Saga of Ages |
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Official site for the science fiction works of David G McDaniel |
PRIESTESSSetting: 6,000 years ago
History:The twilight of the Ancient Kings heralded the fall of the Second Dark Age. Remnants of that vast republic were left scattered among the stars, ruined, out of contact, all traces of their fantastic technology forgotten, lost to time. Still, Man survived. From the ashes of the Ancient Kings new societies were born, flourished and died, none coming close to the power once held by that last truly galactic race. Wars were fought. New conflicts. Knowledge fragmented, understanding was lost, ignorance took hold. Pilgrims moved from world to world, fostering legacies and mythologies in their wake... The Story:On one of these worlds, long after the legacy of the Ancient Kings is forgotten, a small society has been struggling to survive. For nine hundred years they have occupied but six cities, built outside the perimeter of a mighty temple, itself built thousands of years before by their distant ancestors. To their minds they are the center of the universe. One among them sees things differently. Raan, not yet a woman, no longer a girl, has just been confirmed as a priestess of the city of Aesho. After making a terrifying journey to the ancient temple Mezopkhan, losing many warriors in combat along the way, she decides that the laws of their elders and, indeed, the condition of her people must surely be a mistake. With her unwilling protector, Naro, she sets about a covert investigation of the temple archives, discovering her suspicions to be true: The Founders of their society hid a great secret nine hundred years ago, ensuring future generations would never learn of it. A secret since lost even in legend, known of only by an inner circle of priests, keepers of the temple records. Uncovering that long lost secret Raan, Naro and a temple warrior named Kane are catapulted into a scenario far beyond anything they could have imagined. Raan triggers the arrival of another race of humans, themselves long-ago descendants of the same pilgrims that founded her society. Only these humans have advanced in that same time, moving at will among the stars. A federation of planets, warships — a fight for an ideal. A revolution. Raan finds a home for her curiosity among these people, traveling with them to a world called Najolrecht, the center of their ideal and crusade. On that world they and a race of aliens are working to discover clues to a library of information left behind millions of years ago by the last race of Ancient Kings. A library that would give them the technology to rule the galaxy... Encroaching on the borders of their heavily defended space, another more powerful republic wants nothing more than to see this search brought to an end. And so one girl, insignificant against this fantastic backdrop of interstellar intrigue, touches off a series of events that shape the outcome of the Najolrecht standoff, bring an entire race to war, a powerful republic to ruin and, indeed, when done will determine the fate of the galaxy for thousands of years to come.
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