Fantasy Stream: More Background

16 December 2025

The post that follows includes several details of my progress writing the first of my epic fantasy series, as also a reference to a collaboration that is still unfinished. The piece that follows is another scrap from the created history, written to further establish the secondary world created. The italicized words below or Klaybear’s commentary on his search, while the words in quotation marks are the scrap discovered by he and Thalamar.

20 May 2013

This week’s big news is that, after 25 years, I finished Book 7, which completes The Redemption series! This action enables me to spend more time revising Books 5, 6, and 7 (Book 4 is ready for publication and will soon follow), as also a collaborative trilogy that has been in the works since 1990, a ‘low fantasy’ (as opposed to the epic just completed), a more humorous story with memorable characters, according to our first readers. Meanwhile, here is another piece of background information to The Redemption series, this short writing intended as an epilogue to Book 1; it contains information on the possession of Master Ghelvon, as well as insight into the politics of the kailu order. It was written by Master Klaybear many years after the events of The Redemption series occurred. Enjoy!

The following is an excerpt from the official chronicle of the kailum, written many years after this event occurred by the younger Wegex, son of Mistress Storga and Master Wegex and official historian following the destruction of Shigmar in 3524 in which I, regrettably, played a major role. The style is pompous and overwritten, reflecting, I suspect, Mistress Storga’s disappointment that she did not rise higher to become headmaster, but he was as petty and narrow-minded as she was and could never quite master kailu politics. Unfortunately, it is the only record of this event, and in the centuries since the Great Year, as it has been named by historians who have no idea of what they speak, Thal and I have searched the records to find any indication of why the kwalu was able to possess Master Ghelvon. We have spent hours, days, months, and even years discussing the matter, often sending good Sir Blakstar running from our sanctuary into the world, hands covering his ears and swearing he will not return for a century at least. It is too bad Tevvy is no longer with us . . . but I digress–the years weigh heavy upon us.

The problem with Master Ghelvon has always been that a kwalu cannot simply possess anyone: the person must invite the kwalu in to take control. I have read, and re-read my master’s personal journals along with his official Chronicle of the Headmasters; I have also read through Master Ghelvon’s personal journals and records as Master of Arms–Thal also. We can find nothing, except for a tantalizing hint in his final journal entry, that his apprentice had found someone who could ‘help them with both of their problems,’ but there is no previous mention of what those ‘problems’ were. I was going to read the personal journal of his apprentice, but Thal beat me to it and then refused to allow me access to it, but he assures me there is no mention in it of what those problems may be, other than his obsession with Klare. I suspect that he may not be telling me everything, but his judgement has never been wrong–at least since we have started this search. This passage may explain what could have motivated Master Ghelvon to invite the kwalu to take control of his body, and it was a rivalry about which my master was blissfully unaware.

“At the center of the ages, in the years leading up to the Great Year, the School of the Kailum faced a great choice, a choice that would determine the course of the school for years to come, and lead inexorably to the destruction of Shigmar and the School of the Kailum in the year 3524 by the Chosen of the ONE. The prophecy of Shigmar regarding the chosen had been forgotten by nearly all, and so the fact that the Chosen of the ONE were moving through the land, warping all around them, even the mekala, although they knew it not at the time, did not enter into the debates until near the end. At issue was the choice of a new Headmaster, for the old head, Master Merlok Keney, died suddenly, leaving the choice of his successor undone. The circumstances surrounding his untimely demise are mysterious, and those who remember the event, who are still among the living, refuse to speak of it, but hint that Gar or his agents may have been involved. The mekala was recalled, and, when gathered, the first candidate was Master Merlok’s daughter, Mistress Storga, who produced evidence to the effect that her father was grooming her to take his place. Part of the mekala accepted her evidence and supported her candidacy as headmaster. She was opposed by Master Ghelvon, another master of her generation who also claimed that Master Merlok had been grooming him to become headmaster. Master Ghelvon had been the Headmaster’s apprentice and had taken his master’s place as Master of Arms when his master had become Headmaster; his arguments convinced part of the mekala, who then supported his candidacy for headmaster. These two groups were equally divided and deadlocked, neither able to convince anyone from the other group to tip the balance one way or the other, so they remained in this stalemate for months, and the school had no head.

“There was, however, a small group of masters who did not side with either group, who felt that neither candidate was right to lead the school, for they had not forgotten the prophecy of Shigmar and recognized that the time must be close–very close–when the Chosen of the ONE would enter history and change the world for all time. Their group may have been small among the kailum, but, unlike the other two groups, they had ties to the other orders, and other, younger and like-minded masters, all of whom had carefully studied the old works and knew that the time was close. They were led by a young, newly-raised master healer, named Avril, who was from a small village north of Shigmar. Rumor has it that, frustrated with the endless and fruitless debate over what he considered two unacceptable candidates, he resorted to his home village for an early summer feast. While there, he passed the statue at the center of the village square, as he had a thousand times before, pausing to look at it. As he did, so the story goes, a villager and friend of his family, rushed up and begged him to come quickly as his young wife was having her first child and needed his expert help as healer. The statue, of course, is the statue of Shigmar, which led the chosen to life-giver; the child born was Klarissa, who later became his apprentice and the beloved opener of the Great Year. The story claims that these two events, happening at the same time, brought to his mind the prophecy of Shigmar and his good friend Master Myron, who he soon put forward as a candidate for headmaster. However, if this story were true, then Klarissa would be much younger than she actually was.

“We know that Master Avril did go to the early summer feast, and when he returned, he brought with him Master Myron, who had been combing the land, searching for the chosen. He spoke briefly to this small group of the mekala, and they all agreed that he was precisely what they were looking for to lead them. The mekala reconvened, and Master Avril put Master Myron forth as an alternative to the deadlock that could not be broken. His eloquent speech got the attention of the mekala, and he introduced Master Myron, who was well-known. Master Myron opened with Shigmar’s prophecy, which sent an electric surge through the mekala, and followed with his own vision in the sacred glade, and how Master Avril’s news had changed his understanding of that vision, and his own role in aiding the Chosen of the ONE. He mentioned that he had spent his years since leaving the school searching the land looking for the chosen, believing, wrongly, he admitted, that he was destined to find them and bring them to the knowledge of all the orders. His meeting with Master Avril had been by chance, but he realized now that it was not chance–it was a meeting destined by the ONE, for when Master Avril had brought him up to date on the sudden demise of Headmaster Merlok and the mekala’s deadlock over a successor, both masters shared a vision, saw what must be done, and rushed back to Shigmar. Master Myron then shared with the mekala the vision: that two of the Chosen would soon come to Shigmar to be trained as kailum–one of them a healer who would become Master Avril’s apprentice and the greatest healer, the second would become his apprentice, and he would be the most powerful kailu ever, that they would both save and destroy the kailum, and that one would enable the other to open the way to save them all. Master Myron sat down, and silence filled the hall. A voice spoke, and to this day, no one knows who spoke, no one ever admitted speaking, but someone spoke in a clear, piercing voice, ‘All in favor of Master Myron as our new Headmaster, say Aye!’ It is said that the shout of approval that followed shook the school from the lowest dungeon to the highest tower. ‘Opposed?’ the same clear voice asked, and there was silence. Only two members of the mekala did not vote: Mistress Storga and Master Ghelvon, and it is said, although it cannot be confirmed, that both secretly hated Master Avril and Headmaster Myron thereafter. . . .