Birthright (The Technomage Archive, Book 1)

Birthright

  The Technomage Archive, Book One

  B.J. KEETON

  Copyright © 2013 B.J. Keeton

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook Edition, Text Updated December 2013

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the authors, except where permitted by law.

  Cover Design by Falon Yates

  Books by B.J. Keeton

  Steampunk Novels:

  Nimbus: A Steampunk Novel

  Stratus: A Steampunk Novel

  The Technomage Archive Trilogy:

  Birthright (The Technomage Archive, Book One)

  Lineage (The Technomage Archive, Book Two)

  Legacy (The Technomage Archive, Book Three)

  If you would like to find out about new releases by B.J. Keeton, please sign up for his mailing list at https://bit.ly/bjkemail

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  For my Daddyo –

  He never said one bad word, even though I wrote thousands of them.

  Prologue

  The cut didn't bleed, but it hurt.

  Ceril pulled away from the loose soil he had been digging in and looked down at his hand. His eyes welled up with tears when he looked at his hand. He could see straight to the bone.

  That was never a good sign. The lack of blood was probably worse, though.

  “Gramps?” he yelled. “Gramps!”

  From across the garden his grandfather yelled, “Huh? Whatcha got?”

  “I think I found something,” Ceril said.

  “Oh yeah? Like what?” Gramps said. He stood up, patting his hands together to clean the dirt off as he walked across the garden.

  “I don’t know,” Ceril said, “but it cut my hand.” He reached into the dirt and pulled again, this time with his other hand. He fell back and yelped in pain. No blood came from the second wound, either. “Twice. But I’m not bleeding. Is that bad?”

  “Not necessarily,” his grandfather said. The old man rushed to Ceril's side and knelt down.

  “Why would you reach in again, Ceril? It already cut you once.”

  “I thought you'd want to see what it was,” the boy said, “so I was going to try to pull it out. It didn't move much, though.”

  “Lesson learned?”

  Ceril nodded. “Lesson learned.”

  “Now let me see those hands,” Gramps said.

  Ceril held them out, palms up, so Gramps was able to see just how deep the cuts were. Whatever was in the ground had sliced clear across his palms. From what he could see, the edges were cleanly cut, and not torn. Whatever had done it was incredibly sharp. “Those are mighty deep, Ceril. How do they feel?”

  He looked at Gramps and wanted to cry, but he wasn't a kid anymore. He wasn't supposed to cry at pain. “I’m okay. My hands hurt, but not too bad.” Tears welled up in his eyes as he said it.

  “Can you move your fingers?” Gramps asked.

  Ceril moved his fingers. “Yeah.”

  “Then it's nothing I can’t fix,” he said. Gramps reached over and grabbed one of the trowels with which Ceril had been digging. “What happened?”

  “I was just digging, and I hit something hard. A rock or something. I couldn't pry it out, so I thought I could reach in and pull it, maybe. Get a better grip.”

  “Not the smartest thing you've ever done, boy,” Gramps said with a smile. “Let me see what the culprit is and then we'll get you inside and doctored up, alright?”

  Ceril nodded. Gramps dug carefully around the object that had cut Ceril’s hand. He cleared away the loose soil. As he dug, he revealed a long piece of golden metal, half-buried in front of them. The exposed areas glinted in the sunlight.

  “It’s a sword,” Ceril said. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. Is it yours, Gramps?”

  The elderly man's forehead wrinkled. “Sit tight, let me get this out of the ground, and I'll get you inside and fixed up. It looks like you found yourself a new story for tonight, maybe for the rest of the summer.”

  “Really?” Ceril asked.

  His grandfather grunted to affirm. “You'll really like this one, too.”

  Ceril loved his grandfather's stories. They were the best part about coming home for the summer. The two of them would sit by the window at night, full from eating a dinner they had not only cooked, but had also grown themselves, and Gramps would tell Ceril story after story about kings, warriors, gods, devils, and places the boy had never even thought to dream about. Ceril thought that if this new story was really good, the pain in his hands might almost be worth it.

  The old man dug around the blade in the ground, careful never to come into contact with the edge of the golden metal. He extracted it and then escorted his grandson back to the cottage they shared. The whole time, Gramps was very careful to hold the excavated sword as carefully as he would a newborn child.