SYNOPSIS

BOOK ONE

The creation of 'fauns' in the early twenty-seventh century had come with a brief promise of hope for restoring the dry and crumbling planet to its former green glory. Unfortunately, an act of greed from a woman in power snuffed out the flame before it had a chance, and such beings as fauns were rumored extinct decades after their first appearance. The fauns were creatures that were inherently human, but purer, with purpose ingrained into their very DNA to cure plants and sprout seeds in the world where the nutrients of the earth and the smog-shrouded light from the sun were not enough. They had been stolen from their creator by Lady Elaine Shir, who discovered that with the right tweaks, the goat-legged beings were capable of bestowing eternal life. Speculations and histories accounted that the beings were wiped out in her laboratories in the city of Ban-Ken.

The search for eternal life led into the twenty-ninth century. The trials and errors of two hundred years had accumulated a toxic radiation in the suffocating city walls, and much of the population was infected. A cure was developed, but was only provided to those who could pay, and to those who would work under Shir command, which led to a vast majority of the residents dying out, and most of the rest taking up work for the less than ethical powers. The son of the Lady, Lord Pallis, took over rule, and in his reign, cast groups of plague-bearing denizens out of the city gates with the intent to spread the contagion.

One afflicted wanderer, a sole survivor from a group of six, finds refuge after two months of staggering through Kentucky and Indiana desert. Abraham Walters had been injected with the plague and exiled from the city. He stumbles across West Haven--a settlement so bare that it cannot be found on most maps--in the last stretch of his journey, and collapses at its boundaries just as his body gives up on him.

He is discovered by the young want-to-be hero, Alyn Smythy, and her alchemy master, William Octienne. Master Octienne recognizes the symptoms of the plague, and promises help. He takes Abraham to meet a reclusive blacksmith in a hidden-away attic space.

The blacksmith cures the refugee of his plague, dismissing questions of where he acquired an outdated version of the cure. His name, Master Drew Hughes, sparks interest for Abraham. Abraham's update on the state of Ban-Ken and its plague sparks interest for Hughes and for Octienne.

It is promptly decided that the city cannot be left alone or ignored any longer and Master Hughes resolves to set off in Ban-Ken's direction to confront its surely insane lord. Master Octienne, to the blacksmith's protest, cashes in a debt and sends his apprentice, Alyn, with his colleague, and pleads that he teach her his trade and familiarize her with a blade. The incompatible pair disembarks in a horse-drawn caravan, while Octienne welcomes Abraham into his home in the doldrums of West Haven and nurtures the man to health. Abraham greedily takes what he can get and schemes to chase down Hughes as soon as his strength returns, dreaming of a reward based solely on the blacksmith's name.

Master Hughes is fixed on a thirty-year-running schedule of coffee and mead, and drinks an unexplained potion twice daily with his habitual drinks. He is a private man with a loathing for company, and the talkative apprentice sets his teeth on edge. They travel tensely. Alyn Smythy, a resilient and arrogant tween, seldom listens to her new master's barks for silence, and over their travels and trials, the pair of clashing personalities develop an unconventional and unspoken care for one another's company--strengthened later by the discovery of Alyn Smythy's biggest secret.

In a market town called Quales, Master Hughes uncovers that Alyn Smythy has the same furry appendages as the fauns of old--fauns that he revealed he had spent his entire life searching for before giving up thirty years previous. He expresses that she is a miracle, and that she gives him hope. For the first time in her lonely orphan life, Alyn feels accepted and even important.

Later in the same town, they collide with a pair of Master Hughes' old friends, and band together for a few days. Elliot Bell is an English immigrant who once assisted in fencing instruction in his home country. He uses his skills to teach Alyn to wield her swords and prepare for a sure fight beyond the great city walls. 

Tim, Elliot's companion, hails from Malawi, Africa, and speaks very little English. He is a scientist that works closely with animals, and tinkers with technology to enhance the intelligence and perception skills of his "Traveling Circus" menagerie. His peculiar animal collection consists of two horses, a coyote, a sloth-bear, a meerkat, two chimps and his best friend, Bwenzi the aged lion.

One morning, Tim spontaneously electrocutes Alyn, which triggers a response from long-dormant nanotechnology in her blood. Her faun abilities are revealed to all, displayed in the miraculous growth of sunflowers from a handful of seeds. Tim also uses a technique dubbed enchanting to enhance her blade. To the dismay of Hughes, Alyn's sword takes on healing properties in her hand.

Satisfied with the productivity of their time with Tim and Elliot, Hughes journeys onward to the city, but not before his English friend confronts him with firm directions that he must visit the Tree Farm; a mysterious abandoned ruin that decays just beyond Ban-Ken's walls, built during the days of the first fauns' creation. Elliot insists that the place is important, and after assuring that Master Hughes and Alyn will visit it, and that Master Hughes will give up his unexplained potion, he and Tim part ways with the blacksmith and his apprentice.

Meanwhile, the refugee from West Haven, recovered thanks to much selfless care from Master William Octienne and his wife, carries Hughes' name gleefully towards the city, regarding the blacksmith that had saved his life as an infamous and long-lost hero of the people and criminal of Ban-Ken city. He rides furiously, intent on somehow acquiring proof of the man's existence in order to turn him in, driven by fantasies of wealth and the American dream.

Hughes and Alyn stay for a night in Dauks, where Hughes runs into a woman with a scarred face who recognizes him. He develops a migraine and grows anxious and afraid as he attempts to recall any memory of her. The scars call out to him as familiar, but he cannot remember ever meeting. His strange behavior makes Alyn worry, and when he refuses to explain about the woman, Alyn starts to make up scenarios in her head of beasts and situations that she thinks scary enough to alarm her master. This upsets her.

A communication barrier causes much strife between the pair, and Alyn becomes painfully aware of it when she discovers Hughes' true worry to be harmless and, in fact, kind. The child's eyes resentfully open to how little Hughes tells her, and she dwells on an offhanded statement where he growled that he would not trust her to fight at his side. She grows insolent, yearning for better treatment and a greater trust, and when he drinks to calm his nerves and is distracted from taking his potion, she does not remind him of it. He misses a dose as he gets lost in seeing Evelyn Marsh, the woman with the three scars across her cheek, once again.

Abraham Walters spots Hughes and Alyn after acquiring an asset in his travel--Derrick Walsh, an officer from the city that carries with him a recording device disguised as a silver piece. Abraham joins forces with Derrick to plant the device on Hughes' person to obtain evidence.

Hughes obliviously carries the recorder to a private room, but drops it as he searches for his key. Alyn picks it up, and follows Hughes and Evelyn Marsh into the room, where their conversation is, unbeknownst, recorded.

Evelyn tells vague tales of how the blacksmith had given her the scars to save her life, and that she was grateful. She insists that he is a hero. She insists that he has friends in and out of the wall ready and willing to help him in his mission if only he asks. He denies everything before he passes out from his liquor. Alyn dwells further on how little she truly knows of the master.

When he wakes, she demands him to prove trust in her by telling her what his potion is for. He attacks her, hurts her, and leaves her behind, spurred to aggression by a fear of not having his dose. She is abandoned and watches him ride away with all her hopes of becoming more than just an orphan.

Book one closes with Abraham Walters and his acquired asset, Derrick Walsh, forcefully taking the recording device off of her. Abraham makes haste with the evidence for the city gates, leaving Alyn hopeless and helpless in the dust.

BOOK TWO

...official synopsis coming soon...