The Echoes of Animus by Johnathan Zerby

Let me tell you a tale of the Old World, long before knowable history, back when Magic still existed on our Earth. Some things were known then that are lost forever, and others mislaid until being "invented" independently some millennia later. So, let us journey back to those days, well before the earliest recorded entries in textbooks will ever tell, and learn the last story of that age. The Echoes of Animus, the debut novel by author Jonathan Zerby, is an age-old tale of a far-gone era about the struggle between tyranny and freedom, of zealotry versus morality, and the eponymous animus against redemption. For, some claim that ages ago the World was once comprised of Four Kingdoms on the brink of war and blighted by an ailment beyond that of the body. A young scavenger called Cornelius found himself not only forced into the service of the wicked Wolf King, but partnered with the King's court mage Lady Nous alia Aenor on an errand of destabilization in foreign lands. The cruel King worshiped a long-dead dictator and followed His gospel as law, hoped to spread veneration of that fiend by Crusade and force to the conversion or execution of all nonbelievers. Sometimes, when a stone falls into the cool pool, as it was with that mythical monster, the ripples are not felt for generations, or even longer. And, when that rippling at last brings other pebbles to fall from grace and further upset the face of the water, the lake will never be the same again. Potentially worse than any of that, though, is that Cornelius may have become infected with the aforementioned fatal blight and been plagued with nightmares of an evil greater than even the impending turmoil. If true, this possibly churned the bad memories in his heart, brought all of his past evils to the forefront and attempted to transfigure the troubled fellow into something no longer human. He would have endured this torment while maintaining appearances, lest that Lady Nous report him to her King and see the scavenger in the stocks, or direr. Indeed, when war is inevitable, one must commit to his or her principles before the hanging blade finally falls. To what Cornelius committed, what became of the poor fellow and his worrisome traveling companion, and what connection that all of these events had to each other, if any, is lost to time but these following pages. It is sometimes said that a tenacious few may brave the waves to swim onward through history, but most are irresolute and will thus sink into the drowning dark to be forgotten forever. The only way to discover the truth of antiquity and the mystery is to delve within. Read less