s skin intensified, like a hot sun beating down. She felt an overwhelming compulsion to collapse and die, sent by the massed minds of the Thinking Trees, but she clenched her fists and stood her ground. She did nothing else.

  If she threatened these trees in any way, they would paralyze her with their ancient minds. She would nourish their roots with her decaying body, tan skin rotting off white bones. Kara pushed the threatening image aside and waited, endured. After a time, the tingle faded. She took that as permission.

  The trees would hear her plea.

  Kara pulled back the hood of her initiate’s cloak, knelt before the Thinking Trees, and brushed a clump of brown hair from her eyes. She stretched her slim frame forward and dug her fingers into the cool earth — a tree planting roots. She took the dream world.

  In the world that existed inside her closed eyelids, a meshwork of jagged brown lines formed the ground and extended to the smooth yellow grid of the sky. Vibrant orange lines formed the massive trunks of the Thinking Trees. Just beyond the circle of dead earth, a few brave stalks of orange grass swayed in the wind.

  Holding the dream world was like trying to flatten a flag in a stiff wind. Kara did it better than most. Everyone in the Five Provinces who wielded magic looked into the dream world as they scribed glyphs in their own blood on the ground, the air, or themselves. Here, they drew on the Five Who Had Made the World to change it.

  Kara drew a hand free and sliced one finger open with her sharpened thumbnail. She scribed a single formless glyph in her own blood on the empty air, a glyph of idea: a concept sent from one mind to another. A baby clutching its mother.

  The trees offered no response, so Kara scribed another idea glyph. Two merchants brokering a deal. The aura of the closest tree shifted, and that gave her hope. She would find no sympathy from a Thinking Tree, but she might find a trade.

  Kara scribed another idea glyph, a single glowing acorn. The tree then tugged at her mind, a feeling like cool air slipping in through her nose. It wanted inside, and would already be inside if Kara's studies at Solyr had not trained her to block such intrusions.

  She stopped resisting. She opened her mind to the Thinking Tree even though that felt as wrong as taking water into her lungs. She offered absolute trust.

  Once inside her head, this tree would own her. She would be a puppet and it the puppeteer. It demanded this price, and she could pay it or leave. She was not leaving.

  Kara’s head pounded, and her vision swam. The tree rummaged through her memories, everything from her first steps to her first kiss to her most secret dreams. It drank her life’s experience as a hungry tick would drink her blood – impatient, eager, and rough.

  The throbbing in her head grew to dozens of hammers slamming the inside of her skull, a cacophony of breakin
g rocks. She endured. She remembered Ona’s pained cries.

  The Thinking Tree peered at every memory she had, felt everything she had ever felt, poked at every decision she had ever made. When it knew her better than she knew herself it finally withdrew, sated. After it consumed her life.

  Needles poked at the inside of Kara's eyes. She was powerless before this tree, and that realization chilled her. She could really die here, helpless, in these woods. Only a fool would think to bargain with an entity as ancient as this.

  A glowing acorn landed with a quiet thunk. The tree had honored their bargain, and Kara had trouble believing it. The acorn was scarcely bigger than her thumb, but it was real.

  The Solyr history had not lied. One could bargain with Thinking Trees. Even something as ancient as this tree still longed for life experience beyond its roots.

  The skin she had sliced healed over as it always did, resealing itself once she completed her blood magic pact. Kara crawled forward and picked up the acorn. She tucked it into the small pouch hidden inside her shirt and crawled out of the circle, backward.

  Her arms and legs ached by the time she reached the edge. Only then did she dare rise. She left the dream world, brushed herself off, and turned to find a large man standing right behind her.

  She unslung her quarterstaff and dropped into a low guard, staff raised above her head and tip slanted down. “Halt!” Her reflexive action did nothing to stop the tremble in her arms. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  Her stalker was far too tan to be a northlander, shorter than she was and built like a bear. His long black hair hung about his face and brushed his shoulders. Pale blue eyes peered from beneath bushy black eyebrows. A thin beard surrounded his mouth, but all that paled in comparison to the blood. So much blood.