Cassandra's Lantern

Introduction

Cassandra's Lantern is a fantasy tale set in a world that is at times very much like our own and at others quite strikingly different, having diverged at some unknown point in the past so that there is both the familiar and the oddly unknown inhabiting the same space and time. It is a world of magic that has been driven into retreat by the relentless progression of science and reason, a state of affairs against which the wielders of magic and those creatures that rely upon its existence to survive are not at all pleased.

In the middle of all this, and quite happily unaware of the wider world, Cassandra has spent most of her young life running the canals of Venice and is in want of nothing more than to be left to her own devices and free. But life is never that simple for anyone, and a casual vow that she made as a child has now come back to haunt her with deadly consequences. She will rely upon her skill with a rapier to save her, and the stolen knowledge that guides her blade.

Wrenched from the only home she has known and sent to a place that feels like the other end of the world, she is forced to wonder about many of the things that she has taken for granted. Why has she never been compelled to ask questions about the parents that she never knew? What force has kept her guardian, known to her only as Mosca, alive and virile when me he knew are long in their graves? Can she survive in the care of another man entirely who seems to see her more as a burden than a human being?

Of course I'd like to see this novel published in one form or another when the manuscript is completed, but for now I am posting it here to see what people think. Feedback is always welcome and I would be happy to think that people have read and enjoyed what has been one of the most entertaining cast of characters to write for.