Showing results by narrator "Ian Fisher" in All Categories

Not quite dead as some had hoped, King Diad sits once again on the throne. Discovering his wife married to another, he quite happily divorces her and exiles her from the capital. The once powerful queen is now relegated to the role as the wife of a mere prelate. However, King Diad is not the same as he once was and soon he is king in name only, for the new Lord Chamberlain has deftly assumed the power behind the throne. Yet the kingdom is in turmoil, for Lord Dade’s rebellion is pushing the kingdom to civil war.

With the promise of divorcing Pavia, the Council of Lords elects Alric as King of Gambria. But promises are often broken and Pavia finally realizes her life’s ambition - she is now Queen of Gambria. Viewing Duncan as a threat, she demands Duncan disband the Templars. When Duncan refuses, she enlists other commanderie Lords to punish him. While her forces assemble to deal with Duncan, Pavia turns her attention to Alexis, for she has not forgotten the public embarrassment the Berserker gave her as well as the theft of the Kingdom’s tarrac.

Returning from the dead, Duncan reestablishes control as the nation’s spiritual leader. Sent south to persuade Alexis and the Kingdom’s tarrac to return, he manages instead to drive her farther away, creating a rift between them and in the process, making an enemy - to both himself and Gambria. With the King believed lost at sea, Queen Guina declares him dead and finally marries Father Konrud, the man she truly loves, elevating him to Lord Chamberlain. Yet her throne is far from secure, for events in the south threaten to split the kingdom.

Reveling in the adoration of a nation charmed by their new High Priest, Duncan begins setting the Temple house in order. Unfortunately, his contentment is short lived. Failing to account for a paranoid king jealous of this stranger’s sway over the people, and an entrenched corruption within the Temple - not to mention a scheming senior prelate furious at being denied the high priesthood - Duncan is quickly caught up in the game of power, and just as quickly condemned to die in the wastelands, in the hope that the desert sands will eradicate any memory of the former wizard.

The spaceship destroyed, his family murdered, Duncan finds himself stranded on a planet circling Wolf 359. The only other survivor is a beautiful gladiator named Alexis. Together, they encounter a civilization whose past reaches back only 1500 years. Their fortune stumbles from the start when Alexis is immediately forced to fight the nation’s berserker, who underestimates his opponent and pays dearly for it.

The Otiosi? As far as Mathew Longstaff knows, they're just a group of harmless scholars with an eccentric interest in the works of antiquity. When they ask him to travel east to recover a lost text from Ivan the Terrible's private library, he can't think of anything but the reward - home and a return to England and an end to the long years of exile and warfare. But the Otiosi are on the trail of a greater prize than Longstaff realizes - the legendary "Devil's Library". And they are not alone. Gregorio Spina, the Pope's spymaster and Chief Censor, is obsessed with finding the Library.

Shadrak the Unseen should have known better. Stealing from one wizard on behalf of another was the sort of job he'd sworn never to take. But times were tough and grief had left its mark. The thing that should have really warned him off, though, was that the artifact he'd been commissioned to retrieve was a ring crafted by none other than the Witch Queen of Thogani, the Desecrated City.

For Thor to live, Thunder Hunter must die. A thousand years, that's how long I've been hunting the Fallen Ones that escaped Freya's field. One-hundred and ninety-five down, five to go. Just five disgusting evil spirits until I die and Thor's thunder will be returned to him. Nothing will stand in the way of me completing my mission, not even the woman who claims to be a descendant of Freya. I will kill the next Fallen One, no matter what.

Mullah Nasruddin (Nasreddin Hoca), the eight-centuries-old wise fool character originating from Turkey and the Levant, is the subject of thousands of funny, wise tales, jokes, and anecdotes told across the Middle and Far East and retold today worldwide. Carefully chosen from beloved authentic sources, these short stories and folk tales will bring readers a smile, nod, or chuckle of self-recognition.