Tag Archives: dragon

Read About Lita Burke's Clockpunk Wizard World

Praised by Readers’ Favorite with a 5 Star Review: Lita Burke’s Ephraim’s Curious Device

Ephraim's Curious Device – 5 Star Review by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Ephraim’s Curious Device – 5 Star Review by Jack Magnus for Readers’ Favorite

Readers’ Favorite recently read Lita’s fantasy novella, Ephraim’s Curious Device, and awarded it with a lovely 5 star review.

In Ephraim’s Curious Device, a wizard seeks a magical thingummy to free his kidnapped familiar. It is the second story in Lita’s Clockpunk Wizard series, where wizards with ~twisty~ magic live on a plate-shaped ocean world. The wizards fly their fantastic airships between islands that float far above the sea. Here is what the Readers’ Favorite reviewer had to say:

The Clockpunk Wizard series is a marvelous and magical melding of steampunk with epic fantasy that is fresh, original and really quite exciting.

Ephraim’s Curious Device is Book 2 of Lita Burke’s epic fantasy series, The Clockpunk Wizard. Kadmeion, a young wizard, and Sir Bright, his Metal-Man and companion, have been summoned by Lord Hissalumieon of Mevil City. When they get there, the lord and his wizard, Nob, inform them of the quest Lord Hissalumieon needs them to complete. Read more of the review…

Ephraim's Curious DeviceRead Chapter 1 of Ephraim’s Curious Device for FREE now.

Watch the Ephraim’s Curious Device book trailer.

The Ephraim’s Curious Device e-book is available now with instant gratification for Kindle US/UK, Nook, and Kobo.

Curious how the Clockpunk Wizard adventures began? See how Kadmeion befriended a very unusual familiar in Forever Boy–read Chapter 1 now for FREE.

Continue your explorations of the Clockpunk Wizard world in Old Bony Blue Eyes–read Chapter 1 now for FREE.

A Resident of Unicorn Point on Wuddlekins Island

Finished: Glitter Ponies

Welcome to Lita’s castle here in the Northern Realms. Step into her magical laboratory and see what’s on the slab.

A Fairy in Glitter Ponies

A Fairy in Glitter Ponies

Lita is happier than a dragon that has sniffed too much fairy dust. She has finished her next story, Glitter Ponies.

In this Clockpunk Wizard tale, Lady Luck’s young daughter helps Wizard Kadmeion and his assistant Sir Bright discover the cause of a mysterious unicorn illness. Our magic men face the most dangerous challenge of their budding wizardry-for-hire careers—girlfriends. All three learn that when they mix wizardry, luck, and unicorns, love is deliciously unpredictable.

A Glitter Pony on Wuddlekins Island

A Glitter Pony on Wuddlekins Island

Electronic pigeons have whisked Glitter Ponies off to the proofreader, editor, and beta readers. These clever people already visit with the wee glitter ponies, mad doves, and unicorns on Wuddlekins Island.

No time to rest.

Lita will brew a cup of tea, and scheme some marketing madness to get her new story out to Gentle Reader. Watch her blog for the book’s release date, and other details about the wizard’s curious vacation to the elf-kind floating island with the sparkly horses.

Read the Glitter Ponies back cover blurb.

Also see:

Guild Matters Sye: Bird-of-Paradise

The Guild Matters Sye book whispers the arcane secrets of the Magic Workers and Merchant guilds.

An Earthe Green Dragonette

An Earthe Green Dragonette

The Bird-of-Paradise Flower resembles a dragonette in flight.

Wild blooms are blue, orange, and white. The plants grow in the warm and sunny coastal regions of Sye.

Maji’kers (Magic Guild mages) who keep dragonettes use the Bird-of-Paradise blooms in bouquets to represent their adored sentient magical pets.

Enchanters cultivate the Bird-of-Paradise in their gardens at the Five Schools, and use their magical essence to coax the flowers into the seven colors of the stones in their Uslar Rings:

  • Earthe (brown and deep green)
  • Mer (aqua and blue)
  • Aer (clear)
  • Fyre (scarlet and amber)
Bird-of-Paradise

Bird-of-Paradise

The Bird-of-Paradise retains spells fueled with Enchanter essence.

Easy spells make the flower flap “wings” and dip its head. More difficult spells detach the bloom,  make it flutter, and hover the bloom above the plant. The most advanced enchantments turn the flower into a tiny dragonette form. Enchanters can bespell an entire garden of Bird-of-Paradise. They turn the blooms into mewling miniatures, and the transformed flowers fly about and play with real dragonettes.

Also see:

Enchanters Hold the Magical Key in Sye

Dramatis Personæ: Lanith

The Dramatis Personæ is the roster of conjurers and sentient magical creatures staying in the many rooms, grottos, and byways of Lita’s castle. Here is the guest book for the Enchanters of Sye Tower.

Lanith A’edredohr Vendbebelot

Lanith A’edredohr Vendbebelot

Lanith [lān ləth] proper noun, c.1614; Sumerian lilla, a demon < Akkadian lilītu < H lîlît; also A’edredohr

  • Profession: Vendbebelot (“Curios Seller”)
  • Race: human, female, age early thirties
  • Appearance: Beautiful. Lanith has blond hair, hazel eyes, and fair skin. She has an average build, but tends toward slender.
  • Common Name: Lanith
  • Private Name: A’edredohr (“Stream Daughter”)
  • Native Magic: Lanith is a superior tradeswoman magician. She has expert level skills with the many spells for charms, magical lockets, fetishes, and amulets.
  • Education/Vocation: Isor Convent Finishing School
  • Milieu: Lanith is a denizen of the Enchanters of Sye world.
Lanith is a Merchant’s Wife in the Seaside Town of Isor

Lanith is a Merchant’s Wife in the Seaside Town of Isor

Lanith spent her childhood as a poor farmer’s daughter. When she was a teenager, Lanith’s parents sent her to the city. At a young woman’s finishing school, Lanith learned a lady’s genteel ways that would prepare her for acceptance into city society. During a Church-sponsored event, she met Guild Maji’ker (“Magician”) Tredan. After a proper courtship, they married. She now lives the comfortable life of an urban middle class merchant’s wife in the seaside city of Isor. After nine years, their union has yet to produce children.

Lanith and Arnl’jhott

Lanith and Arnl’jhott

Soon after marriage, Lanith attended classes at the Merchant Guild.  She and her husband run a well-respected magical curios shop. They import more than half of their stock, and buy the rest from Isor’s local magical tradespeople. Tredan’s skill is with making pleasure charms, which they sell in their shop.

Lanith owns a rare pet—her blue male dragonette named Arnl’jhott. This affectionate and talkative creature joins her on monthly visits to the Church orphanage, where she holds a crafts workshop in amulet making. The merchant woman and her dragonette are a favorite with the children.

Lanith lives a magically unusual life. Her husband is a former Enchanter, and these magicians are the most powerful mages in her world of Sye. They hold the key for producing magical essence, which fuels all the spell casting arts.

Tredan and Lanith Run a Magical Curios Shop

Tredan and Lanith Run a Magical Curios Shop

Practicing Enchanters have delicate magic and are surprisingly vulnerable. They live apart from society in one of five enclaves to protect themselves from hostile magicians. Among other peculiarities of the Enchanters’ magical profession, the Church refuses to let them marry. Tredan left the Enchanter discipline and adopted the Church-approved life of a secular magician. Although he no longer can produce magical essence in the same quantities as before, he has plenty to lavish on his wife, dragonette, and custom curios in his shop.

Tredan's Magical Essence Made Lanith Beautiful

Tredan’s Magical Essence Made Lanith Beautiful

This essence-rich environment gives Lanith the luxury of cultivating her native magical talents. Tredan’s magical essence has also enhanced her natural beauty, and made his wife especially attractive to the Enchanters.

Lanith’s attention to details makes her an exceptional trade magician and proficient in these thaumaturgical skills:

  • Charms. Her skills include many spells to create, diagnose, and repair all types of magical charms, lockets, and fetishes.
  • Soma Touch. Lanith’s magical empathy ability allows her to sense the emotions in her store customers and recommend the proper charm, especially when she can touch their hand.
  • Paersenwierding (“person warding magic”). Cultivated by her husband Tredan, this skill allows Lanith to protect other magicians while they cast spells. Powerful mages, especially Enchanters, are at risk from attack while distracted with the intricacies of spell weaving.

Read more about Lanith in these Enchanter of Sye stories:

Necronomicon Enchanter: Alternate Essence

Within the pages of the Necronomicon Enchanter book in Lita’s library, the curious may learn the Enchanters’ magical matters. Beware, for the knowledge might drive the reader mad with bitter desire and luscious regret.

Previously:

Some of Sye’s wild plants still produce magical power. These sources are weak compared to the potent essence that the Old Forest trees produce for the Enchanters’ consumption. The essence plants grow in the central highlands. Magically dependent animals, such as dragonettes, eat the magic plants to get their essence.

Tame Dragonettes Take Magical Essence From Enchanters

Tame Dragonettes Take Magical Essence From Enchanters

Except for a few abandoned experiments that yielded poor results, magical essence is only available for Sye’s human population via the Enchanters. Tame dragonettes live in the cities under the care of magicians who have a ready supply of Enchanter essence.

City-dwelling dragonettes no longer need to eat essence. They absorb it through skin contact with their human masters.

Magically satiated tame dragonettes can converse in simple sentences and are affectionate with dragonette keepers, and of course, with all Enchanters. The tame dragonettes like to gather in small groups on rooftops, sunbathe, and talk about their preferences for tasty fish and plants. Their multi-colored scales glisten like jewels in the sunshine.

Next Time: Clergy Secrets

Find out more about the Enchanters, Sciomancers, and their ongoing struggles in the books from the Enchanters of Sye world:

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Dragonette

The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Dragonette

Dragonette

dragonette [drag-uh n ɛt] noun, 1175–1225; ME < OF < L dracōn < GR dracon + ette; also dracon (informal), Seri or Madam Drracon’el (formal)

  1. Denizen of the Enchanters of Sye world.
  2. A dragonette is a miniature five-pound dragon; typically 4’ long with wing span almost 5’ wide.  Domesticated dragonettes are the pampered pets of powerful magicians and Enchanters.  Along with a basic omnivore diet consisting of fish and fresh vegetables, dragonettes must also consume magical essence daily to stay alive.  Because they eat magic, the owner must acquire and register the dracon through the local Magic Guild. These sentient magical creatures are the colors of the four magic types: Earthe, Mer, Aer, and Fyre.
  3. Personages: Arnl’jhott in Wrath and Tredan’s Bane; Taithleach in Tredan’s Bane.
  4. See “Dragonettes in Sye” and “Here There Be Dragonettes
A View of Veldt Island

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Dragon

The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Dragon

Dragon

dragon [drag-uh n] noun, 1175–1225; ME < Old Fr < L dracōn < Gr dracon; also fire lizard.

  1. Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
  2. A four-legged winged magician, covered with scales and sporting a long sinuous neck and tail who lives on the edge of the Veldt Island savanna. A highly intelligent aerial acrobat and accomplished spell caster.
  3. Personages: Lady Betrayal in Ephraim’s Curious Device and Old Bony Blue Eyes; Perfidious and Perfidious’s Son in Old Bony Blue Eyes.
  4. See “Enchanting Veldt Island
A Wee Dragonette

Here There Be Dragonettes

Gentle Reader journeys to the Enchanters of Sye world today. Let Lita make introductions. Please meet a wee charmer, the dragonette. These sentient magical creatures are the colors of the four magic types: Earthe, Mer, Aer, and Fyre. 

This hatchling is an Earthe dragonette because of its brown color and is small enough to sit in an Enchanter's palm. This talkative creature will grow into a five-foot wingspan.

This hatchling is an Earthe dragonette because of its brown color and is small enough to sit in an Enchanter’s palm. This talkative creature will grow into a five-foot wingspan.

A dragonette is a miniature five-pound dragon, typically 4’ long with wing span almost 5’ wide.  Domesticated dragonettes are the pampered pets of magic workers and Enchanters.

Along with a basic omnivore diet of fish and fresh vegetables, dragonettes must also consume magical essence every day to stay alive. Because they eat magic, dragonette caretakers must acquire and register their dracons through the local Magic Guild.

Much more about Sye’s dragonettes…

Stories from the Enchanters of Sye fantasy world:

Lita Burke's Magic Show

Lita’s Magic Show: Mermaid Fare and a Dragon

Mermaids Love Wizards to Death

Mermaids Love Wizards to Death

Welcome to the forest near Lita’s castle. Travelling wizards have camped here all night in their colorful carts and put on magic shows.

Dawn approaches, and morning birdsong surrounds us. We have time for one more wonder before we must break camp and go on our way.

A half-breed elf stands and tugs his immaculate magic worker’s tunic to rights. His azure eyes dazzle and he holds us breathless with a mere glance. This son of a prince whistles his spell, and the enchantment echoes as if we sit in the canyon lands and not the forest. We lean in to listen.

“How horrible and lovely mermaids be,” the elf-kind says. “Why do love-struck merfolk tear an unlucky wizard’s flesh from his very bones? And a mage’s promise is no small matter. When we mix it with a dragon’s enchantment and Lady Luck’s kiss, wizardry might even persuade Sir Death.”

A wizard finds out–the hard way–about mermaids’ affection when he faces a dangerous journey to Sir Death’s castle to win a powerful spell book for a love-starved dragon.

The elf begins his tale.

See the other magic shows:

What Did Our Intrepid Traveller Discover in the Clockpunk Wizard World?

Come See the First Review for Old Bony Blue Eyes

What Did Our Intrepid Traveler Discover in the Clockpunk Wizard World?

What Did Our Intrepid Traveler Discover in the Clockpunk Wizard World?

The first visitor to the Old Bony Blue Eyes world just returned and disembarked from the airship. Let’s be nosy and find out about the trip.

Learn what indie author Brian Beam thought of Wizard Kadmeion’s plate-shaped ocean world with the clockworks airships, floating islands, and singing magicians.

Were the characters dullards? Did the story tug the heartstrings, or was it a silly romp all the way? Why does Kadmeion have “obliviousness” and is this a good trait for a wizard? Most important, would our adventurer ever return to the Clockpunk Wizard world? Mr. Beam explains in his review.

If Gentle Reader is still undecided about taking the trip, perhaps take a look at Chapter 1 before buying a ticket for the airship. Curious now? Find out more about Old Bony Blue Eyes by Lita Burke, the eBook available now for instant gratification on Kindle, Nook, and iPad/iPhone.

Discover more about Brian Beam on Facebook, Goodreads, Brian’s Blog, Twitter, and Amazon.