Bøker av Clint Westgard

Craitol and Renuih, two empires a world apart, divided by the desert that lies between them. A desert ruled by the Shadow Men.An uneasy peace holds sway in both realms, hiding longstanding feuds and bitter rivalries. Until a Shadow Men raid on Renuih shatters the calm and sets in motion events no one can control.Masiph id Ezern, unfavored son of the Imperial Vazeir, finds himself a hero following the raid. His father remains unmoved by his exploits and, in his bitterness, Masiph will find himself a reluctant participant in a plot against the empire. As he finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into the conspiracy, he soon realizes there will be no escaping the realm of shadows, where intrigue and betrayal abound. And though the Shadow Men have gone quiet, they will not stay silent forever.

Who is David Aeida? And what does he know that has so many people pursuing him? David doesn't know. He can't remember anything about who he is. But he finds himself ensnared in a vicious conflict between a religious cult called the Church of Regents and a guild, the Society of Travelers, that patrols the crossings between multiple universes. The Church has as its sacred mission to find the one true universe, of which all others are but reflections. A mission, they believe, that will save humanity. The Society outlaws anyone from crossing among the universes, claiming that doing so disrupts and destroys untold lives.Both will stop at nothing to gain whatever knowledge he possesses. But, most dangerous of all, is the implacable hunter, known only as the Seeker, who has his own reasons for wanting to find David.His only hope is to recover his memories before they do. His only ally is a woman named Meredith, a member of that strange faith, and she definitely knows more than she is telling...

A mission gone wrong in the vast depths of space. A woman, in search of the origins of a gruesome folktale, discovers that parts of it are all too true. A deadly contagion spreading like wildfire across the planet. These and other stories explore the impossible choices faced by those who have lost everything and the fine line between faith and disbelief, reality and dream, silence and a scream. There are no simple answers in The Farthest Reaches. A mind-bending, universe-expanding collection of science fiction stories that will take you to the edges of imagination.Including: Beware! The Seas Are Angry This Night, The Purpose of the System, Two Skulls, Dream Logic, The Burned One, Quarantine Protocol, The Horns, Slavish Adherent, The Mouth of the Underworld, and The Woman Who Didn't Speak.

Discontent continues to fester within the realms of Craitol and Renuih, fed by intrigues carried out in the shadows. As rivals and apostates struggle for supremacy, a long incubated plan begins to unfold.Vyissan, a mysterious alkemycal practitioner arrives in Renuih, the latest strike in a long war over who shall control the secrets of alkemya and Craitol itself. He carries with him a secret that, once revealed, will reverberate across all realms. Before he can reveal it though, the conspirators against the emperor will strike their own blow.But now, a new and more powerful menace looms on the horizon. The Shadow Men have gained the secrets of alkemya and no one can be certain what they will do with it...In the second volume of The Shadow Men, we find ourselves again in a murky world, where loyalties are unclear, power must be taken, no ground is stable, and war awaits if a wrong choice is made.

1886: Inspector Archibald Constant Cumberland of the Northwest Mounted Police establishes Fort McGregor at the confluence of two rivers in the heart of the Canadian Northwest Territories. His mission is simple: keep the peace with the Cree Nation and fend off whiskey traders.But life at Fort McGregor is rarely simple. An Indian agent conspires with whiskey traders to upset the delicate peace Cumberland has established, while his own men prove themselves untrustworthy. When they begin talking about seeing a ghost from the ramparts of the fort, he refuses to believe them, until it is too late.1997: Daniel Archibald Cumberland is adrift and purposeless, with neither a past or future to cling to. That is until he comes across a story of a lost NWMP fort and the mad officer responsible for its terrible fate. An officer named Archibald Cumberland, who may be his ancestor. Discovering the truth of what happened in that fort in 1886 consumes Daniel. His father denies any connection to Archibald Cumberland, but he is hiding a terrible secret. Even he doesn't know what Daniel will discover when he goes in search of answers. For there is a debt, long agreed to. And someone, or something, will see that it is paid.

Holly Amos is on the run from a payroll heist gone south. With Morris Danforth at her side, trouble has always been what she's looking for. But lately Morris has been more trouble than he's worth, and Holly is thinking it's time for a change. Now with the law after them, things are about to take a turn for the worse.Clive Hestin is the lawman on her trail. He is a Northwest Mounted Police constable, banished to a lawless frontier town for refusing to look the other way on the crimes of his fellow officers. He has to track down Holly and Morris or risk being drummed out of the force forever. Nothing will stop him from seeing justice done. Nothing, except, perhaps, Holly Amos.

Returning to the heart of the Church of Regents to confront the Grand Regent, Dejian Molijc, proves too much for Laila Johar. She loses control of her mind and body and is imprisoned again by the man she once loved. With her captive, David Aeida returns, still loyal to the Grand Regent, and so begins a battle that will determine both their fates.At the center of that struggle is the Grand Regent, an almost unrecognizable figure. He is disturbed and paranoid, isolated in his tower, and thirsting for vengeance against those he feels have wronged him. For the moment he trusts Aeida, but what he wants is Laila restored, and he expects Aeida to deliver her to him.That is only the beginning of their problems. For the Seeker and the Society of Travelers remain to play their parts. Both desire nothing more than the utter destruction of the Church of Regents and all its works, and there is every chance they will get caught in the crossfire.The epic fourth volume of the Sojourners Cycle centers upon the many betrayals and lies at the heart of the faith of the Church of Regents and the devastation upon the lives of the faithful they have wrought. Desire and guilt, love and revenge, rage and despair will drive them all, with consequences for all the universes.

Born out of the chaos that followed the arrival of the Society of Travelers in its universe, the Church of Regents has as its sacred mission to find the one true universe, of which all others are but reflections. Opposing it stands the Society of Travelers. Claiming to protect all the universes, they outlaw anyone from crossing among them-anyone but themselves-and they will do anything in their power to stop the Church from following its mission. Laila Johar has been at the center of that conflict for years, divided in her loyalties. Once one of the chosen of the Church's founder De Gofroy, and a rising star in the faith, she now has only one goal: to have her revenge upon Dejian Molijc, Grand Regent of the Church of Regents, and her husband, for the fate he has condemned her to. First, though, she needs to find her way home across the universes. That is easier said than done. The Grand Regent's agents in the Watchers' Order are still pursuing her. As is the Society of Travelers. Laila has a plan, though, and a few tricks of her own. But she will soon discover that not everything is at seems and there is no one left, in any universe, she can trust. The Apostate, the stunning sequel to The Forgotten, tells the story of Laila Johar's rise and fall in the Church and her journey, across multiple universes and against incredible odds, to make the man she once loved answer for what he has done.

After crossing the universes to join with Toma Osahi's group of renegades in their battle for control of the Church of Regents, Laila Johar finds herself in a precarious position. While they both share the same goal-wresting control of the Church from the Grand Regent Dejian Molijc-Osahi doesn't know who Laila really is. What will he do if he finds out?While Laila struggles to keep her identity secret, Osahi and his people pull her deeper and deeper into a search for her missing friend, Ana Arajuano, that promises to shed light on the dark secrets of the Watchers' Order and the Acolytes. Before she can find those answers though, Laila will have to face what lies within.Crossing the universes has unsettled the already shaky equilibrium in her mind. If she wants to restore herself, she will have to act fast, for the consequences of what Acolytes did to her are only continuing to destabilize her. And David Aeida lurks somewhere, waiting for his time to come.The third volume of the Sojourners Cycle continues Laila's journey for some measure of justice for what was done to her, while battling universes divided, both within and without.

An inquisitor sets out on a journey to find a monster. An inventor creates a time machine and is horrified to discover it works all too well.A living ship comes to give birth at edges of space. Wizards do battle for eternal supremacy.Sleeper agents under deep cover are activated and must leave everything behind. Love affairs blossom and fade in springtime.Hunters become the hunted and dwellings turn upon their inhabitants. And a warlock provides unique and particular advice on romance.These and many other stories make up In A Flash, a collection of very short fiction that explores the vagaries of time and space, journeys to exotic realms, and the curious ways of the heart. From horror to westerns to romance to far-flung space opera and all points in between, In A Flash collects more than fifty stories.

In the fifth year of the rule of Auten the One Eyed a minotaur is born to one of Colosi's most important families.Taken from his mother as a newborn, exiled and cast from his family, the minotaur vows to return to the imperial city and take his rightful place as a patrician in the empire. But the patriarch of the family, his grandfather, will stop at nothing to see this blemish to his honor destroyed.And so begins an epic journey, through lands beyond imagining, marked by despair and exile, triumph and betrayal. At its heart lies a quest to be free.

The Church of the Regents is dead, its followers arrested by the Society of Travelers or gone to the winds. Laila Johar flees the wreckage left behind, accompanied by the body that was once hers, what remains of Ana Arajuano, who she failed to protect, and a woman, Suon, whose love she cannot return. Laila has regained control of her mind, or so she tries to convince herself. But if that were really true, why does she have dreams that are far too real? Of people in other universes, the meaning of which she cannot begin to understand?There is no escaping the Church, or her own past, though. The Seeker returns, demanding she make good on their agreement, and discover, once and for all, the mole the Society of Travelers placed at the heart of the Church. But that discovery pales in comparison to what she soon learns. For Laila has an unwanted part to play in a neverending struggle over who will rule the crossings between the universes and all that lie between them. In the stunning conclusion to the Sojourners Cycle, Laila will be faced with a terrible choice, one that will decide her fate and humanity's.

Luisa is more than she appears. Rumor and mystery surround her. And strange events seem to follow wherever she goes. The Maleficio Chronicles is her 'true' confession, though her truth, as with so many things, is never quite what it seems.Born in Lima, City of Kings, in the 16th century to a noble family, Luisa is marked as different from the beginning. Servants avoid her, whispering behind her back, while her father so fears her true nature that he banishes her to a convent. There she falls under the suspicion of the Inquisition and decides to flee. Disguised as a man, she embarks on a series of adventures, dueling, carousing, and gambling her way across colonial Peru. But everything changes when a stranger recognizes her for what she truly is, and soon she finds herself fighting for her very survival.In a world where she will always stand apart, Luisa undergoes a strange journey that will take her from from the stolen splendor of Lima to the fading remnants of the Incan Empire, and to all the towns and villages being built in its place. The Maleficio Chronicles is about the stories we tell about ourselves, the lives we construct from those stories, and the price of the lies at the heart of them.

A dead man of no family or account is what Gahryll, Chief Magister of Tson, sees when the corpse of an Enir youth is brought to the Magisterium. But his colleague Mihuibel sees something else: a conspiracy involving false adepts practicing an outlawed form of alkemya.Against his better instincts Gahryll authorizes an investigation that draws both Magisters into the seamy underbelly of Tson where the rich and powerful prey upon the desperate and outcast. When the inquiry implicates one of the most important families in the Realm of Craitol in forbidden practices and false alkemya, their own positions and ranks will be threatened.But that is only the beginning. For the killer will stop at nothing to ensure his secrets remain hidden and Gahryll will be brought face to face with the unspeakable power of alkemya that has been unleashed. It forces him to make a choice. Will he risk everything to fight for justice in a realm where rank and wealth are all that matter? Set in the same universe as The Shadow Men Trilogy, Unspeakable Rites, is both a compelling mystery and an evocative look at what happens to those who choose to fight for justice in an unjust world.

The body of a local woman is found in a coulee on a ranch north of Loverna, her head blown off with a shotgun. New to town and the job, Constable Martin Thomas arrives on the scene as a spring snowstorm begins to wipe out all evidence before his investigation has even begun.There is no shortage of suspects to consider. A spurned husband. A jealous lover. A betrayed business partner. And family members battling over an inheritance. All have motive and opportunity. And no one seems to be telling him everything.As he tries to sift the truth from the lies, the snowstorm continues to build, leaving Loverna cut off from the outside world. And Thomas alone to face a killer who will do anything not to get caught.