Synopsis: Harbinger
Posted: November 1st, 2010, 11:11 am
Hi all!
Thought I'd post this up for critique. I've been working on this book for a few months now (3 out of 4 have been spent editing), and I'm starting to look over the story again to see if there's anything I want to change. Anything that seems odd or incongruent to you? I'll warn you ahead of time--Harbinger is a fantasy novel, and I know some people can't stand them. Just thought I'd let you know what you were getting into =)
Opening:
Micah is an ordinary high schooler, in a happy relationship with his best friend's sister. One day, he is suddenly taken as the vessel of Fenris, an ancient Norse deity imprisoned for the last millennium in a rift in spacetime. Afterward, he is greeted by a man who calls himself Apollo, who tells him he only has a few days to live--Fenris' jailor, a Valkyrie named Storm, is making for Micah's hometown in an effort to reclaim Fenris' spirit. The next day, another Valkyrie appears, but to Micah's surprise she offers to help him prepare for Storm's assault. During his training, Micah discovers he possesses a power that may serve as his trump card against Storm.
Opening, Climax:
Storm arrives, and immediately engages in battle with Micah. It becomes clear that she was guarding Fenris because it was his task to destroy her world, called Asgard--where the Norse gods make their home. She is only trying to protect her world, and would gladly trade Micah's life for the millions on Asgard. During the fight, Kitty sacrifices herself to save Micah, and an enraged Micah rises up to defeat Storm. Before he can kill her, Iris--the Valkyrie who trained him--appears and stops him. In his anger he tries to kill her too, but she has brought allies with her, and he is subdued. Iris convinces Storm that Asgard has to die to avoid Creation becoming polluted with inhabited worlds. Afterward, she takes Micah to Paradise for the next part of his training.
Middle:
Micah meets another Valkyrie named Rose, who Iris has appointed his new teacher. During his time under her tutelage, he overhears a conversation between Iris, Storm, and a Norse goddess named Freya. Freya says she was visited by a Warden who threatened to kill Storm the next time he met her. Enraged, Storm sets off for Hell, home of the Wardens. Iris follows, convinced that Storm will die if she goes alone. Micah is slightly disturbed at their departure--Iris was the only person he really trusted after Kitty's death, and he left Earth behind. Almost immediately after overhearing the conversation, Micah is greeted by an archangel named Zephiel who tells him his training is not progressing fast enough. Without Rose's knowledge, Zephiel spirits Micah away to the top of the Workshop, the home and...well, workshop of the Maker. There, Micah is met with yet another new group of trainers--one Valkyrie and three gods, two Greek, one Roman.
Middle, Rising Action:
After a week of training atop the Workshop, Micah decides to set off for Hell to search for Iris and Storm. Mars, one of Micah's teachers and the Roman god of war, follows him and offers to help, much to Micah's surprise. Once in Hell, they split up, and on his journey Micah meets a familiar figure. Noah, Kitty's brother and Micah's best friend challenges him, accusing him of being responsible for Kitty's death. Micah realizes Noah was the Warden Freya mentioned, and he is alarmed at how much his friend has changed since Kitty's death. He narrowly defeats Noah and carries on to find Iris and Storm chained to a great wheel over a pit of fire. After slaying the demons around the pit, Micah attempts to free the two Valkyries, but he is interrupted by--himself?
Middle, Climax:
The other-Micah reveals himself to be Eichor, a parallel version of Micah. He claims to want to destroy Asgard himself, and that Micah is only getting in the way. After a heated battle, Eichor kills Micah and leaves Hell for Asgard. Noah arrives on the scene and, with the aid of a dark Valkyrie named Umbra, takes Micah's body to Asgard as well, pleading with the Norse goddess of the dead to allow his revival before his soul flees his body. She agrees to revive Micah, but only if he is left in her care afterward. Reluctantly, Noah agrees, and Micah is revived but condemned to a possibly worse fate: imprisonment in Niflhel, the deepest pit of the Norse underworld.
End:
Eichor travels to the mountain where Loki, the Norse god of chaos and deception, is imprisoned and triggers the evil god's release. Meanwhile, Micah travels through Niflhel, meeting a few unlikely allies along the way. As Micah finally escapes and heads for Valhalla, the hall of the greatest of the Norse gods, Odin, Eichor raises a giant serpent named Jormundgand from the eastern sea, adding a new ally to his ever-growing list. When Micah finally reaches Valhalla, he finds Hel rudely questioning the master of the hall, demanding to know where her prisoner has gone. Escape from Niflhel is impossible, she claims, unless one had the help of a god--and she suspects Odin. She recognizes Micah when he arrives, but Odin lies for him, telling Hel he is simply a native from the surrounding country come to beg his aid. Unable to simply seize Micah under Odin's gaze, Hel is forced to leave. Odin turns to Micah grimly, saying he recognized him immediately as the vessel of Fenris, the Harbinger sent to destroy Asgard. But Micah surprises Odin, telling him that he has no intention of destroying Asgard at all, and that he would rather fight alongside the gods to save it. He warns Odin of his parallel self, Eichor, who is also a vessel of a parallel version of Fenris--and therefore capable of destroying Asgard just as Micah could.
End, Rising Action:
Armies begin to gather under Yggdrasil, the World Tree that rises from the center of Asgard. Jormundgand rears up among an endless sea of ghosts, commanded by Hel herself. The giants join them, including the frost giant from Niflhel whom Micah befriended, Hrym. At the head of them all is Eichor. The gods gather and move to meet them, and several of Odin's Valkyries show up--Iris and Storm among them. Mars managed to free them after all! The god of war himself sneaks in to 'join the party,' but remains cautious lest the Norse gods should recognize him. Noah also shows up, having had a change of heart since his battle with Micah. The armies meet at the base of Yggdrasil, and the battle for Asgard begins.
End, Climax:
After the battle has raged for quite some time, Eichor finds and slays Odin. Enraged, Iris attacks him, seeking to avenge her master. Hrym betrays his brothers in favor of the promise he made to fight beside Micah, and they join Iris along with Noah. Even with four against one, Eichor manages to hold his own against them all. During the fight, the ground under Micah's feet rises up into the air as a section of the battlefield soars into the sky. A blast of wind clears it of bodies, and Micah turns to find himself in his ruined hometown. Confused, he sets off through the disheveled buildings until he reaches his school, which looks just as it did after his fight with Storm. Even Kitty's body still lays before it...Suddenly, she gets up, and accuses Micah of not avenging her death. Micah's protests fall on deaf ears, and Kitty attacks him, chains extending from her wrists and ankles. To Micah's surprise, she is the fiercest opponent he's fought yet. His love for her renders him incapable of harming her, but his mind cries out that this can't be the real Kitty. Eventually, it becomes clear that his mind is right--Loki drops the illusion of Kitty and reveals his true form. Micah doesn't stand a chance against the god, but help comes from an unlikely source, and Loki is slain.
Meanwhile, Noah manages to defeat Eichor, and as Eichor dies his memories flee to his nearest surviving self--Micah. Micah learns that Eichor was also searching for Kitty, just a parallel version of her: Eichor's own wife. She was kidnapped by a demon who told Eichor that he would exchange her for enough power to break out of Hell for good. When Eichor became the vessel of Freki (parallel Fenris) and learned of his task, he also learned that when a world is destroyed it releases a vast amount of power called quintessence. Thus, Eichor has been traveling from one universe to another, destroying worlds as he went. He had planned to add Asgard to the list, but had been slain by Noah before he could claim the world's quintessence.
After the battle's end, the demon who took Eichor's wife appears to claim Asgard's power. His is confronted by Micah and Noah, who defeat him. Micah learns that the demon consumed Eichor's wife shortly after he made the agreement with Eichor--he never intended to fulfill his part of the bargain. Micah cuts the demon open and retrieves the bones of Eichor's wife before fleeing with Noah to Paradise as Asgard crumbles around them.
End, Falling Action:
Upon their arrival in Paradise, Micah and Noah are accosted by a team of angels and imprisoned--Noah is mistrusted in Paradise because he was a Warden, though he renounced the title after joining Micah (this is all assumed--the chapter begins with Micah and Noah in a cell. The details can be pieced together if you follow the dialogue, though). They receive a visitor: a man whose features are constantly changing. After a short exchange, he identifies himself as the Maker. He tells them that they will soon be forced to leave Paradise, an exile that is not necessarily indefinite. He explains he still has faith in them, and in their quest to recover Kitty's soul. As he turns to leave, Micah blurts out a request: that Eichor's wife be resurrected on Eichor's world. As it is a selfless wish, the Maker agrees.
The two are given one hour to leave Paradise once they are freed from their cell. They agree to split up in their search, so they'll cover more ground. Noah departs with Umbra, and Micah asks Iris to take him to Eichor's homeworld, a parallel Earth called Cysaris. He seeks out Eichor's village, and upon his arrival is initially mistaken for Eichor himself. A woman runs forward to greet him, and for a moment he thinks it is Kitty before realizing that it is Eichor's wife. The Maker really had restored her. Micah reveals that he is not Eichor, and lies to the villagers--he says the bones he carries are Eichor's (rather than those of his wife). The dismayed villagers bury "Eichor" on a promontory of rock overlooking a canyon, where according to Eichor's wife he liked to paint before he turned to war. Micah hopes Eichor can rest in peace now: it was the closest thing to a burial he could have given him, as Eichor's body was never recovered from Asgard.
The night after the burial, Eichor appears to Micah in a dream, and after a short dialogue gives him a name--"Kemral." Upon awaking, Micah sets off with Iris in search of this "Kemral," which he thinks may be a world. He hopes Eichor was trying to tell him something, perhaps a lead to Kitty. Currently, it's the only lead he has.
_ _ _
Kemral is indeed a world, and is the setting for the sequel to Harbinger. I left the matter of Kitty's soul unresolved with a sequel in mind, so I hope some agent out there is in the mood for a series. Now. Thoughts, questions, concerns? What do you think of the idea? Please keep vehement rants to a minimum =)
...Oh, and sorry about the length. It's a complicated plot...
Thought I'd post this up for critique. I've been working on this book for a few months now (3 out of 4 have been spent editing), and I'm starting to look over the story again to see if there's anything I want to change. Anything that seems odd or incongruent to you? I'll warn you ahead of time--Harbinger is a fantasy novel, and I know some people can't stand them. Just thought I'd let you know what you were getting into =)
Opening:
Micah is an ordinary high schooler, in a happy relationship with his best friend's sister. One day, he is suddenly taken as the vessel of Fenris, an ancient Norse deity imprisoned for the last millennium in a rift in spacetime. Afterward, he is greeted by a man who calls himself Apollo, who tells him he only has a few days to live--Fenris' jailor, a Valkyrie named Storm, is making for Micah's hometown in an effort to reclaim Fenris' spirit. The next day, another Valkyrie appears, but to Micah's surprise she offers to help him prepare for Storm's assault. During his training, Micah discovers he possesses a power that may serve as his trump card against Storm.
Opening, Climax:
Storm arrives, and immediately engages in battle with Micah. It becomes clear that she was guarding Fenris because it was his task to destroy her world, called Asgard--where the Norse gods make their home. She is only trying to protect her world, and would gladly trade Micah's life for the millions on Asgard. During the fight, Kitty sacrifices herself to save Micah, and an enraged Micah rises up to defeat Storm. Before he can kill her, Iris--the Valkyrie who trained him--appears and stops him. In his anger he tries to kill her too, but she has brought allies with her, and he is subdued. Iris convinces Storm that Asgard has to die to avoid Creation becoming polluted with inhabited worlds. Afterward, she takes Micah to Paradise for the next part of his training.
Middle:
Micah meets another Valkyrie named Rose, who Iris has appointed his new teacher. During his time under her tutelage, he overhears a conversation between Iris, Storm, and a Norse goddess named Freya. Freya says she was visited by a Warden who threatened to kill Storm the next time he met her. Enraged, Storm sets off for Hell, home of the Wardens. Iris follows, convinced that Storm will die if she goes alone. Micah is slightly disturbed at their departure--Iris was the only person he really trusted after Kitty's death, and he left Earth behind. Almost immediately after overhearing the conversation, Micah is greeted by an archangel named Zephiel who tells him his training is not progressing fast enough. Without Rose's knowledge, Zephiel spirits Micah away to the top of the Workshop, the home and...well, workshop of the Maker. There, Micah is met with yet another new group of trainers--one Valkyrie and three gods, two Greek, one Roman.
Middle, Rising Action:
After a week of training atop the Workshop, Micah decides to set off for Hell to search for Iris and Storm. Mars, one of Micah's teachers and the Roman god of war, follows him and offers to help, much to Micah's surprise. Once in Hell, they split up, and on his journey Micah meets a familiar figure. Noah, Kitty's brother and Micah's best friend challenges him, accusing him of being responsible for Kitty's death. Micah realizes Noah was the Warden Freya mentioned, and he is alarmed at how much his friend has changed since Kitty's death. He narrowly defeats Noah and carries on to find Iris and Storm chained to a great wheel over a pit of fire. After slaying the demons around the pit, Micah attempts to free the two Valkyries, but he is interrupted by--himself?
Middle, Climax:
The other-Micah reveals himself to be Eichor, a parallel version of Micah. He claims to want to destroy Asgard himself, and that Micah is only getting in the way. After a heated battle, Eichor kills Micah and leaves Hell for Asgard. Noah arrives on the scene and, with the aid of a dark Valkyrie named Umbra, takes Micah's body to Asgard as well, pleading with the Norse goddess of the dead to allow his revival before his soul flees his body. She agrees to revive Micah, but only if he is left in her care afterward. Reluctantly, Noah agrees, and Micah is revived but condemned to a possibly worse fate: imprisonment in Niflhel, the deepest pit of the Norse underworld.
End:
Eichor travels to the mountain where Loki, the Norse god of chaos and deception, is imprisoned and triggers the evil god's release. Meanwhile, Micah travels through Niflhel, meeting a few unlikely allies along the way. As Micah finally escapes and heads for Valhalla, the hall of the greatest of the Norse gods, Odin, Eichor raises a giant serpent named Jormundgand from the eastern sea, adding a new ally to his ever-growing list. When Micah finally reaches Valhalla, he finds Hel rudely questioning the master of the hall, demanding to know where her prisoner has gone. Escape from Niflhel is impossible, she claims, unless one had the help of a god--and she suspects Odin. She recognizes Micah when he arrives, but Odin lies for him, telling Hel he is simply a native from the surrounding country come to beg his aid. Unable to simply seize Micah under Odin's gaze, Hel is forced to leave. Odin turns to Micah grimly, saying he recognized him immediately as the vessel of Fenris, the Harbinger sent to destroy Asgard. But Micah surprises Odin, telling him that he has no intention of destroying Asgard at all, and that he would rather fight alongside the gods to save it. He warns Odin of his parallel self, Eichor, who is also a vessel of a parallel version of Fenris--and therefore capable of destroying Asgard just as Micah could.
End, Rising Action:
Armies begin to gather under Yggdrasil, the World Tree that rises from the center of Asgard. Jormundgand rears up among an endless sea of ghosts, commanded by Hel herself. The giants join them, including the frost giant from Niflhel whom Micah befriended, Hrym. At the head of them all is Eichor. The gods gather and move to meet them, and several of Odin's Valkyries show up--Iris and Storm among them. Mars managed to free them after all! The god of war himself sneaks in to 'join the party,' but remains cautious lest the Norse gods should recognize him. Noah also shows up, having had a change of heart since his battle with Micah. The armies meet at the base of Yggdrasil, and the battle for Asgard begins.
End, Climax:
After the battle has raged for quite some time, Eichor finds and slays Odin. Enraged, Iris attacks him, seeking to avenge her master. Hrym betrays his brothers in favor of the promise he made to fight beside Micah, and they join Iris along with Noah. Even with four against one, Eichor manages to hold his own against them all. During the fight, the ground under Micah's feet rises up into the air as a section of the battlefield soars into the sky. A blast of wind clears it of bodies, and Micah turns to find himself in his ruined hometown. Confused, he sets off through the disheveled buildings until he reaches his school, which looks just as it did after his fight with Storm. Even Kitty's body still lays before it...Suddenly, she gets up, and accuses Micah of not avenging her death. Micah's protests fall on deaf ears, and Kitty attacks him, chains extending from her wrists and ankles. To Micah's surprise, she is the fiercest opponent he's fought yet. His love for her renders him incapable of harming her, but his mind cries out that this can't be the real Kitty. Eventually, it becomes clear that his mind is right--Loki drops the illusion of Kitty and reveals his true form. Micah doesn't stand a chance against the god, but help comes from an unlikely source, and Loki is slain.
Meanwhile, Noah manages to defeat Eichor, and as Eichor dies his memories flee to his nearest surviving self--Micah. Micah learns that Eichor was also searching for Kitty, just a parallel version of her: Eichor's own wife. She was kidnapped by a demon who told Eichor that he would exchange her for enough power to break out of Hell for good. When Eichor became the vessel of Freki (parallel Fenris) and learned of his task, he also learned that when a world is destroyed it releases a vast amount of power called quintessence. Thus, Eichor has been traveling from one universe to another, destroying worlds as he went. He had planned to add Asgard to the list, but had been slain by Noah before he could claim the world's quintessence.
After the battle's end, the demon who took Eichor's wife appears to claim Asgard's power. His is confronted by Micah and Noah, who defeat him. Micah learns that the demon consumed Eichor's wife shortly after he made the agreement with Eichor--he never intended to fulfill his part of the bargain. Micah cuts the demon open and retrieves the bones of Eichor's wife before fleeing with Noah to Paradise as Asgard crumbles around them.
End, Falling Action:
Upon their arrival in Paradise, Micah and Noah are accosted by a team of angels and imprisoned--Noah is mistrusted in Paradise because he was a Warden, though he renounced the title after joining Micah (this is all assumed--the chapter begins with Micah and Noah in a cell. The details can be pieced together if you follow the dialogue, though). They receive a visitor: a man whose features are constantly changing. After a short exchange, he identifies himself as the Maker. He tells them that they will soon be forced to leave Paradise, an exile that is not necessarily indefinite. He explains he still has faith in them, and in their quest to recover Kitty's soul. As he turns to leave, Micah blurts out a request: that Eichor's wife be resurrected on Eichor's world. As it is a selfless wish, the Maker agrees.
The two are given one hour to leave Paradise once they are freed from their cell. They agree to split up in their search, so they'll cover more ground. Noah departs with Umbra, and Micah asks Iris to take him to Eichor's homeworld, a parallel Earth called Cysaris. He seeks out Eichor's village, and upon his arrival is initially mistaken for Eichor himself. A woman runs forward to greet him, and for a moment he thinks it is Kitty before realizing that it is Eichor's wife. The Maker really had restored her. Micah reveals that he is not Eichor, and lies to the villagers--he says the bones he carries are Eichor's (rather than those of his wife). The dismayed villagers bury "Eichor" on a promontory of rock overlooking a canyon, where according to Eichor's wife he liked to paint before he turned to war. Micah hopes Eichor can rest in peace now: it was the closest thing to a burial he could have given him, as Eichor's body was never recovered from Asgard.
The night after the burial, Eichor appears to Micah in a dream, and after a short dialogue gives him a name--"Kemral." Upon awaking, Micah sets off with Iris in search of this "Kemral," which he thinks may be a world. He hopes Eichor was trying to tell him something, perhaps a lead to Kitty. Currently, it's the only lead he has.
_ _ _
Kemral is indeed a world, and is the setting for the sequel to Harbinger. I left the matter of Kitty's soul unresolved with a sequel in mind, so I hope some agent out there is in the mood for a series. Now. Thoughts, questions, concerns? What do you think of the idea? Please keep vehement rants to a minimum =)
...Oh, and sorry about the length. It's a complicated plot...